The post-9/11 "improvement" in the "security" that is "enjoyed" by passengers was summed up a few years ago by a dearly departed friend of mine after it became clear how onerous and vapid the new programs were. He refused to get on another plane as long as he lived.
And when he died in 2006, he'd been as good as his word.
Jonah Goldberg's recent opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times confirms that things are no better. If there's a no-fly list, you're best off signing up. In it, he entertainingly quotes an Israeli security expert to make a point I've been preaching for years: "The United States does not have a security system; it has a system for bothering people."
The appearance of guards and the imposition of inconvenience is no substitute for a properly-designed and competently-implemented security policy. And the irony in all this is that as bad as that "security" system is, it's apparently enough to thwart what terrorists are currently capable of attempting.
The primary security improvement actually achieved in the United States is the elimination of the ridiculous notion that passengers should meekly go along with whatever criminals require, in the outrageous expectation that they will be rescued by competent professionals. The only competent anti-terrorist activity apparent on September 11, 2001, was the conduct of civilian passengers on Flight 93. The "shoe bomber" and the "Christmas bomber" were not subdued by some crack team of security specialists but by their co-passengers – who no longer believe dangerous mischief on aircraft is someone else's problem. The second useful move toward airline security was putting firearms on the planes.
Still, screening for explosives needs improvement.
So far, we have improved security by making passengers aware of the risk of criminals and ensuring they are not fooled into thinking compliance is a route to safety; and we have armed some of the planes. These may be consistent with airline security, but they are not themselves airline security. Barring Cat Stevens, author of the song Peace Train, from entering the United States is the kind of idiocy that contributes not at all to security, but undermines it by making a mockery of other aspects of an attempted security program.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Terrorist Tapes
The recently-released tape purporting to be bin Laden claiming responsibility for the failed bombing by a Nigerian of a civilian airplane headed for Detroit offers an opportunity to reflect on the impact of terrorists on the lives of regular Americans.
Where We've Come From
Nearly nine years ago, an organized group of well-funded murderers planned a complex attack that required members to do things like learn to fly aircraft, and travel quite a bit to obtain placement to conduct a coordinated effort from different airports. The result of the attack was an enormous increase in the visibility of a nutball network that preached the end of all things Western. The tangible result was not so much a victory for these nuts, though.
Not only did they utterly blow their capacity to launch such a venture – a fact borne out by the observation that in the following nine years, nothing of the sort has been accomplished since – but they lost more of their own membership that day than they claimed in victims killed. Consider that the United States gains thousands in population each day from births and immigration, after subtracting the number that die of all causes (the leading causes being heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, and unintentional injuries). Because the birth rate in 2001 was 14.1 per 1000 persons, and the United States population at the time is estimated to be a bit over 278,000,000 persons, it follows that the annual births in 2001 were a bit above 3.92 million persons and that the average daily birth count was nearly eleven thousand persons. However, September is one of the months with the highest birth rate. Even if the population that would have been added on September 11, 2001 would have been only the daily average of 8,000 had four aircraft not created additional unexpected mortality, the unexpected loss of nearly 3,000 lives would have left the United States with a population increase exceeding 5,000 persons. (Consider also that the World Trade Center dead included an estimated 500 foreign nationals from 91 different countries; if the "enemy" targeted by al Queda is broader than the U.S., it's clear the rest of the world grew quite a bit more than al Quaeda.) By contrast, al Qaeda's apparent exclusion of women from its membership seems to indicate that it grows only by recruitment. The ultimate devastation of Osama bin Laden's communication infrastructure and leadership (Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Saeed al-Masri, and others) suggest that the attacks may have had a more negative impact on the organization's health than anything else.
For perspective: in 2001, the undisputed high-water-mark of al Queda success at killing Americans, Americans lost more lives to accidental drownings (3,281) than it did to the violent efforts of their enemies; and drownings, which claimed responsibility for 0.1% of U.S. deaths in 2001, wasn't even a ranked cause of death. (By contrast, deaths due to "malignant neoplasms" – that's medi-speak for cancer – were nearly half a million, and were the second leading cause of death behind one of the causes of death linked to cardiovascular disease.) In all, 2,079,691 died in the United States in 2001.
So, how was such a venture converted into the "victory" of Ameria's enemies? Like the "victory" of Vietnam while losing 20:1 in its most favorable engagements, it was a matter of marketing rather than military accomplishment. But for the incessant harping by members of the media –excited to have something with which to alarm people into staying tuned for advertisements – there would have been little to celebrate in the mountainous wastes the terrorists' leaders called home. However, the for-profit media crowed nonstop about their deeds – a fact that made every sentient being on the planet aware of the attackers, and allowed them to reach an audience they would never otherwise have reached. With greater reach came greater opportunity for recruitment. The result? Many of the nutballs blowing themselves (and marketplaces full of civilians) to pieces in Iraq over the ensuing years were the result of foreign recruitment.
Where We Are Now
Osama bin Laden, having escaped an ugly death in Tora Bora and slipped into the lawless backwaters of Pakistan, can't use electronic communications for fear of being pinpointed by the ceaseless SIGINT effort to identify enemy command and control structures. He communicates, if at all, by sending runners. The lag between events and his knowledge of them may be small in the case of high-profile matters given news airtime – he can receive signals without risking his position, though he cannot transmit – but the lag between his knowledge of a matter and an ally's receipt of resultant instructions has dropped to a time frame last known in another century.
And his effectiveness? The newest tape either proves Osama bin Laden lacks the power to make even one plane explode – while losing an operative with potential knowledge of his handlers – or proves that Osama bin Laden is so weak that he is reduced to falsely claiming the power to lose an operative. Honestly, I'm not sure which is the worse implication for bin Laden: incompetence, or impotence.
The Medium Is The Message
Osama's latest tape – if it is Osama – comes to us from the lips of a news network long sympathetic to Islamofascists, having been delivered in cassette tape format by a runner who received it from someone who would not be capable of being followed back to Osama bin Laden. When, after a failed effort to murder a civilian airplane of holiday travelers, bin Laden attempts to preach gloom and quivering fear to his enemies, what do we really learn? Certainly not that we are quaking in our boots.
He (purportedly) says, "America will not dream of security until we experience it as a reality in Palestine." Yet the message comes to us on a day his operatives have failed to do anything to harm Americans – indeed, it comes after (a) his supposed operative was identified as a threat and law enforcement officers had already planned to arrest him on arrival, and (b) when his plan proved so simple in its design that it didn't require landing in the U.S. to implement, the operative was subdued by unarmed and irate passengers so that he could be turned over, alive, for processing by the legal system. If anything, the message proves that, whatever failings American security may suffer (and we thank you, Osama, for helping us to troubleshoot those systems), the security apparatus delivers security that is sufficient to be effective to thwart the efforts of which bin Laden is currently capable.
In short: bin Laden either lacks relevance because he must claim "credit" for the failed attempts of others, or he lacks relevance because he commands an outfit that is no longer capable of effecting completed attacks. If the best al Quaeda can offer is fools like these, America's security has improved dramatically since we last heard from al Quaeda.
Where We've Come From
Nearly nine years ago, an organized group of well-funded murderers planned a complex attack that required members to do things like learn to fly aircraft, and travel quite a bit to obtain placement to conduct a coordinated effort from different airports. The result of the attack was an enormous increase in the visibility of a nutball network that preached the end of all things Western. The tangible result was not so much a victory for these nuts, though.
Not only did they utterly blow their capacity to launch such a venture – a fact borne out by the observation that in the following nine years, nothing of the sort has been accomplished since – but they lost more of their own membership that day than they claimed in victims killed. Consider that the United States gains thousands in population each day from births and immigration, after subtracting the number that die of all causes (the leading causes being heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, and unintentional injuries). Because the birth rate in 2001 was 14.1 per 1000 persons, and the United States population at the time is estimated to be a bit over 278,000,000 persons, it follows that the annual births in 2001 were a bit above 3.92 million persons and that the average daily birth count was nearly eleven thousand persons. However, September is one of the months with the highest birth rate. Even if the population that would have been added on September 11, 2001 would have been only the daily average of 8,000 had four aircraft not created additional unexpected mortality, the unexpected loss of nearly 3,000 lives would have left the United States with a population increase exceeding 5,000 persons. (Consider also that the World Trade Center dead included an estimated 500 foreign nationals from 91 different countries; if the "enemy" targeted by al Queda is broader than the U.S., it's clear the rest of the world grew quite a bit more than al Quaeda.) By contrast, al Qaeda's apparent exclusion of women from its membership seems to indicate that it grows only by recruitment. The ultimate devastation of Osama bin Laden's communication infrastructure and leadership (Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Saeed al-Masri, and others) suggest that the attacks may have had a more negative impact on the organization's health than anything else.
For perspective: in 2001, the undisputed high-water-mark of al Queda success at killing Americans, Americans lost more lives to accidental drownings (3,281) than it did to the violent efforts of their enemies; and drownings, which claimed responsibility for 0.1% of U.S. deaths in 2001, wasn't even a ranked cause of death. (By contrast, deaths due to "malignant neoplasms" – that's medi-speak for cancer – were nearly half a million, and were the second leading cause of death behind one of the causes of death linked to cardiovascular disease.) In all, 2,079,691 died in the United States in 2001.
So, how was such a venture converted into the "victory" of Ameria's enemies? Like the "victory" of Vietnam while losing 20:1 in its most favorable engagements, it was a matter of marketing rather than military accomplishment. But for the incessant harping by members of the media –excited to have something with which to alarm people into staying tuned for advertisements – there would have been little to celebrate in the mountainous wastes the terrorists' leaders called home. However, the for-profit media crowed nonstop about their deeds – a fact that made every sentient being on the planet aware of the attackers, and allowed them to reach an audience they would never otherwise have reached. With greater reach came greater opportunity for recruitment. The result? Many of the nutballs blowing themselves (and marketplaces full of civilians) to pieces in Iraq over the ensuing years were the result of foreign recruitment.
Where We Are Now
Osama bin Laden, having escaped an ugly death in Tora Bora and slipped into the lawless backwaters of Pakistan, can't use electronic communications for fear of being pinpointed by the ceaseless SIGINT effort to identify enemy command and control structures. He communicates, if at all, by sending runners. The lag between events and his knowledge of them may be small in the case of high-profile matters given news airtime – he can receive signals without risking his position, though he cannot transmit – but the lag between his knowledge of a matter and an ally's receipt of resultant instructions has dropped to a time frame last known in another century.
And his effectiveness? The newest tape either proves Osama bin Laden lacks the power to make even one plane explode – while losing an operative with potential knowledge of his handlers – or proves that Osama bin Laden is so weak that he is reduced to falsely claiming the power to lose an operative. Honestly, I'm not sure which is the worse implication for bin Laden: incompetence, or impotence.
The Medium Is The Message
Osama's latest tape – if it is Osama – comes to us from the lips of a news network long sympathetic to Islamofascists, having been delivered in cassette tape format by a runner who received it from someone who would not be capable of being followed back to Osama bin Laden. When, after a failed effort to murder a civilian airplane of holiday travelers, bin Laden attempts to preach gloom and quivering fear to his enemies, what do we really learn? Certainly not that we are quaking in our boots.
He (purportedly) says, "America will not dream of security until we experience it as a reality in Palestine." Yet the message comes to us on a day his operatives have failed to do anything to harm Americans – indeed, it comes after (a) his supposed operative was identified as a threat and law enforcement officers had already planned to arrest him on arrival, and (b) when his plan proved so simple in its design that it didn't require landing in the U.S. to implement, the operative was subdued by unarmed and irate passengers so that he could be turned over, alive, for processing by the legal system. If anything, the message proves that, whatever failings American security may suffer (and we thank you, Osama, for helping us to troubleshoot those systems), the security apparatus delivers security that is sufficient to be effective to thwart the efforts of which bin Laden is currently capable.
In short: bin Laden either lacks relevance because he must claim "credit" for the failed attempts of others, or he lacks relevance because he commands an outfit that is no longer capable of effecting completed attacks. If the best al Quaeda can offer is fools like these, America's security has improved dramatically since we last heard from al Quaeda.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
MSFT Still Seeking Home-Media Stride
In its latest shake-up of its internal structure, Microsoft has married the Zune group and Windows Media Center to the Entertainment Business Group (e.g., XBox and all Microsoft's Gaming development).
After declaring phone apps unimportant, one wonders what the future of MSFT's upcoming Zune Phone will be (multiple inconsistent phone OS versions, for example?); is joining Zune to the Entertainment Business Group really calculated to lead to increased focus on what will make Microsoft's handheld player an outstanding and novel experience? Is it likely to help make Microsoft's phone OS simpler, more efficient, or easier to maintain? Like its new desktop OS?
Merely understanding that Microsoft needs to do something better hasn't helped Microsoft improve much. Has its phone got a chance?
In other news, Apple is reputedly discussing with Microsoft the replacement of Google's search service with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine in Safari and iPhone. The article discusses Apple and Google as increasing in rivalry, with the view that Microsoft has become a pawn in a growing long-term enmity between Apple and Google, who so recently shared a couple of board members.
The question is whether Microsoft is more important to Apple and Google as a common enemy, or has decreased in relevance and become part of the environment in which Apple and Google expect to divide up the future. It's an interesting question – Microsoft's ongoing effort to control APIs and server back-ends seems to offer some continued threat in light of MSFT's significant server share and browser share and its long willingness to hijack standards in order to prevent competition. Until Microsoft is believably defanged, the huge, cash-flush developer shouldn't be treated lightly. Microsoft's own consulting division, not to mention Microsoft shops like Accenture, regularly deploy new large costly database-backed enterprise applications on Microsoft's back-end tool chain, thereby enslaving huge customers to Microsoft's tools, APIs, operating systems, and supporting hardware for years to come. This isn't trivial, and however much Apple and Google might want to see a future based on standards that play to their strengths, neither Apple nor Google has anything like it at present.
After declaring phone apps unimportant, one wonders what the future of MSFT's upcoming Zune Phone will be (multiple inconsistent phone OS versions, for example?); is joining Zune to the Entertainment Business Group really calculated to lead to increased focus on what will make Microsoft's handheld player an outstanding and novel experience? Is it likely to help make Microsoft's phone OS simpler, more efficient, or easier to maintain? Like its new desktop OS?
Merely understanding that Microsoft needs to do something better hasn't helped Microsoft improve much. Has its phone got a chance?
In other news, Apple is reputedly discussing with Microsoft the replacement of Google's search service with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine in Safari and iPhone. The article discusses Apple and Google as increasing in rivalry, with the view that Microsoft has become a pawn in a growing long-term enmity between Apple and Google, who so recently shared a couple of board members.
The question is whether Microsoft is more important to Apple and Google as a common enemy, or has decreased in relevance and become part of the environment in which Apple and Google expect to divide up the future. It's an interesting question – Microsoft's ongoing effort to control APIs and server back-ends seems to offer some continued threat in light of MSFT's significant server share and browser share and its long willingness to hijack standards in order to prevent competition. Until Microsoft is believably defanged, the huge, cash-flush developer shouldn't be treated lightly. Microsoft's own consulting division, not to mention Microsoft shops like Accenture, regularly deploy new large costly database-backed enterprise applications on Microsoft's back-end tool chain, thereby enslaving huge customers to Microsoft's tools, APIs, operating systems, and supporting hardware for years to come. This isn't trivial, and however much Apple and Google might want to see a future based on standards that play to their strengths, neither Apple nor Google has anything like it at present.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Republican: What's In A Name?
Today's apparent Republican victory in a Senate race for a Massachusetts seat so long held by Democrats that until recently nobody thought the Democrats could lose their filibuster-proof Senate majority until next year raises an interesting question about what it means to be a Republican.
In Massachusetts, the major issue was the economy, and the Republican underdog launched a media war in December that led with a speech by John F. Kennedy pledging to cut taxes -- a speech finished, in the ad, by Massachusetts' State Sen. Brown himself as he sought to fill the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. The Party of Lincoln assumed the Kennedy mantle, apparently, to give the people what they wanted ... which was apparently not the health plan advanced by Democrats.
But just recently, in Houston, the mayoral office changed hands and while the Republicans didn't take the seat – Houston is rather less Republican than Harris County, in which most of Houston lies – Republicans certainly had something to say on the election. And the election was a squeaker. In the runoff for the mayor's office, the African-American male Gene Locke ran against the Caucasian female Annise Parker. Let me set the stage:
A former oil-and-gas-industry software analyst, Annise Parker ran on the strength of a political record with the City of Houston on the City Council, and argued that she proved her fiscally conservative record as City Controller. During the election, she advocated programs to enhance home values. In the League of Women Voters survey (which I like to read because it's a nonpartisan body that publishes every candidate's exact words answering a hatful of election-relevant questions), Annise Parker said of her identification of Houston's priorities and her plan to address them:
Why would Texas Republicans endorse an apparent spendthrift lawyer in favor of an ex-oil-and-gas employee with a track record for trim budgets? The answer is simple. It's a matter of priorities. With the election of Annise Parker, Houston became the largest city in the United States with an openly gay mayor. Local Republicans are much more interested in social conservatism than in fiscal conservatism.
The irony of promoting social conservatism ahead of the small-government, lean-government philosophy that guides some of the nation's self-proclaimed conservatives is that promoting a government policy that seeks to direct people's love lives seems to steer directly into the teeth of a clear Supreme Court pronouncement that government has no legitimate interest in regulating such conduct. Moreover, it provides a dangerous precedent that government can and should be active in instructing individuals not only how to be effective citizens (the purpose of educating children into employability and to understand duties as citizens), but instructing them how to conduct their personal affairs, including in personal affairs that are guided by religious principles, as the debate over sexuality is principally guided. If we want more government involvement in our religion, in our decision whom we should date, in our decision what careers are appropriate (can you imagine Texans deciding that to end law suits, the education of competent attorneys should be halted?), and in our decision whether to vacation or to take another week of high-stress overtime, we can presumably count on our so-called Conservative Republicans of Texas to help us get there.
Republicans have long spoken about the danger of a huge Democratic government insinuating its tentacles into every facet of the lives of regular working taxpayers. Maybe it's a close cousin to this spectre, the Big Brother Republican, that is responsible for the increases in the size of the government budget under a supposedly-Republican Congress under Clinton and, later, Bush. Republicans promised fiscal conservatism. Apparently, social activism is at least as important for some of the folks who wear the Republican label.
In the face of organizations like Gay Republicans – presumably fiscal conservatives uninterested in government involvement in private affairs and more concerned that government not spend the public fortune pretending to "fix" problems like those hypothesized by proponents of political hysteria like the so-called manmade global warming – it's clear that "Republican" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Since people vote on the basis of labels like "Democrat" and "Republican" (voters don't know all the folks on those long November ballots, just the top few) it's likely quite a few aren't getting what they bargain for (a disappointment that cost the Republicans dearly in the 2008 election, and cost Democrats the Senate seat today in Massachusetts).
Will the real Republican please stand up?
In Massachusetts, the major issue was the economy, and the Republican underdog launched a media war in December that led with a speech by John F. Kennedy pledging to cut taxes -- a speech finished, in the ad, by Massachusetts' State Sen. Brown himself as he sought to fill the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. The Party of Lincoln assumed the Kennedy mantle, apparently, to give the people what they wanted ... which was apparently not the health plan advanced by Democrats.
But just recently, in Houston, the mayoral office changed hands and while the Republicans didn't take the seat – Houston is rather less Republican than Harris County, in which most of Houston lies – Republicans certainly had something to say on the election. And the election was a squeaker. In the runoff for the mayor's office, the African-American male Gene Locke ran against the Caucasian female Annise Parker. Let me set the stage:
A former oil-and-gas-industry software analyst, Annise Parker ran on the strength of a political record with the City of Houston on the City Council, and argued that she proved her fiscally conservative record as City Controller. During the election, she advocated programs to enhance home values. In the League of Women Voters survey (which I like to read because it's a nonpartisan body that publishes every candidate's exact words answering a hatful of election-relevant questions), Annise Parker said of her identification of Houston's priorities and her plan to address them:
Public safety and jobs. I’m the only candidate who’s used tough audits to free up millions for police and safety. I won’t cut the police budget to pay for things we can’t afford, like expensive new museums. I’m the only candidate with energy industry experience and a plan to create jobs by making Houston the headquarters for new energy development.Gene Locke is a lawyer. Not to knock lawyers, but they have a certain reputation, and in Texas that reputation isn't stellar. We would rather elect as the top executive in the state a ne'er-do-well who lost money constantly in the oil business, and was solvent only because his family connections got him a place at the table investing in a baseball franchise, than we would elect a lawyer. True, without lawyers nobody's rights would be worth a nickel, but we have gone so far to prevent lawyers from protecting people's rights that we've let ourselves be talked into amending the Constitution to give the legislature the power to control damages in civil suits (the ad campaing pretended it was about medical liability, but it covers "liability for all damages and losses", making it in effect an invitation for insurers to buy damages caps from the legislature). This may not seem strange to readers in England, where Parliament can do whatever it pleases, but in Texas we are so suspicious of the leguslature that we don't let it convene every year, and in the years we allow it to convene, we only allow it to convene for less than half a year. The answer is pretty simple: they can't be trusted when your back is turned (look at D.C.), so you have to make sure you know when they will be working so you can watch them like a hawk. They are, after all, mostly lawyers. When asked about Houston's priorities, Gene Locke didn't explain how he'd save money or how he'd allocate resources more efficiently, he just said in effect that he'd improve security by putting more cops on the street (which netted Locke a union endorsement), and to pay for this he said he'd magic up more tax revenue by creating more jobs (though, like some other politicians we might name, he never said how he was going to make these jobs fast enough to pay for the expense he planned). In short, Locke seemed a classic spendthrift politician willing to say anything, however implausible, to get elected. So, why was Gene Locke endorsed by Conservative Republicans of Texas? (The Party itself doesn't officially endorse non-Republicans, but particular Republicans may.)
League of Women Voters – Houston, November 2009 Runoff Voter's Guide
Why would Texas Republicans endorse an apparent spendthrift lawyer in favor of an ex-oil-and-gas employee with a track record for trim budgets? The answer is simple. It's a matter of priorities. With the election of Annise Parker, Houston became the largest city in the United States with an openly gay mayor. Local Republicans are much more interested in social conservatism than in fiscal conservatism.
The irony of promoting social conservatism ahead of the small-government, lean-government philosophy that guides some of the nation's self-proclaimed conservatives is that promoting a government policy that seeks to direct people's love lives seems to steer directly into the teeth of a clear Supreme Court pronouncement that government has no legitimate interest in regulating such conduct. Moreover, it provides a dangerous precedent that government can and should be active in instructing individuals not only how to be effective citizens (the purpose of educating children into employability and to understand duties as citizens), but instructing them how to conduct their personal affairs, including in personal affairs that are guided by religious principles, as the debate over sexuality is principally guided. If we want more government involvement in our religion, in our decision whom we should date, in our decision what careers are appropriate (can you imagine Texans deciding that to end law suits, the education of competent attorneys should be halted?), and in our decision whether to vacation or to take another week of high-stress overtime, we can presumably count on our so-called Conservative Republicans of Texas to help us get there.
Republicans have long spoken about the danger of a huge Democratic government insinuating its tentacles into every facet of the lives of regular working taxpayers. Maybe it's a close cousin to this spectre, the Big Brother Republican, that is responsible for the increases in the size of the government budget under a supposedly-Republican Congress under Clinton and, later, Bush. Republicans promised fiscal conservatism. Apparently, social activism is at least as important for some of the folks who wear the Republican label.
In the face of organizations like Gay Republicans – presumably fiscal conservatives uninterested in government involvement in private affairs and more concerned that government not spend the public fortune pretending to "fix" problems like those hypothesized by proponents of political hysteria like the so-called manmade global warming – it's clear that "Republican" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Since people vote on the basis of labels like "Democrat" and "Republican" (voters don't know all the folks on those long November ballots, just the top few) it's likely quite a few aren't getting what they bargain for (a disappointment that cost the Republicans dearly in the 2008 election, and cost Democrats the Senate seat today in Massachusetts).
Will the real Republican please stand up?
Friday, January 15, 2010
Self Defense in Ted Kennedy Country
I still see the bumper stickers: Ted Kennedy's Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun.
In Massachusetts, self defense doesn't mean what it means in Texas. A business owner confronted by a man who broke into his business to steal at night (in Texas, this is a "state jail felony" and witnesses have a right to use force to put a halt to it) has a right to use force to protect his property, including deadly force to prevent the flight of a burglar at night if he thinks use of other force would present too unreasonable danger to himself.
But in Massachusetts, trying to stop a string of serious crimes by firing warning shots to get the compliance of a burglar found inside at night gets you charged with discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling (not to mention aggravated assault). Just carrying a weapon with a permit is enough to be threatened with criminal charges by police who assert boldly but falsely that they are the only people entitled to possess weapons.
What is the meaning of a right to own weapons for the constitutionally-protected purpose of defense if local government makes it a felony to discharge them in that same defense? Crazy. What is the right to self-defense if local government can make its exercise a felony?
In Massachusetts, self defense doesn't mean what it means in Texas. A business owner confronted by a man who broke into his business to steal at night (in Texas, this is a "state jail felony" and witnesses have a right to use force to put a halt to it) has a right to use force to protect his property, including deadly force to prevent the flight of a burglar at night if he thinks use of other force would present too unreasonable danger to himself.
But in Massachusetts, trying to stop a string of serious crimes by firing warning shots to get the compliance of a burglar found inside at night gets you charged with discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling (not to mention aggravated assault). Just carrying a weapon with a permit is enough to be threatened with criminal charges by police who assert boldly but falsely that they are the only people entitled to possess weapons.
What is the meaning of a right to own weapons for the constitutionally-protected purpose of defense if local government makes it a felony to discharge them in that same defense? Crazy. What is the right to self-defense if local government can make its exercise a felony?
Big Brother Has A Sick Mind
The story I just read about criminal prosecutions for "sexting" raised some interesting legal questions ... at least initially. The furor over teens' use of cell phones and SMS messaging to transmit homemade kiddie porn isn't new. The traditional concern -- that recipients of risqué photos taken by kids of themselves for the benefit of their romantic interests would redistribute sensitive pictures without permission -- is fairly serious in that it impacts kids by intruding on what they (foolishly) expected to be a private communication. Ahh, to be young.
The lead paragraph's suggestion that a girl was being prosecuted in Wyoming for sending a picture of herself was a new twist: were kids being prosecuted for victimizing themselves?
One can imagine law enforcement effort, however, to prevent such foreseeable evils as the development of porn businesses based on buying pics from "consenting" minors too young to give legal consent. So this isn't utterly crazy, is it? But it gets worse: pictures taken at a slumber party, mostly of kids dressed more thoroughly than one would expect in a G-rated underwear advertisement, were the purported evil in the supposed self-promotion of child porn.
Prosecutors who insist that kids consent to a pretrial sentence to a re-education program on child porn (with a curriculum designed for what age group, one wonders?) or else face criminal prosecution have too much time on their hands. If the images of all the prosecutor-threatened kids were plausibly sexual in nature, one would expect that at least third parties who transmitted the images would be in trouble under draconian kiddie porn laws. One wonders what is wrong with the mind of an adult male prosecutor that he can't see images of teens wearing an amount of clothing comparable to that ordinarily seen at a beach without being driven mad with unquenchable erotic nervous energy of the sort that would persuade him the images would lead to prosecutable evil. This turkey needs therapy.
On the other hand, one of the girls was topless. She had apparently just stepped out of a shower and was wearing a towel like a skirt. I haven't seen the photo, though. It might be pornography, and it might be performance art. v It can be tricky to tell the difference.
But I know it when I see it.
The lead paragraph's suggestion that a girl was being prosecuted in Wyoming for sending a picture of herself was a new twist: were kids being prosecuted for victimizing themselves?
One can imagine law enforcement effort, however, to prevent such foreseeable evils as the development of porn businesses based on buying pics from "consenting" minors too young to give legal consent. So this isn't utterly crazy, is it? But it gets worse: pictures taken at a slumber party, mostly of kids dressed more thoroughly than one would expect in a G-rated underwear advertisement, were the purported evil in the supposed self-promotion of child porn.
Prosecutors who insist that kids consent to a pretrial sentence to a re-education program on child porn (with a curriculum designed for what age group, one wonders?) or else face criminal prosecution have too much time on their hands. If the images of all the prosecutor-threatened kids were plausibly sexual in nature, one would expect that at least third parties who transmitted the images would be in trouble under draconian kiddie porn laws. One wonders what is wrong with the mind of an adult male prosecutor that he can't see images of teens wearing an amount of clothing comparable to that ordinarily seen at a beach without being driven mad with unquenchable erotic nervous energy of the sort that would persuade him the images would lead to prosecutable evil. This turkey needs therapy.
On the other hand, one of the girls was topless. She had apparently just stepped out of a shower and was wearing a towel like a skirt. I haven't seen the photo, though. It might be pornography, and it might be performance art. v It can be tricky to tell the difference.
But I know it when I see it.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Another Day On The Road: The Case for Car Control
Former emergency-room physician Christopher Thompson claimed he was stopping to photograph obnoxious bicyclists for identification purposes when he stopped his car, but the jury didn't buy it.
Instead, they found the bicyclists' version of the story more credible: after honking at the cyclists and whizzing dangerously close as they pulled into single-file to permit him to pass, he slammed on his brakes in front of them to punish them for flipping him off. When they had smashed face-first into the physician's red Infiniti, breaking teeth and bones and cutting their faces, Thompson's 9-1-1 call recorded his explanation that the cyclists weren't badly hurt but would fake injury, just before he yelled at them to get their bikes out of the road.
Thompson got five years from an L.A. judge in the felony assault of two cyclists.
In 2005 there were over 6.4 million auto collisions, which caused 2.9 million injuries, nearly 43,000 deaths, and approximately $230 Billion in economic loss. While it's easier to get folks riled up over things like airline safety and firearm regulation – because they're sexy and make exciting news, so folks hear about it – the nonstop rain of auto collisions has receded into the background and seems largely ignored.
Instead, they found the bicyclists' version of the story more credible: after honking at the cyclists and whizzing dangerously close as they pulled into single-file to permit him to pass, he slammed on his brakes in front of them to punish them for flipping him off. When they had smashed face-first into the physician's red Infiniti, breaking teeth and bones and cutting their faces, Thompson's 9-1-1 call recorded his explanation that the cyclists weren't badly hurt but would fake injury, just before he yelled at them to get their bikes out of the road.
Thompson got five years from an L.A. judge in the felony assault of two cyclists.
In 2005 there were over 6.4 million auto collisions, which caused 2.9 million injuries, nearly 43,000 deaths, and approximately $230 Billion in economic loss. While it's easier to get folks riled up over things like airline safety and firearm regulation – because they're sexy and make exciting news, so folks hear about it – the nonstop rain of auto collisions has receded into the background and seems largely ignored.
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