solution to some of our problems

I got an e-mail that got me thinking, some of these humorous e-mails hold the answers to our problems. I don’t know who started the e-mail to give them credit, but if you have recieved it I’m sure you’ll recgnize my embellishments.

To start with let’s put all these punks doing serious crime in jail. Then we get some buses together. Let’s take them all down to the Mexican border and put them in chain gangs. Let them build tent jails, then put them to work. Doing what you ask? Here’s where we get to solving some of our biggest problems. We put them to work digging a moat. When they finish digging the moat, we send them and the dirt to New Orleans. There they set up another tent jail, and use the dirt to build berms around all the levees. There they break camp for sunny Florida, where they set up another tent jail. While in Florida they collect all alligators and other critters that have been attacking people. When done there we load up the punks, and critters and return to the border. As they fill the moat with water, they add the critters. When this is done it will solve several problems. Illegal aliens won’t want to swim an alligator infested moat, New Orleans will be safe against storms, nobody would get eaten in Florida, and an experience like this would make these guys think twice about committing a serious crime when they get back.

Morgan Quitno report

I have some figures from the new Morgan Quitno Press on Violent Crime in 2005.
These figures are crime rate per 100,000 population. The National Rate is 469.2 Violent Crimes per 100,000 Population. If you’re setting down, let’s begin.
Davenport, Ia. rank 30, rate 1,339.7
Cedar Rapids, Ia. rank 272, rate 339.9
Des Moines, Ia. rank 157, rate629.4

Just a couple more cities that others used as examples of worse crimes-

Phoenix, Az. rank 123, rate 729.1
Houston, Tx. rank 46, rate 1,172.5

My facts come from Morgan Quitno. This is a PDF file and may take a while to load. While we didn’t top the list, I dissapointed that we cam in behind all the cities listed.

I felt I had to add that this is from a 2 page sample of their report, I’m not paying $50 plus shipping for something that tells me what I already know. We have a crime problem.

some figures

I was on RAINN-Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network site and came accross some numbers that were troubling.

Key Facts
Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.
One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men.
In 2004-2005, there were an average annual 200,780 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.
About 44% of rape victims are under age 18, and 80% are under age 30.
Since 1993, rape/sexual assault has fallen by over 69%.

If these figures are true, even with rape/sexual assault crimes dropping over 69%, there are still 576 people getting raped or assaulted every day. If that’s so; how bad was in in 1993 when the crime rate was over 69% higher? I think these figures are still to high. This is over 10 assaults per state per day. No wonder some women don’t feel safe. To check the website go to RAINN

ads, angels, and more

These political compaigns are getting to me. If all these people running can only point out their opponents shortcomings and not what they plan to do; how are we as voters supposed to make an informed choice?

The Guardian Angels debate is heating up so I’ll chime in on that again. After a little reserch I have learned a couple things-they come and access the problem first. Wouldn’t it make some of you happy if the said crime wasn’t bad enough here for them to come in? Then they address issues with city leaders and ask them to sign a waiver. If everything goes fine to this point they recruit local people, and train them before anyone sets foot on the street. As for the cost, I don’t know. As to the voluteer police program already in use, if crime is as high as the figures show, it isn’t working. So mellow out people, they’re not going to parachute in with guns blazing.

Low income has become an 800 pound gorilla lately also. I have nothing against the poor. I do have a problem when the greatest country in the world condones it. The government basically hands people money for doing nothing, and with almost no restrictions. They certainly have few responsibilities. Instead make them finish school. Make them show that they are being good parents. And if one of their kids drops out of school, drop their money.

The halfway house at 605 Main has been crumbling for a while so I say let Palmer have it and let them make it a parking lot. While I’m sure many would disagree, I feel this kind of facility is part of the revolving door problem.

ethanol test

I’m just going to touch on a couple things and work on my health. I have pneumonia again and I need to get a little better before I do any heavy thinking. I wanted to mention a little experiment my buddy and I have been doing on ethanol vs. regular gas. Some weekends my trucks sits in driveway and I noticed that when I jumped back in it for the first time I had some problems. The exhaust would smoke after it sat and my automatic transmission wouldn’t shift into high. I traced the culprit to low intake manifold vacuum which didn’t tell me much since it’s a healthy smallblock. My buddy’s Mustang was the same way so we decided to run only regular and no oxygenated fuel (ehtanol) for 1,500 miles. After doing this we got together and compared notes. Because his car was newer and made to run ethanol we thought there would be problems. There weren’t. What we both noticed comparing our mileage logs is that we both got about 15% better gas mileage with regular. With the cost difference of 5% it still sounds good and I for one am not going back to oxygenated fuels unless it becomes the only fuel available. This wasn’t scientific by any means, but I haven’t had the old problems since I switched.

A friend of mine goes to the Back to the 50’s car show it St. Paul every year. Of course he’s from Minnesota, and a member of Minnesota Street Rod Assn. who host the show. This year out of over 10,000 show cars his was chosen for the cover of Rod & Custom magazine. Jim owns a street rod building business in Oak Grove, Minnesota called Tin Man Fabrication. But the neat thing to me is, out of all those cars his is in a magazine and he built it for $5,000. That’s just about impossible today.

Gun Violence in Public Housing

Recent comments about JLCS and my being against them and the poor got me to thinking. So I found an old link I’d been saving to Office of the Press Secretary to President Clinton about the new report of Gun Violence in Public Housing from 2000.
Office of the Press Secretary

On this page they descibe the answer to gun violence in public housing; gun control!
This was in 2,000 so the issue could have gotten better or worse, I’ll leave you to your own thoughts on that. If anyone can tell me how juveniles, who cannot legally purchase a handgun would be affeted by gun control, please enlighten me.

the two sides of crime

There’s been alot of discussion on the crime issue and it has become clear that there are people who get it, and people who never will. One group would rather spend millions on a fancy building that is underused and overfunded. One group would rather get the crime rate down, city sewers and roads in good shape, and hold someone accountable. To the people who say the Bible says to help the poor and needy, give till it hurts. I think somewhere in the Bible, and I am correctable, that it says God helps those who help themself. To the people that say, but crime is high all over, you’re right. But if a murder doesn’t happen here: is it ok? The Bible also says “Thou shalt no kill.” I am not prejudice against any race, religion, or economic class. The rich get that way by working their butts off more hours than I care to. There has always been a poor class. Some have no education, some can’t speak our language very well, and some are just lazy. I just feel with all the government money some get, that the money could be put to better use. I also feel welfare should have limits, and when it expires you shouldn’t get it again. As I have said, alot of people get in a bind, but it doesn’t last a lifetime. Throwing money at them to keep them quiet is not the answer. Teach them self-relience and pride, not how to milk the system. We have a great country and a great city, what is wrong with wanting it nicer? Why should we lower our expectations, instead of raising them? Politicians can’t help much because they can’t get along long enough to get something meaningful passed. If one person is for a good idea, and others aren’t, it’s not going to get passed. If politcians really cared about what the people thought they would start by redoing the juvenile crime laws. If they just set probation for minor offenses, and first offenses, and charge everyone as an adult otherwise it would be a start. People who think like me are not going away, myself included. I doubt anything will be resolved because of my occasional rant, but when it comes to crime I say not on my watch. So we can either agree to disagree, or part company, but if you want to insist on name calling then we will part company.

Rockabilly Reunion Weekender

This friday and saturday is the Rockabilly Reunion Weekender with several different events going on. The guest Hotel is the Howard Johnson’s at 227 LeClaire St., Davenport. There will be vendors and cars both days at the hotel, cruising the one ways with old cars, and people from out of town who will be shopping, dining out and having a good time. Both days the events wrap up at the RME in the Redstone Room at 8:00 p.m. For more information on the bands and prices go to the Redstone Room These types of events rarely get press and bring some big bucks into town and the price can’t be beat. There should be neat cars outside the RME both nights as this bunch drive their old cars. I’m not sure I can make it but I think it would be well worth a look.

comment from QCI’s blog and Big John

QCI had a post on his blog titled “Crime stuff, Phoenix, Guardian Angels, etc.” and I would like to reply to one of his commenters. You can go to his blog you can go
here.

To anonymous at 3:57 PM-
You state that my figures are unreliable when the said figures come from the FBI. I didn’t use figures for both sides of the river because I live in Davenport and want people here to know there is a problem. QCI mentioned the crime rate in Phoenix so I provided figures, and explained how I came to that conclusion. Since there aren’t any other cities closer to our population I used Des Moines and Cedar Rapids because they were the closer in population. And if you divide 360,000 by 3.6 you sill get the rates per 100,000. So come up with different numbers, or prove me wrong; otherwise your arguement is all wet. I am glad you think this is a safe place to live but we do need to keep doing better.

And now on a different note I just found out from this month’s Rod & Custom that an Icon from my drag racing past has died. John “Big John” Mazmanian passed away on July 21 at the age of 80. If you were of fan of the 60’s Gasser Wars you remember Big John and his 41′ Willys coupe, or maybe his Austin gasser. Gone but not forgotten.

no hope, no fear, no rules. and no life expectancy

According to John Firman of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, police officers are now encountering more and more “kids with no hope, no fear, no rules and no life expectancy.” Princeton University political scientist John Dilulio said that inner-city neighborhoods are raising too many “chaotic, dysfunctional, fatherless, Godless and jobless youths where self-respecting young men literally aspire to get away with murder.”

If you want an education on the juvenile crime problem go to this site. Read and excerpt from the EmergencyNetNews Service Daily Report from Saturday, May 18, 1996. If it was that bad then, what’s it like now?

And from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention website see the disposition for probation, placement, other sanctions- this one is important because probation rates rose higher than placement and crime is up. There website is
here.