Another Doctor In Jail

Pain specialist Dr. William Hurwitz was arrested Wednesday morning and sits in jail pending a Monday bail hearing. He was arrested after being indicted on federal charges related to his prescribing of opioid pain relievers in the course of his medical practice. Dr Hurwitz, a Jew, was presumably arrested on this particular Wednesday in order to keep him in jail over the Rosh Hashana holiday. Prosecutor Paul J. McNulty may have a different reason for choosing this particular day to arrest Dr. Hurwitz after an investigation covering several years but, if so, he isn't saying. The investigation of Dr. Hurwitz was begun prior to October of 1996, when the zealous prosecutors first showed their hand. The good doctor shut his office for the last time last year.

This is just the latest move in a campaign by the U.S. government against doctors who prescribe large doses of opiate pain relievers to patients in intractable pain. While the doses prescribed are in most cases well within the standards of medical practice, prosecutors use drug war rhetoric and horror stories to sway juries. This is enough to garner a fair few guilty pleas, as some doctors choose retirement rather than subjecting themselves to the possible jeopardy of stiff prison terms, but the prosecutions' success rate at trial is dismally low. Yet, the prosecutions go on.

As the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons press release has it:

As promised, the Bush Administration seized Dr. Hurwitz's assets under drug forfeiture laws, reserved for kingpins such as the Columbia cartel -- all without any finding of guilt. Then, in front of his two young children, about twenty armed agents seized the good doctor himself and imprisoned him without bail on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

This is a national disgrace -- doctors throughout the country are being targeted by egregious law enforcement for helping patients manage crippling pain with controlled, legal drugs.

"Physicians are being threatened, impoverished, delicensed, and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain," says Kathryn Serkes of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), explaining why AAPS has decided to support Dr. Hurwitz, as well as other doctors such as Cecil Knox, currently on trial in Roanoke, VA.

The "war on drugs" has turned into a war on doctors -- and lawful drugs and the patients who take them. Prosecutors make careers out of high-publicity cases involving the hot "drug du jour" such as OxyContin. But this war is causing enormous collateral damage and deaths from "friendly fire." Physicians have been drummed out of practice, sent to jail, and even been driven to suicide in the face of these 21st century witch hunts.

The public wants prosecution of terrorists, not doctors who relieve pain. Instead, the Department of Justice is using its inflated powers to encroach on state jurisdiction and terrorize unarmed, honest professionals. If this continues, not one doctor will be willing to prescribe the drugs that patients so desperately need.

I wonder, just who is the constituency for these prosecutions? Do the Bushes and the Clintons of the world really believe that this type of activity will garner them additional votes at election time? That is one question that will not receive much media coverage when G.W.Bush fails to achieve re-election. But mine is one vote that Mr. Bush lost last Wednesday. I don't care who takes his place, I just can't vote for a man who allows his subordinates to arrest a heroic man like Dr. Hurwitz, who continued to practice in the face of an impending prosecution. He finally retired when he did in order to allow his remaining patients to find alternative practitioners who would give them what they needed. It is a chilling fact that some of these pain patients, when they find themselves unable to secure sufficient pain medication, choose suicide rather than endure the pain that they are in. Yet the prosecutions go on.

Another One Gone

Another fine writer has fled the scene. Toren Smith has ended blogging at The Safety Valve. As he puts it:

Frankly, I'm tired of getting all bent out of shape about the stupidities of the world, which seem to be getting worse and worse as time goes by. The last few months it seems every day brings worse news about the corruption of science, the destruction of society by PC-think, the complete and utter end of rational political discourse, and the hydra-like expansion of government powers. International politics has gone insane. California is heading into the socialist shit pit, and most of the US seems poised to follow sooner or later.

I can really relate to his sentiment. My own posting has become pretty sparse lately, as the society sinks further and further into a very coarse dialog, and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to shout against the wind anymore. Just tonight a very good friend of mine called, and unloaded a pile of his New York liberal venom on me. This is an intelligent fellow, yet the poison he believes boggles the mind at times. What is the point of telling the truth if the lowest common denominator of demagogic drivel carries the day? Our politics has gone straight to hell. And our jurisprudence? Also tonight, on Cops, a sheriffs department sting arrested 15 black men on the charge of "attempted possesion" of nickel bags of ersatz marijuana. It is not just that all of the "perps" were black and almost all of the cops were white, it was the futility of using the time and talents of a dozen police officers in the pursuit of what is arguably the most trivial "crime" ever conceived by the twisted mind of mankind. Then John Ashcroft and Bill O'Reilly will take to the airwaves and deny that this type of police action exists at all, that the "War on (some) Drugs" is involved solely in the pursuit of drug "kingpins" and, here's the latest, drug dealers must be stopped because the drug trade supports terrorism.

Bah Humbug! I understand why Toren has not the stomach anymore to shout against the wind. I wish that I could summon the balls to quit myself. Until I do, I will soldier on, pointing out the ridiculous aspects of our public reality and discourse.

Intellectual Property

Today's debate over file sharing over the internet, p2p (peer to peer), and the "Napster" phenomenon has evoked much strident debate. Law professors can be found claiming that song recordings have the same value as Disneyland, so the owner has the same right to demand admission payment whether his attraction is an edifice that requires maintenance, employees, and the payment of property taxes or is a recording that may have been the result of ten minutes of labor two hundred years ago. Law Professors. Musicians have sued their fans. The recording industry trade association has actually sued almost a thousand college students who have shared their property over the internet.

This debate has gone way too far. Congress, always ready to support the buttered side of their bread, has extended the time limits on copyright many times, such that works that the Disney Corporation took for free from the public domain before I was born are now protected until well after I will have died. And, since Disney and the recording industry have much more money to spend (and clout) than we consumers do, this bowlderization of the constitutional provisions relating to copyright can be expected to continue. And continue it has. Today, a 12 year old girl settled with the RIAA for $1,200.00 for the "crime" of trading songs online. College students have settled for between 12,000.00 and $17,500.00. Their "crime"? making songs that they legally own available to others, who make songs that they own available to them.

Now, we can't kill everyone who wants to continue a comfortable sinecure. But we can question whether they have the right to such continuance. I can certainly lend, or even rent or sell, any CD that I own. But somehow, if I transmit this music over the internet, rather than sneakernet, I become a criminal. This may be the best example or the poisonous effect of money in politics. Ane, surprise surprise, no proposal of "campaign finance reform" even begins to address the effect of lobbyist cash on the promulgation of legislation. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is an anticonstitutional travesty, and it is the basis of all this trouble I point out here.

What would be wrong if the system was changed to a form that agrees with our constitution, which demands that copyrights have a reasonable temporal limit? Who says that artists have the right to profit from their work, and then their children have the same right, and their grandchildren retain the same right to profit into the next century? Why, the U.S. Congress, that's who! And the president signed this bill, making it law, and the Supreme Court has confirmed is as well.

Nobody says that an artist has no right to profit from his work. What I and others propose is that more reasonable limits be placed upon this, and our (consumers) right to fair use of recordings we have bought be expanded just a little bit from what they have been whittled down to. Record companies have built up a stranglehold on an enormous profit center, but it is the essence of capitalism and entreneurship that capital will flow in different ways as society progresses, and no sinecure is forever. The record companies are terrified that new technologies will make their profit center less profitable. Rather than using technology to succeed, they will use the Congress and the courts to extend their success, as long as they can. Meanwhile, many artists are using technology that the record companies have used to maintain their stranglehold over the emergence of new acts to promote themselves, with some small success. I for one will do what I can to encourage them in this endeavor. I personally believe that anyone who buys the art of an artist who has sued it's fans (think Metallica) is a fool.

The Ten Commandments

So now the government has removed a monument to the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Supreme Court of Alabama. All secular humanists and atheistic intellectuals cheered. The court is now free of the poison of the rules that the Judeo-Christian world has held dear for millenia. As Lowell Ponte put it in his searing take on it:

Leftists cheered wildly as the moral strictures of the 10 Commandments were removed from the Alabama Supreme Court. It is easy to see why. If people decided to believe in those rules – especially the Commandments that prohibit stealing and the coveting of your neighbors’ property – the Democratic Party, with its endless use of envy and class warfare and discriminatory demands to “tax the rich,” would vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The Left is a diseased ideology of darkness that cannot survive in the pure light of moral clarity.

The ACLU has won out over common sense. Other than those commandments that are specifically pertaining to the religion (have no idols, keep the sabbath) which are, after all, not commands that must be followed by non believers, one would think that these rules of living are a sort of universal truth, that must be followed by everyone. But leftist ideology must obliterate all ten of these rules, because 5, 8, 9, and 10 pertain to activities that leftist ideology insists are necessary to continue their power over the rest of us. Class envy and redistribution of wealth are the cornerstones of leftist ideologies. Coveting and taking the posessions of the rich are so important to the left that the ten commandments themselves must be stricken from the house of our laws.

I have no time to make the case here, but Ponte surely does. Lowell Ponte is a writer who I have just discovered, and can't recommend him highly enough. This man has an encyclopedic knowledge of history, and the more you read him, or listen to his radio show, the more impressive he is.

Highly recommended

The Prime Minister Speaks

Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad is a fellow who is often quoted as a Muslim who believes that suicide bombing of innocents is not an Islamic activity. But recently, in an interview printed in the Straits Times reveals his understanding of the role of the Jews in the modern world.

Q: Do you still believe in this conspiracy of Jews in the Asian financial crisis?

A: I will have to give a very comprehensive answer to that. There are not that many Jews, only about 30 million. But they want to control the world, it has nothing to do with their religion, it's their personal Zionist ambition to rule the world.

The answer lies in capturing the most powerful country in the world — the United States.

How was it done? They invented and propagated the idea of democracy. If you are democratic, they have a right to all the rights of a democracy. They can stand for election, they can campaign, you cannot have any more massacres as they used to have in Europe.

Secondly, they promote the idea of human rights, that they must be given the same rights as anybody else. So again, there cannot be any discrimination against Jews.

Now, having spread these ideas among all the people, the majority feel that it is wrong to discriminate against the Jews.

At one time, Harvard University will not accept Jews. At one time, Jews were not allowed to participate in banking in America.

Through the spread of democracy and human rights, they can do all that. They can carry out banking, and they are very good in banking. From ancient times, they are the ones who collected the greatest amount of interest.

When they became equal, they went for institutions that have the most influence on society. They captured the media. The media in the West belongs to them, that includes the electronic media (TV) and Hollywood. It became a propaganda machine for them.

And then, having got the media, they go for politics. Today, the US Government, many of the members of Congress, are Jews. If they are not Jews, their staff members are Jews.

I appeared on the same platform as Mr Ashcroft in Davos, he was assisted by a young man whose name was Israel. Their staff are all Jews.

They come to Malaysia, and they have the same view.

So by controlling the Press and media, controlling the money through banking, and controlling now the Congress, they have become the power in the United States.

They may not be many, American political candidates are extreme candidates, but there are only six million Jews in America.

They can ensure that you win or lose, because they are united whilst the others are divided. In Malaysia, we have the same experience.

In a constituency with majority Muslim Malays, for example, and a minority made up of Chinese and Indians, the Muslims are actually divided. The Chinese and Indians will decide who will win, with their votes.

There are more Muslims than Jews in the US, but they are divided into 1,000 different groups. And they can never get together so they cannot play the same role as the Jews.

The biggest power in America now controls the world and economy. Their ideas about currency trading is that which resulted in the attack on Malaysia.

I said this, and of course, I was roundly criticised at that time. They said they want to make money, it's not because they are Jews. But whether they want to make money or not, the fact is that they are Jews and what they have done, benefit the Jews.

Remember, this is a moderate Islamic voice. Paranoid, if not psychotic, IMHO. But, compared to a society that honors a man who commits suicide, leaving two children of two and three years old, in the act of the murder of women and children on their way home from a religious site, maybe he IS the voice of reason. NOT! A sample:

However, later Tuesday, Hamas distributed fliers in Hebron, saying the Jerusalem bombing was carried out by one of its supporters, identified as Raed Abdel-Hamed Mesk, 29, a mosque preacher from Hebron.

Hamas released Mesk's farewell video. The plump man with the bushy beard said he was a member of the Hamas military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, accused Israel of violating the cease-fire offered by Hamas.

Mesk's wife Arij began clearing belongings out of her home late Tuesday, in expectation that it would be demolished by Israeli troops. The army routinely destroys the homes of suicide bombers, hoping it will act as a deterrent.

Arij Mesk said she was not sad. "God gave Raed something he always dreamed of. All of his life he dreamed of being a martyr," she said. The couple has two children, ages two and three.

The bus was blown up while making its way from the Wall to the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood.

Just another example of the members of the religion of peace, spreading the word, and righting wrongs.

Misdirection Play

The recent brouhaha over the MSBlaster worm shows the basic misdirection that Microsoft has played upon us all. A large part of the subject matter illuminated in this space regards misdirection, or what I like to call the "The Emperor Has No Clothes" theory of human events. We are a species of (predominately) sheeple who follow the crowd, and are usually united in our misapplication of the facts. The "common knowledge" is almost always wrong, as I (and others) like to point out. And, what with the perfection of public relations theory and advertising technology, those who would lead the populace astray, and cause us to believe a falsehood, have some very effective tools to make that happen. Such is the case with Microsoft, and, in particular, the popular misapprehension of their response to the MSBlaster worm.

We are told that their (Microsoft's) response to the threat shows us what a great, on the job company they are. The fact that this problem only arises because MS sold us all a faulty piece of software in the first place is forgotten. This is a classic case of misdirection: look at their response, and fail to notice the cause. During the recent anti-trust trial of MS, we were first told that Windows was not a monopoly, and then, when that "fact" became untenable, we were told that this monopoly was a good thing for us, that the prevalence of this single operating system made it possible for a much larger number of software designers to concentrate on coding Windows products. We are not supposed to notice that there has not been a really cool software product released in the last half decade. We are certainly not supposed to notice that all of our computers are so much more vulnerable to virus and worm attacks than they were before we all standardised on Windows.

The truth is that this very standardization on a single operating system is a very bad thing. It makes for a very easy target for those who would do us harm. Why do you think that there are no Linux worms? Not because Linux is a more secure environment (although it is) but because there are so (relatively) few Linux boxes to attack. Why do you think there is no genuinely interesting software being written any more? Because the market for Windows software is so huge, and Microsoft is so powerful (and voracious) that any truly successful new product is bulldozed out of existence when a less useful, but "free", version appears in the next iteration of Windows.

We need to break out of the mold that we are expected to fit into. Or at least, that is the way I see it. I don't know how this can happen, but if we as a people do not make more effort to become more individual, the overwhelming power of the herd instinct, combined with the tools available to the government and large corporations that induce us to follow the crowd, will combine to make things only get worse. Readers of this blog are less exposed than most others, but we must all take steps to break out of that mold. Buy a Linux distro and install it on one of your old computers that is gathering dust in your garage. Watch CSPAN instead of a sit-com. And read, read, read.

When Whales Ruled the Earth

People call me a contrarian, but it's not true. I merely attempt to apply logic and knowledge to common problems, without giving what is called "common knowledge" any place at the table. Just because many people believe things, or scream things, there is no reason to believe these things. But the volume level does draw one's attention. Thus came the news last week about the early population of Whales, as revealed in their DNA. While the original article is not freely available on the web, a pithy summary of it can be found here. The fact that the DNA reveals genetic diversity an order of magnititude greater than that observed by the early Whaling captains is important because international Whaling has been (almost) halted pending the moment at which Whale stocks have risen back up to a level that represents half of their historic levels. Since the (almost) permanent status granted to any animal, once it is allowed entry to an endangered species list, is a favorite subject of mine, I decided to investigate.

Clicking over to my favorite site for scientific discourse, Gene Expression There was a conversation going on about this subject. While I couldn't get the gnxp'ers to engage on this topic at great length, I did get an indication that this genetic evidence refers to Whale populations that might have existed 10,000 years ago. Well, that says a lot! 10,000 years ago the Earth was just emerging from an Ice Age, and many populations were very different from their numbers today.

So, what do we really have here? Some geneticists say that Whale populations used to be ten times their present numbers, so resumed Whaling is not legal, since we must wait for historic populations to regenerate. But the point of the exercise, and the Whaling law, is to return to populations that existed before Whaling began, not to numbers that existed in the last Ice Age! This is a perfect example of junk science: take a grain of truth, make a lot of noise, and hope that you drown out the voices of reason. In the best use of single interest politics, this whitewash depends upon the issue at hand being unpopular, which it certainly is. How many people really want Whaling to resume? But the fact is, especially for Minke Whales, populations are higher today than they were 200 years ago. And if people want to fish for them, the law is clear: they should be allowed to do so. But for those who believe that humans are a blight upon nature, there will never be enough Whales for a harvest to be allowed. And that't the truest fact of all.

Is Obesity Bad For You?

The quest for scientific truth in our politically correct society is one of the main points I try to illuminate in this space. What with the proliferation of sources in today's web-enhanced universe there are more and more places to which one can turn it is surprising to me that so much junk science is taken at face value, as one can read opposing points of view to almost any thesis. But some sources do such a great job of expounding and arguement that they deserve special mention. Such a source is Tech Central Station. James Glassman does such a great job ferreting out the truth that I subscribe to their newsletter, and read something from their site almost every day. Today I read a particularly lucid exposition of the junk science behind the war on the overweight.

Beginning with the quote: "The war on fat has reached the point where the systematic distortion of the evidence has become the norm, rather than the exception," Sandy Szwarc goes on to detail how and why this war continues. As per usual, as with the war against (some) drugs and other modern campaigns, this war is sustained by those who stand to continue to gain financially from the effort. "[T]he leading obesity researchers all have enormous economic stakes in seeing expanded forms of obesity treatment applied to more Americans."

Oftentimes the most knowledgeable experts are within industries. That's not always a problem. But in the case of obesity, Thomas Moore, M.D., of Boston University School of Medicine, observed, "Due to their economic interests and bias, a suppression of research antithetical to the diet industry's position exists. Research not supporting weight loss isn't funded and isn't published."

Also, as with the war against passive smokers,

Researchers and public officials were increasingly reporting not just that 300,000 deaths were linked to obesity, but suddenly caused by obesity, too. Most, like a study published in JAMA, Oct. 27, 1999, didn't actually specify what obese people were dying from. But as the author, David Allison, Ph.D., noted, "our calculations assume that all excess mortality in obese people is due to their obesity."

Sounds familiar, eh? Swarc has done a fine job of tracking down the few peer reviewed articles to support her thesis, and does it well. If you are one who believes that dieting may be more dangerous than eating well, or can't believe that Michael Jordan is obese, or just need to find out if 300,000 Americans die each year from being overweight, then you must read the entire article yourself. And, while you are at it, subscribe to the TCS newsletter as well.

All Lefties Are Not (Necessarily) Loonies

In this morning's Wall Street Journal there is an Op-Ed piece dealing with, well, let the title speak for itself, i.e. "A Moral Failure: Why did so many on the Left march to save Saddam Hussein? " In it he deals with his situation as a Leftist who supported the war against Saddam "for regime change reasons" and the failure of his colleagues to agree with him. It is not an apologia for them, it is a condemnation.

This from a man who calls The Guardian his "newspaper of choice." He tries to start out saying that the Left is committed to "democratic values and basic human rights." So, what is their excuse? Hatred of Bush, it seems, and an unwillingness to believe that anything that Bush (and the Right) might do is worthwhile. Even then he says "A person with a bad record is capable of doing good. There were some anti-Semitic rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust." Geras makes no excuse for these contemptible Lefties, who even now are in the position of supporting Saddam against those who liberated his people.

So what do we know about this Leftie who is capable of independent thought? Well, among other things, he is a recently arrived member of the blogosphere. As he puts on his blog, Normblog,

There's this global conversation going on out there: argument and counter-argument; thinking aloud; the sharing of information or just stray musings; the sharing of links, of things you want to draw to the attention of others, or merely incidents from your day, likes and dislikes, pictures, jokes, curiosities, you name it. There is, too, the letting off of steam at some damned thing you've been afflicted by in one medium or another. You could, of course, always write a letter to a newspaper - who could, of course, ignore it. Or you can blog.

I’m joining the conversation.

So, go and read Norm. Not bad. For a Leftie, not bad at all.

PFC Lynch: Survivor

I have been reading the US Army Official Report on 507th Maintenance Co.: An Nasiriyah, Iraq [.pdf] This report describes, in narrative form, the attack on an element of the U.S. Army 507th Maintenance Company by Iraqi military forces and irregulars in the city of An Nasiriyah on 23 March 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is, the "lessons learned" document from which our military planners decide what we did right, what we did wrong, and what to do differently next time. Focusing on the "activities" of our newest "hero," as the President has decreed we label PFC Jessica Lynch, it is easy to see why she survived and others died. Her formula for survival? Sit in the back seat of a HumVee, with a soldier on each side, and do nothing. One of her compatriots, PFC Patrick Miller, did exactly the opposite: refuse to surrender, shoot at the enemy, and travel 16 miles through enemy territory, killing the enemy as you go. Even though he got the Silver Star, I had never heard his name before, while "Jessie" the "hero" gets a movie and book deal. No wonder she can't remember what happened. Nothing did happen. She sat in a dark HummVee until it crashed, and then she woke up in a hospital.

Life may not be fair, but calling any captured soldier a hero, while we forget the actions of the real thing, makes me sick. Other things in the report are pretty strange as well, such as the fact that almost all of the weapoms the troops had with them failed, and the poor leadership shown by Captain Troy King. But a true hero has emerged from this action. PFC Patrick Miller, I salute you.

Conservatives for Bush?

Any reader on this page knows that I have little respect for the President's handling of domestic policy, and have argued hard against his reelection. Yet, the election is still a far piece away. In the pursuit of zero base thinking, however, I always read other points of view, and consider them. Today I read the most cogent reason to support the man:

But on the war front, he should not compromise an iota. He must do what he judges to be in the national interest, whatever the electoral effect. Not that he needs my advice on that point. He is a patriot and would gladly sacrifice his career, and even his life, on behalf of his nation's safety. That is why, as a conservative, I will vote for him, no matter what. We are damned lucky to have this man at the helm in these perilous times.

Tony Blankley makes the case well, without pulling any punches. It is hard to support a man who believes that the federal government must endlessly expand, who is setting up the greatest new entitlement since Nixon, pushes the war against (some) drugs, and can't find it in either his heart or his soul to veto anything, but a zero base thinker just has to wonder and ponder all sides of an equation, before making a final choice, on election day. There is a lot of truth to the statement, and it bears repeating, "We are damned lucky to have this man at the helm in these perilous times."

Democrats Have New Ally

At last Democrat party leaders have a new strong ally in their fight to make the American electorate believe that Bush lied: Saddam Hussein. It must be comforting to them to see that their thinking has such an important international supporter.

The whole "Bush Lied" meme has more than a little of the sound of irrelevance about it, and now the Clown of Iraq is singing the same song.

"What will the two liars Bush and Blair say to their people and to humanity? What will they tell the world? What they said was wrong and baseless," said the voice, which could not be independently confirmed as Hussein's. In an apparent reference to increasing questions about whether Bush and Blair accurately portrayed intelligence presented to them about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the voice on the tape said the two leaders have tried to "picture the situation differently and lay responsibility on others."

This heartening confirmation of the truth of their allegations puts the allies squarely in the same boat. It may be irrelevant, but it is all they think they have. Much like Whitewater, the donks hate Bush and want an issue. They have seized upon this, and are riding it for all it is worth. And like Whitewater, it is not strong enough to deter Bush voters, and will probably turn other voters in Bush's favor. Luckily for the Bush camp, they are not following more of the Clinton gameplan. Like, "It's the economy, stupid."

Same Sex Marriage

What's all the fuss about? All over the (Western) world, and soon to come to these shores, governments are allowing their civil laws covering the state of matrimony to apply to members of the same sex. Most recently, in Canada, the Ontario Appeals Court made a decision that, in combination with the federal government's refusal to challenge it, made "same-sex marriage" a fait accompli in Canada. And or course, our own Supreme Court refuses to allow legislation that regulates private sexual behavior (although they have not legalized prostitution or bigamy, and don't look like they are likely to). So the social conservatives are steaming hot over the "abandonment" by our governments of the most basic foundation of civilization, the institution of marriage. And again I ask: "What's all the fuss about?"

Marriage is a contract between two people. It has been enshrined in religious ceremony and license. It is only quite recently that governments decided to legislate the institution. In the way of governments and the nature of laws, these enactments were mostly intended to prohibit certain behaviors, but more recently, after bigamy and polyandry were prohibited, the thrust of matrimonial legislation and license was made to ensure the transfer of certain rights between the partners. Rights like the right to receive part of a pension or Social Security payments, the right to make certain medical decisions regarding the health of one's partner in times of dire need, the right to receive some of the assets and income or the other in divorce, and the right (and obligation) to participate in the lives of the offspring.

But, over time, these rights have blurred. Many, but not all, of these rights have become available to non-married people either through changing rules of society, or specifically contracted agreements between people. But not everyone executes a pre-nup, or antenuptial agreement, and not every pension plan allows marital payouts to be assigned by contract. And hospitals are wary of contractual agreements; a doctor friend of mine claims that even living wills are frequently ignored. But they will always listen to the wishes of the spouse. And that may be the most heartbreaking part of the problem. My wife could have the hospital pull the plug on me, should the need arise, but if I were gay, my partner could only watch me suffer, until the insurance money ran out.

My marriage is a legally standard one, but it really is a deal between me and my wife, with a side order of kids. I can not imagine that, after the novelty wears off, that many gays will want the same deal. But if they do, I can't see a logically compelling reason to deny them the legal protection that we enjoy. And if they can find or establish a church that will bless their union, God bless them as well.

(You can check out the opposite view, at davidwarrenonline.com - Essays On Our Times.)

Ridge Goes After Porn

Tom Ridge, Director of the Department of Homeland Security, has announced that he will use "all means possible" to prosecute pornographers, especially child porn vendors. Now, I have no love for those who pursue child pornography. But I hope that I won't be alone with this "I told you so." We establish this new uber-agency to go after terrorists, give them new powers and a new budget, almost unlimited resources, and they target Pornography?

I don't dispute that ensuring that those aliens who finish their sentences are actually deported is a valuable law enforcement function for the immigration authorities, but every other process that Ridge announced for this new initiative is already covered by an existing program. Their new database of pornography, which they are building with an eye to "rescuing the children" is already an initiative of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the FBI has been involved in the crusade against pornigraphers for decades, with such great prosecutions as those against Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, and Harry Reems already to their credit. It seems to me that the reason that the FBI was kept out of the Department of Homeland Security in the first place was so that the Department could keep its focus. It didn't take them long to revert to type.

I watched a fair amount of the debate in Congress over the formation of the Department, and read quite a lot. Ensuring their focus was a paramount concern for many, before they were granted these new powers. But it is the nature of bureaucracies to expand their area of operations and increase their budgets. And I can hardly fault Ridge for picking kiddie porn as his first target... it is simply a brilliant choice. Who, after all, is not against Kiddie porn? As with violence against women and drunk driving, bureaucrats always pick issues where there is no opposition when they seek to maneuver an end-around the Congress or the Constitution. Do not be fooled. Just as with the Violence Against Women Act and drunk driving checkpoints, you don't need to be in favor of the criminals to see the creation of a bad law or precedent-setting court decision. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking usually puts you in the minority.

On this one, we shall see soon enough whether there is an outcry or not, since this news just broke. We shall see.

Michael Savage Fired

Shock jock Michael Savage went one stupid rant too far and has been fired by his bosses at MSNBC. From where I sit, the folks who run MSNBC hate his politics, but hired him anyway after Donohue was such a flop. Rather than hiring a thoughtful Conservative, they dug up thus sorry excuse for a political thinker, and got what they deserved. I think perhaps that this is exactly what some of the leftie execs at the network wanted in the first place.

This is no idle surmise. In my real life, I promote television shows, and have been spotted in MSNBCland more than a few times. Many of the execs there suffer from a particularly rabid form of leftie thinking, so, when Savage was hired, I wondered about the choice. That they picked the single person most likely to say something that would offend SOME protected group was clearly obvious at the time. Now that he has been fired, I think I know what they were thinking. They WANTED him to fail.

Don't be surprised if the network goes back to their usual tricks, now that the programming department has PROVED that these Conservatives are no good. Meanwhile, in the real world, most, if not ALL, thoughtful conservatives and libertarians hated Savage and his vile pronouncements at least as much as the lefties did. His TV show was an abomination, and I for one will not miss it. I am sure that I am in good company.

On the other hand, this debacle shows that the nets, or at least this one, really don't get it. With the explosion of outlets for programming, in a world where a half million viewers make for a SMASHING success, niche programming like the Savage Nation is exactly what is called for. I believe that Savage got almost that on his best day. Watch and see - that slot will NEVER see so many viewers again. Erik Sorenson, MSNBC President, should realize that it is all about ratings, not content. In a world where a 0.2 rating is considered to be acceptable and a 1.0 is a world-beating hit, there is no need for mainstream content, dumbed down like the offerings on the broadcast nets, where they need to see REAL numbers. In fairness to Savage, he claims that he thought the caller had been cut from the air, and that he was making private comments to the fellow, who he regarded as a plant from "a competitive talk show."

Sorry Mike, it's too late for an apology. They were waiting for you to slip up from the start. And maybe for you, just like for Rush Limbaugh, television may not be your best medium. Stick to radio, where you are a big success, and the bosses understand that insulting members of fringe groups is an acceptable route to attain that success.

Cigarettes

I confess. I've been a smoker for almost forty years. While it's not very cool anymore, and not very wise, it is a pleasure that I won't (or can't) give up. While this pleasure may be becoming unfashionable, smoking puts me in the mainstream of human behavior. Tobacco use has been a popular pastime everywhere on this planet, when it has been available for human consumption. And even though health authorities have claimed that it is dangerous, even deadly, for over four hundred years, it continues as a popular human activity even today. No less a personage than King James of England, in 1604, declared in his treatise A Counterblaste to Tobacco:

Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

In his treatise, James also noted that autopsies found smokers' "inward parts" were "infected with an oily kind of soot." James also said if he ever had the Devil to dinner, he'd offer him a pipe. With regards to second-hand smoke, James said, "The wife must either take up smoking or resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment." As early as 1586, in Germany "De plantis epitome utilissima" offers one of the first cautions to the use of tobacco, calling it a "violent herb". And of course, since 1950 our own AMA has held that tobacco smoking was dangerous, since they found that cigarette smokers were twice as likely to get lung cancer than were non-smokers.

So, why do I smoke? Is it the pleasure, or the addiction? There is no doubt that I am addicted to the weed, but that can not completely explain why I smoke it. My addiction may explain why I smoke an entire pack of cigarettes right after I buy it, but does not explain why I buy a pack in the first place. So, understanding, as I do, that almost anything, done in moderation, is OK to do, how does one feed the pleasure while keeping the addiction at bay?

While pondering this question, it struck me that the biggest part of the problem was the 19 cigarettes left in the pack after I had smoked the first one... The one that had spurred me to buy the pack in the first place. There are not, in this country at least, packs of less than 20 available. In other countries I have seen 10-packs and 4-packs, and singles are available here and there, but not in my neighborhood. Then I discovered the modern roll-your-own movement. They reside online at Roll Your Own Magazine. The tobacco industry, aside from being the inventor of modern advertising, is ingenious in the enterprise of fulfilling demand for tobacco products. There are available today supplies that render a person such as myself able to fashion an (almost) perfect, filtered cigarette, light or full-flavor, from raw materials. After smoking this way for a few weeks, I have come to believe that it is possible that my problem has been solved.

With my little rolling device, a filter tube, and some tobacco I can, in a minute or two, fashion a cigarette that is satisfying in every way, without presenting me with a pack of nineteen cigarettes all begging to be smoked. In Confucian fashion I get to appreciate each tiny filament of tobacco, to feel and smell it, to pack it into the little rolling block, and finally to insert the tobacco into the filter tube. After a bit of tamping, the filter cigarette is ready to smoke. I have never enjoyed a cigarette as much as I do now. They taste better, and smell better. They should, as they are made from the finest, freshest tobacco. As a bonus, they cost less than a third of their previous price. But best of all, there are no extra cigarettes lying there, begging to be smoked. Each smoke is a little experience; a ritual of appreciation that I truly enjoy. I suppose that I could roll nineteen more if I felt like it, but so far, I haven't felt like it.

So now I smoke about five cigarettes a day, instead of twenty. I spend less than a half a dollar instead of five dollars. I might even live a little longer, since I smoke so much less. But, best of all, I do not have to give up one of life's little pleasures. Instead, it has become even more of a pleasure than it once was. And, with the money I am saving, I can put my sons through college.

Terminator 3 Rocks!

I don't make a habit of posting movie reviews, but after seeing Terminator 3, I just had to let y'all know that this flick is a hoot. Definitely the funniest action movie ever. The Terminator franchise has always had more than its fair share of humor, since no one can make fun of himself the way Arnold can. But this movie had me hysterical at times. I even missed some of the dialog, I was laughing so hard.

There are plenty of conventional reviews available online, and you can view the trailer here. But if you want to see a genuinely funny flick, with more than its share of (apparently bloodless) violence, see T3.

No Criminal Penalty

In a stunning victory of justice over politics, the Air Force dropped homicide and assault charges Thursday against two fighter pilots who mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last year, killing four. The pilots, Majs. Harry Schmidt and William Umbach, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty and faced up to 64 years in prison if convicted in a court-martial. One of the men, Maj. Harry Schmidt, who released the 500-pound bomb, still faces two counts of dereliction of duty.

Had the Air Force gone ahead with the court martial, it would have been the first such proceeding in the history of American warfare regarding a friendly fire incident. The action was commenced, over the objections of the military leadership, by political and diplomatic operatives for the administration, in order to mollify the Canadians, whose troops were lost. Ironically, these troops were members of the Rakkasans, attached to the 101st Airborne Division, and as such were the last troops to complain or demand such an action be instituted in their behalf, although even the most elite troops have families that bleed and cry over their dead like everyone else.

Mistakes were made, although most of them were committed by members of the upper ranks, especially the fact that the pilots were not apprised that friendly forces were operating in the area. What judgement calls the pilots missed can be blamed on the fatigue that comes with being in the hot seat for over ten hours, popping uppers to stay alert. And remember that the bombing occurred on a moonless night at Tarnak Farms, a former Al Qaeda base once owned by Osama bin Laden. They were deep in Indian country, these men truly believed that they were in danger, and it was the natural response to that danger that precipitated the attack. A successful court martial on these men would have had a chilling effect on our future air operations. We place these men in harm's way to do a very dirty job for the rest of us, and we need to give them a lot of leeway in the carrying out of that job. There will be career penalties for these men, and they will never again be in a position to make such a mistake again. Under the circumstances, that is all the punishment that is warranted.

There are those who will say that these men were let off because Canada refused to back our play in Iraq. I wish that it were so, but I can't give our national leadership that much credit.

Willfully Blind?

Last night on Fox News, at the end of the Hannity and Colmes Show, they ran a live feed of a car chase (from L.A. of course), showing a car going about 30 miles per hour or so, surrounded by police cars. Just as they hit the top of the hour, and Greta Van Susteren came on, the perpetrator surrendered. Now we had Greta, Hannity, and Colmes, along with a few guests all miked up as the perp was taken into custody. He exited the vehicle, docile as could be, following instructions, lying down in the street, first here, then there, then, when all was exactly as the (unheard) police officer was evidently commanding, the LAPD moved in to cuff the fellow. As the police came upon him, I gasped, as the first cop to reach him drop-kicked his knee right into the part of the guy's back that is directly between the shoulder blades. That cop kept his entire weight on the perp for about 20 to 25 seconds, until he was all cuffed up and ready to transport. All the while, Greta and friends chatted on about what they thought they were seeing.

But they didn't see what I saw! They even commented on how gentle the cops were being to the poor misguided fellow, and how lucky he was to have been arrested by such understanding and respectful police officers. Meanwhile, this poor bastard was carrying the full, doughnut enhanced weight or one mean, husky, member of L.A.'s finest.

Where do I find my outrage? I surprised myself with the virulence of my reaction to the blithe indifference to the suffering of a fellow human being shown by the talking heads. Members of the thoughtless wing of the law and order right, like Sean Hannity, are always assumed to be insensitive to the suffering of swarthy criminal types. Committed leftists like Colmes and Van Susteren have become even more bellicose in their prescriptions for tough treatment for criminals, Van Susteren's background as a defense attorney notwithstanding. It was their blindness that outraged me. If they had said: "Good for the cops, they got that brown bastard" I would have understood, at least, where they were coming from. But they acted as if it had not even happened. They were absolutely insensitive to the suffering of a fellow human being.

I believe that this is part of a syndrome wherein a large portion of the population can not envision the possibility that such things could ever happen, to them. No cop will ever abuse them, because they will never steal a car. So investing the police with extralegal power to brutalize and otherwise undermine the rights of the accused is ok. They have never been beaten by a cop, so they never will be! Meanwhile, a teacher I know very well was once beaten to within an inch of his life for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I myself have been exposed to the tender mercies of the NYPD during the Giuliani years, and I am no swarthy criminal type. Every black person knows what I am talking about, but last night, the entire party was white.

I prescribe more Dostoyefsky, more Kafka, for the reading lists of those who are confident that "they will never come for me." If there is one thing we have learned, it is that, they just might. What would have those same voices have said on Kristallnacht?

Movable Type

There seems to be a movement among Blogspot bloggers migrating to Movable Type. A few bloggers with the resources are making it really easy (and cheap) to do so. The latest one of my favorites to move is John Dunshee of "Just Some Poor Schmuck." (I have him as J.S.P.S. on my blogroll)

John makes it look easy, although there was a period where his blog was practically unavailable, and the new site looks great. I am contemplating the move, although the idea of having to learn an entirely new way of doing things, when I had just gotten used to the Blogger way, is a bit daunting. (Cripes! I just got comments hooked up last week!) But if John can do it, maybe I can too. We are the same age and all. Then there is the consideration of losing my plethora of inbound links and having to beg and plead to get them changed to the new address, rather than just dumped (but that's just my mishegas).

Anyway, if I make the change, it won't be for a while, and I'll probably keep the Blogspot blog going anyway. But, either way, I will strive to keep you, my customers, satisfied, as always.