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On March 25, 2008, two Capitol security officers blocked Pentico's entry to the Legislative Annex and told Pentico not to enter the annex, the third and fourth floors of the Borah Post Office (the temporary home of the governor's suite of offices), and the state Department of Education. "I was asked not to have (Pentico) come back, and I relayed that information to him," Idaho State Police Corporal Jens Pattis told me Wednesday. Pattis said he consulted with Otter adviser Clete Edmunson and House Sergeant-At-Arms Judy Christensen on how to handle Pentico. Edmunson said Pentico wanted Otter to inject himself in Pentico's dispute involving Boise State University and the State Board of Education, and persisted even after being told Otter would have no part of it. "He just kept coming back to us," Edmunson complained. Was Pentico belligerent? I asked Edmunson. "I wouldn't say belligerent," Edmunson answered. "Obstinate might be the right word for it." "He wouldn't take no for an answer," added Mark Warbis, the governor's communications director. ... Equally troubling is that a very small number of government employees proclaimed three public buildings off-limits and then compelled Pentico to obey - not because they were afraid of him, but because they were tired of dealing with him. They alone determined the point at which a diligent constituent became an obstinate one. And they alone determined that Pentico's obstinance had crossed an imaginary line requiring their action. For such a severe action, there seems to be little or no real record of the events leading up to the decision to bar Pentico from state offices, as evidenced by several competing stories. Edmunson and Pattis said the House of Representatives' Judy Christensen was included in a chat about barring Pentico, but Christensen said she doesn't know who Pentico is and doesn't recall having a discussion about him. "He's not barred from the building by any means," Christensen said unsuspectingly last week. At the Department of Education, officials were under the impression Pentico was banned because he had threatened State Board of Education members. He had not. And while Pentico was banned from the Department of Education, he was not forbidden from going to the State Board offices one floor up. Yet the Board is an original source of the conflict that soured the relationship between Otter's aides and Pentico. Labels: freedom of speech, Idaho politics I grew up in Palo Alto/Los Altos Hills in the 1960s and attended public school well into the 1970s. A few memories. I remember four school trips to the tertiary sewage plant where we watched poop and paper swirl around in giant vats as an environmentalist droned about saving the planet. This was science. I remember pulling tires out of the bay for a biology class. I remember grabbing oil-covered birds and wiping them clean for health class. Perhaps, though, this was during the Sunday School program at the Presbyterian Church that my parents inexplicably attended for one, odd year. I can’t recall. I remember catching my French teacher boinking the boy’s coach in the woods behind the school, my lesbian gym teacher watching us undress with dilated pupils, my social studies teacher arrested during the protests, my math teacher standing on her desk, foaming at the corners of her mouth and (inadvertently?) revealing her underpants during a diatribe against Nixon. I remember drugs in every third, or so, locker and smoky parties sanctioned by the school that made my throat raw for days. I remember volunteering at the front office and looking at the charts of students that were in an accessible file drawer. They had asked me to file a couple charts. IQs and standardized test information were written on the front on each chart. Apparently this personal information wasn't considered worthy of keeping in a back office. I remember neighborhood “wife swaps” with disgust. We would meet under a designated tree to discuss where our moms and dads were bedding that night. Of course, they were back home in the wee hours, pretending to us that nothing happened. I remember the gut-wrenching fear that overtook us when we learned that one of our parents was driving toward Reno. That meant divorce. Or skiing. We were never sure. NEW YORK (AP) — Former top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to charges he cheated investors out of at least $20 million in a massive Ponzi scheme. The 58-year-old Hsu (SHOO) pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire and mail fraud before U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero. "I knew what I was doing was illegal," Hsu told the judge. His lawyer, Alan Seidler, said outside court afterwards that his client was likely to testify on his own behalf at a trial on four counts of violating federal campaign-finance laws. Hsu is accused of violating those laws by making hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to more than 50 politicians. "He's like a groupie. He just likes the political process," Seidler said, adding that Hsu was adamant that he never made a political contribution expecting something in return. Prosecutors said he made contributions to political candidates in the names of others. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Lemire told Marrero that the government will seek to prove that Hsu made political donations "to fuel" the Ponzi scheme and pressured victims of his fraud to contribute to political candidates. She said one government witness will testify that Hsu played voice messages of politicians thanking him for donations to enhance his credibility and make it more likely he could recruit new investors to his fraudulent investment scheme. Lemire said he also showed investors photographs of himself with politicians to boost his image. She said he "curried favor with a wide array of political candidates." Seidler said Hsu considered Hillary Rodham Clinton his biggest prize among political candidates. "That was his star," Seidler said of Clinton, who returned more than $800,000 to donors whose contributions were linked to Hsu. Hsu was accused of raising more than $1.2 million for Clinton and other Democratic candidates. His donations became an embarrassment for Clinton's presidential campaign. Labels: politicians behaving badly Labels: homosexuality Labels: homosexuality Nearly all states allow qualified law-abiding citizens to carry guns for self-defense, but a few states allow local officials to arbitrarily decide who may exercise this core Second Amendment right. In the action filed today, Plaintiffs challenge the policies of two California Sheriffs, in Sacramento and Yolo counties, who reject the basic human right of self defense by refusing to issue ordinary people gun carry permits. Of course, violent criminals in the impacted counties continue to carry guns without police permission. State scientist Deanna Sykes believes her sexual orientation and small stature makes her an appealing target for criminals, particularly as she often transports firearms as a competitive shooter and firearms instructor. “I am highly qualified to defend myself against the sort of crime that the Sheriff cannot, despite his best efforts, completely eradicate,” Sykes said. “Violent crime is a real risk in our society, but happily, we enjoy the right to defend ourselves from it.” Andrew Witham has over 15 years experience as a police officer in Britain, and is licensed to carry a firearm while working as a private investigator and campus public safety officer. But despite having been the target of death threats stemming from his work in security, Sheriff John McGinness saw to it that Witham’s license to carry a gun while away from work was revoked upon Witham’s relocation to Sacramento. “I’m allowed to defend other people,” said Witham, “so why can’t I defend myself, where the Bill of Rights guarantees me that right?” Adam Richards, a Northern California attorney, would also exercise his right to bear arms in self- defense. But the Yolo County Sheriff’s policy on gun permit applications is: don’t bother. “How can the Sheriff tell whether I am capable of responsibly exercising my Second Amendment rights, when he doesn’t even acknowledge that these rights exist?” Attorney Alan Gura, representing the plaintiffs in this case, said, “It’s a shame that these Sheriffs don’t think that self-defense is a ‘good cause’ to exercise the right to bear arms, but we’re confident the Second Amendment reflects a better policy.” Added co-counsel Donald Kilmer, “The California carry licensing system is being abused by some officials who are hostile to self-defense rights. The police can regulate the carrying of guns, and that includes preventing dangerous people from being armed. Complete deprivation of the right to bear arms, however, is not an option under our Constitution.” Labels: gun rights Labels: gun rights, gun self-defense Labels: medicine Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech's most striking feature is its owner -- Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department's spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. Robert Murtha said he is not at liberty to discuss in detail what his company does, but for four years it has subsisted on defense contracts, according to records and interviews. He said Murtech's 17 employees "provide necessary logistical support" to Pentagon testing programs that focus on detecting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, "and that's about as far as I feel comfortable going." Giving more details could provide important clues to terrorist plotters, he said. Murtha said he does not advertise being the nephew of John Murtha and considers it "unfortunate" that some will unfairly assume Murtech received its federal contracts because of his uncle's influence at the Pentagon. "If we're not doing our job well, we wouldn't be doing our job," he said. "I'm successful at the work I do because of the skill sets I have. . . . You don't know how good someone is unless you work with them." Labels: politicians behaving badly Labels: humor In a 4-to-1 ruling, the state's highest court rejected the law enforcement strategy of Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter to cut down on gun violence by seeking pretrial detention for every person charged with illegal gun possession in his jurisdiction, which includes New Bedford. Writing for the majority, Justice Francis X. Spina said a law known as 58A does not include illegal gun possession on the list of criminal charges that qualify for a dangerousness hearing. The court also rejected Sutter's argument that a catch-all phrase included in the statute gave him the legal authority to demand dangerousness hearings for dozens of criminal defendants in the past several years. "While we are cognizant that unlicensed possessors of firearms may use firearms unlawfully, unlicensed possession of a firearm itself is a regulatory crime," Spina wrote. "It is passive and victimless." Labels: gun rights Labels: gun rights [Note *: * MSS. Dep. of State; 3 Sparks' Dip. Rev. Corr., 285.] Amsterdam, December 28, 1780. Sir: The Dutch say that the English are acting the part of the sailor, who, having quarreled with three others as stout as himself and got his bones broken and his eyes beat out in the squabble, challenged four more to fight him at the same time, that he might have it in his power to make up with all seven with honor. Labels: history Labels: history Labels: establishment of religion Labels: enviromental lunacy Hunger will drive the wolf from the forest and into the villages is an old Russian saying that may fit here. Will Graves knows this. He is about to address this crowd, 4,000 kilometres from his home in Maryland. A linguist by training, he has spent the last 45 years studying the way people speak of wolves in Russia. There is, he says, much to learn by examining such things. These Canadians, having heard their whole lives a story of wolves lifted from Farley Mowat's pages -- that they are relatively harmless, timid around humans and economical predators who hunt sparingly -- are growing skeptical. They had come to hear a story from a different language. "For so long, people had the impression that wolves killed only sick, diseased, wounded or crippled animals; that they didn't kill any healthy or fit animals; that the wolves kill everything that they ate; and that wolves were not a threat to humans -- you didn't have to worry about them ever attacking you; that they're the sanitarians of nature; that they're not carrying parasites or disease," Mr. Graves says. "The impression is way out of kilter," he says. Wolves are considered benign here because the plains were setttled with guns, Mr. Graves says. Here, the animals came to fear man, rather than the other way around. "If wolves are hunted they will become very shy," Mr. Graves says. "They lose that, and become more inquisitive and curious about humans if they're not shot and not hunted and that's when you potentially start getting into conflict, if the wolves lose their natural fear and hesitancy about humans." In conversation, Mr. Geist is in the habit of describing timid wolves as behaving "American" and brazen wolves as behaving "Russian." There, he says, "they sit at the edge of the forest and watch people." That kind of flagrant behaviour, Mr. Graves tells his audience, could be starting in Alberta, the result of decades of conservationism and relaxed vigilance. Since the province compensates ranchers for livestock lost to wolf attacks, Albertans have dropped their guard, with little to gain by tangling with a hungry wolf. Across the U. S., conservationists have won laws protecting the animals from hunting. Now, several northern states, moved by farmers' concerns over increasing predation, are pushing to change them. Labels: gun rights Labels: my books
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Warning: Not All Hot Surfaces Have Warning Labels
So I was helping my daughter and son-in-law with a rototiller. And while my only experience with a rototiller was back in 1985, when my wife and I had to turn our first house's dirt and rock surroundings into a lawn, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." So part way through the experience, I had turned off this lumbering beast, and I had to pull the cord to start it up again. So I needed something to lean for leverage, and there was a nice big flat spot on top of the motor to put my left hand on for a moment.
EEEEEEE!
I've burned myself before. I've experienced second degree burns before. But never over so much area at once. Within a few seconds, I had it under cold water. And I kept it under cold water fairly continuously for the next hour. And it was, if anything, getting worse. I've mentioned the little accident with the drill press a couple of years back. (There's a slightly unpleasant picture of my finger at that location.) The pain was much worse from this, and for far longer. By the time my wife returned from the store with a burn medication, I was beginning to shiver, and feel like falling asleep--the pain was that intense--and increasingly, even cold water running over it wasn't doing the job.
Walgreen's had a product called Burn Jel Plus that took about a half hour to take full effect--but it is amazing. It had Lidocaine in it, and by the end of the day (mostly spent watching everyone putting sod on the places that I had rototilled), it wasn't too bad at all.
This picture below doesn't do full justice to how bad it felt.
Click to enlarge
Chris Pentico & The First Amendment
I mentioned several weeks ago that an acquaintance had been convicted of trespassing for dropping off a letter complaining of what he considers unlawful activity by Boise State University with respect to funding of student clubs. I now have the transcripts of the trial and pre-trial hearings. The trial itself is astonishingly uninteresting, except for the March 25, 2008 incident in which Officer Pattis told Pentico that he was not welcome in state government buildings. If you believe Pattis, he was orally warned that he would be arrested for trespassing. If you believe Pentico, he was told that he wasn't welcome. There was no written warning to Pentico. From the cross-examination by Pentico's attorney of Officer Pattis, on p. 25:BY MR. DERR:
In a criminal case (as this is), there's a requirement for a guilt beyond a reasonable doubt--and whether Mr. Pentico was formally warned that he would subject to arrest if he returned to the state office buildings seems to be Officer Pattis's word versus Chris Pentico's word. While there was a recording of Pentico's arrest on April 2--the only recording of what happened March 25, when Pattis claims to have to told Pentico that he was subject to arrest if he returned, seems to have some problems. From p. 32 of the trial transcript, is this exchange between the prosecutor (Wallace) the defense attorney (Derr), and Judge Swain:
Q You did not provide any written orders to Mr. Pentico on March 25, did you?
A No, sir. I did not.
Q Nor any other statements, except what you’ve testified to, I mean as far as trespassing and coming back, not welcome?
A Not to -- not that I remember, sir.MR. DERR: Well I’m looking for a tape, a video, that I wanted to show of 3/25.
It appears from the rest of the transcript that Derr never got it to play--and if this audio confirmed Officer Pattis's claim about the March 25th conversation, you would have expected the prosecution to have played it, because it would have demonstrated that Pentico had been warned not to return, at risk of arrest. Whether Pentico knowingly violated the law hinges entirely on whether he was warned that he was risking arrest for a crime if he returned--and all the state is Pattis's word vs. Pentico's word.
THE COURT: Does state have it?
MS. WALLACE: Well, Your Honor, we previously disclosed a tape from 3/25. There’s no audio on it and it’s an encrypted CD that doesn’t play, and that’s previously been disclosed. Mr. Derr called me about it yesterday and mentioned that it doesn’t play well, and it just doesn’t play well. That’s what we’ve disclosed and we gave what we had.
THE COURT: Alright. Well there we go. Ball’s in your court, Mr. Derr.
(Off-record colloquy of defendant’s counsel)
MR. DERR: I don’t know how to run this machine.
THE COURT: Well Mr. Derr, I’ll tell you what I tell all the young lawyers that come before me to practice. Presentation of evidence is the responsibility of the proponent of the evidence. We’ll give you a little time to figure it out and then we’ll -- do you if it -- will it even play?
More troubling is that the judge had ruled in pretrial motions that no First Amendment challenge to the charge would be allowed. From the April 20 pretrial motion, pp. 4-6:THE COURT: Well I’m concerned about the late disclosure, but I’m also concerned about the proffered testimony in your motion which states that Mr. Parker will be a character witness, and knows among other things, of his valuable and extensive activities in First Amendment matters, which is specifically not relevant to this trial, Mr. Derr. That’s a legal question, and I’ve already ruled. We’re not going to have testimony about Mr. Pentico’s actions were justified under the First Amendment.
MR. DERR: I see. And of course, the Court understands we’ve argued that before. We think that’s the basic element of this case.
THE COURT: Well Mr. Derr, I’m very concerned. You don’t have to agree with my ruling --
MR. DERR: I know.
And yet being able to petition for redress of grievances is a fundamental human right, recognized by the First Amendment. The testimony of the Claudia Nally, under direct examination by the prosecutor, is pretty clear about Pentico's behavior at the time he dropped off the letter on April 2, pp. 27-29 of the trial transcript:
THE COURT: -- but you do have to follow it. You can appeal, but we’re not going to have testimony about the First Amendment in this trial. There are only two issues here. One is whether Mr. Pentico was properly advised that he could not be present on certain specified locations, and number two, was he present, physically, on certain specified locations. The state is not going to be allowed to present testimony about why he was excluded. On the other hand, Mr. Pentico is not going to be allowed to present testimony regarding the content of his communication or assert that it’s protected by the First Amendment. That’s a legal question and I’ve ruled. I don’t see that based on your motion, Mr. Parker has character testimony of a pertinent nature to the trial, that in combination with the late disclosure, I’m going to grant the state’s objection. Mr. Parker will not be allowed to testify.Q And do you recall -- well, you must get to know people pretty well working in that office. People coming and going. Are you familiar with a man by the name of Christopher Pentico?
Oddly enough, even though there seems to have been some claim that Pentico was harassing people working there--there was no testimony at trial about this, and it seems that the judge had decided not to allow it--and yet this would seem to be the only legitimate basis for denying Pentico his First Amendment right to go into government buildings, and leave a letter complaining about improper governmental actions.
A Yes. I am.
Q And how do you know that person?
A He has been in the office, to the best of my recollection, five or six different times, not necessarily at this location, but at the Capitol building also.
Q Okay. And back in -- in March and April of 2008, did you receive information that he wasn’t welcome anymore?
A I did, actually.
Q And after you received that information, did you see him again?
A I did, actually. He came in on April 2nd and dropped off a letter.
Q Okay. And when you say April 2nd, was that April 2nd of 2008?
A 2008. Mm-hmm.
Q And tell us about when he came in.
A He -- he just came through the front door and I was actually kind of surprised to see him, and he came in and said he had a letter he’d like to drop off. And I said I’d take the letter. And he left it on my desk and then he went out the door.
Now, Mr. Pentico is a somewhat intense person--but no more intense than I am. He's not someone that anyone would have much reason to fear--he's not 6'4" with bulging muscles. He's fairly slight of build. To deny someone their First Amendment rights should require some pretty strong evidence--but the judge seems to have decided that it was irrelevant to the question. It's unfortunate that the ACLU here isn't interested in First Amendment questions.
Mr. Pentico is supposed to be sentenced on Monday; I guess that I will go to see what happens.
UPDATE: Wayne Hoffman at Idaho Freedom Foundation interviewed some of the players in this matter, and has some interesting reporting:
There are at least two cases in which the Idaho courts have attempted to define the limits of the trespassing statute under which Pentico was convicted with respect to public property. The Idaho Supreme Court decided State v. Korsen (2003) and an Idaho district court decided State v. Stonecalf WarriorWoman (2008). Neither is exactly on point, but Korsen in particular should have given Judge Swain some guidance.
In the WarriorWoman case, a New Ager announced that she wasplanning on attending a concert at NIC, on February 27, 2007, for the purpose of making a political statement. NIC learned of this through a posting placed on the internet by Warriorwoman. Tr. p. 2, Ll. 16-25; p. 2, Ll. 8-11. NIC also received a telephone call from Warriorwoman saying she was going to be at the Raining Jane concert that night, and she was going to bring a “Tomahawk with a 30-million-year-old part to it, that she planned to dance and would be wearing too tight of clothing, and she wanted a black student and a yellow student to dance with her.” Tr. p. 5, Ll. 1-8. The stated reason was “She was holding the four corners of the earth to save the evil American.” Id., Ll. 24-25.
WarriorWoman was arrested at the gate for refusing to allow for a search of her backpack, and was told that she was trespassing. The decision decided that while she might have a right to free speech, the tomahawk crossed the line from speech to conduct. It's not a terribly good decision, in my opinion, because it fails to answer the question of whether WarriorWoman could have been denied entry if she had said that she was going to show up and hold up a sign expressing her opinion.
The Korsen decision is again not exactly on point, but closer. The defendant, Korsen:
At trial:
David Korsen appeared at the office of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in Boise to discuss his child support obligations. He informed personnel at the office that he might get loud and that he was not going to leave until he obtained some relief regarding his support requirements. He learned from the social worker that only the court could grant the relief he was seeking through making adjustments to child support payments he owed. The discussion grew louder and louder and, although Korsen did not use profanities or make any threats, he refused to leave the offices. The police were called, and Korsen was arrested at the scene on a charge of trespass under I.C. § 18-7008(8), because he refused to leave after being asked by the regional director of the department, who was in charge of the offices, to vacate
the premises.The magistrate concluded that the statute violated the Constitution because it was void for vagueness as applied to public property and because the statute failed to properly inform a person on public property about the specific conduct prohibited by the statute.
The Idaho Supreme Court overturned this ruling. With respect to vagueness:Neither the magistrate nor the district court examined the constitutionality of I.C. § 18-7008(8) as it applied to Korsen’s specific conduct in this case. Nor did they examine the statute in toto. Rather, they applied a hybridized form of the facial test, which ordinarily is used to determine if a statute is void in all its applications, by considering the statute only in its application to public property. By finding the statute vague, not as applied to Korsen’s conduct, but as to all applications on public property alone, the magistrate and the district court used an improper standard for determining whether the statute was facially vague. It was improper to conclude that the statute is invalid on its face as applied to public property, because the standard to sustain a facial challenge requires that a statute be held impermissibly vague in all of its applications. See Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. at 497. Furthermore, because the magistrate failed to examine the individual conduct of Korsen, consideration of the “as applied” standard with respect to only public property was in error.
This argues that Judge Swain should have considered evidence of whether Pentico's conduct constituted constitutionally protected activity or not. He apparently did not allow it. The Idaho Supreme Court also found that the lower court had erred because they had concluded that any free speech was protected on public property from such a trespassing charge, rather than looking at the specific conduct of Korsen. And this paragraph seems to fit Pentico's case rather well:As an example of the statute’s reaching constitutionally protected speech, the district court pointed out the situation of people entering the Capitol to meet with legislators, asserting that, because the threat of prosecution under the trespass statute “potentially chills such clearly protected activity, the Court finds that the statute is unconstitutional in a substantial portion of the cases to which it applies.” This conclusion, however, illustrates the district court’s erroneous application of the facial overbreadth doctrine. A statute will not be invalidated for overbreadth merely because it is possible to come up with a hypothetical situation in which the statute is
Okay, Pentico's situation isn't hypothetical. The following paragraphs indicate that Korsen's conduct ceased to be free speech when he was informed that he was barking up the wrong tree:
unconstitutional as applied. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 800. Rather, “there must be a realistic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of parties not before the Court. . . .” Id., at 801-02.The facts in Korsen’s case do not provide a situation where the exercise of free speech was impinged. Rather, Korsen showed up at the Health and Welfare office to conduct legitimate business, i.e., to discuss his child support obligation with the agency charged with overseeing collection of child support. When it appeared that his desire to obtain modification of the obligation could not be obtained at that office but, as he was informed, was a matter that properly should be addressed to the court where the obligation was established, the purpose of his visit to the Health and Welfare office came to an end.
There seems to be no claim that Pentico was doing anything but freedom of speech and petition of public officials for redress of grievances. Persistent, yes. The governor may not have wanted to involve himself in the dispute that Pentico was raising. But it was within the governor's power to do so. Banning Pentico seems a pretty clear violation of the First Amendment.
Assuming that a criminal trespass prosecution is filed pursuant to I.C. § 18-7008(8) against a person on public property who is exercising his or her free speech rights, the statute could be attacked as applied to that constitutionally-protected conduct. This does not render the statute substantially overbroad. A reasonable reading of I.C. § 18-7008(8) shows that the statute does not reach a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct. The district court therefore committed reversible error in determining that the statutory language is overbroad.
Interesting Blog Worth Watching
I mean, not as interesting as my blog, but still interesting in a somewhat more intellectual sort of way. Kristen describes herself as:I'm an overeducated Arizonian with a Ph.D from University of Chicago in history and a M.A. in philosophical theology from Yale University.
She's a stay at home Mom, at the moment.
What brought her to my attention was this devastating description of growing up in overprivileged, very liberal Palo Alto, which is why she's one of us right-wing whackos now. Just an excerpt:
Risks
A good friend, who is in his 60s, is now undergoing chemotherapy, after three surgeries for colon cancer. Here in Idaho, public service radio ads keep emphasizing the importance of getting regular colonoscopies after you turn 50. On the other hand, a friend from church had a colonoscopy a while back--and suffered from irritable bowel syndrome for more than a year afterwards.
So I did some research. The procedure is quite a bit less pleasant than I thought. I was expecting, "Hmmm. K-Y jelly on a fiber optics probe. How bad could that be?" Well, it's a bit worse than that. Laxatives before hand. Enema to clean out the lower GI tract. You are sedated to a level where I suspect that I will fall alseep. Along with the fiber optics bundle to look around, there's a little gadget for grabbing and removing any polyps that they see. And there's some risk involved--not much, but enough that I can't imagine it becoming popular in the Castro District. (Wait, let me rethink that. Maybe it is!) I was beginning to wonder if this was really necessary, since there's no history of colon cancer in my family.
Then I went to talk to my doctor. He tells me that family history really isn't all that useful a predictor of colon cancer. He also tells me that while about 1 in 10,000 colonoscopies have significant complications (colon puncture, for example), it is still lower risk than not getting a colonoscopy, because of the high mortality of colon cancer. As unpleasant as a colonoscopy sounds, why my friend battling with colon cancer is experiencing sounds substantially worse.
There are relatively few completely risk free activities in life. Almost everything involves some tradeoffs between risk and benefit. But just in case I have post-colonoscopy IBS, I think I will have this done after I get back from my Grand Canyon vacation in June.
UPDATE: Several readers have been through this procedure (unsurprisingly). One indicated that the "sedation" knocked him completely out. Another said it was done with gas anesthetic. Neither found anything painful about it (although the laxatives beforehand were another matter). My mother also tells me that my maternal grandmother had colon cancer, so all the more reason to bite the bullet.
Another Crooked Wall Street Financier In Trouble
From May 7, 2009 Associated Press:
Why is that Democrats are always getting caught running Ponzi schemes? (Yes, I'm thinking of Bernie Madoff, among others.) Is it just that Democrats are weak on long-term thinking? Social Security, for example, is a type of well-run Ponzi scheme--but one of these days, it's going to take our whole economy down.
If This Wasn't On A Government Website
I wouldn't quite believe it. They are called "snow rollers," and are formed by the combination of "light but sticky snow and strong (but not too strong) winds." These formed on the Camas Prairie in the Idaho panhandle. Well-worth clicking on the link to see.
Maine Passes Same-Sex Marriage
You probably saw that Maine has now passed a same-sex marriage law, and the governor has signed it into law. I'm disappointed to see this, but at least this was done the right way: by a vote of the people, not a decision by judges imagining a constitutional right that isn't there. At least if the voters change their minds, they can vote in legislators to overturn it.
The harsh reality is that this is probably going to become the norm across the nation for one simple reason: Christianity no longer stands for much of anything. Pastors need to be leading their flocks, emphasizing a Godly life. Unfortunately, most pastors having given up the battle against divorce, pornography, selfishness, and materialism, it's a bit much to expect them to say much about homosexuality, which is a comparable sin--and one that causes less immediate damage.
Where's The News Coverage?
I saw a rather amazing piece of coverage the night before last on Fox News claiming that House Republicans attempted to amend HR 1913 to specify that pedophilia was not a sexual orientation for purposes of this hate crimes law--and that Democrats voted it down. This article at World Net Daily makes the same claim. And here's the video of Rep. King (R-IA) introducing that amendment, and the Democrats vote it down.
Now, I understand that strictly speaking, pedophilia is not a "sexual orientation" under APA's definition. But I've also learned that relying on external definitions for a law opens up the danger of the APA changing its definition. And another member of the committee in the video above claims that federal law already defines sexual orientation. And if pedophilia is not a sexual orientation for the purposes of HR 1913, what's the harm in saying so?
Homosexuality isn't pedophilia--but the way that Democrats in Congress are acting suggests that they are either too stupid to see the political hay that Republicans can make out of this--or are afraid to offend someone by specifically excuding pedophiles from the definition of sexual orientation. This is one of those amendments that really makes you wonder what the Democrats are after. This was a Mom and Apple Pie sort of amendment, if the goal really is to protect homosexuals from hate crimes. It costs nothing; it changes nothing; it just makes it really clear that pedophiles aren't a protected class. And voting against it? That's going to have a cost, assuming that the Republican Party is smart enough to use this bizarre vote at the next election.
Challenging California's Discretionary Carry Permit Law
Alan Gura, who was the lead attorney on the Heller case, is now suing Sacramento and Yolo Counties for their abuse of California's discretionary permit issuance policy. BELLEVUE, WA and REDWOOD CITY, CA – The Second Amendment Foundation, The Calguns Foundation and three California residents today filed a lawsuit seeking to vindicate the right to bear arms against arbitrary state infringement.
Now that we have Heller, and the Ninth Circuit decision in Nordyke v. King that the Second Amendment applies to the states, this is rather like shooting fish in a barrel. California's current concealed weapon permit law gives sheriffs nearly unlimited discretion as to whether to issue a license or not. That law was originally passed as part of a 1923 gun control package that was openly stated by proponents to be racially motivated. And it leads to all sorts of corruption, as permit holders tend to be big contributors to the sheriff's election campaigns.
A Horrendous Mass Murder--That Didn't Happen
This is one of those news stories that would have been splashed all over the national news media for days on end, because so many people would have died--but one student had a gun, so only one of the bad guys died--and it therefore will be ignored. From May 4, 2009 WSB-TV channel 2 in Atlanta:COLLEGE PARK, Ga. -- A group of college students said they are lucky to be alive and they’re thanking the quick-thinking of one of their own. Police said a fellow student shot and killed one of two masked me who burst into an apartment.
Counting bullets? They weren't going to let any witnesses get out of there alive. If you have any doubt as to whether keeping colleges gun-free zones makes sense, I think this answers the question. This student didn't draw a gun and start shooting when it looked like a robbery. When the bad guys made it clear that they were going to kill them all, he drew and fired--and probably saved ten lives.
Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones met with one of the students to talk about the incident.
“Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all,” said student Charles Bailey.
Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.
“They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones,’” said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.
That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.
The student then ran to the room where the second gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant, was holding the women.
“Apparently the guy was getting ready to rape his girlfriend. So he told the girls to get down and he started shooting. The guy jumped out of the window,” said Bailey.
A neighbor heard the shots and heard someone running nearby.
“And I heard someone say, ‘Someone help me. Call the police. Somebody call the police,’” said a neighbor.
The neighbor said she believes it was Lavant, who was found dead near his apartment, only one building away.
Bailey said he is just thankful one student risked his life to keep others alive.
Psychiatry, Drug Costs, and Generics
Several days ago, I asked several questions about the subject of the title above. I was hoping for more response than I received. One note I received from someone who works for one of the generic pharmaceutical makers in the patent area seems to mostly fit with what makes logical sense and what I can find with some searching, and somewhat fits with the complaints that I am hearing from people working in the mental health field. Since she works for a generic drug maker, she doesn't have any financial interest in making the non-generic drug companies look good.
Concerning the first question: are there financial arrangements that would encourage psychiatrists to prescribe the newest and most expensive drugs instead of the generics? Her answers (slightly edited here and there):On question 1, if there are monetary payments, the doc and drug company can get into serious legal trouble, big time, not only ethically but with FDA and Medicaid/Medicare fraud claims.
Okay, this is about what I would expect. I did find this 2004 USA Today article indicating that such kickbacks are indeed, unlawful. The federal government prosecuted a number of employees of TAP Pharmaceuticals who it claimed (and a former VP of the company claimed) "offered kickbacks to doctors in the form of consulting fees, dinners, golf trips and other favors to get them to prescribe certain drugs." The defendants were found innocent, but it seems utterly clear that such kickbacks are unlawful.
That doesn't mean that it can't happen, of course. But it does mean that if it is happening, it either has to involve a lot of cash payments to doctors, and a lot of income tax evasion, or more likely, it isn't the norm.That said, drug companies obviously spend a large amount of money on sales forces because there are a lot of drugs that are responsive to marketing. In other words, if a doctor's office has had 3 visits a month from a sales rep discussing X drug, that drug is simply going to have more visibility/recall to that doctor compared to a doctor who only got 1 visit a year, and subtle shifts in prescribing will in fact occur as a result.
This, sad to say, may well explain the complaints that I am hearing. Marketing works. It works for consumer products (unless really poorly done). It works with product placement in movies. I find it easy to believe that effective marketing is causing psychiatrists to prescribe the most recent and most expensive medications, unless someone actively reminds them, "This patient has no insurance." Brand companies also usually try to find some particular niche where they can distinguish their product from an existing one on the market, i.e., superior effect in Z patient population, reduced side effects, etc. Brand companies also look early on for doctors considered to be "key opinion leaders" who can speak at conferences and write papers and discuss the drug in a positive way.
This is a potentially worrisome problem. This article from the April 29, 2009 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel describes how Dr. James Stein, "an up-and-coming heart doctor, was ripe to be hooked as a drug company speaker." The danger isn't that large numbers of rank and file doctors are going to be corrupted by this, but that prominent doctors may, by arguing for the advantages of a new proprietary drug, persuade other doctors that they should prescribe this, rather than the cheaper generics.A practice with an in-house pharmacy may be getting significant discounts/engaging in markups on various drugs that they stock, or get "bonus" points if they have a large volume of Brand Q drugs getting sold, and in that way might be able to get some marginal income benefit. Are there doctors who are more likely to prescribe a drug if a cute sales rep is giving him the hard sell? Sure. Does advertising work? Unquestionably, even if the doc swears that he is not influenced by it. And brands are also going to be more willing to give out free samples if a doc is prescribing their drug often; this can actually work to the benefit of indigent patients who might not be able to afford the drug otherwise. But most doctors I've encountered would always put their patient's needs first, and won't prescribe something sub-standard to get a few extra bucks from the pharma company.
I think this is probably the case--not that psychiatrists are intentionally prescribing only the newest and most expensive drugs, but that they aren't thinking about the costs. I suspect that a lot of doctors don't think about the fact that the generic medication X may cost $4 at Wal-Mart--while the newer and perhaps better proprietary medication Y is going to cost $190. Y may be more effective, or have less side effects than X--but if the patient can't afford Y and luxuries like food and shelter, it might be better to prescribe X.
On the question of whether the newer medications are really more effective or less prone to side effects than the older, now generic medications for mental illness:
My third question was about the peculiar situation of psychiatrists prescribing the same medicine for many diffferent mental problems:
I confess that the circumstances that I am hearing complaints about don't seem to fit this very well. Hobson and Leonard's Out Of Its Mind paints a portrait of psychiatry as a profession that went from wasting huge amounts of time and money on useless psychoanalysis, to a profession that is largely prescribing pills. One might get the impression from their portrayal that the profession has lost heart, and has becomes something of a machine, grinding through patients.
Tired Of The Rain
I was expecting to have blue skies and clear nights for astrophotography, but we have had day after day of rain and heavy clouds. I feel like I live in Portland. There have only been a couple of clear nights in the last few weeks, and because my wife gets up very early to teach school, I tend to be looking towards bed by the time that it gets dark enough to see anything interesting, like M51.
Why Nepotism Is A Bad Thing
My recollection is that the word "nepotism" to refer to giving special advantages to relatives or friends derives from the Latin word for "nephew," since a great many Popes put their "nephews" (actually, illegitimate sons) into important positions in the Church. Of course, sometimes, your nephew is good at what he does, and being related to you has nothing to do with it, right?
Imagine if these no-bid Pentagon contracts were going to the nephew of a Republican Congressman with substantial sway over defense spending. From the May 5, 2009 Washington Post:
There is so much that is so dirty in Washington (and not just on the Democratic side, either). But as long as the dirt involves Democrats, most of the news media simply don't care.
It must be nice to have friends in high places.
The Severity of the Ammunition Shortage
An amusing item over at gunbroker.com, which I found because of Snowflakes in Hell linking to it:Offered for your consideration is one round (not one case or one box but one single round) of genuine .45 ACP ammunition. This is something rarely seen (at least since November 4th) and is hard to find at any price. The round of ammo includes a real brass casing; one full metal jacket bullet weighing 230 grains; a generous amount of hard-to-obtain gunpowder; and one nearly impossible to locate primer. Yes, you read that correctly. This round of ammo actually comes fully equipped with a real primer! Just try finding one of those! Imagine the thrill of actually being able to shoot your gun for a change. You will be the talk of the neighborhood when news gets around that you actually fired your pistol with your round of ammo. You may want to keep your round of ammo as an investment as prices are sure to keep rising.
That's just an excerpt.
Parallel Universe Day
The Internet seems to be connecting to a parallel universe--one that is similar to ours, but clearly not quite the same. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has just ruled that unlicensed gun possession is a victimless crime. From the May 5, 2009 Boston Globe:The Supreme Judicial Court yesterday ruled that illegal gun possession is a "passive and victimless crime" and that those charged with having illicit firearms cannot be held without bail as a danger to society.
Now, it might well be the case that D.A. Sutter is only going after gang members and other criminals who have unlicensed guns. But even assuming this, the right to bail, except for capital crimes, or flight risk, is a constitutional right. The mere presumption that because someone is charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm that they are therefore unusually dangerous, is absurd.
Oh well, I'm sure that the weird wormhole in the time-space continuum that is allowing us to see into the parallel universe where the Massachusetts high court isn't filled with lunatic liberals will close in the next few hours.
Embarrassingly Bad Amicus Brief in the Chicago Case
I just finished reading carefully this amicus brief filed in the case now before the Seventh Circuit concerning Chicago's ban on new registration of handguns (which effectively bans buying a handgun in Chicago, or moving into Chicago with a handgun). The ordinance being challenged is a ban not on carrying (which is not legal in Chicago), but on possession in one's own home. I'm astonished at how poorly researched and thought out it is.
Now remember: the claim that our side is making here is that the Second Amendment applies to the states, and thus a general state or local ban on handgun possession in one's home is unconstitutional. We're not arguing (in this case) that there is a right to carry a gun outside your home. Nor are we arguing that the government may not regulate convicted felons, the mentally ill, or minors, from acquiring or possessing firearms. (I'm sure the ACLU will make that argument, at some point, because it's discriminatory.)
1. They claim on p. 4, "The country has a history of prohibiting under the police power classes of firearms, including nonmilitary-use pistols that are concealable and prevalent in the commission of crime." In some states, in some regions, there is such a history, but certainly not in all states, or even most. And many of these laws have been struck down, sometimes for violating the Second Amendment, sometimes for violating a state RKBA provision.
2. They quote Cooley on p. 8 that the right to keep and bear armsextends no further than to keep and bear those arms which are suited and proper for the general defense of the community against invasion and oppression, and it does not include the carrying of such weapons as are specially suited for deadly individual encounters, and therefore the carrying of these, concealed, may be prohibited.
But Cooley's statement, even it was an accurate statement of the laws for the nation as a whole (and it was not accurate when Cooley wrote it in 1884), specifically refers to concealed carry outside of one's home--not possession in one's home.
3. They cite Andrews v. State (Tenn. 1871) on pp. 8-9 in defense of their possession ban--but that decision only upheld a ban on concealed carry, and specifically denied that the Second Amendment applied to the states. The Tennessee Constitution's arms provision had "for their common defence" in it, and this was construed more narrowly by the Tennessee Supreme Court than the U.S. Supreme Court has construed the Second Amendment in Heller. More importantly with respect to the question before the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Andrews decision recognized that possession in one's home was protected:The keeping of arms is protected, but that right is not infringed by this law. The citizen may keep arms in his house, may carry them about his own premises, may buy and carry them home, may take them to have them repaired.
4. They add emphasis to the words "or privately" in quoting from Andrews:the Act of the legislature in question, so far as it prohibits the citizen ‘either publicly or privately to carry a dirk, sword cane, Spanish stiletto, belt or pocket pistol,’ is constitutional.
The implication of this emphasis is that Andrews was referring to carrying such weapons in one's home. Reading the entire decision suggests that "publicly or privately" refers to open or concealed carry outside one's home. And the sentence in Andrews that follows the one that they quote acknowledges that only pocket pistols could be prohibited:The prohibition against keeping pistols extended to revolvers, and was upheld as constitutional to the extent it applied to non-military revolvers, but could not be upheld if it applied to military revolvers.
At most, citing Andrews as an authority would allow Chicago to ban pistols that were not military service sidearms.
5. On p. 9, they cite English v. State (Tex. 1872)--but the law in question was only a ban on carrying of pistols, and did not prohibit their possession at home. And the quote from the English decision claiming "almost every state in the union" had a similar law, was simply incorrect. California, for example, had no such ban, having repealed their existing concealed carry ban in 1870. Vermont had no such law, as did a number of Midwestern states. (Such laws typically only appear when black populations swell after the turn of the century.) If I dig a little, I could probably find first dates of concealed carry bans for other states as well that would prove my point. Oh, and English blames this whole gun problem on...Mexicans:We will not say to what extent the early customs and habits of the people of this state should be respected and accommodated, where they may come in conflict with the ideas of intelligent and well-meaning legislators. A portion of our system of laws, as well as our public morality, is derived from a people to most peculiar perhaps of any other in the history and derivation of its own system. Spain, at different periods of the world, was dominated over by the Carthagenians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Snevi, the Allani, the Visigoths, and Arabs; and to this day there are found in the Spanish codes traces of the laws and customs of teach of these nations blended together into a system by no means to be compared with the sound philosophy and pure morality of the common law.
And the English decision has some other language that sounds like Moral Majority on steroids (except Moral Majority didn't try to disarm Mexicans):It is useless to talk about personal liberty being infringed by laws such as that under consideration. The world has seen too much licentiousness cloaked under the name of natural or personal liberty; natural and personal liberty are exchanged, under the social compact of states, for civil liberty.
6. On p. 9, they cite In re Cheney, 90 Cal. 617 (1891). The case is actually Ex parte Cheney, 90 Cal. 617 (1891). Again, this was a San Francisco County ordinance banning concealed carry outside one's home--not possession in one's home, or even open carry. And their characterization of the decision as saying that when it comes to public safety that a city has "great latitude" is a bit short of what the decision actually said. The decision is actually far stronger and completely contrary to current judicial thinking. The California Supreme Court ruled that police regulations were subject to some limitations, and must be reasonable, except when such ordinances
Love that: "not reviewable by the courts." In addition, the Second Amendment was not raised in this case, making its relevance to a case where the Second Amendment is in play quite silly.
are intended for the prevention of crime and the preservation of the public peace, and in reference to which the legislative body of the city is vested with a discretion that is not reviewable by the courts.
7. On p. 10, they cite People Ex Rel. Darling v. Warden of City Prison, a 1913 New York State case. But that decision specifically denied that any part of the Bill of Rights applied to the states. My book For the Defense of Themselves and the State on pp. 158-9 goes into considerable detail about the many factual and logical errors in this decision. But even the Sullivan Law, which Darling upheld, was not a complete ban on new registration of handguns.
8. A number of their citations, such as to Andrews and English, are built on the "handguns aren't the arms of the militiaman" but then they cite on pp. 10-11 decisions upholding bans on assault weapons. Which is it? If handguns that aren't military arms can be banned because they aren't military arms, then what about assault weapons, which are banned because they are too much like military arms?
9. Does there come a point where a brief's citation of cases qualifies as something punishable by a court for deception? I notice that they cite State v. Rupe (Wash. 1984) n. 9 in defense of the claim:Regulating arms under the police power to prevent crime and protect the safety of the broader community is in fact pervasive, and has been subject only to “reasonableness” review in virtually every state to consider the question.
But Rupe found that the possession of a CAR-15 and a riot shotgun were constitutionally protected by the Washington Constitution's arms provision, ordering retrial of the penalty phase of Rupe's capital murder case. And this was the only basis for appeal on which the Washington Supreme Court ruled in Rupe's favor. Even assuming that the authors of this brief have properly quoted note 9 concerning "reasonableness review" (I don't have a copy of the case anymore), the overall decision utterly rejects the "assault weapon bans" argument used elsewhere in this brief by finding that such weapons are constitutionally protected!
10. Similarly, another of the cases that they cite as evidence for this "reasonableness review" claim is City of Princeton v. Buckner (W.Va. 1988). This decision did indeed acknowledge a reasonableness standard with respect to regulation of the carrying of arms, but the language makes it clear that the West Virginia's Supreme Court's definition of "reasonable" is pretty far removed from what Chicago's ban does:We stress, however, that the legitimate governmental purpose in regulating the right to bear arms cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle the exercise of this right where the governmental purpose can be more narrowly achieved. [City of Princeton v. Buckner, 377 S.E.2d 139, 146, 149 (W.Va. 1988]
The Buckner decision effectively struck down the state's discretionary concealed carry
permit law, because it ruled that a complete prohibition on carrying a pistol without a permit was unconstitutional, and made it clear that discretionary permit process was not reasonable. It is hard to see how this supports Chicago's ordinance that effectively bans everyone from legally obtaining a handgun for home possession.
11. I notice that many of the cases that this brief cites in support of this "reasonableness" rule are pretty far afield from the Chicago ordinance: Carfield v. State (Wyo. 1982), and State v. Ricehill (N.D. 1987) are felon in possession cases. State v. Hamlin (La. 1986) is a statute prohibiting unregistered possession of a sawed-off shotgun; it was not simply a ban on possession in one's home. And as with the rest of this piece of dreck, this brief keeps citing cases concerning concealed carry regulation such as Matthews v. State (Ind. 1958). And most of these cases were challenged under state arms provisions, not the Second Amendment.
It is astonishing how poorly researched this brief is--perhaps competent gun control advocate lawyers realized how hopeless the task was, and decided to put their energies into briefs for cases easier to win, such as repealing the law of gravity.
An Amusing Letter From John Adams To CongressJ. Adams to the President of Congress.*
An Exciting Sea Battle
I've reading George Coggeshall's History of the American Privateers, and Letters-of-marque, During Our War With England in the Years 1812, '13, and '14 (New York: 1861) at the moment in preparation for a law review paper about the Constitution's letters of marque and reprisal clause. Even though it is quite tangential to the subject, Coggeshall has an account of the escape of the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) from British warships off Long Island at the start of the war that, in spite of Coggeshall's writing style, is quite rousing! If you have read Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, or some of the other books in the same series, you will probably appreciate the human drama and ingenuity involved.
I've never been a sailor (in the "sail" sense of the word), so a lot of the terms and expressions have required me to read in one tab, and look up phrases in another. Kedging, for example. This is a technique originally developed for pulling ships that had run aground loose by sending out small boats, having them anchor solidly to the bottom, then pulling the ropes between ship and boat until the ship pulled loose. In this case, the clever tars of the Constitution used it in a dead calm sea, to pull away from the similarly becalmed British warships that were just out of cannon range (and vice versa). The water was only 25 fathoms deep, and kedging allowed them to move forward.
A Bad Decision Leads to a Good Decision
Back when I taught Constitutional History, I had occasion to carefully read the Supreme Court decision Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), which underlies a lot of the Court's really broken establishment clause decisions. The objection that I have to Lemon is that it too broadly construed the prohibition on establishment of religion into a general prohibition on any governmental assistance to a program carried out by a religious entity. In that case, a Rhode Island school district was providing funding to private sectarian school teachers.
There are some good policy arguments for such a policy, of which the strongest is that kids in private schools aren't attending public schools--even though their parents are paying taxes to support those public schools. There are some good policy arguments against it, too, I suppose. I just don't buy that there is a First Amendment problem with such a policy, unless the school district gave these subsidies to schools associated with some religions, but not others, or gave subsidies only to non-religious schools. (Rhode Island's law apparently allowed such subsidies to all private schools, but only the Catholic Church schools had taken advantage of this opportunity--no great surprise, when you consider Rhode Island's population.)
Anyway, Professor Volokh points to a recent U.S. district court decision, C.F. v. Capistrano Unified School District (C.D. Cal. 2009), which uses Lemon to deal with a teacher who called Creationism "superstitious nonsense." Now, regardless of what you think of the scientific merits of Creationism, this is not generally at the top of the list of effective strategies for persuading students (and their parents) on to your side. It is, however, an effective way to get a lawsuit filed.
If the Court actually followed what the Framers apparently intended--a prohibition on federal establishment of religion in 1791, and the state laws in 1868, when Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment, incorporating the First Amendment against the states--this wouldn't be an issue. Establishment meant legal recognition, preference, or advantage to a particular denomination. As I mentioned a while back, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, a widely respected and cited authority on early Constitutional law, pointed out what the religion clauses meant:The real object of the amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cuts off the means of religious persecution (the vice and pest of former ages), and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age. [Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 5th ed. (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co., 1833), 701]
However offensive this teacher's remarks are, under an original intent understanding of the establishment clause, calling an idea that some Christians hold "superstitious nonsense" is not a violation of the First Amendment. But using the Lemon decision, which is historically inaccurate, those remarks really are unconstitutional!
Lemon needs to be overturned by the courts, and U.S. jurisprudence returned to an original intent understanding of the clause: no legal preference or disability for any particular Christian denomination. If it is too offensive to modern intellectuals to acknowledge that Justice Story was correct that the objective was not to require a level playing field to all religions, fine. Even putting all religions on an equal legal basis would be closer to original intent than the Lemon decision--and would give science teachers with no manners or sense the freedom to express their opinions without running afoul of the First Amendment.
Wolves Again
A reader reminded of something that I knew, but didn't remember to add into my recent post about wolves: mountain lions in California appear to have become aggressive since hunting of the cute and cuddly little creatures was banned by initiative in 1996. This list of mountain lion attacks on people in California from the late 19th century to the present (assuming that it is correct and complete) strongly suggests mountain lions are like wolves: best managed by keeping them afraid of us.
Another reader reminded me that Willa Cather's My Antonia (1918), while set in the United States, has a subplot involving Ukrainian immigrants with a dark and horrific history behind them in the old country--a wedding party set upon by a large wolf pack, in which one of the groom, to save himself, lets them take his bride. Now, it is fiction, but as a general rule, when an author is writing what is intended as realistic fiction, he usually uses materials that are either realistic, or that his readers will consider realistic. That doesn't make it common, or even possible--but the burden of proof is generally on those who want to argue that such a tale was outlandish or absurd.
UPDATE: I read that excerpt a little too quickly. One of the groomsmen, to avoid being eaten himself, pushes the bride and groom out of the sledge to their deaths.
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
I confess that I have been of rather mixed feelings about wolves. I mentioned during my state senate campaign last year that I hadn't formed a strong feeling about the subject. I am skeptical of some of the pro-wolf media efforts; they smack a little of bunny-hugger mentality. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous description of "Nature, red in tooth and claw" seems to get missed by a lot of people who fancy themselves environmentalists--and even more so by those who imagine that they can live at peace with nature--like Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, who were both defenders of grizzly bears and grizzly bear dinner. I am also a bit skeptical of the motives for some who have commercial interests in keeping elk populations up.
Wolves, however, have traditionally been regarded as dangerous animals, both to livestock and to people. This is why so many state governments in the nineteenth century paid bounties for killing wolves. They aren't like a bunny rabbit or a fox; it's pretty clear that a wolf could be a very dangerous animal.
Anyway, this article from the April 25, 2009 National Post (one of the Canadian newspapers) has an interesting article about a guy who, after retiring from the National Security Agency, put his Russian skills to work examining the Russian literature about the wolf--and came to some startling conclusions:
He explains that Russians have traditionally been more fearful of wolves than North Americans--and for an interesting reason. After describing several recent attacks on humans in North America, and comparing it to the most more common problem with wolves in Russia:Canada's benign canine is, from Siberia to the Caucasus, a feared and reviled menace: "the greatest and most dreadful scourge of humans," is how an early 20th-century edition of the Russian Table Dictionary describes wolves; in the writings of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nekrasov, Bunin and many other luminary Russian writers lurks the "ill-boding shadow of the wolf," Mr. Graves writes in his 2007 book, Wolves in Russia: Anxiety Through the Ages.
And not just because the Russians drink too much vodka!Firearms were banned from the peasantry by the tsars and later the Soviets, fearful of insurrection. As men were conscripted away from villages during wartime, women, children and the elderly made particularly vulnerable targets.
Soviet authorities, Mr. Graves discovered, took pains to suppress news of wolf fatalities so as to avoid demands for self-defence measures. (Mowat's Never Cry Wolf -- which Dr. Geist calls "totally fallacious" in its portrayal of wolves -- was aggressively promoted in the U.S. S. R., the professor believes, to perpetuate the unworried North American perspective.) Mr. Graves translated reports from Russia's Central Statistical Committee showing that in one particularly bloody 17-year period in the late 19th century, more than 1,400 humans were eaten by wolves, and more than 750,000 cattle were lost every single year. Some were rabid; many were not.
...
Articles Up
Added the following articles to the Popular Magazine & Newspaper Articles page: The Heller Aftermath," Shotgun News, October 1, 2008, pp. 22-24, "She Can Field Dress A Moose—A Donkey Will Be Easy!", Shotgun News, November 1, 2008, pp. 30-32, "Gun Shows and Public Safety," Shotgun News, December 1, 2008, pp. 20-21, "Big Trouble," Shotgun News, January 1, 2009, pp. 22-24, "A Nation of Marksmen," America's First Freedom, January, 2009, 37-41, "Parks, D.C. Dragging Their Feet," Shotgun News, February 1, 2009, pp. 22-24, "Post-Heller Victories," Shotgun News, March 1, 2009, pp. 20-22, "Is the Militia Obsolete?", America's First Freedom, March 2009, 38-41, "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Video Camera," Shotgun News, April 1, 2009, pp. 20-22, "Poor Mexico: So Far From God, And So Close to the United States," Shotgun News, May 1, 2009, pp. 26-28.
Questions About Kickbacks & Careless Prescribing
I have a couple of questions into which some of my readers may have some professional insights.
1. Are there "kickbacks" to psychiatrists who prescribe patent antipsychotic medications from pharmaceutical companies? I've running into people convinced that there is some sort of economic incentive for psychiatrists to prescribe the newer, non-generic antipsychotic drugs because of financial benefits that they receive from doing so. I am skeptical, partly because it would be impossible to keep something like this secret for long, and because it seems like a clear violation of medical ethics. I understand that psychiatrists are often prescribing these very expensive medications for patients with no health insurance--which means almost a $200 a month drug cost for patients who are unemployed.
2. Part of the justification for the newer patent antipsychotic medications is lesser side effects, compared to the drugs that are now out of patent. Certainly, the first generation of antipsychotics had serious side effects, such as tardive dyskinesia and occcasionally, death. Hobson and Leonard's Out Of Its Mind certainly seems to take the position that the newer medicines are more precisely targeted in how they treat illnesses such as schizophrenia. How dramatically better are the newer patent medicines compared to those that have gone generic?
3. Does it seem plausible that a psychiatrist would prescribe the exact same medication (respiridal, for example, or Abilify) for every patient, when the range of diagnoses are schizophrenia, depression, and ODD (oppositional defiance disorder)? Hobson and Leonard's book makes rather a point of how psychiatry has changed over the last forty years. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was a time (and money) intensive occupation built around psychoanalysis--which simply did not work for psychoses. Today, it is largely built around prescribing drugs, meeting with patients for twenty minutes every few weeks--and then billing an insurer (if there is one) $285 per hour. Psychoanalysis didn't work--but perhaps we have gone too far to the other extreme in failing to spend time with patients.
Perhaps Why Democrats Are So Sensitive on the Torture Issue
An April 27, 2009 New York Times article about manufacturing of whips contains this amazing discussion:KARACHI, Pakistan — In Pakistan, a flogger is known only as the Taliban’s choice whip for beating those who defy their strict codes of Islam.
I won't describe the stuff that they manufacture--it's just too disgusting--but they do know their market:
But deep in the nation’s commercial capital, just next door to a mosque and the offices of a radical Islamic organization, in an unmarked house two Pakistani brothers have discovered a more liberal and lucrative use for the scourge: the $3 billion fetish and bondage industry in the West.
Their mom-and-pop-style garment business, AQTH, earns more than $1 million a year manufacturing 2,000 fetish and bondage products, including the Mistress Flogger, and exporting them to the United States and Europe.Today, they sell their products to online and brick-and-mortar shops, and to individuals via eBay. Their market research, they said, showed that 70 percent of their customers were middle- to upper-class Americans, and a majority of them Democrats. The Netherlands and Germany account for the bulk of their European sales. [emphasis added]
I can't claim to be surprised, just disappointed. People that find pain and humiliation erotic need some serious help. Or they need the cost of their toys raised enough that they can't afford to keep backing Democrats.
Rangefinding Without Instruments
Figuring out how far away something is without instruments has long been an interest of mine. I'm always impressed how people using just their eyes can make confident statements such as, "Oh, that's 250 yards away." How? The human eyes and brain can't use parallax beyond a few dozen feet to determine distances.
So I started measuring the angular diameter of various common body parts. My right index fingernail, at a distance of 24 inches (the length of my extended car) subtends 60 minutes of arc--far too coarse to measure the distance of anything except mountains except at very close distances. Turning my index finger to the side, it still subtends 50 minutes of arc. (Worse, it isn't a consistent thickness.)
What about a ballpoint pen? The barrel (not the end, where the ball is) is .090"--and this seems to be pretty typical for every pen that I have measured. (No surprise, if you need interchangeability.) At the length of my extended right arm, that's 13 minutes of arc. With this, I find that it is slightly wider the front door of a neighbor's house. Entrance doors are typically 36" wide, so the barrel of the pen is covering approximately a 45" wide angle.
45" / 13 minutes of arc x 100 yards (since 1 moa equals 1 inch at 100 yards) = 346 yards--which is about right for the distance to his front door. Obviously, the precision is probably only +- 10%, because of the uncertainty of matching the pen barrel to the width of his door--but it does give a reasonably accurate measure of range.
UPDATE: I had a reader ask how to calculate the angle that an object covers. It's pretty simple:
W = width of the object
D = distance from your eye to the object
A = angle in degrees
A = 57.296 * W / D
The magic number 57.296 is the number of degrees in a radian. Make sure that W and D are in the same units (inches, centimeters, meters, light-years). The angle A will be in degrees, so multiply by 60 to get minutes of arc. Example: The Moon is approximately 238,500 miles away. It is 2160 miles in diameter. Do the math; it comes to 0.52 degrees, or 31 minutes of arc. The Sun is approximately 93,000,000 miles away; it is 865,000 miles in diameter, or just under 32 minutes of arc. This is why a total solar eclipse is so awesome; the Moon is almost an exact fit for the Sun.
