Biffster’s World

Highlands Ranch mom arrested in prostitution sting - The Denver Post
A Highlands Ranch mother has been arrested on suspicion of prostitution and child abuse after authorities received complaints that prostitution might be occurring at the woman’s home.

The suspect is identified as Sheri Sims, 39, who lives in the 10000 block of South Cedaridge Court, said Deputy Cocha Heyden, spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

First off, I am actually kinda surprised that this kinda thing would happen in my area. Domestic assault, sure. Sexual assault, probably. But prostitution? That seems like something that Highlands Ranch folks would head over to one of the other suburbs for. Or head into the city. Prostitution seems like something one would want to keep far from one’s home.

Second - and I am aware this will sound like a racist statement, but it really isn’t: why couldn’t the woman be white? Out of the 90,000 people living in Highlands Ranch, there’s like 35 of us who aren’t white. Having a non-caucasian do something like this can (and probably will) reinforce racial stereotypes here in the Ranch.

So Bill Farr attempted to tell a joke, and ended up making a racist statement which offended most everyone in the room (from the Rocky Mountain News):

William R. Farr was pretending to read telegrams congratulating this years award recipient, University of Colorado President Hank Brown, when he pulled out a piece of paper and said, “I have a telegram from the White House.” Then he added, “They’re going to have to change the name of that building if Obamas elected.” Witnesses said they could hear people gasp in the ballroom of the Adams Mark Hotel.

My question is: how dumb can a person be?

Now as I’ve said before, I don’t know this for certain, but I am fairly certain that Tom Tancredo is a racist. How else can you explain most of his anti-immigrant stances, or his racist-tending ideas? For example, 9NEWS reports that Tancredo wants to have the black and Hispanic congressional caucuses abolished. Apparently, Tancredo believes that these caucuses are equivalent to segregation, which basically just shows that Tancredo has no idea what segregation is.

And don’t get me started on the hypocracy of Tancredo referring to anyone/anything as racist!

I don’t know how Tancredo got elected. And I have no idea at all how he beat Bill Winter in ‘06. Hopefully things change when Tom’s up for re-election in 2008.

After the disgusting behavior during the “debate” about illegal immigration during the special session here in Colorado, I was inspired to write the following letter to my local Representative, Ted Harvey:

Mr. Harvey,

As a resident in your district, I am shocked and embarrassed at your statements about illegal immigration. Your statement about Mexican gangas was bad enough. And your defense that you were just repeating something out of a newspaper article is not really a defense. Repeating a racist statement that someone else made doesn’t make it less racist. I would like to know what that article said, actually. But I digress.

The statement that specifically made me write this letter is the following: “This session has to do with protecting the citizens of Colorado from having to subsidize illegal immigrants no matter where they’re from. By throwing out those words and accusations, they’re shutting down a debate on a serious public safety concern.” This is an amazing distortion of what’s happening. Colorado citizens aren’t “subsidizing illegal immigrants” because most illegal immigrants don’t use public services. Why would they, when this puts them at risk of being discovered and deported? This phrase that you use is a red herring, meant to distract us from the real goals of your immigration stance.

Granted, I have no idea why you are so anti-immigrant. If you truly wanted to reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming into this country, then you would back bills that punish businesses for hiring undocumented workers. People come to this nation for one reason: jobs. If business stop hiring undocumented workers, then the illegal immigration issue would be resolved. No jobs = no undocumented workers.

But for some reason, you don’t want to do this. Could it be that you don’t want to lose your “Guardian of Small Business” accolades? Instead, you seem to advocate punishing those who came here in search of a job, to what end? Are you planning on putting 11 million people in prison? Deporting 11 million people? What would this do to our economy? And more to the point, what would keep more people coming in to fill the jobs that those who are being deported are leaving empty?

As a constituent, I ask that you abandon this extremist approach to illegal immigration and join a course of action that can actually make positive changes, instead of villifying a group of people.

—
Michael Fierro
Littleton, CO

Harvey is a really vile toad of a Representative. He prides himself on being a complete neandrathal regarding reproductive rights and women’s privacy. He also seems to have at least racist tendencies. I think he truly believes that Mexicans are all unlawful punks who can’t wait to get to America to join street gangs and terrorist cells. That he was voted into office is scary; that he was voted into office by my neighbors is even scarier.

Hmmm… I think this is telling of more than people want to admit:

About 250 opponents of the immigration march, with the group Defend Colorado Now, staged their own protest on the south side of Civic Center Park.

Their protest began as the thousands of other protestors left the area.

So there were 250 people who wanted to oppose immigration reform, while 75,000 gathered in support. Do I really need to say more? No matter what some would like us to believe, public opinion seems to be overwhelmingly in support of immigration reform. Rally’s like today’s rally show that it’s only a matter of time before the will of the people is heard.

Once again, the Rude Pundit says it all:

And the most disheartening thing of all was how little was mentioned, in the cruel march to the death chamber, of how the ex-wife of one of Williams’ alleged victims, Albert Owens (whose family is entirely fucked-up in conflict over the execution), called for support of Williams’ efforts to redeem himself for his gang-building past: “I, Linda Owens want to build upon Mr. Williams’ peace initiative. I invite Mr. Williams to join me in sending a message to all communities that we should all unite in peace. This position of peace would honor my husband’s memory and Mr. Williams work.”

A call for peace to honor the dead? What fuckin’ country does Linda Owens think she’s living in? Not in George Bush’s America, where more must die in Iraq to make sure the dead are honored. And certainly not in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California.

I found a couple of articles at SoapBlox Colorado regarding more fun with Tom Tancredo. If you are a member of the Republican party, don’t you really want to reign this guy in? He’s so extreme, so blatantly bigoted, so plainly insane that he can’t help but hurt your party..

Anyway, the first article is about the war of words between Denver Mayor Hickenlooper and Tancredo regarding Immigration. Basically, Tancredo sent a letter to Hickenlooper saying he believes Denver is a safe haven for illegal immigrants. Hickenlooper fires back that, if Tancredo wants to help funnel federal money into the state, then authorities will have more money to try and stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the city.

The story alludes to the growing rumblings inside the Republican party, as they try to strattle the line of wooing Latino voters while flying the anti-immigration flag. Tancredo never helps their cause, continually being a thorn in the side and refusing to toe the party line.

Gotta give Tancredo some props. He has the amazing ability to enrage both Democrats and Republicans.

As entertaining as that is, the next story is even worse. Apparently, Tancredo just can’t overcome his intolerance, this time while working with an interfaith group to try to come up with a “joint statement about religion, terrorism and retaliation (via DenverPost.com). Tancredo actually ended up causing more harm than good. From the same article:

“To me, the problem is not where the statement broke down,” said Joyce Rubin of the Denver office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), part of the interfaith group.

“The problem is that Congressman Tancredo continues to characterize and blame a whole religion and a whole group of people based on the actions of a few extremists and hasn’t apologized for it,” Rubin said.

I hope that the ADL isn’t holding their collective breath waiting for an apology from Tancredo. If there’s one thing that Tancredo has been consistent about, it’s his assuredness that he is right, and everyone else is wrong. He’s not just a racist, he’s a self-righteous racist. He is not going to change his views or beliefs for anyone. And he’s definitely not going to apologize for what he believes is right.

How pathetic is William Bennett? He still can’t take ownership of his horrible comments that aborting all black babies would reduce the crime rate in America. Instead, he is continuing to insist that his comments were taken out of context. His new tack is that he was using these statements to make a “bad argument” which he could then dispute. Which is total bullcrap!

Let us not forget exactly what he said:

Bennett told a caller on his radio show, “But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

He went on to call that “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.”

Emphasis mine, to point out something very important here: Bennett not only made that racist comment, but he then went back and restated that same argument! If he wasn’t endorsing it, if he didn’t believe it, then why restate it? And why restate it with such certainty? If you haven’t listened to the full clip of his show on Media Matters, go back and do so. Listen to the whole two minutes plus, so you can’t be accused of taking the comments out of context. And then listen to the certainty in Bennett’s voice as he re-states that the crime rate would go down.

Bennett needs to quit trying to make excuses, quit trying to blame everyone else, and say, “yes, I made these statements.” He could follow up with, “I should not have, they are extremely racist. I apologize to all Americans, regardless of race, that I offeneded,” but that isn’t necessary. We live in a free country, and if Bennett wants to be a racist prick, he can be. But he should have the courage to own up to what he said.

I took a break from blogging because of Hurricane Katrina. The destruction and human toll was just too much for me, so I’ve been ignoring this blog for a while. But I am back. And the hurricane deserves to be my first topic.

The major question left from the storm concerns the poor response made by emergency services to the residents of the effected areas (esepcially New Orleans). I don’t buy the theory that this was racially motivated. I think it was economically-motivated. To put it bluntly, the poor were left to live or die on their own. For example:

Anger rises among Mississippi’s poor after Katrina - Yahoo! News:

Many of the town’s well-off heeded authorities’ warnings to flee north, joining thousands of others who traveled from the Gulf Coast into northern Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia and other nearby states.

Hotels along the interstates and other main roads were packed with these temporary refugees. Gas stations and convenience stores — at least those that were open — sold out of water, ice and other supplies within hours.

But others could not afford to join them, either because they didn’t own a car or couldn’t raise funds for even the cheapest motel.

“No way we could do that,” said Willie Rhetta, a bus driver, who remained in his home to await Katrina.

How badly handled was this? Bad enough that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez laid a verbal smackdown on the Bush administration:

“That government had no evacuation plan, it is incredible, the first power in the world that is so involved in Iraq … and left its own population adrift,” Chavez said in a cabinet meeting broadcast live on television.

And don’t even get me started about the people who say there’s no way that the government could’ve known just how bad this hurricane would be. Researches predicted this exact type of disaster a year ago. We knew a week before Katrina hit that it had the potential to do an amazing amount of harm. And the day before the storm, weather forecasters were warning that New Orleans would probably suffer a “catastrophic blow.” If the Bush administration didn’t know that this was going to be a bad storm, then they need to pull their head out of the sand every now and then to see what’s going on in the world around them.