[S]he took his knife, stripped him naked and paraded him in front of other prostitutes, after asking how many of them had ever been forced into sex at knifepoint.Then she hauled him on down to the police station.
Justice Paul Pfeifer, writing for the court, said it is irrelevant even if Betty Lucas had violated the protective order by inviting her ex-husband into her home, as the lower court found.If someone is so dangerous to you that you have to get a protective order against them, it behooves you to stay the hell away from them, or face the consequences. If you appeal to the government for protection, deliberately circumventing the government's attempts to protect you should either a) be illegal, or b) nullify the government's responsibility towards you. In a just world, a protective order would work both ways.
"To find appellant guilty of complicity would be to criminalize an irrelevancy," Pfeifer wrote. "We hold that an individual who is the protected subject of a temporary protection order may not be prosecuted for aiding and abetting the restrainee under the protection order."
The panel's decision appears to divert dramatically from past practice, according to a law professor who is a former Iran-contra prosecutor and an expert on the independent counsel law. John Q. Barrett, who was an associate counsel for independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, said federal courts have been generous in reimbursing legal bills and have avoided drawing conclusions about whether the subject otherwise would have been investigated.And the Clintons are complaining about it too:
"Before today, the court was generally generous and, for whatever reason, today took a dramatically different approach," Barrett said. "Many suspect a political motivation in this case. I don't necessarily subscribe to that, but it is very different."
The Clintons complained through their attorney yesterday that two former Republican presidents fared much better in securing repayment of their legal bills in the Iran-contra investigation. George H.W. Bush was awarded $272,000, or 59 percent of the reimbursement he sought, and Ronald Reagan was awarded $562,000, or 72 percent of his request.Okay, so the former presidents you're referring to received a combined $834,000 in repayments from the government. Since you're stressing the percentage of their legal bills that were repaid, here's a figure you could bring up as well: $834,000 is 23% of $3,580,000, which is the amount the Clintons are requesting from the government. The Clintons may be only getting 2% of what they asked for, but they're asking for more than four times the amount of money that was distributed to Reagan and Bush. Perhaps that has a lot more to do with the denial of their request than any shadowy political conspiracy.
Michael Ballou, a part-time lecturer who teaches an "Introduction to U.S. Government" course at the college's Petaluma campus, intended the assignment to be an "experiential exercise that would instill a sense of fear so they would have a better sense of why more people don't participate in the political process," said Doug Garrison, the vice president and executive dean of the Petaluma campus. ...It is appropriate to fear participation in the political process, if your participation is limited to making death threats against the president. That isn't the reason 'more people don't participate in the political process', and saying that just makes Garrison look like a dumbass. Does he think that a good 'experiential exercise' that would instill a better understanding of why women don't like to walk alone at night would be to rape his students?
Most of the 30 students in the class dismissed the June 25 assignment as a joke, but after it was repeated at a subsequent class, one student did send the e-mail to U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Napa Valley) on July 5. ...People like this are why I would never teach my (hypothetical) children to blindly obey their superiors.
Making a threat against the president is against the law and subject to up to five years in prison.
Mallard told police that her Chevrolet Cavalier hit Biggs with such force that his head and shoulders jammed into the windshield and his legs were bent over the roof, his pants tearing almost completely off his body.At some point after Chante quit apologizing, Gregory Biggs died from the injuries she inflicted, and then she and two accomplices dumped the body.
Instead of stopping, police say, Mallard drove about a mile down a divided six-lane highway, the man still lodged and bleeding in the jagged windshield, then continued through town to her small yellow house in a working-class neighborhood.
She pulled into her garage, lowered the door, then sat in the car and cried, repeatedly apologizing to the man who was moaning, she later told detectives.
"Chante kept going in and out of the garage telling the man she was sorry," the police report states. "She does not know how long it took the man to die; she quit going out into the garage."
... Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani later said Biggs, whose left leg was nearly amputated, probably lived only a few hours after he was hit the morning of Oct. 26, 2001. He could have survived if he had received medical attention, Peerwani has said.That is far more than merely failing to 'stop and render aid.' I can't think of any punishment currently in use in the american justice system that is harsh enough to address such a complete lack of humanity. I'm of the opinion that the only way to make this one right, is to have someone do unto Chante what she so callously did to Gregory Biggs.
Crane was convicted in 1994 in Johnson County, Kan., for an attack on a video store clerk in suburban Leawood the previous year. Earlier, he got probation in 1987 for attempted forcible rape and two counts of sex abuse in Missouri.Sounds to me like Crane simply started saying what the doctors wanted to hear. They decided this predatory animal was safe enough to be released into the wild, and sure enough, he went right back to his raping ways.
In the 1994 case, he was sentenced to 35 years to life on his convictions for kidnapping, attempted rape and attempted sodomy. ...
As he was approaching release, the state sought to have him kept in confinement, and a jury determined him to be a violent sexual predator. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned that finding, but Crane remained in confinement while the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last year, the court ruled in a 7-2 decision that states must prove that convicted sex offenders can't control themselves if they are to be confined after they finish their prison terms. ...
Crane, who remained in custody for more than three years after finishing his sentence, was released in January last year after doctors concluded his mental condition had changed and that he was no longer a threat.
The Kansas law, similar to those in about 20 states, allows indefinite confinement of violent sex offenders beyond their prison term if they suffer from mental abnormalities making them likely to commit similar crimes in the future. (emphasis mine)Isn't it a given that a rapist is mentally abnormal? And considering this was not his first offense, I'd say it's also a given that he's likely to commit similar crimes in the future. This animal should never have been released.
PALOMINO VALLEY, Nev. - Swarms of Mormon crickets are marching across the West, destroying rangeland and crops, slickening highways with their carcasses and leaving disgusted residents in their wake.
"It's yucky," said Amy Nisbet of Elko in northeast Nevada, where this year crickets made their first appearance in recent memory. "You drive down the street and they pop like bubble wrap."
The state parole board's decision to release David Ortell Kingston on Tuesday rather than parole him means the prison has no responsibility to follow up on him.Great. So Mr. Kingston has vowed to wait until they're 18 years old now. I'd be more reassured if he also vowed not to force his female relatives to marry him any more.
Todd Utzinger, one of Kingston's former attorneys, said the parole board's decision recognizes "he has taken full responsibility and is prepared to go on and live a crime-free life." ...
Kingston's 16-year-old wife was the daughter of his brother John Daniel Kingston, who was sentenced to seven months in jail for beating the girl after she attempted to flee the marriage. Another Kingston brother, Paul, is the church leader.
David Kingston had denied having had sex with his niece until a parole hearing last August. He vowed never again to have sex with an underage girl.
"I recognize the hurt and sorrow I have caused (the victim) and my family," he said.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Even though she had an order of protection filed against her ex-husband, Betty Lucas invited him to a birthday party for one of their children.Seems fair enough to me. If you get a protective order against a guy, you're hardly deserving of sympathy if you invite him to violate it.
The party soon disintegrated into fighting and police were called. But in an unexpected twist, both adults were charged with violating the protection order - her ex-husband for attending and Lucas for inviting him.
Now Lucas' appeal has landed on the docket of the Ohio Supreme Court, which must decide if people who seek a court's protection can be charged with violating their own request.
Domestic violence groups have sided with Lucas and say abusive people - not their victims - must be held responsible for violating protective orders. Prosecutors say Lucas should be held as accountable as anyone else who helped her husband violate a court order.Because poor abused women should never have to take responsibility or face consequences for their actions.
Several domestic violence watchdog groups are backing Betty Lucas, saying failure to overturn her conviction sets back the justice system's role in protecting victims of abuse.Whups... I was being sarcastic, up there, but it appears that the AOCBW wasn't.
"Punishing the victim for contacting or returning to the offender does nothing to deter criminal behavior," the groups, including the Action Ohio Coalition for Battered Women and the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, argued in court papers.
"It tells the victim that she is equally responsible for the abuser's violent behavior and it reinforces the abuser's belief that his behavior is the result of factors outside his control," the groups argued.Well yes, if you deliberately violate a court order, in order to see a man that you claim is abusive, you share the responsibility for the results. I'm of the opinion that protective orders should be worded so that they apply equally to each party. If the police aren't allowed to charge you with violating protective orders you request, there's nothing to stop me from getting a protective order against an ex-boyfriend and then violating it, calling the police, and having him carted off to jail. Once he gets out, if the order is still in effect, I can repeat the process as many times as I like. Sounds unfair? It is. If you think someone is so dangerous to you that you have to get a protective order, then you have a responsibility to stay the hell away from them.
Lucas' attorney, Andrew Sanderson, argued that Ohio law is meant to protect victims of domestic violence even if they make a bad decision about the person who abused them.There's a difference there in that children under the age of consent are held to be incapable of making their own decisions - that's why its called below the age of consent. Is Sanderson implying that women are incapable of making their own decisions, and therefore shouldn't be held responsible even when they recklessly expose themselves to a known danger? How condescending.
He used the analogy of Ohio's sexual assault laws, which protect victims under 18 from prosecution no matter the circumstances. Even if a teenage girl was a seducer, "We've made a societal decision that we're not going to charge that individual," Sanderson said.
As you and your members might already know, several courts have held that cigarette manufacturers may be liable for failing to disclose that their products might be addictive, even though the general health dangers of smoking were so well known as to be regarded as common knowledge. ... By analogy, even if all courts find that the general dangers of eating fatty and calorie-rich foods at fast food restaurants are likewise common knowledge, liability for causing obesity and its related diseases may nevertheless be premised on the theory that the public is much less aware of the addictive-like effects of many fast food than they are of the widely-publicized addictive nature of nicotine in cigarettes.And he's right, you know. Food is addictive. People have to eat food, or their withdrawal symptoms - stomach cramps, wasting, headaches, mood swings, and malnutrition - will eventually grow so severe as to be fatal.
In light of these scientific studies, it may also be prudent for fast food companies to review their policies to be sure that nothing they are doing could be construed by a jury as seeking to take advantage of and/or enhance the possibly addictive properties of their foods. Changing the cooking temperature so as to increase the amount of fat absorbed during cooking, adding sugar to foods like french fries where it is not ordinarily expected, etc. might well seem to jurors like the activities of cigarette manufacturers to increase (“spike”) the addictive effects of their products.
It cannot be overstated: Most men are good, hard-working human beings who love their families and never raise a hand in violence. Because their decency is not sensational, they are ignored by media and politicians who focus instead on men who rape or otherwise give their gender a bad name. A better reaction is to hold the decent men closer to us and value them more.The vast majority of men I know are upstanding, honorable, decent people who believe in doing the right thing. As a woman who likes being one, a world without men in it, or a world where men have been turned into timid, flaccid, stubbly versions of women, is truly awful to contemplate. Three cheers for men!
The first time the city of New London, Conn., seized Pasquale Cristofaro's home, it was to make way for a sea wall that never materialized. Instead, private medical offices sprouted over the backyard plot where Cristofaro once grew tomatoes, squash and grapes.This is not a new problem, but one that finally appears to be gaining some well-deserved attention. The Institute for Justice recently published a report documenting eminent domain abuses, which can be found here on their website. James Bovard has been writing books exposing eminent domain and asset forfeiture abuses for years. Yes, just about anyone's land could be more valuable to the state if it were in the hands of a private business, but that doesn't make stealing it from the rightful owner right. Not unless you're living in a communist country.
Three decades later, when the city wanted to raze another Cristofaro family home to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices, the 77-year-old Italian immigrant dug in and fought back in court.
"When they came to take my house from me a second time, I feel sick," said Cristofaro, whose grandchildren now live in the home he bought in 1972. "It's not right, to take it for a business. The United States of America is supposed to stop this."
Bitter disputes are playing out across the country as city leaders eager to improve their economies condemn homes and small businesses - not for highways, airports or other public projects, but for private development.
Echoing Santorum, Kurtz raises the possibility of a "slippery slope" leading from same-sex marriage to polygamy. But one can easily draw a distinction. The widespread practice of polygamy would have great social costs. It would distort the sexual marketplace by creating an undersupply of marriageable women. (Polyandry, the practice of women having multiple husbands, is too rare to be worth discussing.) The result is the creation of what Jonathan Rauch calls a "sexual underclass" of "low-status men" whose prospects for marriage are virtually nil.First, the practice would have to be wide-spread in order for it to have any sort of the affect on the 'sexual marketplace' - which, by the way, is an awful term for love relationships. Second, what makes you think that women the United States over would be clamoring for a slot as 8th wife?
What has fueled the issue of polygamy statewide as well as nationally is the case of a 16-year-old girl who stumbled into a remote gas station in northern Utah this summer.This summer? The case actually happened in May of 1998, by my math a good five years ago. Not that the actual date counts so much except that its sloppy reporting.
Covered with fresh bruises on her legs, arms and buttocks, authorities said the girl had run seven miles through the night, fleeing her father's belt and the future he had ordained for her: marriage to her uncle, and life as his 15th wife.Say What?? If you're going to make that argument, then perhaps you should present data that actually shows something like that going on. Instead, you paint a story of a male patriarch abusing his power to force a non-consenting child to marry a man who already had 14 wives. This is like me claiming that single men are more likely to rape and kill pregnant women, and using the Laci Peterson case as my evidence.
The teen-ager's 911 call has resulted in a charge against her father, John Daniel Kingston, a leader of a wealthy but secretive polygamous clan based in a Salt Lake suburb. Rowenna Erickson, a Tapestry member who left the clan in 1991, said that incest, child marriage and birth defects were becoming more frequent in the clan, which numbers about 1,500 people. . . .
Ms. Erickson said that John Daniel Kingston had fathered 10 children with a half-sister and that the 16-year-old girl who fled was his eldest child. Identified only by her initials, M.N., she testified in late July in court here that last fall she had been secretly married against her will to an uncle, David Kingston.
It's easy to understand why polygamy would lead to child abuse and incest, especially in relatively small communities. If the supply of marriageable women is severely restricted because a large number of women are married to a small number of men, then it's not surprising that men would turn their attention to underage girls.
As for incest, the practice of polygamy creates huge numbers of close relatives. The Times cites the example of the late Wilford Woodruff Steed of Colorado City, Colo., who when he died in 1994 left six wives, 43 children and 235 grandchildren. In 1990 Colorado City had a population of 2,426, which means that those 235 grandchildren--all of whom are either siblings, half-siblings or first cousins--were nearly 10% of the town's population, and a higher proportion of their peers.I'm not sure how this is supposed to be a bad thing, unless there's a local ordinance prohibiting marriage to anyone outside of the town. They aren't living in Antarctica, and it doesn't take a seven day trip by mule-drawn buggy to get to the nearest settlement. So there are a lot of relatives around.... bet that means the women in the town hardly ever have trouble finding a trusted babysitter.
By contrast, it's hard to imagine any great social harm arising from official recognition of same-sex unions. Just about anyone who would consider "marrying" someone of the same sex is outside the ordinary marriage pool anyway; for the vast majority of heterosexuals, the idea of a same-sex union is entirely (if you'll pardon the expression) unnatural.Since when did affirmative action come to sexual relationships? And does that mean that if the population ratio swung to 75% female, you'd change your mind?
You must find out where you are spending your money, and either reduce spending, or increase income. ...however, remember this: an extra dollar earned, because of federal, state, and Social Security taxes, is typically $0.55 to $0.65 more in your pocket. A dollar reduction in spending, however is $1 towards solving your budget problem.The entire series is smart advice, and recommended reading for anyone who isn't already rich.
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," Santorum said in the interview, published Monday.So far, of the posts I've seen regarding the issue, my favorite has to come from Rand Simberg. He writes, in part:
Now it's clear from context and his history that he thinks that not only is there something wrong with all of those things, but that he also thinks that they should be therefore illegal, and that not allowing laws against consensual gay sex shoves us down the hill on a slick road to perdition. That's not a position with which I agree, but I don't see any comparison of that to wistfully dreaming of a return to Jim Crow. I assume that, to the degree that the objectors have a sincere objection (disregarding the simple political and partisan opportunity), it is his lumping homosexuality in with the other things, unless they're proposing to make them all legal as well (no doubt some of them might).To me, that's the most interesting thing about this case. I wrote in his comments section (I've only added html tags here):
"Santorum does indeed appear to be against any non-procreative heterosexual sex. That's fine with me, since he won't be the one deciding wether or not states can make other sex illegal - that'll be the Sup Ct.I'm tempted to say that those folks upset over Santorum's comments - because he compared homosexuals to bigamists, polygamists, etc - are no more tolerant than he is.
What bothers me is the outrage everyone is expressing because Santorum compared homosexuality to incest, adultery, bigamy, etc... The impression I'm getting here is that the folks upset with Santorum are upset because he lumped homosexuality into activities these people think are wrong. In other words, their tolerance for homosexuality does not extend to tolerance for polygamy or other alternative relationships. If so, why not? Polygamy in particular has a far longer history of social acceptance (at least in other cultures/religions) than homosexuality has had.
Incest - I understand the genetic concerns incest raises, but defective babies are not created only by sister/brother or mother/son pairings. If the prohibition against blood-related consensual adults having sex is only due to the risk of birth defects, why have we not also made it illegal for people who know they will have defective children to breed? And if no offspring results from the pairing, why is it wrong? (Before anyone jumps on my case for that - I don't think its the governments' business to decide who has babies and who doesn't...smacks too much of nazism to me.)
I disagree with Santorum's stance, but I agree with his statement. If the Sup Ct rules, based on the 'right to privacy', that the states cannot make laws prohibiting homosexual sex, then they shouldn't make laws prohibiting other sexual relationships between consenting adults."
A Richmond father and daughter have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to defraud the government and filing a false tax return that claimed a $500,000 refund for slavery reparations, the Internal Revenue Service said yesterday.I won't argue that claiming a half-a-million dollar refund for slavery reparations is illegal. There is no 'slavery reparations' fund. Robert and Crystal Foster definitely attempted to defraud the IRS. What I want to know is how dumb is the IRS that they got away with it, even for a little while?
The IRS has included slavery reparations on its list of the "Dirty Dozen" tax scams the agency has urged taxpayers to avoid. Efforts by the IRS and the Justice Department to shut down tax scams based on slavery reparations and similar claims have resulted in a 97 percent drop in the claims in recent years.Personally, I'd be much more interested in finding out that whoever was dumb enough to issue a half-a-million dollar tax refund for 'slavery reparations', has been fired, and blacklisted from ever working in the tax/accounting business again.
According to the Richmond indictment, released Monday, Mr. Foster and his daughter received a tax refund of $507,490.91 from the IRS on Oct. 29, 2001 — the largest refund paid by the government that year. The claim was based on Miss Foster's contention that she and other blacks suffered harm because of slavery and its aftermath. ...
The IRS approved Miss Foster's refund, and she received her refund check after answering a letter from the agency on the identity of her investment firm. According to the records, she said it was the "U.S. Department of Treasury, Black Capital Investments."
IRS officials said although no such firm exists, the refund check was issued anyway. Later, when the agency realized its mistake, the IRS filed a civil lawsuit in November 2001 to get the money back from the Fosters and others to whom money had been paid.
So, here's my narrow proposal: We should indeed resist claims that private boycotts and firings violate the First Amendment -- those claims are legally incorrect. We should also resist the assumption that the First Amendment provides proper ethical and moral standards for the behavior of private actors; sometimes, as with private universities, it might, at least to a large extent, but sometimes it doesn't: If you want to say the Nazis were right, you have the First Amendment right to do that, but I'll kick you out of my house, and generally won't do business with you. But we should also look behind the erroneous claims of First Amendment protection, and take seriously the deeper arguments that generally underlie such claims -- the arguments that it is indeed unethical and in the long run harmful to try to economically retaliate against people in certain ways based on certain kinds of speech. And perhaps this inquiry might eventually give us some sense of what the right ethical and pragmatic guidelines should be here.This is a nice enough sentiment, but I think its entirely misplaced. The problem here is that the very sorts of people loudly complaining of censorship and '1st amendment violations' now, are also the sort of who have no qualms about applying the same tactics to groups they don't like.
I want my money back. War, plague and pestilence (think SARS) -- this millennium sucks.Because, after all, 3 years into the thousand we have still to go is sufficient time to declare a verdict.
Peace in the Mideast seemed just around the corner, thanks to the patient diplomatic efforts of a well-informed, articulate and creative U.S. president. Was poor taste in mistresses a sensible reason to replace him with a man who's proud to tell you foreign affairs are something he himself is never ever going to have, swear to God? Whose idea of diplomacy is smiling while delivering an ultimatum?Lot's of people, you twit, or have you never heard the phrase, "diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggie until you can find a big stick"? And in case you're suffering from short term memory loss, in the United States, presidents only serve two terms. It not like we ousted Clinton just when he was finally about to lobby his way into a nobel peace prize, as some sort of cruel joke. We had elections. He couldn't run, because he'd already held the office for eight years, and his designated successor was such an uncharismatic, pathological liar, that Bush was able to win the presidency despite being depicted in the press as a retarded playboy. Gore sucks so bad, that as bad as you think Bush is, he couldn't beat Bush. Blame Clinton for not training his vice-president better than that.
In 1993, Arab terrorists tried to -- get this! -- blow up the World Trade Center. Of course, they failed ludicrously. Terrorists usually did; they were figures of fun, bearded buffoons who squabbled and shot ineffectually in all directions in films. They couldn't even take out a satirist: Salman Rushdie toured at will. The only modern terrorists to have taken a significant number of lives on U.S. soil were white, male Americans -- specifically, Timbit-Brain McVeigh in Oklahoma City and the FBI in Waco;Arab terrorists were figures of fun? Tell that to the Israelis. And be sure you leave that part about U.S. soil in there, because without it, your argument falls apart. Arab terrorists failed at bringing down the trade towers once, but they succeeded in their attempts in Beirut, Dahran, on the USS Cole, at two U.S. embassies... apparently Robinson feels that we should only take terrorism seriously when it happens at home. If our people die overseas, that's no big deal.
Musicians and writers were optimistic. Multitrack recording had just stopped requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars of machinery and expertise; the sound quality of consumer playback had just reached perfect. Publishing books suddenly no longer absolutely necessitated printing 25 paper copies in the hope of selling one, and writing them no longer required a (shudder) typewriter;But now that Bush is president, we've all had to revert to phonographs, party line telephones, and the Guttenberg press. Oh, mourn our lost progress, lost dreams, lost technology, now that Bush is president.
The Internet was going to make us all rich. 'Nuff said;I think that merely proves that we were engaged in a rather long and uncomfortable standoff with another nuclear armed power. And maybe I'm suffering from short-term memory loss too, but I don't recall the Soviet Union either a) formally declaring war on the United States, or b) formally surrendering to the United States.
Just about everyone on Earth understood that the United States would never, under any circumstances, first-strike a weaker opponent. It had just proven it by allowing the Soviet Union to surrender;
The U.S. seemed poised to legalize medical marijuana. Or rather, individual states still entertained the delusion that they had the power to do so, merely because the Constitution said they did and their citizens voted for it;Oh, how I long for those days... when people were allowed to perform their personal grooming on an airplane. But then again, those were also the days when islamist terrorists armed with boxcutters were capable of taking over an airplane and using it like a missile.
You could board an airplane in under two hours, carrying nail clippers;
There seemed to be so little to worry about, we had time to worry about nothing at all. Anybody remember Y2K, when our biggest fear was that at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, our term papers would be lost and Revenue Canada would forget how much we owed?Everything was perfect when the democrats were in office. The was no such thing as terrorism. There was no such thing as a recession. Our entire country was so doing so well, we thought it would be funny to elect a 'dimwit' for president because, 'how much damage could they do?' So I guess it's all our fault. Now we have a war in Iraq (that started 12 years ago), a recession (that had started before the republicans took the presidency), and fighting in the middle east (that's been going on for centuries).
We were living in the Golden Years, for a while there. Instead of savouring it, making sure that half a century of that kind of forward progress would continue, we decided, for a minute, that it was safe to coast. We yammered about the End of History, and invented "reality TV." We thought we could afford to let dimwits take the reins of power. How much damage could they do?
I choose to believe that the true Golden Age lies always ahead of us, never behind. But some years, it's harder than other years.I know how you feel. When the U.N. security council was busy arguing about wether or not we needed a second resolution to go into Iraq, things looked grim to me, indeed. But Bush has proved his mettle, and the Iraqi people are dancing in the streets, celebrating their newfound hopes for freedom. I'm looking forward to a future Pax Americana, with a democratic middle east, and hopefully the fall of communism in the far east.
State leaders from Vermont to California, hooked on annual payments from their landmark settlement with the tobacco industry, are worried a multibillion-dollar court order against Philip Morris might keep them from getting their next check. ...I derive a certain amount of glee from this, namely because I always thought the tobacco settlement would cause the states trouble eventually. Well here they are. They succeeded in blackmailing big tobacco into handing over billions of dollars in protection money to the states, but the states - instead of protecting their meal ticket - acted like sharks in a feeding frenzy, passing out multi-billion dollar judgements to people who made themselves sick from smoking, as if Phillip Morris had their own private printing press for U.S. currency. Turns out they don't. Looks like the generosity of our courts is going to end up cutting into the state's take. This means a lot of worthy programs might get cut:
In 1998, four tobacco companies agreed to settle states' claims for smoking-related health care costs by paying them $206 billion over 25 years. Philip Morris, the largest in the group, pays about half the settlement, which covers 46 states.
Recently, a Madison County, Ill. judge awarded $10 billion in a class-action lawsuit alleging that Philip Morris misled smokers into believing that "light" cigarettes are less harmful. Philip Morris must post a $12 billion bond before it can appeal the judgment - equal to the amount of the award plus $2 billion in legal fees. ...
"Philip Morris USA's net worth is south of $12 billion," said William Ohlemeyer, Philip Morris vice president and general counsel. "We only have so much money. If the judge requires us to put it all in Madison County, we wouldn't have enough to make the master settlement agreement payment."
Philip Morris has asked the judge to lower the bond to between $1.2 and $1.5 billion, an appeal supported by the attorneys general of 37 states and territories.
Wall Street analysts say Philip Morris isn't blowing smoke about its inability to pay.
"I do not believe Philip Morris USA has the ability to post the bond of $12 billion," said Martin Feldman of Merrill Lynch. He suggested bankruptcy was a "real option" unless the bond is reduced.
The uncertainty is already disrupting state budgets. New York, Virginia and California, for example, have postponed plans to sell bonds backed by money from the tobacco settlement.
Kentucky uses settlement money to diversify its tobacco-based agricultural economy, while Kansas puts the money into an education trust fund. Indiana earmarks the money for children's health insurance, prescription drugs for poor seniors and anti-smoking programs.Of course, you could argue that the billions agreed upon was actually supposed to go to paying for the health costs of sick smokers, and that a number of the states are patently not spending their money on that. You could alternatively argue that the states crusade against big tobacco was intended to put big tobacco out of business, and in that case, this is good news, even if the states are crying crocodile tears about it now. Or you could realize that the tobacco settlement was never about public health or compensating sick smokers or even punishing evil - it was a mugging. In any case, I can't feel any sympathy for states that are whining about Philip Morris' precarious financial position now.
Vermont has already spent the $13 million it expects from Philip Morris on Medicaid services and tobacco and substance abuse programs. And Washington has spent its anticipated $53 million on health insurance for children, immunization programs and other public health needs.
If Philip Morris falls short, states may have to cut those programs deeply, cut other programs or raise taxes - not a popular option during an economic downturn.
A man is charged with attempting to hire a hit man to kill two teenage girls before they could testify at his trial on charges he sexually assaulted them. ... Hackel said Kokowicz, 54, wanted the slayings carried out before his April 22 trial on charges of criminal sexual conduct and providing drugs or alcohol to minors. He is accused of having intercourse with an incapacitated 16-year-old and fondling a 17-year-old girl at his home in Eastpoint, police Detective Neil Childs said.I could wish that there weren't people this dumb living in the United States, but then again, when a criminal is as obviously retarded as this twit is, catching him is easier.
In the new allegations, Kokowicz faces two counts of solicitation of murder and one count of intimidating or threatening to kill or injure a witness.
Students picketed a college newspaper and demanded it apologize for a cartoon that said an American peace activist who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer was stupid.Good for you, guys! Don't back down.
The publication, The Diamondback at the University of Maryland, refused to apologize, citing the First Amendment.
The cartoon, by student Daniel Friedman, showed a woman in front of a bulldozer. The label contained the dictionary definition of "stupidity," and added another way to define stupidity: "Sitting in front of a bulldozer to protect a gang of terrorists."Of course you wouldn't, except maybe in a place like 'Palestine'. But Rachel Corrie's death doesn't deserve the same respect. Rachel wasn't an innocent civilian just minding her own business who - oops! - got run over by an evil Israeli bulldozer. She was an American flag-burning, pro-terrorism, Palestine supporter, who was killed - accounts of how, vary - attempting to interfere with a military operation to reduce terrorist activity. I'll make fun of any anti-war protesters who get themselves shot trying to break in to military bases for 'civil disobedience', and every human shield that survives Operation Iraqi Freedom, too.
More than 60 students protested after the cartoon appeared Wednesday morning.
"You wouldn't see cartoon in the newspaper making fun of 9-11 victims. You wouldn't see a cartoon making fun of a suicide-bombing victim," protester Setareh Ghandehari said.
On the radio today I heard an interview with Liev Aleo, who intends to be a human shield as soon as she can scrape together the plane fare. She believes that Saddam would be dissuaded from his path if we just talked things out - as though a deficiency in conversation has led us to this point. It would have been just another argument of the sort we're all sick to death of hearing, but she's ready to go. She'd hop a plane today. As an American, she believes her place is outside the chain-link fence of an Iraqi electrical substation. She doesn’t think she’d die; she believes that the presence of the human shields would shame the military into calling off the war. You can say, well, fine; you want to be red paste on the side of a transformer outside an Iraqi military base, it’s your life. But my God, it’s so much more than that. The host asked how her parents felt, and she admitted that they were nervous.
Federal health officials say a compound long used as the artist's pigment Prussian blue could be an important antidote to a "dirty bomb" attack, and they are calling for drug companies to quickly seek permission to manufacture some...
FDA's unusual declaration removes a significant burden from any company considering making Prussian blue pills – they wouldn't have to prove it's a safe or effective treatment. Instead, interested manufacturers merely would have to prove they can properly brew the right dose, steps FDA drug chief Dr. Janet Woodcock called simple for any pharmaceutical company.
Currently, there is only one commonly available medication for protection against radiation, a drug called potassium iodide that people who live near nuclear reactors often keep on hand in case of an attack or accident. It has just one use – to prevent thyroid cancer by shielding the thyroid gland from exposure to radioactive iodine. It blocks no other type of radiation, and protects no other body part.
The self-styled National Organization for Women has finally gotten around to posting its reviews of Super Bowl ads, which, as we noted, it had promised to do Monday. NOW has managed to perpetuate two derogatory stereotypes: of women as perennially late, and of feminists as humorless.It's tempting to just leave it at that, but...
#72: Reebok — Linebacker Terry Tate roughs up the officeI can't quite see how this ends up as a feminist complaint, given that it has nothing to do with depictions of women. And it's hilarious.
"Bad use of diversity. Stereotype of African American being used for his muscles in a position where he should be using his brains."
The City Council has barred police and other city workers from asking about the immigration status of people they deal with. The ordinance, which was approved 9 to 0 Monday, makes two exceptions. One is for anyone police have "reasonable suspicion" to believe was once deported and has committed a felony. The other allows police to assist federal agents as required by law.This would be fantastically outrageous, if it weren't for the fact that the cops will hardly be effective, for so long as the INS is in the habit of just letting illegal aliens go.
"If you think back to when we had the draft, people were brought in . . . without choices," Rumsfeld said. "Big categories were exempted: people who were in college, people who were teaching, people who were married. . . . And what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time because the churning that took place, it took an enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."What's so offensive about stating that conscripting men into service isn't the best way to build an army? Are these folks really yearning for the good old days of the Weathermen, the SDS, Kent State, and fleeing to Canada? Maybe it's that misery loves company. It is the only reason why I can see anyone supporting the conscription of unwilling troops, when even our own Department of Defense says it doesn't need it, and wouldn't want it.