- Cops across the land can celebrate this milestone. The “non-lethal” Taser has now been implicated in over 1,000 deaths. (Each and every one of them, of course, is an anomaly, nothing to do with tasing at all, and besides all the dead no doubt got what was coming to them.)
- The madness of driverless cars. (Especially given the present state of “security.”)
- Wonder if a notice like this one would give SWAT cops pause — or merely encourage them to come in with guns already blazing?
- Cheap & easy sex has led to unmotivated men and a crappy deal for women.
- Wendy McElroy: “The Exit Strategy of Empire.”
- How government wrecked the gas can. If gov can ruin something so simple and fail even to begin to fix it, what kind of fool would trust it with anything more complicated?
- Wonder of wonders. It’s off to prison for Anthony Weiner.
- Exposure of our data in hack after hack isn’t a bug; it’s a feature.
- But Equifax’s CEO still had to be sacrificed. Another “retirement.”
- Seattle has a new, strictly temporary, mayor (after the last elected one finally quit under the volley of sex-abuse accusations). The temp is wildly ambitious, though. Among other things he wants the city to set up retirement plans for private employees not otherwise covered. Hm. Wonder where that money will end up …?
- Must see this movie! Wes Anderson. Dogs. Great combo. (Interesting, isn’t it, how many “American” movies — especially animated features and monster movies — are becoming so overtly Asian. Not only because that’s where their funding’s coming from, but because … well, huge movie audience.)
Weiner’s lawyer has requested that he do his time at Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania:
Welcome to Club Fed! Inside the luxury Pennsylvania prison Anthony Weiner hopes to serve his sentence where the inmates get continental breakfast, sleep in dorms, play bocce ball, plant vegetables and could even walk out because there is no fence
“However, fully expect to spend time in jail awaiting trial and spending everything you have.”
Given ‘asset forfeiture’, i’ts likely that the cops will confiscate everything you have just to cover up going to the correct house number three streets off the real address. So there goes your ability to hire a good defense.
Maybe someone here can help me figure this out… Now, first I admit that I don’t read much of the “news,” and so probably missed the real story somehow, but I can’t see what Mr. Weiner did that should put him in any prison. He’s supposed to have cheated on his wife, sent pictures and text messages on his phone to strangers (?) with a blatant sexual content… Uh, OK… half or better of the “news” and “entertainment” and celebrity goings on are filled with blatant sexual content… so? Did he actually harm anyone physically? Did he steal something or commit fraud? I think the guy looks like a turd floating on a sewer pond myself, but I can’t see that he’s done anything more criminal than most of the other politicians and celebrities do every day.
What am I missing here?
MamaL: At least one of the people he sent naked photos to was a minor. And supposedly he knew that at the time.
That’s already more than I really want to know about the case, I haven’t been following it. But it is enough to put him in jail.
Tractor Supply Co. sells nozzle replacement kits which transform current gas cans into usable containers. Look to be under $15.
http://bit.ly/2wkan6Z
I’m sorry, but the fact that one of the people who got sent that garbage was a “minor” isn’t actually criminal behavior on the sender’s part, as far as I’m concerned. How did he get her phone number or other contact? There is no way she was not a willing participant. And she seems to have made plenty of hay over the whole deal…
How many “minor” children engage in all kinds of sex depredation themselves and/or actively seek it? How does some magic chronological age line make the sick and stupid but non-aggressive activities of people into crimes? And who has actual responsibility for these magically automatic minor “victims” anyway? Their parents? Themselves, in reality? How does it get to be Wiener’s responsibility, no matter how sick and stupid he is with his telephone?
The moral depravity of this guy (and everyone involved, it seems) is sickening, of course. The fact that he can excuse himself using the addict/disease label is sickening. There’s no such thing as sexual “addiction,” just a total disregard for personal responsibility, integrity and other people.
But it still doesn’t rise to the definition of an actual crime.
You know, ML, I think most everybody here is familiar with that argument and would even agree with you (though agreement or disagreement might depend on the age of the girl in question). That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the downfall of one of America’s most arrogant (and anti-gun) politicians.
Weiner repeatedly flew in the face of common sense and common decency. He got caught not once, not twice, but three times. He ruined not one political career, but a potential second. All the while he remained adamant that he knew how to run other people’s lives better than they did. There may be no law against being an arrogant asshole authoritarian pol … but it sure is enjoyable to watch one destroy himself.
I need a copy of that movie badly.
Amen to all of that Claire, of course. Paying for him to be kept in a prison, on the other hand, doesn’t add to my enjoyment of his stupidity being punished. Let alone a “club fed” luxury prison, for heaven’s sake. And this soft landing allows him to continue to bullshit the world that he’s somehow sort of a “victim” himself, since he’s got a “disease” or “addiction,” so it’s not really his fault… don’t you know.
Put him in a small room with all of his victims and their families. Let them duke it out? Sell tickets, maybe? 🙂
Driverless cars would deprive cops of the chance to molest people on suspicion of “drunk driving”. Think of the lost revenue! I’ll bet cop gangs would be one of the biggest opponents if/when this really takes off.
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Where is this “cheap & easy sex” of which you speak? Just for research purposes, of course.
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I fixed all my gas cans. Thanks to Amazon.
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Weiner: Ephebophilia (or a weak electronic substitute for it, in his case) is one of the few things that can actually land an Elite in a cage – if his connections aren’t good
I can’t bring myself to care whether my “data” has been compromised. I know I should, but I just see it as an inevitable consequence of the “system” that has been allowed to be imposed.
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At least that girl looks happy with her satanic pup. It looks content, too.
“Put him in a small room with all of his victims and their families. Let them duke it out? Sell tickets, maybe? 🙂”
LOL. Just put him in a room with Huma and Hillary. I suspect they’d provide plenty of entertainment, not to mention righteous revenge, all by themselves.
I think Weiner will be very popular in prison.
A good Asian movie I saw was Nut Job (it was at the time the most expensive animated film co-produced in South Korea), it had an excellent plot, I made it a required watch for all the Grandkids. Haven’t seen NJ II yet.
The article, “Why are good men so hard to find?”, is truly remarkable.
I have been studying relationships between the sexes for a few years. My research has taken me into the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, behaviorism, and literature. Every sentence in Ms. Wente’s editorial disagrees with all related scientific studies.
That takes real talent.
In his book A Republic, Not an Empire, Pat Buchanan argued that we became an empire at the end of the Spanish-American War when we occupied the Philippines without ever intending to make it a state. And in his “The Fate of Empires…” Glubb noted that empires are lost fairly consistently after roughly 250 years from the rise of the particular civilization. In fact he advocates historical research to determine if there is a way to prevent this decline. On p. 23 (his numbering) he regards the likelihood of success “doubtful” but deems the effort worth a try. http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
Every sentence in Ms. Wente’s editorial disagrees with all related scientific studies.
Yeah, I noticed that, too.
For men, sex was traditionally expensive. The price tag was a long-term commitment to provide for a woman (and children).
Uh, no. If by “traditionally” she’s looking at any time between early civilization and WWII, sex was cheap, what with prostitutes and, for anyone with status, servants. Hugely simplified, what men (and women) needed were heirs to inherit their property and working children to provide for old age.
I’m just observing today’s dating scene, but what I’m noticing is that the women who are finding the relationships Ms. Wente reminisces about aren’t waiting until their 30s. So, first come, first served.
The main factor today is that women no longer need resources, first because successful women can gather their own, and second because unsuccessful women are provided for by government programs that actively discourage them from partnering with a man.
Gas Can vents are available… and replacement spouts that work better too. https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Fuel-Gas-Can-Vent/dp/B00SEK6XN6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506559214&sr=8-1&keywords=gas+can+vent
“Cheap & easy sex has led to unmotivated men and a crappy deal for women.”
“A deal?” When the relationship between men and women has been reduced to sex and marriage has become some kind of arrangement both men and women would be better off without it.
In the entire article the word “love” is not mentioned once. Sorry girls, sex is no substitute for love. Sex might be cheap and easy, but you get what you pay for. Want a good man? Be a good woman worthy of the love of a good man. The sex will take care of itself.
Tasers can certainly result in deaths, even if used properly and especially if misused. Without doubt heart attacks can result. But even so they are preferable to bullets, which tend to have a substantially higher fatality rate.
The comment that they are sometimes used on the “mentally ill” is meaningless, indeed dishonest. The phrase is used to evoke emotion, not convey information; the reader is meant to infer that these are harmless people. Sometime they are, but quite often they are not. It isn’t always possible to simply “take him to the hospital”, not if he doesn’t want to go and is violent. A 250 pound adult male can be a serious threat to anyone. A non-lethal response (which is what tasers almost always are) is an excellent, humane option.
Also, the author employs another dishonest journalistic technique, that of aggregating incidents over a long period of time to make the number sound horrifying. But we’re talking about 1,000 deaths since 2000. That’s roughly 60 a year. I don’t mean to denigrate the importance of 60 deaths (some of which might have been avoidable or unnecessary), but realistically in a country of 350 million people that doesn’t even rise to the level of rounding error.
Do police occasionally misuse tasers? Of course, and when it happens they should be punished appropriately. Would they benefit from better training? Probably. But should tasers be eliminated or restricted? Absolutely not. What is a realistic alternative? Tasers are far and away the best option in many instances, and are certainly preferable to bullets. Articles such as this one are thoroughly unhelpful.
“they are preferable to bullets, which tend to have a substantially higher fatality rate.”
But they are often not being used where firearms might once have been. They’re being used where talking might once have been used. (Are they ever used where a billy club or a gun or a choke hold might have been used? Of course. But the Taser has way too often become a “compliance tool” in circumstances that don’t warrant violence at all.)
Perhaps, Claire, but that’s a training issue. I maintain that articles like this are both unhelpful and approach the issue in a fundamentally dishonest way.