Well, we now have a smoking gun memo that Dubya's crew is sending people overseas to be tortured. And it's also become plain that this doesn't give reliable information. Quite the opposite: it's also become plain that some of the "evidence" for the Iraq war was simply made up by a torture subject who would have said anything to stop the pain.

But it's just too depressing to blog about that, so I'll talk instead about what's going on locally --- mere, garden variety criminal government incompetence.

It seems that fresh off his re-coronation campaign, in which he bragged about the safety of the city when he wasn't hiding from debates with his opponents, Mayor-for-life Tom Menino has pulled a Major Renault --- he is shocked, shocked! to suddenly discover that the murder rate is at a ten-year high.

How, pray tell, shall he respond? Shall he reform the Boston Police Department's homicide squad, with its pitiful record? Shall he look for action from prosecutors, who often demonstrably convict the wrong person when they convict anyone at all? But these would require effort, leadership, and taking on entrenched interests among the comfortable knot of cronies that run the city.

Shall he instead announce that he is going to solve the problem by attacking vendors of "Stop Snitchin'" T-shirts? Yes. He shall do that.