news.telegraph.co.uk - Zimbabwe passes draconian media bill: ... the law will ban journalists from working without accreditation granted by a Media and Information Commission under the sway of Prof Moyo. Foreign correspondents will be allowed to visit Zimbabwe for limited periods to cover specific events subject to accreditation being granted by Prof Moyo's department. They will be banned from living in Zimbabwe. In effect, the bill makes it impossible for any journalist to work without state approval, or risk two years' imprisonment.
Hmm. Bet Europe is just warming up those sanctions right now, aren't they? Not that Mugabe will care in the least, but there you go. (And, to be sure, it's more than we're even thinking about doing.)
On the other hand, I'll also bet that Bush II Fraudulency and Our Lord High Minister of Injustice are looking at that bill and thinking, "Hey, we should do that here! ... oh, yeah, that pesky Constitution. Dammit!"
Posted by iain at 10:40 PM
Regulation change sparks abortion debate: The Bush administration said Thursday it wants to let states classify a fetus as an "unborn child" so low-income women can qualify for prenatal care -- a move that has infuriated abortion rights advocates. [...] Administration officials denied that abortion politics are a factor in their decision. Rather, they noted that states had to return $3.2 billion in SCHIP funds to the federal government last year because they were not able to spend the money. The change would expand eligibility, thereby letting states use more of those funds.
Hmm. Abortion politics not a factor. Well. I think the proper thing to say to that is
Bull. Shit.
Let's face it: if they wanted to expand prenatal care for poor women, they could, just by doing it. Just by going to Congress and saying, "Look, states had to return this money because there was nobody eligible to use it. Yet pregnant women who need health care are going without, thereby ensuring that states will need to spend this type of money later. Why don't we shift the money from a fund that states can't use to a fund that they have a need for? It's all health care, so it's all good." But that's not what they did, is it?
And, of course, once a fetus has been defined as a child with rights to government service, then it's a legal person, and legal persons, absent the commission of a capital offense, can't be killed legally. Abortion therefore winds up with this odd status that will need to be legally defined; the legal murder of a legal person.
"Abortion politics not a factor", my ass.
You'd think that Bush II Fraudulency would have the courage to just tell us what he's doing and why.
Posted by iain at 10:12 PM
Has anyone actually had a look at New Scientist lately? Perusing some of the news briefs, one can only come to the conclusion that scientists are truly, magnificently obsessed.
With the penis. Or, looked at more broadly, male genitalia.
For example, take a few recent headlines:
And then, of course, there's this for the nonpenis obsessed scientist: AIDS will surpass Black Death as worst pandemic. It feels pedantic to note that the comparison is somewhat false. There were several billion fewer people on the earth during the 14th century plague epidemic; the proportion of people who died was considerably larger. That said ... in some places in Africa, the effects are so bad that it really does amount to pretty much the same thing.
Posted by iain at 09:58 PM
A Hot-Button, Belly-Button Issue: To Karimkhany and her husband, the price for storage is especially worth the risk of never needing the cells because her baby will be Iranian, African-American and Polish. If her baby contracts a disease in the future, the chances of finding an umbilical-cord blood sample from a donor bank that's an exact match are slim.
I have to admit, that's the sort of situation that makes some private organ banking (for such it is) seem like a not-entirely bad idea. Granted that the odds are that it will never be needed; when you look at the whole of humanity, the sorts of diseases for which near-fetal cells would be useful are relatively small. Nonetheless, many minorities and people with mixed ethnicities have a horrible time getting acceptable blood and organs, and this seems like a way to ensure that there's something around ... as long as you're wealthy enough to afford the banking, that is. And most minorities and mixed ethnicity people aren't actually in that sort of position, are they?
Posted by iain at 09:38 PM
National Security Council director Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan formally presented the plan, dubbed "enveloping Jerusalem," yesterday to Sharon and Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau. The plan involves erecting some 11 kilometers of walls along Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and aims to create other obstacles stretching for over 50 km to greatly enhance security for the city, which has been torn by scores of terrorist attacks.
So Israel wants to become 1961 Germany.
They must be so pleased.
To be sure, this particular plan has been deemed "impractical". (You do wonder at the madness of the man proposing it. I mean, he states that the Palestinians "harm Israel's economy by working in Israel". Um, excuse me, but don't most of them actually live there? How on earth can you harm the economy of your home by contributing to it? For that matter, how can you harm the economy by working peacefully? In order to have a job, they need peace as much, if not more, than anyone else in Israel.)
You wonder how far Israel will be willing to go in this search for security. A security which demographics alone say that they can never find. Unless they're willing to expel all Arabs from inside the state and wall them into the West Bank and Gaza, they can't be secure. The problem is, at this point, they are desperate both to do something, and to be seen to do something.
Posted by iain at 12:55 AM
Legal threat over pro-life protest plan: A BRITISH anti-abortion group faces legal action from one of its US counterparts in a row over the authenticity of images of dismembered foetuses to be used in its biggest-ever protest campaign. [...] But last night, US pro-life group, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), said all but one of the images portrayed as UK abortions had been used in its US campaign and had been bought by the UK Life League from its US website.
Forgive me if this case tends to make me snicker inappropriately.
I must admit to being somewhat puzzled by the irritation displayed by the US group. I mean, wouldn't you think that they would think that the cause was everything? What earthly difference can it make where the photographs came from? Surely regardless of origin, they'd be just as effective (or not, as the case may be) at deterring someone. Is it all about credit, of all things? And what is this concern about putting abortion clinic employees, of all people, in "an unnecessarily difficult position"? Surely that's part of the point as well?
Some very confusing people in those campaigns.
Posted by iain at 12:47 AM
Rights for gays issue in Senate: In speeches this month, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, have promoted the legislation by invoking the name of Mark Bingham, one of the heroes of doomed Flight 93 who helped to overpower the hijackers. "One of the heroes who defied the hijackers on Flight 93 was Mark Bingham, a gay man," Mr. Daschle said on the Senate floor last week. "His courage may have helped save this very building. This year, we should have the courage to pass ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and prohibit employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation."
This ... is such a bad idea.
In fact, Daschle and Kennedy should be ashamed of themselves for promoting ENDA in any such way. ENDA is either good or bad on its own; it has nothing to do with September 11. In fact, for people who may have been sitting on the fence, such naked manipulation is likely to produce a studied distaste for both the people and the bill associated with them.
Daschle and Kennedy should be embarrassed to have done any such thing. Shame on them.
Posted by iain at 03:17 PM
Poll Says College Freshmen Lean Left: More college freshmen today describe themselves as politically liberal than at any time since the Vietnam War, a nationwide survey by UCLA researchers has found. [...] For instance, a record proportion--57.9%--believe that gay couples should have the legal right to marry. The highest portion in two decades--32.2%--say the death penalty should be abolished. And more than a third--the highest rate since 1980--say marijuana should be legalized, although 75% also say employers should be allowed to require drug testing of workers and applicants.
Hum. You know, it will be interesting to see how this liberalism sustains, and how it translates itself into policy positions, 30 or so years from now, when this generation moves into areas and positions where they can make and influence policy.
(The depressing thing? Last night in a piece on NPR's "All Things Considered" ("Liberal Kids", near the bottom), the survey authors noted that this was a generation of students raised during the Clinton administration .... there are people who are just old enough to vote for the first time who were raised during Clinton. Who was the third president -- and third and fourth administrations -- that I was eligible to vote for. Sigh .....)
Also, have a listen to that piece on the GED, do. I was, frankly, horrified. I mean, I sure as hell didn't have to know all this stuff coming out of high school, for heavens sake! (Statistics? Data analysis? Egad!) It's not that I don't know this stuff now, to be sure, but I didn't need it for work early on. (And barely need most of it now.) I suppose because it's a different type of certification, the GED needs to be tougher than a regular high school curriculum, but ... YOW.
Posted by iain at 03:03 PM
The Brainwashed Defense - Will Walker's, Moussaoui's, and Reid's lawyers breathe new life into an old tactic? [...] Last week, the father of Richard "Shoe Bomber" Reid insisted his son was "brainwashed." A friend of John "American Taliban" Walker's told People magazine that Walker had been brainwashed by al-Qaida. And recently, Slate reported that Abd-Samad Moussaoui, the brother of Zacarias "20th Hijacker" Moussaoui, believes that, in Britain, his brother "became prey to an extremist brainwashing cult."
You're kidding, right?
... You're not kidding.
OK, riddle me this: what the hell was Walker Lindh doing in Afghanistan in the first place? Why on earth would al-Qaeda bother to brainwash him and then keep him in the country where we couldn't know about it? What is the point of doing that sort of work on a person unless you aim him back at a target?
I'll buy the concept that deprivation, information control, and physical and mental torture can warp someone's mind. (Vide Patty Hearst, of course.) But just because someone is a religious fruitcake doesn't mean that they're brainwashed. It just means that they're a few straws short of a full bale, and they found a bunch of other fruitcakes who think likewise. And, as noted, the SLA aimed Patty Hearst back at people where everyone would realize that she was on their side now. That's not the case of the Westerners captured with al-Qaeda, and it's sure as hell not the case of all the Saudis and Pakistanis and others.
I suspect that the brainwash defense will meet a studied lack of sympathy with jurors. At least, I hope so.
Posted by iain at 02:50 PM
Bush Reconsiders Stand on Treating Captives of War: After a lengthy meeting with his national security team today, President Bush said he was reconsidering whether Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, should be protected under the Third Geneva Convention. But he quickly added that they were "killers" who would not be granted the status of prisoners of war. (NY TIMES, registration required)
Um .... OK ... what?
In any event, I suspect the actual translation into english would be: We've questioned them, we've gotten what information we can, and now that we no longer have to abide by the Convention's rules on questioning, there's no reason not to grant them some sort of official status under the Convention.
Posted by iain at 02:38 PM
Most Detainees Are Saudis, Prince Says: A top Saudi Arabian official said yesterday that approximately 100 of the 158 suspected terrorists held by the United States in Cuba are citizens of the desert kingdom, insisting that they be returned for interrogation and possible prosecution.
You know, if I were the Saudis, I'm not at all sure I'd be publicising that little factoid. The rest of the world is already looking at the Sauds with a gimlet eye; they want to make it worse? Besides, what on earth could they do with them?
For one thing, Saudi Arabia certainly doesn't want them back. Granted that Saudi forms of interrogation are a mite more ... effective than ours, in some ways (to say nothing of immensely more painful, what with the odd limb or few feet of skin just dropping off there somehow), but they've already got problems with extremists. (Well, clearly. And they're exporting it. What fun.) If they interrogate, torture and execute the terrorists, their own people will view them as US lackeys. If they don't, we'll view them as unreliable and untrustworthy allies. (Um ... which they are, but that's another issue.) From their point of view, having the US execute them or imprison them until they die is the best of several horrible choices.
From our point of view, of course ... eh. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. I suppose the path least likely to breed more suicide terrorists -- or at least the path likely to breed the fewest, which is not the same thing -- would be to simply imprison them until they're very old men. Which we're not likely to do. For one thing, where would we keep them? Cuba? For decades? Not bloody likely. So they'll probably get out, and possibly sooner rather than later.
At which point they become everyone's problem, and not just ours.
Posted by iain at 12:28 AM
Pope Urges Judges, Lawyers to Shun Divorce Cases
Is the pope trying to marginalize the Catholic Church? Because, frankly, if he's not, someone needs to buy the man a clue. Between its positions on sexuality generally, the celibacy of the priesthood, and now something as stupid as this, he's shoving the Church so hard to the far margins of Western society that pretty soon, people will ignore it completely.
Posted by iain at 05:09 PM
Across the board, from rural to urban, rich to poor, young to old, Germano's research indicated that three other factors more significantly contributed to New Mexico's low percentage of prenatal care use - the lowest in the nation since 1984: - The race or ethnicity of the woman, specifically American Indian. - Awareness of pregnancy. - Intendedness. "It's denial. It's plain denial," [Elaine Germano, a district public health director and nurse midwife in Santa Fe] said. "The main reason women don't access prenatal care is they don't know they're pregnant and don't want to be pregnant."
That shouldn't be a shock, should it? After all the stories we've heard over the past few years of women who give birth without "knowing that they were pregnant", or those who manage to conceal their pregnancy for the entire nine months ... it really shouldn't be any sort of surprise to discover that women who don't want to be pregnant won't take care of themselves. (I dare say a significant portion of those are hoping to "lose" the fetus if they don't take care of it. Unfortunately, we seem to be remarkably resilient; as long as they take a certain minimal level of care of themselves, and as long as there's nothing wrong with the fetus otherwise, it'll probably just hang in there until birth.)
Given those factors, it should also be no surprise that New Hampshire and Rhode Island rank so high. After all, they have (1) an extremely small Native American population, especially in comparison (which means that there may be fewer cultural barriers to acknowledging an unintended pregnancy -- although there certainly will be strong resistance in any event), (2) a relatively high standard of education (which means that they'll be better equipped to recognize the early signs of pregnancy and act accordingly, whatever that means).
I have to admit, I can't see how you get around the "intendness" problem. How do you get women who don't want to be pregnant in the first place, and who will not acknowledge that they are until they are forced to do so ... how do you get those women to go in for prenatal care during precisely those months when it's easiest to deceive yourself? For the first three months, nothing shows. Maybe you get morning sickness, and you can pass it off as a stomach virus, or something you ate. And you're certainly not going to get anyone human to admit that every time they have unprotected sex, they're planning to have a baby, especially since it's patently untrue.
Posted by iain at 04:03 PM
Young Scots put sex before marriage: THE average young Scot is single, believes in sex before marriage, has had six lovers and lost his or her virginity at 16, according to a new survey. [...] The 300 people who took part also chose Ally McBeal as their favourite television programme, followed by Friends, any football programme and The Simpsons.
Ally McBeal.
Ally McBeal??!
I fear for the future of Scotland, I really do.
Posted by iain at 01:01 AM
The Enron mule market: Here's how Enron works. It's really quite simple. Ismail is a successful mule trader in Peshawar. Every year Ismail delivers 30 mules to the Kabul Mule Market and gets $40 per mule.
Enron was a company in love with itself. Office affairs were rampant, divorce among senior executives an epidemic, and stories of couples steaming up glass-walled offices after late-night meetings were the talk of Houston.
Enron: The plain person's guide
It's amazing all the stories around deconstructing Enron and what happened.
But ... Joe Bob Briggs and the Khyber Mule Market? Well, that's a different way of looking at things. Although curiously effective.
Zinni: I never called Arafat a mafioso.
Oh, good grief. Leaving aside the thunderous improbability of a senior diplomat saying any such thing to a reporter, of course Arafat isn't a mafioso.
For one thing, a mafioso tends to be effective at controlling his troops. Either they obey or they're dead ... or he is, and there's some other new mafioso expecting to be obeyed. Either way, if Arafat were in the mafia, he'd either be more useful, or dead. (Not simply effectively dead, but actually, multiply-punctured, on-the-front-page dead.) For one thing, when senior capi say that something will NOT happen ... it generally doesn't. That isn't the case with Arafat, now is it? (Pity this poor guy and his family. Must feel like a never ending nightmare.)
You know, I can't entirely figure out if this woman is serious. Or rather, how serious she is, and about what. It is remarkable to see a person in a British newspaper defending the US position on the detainees, though.
Posted by iain at 12:45 AM
Saudis ask U.S. to reduce forces, W. House admits.
OK, I'm impressed. I didn't think that the requests for reduction in force would come for a few months yet.
Well, if they're moving up the timetable that much, I expect we'll have a formal request for complete withdrawal by the end of summer.
Posted by iain at 12:17 AM
Oh, for the love of .... It's just a freakin' 70 year old statue, for heaven's sake. A statue
Our Lord High Minister of Injustice is not only a petty tyrant, he's also a prig. Which isn't news, really, but to be a prig to this extent? We're talking severe stupidity, here. We're talking a neurosis about nudity that isn't even vaguely reasonable. I mean, if they could put her up in the more reserved 1930s and not think about it, what does it say that 70 years later, we've got a cabinet minister having so many fits that he has the thing draped, for heaven's sake?
Posted by iain at 10:55 PM
ACLU Plans Lawsuits Over Prison Sex Abuse: Prisoners who have been sexually assaulted while incarcerated are being recruited by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for future lawsuits against states. The ACLU's national campaign comes after recent studies estimated that at least 20 percent of all prisoners are raped or sexually abused while behind bars. Some prisoner advocates allege the abuses are well-known to prison guards and administrators, but thrive because those officials do little to protect weaker inmates.
It's not that I think they're wrong ... but I do wonder what the ACLU hopes to gain from this. After all, despite the fact that the Supreme Court says that prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse is unacceptable, they also say you have to prove "depraved indifference", and the bar for proving that is very high indeed. Most judges -- the Court majority aside -- feel that it's simply a consequence of being in jail. This means that the ACLU has to be willing to take every single case to the Supreme Court, no matter how many times they get squashed. (Which will happen with almost every single case, except when the consequences are truly horrendous.) Unless they get several verdicts against states and officials for very high amounts -- and that will take years, because states have a vested interest in appealing any decision that holds them in any way responsible for such attacks -- they'll get no change in law or conduct. And in this country, at this time (or any other, really), they won't get large verdicts against states unless they pull together some impressive documentation -- which needs to be compiled by the prison officials, who have (and have frequently demonstrated) a vested interest in making sure that no such documentation ever exists.
Posted by iain at 12:37 PM
Scientists Cross Pigs With Spinach.
So, what, do we wind up with pork with a high fiber content? Or is it just green? Cause I'm thinking that people are going to have problems with green bacon, you know. (And if you lower the fat content of bacon ... what's the point?)
Posted by iain at 12:10 PM
Candidate Gives Viagra, Calls for Nation to Rise: Promising to invigorate Colombians in the struggle against war and corruption, a presidential candidate startled drivers by handing out samples of impotence drug Viagra. "We want our votes to dose Colombia with Viagra, to lift and to firm up the country, make peace swell, by standing up to the corrupt and stiffening our people,'' presidential hopeful Ingrid Betancourt told Reuters at traffic lights Thursday in downtown Bogota.
I don't even know what to say to that!
The woman does have a certain way with a metaphor, though, doesn't she? Couldn't do it here, alas; the FDA and several state agencies would be a tad distressed at the very concept.
Posted by iain at 12:06 PM
Southern grocery giant Winn-Dixie has conceded that its sole reason for firing an employee of two decades was that off-duty he sometimes cross-dressed as a woman. The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge Wednesday for ruling without a trial in its sex discrimination lawsuit against the company. "We don't need a trial, because there's no disagreement over what happened. The only disagreement is whether it's legal to fire someone for this," said Ken Choe, the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights staff attorney handling the case.
It will be fascinating to see what happens now. As I said before, I'm astonished that this case has come to trial, since I suspect a jury's overall opinion will be, "Well, they're all very unpleasant people"; however, since most people don't want their off-work behavior to be monitored by their workplace, Winn-Dixie has a hell of a lot more to lose, especially if there's no contract. That said, I'm pretty sure that federal discrimination laws really don't extend this far. Then again, depending on how employment laws are worded, absent a contract specifying off-duty behavior or actual illegality, I'm not sure that it's legal to fire someone for what they do outside the workplace, regardless of whether or not the suit was properly brought. We'll see next month, I guess. (As far as the website itself goes, shameonwinndixie.com seems to have been allowed to lapse, and been picked up by one of those domain-name trollers who grab up lapsed domains.)
Posted by iain at 11:41 AM
U.S. may move to punish Arafat: The sources said Bush is more likely to adopt less stringent sanctions that might include: - Putting Arafat's personal security force and Tanzim, a Palestinian youth movement, on the State Department's list of terrorist groups. - Closing the Palestinian Authority's Washington office. - Ordering U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni to suspend efforts to arrange a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians.
Good grief. Zinni's still running around over there? Whatever FOR? It's been clear for weeks that nobody in the region is in the least interested in a cease fire, and we can hardly be said to even pretend to be a disinterested third party now. I understand that we want to preserve what influence we have, but this is absurd.
In any event, I'd imagine that the last step will be the first one taken, followed, if provocation continues, by the first one. Israel will be furious that we didn't go further than recalling an ineffective (through no fault of his own) negotiator, and Palestinians will be infuriated when the Shrub eventually feels cornered into declaring their security force are terrorists.
I'd imagine that the Palestinians (and other Arabs, for that matter) are already peeved that the Shrub supports Israel's "confinement" of Arafat. (How you are supposed to "demonstrate leadership against terrorism" when your people see you being "confined", I'm sure I don't know.) In any event, it looks like another branch of Arafat's Fatah, and not either of the above cited ones, will be next on the Terrorist List.
You know, I realize that they're just doing this as a teaser/front-end for WebScriptions. I know that. (And about that name, can we just say: REALLY, people. And also: $15 a month? Where I have to print using my own paper and ink? And don't get it bound? I don't think so. I may be hopelessly trendoid and greedy and all about the impatience and all that, but I'm actually willing to wait until I can have a physical book in my hands -- if I know that one's forthcoming -- to read it. Also, serials are damn annoying.) But even knowing that the Free Library is just meant to be a backlist teaser ... oooooooo .....
Posted by iain at 01:58 AM
12 Things You Must Know to Survive And Thrive in America: You must understand, in short, how to compete in this new arena, where the rules are neither what they seem nor quite what they used to be. So what I have set out below is a list of things that may help us in our competition. Call them new world rules, or keys to survival, or Cose’s commandments; or, better yet, call them hard truths of this new age—an age of both unlimited potential and soul-crushing inequality. 1. Play the race card carefully, and at your own peril. 2. Complain all you like about the raw deal you have gotten in life, but don’t expect those complaints to get you anywhere. America likes winners, not whiners. 3. Expect to do better than the world expects of you; expect to live in a bigger world than the one you see. 4. Don’t expect support for your dreams from those who have not accomplished very much in their lives. 5. If someone is bringing out your most self-destructive tendencies, acknowledge that that person is not a friend. 6. Don’t be too proud to ask for help, particularly from those who are wiser and older. 7. Recognize that being true to yourself is not the same as being true to a stupid stereotype. 8. Don’t let the glitter blind you. 9. Don’t expect competence and hard work alone to get you the recognition or rewards you deserve. 10. You must seize the time, for it is already later than you think. 11. Even if you have to fake it, show some faith in yourself. 12. Don’t force innocent others to bear the price of your pain.
Oddly, it's number 11 that really gets to me, somehow. I mean, I grew up in a bad neighborhood, went to what were technically some of the worst schools in the city ... and still, I can't imagine people ever thinking about me the way that people describe in the article. It was always assumed -- by family, friends, teachers, literally everyone -- that I'd go to some university. I just can't get the mindset that would look at someone and say, "You're black, you're male, you'll never make it in college." It's not that you shouldn't show some faith in yourself; I just can't imagine what it would be like to have to work past so much to do so.
Things have changed, indeed.
Posted by iain at 04:25 PM
Attorney Murthy : New Visa Form DS-157 Effective Immediately: It was announced that all male nonimmigrant visa applicants between the ages of 16 and 45, regardless of nationality and regardless of where they apply, must complete this new form, DS-157. The form must be submitted in addition to the usual Nonimmigrant Visa Application (DS-156), previously known as Form OF-156. Form DS-157 is intended as an interim security measure following the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. Form DS-157 will enable U.S. consular posts to obtain certain information on the applicant and, if necessary, a security advisory opinion (SAO). The SAO procedures will be announced separately. We will report the SAO procedures for the benefit of our readers, once they are issued.
Apparently, all terrorists are male. Who knew? And, of course, by completing this paperwork properly, they will note their correct terrorist affiliation and the degree to which the government should then pay attention to them. Because, you know, terrorists are considerate like that.
Good grief.
Posted by iain at 03:02 PM
'Harry Potter' Prompts Police Boycott: PENRYN, Pa. (AP) - The police department has refused to direct traffic at a YMCA triathlon because it says the club promotes witchcraft by reading Harry Potter books to children.
You know, I wonder sometimes if the Associated Press actually talks to itself. I mean, take the above story. Granted, it's a small town, so the event itself is no huge whoop, right? The police force apparently has eight members. EIGHT. Not a big town at all. But still, the police refusing to provide coverage due to witchcraft ... Now THAT is a story, right?
And then you get this other lead from the AP:
PENRYN, Pa. (AP) A volunteer group that directs traffic at fire scenes is refusing to work at a YMCA triathlon because it says the club promotes witchcraft by reading Harry Potter books to children. Penryn Fire Police Capt. Robert Fichthorn said the eight-member group voted unanimously to boycott the 20th running of the triathlon, scheduled for Sept. 7.
OK, now wait: this sounds like there's a specific volunteer group that's usually provided coverage, not the entire police department; in fact, this group seems to do nothing but direct traffic during fires to help out. A small volunteer group refusing, that makes more sense, right? And would not be as big a deal, just a quirky little human interest story. The real police force or the city could just reassign some actual officers to take care of the detail, a little annoying, but no real harm done.
Well, as far as I can determine -- and Penryn is wee, to put it mildly, so there's not a lot of information out there -- the truth is that the police force itself seems to be all volunteer; the fire-police ARE the police (and possibly the fire department; it's really unclear). So saying that the volunteer group has refused to provide coverage is the same thing as saying the police force has refused. So why wouldn't you combine those aspects in any story you sent out over the wires? Why wouldn't you at least get the facts straight?
And all that said, I hope the city's government, such as it is, thanks those people for their past service and tells them that they'll never again be needed. If you take public safety at all seriously -- and yes, traffic control at a public event falls in that category -- you do NOT hold the public's safety hostage to your religious convictions. It is neither the time nor the place to do so. If these people had been in any town much larger than this one, they'd have been fired outright, and would have richly deserved it.
Posted by iain at 12:14 PM
Bill to Change Bankruptcy Reconsidered.
So ... between the September 11 attacks (the original conference was scheduled for September 12) and the ongoing Enron debacle and the ongoing recession, not only has bankruptcy "reform" been delayed at least a year, but it may come back -- if at all -- in a form that's actually more friendly for consumers and which doesn't allow corporations to move assets off the books the way that Enron did. On the down side, it may wind up forcing people to lose their homes because they want to protect against people like Enron executives moving assets into the value of their home.
A contender for the Grand Bull Moose Award for Mixed Curses, yes.
(Of course, the current economic conditions are EXACTLY what the banks and credit card agencies wanted the reform to protect them against. HA.)
Posted by iain at 11:48 AM
Al Qaeda Suit Called Longshot.
Not surprising, really.
And just to follow up: the issue of whether or not bin Laden can properly be prosecuted refers only to the USS Cole, Khobar Towers and other incidents in foreign territory. There's no question about prosecution for the WTC attacks, since those attacks in fact took place on American soil, and we seem to have evidence of him admitting foreknowledge of the attacks. The issue is where the crimes took place, not necessarily the physical location of the accused. Should, by some miracle or disaster, we actually get bin Laden and friends into custody, we can certainly prosecute him for those; it's only the other attacks that are problematic.
It'll be interesting to see how the government answers the questions asked by the judge in his response. Technically, the first question of the five trumps all the others -- if the court lacks jurisdiction, then it need never reach the other questions, and I think this may be the position the government tries to take. (Given that the judge asked the other questions, the attempt will fail, but they'll try anyway.) The one thing they do not want to be saying in public, to anyone, is (1) No, the court would have no right to intervene when we start our tribunals. (2) The prisoners have no rights under the Geneva Conventions. (3) In fact, as unlawful combattants and as people being held extraterritorially, they have no rights under US or international law, period. (4) The federal court does not have jurisdiction, and the only forum for adjudicating this case that the government wishes to acknowledge is the military tribunals."
Posted by iain at 04:19 PM
It's not that a new one might not be fun, you understand. (Although Harrison is getting a mite long in the tooth for this to be working, really.) It's just that SHE'S in it. And I don't care if she is the director's missus; the way they had her acting at full scream, all the time, in The Temple of Doom made me want to rip out her vocal cords.
The only up side is that I can remember an interview where she said that she didn't want to play the role that way, and that there had been a LOT of complaints about her, so maybe they'll do better this time.
Posted by iain at 03:54 PM
U.S. may take Libya off terror list: The United States and Libya are close to a deal that could remove Libya from a U.S. list of terrorist sponsors and require the government of Moammar Gadhafi to pay as much as $6 billion in compensation for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday. [...] Movement toward a deal has outraged some relatives of the U.S. victims and upset some Bush administration officials who say they fear Gadhafi is still trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Libya experts counter that it is important at a time of rising anti-Americanism in the Arab world to show that the United States will reward a Muslim country for changing its behavior. The latest State Department report on terrorism says there has been no indication of Libyan support for anti-U.S. terrorism abroad in more than a decade. Also, since Sept. 11, Gadhafi has been among the most vocal Arab leaders in denouncing terrorism and supporting the U.S. retaliation against terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, says David Mack, a former State Department official. Libya also has provided intelligence on the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate that tried to assassinate Gadhafi in 1996.
Frankly, it's those last two aspects that I suspect are driving things. No, if Libya had been supporting terrorism, the US wouldn't remove them from the list, no matter what. However, they've apparently been mostly quiet for ten years. (Really? How ... odd.) Being as Qaddafi is a relentlessly secular dictator, al-Qaeda doesn't like him, and has proven it. Qaddafi has supported US attacks when many Arab countries were, at best, tepid. And as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Of course, it is possible to carry that policy just a bit too far. After all, secular he may be, but dictator he most definitely is. He also frequently appears to be a barking loon. Just how close to someone that unpredictable should we get?
Posted by iain at 11:21 AM
Enron posts guards to stop shredding.
Let's run that through one more time, shall we? Let's shall.
Enron -- which stands accused of having shredded documents well after its bankruptcy filing and after the SEC and Congress announced investigations -- is posting its own guards over its own shredders to stop its own people from shredding.
All righty, then! I'm certain that those papers are going to be safe and secure, aren't you? (I wonder how many of those guards will abruptly acquire an intimate and familiar acquaintance with the term, "Conflict of interest.")
Enron and Arthur Anderson have graciously agreed to a restraining order to stop the shredding. Yep. Right. OK. (There may be "an innocent explanation." Yeah, sure, right, whatEVER.) Both firms have shown themselves to be such masters of integrity and probity that I feel certain that they'll abide by this restraining order, don't you?
In the meantime, Houston -- a city whose economy has just gotten the hammer from both Enron and Anderson, thank you kindly -- is about to enter an accounting agreement with Arthur Anderson. For the second time. After the first agreement was rammed through council to prevent any discussion of the Enron mess. While Anderson is under investigation, not only from the SEC, FBI, and Congress, but by the state of Texas for possibly violating state auditing regulations. While Anderson is about to be sued by several other states. It will be an accounting contract, to run jointly with their independent consulting contract with Arthur Anderson.
Accounting AND consulting.
Makes you wonder how hard Houston is going to have to be hammered by this mess before its leaders get a clue, doesn't it?
(The Houston Chronicle has been just a fascinating site today, really. The interesting thing is that it stands accused of having bungled Enron coverage from the beginning. Enron's fall was so abrupt that the paper couldn't figure out how to change its coverage.)
Posted by iain at 11:07 AM
Pilot's crusade leads to U.S. abolishment of Saudi dress code: Seven years after the Air Force's top-ranked female fighter pilot began a one-woman crusade, the Defense Department Tuesday dropped its requirement that female military personnel in Saudi Arabia put on black head-to-toe gowns when leaving their base. [...] Lt. Col. Martha McSally had sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the dress code. She contended that the policy on abayas, a form of head-to-toe gown similar to the burqa worn by many women in Afghanistan, discriminates against women and violates their religious freedom by forcing them to adopt the garb of another faith.
Hmm.
Frankly, I think this decision reflects two things: (1) the Defense department knew it would lose. It's reallly an untenable position to state that the women are required to wear Saudi traditional dress, but the men are absolutely forbidden. (2) Behind the scenes, I'll bet they know that the Saudis have already decided to ask us to pull out -- although I wouldn't expect the request before the middle of the year, so as to give everyone some cover so that the Saudis can pretend it has nothing to do with bin Laden and their internal fanatics -- and so the Defense department sees no reason to continue with a policy it can't really defend in the first place.
Mind, it'll be fascinating to see precisely what "wear of the abaya in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not mandatory but is strongly encouraged and to remove any requirement to wear civilian clothing to cover the uniform" means in practice. "Strongly encouraged" in the military tends to mean "Do it or else."
Posted by iain at 10:32 AM
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that states can confine violent sexual predators after their prison terms end by showing they have a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes it difficult for them to control dangerous behavior. [...] Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. They said a jury determined that Crane suffered from a mental abnormality or personality disorder making it likely that he would commit repeat acts of sexual violence. "That is all the (Kansas law) requires, and all the Constitution demands,'' Scalia said.
The problem is, of course, that they're all wrong. (Yes, I know, they're the justices and I'm not. Humor me.) Scalia and Thomas didn't object to the concept of indefinite sentence, you understand; they thought that Kansas ought to be able to make a simple assertion of future danger in the original jury trial, without proof of ongoing illness. In other words, if, by some miracle, the offender is cured ... nobody would care. Because you were once asserted to be a danger, the state could just stick you under the prison and go about their business.
How is it not cruel and unusual punishment to tell someone, "You will serve 10-20 years for your crime," (or whatever the amount is) and then to turn around and say to them, "Oh, yes, you've served your time, but you're not going anywhere because we think you're still dangerous." Do I want sexual predators out and about among us? No, thanks. That said, we don't do that with any other criminals or any other crime, no matter how likely they are to re-offend. Depending on what exactly they're convicted of, murderers in most states essentially get two strikes before we throw away the key, and in that case, they know that the third murder they commit, they'll be imprisoned for life (or executed) and that's all there is to it. A life sentence or execution is peculiarly definite -- peculiar in that although you don't know for certain when the end it, you'll know it when it gets there.
I dare say that sooner or later, most states will simply get around to making sex offenses carry a life sentence. It is, after all, the easiest way to handle it, and that way, you need not make a determination of whether or not the person is likely to reoffend. You just stick 'em in the jail and forget about 'em.
(Is it just me, or are there all sorts of wacky things coming out of Kansas lately?)
Posted by iain at 05:01 PM
A federal court hearing was set for Tuesday morning on a petition from civil rights advocates challenging the detention of terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. U.S. District Court Judge A. Howard Matz decided late Sunday night to consider the petition, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by a coalition of Los Angeles clergy, journalism professors and civil rights attorneys. [...] It is the first court challenge of the detention of al-Qaida suspects and demands that the U.S. government bring the suspects before a court and define the charges against them. Several issues were to be considered at the 8 a.m. hearing. Among them were whether the petitioners exhausted military and administrative procedures, whether they have standing to pursue the case, and whether the court has jurisdiction over prisoners held in Cuban territory leased to the U.S. government.
Indeed. As the court notes, since Guantanamo Naval Base is an extraterritorial US base in Cuban territory, so does the federal district court have the jurisdiction to hear this case?
And the answer is ... complicated. At best, a possible "maybe"
The Supreme Court has generally held that United States laws do not have extraterritorial application -- for example, see SALE v. HAITIAN CTRS. COUNCIL, INC., 509 U.S. 155 (1993). To be sure, that case was specifically about repatriating Haitians intercepted on the open seas, and as the court notes, it makes absolutely no sense for that specific law to be applied other than extraterritorially; however, there are several cases regarding extraterritoriality and the application of US law. The general position of the courts is that absent specific Congressional intent or statements or provisions in the law, US law cannot be applied extraterritorially, outside the territorial US.
Lower courts have also held that US district courts lack jurisdiction over civilians on military bases, in US v. Gatlin, out of the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals. (Note that Gatlin also contains copious citations to previous cases throughout the decision.) In fact, US civilians who commit crimes on military bases fall into what is technically "a jurisdictional gap". In general, the US position is that its military code is the only law applicable on its foreign military bases; however, the military code applies generally only to military personnel. Congress has never specifically authorized the application of the military code to civilians on extraterritorial US possessions, or indeed of most parts of the US code. As the language of Gatlin makes clear, "absent "clear evidence of congressional intent" to apply a statute extraterritorially, a statute applies only within the territorial United States." Oddly, Guantanamo Bay itself seems to be a specific exception to this; as cited in the selfsame Gatlin case, "... both United States citizens and aliens alike, charged with the commission of crimes on Guantanamo Bay [in Cuba], are prosecuted under United States laws." (citing, inter alia, 18 U.S.C. 7)" Logically, precedent relating to Guantanamo itself should indicate that habeas corpus would, in fact, apply -- although I strongly suspect that the current district court would and should dismiss the case for a different lack of jurisdiction; Guantanamo cases should probably arise in the 11th District, containing Florida. (Possibly a case could be brought in the Federal Circuit, the only one with nongeographic jurisdiction -- however, its cases do seem to be limited by type rather than location, and this would seem to fall far outside the Federal Circuit's kind of cases. It has absolutely no criminal jurisdiction ... although this isn't precisely criminal, is it?)
(Note that there's also a rather ... interesting time-bomb sitting quietly in Gatlin and a related case:
The fact that the 1790 Act delimited the jurisdiction of the federal courts to lands over which the United States exercised exclusive legislative jurisdiction "virtually guarantees" that the provision was not intended to apply to offenses committed in foreign territory. Bin Laden, 92 F. Supp. 2d at 209. [...] in a recent opinion involving the same jurisdictional provision at issue here, 18 U.S.C. 7(3), Judge Sand declined to apply the presumption against extraterritoriality. See United States v. Bin Laden, 92 F. Supp. 2d 189, 206 n.32 (S.D.N.Y. 2000). The presumption, Judge Sand reasoned, "was designed to apply to provisions that define offenses. When presented with the task of interpreting jurisdictional statutes such as Section 7(3), courts should simply employ the standard tools of statutory interpretation: analysis of text, structure and legislative history." Id. We respectfully disagree with Judge Sand. Although 7(3) is the immediate focus of our inquiry, the ultimate question here is whether a criminal statute--i.e., 18 U.S.C. 2243(a)--applies extraterritorially. The presumption against extraterritoriality plainly applies to criminal statutes (other than the Bowman variety, see supra note 5), so 2243(a) applies extraterritorially only if there is a clear manifestation of Congress's affirmative intent. [...] (In fact, notwithstanding his view that the presumption against extraterritoriality was inapplicable, Judge Sand himself concluded that 7(3) applies only to lands within the United States--and dismissed several counts of the indictment at issue on that basis. See 92 F. Supp. 2d at 204-16.)
In other words, we appear to be charging bin Laden and friends with crimes when our own courts have held we have little right to do so, in cases specifically referencing bin Laden and friends. Hmm. The Gatlin case has not, as far as I can determine, reached the Supreme Court. Oddly, neither has US v. bin Laden, part 1.)
HOWEVER (you knew there'd be one, right?), in US v. Corey (PDF file, Acrobat needed), the 2d Court of Appeals held that the US held primary jurisdiction over US nationals on a US base, and that a criminal conviction under the US code could be sustained. (Corey's conviction was in fact reversed for technical errors.) The court stated, in fact, "We see no reason to create a jurisdictional vacuum when a better reading of the statute supports jurisdiction." (p. 38) This despite the fact that several decisions have held that the courts lack jurisdiction, not just Gatlin and bin Laden.
And all of THAT said, the 11th Court of Appeals itself has said that US courts lack jurisdiction over foreign nationals at US bases abroad. (In fact, foreign nationals held on US bases lack constitutional rights of any sort, period.) In any event, this noted lack of sympathy for foreign nationals may also explain, in part, why the case wasn't brought there, where it almost certainly would not have been dismissed due to being brought in the wrong circuit. (NOTE: link via Lake Effect and USS Clueless, indirectly.)
In short, with the sole exception of the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals, courts have generally held that US laws apply to nobody extraterritorially, with the exception of US military personnel. (And, as noted, the odd exception of Guantanamo itself.) In theory, precedent should dictate that when these cases reach the Supreme Court -- and it's in the government's interest for Gatlin and bin Laden, at least, to get that far so that they can get a definitive decision, or specific legislation covering the "jurisdictional gap" -- the 2d Court decision should fall, given a relatively long line of decisions to the contrary. This, of course, is a brand new day, and the Court may feel that precedent should be damned, quite firmly.
So. Guantanamo. As I said when I started, the answer regarding the applicability of "habeas corpus" appears to be ... "maybe". Interestingly, the court-shopping done by Ramsay Clarke appears to have reason; if the district court -- which lies in the 2d District -- follows court of appeals precedent, as it generally should, then it should logically conclude that the US code applies in Guantanamo, and that it has jurisdiction to hear the case. THEREFORE, it necessarily would also conclude that the Bill of Rights, and therefore habeas corpus, also applies. (Despite our Lord High Minister of Injustice's best efforts, habeas corpus has not quite been suspended at the current time.)
On the other hand, they could follow established precedent from the other relevant cases and conclude that their own Court of Appeals decided in error, overrule them, and state that they lack specific jurisdiction. Said decision, if sustained by the Court of Appeals -- which, to be sure, is rather unlikely -- would carry with it either an explicit or implicit overrule of Corey, bring the circuits into harmony ... and possibly torpedo government cases against Gatlin and bin Laden.
OR they could look at case law regarding Guantanamo and state that while in general, US laws don't apply to extraterritorial locations, previous precedent has clearly established Guantanamo Bay as an exception to the rule. Therefore, US laws apply, dragging the Constitution in their wake, and therefore habeas corpus applies.
It strikes me that there is no unambiguously good result for the government from any decision. If the court denies jurisdiction, then it damages other cases which implicitly rest on the government's exercise of that jurisdiction. If it accepts jurisdiction, then US laws apply, restricting government conduct even more than the Geneva Convention.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so this could all be quite wrong. Generally, it somehow seems that when you read the flat language of the law and legal decisions, and try to follow exactly what it says, someone will tell you that you got it all wrong. So take all this for what it's worth.
UPDATE:, 3:49pm CST:
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz said he had "grave doubts" about his jurisdiction and gave federal prosecutors until Jan. 31 to file papers calling for dismissal of the petition on jurisdictional grounds. The judge said he will hold another hearing Feb. 14. Federal attorneys said they would file for dismissal of the case.
It will be fascinating to see which jurisdictional argument he chooses. I'm betting that he's simply going to say that it's the wrong region, which doesn't address the underlying legal issues at all. If he says that all district courts lack such jurisdiction, while it will be good for this case, as noted, it may pose strong problems for other cases later on, to say nothing of being an explicit overrule of his own Court of Appeals.
NOTE: the original link at top changed from the Chicago Sun-Times story to the LA Times story, which has better information, and the lead quote adjusted accordingly. First original paragraph also restated, since the lead quote contained the original question.
Posted by iain at 12:59 PM
Amazon posts first net profit ever for fourth quarter.
... I wonder if Arthur Anderson is their accountant? I mean, Amazon? Profitable? EVER? ... what the?... Oh, I see. Probably someone just as facile with the numbers as Arthur Anderson, then.
Surely that debt load alone is close to what the company is worth these days? I mean, $2.1 billion is one hell of a load.
Posted by iain at 10:40 AM
So always remember and never forget: Astroglide all the way!
Even if it is a little ... pink sometimes.
Posted by iain at 12:29 AM
Oh. My. Yes. Well. How ... intriguing. It would never have occurred to me that a museum of ... THAT even existed. And in Iceland, yet. Why on earth?... And it's a national museum. Government funded. (I can just imagine the NEA funding something like this here. On the up side, the funding application alone would probably do in Jesse and Strom, just like that. On the down side, they'd probably want Bill Clinton's once he died. Being as it caused so much trouble and all. You can't deny that, technically speaking, it's of national importance, or was. Don't think Hillary would feature that idea, somehow.)
It should be noted that the museum has also been fortunate enough to receive a legally-certified gift token for a future specimen belonging to Homo Sapiens. How ... sweet? (I understand that it's a "future specimen" because the Homo Sapiens to whom it's attached is still quite alive, thanks. He's not exactly young, to be sure, but the whole pickling in formaldehyde part probably didn't appeal.)
Posted by iain at 12:19 AM
Population Growth: Another Mideast Concern: So due to what essentially boils down to a religious and ethnic form of eugenics, in about 18 years, the world will have an ultra-orthodox Jewish state abutting a desperately poor and quite radicalized Arab nonstate, and also surrounded by less poor but possibly no less radicalized other Arab states. Combine this with rapid growth of internal Israeli Arabs (and if Israel doesn't shortly adopt some version of the policies that created the mess in Northern Ireland, I'll be truly shocked), plus the fact that it's one of the driest areas in the world, and ... well.
Oh, yes, the middle east is just going to be a fun spot for years, isn't it?
Posted by iain at 05:42 PM
OK, let me just get this: the treatment of the prisoners may or may not be a violation of the Geneva Convention (the jury is apparently still out) but the PHOTOS of said treatment ARE a violation.
Um ... OK.
Posted by iain at 05:29 PM
Anti-Science-Fiction - Why did Bush's bioethics czar order his colleagues to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? You know, I'd say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I took a course from the man and his wife. (Rather, I started to take the course. As I recall, after two sessions, I decided that this was incredibly boring and stupid and bailed.)
It also doesn't in the least surprise me that Bush II Fraudulency would say that he's going to be open minded and fair about something, pick someone who says they're going to be openminded and fair, and then they all show themselves to be completely the opposite. I don't doubt that he'll study the issue thoroughly; that's what he does. I also don't doubt that he's got somewhere he wants to go, and that's where we'll end up.
Posted by iain at 05:16 PM
Nation's elite political circles lack minorities.
Yes? And? The surprise here is ... what, exactly?
I don't deny that the lack of minorities in higher political circles may affect how the country, or its component parts, are governed. Part of the problem is that it simply costs too freakin' much money to run for office, no matter what the level. (Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the money you actually have is proportionate to the office -- a little, you're in state office; a little more, you run for governor, a little more and you go for the House, and so on.) You're also stuck in a financing rum game; accept large contributions, as you really must if you haven't got money of your own, and you owe your contributors. Use all your own money, and you're accused of buying office.
They're wrong -- or at least not entirely right -- about the polarization of the politics, though. The north and midwest have racial politics as fully polarized as those in the South. And Harvey Gantt's troubles show another aspect of the issue: people lie -- or are at least frequently mistaken -- about how much race matters to them. When a minority politician does somehow make his party's nomination for statewide office, you can generally chop 5-10% off their numbers right off the top, because that's how much lower their actual numbers will be than polls indicate.
The amazing thing about politics and race in this country is that people on all sides seem to expect that things should be fine NOW. After all, it's over 100 years since the Civil War, right? (Well, yes, but the last generation of people who actually remember slavery only died off 30-40 years ago.) It's been 40 years since the Civil Rights Act, right? (Well, yes, but there are still many people alive who remember the bad old days, fondly or otherwise.) It's been only 20-25 years since Affirmative Action went in. (And a rousing success that's been, given the rampaging counter-reaction out there these days.) It may just be that as a country, our timeline is rather compressed, but we're never willing to give ourselves time for things to happen.
Posted by iain at 04:45 PM
The photos that shocked the world.
I guess I'm used to thinking in terms of the American justice system; with the exception of the open-air holding cells, none of what's shown in the (three) pictures is any big deal here. Which makes you wonder what they'd have made of our normal prison system.
That said, continuing to act in a high-handed way, publicly making up the rules as we go along, is certain to make our allies and other countries stop cooperating with us. And however much we want to think we can, the fact is, given that foreign countries will be involved in so much of this War on Terror, we cannot do it all alone. (You do wonder what the US said to the Bosnian authorities. It makes absolutely no sense for the Bosnian Supreme Court to say that the Bosnian authorities themselves can't hold the Algerians, due to lack of evidence, and then to turn them over to the US despite the US refusal to show any such evidence. There must have been some sort of threat, although I can't imagine what on earth it could have been.)
We're also going to have to figure out how much trouble we're willing to cause for allied governments, as well. Britain and Australia have, after all, been firm allies through most of this and now it's causing trouble for those governments, as well.
(Although Australia, at least, has relatively little to criticize US over regarding detainee treatment. At least the ones in Guantanamo have done something besides try to flee their shambles of a country.)
Posted by iain at 10:07 PM
Doctors defy drug ban: A KwaZulu-Natal doctor was so concerned that pregnant HIV-positive women were not being given nevirapine that he used his own money to buy the drug - in defiance of the Health Department. [...] In terms of official Health Department policy, public hospitals and clinics are not allowed to dispense antiretroviral drugs to rape victims or nevirapine to pregnant mothers. But doctors at Bethesda say that not administering nevirapine flies in the face of the Hippocratic oath, which requires doctors to do the best for their patients.
I can't imagine doctors in this country doing that. Not publicly, in any event. Their administrations would be so afraid of lawsuits of one sort or another that the doctors would be suspended or fired, the drugs confiscated from the women involved, and if the children came up with AIDS, well, that'd be just too damn bad, wouldn't it?
Posted by iain at 02:03 AM
HA.
One wonders whatever bin Laden will do once he gets what he wants.
Theoretically.
Among other things, it looks like al Qaeda may use Southeast Asian or African members for future attacks. I'd imagine it'll be mostly Africans, frankly. For perfectly sound social and political reasons, the government can't engage in the sort of ethnic profiling of Africans or African-appearing peoples that they've been using against Arabs and Arab-appearing people. (To put it bluntly, they don't dare.) There's no upside in using Southeast Asians, for al-Qaeda; it doesn't produce the same sort of social disruption in this country. The government would be perfectly thrilled and delighted to start detaining Southeast Asian nationals and descendants; it's not as if there are all that many. Therefore, Africans are the better political tool. Unfortunately, if that happens, it will make being a black Muslim in this country even more untenable than it is now.
Posted by iain at 06:17 AM
So here's the part that I don't understand: why the hell were they taping things?
I accept that the tapes are likely genuine; it's not remotely in our interest to have done such a thing, simply because we know that the West won't care, and Arabs will think they're a forgery anyway. It doesn't help for domestic consumption, because it's just ... weird. (It's the sort of thing that makes the man on OUR street scratch his head and think, "Well, that was stupid of 'em.") I mean, both of the tapes that have been made public were made during the bombing of Afghanistan, after the Taliban collapse was becoming apparent. At the very least, it looked like things were not going to go as well as they would like. THIS is the moment at which they think, "Hey, let's make a record of our actions so that the entire world will know what we've done and what we're planning to do!" I mean, what?
I also note that the "special friendship" betwen the US and Britain is hitting something of a rocky moment.
[Robin Cook,] The former Foreign Secretary, now Leader of the House of Commons, stepped out of line to accuse the US directly of lacking integrity on the issue. Mr Cook’s intervention followed sustained attempts by Downing Street to play down international criticism of the conditions, including the use of wire cages, hoods, shackles and sedation. In pointed remarks, Mr Cook said he could not accept assurances from Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, that the inmates at Guantánamo were being treated humanely. He said: “I’m not sure I would take Donald Rumsfeld’s views as independent corroboration. He is a man of robust views.”
"Robust views." My. You know, it's not often that you'll find one politician willing to pop out and call another one a liar, even quite that indirectly. (And, really, it's not that indirect.) The only thing keeping this from becoming an "incident" is that Mr Cook isn't any longer a member of the cabinet, and so doesn't speak officially for anyone, about which Mr Blair may be greatly relieved. (Although if Mr Cook was still Foreign Minister -- my, how the diplomatic fur would be flying then!) In any event, Mr Cook may count his mind as relieved: the Red Cross is inspecting the camp.
Along those lines, the Independent has an interestingly nuanced analysis of why we're doing what we're doing, or at least how it appears to them. The article starts out in one direction, and then it ... veers. I must admit, the second reason they cite for not declaring the men as prisoners of war had not occurred to me. If we are doing this to provide an example, it seems somewhat ... misguided in intent, in any event. As torturers, we're only likely to go just so far, and even that will be relatively restrained, since it would just be ammunition for further terrorist acts.
I also do wonder what we're going to do with all these men. After all, no matter how our military builds it up, Guantanamo can only hold so many prisoners. We've got thousands more back in Afghanistan; what on earth are we going to DO with them? We're not going to summarily execute them; summary execution will only inspire imitators, anyway. If we try them all, tribunals or however, it'll take the rest of our natural lives to get through them all. (Although that may, in fact, be one point of the process.) So what do we do with them all, and how badly do we compromise ourselves in the process of deciding that?
Posted by iain at 01:15 AM
Pat Robertson v. America, Round II: "America will survive what is coming, but it won't survive in its present form. The proud will be humbled and then the time will come that they will turn to the Lord.... And, there's one last thing that the Lord led me to in Isaiah.... `Destruction is certain for those who say evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.' Those who say evil is good and good is evil, and that's what's happening in this country. Certain perversions, sexual perversions for an example, are being touted as a privileged activity, and those who oppose it are being called evil [...] I do believe that San Francisco is going to be a target of these people."
Hmph. Sounds like it's more likely to be a target of Pat Robertson's. Doesn't the man ever learn? (You ever notice how conservative attacks on San Francisco as this mecca of gay hedonism -- or whatever -- conveniently ignore the fact that most of the people who live there aren't gay?)
Oh, and speaking of the Right Reverend Pat: it seems that he may have had other reasons for resigning from the Christian Coalition besides the publically stated ones:
Thank God that, during these tough times, Robertson has horse racing to fall back on.
Yes, horse racing.
When he's off his high horse, Robertson has more than dabbled in a pastime that many in the 700 Club's target market might consider a tad sinful. [...] Robertson has kept his involvement in the sport of kings quite hush-hush. For instance, his horse Tappat, the most successful horse to race under the Tega Farm colors, has won more than $235,000 and a couple of stakes races in his career. But Robertson never publicly celebrated Tappat's victories. [...] "I signed a disclosure form saying I wouldn't talk about the owners of Tega," says Earl "Abraham" Ola, a former trainer for Robertson.
The Christian Coalition, you see, Officially Dislikes Gambling quite a lot. The Right Reverend Pat, being a race horse owner, is somewhat compromised when it comes to opposing gambling, since without gambling, most racetracks wouldn't exist. (This ignores, of course, most racetracks' recent expansion into more conventional gaming, such as slot machines, which compromises them even more in the Coalition's eyes.) When the Right Reverend Pat started supporting Congressional internet gambling bills that exempted horse racing, he fractured his support base, most of which wanted ALL gambling covered.
Oh, well. Maybe we'll see the Right Reverend Pat in the winner's circle for the Triple Crown someday.
And wouldn't that put the cat amongst the pigeons?
Posted by iain at 12:03 PM
USS CLUELESS UPDATE from Steven: Someone hacked my server last night, so after Road Runner installs the new cable modem this morning, I'm going to have to go down for several hours to recover the system from secure backups. I've never done it before and I don't know how long it will take.
Posted by iain at 10:25 AM
"If he says he won't use a condom, what more can I say?"
The word NO just somehow kinda vaults into the mind right there, don't it? Or maybe, "Then I'm not having sex with you. Asshole." Or, you know, something like that.
Of course, this is Japan we're talking about, so you have to be considerably more polite. "I'm sorry, but I really feel that I can't have sex with you without a condom." Something along those lines. (Then again, we're talking about a country with professional "breaker-uppers" who only exist because the Japanese are too polite to do it face to face. They have to pay someone to say "no" for them. Right. And I suppose it could be inconvenient to have the guy standing in the bedroom, just waiting for that moment when someone wants you to do something you think is unwise.
Posted by iain at 05:31 PM
from Steven: The new IP for USS Clueless (http://denbeste.nu) will be 66.27.50.74. It will probably take a couple of days for the name-server record to update.
Posted by iain at 02:11 PM
HOT STORIES: Racism Linked To Evolution? (Special to the NNPA)-Racial discrimination may be an evolutionary side effect, said a team of researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team, lead by Robert Kurzban of the University of California at Los Angeles, is reesearching the idea that racism might be an off-shoot of the need to survive by forging interest groups.
My, it's remarkable the difference a point of view can make. When I first saw this particular article from BlackPressUSA.com, my first reaction was, "There's something wrong with that study. It doesn't make sense, given what little they say about the study, that you would assume that racism might have been a necessary aspect of evolution at one point." (Actually, my VERY first thought was, "Well, there's a study that didn't need to be done." Which goes to show, judging from first impressions of news briefs isn't generally the greatest thing to do.)
So then I went and did a bit of digging, and found what seems to be an extended extract of the authors' paper from The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Which, being as they're scientists, is only nominally written in English, but whatever. In any event, one part of the thrust of the article seems to be that in the absence of the sort of elaborate symbolism we've made of clothing, humans used racial cues to figure out who was Us and who was Them. Which makes a certain amount of sense, up to a point -- that point being that early on, there wasn't all that much racial intermingling. But again, whatever. The experiment itself also suggests, in theory, that if you can get people to intermingle and cooperate enough in reaching common goals, you can reduce the importance of race as an alliance factor. (The authors -- or their questioners, it's not quite apparent -- are cautiously hopeful that we can "erase race" as a factor. In a country in which, at least west of the Rockies and north of the Mason-Dixon line, the races generally will not live near each other, even when income allows. Right.)
It's amazing how ... oddly hopeful some of the British press is about this. The Economist is relatively cautious, but ends on as upbeat a note as it can find. (The Economist doesnt do upbeat, if they can avoid it.) The venerable Beeb takes a weirdly optomistic tone, especially at the end in the whole "Hope for children" section, which had me scratching my head and looking at the article and thinking, "Where the hell did that come from?"
Posted by iain at 12:01 PM
You know, I think most Reference Encounters are kind of like this. (Well, sort of.) Kind of interesting at the time, and interesting in context to some other librarians, but a lot of people won't get it. (Although I envy her patron load. I don't think I've ever worked at a reference desk that was consistently that slow. The worst one hour period I remember was one where I had to deal with 65 people ... that I managed to count.)
All that said ... my very FIRST reference question was given to me by a woman over the phone, speaking in a very very very soft whisper. She said, and I quote: "Can you tell me where I would find information on lubricants for anal sex?" Seriously, that was really and truly my first reference question.
My SECOND reference question, also over the phone, a whole five minutes later, came from a woman in the hospital. It turned out that she had gone directly from the doctor's office to the oncology ward of the hospital and she didn't even know why. She told us what her doctor had told her that her condition was. When my supervisor and I finished translating it out of Greek and Latin, it turned out that the woman had cancer of the membraneous capsul surrounding her kidneys. The disease had a less than two-percent survival rate.
Posted by iain at 12:27 AM
Court Rules EEOC Can Ignore Arbitration Deals.
OK, that one's actually a shock. Given the way this court thunders to the right on employees' rights issues, I fully expected them to state that arbitration contracts precluded the EEOC from inserting itself into the case. It even makes sense to rule as Thomas said, that it makes no legal sense to allow the EEOC to do what the employee has signed a contract stating he will not do.
(You know, normally a 6-3 ruling isn't considered a "divided Court". Normally, that's reserved for 5-4 decisions or those very rare weird ones with pluralities instead of majorities.)
Posted by iain at 04:32 PM
Norwegian minister 'marries' gay partner: The Norwegian Finance Minister, Per-Kristian Foss, has married his long-time male companion. He is believed to be the world's first high-ranking minister to formalise a gay relationship.
Love the 'marries'.
Eccentric punctuation aside, can you just imagine the brouhaha if one of the two gay men in the Shrub's cabinet decided to vamoose himself to Vermont and get civilly unioned? The religious right would plotz itself sideways! The liberal left would be saying, "Yay! ... we think?" (What with the whole "conservative gay Republican = massive brain damage" belief, it's makes it difficult to then turn around and say, "No! He was perfectly sane when he did that one thing there!" But I digress.) Dubya wouldn't know what to say; I envision a nicely complex message such as, "While as a good Christian, I must love the sinner and hate the sin of homosexuality, Laura and I wish them every happiness."
I imagine the Religious Right would probably start making ardent demands that Dubya dump his gays, lest they withdraw their support. Leaving the Republican inner circle to calculate -- as they're doing these days, in fact -- whether cultivating a more tolerant image and pulling in the "more affluent gay element" is worth the loss of the religious right -- who, after all, have nowhere else to go.
Mind, the concept of a society open enough not only to have a gay minister in a major position -- the equivalent would be if Treasury Secretary O'Neill were gay -- but to have him and his partner acknowledged "among Norway's most powerful couples" ... kinda boggles the mind, don't it?
(And on a purely geekly digression ... My land, but the US Treasury site do suck badly, don't it? They need to get themselves a designer!)
Posted by iain at 04:08 PM
US jittery at symbolic meetings of grieving families: Americans who lost members of their families in the 11 September attacks will arrive in Kabul to meet Afghans whose loved ones were killed by US bombs. The meeting is seen by the grieving Americans as a step towards building something good out of profoundly shattering events. But they also bring with them a message of reconciliation that has provoked apprehension inthe State Department and among US diplomats in Afghanistan. [...] The visit has been organised by Global Exchange, a human rights organisation whose founding director, Medea Benjamin, is travelling with the visitors. He asked: "The people of the US have shown tremendous compassion for the families of the victims of 11 September. Shouldn't our hearts and helping hands also go out to those Afghans who are every bit as innocent as the victims of 11 September? Don't we, as citizens of a wealthy nation that unleashed deadly force against Afghanistan, have a moral responsibility to help the innocent victims?''
Hmph. Yes, I should think that message would make the State Department jittery, indeed. Especially since their answer -- and indeed, the answer of most people in this country -- would be, "Um ... well, no, actually, we don't. It is in our self interest to do so -- it won't do us any good to have bombed Afghanistan out of the stone age if we just let it slide back again. That will only give terrorists a place to return. But technically, there is no responsibility." (I don't say I agree or disagree. I simply understand that most people won't feel that way.)
I can also understand that the reason, stated as it is, would make State just a bit twitchy. It does sound rather as if Global Exchange wants to make a point about global responsibility and human rights that has nothing in and of itself to do with why the families are going to visit.
That said, I can't imagine what it would be like to be in that one Afghan family. You lose your job because you refuse to carry out the policies of the Taliban, and then the people who want to get rid of the Taliban bomb your town and kill your child. It must be almost unendurable.
Posted by iain at 03:48 PM
You can drive high in Idaho, as long as you can drive straight. In overturning an impaired driving conviction, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that a loophole in Idaho law means marijuana users can drive legally as long as they do not drive erratically and can pass a field sobriety test.
It has to be listed to be covered? My goodness. What a very odd law. Why wouldn't you just say "impaired" and leave the "by what" part of it alone? Or be generic and say "under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs" without saying which drugs? After all, people can be impaired by all sorts of legitimately obtained prescription medications; does the law need to list all of those as well?
In any event, as the attorney notes, I can't imagine that if this case is appealed by the state -- and why wouldn't they? -- it won't be overturned. (With glee and enthusiasm and several very sharp words, given this Court.) Quite apart from anything else, the fact that it's an illegal drug at both federal and state levels, regardless of classification, should control.
The question was, you know, largely rhetorical.
The problem is that they're doing so in explicit violations of treaties the country has signed. It's also alarmingly short sighted; we've somehow managed to get through the early stages of this mess without inflaming "the Arab street", and now we're going to apply a gratuitous insult like this? Something to alienate friends and influence enemies alike. It can very easily be presented as giving the lie to our words that this was NOT about Islam. (Which, of course, it wasn't, but we're talking spin, not reality.)
That said, I sincerely doubt this is a policy decision, somehow; I really think that even the Shrub and Rumsfeld have slightly -- very slightly -- more sense than that. I honestly think this is a matter of the people in the field doing something because they want to and because they can. To be sure, I think that the administration is doing a fast and furious tap dance on the prisoner status because they know full well that some things they want to do -- the tribunals, for example, or shipping the prisoners to allied countries who are less fastidious about torture -- are in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention. I just don't think that the beard-shaving happens to be one of those policy decisions. That said, now that they're aware of it, they don't seem to be stopping it, do they?
U.S. officials and terrorism experts worry that even the elimination of al Qaeda would not halt the growth of militant Islamic extremists bent on attacking Western countries and installations.
Well, if the administration persist in doing things for purely gratuitous reasons -- or not stopping those who are doing them, which will amount to the same thing in the view of others -- then they'll have only themselves to blame when this treatment of prisoners is used to help incite a few more stupid young radicals, now won't they? Only it's highly unlikely that "they" -- the administration -- will actually be the ones paying for these actions.
Posted by iain at 05:57 PM
Child Support Case Lifts Covers on Lifestyle of Rich: I would like to point out that these people are completely INSANE. (We'll just ignore the 50 year difference between Mater and Pater, shall we? Let's shall.) Yes, I can understand that the rich and famous have somewhat different needs. For one thing, if you're that rich, you need buckets of security all the time. But good GRIEF! Monthly child support payments that exceed the annual salary of most people in this country? Perhaps the child would grow up to place a slightly higher value on things -- and with a somewhat stronger grip -- if she grew up NOT becoming accustomed to that particular lifestyle.
Posted by iain at 11:24 AM
American forces 'may be breaking PoW convention'. Well, surely this can't be a surprise to anyone. After all, back when the tribunal plans were first floated, it was noted that they were war crimes, in and of themselves. It cannot be a surprise to anyone that the government is using terms that have "no legal meaning"; that's exactly the point. You can't violate laws if the people are undefined under the current laws. That's the government's working theory, clearly.
That said ... what the hell are they forcibly shaving people's beards for? There's neither a safety nor hygiene reason for doing so. Nor is there any practical reason for keeping people outside in stockades during the Afghan winter, aside from knowing that they'll be miserable, and hoping they get sick enough to die without benefit of trial.
It's also not surprising that the Afghan government, such as it is, and the US are coming into conflict over how to handle captured al-Qaeda and Taliban officials. After all, a sovereign government -- which Afghanistan is not, but no matter -- would object to the hign-handed kidnapping (for such it is) of its citizens, especially before they've been found guilty of any crimes. (Technically, they may also be guilty of greater crimes against Afghans than against Americans, depending on their rank and involvement in various things.) The policy of removing people without even the pretense of asking (or at least notifying) the Afghan government can only be counterproductive; why would you give your allegiance to a government that (1) has no money with which to help its people do anything and (2) won't or can't even protest this cavalier treatment of its prisoners. (At the very least, the US owes Afghanistan notice so that families can be told. Then again, we're not telling families of people detained in THIS country what's going on, so why should we behave decently towards them?)
Posted by iain at 10:45 AM
... Golf tournaments? There are THAT many world leaders who go to golf tournaments?
My. Who knew?
That aside, with so many al-Qaeda known to have escaped -- and so many cells out and operating, for that matter -- the next few years will be relentlessly interesting times. Unfortunately.
Posted by iain at 10:08 AM
You know, I thought email had killed off that whole pen pals thing, but I suppose when you can't receive email, there aren't that many options. But still ...
Can you imagine what it must be like for attractive men and women to be without companionship? Well, yes. Yes, I can. And so can every adult person in these united states, unless they've had a very odd life indeed.
Female addresses are $3.00 each, while the male inmate addresses are free. Hmm. Yes. Well. What a very ... inexpensive dating service. Except ... Male Application: Total cost is only $20.00 for 18 months. Um ... what? You charge the inmates $20 and the general public eithe $3 or nothing at all? Isn't that a slightly screwed-up business model? Why wouldn't you charge the people on the outside -- who theoretically have higher paying jobs and access to funds and stuff like that -- more money than the ones who aren't making any? I'm so CONFUSED!
Meet-An-Inmate.Com will not show up on [your credit card]. Um ... if you're looking to place a personal ad, presumably you're single, right? So who's to care? And if you're not single, perhaps anyone else who has the right to look at your credit card bills should know that you're looking for love in some very unusual places.
The appropriate safeguards should be used in communicating with any person(s) that you may meet through this service. By using this service, you agree to not hold us responsible for any costs, liabilities, attorney's fee or damages that you may incur. Hmm. Yes. Quite. The damage thing would be of some concern, I imagine, especially damage to onesself.
Here are some of the problems we have encountered: ... LYING ABOUT HER RACE. This is one of our biggest problems. If we discover proof that she has lied about her race her ad will be removed. Yeah. Right. WHAT-ever. I'd be rather more concerned about lying about the crime, but whatever floats your boat, babycakes.
Oh, well. I'm certainly not in the target audience for that site. (Thank goodness.) Apparently men need not apply. Which would explain why all of the bisexuals were women; I was a tad puzzled by that the first time I looked at the site.
Posted by iain at 02:32 AM
Quoted in full because it's brief and will expire:
Men Suing for Sex Bias Must Be 'Unmanly': A federal judge has ruled that a man claiming sexual harassment must be able to prove the abuse stems from lack of conformity to gender stereotypes. In her ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Anita Brody found in the case of Bianchi vs. the City of Philadelphia that the plaintiff could only survive summary judgment if there is "evidence that the discrimination he suffered resulted from his failure to match the societal ideal of manliness." In the case, former firefighter Robert Bianchi alleged his co-workers perceived him to be gay and he received intense harassment as a result. Presenting his complaint in terms of sexuality rather than his alleged failure to meet a masculine ideal defeats any Title VII harassment claim, Brody held.
Wait ... what? You are responsible for the people who abuse you? Where the hell did THAT come from? Why should any failure of yours to match your abuser's desires, for heaven's sake, defeat a legal challenge? That would make a hash out of all civil rights law -- a woman would be responsible for being harrassed, ethnic minorities for looking nonwhite. It's utterly ridiculous.
Posted by iain at 01:38 PM
Legal brief alleges racial slur. My goodness. Redistricting in North Carolina appears to be a very nasty business indeed. And all because nobody in the area wants a majority black precinct in their district.
Redistricting season is always such a very entertaining time, isn't it?
Queer equality in South African army: The partners of gay and lesbian South African National Defence Force staff will soon be entitled to the same benefits as their heterosexual counterparts in the armed forces.
My my.
Can you just imagine something like that going through for our military? (Assuming, of course, that they ever decide that gays are capable of service, which doesn't look to happen within my lifetime.)
Posted by iain at 11:25 AM
Ali gets a role in America's PR offensive: American boxing legend Muhammad Ali is joining the United States' public-relations campaign to win over the sceptical Islamic world. [...] President George W. Bush has admitted the US needs to 'do a better job' explaining its actions. Less charitably, House International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde asked: 'How is it that the country that invented Hollywood... has such trouble promoting a positive image of itself overseas?'
Oh ... dear.
This is the sort of thing that sends people who pay attention to us into rabid fits, you know, both militants and friends alike. The issue isn't just the spin we place on our actions, it's our actions themselves. The problem for the militants at whom this campaign is aimed isn't that we don't promote our values properly; it's our values themselves. Such a campaign may or may not be effective at presenting ourselves to the average person, who may know little about us besides our image, but it will just irritate the hell out of the upper and middle class yobbos from whence the revolutionaries come. (And, less charitably, I fail to see how sending out publicity done by a man with Parkinson's so bad that he's almost incomprehensible is going to improve our image. Yes, he's apparently the best known and one of the most respected men in the history of our country. He's still quite ill and it shows. Sending him out to do this, even though he wants to do so, looks like cynicism of the first water.)
I also note that State is concerned with explaining to Americans exactly why it is that the US is so disliked overseas. Now THAT ought to be entertaining.
Posted by iain at 11:02 AM
The Actress, the Producer and Their Porn Revolution: Today, Gladstone's could put a plaque over that table where Hirsch and Allen dined. It marks the birthplace of a new kind of porn--designer porn--and its unrelenting march into American lives. These days, hard-core sex stars date rock musicians, appear on album covers and dance in music videos. They gab with shock-jock Howard Stern. Academics plumb porn for its cultural and business significance. The Internet is flooded with come-hither Web sites. Students at Yale hold coed "chicken and porn" parties. Annual rentals and sales of adult videos and DVDs top $4 billion, and the industry churns out 11,000 titles each year--more than 20 times as many as Hollywood, according to Adult Video News, an adult industry trade magazine.
Interesting article. Although I'm not quite sure that the authors know what to make of their subjects. Since it was for the magazine, they were able to go on (and ON) at some length. The article doesn't quite seem to know what it wants to be, although given the way these people's lives were interconnected, that's kind of understandable.
Posted by iain at 02:26 AM
I will -- reluctantly -- concede that it is entirely possible that concealed weapons laws may reduce crime. (Half the very liberal people I know just fainted because they think I'm a traitor to the cause. The conservative people I know just plotzed and fell over in it. Everyone, RELAX. I left plenty of wiggle room for everyone in that sentence. Just go back, read it again, and stop hyperventilating.) I will even concede that it is entirely possible that there might be less gay bashing if it became known that there were a goodly number of gays running around packing heat. (Again, the wiggle room.) Not who was packing, you understand; just that there were roaming, excessively armed queers who had guns and were just itching for the chance to pump some basher full of lead. Preferably the type of bullet with the exploding jackets. (I do know that I'm not likely to be one of them. If getting robbed at knifepoint on my doorstep didn't make me decide to go out and pick up a gun, I don't think anything else will. And I would appreciate it if Fate didn't decide that I should have something worse happen so that I'm confronted with that decision, thank you kindly. Then again, being a nonwhite person in a very large city ... well, put it this way. It may well be that when minorities arm themselves, criminals seek easier targets. However, the police are known to be less than thrilled with large, armed, nonwhite guys and it would be sincerely ironic to have a weapon to keep you out of trouble with thugs get you into trouble with the police, now wouldn't it? Having seen run-ins with some rogue police based on nothing more than their power to make life miserable because they can, I don't think I'd want to do anything to make them up the ante.)
That said ... the advocates of Gays With Guns have a masterful way of picking some of the more precisely wrong ways to make their argument. Take this, for example:
But at Interlake Rod & Gun the whole gays-with-guns thing seems less, well, loaded. Brian Landsberger, a twentysomething sporting Kool-Aid green hair, tells me "gun control is a personal issue, not a legislative issue," likening it to abortion or sexual preference. It's not a political statement, just a choice.
Now, I'm thinking that we don't need our erstwhile allies telling the world that sexuality can be chosen as easily as you would pick a gun. After all, the easy response there is, "Well, what the hell do you need a gun for? Just stop being gay!" And nothing can be gained by making an equivalence between either sexuality or gun ownership and abortion, of all things. (Also, green haired person: EVERYTHING in this country is a legislative issue. That aside, gun ownership specifically is certainly a legislative issue, since it's stuck there in the Constitution. Nothing in the Constitution operates on its own; every article and amendment has a fleet of enabling acts explaining exactly how those lofty ideas are given force.)
Or, in the first linked article:
If anti-Semites hate Israel, that is in no small measure because Israel shattered the ancient stereotype of the helpless and sniveling Jew. Jews with an army! Jews who fight back! You can hate Israel all you like, but you don't bully it. Israel changed the way Jews see themselves, and it changed the way gentiles see Jews.
Um ... I'd like to point out that Israel is -- and has been for a couple years now -- just a few steps short of a garrison state. From a distance, at least, it looks like a fairly unpleasant place to live and a fairly unpleasant way to live.
Leaving that admittedly minor statement aside, I'm also not sure that it's in our longterm interest for those in power to see us as armed and dangerous. Yes, we should do what we can for ourselves -- but that only extends so far. In any civil society, people live in a web of dependencies, minorities even more so.
I will admit to feeling entirely conflicted in some ways. For example, Mr Rauch mentions that hate-crime laws do nothing for self-esteem. Well, they're not meant to, are they? That aside, I do think they're purely vile; they privilege a person's life based on who they were and why they seem to have been harmed or killed. Someone comes after me and mine, yes, I want them buried under the prison alive, I fully admit that. (This is why victims aren't allowed to serve on juries, neh?) Is my life worth more to society because I'm black or because I'm gay? Well, no, not really. (Most of society would, in fact, say that it was worth rather less, but that's another issue.) But I digress. I think. I don't think that concealed weapons would really do much for or against us, in terms of gaining respect from people.
Also ... some of us REALLY shouldn't have guns. Although I understand why people can feel like that, yes.
And then, of course there are yahoos like these. I mean, what the hell does "the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community" have to do with the Brady Law and the assault weapons ban? What do those laws have to do with the right to carry concealed weapons? I mean, if I were to decide to carry a concealed weapon, I don't think it would be an Uzi. Damn hard to conceal, for one thing. And if you have a concealed weapons permit, what's the problem with registering the weapon itself? What's the big fucking deal? (The site maintainer is a member of the NRA. NO! Whatta shock! Seriously, could any organization be more dedicated to appalling its theoretical supporters than the NRA? But I digress. Again.)
Posted by iain at 01:54 AM
The Bears uber alles: The Bears will win it all. They will ambush the Rams for the NFC crown, then humiliate Pittsburgh in New Orleans. This is the wisdom I get from Michael, my man on the Football channel. He speaks to me through the ocean and the ether, if I've been a Good boy -- and on the numbers he ranks with Nostradamus. I am a profoundly Spiritual person, on some days, and chickens squawk in egg barns all over the country when I'm winning. [...] The reason I have picked Chicago is that I hope my endorsement will Jinx them, as it has with the 49ers. That is the Fan in me talking, the geek who believes in Voodoo.
You know, I love me some Bears. But a Bears Super Bowl? SO not happening. Overachieving can only get you so far.
People talk about the Bears' fantastic defense -- 15th in total defensive yards yielded is that fantastic? Granted, it does come with a nifty #2 rushing defense and a zippy #1 points defense overall. It also comes with a #29 passing defense which is not quite spectacular. (OK, I'll bite. How in HELL do you have the #1 points defense and the #29 passing defense on the same team? Granted that good teams tend to be weaker on pass defense, because strong rushing defense and late leads force opposing teams to pass. But a pass defense that bad normally yields big garbanzo points.)
The killer, I suspect, is going to be the #16 offense. (#24 passing, #16 rushing ... but then also #1 in fewest sacks yielded. Kurt Warner pretty much deserved that MVP; he not only passed for more than 4,000 yards but got pounded in doing so. But I digress.) It's both inconsistent and not terribly strong, and they haven't run up against a really high powered offense this season.
That said ... people have been saying that the Bears had a 5th place schedule, which made this transition easier. The 5th place schedule got them San Francisco, Atlanta, Arizona and Washington. Only the "A" teams were, and were expected to be, pushovers; Washington was either wildly good or wildly bad this year, and the 49ers won 12 games. It's not clear that the strength of schedule made lots of difference. Next season, those slots will be St Louis, Atlanta, New Orleans, Carolina, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. The NFL's new scheduling formula has a team play the four teams from another division within its conference (NFC) on a rotating three-year cycle, as well as two intra-conference games based on the prior year's standings (two games). These games match a first-place team against the first-place teams in the two NFC divisions the team is not scheduled to play that season; thus St Louis and Philadelphia as well as the NFC South teams. (By the way, how does Indianapolis wind up in the AFC South and Baltimore in the AFC North, for heaven's sake? I thought the new divisions were supposed to be more geographically based. And why couldn't the NFC Central have kept its name and not been changed to the North; after all, with those teams, it is the old black-and-blue Central division ... um. But I digress. A lot.)
Posted by iain at 04:43 PM
You'd never know they were technically all one country, would you? Hong Kong and Beijing get along with such frozen politeness that it's easy to forget that supposedly they're all "one China" now. I mean, think about it: how on earth do you immigrate from China to China? Now that they're all the same country, why would either Beijing or Hong Kong care that much where people live? They do seem to have some freedom of movement in China, after all.
It will probably be at least another generation before Hong Kong starts seriously thinking of itself as part of China again, maybe longer. Some are protesting that this decision undermines Hong Kong's autonomy. They would do good to remember that the city has the autonomy allowed by the central government; no more, no less.
Posted by iain at 03:24 PM
Presenting the Institute's nationwide field study on Race Relations and Racism in Everyday Life in Post-Apartheid South Africa, [John Kane-Berman, chief executive officer of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London] said whites were expected to make greater sacrifices for black advancement and to accept second class status [...] Moreover, 43% of white Afrikaners agreed with the statement that South Africa was a country for Africans and that whites had to learn to take second place. [...] The study also showed that 60% of Africans and 68% of Indians thought whites should be forced to make more sacrifices for African progress, and 73% of Africans thought affirmative action and black empowerment should be carried further.
Ah. So now South Africa can build to a completely different sort of disaster. If they accept that anyone must be "second-class" purely due to their race, they'll just become a much poorer mirror-image of their old selves. Or, worse yet, they'll become Zimbabwe. Given that they're well on their way already, it's not surprising, I suppose. It is sad, though. People had such hopes for the country, once upon a time. They were never realistic -- take the reins of power from a well educated, well trained minority and hand them to a majority most of whom were never trained for it, and anyone could see problems looming. (The one thing I remember seeing when South Africa moved to majority rule were predictions that black Americans and Europeans would come to fill the gap until there were more black South African professionals. I always wondered at that. First, importing an elite is a recipe for yet another sort of disaster. Second, why would we? Yes, being in the majority and being needed in that way would be nice, but we're not Africans. Most black Americans I know who have been to Africa come back saying that the mindset is so very different that they couldn't live there.)
Posted by iain at 01:08 PM
Of course, this only works if Lord of the Rings was directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Posted by iain at 11:57 AM
B8 d++ t+ k+ s u f i o- x-- e- l+ c+
Just so's you know.
Gay network could debut within a year: MTV and Showtime are in "serious discussions" about launching a gay channel, according to several sources familiar with the project. The would-be developers are part of the Viacom media empire that includes CBS, UPN, Nickelodeon and VH1. However, they're not the only big-time players considering a gay network. According to industry sources, there have been such discussions at HBO, USA Networks, as well as at Rainbow Media, the programming arm of Cablevision, which runs Bravo and AMC. But the proposed MTV/Showtime venture appears to be closer to reality, although both parties declined comment.
My goodness. Our vast amount of disposable income .... er, that is, I mean, gay men and lesbians are so popular these days!
I suspect that also means that Showtime 2 isn't getting picked up by as many cable systems as they would like, so they're looking at ways to make it more attractive. This is ... an unusual way to approach the situation. I'd expect them to make it pay cable, myself; partly because simply attracting advertisers would be a royal pain, partly because pay cable is less of a target, and partly because if MTV is part of the package, they'll be drawing quite enough fire, really. (Although apparently they only got about 100 letters in protest of Queer as Folk last year. Curious, that.)
Posted by iain at 12:08 PM
Finally, a gift for the person who has everything: an LAPD doll. Standing 1 foot tall, the handsomely chiseled cop carries a gun, baton, radio, flashlight, pepper spray and handcuffs. He goes by the ethnically bland name of "Patrol Officer West," but carries enough attitude to keep the peace from Rampart to West L.A.
LA police enlist action dolls to improve image LOS ANGELES police officers, who have one of the worst reputations for excessive violence in America, are attempting to improve their tarnished image by launching a range of Barbie-style dolls. Officials hope that encouraging children to play with dolls dressed in police uniforms will help to inspire more feelings of affection and respect for the city's heavily criticised officers. [...] Peter Reprovich, a director of the PPL, said: "We go through our ups and downs here and we want to provide a character to the community with whom the kids can identify and who will make them more aware of the police and their responsibilities."
Interesting the different views you get from other places, isn't it? The "feelings of affection and respect" bit is entirely absent from the LA Times article, and, indeed, from the league's small description of the doll. And with good reason since (a) it would get them laughed at across the country -- the very idea that a doll could do any such thing is truly silly -- and (b) if the LAPD league publicized that goal in Los Angeles itself, there would be a great many parents in LA who would make certain that their children had nothing to do with those dolls.
Perhaps, in order to engender some warm and fuzzy feelings toward the police from the gay community, they should use the bps Billy doll after UPS gets him stripped of his uniform. After all, the image of the LAPD as cops with big .... guns can't hurt, right?
Posted by iain at 11:57 AM
"We think the attempt by the chairperson to intervene in this case borders on the bizarre."
Oh, my goodness, yes, but ever so entertaining! (Unless you think that the Civil Rights Commission ought to, you know, function or something, in which case you're just S.O.L.) It will certainly be a distraction that Justice feels it doesn't need, although I can't see it being more than a minor annoyance to the Shrub himself. After all, from their point of view, an inactive CRC is just as good as an ineffective one (which it would frequently be with a 4-4 party line split), and there's relatively little it can do with one seat in dispute.
I do have a horrible feeling this may make it all the way up to the Supreme Court, which will then issue an intensely annoyed per curiam decision stating, in effect, "Of COURSE the president has the right to replace members of the commission! It's an executive branch department, you yahoo!" Which will then be the end of that.
Posted by iain at 10:34 AM
Microsoft said it's investigating an alleged flaw in recent versions of its Internet Explorer browser software that could allow attackers to spoof legitimate Web sites, steal content from browser cookies, and gain access to certain types of files on a victim's system. The flaw, which affects IE Versions 5.5 to 6, was first reported to the company on December 19, 2001, by ThePull, an independent security researcher.
Sigh.... well, of course there's another IE flaw. And in a week or two (or more) they'll fix it. And then there'll be another one ....
Vatican to Hold Secret Trials of Priests in Pedophilia Cases. (NY Times, registration required.) Oh, yeah, THAT will work, now won't it? Secret evidence, secret trials, secret punishment ... the more the Vatican tries to cope with this plague, the more they shoot themselves in the foot. And of course, it is an attempt to keep everything quiet. If they don't have to deal publically, then they'll be able to rehabilitate the reputation of the Church's priests, they figure. Only ... it doesn't work that way. First, the Vatican has no control (or should have no control) over the civil and criminal courts. In this day and age, it's far more likely that a civil or criminal case will be brought, and that is how the Vatican will hear about the case in the first place. (A case of reaping what you sow; if they hadn't been so unresponsive and secretive when these cases started coming to light, people would never have decided that working with the Vatican administration could not be their first choice.)
It's anyone's guess whether or not such a process would be beneficial or harmful to a falsely accused priest. On the one hand, when evidence is heard in public and the person is found not guilty, that should be an end to it. On the other hand, people are more likely to assume that the jury just got it wrong, and that the guy really was guilty anyway. Damned if you did, damned if you didn't.
Posted by iain at 01:40 AM
The Man in the Arab Street: I think Reid deserves to be taken more seriously -- not as a first-rate terrorist, maybe, but as a sign that the war on terrorism, as it's now being conducted, isn't going to get the job done. Reid is also a kind of rebuttal to hawk triumphalists who, since the victory in Afghanistan, have belittled those who either opposed the war outright or (like me) didn't quite oppose it but expressed grave doubts about its cost-benefit ratio. [...] Richard Reid-esque terrorists don't need anything that a military assault on Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else can deprive them of—no government sponsor, no fixed, physical training camps. Meanwhile, they may grow more vehement, and more numerous, in response to a military assault. The question isn't just, as Krauthammer would have it, whether war makes millions of anti-American Muslims pretty mad—mad enough to attend a street demonstration. The question is whether it makes hundreds of anti-American Muslims really mad—mad enough to blow themselves up.
Consider this a meandering riff and improv inspired by the article, rather than simply a direct response.
The cost-benefit ratio of this war depends in large part on what it was intended to do, whether it did what it was intended to do, and whether or not the colateral effects are worthwhile.
A major colateral effect is simply this: the vulnerability of our society is now exposed, to us and everyone else. It was always there, and unless we convert ourselves into a garrison state, it will always be there to some extent; the issue then becomes how we can limit the vulnerability. As a practical issue, in the next few years, it would be somewhat surprising if we didn't see more "Richard-Reid-esque" terrorists. It's painfully simple to do something like that, even within this country. (One might note that the white supremacist groups are eating themselves alive with envy that they didn't think of hijacking planes and aiming them at major buildings; the one thing that the Reid incident indicates, in and of itself, is that doing anything in planes has actually become more difficult in part because of the other passengers -- the consequences of inaction have become quite pointed. That said, I would expect a nice little upturn in purely domestic terrorism of some sort sometime soon ... though they may have to scream rather loudly to be seen as such.) This all brings up two related issues: (1) Do we know everything we need to do to protect our society? Well, no, probably not. After all, it's still been only a few short months; we're still in reaction mode, rather than analysis. (And we've never been much for sustained analysis.) And (2) how far are we willing to go? And the answer to that question would appear to be, considerably farther than we should. We're willing to compromise our liberty and our sacred honor to protect our lives. Sad, really, but understandable. With a little luck, we'll get over that before it's too late.
Another colateral effect is that nobody, internally or externally, knows how to evaluate the effectiveness of the American military response. Some are crowing about the magnificent American might, but this seems to involve a fundamental misreading of the situation. Yes, the American military is probably a good bit stronger than people had thought. Yes, absolute command of the air has proved to be a decisive factor. That said, the Taliban was clearly considerably weaker than previously thought. The lesson seems to be aimed at others, rather than directly at the US: don't provoke a militarily far superior state when you're having a civil war and your military strength is uncertain. In such a situation, the enemy doesn't need to commit its own ground forces; it can just draft the internal opposition and arm them. (The other problem is that the Gulf War followed by the Balkan mess followed by Afghanistan are getting the US accustomed to military campaigns with shockingly little loss of life. You hope the trend can continue -- given that there is likely to be another war somewhere sometime. Historically, we seem to average one war of some sort every 20-30 years. Of course, by traditional standards, we haven't actually had a war, as such, since Vietnam, but then, standards seem to be changing, don't they?)
In theory, a major goal of the war was to destroy al-Qaeda as an organization. They've certainly been damaged, that's true enough. However, given that almost all the major leaders survived, and that they looted Afghanistan's banks to the apparent tune of more than $100 million, who knows how long they'll be kept down? (Afghanistan had more thatn $100 million? anywhere? how in hell ....?) It's reasonably likely, at least for the present, that some of the al-Qaeda/Taliban leaders are in Pakistan; it was closest, after all. And Pakistan is a wild card in all these calculations. It's not clear, at the moment, what the ISI considers its interests and Pakistan's interests to be, or whether it cares at all whether or not these interests are consonant; it is certain that Pakistan's government (to dignify it with the term) and the ISI don't have remotely the same view of what is in the best interests of the country at the moment. The other wildcard in this calculus is the fate of Afghanistan itself. Without continued US engagement in the country, the Taliban, or something like them may come back, or the continuing state of chaos will allow terrorist cells to operate unhindered. The last thing the US really wants, right now, is to stay engaged in Afghanistan for any substantial length of time. (Our isolationist slip is showing.) In any event, whether in Pakistan, Afganistan, Somalia or elsewhere, without a great deall of effort that we're showing little sign of being willing to put out, al-Qaeda will have the money and time to reform into something nice and deadly. (And our allies, of course, will need to fend for themselves.)
It all boils down to this: we cannot defend against rogue individuals. We may be able to defend against terrorist cells ... but only if we're willing to follow through. The problem is, at the moment, it's not entirely clear that we can follow through because it's not entirely clear what "follow through" would actually be.
Posted by iain at 01:08 AM
Upper Deck is now fighting fire with fire with the introduction of PenCam™ , a cool groundbreaking autograph authentication device that combines a pen and video camera to document autographed items.
... You have GOT to be kidding. What earthly good could this possibly do to prevent.... well, I guess it's supposed to prevent fraud and forgery. Depending on the direction the pencam is pointing, you either get a very bad shot of the camera following the pen path, and nothing else, or you get a lovely shot up the athlete's arm, and won't that be really informative? As structured, it's kind of worthless unless you're actually there, watching the person sign whatever they're signing in the first place -- which means you can authenticate the thing your own damn self. As a consumer, I feel sincerely underprotected by this innovation.
Posted by iain at 11:39 PM
In N.Y., Taking a Breath of Fear: Recently Tabb received evidence that the air in his apartment may be as dangerous as he suspects. Independent tests -- results of which are disputed by the city -- found that dust taken from an air vent in his apartment building's hallway contained 555 times the suggested acceptable level for asbestos. Samples from a bathroom vent show dangerous levels of fiberglass [...] About one-fourth of the city's firefighters have complained of severe coughing after working at ground zero, and more than a thousand have filed notices of claims against the city. Last week four Port Authority police officers were reassigned from the site after they tested positive for elevated mercury levels in their blood. Dozens of students at nearby Stuyvesant High School have complained of rashes, nosebleeds, headaches and respiratory infections. Three teachers have left because of respiratory problems. [...] The EPA, which has conducted thousands of tests of Lower Manhattan's air since Sept. 11, has repeatedly assured residents that the air is safe to breathe. [...] the EPA also found more troubling results, and it did not release that data until after the nonprofit New York Environmental Law and Justice Project filed a Freedom of Information Act request. These tests found elevated levels of dioxin, PCBs, lead and chromium, all toxic substances, in the air, soil and water around the site.
The EPA is, of course, an ass. And a corporate one, at that. Although I must admit, it's entirely unclear who they're protecting. The government, I suppose, although it's hardly their fault that there's all this junk in the air. It is, however, their responsibility if they've been telling people that the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink, when it manifestly is not true. (I mean, let's get real: how often does mercury of all things, occur in major airborne concentrations?)
Posted by iain at 03:55 PM
THE White House last night insisted that President George W Bush meant no disrespect to the Pakistani people by referring to them as “Pakis”.
Good grief. How can he not know better? How can any person with a college degree NOT know this? How is it that none of his advisors popped up and said immediately, "The president meant to say Pakistanis. Next question?" I don't imagine that he meant any overt disrespect, no; the man is prone to using contractions and nicknames relentlessly, no matter how inappropriate. But ... I honestly fail to see how he could not have known better.
The man is dumb as a box o' rocks, he is.
Posted by iain at 03:46 PM
What parents wouldn’t want their children to be tolerant? Their girls to be ambitious and assertive? Their boys to be communicative and emotional? And given the endless cultural fretting about women being from one planet and men from another, who wouldn’t be happy to raise young women who are sexually assured and young men who exhibit a little less eagerness in their sexual adventures? Traditionalists and moralists, that’s who. To social conservatives, many aspects of Stacey and Biblarz’s study simply confirm what they’ve long believed: gay men and lesbians should not be parents [...] "I have no doubt that this work will be abused and it could conceivably do harm in some individual cases, but that will always happen," [researcher Judith Stacey] tells the Phoenix. "In the end, I believe, it is always better to be truthful and honest about people’s lives."
Well ... yes, but that's an easy conclusion to make when it's not your life, isn't it? Our national culture being what it is, the part about males being less venturesome will be ignored (because to social conservatives, that's a good thing; to radical gays, it's a bad thing, and nobody else will much care either way) and the part about females being more venturesome will become a gruesome area for battles, legal and otherwise. Our terror of female sexuality is such that anything which indicates that women might be in a position to take more control of their sexuality will be hammered by social conservatives, while everyone else will be unable to say anything at all about it, because NO heterosexual in power will be comfortable dealing with that idea.
Posted by iain at 01:15 PM
A revival of public religion - on Capitol Hill. My. Aren't we lucky to have such public-minded public servants? So public minded that they completely ignore the Constitution and more than 200 years of enabling acts and court decisions that say that they really shouldn't be doing things like that. I know that makes me feel like they've got the good of the body politic in mind. How 'bout you?
Posted by iain at 09:34 PM
iMac Unveiled Before Its Time. THAT is an ENTIRE computer?
Um. Wow.
That notwithstanding, why on earth would THAT convert Windows users? Yes, it's cool and zippy and surprisingly inexpensive. That's supposed to make me discard my entire investment in software and whatnot (especially the whatnot) just for the trendiness factor? Exactly how weird does Apple think we are, anyway?
Posted by iain at 09:13 PM
Who wrote the Bible? (Part 1) And to think that I had to take an entire ten week course to get the answer to that question. (Then again, they haven't reached King James yet.)
Posted by iain at 10:13 PM
Chicago Tribune | DNA voids murder confession. In the first case of a videotaped murder confession unraveling in Cook County, a man who was recorded saying he stabbed his mother was freed on Friday after DNA tests linked another man to the crime [...] [Corethian Bell, 25] said he confessed falsely only after detectives yelled at him, told him he failed a lie-detector test and roughed him up. He had been held for more than two days.
Indeed.
So have I mentioned that the leading Republican contenders for governor all oppose the current ban on the death penalty and feel that it should never have been imposed? That they're strongly in favor of reinstating it and speeding up the appeals process? Because they feel that the system has been improved and no longer locks up innocent people.
Yeah. Right. What-EVER.
Posted by iain at 12:26 AM
My goodness. Just what are we to make of Florida, anyway? I mean, we get these simultaneous headlines out of the state:
I mean, what ARE we to make of a patchwork like that? We like you! ... Well, really we don't. Unless you're old and not making trouble. I mean, what?
Posted by iain at 04:19 AM
Swift pick Patrick C. Guerriero found himself the target of Democrats and wayward Republicans even before he quit his day job under Swift to run as her lieutenant governor. Though hoisted by Swift as a pillar of good government and celebrated as an openly gay conservative, he was quickly damned with faint praise by millionaire opponent James Rappaport - who called the 33-year-old a "nice young man.''
Oh. My. An openly gay man running for lieutenant governor of a state. My. (Pity about the brain damage, though. I mean, he's a gay conservative; there MUST be brain damage.)
I suppose we have come a long way, haven't we?
In any event, he'll only become an issue if the contest is very close between Swift and whoever the Democrat is. And at that, any conservatives taking aim at him will need to be very careful, and they seem to have marked out their territory. Nobody will say, "Eww, he's gay. Don't want that one step away from the governorship, nope nope nope." Instead, they'll say, "A youthful governor -- who just had a baby not too long ago, remember -- should be balanced by experience, not by someone even younger than she is." The fact that he gives many of them the heebie-jeebies because of being gay will never be mentioned. (Except by the archconservatives, who hate anyone even vaguely to the left of them anyway.)
Posted by iain at 03:38 AM
TONY Blair will today attempt to stamp his personal authority on the world stage by declaring Britain a "pivotal player" in global events. In a major speech outlining his vision for the future of the government’s foreign policy in the wake of 11 September, the Prime Minister will insist the UK’s prime strength is as an international "force for good".
Well, I suppose it's better than declaring themselves an international force for evil.
Although not much.
After all, it depends on how, exactly, one defines "good", doesn't it? And "pivotal"? Exactly what does that mean? Yes, they helped out with the attacks on Afghanistan, but we could certainly have managed without. (That said, it's just as good that we didnt need to.) They've decided to stay outside the European Union in most meaningful ways, including the recent currency union. They actually seem rather determined to force themselves to the margin, in some ways.
Posted by iain at 03:10 AM
Lawmaker: Is CD copy-protection illegal?. Well. My goodness. Seems that someone noticed that the schemes recording companies are using to copy-protect CDs might actually be against the law.
Not that it will do any good. The RIAA will just say, "Yeah? So? When the law was written, it didn't envision the type of copying and distribution problems we have today. And we're not gonna stop, and you can't make us! Nyah!" And Congress, being Congress, will say, "Oh. Well. We'll ignore you if you contribute a bit of money to our campaign funds, how's that?"
Like the Taliban, some U.S. parents fear free minds.
Poor sod. He hasn't yet figured out that the right to censor what other people do is one of our most cherished rights .... whaddya mean, "It's not"? It's right there in the Constitution ... well. I guess it isn't. But still, it's a tradition! We've been doing it for 200 years and change, and why on earth would we change now? It's our god given right to yank stuff we don't like out of the public and have public burnings and all sorts of fun stuff like that! (Evil Harry Potter! EEeeeeeevil! Consorting with witches is just EEeeeeevil! And don't give me none of that stuff about the apostle Paul and the witch of endor or wherever she was the witch of. We know better, right?)
(It was only intended as "an exercise for [their] local congregation." How ... quaint. How very traditional. And he didn't realize it would attract national attention. Right. And he thinks we should only be concerned with things Christian and not things spiritual. How very bigoted of him. [Harry Potter is spiritual? Really? What on earth did I miss?] I would imagine, somehow, that America's "problem" with "orthodox Christianity" comes with said Orthodox Christianity's intolerance of ... just about everything else, really.)
Posted by iain at 01:41 AM
Sex club in the city: a hot issue. Hmm. Yes. So what is it with sex clubs of various stripes marching into the news lately, anyway? Are they just becoming less discreet? Are they somehow assuming that the country is becoming more tolerant and discovering that they're mistaken? What is it? What?
Posted by iain at 01:25 AM
Hearts can do the liver regrowth trick, too. I wonder what the limits to this trick are. I mean, if you contract cardiomyopathy, and the virus goes away, does this damage your heart's ability to grow new cells, or will it be able to maybe heal some of the damage?
But ... if half the cells in a transplanted heart are from the recipient's body within a few months, does that mean that somehow your own body just uses the donor heart as a growth matrix? How does this all work, anyway? As defined in the article, if the cells are completely new, that would seem to increase the possibility of transplant rejection; it's the body's immunosuppressed way of saying, "Hey, you don't belong here!"
Posted by iain at 01:16 AM
Mother Fears Moussaoui Scapegoating. And she's right to do so. I can't imagine that people in this country won't be wanting someone to pay, not for the foreseeable future. Can't get the people who actually made it on the planes; they're dead. Can't get the masterminds; they're in hiding or dead. That pretty much just leaves him, now doesn't it? And the trial occurring within a month of the first anniversary of the attack, right when the media can be counted on to have rebroadcast all sorts of things ... well, that just guarantees a nice, neutral jury pool, now doesn't it?
I hope that he's actually guilty of the charges, or that his "proof", whatever it be, is so good that it convinces a jury that hates him, for he will certainly be found guilty otherwise. He's certainly not going to be helped by the discover that shoebomber Richard Reid was calling him when they both lived in Britain. (Although as evidence, it's kind of null. After all, they could have been calling about anything; without specific information, knowing that they were speaking neither helps nor hurts the case.)
Posted by iain at 12:35 AM
Promises, Promises: New Year's Resolutions I'd Love to Hear: Yes, I still love this woman. I know some people think she's purely an opportunist ... but if so, she's doing it with style, isn't she? (OK, I confess that I've been out of touch a bit the past few weeks. Exactly who are "hot missionary babes Heather Mercer and Danya Curry" and did they compromise someone? Surely she doesn't mean Duke U. student Heather Mercer, aspiring placekicker? I mean ... "hot missionary babe"? What's that got to do with kicking? I'm so confused ...)
Posted by iain at 12:46 AM
Ah, the joy of a new year. Fireworks, celebrations ... oh, yes, and one of the first of many redistricting decisions to come out of the courts. And involving me old home grounds, too, imagine.
State Sen. Ben Altamirano, a Democrat, said the ruling was a setback for attempts to give Hispanics a bigger voice in politics. "I ran for Congress at one time, and had I had a more representative district, I may have had a better chance for winning," he said.
OK, Senator? Can we just take time for a civics lesson here? The point of the system is not to give you a better chance for winning; the point of the system is to give the people the best representation possible. It is, you know, entirely possible to believe that purely on your own merits, you may not be the best representative. It has been known for New Mexico to actually elect Hispanics to office despite not having majority minority districts. (For heaven's sake, man, the state has fewer than 2 million people, nearly a third of whom live in one city. Exactly how do you figure that you can produce a sensible minority majority district in a big square state with a clump like that in the middle? Albuquerque residents, in general, have more interests in common with each other than with the other parts of the state; it makes perfectly good sense to keep the city as an intact district. Yeesh.)
Oh well. At least it's nice to know that the federal courts are already prepared for the inevitable appeal.
Staffing at U.S.-Canadian border cut despite concerns. Ah. Clearly, this is some form of tightening border security of which I was previously unaware. Increasing security by decreasing manpower on the world's longest undefended border. Who knew it would work that way?
You know, it's not enough that Ridge and Ashcroft seem to have embarked on a campaign of All Terror, All the Time. Now that they're running around trying to make sure that everyone is scared as much as possible, they've decided that we should actually have something to be scared about. I wonder how long it will be before we hear that some terrorist or another has come across the border. (To be sure, at least Canada doesn't seem to have reduced their security, which, I suspect, is why the US felt able to reduce theirs. Which says something about the way that relationship works, doesn't it?)
Posted by iain at 12:11 AM
AIM hole could let worms wriggle in.
Urgh. Leaving aside that highly questionable article title, I suppose that means that in a bit I'll have to bite the bullet and upgrade IM. I already had to give up ICQ because it just went completely insane, but I'd hoped not to have to upgrade to AOL's "all advertising, all the time" version of IM (I understand that the advertising in the last few versions has gotten quite intrusive).
So THAT'S how you get men... and get rid of them, too, apparently.
Voodoo plus abused spouse syndrome equals men who are devoted to you for life. Right up to the point where they scratch their face off and get killed by the next guy in line. And you can curse the investigating detective just for good luck. (Yours, not his.)
Posted by iain at 10:39 PM
No one knew much about the half-dozen attractive young men who moved into the big two-story house near Lake Brantley until a neighbor boy misfired a water balloon and broke a window into the world of cybersex. That was when neighbors got a look inside and figured out the men were running a 24-hour gay pornography site.
You know, what impresses me is that you can go through that whole article and not have a clue what web site they're talking about. I suppose they thought naming it would be free advertising.
You know, frankly, I'm not entirely sure what the neighbors have to complain about. Nobody knew what they did until there was an accident that wasn't their fault. They're not generating disreputable traffic or trash. They're not coming into intimate contact with anyone's husbands or wives. (Well, they wouldn't be contacting the wives, now would they?) OK, I'll admit that the guy answering the door in the nude is a bit ... much. (Although I do wonder when that occurred. I'd expect after the neighborhood assodiation asked them to move, somehow.) Apparently the only way you can see what's happening in the house is by making an effort of some sort.
That said, operating a business in a residential neighborhood is just DUMB. Surely there's a lawyer affiliated with that business somewhere who said, "Get a permit, ya yutz." If he didn't -- and there is a lawyer, I see -- then why didn't he? (OK, OK, because it would have alerted the neighbors, but that at least is a fairly clear zoning law ... although it may be one of those things predicated on money changing hands, and as long as that's handled offsite, it may not work that way.
I do want to just kick that one guy for saying, "We're five gay guys living here, and they don't like it." No, I don't expect that they do, but the real issue is that you're running a sexually oriented business in their neighborhood. You could be straighter than anyone, and they'd still hate it. (Though possibly a bit less.) After all, Voyeurdorm was completely straight, and their neighbors have been having fits for ages now.
Posted by iain at 04:37 AM
So apparently, the Queen Boat arrests, in which Egypt tried and convicted 52 men of "deviance", is all about morality. Specifically, the desire of Egyptians to turn the clock back to an earlier time when things were more certain. The concept was to alientate Egyptians from both modern morals and the Internet, by presenting computers as the facilitators of modern immorality.
How very ... American of them. Seriously, it would seem that they're having the sort of fun with their fundamentalists that we're having with ours. To be sure, it would seem that for Egyptians, morality is taking the place of public debate over other substantial political issues, because the government isn't allowing that, either. (And if our Lord Minister of Injustice could figure out a way to swing it, I'm sure he'd do the same.)
Posted by iain at 03:44 AM
USS Clueless - Don't attack Iraq!: The real questions regarding any given potential military adversary in this war are as follows: (1) Are they capable of launching attacks against us, especially using unconventional means? (2) Is there reason to believe that they'd like to do so in future? If the answer to both those questions is "yes" then we are going to nullify them one way or another
And THAT is an somewhat specious reason to attack anyone, since it would apply to a good third of the countries in the world today, and organizations or individuals in a good many more, including those countries that consider themselves allies. If those were our only grounds for mounting attacks, we'd be very busy indeed.
Without clear and convincing evidence of Iraqi plans to attack the US in some way, shape, or form, it's difficult to make the case for attacking them. It also seems to require a misreading of Mubarek, when he says that expanding the war would be "counter-productive", to say that he only means that Cairo would riot. After all, one of the things that bin Laden was expecting was that Arab dissidents everywhere would rise up against US interests in their countries once the US retaliated. Our retaliation didn't take the form he expected, and their attack was, in fact, too effective -- destroying two of the world's largest buildings and killing a few thousand people is the sort of thing that tends to make other groups say, "You know what? You pissed off the big bully, and this time, you actually deserve what you're about to get. Leave us out of it." (Moreover, given what bin Laden has recently said about one goal being to make the US back away from Israel, their attack could be said to be singularly counter-productive; it's had the effect of forcing us to silence over Israel's own singularly counter-productive tactics. But I digress.)
Iraq hasn't taken that step, and there's no evidence that the administration has shown that Iraq will take that step, or one like it. Without that evidence, any major attack will simply be seen as the US flexing its muscles because it can, and not to prevent anything. (One imagines that the editors at al-Ahram would be truly apoplectic at the very concept. Now apparently everything's Israel's fault. Yeah. WhatEVER.)
Mind, I suspect that the administration hopes that the creative looming over the shoulder, as it were, will have some salutary effects. After all, it did so well with Yemen. (Sort of.) In any event, I also think that the administration would rather go after smaller fry, such as Somalia and Sudan, right now. Iraq is not something that we're prepared to deal with at this moment, especially as the administration is so badly divided. (Rather predictably between Defense and State.)
Posted by iain at 03:34 AM
My. You do get some remarkably different angles on a specific story from different newspapers, don't you?
Take, for example, the Court's new year's resolutions, so to speak. In the Tribune article, you get the impression that the Court's paramount concern is their own safety. (God wot, most of their security requests as presented in that article are one step above pointless. Most of the things they want will be taken care of further downstream, as it were; their mail will almost certainly be irradiated at some central federal mailzapping facility, and DC has generally stepped up security everywhere. There's been no sign of people wandering up and trying to shoot random justices -- and considering some of the right and left-wing loonies in this country's history, that's kind of remarkable, actually. With the possible exception of their own law clerks, every other person on the Court staff is Civil Service, and they've already HAD some sort of background and security checks, so why on earth are they doing it again?)
On the other hand, the San Jose Mercury version makes it look as if the Court's principal concerns were staffing and pay -- which, given the persistent vacancies in the district courts and courts of appeals, is at least understandable. And the whole security concern is reduced to a few lines about anthrax. The truth of what they want is probably somewhere in between, of course.
Posted by iain at 02:15 AM
First, peruse the joy that is the Bible Belt.
Administrivia: It looks like Moveable Type is alive on the site. It even allows me to organize the archives by month, which avoids the directory clutter that made Greymatter difficult to continue on with. Maybe it'll be around for a while. We'll see. The one thing I've discovered so far is that the bookmarklets feature is very particular, but other than that, not too bad.
No redesign at the moment. I know, that's against all the rules of bloggerdom -- a year with the same design! horrors! -- but frankly, getting this design to work AGAIN was such a pill that I don't want to tackle a redesign. Although I may tinker with the logo a bit later on.
Posted by iain at 01:37 AM
