O! say can you see...

There is a problem afoot in the land that the media is keeping a lid on. It doesn't featured kidnapped girls so that's part of the reason. The other part is that it shows the anti-war movement at it's true level.

Flag burnings.

I'm not talking about freedom of expression. I'm talking about the denial of Constitutional rights to freedom of expression that is being engaged in. It's not being done by Bush or Cheney or anyone on the right. It's the anti-war movement.

Flags belonging to men and women on display outside their own homes are being set on fire. It's not confined to one geographic location.

I say this is repression of freedom of expression because the arsonists doing the burning are denying the rights of the flag owners to make their expression known.

No judge who isn't sucking around for a poke in the snoot is going to get behind anyone claiming that they have a freedom to set fire to another person's property. That's not freedom of expression and is the working definition of arson.

Cops, however, fail to treat these arsons properly. They treat them as vandalism, as does the press. How long before one of these "pranks" burns a family or even a neighborhood down?

Someone wants to buy their own flag and burn it on their own property after they observe all local fire ordinances, burn bans, smoking ordinances, and do an EPA study to ensure that their freedom of expression doesn't compromise the economy or cause Global Warming is welcome to. IF they do all of the above. Leave out one and they should be hit with the full force of law for the crime they commit. If a business can't have an open air incinerator neither should some "performance artist".

Now let's get back to what is actually happening. These citizens who are flying their flags are flying US flags, not the flags of other nations and especially not the flag of Mexico. The people doing the torching are the usual assortment of cowards which is why they are in the anti-war movement to start with. If they had the courage of their convictions they would call a press conference, do their act and then go to jail to take their medicine. Instead it's torch and run.

Total cowards.

Civil disobedience means you take your medicine, be it one hour in a holding cell or 20 years. Torching another person's property, no matter how you feel about what it symbolizes, is a cowardly act of arson.

Another "Glock Fowty" Incident

Once more a cop shows off how he's the ONLY ONE capable of handling firearms.

Even so, I really want to shove my foot up the ass of the Accredited Journalist who thinks that "Glock 40" is a model number.

Students claim police chief who shot himself was careless

RIVERDALE, Utah - The police chief who shot himself in the ankle was waving a loaded pistol and being careless, according to two students who were attending his class to qualify for a concealed-weapons permit. "We were told the gun is the chief's personal sidearm, but it looked to me like he didn't know anything about the gun," Lewis Walker said.

Bart Ulm, another student seeking certification to carry a concealed weapon, said he was surprised Chief Dave Hansen was using a loaded gun to show how it worked.

"Right then, I was very leery, because there's no need to have live ammo in a gun in the class. But I figured he's the chief, so he must know what he's doing," Ulm told the Standard-Examiner of Ogden.

Hansen held the Glock 40 under a table to disassemble it when a bullet fired, Walker said.

The chief cried, "I'm hit," and fell over. Students who were screaming "Officer down!" were urged to call 911.

The gun went off in a conference room Saturday at Riverdale police headquarters.

Hansen was taken to McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden for surgery and released Monday, Lt. James Ebert said.

Ebert said the findings of an internal investigation would be announced Wednesday. He declined to offer specifics but disputed the accounts of Ulm and Walker, describing the pair as "disgruntled."

Other students "did not share that feeling" about the chief, Ebert told The Associated Press.

Walker said he didn't have confidence in the investigation.

"I think Riverdale police are just trying to keep this quiet and act like the chief is a hero. But if you ask me, he's really stupid," Walker said. "His state certification to teach concealed-weapons classes should be taken away from him. This was totally gross negligence."

Ulm said there was a moment of levity during the emergency.

He said an officer at the scene joked that "instead of shooting himself, he should have used the Taser."