SWAT team busts into MD mayor’s home, kills dogs

I found a disturbing story today about a drug raid gone wrong. Police tracked a package of marijuana addressed to the wife of Berwyn Heights, Maryland mayor Cheye Calvo. When Calvo brought the package inside, deputies and county narcotics officers burst in unannounced, shot the mayor’s two Labradors dead, and handcuffed him and his mother-in-law for two hours while his dogs bled to death. Cheye’s wife Trinity Tomsic was apparently the innocent victim of identity theft in a drug-delivery scam.

“He was an aggressive licker,” Tomsic said of one dog.

Oh, and contrary to the sheriff spokesman’s statements, the warrant was not a no-knock warrant, nor was it delivered to the mayor upon their entering his premisesas required by law but days later, according to Calvo’s lawyer. Prince George’s County sheriff Michael Jackson denied this raid was a “failed operation,” yet his officers apparently didn’t even know they had just kicked in the door of the mayor.

The sheriff’s office has yet to apologize or exonerate Calvo and Tomsic.

I can’t count all the ways the Prince George’s County sheriff’s department screwed up on this raid, but I’m thinking their apology will come with quite a few zeros in it. I generally support law enforcement but when there are guns involved there is just no excuse for not doing your homework.

John Edwards – why should we care?

Does anyone else find the N&O’s obsession with John Edwards a bit strange? I mean, Edwards is no longer running for anything. He’s not a vice-presidential candidate. He’s not even on his local town council. He wasn’t much involved in party politics before he was elected and he hasn’t been since. He’s kept a relatively low profile after dropping out of the presidential race. In short, what John Edwards does or does not do is of absolutely no consequence to anyone. So why is he emblazoned on the front page of my newspaper?
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Ivins and anthrax, continued

I’ve still been following the unfolding of the FBI’s claims that Dr. Bruce Ivans was responsible for the anthrax attacks. So far I’m not seeing the compelling evidence I’d hoped. Fortunately, the blogosphere includes an anthrax expert. In her Anthrax Vaccine blog, Meryl Nass, M.D. takes apart the FBI’s weak case piece by piece.

This one item on Dr. Nass’s is pretty convincing:

10. Mental health. If Ivins was so out of control, so scary, why was he allowed to keep working in a high containment lab with access to some of the world’s deadliest pathogens for so long?

I can’t help but think Ivins is the fall guy, pressured to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore. I think its shameful how these press leaks are framing the man – one who will not get his day in court.

Dead or alive, the man is still innocent until proven guilty. If Dr. Ivins is the anthrax killer, show us evidence worthy of a conviction. Put up or shut up, because right now it looks like the FBI is desperately grabbing at straws.

How dry I am

I wish it would rain again. I’m down to my last 220 gallons of rainwater!

All kidding aside, the rain tank has been nicely supplying water for our landscaping and vegetable garden. I’ve been taking 5 gallon buckets of water around to the various plants around the yard. While carting buckets does the job, what I’ve really needed is a pump to distribute the water.

This afternoon I got what I needed. My pump arrived from Northern Tool and Equipment, a Wayne Stainless Steel Sprinkler Pump. Its got a full horsepower for running sprinkler heads or for watering through long stretches of hose. I can probably run more than one sprinkler on it if I wanted to.

I also wanted a continuous-duty pump. Many I had seen were rated to cool for 30 minutes for every 15 minutes they ran. That might be good for some uses but I wanted something a little sturdier. Supposing I get a bigger tank someday, like a 1200 gallon tank, I want a pump that can drain it dry without missing a beat. This pump might be the one.

Of course, even a 330 gallon rain tank is not enough to water the yard with on a regular basis. This pump can push 720 gallons each hour, so it will drain my tank in short order. What I hope to do, though, is give the grass an occasional sip during dry spells. And if things work out I can add a bigger tank later.

Now all I need is for the suction hose to arrive and I’ll be able to run the sprinklers or wash my car with water from my tank.

VoIP and 911

A lot of people thinking of switching their phone service over to voice-over-IP (VoIP) are nervous about losing their ability to dial 911. While that used to be an issue it is not anymore, now that Enhanced 911 service is offered by most VoIP companies.

Our new home doesn’t have any landline service, so we’ve been relying on our mobile phones for dialing 911, simply because I hadn’t gotten around to configuring 911 service for our Asterisk-based home phone system. Well, I did that Monday night. It took a few clicks on the Vitelity webpage, some Asterisk-Fu to get the dialplan set up, and then we were in business. It costs an extra $1.49 per month but that all goes to support the 911 system. Which is a good cause, I think.
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The Forgetting

Flipped on PBS last night and got sucked into watching The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s. Scary stuff.

There is Alzheimer’s in my family as well as Kelly’s. I figure I’d rather get hooked up to a suicide machine than become a burden on my family. Kelly says the same. That’s the only time I’d be willing to pull the plug on myself, I think.

In the words of Dan Quayle, “What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is very wasteful. How true that is.”

Weather (and gas pump) avoidance

It should top out above 100 degrees today. That heat and my cold didn’t keep me from biking today, though. I’m proud to say I’ve kept two-wheeling in whenever I can.

We’re looking to duck out of the heat this weekend, though, when we stay at a Black Mountain cabin for a few days. We then will return home before heading out to Carolina Beach for another few days. One of these places, I suspect, will be cooler than the other.

On a related, biking-to-work note. Today’s N&O told of people trying to live near where they work. Imagine that: people not driving all over creation to get to their jobs! What a concept! I had to chuckle when I read that and thank my lucky stars that we’re living downtown and I’m working downtown. My guess is we’re saving about $300 each month on gas.

Cheap Thoughts: washers and dryers

Why is it that washers and dryers are lined up with the washer on the left and the dryer on the right? Who came up with this standard? And does it unfairly limit the lefties among us?

What if I wanted to build a house where the dryer was on the left. Could I do it? Or would I be breaking some kind of building code?