Dean's World

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Jury nullification is a de facto and traditional power of juries, not normally disclosed to jurors by the system when they are instructed as to rights and duties. The power of jury nullification derives from an inherent quality of most modern common law systems—a general unwillingness to inquire into jurors' motivations during or after deliberations. A jury's ability to nullify the law is further supported by two common law precedents: the prohibition on punishing jury members for their verdict, and the prohibition on retrying defendants after an acquittal; and the constitutional prohibition on retrying criminal defendants (see related topics res judicata and double jeopardy).
....
Nevertheless, there is little doubt as to the ability of a jury to nullify the law.
...
Nullification in practice

Nullification has a mixed history in the United States. Jury nullification appeared in the pre-Civil War era when juries occasionally refused to convict for violations of the Fugitive Slave Act. However, during the Civil Rights era, all-white juries were known to refuse to convict white defendants for the murder of blacks.[13] During Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws,[14] possibly as often as 60% of the time.[15] This resistance is considered to have contributed to the adoption of the Twenty-first amendment repealing the Eighteenth amendment which established Prohibition.

I welcome Ralph Nader to the 2008 Presidential race. He'll be most helpful in bleeding off the far left while the Democratic nominee builds a true american majority. And Obama was right about Reagan, too.

(this sentiment is probably not going to go over well at BigOrange)

This thing is so obviously Photoshopped I can't believe anyone would consider it a photo of anything!

"We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

It looks like all people with blue eyes are cousins.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

For many years during my Bible studies I'd feel compelled to ask, "Where are the prophets?" As a Christian I was familiar with the New Testament's many warnings about false prophets and people coming in Christ's name that were not of Him. Every Christian is. However, it seemed strange to me that after John the Baptist prophets vanished from the pages of history. Nowhere in the Bible is it prophesied that God would stop sending prophets and, indeed, Christ Himself said:

Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.

Matthew 23:34

Christ said He's going to send prophets out into the world. If we're warned time and again in the Bible against false prophets doesn't that mean that there must also be real prophets too? Why tell your flock to watch out for false prophets if no real prophets were ever going to be sent anyway? Right?

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about those that may get a prophetic word. I'm talking about the Office of the Prophet in the five fold ministry of Ephesians 4:11. Not everyone that gets a prophetic word (and it's doubtful that many that think they do actually are) is a prophet. Teachers can get prophetic words. Pastors can. Apostles and evangelists too. God can and will tell anyone in the five fold ministry anything He needs to. But these people are not prophets. And, even more unsettling, it seems many churches want to cram all five of the offices into the pastor. There's a separation for good reason and no one walks in all five. One absolutely. All of God's children are called to one of these five offices. Some maybe even two. But no one does or should walk in all five save Christ Himself.

We all know evangelists, teachers, and pastors. Apostles and prophets are probably the most unfamiliar to most of the Church. Who in your own congregation would you say fills these two offices? Who is the prophet send by God to speak to your church? Ephesians 2:20 tells us that the prophet and apostle are the foundation of God's household, with Christ being its cornerstone. If the prophet is one half of the foundation of God's household, the Church, who is the prophet in our own congregations?

I wonder if perhaps we've driven them out? Look at the second half of Matthew 23:34 I quoted above. Christ was speaking to the Pharisees specifically but the pattern is clear. An unrighteous people would drive the prophets out. They'd kill, crucify, flog and chase them from town to town. How quick are we to defend our own doctrines in the face of opposition? How quick are we to call people that bring into question our interpretation of Scripture heretics, blasphemers, and false teachers and prophets?

We're very, very quick to.

The Church is fractured. We pretty much split along three main lines we call Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. These three main groups are fractured more still. And each group thinks they're more right than the others. I mean, why stay Baptist if you think the Lutherans are correct? Why stay Protestant if you think the Orthodoxy is correct? Right?

So, what does this mean for a prophet that might come onto the scene? Well, if the Tanakh is any indication, he's probably going to say pretty much everyone is wrong. Which, if you think about it, aren't we already saying when we call ourself whatever denomination we like? If I'm Pentecostal I'm saying that my denomination is the most faithful to the Word of God. Therefore, everyone else must be, it logically follows, less faithful to the Word of God. To some degree or another everyone else is wrong and I am right.

So, a prophet is going to call everyone to task for ignoring Scripture (they must be if everything is so fractured). But what gets them killed or chased from town to town isn't that they stop there. We can look past stones being thrown at everyone. No, what gets a prophet killed is when he starts throwing stones at just you. We don't like that. When everyone is getting chided we can fade into the background. Maybe even think he's not talking to us. But when he's looking right at us, telling us to burn down the idols and false gods in our lives, we get a little upset. We like our idols. We like our false gods. We don't want to be told to tear them down.

"Heretic!" we say. "Blasphemer!" we say.

Are we really so close to God to say that about just about anything?

Christ said the prophets would be killed, crucified, flogged, and chased from town to town. They are because they are intolerant of sin and demand righteousness from the children of God. If Israel loathed her prophets why would the Church be any different?

Christ said He's sending prophets. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever state God ever stopped sending His prophets. "Beware of the false prophets!" the Bible tells us. Beware because false prophets will be mixed in with the real ones and we need to be able to discern the difference.

God did not send His prophets to His children to tell them they were doing good. He sent His prophets to correct His children and bring them out of sin. A false prophet will tell you what you want to hear. A real prophet will tell you what you need to hear.

So, before you jump to call someone a liar, heretic, deceiver, blasphemer, or false teacher recall how Israel treated her prophets and ask yourself; Are you really so righteous to know better? Are you really so righteous that a genuine prophet of God will not see any cherished idols in your life he could call out out on?

One last thing before I close. Recall, if you would, Amos 3:7.

Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

What prophet approved the Christian canon? What prophet approved the move of Sabbath to Sunday? What prophet approved the doctrine of Papal Succession? What prophet approved the split from the Catholic Church? What prophet said if you don't speak in tongues you're not filled with the Holy Spirit?

We can track throughout history the developing doctrines of the Church, the splits in the Church from those doctrines, and the development of new doctrines in response to those splits. Where were the prophets to say, "This is of the Sovereign God."? God does nothing without revealing His plans to the prophets.

So, remember that the next time you call someone a false prophet. Odds are, no prophet approved the doctrine you hold to be true. There's a saying, "Who is worse, the fool or the one that follows him?" What does that make you in light of Amos 3:7?

Beware of false prophets. But be watchful and ready to receive the real prophets. God has sent them to save you. And in doing so they're going to say things you will probably not much care for. Such are the toils of growing up.

UPDATE: I've closed comments and, if you've noticed, I've done a fair bit of pruning in the comments that are already here. This thread was written by a believer to fellow believers. Those that simply want to call Christianity a myth like the Norse gods, or look down their nose at people of faith, have no place here. I'm tired of threads getting filled with posts by people that find the entire premise of faith laughable and feel they must state as much at every opportunity. Grow up. The kid that needed to wave his arms and shout so the whole class would look at them got old at about the 1st grade. In the future I will immediately delete any comments I feel are off topic or inappropriate.

Contribute to the discussion in a thoughtful and meaningful manner or keep your mouth shut. If you feel unable to do that I hear Rosemary loves to have people like you troll around on her blog. Ply your trade there.

Link

Crap, these are brutal!

Dean alluded to how prevalent this sentiment is in the Muslim world in his link to the piece by the father of Daniel Pearl.

But is Crown Heights, Brooklyn really part of the Muslim world?

In killing Daniel Pearl, they made it clear who and what they were really trying to kill.

How neat!

Well it took him long enough.

I expect to see the Clinton campaign try to make more hay out of this. It's not really big as scandals go, but anything to tarnish the image of the golden boy will probably be used.

rather than make an easy prediction about Florida I decided to go for some post-game commentary instead. It's McCain's nomination to lose, now.

And good riddance to Rudy.

Walter Shapiro takes a look.

I'll start:

Q: What did the buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor?

A: "Make me one with everything."

Your turn. :-)

Got any? Is it Hillary or Barak? McCain, Romney, or Rudy?

Zack Ajmal looks at the data, and I add my own two cents.

Man, I can't wait for this week to be over. Some personal garbage got in the way of me seeing the State of the Union, but I understand that the President was clearly smiling and happy afterwards. Well I'm not surprised, and a comment from this thread is one I utterly agree with:

Being President of these here fractious semi-pussified argumentative narcissist but undeniably great United States has got to be the toughest job in the world. Doing it for eight years straight, without a single repetition of the disaster that colored the opening weeks, with a major foreign policy success that perhaps forever lays the Vietnam Syndrome in its grave, presiding over an economy which has grown mightily without a single full month of true misery, avoiding even a single major scandal, personal or public, while running an Administration with maybe 10,000 top-level employees -- and doing it all with a courteous smile on your face even though envious dishonest bitches try to trip you up every 2 seconds -- that is A Job Well Done.

Yep, Quadraginta. Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm so glad I voted for that man. He's already up there with Harry Truman as one of our best and most consequential Presidents (except he was a lot nicer than Harry). I'm looking forward to watching this last year, and I'll bet he is too.

That can only mean the Jewish blog carnival went up last week, no?

Then tokenism would be okay!

I acknowledge the reality behind the need for Obama to distance himself from muslims. But I also pile on some expectations from Obama, should he win the nomination, for my forebearance.

According to the Wall Street Journal, they're very good.

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Have you ever noticed that when someone in America wants to sound profound on political issues, they refer to it as "this country?" They seem to especially do it when they are convinced that this country is going to Hell in a handbasket.

I wonder where this verbal tic comes from?

I'm so glad I lived to see this happen. Not the tragic loss of life, of course, but the quantum leap forward for mankind.

Pennsylvania, August 29, 2005 CE

[---Begin journal entry---]

Long ago, before Rufus—before my solitary madness, when I still dwelt amongst people but knew I was not of them—during that time, there was a woman. She was older, in her forties and still in remarkably good health. Her life was tragic; her mate dead, her children all lost in such a brief span of years they seemed to pass in but an eye blink. But she lived amongst good people and she had their sympathy, their support, even their love.

This woman, she suffered her losses and misfortune with the stoicism common amongst peoples of that time and place. Every day she made herself useful and none could call her a burden. Nonetheless there was emptiness in her, for the community in which she dwelt could not hold her as her family had. She looked about her and felt a longing for what she had lost and eventually that longing became too great for her to resist.

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READ MORE
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Whoosh!

Soon as I get my first unemployment check, I'm putting a downpayment on one of those babies!

(Kind of ironic--if probably coincidental--that it was put together by a guy named Shelby.)

No, really.

(Via Ace.)

Okay, I'm convinced.

(Via Frank.)

Moderate Clinton voter Joe Gandelman is absolutely furious at the Clinton campaign, and is obviously not alone.

This doesn't change my own plan to support Hillary Clinton, but it does bring back unpleasant memories of the shallow 1990s.

A member of the ongoing conversation here at DW posted the following observation:

[rant]

A few commercials recently have been irritating the hell out of one of my pet peeves. It is one that I think is a determining factor in peoples health and well being. People instead of saying that they have this or that affliction they take ownership of it. My arthritis, my migraines, my ED, my insomnia, my etc etc.

WTF? Don't people realize that taking possession is the major part of ownership? Why the hell would someone want to own an affliction. If nothing else it doesn't do much for positive thinking, which is a known factor in mental well being. It can be said that we can be no healthier and well off than we think we are. That should (I believe) include physical health, not just our mental attitudes and self image.

Occasionally asthma bothers me, but it sure as hell ain't my asthma. NOT. It is not mine, I don't own it, I don't want it, something foreign to me. Something that has now and then has afflicted me. Were I to claim asthma as mine I would probably need to use an inhaler all day long instead of occasionally (maybe a couple times a week).

[/rant]

I am in 100% agreement with Sandi. These commercials bug me too.

Before I got into other things, I was a keen student of all kinds of alternative healing methods. Reiki, Healing Touch, naturopathy, all of those were in the books on my shelves and my most frequent interest when going online circa 1995. A major point of all of them was to avoid ownership. A disease or condition (as I recall) was not something you wanted to make friends with, and keep around, as these things are foreign invaders and not part of one’s natural state.

One of the first things I learned as a student of healing was that we always must get permission for applying any kind of healing method. For some people – not many, just a few – their dis-ease was the only thing they could see as uniquely theirs, and to remove it without their knowledge or permission could have severe negative effects.

I’ve seen this principle in action.

Two people I once knew were both severely allergic to something in their workplace. They were both dedicated to their work, and had deferred close personal relationships in order to pursue their calling. It was a long process to discover what it was that was making them so ill, requiring a couple of years of trips to doctors and hospitals in distant places, but at their employer’s expense.

Once the cause was discovered and removed (they’d both worked in the same environment for twenty years) one person made major changes and married for the first time at the age of 50. The other developed a borderline personality disorder, lost the job, and last I heard was living in the street.

When the illness came about, it was the first time either of them had ever had any special attention paid to them.

When I had that breast cancer scare last October, I found that some idiot had declared October as “Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” and the way I saw it was encouraging every woman to get cancer and be part of the elite. Have a party and run with your friends! Isn’t it wonderful to get sick and die!

Every time I got in the car and turned on the radio, there was a cancer message. There was even breast cancer soup in the grocery store. Good God. Stephen King couldn’t have invented an uglier scenario.

IMHO. Ike Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex has morphed into a medical- industrial complex. It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid and reject these ideas that just because we’re all getting older, we should also be sick and buy their products. Simply being well and healthy without outside help doesn’t support Kaiser Permanente or Pfizer.

And there’s the end of my rant! ;>)

What horse?

The Mass Effect horse.

A friend of mine sent me the following link from Kotaku. It's EA's response to a Fox News segment about the game.

The segment is like watching a train wreck of stupidity. The guy from Spike TV did good for himself for the five seconds they had him on. But what really got me going was the panel discussion they had afterwards. You had every one there condemning the game yet not one of them played it. At least the host was honest enough to admit she only saw a few videos and those were not offensive!

I think what really sealed the deal for me was one of the 'experts' saying, "Whatever happened to Pac-Man?"

What happened? The world grew the frak up. It passed you by, little lady. Guess what? We have cars now too! Gone are the days of horse and buggy. And we've mastered fire since you last climbed out of your cave. You dumb twit.

Geeez! Why didn't they all simply admit they know nothing about the topic at hand, but they did all stay at a Holiday Inn Express last light?

Well, if you excuse me, I've got a space shuttle to pilot. I can't make a paper airplane stay in the air but, heck, if this set of losers are what pass for experts today, call me Chuck Yeager.

UPDATE:

Pennywit was kind enough to send me two articles. The first is from the New York Times. In it Cooper Lawrence recants her Fox News comments about the game. After she appeared on the show she sat down and watched someone play the game for a couple of hours. She saw nothing offensive in the game. As for the 'explicit sex scenes?' No more explicit than anything she's seen on Lost.

The second article is from the Dallas Morning News. The author of the article, Victor Godinez, simple reiterates a lot of what I've already said in the past three posts about this game. The sex isn't explicit. The game is intended for mature audiences. And the sexual content that is there isn't anything we'd bat an eye at should we have seen it on television or the movies.

But the larger point is that, if this were a movie or a book, we wouldn't be having this conversation. How many sex scenes does the average Oscar-winning movie or Pulitzer Prize-winning book contain? And are all those scenes absolutely, artistically critical, or, just maybe, are many of them gratuitous?

And yet, somehow, movie directors and book authors don't find themselves on the pointy end of an interrogator's lance for including sex scenes in their projects.

Indeed. Further:

Perhaps it's merely a matter of time before the current crop of television hosts and radio psychologists retires and a new generation of game-playing hosts and shrinks takes its place.

Here's lookin' at you, Bob Dutko.

Do I think the culture is over sexualized? Yes, I do. Sex is everywhere. And I'd support any effort to roll that back. But not at the expense of the truth. Mass Effect is not the enemy here guys. It really, really ain't.

To show there's no hard feelings, if anyone knows how to contact Bob Dutko, and I've tried numerous times, tell him Kevin D. from Westland would love to have him over and show him the game. Show him the content he compares to Playboy. That way, even if he disagrees with me still, it's from an informed position.

I went out of my way, last Monday, to watch the PBS special "The Lobotomist" about Dr. Walter Freeman, the "genius" who pioneered first the lobotomy and then the "transorbital lobotomy." It was a harrowing hour of film--fascinating, devastating, very well handled.

And that was what bothered me about the film: How well handled it was. Great pains were taken to strap the viewer into the sophisticated denialism that insists Dr. Freeman was a complex "genius," who "really wanted to help people" (the severely mentally ill)....by quite literally jamming an icepick-like instrument above their eyeballs to cut the nerves between the eyes and the brain. He performed tens of thousands of these--and he wasn't even a surgeon. He performed them right out in the corridors of the mental wards, to helpless patients on cots, whose families had signed them up for the new Miracle Cure. Freeman's son revealed that he took the first icepick right out of the family freezer.

It didn't even stop when he destroyed one of the Kennedy girls--Rose Marie--who is described in the film as one of his most catastrophic cases. She was a perfectly healthy young woman of 23, accused of "acting out," — of being too forward, impulsive, and subject to "mood swings." Ah now here's a girl who had a father. Her father Joe Kennedy was worried she might "catch a venereal disease." So he called the famous Dr. Freeman who promptly gored her brain through her eyeballs. Well...it did fix the girl. She certainly never flirted, or danced provocatively again. She became a complete vegetable--consigned to a home for the rest of her life.

Here is Freeman's associate, Dr. James Watts, describing Rose Marie's surgery:

We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.

—James W. Watts [3]

Watts eventually left Freeman, after once walking in on him operating on a patient who had two icepicks sticking out of his eyes. Freeman asked Watts to help him steady one of them, but Watts was apparently disgusted. Why? Becauuse Freeman wasn't a surgeon.

He went his own way, and became more and more insatiable--setting his sights on less and less protected populations, such as mental hospitals for very poor people.

Many patients died instantly when Freeman "operated" on them. And the good doctor would just keep walking down the corridor and do the next one. Some days he performed over a hundred transorbital lobotomies in one day.

And they all loved him; The Lobotomist, (who of course went to an Ivy League college, as did all his forefathers,) was raved about in the New York Times , Washingtom Post, all through the respectable media. He was decorated with every medical honor. He was at one point the head of the AMA. And, quite embarrassingly...he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his revolutionary cure.

Not only was he clearly insane, but he drew an entire culture along with him, into a literal bloodbath that was hailed as a breakthrough in medicine. And then when the madness subsided, when too many patients died, when people started to get queasy, when Thorazine ("the chemical lobotomy") seized the marketplace, when the craze was over, they wasted him of course. Skapegoated and abjected him so they didn't get themselves stained with the whole unfortnate matter. And Freeman, of course, became desperate to regain his lost glory. He traveled the country in a car he called a "lobotomobile" to try to track down his former patients to see how they had fared--to prove he has been right all along.

The film leans heavily on the notion of the tragic genius who meant well and who had a burning vision to be great, to help patients...and so forth...but I bristled at this. There were too many interviews with sons, admirers, even a daughter of a woman who'd been lobotomized who said it really did make her mother "better."

You can see the heads of Journalism Departments applauding the film's "balance."

But what you don't quite hear in the film is a scream, a human cry.

I urge you to go to the PBS website and see if it possible to watch the entire film, or order it.

And I have a very serious question: Watch this film and then please, explain to me, why is everybody lambasting and mocking Tom Cruise for saying that psychiatry is dark?

Saturday night open thread--how's life in your world? (7:45pm Eastern)

AN adventure park offers a journey back to the Soviet Union with KGB interrogation methods and "beatings" with a leather belt.

The 1984 Soviet Union theme park is located outside the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in an old bunker which served as a secret TV station in case of a nuclear attack.

At the conclusion of the tour, visitors receive a special certificate to honour their two hours as "Soviet citizens" and a shot of vodka

I know my track record thus far is dismal but I'm going out on one of the remaining limbs and calling SC for Edwards today.

For most people Kenya is just another nation in crisis on a continent where crisis seems to be the norm. Ethiopia. Mozambique. Angola. Somalia. Sierra Leone. Algeria. Rwanda. Ivory Coast. Congo. Zimbabwe. South Africa. All these nations have experienced varying degrees of violence over the past 20 years - roughly a fifth of the nations on the continent.

I have been following the troubles in Kenya over the past month at The Razor. What started as interest in a country that I've been to that borders Tanzania - a nation I have lived and have developed deep and lasting ties to - has evolved into something deeper.

Kenya is a former British colony, and compared to others former British colonies have fared well. The Brits built solid infrastructure including rails lines, roads, and more importantly left their colonies with foundations in free markets and democratic institutions. This sets Kenya and the other former British colonies like Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Tanzania apart from the other troubled African states. In fact South Africa has been doing well since it ended Apartheid, and Zimbabwe had been doing well before Mugabe decided to turn the entire nation into his personal playground.

Even Kenya had been enjoying solid economic growth of over 7%, and was developing into an economic engine in East Africa that pulled other nations like Uganda and Tanzania along. It even played an important role in US foreign policy by patrolling its border with Somalia to the north and helping to root out Islamic militants, some of whom had blown up the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998.

That's why last month's stolen election is so troubling. Kenya was becoming one of the continent's handful of success stories; now it risks being torn apart by tribal tensions that are being stoked by President Kibaki. These tensions didn't appear suddenly; they've been there since long before the colonial era, and Kibaki has been using them to benefit himself and his cronies since he was elected in 2002. That's why any long-term solution to this crisis must involve his removal from power and a restoration of Democracy.

In the meantime I keep following events in the news and this blog aggregator - which has led me to some incredible writing. Most recently I found this site. There is something particularly compelling in the stories of average people experiencing extraordinary events, something that I think very few journalists are able to convey.

Nakuru had a flareup of violence this week that resulted in numerous casualties. Here's a snippet::

It started yesterday with the killing of a Kalenjin athlete. He had traveled from Nairobi and alighted at the Mololine booking office here in Nakuru. Some people grabbed machetes from a nearby vehicle and hacked him to death.

This created much confusion and the police had a hard time controlling the area. I had been in town just before this took place. I sensed tension and decided to stay on the other side of town, and so escaped being caught up in any of the event. This killing was not done impulsively, it was planned well in advance and involved many people.

Today I went to town, to buy some supplies, and I could see the tear gas clouds floating around. I saw stones laying around on the road, which had just been used against vehicles in town.

It was a bit surreal. Nothing like this has happened in Nakuru town... I turned around at the Woolmat on the west side of town and came back home. I am sure business will be going on by the afternoon, but in the meantime people are nervous.

Nervous people tend to make stupid decisions. I pray that we will all think with clear, calm, and cool heads.

Nervous people tend to make stupid decisions. The problem is that according to the local blogs Kenyans are nervous, and unfortunately others are simply murderous.

How will this turn out? Will Kenya overcome the violence and become the India of the continent? Or will it fall apart like neighboring Somalia? At this point I have no idea.

It looks like Hillary's fighting the DNC on Michigan and Florida delegates. I have a hard time blaming her.

Texas was COLD!

I planned for it, and brought lots of warm clothes, so I wasn’t as miserable as some of the others from warmer climes. On top of that, it was a non-smoking facility due to some local nanny ordinance. Other Hiltons I’ve stayed at have smoking floors. The carpeting is filthy, don’t walk around barefoot if you don’t want black feet! But you can at least smoke.

People don’t stop smoking just because they’re attending an event, even if it’s a week long thing they have to be at for work. There’s no “out” as simple as going to another hotel, because often people don’t have a choice, especially if their company is paying the bill.

Trainings and conferences and etcetera are all stressful events to begin with. Then add in the factor of extra stress for somebody who smokes and cannot, and you may have a real problem on your hands. There’s something here that I’ve never seen addressed, and that is that people who smoke and are suddenly deprived of it get weird.

It doesn’t seem that those who are passing all these anti-smoking laws are thinking this through. On one hand, they’re trying to make things comfortable for non-smokers, but at the cost of making life miserable for smokers. As a frequent traveler exposed to all sorts of non-smoking situations, I’ve learned to deal with it, but there are always first-timers in any group, who have not experienced the really awful effects of not having a cigarette for x number of hours.

The kind of weirdness deprived smokers exhibit is often not even clear to themselves, because they think that if they really had to, they could go for a long time without a cigarette. Sometimes they do go without, thinking it’s only a bad habit like biting your nails you can just stop. Believe me, it’s not!

I really feel sorry for whomever had their job on the line to make this last training I attended work. It was a disaster from start to finish. Their software didn’t work; the training materials didn’t agree with the manual.

We had an incident of group hysteria early on. One lady got sick and swore it was the food. 15 or 20 others heard about it and dutifully got sick, too. One of the secondary sickees made her supervisor file an incident report. I’m willing to bet Patient One was a smoker unused to extended periods without a cigarette. Yep, you can get explosive diarrhea and even projectile vomiting during smoking withdrawal in a highly stressed situation.

I knew there was nothing wrong with the food; (169 people were eating the same things) it was just stress and/or nicotine withdrawal. Somebody always gets sick on these things. It’s the way it goes. Beyond local ordinances forcing them to run their business in a way they wouldn’t choose, I would think that hoteliers and those planning events really need to consider seriously the impact a non-smoking policy can have on a large group event. Those who smoke cannot simply choose not to smoke for the days of their stay. In cases of inclement weather, it is beyond rude to force these paying guests outside because they smoke. I’ve had to stand on a street corner in a large city at night without any support or security nearby just because I smoke.

As a frequent traveler, I do NOT choose non-smoking hotels when I have a choice, but I don’t always have a choice, if my employer is footing the bill.

Many thousands of other smokers have the same situation.

As a parting note, I did want to mention that on the last day of my six-day training session, one of the ladies fell – or was pushed – down an escalator. With the stress level as high as it was, it could have been anything, but if it was a freaked-out smoker looking around at the wrong time, startled by something...Geez.

What are these people making these stupid laws and policies thinking?

I admit I only water-spidered across the heated debate, linked here, about "single mothers by choice." It didn't take long to catch the vibe, (or correct me if I'm wrong:) An anger tinged with paranoia expressed primarily by men who fear they are being phased out of the marketplace of biology, by women who have "chosen" to raise children conceived by artificial insemination, for political, crypto-demonic reasons, like not believing men are "necessary."

I looked down and remembered melancholically that I am one and I have some evidence I wish to share.

I have been listening to, crying with, laughing with, commiserating with, rejoicing with, and suffering with women all my life. I was raised in an all female household, (mother, sister) due to a complex custody battle I couldn't explain if you paid me a rooster for every word.

Single mothers by "choice," is code for 20 years of weak men who couldn't bring themselves to give her a baby, and then protect them both. What is gone in the male is as we are all well aware, the animal instinct. I take, at this point, the appalling Norman Mailer position that a man should be trying to impregnate a woman every time he gets near or on her. Everything else is a waste of her time. You don't have to like me. I'm talking about actual women who have cried in my arms. "I didn't want to have that abortion. He wanted it." "I thought he loved me." "I waited too long." "He said he loves me but he doesn't want kids." "He got himself sterilized." "He doesn't think civilization will survive and doesn't believe in bringing children to the world." "He's not sure what he wants." "He won't ejaculate." "He wants me to get an HIV test." "He hasn't called." "He sent a text that said he wasn't sure he wants to talk." "He's not ready." "He's confused." "He might not be over his ex girlfriend." "He said I am not his girlfriend, yet." "I don't know where he is. I'm starting to get worried." "I think he might be dead." etc.

And time wore on, the years passed. We turned forty. I was blessed with a son, at age 28, by an unplanned pregnancy, and I became the world's biggest advocate for having a child, any child, under almost any circumstances, because everything else is worth very little in the end. And everybody roaringly agreed...but there was something missing.

The man.

Trapped in a maze of birth control, emotional torpor, resentment, ambivalence, fear, depression...The poor guy can't even make a phone call, never mind father a child. I think it was better back in the days when men just dropped straight down on women like hawks over prey. When a beautiful woman friend wants to bore me with the details of her non-calling, non-hunting, low testosterone suitor, I want to say: "Let's just agree that he is a Chinese Water Puzzle and we will never understand him."

But here I sound glib; I am not. My heart breaks, for all of us. Time passes and fertility wanes.

"...And the mono-syllable of the clock," as Tennessee Williams wrote, "is loss, loss, loss, unless you devote yourself to its opposition."

Let me tell you about Nina. I met her in Cuba, some years back, on a strange trip we were on, and we became instant friends. Every single thing that happened made us roar with laughter; We found ourselves on one of many propaganda trips, this time to a delapidated sugar factory on the outskirts of Havana. Nina was stunning and hilarious, and unlike me, a super-high earning alpha female in the corporate world. In our lengthy discursive talks about men, love, hopes, etc, Nina described a man I will call Josh. He couldn't decide, couldn't call, couldn't cope with anything. To cheer us up, I started us on a (I now realize very depraved) mega-crush on the omni-present Che Guevara.

My father was with us and watched with bemused patience as we debased ourselves buying Che paraphernelia: T shirts, mugs, calendars, scarves..

On that hot, still, unending day stuck out at that dripping sugar factory, he blithely said: "I interviewed Che."

"You what?" we squealed.

I know this isn't funny. I know the man was a cold killer. But I didn't quite know that then, somehow.

"What was he like?" we gasped.

My father chose his words carefully, and didn't elect to shatter our misbegotten affections: "Well spoken. Intelligent. Resolute."

Nina and I both said in unison: "Resolute."

Then we carried the word with us for the rest of the trip. Imagine if men were resolute. Like Che.

Boy were we stupid. I'm being honest though.

Back home, Nina confronted the confused man, Josh, who she wanted to have a family with and I think he put her on hold and then simply never picked up. Then there was another one just like him and another one just like him.

A few more years passed. We fell out of touch, speaking only occasionaly, but picking up right where we'd left off, eyes right on the ball. Nina really wanted a baby. What was she supposed to do?

One day out of the blue, when we hadn't spoken in perhaps a year, Nina called, and in her sparkling voice said: "Celia guess what. I'm six months pregnant."

I hollered with joy and when I finally quieted down she explained that she got pregnant through a sperm bank.

"Wow," I said.

"I just got over my woe is me, victim trip, and decided to do this. I wanted a child. It didn't work out with anybody but I still wanted a child."

Then came one of the very rare moments when I am proud of something I did or said. It was actually something I had said in the distant past, and forgotten.

"You were the inspiration for this," Nina said.

"I was?"

"Yes. You don't remember what you said?"

"No."

"I asked you, as a mother, if you thought it would be too hard for me to do this alone, to raise a child alone."

"And what did I say?"

"You said, 'yes Nina, it will be very hard. But not nearly as hard as never having a child, if you want one.' That was when I decided to do it."

"Wow."

At Nina's baby shower, there was another woman also nine months' pregnant, by sperm bank. And after Nina's baby was born, she told me the only birth story I've ever heard that sounded like a riotous good time. Her mother, sisters, best friends all piled in right after her daughter, Ella, was born, and they tore the place up with an all night party, actually celebrating this baby. Nina said that there were champagne bottles rolling around that they had to hide from the nursing staff, like a bad frat party. Sounds like Ella got the right message on day one: Here we are. Life is life. It goes on. It has to. Somehow or other we get here, and it doesn't have to be on a shining path of the perfect Mother and Father. The whole game is to get here. Get born into laughter, broken champagne bottles, broken rules, love.

And every holiday I get a new picture of the two of them, looking really happy.

My God I had an astonishingly busy day. No job yet, but things are more hopeful that's for sure.

How about you?

Friday nght open thread--go! (7:57pm Eastern)

"If anyone registers for CLCs, [Al Qaeda in Iraq] will put them in the road and kill them," lamented one man, standing outside the school where villagers were supposed to sign up for the civilian militia. Only one person made the commitment that day. "We are afraid. We don't have enough weapons to protect ourselves, and with this gun I can't protect myself against mortars."

He had just received a text message on his cellphone: 150 members of Al Qaeda are gathering in a nearby district, ready for revenge. He heard of another town where "Al Qaeda in five minutes killed everyone, including women breastfeeding. They destroyed that town completely. We don't want to repeat that."

US Army Capt. Dustin Heumphreus, commander of Arrow Troop, 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, tried to calm the man -- and a host of others milling about in the background -- using as examples several other towns made safe by effective CLCs. He also noted that now the US and Iraqi military presence itself had broken any deal the town may have had with Al Qaeda. Their best choice was to join the CLCs

I think that this comment to an earlier post was rather overwrought:

You're position is basically shitting in the face of men who always wanted children, but can't because they are sterile. So when he takes his wife to a fertility clinic and gets her fertilized with someone else's sperm, are you telling me his is NOT the father? He's nothing?? What the fuck kind of bulls^&t is that?? Get off the fence. Either Fathers (step or bio) are good or they are S^&T. There is no in between.

As far as I could tell, at no point in the original post was an argument made that non-biological fathers are "nothing". Interpreting it as such struck me as a very dogmatic desperation to take offense, any offense.

But taking the comment on its merits, it appears rather disjointed. There are several issues being mixed up here. One is whether fertilization of your wife by another man's sperm at a clinic is "real" fatherhood. I may be naive here but that scenario seems fictional and contrived to me. Usually the point of fertility clinics is to get the couple's own sperm to implant in their own ovum, in vitro, to get viable embryos of their own for reimplantation (I have several friends and family who've been through the process with varying success). If the process fails, usually adoption is the next recourse; I guess I am old fashioned ut I dont see why a woman would want to go through the hell of pregnancy to carry any baby but one that is unambigously hers and her husband's to term. In fact the idea verges on obscene in my mind. Adoption is an obvious alternative with zero moral complications, in fact a highly honorable and much less risky alternative at that.

The second issue is whether a step-father is better or worse intrinsically than a biological father. The answer here also seems obvious; the value of a father is how they parent, not who they are. That said, it's also rather obvious that all else being equal, of course a biological father is preferable. Pretending that the value of genetic inheritance, kin, and blood is ridiculous.

Finally, I take issue with the idea that a father is "either good or s^&t" with no in-between. Maybe the less said about that, due again to it's overwhelming obviousness, the better.

Or maybe I am just totally wrong on all counts. Still, I don't think that the comment in question was motivated by a genuine desire to discuss the merits of fatherhood in the abstract, but rather is yet another example of a pattern of abuse being leveled at this blog community as a whole. Rather than simply accepting the abuse, but also without responding in kind, I think the best approach is to simply respond on the merits of their arguments, such as they are.

While the conversion to WordPress is taking place, technical issues are slowing things down a bit. However, the new hosting service is purchased and paid for up to date, most of the work's been done, and we expect to see a new system up on February 1. Wish us luck. :-)

I find the term antisemitism somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, sentiment in general, and with respect to Jews in particular, is far too complex to be clearly expressed in a simple term.

Indeed, I think that terms, generally, are a poor medium for the expression of sentiment; No terminology is sufficiently broad to cover the entire spectrum of human sentiment.

To illustrate: while we constantly use terms like ‘love’, ‘hate’, ‘anger’, and ‘happy’, it is quite possible that not once was the sentiment meant to be expressed through our use of one of those terms completely identical to any of the sentiments underlying one’s use of that same term on another occasion. I think that because we do not have enough understanding of our sentiments, or of sentiment in general, we simply cannot come up with enough terms to describe them properly.

Furthermore, I venture that our sentiments at any given time and with regards any given entity are a huge mishmash of more basic emotions, further complicating the task of inventing an accurately descriptive term, let alone a comprehensive terminology.

In light of the above, it is clear just how poorly descriptive a term is ‘antisemitism’.

But on the other hand, it is precisely the term’s non-descriptive simplicity that makes it so useful. While quite possibly no two anti-semitic sentiments are completely alike, they must by definition share with one another the feature of being directed in opposition to Jews.

At any rate, given the complexity of sentiment in general, it seems reasonable to assume that we do not well understand how sentiment is passed on from one generation to the next. I have often thought that sentiment indoctrination is more about the tone and facial expressions with which we say things, in which situations we say and do things, and our nervous behaviors than it is about anything we actually say. And if this is correct then more sentiment indoctrination is done unconsciously then consciously.

Just to illustrate, one can quite honestly tell his child all about the equality of all men, but when he unintentionally speeds up when walking before a black man or lowers his voice when introducing one to his family, his children will at some level pick up the sentiment, at least after much repetition or more data.

Accordingly, I believe that sentiments toward given entities are a cultural heritage, handed down and delicately altered, mostly unintentionally, from generation to generation. By definition, these sentiments are mostly not understood, and I imagine some sentiments are quite ancient in origin.

Such is the case regarding non-Jewish sentiment toward the Jewish people. Going back to Avraham, the Jewish people are, perhaps, the most ancient nation in existence. And due to our unique historical circumstances, the entire world has come to form sentiments regarding us.

It is for this reason I mostly sneer at modern attempts to understand non-Jewish sentiment toward Jews. Non-Jewish feelings toward the Jews, grossly over simplified with the sometimes useful term ‘antisemitism’, have ancient origins.

For more on some of those origins, please come see this new post at TheLastAmazon.

"I think one of the best kept secrets is that the world is in the midst of an economic boom, and it is largely driven by increases in economic freedom," says economics professor James Gwartney, director of the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education at Florida State University. "The world has become more free, and, at the same time, growth is soaring to new highs. During 1995 to 2005, the growth rate of per capita GDP in 99 countries for which data are available has increased to 2.2 percent, nearly twice the rate of recent decades. Since 2000, the annual growth rate of per capita GDP has been even more rapid, 3.2 percent."

I'm having a very spirited discussion on this topic at The Razor. Your comments are welcome.

Rather than forcing the Gazan Arabs to join with the West Bank Arabs into a state of "Palestine" that has never before existed and has few of the elements of a successful nation-state, why not let Gaza revert to its pre-1967 status as part of Egypt? Egypt, at least is a country with which Israel has a peace treaty and diplomatic relations, which is more than can be said for the Hamas terrorist organization that now controls Gaza.

Were Gaza to become an Egyptian responsibility, Israel would no longer be reduced to complaining about arms smuggling across the Gaza-Egypt border. It could hold Egypt directly responsible for the rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Sderot, and America could use its $1.8 billion a year in aid to Egypt as leverage to demand the cessation of the attacks. If the plan of letting Gaza merge into Egypt works, it could be a model for allowing Jordan, another country with which Israel has a treaty of peace, to accept responsibility for parts of the West Bank. In the crisis along the Egypt-Gaza border could lie the seeds of a just resolution to the so-called Palestinian question.

An amusing look.

Ethno-Sectarian Deaths Down 90% In Baghdad Security Districts

Violence in Iraq declined dramatically in 2007.

· Ethno-sectarian attacks and deaths in Baghdad security districts decreased more than 90 percent from January to December 2007. (Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, Press Briefing, 1/17/08)

· Coalition forces found and cleared approximately 6,956 weapons caches in 2007, well over twice the amount (2,662) cleared in 2006. (MNF-I, Slide From Press Briefing, 1/17/08)

· Monthly attack levels in Iraq have decreased 60 percent since June 2007 and are now at the same levels as early 2005 and some points in 2004. (Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, Press Briefing, 1/17/08)

Iraq’s Security Forces, Police, and Concerned Local Citizens continue to grow and provide more security for their country. (Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, Press Briefing, 1/20/08)

· MNF-I reports that Iraq’s Security Forces grew by more than 106,000 personnel in 2007 and now stand at over 567,000.

o Rear Adm. Smith: “By year’s end, some 140 battalions of Army, police, national police, and special operations units were in the fight. About 122 of those 140 battalions are capable of taking the lead in conducting operations.”

o All Iraqi battalions are heavily involved in combat operations and are enduring losses 2-3 times that of the Coalition.

o The Ministries of Defense and Interior invested nearly $3 billion in foreign military sales to purchase equipment and supplies in 2007.

· More than 130 different Concerned Local Citizen groups are now providing neighborhood security throughout Iraq, with over 80,000 active members.

· On January 21, the Iraqi National Police graduated approximately 1,830 recruits from various training courses at Numaniyah National Training Center in Southern Iraq.

MNF-I reports that the foreigners who lead al Qaeda in Iraq target innocent Iraqis for attacks and torture. (Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, Press Briefing, 1/20/08)

· Al Qaeda in Iraq conducted more than 4,500 attacks against civilians in 2007, causing 3,870 deaths.

· MNF-I: “Al Qaeda in Iraq is foreign led”—“the majority of the senior leadership is foreign.”

· MNF-I: “over 90 percent of suicide bombers” in Iraq are “foreign terrorists.”

· Coalition and Iraqi operations uncovered al Qaeda torture houses in 2007, as well as a “torture manual” showing methods al Qaeda uses “to torture Iraqis for something as simple as smoking cigarettes or being related to someone in the Iraqi Security Forces.” [VIEW AL QAEDA TORTURE MANUAL]

(Thanks to the White House for this update.)

Dads Of Michigan.

Hugh Hefner and Holly Madison are very selfish and irresponsible people.

My auto's been acting up and I took it in to get looked at, and I'm walking funny looking at the estimate and figuring out what I can do without. May have to get a second opinion.

What ever happened to the days when you could just go to your brother or your buddy down the street and get all your work done?

Many murderous thugs just hiked across the unprotected border or used international airlines and--wearing T-shirts that proclaimed DEATH TO ALL JEWS in Arabic--breezed through U.S. checkpoints, where highly suspicious federal security personnel strip-searched Irish grandmothers and Boy Scouts on field trips. (336)

The Darkest Evening of the Year

Dean Koontz

Well it's not making much news, but McCain has won the Louisiana caucus, with lunatic fringe nutjob Ron Paul taking second (which his goofball campaign supporters will probably have spastic geek-boy orgasms over). The only thing that confuses me: did Democrats have a caucus in Louisiana too? Or was this strictly a Republican party event?

So, the deadline came and went, and Scrabulous still lives. Anyone up for a game? To be honest I was pretty sympathetic to Hasbro since the game is so transparently out to infringe copyright. Scrabbing is my favorite (well, only) pastime on Facebook, but the games makers are not exactly victims here.

A hot rumor has it that Glenn Sacks may soon be joining Dean's World as a front page contributor, possibly as soon as our conversion to WordPress is done in the very near future.

Anyone who's read this blog over time knows that I'm a huge fan of Glenn Sacks and a supporter of his work, and have been for many years. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it's true. ;-)

I asked God for strength,
that I might achieve
I was made weak,
that I might learn to obey

I asked God for health,
that I might do great things
I was given infirmity,
that I might do better things

I asked God for riches,
that I might be happy
I was given poverty,
that I might be wise

I asked God for power,
that I might have approval
I was given weakness,
that I might feel the need for God

I asked for all things,
that I might enjoy life
I was given life,
that I might enjoy all things

I got nothing that I asked for,
but everything I hoped for
I am among all people,
most richly blessed

(Author unknown)

As the collapse of the evil that was communism fades further and further into history, we learn more and more.

(Via Glenn.)

Tony Woodlief has a pithy look at the candidates and parties.

Roger Kimball asks a good question.

Slandering the troops with the outrageous allegation that there's some massive problem with them coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and becoming murderers ought to be unacceptable, but it seems like just business as usual for the former paper of record.

I missed the debate, darn it! But Joe's got good commentary and roundup.

The view from the Bohra masjid in Colombo, near Bambalapitiya Station, on the shore of the Arabian Sea.

It was a great trip, and I'm back safe and sound :) I will have a travelouge and photos up later this week.

For a preview, see a few photos up at Haibane.info.

Robert A. George on Fred Thompson:

On the bright side, he is now free to try and get back his Manhattan DA job.

Which was, as I said, pretty much always his main qualification for this job, anyway.

Mick Huckabee doesn't have enough money to play in Florida:

"The money simply hasn't come in at the rate that we expected," says the [Huckabee Campaign] aide. "Florida is a $7 million commitment that we can't meet, and if we did, that leaves us exposed for Super Tuesday, where we have a lot of states and a lot media buys. We had to make tough decisions."

With Fred! out of the campaign today, that leaves Florida as a three-way race between McCain, Rudy, and Romney. No matter how the votes break, this doesn't look good for Rudy. Huckabee's socon support is going to switch to either Romney or McCain, deprived of the Fred option as they are.