2010 archive
The Court Punted, and It Was a Good Punt 0
The Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals declined to consider free speech issues, but still ruled that a prosecutor could not charge a teen-aged girl with child porn because a revealing picture of her was on (several) someone else’s cell phone(s).
The prosecutor wanted to turn childhood dumbness into a felony because the girl refused to attend an “education program” of the his choosing (several other girls were involved, but only one took the prosecutor to court).
The court avoided ruling that the case involved a Constitutional issue (judges usually try to avoid ruling on Constitutional issues unless they can find no other way out). Instead, they ruled that the prosecutor acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner:
The court did rule that the district attorney had been wrong to threaten to charge the teen merely for refusing to attend the program.
The court said the girl, then 16 and identified as the daughter of “Jane Doe,” had “a likelihood of success” on the claim that the threatened prosecution was based not on probable cause of a crime but “instead in retaliation for Doe’s exercise of her constitutional rights not to attend the education program.”
Clearly, the girls were silly, stupid, and thoughtless. Teenagers are often silly, stupid, and thoughtless (as I recall, “thoughtless” was one of my mother’s favorite adjectives).
Threatening a felony charge was using a sledge hammer to clean a kitchen counter. (I suspect that any the pornographic content was not in the picture, but in the prosecutor’s head.)
We Need Single Payer 0
A health insurance mandate is hardly single payer, but anything would be better than what we’ve got. And compelling insurance companies actually to insure–that’s a good thing.
Over at the Central Virginia Progressive, Scott Wichman guest-posts some thoughts on the health insurance bill and health insurance mandates. As context, remember that the Regency has tried to outlaw mandates.
Two nuggets from the post:
———————
It makes no sense to me that when we send food, supplies, and medical care to a country halfway around the world, we are seen in this country as noble and heroic. If the government offers to do the same thing stateside, is is Tyrranical/Socialist/Fascist and people protest it.
Read the whole thing.
I Get Mail 0
I emailed back, not that I shall get noticed, that he did the right thing. Sometimes, you take what you can get and keep working for what you want.
But you take what you can get when you can get it.
Bourbon and Blackpowder 1
Looks like it will soon be legal to carry concealed weapons in bars in Virginia, despite the last-ditch appeal to the Regent from the Commonwealth’s police chiefs.
The bill deals only with concealed weapons; in Virginia it’s legal to carry a gun openly without a permit.
If the weapon is concealed, how is the barkeep to know that the customer is packin’?
This Should Be Fun 0
You can bank on it:
JP Morgan Chase, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Germany’s Depfa bank have been told they will be tried for aggravated fraud, along with 13 other people.
The charges relate to the sale of derivates to the city of Milan.
We Need Single Payer 0
Or we shall continue to sacrifice the poor upon the altar inscribed, To Hell with Them.
The states and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid, which saw a record enrollment increase of 3.3 million people last year. The program now benefits 47 million people, primarily children, pregnant women, disabled adults and nursing home residents. It falls to the states to control spending by setting limits on eligibility, benefits and provider payments within broad federal guidelines.
Michigan, like many other states, did just that last year, packaging the 8 percent reimbursement cut with the elimination of dental, vision, podiatry, hearing and chiropractic services for adults.
The story tells of doctors turning away patients, many of whom they have treated for years and some of whom are one treatment from their deathbeds.
H/T Karen for the link.
We Need Single Payer 0
Another example of how mixing profits and health care leads to no health care. A court case reveals that an insurance company targeted paying customers diagnosed with HIV for cancellation because the insurer didn’t want to live up to its side of the bargain to pay for their health care:
Read the whole thing.
To the Wolves 0
Why persons can’t beat off the wolves at the door.
The wolves won’t compromise.
MarketWatch:
As the crisis unfolds, one thing is consistent: Despite the made-for-TV promises by bank executives and government officials, when it comes to avoiding foreclosure, U.S. homeowners are almost entirely on their own.
Triangulation 0
Last month, On the Media ran a story on authorities’ use of cell phone tracking. From the website:
Follow the link for the story and transcript or listen here:
Among other things, the story included this tidbit (emphasis added):
At a security and surveillance conference a few months ago, the Sprint electronic surveillance manager admitted that law enforcement was making such extensive use of this capability that Sprint had set up essentially a Web portal for law enforcement to go to, to ping cell phones to find their location based on GPS. He said that that website had been used eight million times over a one-year period.
And that’s Sprint, usually ranking as the number three or four player in the industry. (When kids can hack into their schools’ computers and change their grades, we can wonder how secure, even with Sprint’s best efforts, that website can be.)
When we see portrayals of wireless tracking on the telly vision, it looks quite straightforward. The script has already convinced us that X is a bad guy. How convenient: with one call or click, the good guys know where X is.
Life ain’t telly vision (and anyone who has ever watched “reality TV” knows that telly vision ain’t life). Identifying the bad guy isn’t always as easy as it seems on NCIS and government has a significant record of tracking the wrong persons, such as this eight-year old who is on the Do Not Fly List, (and once you are on their list, getting off is haaarrrrrddd to do).
In Vermont, the ACLU has had enough:
The state attorney general’s office refused public records requests by the ACLU seeking information about the practice, saying that information is exempt from public records statutes.
So the ACLU filed suit Monday in Washington Superior Court, asking a judge to force the state to produce documents under the Public Records Act.
(snip)
“The location information can reveal very personal data, like where they shop, whose houses they visit, churches they attend, therapists they see,’’ said Mariko Hirose, an ACLU legal fellow in New York.
Power exercised in secret is power exercised without restraint.
Afterthought, Have Cake Eat It Too Dept.:
Many persons who style themselves as “conservative” loudly broadcast their suspicion of government.
I find it curious that that suspicion, so dearly clutched to their hearts, seems to be conditional.
They are hostile to anything a government might do that leads to helping folks have food, shelter, health care, and other basic needs of life, yet enthusiastically support anything a government might do that leads to locking folks up.
QOTD 0
Albert Einstein from the Quotemaster:
All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.
Accelerated Learning, One Born Every Minute Dept. 0
Here (warning: obnoxious commercial plays automatically).
I’m thinking Baby Einstein redux.
Aside: If I muted the commercials, I’d miss gyps gems like this.
“Call Me Ishmael” 2
This weekend’s storm, which pretty much missed Virginia Beach to the north, caused a whale of a problem up the road a piece.
“One Man, One Vote, One Beat-Down” 0
The last three minutes are the best.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Crumbums & Fatcats | ||||
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Via Josh Marshall.
Life under the Regency 0
Dick Polman:
(snip)
Either he cynically figured that he needed the nutcase vote in order to win, or he truly suspects that Obama might be from Kenya. Either way, yesterday’s spin can’t erase what he said. Keep an eye on this guy; he clearly sees an opening on the right flank.
Oh Noes 0
Why should they be different (emphasis added)?
Hector Sants, the chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), said more needed to be done to tackle insider dealing and other manipulation.
But speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he said there was no evidence the UK was worse than other major countries.
Old Vinegar in New Bottles 2
QOTD 0
Tyron Edwards, via the Quotemaster:
The slanderer and the assassin differ only in the weapon they use; with the one it is the dagger, with the other the tongue. The former is worse that the latter, for the last only kills the body, while the other murders the reputation.
The Fee Hand of the Market 1
The Brits, seduced by market ideology, which claims that adding marketeers into the mix is always better, have been experimenting with their health care system.
It’s not working. Service is deteriorating, costs are increasing, and the extra money is ending up in the pockets of the marketeers.
The business lobby insists that this is all part of the necessary birthing process of the market, but this grand design will turn us into consumers of healthcare, creating ever greater demand. Couple this problem with the fact that private investor-owned firms are profit maximisers, not cost minimisers, and you have a recipe for spiralling healthcare costs. The $2.6 trillion US healthcare system is a great example of this combination.
Stare Decisis 0
Sometimes it is best to let well enough alone.