Category: The World

This is part of an ongoing if irregular series on the Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution. You might check out parts One, Two, and Three.

You could probably spend decades reading nothing but things that have been written about the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. You could probably spend the next 6 years just reading what has been written on it in the last 6 years. It goes like this:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The short version of this is that, with some very broad exceptions, if the police suspect you are doing something illegal, they have to go before a judge and present “probable cause” and ask for a search warrant that outlines where they want to search and what they hope to find there. It applies not only to you — your physical body — but also to your residence and “papers” and “effects” too. The nice people at Dictionary.com tell us that means “goods; movables; personal property,” i.e., your stuff.

Some of the exceptions to the Fourth Amendment are very common sense: if a cop hears someone screaming for help and gunshots, he is very likely to break the door down rather than go before a judge (and I think most of us like it that way); if you are pulled over for speeding and are stupid enough to have your illegal drug stash sitting on the passenger seat, no warrant is required to arrest you for drug possession, nor would it be unreasonable to search the rest of the vehicle for additional contraband; if, while executing a search warrant, cops find evidence not listed in the warrant but pertaining to some other criminal activity, it doesn’t get thrown out.

It is important to note that this only applies to government searches. Your Aunt Myrna does not need a search warrant to take a peek in your medicine cabinet. If your neighbor breaks into your place and takes a look around, he is guilty of “breaking and entering,” not “violating your Fourth Amendment rights.” Nor, frankly, does your boss need a search warrant to go through your desk (strictly speaking, that’s your employer’s property anyway, meaning it is his right and sometimes his duty to do so).

Things worked out reasonably well like this for a couple hundred years, with the caveat that every few years some case would get all the way to the Supreme Court that called for defining, limiting, or expanding the rights and powers involved. They managed to convict Al Capone under it. Congress even made allowances for the fact that there might be a time when it was necessary to collect evidence without an alleged criminal knowing, and created things like wiretapping laws and the FISA court (they even have their own website, such as it is). Even in these situations, however, there is a court that has issued a warrant, and an attorney who has been appointed to argue for the rights of the target person — who remember has no idea this is going on.

Then the “War on Terror” came along and things got messy.

The first, obvious messy thing was federalizing airport screeners, making them all employees of the TSA. These people are specifically employed to search the people and luggage that go on commercial aircraft. The legal gymnastics that allow these warrant-free searches by federal employees (who absolutely have the authority to have a traveller arrested) is that “[B]ecause of the special risks that attend flight, and because people have the option of not flying, our courts have relaxed Fourth Amendment requirements in reviewing blanket searches and seizures at airports.” In other words, “If you don’t like it, don’t fly commercial airlines!” This is of course only an option for people with lots of travel time or lots of money, if not both.

The second thing is the Bush Administration NSA wiretap program, which President Bush admitted was in effect in 2005. The thing that has confused most people is that the exact sort of wiretaps that are (supposedly) out there under this program could have easily been done legally with the blessing of a FISA warrant, which are notoriously easy to obtain — and you can get one of those up to 3 days after you begin recording. So much for the ticking time bomb theory. Oh, and lest you think this is an old tired story, exactly one month ago Administration Officials told the Senate that they still have the authority to wiretap anybody anytime without a warrant. Furthermore, Attorney General Gonzales has until Tuesday to hand over documents on that very program to the Senate. Hopefully he will also be asked to explain why it was necessary to bother John Ashcroft about it while he was in the hospital.

When both ends of the political spectrum agree that there are 4th Amendment problems with the War on Terror, it’s a pretty good bet they are correct: I present TalkLeft and the Cato Institute. Mr. Bush and Mr. Gonzales seem to be sailing this rhetorical boat alone.

Surely we can find a way to be safe from both terrorists and warrantless searches.

In closing: A melamine-in-the-feed problem right here in the United States was uncovered by an alert distributor who thought things just didn’t look right, what a shame he is unlikely to be rewarded for it; I’m not the only one who has figured out that China can economically ruin the United States; it turns out our soldiers are better at diplomacy than some of our diplomats; on what planet is tuberculosis “not infectious”? It makes me wonder if this wasn’t a graphic demonstration of how one person –perhaps ignorant that he is a carrier — can spread a disease internationally within days; I’ve always thought that the biggest problem with the Kyoto accords is they involved too few nations, now the Bush Administration has a plan that would involve even fewer nations; if there is a “cure” for being gay, shouldn’t somebody do animal testing on it, you know, to make sure it’s safe for humans? It turns out that Save Darfur was founded by two Jewish groups who take “Never Again” seriously, even though the group now comprises 180 interfaith groups, and their actions are sometimes controvertial; Real feminism is good for everybody; It turns out that there may be a law that should have prevented the United States from hiring Blackwater’s “mercenaries”, and it’s only been on the books since 1893; And finally, even though the BBC and Bloomberg are reporting a slow economy, somehow the L.A. Times thinks everything is rosy. Please note that the 157,000 new jobs in May that they cite is just barely enough to keep up with new entries to the work force, 22,000 were government jobs, construction jobs were flat in a busy season, and both manufacturing and retail jobs were down.

“Um, the Fat Lady isn’t even in costume and makeup yet,” or a Follow Up on the Big Immigration Compromise: The employers who helped write it are saying “maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Cnet of all places points out that this would create a giant “Green List” of eligible American workers. If you somehow aren’t on the right list, you don’t get legal work. And we all know that federal databases are not necessarily as accurate as we might desire *cough*no-fly-list*cough*. For that matter, there have been enough data breaches that such databases are not as secure as we might like. Alternet has done us the favor of reprinting this editorial from the New York Times about how nobody likes it, no registration required. The IHT brings us details of a bipartisan fight against it — who says the two parties can’t work together. As always, the Washington Post can be counted on for good political coverage, and they too signal that now that a compromise has been reached, negotiations for a compromise compromise can begin. Oh, and at least one Senator wants to scrap the guest worker part, which is a good idea because it will be abused and is not a citizenship path, but that’s the President’s favorite part. Here’s yet more commentary from MaxSpeak.

And they’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling Iraqis! (pop culture reference) Would it surprise you to know that there have been multiple homegrown Iraqi plans for internal peace that were widely supported by the major internal factions? Please don’t forget to read the supporting links — and the links in the links — on this one! “Last year, a comprehensive, 28-point proposal for stabilizing Iraq was offered by the nascent Iraqi government itself after long meetings with different Iraqi groups. According to local polls and political leaders, most Iraqis believed it was the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel — the plan was attractive to the vast majority of the public, even those Iraqis affiliated with violent resistance groups. But the plan wasn’t acceptable to Washington….” That’s right: Iraq is still a problem because the Bush Administration wants it that way. The short version of why is control of oil. As for this other item, I am not sure whether it is a breathtakingly stupid manifestation of hubris, or merely a way to keep things unstable for the forseeable future. There was a plot by the Americans to kill widely revered and politically important cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr. At a peace conference! Now, even if you think he’s a Bad Guy, he is a political force to be reckoned with. Making a peace deal without him and his supporters is like building a highway that won’t allow Fords. Oh yeah, and now commanders have testified before Congress that they don’t even have a plan for withdrawing troops. At all. Never mind that Kansas would really like their trucks back. And the National Guardsmen who drive them too.

Must read article on crime in the United States: Crime is up dramatically over the last 10 years. The violent kind that hurts people:

Criminologists are worried. Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows murders and shootings hitting smaller cities and states with little experience of serious urban violence. The last similar period of volatility was right before the big crime wave of the 1980s and 1990s.

Explanations vary — from softer gun laws to budget cuts, fewer police on the beat, more people in poverty, expanding gang violence and simple complacency. But many blame a national preoccupation with potential threats from overseas since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The article goes on to point out that all of the above are probably to blame, but the biggest culprits are a lousy economy for anybody who is not wealthy and fewer cops on the beat (figures on federal spending for local police are included). Furthermore, the things experts use as leading indicators of future crime don’t look good either. So no, it’s not your imagination, the streets are more dangerous, things are tough all over, and honest jobs for people near the bottom of the economic spectrum prevent crimes against all of us. But don’t forget, non-violent crimes by clever and soon-to-be wealthy con-men are up too. Here’s a story about some ladies who were tired of the things that real estate fraud were doing to their expensive neighborhood, so they decided to do something about it.

Sister Sister Sister: First, This is what a real feminist looks like. She is — was — a legislator in a country where rape is an acceptable political payback. She was suspended from the legislature for suggesting that her fellow legislators were behaving more like animals than humans. Meanwhile, in this country, Neil the Ethical Wereworf asks If certain “pro-life” factions want to prevent abortions, why are they actively working measures that would prevent unwanted pregnancies? Oh wait, it’s because they are really “anti-sex.” And to finish out ladies nite, Mrs. Kucinich. She sounds like a very interesting lady.

In closing, Political Troika: the most comprehensive item I’ve seen on the various healthcare reform ideas currently in play; problems at NASA; and any sufficient disaster will insure a dictatorship.

I have been specifically asked by a long-time reader for my opinions on the bipartisan compromise immigration reform bill that came out of the Senate this week. Usually “bipsartisan” implies that acceptable compromises have already been made, and there is no need for further debate. That is clearly not the case in this instance. In fact, it might be more accurate to say the only person who seems to like this agreement is the President, who has gone to some lengths to defend it. Even the Right Wing News doesn’t like it.

I think that before we examine the bill itself, it is a good idea to look at the issues it is supposed to address. Although surely others before me have gone into this in far more detail than I can, most things dealing with these issues are reduced to trite, semi-true soundbites like “Businesses need cheap labor” or “Illegal immigrants wouldn’t be here if things weren’t worse in their home countries.” Almost all of the items you will find in a quick search are clearly biased one way or the other. While I won’t claim to be “fair and balanced,” I will at least try to get beyond fear-mongering and oversimplifications.

From the standpoint of employers: There are two kinds of employers, really: those who follow the law and hire only people who can legally work in this country, and those who don’t. Those who follow the law are at a competitive disadvantage, because they are paying more money for labor. Whether they are getting a better quality work for their money likely depends on the industry. In the unskilled categories that most people claim illegal immigrants are working, it seems unlikely. As for those who don’t follow the law, there seems to be very lax enforcement. That means low risk of getting caught, and relatively low penalties should it happen. This bill supposedly contains harsher penalties for those who hire illegal immigrants, but since enforcement under the Bush Administration has been scaled back 95%, this sounds like a hollow promise at best. I’ve said it before and it is worth repeating in context, when employers hire illegal immigrants, they are probably breaking other laws as well. Illegal immigrants earn an average hourly wage of $5.45 and average individual income of $8982. These figures suggest strongly that many illegal immigrants are in fact working irregularly at below minimum wage rates. I will leave to your imagination whether they are in safe working environments.

But what about employers of skilled workers: You know what? The H-1B program makes me mad, and this bill supposedly makes it bigger. In principle, this program is supposed to help American companies hire foriegn talent that they just can’t get from American citizens. For example, an American college hiring a luminary foriegn author as a guest professor for a few semesters, or an American computer company hiring a genius away from Sony to help create a new processor architecture. In reality, many of these people end up little more than “indentured servants” with almost no path to American citizenship. Some companies use this program as a way to train outsourced workers before sending them home. And most damning in my opinion is the fact that so many high-tech companies are whining about how they need these workers in an environment where there are 400,000 fewer high-tech jobs than there were in 2000. Those workers need jobs, but they unfortunately have kids and mortgages, so they need a decent wage; the truth once again is that the immigrant is cheap labor.

From the standpoint of current illegal workers: Well, somebody had to like this thing. Or maybe not. This article is so important I will quote several paragraphs:

To become full legal residents, under a compromise Senate leaders announced Thursday… illegal immigrants would have to pay a total of $5,000 in fines, more than 14 times the typical weekly earnings on the streets here, return to their home countries at least once, and wait as long as eight years. During the wait, they would have limited possibilities to bring other family members….

The compromise Senate bill proposes an initiative to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. It also portends a major shift in the priorities and values of American immigration for the future. It would gradually change a system based primarily on family ties, in place since 1965, into one that favors high-skilled and highly educated workers who want to become permanent residents.

In the future, low-skilled workers like the men waiting for work here would largely be channeled to a vast new temporary program, where they would be allowed to work in the United States for three stints of two years each, broken up by one-year stays in their homeland….

Illegal workers already here would gain a provisional legal status, known as a Z visa, fairly quickly. But to become permanent residents they would have to pay the big fines and get in an eight-year line behind others who have already applied legally for green cards, as permanent resident visas are known….

A first step is to eliminate, within eight years, the backlog of 4 million people who have applied to come legally to the United States, allotting 440,000 visas a year for that purpose….

So, to sumarize, illegal immigrants would have to pay fines that in many cases grossly outstrip their earnings potential, make a dangerous trip back home (where they face limited prospects and potential political/religious/ethnic persecution) to do it, get a special visa that is only good for 2 years while they wait for an 8 year backlog to go away, and they still can’t bring their families. More to the point, trying to make 12 million people legal 440,000 at a time is like drinking an extra large soda with a teaspoon.

And the sad joke of the Z Visa is that the sort of employer who currently hires cheap, easily exploited illegal immigrant laborers almost certainly will continue to do so. Holders of Z Visas will have priced themselves out of the market by demanding things like a decent wage and maybe even health insurance.

Why are these people here, anyways: Well, they are here because it’s better than where they came from. This of course meansNAFTA is a failure, and CAFTA is doomed to fail as well. But South Of The Border is not the sole source of illegal immigrants. Those Wal-Mart cleaning contractors a few years ago were European. Let’s not forget Chinese organized crime trafficking humans, some of whom thought they were getting honest if not quite legal jobs in restaurants and seamstress shops but instead end up sex slaves. Over the years, America has quite adequately demonstrated that not much can be done to improve conditions in another sovereign nation. We have also unfortunately demonstrated that quite a lot can be done to degrade conditions in another sovereign nation. This brings us neatly to…

Is there a racist thing going on here: Yes. Do you really think that apartment managers in Farmers Branch will check the citizenship of every applicant, or just the ones who look Hispanic or Arabic? Think real carefully before you answer that one. As a society we seem to take issue with “brown” immigrants much more than white ones. For that matter, which immigrants are more likely to have “work skills” and “ability to speak English” that are worth points towards a visa under the new system? The Canadian and European ones. Don’t get me wrong, English is our lingua franca, and those who cannot speak it are at a competitive disadvantage for “good paying jobs.” Moreover, having work skills will help you get a “good paying job.” But we should not overlook the fact that the majority of the “illegal immigrant problem” we are trying to address involves many “brown” people with poor English skills and often low job skills.

What about families and communities: Well, families are screwed. “Family values” is a term that apparently only applies when so-called Conservatives want it to apply. One of many tragedies of the illegal immigration problem is that because they exist outside of the law, they feel they cannot count on protection from the law. This makes them less likely to report crime in their communities or their workplace, even if they are the victim. Having 12 million people who feel they can’t report a crime is lousy for all our communities.

Aren’t some of these people criminals: It would be horribly naive to overlook the fact that some of these people make their living through illegal activies including but not limited to theft rings, smuggling of humans and goods, prostitution/pimping, and drug dealing. Some of these criminals came to this country for that purpose; others became criminals out of necessity or opportunity in this country. Not surprisingly, few of these people will be applying for a Z Visa. Many people cite figures on crimes by illegal immigrants, or the number of them in jail. It is worth noting that because being here illegally is, well, illegal, these figures are likely to be padded.

From the standpoint of American workers: Some people think there’s very little impact, and even if we deported them all, the industries that depend upon them would automate. Even this rosy view gives a nod to the fact that “Economists speculate that for the average high-school dropout, that would mean about a $25 a week raise if there were no job competition from immigrants.” Some researchers feel African-Americans are disproportionately impacted. I don’t see how having 12 million workers earning an average of $5.45 per hour can possibly not be impacting wages and employment rates for American citizens.

From the standpoint of Americans in general: We are of course a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of human beings that eat food. Many illegal immigrants work in agriculture, and there are wildly varying opinions on how much they might impact food prices. But has anybody wondered whether it’s a good idea to have our food picked and processed by illegal immigrants and the sort of company that thinks it’s a good idea to work outside the law? Anybody read “Fast Food Nation“? “Bushwacked“?

From the standpoint of the Government: There are two big problems they want to solve. First, most illegal immigrants don’t pay income tax. Obviously, they would like to fix things such that these people have enough legal standing to pay taxes. And — assuming the Z Visa program works as promised instead of how I think it will — they’ve suceeded! The other problem — and please forgive the sensationalist tone of this article — is public services used by illegal immigrants including hospitals, schools, welfare, prisons. I’m almost surprised this author doesn’t blame illegal immigrants for undue wear and tear on our roads. Whether this problem is solved by the bill in question depends on what percentage of the 12 million illegal immigrants in this country seek and obtain legal status.
When all is said and done, this bill does little to address the root causes of illegal immigration, and really only pays lip service to normalizing status. Whether it will change job prospects for illegal immigrants depends on the Administration and Congress turning its back on the corporate benefactors that want “cheap labor” and completely change direction on enforcement; if they wanted to do that, they could just enforce current laws. It does create a whole new wing of Visa bureaucracy, one ripe for abuse before it begins. No immigration reform measure is going to make everyone happy; it is too difficult to balance the needs of all the parties. This one is perhaps already doomed by its flaws.

In closing: “The Homeland Security Department is breaking the law by not telling the public exactly how personal information is used to screen international travelers, including Americans, congressional investigators [at the Government Accountability Office] said Wednesday”; The Motley Fool reprints what at first glance looks like common sense we can all use, only to ruin it with a plug for their newsletter; could it be that Hillary is just as owned by special interests as the old-school politicians she hopes to replace; one author thinks we need to stop focusing on the problems of the DOJ as if it is nothing more than politically motivated firings and keep our eye on the fact that it was an attempt to steal both past and future elections; it’s easy to get an accurate accounting of American military personel killed in Iraq, but the picture looks more bleak when you include “contractors”; the sorry state of health insurance for children — who you will recall do not have employers who can be forced to insure them — has resulted in multiple documented cases of murder by bureaucracy; news from the old hometown, Boeing figures out mass production; and finally for the Japanophiles, online resources have sparked a new interest in Kimonos. It is worth noting that while the word “kimono” means nothing more than “a thing you wear,” kimonos themselves have evolved into a complicated form of fashion most likely worn for special occasions and festivals. Some retailers are trying to change that.

An army of radical Islamic militants was planning an attack on an American Army base, and the startling part is that this base wasn’t in Iraq, or anywhere else in the Middle East, but in New Jersey! New Jersey, USA! Would you believe it??

“I find that very difficult to believe, Mr. Smart.”

Would you believe… 6 guys with paintball guns were “in training” to attack Fort Dix, and were found because “the men took a videotape of their practice sessions to a store to have it burned to a DVD, and that a store employee contacted the FBI because of the video’s contents” so the cops set up a fake weapons purchase with the guys?

Now, there are a lot of things I could point out. I could say that the least the FBI could do is make up a more convincing story, but I realize that truth is often stranger than fiction. I could point out the futility of 6 guys taking on a military training facility and suggest that they needed to play more video games to disabuse themselves of the notion. I could point out that these fellows did not attempt to get weapons through legal means, such as a legit dealer or a gun show, and thus the case represents the futility of many gun control laws. I could point out that referring to them as “Islamic militants” is causing concern in the larger Muslim-American community, because it whips up ill sentiment against a people who by and large are trying to follow the law and be good citizens. I could even point out that this plot didn’t warrant a rise in the Terror Threat Level — funny how we haven’t heard much about that since the 2004 elections.

Instead I would like to point out that some of these men are — that’s right, are, not were — Naturalized Citizens of the United States of America. That means that Real ID would not have stopped them; they had every reason and right to have completely legit identification. This is the LAST DAY to complain to the Feds directly about this stinker, but you can still do things at the state level.

The rest of the men were illegal aliens. So, if the United States had actually started checking the Interpol database of stolen passports earlier than “later this year”, they might never have gotten here in the first place.

In closing: did anybody else notice that the glycerin that was really anti-freeze came from the same country as the wheat gluten that was really melamine?; maybe the American economy is ok, but it’s anemic compared to some other places; risky mortgages are such a huge problem that one in every 21 houses in Detroit is in foreclosure, a statistic made more alarming by the number of abandoned homes in that city; “Won’t somebody please think of the children??” “Among military personnel with at least one dependent, the rate of child maltreatment in military families increased by approximately 30% for each 1% increase in the percentage of active-duty personnel departing to or returning from operation-related deployment” according to a new study, so lets help the kids and bring home the troops; and finally, this wouldn’t have happened in the States because we have the Third Amendment. I guess rights are only for certain special people.

This New York Times commentary points out that Gonzales can (and should) be impeached. In fact, just lying to Congress is an impeachable offense, which makes me wonder about the Sixteen Words.

A Senate committee wants to pass a law imposing penalties for data breaches. How ironic, since the TSA just had a data breach. I wonder if this law will apply to them?

It turns out that the talks Ms. Rice was supposed to have with the Iranians wasn’t actually planned after all: “There was no time, no appointment and no plans.” That’s ok, she has problems to deal with at home.

Clearly it’s all about women? The Other Clinton wants to revoke the President’s authority to bomb the heck out of the Middle East. Pelosi says he just doesn’t listen. Laura is making him wear a white tie, but that’s something else altogether. And would you believe that someone went to the trouble of building a girls’ school as a giant bomb without anybody noticing? “Hey Abdul, what’s with the funny looking rebar?” “Shut up and mix the concrete, Mohammed!”

And in closing, The shoe’s on the other foot now: actual Clinton-era quotes from Republicans.

On Iraq:

This should be really simple. Most Iraqis want our troops to go home. Most Americans want American troops to come home. Even members of the President’s party want to stop writing blank checks and figure out how to make things end. So why does the President think we ought to stay for the forseeable future?

And as thinly stretched as the military is right now, why are we still trying to pick a fight with Iran, doing things like saying it is the Number One Sponsor of Terror just days before our top diplomat (Condi) and theirs were supposed to meet?

On Real ID:

For that matter, I don’t know anybody who just loves to spend the day in a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles with every important document needed to steal his/her identity. And yet that’s what the DHS wants to force upon us, despite the fact that the law creating the DHS specifically says No National ID Cards. Interesting points that I hadn’t even considered before are the mess Real ID makes for people fleeing domestic abuse and people who are transgendered. I must assume that if someone is in the witness protection program, the Feds will help them get legit fake IDs.

Don’t forget that Real ID is also the law that allows the government to build a huge wall along the border with no regard for pretty much anything. Like the environment. Or the fact that nobody wants it. On a related note the Christian Science Monitor points out that illegal immigration is already down, but not because of walls or better patrols. It’s down because the economy sucks for the poor.

On the price of gas:

According to the AAA, we might see record gas prices this summer, despite the fact that crude oil is not at record prices. “Problems” at refineries are blamed. The money quote:

AAA said it was “alarming” that gasoline prices were rising so high without the backdrop of a major geopolitical or natural event to disrupt supply, like a hurricane or a new military flare-up in the Middle East.

Alarming indeed. You don’t suppose the big gas companies are anticipating an event like a “military flare-up in the Middle East”, do you? And here we have news of a refinery cutting its capacity in half. Here we have a CNN story about the refinery problem. It seems to me that the government could make a bit of money and save a lot of consumers’ money by opening a refinery or two of their own.

As confusing as these issues are, maybe it’s time for a nap.

In closing:

“Oh no! You mean Fried Chicken might contain fat??“; lots of money to be made buying public assets, and then fleecing the public to use them; “Um yeah, we’ve decided not to follow the wiretap law anymore, we don’t need no steenking FISA court”; the typical Mom does 10 jobs for free that would cost $138K to have done, and I’m sure that doesn’t include that special job she does just for Dad; for the Japanophiles, LA Times article on journalism in the Internment Camps and links to this collection; and finally, “I can make purr?” — a classic episode of Star Trek in a dialect called “Lolcat”.

I hope I’m not late to comment on the terrible events that transpired at Virginia Tech this week. I first learned of the situation in a La Quinta over breakfast, and have been digesting ever since.

Let me begin by saying that I have not lost my faith in the Second Amendment. While it is true that it would have been more difficult for this clearly troubled young man to kill that many people without guns, it is also true that the law already should have prevented him from having guns. Funny how gun control laws work on the faulty premise that people with criminal intent will surely follow the law. It is also true that in the absence of guns, he could easily have killed many, many people with a homemade bomb. Blaming guns for one man’s insanity is itself insanity.

It is also worth pointing out that a few dozen innocent people killed in a day is not unusual in Iraq. Today, for example, “Men in the northern city of Mosul shot and killed 23 people from a minority sect Sunday after pulling them off a bus in an apparent revenge attack, the police said. The attack came on a violent day in Baghdad, with at least 20 people killed in car bombings, most in a double suicide strike against a police station in a religiously mixed neighborhood.” Look how much safer the Americans have made things, eh? Ted Rall points out how good we have it: “Only 32? Living in such safety must be sweet!”

Nor is it reasonable to blame liberals, violent video games, violent popular music, or overprescribed psychiatric drugs. Those 32 people might be alive today if the shooter had actually taken psychiatric drugs! Gavin DeBecker’s insight that sane people do not resort to violence except under certain circumstances does not apply, because this man was not sane.

I would also like to dispute the idea that this sort of thing is new. Maybe we have better news coverage, but school shootings are nothing new. And the same thing causes them now as caused them over 20 years ago.

By sheer coincidence, we have this item on the trial of one of last year’s crop of school shooters. Glossing over the fact that the young man says he “freaked out” when the Principal “tackled” him (surely he was already out of control, or why would anybody feel “tackling” him was an appropriate response), I would like to bring your attention to this:

Hainstock told detectives he was upset with school officials because they didn’t stop other students in this southwestern Wisconsin town from picking on him and calling him names. Going to school with guns occurred to him just that morning, he said, and he just wanted officials to listen to him.

He wanted to be left alone, and he wanted the authority figures to listen to him. Isn’t that what most of us want? Really?

We can tie all these threads together with this rather lengthy item called “Virginia Tech: Is the Scene of the Crime the Cause of the Crime?” The Reader’s Digest condensed version is “Schoolyard massacres are rebellions against oppressive and bullying environments by students who can’t take it anymore.” Truer words were never written, and they apply even to students who are insane. The author goes on to observe that school shooters don’t fit a profile, but strangely enough the schools where such things take place do (from page 5):

• complaints about bullying go unpunished by an administration that supports the cruel social structure;
• antiseptic corridors and overhead fluorescent lights reminiscent of mid-sized city airport;
• rampant moral hypocrisy that promotes the most two-faced, mean, and shallow students to the top of the pecking order; and
• maximally stressed parents who push their kids to achieve higher and higher scores.

To put things in another context, we cannot control other human beings, but we can control the environment in which they interact. When the same thing happens in the same sort of place over and over again, we must seriously begin to examine the environment in which the problem exists.

In closing: Go, Speed Racer, Go!; a couple items on terror watchlists; climate change may make the world less politically stable, and storms are already adversely effecting the American economy; another state decides they don’t want to pay to implement Real ID, it’s a shame it comes down to nothing more than a money issue, but it’s better than rolling over; I guess the Sears Tower just isn’t tall enough any more; an interesting if somewhat rant-prone commentary called “For Millions of Americans, Being Insured is a Cruel Hoax; Alternet brings us Conservative Policies Are Ruining Your Health; someone helpfully opines that the SEC is unlikely to indict Steve Jobs, so all you Macheads can continue to enjoy your Kool-Aid; profound quote of the week, “It’s strange to us, so we don’t like it.”; and last but not least, the latest on Gonzales. I am proud to say I was one of the first to call for the Senate to demand Gonzales’s resignation, and I stand by that not because of these firings, but because he has no respect for the Constitution and the Law.

If anyone cares, we have arrived in Las Vegas and are getting unpacked. I will change my “about” page to reflect reality soon. Closing on this house was more of a grand adventure than I would have liked, and I am exploring my legal options.

A Special Item for the Blog Against Theocracy Weekend

I have been asked to say a few words on Separation of Church and State this weekend. If I may, I’d like to point out a couple of very good items I read earlier this week: “A look at the Christian Right’s legal muscle leading the fight to end the separation of church and state”; from CNN we have the very provocatively titled What Would Jesus Really Do?. This item is so full of wonderful quotes that I wouldn’t blame any preacher who stood up and read the whole thing tomorrow morning as part of the sermon, but this is my favorite passage:

An African-American pastor I know in the Midwest was asked by a group of mostly white clergy to march in an anti-abortion rally. He was fine with that, but then asked the clergy if they would work with him to fight crack houses in predominantly black neighborhoods.

“That’s really your problem,” he was told.

They saw abortion as a moral imperative, but not a community ravaged by crack.

If you don’t mind, I am limiting the discussion on the religious side to Christianity, because many believe this nation is and was founded as a “Christian Nation.” There is no credible movement in this country to have a theocracy based on Jewish or Moslem or Hindu or Buddhist scriptures, but there is a movement to make our government more closely aligned with a rather narrowly defined Christian ideology.

Let’s begin with the Biblical reasons that Christians should support Separation of Church and State. I’ll begin In the Old Testament with Samuel 8:1-22. Something like the following conversation occured with the Prophet/Judge Samuel as intermediary:

Israelites: GOD! All the other nations have kings and we don’t!

God: Um yeah, and you know what else they have that you don’t? Idols and high taxes and drafts of military aged men and corrupt government officials. And you know what they don’t have? A sovereign omnipotent God!

Israelites: But God!!! We want a King like all the other nations!

God: If all the other nations jumped off a bridge would you?? Fine, have your King, but don’t come crying to me if it doesn’t work out the way you’d like!

Samuel of course then sought out a king, and found Saul. Who of course didn’t turn out to be all that. Saul had to choose between doing what God said and what the People Who Wanted A King In The First Place wanted (I Sam:15:24). And then he tried to kill a political adversary (I Sam 19:11). Even a government appointed by God was corrupt. But how do the people challenge a divinely ordained government?

The next King was really only marginally better. He had a civil war to deal with (II Sam 3:1), and his very own sex scandal (II Sam 11:2-12:23) — quite a feat when you already have a harem — and even a traitorous son (II Sam 13-18). And this was the King everybody says was so Godly.

If you don’t like the Old Testament, let’s go to the New Testament. Even Jesus himself thought Church and State should be kept separate, most succinctly put in Matthew 22:21, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. and to God the things that are God’s.” This caused the listeners to “marvel.” Frankly, by this standard even Christians should object to “In God We Trust” being on coins. What Would Jesus Do indeed.

Just in case you don’t think Jesus meant we should extend this thought to mean Christians should follow all the laws of God in addition to all the laws of the State — and that there would be minimal overlap — the Apostle Paul spells it out nicely in Romans 13:1-10, which begins “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”

Let’s follow up with the reasons every American should support Separation of Church and State. I will set aside my Bible (RSV if anybody cares) and get out the Constitution. As I have pointed out before, it was written by men who knew a thing or two about history.

They knew that many of their forbears had come to this land seeking religious freedom, including freedom from the Government-sponsored Church of England.

They knew there had already been religious persecution in the colonies.

They knew what happened in Salem.

Extremely well read gentlemen like Thomas Jefferson had a basic familiarity with world religions; Mr Jefferson even owned a copy of the Quran.

For these men to have turned around and written “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” means they thought Government and Religion should keep a respectful distance of one another.

People who think our Government needs more Old Time Religion need to turn around, and clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and visit the sick in their own communities (Matt 25:31-46).

In closing: Cheney’s Secret War; 21 biggest tech flops; American Mercenaries; Oh! So that’s where the money’s been going!; follow the money… oh wait somebody already did; Maybe Congress shouldn’t any recesses until 2009; scientists and 18 out of 19 computer models agree the American Southwest is headed for a multi-century water problem; Bush orders Carter not to visit a guy he’s known for decades; once more Krugman preaches common sense; and a word of warning, Las Vegas is not a place to argue with the TSA, even if you are a veteran recently returned from Iraq. One of these days there’s going to be a riot at McCarran unless things change.

A few months ago, I read James Clavell’s Whirlwind. The book begins 28 years ago today: February 9, 1979, in the middle of the Iranian Revolution.

Now those of you who have read any of Clavell’s books know that they are long historical novels, and full of detail, and have dozens of characters, at least 3 of whom can be argued are the “main” character. Whirlwind is no different. Who is more important: the Mullah who opens and ends the book with prayers; the helicopter pilots who risk their lives; the former World War II POW who must play a careful game of cat and mouse to get his people out of the country safely; the executive’s son who witnesses a brutal mass execution; the Persian Princess; the spoiled daugher of the bazaari; the head of Straun’s aircraft division? Thankfully for the reader, Clavell walks us through a strict timeline; each day is marked; each chaper includes a map to let us know where in the country the characters are; each section has a timestamp.

Now, I was alive in 1979. Admittedly I did not pay a whole lot of attention to the world events of the day, preferring to listen to the Bay City Rollers. But I do remember when the Embassy was taken, and I remember NBC and ABC (probably CBS too) running a big “100 days in captivity” special. In many days, reading this historical novel was an eye-opener.

One of the most striking things is that at least once a day, some character said that “soon things would get back to normal.” Oh the Shah is gone, things will be back to normal in a few days. Oh Khomeni has arrived, surely things will be back to normal soon. Oh the military has stood down, that means things will be ok soon. A cow farted, things will be back to normal. Talking to people who were adults in this era confirms that this kind of thinking was prevalent in real life in the United States, too. This is but one example of the striking naivety that seemed to afflict all Westerners in the book. Non-natives were consistently caught off-guard by the idea that “progressive” reforms could be rolled back, that a theocracy could be erected, that Sharia could be enforced, that assets owned jointly with foriegn entities could be nationalized.

The reason I bring this up today is that we still don’t understand Iran.

More to the point, we don’t understand that they don’t like us. Sure, they have their reasons. A poll this week says Arabs don’t like President Bush. My inner cynic suggests he doesn’t much like them either. It might have something to do with the sabre rattling that keeps going around, set on a backdrop of perfectly innocent ICBM tests.

There is just too darn much we don’t know about what’s really going on there, and since we’ve had effectively no diplomatic presence there in the last 28 years, we are unlikely to make progress on that front. Even Hillary Clinton has gone on record saying there’s too much we don’t know to be idly talking about bombs and invasions and whatnot (WARNING: that link is an MP3 of yesterday’s interview on the Ed Schultz Show). We don’t even know who is really calling the shots, according to Senator Clinton — who is in a much better position to know these things than most people. Do we negotiate with Ayatolla Khamenei? Or President Ahmadinejad? The restless Parliament?

These are not academic questions if we want to avoid having another nuclear power in the region, or sending American soldiers to a third Islamic nation. Pat Buchannan and some liberal thinkers agree, Bush may not in the long run have the authority to start the next war, but frankly I am beginning to wonder if much of anything can stop the President from having something he really wants.

Oh well, the Senate is talking about non-binding resolutions. Surely this means everything will get back to normal soon.

Clearly, too many people are looking forward to Armageddon.

In closing: on children being left behind; someone finally caught on to the fact that people grow pot in the ‘burbs, too (way to have cutting edge reporting, USA Today); law, the rational basis test, and you; it’s a lot easier to say “quality, affordable healthcare for all by 2012” when you don’t have an actual proposal on the table; thoughts on the idea of a flat tax; turning ISPs (Internet Service Providers) into cops will not prevent child abuse, but it would probably drive small ISPs out of business; has anybody considered the idea that the internet might make things tougher for child abusers?; the person in charge of infrastructure at California’s DMV officially doesn’t get it, thinking that somehow RealID is going to allow her to provide more services online (How? How does this prevent Joe Nefarious from entering Joe Average’s driver’s license number at the online prompt? Maybe she wants to issue everyone a USB License Reader to hook to their computer?); and finally, This Day In History 1969, the first 747 takes off. They still make 747s a couple miles from here. It’s a beautiful airplane. Sometimes on hot days they open the factory doors and you can see what they are working on. But let me tell you, the 777 is much quieter.

Follow up: one, two, three, four.

In this case, those 15 words are “I used to oppose Universal Health Care… then I lost my job and got sick!”

Yes, that’s right, I’m on about universal health again.

First, let’s check in with Paul Krugman, who basically says that it’s nice of the Governator to try, but that his plan should not be a substitute for a national health care system, and furthermore his plan will create 3 new intrusive bureaucracies. Way to shrink Big Government, ya? A couple of choice paragraphs:

There are three main reasons why many Americans lack health insurance. Some healthy people decide to save money and take their chances (and end up being treated in emergency rooms, at the public’s expense…); some people are too poor to afford coverage; some people can’t get coverage … because of pre-existing conditions.

Single-payer insurance solves all three problems at a stroke. The Schwarzenegger plan, by contrast, is a series of patches. It forces everyone to buy health insurance…; it provides financial aid to low-income families…; and it … basically [requires insurance companies] to sell insurance to everyone at the same price.

He follows this up by asking why we have to make it so darn complicated.

Elsewhere on the political spectrum we have Lou Dobbs, who spends several paragraphs in the middle of an editorial on states rights versus federalsim to tell us:

As more companies drop their employee health-care coverage, the number of Americans without health insurance rises each year. Now nearly 47 million Americans — including 8 million children — have no health insurance, and the only action to deal with this crisis has originated with state governments.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney last summer advanced the healthcare debate when he rolled out a proposal to bring mandatory coverage to everyone in his state. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week announced a universal health-care plan for his state, which would join Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont in passing such universal coverage laws. Fifteen other states and the District of Columbia are all considering similar proposals, despite the costs associated with the plans.

It’s not enough that the United States possesses the best medical care in the world if all our citizens cannot have access to that care.

Notice that he calls the Massachusetts plan “mandatory” coverage. Notice also that he gives a nod to the idea that employers are not part of the answer; the 8 million uninsured kids he cites — just like our unemployed woman in the cartoon — don’t have an employer.

Sprinkled between these commentaries, we have companies trying to bring health care in house with on-site clinics. It isn’t a new trend. I am not sure this is a good idea. There are things you might not want your boss knowing about your medical care! What if your company isn’t exactly the most scrupulous? Where does the doctor’s loyalties lie?

Oh, and don’t forget, experts still think a bird flu pandemic is a serious threat that would “challenge”our health system.

The longer I go on, the more I think that Medicare for all is the answer. The insurance companies will still get to make oodles of money on supplemental policies, and everyone will be covered. If the political will is lacking, we should at the very least implement a MediKids program to cover everyone under 18, and in an ideal world every full time student up to age 25.

Our elected officials need to stop doing the politically expedient thing and start doing the right thing.

In closing, What’s Wrong with Real ID; on a related note, can you prove you are a citizen? If not a simple traffic stop may land you in a foreign country (remember, folks, a drivers license does not prove what nation you are a citizen of, it only proves you can legally drive a car, that’s why the I-9 form you had to fill out the first day of work wanted a Social Security Card or Birth Certificate too); the New York Times wonders maybe tax receipts would be up if the IRS spent more time auditingbig businesses and less time crawling through Joe Average’s records; Preachers and scientists agree, saving the planet would be a Good Thing, and in fact none other than Stephen Hawking says climate change is worse than terrorism; buying beer for minors is a bad idea, but what about buying weapons for those who can’t?; wow, somebody is actually checking the accuracy of the No-Fly List and deleting errors; Alberto Gonzales says “Ok, we’ll pretend to follow the law”; The House of Representatives says “You know, Big Oil, if you are really making that much money, you won’t be needing these subsidies”; and finally, it sounds like Mr. Bernanke is a real conservative, the kind that thinks we ought to reign in the national debt. Who knew?