I am not very optimistic that what has happened in Dallas, New Orleans, and St. Paul or Minneapolis will change much, but I hope I am wrong. We don't need more violence from crazed vigilantes shooting up uniformed police, and we don't need any more citizens brutalized or murdered by police. It is time our politicians got their heads out of their asses and started trying to solve actual problems like this or like commercial planes landing at military airbases by mistake. We have learned nothing useful from $millions squandered on Hillary's E-Mail server or her actions and comments on the murder of state department officials in Benghazi.
The Rapid City Journal and other papers are carrying stories about police in SD hauling people they believe have ingested something that apparently only shows up in urine in hospitals or clinics and forcing them to have catheters stuck up their penis. This seems to be an indication of very impatient police who can't wait until somebody must urinate.
It also seems that if they must rely on this practice to get evidence, they did not have sufficient evidence to make an arrest to begin with. Reading this makes it sound as if we have police behaving as interrogation torture specialists in the Soviet Gulag.
And then there are the cops in New Orleans and Minneapolis acting like Nazi death squads putting six bullets into the back and chest of a guy pinned to the ground in New Orleans and in a car in Minneapolis when the cop ordered him to produce a license and then shot and killed him when he reached for it. The cop had stopped him for a broken taillight. I worked enough with law enforcement to know this is a probable cause for stopping a vehicle to determine if the driver is drunk. Apparently this guy was not drunk and had his kid and girlfriend in the vehicle. That cop should have given him a warning ticket giving him X days to fix the light and walked back to this patrol car to search for an actual problem.
Nearly every week we get news which suggests that law enforcement should not be allowed to carry guns. Police are behaving like Nazi death squads.
Time for legislators to wake up and get full and complete control of death-dealing law enforcement and full investigations of such behavior.
*** Stay tuned even if you are so naive you don't believe cops can misbehave--- Doug Wiken
The outrageous act by an Islamic extremist in Orlando, Florida is another indicator that going into a crowded "theater" with police guns blazing leaves a lot of unanswered questions that exceed problems with yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.
It is time some kind of large squirt gun that fires epoxy resin that instantly sets or similar latex that can immobilize a shooter and yet leave him in a state allowing interrogation and trial be developed for police SWAT teams. At least something like this would not also kill or maim innocent civilians irreversibly.
And, this is another case perhaps of grateful immigrants escaping tyranny to then produce another generation in the US that turns out to be ungrateful traitors and terrorists. There is a set of fundamental problems with allowing any Islamists into the country that may not be immediately obvious. They desire a government and religion that is one and the same and that is not consistent with modern democratic societies and government systems.
This Islamist terrorism may produce a US managed by Donald Trump and all current aliens and others interested in coming to the US to live like they did in the hellholes they left will be stopped at our borders or exiled.
It may seem terribly harsh, but the Israeli practice of demolishing homes of terrorists would send a message to US immigrants to raise their children as loyal Americans and make sure they stay that way.
Of course, tomorrow or next week may bring us new information making this all irrelevant or inappropriate.
Not too often that SD gets mentioned in Atlantic Monthly of all places. Now and then an author from SD gets mentioned. The recent reference to South Dakota was less than flattering however.
In a story on botched executions, South Dakota is mentioned...not for botched executions, but for the prison buying murderous drugs perhaps illegally. When drug companies stopped selling drugs made for one purpose, but used by states to make state-sponsored murder and revenge possible, the states started looking for drugs in odd places.
So they looked even further afield. In late 2010, a company in Mumbai, Kayem Pharmaceuticals, received an email from the Nebraska Department of Correctional services. Officials there wanted an anesthetic that Kayem made mostly clients in Angola: Sodium Thiopental. Kayem sold Nebraska 500 vials, enough for more than 80 executions. Soon after, Fox's boss wrote to Kayem to explain how Nebraska planned to use their product. When South Dakota officials tried to place an order, Kayem jacked up the price to $20 per vial, hoping the cost would dissuade them. It didn't. South Dakota bought 500 vials. Kayem stopped selling the drug to the use immediately after that.
(The above was found on page 73 of the June 2015 ATLANTIC MONTHLY)
It appears that the US DEA seized several states collection of prison execution drugs purchased imported illegally since a company Hospira was the only pharmaceutical company allowed to sell it in the US and they refused to sell it to prisons for executions, South Dakota is not listed as one of the states where drugs were seized however.
I find it ironic that those we trust to enforce laws honestly are willing to purchase drugs illegally or with deception to facilitate "painless" executions. I find many murders terrible, egregious, vicious, primitive, etc. I can understand why some people (especially relatives of those savagely murdered) think these thugs ought to be executed. These particularly terrible cases make it seem executions should be practiced. But, it is said that tough cases make bad law.
The problem however is that our government systems are not perfect or often even honest, or even really scientifically correct or knowledgeable in collecting evidence or applying it. The FBI was recently determined to have used a very flawed hair identification system that put apparently several hundred people in prisons, many who were later shown to be innocent by better data and perhaps nine completely innocent executed as well. Couple these flawed systems with incompetent police investigations and prosecutors and judges altogether too willing to exploit murder cases for political gain and we have systems that become murder machines in the name of all of us.
Life sentences should be preferable to irreversible state-sanctioned murder when the systems are all possibly flawed so that innocent people can be executed in primitive revenge systems. We are all dirtied by the death penalty. It is also very unlikely that it actually deters crimes.
It is interesting that our neighbor red state, Nebraska, is now seriously considering ending the death penalty there.
Commentary of all kinds is turning up on the French tragedy of Islamicist terrorists murdering innocents. Below are a couple links with info and perspectives worth reading.
It seems to me that both of these pieces even if coming from different perspectives and world views support my idea in the previous post here. The only way to stop attacks on media by governments and fanatical murdering terrorist pigs is to give them what they are against in spades. The Chrlie Hebdo articles should be printed in every media outlet that claims to prize freedom of speech and press. Freedom of speech and press is meaningless if it only applies to commercial speech or that approved by religious or government control freaks.
***Stay tuned and for sure Sunday gasbags will talk this all to near death--Doug Wiken
This may just be one of my one-day devil theories, but I suspect the enhanced interrogation (otherwise known as torture) utilized by the Bush administration CIA and contractors with a wink and nod from Cheney and the AG has also impacted police behavior in the US. Might more than a few law enforcement types be thinking, "If the Bush administration approves of this, why can't we get tougher on those we suspect of misdeeds and law breaking"?
Some of the worst kinds of police were probably glad to see the excesses of the Bush Administration on the terrorists. Before that administration was done, school kids were being charged with terrorism for bringing a paring knife to school with an apple and librarians were viewed as treasonous for not spying and reporting on library readers who might have been reading up on something besides Moses parting the sea.
Of course, we might hope that those excesses of "enhanced interrogration" were viewed as so egregious by US law enforcement that they all decided to clean up their acts. Me thinks that might be a bit naive however.
So, do you think that perhaps the worst effect of the acts now being reported in the Senate report may be what that did to inspire US law enforcement to do their very worst ? Let me know. And remember, it is not the Senate report which might cause more problems, it is the initial inappropriate behavior of US intelligence and anti-terrorism officials.
**** Stay tuned and keep your head down--- Doug Wiken
Recently, I wanted to use a USB connection between a printer and a computer for my son. We were getting some bread at Walmart, so we checked price of a cable there. It was $18.95. That seemed high. Went to Office Max since it was nearby. There the price was about $27.99, but we had a couple $10 discount cards so what the hell, we bought it. Next day, my wife was looking for housewares at Target, so we checked USB cable price there... $15. That was quite a spread for regular prices. I was looking for some storage boxes at Shopko which usually has most ridiculous pricing, but surprise--price was $9.99. And just for more aggravation, just checked Amazon--$3.98. I can understand a few percentage points difference, but this is a range of prices from 3 to 1 to 9 to 1. There is no guarantee that any store usually has the best prices or even that they don't have a completely ridiculously high price.
More pricing fun. A few weeks ago some bastards stole my working battery charger and left the one that was not working. They also smashed windows on a car. I reported thefts and vandalism to Sheriff, but that is like pissing into the wind in Tripp County. Rural crime is never reported in newspaper and apparently is buried in a file the minute one walks out the door. Anyway, Runnings had a "sale" on chargers a couple weeks ago. Marked down $40 to something like $129. It was the only deal locally. Last Sunday, we noticed Menards in Rapid City had a charger with more capacity that also worked with both 6 and 12 volt for $89.99. I now again have two working chargers.
I am starting to wonder if sales downturns and buyer hesitancy are related to customers getting so pissed off and confused by absurd price differences because we never know for sure if we are actually getting a fair price or getting royally screwed. Some merchandisers probably mostly safely assume that we aren't going to drive miles burning up gas just to compare prices with their competitors. It is not necessarily a safe assumption with internet price checking possible... and, when one relatively small purchase can pay for driving about 500 miles round trip.
Huge markups of course help pay those absurdly high CEO salaries when CEOs seem to think they are so special that the first thing a new one does is increase product prices 15 or 20 percent just to show how he or she can really increase profits.
***Stay tuned, but buyer beware ALWAYS-- Doug Wiken
ISIS Radical Religionists loot (as in rob, steal, thieve) and impose harsh Sharia law.
The document added that Isis wish to destroy all shrines and graves, in reference to Shia shrines in towns such as Samarra where fighting is continuing.
"For those asking who are you? We are soldiers of Islam and took on our responsiblity to bring back glory of the Islamic Caliphate.
"Money we took from [the] Safavid government is now public. Only Imam of Muslims can spend it. Anyone who steals [will have their] hands cut," the document translation read.
Stealing is apparently in the mind of the lunatic religionists. They would cut the hands off some poor soul who steals a loaf of bread or a goat, but they themselves loot a bank. Lunacy like this makes the idea of radioactive glowing sand in all areas polluted with these crazies seem like an ever better idea. Better check with the mideast expert Dick Cheney on this first however.
*** Stay tuned, the day is yet young and the mail truck broke down, so mail is late in the boondocks today--- Doug Wiken
I watched most of PBS NewsHour on SDPB-TV earlier this evening. Elizabeth Drew was interviewed about her updated book on Nixon and Watergate. Her latest version of Washington Journal is available in hardcover and soon in Kindle version at Amazon.
I had not seen or read much from Elizabeth Drew for several years and also not a whole lot of anybody remembering Watergate and tricky Dick. My wife and I watched McNeil and Lehrer nearly every night they covered the Watergate hearings. That was the beginning of an evening news program on PBS. It was interesting and a bit frightening to read comments on the book like, "I remember my parents talking about TV coverage......" Well, I can remember the TV coverage even if it was a bit snowy in those days.
I guess I am a sucker for such books and I ordered it tonight. Another reminder of those days was the recent destruction of the garage where an insider passed on "secrets" to reporters. Elizabeth Drew more or less said this book is her attempt to keep the memory of those days alive. It is her perhaps self-interested position that knowledge of Watergate is important for those who did not live through it vicariously compliments of PBS and SDPB-TV.
***Stay tuned, if I get my new glasses, I might even get the fine print (about the only complaint about the book) in the book read-- Doug Wiken
US Ag dept e-mail has a scam warning copied below:
SCAM ALERT: Phone Scam Alleging Association with USDA Farm Service Agency
It has been brought to the attention of USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) that a phone scam is being perpetrated on FSA customers.
The caller, who identifies themselves as a Farm Loan Services representative out of Washington, D.C. states that FSA “owes” you disaster assistance funds and proceeds to request your checking account information or requests a credit card number alleging that funds will be credited to these accounts.
SHOULD YOU RECEIVE A SIMILAR CALL, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, PROVIDE PERSONAL OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION TO THE CALLER.
Please share this alert with family, freinds and neighbors.
Residents of South Dakota. Check your broadband speed with the SD Speedtest. Your test will both let you know how speedy is your ISP and also help get us better service in South Dakota.
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