Thursday, June 15, 2006

Grrr’s (With Apologies to Mike Straka) and Praises

1. Grrr - The Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution against alcohol. What about a resolution against gluttony? I guess they think it’s okay to be fat.

2. The mass media has already forgotten the death of that ruthless tyrant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and returned to their berating of Ann Coulter. Um, I'll take dead terrorists for a $1000, Alex.

3. Kudos to the Supreme Court for siding with law enforcement in their recent decision. The high court stated as long as law enforcement has the necessary warrant, they do not need to knock first before entering a suspect’s residence and arresting them. Justice Stephen ‘Shlep’ Breyer dissented. He believes the police will abuse this rule and thus could care less if a suspect flushed their drugs down the toilet or, God forbid, a suspect shot knocking police officers, possibly killing one of them. Yeah, who cares about the police, right Justice Breyer?

4. Seems to me that our wonderful new Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, doesn’t have the public’s general interest in mind. He claims to be closely watching interest rates and consumer pricing, all in hopes of preventing inflation. But, according to the last economic report out of Washington this week, inflation is here. But hey, if you already have tons of money, who cares?

5. Kudos to President Bush for visiting the U.S. troops and dignitaries in Iraq. Our troops needed to see him and be uplifted. Yes, it was unannounced. If I were in his shoes, I would’ve done the same thing.

And lastly…

A good friend of mine reminded me of how sensitive we Americans have become with respect to hurricanes. Heck, a class 1 hurricane now calls for an immediate mass media frenzy. Who cares about the ‘local’ weather! All we want is hurricane news. “The sky is falling!”

I remember not too long ago when a hurricane hit the Charleston, SC area. I was on the beach, on Kiawah Island, and gathering sea shells in 60 mph winds. The sand whipped my face, but it was fun! My wife wanted shells and, by golly, she got shells. It was the only time a police officer laughed at me. Ahhh, good times.

2 comments:

misawa said...

I have to say that I don't completely share your enthusiasm with number 3. I understand the necessity for so called "no-knock" warrants; the problem is right now the difference between getting one of those and a plain old search warrant is almost nothing. There have been several reports of police, especially BATF officers, executing these warrants at the wrong house or with drastic misinformation; most of these cases end in an innocent civilian casualty. I'll find the case later, but in New York (I think), a confidential informant told a narcotics detective that a person he knew had a stockpile of drugs, weapons, and explosives; the police went for one of these warrants on just this alone. The result was both a mother and her son were killed when the raid went down - the "weapons and explosives stockpile" was a lone .38 revolver (legal and licensed) and there was some indication of marijuana in the son's room and nothing else. For all the homeowner knew, it was a home invasion.

I'm not saying abolish these warrants. But the burden of proof necessary to issue one needs to be significantly more than a CI. I'd like to see them elevated to the level that the "sneak-a-peek" warrants used by the feds for investigating organized crime and mobsters.

Mark said...

Yes, I can definitely see your point. I viewed this with the hopes that tactical and street officers have more intelligence than going by just heresay or by gung-ho decision making.

I believe the other factor is if the suspect has been 'wanted' for a period of time.

Overall, we're hoping that law enforcement makes good decisions and not fly by the seat of their pants.