The state of California is the scene of a brouhaha surrounding the death penalty. Like many other states which execute people, California uses lethal injection. This was challenged by Michael Morales' lawyer, on the grounds that lethal injection is cruel and unusual. (Mr. Morales was due to exit this world last night, but the execution was delayed until tonight; full details at the S. F. Chronicle for the interested) The lawyer claims that the sequence of drug injections may not cause the executee to be completely unconscious before the actual death process begins, and therefore he may feel excruciating pain. The state has actually accepted this argument, and assigned an anesthesiologist to attend the execution, to make sure Mr. Morales is completely out before beginning the actual lethal injection.
Full disclosure: I have serious reservations on the use of the death penalty. The argument that it is a deterrent doesn't seem to be supported by the facts, except in case of the executed person; it does deter him from future criminal acts. The morality of the state offing people in my name bothers me; if it's wrong for me to kill, why is it right for the state to kill in my name, and when does state execution become simple revenge, as opposed to justice? Mr. Morales, like many of the people we execute, has committed a heinous crime, a rape and murder; but I'm not sure that gives us a moral justification for executing him. There's no question that legally we can do so. And at least in California, it's much more expensive to execute someone than it is to jail him for life without possibility of parole, and the state of California is broke. It seems to me that we could assume a more moral stance and save some cash by discontinuing executions.
Leaving aside the issue of whether we should execute, let's get back to how. Many states went to lethal injection because everybody agreed that the previous methods (hanging, the gas chamber, the electric chair - remember "Ol' Sparky" in Florida? Which, BTW, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1997 was not cruel and unusual...) were "cruel and unusual". They probably weren't so by the standards of the framers of the Constitution - in fact, hanging was the 18th century norm. The 18th century probably would have found gas chambers and electric chairs "unusual". We'll have to wonder whether they would have thought them "cruel".
If lethal injection is now also too "cruel" to use (you can't really call it "unusual" when most of the states that execute use it), let's resurrect an execution method which was specifically designed to be quick, efficient, and probably as pain-free as dying violently ever is:
Let's bring back the guillotine. The guillotine (see WikiPedia) was designed to be a humane method of execution (at least compared to the methods that had been used; the WikiPedia article has some background on those for the curious), and to execute people quickly and with a minimum of pain. It's certainly efficient; the French Revolutionaries used it to execute somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 people suspected of "crimes against liberty", over about 13 months. We won't need to use it nearly that often.
In fact, let's go all the way back: to public executions. Set up the guillotine in a public place with lots of room for spectators. If we're going to do this, let's all watch it, and see what the state is doing in our name. In fact, let's put it on television. Public executions used to be considered great entertainment for the whole family, although by the end of the French Reign of Terror, the crowds had thinned, as people grew bored. I wonder how a televised execution would stack up against "Survivor"?
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
The Arrogance of Power
That's what one of my colleagues in the water aerobics class called it, this afternoon, and she was right. The whole incident of Dick Cheney's quail hunt just demonstrates an attitude which, I'm sorry to say, isn't restricted to the present administration, although the present administration is certainly full of it. Among other things.
The attitude I refer to can be summed up as, "I'm really important and the rules don't apply to me." Messrs. Bush and Cheney are the most blatant examples of this attitude; but it exists in other places:
It's playing hell with our international relations, because the administration acts like that on behalf of the United States, and therefore the United States projects the arrogance of power and annoys the crap out of everyone else. We're going to regret that one of these days, maybe in Iran.
It exists in executive suites, where CEOs insist that they themselves are soooo important that they must be paid 431 times as much as their average production workers (see my post, Executive Pay, for more scary numbers).
It exists on the roads, every time anyone runs a red light or a stop sign. I sometimes think I'm the only person left who waits for the light to change before crossing the street; everyone else is too important.
It's everybody who drives an SUV around town, so they can be safe, and high up, no matter what it does to the environment, or the ability of other drivers to see around them (ever try to get out of a parking lot when the view of oncoming traffic is blocked by a parked SUV?).
It's "me first", all the time every time; and the scary thing is that it isn't even restricted to people who have power. Everybody does it, and they use that as an excuse to continue to do it; and it's destroying civil society.
How about a little humility, people? How about a little bit of "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you?" We all put our pants on one leg at a time. As Bobby Dylan once wrote, "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." As a country, we need to Get Over Ourselves. Common sense and common courtesy will get you through most situations smoothly; but they've both become so rare that we almost can't call them "common" any more. But oh, boy, do we need them.
The attitude I refer to can be summed up as, "I'm really important and the rules don't apply to me." Messrs. Bush and Cheney are the most blatant examples of this attitude; but it exists in other places:
It's playing hell with our international relations, because the administration acts like that on behalf of the United States, and therefore the United States projects the arrogance of power and annoys the crap out of everyone else. We're going to regret that one of these days, maybe in Iran.
It exists in executive suites, where CEOs insist that they themselves are soooo important that they must be paid 431 times as much as their average production workers (see my post, Executive Pay, for more scary numbers).
It exists on the roads, every time anyone runs a red light or a stop sign. I sometimes think I'm the only person left who waits for the light to change before crossing the street; everyone else is too important.
It's everybody who drives an SUV around town, so they can be safe, and high up, no matter what it does to the environment, or the ability of other drivers to see around them (ever try to get out of a parking lot when the view of oncoming traffic is blocked by a parked SUV?).
It's "me first", all the time every time; and the scary thing is that it isn't even restricted to people who have power. Everybody does it, and they use that as an excuse to continue to do it; and it's destroying civil society.
How about a little humility, people? How about a little bit of "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you?" We all put our pants on one leg at a time. As Bobby Dylan once wrote, "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." As a country, we need to Get Over Ourselves. Common sense and common courtesy will get you through most situations smoothly; but they've both become so rare that we almost can't call them "common" any more. But oh, boy, do we need them.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Executive Pay
Where did the idea come from that the chief executives at large American corporations should be paid 431 times as much as their average employees?? In 1972, according to Executive Excess 2005 (from United for a Fair Economy, www.faireconomy.org), U.S. executives made 42 times as much as their average workers. In 34 years the ratio has increased by an order of magnitude; actually, in 1990 it was only 107-to-1, so in the last 25 years the ratio has quadrupled. I guarantee, the pay of the guys on the bottom has not increased at this rate. In fact, it hasn't kept up with inflation, or only just.
The only thing that has improved about this ratio is that it isn't as bad as it was in 2000, when it hit 525-to-1. Amazingly, after the dotcom bust, and the Enron and Worldcom messes (not to mention Sarbanes-Oxley), corporate boards actually did start to pay less, tie raises to corporate performance, etc. And it's worse in the defense industry since the "war on terror"; the CEO of DHB Industries (bulletproof vests) made 3,349% more in 2004 than he did in 2001. Nice work if you can get it. Can we spell "profiteer"?
It all comes down to this: senior corporate executives are said to do "more important work" than the guys on the factory floor, or the people carrying the duty pagers, or the front line sales people who deal directly with customers. Therefore they are "more important" than these people, and should be paid commensurately more. Four hundred times more?? Without the guys on the factory floor (metaphorically speaking; almost no one actually works on a factory floor any more), the CEO wouldn't have a job at all; just consider the nervousness at Disney after buying Pixar, due to the number of lead animation people at Pixar who are on record as saying they'd rather skate in Hell than work for Disney.
I have to wonder whether we might not still have some manufacturing jobs here, if it weren't so "necessary" to pay the CEOs such ridiculous amounts. Yes, yes, I know: at 400 to one, it wouldn't save all that many jobs. But it doesn't help; and it plays holy hell with morale. The real problem (see my next post) is the pervasive attitude that "I'm more important than they are."
The only thing that has improved about this ratio is that it isn't as bad as it was in 2000, when it hit 525-to-1. Amazingly, after the dotcom bust, and the Enron and Worldcom messes (not to mention Sarbanes-Oxley), corporate boards actually did start to pay less, tie raises to corporate performance, etc. And it's worse in the defense industry since the "war on terror"; the CEO of DHB Industries (bulletproof vests) made 3,349% more in 2004 than he did in 2001. Nice work if you can get it. Can we spell "profiteer"?
It all comes down to this: senior corporate executives are said to do "more important work" than the guys on the factory floor, or the people carrying the duty pagers, or the front line sales people who deal directly with customers. Therefore they are "more important" than these people, and should be paid commensurately more. Four hundred times more?? Without the guys on the factory floor (metaphorically speaking; almost no one actually works on a factory floor any more), the CEO wouldn't have a job at all; just consider the nervousness at Disney after buying Pixar, due to the number of lead animation people at Pixar who are on record as saying they'd rather skate in Hell than work for Disney.
I have to wonder whether we might not still have some manufacturing jobs here, if it weren't so "necessary" to pay the CEOs such ridiculous amounts. Yes, yes, I know: at 400 to one, it wouldn't save all that many jobs. But it doesn't help; and it plays holy hell with morale. The real problem (see my next post) is the pervasive attitude that "I'm more important than they are."
Monday, February 06, 2006
Some Things Don't Change
Because I support the U.C. Berkeley libraries, I get their newsletter, called Bene Legere. The fall 2005 issue (no. 68) was about "Women of California" and included the following article, which I'm retyping verbatim since there doesn't seem to be a web site where I can link it. Having attended Berkeley myself, some 50 years after this incident, I'm appalled to discover how much had not changed in the interval:
Another item in the newsletter was a photo of a page from the scrapbook of Clotilde Grunsky, class of '14, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering - and the University Medal, as the most distinguished member of the graduating class. I am absolutely awed by any woman who would even try for a civil engineering degree in 1914! I wonder if she ever got any dates...
In 1916 UC Berkeley Biology student Josephine Miller inadvertently swallowed typhoid bacilli in one of the labs on campus. The incident was widely publicized and appeared in an article in the "Daily Californian" which suggested that women should be recognized for adopting children and not for entering the field of scientific research. Student Elsie McCormick responded to this attack on women with the following article.All three-dot elisions are Miss McCormick's. I particularly love Rule 4. And as a singer, I'd like to know the incident behind Rule 10; but I never will. I do hope Miss Miller didn't come down with typhoid as a result of her error.
ETIQUETTE FOR COEDS
We have compiled rules after a careful study of the statements in recent college papers. Coeds who follow them are guaranteed bids to all the dances of the semester.
Rule 1. Do not swallow typhoid germs. It is unladylike.
Rule 2. Do not be foolish enough to plan on raising a family of your own. Adopt foundlings. You'll be sure to get your picture in the paper.
Rule 3. Do not study hygiene. It is not polite to be interested in the health of your family or the community.
Rule 4. Be a man's comrade but do not compete with him. He knows that he will never hold his position if you do.
Rule 5. Do not request men to swear in your presence. Only suffragettes do that.
Rule 6. Always glare at a man in the streetcar until he gives you his seat. If you show any willingness to stand, it proves that you are a feminist and hence ineligible for an M.R.S. degree.
Rule 7. Do not be the only woman in the College of Mechanics. To know anything about the anatomy of an automobile is immodest.
Rule 8. Pay your ASUC dues promptly, but do not be so bold as to ask for a place on the Executive Committee...
Rule 9. If a man speaks to you, always preface your answer by "Tee-hee." If you make any other remarks, you will be considered unmaidenly.
Rule 10. Never pass sentiments in Senior Singing until a week after the men have discussed the subject and made up their minds for you. Otherwise you might disagree with them and spoil the class harmony.
Rule 11. Do not study anything useful. Coeds should specialize in English and a diluted form of art history.
Rule 12. Always look and act as silly as possible. If you can't think of anything else to do, giggle.
Coeds who live up to these rules will reach the man's ideal of a perfect college woman...
Another item in the newsletter was a photo of a page from the scrapbook of Clotilde Grunsky, class of '14, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering - and the University Medal, as the most distinguished member of the graduating class. I am absolutely awed by any woman who would even try for a civil engineering degree in 1914! I wonder if she ever got any dates...
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Movie Weirdness
I'm not really a movie buff, but I do occasionally rent one from NetFlix. Recently I watched (again) Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet (brilliant; if you've never seen it, well worth watching), and a few weeks later, quite by chance, watched John Madden's 1998 Shakespeare in Love (also well worth it).
The point here is: you really must watch these movies in that order to appreciate the fact that much of the first half of Shakespeare in Love is a pastiche on the Zeffirelli! A good pastiche, too.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery??
The point here is: you really must watch these movies in that order to appreciate the fact that much of the first half of Shakespeare in Love is a pastiche on the Zeffirelli! A good pastiche, too.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery??
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Prohibition Doesn't Work
George Santayana claimed that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I guess Americans can't remember the past.
On Jan. 19, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act went into effect, banning the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol across the entire U.S. (See WikiPedia for a summary of the Prohibition experiment. Did you know you could legally get whiskey during Prohibition on a doctor's prescription? I didn't.) This led to 13 years of increasing disrespect for the law, speakeasies, bathtub gin, lethal bootleg booze cut with poisonous substances, public gunfights between rival gangs of bootleggers, foreigners smuggling booze (legally obtained in Europe) into the U.S., etc. etc., until the whole thing was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933, throwing the regulation of alcohol back to the states. For a detailed explanation of exactly how and why this experiment didn't work, see this article from the Cato Institute.
Does any of this sound familiar? We have another "Prohibition" experiment in progress worldwide right now, based solely on the fact that the U.S. government, for the last 60 years or so, has made it illegal to get high in this country except on alcohol or nicotine. As a result, we've created a worldwide network of illegal drug trafficking that makes the Prohibition bootleggers look like a Tuesday afternoon ladies' sewing circle. The economies of entire third world countries depend on the fact that it's illegal to buy heroin, opium, cocaine, etc. in the United States. The latest president of Bolivia was elected partly on his promise to make it easier to grow coca.
We could stop this, you know. In fact, we could save a lot of money, save a lot of lives, and probably advance the medical profession in a number of useful ways. All we have to do is legalize all drugs, and regulate and tax them exactly the same way booze and cigarettes are regulated and taxed (which would mean that minors couldn't legally buy them; you couldn't legally drive a car while under the influence; in some counties you'd have to go across the county line to get them). Yes. All drugs, including things like Ecstasy. Some of them will kill you? So will booze and ciggies. At least if they are regulated and taxed, we can control the dosage and purity of what is sold.
Getting high is immoral? That's a tricky issue. Even if you assume - and I don't - that the state has grounds for regulating morality, whatever that is, it seems to me that by legalizing alcohol and nicotine for the purpose, we've cut the moral high ground right out from under our feet. We don't really object to people getting high: we just object to people getting high on those drugs. One of the lessons of Prohibition was that making a popular practice illegal doesn't reduce the number of people doing it. I'm talking public safety and public health here. The consumption of intoxicating substances, by itself, is a victimless crime; the crimes that create real victims are mainly related to the fact that the activity is illegal. In fact, the "drug war" is worse than Prohibition: in Prohibition you couldn't be busted for possession.
If we legalized all dope, we could:
Of course, if we do this, there will be side effects; and we'll have to take other actions to deal with those:
Nothing in this is based on any detailed research; these are just the implications that seem obvious to me, based on the last 30 years of reading the newspaper.
It'll never happen while the current administration is in office. It'll never happen while the party in power is willing to defer to the Religious Right on "moral" issues. That doesn't mean there aren't real public policy reasons for considering it. Thanks for listening to my rant.
On Jan. 19, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act went into effect, banning the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol across the entire U.S. (See WikiPedia for a summary of the Prohibition experiment. Did you know you could legally get whiskey during Prohibition on a doctor's prescription? I didn't.) This led to 13 years of increasing disrespect for the law, speakeasies, bathtub gin, lethal bootleg booze cut with poisonous substances, public gunfights between rival gangs of bootleggers, foreigners smuggling booze (legally obtained in Europe) into the U.S., etc. etc., until the whole thing was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933, throwing the regulation of alcohol back to the states. For a detailed explanation of exactly how and why this experiment didn't work, see this article from the Cato Institute.
Does any of this sound familiar? We have another "Prohibition" experiment in progress worldwide right now, based solely on the fact that the U.S. government, for the last 60 years or so, has made it illegal to get high in this country except on alcohol or nicotine. As a result, we've created a worldwide network of illegal drug trafficking that makes the Prohibition bootleggers look like a Tuesday afternoon ladies' sewing circle. The economies of entire third world countries depend on the fact that it's illegal to buy heroin, opium, cocaine, etc. in the United States. The latest president of Bolivia was elected partly on his promise to make it easier to grow coca.
We could stop this, you know. In fact, we could save a lot of money, save a lot of lives, and probably advance the medical profession in a number of useful ways. All we have to do is legalize all drugs, and regulate and tax them exactly the same way booze and cigarettes are regulated and taxed (which would mean that minors couldn't legally buy them; you couldn't legally drive a car while under the influence; in some counties you'd have to go across the county line to get them). Yes. All drugs, including things like Ecstasy. Some of them will kill you? So will booze and ciggies. At least if they are regulated and taxed, we can control the dosage and purity of what is sold.
Getting high is immoral? That's a tricky issue. Even if you assume - and I don't - that the state has grounds for regulating morality, whatever that is, it seems to me that by legalizing alcohol and nicotine for the purpose, we've cut the moral high ground right out from under our feet. We don't really object to people getting high: we just object to people getting high on those drugs. One of the lessons of Prohibition was that making a popular practice illegal doesn't reduce the number of people doing it. I'm talking public safety and public health here. The consumption of intoxicating substances, by itself, is a victimless crime; the crimes that create real victims are mainly related to the fact that the activity is illegal. In fact, the "drug war" is worse than Prohibition: in Prohibition you couldn't be busted for possession.
If we legalized all dope, we could:
- Remove the incentive for international criminal gangs to run drugs into the U.S. (most recently, concealed surgically in the bellies of puppies).
- Quit putting 30% of the population of our inner cities in the slammer for possession, or trafficking of minor amounts. Probably build fewer prisons.
- Reduce the incentive for the constant gang wars in our inner cities, since the bulk of them are turf battles over drug sales.
- Probably, reduce the number of police we need, by reducing the number of crimes they have to chase. At least, allow the police to concentrate on crimes against person and property; in my neighborhood, if you're burglarized, you can't get the cops to show up - they're all down in the ghetto chasing the drug gangs.
- Certainly reduce the impact on our overloaded court system.
- Do actual research into the medical properties of marijuana, and possibly other drugs, currently prohibited by our ridiculous laws. Who knows what we might find?
- With any luck, improve pain management for people with serious chronic pain issues; right now much of the medical profession is so paranoid about "enabling addiction" that it denies opiates even to terminally ill cancer patients (if you're dying in pain, who cares if you're also addicted to Oxycontin??).
- The economies of many countries will be severely affected.
- We'd have to give Colombia actual development aid, instead of military helicopters and "advisers".
- We'd have to put serious effort into rebuilding Afghanistan, in much of which right now the only realistic cash crop is opium poppies.
- The whole Golden Triangle (Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, Laos) in southeast Asia would be affected.
- On the plus side, with any luck the military junta in Myanmar would collapse; I'm sure they rely on drug money.
- Ditto the FARC in Colombia; without drug money, they'll have real trouble supporting that insurgency.
- We'd have to do something serious about our inner cities. Right now the only option available there, in which a young man or woman has a chance to make serious money with the kind of education and training our schools offer them, is drug dealing. This is a disgrace and we need to fix it; we never will while the drugs are illegal and the supposed easy cash is so good. (And if you want to find out just how mythical the "supposed easy cash" is, read the chapter in Steven Leavitt's Freakonomics entitled "Why do drug dealers live with their moms?")
- We'd have to build educational programs to encourage people not to use intoxicants, because they are bad for you, just like the ones we have for booze and cigarettes. Some of this (NarcAnon) is already in place.
- We'd have to expand the existing programs to help people get unaddicted, once they discover they really don't want to be. Right now there's no money for this because it's all going toward expanding the prison system.
Nothing in this is based on any detailed research; these are just the implications that seem obvious to me, based on the last 30 years of reading the newspaper.
It'll never happen while the current administration is in office. It'll never happen while the party in power is willing to defer to the Religious Right on "moral" issues. That doesn't mean there aren't real public policy reasons for considering it. Thanks for listening to my rant.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Strange bedfellows
Along with all the Democrats who object to the president's warrantless wiretaps, you will find Grover Norquist, Mr. Rich-Americans-Should-Never-Pay-Any-Tax, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, the "managing director of the hard core right" (as the Nation magazine called him). In fact, Mr. Norquist has teamed up with Larry Diamond, a Democrat from the Hoover Institution (isn't that an oxymoron?), who is also a solid supporter of the war on terror (whatever that is), to object to what they both see as a major violation of American civil liberties.
Mr. Norquist's point is that only the president's supporters have the credibility to challenge him when he goes off the rails on civil liberties (or, presumably, anything else). I'm afraid he's correct; the president and his advisers simply don't listen to anybody outside the charmed circle, which has bothered me about them from day one and it gets worse as the world outside diverges farther and farther from the reality they seem to accept. So on this subject only, I'll wish Mr. Norquist good luck. We need all the help we can get.
This was all written up yesterday by a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer (for all my complaints about that newspaper, an amazing amount of good investigative reporting gets printed there); the full article is very interesting and I recommend it.
Mr. Norquist's point is that only the president's supporters have the credibility to challenge him when he goes off the rails on civil liberties (or, presumably, anything else). I'm afraid he's correct; the president and his advisers simply don't listen to anybody outside the charmed circle, which has bothered me about them from day one and it gets worse as the world outside diverges farther and farther from the reality they seem to accept. So on this subject only, I'll wish Mr. Norquist good luck. We need all the help we can get.
This was all written up yesterday by a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer (for all my complaints about that newspaper, an amazing amount of good investigative reporting gets printed there); the full article is very interesting and I recommend it.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Ms. Michael J??
I suppose nothing Michael Jackson does should surprise me any more. I'm certainly not surprised to see an AP report today saying that he's considering moving to the Persian Gulf, as a consultant on theme parks; after that trial he may feel, shall we say, a little uncomfortable here?
But what absolutely floors me is that he was photographed walking around Bahrain in an abaya! Why would he want to go to a Muslim country, where women are second class citizens, and dress like a woman?? But then, this is MJ, and who knows... He had 3 kids with him, and they were all wearing veils too, and I'm almost certain that isn't a cultural norm.
(NB: If Bahrain is one of the 2 or 3 Muslim countries that actually treats their womenfolk like human beings, I apologize for the reference; the fact that "conservative Bahraini women" - emphasis mine, and as opposed to less conservative Bahraini women - wear these robes implies it may be, but I didn't take the time to research it...)
But what absolutely floors me is that he was photographed walking around Bahrain in an abaya! Why would he want to go to a Muslim country, where women are second class citizens, and dress like a woman?? But then, this is MJ, and who knows... He had 3 kids with him, and they were all wearing veils too, and I'm almost certain that isn't a cultural norm.
(NB: If Bahrain is one of the 2 or 3 Muslim countries that actually treats their womenfolk like human beings, I apologize for the reference; the fact that "conservative Bahraini women" - emphasis mine, and as opposed to less conservative Bahraini women - wear these robes implies it may be, but I didn't take the time to research it...)
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Wiretapping
Let's consider the warrantless wiretaps that the president thinks are so necessary to national security. This week's arguments in favor look like this:
Balked in their wish to spy on U.S. citizens for whom they couldn't show probable cause that they were communicating with terrorists (in less than half of 1% of cases), the administration chose to issue executive orders to bypass FISA altogether. This is very likely the reason that U.S. District Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISA panel in protest. This looks to me as if the administration simply can't bear to account to anyone for any of its actions, and friends, that's not a valid position for the country's president, no matter who he thinks we're at war with.
The administration is currently justifying these efforts on the grounds that they either have protected us or are protecting us from attack by al Quaeda. This, frankly, is hogwash. Al Quaeda (using that as shorthand for the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist underworld) has agents who are willing to die themselves in order to attack western targets. There is no defense against a man who is willing to die in order to kill you. They could possibly intercept another carefully coordinated series of attacks a la 9/11. They can't do a thing about a single man with a dirty bomb in a backpack, or a truck.
The Daily Kos blog published a great analysis of how likely you are to die from a terrorist attack versus any other cause. The number I like is that you are 7,881 times more likely just to die (from any cause) than you are to die in a terrorist attack. (For that matter, you're 24 times more likely to die from overdosing on Motrin than from a terror attack; it's a great article if you haven't read it.) At this point, the cost benefit analysis breaks down. On those odds, no, it is not worth allowing this level of erosion of civil liberties in order to "protect" us. If you're really that afraid of dying, you'd never drive a car (85 times more likely than terror), and you'd certainly never smoke (1,290 times...). Since we all drive cars, and too many of us smoke, we're obviously not that scared; we just haven't considered the odds properly.
I'll consider the issue of Congressional permission to do whatever in another rant.
- This is a necessary part of the war on terror and we can't afford to wait for warrants.
- It's really legal because Congress authorized POTUS to do anything he [deleted] well pleases in support of the war on terror.
Balked in their wish to spy on U.S. citizens for whom they couldn't show probable cause that they were communicating with terrorists (in less than half of 1% of cases), the administration chose to issue executive orders to bypass FISA altogether. This is very likely the reason that U.S. District Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISA panel in protest. This looks to me as if the administration simply can't bear to account to anyone for any of its actions, and friends, that's not a valid position for the country's president, no matter who he thinks we're at war with.
The administration is currently justifying these efforts on the grounds that they either have protected us or are protecting us from attack by al Quaeda. This, frankly, is hogwash. Al Quaeda (using that as shorthand for the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist underworld) has agents who are willing to die themselves in order to attack western targets. There is no defense against a man who is willing to die in order to kill you. They could possibly intercept another carefully coordinated series of attacks a la 9/11. They can't do a thing about a single man with a dirty bomb in a backpack, or a truck.
The Daily Kos blog published a great analysis of how likely you are to die from a terrorist attack versus any other cause. The number I like is that you are 7,881 times more likely just to die (from any cause) than you are to die in a terrorist attack. (For that matter, you're 24 times more likely to die from overdosing on Motrin than from a terror attack; it's a great article if you haven't read it.) At this point, the cost benefit analysis breaks down. On those odds, no, it is not worth allowing this level of erosion of civil liberties in order to "protect" us. If you're really that afraid of dying, you'd never drive a car (85 times more likely than terror), and you'd certainly never smoke (1,290 times...). Since we all drive cars, and too many of us smoke, we're obviously not that scared; we just haven't considered the odds properly.
I'll consider the issue of Congressional permission to do whatever in another rant.
Friday, January 13, 2006
No Term Limits, George
My record with George Will is surprisingly spotty: I'd expect to disagree with everything he says, but once in a while he sounds rational. Today's column, for instance, is mostly pretty good, as he rips into the Republicans for becoming hooked on large government and selling out to lobbyists. I particularly like his suggestion that the symbol of the Republican Party should be the stegosaurus, not the dignified elephant...
I part company with him, though, on his suggested cure for the rent-seeking which he sees as the national pastime: "bending public power for private advantage." He feels the only solution for this is Congressional term limits; which even he agrees will never happen because Congress would have to pass it...
Having now lived through far too many years of term limits in California, I agree with Maximum Bob (in the Fanatical Apathy thread "Jack and me"): (legislators) are forced to leave just as they start to figure out where the rest rooms are. Term limits, if anything, give the lobbyists more power, because only they have been around long enough to know what the rules are. In fact, they make the rules.
The only short term solution to corruption in politics is publicly financed elections; it seems to be working pretty well in Arizona and one or two other states. The long term solution, of course, is to re-educate the population at large in civics, how democracy works, and the general concept of public service; but that will take generations. It might also require repealing No Child Left Behind, since I don't believe any of these subjects is on the required standard tests...
I part company with him, though, on his suggested cure for the rent-seeking which he sees as the national pastime: "bending public power for private advantage." He feels the only solution for this is Congressional term limits; which even he agrees will never happen because Congress would have to pass it...
Having now lived through far too many years of term limits in California, I agree with Maximum Bob (in the Fanatical Apathy thread "Jack and me"): (legislators) are forced to leave just as they start to figure out where the rest rooms are. Term limits, if anything, give the lobbyists more power, because only they have been around long enough to know what the rules are. In fact, they make the rules.
The only short term solution to corruption in politics is publicly financed elections; it seems to be working pretty well in Arizona and one or two other states. The long term solution, of course, is to re-educate the population at large in civics, how democracy works, and the general concept of public service; but that will take generations. It might also require repealing No Child Left Behind, since I don't believe any of these subjects is on the required standard tests...
Sam Alito Worries Me
It's beginning to look as if Mr. Alito will be the next Supreme Court justice, even though the Democrats are still waffling about it. On one level, he's an impressive guy; he certainly is more qualified for the post than, say, C. Thomas. He says all the right things about the rule of law, and considering the facts, and reviewing precedent... He even seems to be a Nice Guy.
If only his record of decisions on the Third Circuit didn't show him firmly placed, about three steps to the right of Attila the Hun. When he reviews all the facts and considers all the precedents, he always seems to vote against individuals (yes, women have to notify their husbands before getting an abortion), for corporate privilege (no, Congress can't ban the sale of machine guns nationwide). And he's a known supporter of the Imperial Presidency. At least he finally seems to have accepted the "one man, one vote" principle.
What I really see here is a firm supporter of states' rights. This will take us right back to the 19th century (which, as we know, is where Dubya wants us to go anyhow). With Alito on the Court, a number of things now regulated nationally will depend on the state you happen to live in: a woman's right to an abortion; the ability to buy certain firearms; whether wetlands and wilderness are protected. Dark times ahead, I'm afraid.
If only his record of decisions on the Third Circuit didn't show him firmly placed, about three steps to the right of Attila the Hun. When he reviews all the facts and considers all the precedents, he always seems to vote against individuals (yes, women have to notify their husbands before getting an abortion), for corporate privilege (no, Congress can't ban the sale of machine guns nationwide). And he's a known supporter of the Imperial Presidency. At least he finally seems to have accepted the "one man, one vote" principle.
What I really see here is a firm supporter of states' rights. This will take us right back to the 19th century (which, as we know, is where Dubya wants us to go anyhow). With Alito on the Court, a number of things now regulated nationally will depend on the state you happen to live in: a woman's right to an abortion; the ability to buy certain firearms; whether wetlands and wilderness are protected. Dark times ahead, I'm afraid.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Meditations of a Gadget Freak
I've been fascinated by the DARPA Grand Challenge, won in October by a team from Stanford. The January issue of Scientific American has an article, Innovations from a Robot Rally, which is a must for every red-blooded gadget freak, it goes into detail about how the various teams solved their technical issues. (The link above is to the article on the SciAm site, but you could just go buy the magazine. In fact, if you want to see the photos and diagrams, you have to get the magazine; it's only $11 - in the U.S. - and they're worth it.) Between March 2004 and October 2005 these teams went from no vehicle even completing the course (I don't think any entry got farther than 3 miles), to 4 vehicles doing 132 miles in under 8 hours: the winning time was 6 hours 53 minutes. That's an average speed of just over 19 MPH.
Some of the most interesting tweaks weren't even done by the winning team:
One of the obvious problems was, how do you track where the robot is? The obvious answer is, give it a GPS, or maybe several; but how do you track distance and direction if it gets into a canyon where the GPS signal is blocked? The team of high school students from Palos Verdes, CA (yes, they competed) developed something they call a GroundMouse, based on the principle behind optical mice: with a camera, a bright light, and an optical tube, they built a 2 dimensional odometer with 1 millimeter accuracy in any horizontal direction. (The team staffed by professional engineers built something similar, but they used a Doppler radar. Isn't money nice?) I love 2 things about these kids: first, that they tried at all. Second, that their solution used stuff you could buy at Radio Shack. There's hope for the next generation yet!
The Indy Robot Racing Team solved a problem that won't even (really) exist until autonomous vehicles go commercial, if they ever do, but without this solution or something like it, they never will: these guys built a network protocol for swapping "plug and play" sensors and software modules in and out of their vehicle. They built the interface. Them's my kind of engineers! (Disclosure: I used to be a systems programmer.)
These are not the only fascinating technical solutions: you have to see the picture of the one with the bank of 64 lasers on the vehicle roof, on a motorized circular platform, spinning 10 times a second, and backed by a bank of signal processors programmed in Assembler. Obstacle detection: could spot something the size of a person at 500 feet.
I strongly recommend any fellow techno-weenies out there to take a look at this article.
Some of the most interesting tweaks weren't even done by the winning team:
One of the obvious problems was, how do you track where the robot is? The obvious answer is, give it a GPS, or maybe several; but how do you track distance and direction if it gets into a canyon where the GPS signal is blocked? The team of high school students from Palos Verdes, CA (yes, they competed) developed something they call a GroundMouse, based on the principle behind optical mice: with a camera, a bright light, and an optical tube, they built a 2 dimensional odometer with 1 millimeter accuracy in any horizontal direction. (The team staffed by professional engineers built something similar, but they used a Doppler radar. Isn't money nice?) I love 2 things about these kids: first, that they tried at all. Second, that their solution used stuff you could buy at Radio Shack. There's hope for the next generation yet!
The Indy Robot Racing Team solved a problem that won't even (really) exist until autonomous vehicles go commercial, if they ever do, but without this solution or something like it, they never will: these guys built a network protocol for swapping "plug and play" sensors and software modules in and out of their vehicle. They built the interface. Them's my kind of engineers! (Disclosure: I used to be a systems programmer.)
These are not the only fascinating technical solutions: you have to see the picture of the one with the bank of 64 lasers on the vehicle roof, on a motorized circular platform, spinning 10 times a second, and backed by a bank of signal processors programmed in Assembler. Obstacle detection: could spot something the size of a person at 500 feet.
I strongly recommend any fellow techno-weenies out there to take a look at this article.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Abramoff Sings, Congress gets the Blues
So Jack Abramoff has decided to plea bargain, and a number of Congressmen (the San Francisco Chronicle has photos of 8, including Dubya, who have gotten various amounts) are wondering what to do with the money he donated to them. (Charitable causes may do well out of all this, as several of them have decided to "cleanse" the money that way.)
This whole mess brings two things to my mind:
One - Everybody involved in this mess is a Congressman. None of the people wishing his picture wasn't being published alongside this story is a woman. Not that this is statistically significant, since Congress is only about 15% female (14% in the Senate, 16% in the House); but doesn't it make you wonder if you shouldn't go and donate something to Emily's List? Maybe it just means that women don't want to play golf at St. Andrew's.
Two - Once again, the late great Arthur Hoppe (also of the San Francisco Chronicle) was right. During the ABSCAM scandal of 1978, Mr. Hoppe wrote a column (which I don't seem to have saved, alas, and the Hoppe columns are no longer available on the web), complaining that with all these furriners coming in (it was the FBI posing as Middle Eastern sheikhs, actually, see the Wikipedia article...) and buying up Congressmen for $25,000 apiece, pretty soon the price of a Congressman would be too high for an ordinary American to be able to afford his own...
Well, here we are, 28 years later, and "Duke" Cunningham goes down to the tune of $2.5 million, and the smallest amount Abramoff seems to have given anyone was $32,000. Inflation in politics, alas, just as predicted. Art Hoppe, where are you, now that we need you?
This whole mess brings two things to my mind:
One - Everybody involved in this mess is a Congressman. None of the people wishing his picture wasn't being published alongside this story is a woman. Not that this is statistically significant, since Congress is only about 15% female (14% in the Senate, 16% in the House); but doesn't it make you wonder if you shouldn't go and donate something to Emily's List? Maybe it just means that women don't want to play golf at St. Andrew's.
Two - Once again, the late great Arthur Hoppe (also of the San Francisco Chronicle) was right. During the ABSCAM scandal of 1978, Mr. Hoppe wrote a column (which I don't seem to have saved, alas, and the Hoppe columns are no longer available on the web), complaining that with all these furriners coming in (it was the FBI posing as Middle Eastern sheikhs, actually, see the Wikipedia article...) and buying up Congressmen for $25,000 apiece, pretty soon the price of a Congressman would be too high for an ordinary American to be able to afford his own...
Well, here we are, 28 years later, and "Duke" Cunningham goes down to the tune of $2.5 million, and the smallest amount Abramoff seems to have given anyone was $32,000. Inflation in politics, alas, just as predicted. Art Hoppe, where are you, now that we need you?
Monday, January 02, 2006
Stupid Crook Tricks
I saw this a couple of weeks ago in the local newspaper and it blew me away: follow this link for the story about the guy who took a picture of himself in the disposable camera in the car he stole, and then left the camera in the car when he abandoned it...
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Starting out
I got a blog, you got a blog, all God's chillun got blogs...
Everyone else seems to be blogging, why not me? The trouble is, of course, that it's like being asked to tell a joke - every joke you ever knew immediately vanishes from your mind except that terribly vulgar one you learned in eighth grade. Still, let's try. It's the first day of a new year, a good time to start something new.
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic. (I have no idea where I originally read that.)
I'll be posting opinions, links to articles I think are weird, links to other sites I think are interesting. All opinions here are mine unless specifically attributed to someone else.
Everyone else seems to be blogging, why not me? The trouble is, of course, that it's like being asked to tell a joke - every joke you ever knew immediately vanishes from your mind except that terribly vulgar one you learned in eighth grade. Still, let's try. It's the first day of a new year, a good time to start something new.
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic. (I have no idea where I originally read that.)
I'll be posting opinions, links to articles I think are weird, links to other sites I think are interesting. All opinions here are mine unless specifically attributed to someone else.
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