CHICAGO (AP) - Authorities found the bodies of five young people Wednesday inside a ransacked house on Chicago’s South Side, raising the body count in an already violent spring, police said.

It appeared the three men and two women had been shot, but investigators were waiting for the Cook County medical examiner’s office to confirm a cause of death, said Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrne. Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday, the medical examiner’s office said.

“This is very serious,” Byrne said at a news conference near the two-story house. “There’s five victims. There’s five families right now that are grieving over this.”

All the victims were in their 20s, and they all knew each other, said Deputy Chief Eugene Williams. There were signs of forced entry into the house, which appeared to have been ransacked, Williams said.

A woman visiting the house found the bodies Wednesday afternoon, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

Full Story Here:
Chicago’s violent spring continues, with 5 found dead

Well gee, I’m going out on a limb here, the south side of Chicago, the baddest part of town, and if you go down there you better just beware, uh, wait…

Figure it out people, it’s either gangs, drugs, turf war, some of the previous, all of the previous, whatever you want to call it, it’s a street war and it’s been going on in the inner cities for a long time…

Chicago is in the news because Detroit hasn’t fired up yet, wait until the weather warms up a bit more, they won’t take a back seat to Chicago hoods…

Look at the WHO and WHERE and the makeup of the area and that’s about all you need to know, it’s been going on forever and it will continue until they ALL kill each other, so, that means it will never end…

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The longest pause in executions in the U.S. in 25 years is about to end. A splintered Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday, approving the most widely used method of lethal injection.

Almost immediately, Virginia lifted its moratorium on the death penalty. Mississippi and Oklahoma said they would seek execution dates for convicted murderers, and other states were ready to follow.

A nearly seven-month halt in executions was brought on by the court’s decision to review Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures, which are similar to those in roughly three dozen states. The break is the longest since a 17-month period ending in August 1982.

Voting 7-2, the conservative court led by Chief Justice John Roberts rebuffed the latest assault on capital punishment, this time by foes focusing on methods rather than on the legality of the death penalty itself. Justice John Paul Stevens voted with the majority on the question of lethal injections but said for the first time that he now believes the death penalty is unconstitutional.
(snip)
The case decided Wednesday was not about the constitutionality of the death penalty generally or even lethal injection. Instead, two Kentucky death row inmates contended that their executions could be carried out more humanely, with less risk of pain.

Full Story Here:
Executions to resume after high court OK’s lethal injections

Actually, I have very little to say on this matter other than to ask this of the death row inmates that are worried about their executions being carried out more humanely, with less risk of pain: Did you consider ANY of that when you committed the murders that landed you ON death row??

Did you consider the pain, the suffering or the sheer terror that was felt by your victims?? I seriously doubt it…

I hope it hurts like hell when they inject you with the killer cocktail, I hope it’s the most excruciating pain a body can know, it will help to prepare you for your next destination…

Edited to Add: AUSTIN, Texas - The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding lethal injection sent a shudder through death row Wednesday, and prosecutors and governors around the country said they would move forward with carrying out death sentences as quickly as the courts can set execution dates.

“It’s just terrible,” said Paris Powell, a convicted killer at the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester. He added: “It’s like the air has just been let out of a balloon. There’s disbelief that the ruling came so quickly, but it goes further than just right now. It’s now official that the death penalty is here to stay forever, really.”

Full Story Here:
Killer on execution ruling: ‘Just terrible’

It sucks to be you, do you suppose you should have thought of how terrible it was for the person you killed?? Before you killed them??

And here’s something to think about while you wait for the needle, the death penalty may very well be here forever, but for the person you murdered, their death is here forever too, chew on that while you wait!

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Texas border land owners, mayors and wildlife groups blasted the Bush administration’s sweeping plan to waive nearly three dozen federal laws to speed construction of a border fence by year’s end.

Using authority granted by Congress, the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday it plans to issue two waivers to complete 670 miles of fencing in four border states. DHS says it has finished 309 miles of fencing, leaving 361 miles to be constructed by a December deadline.

“Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement. “These waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward.”

Border leaders, however, continue to stress the fence is a heavy-handed and ineffective approach to security that will harm endangered species, force landowners to sell ancestral river property and destroy habitat that supports ecotourism on the Texas border.

One DHS waiver will be used to complete a 22-mile combined river levee-fence project in Hidalgo County. The second waiver covers an additional 470 miles of fencing — through 2008 and future years — in Texas and three other border states. The waivers are the largest employed by DHS since its fence project began.

Full Story Here:
South Texas leaders blast plan to speed up border fence

If ‘border leaders’ think the HSA solution to the ILLEGALS crossing the border is heavy handed, they sure won’t like MY idea of border security or how I would go about making it happen.

We have a wonderful Texas National Guard, let’s use them where they are intended to be used, in TEXAS, and let’s use them for the purpose they are intended as well, the protection OF the great state of Texas and her LEGAL citizens.

Let’s station the Guard on the border, we can give them FULL combat capabilities and equipment, air support from helicopter gunships and maybe some A-10’s just for good measure, let’s install some .50cal machine gun emplacements about every 750 yards, with interlocking fields of fire, we can lay down anti-personnel mines from the edge of the river, oh, say maybe 100 yards in and call it a ‘no mans land’, Claymore mines too, we can string them maybe 200 yards in, on OUR side of the border, nothing is out of the question when it comes to stopping ILLEGAL INVADERS, not if I was the guy in charge!

And then we give the troops a GREEN LIGHT, anyone crossing that border at anything other than a LEGAL border crossing just became a target of opportunity in a ‘free fire’ zone, man, woman or child, makes NO difference, drop ‘em where they stand, NO PRISONERS, the buzzards and coyotes have to eat too.

Harsh you say? You’re damn right it’s harsh, it’s meant to be harsh, but you can bet your bottom dollar that IF we had a POTUS and a few governors with the kind of balls required to make things like this happen, we’d have a lot less ILLEGALS in Texas, and a lot of other places in this great nation as well.

And another thing, the strain on OUR welfare system, Social Security system and OUR health care providers would drop substantially, and that would take some of the strain off of the American TAX PAYER!

That’s us folks, you and me, ‘We, the people’, born free and taxed to death to support a bunch of ILLEGALS that won’t lift a finger to help America.

And I have to ask, WHY do we continue to tolerate this BS??

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NEW ORLEANS — The crime wave that hit New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina shows little sign of abating, more than two years after city officials said taming the outbreak was among their top priorities.

The rates of killings and most types of property crime have kept pace with the city’s population increase, according to police records. Sporadic violence also marred the city’s famed Mardi Gras celebration since Saturday, with at least nine people wounded by gunshots, including some that were fired near a parade route Tuesday.

Recent crime figures show that the number of thefts reported in the first 10 months of 2007 was 51% higher than the same period in 2006; the number of robberies increased 54%, according to police records.

Such crimes are increasing despite an aggressive federal, state and city campaign that includes patrols by the National Guard and state police. For instance, more than 1,000 officers, state troopers and National Guardsmen were positioned along Mardi Gras parade routes this year.

Among the reasons for continuing problems:

Full Story Here:
Crime wave has grip on New Orleans

This is a pretty good story, gives a decent perspective and some believable figures, but it is far from being what could be called a comprehensive report…

It describes the crime in New Orleans but it doesn’t give details, like the story about the 8 shootings that took place and we’re referred to as sporadic violence, 8 people were shot and it’s called sporadic violence, that speaks volumes in regards to the mindset of the people that are running New Orleans… Only sporadic violence has marred the celebration. At least eight people had been wounded by gunshots, five of them on Saturday.

I’ll tell you what else this story doesn’t address concerning the New Orleans crime wave, when there is a crime committed, usually a shooting of some sort, the New Orleans paper, The Times-Picayune, is all over it, giving names, addresses, all the data you’d expect, except for the fact that they consistently disregard the most vital information you can have, the RACE and SEX of the suspected perpetrator, you see, the Times-Picayune is afraid of offending the Chocolate City if it describes the criminal being sought as a black male or female, they may report height and weight, how they are dressed and so forth, but they are not going to say that the bad guys are BLACK, they’re afraid of accusations of racism I guess…

Or, maybe it’s just a given that if a shooting takes place in New Orleans, it’s going to likely be a black person pulling the trigger and it’s assumed that everyone just realizes and accepts that as fact…

Another thing the story doesn’t address is the incompetence of the NOPD, a department in crisis at best…

The NOPD has been backed up by the Louisiana State Police and units of the Louisiana Army National Guard and even with that formidable backup, NOPD can’t get a grip on the street crime in the inner city, for the most part, the LSP and the LaANG are used in the more desolate areas on Orleans Parish, the city administration is doing everything it can to make tourists feel comfortable and welcome and having TROOPS patrolling the more populated areas just won’t go very far towards building confidence in the out of towners…

Nagin got his wish, a Chocolate City, and it IS imploding upon itself, yet the welfare slugs of New Orleans, and their leaders, Nagin and Company, continue to scream for federal assistance, BILLIONS of dollars in assistance, to rebuild that pearl of moral fortitude known as New Orleans…

If you want to get a feeling for New Orleans, and the mentality of it’s more vocal inhabitants, read a few stories at http://nola.com/ and then read the comments, you’ll see for yourself, 1st hand, the pathetic slugs that inhabit the place, with their hands out, hoping for some welfare windfall as they call anyone that doesn’t fully agree with them and support their pathetic existence a racist, and worse, but don’t take MY word for it, read it for yourself, and you decide…

And also notice, if you DO read the Times-Picayune, they are having that crime wave, shootings are a daily occurrence, murders are coming in at a 1 a day average and the NOPD hasn’t got a clue concerning what to do, and that starts at the Chief level and rolls down hill…

Do you want YOUR tax dollars used to rebuild New Orleans?? I know I don’t…

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Mike Huckabee won the first contest declared on Super Tuesday, picking up all 18 national delegates awarded at West Virginia’s state GOP convention.

Huckabee bested Mitt Romney, who entered the Mountain State event with the largest bloc of pledged convention-goers. Both men and Ron Paul made in-person appeals to the more than 1,100 convention delegates attending Tuesday’s convention.

But the former Arkansas governor beat his Massachusetts counterpart after delegates for John McCain defected to his side.

The first round of voting at the state convention produced no winner, but eliminated Paul after his fourth-place finish.

Full Story Here:
Huckabee Wins All 18 W.Va. Delegates

Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me in the least, hillbillies of a feather always stick together…

And in other news, the Dow Plunges 350 on Weak Service Sector is the headline, but the actual closing was 370.03 and that worries me, here we are on Super Tuesday and the markets are still dumping out on us, it seems that no matter what the Bush administration does, it’s not affecting the markets as much as they want it to…

It seems Tainted Pills Hit U.S. Mainland and the manufacturer, a Canadian drug maker, Biovail Corp., had the pills manufactured in their plant in Puerto Rico, cheaper labor perhaps?? All I can say is, get ready America, if the Dems get in office and we have socialized medicine forced on us, this is going to become the standard instead of the exception…

And then there this, the understatement story of the day, Economy’s slide has voters on edge, “Americans are increasingly downbeat about the economy and deeply worried that their standard of living is at risk,”…

I’m a retired person, living on a retirement income and some modest investments, the retirement income hasn’t gone down but with the way the market is bouncing up and down, no matter how well invested you are, it’s still a precarious position to be in, when you have mid 6 figures in investments and watch your dividends just float off into the sunset, it makes you worry a bit…

And just because I can, New Orleans Revelers Usher in Mardi Gras, and the Time-Picayune, the NOLA paper, has buried the story about the 8 shootings that have already taken place to date, “Only sporadic violence has marred the celebration. At least eight people had been wounded by gunshots, five of them on Saturday.” I hate to think of the mentality required to run a city where 8 shootings can be viewed as an action of ’sporadic violence’, that’s telling the entire world that you’re ready to be rebuilt NOLA, you’re sending ALL the right signals, keep it up folks, those messages are going to make NOLA a grand and glorious place to build and live…

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LIMA, Ohio — The death of Tarika Wilson during a drug raid has left tensions here simmering between minorities and police.

Wilson, 26, was fatally shot and her 1-year-old son was injured when SWAT officers burst into her home looking for her boyfriend. The officer is white, the victim is black.

Black clergy leaders are nervously waiting for investigators to decide whether to charge a veteran officer who fired the fatal shots.

“This was ready to blow,” said Daniel Hughes, one of several pastors who has been preaching patience while residents demand more answers about the shooting. “It still could go either way.”

More than two weeks have passed since the Jan. 4 death of Wilson, a 26-year-old mother of six. Her baby son, Sincere Wilson, was injured and had a finger amputated.

Little is known about what happened. Family members say Wilson was an innocent bystander. Police have said her 31-year-old boyfriend, who was arrested during the raid, was selling drugs out of the house. The raid concluded a long-term investigation into the sale of illegal drugs from the home, the police chief said.

The shooting has led to much soul searching about the mistrust between minorities and police and what happens to cities when manufacturing jobs move out and drugs move in.

Full Story Here:
Ohio Residents, Police on Edge After Woman’s Death During Drug Raid

“The root of this is we have no jobs here,” said Artria Knuckles, who manages a Taco Bell and supports four children in this northwestern Ohio city. “They have to do what they can to survive. They have to resort to selling drugs.”

And the above statement ladies and gentlemen, is the very reason there will always be ghettos, dope dealers, a great divide between the races and the various acts of murder and mayhem that accompany the actions associated with drug dealers…

No one is FORCED into this, no one, and when those that DO participate pay the price, naturally the race card is going to be played, of course the cops raided the house because they were BLACK drug dealers, I mean, everyone knows that cops don’t bust WHITE drug dealers, and we ALL know the woman was shot simply because she was an innocent BLACK bystander, it had nothing to do with serious drug deals, and God only knows what other circumstances going down in her house, done by her boyfriend, or whatever he was, or her, I am not passing judgement on her or the officer that shot her or the reasons for the shooting but if there was a long term investigation and drugs were being dealt, she was far from innocent in THIS situation…

‘She was such a good child, she was a wonderful mother, they was jus’ a dealin dem drugs to makes ends meet til she could catch a break and goes back to whorin’ down at the I-75 rest area…’, and truth be known, that is NOT as far from a real statement as one might imagine, anyone that could justify drug dealing and it’s relation to their employment status would seriously use that as more justification, these are the very types of excuses our police officers hear every day, people doing the crimes aren’t actually BAD people, they were just forced into it by economic maladies and life circumstance…

And have you ever wondered?? These people use their lack of work to justify their drug usage or dealing, or both, but they don’t have any money, just sayin’…

‘We wuz jus a tryin’ to keeps food on da table fo’ dem chirrens’…’

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