Dead stick into the Hudson river.
I used to live on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Its pretty big, actually. But I wouldn't want to try to ditch an airliner into it.
This video on CNN shows the actual ditching, as captured by some security cameras.
(there's some audio too, of 911 calls, a couple of people astonished at what they have just seen).
The pilot, it turns out, is a safety expert. The Smoking Gun has managed to come up with his resume.
As the Smoking Gun said in its email: "All hail "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero of Flight 1549."
The Exclusionary Rule and "Heroic Disobedience"
The Exclusionary Rule and Heroic Disobedience:
Yesterday, Jonah Goldberg at NRO published this article on the exclusionary rule (evidence obtained illegally cannot be used in court), with some follow-up from readers here and here. I remember similar arguments from NR in the 1980's - that if the evidence is unlawfully obtained, it shouldn't be suppressed, but the officer who obtained it should be disciplined. The heart of his argument is this:
In setting heroic ideals, we admire the man who is dedicated to the mission, to the right end, and culturally we like the heroic figure who puts himself at risk for those all-important ends. A Few Good Men - an excellent film, but not a truthful one - creates just such a situation for the heroic defense attorney, who risks a court-martial of his own in order to attack the corrupt colonel.[1] If police could obtain useful evidence by ignoring the rules, the dull voice of pensions, paperwork, and disciplinary hearings would be saying "get warrants, read rights, obey rules" - but the heroic crime-fighting voice would be saying, "You know who did what - break in, seize what you need, intimidate the witness, and take the consequences!" And in your heart of hearts, which voice would you want him to hear loudest?
With the exclusionary rule in place, that dilemma is not there. If the officer wants to fight crime, however heroic his heart, he has every incentive to keep the rules. The exclusionary rule isn't designed to punish the police, the public, or anyone else (though a dedicated officer, like a dedicated prosecutor, may feel punished if his work is ruined). It's designed to make it pointless to break the rules, and to make the incentives all point the right way, and for this purpose it is well designed.
[1] This depiction is as false as false can be; in my experience, military defense attorneys attack the command freely, eagerly, and with no fear whatsoever. It only makes sense; blaming the leadership fits well with military notions of responsibility, and when a Soldier steps far over the line, at least a few people are thinking, where did his leaders go wrong? (Whoever angrily declares that the troops "aren't being treated like adults" is likely forgetting that the leaders are given the responsibilities of parents...but that is another story.)
Yesterday, Jonah Goldberg at NRO published this article on the exclusionary rule (evidence obtained illegally cannot be used in court), with some follow-up from readers here and here. I remember similar arguments from NR in the 1980's - that if the evidence is unlawfully obtained, it shouldn't be suppressed, but the officer who obtained it should be disciplined. The heart of his argument is this:
According to the exclusionary rule, a cop who breaks the rules to arrest a serial child rapist should be “punished” by having the rapist released back into the general public. (Or as Benjamin Cordozo put it in 1926 when he was a New York state judge, “The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered.”) But the officer, while frustrated, isn’t really punished. The people punished are the subsequent victims and their families.Leaving aside the legal issue of how the rule was derived - in the military confessions context, Congress enacted it in section (d) of this statute - I believe his focus is wrong, and there is a good reason for having the rule that he and his readers didn't touch on. It's a matter of incentives, of heroic disobedience, of Nelson's blind eye to the spyglass.
In setting heroic ideals, we admire the man who is dedicated to the mission, to the right end, and culturally we like the heroic figure who puts himself at risk for those all-important ends. A Few Good Men - an excellent film, but not a truthful one - creates just such a situation for the heroic defense attorney, who risks a court-martial of his own in order to attack the corrupt colonel.[1] If police could obtain useful evidence by ignoring the rules, the dull voice of pensions, paperwork, and disciplinary hearings would be saying "get warrants, read rights, obey rules" - but the heroic crime-fighting voice would be saying, "You know who did what - break in, seize what you need, intimidate the witness, and take the consequences!" And in your heart of hearts, which voice would you want him to hear loudest?
With the exclusionary rule in place, that dilemma is not there. If the officer wants to fight crime, however heroic his heart, he has every incentive to keep the rules. The exclusionary rule isn't designed to punish the police, the public, or anyone else (though a dedicated officer, like a dedicated prosecutor, may feel punished if his work is ruined). It's designed to make it pointless to break the rules, and to make the incentives all point the right way, and for this purpose it is well designed.
[1] This depiction is as false as false can be; in my experience, military defense attorneys attack the command freely, eagerly, and with no fear whatsoever. It only makes sense; blaming the leadership fits well with military notions of responsibility, and when a Soldier steps far over the line, at least a few people are thinking, where did his leaders go wrong? (Whoever angrily declares that the troops "aren't being treated like adults" is likely forgetting that the leaders are given the responsibilities of parents...but that is another story.)
