Thomas Friedman in the Times: Saudi donors today still constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide — not to mention the fundamentalist mosques, charities and schools that spawn the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. So basically our oil payments are cycled through Saudi Arabia and end up funding the very militants whom our soldiers are…
Viva Cinco de Diciembre!
Happy Repeal Anniversary! I just learned through a friend on Facebook that it’s Prohibition Repeal Day. No better time to think about vice and the virtues of individual freedom. But remember that the end of Prohibition brought despair, crime, more drinking, and criminals. Oh no, wait, that’s the wrong press release. That’s what prohibitionists saidwould happen after we legalized a…
Drugged Driving! Lock the doors! Hide the Kids! Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!
Drug Czar Kerlikowske said, “drugged driving is a much bigger public health threat than most Americans realize and unfortunately, it may be getting worse.” [Cue evil music!] Except, of course, it’s not. Kerlikowske is talking about this, which estimates that one-third of those who die in motor vehicle fatalities test positive for drugs. The problem, at least in context of…
Police Office Saves Life
This is a headline you don’t see enough and should see more. Here’s a BBC video from Madrid that is pretty great. Sure, everybody can wave all they want. But it takes a cop, an off-duty cop in this case, to jump on the tracks and actually do the right thing. [p.s. Why do trains in Madrid drive on the…
Lacking Bail Money, NYC Petty Cons Average 15 Days In Jail
Mosi Secret of the Times reports on nonfelony defendants arrested in the city in 2008: In more than three-quarters of the 117,064 cases, defendants were released on their own recognizance. In 19,137 cases from that year, bail was set at $1,000 or less. The report found that 87 percent of the defendants in those cases did not post bail and…
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Moskos on Moskos. The old man would have loved this one!
Felon Who Fought 3-Strikes Law Kills
Well this is going to set back sentencing reformfor a while! I suspect this seventh strike will put him away for life. A multiple felon who campaigned against California’s three-strikes law and was free after managing four times to escape its harsh sentencing guidelines has been charged with murdering four people in home-invasion robberies here this year. … Mr. Ewell…
How we roll…
I know it’s not in the spirit of Thanskgiving to brag, but I’ll be damned if five hours later this bird wasn’t deee-licious. And besides, “it ain’t bragging if it’s true.”
The Boys of Summer
Or, more accurately, “The Baltimore City police men and women of late Fall 2009,” but nobody ever wrote a book with that name. I’ve also always wondered just how many of my class are still with the Baltimore Police Department. This seems a rather simple question, but such data, especially if it’s police related, can be surprisingly hard to come…
It doesn’t matter how tight you tie them
I see pictures like this from the Daily Newsand I notice one thing: the shoes. If you’re hit by a car going too fast, the shoes will fly off your feet and be left basically where you are hit. Think of how much pressure you can apply and not get your shoes off your feet. It’s impossible if you don’t…