Mic check.

You know the deal. Join us here. What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

Mic check.

You know the deal. Join us here. What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

(a/k/a the return of Shameless Self-promotion Sunday.)

I am stuck in the house more or less all day today with some maddening paperwork to finish by the end of the weekend, and a development workstation that is currently non-operational and (therefore) effectively blocking any serious development work from moving forward. So my own activity is going to be kind of sparse for the moment, while I try to get this clusterfrak sorted out. But it’s Sunday, and if that means anything, it means Shamelessness. So consider this your mic check. What’s going on your end? What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

• Broken windows in Vancouver. John, Blagnet.net (2011-06-16). (Linked Friday 2011-06-17.)

• Wrongful Convictions. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-06-07). When Paul House was finally released from prison in 2008, he was a specter of the man who had been sentenced to death more than 22 years earlier. When I visit his home in Crossville, Tennessee, in March, House’s mother Joyce, who has cared for him since his release, points... (Linked Friday 2011-06-17.)

• Eating Steak On Rare Occasions. Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes (2011-06-17). Paging Dr. Adams. Dr. Carol Adams, stat. (Linked Friday 2011-06-17.)

• On Bottom-Up Liberalism & Pity-Charity Liberalism. E.D. Kain, The League of Ordinary Gentlemen (2011-06-16). I’ve been thinking about bottom-up liberalism and pity-charity liberalism a lot lately, and the whole mess of ideas that swirl around between the two. Essentially, Mike Konczal thinks that growth plus safety nets is insufficient. Without a government fighting for full employment and increased worker bargaining rights, you get “pity-charity... (Linked Friday 2011-06-17.)

Sage Wisdom. Daily Brickbats (2011-06-17):

A Broward County, Florida, sheriff's deputy spotted Robin Brown when she was bird watching one day. He thought that the sage she had with her was marijuana, and a field test seemed to confirm that. He didn't arrest her then, but confiscated the sage and sent it to the crime...

Want to guess how much compensation she might be able to get from police and state prosecutors to make up for the harassment, arrest, abduction, sexual assault, torture, and confinement that they inflicted on her, a completely innocent bird-watcher, based on nothing more than belligerent ignorance, a fraudulent "field kit," and pure, callous negligence?

Ha, ha, it's a trick question. Even if she does win her lawsuit (which will be hard; the system overwhelmingly favors immunity for government violence), the police and prosecutors will never pay anything for the damages she's awarded. Government police and state prosecutors never pay for what they do to innocent people; you pay for their crimes instead, when they send the tax bill on to you.