More, please!
I edited this "Campaign Trail" podcast for the New Yorker today. We recorded an interview with George Packer (!) at 11:00am and it’s already up on the web.
AND get this: I’m writing this update on the road from a bus with wifi on the way to meet up with friends in D.C.
Oh, the wonders of technology!
The Senate just passed a FISA bill including retroactive immunity for the telecoms that complied with the Bush administration to illegally spy on American citizens. This is bad news, dudes.
Glen Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and writer for Salon.com does a good job explaining why here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
To quote:
What were the consequences for the President for having broken the law so deliberately and transparently? Absolutely nothing. To the contrary, the Senate is about to enact (ed: has already enacted)a bill which has two simple purposes: (1) to render retroactively legal the President's illegal spying program by legalizing its crux: warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and (2) to stifle forever the sole remaining avenue for finding out what the Government did and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its legality: namely, the lawsuits brought against the co-conspiring telecoms. In other words, the only steps taken by our political class upon exposure by the NYT of this profound lawbreaking is to endorse it all and then suppress any and all efforts to investigate it and subject it to the rule of law.
Please contact your representatives in the house and tell them to stand firm against any bill containing immunity for the telecoms, and to support their own, previously passed bill, the RESTORE Act.
I don’t typically put too much stock in online petitions, but if you won’t contact your representatives, you can at least sign this one and pass it on to friends: http://action.firedoglake.com/page/petition/RestoreFISA
Not that it would have changed the outcome, but it’s worth mentioning that Obama voted for the defeated ammendment to remove immunity from the FISA bill, while Clinton didn’t vote at all. In my book, that’s almost worse than the 13 Democrats who voted against the ammendment. Not worse, but certianly more cowardly.
In other news, I’m ready to drink Obama’s Kool-Aid.
Bottoms up!
Oops…
My mom sent me an advent calendar, a box with little pieces of chocolate for each day until Christmas. Considering the number of days remaining versus the number of chocolates still remaining, I hope maybe Christmas will consider coming earlier this year. Like, um, tomorrow.
That’s Not A Fortune
It’s more amusing if you do the “in bed” thing.
An Addendum
Directions on the ticket say that to plead “not guilty” you need to mail the ticket and your plea within 48 hours. But there’s no mailing address on the ticket. There is no phone number on the ticket to ask about a mailing address. The other way to plead not guilty (or guilty for that matter) is to “appear in person or by counsel on the date and time set for appearance at the Court and location specified on the face of this Summons.” The “court location” space on the face of the summons is blank; there is NO court location on the ticket. In sum: the ticket tells you what to do but NOT how to do it. It doesn’t even tell you where to find that information.
I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon digging around the NYPD and Brooklyn court websites.
Good. Lord.
I haven’t been to such a poorly maintained and designed website since, like, 1998. The phone numbers listed were either unanswered (by human or machine) or straight-up disconnected. The links that supposedly lead to the info I needed were all broken. But damned if they don’t have their own podcast.
Now, I didn’t go to no durn Ivy league school or nothin’, but I think I’m a reasonably intelligent guy. If I can’t figure this out, I don’t see how your average thug or petty criminal could…I mean, if they were so inclined.
And of course, if you fail to answer the summons, you get a warrant. One gets the impression they WANT people to screw up.
Lastly, I present to you, Dear Reader, more evidence that the NYPD apparently has it in for bikes and bikers…
…and a nice little film of the incident to boot.
bunk (bŭngk)
adj. –
1. Redonkulous nonsense; utter rubbish
2. something totally stupid, not cool, or “retarded”
The NYPD writing tickets to polite, conscientious bikers is bunk.
[Origin: 1895–1900, Americanism; short for bunkum]
SEE ALSO: whack, complete bullshit
Last Friday I moved to my new apartment in Prospect Heights. After spending the whole day loading and unloading, I had to return the u-haul back to the rental place out in Bushwick. I took my bike with me (my old one from back home that I just shipped up here—my previous one on extended loan from a friend was recently stolen); there isn’t a good subway route between my old and new neighborhoods.
I had just left the rental station and was cruising down Bushwick Ave when an ambulance came up the street. Cars nudged toward the curb to let it through, effectively pinning me between the moving traffic and parked cars. I managed to hop the curb onto the sidewalk for 20 feet or so until the end of the block, at which point the ambulance passed and I popped back into the street.
A moment later I heard a new siren coming from behind me. Cop cars are squawking all the time in Brooklyn–especially in my old neighborhood–so I didn’t think anything of it until the car pulled next to me and an angry female cop rolled down her window, glaring at me and slowly panning her head from side to side. I pulled over, or whatever the bike equivalent of that is–stopping I suppose.
“Can I see your ID?”
Not wanting to be evasive I replied, “Yes, of course, but is anything wrong?”
“You know why I’m stopping you, don’t you?” She stepped out of the car followed by two younger guy cops. One of them started, “You from around here?”
They explained that biking on the sidewalk (not something I typically do) is illegal in New York. I asked if they had seen the ambulance that just passed and explained my reason for curb-hopping. The cops looked at each other for a moment.
“I’ll need to see some ID.”
While the head cop ran my ID, the two others stood awkwardly with me in silence, until one of them offered out of the blue:
“I can tell you’re a good guy. So if I can offer some advice: just take care of this in the next couple weeks and tell the judge what you told us. Don’t forget to take care of it or it turns into a warrant.”
“Wait… So you ARE giving me a ticket then? Can I ask why? What about the ambulance?”
“Yeah, y’know this isn’t like the biggest crime going on here. They’ve got us out here doing this…”
“With all respect, sir, can I ask what else I should have done instead? An ambulance was coming and I was pinned in traffic.”
Before he could answer me, the female cop came back with my ID and a pink slip of paper.
“Just tell the judge we didn’t see you until after the ambulance passed and he’ll probably dismiss it.”
SO WHY GIVE ME THE TICKET?!
They got back the car and pulled away.
Okay, so getting any ticket sucks. Even if I can have it dismissed, it’s a pain in the ass and dealing with it is going to eat up my time. And it would be one thing if they were stubborn and stuck to their guns (so to speak) about “rules being rules,” but for them to also openly admit what they were doing really wasn’t fair and didn’t make much sense…that’s just bunk.