aubreyturner.org

The system that hosts this site has been experiencing intermittent problems over the past two days.  I’ve reported the problem and I hope that steps are taken to keep this from happening again.  Unfortunately, the last time I reported it the problem had been corrected by the time they got around to my support request and I just got a note saying that the site loaded fine.  This time I did my own problem determination (and some research) and sent them more info.  Let’s hope that something comes of it.  This would mark the fifth time it has happened and my patience is beginning to wear thin.

I just saw the video of the case where a family dog was shot by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.  They released the video in an attempt to cover their sorry asses in the shooting, but to me it just shows them to be more culpable. 

Part of the reason is that I think the whole concept of a felony stop has major flaws.  Officers demand absolute and blind obedience from the people being stopped and they fail to listen to what those people have to say.  The entire concept of being ordered out of your car and forced at gunpoint to perform acts that are often contradictory or impossible for some people is ananthema to a free people on moral grounds.  More practically, it is very confusing because of the inflexibility of the police and the way those commands are shouted.  I would find it very difficult to get on my knees without using my hands for balance.  The driver in the video had the same difficulty.  However, all the officer cared about was that he keep his hands up.

But what really pisses me off is that the driver repeatedly warned the officer that he had a dog in the car and he didn’t want him to get loose.  From what I could see, the driver even took pains to shut his door to keep the dog in, despite the fact that he was being yelled at by the officer.  If the officers had simply listened to the driver, the incident could have been avoided.

Of course the Tennessee Highway Patrol insists that all procedures were followed and that no one did anything wrong.  I really don’t give a damn if they followed the procedure as if they’d written the damn book.  It is the procedure itself and its inflexibility that are the problems.

I understand that cops often face dangerous people and that they must take precautions to deal with them, and I don’t have any solutions that would help them.  But I do know that the felony stop is yet another example of why people have lost respect for the police.  It is used too frequently and it is too inflexible, allowing no room for individual situations to be taken into account.  Worse, in this case was that it was used against people who had done nothing wrong.  The police simply relied on the word of a single caller to unleash potentially deadly force on an unsuspecting family.

The family is in the process of hiring a lawyer to pursue legal options against the Highway Patrol.  I wish them luck.

It appears that a local judge (Haltom City) has gotten himself in trouble for locking up women so that he could look at their breasts.  The local ABC affiliate, WFAA-TV, has been hammering at this story for quite some time.  Now they’ve finally uncovered some pretty damning statements in depositions that were filed in court recently.  Here’s an article from today’s Dallas Morning News with some of the details:

In the 10-page deposition filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Mr. Weaver told attorneys for the women that Judge Byno’s decisions to keep some women in jail were “based solely on the size of their breasts.” Mr. Weaver’s statement is part of the documents filed in the cases of the 12 women.

“Judge Byno was known to all the jail staff and to many of the police officers as being the worst offender when it came to making sexually degrading comments about female inmates and how they should be treated,” Mr. Weaver said.

According to the deposition, Judge Byno made comments such as, “Look at the … [breasts] on that one,” and “Let’s keep her in jail because I want to see those … [breasts] again tomorrow,” Mr. Weaver said.

He also said women who flirted with the judge during arraignments were sometimes released.

The jumpsuits that were given to female inmates required them to practically strip to use the restroom.  The judge (and some of the jailers) would watch them on the jail’s TV monitors.

This particular judge is also known for giving out maximum fines and harsh sentences for minor offenses (“Max Jack”).  It is thought that one of the reasons that the city was so resistant to pursuing the case was that he brought in a lot of revenue.

Take a look at the article and the picture of the judge.  Somehow I’m glad I’ve never had to face this kind of petty tyrant.  He doesn’t seem very judicial.

Hurst man gets 30 years for killing mom

01/08/2003

Associated Press

FORT WORTH—A Hurst man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for killing his mother—in a case investigators said involved cannibalism.

“Joey” Cala II pleaded guilty to murder on Monday.

Police found the bloody man and the body of 79-year-old Lydia Cala on Oct. 15, 2001.

Joey Cala had moved into her home in late 2000 after he was paroled for his third drunken driving conviction.

A coroner found that the elderly woman was beaten to death. Autopsy results also indicated that her body was mutilated. The murder indictment says the victim also was stabbed.

There are a few more details in this article.  It includes this tidbit:

Police found him covered in blood and apparently eating an organ.

If anyone deserves the death penalty, it’s this piece of excrement.  What kind of pathetic sick bastard would do something like this?

And people wonder about my misanthropic tendencies.

Whoa!  This came to a head in my old hometown:

Amtrak passengers subdue armed man near Big Sandy

By The Associated Press

BIG SANDY – Passengers aboard an Amtrak train apparently took matters into their own hands Sunday when a man wielding a plastic knife threatened to kill them while screaming profanities against America.

“It could have been a lot worse. The passengers did a fantastic job of restraining him,” said Big Sandy Police Chief Ronnie Norman.

According to arrest reports, passengers already had Gerardo Damien Bedia, 21, restrained in an upstairs compartment when Big Sandy Police Officer William Lakes arrived on the scene just before 8 p.m. Sunday.

It sounds like they called out the whole department for this one (no, I’m not being sarcastic or facetious).  For those that haven’t been to Big Sandy, it’s a very small town of about 1500 (the school was barely big enough to be 2A when I was there and there were only 30 people in my graduating class) .  Not much happens in Big Sandy, so I suppose this will give them something to talk about for quite a while.

Via Instapundit.

Update: It might seem strange to some people that a plastic knife could be that dangerous.  Most people envision some kind of pathetic thing like you’d get at a picnic.  Actually, there are some pretty dangerous plastic knives available today.

Dodge has created a monster by putting the 500-hp, 8.3 liter V-10 from the Viper in a motorcycle:

(Click for news story)

I’ve seen motorcycles built around 350 V-8’s before, but this is over the top.  It weighs 1500 lbs and has four wheels.  I’m not sure that qualifies as a motorcycle and I would imagine that it will handle like a pregnant elephant.  However, it does 0-60 in 2.5 seconds and has a (theoretical) top speed of 300mph.  So, provided that you don’t have to make any turns, you’ll blow away just about everything out there.

Dodge will be glad to build one for you, provided that you can cough up the cool quarter-million dollar price tag.

I went to the gun show at Dallas Market Hall yesterday.  I didn’t have any particular goal in mind and I almost made it out without buying anything.  However, on the far side of the hall, on the last row, I came across the Arsenal USA/Global Trades Company table.  I picked up a couple of their guns and immediately liked them.  However, I decided to go back to a few tables I’d seen earlier to give myself time to think.  But it didn’t take long before I made my way back to their table.

I’d been contemplating an AK-47 for a while, and I guess the episode of Tales of The Gun from a week or so ago was still fresh on my mind (they spent the whole hour profiling Kalishnikov and his guns).  I just wish I could get my hands on a real AK-47, but there are all these pesky laws that will have to be repealed first (and if they ever are, I’ll also acquire a Thompson submachine gun).

So, here’s the new addition to my collection: Arsenal USA SSR-85B

Alas, this will probably be my last gun purchase for a while (people who know me are probably saying, “We’ll believe it when we see it”).  One of my promises to myself is that I don’t want to be living in this place at the end of the year (I’m currently renting a place that I’ve outgrown).  It’s time to get serious about buying a house (especially given the current interest rates), which means some descretionary items may have to be postponed.  However, that may be for the best since if I acquire any more guns I’ll need a bigger safe, and I just don’t have room for one in this place.

I think that the Denton Police department must have some kind of deal with Heritage Car Wash because I usually see one or more police cruisers being washed when I go there.  What I noticed today was that the officer was carrying a full size 1911-style pistol in what I assumed to be condition one (for the uninitiated that means that there is a round in the chamber and the hammer is cocked; this is often referred to as “cocked and locked”).  I say “assumed” because I didn’t ask him about it, I just noticed that the hammer was back.  It makes sense to me that he would carry this way because it allows for the fastest first shot.  However, I’ve been reading lately that some police administrators and some GFWs in the public are squeamish about the practice (which has spurred a number of police departments to move to double action pistols).  I guess it’s good to know that the Denton police haven’t given in to political considerations when it comes to arming their officers.

On a completely different topic…  This afternoon on I35N I saw a truck towing a trailer with a Willys Jeep on it.  What struck me was the fact that it was painted pink.  Yes, PINK!  It was almost that disgusting Pepto-Bismol shade of pink.  Even the wheels had been painted pink.  The truck and trailer were from Texas, but the Jeep had Oklahoma tags.  Hmm….

The latest issue of Shotgun News came today.  As I was browsing through it I came across this little thing, which is the Stinger Pen Pistol:

(Click for Stinger website)

According to their website it is legal to own since it has been classified as a handgun by BATF.  It is a single shot .22LR with a 2 inch barrel.  It weighs 5 ozs (unloaded) and is 5.6 inches long and 5/8 inch in diameter (at its largest).  It lists for $275.00 in stainless (and $399 in 24K gold).

I think I’d be afraid to fire something that small.  It may only be a .22 but it only weighs 5 ounces so I imagine recoil would be substantial.  According to the ad in Shotgun News they will soon make it available in .22 Mag and .17 HMR, which I imagine would be even worse.  When it comes to some of these tiny little guns I have to admit that I’m kind of a wuss.  I worry about something that’s so small that you can’t get a good grip on it.  I had that problem when I tried a friend’s Jennings .22.  The entire gun was so small that I couldn’t get my little finger on the grip.  It made me paranoid firing something that small, which had me flinching.  That was really a weird experience, considering that I picked up my Kimber and didn’t have any trouble.  Maybe it was just having more experience with the Kimber, but that Jennings didn’t leave me all warm and fuzzy.

I don’t think I’ll be giving up my Kimber anytime soon.

I finally dragged my sorry self home sometime around 4:45 this morning.  I didn’t get stinking drunk, having put that behind me in my college days (*).  Although I wonder what is it about champagne that immediately sends the effects of it rushing to your head?  I had two glasses at midnight and it took me about an hour to shake it off.  I quit drinking at that point, so by the time I left (somewhere around 4:15) I was stone sober.  But it doesn’t really seem to matter.  I still felt like something that crawled out of the bottom of a particularly slimy stock tank when I finally got up.  I guess I’m not cut out for this night owl business anymore.  Bleh.

However, a bit of breakfast (or maybe that was lunch), some Tylenol and some techno (hat-tip to Instapundit for this one) and I’m starting to return to the land of the living.

* A few weeks after I turned 21 I suffered a burst appendix (complete with a really nasty post-op infection).  After that, I lost my tolerance for alcohol, which had been quite formidable.  I doubt there’s a direct medical explanation, but that’s what happened.  Of course, I guess that makes me a cheap drunk now .