Court: Cops can’t Stop Drivers Based on the Color of their Cars

9 Jul

Good news for the sports car drivers!  My guess is that it won’t take long for this case to lead to a finding that Cops can’t stop drivers based on the make of their car either.  So that Red Mustang won’t be quite as likely to get you pulled over 🙂  **DB

 

Court: Cops can’t Stop Drivers Based on the Color of their Cars

By Justin Hyde via “Yahoo News

Photo illustration: Yahoo Autos

“Probable cause” has long been one of those terms that made the jump from legal jargon to household term, especially with regards to drivers who get pulled over. The struggle over what that allows on American roads — and what it doesn’t — took a new turn last week with a Florida ruling that threw out a conviction stemming from a police officer who found something wrong with the color of a car.

In 2010, a deputy in Florida’s Escambia County saw one Kendrick Van Teamer drive by in a bright green Chevrolet. The deputy ran his plates, and found the registration matched a blue Chevrolet. There were no warrants out for Teamer, no reports of stolen vehicles and no pending crimes that involved either a blue or green Chevy. Teamer also wasn’t violating any traffic laws.

But the deputy pulled Teamer over anyway, simply because of the mismatch of the car’s color. Teamer said the car had been recently painted, which was true. It also contained small amounts of cocaine, marijuana and $1,100 in cash. Teamer was charged with drug trafficking and possession, convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.

Teamer appealed, and last week as noted by The Newspaper, the Florida Supreme Court ordered him freed on a 5-2 decision, upholding a lower appeals court ruling that the deputy was wrong to stop Teamer simply becuase the color of his car didn’t match its registration. The court noted that in numerous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, justices have found police can’t pull someone over for everday behavior that’s not linked to a crime, saying Teamer’s stop was not different from those triggered by the race of the driver: . . . .

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Art I Love ~ Living Mushrooms

8 Jul

“Living Mushrooms” by Bakenius

Random Fun: Test Your Vocabulary!

8 Jul

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Fun new test, you can access at http://testyourvocab.com/!  I had over 33,000 words 🙂

Moving to China

7 Jul

Sorry everyone!  I’m in the process of moving to China at the end of this month, so everything is REALLY hectic.  This unfortunately translates into the fact that posts for the next few weeks may be slightly more erratic than normal.  I promise that I will smooth it all out as soon as possible!

Moving Abroad: Garage Sale Early and Often

6 Jul

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I’m going to take a stab in the dark and guess that there aren’t very many people selling off a three-story home before moving abroad into a small two-room apartment.  But no matter how much or little you are taking with you, I highly recommend that you think ahead about Garage Sales.

First of all, you need to decide whether you hope this sale brings in a little bit of money.  If so, then arranging for at a minimum, two weekends of sales ( for a small apartment) is a good idea.  If you wait until the last weekend, then you  have to price items to sell right away or be left with boxes of left-overs that you give away for free.  The first weekend, price your items at the level you want to make ~ try selling off those books for $1 and dishes for $1.50.  The next weekend, follow it up with prices intended to move items off.  Drop books, plates, and toys down to 10 cents.  Get things gone ~ you don’t want the added stress of finding time to lug it all to goodwill on your shoulders in the  middle of a packing frenzy.  

If you are more like me and have a butt-load of stuff to unload, then you might need a lot more weekends for selling things off.  If you only set aside two weekends, then you are limited to two prices ~ the price you wanted, and the basically free price.  It leaves you no wiggle room.  

One good idea we’ve worked with is to list and sell your items in categories.  Have a kid’s day on Saturday, an Office Supplies day on Sunday, and then add in some new categories (e.g. Hard-back books and Kitchen items) the next week.  Each week, price the previous items on down to move it out.  This lets people know when they need to stop buy, and keeps bringing them back.  Unfortunately, having so much stuff means that we will be having about 7 weeks of garage sales.  Every weekend; Makes for a long and timely excursion.  But we simply have too much stuff to sell everything all at once, especially since we would kind of like to make a little in the process.  And once you take stock of your possessions, you might have too much stuff too.  

So don’t wait until the very last weekend to put your stuff in the garage sale.  Try to do it as early as you can, so that then you have a little time to get rid of what’s left.  Don’t assume that the “popular items” are going to sell like hotcakes, or that what sold for $1 last year will sell for the same price this year.  You will have stuff left over, things you thought would sell right away.  And saving a bit of time to figure out what to do with those items will help you in the long run.

 

Stunning display from a Drone’s POV

5 Jul

Art I Love – God Bless America

5 Jul

“God Bless America” by Jiuge

How did you celebrate the 4th?

4 Jul

deceptivelyblonde's avatarStudent Ramblings

For the last two summers, I was studying abroad over the 4th of July in Korea ’12 and China ’13.  One of the things that fascinated me was the different ways we found to celebrate the 4th of July.  

In Korea, we all met up for good old American food that was being served in a local Irish pub (good old hot dogs and curly fries!), and then wandered around the foreign district of Seoul enjoying the rockets and sparklers being waved around.  That night, we traveled around various pubs owned by expats and celebrated with fellow traveling Americans and expats.  Everyone was wearing their most patriotic shirt (occasionally that meant a football jersey), and we ended up singing the Star Spangled banner with everyone in the bar joining in.  Koreans, Americans, Irish, German ~ we all got into it!

The following year, we ended up visiting Beijing for the 4th…

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Fix for Windows 8.1 Wifi not Working

4 Jul

Twice now, since updating to Windows 8.1, Lawrence the Laptop has decided to randomly stop finding wireless network connections.  Both times, it suddenly turned all the wireless networks off, stopped finding any connections, and died.  Regardless of how many times I turned on the Bluetooth button, gone to “Wireless Settings” and re-started wireless, or  tried to update drivers, or re-started my laptop.  Wi-Fi just said it “cannot find any networks” and refused to cooperate.

Since I am assuming I’m not alone in experiencing the issue, I thought I would share the method I’ve found to fix the issue.  It has actually worked both times, so hopefully it might help you.  It involves manually disabling and enabling the Wi-Fi Device.

1. Open up the Control Panel (you can find this by searching for “control panel” under the Settings option).

2. From the Control Panel, choose “Network and Internet.”

3.  Open “Network and Sharing Center”  

4. On the left side of the center, you will see a list of options.  Choose “Change Adapter Settings.”

5. You should see three options: Bluetooth, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi.  Wi-Fi should have an ‘x’ and say something about it being disconnected.  Click the Wi-Fi option.  

Network

6. You will now see a series of options appear on the top bar.  Choose “Disable this Network Device.”

7. This has disabled the wi-fi network.  Click the Wi-Fi option again. Now choose “Enable this Network Device.”

8. This should have fixed the problem (if it was the same problem I’m having)!

 

I know that a lot of people are having problems with 8.1 and the Wireless connections not working, and there are a lot of recommended fixes out there. I doubt the suggestion I’ve just laid out will fix all of these problems, so if it doesn’t help try Googling your question.  We’d appreciate it if you would share whatever works for you!  If my suggestion does help, please post the results in a comment so others know that it has worked.  

 

Happy 4th!

4 Jul

May the world never lose sight or forget this shining moment in United States and the world’s history, and the faith of a few brave men that laid the way for a new voice for freedom.  The Fourth of July is one of our greatest moments in history, perhaps our proudest and most shining.  We remember this holiday as the moment celebrating our nation’s freedom from the control of tyrants and a distant empire.

The fourth of July was the day that a group of brave, determined men rose and told the British Empire’s King George that the Americans were not second class citizens.  They declared that this land was not merely the property of far-away landowners, to be used and abused by rulers who had never even seen the shores. They announced to the world that America was a great place in and of itself, not merely an extension of England.   They declared that this fact gave them the right to have a voice in their future, regardless of whether they were European or high society by birth.  Then in turn, they used this voice to demand the right to have a say in their own government, the right to decide what happened within their borders, and the right to stake their own, independent claim on the land they had worked for and loved so dearly.   They reminded King George and his parliament of the English’s own Magna Carta and the freedoms it entailed. And then they enforced those rights.  They threw off their imperial yoke and proved once and for all that this land was independent. That it was strong. That it’s people were willing to fight and die for it. And that it wasn’t going anywhere, at least not for a very long time.

Not only did they prove their mettle to England, they also reminded the world that ancient empires, blue blood, and advanced armies were not guaranteed a victory. That sometimes a group of rustic, common, poorly armed men and women can win too.  That sometimes it is a passion in your battle and knowledge of what you stand to lose that makes the difference.  That those facing the greater cost have an extraordinary will-power and the ability to survive just about anything.  It’s just a matter of believing in your cause so much, nothing else matters in the end ~ food, clothing, the comforts of home, even the most basic needs – all can be set aside in the name of this cause. With that much determination, it is amazing what you can do.

And so to honor this great stride for freedom and human independent rights, we salute you, the soldiers of the American War of Independence.  You who put everything on the line in the name of your home, your family, your friends, and your land.  We thank you for giving us the one chance in a million, for believing in humanity enough to give your citizens a voice.  For having enough faith in the little guy to rise up and make yourself heard.  And in your name, we still say “God Bless America.”