3648 Sitting on my stool

Saturday, October 20, 2012

My girlfriend always laughs during sex---no matter what she's reading.

--Steve Jobs --

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The Queen asked on my post #3646 why I don't call the police about apparent drug sales in the parking lot.

Daughter says there's no point, that it might be dangerous to be (even if mistaken as) a rat, and the police don't do anything about it anyway.  They'll pull in, the dealers will pull out, and the cops let them go.  She's lived here a lot longer than I, and I'm beginning to see where she's coming from.

I read the weekly township police activity report (PDF link in an email).  In any given week in this small township the police are called out well over 250 times.  Arrests are made or investigations conducted for domestic disturbances, burglaries, robberies, unauthorized use of credit or debit cards, motor vehicle infractions, bar fights, blah blah blah, but you never see anything about drugs.  Never.  No prostitution, either.  (Oddly, about 1/3 of the arrests are for "contempt of court".  It looks like most people arrested for whatever never bother to appear in court.)

About the only time the local cops even check for drugs is when it's a traffic stop and they get pissed at the driver.

This is the summary paragraph from the most recent report:

Officers responded to or initiated 260 calls for service between October 10 and October 16, 2012, including 15 suspicious persons/vehicles; 19 alarms; 17 first aid calls; seven motor vehicle crashes; six thefts; one domestic violence incident, one noise complaint; one criminal mischief incident, four disorderly persons, four burglaries, and 71 motor vehicle stops. Officers issued 45 motor vehicle summonses.

I think the police are overwhelmed.  I don't know how many officers there are but I see the same seven names over and over in the reports.  Doing the math, each officer is handling a heavy caseload.  Drug busts are time and effort intensive, and given that known dealers are all over the place here (there are two homes on my short street where I hear you can get anything you want), busts are probably a waste of time.  Slap one down, another pops up.

Most dealers here operate out of houses.  You can tell where they are - they're the ones with a lot of traffic, short visits.  I guess they have lots of friends over for a quick cup of tea, eh?  Tea drunk on the doorstep.  I'm surprised that this parking lot bunch is selling so openly.

My major point was that I've never actually seen it right out in the open like that, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do.  The first time I realized what was probably happening I stood there and stared in disbelief - which I suspect is the wrong thing to do.

Of course for all I know they're actually selling thumb drive copies of their garage band's latest album. 
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1332 Another "Huh?"

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

From TechDirt, "The Insight Company for the Information Age", at http://techdirt.com/articles/20060426/1012207.shtml.

I copied the whole thing here, because I know many people never click on links. So there. No excuses.

Stick To Downloading Child Porn, Not Movies, If You Want Short Jail Sentencesfrom the misplaced-priorities-much? dept.

We mentioned recently that politicians are looking to expand the DMCA, hoping to crack down on the possession of any tool that would help to circumvent DRM. As if this weren't draconian enough, some have noticed sentencing guidelines contained in the law that seem really out of synch with other federal statutes. The bill's new revisions would allow for 10-year sentences for music and software piracy. This is longer than the five years one can get for assaulting a police officer, and the seven years for downloading child pornography. This seems like misplaced priorities, and poor use of the government's criminal justice resources. This is particularly strange, in light of the fact that The Justice Department is stepping up their fight against child porn. This includes new measures that would create more liability for ISPs, among others (nevermind that such liability is misplaced, since the ISPs aren't actually the ones engaging in criminal behavior). Still, any law that would make piracy a more severe crime than child porn is an indication that the government has completely lost its priorities, and is totally at the whim of its industry donors..

1210 Annoyed

Monday, April 16, 2007

I'm getting very annoyed at all the "Monday morning quarterbacking" regarding the officials' response to the Virginia Tech shootings, especially regarding the lack of a lockdown during the two hours between the two sets of shootings.

They knew what they knew when they knew it, and did what seemed right at the time. They had no reason to think that it was other than an isolated and personal crime of passion. Sheesh! Nothing like criticizing actions based on later knowledge, huh? It's easy and fun.

Yes, looking at procedures and seeing if something could/should have been done differently is proper, but that should be done by those intimate with the situation, not by TV reporters! This kind of ripping and laying blame only leads to "cook books", where people aren't allow to make decisions, and are forced to follow paper procedures, and then if something goes wrong, you can just point to the paper and say - "I followed procedure." NOT the best solution! It leads to overreactions.

I'm also getting very annoyed at some Christian station that's been breaking into my television reception for the past four days. I get gray snow and Bible-thumping shouting instead of news and weather. You get that when self-righteous idiots broadcast a wider signal than they're allowed. I'd report them if I could figure out who they are.
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