A US Court of Appeals in Massachusetts has said that arresting someone for filming the police is a constitutional violation. A guy, after we answered in the affirmative as to whether his phone was recording audio, was charged with violation of the wiretap statute, disturbing the peace, and aiding in the escape of a prisoner.…
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Since we all know that the Bible is the literal word of God (I’m not certain which version, but certainly one of the English-language ones, since it would make no sense for God to speak a language other than American), it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that there are people out there who insist the…
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In the most polluted waterway in America, Newtown Creek, which divides Brooklyn and Queens, I found this blue crab. Now I wouldn’t eat anything from this waterway, but I was surprised by 1) how large this was NYC crab is, and 2) birds know right where to go to get that good lump crab meat!…
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Speaking of rich people buying the services of the state, it seems the Justice Department is now doing the dirty work of pharmaceutical companies by cracking down on Google which got paid to run ads for Canadian drug companies. That’s not free speech. That’s illegal because Congress says it is. So the Justice Department is…
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The mayor says there were 45 arrests in New York City last night compared to 345 arrests on a normal August Saturday night. Mayor Bloomberg said, “If that doesn’t tell you about New Yorkers, I don’t know what does.” That’s sweet. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s good there wasn’t massive looting, and New York…
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Rarely to get exciting reading articles in academic journals (whether that says bad thing about me or the journals I leave to you), but this is exciting: “The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment: A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Police Patrol Effectiveness In Violent Crime Hotspots.” It’s in the current issue of Criminology (like most academic journals,…
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I love that on our block, storm preparations included harvesting all grapes, pears, and figs–and distributing the extras to us! The dark grapes are ours (they’re tastier than our neighbors–not that it is a competition, of course). But we don’t have any figs, and these figs are some of the best I’ve ever had! Thank…
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“This is New York, we don’t have that sort of thing.”
Interesting I haven’t heard any fear of civil disorder after the storm hits NYC. I hope that’s just a sign of how things are not. I went back and read 1938 New York Timesaccounts of the hurricane that slammed New York. It was pretty devastating. And at least two people were arrested for robbing 20…
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Ronald Weitzer tries to dispel the myths of human trafficking.