Brutal Hugs

Opening the Prison Doors

Israeli is freeing Palestinian prisoners as a gesture of good will toward Egypt and Abbas. Israeli hopes this makes them look like good guys, but to me it makes them look like a bunch of tin-pot despots.

Either these Palestinians prisoners are a threat or they're not. Either they deserve to be jailed or they don't. If these people belong in jail, Israel shouldn't release them because they want some good press. If they don't belong in prison, then Israel should have released them a long time ago. Releasing prisoner en masse as "a good will gesture" for public relations just underscores how unjust their imprisonment was in the first place.

Imprisoning people for little or no good reason, holding them indefinitely, and then releasing them for political points is the kind of thing Saddam Hussein did. Unforuntately, it's also the kind of thing we've done in Iraq. It's good to see these people freed, but perhaps we could have acted more judiciously and never imprisoned them in the first place.

NYTimes Round Up

Briefly noted in the NYTimes:

Saddam Hussein has been denied access to legal counsel since his arrest. It takes a year to get him a lawyer? That's ridiculous. It's obvious that the man isn't going to get anything more than a show trial. Of course, there isn't really any doubt that he's guilty of all kinds of horrific crimes against Iraq and humanity, so affording him a vigorous defense would produce a trial of little more substance.

The Times speaks warmly of guns. Notably, the guns in question are carried by police and are being phased out.

New York is debating the death penalty again. There was a time when the death penalty obstacle was Governor Cuomo. Every year, the Senate and the Assembly would pass death legislation, and Cuomo would veto the bill. Pataki, winning office in part on this issue, changed all that immediately upon taking office. It's nice to see the members of the Assembly force Sheldon Silver to allow debate on the issue.

And, finally, Pedro Martinez pretends it's not all about the money. Apparently his going to the highest bidding team is a coincidence.

Phone Home

Pandagon puts out the call to support injured troops with phone cards. At this time of year, being able to call your family, especially when you're injured, is a big deal. Pony up.

Polis | 7 Writebacks | #

Icky

You know what's icky? It's icky that people have such rare contact with gays that running into a gay couple is blog fodder. I'm all for people loudly proclaiming that gays aren't icky, but in this case the proclamation itself underscores that, even among open-minded lefties, there is a huge cultural divide between straight folks and not-so-straight folks.

Via Say Uncle.

Polis | 8 Writebacks | #

Safecracking

There was a time when every kid harbored romantic dreams of safecracking. It was all those old film noire scenes involving stethoscopes and black leather gloves that did it. But safe cracking is a declining art, and knowledge is disappearing fast. If you've ever tried to pick a lock or resorted to cutting your way past a padlock, read this history of safecracking before it's gone.

DMT For You And Me

The heroes of the Supreme Court, bless their cold black hearts, have declined to review a decision upholding a church's right to indulge in hallucinogenic tea as part of a meditative ritual. The tea is made from ayahuasca and contains DMT. DMT can be some good stuff. You will see the face of god, and you will be mildly surprised to discover that she wears a vageuly snotty and bemused expression.

Via TalkLeft.

Giving Voice

The Village Voice is usually a complete waste of time, but I popped in today and discovered a few things worth reading.

First, is there Rockefeller Drug Law round up. It's just a page of links to their coverage from the last few years, but the articles do a good job of outlining the problem with ridiculously harsh sentences. They also make clear that we've only just begun to reform those sentencing laws. One article does a particularly good job of illustrating how our current sentencing laws make no sense.

The Voice also covers an article by Frances Kissling in Conscience that examines abortion from a Catholic, feminist perspective. Kissling argues that pro-choicers need to grapple with the ethics of ending potential life. She believes you can do so and still support choice. I agree and am heartened by the Voice acknowledging some complexity in the abortion debate.

Finally, the Voice does a hit piece on Al Sharpton. Seems the Rev's been doing the unholy with a woman who is not his wife. Hypocrisy, blah, blah, whatever. Does anybody really believe Sharpton has any morals? The article is worth reading for prurient interest alone.

Polis | 7 Writebacks | #

Traffic Judo

There's something incredibly elegant about improving traffic flow and safety by removing road signs and pushing the cyclists and pedestrians right up against the cars.

If Only It Weren't So Cold

Canada is doing everything it can to make one simple point over and over: they're not like their backwards neighbors to the south. I wonder how many times Canada can show us up before we start taking human rights seriously.

Gay Surrender

In the wake of federal victory and state defeat, groups fighting for gay rights are asking whether they should demand less in hopes of provoking less attack. Even the Human Rights Campaign, so instrumental in winning the battle against the federal hate amendment, is in turmoil because it didn't defeat the state referenda attacking gays. It seems the victims of American oppression blame themselves for their plight.

The fight for equality is not a battle. It's a war. It has been and will be decades and generations of legal and social struggle. There will be setbacks. If each measure of defeat is met with surrender, the war is already lost.

Surrender is based on the faulty notion that bigots and zealots hate gays because they demand equal rights. The hatred and attacks will come, regardless of how hard gays push for equality. Conservatives see which way history is moving, and they know they need to nail down as much anti-gay law as possible while they still can. The attacks will continue, and battles will be lost. But the war is all but won if only people will fight it.

Making a List

$10 anonymous Santa suit - check!
Pine Sol bottle - check!
Big gift for a little girl - check!
Formal invitation - check!

Out FOXed Again

Um, dude? One word: Simpsons.

Of Weasels and Monkeys

Lean Left weighs in on European support of democracy around the world. It's long, but it puts some essential facts on the table. If it weren't Friday, I'd call it required reading.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Unfogged links to Eugene Volokh's NYTimes piece on the journalist-source privilege and notes that the perfection of anonymous communication will obsolete such protections. I don't see reporters in a post-Rather world taking unvetted, unauthenticated, anonymous tips, but it's not a bad article.

I'm all for laws and policies that carve out some journalist-source immunity, but in my view there is nothing so fundamentally sacred about telling secrets for publication that we need to protect that ability as a matter of right.

Family values: all about breaking up families

Methodist Bigots have put one of their own ministers, Irene Stroud, on trial for allegedly living with her lesbian partner. If convicted, Rev. Stroud will lose her preachy powers and, presumably, her job prospects will be quite dim.

This case is a big deal-- the trial involves six expert witnesses and Skinimax is interested in the rights to a movie tentatively titled "Defrocked Lesbians". Stroud is unlikely to win, and the only good news is that the prosecution's repeated motions for preemptive stoning have been denied.

I wonder if this case raises any EEOC concerns. It probably shouldn't (1st Amendment and all that), but I wonder if there's any caselaw on it.

Johnny America

Johnny America, leader of the Greene Dragon, has a weekly bloggy thing going on at his website. There he rails against the illness known as consumption. He's nice, he's cute, he's a patriot. Go read.

Down On Alabama

Americablog is down on the bigots in Alabama and down on the bigots in Alabama. There's good reasons to shower piss on Alabamian haters:

they're for marriage discrimination

they want to ban books that portray gays without condemning them

they couldn't be bothered to repeal anti-miscegenation laws until 2000 (and even then 40% of the people voted against repealing)

they love Jim Crow

I feel bad for the people who live in Alabama. Of course, I'm just glad they live there and not here.

Federalism Up In Smoke

Drug War Rant has the round up on Raich v. Ashcroft, the commerce clause / medical marijuana case. My prediction remains the same: Morrison and Lopez are outliers and not signals of major shifts in commerce clause jurisprudence. I would like to see the government lose on this, but I think it's unlikely. Let's hope I'm wrong.

American Terrorists in Iraq

More news comes out about American troops acting like terrorists in Iraq. We all know by now that if we couldn't find somebody we were looking for, our troops routinely kidnapped "female family members to force wanted Iraqi males to turn themselves in," American troops taking hostages is outrageous, but it's not news.

What's news is that higher-ups knew this all along and did nothing about it for months.

Via TalkLeft.

Amnesty International Says Ban Tasers

Amnesty International thinks tasers are a bad idea. They want police to stop using tasers until we have some proof that they're non-lethal.

As most people know, tasers are sometimes problematic. They get used in situations where lethal force is unwarranted, indeed in cases where no force is warranted, and yet they hurt like hell and sometimes kill.

All this doesn't add up to a need for a taser ban in my book, but police definitely need to consider their taser policies very carefully. For example, no tasing little kids, old ladies, or innocent men in their own homes. If that leaves you with nobody left to tase, just let me know and I'll provide you with a list of people who might benefit from shock therapy.

Links via TalkLeft , which has lots of links to stopries about taser problems, and Say Uncle, who covers tasers here and then.

Ibogaine

TalkLeft writes up Ibogaine a psychedelic drug said to cure addiction to heroin and other drugs. Of course, our government, focused more on the psychedelic rather than therapeutic properties, has placed this drug beyond the reach of care-givers, researchers and suffering addicts.

TalkLeft says "the experience is anything but fun, in fact it sounds awful." In other words, this isn't a recreational drug. It will make you trip, but not in a good way. Ibogaine isn't likely to be used recreatinally because drug users are usually looking for a good time, and Ibogaine isn't a good time.

Ibogaine is a drug with potential use in the treatment of addiction (it's had some documented success). It's a poor candidate to become a party drug or a recreational drug. What's the rationale for scheduling it (a move that makes research difficult and more expensive)?

If you're interested in Ibogaine, read Erowid's page on it, Daniel Pinchbeck's Salon article, and his book, Breaking Open the Head.

Polis | 1 Writebacks | #

Victory Against Bigotry

It is a matter of conventional wisdom among ACLU-watchers that the best place to file a first amendment claim is the third circuit. Philly judges are just more likely to be sympathetic to first amendment arguments than judges in other circuits. And not surprisingly, they came through again today.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, found that educational institutions have a First Amendment right to keep military recruiters off their campuses to protest the Defense Department policy of excluding gays from military service.

The best part about this is the court's willingness to use the Boy Scout's exclusion of gays to their advantage:

"Just as the Boy Scouts believed that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the Scout Oath," Judge Ambro wrote, "the law schools believe that employment discrimination is inconsistent with their commitment to fairness and justice."

It's a victory all around, and I applaud it. Some people fear the military will suffer with inferior lawyers if it is disadvantaged in the recruiting process. This is a valid concern, but one easily remedied-- stop discriminating in the hiring of attorneys.

Flower Power

A few months ago, a friend of mine stuck an anti-GMO flyer on my fridge. She assumed I was all down with the fight against Frankenfood and tinkering with nature's perfect bounty. It seems all my lefty friends are against the genetic modification.

I left the flyer up, just to be nice, but I let her know that I don't have big problems with GMO food, plants, animals, or even people. She narrated for me the parade of horribles we will soon see lest we stop messing with mother nature. And she was right-- it did sound pretty terrible.

But then I always think about the upside, the benefits of this technology, and I just can't pass on things like landmine detecting flowers. I mean, it's a flower! And it finds landmines! How cool is that?

So, yeah, frankenfood is going to make us all sterile, allergic zombies or something, but at least we won't be stepping on landmines.

Via Boing Boing.

Buy Nothing Day

The Greene Dragon joined Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping to celebrated Buy Nothing Day by invading Times Square and getting arrested. The last picture on that page, of the Rev being loaded into a paddy wagon is classic.

Unfortunately, I misread the email and went to the wrong location (just a couple blocks away, but so far!) and missed the festivities. Perhaps next time I can get all patriotic windbaggy with some of the best street theater people around.

Although the Times didn't cover the Rev's latest action, the magazine did a great, flattering bit on him this past summer. Congrats to patriots everywhere!

Sloganeering

Sometimes the best part of protests is coming up with slogans and making posters. You just sit around, drink, smoke and shout out whatever comes to mind. You make a bunch of posters, make your statement, and somehow lose track of all the signs. Then, months later, you're browsing the internet and see your work, carried by somebody you don't know. It warms my cold black heart, yes it does.

Legalizing Weed: For The Children

Drug War Rant, while debunking the White House's latest book of marijuana lies, reminds us that the easiest and fastest way to reduce the number of kids smoking weed is to legalize it. Go read.

Polis | 12 Writebacks | #

No More Teachers, No More Books

Tennessee school bans pens and pencils. Apparently they're weapons and a violation of the zero-tolerance policy. I suspect the move is part of a long-range plan to convert our schools into padded-cell nurseries.

Via Say Uncle.

Polis | 6 Writebacks | #

Raising the Roof

What is with Republicans and rules? Every time the rules are inconvenient, they change them. Want to raise the budget, but hampered by the debt ceiling? No problem, just raise the ceiling. My favorite part is that they admit they're going to raise it again next year. They should just abolish the damn thing and get it over with.

House Majority Leader embroiled in a financial scandal? No problem, just change the rules so he can continue to govern after indictment.

These people have no shame.

Baby Steps

Bloomberg has followed Elliot Spitzer's advice and directed the city to recognize all marriages from other states, even if they couldn't be performed in New York. The upshot of this is that people married in other states won't suddenly find themselves unmarried upon coming to New York just because they're gay.

We're winning the culture war.

What If We Lost Roe?

Matthey Yglesias gets the scare on by saying there's no middle ground once you overturn Roe v. Wade. He says if we ditch Roe, we lose all kinds of other rights or else we ditch abortion by judicial fiat all across the land:

The logic of the anti-Roe view is either that there's no right to privacy, or else that for some reason the right to privacy does not extend to this particular matter. If you take the former approach than the universal applicability of a bunch of other rights will stand or fall with Roe. If you take the latter approach then the rest of the legal doctrine can stand, but the issue arises of why the right to privacy wouldn't extend to this matter. The answer would pretty much have to be that abortions aren't private conduct because the fetus has the rights of a person. This is the logic of virtually all the pro-life rhetoric one hears, and in the legal context it's the logic of the analogies drawn between Roe and the pre-Civil War slavery cases. This suggests that the upshot of an anti-Roe ruling wouldn't be for abortion to be decided by the congress and the state legislatures, but for a universal abortion ban to be put in place by judicial fiat.

Fortunately, the abortion debate in the courts isn't framed this way. Yglesias casts the problem as two competing rights: that of the mother and that of the fetus. The courts, though, see it as the rights of the mother vs. the rights (or powers) of the state.

The state has the power to regulate and protect certain interests. In this case, that interest is preserving the potential life of a viable fetus. The protestors and certain moralistic legislators talk about protecting fetal life and a fetus's right to life, but the Supreme Court has never employed that language.

Even the dissents in both Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey avoid characterizing the fetus in a way that would require the state to protect it. Rhenquist, writing for himself, Scalia and Thomas, goes out of his way to say that while he would recognize the state's right to regulate abortion, "It bears emphasis that our conclusion in this regard does not carry with it any necessary approval of these regulations." Likewise, Scalia writes "The States may, if they wish, permit abortion..."

Roe doesn't turn on the metaphysical question of when life begins. It turns on what protections women have from intrusions of state power. If the Court decides women have no protection in this area, it doesn't need Yglesias's justification that "abortions aren't private conduct because the fetus has the rights of a person." Instead, the Court can easily turn to the state interest in the potential lives of fetuses, which would allow (but not require) protection of those potential lives. And potential life being a pretty unique issue, this can be done without jeopardizing other privacy rights.

We know the Court can do this because this is exactly what the Court does under Roe itself. When they want to draw the line at fetal viability, the Court doesn't cast fetuses as children. Instead, it talks of them as potential lives and says the state can regulate them. There is no suggestion in any Supreme Court writing that government is required to ban abortions of viable fetuses.

When people tell you the Court might go so far as to ban abortion, they are proposing something that no member of the Court has ever come close to saying. They are proposing a scenario more conservative than even the most conservative Justice. They are predicting a ruling that directly contradicts the most conservative Justices' writings on this subject. In other words, it's not going to happen.

Boy Scouts

When the Boy Scouts won the right to discriminate against gays, I was bitterly disappointed. For all that they are a private organization, the Scouts are more integrated into public institutions than almost any other civic organization. At the time, I said that if they are so private as to be free to discriminate, they should give up all their public benefits. The Scouts refused to do so, of course, but I had hope that local and state governments wqould stop offering them.

Shortly thereafter, I heard tell of people pulling their kids from the Boy Scouts. And that made me happy. Some schools even closed their doors to troops. And that made me happy to. But most places were happy to keep letting their schools, libraries and parks serve the purposes of bigots. Now, through the intervention of the courts, even that tide is starting to turn.

You want to be a bigotted asshole in the privacy of your own home, go for it. You want to gather with your fellow close-minded morons, be my guest. If you want to have a private club and refuse entry to the people you hate, feel free. But don't turn my government to your evil purposes. Don't use my tax money for your bigotry. Finally, some courts are starting to agree.

Frank Rich is right. We're winning the culture war.

Polis | 6 Writebacks | #

Flat Taxes Aren't Inherently Simple

Marginal Revolution mentions that a flat tax isn't necessarily simpler than our current income tax setup. Sure, one tax bracket is easier than several, but the complexity comes from all the exceptions in determining what counts as taxable income.

Once upon a time, our tax system was very simple. A 1040 took ten minutes to fill out. All the little rules, loopholes, and deviations accreted over time. Year by year, the rules go more and more byzantine. If you want to sweep aside all those crusty rules, you can do it regardless of whether we then also move to a flat tax or not.

But the rules all exist for a reason. Every rule we put in place had a rationale. We wanted to incentivize certain behavior, so we made a tax rule to make that behavior cheaper. Or we wanted to favor certain groups, so we make their lives easier with tax credits aimed at them. Giving up all these rules would rejigger society. And there's no reason to think Congress won't immediately start enacting new loopholes and complicated rules on top of the flat tax. It's what they do.

Arguments for the flat tax are arguments for less progressive taxation. They are not arguments for simpler taxation. We could keep our brackets and still file on a postcard because all those crufty rules could be gone any time we want.

Strange Bedfellows

Americablog's latest bit of Ohio blogging urges people to donate to Greens and Libertarians in Ohio to fund the recount efforts. I'm not really sure why that's ok when they crucified Nader and the Swiftboat Liars for taking Republican money.

I don't really have a problem with Nader taking red money or the Greens and Libs taking blue money. When two groups with few common goals suddenly find themselves in a position to work together, they should do so. We're all trying to achieve our goals and sometimes your goals match mine even if I usually hate you.

When you let your opponents dictate your allies, you let them divide you and crush you. Branding Nader as a crypto-Republican is as ridiculous as slurring civil rights groups as communist stalking horses.

Tactical Retreat

A good friend of mine is a leftwing street-level rabble rouser who came out hard for Kerry. He put in hours and days of tough and creative work. He was bitterly disappointed on November 2.

He's also a huge gun nut. You get him drunk enough and he starts muttering about making untraceable gun barrels in his shop upstate. He believes that if our divided nation is going to fight itself, we lefties need better weapons than peace signs and slogans. He has a collection of scary scary guns and a shooting range on his farm.

He also believes, as do I, that the Democrats should give up on the gun issue. Guns are a low-intensity issue for me and most of my leftie friends. Sure most of us support sensible gun restrictions, but none of us get upset about it one way or the other. It's certainly not a voting issue for anybody I know on this side of the divide.

For the gun nuts, though, it's a huge issue. Gun nuts aren't quite single-issue voters, but they come pretty close. From a purely strategic point of view, moving to the right on guns loses you few votes and removes the automatic disqualification from all the second amendment freaks.

And since this post comes a day after Vet's day, I just want to note that an awfully nice gun nut was just called up and sent to Iraq. Dan's a cop and a crazy batshit loonie hard ass, but he also has some pretty high standards for morals and treating the world well. He's exactly the kind of guy you want in Iraq, and he's exactly the kind of guy you're sorry to see go. He served proudly in the first Gulf War, and I know he'll serve honorably this time too. Thanks, Dan and come home safe.

Reynolds Wrap Hats

The NYTimes says bloggy rumors of stolen elections have been debunked, and they're right. This makes me happy, even though it means I was somewhat wrong. As much as I wanted to see Bush pitched, I don't really want another crisis of faith in our election system and democracy. I still think the numbers are out of whack, though, and we need to count the paper ballots in Florida.

Polis | 6 Writebacks | #

Do Not Call

Cell phone numbers are going public, so you will be able to get people's numbers from directory assistance. Some like this, others don't, but either way, nobody wants telemarketing calls on their cell. Get on the federal do not call registry and remember to turn your phone off before the show starts.

Pretty Maps

If you change the electoral map to reflect each county's population, you get some very nice rorschach looking blots in a variety of pretty purples. Who knew political wonkery could be so artistic?