The Gulfstream II jet that crashed in Mexico last year with 3.7 tons of cocaine on board was frequently used by the CIA to fly terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay, and may have also been used for “extraordinary rendition” flights to CIA prisons overseas, as well as for Bush fundraisers. Donna Blue Aircraft, the company the plane was registered to, took down its website yesterday. (Via The Agitator.)
Police told ABC News producer Asa Eslocker to move off a public sidewalk, pushed him into the street, and then arrested him after telling him he was trespassing and “impeding the flow of traffic.” ABC has video at their site, which shows another police officer who needs to be fired.
We put a Barack Obama for President sign in front of our house on Sunday; it’s already gone today. A Google search for “Obama sign stolen” shows that thefts of Obama yard signs are occurring all over the place–Midland, TX; Staunton, VA; Springfield, MO; Ivins and St. George, UT; Sartell, MN; Upper Arlington, OH; and so on. A Google search for “McCain sign stolen” shows allegations about McCain stealing a prisoner of war story, Cindy McCain stealing a recipe, and stories of thefts of Obama yard signs–but no reports of stolen McCain signs. I suppose either our sign was stolen by an unethical Obama supporter for their own use (in which case the stolen sign should be popping up elsewhere), or by an unethical McCain supporter who has no respect for freedom of speech or private property. I suspect it’s probably the latter. UPDATE (November 5, 2008): Here’s a story about a university instructor who wrote about his stealing a McCain/Palin sign in Minnesota–he has resigned his visiting professorship at St. Olaf College as a result. Philip Busse is described in the article as a journalist and political activist from Portland, Oregon. ...
There’s an interesting article in the August 2, 2008 issue of The Economist about “Cults of violence” in Nigeria. Campus “cults” have arisen in Nigeria’s university system that are something along the lines of a cross between a fraternity and a criminal gang. These “cults” have killed 115 students and teachers between 1993 and 2003, according to the Exam Ethics Project. The first such group, the Pyrates Confraternity, was founded by Wole Soyinka, a Nobel prizewinner in literature, in 1952 at the University of Ibadan. Subsequent groups had names like the Black Axe, the Vikings Confraternity, and the Klansmen Konfraternity. Members of these groups were originally elite students who have moved on to positions of authority in Nigeria. The groups charge membership fees, but members typically make the money back by performing actions for the group, such as acting on behalf of politicians connected to the group. Such actions of late have included harassment, violence, and murder. Rivers State University banned “cultism” in 2004, but since the groups are provided with cash and weapons by politicians, the ban has had little effect. UPDATE (December 2, 2021): This article in The Record (November 24, 2021) is of relevance: Olatunji Olaigbe, “How the pandemic pulled Nigerian university students into cybercrime." ...
Mississippi coroner Steven Hayne, whose incompetent and dishonest work has been exposed in numerous articles by Radley Balko at The Agitator, will be cut off from future work–but only after he completes a backlog of 400-500 autopsies in the next 90 days. That’s more than double the number of annual autopsies per year per coroner according to the National Association of Medical Examiners, and he’s typically done 1,500 per year. The NAME says a coroner shouldn’t do more than 250 a year, and will not certify any coroner who does over 350 a year. Balko points out how inept and dishonest Mississippi’s government and newspapers have been in dealing with Hayne. Mississippi is not a state I ever want to visit, let alone live in. UPDATE (September 7, 2008): Radley Balko has tracked down a file of complaints about Hayne going back to the early nineties which shows, among other things, that the government in Mississippi was well aware of what Hayne was doing, and used him because he gave them the results they wanted. UPDATE (September 10, 2008): Balko has an update to his September 7 post that corrects a statement about Dr. Emily Ward, Mississippi’s last official state medical examiner. ...
Via The Agitator, here’s video from a Critical Mass event in New York City which compares what actually happened on the scene from multiple angles to what police officers wrote in their reports. I have no sympathy for people who violate traffic laws like running red lights (which happens near the beginning of the video) or behaving like five-year-olds (which happens near the end), but this video also shows people who are supposed to be public servants violating people’s rights and lying to make arrests on false pretenses. Officers like Sgt. Timothy Horohoe need to be not just fired, but criminally prosecuted. The video asserts that Joyce Lin (the aforementioned person acting like a five-year-old) was within her rights to not produce identification and walk away, but this may not be true depending on New York law. Nevada has a law that requires suspects to identify themselves in certain conditions, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada (542 U.S. 177, 2004). If New York has a similar law, Lin was required to identify herself. UPDATE (December 17, 2008): A Critical Mass bicyclist knocked from his bike by an NYPD cop in a similar incident in July, caught on video and viewed over 1.8 million times on YouTube has been cleared, and the cop indicted, stripped of his badge and gun, and assigned to desk duty. The NYPD officer in that case was Patrick Pogan. Sometimes flagrant police abuses do get punished, but it’s a pity they often have to be caught on video and seen widely for that to happen. ...
The Los Angeles Times reports: Long controversial for its aggressive evangelism aimed at those with a troubled past – ex-convicts and drug addicts among them – the Anaheim-based Christian motorcycle gang known as the Set Free Soldiers found itself in deeper trouble Wednesday when its leader and half a dozen members were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. The arrests, which followed a double stabbing in a brawl with the Hells Angels at a Newport Beach bar July 27, was the latest brush with the law for the group of black-leather-clad bikers, which has straddled the line between Christian outreach group and outlaw motorcycle gang.I’ll add this one to my response to Beliefnet commenter Houghton, who seem to think that we should be more concerned about P.Z. Myers-inspired atheist violence.
The Smoking Gun has a collection of documents about the government’s case against suicidal government bioweapons researcher Bruce Ivins that is fascinating. Apparently he engaged in an “edit war” on the Wikipedia entry for the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority (which my mother belonged to). He regularly posted negative information there, and became angry when it was deleted. He claimed that KKG had labeled him an “enemy” and issued a “fatwah” against him, and he broke into a KKG sorority house to steal a KKG handbook during his postdoc fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill. The documents also show ties between Ivins and the American Family Affiliation, a conservative Christian group known for threatening boycotts against companies that do things like support gay rights, and with pro-life groups. He was a regular user of pseudonyms and multiple email addresses. The documents show that he was clearly a very disturbed individual. (Previously.) UPDATE (August 9, 2008): Ivins’ coworker Meryl Nass lays out the case for reasonable doubt about Ivins’ involvement at her blog. Hume’s Ghost points out in the comments that the anthrax attacks were used to help justify the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that the anthrax apparently originated there. One of the Glenn Greenwald articles Hume’s Ghost alludes to, about false claims that the anthrax contained bentonite which tied it to Iraq, may be found here. A nice quote from that article: ...
In yet another absurd drug raid, a Prince George’s County special operations team busted down the doors of the home of Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, and shot his two dogs dead. This case was part of a scheme where drugs were being sent to homes of innocent people and then intercepted. Maryland does not allow no-knock warrants, but the authorities who entered Calvo’s home did not knock and refused to show a warrant when asked for one. The police expressed regret, but no apologies, for killing the mayor’s dogs. The militarization of U.S. police, their completely inappropriate tactics in drug raids, and their repeated killing of dogs all need to stop. Radley Balko at The Agitator has documented countless cases of such abusive actions, yet police are almost never held accountable for their actions. Perhaps in this case, since it involves a city mayor, someone will be held accountable. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. UPDATE (August 10, 2008): The police in this case claimed that they don’t have a standard practice of shooting dogs, but Balko shows that this case is far from unique in that respect. Calvo has spoken publicly about this raid and the fact that it is far from unique, except that in this case it was against the home of a mayor. ...
Bad timing for this ad campaign. I suppose Greyhound will be looking for a new ad agency? Einzige (2008-08-07): Holy Christ!What would inspire a person to such heights of sheer insanity?What's the new ad campaign going to be?"Greyhound. We drive you insane." Eamon Knight (2008-08-08): Einzige:That campaign was already running. Greyhound seems to be pulling the posters as fast as they can find them.Now PETA's new campaign, OTOH.... ...