IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY: Bam! Instapundit destroys Donna Brazile, DCCC ‘lie of the year’ with simple truth. That I tweeted this between sets at the gym only makes it sweeter.
Archive for 2014
February 27, 2014
THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW: What’s in a name? For the wrong Cody Williams, 35 days in jail. If you made a mistake of similar magnitude, you’d probably be looking at jail time yourself. And note the involvement of perennial legal disaster lady, Angela Corey:
The Clay County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office punished a deputy Tuesday for the wrongful arrest of 18-year-old Cody Lee Williams, who didn’t even share the same middle name as a man accused of having sex with a young girl.
“Other than the name, there’s no other similarities,” Kris Nowicki, Cody Lee Williams’ attorney, told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. “Cody Williams had never met this girl and didn’t know anything about her.”
According to the Florida Times-Union, which first reported on the story, a girl younger than 12 told investigators that she had sex with an older boy named Cody Williams on Halloween in 2012.
Williams was arrested on Aug. 30 and languished in jail until Oct. 4, the day his mother pleaded with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office to release her son, according to investigators’ records, which the Sheriff’s Office provided to The Times.
“Not only did they not do a photo lineup, but further … they put him directly into adult court, filing an affidavit that not only is it this guy, but he did something” so serious that he should be charged as an adult, Nowicki said. (Williams, the wrongly arrested, would have been 17 at the time of the crime.)
State Attorney Angela Corey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Tar. Feathers.
February 26, 2014
SO THE NICE FOLKS AT THE CORDAIR ART GALLERY WERE VANDALIZED LAST WEEKEND. If you’re looking to pick up some new art, this might be a good time.
THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY: House holds hearing on executive overreach.
Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, testified that the expansion of executive power is happening so fast that America is at a “constitutional tipping point.”
“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,” he said. “I want to emphasize, of course, this problem didn’t begin with President Obama, I was critical of his predecessor President Bush as well, but the rate at which executive power has been concentrated in our system is accelerating. And frankly, I am very alarmed by the implications of that aggregation of power.”
“What also alarms me, however, is that the two other branches appear not just simply passive, but inert in the face of this concentration of authority,” Turley said.
While Turley agrees with many of Obama’s policy positions, he steadfastly opposes the method he goes about enforcing them.
Yes, the passivity of the press and Congress is amazing.
FREE SPEECH IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: Horrific Appeals Court Ruling Says Actress Has Copyright Interest In ‘Innocence Of Muslims,’ Orders YouTube To Delete Every Copy.
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh writes that the linked piece is unfair to the 9th Circuit opinion, and references his post on the subject. “The producer apparently did a very shoddy job of getting licenses from his actors; as a result it may well be that the plaintiff has a copyright in her performance in the movie, and the movie uses it without a license. . . . Incidentally, YouTube might still have a good fair use argument in the case going forward. (It’s just at the preliminary injunction phase.) But for whatever reason it didn’t make that argument on appeal.”
Good points, and Eugene is an expert. Given the history of this film, though, it’s hard to give the benefit of the doubt to the authorities.
LIVING THE DREAM: Meet the man who has eaten pizza for every meal for 25 years. “In today’s foodie culture with all the focus on organic and no preservatives and locally grown, you can go to the grocery store, spend $100 and only get two meals out of it. I can get pizza for a week on that.” He looks healthy and not overweight.
TERRORISTS WIN: Boston Marathon bans bags, bandit runners, military marchers.
THE WAGES OF SMART DIPLOMACYTM: Photo of the Day: The Catastrophe in Syria.
IT MUST RUN IN THE FAMILY: Kerry Kennedy ‘set to admit leaving the scene of an accident so she avoids drug charge over car crash.’
ADAM WINKLER: Want fewer guns on California streets? Open carry may be the answer.
I think the whole “guns on the streets” phrase, with its 1970s racial overtones, should be retired. But I wonder if open carry would be as unpopular with gun owners as he thinks.
THE MOST MASSIVE OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE.
UPDATE: Tom Maguire writes: “The most massive object in the universe – NOT Barack Obama’s ego? My sense of proportion is restored by science.”
WELL, I KNOW THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE STUPID AND MANIPULATIVE ENOUGH TO SAY THIS SORT OF THING: Did you know there’s a “corporate consumption complex” conspiring to make us think we have a “right” to do dangerous things?
And I know those people are usually from the “public health” community, which seems to care more about controlling behavior than anything else.
AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Beauty.
Also, up to 20% off on Books. Yes, Amazon sells books!
SO THAT WHOLE FISH/BICYCLE THING WAS BASICALLY A BUNCH OF CRAP, HUH? The Atlantic: Why Dads Matter. “The time a dad spends with his children is a particularly strong predictor of how empathetic a child will become, according to commission of experts who wrote a proposal asking President Obama to create a White House Council on Boys and Men. The group, which Farrell helped assemble, compiled research showing infants with dads living at home were months ahead in personal and social development. Children who lack contact with fathers are more likely to be treated for emotional or behavioral problems. Girls with absent or indifferent fathers are more prone to hyperactivity. If dad is around, girls are less likely to become pregnant as teens. As early as 1993, studies showed that dads also influenced whether their sons became teenage fathers. A Temple University study found no boys born to teen mothers became teen fathers if they had close relationships with their biological fathers, compared to 15 percent of those who didn’t have that closeness.”
BECAUSE THEY JUST WEREN’T RIDICULOUS ENOUGH ALREADY, DARNIT: Hipster wannabes get facial hair transplants. “Brooklyn’s hipster beard craze has grown so popular that men in New York are rushing to doctors for ‘facial hair transplants’ — surgery that helps make beards look thicker and less patchy, sources said. Stubble-challenged guys are forking over up to $8,500 for the beard-boosting procedure, which has spiked in popularity in recent months, plastic surgeons told The Post.”
THIS ISN’T SURPRISING: University of Chicago Law School Study: Better Scholars Are Better Teachers.
HMM: Venezuela prosecutor: 5 more from domestic spy agency arrested in deaths of 2 at protests.
This is a sign of Maduro crumbling. An even bigger one: I was listening to NPR on the way home, and they had a story about how Maduro is “desperate” and launching baseless attacks against that nice John Kerry.
REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO FEW MALE TEACHERS BECAUSE PEOPLE THINK MEN ARE LIKELY TO BE PREDATORS: Calif. junior high teacher admits to molesting two boys in her classroom, sexting them.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood.
YOU MAY NOW KIDNAP AND STRIP THE BRIDE: 15 Unexpectedly Barbaric Origins Of Modern Wedding Traditions.
THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW: 13-Year-Old Hit With Felony Charges After Throwing Snowball At Cop. Well, it’s in Chicago, where the connected brook no disrespect from the plebes.
Why don’t we know the cop’s name?
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Why a prominent academic was rejected from the National Council on the Humanities. Key bit: “I was not willing to commit to never criticizing the administration, nor to restricting my publishing agenda to topics that were unlikely to be controversial.”