People Called Dennis Roddy, They Go the Houses?

Looks like someone didn't have their knuckles wrapped hard enough by the nuns:

UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- Police are searching for a vandal who knows Latin -- or at least one famous phrase of the language -- after about a dozen cars were damaged at a Fayette County car dealership.

Uniontown police say nearly two dozen tires were slashed and about a dozen cars had their paint scratched with a key or another sharp object Monday at Five Corners Auto.

The scratching on one of the cars spelled out "Nemo me inpune lacessit." The phrase means "No one attacks me with impunity."

Actually, the phrase is ""Nemo me impune lacessit." "Nemo me inpune lacessit" would mean "I have a small computer animated fish that needs it's shoes tied." That doesn't make any sense.

The quotation, in fact, comes from Edgar Allan Poe's classic horror story "The Cask of Amontillado." It is the family crest of Fortunato, the unfortunate victim of revenge by his neighbor, Montressor. The narrator lures the drunken Fortunato to the basement of his Italian villa during carnival where he chains him to a wall that he then bricks shut, leaving the man to die in the darkness.

OR, if you're historically literate....

It's the the Latin motto of the Order of the Thistle and of three Scottish regiments of the British Army, and has been used by the British Monarch in Scotland since at least 1707, predating the use by Poe by about 150 +/- years. And who am I to question the Queen of England? The "me" in the phrase refers to the prickly thistle, the emblem of Scotland. No words if vandals' attack was on a Toyota Highlander.

Alternatively, and ironically for the vandals, the phrase can be translated into English as "No one can harm me unpunished."

---
My family Latin motto is slightly longer:
O Sibili, se ergo,
Fortebus es inero.
O Nobili, demis trux
Si vatsinum, causan dux.

A G-20 Idea

I did not have time to go to the G-20 Idea Roundup that was held last week. Sadly, real life intervened; although from the sound of it, no really decent, interesting, or otherwise good ideas were presented. For example:

The city should send journalists a YouTube video showing how Pittsburgh has gone from "rustbelt to sparkling jewel."

Because YouTube (especially the comments section) is a bastion of intelligent public discourse.

We should have signs in multiple languages on the way in from the airport saying welcome to Pittsburgh.

Including signs in "Yinzer" I suppose.

And then there was something about a Wizard of Oz video juxtaposing old steel Pittsburgh with new, munchkin filled, Pittsburgh, which I didn't quite get. I mean, Dorothy still wants to go back to Kansas at the end... which probably subliminally says something about our post-industrial hangups.

No, if the Region wants to do something for the G-20, it needs to do something BIG for the G-20. I mean, we have a chance here to cause a real international scene and we should avail ourselves of that opportunity and try to draw out this publicity as long as possible.

So, here's my little proposal: kidnap all the attending foreign heads of Government and pull some sort of Manchurian Candidate-style brainwashing on them. Once they are released, they go back to their respective countries and start directing business to Pittsburgh.

Now, obviously this type of plan has been floated before by the Allegheny Conference; back in the early 2000s, somebody proposed a visit to a "mystery city" for out of region young folks... or what amounts to a jackbooted, Border Guard Bob. Once in Pittsburgh, the tour guides would show the victims how great Pittsburgh was, and the young people would go back to... um... do something. Anyway, I don't think this plan made it past the "straight face" test, but that's because they weren't thinking BIG enough.

Kidnapping 20 world leaders is a big plan and it has some major benefits.

First, as this would probably take nearly 440+ days to resolve, international media would be staying in the Region long enough to produce a slew of human interest stories, Regional boosterism video, and generally spend money. All of this is a positive benefit to the City & Region. True, the undertone of the reports may be something along the lines of "Pittsburgh is a beautiful place, but the people are genuinely psychopathic", but that's going to have to be a risk we're going to have to take.

Second, the international outrage would be immense. At least 6 of the countries are nuclear armed and the combined military force would crush us like insignificant bugs. Don't worry, the fight will be short and painless, however, the occupation could take years. This is actually a good thing. Chances are, about 5 countries would be involved, occupying different sectors of the Region without regard to municipal boundaries. The result, of course, would be a quick and effective municipal consolidation.

Of course, for this to take, we'll need to be occupied for about forty years and chances are either Luke or Dan would be set up as some sort of puppet Dictator in the interim... but we could always oust them in the future with some sort of coup (bloodless or otherwise).

Third, in the wake of this chaos, a lot of things are going to get blown up, destroyed, or otherwise rendered functionally useless. During the occupation, we're going to have the opportunity to rebuild the Region, meaning that we can create jobs, new manufacturing sections, housing, and basically do whole damned thing right this time. (And frankly, if we burned down bits of the more distressed parts of the City on our own, I doubt anyone would question it.)

Now, I'm sure that there are people out there that would consider this to be "illegal" or "seditious" or "a really, really bad idea," but these people are either small minded or work for any of the dozen or so US security agencies. "Videos" and "signs" quickly slip from the public memory; an international kidnapping conspiracy will be remembered forever.

But, think about it folks: one small band of dedicated nutcases could single handily change the course of Pittsburgh and direct us to a brighter future. I think the Allegheny Conference is just nuts enough to do it.

For Sale: One [Bleeping] Valuable Thing

Because you want to be the Junior Senator from Illinois, but you don't want the hassle of dealing with Patrick Fitzgerald:


[Click to view]

Allegheny Conference on Criminal Development Laments City's 65th Most Dangerous Ranking

With this week's release of a nationwide crime survey which pegged Pittsburgh as the 67th most dangerous city in the Country and at the threshold of Friday's annual meeting of the Allegheny Conference on Criminal Development, its chairman outlined the region's successes and pointed to the challenges that still impede economic growth in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

Victor "Jo-Jo" Strachi, upright citizen and chair of the Pittsburgh Crime Family said that the 67th place ranking should not be a sign of weakness to anyone and that the Region has a long, successful history in crime and it is moving forwards and upwards in the ranking.

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness.

Pittsburgh ranks behind Detroit which retained the top spot, but also Youngstown (No. 15), Cincinnati (No. 16), Dayton (No. 19), Philadelphia (No. 21), Reading (No. 32), Toledo (No. 47) and Columbus (No. 48).

"The region has made significant advances in the fields of Cyber Crime and white collar crime - we are particularly please with the work of former Council Woman Twanda Carlisle - and we have the unions, we have the gambling, and they're the best things to have," said Strachi. "We are disappointed, however, that they did not focus on these activities in this study."

Local CMU professor and noted criminologist Al Blumenstein agrees with Strachi.

"I mean, you look at how these surveys are crafted and you can see the methodological flaws right there. They're looking at rape, arson, murder, and rape, but they don't consider the more subtle crimes: blackmailing, racketeering, protection... crimes of a more 'Creative' nature."

While the ACCD will focus on these rankings in its annual meeting, Mr. Strachi said that the region has much to be proud of.

"These are wonderful things that we've achieved in this City -- and there's no limit to where we can go from here. This kind of Government knows how to help business...to encourage it."