- More on the ongoing ammunition shortage in the US, as manufacturers are still unable to produce enough to satisfy demand.
- Police at G20 take trophy photo including arrested protester handcuffed and kneeling in front of the group. H/T to Radley Balko.
- Voyeurs rejoice! What sounds like a report from the Journal of Spike TV reveals that a mere 10 minutes of ogling well-endowed women provides as much benefit to men as 30 minutes in the gym, as far as heart disease, high blood pressure and stress are concerned. H/T to Ghost of a Flea.
- New Zealand bans in-vehicle GPS navigation systems . . . but only if they’re running on a mobile phone. Non-phone based systems apparently don’t distract you with directions the way phone-based ones do. Or something.
- Detroit Lions fans love the Washington Redskins.
September 28, 2009
Random links of possible interest
September 22, 2009
Over-broad laws can be useful to silence critics
Richard Dawkins contrasts the scientific way of resolving disputes with the British libel laws:
It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world. Litigants are coming to England from another country to sue people who live in a third country over a book that was published in a fourth country – the excuse being that a handful of books were sold here too. A nice little round-the-world jaunt for lawyers it may be, but sensible or liberal it is not. Nor is it just.
Of course there must be redress if you are maliciously attacked in a way that damages you. But if such a law is cast too wide it has disastrous consequences on the public interest, not least in the area of science and medicine where the stakes are high, profits and reputations are guarded jealously, and the vulnerable need to be protected from unproven or fraudulent claims for cures, whether by “alternative” therapists or big pharmaceuticals.
H/T to Chris Taylor Chris Myrick for the link.
September 18, 2009
I didn’t think this was legal
Linked from The Agitator, a little bit of legal trivia . . . even if the jury finds you not guilty, the judge can still sentence you to prison anyway:
Indeed, my friends, welcome to our world.
Not only have many defendants been sentenced for stuff the jury said they didn’t do (or at least wasn’t proven), but yesterday the Supreme Court refused to do anything about it. The cert denial came in the case of Mark Hurn of my hometown, Madison, Wis. Hurn ate 15 years extra years in prison for possessing crack cocaine, even though a jury acquitted him of the charge. It’s true. Though he was convicted of having powder cocaine in his house, (for which he was looking at two or three years in prison), he was sentenced to almost 18 years. Why? Because even though the jury acquitted him of the crack charge, the judge kind of figured he’d done it and therefore found, by a preponderance of the evidence that he’d done it, and sent him to prison as if the jury had actually said “Guilty” rather than “Not Guilty.”
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We’ve gone far past the “let the punishment fit the crime” stage
A very disturbing post at Classically Liberal that I urge you to read:
What was once considering a normal rite of passage, typical curiosity that the newly sexualized young have about themselves, their bodies, and the bodies of others, has become a heinous crime. Not long ago a curious adolescent or child, caught exploring, or playing doctor in the back yard, was given a talking-to, sent to bed early, and warned to not do it again — a warning most heeded for at least another few years, after which time warnings were useless. Today, it has been criminalized, and criminalized in a way far exceeding crimes of violence. A youth who has sex with another youth, even if voluntary, could well face legal sentences far worse than if they had killed their friend.
The absurdity of charging a teenager with statutory rape for having sex with another teenager (and sometimes even charging each partner for victimizing the other) shouldn’t need to be discussed — it’s flat-out insane for the legal system to be involved in the vast majority of these cases. They shouldn’t even be cases!
It is literally true that a teen would be punished far less severely for murder than for consensual sexual contact with another teen. A murderer, after a trial is sentenced to a term in prision (with the possibility of parole/early release in many cases). After being released from prison, they’ve “paid their debt to society” and at least in theory can try to resume a normal life.
Someone who gets caught up in the “sexual offender” category will be punished for the rest of his or her life: once their names go on the official register, they will never, ever, be free again. They can’t work in any job that might mean contact with the general public (if they can even get hired at all). They can’t live within arbitrary distances of schools, playgrounds, or other areas where children might gather . . . which in practice means they can’t legally live anywhere.
How is this in any way proportional to the “crime”? How can this be called “justice”?
September 17, 2009
The Ontario wine scene
Michael Pinkus doesn’t pull punches as he reports on some of the big names in the Ontario wine arena:
As you can see, the Cellared in Canada problem has not waned one little bit, in fact, this summer I watched the debate intensify. I even saw the train wreck known as Hillary Dawson, president of the Wine Council of Ontario, defend the practice as “[allowing] Ontario growers and winemakers to compete with low-priced foreign wines”. I really do wonder about this woman sometimes, she says some pretty asinine things and you’d better believe I’m keeping her press clipping cause you can always count on at least one, juicy piece of inanity. The more she opens her mouth, the further she sticks her foot into it. Many have wondered out loud whether she is just a lackey (or mouthpiece) for the larger wineries, those that currently make Cellared product. Hillary, if I could have given you any advice this summer, it would have been to take a vacation, put away the pens, don’t write another word to a newspaper and for God’s sake don’t give another interview. If the topic of Cellared wine comes up, run the other way. Her vacation mate should be my favourite whipping boy Bruce Walker of Vincor. He was at it again, blaming the lack of a winery home for grapes, both this year and last on the growers (“I would suggest less grapes be grown in Canada …”) and not on the thousands of litres his company brings in to make Cellared in Canada CRAP (Cheap Readily Available Plonk).
I also found myself embroiled in the Buckhorn debate , as organizers try to figure out the direction of the festival for next year. Something tells me I’ve probably given my last seminar at Buckhorn, unless they want me to talk about VQA. They should talk to the Shores of Erie organizers about that one. But hopefully, finding their focus will make the festival better in the long run.
Here’s an earlier post on the whole wretched Cellared in Canada mess.
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September 14, 2009
Should publicly funded media be free?
Let’s just set aside the whole question about whether the government should be even in the media-provider business* . . . if the government paid for it (that is, if you paid for it), shouldn’t it be available to you for free?
Let’s put aside my personal frustration at having my work locked away. The real question here is, since CBC content is funded by the public, shouldn’t the public own it? Or at least have access to it? Actually, the CBC archives are just the tip of the iceberg: the overwhelming majority of stuff made for Canadians with Canadians’ money is inaccessible to Canadians.
In Canada, movies are supported by Telefilm, TV by the Canadian Television Fund, books and art by The Canada Council for the Arts, and so on. But most of this stuff isn’t distributed very well or for very long, and you can only get your hands on a fraction of it.
So I want to put forth one more contrarian position: I think that any publicly funded content should (within, say, 5 years of its creation) be released to the public domain.
Thoughts?
* No, they bloody shouldn’t be. IMO. YMMV, etc.
September 11, 2009
NFL refused permission to suspend Kevin and Pat Williams
ESPN reports that a federal appeals court has ruled that the NFL cannot suspend Minnesota Vikings Pat Williams and Kevin Williams:
The NFL wanted to suspend the Williamses for four games after they both tested positive for a banned diuretic during training camp in 2008.
They had taken the over-the-counter weight loss supplement StarCaps. It did not state on the label that it contained the diuretic — which can mask the presence of steroids.
Neither player tested positive for steroids.
September 10, 2009
Criminals get creative, use “reality TV” ruse
Apparently, “reality TV” does have a use: it allows criminal gangs to kidnap women and sell their pictures on the net:
Turkish military police said today that they had stormed an Istanbul villa to rescue nine women held captive after being tricked into believing they were reality TV show contestants.
The women were rescued on Monday from the villa in Riva, a summer resort on the outskirts of Istanbul, according to a spokesman for the military police in the region who carried out the raid. He said the women were held captive for around two months, but refused to provide further details.
The women were led to believe they were being filmed for a Big Brother-type television programme, according to the Dogan news agency and other news reports. Instead, their naked images were sold on the internet by their captors.
Given what could have happened, these women seem to have gotten off quite lightly . . . and it raises the question of whether this has been done/is being done in other areas.
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September 8, 2009
Follow-up on the Fire Chief who was shot in court . . . by the police
The situation isn’t any less surreal than the original report. Kevin Drum provides an update:
He’s OK, but the police department, which was already in deep trouble for its habit of ticketing everything on wheels that rolled through Jericho, has been disbanded and all outstanding tickets have been voided. The town’s part-time judge has quit too. And nobody knows what’s happened to all the ticket revenue.
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September 4, 2009
“They shot him. Right there in court.”
Radley Balko links to the weirdest “cops gone wild” story I’ve encountered in quite a while:
It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn’t hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.
The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.
Note also the fascinating fact that there are 7 police officers watching over a population of 174 people. That’s an amazing level of “protection” those folks are getting.
Original story here.
Update: Bonus story from Radley’s site, Feds bust doctor for . . . meeting women on the internet. Amazing. Just freakin’ amazing.
September 2, 2009
More on the Michael Bryant incident
CTV News has additional information on the victim in Monday’s traffic incident involving former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Bryant:
A cyclist who was killed in a collision in downtown Toronto earlier this week was involved in a confrontation with his ex-girlfriend that brought police to her home less than an hour before he was fatally injured.
Police arrived at a home where the former girlfriend of Darcy Allan Sheppard lived on George Street, just after 9 p.m. on Monday. Officers were reportedly there to deal with a disturbance of some type.
Toronto police Const. Tony Vella said officers escorted Sheppard away from the scene and there were no allegations of criminal activity.
[. . .]
The Globe and Mail reports Sheppard had 61 outstanding warrants for his arrest in the province of Alberta at the time of his death.
The warrants were related to allegations of fraud, the newspaper reported.
Well, this story certainly gets more involved at time goes on.
More on the travesty that is “Cellared in Canada” wine
Konrad Ejbich has an article in the most recent issue of Wine Spectator discussing the business and legal side of allowing large Canadian wineries to import grape juice and sell the result as “Canadian” wine:
It’s a longstanding quirk of Canadian wine law: “Cellared in Canada.” Several Canadian provinces allow wineries to import bulk wine (the popular choices today are Argentina and Chile), bottle it and call it Canadian, as long as the back label contains those three magic words. In the country’s two biggest wine regions, Ontario law requires such wines to contain 30 percent local grapes while British Columbia law requires no Canadian grapes.
But Ontario’s growing boutique wine industry is now calling for an end to “cellared” wines, arguing that the time has come for Canadian to mean Canadian. They claim the practice is tarnishing the reputation of local wine and jeopardizing the livelihood of grapegrowers. They charge that big wine companies are importing bulk wine and marketing it as “Canadian,” while domestic grapegrowers leave thousands of tons of fruit to rot on the vine.
“When we have wineries literally driving past vineyards full of Ontario grapes to pick up imported grape juice to make a blend, it is clear there is an issue,” said Jim Warren, president of the Ontario Viniculture Association. Growers and small wineries are organizing protests outside wine stores and have called for a boycott. They’ve asked the Ontario government to enact clearer labeling of “Cellared in Canada” products, increase the percentage of Ontario grapes used in blended wines and significantly increase the availability of VQA wines in Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) stores. (VQA, or Vintners’ Quality Alliance, is the appellation and quality organization that guarantees the authenticity of domestically-grown wines in Canada.)
Historical note from the old site: in a 2006 post, the name “Conrad Edgebeck” appeared in the comments. That was someone’s attempt to render Konrad Ejbich’s name from hearing it spoken on the radio. That particular post drew slow but steady Google hits showing that there were lots of others who clearly knew who Konrad was, but had no idea how to spell his name. Having now re-referenced the approximate pronunciation, I expect this post will serve the same function for this site.
Update, 9 February, 2012: Just as I suspected, this post is still showing up frequently in the search logs (161 times in the last week). To save you a bit of further work, here’s the top Google entry on Konrad — http://winewriterscircle.ca/members/ejbich-konrad and here is his Twitter feed — https://twitter.com/#!/winezone. Just trying to help.
QotD: Section 13 violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
I have determined that Mr. Lemire contravened s. 13 of the Act in only one of the instances alleged by Mr. Warman, namely the AIDS Secrets article. However, I have also concluded that s. 13(1) in conjunction with ss. 54(1) and (1.1) are inconsistent with s. 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. The restriction imposed by these provisions is not a reasonable limit within the meaning of s. 1 of the Charter. Since a formal declaration of invalidity is not a remedy available to the Tribunal (see Cuddy Chicks Ltd. V. Ontario (Labour Relations Board), [1991] 2 S.C.R. 5), I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him (see Nova Scotia (Workers’ Compensation Board) v. Martin, 2003 SCC 54 at paras. 26-7).
Athanasios D. Hadjis, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision in Warman vs. Lemire, 2009-09-02
August 31, 2009
More police hijinks in the UK
Natalie Solent looks at two particularly intrusive expansions of British policing. One I’ve already discussed: Police nicking goods from unlocked vehicles, but the other one is new to me:
On the same theme, Longrider has a story about the police in Northamptonshire impounding cars if the same car with foreign plates is seen twice more than six months apart. A Mr West writes:
I live in Spain for about seven months of the year and France for the other five. My Spanish-registered car was impounded in March after two short visits to the UK within nine months of each other.
At the start of 2009, a pilot scheme called Operation Andover started in Northamptonshire, with any foreign vehicle seen just twice, more than six months apart, being impounded without warning.
Once again, Mr West got his car back, eventually. But he had to fight not to pay a fee of several hundred pounds. As he points out, an enormously common reason for a foreign registered car being seen twice in the same place a year apart might be, not the effort to evade paying UK road tax that the police seem (pretend?) to suspect, but regular visitors coming to Britain at about the same time every year.
So the police can not only nick stuff out of your car, if it’s got a non-UK license plate, they can take the whole thing. Fascinating.
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Tase fast . . .
Radley Balko looks at the latest television travesty in the “reality” genre:
“There’s always a good time to use a Taser.”
So says Andrea, attractive single mom and one of the four stars of the new TLC reality show, The Police Women of Broward County. The trailer with the Taser quip then cuts to the show’s stars tackling suspects, putting knees into various backs, and pointing guns. Browse other clips on the TLC website, and it seems the network can’t make up its mind whether these women are sexpots with handcuffs or girls who want to be taken seriously for kicking just as much ass as the boys. A smug poster ad campaign for the show takes the the show’s identity problem to yet crasser heights. One ad reads, “Taser Time.” Another, “Cavity Search, Anyone?”
Of course, there isn’t “always a good time to use a Taser,” as the multitude of viral web videos depicting taserings of grandmothers, pregnant women, and children will attest. TLC’s ad campaign is offensive, though merely the latest iteration of a genre of television that trivializes the state’s use of force and makes a mockery of the criminal justice system.
I’ll take Radley’s word for it that the original Cops show was not as sensationalist and exploitative as the many successors that have aired since then. Even saying that, I had my doubts that “reality” TV was an improvement over the more traditional “cop” or “investigator” shows on regular network TV.
Fox then plumbed new depths of depravity last year with Smile . . . You’re Under Arrest!, featuring Maricopa County, Arizona’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” Joe Arpaio. In a premise that evokes the old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Running Man or Mike Judge’s dystopian parody Idiocracy, Sheriff Joe teams up with a crew of comedy writers and improv actors to create elaborate scenarios where “unaware criminal suspects with outstanding warrants are lured out of hiding in this high-energy prank show.”
Showing my cultural ignorance, I’d never heard of this show, but just on the basis of this description, I can imagine lots of ways it might go horribly wrong. If it hasn’t yet, I’m sure it’s got all the potential to do so in the future (assuming that it’s still on the air).
As for the SWAT programs, America has unfortunately grown comfortable with, or at least accustomed to, the idea of using SWAT teams to kick down doors and conduct volatile, confrontational raids for consensual, nonviolent crimes. We’ve seen a massive increase in these raids, from about 3,000 per year in the early 1980s to some 50,000 per year by the early 2000s. The popularity of SWAT shows didn’t cause the problem, but their popularity is sympomatic of it, and they can only further ingrain the troubling notion that there’s nothing wrong with sending a unit of cops dressed like soldiers into private homes to arrest nonviolent drug offenders. And of course, we’re never going to see the wrong-door raids, or police mistakes that result in fatalities.
Cop reality shows glamorize all the wrong aspects of police work. Their trailers depict lots of gun pointing, door-busting, perp-chasing, and handcuffing. Forget the baton-twirling Officer Friendly. To the extent that the shows aid in the recruiting of new police officers, they’re almost certainly pulling people attracted to the wrong parts of the job./p>
That last part is probably true. There are no other jobs open to the general public that provide so many opportunities to “go wrong” yet not face the realistic risk of punishment (the blue wall of silence will protect a fellow officer until — and sometimes well beyond — that officer being proven guilty of serious criminal activity). Any criticism of the police seems to be taken as a criticism of all police, and the “civilian” is always assumed to be wrong.
