Brief summary:

Former NFL player David Lee Turner was walking out of a convenience store in Bakersfield, CA with his 19 year old son, carrying two 24 ounce cans of beer in a bag. 

Sheriff deputies, responding to reports of juveniles soliciting alchohol purchases (god help us all if anyone under 21 gets their hands on a beer), detained Turner and searched him.

Turner complied, but then became agitated, picked up his bag and walked away, at which point one of the deputies hit him in the back of the leg with a baton.

Turner took a swing at the deputy with the bag full of beer and was subsequently shot twice by the deputy’s partner.  Turner died two hours later at a hospital.

The security camera video captured the altercation, but went blank during the six seconds in which the actual shooting occurred.  The Sheriff’s Department stated this was because the camera was on a motion sensor and just happened to turn itself off for exactly the six seconds of the actual shooting.

Lucky break, guys.  Are you kidding me?

The Sheriff’s Department, the only agency thus far to review the actions of the Sheriff deputies, unsurprisingly found that the shooting fully complied with department policy.  I’m sure deep down they’re sorry for murdering a man in front of his son, though.

Full article here.

Government is ultimately a collection of services paid for by our tax dollars (and unfortunately funded by its own unaccountable borrowing).  So, other than war and unfunded social welfare programs, what has the government provided for us lately?

Recently, our tax dollars have bought us protection from the Diamond Food company telling us that walnuts are good for us.

Create a car company, it’s going to build cars.  Create a regulatory agency, it’s going to regulate.  In the interest of finding shit to do, or perhaps just out of spite, the heroes at the FDA have decided to declare Diamond California walnuts a drug.  From an FDA “warning letter” to Diamond Food, Inc. –

You should take prompt action to correct these violations. Failure to do so may result in regulatory action without further notice. Such action may include, but is not limited to, seizure or injunction.

In other words…the government is coming for your nuts.

Update: The FDA would also like to regulate medical iPad apps.  And any other apps that may impact public health.  You never know where an iPad application may strike…maybe terrorists are using Apple products to infiltrate our infrastructure, and iAnything should just be regulated out of existence.

The terrorists are coming…they’re in our nuclear facilities, our power plants, our water processing stations — ABC does its civic duty as the mouthpiece of a fearmongering Department of Homeland Security here:

A new intelligence report from the Department of Homeland Security issued Tuesday, titled Insider Threat to Utilities, warns “violent extremists have, in fact, obtained insider positions,” and that “outsiders have attempted to solicit utility-sector employees” for damaging physical and cyber attacks.

…

Al Qaeda has already put out the word in its online magazine, Inspire, for “brothers of ours who have specialized expertise and those who work in sensitive locations that would offer them unique opportunities to wreak havoc on the enemies of Allah.”

Also in the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire, via Reason.com:

Last summer, Al Qaeda’s online journal Inspire, a sort of Soldier of Fortune magazine for wannabe jihadis, suggested using “a tractor or farm vehicle in an attack outfitted with blades or swords as a fearsome killing machine” — perfect for “mowing down the enemies of Allah.”

Is Al Qaeda a mysterious, powerful organization full of nuclear scientists and civic engineers, infiltrating America’s infrastructure at its weakest points?  Or is it a disorganized group of radicals on the run, capable only of failed underwear bombs, dreaming of one day affixing swords to farm equipment in the name of Allah…

Janet Napolitano would like you to believe there is a clever, angry Islamic radical behind every bush, constantly plotting new and innovative ways to destroy America and take away our “freedom”.  Then again, she would also like to convince you that the TSA agent’s hand in your disabled grandma’s pants is absolutely necessary for the security of our airports.

At this point, which is honestly more terrifying — the miniscule chance of terrorists hijacking your airplane, or the TSA agent who will certainly be hijacking your civil liberties (and underwear)?

Social security is a ponzi scheme.  Medicare/medicaid is a mess of government intervention and price fixing in a complex market.  The “War on Drugs” has turned us into a police state, created a humanitarian crisis in Mexico (maybe we should bomb them too), and not even come close to eliminating drug use in America.  And the government’s self-imposed “debt limit” is a joke.

First, keep in mind that no other entity in this country, from municipalities to states to corporations, are permitted to sell bonds in order to pay for previously issued bonds. That is known as fraud, and the reason that the U.S. Government needs to debt ceiling raised is so that it can have funds to pay back what it owes on previously-issued bonds. This hardly is the stuff of sound finance.

Second, unlike municipal bonds (which have to go for specific capital projects like sewer repair) and corporate bonds, which also are issued for explicit things, U.S. Government bonds are spent on just keeping the government running, including paying for employees who play solitaire on their computers all day and for destructive wars abroad. In other words, the U.S. bonds are issued simply to continue the charade that the government has enough money to run its operations.

Why, exactly, will taking on more debt to pay off our old debts maintain faith in the credit of the United States?  And why do we put up with a government that holds itself above the laws, and even basic common sense, that we ourselves abide by?

Nick Schulz of Forbes cites a new study which analyzes the stimulus’ subsidization of broadband access for rural areas and reveals some staggering figures:

Eisenach and Caves looked at three areas that received stimulus funds, in the form of loans and direct grants, to expand broadband access in Southwestern Montana, Northwestern Kansas, and Northeastern Minnesota. The median household income in these areas is between $40,100 and $50,900. The median home prices are between $94,400 and $189,000.

So how much did it cost per unserved household to get them broadband access? A whopping $349,234, or many multiples of household income, and significantly more than the cost of a home itself.

Sadly, it’s actually worse than that. Take the Montana project. The area is not in any meaningful sense unserved or even underserved. As many as seven broadband providers, including wireless, operate in the area. Only 1.5% of all households in the region had no wireline access. And if you include 3G wireless, there were only seven households in the Montana region that could be considered without access. So the cost of extending access in the Montana case comes to about $7 million for each additional household served.

Now, I don’t work in government and never have, so maybe my mind isn’t wired correctly– but I couldn’t help immediately wondering whether there exist cheaper options. Set aside the issue of whether the federal government should undertake to provide Internet access to people who have quite voluntarily chosen to live in remote rural areas– are there cheaper options?

20 seconds later, I had an answer: Yes.

HughesNet serves Kansas, Minnesota and Montana and offers high-speed satellite Internet service starting at $39.99 per month.

So I guess delivering Internet access to rural Kansas, Minnesota and Montana costs $39.99 per month. Or $7 million. Depending on who you ask.

Via Ace.

World hunger, poverty, and anthropogenic climate change — all to be eliminated by 2050!  The cost?  Any pretense of national or individual sovereignty, the modern industrial economy, and 76 trillion dollars (subject to change at any time, for any reason).

Payment to be collected by the United Nations, and spent with neither accountability nor a coherent plan.  You may alternately make out a check payable to “The Antichrist”, or simply flush as much cash down the drain as your low-flow toilet can handle.

The case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (hereafter “DSK”– as much as I hate to use the endearingly familiar moniker adopted by the French press, it certainly spares many keystrokes) appears to be crumbling.

The French IMF chief’s accuser has lost credibility after being caught in a series of lies and inconsistencies and associations with drug-dealers and money launderers.

The crumbling criminal case may be disappointing to those of us who cultivated a certain schadenfreude around the misfortunes of an entitled, elitist wealthy Parisian socialist. But the failure to prosecute is also a triumph for due process and the presumption of innocence. An association with criminals is problematic, but I wouldn’t say that it disqualifies a witness. However, if she has repeatedly lied– about herself and the circumstances of the alleged sexual assault– she forfeits.

So I feel kind of happy that the case is dissolving. What I don’t appreciate is the sense of triumph regarding DSK personally.

Certainly the man’s circumstances have improved enormously; it appears unlikely that he will be convicted of a violent crime.

But set aside the issue of whether he physically assaulted the woman or not. There is irrefutable evidence of sexual contact, consensual or otherwise. Can we at least agree that it is sordid, bizarre and wildly inappropriate for this married man– a public official with aspirations for the French presidency– to be ejaculating onto maids?

His station has been upgraded from “loathsome lecherous French rapist asshole” to “loathsome lecherous French asshole.” He has a long way to go before he’s earned folk hero status.