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Thursday, July 24, 2008
You Know, It’s a Damned Good Question
See here.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 3 Comments »
Billionaire Fascists Club
Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg join forces to rid the world of smoking.Golly. What a great use of your fortunes, fellas: to convince governments across the globe to impose your preferences on the rest of the world.
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Posted in Nanny State | Trackback | 5 Comments »
Some Real Good Ethicizin’, There
Buried in this odd story about Rep. Charlie Rangel filing an ethics complaint against himself comes this graph:The last member to file an official ethics complaint was former Rep. Chris Bell (D-Texas), who in 2004 accused then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) of bribery, laundering illegal corporate political donations and illegally using his congressional office to ask the Federal Aviation Administration for the location of Texas Democratic legislators who were absent from a session to protest a GOP redistricting plan DeLay spearheaded.There hasn’t been an ethics complaint since 2004? After Don Young, Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson, & co., I’d say that’s a pretty good indication that the House’s system of enforcing ethics isn’t working all that well.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 3 Comments »
The Fire Down Below
Ouch.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Drug War Clock
From Drug Sense.It’s a great idea, but here’s a suggestion: Find a way to condense it and turn it into a widget, so drug reform bloggers can put it on their sites.MORE: Per the comments, looks like they’re already on it.
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Posted in General Drug War | Trackback | 15 Comments »
Afternoon Movie Break
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Posted in Dog Blogging | Trackback | 2 Comments »
Mandatory Volunteerism
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Jim Lindgren lays out the powerful players in Service Nation, a creepy new push for national service. The campaign appears to pretty Obama-friendly, jibing with his recent call for a national service bureaucracy that’s "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military. Of course, McCain has certainly expressed a fondness for the "a cause greater than yourself" mindset too, including a fondness for—quite literally—the sight of uniformed cadres of young people preparing for a day of service with calisthenics in the public square.The Service Nation Summit kickoff event is getting promotional help from Time magazine, whose Managing Editor Rick Stengel is a co-chair. Seems like an odd undertaking for a newsweekly, doesn’t it? But then, Time has an annoying habit of crossing over into advocacy on issues its editors have deemed too important to leave to impartial reportage.Lindgren points out that though the campaign is couched in terms that make it appear oriented toward merely encouraging volunteerism, some of its top officials have a history of supporting a more coercive definition "service," including support for Rep. Charlie Rengel’s (D-N.Y.) bill to bring back conscription. Most ominously, one of the group’s stated goals is to "[l]aunch a debate about why and how America should become a nation of universal national service by 2020."Note the absence of the word "if."
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 58 Comments »
McCain and Iraq
A retrospective.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 4 Comments »
Memphis Blue
I believe this is the third case like of a police official using his position to bully a critical blog in just the last year or so:Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin and the city of Memphis have filed a lawsuit to learn who operates a blog harshly critical of Godwin and his department.The lawsuit asks AOL to produce all information related to the identity of an e-mail address linked to MPD Enforcer 2.0, a blog popular with police officers that has been extremely critical of police leadership at 201 Poplar.[...]The bloggers, who operate under the name of Dirk Diggler — the name of the porn star in “Boogie Nights” — say their site provides an important service to officers and citizens.“This is another attempt at disrupting an outlet for officers to gather and complain about the administration,” they said on the site.“Further, this allows us unrestricted communication with the citizens of Memphis. The citizens should be made aware of the scandals that rock the administration and shudder the rocky foundation in which they operate today.”The bloggers also said city attorneys earlier this year wrote a threatening letter on city letterhead to a company that produced T-shirts for the bloggers.So police officials respond to a blog that accuses them of abusing their power by….abusing their power to go after the blog.Some fine police work there, Lou.
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Posted in Police Professionalism | Trackback | 15 Comments »
Yikes
John McCain:This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 42 Comments »
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Part of the Problem
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger weirdly keeps referring to Dr. Steven Hayne as Mississippi’s “state medical examiner.” He isn’t, because he isn’t qualified to hold that position (a fact the Clarion-Ledger has published on multiple occasions in recent months). He holds no official position in Mississippi. He’s a doctor in private practice who makes his living performing autopsies for prosecutors and county coroners. State officials have deliberately kept the “state medical examiner” position open for more than a decade so they can keep using Dr. Hayne–knowing full well that any remotely qualified doctor who took the job would be aghast at Hayne’s practices.It’s not an unimportant distinction. The Clarion-Ledger neglected to ask any critical questions about Hayne for 20 years. It’s telling that in articles not directly about the controversy over Hayne’s practices and credentials, the paper has already reverted back to form.
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Posted in Forensics | Trackback | 2 Comments »
Death in the Afternoon
Pretty horrible story, here.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 20 Comments »
If Cato Is “Neoconservative,” I’m a Jelly Donut
Naomi Klein, giant ignoramus, or the giantest ignoramus?I’m curious, has anyone seen a forum where someone has confronted Klein with actual facts about Milton Friedman?I wonder how she’d spin into her narrative inconvenient facts like his long and vocal opposition to the drug war, his role in ending conscription, his opposition to the war in Iraq, and his opposition to the general post-9/11 security state.As I’ve mentioned before, Klein at times comes dangerously close to making a Higgs-ian point about the growth of government at the expense of civil liberties in times of crisis. But she’s embarrassingly ignorant about free market history and ideology.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 27 Comments »
Something Else to Worry About
When knives with exploding, organ-freezing tips are made criminal, only criminals will have knives with exploding, organ-freezing tips.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 16 Comments »
Alaska
So the Agitatrix and I have our trip pretty much set. We’re flying into Anchorage next month. From there we’ll spend a night in Talkeetna, and take a jet boat tour, and then a “flightseeing” of Mt. McKinley. Apparently, the flight tour includes landing on a glacier. From there, we’ll take the Alaska Railroad to Denali National Park for some whitewater rafting, then a couple days of wildlife viewing. We’re then taking a coach back to Anchorage, where we’ll rent a car spend a night in Girdwood. Then it’s the Seward Highway to Seward for a few nights, where the the highlight will be a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park. Finally we head to Homer, where so far we’ve booked a half-day kayaking tour.We have a couple of free days in Denali, Homer, and Seward, so I’d love to hear suggestions from natives in any of those places. The outfitter we used suggested a bear viewing trip in Homer. It sounded pretty cool, but at $500 each, we decided to pass. I’ve heard halibut fishing is fun, too. The guide books say you’re pretty much guaranteed to catch a 30-pounder or so. But the price there was pretty steep, too. Half-day boat charters run about $350 per person. Alaska sounds amazing, but it isn’t cheap.But we’re really looking forward to it. I spent a few days in Alaska a couple of years ago, but I was confined to Kodiak Island. It was stunningly beautiful, so I’m excited to see other parts of the state.I bought the first season of Northern Exposure on DVD to get psyched up.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 13 Comments »
Morning Links
Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus: ignoramus or giant ignoramus? Taser loses $6 million wrongful death suit. Oh, and here’s another death after a 37-second (!) zap from the “non-lethal” weapon. Saturated fats: good for you, now? How deliciously rich it would be if the high-fiber, low-fat diet the government and public health nuts have been pushing is not only unsustainable, but less healthy than higher-fat diets, too. MPAA protects you from on-screen bullets. California court determines that use of file erasure software may indicate wrongdoing. The full Malicki-Obama timetable story, explained with context.
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Posted in Gambling | Trackback | 36 Comments »
Monday, July 21, 2008
Making Up Evidence an “Honest Mistake”
It’s a few months old, but here’s a pretty crazy case of prosecutorial malfeasance from Santa Clara County, California.San Jose Det. Matthew Christian created a fake DNA report signed by a fictitious lab technician to use as a prop while interrogating a man under investigation for sex crimes against a developmentally disabled neighbor. Police are allowed to lie to suspects in an effort to extract information or confessions, so Christian hadn’t violated any laws in actually creating the report. The problem is that the fake report somehow made its way into Deputy District Attorney Jaime Stringfield’s file, along with a real report stating that no DNA could be found on the blanket in question. At a preliminary hearing, Stringfield then proceeded to question the Det. Christian about the fake report. Christian obliged with false testimony. "This blanket that you seized, did you submit it to the crime lab for analysis?" she asked. "Yes," Christian said. "Are you aware of any results?" she asked. "Yes. There was semen found on the blanket," Christian said. Superior Court Judge Gilbert T. Brown ordered Kerkeles to stand trial. Stringfield listed Roberts, the fake analyst, among her trial witnesses. Stringfield blamed the defense attorney for not pointing out the discrepancy in the two reports. But according to the article, defense attorneys twice asked for more information on the reports. Stringfield declined their requests. The defense finally made a third request, this time for the resume of the fictitious lab technician who signed the fake report, at which time Det. Christian remembered that he had made the whole thing up.An "internal committee" of prosecutors later concluded that Christian’s fake report, false testimony, and memory lapse, and Stringfield’s failure to notice the fake report, failure to notice the real report, and failure to distinguish between the two—were all "honest mistakes."
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Posted in Forensics, General Criminal Justice | Trackback | 33 Comments »
Al-Marri
Glenn Greenwald explains why you ought to be disturbed at the powers the Fourth Circuit just gave to the president.
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Posted in General Criminal Justice | Trackback | 9 Comments »
Mid-Afternoon Magic
…with a bit of Penn & Teller flair. Link shamelessly stolen from Reddit. Magic Tricks revealed at 5min.com
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Posted in Uncategorized | Trackback | 3 Comments »
St. Louis Cops Turn Forfeiture Policy Into Free Car Rental Service
Seems that the city of St. Louis, like many cities, allows the police to confiscate the cars of people suspected (but not necessarily convicted) of certain crimes. They have a contract with a city towing firm, and said firm was allowing police officers and their families to "rent" confiscated cars free of charge, sometimes for months on end. Officers and their families could also sometimes purchase the confiscated cars at a fraction of the cars’ value. All of that is pretty outrageous. But it gets better. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch stumbled onto the story after investigating the daughter of the city’s police chief. She had been involved in a number of accidents with different cars. On several occasions she had wrecked a car, then simply gone down to the towing service to get a 60-80 percent discount on a new one. After one accident, her blood-alcohol concentration tested at .17. She wasn’t arrested or charged. The department says it has "no idea" why she was let go. The police department hired a law firm, which concluded that the towing arrangement broke no rules or laws. The chief improbably claims he was oblivious to the deals his daughter was getting (her relationship with the towing service apparently goes back to 2002). The Post-Dispatch reports that the chief’s last public statement on the matter was that, "the absolute necessity in maintaining transparency in the eyes of the public." He has since declined to comment.(Via TheNewspaper.com)
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Posted in Motorist Freedom, Police Professionalism | Trackback | 8 Comments »
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