July 2009

It really is becoming an epidemic of stupidity:

Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.

A representative for the DeKalb County CEO’s office identified the officers as Ryan White and C.M. Route.

I guess they missed that whole thing last year with State Department employees accessing records on Obama, Clinton and McCain? Just the lack of judgment on the part of these officers is alarming enough. What ever law this violates they should be given the maximum penalty on. They have abused their power, betrayed the public trust and betrayed their oath to uphold the law. That is inexcusable.

There has been a lot of talk about Justin Barrett, a police officer with Boston. He made fame yesterday when it was exposed that he wrote a letter to the media and referred to Henry Gates as a “banana eating jungle monkey'”. if you missed it, here’s the run down:

The law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Officer Justin Barrett referred to the black scholar as a " jungle monkey" in the letter, written in reaction to media coverage of Gates's arrest July 16.

Barrett, a 36-year-old who has been on the job for two years, was stripped of his gun and badge yesterday and faces a termination hearing in the next week, said police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. He has no previous disciplinary record, she said.

Barrett will be represented by the police union in his hearing, as he should be. This gets into a very iffy area of our first amendment rights. One way he may have stripped himself of that protection though is by identifying himself as a police officer in his “anonymous” email.

But there is something more interesting here. In Barrett’s letter he made a statement that should be a warning sign that a person does not understand the very fundamental’s of our nation’s laws:

Reports are that Microsoft and Yahoo have sealed the deal for Microsoft to offer their new Bing search engine as the default search engine for Yahoo. In my opinion this should give Google something to worry about. Bing is a very nice search engine. Microsoft finally broke out of their stagnant web presence with the new search engine, and now Google’s main competitor will use it.

Of course Google is so far ahead of Microsoft in other web services that I don’t know if it will pose as much of a threat as people are expecting. I really like Bing, but I still use Google for 99% of my searches. It isn’t a matter of preference, but rather a force of habit. Also we can expect to see Google take the nice benefits of Bing and improve on them. It’s all part of the competition that goes on daily in the internet business.

That’s how a group of cancer experts are now classifying tanning beds:

International cancer experts have moved tanning beds and other sources of ultraviolet radiation into the top cancer risk category, deeming them as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas. For years, scientists have described tanning beds and ultraviolet radiation as "probable carcinogens."

A new analysis of about 20 studies concludes the risk of skin cancer jumps by 75 percent when people start using tanning beds before age 30. Experts also found that all types of ultraviolet radiation caused worrying mutations in mice, proof the radiation is carcinogenic. Previously, only one type of ultraviolet radiation was thought to be lethal.

The new classification means tanning beds and other sources of ultraviolet radiation are definite causes of cancer, alongside tobacco, the hepatitis B virus and chimney sweeping, among others.

It amazes me how many people depend on tanning beds to “look good”. A couple of weeks I heard the life squad get dispatched to a twelve year old girl who was unconscious and had a bad rash after being in a tanning bed. Instantly I thought “why in the hell is a 12 year old girl in a tanning bed?” It’s the middle of summer and if she wants a tan do what I did – go outside. Hell you might even get some exercise while at it.

Here in Ohio there is legislation in the works to outlaw tanning beds for children under 18. This is a great step and considering the lethality of tanning beds is now equivalent to that of cigarettes, its only safe to assume the same limitations should apply to both. I just wonder how strong the tanning bed lobby is.