US Supreme Court Justice Stevens: Just Stop It.

Click if you have a strong stomach.

I am putting my left hand on my holy book (Euclid's "The Elements"), raising my right hand, and testifying truthfully:

I am not a lawyer.

I'm not even particularly fascinated or mesmerized by The Law. I don't want to make it my hobby. The most enthusiastic thing I can say about it is: You wouldn't want to live anywhere that doesn't have Laws and some reasonably fair way to administer them. Zimbabwe, for example, is one of those places that Just Makes Things Up As They Go Along, and black, white, or plaid, you wouldn't want to live under that way of doing things.

But sometimes The Law just demands your attention.

For example, in the United States, where, I am very sad to report, our federal and most of our state governments put human beings to death -- legally and lawfully. And permanently.

Still, why should that concern you? You've never done anything to merit being executed, right?

Doesn't matter. As if state execution weren't bad enough, in the USA it's always been haunted by the specter of executing innocent people. In lots of cases, we've learned later, beyond any doubt, that we executed the wrong person.

If a person gets sentenced to Life Imprisonment, there's a tiny chance that while he's waiting to die of Old Age, his wrongful conviction will be discovered, and he can be freed, and even pitifully compensated with a little money for wrongful imprisonment. Actually happens quite often.

But once you're dead, whether you were innocent or guilty ceases to matter.

Some states have a habit of executing retarded people, some are fond of executing totally insane people, and the statistics of white juries and judges executing blacks, particularly if the victim was white (compared to white murderers of black victims) are particularly disgusting.

States appoint defense lawyers for poor defendants, but many states have a slimy history of appointing the most incompetent and inexperienced defense attorneys for defendants in death penalty cases.

In one famous Texas case -- guilty and eventually executed -- the defense lawyer literally slept through long periods of the trial.

This week the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Baze v. Rees, in which two Kentucky death row inmates argued that their impending execution by lethal injection violated the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Court voted, 7 to 2 (Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissenting) , that lethal injection -- or Kentucky's particularly version of it -- did not violate the "cruel and unusual" clause, and Kentucky may proceed with its executions.

One associate justice, however, delivered an unusual opinion. The oldest and longest-serving Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, sided with the majority to uphold the constitutionality of lethal injection.

But he also called for an end to capital punishment in the United States of America.

I call for an end to capital punishment a lot, and, to nobody's surprise, few listen and few care.

The American bishops of the Roman Catholic Church also loudly and stridently call for an end to capital punishment. They're a lot more prestigious and newsworthy than Vleeptron Dude -- but the USA still keeps executing men and women all over the place.

But as far as I know, this is the first time in history a serving justice on the U.S. Supreme Court has said: Just Stop It.

One reason I am proud of not being a lawyer is that Justice Stevens' opinion was hard to find, confusing to read (not his own words, but the way these crazy legal documents are put together and published), and nearly impossible to edit so that an ordinary, literate non-lawyer can make sense of it. Legal documents (they're full of Latin) are essentially in a Secret Code to insure that ordinary citizens need to hire lawyers to comprehend them.

But here it is, this is the best I could do, and I think it's a pretty accurate and clean way of presenting Justice Stevens' call for an end to the death penalty in the United States of America.

The legal mumbo-jumbo endlessly imbedded footnotes and citations that interrupt the easy reading flow of his opinion -- well, I've just tossed them down at the bottom. If you're excited by legal footnotes and citations, you can find them down below. Maybe you should think of applying to law school.

Incidentally, my state, Massachusetts, and most New England states, have no death penalty. New Jersey's legislature just ended capital punishment.

We just might be surfing a surprising historical wave that will lead to a USA whose courts, laws, juries and judges stop, forever, killing their fellow human beings in the legal name of American citizens.

ADDENDUM

Human Names, Human Faces

The U.S. Supreme Court practically ignores the actual criminal defendants and their criminal actions when it agrees to consider a case. They hear cases based solely on claims involving the U.S. Constitution.

But I've always felt that news consumers have a right to know the actual background of these cases, not simply the dry and rarified legal and constitutional issues. These are, after all, Human Beings sitting on Death Row, they used to have names, faces, identities, circumstances. If they are indeed guilty of the crimes they were convicted for, their victims were also Human Beings, not a paragraph of legal Latin mumbo-jumbo.

Wikipedia:

Ralph Baze is a convicted murderer who was sentenced to death but who in 2004, sued the Kentucky State Department of Corrections along with fellow inmate Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. on the grounds that execution by lethal injection under the "cocktail" prescribed by Kentucky law constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment to the United States constitution. Baze's court case is Baze v. Rees.

Baze had been scheduled for execution on 25 September 2007 but, on 12 September, was issued a stay of execution by the Kentucky Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal.

On April 16, 2008 the Court affirmed the Kentucky Supreme Court's decision that the injection protocol does not violate the Eighth Amendment.

Baze does not dispute that he shot and killed Powell County, Kentucky Sheriff Steve Bennett and Deputy Arthur Briscoe in 1992 as they attempted to serve an arrest warrant on him, but claims that the shootings were self-defense.

Baze is imprisoned in Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky.

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Thomas Bowling, born 1948, was convicted and sentenced to death for the April 9, 1990, murders of Tina and Eddie Earley. Bowling shot the Earleys dead after ramming their car outside their small dry-cleaning business in the city of Lexington, Kentucky. Bowling also shot the couple's two-year old son, but the child survived.

Thomas Bowling was arrested on April 11, in neighboring Tennessee. His car and a .357 calibre handgun were found hidden at his family's home in rural Kentucky. Bowling's attorneys are currently pursuing appeals and clemency on the grounds of potential innocence and mental retardation.

Appeal

Bowling's lawyers have also raised evidence that he is innocent. His lawyers claim the evidence against him is purely circumstantial and there are other suspects for the murder which he has been convicted for.

Bowling was assessed at the age of 12 - 13 to have an IQ of 74, which given the margin of error, places him within the range for mental retardation. In addition, he has a documented history of adaptive deficits, being described as a "follower" and easily manipulated. Throughout school, his parents had to lay his clothes out for him and ensure that he bathed and maintained personal hygiene.

Bowling also was a slow learner throughout school. He spent 3 years in the ninth grade. Despite working hard, Bowling even failed health class three years in a row.

Bowling's lawyers also argue that there was no physical evidence placing him at the scene of the crime; an eye-witness failed to identify him; ballistics experts admitted the weapon linked to him was one of millions that could have been used in the crime; and while the car used in the crime was his, there was no proof that he was driving it at the time. Further, the state did not establish a motive for Thomas Bowling to kill the Earley couple, whom he did not know and had never met.

The lawyers assert that a local family murdered the Ealey's. According to the petition and accompanying police reports, Eddie Earley told police about a local Lexington family's alleged drug activity, which resulted in an arrest. The family then had a motive for a shooting.

Bowling's lawyers argue that the family apparently used Bowling's vehicle in the murder. On the day of the murders, Bowling was intoxicated and states that he can not remember anything of that day.

Apparently, however, he was told by members of the above family later that afternoon to take his car out of town.

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APPENDIX 1

Here's the "cruel and unusual punishment" part of the United States Constitution. The first 10 amendments to the original Constitution are called "The Bill of Rights." The Bill of Rights has been the Law of the Land since 1791.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

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Wikipedia's bio of Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Note in particular his wartime work as a code-breaking Navy intelligence officer. The codes he helped break were in Japanese.

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John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He joined the Court in 1975 and is the oldest and longest serving incumbent member of the Court. He was appointed to the court by President Gerald R. Ford and is widely considered to be on the liberal side of the court. He is also the only current Associate Justice to have served under three Chief Justices.

Stevens was born on April 20, 1920, in Chicago, Illinois, to a wealthy family. [1] His paternal grandfather had formed an insurance company and held real estate in Chicago, while his great-uncle owned the Chas. A. Stevens department store. His father, Ernest James Stevens, was a lawyer who later became a hotelier, owning two hotels, the La Salle and the Stevens Hotel. He lost ownership of the hotels during the Great Depression and was convicted of embezzelment (the conviction was later overturned). [1] (The Stevens Hotel was subsequently bought by Hilton Hotels and is today the Chicago Hilton and Towers.) His mother, Elizabeth Maude Street Stevens, a native of Michigan City, Indiana, was a high school English teacher. Two of his three older brothers also became lawyers.

The family lived in Hyde Park, and John Paul Stevens attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School. He subsequently obtained an A.B. in English from the University of Chicago in 1941; while in college, Stevens also became a member of the Omega chapter of Psi Upsilon.

He began work on his master's degree in English at the university in 1941, but soon decided to join the United States Navy, serving as an intelligence officer in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945. Stevens was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plane in 1943. [1]

Stevens married Elizabeth Jane Sheeren in June 1942. Divorcing her in 1979, he married Maryan Mulholland Simon that December. He has four children: John Joseph (who died of cancer in 1996), Kathryn, Elizabeth and Susan.

With the end of World War II, Stevens returned to Illinois intending to return to his studies in English, but was persuaded by his brother Richard, who was a lawyer, to attend law school. Stevens enrolled in the Northwestern University School of Law in 1945 (the G.I. Bill mostly paying his way). He was a brilliant student, with the highest GPA [Grade Point Average] in the history of the law school. [1] He received his J.D. [Juris Doctor] in 1947.

* * *

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

BAZE ET AL. v. REES, COMMISSIONER,
KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, ET AL.

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment

[Associate Justice John Paul Stevens]

“[A] penalty may be cruel and unusual because it is excessive and serves no valid legislative purpose.” Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 331 (1972) (Marshall, J., concurring); see also id., at 332 (“The entire thrust of the Eighth Amendment is, in short, against ‘that which is excessive’”).

Our cases holding that certain sanctions are “excessive,” and therefore prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, have relied heavily on “objective criteria,” such as legislative enactments. See, e.g., Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 292 (1983); Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U. S. 957 (1991); United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U. S. 321 (1998).

In our recent decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304 (2002), holding that death is an excessive sanction for a mentally retarded defendant, we also relied heavily on opinions written by Justice White holding that the death penalty is an excessive punishment for the crime of raping a 16-year-old woman, Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977), and for a murderer who did not intend to kill, Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982).

In those opinions we acknowledged that “objective evidence, though of great importance, did not ‘wholly determine’ the controversy, ‘for the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.’ ” Atkins, 536 U. S., at 312 (quoting Coker, 433 U.S., at 597 (plurality opinion)).

Justice White was exercising his own judgment in 1972 when he provided the decisive vote in Furman, the case that led to a nationwide reexamination of the death penalty.

His conclusion that death amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment in the constitutional sense” as well as the “dictionary sense,” rested on both an uncontroversial legal premise and on a factual premise that he admittedly could not “prove” on the basis of objective criteria. 408 U. S., at 312, 313 (concurring opinion).

As a matter of law, he correctly stated that the “needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes ... would be patently excessive” and violative of the Eighth Amendment. Id., at 312.

As a matter of fact, he stated, “like my Brethren, I must arrive at judgment; and I can do no more than state a conclusion based on 10 years of almost daily exposure to the facts and circumstances of hundreds and hundreds of federal and state criminal cases involving crimes for which death is the authorized penalty.” Id., at 313.

I agree with Justice White that there are occasions when a Member of this Court has a duty to make judgments on the basis of data that falls short of absolute proof.

Our decisions in 1976 upholding the constitutionality of the death penalty relied heavily on our belief that adequate procedures were in place that would avoid the danger of discriminatory application identified by Justice Douglas’ opinion in Furman, id., at 240–257 (concurring opinion), of arbitrary application identified by Justice Stewart, id., at 306 (same), and of excessiveness identified by Justices Brennan and Marshall. In subsequent years a number of our decisions relied on the premise that “death is different” from every other form of punishment to justify rules minimizing the risk of error in capital cases. See, e.g., Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 357–358 (1977) (plurality opinion).

Ironically, however, more recent cases have endorsed procedures that provide less protections to capital defendants than to ordinary offenders.

Of special concern to me are rules that deprive the defendant of a trial by jurors representing a fair cross section of the community.

Litigation involving both challenges for cause and peremptory challenges has persuaded me that the process of obtaining a “death qualified jury” is really a procedure that has the purpose and effect of obtaining a jury that is biased in favor of conviction. The prosecutorial concern that death verdicts would rarely be returned by 12 randomly selected jurors should be viewed as objective evidence supporting the conclusion that the penalty is excessive. [18]

Another serious concern is that the risk of error in capital cases may be greater than in other cases because the facts are often so disturbing that the interest in making sure the crime does not go unpunished may overcome residual doubt concerning the identity of the offender. Our former emphasis on the importance of ensuring that decisions in death cases be adequately supported by reason rather than emotion, Gardner, 430 U. S. 349, has been undercut by more recent decisions placing a thumb on the prosecutor’s side of the scales.

Thus, in Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U.S. 163 (2006), the Court upheld a state statute that requires imposition of the death penalty when the jury finds that the aggravating and mitigating factors are in equipoise. And in Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991), the Court overruled earlier cases and held that “victim impact” evidence relating to the personal characteristics of the victim and the emotional impact of the crime on the victim’s family is admissible despite the fact that it sheds no light on the question of guilt or innocence or on the moral culpability of the defendant, and thus serves no purpose other than to encourage jurors to make life or death decisions on the basis of emotion rather than reason.

A third significant concern is the risk of discriminatory application of the death penalty. While that risk has been dramatically reduced, the Court has allowed it to continue to play an unacceptable role in capital cases. Thus, in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279 (1987), the Court upheld a death sentence despite the “strong probability that [the defendant’s] sentencing jury ... was influenced by the fact that [he was] black and his victim was white.” Id., at 366 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); see also Evans v. State, 396 Md. 256, 323, 914 A. 2d 25, 64 (2006), cert. denied, 552 U.S. (2007) (affirming a death sentence despite the existence of a study showing that “the death penalty is statistically more likely to be pursued against a black person who murders a white victim than against a defendant in any other racial combination”).

Finally, given the real risk of error in this class of cases, the irrevocable nature of the consequences is of decisive importance to me. Whether or not any innocent defendants have actually been executed, abundant evidence accumulated in recent years has resulted in the exoneration of an unacceptable number of defendants found guilty of capital offenses. See Garrett, Judging Innocence, 108 Colum. L. Rev. 55 (2008); Risinger, Innocents Convicted: An Empirically Justified Factual Wrongful Conviction Rate, 97 J. Crim. L. & C. 761 (2007).

The risk of executing innocent defendants can be entirely eliminated by treating any penalty more severe than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole as constitutionally excessive.

In sum, just as Justice White ultimately based his conclusion in Furman on his extensive exposure to countless cases for which death is the authorized penalty, I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty represents “the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.” Furman, 408 U. S., at 312 (White, J., concurring). [19]

The conclusion that I have reached with regard to the constitutionality of the death penalty itself makes my decision in this case particularly difficult. It does not, however, justify a refusal to respect precedents that remain a part of our law. This Court has held that the death penalty is constitutional, and has established a framework for evaluating the constitutionality of particular methods of execution. Under those precedents, whether as interpreted by THE CHIEF JUSTICE or JUSTICE GINSBURG, I am persuaded that the evidence adduced by petitioners fails to prove that Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment.

Accordingly, I join the Court’s judgment.

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IMBEDDED NOTES
CITATIONS
MUMBO-JUMBO IN LINGUA LATINA
SECRET CODE COMPREHENSIBLE ONLY TO LAWYERS:
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[18] See Uttecht v. Brown, 551 U. S. 1, ___ (2007) (slip op., at 1) (STEVENS, J., dissenting) explaining that “[m]illions of Americans oppose the death penalty,” and that “[a] cross section of virtually every community in the country includes citizens who firmly believe the death penalty is unjust but who nevertheless are qualified to serve as jurors in capital cases”).

============

[19] Not a single Justice in Furman concluded that the mention of deprivation of “life” in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments insulated the death penalty from constitutional challenge. The five Justices who concurred in the judgment necessarily rejected this argument, and even
the four dissenters, who explicitly acknowledged that the death penalty was not considered impermissibly cruel at the time of the framing, proceeded to evaluate whether anything had changed in the intervening 181 years that nevertheless rendered capital punishment

unconstitutional.

Furman, 408 U. S., at 380–384 (Burger, C.J., joined by Blackmun, Powell, and Rehnquist, JJ., dissenting); see also id., at 420 (“Nor are ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ and ‘due process of law’ static concepts whose meaning and scope were sealed at the time of their writing”) (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C.J., and Blackmun and Rehnquist, JJ., dissenting). And indeed, the guarantees of procedural fairness contained in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments do not resolve the substantive questions relating to the separate limitations imposed by the Eighth Amendment.

——————
courts, [and] that visits repeated trauma on victims’ families ....” Id., at 27–28; see also Block, A Slow Death, N. Y. Times, Mar. 15, 2007, p. A27 (discussing the “enormous costs and burdens to the judicial system” resulting from the death penalty).

Some argue that these costs are the consequence of judicial insistence on unnecessarily elaborate and lengthy appellate procedures. To the contrary, they result “in large part from the States’ failure to apply constitutionally sufficient procedures at the time of initial [conviction or] sentencing.” Knight v. Florida, 528 U. S. 990, 998 (1999) (BREYER, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). They may also result from a general reluctance by States to put large numbers of defendants to death, even after a sentence of death is imposed. Cf. Tempest, Death Row Often Means a Long Life; California condemns many murderers, but few are ever executed, L. A. Times, Mar. 6, 2006, p. B1 (noting that California death row inmates account for about 20% of the Nation’s total death row population, but that the State accounts for only 1% of the Nation’s executions). In any event, they are most certainly not the fault of judges who do nothing more than ensure compliance with constitutional guarantees prior to imposing the irrevocable punishment of death.

beware of impersonation

Sure, click.

Scrooge McDuck, Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, Scrooge's Money Bin in Duckburg, and the evil Beagle Boys who were always trying to steal Scrooge's money, were the creations of Disney artist Carl Barks.

As soon as I click [REPLY] and [SEND], I guess I'll have to build a Money Bin in my backyard.

===========

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Deputy Governor (CBN)
CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA(CBN
NOTE;THIS IS THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CODE CBN/2134ABZ) Remember to give this code any time you call me because of impersonation.

Abbey Wambach, US Soccer Olympian: She's going for the gold! (Everybody else can just fuck off.)

Click image, much easier to read.

This is the most impassioned speech I've ever heard in defense of knowing nothing, caring less, and being deaf to the world's cries for our help. I hope soccer Olympian Abbey Wambach realizes her dream, wins a gold medal, and gets a gazillion dollars in endorsements.

It's apparently the only thing her brain and her heart have room for.

Other American athletes have, and have had, other styles of competing in the Olympics. In some athletes' brains and hearts, there's room for sport AND concern for the other human beings on Planet Earth. Not every Olympic athlete kisses a police state's ass so obediently and enthusiastically.

The upcoming Olympics in Beijing again raise the miserable question: Which superpower is teaching its values and emphases to the other? Which national giant is succeeding in shaping the future for the entire planet?

Is America -- are Americans -- setting an example for the world about Human Rights and the Rule of Law?

Or is the People's Republic of China teaching Americans how to keep their mouths shut about atrocities, genocide, state murders, religious repression, and censorship?

This really is a watershed moment for this miserable question, because under President Bush, the USA has plummetted toward the Police/Military/Authoritarian Model of sovereign governance. Historically -- not perfectly, but historically -- when the world's people scream, the American people respond loudly and generously.

Under Bush, we've been causing a lot of the screaming.

China rules by force, by weapons, by prisons. Will that be the model of national behavior which prevails in the future? And will our Olympic athletes be our vanguard, teaching young Americans how to make nice-nice to totalitarian dictatorships?

Differences between Abbey Wambach's quote in the text story below and in the graphic above -- the above is transcribed word for word from the radio program. If you click on "Listen Now," you can hear the audio version of the story.

I think I'd rather clean septic tanks than spend a dollar to see the Beijing Olympics. On TV, if I have a choice of watching these Olympics or Spongebob Squarepants re-runs, that will be a no-brainer. Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Who doesn't get what he wants with tanks and assault rifles?

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"All Things Considered"
National Public Radio
(USA non-commercial radio network)
Monday 14 April 2008

Is Free Speech at Risk
for Olympians?

by Howard Berkes

Listen Now [3 min 37 sec]

The Beijing Olympics is still four months away but it's already considered one of the most politicized games in Olympic history.

Still, American Olympians gathered at the U.S. Olympic Committee's pre-Olympic Media Summit in Chicago seem determined to keep sports and politics separate.

Heather O'Reilly of the U.S. women's soccer team, is aware of China's record on human rights, but is also firm about her role at the Olympics.

"We are socially aware individuals and we understand why people are using (the Beijing Olympics) as a platform for change in the world," O'Reilly told a hotel ballroom filled with reporters. "But we're athletes. We're focusing on winning back that gold medal."

Teammate Abbey Wambach told the group that adding political expectations to the competitive pressures athletes already face is a bit much.

"That's a lot of responsibility," Wambach said, especially on top of the duty "... to represent your country and to perform and to try to win a gold medal ... it's a lot for one person to take on." [exact quote in graphic above.]

Speaking out at the Olympics has its price. The International Olympic Committee has warned athletes about "Rule 51" in the Olympic Charter, which all Olympic athletes agree to honor when they compete in the games. The rule says that "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."

The rule also prohibits armbands, ribbons, buttons or other signs of "publicity or propaganda" on the equipment or clothing of Olympic athletes and officials.

American athletes accused of violating Rule 51 would be investigated by the U.S. Olympic Committee's Games Administration Board, which would recommend a response. But the Olympic Charter reserves a final decision for the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board, and it could send violators home.

"The two areas that are addressed most directly by Rule 51 are competition venues and the athlete's village," notes Darryl Seibel, spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Beyond that, athletes are free to express themselves anywhere and in any way they feel appropriate. Of course, you have to respect the laws of the country you're in."

That means athletes have nothing to fear from Olympic officials if they protest in some way outside the Olympic venues. But, it's not clear how Chinese authorities would react. They're so authoritarian, and fearful of dissent, they're expected to snoop on American visitors to the Olympics, according to the State Department. A State Department advisory warns that Americans can expect surreptitious surveillance, wire-tapping and undisclosed searches of hotel rooms during the Olympics.

But, this week's Olympic media event in Chicago closed its first day without any of the American athletes in attendance calling for or promising political acts. Even the politically minded see a clear line between competition and protest.

American softball pitcher Jennie Finch is one of hundreds of Olympic athletes who have joined Team Darfur, an effort to raise money for and awareness about the human rights and relief crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. China supports the government of Sudan, which is blamed for the crisis.

"Of course (Darfur) concerns me. It should concern everybody," Finch asserts. "But at the same time, it's separated from what I'm doing as an Olympian and what I'm competing for."

Gymnast Shawn Johnson says she and her teammates are focused on their Olympic dreams and goals. "In the end we are athletes ... I don't think there's going to be anything that's going to change the way we feel about the Olympics."

- 30 -

just fill out the form dude. do the right thing.

Please, click, slide around.

Hey, don't be scared. The Draft is never coming back. You can take that to the bank.

Hell, if we finally kick the crap out of those evil Iranians -- and those damn North Koreans -- and those Commie Venezuelans -- invade Cuba after Fidel croaks -- and it's about time to show those Syrians what GI Joe thinks of them -- we still won't need a draft to fulfill our military manpower needs.

Let's rock 'n' roll and lock 'n' load with our top-quality young volunteers! I see 'em every day lining up around the block outside the Army and Marine Recruiters' offices.

Look, here's your guarantee that the Draft ain't ever coming back. And you can trust this guy:

"The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that's the way we're going to keep it," Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. "My (5) sons are all adults and they've made decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard."

-- Mitt Romney
Wednesday 8 August 2007
Bettendorf, Iowa

So uhhhh why was this pamphlet and Registration Form so prominently on display at the Post Office today when we stopped in to mail our tax stuff?

If the Draft ain't never coming back ... who needs Selective Service? I'm having a little trouble figuring that out.

Anyway, if you're an 18-year-old MEN ... Do The Right Thing. Okay? And don't worry. Nothing's going to spoil your party. We got the Military Manpower thing permanently taken care of.

1st Day Issue / Single Payer Health Plan Rally / Boston / Tom Morello of RATM / 28 April 08

Sure, click.

Hmmm maybe I'll go. I don't get to Boston nearly as much as I should, it's less than 3 hours east of me. I still haven't seen the John Singer Sargent wing of the Museum of Fine Arts. And I'd like to walk the Chartres Labyrinth at Boston College, a memorial to members of the college community who died in the 9/11 attacks. Boston has just added the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge over the Charles River, and it's a world-class stunning piece of hypermodern functional architecture. I'd like to see it in person. And just hanging around Harvard Square in Cambridge -- it's a constant Fiesta of All Kinds of Things Happening, and a lot of them have a brain. Also good food in Boston. Good book stores, good newstands. You can get from the train station to the airport on a high-speed hydrofoil water taxi. (The airport sucks, though, try another airport.)

share your feelings about the only industrialized nation that doesn't have universal national health care / Rage Against's guitarist will play

Sure, click.

For them what's in or near Boston, Massachusetts USA on 28 April 2008, and feel that Health & Life should not be commodities, like saumon fumee or bidets, which only rich people can afford ... Note that Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave will play his guitar for you.

Single Payer Health Care is the modern political buzzword for what, in every Western industrialized nation except the USA, is called National Health, or maybe Universalenationalekrankenversicherung. (I'm using my Translator Robot again, could you tell?)

You get in a car wreck, you spend two weeks getting put back together in the hospital, and when you get wheeled out, they give you your hospital, drug and doctor bill: Zero, zilch, nada, bupkis, free.

If the car wreck is in the USA, the bill is more like $211,392.87 . Unless you have private health insurance. Premiums for that are around $2,661 per month. In this economic recession with a big spike in unemployment, millions of families are having to choose between health and food.

Yes yes, it's not really free, everybody's taxes pay for Single Payer Health Care. But the health and medical care poor people get is just as good as the health and medicine rich people get. (But rich people can always pay extra for fancier, to prove that rich people are better than poor people.)

Sounds like Communism or Socialism to me. Sounds like Cuba or Canada. Where do I sign?

Of all the presidential candidates, only US Representative Dennis Kucinich called for Single Payer Health Care / National Health Care. He has been brutally punished for advocating Single Payer Health Care.

==========

HEALTH CARE RALLY
WITH TOM MORELLO
& ‘SICKO’ STATE HOUSE VIEWING!

On Monday, April 28 we will be showing Michael Moore's 'SiCKO' at the Massachusetts State House, followed by a rally for universal single payer health care with music from Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello! Rally for Single Payer Health Care! with Tom Morello, Guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave
April 28, 5PM on State House Steps!

Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave who plays firebrand folk guitar as The Nightwatchman, will be joining health care activists to rally for universal, single payer health care as part of his national Justice Tour! Tom who will be playing a set of four songs, was the co-founder of Axis of Justice, a political group whose declared purpose is "to bring together musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice together."

Showing of Michael Moore’s SiCKO!
Monday, April 28, 1:30 - 4:00PM
State House, Gardner Auditorium

Nominated for an Oscar and winner of seven Best Documentary awards in 2007, ‘SiCKO’ is a revealing and disturbing exploration of our dysfunctional health care system. The movie focuses not on the 47,000,000 uninsured in America, but the crisis faced by millions of others who are insured and dutifully pay their premiums. Follow Moore from the origins of managed care, to a day in the life of a health insurance hit man, all the way through universal health care systems in England, France, and Guantanamo Bay! Donna Smith who appears in the film will join us!

For more information contact: info@masscare.org, (617) 524-8778

Sponsored by:
American Patients for Universal Health Care
California Nurses Association
Healthcare-NOW!
Mass-Care
MA Jobs with Justice
MA Physicians for a National Health Program
Mass. Senior Action

LOGIC GATE PIZZAQ was WRONG!!!!!!! I was Not Perfect! Now I'm perfect, and the prize now also includes small antipasto

I WAS NOT PERFECT.
I MADE A MISTAKE.
I HATE THAT.

Okay, much gratitude to Mike, who (a.) usually is the only guy in C-space with the guts to try to answer these math nerd PizzaQs and (b.) is usually right.

In my first post about Logic Gates, I got the shapes of the AND and the OR gates right.

But when I asked the PizzaQ, I screwed the pooch and switched the shapes around (and left out the text inside the gates).

Thanks to Mike, the PizzaQ is now fixed.

You can trust this diagram. Really. It works now.

Mike, you got to fill in the table again, sorry. Obviously this is a different circuit from the one you tried to solve.

As expiation for my skroo-up, we are upping the prize to the 7 slices PLUS a small antipasto.

In private e-mail, Mike emphasized how rusty he was with all this, but I think I trumped him on rusty. The last time I had to know this crap for tests was maybe 1967.

My Logic textbook was Irving Copi's 5th Edition, which began with a preface that explained that a week after he published 10,000 copies of the 4th edition, some nice fellow wrote him a letter to tell him that 10 of his Quantification Rules were Wrong. So yeah, I screwed the pooch on this PizzaQ. But it could have been worse.

PIZZAQ -- what's this network of 6 Logic gates do? How hard can this be? Huh? I showed you how to do it.

Oh sure, click all you want.

Okay, three different Logic Gates have been defined HERE -- the NOT Gate (often called an inverter), the OR Gate, and the AND Gate.

There are other Logic Gates, but you can make digital circuitry do everything it can possibly do with the proper arrangement of just these three: NOT, OR, AND.

(I told you this would be on the Quiz.)

Again, these are just Pure Ideas. You could implement this circuit, and really make it work, with garden hoses and water, with gas and pipes and valves, with LEGO or TinkerToys, or with crank and clockwork.

But this whole thing really took off around 1950 (a little earlier if you count the secret war computers) with electronics: first vacuum tubes (valves), and then transistors, and finally integrated circuits -- teeny-tiny transistor networks manufactured on a single chip. So when most people see a diagram like this, they think of electric voltages and electronic elements.

But notice how completely free it is of any electric or electronic symbols, nothing about volts, nothing about ground/earth, no batteries, no plugs, no resistors or capacitors. To figure out how digital systems work, you don't have to know jack shit about electricity or electronics.

The whole idea is to shove inputs of logical 1 and logical 0 into it, and get specific desired logical outputs out the end.

Okay, this one's worth 7 pizza slices, a different topping on each one.

The inputs are P and Q. Fill in the Truth Table for the outputs R and S.

It's not just an arbitrary kludge of Gates intended to give you a 4-aspirin headache. It's a famous circuit that does something very important. There are gazillions of these in your fancy-schmantzy iPods and cell phones and laptops and pagers and calculators.

Please don't drive while talking on your cell phone. Two people have already rear-ended my truck, which was Not Moving, while they were yakking on their fucking cell phones. One in broad daylight, the other at a very well illuminated intersection. I promise you -- you'll be sorry. On Planet Vleeptron, talking on the cell phone while driving costs you a fine of 430,000 Zlubi and 9 horx in Re-Education, Fitness & Appropriate Socialization Camp.

Oh, I said the NOT Gate is also called an inverter. In electronic circuits, it does another job besides turning 0 into 1 or turning 1 into 0. In large, complicated circuitry, a voltage signal travelling through many stages can grow weak, and if that's not fixed, eventually the Gates will misbehave because they can't clearly figure out what the Logical Value of the input is supposed to be. The inverter boosts the weakening signal back up to its original design level.

In some digital electronic schemes, Logical 0 is represented by 0 volts DC, and Logical 1 is represented by +1 volt DC. If the signal weakens to something around +0.6 volts, gates may confuse the logical values. So designers liberally throw in NOT gates throughout the circuitry. If they really don't want to change the logic value at that stage, they connect 2 NOT gates in a row, because not(not(P)) = P .

the Drug Czar vs. Barney Frank on Frank's bill to decriminalize personal amounts of marijuana

I'll let you know if this sucker gets printed. The New Bedford Standard-Times belongs to the Ottaway chain, which is owned by Dow Jones & Company. That probably means that these newspapers now belong to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

U.S. Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat, has been collecting, for about five years, a caucus of members of Congress to muster the votes to repeal "Souder's Law," which denies federal college financial aid to any kid who was ever busted for smoking a joint.

Frank is Congress' first, maybe only, openly gay member. (There have been occasional hints and whispers that there are a few other gay members, but they're not talking.) His heavily Portuguese-American voters (nearly all Roman Catholic) love and perpetually re-elect him because he is a ferociously effective advocate of Atlantic fishing rights for New England fisherfolk.

Iberians -- first the Basques around 1550, in Labrador -- founded the North American fishing and whaling industry. They don't seem to give much of a flying fuck that he's openly gay, Jewish, and advocates for more progressive and less punitive marijuana laws. He was first elected in 1980, and has been re-elected 13 times. It's about the fish.

There may exist elements of the set of Portuguese-American voters in the 4th Congressional District of Massachusetts which are also elements of the set of people who smoke pot. That is, there is an Intersection Set, which is not the Empty Set, of Portuguese-American pot-smokers. If you have any special insights into this question in Set Theory (die Mengenlehre), Leave A Comment.

New Bedford was once the biggest and busiest whaling port, probably on Planet Earth. The Right Whale got its name from whalers teaching each other that that whale over there was "the right whale," the one with the most valuable and profitable parts (baleen, for women's foundation undergarments, the whalebone corset, and oil).

Today there are about 16,800 Right Whales left in the world's oceans. That seems to be a lot of Right Whales, but it's actually a catastrophic collapse of their pre-whaling, natural population, and that imposes a collapse of genetic diversity. The entire population is so genetically similar that the remaining whales could succumb to a new parasite or infectious disease.

~ ~ ~

Letters to the Editor
The Standard-Times
New Bedford, Massachusetts

To the Editor:

In "As Frank prepares marijuana bill, states make own efforts" (6 April), I enjoyed the robotic, brain-dead response from the federal Drug Czar's mouthpiece, Tom Riley, who "oppose(s) any changes that would make dangerous, addictive drugs widely available ... Common sense shows that when you make something more available, people will use it."

Lacking facts, Riley tortures the more flexible "common sense." In the Netherlands, whose government permits the liberal sale of small amounts of marijuana, teens and young people use it at lower rates than young people in the US. The trade is police-supervised, taxed and free of gang violence -- like America's alcohol and tobacco trade.

Marijuana couldn't be more available to American kids than it already is. Any kid will tell you it's easier to get than alcohol, at prices kids can afford, dealers don't check for age i.d., and happily ask, "You want smack or crack with that?"

Like the disaster of alcohol Prohibition (1919-1933), current state and federal criminal laws guarantee the marijuana black market will flourish, prosper, grow, and generate gang violence and police corruption. Laws can punish and incarcerate marijuana users, and burden and stigmatize them for life with a criminal record, but these laws have failed abysmally to lower marijuana use or achieve the fantasy of a "drug-free America."

Marijuana is only dangerous and addictive in Riley's self-serving hallucinations. To this day, marijuana has never been cited as the medical cause of a single death. "Kicking" marijuana is comparable to kicking coffee, compared to the profoundly severe and widespread addictions to the truly dangerous -- and legal -- cigarettes and alcohol.

In local referenda throughout Massachusetts over the last 20 years, voter majorities -- citizens and neighbors in the privacy of the voting booth -- have repeatedly called on Beacon Hill to decriminalize personal use of marijuana.

If we truly wish to reduce marijuana use, 35 years of the failed War On Drugs clearly show us the way: Decriminalize it, as Barney Frank hopes Congress will do, and let doctors and health professionals deal with its few and mild medical aspects. Police, new jails and prisons, and loss of college financial aid have just encouraged and expanded marijuana and all other illegal drug use.

Robert Merkin

Northampton MA

~ ~ ~

Standard-Times
New Beford, Massachusetts USA
Sunday 6 April 2008

Contact: letters@s-t.com

As Frank prepares
marijuana bill,
states make own efforts

by Matthew Huisman and Jason Millman, Standard-Times correspondents

WASHINGTON -- Proponents of U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's proposal to legalize small amounts of marijuana are pointing to efforts in some states -- including Massachusetts -- to decriminalize the drug as evidence of public support for Rep. Frank's plan.

Rep. Frank, D-Mass., said recently that he will introduce two bills, one that would decriminalize possession of less than 100 grams -- or 3.5 ounces -- of marijuana and another that would grant protection to states that decide to allow medicinal use of marijuana.

"The public is now ready for this," Rep. Frank said in a telephone interview. "I have long thought it was foolish to have these laws on the books, but now as I look at the public opinion, it's clear that this is wanted."

Rep. Frank said that although he does not support marijuana use, he believes that adults should be able to consume small amounts without facing criminal penalties. He said prosecution of marijuana charges costs federal law enforcement agencies time and resources. Rep. Frank, who said he has no experience with marijuana, added, "I think marijuana is less harmful than alcohol."

As Rep. Frank tries to drum up support for his bill in Congress, the Massachusetts Legislature is considering an initiative to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana. A person caught with an ounce or less would be fined but would not be charged with a criminal offense, which appears on employer background checks and is a disqualifying factor for receiving certain government benefits, such as subsidized housing and student financial aid.

If the state Legislature does not act on the initiative by May 6, supporters have until June 18 to get 11,000 signatures on a petition to put the initiative on the ballot in November. If they succeed, it would require a majority vote to pass.

Whitney A. Taylor, campaign manager for the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, which drafted the Massachusetts initiative, said she supports Rep. Frank's proposal.

"We are very excited that Congressman Frank understands the need for more sensible and sound marijuana policies," Ms. Taylor said. "The policies in Massachusetts do more harm than good, and I think the congressman realizes that on a federal level, as well."

State Sen. Patricia D. Jehlen, D-Medford, is sponsoring her own bill that would decriminalize possessing an ounce or less of marijuana.

"I'm not saying it's OK, but it's not a criminal offense," she said. "It's a civil offense, but you don't get a criminal record and you don't use up court resources."

State Rep. Martin J. Walsh, D-Dorchester, who has led the opposition to marijuana decriminalization in Massachusetts, said he would instead favor adjusting laws for youths using alcohol and marijuana in order to protect their permanent records.

"People make mistakes," Rep. Walsh said. "I don't agree with them being penalized for an irresponsible decision."

Since 1973, 12 states, including Maine, have decriminalized marijuana in some form. A bill that would decriminalize possession of a quarter-ounce of marijuana passed the New Hampshire House, although the governor and Senate president have vowed to defeat it.

"Almost half of the ( U.S. ) population lives in states that have done this sort of thing," said Bill Downing, president of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition. "Those states saved millions of dollars in law enforcement and marijuana usage rates did not go up as a result."

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, pointed to those 12 states as proof of support for reforming drug laws. Mr. St. Pierre said there is widespread public support for decriminalizing marijuana and allowing for its medicinal use, although many still oppose its full legalization.

Americans are able to distinguish between decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana and the complete legalization of marijuana, making it like alcohol and tobacco, Mr. St. Pierre said.

Tom Riley, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said his agency would "oppose any changes that would make dangerous, addictive drugs widely available."

"Common sense shows that when you make something more available, people will use it," he said.

Mr. Riley said that proponents of marijuana decriminalization are "using medical marijuana as a back-door solution to legalization," and that marijuana is a more harmful drug than people realize. He said patients using medicinal marijuana are being used to invoke public sympathy.

"The state-level passage has been playing on people's good wills more than based on science," Mr. Riley said. "They go through the ballot process rather than the scientific process."

For the past 10 years, Rep. Frank has unsuccessfully filed legislation during each two-year congressional term to loosen marijuana laws. He has filed bills that would allow the unrestricted medicinal use of marijuana in states that have passed such laws, and he also has filed bills -- one as recently as January -- to repeal a law that prohibits college students who were convicted of drug offenses from receiving financial aid. None of the bills has made it onto the House floor for debate.

U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., filed legislation in the Senate last month that would allow judges to decide whether students who were convicted of drug offenses can keep their financial aid.

Tom Angell, spokesman for Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based lobbying group seeking to decriminalize marijuana, said more than 200,000 college students have lost financial aid in the past 10 years because of drug convictions.

Although Mr. Angell would not say whether he would support Rep. Frank's legislation until he sees the details of his proposal, he said he believes passing a law to reduce penalties for marijuana will "show a lot of momentum for reforming punitive drug policies."

"Congress will be on the record saying it doesn't make sense to punish people for what they're putting into their own body," Mr. Angell said.

Mr. St. Pierre said Rep. Frank's proposal does not promote the use of marijuana but instead encourages people who use it to consume the drug within reasonable limits.

"It will build consistency into drug policy that if you use something like cannabis, just like alcohol, you should largely be punished for the abuse of the substance, not the use of it," Mr. St. Pierre said.

"We all know there's a difference between use of alcohol and alcohol abuse."

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Copyright (c) 2008 South Coast Media Group