Frank Zappa said:
Could I make a comment about National Defense: the biggest threat to America today is not communism. It’s moving America toward a fascist theocracy. And everything that’s happened under the Reagan Administration is steering us right down that pipe.
from Anton Sledgehammer, who are, if I am any judge of landscape, a Vancouver organization. They could probably sell this thing at Art Knapp’s for twice what they’re asking.
because Barry is a very, very smart boy. And he knows some awesome animation artists, too. This is a short political video for the Knife Party in the UK, but it is primarily about how TWAT (or GWOT, if you prefer) became institutionalized, and where it’s going. And here‘s a little link from Mistress Cowfish to Bill Kristol’s New American Century project. You remember William Kristol, don’t you? He was the neocon once known as Dan Quayle’s Brain. Helluva reputation to live down, eh?
I stole this from Cold Desert! But I left them some Zombies as payment. Don’t nobody not like zombies!
According to the US Court of Appeals, driving with lotsa cash is against the law.
Let’s do a quick check of the raincoaster situation:
No driver’s license. No car. No money.
Yay, I’m immune!
from The Newspaper, via Fark.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled, “United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit took that amount of cash away from Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, a man with a “lack of significant criminal history” neither accused nor convicted of any crime.
On May 28, 2003, a Nebraska state trooper signaled
Gonzolez to pull over his rented Ford Taurus on Interstate 80. The trooper intended to issue a speeding ticket, but noticed the Gonzolez‘s name was not on the rental contract. The trooper then proceeded to question Gonzolez — who did not speak English well — and search the car. The trooper found a cooler containing $124,700 in cash, which he confiscated. A trained drug sniffing dog barked at the rental car and the cash. For the police, this was all the evidence needed to establish a drug crime that allows the force to keep the seized money.
Associates of Gonzolez testified in court that they had pooled their life savings to purchase a refrigerated truck to start a produce business. Gonzolez flew on a one-way ticket to Chicago to buy a truck, but it had sold by the time he had arrived. Without a credit card of his own, he had a third-party rent one for him. Gonzolez hid the money in a cooler to keep it from being noticed and stolen. He was scared when the troopers began questioning him about it. There was no evidence disputing Gonzolez‘s story.
Yesterday the Eighth Circuit summarily dismissed Gonzolez‘s story. It overturned a lower court ruling that had found no evidence of drug activity, stating, “We respectfully disagree and reach a different conclusion… Possession of a large sum of cash is ‘strong evidence’ of a connection to drug activity.”
Judge Donald Lay found the majority’s reasoning faulty and issued a strong dissent.
“Notwithstanding the fact that claimants seemingly suspicious activities were reasoned away with plausible, and thus presumptively trustworthy, explanations which the government failed to contradict or rebut, I note that no drugs, drug paraphernalia, or drug records were recovered in connection with the seized money,” Judge Lay wrote. “There is no evidence claimants were ever convicted of any drug-related crime, nor is there any indication the manner in which the currency was bundled was indicative of
drug use or distribution.”“Finally, the mere fact that the canine alerted officers to the presence of drug residue in a rental car, no doubt driven by dozens, perhaps scores, of patrons during the course of a given year, coupled with the fact that the alert came from the same location where the currency was discovered, does little to connect the money to a controlled substance offense,” Judge Lay Concluded.
The full text of the ruling is available in a 36k PDF file at the source link below.
Source:
US v. $124,700 (US Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, 8/19/2006)
You really do have to admire the Farkers. If it were not for the divine glory that pours from their keyboards, would anyone ever have looked at this?
The worst imaginable cover of Europe’s The Final Countdown – this makes you pray for nuclear armageddon just to burn the tears of laughter off your face. I’m not kidding.
And seriously, he was not kidding.
raincoaster 