A Clean Sweep for Santorum

Those who follow KN@PPSTER closely will recall that I didn't do a "Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado prediction" post. If I had done such a post, no, I would not have predicted that Rick Santorum would win all three states.

Frankly, this GOP primary cycle has me feeling a little bit like Blackie in my favorite clip from Where the Buffalo Roam:




Robert Stacy McCain is deservingly exultant.

And me? How do I feel? Well, my Youtube search for that video clip above brought up another one too:



Manson makes about as much sense as this ball game.

Rule of What?

Imagine, for a moment, that you are driving at 30 miles per hour through a town with a clearly posted speed limit of 35, and are pulled over for speeding. When you object that you were going well below the posted speed limit, the cop points to one of the signs, which now declares that the speed limit is 15 mph. A few seconds later, the sign changes to 20. Then 10.

Or scratch that -- imagine you've been pulled over for driving 40 miles per hour in that 35 mph zone. You're busted. Fair cop. And the town ordinances specify a fine of $50 for that offense. But when you schlep down to the courthouse to pay the fine, the clerk sees that you have red hair and decides she'd rather throw a dart at a board on the wall to determine your actual penalty, which may now range from "get out of jail free" to "death by lethal injection."

Setting aside the fact that Alyssa Bustamante's crime wasn't speeding but instead the brutal killing of a nine-year-old girl, the situation is very similar.

Bustamante was 15 years old at the time she committed the crime. She was clearly a "juvenile" under Missouri law, and that law specifies how juveniles are to be treated.

But Missouri law has hooks in it allowing (when it's politically advantageous) for "juveniles" to be miraculously re-classified as "adults" for purposes of criminal prosecution.

Arbitrary legal age classifications are stupid and evil enough on their own without throwing in capricious exceptions to those classifications for use by prosecutors and judges who may very well be thinking more about re-election or promotion than about the actual facts of the cases they try.

Keep in mind here that nobody came to Alyssa Bustamante the day before she murdered that little girl and said "I wave the magic wand of adulthood over you. You may now  drive, vote, buy alcohol and have sex. Oh, and by the way, if you commit a crime, you'll be held fully responsible for it."

No, the thing was ex post facto: "At the time you committed the crime, the potential penalties were X. But because the newspapers love a good 'tough on crime' story, we've decided to change the penalties in your case to Y. Have a nice day."

That idea, given its wide application, is at least as evil as stabbing and strangling a nine-year-old to death.

Related articles

• Alyssa Bustamante: 5 Things to Know About the Teen Killer (ibtimes.com)
• 'I Just F - king Killed Someone' (theothermccain.com)
• US teen describes stabbing child neighbour as 'ahmazing' (smh.com.au)

80 proof

I've never managed to get a good picture of the old Bourbon, Missouri water tower.  So, for this post, I'm using Daniel Woodrum's photo from takemytrip.com.

When I was a kid and we would drive past on I-44 (still fairly new at the time!), I fancied that the tower was actually full of bourbon whiskey. Later, I outsmarted myself. This being the middle of Missouri wine country, it was obvious to me that the reference went back to French settler times and alluded to the Bourbon dynasty.

The French presence extended west and south from St. Louis at least as far as the Springfield, Missouri area, where there's still a small town called Bois d'Arc ("Bo-Dark" in the Missouri dialect; there's also a Versailles, Missouri, pronounced "Vur-Sayles").

Anyhoo, I was wrong both ways. The tower wasn't full of bourbon whiskey, but that's what the reference was, in fact, to. The town of Bourbon sprang up around Irish work camps building a railroad through the area. The railroad workers liked their whiskey, and local storekeeper Richard Turner was eager to please, buying the newly popular Kentucky variant in quantity. His store became known as "the bourbon store," and the town that sprang up nearby just rolled with that name.

On this last weekend's trip down to Marshfield/Springfield, we took a little time to get off the freeway and drive a few portions of old Route 66. I do that as often as possible, just to show the kids that  there's always some cool history and beautiful country to see if you're willing to spare the time.

The Bourbon tower is visible from I-44, of course. So why am I writing about it? Well, I'm having an Old Crow and RC to celebrate my 80th KN@PPSTER post this month -- one more than I managed in all of 2005 2007. So it just seemed apropos (see how I worked some French lingo in there?).

Why the Presidential Candidates Won't Ignore Missouri

From the Kansas City Star [hat tip -- Politico's "Morning Score" email newsletter]:

Consultants in both parties say it's increasingly possible the two major party presidential candidates will not campaign heavily in the Show-Me State next fall. After nearly a century as a so-called "bellwether" state whose votes reflected national trends, Missouri is now believed to lean Republican, at least on the presidential level, regardless of the candidates.

In 2008, John McCain beat Barack Obama in Missouri by fewer than 4,000 votes out of more than 2.9 million cast.

No fewer than three "third party" candidates (Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin) comfortably covered that "balance of power."

Missouri may get ignored by one or both candidates if the election's an obvious national blowout/landslide, but probably not even then -- it's centrally located and easy to drop in on en route between other campaign states, so it's easy to get into the fight here on the cheap, after which the thing tends to snowball.

Certainly if an election is tight enough nation-wide for 10 electoral votes to possibly be make or break, they'll be here slugging it out.

Home for sale by owner

Helping a brother out here, literally -- my brother and sister-in-law are putting their home up for sale with an eye toward a move from southern Missouri to Wisconsin. A little link love is always good for the, um, soul, right?

I've been in this house many times, and if it was mine I wouldn't let it go. It's well-constructed, well kept, and sits on 10 acres ideally located in just about every way -- a few minutes out of Marshfield where groceries and sundries are available (and if you have kids and do public education, one of the better such systems you'll find), perhaps half an hour (mostly freeway) from Springfield if you're looking for nightlife, culture, fine dining and so forth.

So, if you're looking for a country home in the Marshfield, Missouri area, this is your lucky day.

It seemed like a good idea at the time ...

Res ipsa loquitur:

THOMAS L. KNAPP

LIBERTARIAN

for

US HOUSE

of

REPRESENTATIVES

Yes, really.

I decided to do it about thirty seconds before I did it -- due to a family emergency, the candidate I had recruited to run in Missouri's 2nd District wasn't able to make it down to Jefferson City to file, and I was there anyway (with Tamara, who's taking another shot at the 9th District), and one thing led to another ...

Rumors of a legal name change to Subcomandante Hada Spliff are entirely without basis and should be disregarded.

Let's get it on.

Update, 03/26/08 -- Working on the campaign web site now.