Rogier Von Bakel points out exactly why I won’t be voting for Guiliani should he get the GOP nomination:
“Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”
Yes, that’s exactly what freedom is, you authoritarian jackass. Exactly. Read the whole, horrible thing.
Quick, somebody call Dan Riehl! It’s another sensationalized story about a missing white woman!
Local News Kens 5 reports that last night a man who was ranting to himself “died in police custody” after SAPD attempted to arrest him.
According to witness accounts the man was simply yelling late at night, and was severely beaten by police. The police admit the use of force, but claim the suspect was simply hit until he had “a bloody nose.” The Medical Examiner has determined the cause of death as “excited delirium syndrome” from cocaine use and a heart condition.
Interestingly, the former Chief Medical Examiner for Bexar County, the county in which San Antonio resides, has written extensively on excited delirium. Dr. Di Mao is also the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. Those facts will make it a little more difficult to get independent investigation into these events, and to verify that the death was the result of police restraining the individual rather than beating him to death.
This is not the only police-related death in San Antonio recently. On March 23 a man was killed during a domestic dispute call. His death was also attributed to excited delirium. Granted, two incidents don’t make a pattern, and excited delirium only made up about five percent of homicides in 2005 (the last year for which data is available from the ME). It’s good news that the Medical Examiner classifies these deaths as homicide, but there have been (as far as I can find, please feel free to correct me) exactly zero prosecutions of officers for these deaths. Furthermore, the 2003 Use of Force Report leaves much to be desired. Reading the summary of the author’s concerns, SAPD’s response is typically along the lines of “well, you shouldn’t worry about that, because we say so.” That leads me to conclude that the SAPD and Bexar County more generally are not particularly interested in investigating, understanding, or correcting problems with SAPD’s use of force or the people killed while in custody.
We’re still a long way from actual primary voting, but it’s never too early for polling! In any case, Not Paul Begala at Blog, P.I directs our attention to the latest round of polling regarding the upcoming Democratic primary. He also puts up a handy chart (which I have shamelessly hot-linked):
As you can see from each and every poll listed, the vast majority of Dems prefer “not Hillary” in the primary. Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume the undecideds break exactly evenly for the other four options listed. Breaking things down into either “Hillary” or “Not Hillary”. We get this:
I have no idea why Mellman’s numbers don’t add up to 100%, but it is what it is. In any case, each of the polls is clearly outside the typical margin of error for these sorts of things (usually it’s around + 4%). NPB’s contention is that Mellman’s numbers are the best, and given that he’s a real political professional, I’m inclined to believe him. Given that, there’s a clear 9pt lead for camp Not Hillary, and yet given the breakdown that NPB provided and the way that plurality (majority rules, first past the post) voting works it’s highly likely that camp Hillary will actually get the nomination.
To my mind, this is the single greatest flaw in our current voting system, and while there are flaws with other systems, it is my firm opinion that this particular issue trumps a lot of them. By voting for your candidate, you can hurt the chances of candidates you prefer, thusly helping a candidate you prefer least to win. The spoiler effect, essentially, causes a violation of the indepencence of irrelevant alternatives. Removing (or adding) a candidate from (or to) the choice set, changes the ordering of the other choices, and I think that’s a big problem.
Other voting systems do a better job of this, but are subject to other issues and, frustratingly, can be extremely complicated to set up and administer. The easiest and most practical system is probably Approval Voting, but it probably wouldn’t be to the benefit of the two major political parties, so I’m not holding my breath for its implementation.
The NYT reports on efforts by FCC Chair and Superdouche, Kevin J Martin, to persuade Congress that his regulatory agency needs even broader authority to regulate television content.
No longer content to dole-out bandwidth like a Dickensian gruel-meister and prosecute broadcast networks for daring to expose children to the horrors of the occasional breast, the FCC wishes authority to control content of television for which people choose to pay. Why would Martin and his minions want to do such a thing?
For the children, of course.
And, like all such cases, invocation of The Children is meant to deflect any possible criticism, and to distract from the issue at hand. From the article:
“Clearly, steps should be taken to protect children from excessively violent programming,” said Kevin J. Martin, the agency’s chairman and a longtime proponent of à la carte programming. “Some might say such action is long overdue. Parents need more tools to protect children from excessively violent programming.”
{snip}
[An FCC Report] said that the V-chip and other blocking technology had failed because, according to recent studies, nearly 9 out of 10 parents do not use them And the ratings system was of limited use, the study found, because less than half of parents surveyed had used it.
And such is the kind of thinking involved: ratings and V-chips have been required a decade, but because parents aren’t using them despite every effort to encourage them to do so, therefore we must be granted power to regulate content for them. It makes perfect sense, if you happen to think everyone should conform to your standards of propriety. The most tortuously illogical statement comes from the penultimate paragraph:
But Mr. Martin rejected that argument, noting that the industry has already formulated ratings to describe the level of violence in programs, and therefore government-imposed limits on when programs could run would be constitutional.
Let’s review: The industry has already formulated a ratings system, essentially at gun point, and therefore there’s no Constitutional issue with the government censoring programming. Brilliant! Cable TV is a completely voluntary service, and as such the government has no business telling anyone what may or may not be shown on it. Furthermore, once the FCC has power to regulate cable they’ll be back in a short while to request the power to regulate satellite TV, and soon enough they’ll be asserting authority over the internet. Once any control over what we hear, see, and read is given to the government, it’s only a matter of time before they demand absolute control as their original mission expands and political concerns trump considerations of what is right, proper, or just.
I was going to post about the content of this piece in today’s Express-News, but I can’t even force myself to read the whole thing. It’s about a possible voucher program for special-ed kids, which seems like a damn fine idea, but I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about why in the name of everything holy the author is even employed. Let’s examine the introduction to the story, the first three paragraphs:
Anna Marabella’s classroom is the most expensive to operate at Redland Oaks Elementary.
A dividing wall cuts her space into two classrooms. Working with the students are Marabella — a veteran teacher certified in special education — and three teacher assistants. At least twice a week, a speech therapist visits. An occupational therapist also pays regular visits.
All of this — and more — for six students.
That hurts me deep inside, like a knife wound. “Teacher assistants?” And this woman is allowed to write professionally? The whole thing sounds like it was written by a semi-literate fifth grader. The first sentence of the second paragraph is not only a complete mess, quite a feat for nine words, but also utterly superfluous. There is absolutely no need for that sentence, none! It doesn’t tell you anything important and it’s badly written. The whole thing is choppy, disorganized, and utterly obnoxious to read. This is what passes for professionalism here? No wonder nobody at work can understand simple, written instructions. My rewrite below the break.
So long, long ago when I was a freshman in college I took a course at the UO from a mildly obnoxious professor. It was a course in the Psychology Department, it was called PSY 330: Thinking, and I didn’t get that much out of it really. From what I vaguely remember the prof was sort of all over the place, a lefty, and didn’t like men…but there was some interesting content in there every now and again, from what I remember. So anyway, this lady turned out to be a little crazy. Okay, in my opinion, probably a lot crazy. I some how ran into her when she was trolling a now-defunct economics blog I happened to like pretty well, I didn’t think about her for a year, and then she popped up all over the damn internet. Especially as a troll at the Oregon Commentator blog.
Well, anyway, there was that whole mess that I was kind of tangentially involved in because I happened to comment on some of the blogs she was trolling, and happened to have been in one class that she taught years ago. I only mention it now because, apparently, she has me confused with a regular poster at Teh Squeaky Wheel, an outgrowth of a blogspot blog created specifically to encourage academic departments not to hire Deb. She believes me to be, for some reason, a person who’s a close associate of that blog’s proprietor. For the record, I haven’t actually commented on Teh Squeaky Wheel in a pretty long time, months and months. I will cop to belonging to Craig’s List (which I guess is a more recent outlet for Deb’s…whatever it is), but I only know what the Eugene: Rant & Rave section is from reading the Deb-related posts at Teh Squeaky Wheel. Apparently, she’s going to “mention me” in a letter she’s writing to the El Paso County court in Colorado. I feel honored, I think this will be the first time I’m mentioned in court papers. And I’m still half a decade shy of thirty, go me!
Dr. Helen has a long and in-depth look at an article from Men’s Health about exercise and depression.. Both are extremely interesting reads, especially considering my own experiences in high school and the first bit of college.
In high school I was a pretty good runner. Not phenomenal, but pretty good. My senior year I clocked a 4:23 mile and on a slightly worse day a 4:13 in the 1500m. I ran a 2:00 800m, and the 400m in about 52.0. I did pretty well in Cross Country, too, posting a 16:29 in the 5k my senior year. I was also in four choirs and wrote for the school newspaper, I slept maybe four or five hours a night.
Unfortunately, all of the physical activity ruined my knees due to an undiagnosed pronation problem. I had to quit running, and going off to college sapped most of my other extracurriculars out of my life. They were eventually replaced, but my first year and a half at school was pretty difficult. After a few life events, there was a great reckoning of a depressive episode. That sort of manifested itself in the way people are used to thinking of depression: withdrawing from life, sleeping a lot and/or on a weird schedule, crying…until the cutting started. That was bad, after a little while doing that I realized I was a bit, shall we say, messed up in the brain mean and should probably seek some kind of professional assistance. Fortunately for me, that was a very positive experience, and I haven’t had an episode that bad since.
I’ve had other depressive episodes, to be sure, that mostly manifested in aggressiveness, overworking, and booze. In college, when I was editor of a particularly wonderful publication I would routinely work for days on end, fueled by stimulants (mostly over-the-counter, legal ones) and alcohol (to take the edge off). I also did the kind of drinking you see in those D.A.R.E. ads about risky behavior. Actually, no, those DARE ads were full of wankers, imagine if you took every Irish stereotype and multiplied it by the stereotypes about German beer drinking. That’s coming pretty close. Most of this makes for good stories, but I’m pretty sure that eating an entire box of No-Doz and then drinking two entire bottles of 100 proof Schnapps (mint) is not a healthy way to live.
Anyway, reading these articles has me doing a lot of “yup, that’s me”, although obviously not to the same sort of degree. I think I got a little lucky that the crashing out happened a little early in life, and that for the most part I can handle bad things happening without losing my mind too much anymore, and without wanting to take out out on myself.
I do, however, reserve the right to keep yelling at traffic. I think that’s an okay outlet.
At least nobody here is proposing death certificates for fetuses.
Rep. Stacey Campfield, a Republican, said his bill would provide a way to track how many abortions are performed. He predicted it would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate but would have a hard time making it through the Democratic House.
First of all, I simply cannot take a man named Stacey seriously. Secondly, I have to say that this is one of the strangest, most horrifying ideas I’ve heard recently. The problem in the abortion debate, and I use the term loosely to describe a series of shouting matches, is one of axioms. One side believes that sperm + egg = baby, a human with the same rights as a grown adult; the other does not believe this is the case. Both try to manipulate through emotion, and both go on with equal fervor.
That said, proposing death certificates for aborted fetuses is a callously transparent attempt to manipulate the emotions of people in a pretty difficult spot. Getting pregnant accidentally (through voluntary sexual acts) probably indicates that you’re probably not all that bright, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to make a decision about what to do without being hassled by a bunch of pruritanical busybodies. Like it or not abortion is a perfectly legal act in this country, while I disagree vehemently with those who think it shouldn’t be*, the appropriate way to change abortion’s legality is through lobbying and legislative efforts addressing the issue directly.
Rather than attempting to pass feel-good laws that will probably discourage abortion by unduly evoking guilt in the unwantedly pregnant, abortion opponents should try to pass actual anti-abortion legislation. That’s more honest, but it’s also more likely to fail…which probably explains why Stacey *snicker* Campfield is trying this death certificate stunt.
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*I’m not pro-abortion, I’m anti-fetus.
Please explain to me, Senator, why on earth I should vote for you. After the abomination that is BiCRA and the continued push to regulate on-line political speech, I thought you’d gone as far as possible. Turns out I was wrong.
The proposal, which Sen. John McCain is planning to introduce on Wednesday, also would require ISPs and perhaps some Web sites to alert the government of any illegal images of real or “cartoon” minors. Failure to do would be punished by criminal penalties including fines of up to $300,000.
{Snip}
The Securing Adolescents from Exploitation-Online Act (PDF) states ISPs that obtain “actual knowledge” of illegal images must make an exhaustive report including the date, time, offending content, any personal information about the user, and his Internet Protocol address. That report is sent to local or federal police by way of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The center received $32.6 million in tax dollars in 2005, according to its financial disclosure documents.
Afterward, the center is authorized to compile that information into a form that can be sent back to ISPs and used to assemble a database of “unique identification numbers generated from the data contained in the image file.” That could be a unique ID created by a hash function, which yields something akin to a digital fingerprint of a file.
This is akin to the requirement banks have to report illegal monetary activity by their customers, except even more difficult as there are far more websites than there are bank customers. Worse, though, is that the IP address isn’t a unique or fixed thing. Yes, it’s true that IPs are unique…but most ISPs rotate the IP address around. Do you have broadband? Have you ever had to reset your cable or DSL modem? There, you’ve changed IP addresses. Dial-up users usually get a new IP every time they log on. And that doesn’t even cover things like public library terminals, or IP spoofing. So how, exactly, is this new law going to accomplish anything? Other than using spurious evidence to convict scores of innocent people, that is. I am not joking, once this database is established the data collated there will undoubtedly be used as evidence for prosecution: keeping in mind that juries are comprised of those who were too stupid to get out of jury duty and that judges largely don’t understand technology, it seems pretty obvious that “Well how do you explain your IP address being in this database?” will be enough to convict pretty much anyone. Hell, if we wait long enough* eventually every IP will be in the database.
Even stranger is this little tidbit:
Another section of the draft bill says that anyone convicted of certain child exploitation-related offenses who also used the “Internet to commit the violation” will get an extra 10 years in prison.
So let me get this straight, if you get some lurid polaroids of kids from your dirty uncle you’ll spend 10 fewer years in prison than if you download completely fictional lurid drawings of children from the internet. Because you…downloaded them. Aside from making absolutely no logical sense, that proposal opens the door for even worse abuse by federal prosecutors looking to up their conviction rate. Who isn’t going to take a plea deal when faced with those kinds of charges?
My advice? Start using megaproxy.
*Well, okay, if we wait like a few times the age of the universe or something, there are a lot of potential combinations for IP addresses.
