Radley Balko of TheAgitator.com has been working on a paper on no-knock raids, where the police burst into a house without warning to surprise the occupants and, presumably, leave them less able to set up a Waco-style standoff or resist the police. The problem is that frequently it leaves people, even innocent people, thinking there’s a home invasion in progress, not a search warrant being served.

One such case may very well be Cory Maye, a black man on death row, convicted by a majority white jury for killing a police officer during a nighttime raid that may or may not have been in practice, if not in policy, a no-knock raid. Details are still coming out, but I think the balance of the evidence is that Cory Maye was certainly innocent of being a drug dealer and reacted in fear by shooting someone invading the room where his daughter was, not knowing it was a police officer.

At most he should be looking at a reckless endangerment charge, if you question his use of a gun for self defense, instead of hiding and hoping nothing bad would happen. But even if the police announced themselves, it is reasonable to believe that Cory Maye was asleep and didn’t hear the announcement, only the noise. Living in a bad neighborhood, it’s not unreasonable at all to assume that an invasion is likely to be by someone intending harm.

The point is the hysteria around these no-knock raids are creating at least as many dangerous situations as they solve, in addition to hurting more innocent people than other methods. I’m sorry the officer was killed–it’s horrible to happen. But if you’re looking for someone to blame, blame the person responsible for the policy of no-knock raids, not a guy who is scheduled to be executed for trying to defend his daughter and then giving up when, according to police, they re-identified themselves.

Certainly there’s not enough certainty there to add another death to this tragedy, and whether you believe that drugs or handguns should be legal, you can recognize that this case doesn’t deserve the death penalty.

Whew. The Patriot Act Pogrom has been dealt at least a speed bump. Now, every liberal who used to freak out like Sununu was to Bush I as Rove is to Bush II, apologize to the nice man who apparently still believes that the Constitution is useful for something besides kindling.

Condoleezza puts whiny Euros and distorting Democrats in their place in this interview with Fafblog:

RICE: First of all, we don’t send prisoners off to be tortured, Fafnir. We just transport prisoners to countries where torture happens to be legal and where they happen to end up getting tortured.

FB: Well that explains everything then! It’s all just a wacky misunderstanding, like that episode a Three’s Company where Jack sends Janet off to Uzbekistan to get boiled alive by the secret police.

On Hugo Chavez’s deal to sell oil at a deep discount to certain Massachusettsans:

“He’s doing the right thing,” Kelly, 44, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “The people of Venezuela are lucky to have him. That’s what government is supposed to be about — taking care of the little guy.”

Yes, the people of Venezuela are lucky to have him. He’s selling oil at a 40% discount to people in a country whose per-capita income is over SIX TIMES that of Venezuela’s. That’s a man who really knows how to take care of the little guy.

So the eponymous CEO of Ford Motors, Inc., went before Congress to argue for tax breaks to encourage “investment” in more fuel-efficient vehicles. Choice quote;

Bill Ford said more action was needed to stimulate the development of hybrid vehicles and those powered by ethanol.

Um. Mr. Ford, sales of the Toyota Prius should have stimulated your development of hybrid vehicles four years ago. If the best you can come up with is licensing their older technology for existing products that don’t sell well, then you aren’t familiar with the term “investments”. Investments are made by the market in places where it can actually generate a return. The problem is, you’ve been developing crap that nobody wants, because apparently you use Homer Simpson as your market tester. You stubbornly hung on to SUV production even as your lunch was being eaten everywhere else. Instead of using that profit to shore up your other lines, you bet the farm on a type of car that any schmuck could have told you would disappear the second gas prices got even a little high.

You don’t need any tax breaks to do what your competition has been doing: innovating. You might be surprised to know that innovation doesn’t happen in Congress, it happens in the lab. If you can’t get money from the markets because you’ve proven you can’t sell air conditioners to Floridians, well, that may be a signal that you don’t have what it takes. The only thing that’s going to turn that around is to plunge all your R&D effort into finding something that someone will buy. All the images of farmers driving F-250s is great, except that less than 3% of the population of the US is involved in farming.

Your customers don’t need tax breaks either. In fact, since the Prius costs so much, it’s arguably people to whom tax breaks least matter that have been buying them. Here’s a thought: make a really slick version of your Focus with decent handling, a nice interior, amenities, and a hybrid engine, and go toe-to-toe with Toyota. Or take the Focus, strip it down even more, find a way to make a hybrid engine cheaper, and start taking out the Echo market. Or ignore hybrids and use composite materials to make your mid-sized cars get better mileage by reducing their weight. Try joining the rest of the universe and bring back a sport wagon instead of Yet Another SUV. Let your European designers style your American cars. Fire anybody who was on the US Contour design team.

See, there are lots of things you could do to stimulate fuel efficiency. You don’t need anybody’s permission. I don’t know if anybody told you, but you’re CEO–you can actually make this stuff happen if you want it. Try it! Give an order right now. Ask for coffee. See? Look at that power.

Do it, convince people that you can actually build something that people want to buy that is fuel efficient. And do it back in Detroit, not DC.