Folks, this is awful timing, but you won’t be seeing as many blog posts from me as you normally would, on account of this:
Someone smashed the window out on my truck last night and stole the newpaper’s laptop, the one that is my primary work platform. I do all blogging, all e-mail, most working of photos and cartoons that I handle, plus all of the video and other stuff I do for the blog. All administrative files, such as evaluations and budget info, were on the laptop, plus all of the photos I had taken of candidates for this fall’s elections.
My truck was one of 10 broken into on my street.
That the computer was in my truck was just the worst possible luck. It’s probably been years since I’ve left it there overnight, and I only did it this time because on Monday I came to work without it, which put me way behind on the week, and with the confusion of election night and all, I wanted to make sure I remembered it this morning. Add to that the fact that I normally don’t take it home during the week, but only did so last night because it was election night and I was going to be working from home. I still can’t believe this.
Now I’ve got to run out and deal with the guy who came to replace the window in my truck; he’s here now.
Back to you later.
Now watch this: Lee will blame this on Obama.
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At least they didn’t get your sense of humor.
What an aggravating thing.
I wouldn’t blame it on Obama, but rather on the newly re-elected Leon Lott, who ran unopposed. And so, you can also blame Richland Co. Republicans for not fielding a candidate against someone (Lott) who really needs to answer to the voters.
It was a hit-job called by the Rooster. The other break-ins were just incidental to make it look screwy.
Brad, I’m so sorry to hear that you laptop was stolen! I hope you can replace it quickly, and I hope that they can catch the thieves (unlikely, considering how few policemen are available). Please try to blog anyway.
Welcome to the Obama-nation.
The way the mob around here operates, they can accomplish their mission with or without the police taking sides. Police are simply one piece of the puzzle-pie.
Actually, it was Lexington County, where James Metts was unopposed.
But I’ve got no complaints about the deputies. There were three of them at my home this morning (on account of the fact there were 10 break-ins on my street), and they couldn’t have been more professional, or encouraging, under the circumstances.
They told of their success recently with catching a couple of such theft rings — the deputy who took my info actually caught one of them with all the loot in his car. But I don’t expect to see this laptop again, partly BECAUSE of the security on it. You couldn’t operate it without at least two passwords. I can’t see a fence touching it. It’s probably in a dumpster now.
Brad, our neighborhood suffered a very similar rash of vehicle break-in about a year ago. Two of my neighbors within a stone throw of our house were victimized. Bummer. I wonder if these incidents are connected somehow.
YUK! My nightmare! I’m glad that your harddrive was encrypted. I hope you had your data backed up, too?
Maybe Obama will give you a stimulus check so you can buy a new laptop.
Or maybe he will increase your taxes so you can’t afford to replace it.
We don’t know yet, do we?
I am sorry that happened to you Warthime. Anytime something is stolen, it always feels like a violation of personal space, along with the aggravation of losing that item.
Just this past Sunday, I caught one guy looking into my car window as I came out of WalMart to load up my groceries. After a few choice curse words and a quick explanation about the wonders of a Concealed Weapons License along with how well and high my foot can project from ground to offender’s buttocks, he decided that retreat was the better part of valor. Just yesterday, I had a similar occurence with a gentlemen of seeming mendicancy outside of my polling place.
Before insaneLee starts, the former fellow was white, while the latter was black.
What we are all experiencing are the effects of desperation due to an economy eroded by Bushbaby’s policies. Hopefully, you can reconcile that assertion with your support for the Iraq War, your general support for Bushbaby’s policies and your UnParty’s platform.
Now, only now and by your own admission, it seems you have you felt their indirect effects.
People steal: not because of the President (new or old), or their policies. The average joe would not likely know how to steal effectively to make up for a shortfall in their family income.
Everything that happened in the last 8 years is not Bush’s fault, nor will all the bad things that happen in the next 4 be attributable to Obama.
Brad, I’m sorry about your laptop.
These were professionals, according to the deputies. Wait until it’s raining (something to do with fingerprints), smash in the window, grab what you want without touching anything else, hit as many vehicles as you can in a minute or two, and go. (Otherwise, my digital camera and other valuables would be gone, too.)
My truck (actually, my previous truck) WAS broken into by a homeless man in downtown Columbia, a couple of years ago. He was trying for my wife’s purse. That was very different from this.
And homelessness has little to do with the economic policies of this president or the next one. They are largely the function of two long-term failures: Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill a generation ago, and the city of Columbia’s utter fecklessness in failing to address the problem.
This break-in was business. To me, it may feel personal. But it was strictly business.
Being robbed is not business. It is personal.
Business involves work and voluntary free trade.
Theft involves taking someone else’s weath away by force.
The thief may rationalize it, that you “don’t need it as much as he does”, but the hardened ones don’t bother with that. They are just animals.
Warthime, where your burglarly is concerned, it may have been the pros. What I gather from the anecdotes of friends, family and peers, break ins are on the rise in our state.
I may be misreading your response, but to blame that increase on tangentially related factors that would exist even in a time lacking economic crisis is a bit naive. If the police aren’t doing their jobs anyway (as you suggest), then obviously they will project the thieves as an organized, near unstoppable force, correct?
But humans have an edless capacity for rationalization…so, whatever you say.
Whatever the case, I am sorry this happened to you. There probably is a lot of personal information on an item like a computer, adding greater personal insult. It would behoove us all to pay greater attention to our surroundings when we are in public, as I predict a steady climb in petty larceny for the forseeable future.
In this economic climate, we cannot afford to be careless at any level.
Crime is the result of our immoral society, not economic conditions.
The “poor” in America are richer than 95% of the rest of the world’s people. Lots of poor people in the Depression didn’t rob their fellow man.
You can leave a Rolex on the sink in a public restroom in Switzerland, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia and it will be there a week later. I have seen it.
Our political and religious leaders constantly tell the masses that they have a right to the wealth of others, so why shouldn’t some of them steal it directly, instead of waiting on official proclamations, and handouts from a government middleman?
Thanks, Capital A, although you know what? I don’t feel personally violated or anything, I just feel ticked off. Mostly, I resent the hassle — my e-mail doesn’t work at all on my desktop. Still don’t know why.
While there are things on that laptop that I would be unhappy to have made public, it’s more for professional reasons than personal ones. I embrace the value that, for instance, my evaluation of a subordinate here at work is confidential. But if it were MY eval, I wouldn’t care that much. There is very little that I think that I would hesitate to have you read; otherwise I could not maintain the blog. What little there is I DON’T share out loud is mainly out of consideration of other people’s privacy, not my own.
I’m not kidding when I write that surveillance of my phone calls by the gummint, or G-men delving through my library records, don’t bother me. I’m just weird that way, I guess. So it is that I get more outraged than others would when Obama equated a “right to privacy” to the right of free speech. Not only do I not think such a right is in the Constitution, I don’t personally feel the need for one. (So, you see, my difference with Obama over privacy rights goes WAY beyond abortion).
But I digress.
I need to point out one more thing: I did not mean to disparage the police in any way, shape or form. Maybe you thought I meant that when I disparaged the city of Columbia’s failings with regard to homelessness. That was all about the city council’s failures, not about the police.
I’m a big fan of the police (did you hear that, Big Brother — I love the police!).
We’re all big fans of police — the kind with integrity, which comes from the top down. And from the inside out. I’ve dealt with a helluva lot of the other kind. They are no bargain at any price.
The only “right to privacy” in the U.S. Constitution is the one in the Fourth Amendment, requiring a search warrant based on reasonable evidence of a crime, and specifying the objects of the search.
Obama is not much of a legal scholar, and he says he doesn’t care about the Constitution, anyway.
Those that rob the least of us commit a crime against all of us.
God help the working man because he creates objects that the non-working man would like to have and will take by force.
Sorry that you lost your laptop but down the road things could get more important than losing your laptop.
Desperate people do desperate things. I am not sure that Obama can give the nonworking enough to satisfy them to keep them from taking by force what they want.
Sad story. Solution?? More of the same unfortunately. Envy?
Greed? Reperations? Survival?
Maybe more money should be put into law inforcement?
slugger, you are falling right into their trap. Yes — more money; less getting to the bottom of things.
More money, less accountability. The winning hand every time. It works in the public schools. Right?
Envy?
Greed? Reperations? Survival?
??Publicity??
??Decoy??
Serious condolences on the loss of your laptop, Brad… I’m so dependent on my computer(s) I’d feel like I lost a limb if one of mine was stolen. Maybe by some miracle you’ll get it back. Sorry about the truck, too… being robbed is awful.
Hmmm
Let’s see. Brad says, “Now watch this: Lee will blame Obama.”
Then Cap A says blame it on “Bushbaby,” which is something akin to blaming human sin on God and giving whoever stole Brad’s laptop credit for being Jean Valjean, but Brad, who endorsed McCain, sometimes known as Bush III, chimes in with, “Thanks, Capital A.”
Y’all add that up for me, if you can.
I’m just hoping a Carolina football player ends up confessing to stealing Brad’s laptop and taking his picture off the rearview mirror of Brad’s truck.
p.m.s, you can make heads nor tails of our discourse because you’re relatively new around here; we “longtimers” have fought all these battles before and on the same blog.
You just keep doing your best to become Lee Muller, Jr., and we’ll keep ignoring your rants (mostly) until such time as we can overlook your many shortcomings and, at the very least, grant you the status of “charming.”
This could take a while.
Charming?
Nah, Cap, I wouldn’t want to go where you never could.
Biden predicted an attack if Obama was elected.
The bomb fell on Wall Street yesterday.
Putin already warned Obama to reverse the NATO program of missile defense.
Palestinians are already telling Obama they expect “nothing less than an independent Palestine” for their illegal donations to Obama.
Of course, Saudi Arabia and Israel have been negotiating for months on Palestine being expanded by a return of the West Bank. You can be sure that any success of Condaleza Rice will be claimed by Obama as his doing.
Biden has been right two days in a row….Another bomb fell on Wall Street today.
The elections are being stolen – why not Brad’s laptop? Remember, Obama told you to not be so “selfish”.
The stock markets have been crashing since Obama wrapped up the election. All the professionals tell us why:
* fear of inflation from massive Democrat deficit spending
* fear of government taking control of management of banks, automobiles, airlines, oil and gas industries
* threats of huge tax increases on investment risk profits and corporate profits
* Democrats threatening to seize control of individual retirement plans and corporate pensions.
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