FREE WHITEWATER

Law

Again, DNA Exonerates the Innocent (and Identifies Someone Else)

by  • 

I posted not long ago on the Innocence Project’s use of DNA identification to exonerate an innocent man, and direct prosecutors toward a guilty one. Tragically, Robert Lee Stinson spent twenty-three years in prison for a crime he did not commit, until being exonerated. For all those years, an actual killer, Moses Price, was uncharged for the killing that led to Stinson’s wrongful conviction. (Price now admits through an affidavit that he was the real killer.) See, DNA to Exonerate the Innocent (and Identify the Guilty).

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a more recent story with a similar result: a man wrongly convicted is to be released based on DNA evidence, evidence that implicates someone else, an accused serial killer, of the crime. William Avery spent five years in prison for allegedly killing Maryetta Griffin. Accused serial killer Walter Ellis is a match for the DNA found on that victim, as well as several other victims. See, Man convicted in 1998 killing to be released.

These cases represent failures of justice: for failing to identify the likely (and in one case, the admitted) killer, and worse still for accusing, charging, trying, convicting, and imprisoning two innocent men.

And yet, during the many years when these men were imprisoned, were the respective prosecutors not confident, insistent, sure of themselves? For every claim of certainty, for every declaration of confidence, for every strident remark, something else lay beneath, to be revealed: the truth, that Stinson and Avery were innocent, and that Price was, and Ellis may be, truly guilty of these killings.

We are told that those who serve in government, those high officials who wield power, are public servants. I think the term, truly, is merely self-serving. A man’s skill, insight, judgment, and character are not made better through a taxpayer-funded salary. When, so very often, such a man will imply that they are, he asks you to become a fool, believing him an angel. God has all the messengers He needs; a high public office creates not one more.

Libertarians

Libertarian John Stossel in New York Magazine

by  • 

There’s a brief article in New York Magazine about libertarian John Stossel. Stossel now has his own show on the Fox Business Network, after almost thirty years at ABC. (Fox Business and Fox News are different channels.)

The article shares a few tidbits that one may not have heard before, including the enmity that the late Peter Jennings held for Stossel, disliking Stossel’s advocacy journalism. (Too funny, really, that Jennings saw advocacy in Stossel, but didn’t seem to notice his own consistent advocacy, including a lamentable bias against Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy. Here, I am quite sure the advantage is Stossel’s.)

What’s on the calendar for Stossel? The article mentions that he’s “editing an upcoming special called What’s Great About America, in which he celebrates, among other things, racial tolerance and the entrepreneurial spirit.” Stossel has critics, too:

A guy came up to me recently and said, “I hope you die soon,” Stossel says. “A lawyer from Legal Aid. He viewed my reporting as an attack on the poor because I said government doesn’t help. I find that interesting. People forget that before we had a welfare system there were these mutual-aid societies that were ethnically exclusionary: Koreans helping Koreans, blacks helping blacks. They knew better who needed help and who needed a kick in the ass.”

Stossel’s show airs Thursdays at 7 p.m. central on the Fox Business Channel.

See, Tea-Vee Time. (The title’s an anachronism: most libertarians easily pre-date the Tea Party movement, a movement that is, in any event, only partly libertarian.)

Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty

Government’s Overreach: Trying to Learn What You Read

by  • 

Government officials often act as more than representatives of their people — they pursue an interest apart from their people, an often intrusive one into the lives of private citizens. In North Carolina, online retailer Amazon has filed a lawsuit to prevent block a North Carolina Department of Revenue request for individually identifiable information on thousands of Amazon.com purchases.

Amazon has already provided the State of North Carolina with product codes that show which items were purchased, but has filed suit to continue to withhold “individually identifiable user information, including names and addresses that could be linked back to the individual purchases, but asserts that the NCDOR continues to insist that such information be disclosed.”

The American Civil Liberties Union recently wrote to the North Carolina Department of Revenue, indicating a willingness to join the suit on Amazon’s behalf if the NCDOR does not withdraw its request for information that would reveal to state bureaucrats which books, movies, and other products individuals bought. What books and movies on topics of religion, psychology, personal health, and anything else that consumers might purchase would be in the hands of state officials.

Here’s part of an ACLU press release on the North Carolina request:

From Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project:

“The Constitution guarantees Americans the right to read and buy the lawful materials of their choice without the government keeping tabs on the details of their purchases. Amazon was right to stand up for the rights of its customers and to refuse to turn over their personal information to the North Carolina Department of Revenue.”

From Jennifer Rudinger, Executive Director of the ACLU of North Carolina:

“The ACLU is not taking issue with the Department’s authority to collect taxes on the value of these purchases, but there is no legitimate reason why government officials need to know which North Carolina residents are reading what books or purchasing which specific brands of products. We hope to be able to work out a satisfactory resolution to this matter so that consumers in North Carolina can rest assured that their privacy is protected.”

Well said. The press release includes the full text of a letter that the ACLU sent to North Carolina officials about their overreaching request.

If anyone might otherwise wonder, these requests to identify which books these customers purchased was not made in a faraway and benighted place, but to an American company, asking for information about Americans’ purchases, while in their own country.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 5-24-10

by  • 

Good morning,

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a mostly sunny day with a high of eighty-nine degrees.

There’s a meeting of Whitewater’s Community Development Authority today, beginning at 4:30 p.m. The agenda is available online.

Over at Wisconsin Builder, there’s an article entitled, “Top Projects of 2009.” Our campus’s Hyland Hall is one of those top projects. The listing is noteworthy for two reasons: first, it shows the accomplishment Hyland Hall represents; second, it shows that the crowing over the Innovation Center is just a lot of exaggeration. There’s no comparison between the completed Hyland Hall and the planned Innovation Center. Hyland Hall is a truly large project, and in every respect it dwarfs the much smaller, conventional office building that will be the Innovation Center. Note 5-24-10 afternoon: That’s Hyland. I’ll take the misspelling if the city will concede that the Innovation Center is slight by comparison. 🙂

I’ve always thought that organic food, without chemicals, was to be prized (even at the risk of spoiling). Perhaps that’s not true. Over at Ars Technica, there’s a post entitled, “Birds turn their beaks up at organic food.”

Here’s the finding of the recent study:

Is organic food everything its advocates claim to be? A new study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture describes an experiment in which the subjects were free from human biases. The authors found that wild birds preferred ‘normal’ bird food to the organic option.

To study this burning issue, the researchers set up pairs of identical bird feeders in over 30 locations around northern England. The feeders contained two types of the same variety of wheat seeds, one organic and one conventional. The researchers then monitored the rate at which each seed was eaten over the course of a few weeks.

It was found that the birds preferentially ate the conventional seeds. To make sure that there wasn’t something about the relative placement of the feeders, the researchers switched each pair, and found that the birds learned the new location of the conventional seeds and continued to prefer eating from that feeder.

The experiment was repeated over a subsequent winter with a different type of seed, but produced the same results. More controlled laboratory trials with canaries found similar preferences for conventional over organic. In an attempt to explain this disparity, the researchers analyzed the seeds and found that the conventional seed contained upwards of 10 percent more protein per seed, most likely due to the use of inorganic nitrogen fertilizers used in conventional farming techniques.

So the birds went for more protein, available through added chemicals — Better living through chemistry.

He knows the good stuff

Twitter

Recent Tweets, 5-16 to 5-22

by  • 

Bet the chimp’s the better forecaster http://bit.ly/9tb4Du
3:12 PM May 21st via Seesmic

TONIGHT watch IJ’s Bill Maurer on Stossel (Fox Bus., 8 p.m. & midnight ET) discussing IJ’s fight against gov’t reg. of grassroots activism.
4:01 PM May 20th via Seesmic

RT @reasonmag: John Stossel on Asset Forfeiture Laws http://ow.ly/1NHCJ
4:00 PM May 20th via Seesmic

How long ’til ‘Chianelli’ becomes expression to describe cold bureaucratic utilitarianism from Milwaukee County, WI? http://bit.ly/b0bZdf
1:49 PM May 20th via Seesmic

Doesn’t take long before small town’s neighborhood association tires of private persuasion & seeks to get its way through local legislation
12:21 PM May 19th via Seesmic

RT @IJ: VIDEO: Should farmers get jailed and fined $1k for selling pumpkins grown outside city limits? http://iam.ij.org/a0Olfr
11:10 AM May 19th via Seesmic

RT @IJ: VIDEO: Should farmers get jailed and fined $1k for selling pumpkins grown outside city limits? http://iam.ij.org/a0Olfr Please RT
11:09 AM May 19th via Seesmic

U.S. Senator Arlen Specter – I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but I just can’t see how any Democrat could vote for that guy
3:32 PM May 18th via Seesmic

The creepy lies of career politicians RT @radleybalko: This is bizarre, even for the subspecies known as “politician.” http://nyti.ms/cgLL8r
9:26 PM May 17th via Seesmic

Police dog in Edgerton, WI bites police officer and office worker in separate incidents City still wants to keep it http://bit.ly/dfM454
11:24 AM May 17th via Seesmic

Whitewater’s landmark buildings and places — Walworth County Today http://bit.ly/9erLff
7:08 AM May 16th via bit.ly

Planning

Chimp vs. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

by  • 

The National Center for Public Policy Research, a think tank, believes that a trained chimpanzee has a greater likelihood of predicting hurricanes than the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Dr. James Hansimian, a chimpanzee, predicts that there will be between 6 and 8 name-worthy storms in the Atlantic this season.

The NOAA has been wrong, according to the think tank that hired the chimp, “three out of the last four years – or 75% of the time,” said David Ridenour, vice president of The National Center for Public Policy Research. “We think our chimp can do better. He hasn’t been wrong so far. Of course, this is his very first hurricane season forecast.”

I once ran a comparison of National Weather Service forecasts with those of the Farmers’ Almanac, and thought the NWS analysis was better (free, as it was, of the long-range, fixed planning and consequently vague predictions of the FA.)

If, however, a chimp can best the NOAA on hurricane forecasts, perhaps one could best the NWS on daily weather forecasts, too.

Here’s a video of the chimp using his current methodology:

Here’s the link to the video: Dr. Hansimian’s Hurricane Forecast.

Go, chimp, go!

See, Primate Predicts Busy Hurricane Season more >>

City, Development, Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Planning

Local Merchants and Whitewater’s Walmart, Co-Existing

by  • 

I’ve contended before that many local businesses can do very well alongside Walmart, and will weather an expansion of our current Walmart, store number 1274 of that retail chain. I can safely say this, because in towns across America with Walmarts, there are other businesses, too. They co-exist. Consumers should be able to make choices between different merchants, including a larger Walmart. I have no doubt they’ll typically make the right decisions for their circumstances.

Walmart sells goods from all over, and many of their products are made in China and Pacific rim countries, or other places abroad.

About local merchants, I’d say that I frequent those local businesses that offer unique goods or unmatched services. There are many local merchants like this. While I don’t believe that one should pay more for an item simply because a merchant is local, there are many reasons to pay a merchant for his or her superior product or service.

I don’t consider that merely paying more, but paying the right price for a better product, and better guidance and suggestions about its use. When one goes to a proper restaurant, one does so for a better quality of food, and superior service. I wouldn’t say that a fine restaurant is simply more, but rather it’s the right price for its superior offering.

Fresh produce is like that, too — it may be more expensive than something frozen, but it’s not ‘more expensive’ than the market price for fresh fish, meats, and vegetables. On the contrary, the price for sale is likely to be the market-clearing price for fresh fish, meats, and vegetables.

In a world of Walmart and smaller merchants, consumers can decide for themselves where to shop, and for what products. I would not make that choice for them, through government intervention; I’d leave it to each person to decide for himself or herself. I am wholly opposed to government’s efforts to pick winners, to favor some consumer outcomes over others.. I have, and will, continue to shop selectively.

I would note, however, that Walmart 1274 is local to many people here, including many of its employees, who are residents of Whitewater. It’s not a local merchant offering specialized products or services — but it has been here long enough, and employs enough residents, so that it’s hardly foreign to us. It’s been at the same local address for years, and expansion or not, it will still be at that same address.

Here’s a photo of Whitewater’s current Walmart, and an illustration of the proposed, larger Walmart:

Uncategorized

Friday Open Comments Forum

by  • 

Here’s the Friday open comments post, following reader responses to a recent poll.

The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings will be fine.

Although the template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.

I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon.

For this week, a suggestion for a topic — What does it mean to “buy local,” as a policy and practice for Whitewater and her residents? I’ll post on this topic over the weekend.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for Whitewater, Wisconsin: 5-21-10

by  • 

Good morning,

The forecast for Whitewater calls for a day of likely showers, and a high of sixty-seven degrees.

It’s Coffee with the Principal in our schools today, from 8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

Sometimes even the most impressive designs fail to account for actual behavior and ordinary conditions. There’s a story at Wired that illustrates this contention, entitled, “Video: An Artificial Butterfly Takes Flight.” Scientists at Harvard and the University of Tokyo designed an artificial butterfly, and it’s unquestionably impressive.

Here is a video of their project in flight:

Link: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid46203255001?bclid=46205328001&bctid=86641640001.

There’s just one problem, as Wired‘s accompanying story notes:

Engineers Hiroto Tanaka and Isao Shimoyama of Harvard University and University of Tokyo, respectively, created the tiny butterfly to try to understand the biomechanics of butterfly flight.

But the tiny machine may not teach us too much about how butterflies actually row through the air, said Robert Dudley, a physiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, co-author of the research to be published May 20 in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

“As a technical accomplishment, this work is impressive, but there are a number of aerodynamic and biological issues that need further attention,” Dudley wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com.

Butterfly flight is somewhat mysterious because it’s roughly the opposite of “as the crow flies.” Butterflies flit about rather than flying in a straight line. That actually costs them more energy, Dudley said, so scientists assume their looping flying serves some evolutionary purpose.

“The advantage is that it’s thought to be an anti-predator behavior,” Dudley said. “The claim is that irregular flight paths are a permanent signal of prey unprofitability.”

Would-be predators presumably take one look at the chaotic, loopy butterfly flight and decide to go after easier to predict snacks.

The Japanese researchers somewhat capture this oscillating type of flight with their plastic-winged flyer, but Dudley argued that the differences between the bot and a real butterfly are so great as to invalidate the biological lessons the researchers try to draw.

“There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach but it severely limits any claims to the biology,” Dudley said.

The original is not so easily matched… more >>

Uncategorized

Milwaukee County’s Immoral Utilitarianism: Update 6 (Chianelli Promises, “I’ll have to look into it.”)

by  • 

The more one looks, the more one sees that the director of Milwaukee’s Behavioral Department, and its Mental Health Complex, presides over an institution that has failed the mental patients who have sought, or been sent for, treatment there. John Chianelli, who cavalierly suggested a trade off of patient violence for patient sexual assault, confronts charge after charge of incompetence, inadequacy, and failure.

The Journal Sentinel reports, in Unsafe staffing levels hurt Mental Health Complex, union says,” that

Complaints by nurses over unsafe staffing levels at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex have surged this year, suggesting that short staffing could be a factor in a rash of patient assaults, nurses’ union officials said Wednesday.

For the first 4 1/2 months of this year, 167 complaints were filed by nurses with administrators at the complex, said Candice Owley, president of the Wisconsin
Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.

That compares with 182 filed for all of 2009.

Chianelli’s response, when confronted with evidence of inadequate staffing was to say, “I’ll have to look into it.”

Oh, my. Here’s a man unfit to serve, for his perverse and immoral suggestion of a trade-off between male-against-male violence and male-against-female sexual assault. For that policy alone, a policy unsupported by serious medical literature as I have twice noted in this series, Chianelli should be fired. After the revelation of Chianelli’s policy, did Chianelli not think to review — immediately, and without fail until he was finished — every other aspect of the MHC’s operations?

He’s had weeks, and he still doesn’t know basic facts, revealing dangerous risks to vulnerable patients and staff members, such as simple staffing levels? What has he been doing these last few weeks?

He was unfit to serve based on this prior policy, but one can see now that he’s unfit and ungrateful: those who have flacked for him, and rushed to his defense, are defending not just an incompetent, but a particularly lazy one. After the first revelations, Chianelli should have found himself a huge coffee urn, and all the pastries in Milwaukee, and stayed up all night and day and night studying the operations of the hospital he oversees.

He shouldn’t have to say he’ll “look into it.” He should already know. Those who have defend him have defended a disgrace, someone who should be sacked immediately.

One can see also that in cases where workers at the MHC have union protection, unlike many who are under Chianelli’s direct authority, there’s a greater willingness to admit the truth about errors and misconduct at the facility. Chianelli’s use of testimonials from those who could have dismissed, including those who are accused of misconduct themselves, is no substitute for honest information from those who can speak without fear of possible dismissal or self-incrimination.

(I’ve written before about Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division, and sexual assaults among mental patients at its Mental Health Center. BHD’s Director, John Chianelli, has implemented a policy of trading male-on-male violence among mental patients for male-on-female sexual assault. I’ve posted about Chianelli’s policy, and the tragedy that is conduct at the MHC, before. See, A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update: A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, and Update 5.)

Laws/Regulations, Libertarians

Wisconsin Governor Doyle as a Dairyland Nanny

by  • 

Wisconsin Governor Doyle is a lame duck, with little more than half a year left in office. He may be thinking, now and again, about his next job. If he’s looking for a role as a nanny, scold, intrusive busybody, or condescending man, then his veto of a bill allowing limited raw milk sales will leave him in good standing. A business looking to hire someone who’d worry about everyone else’s business, would find a prime candidate in Jim Doyle.

Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland, but a dairyland only as special interests see fit. After the Wisconsin legislature sent Doyle a bill to allow dairy farmers in a dairy state to sell genuine, raw milk from Wisconsin dairy cows, Doyle decided to veto the bill. See, Governor vetoes raw-milk bill.

No one– no political group — believes more deeply in the ability of common people to decide for themselves than libertarians do.

When libertarians doubt the schemes and grandiose projects of bureaucrats and politicians, it’s because they see the harm to the good sense, skill, and judgment of common people. We see the proof and demonstration of our political convictions all around us: common people, just as we are, do extraordinary things through voluntary, cooperative arrangements on a scale that no public plan or project can match.

Those who seek to regulate ordinary Americans harm others and impede progress, often for no other reason than their political ambitions and patent narcissism. These selfish few look down on others, even though by any measure of talent or insight these political nannies are often far less capable than those they seek to regulate. (They see their own good judgment the way a thirsty man imagines an oasis.)

I would object to the meddling of a political class in any event, but I do so doubly when so many of those politicians, bureaucrats, and towns squires who afflict us are simply dull, excuse-making, rationalizing mediocrities. They are accomplished only in producing feeble, vainglorious pronouncements of their own supposed accomplishments, and collecting toadies and hangers-on to flack those pronouncements.

Wisconsin adults should be able to decide for themselves whether to drink raw milk. They don’t need Jim Doyle’s guidance; they’re more than capable of deciding on their own.

Fear Not!