99 Years for Selling $450 of Rock Cocaine

This is law inherently unfair as reported by Associated Press

“FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A convicted drug dealer has been sentenced to 99 years in prison for selling less than an ounce of cocaine to a North Texas law enforcement officer. Nathaniel Washington was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance for the June 2012 sale to an undercover Arlington police officer. Prosecutors in Fort Worth on Thursday said Washington, with a history of drug offenses, told the officer that he could also provide marijuana and methamphetamine. Washington was busted following the $450 transaction. Jurors on Wednesday sentenced the 50-year-old Washington as a habitual offender. Records show Washington in 1990 was sentenced to 50 years in prison for dealing drugs. Washington must serve a quarter of the 99-year term before being eligible for parole.

This reminds me of these old Rockfeller Drug laws of 1970s where selling this amount of dope would give you a 15 to life sentence.  These type of sentences is what filled our prisons during the 1980s.  Unless the guy has prior  seriously  violent felonies which the article fails to report, then the sentence is wildly disproportionate to the actual time served in prison that is warranted in this guy. In California, this guy would have gotten 3 years in the county jail under AB 109.  Instead, the state of Texas sentence this guy to 99 years for something should be subject to 18 months to two years of actual physical imprisonment followed by a year of post-release supervision.

They call this form of Texas Justice. In my opinion, this is no “Texas Justice”.  Real “Texas Justice” is sending convicted kidnappers, child rapists,and murders and locking them in prison for good.  Not this.  This is a law system gone mad.

Retailer and Stress

Today, I had the run around with one of major discount stores.  It was really not there fault because they has a lot of applicants to interview for position.  Rather, it is about their priorities vs my priorities.  Their priorities is to hire as any many qualified candidates for their seasonal position.

The particular store is in heavily populated Hispanic neighborhood in Santa Ana.   The stores is always crowded and I will try to avoid the store like the plauge because it is always packed with people and .  There is nothing wrong with the store’s customer service, selection, or well stocked store.  It is just a huge store that is far walk from the bus stop.  It’s competitor has two stores in Garden Grove and Costa Mesa which is always easier to get on the bus.

At this particular store, the competitor’s store has less clientile that speak Spanish as their only language and would speak broken English at best.  I am discriminatory against these people.  It is just that I have taken time in my professional learning to learn Spanish.  I have always worked in industries where English was the primary langauge of business because I worked in the professional service industry for most of my life.

I do not think this store would be the correct store for me to work at because I do not speak fleuent Spanish.  Santa Ana is always going to have a significant population of fresh undocumented workers who only speak broken English and where Spanish is the best way to resolve customer complaints or issues.

Is it my lack of desire to learn Spanish? No it is just something where I do not have the time

Sex Offender Rapes a Toddler, Gives the Toddler Aids

ABC 7 reports

“David Richard Wilson, 33, was found guilty of the sexual assault of a child in 2005 and sentenced to four years in prison. Six years later, Wilson was back in court, accused in two new cases that, if proven, may have lifelong consequences for two more children.

Wilson is charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child. The enhanced charge is because of the age of the alleged victim. She was only 23 months old at the time. We have also been told that the child is Wilson’s niece.

A court document states that the alleged assault occurred last year. The toddler’s parents are said to have lived out of state, had drug problems and sent their daughter to live with family in Houston. The child is the daughter of Wilson’s sister.

Last November, the toddler was taken to a doctor, where she was diagnosed with HIV, genital herpes and chlamydia. Reconstructive surgery was performed because of infection to her private parts. A doctor told investigators that she had to have been sexually abused because of the sexually transmitted diseases that were detected.

Four people in the home where the child lived were tested. Only Wilson, the affidavit states, tested positive for HIV. It’s unclear why Wilson was not arrested at the time.”

This kinda of crimes is a life sentence without no possibility of parole.  Simply, this guy is very, very dangerous offender that needs to be locked up for the rest of his life.  He is psychopath and sociopath that has no regard for his victims.

Idiot Decides to Crash His Car Into The Ten Commandments

As an agnostic, I respect that the ten commandments are important backbone of Western Morality.  While I am very conflict about my belief about God, living a moral life and doing things such as not cheating your wife, not stealing, not lying, and not being envious are good moral things.

So a tribute to the Ten Commendments is a good thing even if it offends certain people because it forms the backbone of our Western system of morality.  Except commandment one which talks about a God that I do not really belief, the rest of the commandments are worth following to ensure that one lives a moral life.

Now, some idiot did something by running over the monument .

”

OKLAHOMA CITY – A man has been taken in for mental evaluation after allegedly vandalizing the Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol.

U.S. Secret Service Agents say it all started after a man walked into the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City Friday morning making strange threats against the President and Federal Government.

Agents say he then admitted to them that he crashed his car into the Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol, then left his damaged car and walked to the Federal Building.

The Secret Service says the man told them that Satan made him crash his car into the statue.

He also told agents that Satan told him to urinate on the statue.

According to investigators, the man says he is bipolar and had been off his medication for quite some time.

Secret Service Agents determined all of the information the suspect had given them about damaging the monument to be true and turned him over to OHP Officers.”

Well, I guess the mentally disturbed always have a beef against God and this guy is no example of biblical morality. At least an sane atheist did not do it, because all of the GOP right-wing Christians would be going nuts about atheism ans secularism.

Don Young and the GOP Gaffe of the Day

Another GOP Gaffe via the NY Times

Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska, isn’t disavowing comments on suicide that have set off a wave of criticism of him for insensitivity after he told a high school class that had experienced a recent suicide that such acts could result from a lack of support by friends and family.

In a second set of comments reported by The Alaska Dispatch News, Mr. Young, 81, said at a senior citizens center on Wednesday that a rising risk of suicide in Alaska was related to “government largess” that he said had given residents an entitlement mentality.

“When people had to work and had to provide and had to keep warm by putting participation in cutting wood and catching the fish and killing the animals, we didn’t have the suicide problem,” Mr. Young said on a recording obtained by the news outlet. He said that suicide resulted from government help that suggests “you are not worth anything, but you are going to get something for nothing.”

Please tell me that there is any evidence that the government assistance causes people to commit suicide.  Please note it does not.  This just another GOP ploy to scare people away from government aid so the GOP can get some deficit savings without paying it for higher taxes.

Interview Highlights

Interviewed with another state agency which here are the highlight:

• The main issue with this interview purely has to do with transportation.   Two main failures of my part: (i) not getting the bus spot five minutes before the bus arrives and (ii) not anticipating that the taxi would not wait for me when I got off the bus.  The taxi cab could have instructed the driver to call me and then I could have instructed him to wait as long I was being charged for it.  Instead, the taxi cab driver did not call me and taxi cab left.  It resulted in another taxi coming about 15 minutes late and for me not arriving to interview
• The big issue is always anticipate that the bus could arrive up to five minute early and do not expect it to show exactly at the scheduled time.
• Another issue during the interview was that I was required to give theoretical explanations to the interview problems.  I had to theoretically set up and theoretically define customer service question.  My answers were very orderly and sequential but I do not know what the panel specific critieria was met
• The written exercise was a piece of cake except my biggest concern is that I edited the letter to my expectations and even reworded specific sentences because I just do not feel that it convey the point of the letter.  No real big changes letter but the scope of the edits that I made could have been outside the scope of the edits that the panel expected the applicant made.
• Overall, the big foul-up with this interview was the bus arriving three minutes early and having that screw up your entire interview schedule

The Ebola Scare.. Well, It Might Just Fear

NBC Reports reports

”

Nina Pham, the Dallas nurse who was infected with Ebola while caring for a Liberian man who died this month, has been upgraded to good condition, the National Institutes of Health said Tuesday.

Pham, 26, had been listed in fair condition since she was flown Thursday to a special NIH clinical studies unit in Maryland from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where she and a second nurse tested positive for the virus after Thomas Eric Duncan died Oct. 8. The NIH said it would release no further information, but it said Pham was grateful “for everyone’s concerns and well wishes.”

RELATED: NBC News Freelancer Ashoka Mukpo Declared Free of Ebola

The other nurse, Amber Vinson, 29, was being treated at Emory University Hospital near the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Worldwide, the worst outbreak of the virus on record is believed to have killed more than 4,500 people and to have infected more than 9,000 others.”

So, the real fear that all of the Ebola might just be fear.. Fear, drummed up by crazy conservatives who want to cash on a vote.

But, we should very, very careful about this disease.  It is better to be overly cautious than declare outright victory and let the disease come back the vengeance.  Vigilance and precaution will prevent the disease from bring outright panic that the GOP would love to cash in at the polls.

Interview Today

Today. I had an interview with a law firm in Irvine.   A few points to note:

* I need to properly prioritize that I need the documents that I bring to the interview.  It was not my fault because I did try to call the print job into Staples, but nobody answered the phone.  Also, the clerk was really busy and could not print the documents in a rapid period of time

* During the question and answer portion, I made some remarks trying to upsell my computer skills to the employer, but the employer did not seem to be impressed with the technical skills.

* I did a good job of understanding the nature of the job, but I seem put overemphasis on my skills

* It seemed the employer really wanted someone who would be very aggressive with collections and prefer an candidate with collection experience.  I tried to give them an example of where I had to aggressive to request supporting data for contractor, but it is not the same

* Overall, I did a good job except for (i) not have the printed documents on time, (ii) not having the proper workplace illustration for dealing with collections, and (iii) overemphasizing my technical skills when the employer wanted somebody who was strong collections.  On point three, I do note that I do not really have an aggressive personality for collections because if I did, I would already have a job by now.,

The Acton Institute made a good point on excessive minimum wage

“here’s something almost charming about people in American who champion socialism. Yes, their economic views are naive and destructive. And yes most people (though especially the poor) would be much worse off if their vision for “progress” was actually implemented. But it’s hard to be too concerned when they are, at heart, really just capitalists who like to play political dress up.

Consider one of their favorite causes, a $20 minimum wage. In their most recent party platform, the Freedom Socialist Party advocated for raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour. Naturally, you might assume that the Freedom Socialist Party would be a great place to work for since the minimum pay you’d received is $20 an hour, an annual salary of $40,000 per year. But that assumption would be based on their applying their socialist principles to themselves. In reality, of course, their wages are based on the tenets of free enterprise.”

However, the Acton Institute is probably going to tell you that there is no minimum wage. The minimum wage is just that a minimum wage. $20.00 is insane amount for a minimum. In my opinion, the minimum wage of $9.00 in California is a decent minimum wage and it should go up to $10.55 by 2017.

But, $20.00 is nuts. How do you expect companies to make a profit with that type of income without causing massive wage inflation. There is such a thing of suppression of workers wage which a lot of companies engage in. But there is a point where the wage suppression is just a myth of far leftists (far to the left of myself) and does interfere with a business to make a profit and have liquidity to pays its workers.

The Road to Plutocracy

This New York Times editorial makes an excellent point that our country on the road to plutocracy

“Beyond its durable imprint on American civic life, the Watergate scandal of four decades ago left its mark on political language. For one thing, that suffix will not go away. Commit a major folly, and you can count on some headline writer describing it as Whatever-gate. Forty years later, investigations into wrongdoing by public officials still routinely yield the Watergate-era chestnut: What did so-and-so know, and when did he know it? Americans are well aware, too, that they would be wise to “follow the money,” abiding words bequeathed by the shadowy figure Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men,” the 1976 Watergate-themed film.
“Follow the money” was sound advice in the 1970s. It is even more sensible these days, when cash courses through American politics like a flash flood.
“Watergate” was a catchword for a multitude of government and political sins. At its core were secret, and illicit, contributions to the 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard M. Nixon. Some Nixon retainers went to prison. Also, more than a dozen American corporations were found guilty of criminal behavior, typically for having showered barrels of dollars on the campaign in the hope — no, expectation — that their largess would translate into favors from the administration. As can be seen in the latest video documentary from Retro Report, tracing the money side of life from Watergate to today, much has changed. Oh, the cash still flows, and a fair amount of it continues to be secret. But what was deemed ill-gotten loot 40 years ago is now legally accessible, countenanced by no less than the United States Supreme Court. And the money no longer rains down on presidential and congressional campaigns by the barrelful. By the truckload is more like it.
Big political scandals have often inspired laws to address whatever went wrong. Watergate was no exception. The same went for lesser situations that were eyebrow-raising all the same; the trading of campaign contributions for sleepovers in the Clinton White House was one example. With almost every cycle of wrongdoing and attempted reform, Americans have had to absorb a sometimes-bewildering array of political terms, like “soft money” versus “hard money,” or PAC — it stands for political action committee, in case you forgot — versus “super PAC.” They have also had to come to grips with Supreme Court rulings that do not always seem consistent, one with another, on what sort of behavior is kosher.
The prevailing spirit now is embodied in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That 5-to-4 decision by the Supreme Court in 2010 tossed aside decades of legislative restrictions, freeing corporations and unions to spend as much as they wished. Bans on direct contributions to candidates’ campaigns remained in force, and, of course, anything that smacked of a blatant bribe was taboo. But companies and unions wishing to make their political druthers known, and to encourage others to share their views, were suddenly empowered to open their wallets as wide as they could. That allowed new independent-expenditure-only committees, better known as super PACs, to spend vast sums. Their influence is immense. Though super PACs are supposed to keep at arm’s length from candidates’ campaigns, the relationship in many instances seems more fingernail length.
Six months ago, the Supreme Court took its Citizens United decision further by opening the gates to yet more campaign cash. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, it struck down longstanding caps on what an individual may contribute to all federal candidates, collectively, in any two-year election cycle. Under the guidance of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court has tended to move incrementally on divisive social and political issues. This was evidenced in the Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings, and it raises questions of whether campaign restrictions that still survive, including limits on how much may be donated directly to a given candidate, may someday be swept aside as well”

We are really on the road to plutocracy and we already there.