Video of Michael Brown robbing convenience store. This is not a very nice guy. Believable that he would get into fight with police.

I wanted to wait until some evidence was in about the Ferguson, Missouri shooting.  However, after watching this video of a robbery that Michael Brown committed shortly before he was shot by police, I find it credible that Brown could instigate a fight with a police officer.  This is one big guy who was very belligerent.  Whether he also attacked the police officer isn't clear at this point, but I would find it quite plausible that he did.

More commentary from a former federal prosecutor on this new video is available here.

In attempting to distance herself from Obama, Hillary Clinton leaves herself all over the map on Syria

Is Hillary Clinton willing to say anything and take any position to win the presidency?  She keeps trying to portray herself as a moderate when she previously supported Obama's position.  From Fox News:

For a moment, Hillary Clinton appeared to draw a clear distinction with President Obama on foreign policy, after telling The Atlantic that the “failure” to help moderate Syrian rebels allowed extremists to flourish. 

But her comments both before and after that interview have left unclear what the former secretary of State’s views actually are on the crisis.   

Two years before her Atlantic interview, Clinton suggested to CBS News that arming a moderate faction in Syria was not “viable.” And since her critical comments of the Obama administration’s policy were published, the ex-secretary has phoned the president to clarify her remarks. According to reports of the call, the message was: no hard feelings. . . . . 

“This is such a blatant display of Clinton inauthenticity. It's breathtaking,” Fox News contributor and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said Wednesday. “She did finally appear to say something that she believes and then, of course, retracted.”  . . . 

Clinton tried to take the sting out in advance of Wednesday's party, saying it was not a hard choice to call the president on the heels of her Syria comments and they'd "absolutely" hug it out. “We agreed we are committed to the values and the interests and the security of our country together,” Clinton said. “We have disagreements, as any partners and friends, as we are, might very well have. But I'm proud that I served with him and for him.” . . .

Concealed carry permit holder uses gun to defend himself against three gang members, fatally shoots one of them

From the Orlando Sentinel:

An armed Lakeland man killed a 14-year-old gang member in a shootout Wednesday evening after both drew guns and opened fire, according to the Lakeland Police Department. 

At 7:49 p.m., Smith and two unidentified companions began taunting Canteen in the courtyard outside his Oregon Avenue apartment before the teen drew an handgun, a witness told police. 

Canteen also had a handgun and, according to Canteen, the teen began shooting at him first, striking him several times in the "upper extremities," police spokesman Sgt. Gary Gross said in a report. 

Canteen said he returned fire, striking the teen "numerous times." 

This was not the 5-feet 8-inch tall, 130-pound teen's first brush with violence. State records state he was a convicted felon arrested twice since age 12 for armed robbery with a gun, once for battery on a public or school employee and once for burglarizing a home. . . .

The Orlando Ledger has some useful information on Smith and his family.

. . . Wednesday's incident was not the first shooting to affect Davion Smith and his family.
Records show he was arrested in November 2012 following a shooting at the Lakeland farmers market in which a 79-year-old man was wounded. Davion Smith and six other teens were each charged with armed robbery and attempted murder, the Polk Sheriff's Office said at the time.
Smith's brother, 15-year-old Bayshawn Kelly, who is also a documented gang member, was shot in April this year during a gang-related drive-by shooting, police said. Kelly was hit in the arm and back, but recovered.
A few weeks later, Kelly was arrested on two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm stemming from a separate drive-by shooting, police said.
Smith's cousin, 15-year-old Shyhiem Morris, was wounded in a drive-by shooting in early May. At the scene of that shooting, Patricka Smith told The Ledger that she didn't understand all the violence among Lakeland's teens. . . .

Here is later Ledger article from August 12th with Smith's mother explaining that Davion's arrest record didn't involve anything serious.

Davion's mother, Patricka Smith, said she knows her son wasn't perfect, but he didn't deserve to die.
Davion, who was known as DayDay, was a star on the football field and always had a smile on his face, his family said.
He was one of five children and was generally respectful, his mother said.
He had a few problems in school and had been arrested before, but Patricka Smith said none of it was serious. . . . 

Having read a lot of these cases, if Canteen was not a concealed handgun permit holder, that information would surely have been released within five days of the shooting. 

Sheriff David Clarke wins re-election by 4% despite major campaign spending by Bloomberg and other left wing groups

Michael Bloomberg put $150,000 into the Milwaukee Sheriff's race.  In response, former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson urged Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary.  Well, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, David Clarke was beating Chris Moews by 52 to 48 percent.  As someone who respects Clarke, this is great news.

It looks like Thompson's request worked.  The Milwaukee Sheriff Democratic Primary had 108,955 votes while Milwaukee Treasurer Democratic Primary had just 68,181 votes.  It could be that the difference in vote totals is simply due to the fact this was a much more contested race.  However, before those who support Clarke's policies celebrate too much, they should realize that there is a less sanguine explanation for this 40,774 vote difference between the two races.  If it was due to Republicans voting (assuming that some of the Republicans didn't also vote in the treasurer race), Clarke would have been crushed if only Democrats had voted. Indeed, if that were the case, Clarke would have lost 76 to 24 percent.  That is quite a reversal from Clarke's previous win in the Democratic primary 4 years ago when he won by 6 percentage points without the benefit of Republican cross overs.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discusses the vote breakdown in the city of Milwaukee, which is just a part of the county:

. . . In Milwaukee, Clarke won with a razor-thin margin over Moews, just 1% in Milwaukee wards, yielding him 50.4%, according to unofficial returns. Four years ago, Clarke rolled up almost 57%. 

In the city, Clarke did particularly well in predominantly African-American wards in Milwaukee that traditionally have voted heavily Democratic. There, Clarke ran up a 23% lead over Moews, our review of returns from areas with at least 66% black voting population showed. . . .

From Fox News:

The money from Bloomberg’s Independence USA super PAC was more than what Clarke and Moews spent on their entire campaigns combined. . . .

The city of Milwaukee had 599,164 people in 2013 and the county had 956,023.  However, it is slightly less lopsided than that as the city has a larger portion of its population under age 18.

The bottom line of all this is that people will be making a mistake to think that Bloomberg and others didn't make this a much tougher race than it should have been.  


Fox & Friends has this: "Pro-gun rights Milwaukee sheriff: 'Bloomberg made a huge miscalculation'"

How technology killed auto theft

Technology has made it very difficult to steal cars made after about 2000.  The old cars that can be stolen are not very valuable.  If it wasn't for old Hondas retaining some of their value, auto theft would be down even further.  From the New York Times:

. . . 1990, the city had 147,000 reported auto thefts, one for every 50 residents; last year, there were just 7,400, or one per 1,100. That’s a 96 percent drop in the rate of car theft. . . . 

The most important factor is a technological advance: engine immobilizer systems, adopted by manufacturers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. These make it essentially impossible to start a car without the ignition key, which contains a microchip uniquely programmed by the dealer to match the car. 

Criminals generally have not been able to circumvent the technology or make counterfeit keys. “It’s very difficult; not just your average perpetrator on the street is going to be able to steal those cars,” said Capt. John Boller, who leads the New York Police Department’s auto crime division. Instead, criminals have stuck to stealing older cars. 

You can see this in the pattern of thefts of America’s most stolen car, the Honda Accord. About 54,000 Accords were stolen in 2013, 84 percent of them from model years 1997 or earlier, according to data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a trade group for auto insurers and lenders. Not coincidentally, Accords started to be sold with immobilizers in the 1998 model year. The Honda Civic, America’s second-most stolen car, shows a similar pattern before and after it got immobilizer technology for model year 2001. . . .

Making it hard to steal cars undoubtedly matters a lot, but the drop in auto theft from 1991 to 2000 or 2001 is much larger than the drop from 2000 or 2001 to 2012.  However, the percentage drop from 2001 to 2012 (46%) is somewhat greater than the drop from 1991 to 2000 (37%).

By contrast, larceny has continued to fall over that entire period, though the drop is very similar in the two periods (1991 to 2000 is 23% and 2001 to 2012 is 22%).  It at least raises the question whether most of this drop would have occurred anyway.

Michael Bloomberg and other gun control groups target Milwaukee's Sheriff David Clarke

I have met Sheriff Clarke and I have had the chance to be interviewed by him on his radio show.  If Bloomberg's money makes a difference in this race, it is something that we will hear a lot about.  From Fox News:

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg - who through his political group has publicly committed to spending $50 million on gun-control politics in 2014 – has paid $150,000 to air a series of television ads targeting Clarke’s conservative pro-gun policies.
The money from Bloomberg’s Independence USA super PAC is more than what Clarke and Moews have spent on their entire campaigns combined.
Bloomberg spokesman Howard Wolfson told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that he decided to get involved in the sheriff’s race because it allowed him to shape policy on a local level.
“The issue of guns is one that (Bloomberg) cares an awful lot about and there’s a very clear contrast on that issue in this race,” Wolfson told the newspaper.
But Bloomberg isn’t the only person pumping cash into the primary.
The Greater Wisconsin Committee spent $400,000 on its own anti-Clarke ads.
Clarke, who is running as a Democrat but regularly aligns himself with conservative Republicans, spoke at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in April. The NRA, who calls Clarke a “rising national star,” has come to Clarke’s defense, soliciting donations from its members on his behalf and buying online ads for his re-election bid. . . .

Police in Britain now regularly carrying guns, anti-gun activities upset, claim no benefit

From the BBC:

In a little-noticed move, a small number of police officers are now routinely carrying sidearms while on patrol in parts of the mainland UK. . . .
It's a sight that once would have been unthinkable. In this corner of the Scottish Highlands - an area with one of the lowest crime rates in the UK - the officers showing up to a relatively workaday disturbance are armed.
Although every police force has a firearms unit, for decades it has been an article of faith that in the mainland UK, almost uniquely among major industrialised nations, the police do not carry guns as a matter of course.
But with little fanfare at first, a policy of routinely allowing specialist officers to wear sidearms as they walk the streets of Scotland has come into being. . . .

Meanwhile, an anti-gun activist in Scotland opposes police carrying guns.  From the UK Daily Record:

. . . Dr Mick North lost his five-year-old daughter Sophie when killer Thomas Hamilton struck at her school.
The anti-gun activist has slammed Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Stephen House for suggesting armed bobbies could have stopped the massacre.
At a force summit in June, the country’s top policeman highlighted the mass murder of Sophie, her 14 primary 1 classmates and teacher Gwen Mayor as a reason why units should not spend “an extra five, 10, 15, 20 minutes” arming themselves.
Dr North said: “I can’t see how any armed police would have stopped Dunblane.“It took 15 minutes until any police officer arrived at the school when the incident was all over in three minutes.” . . . 

Some notes: I agree that it is very doubtful that police could have arrived quickly enough to stop the attack at Dunblane.  But does that mean that there won't be a few other times when speed might save some lives.  Of course, my response is to speed up response time to these tragedies by getting rid of gun-free zones, not by disarming even police.  It is hard to see any benefits from having police being disarmed.

Very interesting data from The Economist on prostitution prices

Clicking on the screen shot will enlarge the picture.  The Economist information is available here.  Prices tell us what types of characteristics in women that men like most.  The second slide probably tells us what women don't like to do and the prices make a lot of sense.  Oral sex without a condom is much more dangerous and less desirable than with a condom (similar for splitting out semen or swallowing it).  Having sex with multiple men is more work.  What seems most interesting here is that women charge less for "heavy" S&M than for just spanking.  Is this saying that female prostitutes prefer “heavy” S&M, which I would think involves much more work, over just spanking?  Possibly there are those out there who have more insights into this than I do.