Quotulatiousness

January 31, 2015

If nothing else, you can be arrested for “resisting arrest”

Filed under: Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:25

This is a rather amazing little scene that was played out in San Francisco:

Published on 28 Jan 2015

Public Defender Jami Tillotson was unlawfully arrested at the San Francisco Hall of Justice on Tuesday, January 27, 2015 by officers of the San Francisco Police Department

Techdirt‘s Tim Cushing has the story:

As an American citizen, you can always refuse to answer questions, especially when you’re not in custody. Easier said than done, though, which is why the option of referring law enforcement to a lawyer is always on the table. Of course, police officers will try to avoid this possiblity, usually by framing the questioning as an innocuous, purely voluntary chat. They get irritated, though, when people realize this and tell them to talk to their lawyer or continually ask if they’re free to go.

So, while Tillotson’s attempt to defend her client from questioning related to a different crime may not have fallen under guaranteed Sixth Amendment protections, her willingness to protect her client from additional police questioning certainly falls within the bounds of what she (and her client) are legally allowed to do in a situation like this (i.e., “Talk to my lawyer.”)

But the police weren’t interested in speaking to a lawyer. They wanted to take pictures and ask questions without the “interference” of someone who knew how the system works. So, they arrested her for resisting arrest — which, as the video shows, she was very clearly NOT DOING BEFORE, AFTER OR DURING THE ARREST.

Tillotson objected to the arrest, but she placed her hands behind her back and allowed police to cuff her. She never struggled or otherwise impeded the officers in their duty — which was [WARNING: circular reasoning ahead] TO ARREST HER FOR RESISTING ARREST.

It’s a mindbending, oxymoronic, ugly display of force, where might = right and anyone standing in the way of an investigation needs to GTFO. With cuffs.

Teddy Bridgewater wins the Pepsi Rookie of the Year Award

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:58

In somewhat of an upset victory, the Vikings’ rookie quarterback has won the (popularity contest) rookie of the year award. While I voted for him, I expected that the all-highlight-reel catches of Odell Beckham Jr. would be the big factor in voting. It’s true that the last five games of the season were very good outings for Bridgewater, putting up a lot of team records (many of them pretty trivial, honestly), I didn’t expect him to gain that much fan support outside the Vikings fanbase. The Star Tribune‘s Mark Craig reports:

Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater said a trip to this year’s Super Bowl has him excited about the possibilities of a future that he believes will include the Vikings’ first Super Bowl since Jan. 9, 1977, 15 years before Bridgewater was born.

“I can envision it,” Bridgewater said as he was making stops along Radio Row at the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIX. “That’s the plan. This right here is what you play for. Not 7-9. No one is satisfied with a 7-9 season. The ultimate goal is to be on this stage and be here.”

Bridgewater was in town mainly because he was one of five finalists for the Pepsi Rookie of the Year Award. The fans who did the voting made him a winner, Pepsi announced Friday night, over Giants receiver Odell Beckham, Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans, Bengals running back Jeremy Hill and Bills receiver Sammy Watkins.

Bridgewater is also a candidate for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, which is handed out Saturday night here at the league’s awards show.

Bridgewater said being invited to the Super Bowl for a rookie of the year award was a “huge honor” when he considers how he fell from the projected No. 1 overall draft pick to No. 32 a year ago.

“When you look back to last year at this time there was all the scrutiny that I was under,” he said. “It also speaks volumes about the support I have from the fans because they make all of this happen.”

Update: Teddy didn’t win the Associated Press’ Offensive Rookie of the Year Award, which went to Odell Beckham Jr. instead.

India and the INSAS rifle

Filed under: India, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Earlier this month, I linked to an article about the low reputation enjoyed by India’s first domestically designed and manufactured assault rifle. According to Strategy Page, there’s a potential change of heart by the Indian military on the INSAS rifle:

In response to the growing combat losses because of flaws in the locally made INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) 5.56mm assault rifle, the Indian government seems likely to capitulate and allow the military to get a rifle that works. Unfortunately for nationalist politicians, this will probably be a foreign rifle, and the leading candidate is Israeli.

This all began in the 1980s when there was growing clamor for India to design and build its own weapons. This included something as basic as the standard infantry rifle. At that time soldiers and paramilitary-police units were equipped with a mixture of old British Lee-Enfield bolt action (but still quite effective) rifles and newer Belgian FALs (sort of a semi-automatic Lee-Enfield) plus a growing number of Russian AK-47s. The rugged and reliable Russian assault rifle was most popular with its users.

In the late 1980s India began developing a family of 5.56mm infantry weapons (rifle, light machine-gun and carbine). Called the INSAS, the state owned factories were unable to produce the quantities required (and agreed to). Worse, the rifles proved fragile and unreliable. The design was poorly thought out and it is believed corruption played a part because the INSAS had more parts than it needed and cost over twice as much to produce as the AK-47.

The original plan was to equip all troops with INSAS weapons by 1998. Never happened, although troops began to receive the rifle in 1998. By 2000 half the required weapons ordered were still not manufactured. Moreover in 1999 the INSAS weapons got their first real combat workout in the Kargil campaign against Pakistan. While not a complete failure, the nasty weather that characterized that battle zone high in the frigid mountains saw many failures as metal parts sometimes cracked from the extreme cold. Troops complained that they were at a disadvantage because their Pakistani foes could fire on full automatic with their AK-47s while the INSAS rifles had only three bullet burst mode (which, fortunately, sometimes failed and fired more than three bullets for each trigger pull.) What was most irksome about this was that the INSAS rifles were the same weight, size and shape as the AK-47 but cost about $300 each, while AK-47s could be had for less than half that. The INSAS looked like the AK-47 because its design was based on that weapon.

Update: Added the link to Strategy Page.

1970 time capsule – Super Bowl IV

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00


NFL 1970 Super Bowl IV – Minnesota Vikings vs… by wayne-johnson

QotD: MMO economies

Filed under: Economics, Gaming, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

A multiplayer game environment is a dream come true for an economist. Because here you have an economy where you don’t need statistics. And elaborate statistics is what you use when you don’t know everything, you’re not omniscient, and you need to use something in order to gain feeling as to what is happening to prices, what is happening to quantities, what’s happening to investments, and so on and so forth. But in a video game world, all the data are there. It’s like being God, who has access to everything and to what every member of the social economy is doing.

Yanis Varoufakis, talking to Peter Suderman, “A Multiplayer Game Environment Is Actually a Dream Come True for an Economist”, Reason, 2014-05-30.

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