"In an apparent first in Florida law, a state appeals court ruled Monday that posting threats on one’s personal Facebook page can be prosecuted under state law. The 1st District Court of Appeal decided in a criminal case that a Facebook post could be considered a 'sending' for the purposes of the 'sending written threats to kill or do bodily harm' law, a second-degree felony." Continue reading →
"A new bus stop on Columbia Pike cost more than $1 million to build, according to a county spokeswoman. The new prototype 'Super Stop' at the corner of Columbia Pike and Walter Reed Drive cost $575,000 for construction and fabrication and $440,000 for construction management and special inspections, according to Arlington County Department of Environmental Services spokeswoman Shannon Whalen McDaniel. Of the $1 million cost, just over $200,000 was paid for by the county, with the rest coming from VDOT, Whalen McDaniel said." Continue reading →
"Mr. Wassell has become rapidly and widely known as 'The First Victim' of Guano's-sorry, Cuomo's unconstitutional SAFE Act. I was pleased to read in the Buffalo News that friends of freedom and of the Wassells 'crowded' the courtroom. We have historical precedence for such a tactic. In 1786 and 1787, patriots sick of the State's depredations and tyranny surrounded courthouses in Massachusetts to prevent courts from sitting since each time they did, more poor farmers lost their land to rich and corrupt rulers. That same tactic can work today." Continue reading →
"A 58-year-old Brooklyn man was released from prison Thursday after his murder conviction was overturned following a witness’ confession that he was coaxed by authorities into identifying him as the suspect, CNN reported on Friday. 'As I said from the beginning, I had nothing to do with this case,' David Ranta said after leaving prison. Ranta’s case was reopened in 2011, after a witness, Menachem Lieberman, told his court-appointed attorney that police had told him to 'pick the guy with the big nose' when identifying suspects in a lineup." Continue reading →
"A typical Tuesday morning for 42-year-old Michael Di Marzo quickly became a citywide multi-jurisdictional manhunt for him and what witnesses thought was a assault rifle in his hand. Three schools were locked down and delayed as police scoured the area by ground and air, looking for a man described by a teenage tipster as wearing black clothes and a ski mask. It wasn’t realized until hours later what was believed to be something along the lines of an AR-15 or AK-47 was more of a AU-15: a 15-inch compact 'assault umbrella.' The 'ski mask' was a pulled-up black turtle neck sweater paired with a black watch cap." Continue reading →
"For three generations, the badge of the Soviet revolution meant poverty, slavery, torture and death. It adorned the caps of the chekas who came in the night. It opened and closed the propaganda films which hid the famines. It advertised the people's courts where victims of purges and show-trials were condemned. It fluttered over the re-education camps and the gulags. For hundreds of millions of Europeans, it was a symbol of foreign occupation. Yet here it sits on a poster in the European Commission, advertising the moral deafness of its author (I hope that's what it is, rather than lingering nostalgia)." Continue reading →
"It is a US scandal that the country's infrastructure is not just degrading but seriously degraded. While this is not a regular topic for mainstream reporting, every now and then it rises to the surface. Of course, the real issue is seldom dealt with, which is how the combined US government can spend trillions and more trillions while the country's infrastructure continues to collapse. There are accidents big and small as the result of this evolving condition, often never reported unless they rise to the level of serious injury or even death." Continue reading →
"If your city faces a shortfall of tax revenues, the first response of overpaid bureaucrats in City Hall frantic to keep their jobs, pensions and perks will be to slash the hours the library is open. A 2% reduction in the Federal budget, we're told, will push orphans onto the frigid streets, send our troops into battle without ammo, and generally shut down every service the public cares about. The alternative you will never hear about is a reduction in the multiple layers of overpaid bureaucrats in City Hall, the White House staff, the Pentagon, the local school district, etc., or any reduction in funding the parasitic cartels that have captured the machinery of governance." Continue reading →
"With government sequestration looming, President Obama show cases how deep cuts will impact ordinary working Americans." Continue reading →
"Until now, this video presentation has been seen only by Bill’s inner circle. But we are opening it up to Diary of a Rogue Economist subscribers as a small 'thank you' for joining us in our new e-letter." Continue reading →