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Law enforcement doesn't obey the law, they are above the law. Anyone paying attention knows that they just do whatever they want. If they are ever caught the only "punishment" is to give some tax payer money to someone.

Former police officer gets probation for tanning videos
Undercover cop arrested in NYC biker gang attack

You were saying?

This is just an incrimental improvement; Ford has had self-parking cars for years. I know a guy who has one. What's new is you can get out and tell it to park with your phone. I guess what Bill has is partially assisted parking? But he doesn't touch the wheel or pedals when it's parking itself.

Much more interesting is the object avoidance, which is afaik is completely new. It warns you if you're going to hit something, and if you ignore it it will brake and take over steering. Too bad this lady didn't have it. Or this guy (does Ford make semis?)

This is just an incrimental improvement; Ford has had self-parking cars for years. I know a guy who has one. What's new is you can get out and tell it to park with your phone. I guess what Bill has is partially assisted parking? But he doesn't touch the wheel or pedals when it's parking itself.

Much more interesting is the object avoidance, which is afaik is completely new. It warns you if you're going to hit something, and if you ignore it it will brake and take over steering. Too bad this lady didn't have it. Or this guy (does Ford make semis?)

Tax-exempt status revoked for hundreds of area organizations (If you get a paywall you can get past by saving the site source to your hard drive and opening that up.

Is this good enough?

Deputy Chief Cliff Buscher, whose internal-affairs file is at the center of the controversy, is not interested in becoming acting or permanent police chief, Houston said. Buscher will remain in his current role.

The controversy began when it came to light that Williams, without the approval of the mayor or city council, had signed an agreement with the president of the police union April 25 allowing internal-affairs records to be destroyed after four years instead of five.

That same day, the department shredded records that included documents related to Buscher’s 2008 arrest for firing his service weapon while drunk on a fishing trip in Missouri. Calvin Christian III two weeks earlier had requested those records under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Christian, who attended Friday’s news conference, said afterward that he didn’t feel he’d caused Williams and Cullen to step down.

“Their actions are what caused the shake-up, their reactions in regards to my request,” said Christian, 22, who writes for the free monthly newspaper Pure USA News.

Note that the incident that started the whole mess resulted in Buscher’s 2008 arrest, in which he made a plea bargain. He was turned in to the Missouri police by one of his fellow Springfield cops.

Indeed. You would think the daily rag in a state capital would be digging, but the Springfield State Journal-Register is close to worthless. From looking at it you would think that every crime, fire, and accident is reported but few actually are. They want you to pay for worthless "news" as well as being subjected to popups, popunders, animated ads and all the very worse, annoying advertising? They're insane. The local TV station, wics, does more investigative reporting. There's a police scandal right now that they uncovered; the daily paper sort of repeats their nightly news of it in the next day's paper.

Meanwhile, we have a weekly paper that even the paper edition is absolutely free, its advertising is non-intrusive, and it does do investigative reporting. It also has movie reviews, a "pub crawl" section highlighting live music, recipes, etc. The SJ-R no longer has an editorial cartoonist; he was let go in their last round of layoffs. The Illinois Times hired him after the SJ-R layed him off. There are also a couple of syndicated cartoons.

Traditional newspapers are dead. There's way too much good free news to pay for it, especially when the free is better than the paid.

http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x930798456/Alzheimers-explains-Reagan-support-for-gun-ban-son-says-in-Springfield Even though Reagan himself was shot in an assassination attempt in 1981, he didn’t seek additional gun control then, Michael Reagan said. (Reagan’s press secretary, Jim Brady, for whom the Brady bill was named, was shot in the head and disabled in the same attack.) “If anything had been in place, that tragic thing that happened in Connecticut still would have happened,” Reagan said, referring to the Newtown, Conn., school shootings and to proposed new controls on guns.

I wonder why we don't make these kinds of railway advances in the US.

They are. Lots of news in the local paper which unfortunately pulls online stories after they've been up a while. The track is running right through town here.

If people are worried about someone's cry for help, call someone who can help, not the law. They have no ways - nor intentions - of helping the person.

There's an article in today's local paper about just that.

When the Jacksonville Developmental Center finally closes its doors, police there are worried that the 130 or so remaining residents will simply be released into the community because there is nowhere else for them to go.

"And they're going to end up in jail," said Jacksonville Police Chief Tony Grootens. "That's the shame about it."

Law enforcement officials and mental health professionals met Wednesday at the University of Illinois Springfield to hear about what they called Illinois' mental health crisis and how police and the community need to respond.

"The word 'crisis' couldn't be a greater understatement," said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, the keynote speaker at the symposium. "There is less attention and fewer resources being given to it, and the mentally ill are being thrown in jail.

"By that neglect, law enforcement is the primary provider of mental health treatment," he said. "Nobody on the planet thinks that is good."

The article continues...

Manufacturing in the US is far from dead.

On the other hand, there's no free lunch.

Yes there is. Everyone misunderstands that old, usually incorrect platitude. It's only true in the case of a salesman taking you to lunch, which is why that platitude was coined in the first place.

If I pay for your lunch, you just got a free lunch. My daughters get free lunches from me all the time.

Burgled? Here's an incident number for the insurance claim. Go away and stop trying to make us work. We don't have the resources to follow this up.

Then you need a new Mayor and a new Police Chief. My house was burglarized last April while I was at work. My bank called and asked if I was missing checks, because someone had tried to catch a forged one. When I got home my back door had been kicked open and a bunch of stuff was missing, including a full book of checks.

After taking the report the cop went to the bank and viewed the security camera video and got a license plate number and the guy's face, saw him on a porch twenty minutes later and arrested him.

The next day detectives interviewed my neighbors to see if they'd seen anything.

Assulted?

You're right about that. You're as likely to be arrested as the guy who assaults you, unless there are witnesses willing to talk to them or there's a camera.

Oh they put a few quid

You're British? Man, was I wrong, I thought you guys had better cops than we do.

Screw you Westminster; you take our tax with promises of making everyone's life better, then give it to your friends.

Yep, that's pretty much how things are done in Springfield and Chicago and East St. Louis.

God, no!

We're not that stupid in Illinois. Not all of us, anyway. 'Bring Your Own Device' program launches at Chatham school

that... is genius. Every student brings their own device, and the teacher can pull up lesson materials on website the kids can access through any internet enabled device. They can probably also access the website from home or library, and parents could be sent a syllabus like college professors hand out at the beginning of the school year.

This makes sense, and kids are using technology like they will when they enter college and the workforce.

We're not that stupid in Illinois. Not all of us, anyway. 'Bring Your Own Device' program launches at Chatham school

So that's the second false "cyberattack" in so many months..

otherwise known as epic fail. Nothing came out of it.

No? "President Barack Obama is preparing to issue a populist cry for economic fairness as he aims to corral the sympathies of middle-class voters 10 months before Election Day."

Economic unfairness is what the Occupy movement is (not "was") all about. The media, which is all but the internet controlled by the 1%, would like you to think that there's no Occupy at all, or the numbers are miniscule, when in fact every city in the US, large and small, is being Occupied.

Back in the sixties and seventies we stopped a war and got environmental protections instituted the exact same way the Occupy movement is doing it.

...the well-publicized "attack" on an Illinois water system by Russian Hackers that, unsurprisingly, never actually happened.

I know it's not always your own fault, but you can affect that. With driverless you cannot.

Nope. Someone runs a red ligh and you're going to be t-boned. Brake suddenly because someone pulls out right in front of you and get rear ended by the tailgater.

And brake failure or a blowout or other mechanical failure would be far worse than a software glitch. A driverless car would have prevented this accident. And you already have a lot of computerized functions in your car -- spark plug timing, fuel control, ABS, air bags, among other computerized automotive systems. It seems that a glitch in ABS software could result in a crash, but I've never heard of that happening.

So many danger deniers, despite the research. There's an article about it in today's local paper.

WASHINGTON -- When someone is talking to you, your brain is listening, processing and thinking about what's being said - even if you're in the driver's seat trying to concentrate on traffic.

That's why drivers get distracted during cellphone conversations, even when using hands-free phones, researchers say. It's also part of the reason why the National Transportation Safety Board made a recommendation this week it knows a lot of drivers won't like - that states ban hands-free, as well as hand-held, cellphone use while driving.

It's not where your hands are, but where your mind is that counts, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman told reporters.

The board doesn't have the power to force states to impose a ban, but its recommendations carry significant weight. And, judging from the public reaction, they've already started a national conversation on the subject. NTSB has been swamped with calls, emails and tweets from drivers both praising and condemning the action.

It's the proposed hands-free ban that has generated the most controversy.

What's next? No passengers? No kids? No tuning the radio? Maybe NTSB will ban driving altogether, was the tenor of the response on Twitter.

The scientific evidence, however, is generally with NTSB, researchers said.

I don't think I'm good at multitasking, does that mean I'm good at it?

TFS says "But on looking at the NTSB report, it appears that the big problem was a school bus driver who was following too closely, and another school bus driver who wasn't watching the road." But despite that, the direct cause of the accident was the guy texting. I'm flabbergasted that anyone would try to argue that texting while driving is safe. I can think of no stupider an action, except maybe texting while walking a tightrope with no net (which isn't far from the danger you face in your car).

Yesterday.

The two are fighting the charges; there's no city ordinance against writing on the sidewalk with water-soluble chalk or almost every child in town would be in jail.

At least they didn't beat or taze them.

Yep! Sideshow Bob (AKA Klutzo the Klown, or was it Krusty?) died in jail after being arrested for kiddie porn and sex tourism when a jailor sat on him, Mayor Quimby committed suicide, and Mr. Burns just retired.

Yep! Sideshow Bob (AKA Klutzo the Klown, or was it Krusty?) died in jail after being arrested for kiddie porn and sex tourism when a jailor sat on him, Mayor Quimby committed suicide, and Mr. Burns just retired.

Yep! Sideshow Bob (AKA Klutzo the Klown, or was it Krusty?) died in jail after being arrested for kiddie porn and sex tourism when a jailor sat on him, Mayor Quimby committed suicide, and Mr. Burns just retired.

Just saw this in the local paper:

Several Springfield-area communities served by Frontier Communications have experienced as many as three separate landline phone service disruptions in the last five months.

The disruptions have caused emergency service providers to scramble to make sure 911 calls made on a landline phone will get answered.

Frontier, which in July took over more than 600,000 mostly rural and small-town phone lines in Illinois that were previously operated by Verizon, says some outages are the result of upgrades being done to provide high-speed Internet to customers who previously didn’t have it.

Others are the result of fiber-optic cuts to their lines by other companies doing trenching work near Frontier lines.

But the company is working to ensure line cuts affect fewer customers and that service interruptions become less frequent, a representative said.

“Frontier has completed a review of the broader network and is investing to augment redundant routes and equipment to offer our smaller communities and towns a quality network than our customers have had in the past few years,” said Steve Saylor, general manager for Frontier’s Jacksonville market, which includes communities surrounding Springfield.

Hmm, there are a lot of whores close to where I drink (here's a map, look at all the purple balloons on Ash street) and althoughtI see dozens of hookers (mostly crack whores), I've never once seen a pimp.

The study I saw cited could well have been of hookers in places where prostitution is legal and regulated -- one more reason victimless crimes shouldn't be crimes. You can't regulate or control an illegal activity.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

Contrary to popular belief, most criminals do get caught.

Bullshit. Or in the slashdot vernacular, [citation needed]. I constantly see accounts of burglaries in the local paper, but seldom see accounts of burglars being arrested. I've seen lots of fistfights first hand, and although battery is a crime, seldom do I see any of them being arrested. Distribution of certain drugs is illegal, but there's no shortage whatever of any substance you want.

I can see where stories like this might lead one to believe that most criminals get caught; a quote: "'I feel confident that we have put a significant dent into drug distribution on our streets,' said Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams in a press release." Yes, of course he's going to say that, but he's wrong -- that's just a tiny percentage of dope dealers here. Note thtat that's the only story in today's paper about people getting caught, in contrast to these stories from the same newspaper:
Baby Jesus stolen from southwestern Ill. display
Watch, GPS unit stolen from South 12th Street house
Video games, DVD player stolen
Wire stolen from East Cedar Street home
Copper pipe taken from South Grand Avenue business
Break-in at school probed
License plate stolen
Equipment, tools taken
Scammers using politician's name to collect funds
Two televisions stolen from Boxwood Court home
Woman robbed of phone, car key

Do the math. Crime does indeed pay.

I just saw this in the local (Springfield, IL) newspaper:

Talk to us: Your airport security stories
Annoyance at security hassles has been on the rise among airline crews and passengers for years, but the widespread use of full-body image detectors this year and the simultaneous introduction of more intrusive pat-downs seems to have ramped up the frustration.

We want to know what you think about security procedures at the airport. Too far? Not enough? If you've flown lately, tell us your stories about getting through the security checkpoint.

E-mail your responses with your full name and hometown to forum@sj-r.com.

We'll publish some in an upcoming newspaper.

Copyright 2010 The State Journal-Register. Some rights reserved [GPL]

That basically means the only viable solution left is no more digital music - live performances only.

You've swallowed the RIAA fallacy that "nobody will pay for what they can get for free." It just isn't so, and study after study have shown as much. The fact is, music pirates spend more money on piracy than non-pirates, while nobody has ever demonstrated that anyone ever lost a penny to piracy*.

If a majority of the population decided bank robbery was okay, does that mean we should re-evaluate if robbing banks is really a bad thing?

That's just stupid. The majority of the population doesn't decide bank robbery is ok because it isn't. And if the banks became so corrupt that the average person started robbing them, what would need to be re-evaluated is banking laws. It's coming to the point that more and more people are ignoring marijuana laws, and even law enforcement is starting to question those laws (I used to know the sherrif in that newspaper article. He was very anti-reefer forty years ago).

Ultimately, copying someone else's IP, to which you have no rights, means someone didn't get paid. Period.

It isn't someone else's intellectual property, not in the US. I hold two registered copyrights, and uncounted unregistered ones. I do not own the property any more than a renter owns the house he lives in. Like the renter, I merely have a limited time monopoly. We, the people, own the IP. You own what I write just as much as I do. The entire purpose of copyright is to get writers to write so their works will be there for everyone.

If you write a book and I check it out from the library and read it you don't get paid, either. I can also check CDs and DVDs out of the library as well, and with interlibrary loans there is far more content than I could ever digest. But guess what? I have shelves full of books, and more boxes full of them in the basement.

Two of those books are Cory Doctorow books. Had he not put his books on his website for free download, he would not have gotten any of my money, because I wasn't impressed by his magazine articles. Had he not written the articles he still wouldn't have gotten my money because I'd never have heard of him. And in fact, he credits the fact that he gives it away to his status as a New York Times best seller.

Either that, or *everything* published on economics is wrong.

There isn't an economist on the planet that another economist that won't call him a gold studded liar. Take trickle down economics, for example -- that's just ass backwards stupid. Wealth doesn't trickle down, it flows up. The guy in the programmer's cube, on the factory floor, behind the fry cook's grill create wealth, which the wealthy aggregate and control. The aggregation and control are important, but like doctors and lawyers and accountants do not create wealth.
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* Actually, there has been money lost to piracy. Many of us refuse to buy anything that contains DRM. If you put DRM on your product from fear of piracy, that will indeed cost you sales. And Sony's XCP cost them more than one paying customer for life. XCP cost them thousands of dollars in sales to me alone -- I was a victim, and will never again buy another Sony product.

I only read newspapers for the hilarity of their inaccuracy and the absurdity of what they leave in and what they leave out.

About twenty years ago when my children were small and we lived in a bad neighborhood, there was a gang war right down the street. Probably more than 50 rounds were fired; it sounded similar to strings of firecrackers going off (the timbre was different, of course). An innocent bystander was shot and crippled as he tried to get his kids inside. I watched a police car go airborne as it crossed the railroad tracks ate a very high rate of speed. Two days later the crack house the gangsters lived in "mysteriously" burned to the ground.

Not a word of this made the paper, although "news" of petty vandalism and burglaries and so forth were.

A few weeks ago a school bus carrying fifteen kids ran a red light and was hit by an SUV, and missed being hit by inches by another vehicle. This happened less than two minutes before I walked into the bar at that intersection. Several police cars showed up, then another school bus came by, parked in the biker bar's* parking lot and the kids got on it and left. There were no injuries, but the SUV's air bags deployed and it was damaged pretty severely.

The next day's paper carried stories about fender benders, petty vandalism, and residential burglaries. Not a word about the school bus wreck or the school bus driver running a red light with kids on board.

And they wonder why their circulation continues to drop.

* Google maps is out of date; the place is called "Scooter's" now.

Springfield, IL (home of Alderman Simpson and Mister Burns)

The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer.
Only the American "poor" (where poor is defined as not being able to afford the second SUV or 50" TV).

I see you've never been on the east side of whatever city you live in. The only person I know with a 50 inch TV is my sister, and she's pretty well off. Actually you've probably never been out of your gated community, as you'd see the oil-belching 20 year old rusted hoopties on the street.

You might be amazed to find out that some people here are so poor they have to live on the streets and are too poor to even afford a hooptie. Last Tuesday's newspaper reported that there are a record number of poople on food stamps in Illinois, and unless you're disabled you have to work or be looking for work to be eligible. The waitress in that nice restaraunt you're buying that $50 meal at gets food stamps. She's poor, probably working two jobs, and still barely getting the rent and utilities paid.

I envy your naive ignorance. I wish I could believe there were no truly poor people in the US, but I see them all the time.

The issue at stake is that the combination of these laws does not allow a business ample time to make the corrections

Meanwhile, "THE CITY of Springfield recently cited a rainy May as the reason it probably will not meet a deadline to make over 279 sidewalks compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act by today.

"When you consider that the first complaint was made in 2003, it's very hard to believe that explanation. It's more likely that the city blithely disregarded directives from the state attorney general and the Federal Highway Administration to make sidewalks usable by those least able to navigate the city."

Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.

A few links:

Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief

Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.

A few links:

Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief

Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.

A few links:

Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief

Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.

A few links:

Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief

Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.

A few links:

Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief

Cops and public officials are given greater lenience in violations of laws when they are performing their jobs. It's even worse with cops because you can't vote them out of office. Even you elected officials do not have the authority to directly fire them.

A few links:

Blagojevich judge, attorney clash; jury sent home
Judge accused of fixing ticket steps down
Brunton resigns as Macoupin County associate judge
Chicago alderman pleads guilty in corruption case
State trooper who caused deadly wreck resigns
Assistant state's attorney resigns after mishandling case
Our Opinion: Boone must resign as coroner
Galesburg police officer facing felony charges
Grandview leader plans to fire police chief