If Barack Hussein Obama can “win” the Nobel Peace Prize, surely Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Sean Murphy will win a Pulitzer Prize in Photography for this photo taken during the capture of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.   But for the red laser dot between Tsarnaev’s eyebrows, it would be just another arrest documentation photo.  The dot makes it prize-worthy journalism.

…the New York Times writers and editors use the wrong words.

From this article in today’s New York Times:

” ‘I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it — if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations,’ the president said”

“Diffuse?”  No, try “defuse.”  Unless el Jefe really did mean he wants to spread  or distribute potential altercations.

OpenCdA took several hundred photos of the Coeur d’Alene Independence Day parade.   Our July 6 post titled Subtlety in CdA’s Independence Day Parade included a photo of two nationally-prominent personalities, Bill Whittle and Burt Rutan, riding Segway PTs.

But the parade’s theme also wanted to focus attention on local American Heroes, the people who often go unrecognized but who are heroes because they are committed to making our community work day after day.   Maybe because we have become so used to seeing smiling faces of people we don’t know on stationary and mobile billboards, we may not have looked closely enough at the faces on the sides of parade entry #66, the “Mary Souza for Mayor” truck.  Here are photos of both sides of the truck (mouse click on the photos to enlarge them on your computer screen).   Yep.  Every person in those photos is a local resident, not a model from a distant advertising agency’s stock photo bin.  Do you recognize your neighbors?

Keep an eye out for the truck in the weeks to come.  It will be back…

(mouse click on image to enlarge)

One does not normally expect to experience subtlety in an Independence Day parade, but it was there in the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce’s “American Heroes” parade on July 4, 2013.

Take a close look at the picture.  The two distinguished gentlemen were each riding a Segway Personal Transporter. They were on the leading edge of Coeur d’Alene mayoral candidate Mary Souza‘s supporters marching in the parade.  It is subtle but appropriate that a Segway would symbolically lead a movement to segue Coeur d’Alene into an era of genuine progress and trust.

There’s more.

For those who didn’t notice, the two distinguished gentlemen on the Segway PTs are Bill Whittle and Burt Rutan.

Bill Whittle is a nationally recognized conservative political and motivational speaker.   He is a writer, pilot, and television editor who lives and works in Los Angeles.

Burt Rutan is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Scaled Composites, a way-out-in-front-of-the-leading-edge aerospace and specialty composites development company located in Mojave, California.  He designed the legendary Voyager 76, the first aircraft to circle the world non-stop, without refueling.  He now lives here in north Idaho.

MagicValley.com (Twin Falls Times-News) is reporting that Minidoka County Sheriff Kevin K. Halverson resigned Monday after reaching an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty for felony misuse of public money.  Halverson reportedly used a county gasoline card to purchase over $241 of gasoline for his personal use.  The online article reported that in return for his guilty plea, Halverson will not be charged with other crimes uncovered during the investigation conducted by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.

Halverson had an impressive bio which included a master’s degree from Idaho State University and several years as an Idaho State Police Trooper.

Here is a link to the complaint and supporting affidavit filed by the AG’s investigator against now former Sheriff Halverson.

We received this from Mary Souza (mouse click on the image to enlarge it).  One of the frequent complaints from voters is that they seem to never really get a chance to interact with candidates and learn what the candidates’ views are on important local issues.  Here’s one chance:

OpenCdA encourages all Coeur d’Alene residents to take advantage of opportunities to meet candidates and ask questions.

Wait a minute!  Am I to understand from this Spokesman-Review article (City Council candidate Mark Hamilton tossed from ballot) that a Washington State Superior Court judge (the equivalent and obviously the intellectual and ethical superior to an Idaho District Court judge) has followed the state’s residency law and kicked a Spokane City Council candidate off the November ballot because the booted candidate had not met the state’s residency requirement?

Following the law, your honor?  That’s a dangerous precedent — at least it is in Idaho.

Over here, we allow campaign supporters to allegedly rent basements out to candidates to let them allegedly establish their residency, and we have a very accommodating Secretary of State, a (former) county clerk, and judges who aren’t necessarily constrained by the little technicalities that the Legislature wrote into the laws.

Quebec’s Charbonneau Commission investigating corruption in the province’s construction industry didn’t stop at Montreal’s city limits.

Claude Asselin was the general manager for Laval, a city with about 402,000 citizens and 12 miles northwest of Montreal.  The general manager would be roughly equivalent to a city administrator in Idaho.

Asselin, by the way, was arrested by the Sûreté du Québec or SQ, and the Unité Permanente Anticorruption or UPAC, Quebec’s special anti-corruption squad.

According to The Gazette newspaper article headlined Laval manager feared for job, when questioned about his role in the political influence, bid-rigging and kickbacks and asked why he didn’t do something to stop them, Asselin reportedly, “…told the commission Wednesday that he loved Laval and his job as general manager, so he didn’t want to jeopardize that by raising a red flag about the widespread collusion going on between construction companies and politicians”  The Laval Mayor decided which construction companies got the jobs, and Asselin said he was afraid of losing his job if he spoke up.  Hmmm.