Wrong Way To Build An Igloo

LC Sentry at the Rott gave me this:

In Detroit, a man was found frozen underneath several feet of ice with just his lower legs hanging out. He was discovered by a group of men who were playing ice hockey in the basement of an abandoned warehouse.

DETROIT -- This city has not always been a gentle place, but a series of events over the past few, frigid days causes one to wonder how cold the collective heart has grown.

It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

"He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks," the caller phoned to tell this reporter.

A bumsicle.

UPDATE:

I have been thinking that this was not just an ordinary: "wino falls asleep" story. He probably was not alive at the time he was frozen. Dumping a DB (dead body) unceremoniously down an elevator shaft in an abandoned building is not a bad way to get rid of an unwelcome stiff in an expeditious fashion.

His sneaks and socks look fairly clean (no mud on them nor on his pants cuff) so I the chances of him being just a homeless wanderer are not as great. I really don't think that this was his living area and he drowned in it. Homeless persons are not without possessions and they usually have them arranged near where they are staying. I see nothing of the sort here.

Obviously the water was not frozen when he came to rest else he would have bounced. And if there were a foot or more of water in the shaft, then what was he doing there in the first place (if he was there of his own volution)? The area where the pillow lies seems to be an island of some sort above the water level. Or it could be that these items were floating on the water.

I wish the photo was larger but it seems that there is some sort of fabric covering him, perhaps a garbage bag with piece of paper over that.

We have no idea how long he had been dead. Since the socks have not been disturbed by scavengers getting at his flesh, I'll say he hasn't been there that long before the ice froze him in. The ice will preserve the remains for an autopsy to be performed to determine the cause of death. I'll go sixty-forty that this is a homicide. Right now the Detroit PD is checking its Missing Persons file.

Idiot Olympics

Vying mightly for the Bronze in Synchronized Bail Jumping, Stosh and Stanley screw up their dismount.

The Black Widow

This week we had two murder trials in progress at the same time in our office. The Collins trial ended yesterday with a guilty verdict and the Castor trial is still underway. Castor is a real piece of work.

She has allegedly killed two husbands by poisoning them with antifreeze. When forensic examinations indicated that their deaths were actually murder, she was arrested. Two weeks after her arrest, she tried to divert suspicion by poisoning her own daughter, Ashley Wallace, in a faux suicide attempt complete with a suicide note where Ashley admitted that she killed her father.

These murders and attempt murder occurred over a seven year period; her first husband, Michael Wallace, died in 2000, her second husband, David Castor, died in 2005. She has not been charged in the murder of her first husband. From WSYR:

The 41-year-old Castor, of Clay, faces a maximum of 25 years to life if convicted of second-degree murder in the August 2005 death of her husband David.

She's also accused of trying to kill her 21-year-old daughter, Ashley Wallace, with an overdose of drugs and vodka in September 2007.

The defense rested this afternoon after the Onondaga County DA, Bill Fitzpatrick, tore Castor a new one during his cross examination. We just watched part of the trial on News Channel 10. Castor admits that she didn't see her daughter, Ashley, for 17 hours (after she poisoned her). The next time she saw her, Ashley was being carried out by the ambulance crew and she was drooling.

Bill jumped in with both feet; "And this normal? So she was drooling normally? You have two husbands who died from being poisoned and your daughter was drooling normally?"

The summations are Monday. Perhaps the jury will start deliberations on Tuesday.
This gives a nice overview of the case.

I believe this woman, Stacey Castor, has no soul.

The Brits Are Waking Up - Too Late

The Brits Have been betrayed by their own politicians and bureaucrats. Ordinary citizens and even the police are more at risk from armed thugs than they were twenty years ago.

The lie of gun control has become too apparent to many Brits, but is it too late?

Guilty

This afternoon an Onondaga County jury found Roosevelt Collins guilty of Murder 1st Degree in the beating death of 61 year old Ann Davis.

SYRACUSE, NY - A jury this afternoon found Roosevelt Collins guilty in the murder of Ann Davis.

Collins, 42, was convicted of first- and second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and assorted larceny charges.

Davis, 61, was found beaten, stabbed and asphyxiated in her home Sept. 29, 2007 at 313 Hutchinson Ave.

Collins is a scum sucking low life who was occasionally hired by Ann Davis to do odd jobs around her house. Until he murdered her.

The ADA who prosecuted the case is Bob Duncanson, a real sweetheart of a guy. He is an unassuming family man; very modest and a vet to boot. The DA Investigators assisting him on the case were Henry "Down Town" Brown and Joanne Renauld, both retired Syracuse detectives. I think I even had a very small (teeny, tiny) piece of this one. Gotta check tomorrow to see what homicide that work was on.


Ann, I hope you are resting easy.
One of the posters to the newspaper's web site has this to say about Collins.

I grew up with the Davis family. I was sickened when I heard of Mrs. Davis' death. They were a great family. She actually helped this piece of crap and he murdered her. City folk, please think twice before you hire these nasty, scummy, worthless wastes of space to do "odd jobs" around your house. They do that so they can case your house and check out your schedules. They now know they have a place to go when they need a fix or feel the need to beat someone to death. A neighbor of mine let's the nasty people come and take their bottles etc, and it makes me cringe. May that man rot in jail, get raped til there's no tomorrow, get beat like there's no tomorrow, and then a nice way to finish him off would be to hoist him up in his cell with a rope or sheet and pull the chair out from under his sorry a**.

Works for me.

Murder Uno. You're going away for 25 to life Rosey. Enjoy.

UPDATE: I forgotted - since since the NYS Supremes gutted the death penalty, they added a little wood to Murder 1 sentences - life without the possibility of parole.

Rosey is now a prison beeyotch for life.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Evil incarnate was invited to show his loathsome presense in San Francisco at St. Mary's College yesterday (28 JAN 09). He was greeted by those who are much less impressed by his contributions to society.

Bill Ayers, the former leader of the radical group The Weather Underground was interrupted several times. He quoted Dr. Martin Luther King and lectured on ethics and democracy, while a crowd outside called him a terrorist for his anti war activities.

"We will hound Bill Ayers to the gates of hell," said Melanie Morgan, from Move America Forward.

Hopefully it will be a short trip for this piece of filth. I hope some one nails a pound of bacon to his ass so that the hound finds him faster.

Ayers was charged with conspiracy to destroy government buildings, including the San Francisco park police station, in 1970, where a bomb killed a police sergeant.

"I think he's a loathsome despicable gutter crawling rat," said James Pera, a former San Francisco Police Officer.

The charges against Ayers were dropped because of illegal FBI surveillance.
"Now that's being blown into dishonest narratives about hurting people, killing people, planning to kill people. That's just not true. We destroyed government property," said Ayers.

"Did you make bombs?" asked ABC7 reporter Alan Wang.

"I'm just not going to talk about it," said Ayers.

Larry Grathwohl, an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated The Weather Underground, claims Ayers told him where to plant bombs. He says Ayers was bent on overthrowing the government.

"The thing the most bone chilling thing Bill Ayers said to me was that after the revolution succeeded and the government was overthrown, they believed they would have to eliminate 25 million Americans who would not conform to the new order," said Larry Grathwohl, a former FBI agent.

Now if the same FBI agent instead had quoted a conservative radical who said that 25 million liberals would have to be eliminated in order to cleanse the nation, the MSM would be leading the pack screaming for his blood to be spilled. I truly doubt any college would be inviting him to speak at a forum.

They Own It

The House Republicans showed that they have a spine for the first time since .... forever, it seems. They told jugears to shove his stimulus package where the dollar don't shine - it is now a completely Democratic pork roll without Republican peas and mashed potatoes on the side.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cast the administration's inability to pick up any Republican votes as a reflection of the politics Obama campaigned against — not a repudiation of a president who worked the Republican side of the aisle even harder than he did his own party's side.

"Of course we're disappointed that it's going to take longer to change the way Washington works than just a little more than a week, but the president feels good about the efforts that he's made to reach out to people to work with them," Gibbs said in an interview quickly set up after the vote.

What's new about that? The Dems say "our way or the highway - it is what it is" and the pubbies are supposed to roll over.

No jugears, the dems own this dead baby that they tried to leave on someone else's doorstep. No matter how nicely it was swaddled, it's still a corpse.

Nice try.

The Obama Hop

It appears that the appointment of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-D) is giving liberal Democrats a case of agita. From the NY Post:

Gov. Paterson yesterday named upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to be the state's new US senator - but the press conference took a bizarre turn when Republican mega-lobbyist Alfonse D'Amato moved front and center.

Talk about taking a dump on the dance floor at your cousin's wedding.

Democrats statewide were aghast to see the former senator and GOP power broker standing close to Gillibrand on stage throughout the nationally telecast news conference that Paterson called to unveil his surprise replacement for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The panic-stricken caterer rushed out with a cleaning crew but it was too late.

[...] "Twenty-two years ago, [Gillibrand] was an intern in my office," D'Amato told reporters before being rushed off stage by Paterson aides after the news conference.

The wedding guests were outraged. They were all bitterly disappointed; they were so looking forward to doing the bunny Obama hop together and now the magic is gone.

The liberals are suspicious of her for bucking party leaders and taking right-leaning positions on gay marriage, immigration and gun rights.

"It's the wrong message that she's sending out by having Alfonse D'Amato there," said Assemblyman Peter Rivera (D-Bronx), who called Gillibrand "anti-immigrant."

"The message is that she's still to the right and is going to continue to stay to the right."

Oh, I hope so. And the list of agita afflicted dems is impressive.

Sources told The Post that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Paterson Thursday night to express displeasure with his choice, multiple sources said. Her spokesman strongly denied the claim and insisted they talked about politics.

Mayor Bloomberg blasted Gillibrand for opposing "common-sense measures to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals."

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of liberals.

Law Enforcement Here And There

From down under, a heart rending story of livestock gone bad:

POLICE in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery. Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

"The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed said.

"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.

Yeah, okay - but for one thing. They still have the goat in custody. Bail was denied but straw was granted.

From Houston, an eye popping story:

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye and told authorities he ate it. Andre Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant's death.

While in the Grayson County Jail in Sherman, Thomas plucked out his right eye before his trial later in 2004. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.

A death-row officer at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and took him to the infirmary.

"Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it," agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday.

A Real Shame

In a post several days ago, I explored how terrorists exposed to the bubonic plague (BWOT) most likely died from septicemia - a condition that indicates that a bacterial infection has entered the bloodstream.

Unfortunately a beautiful, 20 year old Brazilian model, Mariana Bridi da Costa, has also just died from septicemia.

Brazilian model Mariana Bridi da Costa, whose hands and feet were amputated in
bid to save her from a deadly and little-known illness, died early Saturday, two friends of the model told CNN. She was 20.

[...] Da Costa had been in an induced coma suffering from necrosis, caused by septicemia. Triggered by a bacterial infection, septicemia causes insufficient blood flow, which leads to organ failure.

Doctors were forced to amputate both her hands and feet and later extract part of her stomach and both kidneys as the disease took over.

Septicemia is the 10th leading cause of death in the US. Not to get morbid or anything, but these are the top ten causes of death in the US:

Heart disease: 652,091
Cancer: 559,312
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
Diabetes: 75,119
Alzheimer's disease: 71,599
Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901
Septicemia: 34,136

Junk Status For All

The following is a photo of Caroline Kennedy's alleged paramour, Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger - the NY Times Chairman of the Board, as he appears in the New York Post's article on how:

The New York Times Co.'s efforts to complete the sale of its Midtown headquarters took on greater urgency yesterday after Moody's Investors Service joined Standard & Poor's in downgrading the troubled newspaper company's debt to "junk" status.

So this guy has managed to participate in the trashing of the NY Times and Caroline Kennedy's reputation. From the photo it appears that somebody perhaps has manifested their displeasure with Mr. Sulberger's actions.

True Colors

Over at the Red State (go there!) Erick Erickson has written an unbelieveable post about a back stabbing McCain staffer who sabotaged Sara Palin's vice presidential campaign.

It was Palin's own press manager, Nicolle Wallace, appointed by McCain, who apparently provided the media with personal attack information. Wallace is now quoted as saying:

Obama deserves our thanks for letting Republicans root for him, as well. He has created a space within his wide net of support for those of us who fought for John McCain’s candidacy by honoring the McCains at a dinner the night before his inauguration and by listening to McCain’s ideas on national security, climate change, and government reform.

The Obamas have also returned the civility and warmth directed at them by president and Mrs. Bush in a way that sets this transition apart from others in recent history. This generosity of spirit has had a ripple effect throughout Republican circles. Two former senior aides to President George W. Bush said to me over the weekend, “I expect him [President Obama] to be there for eight years.”

This is truly sickening. How in the world can we trust the Republicans for anything anymore?

And The Winner Is...

The newest Senator from the State of New York is Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, a blue dog conservative Democratic Congresswoman who has been endorsed by the NRA.

Cue in the frothing, liberal outrage in 3...2...1...

We'll see how conservative she is and how much a NRA supporter she'll continue to be after she no longer needs them to get reelected now that she will be running on a state-wide platform.

But of course there's this:

Gillibrand was an official in the Housing and Urban Development Department during the administration of former President Bill Clinton. She worked as a lawyer before challenging Republican John Sweeney in 2006 to represent New York's 20th District. Her upset win came after a police report was leaked shortly before the election that showed Sweeney's wife had called 911 in what appeared to be a domestic violence incident. [emp. mine~Sig94]

*sigh*
She'll fit right in.

This reminds me of a mayoral election here in Syracuse where the sealed arrest record of the Republican candidate (he was 17 when arrested) was leaked to the press right before the election. Of course there's a big investigation by the Chief of Police (D) and no suspect is ever identified and the candidate from the opposing party is handily reelected.

There must be a democratic club with secret handshakes and everything for this kind of crap.

Busted Stuff

For years the democrats bellowed and blew steam about how Iraq was a quagmire and how we need to get out. Even one death is a terrible loss, but we are at war. In 2008, according to the icasualty.org website, a total of 314 GI's were killed in Iraq. Again, we are at war. Iraq is in the process of becoming unbusted.

Last year in Chicago (pop. 2,833,321), where there is no war, there were 508 homicide victims. This is a 15% increase in murders since the prior year. No quagmire here in Obama land.

Also of note: in 2007 the Chicago PD confiscated 13,658 firearms (2007 Annual report page 32), a ten year high, of which over 6,000 were purchased in a gun buy back program. It did absolutely nothing to stop the violence. For the past ten years firearms have been used in about 75% of all Chicago homicides. Nothing has changed.

The citizens of Chicago could have been spared some of their tax dollars if their police executives and politicians had invested some time in reading this report published in 2001: Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General.

Chapter Five of this report details some of the popular violence reduction strategies that aren't worth a fart in a pew.
Among them:
D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)
Gun Buy Back Programs
Boot Camp Programs
Individual Youth Counseling Programs

And in Tijuana, Mexico (pop. 1,483,992), US Marines stationed in nearby San Diego have been ordered not to go to this city for R&R (or for any reason for that matter) due to the incredibly high levels of violence there. Last year 843 people were slaughtered in Tijuana as compared to 337 the year before. Many of them were beheaded.

As bad as things seem to be in Chicago - they have improved; the murder rate in Tijuana is over three times as bad.

Mexican gun control laws are far more draconian than any liberal bastion here in the States. God help you if you have some much as a bullet in your possession when stopped by a Mexican cop.

Unlike Canada where you're likely to be turned away at the border if you have unauthorized firearms or ammo, unwary visitors to Mexico have languished in Mexican jails for five years due to a single spent casing in their vehicle.

Mexico is totally busted. And seeing how many Mexicans are leaving the US and heading home now that the jobs in the States are disappearing, look to see it become even worse.

Maybe Our Last Kennedy

Caroline Kennedy has told Gov. Paterson that she has withdrawn her name from any consideration for this position.

Now if Commodore Buick holds to his schedule, in a bit the Senate will be a Kennedy Free Zone.

From the NY Post:

Caroline Kennedy has told Gov. David Paterson that she is withdrawing her name from consideration to replace outgoing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. Senate, The Post has learned.

Kennedy cited "personal reasons," according to sources.

Her stunning move comes as sources revealed that Paterson had intended to appoint her to the now-vacant seat today.

She's holding out for Secretary of Silly Walks. Less work, same pay. Right up her alley.

He's In

Obama is now our President.

I refuse to panic although I will engage in some grousing, bellyaching and bitching. It may or may not be the end of the USA as we know it, but the USA ain't what it used to be anyway and it never will again.

The generation replacing ours is not us. Nor are we our parents'. Our country and our culture reflect the mores and values of its citizens. In that respect, we are truly screwed.

Welcome to the 21st century.

And it is our fault.

Mars - The "Guy" Planet

Scientists have now determined that Mars is emitting gases, methane gas to be precise.

NASA announced Thursday that its researchers and university scientists found methane in the Red Planet's atmosphere. The finding suggests biological or geological activity.

NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope showed prisms that separate white light into a rainbow and showed three lines that indicate the presence of methane.

"Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas," Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.

Mumma, who authored a paper on the finding for Science Express, said that Mars releases methane "at a rate comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, Calif." during its northern midsummer."

So Mars is indeed a manly hunk of rock - nay - a "guy" planet, the Homer Simpson of the Solar System, eating chile and drinking beer with his feet propped up on the Asteroid Belt breaking Solar Wind out of a butthole the size of Chicago, ogling the two nudie moons that prance around him and catching zzz's whenever the mood strikes.

If NASA ever catches sight of huge flames erupting, we'll know Mars got bored and is lighting farts to amuse the kids. I know my own got the surprise of their lives when I did it. They thought I exploded.

As the next closest neighbor to Mars (about 340 million miles) Jupiter prolly catches a lot of this activity and that's why there is an angry Red Spot the size of Earth on ole Jupe. We're much, much closer to Mars (36 to 250 million miles depending on where we are positioned on our orbits) but Mars doesn't seem to bother with us much.

Now that is one pissed-off looking spot. Jupe built the Asteroid Belt as a fence to keep Mars out of his backyard.

Colorless, invisible gas is one of the signs whereby God lets us know that He is not only merciful but that He also has a sense of humor.

Can you imagine the grief if everytime someone farted, a nasty green or brown cloud drifted out from their butt? Life would be intolerable. Especially in elevators.

BWOT

It seems that there many also be a Biological War On Terror. The Black Death has made an appearance at an al Qaeda training camp located in Algiers.

At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages.

The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.

The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East.

It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops. Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Also known as Bubonic Plague or simply "The Plague", this disease is transmitted through insect bites, such those given by fleas, who feed on an plague infected host (such as a rat). The flea bite then transmits the deadly microbe to a human host.

It is called bubonic plague because the early signs of the disease are buboes (bubo is Greek for "groin") which are swollen, infected lymph nodes - they appear as large blisters near where the flea bite occured.

Bubonic Blisters or "Buboes"

Centuries ago, medical practice was to lance and drain the buboes which only placed the sufferer at greater risk of infection and actually helped spread the disease faster. Other preliminary symptoms included fever, headache, bloody diarrhea and nausea/vomiting.

The following is from eMedicineHealth:

Plague is a term applied to an infectious disease that spreads easily and, without antibiotics treatment, can be fatal. The plague has caused more fear and terror than perhaps any other infectious disease in history. It has killed nearly 200 million people and has produced monumental changes, such as marking the end of the Dark Ages and causing the advancement of clinical research in medicine.

Although still debated by historians, the plague has been responsible for multiple epidemics and at least 3 great pandemics (epidemics that are spread over a large region or multiple sections of the world).

The first plague pandemic spanned from the Middle East to the Mediterranean basin during the 5th and 6th centuries, killing about half the population of those areas.

The second pandemic struck Europe between the 8th and 14th centuries, destroying nearly 40% of Europe's population.

The third pandemic started in 1855 in China and spread to every major continent.

[...] Pandemics have succeeded in spreading the plague to every major continent, with the possible exception of Australia. Unlike smallpox, the plague cannot be wiped out. It lives in millions of animals and on billions of the fleas that live on those animals. The plague is a disease of the desert, the steppes, the mountains, and the forest.

In the US, an average of 18 cases per year has been reported during the last few decades. These cases are the mildest form of the illness, and they occur mostly in the Southwest. Prairie dogs of the southwestern plains had once died from the plague. A certain type of squirrel may be vulnerable to contracting the plague in some western states, such as New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and California. Only one case of imported plague has been reported since 1926.

Outside the United States, the World Health Organization has reported an annual average of 1,666 cases from 1967-1993. The number of actual cases is probably much higher because many countries fail to diagnose and report the plague. The following countries have reported the most cases of humans infected with the plague since 1979 (in order of most reported cases): Tanzania, Vietnam, Zaire, Peru, Madagascar, Burma, Brazil, Uganda, China, and the US.

As the disease progresses, other symptoms appear that indicate the presence of septicemia, which occurs when the plague bacteria enter the bloodstream of the victim. These symptoms also include the fever, headache, bloody diarrhea, nausea/vomiting as above, but now also include rapid pulse and delirium.

Bubonic plague is most deadly when it invades the lungs, (pneumonic plague). Ten to twenty percent of plague victims will develop pneumonic plague and of this population, seventy-five percent will die even when receiving treatment. It is a miserable way to die as the symptoms indicate that you probably drown in your own juices.

Taking into account the questionable hygienic practices of Islamic terrorists, this disease could be very effective in reducing the population of these vermin.

The Black Death:
God's Biological Thermobaric Bomb delivered by the flea, God's F-16.

Seven, Oh What The Hell, Eight Things

Cookie tagged me (again) and I am supposed to tell seven things about myself that people may or may not know about me. Here goes.

1) My sister, my brother and I were adopted. My birth certificate is dated 1958; I was nine years old. Don't ask about the sperm donor that I refuse to call my father.

2) The very last memory I have of the sperm donor is while I was playing on the front porch of my grandfather's house. Two huge cops in dark blue uniforms were looking for him. I think I was about five or six. A shrink could have a ball with that given my chosen occupation.

3) I have a dead brother named Michael. He had red hair and blue eyes. He was allegedly a SIDS death but after years of police work and my knowledge of the sperm donor, I suspect that Michael may have been shaken and stirred like a freaking martini before his death.

4) The man I call Dad once told me that he fell in love with the three of us before falling in love with my mother. I remember having a tiny little fishing rod - I used to sit on his lap and fish in his bellybutton while he was dating Mom. He died in 1990.

5) My Mom and Dad came from NYC, they lived only two blocks apart in Brooklyn but they never knew each other. My grandparents (on my mother's side) moved to Merrick, Long Island when she was young. My grandfather was a conductor on the Long Island RR for many years.

6) I graduated at the top of my class in the regional police academy in 1974. I was also the best pistol shot.

7) I once made two burglary-in-progress grabs in one day. The first grab was my first call out of the barn at about 2315 hrs. The jerk tried to coldcock me with a bicycle when I cornered him on a porch. The second grab was the last call of the day at about 0615 hrs.; this guy was armed with a handgun.

8) Oh hell, here's one more. I was working vice and I was the bait for the whore detail. I was in a downtown dive and I made the deal for a bj with some blonde hooker. I walked out of the bar with her and gave the high sign to the cover car down the block where another vice detective was sitting, waiting for me. As he pulled away from the curb, the hooker made the car and got a little panicky.

She grabbed me by the neck and said "It's a cop! Maybe he'll think you're my boyfriend!" She then planted those God-awful lips on mine. I thought I was going to puke. I wanted to wash my mouth with battery acid. She got arrested. I never asked her what she was doing with her lips before she kissed me nor how many times she had done it.

Rules For A Gunfight

I have seen this before but I just like it a bunch and it bears repeating. The pictures come from the original thread at Freerepublic.com.

DRILL SERGEANT JOE B. FRICK'S RULES FOR A

GUN, KNIFE, BASEBALL BAT OR FIST FIGHT

1. Forget about knives, bats and fists. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns. Bring four times the ammunition you think you could ever need.

2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammunition is cheap - life is expensive. If you shoot inside, buckshot is your friend. A new wall is cheap - funerals are expensive

3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough or using cover correctly.

5. Move away from your attacker and go to cover. Distance is your friend. (Bulletproof cover and diagonal or lateral movement are preferred.)

6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a semi or full-automatic long gun and a friend with a long gun.

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running. Yell "Fire!" Why "Fire"? Cops will come with the Fire Department, sirens often scare off the bad guys, or at least cause then to lose concentration and will.... and who is going to summon help if you yell "Intruder," "Glock" or "Winchester?"

9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.

10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.

11. Always cheat, always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

12. Have a plan.

13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work. "No battle plan ever survives 10 seconds past first contact with an enemy."

14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible, but remember, sheetrock walls and the like stop nothing but your pulse when bullets tear through them.

15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.

16. Don't drop your guard.

17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees. Practice reloading one-handed and off-hand shooting. That's how you live if hit in your "good" side.

18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. Smiles, frowns and other facial expressions don't (In God we trust. Everyone else keep your hands where I can see them.)

19. Decide NOW to always be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.

20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet if necessary, because they may want to kill you.

22. Be courteous to everyone, overly friendly to no one.

23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.

24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with anything smaller than "4".

25. Use a gun that works EVERY TIME. "All skill is in vain when an Angel blows the powder from the flintlock of your musket." At a practice session, throw you gun into the mud, then make sure it still works. You can clean it later.

26. Practice shooting in the dark, with someone shouting at you, when out of breath, etc.

27. Redardless of whether justified of not, you will feel sad about killing another human being. It is better to be sad than to be room temperatire.

28. The only thing you EVER say afterwards is, "He said he was going to kill me. I beleived him. I'm sorry, Officer, but I'm very upset now. I can't say anything more. Please speak with my attorney."

Finally, Drill Sergeant Frick's Rules For Un-armed Combat.

1: Never be unarmed.

2: If you have your hands, your feet, your mind and your Spirit as an American Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine or Coastie, you are never unarmed.






H/T to Charlie the Chicago cop.