Category: News

A story about a biofeedback video game as part of therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder:

Once a week, Pfc. Joshua Frey, a Marine who spent several months in Fallujah before he was shot Dec. 12, heads to a darkened office in the Naval Medical Center here and places a headset over his eyes.

He attaches biofeedback sensors to his arms, hands and chest, grabs hold of a joystick and enters a video game version of the Iraq war. As he moves through a “virtual” Fallujah, he encounters sniper fire, explosions and insurgents lurking in shadows. A Navy psychologist checks readouts from a flat-screen monitor showing the Marine’s heart rate, breathing, hand perspiration and skin temperature.

But for Frey and the U.S. military, this is no game. It is part of a potentially groundbreaking approach to treating the effects of severe combat stress, in Iraq and elsewhere.

A game with explosions and gun fire that’s designed to make people saner? Surely, Illinois Governor “Bod” Blagojevich’s head must be spinning, pending a catastrophic failure akin to supercomputers whose logic circuits Captain Kirk fried routinely through paradox.

Sure, some periodicals put headlines on press releases and run them as news. But the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel goes further and innovatively turns to its classified ads as a news source:

From a pale pink velvet fringed chaise to wrought iron patio furniture, the earthly belongings of Milwaukee restaurateur Sally Papia and her daughter will be sold piece-by-piece this week in an estate sale described in a classified advertisement as of one of the area’s finest in 33 years.

I wonder how much that cost, but I am cynical.

Not a refutation:

Dick Cheney says:

“I’ve never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I’ve never met anybody who does. He’s never won anything, as best I can tell,” Cheney said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”

Howard Dean responds:

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, responding to criticism from the vice president, said he doesn’t “care if Dick Cheney likes my mother or not.”

Um, the only aspersion Dick Cheney cast against Mrs. Dean was that she might have loved Howard Dean. That’s hardly an insult against Mrs. Dean, no matter how the press or Howard Dean want to portray it.

The Summer of the Pit Bull continues in San Francisco:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom endorsed a series of measures Monday he hopes will reduce the likelihood of attacks by aggressive and dangerous dogs in the city, including spaying and neutering regulations, a ban on backyard breeding, and imposing fines on irresponsible canine owners.

The city can enact some new policies right away; others that regulate specific breeds, however, would require a change in state law first.

The primary target of the city’s crackdown will be pit bulls and pit bull mixes, which are responsible for at least half the vicious dog cases handled by city authorities. City officials don’t want to ban pit bulls but are seeking to regulate them.

Headline: Senate again refuses to confirm Bolton.

According to the crack mathematical theorists at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the 38 Senators who voted against cloiture–the end of the debate, and not actually for or against Bolton’s appointment–is enough to cast the action as though the entire Senate had refused to confirm Bolton.

To express this algebraically:

Compare and contrast this to any action of conservative legislators or leaders, whose mere majority election or decision does not give a mandate for conservatives to speak for all members of a given group.

Update: Apparently, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune has the same mathematicians: Bolton nomination again blocked by Senate

Headline, San Francisco Chronicle: Dems Vote Down Bolton:

Well, except the Democrats just voted to keep Bolton for coming to a vote because the Republicans would have confirmed him.

But that’s just nuance.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

From the story “Supporters of increasing tax on cigarettes quietly push on“, we get this insightful statistical analysis from the Associated Press:

The “why” goes something like this: Missouri has the third-highest smoking rate in the nation, spends the third-lowest amount on anti-tobacco efforts and charges the third-lowest cigarette tax.

The correlation is no coincidence.

No wonder polisybodies like statistics. Unlike real science, statistics are just like language–they can say whatever you want, and you can deconstruct the meaning of the numbers-as-text to imbue them with whatever liberation (of citizens’ money-as-tax) theory you espouse.

Deer attacks reported at SIU Carbondale:

A deer also attacked a person Monday, and two of three people injured by a doe June 7 required hospital care, Sigler said.

Ouch.

Just so you are keeping up with the story, which might have gotten lost in the Michael Jackson Trial of the Season thing, this is the Year of the Pit Bull again.

• Another pit bull attacks; breed crowds city pound (Springfield, Missouri)
• St. John will study pit bull regulations (St. John, Missouri)
• Chief says officer’s arrest was more bark than bite (Northwoods, Missouri)

(The earlier chapters in the saga: Denver Pit Bull Genocide, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Wants Pit Bullocide, No Dog Bites Man, But Post-Dispatch Covers It Anyway.)

Apparently, a EU leadercrat regrets that some people were exposed to the entire EU constitution before the votes (story):

It was a crucial mistake to send out the entire constitution to every French voter, the architect of the EU’s first constitution Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has said in an interview.

In an interview with the New York Times, his first since the French rejection of the constitution two weeks ago, the former French president apportions most of the blame to president Jacques Chirac for failure in the referendum campaign.

One crucial mistake was to send out the entire three-part, 448-article document to every French voter, said Mr Giscard.

Over the phone he had warned Mr Chirac already in March: “I said, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it'”.

“It is not possible for anyone to understand the full text”.

Mr Giscard d’Estaing also puts the blame on the present generation of political leaders.

Neither Mr Chirac nor other European leaders had a strategy for ratifying the constitution, he said.

“The present generation of leaders, whatever their strengths, never put Europe at the top of their agenda”.

Damn this pretense of allowing the peasants to have a voice in their dominion!

Blogging at GlennReynolds.com, Ann Althouse expresses belief in the system:

I didn’t watch much of the news analysis that evening. I switched off Nancy Grace not long after she declared, “Not guilty by reason of celebrity!” The one aspect of the post-verdict coverage that interested me was the jurors’ press conference. The fact is that they were there through all of the months of testimony, and we weren’t. They listened to the witnesses and studied their demeanor.

And in the end they found reasonable doubt. Watching the jurors, I felt deep respect for the good sense and competence of ordinary people faced with a solemn task. I feel no inclination to say I think they were wrong.

I agree with her. The jurors heard more information than any of us did, unfiltered by the media (blogs, networks, or papers). I have faith in them.

The wheels are in motion to make it happen.

Proposing an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the
Constitution. (Introduced in House)

HJ 24 IH

109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. J. RES. 24

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution .

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 17, 2005

Mr. HOYER (for himself, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. SENSENBRENNER, Mr. SABO, and
Mr. PALLONE) introduced the following joint resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

---

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.

Resolved by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled
(two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution

when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several
States within seven years after the date of its submission for
ratification:

`Article —

`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed.’.

Search for it yourself at http://thomas.loc.gov/.

(Submitted to the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

From a story about the drunken, registered sex offender ice cream man:

The offending driver had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, according to a New Berlin police report.

Previously, it was only 2.4 times the legal limit back in the “old days” when the legal limit was .10 BAC. Now that the legal limit is .08 BAC (so that the state of Wisconsin doesn’t lose Federal highway funds, donchaknow?), the same BAC is now 3 times the limit.

As soon as legislators pass their next compromise with MADD and lower it to .06, the same BAC will be 4 times the limit.

So the legal limit multiplier reflects more on the current state of legislation than the actual state of drunkeness.

Union wants false claims against cops prosecuted:

If Nashville’s police union has its way, anyone who makes a formal complaint against a Metro police officer could face felony criminal charges if the department’s internal investigators clear the officer of wrongdoing.

Nashville Fraternal Order of Police President Ed Mason asked for the enforcement in a March 15 e-mail to Police Chief Ronal Serpas, who has told the FOP that he has concerns about the request.

“The (Fraternal Order of Police) would like the department to present cases to the (District Attorney’s) Office when a serious allegation has been made and the case has been cleared,” Mason’s e-mail reads.

The union’s request is based on two situations in which Metro officers were targets of “blatant lies” during the police formal complaint process, Mason said.

However, when asked about the two cases, Mason said he and other FOP officials could not recall the officers’ names or the situations.

Based on cases they cannot remember, these union leaders want to penalize honest grievances that have no criminal merit.

Thankfully, the chief of police isn’t eager for a power-grab:

Serpas has raised concerns about the idea. “Charging every complainant whose complaint was not sustained has been viewed by some courts as an unconstitutional effort to intimidate citizens and keep them from making legitimate complaints,” reads a reply from Serpas to Mason, whose union represents most of Nashville’s 1,200-plus police officers.

Serpas’ written reply, obtained by The Tennessean, also states that he believes the formal complaints made by residents are often based on a misunderstanding of police procedures and policies and that “charging complainants should be considered in only the most extreme cases.”

Just because an internal police investigation clears an officer of wrongdoing, it doesn’t mean the situation stated in a complaint did not occur, Serpas said.

(Link seen on Ravenwood’s Universe.)

Some worker’s right activists don’t want you to understand at-will employment. Instead, concentrate on the right you have to an employer’s continued indulgence with a paycheck: Off-duty behavior can affect job:

Some companies are cracking down on employees’ off-duty behavior, raising questions about how far employers should go in policing what workers do on their own time.

Employees are being disciplined or fired for such behaviors as drinking on their own time, using competitors’ products and displaying political bumper stickers. No one tracks the number of such cases, but some workers rights’ groups are concerned that the practice is on the upswing.

“The shock is that there’s no legal protection,” says Lewis Maltby, of The National Workrights Institute, a non-profit based in Princeton, N.J., that focuses on employee rights. “You can get fired just for having a bumper sticker the boss doesn’t like.”

Yes, that is how it works. Kind of like the worker can leave the job at any time with two week’s notice if they’re polite or right now if their employer does something the worker doesn’t like or if the worker doesn’t like the work, if the worker has something better to do, or if the worker gets a better job.

No, workers’ rights advocates want one-way indentured servitude: they want employers on the hook for perpetual employment.

Last week’s story about the state of Missouri regulating personal watercraft use by minors drew this supportive letter from a trade group:

We cannot point blame at personal watercraft for causing accidents when operator-controlled factors such as inattention and inexperience are cited as the leading contributors (“Zippy craft, young riders are making waves,” June 4). Irresponsible boaters cause accidents. Because most accidents are preventable, steps must be taken by boaters themselves to improve safety.

People who take a boating safety education course are less likely to be involved in an accident. Rental-business owners should more thoroughly explain the rules to customers, so that they know how and where to ride, in addition to not jumping a boat’s wake or riding to close to another personal watercraft.

We applaud Missouri for its new boater education law that requires all boaters born after Jan. 1, 1984, to pass a safety course. But older boaters should take a class, too. Personal watercraft manufacturers support laws that require all PWC operators, regardless of age or previous experience, to take a course. We also support a minimum age requirement of 16 years to operate a personal watercraft and 18 years to rent one.

To prevent an enjoyable boating day from becoming an unfortunate tragedy, we all must take steps to assure that safety and responsibility come first.

Maureen Healey
Executive Director
Personal Watercraft
Industry Association
Washington D.C.

Instead of lobbying for regulation, perhaps Ms. Healey could have told her association’s members and customers to just not rent to minors. However, it’s cheaper for the members if the state handles all the expense of the entrepreneurs’ costs of business. After all, it’s working wonders for the airline industry.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)