Category: News

Thought Experiment

In the past I would probably apologize for this week’s plethora of circumcision posts, but a wise friend reassured me that I shouldn’t be concerned with posting too much on any one topic. The message I took was that I should write what’s relevant and what I’m passionate about. Still, I try to keep the pace slower than “All Circumcision, All the Time.” I won’t pass up discussing the topic, though, when I can illustrate some useful facet or put some context on a point by making a comparison with another story. For instance:

A man who police said entered into a sex pact with his girlfriend and her 15-year-old daughter pleaded no contest to felony sex charges.
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Authorities say Fitzgibbon’s girlfriend was afraid of losing him while she recuperated from gastric bypass surgery, so she arranged for him to have sex with her daughter for two months.

All three of them allegedly signed a contract that allowed the girl privileges such as piercings and hair dye in exchange for the sex acts. She testified earlier that she and Fitzgibbon had sex two to three times each week for two months last summer.
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The girlfriend, whose name is not being made public to protect her daughter’s identity, is scheduled to stand trial in February on three counts of criminal sexual conduct.

Nothing needs to be said on this case specifically because the disgusting nature of both adults’ (alleged) actions is readily apparent. While everyone is focused on the behavior of the man involved, the mother’s behavior is equally appalling. But if her action didn’t involving pimping her daughter, would we be outraged? Since her (alleged) action did involve pimping, should we be outraged?

The answer to at least the latter question is simple for most people. It is for me. The distance between what would be allowed with the former versus the latter is not as great as it might appear. With infant circumcision, our societal desire to preserve a non-existent parental right pushes us close to the idea that children are property. I’ve heard parents make that claim to me, that they have the right to circumcise their children because the child’s body belongs to them as they see fit. Most people don’t circumcise from this extreme stance. Unfortunately, the outcome is the same for children boys.

I’m stuck, though, because circumcision is not medically indicated in the overwhelming majority of cases. With respect to surgical need, there isn’t one. Preventive intent is worthless because the protection can’t be known. The surgery is purely cosmetic in its effect. We disregard that and leave this non-essential decision to parents. Because it is non-essential, it should be unacceptable. It’s not viewed as such. Whether we intend it or accept it, boys are treated as property. What other actions would be logical extenstions with that realization? If children are property, why should sex be any less acceptable than circumcision or ear-piercing?

Does the answer change because the story is about a parent pimping a daughter? Would we have the same reaction if a father pimped his daughter to his (the father’s) girlfriend? The answer should be yes, so the question is mostly rhetorical, but can I expect that reactions to my scenario would resemble the distinctions provided when comparing male and female circumcision?

Promoting Ignorance

I seldom watch the evening news because everything it presents can be found in shorter, more productive (i.e., less sensational) formats on The Internets. Last night I stumbled on a segment on NBC where Brian Williams introduced the news that Exxon Mobil produced a record profit of $39.5 billion for 2006. Rather than taking the standard “windfall” profits route, Williams hit a different bit of stupidity. He set up the reporter to address this popular “outrage” by asking what incentive Exxon Mobil now has to find alternate energy sources. Ehhhhhhhhh.

I didn’t listen to the answer because, as he asked it, his implication lacked any notion of understanding or belief that Exxon Mobil might not drive its business into the ground seeking ever greater profits from oil. In the larger context of the economy, Exxon Mobil doesn’t have to perceive any incentive to find alternate energy. Perhaps Exxon Mobil doesn’t want to be in that business and believes that oil (and natural gas) will be around long enough that it can keep generating profits without alternate energy sources. I doubt its executives believe that, but it doesn’t owe anyone beyond its shareholders an obligation to adjust its business to market pressures. If alternate energy is potentially profitable, someone will pursue it. That someone will most likely include Exxon Mobil. This is not complicated.

Of course, the $20 billion or so that Exxon Mobil invested in exploration and research last year suggests that they’re at least working to find more oil, oil that we currently can’t reach or find. While not an alternate energy source, finding more oil delays the need for finding an alternate energy source. The scarcity and political ramifications that Williams probably thought he was asking about are a bit more complicated than one company generating a large¹ profit through its activities. If Williams wanted to make that point, he should’ve offered a monologue on how a $39.5 billion profit is socially irresponsible or some other pontification. He probably figured that Al Gore already has that covered, which left him free to continue his economically simple misunderstanding.

¹ I’ve made this point before, but it probably needs to be said again. In absolute dollars, $39.5 billion is impressive and mind-boggling. In the context of the expenses (and taxes) needed to create such a figure, a great deal of the luster wears off. As a percentage of total revenue, the net profit is only 10.45% (39,500/377,635). Many companies with a smaller absolute dollar profit have significantly higher profit ratios. To illustrate this point relative to Exxon Mobil, its revenue for the fourth quarter of 2006 decreased (pdf link) by more than $9 billion from the same quarter in 2005. Yet, it managed to keep net income mostly stable by lowering its costs. There’s obviously more thorough analysis needed to give that weight, but only politicians with a populist axe to grind would hammer its conservative results. Maybe I should hammer away at the “revenue” brought in by the U.S. government.

Does the classification matter?

The latest issue of Wired includes an article on the threat to soldiers wounded in Iraq from acinetobacter, “an opportunistic pathogen” they’re picking up along the evacuation chain from the battlefield. While reading the article, I stopped on an interesting question not related to the subject. First, the facts:

A homemade bomb exploded under a Humvee in Anbar province, Iraq, on August 21, 2004. The blast flipped the vehicle into the air, killing two US marines and wounding another – a soft-spoken 20-year-old named Jonathan Gadsden who was near the end of his second tour of duty. In previous wars, he would have died within hours. His skull and ribs were fractured, his neck was broken, his back was badly burned, and his stomach had been perforated by shrapnel and debris.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gadsden died from the undiagnosed infection that resulted from his wounds. It’s tragic, and the implication of uncontrollable infections is scary. The article is worth reading to get the full understanding. But this is what got me thinking:

[Gadsden’s mother Zeada] discovered that an autopsy was performed shortly after her son’s death. The coroner recorded the “manner of death” as “homicide (explosion during war operation)” but determined the actual cause of death to be a bacterial infection. The organism that killed Gadsden, called Nocardia, had clogged the blood vessels leading to his brain. But the acinetobacter had been steadily draining his vital resources when he could least afford it. For weeks, it had been flourishing in his body, undetected by the doctors at Haley, resisting a constant assault by the most potent antibiotics in the medical arsenal.

I stopped at “homicide (explosion during war operation)” because I’d never thought of how a military death would be classified. Thinking in these terms could open a can of worms that I’m not trying to open. I’m intellectually curious about this designation and uninterested in the political implications. I don’t imagine we’d find too many who would challenge “homicide (explosion during war operation” for a situation like the one that led to Mr. Gadsden’s death, but both sides think they’re the “good guys”. How would another army’s autopsy rule on the death of its soldiers? Would we question if it ruled the same manner of death, because that would imply that we’re murderers?

I don’t have any answers on what our response should be. I haven’t thought of it before, and I suspect most simply wouldn’t care. I don’t know that the distinction even matters for either side, but I found the question interesting.

A government takeover can’t be far behind.

This is only peripherally about the Major League Baseball Extra Innings package, although I will discuss that angle again. But I can’t let it pass when a politician so bravely steps in to assist in a way that highlights his previous hypocrisy. Consider:

A proposal to make Major League Baseball’s “Extra Innings” exclusive to DirecTV has drawn the ire of Sen. John Kerry.

The Massachusetts Democrat said he plans to raise the matter with the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing Thursday.

“I am opposed to anything that deprives people of reasonable choices,” Kerry said in a statement. “In this day and age, consumers should have more choices _ not fewer. I’d like to know how this serves the public _ a deal that will force fans to subscribe to DirecTV in order to tune in to their favorite players. A Red Sox fan ought to be able to watch their team without having to switch to DirecTV.”

So many issues pop up, but it’ll probably make the most sense to first address the MLB decision in the context of Sen. Kerry’s remarks. MLB is stupid if it proceeds with this asinine marketing strategy, but it is free to hurt its business if it so chooses. It is not obligated to “serve the public” any more than Whole Foods is obligated to cater to vegans. That, of course, brings up the notion that consumers should have more choices. I view keeping cable as an Extra Innings choice as desirable because it specifically impacts me. But MLB should have the same range of choice to run its business in whatever way it believes will maximize its profits and its brand, even if that means running both into the ground. Sen. Kerry’s rhetoric will serve well the economic populism that pervades our public discussion, but it’s misguided.

With his statements, Sen. Kerry also managed to make a mockery of his stances on most economic issues and many personal choice issues. If Senator Kerry is in favor of people having reasonable choices, why isn’t he promoting Social Security reform, for example? I contribute, even though I’d prefer to put my money in personal investments controlled by me and backed up by actual assets. But I don’t have that choice. How does that serve the public? I’m sure I could walk through a point-by-point list of Sen. Kerry’s campaign issues and find many more examples where he’s been less than a champion for allowing people to have choices. (I have little doubt I can find multiple examples where Sen. Kerry believes that businesses should be limited, so I won’t challenge him there.)

Greater than all of this, though, is the simple fact that Chairman Kevin Martin and the FCC have no regulatory control over cable that would enable it to take action against Major League Baseball. Sen. Kerry should know this. I assume he does, but that doesn’t sell because then the government¹ isn’t there to come to the rescue.

¹ Major League Baseball should not have anti-trust exemption. There shouldn’t be anti-trust prosecution against MLB if it didn’t have the exemption, but that’s getting further into that issue than I’m interested. Since these are the rules we’re operating under, and MLB is happy to benefit from them, I won’t feel bad if/when Congress goes after the owners for this exclusive deal with DirecTV. Feed the snake enough and you will get bitten.

Throwing a Hail Mary in the First Quarter

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst knows a lot and is proposing a plan clearly designed “for the children”. Evidence (and rights) be damned, of course.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican, is proposing a sweeping mandatory random testing program in public schools for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
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“It will save lives. That’s the whole purpose,” Dewhurst said. “I’m convinced steroid use in high schools is greater than people want to admit.”
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“You can’t put a price tag on a young person’s life,” Dewhurst said.

Thankfully Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is willing to admit it. And he has a plan. And money to solve this “problem,” thanks to Texas’ $14.3 billion budget surplus. It’s there, and the kids are “at risk”. That’s enough, with logic like this:

Dewhurst said schools should be willing to go along if the state pays the bill.

Oh, that solves it. The state will pay, not the schools or the taxpayers in the school districts who send the money to Austin. And it’s for the kids, so no sensible person could possibly oppose the expense.

That could be brilliant logic, if it weren’t so obviously stupid. The rest of the article is worth a read, just to comprehend the scare quotes and the “we’re not violating their rights” guarantees. There’s an argument there, I guess, because participating in school sports is voluntary, but the motivations expressed by those quoted are discouraging because they so resemble every other well-intentioned boondoggle that only gets more severe and expensive as it proves ineffective to the extent originally promised.

Catching up on events

I’ve been busy over the last week or so, which meant that I didn’t have enough time to give blogging enough mental energy. That’s over, so it’s time to catch up on a few interesting stories before moving to new stuff. Without further delay:

Kudos to Sen. John Sununu for challenging the unhealthy, anti-consumer partnership between content owners and the FCC known as the Broadcast Flag. (Source)

Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has just announced that his office is working on legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating specific technology mandates that have to be followed by consumer electronics manufacturers. What’s his target? The broadcast flag.

Television and movie studios have wanted a broadcast flag for years. The flag is a short analog or digital signal embedded into broadcasts that specifies what users can do with the content. It would most often be used to prevent any copying of broadcast material, but there’s an obvious problem with the plan: it requires recording devices to pay attention to the flag. Because no consumers wander the aisles at Best Buy thinking, “You know, I would definitely buy this DVD recorder, but only if it supported broadcast flag technology,” the industry has asked the federal government to step in and simply require manufacturers to respect the flag.

Exactly the right analysis. The FCC should not be restricting innovation before any potentially illegal action can even occur. The onus should be on the businesses to engineer solutions that meet their needs, not regulation. That’s dinosaur thinking and should not be reward.

Next, just ponder this photograph’s implications. It’s posted in London, so there’s no concern for the United States, except there is concern. We move closer to this mentality with every newly brushed aside civil liberty. (Source)

Next, sometimes a cheap shot is easier than analysis. From Glenn Reynolds:

A CITIZEN’S ARREST BY PAUL HACKETT: A pro-gun anti-crime Democrat — I’m surprised the party didn’t get behind him.

Just like claiming that there’s a war on crime, this requires little thinking and says more about the writer than the facts. Who honestly believes that Democrats are not “anti-crime”? Not tough enough crime, we could argue. But it’s posts like these that prove Glenn Reynolds is little more than a Republican with some libertarian leanings. That’s not surprising, but this is an unflattering proof.

Next, North Korea has a hunger problem. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics understands that this has as much to do with the country’s political structure as anything. Socialism doesn’t work, and can never provide for everyone’s needs. When the failure extends to famine, this moves from oppression to murder. But the North Koreans have a solution, courtesy of a German breeder (Source):

An east German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs has been asked by North Korea to help set up a big bunny farm to alleviate food shortages in the communist country. Now journalists and rabbit gourmets from around the world are thumping at his door.

It all started when Karl Szmolinsky won a prize for breeding Germany’s largest rabbit, a friendly-looking 10.5 kilogram “German Gray Giant” called Robert, in February 2006.

Images of the chubby monster went around the world and reached the reclusive communist state of North Korea, a country of 23 million which according to the United Nations Food Programme suffers widespread food shortages and where many people “struggle to feed themselves on a diet critically deficient in protein, fats and micronutrients.”

Any reasonable analysis would point out an obvious point of why this will fail to alleviate suffering.

“I’m not increasing production and I’m not taking any more orders after this. They cost a lot to feed,” he said.

The rabbits apparently feed eight. How much food will be used to feed the rabbits until they’re ready to become that one-time meal that feeds eight? How much land that could be better used to grow crops for North Koreans will be used to grow feed for these rabbits, as well as house them while they grow? This is a central-planning solution at its ugliest.

Next, religion will continue getting a free pass for unnecessary medical procedures under a socialist health system.

The NHS should provide more faith-based care for Muslims, an expert says.

Muslims are about twice as likely to report poor health and disability than the general population, says Edinburgh University’s Professor Aziz Sheikh.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he called for male circumcision on the NHS and more details over alcohol derived drugs.

Leaving aside the obvious questions of whether or not routine/ritual circumcision of children should be allowed, it’s an unnecessary medical procedure that drains resources. As an ethically-questionable procedure, it’s also unacceptable to force taxpayers to fund such surgeries. This is why current U.S. funding under our relatively free market system is objectionable. This call from Britain just seeks to double the mistake. It’s absurd.

Because the system isn’t bureaucratic and dysfunctional enough already, Democrats want to allow unionization by TSA employees. That won’t end well.

We haven’t prohibited crime enough.

I know it’s the New York Daily News, but is nothing safe from hyperbole?

The city’s all-out push to boost the number of cops patrolling the streets has been crippled by the NYPD’s appallingly low starting salary for recruits.

Instead of adding 800 cops to the war on crime, as Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had hoped, the department failed to increase its numbers by a single officer over the past year, the Daily News has learned.

There’s a perfectly good free-market, libertarian argument in there, although it’s low-hanging fruit. The problem here is that this is being framed as “the war on crime.” Shouldn’t that be capitalized? Sloppy journalism, sloppy talking points, or both?

Via Fark.

Thank you, Jesus, for being born.

The commentary writes itself, unfortunately:

A mother convinced Rock Hill police to arrest her 12-year-old son after he unwrapped a Christmas present early.

The boy’s great-grandmother had specifically told him not to open his Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which she had wrapped and placed beneath the Christmas tree, according to a police report.

But on Sunday morning, she found the box of the popular handheld game console unwrapped and opened. When the boy’s 27-year-old mother heard about the opened gift, she called police.
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She hoped the arrest would be a wake-up call for him. She dreads getting a phone call someday reporting he’s been killed.

The great-grandmother is 63. That doesn’t automatically lead to the conclusion that essential parenting skills are missing, but I’m willing to offer an educated guess. Of course, one must wonder how much of a wake-up call the arrest will be.

Two Rock Hill police officers responded to the home and charged the boy with petty larceny. He was charged as a juvenile and released the same day, said police spokesman Lt. Jerry Waldrop, who added the boy was never held at the jail.

“We wouldn’t hold a 12-year-old,” he said.

What’s the lesson, other than do something you’re told not to do and you get a slap on the wrist? Brilliant. Police should not parent your children. If you’ve reached that point, you’ve failed. Maybe your kid is truly a bad kid, but you’ve still failed. Regardless, the biggest lesson is don’t put the presents under the tree until Christmas.

Source

I need to go to law school.

Being a non-lawyer, I’m sure I’m missing something fundamental in law with this story. But I don’t know what it is.

A Virginia appellate court sidestepped the issue of civil unions Tuesday in ruling that, because two former lesbian partners filed for their union in Vermont, that state’s courts have jurisdiction in a custody battle.
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The women were Virginia residents in 2000 when they traveled to Vermont to join in a civil union. Lisa Miller-Jenkins conceived a child through artificial insemination in 2001 while the couple were together, and a child, Isabella, was born the following April. They eventually moved to Vermont in August 2002.

In the fall of 2003, the women separated. After moving back to Virginia, Lisa Miller-Jenkins filed for a dissolution of their civil union, an action akin to a divorce, and sought custody of Isabella.

In June 2004, a Vermont family court granted Janet Miller-Jenkins visitation rights; that October, a Frederick County court issued a contradicting decision.

I’m stumped. In my only experience dealing with child custody and family law, my brother’s hearings concerning his son took place in the state’s courts where my nephew lives with his mother, not where he was born. Is Vermont law really that different, considering that Virginia is involved in both this case and my brother’s situation? Is there something different about sole versus joint custody that may be in play in this case, even if the child lives in Virginia? Did Virginia courts rule in order to punt the civil union question?

Again, I’m sure I’m missing something. I don’t need to assign animosity to gays, or at least avoidance, as a cause since Vermont also ruled that it should have jurisdiction. But it seems as likely as any other explanation. I can’t figure out what the answer might be given the facts I know. That’s probably the largest factor, but I’m baffled.

Marriage is a fundamental right for individuals

I haven’t bothered catching up on what same-sex marriage amendment supporters have said about the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in everything but name because I don’t care what they think. Those in Virginia who are worked up because of it, like Sen. Allen, were already going to vote for the amendment here. Why should I care, beyond pointing out their obvious stupidity? They’ll drive 5 miles per hour faster to the polls on November 7th because they can’t wait to stick it to the gays protect marriage. Big deal. Instead, I’m focused on what intelligent people are saying.

I’ve noticed two dominant themes regarding the decision: declaring victory and cautious agreement. I agree with the first viewpoint, as it’s clear that state-sponsored bigotry will eventually be set aside. I think it should occur faster. Rights are rights, regardless of who exercises them. We shouldn’t need a silly period of adjustment so that the majority can catch up. If they don’t like it, they’re capable of remaining in their own marriage anyway. But it is what it is.

The second viewpoint, while I’m happy that it exists, as opposed to opposition until the majority catches up, lacks what I think is fundamental about our Constitution and courts. Our rights are not provided by legislatures, at the will and whim of whatever majority exists at the moment. That’s a recipe for oppression, not liberty.

Instead, we must always remember that the Constitution guarantees rights we possess through the simple process of being alive. Courts exist to protect that fact, and enforce it on the other branches of government. It’s fine to believe that legislative action is a superior way to have rights protected, but legislatures are full of politicians. Rights, or the denial of rights, can and will be sold. That leaves the courts as a viable option that should not be dismissed as too challenging to the values and beliefs of Americans. If Americans can’t grasp that, our civics education has failed, not our political process.

I like what Jason Kuznicki wrote Wednesday at Positive Liberty:

Ultimately, I don’t care so much about process. I care about equality before the law, and I think that there are multiple legitimate ways to attain it. If equality happens one way, great. If it happens another way, that’s great too.

That’s the heart of it, I believe. The fight for marriage equality has been misrepresented by those more invested in maintaining some illusory sense of control over values. Marriage, as I understand it, is not a dual right, existing only for pairs. Every individual has the right to marriage, or whatever civil contract structure the government offers to promote efficiency in bundling certain incentives and benefits. The concept of individual rights requires this governmental offering be made to individuals who are interested in pairing, not to pairs who meet a notion of acceptability pre-conceived outside of the civil framework. Who a person chooses to marry is solely his or her business.

Our government’s role is merely to provide that benefit to everyone. Or no one, if it can’t play fair. Follow that common sense approach, and same-sex marriage opponents might finally understand the proper role of government. The rights of the individual trump the will of the majority.