They found the Auschwitz Sign

For those of you like me who missed the news last night, police found the stolen sign from the entrence to the infamous Nazi death camp-turned holocaust memorial. It's bust into three bits but at least it's been recovered. Five alleged assholes have been arrested. More here. (Guardian)

The Famous Leaked Climate E-Mails

Here's George Monbiot's take. To sum up for the link-clicking averse: Those awful illegal e-mails DO expose shady scientific shenanigans--but they don't prove global warming isn't real. But they are a public relations disaster. Here's a funny joke that makes a point.

Narco and the financial woes

Frankly I don't know what's sadder: the fact that Don Narcisse was apparently scammed out of his football retirement savings (LP), that a retired BC Lions offensive lineman did more to uncover the Ponzi scheme scams at the time than the RCMP commercial crimes unit or securities inspectors in BC and Alberta (Globe and Mail), or that Narco's total pension from playing 13 years of football for the Saskatchewan Roughriders (Wikipedia) is $65,000.

Guess that's one way to silence your critics ...

I just wonder how long it's going to be until the Republicans call on Blackwater, or XE as they're now known, to overthrow the government of he United States. And what would the Pentagon do in such a crisis?

Read and watch this (The Disaffected Liberal via Countdown with Keith Olberman). And put money on the U.S. going into a civil war within 10 years.

Why am I losing respect for cops and the justice system?

Let me count the ways...

Twenty-one lousy days! And some sort of conditional suspended sentence at that? Are you friggin' serious?

If I went on this sort of a rampage, they'd be piping the sunshine in to me for many a long day, I feel quite certain of that. But apparently this asshat of a cop gets some sort of a special deal?

Let's recap, shall we?

He downs a couple dozen drinks. Commandeers a car, while lying about being a Vancouver cop. Threatens to "destroy" the driver -- who has since died, though the circumstances of that death are never explained in the article -- though based on this asshole's conduct I'm more than prepared to believe he killed the poor son of a bitch to keep him quiet.

Then he instructs the driver to take him to another nightclub, where he meets two other cops -- one of which is a "use of force" instructor at the local police academy, for the love of friggin' Mike.

Too drunk to control himself, he gets into a fight with a hapless friggin' newspaper seller that doesn't snap to quite quickly enough for this little nascent brownshirt -- so he and said instructor assault the newsie so savagely his doctor still won't clear him to drive months later? An assault, I should add, that a number of bystanders said was racially motivated?

And when the real on duty police show up, what do these three pricks do? Try to pin it on the victim, naturally.

Thus confirming what I've always known. That when it's called a police state, it's NEVER a good thing. Why didn't they just taser him already? Dead men don't talk, after all.

These pricks should remember that their ability to police ALWAYS depends on their perceived legitimacy.

The second the citizens they're purporting to defend start to believe they're just being preyed on... well, then it's a whole new violent bloody mess of a ball game.

After all, when they kick out your front door, how you gonna go? With your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun?

Don't worry, Colin. They've got your back

Governments have an interesting way to deal with the proceeds of crime. For example. prostitution -- the act of having sex with someone in exchange for money -- isn't illegal, but spending money earned through prostitution is illegal. And when police arrest and courts convict drug dealers, the proceeds of their crimes are impounded -- their money and goods are forfeited to the state.

But when someone murders his ex-wife the day after getting turfed from cabinet and the day before the first payment in what was then Saskatchewan's largest divorce settlement ... then writes a book about it, that's different, right? Especially if he's got friends in the right places. (CBC Saskatchewan)