Random Posts

[goldenvalley]

A Texas lawyer known as the D.W.I. Dude for specializing in defending clients charged with driving while intoxicated and drug possession was sentenced this week to more than 15 years in prison for a scheme to pocket money that Colombian cocaine traffickers had been told would go to bribe officials, federal prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, the lawyer, James Morris Balagia, 65, of Manor, Texas, and two associates solicited payments from drug traffickers he was representing and told them that the money would be paid as bribes in return for favorable treatment of their cases.

“During meetings in Colombia and in Collin County, Texas, the group represented that in exchange for inflated ‘attorney fees,’ they were in contact with government officials in the United States who would accept bribes resulting in either the dismissal of their criminal charges or significant reductions in their U.S. federal prison sentences,” prosecutors said in a statement. “In reality, there were no bribes or government officials.”

How did this wrongdoing come to light?

The federal authorities were alerted to the scheme by the drug dealers whom Mr. Balagia and his associates were targeting, according to Joe Brown, a former U.S. attorney. “Fortunately for him, these drug dealers chose to turn him in to the F.B.I. rather than handle it any other way,” Mr. Brown said at an earlier stage of the case, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Imagine the phone call tip..."I've been ripped off by my lawyer.  He promised he would bribe the DEA with this money I gave him but he didn't."  I'm waiting for the civil suit...breach of contract.  

[pnwguy]

For all my friends in Wawa land...

[LFC]

May 6, 2021 18:36:10 GMT pnwguy said:

For all my friends in Wawa land...

Must be slower lower Delaware.

[LFC]

I don't have a strong opinion on the merits of the case but from a common sense standpoint what did the developers at SnapChat think people would do with this feature?

A California federal appeals court has denied legal immunity to Snapchat developer Snap for the 2017 death of two teens and a 20-year-old when their car crashed into a tree at 113 miles per hour (180 km/h). Parents of two of the boys sued Snap, arguing that Snapchat's "speed filter" encouraged the boys to accelerate their car to more than 100 miles per hour.

Last year, Snap convinced a federal trial judge that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded Snap from liability in the case. The once-obscure 1996 law has become a frequent source of controversy as technology giants have used it to disclaim responsibility for harmful content on their platforms.

Snap argued that the law gave it immunity in the boys' death. Snapchat pioneered the use of image filters, a feature that has been widely copied by other apps. In 2017, Snapchat's offerings included a speed filter that displayed a user's current speed—either on its own or superimposed on the user's photo. Users could use this filter to show their friends how fast they were moving at the time of the post.

"At some point during their drive, the boys' car began to speed as fast as 123 MPH," the 9th Circuit Appeals Court wrote in Tuesday's ruling. "They sped along at these high speeds for several minutes, before they eventually ran off the road at approximately 113 MPH and crashed into a tree. Tragically, their car burst into flames, and all three boys died."

Shortly before the crash, one of the boys opened the Snapchat app and used the speed filter to document how fast the car was moving.

"Many of Snapchat’s users suspect, if not actually believe, that Snapchat will reward them for recording a 100-MPH or faster snap using the Speed Filter," the appeals court wrote. "According to plaintiffs, this is a game for Snap and many of its users with the goal being to reach 100 MPH, take a photo or video with the Speed Filter, and then share the 100-MPH-Snap on Snapchat."

The parents sued, arguing that Snapchat is a negligently designed product. They argued that Snap knew—or should have known—that offering the speed filter would encourage young people to drive at dangerously high speeds to impress their friends and possibly earn rewards on the Snapchat platform.

Snap said that it was shielded by Section 230 because the company was being held responsible for the content of the boy's snap. A lower court bought that argument, but a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit rejected it.

[andydp]

Yesterday (5/6) I mowed our lawn, took a break and then started on cleaning my Big Bird.  At the end of two hours of cleaning and waxing I was having severe leg cramps.  Sat down, put my legs on the back massager and watched the DVR for a bit while drinking Tonic Water. 

After a while the cramps subsided, I took a shower.  Since it was after 1600 added some gin to the tonic water. This is the way life should be.  

[Deleted]

Only 4% of iOS users in US are opting in to ad tracking, report says

How many problems can be solved with the demise of Facebook? Just the sort of thought that cheers me up on a Friday afternoon.

[LFC]

May 7, 2021 12:55:21 GMT andydp said:

Since it was after 1600 added some gin to the tonic water. This is the way life should be. 

I ran out of tonic but salvation was delivered today. I'll sit down with a nice G&T tonight ... in a pint glass. Here's the brand I'm currently drinking. Other than having a pond pig on the label I think it's really nice. I love my gin dry with lots of juniper (which for me is what makes gin gin) and this fits the bill perfectly.

[andydp]

May 7, 2021 19:03:03 GMT LFC said:

May 7, 2021 12:55:21 GMT andydp said:

Since it was after 1600 added some gin to the tonic water. This is the way life should be. 

I ran out of tonic but salvation was delivered today. I'll sit down with a nice G&T tonight ... in a pint glass. Here's the brand I'm currently drinking. Other than having a pond pig on the label I think it's really nice. I love my gin dry with lots of juniper (which for me is what makes gin gin) and this fits the bill perfectly.

I am a fierce believer if you're going to have a "healing elixir" with minimal amounts of anything added, then by all means get and drink the "good stuff".  However, many years ago a wise liquor store owner advised me if you're going to be mixing the liquor with large amounts of whatever, the cheap stuff is good enough. If I have guests, the good stuff comes out. For day to day "happy hour", house vodka and gin are good enough.

I have observed that dictum ever since.  

[Deleted]

Gin not vodka? You folks are mild-mannered. Here it's a perfect day for a dirty martini, with vodka, of course.

[LFC]

May 7, 2021 20:29:27 GMT andydp said:

I am a fierce believer if you're going to have a "healing elixir" with minimal amounts of anything added, then by all means get and drink the "good stuff".  However, many years ago a wise liquor store owner advised me if you're going to be mixing the liquor with large amounts of whatever, the cheap stuff is good enough. If I have guests, the good stuff comes out. For day to day "happy hour", house vodka and gin are good enough.

I have observed that dictum ever since. 

I haven't had it in ages but I remember hearing that Gilbey's London Dry was a very nice gin at a very nice price but I rarely serve gin to company. It always seems to come down to beer, wine, fruity tropical punch types of drinks my wife makes, or creamy (basically ice cream waiting to be frozen) dessert drinks. Occasionally I'll get a taker on a glass of port.

[LFC]

May 7, 2021 20:40:29 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Gin not vodka? You folks are mild-mannered. Here it's a perfect day for a dirty martini, with vodka, of course.

To me vodka is simply Everclear Lite(tm). If I'm drinking a hard liquor I want flavor and it's almost certain to be gin or tequila. I'll sample bourbon or scotch when recommended but it's never been my go-to.

[andydp]

May 7, 2021 20:40:29 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Gin not vodka? You folks are mild-mannered. Here it's a perfect day for a dirty martini, with vodka, of course.

Amateur !! My go to palliative for “long sessions” is bourbon. For a neat drink Eagle Rare, Jim Beam Devil’s Cut, or Rebel (was Rebel Yell) 100 proof. For mixing Rebel. Old Forrester 100 has a place in my cabinet.

[AnBr]

A gin and tonic is very thirst quenching. I tend to go with bourbon in the cooler months and gin & tonic in the warmer ones. Vodka is too bland for my palate.

[LFC]

Sorry but the inevitability of the gin and tonic is universally known.

"It is a curious fact, and one to which no-one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85 percent of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand variations on this phonetic theme.

The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian ‘chinanto/mnigs’ which is ordinary water served just above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks’ which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the only one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that their names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds."

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

[Deleted]

I like my hand soap to smell like fresh pine, not my drink.

[pnwguy]

May 8, 2021 3:24:31 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

I like my hand soap to smell like fresh pine, not my drink.

To correct your botanical error, know that gin is flavored with Juniper berries, (family Cupressaceae, Juniperus communis).  Pine species are all member of the family Pinaceae, genus Pinus.  It's a common error 

I may have spent the last 38 years in technology, but I do remember my dendrology taxonomy from my college freshman year.  We lost 50% of the grade if we misspelled the Latin names.  

[LFC]

Mexico City has been sinking for a long time because of the extraction of groundwater. Now it's sinking even faster.

For over 100 years, it has been known that Mexico City is sinking due to the removal of water from the ground it's built on. This sinking has now reached an alarming rate of 50 centimeters (20 inches) per year and a new study published in JGR Solid Earth suggests that there is no hope of reversing it.

Mexico City is built over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and Lake Texcoco, a system of salt and fresh water lakes. The Aztec had dikes to separate the fresh water and stop floods but those were destroyed during the Spanish colonial invasion and the siege of the city in the 1500s. Afterward the Spanish drained the lake with only a small section remaining.

In the 1900s, the city was sinking at a rate of 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) a year. Since the late 1950s, when that rose to 29 centimeters (11.4 inches) a year, the amount of water that could be drilled from the ground in the area was capped. While that helped to slow down the sinking for a while, it did not stop or reverse the process. For while it went back to 9 centimeters, but in the last two decades it rose to a sinking rate of 50 centimeters in some parts of the city. Now, the team believes that the amount of water removed no longer affects the level of subsidence.

The team used 115 years of leveling data combined with more modern approaches such as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) collected over the last 24 years and GPS data from the last 14 years to show "no significant elastic deformation exists, demonstrating that the subsidence is almost fully irreversible." The clay layers below the city have so far been compressed by 17 percent and it is unlikely to bounce back.

The team stresses that the compression of these layers continues and according to their model, the whole layer will end up compressed by 30 percent which could lead to additional subsidence of up to 30 meters (99 feet) in 150 years.

“These subsidence rates will persist unless water levels are brought back up to shallow depths. Even if water levels were to be raised, there is no hope for recovering the great majority of the lost elevation and the lost storage capacity of the aquitard,” the researchers write.

[andydp]

The #6 Seton Hall University Pirates lost to Indiana University 2-0 in a quarterfinal (elite 8) game yesterday. This ended their march towards the NCAA Soccer Championship.  At the beginning of the season, Seton Hall was not expected to even get rated.  They ended the season by winning the Big East Championship and rated #6 nationally.  

Thanks for a great run !!

[LFC]

I hope this hammerhead never breeds.

It’s crucial to make a respectable first impression when you appear in court. Spare a thought, then, for the poor defendant in Michigan who inadvertently logged into his court’s Zoom call on Tuesday with the username “Buttfucker 3000.” A clip of the incident shows Judge Jeffrey Middleton say “bring this fool in” before the man with the provocative username appears on screen. The judge asks for the defendant’s name and he replies “Nathaniel Saxton,” setting up the judge for one of the most unique utterances in legal history: “Your name’s not ‘Buttfucker 3000,’ you yoho! Logging in to my court with that as your screen name... What kind of idiot logs into court like that?” The defendant protests, saying that he had no idea how that became his username, but later said it’s his the pairing name for his Bluetooth speaker. “It’s an inside joke... I’m embarrassed, I’m sorry,” he said. According to Law & Crime, Saxton later pleaded guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia and was given a $200 fine.

[goldenvalley]

The cyber attack on the oil pipeline results in dry gas stations in North Carolina.

 As of Wednesday, governors in North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Florida had declared states of emergency and taken steps to relax fuel transport rules to ease pain at the pump. But the run on gas stations is colliding with a shortage of truck drivers, compounding the logistical challenges as states try to fill in for the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel.
The Colonial Pipeline system shut down Friday after hackers thought to be based in the former Soviet Union infiltrated servers and encrypted its data, demanding a fee to restore access.

[LFC]

A ranger in California found a massive and significant fossil site.

“It started with me being at the right place at the right time and having an eye for something that was a bit out of place,” said Francek, who has been a ranger and naturalist with the water district for 10 years. “I didn’t realize what I was looking at was actually the remains of great beasts that had walked this area millions of years before.”

Soon scientists were unearthing fossils from a whole zoo of prehistoric animals that existed in the time period known as the Miocene Epoch. It was more than 50m years after dinosaurs roamed the continent and it would be millions of years more before humans appeared. It was an age when the mastodons wandered North America. Volcanic activity and shifting geologic plates had not yet formed the Sierra Nevada and most of southern California was still under water.

Russell Shapiro, a geology professor at California State University, Chico, said when Francek first took him to the area, spread over several miles on land that is closed to the public, he was amazed at how many different animals’ fossils appeared in one place.

“Greg was showing me these spots and we were like “Oh my God, that’s a horse; that’s a camel; that’s a rhinoceros; that’s a tortoise,” he said. “It was all right there.”

[RichTBikkies]

May 26, 2021 20:56:37 GMT LFC said:

A ranger in California found a massive and significant fossil site.

Russell Shapiro, a geology professor at California State University, Chico, said when Francek first took him to the area, spread over several miles on land that is closed to the public, he was amazed at how many different animals’ fossils appeared in one place.

“Greg was showing me these spots and we were like “Oh my God, that’s a horse; that’s a camel; that’s a rhinoceros; that’s a tortoise,” he said. “It was all right there.”

The scientist sounds a bit like he's been shown into Aladdin's cave. I know these troubled times are making us all unpleasantly cynical, but could (so to speak) the mine have been salted? For example, by a creationist billionaire with a nasty mind[1] and a pair of idle hands for the Devil[2] to find work for.

[1] A redundant phrase, perhaps?

[2] Beez, can you give us an update here?

[Deleted]

Costco is bringing back free samples

Yay!

The best time of the week to visit Costco is 1 pm on Saturdays. And, the best time of the year is the weekend before Thanksgiving. A full spread is laid out. Bring your appetite. 

[pnwguy]

May 28, 2021 13:37:13 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Costco is bringing back free samples

Yay!

The best time of the week to visit Costco is 1 pm on Saturdays. And, the best time of the year is the weekend before Thanksgiving. A full spread is laid out. Bring your appetite. 

That was always part of the danger of making a Costco run on an empty stomach.  Too many things to try and suddenly add to the cart.

[goldenvalley]

May 28, 2021 16:31:18 GMT pnwguy said:

May 28, 2021 13:37:13 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Yay!

The best time of the week to visit Costco is 1 pm on Saturdays. And, the best time of the year is the weekend before Thanksgiving. A full spread is laid out. Bring your appetite. 

That was always part of the danger of making a Costco run on an empty stomach.  Too many things to try and suddenly add to the cart.

And then when you get it home you realize it wasn't as good as you thought...you were just hungry.