Sit on It, Howard Fineman

We generally like the reporting of Howard Fineman (Newsweek, MSNBC) but his attempt, with a throw-away line, to glibly paint Austin as a dangerous city in his piece last week about Bush's new chief of staff just seemed disingenuous to us. We could not tell if he was trying to be funny or insinuate that Bolten was a dandy who would find even South Congress threatening or what. But we thought it was pretty lame. Today we have the stats to back up our assertion that Austin ain't all that bad. According to police statistics from departments around the country, Austin is the third-safest big city (population of 500,000+) in America.

[Statesman]

Police said a 15.9 percent decrease in robberies from 2004 to 2005 contributed to the overall decline, even as the number of sexual assaults increased and the number of murders stayed the same. Violent crime dropped 5.4 percent in 2005, but property crimes increased slightly — 0.7 percent— according to the statistics.

And, for what it's worth, much of the crime occurred between parties who knew each other. And while we are saddened to see sexual assaults go up, we are happy to come in at number three in safety, just behind Honolulu and San Jose. But let's face it, Honolulu has Dog the Bounty Hunter and nobody's gonna mess with that catcher's-mitt-faced mullet-sporting bra and San Jose is full of geeks. And nobody's scared of geeks, unless they're the kind who bite heads off of chickens.

So, come on in, Howard. The water's fine.