I think cops are mostly the good guys, but I would really like it if they spent their time (and our money) making safety a top priority and not spending the bulk of their time looking for people traveling marginally faster than arbitrary limits, behavior that has not been proven to be a risk.
By the way -- I will miss D and S from the sidebar. But, they hadn't titilated me in a while. Those two are busier than Rachel Ray!
Also...one of my favorite (and VERY inexpensive) wines is called 'Reds...a Wine for the People'. Each cork has a different Communist personality on it. VERY cool. So, I love the heading 'sidebar of the people'. I use the phrase, for the people, all the time.
I think cops are mostly the good guys, too. What I wish is that they'd do a better job observing the law themselves and enforcing the law with each other. How can anyone be expected to respect law enforcement officers who do not demonstrate respect for the laws they're enforcing? Simple stuff like driving within speed limits (when not on an emergency response), coming to a complete stop at stop signs, and stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks is all very visible. If people routinely see the cops breaking these laws (or, as Eric suggested, turning the other way when others break these laws), do you really think the people will follow the laws themselves?
Who wants a cop to be going the speedlimit? No one dares pass so everyone ends up going that much slower...
i got rejected from a jury panel for agreeing that i'd consider police testimony more reliable than defendant testimony. what gives???
I suspect jury composition is all gamesmanship between the two lawyers. Your attitude may be perfectly reasonable, but it might not be the one the defense attorney wants you to have. I mean, he or she might be trying to paint the idea of some kind of police frame-up, after all...
If the media isn't stirring a panic about Bird Flu, then it must really really really be nothing to worry about.
I mean, they made a big deal out of SARS, and SARS only had a handful of cases in Asia and a lot of people survived it.
Kirk, think about the implication of your question, "Who wants a cop to be going the speedlimit?" It implies that, if we have laws that we don't like, the solution is for everyone, including the people responsible for enforcing them, to just ignore them. Wouldn't it be a better idea to change the laws?
I guess, but it won't happen, too many nervous nellies, and probably statistics saying it would cause this many more accidents and blah blah blah. And I susptect the government doesn't actually want to give up such an easy revenue stream...
It's important to remember, re: bird flu, that in most nations, they don't sit still when faced with a threat. As soon as it starts hitting humans in earnest, they'll start quarantining people and massacring the birds in order to contain the spread. It'll be ugly, but they'll do what it takes to stop the spread. In the nations without the public health apparatus, it'll be tougher, and I don't know what they'll do-- big UN-funded bird slaughter plus reparations?
Reminds me of some pics I saw a while ago.
7/19/2004: Avian Flu in Vietnam
http://cellar.org/iotd.php?threadid=6364
2/9/2004: Chicken flambe
http://cellar.org/iotd.php?threadid=5007
One more:
12/22/2003: Duck kill in S Korea
http://cellar.org/iotd.php?threadid=4654