Monday, April 17th, 2006,
by Fred (,
Hamas, politics, terrorism
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What happens when the NY Times gets an “author who is writing a book about fats” to write an op-ed about trans fats? You get a load of tripe like Nuggets of Death.
The F.D.A. should set a limit of 5 percent here. Opponents of such a cap have argued that it is not worth the trouble, because the average American consumes so little trans fat. But the Danish study clearly shows that some — especially the sizable population eating fast foods — consume trans fats in dangerous doses.Others have argued that the government should let consumers choose for themselves. But consumers can’t make informed choices when so much of their food isn’t labeled. And given that we are expected to monitor salt, high-fructose corn syrup, peanut traces and other potential dangers, a trip through the supermarket is already beginning to resemble taking the SAT.
None of this is much of a surprise, of course. Nina Teicholz has been sounding the trans fat alarm for years, including a Gourmet magazine piece in 2004. She also pounds on every proponent of the nanny state’s favorite enemy, Wal Mart, bemoaning the retail giant’s entry into foodstuffs by writing in Gourmet in 2005 that “we will increasingly be eating according to mass-market tastes, shopping in massive Supercenters and living in the world that Wal-Mart built.” Can’t have the common folk eating what they want when they have good ol’ Nina telling them what they should eat, at least if they subscribe to Gourmet.
And what of personal responsibility? No, we need the government, because it’s just too hard to pay attention to what one sticks in one’s gullet. Why, it took a Danish study to determine that McDonald’s products have so many trans fats, right? Not exactly. No one disputes that too many fats of all kinds are bad for you. Current science indicates that too many trans fats are particularly bad. But the answer is not to get the government into the food content regulating business. It’s for people to take responsibility. But that’s something people like Nina Teicholz will never accept - if people have to accept the consequences for what they do, where’s the market for scolding journalism from people like Nina Teicholz.
And like all food scolds, Teicholz can’t be bothered with little things like facts when there’s an agenda at stake. Ed Cone notes that Teicholz claims that “Trans fats are also easily manipulated, able to give a Goldfish cracker its crunch, for instance,” while Pepperidge Farms’ product actually contains no trans fats.
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Thursday, April 6th, 2006,
by Fred (,
nanny state, police, security, terrorism
,
I’m not sure which is scarier, this Daily Mail story about a man arrested for playing the wrong music:
Harraj Mann, 24, played the punk anthem London Calling and classic rock track Immigrant Song in a taxi before a flight to London.The lyrics to both tracks made the driver fear his passenger was a terrorist.
The words of the Clash track begin: “London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared and battle come down.” And Led Zep’s Immigrant Song goes: “The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!”Mr Mann, of Hartlepool, Teesside, had boarded the plane at Durham Tees Valley Airport when the flight to Heathrow was stopped and he was arrested by police.
He said he was told he was being questioned under the Terrorism Act and his choice of music had aroused suspicions.
Or the people defending the actions of the police. From the Daily Mail reader comments:
Fair enough! Only those who don’t know the lyrics can think otherwise!
- Lana Edwards, Zurich, Switzerland
The taxi driver was suspicious and tried to do the right thing, in notifying authorities. Lives have been lost with all these bombings.
- Marijane, Lady Lake, FL
Or these comments at the Wizbang post about this story:
I guess I am conservative enough that I would rather be safe than sorry. Maybe this incident is just the tip of the iceberg, maybe it is the isolated case that stands out. I know that our planes flying into buildings is a sign of a broken system. A guy spending several hours under questioning may make sense or not, I would need more facts to be sure.
But as I said before, if both the taxi driver and the police twitched on this guy and didn’t follow through before he did a terrorist act, that would be the real tragedy.
First, I give the taxi driver his due for being able to understand the lyrics. That is pretty impressive in itself.
Second, I do not think he is a jerk at all, much less deserving of eternal damnation for being suspicious of someone I presume is Arabic, listening to disturbing lyrics about waging war. Was he also in Muslim garb? The article doesn’t say. In today’s context the driver did exactly the right thing. Virtually no one except a Muslim terrorist is likely to take those lyrics literally, but they are alarming in light of recent events. For all the cab driver knew, the guy may have been on his way to wage Jihad. Better safe than sorry. Apparently the authorities agreed.
The man was questioned for three hours and probably had a background search. Boo hoo. Cry me a river.
Give me a break. Detaining someone for several hours because they listen to a 36 year old rock song? Defending the police that do such a thing because “better safe than sorry”? It’s wild goose chases like these that keep the authorities from catching actual Bad Guys. But at least that taxi driver can feel better because he made the police arrest a dirty muslim Led Zeppelin fan.
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Monday, March 27th, 2006,
by Fred (,
Alan Moore, comics, Hugo Weaving, movies, Natalie Portman, terrorism, V For Vendetta
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Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny;
when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
–Thomas Jefferson
There are two ways to view Guy Fawkes. The traditional historical view is that Fawkes was England’s greatest traitor, part of the Gunpowder Plot that aimed to blow up Parliament with 5500 pounds of gunpowder placed in a cellar rented for that purpose. In this view, Guy Fawkes Day celebrates the capture, torture, confession, trial and execution of a traitor, and the victory of England over tyranny and terror.
An alternate view is that Guy Fawkes was not a traitor, but a liberator, a martyr to the cause of liberty who fought a corrupt English regime that persecuted Catholics and tortured dissidents. In this view, it is not Fawkes but England who is the source of tyranny and terror, and Guy Fawkes Day should be seen not as a celebration of victory over insurrection, but as an honor for one who stood up for freedom, using violence to try to defeat the violent. Keep in mind the part of the poem at the start of this post, repeated in the movie, that are usually left out:
- A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
- A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
- A pint of beer to rinse it down.
- A faggot of sticks to burn him.
- Burn him in a tub of tar.
- Burn him like a blazing star.
- Burn his body from his head.
- Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
- Hip hip hoorah!
- Hip hip hoorah!
It is a moral dilemma that confronts viewers in V for Vendetta, the Wachowski brothers’ excellent adaptation of Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel. Is the titular V (Hugo Weaving) terrorist or defender of liberty? Is Evey (Natalie Portman) villain, victor or victim?
Moore’s V for Vendetta was a product of early Thatcherite England, a 1980s where the more paranoid could envision the police state and totalitarianism arising from surveillance, security measures and crackdowns on crime. It’s the same mindset that produced A Clockwork Orange. Thatcher also, of course, contributed in no small measure to the current free Europe and the fall of the totalitarian Soviet bloc, but the British left did not see it that way.
Moore and Lloyd produced a dystopian epic, in which the Chancellor both gained power and retained it through fear. The Voice of Fate manipulated truth through propoganda, and the vicious Fingermen put down any sign of dissent. Against this tyranny stood only V, who channeled Fawkes both literally and figuratively, wreaking vengeance both for his personal suffering and for the suffereing of the formerly free Britain. V for Vendetta, along with Moore’s own Watchmen and the lesser-known Miracleman, redefined the graphic novel, and ranks in its own way with Huxley and Orwell as a dystopian vision.
The Wachowskis and producer Joel Silver have done an admirable job updating the original to 2006 reality. They took some liberties with the original work, and Alan Moore famously demanded that his name be removed from the credits. But make no mistake, this is no League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Despite the changes, V for Vendetta stands on its own as a film.
Hugo Weaving makes an excellent V, although he did at times seem to be relying too heavily on his character from the Matrix trilogy. The celluloid V seems half psychotic survivor of a fascist government and half avenging angel. Is he terrorist or freedom fighter? Neither, really. V is an expression of an idea. Given what the tyrannical government has done to him personally, his expression of the idea is too violent, too judgmental by half. Evey, whose own history should make her open to V’s ideals, is turned off by the violence, by how personal it is to V. Weaving does a good, but not great, job of portraying this dichotomy.
Natalie Portman, on the other hand, is nearly perfect as Evey. Even at 24, the waiflike Portman seems childlike. Watching her Evey descend from innocent citizen through trial, torture and abuse to V’s willing assistant is a triumph of acting. Weaving’s V wears a literal and figurative mask; Portman’s Evey is open in all senses of the word. This is clearly Portman’s best role and best performance to date.
The rest of the performances are good, but not superlative. Stephen Rea plays Inspector Finch with the same hangdog, just-trying-to-do-his-job-even- though-his-bosses-are-evil look he’s brought to other roles. It’s reminiscent in many ways of Lt. Viktor Burakov, the homicide investigator Rea played in HBO’s Citizen X. Like Burakov, Finch is an honest cop trying to do his job in a corrupt system, angling to avoid being swept up in party politics. The movie creates a relationship of sorts between V and Finch that is not present in the graphic novel, using Finch to, like Evey, show how the human side of V and the idea of V turn outsiders to his cause despite the violence.
John Hurt drips evil as Adam Sutler in an over-the-top performance that is more or less what the character calls for. Just as V is an idea, a masked character representing freedom, Sutler is a caricature representing evil and tyranny. He wears a mask, too.
Most of the flaws of the movie are in the source material. Even in Moore’s work, the backstory of V, Larkhill and the government are not adequately tied to the campaign against Sutler, the Fingermen and the Voice of Fate. Neither the 1980s version or the film do an adequate job of explaining how a free government fell into totalitarianism, or why the people do not resist before V comes along. Despite these flaws, however, the movie is at bottom a success.
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities
has the power to make you commit injustices.
– Voltaire
Ultimately, V for Vendetta is all about masks. The masked vigilante pulling the mask from a tyrannical government to get the people to rise and demand freedom. The oppressed masses donning the vigilante’s mask to express solidarity with the cause. V for Vendetta answers one question — there are times when violence by the people is necessary to counter violence by the State — but leaves others unanswered. Is V a terrorist? That’s for you to decide.
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Friday, March 10th, 2006,
by Fred (,
Dubai, politics, ports, security, terrorism
,
Driven by a strange bedfellows coalition of Democrats who want to make the Adminstration look weak on security (traditionally a good issue for Republicans) and Republicans who appear to be terrified of Arabs, Dubai Ports World has said it would sell its interest in American ports to a US firm. Congress, of course, is unfazed, vowing to press forward with legislation to block DP World’s acquisition of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. But then again, this was always about politics and not security - after all, how could it have been, when it would still be Americans manning the ports and Americans securing the ports?
Adding to the fiasco and abuse of power of the whole situation, which American firm is best positioned to buy DP World’s interest in the US ports?
Eller & Co., whose Miami subsidiary Continental Stevedoring & Terminals sued to block the sale, said it might attempt to buy the terminals. “We are certainly encouraged by what the statement said,” Eller attorney Michael Kreitzer said. “We think we are one of the companies (that could buy it). We have been in the business for 70 years. We could do it.”
That’s right. The company that sued to block the sale now wants to buy the port interests. At fire sale prices, of course. None of the top five port operators in the world are American firms, but this seems like a good way to build them up - stop legitimate foreign firms from operating here, and force them to sell their property to Americans at distressed prices.
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Friday, March 3rd, 2006,
by Fred (,
banking, government, Homeland Security, terrorism
,
I’ve always been kind of a waffler on intellectual property. I accept that it serves a useful purpose, and I strongly support property rights in general against governmental and societal interference. Intellectual property is, however, property only because government has decreed it to be so, and therefore the rights of the public and the rights of the creator must be balanced. Thus, when over-eager IP lawyers leave their little boxes and poop on society’s living room floor, they have to be smacked on the snout with a newspaper.
Case in point for today:Waxy.org: Daily Log: Litigation Cosby Threatens Waxy, You See!
Synopsis so far: Creative guys make parody video about Bill Cosby, wherein a Cosby fan clones Cosby, with each copy a degradation of all who came before. Much hilarity ensues. IP lawyer leaves little box with cease-and-desist letter clutched between its blood-stain jowls. Videos disappear. Waxy is the latest mirror to be threatened, but it decides to fight, as the videos are clearly parody, which is a use protected under the first amendment.
But I don’t have to just rant and rave and make bad analogies about my IP brethren, so I put the videos on my server, too. Here, doggy.
[see also Boing Boing]
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Thursday, March 2nd, 2006,
by Fred (,
Dubai, ports, security, terrorism
,
You can take the Judge out of the courtroom…
Associate Circuit Judge Brian Babka is presiding over the [former Judge William B.] Starnes case. He seems pretty good-natured, as judges go. Starnes may be stretching the boundaries of that good nature. During each of the first three days of trial, Babka has scolded Starnes over some behavioral infraction. First it was for acting as his own attorney even though the very capable Richard Roustio fills that role. But that didn’t stop Starnes from walking right up to Babka to discuss his case, which is bad form for a defendant. The judge told Starnes flat-out: “I don’t want you addressing the court.”
The biggest blow-up came on Wednesday when St. Clair County State’s Attorney Bob Haida appeared before Babka. My colleagues who cover Haida’s office said they can’t remember him ever getting involved in someone else’s trial. But there he was Wednesday, complaining about an interview Starnes gave to a television station. Starnes told the reporter that he was wrongfully arrested, that he had no faith in the police officers’ integrity, and that he thought his case was a political vendetta.Why? Because Starnes’ nephew twice ran against Haida for the state’s attorney’s office. He lost both times, in 1996 and again in 2000. That 2000 loss came three months before Starnes’ arrest. During the five years this case has crawled through the courts, Starnes had wanted to make the vendetta claim in court. A judge said no.
Hearing Starnes claim in a television interview what he is not allowed to claim in court, Haida said, was like Starnes’ “thumbing his nose” at the court. Maybe Babka should issue a gag order against Starnes.
Again, Babka took Starnes to the woodshed. He watched the interview, he told the lawyers, and was “disappointed by Mr. Starnes’ conduct. I thought it was inappropriate.”
He didn’t want to issue a gag order, which raises all sorts of freedom of speech issues. Starnes began an explanation to the judge. Big mistake. Babka told him if he kept trying to speak directly to him, Starnes might earn himself a contempt charge. After that, Roustio and Starnes agreed Starnes would not give any more inflammatory interviews.
I can’t imagine being defense counsel to a judge would be a fulfilling experience. This defendant is used to deciding what the law is, and doesn’t seem happy that he can only speak in what used to be his courtroom through his whippersnapper of a lawyer.
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