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  • Say What?

    “Nuclear facilities in Japan … were built to withstand earthquakes — but not an 8.9 earthquake.”

    What?! And why not? It’s not like such big earthquakes have never happened before.

    The idea that nuclear plants (and waste) need to be kept safe FOREVER seems to be the fatal flaw of the pro-nuclear position. Hubris, people. Hubris.

    Anyway, poor Japan. My thoughts are with those missing friends and family and entire hometowns, including my one dear friend from Sendai. I cannot begin to comprehend what she is going through.

  • NPR Video

    I love NPR. And if I didn’t live in a big city, I’d be more passionate about cutting federal support for what is truly an essential public service in small-town and rural American (public radio is essential here in New York City, too–but it would survive just OK without federal funding).

    This is from Glen Beck’s website: an analysis of the shenanigans involved in editing the “sting” of the NPR fund raiser. It’s actually pretty damning. And not to NPR or Ron Shiller.

    Of course, if NPR did what Pam Key of The Blaze did, it would be dismissed by the right-wing as biased left-wing propaganda (“consider the source” is always one of my favorite non-arguments). But considering thissource, I’d say it’s hard to argue with. Kudos to Key for this and other stories, such as: “What You Didn’t See: NPR Execs… Proud of GOP Past, Love Fiscal Conservatism, Compare Fairness Doctrine to Communist Russia & Defend Intellect of Fox Viewers.”

    I haven’t watched the two hour version. Nor do I plan to. But if I were a betting man, I’d guess I’ve probably said everything Ron Schiller said. So what? I’ve said a lot of things. Why Schiller and NPR caved so quickly because of a misleadingly edited video is another issue. Maybe we liberals really are cheese-eating surrender monkeys after all. Or maybe NPR isn’t that liberal. Probably the former.

  • Terrorist Plot Foiled in Alaska

    I guess those recent congressional hearings did some good. I mean, just a few days after being inspired to focus on radicalized Muslim youth, law enforcement goes out and breaks up a real terrorist plot.

    According the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, five people were arrested for allegedly conspiring to kill multiple Alaska State Troopers and a federal judge.

    Actually, not. I mean the plot was real. It just has nothing to do with Islam. This was the usual home-grown white-christian kind of terrorist group. And these guys, police take notice, like to target cops. Focus, people!

    But speaking of Muslim terrorists, there’s new video of the Twin Towers falling, this from a police helicopter. Just in case there wasn’t enough disaster video these days.

  • Class War? Bring it on!

    Class War? Bring it on!

    Or why we don’t need to and shouldn’t cut spending. Let’s compare at “programs at risk” and “tax breaks for the wealthy”:

    I can’t vouch for the numbers, but they seem reasonable.

  • OMG

    I just read in the New York Times that kids are using Facebook! But Facebook says you’re supposed to be, like, 13. So, some kids are even [gulp] lying about their age!

    Says one concerned person: “It’s lying — and about age,” Ms. Kaune said. “What happens when they want to drink beer?”

    Uh, last time I checked, when you want you’re underage, you lie about your age and drink beer. Actually, you don’t lie about your age until you want to buybeer. Kids still do that, right? I hope so.

    Is that really this parent’s fear? That her son will drink a beer before his 21st birthday?

    The only think I celebrated on my 21st birthday was no having to use my excellent fake ID.

    You know, it’s one thing to have an absurdly high 21-year-old drinking age for beer. It’s another to think that these prohibition laws somehow make sense.

    Beer, weed, crack, shooting up heroin: the slippery slope starts with 11-year-olds on facebook! Stop them before it’s too late!!

  • Our Socialized Health Care

    From Tom Scocca at Slate. The column is actually about the debt and David Brooks. Scocca questions whether the debt is really “the” central moral challenge of our time: “Maybe I was distracted and missed the day we let all the young black men back out of prison. (How are they doing? They must feel great now.)”

    But I particularly like his part about socialized health care in America.

    The awkward, mainly unspoken fact of our time is that America is a socialist country, or that Americans operate under the assumption that it is a socialist country. American socialism works the same way that our system of universal health care does–and we do have universal health care.

    Here is how universal health care operates, as we currently practice it: if you are sick and dying in the street, and someone sees you and calls an ambulance, the ambulance is required by law to pick you up. The ambulance will take you to the hospital, which is required by law to treat you. (These procedures are not always followed, but–at present–the failure to follow them is still mostly seen as an outrage.)

    The treatment may use up all the money you have, but even when the money is gone, treatment will continue. This approach to handling the illness of poor people is incoherent and irrationally expensive–the amount spent on ambulances alone is staggering–but it comes from a series of moral decisions. We do not believe people should be left to die without medical care.

    [thanks to Alan I.]

  • “I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.”

    David Simon on Snoop’s Arrest from the Baltimore Sun:

    What follows is a personal statement from David Simon, Creator and Executive Producer of “The Wire” (and currently in production on “Treme”).

    First of all, Felicia’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. And I would note that a previous, but recent drug arrest that targeted her was later found to be unwarranted and the charges were dropped. Nonetheless, I’m certainly sad at the news today. This young lady has, from her earliest moments, had one of the hardest lives imaginable. And whatever good fortune came from her role in ‘The Wire’ seems, in retrospect, limited to that project. She worked hard as an actor and was entirely professional, but the entertainment industry as a whole does not offer a great many roles for those who can portray people from the other America. There are, in fact, relatively few stories told about the other America.

    Beyond that, I am waiting to see whether the charges against Felicia relate to heroin or marijuana. Obviously, the former would be, to my mind, a far more serious matter. And further, I am waiting to see if the charges or statement of facts offered by the government reflect any involvement with acts of violence, which would of course be of much greater concern.

    In an essay published two years ago in Time Magazine, the writers of ‘The Wire’ made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury’s verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses — absent proof of violent acts — are alleged.

    Both our Constitution and our common law guaranty that we will be judged by our peers. But in truth, there are now two Americas, politically and economically distinct. I, for one, do not qualify as a peer to Felicia Pearson. The opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own, and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.

  • Looking Good…

    Looking Good…

    I got the design for the book cover for In Defense of Flogging. That’s always kind of an exciting moment. I like it.

    And the front and back flaps:


    The book will be out June 1. You can pre-order on Amazon, if you’re so inclined.

  • Community Policing Dispatch

    Has an interview with me.

  • Our Worst Justice

    From an LA Timescolumn by Jonathan Turley: “Clarence Thomas insisted that his wife was being attacked because she believes in the same things he does and because they were ‘focused on defending liberty.’” Wow. I like liberty. Why all the brouhaha?

    Thomas reported “none” in answering specific questions about “spousal non-investment income” on annual forms. … In truth she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from conservative organizations.
    …
    A justice is expressly required by federal law to recuse himself … when he knows that “his spouse … has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”
    …
    Thomas simply wrote a brief letter to the court saying that the information was “inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”

    The Thomas’s has a history of strange responses to criticism. Now he says that any attack on him as an attack on the Court:

    “You all are going to be, unfortunately, the recipients of the fallout from that — that there’s going to be a day when you need these institutions to be credible and to be fully functioning to protect your liberties.”

    Is Thomas a stalwart defender of liberty or just a corrupt sleazy bastard? Who can say? But I don’t think Virginia ever did get that apology from Anita.