Quotulatiousness

December 22, 2010

In Soviet America, bank robs you!

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Law, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:19

All joking aside, how is this allowed to happen?

The NYT reports on a growing phenomenon of wrongful foreclosure by US banks on homeowners who are caught up on their mortgage payments — and on homeowners who have no mortgage at all. In some cases, homeowners return from vacation to discover their locks changed and their every earthly possession sent to the dump (one woman lost her dead husband’s ashes when her bank burgled her ski chalet). Prominent in the list of banksters who rob innocent people of their homes and all their belongings? Those upright guardians of morality at Bank of America, who have decided that their customers can’t choose to contribute to Wikileaks’s defense fund.

H/T for the headline to commenter “Doramia“.

December 16, 2010

Former UK defence secretary calls for drug legalization

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:51

Why is it that they always seem to come to a sensible conclusion only after they’re in a position to do anything about it?

A former Labour minister was rebuked by Ed Miliband’s office today after calling for a “grown-up debate” to consider legalising drugs on the grounds that prohibition has failed to protect the public.

Bob Ainsworth, the MP for Coventry North East, who previously served as a drugs minister in the Home Office and as defence secretary, has claimed that the war on drugs has been “nothing short of a disaster” and that it was time to study other options, including decriminalising possession of drugs and legally regulating their production and supply.

His comments were met with dismay by the party leadership, while fellow backbencher John Mann claimed that Ainsworth “doesn’t know what he’s talking about”.

The problem is likely that while you’re in power, if you step too far out of line with the orthodox view, you risk being pushed out of power. Even so, it’s nice to see that sometimes politicians can see the forest for the trees:

Ainsworth, who claimed that his departure from the frontbenches now allowed him to express his “long-held view” on drugs policy, is due to lay out his case later today at a debate in Westminster Hall.

He said his ministerial stint in the Home Office made him see that prohibition failed to reduce the harm that drugs cause in the UK, while his time as defence secretary with specific responsibilities in Afghanistan, “showed to me that the war on drugs creates the very conditions that perpetuate the illegal trade, while undermining international development and security”.

December 15, 2010

Scott Adams on Sweden

Filed under: Europe, Humour, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:33

Michael O’Connor Clarke linked to Scott Adams’ thoughts on Sweden:

I am always amused by the strange impact of unintended consequences. Julian Assange simply wanted to release some embarrassing information, have hot sex with a Swedish babe then have hot sex with an acquaintance of that same babe one day later. That’s just one example of why the Swedish language has 400 words that all mean “and your cute friend is next.”

But things didn’t turn out as Assange hoped. The unintended consequence of his actions is that he managed to make Sweden look like a country that’s governed by congenital idiots and populated with nothing but crazy sluts and lawyers. And don’t get me started about the quality of their condoms.

To be fair, I don’t know if Assange’s alleged broken condom is because the product was defective. We have good evidence that Assange has the world’s biggest set of nuts, so assuming some degree of proportionality, he’d put a strain on any brand of condom that didn’t have rebar ribs.

Assange had a lot of help making Sweden look like the last place on Earth that you would want to take your penis. [. . .]

If you haven’t read any background about the so-called rape charges against Assange, you really should. Apparently Swedish laws are unique. If you have a penis, you’re half a rapist before you even get through customs. And if your condom breaks, that’s jail time. What I’m saying is that the Club Med in Sweden is a nervous place.

I was having a hard time making up my mind about Assange. On one hand, he might be hurting the interests of my country and putting people in danger. Death to him! On the other hand, a little extra government transparency might prevent more problems than it causes. Hero! It was a toss-up. Then Sweden turned Assange from a man-whore publicity hound into Gandhi. Advantage: Assange.

December 13, 2010

Aha! A new conspiracy theory

Filed under: Britain, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:27

Following up to this post, Chris Greaves offers both a link, and a theory to explain the link.

The prince’s office also declined to comment, but stressed that the royal couple did not seek medical help after Thursday’s altercation.

Officials are assessing royal security after the attack on Charles and Camilla, whose Rolls-Royce strayed into the path of protesters against tuition fee hikes.

They hit the car with sticks, fists and bottles and chanted “Off with their heads” before the vehicle pushed its way through the crowd and drove off.

One casualty of the review may be the classic Rolls-Royce Phantom VI the couple were using, a gift to the Queen on her Silver Jubilee in 1977. The 33-year-old limousine does not have bulletproof windows or other modern protection features.

So what’s the conspiracy theory, you ask? Here you go:

Liz Windsor: (Thinks) How to get rid of Camela?
(later) I know, I’ll give her a Rolls Royce whose windows are not bullet-proof.
Heh heh.

December 11, 2010

“They came close to drawing their guns on protesters, who were heard to chant ‘off with their heads'”

Filed under: Britain, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:39

The close call reported earlier now seems to have been even closer:

Officers guarding the royal couple were using radios on a different channel from those patrolling Thursday’s student riots, meaning they received no warning that protesters were blocking their route.

As a result, dozens of thugs subjected the convoy to an attack in which the Duchess was jabbed in the ribs with a stick through an open car window as the couple were being driven to the Royal Variety Performance.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, praised armed protection officers for showing “very real restraint”, suggesting that they came close to drawing their guns on protesters, who were heard to chant “off with their heads”.

I’m pretty far from being a staunch royalist, but this incident was an “own goal” on the part of the protesters. There are many ways to express your concern and anger, but attacking innocent bystanders will usually lose you the public support you might otherwise be able to depend on. Attacking members of the royal family — who don’t have a constitutional role in setting government policy — is just plain stupid.

H/T to Chris Greaves for the link.

Update: Chris followed up with this observation.

[. . .] just between you and me I was struck by the parallels between the accounts of Charles & Camel, and the minute-by-minute goof-ups of Archduke Wossit and his morgantic wife; the chauffeur taking a wrong turn on the way back from the town hall, the poor security in place, etc.

Any would-be republicans should be blessing their luck that this turned out to be less harmful than the Sarajevo incident in 1914. Had any harm come to the Prince of Wales, British public opinion would (based on past events) have swung heavily in favour of the royal family. Prince Charles is perhaps the least well-liked royal at the moment, but if he’d been “martyred” by the mob, do you think there’d be any hope for getting rid of the monarchy for at least another generation?

December 10, 2010

The Economist: “America … should learn from its mistakes in the past decade and stick to its own rules”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:23

A very good column in The Economist seems to cover the issues quite well:

BIG crimes deserve tough responses. In any country the theft and publication of 250,000 secret government documents would deserve punishment. If the leak costs lives, let alone the careers and trust that have already perished amid the WikiLeaks disclosures, the case for action is even stronger.

[. . .]

For the American government, prosecution, not persecution, offers the best chance of limiting the damage and deterring future thefts. The blustering calls for the assassination of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder now in custody in London awaiting extradition to Sweden on faintly mysterious charges of sexual assault, look both weak and repellent. If Mr Assange has broken American law, it is there that he should stand trial, just like Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the stolen documents. If not, it may be some consolation that the cables so far reveal a largely flattering picture of America’s diplomats: conscientious, cool-headed, well-informed, perceptive and on occasion eloquent.

[. . .]

If America sticks to those standards now it will display a strength and sanity that contrasts with the shrill absolutism and cyber-vandalism of the WikiLeaks partisans. Calling Mr Assange a terrorist, for example, is deeply counterproductive. His cyber-troops do not fly planes into buildings, throw acid at schoolgirls or murder apostates. Indeed, the few genuine similarities between WikiLeaks and the Taliban — its elusiveness and its wide base of support — argue against ill-judged attacks that merely broaden that support. After a week of clumsy American-inspired attempts to shut WikiLeaks down, it is now hosted on more than 700 servers around the world.

The big danger is that America is provoked into bending or breaking its own rules, straining alliances, eroding credibility and — because it will not be able to muzzle WikiLeaks — ultimately seeming impotent. In recent years America has promoted the internet as a menace to foreign censorship. That sounds tinny now. So did its joy of hosting next year’s World Press Freedom Day this week. Chinese and Russian glee at American discomfort are a sure sign of such missteps.

H/T to John Perry Barlow for the link.

Update: This certainly matches what I expected Julian Assange’s personality to be like:

Defectors include Daniel Domscheit-Berg, otherwise known as Daniel Schmitt, who made a high-profile exit from WikiLeaks in September, and Herbert Snorrason, an Icelandic student. Both resigned in September. Snorrason is quoted as telling Assange, in an online chat log acquired by WiReD:

And you’re not even fulfilling your role as a leader right now. A leader communicates and cultivates trust in himself. You are doing the exact opposite. You behave like some kind of emperor or slave trader.

Snorrason’s departure was fomented by this declaration from Assange:

I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest. If you have a problem with me, piss off.

And he did.

December 9, 2010

QotD: Ontario’s “restrictive, puritanical, liquor laws”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty, Quotations, Wine — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:20

Later in the trip we were at a Napa Valley winery. During our winery tour, the guide mentioned that if we filled out an order form we could have a case of wine delivered to home or office. Then she stopped, looked at my friend and me, and said, “Oh wait, not to Ontario. You guys are worse than Utah.” She proceeded to list all the countries they ship to, two of which have majority Muslim populations. But Ontario was too much trouble, so they gave up trying. We could buy the wine and bring it over the border ourselves, but if it were to be shipped across the border it would clearly be illegal.

Our restrictive, puritanical, liquor laws are not just limited to restricting products or preventing private stores from selling alcohol. On our trip it became a running joke to point out things that were banned in Ontario. Happy hour is illegal in Ontario. I pointed to a seasonal winter beer in at a convenience store with a cartoon picture of Santa Claus on the label and noted it would be banned in Ontario. There is cheap beer across the U.S. because of intense competition, but Ontario has a price floor of $1.07 per bottle.

So I pose the question that I was asked in the bar in San Francisco. Why are we so puritanical when it comes to alcohol?

Hugh MacIntyre, “Ontario’s liberalism dies at the brewery door”, National Post, 2010-12-08

December 8, 2010

Has anyone seen this Taser?

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:32

John Oates has a bit of fun at the expense of the Metropolitan Police:

Police appeal for missing Taser
Shocking loss, but stunning Christmas present

The Metropolitan Police ia appealing for the return of a Taser and four cartridges that were left on the roof of a police car, which was then driven away…

A Met firearms officer attended an early morning briefing at Norfolk Row, Lambeth. After the briefing, possibly focussed on coffee and a bacon sandwich, the copper put the Taser on the roof of the marked police car and drove off.

An hour and a half later it dawned on the unfortunate officer what had happened, by which time the Taser was no longer on the roof.

December 7, 2010

Cool idea . . . don’t expect it to be allowed

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:24

This is a cool idea:

I am building a radar detector that plugs into your iPhone. When RadarLoc detects radar, it notifies other drivers in the area, making radar effectively visible for miles. I think of it as transparency in government. To the extent that visible traffic enforcement slows traffic, RadarLoc encourages law-abiding behavior.

RadarLoc is open source, open hardware and open data. My plan is to make the radar data available on RadarLoc.org, so anyone can build on it. If you don’t like my app, you can build your own–I tell you how to talk to the hardware and how to use the data service. Information wants to be free.

Unfortunately, radar traps are not actually there to encourage safer driving: they’re there as revenue sources. This is why (at least in some jurisdictions) you’re not supposed to warn other drivers of radar traps, even though by doing so you’re encouraging other drivers to drive more slowly (therefore making the road safer). Radar detectors of any kind are illegal in Ontario, for example.

H/T to Chris Anderson for the link.

Never mind the scientists

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Government, Law, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:19

The British government is finding that scientific evidence is getting in the way of what they want to do, so they’re scrapping the requirement to have scientists provide input:

Ministers will not be required to seek the advice of scientists when making drug classification policy in future, under new government proposals.

The police reform and social responsibility bill, published last week, contains an amendment to the constitution of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) that would remove the requirement on the home secretary to appoint at least six scientists to the committee.

A further amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 would allow the home secretary to place temporary controls on substances for a year by statutory instrument.

The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government’s treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

Why waste a great opportunity to get up in front of the media and sound all “tough on crime” just because the scientists say it’s a load of bollocks?

December 6, 2010

QotD: Ignorance of the law is overwhelmingly common, and getting worse

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

The maxim “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” made sense back in the days when the only kind of acts that were illegal were genuine crimes that caused palpable harm to innocent victims: murder, rape, theft, etc.

But with the growth of the regulatory state, every individual is now subject to thousands of pages of densely written federal, provincial and municipal statutes and regulations. The law is also embodied in innumerable judicial decisions. And it’s all in continual flux: Regulations are passed without parliamentary debate, and courts release new judgments daily.

There is probably not a single law professor, judge or legislator in Canada who has even a passing familiarity with, let alone full comprehension of, all the laws we are required to obey. The average joe doesn’t stand a chance. We are all potential offenders every day, no matter how law-abiding we might wish to be.

Given this welter of law, how should those responsible for enforcing it conduct themselves?

Karen Selick, “Drop that pig and put your hands in the air”, National Post, 2010-12-06

What happens when a “hoarder” is also an explosives buff

Filed under: Law, Randomness, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:01

Julie Watson reports on the “largest amount of homemade explosives ever found in one location in the U.S.”

Now authorities face the risky task of getting rid of the explosives. The property is so dangerous and volatile that that they have no choice but to burn the home to the ground this week in a highly controlled operation involving dozens of firefighters, scientists and hazardous material and pollution experts.

[. . .]

Bomb experts pulled out about nine pounds of explosive material and detonated it, but they soon realized it was too dangerous to continue given the quantity of hazardous substances. A bomb-disposing robot was ruled out because of the obstacle of all the junk Jakubec hoarded.

[. . .]

“This is a truly unknown situation,” said Neal Langerman, the top scientist at the safety consulting firm, Advanced Chemical Safety in San Diego. “They’ve got a very good inventory of what’s in there. Do I anticipate something going wrong? No. But even in a controlled burn, things occasionally go wrong.”

He said the burning of the house would provide “an amazing textbook study” for bomb technicians in the future.

San Diego County authorities plan to burn the home Wednesday but need near perfect weather, with no rain, no fog, and only light winds blowing toward the east, away from the city. They have warned residents in the danger zone that they will be given less than 24 hours notice to evacuate their homes for a day, and that nearby Interstate 15, connecting the area to San Diego, will be closed.

Update, 8 December: Controlled burn has been delayed until better weather conditions prevail.

December 5, 2010

“People talk about how knives are dangerous, and then they go in the kitchen and they have 50 of them”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:54

Marc Lacey looks at the non-firearm right-to-carry movement:

Arizona used to be a knife carrier’s nightmare, with a patchwork of local laws that forced those inclined to strap Buck knives or other sharp objects to their belts to tread carefully as they moved from Phoenix (no knives except pocketknives) to Tempe (no knives at all) to Tucson (no knives on library grounds).

But that changed earlier this year when Arizona made its Legislature the sole arbiter of knife regulations. And because of loose restrictions on weapons here, Arizona is now considered a knife carrier’s dream, a place where everything from a samurai sword to a switchblade can be carried without a quibble.

Arizona’s transformation, and the recent lifting of a ban on switchblades, stilettos, dirks and daggers in New Hampshire, has given new life to the knife rights lobby, the little-known cousin of the more politically potent gun rights movement. Its vision is a knife-friendly America, where blades are viewed not as ominous but as tools — the equivalent of sharp-edged screw drivers or hammers — that serve useful purposes and can save lives as well as take them.

[. . .]

“People talk about how knives are dangerous, and then they go in the kitchen and they have 50 of them,” said D’Alton Holder, a veteran knife maker who lives in Wickenberg, Ariz. “It’s ridiculous to talk about the size of the knife as if that makes a difference. If you carry a machete that’s three feet long, it’s no more dangerous than any knife. You can do just as much damage with an inch-long blade, even a box cutter.”

[. . .]

“We had certain knives that were illegal, but I could walk down the street with a kitchen knife that I used to carve a turkey and that would be legal,” Ms. Coffey said. “I’d be more scared of a kitchen knife than a switchblade.”

She said switchblade bans were passed in the 1950s because of the menacing use of the knives in movies like “West Side Story” and “Rebel Without a Cause.”

Police complaint filed after Tom Flanagan’s “fatwa”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:41

Consistency, people! If we condemn Islamic leaders who call for the death of people who “offend” Islam, we should also condemn Canadian political operatives who call for the assassination of Julian Assange:

Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson filed a written complaint today (December 4) with Vancouver police and the RCMP against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former campaign manager, Tom Flanagan.

Davidson alleged that on a November 30 CBC television broadcast, Flanagan “counselled and/or incited the assassination of Julian Assange contrary to the Criminal Code of Canada”.

Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, which is releasing 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables.

On the Power and Politics program hosted by Evan Solomon, Flanagan said: “Well, I think [Julian] Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.”

I doubt that the case will go very far, and it may not be meant to: it’s communicating a message.

December 2, 2010

It’s apparently not “wrong touching” when the TSA does it

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:21

Daniel Tencer says that the TSA’s guidelines for calming children are the same things sexual predators use:

An expert in the fight against child sexual abuse is raising the alarm about a technique the TSA is reportedly using to get children to co-operate with airport pat-downs: calling it a “game”.

Ken Wooden, founder of Child Lures Prevention, says the TSA’s recommendation that children be told the pat-down is a “game” is potentially putting children in danger.

Telling a child that they are engaging in a game is “one of the most common ways” that sexual predators use to convince children to engage in inappropriate contact, Wooden told Raw Story.

Children “don’t have the sophistication” to distinguish between a pat-down carried out by an airport security officer and an assault by a sexual predator, he said.

The TSA policy could “desensitize children to inappropriate touch and ultimately make it easier for sexual offenders to prey on our children,” Wooden added.

H/T to Cory Doctorow for the link.

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