"I love my life. I regret my life. The lines eventually blur... It's just my life."
Busted Over $80 Worth of Pot, College Student Turns Informant, Then Turns Up Dead - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Last week North Dakota's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) released a report that finds no wrongdoing in the way an anti-drug task force handled a young confidential informant who turned up dead last June. Andrew Sadek, a 20-year-old student at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton, agreed to work as an informant for the Southeast Multi-County Agency Drug Task Force (SEMCA) after he was arrested for selling pot on campus in 2013.
His death calls to mind similar cases in which young drug offenders facing draconian penalties were forced into dangerous undercover work, including Rachel Hoffman, a Florida college student who was murdered in 2008 after agreeing to arrange the purchase of MDMA, cocaine, and a gun for $10,000.
Sadek himself was entrapped by a C.I. who bought marijuana from him on two occasions. Although the total value of the sales was just $80, Sadek faced up to 20 years in prison because the sales occurred in a "school zone." He agreed to do to others what had been done to him, buying marijuana at SEMCA's direction from two dealers at his school on three occasions from November 2013 to January 2014. Each time Sadek bought an eighth of an ounce for $60. According to the BCI report, he had to buy from two more dealers "to fulfill his obligation in resolving the charges he had been facing." But at that point Sadek stopped communicating with his handler at SEMCA, which therefore charged him with two felonies and a misdemeanor on May 9.
That was a week after Sadek was reported missing.
On June 27 his body was found in the Red River near Breckenridge, Minnesota, with a gunshot wound to the head. His mother, Tammy Sadek, requested the investigation that led to the BCI report, which was the work of a review board appointed by Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem."
Virginia State Legislator: "We found out that having a monopoly is really cool." - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "As a resident of Virginia I have to put with buying liquor from government-owned Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) stores. ABC stores were set up after the end of Prohibition. I will admit that the selection has much improved in recent years (more single malts scotches are on offer), but the Commonwealth's ABC stores do not provide nearly the variety that one finds in private liquor stores in the District of Columbia. DC prices are lower too.
Four years ago, Governor Bob McDonnell (R) tried to sell of the stores and privatize liquor sales, but the General Assembly blocked the effort. The headline quotation is from Virginia Delegate David Albo (R-Fairfax), who also asked, "Why do we want to give up a monopoly?" As the Daily Progress reports, Albo is pushing legislation that would transform the ABC from a state "agency" into a state "authority." ABC would still be a monopoly, but it would allegedly be run more like a business. Here's an idea; why not end the monopoly and let actual businessses run like businesses?"
Science's Biggest Fail | Scott Adams Blog: "What’s is science’s biggest fail of all time? I nominate everything about diet and fitness. Maybe science has the diet and fitness stuff mostly right by now. I hope so. But I thought the same thing twenty years ago and I was wrong. I used to think fatty food made you fat. Now it seems the opposite is true...
I used to think vitamins had been thoroughly studied for their health trade-offs. They haven’t... I used to think the U.S. food pyramid was good science. In the past it was not, and I assume it is not now.
I used to think drinking one glass of alcohol a day is good for health, but now I think that idea is probably just a correlation found in studies. I used to think I needed to drink a crazy-large amount of water each day, because smart people said so, but that wasn’t science either. I could go on for an hour.
...the indirect problem might be worse: It is hard to trust science. Today I saw a link to an article in Mother Jones bemoaning the fact that the general public is out of step with the consensus of science on important issues. The implication is that science is right and the general public are idiots. But my take is different. I think science has earned its lack of credibility with the public. If you kick me in the balls for 20-years, how do you expect me to close my eyes and trust you? If a person doesn’t believe climate change is real, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is that a case of a dumb human or a science that has not earned credibility? We humans operate on pattern recognition. The pattern science serves up, thanks to its winged monkeys in the media, is something like this:
Step One: We are totally sure the answer is X.
Step Two: Oops. X is wrong. But Y is totally right. Trust us this time.
Science isn’t about being right every time, or even most of the time. It is about being more right over time and fixing what it got wrong. So how is a common citizen supposed to know when science is “done” and when it is halfway to done which is the same as being wrong?
You can’t tell.
And if any scientist says you should be able to tell when science is “done” on a topic, please show me the data indicating that people have psychic powers.
I’m pro-science because the alternatives are worse. (Example: ISIS.) I’m sure most of you are on the same side. But can we stop being surprised when people don’t believe science? Humans can’t turn off pattern recognition.
There’s a good reason trust in science is low. Science failed my generation on the topic of food and exercise the same way science failed my parents generation with cigarettes..."
vaccines, coercive like a market | Fredrik deBoer: "Chris Christie, the gift that just keeps on giving, says that parents should have choice when it comes to whether or not to having their children vaccinated. And, you know, in a certain sense he’s right. I think that nobody should be forced, by governmental power or corporate, to have their children injected with any particular kinds of chemicals or agents. I just think that a refusal to do so should necessitate that those children be barred from entering public spaces, most certainly including public schools. The fact that this provision is not already implied in this discussion demonstrates the degree to which the individualist fantasy undercuts meaningful American discussion of communal and social responsibility. Infectious disease is a perfect lens through which to view the notions of responsibility towards the broader society in which you reside. You don’t choose to be part of the spread of a disease like measles, but you’re implicated in its spread by your actions whether you choose to or not. The only way to opt out of the responsibility to vaccinate is to truly withdraw from the broader society, physically withdraw to the point where you pose no risk of infecting others. "
More evidence that ATF stings were aimed at the weak, mentally challenged and drug-addicted - The Washington Post: "ATF agents befriended mentally disabled people to drum up business and later arrested them in at least four cities in addition to Milwaukee. In Wichita, Kan., ATF agents referred to a man with a low IQ as “slow-headed” before deciding to secretly use him as a key cog in their sting. And agents in Albuquerque, N.M., gave a brain-damaged drug addict with little knowledge of weapons a “tutorial” on machine guns, hoping he could find them one.
Agents in several cities opened undercover gun- and drug-buying operations in safe zones near churches and schools, allowed juveniles to come in and play video games and teens to smoke marijuana, and provided alcohol to underage youths. In Portland, attorneys for three teens who were charged said a female agent dressed provocatively, flirted with the boys and encouraged them to bring drugs and weapons to the store to sell."
Bjorn Lomborg: The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism - WSJ: "It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected. This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging.
The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees. So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected.
Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies.
Yes, Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected. But models also predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing. Yes, sea levels are rising, but the rise is not accelerating—if anything, two recent papers, one by Chinese scientists published in the January 2014 issue of Global and Planetary Change, and the other by U.S. scientists published in the May 2013 issue of Coastal Engineering, have shown a small decline in the rate of sea-level increase...
We are often being told that we’re seeing more and more droughts, but a study published last March in the journal Nature actually shows a decrease in the world’s surface that has been afflicted by droughts since 1982. Hurricanes are likewise used as an example of the “ever worse” trope. If we look at the U.S., where we have the best statistics, damage costs from hurricanes are increasing—but only because there are more people, with more-expensive property, living near coastlines. If we adjust for population and wealth, hurricane damage during the period 1900-2013 decreased slightly."
Chait Speech: "Think of Solomon Asch’s famous experiments in group conformity, or the broader social psychology literature on information cascades. The problem isn’t so much that some precious snowflake’s project of expressive self-realization has been constrained, but that constraints deprive groups of deliberative input that can help them make better decisions. When the constraints are on the order of “don’t use sexist or racist language,” probably nothing of value is lost. When the constraints include “under no circumstances express any skepticism about any claim of sexual assault,” to pick a salient recent example, you may end up with bad journalism that hinders the ultimate goal of getting society at large to treat survivors’ stories more seriously and respectfully...
Within any political or ideological group, however reasonable and noble its aims might be on the whole, some percentage at the margin are going to take a good idea further than is reasonable, whether out of authentic zeal or because being the most hardcore is an easy way to distinguish yourself in a crowded intellectual marketplace. The more these moves prove effective in shutting down an argument, and the less the relevant audience seems to care how well they fit the specific facts of the case, the more tempting it becomes to deploy them whether they do or not...
And as anyone who’s watched these arguments play out is well aware, questioning whether such a claim is fair or reasonable in a particular instance is going to be read by some observers as denying that sexism or racism are problems at all. (I recently, rather gently, questioned whether one specific document from the Snowden cache should have been published, then had to expend a whole lot more words insisting that I am not, in fact, a shill for the surveillance state. Anyone who knows my privacy writing understands why this was slightly surreal.)
...You end up with team “x is the problem” and team “x is not a problem,” and ever fewer people prepared to say “x is a problem, but maybe not the most useful lens through which to view this particular disagreement.” When teetotalers are the only ones willing to say “maybe you’ve had one too many,” because your friends are worried about sounding like abstemious scolds, the advice is a lot easier to dismiss. Which is fine until it’s time to drive home."
Does Political Correctness Work? - NYTimes.com: "He’s not really talking about left-wing rudeness, whether against his peers or against his own allegedly hyper-sensititive white male self. He’s talking about the particular tactic of trying to shut down debate outright on certain topics, using a mix of protest, harassment, “you don’t have standing to speak on this” identity politics (a tactic that some of his critics are basically just recapitulating) and strict taboo enforcement. As he put it in the essay, the thing he’s describing as “political correctness” is “a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate.” Maybe there’s a different or more precise word for this style, but whatever you want to call it you can’t really deny that it has old roots in left-wing culture, that it has particular manifestations on the left today, and that there’s an interesting debate to be had about its scope, effectiveness and moral wisdom.
...a lot of the responses are just sidestepping the key question — which is, basically, in what contexts and how frequently should it be permissible to end an argument by either shouting it down or ruling it out of order? Is the vocabulary that the contemporary left increasingly uses for this purpose, to condemn arguments instead of answering them — don’t victimblame, don’t slutshame, check your privilege, that’s phobic (whether trans or homo or Islamo or otherwise), that’s denialism — worth embracing and defending? And does this vocabulary, this strategy, actually serve the causes that it’s associated with — liberation, equality, social justice?
...The strongest answer, as I’ve tried to suggest before in debates about pluralism, has to rest in doubt as well as confidence: In a sense of humility about your own certainties, a knowledge that what looks like absolute progressive truth in one era does not always turn out to look that way in hindsight, and a willingness to extend a presumption of decency and good faith even to people whose ideas you think history will judge harshly. If you just say, “I believe in free debate because I’m certain than in free debate the good and right and true will eventually triumph, and I know that coercion will ultimately backfire,” you aren’t really giving the practical case for coercion its due. Better to say: “I believe in free debate because I know that my ideas about the good and right and true might actually be wrong (or at least be only partial truths that miss some bigger picture), and sometimes even reactionaries are proven right, and we have to leave the door open to that possibility.”"
“take control” = “invoke your privilege” | Fredrik deBoer: "Some confusing responses to my thoughts on “political correctness.” A remarkable number of people are choosing to frame their response as if I’m saying boohoo, woe is me. But that’s the opposite of what I’m saying. Me, personally? I’m fine. I have been involved in vicious left-wing infighting since I was 17 years old, and I like it. I mean, there’s a reason I’m always in the middle of it.
I’m not censored or harassed or bullied. I’m just criticized.
But the entire point of the piece is that a lot of young folks are not like me, and we shouldn’t expect them to be as immune to criticism as I am."
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