The Dastardly and Despicable Desperados of Danville

They have not escaped the keen eye of Johnny Law, nosiree! Those evil criminals have been stopped!

The public can sleep at night, knowing that there will be no more mouse racing in Danville, Iowa.

Sheriffs are fighting their way through the seedy underbelly of Danville, Iowa, taking aim at unregulated gambling in its most adorable form -- mouse racing. Officers raided the Bucktail Lodge last week in search of code violations and shut down the popular races. ... For now, the races are on hold, but the mice racers said they will be in court to fight for the right to their rodent-race night. They said the incident makes it clear that the local police have little to do.

I'd put money down on a bet that the doughnut shops were closed for the night when the raid took place.

22 Years Ago

The Chinese government crushed the Tiananmen Square protests with brutal force, killing anywhere from hundreds of people to thousands. The Chinese army had to bring in troops from areas far from Beijing (and subject them to intensive propaganda sessions) in order to have soldiers who would fire on their own people.

Caturday

Gracie is hanging out in one of the cat condos.

Jake has a new place to hang out-- under my bed.

George is lying on my sheets. He's supposed to lie on either the white bedspread or the pillow covered with a towel. But he's not feeling well, so I let him get away with it

Adios, Marshal Dillon

James Arness has died at age 88.

Inappropriate Television Promos?

A friend of mine was watching the tube the other day when an announcement came on for an upcoming movie:

"Watch Ashton Kutcher tame the Wild West in 'TEXAS RANGERS'[1]"

She wondered if she could make it any more ridiculous, and she came up with this:

"Watch The Artist Formerly Known As Prince tame the Wild West in 'TEXAS RANGERS'"

I don't know if I can top that for that movie (maybe with Paris Hilton), but there are other ones that could be equally crazy. How about:

"Next on Bravo: 'Say Yes to the Dress' with special guest host, Chuck Norris"

Or:

"Stay Tuned for the 'Rachel Ray Show' with her guest chef, Alferd Packer"

Any suggestions?
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[1]"Texas Rangers" cost $38,000,000 to make. It was so bad that it was pulled from the theaters after less than three weeks in release (its widest showing was on at most 404 screens) and it made under a million. By percentages, that has to have been one of the biggest flops in movie history. Even Ishtar made back at least 20% of its cost.

The Biggest Non-News Story of the Day; Flip-Flop Mitt Edition

Willard Mitt Romney announced that he is running for president.

This announcement is about as newsworthy as a sunrise. Mitt the Flip-Flopper has been running for president since the day it became apparent that the McCain presidential campaign had cratered.

Romney has no political soul. He is like a stalk of wheat, he bends with the wind. He was a supporter of strong gun control laws when he was running for governor of Massachusetts, he signed a gun control law in 2004 making the Brady AR ban permanent in Massachusetts. Of course now, you can bet the horse you rode in on that Romney is saying that he is a 2nd Amendment supporter. He was pro-choice, though being a self-described 2nd Amendment supporter and supporting the Brady Ban is like being in favor of censorship and the 1st Amendment. He was for gay rights; when he was running against Ted Kennedy for the Senate, he pledged to be "more effective" than Teddy on the issue.

But ol' Flip-Flop Mitt began moving away from those positions when he realized that he could not both run for re-election as governor of Massachusetts in `06 and be a viable candidate for president in `08. So he threw away all of those long-held stances as though they were used tissues.

Romney doesn't believe in a damned thing, other than his personal ambition. He'd shoot his dog and then convert to Satanism if he saw a net gain in votes from doing so.

Anyone who votes for Flip-Flop Mitt because they like his stance on any issue is a fool.

Buh-Bye, Johnny Boy

A hell of a fall.

Criminal charges are likely to be filed Friday against John Edwards, the culmination of a two-year federal investigation into money used to cover up his extramarital affair during the 2008 presidential election.

He has got this coming. I don't believe that the law dispassionately holds using campaign money to cover up an affair to be any different than using campaign contributions for personal expenses, but I sure as hell do. There would seem to be a bit of a moral distinction between the two offenses.

The only good thing, if you can even call it that, is that Elizabeth Edwards isn't around to watch this sordid matter play itself out.

Zombie-Killer?

If he could figure out a way to dispense with the center dowel, that thing would be a natural for the next zombie movie.

(H/T)

The Fuckery of Wingnut Governors

First up: Rick Scott, governor of Florida. His plan is to do quarterly drug tests on state employees. Guess who will do the drug tests? Some company named "Solatic", which is apparently owned largely by Rick Scott and/or his wife. Now supposedly Scott is unloading his shares of Solantic, which means that he is giving a nice little gift to the people who paid extremely good money for his stock.

(H/T)

Next up: Chopper Chris Christie of New Jersey. Since it costs so bloody much to buy jet fuel for Secaucus Fat's helicopter fleet (not to mention his tax cut for his rich buddies), Chopper Chris came up with the idea of sharply limiting eligibility for Medicaid. For a family of four, eligibility would end if they made over $103 a week, or $5,317 a year.

That's going to piss off Wal-Mart big time, since a good chunk of Wal-Mart's business plan is to push the costs of employing people for minimum wage onto the states.

(H/T)

ICE and TSA: Nice Company We Keep

I've been through 30 land, sea and air border crossings .... The only one that comes close to the American border crossing is Russia. Iran was worse than the US for obvious reasons. But seriously, just think about that for a moment. China is easier to get into than the US. I've not been harassed at a single border crossing other than Iran or Russia as much as I have coming back into the United States. Land of the free? Or land of Fear?

So the nice people at ICE are as friendly as the customs goons at Sheremetyevo Airport, which, from all accounts that I've read, isn't terribly much different from the way things were in the 1980s. Good job, ICE! Way to help promote tourism!

Over to the TSA: As I understand the Rapey-scanner protocol, they are supposed to do it once and, if you fail, they do a pat-down.

I've seen otherwise. The last flight I took, they had some guy in the Pervo-viewer who was seriously overweight. He didn't pass, because he forgot to take this or that out of his pockets. I gather that none of the members of the TSA grope detail wanted to touch that guy, because they kept scanning and re-scanning him until he either passed or they had cooked him like a pot roast. That backed the line up, of course, so the TSA folks just routed a whole stream of people, including me, through the old metal detector.