Mamdani Appoints An Armed Robber To Public Safety Team

Because of course he did.

New Yorkers are going to get exactly what they voted for, good and hard.

 Fox News: Mamdani appoints convicted armed robber to public safety transition team 

According to past reports, Linen, a Bronx native who was once signed to Def Jam, was convicted of two felony robberies in the late 1990s.In 1999, a Bronx jury is said to have found him guilty in two armed robberies of taxi drivers, per the New York Daily News.

Well, I guess an armed robber would know all about public safety and be all for Mamdani's "gun violence" initiatives.

Who's next on Mamdani's appointment list?  

Maybe he'll appoint Bonnie Blue for the NYC Health Department next. 

After all, she knows all about the risks of close contact with multiple people, communicable diseases, and the transfer of bodily fluids. but she may get beat out by Typhoid Mary.

Conflict Of Interest, Much?

Jocelyn Benson is Michigan's current Secretary of State charged with conducting, overseeing, and counting the results our state's elections.

She also happens to be running for governor now.

And, she also happens to have a history of being shall we say, awfully flexible with the rules, in ways that happen to favor herself and fellow Democrats?  

Indeed, she broke election and campaign finance laws when announcing her campaign from a state government facility. But, to no one's surprise, the fellow Democrat Attorney General and Benson Buddy Dana Nessel announced there would be no sanctions for the wrongdoing.

Quite the conflict of interest there, as the one charged to administer the election happens to be the same person running in it, especially as she has quite the history of not exactly abiding by the rules. 

Playing With Other People's Money Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

The Michigan Municipal Employees' Retirement System is on a roll.  

It's a losing roll, but quite a roll nonetheless.

$155 million in losses -- in two transactions. 

The Detroit Free Press:  2 Swiss citizens caused $55M loss, municipal retirement manager says

A nonprofit corporation that manages employee pension funds for more than 1,000 Michigan local governments alleges it was defrauded out of about $55 million after entrusting the money to two Swiss citizens who weren't registered investment advisers.

The losses the Municipal Employees' Retirement System (MERS) suffered on investments in alternative energy projects — disclosed in a Sept. 30 lawsuit filed by MERS in federal court in Grand Rapids — are on top of $100 million MERS lost on a coffee-growing venture in Hawaii

That's $155 million lost in just two gonzo transactions that any responsible fiduciary would have not just walked away from, but ran. 

Why a Michigan entity tried to buy and run  a coffee plantation in Hawaii is  very questionable, but I'm sure the trips to Hawaii to look into it were great.

Don't worry, taxpayers will likely be picking up the pension losses for the government employees who lost money due to the ineptness of other government employees. 

The Archer Engine Replacement Continues

The new engine is now installed on the Archer.

 

Almost ready for testing.

The plane has also gone on a diet, and is feeling rather svelte.

Thirty pounds - yes 30 pounds! - of unused wiring has been removed from the aircraft after years of installers putting in new equipment and just leaving the old wiring for the removed items in place. 

 

The plane is going to get a new weight and balance done once the engine is fully installed and all the parts are reassembled. 

It's also going to be a lot easier to work on now that the excess wire is no longer getting in the way, especially under the panel.

Looking forward to flying it soon.

Stupid Criminals: Road Rage Is Not Good For You

Especially when you get out of the boat (ie your car).

The Detroit Free Press: Jackson County man killed in road-rage incident. What MSP says happened

A road-rage incident this past weekend in Jackson County left one man dead and another hospitalized after a third, uninvolved passerby struck both men while they were fighting in the middle of M-60 in Concord Township, the Michigan State Police said.

Yep, don't be scuffling in the middle of a highway at night - you're kinda hard to see rolling around down there, and may get hit by another vehicle as oxxured here.

According to police, the two younger men were involved in a road-rage incident. The drivers of the vehicles — a Chevy Malibu operated by the Concord man, and a Jeep Cherokee operated by the Parma man — pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

Once parked, they got out of their vehicles and began fighting in the road, where the Hanover man struck both of them

There were no winners in this incident, which appears to have been both voluntary on both their parts, and completely avoidable.

Stay in your vehicle and keep your hands to yourself. 

Nothing good happens when you try to fight it out over some slight in traffic. 

Throwing hands just because you got cut off, or the other driver is a moron is not going to improve your commute and it may just wreck your day, or life. 

Jury Duty

Yep, yours truly got summoned for Jury Duty yesterday in the local District Court and had to appear by 9 am,

This led to some complications, as I had a Zoom motion set in another court yesterday morning at, you guessed it, 9am. A bit of a scramble, but I had an attorney friend cover it.

So I got to the Court and headed down to the jury assembly room, checked in and sat around for quite awhile.

I likely could have done the Zoom motion myself as nothing went on until past 10am. 

We then watched the jury film which gives some basics as to what the juror's role is in the justice system, which I kinda already had down pat.

At 10 am we headed up to the Courtroom.

The judge, who I had practiced in front of before,  and for whom I have considerable respect -- she's the very definition of tough but fair-- was very cordial and informative with the jurors.

The jury selection process began. 

We were introduced to the parties and everyone indicated they did not know them.

We found out the case was domestic violence, in this case a girl on girl assault -- allegedly. 

The first 7 jurors were drawn and questioning began. Questions included employment; to if anyone or their relatives were in law enforcement; if anyone had been a victim of a crime; if anyone had served on a jury before; and similar questions so the parties could get a feel for the jurors.

One juror indicated she would try to be fair as she had been assaulted previously. When asked by the judge if she could definitively be fair she said yes

She was preemptively challenged by the defense, thanked for her service, and another juror chosen from the pool to replace her. Very good call on the Defense attorney's part.

Another juror was chosen and the Defense counsel stated, once he found out the persons name, that his kids went to school with her kids (it was a very distinctive name) even as they don't personally know each other.  Good disclosure but all sides decided it was not an issue as they didn't actually know each other and had no bias either way.

2 more jurors got preemptively challenged and were replaced, and I wasn't randomly selected for either spot.

Probably for the best, as it was highly likely I would be preemptively challenged off by either or both sides if I had been selected.

I, and the rest of the jury pool, were then released and I got on with what became a very full day.

Very instructive to watch the process from the jury pool side of the bar, which will certainly be useful when I next do a jury trial.

696 Reversal

Yesterday  I got to drive on Highway 696 on the wrong side of the road --legally. 

Indeed, there was nowhere else to go on the Highway.

This felt very weird.  

You got to see the back of the signs as you zipped along

Traffic going westbound had been moved to the eastbound lanes, and eastbound traffic sent elsewhere.

A rather unique experience to zip along the highway while everything is feeling rather backwards.