Friday, March 31, 2006

Another victim of the drug war. ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE DRUG WAR and its lying informants. A paid career criminal has more credence than an honest man with some people, just because he's an "anti-drug warrior" and a pal of the cops. Who'll pay for this death? Who'll pay for all the rest of the deaths and imprisonments? [Wolfesblog] From the article: What happened to Chuck Plinton was a massive injustice that the University of Akron is just now trying to resolve, six months after his death. Luis M. Prozenza, president of the university, in a statement issued yesterday said he is "calling for a thorough assessment of university regulations governing the student disciplinary process." A year earlier, a "thorough assessment" may have saved Chuck Plinton's life. Instead, the university took the word of a paid informant in one of the shakiest minor drug cases that ever came before a jury. They suspended him, took away the tuition waiver and stipend he was living on and he was banned from the dorms for life. [...] "We hold ourselves to the highest standards of fairness," Prozenza said in his statement yesterday. If Prozenza is telling the truth we can expect to read a follow-up story about how he killed himself to atone for what had been done to Chuck Plinton. I won't be holding my breath. 1:55:45 PM    comment () trackback () iJacking. The San Francisco Bay Guardian is reporting on a new crime: people who grab laptops out of their owners' hands and then run away. It's called "iJacking," and there seems to be a wave of this type of crime at Internet cafes in San Francisco: In 2004 the SFPD Robbery Division recorded 17 strong-arm laptop robberies citywide. This increased to 30 cases in 2005, a total that doesn't even include thefts that fall under the category of "burglary," when a victim isn't present. (SFPD could not provide statistics on the number of laptop burglaries.) In the past three months alone, Park Station, the police precinct that includes the Western Addition, has reported 11 strong-arm laptop robberies, a statistic that suggests this one district may exceed last year's citywide total by the end of 2006. Some stories: Maloney was absorbed in his work when suddenly a hooded person yanked the laptop from Maloney's hands and ran out the door. Maloney tried to grab his computer, but he stumbled across a few chairs and landed on the floor as the perpetrator dashed to a vehicle waiting a quarter block away. [...] Two weeks before Maloney's robbery, on a Sunday afternoon, a man had been followed out of the Starbucks on the corner of Fulton Street and Masonic Avenue and was assaulted by two suspects in broad daylight. According to the police report, the suspects dragged the victim 15 feet along the pavement, kicking him in the face before stealing his computer. In early February a women had her laptop snatched while sitting in Ali's Café. She pursued the perpetrator out the door, only to be blindsided by a second accomplice. Ali described the assault as "a football tackle" so severe it left the victim's eyeglasses in the branches of a nearby tree. In the most recent laptop robbery, on March 16 in a café on the 900 block of Valencia Street, police say the victim was actually stabbed. It's obvious why these thefts are occurring. Laptops are valuable, easy to steal, and easy to fence. If we want to "solve" this problem, we need to modify at least one of those characteristics. Some Internet cafes are providing locking cables for their patrons, in an attempt to make them harder to steal. But that will only mean that the muggers will follow their victims out of the cafes. Laptops will become less valuable over time, but that really isn't a good solution. The only thing left is to make them harder to fence. This isn't an easy problem. There are a bunch of companies that make solutions that help people recover stolen laptops. There are programs that "phone home" if a laptop is stolen. There are programs that hide a serial number on the hard drive somewhere. There are non-removable tags users can affix to their computers with ID information. But until this kind of thing becomes common, the crimes will continue. Reminds me of the problem of bicycle thefts. [Schneier on Security] Actually these crimes will continue until such time as people comitting them are shot in the back as they run out the door. I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening in a city notorious for its opposition to self-defence and property rights. 12:04:41 PM    comment () trackback () The Fear of Freedom. Crispin Sartwell writes: We want the government to guarantee our health, deflect hurricanes, educate our children and license us to drive; we want to be told what to eat, what to smoke and whom to marry. We are justly proud of the fact that no enduring society has ever incarcerated more of its people. Noting that the policeman has a pistol, a club, a stun gun, a can of pepper spray and a database that includes us, we feel happy and secure. Our submission is absolute: We want to be operated like puppets and provided for like pets. The terrorists hate our freedom. But we should be comfortable with that. We hate our freedom, too. Advocates for liberty are increasingly facing a new challenge. Used to be that our main fight was against the ever expanding size and scope of government. But it's fast becoming the case that half the battle is convincing people that freedom is actually a good thing in the first place. People would rather have a massive government that makes all of their decisions for them, ostensibly because they'd rather have someone other than themselves to blame when they make the wrong decisions. Hence, the uncomfortable number of smokers who support smoking bans because they think it'll help them kick the habit. Another outgrowth of fears of freedom are those trendy attacks on choice itself, where choice was once seen as an almost universal positive. The phrase for this is parentalism (as opposed to paternalism), or the idea that grown adults are distubingly beginning to see the government as a parent, someone to watch over them, and guide their hand toward good decisions. Julian Sanchez wrote a bit about this last year, citing new work by Nobel Laureate James Buchanan. Buchanan writes: [Economists and political theorists] have assumed that, other things being equal, persons want to be at liberty to make their own choices, to be free from coercion by others, including indirect coercion through means of persuasion. They have failed to emphasize sufficiently, and to examine the implications of, the fact that liberty carries with it responsibility. And it seems evident that many persons do not want to shoulder the final responsibility for their own actions..[They] want to be told what to do and when to do it; they seek order rather than uncertainty, and order comes at an opportunity cost they seem willing to bear. To which Julian adds: Classical liberals have become good at explaining how the market order they favor promotes freedom and happiness. They have been less adept at explaining why--at least past a certain point--people ought to want that freedom, which when genuine is always at least a little frightening. In the face of the parentalist impulse, we may need to develop the case that our bad choices, the choices that make us unhappy, are as vital and precious as the ones that bring us joy. The fight against the growth of government often feels like a jog on a treadmill that's a setting or two too fast. Toss in the fact that many people no longer want their freedom, and suddenly we're on an incline, too. TrackBack (0) | [The Agitator] 9:04:00 AM    comment () trackback () Armor? We don't need no stinkin' Armor!. The U.S. Army has banned privately-purchased body armor for soldiers, ostensibly to "protect" them. According to the government: "We're very concerned that people are spending their hard-earned money on something that doesn't provide the level of protection that the Army... By William L. Anderson. [LewRockwell.com Blog] I don't believe the Army's claim. All body armor sold to civilians is rated according to a system established by the National Institute of Justice, which is if anything somewhat conservative. Armor undergoes testing to verify that the rating is correct--and it's not a complicated testing process. Anyone can verify that their armor meets its claimed rating simply by putting it over a soft clay backdrop and shooting it. Note that the armor issued to soldiers by the military is purchased directly from the manufacturer and never undergoes the kind of testing and rating that civilian armor does. If any armor's effectiveness should be questioned, it is the Army's. 8:53:04 AM    comment () trackback () Lenovo Under U.S. Probe for Spying. BigControversy writes "The DailyTech has a report indicating that Lenovo, the giant Chinese PC manufacturer, is under a probe by the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission (USCC) for possible bugging. Apparently, the government has ordered 16,000 PCs from Lenovo but is now requesting that Lenovo be investigated by intelligence agencies. The fear is of foreign intelligence applying pressure to Lenovo to equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on." From the article: "Despite the probe, Lenovo says that its international business, especially those that deal with the US, follow strictly laid out government regulations and rules. Lenovo also claims that even after purchasing IBM's PC division, its international business has not been affected negatively. Interestingly, in an interview with the BBC, Lenovo mentioned that an open investigation or probe may negatively affect the way that the company deals with future government contracts or bids." There just has to be better uses of our intelligence community's time. [Slashdot] I'm not particularly concerned about some Chinese intelligence agency spying on me when US intelligence agencies are forcing companies such as AT&T to spy on Americans. 8:29:43 AM    comment () trackback ()

© Copyright 2006 Ken Hagler. Last update: 4/3/2006; 11:33:23 AM.