2011 archive
Your Lyin’ Eyes 0
Bloomberg looks at the report on eye-witness identifications in criminal cases from the Innocence Project, the American Judicature Society and the Police Foundation.
If that seems implausibly high, consider this: Three- quarters of convictions overturned on the basis of DNA evidence involved eyewitness identifications. In more than a third of those cases, multiple eyewitnesses identified the same innocent suspect. (There is no way of knowing how high the rate of eyewitness error might be in cases where DNA is not a factor, though there is no reason to think it is lower.)
Some witness errors result from faulty memories that have been further clouded by the stress that often accompanies seeing a crime. Witnesses are especially prone to error when identifying a suspect of a different race. Other misidentifications are a product of everyday human frailty combined with substandard — yet widespread — police procedures.
Read the whole thing.
You can’t believe what people say they saw, especially when the reputation of police and prosecutors is judged on convictions, not on justice.
Driving while Brown 0
The Republican-dominated Pennsylvania state House of Representatives is considering making English the official language of the state.
My ex-local rag sums it up:
Like requiring photo identification to vote, or empowering police to pull over anyone “suspected of being unlawfully” in the country, these English-only measures tap into anti-immigrant feelings that actually dishonor this nation of immigrants.
The amount of free-floating bigotry in Wingnut World appalls one.
The willingness of the “party of Lincoln” to capitalize on it disgusts one.
Punkin Slumpin’ 0
Irene takes out All Hallows’ Eve:
“I think there’s going to be an extreme shortage of pumpkins this year,” said Darcy Pray, owner of Pray’s Family Farms in Keeseville, in upstate New York. “I’ve tried buying from people down in the Pennsylvania area, I’ve tried locally here and I’ve tried reaching across the border to some farmers over in the Quebec area. There’s just none around.”
Gitmo 0
It’s long past time that this sadistic and shameful stain on the moral standing of the United States was expunged:
Holder said at the European Parliament that even if the current administration fails to close it ahead of elections, it will continue to press ahead if it wins the November 2012 presidential vote.
No doubt the Republicans will proceed to wet the nation’s pants in fear.
They are happiest when they can convince the populace to cower and shiver behind locked doors.
A Happy Juxtaposition 0
Stephen Colbert discusses original sin and Rick Santorum.
No, they are two different discussions in the same segment, but the link seems appropriate.
Via Mano Singham.
Facebook Frolickers To Morph to Twits 0
A devastateding combining of intellectual power.
Facebook members will soon be able to pipe their profile directly to a connected Twitter account.
The social networking giant said it was working on the feature in a document sent to developers about upcoming changes.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Remember when banks gave away toasters? This is ever so much more Amy Vanderbilt:
I can’t wait for a Law and Order episode ripped from this headline.
Afterthought:
Holy moley, Law and Order had been on the air twice as long as M*A*S*H.
Via Bob Cesca, who’s on a roll this week.
QOTD 0
H. L. Mencken, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here). The Quotemaster has been on a roll lately:
Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn’t they’d be married, too.
Twits on Twitter 0
Netflix Twits:
Netflix’s plans to re-name its DVD rental business Qwikster have hit problems.
While the firm has secured the web domain for Qwikster, the Twitter handle for it is the property of an American man called Jason Castillo.
Aside:
Where do people get the time to watch all those movies?
Television Throw-Backs 0
Considering the fall telly vision line up, I agree with Dennis Byrne:
Do we have to?
Actually, line up is the right word. The TV executives responsible for Pan Am and Playboy Club should be lined up.
And marched out the door.
And the broadcast networks wonder why viewers are fleeing.
Full Disclosure:
I was once at the original Chicago Playboy Club as guest of a member while on a gig.
It was rather dull and uninspiring, much the same as the show is likely to be.
Follow the link for the rest of the column. It’s worth it.
Teabagging Logic 0
A nice catch of tea bag logic by Mano Singham (emphasis added):
What struck me was the comment of one resident who said, “It looks terrible. I know they don’t have the money, and I don’t want my taxes to go up to fix it. But they need to do something.”
And I want a Lamborghini.
Misdirection Play 0
Richard Wolff, writing at the Guardian, considers Republican claims that expecting those who can most afford shoulder some of the cost of governance is somehow “class war.” That’s another misdirection play designed to distract the discourse from economic fact.
Here’s a nugget:
Dick Polman comments. A snippet:
This has been the GOP’s conditioned response to tax-burden issues since around 1992, when party wordsmiths began to own the phrase via frequent repetition. What’s amazing, of course, is that the Republicans have been allowed to get away with it – given the fact that the GOP’s rich clientele has been incrementally getting richer at the expense of everyone else. If there has indeed been “class warfare” in this country during the past three decades, the rich have already won. They have already staged their victory parade, brandishing a surrender document signed by most of their fellow citizens.
Words Have No Meaning 0
At least, not in Wingnut World:
In Wingnut World, “Socialist” is just another empty dirty word, something bad to say about one’s opponent.
It has nothing to do with the state’s ownership of the means of production.
Empty words appeal to empty heads.
Afterthought:
Indeed, in Wingnut World, “socialism” appears to have become a synonym of “compassion,” something else to eschewed in that universe.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Just yesterday, my brother and I were talking about the absence of courtesy at sporting events. He had attended a college football game and was most distressed at the large number of persons who cut into the line for admittance.
Now comes a remedy for discourtesy at sporting events.
Authorities say members of the cross country team discovered a backpack about 3:35 p.m. as they were preparing for a meet at the school in Cumberland County, New Jersey.
QOTD 0
Cyril Connelly, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.
Cursive! Foiled Again! 0
When I was a young ‘un, in the days of men of iron and computers of wood, schools taught “printing,” then “writing.”
When my kids came home (in the brass age, when computers were made of brass) and told me they were learning “cursive,” I wondered, “What is this thing called ‘cursive’?”
Turned out it was “writing.” (That was about the same time that “typing” became “keyboarding”; it was also coincident with an overall decline of typing skills. Fancifying the name of something seems often coincident with two things: A proliferation of consultants who take money to tell you how to do it better and the overall decline of whatever it is that has gotten a fancified name.)
Now, the fancified name for “writing” is taking its toll:
“Cursive really is on its way out,” said Jill Kennett, who teaches third grade at Brownstown Elementary School in the Conestoga Valley School District. “However, it’s not there yet.”
Kennett, who is in her 23d year of teaching, said she taught second graders in the Manheim Central School District in 1989. Teachers then blocked out time for teaching cursive, and students had cursive workbooks.
Now, she said, “the emphasis is completely different. It has completely lost its importance.”
