The city of Newark, NJ has recently started to enforce a largely ignored 1966 law which bans barbed and razor wire, which businesses have put up in order to keep out burglars. It seems that passers-by on the sidewalk might get hurt by the pointy things that are 8 to 12 feet above them and also in order to beautify the city. Hopefully, Newark can return to its former glory as a tropical resort town now that all that nasty-looking wire is gone. However, as shocking and unpredictable as it seems, burglary rates have gone up 17% since 2007. Money quote:

” John DeSantis, owner of a lot used by an auto repair business in Newark's West Ward, says his property has been the site of more than a dozen burglaries since the summer, when the city forced him to remove razor wire on top of the 7-foot-tall fence that surrounds the lot.

"The bottom line was, they said, 'It doesn't look good and we want to create a new image for the city of Newark,'" DeSantis said.”

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:38 PM | Comments (88)
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If you do the math, it seems like it.

The president-elect says he wants to "create three million new jobs" -- this is a change from a few weeks ago, when he said he wanted the plan to create OR SAVE two million jobs.

He says the "No. 1 goal of my plan ... is to create three million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector.”

If you do the math: 20 percent of three million means 600,000 new government employees.

Am I the only one who read that and thought of this from Stuff Thomas Jefferson Said, 1st Edition Revised, July 4, 1776 ?

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

(and no, that's not a call to revolution, don't be that guy)

Again, if printing money and putting people on the government payroll is the pathway to prosperity, why aren't tin-pot countries like Zimbabwe the richest nations on Earth?

He also repeats his promises to raise taxes on the top 5% of earners (who already pay most of the taxes). Yet this is the cohort most likely to invest in emerging technologies and create new jobs. How does penalizing this group or the people who aspire to be a part of it, help create new wealth for anyone? Naturally it doesn't.

Obama keeps talking about how 'greening' government buildings is going to be a cornerstone of his plan. Does he not understand that that's not wealth creation but make work? Of course he does but that's a feature not a bug of his plan.

He's not Lincoln, he's FDR. And he has huge working majority in both houses of Congress.

More: Want to see what huge public payrolls get you, aside from an over regulated country? Look at what Instapundit has complied about the current and future public employee pension funding crisis.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:12 PM | Comments (127)
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This is kinda stupid, but whatever. I guess this defense is mildly amusing, in as much as it makes fresh enemies:

I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like "you're not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It's the same thing."

It's not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn't work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they're noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They've had more than enough cock... they're full... they're just sucking for the sake of it. Now they're overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.

When a doctor tells me that that's how you become gay, I'll stop making jokes about fat people.

Thanks to Dutch, Jr.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (125)
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I kinda like the "What? What'd I do?" thing at the end. Mostly because I like getting away with stupid shit too.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:28 PM | Comments (33)
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Gleen's up to his typical schtick.

As is Andrew Sullivan. (Both safe links to bloggers criticizing these elder statesmen.)

Gleen trots out his typical easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy concerns about "dehumanizing the enemy" and "Terrorism as a fear-mongering tool." La Sullivan, meanwhile, goes to the only thing he knows about war -- that is, religion -- and wonders about just war doctrine.

Once again, we heard nothing from Gleen about dehumanizing one's opponents as Hamas lobbed 3000 rockets into Jewish population centers. We heard not a peep from La Sullivan about just war theory as it applied to such attacks.

The only time that either of these two Mensa Chapter Presidents worry about such things is when Israel counterattacks.

Hamas attacks they take as normal, justified, and, it seems, good.

Over at Time Magazine, yet another call for ggetting tough with Israel. Once again, we must mau-mau Israel into making the hard choices for peace and all that.

How about mau-mauing the Palestinians into making the hard choices for peace? To wit: Their notion of expunging the Jewish state and reclaiming all that territory for Palestine is farcical. It's not going to happen, ever. No people has voluntarily agreed to exterminate itself as a discreet polity in the history of the world. American Indians may have moral claims to the people of the United States doing just that; but it's not going to happen. Australian Aboriginals may agree with Midnight Oil's insistence that it's time to "give it back," but it's not going to happen.

Israel will never agree to self-exterminate either. And yet Hamas continues pursuing a terrorist strategy with precisely this end game in mind.

Where are the calls for Hamas to make some "hard choices" of its own?

Hamas wishes to endlessly wage a war it cannot win militarily in order to achieve a result not only impossible, but unimaginable. Where are the so-called "realists" of the left to instruct Hamas on the realities of their situation, and to demand that -- however unpopular -- they finally agree to recognize Israel's right to exist and give up their absurd demands for a right to return and the destruction of the Israeli state?

Why are all such "hard choices" demanded of Israel and none at all from Hamas?

I should also note the false nobility of these, erm, thinkers. They present themselves as bravely waging peace. The idiot Sullivan even calls Greenwald "fearless" for taking an anti-Israel position which not only won't lose him any readers, but is common wisdom among the liberal establishment.

What "fearlessness" is being demonstrated by Greenwald? What nobility by Sullivan and Time?

All of these writers demonstrate that they are -- nobly and bravely -- willing to trade Israeli lives and security for peace. Well bully for fucking them. It is rather easy to propose that someone else give up his right to life and freedom for terror in the interests of peace, humanity, and just war.

This "fearlessness" costs Greenwald et al. nothing at all. I could make a proposal similar to theirs -- I fully support murdering Greenwald, Sullivan, and Time's Miller if that noble sacrifice of mine will help stabilize the Middle East.

Have I acted nobly or "fearlessly" for offering up the lives of others to achieve a result that pleases me?

Gleen of course returns to his pet insult "chickenhawk" by snidely noting that "Warrior Michael Goldfarb" is willing to let Palestinians die.

But what of the Warrior Gleen? He fearlessly offers up Israelis' lives, but, last I checked, didn't seem especially eager to offer up his own for any cause, including for a war he claims to wish to win (the War in Afghanistan).

Last time I checked, Gleen, a president you supported was about to take office, still promising to send additional brigades to Afghanistan.

Has the Warrior Gleen signed up yet at a recruiting station to take part in this grand adventure? If so, he's been spectacularly modest about this latest accomplishment on his blog.

More: Obama, of course, says nothing.

He has studiously avoided committing himself to just about any position beyond 1) Hope and 2) Change. You don't get to keep doing that as president.

While some give him the benefit of the doubt for keeping out of Bush's way, I refuse to. He is simply ducking yet another issue.

He could easily support Bush's position on Israel -- that wouldn't undermine Bush, of course. Quite the opposite.

It's nice and all that he's avoiding undermining Bush for the moment, but it's also quite clear he will join the Get Tough on Israel brigade when sworn in. Otherwise he would support Israel (and Bush in his support for Israel).

He's just hoping this problem will neatly go away for him by the time of his inauguration. It won't.

Procrastination is not a policy.

More: The UN's special envoy for the Palestinian situation says that Israel should just get over Hamas' "harmless" rocket attacks.

Harmless?

Is he perhaps dehumanizing the Israelis?

Will Gleen take him to task for such?

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (91)
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I went in with few expectations, except for knowledge of how it ends and a general dislike for Tom Cruise. We saw Valkyrie because the other movies out right now look horrible. In other words, I was looking for some escapism and that's exactly what I got. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:02 AM | Comments (62)
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Hope, Change and Corruption!

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

"Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact," he said Sunday in a report by NBC News. "But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process."

He's staying on as Governor of New Mexico, which is apparently a non-partisan position since the fact that Richardson is a Democrat isn't mentioned in the story.

Richardson is under investigation in a 'pay to play scheme' (sound familiar?) involving a company that received a state contract after making a contribution to Richardson's political action committee.

I never got why Richardson even wanted to be Commerce Secretary. I mean, he's been in charge of a second tier department (Energy) and been UN Ambassador. It seems being Governor in a cool place like New Mexico would be better. He must love the DC social life. Oh well Bill...no cocktail parties for you.

You know, an awful lot of Democrats are involved in some shady deals. Perhaps we could tie these things together and give them a slogan. Maybe something like 'culture of corruption'. Nah, that's just crazy talk.

In related news, popcorn futures have skyrocketed.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:22 AM | Comments (88)
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Ravens at Dolphins, right now on CBS

Eagles at the Snowbacks Vikings, 4:30 eastern on Fox.

Below the fold, your cheerleader of the day. Her selection does not imply my rooting interest in any team, just that I'd hit it.

UPDATE: Well, from 1-15 to the playoffs isn't bad, not bad at all. Still, that Ravens defense looks damn good.

Onto the late game...say what you want about McNabb and the Eagles but the Snowbacks (soon to be represented by Senator Al Franken) must go down.

New cheerleader photo added for the game. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 12:12 PM | Comments (66)
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All good stuff. Here's part:

Mr. Gore has gone so far to discourage debate on climate as to refer to those who question his simplistic view of the atmosphere as "flat-Earthers." This, too, is right on target, except for one tiny detail. It is exactly the opposite of the truth.

Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. "Their relationship is actually very complicated," he says, "but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer." The word "complicated" here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore's graph. You are probably wondering by now -- and if you are not, you should be -- which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not "complicated." When the ocean-atmosphere system warms, the oceans discharge vast quantities of carbon dioxide in a process known as de-gassing. For this reason, warm and cold years show up on the Mauna Loa C02 measurements even in the short term. For instance, the post-Pinatubo-eruption year of 1993 shows the lowest C02 increase since measurements have been kept. When did the highest C02 increase take place? During the super El Niño year of 1998.

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 AM | Comments (175)
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In my ongoing quest to get you people to appreciate hockey, I offer you two videos below the fold.

Please also consider this your overnight thread. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:19 PM | Comments (102)
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