Month: June 2008

It’s official: Israel is doomed.

Israel released several prisoners for the bodies of two dead soldiers. One of the prisoners was Samir Kuntar (LGF):

For Hezbollah, the centerpiece is Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese convicted by an Israeli court in a 1979 attack that ended in the deaths of three members of an Israeli family. Kuntar, then 16, shot and killed Danny Haran in front of his 4-year-old daughter, and then smashed her head with his rifle butt. Haran’s wife accidentally smothered their 2-year-old daughter as she attempted to quiet the girl in their hiding space. Two Israeli policeman also were killed.

Hookers, truck drivers hardest hit by high fuel prices.

From the Cable News Network:

Rising fuel prices are putting a pinch on the world’s oldest profession.

Nevada brothels that cater to long-haul truckers are offering gas cards and other promotions after seeing business decline as much as 25 percent from a year ago, industry officials said.

Geoffrey Arnold, president of the Nevada Brothel Owners’ Association, said truckers account for up to 75 percent of business at the state’s rural brothels along Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 95.

He said business is down about 19 percent at his two northern Nevada brothels along I-80: Donna’s Ranch in Wells and Donna’s Battle Mountain Ranch.

“We’re being affected by the economy like everybody else,” Arnold said. “Times are tougher … and truckers have less money to spend. They’re not high-rollers anymore.”

H/t: The Shad Plank

Proof that Duke University football sucks.

They admitted it — in court! ESPN:

A Kentucky judge has confirmed what Duke fans have known for years: their football team is as bad as it gets.

Bad enough that Louisville should have to find another football team to replace the Blue Devils without penalty after Duke pulled out of the final three games of a four-game contract last season.

In a lawsuit filed late last year, Louisville asked for $450,000 in damages and any additional damages the court saw fit.

But Duke’s lawyers argued that the Blue Devils’ performance on the field was so poor that any Division I team would suffice as a replacement. Duke is 6-45 over the past five years, 13-90 since 1999.

Judge Phillip J. Shepherd of the Franklin County (Ky.) Circuit Court agreed, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

“At oral argument, Duke [with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty] persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower,” Shepherd wrote in a summary judgment issued Thursday, according to the paper. “Duke’s argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville.”

If I’m not mistaken, the University of Virginia (UVA) had been scheduling their homecoming games against Duke: an easy win for the drunk alumni that go to the homecoming games!

H/t: Ace of Spades HQ

Adrian Fenty, Cathy Lanier, Interim AG Peter Nickles Resignation Watch, Day 14. Police union: Lanier lied about police officer training.

The Examiner:

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier gave “demonstrably false” testimony when she denied reports that untrained officers were dispatched to her controversial neighborhood barricades, a union representing D.C.’s rank-and-file police officers charged Monday.

Requesting a formal inspector general’s investigation into Lanier’s testimony on her neighborhood quarantine program, Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Kristopher Baumann said Lanier “may have provided misleading and inaccurate information” to the D.C. Council.

At the heart of Monday’s complaint is Lanier’s denial of an account in the June 10 edition of The Examiner. The newspaper reported that officers were sent to checkpoints despite not having gone through constitutional training that Lanier promised every officer would undergo before standing at the barricades.

I have a question: What’s scarier here?: The fact that Lanier is a liar and can’t keep track of her police department?; or, the fact that police officer don’t have constitutional training to begin with?

“That is inaccurate, that is false, that is not true,” Lanier said in response to a question about the report. “I don’t know what The Examiner is talking about.”

I know nothing!

In his letter to the inspector general, Baumann attaches five statements from police officers who staffed the barricades in Trinidad. The officers’ names are redacted, but they all claim that they weren’t trained before being sent to the checkpoints.

[…]

When Lanier, Mayor Adrian Fenty and acting Attorney General Peter Nickles began the checkpoint program in violence-wracked Trinidad, they promised to train officers thoroughly to circumvent civil rights lawsuits.

[…]

Baumann, a critic of the checkpoints as well as the chief, said he was unimpressed with Lanier’s testimony.

“Either the chief of police is lying to the council, or she has no idea what is going on in her own police department,” he said.

Well, those two are not mutually exclusive!

Moral panic everywhere.

The Boston Globe stated the following in an op-ed, “SOCIOLOGISTS USE the term ‘moral panic’ to describe a sudden episode of hysterical behavior set off by exaggerated threats and fueled by endlessly reiterated stories of dangerous behavior.” (Wolfe, Alan. “This panic won’t create air safety”. Aug. 23, 2006.)

For past examples, see the hysteria regarding the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s (Journal of Religion and Popular Culture) and the hysteria over the Pokémon franchise during the late 1990s (“ChildCare Action Project“). The hysteria over Pokémon continued even after the Vactican, which according to People, “declared that the Pokémon trading card and computer game is ‘full of inventive imagination,’ has no ‘harmful moral side effects’ and is based on the love-thy-neighbor notion of ‘intense friendship'”.

For a current example, consider the recent reports that a group of teenager girls at a high school in Gloucester, Massachusetts made a “pact” to get pregnant. There was a single source for the “pact” claim, the high school principal. The family and friends of the girls, as well as other local officials, stated there was no evidence of a “pact” between the girls. The high school principal has since said he couldn’t remember where he heard about the “pact” (USA Today, AP).

But that little fact hasn’t stopped over 2,598 stories which match the search terms “+gloucester +pact” from showing up on a Google News search. There are also 4,208 hits for the same search terms on Google’s Blog Search.

A lot of the stories are of the basic “Oh my God! It’s the End of days! We must repent!” type.

All of these stories appear to miss several facts regarding teen pregnancies: It may be a shocker to some, but both premarital sex and unplanned teen pregnancies have been happening for decades.

Yes, I know, shocking for me to say that.

It may have been less socially acceptable back then (you can argue amongst yourselves as to why), but it happened.

To bury your head in the sand and ignore the facts surrounding the issue at large does nothing to help prevent the situation in the future.

For another current example, consider yesterday’s opinion piece in The Free Lance–Star.

The basic premise of the story is the following: pornography causes prostitution, which results in sex trafficking; ipso facto, if you ban pornography, no prostitution, therefore no sex trafficking.

Do I really need to point out the logical fallacy in that argument?

For the dense out there: There are records about prostitution going back to the beginning of time. So, how are Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt responsible for the “world’s oldest profession”?

Furthermore, sex trafficking has been happening for an equal amount of time as prostitution. Consult Saint Justin Martyr’s The First Apology for evidence of the use of children as prostitutes during Roman times. Or consult The New York Times for evidence of the use of 200,000 Chinese and Korean women as sexual slaves by the Japanese before and during World War II.

Admittedly, this opinion piece was better than the previous one that the paper ran, written by syndicated columnist, Michael McManus, who is clearly an anti-Semite and homophobe, and has previously essentially stated, “don’t let your kids around homosexuals, because homosexuals will sexually abuse your kids”. Of course, they did cite said anti-Semite and homophobe in Monday’s opinion piece.

Again, instead of addressing the issues that contribute to prostitution and sexual trafficking, including — but not limited to — organized crime, drug addiction, an inadequate family unit, and incompetent child protective services, The Free Lance–Star attempts to blame pornography as the sole and proximate cause of both prostitution and sexual trafficking.

What a bunch of idiots.

There’s a difference between burglary/larceny and robbery, guys.

The paper: Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Headline: “Two men arrested in connection with Green Top robbery“.

Link.

The story:

One man from Washington and another from Maryland have been arrested in connection with the June 13 burglary of Green Top Sporting Goods in which 34 handguns were stolen.

The Hanover County Sheriff’s Office arrested Michael A. Henderson, 21, of Bowie, Md., and Leon E. Waddy, 21, of Washington on charges of burglary, grand larceny, possession of burglary tools and conspiracy.

Henderson is being held in federal detention in Maryland and Waddy is in federal custody in Washington, police said. Both could face additional federal charges.

The break-in occurred early in the morning at Green Top, at 10193 Washington Highway, just north of Virginia Center Commons.

About 12:30 a.m., surveillance video showed two robbers wearing dark clothing that covered most of their bodies smashing into glass cases at the front of the store and stealing 34 semi-automatic handguns of various calibers.

Deputies arrived three minutes after the alarm went off, but the thieves were gone, a spokesman for the Hanover Sheriff’s Office said.

Robbery, as defined by Black Law’s Dictionary, 3rd pocket ed., p. 627, is “[t]he illegal taking of property from the person of another, or in the person’s presence, by violence or intimidation” [emphasis mine], e.g., someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet.

Burglary, is “[t]he modern statutory offense of breaking and entering any building […] with the intent to commit a felony” (Id., p. 83), e.g., I smash the window on your house or other structure and enter with the intent to steal stuff with the value of over $200 (the theft of less than $200 is a misdemeanor in Virginia).

Larceny, is “[t]he unlawful taking and carrying away of someone else’s personal property with the intent to deprive the possessor of it permanently” (Id., p. 408), e.g., I steal your pencil with the intent to keep it for myself.

These guys are (accused) burglars and larcenizers (or whatever), but they are not “robbers”.