Transterrestrial Musings  


Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay

Space
Alan Boyle (MSNBC)
Space Politics (Jeff Foust)
Space Transport News (Clark Lindsey)
NASA Watch
NASA Space Flight
Hobby Space
A Voyage To Arcturus (Jay Manifold)
Dispatches From The Final Frontier (Michael Belfiore)
Personal Spaceflight (Jeff Foust)
Mars Blog
The Flame Trench (Florida Today)
Space Cynic
Rocket Forge (Michael Mealing)
COTS Watch (Michael Mealing)
Curmudgeon's Corner (Mark Whittington)
Selenian Boondocks
Tales of the Heliosphere
Out Of The Cradle
Space For Commerce (Brian Dunbar)
True Anomaly
Kevin Parkin
The Speculist (Phil Bowermaster)
Spacecraft (Chris Hall)
Space Pragmatism (Dan Schrimpsher)
Eternal Golden Braid (Fred Kiesche)
Carried Away (Dan Schmelzer)
Laughing Wolf (C. Blake Powers)
Chair Force Engineer (Air Force Procurement)
Spacearium
Saturn Follies
JesusPhreaks (Scott Bell)
Journoblogs
The Ombudsgod
Cut On The Bias (Susanna Cornett)
Joanne Jacobs


Site designed by


Powered by
Movable Type
Biting Commentary about Infinity, and Beyond!

« Extravaganza On Ice | Main | Put One On The Barbie »

Incomprehensible

I hadn't commented on this previously, partly out of disgust, and partly because others had, but there's a new twist on it.

The original story is that a woman hit a man with her car. He flew up on the hood and through the windshield, and was trapped there, bleeding. What did she do? She drove home with him impaled thusly, parked the car in her garage, telling no one, and left him there for two days to die from insanguination and his injuries (coming out occasionally to apologize, but not to offer any assistance whatsoever). After this, she and some associates disposed of the body.

Now, new facts come out, which were previously not reported (at least, I hadn't seen them). She is of African American descent. He was...not.

She reportedly told friends, "I hit this white man."

Now imagine if the skin hues were reversed. This wouldn't be the last fact to be reported--it would be the first. And the NAACP mobs would have been out for blood, screaming in the streets and filling all available media bandwidth with cries for "hate-crime" legislation.

Now, I say this only to point out more evidence of media bias in favor of the race baiters--I don't actually care what color either of them was.

But even without knowing the circumstances of the auto accident, I think that she should be charged not just with hit and run, not just with failure to provide aid and assistance. She should be charged with abduction, torture and murder, and she should be put away for a very long time.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 08, 2002 01:49 PM
TrackBack URL for this entry:


Listed below are links to weblogs that reference this post from Transterrestrial Musings.
Comments

"But even without knowing the circumstances of the auto accident, I think that she should be charged not just with hit and run, not just with failure to provide aid and assistance. She should be charged with abduction, torture and murder, and she should be put away for a very long time."

Funny, but my wife and I were talking about this very thing last evening. When does a traffic accident become a death penalty case? Here's your precedent. She tortured this man.

I say bring back the draw and quarter.

Posted by Jeff Goldstein at March 8, 2002 05:04 PM

And why isn't MADD, for whom this case couldn't be a better (or worse) example if they'd designed it themselves, shouting about it from the rooftops?

Posted by John "Akatsukami" Braue at March 9, 2002 03:56 PM

Black and white is pretty much irrelevant here. The fact is that her depraved indifference cost a man his life. I checked the Fox News article and it said that she faces a sentence from 5 years to life. Personally, I think she she face the death penalty.

Posted by Matt Harris at March 10, 2002 05:22 PM

I agree that race is irrelevant. My point is that if the situation were reversed, it would have become a racial issue anyway.

Here's the media equation:

White person killing black person = "racism/hate crime".
Black person killing white person = "race not relevant"

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 10, 2002 05:56 PM


DWI, drunk driving, DUI, and a license to drink.
madd, sadd, radd, A.A., and Alanon related.

Copyright: 1993-2004 © Bruce Alm

The answer to the problem of drunk driving, etc. could be this; a permit for the purchase and consumption of alcohol beverages.

This would not only be a major assault on the problem of drunk driving, but would also have an effect on virtually all other crimes such as these;
murder, rape, assault, burglary, robbery, suicide, vandalism, wife beating, child beating, child molestation, the spread of aids, college binge drinking, animal cruelty, etc., the list is endless.

If this proposition was made law, there could be a major reduction in all these areas of concern, even though the emphasis concerning alcohol abuse seems to be drunk driving in particular.

There could also be many other positive results;

families healed, better work performance, booze money spent on products that would help the economy (we've all heard of the guy who spends half his check in the bar on payday,) would spare many health problems, etc.

This new law could go something like this:

Any person found guilty of any crime where drinking was a factor would lose the right to purchase and/or consume alcohol beverages.

For a first misdemeanor, a three year revocation. a second misdemeanor, a ten year revocation. a third misdemeanor, a lifetime revocation. Any felony crime, an automatic lifetime revocation.
Anyone caught drinking alcohol without a permit would receive a possible $1000 fine and/or jail sentence. those who would supply alcohol to people without a drinking permit (and possibly make money at it,) would also lose his/her right to purchase alcohol beverages.

What wife or husband would buy an alcoholic spouse a bottle?

What friend would give a problem drinker a drink at the possible cost of a thousand bucks and the loss of their own privilege? This could be a total discouragement to these would-be pushers.

This permit doesn't seem as though it would be a problem to put into effect. It could simply be a large X, or whatever, on the back of any drivers license in any state, to show who has been revoked, and cannot purchase alcohol.

Most people of drinking age have a driver's license, but one area that might be a problem could be New York City, where many people don't drive.

This problem could be resolved, however, by a license-type I.D. specifically for the purchase of alcohol beverages. Most, if not all states have these already for the purpose of identification.
This could be a small price to pay for the saved lives of thousands of Americans each and every year.

After this, it would simply be a matter of drinking establishments checking I.D.s at the time of purchase.
In the case of crowded bars, they could simply check I.D.s at the door, as they do now.

Would this be a violation of rights?

There can be no argument here since they already check I.D.s of people who look as though they may not be old enough to drink.

This could be a good saying, "If a person who doesn't know how to drive shouldn't have a license to drive, a person who doesn't know how to drink shouldn't have a license to drink."

Here are some other pluses to this idea:

A good percentage of people in correctional institutions are there because of alcohol related offences . Because of this, court, penal, and law enforcement costs could drop dramatically.

The need for A.A., ALANON, MADD, SADD, etc., could be greatly diminished as well.

What the alcoholic fears most, is the temptation to have that first drink, usually a spur of the moment type thing. Without the ability to do this, he/she is fairly safe. To start drinking again would almost have to be planned in advance. and to maintain steady drinking would be extremely difficult, in most cases.

Even though A.A. members as a group don't become involved in political movements, it seems as individuals, they would all be in favor of a situation like this. Any person who wants to quit drinking, even if never having been in trouble with the law, could simply turn in their license for the non-drinking type.

A woman from MAAD, on the NBC TODAY show, said "One out of every ten Americans has a drinking problem, and that 10% consumes 60% of all alcohol beverages sold in the U.S.."
If this is true, there could be financial problems for breweries, liquor stores, bars, rehab centers, etc., as well as lawyers, massive amounts of tax revenue 'down the drain,' and so on.
But it doesn't seem as though anyone would have a valid argument against a proposal such as this for financial reasons. To do so would be morally wrong, and could be likened to a drug-pusher attitude.

Even with the problems this new law could present, it still could, in one sense, be considered the simple solution to the number one drug problem in the U.S. and elsewhere. Alcoholism.

P.S.

What ever happened to the skid row drunk?

Posted by drunk driving at May 12, 2004 09:05 PM


Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments: