Day: June 14, 2001

Wendy McElroy on Outrageous “Rape” Case

Wendy McElroy has an excellent look at an outrageous example of administrators running roughshod over the rights of students accused of rape, How to Ruin a Man’s Life.

The Washington state Supreme Court recently upheld a $1.5 million judgment against Gonzanga University which committed one outrageous act after another to deny a teaching certificate to a student over an alleged rape. It didn’t help the university that the alleged rape victim testified that not only wasn’t she raped but that the university’s claims about her contained falsehoods and that a university official threatened her in an interview — when she refused to go along with the university’s claim that she had been raped, the alleged victim testified that one of the university interviewers asked her if she knew “where people who life go.”

Yet another unconscionable example of how little regard many universities have for things like due process (amazingly, the university conducted an investigation and decided not to award the alleged rapist a teaching certificate without once interviewing him.)

Source:

How to Ruin a Man’s Life. Wendy McElory, IFeminists.Com, June 12, 2001.

Ronald Bailey on latest Worldwatch Doom and Gloom

Writing for Reason magazine, Ronald Bailey recently took the Worldwatch Institute to task for the latest installment of its annual Vital Signs report. As Bailey notes, the main problem with Worldwatch is that it rather than provide a balanced account of legitimate environmental concerns as well as progress, Worldwatch consistently accentuates the negative.

Bailey writes,

But Worldwatch’s future looks so dark because it has omitted so much that is promising about the present. Even Worldwatch admits that the world’s economy continues to expand, rising in 1999 dollars from $6.4 trillion in 1950 to $43.2 trillion in 2000. Global per capita income (which is, to be sure, not evenly distributed) rose from $2,502 in 1950 to $7,102 in 2000. Yet, despite 192 pages of diagnosis, the report leaves out what many people would consider to be the most vital sign of all: longer human life. Global average life expectancy rose from around 46 years in 1950 to 66 years today and is expected to rise to 73 years by 2025, according to the World Health Organization.

…

Conspicuously absent from Vital Signs is any discussion of air pollution trends in the developed world. Since 1976 in the United States, ambient levels of sulfur dioxide are down 65 percent; nitrogen oxides, down 37 percent; ozone, down 27 percent; carbon monoxide, down67 percent, and particulates, down 26 percent. Keep in mind that air pollution fell while U.S. population grew from 218 million in 1976 to 281 million in 2000, and that the economy grew in real 1996 dollars from $4.3 trillion in 1976 to over $10 trillion today. Wealthier, it turns out, is cleaner.

Nor does Vital Signs note that, in both the United States and Europe, forest area is expanding. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s Committee on Forestry, forests are expanding at a rate of 750, 000 acres per year in Europe and nearly 1 million acres per year in the United States. Forest area in the U.S. has increased by more than 10 million acres since 1987. Prosperity and ecological health are clearly not antithetical.

Even when championing its pet projects like alternative energy, Worldwatch can get its facts straight. According to Bailey, Worldwatch claims that in 2000 nuclear energy “inches up” while solar energy “soars.” As Bailey notes, the reality is that in 2000 alone 2 gigawatts worth of nuclear energy were added worldwide while a mere 87 megawatts of solar power came online. For every one megawatt of solar energy, roughly 22 megawatts of nuclear power were added. That’s hardly merely inching up unless, as Worldwatch is almost certainly doing, you only consider percentage increases.

The truly distressing vital sign is that these annual reports still are taken seriously by so many policy makers and academics.

Source:

Misdiagnosing Earth: The Worldwatch Institute’s gloomy Vital Signs 2001 can’t bear good news. Ronald Bailey, Reason, May 30, 2001.

The Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law

Pearson Television, which owns “The Price Is Right,” recently donated $500,000 to the Harvard Law School to establish the Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law.

According to a Harvard Law School press release,

The Fund will support teaching and research at the Law School in the emerging field of animal rights law. The income generated by the gift will fund periodic courses and seminars at the Law School on animal rights taught by visiting scholars with a wide range of views and perspectives. In addition to classroom instruction, the gift will assist visiting and permanent faculty members in conducting research in this growing area.

Barker and Pearson Television executive Syd Vinnedge presented the gift to Harvard Law School Dean Robert C. Clark at a special ceremony at the law school.

“This fund will allow our faculty and students to explore in depth an emerging field of law that has ramifications in many traditional legal areas. We are grateful to Pearson Television for this gift — our students will benefit greatly from their generosity and from Bob Barker’s sensitivity to the issue of animal rights.”

Source:

Harvard Law School Receives Gift from Pearson Television to Fund The Bob Barker Endowment for the Study of Animal Rights Law. Harvard Law School, press release, June 14, 2001.

New York Banks Attacked as Part of anti-HLS Campaign

Newsday reports that five Long Island branches of the Bank of New York were recently vandalized by animal rights activists as part of a campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences. The Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for the attacks.

Banks in Kings Park, Greenlawn, Commack, North Babylon and Melville were attacked during the early morning hours of June 14 by activists who smashed windows and spray painted animal rights slogans, such as “BNY invests in murdering animals.”

The ALF targeted the branches because the Bank of New York is tangentially connected to HLS. The bank trades a type of security called an American depository receipts, which allows people to buy shares in Huntingdon Life Sciences as well as a host of other companies.

Source:

5 area banks are vandalized. Michael Luo, Newsday.Com, June 14, 2001.

Anti-Fur Activist Sues Firefighter

This one had me laughing out loud. In April 2000, anti-fur protester Andrea Lindsay chained herself to a Nieman Marcus billboard that was atop a 10-story building in San Francisco. Now she’s suing the firefighter who removed her from that billboard, charging he assaulted her. She’s also suing police claiming their efforts to coax her down from the billboard “inflicted emotional distress.”

Most of Lindsay’s injuries were a direct result of her method of affixing herself to the billboard — she put a bicycle lock around her neck and attached it to part of the billboard. Then she dropped the key. Firefighters retrieved the key and unlocked Lindsay, but she claims she suffered injuries to her neck and back, as well as tearing in her ear lobes (she did all this wearing earrings).

Part of the lawsuit actually contends that she was placed at risk when, “Plaintiff then noted blood coming from her head which was not only painful but particularly distressful due to the large amount of rust and bird droppings on the billboard.” Yeah, its hard to imagine a billboard having rust and bird droppings. Aren’t those the sort of things you’re supposed to consider before chaining yourself to a billboard?

As for the emotional distress she suffered, Lindsey didn’t particularly like the no-nonsense manner in which police treated her. The lawsuit complains that police at various times told her, “Get the f– down” and “I don’t care how long you a– stay up there. For every minute you are up there, I’ll add another charge.” Apparently she was hoping for a written invitation.

San Francisco City Attorney Nathan Ballard put it better than I can in response to the lawsuit,

She admits that she chained herself to a billboard 50 feet in the air and now she wants us to feel ‘concerned for her safety’ when the Fire Department comes to rescue her. We’ll have to see what a jury thinks about that.

Maybe the firefighters who had to forcibly remove her from atop a 10 story building should counter sue Lindsay for recklessly putting their lives in danger with this little stunt.

Sources:

Activist sues firefighter rescuer: Alleges assault during removal from billboard. Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 2001.

How PCRM Distorts Medical Research

A Tennessee newspaper recently provide an excellent example of how the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine distorts genuine medical research. Notice the difference between the reporter’s accurate summary of a recent study about dairy products and prostate cancer, and Neal Barnard’s snap judgement,

A recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health raised the possibility
that consuming lots of dairy products could modestly increase the risk of
prostate cancer. The study stressed the case was far from settled and
recommended further study of calcium’s effects on health.

“Dairy products cause hormonal changes in a man’s body that increase the risk
of prostate cancer,” said [Neal] Barnard, a psychiatrist and nutrition researcher
with Georgetown University.

For the activists, any study which finds a correlation for something they agree with becomes instant proof that they are right, while studies that find correlations which the activists don’t agree with (such as those finding some advantages for eating fish) are either ignored or dismissed out of hand.

Source:

Group Targets Mississippi Because Of High Prostate Cancer Death Rates. The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee), June 13, 2001.