Category Archives: crime
Chicago Mayhem
Why are all those kids showing up at the border? The New York Times says they’re escaping gang violence in big cities in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Chicago
Should some of them find their way to Chicago they can enjoy the blessings of liberty while feeling right at home. Over the Fourth of July weekend 17 people were murdered and 82 wounded by gunfire in Chicago.
Update:
Looks like some have found their way to Chicago.
War is Ending
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) apparently did not get the memo from President Obama that “war is ending”. ISIS is too violent even for al Qaeda. The group is leaving a trail of heads, removed with dull knives from policemen and soldiers, as it storms though Iraq toward Baghdad. Not a problem. As Daniel Henninger said this week,”Barack Obama is fiddling while the world burns”.
Barack Obama is fiddling while the world burns. Iraq, Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria, Kenya, Syria. These foreign wildfires, with more surely to come, will burn unabated for two years until the United States has a new president. The one we’ve got can barely notice or doesn’t care.
War on Birds
The Atlantic reported in late April that a huge solar power plant in the California desert is scorching birds with 800 degree heat.
The Ivanpah plant uses 300,000 mirrors to focus the sun on a water filled boiler. When birds fly through that beam the effect is the same as when you focused the sun through a magnifying glass to scorch an ant. Oh, you didn’t do that when you were a kid? Well, here’s what happens:
At times birds flew into the solar flux and ignited.
Not only that:
“It appears Ivanpah may act as a ‘mega-trap,’ attracting insects which in turn attract insect-eating birds, which are incapacitated by solar-flux injury, thus attracting predators and creating an entire food chain vulnerable to injury and death,” concluded scientists with the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in a report that investigated 233 bird deathsrepresenting 71 species at three Southern California solar power plants.
War on Birds
Bird immolation’s not your style? Well, did you know windmills are licensed to behead bald eagles?:
A leading bird conservation organization—American Bird Conservancy (ABC)—has announced its intention to sue the Department of the Interior (DOI), charging DOI with multiple violations of federal law in connection with its December 9, 2013, final regulation that allows wind energy companies and others to obtain 30-year permits to kill eagles without prosecution by the federal government. The previous rule provided for a maximum duration of five years for each permit.
Hardly seems fair if you have malaria due to the ban on DDT in order to save bald eagles.
If You Like Your VA You can Keep Your VA
When a vet asks for treatment at the Phoenix VA his request is entered into one set of books. When the time draws near that he will actually be treated he’s entered into the real set of books. That way long waits look short and bureaucrats get bonuses.
Veterans Affairs boss Eric Shinseki says he’s mad as hell about this. It’s all news to president Obama. He found out about it on CNN. Now he’s madder than hell. But not mad enough to fire Shinseki.
VA for the 21st Century
You can go here to see the President bragging in 2009 about resetting the VA for the 21st century.
Benghazi Select Committee
Trey Gowdy will is ringmaster for the House select committee on Benghazi. Republicans on previous committees haven’t been able to resist the TV cameras.
