People who live in areas that fell under the Roman Empire may be more susceptible to HIV.
Slate offers a pretty useful Sarah Palin FAQ.
Since taking office in 1997, Britain’s Labor Party has created 3,600 new criminal offenses.
Puppycide, though this time with a bit of a novel twist.
Good for Rep. Jeff Flake, one of the best in Congress right now.
Youth baseball league bans nine-year-old pitcher because he’s too good.
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on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 10:47 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
The Little League link leads to the Jeff Flake story. Not that I mind; I got sick of the arguments about that one sometime last month.
(A brief summary: Kids’ sports should be fun for the players! Don’t punish one of them for his abilities! Moving a talented player up to a higher league isn’t punishment! It is if that isn’t what he or his parents want! Half-baked allegations of corruption against, respectively, the league and the parents! Mix well, simmer for 80 posts, serve flambé.)
The link to the baseball story is broken, it goes to the Jeff Flake story.
BTW, the reason the kid is having trouble is because one of the coaches wanted him on his team. Since he joined another team, he made a stink and wants him banned from the league. I don’t remember if the coach was the president of the league or what, but it was talked about on ESPN’s Around the Horn and PTI shows a few weeks back, where this was exposed.
Corruption even in the little leagues. It’s sad.
Youth baseball league link goes to the Rep. Jeff Flake article.
Not to pour water on your Flake fire here, but it seems like Flake is doing what he’s doing to help out a political ally as well. Keeping that one neo-Nazi in the news helps keep the heat on Russell Pearce, who is seeking the AZ Senate seat Flake’s ally is running for…
This isn’t to say that what Flake’s doing isn’t commendable. From my short sojourn in AZ, I can say that Pearce and Ready are both complete nutjobs and anything Flake can do to blunt either’s influence is a good thing. I’m just saying that his motives aren’t entirely pure, here.
Baseball Pitcher
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082501687.html
btw, i dont know if thats THE link that radley had in mind but it is a link regarding the same story.
In today’s Washington Post: Killing of Mayor’s 2 Dogs Justified, Pr. George’s Finds
“In today’s Washington Post: Killing of Mayor’s 2 Dogs Justified, Pr. George’s Finds”
Yeah….. of course…
Generally I’m a fan of speeding and an opponent of police actions, but I wonder how we decide what is an acceptable speed to take one’s dog to the vet. I don’t know if calling a novel twist on puppycide is completely fair, though the police obviously could have been more sensitive to the issue. Where am I wrong?
The first officer didn’t even try to help. If the dude was too distraught to drive, put him and the dog in the patrol car and take them to the vet. Then write him a ticket while the dog is getting treatment.
I don’t know if the dog story quite reaches the level of puppycide, maybe negligent puppy-slaughter at worst, but the cop was definitely a prick. I am not the sort of person that thinks the dog is a full on member of the family, but the cop would have been just as correct had he said to the parent rushing a child to the hospital “it’s just a baby, you can make another one”.
Speaking of puppycide…
In an amazing piece of news that I’m absolutely sure nobody saw coming, a sheriff’s office internal investigation have found that the officers who shot Mayor Cheye Calvo’s dogs did nothing wrong. Who could’ve seen that coming?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/04/AR2008090402746.html?hpid=moreheadlines
re: Palin FAQ from Slate
Why no mention under ethics of canning the corrupt dept head who shielded the bad cop? Oh, yeah — we wanted to get to the important stuff, like Sarah’s workout routine.
“Pretty useful,” I suppose — if you’re a moron.
#7 great link on the Calvo story.
The mayor’s family adopted another lab and named him ‘Marshall’- hopefully, they’ll soon be able to say, ‘There’s a new sheriff in town!’
Trevor Bothwell had this to say about the calvo story-
‘It’s virtually impossible to believe a word this sheriff says. After all, he’s lying about the legitimacy of the raid in the first place:
“They had a legitimate court order to be there,” he said. “Unfortunately, we had to engage the animals, but that engagement was justified.”
Nice spin. In fact, the police did not have a court order to conduct a no-knock raid on Calvo’s home. While they may have had a legal right to “be there,” the raid itself was illegal — meaning that in any just environment, any harm that was caused from the outset of the raid on would also be illegal.’
http://bothwell.typepad.com/whos_your_nanny/
I wonder if they take that “Hey, it’s just a dog — you can get another one” attitude when it’s a police dog that dies.
That was mentioned on the first page of the article. Somehow this moron figured that out.
wayne- I’ve heard of people being charged for assaulting police dogs and being made to reimburse cities for the costs of the dog when a police dog gets killed… I tried to find a link, but I found a link where cops killed a police dog. Apparently, these guys just don’t like dogs.
http://dogsinthenews.com/issues/0109/articles/010930b.htm
Puppycide, come on! The jerk was driving over 100mph on a frontage road, that’s a road with speed limit usually not in excess of 40mph that other drivers use to enter and exit the interstate, what was he going to say if he plowed into another vehicle with his SUV and killed somebody else’s loved ones? Ooops, my bad, I was trying to save my dog! How would you feel? Pet owners and parents always think they get to trump the rights of the rest of us because of their precious pets or kids. Yes, the officer was a jerk but Gonzales is a menace and brought it on himself, all he had to do was drive at a speed that took into consideration the safety of others. Had he done that he wouldn’t have been pulled over and his dog might still be alive.
Marty — that’s true, in my state a couple years back (so 14 years ago in dog years) a police dog was killed in the line of duty and someone was brought up on some ridiculous charge as a result. Funny thing was, if I remember correctly, the dog was killed but not as a direct result of something the person did. But because it happened in the commission of a crime, the person was held responsible. I felt bad for the dog, and a lot of other people did, but it also bothered me to know that if my kid was somehow inadvertently injured or killed as a result of police action, she wouldn’t get the same sympathy. I honestly don’t know how it turned out.
Had a similar experience in the “little league” in the county where I grew up. There was a pitcher with a hellacious fastball. Almost nobody could get a hit off of him. The last time I faced him, the only thing I could think to do was keep my bat on my shoulder and hope for a walk. Of course, I struck out.
Somehow, I managed not to have a meltdown or commit suicide because of this.
Slate’s FAQ on Palin is “pretty useful” if you’re inclined to oppose her. It is short on facts, and long on soundbite-style material.
#18
In some states, killing a police dog is the same as killing a police officer and prosecuted as such.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:Juneau.jpg
Frank - You’re gonna have to find me a link before I’ll believe that anyone has ever been prosecuted for felony murder of a dog.
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2921.321
In Ohio it’s a third-degree felony if you assault a police dog or horse and it ends in death. “Serious physical harm” is a fourth-degree felony. No serious harm and it’s a first-degree misdemeanor.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-15-1229365255_x.htm
A cop left his dog in his car in Arizona and it died. He would have faced at the most a misdemeanor–six months of jail or $2,500 fine. He was acquitted.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VALQ4O2&show_article=1
In Miami, two police officers were charged for the deaths of their dogs. One starved one to death and is facing animal cruelty charges. The other kicked the dog to death and is facing felony charges. For some reason, I can’t find anything about the actual trials.
http://kdka.com/local/police.dog.jail.2.375857.html
Kenneth King of Pittsburgh got nine days in jail, bond set at $100000. In the article you’ll see that alleged murderers are set at $20000.
http://bellsouthpwp.net/p/e/peconner/crime.html
Ricardo Culberson of Miami (though guilty of other crimes) bit a police dog, a third-degree felony.
Regarding “puppycide”:
I sympathize with the dog owner, but he did deserve a citation for speeding or reckless driving or whatever it is at “at nearly 100 miles an hour”.
But the cop was also a jackass. I don’t know if he should have driven the owner and dog to the vet or escorted him in (certainly would have been nice) and then written up the citation, but there’s no way it should have taken that long to write up the citation.
And, the officer’s comments were way out of line.
Oh, yeah? By that logic, “It’s a traffic citation, okay? You can write another one.” I don’t suppose the officer would have found that reasoning to be especially compelling.