At long last, some justice for all the people who were brutalized at the #OWS protests:
A trial that had become a rallying point for many Occupy Wall Street activists ended on Monday with a jury finding a protester guilty of assaulting a police officer at Zuccotti Park in 2012.
A jury of eight women and four men found that the protester, Cecily McMillan, 25, was still responsible for assaulting the officer, rejecting her contention that she had reacted instinctively when he grabbed her breast during a protest on St. Patrick’s Day. Ms. McMillan had said she could not distinctly recall what happened amid the chaos of the night.
The announcement of the verdict in State Supreme Court in Manhattan was immediately met by catcalls and derision from the many supporters of Ms. McMillan’s, who shouted, “Shame, shame, shame.” Tensions were further inflamed when Justice Ronald A. Zweibel ordered Ms. McMillan to be held in jail until sentencing; the assault of a police officer is a felony that carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison.
***Ms. McMillan testified she had no recollection of hitting the officer, but recalled what she thought was someone trying to grope her. “All of a sudden I feel somebody grab me from behind, from my right breast, and pull me backward,” she said.
Her lawyer, Martin Stolar, introduced in evidence a picture of a bruise above her right breast that was taken a day after she was arrested. “This is the smoking gun in the case,” he said during closing arguments on Friday. “She got grabbed and she hit. That’s an accident.”
Erin Choi, an assistant district attorney, in her summation accused Ms. McMillan of lying about Officer Bovell groping her for the sake of publicity. She showed stills from the onlooker’s video, and called Ms. McMillan a manipulator “constantly scheming” to gain attention.
“She wanted to pull the wool over your eyes,” Ms. Choi said. “That’s how she benefited from this nonsense. She wanted to become the face of Occupy Wall Street.”
It’s good to be a cop in America. Also to, this:
A Wisconsin woman lived for months with drunken driving charges hanging over her head after a sheriff’s deputy crashed into her car, although blood tests show she was sober and surveillance video shows the officer was at fault.
Tanya Weyker broke her neck in the Feb. 20, 2013, crash after Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Quiles rolled through a stop sign and wrecked into her vehicle, reported WTKR-TV.
She was hurt so badly she couldn’t submit to a Breathalyzer test or perform field sobriety tests, but she said deputies questioned her as she received medical treatment at the crash scene.
The cop has received benefits for the last year and has never been charged with a false report, and the city county refuses to pay her medical bills.
America, Fuck Yeah!
kindness
I’ve been had. I was expecting happy news from that headline. You got me John.
Trollhattan
Ugh+ugh=UGH. They really need to keep beating down OWS in any form so it never, ever, ever happens again.
Was actuallly glad to read this–justice delivered in Missouri.
–NYMag
ranchandsyrup
Hippies exist to be punched, lamentably.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
If Ms. McMillan wants to assault people she can apply to the police force like the rest of them.
CONGRATULATIONS!
The legal system’s reaction to OWS tells me all I need to know about how much of a threat to “the way things are” that they were percieved to be.
Campionrules
Assault a cop = against the law. I don’t know why this is so hard. But given that OWS decided to magically make up Constitutional Rights( 29th Amendment: The Right to Camp Wherever I DAMM WANT TO, because my upper middle class parents are totally a drag, dude) this is not terribly surprising that they would think this special snowflake is somehow more special than others.
TL,DR: Drunk woman assaults police officer, can’t remember shit, turns down plea bargain, now going to jail.
Betty Cracker
God forbid any of the white collar criminals who wrecked the economy should spend a night in jail.
BettyPageisaBlonde
I know Cecily McMillan. She’s a graduate at the university I work at. Nice girl, very idealistic and political. Violent? Um, fuck no. This is total bullshit.
max
Given how hard Zweibel worked to prevent the defense from defending, the verdict shouldn’t be a surprise. Time to appeal.
max
[‘I’m surprised how overtly Zweibel went after her.’]
Hunter Gathers
@Betty Cracker:
That would make Tax Cut Jesus, Free Market Jesus and Zombie Reagan cry.
Schlemizel
Is it a full moon or something?; The trolls are out in
farceforce todayEmma
@Campionrules: Troll? Or idiot?
catclub
@max: “Given how hard Zweibel worked to prevent the defense from defending”
I saw something about that. Not allowed to present videotape. Interesting that the DA was presenting stills from the videotape.
Schlemizel
@Emma:
This clown – bobbie and ulee, I am thinking are all the same kid or group of kids home from school on spring break.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Why is everyone so scared of hippies?
Oh yeah, because they had a point and that age group is a larger voting pool than boomers. Can’t let them find that out, though.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
That seems like a potential spot for an appeal — why was the prosecution allowed to use the videotape as evidence but not the defense?
PIGL
Cops are precious little angels who must be protected at all costs from all threats.
ulee
@Schlemizel: Are you trying to be clever? It’s not working. I don’t like cops. They’re revenue raising hazards to the safety of the community most of the time.
Citizen_X
@Campionrules:
Please to present some evidence for that assertion. Alternatively, go fuck yourself sideways with a rusty pitchfork.
Eric U.
@CONGRATULATIONS!: my recollection is that the hippies were boomers. Unless you are talking about modern-day hippies, in which case carry on.
I keep hoping that something will come out of OWS. Granted, they changed the narrative. Nobody can talk about 1% of anything any more without basically bringing up their message. Most of the political talk I have heard is the same old republican-serving, “both sides do it” schtick that should have been stricken from acceptable discourse after Ralph Nader’s disastrous run in 2000.
Schlemizel
@Citizen_X:
aaaaaaannnd just like that the bored kids can give up the hunt for something interesting on NetFlix
Ruckus
@Emma:
Is there ever a difference?
Or
Why not both, idiot troll?
Kyle
Compare and contrast this to the giant nothing that is happening to the armed crowd at the Bundy Ranch. Supposed takeaway: Always bring a gun with you.
Belafon
@Eric U.: One of the things OWS did after NY was collect money and help pay off some medical bills for people. It ended up being a few million.
Amir Khalid
@Eric U.:
That change in the narrative was already more of a positive outcome than I, or many of the Juicitariat, anticipated in the first place. I remember the first commenter here who really talked up the Occupy protests got mocked for it. Now I would agree that more is needed than a change in the narrative, but it’s an important first step.
ulee
@Schlemizel: I feel sorry for anyone who has to spend an evening with you.
currants
@Belafon: Yep–I think Rolling Jubilee is an outgrowth of that (Strike Debt?)–or maybe it IS that.
Campionrules
@Citizen_X:
Her whole narrative was that she was celebrating St. Patrick’s day with out of town friends and stopped by the Zuchotti encampment at the end of the night. And then she can’t ‘remember’ what happened clearly.
I’m going to go with intoxicated
Belafon
@ulee: This coming from the person that has spent this entire post making blanket generalizations. I bet that’s fun at parties.
Belafon
@Campionrules: And I’m going to go with someone grabbing your breast should expect to get hit, even if they are cops.
ulee
@Belafon: I don’t go to parties. They are usually populated by people like you. Boring and predictable.
beltane
@Kyle: It has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with the target of the protests. Right-wing, anti-government insurgents do not present a threat to the plutocracy, therefore they must be put on a pedestal and treated with the utmost restraint and delicacy. A peaceful sit-in movement criticizing the excesses of our “betters” might hurt some rich person’s feelings and therefore must be crushed with all possible savage.
If those clowns in Nevada were threatening to shoot bankers, drone strikes would have been called in a long time ago.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
But don’t you guys realize yet that Occupy was the biggest most dangerous hyper-violent thugs in the history of ever?! How can you dare feel sympathy for such super-Satans?! I mean, for god’s sake, it’s not like they threatened feds with guns on federal land or something innocuous like that!!!
—
God help me, is there any news these days that isn’t rampant fucking hippie punching?
Campionrules
By putting a face(and TV coverage) to the literally dirty fringe of the left, OWS managed to set back the Democratic party by at least 5 years. It was a very public shitshow(again literally) of “up twinkles”, homeless violence, 35 competing ideologies, followed by whatever the fuck Oakland was about – something to do with hating cops.
When people started getting sexually assaulted in the campsites that should have been the sign to pack it in.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Eric U.: Sorry. Did mean modern ones. The age cohort born between 1980-1995 are the ones getting slaughtered by the “new normal”, and they are larger than the boomers. If they voted you’d really have something.
They don’t.
@beltane: This is one of the issues. They’re the best kind of anti-establishment the establishment can have, because all they really want is to be one of the fat cats on top.
Mandalay
Statistic of the day:
ulee
@Campionrules: You used the word literal. You lose.
Campionrules
@Belafon:
Sucks that hitting a police officer has legal ramifications even if the police officer is in the wrong – which it is far from clear that was the case. I
Roger Moore
@Emma:
Both.
ulee
@Campionrules: You’re a punk. I’ll bet you look like Tucker Carlson, heir to the Swanson fortune.
beltane
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yes. Bundy exemplifies the pure essence of robber baron. The expropriation of state property for private gain is something Wall Street supports 100%.
beltane
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yes. Bundy exemplifies the pure essence of robber baron. The expropriation of state property for private gain is something Wall Street supports 100%.
Campionrules
@ulee:
Literally.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Lot’s of areas to appeal…including being denied entering ongoing brutality charges against the officer.
The defense has noted several errors that can result in over-turning the verdict.
Another problem is that the original juror pool called was overwhelmingly anti occupy. It was feared that no jury could be seated at all due to previous bias.
celticdragonchick
@Campionrules:
let us know how that works out when you grab a woman by her breast some time, m’kay?
Fuck off and die, troll.
ulee
@Campionrules: Double down, Tucker. It’s fun to watch.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Given the rest of her record, the mockery is at least somewhat understandable, cudlip.
Campionrules
@ulee:
I was wrong. I am less white than the OWS, But that isn’t a hard thing to do. Hell, George Zimmerman was less white than Occupy and he was a White Murderer™
Punchy
So exactly what does the po-po have to grab/grope/fondle before they’re considered crossing the line? Can they really just grab anything and one has to stand there and accept it, lest be charged with a felony assault?
celticdragonchick
@beltane:
Ex-fucking-actly.
Hippies in the park in NYC or in an abandoned auto showroom in Chapel Hill, NC?
SWAT teams, tear gas, submachineguns and attack dogs.
RWNJ snipers and goons with assault rifles threatening federal agents in the desert? Well, we gotta negotiate, you know…
The historic pattern has always been to use overwhelming force against progressive protests, and much of the time it has been lethal force.
ulee
@Campionrules: Don’t try to cozy up. And tell your mother to stop ironing your jeans. You look stupid.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@celticdragonchick: The judge has been pretty egregious in this case, and I can think of about five avenues of appeal off the top of my head, but I think in order to get any real change in what the young lady is facing/dealing with, the defense needs to do whatever must be done to get a change of venue. She absolutely cannot get a fair trial in New York.
Campionrules
@ulee:
Your continued micro-aggressions toward people of denim has been noted.
Scott Supak
Seems Judge Zweibel has a very interesting effect on people.
He doesn’t want to hear evidence.
Apparently, he can read fast.
What a guy!
celticdragonchick
@Punchy:
Police can do damned near anything to you in using force as long as they can say they “feared for their safety” and keep telling you to “Stop resisting!!” as they bash your head into the curb.
This has been documented ad naseum, and even taping them in the act of outright murder (see: homeless man, beaten to death, Fullerton PD) will probably not result charges being filed, much less a conviction.
The trial just started yesterday for a Banning, California officer who blinded a woman with a pepper pellet pistol that he shot into her face and literally blew one of her eyes out with, while severing the optic nerve to the other.
Her crime? She pissed him off.
Will he be convicted? Odds are against it.
Roger Moore
@celticdragonchick:
Some of that is a question of where. Protest out in the middle of nowhere and the only people you’re getting involved in your protest are yourselves and the police. Naturally, the police will try to take things slowly in order to minimize their own danger. Protest in the middle of a city, and you’re annoying and potentially endangering a lot of other people, so the police may be forced to act in the interest of the bystanders. I’d guess that if the gang from Bundy’s ranch relocated to Zuccotti Park, they’d get considerably less leeway than OWS did.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Even so, she was right about OWS long before those who mocked her. And she never called me cudlip, as I remember; I had that special name all to myself.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Punchy: Absolutely not. Our local DA, who managed to go for twelve years without even filing charges against a cop (my fellow San Diegans know how this terrible town rolls) now has one of our local Finest in jail and another on the way because they made the understandable mistake of thinking that because they had a license to kill, that they also had a license to rape.
Turns out that was the line they couldn’t cross, as the rules are crystal clear. Bonnie did her best to get out of it, but she had to go ahead and prosecute.
ulee
@Campionrules: I have aggression towards people like you who rag on Occupy Wall Street. Don’t you see what’s happening in this country. Are you fucking blind?
celticdragonchick
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Agree. Change of venue should be at the top of the list.
beltane
@celticdragonchick: Inequality is always preserved through the use of actual or threatened violence. We may feel that we are decent, peaceful citizens, but to those at the very top of the economic pyramid, we are verminous scum to be regarded with a mixture of horror and contempt.
Bob In Portland
In other beatdown-related stories, the coup government in Kiev is sending the “elite national guard unit” to restore order in Odessa. As Minister Yarosh has bragged in the past, the national guard was filled with neo-Nazi right sector hooligans. So the guys who burned forty people to death on Friday are coming back with uniforms.
That should reassure everyone in Odessa.
Chris
@beltane:
Exactly.
This is why J. Edgar Hoover needed several kicks in the ass from President Johnson to start investigating KKK murders, even AFTER some white, middle class Northern kids gpt whacked… but the civil rights movement was investigated from top to bottom by all means legal and illegal.
Cops and feds: a Pinkerton by any other name…
scav
@Roger Moore: That does lead to the amusing vision of deadbeat cowboys huddling behind their wimminzfolk, afraid of getting their moobs fondled by the NYPD. BundyBroke Mountain!
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
I didn’t remember the term, not knowing much Arabic. We used to have a better class of disruptive poster around here.
burnspbesq
@max:
And you know this how? You have a transcript, and you can point to specific instances of judicial misconduct? You observed the entire trial and saw and heard it with your own ears and eyes?
If you expect me to take that allegation seriously, you need more than “because fuck you that’s why.”
celticdragonchick
@Roger Moore:
Tell that to the folks who survived the battle of Blair Mountain in West Virgina, or the striking miners and their families who were machine gunned in Colorado. Our society tolerates violence against progressives far more readily then right wing reactionaries, because left wing activists have readily been portrayed by the government as foreign subversives, communists, etc in a way that right wing types have not been.
Also, reactionaries have been courted by the GOP for decades, while dems have run like hell from serious socialist activists.
beltane
@scav: However, a peaceful right-wing encampment in lower Manhattan would have been feted by the media and thronged by GOP politicians looking for a photo op with the protesters.
Campionrules
@ulee:
I have some privilege in my eye currently. But really, I don’t think that a bunch of generally white, middle class Oberlin grads are going to save the country from the oligarchy and the Banksters! while holding drum circles and trying to prevent someone, somewhere from nuking the gay whales.
That’s not how shit gets done in this country. But then again, you probably think the black guy in the White House is an Uncle Tom, house slave to Wall Street. That does seem to be the in vogue dog whistle for the OWS types.
Calouste
@Bob In Portland:
So Bob, tell us, does Vladimir send your checks in dollars or in rubles?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/04/pro-russia-trolls-ukraine-guardian-online
Campionrules
@beltane:
Because they would have had permits. And gone home at night. With no drum circles. But yeah, I agree that it would have been different.
burnspbesq
@Bob In Portland:
Any of us who care to read unfiltered Russian propaganda can find our own way to rt.com, TYVM. We don’t need you to spoon-feed it to us.
scav
@beltane: Don’t forget the Patriot Longhorns™ being unleashed on Central Park to the Flag-waving cheers of the crowds behind the news talking heads of the morning chat shows.
celticdragonchick
@beltane:
Peaceful? They could have gone in with signs pledging death to half the SCOTUS and burned Obama in effigy while wielding actual weapons and the GOP would have been doing photo ops while Morning Joe remarked how clean the camp was…
beltane
@celticdragonchick: Yeah, an armed lefty protest in the desert would have been summarily dispatched by law enforcement with little or no media attention.
pseudonymous in nc
@Campionrules:
But of course. They ought to kit out those delicate cops with guns and helmets and kevlar and batons and riot shields because they never treat their share in the state monopoly on violence as an excuse to brutalise people.
Eric U.
I don’t think the Bundy folks are going to get off scott-free. There is definitely some advantage in having the ability to kill lots of cops and an apparent willingness to (have your women and children) die in the process. I don’t see how this works well for OWS.
I suspect the feds and the local cops are just hoping that the bundy folks start shooting each other and they are required to act.
Roger Moore
@beltane:
Especially if they dressed up in 18th Century garb and had pictures of the President as a witch doctor.
ulee
@Campionrules: You are one overtly miserable fuck.
pseudonymous in nc
@Campionrules:
Yeah, because talking about inequality was all the rage, and who gave a fuck about deficits back then?
Now we know you’re a weak-shit concern troll, so just fuck off.
pseudonymous in nc
@Campionrules:
Yeah, because talking about inequality was all the rage, and who gave a fuck about deficits back then?
Now we know you’re a weak-shit concern troll, so just fuck off.
beltane
@Roger Moore: At least we can be grateful for this particular Sarah Palin speech that never happened.
scav
I also find it amusing that someone posited that a Right Wing Protest over the BLM collecting fines, that disbelieves in the existence of the US govt and is running vigilant road-checks for residence would have had permits for protest. Logical Entropy is pretty far advanced.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
She would have gotten the case thrown out if she had cited free property rights of horse and carriage from 1798.
celticdragonchick
@beltane:
heh, we haven’t had anything resembling actual armed left wing agitation in this country since 1975. When the hell was the last time anyone heard of the Weathermen?
Check out what happened when unarmed lefties got ambushed by the Klan and neo-Nazis in 1979 right here where I live in Greensboro.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_massacre
Our local police was in collusion with the Klan and the trials were rigged (a friend of mine worked at Lorrilard with the jury foreman for one of the trials, who was a Cuban American. He admitted outright that he went in with the intent of getting a not guilty verdict because he hated communists and union types…and they all needed to be shot like dogs as far as he was concerned)
gwangung
@Campionrules: This isn’t a very good troll. Need to make more than a half-baked attempt. Will wait for you.
Trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
I vote: goblin shark!
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6875/20140502/grotesque-goblin-shark-hauled-up-in-gulf-of-mexico-only-second-time-ever.htm
Kyle
@beltane: Sadly, you are very likely correct.
burnspbesq
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You think the chances of a fair trial are better in Fort Edward, or Little Valley? You have a lot more faith in Upstaters than is justified by any facts of which I’m aware.
TerryC
@Campionrules: “When people started getting sexually assaulted in the campsites that should have been the sign to pack it in.” BS. @Campionrules:
So, how many years has Bundy set back the Republican party?
celticdragonchick
J Michael Straczynski (of Babylon 5 fame)has a new post up on FB with the rules for the new aristocracy:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=760992300602302&id=139652459402959
Matt
@Roger Moore: Bundy’s crew is already harassing, detaining, and generally terrifying the populace of the local area. Try again.
Schlemizel
And you can see them working in tandem, so it is middle schoolers home from school today – anyone know what school districts are out today, maybe we could guess where they are from.
Schlemizel
And brick head bob too – must be full moon
Another Holocene Human
@Trollhattan:
But the wisdom of our institutions must never, ever be questioned, even so.
ulee
@Schlemizel: I know you’re trying, but it’s just not coming together for you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Campionrules:
She isn’t an Oberlin grad. She is a Lawrence University grad. Get it right.
srv
Jim Jones was the Last True Progressive.
Calouste
@celticdragonchick:
Regarding that last point, I think some US states have really given up being a democracy by only allowing two candidates in the general election. Then again, I think having first-past-the-post single-member districts is already way down the slippery slope, and almost completely prevents any new parties from challenging the established two.
For example, in the UK the UK Idiots Party only became relevant in the political landscape via (ironically) the European elections, where the UK is forced to use multi-member districts to comply with EU rules.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid:
That is true.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: I don’t think anyone here didn’t feel that the Occupy protestors were on the side of justice. I think the matoko mockery stemmed from her belief that Occupy would Change The World. Most of the commentariat here that ridiculed her agreed with Occupy’s aims, but felt other tactics, especially electoral engagement, would be more effective. Matoko had a soft spot for trends and memes, and an aversion to actually doing things.
Another Holocene Human
@Campionrules: Even if we were to concede that OWS was a miserable failure, your degree of bile is disproportionate; however, OWS was not a complete failure. We live in the post OWS world. So your bile is even more questionable.
While Occupy protesters were dominated in most places by persons of the whiter shades of pale, typically with little to no activism experience (part of the reason they were pretty ineffective vis a vis their numbers), they were NOT uniform in economic background. What linked them together besides their Caucasian befuddleditude about the world was BEING UNEMPLOYED. The streets were full of unemployed people, on weekends joined by those who were concerned that THEY WERE NEXT. Since African-Americans were enjoying all the benefits of long-term unemployment throughout the fake-on Bush “recovery” you don’t see so many of them in the streets because why make a big deal about something that’s been your reality for 6, 7 years? OWS was a reaction to the hardship of unemployment and being poked in the eye by their grandparent’s politicians preaching austerity now–austerity forever! You just don’t do that to white people! They’ll … you’ll see … you’ll be sorry. Y’know, something.
Of course they camped in the parks overnight–they, of all people, felt that they owned them.
Schlemizel
@Suzanne:
It might also have something to do with her wishing my son had died in Afghanistan the time I tried to talk to her. I had mostly ignored her before that but thought she had made a point that deserved more consideration – boy did she prove me wrong and howdy! I never replied to her on anything since & if I ever do there will be mention of fornication with heavily oxidized farming implements.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: Where has JMS been for the last 15 years?
Chris
@celticdragonchick:
Agree completely… although even listing the Weathermen there is giving them a lot of credit for a tiny band of lunatics with a 0% approval rating (little to no public or institutional support) that never had even the slightest chance of affecting the country in any meaningful way. There wasn’t any left-wing equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, which was embedded in society to the point of being a state within a state controlling quite a few parts of the country regardless of law and order (as your example showed, all the way into the 70s) – it’s like comparing a gang of corner store thieves with the Five Families of New York. For that kind of broad, significant left-wing armed agitation, you’d have to go back to the pre-Roosevelt era and things like Blair Mountain.
Another Holocene Human
@Calouste: So having a party who has 3% of the district win the election through arcane bizarro voting rules is better than having the plurality candidate win with 48% because…….?????
I think jungle primary + runoff is preferable to state-supported party primaries + general, but make no mistake that the former can suck for its own reasons. Sometimes a party primary can lead to the more liberal (or more conservative) candidate surviving to the general, whereas the jungle primary may favor a moderate. It seems like many of those advocating for new voting rules are not moderates in any way although they are usually unhappy with the dominant parties’ planks for one reason or another.
And they either WAY overestimate how many people agree with them, or they don’t care and actually, libertarian style, hope to game an arcane system. Which hardly advances democracy.
Calouste
@Another Holocene Human:
Which farmer did you get all that straw from?
? Martin
@Another Holocene Human: They need to nuke the whole primary process (which is just the parties being able to pick who appears on the ballot) and switch to instant runoff voting. Solves all problems and eliminates one whole voting cycle.
Another Holocene Human
@Suzanne: I never was able to find out if “Matoko” was some sort of Spoonerism for “makoto”.
Matoko is an Eastern African surname, which is sort of funny–I had an East African professor who joked that the Japanese “took our names–take “Tanaka”, in our language it means “very sweet””.
Gravenstone
The Milwaukee case doesn’t really surprise me. The sheriff is this asshole The fish rots from the head, after all..
Among his other charming moments of idiocy was suggesting that people buy moar gunz to protect themselves until the incompetent cops finally decide to roll up. Yeah, there’s absolutely no love lost between his department and the City of Milwaukee proper.
Another Holocene Human
@Calouste: Why don’t YOU explain how a non “first past the post” voting system is supposed to work, something most activists can’t seem to explain in the first place without resorting to unicorn talk and feels?
Some very good mathematicians have put up a series of Youtube videos explaining how the instant runoff works in practice. Minority candidates have won these contests in REAL elections more than once. Was this, in fact, the point of the instant runoff system? Because it seems to work nothing like what people participating in the actual election think it’s supposed to work. They think if their first choice doesn’t win their votes go to their 2nd choice. WRONG!
Omnes Omnibus
@Gravenstone: Milwaukee County is all kinds of fucked up. The City of Milwaukee is doing as well as can be expected for a rust belt city.
ETA: One elected Tom Barrett and, historically, a bunch of actual socialists as mayor. The other elected Scott Walker as County Exec.
Amir Khalid
@Another Holocene Human:
There’s a fishing village in Japan called Obama — also a traditional Japanese name.
shelley
Remember when we were little kids, we were taught the police were our friends?
Another Holocene Human
From 2005: Instant Runoff Voting: A Cure That is Likely Worse Than the Disease
by JAMES P. LANGAN
William and Mary Law Review, February 2005, volume 46, issue, 4, pages 1569-1595
And this is a political, not mathematical, analysis.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
He did a lot of the script work on the movie adaptation of World War Z. I think he handled it as best as could be expected, considering the nature of the book (which was unfilmable in its original form)
Arclite
While I deplore the militarization of our police forces, shit like this makes it hard for me to blame them sometimes.
Another Holocene Human
Why choose IRV? From a real IRV website, we learn:
a) because unicorns and rainbows!
b) because democracy costs too much money!
c) because my candidate can’t persuade a majority of the voters to vote for her, so I needed to come up with a way for her to win anyway
d) fluffy bunnies and baby hamsters! Just cause!
Amir Khalid
@shelley:
There’s a song that seems to fit here …
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human: Writing comic books.
Another Holocene Human
Oops, I skipped that one about “allowing” more 3rd party candidates on the ballot–apparently IRV magickally changes your jurisdictions laws about how to qualify FOR the ballot. That’s amazing!
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
I think it was supposed to be based on Motoko, specifically Kusanagi Motoko from Ghost in the Shell. When she changed names, she always seemed to pick dangerous women from popular culture.
Calouste
@Another Holocene Human:
Australia has instant run off single-member districts.
Ireland has multi-member districts.
The Netherlands have proportional representation.
Feel free to read up on those electoral systems that have been working in practice for decades.
And I’d like to see a link showing that someone actually won with 3% of the (primary) vote. Failing that, please give the straw back to the farmer, the cows are hungry.
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: I hope they were better than Midnight Nation. WTF did I even read?
And I liked his Spiderman arc but Marvel pissed me off by assigning literally the worst artist they could find on 7 continents to do the art.
So I kind of stopped following his comics work. Please tell me it got better.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: I didn’t follow the story closely, but Burlington, VT had adopted Instant Runoff elections only to abandon it after only one or two election cycles. I haven’t seen any movement to either revive IR in Burlington or implement it any place else in the state.
Arclite
Also, there are times when the justice system can make the right decision.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: “moto” + “ko” of course is a perfectly cromulent name
I guess it figures that she was just another person with a Japanese nym who didn’t speak a word of Japanese.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mato
No hits on Nihongo there. Mato tte nani?
Amir Khalid
@celticdragonchick:
The World War Z movie was so unlike the book, I didn’t feel it deserved to have the same title. A TV mini-series might have a better way to adapt the book.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Remember when her nym was Hermione Granger-Weasley? That one made me wince.
Gravenstone
@Another Holocene Human: Writing comic books (seriously).
Another Holocene Human
@Calouste: Illinois used to have two member districts, without IVR, and I think there are still some US states that do this? And proportional representation (not to mention multi-member districts) is an entirely separate question from IVR. So you are back to Australia and I really have to wonder how well this “reform” has worked out since over the last few decades Australia went from having a more progressive and peaceful government with the advent of the voting fine kicking young people into the polls to having a much more plutocrat friendly government at present with the reactionary elements having a wider voice. Not that I am by any means an expert on the Australian system. But it’s not the purity pony I’m looking for so let me just say I hardly see it as a persuasive case.
Another Holocene Human
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/devlin-ranked-voting-110711.html
11.8% Now that’s legitimacy I can believe in.
How did your Jean Quan rainbow unicorn sparkle pony work out in Oakland, leftier-than-thous and dude-bros?
Democracy in action!
Calouste
@Another Holocene Human:
Don’t forget about the cows!
Another Holocene Human
Quan won by gaming the IRV system:
http://www.mathgoespop.com/2010/11/instant-runoff-voting-in-oakland.html
Democracy!
Suzanne
@Schlemizel: WTF?!?! I missed that. Holy shit. That is horrible and I’m sorry.
@Another Holocene Human: From the little I remember she said about herself, I seem to think she was a white girl of rich parents who had super-high expectations (she mentioned ballet from a young age and expensive private education), but she had some sort of personality disorder—maybe bipolar? ADHD?—and she still lived with them and didn’t have a job.
Another Holocene Human
@Calouste: Calouste: Cows fear me.
Another Holocene Human
@Suzanne: Well that would explain the aggressive media consumption.
You know, if we lived in a world where everyone had a job to do, instead of competing for status like beetles attempting to mate, there wouldn’t be poor little rich girls. Oh … never mind. Nobody cares.
Long Tooth
There’s a bad vibe in the air, battle lines are being drawn. Too many guns, too many political fools, the “people’s airwaves” spewing one type of poison or the other 24/7, and, last but not least, a United States Supreme Court that is corrupt. Southern states (et.al.) are in the process of seceding again, and this time intend to drag the authority of the federal government with them– by whatever means necessary.
Go Giants, Go Niners….
srv
TRUTH TO POWER!
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human: Sadly, I don’t do comic books (I’m more an amime geek) so I don’t know how well his work is being received. But boy he hit a nerve with his rant-and you could see some of that in some of those things in B5.
Amir Khalid
@Suzanne:
She also liked to claim to be more Muslim than I. I don’t claim to be more Muslim than anyone (not my call to make) so I suppose she could be right about that.
Another Holocene Human
@Long Tooth: Have you seen the Lead Effect?
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
We need one for “whites voting Republican”. Just to see if there’s a correlation between being born during the leaded air era and being a fucking idiot in the ballot box.
Members of minority groups need not apply as that whole ‘one party is flogging eliminationist rhetoric directed at you’ thing is a giant confounding factor that would drive anyone (except Alan Keyes) away from voting for a group otherwise agreed with on all points.
max
@burnspbesq: And you know this how? You have a transcript, and you can point to specific instances of judicial misconduct?
I did not read the specific transcript, nor did you. I did however, heard of some of the motions he struck down, and had heard of Justice Zweibel some time beforehand.
You observed the entire trial and saw and heard it with your own ears and eyes?
Did you? You well know, or ought to well know that a judge can effectively determine the outcome of a trial simply by tossing things out and it appears Zweibel worked hard to do that. In practice, it sounds like he narrowed down the effective question to whether or not the young lady in question hit the cop in the eye, which I am pretty sure everyone would have stipulated beforehand, while trimming out anything that could go to the question of whether she intended to do that. The length of the trial indicates to me that the defense brought everything that to bear given the hamstringing going on, and the judge allowed that in the interest of appearing even-handed.
If you expect me to take that allegation seriously
Burnsie, I wouldn’t expect you to “take that allegation seriously” if they had Zweibel on tape rattling on about how he had screwed that OWS hippie real good.
Judges can put a thumb on the scale if they should choose to do so, and it’s very hard to prove otherwise (until a sudden slip of a tape recording proves Judge X bias ran the way everyone thought it). You’ll defend the court system, and right-wingerish verdicts no matter what, and I know that and you know that.
you need more than “because fuck you that’s why.”
Burnsie, you’re the idiot who thinks the United States can fight a nuclear war with the Russians and walk away with barely a scratch. I wouldn’t even bother to try to convince you of anything because you’d just go all John Yoo.
max
[‘Don’t you have some neo-cons you need to be slurping?’]
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: Oh, absolutely. I certainly read some criticism of the Clinton administration into B5 at the time (hell, Karl Kassel once started saying “President Clark” before catching himself and correcting it to “Clinton” and this was years before Wesley Clark ran for president) and it was not of the butthurt conservative variety.
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human: I remember in Season 3 where ISN reporters was gushing over the ‘Wildly suxccessful Martial Law imposed by President Clark’ and the heavy-handed editing after B5 broke away from EarthGov. Nailed.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Instant runoff voting specifically has a lot of problems, but there are other alternatives. There are a whole host of ranked preferential systems that don’t have the specific selection problems that IRV has, though they still have the additional complication that comes with any kind of preferential system. I’m personally a fan of approval voting (vote for as many candidates as you like, top vote getter wins) which I think hits the sweet spot of being simple enough to be practical while avoiding the worst pitfalls of plurality/first past the post voting.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
No; I had protective amnesia on that one.
Omnes Omnibus
@BettyPageisaBlonde: You are at Lawrence or at the New School?
Bob In Portland
@Calouste: When I marched against the war in ’68 I didn’t join in the chant “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh.” I did chant “Stop the war.”
I wonder how the same propaganda memes that worked with the Gulf of Tonkin and through the death squads in Central America through the weapons of mass destruction and that Osama hiding in Afghanistan thing still works with so many so-called smart people. Were you fooled by all those propaganda things? Is it a hangover from the Cold War?
I guess you’re cool with American tax dollars paying for real live Nazis to burn people alive then.
Having read Balloon Juice for years I would think that there would be some concern among the liberal literati about our next war and perhaps a thought that if we as citizens voiced our displeasure that perhaps we could stop our part in the bloodshed. I mean, it used to be embarrassing to support Nazis. I didn’t think that so many people would just go along.
But maybe the propaganda isn’t working all that well because so many people feel uncomfortable even discussing the topic. Was it like this at the beginning of the Iraq War? Was everyone here as gullible for that one?
Now we’ve had the NY Times walk away from their false stories about Russian officers in the east. I guess the Odessa incident is just to hard to admit to, so, yeah, they’re just as bad as the people who burned them, they started it, they set fire to themselves. They shot themselves, they beat themselves up.
Why don’t you have a conscience?
JPL
@Mandalay: That would make a great advertisement so I don’t expect the democrats to use it.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s what Bundy’s supporters say, too.
The commons are clearly misunderstood by both idiot left and rabid right.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: I would check on the net worth of the Democratic senators first. The 2012 Dems average out at over $13.5 million.
Peter
@burnspbesq: Burns, have you ever found a shitty judge you won’t carry water for?
bettypageisablonde
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly. Thanks for the clarification.
Bob In Portland
@Calouste: How much you think Robert Parry gets paid?
bettypageisablonde
@Omnes Omnibus
Lawrence. :)
Cermet
Too many cops are pigs & low life scum. Seems that more are becoming this type every year and the system – bought by the 0.01% to serve the 0.01% are getting their money’s worth as these pigs get on their knee’s and lick the ass hole’s clean of the 0.01%.
Fair Economist
@Another Holocene Human:
Well, the person who got the most first-place votes got – 12.1%. The actual difference was 44 votes. It’s hard to see the outcome as a travesty of justice. Looking at the details in the wiki it’s pretty clear the winner was a compromise choice – she was a distinct plurality favorite in all the last 4 rounds.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
This is my recollection as well.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: It would have to be a last minute ad, but the wealthy dems do support minimum wage hikes. The wealthy republicans don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@bettypageisablonde: Excellent. My undergrad alma mater.
Peter
@Fair Economist: Yeah, that sounds like the system worked to me. The losing candidate had more devoted followers but the winning enjoyed a broader base of support.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL:
I don’t think it would work. Our rich guys aren’t heartless assholes doesn’t really GOTV.
bettypageisablonde
@Omnes Omnibus
Look me up next time you’re up this way! You can find me in the Communications department (my name is Rachel). I’m totally willing to buy a Balloon-Juice commenter and Lawrence grad a drink. :)
LAC
@ulee: shorter you: I am never invited because of parole and what not
Omnes Omnibus
@bettypageisablonde: Cool. I haven’t been up that way since the Povolny memorial. He was my faculty advisor way back when.
Mandalay
@Calouste:
Right. UKIP currently have the most support of any party in Britain for the European elections, yet cannot win a single seat in Parliament, where it’s first past the post. You don’t have to support the odious UKIP to find something very undemocratic about that situation.
The two party system we have here sucks. And to those who trot out the old canard “Well it’s served us pretty well for a pretty long time…”, how do you know things wouldn’t have been a lot better without it? There is no single issue on which Republicans and Democrats are in agreement more than the stifling of alternative political opposition.
Mandalay
@Calouste:
Right. UKIP currently have the most support of any party in Britain for the European elections, yet cannot win a single seat in Parliament, where it’s first past the post. You don’t have to support the odious UKIP to find something very undemocratic about that situation.
The two party system we have here sucks. And to those who trot out the old canard “Well it’s served us pretty well for a pretty long time…”, how do you know things wouldn’t have been a lot better without it? There is no single issue on which Republicans and Democrats are in agreement more than the stifling of alternative political opposition.
Citizen_X
@Howard Beale IV: Just want to add that B5 was the best science fiction show EVAR!
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
A bruised boob doesn’t impede sammich making, amirite?
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
If they’re actually the most popular, they should be favored by plurality voting, not held back. A more likely explanation is that there are people who like their platform for Euro elections but not for national elections, which is exactly what you’d expect for a party whose dominant issue is withdrawal from the EU.
Omnes Omnibus
@bettypageisablonde: I just noticed, in the small world department, that I have facebook friends in common with Cecily, Of course, they were students when I met them and were faculty when she did.
BTW, if you are one of the people who does the Lawrence Minute, I really like it.
Svensker
@Suzanne:
She may have had one or both of those, but she said she had Asperger’s. And she would get really confused by sarcasm and snark — she took many things literally that were never meant to be taken that way, would in turn get into high dudgeon, causing the sarcastic one and his/her minions to get all p.o.’d, which would then usually result in Matoko calling people names and getting completely hysterical. If you bothered to read the progression, you could usually see where and why she went off the rails.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: If it’s been a long time, then I can bring you up to date on all the important stuff. The Mark is long gone, and Pat’s Tap (The Palindrome That Serves Minors) has changed hands and changed names. Cleo’s is still going strong.
That is all the news from Lake Wobegone on the Fox.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
I realize that at this point you have completely lost touch with reality, but I’ll try one last time:
No one in the US who has any power to start a war is advocating for one in Ukraine.
No one.
That includes the president and the CIA. At least Cole had some tough talk by the president to justify his pants-wetting over the US bombing Syria. You have two things to support your claims that the US is going to war in Ukraine: JACK and SHIT.
If you think we went into Iraq because John McCain was on your teevee advocating for it, you’re even more of a fucking idiot than I thought.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: I was there and partying for my reunion in 2011. Jim’s Place got a facelift.
Omnes Omnibus
The Grauniad on Cecily McMillan and the acceptance police violence.
Suzanne
@Svensker: Asperger’s. You’re right. I knew she had mentioned it but I couldn’t remember exactly. I think she had also mentioned ADD or ADHD, as well, but don’t quote me on that. I just remember, the more she spoke about her personal life, that it became pretty clear that she didn’t really have a job or friends or any community in real life that she could participate in. I think she mentioned dropping out of college. Online drama seemed to be really the only thing she had upon which to focus her attention, so she started instigating.
SenyorDave
This was pretty interesting, its a site where people rate judges, only two comments, but they seemed to indicate that the judge was a prosecutor’s judge.
SenyorDave
@SenyorDave: Forgot to post site:
http://therobingroom.com/newyork/Judge.aspx?id=691#comments
Omnes Omnibus
@SenyorDave: From The Robing Room?
ETA: Never mind.
Morzer
I find it interesting that the poor, dear, delicate police officer who was so brutally assaulted should have consistently identified the wrong eye as having suffered the vicious beating in question.
The judge was so obviously biased that I would hope this farcical verdict can be appealed and overturned.
Mandalay
@Roger Moore: A more likely explanation is that there are people who like their platform for Euro elections but not for national elections, which is exactly what you’d expect for a party whose dominant issue is withdrawal from the EU.
Morzer
@Mandalay:
It’s more likely that people see the European elections as not particularly important, so they are an ideal way of registering disgruntlement by voting, in effect, for anyone but the establishment parties. When the “real” elections come around, you’ll see UKIP losing most of its temporary friends and falling back to, at a guess, somewhere around 12 % of the vote.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, and changing the interiors of certain bars is simply wrong. For the number of times I’ve been in the tank on College Avenue, a revamped bar is like when Helen Keller’s family moved the furniture to punish her. If I don’t know where I am, I don’t know which way to stumble as I head out the door for home :-)
Morzer
@dollared:
Helen Keller got off lightly. You should see what they did to her brother Dustin.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: Are you an Appleton townie? From Darboy, maybe?
ETA: The facelift is better than the year or so where it was named Big Daddy’s. Someone bought it and renamed it. Everyone else continued to call it Jim’s Place; eventually, the new owner changed the name back.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: Great story about Jim’s Place. Yup, I’m a townie. Not from Darboy, but I could see it from our back door, across about a mile of cornfields. Used to bike through Lawrence every day on my way across town to high school (or biking home from the bars…..). Loved the place, but any college situated on my mother’s route home from shopping was definitely not on the application list.
But I run into Larries everywhere. Who knew there were so many?
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: There were three townies in my class. I never understood why. I’d have done Beloit or Lake Forest or any of the other LACs in the midwest rather than stay in my hometown.
There aren’t that many of us; we just won’t shut up about it.
dmbeaster
Skimmed through the comments — did not see the obvious parallel to be drawn here.
OWS protesters. Peaceful, unarmed but pains in the ass because they camped in parks and did not shower. She supposedly punched a cop when he groped her, which means we should throw the book at them
Bundy militia protesters. Armed, violent dangerous. Literally threatened to shoot cops, who were in mortal fear of a firefight that would kill many of them.
They have to be shown respect and the police withdraw lest we upset their fee-fees.
Honestly, the lesson here is that OWS should have come armed to the teeth. Either that or right wing terrorists always get a pass, whereas non-violent unarmed lefty protesters are treated like terrorists.
Bill Maher did a funny sketch on this recently, where he showed a picture of a militia sniper in position at the Bundy stand-off. He then showed a picture of the new black panthers who were standing outside a voting location in Philly, and how Fox went bananas over that. Then he commented “Scary” re that picture, and then “Not Scary” while showing the picture of the militia sniper in position with gun trained on the crowd. Scary, Not Scary. The link has the embedded video — the moment starts at 2:40
Chris
@Mandalay:
Don’t know how much this matters, but also, the two party system we have currently is nothing like the two party system we had for most of our history. Until recently, what we had was two loose coalitions of local or regional party organizations, who every four years cobbled together a presidential platform, but overall were as liable to disagree with members of their own party as the “other side.”
It’s only in the last twenty years or so (and mostly on one side of the aisle) that the party’s actually become a national, cohesive movement, with ideological purity strictly enforced regardless of location and constituencies (as some Republican Senate candidates found out to their sorrow in 2010).
Omnes Omnibus
@dmbeaster: No, the Bundy folks can be waited out because they are going to implode – heat, idiocy, hot tempers, and guns. OWS couldn’t be waited out because if it took off…. Only one was actually dangerous to the status quo.
Chris
@dmbeaster:
It’s that last one. For my money, OWS coming armed to the teeth would have been immediately interpreted as an act of revolution, and instead of flash-bangs, nightsticks and pepper-spray, the cops would’ve had a license to treat every encampment as a war zone. As various people have observed in this thread, we simply treat our right wing protesters with kid gloves.
Morzer
@Chris:
There’s a reason that police departments have been loading up on old (and sometimes not so old) military hardware – and it ain’t because they intend to use it against the Cliven Bundies of this world.
lol chikinburd
I like how the author of this comment
was previously the author of this comment in reference to the mass shootings of 20 February:
(emphasis mine both times)
dollared
@Morzer: I googled that. ACL and MCL. He must have run really fast through the house after they moved the furniture….
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: I did my ACL, MCL, and meniscus. Brutal. One’s knee feels a bit like jelly and a bit like craps. The muscles might hold it in place or one might feel like screaming and have the knee give out. Get the surgery. Just do it. Mine used some of my hamstring which guaranteed a long recovery; my brother used cadaver tissue which had other risks and a certain “ew” factor. Both worked perfectly.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
My ACL is donor tissue from a cadaver. About a week after my surgery, this scandal broke.
Everything was fine — no infection — but we had an anxious few days, to say the least.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: That kind of shit and what I perceived as general creepiness is what caused me to go with the hamstring option. I will also note that I had fantastic insurance that was willing to pay for the longer PT and an employer that gave me the time to do the best medical thing for me. Woohoo, federal government!
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
My doctor was pretty convincing that, medically, it was the best option since it was a simple ACL tear (well, as simple as it gets from falling off a stepladder and landing directly on the outside of your knee). There wasn’t any other permanent damage, so it was really just a matter of going in and installing the new part.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: Me, hamstring option. 17 years ago, have played about 12 years of soccer since then. I was very lucky – just a clean snap, no other damage, not even to the meniscus. My comment above mentioning MCL ACL was about Dustin Keller, a tight end for the Jets. Someone had mentioned that he was Helen Keller’s brother, yadda yadda.
Sherparick
Back in the day, in Chicago, when people would park in vacant lots or store lots to go to concert, they would often come back and find their cars gone thanks to the “Lincoln Park Pirates” (old Steve Goodman song of that name), and it would cast them $200 in 1973 money to get it back. If these guys had tried to interfere with the Pirates, there would lot more than a few hurt feelings. But hey, that was Free Enterprise, so “FREEDOMMM!!!”
Fred Fnord
@Another Holocene Human: It sure is. By a random conservative lawyer (not a JD, just Some Guy Who Finished Law School In 2005) who does not apparently like the status quo very much. No idea why W&M accepted the paper.
There are a half dozen better alternatives to IRV, but IRV is arguably better than what we have now. Your attitude towards it is very reminiscent of a conservative’s attitude towards expansions of social services: ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s better than what we have now: if this new thing gives a single person something he doesn’t deserve, the by God I’m agin’ it!’
Morzer
@dollared:
Actually, he was (very briefly) a TE for the Dolphins when his horrendous injury happened, thanks to DJ Swearinger.
ninjapornstar
Here’s a link to a youtube video, allegedly of the elbowing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=devvY1cCVFE
It’s a blurry distance shot, so not the best. Also, we only have the videographer’s word that it’s the incident in question. It could be anything.
What it appears to show is an officer leading Ms. McMillan away from the crowd and then she crouches and throws a mean-ass elbow. Then she tries to run. (Pro tip: that don’t work)
Watch the lower left area of the screen. At about the 20 sec mark, after a couple holding hands skips by, you see the officer and Ms. McMillan. They’re walking from right to left when she crouches, throws the elbow, and tries to run.
Howlin Wolfe
@Emma: Bears a striking resemblance to Burnsie, no?
Howlin Wolfe
@Campionrules: Go find another bed to shit.
Howlin Wolfe
@Campionrules: You’re more than wrong. You’ve got a poor understanding of reality, dressed up in swagger that makes you obnoxious.
Howlin Wolfe
@pseudonymous in nc: Your comment deserved to be posted twice!