A few years ago, I discovered my girlfriend's old Rubik's Cube while visiting her parent's home. I had never quite solved it as a kid, and I spent several weeks figuring it out. I got pretty good at solving, and I was proud because none of my friends could do it.
Solving the cube got boring after a while-- you can only do the same puzzle so many times. So I put it away until I forgot how to do it. Then a few weeks ago I came across the cube while cleaning, and now I'm discovering its joys all over again. I'm also solving it differently than I used to, which is fun.
I mentioned my new cubing hobby to a friend, and he suggested I enter a speed tournament. Apparently they still have them. So I checked it out and discovered that some kid can solve the cube one-handed faster than I can do it with two. He holds the one-handed record of 44.98 seconds. My one-handed record is nothing to brag about.
There's also a woman who has a video of her solving a cube in 14.33 seconds. She boasts that she can maintain speeds of ten moves per seconds for three seconds. But she uses two hands. Cheater.
Now, I don't mind being beaten by a cheating woman, or even a one-handed kid. But I'm downright shamed by the guy who solves the cube blind.
As if that weren't enough, I even get beat by a cuber without a pulse. Ernesto Rubik's answer to Deep Blue is a computer that will take a picture of your cube and tell you how to solve it in an average of 19 moves.
Needless to say I'm a little less proud, and I'll be practicing. One-handed.
There is a plant whose seed is the primary ingredient in a popular kind of food. People have natural cravings for this food, and often gorge on it when depressed. If you eat enough of it, you can get a little happy buzz from it. I am told by a friend who is writing a book on the seed that if you grind it up and smoke it, you feel something akin to an ecstasy high that lasts about 10 minutes. Vaporizing it doesn't work so well, and nobody I know has snorted it.
There is historical evidence of certain cultures using this seed in many different ritual, shamanistic ceremonies, which is a strong indication that it is an entheogen. Historically, it has been smoked, snorted and perhaps used in enemas, and in each case it probably got somebody high.
The seed is perfectly legal, commonly available and fairly easy to obtain. I guarantee you have eaten it and probably enjoyed it.
What happens when you take an item currently being enjoyed the world over and suddenly discover what to some is a bonus and to others a horror? People have literally made tens of billions of dollars selling foodstuffs made from this seed. What will happen when people figure out it can get you high? I can't see it being banned. Or even licensed.
This weekend I will test drive it. I'll smoke and snort it, but I leave the enema study to more adventurous souls. Full report when I have one.
Update: I smoked and snorted quite a bit of this stuff and got nothing off it. My friend, who is writing a book on the stuff, might have to cut the chapter on its entheogenic properties. More research soon...
Polis | 1 Writebacks | #
This post will only be of interest to people that like to read Supreme Court opinions. For fun. All others can safely ignore it, which pretty much means everybody except the other law dork on this blog.
The Supreme Court has ruled in Locke v. Davey that it's ok for a state to withhold scholarships from theology students. Apparently some kid won the scholarship and then was denied the cash when he told them what he was going to study with it. I like this case, regardless of outcome, because it reveals a little of the mechanism of the 1st Amendment.
First, let's deal with Scalia, who dissented to Rhenquists's majority opinion. The law was originally imposed as part of a wave of anti-Catholice prejudice (he's observantly Catholic), and Scalia wrote, "Let there be no doubt: This case is about discrimination against a religious minority". Thomas dissented as well.
It might be true that the law originated from sectarian bias, but at this point it's a flat rule against all religious study, which makes claims of discrimination against a religious minority a little dubious. I'm not sure you can even argue disparate impact. Do Catholics study theology more than non-Catholics? What about if you only look at public schools, thereby not counting the theology students at religious colleges?
More interesting than that question, though, is how a law that disfavors religion could avoid offending the Free Exercise Clause. The 1st Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." There are two parts to this. The Establishment Clause is read to prohibit the state establishment of religion. The other part is the Free Exercise Clause, which restrains government attempts to prevent people from practicing religion.
Obviously these two clauses are sometimes in tension. There are "actions permitted by the Establishment Clause but not required by the Free Exercise Clause." Likewise, sometimes government is caught between strictly offending one clause or the other and has to decide between them. But how to decide? Neither is supreme, and no guidance exists. In those cases, the courts give the government some wiggle room. The Court calls this "play in the joints".
The Court finds here an example of the first case. Funding theology studies is permitted by the Establishment Clause but not required by the Free Exercise Clause. Rhenquist gets there by minimizing the burden to religion and painting the lack of funding as an attempt to avoid intermingling state and religion. He writes that the law
imposes neither criminal nor civil sanctions on any type of religious service or rite. It does not deny to ministers the right to participate in the political affairs of the community. And it does not require students to choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit.
In response to Scalia's argument that "generally available benefits are part of the baseline against which burdens on religion are measured", Rehnquist maximizes the religious nature of studying religion: "Training someone to lead a congregation is an essentially religious endeavor. Indeed, majoring in devotional theology is akin to a religious calling as well as an academic pursuit." In so doing, he paints the unfunded theology studies as different in kind from the generally funded secular studies, which makes the baseline irrelevant. He also maximizes the religious entanglement that would ensnare the state if it dared step into this funding trap.
And this seems like a step too far in the wrong direction. If theology studies aren't religious in nature, the Free Exercise impact of not funding them while funding other studies is minimal. If they are religious in nature, they're different in kind from the other studies, and so again the offense is minimal.
What we're left with is the distinct impression that withholding benefits from a religious practice is always going to fall into that play in the joints. As long as the government is withholding help as opposed to actively preventing somebody from pursuing religion, it's ok.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
Via Long Story Short Pier, I discovered that George W. Bush's website will let you send letters to the editor to many of your local papers. You put in your zip code and your screed, hit a button and you're done. What's it cost? Just your contact info, which you have to include or newspapers will ignore your rant.
Here's what I wrote:
All the people fighting so hard to prevent equal access to civil marriage are going to look really silly in a couple generations. If they're lucky, they'll be mocked like Carrie Nation. If not, they'll be hated like Bull Connor. Either way, a general consensus will be reached about ending marriage discrimination.
If Bush's anti-gay Constitutional amendment is passed, we will all suffer when that consensus is reached. A Constitutional amendment will create chaos and havoc as people are prevented from taking right, just and moral action by the bigotry Bush would enshrine in our Constitution.
Let's not make that mistake.
Apparently GW understands Internet Democracy. Maybe we should all vote for him! After all, lots of people thought that was a good enough reason to vote for Dean.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
Elephant Rants notes the rumor that Israel has 82 nukes and comments "That would be why no one else has attempted to invade Israel since 1973. Boom."
I'm not quite convinced of the deterrent value of a secret nuclear stash. In my opinion the reason nobody has invaded Israel since 1973 has more to do with the following:
- Everybody that invaded Israel had his ass handed to him. Israel didn't get Sinai, Southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights, Samaria and Judea as Christmas presents.
- Aside from Israel, Middle East armies have been more about corruption and domestic rule than defense. Israel, by contrast, considers its army to be vital to its survival, and thus has a professional, ruthless and capable military.
- American backing
It should also be noted that while nobody has invaded Israel, Iraq hit Tel Aviv with scuds during the 1991 Gulf War, and much of the funding for the insurgent and terrorist groups attacking Israel comes from Arab states. So neighboring countries are willing to mess with Israel violently and militarily without fear of nuclear retaliation.
And that suggests to me that nobody invades Israel because they can't defeat Israel's army, not because they fear nuclear retaliation. Besides, Israel would have to be pretty crazy and desperate to nuke its neighbor. That radioactive stuff travels.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
I flipped through many of the photos taken of recently married couples in San Francisco. Here are some highlights:
- Every cultural conservative's nightmare
- Rock on!
- Everybody has already seen this pic of an elderly female couple. Is it ok to admit this one brought tears to my eyes? If so, then I do.
- More cultural conservative horror
- This is a great shot, but I am required to ask: What was he thinking, getting married in that shirt?
- Intimate and cute
- Camping out
- This one's just bizarre
Perhaps the greatest thing about these pictures is that they really demonstrate how normal these couples are. They run the full range of possibilities and cultural niches without being a pride parade freak show. I gotta think this will tug at the hearts of fence-sitting moderates.
Polis | 2 Writebacks | #
Via Dean Esmay, I read a scientifical article arguing that "the low fat/low cholesterol diet is ineffective".
The article says low fat and low cholesterol diets don't actually prevent heart disease. Numerous studies say a high fat/cholesterol diet positively correlates with heart disease, and everybody assumed that if this was the case reducing fat and cholesterol would lower the chances of heart disease. It's been a number of years since that assumption was made. In that time, it has been (more or less) tested, and it seems reducing fat doesn't quite do it.
The article is not a free pass to hoover potato chips. It says that while changing the quantity of fat doesn't seem to do much, changing the quality of fat can be effective in lowering the risks of heart disease. I don't really know much about good fat versus bad fat, but apparently substituting "corn, safflower, soyabean and cottonseed oils significantly reduced total cardiovascular events". The evidence is mixed, though. These diets seem to help sometimes and not others. In some studies, they reduce "cardiovascular events" (which I guess means heart attacks and the like) but don't decrease mortality, so I guess you have fewer heart attacks, but you're just as likely to die from a heart attack.
So what should we be eating? "The circumstantial evidence of benefit from oils, particularly olive oil, vegetables, fruit and fish is strong." The studies that seemed to reduce heart attacks and mortality all involved diets high in fiber and polyunsaturated fats like omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Cholesterol was deemed irrelevant, and now they are looking at "reduction of a thrombotic tendency". I have no idea what that means. Other things we should be consuming might include olive oil and oleic acid. The jury is still out on these monounsaturated oils.
In other words, eat more fruits and vegetables. Favor fish over meat. Favor olive oil over butter. Maybe take fish oil supplements.
Caveats: First, nutrition is hard to study. Diets are hard to change because people don't stick to them, and when you eat less of one thing, that usually means you'll eat more of another thing. Plus, they take place over long periods of time, and a lot of factors can come into play over many years. Second, nobody has done a real good low fat trial. People just assumed it was a good idea, and so the only good trials tested reduced fat diets in conjunction with reducing other risk factors like smoking, high blood pressure or lack of exercise. Interestingly, these studies found that reducing fat intake doesn't help, even when you also reduce other risk factors. Third, I'm no nutritionist. Read the article yourself and see what you can get from it. And realize that in a month another article will be published that renders all of this obsolete and moot.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an engaging piece on George Ricaurte's practice of exagerrating the risks of ecstasy by tarting up his own worthless scientific studies.
Ricaurte claimed Ecstasy can damage your serotonin system (thereby affecting your mood, sleep, appetite, and more), cause severe brain damage and give you Parkinson's Disease-- even if you only take it once! If these claims are true, ecstasy is the most dangerous poison around. But of course they're not true, and Ricaurte knows it. He retracted the study that led to these conclusions after it was shown to be pure bunk. He still stands by his claims of course, now he just has to admit he has no proof.
In the swirl of a sciencist's lies, what do we know about the risks of taking ecstasy? We know we need more research, preferably by somebody other than Dr. Ricaurte. The Chronicle article has this to say:
That Ecstasy can damage serotonin neurons in animals is beyond question. What is debatable is at what dose that damage occurs, whether the damage is permanent, and if the damage occurs in humans. . . . There is evidence suggesting that, at low enough doses, Ecstasy does not cause damage to the brain[.]
The bottom line message for recreational ecstasy users is one of caution. Drug users have an over-compensation reaction to drug hysteria. They blance the hysteria by forming a reactionary belief that whatever amount of whichever drugs they normally do is perfectly safe and utterly without risk. This is perhaps the greatest danger of the drug war lies.
Users need credible research to tell them how much is too much. Getting dosed based on body weight and personal history will get you through the night, but it's not any way to prevent long-term health damage. How much how often is too much too often? What can you mix with what? If you shouldn't do several hits of ecstasy every night of Burning Man, can you do three Monday, some acid Tuesday and shrooms on Thursday? If so, where do you schedule the mescalin, the salvia and the meth? And what about the weird drugs with cryptic names you've never heard of? Should you take the gelcap filled with brown powder that somebody told you is called Care Bear 53? How about the pill stamped with a skull called "Fuck Me God"?
These questions seem funny, but they're actual questions people face. And in the absence of answers, they're just going to wing it. And a bunch of them will mess themselves up. We do honest research into the health implications of all kinds of potentially dangerous recreational activities-- from smoking to motorcycling to eating junk food to backpacking in Africa. Drugs are dangerous, but that's no reason not to find out how to minimize the dangers.
Thanks, Mark Kleiman for the link to the article.
Polis | 5 Writebacks | #
Michele over at A Small Victory points out that 2/3 of Americans support televising executions and she asks
Would you pay to watch an execution on television? Let's assume that the crime did not in any way involve you or someone you know. Just a total stranger being executed for a crime you only read about in the paper once or twice. Would you watch?
I am of the opinion that if we are going to gather together and kill criminals, we should be forced to confront the dirty business of actually killing them. The government is us, it kills criminals in our stead. Because we can hide from the horrible reality of actually killing another person, the sanitized death penalty is acceptable to a lot of people that would otherwise be too repulsed to support it.
So yes, televise executions and force everybody to watch.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
From the comments, I was directed to Cedar Pundit, who posts here and here about Iowa contemplating a 25 percent tax on porn. Cedar Pundit also lists a bunch of other porn tax attempts.
To legislators, I suppose this falls in with other sin taxes. But it's a highly idiotic one, and non-obscene porn is still free speech. It occurs to me that, if things keep moving in the direction of Lawrence v. Texas, we could conceivably start to see some protection for the accoutrements of sex, like sex toys and porn. That would be awesome to watch (the legal shift, not necessarily the porn).
BTW, this came up because Say Uncle and I are disagreeing on the extent to which you can tax a right (like the right to bear arms). It's an interesting thread.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
Apparently, those of us in New York wondering when the Empire State will take a stand on the goings-on in Frisco, Chicago, Albuquerque, and Massachusetts are going to be waiting a while.
Polis | 1 Writebacks | #
Via the ever-excellent Drug War Rant we learn of an assistant principle who planted drugs in a student's locker before a drug sweep in the hopes that police dogs would catch the kid. The excuse for framing a child for this crime was that he was suspected of dealing drugs, and they wanted to make sure he was caught.
Drug War Rant's reaction mirrors my own:
What are we doing to kids today? I remember High School. It included having some very traumatic growing pains and socializing issues that felt like the end of the world. And yet, I didn't have to pee in a cup, or have lock downs while dogs sniffed my book bag, or have an Assistant Principal frame me for drugs. I seem to remember having an asshole Assistant Principal (I think that was in the job description), but I never worried about this.
This is pretty sick stuff. Do we blame this on the drug war, or is this just one bad apple?
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
No matter which side of the gun issue you're on (we're pretty divided around here), you should read Say Uncle's informative and honest op-ed on assault weapons. It addresses the definition of assault weapons, their deadliness, and how the press and anti-gun groups mislead people about what is and what is not an assault weapon under the law.
The op-ed left me with a few questions: what's the difference between a semi-automatic rifle and a non-automatic rifle? What are the differences between a rifle, a gun and a pistol?
More importantly, it's clear that gun-toting libertarians like Say Uncle think we have too much gun regulation, but what's the right amount? Say Uncle wants to ditch assault weapons bans. Does he also want to ditch the National Firearms Act? State bans? How little regulation of firearms will it take to satisfy him?
As somebody who has been mugged at gunpoint, I don't want to turn my city into an OK Corral, where everybody is armed because nobody is safe. There has to be some limits on what even gun-lovers think laws should allow. So what are those limts?
Polis | 12 Writebacks | #
The Department of Homeland Security is interested in lefty couture. The website for Outspoken Clothing, purveyors of "radical apparel" that feature slogans like "Anybody but Bush" and "Another Patriot Against the Patriot Act", has recently gotten a bunch of hits from Homeland Security surfers doing web searches for "progressive clothing".
Innocent interest or invidious investigation? Nobody but the DHS knows. Maybe it's time for a FOIA request.
Polis | 2 Writebacks | #
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said he would have "no problem" if Chicago followed San Francisco's lead and just started issuing marriage licenses without discriminating on the basis of gender. Good for him. The County Clerk said he'd be willing to look into it if the city, county and advocacy groups could form an agreement.
Maybe New York will be next...
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
Drug prohibition has created a black market for drugs all over the world, and terrorist organizations are uniquely well suited to operate in that market. It's happened in Colombia, and it's happened in Afghanistan-- criminals and terrorists use black market profits to fund further violence and crime.
In the latest news story to cover this topic without making the logical connection, the Christian Science Monitor quotes Rep. Mark Kirk as saying the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and at least one other terrorist group that "finance terror with profits from the sale of heroin". The response, according to the article, is to get tougher on narcotics production by gathering intelligence on traffickers and using the military to bomb their labs and disrupt their organization. In other words, to make the black market blacker.
But because it is black market conditions that generate windfall profits for thugs (and always has, no matter our attempts to break the market), we should be exploring ways to change those conditions and lighten the market. That would deprive terrorists of their profits, which would drive them from the market and weaken them. And the money not spent bombing drug labs in Afghanistan can instead be spent on finding Osama Bin Laden. Sounds like a win win win to me.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If the problem is that people are buying drugs from bad guys, the solution is to allow them to get their drugs from good guys. And that means legalization.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
I'm not much for originalist Constitutional interpretations, but Southern Appeal has an interesting series of posts (the first one is here) pondering the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment. The issue they are discussing is whether the Amendment, which says "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.", can, as a matter of original interpretation, support the protection of rights not specifically protected in the Bill of Rights. I say it can (surprise, surprise).
This really shouldn't be a tough question. On its face, the sentence means "The list of rights in the Constitution is neither exhaustive nor privileged". Textually, is implies there are other, unlisted rights that are coequal with the listed rights and thus deserving of the same protection.
Moreover, if you go back to what the Framers did and said at the time, you can see the way the debate led to the Amendment. Alexander Hamilton was of the view that a BoR was not needed, that if we started from the principle that the federal government couldn't do anything it wasn't explicitly allowed to do, then there was no need to prohibit it from doing things in a BoR. He wrote in Federalist Paper 84:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
James Madison wrote the Ninth Amendment specifically to address this concern, and when he presented the BoR to the House of Representatives, he said:
It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the [Ninth Amendment].
Madison here says quite clearly that he wants to make sure that listing certain rights does not render unlisted rights insecure by leaving them to the federal government. In other words, the Ninth Amendment is all about making sure Congress shall make no law violating these unnamed rights.
It's a whole other problem to figure out what those unlisted rights might be. It might be the case that figuring them out is so difficult that we can't base any rights on the Ninth Amendment (that's Robert Bork's position), but it is certainly true that as a matter of original meaning, the Ninth Amendment meant to protect certain rights.
Polis | 1 Writebacks | #
Gallup tells us either Edwards or Kerry could beat Bush if the election were held today. I already explained why it's bad to use electability is your main criterion for choosing a candidate, and now that they're both electable, we should really move on to finding positive, substantive reasons to back a candidate with a message and a reason for his run. As I've said before, that sounds more like Edwards than Kerry to me.
Poll via TalkLeft.
BTW, DKos agrees.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
Lean Left passes on a list of 12 tongue-in-cheek reasons equal marriage rights will ruin society. That sort of bumper sticker level of discourse is amusing and makes a few good points even if it's not terribly convincing, especially where it argues that courts should be the engine of social change, even if legislatures object.
The choice between courts and legislatures moving society forward is the sort of false choice that comes from consequentialist reasoning. Some people want immediate change without waiting for a majority of society to mature enough to recognize equal marriage rights. So they say the Courts should push us forward. Others (the majority, of course) dress their soapbox in a different shade of red white and blue. They say democracy should rule, and until the voters choose it, marriage should remain a strictly hetero institution.
In reality, though, what people are really arguing about is whether to stop marriage discrimination or not. Imagine a world where the positions were reversed: suppose a majority of the voters wanted to follow San Francisco's example. Marriage opponents wouldn't just give up because the people had spoken. They'd turn to the courts. And likewise equal rights advocates would turn to legislatures.
Each side uses the tool that works best to reach its goal. Each side argues that its tool is more legitimate, but this is just convenient rhetoric. Each side would easily argue for the supremacy of the other's tool if it helped achieve its goals.
The rhetoric about democracy vs. the courts adds nothing to the debate. When advocates say "The legislature should decide," all I hear is "I'm against changing marriage."
Polis | 1 Writebacks | #
One of our Brutal Huggers has made a present for his girlfriend. It's the old Mastermind game I used to play with my cousin John. With hearts. Aw....
Frisco has decided to reclaim its status as the most gay-friendly town in America. The NYTimes reports that San Francisco has started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, which is a great step toward equal access to marriage. Surprisingly, San Francisco is not the first place in America to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That distinction belongs to Boulder, Colorado.
The long version of the story is worth reading, but the short version is real easy: in 1975 a renegade County Clerk began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Things were chaotic for about a month, with uncertainty about the legal status of the married couples swirling in a storm of controversy and hatred. At the end of April, the Colorado Attorney General and the Boulder District Attorney basically declared the licenses void, and that was the end of that.
What's amazing about that story is that there was no suit (that I could find) by any of the married couples demanding their rights. If there was a suit, it certainly didn't go anywhere. You can bet that some of the couples who marry in San Francisco will demand in court that the state recognize their marriages.
Single Momz has a good, brief timeline of the legal struggle for equal access to marriage. It's not quite up to date (no mention of Goodridge), but it hits some historical highlights that most people have forgotten (Adams v. Howerton, for example).
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
Many people fighting what Scalia has called the "homosexual agenda" believe homosexuality is somehow a matter of choice, something deviant, sinning people have come up with as a way to offend God, their parents, and right-thinking missionary fucking middle Americans. In the latest victory for the gay agenda, homosexuals have convinced penguins to get in on that hot same-sex action. And bottlenose dolphins. And rhesus macaques. And bonobo monkeys. And Western Gulls. And 450 other species of animals.
And you thought queer Eye for the Straight Guy was a big step forward.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
The NYTimes, the Washington Post, and every pundit with a platform keep telling us that Kerry is winning because people think he can beat Bush. Donna Brazile has mentioned more than once her belief that what donkeys in the road want more than anything is anybody but Bush. Kerry's supporters mention the need to beat Bush as their most frequent reason for voting for him.
The delicious irony of Dems making beating Bush the greatest citerion in selecting a candidate is that this is the strategy that is least likely to result in a Democratic Whitehouse.
Beating Bush is very important to the type of person who cares enough to vote in Democratic primaries. And those people will vote for Bush's opponent, even if that opponent was Strom Thurmond risen from the grave with segregation fervor.
But to the swing voters who could go either way, beating Bush is by definition not their priority. That Kerry is electable means little to them. That his campaign has not manged to communicate a message beyond electability might mean very much to them.
Whoever the Democrats nominate will get whatever anti-Bush vote exists. The swing votes that make the difference between winning and losing will turn not on electability but vision, goals and messages.
On that basis, in choosing between Kerry, Edwards, Dean and Clark, it is Edwards that shows greatest promise of electability.
Polis | 1 Writebacks | #