this account of rapist cops in albany, NY hiding under the skirts of drug war prosecution made me so mad i wanted to throw up, kill myself, and kill somebody else, not necessarily in that order.  but i’m not going to do any of those things (well, maybe i will throw up) - instead, i’m just going to ask you to read about it.

Police: ‘You fit the profile’

By BRENDAN J. LYONS Senior writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Sunday, March 2, 2008

ALBANY– The cops in the marked patrol car had circled through West Hill a couple times keeping an eye on their female target.

They were part of the Street Drug Unit, an aggressive squad assigned to help rid Albany’s neighborhoods of drug dealers and addicts blamed for much of the city’s problems.

It was early evening and already dark when the patrol car’s emergency lights flashed in the rearview mirror of Lisa Shutter’s Mitsubishi sedan on Quail Street, just off Central Avenue.

Police records show the officers called out a “Signal 38″ to alert a dispatcher they were onto something suspicious and about to pull someone over. They would later write in a report that they had pulled her over for “failure to signal,” although no ticket was issued, according to police records shared with the Times Union.

The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter’s vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.

When it was over, “I pulled off down the road and I just cried for probably a half hour,” Shutter said. “I called my dad. … I felt like I had been basically raped.”

The incident has triggered an ongoing internal affairs investigation by the Albany Police Department.

[link via Prometheus 6]

…and this is just one of the ones we’ve heard about.  who knows how many we haven’t.

the next time i feel like getting my gary leon ridgway on, i should head on up to ontario.  [link via bastard logic]

courtest of www.pandora.com allegedy choice-based internet radio:

1. paint it black - the rolling stones
2. lip service - elvis costello
3. if i were with her now - spiritualized
4. bally hoo - robert pollard
5. flat out fucked - mudhoney
6. sweet helen - the creation
7. bang - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
8. mr. unreliable - the cryan’ shames
9. happy times - the box tops
10. blow to my soul - the c. a. quintet

an offense both to the brave, noble and plucky Jewish people, and the brave, noble and plucky Italians [if you're an Italian Jew, Oh!  The Humanity!!]:

ladies and gentlemen - i give you -

the pizza bagel.

bless me father, for i have sinned: i just ate one of these demonic things [not as tasty as the one in the picture, more of a painted starch bomb].

i know i’m going to be paying for this later.

the times has a “how to help” page.

history channel is doing a “reefer madness” kind of hatchet job on the entire 60’s enlightenment.

jesus.  i was a “kill hippies/hate ‘n’ war” punk rocker in my day, and even I can tell it’s all bullshit.

i mean come on.  i grew up in the people’s republic of berkeley.  the hardest hard-core die-hard nixon-worshipping reagan-cocksucking republican could not possibly be more cynical than i about the 60’s.

it was our elder siblings’ generation - they were going to change the world - they sold out.  what more do you need to say?

so did we.

there’s no fucking need to re-write history sports.  the story’s bad enough as it is.  don’t piss on the graves of the dead.  there’s some living motherfuckers that need pissing on.

thank you for your time.

i note that i have, by weight of my overwhelming mojo, induced the decades-younger hipsters in my office to begin sporting vintage blazers.

at least one with more than 3 buttons, even.

my work is done!  next round of leapers ‘n’ gilbey’s is on me.

don’t know how long this is going to stay up until somebody figures out it means something different in american english, so here’s a grab.

network for good has a list of links to charity organizations that are poised to assist the people of burma/myanmar. currently the death toll is well into the 5 digits and climbing, and over a million people are said to be displaced; in addition, rice-bearing croplands have been devastated, and starvation is a very real threat along with the predictable threats of exposure and disease.

other sites listing participating charity organizations:

Burma Campaign UK

updates to follow