So I guess a plane crash is somewhat equivalent to an icepick. One suspects that, when some independent examination gets done some time from now, an investigator will identify a mangled icepick in place of Mr Prigozhin's table knife for his in-flight meal… or, perhaps. shards of one in the engines, because the "flight profile" that has been described in open media thus far says massive, nonaccidental internal malfunction more than it does missile strike. But nothing is (yet) definitive; maybe it was an "operational test" of the (hypothetical, yeah right) new SA-42B Ледоруб surface-to-air missile? Sure, it all sounds like a conspiracy theory. Which exactly suits Putin's interests: The very plausibility of a wink-wink-nudge-nudge-deniable assassination of someone who had opposed him will, umm, поощрять других (sorry, very rusty, that doesn't seem quite right but you get the idea — and the relevance of the historical antecedants, comrade).
- Speaking of "encouraging the others," consider raiding a newspaper that opposes the local powers-that-be seeking evidence that has no legitimate criminal-law-enforcement purpose — only assistance with civil suits not supported by a subpoena or other judicial enforcement mechanism. This certainly "encourages the others," but the encouragement might not be toward the ends desired by, say, the town leadership in Newbern, Alabama.
- Finality can be a good thing, but one can have too much of a good thing. I'm carefully not saying anything about Tea-Party-acquiesced-to-by-Clinton racially-disparate-at-best restrictions on later review; I'll just point to this as demonstrating the foreseeable consequences of the AEDPA. And that's a good instance on direct appeal!
Finality is a good thing if and only if the process leading to that "final judgment" was at minimum fair and just. Perhaps it need not be perfect — perfect doesn't match up too well with "system conceived and operated, directly or indirectly, by humans" — but there's excellent evidence that too much of the system is influenced by at minimum class bigotry and too often racial and religious prejudice. This ranges from convictions to sentencing (it's really easy, if you're committing a few blue-collar crimes, to be classified as a career criminal and get enhanced sentences; white-collar crimes, not so much) and post-sentencing rehabilitation.
- One hopes that this Swiftian sort of analysis never gets applied to an even-more-obvious target: Homo Literati. Or, if one has a particularly vicious bent, maybe so…
This is why I'm not buying an all-electric car any time in the next decade and a half. The one thing that one can say about the wastefulness of gas stations is that no "vendor" ever had a proprietary, "more efficient!" gas nozzle that wouldn't work in all cars — although one also wonders whether one can "fill up" one's own battery in New Jersey now. (Or do Jersey girls refuse to pump electrons?) In any event, I've been stuck in [redacted but in the lower 48] before when a rental's gas gauge wasn't working properly; fool me once… And it's going to take a decade and a half to converge on a standard, and then get it universally implemented.
Dammit, you morons, "basic infrastructure" is not an intellectually honest "brand-awareness opportunity" or anything related to it! The recharger standard should have been established by law not later than 2018. I'll just go mutter "Xerox®-brand copier paper as a required supply purchase" and "Any repair, however minor, done by a third-party technician voids the entire warranty" over in the corner.
- Finally, while out and about this morning, a slightly lighter note. (If, that is, your sense of humor is grim enough that you read this blawg.) Across the street from a transit stop, there's a Wells Fargo, with a large sign — legible across the street, even with my vision — pushing the FARGO app for banking by phone. So far, so good… until looking into the adjacent parking lot, where an arborist was cutting down a storm-damaged/old tree, and had a wood chipper behind his truck…