SOBer Thoughts (081607)

NixGuy noted Paul Belien’s post at Brussels Journal about the wonders of nationalized health care in Belgium, and what it did for to his grandfather. Various states in the US are embarking on similar schemes. The states, Constitutionally-envisioned as laboratories for new ideas, will likely show us what a bad idea socialized medicine is — if the press chooses to cover what is really happening.

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I’m glad Boring Made Dull wrote this up — Robert Samuelson ripped his employer Newsweak for its despicable cover-story hit piece going after those of us who won’t bow to the globalarmists and their globaloney.

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Pro Ecclesia was early in noting this attempt to force a judge with “deep religious beliefs” to recuse himself because of those beliefs. Make no mistake — This is also an attempt to send a message to aspiring potential judicial candidates and nominees with similar beliefs: “Look elsewhere for work.”

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One Bob covered NBC’s announcement that The Today Show will add a fourth hour. I agree with Bob that game shows would be preferable. So would a test pattern.

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Via Conservative Culture — For what should be obvious reasons, I would hope that women’s groups would line up against the possible success of this lawsuit by former congressional candidate Stephanie Studebaker against her ex-father-in-law. You see, the father-in-law made a 911 domestic-violence call to protect his son. I’m probably hoping for too much.

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ANOTHER FIND:

UPDATE — “The Colum-busted Dispatch: Links to Writings of Story’s Subjects Appear, 9-10 Days Later”

Columbuser notes a case of Buckeye State Blindness — followed by an unfortunately oh-so-predictable race/religious-baiting comment from its “leader” (comment #1 at the Cbuser link). I see the New Hampshire summer hasn’t exactly elevated the level of Jerid’s discourse.

Follow the links here, Jerid and “Buckeye” (and here’s a bonus from Cbuser). Oh, and Barbara Carmen from the Columbogus Dispatch, if you can break free from your work at the Whitewash Desk for a few minutes, you should do the same.

Done reading? Fine. Now, repeat after me: “Abukar Arman has expressed support in his writings for known terrorists, terrorist organizations, and groups that wish to impose Sharia law on their populations.”

Now that the now non-disputable points about Mr. Arman’s terrorist and extra-constitutional Sharia sympathies have been established, the question is whether he is was (he resigned Friday — more on that later) indeed on the board that oversees Franklin County’s Homeland Security — something that BSBlind “Buckeye” disputes. For convenience sake, yours truly has converted the Cbuser-linked PDF of the county’s December 2006 Comprehensive Strategic Justice Plan to an HTML file (the appearance is different but the wording is intact), so that anyone who clicks here can immediately see these two sentences, which lead the second and third paragraphs, respectively (bold is mine):

The Franklin County Criminal Justice Planning Board was created in April 2000 as a result of the merge between the City of Columbus and Franklin County into a Regional Planning Unit for Criminal Justice Services.

….. The Board is responsible for comprehensive countywide planning and directing the mission of the Office of Homeland Security & Justice Programs.

Last time I checked, “directing the mission” of an entity is a form of “oversight.” And Mr. Arman is indeed on that board (members are listed a bit later in the same document; and yes, I know that the Dispatch article reports that “County officials said that is an error: The board oversees justice grants and court programs, and handles no sensitive information.” C’mon — How does someone make an “error” like that? And why has the “error” not been fixed?).

Therefore, the only question that remains is whether the folks at Buckeye State Blinders-on, Franklin County’s Commissioners, Columbus’s Mayor (since Columbus has about 2/3 of Franklin County’s 1.1 million residents), and other elected officials are were at all concerned about whether Mr. Arman, who (repeat after me) “has expressed support in his writings for known terrorists, terrorist organizations, and groups that wish to impose Sharia law on their populations,” is was on such a board.

If they don’t care, and are perhaps still supportive of Mr. Arman, they should simply acknowledge Mr. Arman’s (repeat after me) “support in his writings for known terrorists, terrorist organizations, and groups that wish to impose Sharia law on their populations,” and say that his presence on the Board is was nonetheless just fine. Go ahead, folks; acknowledge the obvious. What’s the problem here?

Instead, Franklin County’s (mis)Information Director and the Mayor’s spokesman appear to have set out to prove that Mr. Arman is not a criminal. Huh? From what I can tell, no one has accused Arman of criminal activity.

But wait, a, minute — Isn’t a nominee’s clean criminal record verified BEFORE he or she is allowed to sit on the, uh, Criminal Justice Planning Board in the first place? Since they don’t even look into whether a member of the Board is or isn’t a citizen, it’s reasonable to question whether anyone bothers looking into past criminal activity. From Carmen’s Dispatch article, near the end:

As the county looked into his appointment to the justice planning board, it found a clear problem. Board members are required to be “citizens of the county.” Arman, who is not a U.S. citizen, resigned Friday.

Talk about burying the lede — How about “Terror-Sympathizing, Sharia-Supporting Non-Citizen Resigns from Criminal Justice Board”?

This is getting too bizarre:

• Is it or is it not illegal for a non-citizen to sit on such a board?
• And if it’s illegal, is it not fair to say that although Mr. Arman was found to have “no criminal or terrorist connections,” he was (perhaps consciously) conducting himself illegally every time he attended a Board meeting or dealt with Board business? (Whatever happened to “ignorance of the law is no excuse”?)
• On what planet does all of this support the plaintive headline, “Investigation Clears Hilliard Man”?

The obvious lack of background checking could indicate that the County’s Criminal Justice Board has bigger problems than Mr. Arman, and doesn’t even know it.