"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

About ten minutes after my last post, there's a siren goes off right down by the through street (about a block away), and I hear some shouting that seems to resolve into "DON'T MOVE! DON'T MOVE! DO NOT MOVE!" About 4-6 police cars gather, with lights going, there's a good deal of shouting, it seems like one of the units is a K-9, because there's a lot of serious barking (which then gets the neighbourhood dogs going). There's some talk, none of which I can quite hear, and then after roughly ten minutes, the police cars start shutting off their lights and dispersing; a couple of guys are still out in the street talking, but I still can't hear. Maybe someone got mistaken for a guy they're still chasing? It's hard, almost being able to pick up pieces, but not quite.

Now dogs are barking further off, across the stream and up the hill. Is the K-9 unit out trying to track down one or two runners still?

1. The Diane Rehm Show today had an interview with two members of a family that decided to take half of the "stuff' it had accumulated and turn it into value for others. They sold their home, bought a smaller one, and invested half (actually slightly more than half) the proceeds into a project to help improve rural communities in West Africa (redactrice, as soon as I heard them say "...we wanted to take on world poverty..." I knew who they had probably contacted! :-)

What I didn't understand was the sheer volume of animus directed at them by those who called and emailed the program. Folks, these people aren't saying everyone has to do this! They're not saying "you're a bad person if you don't help others". They're just saying, "We decided to give up a lot of what we *didn't need*, and not only were we able to help others by doing so, but our family grew stronger as a result." JFC, how did we get to a place where there is hostility towards geenerosity?

2. The Maryland State Police and a state's attorney are trying to persecute prosecute someone for videotaping his interaction with a state trooper who had pulled him over to ticket him for speeding. They are claiming that a state policeman, conducting a traffic stop along an interstate highway, has an expectation of privacy. ! This when police in Maryland are specifically authorised to video and audio tape interactions with the public themselves. Seems like Humpty Dumpty Syndrome to me.

3. People are apparently outraged by the SCOTUS decision that if, having been warned of your rights, you speak to the police when you are being interrogated, what you say can be used in court against you. Someone please explain to me why this is not blindingly obvious. Look, the police arrest me. They tell me I have the right to remain silent, but that if I do not remain silent what I say may be used in court. They then ask me questions I don't want to answer. What in the name of little green apples makes someone think that, in that scenario, any answers to the questions the police are asking that I subsequently choose to give should somehow *not* be admissible?

ETA: This...

"If Thompkins wanted to remain silent, he could have said nothing in response to [the detective's] questions, or he could have unambiguously involved his Miranda rights and ended the interrogation," wrote Kennedy, who was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Scalia, Thomas, and Alito are three justices I would not want to agree with normally, but I find this argument so simply and obviously rational that I can overcome that aversion with ease.

Police seize 'War or Terror' boardgame

More detail (and more reason for it to sound like a stitch-up) in this BBC article. The dangerous fiends are protesting the building of new units at a coal-fired power plant.