Munich Motel Sign: "Heisenberg Might Have Slept Here"

Any closeted fan of junky extreme TV science like SpikeTV's Deadliest Warrior (Tonight: who would win in a real-life fight between a 1st-Century Gallic Warrior and a tweeked Aerosmith roadie with nunchucks?!?) or ESPN's Sport Science (As this graph shows, the centripetal force of LeBron's dunk could literally kill a vampire!) will appreciate this cartoon from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (Click to enlarge.):

Changing Hearts and Losing My Mind, Volume 2

[Catch up with Volume 1 here.]

Election finance is a minefield. My campaign fund-raising sources consisted entirely of people who had once tussled my hair and/or used their thumb to wipe chocolate from my face, and I still narrowly escaped a $5000 fine for late paperwork -- the third consecutive required pre-primary finance report showing that I still had an operating budget of $0 for the primary election in which I had no opponent.

So I welcomed the navigational assistance of a sitting City Councilman, even after it became abundantly clear that he was certifiably insane.

A is A

Dear Radley Balko,

First off: huge fan. In a world of stenographers, you remain a journalist; and without journalists, the Republic falls.

Having said that, I take issue with the issue you've taken over the use of the word "looting" in the aftermath of Chile's massive earthquake Saturday. You say, instead, these people are simply "surviving", as long as what they purloin consists of food, water, and clothing. Lifting iPods would be another story, you concede.

Two points of contention, one semantic and one ethical: First, whether the storefront is open, vacant, abandoned, or not, that storefront and the goods within -- Evian and iPods alike -- have a rightful owner. I would hope that the owner gives his absentee blessing to those who steal his property as an alternative to dying -- and shame on him if he does not -- but that decision is his. If he were standing there, present and defiant, as people disregarded his rights and confiscated his goods, what else would be dismissed as "survival"? Trespassing? Assault? Murder? And if he were to defend himself with lethal force, which one then is the "survivor"?

Which brings me to the semantics. A lie is a lie, even if it eases someone's pain. Speeding, in a legal sense, is still speeding even if you're trying to escape a pursuing Decepticon. How individuals (and the state) choose to react to others' actions can -- and should -- vary based on circumstances, but to redefine those actions as not only moral, but also beyond reproach is a step too far, especially in such a broad sense where individual motives are indiscernible.

I would steal to keep from starving. It doesn't make me less of a thief.

(Image via NY Daily News.)

Brother-in-Law Links™

• Canada is now the world's number-one importer of American-style paranoia.
  
  
• It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a... OK, frankly, it's a dick.
  
  
• Seven-year-old child looks on as police officers forcibly enter home, fire seven rounds into his two dogs (including a corgi), and confiscate a misdemeanor amount of pot from Mom and Dad. Now guess which characters in this story are charged with child endangerment?
  
  
• Nothing more after the link, but check out this survey from a 1970 issue of Detective Comics:
  
  
  

If Only We Could Identify the Addictive Chemical Which Makes Me Crave it Fortnightly

My position as a massively influential member of the media is not a mantle I bear lightly. With a keystroke, I could release the obsequious ScotticusFinch horde and likely topple even the most stubborn of institutions, yet I am tempered by perspective. No failing bank, no Haitian earthquake, and no case of kitsch larceny had yet been dire enough for me to fully wield the awesome power of my pulpit.

But that threshold has been breached. Friends, there is a chicken-wing shortage in America.

According to USA Today, skyrocketing demand for the ambrosial avian appendages fueled a 39% increase in the wholesale price of wings over last year.

The primary factor driving up wing prices is the growing number of restaurants, including many national chains, that are adding wings to their offerings, says Richard Lobb, spokesman for the Washington-based chicken industry trade group the National Chicken Council.

(On a side note, the National Chicken Council once mistakenly booked the same convention space as the American Egg Board, and the two groups spent six weeks trying to decide who should go first.)

Lobb says it's not a matter of simply raising more chickens. The nation's chicken producers turned out 9 billion birds in 2009, he says. Other than for wings, the recession has slowed demand, and the overall price for chicken has been soft. "As expensive as wings are, they cannot carry the entire bird," he says.

How true, both ornithologically and metaphorically. The problem is vexing. While I'm pheasantly pleased (Man, I'm on a roll!) to be able to grab a box of mediocre wings from every Rally's, Little Caesars, and KFC, I also have to face the reality that 20¢ Wing Night at Buffalo Wild Wings is as likely to make a comeback as Rod Blagojevich.

Ken Moran, owner of Rochester, NY's "Jeremiah's Tavern", remembers the halcyon days of cheap chicken:

"Chicken wings once were so cheap. ...It was an attempt to use all the parts of the bird. Now it's reversed. They've gotten pretty crazy in terms of popularity."

Most of you have probably already noticed the end-around that restaurants have been running:

To offset wing prices, numerous restaurants are adding "boneless chicken wings" made of breast meat, he says.

"The boneless wing is a much higher profit margin and it also attracts a lot more people who don't care to eat things on bones," he says.

"Boneless wings". Ever heard a boat salesman say he has a great deal on "wheel-less cars", or a paper company selling reams of "wordless books"? Still, if it lowers the price of my delicious dark-meat treats (Can I say that?), then KFC can call its spicy breast chunks whatever it wants. Until they start taxing napkins, I'll be at the bar.

(See the unparalleled scene that inspired the headline here.)

At One Point in Time, in Our Very Own Universe, Kanye West Did Something that Wasn't Totally Douche-y

Alex Leo at the Huffington Post interviewed "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about their thirteen years of being the funniest, most non-partisan satirists in America.

When asked about the varying perceptions about the show being either "conservative" or "liberal" in its messages, Parker responds:

"I look at it like this," Trey added. "I have a cat, I love my cat and it's like someone coming in and saying, 'Hey, is that cat a Republican or a Democrat?' He's my f---ing cat, leave him alone."

Over the years, Parker and Stone have been particularly aggressive (and most hilarious) when it comes to their jabs at the Hollywood community, but that focus has created a false perception in come circles that the duo fancy themselves as GOP-ers. Absolutely untrue, they say:

"Ripping on Republicans is not that fun for us only because everyone else does it," Matt explained. "It's so much more fun for us to rip on liberals only because nobody else does it..."

..."There's something uniquely aggravating about the smugness of liberal Hollywood," Matt said. "You have to laugh at Alec Baldwin when he gets political. You have to. He is an amazing actor, he may even be a great guy, but that shit is funny. Sean Penn getting on TV on CNN and talking about politics, Sean Penn running around Katrina and Haiti that is funny. That's all. That's f---ing funny. And we're going to make fun of you, Sean Penn."

Leo then asked which celebrity had the "craziest reaction out of any they mocked".

"Well the craziest was probably Kanye [West] last year. We thought we would be more like 'Holy shit should I get a body guard? Should I get a gun?' and instead the next day he wrote in all caps 'YEAH YOU GUYS ARE RIGHT. I'M SORRY,'" Matt said in wonder.

"We were like 'Dude, what?' and for the first time it made us feel bad. If Sean Penn is like, 'Hey what do they think they're doing,'" Trey said in a voice halfway between Cartman and Penn, "We're just like, 'Hey dude, f--k you.' But for someone to actually say, 'Yeah it really hurt my feelings and I really should look at myself,' it's kind of like punching the kid and then he just sits there and cries."

Don't beat yourself up too much, fellas. If there's ever been a kid who desperately needs a punch to the gut, it's Kanye. A guide to the episode here.

Changing Hearts and Losing My Mind, Volume 1

Years ago, I ran for City Council in my hometown. There was no primary challenger, so had I won the election, I would have represented roughly 35,000 constituents. [SPOILER ALERT] I lost. But before the last of the dimpled chads had even been scrutinized, thousands upon thousands of you began filling my inbox, begging me to recount my tales from the campaign trail.^{[citation needed]}

That din of adulation can no longer be ignored.

With an operating budget that would dwarf the average garage sale, my most effective commodity was shoe-leather, which is unfortunate because I am naturally very lazy. Plus, I don't particularly like people. One example why:

On a sunny Wednesday evening in October, I eked a hesitating path toward a beige-ish one-story on a dead-end street -- one more of a hundred houses I'd approached since five o'clock. An elaborate zigzag of a homemade redwood wheelchair ramp consumed the grassless front yard on its way to an unhinged aluminum screen door, and the roof over the front stoop sloped under the weight of a large dead tree limb that certainly hadn't dropped there recently. Standing there in the yard, propped against one corner of the ramp, a messy-looking fellow dragged deeply from a filterless cigarette, then stared daggers into me as he exhaled through his nose like an angry cartoon bull.

"Evenin'," I said, in my most condescending faux-folksy drawl.

Smoking Bull tugged his lips in over his dentureless gums, then spit heartily onto his own shoe. "Shit," he said, before scraping at the spot with the sole of his other foot. The shift in weight distribution wrecked his entire world, evidently, since he immediately flailed his arms and grabbed at the railing to keep from falling backward. By the time he'd re-situated and located my face again, I had a pretty good idea of just how drunk he was.

"I'm running for the City Council this year," I plowed on despite the fact that his entire head had acquired a slow sway, and one eyebrow seemed to be stuck in the 'surprised' position, "and I'd like to know if you've decided who you're going to vote for." (Insert thousand-watt insincere smile here.)

"She's a sonuvabitch...," Bull managed. Despite the odd gender confusion, I assumed he was talking about the incumbent, which was promising for me. "She voted for the... the smoking bans."

"That's true. Now if I'm elected, one of the things I'd like to--"

"She passed the smoking bans and we didn't get trash picked up like... like she promised." Bull drew his sleeve mightily across his nose, then gestured with his cigarette. At this point I could no longer determine if he knew I was still there. "Branches from... branches from the... sat out on the curb for a month."

"You mean after the big storm last summer?" I asked, but I might as well have invited the wheelchair ramp to prom. Bull -- more Wild Turkey than man -- was having a conversation to which no other human being had been invited.

"And I called... Mom called and all she... She didn't even return the call." After two or three attempts, Bull's cigarette found his lips. Drawing again, his limbs seemed to settle a bit around him as each toxin fought for dominance.

I sensed my opportunity, and pounced. "So then I guess I can count on your vote in November?" (And yes, the question feels just as desperate the thousandth time as it did the first.)

Bull seemed to notice me again. Then, somewhere in his mind, swizzled as it was with sour mash and nicotine, he dug deep and drew upon a faith more stalwart than any religion: party loyalty.

"I'm voting for her... same as I did the last two times," he told me. "She's the Democrat."

And that was that.

Part-Time Athletes of the Northern Hemisphere, Unite!

[UPDATE added below]

The casual observer might have thought that everything that can be done while skiing is already an Olympic sport. Fast skiing, slow skiing, drunken skiing, weird Princess-Toadstool-from-Super-Mario-Bros-2 levitation-trick skiing, "Look-Ma!" skiing, Nordic thug life skiing -- it's all there. But somehow, somewhere between "What if we shoot rifles on skis?!" and "What if we ski on flat terrain for hours?!", no one ever thought -- until Vancouver 2010 -- "What if we race?"

And thus Ski Cross was born.

Skicross [sic?] pits four racers through a course of banked turns and washboard jumps that lends itself to close contact.

"That gives you eight poles, 12 edges, and guys are racing down a course with huge jumps up to 100 feet through the air," said Errol Kerr, a New Yorker who competed for Jamaica.

Granted, those three numbers that Kerr emphatically tossed out mean nothing to me, but I've never been anywhere with eight poles and not enjoyed myself. (See what I did there?)

Honestly, I find almost nothing about the games compelling, but the top-notch (and never-ending) network coverage with all our favorite faces could make a darning convention seem interesting, so I've watched more of these Olympics than I could possibly explain away with a just-out-of-reach remote. It's like Tool Academy is suddenly being hosted by President Clinton, or Bruce Willis is starring in a Kevin Smith "film".

It also doesn't hurt that the US is making a surprisingly good showing, or that our National Snow Bunny reminds us that Michael Phelps looked like a homeless meth addict from the neck up. Now if only we could go back to the days when the Olympic Games provided a stage for a proxy war in place of soldiers on the ground. Unfortunately, I don't see the Afghan Olympic Team giving us a Miracle on Ice opportunity any time soon.

UPDATE: In light of the hoopla surrounding the US ice-hockey team's win over Canada yesterday, I find it necessary to quote a Facebook status update:

"Miracle on Ice 1980" is to "US v CAN 2010" as "Gandalf" is to "Judge Harry T Stone".

"Fireflies" by Owl City is a Terrible, Terrible, Terrible Song

There's a lot of downtime as a super-powered crimefighter. To help ease the boredom of sitting around in a secret underground lair waiting for evil to rear its head, I had satellite radio installed, and the team settled democratically on the "Top-40 Hits" station.

Now, at least four times a day, I am subjected to "Fireflies" by Owl City. To complement the grating, ubiquitous robot voice that's now overused by everyone from Cher to Ke$ha to T-Pain, "Fireflies" employs some of the most pedantic, saccharine lyrics since Raffi rowed a boat. Masticate, if you dare:

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep

'Cause they'd fill the open air
And leave teardrops everywhere
You'd think me rude
But I would just stand and stare

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
'Cause everything is never as it seems

[The song breaks for a moment here to allow the listener to empty his vomit bucket and replace the liner.]

'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance

A foxtrot above my head
A sock hop beneath my bed
A disco ball is just hanging by a thread

Sheesh. Singer / "songwriter" Adam Young says he was "inspired" to "write" the "lyrics" while camping. He saw a bunch of bugs and "After that night, it got me thinking", he said. So a swarm of bugs got you thinking about writing a song about a swarm of bugs? That's deep, man.

As a public service, I offer the following palate-cleanser:

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, ploughmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth"

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

From Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". What are your favorite / least-favorite lyrics? Share with the class in the comments section.

I Don't Think All "People" Are Idiots, But All "Homo Sapiens" Are

Thankfully, President Obama is attempting to follow through on his 2008 campaign promise to repeal the ridiculous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy regarding gays serving in the US military.

Despite the fact that DADT is a Bill Clinton political brainchild from the go-along-to-get-along days of the early 1990s, the push to scrap it has mostly come from the political left, whose insistence that all homosexuals aren't necessarily shaved Chupacabra brings some sanity to one of America's fiercest debates.

Or at least that's what I thought. Turns out, though, that liberals are just as irrational as conservatives when it comes to Adam and Steve sharing a foxhole. Look upon these poll numbers and weep:

79% of Democrats support allowing gay men and women to serve openly.
43% of Democrats support allowing homosexuals to serve openly.

That is not a typo. I checked.

Sixty years after the Mattachine Society, forty-one years after the Stonewall Inn raid, thirty-three years after Anita Bryant, and seven years after Lawrence v Texas, there is a thirty-six percentage-point difference in what employment liberals think "homosexuals" should be allowed to pursue versus "gays".

Whence comes the discrepancy? We can speculate that the term "gay" elicits a much friendlier (literally) image than the taxonomic "homosexual", but doing so insinuates such an immense level of epidemic puerility that even my epic misanthropy won't abide it. In order to prevent the impending voluntary collision between my head and the nearest brick wall, I'm going with "transcription error" and calling it a day.

Shape up, folks. If anyone wants to start his own army that won't allow gays, or blacks, or Jews, or even homosexuals (!) to serve, then I'll help him pick out snazzy uniforms. The right to set up whatever backward, bigoted clubhouse that revs your engine is inviolate, but the United States Armed Forces -- a public institution -- has no more right to bar qualified homosexuals than they have to bar Catholics or Jersey Shore fans.

And that, Alanis, is Irony

I didn't watch the Super Bowl. I have a rare genetic aversion to post-season NFL games called "being a Kansas City Chiefs fan". Plus, there are precious few diversions in life to which I'm willing to commit four straight hours, and staring at a glowing box isn't one of them.

Thankfully, the unshaved girl-power dames over at Jezebel had nothing better to do. Watch with glee as they complain about commercials that portray women as complainers.

A couple choice quotes ([sic]s abound):

Amazing how there is no personal responsibility from the male characters in these commercials "being told what to do" maybe if men paid rapt attention when we were speaking or showed some leadership as the men of the house they wouldn't have to be marketed to as such passive aggressive, irresponsible babies.

And:

Yeah, asshole. You deserve a big, gas-sucking car for DOING SHIT YOU SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING. It's called being a grow up! You think women don't have endless boring work meetings or that maybe birthing that kid was super fun?

Hat tip to the tireless SugarFree.

Brother-in-Law Links™

• Trippy theories on some classic films, and one on... Radio Flyer?
  
  
• I've always preferred the term "'That Guy' Pics" to "Photobombs", but I still tip my hat to the special appearance by Osama bin Laden.
  
  
• You think the guy sitting alone at the corner table of the regular strip club is creepy? Just wait 'til you see the winners at the Star Wars-themed strip club.
  
  
• Farmer has sex with a horse while his buddy records it, then dies from massive internal injuries. Just another day in WAVE Country.

Hat tip to Darrell for marrying my sister.

Will Google Actually Deliver my Earnings in Canvas Bags Stamped with Dollar Signs?

[UPDATE added below]

Curiosity has overcome me. Today I signed up for Google's AdSense program, which will post ads on ScotticusFinch based on content. I simply must know what Google's automated server squirrels will come up with.

Will my general malaise trigger ads for posh Miami depression-treatment clinics? Will a foaming conniption about the Deflector-in-Chief lead to a pitch for Dreams from My Father? Or will every day simply be a rotating parade of ads for Guatemalan Viagra, low-interest ARMs, and mail-order brides? Stay tuned.

I'm also instructed not to actively encourage you to click on the ads (which should start appearing in about 48 hours). So don't. Or whatever. It's not like I pay my interns anyway.

UPDATE: Day one -- all lawyer ads. Could Google be foreshadowing a police confrontation in my future?

How to Win Friends and Influence Peasants

Check out this fascinating collection of North Korean propaganda art.

Seldom seen by the outside world, North Korea's propaganda art colors the cities and countryside with vibrant images of brave soldiers, happy and well-fed peasants, and a heroic and compassionate leader.

You think Coca-Cola ads get inside your head? Imagine living every day within a totalitarian state ruled by a fighter-plane-flyin', 38-under-par-golfin', opera-writin' despot.


The Korean text reads: "Do not forget the US imperialist wolves!"

Copenhagen Special: Two Nights for the Price of Six

CBS News has a story on the just-released Congressional Expense Report (pdf) from the Copenhagen Climate Summit in Denmark that illustrates the clueless, obtuse attitude among our very own ruling class.

First, the costs:

For 15 Democratic and 6 Republican Congressmen, food and rooms for two nights cost $4,406 tax dollars each. That's $2,200 a day...

Total hotel, meeting rooms and "a couple" of $1,000-a-night hospitality suites topped $400,000.

Flights weren't cheap, either. Fifty-nine House and Senate staff flew commercial during the Copenhagen rush. They paid government rates -- $5-10,000 each -- totaling $408,064. Add three military jets -- $168,351 just for flight time -- and the bill tops $1.1 million dollars -- not including all the Obama administration officials who attended: well over 60.

I know, I know. Stop the presses; government is wasting money. But look at the reactions to reporters' questions about the excessive expenditures:

Last week, we asked [Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.,] about the $2,200-a-day bill for room and food.

"I can't believe that," Rep. Waxman said. "I can't believe it, but I don't know."

Waxman thinks CBS News is making shit up again, I suppose, despite the fact that his name is right there on the report. And how about House Speaker and stalwart swamp-drainer Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.:

The group expense report was filed by [Pelosi]. She wouldn't talk about it when our producer tried to ask.

The "Run away!" approach. Nice. I'll try that tack next time Mrs Finch asks me about fishy charges on the MasterCard. But, in fairness, it's not as if our representatives wanted to pay such high prices:

Pelosi's office did offer an explanation for the high room charges. Those who stayed just two nights were charged a six-night minimum at the five-star Marriott. One staffer said they strongly objected to no avail.

See? They strongly objected. So, in summation, the folks we sent -- at a cost of more than a million dollars -- to negotiate a global climate treaty between 194 nations was hoodwinked and pig-ironed by the cast of Fawlty Towers.

Well done, America.

This is Madness!

Many before me had the idea, but this was my Friday art project:



If it's still there on my way out today, I may have to swipe it for casa de Finch.

Decimating Diversity

As a member of a cushy ethno-socioeconomic majority, my capacity to empathize with the deep, victorious feeling of pride that Barack Obama's election must have elicited among many blacks is limited. Given the tumultuous year that followed, though, how is this possible:



Over the time period covered by the poll, Obama's approval is down among Republicans (unsurprisingly) by 24 percentage points. Among Independents, his approval is down 18 points. Among young people: down 13. The elderly, females, Midwesterners, college graduates, married people -- Obama's approval is down at least 16 percentage points in each group. In fact, the President's approval rating is down in every single category Gallup looked at, including liberals and Democrats.

Except among blacks. Though it is within the poll's margin of error, Obama's approval actually increased among blacks between February and November, maintaining an average of 93% approval for the year.

In the entire scope of politics, religion, philosophy -- or toothpaste preference for that matter -- where would anyone expect concurrence exceeding nine out of ten? In a separate poll about abortion by the same polling company, only 52% of respondents categorized themselves as "pro-life" when the question was asked exclusively to Catholics. To put it in another context, the percentage of blacks who disapprove of Obama as President is identical to the percentage of people who ranked car salesmen as "very high/high" in honesty and ethics, and the same percentage of self-identified Christians who say they don't believe in God.

A generations-long (and continuing) struggle for equal opportunity has got to make it difficult to admit you backed a turkey, but blindly supporting a President because he looks like you is every bit as dangerous as blindly opposing him just because he doesn't. Not all of Obama's support is blind, obviously, but approval approaching unanimity in one group simultaneous with near-universal disappointment outside that group displays a disturbing lack of ideological diversity.

The Man Who Would be Blog King

Jim Treacher (né Sean Medlock) has created my new favoritest blog on the Internets. The DC Trawler is Treacher's blog within Tucker Carlson's new breaking-news and analysis site, The Daily Caller, which was itself admittedly conceived as a right-libertarian version of The Huffington Post. (Got all that?)

Treacher's posts read like some of the very best of Dave Barry over the years, updated with Internet-age (read: delightfully obscure) cultural references and vicious self-deprecation.

From Thursday's post:

[Reason Magazine editor-in-chief Matt Welch] was nice enough to invite me to a Reason event or get-together or whatever the smart people call it. It was for a very important book, the title of which I did not think to ask. I went and had a couple of beers and met some people. ...

Also, their offices look like CTU.

I guess that’s all I had on that one. Quite a build-up for nothing. Well, I’ve already typed this out, so I might as well post it. I really have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m glad the fine folks at Reason are doing what they’re doing: giving me free beer. I did tip the bartender a buck a beer, because I’m not some sort of fascist.

The team of semi-talented ScotticusFinch interns added The DC Trawler to the blog list in the left sidebar, so check it out from time to time.

"Downhill" Policing Trend in the UK

The sarcasm is on the shelf. The snark is switched to "off". This is good policing:

Some British bobbies have been reprimanded after they used their riot shields as makeshift sleds during the country’s cold snap.

A passer-by filmed the bobbies goofing around on a snowy hill in Oxford and posted the clip on YouTube. It shows a policeman barreling downhill while another shouts, “Whatever happens, keep smiling!”

Rick Latham, who filmed the scene on Tuesday, said he was pleasantly surprised by the officers’ actions. He thought they were going to scold him for trying to slide down the hill in a kayak.

Still don't believe I'm being earnest in my praise? I am. Consider the American plainclothes officer who recently felt it necessary to pull out his gun in response to a snowball fight*, and tell me which kind of officer would make you feel safer in your neighborhood.

Violent crime rates are way down, and policework is no longer triage. Effective police must be part of the communities they serve, and it wouldn't hurt to be trusted, respected, and liked by their fellow citizens. (A good start would be to stop bragging about how much they enjoy beating people up.) There is something undeniably heartening about a policeman taking five minutes to have some fun with a member of his community, especially when the tool he uses is the same one designed to facilitate domestic warfare. It is strikingly reminiscent of Flower Power, even if it was entirely unintentional.

Sure, this isn't Norman Rockwell's America. But it also isn't J Edgar Hoover's. Cheers to the Thames Valley Police.

Watch the bobsledding bobbies here.

*The snowball fight participants were punks itching for a fight, which is why I didn't blog in their defense.

In Communist Russia, TSA Plays with You!

Presenting the Playmobil Security Checkpoint:As Christmas 2009 came and went, I often lamented the fact that I couldn't find an appropriate toy to help me illustrate the realities of the police state to baby Wyatt. Granted, the happy little Playmobil traveler is unable to remove his shoes, open his bag, or relinquish his fingernail clippers -- which is misleading -- but the basics are covered.

Assuming the tiny plastic globetrotter didn't refuse to disclose his salary, attempt to carry on boomerangs, request to actually watch the screener rifle through his belongings, dare to carry cash, or consort with suspicious eight-year-olds, he will make his flight just fine.

Rumor has it a Playmobil S.W.A.T. No-Knock Raid playset is in the works, complete with a terrorized old woman, dead dogs, and a County Executive who thinks everyone involved deserves a pat on the back.