Gun's Role Made Story Much Uglier

When David Ludwig went to speak with the Bordens Sunday morning, he carried a gun. He brought it from home.

In Lancaster County, as in much of the midstate, a kid's as likely to find a gun as a quart of milk.

To me, that's the problem.

Well, we all knew this was bound to happen. It was the gun's fault. And not just one gun--there were 54 of them!

When it comes to being an authority on what's "uglier," I guess I'm just gonna have to defer to Nancy Eshelman.

Alcohol, Guns Shouldn't Mix...

...unless it's at an FBI range and they're partying with pro football players.

Before the players left the barbecue, a fight broke out between Bears center Olin Kreutz and offensive tackle Fred Miller, who broke his jaw. At the same time, Miller allegedly slugged Kreutz with a 5-pound weight, which required Kreutz to get 13 stitches in his head.

Conveniently, another account says the Bureau has opened an "internal investigation," meaning it is in full damage control mode and any information meted out to the press will be carefully crafted and spun.

Far be it for a lowly tax slave to question what benefit We the People receive from barbecues with celebrities--it looks like the cover was giving the team terrorist training--and we all know that can't be done without ribs and beer.

It also looks like the first accounting of the story to the media was a lie. And it looks like the lie was "concocted" to protect the agent who "volunteers" with the team (and just happens to get sideline game access and who knows what other exclusive access privileges?).

The true point of the story: If anyone aside from law enforcement and the connected elite was involved in this, people would be in jail right now.

"No Offence"

The Minister for Defence, Willie O'Dea, has said he did not intend to offend anyone by pointing a gun at a camera and smiling for the media while posing for photographs yesterday.

I'd say this definitely qualifies for Xavier's "Idiots With Guns" series...

[Photo via The Irish Times, used here under Fair Use doctrine]

Build a Man a Fire...

...and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life--Terry Pratchett

A leading Brazilian environmental campaigner has died after setting himself on fire to protest against the construction of an alcohol plant in the fragile Pantanal marsh region.

Didn't he realize all those greenhouse gases would contribute to global warming?

Let's hope the Wisconsin Green Party notes the effectiveness of this protest technique and employs it widely in their quest to amend budgets "to cover capital costs of [the] 'concealed carry' bill."

Stop the Senseless Police Killings

LESS than two weeks after the killing of five civilians, including two school children in Kisumu, our policemen last Friday turned their guns on yet another rally crowd in Mombasa killing four people.

The common thread that runs through these twin tragedies is that those tasked with protection of Kenyans had cynically turned out to be their executioners.

If there's one thing we've learned from New Orleans, it's that our police obey the law and protect us, and this could never happen here.