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Authored by wol on Apr 26, 2014 17:56:04 GMT
I can't think of that many "excessive force" incidents the police have been involved with over here. Almost always when they think firearms are involved, or when a police officer simply loses it.
The two worst cases I can think of are of course the Menendes affair, where thanks to a command-and-control mess up, an innocent guy was shot and killed by anti-terrorism officers. Or, in the middle of a demonstration, someone *walking* *away* from the demonstration was hit by a policeman (*completely* unprovoked) with a truncheon and died as a consequence.
A couple of stupid incidents, where people were mistakenly thought to be carrying firearms ... and several :-( instances of mentally handicapped people getting shot - in a couple of egregious cases people who knew the victim tried to stop the police and were restrained, only to be proved right ...
But these incidents are rare, my list probably spans ten or fifteen years, and they're all I can remember.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Apr 24, 2014 13:17:06 GMT
swmech - bear in mind, where I am guns are illegal - for the most part even police officers are not allowed to carry them, and if a firearms officer ever pulls the trigger all hell breaks loose.
Seen from *that* viewpoint, even one shot in circumstances like those described is one shot too many. The defendant was unarmed. Use of a firearm was "excessive force". END OF. That is the ONLY interpretation that flies over here. (I didn't want to push that point really, seeing as you come from a different culture, but that is how it is over here.)
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Apr 23, 2014 13:20:04 GMT
You mean tasers are for using on stunned victims lying on the floor, who won't obey orders to get up, don't you?
Off topic - given the fact that many of the victims of police violence seem to be mentally "strange" in one way or another, I wonder how many officers are given training in how to deal with people who don't behave normally. I'm thinking about *far* *too* *many* people over here, going (ab)normally about their - perfectly inoffensive - business, and having the misfortune to arouse police suspicion precisely because their behaviour does not fit the social norm.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Apr 22, 2014 21:13:59 GMT
Actually, I think even ONE shot, given the apparent circumstances, is one shot too many and enough for a murder charge. Using a firearm against an unarmed man?
Okay, he did have a pencil, but a marshall with a truncheon should have been able to deal with that! There is absolutely no way (assuming the court/prison officials did their job properly) he could have had a gun, so using a gun against him is a pretty blatant use of "excessive force", as our legal system would describe it.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Apr 22, 2014 15:18:31 GMT
I just find it amazing that such behaviour can be tolerated in a - allegedly - civilised society.
Regardless of what he'd done, the marshal's response seems so completely over the top. iirc was it SIX shots? And then once the guy was down he fired a further two into the prone body? Over here, I think that would count as premeditated murder!
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Mar 27, 2014 0:01:27 GMT
Twenty years ago? Not a chance. Get the idea? Actually, not a problem :-) Indeed, if I could even still run my word-processor of choice, the then-current version could read a document created today with the latest version! :-) WordPerfect v6 was introduced in 1994, 20 years ago this year. The latest version of WP still, as far as I know, uses exactly the same document format. And WordPerfect 5.1+ for *DOS* is capable of reading that format. Yes, that's right. If I create a document using "WordPerfect for Windows 8", I could open it using WordPerfect for DOS, if only I had a DOS system to run it on. That's what happens when a company is run for its customers, not for its own bottom line customers be damned. Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Mar 3, 2014 19:54:04 GMT
Note that "this friday" means 28th Feb, so the comments period is now closed ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Mar 1, 2014 11:37:37 GMT
It was originally the 26th, but they extended it. Makes sense. 5pm on a Friday at the end of a month is far more sensible than a random Wednesday.
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Authored by wol on Feb 26, 2014 17:24:10 GMT
Well, I was reading a bunch of the submissions and they were (mostly) good for us.
I was rather disappointed, however, to see a name I recognize (Andrew Macauley) from the Pick world happily arguing in favour of .doc :-( It was, however, about the only one I noticed.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Jan 29, 2014 22:45:33 GMT
Heh - I CAN'T be the only one that still hits Groklaw almost every day in hopes of seeing a "we're BACK!" message... It's still in my "home page" list, so every time my browser fires up it's sat there in a tab waiting for me ... Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Jan 7, 2014 12:55:14 GMT
When I first started work, the company I worked for this was a known problem. We would receive bills from contractors, and they weren't always billed on to the client (this was a North Sea project management company).
So, when I got tasked with rewriting the accounts package, pretty much the first thing that went into the purchase ledger was "is this a subcontractor? If so which client is he working for?", and the subcontractor's invoice got dumped straight across into the sales ledger to be billed on. Plus the client invoice no got recorded against the subcontractor's invoice.
The accountant never told me how much money this recovered, but I got the impression it wasn't small beer ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Dec 9, 2013 18:48:49 GMT
Windows 7 is growing faster then Windows 8(.1). Windows 8 Performance Remains WeakHave nothing against Microsoft competing in the market as anybody else. Just can not explain such a market share in the desktop and professional market with that kind of products. And that is easily proved, that market share was won some time ago with still worse products, while alternatives were available.. It's not that they won it - it's that they were convicted of dirty tricks over Netscape, they were sued (and lost) over dirty tricks with DR-Dos, they were condemned out of their own mouth with 1-2-3, they seem to have gotten away with WordPerfect (thanks to the Netscape lawsuit :-( ... The sooner their rubbish products are gone, and we can get real competition back (rather than the competition copying their *mis*features), the better. Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Nov 19, 2013 10:44:11 GMT
Also, I don't know whether Linus has surrendered his Finnish nationality...
I know the US has a habit of charging foreigners with treason (wtf!!!), but what's to stop Linus and family going home and claiming the NSA tried to make him commit treason against the Finns?
If I were in that position I certainly hope I'd put my fellow Brits above some foreign Intelligence Agency. Only snag is, GCHQ are in such cahoots with the NSA I expect they'd turn traitor ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Nov 6, 2013 22:12:36 GMT
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Authored by wol on Nov 2, 2013 18:21:43 GMT
Some datasets that government produces should not be open because the dataset should never have been created in the first place. Maybe those datasets SHOULD be open. Because then the people on them would realise and be up in arms about them :-) Cheers, Wol
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