02/03/2005:
Horse Droppings on the Streets of the "West's Most Western Town"
Your Mr. Wonderful, continuing to smolder from almost being ticketed, for almost breaking the law the other day, was left pondering the insane street situation we have here in Scottsdale, Arizona. And that insane condition is that in this Valley of the Sun there must be, at the very minimum, 50,000 vehicles being driven by illegal aliens. The individuals steering these cars, trucks and vans, regardless of the situation in their own country, have broken the laws of a sovereign foreign nation and simply should not be here. Or should be behind bars. Keeping those facts in mind consider the following. The drivers of these cars have no formal driver's training and cannot read our traffic signage selfishly labeled in English only. They possess no driver's licenses (hence no legal identification) carry no auto insurance and stuff forged vehicle registrations and non-existent emission test certificates into a glove box whose door will not close. Many times their white "Campensino"-adorned 1981 Datsun's and Dodge Caravans spew ten to hundreds of times more pollutants into our southwestern skies than the properly maintained vehicles driven by you and me. Many of these autos were sold for cash to these border crossing carpet baggers by Arizona citizens who care more about picking up an easy buck for the old Family Truckster than they do about the fact that hordes of these immigrants are turning swathes of our cities into barren and dangerous Third World war zones replicating the Biblical locust plagues that devastated formerly fertile Old Testament farm lands. These road-side purchased vehicles are about as safe as a midnight drive with a wheezing and red-faced Ted Kennedy over a narrow wooden-planked bridge. Amidst all these street-borne dangers driven by these illegals is the real world reality, since our federal government will do nothing to permanently rid Arizona of these invaders (only weakly attempting to deport those who have raped or murdered or committed violent crimes) is the fact that they enjoy a virtually ticket-free and extremely inexpensive driving experience. Scottsdale police avoid suspected illegal aliens in their trek to their work, where the least hungover amigo is selected as the driver while the other three to five swarthy-skinned passengers continue to sleep off last night's pork-rind and Budweiser fueled inebriation. In the only consistently media-ignored instance of racial-profiling, western-lawmen-of-the-asphalt concentrate on citizen-drivers like you and I, who have spent thousands on mechanically safe vehicles. And on insurance. And on annual registration and emission testing fees, driver's licenses and traffic tickets and high-priced traffic re-education sessions. This enforcement pattern is the sad and strange status quo, even though it is obvious that a huge percentage of all traffic violations, tie-ups and crashes and almost one hundred percent of 'hit-and-runs' are scored by these four-wheeled invaders from the Third World.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Arizona Politics & Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

01/13/2005:
A Speed Limit for Right Turns?
By the time your Mr.Wonderful reached age twenty-one, I had received twenty-one pink traffic tickets. Now, they weren't all for moving violations, some were parking tickets and some were mechanical tickets. "Mechanical tickets?" you might ask. Well, these were tickets written by Phoenix police back in the 20th Century while sitting behind the spaghetti-thin steering wheels of white and beige Ford LTDs. (Just like they drove in the Clint Eastwood, Phoenix-filmed movie, The Gauntlet.) This is when officers had the time to shower mostly innocent and mostly Caucasian teenagers and young adults, with nit-picking violations. This was before gangs of illegal aliens began performing the "Shoot out at the OK Corral" only on East Valley freeways, rather than in the desert. This was prior to thousands of Third World Spanish-speaking hoodlums (shielded by our diversity-minded, gruff voiced, governor-ess, Napolitano and "most foul" and greedy businessmen) began perpetrating home invasions, people smuggling, mugging, pillaging and pouring gasoline under the doors of check cashing offices hoping to murder, or at least barbecue, sans the A-1 sauce, the quaking employees inside. I still remember my first traffic tickets. While my primal Arizona driver's license was still sticky from the laminating machine, I was pulled over by two separate Phoenix police officers. At the same time. I was ticketed for "failure to dim headlights" and "loud pipes." Both were extremely serious violations, especially when cruising the television studio bright, 1960s Central Avenue at speeds between five and thirty five miles per hour. This morning, after engaging in a delightful sixteen hour workday the prior Wednesday, in a futile attempt to extend my sleeping time, I had remained in bed longer than usual. Sadly that decision resulted in a silly attempt to make up time on my 5:35AM, twenty-two minute drive to work. Since I was listening to a Christian FM radio station, I cleared the two largest intersections on a solid green light <grin>. Northbound on the Pima Freeway, I piled off, as I had done hundreds of times before, at the Pima Road exit. Arriving at the actual intersection, in the inside lane, moving at the vastly reduced speed of around 37 MPH, I was greeted with a smiling, green, right-turn arrow while I remained in my lane during the "high speed" one-handed turn. ("High speed", that is, for Scottsdale incompetents who can somehow roll BMW X5's and giant-wheeled Escalades negotiating the parking lot of any AJ's grocery store.) As I powered the mighty front wheel drive Hyundai away from the intersection, in my rearview mirror I delighted at the brilliant red and blue roof-top mounted lights of a police vehicle . . . most likely hanging a U-turn and slamming through a red light. Soon I noticed a pair of headlights screaming up behind me as if I were the target of a heat seeking missile. As the pair of glowing orbs slowed as they approached within a few car lengths, I moved the Sonata over into the curb-lane and was not surprised as the vehicle behind me mimicked my migration. As I slowed and pulled off the road, a blue-streaked Scottsdale P.D. Crown Victoria keeping to the asphalt, crept up beside the now stationary silver Sonata. Above the stenciled words, "To Protect and to Serve" the darkly tinted passenger side window whirred down. I powered my own window to the open position. A voice from inside the darkness advised me, in only the petulant tones a police officer can affect, that even though I had a green arrow, I had swerved during my turn and I should, ". . . keep it down." However, I realized, that unless I had lost control and swerved into an oncoming lane or vehicle or off the road entirely, the officer was standing on a judicial mud-slide and would surely lose his case in court. That was why he pulled up next to me, not behind me. Heart thumping, I agreed to his request. As I meticulously drove the five remaining miles to my humble guard shack, I realized that the officer had probably been staking out that area on a regular basis, having, days ago, standing in awe, as he witnessed me scoot around that corner at speeds not usually seen north of the Phoenix International Raceway, decide to stop me at some future date. That reminds me of the time when the Department of Public Safety devoted three officers in an attempt to catch me driving my BMW motorcycle in the three foot wide 'fast lane' on the I-17 . . .
Mr.Wonderful Talks Arizona Politics & Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org