One year ago today: May 15, 2016, on voter registration . . .
Five years ago today: May 15, 2012, the entire guitar chart.
Nine years ago today: May 15, 2008, I loved that shirt.
Random years ago today: May 15, 2015, seeking Camp Good Counsel
It’s a new bird in the yard, tentatively identified as an eastern phoebe. Rhymes with, jeez, I dunno, what’s phoebe? The book says it is a flycatcher with a favorite roost. I saw it sit on my dead tree branch for five minutes, so I hope it was looking for a good spot. My guess is this one is an extremely healthy looking female, as her coloration is slightly subdued compared to my illustration book. But there is no mistaking that head and characteristic bill shape. I almost succeeding in spending the entire weekend at home, a goal I’ve rarely achieved in my life, but some day.
Trivia. The average machine in US factories is now over 11 years old. The last time this happened was in 1937, after the Great Depression, and America was waiting for the next war to start. Also, the trend is that the aging will continue as American factories don’t want to replace anything that could be the next victim of offshoring. And the worker know-how is also vanishing. Ask any factory about the problems they have hiring people who can do anything but the simplest jobs—and nowadays these unskilled know-nothing laborers are showing up with Masters degrees and wanting $100k to start.
Glacier near Svalbard.
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[Author’s note: following is a second photo of the drywall, reminding the user that the basis of this blog is a daily journal, a record of the most outstanding events (good or bad) of the day, and a log of what I’ve learned or the progress of that learning. This shows the difficulty I’m having with the cutouts. I get the corners and angles right, but the cutouts around the electrical outlets are always wrong by as much as 3/4 of an inch.
I hate this, because any dummie can use a tape measure. Also, I installed the outlet boxes with an actual piece of drywall as a guide. Yet every outlet was too deep inside the wall once I put up the drywall. There are extension boxes I can get to cover this, but it is aggravating to be thwarted time and again by something so non-challenging as cutting a standard size hole in a piece of flat material.]
Even so, I got out the hoe and took down a lot of the vines that grow along the north fence line. That’s where my African spike plants are going. What? Oh, I named them that because I have no idea what they are really called. But if it looks nice and it’s in Florida, it must be non-indigenous. And if it grows where you don’t want it, it must be from Africa. Then because I deserve it now and again, I bought a metal bench from the thrift, it needs repairing, but I have exactly the oak strips needed.
I measured more of that oak to realize I have enough for some nice crown molding and baseboards in the bedroom. Agt. R says it is hard to work with, but so is everything I need to do. The entire good pieces from the bedroom floor are stacked outside and covered by tarp. I’d do it now if I had the gumption. While at the library I watched a series of videos from the Republic of South Africa. It concerns the industries and farms that Europeans had set up when they settled the place. For those who think otherwise, remember that the area was uninhabited when the whites arrived. That is who has the right to claim it as a homeland. (It was not until they traveled 400 miles north that they even saw any blacks, mostly bushmen in the Kalahari. They were aware of the Zulu kingdom, but the southern lands were vacant.)
It was later that the blacks began to claim the land as their own. The videos showed what happened to those beautiful orchards and ranches when the owners pulled up stakes. There’s a serious lesson to those who claim all men are equal on every count. The videos showed abandoned farms overgrown with weeds. Burned and looted farm houses and small businesses. Once prosperous townships now turned into ghost towns. Not one single example of a successful takeover.
Like Margaret Thatcher put it, liberalism is great, until the other guy runs out of money. Except for the white enclaves, South Africa today is one massive crime zone, the rape capital of the world. And like Detroit, the liberal media avoids even mentioning these places and facts.
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
--Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
I found “Actual Innocence” and in the first 75 pages, it is an outrage what police are allowed to do to get a conviction. The most offensive is that the police are allowed to lie. The second is they are allowed to lock up suspects in a room and question them without a lawyer, and abuse that is so solidly engrained nobody questions it. Who hasn’t heard of the suspect to confessed just so he would be allowed to sleep or get a glass of water? I’m also learning more of how the law has shaped police behavior. For instance, the police have no right to force you into a line-up unless you are under arrest. Bet you didn't know that? They'll try to convince you their intent is to eliminate you as a suspect--don't fall for it.
The reason they do the line-up before the arrest is because after the arrest, the accused must have a lawyer present to ensure they don't coax the witness, not that police would ever do such a nasty thing. Another injustice is that police do not require a warrant to get testimony. The laws on police conduct only apply to physical searches for evidence. While it is possible to exclude evidence obtained by an illegal search, there is no such protection against errors made while collecting testimony. Normally, everything a person say has to be twisted before it can be used against them. The answer seems to be as soon as you are stopped by the police, shut up and lawyer up.
I like the book the second time around for its damning exposure of the system. Truth is subordinate to procedure. Facts are picked over and most exculpatory evidence held by the state is normally only found later and by chance. The authorities are also notorious for not allowing any but their own to examine evidence and records. I’m going to enjoy this book, as the second read is always more intensive. Factoid: tests show that even the best eyewitnesses are only accurate 26% of the time.
Another curious tactic of the police is to show the witness who can’t remember the faces a series of photographs, which includes one of their primary suspect. So a few days or weeks later, they arrange for the victim to surreptitiously see the suspect, be-damned, the accused is suddenly certain they’ve seen the guy somewhere before. This is such a common police buffalo tactic, it is known as a “show up”.
ADDENDUM
Here’s an interesting item. Using published New York guidelines, I am classified as unsuitable for jury duty because I am “out of touch with mass culture and entertainment” since I don’t watch television. There’s your prime example of working-class logic polluted by Millennial-think. How could I be able to determine someone’s fate if I don’t know what Oprah said last week? No way is it possible for me to weigh evidence and testimony unless my brain has been pre-softened by Fox News. Justice is impossible unless the jury has current knowledge of the Albuquerque weather report.
[Author's note: sorry the paragraphs today are out of chrono order. All of this refers to the same book. I'm already half way through. The writers give a great analogy of the court mistakes. They liken it to a building that collapses, but all the engineers, builders, and contractors go to work arguing that they followed procedure.
I know what box it is in, so I’ll give you a second book report on the same volume. Then leave it for future historians to find my other version and compare. However, I remain a strong advocate of allowing wrongly convicted people to sue those individuals responsible. That’s right, sue every judge, jurist, cop, expert witness, crime lab employee, every last person up and down the chain, jointly and severally. It seems severe and impractical until you realize how they have operated without any oversight or fear of consequence since day one.
There is no other way to ensure their good performance than to make them responsible for what they say and do, just like the rest of society. As it is, the system has become too one-way. It is not the evidence, but the manner in which the evidence is used that needs damage control. As it stands, the state gets to pick and choose which evidence it uses, and gets to counsel the jury behind closed doors. That is an outrage.
Did you know that if you are ever convicted, they take away your right to [later] prove yourself innocent of that crime? Only others can do that, and we know that no such major organization exists. That’s how the system protects themselves when they screw up. And if you are by some miracle proven innocent by the intervention of some outside force or party, that does NOT mean you get out of jail. That can take years. Actual innocence is a new and separate matter from your original sentence. Like I said, one-way.
And the system will not change unless financially forced to do so. I want to re-read that book, this time looking for examples of unfairness and corruption. Maybe this time, name some names?
Last Laugh
Not this guy again.
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