James Madison called and wants to know why people of the 21st century are having a partison debate on which of two presidents did a better job cleaning up after natural disasters when neither possessed the authority to do so. I hope it's OK that I told him he left us with a government that routinely exceeds its authority, with the consent of the least informed citizens.
It's interesting to watch this debate on the quality of the federal government's post-disaster cleanup in the affected states following Hurricane Sandy.
Isn't there something objectively wrong in expecting presidents to exercise authority of medieval kings?
On the floor of the US House of Representatives James Madison said he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right of Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. (See the Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 3rd Congress, 1st Session, page 170.)
Those objects of benevolence Madison refers to are compulsory levies imposed on the people with no other authority than the claim of prerogative -- authority we typically attribute to medieval kings, not a US President who is supposed to be constrained by a charter that traditionally limits government powers to the general welfare, of all the people.
Would we be having this conversation if government didn't routinely exceed its authority, with the consent of the least informed citizens?
In our society we have elected and civic leaders that fully expect the citizens to graciously accept their representations of the laws of the universe without question. The people are well to let others do the important thinking, like judging the validity of evidence. Critical thinking is not encouraged.
In science, well-founded ideas are advanced if they are open to scrutiny and are peer-reviewable. But ideas of politicians requires a measure of faith and trust in their character.
The First and Second Amendments are there precisely because government is not to be trusted, but watched and held accountable by the people and their press -- with arms, if necessary.
Punishing all decent people for the sins of predators is injustice for all and an exercise in futility for those who need to be stopped.
To think imposing sensitivity training on grown-ass men will prevent sexual harassment is to pretend we don't see and understand the modus-operandi of sexual predators, whom often openly devise identifiable traps for their prey.
KCCI 8 News' Eric Hanson and Elizabeth Klinge interviewed Acting-Governor Kim Reynolds on its local Sunday show "Close Up." They asked her what she felt her role is with respect to sexual harassment allegations at the statehouse.
On this issue I don't want to just beat up on Reynolds because she's the usual punching bag; her tactics and viewpoint are shared across ideological lines. But does anyone think sexual harassment is something decent men wouldn't understand without the state's highest elected official "setting the tone" and imposing training? That's theater.
I submit to you that we can't train away sexual harassment, that all of us have to expose it and remove the offenders, and grownups need to recognize and eliminate the traps predators devise to lure their victims.
I wouldn't waste one second trying to explain expectations to someone whom otherwise would engage in sexual harassment, or assault, or bullying. Leaders need to remove the veils and create an open and transparent environment that enables and encourages our best selves, individually and as a collective, to be on full display.
It’s not enough that the race to the White House is a billion-dollar industry unto itself, if business & political interests have a say (and they always do) you'll soon be inundated by a sea of unblockable voicemails aimed at leveraging cash & votes for all manner of elected office -- under purported free speech guise, no less.
A political party wants to circumvent long standing telco conventions, the "do not call" list, U.S. law, spam filters, and frankly common decency, in order to foist marketing robo-call voicemails, en masse, into your phone, without it even ringing. It’s called “ringless voicemail” and this isn’t the first time it’s come up.
Get this. They’re saying it’s not disruptive because there’s no ring.
The tactic is of course being sought to raise money for their election campaigns and to placate business interests. Politicians have conveniently written themselves legal exceptions to rules others have to follow, and they’re suggesting the FCC carve out a ruling that clears the way for this new way to quietly force themselves into your life.
It’s yet another example of the privileged class putting their own interests above all others, at the expense, and to the dismay of the people who elected them.
You might have thought you had a right to be left alone, but the commercialized political machine is performing some clever acrobatics with the Bill of Rights and logic & reason by threatening the FCC with this bizarre rationale: “The Commission should tread carefully so as not to burden constitutionally protected political speech without a compelling interest."
Sadly for marketers voicemail is on the decline as a common mode of messaging, and forced stealth voicemail will likely speed up its extinction. People who actually know one another are increasingly more likely to use SMS or social media to reach out to each other.
Police say a small black handgun was displayed during a robbery Monday night. The Quick Star convenience store at 2701 Ingersoll Avenue was robbed Monday around 6:00 PM. Witnesses say a small brown vehicle was used by the perpetrator, which fled north on 28th Street. Officers patrolled the area looking for the vehicle. It's thought that a Chevrolet Cavalier that was reported stolen earlier in the day, spray painted gold could have been the suspect vehicle in the robbery. Case# 10791.
Florence, TX -- Phillip "The Battousai" Turner observes Texas State Trooper Jim Kellert speeding. The following conversation ensues.
Trooper Jim Kellert (walking out of c-store, beverage in hand)
Hi, how are ya?
Mr. Turner, The Battousai
Hi. Can I talk to you for a second?
Trooper Kellert
I don't have much time, to be honest, okay? I'm in a little bit of a hurry, alright?
The Battousai
I just need to get your name and badge number.
Trooper Kellert
Why's that?
The Battousai
Just asking for it.
Trooper Kellert
For what reason?
The Battousai
Because I saw you speeding and I was just asking.
Trooper Kellert
Oh, you did? Um. Really? Oh, well, that's, uh. You're on foot here and I didn't see you along the road anywhere I was driving. Are you sure you got the right vehicle?
The Battousai
I'm sure.
Trooper Kellert
Hmm. And which vehicle is yours?
The Battousai
What's that?
Trooper Kellert
What's your name, sir?
The Battousai
I don't have to give you that. I'm just asking for your name and badge number.
Trooper Kellert
Well then I don't have to provide you with the information you're asking for.
The Battousai
You're really not going to give me your name and badge number?
(The trooper get's in his cruiser, shuts the door and starts the engine.)
(Phillip walks to the front of the car and captures the front tag, #06549.)
Trooper Kellert (stepping from his car, engine running.)
It's right here, sir. Come here. Now what are you driving?
The Battousai
I'm just asking for your name and badge number.
Trooper Kellert
And why is that? You didn't give me, uh, uh, a legitimate reason.
The Battousai
I said you were speeding and I'm just asking for your name and badge number ... so I can file a complaint, now.
Trooper Kellert
Oh. Very good.
The Battousai
You got a busines card?
Trooper Kellert
Yeah, whatever. I know which group you're with. And I'm also recording you.
The Battousai
You know which what I'm with?
(The trooper re-enters his vehicle and drives off.)
Last week I tried my hand at fettuccine after watching Jamie Oliver teach a class how it's done. It all looked so easy!
I failed. My dough was too dry, and therefore too tough to knead properly. I also didn't own a pasta machine, so my handcrafted results were thick, rubbery noodles.
Enter the Marcato Atlas 150 and another attempt at the dough and...
Ah ha! Fettuccine is perfected!
100g AP flour
1 lg egg + olive oil = 60 ml
+ 1 T water to 74 ml
Mixing this almost killed my $20, 10-year-old food processor, I managed it and it made the kneading fast & easy! Still, I'm putting the Cuisinart on my Christmas list.
Now the one-minute sauce: diced tomatoes (Fareway hydroponics, even), olive oil, butter, Italian seasoning, garlic, salt & pepper, cayenne.
I tossed a handful of fettuccine in boiling salted water. Then I added the oil & garlic to a hot pan. Next the diced tomatoes and seasoning by the seat of my pants. After cooking for what couldn't have been 2 minutes I dumped the noodles into the sauce. Some fancy chef type pan flipping and 30 seconds later I was sliding the colorful appetizer onto a plate. Tasty!
Next I cut open the seasoned butterfly chop & green beans that had been in the sous vide bath at 155° F for the past 3 hours, just hanging out & waiting patiently for me to finish my pasta. I seared the chop for a minute in olive oil and garlic, then plated along with my buttered green beans. The pork was tender and juicy, and with a pull of horseradish mustard I was back in my hometown. lovin' life!
We've discussed the relative safety of being a cop as a backdrop to the constitutionality of cops in general, using the narrative of Roger Roots' piece Are Cops Constitutional? from the nineties.
Does "radical Islam" refer only to an extremist faction of Islam, or are we talking about all who identify with the Islamic faith? If there's any debate whether it means the latter, then I think it lacks diplomacy and tact and maturity, and a person occupying the Oval Office is justified in avoiding such inflammatory labels.
Context does matter. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) says the president should use the words, but Manchin himself isn't generalizing; he's speaking of acts of ISIS and some who evoke the extremist group, not the whole of the Muslim community.
Regardless of whether Islamic doctrine calls for violence, there are those within the community who strongly believe Islam is inherently a peaceful belief system. It'll be a fruitless endeavor to school people on their own beliefs, and in attempting to do so will undoubtedly ensure nothing useful is achieved in the campaign to end violence.
Holy moly, when did Bill Maher turn into an apologist for RIAA, the healthcare complex and the entire edu-capitalist-rats?
Look, Napster didn't become the music industry's poster child equivalent of dining-and-dashing, but it did an effective job of revealing what an antiquated music distribution system we had. And it showed how to build one that made it easy for music fans to get what they want. And then Apple capitalized on it in a way that got artists paid for their works.
Free college? It doesn't have to be free, but how about NOT locking all the formally accredited knowledge of the universe behind a gigantic paywall? We're still waiting for Khan Academy to disrupt the corrupt university scams and show how inexpensive and efficient a 21st education can be.
Finally, healthcare cost, in case you've been living in a rich-man's bubble, is consuming the earnings of the working man … BEFORE HE EVEN GETS SICK! So while we're holding out for a Steve Jobs-style disruption to get us access to first-aid and disease treatment that leaves bankers at the curb, we’re going to lean on the government a little, if you don’t mind.
Well, they're at it again. We've watched our local Fox affiliate and Mediacom struggle during contract negotiations, and now we see Tribune Broadcasting (owners of Channel 13/Des Moines and WGN-9/Chicago) doing battle. While the two sides negotiate carriage fees, the public posturing has gotten ugly and painful to watch.
It’s hard for the typical viewer to unpack what’s really going on and we’re left to wonder. Is Dish really being a bully and threatening to unfairly yank Channel 13 off its system? Or is Tribune Media using its news anchors and commercial inventory (and coaxing viewers to make demands on its behalf) to extort more money from Dish subscribers for programming that anyone can get free over the air?
In either case, this is the first time I can remember seeing members of our local community and news media -- actual TV news anchors -- being drawn into a fight between multi-billion-dollar corporations in this way. As a 35-year broadcaster it's unsettling to watch news anchors, in the middle of news broadcasts, have to regurgitate from a script, veiled as news, such slanted copy designed to leverage a negotiating position … and by telling viewers to call Dish and do Tribune's bidding.
For our viewers who are Dish subscribers, we want to take a moment to share some important information with you. You're tuned into Channel 13 now because you value our connection to you and to our community. But we need to let you know something. You may lose our news and all programming on WHO-HD, including those Summer Games from Rio because Dish may force us off their system, denying you the shows and events you value, that you pay for. But this doesn't have to happen. You have a powerful vote to cast and you can do it right now. Call Dish at 855-MY-WHO13 and demand that you continue getting Channel 13 and the Summer Olympic Games and all the programs that you care about without any interruption.
YouTuber 'superrick568' posted this video. We presume he is the unseen individual being dressed down by the officer in this video.
Officer "Let me see your ID!" Lentz is an outstanding ambassador for the city of Milwaukee and his department ... with his combative and adversarial tone, saying nothing of his demands for ID and veiled threats. And Sergeant "That's just him!" Carpenter is fine example of a police supervisor ... with her dismissive attitude toward a citizen complaint.
I enjoyed that deflating moment at around 3:15 when Lentz realized he'd been beaten. All he had for you after that point was schoolyard sarcasm.
"On 03/05/16 the Milwaukee police went on a ticket writing bonanza. I filmed this guy and his partner three times in less than an hour. There were so many stops within a 2 mile radius that I couldn't keep up. The third time got to him and he demanded my I.D. ."
Peace Officers
Officer "Let me see your ID!" Lentz, badge #1763
Sergeant "That's just him." Carpenter, badge #389
One of the first techniques you want to see from a police making a stop is de-escalation of a potentially adversarial encounter. But there was none of that here. Officer Lentz was in a fully-escalated mode when he briskly walked up to the individual and got right in his face and demanded ID, refusing to take "no" for an answer.
Officer Lentz was unnecessarily aggressive and hostile, combative, badgering and harassing toward the individual he stopped, shouting commands to "show me your ID!" and lambasting him for "following [the officers] around."
In merely watching the video of the officer's hostile and continuous rain of belligerently yelling orders, the intense verbal tirade against the individual, one senses the intimidation created by the officer during the encounter was palpable to anyone.
I may be bothered most by Sergeant Carpenter's dismissive response to the complaint, saying "That's just him."
CONTROLLING DEMEANOR and REPEATED COMMANDS AMOUNT TO DETENTION
Telling the individual to produce identification and "I wanna know who you are" no less than two-dozen times amounts to a demand by any reasonably peaceful observer. Because of the officer's behavior and commanding tone, no court would have considered this encounter a consensual one; this was a full-on investigative detention.
We don't need to be terribly intimate with the American lexicon to understand the power of veiled threats by police officers. Among the most interesting ones is designed to maintain deniability should he be challenged on it: "I'm only going to tell you once." Or, "I'm going to give you one more chance to comply." The denial: "I never actually threatened [to arrest] him."
What can't be denied, though, is that, even though ambiguously stated, warning that you're only going to say something one more time is both powerful, and a universally-underststood threat that some form of consequences will ensue if complicency isn't achieved quickly and forthrightly -- even if the exact consequences aren't spelled out. In fact, oftentimes it's the vagueness of the threat, the fear of the unknown, that becomes the most intimidating factor of such a veiled threat.
------------------ 0:00 ------------------
(Officer Lentz gets out of car at curbside and approaches superrick568. Lentz's tone indicates a clear frustration.)
------------------ 0:14 ------------------
Officer Lentz
"Okay, now that you're filming me and everything, let me see your ID."
superrick568
"What am I doing?"
Officer Lentz
"Right now?"
superrick568
"Yeah."
Officer Lentz
"Let me see your ID!"
superrick568
"Why?"
Officer Lentz
"Why?"
superrick568
"Yeah, why?"
Officer Lentz
"Because, I wanna know who you are, why you keep following us around. You can film all you want and that's fine with me..."
superrick568
"I know I can."
Officer Lentz
"But I still wanna know who you are."
superrick568
"I'm not asking permission."
Officer Lentz
"I wanna know who you are, so let me see your ID."
superrick568
"Unless I've done something wrong, I'm not going to."
Officer Lentz
"Right now?"
superrick568
"Yeah."
Officer Lentz
"You are doing something wrong."
superrick568
"What's that?"
Officer Lentz
"I just asked you for your identification. I need to know who you are because you are sitting out here filming us. With all the crazy stuff going around in this world nowadays, I am worried ... yes I am ... for my safety, their safety (pointing to his left) and anybody else out here right now."
superrick568
"Uh huh."
Officer Lentz
"You can keep filming me. Let me see your ID. I'm gonna take a look and then you can film me all you want."
------------------ 1:00 ------------------
superrick568
"What's my ID gonna tell you?"
Officer Lentz
"It's gonna tell me who you are and make sure that you're not somebody that's doing crazy things out here."
superrick568
"How you gonna tell that by my [identification]?"
Officer Lentz
"Because I'm gonna run you."
superrick568
"That's not gonna tell you anything..."
Officer Lentz
"Yes it is. Go ahead and bring it out. You can film me all day, brother, I don't care."
superrick568
"I haven't done anything wrong."
Officer Lentz
"That's why they're called field contact interviews. Now you've brought yourself to us, now I wanna know who you are!"
superrick568
"Uh huh."
Officer Lentz
"So let me see your ID, please."
------------------ 1:26 ------------------
superrick568
“Is that a lawful request?”
Officer Lentz
“Yes it is.”
superrick568
“Or an order?”
Officer Lentz
“Na-I'm asking you, let me see your driver's license or your ID please.”
superrick568
“I'm denying that.”
Officer Lentz
“Okay then, why don't you just turn around and walk away.”
superrick568
“Cuz I'm not going to.”
Officer Lentz
“Then let me see your ID. I'm only gonna ask you one more time.”
superrick568
“Wait, I just asked you…“
Officer Lentz
“Let me see your ID.”
superrick568
“I just ask you if...”
Officer Lentz
“I just asked you, and I gave you my reason why I'm out here talking to you now.”
superrick568
“Unless I've violated...”
Officer Lentz
“Now I want...you are violating my rights right now”
superrick568
“Why?”
Officer Lentz
“Because you're stopping us from doing our job pertaining to him over there.”
superrick568
“But he's still doing it.”
Officer Lentz
“There's two of us here. There's two of 'em in the car. Right now you are creating a disturbance. “
superrick568
“I'm not creating a disturbance.”
Officer Lentz
“Yes you are.”
superrick568
“I'm not in your investigation at all.”
Officer Lentz
“You're taking me away...”
superrick568
“I'm 25 to 30 feet away.”
Officer Lentz
“Yes you are. You're taking away our concern because I gotta look for our safety, I gotta look for our safety as well as theirs' in the car. Let me see your ID.”
superrick568
“All I got is a camera.”
Officer Lentz
“I'm asking you, let me see your ID.”
superrick568
“Sir, I've done nothing wrong.”
Officer Lentz
“Yes you are! You're interrupting our investigation here.”
superrick568
“What statute is that?”
Officer Lentz
“What did I just tell you? It's a safety-for officers and for the people in the car. You followed from over there, and Tower, all the way over here, and now you got my concern going. You can film all you want, I don't have a problem with that. Okay? But I do wanna know who you are. And yes…”
Officer Lentz
“You're being filmed, too.”
superrick568
“Alright. Good.”
Officer Lentz
“So let me see your ID.”
superrick568
“Unless I've violated a law...”
Officer Lentz
“A field- a contact- a field interview contact I can ask you for your information, yes I can.”
superrick568
“Sir, I'm not gonna give you any ID.”
Officer Lentz
“Let me see your ID.”
superrick568
“I'm not gonna give you any.”
Officer Lentz
“Why not?”
superrick568
“Cuz I don't have to. Because I've...”
Officer Lentz
“You got something to hide from me?”
superrick568
“I didn't do-I-I...”
Officer Lentz
“I'm asking you, you got something to hide from me?”
superrick568
“I didn't do anything to show you an ID.”
Officer Lentz
“Right now you did. You're creating my … awareness …”
superrick568
“Will you call your supervisor?”
Officer Lentz
“… and you brought me out here.”
superrick568
“Can you call your supervisor?”
Officer Lentz
“I can bring- I can call a supervisor.”
superrick568
“Call 'em out here.”
------------------ 3:15 ------------------
(Officer Lentz turns around and appears to be making a radio call)
