I'm picking nits on this one, but I feel the need to point out that the AWACS that came over to help us after 9/11 were not German aircraft. The planes, which carry Luxembourg civilian registrations, belong to NATO as a whole, and are staffed by crews made up of people from 11 NATO countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey and the United States). The Brits own and operate their own AWACS.

So, anyway, the Germans didn't lend us a hand, NATO did.

Aside: Here's a great picture of a NATO AWACS over Niagra Falls.

The fact that someone might spend money on such a product, for any reason other than color preference, could tell you a lot about that someone.
As we engineers say, wire is wire.
I suppose such a thing would go well with an AOL account...

MACFU accusations flying again. The Chief was already under investigation for perjury based upon his earlier disciplining of Aguirre. Aguirre thinks that the Chief can't be impartial, and Aguirre wants an independent investigation. There are now 9 lawsuits against the city over the MACFU, and some of the 13 suspended officers might sue over their suspensions. My favorite line in the article, "City council must now come up with a plan to settle the suits with money it doesn't have. "

Chastity belts are back, and being marketed in sKorea as a means of avoiding sexual assaults. However, based upon the linked picture, I assume that the lock on the displayed pair is rarely locked...

Continental airlines is looking to charge extra for portly fliers. Not fatties, though, in this case they are going after oversized luggage.

The airlines must be convinced that there are simply too many people left who have not yet given up on flying.

I guess Australia doesn't have an analog to our first amendment. Pranksters convinced over 70,000 people, about 0.37% of all Australians, to list "Jedi" as their religion during Australia's last census.

Despite the efforts of many, Jedi will not become an officially recognized religion in Australia.

What is scarier; A bunch of nerds claiming "Jedi" as their religion, or a government that assumes the power to declare which religions are "officially recognized in Australia"?

"If, for example, people of a particular religious affiliation do not provide the correct information, certain facilities might not be built that otherwise would be." [said the Australian Bureau of Statistics.]

I hope, for the Aussies' sakes, that they don't mean that the state will or will not build certain facililties based upon religious information from the census. I hope against hope that they mean that some churches might mis-estimate their populations based upon faulty data. I hope.

Bloomberg censors Singapore mud-sling.

William Safire, writing about how Bloomberg pulled an article that might have offended the Lee family, starts with a good jibe, and ends with a clever jab.

Let me see if I can write today's column without getting sued. It has to do with my old pal Lee Kuan Yew, who prefers to be called "senior minister" rather than dictator of Singapore, and whose family members have been doing exceedingly well lately.
...
I tried to reach the C.E.O. of Bloomberg, Lex Fenwick, but he dove under his desk. The founder, one Michael Bloomberg, is no longer with the firm and left no forwarding address.

Oh, and the stuff in between is pretty good, too.

Sanity and reason are finally sneaking into Houston's attempts to put right the damage done at the MACFU.

[Bradford] admitted that the parking lot raid arrests may be illegal, if people were never told they were trespassing and given a chance to leave.

Bradford said that if that's true, then he wonders why his officers followed an illegal order to arrest everyone.
...
The city attorney told the council that if an internal affairs investigation reveals that the arrests were illegal, the city will dismiss all of the charges against all of the people and even overturn the convictions for those who pleaded guilty to get out of jail.

HPD Chief passing the MACFU buck in the most unimaginative way possible. Nope, the dog didn't eat his report, he was "out of town" at the time of the arrests.

Oh, well then, that makes it OK.

Click image for story.

Remember those airport screeners that started working after just 15 minutes of training when they were supposed to get 40 hours of training. Turns out the story is false. They actually trained for a whole 90 minutes.

Mineta's minions missed another hand cannon.

Watch for the interesting side story in this case of the high capacity ammunition feeding devices (manufactured after the '94 ban). Each one is worth a few years in federal pen, unless you are a government sanctioned armed-bureaucrat.

This is probably a good thing. Otherwise, HPD would likely arrest the massive crowds of folks hanging out.

Asset forfeiture makes the varsity squad.

In an article concerning how high level FBI and DOJ officials look out for, and protect, one another, the following assertion of good character falls flat.

"Actions such as this impugn not only my integrity but also the judgment of FBI and DOJ [Department of Justice] officials in the decision-making progress," Harp wrote. "My actions have been scrutinized at the highest levels of the FBI and DOJ, and no wrongdoing was found. . . . I firmly stand on my record."

"Airport Hassle" is now an official part of travel lexicon. When even the mainstream media picks up on the fact that flying sucks BECAUSE of security, not because of the risks, it is time to Impeach Norman Mineta.

HPD suspends 12 supervisors over MACFU.

Yates said Monday that the arrests were made to prevent innocent people from being killed by dangerous drag racers.

Again with the "arrest the children to save the children" nanny-state nonsense. Yates, like his client, is an idiot.

I completed a new animation. It's sort of big (166 Kb), so I didn't put it inline with the blog. If interested, check out "Comedian Extra:" to see my latest work.

It animates the process inherent in the post below about Gray Davis.

A judge today denied a request from Houston Police Capt. Mark A. Aguirre to force the City of Houston to remove an investigation of the officer from the control of Police Chief C.O. Bradford.

Aguirre believes that the Chief cannot be impartial, since he is in the chain of command. I hope, for Houston's sake, that the IAD of the HPD has the structure, and capability, to investigate any and all members of the force, right up to the top.

I have reached the limits of my capacity for outrage over the MACFU. I report now merely as a linker, mechanically reproducing URL's to feed those of you might still feel, for now anyway, that there remains a the possibility of a meaningful resolution to the mass corruption and lawlessness of the HPD.

• Aguirre, head thug of the MACFU, relieved of duty, disgraced, unrepentent and without shame, has stepped up to defend his actions at the MACFU.
• A pre-raid memo has been released that detailed the need to arrest racers and their fans in order to crack down. Pity, when they showed up no one was racing.

Life imitating art.

How perfect is it that the world's largest private collection of pornography was in Clinton.

Gray Davis thinks that this ^ ^
should be enough to get a
driver's license in California.

Combine this with the wonders of Motor Voter, and voila -- Instantly minted new Democrat voters!

After admonishing Christine Phillips about the cigarettes in her purse during an aiport "security" search, one of big brother's minions apparently lifted her credit cards and cash. Her attempts to report the theft lead her on a wild goose chase, showing that perhaps the only person possible worse than Mineta was in charge -- No One.

On the off chance that you might be enjoying your Monday, and you really want to wreck your day, go read this NY Times article about AIDS in rural China.

At the time, blood from several farmers was pooled and centrifuged to skim off the plasma, which the blood stations sold to companies to make medicines. The remaining red cells were pooled and transfused back into the sellers, providing a gruesomely efficient method for transmitting blood-borne diseases, including hepatitis and AIDS.

MACFU Captain's attorney claims that Aguirre is being made a scapegoat for all the illegal arrests. I think he needs to hit his dictionary again to find the word he is looking for. The Cap'n can only be a scapegoat if he is to blame for others wrong doings.

Yates said the raid in the parking lot of the 24-hour Kmart Super Center in the 8400 block of Westheimer was part of an ongoing effort. He said seven fatalities in recent months have been attributed to drag racing and related hooliganism.

So, I infer, their reasoning was something like "We must arrest the children to save the children."

Two more Chronicle articles about the MACFU. Most of the words offer nothing new, but here's a tidbit out of the first article:

Aguirre is a member of the HPOU, so the union has a duty to obtain representation for him. But the union chose to hire an attorney not on staff to represent him because a number of other union members were involved in his sting last weekend, Marticiuc said.

That decision also was made to avoid a conflict of interest: "There's a darn good possibility that other officers' perspectives may be different from his -- that's another reason he was farmed out," Marticiuc said.

Wow, even his own union sees that he put the officers in his command in a bad spot. A bad spot that none of them complained about in situ, but a bad spot nonetheless.

The second article mostly just rehashes old stuff, but offers this "new" take on the raids:

What got Aguirre into trouble, the officers say, is that he used his harsh tactics last weekend on young people with affluent families instead of the poor, homeless, disenfranchised and largely voiceless people targeted on his home turf.

Kevin Whited links to a KHOU article on what higher ups at HPD knew about the MACFU, and when they knew it.

[...] 11 news has learned the chief, himself, was apparently in on the planning for Operation E-racer.

Houston Police Chief Clarence Bradford made it clear this week that the raid on Westheimer would be thoroughly investigated.
...
Monday night Chief Bradford called for an investigation of the controversial crackdown. He wanted to know who was in charge? What instructions were given to officers? And why were arrests made instead of issuing citations?

Who was in charge? It turned out to be HPD Captain Mark Aguirre. He told 11 news that he was surprised the chief had so many questions about the raid. "It was my understanding that Chief Bradford was in the loop," said Aguirre. "I assume that. Nothing of this magnitude would escape his attention."

Friday night 11 News obtained an interoffice correspondence, which appears to back Captain Aguirre's beliefs. The memo is the plan for last weekend's raid. It was sent to Chief Bradford on May 13, months ago.

In the correspondence Captain Aguirre explains to the chief the proposed solution for the problems in that area and why issuing tickets would not work.

Operation E-Racer?

Dude, that is so last week. "E" names went out when the dot-com bubble burst. What next, mullet-sporting officers in bell-bottoms and platform shoes busting communists selling illegal comic books?

[Link found at Off the Kuff]

MACFU field-commander Mark Aguirre -- Suspended, with pay.

Aguirre is not allowed to comment since he has been ordered by HPD not to talk about the matter, but his attorney said Saturday's disciplinary action was unexpected.

"We're very surprised about that," Yates said. "To our knowledge, he's the only person (connected to the raid) who's been relieved."

Surprised?

No surprise here. That is, no surprise that Aguirre has a dumbass attorney.

Unexpected?

If by that he means that they didn't get the courtesy phone call before the Captain got picked up, I guess I believe him. If the mouthpiece actually means that a suspension pending the results of the investigation was unexpected, then I suppose Aguirre's attorney is a double dumbass.

"No comment." Learn it, love it, live it.