Apple Threatens Nine-Year-Old

One of Fortune's 101 Dumbest Moments in business last year was what seems like a bonehead move by Apple Computer:

Nine-year-old Shea O'Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple's legal counsel stating that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.

Might I suggest that, while this may have made her feel badly, there's a simple reason why Apple sent her the letter: Next year, after Apple introduces, say, the sing-along iPod, it doesn't want everybody to be reading the story of how it stole the idea from now-ten-year-old Shea O'Gorman and she's suing them.

Seriously, in our litigious society, does Apple have any choice about not accepting unsolicited ideas from people?

Cory Maye and No-Knock Raids

Radley Balko has a long and moving post about his recent trip to Mississippi where he visited the family of Cory Maye. Now, I sometimes think that Radley goes off the rails, but his work on the Cory Maye case has been exemplary. There's a lot of detail involved in the case, and while I don't claim to have followed every twist and turn, this Radley Balko Reason piece gives some background. Maye's home was raided by the cops late one evening. Awakened from his slumber, Maye ended up shooting and killing one of the police officers on the raid. He claimed he didn't know they were cops, that he was acting in self-defense, albeit mistaken self-defense. The jury rejected his claim and convicted him.

The case touches all sorts of issues involving, poverty, criminal procedures, and the use of arguably-unreliable forensic evidence. But to me the key point is this: so long as we have the "war on drugs," we are going to have cases like Maye's. It's something I touched on in my last post, talking about this California case in which a homeowner shot and killed two young men who broke into his home. In that post I argued that the fact that the homeowner shot the intruders in the back mattered not a whit because it was simply unreasonable, in that confused situation, to demand that he instantly take stock of what his intruders were doing.

By the same token, somebody who is asleep in his or her home, in an environment where a homeowner is entitled to feel safe and secure isn't in a great position to take stock of the situation when a door is broken down in hte middle of the night. People have the right to defend themselves and their homes from attack, and in America they exercise that right. Inevitably, some informants will be unreliable -- they're looking for drug dealers, after all, and most drug dealers don't hang out with schoolmarms and librarians. Inevitably, cops will write down the wrong address, or people will move out. And then, inevitably, some cops and some citizens will be killed. It's just one cost of the war on drugs. One of many.

More On Felony Murder

This is a followup to my earlier post on felony murder, in which I took Radley Balko and some other bloggers to task for their characterization of the facts of a case discussed in a New York Times article on felony murder. In that case, a guy named Ryan Holle was convicted of murder because he loaned his car to his friends -- after being informed that they intended to use it for a burglary, and that it might be necessary to do violence to a young lady named Jessica Snyder in the course of this burglary, Jessica, age 18, was bludgeoned to death by Mr. Holle's friends.

Radley Balko has now added an update to his earlier post, graciously admitting that he should probably have included in his original post the fact that Holle initially told police that he had been informed about the intended robbery and possible battery. But these facts don't change his mind:

It didn’t affect my opposition to the charge, though, because the guy also said he was drunk, and thought his friends were joking. So his crime here seems to have been an error in judgment. Or maybe an error in judgment affected by drinking too much. I can certainly imagine a scenario in college where I, having no criminal record (this guy didn’t, either), may have had too much too drink at a party, had some acquaintance say, “hey, can we borrow your car?” respond, “why?” and they respond, “because we want to break into someone’s house and steal their weed”,” there’s at least a chance I might have thought they were yanking my chain.

To begin with, Radley seems to be taking Holle's current version at face value, accepting it as fact. But it seems to contradict what he told the police at the time and his own testimony that he'd been told it might be necessary to "knock out" Jessica Snyder. I realize that he works on a lot of these "police abuse" cases, but it isn't necessary to take every convict's claims at face value. More to the point, while Holle apparently didn't have a record, we don't know whether his buddies had records, and that's the relevant question, in determining whether it's likely that Holle thought they were kidding. Sure, if one of my friends said, "can I borrow your car to rob somebody," I'd assume they were joking. But then, there's a pretty good chance (as in, a near-certainty) that they would be joking, because I don't hang out with criminals. If Holle hangs out with criminals, he'd be much less likely to think they were yanking his chain.

But that's not Radley's sole argument:

Believe that about this guy, or don’t. I don’t know how credible this guy is. It does seem clear, though, that he didn’t sit down with these guys and plan the burglary. There’s no mention of him getting a cut of the drugs they planned to steal. His culpability here seems to boil down to a split second of bad judgment. No premeditation. No specific intent. The guy who lent someone his car–after a night of partying under terms where there’s some doubt about whether he knew the real intentions of the lendees–got the same charge and sentence as the guys who committed a premeditated robbery, during which they smashed in a woman’s face with a metal safe. That really sound like a just outcome?

Well, I would have sentenced the actual killer to death, so that would eliminate the disparity between Holle's sentence and the killer's. And I can certainly see arguing for reform of the felony murder rule -- maybe making felony murder a form of second degree murder. But, while Holle didn't plan the murder, he did facilitate by providing transportation. So no, it doesn't strike me as being particularly unjust. He was part of the criminal enterprise.

If the case of Ryan Holle gets your goat, though, this California case really ought to drive you bonkers.

Here's what happened: three young black men, including a 22-year-old named Renato Hughes, broke into the home of Shannon Edmonds, who is white, intending to steal some marijuana. During the course of the burglary, they beat Edmonds' stepson, Dale Lafferty, with a baseball bat, causing permanent brain damage severe enough to render him unable to live independently or even feed himself.

During the course of the robbery, Shannon Edmonds managed to get his gun, and he shot the intruders, killing both of Hughes's accomplices. Edmonds had both marijuana and prescription drugs in his system, but he had prescriptions for both (remember, California has legal medical marijuana). Edmonds isn't charged at all. Renato Hughes, by contrast, is charged with felony murder under the California "provocative acts" doctrine. That's right, he's charged with felony murder in the death of his accomplices, despite the fact that it was the homeowner, not charged, who pulled the trigger.

Predictably, some people are playing the race card. They claim the victim ought to be the one in the dock:

The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black.

Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.

"This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said. "They were shot in the back. They had fled."

Note the use of the term "boy," despite the fact that the two invaders were 21 and 22, old enough to vote, sign contracts, even buy a beer. All a way of posthumously deflecting responsibility for their own criminality. (I guess Reverend Brown follow the Maureen Dowd theory of childhood.)

According to Reverend Brown's apparent theory, a homeowner has to turn on a dime and hold his fire the second his attackers begin to flee, even if they are still in the house and still a potential threat. That is simply unreasonable -- a home invasion creates a situation of total confusion. Edmonds had no way of knowing whether these people were no longer a threat. And even if they had begun to flee, we have no way of knowing that, with the adrenaline and confusion, this fact had reached his brain at that point. It is absurd to second-guess a homeowner subjected to this sort of attack. (Another reason why police no-knock raids should be strictly limited.)

It is hardly surprising that Hughes's mother is equally outraged. She thinks that her son and his friends were there to buy drugs, not rob the place. Well, I suppose that it is barely possible that this is some sort of drug-deal-gone-bad situation, but it seems unlikely. Most drug sellers don't shoot their customers, and her version doesn't account for the beaten stepson.

It is undoubtedly difficult to face a situation in which your son may well spend the rest of his natural life in prison for a crime he committed at a very young age. It is equally difficult to accept the fact that your son is a thug. But maybe if Judy Hughes and Reverend Brown had done a better job teaching Renato not to break into people's homes to rob them, they wouldn't be facing this predicament today. As in the Jena 6 case, it's a lot easier to cry about racism than to accept responsibility for thuggery.

Frankly, I have sympathy for the real victim, Dale Lafferty, who suffered permanent brain damage. And for Shannon Edmonds, who will undoubtedly suffer anguish over the killings, no matter how justified they were. I have no sympathy left for Renato Hughes or the other two invading beasts killed in the act of their crime. And lest anybody claim racial animus here, I assure you I would have a similar reaction if the invading beasts had been white. If Hughes rots in jail for the rest of his life, well, it's not so bad as what he did to his victims.

This case hasn't gotten a lot of traction in the blogosphere, but I imagine that, if it did, Hughes would get a lot more sympathy, though not from me. I want to acknowledge SteveAudio, whom I credit for the link to the original article. SteveAudio is troubled by what he characterizes as "vigilante style action" by the homeowner. I'd be troubled too if Edmonds had tracked the two guys down and killed them weeks later. But I think it's pretty reasonable to kill attackers who are in your house, particularly when they have beaten one of the occupants with a baseball bat.

Jeralyn over a TalkLeft is also troubled by this case, saying, "I don't like the idea of making defendants liable for the acts of victims." Honestly, I don't see why not -- if the act of the victim is a natural and foreseeable consequence of the crime. In this case, it is eminently predictable that a homeowner might fight back and kill one of the invaders.

Jeralyn also says something else that is quit bizarre. She says that Hughes should be charged with the beating of Dale Lafferty, "assuming it wasn't self-defense." At first I thought this had to be some sort of strange thinko, but then she goes on to say that one of the details she'd like to know is "Was the stepson brandishing a weapon (like a rifle or a gun) at the time he was beaten?"

This suggests that Jeralyn actually believes that these home invaders somehow had the right to engage in "self-defense" with a baseball bat if Dale Lafferty was brandishing a weapon. That's insane -- Lafferty was in his home. He had every right to brandish a weapon at intruders coming into his house. I would argue he had the right to fire a weapon at them. Once you break into somebody's house, you don't have the right to engage in "self-defense."

Felony Murder

This New York Times article discusses the felony murder rule, using the case of Ryan Holle, now serving life in prison, as a jumping-off point. As one might expect, there are conflicting interpretations of the facts, but the basic story is this: Holle was out partying with some friends one night, when, at least somewhat intoxicated, he loaned his car to a friend. His friend and three other individuals drove over to the home of a local marijuana dealer with the intent of robbing it. Which they did. In addition, they bludgeoned to death the dealer's 18-year-old daughter, Jessica Snyder, with a shotgun they found at the residence.

All four were convicted of murder, as was Holle, under the felony murder doctrine, which the New York Times describes as "a distinctively American legal doctrine that makes accomplices as liable as the actual killer for murders committed during felonies like burglaries, rapes and robberies." This rule "generally broadens murder liability for participants in violent felonies in two ways. An unintended killing during a felony is considered murder under the rule. So is, as Mr. Holle learned, a killing by an accomplice."

The New York Times notes that the Brits -- whose common law brought us the rule -- abolished the doctrine in the late fifties, while India and other common law countries have done so as well, including our Canadian neighbors. The argument against the rule, generally, is that it is disproportionate, because the defendant is being held responsible for something he didn't personally do. The counter to that is that all participants in a felony share blame for the foreseeable consequences.

Holle, according to the Times article, "had given the police a series of statements in which he seemed to admit knowing about the burglary." Indeed, he also testified that "he had been told it might be necessary to 'knock out' Jessica Snyder." So he knew both that a robbery was planned and that violence might well be necessary. Now Holle claims he didn't actually believe them -- he thought that the talk of the robbery was a joke. If true that might well be exculpatory, but, based on the sketchy account in the article, it sounds like the jury didn't believe him.

The problem with The New York Times article is that it conflates two distinct issues. The first issue is Holle's case, and the second issue is the felony murder rule, in general. The article tries to cast doubt on on Holle's culpability, and thereby to undermine the rule, in general. But that doesn't necessarily follow. Even if you believe that the evidence wasn't sufficient in his case, or that he didn't do enough to help that he ought to found guilty, you can still believe in the rule's application, in general. That said, Adam Liptak, the author of the article, deserves credit for fairly presenting the facts that would tend to show Holle did know of the car's intended use and is therefore at least arguably culpable.

The same cannot be said of all the bloggers commmenting on the article. The dishonesty is particularly apparent at TAPPED, where Brad Plumer says:

Do I have this right? Florida courts have long rejected the argument that gun wholesalers are at all responsible for any murders committed with the weapons they sell. But, as The New York Times reports today, if a groggy 20-year-old in Florida lends some friends his car one morning, and they end up killing someone, he can be convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole?

[Correction: he isn't at TAPPED. See update below.] Conveniently left out is that Holle's pals didn't just "end up killing someone," as if by accident. Nor did Holle innocently lend some friends his car. Rather, he lent it to them after being told that they were going to use it for a burglary.

Scott Lemieux is equally dishonest, stating that "Via Brad Plumer, Adam Liptak discusses the case of a 20-year-old in Florida serving life without parole for lending some friends his car. " Sure, that's true enough -- but utterly misleading, as it leaves out the fact that he was told it was going to be used in a burglary.

Radley Balko makes a similar error -- he quotes a passage from the the same New York Times article, and just like the guys at TAPPED, he leaves out the salient facts. Instead, he says this:

Maybe this guy should have been more careful who he lent his car to. Maybe he shouldn’t have drank so much. Maybe he shouldn’t have been partying with such shady characters. But life in prison? Come on.

Or maybe he shouldn't have loaned his car to people who told him they planned to use it in a burglary.

Not surprisingly, Balko's old nemesis, Patterico, is on the case. As Patterico observes, "Balko’s post makes it sound like this fellow simply lent his car to some people, without any idea that they were going to go commit a burglary or hurt anyone."

If you want to argue against the felony murder rule, fine. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, in most instances -- I think that those who participate in or facilitate serious felonies share moral culpability with those who actually pull the trigger or do the beating. And such liability is easy to avoid: if you hang out with people who like to beat, rob, or rape other people, don't loan them your car.

But why is it that the folks who are so critical of the felony murder rule have to lie about the facts, or rather leave out salient facts? If they really think it's a bad rule, then they ought to be willing to argue that Holle shouldn't be held liable for murder even if he knew they were going to be bludgeon the girl to death and lent them the car anyway. Heck, if you really don't think the felony murder rule is a good rule, only the guy who actually did the bludgeoning should be convicted of murder -- even the other burglars get off the hook.

If that's their argument, they ought to make it, rather than twisting the facts to try to make it seem as if an injustice is occurring.

UPDATE: In the comments, Brad Plummer corrects an error on my part -- I had said he was associated with TAPPED, which is not the case. Brad Plumer has his own blog, which I could have noted by the simple expedient of reading. I had found his article following the link from Scott Lemieux at TAPPED, and somehow I got it in my head they were both TAPPED bloggers. One might note the irony of my making a simple factual mistake in a post which accuses other bloggers of getting the facts wrong.

Brad is also quite good-natured about my reference to the way he and the other bloggers referred to the facts, which made me feel worse than I would have if he had launched a scathing attack on me. I used the term "lie" to describe their accounts, and I now think that was overstating. Do I really think they consciously lied? Well, probably not, so I apologize to Brad Plumer, Scott Lemieux, and Radley Balko for using that term.

I suspect, instead, that they didn't see Holle's knowledge of the intended use of his vehicle as being a salient fact. My guess is that this is the reason why all three failed to include it in their original posts. For reasons I've tried to articulate, I think it is the key fact. I continue to believe their descriptions are misleading without it. But a lie is an intentional misstatement of fact, and that was an overstatement on my part. I should not have accused them of bad faith.

I still think they were wrong, though.

UPDATE 2: I fixed a couple of typos.

UPDATE 3: Additional Thoughts Felony Murder Here.

Live From VRWC Central

Always on the lookout for his readers, the intrepid Cheerful Iconoclast penetrated the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy last night, attending a black-tie dinner at a convention of the dreaded Federalist Society. The dinner, which celebrated this secret cabal's 25th anniversary, featured speeches from quite a few notables, including three Supreme Court Justices and President George W. Bush. It got covered by the AP and Washington Post, and undoubtedly by other outlets as well.

I loved this bit from the AP:

Inside the historic Union Station, crowd gave Bush a standing ovation complete with cheers and hollering. Supreme Court justices and members of the nation's judiciary and legal communities sipped wine and ate beef and veal medallions. Outside, a small group of protesters shouted "War criminal Bush" and "Stop waterboarding." The latter was a reference to a controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

This is a great example of writing that's factually accurate but utterly misleading. It makes it sound as if the convention featured a sybaritic feast worthy of an Iron Chef. In fact, if the audience "sipped" its wine, because drinking it normally would have meant tasting it. The wine was a step or two above Thunderbird, but nothing I would buy myself. The Viognier tasted like Kool-Aid, and the Cab harsh and tannic. You can get better wines at the $5.00 bin at your local grocery store (if you live in a state that allows local grocery stores to sell wine, that is). As for the veal and beef medallions, it was difficult to tell whether the minute portion size was a blessing or a curse. Yes, they were described as gourmet tidbits in the printed menu, but they might as well have been mystery meat: overcooked nuggets of meat smothered in sauce. As it was, upon returning home, the Main Squeeze and I shed our formalwear and warmed up some leftover pasta, which I assure you far surpassed the night's repast.

It was banquet food. Better than your old school lunch, but certainly in the same genre. And not enough of it!

As for President Bush's welcome, members of the Federalist Society are nothing if not polite to their guests. It is certainly true that a poll taken in that room would probably make President Bush seem more popular than a poll of, say, the American People. But you would expect him to be more popular among self-identified conservatives. It is hardly news that a group of conservative lawyers gave a sitting Republican President a warm welcome.

However, Federalist Society members can and do differ among themselves about President Bush's policies. In particular, any number of libertarian-leaning Federalist Society members are harshly critical of some aspects of the Bush administration. Of course, in order to find that out, the reporters would have had to, you know, actually talk to people, rather than listening to the President's speech and dashing from the room when he finished. If one had approached me, I would even have been happy to express my candid views. I might even have shared a bite of beef medallion, and a sip of wine.

Islam's Woman Problem

Andrew Sullivan links to this article about statements by Nik Abdul Azia Nik Mat, described as "the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party." It seems that Nik is worried about the emotional abuse of men:

“We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Nik Abdul Aziz said. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.”

So what is it that gets Malaysian men so riled up? Women who wear sexy clothes in public.

Just another fruitcake, you say? Well, maybe -- it is important to remember that he is a leader of the opposition party, and that it is therefore safe to assume that most Malaysians don't agree with him. It is certainly a mistake to view all Muslims as one undifferentiated mass. Still, in a country of about 25 million people, his Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party claims 800,000 members. That is an appreciable portion of the population. And Malaysia is a non-Arab Muslim country -- it's not Saudi Arabia.

It's not unusual for left-leaning secularists to warn against christian reconstructionists and dominion theology -- which is fair enough, since those people are nuts. But you know, the chances that the country which brought Jessica Alba to the world is going to devolve into a theocracy where sassing one's parents is punishable by death is pretty low.

Which is why, while American secularists ought to oppose what Andrew Sullivan calls "Christianists," we ought to recognize that views which are relegated to the lunatic fringe among western Christians are, in fact, quite mainstream in the Muslim world. So, for example, while every majority-Christian country has a legal code undoubtedly influenced by Christianity, none have adopted any form of "Biblical Law" which purports to apply Biblical commands directly. Yet a number of countries have, in form or another, adopted some form of Sharia law.

Islam is a real problem, and you don't have to take a "the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim" view to recognize that fact. Not all Muslims are Islamists, but it is not clear, as of now, that Islam is compatible with a secular state that is tolerant of religious differences. And it might be a good idea for my atheist friends to stop obsessing about ultimately trivial stuff like moment of silence laws and worry more about a religion many of whose members actually do want theocracy.

Jena 6: The Prosecutor Speaks

Via Ann Althouse, this New York Times op-ed by the much-maligned Jena 6 prosecutor, Reed Walters. All-in-all, he gives a pretty good account of himself, emphasizing some points that have been getting lost. Most importantly, he makes short work of something I've taken issue with myself: the characterization of the case as being about a "schoolyard fight."

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

Precisely. The defenders of the Jena 6 keep using that term because of the image it creates: two young men engaged in equal combat. I'm actually probably a bit more indulgent of the classic schoolyard fight than most school officials these days. But youthful fisticuffs used to be governed by a code of honor, and the Jena 6 attackers don't know the meaning of the word.

Cops Complain of Speeding Tickets

Thoreau over at Unqualified Offerings links to this bizarre site, in which, believe it or not, cops complain about getting speeding tickets from other cops.

Now, to be fair, the site claims it's about "officers getting traffic tickets that ANY normal civilian could get a warning on, verbal or written." In fact, I think you could make a case enforcing traffic laws more strictly against off-duty police officers. After all, they don't need "warning," because they are presumably already aware of the law. Moreover, one might argue they should be traffic-code moral exemplars for the rest of us. Still, I don't favor giving anybody -- even cops -- tickets for going three miles per hour over the speed limit. (Speed limits are set way too low anyway.)

But, in fact, if you read the site, it's not about cops griping about getting rinky-dink tickets for stuff that civilians would get off for. Nope -- it's about cops griping about getting any tickets at all. The accounts show this incredible sense of entitlement. An entitlement to not be ticketed out of a sense of professional solidarity with other cops. I'm not naive enough to be surprised that such attitudes exist. What makes me a bit shocked is that the cops who demand this sort of treatment exhibit their demands in such a brazen and public way.

One guy complained because the Illinois State Police ticketed him for going 84.9 miles per hour. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm being holier-than-thou -- I have to admit I've driven 85. But if I were pulled over, I wouldn't gripe that much about getting a ticket.

Or read this complaint:

I am an active police officer in the NYPD and was driving down to Florida on March 4th 2007 which was the first time I have driven to Florida, not realizing in time the sign changed 65 to 45 i was slowing down and was nailed doing 61 in a 45 by Officer Brown 2416 (the summons copy is light) of LAWTEY PD Bradford County FL. I had to pay $185 which I didn't have on this avoidable summons. This officer could have cared less that he was writing another active police officer, I go out of my way to take care of other cops no matter where you may be visiting from.

I suspect that the reason the abrupt change from 65 to 45 is what is known as a "speed trap," and that there's s a reason why cops lurk there. I object, in in principle, to such tactics, but if the rest of us are going to get nailed for this sort of thing, well, I don't see why the NYPD should be immune. Likewise, I think it's abhorent that the NYPD officer admits to going out of his way to "take care of other cops."

Or consider this account:

On June 22, 2007 I was heading up US59 in Houston to go do my quarterly firearms qualification. Unfortunately, I was running late and was pulled over by Officer J.W. Harris, traffic enforcement, with Houston Police Department. I immediately pulled over and gave him my license and insurance. Officer Harris asked why I was speeding and I informed him that I was late for a range day and that I understood he was doing his job. I then showed him my credentials since I had my weapon on me. Officer Harris then checked to make sure that my inspection and registration were up to date and went back to his car.

Officer Harris took approximately ten minutes so I figured he was going show some professional courtesy and only make me “wait” awhile longer instead of stroking me a ticket. That wasn’t the case. Officer Harris ticketed me even after I identified myself as a law enforcement officer. I am currently working under cover in a Federal position and informed him that I too had previously been a police officer in both Houston and Dallas, Texas and had pulled over multitudes of Houston Police officers while working radar and had always shown them professional courtesy and sent them on their way.

What, the rest of us aren't in a hurry, either? If I'm pulled over because I'm late to something, and I explained that as the reason, the cop would be quite justified in responding "you should have left earlier." Apparently, "professional courtesy" is a euphemism for "cops get to break the law. All I can say is, good for you, Officer J.W. Harris.

Nobody tell Balko about this. His head might explode.

UPDATE; Mr. Balko found the site, and he seems to have survived. Just to be clear, this is one instance where I stand in solidarity with Radley Balko and my libertarian friends.

A Vile, Disgusting Crime

Via Steve Sailer, this report of a horrific crime in West Virginia. This is like something out of the movie Deliverance -- A young black woman was allegedly held for a week inside a shed located near a mobile home by a group of degenerate sadists who allegedly sexually assaulted her, forced her to eat dog and rat feces, poured hot water on her as they performed the sexual assault, and undoubtedly performed other evil acts upon her. In addition, the suspects, who are white, are alleged to have used racial slurs during the attack -- from the delicate manner in which the media reports are couching things, I assume they used the "N word." (Additional coverage -- including video of the poor woman and her mother can be found here.)

The AP is now reporting that the alleged perpetrators include two mothers and their grown children. As one report put it, the suspects are "not strangers to the criminal justice system." Since 1991, the six have faced a total of 101 criminal charges, the most serious being a first degree murder charge against Frankie Brewster, the owner of the mobile home where the alleged crime took place. She pled down to manslaughter and wanton endangerment and was released in 2000 after serving five years in prison. Brewster's son, Bobby Brewster, has also been charged in connection with this attack.

The other defendants include Karen Burton, who has faced 33 charges in her life, and her daughter Alisha Burton, who has "only" faced 20. Of course her daughter is only 23, so she can probably catch up with mom. Danny J. Combs and George A. Messer round out the list of defendants.

Words cannot express the sympathy I have toward this poor girl who was brutalized in this manner. Certainly if these charges are proven, the people who did them are vile scumbags who deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. I would have no problem at all if this whole gang ended up dying in prison. And they're being charged with some serious crimes, so let's hope so.

Steve Sailer makes the point that this story will probably get more national attention than it otherwise would. He's probably right about that. If this were an otherwise-identical black-on-white attack, it's likely it would get less national coverage, and it's certain that the race of the attackers would be less prominently mentioned. Likewise if the attackers were illegal aliens. So he's right on the substance.

Maybe I'm having an attack of political correctness -- something I'm not generally prone to -- but I found Sailer's post a bit distasteful. My first reaction was "the poor girl," followed closely by "send these vermin to prison." Fine, make your point. But at least show some human compassion to a woman who appears to have been brutalized in an unspeakable manner. And some recognition that the people who did this are lower than dirt. (Assuming the allegations are borne out, that these people did it, etc.)

Like Steve Sailer, Dave Neiwart had a similar impulse. Not compassion or outrage, but instead the impulse to use the case to ride his favorite hobbyhorse. A different hobbyhorese, but still. For Neiwert, the case is a club for him to beat Michelle Malkin and the "wingnutosphere." He doesn't think she will talk about the case, and so that raises some issue of inconsistency. His very first sentence isn't about how bad the crime is or how he feels for the victim. Nope, it's a link to this post, where he bashes Malkin, at great length.

I'm not even worried about whether he's right, and Malkin has a big enough stage to defend herself. Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of Malkin, and I think she's wrong about a lot of things. Of course I also think that much criticism of her -- including Neiwert's -- tends to be overwrought and unfair. Untangling the fair criticism from the overwrought criticism requires rather more effort than I want to make at the time, and as I said I'm willing to let Malkin fight her own battles.

But couldn't Neiwert at least at least express some compassion for the poor girl who got raped and forced to eat dog shit? Show some desire that the culprits be punished (after a fair trial, of course)? His first impulse is to use this as a way of attacking his perceived enemies. And the truth is, I don't think that even Michelle Malkin condones this sort of attack. I think Neiwart has a touch of "Malkin Derangement Syndrome."

The Jena 6 -- Kevin's Comment and a Response

I want to thank Kevin for his polite and respectful comment to my first post on the Jena 6 matter. Kevin points to his own synopsis on his blog, which strongly supports the "Jena 6 are victims of racist treatment" thesis. Kevin says to me: "You should actually look at the facts of the case before you call for skepticism. " With all due respect to Kevin, I thought I did look at the facts -- my second post gives a fairly long recitation of the facts. If nothing else, it gives quite a few links by which readers can evaluate my judgments. Certainly if I have made any factual errors, I would ask Kevin or any of my other readers to correct any specific mistakes. I don't claim to be immune from error, but I would hope that somebody who is claiming I haven't considered all the facts would identify specific salient facts which we could then discuss.

That said, I think that Kevin has one thing exactly backwards. Skeptical inquiry should precede judgment of any claim. That is, one should ask skeptical questions first and then decide whether there is an injustice, rather than holding off on the skepticism because one sees an injustice. In fact, it's situations like this, where emotions run strong, where the risk of confirmation bias is at its peak. As the Skeptics' Dictionary explains, confirmation bias causes one "to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs."

I hasten to add that people don't fall prey to confirmation bias because they are stupid or dishonest. They fall prey to confirmation bias because they're human, and it appears that this is the way the human mind is wired. And, just to be clear, I don't exempt myself from that. So if Kevin or any other reader has a specific example of a fact that I've overlooked or gotten wrong, I will be happy to correct the record.

In this case, though, I think it is at least possible that some of the pro-Jena 6 bloggers are being led astray by confirmation bias -- spinning the facts in a manner that supports their preexisting conclusion. For example, Kevin said in his original post that "A black teenager was jumped at a party and a bottle was broken over his head by a white teenager." In a subsequent comment (made in response to me), he said "Please look at how the white folks were treated for attacking a black youth."

I assume here that he is talking about the incident in which Robert Bailey -- one of the Jena 6 -- was assaulted at a party, and for which a white man was charged with a misdemeanor. Kevin is making a straight-line argument here -- A) Robert Bailey was assaulted in a manner identical to Justin Barker; B) the white-on-black atttack on Bailey was treated as a misdemeanor, while the black-on-white attack was treated as a felony; C) Therefore, an injustice occurred.

In order for that argument to be valid, however, one would have to show that, in fact, the two assaults were identical. And this is where confirmation bias comes into play. I would agree that, if Bailey was struck on the head with a beer bottle, his attacker should have been charged with a more serious offense. A beer bottle certainly qualifies as a dangerous weapon. However, Kevin is repeating as fact a disputed, or at least unproven allegation. This Washington Post article says that Bailey claims to have been hit on the head with a beer bottle, but does not mention corroboration. Newsweek asserts that he was "punched and beaten with beer bottles," but it is so far the only source I have found claiming there was more than one bottle, and given Newsweek's questionable record of accuracy, I'm not sure we can credit this account.

The accounts of the altercation at which Bailey claims to have been hit with the beer bottle differ from source to source. This local publication gives an account of the incident which puts it in a somewhat different light:

On Dec. 1, there was a private, invitation-only birthday party at the Fair Barn. Around 11 p.m., five black students tried to come into the party but were told by a woman that they weren't allowed inside without an invitation. The boys persisted, saying they had friends inside. A white man then jumped in front of the woman, and a fight started.

A group broke the two up, and the woman asked the white man, not a student, and the black students to leave the party. Once outside, another fight started between a group of white men, not students, and the black students. Police were called, and a white man was arrested. He pleaded guilty to simple battery.

Even though there were reports of one of the black students receiving injuries that required medical attention, there is no record of that.

That's a bit different than Kevin's account, no? Confirmation bias at work. Kevin, and those others who rely upon the prior attack on Bailey to demonstrate a claimed disparity," ignore or undervalue contradictory evidence." In this case, they ignore the fact that Bailey's claim to have been hit with a beer bottle is wholly uncorroborated, and that there appears to be no evidence he sought medical attention. They ignore the fact that, at least on this account, the fight appears to have been mutual combat involving approximately evenly-matched groups, not a six-on-one beat-down. And the people who think it is really, really relevant that Justin Barker allegedly engaged in racial taunts prior to being attacked don't seem at all concerned that Bailey and his friends were trespassing and trying to crash a party.

Note that I'm not saying the prior attack on Bailey shouldn't have been treated as a felony, and that there is no possibility of disparate treatment here. I'm saying that Kevin and the folks campaigning for the Jena 6 haven't proven disparate treatement, and that there are legitimate factual disputes.

All that said, of course I find certain aspects of this case to be troubling. For example, one account cited by Kevin suggests there were improprieties involving Mychal Bell's jury:

An all-White jury, which, allegedly, included friends of the District Attorney as well as family members of the victim, found Bell guilty, despite the fact that many of the 17 witnesses the prosecution brought forth stated that they did not see Bell hit Barker, nor could Barker testify with certainty that Bell had assaulted him. Those who did testify against him offered conflicting testimony.

I haven't read any of this any place else, and I'm not familiar with the publication in which the article appeared. It is clearly advocacy article and therefore deserves skepticism. Nonetheless, if these allegations are borne out, then of course Bell deserves at a minimum a new trial. If these claims are true, Mychal Bell's advocates should be raising these points, rather than harping on irrelevancies.

One final note: In this article, Tina Jones, Bryant Purvis's mother, asserts that her son wasn't involved in the incident. Now of course she would say that, but it is at least refreshing to read one the family members asserting actual innocence. It struck me before that almost nobody seemed to be saying "I am innocent of this crime," or "my kid didn't do it," and to the extent there is real factual doubt as to whether any of these kids did it, the government should have to prove its case in a fair trial.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Bell's mother also proclaims his innocence. At this point, I really have no idea how plausible these claims of innocence are, or how strong the case against them was. I'd like to hear more about that, and less "racism, blah, blah, blah." I think that if they did it, these kids deserve to spend a good long time in prison, but I don't yet know enough to form an opinion as to their guilt or innocence.

The Jena 6 -- A Mob of Cowardly Thugs

This is the final installment of my three part series on the Jena 6. In Part I, I talked about how, as in the Duke Lacrosse case, an appealing narrative can trump the facts, and I suggested that maybe, just maybe, a bit of skepticism was justified. Since nearly everybody -- even Jonah Goldberg -- has jumped on the "Free the Jena 6" bandwagon, somebody ought to at least raise a few points on the other side. Part II provided the whole ugly background, but I want to emphasize again that I don't think any of that stuff matters. Yes, it adds to that In the Heat of the Night vibe, but what is relevant is what occurred on December 4, 2006, when Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, and an unnamed minor attacked Justin Barker, stomped on him with their feet, and knocked him unconscious.

It's important to note what they defenders of the Jena 6 are not arguing. They're not proclaiming actual innocence. They're not saying the attack didn't happen, or that it's a case of mistaken identity, or even that Justin Barker attacked them and they were trying to subdue him. Nope -- they do claim he "taunted" Robert Bailey, but that's no excuse.

The defenders of the Jena 6 consistently try to minimize the victim's injuries. Justin Barker had a concussion, and his eye was swollen shut from the beating. A concussion is a head injury, and any head injury can be life threatening. And yet, the word "concussion" is often left out when describing Barker's injuries. For example, this YouTube video -- endorsed by Radley Balko -- fails to mention the word concussion, and it bends over backwards to minimize Barker's injuries. It's true, by the way, that Barker attended a "ring ceremony" at his high school the night after the beating, but I don't think it is fair to characterize it as a mere social event, or to use that fact against him.

This USA Today report waxes eloquent about the grassroots movement to free the Jena 6, but it barely mentions the victim, Justin Barker, and it never uses the word "concussion." Radley Balko over at The Agitator -- whose work I have praised in the past -- has mentioned the Jena 6 case several times, but a search on his site for the name "Justin Barker" turns up -- nothing. To Balko and the other defenders of the Jena 6, the actual victim of the attack becomes invisible. Even worse, one blogger, Laura at "Pursuing Holiness," went so far as to list the more serious injuries that could have been inflicted:

Stomped on badly? Where are the broken ribs, bodywide contusions and abrasions, renal injuries? Stepped on face? Where’s the broken nose, loose and missing teeth?

What's Laura trying to say, that they should have stomped on him harder? They didn't bust his nose and cause renal injuries, so it's OK? In a later post, Laura went so far as to post a picture of the beaten Justin Barker and opine that his injuries weren't really that bad. I wonder how Laura would feel if somebody posted a picture of a female victim of domestic violence and said "he didn't beat her up so badly. What's the big deal?"

Words cannot express how despicable this is.

Which leads me to the most despicable part of all. SIX students -- Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Corwin Jones, Bryant Pervis, The Shaw, and an unnamed minor attacked ONE guy. Some of the Jena defenders want to characterize this as a fight -- Laura casually asserts that "Kids in school fight on a regular basis." Garden State Subversive calls the attack a "school yard fight."

It wasn't a fight -- it was a beating. A fight is when two relatively equally matched individuals square off, one-on-one. If Mychal Bell or any single one of his accomplices had fought Barker one-on-one it might still be a crime, but there are those who argue that manly fisticuffs should be tolerated. But a group attack on a single victim violates the code of manly combat. As does stomping on a guy when he's already down and semi-conscious.

Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Corwin Jones, Bryant Pervis, The Shaw, and that one unnamed minor are cowards. Six star football players attack one guy and kick him on the ground -- and nobody even mentions that it was a despicable, cowardly act? If you want to argue that they were overcharged, fine, make your argument. I disagree, but that's OK. But at least acknowledge that what they did was wrong, and wrong in a way that shows that there is something rotten to the core about those six. If I could talk to Mychal Bell's parents right now, I'd ask them if they are ashamed to have raised a son who has to fight his fights at six-to-one odds. Maybe if he's released he will beat up a dwarf for an encore. Maybe he can get a couple of his friends to back him up, in case the dwarf is particularly fit.

And let me add just this one final point. If we reverse the races, I very much doubt that people would be posting pictures of a black victim and callously proclaiming he didn't look that badly hurt. I doubt they'd be quibbling about whether shoes can be deadly weapons, when worn by high school football players. (Answer: of course they can.) I suspect that they would at least take note of the fact that the attack wasn't a fair fight, but was instead a six-on-one affair. I suspect that when the attempted murder charge was reduced, there would have been howls of outrage -- not because the remaining charges would be too severe, but because I think that the defenders of the Jena 6 would be more than willing to see six white football players stomping on a lone black victim as attempted murder.

Or, better yet, attempted lynching.

[Update: More thoughts here and here.]

The Jena Six -- Background Facts

This is the second part of a three part series on the Jena 6 case. Part I can be found here. Part III should be up in short order, and when it is I will provide the link. [Update: Part III here.]

The Jena 6 case is about six high school students in Jena Louisiana all of whom have been charged, in connection with an attack on a fellow student named Justin Barker. One of the six, sixteen-year-old Mychal Bell, the only one to go to trial thus far, has been convicted, and he faces serious prison time. The other five still await trial.

In this post, I'm going to review the background events leading up to the attack on Justin Barker. I do so because everybody is talking about this stuff, and such knowledge may be necessary to understand some elements of the case. However, let me be clear that I think all of the background stuff is utterly and completely irrelevant to the question of whether the Jena 6 are being treated unjustly.

Even if it is true that Jena is a horrible, racist town, and that all sorts of bad things happen, this doesn't give them license to stomp their fellow students into the ground. Unless they can show self-defense or the like, the preceding events just don't matter. What matters is what they did on that December day.

But it is important, I guess, to understand the context. Factual background can be found in this Washington Post article, or in the Wikipedia entry. At Jena High School, in Jena Louisiana, there is a shade tree which white students would sit under when they were outside. Black students sat elsewhere. This was not a school-mandated rule, but appeared to be an ingrained custom.

A black student asked permission of a school administrator to sit under that tree. It's not clear to me whether in fact any black students actually sat under the tree, but what is clear is that, shortly thereafter, three nooses were hung from the tree. When it turned out that some white students had placed the nooses in the tree, the school's principal recommended expulsion, but his decision was overturned, and the sentence was reduced to a three-day in-school suspension.

This resulted in a great deal of consternation among the black residents of Jena, who thought the punishment was too leniant. A number of ugly incidents followed. In school, there were fights and verbal conflicts among white and black students. The school was set ablaze, and ultimately had to be gutted and rebuilt. Both blacks and whites blame members of the other group for the arson.

One precipitating incident involved five black students, including one named Robert Bailey. They attempted to enter a private party which included white students, and a fight resulted. As a result of that fight, a white man named Justin Sloan was charged with simple battery. Bailey alleged that Sloan broke a bottle over his head, but there is no indication that he sought medical treatment.

Shortly after the party, there was an incident at a local convenience store. The facts are in some dispute, but one of the whites who had attended that party ran into Bailey and some of his friends. There was an altercation of some sort, during the course of which the white student pulled a shotgun from his truck. Bailey and his friends wrestled it away from him and refused to return when asked to do so.

Following this incident, the white studend who pulled the shotgun was not charged, but Bailey was charged with theft of a firearm, robbery, and disturbing the peace.

The assault on Justin Barker, the event that resulted in the Jena 6 prosecution, occured shortly thereafter. The Wikipedia article describes the assault thusly:

The following Monday, December 4, a white student named Justin Barker, aged 17, loudly discussed - "bragged," as characterized by National Public Radio - how Bailey had been beaten up by a white man that Friday night. When Barker walked out of the school gymnasium into the courtyard later that day, he was assaulted by Bailey and five other black students, and was temporarily knocked unconscious. The concussion he suffered has been described in the media as resulting either from a punch to the face or from hitting his head on concrete when thrown to the ground. While on the ground, Barker was kicked repeatedly. Barker was examined by a doctor at the local hospital. After two hours of treatment and observation for his concussion and an eye that had swollen shut, Barker was discharged in time to go to the school Ring Ceremony that evening.In the meantime the six black students, eventually dubbed the "Jena Six", were arrested.

The six students, including Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, and an unidentified juvenile, were originally charged with aggravated assault, but that was later riased to attempted to attempted second-degree murder. Mychall Bell, who has been convicted of four prior juvenile offenses, was the first to face trial. At his trial, the charges were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery, and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery, and he was convicted on both counts. The judge recently tossed the conspiracy count, meaning he will face a potential sentence of fifteen years in prison.

So what do I think about all this? Well, I think that the kids who put up the nooses should have been given a punishment more serious than a three-day in-school suspension. I think that the kid who pulled a shotgun should probably have been charged with a crime, and that the people who kept it probably shouldn't have (unless we learn more facts -- that he pulled it in self-defense, for example). And I think that the adults in Jena -- of all races -- have, by the look of things, behaved like children.

But like I said at the beginning, I don't think any of that stuff matters to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is whether we all ought to get up in arms about the punishment these six defendants face. I'll talk about that in part three.

The Jena 6 -- Maybe We Should Show Some Skepticism Here

This is the first of a planned three part series on the so-called Jena 6 case. Part II can be found here. Part III should be up in short order. [UPDATE: Part III here.]

It's now the conventional wisdom -- pretty much conceded -- that the media elites messed up the Duke Lacrosse case, and how. Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, both of whom have done great work on this case, have an Op-Ed in Today's Washington Post which gives a concise -- and damning -- recapitulation. Their summary dovetails with an article last month by John Leo (via Instapundit). In his article, Leo discusses a number of well-publicized media and academic messups: the Duke Lacrosse case, the New Republic Scott Thomas Beuachamp affair, the coverage of Cindy Sheehan, Rigoberto Menchu' s largely fictional memoir, which helped her pick up a Nobel Prize.

Often, when the facts contradict the media narrative, we get some variation of "fake, but accurate." Leo Quotes Even Thomas of Newsweek as saying "The narrative was right but the facts were wrong." Nor is this the only time we've heard that particular line. As Leo notes, "After the Tawana Brawley hoax was exposed, the Nation magazine ran an article saying that 'in cultural perspective, if not in fact, it doesn't matter whether the crime occurred or not,' since the pattern of whites abusing blacks is true."

In every "big media screwup" case that I can recall, the media found a compelling story that it wanted to believe. The story was so good that nobody bothered to be skeptical about the actual facts. Or at least they didn't bother until pretty late in the game. An earlier example would be the McMartin preschool case, now pretty widely conceded to be an example of sexual abuse hysteria. The whole idea that children were being sexually abused in Satanic rituals was pretty farfetched to start with, but nobody thought of that until quite a few lives were ruined.

So why didn't the media show more skepticism, sooner? I don't think anybody knows, but I suspect that part of it was that really heinous allegations often short-circuit critical judgment. Another part was that they didn't want to be seen as attacking children. There was probably some amount of -- obviously misplaced -- faith in the mental health professionals who pushed such allegations. But I suspect that a big part was that it was just a good story, too good to check.

In the Duke Lacrosse case and the Brawley case, you have a situation in which media and academic elites want desperately to believe a certain thing. They wanted to believe a tale of privileged whites victimizing a black woman because it plays into their liberal presuppositions about how the world works. And inconvenient questions didn't get asked -- at least not initially -- because the story was so appealing.

So what general lessons can be gleaned from Rathergate, the Duke Lacrosse case, the Tawana Brawley case, and the sexual abuse cases of the eighties? Let me suggest that it's not a bad idea to show some healthy skepticism, to ask the hard questions, and to withhold judgment until all the facts are in. This is particularly true when, as in the Duke Lacrosse case, the media narrative conforms closely to the way liberal elites are wont to view the world.

And that leads me to the whole "Jena 6" matter.

I first discovered the whole issue on Radley Balko's blog, where he has mentioned the case a few times. It has started to really get a fair amount of attention -- it's been covered in the Washington Post and now by CNN, and a Google Search for "Jena 6" yields over three million hits, and it goes without saying that they have a Wikipedia Entry. And, so far at least, the views expressed are pretty unanimous -- Radley Balko referred to the case as an example of "racial ugliness;" Jonah Golddberg opined that it sounded like they'd gotten a "raw deal;" other blogs have discussed the case. One blogger characterizes the situation as being "clearly unjust," and most people seem to agree with that sentiment. There's an online petition if you want to sign up!

Now, I'm not ready to say that this is another Duke Lacrosse case, but I do think a bit of skepticism is in order. "Poor innocent black kids railroaded by racist whites" is a position that happens to dovetail quite neatly with the natural inclinations of blogospheric and media elites. So maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to show a bit of skepticism here, particularly given the apparent unanimity of opinion.

"Receipt, Please" at Circuit City

Radley Balko links to this first-person account of a fellow named Michael Amor Righi, who was arrested at Circuit City. By all means read his account for yourself, but the short version is that he went to Circuit City, picked up a few items, paid for them, and left the store. The fellow at the door asked to see his receipt. Instead of complying, he said "no, thank you" and left the store. He was pursued outside the store, had a verbal confrontation with the manager, who blocked him from exiting. Righi ended up calling the cops (because the manager was blocking his exit) and the cop arrested him after he refused to a) show the receipt, and b) show his identification. He was charged with the nebulous charge of "Obstructing Official Business," which really doesn't seem to fit the facts. At least if you believe his account, he didn't do anything to, well, obstruct the police officer, other than refuse to submit to search or hand over his identification.

His account is detailed, and I have to say I vacillated between thinking he was a jerk and admiring his spunk. But he leaves out one key fact: did the Circuit City have a sign, prominently displayed in the front, which indicated that bags were subject to search? If so, then he agreed to enter private property under certain terms, and he should be bound by those terms. I think that Balko gets it exactly right:

If stores like Circuit City make clear that when you step onto their property, you agree to have your bags searched when you leave, then those are the conditions you agree to when you enter. Don't like it? Then shop elsewhere.

Precisely.

Now, I do happen to agree with Righi when he suggests that meek compliance with such demands is not exactly a good sign:

I am interested in living my life on strong principles and standing up for my rights as a consumer, a U.S. citizen and a human being. Allowing stores to inspect our bags at will might seem like a trivial matter, but it creates an atmosphere of obedience which is a dangerous thing.

Absolutely. Likewise the degrading and largely pointless rituals at aiport security and other places. But instead of welching on the deal he made with Circuit City when he entered this store, Righi has an alternative way to protest their policy: he can refuse to shop there. And with this internet thing, he can even organize he fellow search-objectors to refrain from shopping at stores like Circuit City and Best Buy en masse.

Nor is it likely that these stores implement such policies because they want to condition us to life ground beneath the heel of our corporate overlords. Rather, I'm guessing they pay somebody to sit outside the door and ask for receipts because such stores are prime targets for shoplifters. And I am guessing that they have a policy of asking everybody because their lawyers have told them that a more focused approach, where they ask some people but not others, will leave them open to discrimination claims by those who do get asked to their receipts.

I do think it was reasonable for the cop to ask to see his receipt, but once it became clear that the goods were not stolen, I don't see why it was necssary to take him into custody.

More on "Senator Widestance"

Clayton Cramer -- who was kind enough to leave a comment -- links to this Idaho Statesman article regarding Senator Craig's past sexual activities. I think that Clayton may overstate quite how damning it really is, but it does undermine my own tentative theory that innocence was at least a possibility. It seems fairly clear that rumors have swirled around him for some time. If you buy the if-there-is-smoke-there-is-fire theory, it is at least suggestive. And there is at least one plausible, though anonymous report of somebody who claim to have had a sexual liason with him in the bathroom at Union Station, near the Capital. Ick! Cramer also linked to (see update four) this report claiming that this particular bathroom is a well known place of assignation for people seeking anonymous gay sex.

Fine, he's probably guilty. But that wasn't the main point of my prior post. Just to be succinct: my main point was that, if you assume the Roll Call summary of the police report was reasonably complete and accurate, I have a problem with basing an arrest for a sex crime on what's in there, standing alone. I am not going to argue that he's innocent, and I don't actually care that much. I just think there's a larger and more important issue that people are missing, because it's so much fun to stomp on a Senator.

Remind Me To Sit Very Still In Public Bathrooms

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Hey Pope! Pay Up!

Guest-blogging over at Sully's, Stephen Bainbridge links to this Right Coast post, fretting about the sexual-abuse litigation against the San Diego Archdiocese for its role in sheltering pedophile priests. It seems that the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy, and the federal bankruptcy court is now considering throwing them out of court, because -- surprise, surprise -- the archdiocese misrepresented its financial status to the court. Professor Tom Smith over at the Right Coast thinks that the judge in this case might be biased against the Catholic Church, because she's pro-abortion. Which might well be true, though he fails to provide any evidence that her rulings have been improper.

But Professor Smith's concern goes beyond that. He is worried that the case will prevent the Catholic Church from doing things like providing semi-decent schools for kids in San Diego:

Don't get me wrong; if anybody, priest or otherwise, rapes a child, I think life in prison is too good for such a miscreant. My late father, a judge in Idaho, sent a Catholic priest to the Idaho State Penitentiary for child molestation, from which he was lucky to emerge alive. But if you were a sexual abuse victim, would you really say, I should get $1 million (and my lawyer a third to a half of that) even if it means closing down the school at Our Lady of the Poor and dropping those three hundred kids into schools where they wont learn to read? I'm not sure what the word for that would be, some sort of reckoning perhaps, but justice it ain't.

The way Professor Smith puts it, there is a choice: either give money to the victims of the pedophile priests or shut down genuinely good things like the Catholic schools, which, unlike government schools, do a pretty good job of educating kids.

But this is a false dichotomy. Sure, it's true that each archdiocese is legally organized as a separate entity, but they are all a part of this great big thing we think of as The Catholic Church. Now, I realize that the current Pope is more interested in covering up allegations of sexual impropriety than in taking responsibility for his church's complicity in it, but, how is this for an idea: the Catholic Church could come up with the money to keep the schools going AND pay compensation to the victims of pedophile priests.

If it doesn't have the cash on hand, well, the Church could put a few of its rare manuscripts, tapestries, or paintings up for auction. According to this Wikipedia article, the Vatican Library has been collecting rare manuscripts for centuries, and the collection now includes the Codex Vaticanus, the oldest nearly-complete copy of the Bible known to exist. Likewise, the Vatican Museums -- plural -- appear to have a pretty extensive collection of valuable art, including what appear to be some very lovely tapestries.

I'm pretty sure raising $150 million would be a snap for the Catholic Church. Granted, the rules of how corporations are organized don't require the Catholic Church in Rome to take responsibility for the actions of an archdiocese in America. Legally, they are separate entities. And the Catholic Church has the legal right to take advantage of whatever rules are in place for organzing corporations.

But shouldn't we, maybe, hold the Catholic Church to a higher standard?

Apparently, the answer to that is no.

Google v. Microsoft

James Fallows links to this New York Times story about a brewing battle between Microsoft and Google regarding desktop search capabilities. Apparently Windows Vista comes with a feature that allows one to search one's hard drive. (I don't know -- I have a laptop with XP on it, and a Mac, which has its own desktop search capability with which I am more than satisfied.) Google has a competing product, available as a free download.

Microsoft doesn't keep Google's competing feature from working, but, at least according to the report, it slows down the OS, particularly if you run both. I'm not sure why people are complaining about that -- after all, slowing down the computer seems to be the purpose of many Microsoft "features." I don't claim any particular expertise in this are, although I must say that the idea tht the federal and state governments ought to monitor how a company designs its products and demand changes at the behest of competitors strikes me as odious. If Microsoft adds a feature that people don't like, they should buy a Mac, or switch to Linux.

But that's not what struck me the most. What struck me is that Google seems to have set a land speed record in going from "young upstart" to "entrenched competitor going to the government for favors." In the short term, Google may well benefit from this, but in the long term it's not a sign of corporate health, and it's not a great habit to get into.

More Monica -- Did I Hear The Right?

Did I hear this right? One of the U.S. Attorneys got complaints because he made his assistants go to a cabin in the woods with some sort of consultant and be analyzed. At least he didn't make them squeal like a pig.

I know that management consultants do weird stuff, but Jeesh.

UPDATE: Monica was just asked if Attorney General Gonzoles put his loyalty to the President above his loyalty to the rule of law. She said he was a good man, and that he tried -- but she couldn't answer because she wasn't sure about her own opinion on the matter.

Ouch.

Now she's talking about "inaccuracies" in Gonzales' testimony.

It says something that Monica Goodling -- who looks like a teenager -- is a better witness that the sitting Attorney General.

UPDATE 2: Gonzolas tried to get her to discuss their mutual recollections of what happened. She tries to spin it, but it sounds as if he was trying to get her to get their story straight.

UPDATE 3: Keith Ellison is sure a bully.

"We Have a Lot More From Harvard and Yale."

One of the more annoying things about this whole "scandal" is some of the simmering school snobbery. When asked about the number of people from Regents who wound up working for the Department of Justice, Monica said "we have a lot more from Harvard and Yale."

Go, Monica!