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[Koah]

I think the bigger issue here is, who fucking cares who picks up the god damned trash? Unless the whole operation is mobbed up or something, who gives a flying fuck? Honestly? So long as I can take the bin out to the curb once a week and someone makes it empty, I don't fucking care who that guy is.

The sentiment might be, "if they decide who takes our garbage away without our input, regardless of the validity or practicality of our input, then we're one-step closer to absolute government control of our lives."  Mussolini : trains :: Fountain Hills town council : garbage trucks.

[Shinra]

Except for that input they got when they elected their city council representatives.

The tea party movement seems to be bent on dismantling representative government.

[Brentai]

They want lighter taxes like we have in California.

[Mongrel]

The tea party movement seems to be bent on dismantling representative government.

This is my surprised face.

[McDohl]

No, representative government is fine, as long as it's their guy.

My guy didn't get elected.  Stomp stomp stomp whine whine whine.  Do it over until we get it right.

WRT 2008, "Whine whine whine" means "*insert racial epithet* in the White House."

[Disposable Ninja]

The tea party movement seems to be bent on dismantling representative government.

Nah. They're just against anything that makes sense. In Houston, for example, they were against Prop 3 -- the continued use of Red Light Cameras.

I shouldn't have to tell you that it didn't pass.

[McDohl]

Well, that's because WHO IS THE GOVERNMENT TO TELL THEM THAT THEY CAN'T RUN A RED LIGHT, HUH?

[Thad]

I'm not crazy about the things myself -- I got caught by one once in a situation where a human officer would have let it slide.  (According to the video, I was 0.26 seconds behind the light change and there was nobody else in the intersection.)  I see that flash go off erroneously all the time, and the framerate on the Flash video they linked me to in my ticket was too slow to actually confirm the moment I crossed the line -- and it had a note at the bottom claiming it was inadmissible in court.

But Daily Show did skewer the whole controversy pretty wonderfully when they interviewed the cosponsor of 1070 and got him to talk about how traffic cameras are a gross violation of people's rights.

[Brentai]

It's basically impossible to make a left turn here without being caught in the intersection on red, so the camera exists essentially to piss off the locals and freak out the visitors.

[TA]

Red light cameras are actually terrible, and demonstrably increase accident rates at intersections where they are known to be placed.

Part of this is that 99% of the time they put a red light camera at an intersection, they shorten the amount of time the light is yellow.

[Shinra]

I understand that in most of the country, the red light cameras are really just used as a source of income for local municipalities to make up for the fact that they're underfunded. We don't have them for the most part here in Oklahoma - just speed traps every 30 feet set up by the local police to prey on every idiot who comes through who isn't from the area and goes even a few mph over the speed limit. They don't really ticket the locals. Apparently my city was so bad about giving out speeding tickets that the state threatened to put a moratorium on speeding tickets for a while for the city, and have state police watch the road for violations instead.

This is the same city that housed The Honorable Judge Dick Pump. I can even make a good bet as to where he got that penis pump of his.

[Thad]

Red light cameras are actually terrible, and demonstrably increase accident rates at intersections where they are known to be placed.

Part of this is that 99% of the time they put a red light camera at an intersection, they shorten the amount of time the light is yellow.

I'd like to see the stats if you've got a link.  I've heard the numbers on speed cameras but not red light cameras.

(My biggest beef with speed cameras is that drivers predictably drop to TEN MILES BELOW THE SPEED LIMIT when they see a speed enforcement sign.)

[TA]

This whole article series talks about both red light and speed cameras, and is a good read, but the meat of my point is in part four, pages two and three.

Retting had estimated that the use of red-light cameras had resulted in a tiny 3 percent increase in rear-enders at all signalized intersections. But after expanding the definition of an intersection to include 100 feet into the approaches, where rear-end accidents would logically occur, Kadison found that during the time of Retting's study, rear-end crashes at red-light camera intersections increased from 18 (before installation) to 156, for a total rear-end accident increase of 767 percent.

The cameras were installed in 1998. Between the years 1997 and 2000, accidents increased at 5 of 13 intersections for which Howard County's Department of Public Works provided statistics. Rear-end accidents increased at 7; they more than doubled at 4, tripled at one, and quintupled at one. All told, the red-light-camera intersections reported a 21 percent increase in rear-end accidents, while total accidents increased 15.9 percent. Figures for all other county intersections also show an increase in accidents, but a smaller one (a 13.4 increase in total accidents and an 8.5 percent increase in rear-end accidents).

[Garry_Gurton]

WOAH!  THIS law is DANGEROUS!

[Thad]

Arizona passes medical marijuana for the third time; hopefully this time the legislature won't have a loophole to shut it down.

I was concerned there'd be a recount, but 4341 votes is more than the 0.1% that triggers one.

[Thad]

AZ Supreme Court-appointed ethics investigator recommends disbarment for Arpaio cronies Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon.

• Thomas and Aubuchon brought up charges against county Supervisor Don Stapley knowing they were outside the statute of limitations. Gleason wrote, "Thomas and Aubuchon did not prosecute Stapley to seek justice, but rather to pursue the political and personal interests of Thomas." Gleason also indicated that the first investigation into Stapley by Arpaio and Thomas may have been initiated by Aubuchon or another former deputy county attorney, Mark Goldman. Goldman has since served as Aubuchon's legal counsel. According to the report, Goldman "has been identified as attending MACE meetings and handing out information about Stapley" at a 2007 meeting of the unit.

• In the case involving [Judge Gary] Donahoe, Arpaio "came up with the idea of charging the judge" on Dec. 9, 2009, because there were concerns in the Sheriff's Office that Donahoe would remove Arpaio's office from investigations regarding county personnel. Charges were filed against Donahoe despite a sheriff's investigator acknowledging he had "no knowledge as to the truth or falsity of the complaint."

•Thomas and Aubuchon had conflicts of interest in pursuing a grand jury investigation of Donahoe, county Supervisor Andy Kunasek, County Manager David Smith, Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson and private Board of Supervisors' attorney Tom Irvine. The investigation involved looking into a sweep of county offices for illegal listening devices.

Like I've said: it's finally all coming down.  There's no way they're going to wriggle out now.

[Cthulhu-chan]

Any news on nailing Arpaio himself to the wall?

[Mongrel]

I'm hoping for a classic "Warden Norton" exit, myself.








But only because there's no way that he'll be hung.

[Thad]

Multiple investigations are ongoing; this is one of them.

I predict multiple things happening.

First of all, the MCSO's made a habit of setting up fall guys.  An attorney got fired over that flap a few years back where they had the publishers of the New Times arrested, and of course there's that lengthy complaint from a few weeks ago trying to pin everything on Chief Deputy Hendershott.  (Arpaio hands it off to his buddy Pinal Sheriff Babeu, in the hopes that it'll go away, but if Babeu DOES go off-script, Hendershott gets in trouble and Arpaio -- hypothetically, at least -- gets away clean.)  Expect to see more of the same with Aubuchon, though I don't think Arpaio will turn on Thomas unless he's absolutely desperate.  He'll stick to the "this is a witch hunt" story.  (It is, of course, a witch hunt; it's just that Thomas was the guy conducting it and that's why he's looking at disbarment.)

I think what's going to be interesting is seeing which cronies circle the wagons and which turn on Joe.  If Bill Montgomery isn't a complete moron, he's going to take this as an object lesson in what happens to county attorneys who use their office to harass and intimidate the Sheriff's political enemies; I expect he'll be a lot more reluctant to serve as Arpaio's attack dog than Thomas was.

And I see Babeu supporting Arpaio as long as it's politically convenient and then turning on him as soon as THAT'S politically convenient.  He's got the most to gain here: he can be the NEW America's Toughest Sheriff.

So, in summary: no, nothing sticking to Arpaio just yet, but the entire department's getting investigated at the county, state, and federal level and his cronies are starting to go down.  It's only a matter of time.  It took a very long time to finally get this far, but now it's all happening pretty quickly.

[Norondor]

I'm hoping for a classic "Warden Norton" exit, myself.

But only because there's no way that he'll be hung.

i like the cut of your jib, mongrel