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Lunch Links

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
  • Great correction from the NY Times.
  • Slate’s “Explainer” runs down the issues involved with the Gates arrest.
  • Here’s a more thoughtful stab at my challenge to the left.
  • Another Moscow critic ends up dead.
  • Illinois state guardian agency sues two sheriff’s deputies for needless tasering two teens. The comments allege far more serious abuses.
  • I was planning to vote for the pro-gun, low-tax Democrat over the law-and-order Republican in the Virginia gubernatorial election this year. Our last two governors (Warner and Kaine) were centrist Democrats, and did a pretty good job. But this may make me change my mind.

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    Monday Morning Links

    Monday, July 6th, 2009
  • Death in an immigration detention center. Just a terrible story on many levels. Note that the feds were quick to count the guy among their anti-terrorism statistics (despite no evidence of actual terrorism), yet overlooked the fact that he had died.
  • Alcohol inspection at Fort Worth gay bar turns into police raid, which turns into allegations of harassment and abuse.
  • “They’re selling postcards of the hanging….”
  • V.A. hospital botches 92 of 116 prostate cancer procedures, most by the same doctor, after V.A. bureaucrats allowed him to cover up his mistakes. In most cases, irradiated metal seeds ended up in the wrong organs. One cheer for government-run health care!
  • Eugene, Oregon police officer who reported “several ‘negligent and unintended firearms discharges by SWAT team members’ that put the SWAT team, other police officers and the public in ‘extreme danger’” says he was subsequently subjected to harassment and retaliation by his superiors and other officers.
  • Biden: Obama administration “misread” the economy. Won’t rule out a second stimulus package. Or, put another way: The all-knowing politicians who said “just trust us” got it wrong, and me may have to “just trust them” while they get it wrong again.

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    Sunday Links

    Sunday, June 7th, 2009
  • “‘Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?’ asked Jane Hulbert, a helpful McDonald’s media-relations person, with whom I spoke a short while ago. Yes, I told her. In some quarters, the Internet is a very big thing.” (NOTE: Yes, I know this article was written in 1994 — that’s what makes it fun. That not so long ago, major corporations were still figuring out whether this “Internet” thing was worth getting involved with.)
  • I blogged about this case shortly after it happened, but the wife of a public defender who was pulled over for DWI because, the officer said, of “the smell of alcohol coming from inside the vehicle” and that the woman “had bloodshot, watery eyes and a flushed face,” is now suing in federal court. The boilerplate language was exposed when the woman’s blood test came back negative for any trace of alcohol.
  • More allegations against Philly narcotics cop Jeffrey Cujdik and his crew, this time of planting drugs during a raid.
  • Man’s body decomposes in minivan while NYPD cops . . . continue to paper the van with parking tickets.
  • Beautiful time-lapse videos from Tokyo.
  • Dahlia Lithwick on the prison boom.

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    Morning Links

    Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
  • I’ve never been a big Lego person, at least not since I was a kid, but this is pretty damned cool. And forget Wired’s request for that fascist Le Corbusier’s hulking brutalism, give me some Frank Gehry next.
  • Jay Bennett, RIP.
  • Cardinal who presided over Ireland scandal in which Catholic priests were show to have sexually abused young boys going back decades declares that atheism is the “greatest of all evils.”
  • Uh, sure. I mean, especially now that the dishes are clean.
  • Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) calls out Obama over preventative, indefinite detention.
  • Off-duty Chicago cop who struck and killed a boy on a bicycle was allowed by other cops to sober up for four hours before they gave him a breath test.
  • So how long until some contrarian lefty pens an op-ed about how recessions aren’t so bad, because they tend to mitigate income inequality? Come on. I know Michael Gerson’s mirror image is out there somewhere.
  • Really fascinating and at times disturbing article in the NY Times about mental acuity and old age. The interesting/disturbing part is the story’s backdrop: Hyper-competitive bridge clubs in retirement communities, where playing partners are the first to notice signs of deterioration, and tend to let their friends know they’re on the downslope by booting them out of the game.
  • Next up for the British Nanny State: mandatory single-file queues at pubs, two-drink maximums, and rope barriers. The U.K. is turning into a Pink Floyd video.

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    Morning Links

    Thursday, May 21st, 2009
  • Yes, there are still innocent people at Gitmo.
  • A federal judge will hold a hearing on whether to bar the media from publishing photos of a New York legislator in handcuffs. He was arrested for tax evasion. The judge says he finds the photos “especially troubling to me” because Newsday could have used other photos. I’m astounded that this would even be considered. I wonder if the judge has expressed similar concerns when newspapers run mug shots, perp walk photos, and prison jumpsuit photos of people accused of crimes who don’t happen to be politicians?
  • Florida congressman wants a federal law mandating a week of paid vacation each year. Eventually, he’d require two. Best quote: “The idea: More vacation will stimulate the economy through fewer sick days, better productivity and happier employees.”
  • Matthew Yglesias likes the idea of taxing alcohol to pay for universal health care. I obviously disagree with Yglesias about the merits of a single payer health care system, but even assuming that disagreement away, paying for it with an alcohol tax (a) is regressive, and (b) would seem to be be somewhat counterproductive, given the almost universal consensus now in the scientific community about the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.
  • Colorado Springs police department refuses to release arrest report in the case of a man who claims he was beaten for videotaping the police as they were arresting another man.
  • Journalism layoffs may hamper fight against the death penalty.
  • FTC looks to regulate blogger credibility. Another government solution in search of a problem.

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    Morning Links

    Monday, May 4th, 2009
  • I think there’s something to this criticism: All but one of the current Supreme Court justices went to Harvard or Yale. All were federal appellate judges when they were nominated. And this one seems particularly troubling: Only one–Souter–ever actually presided over a trial. More than skin color or penis-vagina diversity, it would be nice to see Obama look for someone from a different orbit than the usual echelon of elite legal circles. I like the idea of Russ Feingold. Yes, he’s awful on political speech, but he at least possesses some admirable skepticism for government power.
  • Thousands of Minnesota DWI cases in jeopardy after state supreme court orders breath machine manufacturer to turn over source code. They’re refusing. It’s somewhat amazing that these companies have gotten away with keeping source code secret this long, though I believe something similar happened in Florida a few years ago.
  • Injustice in Seattle is doing some interesting stuff with the media reports of police misconduct he’s been tracking.
  • Former NYPD cop runs red light, plows into car of teens in New Jersey. Local cops say he was belligerent, had watery eyes and slurred speech, and smelled of booze. The teens in the car had passed his car earlier, and said he was parked and slumped over the wheel. There was an empty beer can in his car. He refused both blood and breath tests for alcohol. He also had an unlicensed handgun and illegal ammunition in the car at the time of the accident. But his former colleagues from NYPD vouched for his character in his defense. He got probation, because the judge says he wasn’t convinced the guy was drunk. Maybe that’s true, but I’m wondering if any of us normal people would get off that lightly.
  • Home invaders in Orlando yell, “Police! Open the door!” before breaking in and killing one of the home’s occupants. They’re learning.
  • Lovely. The feds want to create a “West Point for public service.” Imagine, a whole campus filled with douche-y college resume builders who all want to be politicians when they grow up! Sounds like a kind of customized hell for me.
  • Speaking of crappy ideas for colleges….
  • Uh-oh. I think if my dogs get wind of this, they may start their own political action committee.
  • Two polls now show legalizing marijuana more popular with America than either party in Congress.
  • Florida passes primary seat belt law, more commonly known as the “pretext for racial profiling and asset forfeiture law.” This one lets cops pull cars over even if the front seat passenger isn’t buckled up. The reader who sent me this says he thinks this most disgusting line in the article: “The bill makes cash-strapped Florida eligible for a one-time, $35.5 million traffic-safety grant from the federal government.”

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    Morning Links

    Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
  • D.C. don’t need no stinking First Amendment.
  • Arkansas state house passes an exceptionally stupid underage drinking bill.
  • The science behind March Madness upsets. North Dakota State FTW!
  • Insert your own “Blowin’ in the Wind” joke here.
  • Were U.S. Army soldiers patrolling an Alabama town after last week’s shooting spree?
  • I briefly mentioned this troubling police shooting in Louisiana a couple of weeks ago. It’s now starting to attract national attention. And get a load of this quote, from the town’s (white) police chief: “If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names. I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested.”

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    Video Catches Top Chicago DWI Cop in a Lie

    Friday, March 13th, 2009

    A Chicago police officer who has won praise for having among the most DWI arrests in the city is now under investigation for lying about one of his stops.

    The video from top DUI cop Joe D. Parker’s squad car shows a man walking a straight line, without stumbling or flailing his arms.

    But Parker, a Chicago Police officer who has won acclaim for being among the leading DUI enforcers in the state, told a different story in his police report.

    He wrote that Raymond L. Bell lost his balance and used his arms to steady himself. And he arrested the 33-year-old Oak Lawn man on charges of driving under the influence, speeding and negligent driving.

    Now, after reviewing the squad-car video, Cook County prosecutors have dropped the July 2008 charges against Bell.

    Parker is the second top Chicago DWI cop to get caught lying. The city had to drop 156 DWI cases after Officer John Haleas was caught lying about one of them. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Parker himself was arrested for drunk driving in 1996. The charge was later dropped.

    I’ve written before about the problems with the use of boilerplate on DWI reports. The story also reinforces the importance of video to check against police misconduct.

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    Morning Links

    Friday, February 13th, 2009
  • Cato’s Ted Galen Carpenter has a new study on what the drug war violence in Mexico means for the U.S.
  • Guy buys old strip club, spends $600,000 to convert it into a family-friendly steakhouse. State liquor board refuses to give a license, because of the prior owner. “It’s frustrating how inflexible the bureaucracy can be.”  Yep.
  • “Anarchist hangout surrendering to market forces.”
  • England to make it a crime to photograph police.
  • D.C.’s CCTV system neither preventing crimes nor helping to solve them.
  • The Chinese good-times state executions traveling road show.
  • Minneosta DA finds that cop who broke into the wrong house in response to a domestic disturbance call, then fired five shots at the frightened owner before fleeing, acted “reasonably and responsibly.”

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    Saturday Links

    Saturday, January 17th, 2009
  • Inside the mind of a puppycide offender.
  • I don’t know, it’s hard for me to get too worked up over people clamoring for their right to not care about sex. Isn’t it just a matter of not caring?
  • Supreme Court to hear case of honor student strip-searched for suspicion of possessing ibuprofen. Given that the appeals court ruled in her favor, and that this particular Supreme Court lineup isn’t particularly fond of student rights, that may not be a good sign.
  • The Georgia State Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of Arthur Tesler, one of the cops involved in the Kathryn Johnston raid. Apparently, the prosecution failed to prove where the crime took place. Just another criminal who may get off on a technicality, eh?
  • Here’s a group pushing for Mississippi to repeal an antiquated law limiting beer sold in the state to five percent alcohol by weight.
  • Fresno is trying to pass a law requiring the monitoring of sex offenders even after they finish parole. But the real reason I’m linking to the article is because though the mayor may be totalitarian light, she has a pretty awesome last name.

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