http://news.yahoo.com/…

When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn’t done anything wrong.

But proclaiming innocence wasn’t going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof.

“I sat in the jail and thought … how could I prove this? What could I do?” Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview.

As he glanced around a holding cell, the answer came to him: Security cameras. Since then, a vindicating video from the club’s cameras has spared the brothers a possible prison term, resulted in two officers’ arrest and become the basis for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The officers, who are due back in court June 26, have pleaded not guilty, and New York Police Department officials have downplayed their case.

But the drug corruption case isn’t alone.

On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a man last month when a narcotics officer was accused of making up information on search warrants.

The revelations in New York have triggered internal affairs inquiries, transfers of commanders and reviews of dozens of other arrests involving the accused officers. Many drug defendants’ cases have been tossed out. Others have won favorable plea deals.

The misconduct “strikes at the very heart of our system of justice and erodes public confidence in our courts,” said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.

Despite the fallout, authorities describe the corruption allegations as aberrations in a city where officers daily make hundreds of drugs arrests that routinely hold up in court. They also note none of the cases involved accusations of organized crews of officers using their badges to steal or extort drugs or money for personal gain — the story line of full-blown corruption scandals from bygone eras.

Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agrees the majority of narcotics officers probably are clean. But he also believes the city’s unending war on drugs will always invite corruption by some who don’t think twice about framing suspects they’re convinced are guilty anyway.

Prohibition creates a black market and a black market creates a distorted market situation waiting to be exploited. And those who are most incentivized to exploit it are those closest to it with the most power to cover up their actions.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

http://reason.tv/…

In 1920, the National Prohibition Act destroyed the beer industry in the United States, putting some 1,500 breweries out of business. When the “noble experiment” was repealed in 1933, beer lovers rejoiced, and the beer industry staggered back to its feet. The industry had lost much of its diversity, however, and the emergence of national brands in the 1950s and 1960s led to industry consolidation and fewer choices for American beer drinkers. By 1980, there were less than 50 breweries in the U.S.

By the 1980s, American beer had an international reputation as weak and watery as a case of Hamm’s. Most breweries only produced American-style lagers, a light and inexpensive style of beer typically made with rice or corn adjuncts in addition to barley, hops, yeast and water.

What American beer lovers didn’t know at the time was that a revolution was imminent. In 1979, a clerical error in the 21st Amendment was corrected, and for the first time in nearly 50 years it became legal to brew small batches of beer at home. Home brewers who had little interest in cutting costs or making beer with mass appeal began brewing big, flavorful beers in a wide range of styles. Many of these home brewers decided to turn their passion into small businesses, and microbreweries began popping up all over the country.

Today, although mainstream beers still dominate the market, more than 1,400 breweries in the U.S. produce more styles of beer than anywhere else in the world, and American beers routinely dominate international beer competitions.

So the next time you’re at your favorite brewpub, hold your glass up high and celebrate the American beer revolution.

“Beer: An American Revolution” was written and produced by Paul Feine. Alex Manning was the director of photography and Nick Gillespie is the narrator. Approximately seven minutes.

flucheck6web.pdf

At least they are discussing it (sortof) rather than just doing it. There is no doubt however that they would gladly follow through with such infringements. For your own good of course.

1.5 Legal and ethical issues

1.5.1 Legal issues

Rationale
During a pandemic, it may be necessary to overrule existing legislation or (individual) human rights. Examples are the enforcement of quarantine (overruling individual freedom of movement), use of privately owned buildings for hospitals, off-license use of drugs, compulsory vaccination or implementation of emergency shifts in essential services. These decisions need a legal framework to ensure transparent assessment and justification of the measures that are being considered, and to ensure coherence with international legislation (International Health Regulations).

Questions to be addressed
Is there a legislative framework in place for the national response plan? Does this framework include contingencies for health-care delivery and maintenance of essential services, and for public health measures to be implemented?
Legal issues that are highlighted in other parts of the checklist are brought together as a separate checklist here. Other issues are added.

Check

• Identify the advantages and disadvantages of declaring a state of emergency during a pandemic.
• Each jurisdiction needs to assess the legal basis of all public health measures that are likely to be proposed, including:
  • travel or movement restrictions (leaving and entering areas where infection is established);
  • closure of educational institutions;
  • prohibition of mass gatherings;
  • isolation or quarantine of infected persons, or of persons suspected of being infected, or persons from areas where pandemic strain influenza infection is established.
• Assess standing policy on, and legal basis for, influenza vaccination of health-care workers, workers in essential services (see sections 5.1 and 5.2) or persons at high risk. Decide if this policy needs refinement to increase uptake during pandemic alert and pandemic periods. Consider the use of both seasonal and pandemic vaccine for these groups.
• Address liability, insurance and temporary licensing issues for retired health-care workers and volunteers who may be working in areas outside their training and competence in health and emergency services.
• Consider liability for unforeseen adverse events attributed to vaccine and/or antiviral drug use, especially where the licensing process for a pandemic strain vaccine has been expedited. Liability issues may affect vaccine manufacturers, the licensing authority and those who administer the vaccine.
• Ensure a legislative framework for compliance with the International Health Regulations.
• Consider including influenza or pandemic influenza in national legislation for the prevention of occupational diseases.

1.5.2 Ethical issues

Rationale
Ethical issues are closely related to legal issues as mentioned above. They are part of the normative framework that is needed to assess the cultural acceptability of measures such as quarantine or selective vaccination of predefined risk groups.

Questions to be addressed
Have ethical aspects of policy decisions been considered? Is there a leading ethical framework that can be used during the response to an outbreak to balance individual and population rights?

• Consider ethical questions related to limiting the availability of a scarce resource, such as rationed diagnostic laboratory testing, pandemic strain influenza vaccine or antiviral drugs.
• Consider ethical questions related to compulsory vaccination for healthcare workers and workers from essential services.
• Consider the ethical issues related to limiting personal freedom, such as may occur with isolation and quarantine.
• Ensure the establishment of an ethical framework for research, especially when this involves human subjects.

http://www.lp.org/…

Libertarians are taking President Barack Obama to task for once again intentionally spreading false information about the source of guns used by Mexican drug cartels and blaming the United States for crime in Mexico.

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States.  More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States,” said Obama in a face-to-face meeting Thursday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City.

That claim, however, is blatantly false.   According to information supplied by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) the real number is closer to only 17 percent.

Read More…

Here’s another goofy song called “Simple Argument” (mp3|ogg). No hook, real quick and silly I’d like to credit laur, Run DMC, Ice-T, Fatboy Slim, TMBG, Dave Mathew’s Band and the pentatonic scale. Lyrics after the break.

Read More…

Inspired by Liberty Forum and Dave Ridley saying that people should create their own media, I decided to write a song about Anthony Gregory.  You can learn more about Anthony Gregory at his website.  Here you go, lyrics follow after the break:

Anthony Gregory (mp3|ogg)

Read More…