chilling - and unsurprising

When this blog was first getting off the ground, and especially after the 2004 "election," it was beseiged by angry wingnuts.

One of the things they seemed to enjoy was displaying their utter ignorance of Canada. I don't mean the usual ignorance of geography or weather. Memorable lines included "Enjoy being taxed to death!", "If you live in Montreal, don't expect your children to learn English," and "I hope you're never sick, because you'll die waiting to see a doctor." Hey, it's all back there in the archives somewhere. As the man said, you could look it up.

One Mensa candidate claimed that we best not say anything bad about the Queen: "they" would knock on our door in the middle of the night and drag us away.

I thought of that when I read this story, sent to me by you-know-who.

An elderly man who wrote in a letter to the editor about Saddam Hussein's execution that "they hanged the wrong man" got a visit from Secret Service agents concerned he was threatening President Bush.

The letter by Dan Tilli, 81, was published in Monday's edition of The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. It ended with the line, "I still believe they hanged the wrong man."

Tilli said the statement was not a threat. "I didn't say who -- I could've meant (Osama) bin Laden," he said Friday.

Two Secret Service agents questioned Tilli at his Bethlehem apartment Thursday, briefly searching the place and taking pictures of him, he said.

The Secret Service confirmed the encounter. Bob Slama, special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Philadelphia office, said it was the agency's duty to investigate.

The agents almost immediately decided Tilli was not a threat, Slama said

"We have no further interest in Dan," he said.

Tilli said the agents appeared more relaxed when he dug out a scrapbook containing more than 200 letters that he has written over the years, almost all on political topics.

"He said, 'Keep writing, but just don't make no threats,'" Tilli said of one of the agents.

It wasn't Tilli's first run-in with the federal government over his letter writing. Two FBI agents from Allentown showed up at his home last year about a letter he wrote advocating a civil war to unseat Bush, he said.

I was in college (university) when Ronald Reagan was shot. A student, idly musing something like, "Too bad he didn't finish the job," was visited by the FBI. As I recall, no one even knew how they learned of his comment.