Month: June 2004

Hooray for this bit of moral equivalence:

ABC News reports investigators have tied the man to a terrorist cell set to carry out a series of bombings and assassinations in London.

The man, a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, was secretly taken into custody in April.

He is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan and is said to be cooperating offering investigators significant information about Al Qaeda’s plans.

He is being held as a material witness and his family is now under federal protection.

The man has told investigators that Al Qaeda is planning more attacks in the United States. He has also revealed a scheme to smuggle terrorists across the Mexican border.

The suspect’s assertions were part of the intelligence that led to recent warnings about a summer threat from Al Qaeda.

Another man being held today is kidnapped American Paul Johnson.

Got that? A material witness in the custody of the United States is the same as Paul Johnson.

Rage, rage against the dying of the schnucking moral insight that would tell ABC News or its affiliate’s writers that these things are not the same, and Paul Johnson is not another man being held in the same way as a material witness.

Link seen on Hugh Hewitt, who doesn’t comment on this blatant idiocy.)

• Frank W. Abagnale identifies 10 ways to stop identity theft cold. Slow down, Iceman. It won’t make you a superhero capable of stopping any or all identity theft in the world, but it will remind you ways to make it harder for the badmen to get your identity. Best line:
  

  Only amateurs hack into computers; pros hack into people.

  For you damn kids out there, Frank Abagnale is the guy depicted in Catch Me If You Can. He makes Mitnick look like a script kiddie in meatspace.

• Challenged by a department store honcho, this guy goes into a store and walks out with $3500 in computers without paying.

  (Link seen on IMAO.)

Be careful out there, my students, and remember to trust no one, especially your shidoshi of paranoia.

For Brian J. Noggle agrees with Eugene Kane of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, who saith:

That’s my concern as well. With dozens – or hundreds – of young black people driving at the same time, it’s hard to pick and choose who’s breaking the law and who isn’t.

I don’t have any solutions to stop cruising, but there are plenty of answers for what to do about young people vandalizing homes, assaulting gas station employees and stealing merchandise.

Arrest them and charge them accordingly. Because that kind of behavior is a crime; it’s not cruising.

Even though we all want to get more sleep and less nuisance, it’s important to remember there’s a difference.

Cracking down on cruising, or conspiracy, or obstruction, or possession, or regulatory “crimes”, or the various other strict liability offenses that divorce mens rea from actus reus in our criminal system.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say now because advocating changing this particular law is not yet a crime–although the concept is not inconceivable.

In her defense, the former commanding officer at Abu Ghraib says:

In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio broadcast Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski said Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller told her last autumn that prisoners “are like dogs, and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you’ve lost control of them.”

Sounds like the general needs some intuition into the meaning of simile and its relationship to reality.

In the trial yesterday, officers presented testimony to how they knew Scott Peterson was the one. According to ABCNews.com, the evidence is pretty conclusive:

Officer Derrick Letsinger said Monday that he didn’t smell bleach and didn’t notice any signs of a recent cleaning, he did say that he became skeptical after seeing a crumpled rug, dirty towels on the washing machine and a wet mop behind an otherwise “model home.”

1. Dirty laundry on washing machine, other cleaning utensils near washing machine in a “model home.” That’s pretty damning stuff. But it gets worse:

Another officer, Matthew Spurlock, said there was something else that seemed suspicious: Peterson’s alibi. Peterson told him he had been fishing alone on the bay the day his wife died, but could not say what he was trying to catch.

2. He didn’t have a particular fish in mind when he went fishing. Everyone knows that an angler goes fishing for a specific type of fish each and every time he goes out. Anyone who says he’s just going to catch what’s biting is lying, and a potential murderer. Finally:

During his testimony, Letsinger said Peterson “threw his flashlight down on the ground,” before mumbling a curse word. Spurlock testified he heard what appeared to be an expletive and that “it came through what sounded like gritted teeth.”

3. Throwing a flashlight, cursing through gritted teeth.

Each tidbit is irrefutable, and when combined into a compelling narrative, we can see that Scott Peterson is guilty. Who needs evidence? Let’s burn him!

I thought I had mocked this story already, but I have not. What’s to mock? What’s not to mock about it? A fetus is an American citizen simply for gestating in this country:

A U.S. District judge in Missouri has blocked temporarily the deportation of a pregnant Mexican woman who is married to a U.S. citizen, calling the fetus an “American” and citing a federal law created to protect unborn children after the high-profile death of Laci Peterson.

Senior U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright ordered that Myrna Dick, 29, of Raymore, Mo., who is accused of falsely claiming American citizenship, be allowed to remain in the United States for now and told prosecutors and the defense to prepare for a possible trial.

“Isn’t that child an American citizen?” he asked, according to the Kansas City Star. “If this child is an American citizen, we can’t send his mother back until he is born.”

Which might lead on to speculate…how long until states issue driver’s licenses to in-utero-Americans, that persecuted minority, and how soon can they be enfranchised to vote in California?

Truly, he has a dizzying intellect. Michael Moore’s complaining about a possible R rating for his latest mockumentary. You know, no one under 17 admitted without a guardian.

Moore said: “It is sadly very possible that many 15- and 16-year-olds will be asked and recruited to serve in Iraq in the next couple of years.

“If they are old enough to be recruited and capable of being in combat and risking their lives, they certainly deserve the right to see what is going on in Iraq.”

Dear Michael: Here in the United States, people cannot go into combat at fifteen or sixteen. Thank you, that is all.

International Red Cross bleats:

Unless the United States charges Saddam Hussein or releases him from custody by June 30 the nation will be in violation of the Geneva Convention, the Red Cross charged yesterday.

Memo to American Red Cross: distance yourselves immediately or face backlash. I recommend adopting the name American Magen David Adam.