Random Nuclear Strikes

Although not to your pocket book.

Australia: 1500 Police Officers Believe Main Job is Revenue Generation

A landmark survey of 3459 police officers in Victoria, Australia today exposed a disturbing shift in law enforcement priorities. A total of 42 percent of the police surveyed by the Herald Sun newspaper believed their primary mission has become revenue generation.

The shift is seen even more clearly in the attitude of police toward speed cameras. A mere six percent believed the government’s assertion that the purpose of photo enforcement was to reduce traffic fatalities. More than 70 percent of respondents insisted profit, not safety, was the true motivation. The state earned A$147 million with 671,063 mobile speed camera fines in the last fiscal year.

A spokesman for the chief commissioner dismissed the revenue raising claims by pointing to a government report that showed significant reductions in the number of accidents and injuries where speed cameras are used. In the Herald Sun survey, front line officers criticized high-ranking police officials for manipulating certain types of statistics to achieve a public perception of success.

Well, I’d rather that be their train of thought than “To drop the hammer on lawbreakers.”

I do like how the flatfoot gets a decent jab in on the brass as well. But then, Aussies have never been known to be vague in their assertions.

Death by a thousand papercuts: A geological example

Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off the central Oregon Coast.

Scientists don’t know what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of magma rumbling underneath the Juan de Fuca Plate – away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said geophysicist Robert Dziak of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore.

They hope to send out the OSU research ship, Wecoma, to take water samples, looking for evidence that sediment on the ocean bottom has been stirred up and chemicals in the water that would indicate magma is moving up through the crust, Dziak said.

There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4 and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported. They have not followed the typical pattern of a major shock followed by a series of diminishing aftershocks, and few have been strong enough to be felt on shore.

This is how I wanted it to happen. Lots of little ones instead of one or two big ones.

At least, that is what I hope it means

It looks like what happens before a volcanic eruption, except there are no volcanoes in the area, Dziak said.

Except for Glacier Peak, Mt. Baker, Mt. Olympus, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood and Mt. Shasta; no, there aren’t any potential volcanoes within 300 miles of the area.

But that is the kind of misinformation you get when you let the AP write your story.