Tag Archives: truck

There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A few minutes ago, President Obama’s former “car czar” Steven Rattner tweeted the map below. Marcy Wheeler tweaks him for calling Hondas and Toyotas “imports” even though most of them are made in the US. I’d tweak him for saying the map shows the best-selling “cars” in each state, since it also includes trucks. Trucks aren’t cars.

But that’s enough tweaking. I’m willing to cut people a lot of slack on Twitter. Here’s what I’m curious about. You’ve no doubt heard of the famous “soda line” in America: in New England and the West, most of us call fizzy sweetened drinks soda. In the South, it’s coke. Up north, from Washington to the Ohio Valley, it’s pop.

Apparently we also have a truck line in America. In the Midwest and mountain states, people buy Ford F-series trucks. In the Great Lakes region, the Chevy Silverado reigns supreme. Out West, we seem to prefer Dodge Rams.

What’s up with that? Is this just a weird coincidence? Or is there some genuine historical reason that different trucks are popular in different regions?

More here:  

There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

Posted in Citizen, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

Family Stages Elaborate, Insane Kidnapping to Teach "Nice" 6-Year Old Not to Talk to Strangers

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A 6-year-old boy’s mother, grandmother, and aunt have all been arrested after they orchestrated an elaborate kidnapping scheme, one that lasted for four hours and involved a very real handgun, to teach the boy a lesson about why it’s dangerous to talk to strangers.

Lincoln County police say the fake abduction was put into action on Monday after the Missouri family became gravely concerned that the boy was just “too nice” for his own good. The family also convinced a 23-year-old male friend of the aunt’s, Nathan Firoved, to get in on the action as their lead kidnapper. From NBC:

On Monday, Firoved allegedly kidnapped the child after he got off a school bus and said he would never “see his mommy again,” authorities said. Firoved also showed a handgun to the now-sobbing boy, then drove around in his truck, and finally tied him up and covered his face with a jacket when the child wouldn’t stop crying.

Firoved proceeded to blindfold the boy and place his feet into plastic bags, before driving back to the boy’s home. There, the aunt allegedly pulled down the boy’s pants and threatened to put him into “sex slavery.” Moments later, surprise! The boy became privy to the fact the whole terrifying ordeal was just a crafty hoax and that his own family was in fact far more dangerous than a true kidnapper.

The family has been charged with a host of charges, including felony kidnapping and abuse. They deny any wrongdoing.

Link:  

Family Stages Elaborate, Insane Kidnapping to Teach "Nice" 6-Year Old Not to Talk to Strangers

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Family Stages Elaborate, Insane Kidnapping to Teach "Nice" 6-Year Old Not to Talk to Strangers

The Fourth Amendment Takes Yet Another Body Blow

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This week the Supreme Court has handed down decisions on affirmative action and child porn that have gotten a lot of press. But the affirmative action decision was probably inevitable, and the child porn case is an oddball example of statutory interpretation that probably has no greater significance.

More important is Navarette vs. California, which has real potential to do some long-term damage. In this case, a 911 caller reported an erratic driver, who was then pulled over and eventually convicted of transporting four bags of marijuana. The police had no probable cause to stop the driver except for that one anonymous phone call, but the Court upheld the conviction anyway. Justice Scalia is typically apoplectic in his dissent, but nonetheless makes some good points:

It gets worse. Not only, it turns out, did the police have no good reason at first to believe that Lorenzo was driving drunk, they had very good reason at last to know that he was not. The Court concludes that the tip, plus confirmation of the truck’s location, produced reasonable suspicion that the truck not only had been but still was barreling dangerously and drunkenly down Highway 1. In fact, alas, it was not, and the officers knew it. They followed the truck for five minutes, presumably to see if it was being operated recklessly. And that was good police work. While the anonymous tip was not enough to support a stop for drunken driving under Terry v. Ohio, it was surely enough to counsel observation of the truck to see if it was driven by a drunken driver.

But the pesky little detail left out of the Court’s reasonable-suspicion equation is that, for the five minutes that the truck was being followed (five minutes is a long time), Lorenzo’s driving was irreproachable. Had the officers witnessed the petitioners violate a single traffic law, they would have had cause to stop the truck, and this case would not be before us. And not only was the driving irreproachable, but the State offers no evidence to suggest that the petitioners even did anything suspicious, such as suddenly slowing down, pulling off to the side of the road, or turning somewhere to see whether they were being followed. Consequently, the tip’s suggestion of ongoing drunken driving (if it could be deemed to suggest that) not only went uncorroborated; it was affirmatively undermined.

The problem here is obvious: the Court has basically said that an anonymous 911 call is sufficient all by itself to justify a police stop and subsequent search of a vehicle.

In this particular case, it’s likely that the 911 caller was entirely sincere. But that’s surely not always the case, and this decision gives police far greater discretion to stop pretty much anyone they like for any reason. You don’t even need to roll your front bumper a foot over the limit line in an intersection to give them a pretext.

If we’re lucky, this case will become a footnote, with the precise nature of its facts giving it little value as precedent. But if we’re not so lucky, it’s yet another step in the Supreme Court’s decades-long project to chip away at the Fourth Amendment. When an unknown caller is all it takes to trigger a search, the entire notion of “probable cause” is pretty much consigned to the ash heap of history.

UPDATE: A regular reader points out that my summary isn’t entirely accurate. Under Navarette, an anonymous tip is enough for police to stop a vehicle, but to search it they still need some suspicion of illegal activity. In this case they “smelled marijuana.”

That’s true, and I should have said so. The reason I didn’t is that I figure this was basically pretextual. There’s always a post hoc reason if the police decide they want to search your car. And even if you think the cops really did smell something, they never would have gotten there without the stop, and there was no reason for the stop in the first place. This strikes me as pretty direct line from anonymous tip to search, with only the thinnest pretense of probable cause.

I admit that my cynicism here isn’t legally relevant. But honestly, once you allow the stop, cops will find a reason the search the car. There’s simply nothing in their way any longer.

Link: 

The Fourth Amendment Takes Yet Another Body Blow

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Fourth Amendment Takes Yet Another Body Blow

Fracking waste deemed too radioactive for hazardous-waste dump

Fracking waste deemed too radioactive for hazardous-waste dump

Shutterstock

A truck carrying fracking waste was quarantined and then sent back to where it came from after its contents triggered a radiation alarm at a Pennsylvania hazardous-waste landfill. The truck’s load was nearly 10 times more radioactive than is permitted at the dump in South Huntingdon township.

The radiation came from radium 226, a naturally occurring material in the Marcellus Shale, which being fracked for natural gas in Pennsylvania and nearby states. “Radium is a well known contaminant in fracking operations,” writes Jeff McMahon at Forbes.

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Township Supervisor Mel Cornell said the MAX Environmental Technologies truck was quarantined Friday after it set off a radiation alarm at MAX’s landfill near Yukon, a 159-acre site that accepts residual waste and hazardous waste.

[Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] spokesman John Poister confirmed the drill cutting materials from Rice Energy’s Thunder II pad in Greene County had a radiation level of 96 microrem.

The landfill must reject any waste with a radiation level that reaches 10 microrem or higher.

“It’s low-level radiation, but we don’t want any radiation in South Huntingdon,” Cornell said.

Poister said DEP instructed MAX to return the materials to the well pad where it was extracted for subsequent disposal at an approved facility.

Pennsylvania is currently studying radiation issues associated with fracking of the shale and disposal of the industry’s waste.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Source: 

Fracking waste deemed too radioactive for hazardous-waste dump

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fracking waste deemed too radioactive for hazardous-waste dump