Now they’ve zapped a sober diabetic found unconscious in his car and “combative”.

Sleeping man tasered in his own home. No kidding. Is it not yet obvious that giving these things to cops isn’t working out well?

Both from Kottke:

• There is a new rap video by Jay-Z wherein he waves Euro notes, not Benjamins, to illustrate his wealth.
• Further, supermodel Gisele Bundchen now wishes to be paid in Euros, not dollars.

Ooops.

Check Balko for more; Mukasey has basically promised Orrin Hatch that he’ll pursue “mainstream obscenity” in his hypothetical DOJ, which is code for “I’ll crack down on porn.”

Balko:

It’s important to note, here, that “mainstream obscenity” is a contradiction in terms. Obscenity, at least by the Supreme Court’s definition in Miller v. California, isn’t “mainstream.” What Hatch wants are pornography prosecutions.

Still, it’s helpful to know the spirit of Ed Meese is still alive and well in the Republican Party. Never mind that, as I’ve explained before, just about every measurable social indicator that people like Hatch believe could be affected by the availability of pornography is moving the other way, and has been since the early-to-mid 1990s, also the very period over which the Internet has made porn abundant, free, and easily accessible. Over the last 15 years, rapes are down to historic lows, abortions are way down, teen sex is down, teen pregnancy is down to historic lows, divorces are down, and crimes against children are down.

This dude just gets better and better.

The Feds would like very much to convince the courts that you have no right to privacy in email. This would mean that any email communication could be eavesdropped upon without any sort of warrant or court oversight.

We’re pretty sure this is a bad idea.

Real life bales of cocaine are washing up onshore in Nicaragua.

The Westboro Baptist “Church” — principally known for their very Christlike God-Hates-Fags protests — has lost an $11 million lawsuit over a protest they staged at a military funeral.

Check this out: Some nutbird creationist asserts:

scientists have computed that to provide a single protein molecule by chance combination would take 10^262 years. Take thins pieces of paper and write “1” and then zeros after them – you would fill up the entire known universe with paper before you could write that number.

We’ll pause for a moment for the sheer gravity of this stupidity to sink in. Now proceed to one of the finest Internet smackdowns ever.

“Hey, what might Alberto Gonzales need a criminal lawyer for?” Slate asks, and answers. Abu G’s in trouble, and not the little kind, either.

Genarlow Wilson, previously serving a 10-year sentence for having consensual oral sex with another teenager, has been ordered released by the Georgia Supreme Court. He’s served 2 years already.

The “crime” occurred when Wilson was 17; his partner was 15. The law under which he was charged was one against child molestation; some prosecutor’s ass needs to be in a sling for even bringing that bullshit to trial. (His partner didn’t cry rape, and has maintained the sex was consensual the whole time.)

The Feds think they may have a line on Whitey Bulger. It remains to be seen, though, if Bulger had anything to do with a certain art heist.

They’d better find him soon; he’s getting old, and may check out on his own.

The sad tale of Abdallah Higazy bears repeating. Here are the facts.

On 9/11, Higazy, an Egyptian citizen, was staying in a New York City hotel that (predictably) emptied out after the event. The hotel later found, in the closet of Higazy’s room, a radio meant for communication with flight crews and airline pilots.

The hotel alerted the Feds, who detained Higazy for questioning. Higazy denied any part in the events of the day, but was eventually coerced into confessing something to the contrary because the interrogators threatened to tell the Egyptian authorities he and his family were terrorists, and we all know that Cairo is not exactly a paragon of human rights. Faced with an impossible choice, Higazy confessed to something he didn’t do.

Comes now the good news (quoting from here):

So Higazy “confesses” and he’s processed by the criminal justice system. His future is quite bleak. Meanwhile, an airline pilot later shows up at the hotel and asks for his radio back. (Emph added) This is like something out of the movies. The radio belonged to the pilot, not Higazy, and Higazy was free to go, the victim of horrible timing. Higazi was innocent! He next sued the hotel and the FBI agent for coercing his confession. The bottom line in the Court of Appeals: Higazy has a case and may recover damages for this injustice.

We might think that threatening familial torture would be the end of it, but we’d be wrong. The original ruling in the case, which detailed the fact that the FBI had illegally coerced his confession, appeared briefly online. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t online anymore — but a few hours later, it resurfaced, with the objectionable parts redacted on the grounds that they were classified.

Classified, my ass. Thank God some folks grabbed the original version of the opinion so people can know what’s really happening here; that toothpaste is out of the tube now, no matter how embarrassing it is to the Feds. Here’s the part the Court tried to suppress:

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.”

Higazy later said, “I knew that I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger.” He explained that “[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family’s in danger. If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.”

(There’s more; follow the link above.)

So, to recap:

1. FBI collars wrong guy;
2. In absence of any but circumstantial evidence, FBI uses illegal coercion and threats of torture for the suspect’s family to extract a false confession;
3. FBI gets slapped down over the whole thing in court;
4. FBI and DoJ later try to redact the whole affair rather than man up and admit just how fucked up they are.

That’s ok. We’re sure things are much better now.

Not.

Reason magazine notes Jackson’s own little Bush.

Equador says the US can keep its military base there only if it can have a military base in Miami, which we think is funny as hell.

CNN:

No, really.

Also, from the end of the article, there’s this. Can you find the potential problem?

Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts — encouraging them to frequent public places.

Over the years, city authorities have employed monkey catchers who use langurs — a larger and fiercer kind of monkey — to scare or catch the macaques, but the problem persists.

Yeah, nothing can go wrong with that, right?