Some policemen have no sense of humor

http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/29/news/wyoming/26-ifyouwannaride.txt

They're taking all the fun out of life.

Meanwhile, is this a great country or what? The other day Bank of America offered me a loan at zero interest until next January. Most of these sorts of offers have a semi-hidden transaction charge of 3%, but this one had a maximum transaction charge of $75 so I naturally called them and snarfed up on the maximum amount they were eager to give me.

There was one catch though. The fussy bankers wouldn't let me use the attached check to pay off the 2.99 percent loan that they so graciously gave me last January. But they had no problem with sending the cash to my checking account. And they have no problem with me paying off last year's loan from that checking account. Because they've been so nice I may put the remainder in a nice safe 4% CD with Bank of America and make a few hundred bucks on their money. That's some small change I can certainly believe in. You'll never catch me saying that those TARP funds the government has been showering on the banks aren't going to good causes.

I'm sure Bank of America is very wise and prudent in it's lending practices, so I didn't feel it necessary to mention to the nice woman on the phone that rising unemployment levels have a pretty negative effect on the job market for corporate recruiters like me. I'm hoping that next January they'll actually pay me interest to take a new loan to pay off this one.

Disclaimer - Don't do this at home unless you are very reliable in opening your mail and paying bills on time. Nice bankers like those at Bank of America get very nasty very quickly if you miss a credit card payment.

You say that I may get in trouble kiting credit lines like this. There's an old, old story that's relevant.

Once upon a time a new prisoner was sent to the death row section of a Sultan's prison. The other prisoners, who were pretty negative about their situation, noticed that this new fellow was as optimistic as could be.

"You're doomed just like us," the other prisoners said, "so why are you so cheerful?"

"Because I made a deal with the Sultan," he said, "I got him to agree to grant me a pardon if I can do him a little service by this time next year."

"What service can you possibly do him," they asked.

"I agreed to teach his horse to sing," he replied, and that explained to them why every day this new prisoner spent an hour in the courtyard of the prison talking and singing to the horse.

"But you're never going to be able to teach that horse to sing," one of the very negative prisoners said, "it's hopeless."

"Ah, but it isn't hopeless," said the man, "for many things can happen in a year."

"What sort of things," they asked.

"Well, for one thing, I might die sometime during this next year;" he said, "and for another thing the Sultan might die, or he might get a new concubine who will brighten his mood and cause him to issue pardons; and who knows, maybe the horse actually will learn to sing."

Where has common sense gone?

The fact that we here in the U.S. haven't suffered a major terrorist attack since the two muslim snipers killed a bunch of people down in Virginia in 2003 or so has made us all complacent. The post at the link below by Andy McCarthy of National Review is a good reminder that our law enforcement system and our immigration system are run by complete imbeciles. This story has flown under the radar of the big media because it doesn't fit their worldview that all is sweetness and light.

Republicans don't want to publicize it because the idiots in law enforcement and immigration have been working under the orders of President Bush for the last eight years while this cancer has been metasticizing across our country. The Democrats don't want to publicize it because a small but significant wing of their party is composed of outright terrorist and their sympathizers, and another larger wing is composed of people who approve of anything that harms this country. There - I think that's a nicely balanced nonpartisan paragraph.

This is what things have come to. The FBI apparently helped out by flying the shreds and tatters of a muslim suicide bomber to Minnesota so he could be buried "at home." Part of me understands that the feebies are just making nice in the hope of developing sources of information in the muslim community there; since there are 20 young men missing from that community who are almost surely overseas plotting massacres or being trained to carry out massacres. But I can't help but think that the "good cop" routine isn't the most effective way to react to the situation.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDE1ZGQ1MzdiY2NhMTdhYWJlZmM2MTU0OWJhNjg0NWU=

I have a couple of thoughts about this that are somewhat politically incorrect.

1. The FBI should have carefully and respectfully investigated everything about the immigration status of the members of his family, his mosque and the community the suicide bomber came from with an eye toward enforcing every single wrinkle of immigration law, no matter how much it cost or how long it took.

2. Then they should have started as big a task force of lawyers as necessary working to deport every non-citizen in the above groups who had ever been found guilty of so much as a traffic violation or made so much as a mistake with a comma on his or her immigration papers.

If the above course had been followed muslim parents and teachers all over the country and all over the world would right now be explaining to the young people in their communities that it's alright to hate this country, but not wise to attack this country. Also, and this is just as important, there would no doubt arise a big and noisy contingent of lawyers and activists and such to fight the program, and a bunch of judges would no doubt issue rulings impeding the program. The list of such folks would be very useful to publicize the next time there is a big terrorist attack in this country, as there will be.