Investment tip: Buy beach-front property in western Ethiopia.
Salmon-flavored vodka. Related: This Agitator guest post from Jacob Grier on how to make bacon-infused bourbon still gets linked about once a week. Here in Nashville (right around the corner from me, actually), there’s a great cocktail spot called the Patterson House that makes a delicious maple bacon bourbon drink.
If you had dreams of going dwile flonking in Britain this summer, well you can just forget it.
Georgia prosecutor orders a defense lawyer off a death penalty case. Bonus: The state’s supreme court upheld the defendant’s conviction. Double bonus: Same prosecutor is now angling to become a judge.
Puppycide: Cops shoot man’s medical dog while looking for a burglary suspect.
Pretty sure this law isn’t going to have the effect its supporters think it will.
Just so I have this straight: The suicide rate at the Chinese Foxconn factory is no higher than the rate in the rest of the country, the workers are paid more than they’re paid in other factories, and they’re certainly better off than if the plants had never been built. But consumers should feel guilty about it all anyway?
NFL Films + Hulu = A whole lot of awesome. Problem is, I don’t need the temptation to procrastinate right now.
The New York Times would have you believe that the free market and free association are responsible for Jim Crow. Big government advocates have an incredible ability to blind themselves from the sins of government.
Anyone else get the feeling that illegal immigrants are the new sex offenders? Want to get elected (or at least win your GOP primary)? Find something new and mean we can to do them.
Alcohol regulators in California don’t seem to understand the process of infusing spirits with flavors like orange or vanilla. So naturally, they’re prohibiting that which they don’t understand, invoking a ban on on-site distilling that really has nothing to do with the infusion process.
The state of California has suddenly started issuing warnings to bars and restaurants prohibiting them from “infusing” liquors such as vodka with herbs or fruits—a popular and widespread practice. But the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Department has no clear explanation for why it has targeted several establishments in the San Francisco Bay Area in recent weeks. And it can’t, or won’t, definitively answer the fundamental question of why it’s illegal in the first place to make infusions without having a special license.
In fact, the law under which the warnings were issued doesn’t have anything to say about infusion, but rather seems aimed at preventing bars from making their own hooch, creating dangerous brews, or adulterating liquor to increase its alcohol content.
“It’s totally insane,” said Bill Owens, president of the American Distilling Institute, which happens to be headquartered in the Bay Area. “I’d never heard of such a thing. It baffles me beyond my wildest dreams.”
Chris Albrecht, an ABCD deputy division chief, said that despite the enforcement actions, the department “does not consider this a priority.” The warnings, he said, were issued to a few establishments where enforcement agents showed up in response to unrelated complaints. Agents saw that infused drinks were being offered for sale, issued the warnings, and, in at least one case, asked an employee to pour the illicit concoctions down the drain, Albrecht said.
State alcohol regulators have to be among the most petty and arbitrary bureaucrats in government. Witness my state of Virginia, where they recently resurrected a Prohibition-era law to arrest a bartender for serving sangria (the state legislature had to pass a bill legalizing sangria and martinis), and went after my favorite bar a couple years ago for serving delicious frozen beer on a stick.
Various jurisdictions in Texas have made news over the last several years for sending vice squads into bars and arresting patrons for drinking. Not drinking and driving, mind you. Just drinking. In a bar.
In a scary piece for Mother Jones, Adam Weinstein delves into just how ridiculously broad and vague the state’s public intoxication laws really are. Exceprt:
The public intoxication standard, backed by the Texas-based Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is so broad that you can be arrested on just a police officer’s hunch, without being given a Breathalyzer or field sobriety test. State courts have not only upheld the practice but expanded the definition of public intoxication to cover pretty much any situation, says Robert Guest, a criminal defense attorney in Dallas. “Having no standard allows the police to arrest whoever pisses them off and call it PI,” he says, adding, “If you have a violent, homophobic, or just an asshole of a cop and you give him the arbitrary power to arrest anyone for PI, you can expect violent, homophobic, and asshole-ic behavior.”
For some officers, PI has provided a ready-made reason for detaining minorities. A Houston defense attorney, who asks to be unnamed since he specializes in misdemeanors such as PI, puts it this way: “If you’re brown and you’re around—you’re going down.” Nick Novello, a 27-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, blew the whistle on three colleagues who he claims filled their arrest quotas by picking up people, mostly minorities, for PI. “They were illegally arrested,” Novello says. “It’s an absolute perversion.” (Two were removed from the force.)
According to a recent report by sociology and law professors at the University of California-Berkeley, the Dallas suburb of Irving has used “discretionary” public intoxication arrests to fish for undocumented immigrants.
Just so we’re clear, minors who send explicit photos of themselves to other minors get hit with child porn charges. Cops who send explicit photos of themselves to minors get probation.
A quick roundup of recent stories on law enforcement officials and DWI laws…
Ten police officers in Westchester County, New York admit to local newspaper that they routinely let other officers off after catching them driving drunk off duty.
Off-duty, possibly drunk South Carolina officer pulled over after a chase demands “professional courtesy” she says is customarily granted to other officers. She was charged with reckless driving and disorderly conduct, but wasn’t arrested or given a breath test, and was allowed to go home.
Off-duty Massachusetts state police lieutenant crashes into pickup truck, causing the truck to flip several times. Officer admitted drinking earlier in the day and two open beer cans were found in his car. Other officers don’t administer field sobriety test for 2 1/2 hours, after allowing him to talk to his attorney. He was also never given breath or blood tests. He did get a $20 traffic ticket.
From last year, DWI charges dropped against Nevada DA who caused two crashes within six hours while in California, and tested over the legal limit after the second. He was allowed to plead to reckless driving.
Thank goodness the Washington Postdidn’t perpetuate irresponsible Internet rumors on that snowball fight story. Instead, they went straight to MPDC for the official version of events, unskeptically published the resulting lies from the department’s spokesman, after which WaPo columnist Marc Fisherput up a smug blog post gloating about how responsibly the paper treated the story, as opposed to those hysterical blogs and Internet sites. Never mind that the blogs and videos had proof the WaPo got the damned story wrong. Facts aren’t as important as who followed journalistic protocol.
Interesting piece by Adam Liptak on the politicization of Supreme Court clerks.
Been re-watching the entire series the last few weeks. Just caught the episode with Bunny Colvin’s brilliant paper bag speech below. This is my third time watching the entire series. If I were running a university, I’d institute a class that did nothing but watch, study, and discuss the show. And passing it would be required to get a degree.
Eliot Spitzer’s call girl now has an advice column with the NY Post. First question: How can I turn a life turning tricks into an advice column gig with the NY Post?
So the Max Baucus nominating his paramour to be a U.S. Attorney scandal is getting pretty interesting. Turns out she at one point was also sleeping with a forensic pathologist who had a history of questionable diagnoses in infant death cases. Oh, and he was a state medical examiner for the state of Mississippi in the 1980s. Why am I not surprised?
The L.A. Times rounds up the many incidences in which Joe Arpaio has launched investigations into people who have dared to question his tactics. Scariest line from the story: “Though he has said he’s not interested in running for governor, a recent poll showed him crushing the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, 51% to 39%.”
Yahoo, Verizon refuse to release information related to their capability of and cooperation with the government for the purposes of spying on their customers. Their reasoning? Releasing the info would “shock” and “confuse” their customers.
Your daily outrage. IRS agents target single mother of two. Just infuriating.
All about Argentina’s piqueteros, essentially professional, federally-subsidized protesters who shut down the country’s highways. I saw some of this when I spent a month down there a couple years ago. It’s really odd.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Adam Bauer has nearly 400 friends on Facebook. He got an offer for a new one about a month ago. “She was a good-looking girl. I usually don’t accept friends I don’t know, but I randomly accepted this one for some reason,” the 19-year-old said.
He thinks that led to his invitation to come down to the La Crosse police station, where an officer laid out photos from Facebook of Bauer holding a beer — and then ticketed him for underage drinking.
The police report said Bauer admitted drinking, which he denies. But he did plead no contest in municipal court Wednesday and will pay a $227 fine.
He was among at least eight people who said Wednesday they had been cited for underage drinking based on photos on social networking sites.
Ouch! “I just want to know what her problem is.” Me too!
Budget-deficited California, Los Angeles move ahead with plans to build a taxpayer-funded professional football stadium. Despite the fact that they, um, don’t actually have a professional football team.
Food activists finding that idealized school lunch proposals will . . . actually cost money. I don’t have a problem with the idea that if we’re going to have public schools, they should try to serve the kids healthy food. In fact, I support that idea. But these nutrition activists often seem rather detached from reality.
Cousin of Texas Gov. Rick Perry killed by police. Pretty fishy circumstances, too. (Fishy in the sense that the guy wasn’t a criminal, and doesn’t appear to have been a threat to anyone, not that Perry was in any way involved.)
Washington Timespays tribute to its leader with a creepy article that reads like something from the North Korean press.
Prosecutor in Cameron Todd Willingham case now claims Willingham worshiped the devil. Also, he played Dungeons & Dragons, used Proctor & Gamble toothpaste, and watched the Smurfs as a kid.
Missed this in my original post, but here’s a letter to the editor written by the prosecutor who brought charges against the Indiana grandma arrested for buying too much cold medicine.
UK brewer gets flack from Nanny Staters for making beer with 18 percent alcohol. So they respond by brewing a 1 percent beer, and dub it “Nanny State.” Awesome.
Someone sent me the link to this video. I know nothing about the case. Anyone else familiar with it?
Co-founder of Feminist Majority okay with Roman Polanski’s rape. A few people have emailed to ask what I make of the Polanski affair. I think he ought to go to prison. And Hollywood’s defense of him is pretty disgusting. That Woody Allen signed a petition calling for Polanski to be freed would be hilarious were we not talking about, you know, a drugging and raping.
That’s the headline to this A.P. article highlighting a new, what-could-possibly-go-wrong tactic police are using in Texas and Idaho.
When police officer Darryll Dowell is on patrol in the southwestern Idaho city of Nampa, he’ll pull up at a stoplight and usually start casing the vehicle. Nowadays, his eyes will also focus on the driver’s arms, as he tries to search for a plump, bouncy vein.
“I was looking at people’s arms and hands, thinking, ‘I could draw from that,’” Dowell said.
It’s all part of training he and a select cadre of officers in Idaho and Texas have received in recent months to draw blood from those suspected of drunken or drugged driving. The federal program’s aim is to determine if blood draws by cops can be an effective tool against drunk drivers and aid in their prosecution.
If the results seem promising after a year or two, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will encourage police nationwide to undergo similar training.
This is all perfectly legal, by the way, courtesy of a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision. I guess it’s surprising it’s taken this long for it to be implemented on a broader scale.
An Indiana man has filed a lawsuit against a Lawrenceville, Indiana police officer and a local doctor and hospital, claiming he was forcibly catheterized after a DWI stop. According to the lawsuit, Jamie Lockard passed his roadside breath test. But the officer still detained Lockard and took him to a local hospital, where doctors strapped him to a gurney, pushed a catheter inside of him, and forcibly extracted blood and urine from him. The blood and urine tests also showed Lockard to be under the legal limit.
Lockard was never charged for drunk driving. According to the lawsuit, he was charged with “obstruction of justice,” apparently for having the temerity to resist someone shoving a tube into his body without his permission.
A local magistrate signed off on a warrant for the procedure.
I guess this means the results of those trustworthy roadside breath tests are only reliable when they show that someone is intoxicated.
Rep. Charlie Rangel stepping up donations to colleagues, including three on the ethics committee investigating him, as questions about his tax dodging intensify. Prediction: The House Ethics Committee will take no disciplinary action against him.
Discipline cases against dozens of San Francisco police officers would be dismissed under an amnesty program proposed by Chief George Gascón.
The new police chief told The Chronicle on Wednesday that he wants to see “the great majority” of roughly 75 discipline cases pending before the civilian Police Commission end with little or no punishment for officers accused of minor misconduct.
Those cases, he said, include charges such as use of inappropriate language, being discourteous, failing to properly fill out a police report or a first-time misdemeanor drunken-driving arrest. They would also most likely involve first-time offenders rather than officers with a long history of complaints against them.
“We don’t get anything out of taking a pound of flesh,” Gascón said.
According to Bay area DUI defense sites, penalties for a first-time conviction in California can include six to 30 months of alcohol and driving safety classes, suspension of your driver’s license, up to three years of probation, $390-$1,000 in fines, and the possible installation of an ignition interlock device at your expense.
Will Chief Gascón propse non-police residents of San Francisco get a pass on first time offenses too, or just those residents who also happen to be members of law enforcement?
CORRECTION: The amnesty for drunk driving would be with respect to professional disciplinary action, not to possible criminal charges.
TheAgitator.com
