A Dagger to the Heart of British Architecture

While confessing to liking the Shard, I enjoyed the lament of the Guardian's critic, Jonathan Jones, over the new skyscraper in the core of London: "Shard Attack" (April 12). The comments section is also worthy of a glance.




The Shard From Southwark Street
by Loz Pycock
Licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
(via Wikimedia Commons)

Los Angeles Police Officers Successfully Sue Over Ticket Quota

In 2006 a new head of Los Angeles's West Traffic Division reportedly started a policy that every officer had to hand out at least 18 traffic tickets a day.

Officers Howard Chan and David Benioff took issue with the quota, which is illegal in California, and were punished for it by their superiors.

On April 11th they won a lawsuit against the department and were given $2 million in damages.

"LAPD officers who complained about ticket quotas are awarded $2 million" [Los Angeles Times], by Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin(April 12, 2011)

Update: "10 LAPD officers sue, saying department has traffic-ticket quotas" [Los Angeles Times], by Andrew Blankstein (August 4, 2011)

Like Army, Judiciary Marches on Its Stomach

According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a sample of eight judges was 65% likely to parole prison inmates at the beginning of a session or directly after lunch, but increasingly unlikely to do so over time to the point that the judges are almost 0% likely to grant parole before lunch.

"Hungry judges dispense rough justice" [Nature.com] by Zoë Corbyn (April 11, 2011)
"Supporting Information: Danziger et al. 10.1073/pnas.1018033108" and the abstract of "Extraneous factors in judicial decisions" [PNAS]

Not Transiting in Transit

What it's like to be one of 28 people stuck in a New York subway elevator for over an hour.

"The Horror of Being Trapped in a Subway Elevator" [Gawker], by Brian Moylan (April 11, 2011)

"Sex trafficking victim wins substantial damages from Home Office" [Guardian.co.uk] (April 11, 2011)

A Divided Commemoration of Polish/Russian Plane Crash

In Warsaw there were two conflicting ceremonies yesterday for those who died on April 10th, 2010, when an airplane carrying Poland's president and his wife, scholars, legislators, military, and others crashed in Smolensk, Russia. Tensions are being fed by the question of blame and the revived history of distrust regarding the country's neighbour to the east.

Commemorating Smolensk: A nation divided [Economist] by G.C. (April 11, 2011)

Côte d'Ivoire

Human Rights Watch's detailed news release on the deteriorating situation for villagers in the Ivory Coast here. (April 9, 2011)