I wish I had a blog as good as Becky's

Every day Just a Girl in Short Shorts is one of my first stops. I really don't want you to get into that habit, because then you wouldn't have to come here. [My only advantage is that I'm more prolific; that doesn't offset the difference in clarity of thought, depth of research, or just pure writing ability.]

There are three recent posts you have to check out.

Paris Needn't Fear Joe Arpaio takes on the down-home Southwestern sheriff who has become famous for the pink uniforms and the bologna sandwiches in his jail. Leave it to Becky to discover--as in the case of the tragic death of fifteen-year-old Felicia Edwards who died in a car accident that all evidence suggests was the fault of seventeen-year-old Laura Varker, a drunk driver who had used a fake ID to buy Coors, and who hit the van driven by a black postman making a legal U-turn.

Here's Becky at her best:

If you are thinking Sheriff Joe has young Laura in pink underwear and horizontal stripes, you be wrong.

No, the underage white girl was posing in her bikini on MySpace, until this lapse in good taste was pointed out by a Phoenix newspaper.

Bryant Wilkerson is facing twenty-one years in state prison, and only recently was able to post bail after eating Joe Arpaio's green mystery meat in the tent city jail for three months.

Even after blood tests showed that Miss Varker was legally drunk, and even after sheriff deputies learned that it was she and another girl who'd flashed a fake ID and bought beer for the group, Varker hasn't been charged with anything.

Not underage drinking.

Not drunk driving.

Not being a colossal waste of oxygen.

And certainly not manslaughter.

In all fairness, Bryant Wilkerson should take the hit for freaking out and fleeing the accident scene.

But, wouldn't it be nice if the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office did something about the underage drunk white girl, who used Daddy's SUV to kill her friend?

Then there's Becky's take on John McCain's Bullshit Express, which can be summarized by the cartoon she chose to run with the piece. The real barb, however, comes at the end when Becky discussed Ann Coulter's now-infamous endorsement of Hillary Clinton over McCain:

Even though partnering up those two bitches will set the women's rights movement back fifty years.

Finally, saving the best for last, there's Nanny State Bake Sale, which has to read to be appreciated. Here's my teaser from the end:

Coming out of the People's Republic of Massachusetts, I was naively looking forward to a government that did not pick the last dime out of my pocket, and treat me like a child. But, even though Arizona is as Red as Massachusetts is Blue, it is not any better--in fact in many ways its worse.

The Democrats have always been this way. But when did these big spending, tee totaling priggish food fascists take over the Republican Party?

Sadly, in Arizona, and everywhere else, more and more laws are being passed to "protect" us…from…us. Roadblocks, checkpoints and random stops are now de rigueur here in the land of the free. Kinda reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

And that comparison is not over the top. One of the first wars against the ravages of tobacco was waged by the Third Reich. Nazi Youth manuals proclaimed that "nutrition is not a private matter!"

But in America we are fast forgetting what freedom means. I guess a lot of people want the government "experts" to take care of us--since we are all so stupid and helpless.

Its too bad-- for liberty is found in the small joys of life

But we don't care. Just like everyone thinks Ben Franklin was quite antiquated and quaint in pointing out the danger of giving up a little liberty for a wee bit of security, no one cares what Alex de Tocqueville had to say about freedom:

"It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones."

I want to know when the Libertarians will run somebody as savvy and sharp-witted as Becky for office.

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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