Gov. Deval Patrick is wrong about plodding along with federal stimulus expenditures. The key goal of the stimulus is to get money into productive uses immediately. It's bad that Massachusetts is 49th at that. Not as bad as the bankers sitting on their TARP money or making acquisitions with it, but still bad.
Boston cops want to pack the semiautomatic version of the M-16 into battle on the streets of Boston. Uh, no. What a stupid idea.
The dangers are not imaginary, but the police have to go to Mumbai to justify their desire for new toys. In Columbine, the police hesitated to establish a perimeter, or so they said.
The BPD wants a weapon with a range of a five hundred meters to shoot bad guys in the city. How many 500-meter fields of fire are there in Boston? How many should anyone send a high-velocity bullet tumbling down? How many would be empty enough to have a righteous shooting?
If I were one of the targeted bad guys, I might think about jacking a cop car to get the assault rifle out of the trunk.
Better body armor would be much safer for cops and civilians.
But a body was missing in this case, and so was another element that former prosecutors and law enforcement officials said is crucial to solving a case: public pressure.To solve the disappearance and presumed murder of a 5-year-old boy requires public pressure! It seems to me that the police in this case are bemoaning their own low expectations.
Building relationships, getting paid, screwing the shareholders - what could be more like modern American business? Now, like Ted Stevens before her, Dianne Wilkerson has been caught taking bribes, Wilkerson for liquor license shenanigans (disclaimer: allegedly caught). She was very effective evading the law and engaging in back-room manipulation. She should have been in the private sector!
At least the voters in the September primary were finally tired enough of Wilkerson, who apparently believes that no rules apply to her, to deny her the Democratic nomination for re-election. Alaska Republicans? Nope, not that smart.
(For those of you who aren't tuned in enough to notice snark when it's slapping you across the face, no, I don't think these practices are universal in the private sector either, and I don't think they're good anywhere.)
There is only one thing you need to remember about Mitt Romney: His every public act is about brand positioning, not anything that would imply real commitment.
Politics is just another form of business for him, and that requires the ability to discard his past like the cheap suit he has never had.
