THIS MODERN WORLD

Immediately after an interview segment with Bill Maher, he spends another segment with a body language expert brought in to analyze their body language. “Okay, so what did it mean when he touched his face like that?”

Unbelievable.

Just … oh, my.

Libby guilty on four out of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

… Limbaugh’s already demonizing the jurors …

NY Times editorial:

The New York Police Department has been going fishing. Not content to nab criminals when they break the law on their own, the department has been planting unattended bags in subway stations to see who might take them, at which point waiting officers pounce.

As NY1 News reported last week, 220 people were arrested last year in the sting, known as Operation Lucky Bag. In dismissing one of these cases, a Brooklyn judge said the police “do not need to manipulate a situation where temptation may overcome even people who would normally never think of committing a crime.” This program bothers us for that and many other reasons and should be discontinued immediately.

Civil libertarians have argued that the program is entrapment. That is a legal distinction for the courts to decide, but it certainly looks like that to a layperson. It is clearly a poor use of resources. People wandering off with lost property ranks far down the list of law enforcement priorities.

The editorial goes on to note the possibility that some people might actually be taking the bags home to try to track down the owners themselves. There’s a genuine possibility that some New Yorkers might consider themselves more likely to find the bag’s owner than the NYC Transit Authority. But even discounting that, what a waste of time. I swear, there are people in that city who consider it their job to make life there more of a pain in the ass than it already is.

From Global Class War by Jeff Faux, p. 127-8:

On December 9, 2002, members of Washington’s governing class gathered in the new Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center to mark the tenth anniversary of the completion of the NAFTA negotiations. The morning speakers were the three who had forged the deal—George H.W. Bush, Carlos Salinas, and Brian Mulroney…

Now, celebrating among friends, the three ex-leaders argued that history had vindicated them. Bush said that NAFTA had created millions of good jobs in the United States. He dismissed critics as parochial, lawless, and anarchist. He brought the mainly male house down with a story of how, while being driven past a group of antiglobalization demonstrators, he was confronted by “a, frankly, unattractive woman—I think ‘ugly’ was a good word.” She carried a sign that said “Stay out of my womb.” Bush deadpanned, “Looked over and said, no problem, just—none at all.”

You stay classy, George Bush.