Tag Archives: Science / Environment

Rough justice in America

US – 748 inmates / 100,000 people
Russia – 600 inmates / 100,000 people

This great Economist article speaks to the war on drugs, the absurdity of environmental law, governments arbitrary application of the law, and more.

“The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.” ~Tacitus (ca. 56–ca. 117)

. . . Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. . . .

Mr Norris was 65 years old at the time, and a collector of orchids. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling the flowers into America, an offence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock. He did indeed import flowers and sell them to other orchid-lovers. And it was true that his suppliers in Latin America were sometimes sloppy about their paperwork. In a shipment of many similar-looking plants, it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.

In March 2004, five months after the raid, Mr Norris was indicted, handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murderer and two suspected drug-dealers. When told why he was there, “they thought it hilarious.” One asked: “What do you do with these things? Smoke ’em?”

Prosecutors described Mr Norris as the “kingpin” of an international smuggling ring. He was dumbfounded: his annual profits were never more than about $20,000. When prosecutors suggested that he should inform on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence, he refused, insisting he knew nothing beyond hearsay.

He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term.

As his legal bills exploded, Mr Norris reluctantly changed his plea to guilty, though he still protests his innocence. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison.

. . . .

Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision.

. . . .

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.

In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

. . . .

“I don’t think this is fair,” said the judge. “I don’t think this is what our laws are meant to do. It’s going to cost upwards of $50,000 a year to have you in state prison. Had I the authority, I would send you to jail for no more than one year…and a [treatment] programme after that.” But mandatory sentencing laws gave him no choice.

Massachusetts is a liberal state, but its drug laws are anything but. It treats opium-derived painkillers such as Percocet like hard drugs, if illicitly sold. Possession of a tiny amount (14-28 grams, or ½-1 ounce) yields a minimum sentence of three years. For 200 grams, it is 15 years, more than the minimum for armed rape.

. . . .

In Alabama a petty thief called Jerald Sanders was given a life term for pinching a bicycle. Alabama’s judges are elected, as are those in 32 other states. This makes them mindful of public opinion: some appear in campaign advertisements waving guns and bragging about how tough they are.

. . . .

In 2006 Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”. Her crime was to award a contract (for travel services) to the best bidder. A firm called Adelman Travel scored the most points (on an official scale) for price and quality, so Ms Thompson picked it. She ignored a rule that required her to penalise Adelman for a slapdash presentation when bidding. For this act of common sense, she served four months. (An appeals court freed her.)

. . . .

There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties. When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offences on the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison.

. . . .

“You’re (probably) a federal criminal,” declares Alex Kozinski, an appeals-court judge, in a provocative essay of that title. Making a false statement to a federal official is an offence. So is lying to someone who then repeats your lie to a federal official. Failing to prevent your employees from breaking regulations you have never heard of can be a crime. A boss got six months in prison because one of his workers accidentally broke a pipe, causing oil to spill into a river. “It didn’t matter that he had no reason to learn about the [Clean Water Act’s] labyrinth of regulations, since he was merely a railroad-construction supervisor,” laments Judge Kozinski.

. . . .

Some prosecutors, such as Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York, have built political careers by nailing people whom voters don’t like, such as financiers.

. . . . (Read more from economist.com)

President Obama’s electric car subsidies are snobby and foolish

It’s official: The Chevrolet Volt, the new plug-in electric hybrid car from General Motors, will cost $41,000—that’s a four-seat hatchback for about the base price of a BMW 335i. To be sure, a $7,500 federal tax credit cuts that to $33,500, and electricity is cheaper per mile than gas. But barring some huge oil price spike or stiff new gas tax, it would take more than a decade to offset the higher purchase price.

. . . .

And that’s my problem with the Obama administration’s energy policy, or at least with his lavish subsidies for the Volt, Nissan’s all-electric Leaf (likely sticker price $33,000), and Tesla’s $100,000 all-electric Roadster: Where does the federal government get off spending the average person’s tax dollars to help better-off-than-average Americans buy expensive new cars? (Read more from slate.com)

Surprising that this was publish by the leftist, pro-state, pro-green Slate.com.

NASA doesn’t matter, and public education is pathetic

Great essay from 1994 (the year I graduated from the NYC public school system).

What Really Matters

by John Taylor Gatto

This originally appeared in Natural Life Magazine, November/December, 1994.

Going to the moon didn’t really matter, it turned out.

I say that from the vantage point of my six decades living on Planet Earth, but also because of something I saw not so long ago. It was at Booker T. Washington High School where I watched an official astronaut – a handsome, well-built man in his prime, dressed in a silver space suit with an air of authentic command – try to get the attention of an auditorium full of Harlem teenagers. It was the Board of Education’s perfect template for dramatic success – a distinguished black man leading ignorant black kids to wisdom. He came with every tricky device and visual aid NASA could muster, yet the young audience ignored him completely. I heard some teachers say, “What do you expect from ghetto kids?”, but I don’t think that explained his failure at all. The kids instinctively perceived this astronaut had less control over his rocket vehicle than a bus driver has over his bus. I think they had also wordlessly deduced that any experiments he performed were someone else’s idea. The space agency’s hype was lost on them.

. . . .

After 12,000 hours of compulsory training at the hands of nearly 100 government-certified men and women, many high school graduates have no skills to trade for an income or even any skills with which to talk to each other. They can’t change a flat, read a book, repair a faucet, install a light, follow directions for the use of a word processor, build a wall, make change reliably, be alone with themselves or keep their marriages together. The situation is considerably worse than journalists have discerned. I know, because I lived in it for 30 years as a teacher. (Read more from lewrockwell.com)

Green Government: After an almost half billion dollar gov’t loan, we get $100k cars nobody wants

Re: The New York Times’ With First Share Offering, Tesla Bets on Electric Car’s Future

Patrick Barron wrote:

Dear Sirs:
Your article about the upcoming Tesla Motors IPO illustrates beautifully how our government gambles with the peoples’ money. The government has “loaned” Tesla $465 million. I put the word “loan” in parentheses, because this is not a real loan. Undoubtedly the rate is below market, but there is no way of knowing, because there is no loan market for Tesla Motors. No bank board of directors would ever approve such a loan of its depositors’ money. The article speaks for itself–Tesla has lost $290.2 million since it was founded in 2003. It has produced a grand total of one thousand cars, priced at over $100,000 a piece. Its current car has minimal range and few places where it can be recharged. By the time Tesla rolls out its next model, the big players such as Nissan will be offering all-electric cars at a fraction of Tesla’s price. But how can there be a significant market for an all-electric car when nowhere can one find out its electricity cost per mile? And where will America get the power? The government, via the EPA, is making it almost impossible for America’s utility companies to add electricity production. In fact, some current coal-fired power plants are threatened with closure. Nevertheless, the government is pushing this technology and trying to lure buyers by granting tax credits to purchasers of all-electric cars. But, there’s a sucker born every minute. So, if you loved the DeLorean, you’ll probably buy a Tesla.

Vitamin D: Why You Are Probably NOT Getting Enough and How That Makes You Sick

Okay, this isn’t directly related to the state of our republic, but there’s been a lot of noise about this lately. If you need stronger justification, know there have been accusations of conspiracy for this issue not getting more attentions sooner, though that seems to have now changed:

What vitamin may we need in amounts up to 25 times higher than the government recommends for us to be healthy?

What vitamin deficiency affects 70-80 percent of the population, is almost never diagnosed and has been linked to many cancers, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression,(i) fibromyalgia, chronic muscle pain, bone loss and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis?(ii)

What vitamin is almost totally absent from our food supply?

What vitamin is the hidden cause of much suffering that is easy to treat?

The answer to all of these questions is vitamin D.

Over the last 15 years of my practice, my focus has been to discover what the body needs to function optimally. Vitamin D, a nutrient (more of a hormone and gene modulator) is a critical, essential ingredient for health and optimal function. The problem is that most of us don’t have enough of it because we work and live indoors, use sun block and can’t get enough from our diet–even in fortified foods.

Two recent studies in the journal Pediatrics found that 70 percent of American kids aren’t getting enough vitamin D, and this puts them at higher risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and lower levels of good cholesterol. (iii) Low vitamin D levels also may increase a child’s risk of developing heart disease later in life.

Overall, 7.6 million, or nine percent, of US children were vitamin-D deficient, and another 50.8 million, or 61 percent, had insufficient levels of this important vitamin in their blood.

The average blood level of vitamin D was 25 ng/dl for Caucasians and 16 ng/dl for African Americans. The optimal level is 45 ng/dl and requires about 3000-4000 IU a day of vitamin D3 — 10 times current recommendations. If our whole population achieved a minimum level of 45 ng/dl, we would have 400,000 fewer premature deaths per year. There would be a reduction of cancer by 35 percent, type 2 diabetes by 33 percent and all causes of mortality by seven percent. (iv) (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)

Global Warming skeptics compared to Holocaust deniers

By every measure, the U N ‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is “unequivocal.” The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.

I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. (Read more from boston.com)

Journal editor given ultimatum over peer review

THE editor of a journal which publishes controversial medical ideas claims he has been told that he will be fired unless he agrees to make the journal peer-reviewed.

“Medical Hypotheses is the last of the non-peer-reviewed journals in the mainstream scientific literature,” says Bruce Charlton, the editor facing the ultimatum. “They are going to sack me on 11 May unless I unconditionally accept the changes to the journal.”

Elsevier, which also publishes New Scientist, is demanding the changes after it withdrew two controversial papers that Medical Hypotheses published last year, one of them questioning whether HIV causes AIDS. Following an internal review, Elsevier ordered Charlton to introduce peer review and to devote extra attention to potentially controversial articles.

Charlton says that peer review would undermine the spirit of the journal, which is to challenge prevailing dogma. At present, Charlton alone decides what to publish.

Rob Heller, a spokesman for Elsevier, says the company has acted ethically towards Charlton but, “as owner of the journal, we have every right and obligation to make the final decision on the editorial policies of the journal”. (Read more from newscientist.com)

NPR and CNN worry that Global Warming may have caused Iceland’s Volcano!!!

This is just too bizarre:

Diana Rehm (NPR): We do wonder whether there’s human involvement in all of these eruptions, earthquakes, storms –

Elise Labott (senior State Department producer for CNN): – and how much global warming has a role in it. You know we’ve seen a lot of wacky weather but that’s just a microcosm for what’s happening around the world and how much climate change is contributing to earthquakes and volcanic ash – it’s a really good

question.

(From johnrlott.blogspot.com)

My Blog Belches Carbon

my blog belches carbon Oh, now this is rich. German greenies calculate that a blog which gets 15,000 hits or more a month (yay! we qualify!) pumps out 8 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

So what you’re supposed to do is, you write a blog post about this, you put a link to them in the sidebar using their “my blog is carbon neutral” graphic, they plant a tree in your name, it soaks up 11 pounds of CO2, and — violoncello! — your blog IS carbon neutral.

So let’s point out the utterly fucking obvious, shall we? There is no relationship between blogs and trees. Nobody is waiting around for a pingback before they go stick a spruce in the ground. This is an ongoing reforestation program (by the Arbor Day Foundation in the Plumas National Forest. In California) and these German greenie-weenies have just latched onto to display, once again, their weak (or dishonest) grasp of cause-and-effect. (Read more from sweasel.com)

Dr. Thomas Szasz on Psychiatry: “No behavior or misbehavior is a disease!”

Wow! Great video!

– Runaway slaves in the United States were once said to suffer from a disease called “drapetomania.”
– “No behavior or misbehavior is a disease!”
– “60 years ago . . . there were no more than six or seven mental diseases. Now, there are more than 300, and new ones are “discovered” every day.”
– “Giving a child a psychiatric drug is poisoning, not treatment.”
– “The child psychiatrist is one of the most dangerous enemies not only of children, but of adults . . of all of us who care about . . . children and liberty.”
– “How can parents protect their children from the therapeutic state, that is from the alliance of government and psychiatry?”

The $747 Space Program

WEST YORKSHIRE, GREAT BRITAIN — Putting NASA and its billion dollar budgets to shame, a British space enthusiast took amazing photos and video from space with just a few hundred dollars, a home camera and a balloon.

Robert Harrison spent a mere $747 dollars to take his photos and video from 22 miles above Earth’s surface.

The results are stunning.

Harrison told the L.A. Times that a NASA official who saw the photos and video called him and asked him how he did it.

Apparently NASA thought Harrison used a rocket to achieve the flight into space.

Harrison says he put a camera into a polystyrene box and attached it to a helium balloon.

The camera was programmed to snap 8 photos and a short video every five minutes.

When the balloon reached an altitude of 22 miles, it popped.

As the camera fell, a parachute opened and the box gently floated back to earth.

Harrison found his camera some 50 miles from his home with the help of a GPS locator. (Read more from ktla.com)

Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis

Sent to me by the infamous Esoteridactyl.

We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong.

Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye.

These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. “There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims,” Dr. Ioannidis said. “A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true.”

The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined.

. . . .

In the U. S., research is a $55-billion-a-year enterprise that stakes its credibility on the reliability of evidence and the work of Dr. Ioannidis strikes a raw nerve. In fact, his 2005 essay “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” remains the most downloaded technical paper that the journal PLoS Medicine has ever published.

“He has done systematic looks at the published literature and empirically shown us what we know deep inside our hearts,” said Muin Khoury, director of the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need to pay more attention to the replication of published scientific results.”

Every new fact discovered through experiment represents a foothold in the unknown. In a wilderness of knowledge, it can be difficult to distinguish error from fraud, sloppiness from deception, eagerness from greed or, increasingly, scientific conviction from partisan passion. As scientific findings become fodder for political policy wars over matters from stem-cell research to global warming, even trivial errors and corrections can have larger consequences. (Read more from online.wsj.com)