15-year-old arrested for pretending a bag of parsely was marijuana.
Avowed commies Rage Against the Machine’s rider demands Cocal-Cola, Pepsi, Dom, Ocean Spray, Amstel, Snapple. w00t, capitalism! w00t, poseurs!
Memphis transvestite transsexual who was suing the city after getting beaten by police in a police station (all capture on videotape) was murdered on Sunday. Sad story.
Seventeen percent of San Jose, California’s parking meter enforcement patrol is under arrest for fixing tickets.
Eminent domained in Indiana. State is suing a couple despite their consent to the state’s offer on their land–which the couple really had no option to refuse.
Next up in the bailout bonanza? Public transportation systems in cities across the country. Step up and get your fix. The federal government’s paying.
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on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 8:46 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
noboby should be surprised at the public transportation fiasco- trains, buses, and cabs- what a mafia they’ve created!
I love the last paragraph in the fake dope article- ‘The 15-year-old boy was arrested on a charge of possession of a counterfeit controlled substance with the intent to deliver.’
It begs for comedy- The Matt Dillon Outsiders looking kid walks up to him, ‘What are you in for, kid?’ ‘Parsley, sir.’
>Investigators do not have any suspects at this time.
That’s odd, I can think of two suspects right off the top of my head.
What the holy fuck?! Those pigs will now arrest someone for NOT having marijuana?
Stormy,
My thoughts exactly. Sounds like a hit.
In order to do this, these pigs had to write a ticket every 20 minutes, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 50 weeks a year.
What a sorry, sorry existence. To spend a year of one’s live personally ruining the day of 6,000 people must take one cold, heartless person. One might even feel sorry for such a person.
Nah.
The focus of most of the press on the public transit “bailout” is misplaced. For the most part, all the transit agencies need is a solvent insurer and they won’t have to pony up the millions of dollars which their agreements require in the event of an insurer insolvency.
The real problem is that these entities (and many, many others) basically extracted back-door funding through these accounting moves. They received public funding for their infrastructure, and then turned around and sold their assets to buyers who were able to benefit from tax savings. So, the transit agencies got an infusion of cash they couldn’t raise either through passengers or government appropriation, at the expense of taxes the asset buyer would otherwise have paid.
This is quite common in a lot of areas of government financing. Rural electric cooperative power plants are frequently sold and leased back in this way.
Thad Matthews, local talk show guy in Memphis has a tip from an MPD officer that it was in fact police who killed Duanna. Thad has gotten it wrong in the past, but he’s gotten it right plenty of times to. He actually broke this story, reporting it yesterday morning before any of the local media outlets. I’ll let you make up your mind, but I’ll trust a gossip columnist before I would a police officer.
So why did we spend 150 billion dollars rescuing AIG if they aren’t even responsible for guaranteeing their loans anymore?
Avowed commies Rage Against the Machine’s rider demands Cocal-Cola, Pepsi, Dom, Ocean Spray, Amstel, Snapple.
Amstel? Another reason for me to hate those douchebags. Amstel Light is the Starbucks coffee of beer: it’s not any better than cheaper beers, but it costs as much as far better beers.
@ #7, but you put yourself in the precarious position of believing both a cop (the tipster) and the gossip columnist to believe that the police killed the victim (or had the victim killed).
I am as skeptical of the police as anyone, but I am *more* skeptical of conspiracy theories.
Avowed commies Rage Against the Machine’s rider demands Cocal-Cola, Pepsi, Dom, Ocean Spray, Amstel, Snapple.
Apparently if you’re a commie then you can only drink well water? These companies exist in socialist Europe too, nice try though! P.S., they make great music.
Duanna Johnson was a transsexual, not a transvestite.
So far as I know, transsexuals are the only people in the US who are subject to prejudice at the serious attack-on-sight level.
You mean woot, Che-fellating poseur hacks! right, Radley?
As an aside, while browsing YouTube for readings of the Patrick Henry speech, I found one delivered at a Ron Paul rally. Very good, but then the person posted the video closed with a song from the aforementioned Che-fellating poseur hacks.
Gramsci wins again, thinks I….
“And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.”
What will all the commies do when the captalist pigs they despise stop making the products they love………?
Lincoln was right – “There are too many piglets for the tits.”
Who is going to bail out the taxpayers?
Seriously, people hate Rage for? I won’t argue people shouldn’t hate their politics, but have you heard Tom Morello play guitar?
Apparently if you’re a commie then you can only drink well water?
Obviously, the point is that for a bunch of guys who constantly preach about the evils of corporations and mainstream consumption, they obviously do a lot of consuming of products from big corporations.
And Mr. chum is correct. I don’t care for their music, but Tom Morello is a fine guitarist.
Amstel is more like the Buick of beers. More expensive for no good reason.
Yeah, Rage is a poseur band, just like most death metal, Goth, or other shock genres. De la Rocha is a fruitcake who fantasizes about Che’. But they are pretty good.
To be fair, I’m not sure that the whole band is communist. It could be the drummer who wants the Coke.
Obviously, the point is that for a bunch of guys who constantly preach about the evils of corporations and mainstream consumption, they obviously do a lot of consuming of products from big corporations.
My point was that you can still enjoy products made by a company and still have issues with Capitalism. Hell, Socialist Europe has many fine corporations that make quality products….just because you drink Coke means you can’t criticize Capitalism? Come on….
“I am as skeptical of the police as anyone, but I am *more* skeptical of conspiracy theories.”
Ummmm…. Since when does suspecting somebody who had means, motive and opportunity to commit a murder constitute a “conspiracy theory”? It sounds like pretty sound investigative procedure to me.
To be fair to Memphis, they did at least fire the two cops. Sadly, that’s a rare occurrence.
“To be fair to Memphis, they did at least fire the two cops. Sadly, that’s a rare occurrence.”
The question, now, for those standing over that murdered body is this: “Did somebody not take that at all well???”
Remember the Bembenek case
? The woman tagged with the crime just happened to be the one honest cop on the Milwaukee force who was co-operating with the FBI? Cough cough.
The story of the boy arrested for, um, not having marijuana, seems like fodder for a great pro-legalization protest. Imagine if people all over the country started carrying around plastic bags of parsley…
At first, I had trouble wrapping my head around so many government employees being arrested at once, and then I realized that they had committed the capital crime of reducing the revenue stream from citations.
I hope family or someone keeps Duanna’s lawsuit moving forward. Cops should not be able to whack a plaintiff, avoid a lawsuit and be in charge of investigating who whacked the plaintiff.
I’d like to know where or from whom TSG got a copy of that rider. I’m not convinced that it’s not a fake.
It is a SAD story about Duanna Johnson. While I do not agree with that sort of lifestyle, I do not judge her and certainly she did not deserve the beating she got nor the bullet that killed her.
Whoever did this will experience TRUE KARMA someday.
Duanna Johnson.
Cui bono?
Dead transsexuals tell no tales.
My point was that you can still enjoy products made by a company and still have issues with Capitalism. Hell, Socialist Europe has many fine corporations that make quality products….just because you drink Coke means you can’t criticize Capitalism? Come on….
Right, but RATM doesn’t have “issues” with capitalism. It “rages against” it and consumerism, in general. Nothing wrong with enjoying the refreshing taste of Coke (personally, I can’t stand it without rum), but I just think it’s funny that these guys who preach against wasteful consumerism and conformity can’t pack their own simple refreshments and bring them to the gig. But then you can’t really look for logical consistency from guys who look at Che Guevara as a role model.
Still, Tom Morello’s a great guitarist.
I think Rage has a good sound. I’m not a fan of their politics.
Having said that, their Concert Rider isn’t really that obscene as far as such things go. The socks and underwear are a bit weird (and I’m not sure I want to know the back story)… but their food/drink list is rather tame. The cost is included in the deal made with the promoter.
As to why they don’t pack their own – logistically, large acts can’t just pull 10-20 tour buses into the parking lot of Kroger and walk around grocery shopping for 2 hours. They have to hit the venue on schedule, get the sound check, eat, perform, and drive across 3 states in one night to do it all again. Some acts do carry along their own caterer who shops/cooks for the band locally, but it’s an exception.
Do you expect to see Bruce Springsteen or Carly Simon walking around the supermarket looking for cold cuts and salsa an hour before a sold-out performance? No. ;)
I can’t recall which band it was, but they used the luxuries rider as a test. Brown M&Ms, if memory serves were demanded at every show. If no brown M&Ms showed up it was their tipoff that things weren’t being seen to, and so used as a trigger to double-check everything else: sound, lighting, safety, and so on.
And what thorn said about being realistic about what they do. These travelling shows are huge enterprises for which the band is ultimately responsible and they have a million things to do before they go onstage. To insist that they drop everything and run to the 7-11 for their own drinks is levelling nonsense.
Les & Thorn: Great posts.
seeker6079: You’re thinking of Van Halen :)
Snopes Entry
JackFrost:
Ta!
That sort of thing was why I had some degree of sympathy for Elton John when he was slagged six ways from Sunday for a hissy fit he threw in a hotel in, I believe, Australia. He had asked for a fresh fruit bowl and it wasn’t there, drama ensued. My own view was that the management of any place that is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars out of a touring concert to accommodate the star, the musicians, the crew, and so forth and can’t even be bothered to give the guy who is responsible for all this loot the one fucking thing that he specifically asked for deserves to be fired, not yelled at.
The RATM “hypocrisy” has been well known and discussed since 1992. I understand the point..
But I guess as a libertarian who uses “socialist” and statist goods in my daily life, I am somewhat sympathetic. 99.99% of libertarians could be called hypocrites for similar reasons.
Not to belabor the RATM point, but it occurred to me, back in the day, that there was something curious about Maoists performing at a Free Tibet Concert. And of course, they’re were on Sony…wait, what decade is this?
#2 I’d say that anyone carrying a Memphis PD badge is a suspect at this time.