*Just some off the wall stuff...*

Government at War With Itself: The San Francisco Chronicle reported in March that local priest and accused child-molester Austin Peter Keegan was able to avoid arrest for six months largely through government funding (i.e., the Social Security Administration, which continued to pay his benefits until he was arrested in Mexico on March 1). And prosecutors in Tampa urged a federal magistrate not to grant bail to accused terrorist supporter Sami al-Arian, on the grounds that if granted bail, he surely will flee the country; meanwhile, immigration authorities announced that they have begun the legal steps necessary, in the event al-Arian is granted bail, to deport him. [San Francisco Chronicle, 3-30-03] [Tampa Tribune, 4-1-03]

A March investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that it is the policy of the Social Security Administration (even in times of terrorist alerts) that when someone presents what is obviously a phony ID in order to receive a Social Security card, the ID is merely returned to the person and he is asked to leave the building. No document is retained; no report is made; and law-enforcement is not called. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3-2-03]

Public Officials Gone Tacky: Detroit City Council member Kay Everett outdid colleagues who use the city's printing plant for mere personal fliers and business cards; she had the plant publish for her a 12-month calendar of herself, "Hat's on Me in 2003," featuring a different, fashionable photograph of herself for each month. And Rhode Island state Rep. Joseph S. Almeida was convicted in February of assaulting a repo man who was lawfully confiscating Almeida's girlfriend's car; Almeida's version was that the repo man voluntarily banged his own head into his truck's door three times, smashing his own eyeglasses and mangling his own face. [Metro Times, 3-19-03] [Providence Journal, 2-6-03]