Idiot cop gets no jail time for assault

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Michael

Patrick Pogan did this to Christopher Long in 2008.

It’s hard to see how this isn’t a clear case of assault. This rookie schlub (it was his 11th day on the job) went out of his way to elbow a random cyclist to the ground. But that didn’t matter to the jury.

A former New York City police officer convicted of lying about a confrontation with a bicyclist in Times Square was given a conditional discharge on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The former officer, Patrick Pogan, had faced up to four years in prison, but will avoid any time behind bars. He also will not be placed on probation.

This is one reason it is never a good idea to talk to the cops: juries will favor the police over random citizens almost every time. Pogan is obviously guilty of assault and deserves time in jail, but that barely matters since he once wore a police uniform. The only bright side is that he no longer can suit up.

Mr. Pogan, who was on the job for less than two weeks when the collision occurred, resigned from the police force. Because he was convicted of a felony, he would not be allowed to attempt to rejoin the Police Department.

This punk should have been convicted of assault and sent to jail. This slap on his wrist will not correct his sort of behavior in his future endeavors.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Michael

The phrase “science and religion are compatible” is impressively dishonest. Not only is it blatantly false, but virtually no religious adherent would agree that all religions are correct. If it is recognized that not all religions can be correct, then the utterance of the compatibility phrase is inherently misleading – “religion” is not what the person espousing the view means at all. Instead he means science and his religion are compatible. Otherwise he’s claiming all religions are compatible, undermining the ultimate goal people have by using the phrase: to promote their own particular religion, hiding its obvious conflict with science.

It’s also worth noting that religion isn’t simply in conflict with the results of science; religion is also in conflict with the spirit of science. Whereas science offers methodology and a way to discover what is true, religion only offers faith – science’s biggest antagonist.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , | 20 Comments »

A slice of humble pie

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Michael

Cameron Ward is a civil rights lawyer in Canada. (He is also a pretty good goalie from Canada, playing for the Hurricanes. But that’s another guy.) In 2002 he was arrested on suspicion of plotting to throw a pie at the Prime Minister.

[P]olice – acting on an anonymous tip that someone was preparing to pie then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien at a nearby event – arrested Cameron Ward as he walked to work.

Ward, who did not have pie with him, was jailed for several hours, subjected to a partial strip search and had his car impounded.

He was released after Chretien’s event was over, and the prime minister — who had been pied at an East Coast event in 2000 — never did suffer a pie attack.

Ward then sued the Vancouver police for wrongful arrest. A court ruled in his favor, awarding him approximately $10,000. Vancouver then appealed the ruling, resulting in this a ruling from Canada’s Supreme Court:

The justices unanimously sided with Ward, however, although they struck down the C$100 he got for having his car impounded.

“He had a constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, which was violated in an egregious fashion,” wrote the court, ruling that the rights violation was great enough to warrant damages being paid.

This has taken 8 years to conclude. It has cost the city far more than the awarded 10 grand when the legal fees, time and energy, and embarrassment are all factored. But what could have solved the problem much, much, much more quickly? What could have saved everyone from this whole show? It turns out the answer is pretty simple. The courts and police just needed to fess up to their obvious error in judgement.

“All of this has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars needlessly because all I ever wanted was an apology,” Ward insisted.

The audacity.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Maloney: Responding to every ounce of criticism he has ever received

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Michael

Remember how I said it’s a terrible idea to respond to criticism too much? And how I said that based on, who else, Christopher Maloney? He didn’t get the memo.

The Novella Debates
Home | The first accusation and the response. | Second: Maloney apologies, Novella does not . | Third: The Challenge | Fourth: Alternative Treatments for Ear Infections | Fifth: Hypertension, No Proof of Placebo Effect. | Novella lets Enzo debate for him. | Maloney Claims Victory, Novella Denies. | Maloney Refutes “Busy,” Novella Calls Him a Crank | Maloney Argues That Novella Is Wasting Time | Enzo Defends Novella | Maloney Apologies, Answers Enzo | Novella Patronizes Maloney, Defends Quackbusting | Novella Taken to Task For Poor Reporting. | A Debate About What Constitutes Evidence | The Evidence Debate: Novella Disappears. | Novella Attacks Maloney Somewhere Else | Maloney Responds, Novella Claims Busy | Novella Discusses Libel | Maloney Provides Evidence, Readers Attack | Novella Takes the Second Challenge | An Alternative Treatment for ALS: Bacterial | Novella Ignores Evidence, Denies Validity | A Secondary Treatment for ALS: Supplementation | A Novella Reader Attacks | Maloney Responds With A Plea for Novella To Engage In Furthering Research | Maloney Declares Victory

Not sure what the hell all that is? It’s a series of links – 27 by my count – which Maloney has made about the ‘debate’ he had with Steven Novella. Despite the significant effort put forth in creating a site, dividing the topics, creating the links and summarizing all the posts, Maloney was unable to simply link to the original post.

This is fun. The guy takes criticism so poorly that he just can’t stop himself from responding to every little bit of it. Give it up. No one is going to suddenly take a look and say, “Oh, whoops. I guess we – and medical science – were wrong. Sorry.”

At least he has removed the link to ‘The Dirty Dozen’, effectively validating the previously leveled criticism for being so petty and arbitrary. It’s just too bad he only deleted it from one place – it still exists elsewhere.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

The Cosmic Calendar

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Michael

Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

LePage will allow schools to teach creationism

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Michael

I’ve gotten many comments from many people who have claimed Paul LePage’s support for creationism will not find its way into Maine schools. This is untrue, especially given the fundamental dishonest nature of creationists, but now I have proof. I sent this question to the LePage campaign:

I have become aware that in an interview in May you said you support teaching creationism in public schools. I asked for a clarification on your fan page, but my post was deleted (and my posting privileges removed). I’m hoping you can clarify why you support such a position. Do you see scientific evidence for creationism? Do you disagree with court rulings that have said creationism is religion and thus illegal in public schools? Which version of creationism do you support?

John McGough of the campaign offered this evasive response.

Dear Michael:

Thank you for emailing Mayor LePage. I am a volunteer helping the Mayor answer the thousands of questions and requests we are receiving after winning the primary.

The Mayor will not seek to have Augusta make all curriculum decisions for local school districts. He believes that locally elected school board members and parents should have input in their children’s education. This includes allowing local school boards to provide guidance as to whether classroom discussions on the origin of life be included with scientific theories. As Governor he will work to ensure that every child receives a quality education so they can succeed while allowing local school boards and parents input in their children’s education.

This isn’t some political spin. It isn’t some bullshit.

Paul LePage will allow schools to teach creationism.

Any rational person would be against this. Any rational person would stand up and say, “No, you may not teach known falsehoods to students.” Any rational person would not allow religion an in-road to the minds of children at public, secular schools.

But Paul LePage is not rational.

He is a creationist.

Filed under: Creationism | Tagged: , , | 10 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Michael

Mammals came on the scene about 200 million years ago.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 7 Comments »

Gosh, Chris

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Michael

It’s like Christopher Maloney wants me to blog about him. Why else would he say this?

Dear Michael Hawkins, Thank you for not leaving any more hate mail at my neighbors’ doors after dark. Please get help. A variety of Augusta counselors take Mainecare. I would remind you that you have never met me and you have never been a patient, so I am not bound by confidentiality restrictions concerning your situation. I wish you well, and I wish you healthy.

This is in response to a comment I left on a letter to the editor Maloney wrote. In the same comment section, he implied that he is a doctor. Given the false nature of that statement, I corrected him.

You are not a doctor. You are a naturopathic doctor. There is a significant difference.

The difference being that one is genuinely qualified to, well, do something. Take a stab which one I mean.

Of course it’s a bit of fun to see Maloney try and pretend like the reason I attack his ‘profession’ is that I have a “situation”, but it gets old when it has so long been known that if I have a “situation”, then so does half the Internet. Maybe he thinks being rational is a “situation”? I don’t know. But I give the guy credit. He can keep some things fresh.

Jarody, My wife and I are independent individuals and maintain separate professional lives. I am surprised that you would take the time to try to link my promotion of our local agricultural community to some sort of political agenda. Please clarify for any readers that you were planning on running against my wife but lost the local Republican primary. Are you currently voicing your own opinions or writing as part of a Republican committee? Just curious.

This is in response to the crazy ramblings of a crazy man who legally goes by a single, crazy name: Jarody. The guy ran for some locally elected position last year and lost big time. Because he’s crazy. I can’t imagine wasting much of my time responding to him. But then, I’m not Maloney; I’m not compelled to constantly hyper-respond with vitriol to every bit of criticism anyone throws my way. Honestly. Am I about to give an honest response to the “situation” comment, explaining the soundness of my mind? Would that really convince everyone of my position? Or might it just throw fuel on the fire because to respond to criticism too much is to fight a losing battle?

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Paul LePage’s unofficial FB page hires campaign admin

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Michael

Paul LePage is running a campaign that is obviously dishonest. He has a Facebook fan page to which his people link from his official campaign website. But on that page, there is the claim that policy questions cannot be answered because it is a fan run page. As it turns out, that isn’t true.

Since then, especially after LePage won the nomination, the fan page took off in popularity. Given that, the campaign uses it as an obvious resource to reach supporters (i.e. fans). Not long after I created the page, I made an official campaign employee one of the Admins. To date, I myself am still not a campaign employee.

This comes from Aaron Prill, a LePage supporter with strong ties to services for which the LePage campaign is paying or will pay.

So you got it all? Paul LePage is not responsible for what goes on at his page – like the deletion of questions about his strong support for creationism – but everyone can feel free to click the link from his official campaign website in order to get more LePage information from his campaign people. Who aren’t responsible for the page. Of course.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

White House misled by dishonest conservatives

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Michael

Sorry for the redundant title.

The Tea Party movement has been getting a lot of criticism lately due to its inherent racism. As a counter, some of its biggest supporters found a video from March of a black Agricultural Department employee, Shirley Sherrod, giving a speech to the NAACP where she said she once did not give her full help to a white farmer 24 years ago. Except it didn’t really find a video where she said that. It found a video with an entirely different point and context and then made a bunch of dishonest edits.

The two-minute, 38-second clip posted Monday by Biggovernment.com was presented as evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in its recent resolution condemning what it calls racist elements of the tea party movement. The website’s owner, Andrew Breitbart, said the video shows the civil rights group condoning the same kind of racism it says it wants to erase.

…

In the clip posted on Biggovernment.com, Sherrod described the first time a white farmer came to her for help. It was 1986, and she worked for a nonprofit rural farm aid group. She said the farmer came in acting “superior” to her and she debated how much help to give him.

“I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with helping a white person save their land,” Sherrod said.

Initially, she said, “I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do” and gave him only enough help to keep his case progressing. Eventually, she said, his situation “opened my eyes” that whites were struggling just like blacks, and helping farmers wasn’t so much about race but was “about the poor versus those who have.”

Sherrod was initially forced to resign from her position, but has now been offered to return (though to a different position for some reason). The White House has apologized.

I can’t say I’m surprised a political organization, especially a conservative one, would pull this sort of dishonest stunt. It’s expected. But what is surprising is the fact that Glenn Beck has managed to say something reasonable.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , | 32 Comments »

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