... OK, that's different.
You know, somehow, I think most people would find it deeply disturbing to read fan fiction starring themselves. Especially as written by others. Especially with a photo of themselves in the theoretical nude as inspiration.
And yet, only PhD's seem to write it. Curious, that.
Posted by iain at 11:37 PM
NOLA.com: Court upholds 197-year-old sodomy law: Marking the latest lost battle for gay rights activists, the state Supreme Court refused to strike down Louisiana's 197-year-old ban on oral and anal sex Thursday, saying it would contradict a precedent set by the court on a similar challenge two years ago.
Well, there's a shock.
Though the high court reversed Gill-Jefferson's decision Thursday, it returned the suit to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal to address 11 other challenges, including discrimination, enforcement and other perceived stigmas related to lesbian, gay and transgender people that weren't addressed by the appellate court.
OK, that really is a shock. Why, if the state legislature has the right to allow this sort of intrusion into a person's bedroom, isn't that dispositive for all relevant issues? Why would the state supreme court feel the need to bounce it back down for hearings on other issues that will then be bounced back upstairs? Why not just dispose of the case, once and for all? Do they really want to see this case come back yet one more time?
I expect that, if the law ever does fall, it will fall for much the same reason that Georgia's law fell. A heterosexual couple will be engaging in activity of which some police do not approve -- and consensual sodomy will be a part of it. They'll challenge their arrests, and with a nice, heterosexual couple before them, the court will say that of COURSE the state doesn't have the right to regulate this!
Posted by iain at 03:21 PM
NGLTF - Policy Institute - Black Pride Survey 2000: Say It Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud gives one of the first and largest glimpses into a national, multicity sample of Black gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The study examines family structure, sexual identity, political behavior, experiences of racism and homophobic bias, and the policy priorities of more than 2,500 Black GLBT people that attended Black Gay Pride celebrations in nine cities during the summer of 2000.
You know, some of the stuff in that report is just fascinating. Many of the results are pretty much what you'd expect: racism and homophobia are strong concerns, HIV/AIDS is far more important to men than to women although of concern to all. Hate crimes are more important issues to women than to men. Health care is slightly less important to women, which is odd, considering as more of the women have children and historically women have more difficulty gaining access to health care. The shape of some of the responses is very peculiar, as well; for example, almost every social issue is considered fairly important by transgendered people -- or more important than by nontransgendered, in any event -- except for the sole issue of marriage and domestic partnership, which doesn't even seem to register on transgendered's radar. Peculiar, that.
Oh, and more transgendered and more men are conservative politically.
The hell ...? OK, I freely confess. I don't understand black conservatives. I don't understand gay conservatives. So black gay conservatives pretty much seem like the lunatic right fringe, really. Mind, it all depends on how they mean the term "conservative" (the respondents, that is, not the surveyors). I mean, if you're affiliated with the conservative right wing of the Republicans, and you're black AND gay, then you're pretty much lost. I can understand holding some conservative positions as an independent -- not to say that I'd necessarily agree with them, but that at least doesn't seem to involve quite so many deals with the devil. But given many stated Republican positions on issues of sexual difference, and given Republican actions when it comes to issues of race ... no, sir, I just don't get it. (And given that my reaction is not really atypical, I'll also bet that a lot of people were lying on the survey for "social desirability" reasons, and that the proportion is actually higher. Weird.) (And gay Republicans are so charming and polite in their public pronouncements, too ... I mentioned the whole "acute brain damage" thing going on with them right, yes? ... Just checking.)
That said, there seems to be something wrong with the BPS2000 interpretation of results here and there in the political section. For example, they say, "In nearly every category of political activity we asked about, except signing a petition, male respondents exceeded the level of participation indicated by women." Um ... according to the graphs, about 81-82% of women respondents voted in the 1996 presidential election, whereas about 57-58% of men did. The difference on petitions seems to be only about 3-4%. How on earth can you just blow past a 25% difference in presidential election voting as unimportant? Wouldn't you think that important enough to go into more detail?
The low number of transgendered respondents also seems to have done odd things to the shape of their results. (n=40 or less for most questions, whereas there were more than 1,000 each of men and women for each question.) For example, the transgendered show a sharply higher level of organizational attendance than do most men or women ... and in most cases, a sharply lower recognition of those same organizations' actual names. Those are not logically consistent results. I suspect that the low number of transgendered respondents was doing something bizarre to the proportions for some questions. (The gender differences when they asked what people thought those organizations did for civil rights is a hoot, frankly.)
The responses overall are illustrative, though, in that they show how we wind up piecing ourselves out. How we may think of ourselves as black first and then gay ... but not in all places or situations.
Posted by iain at 01:16 PM
A Technicality Becomes a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
I believe the only thing to say here is: Woops.
178 inmates possibly affected.
It's a good thing Symmington isn't still in office, because they would kick him out over this come next election.
Posted by iain at 02:53 PM
Newsday.com - Adam's Mark Withdraws Request: Executives at the Adam's Mark hotel chain have withdrawn their request for an early end to an anti-discrimination settlement reached with the Justice Department, saying the issue has become politicized by opponents of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Well, DUH. (You notice how a lot of stuff this week falls into the DUH category?)
Perhaps there's some way in which a request that would likely not have been made had Ashcroft not been attorney general would not have been politicized. I suppose it could happen. The only way I can think would have been if it hadn't come to light at all -- which, no doubt, was everyone's ardent hope.
Posted by iain at 12:59 PM
U.S. to seek death penalty for Moussaoui
(ENTRY UPDATED: 3:25pm. See end of entry.)
The French will not be pleased, I suspect.
To give our Lord High Minister of Injustice his due ... given that the death penalty was an option, given the crime that was committed and of which Moussaoui is suspected of being a part, I honestly don't see how Ashcroft could have done much else. Assuming that anything deserves the death penalty, how can that not? The only grounds on which this administration could have justified not seeking the death penalty would have been because the French requested that we not do so. I honestly cannot see any US president or attorney general sitting there and having to decide between offending France and offending pretty much everyone in this country and deciding any other way.
That said, the man is going to be found guilty and killed, of course. Whether or not he is an actual member of the conspiracy, whether or not he's guilty really doesn't matter much. He's accused, he's an Arab, he's here and he's someone we can blame who isn't already dead.
UPDATE: 3:25pm: Nope. The French are not at all pleased.
... France, which abolished capital punishment in 1981, said it would not accept the death penalty for Moussaoui. Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu said: "Under no circumstances shall we transmit a piece of evidence if it could be used to back up a death sentence."
It will be interesting to see what the practical effects of this are. As I understand it, the US is doing most of its own investigations in France, with French permission. That said, I would imagine that France will decide to withhold all cooperation on terrorism related matters, since they will almost all go toward proving death penalty cases.
Paper says it got bin Laden e-mail: An Arabic newspaper said Wednesday it had received an e-mail claiming to be from Osama bin Laden, attacking a Saudi peace plan for the Middle East and urging the region’s Muslims to revolt against their leaders.
Well.
Now that he's weighed in on it, we can all be assured that the Saudi peace plan completely sucks rocks, right?
(OK, I have to admit, just some of the concepts in this made me snicker. A “a Zionist-American [peace plan] in Saudi clothes.” Yes. Right. Quite.)
Assuming that the average Arabian could read or hear about this message -- and a great many of them are too damn poor to even worry about it -- I wonder what their response would be. What do you say when a man from one of your country's wealthiest families exhorts you to rise up against the controlling wealthy rulers of your country? Do you say, "Um ... yeah, I'll do that, right after I figure out whether or not we'll be able to eat anything this week." Do you say, "Oh, that sounds wonderful! ... oh, wait. Don't have a gun. Can't buy a gun. I could always infiltrate the palace as one of the servants and maybe do in one of them with a knife ... wait. Bodyguards. No, that won't work. Sorry, not today." Do you wonder at the chutzpah (or whatever the Arab word would be) of a man hiding more or less safely away, exhorting millions of desperately poor people to do his work for him? I mean, what?
And of course, in the few countries in the region where the wealth is a shade more balanced, most of the people would think, "Revolt? Whatever for? Hey, not my problem, thanks."
I daresay that bin Laden, if it was genuinely him, or whoever it is sending in his name, felt stirred to say something by the horrific headline: Arab Delegates Endorse Saudi's Mideast Peace Plan. After all, if they make peace with Israel, then they'll have time to concentrate on their internal problems in whatever manner they would. (Involving weaponry and more active repression, or conciliation of the more extreme factions, all of which Saudi Arabia is using in a frantic mad dance to keep the Sauds in power.) And that just would not be good for bin Laden, because then they just might root out some of his followers. (Except in Saudi Arabia, of course, which tries to ignore the fact that they exist ... unless they're paying to smuggle them out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, of course.) Not that the plan, as approved by the group at the meeting, has a snowball's chance. For one thing, about half the heads of state and/or government simply weren't present. And then, of course, there is the Palestinian refugee issue. The Council calls upon Israel to affirm "Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194." To be sure, the Initiative also says that the council, "Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries." Whatever that means. The one thing that seems definite is that the countries are saying, "Get those Palestinians out of my back yard!" but more than that is hard to determine. There is the practical issue that there is simply no room for all of the refugees in the West Bank and Gaza, and they know full well that Israel will not accept the Right of Return. It's a tricky dance; if they insist on something that they know cannot happen, they make the process look like it's mere window dressing ... and frankly, I suspect that at least from the Saudi side, it's a genuine attempt to do something. Not sure about anyone else, though. Most of the leaders in the other countries are in nowhere near as precarious a position as the House of Saud; they can afford to wax irate about the Intifada, without actually needing or wanting a peaceful solution. (Aside from getting rid of those damn Palestinians, that is. And, of course, this has gone on so long that many of the refugees are integrating into the countries in which they've been living, which is going to make their extraction problematic, at best.)
In the meantime, while setting forth this wondrous peace agreement, Saudi Arabia is building a secret missile base. Whatever for? If things got bad enough between Arabia and Israel that they thought it should be used, the Israelis would simply take the base out -- they're rather good at that sort of thing. They surely don't believe that any of their other neighbors will attack them -- the only one that's even vaguely likely would be Iraq, and that's fairly unlikely. If Iraq attacked, it would probably be in conjunction with attacks by the United States on Iraq itself ... and in that case, why would the Saudis need to add to things? There's no logical reason for this base to exist.
And just to demonstrate how meaningful both the Arab League meeting and the ongoing negotiations between Arafat and Israel actually are, Hamas decided to take out a Passover celebration in Netanya. Even if Arafat was relevant, the Palestinian Authority seems to have rejected Zinni's plan, and the Israelis hated it from the beginning, although they were muscled into accepting it. And now, of course, Israel is going to take reprisals on Palestinian refugees, most of whom had nothing to do with the attack, and the Palestinian Authority, which seems to have had nothing to do with the attack. One wonders if they've ever paid the least attention to the internal inconsistencies of their position; if they were in the same position, if their right wing was running around bombing Palestinians and Arabs (which it is, if considerably less frequently), they would say that they are a (more or less) free society, that although they do their best to stop these people, that they can't control everyone all the time. Things happen. And yet they're expecting more of a nominal government with considerably fewer resources.
Posted by iain at 12:03 PM
Amiga returns with AmigaOne PPC hardware
The hardware sounds lovely, really it does. But ... there isn't any software, is there? Not, like, modern productivity software, office suites and whatnot. Unless they can develop some killer applications and/or games, it's not even going to become a niche platform. They say they're going to add support for the Macintosh file systems, but that doesn't mean that it'll run Macintosh software. (And even if it would, unless it was hella cheaper, why would you try it?) Is there some specific purpose for which the Amiga is currently THE platform?
I just don't get it.
Posted by iain at 12:13 AM
Staying Alive: An AIDS vaccine should be our government's highest priority. So why is one researcher forced to seek funding from the War on Terrorism?
Hmm.
You know, even if the War on Terrorism and related things weren't severely distracting the government at this point in time, I don't believe that I would say that an AIDS vaccine should be its highest priority. And I say this as someone whose ox gets gored from more than one angle on this issue. Even if you take the point of view that the United States should be doing more to improve the world at large, just because we somehow owe it to the world to do so, I'm not certain that this would be what we should be doing. Even if you take the position that the US is obligated to do more purely from noblesse oblige, wouldn't doing more in terms of development, more in terms of working in countries to help them feed themselves, educate themselves make more sense? Things that could make more of a long-term difference would make more sense to me. (To say nothing of the fact that taking care of those things would do much to obviate the need for a vaccine in the first place.)
Then again, we ought to do more of that sort of thing here, too.
Posted by iain at 03:31 PM
Smoochy gets the kiss-off from kiddie show
OK.
I will concede that perhaps the poster is not the wisest advertising campaign. Especially in Canada. (Thankfully, we don't receive Ricky's Room in most of the US, so we're spared this particular problem.)
(The "Death to Smoochy" web site, however, is a bizarre, foul-mouthed hoot. For grownups. I thought the Robin Williams part of the site was going to make me laugh myself sick.)
I will even concede that perhaps, in this interconnected age, Warner Brothers might have considered what would happen if kids did reach its web site for the movie. (What, ain't they never heard of RSAC? PICS?)
However, frankly, some Canadians are ... peculiar.
"When the World Trade Center fell, it was like a movie happening," he says. "But when a mascotted character like Barney gets his head blown off, that's real. It's real violence on their level. To [kids], this movie is Sept. 11."
Um-hmm. Yes. Right. Well. One might consider that kids that age wouldn't be allowed to see the film, and any parent that would allow a very young child who would be disturbed by it to see it would be, you know, brain-damaged or negligent or something along those lines.
Warner Bros. has acknowledged that it has received from Barker a mission statement (along with an enclosed Beanie Baby). "We cannot stop you from opening your movie," it reads, "but we will do whatever we can to make sure that moviegoers boycott your film. In order to avoid this protest, we would like Executive representatives of your company to issue a public apology to all of the families, parents, and especially children who have been (or will be) offended by the premise and style of your film. This is not a 'threat', but rather a friendly suggestion that will help appease our anger." Barker's statement does not mention that she is affiliated with Ricky's Room, which, Deverett concedes, "maybe was an error in judgment."
"A friendly suggestion." Yeah. Right. Perhaps it was.
Geez, people, get a grip.
And now Warner Brothers is considering its response. I'm thinking that a dignified silence is about the only thing it could get away with here.
Posted by iain at 03:05 PM
Debate still continues on prescribing drugs: New Mexico is the first state to allow specially trained psychologists to prescribe psychotropic drugs like Prozac, Zoloft and others used to treat mental disorders. [...] Elaine LeVine, chairman of the New Mexico Psychological Association's Task Force on Prescriptive Authority, said psychologists who want to prescribe drugs will get plenty of training. She said a program at New Mexico State University offers licensed, doctoral-level psychologists the same training as non-M.D.s who are allowed to prescribe drugs in New Mexico - nurse practitioners, psychiatric nurses, physician assistants, podiatrists, dentists, clinical pharmacists, optometrists and clinical nurse specialists.
Just when I start giving up on my old home state as a hopelessly benighted backwater, they pop up and do something like this.
It's perfectly understandable that they would move this way, given the lack of clinical psychiatrists in the state. When a lack becomes acute enough, you start looking at unusual solutions.
Psychiatrists, rather predictably, are distressed. They're upset that it doesn't require more preliminary training, specific coursework, in-hospital supervision ... in short, that it's not a psychiatric residency program.
Frankly, if they want to move to those back-of-beyond places in the state and set up shop, and are somehow being kept out, then maybe they might have a valid point ... wait, what's that? You want to stay in cities where you have a larger clientele and more lucrative practice?
Then either help make this program more effective or shut the hell up.
Thing is, there will be mistakes. There will undoubtedly be horrible mistakes. That's because psychology and psychiatry are the least exact of the sciences; when you're dealing with the insides of someone's head, there's only so much that you can predict. But at a certain level, when the need is enough, isn't it better to do something than to do nothing and hope that it will all work out somehow? Clearly, it hasn't, or they wouldn't be taking this path.
Posted by iain at 01:33 PM
USS Clueless - Are we alone?: I think that part of it is that as an American I have begun to feel that the rest of the world doesn't really understand the gravity of the situation. Not having been on the receiving end of an attack of their own, they perhaps can't understand just how angry we all are about it.
Ahem.
I would like to point out that, as compared with the rest of the world, we are very late indeed to the terrorism game. To be sure, most terrorist groups in other countries are domestic, rather than foreign. Nonetheless, Spain has the Basque terrorists, France has -- or had -- Algerian terrorists, Britain has the IRA, Algeria itself has a poisonous civil war going on, Peru and the Shining Path, Columbia and the drug lords ... even Japan has more recent experience with the Amshim Rikio terrorists and the saran gas attacks, and so on and so on.
It's not that we have had no experience with terrorism. It's that our domestic terrorist groups went quiet after that period in the 70s when they, along with everyone else, were attacking and bombing. Most of our more recent bombers and whatnot have been lone lunatics. We went through a 30-year quiet spell when we only had to think of terrorism as either something that happened to somebody else, or something that happened overseas. Even when we were hit by terrorists ourselves, as with the embassy bombings or the USS Cole, it wasn't here. We got to thinking of the "homeland" as ... safe. Insulated.
Conversely, Europeans and others have had to deal with terrorism -- on an admittedly different scale -- on a more regular basis. They've managed to integrate aspects of dealing with it into their daily lives. For example, most Americans, if they see a bag or box on a commuter train, think simply, "Oh, someone left that bag/box/whatever." Even now, they think that. Most Israelis, on the other hand, would call out the bomb squad. Probably a fair number of Europeans, too.
It's really quite parochial to say that other countries haven't experienced attacks of their own. Many of them -- even most of them -- have lived this type of thing for years.
That said, none of them have had to deal not only with an abrupt yank into everyone else's reality, but one on this scale. Frankly, I suspect that many don't quite understand how the sheer scale affected us -- and why should they? It's one thing to deal with daily bombings, daily murders -- it's another to deal with more than 2,000 of them all at once. After all, the last major foreign attack on the continental United States, Civil War aside, was in the War of 1812 -- the Battle of New Orleans in 1814, I believe. (You thought I was going to say Pearl Harbor, didn't you? Nope.)
And among those that seem to understand the shock of the experience, they seem a tad worried about our collective sanity -- although less so now than they were at first.
Probably right to be worried, too.
Posted by iain at 11:45 AM
YES Says No to Cablevision Proposal
I truly wish that the Cubs would try a boneheaded move like this. It'll never happen -- the Tribune Company owns both the Cubs and the broadcast WGN, so unless they decide that they want to alienate the entire city, there's absolutely no need to do this -- but I seriously wish they would. It would be so nice to get the Cubs off the air.
Yes, I know. Not liking baseball on television is positively UnAmerican. No doubt a committee will investigate me. But the fact remains that baseball on television is one of the best sleeping pills known to mankind -- second only to golf -- and that it screws the hell out of perfectly good television that might actually be interesting to watch. The games all last nearly as long as your average Oscar telecast.
Now being at a game is an entirely different thing. I don't even like baseball, and I will admit that being at a game with your friends, with the crowd, that's all a fun time.
Well, OK, I wouldn't go to a Cubs game. My idea of "fun" contains actual enjoyment in there, somewhere. Being taunted by drunken fans is not my idea of enjoying anything: July 8: Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell writes that she was taunted with racial slurs after leaving a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Mitchell writes that she was about to give money to black drummers outside the ballpark when a crowd of white men began chanting “Aunt Jemima” and were “soon joined by the drummers.” Racism is about “disrespect,” she writes. (To be sure, Ms Mitchell received an official apology from the Cubs ... but then, the Cubs didn't actually do the taunting, did they? And why on earth would Jamaican drummers call a black woman "Aunt Jemima"? What the hell?)
Posted by iain at 11:20 AM
With Psychic Friends Like These ... "So no one complains that the person at the other end of the phone isn't truly psychic?" I ask, astonished. "No," says Mack. And "no," confirms David Aronberg, the assistant attorney general in Florida. Apparently people don't like to look stupid. They will tell you they were overcharged but not that they believe in phone psychics. Which means these callers either believe the soothsayers are real, or they know they are being lied to and just don't want to pay too much for that privilege.
Well, really, that's not terribly surprising. First, can you actually imagine any arm of the state -- local, state or federal, take your pick -- going into court to try to prove that someone is or is not psychic? First, they would have to find someone with established credentials in measuring psychic abilities and phenomena, someone that a court would accept as an expert. Second, they would have to actually admit that such a thing exists. Third, they would have to use these standards and people to prove that the phone psychics weren't psychic at all. And fourth, they'd have to get through the case without making the judge and jury snicker all the way through. Nope, nope nope. The whole psychic claim is a loser all around. Besides, you can reach the deception issue -- as the states and FTC, in fact, did -- without reaching the psychic issue at all. Why go for the overkill when the overkill will just make you look stupid?
Hey, if all this gets Miss Cleo to stop lobbing mailbombs at me, I'm all for it. Week after week, day after day, one message after another about how she needs to talk to me RIGHT NOW! Which would be fine if I'd ever talked to her in the first place. I don't want to Call Her Now! I just want her to shut the hell up!
Posted by iain at 10:27 AM
media relations / March 26, 2002: oscar! oscar ... oscar?
My one and only statement about The Great Social Event that was the 2002 Oscars. Get it while it's fresh! Get it while it's hot!
Posted by iain at 04:49 PM
Industry got top access in energy talks: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met 10 times with representatives of energy companies and other industries while the Bush administration worked on its energy policy, but he apparently met with no environmental or consumer groups during that same period, according to documents released Monday as part of an environmental lawsuit. [...] But specifics from much of the 11,000 pages released Monday under court order were edited out of the documents. The government said the redaction was permissible under the Freedom of Information Act, but critics accused the administration of withholding key information.
I believe, once again, the thing to say to both parts of this is: Well, DUH.
Given the low opinion this administration has of those who didn't donate ... OK, that's probably entirely too cynical.
... Nah.
In any event, it is safe to say that this administration has a certain disdain for consumer groups, activist groups, and the public at large. (Considering as most of the public at large voted for the other guy, this is hardly surprising. A festival of mutual dislike, if you will.) Therefore, in crafting an energy law, it's only natural (if reprehensible) that they would only talk to their old cronies and donors.
As for the redactions, considering how hard the administration fought to keep from releasing this information at all, is it remotely surprising that they'd release as little as they could, and make it as uninformative as possible?
Posted by iain at 02:51 PM
Three top U.S. companies were named in a lawsuit filed on behalf of black Americans descended from slaves. It is the first class action suit seeking reparations from firms for profiting from slavery. Insurance company Aetna, FleetBoston financial services group and CSX, a railroad operator, were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a 36-year-old black activist.
Oh, good grief.
You know, even if it's true that all those companies benefited in some way from slavery, it's also true that their direct actions ended more than 100 years ago. There's nobody left alive who benefited. There's nobody left alive who was directly harmed. Putative harm or benefit will be impossible to prove at this late date. I can't imagine that, even with the best will in the world, any company will pay anything on this; public embarrassment may get you an apology, but it's not likely to get you the money. If this case even makes it into court, I will be thoroughly shocked.
In the meanwhile, just the fact that the reparations issue is neither dying nor being discussed publicly in a way that finally disposes of the issue is doing real harm:
Some African-American leaders have been asserting for years that descendants of American slaves are entitled to reparations from Uncle Sam. Right or wrong, no law to that effect has been passed. But that didn’t stop 80,000 African-Americans from filing claims for reparations last year, up from 11,000 the year before, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS calls it the biggest tax scam to date. Yet the agency admits it’s shelled out more than $1 million to people claiming the non-existent “Black Investment Tax.” Individual checks apparently ranged from $40,000 to $100,000. The recipients had better not spend the money. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports the IRS is actively seeking refunds of those refunds.
Wonderful. People are making claims for money to which they are not legally entitled, the IRS in its stupidity is paying them, and then everyone gets caught up in the pain when the IRS realizes it's been stupid and has to get the money back. If this issue would just get handled one way or another, then this could stop. (For that matter, since this has to be handled with a separate form, why doesn't the IRS print, in big letters on that very form, and in the handbook for the form, and in the handbook for the 1040 and 1040A, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE "BLACK INVESTMENT TAX". I mean, you'd think that when they'd paid out a few hundred thousand on it, they'd take a simple step like that, wouldn't you? Stick it on the cover or inside front cover of the handbook, put it on the form on the appropriate line, do something so that people might know what's going on. But they don't.)
Posted by iain at 02:25 PM
Bullfighting comes to Texas: A 30-foot circle of dirt in the midst of Webb County's lonely brushland is being hailed as Texas' first dedicated bullring and bullfighting school. [...] Since U.S. law prohibits fight-to-kill bullfights, all fights at Santa Maria will be bloodless. The traditional three-act structure will remain intact, but blunt sticks will be used instead of barbed. Since bulls learn the game quickly, they are considered lethal before their second fight. Once a bull has fought once at Santa Maria, it will go on to a gentler career with rodeo clowns. In that, something is lost, David Renk said. "Even when they are charging and they are charging real hard. It’s left empty," he said. "The act is not finished."
I didn't know that it was legal at all in the US. And I'm sure that the rodeo clowns will appreciate receiving a pissed off and dangerous hunk of cattle just ever so much.
And speaking of Texas (as long as we're wandering through the Valley Star):
Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico is required to deliver 350,000 acre-feet of water into the Rio Grande from the Rio Conchos and other northern Mexico tributaries each year. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, the amount necessary to cover one acre of land, one-foot deep with water. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, Mexico owes the United States almost 1.5 million acre-feet of water. Additionally, Mexico has released only half of the 600,000 acre-feet of water it promised under a minute order signed by Bush and Fox in March 2001.
How on earth did it work out that Mexico has to put water into the Rio Grande when they're mostly downstream from us? Yes, the river does form the border between Texas and Mexico, but nonetheless, most of the water is taken out of it in Colorado and New Mexico. What on earth is Mexico supposed to put back? Especially during what seems to be a North American drought -- everywhere south of the Canadian border except the Northwest and Northeast corners of the US seems to be having one -- where is Mexico supposed to find the water to put back into it? The river runs dry by the time it gets to the gulf, most years. In fact, most summers, the river is substantially dry at Albuquerque (spring floods don't last long) -- I can't imagine that there's much noteworthy happening in the river by the time it reaches Texas.
Sad thing is, the Rio Grande was once the mightiest river in the West. Hundreds of years ago, of course. The Spaniards wrote about having been able to send small ships up the river, about it being so wide that it couldn't be forded because there simply weren't any crossable fords. It's completely unnavigable now; anyone trying to put a boat into it ... well, there's really no place you could put a boat in it. In Colorado and northern New Mexico, it's too rough, and south of that, there's just not enough water.
Posted by iain at 02:01 PM
Overshadowed scandal: This is the 10-year anniversary of the season that Michigan's Fab Five team, one of the most popular in college basketball history, ran to the national championship game. And what is being done to commemorate the achievement?
The school is considering taking down its two Final Four banners and returning the money it earned from the 1992 and '93 NCAA tournaments.
''It's premature to go there,'' Michigan athletic director Bill Martin said Monday. ''But those are things that obviously will be discussed.''
It has not only been discussed already, but also suggested by former longtime UM athletic director Don Canham. ''The entire era of the Fab Five was a disgrace to the University of Michigan,'' Canham told the Detroit Free Press. ''These are probably the most flagrant violations where money is involved in the history of intercollegiate athletics.''
The Fab Five's legacy, if anyone notices, is in jeopardy over alleged loans that star player Chris Webber and others received from former auto worker Ed Martin--no relation to UM's Bill Martin--who has been indicted on charges of money-laundering, conspiracy and running an illegal gambling business.
U-M pledges to uncover all in probe of booster: Martin said he was shocked by allegations unsealed last week in a federal indictment that accused former U-M booster Eddie Martin of loaning more than $600,000 to four U-M players from the 1990s. [...] "The amounts were staggering," Martin said of the alleged loans to former stars Chris Webber, Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock. "We've got to do what's right, even if the NCAA does not do what's right. This is a major case."
(In theory, I suppose I should disclose that I'm a UM grad school graduate. However, my sum involvement with the athletic program in any way shape or form was being pissed off at my landlord for selling parking next to my apartment for football games and not telling me, dealing with the utter gridlock and hazard to pedestrian existence that Ann Arbor becomes during football season, and getting to go to class the day after they teargassed our classrooms for no good reason the night that UM lost the national title basketball game. So I'm not terribly well disposed to UM athletics generally. You wuz warned.)
Well, well, well.
It will be interesting to see how far the NCAA decides to take this. For one thing, given the amounts involved, I can't imagine that it's limited to only the basketball program -- although that's only a guess. But given the amounts involved, the only reasonable thing for the NCAA to do, if the allegations are proven, is to subject Michigan basketball to the "death penalty". They've already served probation related to these charges, and the NCAA will justifiably be furious that all of these charges didn't come out during the initial investigation.
That said, I would find it highly unlikely that the NCAA would subject a Big Ten program to the death penalty, however well deserved. It took Southern Methodist a long string of probations before the NCAA finally said, "Enough!" Tulane subjected its programs to the death penalty, but that was self imposed, and involved points shaving and the like. There is currently no such allegation regarding these programs.
That said, given the amounts, I think that it would be understating the case to say that there is "a lack of institutional control", which is one of the things that tends to make the NCAA impose heavy sanctions. If the charges are proven, Michigan is likely to be on probation in basketball for a good long time, and they will have a miserable time rebuilding the program.
Yet another argument for banning intercollegiate athletics at this level and of this type. It's never going to happen, of course. As long as they're highly visible programs which pull in alumni donations, they'll never go away. We should have developmental and farm leagues for every sport -- it's notable that scandals like this simply don't seem to happen in baseball, which is the only one of the major sports with an extensive introductory professional level. (Of course, it's also notable that nobody pays attention to collegiate baseball -- it's baffling that a sport can be so adored at the Little League and professional levels, and so utterly ignored in between.) Intercollegiate athletics should be on something like the Division 2 or Division 3 level -- scholarships for those who can't afford to get to college any other way, but not big-time sports.
Posted by iain at 01:30 PM
Supreme Court case could shorten thousands of sentences
All right, I'm confused. How can you possibly have a situation in which you plead guilty before a judge and then have to call in a jury to decide the sentence? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you've gone through a trial, they've actually heard the case, and then there's a sentence in which the jury has a role, then yes, it makes sense, but otherwise, why? That said, if aggravators require a jury, then if someone pleads guilty to a crime, it only makes sense that absent a jury, the judge cannot be allowed to consider aggravators. Which will also discourage prosecutors from offering certain deals, which will produce some interesting results in the system. (If the only way a prosecutor is going to get aggravated circumstances is to go to trial, that's what they'll do, but that also introduces a bit of chance into the system. After all, most sensible juries would not have found aggravated circumstances in the fact that the man had a holstered gun strapped to his hip; that would be utterly absurd.)
And it sounds as if Breyer feels that the original case was wrongly decided, but also feels that since it was wrongly decided, they need to follow its precedent. Which also makes no sense whatsoever. (A side note: I am vastly amused by the states arguing, "If you uphold Apprendi, this means that we'll have to release a bunch of people early!" The proper response to that being, "Yeah? So? You expect us to subvert the Constitution for your administrative convenience? Tough. If we decide that only a jury can determine whether or not aggravated circumstances apply, that means those people were wrongly sentenced in the first place. Get a grip.")
This is going to be one of those cases with a badly divided court and horrendous law coming out of it, I have a feeling.
The somewhat more important case heard by the Court was Bell v. Cone (More technically speaking, Cone vs the State of Tennessee.) The Court may wind up effectively deciding whether or not lawyers trying capital cases are required to be death-qualified. Again, it looks like it's going to be nasty. Scalia, predictably, is on the "kill 'em now and stop asking questions" side. Stevens, also predictably, is on the, "Why the hell didn't the lawyer do what I would have wanted him to do had I been the defendant" side. (You have no idea how hard it was to phrase both positions in remotely equally prejudicial ways.) It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the court falls out; given various pubilc pronouncements over the past few months, I suspect that Queen Sandra will be the lynchpin of this decision, whether she wants to be or not. (And no sensible person would want to be, on something like this.)
Posted by iain at 12:22 AM
Web Delivers for Papers: The New York Times' site, nytimes.com, last year generated 85,000 paid subscriptions to the paper's print edition, while sister publication The Boston Globe sold 15,000 via Boston.com. [...] The Wall Street Journal's WSJ.com, which restricts most of its content to online subscribers, combined with sister sites such as OpinionJournal.com to sell 26,000 subscriptions to the paper last year.
I have to admit, that's a surprise. A shock, even. One of the reasons I prefer online newspapers is not having to deal with the paper subscription -- the physical paper, I mean. It would never have occurred to me to reverse that and then subscribe.
Mind, I'm not sure what I would do if all the newspapers I read online decided to start charging for all content. One newspaper I read did, in fact, decide to start charging, and I stopped reading; however, that wasn't so much because of the charge -- it really isn't entirely obnoxious, although for non subscribers to the paper version, it's pretty stiff -- but because of the way it was handled, with no notice of the change whatsoever. I figure anyone who doesn't tell me and give me a chance to purchase before they convert a free resource doesn't really want my business.
Of course, the Jupiter Media Matrix study, indicating that the bulk of online users won't pay for content, is buried in the middle of that. Overall, though, what it seems to amount to is that people will pay for content that's important enough; you just have to make it important to them. Which is, of course, the tricky bit.
Posted by iain at 11:34 PM
Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders: It's unclear why Hollings, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce committee and an ardent supporter of the movie studios' attempts to rid the Internet of piracy, chose to draft the CBDTPA so broadly.
Because Disney asked him to, you stupid yutz. Why else would this law even exist, never mind in that form? If this law was not drafted in close consultation with Disney and other entertainment conglomerate lawyers, I will be truly astonished. After all, given that they've paid for it, you think they'd want to make sure they get what they're paying for. I'm sure they don't expect it to survive in its current form, but they always say that you should start by asking for better than your best case scenario, co that you have room to negotiate.
Posted by iain at 12:22 PM
OK, before you think I've gone insane, let me explain: every year about this time, my site starts getting hammered by search requests for "Oscar dresses". I have no idea why, as I never mention the things. I note from the referrer logs that it is, once again, happening this year. However, I have finally decided to have pity on the poor searchers who are being bounced over here by Google and Altavista for reasons known only to search engine logic, and give them something to find.
Go hog wild, y'all.
Posted by iain at 12:04 PM
Mugabe launches fresh round of farm seizures: The Government of Zimbabwe has said it will seize hundreds more white farms, despite rising international pressure on President Robert Mugabe after his controversial election victory. The government has published a list of 388 farms, including ranches owned by South Africa's wealthy Oppenheimer family, for seizure. [...] The Government also announced plans yesterday for massive food imports. The country is facing starvation due to drought and the chaos which has followed the occupation of white-owned farms.
Yep. Those sanctions, kicking Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth, they all seem to be working real well, don't they?
What I want to know is, massive food imports from whom? How will they be handled? How will they be distributed? The potential for corruption-induced famines is fairly strong, I would think.
Hundreds of white farmers, including former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith, and black farm labourers attended a moving funeral Friday for slain white farmer Terry Ford in Zimbabwe. Ford was assaulted with axes and run over by a car before he was shot five times at his farm near the capital overnight Sunday. Four of his assailants appeared before a magistrate court Thursday and were not asked to enter their plea.
Mugabe’s sister harassed white farmer for land before murder: MURDERED Zimbabwean farmer Terry Ford’s property was targeted for occupation by President Robert Mugabe’s oldest sister, Sabina , local farmers and the country’s Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said. Sabina Mugabe, the ZANU-PF MP for her brother’s home area of Zvimba, and a so-called war veteran leader named Agness Rusike together led a terror campaign against farmers and their workers in Mr Ford’s Norton area 16 months ago, the CFU said.
And that augurs well for the successful prosecution of those arrested for Mr Ford's murder, now doesn't it? I'm not at all surprised they were asked not to enter a plea. After all, what's the point?
Posted by iain at 01:38 AM
Tights and corsets may feel pinch in trade war with US: THE United States and Europe moved closer to a full-blown trade war last night when the European Commission outlined its plans to combat America's new steel tariffs with measures designed to inflict maximum political damage on President Bush. [...] The list targets 2.4 billion (£1.5 billion) worth of products from states considered electorally crucial to Mr Bush or to his Republican party's chances in November's congressional elections.
I assume, for the sake of argument, that the list is meant for maximum publicity (much like the tariffs themselves), since November is far too soon for them to be all that effective. Although if the fight lasts long enough, I suppose there could be some damage done for the next election cycle, the one where the Shrub himself is up for election.
The problem is this: although the politicians will notice and may or not be perturbed by this, most people, even in those states, may not know or care that much. To the extent that they do, it's likely to increase the Shrub's support, for sticking it to anyone who wants to screw with our industries! So what if they retaliate? We gotta Support Our Shrub!
What may have a bit more of an effect is the broadbased nature of the indignation about these tariffs. Not only Europe, but Russia and Japan, Brazil and New Zealand as well. (Chicken legs? Our biggest export to Russia is chicken legs? Yow. Who knew?)
The part that I find thoroughly impressive is that the tariffs that the EU has put on US steel only take effect when we exceed the levels we've sent the past few years. In other words, as long as the steel industry is willing to tolerate no growth in Europe, the reciprocal tariffs don't take effect at all. Way to hurt people! Yeah, that's the ticket!
To the extent that they're effective, they'll contribute to whatever's left of our recession. (Which, technically, we didn't have one of, since there was only one quarter of contraction, but never mind.) And since, whether we want to be or not, we seem to be the economic engine driving the West, that's probably not in their interest, either.
Posted by iain at 01:11 AM
So.
Remember the Kerkorians' child support court fight commentary from earlier this year? Lisa Kerkorian wanted a cool $320,000 per month in child support to support her child in the style to which she wished her to become accustomed.
Well.
The fight that couldn't get more stupid GOT more stupid.
Former tennis pro Lisa Bonder Kerkorian took her billionaire ex-husband to court on Thursday, seeking more than $500,000 for legal expenses arising from her quest for a record-setting $320,000 in monthly child support. [...] The allegations against Lisa Kerkorian, 37, include fraud, deceit and faking a DNA test. Kirk is accused of using his wealth and power to crush her in court. During a contentious daylong hearing, attorneys disclosed that Kirk Kerkorian, 84, could not be Kira's biological father. The reason: He's sterile. And in court documents, one of Lisa Kerkorian's friends raised the possibility that Kira's father is a Hollywood writer/producer who is involved in another paternity dispute. [...] Lisa insisted until recently that Kira was Kirk's child, and that she had results of a DNA test to prove it. Now, she says, everybody knew all along that he couldn't be the father. She's admitting in court papers that she lied about Kirk's paternity, but claims it was part of a mutual plot they hatched to give the corporate raider a more cuddly image.
Oooo-Kay. Cuddly. Corporate raider. 50 year age difference between them. Cuddly. Right. Apparently "cuddly" has come to mean "so creepy that you want to run screaming into the woods". Who knew?
Frankly, if I were the judge, I think I'd look at the two of them, say, "Well, you're all very unpleasant people," remove custody of Kira from BOTH of them and give her to a common golddigger off the streets, along with a good half-million per month in support. Heaven knows, some schlub from the streets couldn't care for her much less than these two people seem to.
Posted by iain at 12:56 AM
Sex without consent is judged to be rape.
It took Scotland until the year 2002 to figure THAT out? Good grief.
Air Force watching academy waivers : Top Air Force officials said Wednesday they will begin carefully monitoring the Air Force Academy's admission practices. The move comes after an Air Force study found a growing number of entering cadets are below academic minimums, compromising not only the academy but the Air Force. The confidential study revealed 277 freshman cadets, or 21 percent of the Class of 2005, were let into the academy without meeting the academic standards, a figure four times higher than that of 15 years ago. Of the 277 waivers, 165 were granted to athletic recruits.
You know, the sad thing is, Air Force Academy athletic recruits are generally overachievers, in their own way. For one thing, they have to contend with size restrictions -- cockpit sized bodies needed for a lot of things, you know. And Air Force is a demanding school.
On top of that, AFA is dealing with several thorny, issues. At other universities, most of them would be minor (the pornography, as such, would likely not be an issue at most universities), but at Air Force, they're more problematic.
Cadet Robert Ryan Burdge, 22, was among the nation's best and brightest, a well-rounded young man with an exceptional future. His future now, after pleading guilty Tuesday to consensual sodomy with a 13-year-old girl, is as a registered sex offender and convicted criminal. [...] Cadet crime is at record levels, and the charges are nasty: drug possession and use, sexual misconduct, theft and possession of pornography. The worst drug scandal in the academy's history broke last fall. Fourteen cadets were accused of using or dealing Ecstasy and LSD; eight were court-martialed. Six others left the academy or were discharged, and 24 were punished for knowing about the drug activity but not reporting it. Another cadet was convicted of credit card theft. Three more cases are pending. [...] While the number of cadets charged with crime is statistically insignificant - 13 out of 4,280 cadets in the past 12 months - the damage to the academy's reputation is not.
A side note: It's interesting the difference that presentation can make in how you perceive something. For example, take Cadet Burge, mentioned in the above article. No other real details about him are mentioned in that story, which leads one to believe that he had consensual, if very illegal, anal sex with a 13-year-old girl. The Guardian article, without ever explitly saying so, nonetheless leaves the impression that the issue was homosexual sodomy, because most people aren't aware that you can be charged with heterosexual sodomy, and would be baffled at the very thought. (And, to be sure, the military generally doesn't make that charge unless it needs to find a way to make some charge stick, and that's about the only one available.) It's only when you go to another Denver Post story altogether that you discover that [1] the "sodomy" was oral sex, and [2] he thought she was 16. [Mind, that he thought she was older doesn't really help much; what the hell is a 22 year old doing looking for 16-year-olds to have sex with?])
Posted by iain at 02:41 PM
Lebanon's Daily Star: EDITORIAL - The last of the Arab summits?
A remarkably cynical assessment of the current state of the world, focusing on the Middle East in particular.
To be sure, if nuclear or chemical/biological weapons are used in the next attack on the US, I suspect that any administration would find it extraordinarily difficult to keep from responding in kind. (Although responding in kind against whom would be the question, since it's extremely unlikely that most states would have had anything directly to do with the attack, and it's manifestly unreasonable to kill an entire country or city for an attack that does any less.) I doubt that we would respond in that way to any less a provocation, however.
If the attitudes about the US are cynical, the attitudes about the author's own Arab world are even more so.
But Their Majesties and Excellencies appear to live in a different world. All the Arab leaders are preoccupied with their own survival games, even if they give the impression that their overriding concern is the Palestinian cause. Thus, critics of Saudi Arabia say the real purpose of Crown Prince Abdullah’s initiative on peace in Palestine is to facilitate a “reconciliation” that can rebuild the shared American-Saudi home, whose foundations bin Laden managed to partly undermine. And Syria’s opponents stress that its reservations about the Saudi initiative, and the new (US-sponsored) UN Security Council Resolution 1397, which envisions the creation of a Palestinian state, stem from Damascus’s fear that they might bring the intifada to an end, and thus make it easier for the US to concentrate on bludgeoning Iraq first, then Syria. Even Egypt, which one would have expected to be fully on board the Saudi initiative, seems extremely upset that the Saudis acted without consulting Cairo, thus potentially jeopardizing Egypt’s leadership role in the region. And there is, of course, no need to point out that all the Iraqis, Lebanese, Libyans, Algerians and other Arabs want from the summit is to avoid appearing provocative on the American radar screen, no more and no less. [...] The region is set to face radical transformations that appear inevitable in 2002, and may lead to the emergence of a new regional order not just from the ruins of the dictatorial regime in Iraq, but perhaps also from the dismantling and restructuring of a number of the currently existing Arab entities. Yet, the Arab leaders are immersed in the illusion that the remnants of the old order can be preserved, unchanged and unaltered. This is what prompts one to suspect that the Beirut summit might prove to be the last Arab summit in two senses: First, because by next year we may be looking at new maps, bearing new political flags, in which the Israeli and Turkish colors predominate. Secondly, because one consequence of the March 27-28 summit which is universally expected to be far removed from the aspirations of the Arab peoples could be to hammer the last nail into the coffin of the Arab regimes’ legitimacy.
To be honest, I can't imagine what partitioned Lebanon could do to appear provocative on our radar screen. Or, indeed, at all. Perhaps harboring a terrorist group that carries out an effective attack, but I would suspect that Syria and Israel are both taking steps to prevent that, to the extent that they can. And under what circumstances could Turkey, of all countries, wind up dominating a region it's trying desperately to pretend it's not a part of? (A restoration of the Ottoman empire, at this late date?)
In any event, it looks as if there may be other obstacles in the way of restoring the American-Saudi rapprochement:
Despite initial steps, Saudi Arabia continues to tolerate the transfer of finances to Al Qaida insurgents. U.S. intelligence sources said Saudi princes are believed to be funding the flight of Al Qaida agents from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf and Middle East. They said the princes have paid millions of dollars for the escape of hundreds of Al Qaida and Taliban members from Afghanistan through Iran and to the Persian Gulf. Many of those who fled Afghanistan, the sources said, are Saudis or those who had been sponsored by the House of Saud.
This is going to be one of those things that both sides can pretend to live with as long as it floats under the public radar. Once a specific detailed charge is made and/or can be proven, then the administration is going to be put in the untenable position of having to do something about Saudi Arabia, and the House of Saud is going to be forced to publicly pick a side. And it's going to be fairly gruesome all around, at the least in an economic sense, and possibly in a more literal sense.
Canada's National Post discusses Iraq's military and its abilities in some remarkable detail. Iraq's military is some considerably smaller than it was ten years ago, and less capable, but that doesn't mean that, should we go to war against them, beating them will be easy. (A side note: You know, it seems that the Gulf War was a variation on a theme of Versailles. Iraq's army was defeated mostly out of sight of the people of Iraq. The peace agreements, such as they were, have only spurred Iraqi resentment, and provoked them to rearm, to the extent that they can. And it's to the point where, should we actually go to war against them again, we'll need to somehow take Baghdad to convince all sides that it's actually done this time. And then we'll have to rebuild Iraq because, as we're rapidly discovering in Afghanistan, a poor, violent and unstable country is nobody's friend.)
Posted by iain at 12:21 PM
Our Lord High Minister of Injustice strikes again ... or does he?
Justice Dept. Weighs Lifting Antibias Order on Hotel Chain: Justice Department officials said today that they were considering ending an order requiring a hotel chain to comply with an antidiscrimination settlement imposed after complaints that its hotel in Daytona Beach, Fla., discriminated against black guests by making them wear neon-orange wristbands and assigning them to lower quality rooms at higher prices. [...] The HBE Corporation is owned by Fred S. Kummer Jr., a longtime friend and political supporter of Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former senator and governor from Missouri. Barbara Comstock, a spokesman for the attorney general, said today that neither Mr. Ashcroft nor any of his immediate staff members had any involvement in the case.
All right. I'll concede that it may be possible that there was no direct intervention by Ashcroft of his staff in this case. Is there anyone out there who believes that his friendship with this person didn't matter? That it somehow didn't filter down that Ashcroft would not find it distressing if his good friend's odious compliance order somehow just went away? The plain fact is, the compliance order didn't go into place until late 2000, and to end it after so short a time is almost unprecedented.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, at least, is not amused:
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday for a "full and complete explanation" of the Justice Department's decision to consider an early termination of an agreement the department signed with the Adam's Mark hotel chain to end a prominent race-discrimination case two years ago. [...] Adam's Mark owner Fred S. Kummer Jr., his family, his employees and his company donated a total of $30,200 to Ashcroft's Senate campaigns. Lawyers in the case said that he boasted of his ties to Ashcroft and that he acknowledged expecting better treatment now than what he had received during the Clinton administration. But Kummer also said that Ashcroft did not involve himself in the Adam's Mark case after he took office.
I do wonder what The Shrub thinks of all this. He seems to be, in some ways, relatively hands-off on some aspects of his administration, but that means that his cabinet officers keep blindsiding him, which can't be good.
Posted by iain at 11:18 AM
U.S. dubs Al Aqsa Brigades `terrorist': A downcast Yasser Arafat appeared on Palestinian TV last night and under heavy American pressure read out, in Arabic, a "vehement" condemnation of yesterday's Jerusalem bombing, as the U.S. declared that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade was being added to the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, along with al-Qaida.
Yes, I should think he would be downcast, for any number of reasons. First, his own terrorist arm ... er, pardon me, youth organization mounted an attack at what would be the most awkward moment possible. (Well, OK, they could have attacked just as they were signing a cease fire accord, but how likely was that ever to happen?) Second, he's being seen publicly by all the Palestinians as giving in to US, and therefore Israeli, pressure. Third, assuming for the sake of argument that he ever did have some sort of authority over Al Aqsa, condemning them in public essentially cuts that tie. They've been set loose. Or more loose. (In fact, judging from what this article says about the unpleasantly surprised Palestinian Authority reaction, it seems that the Brigade was operating entirely independently. Naughty naughty. Mustn't take your financial sponsors ... er, youth mentors by surprise in these things.)
The president said he would send Cheney to see Arafat only if Zinni concluded the cease-fire accord arranged last year by CIA Director George Tenet could be restored.
If Zinni concludes that the cease fire accord can be restored, he's either a fool, an idiot or a liar. Since, aside from being sent back in the first place, he hasn't really struck me as an idiot or a liar (being there marks him as a fool, in some ways), then it seems unlikely that he will conclude that there's any realistic chance of restoring the accord.
While the PA tries to improve relations with the U.S., Barghouti told Al Jezeera that the U.S. was responsible for the attack, because of its one-sided support for the terror regime in Tel Aviv." And while the PA says it wants the Zinni mission to succeed, Barghouti said that the mission is doomed to fail, "because he is trying to dictate to the Palestinian side."
Really? We're responsible? I suppose we just shoved arms into Al Aqsa's hands and said, "Go ye and bomb! Shoot to kill! Have fun, kids!" Really, the gall. The people who plan these things are responsible. The people who shoot and bomb and kill and maim are responsible. On both sides, thank you kindly. Nobody else. (That said, since it does seem that the US is trying to dictate to the Palestinians, quite a bit more than to the Israelis, then yes, the mission will almost certainly fail, not least because the Palestinians recognize that at least at the moment, there are still some limits on what Israel is willing to do to them. Although I wouldn't count on those limits lasting all that much longer.)
In the meantime, elsewhere in Jerusalem, traders are refusing to pay municipal taxes, because they feel that the government isn't doing enough to stop the attacks, and because they feel that the government doesn't recognize their pain. (OK, so that Clintonian turn of phrase works for almost everything. Sue me. Better yet, sue him. Everyone else has. But I digress.) It's entirely unclear what they expect the government to actually do. Divert money from paying to try to fight the terrorists to propping up their businesses, so they can get blown up more thoroughly and more frequently? What? Get the bombing stopped, and maybe they can actually pay attention to the plight of Jerusalem's businesses. But, you know, making sure that they have a chance of being there in the morning would normally take priority.
Good heavens. They found the Gunpowder Plot's actual gunpowder. What an odd thing to find after all this time.
Posted by iain at 01:11 AM
Medical Privacy Changes Proposed: The Bush administration yesterday proposed changing some of the federal rules designed to protect the confidentiality of Americans' medical records, including the ability of patients to decide in advance who should be able to use their personal health information. [...] The new version would erase that requirement and, instead, say that patients must at some point be notified of their privacy rights by those who use their records.
Wait ... what privacy rights? If you're erasing the rule which says that people have to decide in advance, there are effectively no privacy rights over your own medical information.
Except that you can decide whether or not to allow your records to be used for marketing purposes.
And in his graciousness, His Fraudulency has allowed the part of the rule that allows people to complain about misuse of their records to go into effect. How very useful. After someone has violated your privacy, your rights, you can then turn to them and say, "Hey! I don't like that!" I'm sure that will be ever so effective in keeping them from doing it again, aren't you?
The chance that you would ever have been stopped from getting needed treatment under the proposed regulations was just about zero, of course. (Or, to be more precise, the chance was exactly what the insurance industry would decide it was.) You have to consent to treatment on a case by case basis in any event. Consent to routine treament is implied by getting prescriptions filled, by going to a doctor in the first place. Consent to extraordinary treatment almost invariably requires consent forms to be signed by yourself, or by a designate if you aren't capable. (Emergency room physicians usually wind up designating themselves, which is technically problematic, but who wants to argue about it then?)
Basically, there's absolutely no reason not to have signed the regulations as they stood, except that the insurance industry wanted the right to do what they would with our records. And basically, that's what they got. They can even use our records for marketing (depending on what that actually means), and we can't say anything until after they've done it. And because the regulations, as written, don't really say that doing it is wrong, there may be no recourse other than "complaining".
Posted by iain at 12:53 AM
Campaign Finance Reform Passes: Congress approved the most sweeping changes to the nation's campaign finance system since the Watergate scandals on Wednesday, ending years of gridlock and clearing the bill for President Bush's signature. Critics promised a swift court challenge.
Enjoy it while it lasts, which won't be long. Significant parts will be gutted by injunctions followed by court rulings, and what's left will be just enough not to harm major interest groups.
Posted by iain at 05:45 PM
You know, if it weren't so pointedly sarcastic, he'd probably like the idea. (Although ... Kathmandu? I just don't think so, somehow ...)
"tripping over his tonsils every time he opened his mouth." heh heh heh ...
Posted by iain at 03:57 PM
Final Whitewater report issued: Independent Counsel Robert Ray concludes in his final Whitewater report that the land venture benefited from criminal transactions but there was "insufficient evidence" to prove former President Clinton or his wife participated in wrongdoing.
You know, I wonder how long Ray had to think about it to make sure he phrased an exoneration in precisely the right terms to make sure that everyone knew he thought the Clintons were guilty. To be sure, it's the correct legal formulation, so it's entirely possible that I wrong the man .... nah.
At least the thing is finally done.
Posted by iain at 03:41 PM
Urine Trouble - Uncle Sam wants you to pee in a cup.: Schools are, to quote Scalia, functionally "prisons."
And that would explain much about what's wrong with public schools today, I daresay.
The case itself is ridiculous. Because there is a national problem with drugs, Tecumseh (OK) School District wants all students involved in extracurricular activities to pee into a cup. No suspicion that they've done drugs, you understand; they just want the kids to do it. The fact that the Constitution has that little provision about being free from warrantless searches is entirely irrelevant to the discussion, because minors have extremely few constitutional rights. They are possessions of their parents. (Or, if you're in the mood to be kind, their rights are controlled by their parents. However, I'm not in the mood to be kind, so the first formulation stands.) The Court has already held in previous cases that minors may be tested for drugs in situations which would be flatly illegal when applied to adults in the same situation, so that they wish to extend that provision is no surprise. (Scalia thinks that it would be acceptable for all students to be tested just because they attend public school. See "prison" comment, above. However, this argument would run into Fourth Amendment problems precisely because attendance at some school is compelled for anyone under 16-18 in all states. When attendance is compulsory, the state's ability to interfere with your rights is considerably less.)
Posted by iain at 01:11 PM
(entry updated 12:48pm; see below)
Commonwealth suspends Zimbabwe: PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe was increasingly isolated last night after the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe for a year, after an election victory marred by violence and intimidation. In a surprise move, a group of three influential Commonwealth leaders said they were forced to act after election observers found the poll, which extended Mr Mugabe's 21 years in power, was seriously flawed. The decision leaves Mr Mugabe ostracised in the international community following the imposition of sanctions by the European Union and the United States.
Well, I'm sure all that has him just quaking in his boots and running to correct things.
Mugabe is perfectly happy to have his country exist as a near-garrison state. It isn't a full isolationist garrison state because some of his neighbors, being full of craven cowardice (and not wanting to agitate the same elements within their countries that Mugabe has deliberately unleashed in his) are perfectly happy to keep doing business with Zimbabwe.
That said, that South Africa joined this set of sanctions, whatever they're worth, is shocking, considering as their observer mission reported the results as "legitimate". (I cannot believe that South Africa tried "to convince Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to set up a national unity government." I mean, why would Tsvangirai EVER do that? What would make them think that Mugabe wouldn't just have the man killed? The only thing I can think is that they needed the attempt as political cover back home: "See? We tried to reason with both sides, and they wouldn't, so this was our only acceptable option.")
The above-cited article in the Sunday Times of South Africa is actually somewhat confusing; it reads as if it were intended to be a scathing article about South Africa's and Nigeria's reluctance to join any Commonwealth sanctions, and then it was overtaken by events. The Financial Times/Reuters article is less analytical, but more straightforward as to events. It also contains a bit more information about what the US is doing, which is curiously difficult to find in US newspapers:
Suspension is largely a symbolic step but has left Mugabe isolated even by his African partners -- a body traditionally reluctant to voice open criticism of their neighbors.
The United States tried to weed out lingering African support for Mugabe, saying it was "somewhat disappointed that some African countries professing to support and practice democratic values have turned a blind eye to the blatant abuse of those values which have occurred in the Zimbabwean polls."
"Among the responses we're considering is using other sanctions against those responsible for undermining democracy in Zimbabwe," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
... THAT is an attempt to weed out lingering African support? ... whatever.
The internal strike by Zimbabwe's trade unions is likely to be somewhat more effective in infliciting pain on Mugabe. Somewhat. Although, given Mugabe's thuggish methods of reprisal, I suspect it will also be painfully expensive for the strikers and their families.
UPDATE, 12:48pm: Unfortunately, the strike does not seem to be going well. However, all things considered, that's the least of the opposition's worries at the moment. Things in that benighted country continue to get weirder and weirder
Mugabe's Opponent Hints at Possible Reconciliation: One week after a bitterly fought presidential election, the defeated leader of the opposition announced today that he was willing to consider talks with President Robert Mugabe that could lead to a coalition government.
And why, you might be asking, would he say that? Why, after telling the Commonwealth that he was considering no such thing and after they suspended Zimbabwe, would he say something like that?
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been released on bail after being formally charged with treason in a court in the capital, Harare. He was ordered to pay 1.5 million Zimbabwean dollars (around $27,000), and surrender deeds to property and his passport. [...] The BBC's Barnaby Phillips says the charge destroys any immediate prospect of reconciliation between government and opposition.
Well, yes, I should think it would.
Interesting that they require you to surrender deeds to your property. I would expect that this means that once Mr Tsvangirai is convicted and executed or jailed (and he will be convicted), they can confiscate all his worldly goods, no problem, with just a frisson of legality hovering over the whole thing.
What on earth was a Canadian company doing in the middle of this mess, anyway?
Microcontent News, a Corante.com Microblog
Ah, yes. Another blog blog. It does, however, have original articles. Sort of. (Well, they're original articles about weblogs, which means there's an astounding level of derivation built into the process.)
It was interesting to have the whole google bomb thing explained. (Except it means that some of those searches that reached my site using terms that I never once used, reached them because someone used them to describe something I wrote. Which is deeply disturbing, when you consder some of the stuff that people come up with to look for.)
Posted by iain at 12:26 AM
Warning on Viagra's Role in STDs Is Requested
OK, this is just ridiculous. what would the thing say? "Warning: Viagra gives you erections which make you stupid which makes you more likely to get clap!" I mean, what sort of warning would you put on the bottle to cover this? And who would care? Seriously, if you're using Viagra recreationally, are you likely to stop and think, "Hmm. I've got an erection .... Maybe I'm not thinking clearly now ... Perhaps I should wear a condom so I don't get gonorrhea!!" If you're having unsafe sex at this point in time, then warnings on a bottle of pills aren't going to help. It's not the drug causing the problem per se, it's the stupid people taking it.
And the doctor who gave those guys Viagra knowing not only that it was for recreational use but also that they were taking crystal meth should have his license revoked. Yes, it was their choice to take both drugs, but what he did was flat out illegal, and he should lose his license for knowingly doing so.
Posted by iain at 06:17 PM
Billboards Take a Low-Key Approach to Preventing AIDS: Aiming to spread the message of "loving responsibly," county officials are launching a $1-million HIV prevention campaign that shies away from explicit images but is intended to reach at-risk minorities. The campaign consists of text-only bilingual billboards that include AIDS awareness messages such as "Respecting Yourself and Valuing Your Partner," and "Caring for Our Gay Sons and Brothers."
The reason for this approach in California specifically?
Hispanic AIDS-HIV rates troubling: Young Hispanic men in the border area of San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, have AIDS and HIV infection rates that are "an alarming" three to four times higher than the rates in other California cities, health officials report [...] George F. Lemp, director of the AIDS Research Program at the University of California, said yesterday that a partially completed study of men ages 18 to 29 years old in the two cities indicates the AIDS-HIV rate is 18.5 percent in Tijuana and 35 percent in San Diego. The rate in Los Angeles hovers around 16 percent, but in Long Beach, San Francisco and Riverside the rate is nearly 9 percent, earlier studies show.
To be sure, since a lot of this is concentrated in the poorer segments of the community, there's not necessarily a lot they know to do about this. Condoms do cost money, after all. Yes, there are places, community centers and the like, where they can go and get what they need for free ... but first, they need to know that they need them, and second, they need to know that those places exist, both of which are problematic at the moment.
Posted by iain at 06:03 PM
Ridge Doesn't Intend to Testify: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle says he hopes it won't be necessary to subpoena domestic security chief Tom Ridge to testify about President Bush's anti-terrorism spending request, but it's an option. The White House has opposed Ridge's appearance at a Senate hearing. A Bush spokesman expressed hope for a "satisfactory resolution" that would get lawmakers the necessary information, but White House officials said Monday that Ridge had no intention of testifying.
Why in the name of heaven would His Fraudulency do this? Ridge is NOT a presidential advisor; he is a cabinet officer. The administration appears to be proposing to give him some sort of budgetary authority, which might give him some thing to work with regarding the other government departments. Homeland Security is an Office, right? It's not the Advisory Directorate of Homeland Security, it's the OFFICE of Homeland Security. (We'll ignore the fact that if you say that often enough, it sounds like we're defending 1980s South Africa.) Executive department heads traditionally testify before Congress about their budgetary needs in the coming fiscal year; why on earth should Homeland Security be exempt? Moreover, why would The Shrubbery want it to be exempt? Why wouldn't he want it funded as a normal part of government? I don't see how it is "ridiculous", if you're asking Congress to appropriate money to an agency, to have the agency head come testify before Congress just like all the others.
Surely the one thing the Shrub does not want or need right now is a standoff with all of Congress about the rights and privileges of the head of a government agency. For one thing, having this sort of fight right before elections looks very bad indeed; it makes it look as if he and Ridge have something to hide. (The man has had that abominable position for all of five months. How much could he have to hide?) And at the moment, he's pissing off all of the Senate, not just the Democrats. The initial request for testimony actually came from some ranking Republicans.
Posted by iain at 05:50 PM
Yahoo! News - Moussaoui Family Refuses to Help US: Zacarias Moussaoui's family refused to cooperate with a U.S. justice official on Tuesday as the government sought to build a death penalty case against the only person charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
I believe the proper thing to say here is : DUH! You're looking to kill my relative, the last thing I'm likely to do is help, especially if I believe in his cause. Considering that they live in death-penalty opposing France, that would make two strikes. And then apparently they didn't follow normal French procedures in asking for their help. Three strikes and you're out, guys. (Never mind how stupid you were to take those particular swings at that particular ball in the first place.)
Posted by iain at 05:35 PM
Economics for Democrats: ... When it comes to the way economies influence elections, what matters less is the average public impact than the concrete effect on particular publics. Indeed, if the news declares the recession over and your personal situation is gloomy, it's a double insult. And because of the peculiarly skewed nature of the Bush economic program -- in case you were taken in by the rhetoric, the program benefits rich people -- no foreseeable recovery is likely to do much for core Democratic constituencies. A lot of swing constituencies are up for grabs, too.
So theoretically, at least, the Democrats could do well in the upcoming elections because their core constituencies aren't benefiting from what little recovery there is. Shrubya's tax cuts are targeted too high -- hey, I don't know anyone who owns a large corporation -- and this may or may not animate the Democrats' core. (Plus, you know, there's that little thing of The Shrubbery not being elected. Of course, you can't run on that issue now -- you can't take the risk of going after a popular war leader in a popular war -- Shrub I had the misfortune of being 0 for 2 on that one. But surely there' s some way to delicately remind voters in the Democratic core of how exactly the man came to be where he is.
Ultimately, it may not really matter. Even in good economies, even in wartime, traditionally, the party in the White House loses seats at midterm elections. And, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure that it would be good for the country to return to politics as they were for the last two years of Clinton's first term, where the Republicans were flexing their political muscle purely because they could. But then, I don't want the Republicans to retain power, either. It doesn't matter in my particular district -- the Senate race is all but invisible (Durbin incumbent versus ... a couple Democrats, I guess, and Durkin for the Republicans and the confusion at election time is just going to be awful), the Dems for governor are all ... ew (although considerably better than the Republicans, who are vile, more vile, and utterly unspeakable as candidates -- of course, More Vile Jim Ryan is likely to win the primary, pushed by the ultraconservative Utterly Unspeakable O'Malley, which is likely to confuse the hell out of Ryan's campaign. More liberal? More centrist? Much more conservative? where does he go to pull the most votes and anger the fewest people to vote against him? But I digress), and my specific representative is both popular and effectively unopposed. (There are a couple invisible Dems running against him in the primary. He started running his first campaign ads on radio just this week. I don't know why, aside from maybe trying to remind people to vote generally. I swear, you haven't heard anything sadder in all your born days than those ads; you'd think he was behind with no money at all instead of a shoo-in.)
And in the most hysterical race of all, in Cicero, Betty Loren Maltese is going to win the mayoral election, despite being under federal indictment for corruption, and having been accused by many people of living in Las Vegas and not in Cicero. Hey, at least with her, you know you're probably getting a crook, right?
Decisions, decisions.
Posted by iain at 04:43 PM
World Press Photo of the Year 2001
via G'Day Cobbers
Posted by iain at 09:04 PM
That .... that is just EVIL! Pure Evil, do you hear!?
And since it will now be going through my head for ages, I've decided to share.
(via jenett.radio.)
Posted by iain at 05:20 PM
It'll be interesting to see what comes of this. My first thought was that if they want him (about which I have doubts), Floyd could scarcely pick more of a fire to jump into. Then again, considering how Fraschilla had the deck stacked against him when he the most successful coach in team history, following one of the more disappointing would be, if not quite a cakewalk, then considerably easier.
But still ... Tim Floyd?
In any event, things are likely to be sticky. Of the schools with current openings, UNM is going to be pretty much last on anyone's list, possibly with Texas Christian or Fresno State. (Albuquerque? Waco? Fresno? Albuquerque? Waco? Fresno? Just which part of the back of beyond would you like to live in today?) This doesn't even count those places that don't yet know that they'll be needing a coach because they haven't taken a new job yet. Yes, UNM is considered moderately big time in college basketball (football is another story altogether), but not THAT big. It's a springboard sort of school; unless you're from there or want to move there (vide Lou Henson at New Mexico State), you go to UNM for a few years to make a name and then you leave as soon as possible for a bigger media market, or someplace you'd rather be -- Bliss left to go to his alma mater. Them's the realities of that game.
You gotta love that severance pay, though. He makes more for two years of not working than I made for a decade of working. Plus they're doing all this against the backdrop of a shortfall in state revenues, increases in tuition, and university budget cuts. AND they say that the next coach will make significantly more! Priorities, anyone? The actual purpose of a state university is ... to provide the alumni with excuses for forking over money to support the athletics department, yes.
Ah, yes. Love that big-time university athletics!
Posted by iain at 05:10 PM
Amnesty International's concerns regarding post September 11 detentions in the USA: In the two months following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, more than 1,200 non-US nationals were taken into custody in the USA, in nationwide sweeps for possible suspects. Partial data released by the government last November revealed that most were men of Arab or South Asian origin detained for immigration violations. Another 100 or so were charged with criminal offences, none directly relating to the events of 11 September. Six months on, some 300 people arrested in the post September 11 (post 9.11) sweeps are believed to remain in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS);(1) an unknown number of others have been deported or released on bail, sometimes after months in custody. [...] There continues to be a disturbing level of secrecy surrounding the detentions, which has made it difficult to monitor the situation. To date, the government has provided only limited data, which includes neither the names nor the places of detention of those held in post 9.11 INS custody, and immigration proceedings in many such cases have been ordered closed to public scrutiny. [...] According to immigration attorneys, many post 9.11 detainees have been charged with routine visa violations for which they would not normally be detained. While technically in INS custody, some have been held for weeks or months pending security ''clearance'' by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a process shrouded in secrecy. Lack of information given to detainees or their attorneys as to why they are being held has made it difficult for them effectively to challenge their detention.
And given the current state of the law, this isn't going to get any better anytime soon. The chance of the Justice Department and INS abiding by the regulations it issued in 2000 is, of course, absolutely none.
While many thousands of people who overstay their visas or commit similar violations are not detained for prolonged periods, those picked up in the 9.11 sweeps are almost exclusively males from Muslim or Middle Eastern countries. While the authorities need to act on information or ''tip-offs'' about potential security threats, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, in some cases, race or origin may have been a prime factor in continued detention.
Oh, for the love of .... You're Amnesty International, for heaven's sake! Stop being so damned mealy-mouthed. The US is detaining males from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries for no other reason than that they ARE males from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. It's not that hard to say. The US is engaged in widespread racial profiling which is almost certainly not justified -- certainly not the extent to which it's been taken, in any event.
AI's report also refers to "international laws and standards"; these are no longer applied within our borders, of course. With secret evidence laws on the books, people who may eventually be accused of aiding and abetting terrorism (that was worded most carefully, thank you) effectively no longer have the right to the assistance of legal counsel and explicitly no longer have the right to be informed of the reasons for detention. (Because to tell them could compromise the government case by letting them know from whence the government's information came.) That this is in total unconstitutional is unquestionable. That nobody in authority gives a damn that this is unconstitutional is unquestionable.
AI is also concerned that detainees are being abused by both officials, by being kept in solitary confinement, and by other detainees and prisoners. The concept that the US would protect foreign nationals from abuse in prison by anyones -- but especially from other detainees and/or criminals -- is utterly laughable, of course. If we don't protect our own from abuse, why on earth would we protect others? In fact, it would be more generally true that they would be put in the way of abuse. (That said, under current circumstances, I'm not sure that solitary confinement in and of itself should be counted as abuse. It would generally be considerably safer than any sort of general population situation.)
Aside from the surprising delicacy with which AI states their case, it's an appalling report. Not unexpected, however.
Posted by iain at 04:06 PM
Bush vows vengeance for killings: PRESIDENT George Bush vowed revenge yesterday for the grenade attack on a Pakistan church in which five Christian worshippers, including an American diplomat and her teenage daughter, were killed.
Because the two Americans were ever so much more important than the Pakistanis and Afghan who were killed. The fact that Pakistan is a sovereign state, and the fact that it's unclear who the attack was aimed at can, of course, be completely ignored.
The Shrub's campaign to kill everyone aside, this type of thing is likely to become more common. As we and our allies harden the more attractive targets and make them more difficult to reach -- the embassy is described as "a fortress" -- the people who like doing this sort of thing will turn their attention to softer targets. Assuming that embassy personnel and families were the target, the church or popular nightspots and the like will be in the next rank of targets. (I'm astounded that families were allowed to return to Pakistan, even this far out. Especially after the Pearl kidnapping and murder, you'd think that the State department would ban all nonessential personnel from Pakistan specifically, and possibly from all Middle Eastern embassies and consulates, until the situation is considerably more settled.)
Posted by iain at 02:25 PM
Teachers at a UK school have caused a storm of controversy by saying evolutionary science should be taught as an alternative "faith position" to the story of creation depicted in the Bible. The row reached the Prime Minister and the House of Commons on Wednesday.
An alternative "faith position".
OK, that's different. Although, curiously, I can kind of see where it comes from. That said ... every time you get to thinking that the Europeans have more sense than us on some things, they decide to prove us wrong. And in such impressive ways, too! (Under the UK's current national curriculum, schools are required to teach evolutionary theory but not restricted from teaching creationism. ... a result of having a state religion, I'd expect.)
Even church officials and theologians say that neither the Catholic nor the Anglican Church endorses undermining evolutionary ideas. [...] Andrew Beards, a Catholic theologian at Ushaw College in Durham, adds: "The Catholic church remains open to [evolutionism]. The Church is essentially indifferent as long as these views don't deny the existence of God or a human soul."
Um ... you know, I'm somewhat sure that the Catholic Church in the US would take issue with that statement. Only somewhat ... but in general, the Church has seemed to side with the Protestant fundamentalists when the issue arises.
Posted by iain at 02:16 PM
Kansas Supreme Court says transsexual's marriage is invalid: A marriage between a man and a transsexual woman is not valid in Kansas, the state Supreme Court declared Friday. The justices ruled in the case of J'Noel Gardiner, whose right to inherit half of her late husband's $2.5 million estate has been challenged because she was born a man.
Well, that can't surprise anyone, really. After all, a state as notably hostile to any sort of sexual difference as Kansas is not likely to reach any other decision.
I do hope that J'Noel, or some other FTM transsexual in Kansas decides to marry a woman. I just want to watch the court tie itself into knots trying not to say that even though it looks like a homosexual relationship, a marriage between an FTM transsexual and a woman must be valid, because they have declared that only the chromosomes and equipment you were born with matters.
The decision, including a long synopsis of the case, is available on the Kansas Courts site.
Posted by iain at 02:12 PM
You know, I'd vaguely wondered what happened to this guy. Quoted in full, as it's exceedingly brief:
6 months for goat pervert: A MAN was today jailed for six months after a train-load of commuters saw him having sex with a goat. Stephen Hall, 23, of Hull, pleaded guilty to one charge of committing a sex act with an animal after the assault on the female goat last August. Sentencing Hall, Judge Michael Mettyear described the incident as "bizarre and disgusting". He expressed frustration at being unable to order that Hall be banned from working with children in the future.
Because, of course, shtupping goats is somehow relevant to being around children, right? what?
Skynews notes that the goat was mildly distressed by the incident (well, yes, I suppose it would be!) and that in the previous hearing, the judge also said: "I have got to tell you that I'm very sceptical that there is any programme that has been devised at the moment, that will help him."
People ... it's a GOAT. It's not a human -- it's certainly not a child. As I recall, he was drunk and having one of those monstrously bad ideas that occasionally happen to people. There is no allegation or evidence that he's an habitual goat-molester, or likely to work his way up to larger livestock. Get a grip.
Posted by iain at 12:43 PM
U.S. using new law on secret evidence: Employing a controversial strategy, the U.S. Justice Department says it plans to use secret evidence to justify the financial sanctions it imposed on a Chicago-area Muslim charity as part of its effort to choke off terrorist funding after Sept. 11. Bridgeview-based Global Relief Foundation has filed a lawsuit saying the government violated the Constitution in freezing the charity's assets in December, citing suspected links to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. The case in federal court in Chicago appears to be the first time the government has tried to use secret evidence--which would be shared with the judge but not with the charity or its attorneys--under a provision of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act signed in October by President Bush, legal experts said. Immigration cases are a more common venue for the use of secret evidence, which has drawn fire because it changes one of the most basic rules of the American legal system: that people get a chance to confront the evidence being used against them by the government.
It will be interesting to see if the government fares any better in these cases than it has in the immigration cases. Typically, the government loses at the immigration judge, federal district trial and appeals panel levels, and then abandons the case because they don't want a definitive opinion on the record.
There is, of course, absolutely no doubt that secret evidence provisions used this way are unconstititutional. Basically, the government is saying, "Oh, they did what we say they did. Really, you can just trust us." Of course, the evidence in the immigration cases is that we can't trust them, since they keep losing.
Frankly, even now, it doesn't seem like this will be a hard case for a judge. You can't defend yourself against something you can't see or hear or read. Seems like a dead easy case.
Of course, this won't stop the government from doing what they want anyway. After all, Congress bluntly told Ashcroft that he could not have indefinite detention as part of the USA Constitutional Decimation Act ... er, that is, the USA PATRIOT Act, and he went around them and promulgated it as an internal rule. I fully expect that Treasury and Justice would be capable of making up some nice adhoc rules to cover this situation as well.
Posted by iain at 11:18 AM
Citrus: Mayor banishes Satan from Inglis: The words just flowed from Carolyn Risher's pen as she sat at the kitchen table Halloween night. She wrote fast, ignoring commas and periods.
When the Inglis mayor finished, she put the fierce rhetoric down on official town stationery complete with gold seal. Northbound trucks on U.S. 19 pass one of four wooden posts erected on the roads leading into Inglis. The posts were painted with the words, Repent, Request and Resist. Each post was hollowed out and in it placed a copy of the official proclamation. "Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis. Satan is hereby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens."
Oh.
How very ... effective. No doubt. Because we all know that Satan is just listening to small town mayors and quaking in his boots at the very thought.
But wait! it gets weirder!
On Nov. 5, by formal proclamation, Mayor Carolyn Risher banned Satan from the city limits. Inglis, about 75 miles north of Tampa, now faces the threat of legal action from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). [...]
The ACLU was not immediately aware of these acts. After all, it is not an organization that usually maneuvers in what pass for the halls of power in Inglis — population: 1,400; stoplights: one.
Getting word from Inglis to attorney Gary Edinger, of the Gainesville ACLU chapter, was the work of Polly Bowser, an occasional waitress and daughter of the editor of the town's now-defunct newspaper. "Everyone in this town sticks their head in the ground," Bowser said. "Well, I'm not going to back down." The ACLU has threatened to file a suit on her behalf accusing Risher and the town of violating the separation of church and state.
Now, you know ... I suspect that the ACLU will find it extraordinarily difficult to make headway on this case in the state of Florida. Moreover, I'd suspect that most judges would look at this case and think, "Oh, good grief. You're all a bunch of stupid idiots."
That said, Satanists have a perfectly legal right to practice their religion in Florida, and this would outlaw that practice out of hand. I think. What with the being banned from city limits and all. I mean, what if the Satanist wants to call You Know Who, and he's been banned from the town, so he can't manifest ... So I suppose there really is technically a constitutional principle being offended in there somewhere.
But I am SO glad I'm not either prosecuting or defending this case, because that's going to be one pissed off judge. Or completely amused, but neither one is necessarily good for your case.
Posted by iain at 12:53 AM
A month or so ago, in a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters' annual convention, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the following: "Civilized individuals, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Governments may guard freedom. Governments don't grant freedom. All people are called to the defense of the Grantor of freedom, and the framework of freedom He created." And with those words, Ashcroft encapsulated everything that is admirable, and everything that is awful, about the Bush administration's understanding of religion in the United States. [...] In lauding the attorney general's ecumenicism, conservatives ducked the real issue: that for this administration, celebrating the dignity of all believers has become a way to impugn the dignity of those who believe in no religion at all.
You know, quite honestly, I think that overstates the case. I don't think that the administration wishes to impugn nonbelievers; I just think that it's their particular blind spot. In their world, everyone has some religion. Everyone is, to some degree or another, devout. Anything else is unthinkable ... and so they don't think of it. Athiests, agnostics, and nontheists are all written out of the Bush/Ashcroft version of America because they literally cannot see those people any more, if they ever could. (Can you imagine the poisonous difficulty a person of no particular religion would have in getting hired by Ashcroft, even if they were of exceeding capabilities? In theory, no, you can't ask about religion ... but Congress has, in its wisdom, exempted itself and the executive branch from following most labor laws. It makes a type of sense -- most of the positions around them are patronage positions, after all -- but it means that all sorts of questions that would get anyone else sued into oblivion can be asked.)
That said, in some ways, I also think the author is too generous. I don't think that the Shrub's ecumenicism is genuine ... and I'm not entirely sure about Ashcroft. That, however, allcomes because I don't even vaguely trust the motives of either man. I think that if they could somehow sneak a national Protestant religion clause into the Constitution, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
Posted by iain at 11:32 PM
Francis Sues Over Songs In Porn Films: In a $40 million lawsuit filed yesterday (March 11) in New York, singer Connie Francis accused Universal Music Corp. of allowing her music to be used in pornographic movies, saying the label took advantage of her mental illness. [...] Francis said she learned more than a year ago of the use of four of her songs in a "vile pornographic" movie titled "Postcards From America," whose soundtrack was released in 1995. A second film, "Jawbreakers," released in 1999, included her song "Lollipop Lips," the lawsuit said.
But ... it's not pornographic ... Oh, dear.
Mind, I don't say that she would have approved the use of her music in the film, but then, according to the law, she isn't required to. The owners of the recording copyright -- apparently Universal -- aren't even required to. You can use music without consent as long as you're willing to pay the BMI/ASCAP forced portion fee. Since that's hellaciously expensive, most people prefer to get consent and negotiate something lower. In any event, how can you sue the legitimate license owner for doing something that they're legally allowed to do? (And Vivendi, Universal's parent, is sitting there thinking, "She's suing us for doing something that happened before we even owned the damn company. And we have to take America's former sweetheart into court. Wonderful.")
And Jawbreaker isn't remotely pornographic. Very bad, yes. Pornographic, no.
I think, unfortunately, Miss Francis is about to lose this round.
Posted by iain at 06:21 PM
U.S. Indicts Saeed in Slaying of Pearl
You know ... I understand why this happened, but this indictment is utterly ridiculous. If anyone is going to bring charges, it should be Pakistan, however they normally handle kidnapping and murder charges. The event took place in Pakistan; that it involved an American national is not relevant. The laws that were broken were Pakistani, not American. Traditionally, law is a matter of location, not a matter of who you are. In and of itself, it seems that Pearl's kidnapping and murder are unrelated to the September 11 events, so any grounds for indicting in the US is tenuous at best. Frankly, I don't think this is a precedent we want to continue to set; eventually, it will be used against us.
In any event, if the case is tenuous and the evidence sparse, it will get no less tenuous and sparse with extradition, since what few witnesses there are will still be in Pakistan. All that will happen is that our desire for vengeance amidst a buzzsaw of bigotry and nationalism will be more fully exposed.
Posted by iain at 05:19 PM
The number of military discharges of gays has risen to its highest level in 14 years, and reported incidents of anti-gay harassment have climbed by 23 percent in a year, a legal aid group said today. The rise in gay-related incidents comes despite a Pentagon strategy to clarify its "don't ask, don't tell" policy throughout the armed services and to make work conditions hospitable for gays who keep their sexuality private.
Well, now, let's just see here ....
Administration pretty much completely hostile to the idea of gays in military service? Check.
Military so hostile that the only possible exemption to the ongoing stop-loss order is homosexual conduct? Check.
People understandably interpreting both as a green light to go after gays? Check.
Seriously, why would anyone be in the slightest bit surprised by this?
"We definitely don't condone harassment," said Lt. Col. James Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman. "When it comes to enforcing the policy, we balance readiness and unit cohesion with an individual's right to privacy and the expectation of a safe and harassment-free work environment."
Bull. Shit.
As the military notes, there is a "lack of political will" on the part of the administration to even pay the least attention to the issue. (Except when it pops up in various news items, like a zit that you hope will just go away before you have to do something about it.)
It's also not surprising that this is affecting more women than men. In general, the sort of men who would harrass other men about being gay are the sorts of men who will assume that a woman who doesn't like them doesn't like them because she has to be gay. It's a convenient accusation, at the very least. and, of course, you can make these accusations more or less anonymously, and if your commanders don't happen to like you, they may well investigate. And, frankly, it's damn near impossible to prove that you're not gay if you haven't run around sleeping with every person of the opposite sex that you can find.
Until and unless Bush II Fraudulency's administration puts teeth and force into a policy in which it does not believe, things will continue to deteriorate. Since the administration, in fact, doesn't mind this sort of thing as long as it doesn't lead to an overall lessening of armed efficiency, things will continue this way for some time to come.
A hearing in the $1.5 million lawsuit against the city by the owner of an assistance dog clawed by the public library's pet cat has been continued until April 18. [...] The case stems from an incident at the library Nov. 16, 2000. Espinosa, then a reporter for the North County Times, was on assignment at the library when the cat attacked Kimba, his 50-pound Labrador mix. The cat, known as L.C. for library cat, no longer is kept at the library. [...] A sign that said "No Animals" except guide dogs violated his right and those of others who use assistance dogs to enter the city library, the suit contends.
OK, I'm confused. Exactly how does a sign that explicitly allows assistance animals violate his rights? I can understand that not enforcing that policy would violate them, but having the sign?
And just how damaged could he possibly be by all this?
Also: you're alive, the cat is gone, the assistance animals are allowed as they ever were ... guy, get a grip. A judge or jury is likely to be singularly unsympathetic to you, if they've got the sense god gave a goose. (Although sometimes I do wonder ...)
Posted by iain at 01:36 PM
Palestinians dismiss UN vision as ploy: A UN SECURITY Council resolution calling for the first time for creation of a Palestinian state was widely dismissed by Palestinians here as a ploy to gain Arab backing for US military action against Iraq.
Well ... pretty much, yes.
According to a report I heard last night, Jordan's King Abdullah told Cheney (in a surprisingly disclosed location) in "unusually blunt language" that if the US wanted any sort of Arab support for an attack on Iraq, it would have to find some way of giving support to the Palestinians. We can't expect Arab support when we have been perceived as favoring Israel so strongly in this war. (You do just wonder, though ... why would Syria abstain from this particular vote? What would they have to lose from going on record as favoring a Palestinian state? A puzzlement.)
In any event, now that the US is on record as labeling Israeli "conduct" as "not helpful" and now that we're sending Zinni back (god help the poor man), Israel is withdrawing from Ramallah. We somehow managed to delay sending Zinni back just long enough for Israel to invade the Palestinian's technical capital, capture and kill a rather impressive number of Palestinians, and then get back to their own side of the line just before the peace envoy gets there. Peculiar, that. And now they're saying that as long as the Palestinians "take steps" to control the terror, they'll maintain a cease fire. Hmm. Yes. In other words, knowing full well that even if they wanted to control people, even if the PA was recognized as someone that the terrorist cells wanted to obey, the IDF has pretty much destroyed the Authority's ability to control anything, this is set as a precondition. Yes. Right. Well, I can see that this is going to be yet another successful round, can't you? (Zinni is supposed to see that the Tenet agreement "is implemented". How the hell is he supposed to do that? Run around taking weapons from Palestinians and Israelis his own self? What? Apparently in seeing that the agreement is implemented, Zinni won't be allowed to address any larger issues unrelated to the strict cease-fire terms. So what on earth is the point? You don't want to reward terrorism? Fine. But what's a viable alternative? Unless Israel is seen as making some concrete moves by the Palestinians other than Arafat, nothing is going to change. Unless Israel is willing to recognize that, especially after its command-control-communication abilities have been systematically attacked by Israel itself, the Palestinian Authority security force has absolutely no possible way to control rogue terrorists, nothing will change. As long as both sides refuse to see any other aspects of their current situation, nothing will change.)
Interestingly, Israel seems to be taking something that seems relatively unrelated as a sign that US patience is running out:
More Washington-based trouble for Israel could be in the offing, this time from Capitol Hill. Administration and congressional sources said this week that the White House was blocking a request from Israel for $800 million in aid beyond its usual $3 billion in annual U.S. assistance. "It's not going to happen. OMB (the White House Office of Management and Budget) nixed it," an unnamed congressional aide told Reuters, in a reference to the Israeli supplemental aid request.
I will admit, why they're taking this as an expression of White House displeasure, I don't know. If it had been rejected by the Shrub himself, that would be one thing. A rejection by OMB simply means that we can't afford it, and given the current budget situation, that can't be a real surprise. Perhaps they expected things to be shifted around so that we would afford it; maybe that's the way things have worked in the past. (We give Israel $3 billion in aid? Whatever FOR? They have a developed economy. I mean, I realize that some of it is just plain good-will aid, but do we really need THAT much good will from Israel?)
Posted by iain at 10:38 AM
Ernst & Young rejects Andersen merger
Phoenix trucking company Knight Transportation, a longtime client of Arthur Andersen, may join the parade of public companies bolting Andersen's client list. In fact, Andersen's client losses are now so heavy that Forbes is keeping a running count, saying "This tally will be updated frequently, so bookmark this page and check back often." (That's got to be depressing.)
Andersen is such poison that they've been kicked out of the accountant's lobbying group.
My, when things go bad, they just snowball, don't they?
It's mildly odd that Andersen approached both Deloitte Touche and Ernst and Young at the same time. If either of them had started to bear fruit, the other would have been EXTREMELY pissed off, which wouldn't have been helpful. No doubt a mark of Andersen's desperation to wriggle out of some part of this mess. In the end, however, it looks like it would simply have been impossible to sequester any of Andersen's assets in such a way as to protect the successor firms from further lawsuits.
So now it looks as if Andersen will have to go it alone as its stupidity drives the firm into the ground.
And they have another bankruptcy case pending. It seems that the bankruptcy trustees for Boston Chicken are upset because Andersen's auditing helped the company run more or less the same sort of shell game that Enron did, back in 1998. And this case seems to be getting handled as a racketeering case -- the article mentions state racketeering laws, but the case is in federal district court, so it's not quite clear what's going on. I'd think that Andersen wants that case to go away quickly, however unfounded it feels the charges to be. If the government decides to bring not only obstruction of justice but RICO charges -- as they very well could; the type of charge would apply more directly to Enron itself, but Andersen could be considered an accessory before the fact -- then things could get extremely nasty, possibly involving jail time for various executives.
It's certain that Andersen itself will have to file for bankruptcy protection before this is all done, just to make its creditors and lawyers and everyone suing the company accept those assets it actually has. Even with malpractice insurance covering a small amount (relatively speaking) of the fines and judgements soon to come against it, eventually those will exceed the value of the company, especially if clients and employees keep bailing out. What ever happens, Andersen only has until Thursday, March 14 to accept a plea bargain or the government will proceed with its case.
It's interesting that Andersen's European operations may be essentially independent and at least somewhat insulated from all this. Depending on how it works out, some small European company with the Arthur Andersen name might actually survive this debacle.
Posted by iain at 10:44 PM
"Vacation, all I ever wanted ...."
Posted by iain at 12:02 PM
Daily Mail&Guardian: THE outcome of the Zimbabwean presidential election should be considered legitimate, the South African Observer Mission (SAOM) said on Wednesday. "Overall ... the authorities charged with conducting the elections discharged their work satisfactorily," SAOM leader Sam Motsuenyane said in an interim statement in Harare. [...] South Africa was also in talks with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and the United States about how best to assist Zimbabwe.
They're in talks with US? Whatever for? Given that we've slapped "personal sanctions" (whatever that means) on Mugabe and that Zimbabwe is extraordinarily hostile to outsiders right now, what on earth would we have to say to them that they would care to hear?
On Tuesday, civic groups and a team of foreign observers condemned the election as fundamentally flawed as officials began counting ballots across the country. An observer team from Norway said that the poll did not meet international standards and that it was marred by violence, most of it from government supporters, who often prevented the opposition party, the Movement from Democratic Change, from campaigning. (NY Times, registration required)
Hmm. Interesting differences there. The SAOM says the results are "legitimate", foreign and internal observers say that the election was "fundamentally flawed".
The former colonial power Britain said after the results were announced that Mugabe had held on to power through a "systematic campaign of violence and intimidation". British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the campaign had been instigated "to achieve one goal, power at all costs. It is no surprise that this outcome has now been achieved". [...] Shortly after the result was announced the South African Observer Mission said the controversial polls could be considered "legitimate" while stopping short of calling them free and fair and citing reservations. In response to questions, mission chief Sam Motsuenyane said: "We have stayed clear from the words free and fair. ... We cannot openly describe it as free and fair".
Leaving aside the "former colonial power Britain" jab ... if the election is not "free and fair", how can the results possibly be legitimate? How can results from an election in which people were not free to vote for whom they wished and in which the results are not fairly tabulated possibly be considered as "legitimate"? What on earth can that term mean in this context, other than results reached through a free and fair election? Exactly what is the SAOM playing at, here? Trying not to offend either Mugabe or the West? All that does is make you look mealy-mouthed to your own people; that Zap cartoon is savagely pointed.
You wonder what good taking the results to the Zimbabwe courts will do. Somehow, I doubt that they're any more independent than any other part of Zimbabwe's government. They'll reach the decision that Mugabe orders.
Media Relations: the shield/ March 12, 2002
Posted by iain at 11:53 PM
NewsForge | Exclusive: AOL embraces Linux and Mozilla, plans to drop MS Explorer
Oh.
Oh, well.
That should give Netscape a massive shot in the arm for browser share. Of course, it requires you to have a startling amount of memory, for AOL users. (The Mozilla memory footprint is 64MB, independent of the operating system or anything else. Explains why the browser is so damn slow to startup, doesn't it?) It's also going to be interesting to see if they use the slightly-tweaked Netscape as the base, or the untweaked Mozilla rendering engine. All I know is that my site renders in Netscape 6, and wont render under Mozilla, despite using standard CSS techniques. Don't ask me why.
Some 46 percent of Israel's Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' annual national security public opinion poll. [...] When the question of transfer was posed in a more roundabout way, 60 percent of respondents said that they were in favor of encouraging Israeli Arabs to leave the country. The results of the survey also reveal that 24 percent of Israel's Jewish citizens believe that Israeli Arabs are not loyal to the state, compared to 38 percent who think the Arabs were loyal to the state at the beginning of the intifada.
... Out of the territories to where, exactly?
... Encouraged to leave Israel in exactly what way? to go where?
It would be fascinating to see what Israel would do in response to the pointed criticism they would experience if they ever acted on this. I don't think they will -- I suspect the country's current leadership has slightly better sense than that. Just. (Besides, transferring Palestinians from one place to another has just worked out so well for Israel and others historically, hasn't it? I'm sure that shoving them into Lebanon again would just be a wonderful thing to do, right? Jordan and Syria would be so thrilled to have Lebanon veer back into that poisonous little civil war, right?) Mind, should the current government fall -- and with the coalition slowly peeling away, it should fall anytime now, since it's close to falling below the minimum number of members to survive a no-confidence vote -- what will happen is anyone's guess. Given this particular mood in the Israeli electorate, the next govermnent will be aggressively right-wing, entirely uninterested in negotiation, and bloodthirsty enough to kill every Palestinian it can find.
Actually, the sad thing is that in some ways, we resemble current-day Israel in our opinions and treatment of Arabs in the US, with considerably less cause. Or perhaps not less cause; perhaps exactly the same amount of cause. After all, whatever their resentments, most Arabs in Israel don't kill others. They don't blow things up. They've done precisely nothing to warrant this type of distrust, except to exist and not be Jewish and not be happy about being treated as criminals in their own country for no other reason than that.
As it stands, Israel's policy -- such as it is -- is careening into the ridiculous. They're reportedly trying to force POW status on some Palestinians they arrest, although the reasoning behind that is obscure. The IDF is apparently attacking ambulances, although they are unable to back up their charges that the ambulances are being used as armed transports.
The Israelis are marking captives with inked numbers on their arms.
I would imagine that particular event gave many Israeli citizens a moment's pause, yes. To be sure, it's just ink, and it will wear away. Nonetheless.
Unfortunately, Arafat pointed out the historical parallel, which allows the Israelis to dismiss it as absurd. (Really, the man sometimes has the political sense of a slug. As long as no Palestinian of authority made that charge -- not that he is, but let's pretend like the rest of the world -- then the charge might stick. As soon as it comes out of his mouth, people will dismiss it, and he has to know that. Why on earth wouldn't the man just shut up for once? Idiot.)
Israel has pointedly attacked the Palestinian Authority's security force in the past few months, which has understandably produced a surge of recruits. After all, if Israel is attacking it so relentlessly, belonging to it must be a good thing.
Ah, but it gets more interesting. Many Israelis want the Palestinian Authority dismantled altogether. If nothing else, doing so would end the fiction that Arafat has any real authority. However, doing so -- assuming that they could, which is not entirely certain at this point -- would mean a full and complete occupation of the territories, on a scale that Israel hasn't used in quite some time. I think it might also be the thing that makes the US finally throw up its hands and acknowledge the current hopelessness of the situation. (To be honest, the one policy decision that the Shrub came in with that struck me as sound was to disengage from that particular mess. Granted that he was thinking primarily of oil when he did so. Nonetheless, there just isn't much we can do to help people who aren't interested in peace, especially when one side has reason to consider us a dishonest broker, and acknowledging that was entirely sensible. Unfortunately, circumstances overran that decision. For some bizarre reason, both sides asked us to stay in, and then events required us to maintain a closer connection to Israel's intelligence service. So here we are for now.)
Posted by iain at 03:25 PM
Ridge: Nation at Third Level of Five-Stage Alert System
Speaking purely hypothetically, in the modern world (even pre-September 11) ... wouldn't you pretty much always be at yellow alert? I mean, there's always a "significant risk" of something. You'd always want to have some sorts of preparation in place.
Ridge said he hopes America is some day on the lowest level of alert, "but I certain think it's years away." He said the United States faces the "permanent possibility" of terrorist attack.
Um ... I believe the response to that is ... DUH.
The unification with other alert systems will produce ... interesting results. For example, the entire Midwest and South will spend nine months a year under a weather-related yellow/orange alert, because destructive thunderstorms, tornadoes, tropical storms and hurricanes are pretty common at that time of year, and they can spring up so quickly as to make any sort of transition stages meaningless. (Well, OK, not tropical storms and hurricanes, but the rest.) And how do you manage to stick traffic in there? What would a traffic red-alert at the federal level be, exactly? Perhaps unifying the alert system might not be the most useful thing to do.
Is it just me, or did anyone out there immediately start thinking of Star Trek when you saw this color-coded system? I just keep vaguely expecting to hear, "All hands, battlestations!" over the intercom at any moment. (Yes, I realize that the Star Trek system was derived from the military, but most of us haven't been in the military. By the by, assuming that there's "a significant risk of attack" at yellow alert, isn't that the stage where you would want to be coordinating your security efforts? What's the practical function of sticking something in between yellow and red conditions?)
Posted by iain at 12:11 PM
Pilot believed alive, held in Iraq
What I want to know is why. What possible benefit can there be for Iraq to hold someone prisoner for ten years and not mention it? Surely by now they've extracted as much information from him as he's got to give (and he's a combat pilot, so it wouldn't be all that much, really; not much they didn't already know, anyway). Once they've done that, whas use is it to them to keep him alive and not tell anyone?
I would be fascinated to know exactly how the possibility of a POW in Iraq could be factored into future plans. I mean, really, wouldn't you have to assume that at best, they'd try to hold him hostage? (Against an entire invading force or carpet bombs? Not bloody likely.) If you're planning an attack, wouldn't you simply give him up for dead at that point? Rescue him if you happen to stumble across him, but otherwise, you can't give it special thought. He's a soldier, and he has to know that he'd be sacrificed for a mission.
Posted by iain at 11:02 AM
Sun Slams Microsoft with Antitrust Suit: Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) on Friday filed a private antitrust suit against Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), basing the suit on the same ruling that AOL (NYSE: AOL) referred to in its Netscape civil suit against the software giant. Filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, the suit was widely expected. Specifically, it seeks injunctions that would require Microsoft to include Sun's Java plug-in with Windows XP and that would stop Microsoft from distributing its own Java Virtual Machine through separate downloads, among other conditions.
Oh, for the love of .... Doesn't Sun ever give up? They're going to spend pots of money on this, and then they'll lose. According to the terms of the last Sun/Microsoft lawsuit, the Evil Empire isn't doing anything wrong -- they're not required to include anything from Sun, and they are entitled to ship products without any Java support whatsoever. Moreover, you can download the Sun Java incarnation, and it plugs itself into all sorts of things and functions ... as well as Java ever does, I suppose. Netscape includes the Sun JRE with Netscape 6, as does Opera with Opera 6. This is a pretty solidly stupid suit. It would be nice if it was summarily tossed, but that's not likely to happen, alas.
Posted by iain at 03:50 PM
Oh. My.
Oh, MY.
You know, I try to keep myself informed. (Well, obviously.) I try to find all the news that's fit to deconstruct, so to speak. And yet, somehow, I missed these stirring articles about our Lord High Minister of Injustice.....
Staff cry poetic injustice as singing Ashcroft introduces patriot games: ... A group of Hispanic justice department employees were recently summoned to see the attorney general, and went along hoping that their boss might be making a special effort to promote diversity in the department's higher ranks. Instead, they were asked to provide a hasty Spanish lesson to give the secretary a few phrases to use on a foreign delegation the next day. The Hispanic staff were then handed printed copies of Let the Eagle Soar and asked for volunteers to translate it. This is not the first time Mr Ashcroft's subordinates have realised that this attorney general is unlike ordinary politicians. Each time he has been sworn in to political office, he is anointed with cooking oil (in the manner of King David, as he points out in his memoirs Lessons from a Father to His Son).
Now, I would imagine that you, like many, came to a complete and screeching halt at the end of that paragraph. Oil? Anointing? King David?
Well ... yes
Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft says he tries to "invite God's presence" while making crucial decisions and compares his political victories and defeats to resurrections and crucifixions. The former Missouri governor also wrote that he was anointed before each of his gubernatorial terms and on the evening before he was sworn into the U.S. Senate a friend brought out Crisco cooking oil for anointing when no holy oil could be found. (Topeka Capitol-Journal, Thursday, January 11, 2001)
The music thing is ... mildly amusing, if appalling for the pressure he brings on his employees. (Um ... Mr Ashcroft, sir? You're supposed to be enforcing laws against that sort of thing. You know that, right? ... Oh, you don't care. Well, that explains that.) The oils thing is ... just plain revolting, really. I'd think that even His Fraudulency should have found it just that one step too far -- he sees himself as a major biblical figure, resurrected, crucified, anointed. Doesn't the phrase "delusions of grandeur" somehow just vault into the mind, there? (And he anoints himself? Who does he think he is?)
And yet we're stuck with him until/unless he self destructs in some spectacular way. Lovely.
Posted by iain at 02:59 PM
America pays because all the world loves a dollar ... In the second Clinton term the runaway Wall Street boom attracted even larger inflows of foreign capital, while the Japanese economy remained fragile and the euro also proved a much weaker currency than had been expected. Europeans were switching into dollars. Clinton's second term and the runaway boom were a disaster for the US economy.
An interesting, and sympathetic, analysis of the current US and world economic situation.
From a British newspaper, of all places.
If I'm reading the ultimate pessimistic analysis correctly, the only way that the US economy can realistically pull out of its trade-deficit problems is for a massive, sustained world-wide depression to happen. That's the only way to cause a correction of the value of the dollar against all major currencies. And, of course, most governments would be dead set against that happening.
Essentially, the US economy has once again become the engine that drives the world economy. It was in that position after World War II, simply because it was the only developed country that hadn't been bombed into rebuilding. (Although, curiously enough, being forced to rebuild almost all of one's capital capacity at the same time means that eventually, you have more modern machinery and better trained personnel aimed at older physical plants and procedures.) This time, however, we're less able to withstand the situation, because other countries are more developed, or have new capacity.
Assuming that we don't have a world wide depression ... it will be interesting to see what happens if Europe's plans for an integrated economy with the euro actually wind up working. (As long as Britain, Denmark, and others hold out, it will have problems.) If the economies integrate as planned, Europe may replace the US as the largest economy by GNP (or possibly even GDP). However, as long as Europe stays neutral with regard to consumption versus savings, the US will remain the market of preference.
It may help if Japan ever comes out of its long recession. However, at the current moment, the Japanese consumer actually likes the recession, up to a point. The Japanese economy is so deflationary that all sorts of things that were once considered luxuries are now affordable -- as long as you still have a job, that is. The really bad part is that Japan doesn't quite know how to make this stop. It's all very well to say "spend more, increase wages", but if you're trapped in a deflationary spiral to keep up (or down, as the case may be) with your competitors, exactly how are you supposed to increase wages? With what?
At some point, this odd little codependency dance has to break, somehow. While Europe could, on its own, continue in its status-neutral state, Asia can't continue as the world's savers, especially without its previously most productive economy, and the US can't continue as the market of first AND last resort, with the trade deficit as a percentage of GDP doubling every year. And "break" may be exactly the word for what happens, when it comes.
Posted by iain at 02:08 PM
So, way back in October, when it was floated as a hypothetical that the US might send suspects to countries that used torture to extract information? Apparently since then, someone decided that we should put the plan into action:
U.S. Behind Secret Transfer of Terror Suspects - Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has secretly transported dozens of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal formalities, according to Western diplomats and intelligence sources. The suspects have been taken to countries, including Egypt and Jordan, whose intelligence services have close ties to the CIA and where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics -- including torture and threats to families -- that are illegal in the United States, the sources said. In some cases, U.S. intelligence agents remain closely involved in the interrogation, the sources said. "After September 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all the time," a U.S. diplomat said. "It allows us to get information from terrorists in a way we can't do on U.S. soil."
I daresay that the administration would defend these tactics by saying (1) the American public would support these actions, and (2) it doesn't break any US laws. To which the proper response is (1) just because the American public is in a particularly bloodthirsty mood at the moment doesn't mean that you should pander to them, especially when it offends our national principles, and (2) so what if it doesn't actually break any laws? (In fact, you could probably stretch a few to cover, but that's neither here nor there, quite.) The point is that supposedly, we're doing all this to defend not only "the homeland", but also to defend the principles behind that. If we're willing to farm out our torture because somehow that doesn't offend our laws, what does that say about us? Are we worth defending if we think that this is a good thing to do?
Moreover, purely as a matter of precedent, do we want to continue to set this example? Say that you're a leader of one of the countries to whose citizens this had been done -- and you're slightly insane, to be sure. Wouldn't it seem rational to you to make a point of kidnapping some US citizen or diplomat from another country, torture them for a while, and then put them on trial for some act or another committed by some other person entirely? Why wouldn't it make just as much sense for them to do that as it makes for us to do this?
Of course, the criticism for these acts from the rest of the world is rather muted right now. (Comparatively speaking, of course.) You don't offend the Big Bad, especially when they might turn their weapons on you. You get the impression that the rest of the world thinks of the US as a not-entirely sane collective, at the moment, and who wants to get in the way of the crazy guy with the big guns?
A pure side note: I suspect, somehow, that pointing out that they are aiding and abetting the kidnapping of foreign nationals from their soil will not reassure Indonesia's neighbors of their will to fight terrorism, but maybe that's just me.
Posted by iain at 12:44 PM
Insiders say rival may buy Andersen: Facing the defection of employees and clients as it struggles under the weight of a potential criminal indictment, Andersen is in negotiations to sell itself to another Big Five accounting firm, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, and an announcement of a deal could come as soon as this week, said people involved in the discussions. The talks between the two accounting giants were said to have begun in earnest last week, about the time Andersen learned that it faced indictment on charges of obstruction of justice in the Enron investigation as a result of the large-scale destruction of documents last fall in its Houston offices.
What I would like to know is ... has Deloitte Touche lost their corporate minds?
Seriously, why on earth would you want to buy Andersen NOW? Granted, the sooner you buy it and purge its name from the accounting rolls, the more likely you are to stem the loss of clients and personnel. (Mind, the chances of Andersen personnel not being purged in a merger, both because of salary savings and because there are a lot of accountants who seem to have fallen down on the job, is fairly small.) That said, if you buy the firm now, you inherit the obstruction of justice charges, you inherit the lawsuits from Enron and whatever that other major corporate bankruptcy was (Global Crossing? don't remember if that was Andersen or Pricewaterhouse), you inherit all sorts of government fines .... and the question has to be, is Andersen's internal consulting business worth the pain that the accounting arm will bring? (It's almost a certainty that the pure accounting functions will be shut down, both due to redundancy and the bad publicity.) How could you assume the assets and NOT assume the liabilities? Any sensible lawyer, seeing this taking place, will surely attempt to attach Andersen's assets so that they can't be dismembered in the way that Deloitte Touche wants.
A very sad ending after 90 years in business, but they brought it on themselves.
UPDATE: Apparently Accenture is considered a completely separate company, and not part of Andersen's assets. There's a separate internal piece called Andersen Consulting (which used to be Accenture's name, way back when) that does the sort of thing for ARthur Andersen that Accenture used to do. Pardon the confusion.
Posted by iain at 12:22 PM
Shea message to high schoolers causes stir: "I'm not saying not to drink; I drank a lot in this school," Shea said to thunderous applause from students. "What I'm saying is, don't die. Don't be crippled for the rest of your life, don't lose your arm, don't mangle your face." Later Friday, Shea, sought to clarify his remarks. "I want to make it very clear that I do not condone or encourage underage drinking. However, I refuse to ignore the issue of teenage drinking in high school," Shea said in a written statement. "My comments to students were open and honest, and were based on my own experiences as a high school student."
My goodness.
On the one hand, yes, it is open and honest. On the other ... it is perhaps a bit much to ask people to use their judgement about drinking at an age which notoriously lacks judgement about anything at all. (How on earth is one responsible about doing something illegal? Isn't that a direct contradiction in terms?)
It's a good thing he's not a government employee, though. According to tradition, that would be a firing offense. Remember Joycelyn Elders? And all she said was that kids should be taught about masturbation.
It is realistic to acknowledge that teenagers do things, and that they should use what little judgement they do have to make sure they don't hurt themselves and others. Unfortunately, acknowledging reality is something that Americans are terribly bad at. We would rather pretend that nobody does nothing, and if they did, they didn't enjoy it, and if they enjoyed it that's only because they didn't know better. You wonder sometimes exactly why we're so good at ignoring reality even after it bites us in the ass.
Posted by iain at 11:08 PM
House Rep's Rap: Unshackle the CD: Music CDs equipped with copy protection will, if Rick Boucher gets his wish, soon be as obsolete as eight-track cassettes.
The feisty Democratic congressman from Virginia says he plans to introduce legislation banning, or at least regulating, compact discs outfitted with anti-copying technology.
Heh. OK, this ought to be vastly amusing, for 10, 20 seconds, or however long it takes for the House leadership to make sure it never ever ever EVER gets near a debate on the House floor.
Assuming, of course, that this isn't simply empty posturing, which, given Boucher's history, would seem entirely likely. After all, he promised to introduce legislation to revise DMCA, and we've not seen one word of that, even though most in Congress are perfectly well aware that DMCA is bad law.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, that Boucher puts himself on the line and introduces his bill. I would be truly shocked if the House leadership didn't table it immediately, rather than refer it to the appropriate committee. But let's say that they do, for some terribly bizarre reason, have a fit of conscience and refer it to committee. It will almost certainly find itself buried there. But let's say that even then, the House has yet another spasm of thought and refers it out of committee and that the House, while collectively on a hefty dose of ecstasy, passes the law.
Anybody think that Stallings' committee would let this thing out onto the Senate floor? Anyone? Anybody? ... yeah, that's what I thought.
Posted by iain at 12:10 PM
Now just wait one cotton pickin' minute. We've got airport workers falling asleep. We've got workers who don't notice when devices are unplugged. We're supposed to believe that these people are ready to use wearable computers to defeat terrorism? How exactly are these devices supposed to work to defeat terrorism, anyway? (I just have this vision of someone at a gate saying, "Sorry, sorry. Can't let you go through. Windows crashed. Gotta reboot my head." Or a security person chasing someone through the airport and suddenly seeing nothing in front of him but the Blue Screen o' Doom.)
Posted by iain at 12:39 AM
The New Republic Online: Dole-drums
Well, all I can say is if moving at all is going to cause problems for Elizabeth Dole, may she move like the wind!
Seriously, I think TNR overstates its case. If Liddy moves further to the right to embrace Helms, I can't see how it will hurt her that much. After all, we're talking about a state that sent Helms to the senate year after year after year. Sure, the Democrats will attack her, and the moderates will abandon her. The Democrats and moderates never voted for Jesse, and yet he still polluted the Senate for, what 50, 60, 200 years or so. The far right doesn't really represent what she seems to believe, but clearly, if she's willing to run to represent a state in which she hasn't lived for more than 20 years, her beliefs are ... flexible. At the very least, she's willing to stuff what she truly believes in order to get elected. (There's also the small logistical issue that you simply can't get both of those camps to vote for the same candidate, absent some utterly overwhelming issue. They cordially loathe each other, and the moderates and Democrats really loathe Helms.)
More than Hilary Clinton, about whom many believe the worst, I suspect that Liddy is doing this to raise her profile and prep for another run for the presidency in 6-12 years. After all, the one thing that Hilary can say which Liddy cannot is that she's done the White House. Not as president, no, but she knows better than Liddy how intensely unpleasant it can be to be the focus of that sort of attention, even with some amount of accompanying power. (Still ... wouldn't that be one hell of a race in 2012? Miracles happen, and then we get "Liddy/Hilary: Clinton-Dole, the sequel!")
Posted by iain at 11:24 PM
Congressional Committee Web Site Exposed Internal Database: The U.S. House of Representatives committee leading the investigation into Enron's collapse temporarily will take its Web site offline this evening to perform a security audit, a spokesman said.
The review follows the discovery today that an internal database owned by the House Energy and Commerce Committee was left exposed to anyone with a Web browser.
Well, that would be an "oops", now wouldn't it?
Pity we didn't hear about it earlier, though. Can you just imagine what the newsies would have done with the opportunity to rifle through the Enron documentation, entirely legally?
Posted by iain at 09:46 PM
Views on AIDS unchanged, Helms says: U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms made headlines around the globe last month when he told hundreds of Christian activists that he was "ashamed" for not having done more to fight the worldwide spread of AIDS. But the North Carolina Republican made clear Tuesday that his comments didn't mark a wholesale conversion on the issue, as many activists for people with AIDS in the United States had hoped. [...] Helms said his views hadn't changed about funding priorities in the United States, where "we're taking so much money away from scientists looking into heart problems and other medical defects of humanity and dumping it into research on AIDS." Helms also remained highly critical of gay-rights activists, with whom he clashed repeatedly during the 1990s, and said he still disapproves of the "homosexual lifestyle." [...] Helms has previously characterized homosexual conduct as "incredibly offensive and revolting," and he said Tuesday that his views hadn't changed.
Oh, well, that's all right then.
Really, I'm so relieved. Thinking that ol' Jesse had had some sort of change of heart was just making me all confused. So nice to know that he's still the bigot we've all come to know and loathe over the years. After all, we have to be able to count on certain constants in this world, and the fact that Jesse Helms is a complete and total yutz is one of them.
In the meantime, Republican Senate candidate Jim Snyder wants to make sure that the people of North Carolina know that he is the One True Helms Heir.
Which makes conservatism sound vaguely venereal in concept, but never mind that.
What gets me is the way that Republicans are now trying to turn moderate into a dirty word. Apparently, there is only the One True Political Faith, and all others are apostate and must be destroyed! Once upon a time, being moderate was a good thing -- it meant that you could see most sides and make an informed decision about what aspects of various things might be the best for the country. Apparently, that's no longer a good thing.
(Mind, Liddy Dole is a carpetbagger, pure and simple. Yes, she used to live in North Carolina, but she spent most of the past few decades out there with Bob in Kansas. However, it may well be that the nation has become national enough that for some offices, being a local matters much less than it used to.)
Posted by iain at 02:33 PM
"Prime Minister Sharon has to take a hard look at his policies to see whether they will work," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told a congressional hearing. "If you declare war on the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed -- I don't know that leads us anywhere," he said.
Good heavens. Direct criticism of Israeli policy by someone in this government. Will wonders never cease?
It will be interesting to see what we finally do. I can understand that there are those who feel the US should be more involved. I just wonder why. Neither side sees us as a neutral broker, with quite a bit of justification. Neither side is remotely prepared to negotiate. Neither side is remotely prepared to make the least concession. So what would Zinni do over there? Twiddle his thumbs and hope not to get shot or blown up by one side or the other? What would be the point of that?
It's fascinating the different view you get of what Powell said, though. What Ha'aretz calls a "routine appeal" to Arafat, the Washington Post calls "unsparing criticism." (I'd call it folly or wishful thinking, frankly. Arafat can pick up a phone and call an end to the attacks? If Powell seriously believes that, then the man is far too deluded to be secretary of state, and I don't believe that he is deluded. I think he's trying to prop Arafat up to the extent that he can. Which isn't much.)
In the meantime, Peres seems about to withdraw from the current coalition government, which means that Sharon's government will fall, and new elections will be held. In the current climate, the government is likely to get a hard shove to the right, and hardliners will take over, with people like those in the National Union party having a share of power. Israel's National Union party is, quite frankly, terrifying to anyone sane: MK Zvi Hendel (National Union) said the time has come for the Sharon government to launch a military campaign to bring about the dismantlement of the PA or call immediate elections.
Peres points out the logical hole in Sharon's current position when he says, "If Arafat is not the address and he is irrelevant, then there is no point in pressuring him. According to this government's thesis, there is no one on the Palestinian side who can even start acting against terrorism, and even if there were, they would not have any reason. [...] If Arafat is irrelevant, we have nothing to ask from him and it does not matter whether he is in Ramallah or elsewhere. But if he is relevant, we need to be talking to him."
The concept that there is nobody to talk to is likely to be closer to the truth than anything else. To admit that there's nobody to talk to is also to admit that there's no hope of ending this violence anytime soon ... therefore, there is someone to talk to, right?
And in the meantime, the Israeli terrorist right has decided that as long as the Palestinians and the Israeli state are into this whole blowing-things-up-around-children kick, they might as well get into the act.
Posted by iain at 01:36 PM
Tales from eye of the storm: The Andersen accounting firm was just admitting it had destroyed Enron Corp. documents when a back-office employee told Stephen Goddard, managing partner of the firm's Houston office, how bad it was: Enough papers to fill at least 30 footlocker-size containers had been trashed.
Andersen Agonistes: It's been a rough few days for Andersen, which, as Enron's auditor, has attracted the ire of Enron employees and shareholders. As a result of its connection to Enron, Andersen has been fired by several major clients -- and is now being treated like a pariah by other accounting companies. Marketplace's John Dimsdale reports. (REAL AUDIO REQUIRED).
According to "Andersen Agonistes", the company has lost more than 30 major clients already, with no end to the hemorrhage in sight. One of the losses was of their biggest client, Merck, which moved to ... Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Yes, THAT Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Andersen's also lost "Freddie Mac" after 30 years, and many other longterm clients. It is noteworthy that it's Andersen, losing the clients and not Accenture, their consulting arm. Apparently, people continue to trust the consulting, but not the auditing. Since the consulting makes considerably more money, that part would be good. However, their budget for next year will be missing, literally, several million dollars, and they have no way at this point of knowing how many millions they'll be down. The auditing fiasco may wind up pulling the consulting down with it.
With destruction of that many key documents, Andersen may also find itself facing even more obstruction of justice charges.
Even if Andersen could rehabilitate its reputation in time -- which is doubtful -- it's hard to see how it could survive the abrupt loss of income. And even though consulting pulls in a great deal more money, isn't that predicated, at least in part, on the accounting side, which is no longer trusted?
If the company does survive, it will almost certainly no longer be one of the "Big Five" accounting firms.
Posted by iain at 12:26 PM
Saddam Hussein appears to be preparing a bid to be host of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Um ... yeah. right.
You have GOT to be kidding.
Everything else aside, the IOC isn't going to award an Olympics to Asia just four years after Beijing. That one will go back to Europe. (Unless Africa bids. Although the IOC would like to be in Africa at some point, the only country with a currently developed enough economy to support it is South Africa ... and you'd have to be insane to place an Olympics there right now.) After that, we'll have a North American Olympics in 2016 -- probably Toronto if they're still bidding.
But seriously. How many western governments would immediately instruct their representatives to reject that option, despite the nominal independence of said reps? And how long would it take them to do it?
Posted by iain at 04:53 PM
The Bush administration proceeded with a controversial plan Tuesday to strip the Federal Trade Commission of its authority to review media mergers, stirring strong accusations from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C. "I believe this is in violation of appropriations law, which states that we be consulted. For some reason, this administration doesn't like government," he said. "It's a tricky way to forgo consultation. We have our tricks too."
The NERVE!
I'm talking both about His Fraudulency and Stallings, in this case. His Fraudulency for going ahead with this (thank you for your contributions to his campaign, big media, and here's your blank check) and Stallings for ... chutzpah. Seriously, the man is Big Media's Senator. He hardly moves without asking Disney where they want him to be. (At the moment, Disney wants him to be fighting for a digital copy protection act that would compromise the function of computers, so that's what he's doing, by gum!)
It will be interesting to see what happens. Frankly, I think that Our Lord High Minister of Injustice is too busy running around covering the left tit of justice and arresting foreigners to really worry about media mergers. I can't imagine that there will be any functional oversight at all. Hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't lay odds.
Not that the FTC actually blocked all that many media mergers, but at least they gave lip service to the process -- and occasionally seriously egregious consolidations of power in one company would be blocked. (Warner/EMI, anyone? Granted, that was a joint tag-team effort between the US and Europe, but the FTC did raise objections over the consolidation of recording distribution channels, and the merger failed.) Now even that minimal oversight is probably gone.
Posted by iain at 04:47 PM
Two Nebraska families have been united in grief since their vacationing parents were killed in an I-40 collision west of Albuquerque involving a man accused of driving while drunk. Now the adult children of those Nebraskans say they also are united in their determination to do whatever they can to rid New Mexico's roads of the scourge of drunken drivers. Today, those children join Gov. Gary Johnson as he signs into law a bill making mandatory the use of an alcohol-sensing ignition lock for any driver convicted of a first, aggravated driving-while-intoxicated offense. [...] Records cited by the children of the victims show Larson had at least nine prior DWI arrests, dating back to 1986; had been convicted at least five times; had his driver's license suspended five times; and had been involved in at least two earlier crashes while intoxicated.
You know, the real question there is: why the hell didn't that man have his license permanently suspended ages ago? Surely a record like that indicates that he's not going to change? (Granted, he probably wouldn't have stopped driving for a little thing like not having a license.) That said, although I can sympathize with the people who lost family, I don't think that it would be legal -- or even necessarily possible for "All private and public employers in New Mexico [to] check the driving records of their workers to 'ensure that no past offender is entrusted with a vehicle'." It would require employer access to currently restricted databases (although technically, such convictions are matters of public record), or else it would require the state to answer questions it almost certainly lacks personnel to handle.
I have to admit, the law itself surprised me. I didn't realize that alcohol sensing ignition locks were even possible, let alone something that you could mandate. (I wonder what happens if the car is too old or foreign for the lock to work?) But apparently it is, although it's not clear what other jurisdictions may mandate its use. I must admit, the idea of a private company both being responsible for maintaining the records and having the independent judgement to decide when or if to send information to the officials does make me somewhat ... uncomfortable. (For that matter, why would they need to bother? Since the car stops people from driving at all if they've been drinking, the only reason to do that is if the court has mandated sobriety, and they typically cannot do that regarding alcohol. They can require you to go through a twelve step program, but since there's no such thing as a license to drink alcohol, they can't revoke your right to do so.
Posted by iain at 04:33 PM
Hard calls face Ryan in Death Row review
You know ... I'm actually beginning to feel sorry that Ryan is leaving office. Which I never ever EVER thought I'd say about a Republican. But the plain fact is that I don't think we could have gotten these decisions on the death penalty out of a Democrat, somehow. It would have been ... suspect. Coming from a formerly pro-death-penalty Republican somehow makes them more politically manageable.
If he does anything, I think he'll go for a blanket commutation. Reviewing all of the death sentences that took place before the new guidelines took effect will simply be far too time consuming, even if he reviews one per day from now until the end of his term. (That assumes it's possible to get through the transcripts and evidence and whatever else comes with any case in only one day.) Frankly, it's also going to be too grim. Can you imagine what it would be like to review some of the details of these murders, day after day after day? I suspect either it will be a blanket commutation or nothing at all, because that's going to be the only way to spare his sanity.
Of course, he's aided by the fact that he's a lame-duck. There may well be political fallout, but the legislature has no authority to overturn a commutation. (They might well give themselves that authority in reaction, although I think it would require an amendment to the state constitution.) And if he does this, I would be willing to bet that we'll see candidates running on the "every death sentence made by a jury will be carried out on my watch" platform.
Posted by iain at 12:16 PM
In a rare session with the press Sharon told reporters: "It won't be possible to reach an agreement with them before the Palestinians are hit hard. Now they have to be hit. If they aren't badly beaten, there won't be any negotiations. Only after they are beaten will we be able to conduct talks. I want an agreement, but first they have to be beaten so they get the thought out of their minds that they can impose an agreement on Israel that Israel does not want ... They must be beaten: the Palestinian Authority, its forces, and the terrorists," he said, adding, "if they aren't beaten there won't be any political horizon."
What planet did this man just fly in from? Frankly, this doesn't sound like someone who's been engaged in some aspect or another of this battle for the past few decades.
Seriously, does this sound like a policy that will work? to anyone? Has it worked so far? At this point, all a policy of "bring the pain" has gotten either side is tit-for-tat rounds of killing each others' theoretical noncombattants and an increase of the rate at which they do so.
Israel isn't dealing with a single, rational state actor to whom this sort of pain would be meaningful, from whom this sort of pain could elicit a useful response. They're dealing with one theoretically rational state actor whom they've methodically stripped of any real power by destroying his C3 abilities. They're dealing with small terrorist cells that never were rational state actors, and have never acted as such. They've been bringing the pain for nearly 40 years now, and they're now starting their third generation of radicalized Palestinians. They don't want to admit any of this is true, because then they would have to admit that their current policies aren't working, and that they don't have any reasonable alternatives.
It is, of course, entirely possible for Israel to make the cold, ruthless decision to bring the pain in quantities sufficient to cause the Palestinians to surrender. In theory. At which point, having killed about as many noncombattants as there are in the Palestinian areas, they will have become their enemies.
The U.S. Administration is considering returning special envoy Anthony Zinni to the Middle East, in a further effort to stop the escalation in violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
Whatever for? Neither side is in the least interested in a truly negotiated peace. You couldn't get Israel to the table with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Arafat clearly has no authority over them. Without them, a peace with Arafat is useless; he has no ability to enforce it. The US is only vaguely interested in controlling Israel's bloodthirstiness at the moment, and only insofar as it makes prosecuting the War on Terrorism more difficult to have all the Arab states yelling "Do something about them!" at us.
Posted by iain at 10:26 AM
You know, it's a good thing that Aaron McGruder doesn't mind controversy. This is SUCH a bad idea. Vastly entertaining, and I'll possibly agree with many many MANY of the choices.
But still.
Bad bad BAD idea.
I wonder if he'll make this an annual event ...
You know, I realized that Switzerland had declined to join NATO or any other such organizations. I hadn't realized that they had refused to join the UN until now.
This despite the fact that a great many of the world's international organizations work out of Switzerland. Apparently, organizations like countries that have no affiliation with anything. (I mean, even some of the UN's own work comes out of Geneva, for heaven's sake.) And why on earth would you contribute to an organization and refuse to take part? Wouldn't you want some say in how your money was being spent?
And Switzerland, overall, does not seem to be particularly happy about joining the UN, either. 69% of the French wanted it; 67% of the Germans rejected it. But for 2 percent ....
Posted by iain at 09:53 PM
(LILEKS) James : the Screed: Notes from the Olive Garden
You know, bashing The Guardian is about the easiest thing in the world. They're so vehement in their anti-Americanism sometimes that you just want to wander over to England and bait them. This, of course is an entirely unwholesome impulse and should be avoided.
But sometimes, they make it SO easy. And some people do it SO well!
For the record, I came to an almost complete halt in the original article at the very idea of trying to judge anything about this country based on the Olive Garden.
I also get the impression that some hostile encounter that didn't reflect well on the Guardian guy (like something could?) got edited out between the first and second paragraph, because it makes absolutely no sense otherwise. Also, the guy gets the "playground rhyme" wrong. It's not "I see [something] in her underpants", it's "I see So-and-so's underpants!" I mean, seeing something IN the underpants ... ew.
Texas is a "hinterland". Texas. One of the most populous states in the nation. OK. Whatever. Illinois is a "hinterland." Yep. Right. Sure.
I just hope that when that article zapped into the mailbox, the Guardian's editor wrote back, "We pay you for this crap?"
Posted by iain at 03:11 PM
You know, if this had been men and not women, I'm pretty sure that the Guys Union requirements would mean that punches would be thrown. Unless they were both drunk, in which case all would be forgiven the next day, if it was even remembered.
Posted by iain at 01:42 PM
What IS it with Spain and their priests? First that yutz who admitted to having gay sex and then supposedly expected the church to engage him in debate, then a priest engaging in internet kiddie porn, and now a priest flying the internet "love of his life" in to meet and marry her. He's to be suspended from hearing confessions. (Actually, I thought Mantero Garcia was suspended and stripped of rank, not just "suspended from hearing confessions", as he'd confessed not only to breaking his vows but a few major sins as well.)
Granted that such things have been happening for a while now, you wonder what's going on in Spain that their branch of the Church is just getting hammered by these things. Three straight weeks now. Weird.
Posted by iain at 01:36 PM
Times won't forget readers' reminder on Kwan headline
Well ... they may not forget it all that soon, anyway. But I'd wager they will forget.
"A headline such as this serves only to reinforce the stereotype that people of color, no matter what we do, or how long our families have been American, or how much we contribute, will never really be 'American.' "
Unfortunately, that stereotype has been with us throughout our history, and may be with us always. Blacks still get "Go back to Africa!", despite the fact that most of us have never been near the place, despite the fact that most of our families have actually been in this country longer than most whites. (That kind of happens when you outlaw the importation of slaves but don't outlaw immigration, you see.) Asian Americans, as noted, get that all the time. Even in people who aren't meaning to be racist, you get that sort of distinction all the time. I was having a conversation -- with someone who really should have known better -- and instead of distinguishing between ethnicities, he talked about Americans, blacks and Asians. He didn't catch it, and was at first startled by the fact that I could be offended by so simple a statement. A lot of people who should know better and who think that they do, at their heart of hearts, really do think this way.
Posted by iain at 12:42 PM
TV Joan faces jail for gay poem: [The officers of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, who is a leading evangelical Christian] disclosed this weekend that they may charge [Joan Bakewell, the TV presenter beloved of a generation as the 'thinking man's crumpet'] with blasphemous libel after she recited on TV part of an erotic poem about a Roman centurion's affection for Jesus. [...] If Bakewell is prosecuted, it will be a major test of Britain's controversial blasphemy laws which protect only Christians. They were introduced in the seven teenth century, when questioning the existence of the state religion was akin to treason. They have remained unamended ever since.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, would be an exhibit in the Museum of What's Bad About State Religions.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Societies are generally disinclined to get rid of 400-year-old laws, whether they're good or not, and this one is most decidedly not. Even if, by some miracle, the High Court says that this law is a relic and should be retired, the House of Lords is entirely likely to say, "We just don't THINK so," and restore it, because that's what they do. Usually, they have to be spanked by the Commons and the Prime Minister when they do that, and I'd imagine that both parties would feel strongly disinclined to wade into the middle of this particular mess.
To be sure, it's hard to disagree with the argument that the poem doesn't have "any outstanding literary merit." In fact, it's kind of vile, and made me feel all slimy by the time I was halfway through. (Follow that link at your peril, that's all I can say.) That's not the point. The point is, blasphemous though it may be, how on earth can you libel someone who's been dead two thousand years? (Or, if not precisely dead, at least not around in this earthly plane to get upset about the whole thing, never mind being physically in England.) The point is, shouldn't the party being libeled be the one to bring the suit? For that matter, how does libel wind up being a criminal, rather than a civil, charge?
There's also the discriminatory aspect, which is another feature of state religions. If someone were a member of, let's say, Jews for Jesus and felt offended by that poem, they have no standing in Britain to bring the suit. Technically, they aren't Christians. (In fact, I'd be rather startled if anyone not belonging to the Church of England could bring that lawsuit.) You can't blasphemously libel Mohammed in Britain. To be sure, I suspect that you can blasphemously libel Old Testament figures, which might just give Jews some standing ... but I suspect you have to be a C of E member to bring the suit in the first place.
Posted by iain at 11:45 AM
African nations veto Blair's plans to isolate Mugabe
Perfect. Just perfect. Britain tries to get the Commonwealth to sign off on Europe's rather impressively toothless sanctions against Mugabe, and Africa says No. (And not just no, but a pretty strong "Hell, NO!", at that.)
I just love the concept that Zimbabwe is accusing Britain of racism in this matter. Mugabe is having Zimbabweans of all races murdered if they oppose him, so I suppose he can be called nonracist in that, at least. He's an equal opportunity thug.
I can't imagine that the sanctions would have been terribly useful -- for one thing, debate over them has gone on so long that any foreign moneys should have been pulled from foreign banks when possible -- but I do wonder what on earth the African Commonwealth nations are thinking. Surely they can't seriously think that Britain wants to recolonize Africa, or is in any position to do so even if they wanted to. If their position is that it's an internal African affair and Britain and the others should just butt out ... well, then, they ought to do something about Zimbabwe, now shouldn't they?
Posted by iain at 11:01 AM
Congress Not Advised Of Shadow Government: Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House did not tell them that President Bush has moved a cadre of senior civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital.
Well ... I can't say as I'm surprised. I'm not even disappointed; you can only be disappointed when your expectations aren't met, after all, and this is pretty much what I'd expect from any administration on this issue.
First, Congress leaks like a sieve. If they'd told Congress as much as Congress wants to know, the undisclosed locations would not long remain undisclosed. (They're shuttling 100 people in and out on a fairly regular basis. I don't expect it to remain undisclosed all that much longer, really.)
Second, once Congress knew about it, they'd want to be included, and aside from the leak, how do you manage that? One rep from each state? One senator? What? And having decided to pluck a few people from Congress out of the mix, how do you hide the fact that you're doing it at all? (And they've managed to hide the fact for a few months, which is better than most would expect.)
And, to be perfectly cynical about it, I'm sure that the administration didn't want Congress messing up their nice executive survival plan. (I note that nobody from the Supreme Court seems to have been included either, or even federal judges from the courts of appeals.) Dealing with major issues -- or minor ones, for that matter -- is ever so much easier when you don't have those damn legislators interfering.
The Post notes that any such shadow government might have problems establishing its legitimacy with Congress, should the worst come to pass. This, of course, is a perfectly silly concern; should the worst come to pass, what Congress would there be? Anything comprehensive enough to take out that much of the government would certainly include Congress.
Posted by iain at 09:14 PM
Choice of Partner, Sex Act Key in HIV Risk.
I'm thinking that the only possible response to this is ... DUH. I mean, they studied this? How is it that any sensible person wouldn't have known this?
I understand the logic pehind publishing it -- they're hoping to persuade people to use safer sex techniques. Perfectly understandable. However, publishing something that is, as they say, "intuitively obvious" means that those who already practice safer sex wonder why you would spend time and money on researching this, and the people who practice unsafe sex really don't care. Nothing like a lose-lose proposition all around.
And if Cecil is to be believed, there's a startling amount of actual guesswork in that study anyway.
Teacher's plan to feed puppies to snakes nixed.
I just want to know: what sane teacher would this seem like a good idea to? And why are we having a run on loony teachers these days? And what's with the animal stuff? Munching sparrows, killing puppies ... what is going on?
Seriously, I can see the value in teaching kids that there are a lot of unwanted animals in the world, and maybe feeding them to snakes would be a graphic way of demonstrating exactly how unwanted, I suppose. But most teachers would realize pretty much off the bat that there would be one hell of an uproar over feeding cute little puppies to snakes, once it really got out.
Is it all THAT silly to expect just a bit of forethought from teachers?
Posted by iain at 03:45 PM
Study: Why Whites Are Less Susceptible to AIDS: The Burger team focused on a genetic mutation that had previously been shown in men to be protective against HIV infection. The mutant gene, called delta-32, if inherited from both parents, results in an abnormal, and in this case protective, receptor called ccR5 on the surface of their cells. [...] Overall, the researchers discovered that all HIV-negative women were about twice as likely to have the protective delta-32 gene than were infected women. [...] White women carry the heterozygous form of delta-32 far more frequently than any other women. About 1.2 percent of all white women who are HIV-negative carry the mutant gene. Only 0.6 percent of the HIV-infected white women carry the gene. Only 0.2 percent of HIV-negative African-American women carry the delta-32 gene. And among those who are HIV-positive, the frequency of delta- 32 is only 0.1 percent, or half as much.
So effectively, chances of getting HIV are at least partially both race-linked and sex-linked genetically.
Good grief.
I suppose that it does, in part, explain why the great Heterosexual AIDS Epidemic didn't happen in caucasians here, and did happen in blacks.
Posted by iain at 10:09 AM
Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret (washingtonpost.com): President Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans to ensure survival of federal rule after catastrophic attack on the nation's capital.
So now we have lots of people living and working at an "undisclosed location." You wonder how long this type of thing will go on. Granted that they're rotating the people, but there can only be so many people high enough up in each department to manage that. Basically, once this has gone on long enough, they'll be pulling in the same people over and over. You wonder how long they'll be willing to take that sort of thing before they finally decide that the job isn't worth this constant and repeated disruption of their lives.
The New Normal keeps getting more and more abnormal, doesn't it?
I dare say that the Greenbriar bunker in West Virginia is no longer one of the undisclosed locations.
Posted by iain at 01:37 AM
Blair paves the way for Iraq strike: TONY Blair yesterday announced his intention to back a US-led attack on Iraq as he agreed with President George Bush that there is a need to "take action" against Saddam Hussein.
Ah. How ... comforting?
Did we actually decide to attack Iraq in the next day or two, and someone forgot to actually tell us? It's very strange to hear all this rhetoric out of various places about attacking Iraq when we're not remotely in a position to follow through. Our resources are quite nicely strained, thank you very much, and it'll be a few months before various ammunition stores are built up again.
I dare say that many of the various British news outlets will be not at all amused by the fact that their government is supporting us in this. The Guardian, understandably, takes an entirely different tack:
PM faces dissent on Iraq after supportive words for Bush's fighting talk: Tony Blair yesterday stepped up diplomatic pressure on Iraq over its covert weapons amid concern among Labour MPs that Britain will back a US led attack on Saddam Hussein that may backfire on the global anti-terrorist coalition. [...] "There is a feeling of unease that is wider than usual," said Kevin Brennan, MP for Cardiff West. Tam Dalyell, father of the Commons, and an MP for 40 years, said: "There are unlikely people who are worried."
Actually, for the Guardian, it's a remarkably measured response. For the Guardian.
Posted by iain at 01:28 AM
