Law

Colorado voters will get to vote in November on a proposition that defines personhood as beginning at conception. This will have the implication that in vitro fertilization involves murder, as the process standardly involves the disposal of fertilized eggs. As right-to-lifers are also often advocates of IVF, this places them into a bit of a quandary. In my opinion, this should even have the implication that all frozen embryos need to be brought to term–it’s surely wrong to freeze people and prevent them from living their lives without their consent. ...

The Presidential Prayer Team has called for supporters to “Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles. With any forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God’s Word and His standards will be honored by our government." A piece of unattributed email has been going around in support of this proposition, with the following suggested Constitutional amendment to put that into effect: Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5) Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21) A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21) Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30) Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9) If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10) In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)For some reason Len Munsil’s Center for Arizona Policy organization hasn’t pushed this amendment in Arizona, instead preferring the unbiblical idea, not even widely recognized yet at the time of Charlemagne, that marriage should only be between one man and one woman.

Tredell County deputies have confiscated 175 marijuana plants from a barn on Lippard Farm Road in Statesville, NC. No arrests have been made in that case, but “charges are pending." Come on, North Carolina. If you can grow tobacco, why not marijuana?

If you’re the wife of a criminal defense attorney, you can get arrested for DUI even if you’ve not had a single drink. (This one was right here in Mesa, Arizona.) If you’re a cop, the expectation is that you won’t get arrested for DUI even if you crash your car because you’re so drunk you can’t remember what year it is. Because if a cop arrests a cop for DUI, things get ugly.

Webster Cook smuggled a magic biscuit out of the service of a lunatic cult, in order to show a friend what it was like. Members of the cult issued death threats, the local spokespeople for the cult suggested that he was in danger of eternal damnation and called it a “hate crime,” and completely insane national spokespeople claimed that he had committed the moral equivalent of kidnapping. Details at Pharyngula. This sounds like something that could have fit in Bill Maher’s “Religulous." (Hat tip to Wowbagger for the title.) UPDATE (July 10, 2008): The Pharyngula post linked to above has resulted in Bill Donohue of the Catholic League taking notice and calling for P.Z. Myers to be fired. That in turn has resulted in P.Z. Myers receiving 39 pieces of hate mail so far today, of which 34 have demanded that he be fired and four have included death threats. 25 have suggested that, instead of desecrating a cracker, Myers should desecrate a Koran–showing that those individuals don’t think the tolerance they demand for themselves applies to other religions. (Sounds like our commenter Jenn!) UPDATE (July 11, 2008): The Catholic League has issued another press release, which contains this insanity: As a result of the hysteria that Myers’ ilk have promoted, at least one public official is taking it seriously. Thomas E. Foley is chairman of Virginia’s First Congressional District Republican Committee, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and one of two Republican at large nominees for Virginia’s Electoral College. His concern is for the safety of Catholics attending this year’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Myers’ backyard. Accordingly, Foley has asked the top GOP brass to provide additional security while in the Twin Cities so that Catholics can worship without fear of violence. Given the vitriol we have experienced for simply exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, we support Foley’s request.It’s the Catholics who have been comparing taking instead of eating a cracker to kidnapping and hate speech, and issuing death threats against someone who suggested doing the same. But now the Republican National Convention, being held 150 miles away from Myers’ home, needs extra security because of his proximity? Lunacy. Myers has also published the email he’s received. Some of the alleged death threats don’t, I think, pass legal muster as such, but I think this one does: You are really fucked now. Lock your doors at night, and check under your car before you turn the ignition key.This one doesn’t quite make it: IF Catholics had half the testosterone of muzzies, the answer would be simple. Holy hollowpoint. But alas, I expect they will whimper and grovel as usual.UPDATE (July 12, 2008): Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars weighs in. Andrew Sullivan, after taking Myers to task, publishes dissenting opinions that make better arguments than his. Ed Brayton responds to Sullivan. P.Z. Myers catches Catholic sock puppets commenting on his blog. John Wilkins writes an insightful comment on “Desecration, blasphemy in public, and manners." UPDATE (July 13, 2008): P.Z. Myers has received more nasty email, which he has posted with full headers. If the first one is not actually from Melanie Kroll at 1800flowers.com, I’d say she has a compromised machine, and it’s a clear death threat. The second is from Steve C. Montemurro, a 41-year-old conservative Catholic from Hastings on Hudson, NY, and it appears to be more of a wish for Myers’ death than a threat. UPDATE (July 16. 2008): Turns out the email from Melanie Kroll’s machine was the result of a compromise of sorts–it was from her husband, Chuck Kroll, and she lost her job as a result of it. Makes sense–she shouldn’t have allowed her husband to use her computer to access her work resources at all, let alone to send death threats. Details at Pharyngula. UPDATE (July 18, 2008): Network World has coverage of Melanie Kroll’s firing. The Science Museum of Minnesota will be closed down during the Republican National Convention as part of the security measures for the Xcel Energy Center, across the street. As P.Z. Myers observes, there’s a metaphor in that. UPDATE (July 26, 2008): Webster Cook has been impeached and removed from his position in student government at the University of Central Florida, and both he and his friend Benjamin Collard have been charged with misconduct, disruptive conduct, and giving false identification and had a hold put on their ability to sign up for classes. The school is buckling under to pressure from Bill Donohue and the Catholic League to persecute these students on trumped up charges. P.Z. Myers suggests writing to the UCF president; I suggest the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education get involved. P.Z. Myers has posted another selection of crazy Catholic hate mail he’s received. Do these people genuinely think they are doing the Lord’s work? ...

That’s the title of Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book, which just reached #14 on the New York Times bestseller list on Sunday despite having virtually no mainstream media attention. It has sold 130,000 copies, but ABC Radio refused to allow an advertisement for the book on the Don Imus show, and both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report declined to show any interest in having Bugliosi on as a guest. The book sets out a legal case for a criminal prosecution of George W. Bush as being criminally responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles County prosecutor with a perfect record of murder prosecutions, including the prosecution of Charles Manson which he recounted in his book Helter Skelter 30 years ago, most recently authored the book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a massive 1,612-page book that responds in detail to conspiracy theorists. That book is being made into a 10-hour miniseries by Tom Hanks for HBO. A shorter book, drawn from the content of Reclaiming History, has been published under the title Four Days in November.

When in 2002 military trainers came to Guantanamo Bay to teach a course on interrogation techniques, they included a chart of the effects of prospective techniques. That chart came from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War on U.S. soldiers to extract false confessions. The study, by Albert D. Biderman, was titled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War." UPDATE (July 8, 2008): Ed Brayton comments on how McCain’s torture using these very techniques led to a false confession–so why do we believe that torture will lead to true confessions? ...

I just figured out that Trevor Paglen, the co-author of Torture Taxi, a book about how planespotting was used to track information about the CIA’s extraordinary rendition flights, is also the author of I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon’s Black World, for which he appeared on the Colbert Report. At his blog, I’ve learned that the pilots of the CIA rendition flights associated with Khalid El-Masri have been identified at Sourcewatch, where you can also find extensive information about the planes and the fictional owners of the companies that operate them (in particular see the companies Premier Executive Transport Services and Bayard Foreign Marketing, which have both owned the same Gulfstream V (PDF), nicknamed the “Guantanamo Bay Express”). El-Masri, a German citizen, was kidnapped in Macedonia and taken to a CIA black site called the “Salt Pit” in Afghanistan, where he was tortured, then later released in Albania after a second order to do so by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (the first was ignored). He was taken because his name resembled that of suspected al Qaeda operative Khalid al-Masri. El-Masri’s lawsuit against the CIA and three private companies that operated planes involved with his transport was dismissed in 2006 on grounds of state secrets privilege, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in 2007. He has also sued in Germany, where there are outstanding warrants for pilots Eric Robert Hume, James Kovalesky, and Harry Kirk Ellarbee. All three of these pilots work or worked for alleged CIA front company Aero Contractors Ltd., live in Johnston County, North Carolina and have been visited by the German press in unsuccessful attempts to interview them. The German warrants were passed to Interpol, but the German government declined to ask the U.S. for extradition after an informal request was given a negative reply. El-Masri was sent to a mental institution in 2007 after being arrested for arson and an assault on a truck-driving instructor.

How sad to see political partisanship turn him into an advocate for bad legislation. The telecoms shouldn’t get civil or criminal immunity for violations of our constitutional rights. UPDATE (July 8, 2008): Ed Brayton comments on Obama’s attempt to explain his change of position on this issue. Historical Comments Hume's Ghost (2008-07-01): Methinks that Olbermann has run into a bit of cognitive dissonance and has tried to rationalize it away.In Olbermann's defense, he is at least considering criticism and trying to be consistent. His special comment last night was an improvement in that he abandoned the "Obama isn't capitulating to the left" angle and also demanded that Obama either vote against the legislation or promise to criminally prosecute the telecoms.Several problems with his stance, however.1.Olbermann seems to believe that the only problem with the legislation is the immunity, but in reality the bill grants the Exeuctive greater spy powers with less oversight. 2. Olbermann also misses the point when he keeps saying the bill establishes FISA as the relavant statute. This is meaningless: FISA was already the relevant statute and Bush ignored it. Giving him more powers and then reiterating that FISA applies does what exactly? Without punishment for lawbreaking this has no teeth.3.Glenn Greenwald has pointed out today some problems with criminal prosecutions. The most obvious problem I have is that I'm not inclined to bet my liberties on the naive belief that Obama would prosecute the telecoms - if Dems can't censore Bush for breaking the law there is no way that is going to happen. Olbermann also seems to believe that the appearance of impropiety would somehow prevent Bush from pardoning the telecoms before he leaves office - where has he been for the last 7.5 years?! 4.This is really an extension of the same point in 3, but I think it merits emphasis.The greatest problem I have with Olbermann's approach is that he is willing to trade citizens' access to the courts as a means of protecting their liberties on the belief that a candidate will do that for them. I am not willing to trade my liberty on the belief that every 4 to 8 years someone will be elected that might protect them. ...

Barbara Forrest has an excellent article describing the passage of the recent “academic freedom” stealth creationism bill in Louisiana that’s was just signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal and will no doubt serve as a model for other states. She discusses the Louisiana Family Forum, which is behind the bill, as well as the involvement of the Discovery Institute.