Month: January 2001

Hacking Sex Offender Lists

MSNBC reports that at least nine web sites maintained by state agencies that list convicted sex offenders have very lax security. According to MSNBC, the sites could easily be hacked. Someone intent on doing damage could potentially add or delete people from the databases.

MSNBC also looks at the controversy surrounding putting such offender databases on the Internet. I think making records of criminal offenses for violent crimes and sexual offenses available on the Internet is a very good idea. Michigan is one of the states that posts sex offender lists on a web site, and by doing a search we learned that the nice old man down the street who is always so friendly was a convicted sexual offender.

Of course the system only works if people act reasonably. Nobody in our neighborhood, to my knowledge, as even mentioned to this gentleman that his name is on the sex offenders list, and we treat him pretty much the same, though people are definitely more cautious with their children than they were before learning of his conviction.

The biggest problem with the current version of the sex offenders list is that it doesn’t give details on the type of crime or when the conviction occurred. For example, if the man in our neighborhood was convicted of statutory rape for having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend when he was 20 back in the 1950s, that’s an entirely different matter than if he was convicted of molesting a child a few years ago. The sex offenders list, however, doesn’t give that sort of context.

More than sex offenders, however, I’d really like to be able to access violent crime records. Pretty much everybody in my neighborhood seems to have a conviction or two. The two young men in their twenties living next to me have each served time for armed robbery, for example. For awhile a woman in my neighborhood was dating a man who had just been released from jail after serving 15 years for a murder.

California Power Reregulation Working Relatively Well

I keep watching the news and seeing a strange claim made over and over again: since the wholesale price of electricity increased in California, electricity deregulation is a failure. Huh? Although what California did was reregulate rather than deregulate its power utilities, the system seems to be working relatively well.

Anytime a commodity is in short supply, as electricty is in California, its price should spike. This is a signal to the market that more of that commodity is demanded by consumers and capital investment should shift to producing that commodity — in this case electricity.

The real problem that California has is that the state has created a number of regulatory hurdles that make it very difficult for companies to enter to build new power plants. If you had a pile of money and wanted to get into the business of generating electricity, California’s the last place you’d want to build.

Here’s a prime example of the sort of nonsense you’ll face in California. A few years ago Calpine Corporation wanted to build a geothermal power plant at Medicine Lake. Rather than burn coal or use nuclear power, the geothermal plant would have pumped water from the lake which would in turn run turbines and generate about 50 megawatts. Environmentalists still showed up to protest, arguing that the huge plumes of steam — which are the main byproduct of a geothermal power plant — would make the otherwise scenic area aesthetially unattractive.

Why wait 7 years or more for approval — and then have to suffer through the inevitable protests and lawsuits — to build a power plant in California, when Texas will do it in 2 years?

Ingrid Newkirk on Animal Rights Terrorism

Does People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals support animal rights terrorism? You be the judge. Ingrid Newkirk‘s book on the Animal Liberation Front, Free the Animals was recently republished. For the new edition, Newkirk wrote an Author’s Note, which reads in part,

Today’s liberationists know that the ice has been broken. Television and newspaper stories have shown the extent of the suffering, over and over again. People know that there are kind alternatives to every cruel thing, from veggie burgers and ‘pleather’ to virtual organs. Perhaps that’s why the ‘new ALF’ has lost patience with the foot draggers and spends scant time explaining. Determined to cause economic injury to the exploiters, ALF members burn down their emptied buildings and smash their vehicles to smithereens. Perhaps, after reading this book, you will find that you cannot blame them.

Camille Paglia on NOW’s “Flush Rush” Campaign

Paglia slams NOW for “trying to shut down alternative political points of view.”

Like me, Camille Paglia is apparently still receiving letters from the National Organization for Women begging for money for their “Flush Rush!” campaign. After all of these years trying to get Limbaugh off the air waves without even a modicum of success, I would have thought NOW would have long ago moved on to something more productive, but alas such is not the case.

As Paglia recounts, the rhetoric in the NOW letters borders on hilarious.

NOW believes that Rush Limbaugh is truly a dangerous man. We need the help of every progressive person to expose the hateful, divisive fanaticism of Rush Limbaugh.

As opposed to the hateful, divisive fanaticism of an organization that rejected a resolution affirming the importance of fathers in children’s lives as being far too right wing.

As Paglia notes, whatever one thinks of Limbaugh, he is successful precisely because he has tapped a broad spirit of populism.

I don’t quite agree with her positive assessment of Limbaugh — “His daily radio show is the one reliable place ordinary citizens can turn to for a different perspective in the blizzard of propaganda and disinformation from the Northeastern media establishment” — but her description of NOW is on the money,

…a group that should be impartially devoted to the advancement of women is shamelessly whoring for the Democratic Party by trying to shut down alternative political points of view.

Source:

The peevish porcupine beats the shrill rooster. Camille Paglia, Salon.Com, December 6, 2000.

Women Join German Combat Units

After losing its case in the European Court of Justice, Germany allows women to serve in combat position.

In January 2000, a female electronics specialist sued in the European Court of Justice claiming that the German armed forces’ policy of not allowing women to join combat units violated the European Union’s principle of sexual equality. She won and in July Germany changed its constitution to allow women in combat positions.

According to the BBC, 1,900 women have applied to join the German armed forces since the constitutional change. The first 244 women were accepted on January 2, 2001, most of whom joined the German army and air force.

Source:

Women join German fighting forces. The BBC, January 2, 2001.

ALF/ELF Target McDonald's Corporate Headquarters

In a press release, the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front took responsibility for the December 7, 2000 vandalization of McDonald’s corporate office in Long Island, New York. According to the release,

At roughly 1:30am Friday, December 7th, members of the ALF and ELF descended upon McDonald’s corporate offices in Haupauge. Here we smashed over 10 windows and spraypainted anti meat slogans against environmental destruction. We will not be stopped.

For good measure, ALF press officer/activist added that, “McDonald’s represents the core idea of American capitalism which places profit, power, and greed ahead of life.” Whereas vandalism is life affirming.

Source:

Earth Liberation Front Claim Joint Credit for Economic Sabotage at McDonald’s Corporate Offices on Long Island, NY. Front Line Information Service, press release, December 9, 2000.