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I can't even begin to touch the quality of blogging that others are providing, so I'm trusting that you're reading it. As I look over the Times-Picayune site, I can't seem to quite get my head around the devastation that's...

The main editorial in today's Rapid City Journal: Journal editorial, 9-4: Give credit to John Thune By The Journal Editorial Board Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. - President John F. Kennedy Many people deserve credit...

Regarding John Thune and Ellsworth I used a quarterback analogy. The quarterback gets too much blame when the team loses and too much credit when the team wins. I guess the same goes for presidents. Bush is getting more blame...

By-laws changed proposed for upcoming meeting

THe Chief has recently learned of some proposed by-laws changes for the SD GOP that would have the immediate effect of greatly reducing the possible participation in the state conventions.

This would be a HUGE bad move, unless what is desired is to freeze out grass-roots participation, and keep things neatly bundled up to be run by a would-be elite group. NOT the way to go!

If this were implemented, the Chief would seriously think about affiliating with the Whigs instead of the GOP, to get away from the RINOs once and for all!

H/T to Dakota War College for this one - he has a really great post that spells out the gory details at greater length, so if this catches your attention, go check it out....nothing to disagree with there as far as the Chief is concerned.

Disclosure Notice: The Chief is currently a precinct committeeman, and just completed two terms as GOP County Chair, and has been involved in GOP activity since Youth for Goldwater days. (Sheesh - thinking about THAT could start to make a guy feel a bit of the mileage!)

Letter to Editor in today's Rapid City Journal:Open invitationThis is an open invitation to all of those people who wrote opinion letters blaming Sen. Thune for Ellsworth's possible closure. I invite all of you to take the time again to...

From Rush Limbaugh: What we have seen in New Orleans -- and we have not seen it in Mississippi, and we have not seen it in Alabama -- what we have seen in New Orleans is first and foremost the...

Power Line:By the way, Meyer Levin's excellent book Compulsion begins with the observation that Nothing ever ends. I'm starting to get that feeling, too. Among the people whom Sheehan thanked in her last post were Dennis Banks and Russell Means...

Carried Away

This WaPo coverage of looting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has more than a little sympathy, rationalization, and justification for much of the looting going on.

...as we are also learning from the post-Katrina chaos, what we think of as looting may be more complicated than it seems.

No, it's NOT complicated, moonbat. Stealing stuff, is stealing stuff. And most of the stuff being taken is NOT survival supplies!

Benigno E. Aguirre of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware has been watching and reading about looters in Louisiana. "It may look from the outside as if they are stealing or breaking the law," says Aguirre, "when in fact some of them are trying to survive."

Yep - it DOES look that way, maybe because what's happening IS bad. If some ARE trying to survive, this isn't the prevailing behavior. For instance when a Wal-Mart was invaded by the latter-day barbarians, the guns, and electronics were the FIRST targets of opportunity, followed by other consumer items. The food, and (non-alcoholic) beverages were largely ignored. Yep, survival is insured by a new plasma HD TV!

On the other hand, he says, some of the thieves are garden-variety crooks. "There is always a very small number of people that are predisposed to crime, and they see a disaster as an opportunity to act." There are the disenfranchised who jump at the chance to get even with those who have more stuff than they do. "Disasters can become opportunity for class warfare, and that kind of appropriation of other people's property should be prosecuted," he says.

"Class warfare"? Sounds like our academician has been imbibing wisdom from the fountain of Marx. At least he concedes that they should be prosecuted, thanks be for small favors.

Many may be people taking drastic measures required by drastic times. And some, he says, are the in-an-emergency equivalent of hunters/gatherers, foraging for food, fresh water, medicine, matches, batteries, everyday essentials that are just not available. Not at home, not at shelters.

Again, the Wal-Mart case (as well as others) would be a counter-indication of the validity of this statement.

The images are played on TV over and over: Windows are smashed. Huge dudes muscle into an abandoned store and hustle out with stolen TVs and boomboxes. Women hoist unwieldy packs of diapers and cartons of baby formula. Run-amok hooligans snatch up jewelry and electronic gizmos. Other things are stolen: shopping carts of soda pops and snack foods, clothing, bicycles. There are survivors, scavengers and criminal looters, and it's hard to tell the difference.

No, the distinction is too fine. If someone breaks in to get some bottled water, or food to survive, the Chief would say OK. ANYTHING else - including "scavengers" are thieves. That's it. Comprende?

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