Sally Ride Toys With Engineering: Astronaut Sally Ride is challenging middle-schoolers to think like engineers by designing a toy for a competition called ToyChallenge. In the process, she hopes to encourage more girls to pursue careers in the field. "We need to impress upon girls that engineering is creativity, it's curiosity, it's common sense and it's cool stuff," said Ride, who was the first American woman to blast off into space. "It's not just geeks with pocket protectors." [...] Nevertheless, encouraging girls to pursue science careers is essential because "we need to take advantage of all the talent our country has to offer. "If you look around at the technical workforce, only 9 percent of engineers are women, still," she said. "We need to get a lot closer to 50 percent."

Not that there's anything wrong with geeks with pocket protectors.

It will be interesting to see if this particular approach works. It may encourage kids to see engineering problems in a different light. I suppose it depends on how clearly you can make the connection between engineering and toy design without belaboring your point, and without making toy design seem ... not fun, for lack of a better word.

Posted by iain at 02:32 PM

 

The University of Southern California (USC) has embarked upon a $100 million program to improve its faculty, through a combination of building of new facilities and attempts to hire top-drawer talent. [...] I can't figure out what kind of school within a university has a theme which would justify putting biology and "comparative literature" together. Except, perhaps, for the PE department, what wouldn't fit in there if both of those make sense?

It is, in fact, fairly common for universities to shove Arts and Sciences under the same general administrative umbrella. It's typically considered the undergraduate college; it's also not unusual for such schools to have an entirely separate administrative lump simply called the Graduate School/College, which provides graduate-level administration for, in large part, the programs in arts and sciences. One should also note that professional schools are usually purely graduate schools. It's comparing ... well, not quite apples and oranges, but at least different species of apples, let's say, to compare colleges of arts and science with professional schools.

When did physics and "urban studies" come to be given the same kind of respect? [...] Why is "ethnic studies" a hot area? Why, in fact, is it an area at all? What are they actually studying in those schools? Are they engaged in long term research projects? [...] What are they doing which is distinct, besides being visible?

An extension of that type of attitude, in part, is why these departments exist as they do. Being visible has its uses. For one thing, visibility as such allows them to state that the discipline, as such, is worth study. A fact which you, clearly, dispute. (As a matter of purest curiosity, how on earth does political science enter the mix of valuable studies? I'm not bashing -- it was my undergraduate major -- but it has relatively little to do with engineering directly.) It's also a response to the fact that nonwhites made substantial contributions to this country which were, for many years, deemed unworthy of study, purely because they were made by nonwhites. Frankly, I think that the proper place for most of those disciplines should be as parts of an American history program, or as parts of American literature, or as parts of a Sociology department. The fact remains that at many institutions, historically, those very departments once flatly refused to include any such study areas. And now, unfortunately, academia being what it is, people are unlikely to give up their fiefdoms. However, just because ethnic and gender studies should not be such fiefdoms does not mean that they should not be.

American blacks make up 12% of our population. I brood about the fact that 12% of our best minds are going to waste, being directed away from useful study and productive contribution in science and engineering and business and law and medicine, instead to bury themselves in ideologically-warped anthropological and sociological studies of race, because they will somehow feel that they have a racial obligation to major in "Black Studies" instead of chemical engineering -- or computer engineering, where I might have been able to hire them.

Your premises are flawed. One statement you seem to be making, at least implicitly, is, "That which is not science is not worth learning," although you do allow for philosophy being a worthwhile discipline. You are explicitly stating that every American black who goes to college is going into these ethnic studies programs, which even a second's thought would tell you could not be true -- nonetheless, you worry about the "waste" of 12% of our country's minds, directly after noting that 12% of the country's population is Amercan blacks.

For the record, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, most blacks do, in fact, receive degrees in business. The second highest number of degrees received by blacks is, to be sure, in social sciences and history -- I do, however, doubt that every single one of them is in African-American studies or its equivalent at each and every institution in which they enrolled. Third is psychology, fourth is "health professions and related sciences" -- hey, whaddya know? apparently we're not all wasting our minds in that fluffy stuff -- and next is education; most states require elementary and secondary teachers to have a degree in education. (You'd think that a subject major with a minor in education would be a more sensible way for states to work. But I digress.) Sciences as a lump (excluding engineering, the health professions and psychology) produces roughly 9,600 black graduates per year. There are even roughly 4,000 graduates per year in engineering and "engineering-related technologies", whatever those are. My. As for future Thurgood Marshalls, nearly 3,000 blacks received law degrees in 1999-2000, higher even than the number receiving medical degrees. (The primary barrier to both paths of study may not be interest or lack thereof, but the fact that they are both ruinously expensive degrees. Many people are not willing to go into that sort of debt, even knowing that their career may allow them to pay it off later.) The majority of masters' degrees received by blacks are in business -- the effective degree being an MBA -- and education -- again, principally due to state requirements -- with a significant number in public administration, and a few more in the health professions.

To be sure, I do believe that at many universities, the administration conceived of ethnic and gender studies departments as a sort of tokenism. A way to get minorities and women on their faculties, which would get minority groups and the government off their backs, and yet keep everyone separate and not equal. That I do not dispute. But not all universities' motives were so low, and perfectly good, reputable scholarship -- historical, literary, and sociological, yes, -- has come out of those departments.

There is also the issue of whether or not a society should have only scientists (and allowable non-hard-science scholars) and engineers as its members, since those are apparently the only subjects considered worthy of study. However, that argument can be left for another day.

Note: not a single solitary word about "empowerment". Aside from the title, of course.

Posted by iain at 12:32 PM

 

Major's affair - Major admits Edwina affair shame: FORMER Prime Minister John Major has admitted cheating on his wife with his Tory colleague Edwina Currie and described the affair as the most shameful event in his life.

Currie vents her anger at Major's 'shame': EDWINA Currie last night vented her anger and told of the pain she felt at hearing John Major’s description of their four-year affair as the event in his life of which he is “most ashamed”.
Speaking to The Times, which today publishes extracts of her diaries between 1987-1988, she said: “He was not very ashamed of it at the time, I can tell you. I think I’m slightly indignant about that remark."

Well, she certainly doesn't have cause to be more than "slightly indignant" about it. When you decide to hit someone with a broadside like that, you can't be terribly surprised when they hit back -- even in a terribly mild way.

DID we think John Major was ‘at it’ way back then in the mid-80s? Of course we did. Everyone was ‘at it’ in the fetid atmosphere of Tory triumphalism and seemingly never-ending ministerial power. Those of us who inhabited the same world as the politicians, who bought their dinners and drinks at our proprietors’ expense, also shared many of their secrets and suspicions.

You know, I'm beginning to think that this should just be the default assumption about all politicians and people in political (at least) power. If they can, they will, and that's all there is to it. At least it would get everyone past a certain hypocritical, "Oh, my goodness, how could they!" shock for public purposes. We could just move on to, "Yeah? So? Your point being?" (That said, the concept of, for example, Thatcher having had an affair, or perhaps even our very own Shrub .... kind of brings you up short, doesn't it?)

The part that gets me, though, is the magazines considering suing Major for damages, in retaliation for the libel suits he won against them: The disclosure of the affair has left the former Prime Minister facing threats of legal action from the publisher of the New Statesman and Scallywag, magazines he isssued with writs for libel during his time in Downing Street. Lawyers on behalf of the satirical magazine Scallywag, which has since folded, said that they were considering what action they could take following Mr Major’s confirmation of the relationship. In 1993 Mr Major served writs on Scallywag over articles falsely linking him to Clare Latimer, a Downing Street caterer. Ms Latimer has accused Mr Major of using her as a “decoy” to draw attention away from his relationship with Mrs Currie. Mrs Currie said yesterday: “I feel very sorry for Clare Latimer. She has described herself as a scapegoat and while I have no particular knowledge, I think she was certainly ill-used.”

I mean, seriously, what on earth could the man have been thinking?

That said ... the magazines did actually have the wrong woman. It may be possible thatt he didn't actually lie on the stand, as long as the questions put to Major were restricted enough. Who knows?

Oh, yes, and then there's this: Asked if she had ever hoped Mr Major would leave his wife, Norma, and settle down with her, Mrs Currie told The Times: “In those days we regarded families as sacrosanct, we felt that very deeply......" Well ... if you regarded families as all that sacrosanct, then neither of you would have engaged in damaging at least one, now would you?

(You know, maybe we should just mandate that politicians have affairs. Might clear up a bit of public hypocrisy here and there.)

Posted by iain at 10:54 AM

 

Israeli parliament gets first openly gay deputy: Uri Even, a chemistry professor at Tel Aviv University, will be sworn in as a member of Israel's Knesset (parliament) in November as a member of the left-wing Meretz party, replacing a retiring deputy, a Meretz spokesman said. Even, 62, is openly gay and an advocate of equal civic rights for homosexuals -- an issue opposed by the Jewish state's sizeable religious community.
    Nissim Zeev of the ultra-conservative Shas party accused the left-liberal Meretz of "adopting abominations" and "making sodomite vermin kosher" by nominating Even. "This man marks a further step toward moral deterioration," Zeev told Army Radio. "We can expect more disgraceful and saddening surprises as a result of the message he no doubt intends to bring on behalf of the sector he represents."
    In a recent interview with a local newspaper, Even threatened to expose a secretly gay lawmaker if he or she failed to support legislation on homosexual rights. "In the gay community everyone knows them (homosexuals in Knesset). If one of them works against the community's interests, I will pull that person out of the closet at a public press conference," Even was quoted as telling a Tel Aviv weekly.

"Sodomite vermin kosher"? OK, that's a very impressive insult. Or at least, it would be if it made the least sense. I wonder if something got lost in translation ...

Unfortunately, I rather agree about the "disgraceful and saddening surprises", if not remotely in the way that the person who issued that declaration meant. Going into the Knesset and threatening to out people if they don't vote your way, even before you've officially taken your seat, would seem both disgraceful and saddening to me.

It will be interesting to see how Even manages to avoid friction with the ultra-Orthodox parties since they don't seem in the least interested in avoiding political friction with him. I dare say that the debates in the Knesset on polarizing issues will be relentlessly interesting for some time. With that sort of religious conflict at its core, the relationship between Even and said parties will probably be even more hostile than that between Dick Armey and Barney Frank, which is saying quite something.

(One might also note that Even contradicts himself. If everyone in the Knesset warrants respect and he doesn't want to cause offense, then he wouldn't go in threatening to out people, now would he?)

Posted by iain at 11:22 AM

 

Ninth Circuit Reinstates Gay Worker’s Suit Alleging Harassment: Federal civil rights laws protect a homosexual worker allegedly harassed because of his sexual orientation, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday en banc. The 11-judge panel, overruling a district judge and the court’s own three-judge panel, divided 7-4 in favor of reinstating Medina Rene’s suit against the owner of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. The majority was unable to agree on a single rationale, however, and set forth its views in four separate opinions. Rene, a gay butler, claims that from 1994 to 1996 his all-male co-workers and supervisor subjected him to a hostile work environment, including crude and demeaning pranks and assaults targeting his homosexuality. U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro ruled in 1997 that Rene did not have a federal case because any harassment was based on Rene’s open sexual orientation, not his gender. But Judge William A. Fletcher, writing yesterday for a five-judge plurality, said Rene’s case is similar to that of the plaintiff in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998), a unanimous decision that allowed a worker subjected to harassment by same-sex co-workers to sue for sex discrimination.

Sad thing is, I think the dissent is correct in this case. Rene himself alleges that the harrassment came not because he and his coworkers were all male, but because he was gay and they were not. Congress has explicitly and repeatedly declined to add sexual orientation to the grounds for which one may claim discrimination (see shame on Winn Dixie, redux), and Oncale addresses more traditional sexual harrassment -- that is, the defendant was trying to get Oncale to sleep with him, and both defendant and Oncale were male and gay. It's stretching things quite a bit to say that Oncale prohibits the harrassment that Rene experienced.

That said, Pregerson noting that the Ninth Circuit itself has a different legal precedent is an entirely different kettle of fish. THAT said, I'm guessing that in two, three years, when/if the Winn Dixie case reaches the Supreme Court (I don't think it will, but let's pretend), they may step in because at that point, you'll have conflicting legal interpretations in two different circuits.

And the Ninth will be slapped down. Again.

Posted by iain at 05:07 PM

 

ABCNEWS.com : Possible HIV Blockers Found: Researchers studying people who are resistant to HIV have found a group of natural proteins that seem to inhibit the progressive infection of the virus that causes AIDS, a finding that could lead to new therapies. The research solves a 16-year medical mystery by identifying the proteins in a disease-blocking substance secreted in the blood of "long-term non-progressors" patients infected with HIV who never get sicker and never develop full-blown AIDS.

So if they are able to develop some sort of therapeutic from this research -- uncertain at this moment -- it's not that this would be any sort of cure or vaccine for AIDS. What this would be is a replacement for everything else. Assuming it can be turned into a drug of some sort, what would happen is that as soon as you were diagnosed with HIV, you would start taking this -- for the rest of your natural days, yes -- and this protein would prevent you from developing full blown AIDS. In theory, assuming that your body doesn't develop the same sort of resistance to this that it does to the other AIDS drugs, it could turn AIDS into a chronic, rather than fatal, condition. Even if it doesn't, it may allow people to delay moving to protease inhibitors, which tend to have nasty side effects even when they work well.

Posted by iain at 04:57 PM

 

From truthout.org:

A reader from New Hampshire wrote me recently: "I have just received a letter from my son's high school telling me that the "No Child Left Behind Act" has a section 9258 that is titled "Armed Forces Recruiter Access To Students" and that unless parents tell the school not to, they will by this Act, provide to requesting military recruiters all the names and addresses and phones of junior and senior students." [...] The statute requires every "local educational agency" that receives assistance under the Act (which they all do) to provide student records, upon request, to the military.
     However, the clause that allows parents to opt-out is not as clear as it appears. The provision reads: "A secondary school student or the parent ... may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing ... not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency ... shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request." [...] For two reasons, it is not clear that the opt-out clause is even viable. First, the language of the rest of the statute requires absolute compliance. Under the rules of statutory interpretation, used by all courts in interpreting the meaning of statutes, an individual clause must be interpreted in the light of the whole. The provision as a whole states quite clearly that access "shall" be given to army recruiters. No ifs, ands, or buts.
     Second, the opt-out language is extremely vague. It says that parents may request that the student's information "not be released without prior written parental consent," and that the school "shall comply with any request." Does it mean that the school must refuse to release records to the army if a parent objects? This is the most favorable reading from a parents' point of view, but it is not the only possible reading. The reading Ashcroft is likely to put forth, if not now then sooner or later, is not that a parent can refuse, but that the school must merely obtain the parent's signature first before releasing the records.
     In other words, the Act seems to imply that the records must be released either way.

Well, two things: First, she has a couple numbers reversed; the relevant subpart is actually SEC. 9528. ARMED FORCES RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS AND STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION

Second, her later fulmination, which I did not quote, entitled "Military Rule" is just wrongheaded. Whether one wants to admit it or not, the government and all its parts is/are "a prospective employer"; a job in the military is just as much a job as any other gainful employment. If you allow other prospective employers, and you have no religious or other objections, you really have no business denying the military or any other part of the government. You don't have to like the military to acknowledge that fact. (That said, it's likely to be only the military; I don't think the lower civil service does that much recruiting, and above that, you usually need college degrees.)

It also strikes me that, either way you read it, the opt-out clause both has, and does not have, actual teeth (well, you know what I mean). Either the parent's clear (and probably written) refusal is required, or the parent's clear and written consent is required. I'd wager it probably really is the former; that's more likely to get more names, since opt-out is more difficult to get people to do than opt-in. In any event, if consent is required, and parents do not sign, then you can't release the data. If refusal is required, and parents sign, then you also cannot release the data. If the military tries for the most liberal reading, schools are fairly certain to sue, if only to gain clarification of the statute

That said ... I do wonder what the government will do if they should run into, say, a small high school that doesn't normally allow recruitment of any sort on its campus. It doesn't seem like it would be that unusual, really. If it's not a religious objection, even if the school doesn't allow on-campus recruitment and doesn't give out addresses, it doesn't seem like this statute would allow them to refuse to give those addresses to the military.

Interestingly, the statute allows the student themselves to refuse ... sort of. It allows the student to request that their information not be released "not be released without prior written parental consent". In other words, you can ask your parents to keep the army from recruiting you. What a very odd way to handle it.

To be honest, the sections about school prayer and the Boy Scouts strike me as more objectionable than the armed forces recruitment section. The Boy Scouts is purely a philosophical issue, to be sure; apparently, a school is forced to allow an acknowledged "patriotic society" to meet in its facilities if it allows any outside group to meet. Not all groups, you understand; only the patriotic ones. Apparently, only certain groups are created equal when it comes to access to school facilities.

The school prayer part that they sneaked in, though ... that's really very impressive. Thing is, when it comes to public schools, there is pretty much no constitutionally protected school prayer. You can pray to yourself silently. That's about it, really. And yet public schools are apparently expected to certify that they allow students to participate in prayers which are not constitutionally allowed. I wonder exactly how that works. Maybe you send in a little typewritten thing: "Dear Departments of Education and Justice: We hereby certify that we have allowed students to participate in school prayer as allowed by the constitution. Sincerely, Mr/Ms Superintendent of Schools, A Public School System. P.S.: There is no constitutionally protected school prayer, you morons. M.S.S."

Posted by iain at 04:00 PM

 

Top Bush aide: Iraq helped al-Qaida: President Bush's national security adviser on Wednesday accused Iraq of sheltering al-Qaida members and helping Osama bin Laden's operatives in developing chemical weapons.
     Condoleezza Rice's comments--by far the strongest statements yet from the U.S. government alleging al-Qaida contacts with the Iraqi government--were aired Wednesday on PBS' ''The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.'' Her accusations came as the Bush administration continues to make its case to a skeptical world that Saddam Hussein should be removed from power, by force if necessary.

Apparently, Shrubya is getting desperate to get Congress on board with this whole "Let's go get Iraq" thing.

An alliance between al Qaida and Iraq makes absolutely no sense. They may both hate the US, but they don't hate us for the same reasons. Moreover, al Qaida, being religiously fanatical, don't like Hussein, either. They are known for their extreme distaste, to put it politely, for secular governments in Arab countries, and they don't much care if it's a dictatorship or a democracy; if it's not avowedly Islamist, it must go.

It certainly makes no sense that now, when we've said publicly that we want to attack Iraq, Hussein would suddenly decide to link up with the one group in the world that most of the world has no problems with us actually attacking. It especially makes no sense in light of earlier intelligence reports that Iraq was trying to kill the al Qaida members that had crossed its borders when it knew that they were simply fleeing Afghanistan.

And even if it was all true, the administration continues to decline to produce actual evidence of anything, so why on earth should we believe them on this? They continue to expect everyone to believe them Just Because They Say So, and the world doesn't work that way, and never did.

Posted by iain at 01:46 PM

 

My goodness. Our little gubernatorial election is actually getting noticed by the New York Times itself. Whoda thunk?

(Registration required.) G.O.P. Death-Penalty Feud Sinks to First-Name Calling: Case No. 94776 before the Illinois Supreme Court is known as Ryan v. Ryan. Attorney General Jim Ryan filed the lawsuit against Gov. George Ryan to halt an unprecedented series of clemency hearings next month for every inmate on death row. Governor Ryan, who is leaving office under a shroud of scandal yet is rumored to be a Nobel peace prize nominee for his efforts to reform capital punishment, has signaled that the hearings may spare the lives of many, or even all, of the 158 condemned prisoners.
     But the attorney general's lawsuit is more than legal wrangling over the death penalty. It exemplifies the bizarre state of politics here, in which Jim Ryan, the Republican nominee for governor, is battling George Ryan, the Republican incumbent, as much as his Democratic opponent. Confusion over the two Ryans, who are not related and have never been close, along with other internal dysfunctions, leave the Republican Party in danger of losing a governorship it has occupied for 26 years.

The fun part is that the major issue, aside from the death penalty lawsuit which is really more of a circus sideshow, seems to be that Jim Ryan is accusing voters of being too dumb to tell the difference between himself and George Ryan, because they have the same last name. (He's not phrasing it that way, of course. He says that we're "confused.") Seems simple to me. We either have the probably corrupt current officeholder who seems somehow to have missed the fact that his entire inner circle was taking bribes to finance some part of his last campaign but who has now found religion on the death penalty issue, or we have the probably corrupt current attorney general and former DuPage county state's attorney who prosecuted a death penalty case that was so bad that several of his underlings resigned rather than have anything to do with it; convictions in said case later being thrown out -- in one of the more impressively acid legal opinions I've seen -- by the Illinois Supreme Court due to police and prosecutorial misconduct. Really, it's very simple.

Posted by iain at 01:02 PM

 

Vt. judge bars federal death penalty: A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that the federal death penalty law is unconstitutional, saying the law denies defendants’ rights to due process, allowing evidence and procedures that could not be used at trial to be used to sentence a convicted person to death. Tuesday’s ruling came in the case of Donald Fell, 22, of Rutland, who is facing the death penalty for allegedly kidnapping and killing Teresca King of North Clarendon in November 2000. The judge, William K. Sessions III, ruled that the federal law, which expanded the list of federal crimes that qualified for capital punishment, was incompatible with three recent Supreme Court decisions, including one in June that found juries rather than judges must make the crucial factual determinations to support a death penalty.

My goodness.

One wonders if this will spur Congress on to correct the flaws in the law, or if they'll simply wait for the Supreme Court to rule on it before they do anything.

“It is inconceivable to this court that Congress could have intended instead to provide less protection in a capital proceeding than in a non-capital proceeding,” the judge wrote.

Er ... well, frankly, given the "kill 'em all" frenzy in which most of the federal death penalty laws were last rewritten, it's entirely conceivable that they deliberately provided less protection -- in fact, it was pretty much an explicit part of the process. They were incensed that people kept appealing and dragging out the enforcement of the penalty until a few of them actually died in prison of natural causes. How rude of them! In any event, noncapital defendants dont tend to make as many appeals as capital defendants, their sentences aren't necessarily unbearably long or technically as severe ... really, it would seem to be apparent on its face that Congress deliberately withdrew certain protections.

The only question is whether or not they'll continue to get away with what they've done.

Posted by iain at 05:39 PM

 

You know ... I don't actually care that much about relations with Germany, really. I mean, yes, good ones are better than bad, all things considered, but absent outright hostility to the point of armed conflict ... eh. Whatever.

Nonetheless, watching Schroder try to make up to the US government promises to be one of the more entertaining facets of international relations over the next year or so. Granted, international relations really ought not to be entertaining, but with this mess ... well, what can you do but laugh?

Schröder declares nothing changes on Iraq: GERHARD Schröder, the German chancellor who narrowly won a second term in Sunday’s election, yesterday made a minister who enraged Washington by allegedly comparing President George Bush with Hitler to step aside. However, the chancellor repeated his opposition to war against Iraq. Mr Schröder’s anti-war rhetoric, while helping him to defeat a conservative challenge, has strained German-US relations. [...] However, in a public snub, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said that he would not meet his German counterpart, Peter Struck, at a two-day NATO meeting in Warsaw. Mr Rumsfeld spoke in icy tones to express displeasure at how criticism of US policy on Iraq had become a core issue in Germany’s election. "I would have to say that the way it [the election] was conducted was definitely unhelpful and, as the White House indicated, has had the effect of poisoning the relationship." Mr Rumsfeld said that he had no plans to get together with Mr Struck, who had on Sunday expressed a desire for a meeting. In another move aimed at soothing tensions, Mr Schröder said that the Social Democrats’ parliamentary floor leader, Ludwig Stiegler, would be replaced. He fanned tensions recently by comparing Mr Bush to the Roman Emperor Augustus, who subdued Germany after 12BC.

The question does arise: exactly how much of his party and government does Mr Schroder plan to replace to placate us? At a certain point, not only will it interfere with the ability of his government to function, but his own party will come to see him as a servile lackey running dog of the imperialist ... er, pardon, a little East German rhetoric creeping in there. In any event, if he doesn't stand up for himself and his positions -- which, after all, got him elected -- his party will desert him, the parliament will declare no confidence, and he'll be out.

Stiegler compared Bush to Augustus? Pedophile, shtup everything that moves, relative-murdering Augustus? Oh, my. They are coming up with some insults of a high order, aren't they?

And then there's this little bit:

Schröder seeks Britain's help in row with US: GERHARD Schröder flew to Britain last night seeking Tony Blair's help to repair Germany's relations with the United States - at the same time as one of the chancellor's senior party officials said the US had interfered in Sunday's knife-edge election. [...] But Gernot Erler, a close aide of Mr Schröder, claimed the US had meddled in the German general election on Sunday. Party officials say it is inconceivable that he would have spoken without his political master's authority.

So let's see ... Schroder wants to make nice with us, but authorizes a high party official to insult us. AGAIN ... all-righty, then! (That said, Erler's actual remarks weren't quite as strident as that would make them appear. Nonetheless, to use Mr Erler's own words, what he said was "not particularly friendly".)

It is true that allies don't have to agree, yes. However, when you use one of your allies as a whipping boy to insure your own grip on power, you can't be terribly surprised when they distance themselves from you for a while. (In the course of normal human relations, most people would drop another individual who treated them that way. Thankfully for said course of human relations, relationships between nations don't quite work that way.)

Posted by iain at 02:32 AM

 

ElectricNews.net:News:US TV viewers turn to the Net during ads: US-based research and Internet behaviour measurement company ComScore Networks reported this month that a new opportunity for advertisers and marketers is emerging, which could include the simultaneous delivery of interactive content and ads through both the Net and television.
     The company's research has shown that 48 percent of American Internet users regularly watch television, and the same percentage have a TV in the same room as their PC. Moreover, of the 45.1 million US adults that have a TV and PC in the same location, nearly half (47 percent) said that they "frequently" use the Internet while watching television. A further 29 percent said they "occasionally" engage in both activities at once, and 18 percent claimed they "rarely" do so. [...] In fact, a massive 74 percent of the US users said they conduct on-line activities that are generally unrelated to the television show being watched, and more than half, or 52 percent, said they are often off-line altogether while watching TV and using their computer.

You know ... it does seem worthwhile to point out that people who surf the net during television shows are likely doing most of it either during shows they're not really paying attention to ... or during commercials. (Primarily a DSL/Cable modem behavior, no doubt.) Which means that they're turning to the net to escape ads. Somehow, I just don't think most TV/net simul-surfers are going to be terribly open to marketing at that time. And if more than half are actually offline altogether, then there's no marketing opportunity whatsoever; they're tuning out the commercials and they're not in a place where you can throw popup ads at them. The one thing this does not seem to be is a marketing opportunity.

I guess people really are so desperate to make money off the net that they're seeing opportunity where there really isn't one.

Posted by iain at 11:01 PM

 

Oh, good, something else to look forward to.

As Black Men Move Into Middle Age, Dangers Rise: The most dangerous time of life for a black man in America is middle age.
     After a decade of intense efforts to investigate and reduce the stark gap in life expectancy between between black and white men, researchers and health officials are broadening their focus beyond the violence, drugs and diseases like H.I.V. that claim the lives of many African-American males aged 18 to 35. They are asking not just why so many black men die young, but why so many die younger than they should -- of diseases that should not be so deadly.
     Death rates for black men are higher than for whites at all ages below 84, but the divide reaches its peak between 45 and 64, the years when diseases that afflict many older Americans begin to hit black men sooner and harder. Stroke and diabetes killed black men between 55 and 64 at about three times the rate for white men their age in 2000, according to the National Centers for Health Statistics, while cancer and heart disease killed black men in that group at rates 50 percent above those for their white peers.
     ..... THE threat of premature death looms large in Woodlawn, a predominantly black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. The average life span for African-American men there is 58.3 years, according to the city's Department of Health.
     ....."African-American men have had to deal with tremendous hardships and not complain, because complaining didn't help," Dr. Bonhomme said. "Now we push ourselves to distorted extremes without asking for help in order to `be a man.' It is a matter of pride to brush off pain. Several years ago, I injured my back so badly that I could hardly walk. My wife saw me drop to my knees in order to get out of a chair, and said to me, `What the hell are you doing?' I looked at myself and realized how crazy I was being."
      .....While access to treatment is one problem, there are also problems with the treatment African-American men actually receive. Last spring, the Institute of Medicine reported on a review of more than 100 studies, and the findings were startling: even when African-Americans and other minorities have the same incomes, insurance coverage and medical conditions as whites, they receive notably poorer care. Biases, prejudices and negative racial stereotypes, the panel learned, may be poisoning the reaction of doctors and other health providers. "Some of the most esteemed scientists in the world proved that medical care is not being dished out fairly," said Dr. James W. Reed, a professor of medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and a co-author of "The Black Man's Guide to Good Health: Essential Advice for African-American Men and Their Families." "White men were referred for sophisticated procedures like cardiac catheterization three or four times more frequently than blacks with the same symptoms at a V.A. hospital, where ability to pay doesn't matter. "Is it overt racism? I don't know," Dr. Reed continued. "Maybe it's more subtle, like physicians don't think blacks will adhere to therapy. But in the final analysis, whatever the definition, it is still discrimination based solely on skin color."

So apparently, the issue is partly our own bullheadedness, and partly someone else's. Always a good prescription for making a mess.

Their comment about hypertension seems a bit off the wall, though: "PERHAPS the most puzzling part of the equation has to do with high blood pressure, a major contributor to heart disease, stroke and many other diseases. It strikes one-third of all black men, and is twice as deadly for blacks as it is for whites. Interestingly, West Africans, from whom most American blacks are descended, have low rates of hypertension. Some experts suggest that stress and societal racial discrimination that black men (and women) suffer in this country play a major role. During a stressful incident, the body produces adrenaline and the heart rate and blood pressure increase. Experts speculate that constant engaging of a fight-or-flight mechanism by racial insults can contribute to chronically elevated blood pressure." Well, yes, it's possible that might contribute ... but seriously, how many of us experience that many racial incidents every day? Certainly, you can expect them to happen -- and maybe it's the expectation that's helping to drive things -- but somehow, it seems that a large chunk of the culprit might be that we're not eating the diets we ate back when we actually were West Africans; we had a few thousand years to develop and evolve to fit that diet, and only 300 to evolve to fit this one, so we're playing a bit of catch-up, here. The diets of West Africans looked somewhat different from the diet of your typical North American black -- sharply higher in grains, tubers, chicken and fish, for one thing. And, one suspects, consequently sharply lower in salt and fats. Granted that ours is somewhat derived from the West African diet; it's also more heavily influenced by European and other American tastes. After all, we aren't Africans any more, are we?

Posted by iain at 11:11 AM

 

Media Relations: the american candidate/ September 22, 2002

You know, it's just so seldom that you get politics and media coming together in a big ball of wrong in quite this way. It's just so very very special, really.

Posted by iain at 12:31 AM

 

Judge: cross-dressers not protected by sex discrimination law: A trucker fired because he wears women's clothes after hours is not protected by the federal law against sex discrimination, a federal judge has ruled. Congress has refused 31 times to amend the law to ban discrimination because of gender or sexual identity, and it is not the federal court's job to dictate policy, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk ruled. Winn-Dixie Louisiana Inc. had a legal right to fire Peter Oiler after he told a supervisor he went out one to three times a month as "Donna," dressed in wig, makeup, breast pads, and women's clothes, Africk said.

Ever notice how, when it's a law that the judge doesn't agree with and can justify his decision, the law falls or the plaintiff wins, but when it's something else, it's suddenly "not the court's job to dictate policy"? Whether they should or not, the courts dictate policy all the time. But I digress, if one can be said to digress when one hasn't properly started.

In any event, the judge's reasoning for dismissal is not terribly surprised. I noted some months ago that the discrimination laws that Oiler was using didn't seem to cover his case. And I continue to feel that Oiler was badly represented by the ACLU; this is a case that absolutely should have gone to jury trial if Winn Dixie decided not to settle. The jury would have heartily disliked both sides, but it's fairly likely that they would have felt that Winn Dixie had no right to regulate what Oiler did in his off hours. (And then, based on what actually happened in the case, the judge would have set the decision aside because the jury could not have decided that way, given the facts of the case and the laws at issue.) The ACLU can cite other states' protection of gender identity all it wants; the fact remains that Louisiana has not done so -- and with a sodomy law on the books, could hardly do so -- and the federal government has, according to the judge, repeatedly and emphatically and, most important, explicitly declined to do so, thereby limiting the reach of the laws under which Oiler sued.

Posted by iain at 12:03 AM

 

Marriage's infectious misery: The husbands and wives of asthma and depression sufferers may receive health checks in the future after doctors found they had a significantly increased risk of developing the same conditions. The study, of almost 8,400 married couples, showed that people whose spouses had those conditions or peptic ulcer disease were at a 70 per cent higher risk of being sufferers themselves. Those with partners who have other conditions, such as high blood pressure and excess blood cholesterol, were also more likely to develop them.

You know ... I understand how the spouse of a depressed person would have a significantly increased chance of developing the condition. I even understand peptic ulcer disease -- after all, that's caused by a virus, so if it's in the house, you can catch it, right? I even understand the high blood pressure and excess cholesterol; after all, those are frequently caused by diet and exercise (or lack thereof), and spouses are likely to share those things.

But asthma? What's up with that? Adult-onset asthma is actually relatively infrequent. They say it could be dust mites or allergens ... but those would be allergies not asthma.

Posted by iain at 01:11 AM

 

9/18/02 -- No URL Left Behind? Web Scrub Raises Concerns -- Education Week
     The Department of Education is in the process of a massive overhaul of its Web site to make it easier to use and to remove outdated data -- and ensure that material on the site meshes with the Bush administration's political philosophy.
     The department will strip its ed.gov site of thousands of files, many of them old and inaccessible from the site's home page. Sometime this fall, the new Web site will be unveiled, with special sections for teachers and researchers, parents and policy wonks.
     But some researchers and government watchdogs say the department's decision to scrap some information based on whether it comports with Bush administration initiatives could set an unsettling precedent. The redesign thus highlights yet another question emerging from new technology: Just what responsibility do political officials have to preserve the products of those who came before, particularly if their predecessors saw the issues in a different light?

You know, I suppose the responsibility depends on what, exactly, the material is. I mean, the National Archives has, theoretically, a copy of the old ed.gov website -- it requested copies of the old websites shortly after Shrubya's administration came in, and shortly after everyone realized that said administration was applying a scorched-earth (or web page) policy to all government sites. (The National Archives got caught with its pants down. It first said, "Oh, no, we don't want all those old websites," and then a few days later said, "OK, you know what we just said about not wanting those old websites? We fibbed." But I digress.) Mind, just because the website is in the National Archives electronic collection doesn't mean that it's accessable.

But really, I suppose the question is: exactly what is it they're throwing away? If the issue is an archive of previous administration policy decisions ... well, on the one hand, yes, it would be nice to have those around, but anyone expecting Shrubya to keep anything Clintonesque anywhere near his administration would be an utter and absolute fool. And if the issue is merely policy, and not research, then since the policy will have changed, there may be less reason to keep it around, except as a record of the past.

However, it's quite likely, given what it's doing in other parts of the government, that Shrubya's administration is deleting quite a lot of perfectly valid research reports, purely because they may say things like, "Vouchers are not good for the educational system." (Don't know if there is any such paper about vouchers at the department of Education. It's just a f'rinstance.)

Actually, the remarkable thing is that the Department of Education is still there. It's been a target of Republicans almost since it was split off from the old Health, Education and Welfare department. It's legendary among university financial aid departments for its ability to misplace paperwork and set unrealistic deadlines. And at that, it's considerably better and more responsive than the old Education section of HEW. But again, I digress.

Posted by iain at 12:37 AM

 

Upsetting theory of MS sex link is dismissed: THE sensitivity of a scientific report linking multiple sclerosis with sexually transmitted disease led the publishers to distance themselves from the findings. A leading article in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry described the work of Christopher Hawkes as “pure speculation”.
     Dr Hawkes has drawn on known patterns of MS prevalence to reach his conclusion. He does not suggest that MS is exclusively a sexually transmitted disease, but says that the evidence supports the idea that in susceptible people an infective agent could be the cause of MS, and the patterns of disease indicate that sexual activity — or even sexual abuse in childhood — might be the means of catching it.
     The theory was immediately attacked as speculative and likely to upset MS sufferers.

My goodness. Sex just gets deadlier and deadlier, doesn't it?

The disturbing thing isn't the theory; the disturbing thing is the reaction to the theory. It is, clearly, speculative, yes. I can't imagine why it would be any more upsetting to people with MS than, say, actually having MS. For some reason, it seems to be more and more popular in this modern world to decide that if a scientific theory contains information that people don't like or might be perturbed by, to decide that the theory itself is wrong, or shouldn't be publicised. This makes no sense. Science is science; deciding that you don't like the results doesn't make them untrue.

The Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry should be deeply ashamed of itself. It purports to be a scientific journal, then distances itself from its own articles. If the editors or publishers thought the science was speculative to the point of being flat wrong, then they should have declined to publish it. Pushing away at this point accomplishes nothing positive; the article is already out there. What it does produce is either distress (assuming that the editors are right about that) because the science may be correct, and people don't want to hear it, or a great deal of well-deserved contempt because the editors and publishers don't have the courage of their convictions and didn't just say, "We think it's an interesting scientific theory that deserved publication."

Posted by iain at 12:03 AM

 

Whaley earns exemption to next year's GHO: Suzy Whaley has a chance to become the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event. Whether she does so is another matter. Whaley, the head pro at a Connecticut golf club, earned an exemption to next year's Greater Hartford Open. She won a PGA Section Championship on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to qualify for a tournament on the PGA Tour.

My, my. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. I wonder what made her decide to try to qualify; the article doesn't say.

If she decides to play, I hope she finishes well, but the physical obstacle may be difficult to overcome. Women's tees are typically further forward, to compensate for lesser upper body strength; she would be playing from the normal men's tee in the Greater Hartford, if she plays. There's also the issue that some of the players will no doubt be displeased that a woman is daring to play in their tournament, but professional golf being set up the way it is, their opportunities to be really unpleasant about it are somewhat limited.

One does wonder which would be a more potent symbol: women being allowed into Augusta National, or women competing with the men in an actual PGA tournament. I suppose it depends on what, precisely, it's supposed to symbolize.

Posted by iain at 11:30 AM

 

HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views (washingtonpost.com): The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as patients' rights and public health, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views and in other cases replacing members with handpicked choices.
     In the past few weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services has retired two expert committees before their work was complete. One had recommended that the Food and Drug Administration expand its regulation of the increasingly lucrative genetic testing industry, which has so far been free of such oversight. The other committee, which was rethinking federal protections for human research subjects, had drawn the ire of administration supporters on the religious right, according to government sources.
     A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.

Apparently, Shrubya believes that science that causes the contributors to his campaigns to spend money on our safety, to stop following paths that harm the people of this country, is invalid science. The commitee that was examining consumer-level genetic tests -- almost all of which are either invalid or unnecessary -- is disbanded. The committee in charge of redrafting regulations to protect human subjects in research projects is disbanded, apparently both because it offended the pharmaceutical industry to actually, like, protect human subjects, and because religious conservatives wanted it to come out against using embryos in research, and the committee declined to do so. (The new version of the committee will be headed by the person who founded the National Right to Life organization.) The committee that evaluates the effect of exposure to environmental chemicals is being restocked by people working in the chemical industry.

To be sure, that this administration would take that type of approach was indicated by its handling of the Environmental Protection Agency. Headed by the hardly-pro-environment Ms Todd-Whitman, Shrubya has managed to essentially eviscerate her position, cutting the legs out from under her in public with such dedication and frequence, one wonders why she's still in the administration. The EPA had to be bludgeoned into cleaning up the apartments larded with asbestos from the fall of the World Trade Towers; they have still declined to actually tell people in the affected areas that they can apply for dust cleanup. If you don't petition the EPA or somehow otherwise get told, you'll never know. (They're still being rather unforthcoming about the fact that the deadline for applying for cleanup was extended.) Thus, you have the spectacle of one apartment in a building being thoroughly cleaned, but the hallways and other apartments remain laden with asbestos dust and other pollutants. It's not likely that the cleaned apartment will stay that way very long, is it? The EPA also still maintains that the Towers site itself is relatively clean, despite increasing numbers of sick workers from the site.

(Something of a side issue, but perhaps still indicative: Interior Secretary Gale Norton has been held in contempt of court. To be sure, she's the second Interior Secretary in a row to be held in contempt over that particular case. Nonetheless, when a judge issues a 267-page opinion -- ye gads! -- and says therein, "In February of 1999, at the end of the first contempt trial in this matter, I stated that 'I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government,"' Lamberth wrote. "Now at the conclusion of the second contempt trial in this action, I stand corrected. The Department of Interior has truly outdone itself this time." ... well, you've gone some way to distinguish yourself, haven't you? Justice and Interior plan to appeal, of course. Heaven forfend they should simply do as they were told.)

It is all part and parcel of this administration's approach to government. We have an elected leader who doesn't believe in democracy or democratic procedures; he appoints as the nation's highest constitutional officer a man who does not believe in the Constitution; he appoints as guardians of the environment people who believe that its effective exploitation should be their guiding principle; now as the guardians of the nation's health, he appoints people who believe that the health of their purse is more important than the health of our bodies.

Posted by iain at 06:09 PM

 

Petition to Congress: A Vote Needs to Be Taken on War with Iraq

.... Oh, dear.

Well ... they're not wrong, necessarily. Congress should most certainly debate the issues. And it is arguable whether or not Congress "authorizing" the president to enter the nation into conflict with Iraq under the aegis of the UN (or not, as the case may be) suffices for the Constitutional requirement. (Of course, the problem is that, once it's signed off on said "authorization", Congress is quite happy to allow the president to conduct war without their express declaration. Allows a bit of wiggle room, you see. But I digress.)

In any event, as I say, it's not that the historians are wrong, precisely.

But I do have the temptation to lean over 1,300 shoulders and say, "Um ... people? You're historians. You have no money. You have no voice that the public at large pays attention to. Why on earth do you think that Congress would care in the least what you say?"

However, being as that is a profoundly undemocratic sentiment, I would never do such a thing.

(Has anyone noticed that over the past year, academics have been in a veritable petition frenzy? And they all seem to have been singularly ineffective.)

Posted by iain at 01:29 AM

 

Beauty queens' threat to Miss World

That headline just sounds terribly menacing, doesn't it? Makes you think of a woman in an evening gown with an Uzi, or some such. Well, it's both more and less than it appears. Or rather, it's less menacing and more... unusual.

THIS year's Miss World contest appears to be under threat after a number of contestants announced they were pulling out in support of a village woman who has been sentenced to death for adultery in the host nation, Nigeria. The newly crowned Miss Switzerland is the latest contestant to withdraw from the final after an Islamic court in rural Nigeria, operating under strict sharia law, condemned a 30-year-old woman to death by stoning after she gave birth to her daughter outside marriage. Nadine Vinzens, 19, said: "If I went there, that would be like supporting the whole thing. It's frightening what's done to women there. The human rights situation is very poor."

I have to admit, I can't imagine the contestants of Miss USA or Miss Universe doing the same sort of thing. I may wrong them horribly, but I can't imagine The Donald allowing any notion like human rights or protest or independent thought to disturb the pageants which he does, after all, own. All things being equal, I would expect that the contestant contracts with Miss Universe, Inc., are extremely restrictive, and have spectacular penalties should a contestant even think of any such thing.

Logically, if the Miss World is run the same way as those pageants, then the contestants are in violation of their contracts and will be stripped of their titles (and money and other fun things that come along with it), which will be handed to the runners-up ... many of whom will respond to the call of their governments and the European Parliament and decline the honor.

Although its impact in Britain has diminished since the BBC dropped the show in 1988, the contest is still seen on Channel 5, and in 140 countries around the world. However, some commentators have speculated that the fight to save Ms Lawal may turn the once-pilloried pageant into a platform for women’s issues.

And the concept of a beauty pageant -- ANY beauty pageant -- becoming an actual platform for women's issues is just bizarre.

In the meantime, back in the good ol' US of A, Miss America finally has a Miss North Carolina!

... Doesn't quite have the same "oomph", does it?

To be fair, in a peculiarly subversive way, the Miss America pageant may actually provide substantive contributions to women's issues, as it really does encourage contestants to continue education. It's just the whole swimsuit/evening gown/talent competition that tends to throw people off, and make one wonder if the substantive contributions are quite balanced out by the substantive detractions.

Posted by iain at 01:04 AM

 

Annan: Iraq to accept inspections

Well, that's ... surprising.

The administration will not be pleased, if Iraq really means it. (And more especially if they don't.) Shrubya really really REALLY wanted to send in the bombers.

I would imagine that the rest of the world is, metaphorically speaking, scratching their heads and saying, "What the ....?"

From the administration point of view, the problem is that this is an extraordinarily effective delaying tactic, if that is what this is. They'll never get a resolution out of the UN as long as Iraq appears to be complying, or making a pretense of a reasonable effort thereof. And as long as Iraq appears to be making a reasonable pretense of complying, the administration will find no international support, and will find internal support problematic. It may well be that Iraq realized that the Shrub's speech at the UN shifted international opinion to realizing just how frequently and successfully Iraq has flouted UN regulations, without any meaningful consequence to the regime itself. Perhaps they think that this will hold things off just long enough.

In any event, the cursing in the White House must be quite spectacular.

Posted by iain at 06:32 PM

 

A Supreme Court Ruling Roils Death Penalty Cases: Not long after the United States Supreme Court invalidated Arizona's death penalty statute in June and only a week before the Arizona Legislature enacted emergency legislation to reinstate it, two men accused of murder tried a bold legal maneuver that may save their lives. They pleaded guilty. The prosecutor was surprised but candid: he said the men could plead guilty without fear of execution. He has since changed his mind. The judge, in Holbrook, Ariz., will hear arguments Thursday on the prosecutor's motion to undo the pleas. [...] Nicholas S. Sizemore and Scott B. Brian, the two Arizona men who pleaded guilty, were already serving time for murder when they fatally stabbed Carlos R. Ceniceros, a fellow inmate, in November 2000. Mr. Sizemore, 21, was in the fourth year of a 30-year sentence. Mr. Brian, 38, was serving a life sentence. [...] "There does not appear to be a viable death penalty sentence to which Mr. Sizemore would be exposed," he told the judge. He added a similar comment about Mr. Brian. The judge, Dale P. Neilson, agreed, telling the defendants that life in prison was the maximum sentence and accepting their pleas. He scheduled a sentencing hearing for September. [...] just days before the sentencing, [prosecutor Joseph Duarte] had his own surprise for the court. He said in court papers that he had been wrong about the death penalty and that the sentencing could proceed under the new law. He suggested that the defendants should be allowed to withdraw their pleas. This drew a strong reaction from one of Mr. Sizemore's lawyers in a court filing. "Why, in the name of God, would Mr. Sizemore want to withdraw?" the lawyer, Thomas J. Phalen, asked. "So that the state can kill him?" (NY Times, registration required.)

Well ... yes. Arizona's position is, quite clearly, that these people need killin', and they should politely withdraw their pleas so that the state can get on with the business. After all, they've recognized their guilt, so all they have to do is to plead guilty again, and the state can get on with ushering them off this mortal coil, right?

You do wonder, really, why on earth Arizona would even make that argument. It's not vaguely sane. I would also imagine, given the limitations of the successor death penalty statute, that that will eventually be found unconstitutional, either by the state supreme court or the US Supreme Court; victims' role aside, it can't be constitutional to constrict the review of a jury verdict in that way. (I do like the part where the attorney general says that the people could have been sentenced to death under the old statute. Well, clearly, they couldn't have been; death sentences under that statute were explicitly overruled by the Court.)

It's also interesting to watch the unseemly scramble as the state fights to retain the old death sentences under the overruled statute, by apparently arguing that the juries heard aspects of the cases that constitute the proper jury involvement. After all, clearly it doesn't -- that argument is ludicrous on its face. I do understand why the state is making this argument, though; in order to get death sentences under the new statute, they will essentially need to retry the case in front of a new jury. The person's guilt will be conceded -- given that they were found guilty, you would have to -- but since the new jury won't have heard any of the evidence, you need to mount the case again. No prosecutor would want to do that, and even the defense attorneys can't really be looking forward to it. After all, it's going to be an incredible drain on time and resources for all of them.

Posted by iain at 01:59 PM

 

Lack of training, complex technology led to major mistakes on Election Day

A circus and worse. Reading through the list, it's no wonder that south Florida's elections fell apart when everyone else's seemed to go fairly well.

Posted by iain at 07:22 PM

 

A life apart
     They could be any two aging Southern sisters out for a Sunday drive.
     The younger of the two stashes her sister's walker in the back of the Buick, then slips into the driver's seat and heads for open road.
     With the love of exploration they have always shared, the women leave behind their small hometown, with its courthouse bell tolling the hours. Their windows rolled up tight against the bugs and sledgehammer heat of southern Alabama, they skim past cotton fields that stretch to the horizon.
     The car kicks up little clouds of red dust on the dirt roads that slice through the region's piney woods and pockets of poverty.
     It is a corner of the Deep South made familiar to readers around the world by the spirited, white-haired woman at the wheel. For she is not just another resident of this rural county. She is the elusive, fiercely private author of one of the 20th Century's best-read novels, "To Kill a Mockingbird."
     She is Harper Lee.
(Chicago Tribune, registration required.)

A really lovely piece about Harper Lee's life ... told almost, but not entirely, without the cooperation of Harper Lee herself. (She allowed them to photograph her for the piece, but she did not grant any interviews.) It's much better in the actual physical newspaper -- that's where I first saw it -- because it has several wonderful photographs. Even without them, it's a really nice piece of writing, of a length you don't generally find even in the features part of the newspaper.

Posted by iain at 12:34 AM

 

You know, one begins to wonder if Florida's Department of State should be allowed to do anything any more. At the very least, the people in charge of elections seem to be woefully incompetent.

Leahy: Unskilled workers to blame: Miami-Dade County officials lost faith Thursday in their own ballot count, saying a spot check of returns from Tuesday's botched primary revealed serious discrepancies that could require a re-examination of all 7,200 machines. [...] Gwen Margolis, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade County Commission and a member of the election canvassing board, predicted that returns from every machine in the county would have to be recounted. [...] One indication of serious trouble that materialized Thursday: Several Miami-Dade precincts, each with hundreds of registered voters, are listed as showing one or even no votes cast Tuesday, a virtual impossibility. Broward's tabulation shows at least one precinct with hundreds of registered voters and no votes cast.

The fun part is, depending on how comprehensive the various mechanical problems, are and the voter error, and the odd orneryminded poll worker, and the misplaced machines -- they misplaced entire voting machines? they misplaced more than one? what on earth are those people DOING down there? Anyway, depending on how comprehensive these various errors are (and it seems that they cover at least two counties), a recount might not merely make various elections closer, but might actually change results. It's virtually certain to force a full statewide recount for the Reno/McBride contest; there was already one race headed for a recount ... and sadly, it might lend some truth to Take Back Miami-Dade's claim that the gay rights amendment should have been far closer to repeal than the results showed.

The Herald notes that all this came about because Florida was trying to fix the problems that caused "the embarrassingly inept presidential election of 2000." It does seem that they've made things ever so much worse, doesn't it? "Embarrassingly inept" seems like it might be too mild a term to cover having two elections like this back to back.

Posted by iain at 11:10 PM

 

Gay couple moves by Falwell church: A gay couple is renting a home across the street from the Rev. Jerry Falwell's church to correct what they see as misinformation spread by the pastor and show that homosexuals can lead Christian lives. "We just want Lynchburg to see us - an old gay couple - and realize that we're as boring as they are," said the Rev. Mel White, 62, who moved into the cottage Tuesday with Gary Nixon, 52. White, a minister with Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles, ghost-wrote Falwell's autobiography and has known Falwell for more than 15 years - before White announced his homosexuality. [...] Falwell called the couple's move a publicity stunt but said they are welcome at his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, about 60 miles east of Roanoke. "I can't think of anyone who needs it more," Falwell said.

Well, that ought to be interesting.

To be sure, I don't expect it to work. Most of the people in Falwell's church will simply ignore them, since they're making a deliberate provocation of themselves. (Of course, if they ignore the couple and nothing happens, it kind of proves their point, doesn't it? It may just be that we don't have ecclesiastical cooties.)

That said ... I would imagine that there are a great many people who wouldn't simply ignore them, because this is such a deliberate provocation.

Hope they've got their homeowners' insurance paid up. I expect they'll hit the deductible in broken windows alone, right quick.

Posted by iain at 04:06 PM

 

Abortion Fight Might Scuttle Bankruptcy Bill: Long-awaited legislation to overhaul the nation's bankruptcy laws, which the credit card industry and other corporations have ardently sought, teetered toward collapse yesterday when House leaders pulled it rather than risk angering Republican abortion opponents in an election season.

My, what an interesting fork to be caught in. To whom should one pander? The corporate interests who have lobbied and spent lavishly for one's services -- with perfectly legal campaign donations, of course -- or the far right wing of your part, with people who will mobilize and vote for you in the upcoming election or who will become disgusted with you and stay home if they're one issue voters and that's their issue? Which evil does one choose?

And apparently, surprisingly enough, it seems that Representatives will do at least part of what they're supposed to do and ... represent. (Hey, I may think that the people they're representing are completely wrong-headed, but at its core, part of the responsibility of a representative is to either do what the people tell them they want, or to go against what the people want for what they know is right and take the consequences. The House seems, against all recent historical record, to have picked option 1 in this issue. At least for the moment. Mind, all bets are off come the short December/January pre-new-members session, when the lame duck members have nothing to lose either way, and the continuing members are safe for another two years.

Posted by iain at 12:35 PM

 

Editor's File | A letter to Coulter

Dear Ann Coulter:
     You're fired.
     It's not that extreme viewpoints are unwelcome on the opinion pages of the Centre Daily Times. All political viewpoints, from Cal Thomas on the right to Molly Ivins on the left, are welcome here.
     But, we don't welcome haters, Ann, and that's what you are.
     Well, you are either a hater or a hypocrite who calls names and spews enmity because you believe it will get your pretty face on television more or sell more copies of your best-selling books. In either case, we won't be publishing your Friday column anymore.

My word. How ... rare.

I can but imagine the flack he's going to take for this. Not least in the first column the lovely Ms Coulter gets a chance to publish after this.

Mind, I can think of one or two on the left that I'd appreciate this happening to, as well.

Posted by iain at 12:48 AM

 

Media Relations: a wedding/ September 12, 2002

Entry withdrawn because I've gotten quite enough hate mail over something I don't take at all seriously, thank you very much.

Posted by iain at 06:29 PM

 

Traficant gets his campaign under way: James A. Traficant Jr. is sitting in a federal prison cell in Pennsylvania, but his congressional election campaign is under way. Traficant, the former nine-term congressman who is running as an independent for the 17th Congressional District seat, is opening two campaign offices and has appointed Jim Bunosky of Austintown as his campaign manager. [...] Traficant, of Poland, is serving an eight-year sentence in a federal prison, convicted of bribery, racketeering and tax evasion.

You know ... not that one would expect him to win, but what on earth would Ohio do if he did? He can't possibly serve. I wonder what the point he's trying to prove is? And how, pray, is he paying for all this when his campaign couldn't raise money very well the past two years? (Although he's not far behind the Republican candidate in funds raised, at that.)

I also wonder if they're letting him wear that fluffy yet dessicated marmot toupee while he's in prison.

Posted by iain at 05:57 PM

 

Steve-O Out On Bond After Turning Self In

You know ... on the one hand, I can imagine that it would be difficult for the prosecutor to argue that the show had no artistic merit, quite. I mean, it's an entertainment show. And frankly, yes, it was certainly indecent, but it really couldn't be said to be obscene. Not even in Louisiana, the state where people have sex in the streets in startlingly large numbers a couple times a year. (OK, that's just New Orleans, but nonetheless....)

That said ... WHY would you do something like that? EVER?

(Oh, wait ... it's THIS yutz. Well, never mind, then. Still not obscene, though. Just stupid. And if being stupid were illegal, just think how crowded the jails would be.)

Posted by iain at 05:50 PM

 

New Scientist: In a remarkable feat of tissue engineering, major parts of the penises of several rabbits have been replaced with segments grown in a lab from their own cells. The animals were able to use the reconstructed organs to mate. The next step is to try to recreate the entire organ from scratch. The technique could make it possible to reconstruct the penises of men who have suffered injuries or those of children born with genital abnormalities.

Oh. Um ... yes. Well. Indeed.

Well, there's just not a lot you can say about that, is there? Penie in a test tube. Yes. (And for those people who might be thinking, "Hey! A way to get rid of the guy!" -- you still need a live human to attach the thing to so that it will work, OK?)

It could also provide an alternative to the crude methods currently used to enlarge the organ, such as injecting fat cells or cutting the penis's suspensory ligament and "pulling out" more of the internal part. Instead, a patient would have penile cells removed by a doctor and, a few weeks later, the organ or parts of it grown using the cells could be surgically implanted.

Of course, someone would think of that, wouldn't they? Just imagine the organ that an unethical plastic surgeon (or whoever would do that sort of thing) could create. You could become the pornster of your wildest dreams! Of course, most women (and men, for that matter), pornster or not, wouldn't touch the thing or let you touch them with the thing, but that wouldn't stop those people who always think "bigger is better".

And the interesting downside to that is: with current methods, if it goes wrong or you change your mind, at least to some extent, it can be undone. You can remove fat deposits, or wait for them to absorb. You can have suspensory ligaments reattached and the "internal part" put back in. (You know, I don't even want to know what that's talking about. Never. Ever. No.) But if they've used your own cloned cells to encourage your pene to actually grow more erectile tissue, more blood vessels, more of whatever it would need to be bigger (and purely as a side note, one wonders if you'd need skin grafts to accommodate the increased ... er, expansion capabilities, as it were) ... if it was all actual penile tissue, and you discovered too late that your desires outpaced anyone else's desire to do anything with it ... there's nothing you could do. You would be stuck with the overlarge organ. (Interestingly enough, there currently seems to be no such thing as "penile reduction surgery"; all such queries seem to map to circumcision, which, however necessary it may or may not be, really isn't that.)

Posted by iain at 01:01 PM

 

Land, what a mess Florida is.

Narrow victory for gay rights in Dade: The fight to preserve a Miami-Dade County law that protects people from discrimination based on their sexual orientation has succeeded, a Herald analysis of uncounted precincts indicates. Leaders of No to Discrimination/SAVE Dade, the group leading the fight against the repeal effort, claimed victory Wednesday, with results available from all but a few precincts. The repeal supporters vowed to mount a petition drive to try again. Anti-repeal leaders took satisfaction in the win, although the margin of victory in Tuesday's referendum vote was less than they hoped -- and substantially lower than a Herald/NBC 6 poll last week predicted. [...] A poll conducted for The Herald and NBC 6 last week showed the repeal being defeated by about 20 percentage points -- a wider margin than the apparent 6 percentage point difference on Tuesday. Political analysts say polls on touchy subjects such as gay rights, immigrants and minority rights often miss the mark. ''On polls like this people often give the socially desireable answer and don't want to admit to somebody they don't know they're a homophobe,'' said Kevin Hill, a political science professor at Florida International University.

Of course the margin was lower. Any polling on anything having to do with sex or race is subject to a "social desirability effect"; people will tell the pollster what they think the pollster wants to hear. This is why, in other places, when polling indicates that nondiscrimination laws will pass, they fail; why, when minorities run for offices they have not previously held and polling indicates they will win easily, they win by small margins or lose outright. In anything having to do with sex or race, you can generally subract 5-10 percentage points off the top, and that will give you a better idea what to expect. I don't know why, after all this time, pollsters don't just admit that. (Mind, a full 15 points is a rather impressive amount of lying, even for this type of topic.)

(As a side note, I would tell the national groups interviewed in that article to stop fooling themselves. The failure of the Miami-Dade referendum will most certainly not serve as a deterrent to other anti-gay ballot efforts nationwide. Why on earth would it? Quite apart from anything else, Florida is demonstrably peculiar. In any event, all politics is local, as the man said. Miami-Dade's referendum would have nothing to do with a similar referendum in Orlando, or in Atlanta, or in Pittsburg, or anywhere else. It's utterly meaningless, and to take encouragement from it is unwarranted. But I digress.)

Apparently, Miami-Dade County doesn't have any law that prevents what amounts to referendum harrassment, so the conservatives can and will just keep getting signatures to shove this back onto each election ballot. Mind, both sides will be subject to some fatigue. It's difficult to get people to keep signing petitions, especially when the people putting the petitions out are known to be corrupt, and especially when the referenda keep failing. And it's difficult to keep trying to mount a defense, raising money and awareness. The question is, who will wear out first.

Miami-Dade anti-gay coalition calls election results fraudulent: One day after Miami-Dade County voters narrowly rejected an effort to repeal a county law that protects gay men and lesbians from discrimination, a leader of the coalition opposed to the law said the results were fraudulent. With nearly all votes counted, some 53 percent of voters supported protections for gays, while 47 percent opposed them. Eladio Jose Armesto, a spokesman for Take Back Miami-Dade, a collection of groups that includes the Christian Coalition, accused county elections officials of rigging the vote by not counting all of the votes to repeal. Armesto said that because his group’s exit polls showed that 67 percent of county voters chose to repeal the 1998 amendment to the county’s human rights ordinance, the county’s tally “should be considered highly suspect and with very little credibility.”

Unfortunately, because of the spectacular mess Florida made of this first major post-2000 election, he has a certain point. Not, to be sure, the one he's making -- it's highly unlikely that tthe vote would be off by 20 percent, really -- but it is virtually certain that the votes for and against have been somehow miscounted, or that people planning to vote on the referendum didn't get the chance or had their votes misapplied. The only question is whether or not it's a difference that made a difference.

In the meantime, in The Big Race:

Two days later, still no clear winner in gubernatorial primary: Two days after voters went to the polls and with 99 percent of precincts counted, Florida’s election meltdown continued to leave the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls in limbo, with neither willing to declare victory or concede defeat. With only a handful of precincts left to be counted, political newcomer Bill McBride held onto a precarious 11,000-vote lead over Janet Reno. But most of the yet-to-be tallied votes were from South Florida, Reno’s stronghold.

Herald analysis shows McBride victory: ..... McBride's victory seemed assured late Wednesday based on a Herald analysis of outstanding precincts in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The Herald examined the number of registered Democrats in the precincts that had yet to be counted. Using a turnout rate of 50 percent -- higher than the actual turnouts in either county -- and giving all the votes to Reno, McBride would still win by more than 2,000 votes. [...] Late Wednesday, Reno's campaign left open the possibility that it might file a court challenge in the wake of rampant voting irregularities in the two counties. Campaign strategists also began pointing to alleged problems in the counting of votes in Miami-Dade. For example, one precinct showed 900 percent turnout. Another showed only ballot cast out of 1,637 registered voters.

I'm assuming that given surrounding verbiage, the phrase should read "only one ballot cast..." The story also goes on to note that despite an executive order from Jeb Bush requiring polls to be kept open, some poll workers closed them on time anyway, meaning some people didn't get to vote. The problem is, even if you can prove this sort of irregularity, what can you do? People will be unable to prove that they were kept from voting due to that sort of thing. You can't invalidate the primary completely and hold another; even if it were a reasonable solution, there's really not enough time. Basically, for the second election in a row, many voters will feel that they have been screwed out of their vote by the state. It may or may not matter in November -- somehow, Jeb Bush doesn't seem terribly threatened either by Reno or McBride -- but people are building up one hell of a grudge in that state.

And let's face it: Florida had two years to clear up their problems, and they seem to only have come up with excitingly new and different ones. How likely is it that they'll manage to fix this lot in the two months they have until the gubernatorial elections? It's very probable that Florida will have three major elections in a row with major difficulties ... and it will be very interesting to see what happens after that.

Posted by iain at 12:32 AM

 

HIV could aid heart transplants: An attempt is being made to use a harmless version of HIV to help prevent the rejection of transplanted hearts. The virus, which causes Aids, is dangerous precisely because it has the great ability to integrate its own genetic material into that of ordinary non-dividing cells. Researchers at Cambridge University, UK, are exploiting this feature to get genes into a donated organ that will tell the body's immune system not to attack it.

Well, it would be nice if something good could come from HIV. Although the irony involved in having a disease that remains uncurable itself providing the cure for several others due to its method of infection is almost too much to be borne. And I don't imagine that it could cure anywhere near as many as it's killed so far.

But still, at least it would be something.

Posted by iain at 12:10 AM

 

It appeared that Miami-Dade County's gay rights ordinance would survive early Wednesday as voters seemed to be rejecting an effort to repeal it. With 529 of the 754 precincts reporting in Tuesday's primary, 109,938 votes _ or 54 percent _ were against repealing the law, while 94,591 votes, or 46 percent, were in favor.

Well, something seems to be going well. Although I could wish that it were more emphatic, but considering as I suspected the amendment would actually be repealed, let's just take what we can get, shall we? Let's shall.

And with that, I'm off the air the rest of today. Back on Thursday.

Posted by iain at 12:23 AM

 

Secret Appellate Court Meets: A secret appellate court has met for the first time in its 24-year history to consider a request from the Justice Department for more power to wiretap suspected terrorists and spies, according to department officials.

A secret appellate court.

Good grief.

If they tell Ashcroft he's full of it, as they should, I suppose he'll appeal to the Secret Supreme Court. I wonder who's on that?

And in other news, our vice president is once more undisclosed. With a little luck, he'll stay that way until the next presidential election or so.

Posted by iain at 06:25 PM

 

Denver in an Uproar Over Police 'Spy' Files: Sister Antonia Anthony, 74, found herself in the files, characterized as a member of a "criminal extremist group." Great-grandmother Helen Henry, 82, was in there too, with the notation that her Toyota sedan was affixed with a "Free Leonard Peltier" bumper sticker.
     Both had aroused the suspicions of the Denver Police Department, which has maintained dossiers on about 3,200 individuals and 208 organizations that it believed bore watching. When the files were discovered this spring, the ensuing uproar, from the mayor on down, compelled the department to get rid of them. But first, the department was advised, the subjects of files should be given a copy so they could learn what the police had on them.[...] Some with police files were angered by what they said was an invasion of privacy. It harked back to longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's extensive files on the rich, famous and politically active; it also echoed concerns that America's war on terrorism has turned back the clock on civil liberties. [...] The computer database was created in 1999 when the Police Department culled about 100,000 "Rolodex records" compiled since the early 1950s and transferred the most recent ones into its computer system.

I would point out, given the age of the database, that it has nothing to do with the war on terrorism and making the comparison is ... inappropriate, at best. It does seem to indicate a certain peculiar mindset of the Denver Police Department (apparently, another good place not to live if you have slightly unusual political beliefs).

Posted by iain at 05:42 PM

 

Alleged Mistress Describes Saddam: Saddam Hussein enjoys watching videos of his foes being tortured but also has a tender side, dancing to Frank Sinatra and dyeing his hair, a woman who claims she was his mistress over three decades said in an interview. [...] Lampsos described Saddam's dark side, claiming that he enjoyed watching videos of his foes being tortured, sometimes wearing a cowboy hat for the occasion.

How ... sweet?

Seriously, what are we supposed to do with that nugget of information? What are we supposed to think or envision? "Oh, Pari, dear, would you turn up the volume so that I can hear the screams of the infidel's pain while I rinse out that hair dye?" I mean, what? This is not the sort of thing that quite makes someone seem more friendly and light-hearted, now is it? Does he listen to Ol' Blue Eyes singing "Fly me to the moon" to make him feel better as he has someone flogged? That would not make me feel particularly well-disposed to Ol' Megalomaniac, myself. (Not that I'm particularly fond of Sinatra, but EW.)

She said she now wears a veil in public to disguise herself; after fleeing Iraq a year ago, she fears Saddam may try to kill her.

Well, yes, I should think he might. If only for the bit about the hair dye. A megalomaniac dictator should have SOME secrets, after all!

Posted by iain at 05:34 PM

 

Slip of tongue in interview 'betrays secret that bin Laden is dead'

Which would be really interesting news, but for the fact that the Times of London never tells you what the man said.

Posted by iain at 05:26 PM

 

Overview of Changes to Legal Rights

It's strikingly unusual for the Associated Press to engage in such ... noneditorial editorializing. Really, all they do is to enumerate briefly the legal changes that have come to pass.

That is, however, quite enough.

Posted by iain at 12:53 PM

 

Arlington, Texas, Department of PreCrime:
     Police ask stores to take fingerprints: Police are asking businesses to voluntarily participate in a program to take customers' fingerprints if they pay by check. [...] Pam Dawson, property manager for the Lincoln Square shopping center, said seven stores have participated in the program since March, and she expects all 88 stores in the center to comply. "Our goal is to show we are a safe shopping center," she said. "If you are a fraudulent check user, we don't want you to come to Lincoln Square." Dawson doesn't expect complaints from customers. "I anticipate if you are not guilty of anything, it's not going to matter to you if someone takes your thumbprint," she said.

Ah. A definition of "safety" with which I was previously unfamiliar. Thank you for sharing!

Well, I'm terribly glad that I don't write checks in stores that much, and that I don't live in Arlington. Not that this development is going to stay put in Arlington, or even just in Texas. After all, some places are already having people pay by fingerprint, or trying to if they can get the technology to work properly. On the one hand, yes, such databases do nothing more than verify identity, if used properly. However, in this day and age, I don't particularly trust law enforcement to use them properly. It also seems to reverse the burden of proof in some way; they suspect you're a criminal, and you need that fingerprint to prove that you're not. The default assumption is that you're a criminal.

Sadly, Ms Dawson is quite probably right. Most people won't object, if it doesn't take significant amounts of time, and isn't terribly messy. Most people feel, especially now, that any attempt taken to "safeguard" them, in whatever way possible, is worth the inconvenience or the loss of privacy and other rights.

Posted by iain at 12:13 PM

 

Settlement Reached In Florida Election Lawsuit (September 3, 2002): The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups today announced the settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed against the state of Florida and seven counties after many African American and other voters were disenfranchised during the presidential election on Nov. 7, 2000. [...] At hearings held by the NAACP in Miami and other areas of the state, African American voters and others testified about being kept from the polls in some counties and having voting problems on Election Day. There were complaints that some voters were told their names were not on registration lists. Others had been erroneously removed from the lists of eligible voters because they were wrongfully believed to be felons who were not eligible to vote. Another common complaint was that poll workers were not adequately trained to assist voters. [...] Earlier in the case, settlements were reached between the Plaintiffs and Supervisors of Elections in Broward, Duval, Leon, Miami-Dade and Volusia Counties, as well as with Choice Point, Inc. Some of the provisions of the agreements include: [(1) Central Voter Database [...]; (2) Poll worker Training - The Division of Elections has prepared a poll worker manual that provides examples of election administration procedures as required by the new election laws [...] (3) Alternative Voting Procedures [...] (4) Voter Registration [...]

Reno asks for extended voting hours after many problems reported in South Florida: Numerous voters reported problems in scores of Miami-Dade and Broward polling places today as they tried -- and often failed -- to participate in the first statewide election since the 2000 presidential debacle. Some polling places opened late due to malfunctioning touch-screen machines -- and a few precincts remained closed for many hours after the polls were to open at 7 a.m. Poll workers had trouble activating machines because of mechanical malfunctions or poor training. In some cases, especially in Broward, precinct clerks and other key workers failed to show up, paralyzing those precincts. Voters also reported registration problems and other confusion.

Plus ça change, plus la même chose...

Posted by iain at 11:24 AM

 

Police blasted on witness rights: A federal judge on Monday ruled that Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors have routinely violated the rights of witnesses by denying them access to lawyers while holding them for long hours in small, locked interrogation rooms. In a sharply worded opinion, Judge Milton Shadur of U.S. District Court in Chicago issued a wide-ranging injunction ordering Chicago police to begin allowing lawyers to see the witnesses immediately. To verify police compliance, the attorneys must be present when police tell the witnesses they have arrived, Shadur ordered.
     .....Shadur's ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by First Defense Legal Aid, a not-for-profit group that provides free legal advice to the poor while they are at police stations. First Defense filed the lawsuit late last year, alleging that police barred attorneys from seeing some 40 indigent clients being held as witnesses. In its lawsuit, First Defense contended that its lawyers were denied access in cases where witnesses were held for periods ranging from 5 to 24 or more hours. First Defense alleged it was prevented from seeing several clients who were being questioned in the fatal shooting of Officer Brian Strouse in June 2001. First Defense lawyers said that they tried to see one witness for 14 hours but were denied access, and at one point saw him handcuffed to a chair. [...] Chicago police and prosecutors argued that they did not violate the Constitution. But they admitted, according to Shadur's ruling, that police detectives routinely discourage witnesses from seeing attorneys. Witnesses are held in interrogation rooms and isolated because the police want to "overcome (their) reluctance" to cooperate. They are not told when attorneys arrive. Law enforcement officials contend, however, that those witnesses voluntarily remain in custody and insist that, at that point, they are not suspects.

I see. So people volunteer to be handcuffed to chairs and imprisoned for at least 24 hours when they're not considered suspects. And somehow, doing so does not violate the rights of association, or rights against cruel and unusual punishment, or rights against unreasonable search and seizure (if it's unreasonable to take something from a person's room without a warrant, surely it's unreasonable to hold the entire person who is theoretically suspected of no crime at all). Interestingly, it does not violate the right to an attorney as encoded in Miranda, which only applies to those arrested for crimes. Nonetheless, I would think that any reasonable lawyer would consider the Constitution to have been violated by these procedures, yes.

In any event, I would expect that this issue will go up to the US Supreme Court, since a Constitutional issue is directly implicated. The Illinois Supreme Court has already ruled on similar cases, and may simply refuse to hear another appeal, which means that the case will go from there to the Federal Court of Appeals (since it's not an issue of interpreting the Illinois state constitution, I don't think there is a direct path from the state supreme court to the US Supreme Court). In other words, if the police get their injunction, they'll be free to abuse witnesses for a while yet.

Posted by iain at 10:36 AM

 

9/11 and the Law - Sacrificing civil liberties to fight terror: not without a fight. By Dahlia Lithwick: As a result of this congressional abdication, the executive branch has made America "safer" by implementing the following measures: Now "material witnesses" can be detained indefinitely without judicial review, and the number of such witnesses can be kept from the public. Suddenly 1,200 noncitizen residents can be detained indefinitely without charges. Immigrants can be detained without suspicion. The government may now eavesdrop on attorney-client discussions if it suspects "terrorist activity." The government has also granted itself the right to unilaterally designate anyone -- including two U.S. citizens, Jose Padilla and Yasser Esam Hamdi -- as "enemy combatants" and to lock them up indefinitely in military prisons without charges or the right to question this designation. Space is right now being cleared in military brigs to house more such combatants at the president's whim. The PATRIOT Act authorizes investigators to seize medical and academic records as well as book purchases and loans records from libraries. The FBI has unprecedented powers to monitor Internet communications, to infiltrate public gatherings, and to follow leads without oversight. The act authorized roving wiretaps (taps not tied to a specific phone), sneak and peak search warrants (that do away with the requirement that the target be notified), and the sharing of information obtained without a warrant between prosecutors and intelligence investigators. The president also generously handed himself the right to create secret military tribunals, which subvert the rules of evidence and the presumption of innocence, and named himself the sole arbiter of appeals. [...] It is not a lot to ask that if this "war" on terror is to continue, this simple test be instituted: Civil liberties may not be suspended unless some principled government objective is articulated and the proposed measure is carefully tailored to meet that objective. If the government feels that giving Yasser Esam Hamdi access to an attorney imperils American security, it should tell us why.

Posted by iain at 10:46 PM

 

100 jets join attack on Iraq: About 100 American and British aircraft took part in an attack on Iraq's major western air defence installation yesterday in the biggest single operation over the country for four years. [...] The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months. Although only 12 aircraft dropped precision-guided bombs on to the H3 airfield, 240 miles west of Baghdad and close to Jordan, many support aircraft took part. [...] Until yesterday, all strikes had been against air defence sites in the south, around Basra, Amara, Nassairya and Baghdad. Central command said it was still assessing the damage caused by the attack. If the air defence installation was not destroyed, a second raid is expected. As well as blinding Iraqi radar to any special forces helicopters, the loss of the H3 installation would allow allied aircraft mounting major raids on Iraq a trouble-free route into the country.
     In a further sign that America was preparing for war, a Pentagon official confirmed that heavy armour, ammunition and other equipment had been moved to Kuwait from huge stores in Qatar.

My.

But Our Glorious Shrub will "consult" with Congress before beginning hostilities.

Yes. Quite.

Posted by iain at 12:07 PM

 

U.S. agrees with Israeli assessments on Libya's efforts to get nuclear weapons: The U.S. agrees with Israeli assessments that Libya has renewed its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb, and that those efforts have been stepped up since 1999, when the UN sanctions on the country were removed.
     Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said this week that Libya is energetically seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. Israel believes that Libya is trying to acquire fissionable material for nuclear weapons through centrifuges, but that it is a slow process. Experts say that Libya may be cooperating with North Korea and Pakistan in the effort. The prime minister mentioned the same assessment, though he also raised the possibility the Libyans are getting aid from Iraqi experts. Sharon told media interviewers that it's possible that Libya will achieve nuclear status before Iraq.

Interesting.

I would be willing to bet quite large sums of money that you will never hear the administration say much about this publicly. To say so would mean that, by the terms of the debate (such as it is) that they have started, that Libya is a greater potential threat than Iraq. Most of the same conditions apply: a state with a secular but moderately insane leader, virulently anti-Israel and slightly less virulently (or at least less publicly) anti-American. Unlike Iraq, a state known to have supported various terrorist groups. Using the same criteria to analyze Libya that have been used with Iraq, it must be considered as great a threat, if not a greater one.

However, since the issue with Iraq seems to have relatively little to do with what the state has actually done and more to do with the state of Our Glorious Shrub's psychology (and the psychology of his administration, many of whom were in place for the last incomplete go-round), you will not hear this administration state that they should go after Libya, despite its known and proven support of terrorism and antipathy to the West.

To be sure, it would be ... impolitic to say such a thing. It would give point to Middle East fears that the administration's desired policy is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, rather than anti-Iraq and anti-terrorist. Threatening Libya would cause our Middle Eastern allies, such as they are, to withdraw even further.

But by the terms the administration has stated ... it is more justified to pursue Libya than Iraq.

So now that we have (very quietly) agreed that Libya is pursuing nuclear weapons, and may soon have them ... what will we do?

(For what it's worth, Libya denies that it has or is pursuing nuclear weapons technology. And a side note: surely, when asked what kind of weapons Libya had, Sharon ought to have said something less snide and arch than, "Probably the bad kind." That's not the sort of response calibrated to get anyone to take the issue seriously.)

Oh, and another cute little side note: Lawmakers debate new nuclear bomb that burrows: Behind closed doors, Republicans and Democrats are battling over whether to develop a new hydrogen bomb designed to smash through dozens of feet of dirt, rock and concrete before destroying underground targets. Republicans argue that the bomb -- called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, or RNEP -- is needed to destroy buried, hardened targets in countries such as Iraq, which may have placed biological or chemical weapons in fortified bunkers. Democrats say that such a battlefield nuclear weapon is not needed and that developing it could provoke a new arms race. [...] Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas argued during congressional debate that RNEP may be needed to deter other countries from burying their most valuable facilities. If U.S. weapons cannot reach deep targets, he said: "Then we are simply saying, 'Go to it. We'll leave you alone.' We are encouraging people to bury their communication, their factories, their silos, and we will not be able to do anything about it.''

A new arms race? With whom, precisely? Neither China nor Russia (or anyone except Europe, actually) have the tech nor the funds, and Europe has absolutely no such desire. I suppose Libya and Iraq and a few other smaller states might have the desire, and could steal the tech, but it wouldn't be an arms race, really.

I would also point out to Mr Thornberry that we already encourage other countries to bury those facilities. Surely the lessons that could be learned from the Gulf War and the recent Afghanistan attack are, "Hide what you're doing" and "Bury them deep so the cruise missiles don't get you." You'd have to be awful stupid not to have figured that one out by now.

The Bush administration says the feasibility study would provide interesting "advanced concept'' work for physicists and engineers at the nation's three labs: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratory, which has its headquarters in New Mexico and a branch lab in Livermore. Much of the excitement has gone out of nuclear weapons work since President Bush's father ended underground nuclear testing in 1992.

Heaven forfend we should have unexcited scientists around.

Posted by iain at 10:39 AM

 

Dogs in Elk in Vegetables

Oh. DEAR.

Suddenly, I'm just SO glad I don't have dogs any more. (OK, so elk aren't precisely thick on the ground in Chicago. Nonetheless.)

And the illustrations are so impressive!

I know it's an oldie. What can I say? I didn't have a weblog in 1999. (Well, OK, actually, I think I did. Hard to tell; the pre-Greymatter/Moveable Type archives accidentally got blown away. But I digress.)

Posted by iain at 10:19 AM

 

Lawyer Seeks Rape Coviction Overturn: A lawyer for three young men convicted in the notorious rape of a Central Park jogger more than a decade ago said he will seek to overturn their guilty verdicts. The lawyer, Michael Warren, is expected to argue at a hearing on Monday that new DNA evidence and a confession by another man could exonerate the three, who have served their sentences in the 1989 attack that left a young investment banker near death. Warren said in a motion filed in state court last week that no physical evidence linked his clients to the crime.

Posted by iain at 01:24 PM

 

Through it all, keep the Faye

[Nina Wu] Q: Your trademark is your false lashes -- why the eyes? Why do you put all that makeup around them?
     [Tammy Faye] A: Because I think the eyes tell a lot about a person. I think you can tell if a person is telling the truth or not by looking at their eyes. The eyes reveal your soul, I believe. And I just think the eyes are important. And I don't know why I started this.
     Q: So you can't do without them?
     A: Oh, no. They're part of who I am.

You know, that's a wonderfully contradictory set of statements, there. All that makeup draws attention to her eyes, yet it also obscures them so that you really can't see them well. And something false has become part of her real self. Odd.

Q: You were one of the first in the Christian community to embrace the gay community. Tell me why you did that.
     A: Because I felt it was the people that were being hurt, and I knew God loved them.
     Q: But isn't that in conflict with the core belief of Christian fundamentalists who say homosexuality is evil?
     A: People have judged me so harshly, and I know what it's like to be judged, I know what it's like to made fun of, I know what it's like to hurt. And I've gone through so many of the same things that the gay community has gone through that that's why I embrace them. I want them to know someone loves them just the way they are. [...]

Didn't quite answer the question, did she? Ah, well.

Q: What makes you different from other fundamentalists?
     A: I make it fun. I think that Jesus was fun (laughing). Jesus would have been out with the people having a good time. Jesus took little, dirty, snot-nosed kids on his lap, he got Zacchaeus out of the tree, the old tax collector who everyone hated. He said, "Come on Zacchaeus, I want to have lunch with you." So you know Jesus was fun.

I have to admit, "fun" is not remotely a term I would have thought to apply to Jesus. Certainly not the fundamentalist biblical view of him, anyway. And I'm not at all sure that associating with a loathed tax collector is a sign of "fun" so much as an attempt to forgive publicly, in the context of the original story.

But it is something to consider, isn't it?

Posted by iain at 12:17 PM

 

LSU: Justice Did Not Cause Hatfill Firing

My, what an amazingly (and likely unintentionally) apt headline. For clearly, justice as we have traditionally defined it has less and less to do with this case.

Louisiana State University hired Steven J. Hatfill only after twice conferring with the FBI, whose anthrax investigators had searched the former Army researcher's home. A month later, Justice Department officials effectively blackballed Hatfill by instructing LSU to prohibit him from working on the university's government-funded programs. LSU spokesman Gene Sands said yesterday, however, that the Justice Department's apparent turnabout -- the FBI is an agency within the department -- had nothing to do with university Chancellor Mark A. Emmert's decision on Aug. 1 to suspend Hatfill from his $150,000-per-year position and to fire him Tuesday. Instead, Sands said Steve Guillot, director of LSU's National Center for Biomedical Research and Training, failed to inform Emmert and other university officials of the Justice Department's misgivings regarding Hatfill, who was to serve as the center's associate director. LSU fired Guillot yesterday, Sands said.

OK, let's just run this through the logic parser, shall we? Let's shall. First, LSU hires Hatfill only after making sure that the Justice Department has no objections. Then the FBI sends an email saying, "This man can't work on any federally funded projects" regarding a center that is primarily federally funded. Then LSU fires him. THEN they fire the man who hired him, on the grounds that he didn't tell them about the Justice Department's "misgivings", which they apparently had not previously had.

How is it, then, that the Department of Justice can be said to have had nothing to do with not only Hatfill's firing, but the firing of his supervisor? Such a statement defies not only logic, but the university's own stated chain of events.

In another statement, LSU simultaneously declines to comment, and states that the problem was that they didn't receive notice of Justice's misgivings until August 1, the date they suspended him.

Which would also appear to be the date that the infamous email was sent.

Quite honestly, I'm beginning to hope that they do find concrete proof that Hatfill did what he was accused of. At the very least, I would hope that the FBI would fine the courage to actually charge the man, so he can go to court and try to prove his innocence or guilt. This prolonged public smear campaign is not remotely just. It is extraordinarily unseemly. The FBI is abusing its powers and its access to the media to trash this man's life, clearly because although they believe, or want to believe, that he was involved, they have insufficient evidence to do anything with. This is not what the FBI was created to do. And frankly, I would think that at this point, absent any charges, Hatfill has more than enough to support a cause of action against the FBI. Unlike Richard Jewell, I don't think he has a cause of action against the media -- the media in general does not seem to be engaging in the sort of freeform speculation that they did after the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing -- but surely the FBI is not and cannot be allowed to do this sort of public persecution in the absence of an actual case.

And independently of all that, I should imagine that Guillot has a cause of action against LSU. Then again, universities are acting with craven cowardice these days; I can't say that I'm remotely surprised by their actions.

Posted by iain at 11:31 AM

 

That was The Week That Wasn't. Or rather, it was; we were just too distracted to notice.

Posted by iain at 10:36 AM

 

The red, yellow and orange Albuquerque Isotopes officially got their nickname today, and one of the baseball club's executives was already talking about getting a big name under contract.
     That would be cartoon character Homer Simpson, who was an Isotopes fan before the Isotopes became flesh-and-blood reality.

I'm guessing that at some point, Fox will be leaning over Isotopes' management's shoulder and saying, "Ahem. You WILL be paying us for the infringement on our copyright, WON'T YOU?" And they almost certainly won't be able to afford to have Homer Simpson as their mascot.

... Man, that is just a butt-ugly logo, ain't it?

Posted by iain at 06:11 PM

 

Teen sex: Moms may have big impact on girls: A close relationship with their mothers is a strong factor for girls who delay having sex for the first time, but the same doesn't hold true for boys, researchers at the University of Minnesota announced Wednesday.

OK, I'll buy that. Makes perfectly good sense, I suppose.

Discussions between mothers and children were different depending on the child's gender. "Moms are more likely to admonish their daughters -- if you have sex it's going to hurt your reputation, it's going to hurt your future. But for sons, they're more likely to say you need to protect yourself," said Blum, who said he found this point to be one of the most surprising findings.

And that's one of the things that make you wonder what planet these researchers live on. I mean, let's think about this, shall we? Being sexually active, unless you've been brought up within a fairly strict religion, is not something that has been considered bad for a young man's reputation, in and of itself. Moreover, if you're not careful, nobody will be able to tell if you go out and boink every girl on the block. Unless you catch some truly spectacular STD (which is, of course, possible), nobody will ever be able to tell just by looking at you that you've been having sex. On the other hand, girls who have sex in that same way would be courting pregnancy, and absent abortion, everyone would know. So, fair or unfair, there is a certain difference to some of the consequences of sex for boys and girls.

And quite apart from everything else, the messages about sex and its consequences have always been different for boys and girls. Perhaps, as the society matures, the messages will come more into alignment with each other. Considering as the generation of "sexual revolution", such as it was, is the generation currently raising children, they're quite likely to be passing on their parents' messages to them, whether they want to or not.

That said, I would think that those same mothers would also be telling their daughters to be careful, regarding selectiveness, birth control, and the possibility of STDs.

Posted by iain at 05:19 PM

 

Newsday.com - Part 1: Growing Up in Jail
     Across the country, where all states now allow juveniles to be tried as adults under certain circumstances, an overwhelming majority of those convicted as adults are black and are saddled with consequences that will follow them for life: felony records; no voting rights; ineligibility for certain federal assistance programs; interrupted schooling; the trauma of being put through a procedure designed for grown-ups, just to name a few.
     A 1999 report based on U.S. Department of Justice statistics found that blacks younger than 18 accounted for 26 percent of the minors arrested nationwide from 1996 to 1998. They represented 46 percent of the cases, however, sent to adult court and 58 percent of the minors in adult prisons.
     In an April 2000 report, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, part of the Department of Justice, noted that minorities made up a "disproportionate" share of juveniles treated as adults, and it called the trend toward jailing minors in adult prisons "one of the most significant and potentially worrisome consequences" of changes in juvenile justice. [.....]
     "It seems unlikely, however, that teenagers who enter an institution at the age of 15 and leave as adults at the age of 25 will successfully participate in society, after being locked up and ignored," Human Rights Watch said.

Doubting The Juvenile Justice System: Since Senate Bill 440 was passed in May 1994, , 76 percent of the more than 3,800 teenagers arrested for SB440 offenses have been black, although they comprise 34 percent of the state's teenage population, according to the Georgia Indigent Defense Council, a state agency that tracks SB440 cases.
     Proponents of keeping juveniles in juvenile courts say the nationwide trend toward pushing them into the adult system is tainted by racism - sometimes blatant, sometimes unintentional - because the laws are passed by mainly white legislatures and enforced by judges and prosecutors, the overwhelming majority of whom are white. [...] even if blacks do account for a higher number of teens arrested for violent crime, figures from the nation's 75 largest counties in 1998 indicated a difference in the treatment of them. In the counties surveyed, whites were 48 percent of the youths charged as juveniles with violent crimes - exactly the same as the figure for blacks. They exceeded blacks charged with murder in juvenile court, 59 percent to 36 percent. But in those same counties, whites accounted for 25 percent of juveniles charged as adults with violent crimes, compared with 73 percent for blacks.

(The percentage of arrests by year at the end of the article is utterly absorbing for its consistency in the face of Georgia's actual population demographics.)

Trouble With the Law: .....Supporters of harsher treatment for juveniles, and some researchers who have studied the racial disparities, warn against attributing the numbers to racism. In deciding whether to try a case in juvenile or adult court, factors such as a juvenile's history of trouble with the law may come into play. In such instan- ces, black juveniles living in crime-ridden neighborhoods with more police patrols than white suburbs are more likely to have rap sheets, said Howard Snyder of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, who has directed several studies looking at racial disparities in the treatment of teenage offenders. Even if those rap sheets are for minor or nonviolent crimes, they can affect the decision on how to handle a more serious case. "If a kid has been to juvenile court 15 times before, it's easier to argue he's not going to be amenable to treatment," said Snyder, who acknowledges that the heavier policing of mainly black urban areas starts the bias ball rolling against black children even before they reach court.
     In New York State last year, for example, 654 black juveniles were arrested for felonies compared with 87 whites, a disparity critics attribute to differences in police patrols from neighborhood to neighborhood. "And if there is a bias, even with minor crimes, that's a way of developing a longer record and having your case transferred to adult court," Snyder said.
     Wording of laws also can have an unintended racial bias. An Illinois state law mandates adult treatment for juveniles charged with weapon or drug offenses within 1,000 feet of public housing projects, resulting in some counties with 99 percent black conviction rates under the law. The law is guaranteed to nail blacks, say critics, because few whites are found around public housing projects.

You wonder why we don't just sentence the kids to life in prison outright. After all, if we're not going to give them any rehabilitation or training or do anything to teach them skills that they need to survive outside prison, they'll just wind up back there anyway.

Then again, the way this country's going, I'm mildly surprised that all crimes except murder don't carry a sentence of natural life without parole. I expect the only thing keeping that from happening is that we can't afford the prison construction and staffing bills.

Posted by iain at 04:59 PM

 

Burk says players 'need to take a moral stand': Appearing on the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, Burk said that her organization will begin targeting PGA Tour players in a bid to force Augusta National to allow women members. The players "need to take a moral stand," Burk told Patrick.

Oh, please.

She seriously expects the players to take a moral stand on THIS issue?

To put it in the mildest terms possible, it is ... naive at best to expect an all-men's tour to take a principled stand over an issue that does not directly affect them. I am not saying that they should or should not; I am only saying that when it comes to arguably the most prestigious tournament in golf ... they won't. In fact, most of them will be stampeding over each other to avoid saying word one on the topic.

There is also the point, as Harig notes, that they would essentially be a few very wealthy token women, at best. (Not entirely unlike Augusta National's four black members -- or is it six? or two? or ten? apparently nobody knows, even Augusta itself. In any event, I couldn't possibly consider these token members in this day and age, now could I?) And there is the undeniable fact that, in and of itself, admitting women to Augusta National really doesn't do anything for the greater good, not even as a symbol. (Now, if the PGA and USGA refused to sanction tournaments held at clubs with that sort of discriminatory admissions policy, that would be another thing altogether. The PGA, of course, will do no such thing.)

The equities are more or less on Burk's side ... they're just not very big equities.

Really, both sides should retire to their corners, lick their wounds, and get over themselves.

Posted by iain at 04:17 PM

 

Yet another reason why we shouldn't believe Our Glorious Shrub when he says that he will "consult" with Congress about ... well, anything, really.

Bush administration rewriting regulations to boost religious groups - 09/04/02: Working to implement President Bush's stalled "faith-based initiative," five Cabinet agencies are writing rules into federal law that Congress has balked at. The rules will help churches and other religious groups obtain millions of federal social service dollars with few strings attached. At the Department of Health and Human Services, officials will let churches, synagogues and mosques use federal money for programs infused with religion and consider religion in hiring and firing workers. [...] HHS officials say there's no problem using tax dollars for a program in which prayer is central, a point that is hotly disputed among Americans and that Congress has refused to endorse. The Bush administration has the power to change regulations on its own, although these moves are subject to legal challenge. [...] Similarly, at the Education Department, officials are interpreting a new federal law on after-school programs as allowing groups to use religion in their hiring decisions. That prompted protests from Democrats who say they specifically barred this discrimination under a carefully negotiated compromise.

So basically, as our democratically elected leader, we have a leader who does not believe in democracy. We have as our highest constitutional officer a man who believes in doing end-runs around those portions of the Constitution that he deems inconvenient. At the very least, he does not believe in working within the strictures provided by that Constitutional democracy, if doing so doesn't get him what he wants. (Thus matching the man he hand-picked to be our highest constitutional enforcement officer, who clearly doesn't believe in the Constitution. Let's face it: when you get publicly slapped down by a star chamber for exceeding its boundaries, you're clearly not following any known rule book.)

He says that he will "seek congressional approval before taking action against the Iraqi leader", but given an obviously contemptuous opinion of Congress, it seems unlikely. Contrary to some opinions, given recent statements out of Congress and the White House, it also seems unlikely that such consultation has already happened, or will happen secretly. There may be advantages to secrecy, but in Congress' opinion, they may not outweigh the disadvantages of committing the country to war secretly. And, frankly, if Iraq isn't preparing for war however it can, given the past year of public statements, then it's a country of idiots. The only thing secrecy gains is hiding the date certain for the attack, and given the preparations that will need to be made, that will be nearly impossible.)

To be sure, there are actually understandable reasons for not consulting, up to a point. First, Congress leaks like a sieve, so if he wanted to inform them of actual detailed plans (which he does not, would not, and Congress would not really expect), they'd be all over the Post and Times the next day. Second, if, as expected and traditional, the Republicans lose seats in Congress, getting the Senate to approve any such attack will become immeasurably more difficult, without better justification than that he has traduced to date. It is true that producing evidence that Iraq truly does constitute a threat might compromise intelligence sources. Nonetheless, to commit the nation to war, it is insufficient merely to state that Iraq has either biochemical or nuclear weapons. (I will not dignify biochemical weapons with the term "weapons of mass destruction", when they are no such thing.) After all, we have as yet not declared war on India, Pakistan, Israel or South Africa, all of which possess the aforementioned weapons. (Moreover, we know without doubt that Pakistan actually does provide state support to terrorists, but we're willing to put up with that because for the most part, they're not the terrorists we're after. All we have asked is that they restrain them enough not to provoke India into a major attack. A remarkably self-interested and cynical stance.) Iraq is not likely to be suicidal enough to attack us directly with any such weapons without a great deal more provocation than we have given them, since it would result in a great glass plain where the country used to sit. (Or, more likely, where Baghdad itself once sat.) He will need to prove that Iraq plans to transfer such weapons to terrorist organizations to use. Given that various parts of his own government has said that Iraq does not support terrorism in that manner -- being a secular nonIslamic dictatorship means that the Islamists don't like Iraq much, either -- that's going to be a hard sell.

So when he asks for such "approval", it's likely to consist of him telling Congress that, by the way, he just approved the launch of a bomber squadron to take out strategic targets all over Iraq as the first stage of the attack, so he hopes that Congress will approve his plan because now that he's got men committed to this attack, they really have no other choice, do they?

It is, of course, possible that I wrong Our Shrub greatly. He might actually take a war seriously enough to seek Congressional approval, in the traditional sense, and abide by their decision.

But given the ongoing administration pattern and practice, it seems highly unlikely.

I suppose I should make one point clear: I'm not necessarily antiwar. I do believe that the world would be better off without the current Iraq regime ... although I would strongly prefer the Iraqis to do it themselves, but that seems thoroughly unlikely. And if the administration can make its case, it's possible that I could support a pre-emptive attack. The problem is that the administration has steadfastly refused to cite any evidence, aside from "He's a bad bad man," to support its case. Yes, we all know he's a bad man. So are a great many other world leaders, and yet, we're not publicly stating that we plan to go to war against them. The administration needs to make its case, with supporting evidence. Rhetoric alone simply is not enough. Without more evidence, it continues to look like Shrub II is just trying to finish the job that Shrub I didn't do, because he wants to rehabilitate Daddy's reputation.

(P.S.: As for the support of Kuwait for any attack against Iraq ... we don't have it. Nor do we have Qatar's support. Both would be, if not vital, then extremely important in staging any attack against Iraq. We could, of course, attack from their territory without their permission, but somehow, I don't think we want to start involving other countries in wars without their consent. Doing it in our own will be bad enough.)

Posted by iain at 11:44 AM

 

Yahoo! News - Review Board to Hear Death Cases: A state review board will spend four days next month reviewing clemency requests by about 160 death row inmates, giving each side in each case 15 minutes to argue whether or not Gov. George Ryan should spare their lives.

And this, unfortunately, is one of the reasons that so many are unalterably opposed to the clemency process as it's working at the end of Ryan's term. Typically, a clemency request gets a hearing of 5-6 hours or so, followed by weeks of deliberation by the governor and others. (Theoretically, anyway; I would be surprised if they put quite THAT much work into it after the hearing, but there is no doubt some work and deliberation afterward.) This procedure means that no case will get more than an hour's total time, tops, from the governor or the panel. (And leave us not forget that all of these people have other jobs and lives that further restrict the amount of time they will spend on these cases.) I'm not opposed to the idea, you understand; I'm merely saying that the people who oppose this particular batch of clemency decisions because of the process, and not because of the ultimate results, have a fairly strong point.

That said ... this clemency process could have some interesting and unintended results. Examine, if you will, this essentially throwaway point in a story about a man who decided not to go through the clemency process because a reduction of sentence in Illinois could mean that he would face death in Missouri:

So if Ryan commutes every case that will cross his desk--even the proxy petitions for those who'd prefer to remain condemned, either because they want to die or they feel their best chance at exoneration lies in the more exhaustive capital system--and decides to include even newly sentenced capital felons, Jamison stands to be the only one left behind on Death Row.

It's entirely possible that this process will wind up reducing the sentence of some innocent people who were nonetheless found guilty, which is entirely what the governor intends. By commuting their sentence, however, he unintentionally robs them of several levels of appeals, because only death sentences have so many levels of appeal built into the system, as a check to make sure that the system has done its job properly. By robbing them of appeals, even when they are willing to risk death to retain a chance of actually proving their innocence, he robs them of a chance to prove their innocence.

The anvil of Irony strikes again.

Posted by iain at 10:57 AM

 

Media Relations: dogg style/ September 4, 2002: Let's just take a surreal little trip through the Doggfather's mind, shall we? Let's shall.

(Moved into Media Relations because that's where it really should have been in the first place. And I would like to note that I deliberately avoided the Y at the end of that first title word because search result referrers on this site are already weird enough, thank you very much.)

Posted by iain at 10:37 AM

 

United Press International: 'Violence' reported in 50% of teen dating: Half of the high school students a University of Arkansas researcher surveyed have experienced some form of "violent" behavior in dating, with females inflicting the more serious forms of abuse on their partners. [...] "violence" was defined broadly enough to include physical acts whose perceived intent is the infliction of psychological harm. [...] Mooney said her most important finding -- which persisted through repeated analysis of her statistics -- was that the students' sex made no difference in the way they thought about violence, in the types of violence they typically experienced and used, or in predicting their role as perpetrators or victims. In other words, males were just as likely to be victims of violence in a relationship as females. And females were just as likely to inflict violence as males -- a finding that contradicts decades of clinical assumptions. Moreover, Mooney said "females showed a higher mean score of using severe violence against their partners than males did. Though that's not statistically significant, it's something to think about and look for in future studies." [...] Mooney isn't the only researcher to find evidence of women acting with equal or even more violence than men, but her findings from a high school-age sample add credence to an emerging pattern of mutual violence between the sexes. Women's advocacy groups have attempted to explain this research trend by pointing out that what seems like female violence may actually be self-defense. But Mooney said that preliminary data from her study suggest that females were just as likely to initiate violence as males, making self-defense an unlikely explanation.

Apparently, the Battle between the Sexes is becoming a real, physical fight. I wonder why ...

I would note that Mooney's conclusion in the article -- "One possible explanation is that women are becoming more assertive and therefore more comfortable with becoming physically aggressive when they feel threatened" -- would seem to contradict the idea that females were initiating violence. Rather, it would mean that although she sees them as initiating violence, they may well see themselves as initiating defense in an already ongoing situation. If her questions don't take that into account, they may deform her results.

Still ... very odd indeed.

Posted by iain at 10:30 AM

 

'N Sync star's space trek scrapped: After failing to fulfil the conditions of his contract, Lance Bass has been told that his training at the Cosmonaut Training Center has ended and that his flight to the ISS is impossible," spokesman Sergei Gorbunov told Reuters. "We are preparing to send a cargo container to the ISS instead of a third crew member."

Absolutely no comment. None. Nope. Not one. Couldn't get me to compare Lance Bass to a cargo container if my life depended on it. Nope. Nosirree.

For the sake of fairness, I will point out that according to MSNBC, thing may not be definite as yet. Although I note that they're even more direct in comparing Mr Bass to a cargo container. But I will not go there. No. Dignity, always dignity.

(Who knew that being in a boy band could be so lucrative? I mean, how many people have $20 million lying around to throw at the Russian space program? And, you know, if I had a spare $20 million or so lying around ... well, OK, I don't believe I would trust the notoriously underfunded Russian program with my actual body, but I can understand the desire to do so.)

Posted by iain at 11:47 AM

 

Tall, Dark, And Deadly: A Comparative Look At Xena And Emma Peel

You know, I'm a geek and I know it ... but some people have entirely too much time on their hands.

Besides, everyone knows that Emma Peel would be the Deadliest One of All ... if they'd actually allowed her to kill anyone back then.

And, you know, there's the whole catsuit thing....

Posted by iain at 12:32 AM

 

[Main Index]