Ford is Up to It’s Neck in Rollover Lawsuits Again.

Deja vu all over again. Those of you with some life experience will recall that back in the late 1990s Ford had a bunch of lawsuits and a federal investigation over it’s SUVs, primarily the Explorer, being prone to rollover crashes.

Image via CedarCityUtah.com

The ultimate outcome of that circus was that Firestone Tires was ultimately found guilty of causing / contributing to the crashes. In short, it was alleged that tire failure was primarily responsible for the crashes, and that the tire failures were the result of poor manufacturing. Ford feigned being ignorant of it’s supplier’s actions and escaped with minimal liability in the grand scheme of things.

The Truth:

Those who were a part of or familiar with the automotive industry at the time (such as the mechanic in my family) told a different story. The problem started with Ford trying to deal with ride quality complaints by reducing tire pressure on the SUVs. Most news sites (using a broad definition of the term) that still have information on the events say that Ford was putting 26 PSI on their tire placards.

Tire placard (sticker) picture via revolcarz.blogspot.com

That picture above is an example of the “placard” that lists the manufacturer’s recommended tire pressure. It raises an interesting point as well. You can see that the recommended pressure is 44 PSI (pounds per square inch). For a normal car, the typical tire pressure is 30 to 35 psi recommended. For sports cars and trucks and SUVs, the pressure recommendations usually start at 40 PSI and do up from there. Why?

For sports cars, higher pressure results in a firmer tire helps give the vehicle the type of handling and performance associated with a sports car. It will take turns better, and there’s minor improvement in acceleration and braking as well. Those last two are more influenced by tread pattern than pressure however. In the case of SUVs and Trucks, the higher pressure helps support the heavier weight of the vehicle and whatever cargo it may be carrying. The firmer tire, combined with a hopefully well designed suspension is what helps prevent these vehicles from rolling over due to a higher center of gravity than a car has. In the case of a heavy duty pickup like the Ford F350 or a Chevrolet/GMC 3500 series, the recommended tire pressure could be as high as 65 PSI.

The point being that 26 PSI was by NO means appropriate for a vehicle like the Ford Explorer. Depending upon who you talk to from that time period, some Ford placards OR technical service bulletins may have said tire pressures should be 18 to 21 PSI.

A Technical Service Bulletin, or TSB in the lingo of the industry, is a bulletin put out by an automotive manufacturer on how to deal with an recurring issue related to one of their products. An example would be what the most common repair to fix the inoperative dome (interior roof) light on a vehicle.

Back in the 90s when SUVs first got popular… and even still to this day, there are frequent complaints by consumers about them not riding like cars. Most commonly, a rougher ride, tire noise, wind noise from side mirrors (yes really) and handling complaints like braking and turning. Allegedly, Ford’s option for handling complaints that their SUVs didn’t ride like cars was to soften the tire pressure… down to anywhere from 18 to 26 PSI depending upon who you believe. This does make for a smoother ride; the mushy tires insulate the driver and passengers from pot holes and other poor road conditions.

It creates another huge problem however, especially when turning: side wall flex.

As the picture above shows, side wall flex is when the weight of the vehicle shifts sideways, most often with the centrifugal force created by a turn. The tire’s treads grip the road, but low tire pressure, thin or dry-rotting (weakened) tires, or a combination of those factors allow the entire vehicle to shift with the force of the turn. If the turn is sharp enough, and the air pressure in the tire is low enough, the tire(s) can actually loose their seal to the rim / wheel. More often than not, you’re looking at a rollover crash in that instance. The higher the center of gravity, the more likely the vehicle will roll over in that situation.

As this article documents:

What You Don’t Know About the Infamous Ford-Firestone Controversy

Ford had another problem. The Explorer had one of the worst fuel economy ratings of the era. One of their solutions to deal with it? They told Firestone to lighten the weight of their tires in order to help the overall weight of the vehicle. There’s two main ways to lighten the weight of an object:

1. You come up with some super high tech new material that’s even stronger, yet lighter than the original material. The reality check here is that super high tech means super expensive, AND waiting for government safety tests and approval.
2. You keep using the original material, but use less of it. Net result, thinner tires.

THIS is apparently where Firestone got in trouble. Rather than lose a major contract from one of the big three domestic auto makers, they allegedly complied with Ford’s demands for lighter weight, cheaper tires. While Firestone got raked over the coals though, Ford walked away with comparatively minimal fines.

Several people have suggested or outright accused Ford of using it’s size and and profits as a company to influence the government to shield them from the fallout. In short, a precursor to the “Too big to fail” philosophy that we all saw during the housing bubble and banking bailout.

Back To The Present:

As the article headline said, it looks like we’re right back in the same situation all over again. As this Wall Street Journal article points out, Ford has been involved in several rollover lawsuits in recent years, including a recent 1.7 billion dollar Georgia verdict against the company this summer

Ford Settled Dozens of Truck Rollover Lawsuits

Inadequate roof strength and numerous other issues causing the rollovers have all been alleged by complainants. Just as before, Ford is blaming reckless driving and bad tires for all the rollovers.

If you really want to see how serious the “joke” about Deja Vu is, check out this YouTube video showing a 1994 Explorer in a rollover crash test:

Even the weak roof is a decades old issue. While you’re at it Google “Ford Rollover Lawsuits” and see how many firms there are out there now, dedicated to suing Ford over this situation.

Conclusion:

Can I believe that some of the crashes were caused by reckless drivers? Absolutely. I’d bet if I did a survey of everyone on WordPress that lives in a reasonably populated area, all of those surveyed would say they encounter dangerous and distracted drivers every day.

This has been an ongoing problem focused largely on one single manufacturer specifically however. We as a people need to decide if we’re going to continue the kleptocracy that allows giant corporations to kill or endanger people, OR if we’re going to stand up and tell our elected officials that we’ve had enough of dirty money being more important than the people those officials are elected to represent.

San Francisco Militarizing Police Drones

As the Evening Standard put it, Robocop becomes Reality as the San Francisco police and city council approve weaponizing drones for use of lethal force against suspects.

I wish this was a BAD joke… some poor attempt to pull an Onion.com spoof. This is absolutely real however.

Wednesday last week, the San Francisco board of supervisors voted to approve a SFPD request to allow weaponizing of police drones, including the use of lethal force by drones.

Here’s a few Links regarding the story:

Robocop becomes reality as San Francisco police approve killer robots

US police rarely deploy deadly robots to confront suspects

That second article, from the Associated Press, covers a bit more background. For example, apparently the first instance of a police drone employing lethal force was in Dallas TX in 2016:

“…Dallas police officials sent a bomb disposal robot packed with explosives into an alcove of El Centro College to end an hours-long standoff with sniper Micah Xavier Johnson, who had opened fire on officers as a protest against police brutality was ending.

Police detonated the explosives, becoming the first department to use a robot to kill a suspect. A grand jury declined charges against the officers, and then-Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown was widely praised for his handling of the shooting and the standoff.”

Like many modern “debaters”, the article takes the most extreme situation and uses it as justification, in this case for the growing normalization of weaponized drones.

Normally I’m pro-police. My dad was a cop, and so were 4 of my martial arts instructors. Ergo, I have a better idea than the average person on the street what a cop deals with, as well as the unrealistic expectation from some that a cop should never have to use any kind of force, or at least be able to perform like Captain America or Spider-Man.

I’m also not afraid to call out bad policing when I see it. Bad policing taints the image of all law enforcement, and erodes the trust of the public. Along those lines, THIS scares me.

Keeping it Real:

OK, so let’s be honest: This does NOT mean SF or Dallas is going to have ED-209s walking the street. My best research says even the military is years out from that, and they’d be dealing with human controlled bots for a good while.

The real problem is the slippery slope here. Police are increasingly using military gear and vehicles intended to battle large gangs for things like low threat serving of warrants. It’s Lord Acton’s old adage of “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” There’s also the factor of having to justify the equipment or drones being in the budget. If you’re not using your toys, we’re going to take them away from you.

Long story short; the problem isn’t that this IS Robocop, it’s that it will likely lead to an escalation that reaches something like Robocop’s ED-209 getting deployed in the future.

What also bothers me is that the articles, and APPARENTLY the SF city Board of Supervisors barely touched on the idea of alternatives. Tear gas dispensers, flash-bang grenade launchers, rubber bullets, and other non-lethal options would seem to be equally viable options in all but the most extreme situations. If they can equip a drone with a bomb or gun, why not those?

Getting into “Conspiracy” Territory:

Why not those? MAYBE that’s the trick. What If law enforcement wants the whole 9 yards, so they can more regularly deploy less lethal drones against the public and then loudly proclaim “Look how wonderful we are! We showed restraint, broke up that out of control protest and no officers were harmed either! It’s a huge win!” Needless to say, that also reduces the likelihood that serious questions will be asked when they do resort to drones using lethal force. They show such restraint the rest of the time after all.

Reasonably plausible, right? So where does the “conspiracy” start?

It starts with the idea that the government wants a true “police state” with the ability to keep the public pacified. They’ve known for decades that the military won’t turn on the public. Robots and drones are one of a few options there for the government. Robots always do exactly what they’re told.

If you think this sounds far fetched, all you have to do is turn on the TV to any science or military based cable channel. There are plenty of stories and documentaries about the government developing weaponized robots. One interview I saw with a DARPA official was truly scary. Not so much for what was revealed, but because of the realization that if DARPA of all agencies was revealing anything, it was only because they’re already well beyond what they’re showing the interviewer.

Likewise it’s EASY to find stories about how government officials and the ultra-rich distrust the public. The easiest way is to start digging into stories about the bunkers the ultra-rich are building for themselves. Bill Gates has a huge one on each of his properties.

I genuinely believe that the elites of far left and far right want a civil war (here in the US and elsewhere) to thin the population and give themselves the ability to clamp down on the remaining populace with draconian authority. They’ve used tactics like that before. Business tycoons all over Europe pushed for World War 1, hoping to break the early labor movement. 20 million dead and 21 million wounded due to royal infighting and egos, and the greed of industrialists in Europe and America.

Technology has only enabled them to potentially take their schemes further. Think it won’t happen “here”, or that my theory is wrong? Consider how cities as (supposedly) completely ideologically different as San Francisco and Dallas can be adapting the exact same policing tactics.

Am I Back?

7 months since my last post… I’m not going to apologize for the absence either. It’s been a fairly brutal time.

The house situation that occupied so many of my posts the last year is now close to resolved. Evil won also, as it almost always does nowadays.

The mortgage company foreclosed on the house, it was supposed to go up for auction 3 days ago but we haven’t heard anything YET. It’s a double edged sword at this point. If they didn’t cover the balance, we’ll be forced into bankruptcy. IF they did, Then we will be free and clear at the expense of somebody else being defrauded by the mortgage company.

Make no mistake also. The reason the mortgage company chose to sell it at auction vs listing it with a realtor is because there’s no legal obligation to disclose ANYTHING to a buyer when a house is sold at auction. This allows the bank to make as much money as possible and to screw over any buyer.

Truth? If it’s some developer or professional house flipper, I don’t care if they got screwed. Speculators and REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) people are responsible for much of the insane inflation in home prices. They don’t care that they’re pricing a growing portion of the population out of the market, only how much money they can make in the process.

THEN… There Was the F’ing Lawyer

What do you call a hundred dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

If you’ve heard that joke before, you probably recall the answer being “A good start”. At this point, I’d call it an environmental disaster. THAT is how little I think of lawyers anymore.

Ours took 10 months, and had only accomplished managing to lose a default judgment motion hearing regarding one of the defendants (the home inspection company) blowing off the lawsuit and refusing to respond to it. At the 10 month mark, we wrote him expressing our concern that he hadn’t even gotten initial discovery filed yet with one party, AND the other party replied to discovery saying that they couldn’t answer it because several key documents were missing.

He refused to answer anything via email and insisted we come to his office. When we did, he said if we didn’t have any faith in him, we should fire him and then he threw us out of his office.

Well, guess what?

I want to file state and federal BAR complaints against him, but he’d probably just weasel out of everything.

The New Wrinkle / Where To Go From Here?

So a new twist came about while I was playing Everquest 2. I met another player who claims to be a high ranking member of the North Carolina Democrat party’s Progressive Caucus. He offered to help with our situation and made a phone call or two.

So far nothing back from his connections (it’s been days), so I expect ZERO will come of it. Politicians, Activists and Lobbyists are all the same in my opinion:

Nothing in it for them, they’re not interested.

It DOES leave the question of where to go next though… Do we try to fight and expose things to the media, etc? Is there any point to that? The house is sold and the statute of limitations has run on the lawsuit, so even if we could find the one in a trillion lawyer who wasn’t afraid of work, we’re out of luck there.

I’d have to erase nearly everything house related here and create a separate site. Nobody is going to take a wannabe author who tried to use erotica to jump start their career seriously. It’d outright be weaponized against us. Everything nowadays is the politics of personal destruction after all.

Anymore, I’m feeling like the world doesn’t want saving nor remotely care what’s right or decent. Everybody is too busy looking for a free ride and to blame others for the problems they helped create themselves.

So am I back? I don’t know. The burnout factor now is massive. I felt like the blog here had a Return on Investment in negative numbers even before I disappeared as well.

And the Latest “Reboot It, Reshoot It” Award Goes To:

The CW Network (yet again) for their planned reboot of Babylon 5:

J. Michael Straczynski Explains Why Babylon 5 Had to Be Rebooted (Gizmodo Article)

Image via TVSeriesFinale.com

“You cannot step in the same river twice, for the river has changed, and you have changed.”

The above image from TVSeriesFinale.com was actually attached to an article about why Babylon 5 will never be rebooted. THAT was 2018 though, and they failed to account for the CW Network’s obsession with reboots (and DC Superheroes). Yes, announced a day and a half ago, The CW is indeed working on a reboot of Babylon 5.

Never let the tackiness of whipping a dead horse stand in the way of pandering for profit. You name it, the CW (and CBS) will reboot it.

Will it be the same without Jerry Doyle (and the other originals)? Questionable. Such is modern TV (and movies, music and even video games).

*sits back and waits for the announcement that Buffy and Angel are being rebooted… or maybe FIREFLY!*

What Ever Happened to the Truth?

OK, trigger warning here: I’m going to be getting “political” here, and discussing racial and police issues. If that’s not your thing, I understand. It’s why I’m putting up the warning.

So what sparked this? We’ve been catching up on TV lately. We missed quite a bit of shows during our moving prep, the actual move, and the time our furniture was MIA. We got into the most recent Season of CBS’s S.W.A.T. reboot.

Overall, it’s a really good show; a rarity among reboots. They went off the deep end trying to show support for Black Lives Matters at the start of this last season though.

The episode involved trying to break up a chain of terrorist attacks that were designed to hit South Central and stir up racial tensions to the point of actual violent conflict. All this while the neighborhood is planning an annual remembrance event of the Rodney King beating.

LONG story short, the episode spins the riots following the King verdict as the fault of the police because they didn’t step in and restore order. They even have the Commander of the SWAT Division of LAPD get up in front of the community and apologize to them for not disobeying orders and trying to help (he was a patrol officer at the time).

The thing is, I was in San Diego at the time the riots broke out. I was staying with my dad the cop AND (his idea) I was also working as a private security guard in the Miramar area of North San Diego at the time. Believe me, I was paying CLOSE attention to everything that was happening.

Still can’t believe I went to work the nights of the riots completely unarmed, but otherwise looking for all the world like a cop. Pinkerton had dark blue uniforms.

ANYWAY… The truth is people in the neighborhoods where the rioting was taking place were actively shooting at any police that came into the area. Not only that, they were shooting at fire trucks and ambulances trying to help as well. The police pulled back and focused on containment because the alternative was to turn South Central into a full blown war zone, and be accused of a race massacre.

Back in those days, the police were also outgunned. The military weapons and transports that we see police using nowadays came about after the riots.

That’s a big part of why the national guard was mobilized to deal with the riots.

What’s My Point?

First, let me say that NONE of the above facts justify what happened to Rodney King, or others like George Floyd. The idea that Rodney King’s 1986 Hyundai could even do 120 MPH as police claimed is laughable. Even my dad called BS on that one. Early Hyundais were complete crap. You couldn’t get them going 120 if you dropped them out of the space shuttle.

Black Lives DO Matter.

If we’re ever going to get to a solution for all of this though, things have to be dealt with honestly. Both sides are going to have to see each other as human beings. Policing needs to change, no doubt about that. You can’t drive the police out of neighborhoods or try to eliminate them completely (as a few cities have tried) and then complain when they’re not where they were chased out of though.

It’s racist if they’re in black neighborhoods, and it’s racist if they don’t respond (fast enough) to calls in black neighborhoods. Is it any wonder cops are quitting in record numbers and cities can’t find replacements for them?

I’ve seen the impact firsthand there. We left Sacramento and California completely because it LITERALLY took 7 hours for police to respond to any call that didn’t involve gunfire. That’s IF they responded at all!

I won’t fault Shemar Moore (lead actor and producer) or CBS for trying to shine the spotlight on race issues as relates to police. They’ve done it before and up till this point had done a very balanced job of showing both sides of the issue.

I’m REALLY disappointed at the spin they put on the whole situation in this episode however. It was blatantly and unabashedly anti-police, dishonest, and only served to deepen mistrust of law enforcement, especially in minority communities. Nothing in that episode was going to promote communication or healing.

Maybe I’m expecting too much in hoping for Shemar Moore’s character to instead say “We have every right to be pissed about what happened that day and still happens too often. We can’t blame the police when some of us burn down and loot our own neighborhood, and shoot at the people who come to help us though.”

I’m only going to add one other point here: I am NOT saying that the entire neighborhood was involved in shooting at police, etc… I’ve said time and again that the vast majority of Black people, like ALL races, are good people. Like all races, there’s a small percentage of bad apples though. That small percentage did ALOT of damage though, and to their own neighborhoods.

Anybody comes in here with a racist reply about that’s how “all of those people are”, it’ll be an insta-ban from this blog. I don’t have the time or patience for ignorance and hate.

Culper Precision Makes Custom Gun That Looks Like Toy

Time for a Rant. Utah based Culper Precision (a firearms manufacturer) decided to customize what I think is a Glock 19 to look like a toy made of Legos.

Image courtesy of Newsweek and MSN

They called it the “Block 19” and that is a VERY real firearm. They were quite proud of the fact that they glued the Legos onto it, and got the gun to keep them in place for over 1500 rounds fired.

Oddly enough, they also don’t understand the outrage this has generated with people.

Stats on how many children are killed with guns are sadly twisted and politicized. Regardless of the actual numbers, children getting ahold of guns and accidentally shooting themselves, a sibling, or shooting people at school are too common, and IMO one is too many because a responsible gun owner keeps their guns properly secured.

I’ve already called for the gun owners to be tried as co-conspirators in such cases unless they can show that they did have their guns locked up. Kids are tempted by the mystique surrounding guns, and if you make it look like a harmless toy, whatever respect they may have for the weapon is going to be lost. This was just completely irresponsible on Culper’s part.

Before any of the Pro-Second Amendment crowd jumps on me here, I *am* a gun owner. I own a CZ-75 Compact 9mm pistol:

Image courtesy of CZ-USA.com

Not only do I own it, I practice regularly and I’m pretty damned good with it:

Image courtesy of me; 20 rounds at a distance of 40 feet or 12.19 meters

Point being that I’m not some extremist activist who has never held a gun nor understands how they work. I’m a responsible gun owner who keeps my gun secured, practices to be accurate so I don’t unnecessarily endanger somebody IF I’m ever forced to defend myself, AND I hope to never, ever have to point it at another human being.

Culper made a gun that looks like a child’s toy, and then defended it by saying they were doing it to protect the second amendment (I can’t make this stuff up):

What’s all the more scary is that Instagram post got 2900+ likes.

Then, when they started getting TONS of hate, they doubled down on stupid, saying the reason people didn’t like it was because they gave their children unlimited access to guns or were a bunch of ignorant anti-second amendment nuts. See the story I linked above. I’m paraphrasing but NOT exaggerating.

THIS is the kind of irresponsible idiocy that makes others question the mindset of gun owners.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

My OPINION on this; Why does it matter? First of all, as previously stated, it LOOKS like a toy. That’s going to give a child a false sense of safety with it. Ideally, children in a gun owning household are taught to respect guns, that they’re extremely dangerous, and not a toy. Even such children would likely be tempted by this however. It only has to be put down for a moment for a kid to snatch it up too.

Second, and equally important, it shows that the ADULTS are viewing guns in an irresponsible manner.

A gun can be used as sporting equipment; for competitive target shooting or hunting, as well as for lethal self defense. Regardless of use however, it is a DEADLY WEAPON and should ALWAYS be treated with the respect and caution that comes with that.

Things like this, and the stupid gun tricks videos on YouTube reflect poorly on ALL gun owners. It does NOT protect the Second Amendment. It instead shows that it’s followers are too stupid to respect that rights come with equal amounts of responsibility.

As a responsible gun owner who values the ability to defend my home as a LAST resort, I’m extremely offended here, both by the infantalizing of guns, and the gaslighting of people who had the common sense to object to this stupidity.

If you need your gun to look like a toy, or be a pretty color (ie it’s pink);

then, to be blunt, you don’t have the right mindset to own a firearm.

OK Guys, You REALLY Need to Hang It Up…

I debated writing this days ago when I read that 76 year old Harrison Ford trashed his shoulder during the filming of Indiana Jones 5, and that filming will be delayed for 3 months because of it. He was just rehearsing a fight scene also.

Picture via digitaltrends.com

We also have 59 year old Tom Cruise reprising the role of Maverick in Top Gun 2. Never mind that it’s almost unheard of for anyone older than 45 to be flying fighters for the military. In fact, the world record for oldest fighter pilot is an Isreali F-16 pilot at 60 years old.

67 Year old Bruce Willis is still knocking out action movies at a pace to outdo Steven Seagal’s string of late life B movies as well.

And as it turns out, Arnold (who was born in 1947 and is 74 years old) is also doing more action movies also, including Expendables 4 and a new Conan movie.

*Raises walker over head and snarls* “By the bones of Crom, you kids get off my damned lawn… err sand!!!”

OK, being a little more serious, most of these guys, Stallone included (since he keeps doing Rocky and Expendables movies) are in really good shape for their ages. They still look nowhere like they did in the 80s though, and are really stretching the bounds of suspension of disbelief by continuing to try to relive their movie glory days. Poor Bruce Willis looks particularly haggard anymore.

I LOVED these guys in the 80s and 90s. I thought the idea of the original expendables was awesome also; grizzled veterans showing they’ve still got the moves. After a while though it starts to remind me of Ric Flair (the wrestler). This is the guy as I remember first seeing him when I was a YOUNG kid in the 70s:

Nowadays, 40+ years later, he still trying to make himself relevant within the WWE, and it’s just sad to be honest:

Getting old sucks, I get it. I’m getting there far faster than I’d like to admit, and my spinal issue are only highlighting it. I don’t like to be told I can’t do things, and I’m sure these guys don’t either.

At some point you have to set your pride aside and retire with dignity though. Harrison Ford is a great example here. At the end of Indiana Jones, they had probably the best scene in a otherwise horrible movie when the hat blew off Indy’s head and his son picked it up. Perfect symbolic passing of the torch and Indy could still be back in the role of the wise old master, mentoring his son. NOPE, he has to take the spotlight again though.

The Expendables started to go that way with 3; Barney training the new kids. It didn’t last though as the old guard had to come bail them out. They made it clear they were sticking around at the end also.

The 20 somethings can bad mouth the WW2 generation all they want, at least the actors of that generation knew to pass the torch and move on to more mature roles.

Fake News?

I saw a picture 5 days ago online that was part of a story how the sexist Ukranian army was making female soldiers march in high heels. MUCH outcry over it also, with the world denouncing the barbaric practices.

This story came from the Washington Examiner and was (theoretically) vetted by MSN News before they also posted the story. The Examiner even claims that the photo in question was released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

BUT, are we REALLY seeing what we are told we’re seeing? These are cadets practicing for a parade supposedly. HOWEVER… The picture immediately raised several questions for me.

First, why are they all wearing numbers like they’re entering a marathon? Hardly military.

There are also several other inconsistencies with their “uniforms”:

1. Their stockings are all different. No Uniformity.
2. Their T Shirts are different colors and worn differently also, with sleeves folded or rolled at the wearer’s whim.
3. There’s no rank or any other military insignia anywhere on the uniforms
4. Their pants are too tight, with many of the girls looking like they’re wearing stretch pants almost. Military combat uniforms are loose to allow freedom of movement.
5. Hats are pulled down with their bills creased to varying degrees as well.

There’s a variance in posture, head position and hair styles that don’t speak to being real military cadets as well.

For comparison, I did A LITTLE scouting around the internet and quickly found several pictures to fact check. Something it SEEMS that the Examiner and MSN should have done:

image via Reddit

These are actual Ukrainian soldiers (as opposed to alleged cadets). Note that everything I pointed out as wrong in the above picture is different here.

image from UniformGirls.blogspot.com

Above is a picture of women wearing a Ukrainian army dress uniform.

image via warnewsupdates.blogspot.com

And for comparison, there’s the men’s uniforms above and the women’s’ full combat uniforms below:

MY CONCLUSION:

I’d bet that first picture that the Examiner ran with was a fake created by Russia, and wasn’t even fact checked. Russia has wanted The Ukraine back under it’s thumb for a long time, and propaganda is a favorite tactic. If they can make Ukraine’s government look evil, less people will complain when Russia rolls in to take the rest of the country after already seizing part of it’s coastal area for naval bases.

That said, I do indeed smell a rat here, AND wonder where the fact checking and named sources are. I also wonder how we’re supposed to trust the media when things like this are regularly turning up as “factual” news.

Bill Cosby’s Conviction Overturned!

Yes, that’s right, about 2 hours ago (as of the time I post this), the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction:

Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction overturned by court (msn.com)

(AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

The short version here is that the court ruled that the prosecutor was legally bound by the agreement the former prosecutor had made not to prosecute Cosby. Per the MSN story:

The court said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

The court was apparently also bothered by the nature of the testimony by other victims:

The trial judge allowed five other accusers to testify at the trial about their experiences with Cosby in the 1980s to establish what prosecutors said was a pattern of behavior on his part.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices voiced concern not just about sex assault cases, but what they saw as the judiciary’s increasing tendency to allow testimony that crosses the line into character attacks. The law allows the testimony only in limited cases, including to show a crime pattern so specific it serves to identify the perpetrator.

MY View / Commentary:

Fair warning: I’m going to largely be playing devil’s advocate here. I don’t believe in Cosby anymore (he admitted he did it, plain and simple), BUT I also still see the problems with the way he was convicted, and the implications for the justice system as a whole.

When the accusations surrounding Cosby first surfaced, I admit that I didn’t believe them. I grew up with Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids on Saturday morning cartoons, and the morals that the show always taught, then “The Cosby Show” later. Cosby was “America’s Dad”, and presented an image of a wholesome ‘Middle America’ Black family and father on the show.

Long story short, doubt grew as time went on, and when he admitted during his trial that he did it all, but didn’t see it as rape, that was the final nail in the coffin for me. To top that, when offered parole, he refused it because a rehab program for sex offenders was a condition of that parole. So there’s no denying he’s not only guilty as hell, but unrepentant as well.

The court decision today raises alot of questions again that have been brought up by Black Lives Matters and other criminal justice reform movements though.

If a prosecutor makes an agreement, and the other party lives up to it, shouldn’t the prosecutor be obliged to also? Let’s take another, easier example here; somebody turns state’s evidence on their criminal organization, gives the District Attorney everything they need to get several convictions and shut the group down, but then turns around and says “Yes, we made an agreement and you lived up to your end, but your involvement was just too serious, I’m prosecuting anyway”.

The question of the other victims’ testimony is something that has to be considered here also. There was, to the best of my knowledge, no evidence or collaborating witnesses to support their accounts. Did their testimony serve to show a pattern so specific it served to identify Cosby? A little debatable as what he did was a sadly all too common date rape tactic. I’d have to say Yes in this specific case however. My concern here however, as it was with the court, is the potential and real abuse of this sort of testimony to gain convictions, particularly where evidence is otherwise flimsy.

Finally, for me, there’s the issue of Cosby’s trial being driven by media and social media outcry. The prosecutor that did finally charge Cosby wasn’t going to do so at first, citing the difficulty of getting a conviction due to lack of physical evidence, etc… as well as Cosby’s age (which should NOT be a mitigating factor in any prosecution). The social justice outcry forced the trial though.

BUT… He was guilty, so it was the right thing to do!!!

That’s pretty much saying the ends justify the means, and rationalizing witch hunts by saying if they’re accused, they’re guilty. The criminal justice system is supposed to operate on the exact opposite premise; innocent until PROVEN guilty. I can recall more than one famous media lynch mob in my time also. The McMartin Preschool pedophilia accusations, and the Richard Jewel Olympic Park Bombing (prevention) during the 1994 Atlanta Olympic Games for starters.

Both of those cases very clearly illustrate the need to avoid rushes to judgment and allow the system to do it’s job free of undue pressure or influence.

We could also get into the issue of prosecutors inflating charges and then pushing for plea bargains so they can pad their conviction record, or using a case to advance a political career, but that’s another story, even if somewhat related.

Is There A Real Answer Here?

Aside from the media (and by extension now, social media) learning self control, I don’t know if there is an easy answer.

Cosby is, by his own admission, guilty as hell, and unrepentant as hell also. He deserves punishment. In this specific case, the question is, “Is nearly three years of an 83 year old man’s life, the complete destruction of his reputation and career enough?”. Given the lives he damaged, I’d say no.

Perhaps without a rush to get a conviction at any cost, there could have been a later conviction of Cosby that actually stuck. How do we punish him and others though when the legal system is frequently guided by public opinion and political grandstanding vs facts, the law and what’s morally right?

Frustrations

Frustrations have once again kept me from doing any posting here.

First, let me get my warning out of the way; RANT ahead!

At first, I thought it was annoyance over cutting ties with the person I used to collaborate with on my Witchfire stories. Well, sort of collaborate. We tried to create a shared world with some crossovers for our stories. That ended over their insistence upon demonizing anyone they disagreed with politically or socially, and me saying one time too often to look at other POVs and not stereotype entire groups just because a media talking head and their sheeple said so.

So many of the problems in society today are caused by people on BOTH sides of various issues having blinders on like that. Sadly most of them are otherwise decent people. They just can’t be bothered to work past their personal biases. Too easy to hate because somebody told them that their personal problems are the fault of that group over there. Old trick though; it’s worked for Hitler, groups like the Proud Boys, and the FAR Left as well. “Hate! Fear! Follow me blindly! I’ll lead you to salvation”.

95% of the time these would-be saviors are only exploiting people for their own selfish ends by playing off one group against another.

Need I say it AGAIN?!? Judge people as INDIVIDUALS instead of using group-think and blindly applying labels that promote conflict and division.

AND THEN THERE WAS THE BLOG…

First, let me say I hate some of the new changes to WordPress. Even using a spacer insert is harder now since there’s no box, just a little circle now that you move up and down. The (picture) cropping and resize tool doesn’t work for me. They’ve even done away with the ability to select specific font size from a drop down. Now it has to be keyed in if you want to change it. Every “improvement” to the block editor seems to make it a bigger mess.

Some sort of background changes have me locked out of replying to or even liking half the blogs I follow AGAIN. This is the third or fourth time it’s happened since I started here. If I haven’t liked or commented in your blog in a while and I usually do, that’s very likely why. This change no doubt so WP can data mine blogs more easily.

Then we get back to PEOPLE as relates to blogging…

First, there’s my ongoing gripe over USERS masquerading as followers. If you’re doing THIS, you’re not reading and you don’t care about anything anyone else has to write about:

Doing that regularly just says you’re only using people to gain followers and pad your fragile ego. It’s happening increasingly from people who I’ve made effort to genuinely interact with on WP too, or at least used to. And I’m talking them doing 20+ likes in 1 or 2 minutes. I have a few pics of THAT also. I figured 8 likes was enough to make the point though.

If you don’t have time to read and have no desire to do so, just don’t reply instead of using people for your vanity. I’d rather have 5 followers like Refarmer, Joanne the Geek, Sheree, BigSkyBuckeye and a few others who will actually read, than have 10,000 fraud followers.

Then there’s another issue that’s been simmering for a long time also; appeasement and self censorship. I left and loudly denounced Twitter for similar experiences, but really WP isn’t all that different in a few regards. I speak out against some of the heavy handed aspects of the SJW movement (even though I support the overall movement / idea), then I’m evil. I have to push anything spiritual over to another blog because I might offend religious people. Can’t believe in chi and God after all *rolleyes*

Same idea with some of my adult writing. I sort of give that one a partial pass as I don’t want people to have to worry about anything vaguely NSFW here, and WP is absolutely one of the worst sites out there for providing any sort of age check tool for that kind of content. Even just an “Are you 18?” button pop-up would be nice!

Maybe NextDoor.com is a better overall comparison. Can’t write anything there other than garage sales and recipes without offending somebody. I’ve felt increasingly the same way here.

Write about self-defense or martial arts, you’re violent.

Talk about RESPONSIBLE gun ownership (and I have a very negative opinion of some gun owners), and you’re going to go out and do a mass shooting.

OK, enough said. The point is I’m sick to freaking death of judgy fucks presuming they know what others are thinking and feeling, AND that said judging fucks have the imagined godlike wisdom to tell others with absolute certainty how to live their lives or even what they should say. Yes, I’m sick of the “this means you’re a that and need to change NOW” crowd.

I’m NOT advocating people be allowed nor encouraged to run around acting like asses with no filter either. Can’t we find a happy medium though?

Truth; I’m frustrated at feeling like I can’t be me. I’m shutting away and compartmentalizing pieces of me to try to appease people who are never going to read my writing or buy any book I write anyway.

I’m not sure how quick I’m going to really get back to posting “full time” here again. I do know that when I start though, I’m going to be more ME. Politics I will still refuse to cover. The waters there are just too muddied, the real truth too hard to find and I think everyone is corrupt. Adult content is staying at SilksErotica.

Anything else is one the table though. I’ll do my best to discuss topics in an intelligent, calm manner. I’ll try to be positive and upbeat too. Trust me, I’m sick of bitchy posts here

Don’t like a particular subject in the future? I’ll make sure the headlines are clear so you can bypass it. That, and a return to days having regular topics, are as good as you’ll get.