choices.......................

 

There is a price to be paid for fabricating around us a society which is as artificial and mechanised as our own, and this is that we can exist in it only on the condition that we adapt ourselves to it.  This is our punishment.

-Philip Sherrard

And now a word or two from Spinoza..........

"Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds."

"The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts."
-Baruch Spinoza

Opening paragraphs.........................

By the third night the death count was rising so high and so quickly that many of the divisional homicide teams were pulled off the front lines of riot control and put into emergency rotations in South Central.  Detective Harry Bosch and his partner, Jerry Edgar, were pulled from Hollywood Division and assigned to a roving B Watch team that also included two shotgunners from patrol for protection.  They were dispatched to anyplace they were needed - wherever a body turned up.  The four-man team moved in a black-and-white patrol car, jumping from crime scene to crime scene and never staying still for long.  It wasn't the proper way to carry out homicide work, not even close, but it was the best that could be done under the surreal circumstances of a city that had come apart at the seams.
-Michael Connelly,  The Black Box

Can't believe..............................

.................................................he thinks this is a good idea.

One day, perhaps, carrying cash will be as much a cause for suspicion as the possession of a jemmy or a knife.

-John Kay, as excerpted from this post titled "The move towards a cashless society is bad news for criminal activity."   

Be careful what you wish for.  The list of "criminal" activities seems to be ever expanding.

Cruel and unusual................................

Friend Bilbo suggests punishments to keep governmental types from misbehaving.  A for instance is here:

- Make them watch a "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" marathon; number of hours dictated by the severity of their misconduct.