Month: February 2002

Throw the Bums in Jail

A Canadian judge was very angry this month for a very odd reason — a man who admitted he wrongfully accused his wife of assaulting him was arrested and jailed for several days. Judge Dianne Nicholas railed against prosecutors, arguing that the man should not have spent a night in jail!

Nicholas’ reasoning is straightforward. She told prosecutors that routinely sees women recant claims of assault against men, and yet such women are not arrested. Why should the policy be any different when it is a man who is making up the allegation? The Ottawa Citizen quoted Nicholas as “fuming” that,

It smacked to me of discrimination on the basis of gender. Women lie every day. Every day women in (domestic) court say ‘I made it up. I’m lying. It didn’t happen’ — and they’re not charged with obstruct …

Although this might seem like a blow in favor of sexual equality, this writer has to wonder about the effects of not imposing any sort of punishment at all on men or women who make up false allegations of assault or abuse. How can we possibly trust that such allegations are genuine if there is no penalty for making up a false allegation?

Spending a few days in jail might do a lot of good for people who admit making false allegations, regardless of their sex.

Source:

Gender-bias issue raises ‘optics’ problem in domestic court. Dave Brown, The Ottawa Citizen, February 21, 2002.

Women Obtaining Concealed Weapons Permits in Michigan

A concealed weapons permit system went into effect in Michigan several, and the Detroit Free Press focused on women who are lining up to obtain their weapons permits. Under the new state law, anyone with a clean criminal history can obtain a concealed weapons permit.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that large numbers of women are obtaining the permits. So far 3,278 pistol permits have been issued in Michigan. The law forbids the release of information about the identities of those seeking permits, but a gun shop owner cited by the Free Press estimates that as many as 40 percent of those seeking permits are women.

Jessica Lutz of Huntington Woods, Mich., tells the Detroit Free Press,

When I found out how much safer women could be . . . what’s my choice there? One of the things taught in my house was, you have to be self-sufficient.

The article also quotes Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence spokeswoman Nancy Hwa claiming that in other states permits have been revoked after permit holders committed crimes. Of course she forgets to mention that permit holders in those states have tended to commit gun-related crimes at rates that are often even lower than those committed by off-duty police (and, frankly, I’d be more inclined to trust a woman with a concealed weapon than an off-duty Detroit cop).

Source:

Weapons law draws women to get arms. Kathleen Gray and John Masson, Detroit Free Press, February 21, 2002.

France Wants Cryonically Frozen Bodies Unthawed and Buried

Although I’d like to live forever, one method I am not planning to rely on to get there is cryonics. The idea, of course, is that at death your body is frozen on the off chance that at some period in the future technology might exist to revive you. Since the practice of freezing damages the body, even if someday nanotechnology is around that can revive dead bodies (which I doubt will ever happen — hey, I’m an optimist but even I have limits), I doubt a given person’s consciousness would survive the many changes to cells in the brain (see Pet Sematary for what might happen in such a situation).

But if people want to waste their money having themselves frozen, more power to them. Unless they live in France, apparently. Raymond and Monique Martinot spent a lot of money having themselves cryonically frozen. But French prosecutors claim this is strictly forbidden. The BBC quotes a prosecutor as saying, “What has been done is outlawed in France. In this country, bodies must either be cremated or buried.”

This is apparently common in Europe, and people wanting to freeze themselves after death generally depart Europe for the land where even the kookiest ideas generally have legal protection so long as they don’t harm others — the United States. Cryonics here is regulated by states and several openly permit the process.

I cannot imagine what the European objection to freezing is. The only thing I can think of are concerns that the company or other entity responsible for maintaining the cryonics facilities may become insolvent and leave the government or other third party with a bunch of dead bodies to dispose of, but that concern would be easily addressed through an insurance policy or similar mechanism.

Frozen couple sparks heated debate. The BBC, February 26, 2002.

Land Trust that Banned Hunting Brings in Sharpshooters to Kill Foxes

The Essex Wildlife Trust owns almost 8,000 acres of land in 93 nature preserves in Great Britain. A few years ago, the Trust banned all hunting on land it owns, but got more than it bargained for in the process.

On the 600-acre Tollesbury Wick reserve, the past few years have scene the fox population increase dramatically with an attendant decline in the population of ground-nesting lapwings. Five years ago there were only 4-5 foxes on the reserve, whereas today there are about 20. While there were 38 pairs of ground-nesting lapwings five years ago, today there are only three. There have also been increases in fox attacks on other animals in the reserve.

The solution to deal with the problem? Hunting, of course. The Trust hired sharpshooters to cull the foxes, resulting in predictable outrage among animal rights activists in Great Britain.

Graham Game, the Trust’s development manager, told The Daily Telegraph,

We are getting the worst of both worldsWe are getting lots of flak for deciding to cull the foxes, but it looks as if not a single predator will have been shot. He said the decision to kill the foxes was only taken after much heart-searching and research. We have now reached the situation where these predators are making the future of endangered species unsustainable.

Of course the animal rights activists aren’t buying that argument at all. “When we tell them that we have seen foxes killing lambs and ground-nesting birds,” Game said, “they simply do not accept it.”

Do these activists think that foxes are herbivores?

Source:

Hunting ban trust faces protests over fox cull. David Sapsted, The Daily Telegraph, February 22, 2002.

Mugabe Can’t Even Frame His Opposition Without Enormous Gaffes

Zimbabwe has elections coming up — elections that would almost certainly result in a loss of power for Robert Mugabe if they were fair and free. Mugabe’s got a problem, and this week a solution appeared in the form of a videotape supposedly showing opposition leaders plotting to kill Mugabe.

The setup is this: opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai recently met with Ari Ben-Menashe. That meeting was surreptitiously taped, apparently by Zimbabwe secuirty forces.

Ben-Menashe used to work for Mugabe, though was apparently passing himself off now as an independent consultant. At the meeting, the two discuss a variety of issues related to the upcoming elections until Ben-Menashe proposes assassinating Mugabe, at which point Tsvangirai claims he left the room and refused to have anything more to do with Ben-Menashe.

But Mugabe is selling a different story — that Tsvangirai proposed the assassination plot and Ben-Menashe turned the opposition union leader in, saying he was shocked when Tsvangirai proposed the political murder.

So how do we know that Tsvangirai’s version is correct — and that Ben-Menashe was working with Zimbabwe’s security forces to set all of this up? Because Mugabe’s government released a videotape of that meeting. An extensively edited videotape. No, make that an idiotically edited videotape. Here’s how the BBC sums up the problems with the edited video, citing the point at which Tsvangirai appears to agree to the murder of Mugabe,

Although this sounds like damning evidence, after each question or answer, the film suddenly jumps and the figures switch their seating positions, showing that the clip has been heavily edited.

The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe has analysed the video tape and says that a version broadcast relentlessly on Zimbabwe television has a video timer on the screen, which also demonstrates “that the video had been cut and rearranged in a manner that appeared to suit the assassination conspiracy theory”.

“The timer… changed repeatedly from, 9.45am to 9.25am; and from 9.25am to 9.43am and then back to 9.27am; and from 9.52am to 9.44am,” says the MMPZ.

Mugabe’s security forces are so stupid they left the damn timecode stamp in the edited video the released to the public! Sure puts a better perspective on his mismanagement of Zimbabwe.

Source:

What lies behind Zimbabwe’s treason tape. The BBC, February 26, 2002.