Two international figures died this weekend.  Vaclav Havel personified the Czech nation in bringing down communism and remained a moral authority after his presidency.  He will be widely mourned.

The second was the patriarch of possibly the only obese family in North Korea.  Coming to power after the first dynastic succession in a Communist nation, Kim Jong-Il deepened the impoverishment and isolation of his unfortunate country.  Other than the brainwashed minions, few will mourn him.  Kim Jong-Il was widely reputed to be ailing and earlier this year named his inexperienced son Kim Jong-un as the heir to the crumbling hermit kingdom.  The youngest Kim will probably rule with the help of a regency council designated by his father until/if he ever takes over.

Kim Jong-il could to some extent feed off the mystique of his father Kim Il-sung.  However, by the end of his rule it has been difficult for North Korea to hide the extent of its backwardness and impoverishment from its own people.  Too many South Korean movies and television programs displaying their far healthier and prosperous brethren circulate in North Korea.  Too many North Koreans have crossed back and forth across the Yalu River into China for an information blackout to be absolute.  With little moral authority left it could be difficult for the regime to hang on.

And so a delicate diplomatic dance begins.  South Korea has placed its armies on high alert.  Seoul and Washington must evaluate the diplomatic language to use in responding to the news and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of expressing condolences.  The Chinese, the primary prop for this bankrupt regime, must evaluate whether they should play along with the succession or encourage Jong-un’s fatter brother to seize power.  In the short run it appears that a weaker regime in Pyongyang leans closer to becoming a Chinese satellite.

Yet even presumed Chinese satellites are uncomfortable with the close embrace of the dragon.  Fear of Chinese dominance has pushed an equally paranoid Burmese government to ease its isolation.  How far will the weak regime in Pyongyang resist Beijing’s diktats?  And does this regime have the strength to survive a glasnost?  The next few months will be interesting.

2011 has not been kind to dictators.  Long standing regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were toppled.  Syria and Yemen are tottering.  Bahrain has been shaken to its core.  Even the previously secure corporatist regime of Vladimir Putin has seen cracks appear in the foundation.  Even if the death of Kim Jong-il was not as gory as the video below:

he leaves a shaky regime in the hands of his inexperienced son.  Rot in hell Kim Jong-il.

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This blog has been dormant for a while, but the graphic images from Sirte has shaken it out of its stupor.  Perhaps for the first time since Baghdad residents got to vent their anger on the corpse of Nuri as Said in 1958, has a middle eastern mob had a similar opportunity against a despised and hated leader.  A year ago the graphic videos from Libya were unthinkable.  A few months ago with his tanks at the gates of Benghazi it looked like the 41 year rule of the mercurial dictator would survive the Arab Spring.  And then NATO with the fig-leaf of Arab support got involved and the “Northern Alliance” strategy finally bore fruit.

And then the hunt for the deposed tyrant began.  The end was pathetic.  As his hometown of Sirte finally fell to his enemies the wounded Gaddafi was dragged from his hiding place (a drain pipe).  As the fallen dictator pleaded for mercy he met his end soon after in murky circumstances.  Cell phone videos of a bleeding Gaddafi are available for anybody willing to conduct a Google search.

The rest of the Gaddafi clan is either captured, dead or has fled (warning gruesome pictures in link).

Apart from one expected quarter, Gaddafi goes to his grave unmourned.  His legacy is broken, factitious oil rich tribal mish-mash bunched under a new/old national flag.   Libya faces an uncertain future once the euphoria over the lynching in Sirte fades.

Also uncertain is the future of NATO.  The French and the British wanted this operation, but soon discovered that they could not sustain a campaign against a fourth rate military without access to the American arsenal.  Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates departed with a well timed salvo at Europe questioning the worth of an alliance where only one country carries the weight.  The solution from Congressional hawks appears to be to bankrupt the United States by continuing to sustain 40% of global military spending alone.  A reappraisal of American military commitments and spending is long overdue.

With the specter of their crazy leader gone, the people of Libya sleep easier tonight.  So do perhaps diplomats in a land of cheese, chocolates and banks.

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There are times one despairs at the scum infesting the human race.  Riots provide cover for the vermin in our midst to engage in criminal acts at their leisure.  If the video of the Reginald Denny beating provided the definitive image of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the video below may provide the highlight of the current anarchist rampage in London as David Cameron’s government fiddles in futility.  The video below is disturbing.  It shows some onlookers helping a bloodied riot victim to his feet before deciding to rob the stunned and helpless victim:

There are legitimate privacy concerns about a Google Group using facial recognition software to identify the looters.  Hopefully they turn their sights on these scumbags.

And now a word of derision for the bumbling response of Prime Minister David Cameron’s inept government.  The spark for the riot may have been a suspicious police killing.  There is deep unrest in Britain about the depth of cuts imposed by the current government.  But it was clear early enough that the outrage was hijacked by criminals indulging in looting and burning.

Yet incredibly Home Secretary Theresa May responded to calls to crush the rioters with this nonsense:

The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.”

Small wonder that the riots spread beyond London and have tarnished Britain’s reputation around the globe.  It took three days for 16,000 police to descend on London.  I am not a huge fan of scapegoats, but I am willing to make an exception for Ms. May.  There were concerns about Rio’s ability to host a safe Olympics.  It appears that London’s competence must also now be questioned.

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On his crusade to privatize the TSA, Ron Paul appeared on Faux News to make the incredible assertion that banning guns on planes was partly to blame for 9/11.  Gee Ron…can’t you think of any reason why allowing non-law enforcement plane passengers to pack heat or why a shootout at 35,000 feet may not be a good idea.

Not so surprisingly, the Faux News bobble head does not challenge the absurdity of Paul’s position but moves right on to their pet cause of profiling brown people by race or religion.  Of course it may not have not have flagged the Nigerian born underpants bomber or the half white-half Jamaican shoe bomber Richard Reid.  Right-wing conservatives and Faux News keep on parroting how stupid it is to search 95 year old grandmas or young kids.  Unfortunately, this tragic story from Afghanistan demonstrates how the sadistic bastards we are fighting will work around racist profiling of the sort advocated by Paul.  The Taliban thugs in the article linked above tricked an 8 year old girl into becoming a suicide bomber.

Paul also willfully misstates current policy.  Nothing at present prevents the TSA from searching a “suspicious person.”  Also, as brown-skinned passengers will be happy to inform you racial profiling is still alive and going strong, in violation of current rules.   Personally, I am not surprised that a congressman who stated he would have voted against the Civil Rights Act has a cavalier attitude to discrimination against people who don’t look like him.

I will reluctantly give Paul credit for one item in his diatribe.  The pre-9/11 policy of passengers not resisting was in retrospect a mistake.  It was based on the assumption of sane hijackers who would negotiate.  This mistake was first rectified by the brave passengers of UA Flight 93 and helped stop the shoe bomber and the underpants bomber.  It still does not justify the idiocy of guns on planes.

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The New York Times is the latest paper to point out the free speech crushing scope of English libel law.  The balance between the right of individuals to be let alone and the freedom of the press to do its job is inherently fraught with tension.  American law has reduced the privacy expectations of celebrities and generally prevents defamation and libel actions for expressing opinions (as opposed to the statement of fact).  The freedom to express opinions in England is far weaker and worse the default rule to inflict legal fees on the loser allows larger corporations to crush individuals (in contrast American law does not require a payment of legal fees unless expressly mandated by statute or contractual provisions).

The chilling implications on free speech are obvious (and this is in addition to the recent trend in England and Europe to introduce blasphemy prosecutions).  South Park mocked the libel tourism generated by English libel law a few years ago in its episode “Trapped in the Closet”.  For full episode click here.  Clip below:

In response Congress unanimously passed the SPEECH Act making foreign libel judgments that do not comply with the First Amendment unenforceable in the United States.  California, New York, Illinois and Florida have also enacted such statutes.  While American residents can breathe easier, other less fortunate mortals will have to hope they do not offend deep pocketed plaintiffs who can sue in England.  One wonders what will be the tipping point for the country that first gave individuals the freedom of habeus corpus to clean up this assault on free speech.  Unfortunately with the paparazzi out in full force for the royal wedding, it may take some time.

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John Solomon at the Daily Beast has a column discussing the nostalgia for George Herbert Walker Bush in certain circles.  This Blog shares that nostalgia and posted similar emotions about a year and a half ago.

I particularly miss the George H. W. Bush wing of the Republican party when it comes to foreign policy, given the (sometimes scary) blather that emanates from most Republican presidential hopefuls on the subject these days.  When Bob Gates steps down as Defense Secretary, he will probably be the last senior Bush ’41 foreign policy official to hold public office (though who knew Dick Cheney would morph into the Prince of Darkness).  Even though Gates’ performance as CIA Director at the time was forgettable, his second act as Defense Secretary to the 43rd and 44th Presidents has displayed the pragmatism of Bush ’41 and a refusal to be trapped by rigid and unrealistic ideologies.  Unfortunately the George H.W. Bushes and the Dick Lugars of the Republican Party have increasingly given way to the Jim DeMints, Sarah Palins and the Michele Bachmanns.  Of the younger Senators only Lindsey Graham (from time to time) hearkens back to the Bush ’41 tradition on foreign policy.  Mark Kirk could do so as well if his spine was not made of jelly.

As a result this Blog is willing to renew its nostalgia for the 41st President as he proceeds in his twilight years and is proud that his Presidential Library graces the campus of the author’s alma mater.

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“C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute”

(It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder) – Comment by a Napoleonic official on the judicial murder of the Duc d’Enghien.

“What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” – Soon to be sacked State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley.

By sacking P. J. Crowley shortly after he committed the gaffe above (i.e. spoke the truth), Barack Obama has endorsed the sadistic jollies that Bradley Manning’s jailers receive from torturing him.  Previous winks at torture could somewhat be justified by the need to obtain information.  There is no such excuse here.  Bradley Manning is being subjected to a regimen that appears intended to drive him insane, allegedly because he is a suicide risk.  Then there is the ritualized humiliation of forced nudity and sleep deprivation he is being subjected to.   The media outrage at the treatment of a man not yet convicted of passing classified information to WikiLeaks is growing – see here, here, here, here, here, and here – but will probably have no effect on our ruling class.  At some point this should not be surprising.  On human rights, after the decree to close Guantanamo (which is still open), Obama has been a colossal disappointment and has been unwilling to stand up to the excesses of the national security apparatus.  His administration seems to pursue whistle-blowers more aggressively than the abuses they uncover.

Unlike some of my friends I do not condone Bradley Manning’s alleged leaking.  But he has not yet been convicted of his crime.  And even if he were, his treatment would still be unjustified.  The last decade has seen the Executive and Judicial branches wink at the abuse of prisoners.  Congress, which is particularly prone to jingoistic populism, is also useless.  Large sections of the Fourth Estate have also condoned torture because of the unsympathetic nature of people being tortured and the fears of terrorism.  This is a disgrace, as is Obama’s reaction to the news of Manning’s treatment:

“With respect to Private Manning, you know, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assured me that they are.”

Gee..the alleged abusers have assured him that the treatment is appropriate.  End of inquiry.  How heartwarming.

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(Via Andrew Sullivan) Jimmy Kimmel flags the early Oscar front runner for 2012. Video below:

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Looking at the protests in Wisconsin (funny how it is fine to kick public employees in the butt for a deficit shortfall, but an allegedly frugal governor can still make the situation worse via tax cuts to the his pet interest groups…oh yeah…evidently tax cuts don’t contribute to deficits), got me thinking about what I felt about unions.

Generally my feelings are largely negative.  Coming from an upper middle class background where almost everybody I know is on the side of management I was not reared in pro-union lore.  Then there is the downside of politically militant trade unions, the frankly crappy record of unions on race and gender issues, the ease by which they were suborned by organized crime and how some unions became sinecures for corrupt fat cats.  Add to that the inefficiency unions can cause, notably in the auto industry.  Friends who have had the misfortune of working with UAW have regaled me with rants about the difficulty of working with the union.

But unions did not arise in a vacuum.  If employers had treated workers fairly and provided safe working conditions, unions may have been cut off at birth (for that matter we would not have needed regulations like OSHA).  Also as public company CEOs have shown in the last decade that there is no limit for their greed, it has become harder for me to begrudge a man for making a middle class wage  based on the objections of a multi-millionaire.

Yet my feelings on the subject are still mixed.  It is in essence the age old problem of worker safety and fair benefits versus efficiency and competitiveness.  How to find the balance will depend on your own personal experiences and prejudices.  Ezra Klein of the Washington Post asked his readers who belonged to a union to post on their experiences.  Since the management perspective dominates the media narrative in recent years, it can be useful to read the other side.  This is obviously not a representative sampling (and there are a few anti-union posts), but still makes an interesting read.  One that stuck out to me is quoted below:

When I was a little younger I had the privilege of working for UPS and Fed Ex at the same time. Fed Ex will fire you if they find out that you work for UPS, but they never did. UPS is of course a union job (Teamsters) and Fed Ex is not. The difference was night and day.

At UPS I got a decent hourly wage, thousands of dollars yearly as a tuition benefit, good health insurance, and a pension. At Fed Ex I got the same hourly wage (a little bit more to be honest) and jack squat for benefits (literally nothing).

At UPS I got treated with a lot of respect, even though I was just a dockworker. If I felt sick or had something else I needed to attend to, I’d give the office a call and they wouldn’t even ask me why I was missing work. They just told me to do what I needed to do. At Fed Ex calling in sick was treated like treachery. They let you know that you were an at-will employee and treated you like it.

And safety? Holy toledo. When I got hired at UPS they put me through a week of classes where they taught me proper lifting practices, how to safely and efficiently perform virtually every task I could possibly be asked to do, how to deal with hazardous materials, etc. When I showed up at Fed Ex they pointed to a trailer and said “empty it”. They didn’t even bother to give me the customary “don’t lift with your back”. UPS performed routine safe practices evaluations where a supervisor would watch you working for a little bit and give advice on how you could be safer and less likely to injure yourself. Fed Ex didn’t bother. I ended up teaching proper lifting mechanics to a lot of guys I worked with there simply because I was worried about their health. Fed Ex didn’t give a rat’s ass if they blew out their backs, but I kind of liked the guys I worked with so I did what I could.

Twice while I was working at Fed Ex I nearly got crushed by heavy equipment due to the incompetence of the supervisors there. Both times I saved myself with a little running dive but it was close. The accidents were easily preventable but nobody cared and so they kept happening. After the second near-miss I didn’t show up for work the next day and didn’t bother to come back.

I don’t work at UPS or Fed Ex anymore. I’ve got a good union job in a different line of work these days (thank the Lord for college!), but I know what difference a good union makes

With rising economic uncertainty, stagnant middle class incomes, exploding salaries for upper management and corporations cutting benefits at a time of rising profits we could face some labor unrest in coming years.  Whether that leads to a revival of labor unions is still an open question.

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Now for something lighter and inspirational. Some of you may have already heard of this story. Six sledgehammer wielding robbers hammering away at the window of a Northampton jewelers store got the shock of their lives when an enraged 71 year old pensioner came trotting up and started hitting them with her handbag. This inspired bystanders (like the bloke taking the video) to step in and assist her foiling the robbery. Needless to say Ann Timson is now a national heroine. And the twerps she foiled will have a tough time living this down in the joint. Video below:

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Talk about timing…barely 30 minutes after blogging about Mubarak refusing to go, the tired old dictator leaves. An inspiring moment for Egypt and the World. Hopefully this does not signify an attempt to perpetuate the Nasserite military dictatorship. Suleiman can help by keeping his promise to repeal the 30 year emergency law and not running for reelection. May the Ayatollahs be next.

That was anti-climactic.  With Egypt convulsing from the after-shocks from the Maghreb triggered by the self-immolation of a frustrated Tunisian fruit seller, rumors of Hosni Mubarak’s impending departure spread rapidly.  And then Mubarak doused cold water on those hopes with a vague rambling speech (blaming foreign influences) announcing that he was delegating unspecified powers to his man Friday, new Vice President Omar Suleiman.  The crowd’s displeasure is evident in the video below, particularly at the 12:30 mark where Mubarak tries to identify himself with the young people out in the streets.

Suleiman on whom the Obama administration has placed its wishful hopes for a transition to democracy the proceeded to rile the crowd by asking the protesters to go home.  The Egyptian army which has played a two faced role in this crisis has endorsed Mubarak’s plan, and Mubarak does seem to have handed some powers over to Suleiman.

So what now?  Nobody knows.  The White House was evidently blindsided by Mubarak’s defiance and has limited leverage on the situation.  Ultimately this is a crisis that must be resolved by the Egyptians.  Washington’s efforts should be focussed on preventing the army from initiating the type of bloody crackdown that crushed Iran’s Green Revolution two years ago.

With no obvious opposition candidate in the wings, Egypt faces a period of prolonged uncertainty and probably instability. A big concern in Egypt is a silent military coup, of the type that may have overcome Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution.   Suleiman is deeply tied to Mubarak’s repressive regime and in his 70s is unlikely to be a long term solution in any case.

Concerns have been raised that elections could result in the Muslim Brotherhood to power.  If the United States truly believes its pretensions of being the “defender of the free world”, it needs to come to grips with the reality that democracy can result in unfriendly governments.  For too long Washington has supported autocrats like Mubarak who provided “stability” in the form of stagnation and decay of their countries institutions, economies and societies.  After some hesitancy the Obama administration seems to be veering towards support for a democratic transition.  Here’s hoping that the Egyptians can pull it off (and by their example reignite Iran’s Green Revolution).

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It is time to update the world map.  As expected South Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede from the largely Muslim and Arab northern part of the country.  With Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir promising to respect the results, fears of a North-South civil war have receded.

The extremely impoverished new nation (whose name has not been formalized) faces a daunting task ahead.  It is riven with feuds, has almost no infrastructure and the desire to be free from Khartoum appears to have been the only glue that held its warring factions together.  It is blessed and cursed with an abundance of natural resources (and oil).  Mineral wealth has generally been the bane of developing countries.  Getting it out of the ground creates few jobs but generates a lot of revenue for venal kleptocrats to siphon into Swiss bank accounts.   Revenue sharing arrangements with the North have to still be negotiated and Khartoum will be eager to exploit any rifts that appear.

The creation of South Sudan could provide added impetus to secessionist movements across Africa.  The African Union has avoided opening up the Pandora’s box of redrawing colonial borders.  The sole exception to the rule, Eritrea could claim that it had been a separate Italian colony before being annexed by Ethiopia after World War II.  Now the genie is out of the bottle and secessionist claims in places like (oil rich) Southern Nigeria could re-emerge.

Maybe my pessimism is unjustified.  Having midwifed the creation of the new country (with the active encouragement of right-wing evangelical groups) it is likely that the United States will remain involved in the region and discourage mischief.  Equally or more likely the combination of a weak resource rich state surrounded by unscrupulous resource poor neighbors could result in another Congo.

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This story is kinda cool.  A 9 year old student wrote a letter to Johnny Depp’s character Captain Jack Sparrow asking for help staging a mutiny against her teachers.  The actor who was nearby shooting the fourth sequel of Pirates Of The Caribbean, showed up in costume with 10 minutes notice to give a young kid a pleasant surprise she will not forget.  Video below:

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It is a rule people would do well to remember.  If you want things to be private (a) don’t commit it to paper, (b) don’t type it up on your computer and (c) never, ever email it to friends relying on their good judgment.

Duke University is in an uproar when a “f**k list” created by a recent grad (who facetiously referred to it as her senior thesis) went viral.  It brings back memories of former congressional staffer Jessica Cutler and it is still unclear whether the author will face similar lawsuits for invasion of privacy.  It has been almost a decade since the first case (that I recall) of a viral email spreading way beyond its intended audience.  There is at least one Chicago large law firm partner whose legal prowess will have a hard time overcoming his association with an unfortunate voice-mail that was not supposed to go viral.  But yet people naively email items that should never be committed to paper.  It will be just a matter of time before the next such embarrassing exchange that was supposed to “just be between friends.”

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Given the power they wield, it is scary when judges are ignorant of the law or the constitution.  Judge Talmadge Littlejohn of Lee County, Mississippi falls squarely into that category, after he jailed attorney Danny Lampley for failing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in court.  The prohibition on coercion to recite the Pledge has been established constitutional law since 1943.  The Pledge itself has been controversial since its inception, even before the original text was tampered with in the 1950s to add the words “under God”.  The legal fraternity appears to have unanimously condemned the judge.  I expect the counterblast from opportunistic politicians who embrace Samuel Johnson’s cynical view of patriotism will not be far behind.

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In an expected move, the Nobel committee honored Chinese dissident and non-violent democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo with the Nobel Peace Price.  Also as expected, the Chinese government threw a major tantrum.  The news was blacked out on state media and internet censors blocked reports from Internet websites.  China then declared that the award would harm relations with Norway, to which the plucky Scandinavian country responded that it was time for China to grow up.

Even though the Chinese constitution grants a broad array of human rights (speech, assembly, religion, etc.) these are often overruled by other provisions regarding public order.  It is one of the myriad hypocrisies of communist states around the world that they fail to respect rights of their citizens just like the totalitarian regimes that preceded them.  Liu Xiaobo is the latest Nobel laureate honored for his refusal to submit to an authoritarian regime.  Unfortunately the award is largely symbolic and will not change the way China treats its citizens.  But for a brief moment the world spotlight shines back on China’s abysmal human rights record, a glow Beijing does not care to bask in.

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This summer a scandal broke in Bell, California where city officials were discovered paying themselves ridiculously inflated salaries.  The greedy bastards paid themselves while cutting benefits for everybody else.  A number of these officials have now been arrested for the misappropriation of public funds.  As the video below indicates the officials now face difficulty posting bail because their assets are all deemed tainted.  Then there is the question of pensions owed for these salaries, which burden spreads to other cities in the state according to California law.

Which begs the question why are inflated CEO salaries any different?  At least one columnist has noted the similarities to the Bell city officials now being pilloried.  CEO salaries have exploded in the past 20 years as cartels (called compensation committees) have skewed the market for compensation.  American CEOs earn far more than their counterparts abroad.  When their incompetence can no longer be masked, they depart with golden parachutes.  It begs the question, particularly in a time of rising income inequality, why has the open misappropriation of corporate assets (a cause of action in its own right) been essentially legitimized?

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For a man who made a top 10 list of the wealthiest figures in history and was the third and critical member of the First Triumvirate, Marcus Licinius Crassus at times seems almost a historical footnote.  A talented politician and a competent general, Crassus had the misfortune to share the stage with some of the titans of antiquity – his two partners in the triumvirate Pompey and Julius Caesar, the self-important Cicero and to a lesser extent the inflexible defender of patrician republican virtue Cato the younger.  He shows up in popular culture only when another Spartacus TV series or movie is made.  He was the man who defeated Spartacus, but even there Pompey stole his thunder by claiming that his small mopping up action actually ended the Third Servile War.  His inglorious death against the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae ended the Triumvirate and started the Roman Republic on its slow march to civil war and replacement by the Empire.  He was noted in his time and beyond for his avarice.  He was once acquitted of the capital offense of seducing a Vestal Virgin, because the judges believed his protestations that he was only interested in acquiring her property for a low price.  In death he would suffer the ultimate indignity, when the Parthians poured molten gold down his corpse’s throat to mock his greed.

I bring up Crassus, because he would have looked at this story from Tennessee with some regret as a lost business opportunity.  Rome did not have a public firefighting force until the reign of Augustus.  Crassus was notorious for appearing on the scene of a burning building and buying it and the surrounding buildings for a significantly reduced price.

Which brings us to the unfortunate Mr. Cranick.  Obion County, Tennessee does not have a fire department but has outsourced it out to the city of South Fulton.  Since he did not live within city limits Mr. Cranick was required to pay $75 if he wanted the service.  This he did not do and must have rued this lapse as he watched his home (along with 3 dogs and cat) burn down.  Since he had not paid the requisite fee the fire department declined to show up on the scene until the fire spread to the property of a neighbor who had paid the fee.

Conservative commentators have applauded the fire department for sticking to a policy and sending a lesson to free loaders.  Liberal ones have been furious at the seeming callous manner the fire department watched the house burn down.  This begs the question, why are such critical services offered ala carte in the year 2010?

A fire emergency hardly seems to be the time to check if a fire bill was paid.  I assume Firefighting 101 calls for containing or eliminating a fire before it does more harm.  By failing to extinguish the fire on Mr. Cranick’s property it was allowed to spread to a neighbors property and could have spread out of control as some western states have discovered.  While this county has outsourced fire fighting to only one provider, if other fire fighting entities become involved additional logistical and ethical issues could arise.  Also, would the county have held rigid to its policy if an individual (as opposed to pets who are treated as chattel under the law) was trapped in the burning house?

These issues could have been avoided with a simple solution.  If the county does not have the resources to field independent fire departments and the work can be done by the fire departments maintained in its cities, wouldn’t it make more sense to outsource the work and collect the surcharge to pay for such services from property taxes?  This would avoid the free loading scenario and make sure that all houses in rural areas are protected.   In this scenario the tax increase would have been a mere 0.13 cents for each household.  This case also highlights why the Affordable Health Care Act included a mandate to avoid freeloaders from seeking insurance after they fell sick.

South Fulton appears to have made its point against free loading.  A relative of Mr. Cranick appears to have made his displeasure felt with his fists.  Now it is time for the county to revise a flawed policy to prevent a recurrence of such tragedies.

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One Hundred and Forty Seven years after the dispute began, the Allahabad High Court rendered a Solomonic verdict designed to end a dispute that rocked and changed Indian politics over the last 25 years.  The court appears to have formalized the solution implemented by the British when riots first broke out over the controversial Babri Masjid.

The mosque was built on the orders of the first Mughal Emperor Babur on the site of either an old or existing Hindu temple that Hindus believed marked the birthplace of one of their prominent deities Ram.  The original British solution was to give both sides access to the site for worship.  Ninety years after the first attempt at a Solomonic compromise the issue flared up again in 1949 when idols were smuggled into the mosque  resulting in Indian government sealing the site.  The dispute picked up steam in 1984 and burst into Indian national consciousness when the Bharatiya Janata Party seized the issue to highlight simmering grievances of the Hindu majority.  The mosque was destroyed by a mob in 1992 resulting in riots across India.

Today’s decision split the site among three litigants (2 Hindu and 1 Muslim) and dismissed a couple of other cases.  The Sunni Waqf Board (which recieved the Muslim portion) has indicated it will appeal.  Given the political consensus rallying around this verdict it is likely that the Indian Supreme Court will uphold the decision.  With the troubled Commonwealth Games about to start, the Indian government must be breathing a sigh of relief at the calm that has greeted the verdict.  Oddly enough the street protests are occurring in neighboring Pakistan whose militants will add this to their litany of perceived grievances at the hands of India.

I am not surprised by the verdict.  It was the only way to resolve an intractable dispute.  But splitting the baby is not the solution for all such disputes in India in the future.  The Babri Masjid was not the only mosque built on the ruins of a Hindu temple.  However, the length of the dispute, the fact that the rights of Hindus to worship on the site had essentially been conceded in 1859, and the mosque being unused since 1949 were all special circumstances that made this verdict possible.  This will not be the case in other disputes.  At some point there has to be a statute of limitations for resolving medieval wrongs.  Hopefully with this verdict the statute has now run out.

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I am not been a fan of Justice Scalia’s originalist theory that the United States Constitution must be interpreted according to the mores in effect when written e.g. cruel and unusual punishment is based on the standards in effect when the Bill of Rights was passed.  There does not appear to be much evidence that the founders intended to create a society whose mores were petrified thru time.  Oddly enough Scalia does not apply these principles to the interpretation of statutes.  There he ignores the legislative history underlying the statute and relies on the plain language.

I prefer the latter approach for the interpretation of statutes and the constitution.  Statutes and constitutional provisions often have unexpected consequences.  The burden should be on drafters to legislate exactly what they mean.  Relying on the plain language of the statute or constitutional provision obviates the need to play historical detective.  It is not always possible to reach a consensus regarding the intent of legislation created as a result of political compromise.  A plain text approach allows common sense to prevail (assuming that the provision is not loosely and broadly drafted) when language written 200 years ago has to be adapted to modern technologies or evolved social mores – e.g. when the bill of rights banned unreasonable searches the founders could not have imagined modern eavesdropping technology.

Interestingly there was a recent regime that used a version of Scalia’s originalist theory.  The Taliban regime in Afghanistan purported to implement Sharia law as supposedly practiced by the prophet Mohammed in the early seventh century.  Legal provisions that were progressive in 622 A.D. (guaranteeing any inheritance to daughters was not the legal norm back then) seemed archaic in the 1990s (the daughter did not receive an equal share).  Of course a fundamental difference with the ossified Taliban state is that the Quran and Hadith cannot be amended.  Even though there have only been 18 amendments in the 219 years following the Bill of Rights it is possible to crack Scalia’s petrified constitution.

Which brings up the subject matter of this post.  Fresh off his controversial trip to Washington, comedian Stephen Colbert takes Scalia’s viewpoint down the slippery slope.  Enjoy.

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The facts are disturbing.  A plainclothes police officer pulls over a motercyclist for speeding on an interstate highway by waving a gun before producing any identification.  The motorcyclist captured the incident on tape with a camera in his helmet and posted the video on YouTube.  And remarkably the prosecutors throw the book at the motorcylist for having the temerity to record a public official in a public space, using wiretap laws intended to protect individual privacy.

Anthony Graber faced 16 years in prison for recording a public act while plainclothes officer Uhler’s irresponsibility in drawing his gun without producing any identification was defended as “appropriate” because the gun was never pointed at Graber.  The double standard on privacy does not seem to have bothered police or prosecutors.  Law enforcement regularly and aggressively challenges the rights of defendants to privacy, sometimes in their own home.  But these standards evidently did not apply to the men wearing the badge.

The last decade has seen a steady erosion of civil liberties.  However, today common sense won out.  Today Judge Emory A. Pitt, Jr. dismissed charges against Graber noting that ”[T]hose of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public. When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation. ‘Sed quis custodiet ipsos cutodes’ (“Who watches the watchmen?”).”  The judge dismissed the expectations of privacy by noting that the acts ”took place on a public highway in full view of the public. Under such circumstances, I cannot, by any stretch, conclude that the troopers had any reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversation with the defendant which society would be prepared to recognize as reasonable.”

The good judge also noted that the prosecution’s interpretation of the video camera on Graber’s helmet as a “device primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of oral communications” would make “almost every cell phone, Blackberry, and every similar device, not to mention dictation equipment and other types of recording devices” illegal.

So Graber walks free and Maryland’s effort to prevent private videotapes of the sort that exposed the Rodney King beating falls short for now.  In an age where President Obama invokes state secrets to reserve to right to assassinate an (admittedly vile) US citizen, it is a rare victory for liberty and common sense.

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After a longer than expected gap, a couple of race related stories gave me the impetus to resume blogging.  Both stories have received considerable publicity.  The first story and the subject of this article comes from Arizona.  This is not related to the ill-conceived crackdown on illegals (opposed as counterproductive by many Arizona police departments because it makes cooperation by illegals in fighting crime close to impossible) which is almost certain to have the side effect of racial profiling  American citizens like me with brown skin and an accent (even Arizona’s governor failed to articulate just how exactly a police officer will identify illegal immigrants).

This is a more depressing story that stems from a brouhaha over a school mural in Prescott, Arizona.  The local school commissioned a mural using existing school students as the models.  Some local school kids were chosen as models and *shudder* the school had the temerity to prominently portray Hispanic and African American kids.  This raised the ire of local councilman and self-proclaimed non-racist Steve Blair because in his opinion the school (which is significantly more diverse than the largely white town) was engaging in unnecessary statements supporting diversity and picked an African American kid for the mural due to the skin tone of the man controlling the nuclear football.  Then according to the artists there were the local bravos who drove by yelling slurs (in the presence of kids).  To make it worse, the school initially bowed to the vocal but relatively minor local pressure and tried to “lighten” the faces of the mural.

Thankfully, since then the school board’s spine has been replaced by something firmer than Jello.  Operation bleach has been called off and a cringing Arizona can move on from the latest display of racial idiocy in the state.

I bring this sad story up to highlight a couple of points:

First, is this excellent column by Roger Ebert on the subject and his very personal account of the evolution of his views on race.  Definitely worth a read.

Second, this story just goes to go how far we are from a truly race-blind society.  It is very easy to dismiss Steve Blair and his cheering section as a bunch of prejudiced folk, but the truth is that racial stereotyping is alive and well today, and not just in the war on terror.  The image of an “American” typically brings up someone who is white.  Blair and his ilk could not believe that someone naturally picked this bunch of kids without another more insidious motive.  In a rapidly browning country, the worst perpetrators of racial stereotyping are the supposed liberals in Hollywood, particularly the studio executives.  While Hollywood no longer engages in blackface and occasionally casts minority actors in lead roles, racial typecasting is prevalent.  Starting with the recent “Prince of Persia,” Hollywood’s summer offerings are creating a whitewashing controversy for casting white actors in roles originally intended for minorities and touting diversity based on the supporting cast.  The financial risk with minority leads is often touted as the reason for race based casting decisions.

So Hollywood’s fear of displaying an America that comports to reality results in typecast minority actors.  Most Asians on TV speak with accents (Indian-American actors (with the exception of Kal Penn) typically speak with exaggerated Indian or British accents) and minority actors are relegated into race stereotyped careers and personalities.  A show like Friends could spend a decade in New York city with almost no minorities.  To the best of my recollection, the most prominent minority in the (also) New York based show “How I Met Your Mother” is the occasionally appearing Indian cab driver.  Minorities often get segregated off into their own shows like the George Lopez show or the Tyler Perry shows on TBS.  More shows need to follow the mold of “Grey’s Anatomy“, “Lost” and “Heroes“.

While I am glad to see that the people of Prescott ended up doing the right thing, far more needs to be done to combat the mindsets of the Steve Blairs of the world.  This does not involve racial quotas, but rather truly race-neutral casting that relies on the maturity of the viewing public instead of perceived racial roles.  Cable news and newspaper opinion pages could probably benefit from this approach as well.

Coming up next…South Carolina and its spotlight on “acceptable” racism and bigotry.

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The Lib Dem surge I blogged about earlier in the week as brought in its wake the hysterical counteroffensive of the Tory media barons who feel victory slipping away.  It is a type of full scale media assault in the news pages rather than the editorial pages that Americans do not typically see outside of the tabloids and the non-Murdoch owned media (the Murdoch owned Sun has been up to tricks familiar to critics of its American affiliate).  The effectiveness of the broadside remains to be seen.  For one thing, the political affiliation of British newspapers is not secret which distinguishes Fleet Street from its American brethren in the last few decades.  The overreaction is spawning a backlash on the web with the twitter hash tag “nickcleggsfault” soaring in popularity with mocking tweets blaming Clegg for all of the world’s problems.

The second of the two prime ministerial debates held earlier today is unlikely to help the Tories or Labour quell the upstart Lib Dems.  While Conservative David Cameron performed better, Clegg appears to have held his own on foreign policy and is further entrenching his brand as something different.  Whether that brand can survive the inevitable back room deals that will follow the now likely hung parliament remains to be seen.

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Jon Stewart must love having Fox “News” and its laughably inappropriate slogan “Fair and Balanced” as a reliable foil.

He touched a nerve with this clip about the tea party movement acknowledging the points of various Fox contributors about the evils of sweeping generalization.  Of course this being Fox, he was able to show the same hosts making sweeping generalizations about the evil liberal elites.  That portion of the clip starts at the 5:11 mark.  It ends with Stewart telling the Fox blowhards to “Go F–k Yourselves.”

So Bill O’Reilly brings back Bernie Goldberg to ask him if this was true, even though the clips of O’Reilly’s and Hannity’s shows speak for themselves.  Goldberg surprisingly fessed up but then tried to rationalize his broad generalization and took pot shots at Stewart.  This of course is grand material for the comedian to respond with some lines breaking down Goldberg’s attacks by questioning why Stewart on Comedy Central is being held to Fox New’s misleading “fair and balanced” logo, further pointing out:

“Comedians do social commentary through comedy. That’s how it’s worked for thousands of years. I have not moved out of the comedian’s box into the news box. The news box is moving towards me.”

Fox should probably take to heart the old quote “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it” before taking on Stewart again.  It does not help that Goldberg essentially admitted the validity of Stewart’s critique before launching petulant attacks (note he never said that Frank Rich made the broad generalizations on Stewart’s show with no challenge, but merely that Rich made generalizations).  This is a few months after he caught Sean Hannity’s show splicing footage from a previous rally to build up the number of the later rally in Washington.  As the gospel choir number shows, Stewart’s role as a comedian gives him far more latitude to respond than O’Reilly’s usual bluster when Fox “News” is called out for making stuff up.

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