Alright, so it's not actually a trend, but I thought these two examples--one from Quebec, the other from Sweden--are proof that our world and its governments continue to defy reductio ad absurdum criticism.

1) A school in Sweden is being taken to court because it confiscated a boy's invitations to his birthday party. He violated a school policy that children who pass out invitations in school must invite all of their classmates to a party, or they may not invite anyone at all. (Unfortunately, this policy is common in the United States, as well.) The boy's father complained to the local Parliamentary Ombudsman. The BBC reports:

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.

The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.

Is it our right to be invited to our classmates' birthday parties if they hand out invitations at school? Is this really the ground on which egalitarians want to fight their battles?

2) A judge in Quebec "quashed" a father's decision to ground his 12 year-old daughter from a school trip, arguing that the girl had "already been sufficiently disciplined" through prior punishments, such as denying her internet access after she posted pictures on a dating website.

It seems that the reason courts have jurisdiction is because the parents--who are seperated--disagree about a proper punishment. I am...speechless.

I think all of us can agree that Obama's fanbase (and it is a fanbase, he's a rockstar) are pretty intensely devoted to him. From declaring him their savior to changing (ha) their facebook pictures to pop art renditions of his face, Obamaiacs are at best devoted, at worst obsessive. Now, there comes a new phenomenon that might be jumping the political shark. Recently, there have been an surge in name changes on Facebook with Obamaiacs changing their middle name to Hussein, in a move of solidarity with the Senator. I would say that this is just like "Save Darfur" and will fade away in a few months, but I fear that once he is elected this will explode into the largest statement of trendy, hollow, self-centered activism ever.

For those of you who do not know, I am a huge Batman fan, and a big superhero nerd in general. So of course when one of my favorite directors, Chris Nolan, resurrected the Batman series with the amazing Batman Begins I knew that it was the started of the, quite possibly the best superhero franchise in history. With the sequel The Dark Knight coming out July 17th, there has been a massive and extremely intricate viral internet marketing campaign going on for the movie. Here are just a few of websites created for it:

Why so serious?: The first website to pop up about a year ago. The website is seemingly the home page for the Joker and a way for him to get to spread his anarchic message.

I Believe in Harvey Dent: The website was created as the campaign site for Gotham's new DA, Harvey Dent, complete with campaign material and videos endorsing him

The Gotham Times: The Gotham newspaper online is laced with stories that give heavy clues and spoilers as to the content of the movie. The writing isn't too bad either.

The Ha Ha Ha Times: a version of the Gotham Times hi-jacked by the Joker. Certain letters are circled in red and seem to spell out clues.

Gotham Cable News: Possibly the most impressive part of the viral campaign. Complete with more news stories and actual video with a real news anchor (played by Brat Pack member Anthony Michael Hall).

The major websites here have links to other smaller websites,including websites for Dent's two other opponents in the election for Gotham DA, Citizens for Batman; a website dedicated to Batman supporters (he is not very popular in Gotham), and a website created by Harvey Dent to fight corruption in the GCPD.

...its all pretty cool.

As Pat reported below, the Supreme Court released its decision today in D.C. v. Heller--the first time since before World War Two that the High Court bothered to say anything about the much-maligned, often misunderstood Second Amendment.

SCOTUSblog has a basic summary of the decision. The opinions, written by Associate Justices Antonin Scalia (majority), John Paul Stevens (dissent), and Stephen Breyer (dissent) can be read here.

Report here:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, for the first time in the nation's history, that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, and struck down a strict gun control law in the nation's capital.

The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years that the high court has addressed whether the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, rather than a right tied to service in a state militia.

A few months ago a man I have a deep and profound amount of respect for, Andrew J. Bacevich, wrote a piece for The American Conservative titled "The Right Choice?". The deck identified the article's subject as being "The conservative case for Barack Obama." Had I not known of Bacevich and respected him as I do as a principled traditional conservative, I would have rolled my eyes along with all of you. But I didn't. I read it and found it made sense.

Bacevich is a West Point graduate, a 30 year Army veteran who fought in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf during the two respective wars, and he retired as a Colonel. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University and is a professor of international relations at Boston University. He has also taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins. His son, Andy Jr., 27 years young, a First Lieutenant, was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber in May, 2007. Bacevich Sr. who has been an ardent critic of US interventionism, especially the Iraq war, since his retirement in the early 1990s, was said to have "actively participated in the death of his son" by right-wing lowlifes at www.freerepublic.com. Anyway, I digress.

His piece has been considered the most persuasive case for Obamacons. His Obama support is consistent with his wonderful definition of conservatism:

• a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint;
  

• a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;
  

• veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;
  

• a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;
  

• respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a wariness of the market’s corrosive impact on humane values;
  

• a deep suspicion of utopian promises, rooted in an appreciation of the sinfulness of man and the recalcitrance of history.

I'll let you read the article for yourself, but Bacevich has been joined by many other intellectual conservatives in their support for Obama. Those in this camp incluce legal scholar Douglas Kmiec, Bruce Bartlett, Andrew Sullivan, Jeffrey Hart (a personal favorite), Milton and Rose Friedman's son, David (who is signed up with the cause on the grounds that he sees Obama as the better vessel for his father's cause), Scott Flanders, anti-Iraq War neocon Francis Fukuyama, former NR publisher Wick Allison, Larry Hunter (an economist influential in the "Contract with America"), blogger Dorothy king, and a few I'm missing. Bartlett writes on the Obamacon phenomenon here.

And the latest news on Obamacons is that Robert Novak suspects that Chuck Hagel and Colin Powell will be joining their ranks. I'm sure the McCain camp is not looking forward to the headlines if Powell announces such an endorsement.

My disdain for McCain and my belief that he is an awful candidate, especially considering his views on guns, the 1st amendment, immigration, tax cuts, civil liberties, and worst of all his mad support of Wilsonian interventionism and decades long military occupation have led me to come to the conclusion that I will, under no circumstances, vote for McCain. My biggest concern with Obama is on life issues, but Bacevich makes a relevant point:

"Social conservatives counting on McCain to return the nation to the path of righteousness are kidding themselves. Within this camp, abortion has long been the flagship issue. Yet only a naïf would believe that today’s Republican Party has any real interest in overturning Roe v. Wade or that doing so now would contribute in any meaningful way to the restoration of 'family values.' GOP support for such values is akin to the Democratic Party’s professed devotion to the 'working poor': each is a ploy to get votes, trotted out seasonally, quickly forgotten once the polls close."

I may yet cast my vote for Barr. My vote isn't that important. But this movement is very unique and interesting. It shows what a failing party and a terrible candidate can do to an intellectual movement based on prudence and principle. It can drive the prudent and principled away. "For conservatives, Obama represents a sliver of hope. McCain represents none at all. The choice turns out to be an easy one."

Dick Morris is back, this time with an impossibly long titled book that assails Obama et al. On a related note, I am become enamored with Hulu.com lately. The content is a bit sparse, but they are adding more shows every day. Combine the two and I give you Morris on the Today Show.

Toward the end of the clip, he formally changes his prediction for the next president from Hillary Clinton to Obama. His reasoning is that the Democrats cannot lose, even with their crappy candidate. The Republicans, conversely, are too despised for their terrific candidate to win. Agree? Disagree? Think videos have no place on the Patriot? Tell me in comments.

EDIT: Hulu pulled the video. This is one of the frustrations of that website.

Our blogging friends over at The Colonialist wrote a bang-up post about various subjects, inspired by the Hatchet's Colonial Inauguration issue. It includes both the umpteenth appearance of Travis Helwig's rejected Hatchet "Advice to the Class of 2011" op-ed, and an unplanned flaming by sometime Patriot-commenter Elliot Bell-Krasner in the comments section. Good fun all around.

In the post, Helwig makes an interesting claim about the state of student life at GW:

GW is divisive. The democrats hate the republicans. The republicans hate the SA. The SA hates the Hatchet. The Hatchet hates us. We hate everyone. This is stupid. If we ever want to foster an actual GW community, this type of thinking needs to stop. Despite what the Hatchet says, you are not the student organization you join.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Helwig is wrong. GW isn't that divisive. GW is particularly diverse, and those groups create friction, but that friction is no worse here than it is on most other campuses. I appreciate the particular emphasis that The Colonialist places on campus unity, but GW is not Yugoslavia--we're held together by more than frail buff-and-blue string. and it's important not to misinterpret controversy (over the student fee increase, the "Islamofascism" posters, "Swastikagate," the Presidential election, etc.) as deep-seated, malignant divisions. At the end of the day, most GW students are still part of a community that crosses lines of interest, belief, race, political inclination, and even blog affiliation.

I'll note on the side that not all division is a bad thing: The Patriot has done its fair share to encourage dissent on a number of campus issues--notably the fee increase. That's not a bad thing. Sometimes unity is waaaay overrated.

So, what do you think? Is GW slowly being drawn and quartered? Does the Body Academic have some vicious, flesh-eating disease? Is the name of that disease "YAF"? Is blogging the cure? Has the Hatchet finally jumped the shark?

Why would it not surprise me if this satirical proposal were started in some crackpot school?

For those that don't know, we here at the GW Patriot are often more critical than other students of our University. If we err (and we do err often), we err on the side of skepticism about both the motives and the actions of the University administration and the Student Association.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if we don't spend enough time talking about what keeps us at GW--the things we like or love that don't get mentioned in between complaints about high tuition, strange dorm smells, racist posters, and student fee hikes.

So, in the spirit of Colonial Inauguration, as throngs of freshmen descend on the city to experience kollidge life for the firstest time evar, I think we should all list a few things about GW that we adore--the things that keep us here, in spite of all the crap. I'll start:

1) My department. The History Department at GW is incomparable. I've never experienced the problems with advising that I hear so much about. The Professors are friendly and accessible, the classes diverse, the offices comfortably air-conditioned. The Department itself is large enough to take seriously, but not so overwhelming that I can't get to know my professors individually.

2) Dorms. Let's face it, we pay big bucks. But we also live in freakin' palaces compared to most other schools. Our dorms are probably too good.

3) No meal plan. Sodexho and J Street messed up GWorld pretty badly, for sure. But the debit system itself is far superior to a meal plan system--much more flexible. Of course, as one of the last students at GW without dedicated J Street money, I may be a little biased.

4) Location. We have our own metro stop for chrissakes, and Foggy Bottom is close enough to just about anything of consequence in DC that you can do just about whatever you want.

5) Intellectual diversity. Horror stories abound about people with non-traditional political ideas (relative to the larger college student population, whose breadth of thought is often as wide-ranging as the Democratic Party's platform) who come to college only to be harassed, silenced, "indoctrinated," and even punished for expressing themselves. Elsewhere, this is a serious problem. At GW, I've never felt unwelcome because of my beliefs. The intellectual dialogue is lively and startlingly diverse, and administration-enforced censorship is nonexistent.

6) WOW Wingery. Their chicken fingers speak for themselves.

Alright, your turn. Leave yours in the comments section.

A new Mascot premiered this week at CI. Replacing Little George is... Mean "George"? No doubt angry at the mix of his namesakes high tuition, his infertility and hatred of the Red coats and their unfair taxes, he is replacing a former Little George who looked like he was wearing the original GW's death mask. Will Mean George and the still lovable but secretly deadly Hippo spark some fire into our sports teams and our apathetic, atrophied fan base? Time will tell...


Sorry Incoming Freshmen but I'm going to go ahead and burst your CI bubble, this school's spirit is near non-existent. Not unlike most of our student body we are like Boston sports teams fans; we are absentee in times when the teams are preforming poorly, but with the good times come the old "Oh, I've been a fan my entire time here, that's just everyone else who is jumping onto the bandwagon" excuse ring out.

Four words you should never have to hear on television (or anywhere else, for that matter): George Carlin died yesterday.

He passed at the age of 71, after being admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles, California, for chest pain. The Kennedy Center announced only a few days ago that they would be awarding him the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The Center announced that they now plan to make him the first posthumous winner of the decade-old annual award.

For his ascerbic, anti-establishment humor (not unlike that of Mr. Twain), his principled advocacy of free speech, and his three-year stint as "Mr. Conductor" on one of my favorite kid's shows, he will be fondly remembered.

Watch his ground-breaking, lawsuit-inspiring "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" routine here.

One of the several quirks of our President Steven Knapp is that he fancies himself something of an environmentalist. He owns a "green" (is there any other kind..) sheep farm in Maryland where he raises...sheep. One of his first orders business was to create Task Force on Sustainability, their final report came out this week. Looking at it, the group fancies it self a 9-11 commission, but really should be read more like a Baker-Hamilton.


The report starts out with a nice "Consensus Themes" section on how GW has a "moral obligation" to the environment and that:

"no institution of this size and standing can avoid recognizing the implications of its actions, nor can one avoid the obligation to contribution to solving the problems of sustainability"

In other words: We are destroying the environment, and we have to do everything to relieve guilt...er.. I mean do something about it. And surprise the Task Force recommends a "culture shift" on campus, meaning that you must be taught that it is your fault that the ice caps are melting, and the polar bears are dieing and its about time you were told what to do about it (read: reeducation). As usual the Task Force wants to throw money down the "Awareness" hole, spending millions on posters, forums and events that teach what you can do to save the save world.

Several pictures dot the report; pictures of the beautiful scenery of GW and the surrounding DC area. But my personal favorite is Knapp standing next to Prius under the heading of "Leadership" , as if he wants to say "Hey look at me! Look what I'm driving to help the environment! good for me!". Warning: Smug Alert!

The biggest (of many) pieces of Bureaucratic what-not that the Task Force recommends is creating an "Office of Sustainability" . This office will no doubt be able to charge and punish those who aren't "doing there part" to make GW a Sustainable campus, that and give another Vice President to add the around 100 we have at the moment.

Overall the Task Force's report calls for a (green) overhaul of the way people live and work on campus. From carbon credits to new degree programs in "sustainability" the Task Force is suggesting radical, and what is seems overnight change for GW. We'll see how this goes.

"No state power is more fearsome than the power to imprison. Hence the habeas right has been at the heart of the centuries-long struggle to constrain governments, a struggle in which the greatest event was the writing of America's Constitution, which limits Congress's power to revoke habeas corpus to periods of rebellion or invasion. Is it, as McCain suggests, indefensible to conclude that Congress exceeded its authority when, with the Military Commissions Act (2006), it withdrew any federal court jurisdiction over the detainees' habeas claims?

As the conservative and libertarian Cato Institute argued in its amicus brief in support of the petitioning detainees, habeas, in the context of U.S. constitutional law, "is a separation of powers principle" involving the judicial and executive branches. The latter cannot be the only judge of its own judgment," - George F. Will on the recent Supreme Court ruling on habeus corpus for Guantanamo detainees.

Michael Idov has a wonderful essay up at The New Republic, recounting the recent Libertarian Party convention in all of its craziness. My only complaint is that he seems to have fallen--hook, line, and sinker--for the apocalyptic predictions of the purist, radical factions that populate the Party convention and form a significant portion of its small voter base.

Apocalyptic, that is, with regard to the Libertarian Party itself--not the nation:

The Libertarian Party seems to be ungluing before my very eyes. After more than a few people loudly declare their intention to defect on the spot, Steve Kubby goes onstage and pleads with them to stay. Boston Tea Party, a fast-swelling offshoot composed of frustrated anarchists, has put together an alternative nominating convention around the corner, for "serious, radical, Libertarians only." Neal, Mike Gravel's Wiccan aide, says he's going to start his own Wiccan-Libertarian caucus back in Michigan. "The values are virtually identical," he says.

None of this is new to Libertarianism in America--radicals and purists, threats of splinter groups, "Wiccan Libertarians of Michigan"-style caucuses, and candidates whose cars run on cooking oil. Every Party convention signals the impending doom of American libertarianism, and every delegate thinks the guy next to him is selling out. Sounds like fun!

If you take it all seriously, anyway, you're just gullible.

Today marks the end of the 1st round of Colonial Indoctrination...Inauguration, I mean. I was in the Marvin Center today, setting up for Org. Fair (they put the Patriot, SDD and CFL all in the same row, interesting no?) and I saw all the Cabinet members, clad in khaki shorts and white polos. They were Dancing around, clapping and yell-singing the fight song as burnt out students and their parents looked on with a twinge of amusement. GW Summer has officially begun.

San Diego - If there's pain at the pump in the U.S., Mexico may just have a remedy. A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in San Diego retails for an average price of $4.61 a gallon. A few miles south, in Tijuana, it's about $2.54 — even less if you pay in pesos.

The lower prices mean a U.S. motorist could save almost $54 filling up a two-year-old Ford F150 pickup with a 26-gallon fuel tank in Mexico. The differential in diesel is even greater, selling at $5.04 a gallon in San Diego County and $2.20 in Tijuana.

Paul Covarrubias, 26, who lives in Chula Vista and works in construction in San Diego, crosses the border each week just to refuel his dual-cab Ford F-250 pickup. "I fill it up with diesel in Tijuana for $60," he said. "It would be almost twice that in San Diego."Gas is cheaper in Mexico because of a government subsidy intended to keep inflationary forces in check. Still, international gas-buying trips don't make sense for everyone. The wait getting back into the U.S. at the border in Tijuana frequently takes longer than two hours and cars can burn about a gallon of gas for each hour they idle.

After watching Tiger's amazing performance in the US Open last night, a colleague of mine was reminded of a silly little Vets for Freedom video:

Japanese researchers are claiming that they've developed a water-powered car--that is, a car engine capable of extracting the hydrogen from ordinary water and driving an engine on it.

The idea of a water-powered car has been on humanity's mental backburner since we realized that (a) fossil fuels have nasty byproducts like carbon emissions and OPEC, (b) hydrogen is a troublesome but promising alternative, and (c) water has lots and lots of hydrogen.

The company that developed the water-powered car--Genepax--has already announced its intention to see the technology mass-produced, which will require some cost reductions (the system presently costs close to $20,000 without the car, but the company claims that this could be reduced to about $5,000).

Of course, I'm in agreement with one commenter on Digg:

If I were a scientist for inventor, Genepax, I would be locking my door when going to bed. The oil companies won't allow this to flourish.

(In related news: bugs that eat waste and poop crude oil, via The Colonialist.)

In an absolutely shocking news story Tim Russert, journalist and host of Meet the Press, died at the age of 58 from an apparent heart attack.He was at the NBC Washington Bureau where he collapsed and could not be revived.

This is a sad blow for journalism and for America. While I may not have always agreed with his personal politics Tim Russert was one of the few journalists respected on both sides of the aisle for asking tough questions and bringing an in depth view of politics fromt he belt way.

From the GW Patriot. Tim Russert RIP.

NY Post Link

Link to his last interview


PS- He was to host a debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham this Sunday. Biden representing Obama and Graham McCain, he (half-jokingly) dubbed it the VP auditions.

At the Ludwig von Mises Institute website (always a great source for examples of "Libertarian Disease"), a post by Jim Fedako introduces us all to the many shades of tyranny one experiences during a cross-country RV camping vacation.

One of my daughters asked, "Why did the state make it illegal to ride in the trailer?" Questions like these always give me pause.

There is the party line: "Well, state officials feel that riding in the trailer can be dangerous. They are only protecting us." But, wait. Since not all states ban such travel, the party line is not valid — it never is.

The true response is this: "The state officials ban activities because they can. Regardless of the reason, regardless of their belief in an individual's ability to act in his or her best interest, they ban it because they can. Plain and simple.

Witness also how the "division of the consumer" keeps locally owned and operated RV camping sites clean and well-serviced, and the well-watered lawns of public schools all across our fruited plain signal the slow death of American liberty.

Mark Perry at Carpe Diem ponders why Congress wants a windfall profits tax on oil when there are 57 other industries with HIGHER profit margins than oil.

NY Times - Swinging real clubs, they took on Pebble Beach in California, St. Andrews in Scotland and other famed courses around the world. Of course, it was all computer-simulated: they hit their balls into 4-by-3-yard plastic screens showing projections of fairways.

Simulated golf has been around in Europe and the United States for years, mainly as a teaching aid at golf clinics or on cruise ships where passengers are no longer allowed to hit balls into the ocean. But in South Korea, where golf courses are expensive and overbooked, virtual-reality golf has become a fast-growing pastime, almost as commonplace in bars as pool tables and dart boards.

Apparently. The number of golf cafes in South Korea, which tend to have 3 to 10 simulation rooms, reached 2,500 last year, up from 300 in 2003. Seven out of every 10 golf simulators sold in the world are installed in South Korea, according to industry officials here.

Each day, an estimated 200,000 people play virtual-reality golf in South Korea, six times as many as play at real courses, the officials say. In this highly wired country, where professional leagues of online video games attract throngs of teenage fans, middle-aged people compete in simulated golf championships, thanks to the online network connecting the golf cafes. “It’s picture-perfect, down to every tree,” Kim Ae-hee, 42, a homemaker, said of the 50 simulated courses she could choose from with a few mouse clicks.

This was in response to whether Congress should start cutting its funding for NPR and PBS.

"Sen. Obama says that I'm running for Bush's third term. It seems to me he's running for Jimmy Carter's second"

-McCain on NBC

Study: 1 in 4 adults in NYC have herpes virus

On a more serious note this is only kind of disgusting...

No wonder Borat seemed to have a problem with the Uzbeks, considering they have the "Door to Hell" and all...

HT: Club For Growth

I'm not even going to link to it, because I don't want the website to get any more hits than it should. but g-scene has been inactive since the middle of May and one hopes that they will continue this atrophy into the school year. Looking through their archives is a whose-who in drunken wealth that is a scar upon this school.

Joe McKeown, GWs girls basketball coach is going to Northwestern. He's been here for 19 years, and racked up a pretty impressive record, including going to the Sweet Sixteen the past two seasons. No doubt he is leaving because the pay and competition is better, so I can't really blame him.

I long suspected that a lot of Democrats that were Hillary supporters were going to start defecting to McCain once Obama secured the nomination. I have had conversations this past week with several friends of mine who were ardent Hillary supporters and anti-Obama and are now in a state of flux as to whether or not they should remain loyal to their party or jump ship and vote for McCain. Like many of us on the right, some Democrats and liberals are skeptical of putting the nation in the hands of a man whose record is little more than average and whose rhetoric is as hollow as it is vague. Now (thanks and big HT to InsidetheSA) there comes a letter sent from a MCainacrat (I think thats a good name) to current chair of the CRs and de facto head of the conservative movement on campus (sorry Pat), Brand Kroeger. The letter is rather long but can be read here at Marc Ambinder's blog at The Atlantic.

Mr. Boehmer suggests that Kroeger start some sort of organization to rally non-Republicans to support McCain. While I think this a good idea, I am skeptical of it actually happening. The CRs will have a hard enough time rallying conservatives on campus to support McCain, and starting a group that will surely be unoffically called "Liberals for McCain" will do little to help the cause.
Personally, I'm all for it, and I hope the CRs are smart enough to execute this. Much like the swath of Democrats who went for Bush after 9/11, and the Democrats who went for Reagan over values, Obama-skeptic Liberals are, I believe, a large and untapped voter block that needs to be pursued if McCain hopes to win this election.

Via Radar Magazine, a collection of letters written in the late 1990s and 2000s to various persons of note (including several serial killers and high-level public officials) by Bill Geerhart, posing as a 10 year-old. It was an original idea that led to some really classic replies:

"I like the Egg McMuffin," wrote Justice Clarence Thomas when asked about his favorite McDonald's food. "Actually, I like almost everything there."

This is absolutely scary. So picture yourself walking down the streets of GW in the middle of the afternoon...

As you cross the street from Kogan to the Marvin Center a car speeds out of nowhere and clips you leaving you helpless on the ground...

Far from stopping in shock the driver continues on and speeds away...

Now heres the scary part... What if in the middle of the afternoon with all those people around nobody stops to help you! Thats right... people stop and gawk, cars drive by, and even a person on a motorized scooter purposely turns around you to head on up the street.

Now your saying to yourself this would never happen, someone would stop and help, get out the cellphone, check if your ok. Well the scary part of this story is that it actually happened, not in DC but in Hartford, Connecticut. Thats right an elderly person was crossing the street when they got hit by a car and it ran off. Luckily for Angel Arce Torres there was a traffic cam, because not ONE person stopped to help him. Nobody.

Now I don't know about you but that scares me. Has our society degraded so much as to become completely cold towards other human life? Could this happen in DC, New York, San Francisco, or LA? If you got in a bad car accident back home wouldn't SOMEBODY stop by and help you? I think Hartford just got the award for the coldest place in the country to live... and I'm not talking about the temperature.

Tip of the Hat to AP for this story:
Video shows bystanders ignoring hit-and-run victim

Check out this bill for dinner in Zimbabwe:

With inflation at 1,033.5% in Zimbabwe, this meal came out to a thrifty $2.12

HT: Freakonomics

Many of you have probably never heard of Jack Lucas but he is one of America's greatest heroes nonetheless.

At the young age of 14 Jack Lucas decided to take up arms in service to his country. He fooled the Marine recruiters into thinking he was 17 and was shipped off for training. In February of 1945, shortly before his (actual) 17th birthday, Jack Lucas landed with his fellow Marines on the beaches of Iwo Jima. While in a trench with three fellow squad members he spotted two grenades. With no time to warn his fellow Marines of the danger he threw his body onto the grenades absorbing the explosion with his body. Needless to say he was severely wounded and spent many months in the hospital. Later that year President Truman awarded Lucas with the Congressional Medal of Honor for his incredibly self-less and heroic actions.

Now Jack Lucas at 80 years old is in danger of dying from cancer. My thoughts and prayers go out to Jack Lucas and his family. I've had the fortunate experience to meet Jack Lucas and many other World War II vets with past community service work. And I can say there are no more self-less people on the planet than many of the combat veterans of World War II. As summer winds up don't forget to thank the many veterans who have defended our freedom over the years.

Thanks to Yahoo! and AP for this story

The New York Times is reporting that agencies paying cash rewards for crime tips are experiencing a large uptick in activity, especially in places hardest hit by the economic downturn.

People call (or text) in a tip and are only paid if there is an arrest. I see this as a good thing for several reasons:

• It discourages vigilantism by giving people an incentive to run for the phone and not the bad guy when they witness a crime.
  
• It beings profit motive into community safety. Although and payments are anonymous, local law enforcement theorize that some people are making a living off of reporting crime. The NY Times fails to mention that the income is essentially tax-free.
  
• It might make some baddies more afraid of getting caught. I think that scaring criminals is good.
  
• It rewards people for being good while punishing people for being bad. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, right?

Here's the most interesting quote from the article:

Economic problems for families, Ms. Routte acknowledged, were good business for Crime Stoppers. “We’re kind of banking on that, really,” she said. “If it helps put dinner on the table for somebody, that’s wonderful.”

Many juniors and seniors were driven to tears – a few to near hysterics – May 26 when a uniformed police officer arrived in several classrooms to notify them that a fellow student had been killed in a drunken-driving accident.

The officer read a brief eulogy, placed a rose on the deceased student's seat, then left the class members to process their thoughts and emotions for the next hour.

The program, titled “Every 15 Minutes,” was designed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Its title refers to the frequency in which a person somewhere in the country dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident.

About 10 a.m., students were called to the athletic stadium, where they learned that their classmates had not died. There, a group of seniors, police officers and firefighters staged a startlingly realistic alcohol-induced fatal car crash. The students who had purportedly died portrayed ghostly apparitions encircling the scene.

"Though the deception left some teens temporarily confused and angry, if it makes even one student think twice before getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, it is worth the price," said California Highway Patrol Officer Eric Newbury, who orchestrates the program at local high schools.

Is this really necessary?