SSCC #464–Williams

The man, a transient from California who was intoxicated and combative, had been arrested at a local market, Nixon said. The man made threats of violence and struggled with officers.

Nixon stated that a chokehold on a handcuffed person, even when the person is combative, is against the department’s policy. Nixon said that when he went to suspend Starcevich to conduct an investigation into the policy violation, Starcevich resigned in late October.

Other officers saw the incident and did nothing.  The officer resigned after he discovered he was going to be suspended.    The other officers are currently under investigation for other issues.  Evidently this problem runs deep.  As I’ve said before, incidents like this merely indicate a much bigger problem.

State Sponsored Criminal #464: John Doe

Because by all means make sure that as little impact occurs when an officer does something wrong.  Make sure he can bow out gracefully and go repeat the mistake someplace else.

Quote of the Day – Anonymous (11/29/2012)

Reverse Reactive Power is a quantity defined by the IEEE and we know it is real and exists because the lights are on.

Anonymous – Discussion during a meeting


[We spent more time arguing about this subject than should have been allowed, the instigator just wouldn’t let it go.  He couldn’t understand the subject at hand and felt that the usage of the words were wrong.  Never mind every last power engineer in the room was saying it was perfectly descriptive of exactly what was required for the specification.

For an idea of how bad it was, I was waiting for the meeting to get physical as the instigator became very aggressive about his issue and ignoring the responses because he didn’t understand it.  The person running the meeting was becoming notably upset at the unnecessary delay to moving forward and the fact he was ignoring the responses.

The person couldn’t grasp the concept of directionality coupled with reactive power.  To him it was imaginary it didn’t exist, current either leads or lags.  He couldn’t understand that while it was imaginary in a mathematical sense, it was real, and it results in things such as heat and other issues.  What really got him though was the idea that power has a direction.

Finally one person restated, yes I said restated, that the IEEE has defined this term explicitly and finally justified his point at the end by noting that the fact lights over our heads were working and so obviously Reverse Reactive Power does exist.

It was about this time I was doing everything I could to suppress laughter.

There are days I both love and hate this job.  I will say I’m saving that quote and will paraphrase it when I find a situation like this again.

We spent lunch working on educating him on all the details of what it was, how it was measured, and why there was a direction involved.  He was a bit better but was still a little confused.  I will say it was probably a good thing I was my father’s son instead of my father in this little incident.  I will say I heard his words in the back of my head, the phrase “You obviously have the intelligence of a banana slug” flashed through my brain in my father’s voice.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s smart and sharp, but he knows jack about power, power systems, and what goes into protecting them.  Truly smart men recognize what they may not know and listen instead of insisting everyone else is wrong.  Especially when the others can mathematically show and prove their point.* -B]

*Geek out moment, Reactive Power is explicitly a mathematical quantity.  It is the complex or imaginary portion of Apparent Power.  Forward and reverse is applied merely to indicate the direction of power flow relative to a location.  For example which direction is power flowing in a power line?  To people in this industry directionality is what makes the world turn.  You need to know if the fault is in front or behind your monitoring equipment.  Well if you’re looking at the output of a generator and you see power flowing into the generator (reverse), that’s not a good thing and very rarely intentional.  Something is going to get very warm if you don’t do something soon.

Ear Worm Wednesday – 11/28/2012

Busy as hell so another flashback to my youth.

Limp Bizkit – Boiler

SSCC #463 – King County

From the bench, Judge Arend noted, “Defendant King County’s lack of effort and pattern of deliberate indifference with respect to producing responsive information to Plaintiff Harris is reprehensible. This reckless indifference in its failure to produce these three documents – documents that were indisputably relevant – is the functional equivalent of intentional misconduct. Through its callous indifference to the court rules and their discovery burden, Defendant King County deceived the plaintiff and it deceived the Court.”

Go read the story, it’s heartbreaking and down right dispicable.  The fact the officers will not be held personally liable is most sickening.
State Sponsored Criminal #463: John Doe
Because by all means slam someone’s head into a brick wall.  The state will pick up the tab when it ends up you were dead wrong.

Another Mini Meet…

Last night I met A Girl and TSM.  We had organized a plan which almost appeared to fall apart, but alas luck won out.  My meeting ended on time and the TSM finally got out of work as well.

The drove up and we went out to dinner and since I was on the opposite coast I had some Atlantic Salmon.

A Girl and TSM had Trout.  I didn’t get any pics of that though.  We had a nice long dinner, as in we finally split up after about 3 hours of chatting about kids, life, adventures, and other general shenanigans.

Eventually I got dessert, took me trying 3 choices, but eventually that had something.  I also convinced A Girl to add another thing to her EDC tools, a Crème brûlée torch.

It was great fun and then as an added bonus I got back to the hotel just in time to catch Pale Rider in time for my favorite line, “Nothing like a good piece of hickory.”

Time to relax and get ready for another day of fun tomorrow.  Though the real fun will be Thursday with the TSA.

SSCC #7 – Officer Harless Update

If you have to visit Canton Ohio, be advised that Officer Roid-Rage is heading back into the force.

Fired police officer Daniel Harless could get his job back if he gets medical clearance to return to work.

An arbitrator hearing Harless’ appeal ruled in the former patrolman’s favor. The 15-page ruling was dated Saturday and released by the city Wednesday.

So much for this post in the Accountabilibuddable tag.

And lets not forget that there have been other incidents within this same department.

Honestly, that town is becoming a serious 7 figure settlement waiting to happen.  Any department that willfully hires him is going to be looking at a lawsuit if he so much as sneezes on someone.

He had his opportunity at law enforcement and he blew it.  He can go work in fast food and flip burgers.

State Sponsored Criminal #7: Officer Daniel Harless

Because when an officer is caught blatantly abusing his power and the law he shouldn’t be held accountable because there’s always others who don’t get caught, how is it fair to them?

h/t JayG and OldNFO for the reminder

Blogging Might Be Irratic

You see I had to hop on one of these yesterday morning.

Thankfully the travel time was only 3.5 hours to our wonderful destination.  Yes, we were hauling ass and here’s the proof.

It is nice to not have to waste a whole day traveling, too bad the return trip isn’t going to be as nice.  Here’s the gallery of pictures from the flight, including the sunset at our destination as we arrived.

Luckily there’s some fellow bloggers in the area, one of whom I got to share company with last night for dinner.  Tonight I’m going to try and get together with another, assuming the meeting doesn’t run long.

Annoyingly the hotel I’m at doesn’t provide free Wi-Fi and wants a chunk of change for a mere 2 Mbits.  I have a better idea, “Smart Phone activate!”  Oh, is that a Wi-Fi access point my computer now sees.  I don’t need the fastest stuff in the world, but I would like decent reliable internet if I’m occupying your establishment.

I’ll blog when I can and I’m trying to get stuff scheduled up, but at the same time I’m going to be busy.  Check the people over on the side bar if you need a fix and I’m not providing.

Can You Say Winning?

In an effort to increase membership, a number of U.S. churches — including the Church of Christ congregation in this rural village 30 miles north of Columbus — are offering an unconventional public service: Concealed weapons training.

“Church has done a good job with coffee klatsches or whatever, but we haven’t really reached out to guys,” said Jeff Copley, a preacher at the church. “And guys in Morrow Country, they shoot and they hunt.”

That is all sorts of awesome.  And it isn’t just one church either, there are numerous churches from Texas to North Carolina.

It’s nice to see some not rely on blind faith and miracles to save them but instead see that good happens through the deeds of others.  Some may see religion in that, others may not.  In the end though people who have faith in miracles to save them while rejecting the tools they can use themselves drive me insane, which brings me to this joke:

A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help.

Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.”

The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.”

So the rowboat went on.

Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.”

To this the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.”

So the motorboat went on.

Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.”

To this the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.”

So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.

Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!”

To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

Why should I expect god to lift a finger for me if I won’t lift one for myself?