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35 Responses to “Saturday Links/Open Thread”
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What they don’t report is that, when the SWAT team finally stormed the bank, they blew away a cardboard cut-out of a dog.
I kid.
I had something like this happen to me many years ago. A cop came to my apartment looking for a runaway girl and said he came very close to putting a few holes in the hallway wall. It seems that the life-size poster of Clint Eastwood I’d placed at the top of the stairs (poncho pulled back, hand on his gun), was a bit too realistic. The real trick was placing common pins through the eyes to give them a life-like glint. Great fun, that poster.
Or the Clinton administration.
“Loyalty” is James Carville’s favorite buzzword (it was the subject of his book “Stickin’”, and he heaped invective on any Democrat “disloyal” enough to question wonder if we really wanted a president who committed bald-faced perjury.
Loyalty to the person, or the party, or winning with an “electable” candidate, seems to be the most common trait in politics.
The pain medicine story point to an article about the national VFW commander. Looks like a dynamic link.
Italy outlawing the internet is a beautiful example of what we’ve tried for years to tell journalists when it comes to gun rights. If nothing else, Italy is always good for an absurd example.
No eyes or ears on the subject before raiding? WTF? This is a serious problem. Were these cops performing a raid on an actual hostage situation with this quality intelligence, they’d get hostages and themselves killed.
“The cutout – for an advertising promotion – was gone yesterday afternoon. The bank refused to comment on the incident.”
In other words the cops “were afraid for their lives” and had to shoot it several dozen times.
“My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders.” —Mark Twain
Luckily, there was no cardboard dog.
Abdul Moniem El-Ganayni said, “Barack Obama’s election could bode well.
“If there is any hope that America would get out of the crisis, he will be the one to do it. Maybe some erosions will be reversed.”
Riiiight……..right after he tackles global climate change…….
Of course that man lost his security clearance after criticizing American foreign policy. Dissent is unacceptable in these dangerous times. We must rally around our leaders!
On another subject, Obama is a secret muslin terrorist socialist!
(what?)
Andrew,
The story is pretty sparse on details. You can’t lose a security clearance just because you disagree with official policy on Iraq. My guess is that it was a combination of things, such as being a prison chaplain because the FBI has reported in the past that Wahabis have been very active and successful as prison chaplains.
“Loyalty to the Constitution, yes.”
Whatever.
Lysander Spooner said that the Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.
“Can Yakety Sax make anything funny?”
Just about. Yakety Sax used to be my ring tone and it provided me with literally minutes of fun.
Mr. Balko:
The link to this article isn’t the correct one.
“Feds take at aim at another physician for prescribing pain medication. This one is already sending up red flags.”
RE: NJ SWAT raid…
“Mitchell said the cutout was first spotted when an officer responding to the alarm looked through a window and saw it on the screen of the bank’s surveillance monitor.”
Did any of the other units have binoculars? I’m not sure if the cut-out could be seen from outside, but usually if the perp isn’t blinking, he is not a human being. Also, I wonder if the PD had anyone from the bank respond to help fill them in. On after hours alarms, police departments generally try to contact a “runner” to let them in the business. An employee of the bank probably could have explained the situation.
What they don’t tell you is that it took THREE attempts before they were able to overpower and subdue the cardboard cutout. The situation was resolved after a flashabng set off the automatic sprinkler system and the cutout wilted and expanded. It was also tasered…just to be safe. They are still looking for it’s accomplices…a cereal box, an egg carton and a large plastic bleach bottle…all thought to be armed and dangerous.
My wife & I drove through Montgomery Township today on the way to and from Princeton, and laughed every time we saw a police car. She cried, “Don’t shoot! I’m just cardboard!”
I wanted to get caught speeding in the next town over so I could ask one of the neighboring cops how hard he laughed when he heard about the SWAT mishap.
I’m curious… was the cardboard cutout a picture of a white man, or a black man?
My very favorite of the myriad Yakety Sax youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VjOK2pwOCQ&feature=related
[...] know now that I am a bad bad man. Curses to Radley Balko for pointing out this video, Can Yakety Sax make anything funny? I [...]
Regarding the Benny Hill clip, I remember reading (In Reason? Not sure) that the problem with the movement to eliminate land mines was that it made no distinction between the practice of scattering them about hither and yon, and the practice of using them as part of a well maintained static defensive line – as in the border between the two Koreas. There are places in the world where such defenses are still necessary, or at least highly advisable.
Or so I think. Anyone have another angle?
Loyalty is as overrated a trait in the private sector as it is in the public sector. And companies that value loyalty over competence end up being as incompetent as government entities that do so.
Schofield,
I think the problem is that land mines are inherently indiscriminate. If ideas of just war and just violence concern appropriate targeting and minimizing civilian casualties, it’s pretty hard to defend land mines. Kinda like saturating the ground with mercury in order to deter forces from maybe passing through. Kinda leaves a big and dangerous mess to clean up.
And doesn’t attacking the anti-land mine movement because there might hypothetically be a situation in which they could be useful kinda, you know, red herringy? I mean, I don’t think people are really focusing on de-mining the Korean border. Sounds like a nice excuse to me for doing nothing about the places where land mines are a problem.
The people may not be focusing on de-mining the Korean border, but if the treaty they are pushing would require signers to do so, then it becomes an issue. Also, I’m not sure whether the treaty distinguished between booby-trap mines and command detonation. I really wish I had that article under my hand.
Mines allow a country like South Korea to keep the cost of adventure-ism on the part of North Korea unacceptably high for reasonably low cost in manpower.
I think the issue is that- like Gun Control – the anti-mine movement is a solution from people who have given up on condemning barbarism, and turned their attention against tools. It is too much trouble, or too politically incorrect for these folk to say “These countries use mines in a responsible manner, but these do not; therefore the latter are barbarians and we should thump them”. Just as it is too politically incorrect to actually seriously punish thugs and stickup artists until they do something outrageous and twisted, so the same folks want to ban handguns.
In a politically correct world, there would be no use for landmines because everybody would play nice. Unhappily a politically correct world is presently achieveable only through recreational drugs.
Some of the biggest “mine” issues come from the most tactically useful items like bomblets and FASCAM style mines…you have no idea where they went or even if they blew. Bad for civilians later, but damned useful when trying to deter a flanking maneuver or channel moving forces. I don’t really think there’s a good answer to these kinds of issues, and I’m quite certain we’ll keep blowing things up when it helps keep us from dying…even if it kills unintended people later. Until human beings stop being so interested in whacking one another I don’t see much use in attacking most of the methods. Nukes are the only thing I’d say diff about…too damned easy to get out of hand methinks, but I’ll leave the “how” of handling them to others.
To be clear, the treaty that many countries have signed is for anti-personnel land mines, the reasoning being that these are the most dangerous in post-war periods to civilians. Even land mines placed meaningfully in strategic locations pose a big problem for cleanup.
The problem I would have with an article that bashes the anti-land mine movement because they didn’t make an exemption for the DMZ is that it really does focus on a small aspect of one group working to cleanup minefields and as a consequence has the effect of undermining support for the entire movement. Although the reasoning behind the article may not necessitate it, the end effect is an impression of pro-land mines and general indifference, if not hostility, to the fact that they pose a serious risk to civilians during and after periods of conflict worldwide.
In a politically correct world, militaries would clean up their messes when they’re done fighting, and maybe land mines wouldn’t be a big issue. Unhappily, reality proves otherwise.
Virtual Memories writes: “I wanted to get caught speeding in the next town over so I could ask one of the neighboring cops how hard he laughed when he heard about the SWAT mishap.”
LMAO…that would earn you a good tasering. Don’t have your dog with you when you do it….
“The problem I would have with an article that bashes the anti-land mine movement because they didn’t make an exemption for the DMZ is that it really does focus on a small aspect of one group working to cleanup minefields and as a consequence has the effect of undermining support for the entire movement. Although the reasoning behind the article may not necessitate it, the end effect is an impression of pro-land mines and general indifference, if not hostility, to the fact that they pose a serious risk to civilians during and after periods of conflict worldwide.”
I guess I’m just tired of “do good” groups that don’t think things through. The DMZ in Korea is a fairly significant “aspect”; if the treaty doesn’t make an exception for it, the treaty is no good. If the treaty is no good, then the group pushing it needs to be criticized until the treaty IS good, not patted on the back for good intentions. Good intentions count for bupkiss in the real world, and wishful thinking isn’t – strictly speaking – thinking.
Too many treaties and manifestoes get signed without much real thought on how they will affect the real world. Then we discover that we can’t really shut down all the coal power plants and run the world with windmills, because we can’t pay for it. We find that disarming the good British subjects leaves the thugs in charge. We learn that stopping the hunting of Big Cats in Africa causes the locals to exterminate them as dangerous pests (where they were once useful ways to extract money from would-be Great White Hunters).
And we can’t go back and start over from scratch because the legions of the well-meaning will hold their breaths and drum their heels on the floor if we even bring the subject up.
foo.
“Mines allow a country like South Korea to keep the cost of adventure-ism on the part of North Korea unacceptably high for reasonably low cost in manpower.”
Mines aren’t much of a deterrent to North Korea. They have numerous underground tunnels to bypass mined areas, rolling artillery barrages to destroy mines along the axis of advance, a huge number of sappers to breach fields, and most importantly, soldiers either fanatical or fearful enough to plunge straight through the fields anyway.
The North is deterred mainly by our overwhelming superiority in air power, the 500K+ ROK military (relatively low manpower? hardly), and most importantly their lack of real interest in adventurism in the first place. Yes, NK builds nukes and threatens war every other week, but a war would endanger the good thing the chonger and the top brass have going. Unless circumstances change drastically in the near future, mines are pretty low on the deterrent list for these guys.
So, whatever their other merits or problems, I don’t see how the DMZ a good example for not banning antipersonnel mines.
Re: last item
Like #10 Mike said, there’s another side to the story that we’ll never know which precludes making a fully informed judgment. The only surprising thing is that they would not tell him the reason for revocation. From my line of work, I have a passing familarity with how the security clearance system works (but only DoD, not DoE – otoh his company Bettis, is one of two main contractors wrt the Navy Nuclear Power Program, so works with both departments). The security clearance rejection/suspension/revocation letters from HQ always did say in broad terms why a particular person’s clearance was being denied. Normally it was excessive debt/poor credit history combined with failure to report this accurately when applying for the security clearance. But they were almost always preceded by a letter to the local security manager requesting additional information / justification when adverse information was discovered.
But if he should prevail in his legal case somewhere down the line, he said he will come back to Pittsburgh to claim the rights he thought he was entitled to as a U.S. citizen.
To be further contrarian, sorry, being a US citizen doesn’t automatically give you a right to a security clearance nor a right to employment at a government contractor. He’s not being kicked out of the country, he’s leaving on his own.
Chance,
I’m far from sure your argument holds water; military types I know seem to think otherwise (or did when we discussed it). Attacking through tunnels instead of across a broad front would be a big difference….
I guess I fall back on Von Clauswitz, who wrote that it was all very well to blunt our swords in the name of peace, but someday somebody would come along with a sharp sword and hack off our heads. The military apparently believe that mines are a necessary part of our arsenal. While I do not put blind faith in the military, I put somewhat less in the “peace above all else” types, particularly on technical matters. For one thing, they seem to lie a lot.
I hope you realize that the Ottawa Treaty makes specific exemptions for command-style weapon. So, the treaty is specifically for indiscriminate anti-personnel mines. Regardless, there is much more to the anti-land mine movement than this treaty, so it’s hard to see your talk of unintended consequences of treaties and your lack of faith in hippies as more than red herrings and straw men.
If the US military wants to give up using them on their own, as they did with flamethrowers for tactical and humanitarian reasons, I think many groups would deserve credit for raising the issue.
There are some weapons that are designed in ways indiscriminately to maximize widespread suffering, and in any discussion of just war that cannot be tolerated. Wars are fought shortsightedly, and without fail civilians are left footing the bill.
Someone mentioned FASCAM. I was a redleg in Germany during the cold war, responsible for deploying FASCAM if required. There were two types (antipersonnel, and antiarmor), and each type had two durations: “short”, and “long”.
Short duration self-destructed in less than 24 hours (how much less was classified, and unknown to us). Long duration self-destructed in more than 24 hours (again, the exact time was classified and unknown to us).
The nature of the tripwires was supposed to ensure that even if an individual mine failed to self-destruct, its neighbors would set it off. I have no idea if this worked in practice, since the balloon never went up. They only let us fire one live Copperhead in four years, and certainly didn’t let us fire FASCAM.
KBCraig, I was a cannon cocker myself and had very little practical “truck” with FASCAM. We fired a volley only once, in NTC, and the base commander was so pissed he threatened to keep us from coming back the next year (not sure if he could buuut…). I was only a spec4 at the time so the info I got was minimal, but all the old dogs were chuckling about how unreliable the self-destruct mechanism was on them and thought our brigade commander was an idiot for using them in training because of all the cleanup they would require to ensure an unexploded unit didn’t accidentally kill someone.
Brings up a side note about how little cash was spent on training in those days, but we did fire Copperheads twice and RAP rounds a couple times…which was terribly pretty on a clear nite at the OP.
Anyway, long story short, conventional wisdom seemed to be that FASCAM self-destruct didn’t work worth a damn.
If not funny, certainly more entertaining. During the Olympics, my wife and I had Yakkity Sax ready to play at a moments notice. Put the Tivo on fast-forward, cue it up, and bang, the men’s steeplechase becomes pure awesome.
Nothing seems to be easier than seeing someone whom you can help but not helping.
I suggest we start giving it a try. Give love to the ones that need it.
God will appreciate it.