Wish hard enough and prohibition still won’t work

It’s all in how you approach the issue, isn’t it?

Federal officials are concerned that teenagers are abusing prescription medications and over-the-counter cold remedies even as their use of illegal drugs has generally declined over the past five years, according to a government survey released yesterday.

Illegal drug use by teenagers has fallen 23 percent since 2001, but their use of prescription narcotics, tranquilizers and other medicines remains “relatively high,” government investigators said.

There’s never a better time to incite more drug hysteria than the present. “Relatively high” is persuasive.

“This is now an area of drug abuse that we need to pay more attention to,” said Lloyd D. Johnston, the University of Michigan researcher who led the annual “Monitoring the Future” survey, now in its 32nd year. “My guess is that young people do not understand the dangers of abusing these drugs.”

Young people don’t understand the dangers of anything. Maybe we should just lock them in their rooms until they reach 18 21 an age where they’ll listen to government nannies who know better.

“If there is one thing that every adult can do today to help protect young people against prescription drugs, it is go to your medicine cabinet, take those prescription drugs you are finished using and throw them away,” said John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “If you have teens in your house, remove this hazard today.”

I thought the current plan was to allow people only what they should “reasonably” use, leaving no pills in the bottle when whatever it is the pills are supposed to correct is cleared up. Did I miss something? I smell more invasive oversight of prescription drug use. If your doctor prescribes too many pills, he definitely wants to get your kids hooked on abusing drugs. He should be arrested. Oh, never mind. I bet kids would never think to look in the trash. Just in case, we should probably implement government-provided hazmat bins for old prescription drugs. Or we could have a central office in each town where people come to receive their daily pills. Consider it a community nurse’s station. That would work. For the children. Of course, I’m quite thankful that kids aren’t stupid enough to use other household items to get high when other, more effective, less dangerous items aren’t around because government has protected them.

“We’ve had in the past a tendency to take our eye off the ball,” he said. “We want to continue this decline, and that requires us to stay at it. If we fail to send anti-drug messages across multiple contexts with young people — especially given the contrary drumbeat that still appears in popular culture and on the Internet — we risk losing our progress.”

Kids aren’t media-savvy enough to decipher propaganda from the messages they want to hear? Nonsense. Our drug policy doesn’t work, and can never work.

I value your rights. Let’s vote on them.

There is little need to rehash the details, but New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed the bill providing equal-but-not-really-equal civil unions to same-sex couples. Of particular note is Gov. Corzine’s statement explaining his willingness to accept the legislature’s reasoning behind the civil union label instead of marriage, creating economic inefficiency on top of the separate-but-equal outcome. Consider:

The New Jersey bill creates a commission that will regularly review the law and recommend possible changes.

Corzine, a Democrat, said that seems to be a reasonable approach, but he said calling the arrangement a civil union rather than gay [sic] marriage is preferable.

“For most people, marriage has a religious connotation, and for many there is a view that that term is not consistent with the teachings of their religious belief,” the governor said. “So there is not democratic support in the broader society for that label, even though there is strong support for equal protection under the law.”

The state constitution of New Jersey presumably requires equal protection. “Democratic” support for the label matters how? Really, the Governor is stating that he believes mob rule is acceptable, in spite of said constitution. Granted, the New Jersey court’s ruling allowed this option, but the future is obvious. Marriage will arrive, whether the broader society wants it or not. Gov. Corzine should lead. If he doesn’t want to lead, he should resign. He should’ve refused to sign the legislation until the legislature gave him a solution that contains equality in practice, not just wishful thinking.

Play or pay, you decide.

Some Xbox 360 owners are upset, believing that games creators are soaking them by offering game content already on the disc on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Users trade Microsoft Points for the content. (80 points = $1) Consider:

What this means, apparently, is that you aren’t actually downloading any content — you’re just getting an encrypted key file that unlocks things already on the game disc. That is, you’re being taken for a ride, buying stuff you already own. Other allleged offenders include The Godfather, Lego Star Wars, and Microsoft’s own Viva Pinata.

From what I’ve heard, the purchase is not for content, but the encryption key to unlock the content. This content is unlockable by the player through playing the game. If the player doesn’t have the time or inclination to earn the content, he can purchase the key to make it available immediately.

This is not an example from the Marketplace, but it’s what I’m playing now. In Gears of War there are three difficulty levels: Casual, Hardcore, and Insane. Insane is only available once the player completes the campaign for the first time, on either Casual or Hardcore. Essentially, if Epic Games decided to offer the key to unlock Insane without completing the campaign first, that is the issue at stake.

The content is on the disc, but the user does not have to pay to unlock it. In my Gears example, I completed the campaign on Casual to unlock Insane. (Yay, me!) That’s why I bought the game, so even if Epic offered the key for sale, I wouldn’t buy it. I choose play. Yet, if someone else is only interested in playing the game once and wants to cheat buy his way to the hardest difficulty, I’m not going to get outraged. Good for him. That’s the beauty of the free market: choice is wonderful.

My caveat is simple. If the unlockable content is not advertised with a notice that it can be cracked through playing the game, that’s a shady business practice and should be stopped. I haven’t reviewed any of the offending content – I don’t have those games – to see how it’s marketed, but I suspect that the source I provided is correct and the content is not game creators sticking content on the disc and then charging gamers for what they’ve already paid for. There is a service underlying the fee. Why should that be a problem? Pay or don’t. To each his own.

Who should we blame for dereliction of duty?

A dozen years of Republican power, yet if the Democrats perform even the fiscal cleanup reform necessary, they’ll be to blame for any of the pain involved. Consider:

So will the Democratic Congress be any better than the Republican Congress was? A look at half a dozen likely policy proposals makes clear the answer will probably be no:

  • Tax Increases…
  • Spending Increases…
  • Alternative Minimum Tax. A 1969 tax increase that was enacted to soak the rich is suddenly going to seriously soak the middle class. Some 3.5 million taxpayers paid the AMT this year. But unlike the regular tax, the AMT is not indexed to inflation, which means the number of taxpayers the AMT hits is expected to balloon–by some estimates to as many as 23 million in 2007. Less than 5% of families with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 are now paying the AMT, but more than 80% may pay it in 2008. Almost no families with incomes of $50,000 to $100,000 pays the AMT today; but as many as 35% of such families will in 2008.

    To eliminate these very unpopular AMT increases would cost about $750 billion over the next 10 years. What taxes the new Congress will raise to solve this dilemma is unclear, but either AMT or other taxes will have to rise.

  • Protectionism…
  • Energy…
  • Social Security. Just 10 years from now Social Security benefits paid out will exceed taxes paid in, so something will have to be done to fix the system. Individually owned Social Security accounts would help by allowing workers to enjoy bigger returns. But Democrats are dead opposed to the idea of turning millions of Americans into owners of stocks and bonds, which will lead to the liberal solution of raising Social Security taxes and reducing benefits. The forthcoming plan will likely be to raise the cap on earnings subject to Social Security taxes ($97,500 in 2007). That would raise taxes on everyone earning more than this amount, especially the most productive wage earners. If the cap went up to $150,000, for example, it would mean a tax increase of $6,510 on a worker earning that amount.

The Alternative Minimum Tax and Social Security are absolutely problems that must be addressed. The longer we wait, the worse the pain will be. Obviously someone will take the blame. But it’s shameless to acknowledge that the Democrats will have to address the crisis and then blame the unpleasant reality on them.

I don’t seek to absolve the Democrats of any guilt, for they surely must share. Still, I have to come back to the reality that the allegedly fiscally conservative Republicans had six years of complete control over the two branches of government necessary to implement reform on these issues. They did nothing. When the weeds got thick, the party punted in favor of attacking gays and Janet Jackson’s breast.

Both parties are to blame for creating the problem, and I’m certain the Democrats will come up with stupid non-solutions to both. But I know who to blame for letting the problem get this severe.

Six days

I predicted this, but I’m amazed at the speed and audacity with which the United Nations discarded the words adult and voluntary.

“These (African) countries should now prepare how to introduce circumcision on a large scale,” UNAIDS chief Dr. Peter Piot told Reuters. “The science is clear.”

Baby boys should be targeted first but then attention should switch to adolescent boys and adult men, said Piot, who is in New Delhi to meet Indian officials on how they plan to tackle the world’s largest HIV/AIDS caseload.

The HIV crisis is raging in Africa among sexually-active adults, and UNAIDS wants to focus initial resources on circumcising baby boys. Baby boys can’t fight back, and if you circumcise them young, they’re much more likely to grow up and circumcise their own children. It’s indoctrination to perpetuate an otherwise unthinkable practice. That’s how it occurred in the United States in the early 20th century. It’s how it will occur in Africa in the 21st century.

The United Nations is a despicable organization in the circumcision debate. It lacks any legitimate notion of human rights or gender equality. Baby boys are human beings with inherent rights, not tools for ideological social experimentation.

Science isn’t the primary facet of this debate.

One point of follow-up on the Scottish article I discussed this morning. Further along in the article, this:

“The presumption against male circumcision in Scotland should be lifted,” said Dr Tim Hargreave, a urologist at Edinburgh University and a senior adviser to the WHO.

“There needs to be a policy shift in light of this evidence. Parents who seek circumcision for non-religious reasons should have ready access on the NHS.”
…

“There is an enormous anti-circumcision lobby that has very real concerns. But you have to separate the science and the evidence from the emotional baggage,” he said.

Isn’t it convenient how easily Dr. Hargreave lumps “real concerns” into emotional baggage, since the science is so convincing? That would be truthful if it were true. Dr. Hargreave’s position, like most who support infant circumcision, falls into the realm of truthiness.

Yes, I’m angry about being circumcised, a fact I admit. That does not change my argument. My “emotional baggage” appears in the tone and lack of patience I sometimes take surrounding the issue of infant circumcision, but there are facts and logic behind what I say. I do not deny the science, instead explaining why it isn’t enough to overcome the ethical concerns and the reality that less invasive procedures exist to resolve medical issues if they arise.

Orac, at Respectful Insolence, has an interesting take on the battle against vaccines that I think can be applied equally to the circumcision debate. I have no idea if Orac would agree with me, but his words speak truth to what I’m trying to say. Consider:

Supporters of pseudoscience … always have the advantage in such events, because the pseudoscientist can throw canards, dubious data, and distortions with abandon and force the skeptic or scientist on the defensive batting the canards aside, so much so that it is very difficult and sometimes impossible for a skeptic to get his message across.

Obviously the pro-infant circumcision lobby would classify me as the pseudoscientist in the circumcision debate, but that doesn’t fit. Skeptic versus non-skeptic is the key. Skepticism to Dr. Hargreave, and presumably most pro-infant circumcision folks, is “emotional baggage”. Circumcision is the panacea for all that ails society. Males should accept that the men and women who came before them and made their decision for them were wise and only acting with the best of intentions. The skeptic sees that this is modern medicine’s version of snake oil. Some people will improve by accident, but most are getting nothing measurable out of it. Does that mean everyone should drink up because it might work? Of course not. But that truth is “emotional baggage,” stifling the debate away from where it should be.

To their credit, the NHS stated that the recent results are not sufficient for it to reconsider its current policy that circumcision is unnecessary and should not be funded.

Thanks to Kip for the Science Blogs link.

I can quote a press release, too.

This press release has gotten some mileage recently, which surprises me because it’s from February. It’s obviously “relevant” now, as you’ll see, but I wonder how people can throw something like this around while missing points so obvious.

A statistical review of the past medical files of more than 300 couples in Uganda, in which the female partner was HIV negative and the male was HIV positive, provides solid documentation of the protective effects of male circumcision in reducing the risk of infection among women. Male circumcision also reduced rates of trichomonas and bacterial vaginosis in female partners. The study is believed to be the first to demonstrate the benefits to female partners of male circumcision.
…

Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., professor of infectious diseases at Hopkins and a senior investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, will present an overview of this trial, plus two others presently under way, as part of a plenary discussion at CROI on circumcision and HIV. But, he says, “We will have to wait for the ongoing two trials before drawing conclusive recommendations about circumcision for all men, and whether or not the benefits apply to transmission from females to males only, or to females from men as well. However, early indications are dramatic and, if proven, one case of HIV disease could be prevented through circumcising anywhere from 15 to 60 males.”

Continue reading “I can quote a press release, too.”

Who needs brains when we have other people’s money?

One sentence, three flaws:

Scottish parents who wish to have their male infants circumcised should have the procedure paid for by the NHS to prevent the transmission of AIDS, a World Health Organisation (WHO) expert said yesterday.

First, allow me to repeat the obvious counter-argument to this. Male infants are not sexually active and parents have more ability to teach their children safe sex practices and responsibility than ability to predict their child’s personal behavior 15 or more years into the future. So, unless their sons intend to have unprotected sex with HIV-positive women, something parents can’t know, circumcising male infants to protect them from HIV is unconscionable folly.

Second, the World Health Organization is strongly pro-male infant circumcision and strongly anti-female infant circumcision. I understand the reasoning depends on centuries of what’s socially acceptable, but I’ve already pointed out the hypocrisy in applying different rules to boys and girls when they apply equally. Specifically, human rights are subject to more than just a clean operating room and good intentions. The World Health Organization should read through its own literature with a keener eye.

Third, for those in the United States longing for socialized healthcare, this is the sort of quandary you’ll be in. Fanatics will seek to allow parents to chop off parts of their sons on the national dime. That’s absurd enough, since there is no medical need for the surgery, but it should be clear that national resources are not unlimited. Every penny unnecessarily removing a foreskin is a penny not spent curing disease. I suspect socialists don’t think this way. There’s always another rich person who can be forced to pay her fair share, right? That’s unjust, but also false. People will die now so that little boys might not die six or seven decades from now of diseases with causes not specific to their foreskins. It’s stupidity.

Do you want to hedge the risk that government will overstep?

For once I agree 100% with Sebastian Mallaby when he’s discussing economics and finance. Consider:

Modern societies worship innovation. When tech wizards get rich by founding Facebook or YouTube, people tend to celebrate. But this healthy admiration for success is subject to exceptions. When a different species of tech wizard gets rich by founding a hedge fund, the reaction is ambivalent — even though hedge funds contribute to the success of the economy as surely as tech firms.

Last week was fairly typical. The European Central Bank called for new regulation of hedge funds, including American ones. Germany’s government declared that hedge fund oversight would be on the agenda when it hosts next year’s Group of Eight meetings. Not to be outdone, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a rule that would bar all but the wealthiest 1.3 percent of households from investing in these demon vehicles.

How to explain all this suspicion? Hedge funds are simply pools of money whose managers are paid according to performance. This system of rewards is no more sinister than the patent system, which spurs inventors with the prospect of fabulous profits. Like intellectual property laws, hedge fund performance fees have created some impressive fortunes. Like intellectual property laws, they have inspired innovation, too.

His analysis is presented well. With over-intrusive government meddling in personal investing decisions, the government might as well mandate a “mutual funds only” policy for individuals. It would be just as rational, which is to say not at all. Oversight is important, as the history of finance and business in America shows, but I can just as easily lose all of my money in my business or in Las Vegas as I can by making investment decisions. Full disclosure, yes. Paternalistic protection, no.

The Law Is Subservient to Agendas

Can we please get to a point where we’re not battling over which side of the political spectrum has “control” over the courts?

A growing list of vacancies on the federal appeals court in Richmond is heightening concern among Republicans that one of the nation’s most conservative and influential courts could soon come under moderate or even liberal control, Republicans and legal scholars say.
…

Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America, said she and other conservatives are disappointed with Bush and Senate Republicans for not pushing harder to fill the vacancies before losing control of the Senate.

“Now all they’ve done is managed to kick the can down the road, and we’ve lost the majority,” said LaRue, whose group advocates for conservative jurists. “That circuit in the wrong hands could certainly move toward the center-left.”

Whoever is doing the nominating and whoever is doing the confirming should be irrelevant. Babbling against “activist judges” to gain the opportunity to appoint activist judges is shameful. I’d rather have a judge who believes in individual rights. Call that a bias, but the Constitution says what it says. Enough with the partisanship.