Deer hunter murders, continued

It looks like that, for the time being, Jiblog is one of the top search results for the deer hunter murders in Northern Wisconsin. Welcome to all of you coming here via the search engines, and I hope we provide you with some of the information you are looking for. Some other good sources are WCCO, KSTP, the Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune, and the Eau Claire Leader Telegram. Registration is required at the newspapers.

Probable cause statement for Vang

This is a sobering read (two parts, here and here). Personally, Vang's story seemed to have a couple of holes that weren't supported by the physical evidence, but this report pretty much puts you at the scene of the crime.

Somewhere on the net this report is transcribed and much easier to download. I read it at that mystery location this afternoon, but I cannot find it back now. If I do find it, I'll also post that link here.

UPDATE:
I found the link to the transcribed probable cause statement. This is much quicker to load and easier to read.

In re a Wisconsin Blog Network

I originally tossed out the idea of a Wisconsin blog alliance to see if it stuck. It kinda stuck. I'm going to put some thought into this over the long holiday weekend. I want to get some sort of a vision for it, and then we'll see if we can put it into practice. In the meantime, anyone who is interested is more than welcome to brain storm in the comments section. The orgy of ideas good and bad can only help, as trying to organize something like this is completely new to me. I welcome any thoughts, from a name for it to the names of Wisconsin blogs I'm not familiar with to thoughts on organizing it. On Monday I'll try to come back with a post of my own on this concept.

IE vs. Netscape vs. Firefox

I recently posted a question about whether I should switch from Netscape 7.2 to Fire Fox. Since that time I've hemmed and hawed, making no decision. Today I learned that Netscape will be releasing an all new browser that incorporates Fire Fox improvements. I'm going to stick with Netscape and test the new version on my secondary or third computer. For those few freaks like myself with an obsessive brand loyality to Netscape, I'll post my notes on the new version after its release.

Sigh (or "Gun freaks about to jump the gun")

Well, it didn't take anti-2nd Amendment types to very long to try to capitalize on Wisconsin's deer hunter murders. According to TMJ-4 TV out of Milwaukee, anti-assault rifle legislation will be introduced as early as January in the Wisconsin legislature. Hopefully the assault weapon ban which the U.S. Congress recently allowed to expire (a horrible piece of legislation) will serve as a lesson to Wisconsin's Legislature as this bill is debated next year.

Just as a reminder, "assault weapon" is a loaded political term. It sounds nasty and scary, and therefore is used in an attempt to ban as many guns as possible. Most people are willing to accept limitations on automatic weaponry, which are exceptionally deadly. The gun used in the murders in Western Wisconsin was a relatively weak rifle. If it falls under an assault weapons ban, most rifles used for sport in this state will as well. If governments can figure out how to legislate away stupidity, I'm all for it. Banning the machines used stupidly hurts no one but law abiding citizens. A ban on the SKS would not have prevented the suspect from coming to Wisconsin with it and committing this crime. What is unfortunate is that the 8 victims only had one gun amongst themselves with which to try to defend their lives.

Deer hunter murders and the fall out

I’m displeased by some of the coverage of the deer hunter murders in Northern Wisconsin. It started with this AP story, which was written in such a way as to suggest that those hunters who were killed an injured may have started the firing. It was followed by this headline at CBC News: Five killed in shootout among deer hunters. This story is very young yet, but it seems straight forward. The suspect got angry, and started mowing down the victims. Had the victims started the incident, it would seem that the suspect would be seriously injured or dead because the numbers were not in his favor. Instead, he tracked them down through the woods and shot them one by one.

I can see this story spinning wildly away from the facts. Anti gun and anti hunting types are going to jump all over it. It seems CBC News and Joshua Freed at the AP have already started down that path. At work, I’ve already heard one liberal claim that the suspect’s rifle was an automatic assault rifle, which it was not. I’ve heard another liberal claim that if were shot at first, he’d have done the same thing as the suspect. How stupid the buzz around this story could become is yet to be determined, but early indications are that it’ll be very, very stupid if the story has legs.

Wisconsin deer hunter murders, Update

KSTP-TV in the Twin Cities seems to have done the best job in covering this story. They were the first to report hard details of the murders, including the name of the suspect, Chai Soua Vang. Direct links at there website are tough to score, so I'll instead refer to this article at the Minneapolis Star Tribune (registration required).

We will certainly learn more details of this case in the coming days. Right now, it is difficult to understand what could cause someone to try to kill 8 people after being told he couldn't hunt on private land in a tree stand that wasn't his. The Wausau Daily Herald has this eerie article today on the difficulty Hmong have understanding American hunting. Just one snippet:

The difference is that in Laos, regulations requiring hunters and anglers to buy licenses and adhere to bag limits didn't exist. And sometimes Hmong people don't realize how many rules exist.

One would thing "do not hunt on private land without permission" and "do not kill people" would be universal rules that everyone understands.

Update:
Go to the homepage for more information. Jiblog.

Wisconsin Deer Hunters Hunted

Fox 6 News out of Milwaukee just reported during half time of the football game that someone is inetentionally shooting deer hunters in Sawyer County, which is about an hour and a half due north of Eau Claire. I'm trying to find out more about this, as I know several people who have cabins in that area of the state. I'm tempted to speculate, but I'm going to resist that urge until there is more information. All I'll say is that my first concern is that far northern Wisconsin has been a haven for radical eco-terrorist groups of late. More to come.

UPDATE:
Those I know are not answering phones right now. WTMJ out of Milwaukee reports that this may be over a dispute over hunting on private land. Early info link here. WTMJ is reporting that their information is second hand, but much more likely than my first fear, thankfully.

UPDATE:
5 dead, 3 injured, 1 man arrested.

Sigh

I've got a problem. I feel so dirty. I whored myself today by nominating Jiblog in the 2004 Weblog Awards for best blog ranked in the 500-1000 range in The Truth Laid Bear's ecosystem (#641). I'm somewhat ashamed, but at least I was not so arrogant to nominate the site for best blog or anything.

If Jiblog were to become a finalist (big if), please vote for the site (voting won't begin until December).

I'm so embarrassed.

NBA-National Brawl Association

This was bound to happen, and now it has: An ugly brawl courtside between NBA players and fans. There is one man who is ultimately responsible for this. He has had praised heaped on him for years for being a marketing genius. He has lauded for solving the differences between the have teams and the have not teams. Now he is due his just criticism for the disintegration of the NBA. That man is, of course, David Stern.

I used to be an NBA junky as a kid. I knew everybody in the NBA and their stats. I'd go out on the playground and pretend I was Sidney Moncrief or Terry Cummings (I'm a Bucks fan, give me a break). For me, there was nothing better than a Lakers-Celtics game in the spring time. Then an interesting thing happened. The greatest basketball player to ever lace up a pair of shoes that graced his own name came along, Michael Jordan. At first, this was great for the NBA, because most successful teams still played fundamentally good basketball. Then some of the previous greats started to retire. The NBA was faced with a future that sat squarely on joyriding shoulders, and they rode Jordan for all it was worth. I'm surprised they didn't rename the league the NJA during this time. The NBA got very rich riding Jordan.

Stern's brilliant marketing started a cancer in basketball, though. To many young kids, basketball was no longer a team sport. They didn't care about assists. They didn't care about shooting percentages. All they cared about was 35 points again and slamming a basketball with flare. From this generation we were to expect the next round of superstars. We haven't really gotten one, though. Why?

Even though Jordan could carry his team, he was still a team player. The current generation of NBA players are not team players. In fact, they are the most selfish athletes any sport has ever seen (with the possible exception of the PGA). These guys do not care about their team. They do not care about winning. They do not care about the communities they play in. All they care about is being the lead highlight on Sports Center, making big ching, smoking weed, and getting laid. This can be directly tied back to Stern's marketing of the NBA as an individual sport back in the 1990's. The cancer has spread its way from the NBA to college basketball, where it is almost unheard of for talented ball players to stay in school past their sophomore year, when if they did, they could actually enter the league as polished, mature professionals. It has spread back to high school basketball, where the talented kids know that if they play selfish ball and average 50 points a game, they'll get their payday without ever having to grace a college basketball court, cutting the maturity of NBA players even further.

Stern sold out the NBA in the 1990's. In doing so, the sport developed a cancer that has spread through out all of its levels. I'm not even going to go into this summer's disgrace at the Olympics, because that speaks for itself. Stern is ultimately responsible for charting the path for the NBA that resulted in Ron Artest in the stands, punching fans last night. It's time Stern fixes the NBA, or it's time he goes. The sport has a choice. It can take a short term hit in its popularity, and make the fixes necessary to put the game back on track, or it can witness more of these ugly events and watch its popularity slowly atrophy, at which point it will be a much longer climb back to the top of the mountain.

Watch for tornados, Mr. President

I've not invested very much of my time in reading about the Clinton library, but I did glimpse a picture of it the other day. My first impression was that it looked like a mobile home on steroids, and then I quickly passed it by. I'm not the only one who noticed the similarity. Head on over to Blogs for Bush (soon to be GOP Bloggers) to see what I mean.

Is this a problem or an opportunity?

U.S. News & World Report this week reports on a new impending crisis for the Federal Government: Half of the government work force can retire in the next five years. Now I enjoy U.S. News & World Report, but where they see a problem, I see an opportunity. As a conservative, I'm firm believer that the smaller the Federal Gub'mint is, the fewer problems it can create. One of the biggest impediments to shrinking government, though, is how to reduce the employment rolls. If you try to shrink the government without shrinking the employment rolls, you've done nothing. Laying off government employees is bad news for a politician, though, even in the best of economic times. So how do you shrink government without committing political suicide? Easy. You let the payroll reduce itself.

Right now we are looking at a once in a generation opportunity. Half of the government payroll will be set to retire in the next five years. Now is the time to combine and or eliminate positions. It is a painless way to make government more streamlines and more efficient. For those of us who believe in small government, this has to be acted upon now. Government by its very nature only gets bigger and bigger. We are being served a demographic gift on a silver platter right now. This is a natural opportunity to shrink government before it demographic demands cause its inevitable swell again.

Now for those of you who are not conservative and say that decreasing the government payroll will only lead to poorer government services, I'll split the difference with you. Government jobs do not always attract the most talented of employees. Want to change that? Entice better workers with better pay. I'll bank half of the savings from reducing the work force, and I'll give you the other half in better pay in targeted jobs. That's not very conservative of me; in fact, every conservative bone in me screams to bank the whole thing. I recognize that government service does stink, though, and I'm willing to make the effort to improve a necessary evil.

Pizza Delivery Boy Union #666

Look out America, your friendly local pizza delivery boy may be unionizing. While I do think your average pizza delivery dude gets a bit screwed on mileage and insurance, does anyone really think that this is a good idea? Domino's will have to come out with a new slogan: "30 minutes or less. Maybe. Our contract with the drivers allows us up to 7 hours to deliver your pizza." And do we really want the Hoffa family's hands in our pizzas? Think about it. You get your pizza 3 hours after you order it, its cold, and all of the pepperoni's have been picked off of it. So you exercise your God given right to complain, and 20 minutes later a guy named Vito tries to drown you in a bucket of marinara sauce.

Another perk of being Union is near absolute job safety. Do we really want to give that to 17 year old pot smoking boys? They are vile and disgusting creatures as it is. The last thing I'd want to do is take way any small amount of fear they had about losing their jobs.

I'm going to put this story in my "damn, we really do have it too good in the United States" file.

Look out R. Lee, Private Pyle is not well

I just received this late breaking news from Col. Ollie:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Vincent D'Onofrio, star of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," was back in a hospital Tuesday after fainting for the second time in a week.

D'Onofrio was hospitalized for two days last week when he fainted after rehearsing a strenuous scene that included climbing for the New York-based NBC drama. He had been expected to return to work Tuesday.

sBut he fainted again late Monday at his home and returned to the hospital for further observation and testing, series spokeswoman Pam Ruben Golum said.

For the record...

...intelligent blogging will return to this site, and soon.

What's wrong with me?

I propose something bold and noble like a Wisconsin Alliance of bloggers, and I have to go follow it up with killer duck billed platypuses.

Okay, I know what's wrong with me. I think duck billed platypuses are funny. Especially the killer variety.

Killer Duck Billed Platypuses

I have another piece of advise for sure fired, honest to goodness, worthless traffic to your site. Today's lesson: Use infrequently used word combinations. My choice example here is killer duck billed platypus. People are weird, and they search for the weirdest things. Just today I was searching for killer duck billed platypuses, only to learn that Google has only found one instance of that exact search thread. Therefore, I am set to become THE AUTHORITY on killer duck billed paltypuses. I anticipate this driving an extra 1 to 3 really weird people to my site per year. Ya know what? Maybe its better to stick to misspells and porn names to drive traffic. (Special thanks to Think Quest for the pic)

Wisconsin Alliance?

I was bumming over at Hugh Hewitt's site tonight (again, my eternal thanks to Hugh for a small link before the election), and I started to really look at his links. "The Rocky Mountain Alliance" "The Northern Alliance" "South Dakota Alliance". Why is there no formal Wisconsin Alliance? I'm not saying that we'd be a force that would get our own special place over there, because some of those blogs are full time jobs. What I am saying is that there are a lot of very good to excellent Wisconsin blogs that I've had the pleasure to encounter in the last 6 months, and it would be rather cool to be under some sort of Wisconsin umbrella. Any thoughts?

More adolescent Jiblog humor!

Okay, its official. The election has turned my brain into total and complete mush. The best material I can pump out is immature humor and cheap thrills. Having said that, onto today's cheap thrill and immature humor.

First, guys, go visit the Virtual Bartender. Ask her anything, and if she understands you, she'll do it (fairly clean, but you still may want to watch your back if at work).

Second, if this story is true, I really chose the wrong college. Free beer? 'Dems student fees I can handle.

Jacques Chirac, dork head

Jacques is shooting off his mouth again. A couple of my favorite quotes:

“Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return. I’m not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically.”

M Chirac's version of favors remind me of the mafia.

In other remarks that will sting the Bush Administration, he again outlined his vision of a “multipolar” world in which a united Europe would be equal with the US, and mocked Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, for his division of Europe into old and new.

Wanting to be equal and being equal are two very different things. If Europe ever unshackles its economy (ahem, ditch Socialism) and builds and army that wouldn't get its ass kicked in a Wisconsin country bar, then there will be this so called "equality" As long as we have to clean up Europe's own back yard, no equality.

“It is like that nice guy in America — what’s his name again? — who spoke about ‘old Europe’. It has no sense. It’s a lack of culture to imagine that. Imagining that there can be division between the British and French vision of Europe is as absurd as imagining that we are building Europe against the United States.”

I'm going to ignore the lack of culture thing-its way to easy to go after (bathe, Frenchmen!). Instead, I like the "absurdity" of the French and Brits not seeing eye to eye. Yeah, I forgot about the love that flows back and forth across the British Channel.