TheAgitator.com
Morning Links
Thursday, March 13th, 2008- Honors student suspended, stripped of his class vice president title for buying a bag of Skittles at school.
- My colleague Jacob Sullum already addressed this press release about declining meth use among job applicants at places that administer drug tests. Here’s my question: Why is a high-ranking employee with the federal government giving quotes for a private company to use in its press releases?
- Remember Total Information Awareness? It’s back.
- Looks like that Oklahoma legislator caught going off on an anti-gay rant a couple of weeks ago may have a gay son.
- Photos of the woman who brought down Spitzer.
- Nebraska’s legislators haven’t yet passed a law banning Savlia, the moral outrage drug du jour at the moment. No worries, though. Police are going ahead and arresting people anyway.
- Man rushes to the hospital to be treated for his worsening pneumonia. Cop pulls him over. Man blows 0.0 on breath test. Cop arrests him for DUI, anyway, then takes him to jail, where they keep him until 2am.
“condition of intoxication, stupefaction, depression, giddiness, paralysis, inebriation, excitement, or irrational behavior, or in any manner changing, distorting, or disturbing the auditory, visual, mental or nervous processes.”
How convenient…a blanket law that could be applied to Robotussin, should some hick sheriff get a wild hair…
I know this is a stupid question, but I’m no lawyer, so I’ll ask anyway: Would Ex Post Facto apply to anyone arrested under this statute before an actual law prohibiting the drug in mention is passed?
Whatever happened to public schools catering to the lowest common denominator?
Jeez, they’re villified if they sell candy (milking the poor children) and are even more grotesque when they ban it. Hell, my high school had a student smoking area and I graduated in 1991! (BTW it is no longer there…)
As far as the Spitzer Spitter, she looks pretty good. She even has a MySpace music page in which she sings (links on Drudge).
Dui laws now include every one driving.Here near Belpre,Ohio we have a crime called driving after midnight.if your on us Rt.7 after that time you have a high chance of being stopped.Thing is we have very few deaths while driving and most are in the day with a sober driver.The drunks that do wreck are all most always .15 or above.
I’m gonna be the first to say that Spitzer’s hooker is really really hot.
Hmmm, thought for sure you’d have something on this…
Florida Town Votes To Ban Baggy Pants
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/watercooler/article.aspx?storyid=82695
My favourite line in the ’suspended for buying candy’ story is this:
‘Superintendent Reginald Mayo said Wednesday that Sheridan Middle School principal Eleanor Turner just wanted to keep students safe. ‘
Goodbye reason, hello drug war or How I stopped worrying and learnt to love the government.
State statute 28-420 bans the sale of any substance which will induce an intoxicated condition when the seller “knows or has reason to know that such compound is intended for use to induce such condition.”
Is alcohol banned in Nebraska as well? Also, it’s hilarious that the statute is 420.
The story says that Mark Brannon takes pain medication but it doesn’t state if he had taken it in the hours prior to driving. If he had, and he told the officer he had taken some, that would be the reason for the DUI, which stands for Driving Under the Influence. You can get a DUI if you’re high on any legal or illegal drugs, not just alcohol. So, it stands to reason he could blow a 0.0 and still be charged with a DUI.
I’m not saying he should’ve been charged, or that the officer shouldn’t have taken him to the hospital first, I’m just saying that it’s not unheard of to get a DUI when you haven’t had a drop of alcohol. Clearly the officer should’ve assessed the situation and known that the man needed medical help. Sometimes the cops are so “strict” and “by the book” that they forget to think.
As for Spitzer’s hooker, I can see why he’d be happy to have gotten her as his call girl.
The concept that checks and balances of the three branches of government will save us from tyranny doesn’t work if two of the branches are too friggin’ lazy to do their jobs. Basically, when it comes to government surveillance, Congress and the Courts aren’t doing a thing to reign in the executive. And I think we’re going to see it yet again in the show down over granting immunity to the telcos that violated the public trust by mindlessly cooperating with domestic wiretaps. What good is a two party system if one party tramples the Constitution and the other party is too spineless to do anything about it even when they control the Congress?
Yeah she is pretty good looking, but $5k an hour? Not so much.
I realize $5k for Spitzer is like $500 for me, but it’s still 5k.
I thought he spent $5K for two hours…plus train fare, hotel, mini-bar, etc…
Its sad. Up until the moment money changed hands (and possibly NY state taxpayer monies), nothing was necessarily illegal about it. One penny goes to the pimp agency, and *bam*=> felony.
The war on skittle reminds me of something else. instead of the national honors society profiting from skittle sales, hallway criminal enterprises are. The bus crime rate rises dramatically. I think that vice president kid should issue a public apology and spend 30 days in betty ford. Then we can all forgive him.
Skittles.
Taste AND see the rainbow.
A Good Night, The Best In A Long Time
A New Friend Turned Me On To An Old Favorite
Nothing BetterThan A Dealer Who’s High
Be High, Concince Them To Buy
What’s My Drug Of Choice?
Well, What Have You Got?
I Don’t Go Broke
And I Do It Alot
Seems So Sick To The Hypocrite Norm
Running Their Boring Drills
But We Are An Elite Race Of Our Own
The Stoners, Junkies, And Freaks
Are You Happy? I Am, Man
Content And Fully Aware
Money, Status, Nothing To Me
‘Cause Your Life Is Empty And Bare
You Can’t Understand A User’s Mind
But Try, With Your Books And Degrees
If You Let Yourself Go And Open Your Mind
I’ll Bet You’d Be Doing Like Me
And It Ain’t So Bad
Say, I Do It Alot!
Say, I Do It Alot!
Say, I Do It Alot!
Say, I Do It Alot!
Junkhead - Alice In Chains
I wish I could buy stock in “Kristin’s” career right about now. She’s guaranteed to become a Playboy Centerfold within the next year; a sought after interview on every talk show; will sign a lucrative record contract; and most probably Kid Rock’s next girlfriend. And, I have no problem with any of those scenarios.
If Mr Brannon , was in fact, developing worsening of his pneumonia symptoms, he was in big danger of dying. He should not have driven himself. But, what was the situation? It may have been no choice to him. Either drive or die! They are just lucky that taking him to the slammer, did not kill him! A lack of oxygen to the brain, also, causes severe dis-oriention.
A person, who is very sick may appear, very intoxicated! (happened in my office once or twice. In one case, if I had acted, like my secretary and nurse, saying she was “high”, the patient would have died of sepsis the following day!)) He could likely not perform a field sobriety test, so the cop knew he was obviously lying!! Too bad the cops think they are doctors, too. It is not the only situation in which, totally, unqualified persons are making medical decisions. He should have been taken immediately to the ER.
The cop was just lucky he did not “de-compensate” and die, of hypoxic crisis, while in custody! I hope they get smarter with this occurrence. Some how, I doubt it!
On meth, I used it briefly in 1996, when it was the uber chick raver drug. I quit before it destroyed my life and never went back. I’m sure my case isn’t unique. I don’t know anyone using meth in 1996 that is still don’t it, they’ve all grown up. I watched the meth panic take control of Arkansas and Tennessee, however the consequences seemed to be environmental rather than public health. Labs had to be cleaned and disposed of according to EPA regulations. Meth never would have been a problem if you could have bought it over-the-counter at the drug store.
This is my favorite line in the story about salvia divinorum:
“But Lincoln Police determined that a law currently on the state books outlaws the sale of Salvia.”
Imagine that: the executive branch interpreting the law for itself found what it wanted to find!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art4/0312084kristen2.jpg
…she’s unquestionably hot, but for five grand I could fly overseas and acquire a harem.
Blue used meth in 96 when it was “uber cool”? Hell, it was everywhere in NE in 92 (sold ephedrine at my convenince store job) and it was “super uber cool” then (got lots of 92 street cred for that). I always thought Nebraska was uber far behind the times. Shows what I know.
Public schools are government concentration camps, and any parent that sends their kids to one should be prosecuted for child abuse.
I agree she’s hot, but is she worth $5K?
Isn’t this the same facility where a deputy dumped a quad from his wheelchair?
Sithmonkey,
It’s not Ex Post Facto unless the law is passed criminalizing the act retroactively. So the law has to be passed AFTER the act is committed. You are on to something though. What it would be is a Due Process challenge that the law is unconsitutionally vague either as applied or on its face.
This basically means that we, as citizens, have a consitutional right within the concept of Due Process to understand (or have th e opportunity to understand) exactly what is illegal. When a law is written so vaguely that it is uncler (on its face) then the law is no good. OR, if the law is fine as written but then is applied to a scenario that it could not have been reaosnably interpretted to apply to, then it is no good AS APPLIED. You could probably make an argument under each concept for why this law sucks.
Re: Skittles
“She had concerns about the safety of students carrying large amounts of cash in school,” Mayo said.
Either $0.75 is a “large [amount] of cash” or those immutable laws of prohibition economics have struck again!
Honestly, though - I had to check the banner at the top three times to convince myself this wasn’t straight out of the Onion.