Archive for Law & Order - page 2

What else is new?  Jumping off my ealier rant (scroll down) about Liberal Utopia Building in California, here’s a perfect example of our “leaders” using a bad idea to solve a non-existent problem.  Remember – when the government steps in to help, you’re either going to have your pocket picked or your going to get…umm…”molested”.  If you know what I mean and I think you do.

Case in point:  California Outlaws Plastic Bags and Ignore The Evidence.

Again, what else is new.  When the Legislature’s in session, there’s work to be done.  We don’t have time for “evidence” and “logic”.

….Ms. Lewisnsky“.  Poor thing.  Hasn’t she been humiliated enough already?

Yes, Monica Lewinsky has emerged from her self-imposed exile in what appears to be an attempt to rehabilitate her image.  She has recently published an article in Vanity Fair magazine, and given a speech to young entrepeneurs at the Forbes 30 under 30 Summit, staking a claim on victimhood over the entire…*ahem*…affair.  Don’t get me wrong;  I have a certain amount of sympathy for her inasmuch as I believe she was a naive young woman, was used and discarded by a powerful man.  I mean, she says she was “in love” with The President and thought they had a shot a being together.  All I can say about that is either she was (is?) extremely naive, perhaps dangerously so, or Clinton really laid it on thick to get what he wanted.  I mean, c’mon.  Hillary’s just going to fade away so Monica can have Bill all to herself?  Not likely.  Monica would end up in Fort Marcy Park before that would happen.  In the context of those events, yes, she was victimized.  But she doesn’t acknowledge that victimization.  She claims she was victimized by…The Internet.  And Matt Drudge.  And Ken Starr.  What about Bill?  I LOVED him…so he’s blameless.  Except, he’s not.  He’s the only one to blame.  Stroll down memory lane, if you will, courtesy of The Other McCain.  If your memory of how events unfolded is foggy, a Robert Stacy McCain slap upside your head will bring things into focus.

Yes, this as an attempt at image rehabilitation with a twist.  By that I mean that I’m not so sure that this whole image rehabilitation was her idea.  Could this have anything to do with the resurgent Clinton Political Dynasty?  Is Hillary clearing the scandal spindle?  Hmmm…let’s think for a minute.  Cui Bono?  Who does this help?  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there was a little bird (winged monkey?) whispering in Monica’s ear.  I mean, why now?  And why cast the blame everywhere except where it truly belongs – on the shoulders of William Jefferson Clinton?

Monica: “Something something it’s not Bill’s fault!  I still love you, Bill! wink wink”.

Who thinks that’s a good idea?  Nobody sane, that’s who.  And so I don’t think the victimization of Monica Lewinsky is over.  He used her once, he’s gonna use her again.  War on Women, indeed.

Of course, it happened in Japan:

Tokyo Cops Bust School Girl Sniff Parlor

I’m still trying to decide if that’s for real or if it’s a hoax.  If it’s a hoax, someone put a lot of time into it.  Since truth is often stranger than fiction, I guess there’s a good chance it’s true.  On second thought, it’s Japan.  So it’s gotta be true.

Now this:

One of the conventional wisdoms of the liberal orthodoxy has long been the belief that zealous religious moralists wished to station themselves at your bedroom door and listen for any… *ahem*… unnatural acts occuring inside so that the perpetrators of said acts could be condemned and shamed, if not outright prosecuted and jailed.  Makes perfect sense, right?  It’s the church ladies of the right who demand strict moral adherence to their dogma, especially when talking to the young ‘uns.  You college kids!  Keep it in your pants!  Or keep it out of your pants!  Or keep your pants on!  Or panties!  Or something!  Talk about a buzzkill. Way to ruin Saturday nights.

But that was then.  This is now.

And now The Good Guys are in charge, so maybe we do need a few rules in the bedroom.  For the children.  The California Legislature got right on that.  The Governor got right on that.  Hmmm…maybe poor choice of words.  What I mean is that the Legislature wrote the bill and the Governor signed it.  Now we have the Affirmative Consent Law.  For The Children®.  Or at least the Female children.  The Male children?  Not so much.  We had to do something because of the rape epidemic.  Haven’t you heard?  All sex is rape – check that – all heterosexual sex is rape.  Therefore all men are rapists.  Oh.  No wonder.  Carry on, then.

I’d like to first welcome any new readers, then give some background and answer some questions about the blog.

*taps the microphone*  Is this thing on?

Ego Vero is my little corner of the internet where I can transform thoughts and ideas that are rattling around inside my head into a form of reality by comitting them to writing.  Ego Vero is Latin for “I seek truth”.  I have invited you along on my journey which may take us along strange paths.  This means I may write about any of several general topics that interest me and for whatever reason occupy my thoughts.  The articles (which are called “posts”) on the home page are in chronological order – newest at the top, older below – and not sorted by category.  As you scroll down you go back in time and see every post covering every subject.  If you don’t wish to see all the categories, you can narrow things down to one category at a time.  Here’s how.  You will see these categories listed on the right hand side of the page – clicking on one of those categories will show you only the posts on that subject.  Let’s say you are an aviation buff who only wants to read my aviation posts and avoid the rest of my blather about Empiricism, robots, music and so on – click on “Aviation” and voila!  You will see only the aviation posts – still in chronological order with the newest at the top.  Same goes for any of the categories.

The category with the most posts by far is “Life”.  Just FYI

You know – Life – as in Life One and Life Two (three? four?……)

Any red text you see within a post contains a link to additional information – an article I used for reference, perhaps another related post I wrote, or a wikipedia link, etc.  Clink on the red text and the link should open in a new tab.

My goal first and foremost is to get these ideas out of my head!  Read the “About” page for more background.  But I invite you, dear reader, in the hope that we may learn something together about ourselves and each other.  And that you may be at least somewhat entertained in the process.  I welcome your feedback via the comments.  To the left of each post title is a two colored box – the top half is red and indicates the date the post was created.  The bottom half is grey and says “comments”.  The number  – which is almost always zero, dammit – indicates how many comments readers have left about the post.  Click on that grey box and you can leave a comment about the post.  Please do!  Your e-mail adress will not be published, shared or used by me in any way.  And there is definitely a slim chance that I will not stalk you.

For more, read How to Read This Here Blog Thingy and For New Readers – Welcome!

So Welcome!  And enjoy.

AP:  Marijuana Industry Battling Stoner Stereotypes

Recreational marijuana use having been recently legalized in Colorado, the Marijuana Industry (AP’s language) is looking for ways to increase sales.  I wrote about this in an April 22nd, 2014 post at The Men Out Of Work Blog: Marketing Marijuana In Colorado…

Though the law has changed, the cultural battle lines are the same.  Opponents still argue that marijuana use has risks, especially for youths.  Proponents object to the use of stereotypes in campaigns that warn of potential risks.  And one thing is for certain – the marijuana industry – whatever you want to call it – has the goal of increasing marijuana sales, and to do that it must minimize any stigma associated with it’s use and increase the customer base.  Translation:  get more people to use pot.

I don’t think that is a good thing.

Spare me your slings and arrow for a few minutes while I explain.  The older I get, the more libertarian I get.  Notice the small “l”.  Personally, I think that if you want to smoke pot, you should be free to do so.  But now that it’s legal, it’s turned into a business.  And a business’ first and foremost goal is to grow…and grow…and grow some more.  Keep growing, year after year.  That means either the same people have to use a lot more pot, or – more likely – more people have to start using and keep using it.  And I believe that there is no upside to more people using (or abusing) a mood-altering drug.

Spare me the lecture about alcohol.  Yes, it’s legal and often abused.  That is not an argument for adding one more substance to the pallette of legally abusable substances.  Many people use alcohol responsibly.  But can you argue that there is a benefit to society if more people use alcohol, responsibly or otherwise?  Well, I guess you could argue it, but would you?  I wouldn’t.

I am not a prudish teetotaller.  I use alcohol.  I have used marijuana.  In the past, both to excess.  In hindsight I can truthfully say that I would not have misssed out on anything had I never used marijuana.  Using it had costs to me that were financial, physical and intellectual.  Had I been thinking rationally, I would have opted out.  But I did not…because I was not thinking rationally…because I was young.

The legalization of a substance, advertising it and minimizing the stigmas associated with it’s use will have an impact on the most impressionable in our society – young people.  So let’s be careful.  It’s legal, so go ahead, smoke up.  Advertise responsibly.  But let’s not pretend that there are no risks.

Most of all let’s not hide the risks from young people who are most at risk of making foolish impulsive decisions that may affect them for a lifetime.

A minor internet kerfuffle has erupted over the introduction of an app called “Sketch Factor”.  Sketch Factor is a crowd source app where users can upload information they find “sketchy” about their neighborhood or wherever they happen to be.  This is then added to map data and can be used to avoid, or if you’re looking for sketchiness, to find certain neighborhoods.  Some on the internet have declared the app “racist”.  Here’s the logic:

Step 1:  The app was created by two young white people,

Step 2:  All smartphone users are affluent white people,

Step 3:  All white people distrust black people and find them “sketchy”,

Step 4:  Therefore white people will use the app to flag black neighborhoods and black people as “sketchy”.

Step 5:  Racism!

I suppose that my labeling of some neighborhoods as “bad” is confirmation of my “racism”.  I am a firm believer in situational awareness and minimizing risk, and so I would find this app usefull especially if I was in a strange town.  I don’t see at all how that equates to racism.  A lot of the discussion of the app seems centered on Washington, D.C. maybe because the Gawker writer lives there (I think).  Anyway, a Washington D.C. news crew went out to do a story about one of the neighborhoods identified as “sketchy”, and while they were doing man on the street interviews with the residents there something happened:  “but as folks were telling us that it was a good neighborhood, and that not much activity happens around there — as that was being told to us, our van was being robbed.”    

So…Sketch Factor: 10 out of 10.  I wonder if they reported the incident.  Probably not, that would be racist.

I suppose I could make this a “real life irony” post.  When the ACLU requested information from the Justice Department regarding the Government’s monitoring of citizen’s text messages without a warrant, they received in response a document that was completely redacted:

Totally Redacted FOIA response

Related:  The Department of Education employs a FOIA Denial Officer.  Perfect.

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

Via The Volohk Conspiracy and other sundry sources I have forgotten, we  have this story about a photographer, a macauqe monkey, a camera purloined by said monkey, a selfie taken by said monkey with the purloined camera and back to the photographer who wishes to assert copyright of the photo.

Since I have it on good authority that I can reproduce the photo without violation of any copyright:

Cowabunga, dude. Oh wait. That was a turtle. Never mind.

Seems like a pretty happy monkey.  Anyhoo…the photographer himself is the source of the story that the photo was not taken by him, but by the monkey.  Since the photo is not the photographer’s work, he cannot claim copyright over it.  Since the monkey is non-human, he (it?) cannot claim copyright either.  Therefore according to copyright law, the copyright belongs to no one.  So…..monkey selfies for everyone!