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August 30, 2006
All Hail the Pizza Delivery Workers
A fine 18-year-old man I knew and liked was murdered walking home from his job making pizzas for a national delivery chain in the wee hours of Saturday August 26th in our Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. He was unfortunate enough to be caught alone and unarmed by predators that morning.
As a rule, the workers making the pizza deliveries are even more at risk in the course of doing their jobs.
In anticipation of all of the lionizing of state employees who carry guns and/or badges that will take place in the next few days, I want to voice a reminder to remember those individuals who do truly dangerous and unappreciated jobs like working alone in convenience stores or delivering pizza that make all of our lives better on a day-to-day basis.
Posted by Robert Jackson at 02:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 22, 2006
DIY Nuke Detector Patrols SF Bay
From Wired.com:
"Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to bolster U.S. port defenses with radiation scanners. The program, primarily aimed at detecting nukes smuggled by terrorists in shipping containers, will cost an estimated $1.15 billion, but won't be completed until 2011.
Here on the San Francisco Bay, a group of do-it-yourself volunteer researchers are not waiting for the mushroom cloud. They say they are close to perfecting a portable device that could do much the same thing right now, for total out-of-pocket costs of about $12,000."
Cheap, voluntary, and immediately deployable. That's why people acting to protect their own interests trumps the gov's blundering, bureacracy, bid process, pork barrel efforts to accomplish anything everyfookin'time!
Posted by Ali Massoud at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2006
Does 'The Daily Show' Really Make College Students More Politically Apathetic?
I for one find such a possibility laughably unlikely. Link here.
Via The Village Voice
Posted by Ali Massoud at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
August 05, 2006
A Rabbi Puts Mel Gibson's Outburst into Perspective
Says Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Gibson's remarks while drunk and the response to them by some:
"However there is another nugget of ancient Jewish wisdom emphasizing that we owe atonement for that which lies in our hearts, only to God. If I have an unworthy thought in my heart about you, I need to make good with God but I don't owe you an apology unless I act upon that thought. We humans are morally obliged to make good to other people only for those things we do, and not for any thoughts we have in our minds."
I agree. Who among us has never gotten angry, drunk, overwrought, or emotional and said things we don't truly mean and then later regretted it? I know I have. We just didn't have an LAPD video recording of us acting out or saying bad things released to the media.
Who is without sin among you cast the first stone, eh?
via LRC
Posted by Ali Massoud at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2006
Children Arrested, DNA Tested, Interrogated and Locked up... for playing in a tree
From the land of the Magna Carta comes this story from The Daily Mail.
"To the 12-year-old friends planning to build themselves a den, the cherry tree seemed an inviting source of material.
But the afternoon adventure turned into a frightening ordeal for Sam Cannon, Amy Higgins and Katy Smith after they climbed into the 20ft tree - then found themselves hauled into a police station and locked in cells for up to two hours.
Their shoes were removed and mugshots, DNA samples and mouth swabs were taken.
Officers told the children they had been seen damaging the tree which is in a wooded area of public land near their homes.
Questioned by police, the scared friends admitted they had broken some loose branches because they had wanted to build a tree house, but said they did not realise what they had done was wrong.
Officers considered charging the children with criminal damage but eventually decided a reprimand - the equivalent of a caution for juveniles - was sufficient.
Although the reprimand does not amount to court action and the children do not have a criminal record, their details will be kept on file for up to five years. "
Honestly now is crime so low in England that this really worthy of police attention? You can't make this stuff up folks.
The dangerous criminals involved shown here.
Via an STR reader in England. Thanks to Alan L.
Posted by Ali Massoud at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)