Blowback

You know, Don Imus said a stupendously stupid thing - something he himself admitted - repeatedly - many times. He has been fired from his job as a result. And there is much high-fiving and celebratory crowing about the fact that there is a brandy-new, spanking-clean head to mount on the pike the left is so very fond of these days.

Frankly, the very few times I have ever listened to Imus, he has been completely boring. He is not someone I would bother spending time listening to. Much like Howard Stern, I found his shtick banal to the point of tears. But he said something that is completely wrong. Period. He has paid dearly for that stupidity.

But it is instructive to take a look at what the headhunting mob of pitchfork wielders hath wrought. First, Imus, whether I liked him or not, gave a very willing platform to politicians - many of them Democrats. Second, Imus, it turns out, has a long history of actually trying to help kids - with cancer, no less - and that is now in jeopardy.

With Imus out of a job, some wonder whether the pipeline to charity money will eventually dry up.

Just as corporate sponsors backed away from his radio show, "I think you'll see a similar effect on the charity, where the corporate donors will find a less hot-button charity to support," said Trent Stamp, president of Charity Navigator, a New Jersey-based charity watchdog group.

Imus said he and his wife Deirdre are round-the-clock surrogate parents to the youngsters who spend a week at the property, nearly half of whom are from minority groups and 10 percent are black.

"There's not an African-American parent on the planet who has sent their child to the Imus Ranch who didn't trust me and trust my wife," he said on his show. "And when these kids die, we don't just go to the white kid's funeral."

Kansas horseman Rob Phillips says he still plans to give the ranch proceeds from a 500-mile charity race he's staging this fall. But Phillips worries that without Imus's radio forum, the ranch and other charities will suffer.

"He had a capability to get on the air and raise a tremendous amount of money for these causes," Phillips said. "I don't see anybody else doing that."

So, as a thought experiment ask yourself how much the screeching horde that ran Imus to ground and claimed his scalp have done for anyone, sick or not, lately. And ask how the hopeful politicians - many Democrats - are going to replace that huge, free venue that Imus gave them.

Then ask yourself: why is this all a good thing?

Going To The Rats

The rat legions of the Animal Uprising™ have apparently picked their home base for the upcoming year of the rat themed celebrations the animal overlords have planned for next year. They are busy setting up shop in Cicero, Illinois. And doing a fine job of it, by all accounts. 

Rats — they've been the scourge of Cicero for years. Cyanide gas couldn't get rid of them, so now the town is trying a lethal mix of birdseed and oatmeal laced with blood thinner. The animals gnaw, scamper and reek, and, some legends have it, attack people in broad daylight.

"I'm a little scared of them myself," joked Larry Dominick, Cicero's burly town president.

Dominick, like town presidents before him, made a campaign promise to control the rodents. Even with stepped-up eradication efforts since Dominick was elected in May 2005 — the wily scavengers appear to have gained almost a mystical hold on the blue-collar town.

And despite recent reports that rats aren't the evil little monsters they sometimes appear to be — scientists have shown they have the ability to giggle — Cicero leaders aren't laughing: they want the rodents dead. The crackdown is so serious that town leaders recently voted to increase spending on rat control by 340 percent this year, to the tune of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, an almost unheard-of amount for a town of Cicero's size.

That $704,000 pays for an increase in the number of full-time members of the rodent-control department — called the Rat Patrol — from 9 to 11. It also includes a $150,000 contract with a private pest-control company.

Cicero's spending far outstrips the rodent-control budgets of neighboring Berwyn and Oak Park, whose rat allotments combined for 2007 are about $25,000.

To be sure, Cicero has more residents to clean up after — 83,539 people according to the 2005 census — or approximately 30,000 more than either Berwyn or Oak Park.

But take Chicago, whose population is 32 times bigger than Cicero's. Chicago will spend $8,966,445 this year to eradicate rats, or roughly $3.32 per person. Cicero will spend $8.43 per person.

The one problem with this should be obvious. The rats have actually registered to vote - this is the Chicago area , after all - and Larry Dominick will soon find himself out of a job.  

We're going to offer some free advice to Cicero here that is actually quite serious. Put peanut butter in the bait. Rats (and mice) love peanut butter. (Brand not important, needn't be "choosy".) We got that tidbit of advice from a professional exterminator who came out to take care of a rat sighting that induced levitation in the kitchen. Quite literally. That was in a very, very old house we once lived in, reputedly the oldest in the town, built around 1785. And with some, how shall we put this delicately, freaking slobs for neighbors. The rat came over to visit from there (the exterminator found the tunnel). Anyway, we have baited mousetraps with peanut butter ever since and have excellent results - usually it gets the offending rodent the very first night.

Colorado Dinner Theater

Or breakfast theater, as the case may be. A Boulder man thought deer were acting strangely in his neighbor's yard, so he checked into it. And met the cause of the strange behavior.

A cougar was enjoying a breakfast of fresh deer in the neighbor's backyard.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Wildlife officers tranquilized a 90-pound mountain lion near a home along the foothills after a resident saw the cat devouring a deer in a neighbor's back yard.

The female cat was released later in the mountains northwest of Boulder.

The mountain lion was spotted at about 9 a.m. Thursday in a north Boulder neighborhood.

Resident Ken Furie told Division of Wildlife officials that deer were acting strangely in his neighbor's yard, jumping and showing their hooves. When he looked over the fence to see why, he spotted the mountain lion.

"The cat just looked at him," said Furie's wife, Krista.

Krista Furie called wildlife officers, who shot the mountain lion with a tranquilizer dart at 10 a.m..

The cougar got dinner, the neighbor got the show. Everyone's a winner. (We here at Blue Crab Boulevard suspect that the cat was "just looking" at Mr. Furie regretfully. A nice, tender suburbanite would have been better than a stringy, old deer.)

Sounding Like He Is

Running, that is. Fred Thompson has an op-ed in the Opinion Journal today that sounds very much like the first message in a run for the Republican nomination. He's discussing tax cuts and the positive benefits cutting taxes has had on the economy. Simply put, lower taxes equal robust growth in the economy.

It's that time again, and I was thinking of the old joke about paying your taxes with a smile. The punch line is that the IRS doesn't accept smiles. They want your money.

So it's not that funny, but there is reason to smile this tax season. The results of the experiment that began when Congress passed a series of tax-rate cuts in 2001 and 2003 are in. Supporters of those cuts said they would stimulate the economy. Opponents predicted ever-increasing budget deficits and national bankruptcy unless tax rates were increased, especially on the wealthy.

In fact, Treasury statistics show that tax revenues have soared and the budget deficit has been shrinking faster than even the optimists projected. Since the first tax cuts were passed, when I was in the Senate, the budget deficit has been cut in half.

Remarkably, this has happened despite the financial trauma of 9/11 and the cost of the War on Terror. The deficit, compared to the entire economy, is well below the average for the last 35 years and, at this rate, the budget will be in surplus by 2010.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this success story is where the increased revenues are coming from. Critics claimed that across-the-board tax cuts were some sort of gift to the rich but, on the contrary, the wealthy are paying a greater percentage of the national bill than ever before.

The richest 1% of Americans now pays 35% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay more taxes than the bottom 60%.

This sounds very much like a campaign issue he wants to use. It would be a good one,too.

Titanic Passenger Lists

The complete passenger lists for the RMS Titanic are available to view online for one week only at the genealogy site findmypast.com. This is apparently the first time these lists have been available on the internet. Both the original handwritten documents and transcripts may be viewed - again only for a week and registration is required.

I did not bother registering since I know none of my ancestors were on the ship - my fathers side was here long before that and my mother's parents arrived later from a completely different country. Incidentally, tomorrow is the 95th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and the loss of 1,500 or so souls. (The numbers are reported differently depending on the source. The British tally disagrees with the American one.)

April (Snow) Showers And (Nor’)Easter Bunnies

The Northeast is bracing for what is expected to be a major storm event. A winter storm event. The storm has already raged across the Southern plains, dumping up to a foot of snow in Kansas and spawning tornadoes across Texas. The weather system is expected to move up the East coast and form into a nor'easter. Experts are worried about potentially devastating storm surges in coastal areas.

The storm blew across the southern Plains on Friday, piling snow a foot deep in Kansas and raking Texas with high wind.

"I felt my house start shaking like the wind and I ran in here and grabbed my little girl," Amanda Rymer, 21, said in Haltom City, Texas. "As soon as I moved her, the roof fell in right where she was standing."

The storm tore roofs off houses in Rymer's neighbor and destroyed porches and garages. About a dozen tractor-trailer rigs were blown onto their sides.

One man was killed in Fort Worth by a pile of lumber that fell on him from his truck during the storm, and a police officer in Irving died when his patrol car slid on wet pavement and struck a utility pole, authorities said.

By Saturday morning, the system was spreading rain from Louisiana to Virginia and across much of the Ohio Valley. Lines of strong thunderstorms rolled across Louisiana and Mississippi into northern Alabama.

The weather system was forecast to strengthen when it reaches the East Coast on Sunday and form a nor'easter, a storm that follows the coast northward, with northeasterly wind driving waves and heavy rain.

"This is very odd for this time of year," National Weather Service meteorologist John Koch said Saturday in New York. "This is something that you would expect to see more in the middle of winter."

Jingle bells? At this time of year? Anyway, even April blizzards aren't discouraging the true believers. But the wording of this report - especially the headline - is somewhat confusing:

Snow won't dampen global-warming rallies

The weather forecast for Saturday's global warming rallies in Grand Rapids and Holland calls for snow and cold rain and temperatures in the 40s — about 10 degrees below normal.

For some, this might make global warming a tough sell.

"I've thought of that," said Lisa Locke, associate director of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, which is organizing the three Grand Rapids "Step it Up" rallies.

So, are they for or against global warming? Right about now, a rally in favor of global warming would probably be a big draw across most of the nation.

Welcome To The Wonderful World…..

….Of socialized medicine. One hospital of the British National Health System, the Good Hope Hospital, has had a rash of drug resistant infections lately. It's a national leader in infecting people, in fact. So now, to combat that problem, the hospital administration has come up with a new plan.

Stop changing sheets and other bedding between patients.

Cleaners at an NHS hospital with a poor record on superbugs have been told to turn over dirty sheets instead of using fresh ones between patients to save money.

Housekeeping staff at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, have been asked to re-use sheets and pillowcases wherever possible to cut a £500,000 laundry bill.

Posters in the hospital's linen cupboards and on doors into the A&E department remind workers that each item costs 0.275 pence to wash.

Good Hope reported a deficit of £6million last year and was subject to a report by the Audit Commission because of its poor financial standing.

It recorded 36 cases of MRSA from April last year to January, while cases of clostridium difficile have more than doubled in less than a year to 327. A Government hit squad was drafted in to solve the infection problems last year but the trust is still failing to hit MRSA targets.

Tony Field, chairman of Birmingham-based MRSA Support, said: 'Is that all the safety of a patient's life is worth? 0.275 pence?

'It is utterly disgraceful and tantamount to murder because hygiene like changing sheets is essential to protect patients.

Is you're wondering just what MRSA is, it stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Also called a "superbug" by the British press. The Centers for Disease Control has this charming little data page up about this infection as well. It includes this guidance:

Basic infection control practices are key to the prevention and control of MRSA in healthcare settings. The following resources provide recommendations for the prevention and control of many healthcare-associated diseases and infections including infections with drug resistant organisms such as MRSA.

That would start with hygiene. That is the first principle of infection control. Still think national health care is a good deal?

Forward Into The Past

Russia appears to be stepping back into the bad old days. Gary Kasparov, former chess champion and current thorn in the side of the Putin-led, mafia-style Russian kleptocracy, has been arrested after engaging in a protest assembly. About 100 other people were also rounded up by the police. When supporters gathered outside the police station Kasparov was being held in, police waded into the crowd with truncheons flailing.

MOSCOW — Police detained Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who now leads one of Russia's strongest opposition movements, and at least 100 other activists Saturday as they gathered for a forbidden anti-Kremlin demonstration in central Moscow.

About 200 Kasparov supporters later gathered outside the police station where he was being held, shouting "freedom for political prisoners." After about an hour, police waded into the crowd, beating some demonstrators with truncheons and kicking them, offering sarcastic good wishes the crowd was forced to disperse.

The demonstration, one in a series of so-called Dissenters' Marches, increased tension between opposition supporters who complain the Kremlin is cracking down on political dissent and authorities who vow to block any unauthorized demonstrations. A similar march planned for St. Petersburg on Sunday also has been banned.

Pretty soon there newly refurbished gulag should be opening up. If Kasparov lives that long. Given the way strange "accidents" keep happening to critics of Putin and his merry band of cutthroats, that is a real possibility.