I’ve had to work hard to avoid “crazies” stories this week. It seems like half the headlines I clicked on turned out to be an insane person, including the woman who stabbed two people (one of whom, a young mother, died) in Times Square in NYC, and was shot to death after tasing the armed woman failed to keep her from charging at officers (possibly, says the New York Post, due to excessive body fat).

Meanwhile, the jury in the Lindsay Clancy case is still deadlocked….

Collapsed tank failed inspection 10 months before

Back in May, a chemical tank at a Longview, Washington paper mill collapsed, killing 11 people and injuring at least 8 others. The tank contained a caustic fluid known as “white liquor”—composed mainly of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide—which is used to break down wood chips into wood pulp. The flood from the collapsed tank was powerful enough to overturn pickups and break through the walls of nearby buildings.

It now appears that the tank had been declared “not fit for continued service” by a professional inspector back in July 2025, who listed it as a “Priority 1” problem with a “high likelihood/consequence of failure,” and advised that the owner “plan to have an internal inspection performed in order to determine the extent of the required repairs.” That inspector reported again in October 2025 and February 2026 that “large portions of the tank remained thinner than the calculated minimum safe wall thickness.”

But the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), which has been conducting an investigation into the accident, says the company, Nippon Dynawave Packaging, did nothing—neither removing the tank from service nor diminishing the allowed volume. And on the morning of May 26, 2026, a series of events converged:

Shortly before 2 a.m., a vessel at the facility called a digestor was removed from service for repairs. As a result, the tank stopped sending white liquor into the digestor. But more white liquor continued to flow into the tank, causing it to approach full capacity around 6:20 a.m. It failed less than an hour later […].

Most of those killed were electrical maintenance workers, while most of the mechanical maintenance workers survived. An emergency response worker was among those who experienced severe injury from chemical burns, in part because the emergency response team was not informed of the dangerous nature of the liquid—some 900,000 gallons—that had been released.

The CBC is still investigating to determine the precise cause of the tank failure.

ATCs left early on night of LaGuardia runway crash

Just after 11:35 p.m. on March 22, 2026, an Air Canada Express plane that was landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York collided with a fire engine that had been cleared to cross the runway, killing the pilot and co-pilot and sending 41 people to the hospital. But it is now being reported that two air traffic controllers had left an hour before the end of their scheduled shift that night—a practice that is apparently so common that it has a name: “early shove.” That left only two controllers in the tower.

Although I haven’t been able to confirm what time the shift was supposed to end, it was reported that “officials told Reuters that two other controllers were supposed to be on-duty when the collision occurred, but left the facility early.” The accident has not been officially blamed on understaffing, and it is apparently normal for the tower to have only two controllers on the “midnight shift,” but it has also been reported that the airport had “twice the usual volume of traffic the night of the accident.”

It has long been known that staffing shortages in control towers have resulted in controllers working a lot of overtime. Earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed that a recruitment campaign aimed at video gamers has allowed the Federal Aviation Administration to meet 94% of its ATC hiring goals, after someone pointed out that gamers often have “useful skills for air traffic control, including multitasking, spatial awareness, strategy, problem-solving and the ability to process information quickly.”

The “early shove” practice is technically timecard fraud, but it has long been considered “an informal perk after busy stretches of working” that managers have permitted. However, the Trump Administration is starting to crack down on such practices: “The FAA has this year reportedly taken steps to fire more than 10 controllers for alleged timecard fraud or abuse of leave policies.” Although neither the FAA nor the National Air Traffic Controllers Association are commenting on this, it appears that the two ATCs who left work early the night of the accident may be next in line to lose their jobs:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said most air traffic controllers do a good job, but added, “When a small percentage of individuals take advantage of the American taxpayer, unfairly add additional work to their fellow controllers, and impact the airspace, we have no choice but to act.”

Double beer load heist shows new cargo theft strategies

At an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair, California, two different loads were picked up on August 17, 2026. One, intended to be sent to Tucson, Arizona, was carrying $45,000 worth of various beer products. A second, intended to be sent to San Diego, was carrying $25,000 worth specifically of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer (which Anheuser-Busch brews under contract). Neither load arrived at its planned destination. The truckers who picked up the loads presented fraudulent documents—a new method of cargo theft that has grown significantly since the start of the Covid pandemic.

In the past, cargo theft was usually outright theft: regional crime groups would break into unattended trailers, remove the goods, and then fence them locally to small resellers. But after 2020, more and more cargo theft was organized by international crime rings. And instead of smash-and-grab stealing from the trailers, these operations used various kinds of identity theft to get distributers to willingly, but mistakenly, hook up trailers to semi trucks that diverted the entire shipment to a destination of the crime ring’s choosing—frequently in another country, making recovery of the goods nearly impossible.

Part of what makes the trucking industry susceptible to this type of sophisticated theft is that most trucks hauling cargo are arranged for and sent by middlemen called “brokers.” If a crime ring manages to steal the identity of a legitimate trucking company, they can arrange to pick up a load from a distributor, but then subcontract that load to another carrier of their own choosing. Through the use of tricks like mid-transit destination changes and alterations to the bill of lading, the cargo might be able pass through several sets of unsuspecting hands before reaching the crime ring’s desired end point.

The costs are astronomical: in 2025, cargo theft losses totaled around $725 million. Between 2022 and 2024, total cargo theft nearly doubled, but incidents of this new type of strategic cargo theft rose by nearly 1,500%. There are efforts in Congress to pass a bill aimed at the problem—the Combating Organized Retail Crime (CORCA) Act—but although the House passed the bill in May, Democrats appear to be working hard to prevent it from passing the Senate.

Pabst Blue Ribbon has taken to social media to try to get the beer back, posting this message on Instagram:

To the thief: we don’t fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way.

Pabst is officially starting the clock now - you have exactly 18 days and 44 minutes to return our truckload of beer, no questions asked. Leading up to that time, we will be offering a reward to anyone who can help us solve this mystery.

Elaborate fake age scheme leads to MLB suspension

Major League Baseball contracts can be temptingly lucrative in impoverished countries like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, where MLB teams scout for talent at as young as 10 years old, offering “illegal, nonbinding agreements” to young players who are not yet eligible to officially sign contracts. In fact, those deals are tempting enough to result in fraud: a trainer may identify a boy he thinks has prospects, but to make him look more impressive to scouts, he is pumped up with steroids (sometimes fatally) and his age is falsified. Playing against younger boys, he looks like something special—something an MLB team will pay big bucks to get.

Last December, the Cleveland Guardians offered a $2.8 million “pre-deal” to David Severino of the Dominican Republic, who they believed was about to turn 14. It’s not clear precisely what spurred the investigation, but the league started digging into Severino’s background. What they discovered was an elaborate scheme, orchestrated by his former trainer, Francisco Nieves, and agreed to by his parents:

1. A fake birth registration was created for Severino’s fake younger brother. Severino’s real name is Daury, and he was born in April 2010; his fake brother—named David (the identity Daury now goes by)—was given a birth date in late December 2011.

2. A fake death certificate was created for Daury Severino, showing that he had died at the age of two.

3. An actual tombstone for Daury was installed at a (presumably empty) gravesite in a city in the eastern part of the Dominican Republic.

4. Fake school and medical records were generated for “David.”

It is not clear how Nieves arranged for all the fake documents, but the birth certificate was a “late-filed” one—not necessarily uncommon in poor rural areas, where people may not have easy access to government offices and children may still be born at home.

By the time Severino’s current trainer—John Pereyra, who runs a successful baseball academy in Santiago—saw Severino at a tryout in late 2023, the identity change was complete: a boy who was really 13 years old was playing against 11-year-olds. Although Pereyra says he was initially suspicious, it was the tombstone that convinced him. He purchased Severino’s training contract from Nieves for $20,000.

Severino was supposed to sign with the Cleveland Guardians in 2029, once he reached eligibility at the age of 17. As it turns out, Severino will actually be 17 next spring. But he won’t be signing with any teams just yet; MLB gave him a one-year suspension. And his prospects of a multi-million-dollar contract, even then, are probably low, since his talents as a switch-hitting infielder are apparently not exceptional for his real age.

Pereyra is concerned about his academy possibly going under as a result of the loss of his expected commission on Severino’s contract, but he doesn’t blame the boy or his parents for going along with Nieves’s plot:

I’ve heard about false birth documents and stuff like that, but to put together what this guy did—that’s movie stuff. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that in the Dominican. In my life, I have never seen anything like that.

Trucking industry crackdown yielding results

In April 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order called “Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers.” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy immediately rescinded an Obama-era policy that loosened ELP (English language proficiency) requirements. Since then, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security have been working together to get unsafe truck drivers off America’s highways.

The results of the latest stage of that effort were announced on Monday: 110 truck-driving schools were ordered to shut down immediately because of English language proficiency violations, and another 160 schools were suspended from the federal Training Provider Registry for failing to meet training regulations. Examples of the latter were schools like Angel’s Transportation in New Jersey, which conducted training in a parking lot too small for trucks to maneuver. Other schools lacked classroom space, and in some cases, the courses were being taught by unqualified instructors.

The 110 schools targeted for ELP violations had, among them, trained over 5,000 drivers who later failed roadside ELP tests. Some of the schools trained drivers to fake their way through exams: Idaho Intercheck CDL Testing in Nampa, Idaho had drivers memorize the pre-trip inspection in English. Two of the schools that were shut down—Platinum Plus Truck Driving School in California and ASC Technical Institute in Texas—had each trained a driver who was subsequently involved in a fatal accident. Sec. Duffy noted that, since January 2025, crashes caused by truck drivers unable to speak English have killed 239 people.

The school shutdowns are partly the fruit of Operation Highway Shield—a roadside inspection drive that completed its first wave in Florida in March 2026, and its second wave in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio in late July. The first wave “resulted in 176 drivers being taken out of service, 54 of which were taken out of service for language deficiencies.” The second wave removed 766 unsafe drivers and vehicles from the road, including 36 drivers who failed ELP tests, bringing the total of non-English-speaking drivers cited since April 2025 to nearly 30,000. The schools were targeted by identifying where those drivers were trained.

The investigation also turned up 10 skills testers in a single state who had issued CDLs to 2,000 drivers who were later discovered to be unable to speak English. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin noted, “We put 107 trucks out of commission for individuals that had CDLs and literally on the CDLs it said ‘No Name Given.’” Additionally, 1,000 cases of fraud were uncovered involving DMV workers—mostly in Democrat-run states—who were implicated in helping non-English-speaking drivers circumvent the law, including assisting them in replacing the federal identification numbers on their trucks to conceal noncompliance with DOT rules. In some cases, those employees had been paid off by cartels.

At Monday’s press conference, Sec. Duffy pointed out, “You have to speak English to operate a commercial vehicle. I didn’t create that rule. President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades.” In fact, the rule was first implemented in 1937. Legislation intended to codify those policies into federal law—known as “Delilah’s Law,” named for a California child who was severely injured in a crash caused by an illegal immigrant truck driver in 2024—is currently working its way through Congress.

Parents had removed tracker from autistic child

This is another of those cases that gets more disturbing the more you dig.

An autistic five-year-old girl who was non-verbal was found dead in a “waterway” on Monday morning after reportedly wandering away on Sunday from the house her parents had rented for a vacation south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The disappearance of Saylor Hayes triggered “an intensive search involving hundreds of people and multiple agencies.” The search included helicopters carrying Project Lifesaver tracking equipment, since her parents had told authorities she was wearing a transmitter, which she had been fitted with in 2024 due to her tendency to wander off.

But as it turns out, she wasn’t wearing the transmitter. Allegedly, “the device had been removed before the family left Virginia,” where the family lives. And at some point—it’s not clear when—her parents, John Herb Hayes III (age 70) and his wife Geordyn Nichole Hayes (age 31) absconded to Tennessee, where they were captured on Tuesday evening. They are expected to be extradited back to South Carolina, where they face charges of “unlawfully placing a child at risk, causing harm or willfully abandoning a child.”

Although authorities have not yet accused the parents of intentionally harming Saylor, the arrest affidavit notes that the couple “encouraged search efforts to be directed toward the use of tracking technology, despite knowing that the child was not wearing the monitoring device” and that they “further directed search efforts away from the nearby body of water,” despite the fact that she had “a known affinity to water.” It is also alleged that they left her unsupervised less than 50 feet from a body of water.

Disturbingly, this is not the first time the Hayeses have been in trouble for child neglect. In July 2023, two children—S.H. (age 2, female) and J.H. (age 1, male)—were removed from their custody by the Washington County (VA) Department of Social Services after hair follicle tests showed the children had been exposed to methadone and, in J.H.’s case, methamphetamine. John and Geordyn Hayes both tested positive for methadone (they were both in a methadone treatment clinic program), and Geordyn tested positive for methamphetamine. The couple had no explanation for how the children had been exposed to the drugs.

John was charged with “child abuse or neglect demonstrating a reckless disregard for human life.” Inexplicably, Geordyn was not. And rather than a conviction, John was given a “deferred-disposition arrangement” with two years of probation.

It isn’t clear when the children were returned to the couple. But in February 2026, at least one of the children was with Geordyn when she was found in a freezing-cold car that had run out of gas—“acting erratically” and “possibly under the influence of a narcotic”—by a sheriff’s deputy. John had requested law enforcement assistance, reporting that his wife had “relapsed on meth.” As a result of this incident, Geordyn was finally charged with felony child abuse, but the charge was soon reduced to a misdemeanor: contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Just two weeks before Saylor disappeared, that case was also given a deferred disposition.

Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis pointed out that the Project Lifesaver transmitter—typically used on cognitively impaired individuals who habitually wander away—“cannot simply be unclasped or removed by the client; the band must be physically cut in order to remove the transmitter.” It is unknown, at this point, who removed the transmitter from Saylor or why they did so, but investigators located the missing transmitter in a vehicle on the Hayeses’ property in Virginia.

An autopsy to determine Saylor’s cause of death is scheduled for Friday.

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Since the poll limits the options to just a few characters, here are more complete versions of today’s poll choices:

• How should we react to Left-driven changes in Canada?

• How should we deal with the abuse of credentialism?

• What conditions would make Universal Basic Income acceptable?

• What are the best changes that have been made by Trump et al?

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Ladies and Gentlemen, the floor is yours!

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But recently I’ve developed some concerns about Vance. Again, I haven’t delved into the subject (it is literally something I can’t do anything about right now!), but from what hear through the grapevine, Vance is keeping company with Tucker Carlson and other pundits on what is now being referred to as the “Woke Right”— ‘conservatives’ who are antisemitic, purity-testing, and just as interested as Leftists in altering/replacing the Constitution to support their own ideals of power.

I don’t know to what degree those allegations about Vance are true. But it’s enough to make me consider a different candidate (probably Rubio?) for 2028.

So I’m especially interested in hearing what your opinions are on this subject. But please, keep your reactions to each other’s opinions civil?

What do you think?

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Alas, all good things must come to an end: summer, sun, fun, life itself…and my Jotting in Purple substitute stint. To conclude this round, I decided to find a writer with whom I have an unusual personal connection. However, unlike John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester from April, I found a much more benign and beloved writer to share.

Almost every child growing up becomes familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson through his great adventure tale Treasure Island. Its impact on popular culture, particularly the perception of pirates, is hard to overstate: the stereotype of the one-legged pirate galumphing around on a stick derives from Long John Silver (as does the name of a fast food fish restaurant chain). Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the Vegas casino named for the novel would be unthinkable without it.

My connection with Stevenson began in childhood. My love of poetry was sparked by two large anthologies, one edited by Louis Untermeyer and one by Helen Ferris, which contained many delightful poems suitable for teaching children to appreciate the art form. Excerpts from A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson featured prominently in both. Many here may remember “The Swing,” an exhilarating snippet of verse that captures the physical sensation of swinging.

Years later, I took an internship to work for the Attorney General of American Samoa after my first year of law school. Researching the island, I discovered Stevenson built a mansion named Villa Vailima atop a mountain, where he died and was eventually buried. I hiked to the top and still have pictures somewhere of me draped over his above-ground tomb.

The poem I have chosen, “Bed in Summer,” captures the feeling of regret and remorse that the child persona feels at having to go to bed while the summer fun still rolls on outside his window. Having been laid up with foot surgery for a couple of summers recently, I can testify that longing can still rage in an old man’s chest as fervently as in a young boy’s; perhaps more so, now armed with the certain knowledge that the days are long and time is growing short.

“Bed in Summer”

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

I hope everyone enjoyed reading the past five weeks of posts as much as I enjoyed writing them,

Peace PoetKen

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• What are the best changes that have been made by Trump et al?

• How can we best reform health care policy (what’s the solution to replacing Obamacare)?

• What is your opinion of J.D. Vance?

• Do women with postpartum psychological issues get enough help from our medical system?

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I spotted a post on TwiX that seemed perfect for today.

From NOBUNAGA:

Before every meal, Japanese people press their hands together
and say one word.

“Itadakimasu.”

Tourists think it means “bon appétit.”

It doesn't.

It literally means: “I humbly receive.”

Receive what? A life.

The fish gave its life. The rice plant gave its seeds.
The farmer gave his summer. The cook gave her morning.

The word thanks all of them at once —
including the food itself.

Children say it in unison before school lunch, every day.
A salaryman says it quietly, alone, over a convenience store bento
at midnight, hands pressed together for half a second.

Nobody’s watching. He says it anyway.

It’s not a prayer. It’s not religion.
There’s no god involved, no reward, no punishment.

It’s just this: the meal in front of you used to be alive,
and someone worked so it could reach you,
and pretending otherwise would make you smaller.

Two seconds of gratitude, three times a day,
125 million people, for centuries.

Try it at your next meal. One quiet moment before you eat.

See if the food tastes different.

It shouldn’t. But it will.

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This is a tough question for me to answer. I don’t have any houseplants at present, although I kept cyclamens for years.

Unfortunately, most of the plants in my yard that I really love only appear for a few weeks, like daffodils. I have a bridal-veil spirea that is briefly beautiful in the spring, I love that. The few rose bushes I have at present are not very nice ones, alas.

I’m realizing that my fibro has really put the kibosh on my ‘nice yard’ dreams. 😞

What plant of yours is your favorite?

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Today we have a joke from Clarity Seeker, some more meme contributions from JBell, and some good ones from the Babylon Bee.

Got jokes?

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These memes are not ha-ha funny. They are very pointed. But I wanted to share them. Just not on Funny Friday.

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It’s unlikely you haven’t heard, but it’s worth noting that Dolly Parton passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday. Her husband had passed away in March of last year (I wrote about that here), and she put out a statement a few days ago, saying “I am dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl.” They had been together 60 years, and it seems to happen all too often that spouses don’t survive each other long. RIP, Dolly—you were one in a million!

Several of today’s stories are sourced from international news, which is not where I usually go with this weekly post. But the theme of systems that don’t work really stood out this week.

Two weeks without power in Gary, IN

On August 11, 2026, a severe storm system—determined by the National Weather Service to be a derecho—tore through northeast Indiana. Over 350,000 customers of Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) lost power. But nearly a week later, over 100,000 had not had service restored; of that number, nearly a third were in Gary, Indiana, where five-sixths of the affected residents remained without electrical service as of August 17th. As of the 23rd, over 10,000 still lacked power—most of them in Gary. By yesterday morning, the number of customers without power had finally dropped under 1000.

Indiana’s governor, Mike Braun (R), is calling for an investigation into NIPSCO to “determine whether NIPSCO did what it promised ratepayers and regulators it would do with the money it was given.” Some are alleging that the utility failed to keep its lines free of trees and vegetation. In fact, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company about this issue (which, of course, the company denies).

The city council’s vice president, Darren Washington, alleges that the failure to maintain line clearance is due to Gary being “economically disadvantaged.” Around 80% of the population is black, and some are saying that a white community would not have been left in the dark for so long. But others are pointing out that the community has a serious crime problem that has affected the safety of utility workers: on August 15th, a NIPSCO vehicle—an SUV rather than a utility truck—was fired at. Although no one was harmed, work was delayed for over 12 hours while “protection by Gary Police Department, the Indiana State Police, and National Guard was arranged to provide safety and security for electric restoration crews.”

Note that the City of Gary isn’t doing much better: a week after the storm, municipal crews had only cleared 75% of the blocked streets. President Trump approved an emergency declaration for Indiana on the 15th, but FEMA has not yet acted to the extent that many are demanding.

Nashville hospital error still raising questions

Four patients at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown in Nashville, Tennessee were mistakenly given potassium phosphate (not potassium chloride, as some have mistakenly reported) instead of the anesthetic mepivacaine in epidural injections during surgeries on August 14, 2026. One of the patients, Glenda Dorton (age 72), went in for a knee replacement, but is now paralyzed from the chest down, despite efforts to reverse the damage to her spine. Another victim was a 74-year-old woman, who may or may not also be paralyzed. No information has been forthcoming about the other two victims, but Dorton’s family was apparently told that “surgeries were halted after medical staff noticed two patients experiencing similar complications.”

The hospital has admitted that the error occurred “in its pharmacy,” and claims that it “reported the incident to state regulators the day it occurred, launched an investigation, identified the cause and implemented corrective measures.” But the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is also looking into the case—something that Nashville attorney John Day called “unusual”:

“In my more than 40 years of medical malpractice litigation, I only recall the TBI being involved twice,” Day said. “My first thought was, ‘What did the state inspectors see or learn that caused them to call in criminal investigators?’”

Although many on TwiX are suggesting that the mix-up was intentional, I stumbled upon a more reasonable explanation: misidentification due to poor and/or hasty reading of labels. The brand name of mepivacaine is “Polocaine,” which places the drug alphabetically near to “Potassium Phosphates.”

No official details have yet been reported about the cause of the mix-up, but I remembered that we have our own resident hospital pharmacist here on JiP. So I asked him to give some perspective into how such an error could happen, and he graciously agreed to do so!

Phoenix officers fired and arrested after attack on couple

When Tempe, Arizona police found an abandoned car in the wee hours of August 6, 2026, they checked with other police agencies in the area—including the Phoenix Police Department—to see if the car had been involved in any contact with law enforcement. None had been reported. Eventually, by tracking down the registered owner, they discovered that her son and his female passenger had been attacked late the night before (August 5th) in what Tempe police initially believed was an attempted carjacking by men pretending to be police officers.

According to the couple, they were pulled over on the south side of Phoenix—court documents reveal that the police car (which was unmarked) crashed into the rear bumper of the victim’s car when it stopped—and that the officers then “tried to force open the vehicle’s doors before smashing the driver’s window.” Once they had accessed the driver and his female passenger, they proceeded to assault them: the female was tased at least twice before she was handcuffed and dumped on the sidewalk, while the male “was repeatedly Tased and punched” for about six minutes; the officers then threatened to shoot him. Eventually he was able to escape by driving away, but the car overheated in Tempe and he left it where Tempe officers found it. Meanwhile, the female was warned that the driver was “probably going to get shot” and that “we know where you live now,” then left by the roadside without her cellphone.

The couple did not immediately think to report the incident, because they believed the driver would get in trouble for “fleeing the scene.” But Tempe police assured them that they were not in trouble, but rather were the victims. The couple sought medical treatment for their injuries, and the Tempe Police Department began an investigation into the attack.

Before long, detectives realized that they were not dealing with impersonators, but with actual Phoenix police officers: Luis Vasquez, Jr. (age 31) and Antonio Felix (age 31), who had both been with the department for nearly ten years. Reportedly, “both had previously violated department policy,” but “nothing of this nature.” It was apparently the fear of getting into trouble for “the multitude of policy violations” that motivated Vasquez to not report the incident.

But based on court documents, the violations during the August 5th stop started long before the violence. Although the officers claimed they were attempting to pull over “an impaired driver in a high-crime area” who didn’t match the vehicle’s owner (the driver’s mother), they had only been making “intermittent overhead light and siren activations” as they followed the victims’ car “through multiple turns,” which is “inconsistent with standard police traffic stop practices.” Perhaps it was the fact that they had (accidentally?) rammed into the car’s bumper when it came to a stop (the damage to the car’s back bumper matched “the push bars on a Phoenix police Tahoe”) that made Officers Vasquez and Felix decide not to activate their bodycams when they approached the car.

According to the (now former) officers, the victims refused to get out of the car, which caused the officers to fear for their safety, but neither had anything to say when questioned about why they had not called for back-up. (The victims told Tempe police that they had asked the officers repeatedly why they had been stopped.) Vasquez admitted that he had drawn his gun and threatened to shoot the driver. He also admitted that he had seized the woman’s cellphone, but alleged that he “failed to secure it and ultimately lost it.” The taser used by Felix showed “six safety activations, with 29 electrical discharge events during the encounter” upon a “forensic download.” It also turns out that when Tempe police asked for assistance contacting the owner of the abandoned car, the officers who responded were Vasquez and Felix, who only pretended to try to make contact, telling Tempe police that she was not at home (it was Tempe’s own officers who finally contacted her).

Vasquez and Felix—who had been on administrative leave during the investigation—were arrested last Saturday. They were also fired. At their initial hearing, both were given a $100,000 secured appearance bond, which both had met by Monday, although they are “subject to electronic monitoring” and were ordered not to contact “any victims, witnesses, arresting officers or each other.” They have also been “barred from possessing any weapons or leaving the state.” They face a long list of charges:

• Kidnapping

• Aggravated assault

• Felony assault involving bound or physically restrained individual

• Aggravated robbery

• Threatening and intimidating

• Criminal damage

• Hindering prosecution

• Tampering with evidence

Phoenix Police Chief Matt Giordano told a press conference, “There is no excuse for the conduct that these two officers engaged in.”

Interpol arrests scammers tied to Nigerian cyber-crime

For the past year and a half, Interpol has been investigating cyber-crime groups tied to West Africa in “Operation Jackal IV.” They have now announced the arrest of 58 people, mostly in South Africa, although the investigation identified a further 263 suspects across 22 countries, including Argentina, Romania, and Italy, and seized nearly $3 million in ill-gotten funds.

The main crime network being targeted was the Black Axe—a “mafia-style gang” that grew out of the Leftist Pan-African movement among intellectuals at the University of Benin in Nigeria in the 1970s. It is known for various types of cyber-crime, human and drug trafficking, and election fraud, and its influence reaches worldwide. The criminal operations raided in South Africa and Romania involved investment scams and romance scams targeting English-speaking senior citizens. The ones raided in Argentina and Italy involved money-laundering for West African crime networks.

Additionally, an increasing number of “sextortion” scams, specifically targeting minors, were discovered. In such scams, teens as young as 14 are lured by pretend relationships into sending explicit pics or videos, which the scammers then threaten to share if a ransom is not paid.

Swiss tourist jailed for religious disrespect

Although most of Indonesia is Muslim-majority, the island of Bali is Hindu-majority, although with its own unique Bali-only traditions and holidays. One of the most serious of these is Nyepi, which occurs on the last day before the new year, typically in March. Called the Day of Silence, and celebrated for nearly 2000 years, Nyepi is most similar (for Westerners) to an intense ‘sabbath’: work, travel, and entertainment are forbidden, and no fires can be kindled (in the modern world, electricity use is minimized). Fasting, silence, and meditation (particularly self-reflection) are practiced by Balinese Hindus, but even non-Hindu tourists are expected to remain indoors that day.

A 26-year-old Swiss tourist, Luzian Andrin Zgraggen, thought the whole thing was “crazy,” and said so in a profane social media post on the holiday in 2026, in which he also described going to the beach in defiance of the rules. Apparently he did this despite having been warned about the restrictions by the staff at his accommodations. Unfortunately for him, Indonesia has very serious laws about insulting people and their religious beliefs. When his posts went viral among local internet users, he was tracked down (still in Bali) and arrested.

Despite his pleas that the posts arose from hunger and frustration, his claims that he didn’t fully understand “the extent of the restrictions,” and his expressions of regret and apology, the court sentenced him last week to a year in prison. Previous instances of foreigners breaching Nyepi rules—usually by going outside—have typically resulted in deportation instead of prosecution. The Balinese don’t fool around: “cultural respect is not just etiquette—it is law.”

NICU fire in Pakistan kills 14 newborns

Around 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday, an air conditioner compressor exploded in a neonatal intensive care unit at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, Pakistan, where 15 newborns were being treated. A fire started as a result of the explosion. But witnesses, parents, and officials give different accounts of what happened next.

According to the hospital’s executive director, Rana Imran Sikandar, NICU staff fought the fire with fire extinguishers. Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said that staff went to call rescue services. Islamabad’s chief commissioner, Sohail Ashraf, said that rescue services arrived “immediately.” Nevertheless, all but one of the babies died, while—according to Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhary—the doctors, nurses, and staff “remained safe.”

Parents, on the other hand, allege that all but one of the doors to the ward were kept locked, hindering efforts by parents to rescue their children. Sikandar denied that the door was locked, but admitted that “staff were stationed at the entrance to prevent newborn babies from being stolen, citing previous incidents of child theft at government hospitals.” A father whose infant son had been in the ward for eight days said that there was “no fire security, no proper exits,” an allegation supported by the aunt of the one baby who survived: “There should have been fire extinguishers and protocols, but no one was doing anything.”

Parents also claim that there were no staff in the unit when the fire broke out—an allegation supported by a number of eyewitness—and that it took upwards of an hour for firefighters to arrive. They also noted that it was four hours before police arrived on the scene.

Hospital spokesperson Dr. Aneeza Jalil claimed that the only child who survived was “rescued by a doctor.” But the child’s aunt described what happened differently:

Hivsa Walid was near the room at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital with her sister-in-law, who had given birth days earlier. She initially heard a shout and thought a patient had died - but then she saw smoke.

The pair fled with the baby, who is so small she does not yet have a name.

“We didn’t even think about our belongings. We just grabbed the baby and rushed downstairs.”

Walid also alleged that staff were “just running” instead of fighting the fire.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered an immediate investigation into the incident. He also suspended Federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri. The magistrate of the Islamabad district also ordered a “fact-finding committee with directions to submit a report within 24 hours.” A number of serious fires with high death tolls—such as one at a shopping mall in Karachi in January—have been blamed on “poor safety laws, building codes and lax enforcement.”

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Not all is well here, though. Jem-mom lost her job. She made an error with drink-thickening that caused a choking incident, and the facility (a nursing home for people with mental health problems) has had the state breathing down their neck lately, so they had to let her go. At least she is getting a break and more time with Jem, both of which are beneficial, until the job hunt starts again.

In other positive news, I re-upped my CPR certification yesterday. Actually had a hands-on class instead of an online training, which was nice, even though it took longer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the floor is yours!

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From my perspective, it appears that the DSA has the ‘mainstream/establishment’ Democrats thoroughly spooked. They see how very appealing socialism is to their base—especially to the young. What isn’t clear to me is whether the establishment politicians actually recognize that socialism is a bad idea, or whether they are just worried about losing control, either of their own party or, more broadly, to Republicans.

Personally, I feel zero pity for the establishment Dems. The problem they’re facing is entirely of their own making. Their geriatric leadership has long refused to hand the reins of power to a younger generation. But they’ve willingly accepted more and more radical elements into their party, enjoying the boost in voters but largely ignoring the consequences.

But now the consequences are coming for them…and, I fear, for the nation. If the mainstream Dems lose control of their vote-manipulation process (which they seem to have employed to—just barely—shut a very dubious DSA candidate out of the governor’s race in Wisconsin), they will continue to lose control of their party. And the poorly educated young people of this country (educated by Leftist teachers) are highly susceptible to the false promises of socialism.

It seems all too likely that these young people are going to end up learning, the hard way, the lesson that the rest of us had the wisdom to learn from the experience of other countries. If only the pain did not fall on all of us!

What do you think?

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It’s been quite some time since I read When the Mississippi Ran Backwards by Jay Feldman. I’m pretty sure I checked it out from the library, back in the day. I went through a period of being interested in the New Madrid quakes of the early 1800s in the years shortly after we moved here (since we’re closer to that zone now), and this book seems to have been published in 2007, so it would have been pretty recently published during the time when I was focused on that topic. That tracks.

It’s been long enough since I read this that I can’t vouch for the Wokeness level. But it was interesting enough that I still remember it being a fascinating description of the history surrounding the event. Including Thomas Jefferson’s ne’er-do-well nephews who almost got away with murder.

Anyway, it’s on sale on Kindle, if it interests you.

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I thought today I would share a piece by a poet I don’t particularly like. Charles Bukowski achieved legendary status, mostly for boorish behavior, extreme alcoholism, and what fans call a gritty realism.

From the first time I read his work, I thought it was undisciplined free verse in the worst way. Mostly personal stories of whoring, betting, and boozing, broken up into lines with no rhyme or reason, his malignant influence spawned the worst excuses for poetry in the 21st Century. Slam poetry, spoken word, and the kind of solipsistic spew on display in any modern Woke journal or interminable open mike night would be inconceivable without Bukowski’s verbal vomit paving the way.

That said, his reach is undeniable. For the punk rockers here, the entire career of people like Henry Rollins of Black Flag would be impossible without Bukowski. When I first arrived in L.A. and met one of my best friends from law school, he took me on a Bukowski bar crawl, which led us to some of the seediest dives I have ever drunk in. He also showed me the movie Barfly, with Mickey Rourke playing a loosely disguised Henry Chinaski (Bukowski’s literary alter-ego), besotted in those same bars and a variety of dead-end jobs. In reality, Bukowski was a civil servant, a postman who made it through 20 years to his pension, which financed the degenerate lifestyle that made him famous.

The poem below is typical of his work. It’s not very good IMHO, but some people love the raw edges. And it does address the gods, have a funny image of him in a silk scarf at Yale, and ends rather sadly with his cigarette lighter malfunctioning in a kind of anti-Prometheus way. If you want more of this type of work, I recommend his short story collection South of No North, which does have some interesting material.

“this kind of fire”

sometimes I think the gods
deliberately keep pushing me
into the fire
just to hear me
yelp 
a few good
lines.

they just aren’t going to
let me retire
silk scarf about neck
giving lectures at 
Yale.

the gods need me to
entertain them.

they must be terribly
bored with all
the others

and I am too.

and now my cigarette lighter
has gone dry.
I sit here
hopelessly
flicking it.

this kind of fire
they can’t give
me.

The floor is yours!

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If you have ideas for more possible topics, please write them in the comments!

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Sorry I didn’t get anything more interesting together for today. But Jem is adjusting to having a cast.

What’s good in your life today?

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I can think of two movies in particularly that I thought were better than the books they were based on:

Stardust (2007)

I love this movie. The characters—played by really some skilled actors and actresses—are larger than life, the story is filled with humor, and the plotline is genuinely exciting. This remains one of my favorite films.

I picked up the book, thinking it must be good, because it’s by Neil Gaiman. Alas, I was gravely disappointed. The plot drags and the characters are relatively colorless. Unfortunate.

Ella Enchanted (2004)

In this case, I actually read the book first…and despised it! It was early in my grad school years, but I was still painfully aware of the feminist ideology oozing from what ought to have been a fun fairy tale retelling.

Much to my surprise, the film was a fun romp that had a very different flavor from the book. No feminism in sight, just a stubborn girl in an amusingly modern fairytale kingdom, and a prince who actually goes from soy boy to hero instead of the other way around. Again, this is a movie I really enjoy and will rewatch willingly at any time.

What movie do you prefer to the book?

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Today we have some memes shared by Ted, JBell, and Clarity Seeker. Plus a few I picked up along the way.

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