TheAgitator.com
Morning Links
Thursday, November 29th, 2007• No amount of honey is going to make it taste better.
• Peter Garrett, lead singer for the band Midnight Oil, is Australia’s new environment minister. My favorite Midnight Oil song here.
• The Glendale, Cal. Fire Department told a couple in the city that their trees were too close to their roof. So they hired a tree trimmer. Another bureaucrat, they city’s “urban forester,” saw the trimmers at work, discovered that the couple hadn’t obtained a permit for the trees the fire department ordered them to trim, and fined them $347,000.
• The government of Scotland recently spent about $250,000 in market research to come up with a catchy new tourism slogan. The winner: “Welcome to Scotland.”
• The war on social drinking’s latest fad: Shaming the bars who serve people later pulled over for DWI.
I do not think the people at MADD will be happy until all DUI’s are considered attempted murder.
I feel kind of stupid, but I don’t get the Pooh thing.
“The state of New Jersey has a question for motorists stopped on suspicion of drunken driving: Where did you have your last drink?
Police must send the answers to state investigators…”
uhh… hello… the state of new jersey thinks that the word of some slobbering drunk is golden? half these guys probably can’t even remember their own address. and the cops are gonna use that kind of information for real live police work?!
oh wait, I guess I shouldn’t be shocked anymore considering the trust given to coerced ci’s in getting a warrant to go kick somebody’s door in and beat the crap out of people. guess I just thought they had a little more common sense. but that flies out the window, cuz if you have a badge and you’re lookin for a reason, you’re probably gonna find one!
and david, it’s poo(h), like poop. ya know? read it as “cooking with poop”! thus the honey not making it taste any better. that’s classic!
I recall a few years back the Ohio State University spending 100k on a ‘slogan research firm’. The result? ‘Do Something Big’.
The Ohio taxpayers were not pleased.
Radley, maybe you recall IU’s athletic department spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50K designing a new logo. They went from the interlocking I and U with a dropshadow to an interlocking I and U without the dropshadow.
And while no amount of honey will make Pooh taste better, I hope you’re prepared to give up your salty foods:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-la-071129salt,0,5991453.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
The $340K fine in Glendale was rescinded a couple of nights ago by the council. There were a few other people in that town that were hit with fines way over $50K for the same thing, no news either way on the other victims of this.
Speaking of DUI, in my hometown of Gillette, WY, a judge recently threw out a DUI arrest after it was proven the officer involved allowed the man he arrested to get into his car.
Seems the man was seen stumbling from a nearby watering hole. In order to better see the infraction, the officer repositioned his car. After the man got into his car and drove away, the officer then pulled the guy over on DUI.
Where it got interesting was when the judge in the case actually reprimanded the officer in open court telling the officer he was just as guilty because he allowed the man to get into his car instead of arresting him on public drunkeness, and he was lucky he wasn’t charged as well. Talk about padding the old MADD stats, eh?
And the irony in all this? The officer involved was recently recognized as one of the premier officers in the department for his DUI arrest rates.
Gee, I was hoping for, “If it’s not Scottish… it’s CRAP!”
Also, MADD in Louisville is already having a field day with this case.
The major flaw in the NJ Alcohol shaming crackdown is that the numbers it generates are going to have much more to do with enforcement than anything else. It’s like the whole Rack n’ Roll debacle in Manassas Park – if the police want to make you look bad, they simply make more arrests near your establishment.
Of course, the police would never do that, right?
btw – thanks for opening comments again.