What’s in Paul’s grab bag? Unconnected thoughts and short observations which don\u2019t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might amount to something:<\/p>\n
A Society of Snitches?<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the more worrisome things about Arizona’s\u00a0anti-immigrant law<\/a>, which takes effect two weeks from now, is the provision that “allows a person to bring an action in superior court to challenge an official or agency” for not enforcing the law to the fullest extent.\u00a0 This is an open invitation to snitches to rat out those they suspect of being here illegally, then sue city and state law enforcement agencies when they don’t round up and jail brown-skinned people fast enough.<\/p>\n Oh, you don’t think it’ll happen?\u00a0 It’s already happening in Utah<\/a>, where vigilantes are circulating detailed lists of suspected illegals, with names, addresses, even Social Security numbers.\u00a0 If they’re doing it in Utah, they’re doing it in Arizona.<\/p>\n Toyota, Meet Audi.\u00a0 Audi, Meet Toyota<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh what a surprise . . . someone please pick me up off the floor.\u00a0 Those Toyota “unintended acceleration” incidents?\u00a0 Turns out they were caused by the same problem that affected Audi back in the 1980s — idiot drivers<\/a>.\u00a0 And, I might add, greedy lawyers and a sensationalist press.<\/p>\n Another Reason You Shouldn’t Believe Anything You Read<\/strong><\/p>\n It is perhaps more obvious in automotive journalism than elsewhere, but reporters live and die<\/a> at the direction of advertisers.\u00a0 If sponsors don’t want certain stories written, they have ways of making sure those stories aren’t written.\u00a0 Do you really think it’s different in the mainstream media?\u00a0 Why do you think we’re seeing such a dearth of environmental reportage and photography from the Gulf of Mexico?<\/p>\n What Happens After the Supreme Court Repeals Roe v. Wade<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n You know it’s coming.\u00a0 And when it comes, what will the pro-lifers do?\u00a0 They’ll start agitating against contraception.\u00a0 Actually they’ve already started<\/a>.\u00a0 And they won’t stop until all the women are back in the kitchen, where they belong.<\/p>\n What Happens After Our Socialist President Allows Guns in School?<\/strong><\/p>\n Think the NRA will be happy then?\u00a0 Think they’ll stop there?\u00a0 Think again<\/a>.<\/p>\n Malingerers<\/strong><\/p>\n My inner skeptic is most active in the presence of malingerers and welfare scammers.\u00a0 I’m a veteran myself and an advocate of improved health care for veterans.\u00a0 But I worked for the VA for two years in a position where I was directly involved with patients, and let me tell you, there are plenty of cheaters in the system, either jockeying to get on the disability gravy train or increase their share of it.\u00a0 So this new deal, where the VA relaxed standards of proof for PTSD disability claims<\/a>, concerns me.\u00a0 A lot of the PTSD patients I worked with at the VA were scamming the system.\u00a0 I spent 24 years in the military, and I know shitbirds when I see ’em.\u00a0 They’ll milk this to death.<\/p>\n New Dog?\u00a0 Maybe.<\/strong><\/p>\n The neighbor lady two houses up the street told us she had a seven-week old female dachshund puppy for us.\u00a0 She volunteers for an animal shelter, and said the dog would be ready for adoption soon.\u00a0 Donna and I had been talking about getting Schatzi a playmate, so we said yes, and the lady said she’d call.\u00a0 She didn’t, so a few days later I called her.\u00a0 Yes, she still wanted us to have the dog, and this time she said she’d email photos.\u00a0 Nothing.<\/p>\n One of two things is going to happen now: she’ll turn out to be a flake and there’ll be no dachshund; she’ll show up at our door with a puppy.\u00a0 I wonder which.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What’s in Paul’s grab bag? Unconnected thoughts and short observations which don\u2019t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might amount to something: A Society of Snitches? One of the more worrisome things about Arizona’s\u00a0anti-immigrant law, which takes effect two weeks from now, is the provision that “allows a person to bring an action […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10,16,14,5,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-current-events","category-media","category-military","category-motorcycling","category-personal","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4145"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4161,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145\/revisions\/4161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}