Friday, September 25, 2009

2599 Bits

Friday, September 25, 2009

Me: A full-figured woman has an extravagant body.

Who doesn't appreciate extravagance?  Misers.  That's who.
And who wants them?

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"Good Morning America" had an interesting juxtaposition of story intros this morning.  First they mentioned they'd be doing a story on Mackenzie Phillips' reports of molestation by her father, with a clip of her talking. That was followed immediately by a description of a story about a boy who had to wear a brace for a hip problem, illustrated by a clip of a boy bent over the side of a bed with a man holding him down with one hand on the small of his back and the other hand pulling his leg aside.

The mental jump before realizing that the man was a physical therapist was unavoidable.

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If you happen to get arrested and booked for a misdemeanor, like trespassing or petty theft, in Orange County, Calif., you can go to court, incurring a few thousand in legal fees and/or fines, or you can pay $75, give a DNA sample, and walk away like nothing ever happened. The case will be dropped.

This article explains the rationale.
Civil liberties advocates and defense attorneys say the plan would incentivize prosecutors to pressure people who have not been convicted of any crime to give the government a DNA sample. This “troubles me because I do not think that we yet have adequate safeguards to protect privacy,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at UC Irvine.

“It’s completely voluntary, so no one has to do this,” said a district attorney spokeswoman. “There’s consequences when you commit a crime. This is actually a better option for them than other avenues of, I guess, going through the penal process.”

I don't like it.  It sounds like extortion, pure and simple.  I give you $75 and a DNA sample, or else you will punish me by ruining my good name and costing me a lot of money, for something you're willing to drop anyway?  Why do I associate this with those traffic traps small southern towns are notorious for?

I want to know 1) if some of these cases would never have been pursued  anyway, but the arrestee is not told that, and 2) if arrests for misdemeanors is way up in Orange county, and 3) how many of those arrests are real, and how many are just because the person looks gullible.

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I'm getting tired of people making fun of the Segway.  What's so wrong with it?

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Something creepy has happened.  My internet connection is DSL Broadband, through Verizon.  I'm paying for 3Mps.  Some days I get that.  But other days it's very slow - as bad as when I had ordinary phone line dialup.  The past week it has been abysmal.  Even short video clips take forever to load. Streaming video is impossible.

So I Googled "verizon broadband slow", and found a few forums.  The consensus is that Verizon will not admit it's their problem, and it's difficult to prove it is.

Anyway, since reading the reports of others, and finding a plan of attack, all of a sudden today it's fast again.

That's creepy.  Like Verizon knows I'm getting pissed.

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Dinner and movie, "Fame", in Albany tonight.
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1 comment:

Becs said...

I like the Segway, too! I hope one day I'll take the NYC or Paris tour on a Segway.

I get jealous of the cops here.