Law Enforcement


Walking your Talk

An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.
He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection with him.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer
The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, “I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome- plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.”


Just Who are you Working For?

As The Angry Bear Points out:

You can’t play Three-Card Monte without a mark, a patsy, a sucker. Guess who’s playing the sucker in Greenspan’s shell game?

And, it is you and me folks who are playing that roll. Read the rest here and here.
Shouldn’t we be getting just a little bit angry about getting robbed every day? If our government will not protect us perhaps it is time for a change…and not just presidents.


Some Folks Should be Downsized

Kevin Drum notes that:

every state except Nevada and Nebraska is seeing a shift from high paying industries, which are losing jobs, to low paying industries, which are gaining them.

If you haven’t noticed this phenomena open your eyes.
Now, I am deeply concerned about this trend and feel badly for the people who are living this transition (and working my but off to make sure (delay?) it does not happen to me.
On the other hand there are some folks that have jobs that should not exist and I apologize in advance for wishing ill on these people. Prosecuting attorneys, federal agents, police officers and anyone else involved in supporting this kind of stuff need to be sent immediately to jobs in low paying industries. Positions as Wal-mart clerks may be too good.
The latter link is via Talkleft.


Where’s that Corruption

The Corporate Crime Reporter has ranked the 50 states by their rate of corruption.
Then there is the state wannabe The District of Columbia

We calculated the District�s corruption rate as 79.33. This is more than ten times what Mississippi�s corruption rate is……
But we didn�t include the District in the list for one obvious reason � the District is the seat of the federal government, and because of this, there are more criminal prosecutions for public corruption than anywhere else in the country.
It can be said that the District is the most corrupt political entity in the nation � but that�s only because it�s the seat of an apparently actively corrupt federal government � with 453 public corruption convictions over a ten-year period.

Even though there are some deficiencies in the data (noted in the full PDF report) this is an interesting indicator of the quality of government officials.
Via A List a Day.


Helping with those Govm’t Budgets

Number 5 on Alternet’s list of the Top Ten Drug Stories of 2003 is this:

5) The FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report reveals that police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, or nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. This amounts to one marijuana-related arrest every 45 seconds.
The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Hmmm, I know this math isn’t perfect but with a swag: decriminalize marijuana use and sales and then lay off 1/3 of local, state and federal law enforcement employees.
Or, put them to work doing something that actually helps to protect our lives and property.
Additional fringe benefits: reduced load in judicial system and increased housing available in the prison system.