Not that this should be in the least surprising. The administration lies to the people; lying to the people's representatives is only a small step further.
Of course ... lying to the people isn't a federal felony offense, is it?
Posted by iain at 12:32 AM
Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Gay nuptials causing rift in Canada: In Canada, a nation famed for tolerance, bitter opposition is building toward Prime Minister Jean Chretien's determination to make gay marriage the law of the land. [...] the real shocker is the rebellion brewing within the ranks of the prime minister's usually-docile Liberal Party. Same-sex marriage has emerged as an issue that could dominate next year's federal elections and might even loosen the Liberal stranglehold on power. Last week some party members demanded a national referendum on whether the marriage law should be rewritten, arguing that all Canadians deserve a say on such a momentous social question. ''We're on a collision course with the electorate,'' Dan McTeague, a Liberal member of Parliament from Ontario, said of the gay marriage issue. ''This thing is really, really heating up.''
Chretien, however, is adamant that gay marriage is a pure civil rights issue that should not be subject to a popularity contest. ''To have a referendum to decide on the fate of a minority -- it's a problem,'' he said. ''If it's always the majority of the vote by a referendum, who will defend the minorities? In government, we are there to defend every minority.''
My, my. The concept that one of the purposes of government is to defend minorities from the majority actually being expressed by a governmental leader. Alas, not ours. Who almost certainly believes no such thing in any event. But I digress.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. If this is both a pure civil rights issue, as Chretien asserts, and also a pure constitutional issue, then there actually is no point in submitting it to the people as a referendum, because the referendum results would be trumped by the Canadian constitution in any event.
At first, Chretien's move to make Canada the third nation in the world, after the Netherlands and Belgium, to recognize gay marriage seemed likely to be a cakewalk, because there was little public outcry or criticism from Parliament when the Ontario court made its landmark decision. However, furious criticism is coming now not just from the religious right, which has little clout in this country, but also from Parliament. Liberals and opposition party members alike are incensed that Chretien, by failing to consult with lawmakers, is making the body a rubber stamp for social revolution. ''It can be a dangerous issue for the Liberal Party, especially if it becomes an issue in the US,'' said Michael Bliss, a history professor at the University of Toronto who writes political commentary occasionally for the National Post newspaper. Many Canadians are nervous about antagonizing their most important trading partner with Chretien's insistence on decriminalizing marijuana and cutbacks in military spending that have given Canada the reputation as the least reliable of the NATO allies. Canadians are also keenly aware that Washington is already annoyed by Canada's refusal to support the war in Iraq.
Well ... that's just odd. Frankly, gay marriage in Canada isn't particularly likely to incense Washington, in and of itself. Where it might come into play is in encouraging people to bring "full faith and credit" clause based lawsuits -- to deny recognition to marriages that would be recognized as valid in the country in which they are performed would normally be considered a denial of full faith and credit, and thus, a violation of our constitution. (Not that this argument will go anywhere.)
What party backbenchers most resent is that Chretien proposed the dramatic revision without public debate or consultation with the Liberal rank and file. ''It's unfair, because his action cast every Liberal member immediately into the position of seeming either a progressive or reactionary dinosaur,'' said Joe Volpe, a Liberal MP from Ontario. At a Liberal Party caucus in Ontario last week, even [Paul Martin, a Liberal MP from Quebec], the prime-minister-in-waiting, seemed to edge away nervously from gay marriage, suggesting that as a compromise Canada might instead enact a law allowing for Vermont-style ''civil unions,'' which are not marriages but confer many of the same rights. Many gay activists scorn that alternative. ''Civil unions send the message that we are second-class citizens,'' [Laurie Arron, director of advocacy for Egale-Canada, an Ottawa-based group] said.
You know, it's fascinating to watch comparatively liberal Canada floundering through a more advanced version of the same morass we're wading through here. After all, it's only a matter of time before the marriage issue comes up again. Probably through the liberal Ninth Circuit, which is the only one even vaguely likely to rule that refusal to recognize marriages contracted in a valid manner abroad is a violation of the US Constitution.
And if it's this bad in Canada already, it's likely to get spectacularly vicious here.
Posted by iain at 07:55 PM
U.S. Cuts Off Financing for AIDS Program, Provoking Furor (NY Times, August 26, 2003, registration required): The State Department has discontinued financing for a small but well-regarded AIDS program for African and Asian refugees because it contends that one of the groups involved in the project supports forced abortions and involuntary sterilization in China, officials said this week. The decision to end the financing has raised a furor among AIDS and refugee groups. Relief workers fear that officials are bowing to pressure from anti-abortion factions within the Bush administration and allowing politics to interfere with desperately needed AIDS programs, assertions that the State Department denies.
Yes? And? Your point being?
Most intelligent people have long since figured out that politics always determines and interferes with policy -- good, bad, or indifferent. One does wonder why any organ of the government bothers to deny it. Frankly, that's the way most people want it ... until the policy that's compromised affects something in which they have an interest. At which point, a neutral yet benevolent government would be a really nice thing to have, thanks awfully.
The group, Marie Stopes International, offers abortion counseling and services. State Department officials acknowledge that they have no evidence to suggest that Marie Stopes is involved in forced abortions or involuntary sterilization, and the group itself says it has been trying to end forced abortions in China and to expand voluntary family planning.
But State Department officials say one problem is that Marie Stopes works as a partner in China with the United Nations Population Fund, a group that was barred from receiving aid last year after the Bush administration determined that it had violated a 1985 law barring the financing of any international group that "supports or participates in the management" of forced abortion or sterilization. In that instance, the State Department said the United Nations was cooperating with the Chinese government, which has been repeatedly accused of relying on coercive abortions to enforce birth quotas. The United Nations countered that it was working to change Chinese policy, and it noted that the State Department had determined that it had not knowingly supported coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Nevertheless, the agency lost $34 million in financing.
So let me get this straight-ish: our government's position is that any support of abortions, whether knowing or unknowing, results in the revocation of aid. No matter what the larger goals of the group involved, whether it be general health care, AIDS prevention, family planning: any support of abortions, deliberate or otherwise, results in the loss of funds. That logic, at least, is possible to follow. But apparently, the group losing funding for its AIDS programs -- of which Marie Stopes International (MSI) is but one of seven administrators -- losing funding because MSI is affiliated with the UN organization which our government admits didn't knowingly support China's forced abortion policy. Despite the fact that MSI itself had nothing to do with either supporting the Chinese government policy or the UN organization itself. Despite the fact that MSI is, as mentioned, only one of seven groups affiliated with the AIDS group that's losing money.
That is some sincerely twisted logic. And frankly, a dodge not worthy of an administration with any courage at all. Why on earth don't they just say, "You know what? We're not going to support international family planning efforts of any sort. We don't believe in it, we don't want to have anything to do with it, and we're not going to do it." There would, of course, be an international hue and cry, but this administration is most assuredly used to that. Moreover, they've demonstrated that most of the time, unless it affects something they want to do, they simply don't care what the rest of the world thinks. Deciding to jettison any support for family planning programs would shore up the weakening support from the Republicans' right flank. And it would be intellectually honest -- which is probably why they're not doing it.
Posted by iain at 01:06 PM
something positive - August 24, 2003
One wonders how long it will be before Disney sics the lawyers on him.
Posted by iain at 11:04 AM
Forbes.com: Amylin's Gila Monster Of A Diabetes Drug: Seven years ago, San Diego's Amylin Pharmaceuticals licensed the rights to a potential diabetes drug derived from the saliva of the venomous Gila monster lizard. [...] Exenatide's potential is very real. The medicine lowers blood sugar, but it appears to act only when blood glucose levels rise too high--meaning that patients are much less likely to suffer low blood sugar as a result of taking the drug. It also may help patients lose weight. Current trials are designed to show that it works on top of existing medicines used to treat Type 2 diabetes, a condition in which people stop being able to control the amount of sugar in their blood. Historically, it has been a disease of overweight adults, although patients are getting younger. It affects about 16 million people.
Well, leaving aside the fact that one of the first offlabel commercial uses is almost certainly going to be as a weight loss drug ...
Having a substance which makes diabetes more controllable, without tripping people over into low blood sugar states, can only be a good thing. But at the same time, you just wonder ... what on earth made the researchers think of this? What in heavens name made them think, "Yeah! Lizard spit! That's the ticket! You hardly ever see diabetic gila monsters!"
Just how easy is this drug to synthesize, anyway? I just have this vision, when the drug starts commercial production, of Amylin putting out an employment call for people willing to squeeze lizard jaws to make them spit.
Posted by iain at 10:46 AM
Media Relations: let's twist again.../ August 24, 2003
Posted by iain at 01:47 AM
Ananova - Brazilian given vasectomy ' for earache'
You know, here's the thing: you're actually awake for a vasectomy. And I can understand thinking that perhaps your earache has changed into something more serious. But frankly, I go in for an earache and they start brandishing scalpels around my nether parts, I'm going to ask, "What the hell are you doing down there?" I mean, I'm just going to want a bit of clarification before I let them start working on the dangling bits when they're supposed to be looking at my ear.
Posted by iain at 02:12 PM
4-year probe clears prosecutors, cops in Ford Heights Four case (Chicago Sun-Times, August 22, 2003): Police officers buried evidence. Prosecutors displayed "tunnel vision." Four innocent men went to jail and Death Row for up to 18 years. Cook County officials paid the men a $36 million settlement rather than go to trial over alleged misconduct by authorities. But despite all that, a four-year, $300,000 investigation by Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine's office concluded Thursday that no officer or prosecutor did anything in the so-called Ford Heights Four case that warrants criminal charges. It was a "perfect storm" of mistakes, miscues, witnesses giving false testimony and poor defense lawyering that could not be repeated, said former Appellate Justice Gino Divito, who spearheaded the investigation.
No criminal charges.
Indeed.
Police kept exculpatory information in a file, which prosecutors apparently knew about, but didn't ask to see -- testimony with the actual names of the true murderers. Prosecutors suborned perjury from a witness.
And yet, there are no criminal offenses.
Actually, this is pretty much par for the course for the Cook County state's attorney's office. The Chicago Reader has done a periodic series (unfortunately, now behind a pay article shield) on police torture in Chicago. The most recent article, from two weeks ago, noted that despite many credible allegations, despite convictions that have been overturned due to these allegations, despite people being granted clemency and being released from prison because the governor found that the evidence indicated their actual innocence -- despite all that, the Cook County State's Attorney has never found cause to properly investigate these charges. According to the Reader, there exists a gruesome alliance between the judiciary and the state's attorney office and the police that prevents proper investigation -- attorneys who represented the state on some of these dubious cases move into private practice, represent the officers alleged to have committed this torture, and then become judges and hear later cases regarding these officers. Essentially it works out that the people who should be operating in the public interest to investigate these cases have personal vested interests in preventing such investigations.
Of course, if they're just going to whitewash the results like this, I suppose they might as well not bother, at that.
Posted by iain at 11:20 AM
The Miami Herald | 08/20/2003 | Threats, bullets sent to protest pending execution: Three death-threat letters containing bullets were sent to Florida's attorney general and two prison officials in protest of the pending execution of anti-abortion activist Paul Hill. The missives arrived Monday as death-penalty opponents urged Gov. Jeb Bush to cancel the lethal injection execution scheduled for Sept. 3. They warn that Hill's death has the potential of turning him into a martyr to extreme anti-abortion groups.
My, what an ... interesting unification of opinion. So many people are united in wanting to spare Mr Hill from execution for such dramatically different reasons.
Mind, I'm not sure that creating a "martyr" to the cause would make all that much difference. The people who feel that they're justified in committing murder to prevent abortions aren't likely to be dissuaded from that viewpoint if Hill isn't executed. Frankly, it would seem they'd be encouraged either way; either you execute the guy and create a martyr, thus emboldening them to go on another murderous rampage ... or you decline to execute him, establishing the precedent that the state can be intimidated, and encouraging them to go on another murderous rampage because they know full well they won't be executed. No matter how you look at it, and assuming that they are in fact prepared to commit murder either in retaliation or celebration, the state loses. Whatever your opinions on either abortion or execution, surely it isn't in the state's interest to show itself to be amenable to either threats or extortionate behavior.
Posted by iain at 03:47 PM
CNN.com - U.S. deploys 'Zsa Zsa Saddam' - Aug. 18, 2003
... what on god's green earth is this administration THINKING? Are they thinking? Why do they believe this is necessary? Why isn't the country's administrator stopping this?
Look at it this way: if people put pictures of Zsa Zsa Shrubya all over DC and Crawford, Texas, I daresay people would be understandably pissed off, whether they liked him or not. It's not merely a sign of disrespect to the person; most would interpret it, especially after a war and during a spectacularly unsuccessful occupation, as a sign of disrespect to the culture. It's not going to help, and it may well fire up even more dissidents.
Not that they seem to need help these days. The dissidents are doing a magnificent job of killing the innocents and bystanders. On the one hand, it most assuredly feeds discontent with the US occupation, but on the other hand, nobody's terribly happy with the dissidents, either. If, by some miracle, we depart any year soon, do they think that, having been killed and tortured and maimed by these idiots, the Iraqi people will welcome them into power with open arms? What do they think they're accomplishing?
Posted by iain at 04:49 PM
Justice Dept. Declines To Intervene in Recall (washingtonpost.com): A Justice Department official said tonight that federal authorities will not stop California's gubernatorial recall election from proceeding on Oct. 7 because of concerns that some civil rights groups have over new voting procedures.
Gee, I'm so surprised. No, really, just shocked. Really. Can't you just feel my shock throgh the monitor?
Posted by iain at 01:52 PM
The Independent | Firms plan gay audit to avoid discrimination claims By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent:
Some of Britain's biggest employers are to conduct gay and lesbian audits of their staff to try to avoid compensation claims for discrimination brought under laws that come into force this year. The gay rights group Stonewall and the CBI report a rush of inquiries from companies and public bodies planning to use monitoring to identify how many gays and lesbians they employ. The move has been prompted by guidance from the conciliation service Acas and the Government, warning businesses that ignorance will be no defence to a claim based on the new grounds for sexual orientation discrimination.
Wow. I mean ... wow.
Britain is clearly a very different sort of place.
Frankly, the companies' interpretation of the law makes no sense. If the company doesn't officially know that someone is gay, how can they possibly discriminate on that basis? Surely "ignorance is no defence" doesn't mean "Not knowing that someone is gay is not defense" but instead that not knowing about the harassment is no defense. Logically, if someone is being harassed because the harasser thinks they're gay, whether or not the victim actually IS gay is utterly and absolutely irrelevant.
Let's check out the act itself, shall we? Let's shall.
Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 1661: The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
The regulations themselves are quite extensive, covering roughly 90 printed pages, depending on your browser, printer, and paper size, of course. Interestingly, Northern Ireland is excluded. The language is about as tortured as only politicians can make it -- although, that said, in most sections the act is relatively clear in its intent. RELATIVELY.
The definition of "sexual orientation" itself is about as comprehensive as it's possible to get.
Interpretation
2. - (1) In these Regulations, "sexual orientation" means a sexual orientation towards -
(a) persons of the same sex;
(b) persons of the opposite sex; or
(c) persons of the same sex and of the opposite sex.
The act covers discrimination by straights against gays, gays against straights, and anybody against bisexuals. (Transsexuals are not specifically covered within the act because that isn't a sexual orientation per se; they're covered under the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999.) A vast portion of the rest of the body of the act is dedicated to explaining exactly to whom it applies based on occupational area, detailing specific occupational areas and how they are covered; it seems fairly excessive, but that may have to do with requirements of British law.
Exemptions to the requirements of the act exist for organized religion and where "being of a particular sexual orientation is a genuine and determining occupational requirement" -- for the most part, it looks like these would be opportunities where British companies place personnel into other countries where gay sex is illegal, such as British Petroleum sending someone over to Saudi Arabia, for example -- or, until this past June, Kansas or Utah or places like that. Curiously, in some cases, organized religion is not exempt from the requirements of the act, but it's completely unclear what those circumstances would be.
Regarding liability, the act is actually relatively clear, again:
Liability of employers and principals
22. - (1) Anything done by a person in the course of his employment shall be treated for the purposes of these Regulations as done by his employer as well as by him, whether or not it was done with the employer's knowledge or approval.
(2) Anything done by a person as agent for another person with the authority (whether express or implied, and whether precedent or subsequent) of that other person shall be treated for the purposes of these Regulations as done by that other person as well as by him.
(3) In proceedings brought under these Regulations against any person in respect of an act alleged to have been done by an employee of his it shall be a defence for that person to prove that he took such steps as were reasonably practicable to prevent the employee from doing that act, or from doing in the course of his employment acts of that description.
In other words, ignorance of the particular acts of harassment is no excuse. Whether they were committed by or against a gay person is utterly irrelevant under the terms of the act, especially since the act was specifically drawn to cover straights, gays and bisexuals. The companies might as well take a census of only all their straight employees; as far as the act goes, it would be just as effective.
Interestingly the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) Draft Guidance Document being cited as a reason to perform such an audit does not actually quite say that employers should do any such thing. What it does say is this:
4. Know Your Staff
There is no legal requirement to keep information on how staff groups are made up (gender, ethnic groups, those with disabilities) but it is considered good practice. Such information helps organisations to make sure their equality policy is working to the benefit of all concerned and to test whether recruitment policies are reaching a wide audience reflecting the local community.
Organisations may consider whether to ask a question about sexual orientation on their equal opportunities questionnaire. It is perhaps unlikely that this will give an accurate picture as many people will see the question as an invasion of privacy and staff are under no obligation to give such information. However, some people do see the inclusion of such a question as an indication of the organisation's positive attitude to ward equal opportunities [...] If organisations decide to include sexual orientation in their equal opportunities monitoring processes, staff should be told how it is intended that such information be used. Staff should be assured of confidentiality and informed that they are under no obligation to give such information.
Of course, "organisations" being what they are, if the question exists, there will be heavy pressure for people to answer it. Organisations will feel like they need to collect the information borh for self-protection -- which is clearly inaccurate -- and because at some point the government is likely to ask for that sort of information -- which, frankly, is fairly likely, governments being information addicts. People being what they are, anyone who declines to give the information will be assumed to be gay.
Interestingly, even asking this question may contravene Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. So at the moment, with peculiarly unclear and apparently inaccurate guidance, British companies are confronted with the apparent conundrum of not asking the question -- in which case they feel they may be opened to lawsuits for discrimination -- or asking the question -- in which case they're opened to lawsuits for invasion of privacy.
Posted by iain at 01:36 PM
Salon.com Technology | Music group won't sue small downloaders: The Recording Industry Association of America says it will not go after small violators when it sues people who illegally share songs on the Internet. The assurance came in a written response to questions by Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Coleman plans to hold hearings on the RIAA's campaign, which he has labeled "excessive."
Well, I'm sure everybody is terribly relieved. That just means that the RIAA will only be engaged in just a wee bit of illegal search and seizure for large scale downloaders.
Of course, they left "de minimis" undefined, so "large scale" is probably more than, say, one.
Sherman did not specify how much illegal distribution constituted "a substantial amount," and an RIAA spokesman declined to quantify the phrase.
Coleman, a Minnesota Republican and former '60s rock roadie, says he fears that legal penalties for downloading songs don't fit the crime. Copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song. The RIAA announced plans in June to file several hundred lawsuits against people suspected of illegally sharing songs on the Internet. The RIAA said that while it has not yet filed lawsuits in its current campaign, "we assure you that we will approach these suits in a fair and equitable manner."
And I'm sure that they mean "fair and equitable" in exactly the same way that Fox News means "fair and balanced." When we all see things their way, it will be fair and equitable.
(Not that I'm defending rampant downloading. Or even de-minimal downloading.)
Posted by iain at 12:38 PM
CNN.com - Family of brain-damaged boy blames Walgreens for methadone error - Aug. 18, 2003: The family of a brain-damaged boy who received methadone instead of an anti-hyperactivity drug has asked for millions of dollars in sanctions against Walgreens. Attorneys for Joshua Dunbar made the request Friday, after a mistrial was declared when a store pharmacist testified that a prescription that Walgreens said proved it could account for all the methadone in its Espanola store was forged. Lawyers for the Dunbar family on Friday gave the court affidavits from jurors who said they had been prepared to return a verdict of perhaps $350 million or more in damages against Walgreens before the mistrial was declared.
Well.
Leaving aside the fact that the verdict would almost certainly have been sharply reduced on appeal ... the jury was prepared to return a $350 million verdict for what appeared to be a rather peculiar error, but nothing more. Now it's been alleged that Walgreens did something illegal to try to affect the outcome.
One wonders what sort of verdict a jury would bring back after this. It's plain that the original jury didn't believe Walgreens' assertions; now they have even more ammunition. At the same time, a multi-hundred-million dollar verdict is, frankly, not even vaguely reasonable -- although if Walgreens is found to have forged a prescription to try to account for the missing methadone, it becomes much less UNreasonable.
Posted by iain at 05:44 PM
Another day, another virus/worm. Albeit a startlingly polite one, if that's quite the right way to put it.
New MSBlast variant plugs hole | CNET News.com: A variant of MSBlast spread on Monday, but the new worm has an odd twist: It applies a patch for the vulnerability that it and other MSBlast worms use to infect Windows systems. The new worm, dubbed W32.Welchia, W32/Nachi and Worm_MSBlast.D, appears to properly download the patch for both Windows 2000 and Windows XP from Microsoft's Web site. Moreover, the variant will delete itself the first time an infected computer starts up in 2004.
That's terribly peculiar. Nice, I suppose, if you're not Microsoft dealing with all those computers stampeding to your website to download the patch. But still, peculiar.
MySanAntonio : Metro & State: GOP senators adopt penalties for AWOL Demos, By Guillermo X. Garcia and W. Gardner Selby, Express-News Staff Writer - Web Posted : 08/15/2003 1:32 PM
Parking privileges, cell phones and supply purchases for the offices of absent senators would be cut under a plan adopted today by Republican senators as a way of enforcing thousands of dollars in fines on 11 Democrat colleagues who remain defiantly in New Mexico. Those fines began accruing Thursday against the 11 senators who fled to New Mexico to derail a congressional redistricting effort by denying the Senate a quorum.
Californians abuzz over recall (Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 2003): ..... From El Centro to the northern coastline, citizens tick off deficit estimates like seasoned CPAs and run down the list of major candidates as confidently as political reporters. Whatever their opinions of this unusual political process, frustrated Californians are tuning in and sounding off. "Voters are serious about the process," says Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll in San Francisco. "There is a renewed interest [in politics], and it's leading to more discussion about California and the future of its leadership." Specifically, he points to surveys that indicate that an unusually high number of respondents intend to vote in the Oct. 7 election. A recent NBC News poll put the figure at 78 percent.
Would that so many of them had actually voted in the last statewide election. Then they wouldn't be in this mess, because the threshhold for signatures that they needed would have been prohibitively high.
But seriously: what the hell is going on in our two most populous states? Have they both completely lost their collective minds?
Looked at more simply, it's all partisan politics, and frankly, citizens in both states really ought to be entirely disgusted and alienated by the entire thing. California is blaming Davis for the energy mess -- somehow, it's his fault that the state got gamed by Enron and its friends -- and the collapse of the technology bubble. Granted, there may have been things that he did that didn't help, but the rolling economic disaster that is California is hardly his fault.
Of course, the fact that the recall was actually possible is, in fact, the fault of those Californians who were so uninspired by their choices that they chose not to vote in the previous election. And, to be sure, if it seems like your only choice is between bad and worse, maybe sitting it out doesn't seem like such a bad deal. But sitting it out can have consequences, as we're seeing; the number of signatures to force this recall only needed to be a percentage of the turnout of the last statewide election, and not a percentage of all registered voters. And, of course, it was all started by a millionaire Republican from the House, who nonetheless wound up being so unpopular himself that he decided not to run. And now Californians are going to be confronted with a ballot with 135 names on it. Katharine Harris and the folks in Florida must be doing a dance of joy, anticipating the disaster that this election will be; they will no longer be in first place in the national elections hall of shame polls in the future. (Although, that said, it may not actually be that badly conducted, procedurally speaking; just because you don't have a clue who anyone besides the Viennese guy is doesn't mean that the state has done anything wrong. And apparently, California's punch ballots never had the whole "chad" issue. On the other hand, several of the districts had surrendered their machines, as part of a statewide plan to get updated more modern voting machines, and now suddenly they have to scramble to not only get the machines back, but get them ready and get ballots for them.)
Pundits have been saying that legislators and governors in other states will be scrambling to make certain that this type of thing doesn't happen there. That's an awfully wrongheaded sort of analysis. For one thing, there's no way to make that type of thing look other than desperately self-serving. But the more important reason is: they don't need to do anything anyway. Other states don't have a recall provision like that; the only reason to remove a seated governor is through actual malfeasance or a physical or mental inability to perform the duties of the position. North Dakota is the only other state with a recall provision quite so loony -- and they're also the only other state to have ever used it.
Texas, of course, is a case of partisan politics to the max. Somehow, the Republicans have decided that all these voters who sent Republicans to the state legislature should be represented by Republicans nationally. This despite the fact that most of the districts involved seem to have consciously chosen to send Republicans to the state legislature and Democrats to the national legislature. After all, it's not as though someone went up to those people, said, "Vote Democrat or Die!" and now these people are renouncing their votes. The people of Texas have apparently been making known their opinion of this process, and they don't like it, no sir, not one little bit. Yet somehow, the governor of Texas and the Republican majorities of the bicameral legislature have decided to continue serenely along their way.
(Unfortunately, the redistricting lunacy has already spread to Colorado. Even more unfortunately, the stupidity may be spreading to New Mexico's Democrats. Heaven help them if it does. Although I can't imagine why on earth they should bother. They have three congressional seats. THREE. For seventeen seats, I can see the point. But for three?)
And now Texas is proposing to fine its absent Democrats when/if they return. And if they don't pay, then all sorts of privileges will be taken away until the value of the fine is cleared. It will be fascinating to see if all of these penalties actually stand up in court. At the very least, assuming that the legislators ever return -- at the rate they're going, they might as well just move to Albuquerque; they'll have fullfilled the city's residency requirements soon, and the state's not long after -- the fines will be challenged in court for ages. The other interesting thing will be to see exactly who pays the most for this at the polls. After all, this is the sort of ongoing mess that voters not only don't forget, but will have ever-so-helpful reminders lobbed at them during the electoral silly season. "Vote for this guy! He tried to keep the Republicans from taking away your right to vote! No, vote for this other guy! He tried to make sure that you were able to get the person you really and truly wanted to better represent you!" (Although they will have to be very careful about the phrasing on those commercials; if they don't do it just right, it'll sound like it's about the right to choose, and that'll just confuse everyone.)
For some reason, in the name of democracy, both states have undertaken profoundly anti-democratic processes. The people in California who actually did bother to get out and vote in the last election are now having that vote invalidated. Texans who made the deliberate choice to send a Democrat to Congress and a Republican to the state legislature are now being told, "Well, we know that's not REALLY what you meant to do, and if there'd just been a nice safe Republican district, you'd have sent a Republican! We just know you're not benighted enough to have meant to send a Democrat!" In the name of democracy, democracy itself is being abandoned.
At least here, in the Land of Lincoln, all that's happening is that the governor is playing a game that's likely to come back and bite him in the ass, next budget cycle, pissing off all the elected executive officers AND the legislators.
... And people at the state fair?
Posted by iain at 08:01 PM
ZDNet UK - News - Outcry forces reprieve for Outlook Express
How ... odd.
As a practical issue, as many people use Outlook Express as use Internet Explorer, in all likelihood. For the most part, they've always come as a package, and especially at the low end, people haven't seen any reason to change. Microsoft announces that Internet Explorer is going away, and there's essentially a cosmic shrug. Partly, to be sure, because the core technology will be embedded in the operating system. (Which I don't get. Not that they want to lock users into "The Microsoft Experience" in all ways -- that's perfectly comprehensible. I just thought they lost a couple lawsuits that said that they couldn't embed the technology in that matter. It will certainly be interesting to see how they hobble competing browsers in forthcoming versions of Windows. But I digress.) Anyway, they announce that IE is going away as a standalone, and people don't seem to mind much. (Well, except, peculiarly, for Mac people. It's very strange indeed for Microsoft to decide to give even a small competitor that sort of edge on a platform.) On the otherhand, they announce that OE is going away, and there's abruptly quite the furore.
And I don't believe for one moment that the PR guy got the announcement wrong. Not for one second. You don't announce that you're discontinuing one of your company's most visible products without being absolutely certain of your facts.
Can it really be that consumers are so enamored of this buggy, virus-prone but ubiquitous client that Microsoft actually changed its mind?
Posted by iain at 06:37 PM
The Scotsman - Top Stories - Tobacco company to deny cancer claim: A TOBACCO company which is being sued by a Scots widow following the death of her husband will claim in a landmark case at the Court of Session that smoking does not cause lung cancer. The multi-million pound action, the first in Europe to have reached a full hearing, could lead to an avalanche of similar cases and is likely to have massive implications for public health. Court documents seen by The Scotsman suggest Imperial Tobacco will argue that smoking has not been proven as a cause of lung cancer. Instead, the company will claim other factors such as occupation, alcohol consumption and diet may be responsible.
OK, that's a novel approach. "You know the 100 years of research that's been done on both sides of the Atlantic, that stuff that all says that smoking contributes to lung cancer? All wrong. No, really. All those documents put on the web from the Brown and Williamson case, where it's documented that the US cigarette companies were lying about both the carcinogenic and addictive qualities of tobacco? All fake. No, really, we mean it. Would we lie to you?"
I can understand European tobacco companies hoping to avoid the ruinous route taken by the American companies. Makes perfectly good sense. However, this would seem to be a path that would open them up to all sorts of problems, not least the court feeling that they're simply not taking this action seriously.
All that said ... you know, it still seems somewhat wrongheaded. To be sure, the companies did lie. They did falsify data, and should (and have, here) be held responsible for that. But ... surgeon general's and equivalent warnings have been on cigarettes for more than 30 years both here and there. Surely at some point, you ought to be able to say, "Look, if personal sovereignty and personal responsibility mean anything, they mean that when we tell you for thirty freakin' years that the damn things cause cancer, and you don't stop, then some part of this is your own damn fault. Yes, we gave you the agent, yes we lied about how bad it was, yes we made it as addictive as all get out. Nonetheless, it was your choice to stick the damn thing in your mouth in the first place, and it was your choice to keep smoking the damn thing after we started saying, with ever increasing stridency required by legislation, 'Yo! This thing causes cancer! It's bad for you!' So why are we the only ones responsible for this mess?"
Mind, I'm no friend of the tobacco companies. If they all went out of business tomorrow, I would feel desperately sorry for all the people in the South who would suddenly and without warning have to find new ways to make a living other than the tobacco trade. (And this country would probaby enter what would become a truly spectacular depression, since a full quarter of the country would suddenly find large numbers of people unemployed. The ripple effect would actually be pretty damn painful everywhere, really.)
Posted by iain at 12:41 AM
CNN.com - Judge in Boston notes 'mounting evidence' of misuse of death penalty - Aug. 12, 2003: A federal judge has ruled a man accused of multiple murders is eligible for execution, although he noted concerns about whether use of the death penalty results in the killing of innocent people. U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf allowed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty despite "the mounting evidence that innocent individuals have been sentenced to death, and undoubtedly executed, more often than previously understood." [...] Massachusetts has no state death penalty, and only once before -- in Michigan -- has the federal death penalty been given in a state without capital punishment. "The day may come when courts properly can and should declare the ultimate sanction to be unconstitutional in all cases," Wolf wrote. "However, that day has not come yet."
How ... odd.
Frankly, that seems the easy way out. If you believe that the death penalty is being misused, then surely it is your responsibility as a judge to prevent its misuse.
That said, he was stuck with the issues raised by the defense, and they may well not have been applicable to the case at hand, aside from the "cruel and unusual punishment" issue, which has already been decided by the Supreme Court.
This is also another case of the Justice Department imposing the death penalty in a state that doesn't otherwise have one. This might make it somewhat more difficult for Justice to win their case. Judging from results in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, juries don't seem to take kindly to their state being bullied by the federal government. But I digress.
Judge allows for death in Sampson case (Boston Herald, Tuesday, August 12, 2003): ..... But U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf also said he is convinced the feds will execute an innocent person one day and asked, "How large a fraction of the executed must be innocent to offend contemporary standards of decency?''
Well, frankly, if it's not in your state and it's not people you know, quite a large number. Most polls have shown that people in this country are relatively comfortable with the concept of having the state murder innocent people, as long as the odd criminal is also executed. After all, many people seem to reason, if they were arrested, then clearly they must have done something, so even if they didn't do what they were accused of doing, they're still criminals, so why should we care?
Posted by iain at 06:36 PM
Ashcroft targets lenient judges / U.S. attorneys to report light sentences to Justice Department: Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered federal prosecutors across the country to become much more aggressive in reporting to the Justice Department cases in which federal judges impose lighter sentences than called for in federal sentencing guidelines. The directive, contained in a July 28 memo, is the latest salvo in an escalating battle over how much discretion federal judges should have in handing down sentences in criminal cases.
Lovely. Just lovely.
One wonders why it is that the administration, or at least Our Lord High Minister of Injustice Ashcroft, feels that leniency is so overwhelmingly evil. Already, he has somehow convinced Congress, that bastion of craven cowardice, to pass an amendment (to an otherwise entirely unrelated act, even) restricting judicial independence. He's misusing the authority of his office to have judges investigated if he feels their sentences are too lenient (and yet another sterling example of Congress' inability to stand up for either itself or for the people of this country). If Ashcroft feels that a plea agreement is too lenient, he will withdraw it -- but only after the defendant has pled guilty and offered the government the information it seeks. For some reason, Justice will stop at nothing to stomp out any signs of independent thought or reasonableness in the judiciary.
And now he has attorneys reporting on judges. No doubt the implicit threat is anyone who doesn't fall into line will be investigated the way that Rosenbaum has been. Although it will be interesting to see what the results are. Technically, departing from judicial guidelines cannot be prima facie evidence of malfeasance or incompetence, and therfore shouldn't be grounds for impeachment, which is the only way to remove a federal judge from office.
Posted by iain at 11:16 AM
... OK, that's different.
(For what it's worth, I haven't shushed in years.)
Posted by iain at 01:23 PM
Why Do Gays Smoke So Much? By Steven E. Landsburg
You know, I have wondered about that myself. Seriously, it's not at all unusual to see someone work themselves into a lather in a gym, shower, dress, come outside, light up. (Indicating, among other things, that some people don't necessarily do the gym routine specifically to enhance their health, as such. But I digress.) There are bars that I will not go into because I find it mildly distressing sometimes to be able to see the air that I breathe. (Then again, my own particular glass house is that you couldn't get me near a gym.)
The last line of the piece is a really lovely snarky zinger, though.
Posted by iain at 04:34 PM
Sexually Active Teens? Prevent Teen Pregnancy with TeenScreen
I am impressed. Really. I can't think of many more effective ways to make sure that your daughter -- and this test is really only aimed at parents of daughters, because there will almost be some sort of seminal traces in male underwear -- never ever trusts you again than to do this sort of thing to her.
And hey! The same test can be used on your daughter and your presumptively cheating wife! Isn't that convenient? (Of course, if nothing else, it requires you not to be having sex with your wife, like, EVER, because otherwise, the semen that you find might actually be yours! Which this manufacturer must be counting on stupid men not to realize.)
And you know, just as a matter of physiology, by the time you're detecting semen in your daughter's underwear, it may well be just the teensiest bit late to prevent pregnancy. And what on earth would you do about it, anyway? Hold her prisoner until she was 30, then marry her off to someone else who would hold her prisoner? I mean, what?
I do love the bit on their front page where they say, "America's religion based society uses a "head in the sand" approach to deal with the issue of teen sex and pregnancy...". I mean, after all, there's nothing quite like directly insulting those who are likely to be your best customers to just make them fling the money at you, is there? (That said, anyone desperate enough or stupid enough to try something like this would probably not care.)
Mind, I have no doubt that this test probably does work, or at least it's possible that it does. It's simply the semen detection test that they use in rape kits separated out from the rest of it. The elements of semen react in a specific way if they're present.
One wonders just how good this company's sales are. Depressingly good, probably.
Posted by iain at 12:29 PM
State Dept. Changes Seen if Bush Reelected (washingtonpost.com) By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer; Monday, August 4, 2003; Page A01: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, have signaled to the White House that they intend to step down even if President Bush is reelected, setting the stage for a substantial reshaping of the administration's national security team that has remained unchanged through the September 2001 terrorist attacks, two wars and numerous other crises.
Well, FINALLY.
I have never, not even once, understood what kept this man in the administration beyond the first year. I have never even once understood what kept him there well past the time when it was obvious to everyone in the world that his opinion and position on issues counted for nothing with this administration. What kept him there through their repeated undermining of his position, both malevolent and casual. After all, either he was somehow so desperately out of touch with his leaders that he was announcing positions that were even that very day reversed by the administration (pick an issue, any issue, and you'll find that the announced position of the State Department was almost invariably overruled by the administration within 24 hours at the most) or he was being deliberately misled, OR he was announcing positions in the forlorn hope that the administration would simply go along so as not to appear foolish. The first and the last devolve to utter incompetence, and whatever else he may be, Powell does not seem to be incompetent. The second devolves to administration malevolence, and frankly, we've seen them behave that way to their own. Most prominently Powell, yes, but other department secretaries have been at the wrong end of the administration whip. (Remember Whitman, anyone? The most anti-environmental protection head of the EPA in a generation wound up getting the bums rush out of office, more or less for being too pro-environmental protection.)
Armitage recently told national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that he and Powell will leave on Jan. 21, 2005, the day after the next presidential inauguration, sources familiar with the conversation said. Powell has indicated to associates that a commitment made to his wife, rather than any dismay at the administration's foreign policy, is a key factor in his desire to limit his tenure to one presidential term.
Can't say as I'm surprised. It must have been terribly difficult for his wife to stand by and watch this administration tear him down, and watch him simply stand there and take it.
Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz are the leading candidates to replace Powell, according to sources inside and outside the administration. Rice appears to have an edge because of her closeness to the president, though it is unclear whether she would be interested in running the State Department's vast bureaucracy.
... Oh, dear.
Well, on the up side, this would mean that the administration and its state department would probably be on the same page for the first time, assuming they get a second term. On the down side, there will be no voice for moderation at all, nowever completely ignored it might have been. I suppose there's at least some PR value to having a member of the administration saying, "You know, there are alternatives to bombing the crap out of the Enemy du Jour, really there are."
Posted by iain at 12:11 PM
