Because I love you guys.

"Homicides in Chicago this year double same period last year"

"Four homicides over the weekend and two more Monday morning pushed Chicago's homicide count so far this year to double the same period last year."

The city has recorded at least 95 homicides since the first of the year, compared to 47 last year, according to data kept by the Tribune. The city has also more than doubled the amount of people shot - about 420 this year compared to 193 last year.

Meanwhile, Chicago police "stop and frisks" is down 80% in 2016.

As shootings and murders spike one major component of Chicago police crime fighting is way down. The number of street stops by officers has plunged 80 percent this year.

For decades when Chicago police stopped and frisked someone on the street, they had to fill out a small card called a "Contact Card." It required simple, basic information about who was stopped and why. Beginning January 1, 2016, a new state law regulated when cops could stop and pat down people in public and then officers had to fill out a two page "Investigatory Stop Report."...

More than paperwork or new laws, Chicago police officials say they know that some cops may just be shying away from controversy.

"Periodically somebody will say something to the effect of that they are concerned of being the next 'viral video'. Even when they're doing something right they are concerned that their actions are being questioned and they'll be the next one to go viral," he says.

Viral video is one way to put it. In a fish bowl is another; that's where the president of the police union says his members are forced to their jobs. Fraternal Order of Police president Dean Angelo says less-aggressive policing no doubt coincides with the spike in Chicago murders and shootings.

Do you believe there a correlation between the uptick in murders and the decrease in aggressive police tactics?

"Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei accuses US police of 'oppressing' black community"

The Telegraph: In comments on a Twitter account maintained by his staff, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the recent racial tensions sparked by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson was yet more proof of how America was run by "tyrants".

"#Jesus endured sufferings to oppose tyrants who had put humans in hell in this world & the hereafter while he backed the oppressed," said one Tweet, accompanied by the "#Ferguson" hashtag.

Here is Iran (story link) hanging gays by the neck until they are dead. Not exactly a civil rights heaven, unless you were in a strange place called Obama's mind.

The Mullahs’ Gulag for Gays

Nurse Hickox versus Maine

"Maine health commissioner Mary Mayhew said late Wednesday afternoon that, even as it continues talks with Hickox's representatives, the state is in the process of filing a court order to require the nurse to abide by a 21-day quarantine. Mayhew cited concerns about Hickox's hands-on role in dealing with Ebola patients, as well as "concerns about the lack of reliability and the lack of trustworthiness in the information that has been received."

"You need to be able to have trust and credibility in that information," the state health commissioner said. "That makes her a higher risk."

The health commissioner said she "did not understand" why Hickox is challenging what she calls a "common-sense approach" of staying home for three weeks.

"(This is) a reasonable request to ensure -- out of an abundance of caution -- that we are protecting the people of this state," Mayhew said.

Yet Hickox thinks the U.S. Constitution and science are on her side.

And, because of that, she has no intention of staying put.

"I am completely healthy and symptom-free," Hickox said Wednesday night from her front lawn, alongside her boyfriend. "I am frustrated by (the) intention ... to file legal action against me.

"And if this does occur, then I will challenge those legal actions."

The 'Right To Be Forgotten' claim

The Telegraph - An ex-politician seeking re-election, a man convicted of possessing child abuse images, and a GP who received negative reviews from patients have all asked Google to delete their internet histories, after the European Union’s top court ruled that data about individuals held by Google must be removed on request. 

The European Court of Justice said earlier this week that an individual has the "right to be forgotten" when such personal data "appear to be inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purpose for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed". (read more)

 

“The whole purpose is student safety”

"Glendale Unified Hires Local Company To Monitor Students’ Social Media Posts."

The Glendale Unified School District has hired a Hermosa Beach company to monitor public social media posts made by its students to find out when teens are in trouble or causing it.

Superintendent Richard Sheehan said Geo Listening is analyzing the posts of 13,000 students at eight Glendale middle and high schools.

The goal is to give school administrators critical information as soon as possible.

 "Critical information as soon as possible."

Meet Colion Noir

 Colion Noir is one of the gun video commentators that I enjoy. I'd seen a few of his videos before he became involved with the NRA. He thinks my gun is ugly, but there you go! (I knew this would be a good interview because Glen Beck seems to see his job as facilitating communication with the interviewee instead of some dressed up version of combat that he's got to win.)

The LA Times had an article about Noir today that was pretty good. It talks a bit about the accusations that he's a token or "Uncle Tom" and that blacks were pro-gun control. This portion of the LA Times article stuck out at me:

The NRA does not release membership demographics, but according to a Pew Research Center survey, many gun owners in America are white — 31% of whites polled this year said they owned guns, compared with 15% of blacks and 11% of Latinos.

Polls being polls I wondered how much non-reporting happened. I also wondered if those percentages were of all blacks and all Latinos or if the poll had corrected for percentages of those blacks and Latinos living in cities with strict gun control. Now, to me of course, I look at gun ownership in the black community as a civil rights issue and suspect that much of the urban gun bans are actually about disarming blacks. Noir says the same:

"The same government who at one point hosed us down with water, attacked us with dogs and wouldn't allow us to eat at their restaurants told us we couldn't own guns when bumbling fools with sheets on their heads were riding around burning crosses on our lawns and murdering us," Noir says in the video as "Washington elitism" flashes across the screen. It was not a misreading of history, according to UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."

But Noir also says in the interview with Glen Beck and also the LA Times article mentions that blacks are likely to be pro-gun control because they associate weapons with the thug culture. If so, I don't care if Colion Noir is a "token" or anything else. He's giving voice to an alternative view of young black men with guns and that's a good thing. The NRA also has a new spokesperson who's a pretty young blond lady. I don't care if she's a token either. The point is that guns aren't about being an old white guy and that the 2nd Amendment is not an old white guy amendment and the Constitution itself is not an old white guy document. 

Also, grats to Colion Noir... he just passed the bar so... law blogging!