Earn $80,000/year while behind bars in prison for a crime you didn't commit.

...Under Texas compensation laws for the wrongly imprisoned, Dupree is eligible for $80,000 for each year he was behind bars, plus a lifetime annuity. He could receive $2.4 million in a lump sum that is not subject to federal income tax...

However, to offer $80K/yr to the wrongfully imprisoned seems...well...high enough that other more "entrepreneurial type" people might see this program as an ummm..."opportunity". All you'd have to do is frame yourself for some crime, hide/obscure the critical exculpatory evidence, then allow it to be "found" when you've decided the payday is suitably large.

In today's employment challenged economy, there's gotta be a lot of folks who would very willingly do a "phony nickle" knowing there was a $400,000 payday waiting for them on the other side; even more so if they happened to have some medical problems they couldn't afford to have treated otherwise.

If I recognized this angle, you know a bunch of others probably have too.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 02:16 AM | Comments (99)
Post contains 211 words, total size 1 kb.

I bought the album "City to City" when it came out in 1978, largely on the strength of the played-nearly-to-death single, "Baker Street" (see video below). The rest of the album was, in my opinion, as good or better, and the album itself has remained one of my favorites for over 30 years.

So it's sad to read that Rafferty died yesterday at age 63, after a long bout with alcoholism.

Here's one more video of Rafferty with an earlier song that most AoSHQ Morons will recognize, or at least instantly identify with:

Hat tip to Aaron Goldstein over at the AmSpec blog for the sad news. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:38 PM | Comments (54)
Post contains 118 words, total size 2 kb.

I just got back into town late last night and have been utterly swamped all day so I had zero time to prepare the ONT. So tonight you get the SUCK ONT made out of the detritus of lesser, failed ONTs.

How About Some Focus?

Because rock music really needs more yodeling. And scat singing. And maybe more Dutch bands.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:23 PM | Comments (493)
Post contains 562 words, total size 6 kb.

The question that begs to be asked, what's driving oil prices up, and how high will they go in 2011?

The answer, we were somewhat cushioned in 2010, it's demand, and it will likely hover around $100/bbl for most of the next year.

That would mean the average price at the pump will settle in around $3.00-$3.20 a USG. Not the $5.00/gal hardship we saw a couple years ago, but not good either. The market price of crude oil, it's 55-57% of the cost of gasoline. That percentage has risen in the past several years, as the cost of oil has risen, but the costs of production, refining and marketing have been relatively stable.

A colder winter, and demand in emerging markets (China) mean it likely will not settle back into the $70/bbl range for the coming year.

In this economy, strangling exploration and production exacerbates an already bad situation. Which of course the Obama administration has carried on in earnest since his inauguration, most recently his disastrous post-BP gulf drilling moratorium.

It's enough to make Maxine Waters nationalize the oil industry.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:06 PM | Comments (75)
Post contains 196 words, total size 1 kb.

He prances and preens like he's some kind of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but he's really a child running around with a shiny new toy of scissors.

Zimbabwe's last best hope is probably going to wind up getting the death penalty thanks to Captain Oblivious' utter inability to do any sort of homework. Selectiveness is difficult, requiring hours of reading and evaluating. Better just to put all of Pfc. Manning's cables out there and let other people, like insane dictator Robert Mugabe, figure out what it all means.

Mugabe has tortured this guy and tried to kill him multiple times. Last time round, he only wounded Tsvangirai, but did manage to murder his wife. Julian Assange has given Mugabe pretext to do what he's been trying to do secretly for years, now finally "legal." Because WikiLeaks has exposed that behind the scenes, Tsvangirai was agitating for sanctions and restrictions on Zimbabwe diplomats' travel.

Publicly, Tsvangirai opposed the measures out of political necessity. In private conversations with western diplomats, however, the ascendant Tsvangirai praised its utility in forcing Mugabe's hand in the new unity government.

Now, in the wake of the WikiLeaks' release, one of the men targeted by US and EU travel and asset freezes, Mugabe's appointed attorney general, has launched a probe to investigate Tsvangirai's involvement in sustained western sanctions. If found guilty, Tsvangirai will face the death penalty.

And so, where Mugabe's strong-arming, torture and assassination attempts have failed to eliminate the leading figure of Zimbabwe's democratic opposition, WikiLeaks may yet succeed. Twenty years of sacrifice and suffering by Tsvangirai all for naught, as WikiLeaks risks "collateral murder" in the name of transparency.

Before more political carnage is wrought and more blood spilled – in Africa and elsewhere, with special concern for those US-sympathising Afghans fingered in its last war document dump – WikiLeaks ought to leave international relations to those who understand it – at least to those who understand the value of a life.

Take a bow, Julian. Thank God we have you to protect us all against secrecy. Like the horrible secrecy of an opposition leader hoping to depose an insane, murderous tyrant.

Posted by: Ace at 03:21 PM | Comments (651)
Post contains 381 words, total size 3 kb.

Answer below.

Odds the next James Bond film's teaser is being rewritten to include this: 100%. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (101)
Post contains 143 words, total size 1 kb.

Romney ties at 41-41, but Christie, supposedly, wins.

This is going to make those promises not to run more questionable. As a general matter, if the poll says a guy is favored to win the presidency, that guy runs.

Via SaveJersey.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (82)
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.

He was photographing his family just as his killer popped into frame, took aim, and fired.

There is an O'Henry-type twist here.

After discovering the terrifying coincidence, Dagsa's family gave the camera to police, who used the photo to find the gunman and his lookout, who was also caught in the photograph.

Posted by: Ace at 01:41 PM | Comments (35)
Post contains 82 words, total size 1 kb.

The rules about firing an Inspector General were supposed to give him insulation from political blowback for embarrassing politicians. This is the whole point of the posting. If an IG does not have some amount of independence -- bright-line law-protected independence -- then he's just another at-will employee serving at the pleasure of his boss.

And how many at-will employees buck their bosses? Not many.

But that's what an appeals court has decided, establishing a new legal principle, There is no "I" in independent.

If you don't remember, Walpin was IG for AmeriCorps and began asking some embarrassing questions:

In June 2009, Walpin was the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the AmeriCorps service program. He had been aggressively investigating the misuse of $800,000 in AmeriCorps grant money given to a program run by Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California who also happens to be a prominent Obama supporter. As a result of Walpin's investigation, Johnson was, for a while, suspended from receiving any new federal grants. Later, an acting U.S. attorney who was seeking a post in the Obama administration refused to pursue the Johnson matter. Inside the Corporation, Walpin expressed his unhappiness with that decision and his desire to continue investigating corruption in Sacramento.

So Obama fired him, in complete defiance of the law's requirements of thirty days' notice to Congress plus a good explanation for such an act. So the administration quickly backtracked, and said he wasn't fired but just on "administrative leave" for 30 days, and then, of course, after 30 days, he was officially fired.

Then the explanation they gave was that he was a doddering old man and no longer had the president's confidence.

The Court of Appeals decided, hey, close enough to the law's requirements!

The three-judge panel ruled that the White House's decision to place Walpin on administrative leave for 30 days (after telling him he was fired) did not violate the law. Further, the judges ruled that Obama's explanation that he no longer had "fullest confidence" in Walpin "satisfies the minimal statutory mandate that the president communicate to the Congress his 'reasons' for removal."

It is an across-the-board defeat for Walpin. But it is also a clear danger sign for the independence of inspectors general. The court's decision effectively means that the president can remove future inspectors general immediately, without notice to Congress, simply by placing an inspector general on immediate administrative leave, following by formal firing 30 days later. Also, the president can simply tell Congress he did it because he no longer has confidence in the inspector general.

Such a scenario is not what the bipartisan group of lawmakers had in mind when they crafted the protections for inspectors general. Whether they will strengthen the law as a result of the Walpin case remains to be seen.

Thanks to rdbrewer.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (154)
Post contains 494 words, total size 3 kb.

Obama calls the Eagles to congratulate them on giving dog killer Michael Vick a second chance but now his Navy commanders are going to trash the career of a decorated hero over some videos?

Hurt feelings and political correctness trump decades of honorable service and readiness for war. What could go wrong?

Adm. John C. Harvey announced Tuesday that he has permanently relieved Capt. Owen Honors as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier Enterprise for showing "exceptionally poor judgment" in producing and broadcasting a series of raunchy videos to his crew in 2006 and 2007.

Harvey, the four-star head of the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, said that Capt. Dee Mewbourne, former commander of the carrier Eisenhower, will take command of the ship today as Honors' permanent replacement. Mewbourne had been at Navy Cyber Forces Command.

This is kind of interesting because Enterprise COs generally have to go through extra nuclear propulsion training because of the unique reactors the 50 year old ship has. Has Mewbourne gone through that training or after all these years is tossed overboard because of some off color videos? (Yes, I know, the Chief Engineer really runs the reactor but this extra training was the norm, until today).

I will say this, Captain Honors was playing with fire and he seemed to know it. His disclaimers about his superiors not being held accountable for the content of the videos demonstrates he knew that. When you do that, sometimes you get burned.

As for Honors' superiors. They clearly had to know what was in these videos at the time they were played on Enterprise. CDRSalamander wants to know what they did/thought.

There can only be three answers by the Navy concerning these videos. “We” refers to the Flag Officer Community that leads our Navy – just to be clear.

1. We had no idea.
2. We knew and didnÂ’t care.
3. We disapproved, counseled our Shipmate, corrective action taken with remediation, and we moved forward.

...For reasons best known to senior leadership, we now find ourselves looking at #1 or #2. As we know that #1 is an impossibility – that leads to #2.

Really? No – not in the Navy of 2010. I don’t buy #2 either. Well, wait – a 5% chance. I’ll give you 5%.

That brings us back to #3 – which is greatest problem of all if we are now going to take CAPT Honor from Command. If it were #1 we could all just facepalm and call stupid. If it were #2 or #3 then we don’t have stupid – we have malice and betrayal by an officer’s Chain of Command.

It is the height of moral corruption to tell someone what they are doing is OK one day, and then the next – to protect yourself - act as if it were horrible. It is just as morally corrupt to reprimand a person, provide corrective action, accept remediation – and then at a later date punish him again for the same act only harder; submit that person to double jeopardy for your own self-preservation.

Honors is being hung out to dry for something that was either fine with his then superiors or which he was duly critiqued for and allowed to move on in his career. Either way, this is ex post facto outrage and the senior leadership of the Navy has simply thrown a dedicated and decorated officer to the wolves.

Speaking of Honors' career...did you know he was essentially promoted twice after these videos were made? He remained at the same rank (Captain) but went from being Executive Officer of the Enterprise (the 2nd in command) to command his own ship, the USS Mount Whitney. In 2008 he led her into the middle of the Russia-Georgia war to provide relief supplies to the Georgians.

Oh and the Mount Whitney was recognized in 2008 and 2009 for outstanding retention. Honors was in command from January 2008-April 2009.

Again the Navy must have thought Honors performed at least at a satisfactory level because he was then returned to Enterprise as her CO and was thought fit to lead the ship into war.

All that gone because he ran his ship aground, got some of his sailors killed, made some off color jokes.

This kind of "offense" has to be weighed against the reality that we are a nation at war and Enterprise is shortly off to fight that war.

Any organization is going to want to protect its reputation. As I said to Slu in an email, there is more than one way to do that. Image if the Navy came out and said something like this.

"Yes, Captain Honors went a bit too far in trying to motivate and entertain his crew during a long and successful war patrol and we've spoken to him about that.

On the other hand, his nearly 30 years of otherwise impeccable service to this nation (list a bunch of great shit he's done), the support of so many of his superiors, peers and most impressively, men and women he has led, makes us think that on balance his talents and contributions vastly out weigh this one indiscretion.

Accordingly, Capt. Honors will continue to command USS Enterprise and the men and women he has trained with and prepared for their upcoming mission in support of our troops fighting in Afghanistan. We have every confidence that Capt. Honors has learned much from this situation and will be an even better officer and leader for it".

Imagine what officers, sailors and potential recruits would think about that Navy versus the one they are seeing on display today.

You can tell a lot about an organization by what it rewards and punishes. Feel free to draw your own conclusions about the current state of the US Navy.

Oh...the "Support Captain Honors" facebook page is over 10,000 likes strong.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:43 AM | Comments (298)
Post contains 1001 words, total size 6 kb.