Author: VD

Erik Scott memorial blog

The father of the military veteran shot dead by Las Vegas police addresses the upcoming attempt to assassinate his son’s character:

The Clark County Coroner’s Inquest Hearing into my son’s slaying on July 10th at the Summerlin Costco store will be held in Las Vegas, NV, this week. As a one-sided, unchallenged insult to the tenets of U.S. due process, the hearing promises to be quite a show. And that’s exactly how it should be viewed: As a deadly serious TV reality show. It will be nauseating amateur theater carefully orchestrated and controlled by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and their joined-at-the-hip ally, the District Attorney’s office.

This “Coroner’s Cop-Clearing Circus” is billed as an informal “fact-finding” exercise, but facts will be in short supply. Instead, this abomination of justice has only two objectives: To destroy Erik Scott’s reputation, and to exonerate the three Metro officers who gunned down Erik in a crowd of approximately 50 people, shooting him seven times. At least five of those rounds were fired into Erik’s back, after he was on the ground, convulsing, bleeding profusely, fighting for air, and dying a painful, needless death. His heart and lungs had been destroyed by hollow-point bullets that slammed into his body at high velocity, then mushroomed, ripping his insides to shreds.

Metro officers and the DA will attempt to shift the jury’s and TV audience’s attention far away from the facts of Erik’s horrific, senseless killing. First, we’ll hear that the Costco surveillance video recordings (or the store’s “critical cameras,” if we’re to believe Sheriff Gillespie’s latest comments) were “unusable,” thanks to a mysterious hard-disk “glitch.” Don’t believe it. I don’t. Any digital security-video system deployed by a $73-billion-per-year corporation that ranks Number 25 on the Fortune 500 list will have multiple hard-disk backups onsite. Further, the video will be streamed offsite to a remote storage location. I guarantee there’s an unadulterated copy of that video somewhere, but Metro will not allow it to be seen by the family, our attorney, Ross Goodman, or Las Vegas citizens.

If those videotapes are “lost” or “destroyed”, that will constitute compelling evidence, bordering on absolute proof, that the three officers involved, one of whom has shot three people in his five years as a “law enforcement officer”, murdered Mr. Scott’s son. Lethal abuses of authority, compounded by the criminal coverup, should be punished much more harshly than ordinary first-degree murders by citizens not given badges by the state and local governments. Which reminds me, it is both ironic and pathetic that so many law enforcement officers attempt to portray their occupation as non-civilian and pseudo-military even when they are defending the murder of a real military man by their civilian brother officers.

Reading through the memorial blog, am amazed by Mr. Scott’s restraint and wish him the very best in seeking justice for his slain son. Given the apparent facts, I would find it very difficult to blame him if he instead elected to personally behead those three cops and their family members with a rusty butter knife.

In the meantime, Confederate Yankee adds to his ongoing summation of the shooting.

Review of the year

In which the OC brings to our attention another milestone in the long descent of the publishing industry into the dustbin of history.

n June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity were as a matter of law not as culpable for their acts. Writing eloquently in dissent, Justice Scalia drew a sharp distinction between the severely mentally retarded (who are truly not responsible for their actions), and the merely stupid (the category into which Mr. Atkins undoubtedly fell). Scalia argued forcefully that, with respect to the merely stupid, at least sometimes they deserve to be punished for their antisocial and destructive behavior.

This article, of course, is not about capital punishment. It is a book review of Dirty, Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain. However, the above discussion is relevant because I initially had reservations about writing this book review at all. After all, it is clear to everyone who has read Meghan McCain’s twitter feed, her “articles” on The Daily Beast, or her ill-fated campaign blog that Meghan is not a paragon of clear reasoning, exemplar of familiarity with facts, nor a model of English language expertise. And after subjecting myself to 194 continuous pages of her “writing,” it became clear that none of the above-described works truly plumbed the depths of mental vacuity in which Ms. McCain aimlessly and cluelessly drifts.

Even as an AWCA, I find myself lost in admiration at such a vituperative work of art. Especially since it is so well-merited.

All your income are belong to us

I imagine the IRS will regard this as a brilliant notion.

The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer. The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.

This should suffice to guarantee the complete exit of all mobile capital from the UK.

Anthology appellations

The Original Cyberpunk contemplates anthologizing himself:

Which brings us to the last question: what makes for a good single-author anthology, anyway? What do you like to see? Just the hit singles? Something you haven’t seen before? As many stories as can possibly be fit into a book? Stories focusing on just one particular style or theme, or a good cross-section from the writer’s entire career? And what about the writer’s voice: do you like it when the writer includes a little something about the story? Do you prefer a big something; e.g., longer comments about what the writer thought he was trying to do when he wrote it and what it took to make the story publishable? Or are you happiest when the writer just shuts up and stays the heck out of the way of the stories?

First, I think the idea of an anthology of Mr. Bethke’s work is a great one. And in my opinion, the name is obvious: The Original Cyberpunk. Considering the word is his singular contribution to the English language, it would be a travesty of both marketing and justice were the central collection of his best short fiction not pay homage to it in some way.

As for the actual question posed, I prefer to see a Best Of collection. Unless one is a Major Writer or prolific short story writer who publishes multiple anthologies, the book is likely to become the definitive view of the author’s work for many readers. And I very much enjoy an introductory page preceding each story providing the reader with additional information, either about the idea for the story, the process of writing the story, or deeper aspects of the story that may not be apparent to the average reader.

The aliens will save us!

Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality.

All your base are belong to us….

Mailvox: the police respond

EJ replies to my column on America’s devolution into a police state:

I just read your article in World Net Daily. I was somewhat surprised by your article. I have been employed by a state law enforcement agency in California for 22 years. I was a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept., before my current position. I have a bachelor’s degree from a state university in California. My father retired from this department after serving 27 years. My brother is also an officer with this department.

Having worked and socialized around officers and deputies throughout my life, I have determined that these are some of the finest people I have met. I am a christian and am a deacon in my church. Certainly I see a rougher crowd in church than the people I work around. I have never felt bad about arresting criminals. I didn’t go into this line of work for the authority I would receive. In college, I struggled to determine whether I would rather be a teacher at a high school, or a law enforcement officer. I finally chose law enforcement.

I too believe in the 2nd Amendment. I believe without the second, all other amendments (freedoms) would soon be lost. I am an NRA member. I don’t know what happened to the gentleman in Las Vegas. You don’t either. But some of your rhetoric sounds like far left revolutionary propaganda. Currently I reside in far northeast California. I cite motorists everyday for traffic violations. I have never considered myself a tax collector for the state. I give as many verbal warnings as I do citations. I don’t do this for the money, and having watched media report only stories for which they make money, I suspect they are more interested in making money than my department.

I am a conservative and receive respect for my position from other conservatives. Liberals (far left) usually look at me with disdain. I guess I am just surprised at your attack on me and others in law enforcement. When I was growing up, my father taught me to protect those weaker than I. I have taught my son the same values. Recently my 17 year old son told me he will not be attending college as I hoped, but will be joining the United States Marine Corp to defend his country. I’m sure you feel the same disregard for the military as you do law enforcement.

I think it’s safe to assume EJ is unfamiliar with my attitude towards teachers, at least the unionized public school variety. As for his email, he sounds like a nice, normal, largely clueless man who is paying less attention to the observable reality around him than he is to a romanticized version of it. For example, it is irrelevant that he does not consider himself a tax collector for the state, because that is in fact what he is. Due to what appears to be his kind and positive nature, he may be a bad and inefficient tax collector, but that is a question of job performance rather than the nature of the job.

It is interesting to see how he attempts to defend the police by conflating them with the military. This is common practice among the police; they have a severe inferiority complex and for obvious reason. There is nothing “far left” about my criticism of the police, and what is particularly troubling about this email is that EJ clearly believes it is “far left revolutionary propaganda” to insist that police officers guilty of murdering an innocent man in public should be punished for their crimes and that it is an intrinsic conflict of interest for the police to investigate alleged crimes committed by the police.

Green shoots!

Good news! The NBER’s business cycle dating committee has determined that the recession is over! Actually, it ended more than one year ago!

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of the start and end dates of a recession, determined that the recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009.

The business-cycle dating committee met by phone on Sunday and came to the determination. “In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month,” the committee said in a statement.

Strike another nail in the flesh-stripped skull of Keynesian economics. First they’ll have to announce a double-dip. Then, a few years later, they’ll revise their numbers and announce that it was all just one great big depression… long after it is accepted wisdom.

Mailvox: Monday column

TA writes in response to today’s column on Police State America:

I had a chief of police as a neighbor while growing up. He pistol whipped a black kid once. And I had a neighbor that became a cop and a friend that became a cop in spite of his criminal record and both of them were cowards. I have said for many years that 25% of any police force should be in prison, 25% should be under psychoanalysis regularly and 50% should get better pay.

We would get fewer nuts on the force if we drafted our police forces instead of hiring them. Only management that doesn’t come into contact with the public on a regular basis should be career personnel. And as you said, cops should not be allowed to investigate cops. Because they have been indoctrinated into an “us against them mentality” ‘them’ being the public and ‘us’ being every cop a self appointed heroic martyr who is the law instead of an enforcer of the law.

These three cockroaches will get theirs some day and of coarse be amazed at the injustice of it all.

I don’t think a police draft is the answer, but it’s true, there probably would be fewer issues with psychologically disturbed individuals seeking employment.

Postchristian!=secular

Britain is leading the way in demonstrating the way in which secular atheist culture is little more than a very brief waystop in the return to paganism:

A Mail on Sunday investigation – which will alarm anyone concerned about animal cruelty – has revealed that schools, hospitals, pubs and famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public.

All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley has secretly been prepared in accordance with sharia law, while Cheltenham College, which boasts of its ‘strong Christian ethos’, is one of several top public schools which also serves halal chicken to pupils without informing them.

Even Britain’s biggest hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, among many others, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal.

It will certainly be interesting to see if Britain’s aggressive public atheists speak out about this, or if they do what one would expect and remain silent since so many of them are actually more anti-Christian than they are anti-religion. The amusing thing, of course, is that the story is being portrayed as one that concerns animal cruelty, not corporate submission to Islam.

To Murder and to Lie

Needless to say, we can be confident that all of the tapes and videotapes of the unprovoked shooting are going to mysteriously vanish:

Erik Scott was a West Point graduate, Army veteran, MBA graduate of Duke University, and a medical sales rep for Boston Scientific. He was gunned down by three Las Vegas police officers after they responded to a 911 call by Costco store employees reporting a man with a gun, possibly on narcotics, behaving erratically.

Scott was 38 years old, shopping with his girlfriend for items they needed as they moved in together. Unfortunately, those are the only details of the story on which anyone agrees.

To hear the side of the story presented by Scott’s family, friends, and some eyewitnesses, Erik Scott’s death was the result of ignorance and embellishment on the part of the Costco staff, and a combative, deterministic mindset from responding officers….

There are no commands or communications between Erik Scott and police captured on a nine-minute audiotape during which the shooting occurred. Officers not directly in front of the store are heard over the radio establishing a perimeter and trying to block off access to the store’s parking lot. The first indication Scott and the police have made contact is when a officer breaks in to call “shots fired” after Scott is on the ground, already dying or dead.

It’s time for conservatives to wake up and realize that America’s jackbooted, militarized “law enforcement” thugs with badges and attitudes are not the friendly smalltown policemen of yore. The police are far more of a problem than most of the “criminals” they affect to be saving everyone from.

And I’d like to hear those who will seriously attempt to argue that it was just the inherent stress and confusion of the job that caused the Las Vegas police to murder a military vet shopping at Costco with his girlfriend and then immediately initiate a coverup try to rationalize away the behavior of this brave brother officer:

A former Boise Police officer charged with sexually abusing several infants has been sentenced. Stephen Young was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Wednesday. He’ll have to serve 12 and a half years before he’s eligible for parole. Young changed his plea in June from not guilty on four counts of lewd conduct to guilty of one count of sexual abuse of a minor. That charge was for a victim between 14 and 18 months old.

The fact is that the police are disproportionately sick and depraved individuals who get off on adrenaline and exercising power over others. They are also psychologically weaker than the norm; those who believe the reason they have more failed marriages and commit more suicide than the norm is the stresses of the job have failed to consider the mindset of the average individual who wants to become a law enforcement officer.

UPDATE: The “stress and danger” faced by the policeman in the course of his job is massively exaggerated. 15 per 100,000 police die on the job, (even fewer are killed), which is 7.5% of the 200 per 100,000 fatality rate of the most dangerous occupation in the country, that of fisherman. Loggers, airplane pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers, ironworkers, sanitation workers, truckers and drivers, industrial machinists and construction workers all face more danger on the job than police do. And nurses, EMTs, and doctors all see much worse human carnage than police do on a daily basis.

It should be reasonably easy to statistically demonstrate that the police are the psychologically weak individuals their bullying behavior suggests them to be. If they have higher rates of suicide despite facing less danger than the more dangerous occupations and less stress than the emergency medical occupations, the logical conclusion will be that the problem is with the individuals who seek to become police rather than the nature of the job itself.