s0crates

No kosh, we have to assume he was a total dickhead and should be fired

There is a video of this a page or two back. She was polite enough, although there was no "wink, wink" deal as kosher ham suggests.

It would have been better if she had left the kids alone.

I think the climate change debate is a bit of a red herring. Even assuming the majority of scientists (who admittedly fudge data all the time) are wrong about climate change, burning fossil fuels still has an obvious environmental impact. Consider for example the smog in China or the high childhood asthma rates in LA.

Anybody who thinks all the combustion of fossil fuels is harmless should try sitting in his garage with the car running or living next door to a coal fired power plant.

....i wonder how some of you are able to bottle up so much compassion

I wonder what compassion has to do with it.

Yep, smoking weed before driving and probably smelling like weed never leads to a bad result.

Nothing in there about possession or DWI charges . . .

I read fine, though the writing did suck.

Are you seriously telling me he was arrested FOR the headlight out?

Sounds like that's all the cop had on him, and all he charged him with. Since he did go to jail on that charge, the answer to your question is yes.

Here's everything the article says about his case:

"Tommy Brown of Dallas was watching the controversial video on a local TV news report earlier this week when a broadcaster identified the officer involved as Eric Casebolt.

“Casebolt!” Brown recalls shouting. “That’s his name! This is the guy that took me to jail. I never will forget that name.”

Nor will he forget the charge that put him behind bars: defective headlight.

. . .

That was one year after the Jan. 16, 2007 traffic stop that landed Brown in jail.

. . .

Brown, who has a history of misdemeanor convictions, had just graduated technical college and had landed a job. “I was clean,” Brown told Yahoo News. “I didn’t have any warrants, my driver’s license was good and I had insurance on the car.”

The auto mechanic admits having smoked marijuana before getting in the car, but said he was not high while driving. He said his shirt likely smelled of pot when Casebolt stopped him for the headlight. “But he was very adamant about me selling some drugs,” said Brown, who is now 45.

In below-freezing weather, Brown said he stood for nearly an hour while the officer checked and re-checked his car.

“There wasn’t any papers, paraphernalia, any roaches, no seeds, no nothing,” he said. “The car was clean. He just wasn’t hearing it.”

As the hour wore on, Brown said Casebolt began threatening him with jail.

“He said, ‘I know you deliver some marijuana here in McKinney. I’m gonna put you in jail and I’m going to go to the East Side and anybody I find with some drugs or marijuana, I’m going to charge you for it.’”

. . .

Tommy Brown spent the night in the county jail before posting a $136 fine to be released on the defective headlight charge.

He thought about filing a complaint against Casebolt with the police department, but instead requested a jury trial to hear the headlight charge in traffic court.

“Of course I lost, but it was exciting to me having him in there wasting time like he wasted mine,” Tommy Brown said.

Tommy Brown said he had put the matter behind him until last weekend.

“It came back to light real quickly,” he said. “The arrogance. Instantly, I knew exactly what the problem was, who it was and everything.”

Now it does sound like the cop suspected him of something else (dealing weed), but he didn't have any evidence to support that charge.

Your honor, if the city can't be bothered to insure that those two children, those two minors with absolutely no experience in serving any quantity of self-prepared beverage to the general public, ... if the city cannot be bothered to be sure they are providing safe lemonade.. if the city cannot make even one check of their establishment and it's sanitary process, then I can't see legally why my client should not be allowed the same leeway when it comes to such matters.

After all, my client is in business, and one of the largest expenses his business incurs is in fact sanitation that is demanded of him by the city, and the employee hours required to comply with the city's very rigorous code. To not force a competing business to follow the same protocols and be exposed to the same expenses is simply not fair to a law abiding taxpaying business owner in the community.

and so on and so forth.

~Bang

I don't think that would work. Let me provide a counter-example.

Suppose I take a traffic ticket to court. Say I was speeding. Imagine my lawyer gives the following argument:

"Your honor, my client was not the only person speeding that day. Several other speeders were allowed to travel unmolested. If the highway patrol cannot be bothered to stop those drivers, then I cannot see legally why my client should be forced to travel the speed limit."

Do you think that argument would work? I don't.

I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying the idea that ignoring little kids selling lemonade would prevent prosecution of shady businesses. I'm not saying to take the laws off the books, I'm saying that an officer should use some common sense. You can let a guy go for doing 66 in a 65 and still stop a guy for doing 80.

Permits exist so that the city can insure public safety, and fair collection of taxes, among other things.

Around my way there's a huge 'farmer's market' that is basically a pirate's paradise.

need ripped off music, knockoff clothes and shoes?

Plenty to be had there.

People there are getting shut down all the time for selling conterfeit items, stolen goods, and all sorts of things. One of the ways they catch them is a lot of the crooks operate without permits.

A walk thru check for permits nets them a decent haul of fraudsters most of the time.

The permit process helps stop that sort of thing.

These little girls made a nice 25$.. nice day for a couple of kids to learn about business, and how to be productive. i'm all for it.

But the fact they're allowed with a nice little 'aww' and pat on the head gives a real scumbag legal legs when they are setting up their unregistered stands.

as far as restaurants go.. we all know most of them are pretty gross in back ,and a lot of local newspapers report on which ones the health Dept. shut down that week.

If the owner serving you rat feces in your carryout Kung Pao has a decent lawyer, who knows what kind of argument he can make using those two little kids.

It's sad, but it's the way it is.

~Bang

I'm all for shutting down dirty restaurants and shady businesses. No argument there.

It's the connection between that and little kids selling lemonade I'm having a hard time seeing.

How exactly would not bothering those kids enable the shady businesses? Are you saying that a cop ignoring the kids would set some kind of legal precedent?

If so, I'm not buying it. Failure to prosecute one person doesn't exempt another from prosecution, does it? If one guy gets away with a crime, it doesn't prevent somebody else from being charged with one, as far as I know. When I get stopped for speeding, the law won't buy the excuse that the guy ahead of me was speeding too.

the kids with the lemonade stand,, unfortunately, while it is all fine when little kids do something like this, the problem comes from other people who WILL try to skirt the law and gain unfair advantage, and then complain when busted that the city let those little girls do the same thing...

for everything that is good and sweet and wholesome, there care a hundred assholes ready to exploit it for themselves.

Unfortunately, we're perpetually in a situation of "Since we all can't play nice, no one can play at all."

It's a shame for the kids.

~Bang

So kids' lemonade stands are a slippery slope to what exactly? Unregulated restaurants?

I don't see it.

so did he actually go to jail for a headlight?

I'll wait.

Yes.

There are two guys named Brown in the story, try not to get them confused. The guy named Tommy Brown went to jail for a headlight, it was the guy named Albert Brown who had the drugs.

Tommy's case is notable because the officer completely overreacted. Albert's case is notable because the officer failed to follow the law, resulting in the drug charges being dropped. Both are clear cases of the officer bullying black people, which is what I find unsurprising.

The writer could have made the distinction between the two clearer, but you could have read more carefully too.

FLASHBACK: ABC's ’08 Prediction: NYC Under Water from Climate Change By June 2015

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2015/06/12/flashback-abcs-08-prediction-nyc-under-water-climate-change-june

Sure there is a lot of alarmism in the news, but there are also real problems.

NY is doing a lot of engineering to protect its shorelines; consider Sandy for example.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/sirr/downloads/pdf/final_report/Ch3_Coastal_FINAL_singles.pdf

Click to read the rest

http://news.yahoo.com/mckinney-pool-party-officers-past-includes-allegations-of-racial-profiling-questionable-police-practices-014210547.html

Surprise, surprise.

I absolutely would not blame the cop for that. He's actually enforcing an actual law. (Maybe it's a stupid law, but the cop really doesn't have much say in that).

Really?

No complaint was filed... the cop happened to drive by. The cop could have handled it a couple of ways. He could have:

1. Pretended he didn't see it and kept driving. Everybody except Larry would have been fine with that.

2. Helped the girls edit the sign to say "Free Lemonade: Donations accepted," drink a glass, drop a dollar in their basket, and drive away.

Instead, he chose 3. Shut the whole thing down. Yay.

Well put.

Isn't the easiest solution to all of this is to just teach people to be respectful and cooperative with police? Use your manners and do what they say. Mouthing off, threatening, running away from, and attacking the police doesn't seem to end up well sometimes.

I guess the other way do to it is to install cameras everywhere, have better written laws, train our police more, punish our police when they snap... That way people can use their rights to be mouthy and uncooperative.

By the same logic, you could say that the easiest thing to do in communist Russia was to submit to Stalin's authority. That way you wouldn't have to go to the gulag camps. Otherwise you'd have to try to reform the system, which would just be too hard.

But who cares about our rights anyway?

Ridiculous. The way people are submissively going along with the police state in this country is deeply troubling to me.

We have the largest per capita prison population, a growing surveillance state, everyday incidents of police brutality, militarized police, and hordes of people actually think that is a good thing.

Whatever happened to liberty and justice for all?

When you give a guy a badge . . .

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

if you are a possible witness to a crime police here in Texas can demand your name.address and date of birth , giving false info is a crime.

you can of course refuse, and they can detain you if they choose.

Sounds unconstitutional. Not that they believe in the US Constitution there . . .

If you're referring to me i don't know what to say.

I agree with your statement 100%.

But the es thing where you can't point out flaws of one side of the argument without being labeled as completely on the other side. ..i get it.

Some people . . .

There is no justification for what that cop did to that girl.

There's a plastic connector that connects from the base of my headlamp bulbs to the power source wire. I called advanced and autozone and they said I have to call the dealer for this.

BTW, how the heck do work inside modern cars? There is no room in there to get any leverage or light.

how much do you think it costs for someone to replace a side fender and to paint the front of the car? I am thinking to fix my 02 corolla because it looks awful and i want to keep it forever. i gave that car back to my dad but he doesn't drive it as much as i would. I love my first baby and i want it to look nice and not all crusty!

I had my Integra painted about 8 years ago at Maaco. I got the cheapest option, it was like 300 bucks IIRC, but it looked good, and the paint has held up well, even with 5 years in the Phoenix sun.

Speaking of my Integra, I'm looking to sell it. It's a '95 w/ 180k miles, new tires, new distributer, runs good (just drove it 2300 miles, no problems). It has no stereo or speakers, and slightly bent rotors on the drivers side (because it was stolen and stripped last year). Also the ABS computer is on the fritz, goes on and off. Any idea what I should ask for it? I'm thinking like $2k maybe, but I would probably take $1.5k.

It pains me to get rid of it honestly. It has sentimental value: It's been reliable (I've put 100k miles on it with only basic maintenance), it's made several cross country trips, and it's lasted longer and been more faithful than my last three GFs. But the insurance is too high for a car I barely drive now, $70 a month for liability (red sports car, stupid insurance companies think that matters, despite no accidents or violations in over a decade, the ****ers, my comprehensive coverage on my new Civic costs about the same).

IDK, I have half a mind to keep the thing for five years so I can stick antique tags on it, but I'd be interested in a ballpark figure on what the thing is worth.

Sometimes I think twa is doing satire . . .

If you want to make a case for sports fixing, then this is exhibit A:

http://www.thefixisin.net

What's funny is I read it as written and never thought about the missing comma.

Holy ****. Crazy story Bliz. I don't quite know what to say . . .

I'm sure there is a quip about the family that plays together to be had here.