John Kass is gloating in the Tribune at seeing some of the local sleaze facing a cleanup.

Now that Gov. Dead Meat has been arrested at his home and charged with selling Illinois by the pound—and Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat by the slice—let’s just savor the aroma.

I love the smell of meat over coals in the morning.

It smells like . . . victory.

The people of Illinois needed some good news and they got it. Former Republican Gov. George Ryan is in prison, and the arrest of his successor, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, surely means that the Illinois Combine that runs this state can stop with the rumors that U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald will be leaving town.

And, as Blagojevich most likely prepares to be Ryan’s bunkmate, let’s not forget the scores of other politicos, of all parties, who’ve gone down on corruption charges—including some of Mayor Richard Daley’s guys who helped rebuild that Democratic machine the mayor says doesn’t exist.

At a news conference in the federal building in Chicago, authorities were asked about Illinois corruption.

“If it isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor,” said Robert Grant, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago office. …

Though Illinois isn’t surprised—this is after all the home of the Chicago Way—the national media must be shocked.

They’ve been clinging to the ridiculous notion that Chicago is Camelot for months now, cleaving to the idea with the willfulness of stubborn children. It must help them see Obama as some pristine creature, perhaps a gentle faun of a magic forest, unstained by our grubby politics, a bedtime story for grown-ups who insist upon fairy tales. But now the national media may finally be forced to confront reality.

Barack Obama, of course, is an intimate associate of Illinois’ current governor, shared the same political contributors (Antoin Rezko), and was, like him, a loyal servant of the Daley Machine.

Patrick Fitzgerald described Governor Rod Blagojevich’s conduct as “a new low.”

The affidavit contends Blagojevich discussed getting a substantial salary for himself at a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions. It also says Blagojevich talked about getting his wife placed on corporate boards where she might get $150,000 a year in director’s fees.

The affidavit also quotes Blagojevich as saying “I want to make money” in one conversation.

Blagojevich and John Harris, the governor’s chief of staff, were each charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery.

The FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich also sought promises of campaign cash, as well as a cabinet post or ambassadorship in exchange for his Senate choice.

Blagojevich is accused of saying on November 3 that if he is not going to get anything of value for the open seat, then he would appoint himself to the post.

“I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain,” the affidavit quotes the governor as saying.

He noted becoming a U.S. senator might remake his image for a possible presidential run in 2016, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit quotes Blagojevich telling an adviser later that day that a Senate seat “is a [expletive] valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”

In a conversation with Harris on November 4, the day of the election, Blagojevich is alleged to have compared his situation to that of a sports agent shopping a potential free agent to the highest bidder.

On November 5, Blagojevich allegedly told an adviser, “I’ve got this thing and it’s [expletive] golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I’m not gonna do it.”

On November 7, while talking on the phone about the Senate seat with Harris and an adviser, Blagojevich said he needed to consider his family and that he is “financially” hurting, the affidavit states.

Harris allegedly said that they were considering what would help the “financial security” of the Blagojevich family.

The complaint alleges that the governor stated, “I want to make money,” adding later that he is interested in making $250,000 to $300,000 a year.

The charges also state that in a conversation with Harris on November 11, Blagojevich said he knew that President-elect Obama wanted a specific candidate for the open Senate seat but added “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them.”

Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney, said the charges “allege that Blagojevich put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States Senator.”

Actual indictment.

The appearance of the short version of this video on YouTube earlier this year attracted many hits.

The video shows a referee, identified as Isao Nakamura Fushiki, putting a decisive stop to some post-karate-match aggression on the part of the contestant in blue.

It was clearly posted with intent, being labeled “Karate Master attacks 17-year-old,” and comments on YouTube and on martial arts sites have been overwhelmingly harshly critical of the behavior of Fushiki.

Apparently, despite the video’s recent appearance, the actual incident occurred a long time (eleven years!) ago at Autonomous University of Tamaulipas in Mexico. No explanation for the video’s sudden appearance has been found.

Isao Nakamura Fushiki is identified on the Net as a 7th (or 10th) dan Goju Ryu master (one source says Shito Ryu) who was World Kata Champion in 1970, 1971, and 1972 (one source says he was champion five times during the 1970s). One commenter in Spanish says that he served as an Imperial bodyguard for Hirohito and was known to Japanese karate fans as “the madman.”

The event was clearly not a conventional karate match, since the blue-clad contestant is wearing a kung fu outfit rather than a gi. Various commenters claim that the contestant in white was Fushiki’s pupil or even younger brother.

His takedown was certainly effective, but his third strike, the foot stomp to the head, seems generally to be thought to have been excessive.

Short version: 0:33 video

Long version: 3:15 video

Karen found the perfect Xmas present for twisted children of all ages. The alphabetical blocks feature such essential topics as:

A – Appendages

H – Henchmen

M – Maniacal

P – Peasants (with Pitchforks)

S – Self-experimentation

T – Tentacles

U – Underground Lair

Z – Zombies

link

Richard Munday, in the London Times, observes that citizens of modern democracies are typically less safe in the event of terrorist attack today than they were a century ago in gas-lit London when policemen carried only a truncheon and ordinary citizens were allowed to own and carry weapons.

For anybody who still believed in it, the Mumbai shootings exposed the myth of “gun control”. India had some of the strictest firearms laws in the world, going back to the Indian Arms Act of 1878, by which Britain had sought to prevent a recurrence of the Indian Mutiny.

The guns used in last week’s Bombay massacre were all “prohibited weapons” under Indian law, just as they are in Britain. In this country we have seen the irrelevance of such bans (handgun crime, for instance, doubled here within five years of the prohibition of legal pistol ownership), but the largely drug-related nature of most extreme violence here has left most of us with a sheltered awareness of the threat. We have not yet faced a determined and broad-based attack.

The Mumbai massacre also exposed the myth that arming the police force guarantees security. Sebastian D’Souza, a picture editor on the Mumbai Mirror who took some of the dramatic pictures of the assault on the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station, was angered to find India’s armed police taking cover and apparently failing to engage the gunmen.

In Britain we might recall the prolonged failure of armed police to contain the Hungerford killer, whose rampage lasted more than four hours, and who in the end shot himself. In Dunblane, too, it was the killer who ended his own life: even at best, police response is almost always belated when gunmen are on the loose. …

The Mumbai massacre could happen in London tomorrow; but probably it could not have happened to Londoners 100 years ago.

In January 1909 two such anarchists, lately come from an attempt to blow up the president of France, tried to commit a robbery in north London, armed with automatic pistols. Edwardian Londoners, however, shot back – and the anarchists were pursued through the streets by a spontaneous hue-and-cry. The police, who could not find the key to their own gun cupboard, borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by, while other citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns preferred to use their weapons themselves to bring the assailants down.

Today we are probably more shocked at the idea of so many ordinary Londoners carrying guns in the street than we are at the idea of an armed robbery. But the world of Conan Doyle’s Dr Watson, pocketing his revolver before he walked the London streets, was real. The arming of the populace guaranteed rather than disturbed the peace.

That armed England existed within living memory; but it is now so alien to our expectations that it has become a foreign country.

Wife Gerri Carlos wraps a fly rod, as semi-recumbent Morgan looks on through special glasses

Forbes describes how Tom Morgan has managed to overcome MS to continue to produce state-of-the-art custom fly rods.

In his case, the “thought rod” metaphor takes on another meaning. Considered by many to be the world’s finest living fly-rod-maker–a craft that relies almost solely on feel–the 67-year-old Morgan has not been able to cast, or even hold, one of his creations for more than a decade.

Morgan has multiple sclerosis, a still mystifying degenerative disease that occurs when a mix-up in nerve signal transmissions causes the immune system to attack the insulating sheaths around the nerves. Morgan has a particularly debilitating form of MS and has extremely limited movement below his neck. He is confined to his bed and to a high-tech wheelchair with a headrest, a reclining contraption that resembles a dental examination chair. Morgan’s thought rods are a pure extension of his mind.

Read the whole thing.

Tom Morgan Rodsmiths

One of the few places Yale undergraduates can smoke without persecution these days must be New Haven’s famous pipe and tobacco store, the Owl Shop which apparently has, in recent times, installed a bar and lounge.

An on-scene correspondent reports an amusing exchange via graffiti found at the Owl Shop:

“F*** Republicans”
and underneath in different script, of course:
“…because Democrats just lie there unresponsive.”

————————————–

Hat tip to Angie Chamberland.

Many of George W. Bush’s appointments to the federal bench were successfully blocked by democrats despite the former Republican majority, thanks to RINOs like John McCain. Now Obama’s victory opens the door for those bench seats and others opening in the near future to be filled with liberals.

The Washington Post reports democrats happily predicted a return to “balance on the courts,” i.e. liberal domination.

The federal judiciary is on the verge of a major shift when President-elect Barack Obama’s nominees take control of several of the nation’s most important appellate courts, legal scholars and political activists say. With the Supreme Court’s conservative direction unlikely to change anytime soon, it is the lower courts — which dispense almost all federal justice — where Obama can assert his greatest influence.

The change will be most striking on the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, long a conservative bastion and an influential voice on national security cases, where four vacancies will lead to a clear Democratic majority. Democrats are expected to soon gain a narrower plurality on the New York-based 2nd Circuit, vital for business and terrorism cases, a more even split on the influential D.C. appeals court and control of the 3rd Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania and New Jersey. …

Obama has a huge opportunity,” said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who is an authority on federal courts. “In a very short time, significant segments of the appellate courts, which are the final authority in all but a tiny handful of cases, will be dominated by Democratic nominees.” …

Democrats, who successfully blocked some of President Bush’s 4th Circuit and other appellate nominees, said they will try to win Republicans’ support but made it clear that they will push for quick confirmations. …

The circuit courts of appeals, which cover the nation’s 13 federal judicial circuits, decide more than 30,000 cases a year. The Supreme Court takes fewer than 100 new cases each year.

Control of the appellate courts has shifted with the party in power. Republicans controlled 64 percent of appellate judgeships in 1993, but President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, reduced that to 42 percent by 2001. Bush’s appointees have restored a 56 percent Republican majority of the total authorized judgeships.

With current and future vacancies and Congress likely to pass a bill to create 14 appellate judgeships, Obama is likely to reduce Republican appointees to 42 percent and boost Democrats from the 36 percent to 58 percent during his first term, said Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution scholar who studies federal courts.

The Belfast Telegraph reports an unusual case of self defence in the United Kingdom.

A grandfather today told how he fought off masked men wielding Samurai swords as they tried to rob his post office.

The two balaclava-wearing intruders took turns at slashing Alan Garratt with the three-foot long weapons at the Leicestershire branch, he said.

But they fled empty-handed after the 68-year-old, who had previously undergone surgery for a triple heart bypass, fought back with a sherry bottle.

The raid was captured on a CCTV camera, which was installed after a burglary at the post office, in Knipton, Leicestershire, just days earlier.

Mr Garratt needed eight stitches in his left arm after Monday evening’s attack.

He told the Leicester Mercury: “I don’t think they thought anyone would tackle them.

“I didn’t really feel it when I was cut on the arm and hand until afterwards. There was blood everywhere.

“The only thing I could find to arm myself with was a bottle of sherry.

0:33 video from security camera.

Steven D. Laib argues that Obama’s birth certificate (long form) must be made public.

A person seeking much lower privileges, such a driver’s license or voter registration must produce a birth certificate; why not a candidate for the highest office in the land. Which situation implies a higher duty by government officials; state statutes or the national constitution? …

The state of Hawaii is asserting that privacy laws forbid it from revealing the certificate. This should be considered a bogus claim. Anyone running for the presidency has placed himself in the arena of a public, rather than a private citizen. A candidate is, for all practical purposes, giving up his privacy rights, and making his or her entire life open to scrutiny by the public and the press. Their personal records should and must be part of this. …

If the certificate is never produced, and proper birth status is never verified, one way or the other, it will likely become the core of another Great American Conspiracy Theory such as those surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy. The Kennedy assassination conspiracies have been debunked, for all practical purposes, but they haven’t gone away. We don’t need another one of these things.

Read the whole thing.

December 7, 1941 – 2,403 KIA, 1,178 WIA.

But enterprising West Point cadets exact some revenge by a daring daylight helicopter strike on Annapolis.

3:22 video