Month: March 2004

Pakistani forces get a bloody nose:

Pakistani officials said the clashes erupted when a force of about 300 Pakistani paramilitaries tried to nab suspected Al Qaeda members and local tribesmen believed to be sheltering them in a mud-brick compound in the village of Kaloosha in South Waziristan. Before they could get inside, they found themselves surrounded by 400 to 500 militants, officials said.
The officials said they had not expected the strength and breadth of the resistance, which they said came from both local and foreign militants. “Their level of training and resilience has surprised us all,” said a senior government official in Wana, the administrative center of South Waziristan.
The government forces were eventually rescued by 400 reinforcements, but not before they suffered heavy casualties, the senior official said. Militants also ambushed government forces in at least two other locations in South Waziristan, including the village of Dabkoot. [John Robb’s Weblog]

This doesn’t bode well for the future stability of Pakistan, which (in case anyone has forgotten) is the only Muslim country which actually does have “weapons of mass destruction.”

MPAA-AG. A letter by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, which is being circulated to state AGs, seems to set the stage for a legal assault on the makers of p2p file sharing software, a “dangerous product.” The kicker? Wired News reports that the letter’s MS Word metadata identifies the drafter or editor of the letter as a VP with the Motion Picture Association of America. [Hit & Run]

Evidently p2p software presents a clear and present danger to Bill Lockyer’s campaign financing.

Dihydrogen Monoxide, Die!. Your local officials at work. “Embarrassing” doesn’t begin to cover this one.

bq. Calif. Officials Nearly Fall for H2O Hoax
The Associated Press
ALISO VIEJO, Calif.

City officials were so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they considered banning foam cups after they learned the chemical was used in their production.

Then they learned, to their chagrin, that dihydrogen monoxide _ H2O for short _ is the scientific term for water.

“It’s embarrassing,” said City Manager David J. Norman. “We had a paralegal who did bad research.”

The paralegal apparently fell victim to one of the many official looking Web sites that have been put up by pranksters to describe dihydrogen monoxide as “an odorless, tasteless chemical” that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled.

As a result, the City Council of this Orange County suburb had been scheduled to vote next week on a proposed law that would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events. Among the reasons given for the ban were that they were made with a substance that could “threaten human health and safety.”

The measure has been pulled from the agenda, although Norman said the city may still eventually ban foam cups.

“If you get Styrofoam into the water and it breaks apart, it’s virtually impossible to clean up,” Norman said.

[Thanks to Adrian Moore, director of The Reason Public Policy Institute]
[Hit & Run]

It’s not at all surprising that this happened in California. Some years ago there was a statewide ballot measure that would require the owner of pretty much any building (restaurants, apartment buildings, offices, etc.) to post warning signs if the building contained any amount of dangerous chemicals. It passed.

Since dangerous chemicals are present absolutely everywhere, even if it’s only in harmless trace amounts that are barely detectable, virtually every building in California (with the exception of private homes, and maybe not even then for the newer ones) has one of those signs posted somewhere near the entrance.

Question: Do you think your country can keep you safe from terrorists?. Voters in Spain answered this question on Sunday.  Many said no.  They are not alone.  Many people in the US and other parts of Europe reading this think the same thing.  This reaction is key to understanding what is going wrong globally.  The nation-state is in decline.  It has failed in its most basic task:  to provide for the safety of its citizens.  It has lost its monopoly on violence.  It is losing its control over its economy (a quick glimpse at the US trade deficit is a case in point).  Increases in globalization and new technology exacerbates this process of decline.
The consequences of the delegitimization of the nation-state will be central to life in the next century. [John Robb’s Weblog]

The answer is yes, I do think my country can keep me safe from terrorists. However, that’s not really the question John is asking. He’s really asking if I think my country’s government can keep me safe. The answer to that is an emphatic “no.” In fact, not only can the government not keep me safe, it does many things both internationally and domestically that make me dramatically less safe.

Orange County: More E-Ballots Cast Than Voters [Slashdot]

What a surprise. Fortunately LA isn’t using electronic voting yet–and hopefully they won’t start.

M 6.3, south of the Kermadec Islands. 2004-03-09 22:56:43 GMT [USGS M>2.5 Earthquakes]

There’s been a series of earthquakes around there in the 5.5-6.3 range over the past 24 hours. It’s a good thing they’re happening in the middle of nowhere!

#
I received the following in email from

ConservativePetitions.com (not sure why I’m on their email list):
bq.
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 06:37:30 +0000
To: “” <bill@billstclair.com>
From: “ConservativePetitions.com” <cons_petitions@norm.nmailer.com>
Subject: Urgent Prayer Request for John Ashcroft!

-Your friends at

www.conservativepetitions.com and

www.christianpetitions.com

I replied:
bq.
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 07:01:10 -0500
To: editor@conservativepetitions.com
From: “Bill St. Clair” <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: Prayer for John Ashcroft

Dear Conservative Petitions editor,

Your recent alert asked us to pray for John Ashcroft. I will very
happily do so. I pray for that tyrant to die a slow and very painful
death. He has done more to destroy America in 3 short years than
Clinton did in eight. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. one. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. two. The
American Gestapo, er… Department of Homeland Security. The TSA. The
end of habeus corpus. If he doesn’t die in the hospital, he should be
hanged for treason.
[End the War on Freedom]

I agree. As a Libertarian I don’t believe in initiating force, but if Ashcroft should happen to die of his medical problems, then I will say: Sic semper tyrannis!

#
William L. Anderson and Candice Jackson at LewRockwell.com –

Ashcroft Gets His Pound of Flesh – on the

conviction, in a federal kangaroo court, of Martha
Stewart. [lew]
bq.
No doubt, at this very minute, the mainstream press is hanging onto
every word of the “victorious” federal prosecutors who tried this
case. Being that John Ashcroft at this moment is in intensive care in
a hospital, we suppose he cannot stride up to a bank of microphones
and crow to the press. However, his number two man, James Comey, the
U.S. attorney who first gained the indictments against Stewart and her
broker, no doubt right now is telling the awestruck press how ” the
system works.”

Indeed, this system does work — it works as well as anything Josef
Stalin created in the 1930s with his infamous “Moscow Show Trials,” in
which guilt was assured, and the only question was the mode of
execution. In retrospect, we realize now that the Stewart trial was
indeed a show trial. Most likely, Stewart had convinced herself that
she would be taking part in a real trial with real evidence and an
impartial jury. Even her post-trial statement, “I believe in the
fairness of the judicial system and remain confident that I will
ultimately prevail,” reflects the naïveté of someone who
actually believes that federal courts are real courts.
[End the War on Freedom]

Good-bye, Mystery Meat!. A new DNA chip will allow any meat product to be tested for the presence of any one of 32 species of animal. The application in school cafeterias alone should ensure widespread use.

But, shhh, this is evil biotech in use. Knowledge is wrong.

(via Metafilter.) [Hit & Run]

It can detect the presence of rat and human (Soylent Green, anyone?) but it still won’t help to determine the origin of mystery meat if it does not in fact include any meat. I suspect this is often the case.

Bitterly disappointed and saddened by Martha Stewart trial outcome. I am very disheartened and disappointed by the outcome of the Martha Stewart trial, even if Martha Stewart ends up serving no prison time. The outcome is clearly incorrect, the entire prosecution nothing more than a witch-hunt and a career-building… [Mises Economics Blog: Austrian Economics and Libertarian Political Theory]

That’s pretty much what I think about it. And it doesn’t bode well for anyone who declares her innocence of charges brought against her by the government–particularly when the law she’s accused of breaking does not in fact exist.

Of particular note is the comment by the juror who said, “Maybe it’s a victory for the little guys who lose money in the market because of these kinds of transactions.” It seems to me that Ms. Stewart’s lawyer should have argued for a change of venue on the grounds that it would be impossible for a capitalist to receive a fair trial in a predominately socialist society.