Being arrested because a cop thought you might be carrying a pocket knife. Not brandishing it, not openly using a clearly-illegal type of knife, but having a slight bulge in your front pocket suggesting that there’s a knife clipped there.

All part of an ambitious District Attorney’s plan to crack down on the scourge of modern pocket knives purchased at major retailers by law-abiding citizens. Because if it looks scarier than a butter knife, it must be a criminal tool that no normal person would own. This may sound familiar to anyone who’s seen the laundry list of cosmetic features used to define “assault weapons”.

Personally, I carry a 555 and a 710, so no Big Apple for me!

Now for the real question. Is this District Attorney:

A. running for re-election.
B. pretending to be "tough on crime".
C. raising revenue with easy arrests.
D. improving cops' personal knife collections.
E. ruining lives with bullshit convictions.
F. diverting police resources from actual crime.
G. all of the above

...the other three were of a breed Verkan Vall had learned to recognize on any time-line --- the arrogant, cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he is inescapably right and that whoever differs with him is not only an ignoramus but a venal scoundrel as well.
Last Enemy, H. Beam Piper, August, 1950

…May Day celebrations will feature an entirely different crowd.

Nothing like last month’s monster, but bigger than all but 5 of the aftershocks in the week that followed it. The USGS report gives an epicenter just a few miles offshore, and other reports say the accompanying tsunami is expected to top out at 2 meters.

"By not allowing interior designers to be specialists and focus on the things they do, what you’re basically doing is contributing to 88,000 deaths every year."

Yes, it’s true. This person is actually a licensed interior designer, testifying to the Florida legislature about the dangers of allowing just anyone to choose fabrics.

There are more juicy quotes from people who both teach and study this and other life-or-death professions, and who are desperate to keep just anyone from engaging in pillow-selection, hair-braiding, fundraising, water-cooler vending, dance instruction, furniture moving, etc.

Now, I’m not saying that the “Xfinity” thing hasn’t persuaded consumers into thinking you’re all shiny and new again, but if you wanted to do one tiny little thing that would show everyone a commitment to quality in one component of your “triple play” deals, perhaps you could pick up the May 2011 issue of C_ns_m_r R_p_rts.

And then pick up the company they rated as the best in that category.

Just a, y’know, suggestion.

This is supposed to be a news story?!?

Japan's Red Cross has collected more than $1 billion in the first three weeks after the massive earthquake and tsunami but has yet to distribute any funds directly to victims

It would never have occurred to me that some people would expect the primary use of that money to be cash handouts (their words), and that this would be so important that it would be the leading complaint in a story that goes on to mention the 12,000 dead, 15,000 missing, and 160,000 living in temporary shelters.

Silly me, I thought you’d want to spend that money in an organized fashion on things like food, water, shelter, portable generators, medical care, search and rescue, etc. The Red Cross does give out cash, but that isn’t all they do, and it isn’t what they do first. Apparently media foolishness is not limited to hysterical screeds about nuclear armageddon.

(Now, I have no objection to money being given to the folks whose homes, lives, and families were destroyed. If that’s the best way to help them right now, then by all means give them the money. But how much does a journalist in LA know about helping people?)

I honestly don’t know what to think about the Foothill College email newsletter leading off with a reassurance from the Santa Clara County Health Officer that there is currently no health threat from nuclear fallout here.

It is of course so artlessly phrased as to imply that Japan is now full of radioactive mutants wading knee-deep in the stuff.

[Update: Geiger counters have sold out in Paris. No, seriously.]