Strike The Root Blog

I absolutely cannot believe that I totally forgot the terrible significance of this day. I feel like such an ass for not giving it a single thought until now, as the sun begins to set on me and my neighbors.

But now that I’ve been reminded, I’ll be thinking about those hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered in cold blood. The mothers. The fathers. The children. All of them–total strangers though they were, who lived long before my time–are on my mind right now.

Nobody in this country should ever forget what this day means. Nobody. Ever.

Nobody.

Ever.

It would appear that the legally privileged gangsters of “the People’s” Republic of China have traded the boot stamping on a human face for the calm, soothing injection to oblivion within the comfortable confines of a “mobile execution chamber.”

By way of Disinfo.com, I found this report by Tim Boucher:

What is that fine looking vehicle, you ask? Why, it is part of “China’s new fleet of mobile execution chambers.”

Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China “promotes human rights now,” says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van.

The AOL News link that Boucher cites doesn’t appear to be working, but I found this June 2006 USA Today article on the execution of convicted murderer-rapist Zhang Shiqiang in one such death chamber-on-wheels (which appears to be the article Boucher quoted and attempted to link):

The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped “death vans” that shuttle from town to town…

For years, foreign human rights groups have accused China of arbitrary executions and cruelty in its use of capital punishment. The exact number of convicts put to death is a state secret. Amnesty International estimates there were at least 1,770 executions in China in 2005 — vs. 60 in the United States, but the group says on its website that the toll could be as high as 8,000 prisoners.

I could just see something like this being supported by both major parties here in the United States. Why, just think of all the “terr’rists” they could round up and execute!

And it’s all perfectly humane! No muss, no fuss.

(Cross-posted at The Postmodern Tribune.)

Scott Horton has posted an interview with freelance investigative journalist Christopher Ketcham at Antiwar.com Radio that I highly recommend.

Ketcham discusses his latest article for RadarOnline, “The Last Roundup”, in which he tells of a government data base (or perhaps network of government data bases) allegedly code named “Main Core”, which may contain names and personal information on as many as 8 million Americans considered to be potentially obstructive of Uncle Sam’s “Continuity of Government” operations in the event of some kind of national crisis or emergency. These individuals “could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention,” according to Ketcham.

(more…)

In addition to initiating two major wars and vastly expanding the warfare state, adding on a whole new program to the costly state socialist health insurance boondoggle, innovating new legal interpretations in order to permit torture of mere suspects (including their children), and subjecting increasing numbers of Americans to government surveillance, George W. Bush is about to pull off one more massive Federal power grab before he leaves office:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation’s financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.

The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve, according to a 22-page executive summary obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability. That would include new powers to examine the books of any institution deemed to represent a potential threat to the proper functioning of the overall financial system.

Wow.

(more…)

Via RadGeek.com comes this gut-wrenching report:

“PAGO PAGO, American Samoa - American Samoa’s delegate to the U.S. Congress is calling for an investigation into the death of a baby at Honolulu International Airport.

“Delegate Eni Faleomavaega has asked the Department of Homeland Security to begin an investigation into death of 14-day-old Michael Tony Futi last Friday.

“The baby had been flown to Honolulu for emergency heart surgery. He died while detained inside a customs’ room at the Honolulu airport with his mother and a nurse.”

Maybe they thought the baby was actually a terrorist disguised as a 14-day-old baby with heart problems?

No, not Roger. Congress and its self-righteous buffoons, that’s the disgrace. Well, Roger may be one too, but they haven’t proven that yet. Congress has already proven their disgrace over and over.

Roger, a fallen, humbled man, stumbling over words, “misremembering” things (is he perhaps a long-lost member of the Bush clan?), admonished by High Ranking Members of the United States Congress. Or so the news reports portray–a sad, piteous image. Pity? I don’t have any pity for Roger. He looks to be a lying sack of you-know-what, as does his accuser McNamee.

What in the world does this have to do with governing a country? Why are Henry Waxman and his fellow bullies badgering ball players?

I used to believe in the US government and its constitution until I realized that it’s a joke of a document, one that our government tramples on daily. This circus of a hearing is one more example of abusing the constitution, but who cares?

I know little about Clemens, as baseball “bin very very borin’ to me,” and so I don’t know if he’s someone worth defending, but I hope he shows some cajones and tells Congress to go to hell, particularly Henry Waxman. It’s none of their business.

Southlake, Texas, a small suburb of 24,000 uppity souls in the northwest corner of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, is becoming a dangerous place to live. Southlake is a pristine town that struggles to maintain its dignity and purity in the face of the multitudes oozing out from crowding neighbors.

A police blotter from February 8 describes these evildoings:

• 12 juveniles consuming at a party that had gotten too loud
• vandals shooting out a residential window
• vandals shooting out a vehicle’s windows
• 3 DWIs (all adults)
• two identity thefts
• theft of a stove (!) from a residence
• theft from a storage unit
• two construction thefts, including one arrest of an adult

That’s the sum total for one week of violence in Southlake. Obviously things are out of hand here. And the blotter doesn’t even mention the worst of it: the public nuisances presented by unruly teens at the local mall.

Local mall? Well, no, Southlake would never be so undignified as to allow a mall. (Southlake doesn’t even allow you to rent a tool from Home Depot. Apparently, town founders felt that residents shouldn’t fix their own houses, they should hire undocumented migrant workers.) Instead, Southlake features something called the Southlake Town Square—a ludicrous, Disneyland-ish attempt to re-create an old fashioned downtown area. The Town Square features places to work, shops (generally overpriced trendy crap, in my humble opinion), eateries, a movie theater, and, to the distress of many, a place to hang out for annoying hordes of middle school urchins.

An article today in the predictably leftist local rag talked about Southlake’s interest in cracking down on the hangers-out. The pubescent hordes are perceived as little more than a nuisance. They hang out in the book store, a roomy Barnes & Noble that stays open late. B&N is corrupting the souls of our youth! This must be stopped! A curfew is required! The police chief will petition the city council for an 11pm curfew for children under 17.

Never mind, of course, that there is no real crime problem, youth or otherwise, in Southlake. It’s kids being kids, being loud, and getting out of hand once in a while. The merchants should have the right to solve this problem on their own without a heavy-handed intervention and crackdown by local ordinances and flatfoots.

Oddly, no one views hundreds of kids in one place as a blessing and an opportunity. At least they have somewhere to go, somewhere that the watchful eyes of many adults keep them from getting into any real trouble. And they should represent a tremendous financial opportunity for someone–if you can’t make a buck sucking up the bored dollars of the overly pampered middle school and high school set, you’re not trying. Maybe the owners of Southlake Town Center should push out one more unnecessary Ann Taylor store in favor of an arcade.

A Southlake curfew will represent one wonderfully bad but typical example of the predominant modern use of government: as a force, to suppress behavior of others, behavior that you don’t happen to like. The affected teens can’t vote, so there’s no fear of resistance or reprisal. Of course, the bogus argument is always that it’s “for the safety of the kids,” and to help curb vandalism. We all know, though, that it’s about people who are tired up putting up with snotty, loud teenagers. But a curfew will only push the kids whose parents don’t care further into the shadows.

Q. How do I know things are royally screwed up in the US political system?

A. Because the voters care.

Every election, things seem to get more shrill. More chicken-little screaming, uglier campaign ads, threats, accusations, and so on. The number of voters increases. Over 120,000,000 voted in 2004 for the president (but note, that figure includes duplicates, the deceased, non-citizens, and other fraudulent votes).
Elections mean more to people today than ever. That importance engenders a lot of anxiety and hostility. Voters fear the election of the candidate with opposing viewpoints. “My God, we’ll all die if X gets elected!” Certainly, the wrong president can make the difference between life and death. But I contend that we’ve already had that, not just with Bush but with virtually every modern president (and many more to boot). They’re all bad, and they’ve all caused unnecessary death and pain.
What if our federal government actually followed their own rules, ones they put in place a few hundred years ago? The president, as originally intended, wouldn’t be such a powerful bloke, nor would Congress or those in the supreme court. But power leads to excuses as to why those rules don’t apply to “us,” or why something is a special circumstance that requires us to break the rules.

If the president wasn’t so powerful, and couldn’t do things like send troops to foreign soil, spend billions on unconstitutional programs, usurp power from the states, voters really wouldn’t care so much.

Pitifully, however, far too many think that it’s government’s job to make sure their lives run smoothly. And thus they unwittingly grow government, and in turn care more when that government no longer meets all of their selfish demands.
To those who believe in democracy: understand that the act of voting itself is the source of your own pain.

“I can smell the freedom.”