Good News, Bad News

A step in the right direction: New York City bans trans-fats from restaurants.

A dismal statistic: The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth.

Kansas Weather

For anyone who thinks Kansas is boring:

Yesterday: Sunny, high of 71 degrees

Today: Freezing rain, currently 28 degrees (1:30 pm), with a low tonight of 18

Benford's Law

I'm writing an extra credit paper for my math class. I chose to talk about Benford's Law. The paper is only 3 pages long, and not very interesting, but you can find it here.

UCLA Taser Incident

This taser incident disgusts me. Here are some videos of the incident.

To form an opinion on whether the officers used excessive force, here's what I have been considering:

• The fact that the man was a student, although true, is irrelevant; the officers did not know this at the time.
• In the videos, the man yells and curses at police officers and refuses to comply when asked to stand up. However, he is not violent or billigerent, nor does he encourage the crowd towards violence as police claimed.
• In the videos, students ask the police officers for badge numbers or other information. The police mostly ignored these requests, although at least one officer responded by telling a student that he/she would be tasered, too.
• To me, the man's foreign name and possibly foreign nationality are irrelevant.
  

I couldn't find the legal requisites for the user of a taser on a suspect, but I have heard that they are similar to, though clearly more relaxed than, those of deadly force (suspect must be a danger to officers or others, etc...). So, what disturbs me is the fact that the suspect was repeatedly tasered while still in handcuffs.

Poll: Dems Carry Big Pre-Election Lead

Hot damn, that kicks butt: here

This is stupid

Bush gets immunity from war crimes

My first post...

It felt weird knowing that my dad had created a blog and I had not. So here we go.