Amy Bishop Leftist Hate Politics

I've got a Memeorandum thread this morning, first time in a while.

It turns out just writing about the murdering proclivities of radical Obama-backing Harvard professors gets some folks on the radical left pretty angry.

Comrade Repsac3, Commissar of State Security, People's Commissariat for Internet Affairs, who I thought put his Donald-demonology to bed, must have instead been lurking in the shadows, waiting for a chance to pounce. Here's his post, "Why Donald Douglas is a Scumbag." Yeah, noticing that a Harvard scientist who murders her faculty collegues for failing tenure will engender some emotions like that from folks.

And recall that Comrade Repsac3 attracts some of the most bestial commenters on the web. Here's this from "The Original" (an attack monkey), who invested in a little hate-research over at RateMyProfessors:

What is truly pathetic about DD's RMP page is not the accusations of bias by several students but the number of shill posts obviously written by DD or an accomplice.

Note the number that give basic advice that any instructor would give - come on time; be prepared - and end in "...and you'll do fine." These are only the most obvious. Also notice the relatively large number of rating/comments and the middling scores. There is a strong extremity bias in student comments, especially in self-selected samples such as RMP. Instructors who do not shill tend to collect either relatively few ratings/comments or an above average count of positive/negative comments. Relatively large numbers of comments (as compared to the rates of others in the same department) and middling ratings is a tell-tale sign of balancing poor ratings/comments with shills. Spikes in the frequency near tenure or other decision dates are another tell-tale, as students are generally unaware of these.

Folks can follow Comrade Repsac3's links to RateMyProfessors to confirm The Original's suspicions. I don't read my evaluations, frankly. It's mostly disgruntled students getting their revenge. But Comrade Repsac gets his jollies over there, which helps kindle his warped hatred -- which is all he's got.

Anyway, I got a little additional attention for pointing out that leftists only politicize murders from which they can tar Republicans as evil racists. That explains the title of my post, "Amy Bishop Killed Minorities: Leftists Silent on 'Racist' Rampage; Victims' Families Ask, 'Why Was She Still Teaching?'"

Uber-hypocrite Steve M., who gets my name wrong while attacking me, responds to the race questions:

You know what? I have no freaking idea whether there was a racial motive in these killings. I know that, when you dig into the past, the intended pipe-bomb victim was white, and Bishop's brother was white. Maybe David Douglas has an explanation for how those crimes, if she's guilty of them, fits his new theory of racism. Maybe back then she was trying to eliminate the white race, one whitey every few years, as a revolutionary act. I sure hope he tells us. He has such insight into the criminal mind -- I'm dying to know."

Okay, dying to know?

Then I'll just direct little Stevie over to Dag Blog's entry, "Not About Tenure. Seriously" (with emphasis added):

Friday, at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, a biology professor named Amy Bishop murdered three of her colleagues and wounded three others. Two of the people she wounded are still in critical condition, and I offer my sincere hopes for their complete and swift recovery. The murderer had been denied tenure in the department, and media coverage has centered on the question of tenure. Tenure, that strange and exotic academic rite, is obviously the hook for this story, and the resulting coverage is appalling.

The New York Times headline for their story today (which doesn't deserve a link) is "At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly, Official Say." There's something appalling about the passive construction in that sentence, as if it's the "setback" that did the killing. But the story, with its emphasis on "the pressure-cooker world of academic startups" is worse. It also undermines its own angle: the killer's potentially lucrative biotech startup was going well. Meanwhile, Inside Higher Ed fautously links to an old article about faculty who have minor breakdowns after being turned down for tenure, as if one could compare a shouting incident or a distarught person climbing up an ivy trellis with cold-blooded murder. (No link for you either, IHD.) The general thrust of the coverage is that the tenure process is so painful and stressful that an otherwise normal person might snap and become violent.

Let me just say, as someone going through the tenure process: bullshit.

On the other hand, the media has had no interest at all in the question of race, although Bishop shot almost every non-white faculty member in the department. (She also shot and wounded two white victims, a professor and a staff member.) She killed both African-American professors in the department (one of whom was too junior to have had anything to do with Bishop's tenure decision). She killed the department chair, who was ethnically South Asian. A Latino faculty member was wounded. There may only be two non-white faculty left in the department. Whether she intended it or not, Amy Bishop effected a racial purge of the Alabama Huntsville biology department. But the press isn't interested in asking whether or not she intended it. Perhaps the question isn't exotic enough.

These murders are not about tenure. They are about Amy Bishop's moral failings. Those failings might or might not include racism. But a person who responds to a career setback by cold-bloodedly murdering three people, and attempting to kill three more, is not the victim of a difficult process. Amy Bishop is a horribly defective human being. Whatever complaints she may have had a week ago, she has forfeited any right to make them.

Jesus Christ!

Seriously. A "racial purge" of the entire Huntsville department! That's what I'm talkin' about!

But the silence on the left is splitting eardrums nationwide. You just can't talk about this stuff! A white Harvard leftist opens fire on a room full of minority professors and students. And we should just STFU and not politicize it? Okay. Sure. Those leftists sure got me beat in the moral equivalence department.

My heart and prayers go out the families of the dead.

Hat Tip: Kathy Shaidle.

Matchmaking: '$55,000 for 28 Months of Unlimited Introductions'

Getting ready to watch "The Bachelor" in a little while. So, let me share some day-after-Valentine's blog stuff. From the Los Angeles Times, "Matchmakers' Personal Touch Thrives Despite EHarmony, Match.com":

Like social networking, which had many dating industry experts inaccurately predicting the demise of paid Internet dating sites, Internet dating hasn't killed matchmaking, but fed it. In fact, the three go hand in hand, leading relationship-minded singles to ever higher levels of paid service.

Though social networking sites such as Facebook may bring people together and do it for free, there's no guarantee that those brought-together people are available and looking for a relationship. And though Internet dating sites such as Yahoo Personals do a better job of bringing together singles who are motivated to get together because they are paying to find dates, they don't always do a good job of sorting out the serious from the players, or even to help individuals select people who are truly good for them.

Personalized matchmakers promise to do just that. Of course, they also charge a higher price — anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000, depending on the exclusivity of the service, the number of matches they've said they'll provide and how willing they are to go the extra mile.

"You're the therapist, the mother, the best friend, the sister, the nonsexual girlfriend. You have to be everything," said Patti Stanger, star of the Bravo reality TV series "The Millionaire Matchmaker" and proprietor of the L.A.-based Millionaire's Club matchmaking service.

"It's not good enough to say, 'Here's a nice girl.' You get them a girl, they'll sleep with that girl, cheat on the girl. Then I've got to get that girl back. I have to go in and do an intervention and be on call seven days a week. That's why I get the big bucks," said Stanger, who charges men a minimum of $25,000 a year and female "millionairesses" $55,000 for 28 months of unlimited introductions. (She finds her female clients take longer to match.)

Whether it's hooking up her clients with a personal stylist to improve their appearance or enrolling them in an improv class to get over their shyness, "there are 5 million things to do," she said. There are more details to attend to with clients: manners, appearance, expectations. "In the old days, it was, 'OK. I know who I'm going to give you. Here she is. Bye.' "

More at the link, especially the discussion of April Beyer of Beyer & Co.

And that's the lovely Karen Alloy at the video.

American Stories

I've probably blogged this Amy Bishop story a bit much. Steve M.'s cynical hypocrisy proves it. He cites the despicable Talking Points Memo as "evidence" that Gregory Girard, arrested on weapons charges in Massachusetts last week, is somehow representative of the tea party patriots. William Jacobson, always circumspect in his analysis, argued that politics is irrelevant in the Bishop case, but he adds an additional point:

Had Bishop's politics been within 100 miles of a Tea Party, Talking Points Memo and Little Green Footballs would have been all over the case making the connection. Just like they did with the similarly disturbed Gregory Girard, who never shot anyone but who "stockpiled" weapons.

But of course, for socialist radicals like Steve M., Gregory Girard's the poster boy for teh AWESOME DHS SEC Janet Napolitano's alleged "fanatical" right wing tea party terrorists. Man, those administration lefties are really on the job! Pure brilliance! If you keep arresting enough Greg Girards folks will think the system really works! (Yo, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- you got game!) And don't even get me going about Steve M.'s Malik Nadal denialism. (No sir, for the "No Mo' Mista Nice Brotha", to even cast suspicion on the Fort Hood jihadi as a fanatical Islamist is raaaacist!!!).

But hey, the lefties are really on a roll today! Check out my new BFF Scotty Eric Kaufman's stretch-a-palooza of an excoriation:

Conservatives complain 1) when liberals ask that any brown person with a funny name not be labeled a jihadist until evidence of such is unearthed, and 2) when mainstream news outlets link the murder of prominent abortion doctors to conservative causes. They fail to see the lack of equivalence: liberals don't espouse jihad against the United States, but conservatives do inspire those on their fringes to engage in politically motivated violence. The politics of the George Tiller murder are an indictment against conservative rhetoric because that rhetoric made Tiller a target; whereas the personal politics of Amy Bishop are utterly irrelevant in the absence of a vocal and sustained opposition to the existence of the university and the tenure system among liberals.

Right. Politically motivated violence. Somehow I doubt that's really what's got the goat of these lefties. I mean, there's been absolutlely no outrage -- and I mean NONE -- at such horrendous killings as Fort Hood, and when Abdulmutallab failed to bring down the Detroit-bound airliner, that was evidence that al Qaeda's a "joke," a bunch of "incompetent criminals." Or, ahh ... maybe these attacks weren't "politcally motivated"?

And recall, lefties are getting their jollies attacking me for things I have not said. (I have never hypothesized on Bishop's motives. It's enough fascination at the simple truth of a Harvard leftist in league with some of our worst criminal murderers and jihadi terrorists.) And of course, Steve M.'s reponses are bonus epic fail.

And while Bishop may not have political or racist motives, it's Democratic soft-on-crime radicalism that's likely resulted in the deaths of even more ones (e.g., William Delahunt):

Massachusetts in the 1980s was not a bright spot in American criminal justice. Misguided compassion resulted in the infamous Willy Horton case. Delahuunt himself faced questions about his role in another murder by a furloughed prisoner during his first Congressional race in 1996. There was also the witch hunt of he Fells Acre Day Care case, in which innocent people were convicted of child molestation as well as numerable controversies over decisions to parole felons and of course summering under it all the decades long history of the Boston Archdiocese covering up incidents of priests molesting children and adolescents

But justice delayed is not always justice denied. Stories about Martha Coakley's prosecutorial overreach in continuing the unjust treatment of those convicted in Fells Acres as well as her seeming reluctance to prosecute a local policeman accused of a chilling brutal child rape were part of the local background against which the Brown campaign played out.

Whether this 1986 incident is a one of misguided compassion towards a family that had suffered one tragedy and hoped private counseling would suffice with a serious behavior problem or just a crass cover up among members of the local power structure, renewed interest in the case comes at a bad time for the multi term Congressman.

But that's what you get from the same antiwar lefists, inside the administration and out, now claiming credit for victory in Iraq. No wonder Americans hate people like this.

IMAGE CREDIT: John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark, 1778, oil on canvas, 71 3/4 x 90 1/2 in. See, LACMA, "American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915," February 28–May 23, 2010:

From the colonial period to the present, Americans have been inventing characters and plots, settings and situations to give meaning to our everyday lives. American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 includes seventy-five paintings, from before the Revolution to the start of World War I, that tell these stories in scenes of family life and courting, work and leisure, comic mishaps and disasters. These daily experiences were all subject to the artist’s searching and revealing eye and many of the works on view are famous images known to almost every American. Major artists such as Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, John Singleton Copley and George Caleb Bingham, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt, are included in this important survey, the first of its kind in over thirty years.

Winslow Homer's one of my favorites. I expect to attend this exhibition, and will write about it here in a few weeks. That'll be a wonderful respite from the crazed radicals of the nihilist left.

Amy Bishop Killed Minorities: Leftists Silent on 'Racist' Rampage; Victims' Families Ask, 'Why Was She Still Teaching?'

I just noticed something about the Amy Bishop case: Her victims were minorities. From left to right at the photo: Dr. Adriel Johnson Sr., Dr. Gopi Podila, and Dr. Maria Davis. The image is from CBS News, "Did Amy Bishop, Accused University of Alabama Shooter, Murder Her Own Brother?"

But I noticed this after watching the clip at ABC's Good Morning America below. And see, "Alabama University Shooting: Suspect Amy Bishop's Violent Past Gets Another Look":

The alleged violent past of the once-seemingly docile University of Alabama professor accused of a fatal shooting rampage has stunned the family of her victims and prompted investigators to probe deeper into her past.

Amy Bishop was a suspect in an attempted mail bombing of a Harvard professor. ABC News has learned that investigators will re-open the 1986 shooting death of professor Amy Bishop's brother. Declared accidental at the time, investigators say they were never comfortable with the ruling.

Investigators also revealed that seven years later, Bishop was the prime suspect in a 1993 mail bombing attempt on a Harvard Medical School professor.

"I just feel angry," LaTasha Davis, step-daughter of shooting victim Maria Davis, told "Good Morning America" today. "How did she even get a job working at the school when she had that type of background?"

This is really something: Not only is Amy Bishop a leftist who killed her brother and got a pass from the politically correct criminal justice system (especially Democratic Congressman and then-Massachusetts DA Bill Delahunt), she's also a suspected pipe bomber who is now accused of premeditated murder of three faculty colleagues who were presiding over her tenure case. But add on top of this the fact that the premeditation included the planned killings of three non-white colleages and this really should be explosive for the radical multiculturalists. They keep looking for "motive" (here) or they suggest that Bishop killed as the "result of growing up in a dysfunctional home" (here), which is a version of the "deranged individual" theory so popular among folks who guffaw at the thought that jihadis might actually wage holy war on the innocents (here). But perish the thought that Bishop's motive could have been racism? Maybe Harvard-trained left-wing professors get a pass on that. Leftists aren't asking, in any case. And there's been a deafening silence of the race of the victims from the Obama-enabling press corps. If the suspected killer of Drs. Johnson, Podila, and Davis had been a fan of Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbaugh, the entire radical netroots would have by now mounted a lynch-mob campaign against the "fanatical right." And that's to say nothing of the Larisa Alexandrovnas and Al Sharptons who'd creep out of their victimology hell-holes to decry the "racist" murders of the diverse faculty members.

But it's a quiet few days on the left. The Amy Bishop case isn't fitting the template for the race-hustling outrage of the moment.
RELATED: "Quincy Man Recalls Amy Bishop Holdup." (Via Memeorandum.) Also blogging, Jules Crittenden and Gateway Pundit.

ADDED: Blazing Cat Fur, "Leftist Racial Killing Spree."

AND MORE: See also the first-hand report from Professor Joseph Ng, a former UC Irvine student, who witnessed the murders. Ng confirms Amy Bishop's premeditation and potentially racist motivations. Ng is a Chinese surname. I'll need more information, but so far one-fourth of those at the tenure meeting were ethnic minorities. I'll update later, but it very well could be that Amy Bishop was disgruntled because "quota hires" were denying her tenure. Perhaps the lady was "white trash" and never quite broke out into the more supposedely refined strata of the faculty elite (or, more likely, they're all like that). Boy, this just keeps getting worse for the radical leftists! See, "Former UCI Student Saw Faculty Shootings":

We were 12 all together (including the shooter) sitting around an oval table in a modest size conference room . There were only one door to enter/exit. The shooter was a disgruntled faculty member who didn’t get tenured after several appeals and a law suit. About 30min into the meeting, she got up suddenly, took out a gun and started shooting at each one of us. She started with the one closest to her and went down the row shooting her targets in the head. Our chairman got it the worst as he was right next to her along with two others who died almost instantly.

That's almost like an assembly line, Che Guevara-ish in fact, or Taliban-ish.

Tea Partiers Storming GOP From the Grassroots

Via Glenn Reynolds, at the Los Angeles Times, "'Tea Party' Activists Filter Into GOP at Ground Level":

First there was the "tea party" protester. Now meet the Tea-publican.

Conservative activists who once protested the political establishment are now flooding the lowest level of the Republican Party apparatus hoping to take over the party they once scorned -- one precinct at a time.

Across the country, tea party groups that had focused on planning rallies are educating members on how to run for GOP precinct representative positions. The representatives help elect county party leaders, who write the platform and, in some places, determine endorsements.

"That's where it all starts. That's where the process of picking candidates begins. It's not from [GOP leader] Michael Steele's office down. It's from the ground up," said Philip Glass, whose National Precinct Alliance is among the groups advocating the strategy. "The party is over for the old guard."

In Arizona and Ohio, Republican Party officials report an increase in candidates running for precinct positions, which often sit open because of a lack of interest.

In South Carolina, a coalition of tea party groups has made a formal agreement with the state GOP to urge its members to get engaged at the precinct level.

In Nevada, a group of "constitutional conservatives" working under the tea party banner has already taken control of the Republican Party in the Las Vegas area, gaining enough strength to elect six of the seven members of the county executive committee.

Glass' group and others say their work is nonpartisan; their hope is that people will reshape both major political parties. But for most of the small-government conservatives of the tea party movement, the Republican Party is a more natural fit.

The shift to local party politics is a notable turn for the group, which emerged in opposition to national financial bailouts supported by both parties.

More at the link.

The piece goes on to note that a lot of local groups are skittish about "being viewed as a party appendage."

That's not true in Orange County, as I've reported a couple of times now. See the comentary at my report from Saturday, "Chuck DeVore Tea Party Rally!"

Thinking About 'The Bachelor'

I watched a lot of television with my family last week, including "The Bachelor" last Monday. I meant to write something about this earlier, but didn't know exactly what to say.

My initial interest in the show was the fantasyland world of Jake, who was lucky to be thrown into the paradise of beauty with all those women seeking his affection, romance, and matrimony. It's a really strange thing, since very few people will ever have a choice like that, even over years of dating. I was getting a kick out of it a couple of weeks ago, and I posted on Ali as a hottie for one of the babe blogging posts.

But scroll ahead at the video to the last couple of panels. Ali comes off as an extreme case. She's almost childish in her self-absorbed indecision. Love does that, I know, but I couln't help feeling for some of the other women, especially Tenley, who -- while obviously self-absorbed by her own divorce (unable to move on) -- seemed more genuine after all compared to Ali.

Also interesting was Vienna, who my wife thinks is too "underclass" for Jake. I've kinda got a soft spot for her, although the US Weekly story last week put a little chill on that: "EXCLUSIVE: Bachelor's Vienna Drained Ex's Savings on Boob Job." See also, "Vienna Girardi Accused of Cheating on Marine Ex, Draining His Bank Account to Pay For Boob Job."

Last Monday's segments featuring Jake meeting the families was riveting television. He's asking the fathers for the hands of their daughters. That's an extremely conservative tradition, and one I think is good. When I first starting having dinner at my wife's dad's house, some of the evenings felt a lot like that. I don't remember specifically asking my father-in-law if I could marry his daughter, but the ritual of approval in those first few months was an extremely powerful experience.

In any case, preview's of tonight's show here. Ali is back!

Joe Biden on Iraq: More on Why People Hate the Democrats

A follow up to my post from the other day, "'In Order to Gain Domestic Power'."

I looked for the video of Vice President's Joe Biden comments on Iraq last week. Betsy Newmark had an awesome post on this, "Joe Biden's Fantasy World":

Joe Biden went on Larry King last night and told us that Iraq could be "one of the great achievements of this administration." This administration? In the fantasy world in which Joe Biden, and perhaps Barack Obama, are the stars of a saga of heroic battles for peace, justice and some other stuff like that what has happened in Iraq is a credit to "this administration."

How about the previous administration whose policies in Iraq Biden and Barack Obama had endlessly criticized and voted against. They both opposed the surge that brought about the situation that Biden now wants to take credit for. And Biden's big proposal was his dopey idea to divide Iraq into three separate territories. And if Obama had had his way, we would have pulled our troops out of there before Bush's administration was even over. The only credit that "this administration" deserves is for not messing too much with the much improved situation that Bush fought to bring to Iraq.

And check out this awesome clip, c/o Voting Female Speaks! ...

More here, "Republicans Object to Biden Taking Credit for Success in Iraq."

Killer Amy Bishop and the Leftist Oddballs Who Defend Her

The Boston Herald has a piece on Dr. Amy Bishop, "‘Oddball’ Portrait Emerges"* (via Memeorandum):

As authorities searched for clues into what could have sent a University of Alabama neurobiology professor on an alleged killing spree, friends and family yesterday described Braintree native Amy Bishop as an awkward introvert on the brink of losing her teaching job ....

“She was an oddball - just not very sociable,” said Sylvia Fluckiger, a former lab technician who worked with Bishop in 1993.

Bishop acknowledged at the time being questioned in the bombing attempt of a Harvard medical doctor evaluating her on doctorate work, a professor with whom Bishop was known to quarrel, Fluckiger said ....

“She was quite cavalier about it,” Fluckiger said of Bishop’s description of her interview with police. She said Bishop “grinned” as she described being asked by cops whether she’d ever taken stamps off an envelope and fastened them onto something else. “I cannot tell you what the grin meant,” Fluckiger said.

Speaking of oddballs, this guy Steven Taylor is really steamed that I've highlighted his idiocy. And he again mischaracterizes the issues at hand: "Let me ask directly: do you think that a political motive is evident here?"

Actually, I've never claimed she had political motives. All I've ever said was that she's a "Harvard-trained left-wing professor." Sounds reasonable, considering the evaluation offered by one of her former students:

Neuroscience essentially turns into a bioethics class. She's a liberal from "Hahvahd" and let's you know exactly how she feels about particular subjects ...

But note something else: I responded to Steven Taylor at the comments this morning, asking (kinda snarkily) with regards to Malik Hasan, "No doubt one can only assume that you rebuffed political motives in these cases as well."

And my hunch was correct. See Taylor's essay, "What to do About Hasan’s Religion?":

... unless we have evidence of a broader conspiracy, I don’t see how this is ultimately any different than any other mass shooting in US history: the acts of a deranged individual.

The "deranged individual" argument has proved to be perhaps the most monumentally stupid meme of the post-9/11 era. And Steven has even more of teh insight:

To this point, the evidence suggests that the Fort Hood shooting will fall into this category [of historical insignificance ] as well, with Hasan’s religion being part of his personal motivation, but with almost certainly no broader meaning than that.

Wrong.

All kinds of broader meaning, actually ...

The president announced a memorandum on November 12 last year, "Presidential Memorandum on Inventory of Files Related to Fort Hood Shooting," obviously indicating the White House's belated sincerity on the murders. (See also, "Obama Wants Probe of Hasan Intelligence.") And of course just days earlier evidence emerged that Hasan has sought contact with al Qaeda, and -- surprise! -- the Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had the highest praise for the killer. See, "Nidal Hasan Sought Contact With al Qaeda: CIA Refuses Congressional Briefing; Anwar al Awlaki, Hasan Mentor, Praises 'Great Heroic Act'." Recall that Awlaki was shown to have direct contacts with three of the 9/11 terrorists.

But of course, idiot leftists will still tell you that you shouldn't draw conclusions, even though Nidal Hasan handed out Korans the morning of the killings, and he sought spiritual guidance through chants of "Allahu akbar" — "God is great" — moments before opening fire on the innocents.

But anyway, back to the Huntsville killings. See Dan Collins for an analysis of the Amy Bishop case (with attention to the left's denialism): "On the Uses of Amy Bishop Anderson."

*********

* I've corrected the title of the Boston Herald piece above. There's a typo at the original.

Black-Tar Heroin: A Glimpse of California Before Decriminalization

The first thing you want to do is take a look at this graphic, "Interactive: Black-Tar Heroin."

Then, the full article, "THE HEROIN ROAD: A Lethal Business Model Targets Middle America":

Immigrants from an obscure corner of Mexico are changing heroin use in many parts of America.

Farm boys from a tiny county that once depended on sugar cane have perfected an ingenious business model for selling a semi-processed form of Mexican heroin known as black tar.

Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths.

Immigrants from Xalisco in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit, Mexico, they have brought an audacious entrepreneurial spirit to the heroin trade. Their success stems from both their product, which is cheaper and more potent than Colombian heroin, and their business model, which places a premium on customer convenience and satisfaction.

Users need not venture into dangerous neighborhoods for their fix. Instead, they phone in their orders and drivers take the drug to them. Crew bosses sometimes call users after a delivery to check on the quality of service. They encourage users to bring in new customers, rewarding them with free heroin if they do.

In contrast to Mexico's big cartels -- violent, top-down organizations that mainly enrich a small group -- the Xalisco networks are small, decentralized businesses. Each is run by an entrepreneur whose workers may soon strike out on their own and become his competitors. They have no all-powerful leader and rarely use guns, according to narcotics investigators and imprisoned former dealers.

Leaving the wholesale business to the cartels, they have mined outsize profits from the retail trade, selling heroin a tenth of a gram at a time. Competition among the networks has reduced prices, further spreading heroin addiction.

"I call them the Xalisco boys," said Dennis Chavez, a Denver police narcotics officer who has arrested dozens of dealers from Xalisco (pronounced ha-LEES-ko) and has studied their connections to other cities. "They're nationwide."

Their acumen and energy are a major reason why Mexican heroin has become more pervasive in this country, gaining market share at a time when heroin use overall is stable or declining, according to government estimates.

The Xalisco retail strategy has "absolutely changed the user and the methods of usage," said Chris Long, a police narcotics officer in Charlotte, N.C., where competition among Xalisco dealers has cut prices from $25 to $12.50 per dose of black-tar heroin. "It's almost like Wal-Mart: 'We're going to keep our prices cheap and grow from there.' It works."

It's long, but the piece confirms my sense that should marijuana decriminalization proceed further in California, this model of the entrepreneurial Mexican heroin pusher is just a glimpse of things to come. Pay attention to the key part one more time, where it notes, "Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths."

Then, compare that to the argument at Mary Grabar's piece, "Libertarians Need to Rethink Support for Drug Legalization":

The position on the legalization of marijuana provides the point of departure from the traditional libertarianism of Barry Goldwater. In abandoning the duty to enforce social order, today’s libertarians have made a devil’s pact with the pro-drug forces of George Soros and company.

My libertarian friends like to say, “I’m a libertarian, not a libertine.” But though many of the advocates of libertarianism lead socially conservative lives, their agendas promote libertinism — especially when it comes to legalizing drugs. They forget that the moral order they have inherited is put at even further risk as laws change to allow more destructive behavior.

The libertinism Mary rejects is precisely the soft underbelly of vulnerability that black heroin pushers of Mexico will exploit. But drug decriminalization proponents will continue to say "no one has ever died from smoking marijuana," blah, blah ...

Surging death statistics will be along shortly ...

Just keep close tabs on your kids. Some gentlemen from Xalisco are looking for them.

See also, "Black Tar Moves In, and Death Follows," and "The Good Life in Xalisco Can Mean Death in the United States."

RELATED: FrontPage Magazine, "Marijuana and Conservatism Debate."

UPDATED: David Swindle at NewsReal links with a discussion, "Stumbling Down the Slippery Slope: First Legalized Weed Then Prescription Smack?"

Harvard Hotbed? Amy Bishop Was Bombing Suspect in 1993

The Boston Globe has a new report on Dr. Amy Bishop, "Alleged Ala. Killer Was Suspect in Attempted Bombing of Harvard Professor" (via Memeorandum).

And Don Surber comments:

What could possibly top this story?

The Boston Globe reported: “The professor who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama on Friday was a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993, a law enforcement official said today. Amy Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were questioned after a package containing two bombs was sent to the Newton home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a professor and doctor at Boston’s Children’s Hospital… Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Bishop at the time, said Bishop had been in a dispute with Rosenberg shortly before the bombs were discovered.”

How does a woman with a history like this get through Harvard?

Theodore Kaczynski, Bill Ayers and now Amy Bishop. Don’t mess with professors — if you don’t want to be blown up.

Calling someone a professor was considered racist last week; this week it is said in fear.

Bill Ayers didn't attend Harvard (although he may have helped Barack Obama get in), but both Theodore Kaczynski and Amy Bishop did. It's not a statistical pattern, by any means. And if we look around we'd find other similar coincidences. But something about Don's post just rang the eerie bells. First it was Harvard and socialism. Now it's Harvard and terrorism. Again, no statistical significance, but seriously, what could possibly top this?

More details here, in any case: "Crimes, Cover-ups and Fringe Science."

OMG JOHN BIRCH FASCIST SCARY ELDERLY (AND BLACK) TEA PARTIERS!!

I need to credit Dana Loesch with some of my wording yesterday. At the caption to my picture of the elderly tea partiers, I said they were "OMG JOHN BIRCH FASCIST SCARY!!"

Well, if you read all my links at the post, the "OMG JOHN BIRCH FASCIST SCARY!!" link goes to Digby, the Queen of Clueless, who cites a prehistoric Crooks and Liars post from February 2009 arguing that the tea partiers were "John Birchers."

Well, here's one of those fanatical JOHN BIRCH FASCIST SCARY (NOT SO ELDERLY) BLACK TEA PARTIERS: C. Mason Weaver, a conservative author, entrepreneur, and blog-talk host who's running for Congress from California's 53rd district:

The OMG exclamatory snark originated with Dana's post on the town halls last summer. Recall how radical leftists constantly decried the angry "mobs" and the "mob mentality"? Well, here's some of the mobs Dana found at her events:

And Dana writes at the post:

I am the mob. My kids are the mob. My grandma is the mob. My family members did not shed blood for this country so that their elected officials could silence them into shame if they dared to speak out and voice their concerns.

Are you the mob?

See also, Legal Insurrection, "Why Are These Angry People Smiling?"

Socialist Serial Killer Amy Bishop

I waded through the comments on Amy Bishop's RateMyProfessors page, but missed the one comment suggesting she was a socialist professor. I simply noted that Dr. Bishop was a "Harvard-trained left-wing professor," and some folks took issue even with that. James Joyner in particular was getting kudos for his purportedly even-handed take on the matter. See, "The Tragedy at Huntsville." The blogger there, Steven Taylor, is now desperately back-tracking after the additional evidence Dr. Joyner was asking for has proved Bishop's critics right. But Taylor doubles down anyway, "Cheap Political Points and the UAH Shooting." Might I suggest that the dude just STFU, since he's obviously eating big crow at this point.

Anyway, Robert Stacy McCain's been on the case, for example in his piece yesterday, "‘Random Tragedy’ Not So Random: Socialist Serial Killer Amy Bishop." And now he updates with more, "‘Almost Never’ Is Once Too Often." It turns out that Dr. Joyner's getting some grief over his "balanced" analysis on the matter, although he reiterates his main point, "As I’ve previously noted, her politics seem rather irrelevant."

And they would be, except that as soon as we have a high-profile murder anywhere in this country, speculation immediately focuses on political motives. Leftists have no problem looking at the political affiliations of a James von Brunn or a Scott Roeder. But as soon as we have a Malik Nadal Hasan or an Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab we can't jump to conclusions!

And frankly, my initial post was a cut-and-paste job with no original commentary. Being "Harvard-trained" is almost clue enough as to Professor Bishop's ideology, and while a posting or two at RateMyProfessors is statistically insignificant, that fact alone doesn't preempt discussion of her political positions.

In any case, with reference to late reports on Dr. Bishop, I think my good friend Dave in Boca pretty much nails it:

Turns out she shot her brother in MA twenty-some years ago fatally with three bullets, but the [then] DA [now] Dem Congresscritter Delahunt didn't think that was worthy of a trial & the case was DROPPED. I guess he recognized another libtard in Amy & let her go free to get her PhD in bioethics/neuroscience & kill three more people---this will be ignored by the MSM, and she will be protected from excessive investigation by the Dem criminal racket squads.

Britain's Sexiest Female Farmer

Via Theo Spark, at the Telegraph UK, "Blonde Anna Simpson Has Been Voted Britain's Sexiest Female Farmer":

Miss Simpson said: ''I think many people believe a stereotypical farmer is a man in his 60s but I wanted to show they can also be young women, who want to get stuck in but also enjoy a night out.

''When they told me I'd won I thought it was a wind-up. I saw the competition and I thought I'd give it a go and I was short-listed which was brilliant.

''I was quite surprised I got through as there were so many good entries so I'm really happy. I won £250 but I think the title alone is a great thing to have."

Tim Relf, of Farmers Weekly, said: ''Forget the old, stereotypical image of farmers as straw-chewing and scruffily dressed. That's history. They're seriously sexy.

Dick Cheney Hammers Obama Administration on National Security

From ABC News, "EXCLUSIVE: Cheney Attacks Biden, Obama on National Security":

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in an exclusive appearance on ABC News' "This Week," offered a sharp critique of the Obama administration's handling of national security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying any achievements over the past year largely stemmed from policies implemented under President George W. Bush.

"If [the administration is] going to take credit for [Iraq's success], fair enough ... but it ought to come with a healthy dose of 'Thank you, George Bush' up front and a recognition that some of their early recommendations with respect to prosecuting that war were just dead wrong," Cheney told ABC News' Jonathan Karl.

Earlier Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Cheney "either is misinformed or he is misinforming" about what policies have been most effective in combating terrorists.

Biden has also suggested that Iraq may end up being one of the Obama administration's greatest successes.

"Obama and Biden campaigned from one end of the country to the other for two years criticizing our Iraq policy," Cheney said. "If they had had their way, if we'd followed the policies they'd pursued from the outset or advocated from the outset, Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Baghdad today."

I can't think of anything that pisses me off more than the Obama administration claiming credit for victory in Iraq -- and that's saying a lot, given the epic fail of the Obamacrats since 1-20-09.

Also Blogging: Gateway Pundit, GayPatriot, Don Surber and Moonbattery (via Memeorandum). And see also, "‘This Week’ Transcript: Former Vice President Dick Cheney."

Phil 'Hide the Decline' Jones Admits Faked Data

From Newsbusters, "ClimateGate's Phil 'Hide the Decline' Jones Admits Manipulating Data":

ClimateGate scandal says that contrary to what Al Gore and many in the media claim, the debate concerning manmade global warming is not over.

"There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well," Phil Jones, the former head of Britain's Climatic Research Unit told the BBC.

In a lengthy Q&A published at BBC.com Saturday, Jones also said: the recent warming trend that began in 1975 is not at all different than two other planetary warming phases since 1850; there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and; it is possible the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global phenomenon thereby making the temperatures seen in the latter part of the 20th century by no means unprecedented.

Maybe most important, Jones explained what "hide the decline" in ClimateGate e-mail messages meant confirming they manipulated data (questions in bold, h/t Sonic Frog via Glenn Reynolds) ....

Now comes the part of the Q&A many will find most interesting:

K - How much faith do you have - and should we have - in the Yamal tree ring data from Siberia? Should we trust the science behind the palaeoclimate record?

First, we would all accept that palaeoclimatic data are considerably less certain than the instrumental data. However, we must use what data are available in order to look at the last 1,000 years.

I believe that our current interpretation of the Yamal tree-ring data in Siberia is sound. Yamal is just one series that enters some of the millennial long reconstructions that are available.

The current interpretation of the tree-ring data is "sound." Yet, Jones earlier said (emphasis added), "There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well."

This seems especially important given how the "decline" Jones wanted his colleagues to "hide" came from this paleoclimatic data:

Q - Let's talk about the e-mails now: In the e-mails you refer to a "trick" which your critics say suggests you conspired to trick the public? You also mentioned "hiding the decline" (in temperatures). Why did you say these things?

This remark has nothing to do with any "decline" in observed instrumental temperatures. The remark referred to a well-known observation, in a particular set of tree-ring data, that I had used in a figure to represent large-scale summer temperature changes over the last 600 years.

The phrase 'hide the decline' was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.

This "divergence" is well known in the tree-ring literature and "trick" did not refer to any intention to deceive - but rather "a convenient way of achieving something", in this case joining the earlier valid part of the tree-ring record with the recent, more reliable instrumental record.

I was justified in curtailing the tree-ring reconstruction in the mid-20th Century because these particular data were not valid after that time - an issue which was later directly discussed in the 2007 IPCC AR4 Report.

This is important, for most people still don't understand what the decline they were trying to hide was.

As Marc Sheppard wrote in December, "[T]he decline Jones so urgently sought to hide was not one of measured temperatures at all, but rather figures infinitely more important to climate alarmists -- those determined by proxy reconstructions." He continued:

Jones was working on a cover chart for a forthcoming World Meteorological Organization report [PDF], "WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1990," when he wrote the e-mail. As the graph would incorporate one reconstruction of his own plus one each from Michael Mann and Keith Briffa, Jones was informing them that he had used the trick on Mann's series at the same 1980 cutoff as MBH98, but found it necessary to use 1960 as the cutoff on the Briffa series.

Now, Jones has admitted this to the BBC: "[It] was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were."

In simple terms, Briffa's tree-ring data showed a decline in temperatures between 1960 and 1999 that weather stations around the world disagreed with. So, Jones spliced into Briffa's data set the real "instrumental" numbers for that period thereby hiding the decline.

This should raise eyebrows for a number of reasons ....

Lots of folks blogging on this, "Climategate U-turn as Scientist at Centre of Row Admits: There Has Been No Global Warming Since 1995":

Althouse, American Thinker, AmSpecBlog, Another Black Conservative, Betsy's Page, Bishop Hill, Blue Crab Boulevard, Confederate Yankee, The Corner, Don Surber, Doug Ross, Fausta's Blog, Gateway Pundit, GayPatriot, Hot Air, JammieWearingFool, Jules Crittenden, Macsmind, Moonbattery, No Sheeples, Ruby Slippers, Stop The ACLU, Vox Popoli, and Weasel Zippers.

Video Hat Tip: Neocon Express, "Too Much Snow? It's GW. Not Enough Snow? It's GW":

You cannot win with the 'Global Warming' crowd. Now that everyone is buried in snow, they claim 'Global Warming' causes too much snow ...

Democratic Congressional Candidates Keep Distance From Obama

From the Los Angeles Times, "Some Democrats Keep Distance From Obama":

As President Obama's approval ratings sag and the mood of voters sours, some Democratic congressional candidates are distancing themselves from the White House, with the back-channel blessing of party officials.

The candidates are positioning themselves as independent voices no less frustrated with the Obama administration than people back home.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat who represents a California Central Valley district burdened by high unemployment and home foreclosures, said in an interview: "The Obama administration has failed miserably in trying to solve the problem."

Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat who also represents California's Central Valley, blames Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for not doing enough to alleviate a drought that has hobbled farmers. Costa said his phone calls to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have gone unreturned.

"They're not listening carefully enough to the people I represent," Costa said.

Asked whether he wants the president to campaign for him, Costa said: "I'm more popular in my district than the president."

Far from discouraging an independent stance, the White House political operation and the Democratic congressional leadership are tacitly putting out word that the strategy may be a useful one, according to party campaign operatives.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview: "Our candidates need to reflect the values and priorities of their districts. And that means on some issues they'll support the Obama administration's position, and on some issues they'll oppose it."

You think?

Obviously those candidates not running away from Obama are down with the administration's crypto-Marxist agenda.

Ideal Conditions for San Bernardino Ski Resorts

That's my new friend Opus #6 skiing with her family, at Snow Summit, in the San Bernardino mountains. I can't remember the last time I went skiing up there!

And I wondered why I missed Opus at the Chuck DeVore rally!

One thing I used to tell folks about SoCal is how we used to surf in the morning, skateboard in the afternoon, and then go night skiing at the local resorts. Actually, I think I only did that once or twice (that's a lot in one day), but it makes a great tale for out-of-staters on the paradise life for us here in the Golden State!

Be sure to bookmark Opus' page as well. She's an awesome conservative mom!

See also, the San Bernardino Sun, "Ideal Conditions for SB Mountain Ski Resorts, Businesses."

Barack Obama Fighting Americans

I've been meaning to highlight Bosch Fawstin's recent artwork, for example, "BARACK OBAMA, FIGHTING AMERICAN(S)."

Good stuff from a good man. More at the link.

Obama Didn't Cut Taxes

Steve Benen and Blue Texan are attacking the tea partiers as "idiots" because they allegedly didn't know that the president "cut taxes." (Via Memeorandum.) Benen links to PolitiFact's analysis of the president's statement at the state of the union that "We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families."

But the administration has not cut taxes. It has offered "tax relief" through "tax credits" for wage earners (not the same as tax cuts). Obama, all about gimmicks, has basically been handing out tax rebates like candy while claiming he's the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But here's some analysis:

From the Wall Street Journal, discussing the Obama tax plan in October 2008: "Obama's 95% Illusion: It Depends on What the Meaning of 'Tax Cut' Is":

One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% -- which is lower than it is today.

It's a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he's also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of "tax cut."

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:

- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.

- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.

- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).

- A "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.

- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.

- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.

- A "clean car" tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.

The political left defends "refundability" on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.

Now, see also Peter Ferarra, "Tax Cut Mirage":

... the Obama tax cut package studiously avoids any reductions in tax rates anywhere. The centerpiece of the plan is a $500 per worker tax credit, estimated to cost $150 billion. The government will just borrow $150 billion from the private economy to give away in these tax credits, so there will be no net gain to the economy. Nor will there be any improved incentives to save, or invest, or start or expand a business, or hire new workers. The credit does not even provide increased incentives to work, because once the worker is over a very low income threshold of about $8,000 per year, the amount of the credit does not increase for increased work and income.

Interestingly, even the source Benen relies on, PolitiFact, highlights the fact of tax rebates, not reductions in marginal tax rates:

During the campaign, the independent Tax Policy Center researched how Obama's tax proposals would affect workers. It concluded 94.3 percent of workers would receive a tax cut under Obama's plan based on the tax credit to offset payroll taxes. According to the analysis, the people who wouldn't get a tax cut are those who make more than $250,000 for couples or $200,000 for a single person. Obama said he intended to raise taxes on those high earners, a promise he reiterated during the State of the Union, and that revenue would offset the stimulus tax cut.

And on the administration's proposed budget, the Heritage Foundation has this, "Obama's Budget Seeks $2 Trillion More in Spending and Deficits Than Last Year":

Addressing Runaway Spending by Raising Taxes

Over the last 40 years, budget deficits have averaged a sustainable 2.4 percent of GDP. Under a budget baseline that assumes current policies continue, nearly 90 percent of the expanded budget deficits by 2020 would be caused by higher spending, while just over 10 percent would be caused by lower revenues--and even that assumes the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

Yet President Obama bases nearly all of his (modest) deficit reduction on tax increases. Although no economic theory justifies raising taxes during a recession, he would impose nearly $1 trillion in tax hikes for 3.2 million upper-income families and small businesses. He would eliminate tax breaks for charitable giving and the mortgage interest deduction for millions of Americans.

But of course, brilliant Benen and brainy Blue Texan are in good company:

And I almost forgot: Obama is on the verge of repudiating his campaign pledge that he wouldn't raise taxes on the middle class (those earning less that $250,000 a year). See, "Obama's Middle-Class Tax Pledge in Question as Deficit Challenge Looms."