Yeah, it's not at all like CSI, people.

So just consider the # of people's lives that were ruined by these evil, incompetent, bureaucratic douchebags, as a matter of course and without a second thought. More at the link, of course.

Report: New York State Crime Lab Tainted by Incompetence, Corruption, Indifference | The Agitator:

"New York State’s inspector general issued a blistering critique of the state’s crime lab. The report came after a private accrediting organization found significant problems with one particular lab worker who had so little training that he couldn’t operate the microscope he was supposed to be using for hair and fiber analysis. Armed with a cheat sheet from a former supervisor, Gary Veeder managed to fake lab reports in criminal cases for 15 years. He killed himself last year.

A wayward crime lab worker who fakes his way into the job is one thing. A fraud who manages to stay on the job for 15 years is a symptom of mass institutional failure."

The state simply wants your stuff, and will take it whenever they feel like it.

Never Enough - Daily Brickbats : Reason Magazine:

"Royce Williams killed himself after federal prosecutors charged him with growing marijuana he used to deal with chronic pain. Now, his widow, Maria Lynn Williams, is fighting efforts by the federal government to seize their Alabama home and 40 acres. Federal Asset Forfeiture Coordinator Tommie Brown Hardwick says they don't want anyone to profit from illegal activity. Maria Lynn Williams has never been charged with a crime."

Hopelessly corrupt as an ongoing matter of policy and "doing business."

Defense Bill Raids Personnel Funds to Pay For Weapons - Matt Taibbi - Taibblog - True/Slant:

"Every year about this time a tiny trickle of little-noticed news stories weeds its way into the papers, usually in the back sections. It’s the same narrative every year: Congress lumps all the unpassed appropriations bills together, slaps them full of pork, and quietly passes them (often in the dead of night) while everyone is already thinking about Christmas.

The defense bill is always the worst and most morally reprehensible, and this year is no exception. It should be noted that defense pork is one of America’s great bipartisan traditions."

A slight re-emergence of sanity and common sense in an increasingly inane world.

Australian fliers will get their cutlery and knitting needles back Boing Boing:

"Australia's aviation authority has announced a return to sanity, allowing nail files, umbrellas and metal cutlery on its planes, saying that it will focus instead on 'real risks.'"

The more I learn of the world, the more annoyed I get.

Better Hungry Than Unhealthy | The Agitator:

"From Reason’s Brickbats feature:

In New York City, the Bowery Mission tossed away a batch of fried chicken brought by a local church to help feed the homeless. The chicken contained trans fat, and city law bans all licensed food vendors, including emergency food providers, from serving food with trans fat."

Training.

All over the placed with family visits, eating and drinking out [and in], a head cold and all other manner of excuses...

12/11
Atlas III Pushups [1m] - 20
Atlas Situps [3m] - 50
Hindu Squats [12m] - 226
Atlas Situps [3m] - 50
Atlas III Pushups [1m] - 15
MILO DSR [4m] - 20/15
17m shadowboxing

12/12
Atlas Lessons 1, 8, 9

12/13 & 14
missed workouts

12/15
multiple submaximal sets throughout the day - "greasing the groove"
Atlas Lesson 1 + neck mobility work
Atlas Lesson 1
Atlas Lesson 1
Atlas Lessons 1, 10, 11
Pushups - 2x20
Neck dynamic tension work
Chins - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, [3-1], [2-1] = 27
Atlas Lesson 1

12/16
multiple submaximal sets throughout the day - "greasing the groove"
Pushups - 20reps/7 sets
Atlas Lessons 1, 10, 11
Atlas Lesson 1 + neck mobility work
Pullups - 8/5/6/5 - pyramid 1 to 3 to 1
Chins - pyramid 1 to 3 to 1, 5
Atlas Lesson 1
Bodyweight rows - 2x20

12/17
Neck mobility work
Atlas Lessons 1, 10, 11
Pushups/Bodyweight Rows/Deep Breathing circuit - 5 reps each for 12 sets, 10 reps each for 4 sets

Teaser Trailer for Iron Man 2.

Looks awesome. Robert Downey, Jr chewing the scenery in the first flick made it probably my favorite comic movie... [betraying my DC Comics roots.]

The blinding power of, you know, truth.

Best rim ever.

Somebody's parents are awesome.

Of course, it's in Japanese.

Yes.

I laugh.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

I wanna buy shoes all of a sudden.

A tragedy brought about by the stupidity of adults.

Sexting Hysteria Drives Teen to Suicide. Media Blames Sexting, Fuels More Hysteria. - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine:

"Yet more evidence for teens that "sexting" really can ruin your life. Not because of the dirty pictures, but because of the horrible things adults will do to you when they discover them. For your own good, of course.

Today's heartbreaking example is Hope Witsell, a 13-year-old Florida girl driven to suicide after she was caught sending a topless cell phone photo of herself to a crush. When her school administrators learned of the photo, they suspended her, even though her sending it had nothing to do with the school. Witsell's classmates harassed her, calling her "whore" and "slut" in the hallways, apparently with little notice, interest, or intervention from school officials. Witsell's parents also administered some tough love, grounding her for the summer and banishing her from the Internet and her cell phone. The poor kid showed her boobs to a boy, and she was banished from her school, her friends, and the outside world.

With all due respect to Witsell's parents, who are obviously grieving, it's the adults in Sylvia's life who need the tough love here. These overblown reactions to what's really little more than a technologically enhanced version of the age-old game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" really do ruin kids' lives, be it by saddling them with a criminal record, securing them a spot on a sex offender list, instilling in their heads that they're some sort of outcast pervert, or in Hope Witsell's case—Jesus—driving them to kill themselves...

Kids make mistakes. It's up to the adults in their lives—from parents to school administrators to law enforcement authorities—to show some sense of proportionality and perspective in reacting to those mistakes.

It's a dubious proposition that sending a couple dirty pictures to a boyfriend is going to ruin a young girl's life. But the hysterical, puritanical reactions of the authority figures around her sure as hell can..."