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Morning Links

Monday, July 20th, 2009
  • The speech Nixon would have given if Apollo 11 had failed.
  • Happens every summer–some idiot calls the cops on kids running a lemonade stand.
  • Ted Turner calls CNN Headline News “unwatchable.” Sure is. The formulaic half-hour cycles were great back in the day. Now, it’s Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, and 12 people talking about some celebrity scandal. I can’t remember the last time I watched it.
  • I’m trying to figure out how the photo for this NY Times scare story on distracted driving was taken. I can’t really conceive of a scenario where it wasn’t staged. Which means the caption is misleading. Also, who does this? I’ve never been in a car where the driver asked the passenger to hold the wheel so he could use both hands to send a text message. Does this actually happen?
  • You’ve got hand it to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, if he believes in a project he’ll follow through on it, even if it may harm one of his biggest constituencies.
  • Another Texas driver gets a taser pulled on him for refusing to sign a speeding ticket.
  • More beautiful photos of Detroit’s slow decay.
  • Reason boss men Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie had a good piece in yesterday’s Washington Post on Obama’s sputtering domestic agenda.
  • Nice try, Comcast.
  • Ben Stein continues to descend into parody. And yeah, the NY Times ought to drop his business column for this. More here.

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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

    Thursday, June 4th, 2009
  • Chinese police storm Tiananmen Square to stave of anniversary protests.
  • Chinese websites subtly mark the anniversary, protest censorship.
  • Recession has put nation’s public defender offices in crisis.
  • Texas cop tasers 72-year-old woman for refusing to sign a traffic ticket.
  • Weirdest attack on libertarianism I’ve seen in a long time. Libertarianism seems to mean whatever the person attacking it wants it to mean.
  • Cop damages photographers camera, wrongly arrests him for videotaping an accident scene.

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    Morning-ish Links

    Friday, May 22nd, 2009
  • Joshua Claybourn summarizes why the Chrysler deal brokered by the Obama administration is much, much scarier than you think. (Link fixed!)
  • Retired Catholic archbishop says he was unaware of the fact that it’s illegal to have sex with children. No, really. He actually said that.
  • Cop drives 109 in a 45 mph zone, no lights, no siren. Wasn’t wearing his seat belt, either. He plows into a pick-up truck trying to make a left turn. Cop dies. Police arrest the driver of the pick-up for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. They’ve also charged the guy with DUI, even though his blood test came back at .03, less than half the legal limit.
  • Congressmen from Ohio and Oklahoma introduce bill to ban gay marriage in D.C. Because apparently allowing gay couples in Dupont Circle to wed will break up solid, hetero marriages in Toledo and Tulsa.
  • Another write-up in the local Mississippi paper about the Motorhome Diaries incident. This one’s much more sympathetic to the MHD crew.
  • RNC Twitter feed knocks Obama for calling Constitution “flawed,” neglects to mention he was referring to it’s treatment of black people. I’m sure three-fifths of Michael Steele will issue a correction any day now.
  • Wolf t-shirt that inspired thousands of joke reviews now top-selling piece of clothing at Amazon.com.
  • My favorite book growing up is now available for free online. Nice work, Internets!
  • Amen to Mario Rizzo: “I do not believe that the philosophy of freedom has much to do, in an essential way, with conservatism. The relationship is largely due to historical accident. Furthermore, analytically speaking, the moral, political and economic basis of freedom does not fit coherently in the conservative intellectual framework.”

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    Jones County, MS Police Respond to Motorhome Diaries Arrests

    Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

    The local paper prints the following response:

    According to Jones County Sheriff Alex Hodge, Peter Eyre and Jason Talley of New Hampshire and Adam Mueller of Laurel were arrested during a routine traffic stop on Interstate 59. He said deputies gave the suspects numerous opportunities to identify themselves, but they refused to do so.

    Uncertain of who or what they were dealing with, Hodge said deputies arrested the suspects and subsequent investigation revealed the individuals had an agenda which included not complying with orders given by authorities. They were discovered to be motorhomediaries.com activists…

    “We have a job to do and we will do it,” explained Hodge. “We are not here to promote or condemn anyone’s agenda.

    “Our job is to provide protection and service to our citizens. When our deputy was confronted with these men who refused to identify themselves; he had no idea what their plans were.”

    Eyre, 28, was arrested for possession of beer in a dry county and an unknown offense; Mueller, 26, was arrested for disorderly conduct and disobeying a police officer; and Talley, 34, was arrested for disorderly conduct, disobeying a police officer, and resisting arrest. All three suspects were transported to the Jones County Adult Detention Center.

    “I am proud of our deputies handling of this traffic stop,” said Hodge. “I have demonstrated my willingness to admit when we are wrong. However, in this case, they handled themselves in a proper and professional manner.”

    The three were detained, cuffed, arrested, and jailed. Talley was pepper-sprayed. And it still isn’t clear exactly what actual crimes any of them committed.

    You can read Jason, Pete, and Adam’s account of the incident here.

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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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    Lunch Links

    Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
  • City of Atlanta will fight lawsuit from Kathryn Johnston’s family instead of settling. They’re going to argue that these were rogue cops, and not part of some systemic failure. That’s going to be hard to do, given that Chief Pennington dismissed the city’s entire narcotics unit.
  • Harvard economist Jeff Miron argues for drug legalization at CNN.
  • Allen County, Indiana cops seize $26,000 from a motorist. No drugs. No criminal charges. They just took his money. The article says, “First, the driver said it was to buy a car, according to the police report. Then, he said it came from working at various jobs.” Uh, couldn’t both be true?
  • Let’s go ahead and stipulate that Rep. Michele Bachmann is an idiot. That said, this Salon criticism of her is off-base. The mere fact that Congress authorized the executive to do something doesn’t mean said authorization was constitutional. And frankly, I’d like to see a lot more members of Congress actually seeking out what part of the Constitution authorizes a given policy. (Note: I’m also aware that Michele Bachmann does not adhere to such constitutional scrutiny on issues where doing so would undermine her own position.)
  • Grand Rapids newspaper editorializes on the lack of information coming from police in the wake of the Derek Copp shooting. I think I’ve reached the point where I can almost predict the time-line on these stories. Ten days to two weeks after the shooting? Time for the obligatory newspaper editorial expressing disappointment in lack of transparency from the police department.
  • Artist-cum-med student puts household objects under CT scanner, with pretty fascinating results.

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    Sunday Links

    Sunday, March 15th, 2009
  • It’s not just a haircut.
  • Oklahoma prison officials put man in same cell as the man he testified against. You can probably guess what happened next.
  • Houston DA will require prosecutors to conduct DNA testing in every case where it’s applicable. Good for her.
  • Australian man rung up on child porn charges for downloading cartoon depictions of Simpson’s characters having sex.
  • Ten months have passed, and the Connecticut State Police still haven’t released their report on the death of Gonzalo Guizan, the unarmed 33-year-old shot and killed during a drug raid on the home he was visiting. The raid, incidentally, was conducted after a tip that the home’s owner was using drugs, not selling them.
  • Speculating on how Obama will fill out the U.S. attorney positions. Mary Beth Buchanan is still insisting she stay on. Obama needs to fire her. She’s not only a partisan hack, she’s a dishonest prosecutor.
  • The Chicago Tribune picks up the story of Tenaha, Texas, the town that’s made a habit of padding its treasury with assets seized from black motorists unlucky enough to have gotten pulled over while passing through.
  • Delaware Gov. Jack Markell moving ahead with plan to legalize sports gambling in the state.

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    Lunch Links

    Thursday, February 26th, 2009
  • Obama to reinstitute “assault weapons” ban. Attorney General Eric Holder cites the violence in Mexico as part of the reason. Of course, ending the drug war would do a lot more to end the violence in Mexico. But we can’t have that. The only acceptable actions in a crisis are those that strengthen government and inhibit freedom, not the other way around.
  • Canadian mounties say they tased a man five times–killing him–because the man intended to harm them with . . . a stapler. Does that make these guys the new “gun nuts?”
  • Really bizarre story: Chicago man keeps getting tickets in the mail for parking infractions he couldn’t have possibly committed.
  • (Very gradual) change we can believe in.
  • Mermaids!
  • Healthy eating hysteria has kids afraid of food.

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    Morning Links

    Thursday, February 5th, 2009
  • Ah, the righteous indignation of a sports commentator. Yes, Steve Czaban. Michael Phelps is a “loser.” If only he weren’t into marijuana! Instead of becoming a 14-time Olympic gold medalist with $100 million in endorsement deals, he could have become a pudgy, grumpy, self-righteous, C-list sports commentator.
  • In 2008, the red light cameras in a Texas town with a population of 38,500 issued 40,000 citations.
  • Cop rams family van full of kids, draws gun and arrests father because after she flipped her lights on, he drove one mile to find a safe spot to pull over.
  • I understand Gates’ point, but technically, isn’t this assault? A very light form of assault, yes. But still.
  • Dad records son on the way home from a trip to the dentist. Cute. And very funny. “Is this real life?”
  • CNN actually consults a libertarian (egad!)–Harvard’s Jeff Miron–for ideas on stimulating the economy.

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