Archive for Law & Order - page 6

… a continuing series.  Today we explore the disinclination of people to do things they don’t want to do regardless of the level of persuasion placed on them by other people who think they know what’s best for everyone.

Draw Your Own Conclusion

Two things have jumped out at me from the news in the last few days.  The first one is that two states, New York and Massachussettts have recently passed legislation requiring that owners of certain rifles register them with the state and that the laws have been largely ignored.  State officials were taken by surprise and are not sure what the next step will be.  The second is that after the deadline has passed requiring people to enroll in a healthcare plan under The Affordable Care Act, many are still not doing it.  And their reasons for not purchasing healthcare insurance are the same reasons they didn’t do it before the law was passed.  And so passage of the law had no effect on their reasoning for inaction.

Moral?  Some people cannot be coerced into taking an action they do not wish to take regardless of whether it is actually (arguably) in their best interest to take that action.  People will do what they want to do and they won’t do what they don’t want to do.  But what I find discomforting about all this is that there appears to be a belief among our political class that they can circumvent human nature (or laws of physics, or economics) with the stroke of a pen.  And even more discomforting is that they feel no guilt over their actions since they believe are “helping” you.

There are two trends happening in society today the public perceptions of which seem at odds to me.  One is the appearance and increasing use of electronic cigarrettes, or e-cigs, which is portrayed in the media as bad and in need of regulation if not outright ban, and the other is the increasing de-criminalization and indeed in some cases legalization of marijuana which is  generally portrayed positively or  as a simple matter of personal freedom.

I must say that I do not understand the crusade against electronic cigarettes.  Anti smoking zealots have argued that the adverse health effects of smoking, not just for the smoker but for anyone in the vicinity via second-hand smoke (and currently for the entire environment because discarded cigarette butts are poisonous!) justified their vendetta against a legal product.  And the public at large has generally bought into this because no one likes the smell of cigarette smoke.  However…the advent of electronic cigarettes adresses every one of these issues – healthier for the smoker, no second hand smoke and no butts on the sidewalk.  Your dog is safe!  The anti smokers should be hailing this as a win-win:  Smokers get to smoke and no threats to non-smokers!  But that is not the case.  Smoking of electronic cigarettes, or “vaping” must be prohibited just like regular smoking because it looks like regular smoking.  And don’t forget the children.  Children might see someone vaping and try it themselves and then move on to the hard stuff – real cigarettes!  Another argument is that e-cigs contain nicotine, just like real cigarettes.  But there is no nicotine in the vapor for second hand effect, only the user is exposed.  Besides – other antismoking aids such as nicotine gum and patches also contain nicotine.  And both of these are arguably less safe for children as they could be extremely harmful if accidentally ingested by a child.   And finally, there is the uncertainty and over abundance of caution factor:  E-cigs might be bad and that’s a risk we can’t take.  

H8rs gonna H8

Now for the weed thing.  First, I am not a weed prude.  In my lifetime I have probably lost more weed in my couch cushions than any thirty something hipster today will ever smoke.  But I don’t smoke it any more and have no desire to.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  A very expensive t-shirt at that considering the money spent and time squandered on the habit.  But if you want to smoke it, knock yourself out.  Kind of like my attitude toward cigarettes real and electronic.  But there is a potential danger to marijuana smokers posed simply by the act of smoking a substance.  Marijuana contains no nicotine that I am aware of, but the absorption of nicotine is not the only danger of smoking, inhaling smoke of any kind is traumatic to the lungs and cardio-vascular system in general.  This is never mentioned in reporting on this subject.  Folks who are against liberalization of marijuana laws argue that it is a gateway drug that will lead users onto harder drugs.  Anectdotally I have seen this to be true, though not universally.  Such fears are rebutted with assertions that there is no evidence to support that stance.  So the risk that smoking pot might be harmful for some people is a risk we can  afford to take and abundance of caution is not justified in this case.  But consider this – in Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational pot use, the nascent pot industry is looking for ways to expand the customer base and to entice non users to try marijuana.  Granted, they seem to be sensitive about marketing to a youth audience but I don’t think that you can argue that marketing of cigarettes (or liquor for that matter) specifically aimed at adult audiences will influence children and that similar marijuana marketing will not.

“It’s not just for stoners anymore”

I guess I wonder why Vaping isn’t hailed as a breakthrough for public health and that marijuana legalization isn’t viewed with a little more caution or skepticism.  Perhaps I’m crazy – or is everyone else?  Or I’m straight and everyone else is stoned?  Whatever.  Personally, my attitude is live and let live.  You want to smoke?  Spark one up.  You want to vape?  Have at it.

FBI put nation on alert to “…highly credible terrorist threat”.  Is there no heinous act so loathsome to which those demented Al-Quaeda bastards will not stoop?  Follow the link to learn what horrible end is in store for us.

The New Straits Times (Malaysia) is reporting that Malaysia Air Flight 370’s Copilot attempted a cell phone call after final radio contact and after the plane diverted from it’s planned course to Beijing.  I have seen this reported nowhere else.

The source for the story is an anonymous person inside the investigation.  The source states that the co-pilot’s cell records are being examined (as I assume would be the pilot’s, flight crew’s and all the passengers’) and the examination shows that the phone was powered off about the time that the crew boarded the flight.  This is considered normal.  However, after the flight departed, after the final radio contact with ground controllers and after the flight changed course, the phone was turned on and a call was made or attempted.  The source declined to give further information as to whom the call was attemted or if it was indeed completed.  I will be interested to see if this story is picked up by other media sources.

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…whether you are liberal or conservative, democrat or republican (or anything else).

A sitting Supreme Court Justice asserts that the 1st Ammendment is a “collective” right that exists not to prevent government abuses, but to ensure that ”public opinion could be channeled into effective governmental action.” Scary enough.  Even scarier is that 3 other sitting Justices agreed with that opinion.  The initial Justice is Steven Breyer and the quotes are from his dissenting opinion in the recent McCutcheon decision which has to do with campaign contributions and the constitutionality of limits thereto.

It is amazing to what lengths Progressive Liberals will go in order to justify their collectivist Oligarchich schemes.  Breyer’s assertions stand the First Ammendment on it’s head.  If the purpose if the 1st Ammendment were to ensure that the “collective” (read “majority” or  better yet “mob”) could channel their public opinion into effective government action why would it start out with “Congress Shall Make No Law…”?  Sounds like the intent was to impede “effective government action”.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Ammendment

If you have read the Federalist Papers you should understand that the founder’s intent was the exact opposite of Breyer’s assertion of the right of collective speech in order to bring about effective governement action.  The founders feared “the tyranny of the majority” and therefore wanted to inhibit any government action unless it could be broadly agreed upon by all parties after being rigorously weighed and debated.  The intent was protection of the rights of the individual. Not exactly the opposite, as Breyer asserts.  And the fact that four of nine Justices support this opinion should scare you because all of our individual inalienable rights apparently are  hanging by a thread.

According to The White House Blog (of course the White House has a blog.  Doesn’t eveybody?) the fact that people were lining up across the nation to meet the enrollment deadline for Obamacare is a good thing.

People wait in line outside the Centro San Vicente at 8061 Alameda to sign up for the Affordable Care Act – credit El Paso Times

The White House can’t be that clueless.  Americans will line up gladly to be the first ones to own the latest hot gadget or book.  They don’t gladly line up to be the last ones.  If these people were excited about the prospect of signing up they would have lined up in December 2013.  They have only lined up at the last minute because there is a hypothetical gun to their head – this is their last chance to avoid a penalty.  That’s like saying all those people lined up at the post office at midnight every April 15th are doing so because they just can’t wait to pay their taxes.  Oh…hold on.  They did wait.  Just like these people.  They waited as long as possible for their sh*t sandwich.  And the sight of Americans lined up by order of the Government is not a good thing.

It’s for your own good…if you know what I mean (and I think you do)

Today, Malaysian Authorities officially declared Flight 370 lost at sea with no possible survivors.  Based on close analysis of the attempted communications between the plane and satellites it was determined that the flight was on the southern of the two possible courses and this would have put it 1500 miles west of Australia in the Indian Ocean when it’s fuel would have been exhausted.  Since there are no possible landing sites, the lost at sea declaration was made.  The search continues though now as a recovery effort.  Conditions in the area are such that it is believed no one could survive for what has now been two weeks even if they had survived a crash or ditching.

Still unanswered are the questions of how or why this happened.  Authorites have all but ruled out an accident because of the circumstances surrounding how the plane “disappeared” from communications and radar, and because the flight’s behavior afterward indicated that the deed was done with purpose and some skill.  There is speculation as to who was responsible and as to whether one or both of the pilots may have been involved, though to what end is not known.

UCSB professor assaults pro-life activists in University’s Free Speech Area resulting in misdemeanor charges. How tolerant.

Full story here, but the short version is that on this past March 4th, some members of a pro-life group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust (hereafter referred to as “survivors”) were at The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) at what I guess you’d call a “protest”.  There were a few of them staked out in the quad area of the campus known as “The Arbor” handing out literature and holding graphic pictures showing the effects of late term abortions.  You know what I mean, dead babies.  A UCSB professor named Mireille Miller-Young (Feminist studies) came along and was incensed.  First a heated verbal exchange began between the professor and some students, and the survivors.  Miller-Young then ripped one of the signs out of a survivor’s hands and ran off with it.  Two of the survivors, sisters Joan and Thrin Short, followed after her trying to get their sign back while recording video on a smartphone.  In the struggle for the sign and as one of the students tride to take the smartphone from Thrin the altercation got physical.  The professor and the few students she was accompanied by got in an elevator with the sign which was later found in the professor’s office destroyed.  The UCSB Police investigated and later determined that Miller-Young had broken the law.

I will say up front that I am pro-life and so I am pre-disposed to being sympathetic to the pro-life side here, but that is not my point.  If you believe in Free Speech then you believe that the people you disagree with have the right to express their opinions.  I find it ironic that on a University of California campus where are offered courses of study in all manner of nonsense (i.e. pornography, sex work, feminist & queer theory) in the name of academic freedom that the exercise of free speech is not welcome in a so-called free speech area.  How tolerant of them.

Time for another post about the missing Malaysian Airways Flight 370.  I haven’t been posting on this because there has been little actual news, just lots of (often crazy) speculation.  However, it was reported last night the Australian Authorities using satellite recon pictures may have spotted potential debris in the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia.  Aircraft and surface vessels have been dispatched, but the sheer size of the search area and bad weather make actual confirmation/recovery a long shot at best.

Good Luck

So, while not really wanting to board the speculation bandwagon, I will put a couple things out there.  I’ll call it educated speculation.  There are some responsible people with knowledge of the aircraft, airline flight procedures, etc. that are attempting to put together scenarios that fit in with the known facts.  Recently a theory was put forth that this was an accident and the cause was a fire on board that eventually incapacited the crew and passengers and the plane continued to fly on automated systems until it eventually crashed when it ran out of fuel.  Link to that article here.  You may want to read it then come back.  Back now? OK.  Now a pilot debunks that theory here in what seems to me to be a very credible way.  Go ahead and read that.  Back?  OK, good.  I still believe that the simplest explanation will turn out to be the correct one.  And I’m leaning toward the simplest explanation being an act of air piracy though we don’t know by whom or for what purpose or whether they succeeded (landed) or failed (crashed).  This mystery is a long way from being solved.