Mostly Harmless

Senator Reid may permit Roland Burris to be seated if Burris promised to bow, genuflect appropriately, and sign a statement etc., etc.,  etc.. I am sure that list will include Burris being told to kiss his ham.

Sigh, this is pointless.

While everyone can agree that Blagojevich is a low life, he is a low who has the ability to appoint interim senators for the state of Illinois. Since that has not changed, and Burris has been appointed, the Senate should stop their pointless postering and get to work.

Another memoir author revealed as a hoax.  Boy, this guy better not re-appear on Oprah, she’ll eat him alive.

That is, Caroline Kennedy should wait until 2010 or 2012 and run for office the old fashioned way.

Hillary Clinton came to New York and campaigned for that senate seat.  She did not walk in and just say “Clinton!”, like she did in the presidential primaries. She worked the counties and listened to her future constituents and she earned being elected both times.

Aside from her family history, what qualifies Caroline Kennedy for office?  Or put it a different way: if she was not a Kennedy would anyone take this seriously?

I hope that Governor Paterson ignores the Camelot theme music and appoints someone who will do a great job for the state of New York.  Personally I would love to see Carolyn McCarthy for the job as I think she has the right experience and get up and go.

I was in a good mood but not so much right now, Eartha Kitt died today at 81. Next time I hear “Santa Baby” I’ll be thinking of her.

I heard this on the radio last night.

A State Supreme Court jury in the Bronx found the defendant, Lillo Brancato Jr., 32, guilty of first-degree attempted burglary, a felony, but said he was not culpable in the death of the officer, Daniel Enchautegui, who was shot by Mr. Brancato’s accomplice after a night of drinking and a search for drugs.

…

Under the law, a person is guilty of second-degree murder in a killing that occurs in the commission of another felony. But the law provides for mitigating circumstances in a defense.

via Ex-‘Sopranos’ Actor Cleared of Murder Charge in Officer’s Death - NYTimes.com.

I do not get this at all. This man participated in a crime and off-duty officer Daniel Enchautegui died as a result.  That’s a direct line event to this officer’s death.  No crime and that officer may still be with us today.

No one likes to put people in jail, and serving on a jury before the holiday’s must be especially difficult.  But it is a duty, a responsibility and justice must be fair and equal.  This was not a plea deal, this was not a administrative move or legal trick.  The jury intentionally gave this man a pass after buying his story.

What an actor. I can’t help but think that if this eloquent actor had been Puerto Rican and the murder victim an off-duty Italian American officer, would the jury’s result have been different? I don’t want to think about that, it makes me more upset.

This result from the jury is unfair and I hope that the judge sentences this man to 15 years in jail for “attempted burglary”. I hope that that would provide some small comfort to Officer Enchautegui’s family.

I like the ACLU and by extension the NYCLU.  I think that people questioning their government is the right thing to do and civil liberties are very important.

But sometimes I read something like this and I think that they should prioritize what they spend their efforts and attention on.  Here is a quote:

”When a guy with nothing more than a chair in his hands ends up dead, that raises lots of questions about the propriety of a police shooting,” said Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “When a guy like that ends up dead, you definitely have to ask yourself, ‘How can that be?’”

via Police Defend Shooting of Man Swinging a Chair - NYTimes.com.

There are cases of Police shooting people under questionable circumstances. Those need to be addressed and made right but that’s a different problem.  Civil liberties groups perform a valuable service to us all when they ask questions of the government and try to hold officials to the law.

Here’s why I think this case is not a good one for the civil liberties groups: the officer was in real danger and that apparently warranted her discharging her weapon. At that point the confrontation was over and sadly someone died.

Guns are lethal weapons and if the officer tried to “shoot to wound” then she may have hit a bystander.  TV and movies play up the idea that you can shoot someone and disarm or just wound them but that really romanticizes guns.

Guns kill, that’s what they are designed for. Last time I checked, the NYPD did not hire professional wrestlers or martial artists.  NYPD are trained for physical confrontation but they have to measure the risk and keep people out of harms way including themselves.

When a Police officer discharges their gun, they are supposed to do so aiming for the center of the targets body mass.  No movie scenes, no John Wayne moments, and someone will end up seriously wounded or dead. There are alternatives such as using a Taser, but how is that working out?