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Tuesday CHEERS and JEERS!
CHEERS to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Why? Because they've found a way to possibly re-open the case against Darren Wilson and investigate Bob McCulloch, the special prosecutor in charge of his case. This would go a long way to holding Mr. Wilson accountable. If they would do the same for Daniel Pantaleo, the officer involved in the death of Eric Garner in New York City, they would have a better case. Either way, we go along way towards holding bad cops accountable, which is one of the big demands of the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" protesters.
CHEERS to Doctor Nerdlove for this fair and balanced takedown of Professsor Scott Aaronson's geeks-feminism-and-romance thread (which is, by the way, itself quite worth slogging through). Between Aaronson's blog and its many comments, Laurie Penny's excellent rejoinder, and this thread, we have three classics on the problems with the myth of nice guys. It's not easy reading, but it's valuable.
(Note: I have a couple of issues with Dr. Nerdlove, but that piece in particular is praiseworthy.)
FEH to Jeb Bush, who today filed paperwork to start his own PAC. That brings him one step closer to declaring his Presidential candidacy, and to the Clinton versus Bush race of 2016 we're all looking forward to. Right? Okay, take that gun out of your mouth. If the prospect of a Clinton vs. Bush race in 2016 depresses you, consider Rand Paul if you're a Republican --- and Jim Webb if you're a Democrat. They're both second tier at best, but they both also are your best bet if you're opposed to the agenda Clinton and Bush have in common: eternal war and the police state.
JEERS to New York State, which has apparently seized four guns held by a retired cop after he was hospitalized for insomnia. This is yet another clusterfuck to demonstrate that the NY SAFE act is a badly written law, and another demonstration of why you don't write legislation while your ass is on fire. (We should have learned this lesson with the PATRIOT act, but we never do, do we?)
JEERS to Sony. $1200 for a portable FLAC player that runs a three-year-old version of Android? No thanks. Sorry folks, but I'm simply not convinced that there's that big a difference between FLAC and 192kb/s MP3. (By the way, Sony, I still can't connect my streaming video player to your servers. What's up with that?)
CHEERS to the C&J format, which I'm going to revive for a little while in place of the miscellany. It gives me more room to do what I really like, which is pontificate. Tell me what you think in the comments.
CHEERS to Doctor Nerdlove for this fair and balanced takedown of Professsor Scott Aaronson's geeks-feminism-and-romance thread (which is, by the way, itself quite worth slogging through). Between Aaronson's blog and its many comments, Laurie Penny's excellent rejoinder, and this thread, we have three classics on the problems with the myth of nice guys. It's not easy reading, but it's valuable.
(Note: I have a couple of issues with Dr. Nerdlove, but that piece in particular is praiseworthy.)
FEH to Jeb Bush, who today filed paperwork to start his own PAC. That brings him one step closer to declaring his Presidential candidacy, and to the Clinton versus Bush race of 2016 we're all looking forward to. Right? Okay, take that gun out of your mouth. If the prospect of a Clinton vs. Bush race in 2016 depresses you, consider Rand Paul if you're a Republican --- and Jim Webb if you're a Democrat. They're both second tier at best, but they both also are your best bet if you're opposed to the agenda Clinton and Bush have in common: eternal war and the police state.
JEERS to New York State, which has apparently seized four guns held by a retired cop after he was hospitalized for insomnia. This is yet another clusterfuck to demonstrate that the NY SAFE act is a badly written law, and another demonstration of why you don't write legislation while your ass is on fire. (We should have learned this lesson with the PATRIOT act, but we never do, do we?)
JEERS to Sony. $1200 for a portable FLAC player that runs a three-year-old version of Android? No thanks. Sorry folks, but I'm simply not convinced that there's that big a difference between FLAC and 192kb/s MP3. (By the way, Sony, I still can't connect my streaming video player to your servers. What's up with that?)
CHEERS to the C&J format, which I'm going to revive for a little while in place of the miscellany. It gives me more room to do what I really like, which is pontificate. Tell me what you think in the comments.
All or Nothing
While I admit to bias, I am really disliking this meme pushed mostly by cop unions. Funny how GOP types hate unions but never say boo to police unions.
More to the point, during the Bush years, we always heard, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about." Well if a cop has noting to hide, then a trial wouldn't be a danger would it?
Moreover, the Grand Jury process is weighted towards cops and they now it and then use it to say, "The system works!" I'm glad to see that one of the grand jurors is suing by pointing out that it was the victim, not the cop who seemed to be on trial.
Re: All or Nothing
Bingo. There's a hell of a lot of grey in between. You can want the cops to have the tools they need to control crime and still want them held accountable when they screw up.