The Official Blog of the Grateful Web

See Emily Die.

On February 18, 2006, Emily Rice had too much to drink and drive. She crashed her car in Denver. The Denver Police arrived, and an ambulance took her to Denver Health Medical Center.

 

Emily told anyone who would listen: the Denver Health Hospital Staff, the Police, and the Denver Prison staff, of severe pain in her abdomen. But with a blood alcohol level of 0.1, they did what they usually do with DUI offenders; they gave her Ibuprofen and stuck her in a Jail cell. Meanwhile, Emily’s lacerated liver and spleen kept bleeding, and as she lay on the floor of the Denver Jail and bleed to death, those charged with protecting and serving the law watched her die.

 

Once Emily died, those charged with making sure Justice is served, served themselves, and edited out the Prison surveillance footage exactly when they discovered she was dead, and the amazement of the idiots we trusted to protect us. The crucial minute was deftly and professionally deleted from the Prison surveillance tape like only real pros could do. Cause when the chips are down, these scum got professional about their own skins, real quick.

 

I’ve was arrested by the Denver Police, spent a night in the same Jail Emily died in. I saw first hand what idiots the Denver Police were, and personally documented it. I went to the Denver Public Safety board and my fight against the bullshit I lived through got the Denver Police Handbook rewritten due to the documented unprofessionalism I witnessed, recorded, and reported. This was the only time in recorded history a civilian forced changes to how the Denver Police conduct themselves.

 

It was not enough, however, to save Emily. Now this 24-year-old woman lies dead under the Earth and the idiots who pretend to protect us still walk around with Badges of Honor.

 

Ever been arrested? No? Proud of that? Don’t be. Get arrested. Go through the system and witness how it works, it’s your tax dollars that fund it. See problems? Report them. Help fix it.

 

For now, we can only pray for Emily and her family.

Barney Moran

Grateful Word

Lighten up People! Don't kill people over parking!

Lance L. McDermed shot his two neighbors dead this month in Colorado, over a parking dispute.

I googled "Killed over parking" and got way more hits then just this story. Thankfully, the NRA has worked hard over the decades to insure people with trigger tempers, kids who go off medication, and anyone with a pulse can easily get gun and kill their way out of parking disputes.

Holy Cow people lighten up! The Buddha would say point the gun at yourself first, that would make the problem go right away, and bail out the NRA you love so much at the same time!

There are safe, effective ways to vent your rage at humanity, here's one to perhaps save a life:

http://www.youparklikeanasshole.com/

Thanks to Jeffrey Charles for posting on youparklikeanasshole.

Barney Moran
Grateful 'You Have not Shot Me' Web

Who pays for our Spy Satellites that never work?

Who pays to shoot them down?

There is another war its unpatriotic to mention, the Financial War. American's in this patriotic age should keep quiet as marauding shark salesmen patrolling our Industrial Military that has this complex get billions of our taxed dollars to sell us spy rockets to fly into space and then shoot down because they were lemons to start with.

What's the point of protecting America with Lemons we have to spend more billions to shoot down?

What's the point of shooting up billions and billions of dollars when we don't care about our kids being able to get medicine or see a doctor? When we don't care about sending our bigger kids into war with no protection? When we don't care about taking care of what's left of them when they return from war?

There is a big, spoiled fat rich kid sitting on the heart of America, shooting rockets, buying more, and laughing his arse off.

Military designation: US 193. US 193 satellite  launched December 2006. US 193 lost power and its central computer failed almost instantly afterward, rendering its classified billions of dollar investment useless and a complete waste of America's time and resources. US 193 carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor that is completely useless unless the bad guys get it. Then its useful for them.

Barney Moran
Ungrateful Taxpayer

Manned Cloud

Flying hotel by French designer Jean-Marie Massaud.

2 Blue

I got to play the Game of Life last night with my 7 year old. As we started out, and I got to the STOP: GET MARRIED space, I went for the pink peg to add to my car, and STOPPED.

Why not use this little space in this Game of Life to bridge a discussion on homosexual lifestyle? "Can I be two men?" I asked her. "Sure" she replied, "My friend at school has two moms. One is 'Mom'. and one is 'Momma.'

It seems I was bridging to myself, my seven year old had been down this life course. "What will you pick?" I asked her. "Hmmm", she said, initially going for another pink for her car, but then considering. "I will close my eyes and pick", she said, and got a blue peg to join her pink one, totally at random. "I like that", she said, "You know I have Nedda." Nedda is a boy from the Netherlands she is friends with.

That was it for this topic that game. We had lots of other Life issues to deal with, car accidents, insurance, buying a home. 'How', I wondered as our two cars inched farther down the game of life, 'Do other parents, if they do, bridge the issue of sexuality to their kids?' Some I fear may with disdain for same sex couples, and how sad for the next generation if they are exposed to old hatred and fears. Not discussing does not seem a healthy alternative either, its here, as it ever has been, as long as we have been human. Unless your pegged in Iran, where they have no Homosexuals.

Barney Moran
Grateful Word

Russell Roberts on Cafe Hayek: Backing up the talk

I am a creature of emotional impulse. A left leaning poh boy growing up who often shot first and did not get around to asking questions, even later.

I age. Another white hair pops out of my chinny chin chin and other areas.  I hunger more and more for thoughtful argument instead of cheer leading. My beliefs have been just that. Emotional landmarks, not based on facts, an oozy sense the 'man' was out to get us all.

If we are lucky enough to get a bit leathered in this short life, we can become either more set in our ways or more reflective not everything or anything is what it seems. A writer I've found and enjoy is Russell Roberts, on the Cafe Hayek Blog he contributes to. Many of the Post headlines are exactly the opposite of my held beliefs. But read Roberts, and you find he simply presents facts to back up the post title. The point is consider facts in forming opinions.  Reading Roberts, I find my assumptions are not correct. I like that. Here is a recent post by Russel Roberts on Cafe Hayek reflecting on the Minimum Wage, something I've always supported raising:

The point about minimum wages

Russell Roberts

Some people seem to have misunderstood the point about this post on minimum wages. The point was simple. A lot of people I speak to, not just "regular" students, but legislators and journalists who I sometimes teach, think that only regulations or unions keep businesses from exploiting workers. They are shocked to discover that less than 10% of the private work force is unionized and that somehow, most workers, something over 96%, maybe closer to 99%, manage to make more than the minimum. Usually half of these groups when I survey them think that at least (at least!) 20% of the work force earns the minimum wage or less and that only legislation keeps it from being lower. But legislation turns out to be relatively unimportant compared to supply and demand—that is, competition. if you try to pay less than the going rate for the skills you want to hire, you can't attract workers.

Meanwhile, Tim Worstall points out something I missed:

Unfortunately, on the page he’s taken his information from he’s missed one thing which makes his case even stronger.

Nearly three in four workers earning $5.15 or less in 2006 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and service jobs.

That’s your waitron units and barkeeps folks. And what do we know about people who do these sorts of jobs? Well, perhaps you have to have actually done them (as I have, everything from the graveyard shift in a Denny’s to tending bar around the corner from this guy’s place): they all make tips. In fact, so much so that there is (or at least used to be when that BLS report was prepared) a special minimum wage for those in such jobs, one lower than the official Federal minimum wage.

For example, way back when, the min. wage was $3.35 an hour. Waiters got $2.01. You didn’t really care because even serving pancakes at 5 am you made another $25-$30 a shift ($50-$150 in a decent place). Barkeeps got $3.35 plus tips.

The BLS numbers are reporting what employers paid employees, not what people are actually earning. So we might in fact say that while the number being paid the minimum wage or less is 2.2% of the workforce, the number actually earning that figure is more like 0.5%.

-- Posted by Permission from Cafe Hayek
http://www.cafehayek.typepad.com/

Boulder Police Hit a Home Run: Catch Susannah Chase's Killer

In the winter of 1998, in Boulder Co, I was delivering newspapers to pay the bills. My newlywed wife and I had been in Boulder about a year, and between jobs we both did anything we could to pay the bills.

Earlier that winter, Dec 21, 1997, someone brutally killed a young, bright, energetic woman with her entire adult life ahead of her. The woman was Susannah Chase.

The Police were stumped, and following the Jon Benet murder, it was a stark example of justice not delivered in our small but famous town on the east slope of the Rockies. I and lots of people were down on the Boulder Police. I made a right turn one morning at 4:30am that winter weeks after the murder, slowly around a CU Police SUV parked at the then 10+ Minute light at Marine and Arapahoe.

Outlined in another forthcoming post, I ended up at the Police Station, my crime would end up being "Vision blocked by Newspapers in car." More importantly, upon arriving at the station I cried out to all the sleepy eyed police, "Nice Job! You can't catch Susannah Chase's killer, but you got the Paperboy!"

This post is both my personal apology and THANK YOU to all the Boulder & Aurora police, detectives, FBI, Wyoming Prison workers,  and everyone who never forgot and never forget violent crimes against the innocent. Who don't stop working on the cases. This is often a thankless job, and many times years of work often goes unrewarded.

Sure there is much 'wrong' in our society, and I whine about it. Its important to see the good happening in our midst by those who dedicate their lives to serving society. Though we cannot bring Susannah back, we can do the next best thing, have justice and protect others from these monsters. The Boulder Police and others involved in cracking this case and catching Diego Olmos Alcalde delivered a home run here. Thanks. Great work. I'm sorry about what I said in 1998. I think you rock.

http://www.denverpost.com/writersontherange/ci_8095943

Barney Moran
Grateful Word

Insania

This is the worlds biggest swimming pool...
It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres, has a 115ft deep end and holds 66 million gallons of sea water. Yes sea water, it's pumped in at one end and sucked out at the other. It cost $1B to build and will require $2M a year to maintain. It's in Chile. I'm hoping that you're now as pissed off as I am by this point.

I mean seriously, $2M / year (in Chile)! That's a lot of employed lifeguards that could have patrolled the beach, a lot of free rubber rings for kids. This of course isn't even thinking about the environmental factors and monies that resorts like this should be spending to maintain the beaches and sea life they have an effect on. They could have done something amazing here. Well, I guess they have, something amazingly bad. I haven't even mentioned what could have been done with the $1B build money. Unbelievable.

Size matters in Chile apparently? Shame that practical thought doesn't.

Charlie Gower, Tantramar

--we are on a 'waste hunt' this week!--Grateful Web editors

Amy cant make France people

Amy Whitehouse can't make her gig this Saturday, 1/25, in France, where a rouge trader for the French bank Societe Generale blew an American equivalent of 7.2 billion on Thursday in fraud trading no one caught. Amy's going into rehab, and so am I, since her story tops the news while the 7.2 billion lays buried in the back pages of every major media outlet.

Amy's sure as heck not going to feed any hungry poor people while she blithers through this, but imagine what 7.2 billion could feed. Imagine a world where news was rooted in its effect on all people, not the effect on some people.

If I ran the Democratic party, my first dictum would be they discuss ALL congressional bills in Iraqi War Dollar percentages. They have done this at times, I'd make it mandatory money speak.

The current bill moving through Congress to fuel spending against an impending recession and provide checks to the middle and lower class? I'd have all Democrats speak in terms of "One Half Day in Iraq", "One trip to the latrine by an American Soldier", "One Medical Transport to Germany of an American who lost his brains from a roadside bomb" speak. Exchange every penny Americans pay in taxes into what we are outlaying in Iraq. Dollar for Dollar. Penny for penny.

If implemented, you would be joining me and Amy in rehab, I said, "No, No, No."

Barney Moran

Grateful Word

Great And Terrible Info Graphic

I found this wonderful chart on the consistently brilliant information aesthetics. While it is visually pleasing, it has a dark context. It represents all the soldiers that have died in 2007 in Iraq. U.S. troops, Coalition forces, Iraqi troops and how they died. It feels a little strange to be enjoying something connected with so many people dying.

You can find the whole chart here.

Charlie Gower
Tantramar