Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (072706)

Free Links:

• Porkopolis has a very important post on local law enforcement’s little-known and relatively easy ability to enforce immigration law on a perfectly legal basis, as was discussed on Lou Dobbs’ program on Monday. Go there.
• Another day, another half-million record data breach.
• As I pointed out yesterday, reporters at The New York Times all too often fail to find (or possibly ignore) basic facts that refute claims made in their stories. This makes it very odd that Times reporter Heather Timmons was able to locate her calculator so she could include the following silly Big Oil-bashing factoid in an article on the eventual retirement of Lord Browne, chief executive of BP (British Petroleum):
  

  Lord Browne announced the news as BP reported a record profit of $7.27 billion in the second quarter, up 30 percent from the period a year earlier.

  ….. Lord Browne’s impending departure comes as BP’s financial performance has never been better, thanks to sky-high oil prices. The company earned a net profit of $12.9 billion in the first half of 2006. Its quarterly results translate into a profit of more than $900 a second.

  While we’re doing the suddenly important money-per-second calculations, let look at the British government’s budget for 2006, straight from HM Treasury:

  Total public spending is expected to be around £552 billion for the coming year, around £9,200 for every man, woman and child in the UK.

  The budget of 552 billion British pounds is the equivalent of $1.016 trillion US dollars, based on Tuesday evening’s exchange rates at MSN. This translates to over $32,000 per second. When was the last time you saw a WORM (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as The Mainstream Media) publication express government spending in dollars per second?

• Why people continue to vote with their feet and leave Cincinnati (previous post on the topic):
  

  A Tri-state teen is dead after being shot multiple times Tuesday night.

  Cincinnati police say it happened around 8 p.m. when two carloads of black males pulled into the Shell gas station at 10 West Mitchell Avenue and Vine Street and began firing at each other.

  Police say the teen was taken to University Hospital but did not survive.

  ….. One witness to the shootout included a woman who was forced to dodge the bullets as she was pumping gas when the gunfire erupted.

  Police say at least 20 shots were fired during the shootout.

  Folks, 8 PM at this time of year around here is pretty close to daylight. The site of the shootout can’t by any reasonable stretch be considered a depressed or poverty-stricken area. I’ve probably gassed up at that station a dozen times over 30 years, none in the past five. But never again.

  The fact is that there are very few places in the city that can be considered safe any more, and if nothing is done to turn that around, the flight will accelerate.

• Here’s another city apparently determined to have its citizens leave, providing yet another reason besides crime, lousy schools, and taxes, namely terminal nanniness –
  

  If you’re a cell phone-using, goose liver-eating, cigarette-smoking, fast food-loving person, Chicago might not be your kind of town.

  In this city that once winked at Prohibition, members of the City Council are trying to crack down on things they deem unhealthy, immoral or just plain annoying.

  ….. Critics, including the mayor, wonder if the City Council has suddenly deemed itself the behavior police.

  “We have children getting killed by gang leaders and dope dealers,” an angry Mayor Richard M. Daley said earlier this year. “We have real issues here in this city. And we’re dealing with foie gras? Let’s get some priorities.”

  Mayor Dictator for Life Daley is right on this one.