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Topics - Universe Prince

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211
3DHS / House of Death, sponsored by the "war on drugs"
« on: December 05, 2006, 02:03:00 PM »
Over at the Guardian Unlimited website is a story about one small but disgusting and reprehensible chapter in the "war on drugs". I'm not sure if the worst part is that U.S. officials did nothing to stop a series of murders or that they forced to resign the one guy willing to complain about it. Here are a couple of excerpts:


      Luis Padilla, 29, father of three, had been kidnapped, driven across the Mexican border from El Paso, Texas, to a house in Ciudad Juarez, the lawless city ruled by drug lords that lies across the Rio Grande. As his wife tried frantically to locate him, he was being stripped, tortured and buried in a mass grave in the garden - what the people of Juarez call a narco-fossa, a narco-smugglers' tomb.

Just another casualty of Mexico's drug wars? Perhaps. But Padilla had no connection with the drugs trade; he seems to have been the victim of a case of mistaken identity. Now, as a result of documents disclosed in three separate court cases, it is becoming clear that his murder, along with at least 11 further brutal killings, at the Juarez 'House of Death', is part of a gruesome scandal, a web of connivance and cover-up stretching from the wild Texas borderland to top Washington officials close to President Bush.

These documents, which form a dossier several inches thick, are the main source for the facts in this article. They suggest that while the eyes of the world have been largely averted, America's 'war on drugs' has moved to a new phase of cynicism and amorality, in which the loss of human life has lost all importance - especially if the victims are Hispanic. The US agencies and officials in this saga - all of which refused to comment, citing pending lawsuits - appear to have thought it more important to get information about drugs trafficking than to stop its perpetrators killing people.

The US media have virtually ignored this story. The Observer is the first newspaper to have spoken to Janet Padilla, and this is the first narrative account to appear in print. The story turns on one extraordinary fact: playing a central role in the House of Death was a US government informant, Guillermo Ramirez Peyro, known as Lalo, who was paid more than $220,000 (£110,000) by US law enforcement bodies to work as a spy inside the Juarez cartel. In August 2003 Lalo bought the quicklime used to dissolve the flesh of the first victim, Mexican lawyer Fernando Reyes, and then helped to kill him; he recorded the murder secretly with a bug supplied by his handlers - agents from the Immigration and Customs Executive (Ice), part of the Department of Homeland Security. That first killing threw the Ice staff in El Paso into a panic. Their informant had helped to commit first-degree murder, and they feared they would have to end his contract and abort the operations for which he was being used. But the Department of Justice told them to proceed.		      


      The House Of Death suddenly seemed set to become a major national scandal. Bill Conroy, a reporter who works for an investigative website, Narconews.com, was about to publish an article about it. On 24 February, Sandy Gonzalez, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA office in El Paso, one of the most senior and highly decorated Hispanic law enforcement officers in America, wrote to his Ice counterpart, John Gaudioso.

'I am writing to express to you my frustration and outrage at the mishandling of investigation that has resulted in unnecessary loss of human life,' he began, 'and endangered the lives of special agents of the DEA and their immediate families. There is no excuse for the events that culminated during the evening of 14 January... and I have no choice but to hold you responsible.' Ice, Gonzalez wrote, had gone to 'extreme lengths' to protect an informant who was, in reality, a 'homicidal maniac... this situation is so bizarre that, even as I'm writing to you, it is difficult for me to believe it'.

But Ice and its allies in the DoJ were covering up their actions, helped by the US media - aside from the Dallas Morning News, not one major newspaper or TV network has covered the story. The first signs came in the response to Gonzalez's letter to Gaudioso - not from Ice, but from Johnny Sutton.

He reacted not to the discovery of corpses at Calle Parsonieros, but with concern Gonzalez might talk to the media. He communicated his fears to a senior official in Washington - Catherine O'Neil, director of the DoJ's Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Describing Gonzalez's letter as 'inflammatory,' she passed on Sutton's fears to the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and to Karen Tandy, the head of the DEA, another Texan lawyer.

Tandy was horrified by Gonzalez's letter. 'I apologised to Johnny Sutton last night and he and I agreed on a "no comment" to the press,' she replied on 5 March. Gonzalez would have no further involvement with the House of Death case and was ordered to report to Washington for 'performance discussions to further address this officially'.

Gonzalez was told that Sutton was 'extremely upset'. Gonzalez, who had enjoyed glittering appraisals throughout his 30-year career, was told he would be downgraded. On 4 May, DEA managers in Washington sent him a letter. It said that, if he quietly retired before 30 June, he would be given a 'positive' reference for future employers. If he refused, a reference would dwell on his 'lapse'. Gonzalez resigned, and launched a lawsuit - part of which is due to come to court tomorrow.

'I've been written off,' he says. 'They dismiss my complaints, saying I'm just a disgruntled employee. But once they knew about the carne asadas, they were legally and morally obligated to do something. They already had a solid case against Santillan for drugs and murder. What the fuck else did they need? As for the DEA, they held my feet to the fire and joined the cover-up.' He had been neutralised, but there remained the danger that details of Ice's relationship with Lalo would surface at Santillan's trial.		      


This is inexcusable. The other day, I heard some guy on the radio complaining about people wanting to interfere with law enforcement just doing their job. At this point, yes, I do want to interfere with law enforcement just doing their job because apparently just doing their job means not doing their job at all.

The whole article is at the other end of this link.

212
3DHS / Stop the food poisoning epidemic!
« on: November 30, 2006, 12:12:50 AM »
And in the "using government as a tool to help society" department we find a new story at washingtonpost.com about protecting the homeless:

Quote
Under a tough new Fairfax County policy, residents can no longer donate food prepared in their homes or a church kitchen -- be it a tuna casserole, sandwiches or even a batch of cookies -- unless the kitchen is approved by the county, health officials said yesterday.
   
They said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people.

But it is infuriating operators of shelters for the homeless and leaders of a coalition of churches that provides shelter and meals to homeless people during the winter. They said the strict standards for food served in the shelters will make it more difficult to serve healthy, hot meals to homeless people. The enforcement also, they said, makes little sense.

Whole article at the other end of this link.

Never mind that there have been no outbreaks of food poisoning among the homeless, and never mind that many shelters that homeless people depend on during the cold months now have to be closed during that time this year. Yeah, they can't get food poisoning if they don't get any food. And the best part is, somewhere down the line someone is going to tell me about how shelters are overwhelmed and how we therefore need government to do something because the private charities just can't handle it.

I'd say more, but this story makes me angry.

213
3DHS / Road design a key to reducing car accidents?
« on: November 21, 2006, 01:09:47 AM »
This is taken from the article "Murder on the Roads: Intersections" by Nathan McKaskle. McKaskle is trying to make a point about not trusting government to build roads and handle traffic safety, but I have no real desire to watch certain folks indignantly protest the questioning of their cherished beliefs about the goodness of government to solve all our problems. So I'm going to quote just the part about the ineffectiveness of red-light cameras and a possibly, probably better solution to intersection traffic issues.

      Lights, Cameras...

Do red-light cameras curb the number of accidents? In Houston, the first of these cameras went live on September 1st, 2006. One week later, the Lone Star Times quoted the Houston Chronicle:

      The department projects the [eventual total of fifty] cameras will record about 360,000 violations annually or $27 million potential revenue. But the city expects only about a quarter of the violators to pay the fine, which would bring in $6.7 million. Tuton said that estimate is low, and most cities using ATS technology see a payment rate of 75 percent to 90 percent.      

As the Times sarcastically asks, "But remember, it’s all about 'safety,' right?" The article goes on to cite a study by the Federal Highway Administration in which statistics were collected from seven jurisdictions using red-light cameras. These jurisdictions did experience an average 23.2% reduction in right-angle crashes; however, they also experienced an average 17.4% increase in rear-end collisions. Three of the jurisdictions actually experienced a net increase in number of crashes.

When factoring in the Washington DOT stated increase of rear-end collisions that occur with traffic lights in general, this is not a reduction in accidents but an overall increase when compared with the alternatives I will present later.

In October 2005, the Washington Post reported on the District of Columbia's red-light cameras. The Post's analysis showed an overall increase in the number of collisions at intersections with these cameras, an increase equal to or greater than collision increases at intersections without red-light cameras.

      The analysis shows that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame.      

Considering that the cameras have "generated more than 500,000 violations and $32 million in fines over the past six years," it’s not surprising that this situation has been allowed to continue. The article quotes Lon Anderson of AAA: "They are making a heck of a lot of money, and they are picking the motorists' pockets on the pretense of safety." Looking at the statistics, it's hard to disagree.

Can laws change physics?

By their very nature, traffic lights do not and cannot constitute a physical barrier to speed. This results in the following two problems:

      Â·Due to the physical capabilities of automobiles, it is easy for a driver to run a red light due to inattentiveness, excessive speed, or unexpected adverse road conditions (e.g., slickness).

·Psychologically speaking, it is often in an individual's self-interest to deliberately speed through yellow or even red lights.		      

If Joe Leadfoot is running late for work, what can a law do to physically prevent him from passing through a red light?

Every Problem Should Have a Solution

So are there alternatives to traffic lights? The answer, according to the Insurance Journal and Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, is the roundabout: an intersection with a raised island at the center. Traffic is directed counterclockwise around the island; a car leaves the circle in the driver's desired direction. As stated in the article, the roundabout has been improved considerably in design, over a century's time, to adapt to the most complicated of intersections. The modern roundabout features a triangular island in each approach to the intersection, to help force cars to slow down as they enter the circle.

The Insurance Journal reports the following:

      Researchers at Ryerson Polytechnic University, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the University of Maine studied crashes and injuries at 24 intersections before and after construction of roundabouts. The study found a 39 percent overall decrease in crashes and a 76 percent decrease in injury-producing crashes. Collisions causing fatal or incapacitating injuries fell as much as 90 percent at some intersections.      

Wired Magazine quotes Monderman regarding a roundabout that he designed:

      "I love it! Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can't expect traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the design of the road."      

Propaganda

The concept of the roundabout is more than a century old, yet in the United States, their use remains extremely limited. Why? According to the Insurance Journal:

      Roundabouts have not been popular in U.S. engineering because slowing down is a seeming inconvenience to drivers, according to IIHS. And American universities and institutions that influence road planning and engineering have reinforced the historical practice of building high-speed intersections.      

However:

      The safety benefits [of roundabouts] do not hamper traffic flow. In fact, the study found that where roundabouts replace intersections with stop signs or traffic signals, delays in traffic can be reduced by as much as 75 percent.      

Obviously, such statistics were ignored in 2003 when the Texas legislature passed a bill allowing the use of red-light cameras. Instead of considering roundabouts and other genuine solutions, they instead predictably went for the much more attractive money-grubbing exploitation of allowing red-light camera installation despite the majority ruling against them. How did this happen?

According to this source:

      The Legislature has for the past several sessions turned down requests to allow cities to use cameras to catch violators. In 2003, the House voted 103-34 not to allow cities to use cameras to issue criminal citations to red-light violators.

To get around state restrictions, state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, inserted an amendment in the 2003 transportation bill giving cities the right to regulate transportation matters civilly or criminally.		      

It appears that a very large majority of elected legislators were against the use of cameras. Do legislators ever actually read the list of whims they pass?		      

Do roundabouts sound like a good idea to you? Why or why not?

214
3DHS / A Different Perspective on the American Civil War
« on: November 21, 2006, 12:08:09 AM »
excerpted from "America’s Worst Anti-Jewish Action" by Lewis Regenstein:

                              December 17, 2006 is the 144th anniversary of the worst official act of anti-Semitism in American history.

On that day in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Union general Ulysses S. Grant issued his infamous "General Order #11," expelling all Jews "as a class" from his conquered territories within 24 hours. Henry Halleck, the Union general-in-chief, wired Grant in support of his action, saying that neither he nor President Lincoln were opposed "to your expelling traitors and Jew peddlers."

A few months earlier, on 11 August, General William Tecumseh Sherman had warned in a letter to the Adjutant General of the Union Army that "the country will swarm with dishonest Jews" if continued trade in cotton is encouraged. And Grant also issued orders in November 1862 banning travel in general, by "the Israelites especially," because they were "such an intolerable nuisance," and railroad conductors were told that "no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad."

As a result of Grant’s expulsion order, Jewish families were forced out of their homes in Paducah, Kentucky, Holly Springs and Oxford Mississippi, and a few were sent to prison. When some Jewish victims protested to President Lincoln, the Attorney General Edward Bates advised the President that he was indifferent to such objections.

Nevertheless Lincoln rescinded Grant’s odious order, but not before Jewish families in the area had been humiliated, terrified, and jailed, and some stripped of their possessions.

Captain Philip Trounstine of the Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, being unable in good conscience to round up and expel his fellow Jews, resigned his army commission, saying he could "no longer bear the Taunts and malice of his fellow officers… brought on by … that order."

The officials responsible for the United States government’s most vicious anti-Jewish actions ever were never dismissed, admonished or, apparently, even officially criticized for the religious persecution they inflicted on innocent citizens. 		                             

The article is relatively long, but interesting. Or at least it was to me since I had not heard or read about Jews during the Civil War before. You can find the whole thing at the other end of this link. I'm sure it will be considered somewhat controversial, but my goal is not to argue about the root causes of the Civil War. I am hoping just to pass on info that you may not have seen before.

215
3DHS / Questions brought to mind by recent comments
« on: November 18, 2006, 02:59:29 AM »
In a thread called "A Word on Guisling [sic] Traitor Losers from My Buddy Steve Gilliard", JS said this:

Quote from: _JS on November 09, 2006, 02:06:25 PM

I've seen arguments in here (well, in the old fora) that implied that the majority of the African-American voters who vote for Democrats were voting against their best interests. The argument implied that the Democrats trick and decieve the African-Americans into voting for them which implies that African American voters are somehow not intelligent enough to see this alleged deception for themselves, yet a group of white right wing individuals can clearly see it for them.


In the interest of disclosure concerning my attitude on the matter, I replied to the above quote by saying:

Quote from: Universe Prince on November 09, 2006, 03:34:47 PM

I've seen arguments in 3DHS that anyone middle class voting Republican is voting against his best interests. The argument implies that Republicans deceive all manner of folks into voting for them which implies that Republican voters are some how not intelligent enough to see this deception or to think for themselves, and that Democrats were somehow smarter and better. I'm not saying this justifies the comments you're talking about, because it certainly does not. But sometimes it is hard to be motivated to condemn someone for doing something that someone else is doing to you.

And I'll say that sort of "voting against their best interests" reasoning is wrong all around. And you're right that it is subtly racist to use it about African-Americans in particular.


Move on over to a thread called "More Truth for The Fooled to Call Racist Because it Concerns Race" and you can find this from Yellow Crane:

Quote from: yellow_crane on November 17, 2006, 09:47:30 PM

I would say that giving Black preachers heavy cash to incinerate their congregations to vote against their own best interests begs your question, amended:  'is voting republican better for blacks, or just Republican-purchased black preachers?'


What does it say about Black preachers to speak of them being bought by Republicans? Yes, I know Crane didn't mean all Black preachers. I am left to wonder if he meant all Black preachers who don't agree with the Democratic Party and/or liberal political positions, or if he just meant some Black preachers who disagree with Democratic Party and/or liberal political positions. It looks to me like he meant all, but I could be wrong. But really, I should set that aside. Because, imo, the more important question here is, what does he mean when he speaks of Black preachers' congregations being incited (I'm fairly positive he meant 'incite' rather than 'incinerate') to vote against their best interests? Who is wise enough to decide for all members of Black preachers' congregations what they should hold to be in their best interests? I'm not. And are we to assume that the members of said congregations are some sort of mob who need to be incited as to what they should think? Are they not capable of deciding for themselves what to think, what is in their best interests and what political philosophy they prefer?

These are surface questions, of course. If I were to go just a bit deeper, I would have to ask, why is it against the interests of the members of Black preachers' congregations to vote Republican? I know the knee-jerk response to that question: the Republican Party is the party of racism. It has its share of racists, no doubt. But what sort of political philosophy is it that says all people of a particular group are supposed to think only one way? That seems to me to be rather arrogantly authoritarian. It seems, to me, not far from saying that if they knew what was good for them, they would all think only what the Democrats want them to think. Not as a direct threat, mind you, more like a fundamentalist Christian warning his children against the dangers of alcohol and dancing. You know how it goes. Drinking and dancing is sin, turning one's back on the true faith, rebellion against God, and bad things will happen as a result. Voting Republican, advocating anything that might be on the Republican Party political platform is betrayal, turning one's back on the true political ideology, rebellion against one's group, race, whatever, and only bad things will happen as a result. In other words, it's evil to act outside the dogma decided for one by others. This is, of course, a control mechanism, an attempt to control other people's behavior by making them fear doing what someone else has decided they are not supposed to do, and by making it okay to look down on those who do those things. The intention is to protect people from evil. But the practice is to treat those other people as if they were all children not to be trusted to decide for themselves.

So is it racist to say African-Americans voting Democratic vote against their best interests? I think so. So what then is it to say speak of Black preachers being bought by Republicans to entice the congregations of these Black preachers to vote against their best interests, i.e. to vote Republican?

216
3DHS / Myth: being acquitted in a U.S. court means you won't be punished for the crime
« on: November 15, 2006, 01:01:53 PM »
posted by Radley Balko over at Reason Hit & Run:

                              Most people are still under the quaint assumption that you can't be punished for a crime for which you've been acquitted.

Not true.  In cases where a defendant is convicted of some of the charges against him but acquitted of others, the state can pursue a sentence that includes punishment for the acquitted charges.

Yes.  You read that correctly.  A recent decision from a U.S. district court in Virginia is unusually candid in pointing out the absurdity of the practice, which is apparently pretty common:

                              After an eleven-day trial, a jury acquitted defendant Michael Ibanga of all of the drug distribution charges against him and one of the two money laundering charges against him in the Indictment. The single count of which defendant Ibanga was convicted typically would result in a Guidelines custody range of 51 to 63 months. However, the United States demanded that the Court sentence defendant Ibanga based on the alleged drug dealing for which he was acquitted. This increased the Guidelines custody range to 151 to 188 months, a difference of about ten years. …

What could instill more confusion and disrespect than finding out that you will be sentenced to an extra ten years in prison for the alleged crimes of which you were acquitted? The law would have gone from something venerable and respected to a farce and a sham.

From the public’s perspective, most people would be shocked to find out that even United States citizens can be (and routinely are) punished for crimes of which they were acquitted.

The opinion itself is refreshingly abrupt and scathing, and seems to have come from the pen of a pretty fed-up judge.  It includes a history of the right to a jury trial, and quotes from Dickens.

As Cato's Tim Lynch explains, extra jail time for acquitted charges both encourages prosecutors to over-charge defendants, and encourages defendants to accept plea bargains -- knowing that at trial they could well be sentenced for crimes they didn't commit.

If you're wondering if all of this is a violation of the Sixth Amendment, well, if the Sixth Amendment means anything at all, it most certainly is.   But we're talking mostly about drug crimes, here -- where the Bill of Rights doesn't apply.

And a little more of my faith in the American justice system to be about justice is chipped away. More and more the system seems to be not about protecting the rights of people, but about making sure people get punished. Kinda like how law enforcement seems to be not about protecting the rights of people but about catching law breakers. But then, to be fair, we have to go back to the legislatures who are making up the laws not to protect the rights of people but to crack down on crime, to get tough on criminals, et cetera. But hey, if that is what the people want, I guess they don't care about having their rights protected.

Sixth Amendment? Constitution? Who really gives a damn anymore? Rights? What rights? The bastard probably had it comin'. Why should anyone care about the rights of criminals. They're not human beings, after all. They're criminals.

(For those watching at home, that last part was all sarcasm. If you try this at home, remember to wear safety goggles.)

217
3DHS / lame duck Republican Congress - a reply to Sirs
« on: November 08, 2006, 06:06:12 PM »
Quote from: sirs on November 08, 2006, 04:45:53 PM

Do you think it plausibe that the GOP, in the time we still have left, would craft Gingrich-like legislation of a pay-as-you-go bill.  For whatever expenditures beyond what's currently budgeted for, that congress be required to offset that spending somewhere else? 

Beyond the obvious political posturing that all politicians get, when they can go back to their consituencies and claim "see, what I brought you, courtesy of the Country's tax payers?", I really wished that the conservatives of the GOP would have stuck to their limited Government principals.  But perhaps, they'll leave that for the Dems, so that they can be the ones to repeal it it and usher in gobs load more deficit spending


In short, no. I doubt they could get it passed in the time they have left, and I'm not sure I'd want them to try. A pay-as-you-go plan would be a green light to pass and/or attach to every new spending plan tax increases. It would possibly put an end to tax cuts, because then tax cuts would probably have to be accompanied by specific spending cuts, and I just don't see how that is going to work in Congress.

Anyway, wishing the Republicans had stuck to limited government principles assumes they had such principles in the first place. I think we've seen that they don't. This is not true of all of them, of course. A few, like Ron Paul, have stuck to their guns, but the majority have appeared to be quite willing to expand spending and government so long as they were the ones in charge. Which makes, for most of them, their rhetoric about limited government not principles but mere lip-service. Can you sense yet my disappointment with the Republican Party?

There are some folks who think there may be a "Libertarian Democrat" movement of sorts with in the Democratic Party. I haven't seen any real evidence of it yet. If I ever do, such candidates just might get my support. Ten, or even five, years ago I probably would not have said such a thing was possible.

My only real hope for the new Congress is there will be enough political obstructionism to slow things down. That is my hope. My expectation is that rather than gridlock, the Republicans will produce mere speed bumps as the political process rolls downhill. I mean, rolls forward, yeah, yeah, that's it, dow-, er, forward.

218
3DHS / Horses or American jobs? Which is more important?
« on: November 08, 2006, 03:26:29 PM »
Excerpts from "Mr. Ed Goes to Washington" by Jacob Sullum

                              Not content at trying to stop foreigners from catering to Americans’ taste for gambling, Congress is on the verge of passing a law aimed at stopping Americans from catering to foreigners’ taste for horse meat. I generally avoid the phrase cultural imperialism, since it’s often used by people who object to the voluntary consumption of American products by non-Americans. But when Americans want to forcibly impose their culinary preferences on people in other countries, it fits pretty well.

As supporters of the horse slaughter ban never tire of reminding us, Americans are not big horse eaters. The three U.S. plants that slaughter horses, two in Texas and one in Illinois, cater mainly to consumers in countries such as France, Belgium, Germany, and Japan. Since the plants are owned by foreigners and serve a foreign market, the National Horse Protection Coalition asserts, “no U.S. interests are involved.”

[...]

...My wife once discussed the strange American custom of treating cats like family members with a souvenir vendor in Guangzhou. Upon learning that we have three cats, the woman asked, “Are they fat?” One of them is a bit chubby, my wife admitted. “Oh, you should eat him,” the woman said. “They’re delicious.”		                             

Rest of the short column at the other end of this link.

So anyway, I'm wondering what all the folks who talk about the importance of protecting American jobs think of all this. Is it okay to eliminate American jobs if it means protecting horses? Is protecting horses worth the cost in jobs of working Americans?

219
3DHS / Check out the Czechs
« on: October 27, 2006, 01:38:40 AM »
Without government, chaos and death would run rampant through the streets, killing puppies, children and the elderly in a massive fit of suffering, poverty and destruction. Or would it? Czech out the... oops, sorry. Check out the article at the other end of this link. The article is about the Czech Republic and the political situation that has left it essentially without government since June.

                              All the while, the Czech economy continues to perform nicely. Unemployment fell from 8.8 percent in August 2005 to 7.8 percent in August 2006, and economic growth is projected to reach 6 percent this year. The continued growth of the economy suggests that the investors perceive the Czech Republic as a safe place for their savings. That is a vote of confidence in the strength of the Czech institutional framework and the progress that the country has made since the fall of the Berlin Wall.                             

Whole thing at TCS Daily.

220
3DHS / An Ova Donor on the Mess in Missouri
« on: October 26, 2006, 03:42:29 PM »
Kerry Howley, about a year ago, sold some of her ova. The only reason I know this is because she spoke about it in a good article, "Ova for Sale",  on the issue of a market for human eggs. Anyway, here is what she had to say about the anti-stem cell research commercial featuring Jim Caviezel, Patricia Heaton and some baseball player guy.

                              I don't pitch for the Cardinals or play Ray Romano's wife on TV, and I haven't even seen Passion of the Christ, so I really have no business commenting on the Missouri cloning kerfuffle. But I did just sell some eggs, so I'm going to go ahead and take issue with Patricia Heaton's Handmaid's Tale-esque take on egg retrieval:

                              Amendment 2 actually makes it a constitutional right for fertility clinics to pay women for eggs. Low-income women will be seduced by big checks and extracting donor eggs is an extremely complicated, dangerous, and painful procedure.                             

I don't recall being seduced into doing anything (though that sounds kind of fun), but I guess it's those "low-income" ladies who lose all autonomy at the sight of easy cash. It's helpful to remember that this is the same routine procedure tens of thousands of women go through every year in fertility clinics. (Most will have their own eggs reimplanted.) It takes twenty minutes. You can offer up some ova in the morning and go to work in the afternoon. As for dangerous, all procedures involving general anaesthesia present a degree of risk, but no one has ever dropped dead from an egg harvest. And painful? I guess it would be pretty damn painful if they forgot to put you under.

Hands Off Our Ovaries, praised to high heaven by National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez here, is calling for a moratorium on egg extraction for research purposes "because losing even one woman's life is too high a price to pay." (You could say the same about permitting women to leave their kitchens -- it's dangerous out there.) But if egg retrieval is so perilous and coercive -- if the procedure is the problem -- it makes no sense to ban extraction specifically for scientific purposes. Are they opposed to the harvest or the research? 		                             

I think that is a very good question.

221
3DHS / A Different Perspective on Voting
« on: October 26, 2006, 11:09:38 AM »


The Voting Ritual

by Butler Shaffer

                         What is the ballot? It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the billy, and the bullet. It is a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable. The voice of the majority saves bloodshed, but it is no less the arbitrament of force than is the decree of the most absolute of despots backed by the most powerful of armies.                         
~ Benjamin R. Tucker

November 7th – like any other date in history – has born witness to birth dates and events with both positive and negative connotations. On the affirmative side, it is the birthday of Albert Camus and Konrad Lorenz. On the other side of the ledger, it is also the birthday of Heinrich Himmler, the date of FDR’s election to a fourth term as president, and the date on which Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “heretic.”

This November 7th will also be the date of the forty-second anniversary of my non-participation in the voting process. I can assert that I have been “clean” from the politicoholic addiction for over four decades. I have no intentions of ever again sneaking into an enclosed booth – that serves the same purpose of hiding one’s embarrassing habits as those found in an adult bookstore – to conspire with a multitude of others to despoil you of your liberties or property.

I shall, of course, continue to be asked by some of my colleagues and students why I am not wearing one of those little stickers – reminiscent of bird-droppings – that reads “I voted.” Mark Foley will have to endure far less opprobrium for his actions than do those of us for whom it has become known that we are, as a matter of principle, opposed to the practice of voting. “Are you apathetic?”, or “did you just forget to register?”, or “are you making a protest against the quality of candidates?”, is the usual litany of responses I get to my non-voting stance. “Apathy is not something I care about one way or the other,” I reply, as my inquisitor heads off fearful of contemplating the unthinkable: that someone may be philosophically opposed to the democratic process!

As others go forth to participate in this silliest of all rituals – designed to convince members of the boobeoisie that they are really running the political zoo – I shall be engaged in more productive pursuits, such as picking the lint out of my navel.

The media priesthood has already begun the chant: if there is something wrong with the political system, we need to go to the polls to fix the problem. One of the media stalwarts has his own solution: “go to the polls and vote out every incumbent.” Don’t dare consider, of course, that there may be something fundamentally dysfunctional about the system itself. If drinking a quart of Scotch each day has given you cirrhosis of the liver, don’t bother with changing your habits, just change to another brand of Scotch!

We need to remind ourselves of Albert Einstein’s admonition: “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Trying to reform the political process makes no more sense than trying to reform the carnivorous appetites of jungle beasts. If it is your desire to put an end to the violent, destructive, corrupt, and dysfunctional nature of government, stop wasting your time by focusing on the current management of the system. Rather than dutifully going to the polls to select from a narrow list of options provided you by political interests that you neither know nor control, you might want to inquire into who is providing the cast of characters – and writing the script – for a performance you are expected not only to attend, but to cheer.

To create a system which, by definition, enjoys a legal monopoly on the use of force, and then allow that system to become the judge of its own authority, is an error of such enormity that one can only wonder why grown men and women would be surprised to discover such powers being “abused.” Creating the system is the abuse. Directing our criticism to members of the present cast while overlooking the backers of the play – who have substitute performers waiting in the wings – exceeds the bounds of innocence. It is like placing a bowlful of candy in front of a number of small children, and expecting the candy not to be touched in your absence.

The media guru who advocates voting out all incumbents has doubtless picked up on a widespread mood of despair within the American public. From my conversations with students and co-workers, numerous e-mails I receive, as well as seeing television interviews of people, I sense an attitude that has been expressed to me in so many words: “I know what you say is true, but what can we do about it?” There is no expectation that another candidate or political party can remedy the problems such people see. Knowing that there is nothing within the “system” that can produce a reversal of what politics has become, they have given up.

It is easy to understand this sense of frustration on the part of people who may be on the verge of discovering that politics – not the candidates – is the problem to be overcome. They have endured decades of “throw the rascals out!” that only provided them another gang of rascals to evict from office in the next election. The fraudulent Ronald Reagan – with his promise to “get the government off your backs!” – generated massive increases in the size, power, and expense of the state. Newt Gingrich’s “contract with America” quickly revealed itself as but another “contract on America,” and so has the sleight-of-hand show continued up to today. One need only listen to the unfocused gurgling of “Make-No-Waves” Nancy Pelosi – the Democratic Party’s current leading figurine – to discover how irrelevant the outcome of this election portends for the rest of us.

As the Republican Party – with its control over the White House and Congress – reveals its deceitful, corrupt, and destructive foundations, turning to the Democratic Party as an alternative is now seen by most Americans as utterly futile. Increasing millions of people now see the two-party system for what it has always been: two choices of rule offered by a political establishment that doesn’t care one bit which gang prevails at the polls. This is why recent elections have come down to such inane non-issues as Willie Horton’s parole, the pledge of allegiance, John Kerry’s war record, and – presumably – the content of Mark Foley’s e-mails.

The media continues to prattle about the big “revolution” that will take place this November 7th. In order to encourage our participation in this biennial charade, we are being told that the American people have had enough of the duplicity; special-interest corruption; lying; and engorged appetites for police-state surveillance, secret trials, and torture. These same Americans will march to the polls, we are further advised, to vote the Republicans out of power and replace them with Democrats.

But when a Tweedledum Republican is opposed on the ballot by a Tweedledummer Democrat, even a handful of the Faux-News faithful may recognize the fungible nature of the various Republocrats. I have, in recent years, discovered only one member of Congress who is an exception to this, namely, Ron Paul from Texas. It is instructive that Paul – a philosophically principled Republican – has long been vigorously opposed by both the Republican and Democratic chieftains, a phenomenon that ought to be a tip-off to the identity of the real interests in any election.

I suspect that, like myself, those who have lost their innocence about politics will also be staying home on November 7th. After years of playing the carnival shell-game and losing their egg-money to clever sharpies, many Americans have finally experienced the working definition of “insanity,” namely, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

But that ever-dwindling minority of Americans who do continue to vote will express their faith in and commitment to the system that is destroying both themselves and their children. They will stagger into voting booths, cast their ballots, and have their Pavlovian conditioning reinforced with the reward of an “I voted” sticker with which to let others know of their devotion to the faith.

But as the decision making of those who do vote will continue to reflect the same confusion and unprincipled base that always accompanies trips to the polls, I suspect that the results will show no substantial change in the current makeup of Congress; that the Republicans will continue to be in control of all aspects of the federal state. The GOP may even gain seats.

For the same reason that Major League Baseball is benefited by the World Series whether the Cardinals or the Tigers win it, the political establishment is served by the outcome of the elections it runs, no matter who the candidate is. We recognize and accept baseball as a game and, since we are generally not required to support it, there is no problem with it. But we have been too well-conditioned in the political mindset to be willing to look at this system and see it for the vicious and involuntary game that it has always been; a game over which we delude ourselves into believing we control with our ballots. After all, as Emma Goldman reminded us, “if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

October 24, 2006

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He is the author of Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival.

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

SOURCE: LewRockwell.com

222
3DHS / "I would like to be a good guy and a good gambler."
« on: October 26, 2006, 10:44:48 AM »
Excerpted from "The GOP's Bad Bet: The online gambling ban could put the Democrats in the winner's circle" by Radley Balko:

                              In the wee hours of the last night of the last session of Congress, Majority Leader Bill Frist attached a ban on Internet gambling to a port security bill.

It was a dubious maneuver, which not only prevented any real floor debate over the ban, but also attached an intrusive, unnecessary, big government measure to a bill that addressed important national security concerns. This meant that any senator who held the position that what Americans do with their own money in their own homes on their own time is none of the government's business couldn't vote against the gambling ban, lest they risk being smacked about the head with the "soft on national security" cudgel.

If Frist's move was underhanded, it was also wholly appropriate, given the way the GOP has handled this issue. The debate—to the extent that there has actually been one—has been marred by misdirection, red herrings, and a certain obliviousness among the bill's supporters to, well, reality.

[...]

Poker professionals—three of whom came to D.C. earlier this year to speak against the ban—argue that the game isn't really gambling at all. At the very least, it's not a particularly addictive form of wagering. Of course, some (like me) would argue that the nature of poker is beside the broader point: preventing people from playing games of chance simply isn't a legitimate function of the federal government.

At the very least, there are surely items on the DOJ's agenda that ought to be of higher priority—fighting terrorism, for example.

Reps. Leach and Goodlatte, along with Sens. Frist and John Kyl, frequently used the words "untaxed" and "unregulated" when describing the estimated $12 billion Americans wager each year online. But they're "untaxed" and "unregulated" because Congress made online gambling illegal in the first place, pushing gaming sites offshore.

In fact, the major gaming sites are begging to be both taxed and regulated. They'd much rather set up shop in the U.S., pay U.S. taxes, and be subject to U.S. laws and regulations. They'd rather carry the seal of legitimacy that comes with being recognized and incorporated on U.S. soil. Were online gambling legalized and regulated, we'd likely see trusted names like Harrah's, Bally, and MGM get into the business.

[...]

Some say the GOP pushed this ban to light a fire under family values voters. Others say their intent was more nefarious—to protect established gambling interests from online competitors. There may be some truth in both of those explanations, though I think the main motivation for the bill was simply the moral aversion to gambling held by its chief sponsors—Goodlatte, Kyl, and Leach — and a desire to impose that moral rectitude on the rest of the country.

What does seem clear is that none of the people behind this bill were interested in thoughtful debate, any serious consideration of the bill's implications or consequences, or the principle of a limited, "leave us alone" federal government.

Polls show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to a federal ban on Internet gambling. Industry experts estimate that some 15-20 million Americans wager online each year. The overwhelming majority do so responsibly. This largely apolitical group could well get politically motivated the first time they try to log on, and are told their small-stakes poker game has now been outlawed by the Republican leadership in Congress. If this was a political move, there's a pretty good chance it'll backfire, and cost the GOP more votes than it wins them. 		                             

Whole article at Reason Online.

223
3DHS / Pride, Honor, Culture and War
« on: October 17, 2006, 02:41:05 PM »
Excerpts from "Pride Goeth Before A Brawl: The terror war is an honor war" by Jonathan Rauch

                                                    Boiling Bowman's richly nuanced 327 pages down to four paragraphs does the book a cruel disservice, but this is journalism, so here goes. Honor, for Bowman's purposes, means "the good opinion of people who matter to us." The basic honor code requires men to maintain a reputation for bravery, women a reputation for chastity. If a man is insulted, injured, or disrespected, he must avenge the offense and prove that anyone who messes with him (or "his" women) will be sorry.

The West's history is rich with traditions of honor, and equally rich with examples of its dangers and follies, among them the duel that killed the most brilliant of America's Founders. Singularly, however, the West has backed away from honor. Under admonitions from Christianity to turn the other cheek and from the Enlightenment to favor reason over emotion, the West first channeled honor into the arcane rituals of chivalry, then folded it into a code of manly but magnanimous Victorian gentlemanliness—and then, in the 20th century, drove it into disrepute. World War I and the Vietnam War were seen as needless butcheries brought on by archaic obsessions with national honor; feminism and the therapeutic culture taught that a higher manly strength acknowledges weakness.

[...]

Thus, Bowman writes, "America and its allies are engaged in a battle against an Islamist enemy that is the product of one of the world's great unreconstructed and unreformed honor cultures." Jihadism wages not only a religious war but a cultural one, aiming to redeem, through deeds of bravery and defiance, the honor of an Islam whose glory has shamefully faded. It aims, further, to uphold a masculine honor code that the West's decadent, feminizing influence threatens to undermine.

Whether or not Bowman has the whole story right, the prism of honor brings puzzling elements of the current conflict into sharper focus. Americans are baffled that Western appeals to freedom and prosperity get so little traction in the Arab and Muslim worlds. America's example as the "shining city on a hill" inspired liberalizing movements from Eastern Europe to Tiananmen Square; why should the Middle East be different? One answer is that traditional honor cultures value vindication over freedom and wealth. Militant Islamism and Baathist-style national socialism offer narratives of restored greatness and heroic resistance. Ballot boxes and shopping malls offer neither. If freedom brings humiliation, what good is it?

[...]

In the modern West, interest trumps honor (or subsumes it). We don't shoot ourselves in the foot to prove we're tough and fierce. Or, if we do, we expect to be ridiculed, not admired. If interest trumps honor, a country will swallow its pride in the face of a defeat or setback and make the best of its lot. For Germany after World War II (and for Japan, which was quick to adopt Western ways), getting rich was the best revenge.

In a traditional honor culture, that sort of pride-swallowing compromise may not be possible. Honor trumps interest (or subsumes it). The well-educated and talented Arabs of the Levant might today be enjoying the same prosperity and security as Spain or South Korea if years ago they had accepted Israel as a fact of life, made peace, and moved on. To Hamas and Hezbollah militants and their supporters, however, Israel's continued existence is a standing humiliation, and the debt to honor must be paid, never mind the cost.

Nor can militant Islamists settle with the West. When the post-honor West says, "Come, now, give up this foolishness, join our club, be free and rich," they hear something more like, "Be our poodle, sit at our feet, enjoy the fruits of capitulation." Admonitions that bellicosity accomplishes nothing miss the point, which is that the very act of fighting ("resistance") redeems honor and therefore accomplishes what matters most.		                                                   

Whole article at Reason Online

224
3DHS / To Free Iraq from Dictatorial Oppression
« on: September 30, 2006, 12:34:32 AM »
I apologize if this has already been posted.

Excerpts from an article found at the New York Times website...

For those of you still reading, here we go:

Quote
Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year.

Currently, three journalists for a small newspaper in southeastern Iraq are being tried here for articles last year that accused a provincial governor, local judges and police officials of corruption. The journalists are accused of violating Paragraph 226 of the penal code, which makes anyone who “publicly insults” the government or public officials subject to up to seven years in prison.

On Sept. 7, the police sealed the offices of Al Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite news channel, for what the government said was inflammatory reporting. And the Committee to Protect Journalists says that at least three Iraqi journalists have served time in prison for writing articles deemed criminally offensive.

The office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has lately refused to speak with news organizations that report on sectarian violence in ways that the government considers inflammatory; some outlets have been shut down.

In addition to coping with government pressures, dozens of Iraqi journalists have been kidnapped by criminal gangs or detained by the American military, on suspicion that they are helping Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias. One, Bilal Hussein, who photographed insurgents in Anbar Province for The Associated Press, has been in American custody without charges since April.

Quote
At Al Arabiya, the Baghdad station shuttered by the Iraqi authorities earlier this month, the studio door handle is sealed in red wax and bound in police tape. (The door is adorned with a photo of Atwar Bahjat, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Samarra in February while reporting on the bombing of a Shiite shrine.)

Some news executives express support for Al Arabiya’s closing.

“It is the right of the Iraqi government, as it combats terrorism, to silence any voice that tries to harm the national unity,” said Mr. Sadr, of the Iraqi Media Network.

SOURCE: The New York Times

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