Sucked into a story about crooked Chinese ex-mayor

A recent New York Post article stated that "Chinese authorities found more than 13 tons of gold stashed away in the basement of a former mayor’s home during a corruption investigation, according to news reports.  Police found the loot — worth hundreds of millions of dollars — in a secret cellar in the home of Zhang Qi, a onetime high ranking communist party official and former mayor of Danzhou, the Pakistani newspaper The News International reported.  And it wasn’t only gold — police also seized more than $37 billion in cash and assets."

New York Post: Cops in China find 13 tons of gold stashed in ex-mayor’s cellar

The story got me thinking. How does one hide 13 tons of gold and another $37 billion in physical cash and assets? For that matter how much space are we talking about here? What does a ton of gold look like? What does a billion dollars in bills look like? Well, let's find out.

Starting with the gold, I found this image of 80 replica gold bars representing one ton of gold.

From this we can visualize 13 tons of gold taking up about as much space as 3 or 4 washing machines. Not all that significant and easily doable for a crooked politician or villainous drug lord. 

More interesting is the $37 billion in cash and assets. We have no idea how much of the assets were in cash but even if only a small portion of it was cash it would take up a great deal of space. Here is artist Michael Marcovici's depictions of what $1 billion in $100 USD notes would look like.

Of course the bust happened in China, so it is likely the bills where not United States Dollars. Chinese banknotes are in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 Yuans. As of today it takes 7.15 Yauns to equal 1 US Dollar. So if the crooked ex-mayor was hording Yuans you have to visualize the image above times seven just to equal one billion. 

So returning to my original thought, it would take a significant amount of space to hide $37 billions in assets (actually $37 and a half since the gold was worth about half a billion dollars). The article says the police found it in a secret cellar of Zhang Qi's home. I guess it was one hell of a cellar. 

Thaddeus Russell's Postmodern Denial of Reality

Thaddeus seems to be making two, not very connected arguments.

1) The first is that the categories of man and woman are so flawed that they are essentially meaningless.

"I think the category of man becomes meaningless...Neither Andy Dick or Yoel Romero are trans people right? They are so different though, physically in every way but we put them both in this silly category called man, what does that mean anymore?"

Thaddeus seems to be playing a little philosophic game where he describes some general characteristic of the category of man, then points to exceptions or variances to conclude that the category is useless.

Of course in reality, the majority of things which humans categorize do not fit into neat little definitional boxes. Thaddeus points to the physical difference between Andy Dick and Yoel Romero as proof that the category of man is problematic. But if that sort of variance is enough of a standard to do away with a category then we would have to do away with a great number of other categories such as dogs (Pug vs great Dane), cats (House Cat vs Lion), birds (Penguin vs Eagle), and so on.

I'm guessing this little bit of sophistry is enough to confuse most people into compliance but Rogan does a good job of pushing back. This forces Thaddeus into his next argument:

2) We shouldn't apply categories to humans if they could be somehow harmful.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't categorize anything ever because we must do that to live in this world. What I am saying is we should probably stop applying certain categories to human beings in the ways we have done, because there are certain inventions, certain social constructs that do nothing but bad things, that do no good and they're only social constructs, like race and gender."

Similar to his first point, I think the application of this standard would lead to some really silly places. For instance, what about the category of obese people. Numerous studies have found that overweight people have a harder time getting a job, are less likely to get salary increases, have less friends and are more susceptible to mental health issue due to social rejection. As unfortunate as this is does this mean we should banish the recognition of weight when applied to humans?

The same thing could be said for the category of unattractive people. They face many of the same problems that obese people face. Does this mean we should no longer distinguishes between beautiful and unattractive people?

All of this seems completely unnecessary as Thaddeus' primary concerns seem to be that prescribed gender roles may restrict an individual from living the way they want to live. He seems to believe the best way to deal with this is to simply deny objective truths. But as history has shown, gender roles are fluid and changing. Society's views on gender (at least in the West) are far more open than they have been at any other time and are likely to continue moving in this direction. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Sam Harris Vs. Hunter Maats

I recently watched the following compilation video recommended by YouTube. The first part is Sam Harris on the Joe Rogan podcast complaining about people trolling him on twitter, including a prior guest of Joe's named Hunter Maats. The second part is of Hunter Maats talking about Sam during a previous episode.

Sam's complaint is something along the lines of, ...Hunter's attacks are juvenile...he sends me two tweets then sends me 400 that say you're scared to debate me...there is a level of arrogance and incivility and lack of charity in interacting with other people's views..., etc

Watching the clip of Hunter's conversation with Joe left me wondering if Sam was being overly sensitive. There was certainly a fuzziness to Hunter's criticism of Sam. He talked for quite a while but didn't seem able to convey his critique in a concise manner. In a nutshell, he essentially was saying that Sam is a rationalist, who believes that reason and emotion are separate and that reason should reign supreme.  Hunter is an intuitionist that believes our intuitions and emotions are what drives are reasoning. Hunter believes that Sam's views lead him to communicate ideas in a manner which are unpalatable to those he criticizes (at least I think this was what he was trying to get at).

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Hunter's assertions, to me he didn't come across in a way which made me dislike the guy. Perhaps he was a little arrogant at times but if so, it was fairly mild and not enough to make me think too poorly of him. This is what left me wondering if Sam, the so called rationalist, was letting his emotions get the better of him, being oversensitive to a little criticism.

That's when I checked Hunter's twitter page to see some of the "trolling" Sam was referring to. And holy shit, Sam wasn't exaggerating when he said Hunter sent or directed 400 messages to him. In all fairness, most of the tweets are responses to others people in which Hunter tagged Sam for some reason. But still, I counted over 500 tweets from Hunter from January 1st to April 16th that had something to do with Sam. Though most I'd consider mildly harassing some are downright dickish. The weird thing about this is that Hunter repeatedly points to the work of Jonathan Haidt in support of his view that Sam's rational approach is alienating to religious people.  But strangely, his messages to Sam are completely contrary to what Haidt suggests on how to communicate with people and persuade them to your way of thinking. To quote from his book, The Righteous Mind, he writes:

"If you want to change people’s minds, you’ve got to talk to their elephants. Dale Carnegie was one of the greatest elephant-whisperers of all time. In his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, Carnegie repeatedly urged readers to avoid direct confrontations. Instead he advised people to ‘begin in a friendly way,’ to ‘smile,’ to ‘be a good listener,’ and to ‘never say “you’re wrong.”’ The persuader’s goal should be to convey respect, warmth, and an openness to dialogue before stating one’s own case.

So I'm pretty sure Haidt wouldn't agree with Hunter's snide, obsessed, borderline neurotic approach. Though Hunter maybe winning points with those already in his 'tribe', to the casual observer such as myself, his twitter attacks toward Sam simply make me think he's an asshole.

Jesse Ventura's Strange Views about Protest

"I salute Colin Kaepernick. I fully support him...That's why I served my country, so that you have the freedom to protest...I don't have to agree with him, but I'll still respect his right to do it, and everyone should respect that. He shouldn't be booed".

..."When I was governor of Minnesota, the Dems and Repubs tried to nail me. You know what they did? They passed a law requiring the Pledge of Allegiance for all public school children. I immediately vetoed it. You know why? Because government should not mandate patriotism. Governments earn patriotism. You earn that. Who mandated patriotism? The Germans in the 1930's. They mandated patriotism. That's what we want to be? We wanna build walls now and be East Berlin?

This is such a mind-numbingly bad argument it's difficult to respond to, so I'm going to try to reconstruct it in simpler terms. 

P1. Colin Kaepernick should have the freedom to protest. 

P2. Government mandated patriotism can lead to tyranny similar to that found in Nazi Germany. 

C. Individuals shouldn't protest Colin Kaepernick's protest by booing. 

First off, I agree with Ventura that Kaepernick should have the right to protest. Where I disagree is with Ventura's belief that people who disagree with Kaepernick shouldn't express their disapproval by booing him. Isn't booing a form of protest? 

According to the Oxford dictionary, protest is defined as "a statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to something." Booing is defined as something "said to show disapproval or contempt."

I think Ventura is being a bit hypocritical when he criticizes protest when it is directed at protest. He seems to believe that expressing disapproval about a particular protest is equal to attacking the freedom to protest, which of course is ridiculous. 

I have to wonder if he would feel the same way about some of the protest put on by the Westboro Baptist church? Should we all shut up because saying anything against them would disrespect their right to protest?

Ventura's next stupefying move is to make the illogical connection between individuals expressing their disapproval about Kaepernick's protest and the tyranny of Nazi Germany. Strangely, he does this using the example of when the democrats and republicans tried to pass a law in Minnesota requiring school children to say the pledge of allegiance.

This is completely irrelevant to his argument. There is obviously a difference between the government mandating patriotism and individuals of the citizenry expressing their own patriotism. Booing Kaepernick is not a call for government suppression. On the contrary, it is individuals using their freedom of speech to express disapproval. Seems strange that Ventura, a guy that prides himself on his libertarian beliefs, isn't able to make this distinction.

Business Insider

'Where your tax dollars go', word image critique

The above image has been floating around Facebook, often coming from Bernie Sanders supporters, as an attempt to persuade people that very little of their tax dollars go to welfare and the vast majority goes to corporate subsidies. Before I get too into my back of the napkin level analysis, I want to state that I am critical of corporate subsidies and feel they are a real and growing problem. Having said that I think it's also important to point out what looks to be deceitful propaganda and this word image certainly appears to be just that.

The amount "you pay" in taxes making $50,000 comes to $4597.98 in the above breakdown. Of course what you actually pay is not just based on how much you make but on marital status, number of dependents and a slew of deductions, but regardless, the number is close to what you'd expect your federal withholding would be if you made $50,000 a year. This does not include the amount you'd pay in social security withholding and medicare withholding which will be relevant in the calculation below.

The word image implies that the breakdown it provides is your portion of federal expenditures. If true, it would mean that 87% of all federal spending went to corporations in the form of subsidies. This of course is absolutely absurd.

A quick google search took me to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities where I found information on federal spending. For 2014, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion dollars. The breakdown of those dollars is $840 billion (24%) social security, $840 billion (24%) medicare/medicaid/CHIP/market subsidies, $630 billion (18%) defense/international security, $385 billion (11%) safety net programs, $245 billion (7%) interest on debt, $560 billion (16%) on everything else including benefits for federal workers, transportation infrastructure, education, science and medical research, etc.

I couldn't find info on how much was actually spent in corporate subsidies in 2014 but did find a 2012 CATO report that estimated it at about $100 billion a year.

So, just for the fun of it, lets see if we can do a rework of the word image using the information above. We are trying to just look at how your federal withholding is allocated which makes this a bit difficult. As social security is mostly paid from social security tax, we will eliminate that from the federal spending breakdown. The medicare/medicaid/CHIP/market subsides are harder to figure as part of it is paid by your medicare withholding and part from federal withholding. It looks like about $200 billion in federal receipts came from medicare withholding in 2014 so well eliminate that amount from the medicare/medicaid/CHIP/market subsidies category in the federal spending breakdown.

After making these adjustments, here are the final results:

If you make $50,000 per year, you pay:

$1177.08 a year for defense
$1195.47 a year for medicare/medicaid/CHIP/market subsidies
$721.88 a year for safety net programs
$459.80 a year for interest on federal debt
$859.82 a year for infrastructure, education, research, etc.
183.68 a year in corporate subsidies

Kentucky: Neither straights or gays can marry the same sex so ban is not discriminatory

It's been reported that the administration of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has filed a brief with the US Supreme Court defending it's ban on gay marriage. In it they argue

"Kentucky’s marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral. Men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under Kentucky law, and men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law,"

I'll be a bit more generous than some of the news outlets that reported on this by noting that the brief is  42 pages so there may or may not be other more rational arguments presented (I didn't take the time to read it). Regardless, it is hard to believe that the argument above could possibly be presented as a serious justification for upholding it's ban on gay marriage.

Imagine a law which states that it is now illegal to practice Christianity and then arguing that it doesn't discriminate against those who are Christian because it also applies to Muslims, Buddhist, and atheist. This sort of specious legal reasoning really drives me crazy. I can't imagine that the Supreme Court will give it any credence.


HuffPo: Kentucky: Our Same-Sex Marriage Ban Isn't Anti-Gay Because It Applies To Straight People, Too

Did a Texas city fire It's police department and hire a private security firm?

Occasionally I like to take the time to look into stories that I find a little bit fishy. I do it as a sort of exercise which usually lends credence to the old saying "Don't believe everything you read."

I got into this one after reading a post a friend made on Facebook which linked to a story on The Free Thought Project titled Texas Town Experiences 61% Drop in Crime After Firing Their Police Department. The article essentially says that in 2012, the city of Sharpstown "fired their cops" and "hired S.E.A.L. Security Solutions, a private firm, to patrol their streets." A representative of the security firm is quoted saying "Since we've been in there, an independent crime study that they've had done [indicates] we've reduced the crime by 61%” in just 20 months.

After looking into it a bit I found similar stories had been released within the last couple of days such as Texas City Gets Rid of Police Dept., Hires ‘SEAL Security’ — Guess What Reportedly Happened to Crime from the Blaze, Texas Town Fires Entire Police Department, Crime Drops by 61%, from Infowars and Texas town sees crime drop by almost two thirds after firing police, hiring private security from Rare. As the titles suggest, these stories all either directly state or indirectly imply that the city of Sharpstown fired their police department and hired a private security firm to take its place. But is this actually what happened? In a word, no.

According to Wikipedia, Sharpstown is a master-planned community in Greater Sharpstown, Southwest Houston, Texas which is served by two Houston Police Department patrol divisions. For many years, the Sharpstown Civic Association had contracted with Harris County Constables for additional patrols but due to budgetary issues ended the relationship in 2012. It is this arrangement for additional patrols that the above articles are referring to when they state that the city fired their police department.

I'm not sure if this is a matter of shoddy journalism or a deliberate act to fabricate a story which would be more appealing to their readers? As it took very little effort for me to discover the truth, I'm inclined to think it's the latter. The sad thing is, there was a perfectly good story here which didn't need to be based on the false claim that the town fired their police department. It could have been titled something like, City of Sharpstown turns to private security to help patrol its streets. The article could then talk about how the constables used to be contracted to patrol the area but that the security firm does the job at half the cost and with better results. See, no need for the lies and false implications.


NEIGHBORS WORRIED AFTER CRIME SPIKE IN SHARPSTOWN

Popular Constables On Patrol Program (COPS) Discontinued

Name a Star... and lose $54 bucks

Over the last few weeks, during my drive to work, I've been hearing those commercials on the radio where, for $54 dollars you can name a star after someone. Yep, that's right. For the low price of $54 dollars, the very official sounding International Star Registry will provide you with a beautiful, full color parchment certificate personalized with the star's name, date and coordinates along with a detailed star chart showing your star circled in red.

The commercial goes on to say that since 1979 the International Star Registry has named countless stars for celebrities, dignitaries, royalty and Joe Schmoes just like you. The star name is recorded in the Astronomical Catalog which will be registered with the U.S. copyright office.

With Christmas right around the corner, you might be thinking this would be the perfect gift. In this ephemeral world that we live, who wouldn't want something which would provide a sense of permanency. A star in our name, something that would be there long after we are gone. A small reference to our existence, immortalized for future generations to see.

Yes, it would indeed be the perfect gift, if it wasn't largely a scam.

Though the International Star Registry sounds very official, in reality they are not recognized or used by any scientific institutions. They are a private, for profit company which is simply finding a star, labeling it with the purchased name and recording it in their catalog. That's it. The catalog is simply a company database. It is not used by the scientific community. In reality, it seems the International Astronomical Union (IAU) "is the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and surface features on them. And names are not sold, but assigned according to internationally accepted rules."

It should be noted that there is nothing illegal with what International Star Registry is doing. When I said earlier that it was a scam, I didn't mean that the company was breaking the law, only that what they are doing is deceptive. And while it may seem like a largely harmless deception, there are people that experience a heavy emotional disappointment when learning the truth. As Stuart Atkinson wrote on his blog Cumbrian Sky "I feel very strongly about, I don’t mind admitting. Why? Because I am tired of having to disappoint and upset people who come to me as star parties and astronomy meetings, asking me if I can help find the star they “named” after their deceased mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, fiance, wife, husband, grandmother, grandfather or pet. These people “buy” stars in good faith, thinking, genuinely, that a way out of – or to at least ease – their grief is to buy a star for their dead loved one, thus immortalising them and preserving their memory. They are led to believe by the advertising blurb that “their star ” will be on view in the sky for all to see… so they come up to me at a star party, ask me to point out the star they bought, or, if it’s cloudy, point it out to them on a star chart or in an atlas. And I feel sick to my stomach when I have to tell them that the star they “bought” and “named” only bears that name in that company’s star registry database, and that you need a telescope to see it."

So save yourself $54 dollars and get a present your loved one will really enjoy. Or, if you are still not dissuaded, send me the money and I'll provide a star for you to name. I'll write it down in a book and keep it safe for you. After all, it isn't much less than what the star naming companies do.

FCKH8's Insane New Video

I recently watched the controversial (and by that I mean vile) video by T-shirt/activist company FCKH8. It features little girls dressed as princesses angrily shouting about how women are mistreated and abused by our patriarchal society. It does it's best to shock the viewer by making sure the little darlings say the word fuck as often as possible. If you are easily traumatized by offensive language, here is a link to a bleeped version, but I suggest you watch the actual video below to get the full effect.

Even if you agree with its message and accept its controversial statistics (more here and here), there is still plenty to hate this video for. It's implied message is that people who may be offended or critical of the little girls' indignant swearing really have no right to feel that way because of the much bigger gender problems it seeks to address. This type of rationalization seems to me to be a form of the fallacy of relative privation or what is sometimes referred to as the not as bad fallacy. The form of the argument goes something like:

B happened, and is worse then A.
Therefore A is justified.

The obvious problem with this sort of thinking is that the existence of the worse thing does nothing to change the fact that the less bad thing is still bad. Hence the existence of gender inequality or abuse toward women does nothing to change the fact that little girls shouldn't swear and T-Shirt companies shouldn't make vulgar videos which exploit children to push their ideology. I mean any moron should be able to see how completely inappropriate it is to force these young children (the youngest of which was 6) to confront serious adult issues such as rape. I can only hope the backlash FCKH8 receives is enough to keep them from producing future repulsive videos.

Christin Milloy's Infant Gender Assignment Nonsense

I've read some pretty silly articles from Slate before but this one still has me shaking my head in disbelief. A couple months ago the rag published an article by Christin Scarlet Milloy titled Don't Let the Doctor Do This to Your Newborn.

The article begins with a fictitious scenario in which a mother is lying in bed holding her baby, recovering from labor. The doctor comes in to perform some mysterious but standard "treatment." The mother asks what the treatment is and if it's necessary. The doctor replies vaguely that it will help the child to be recognized and get along with the other children who've received the same treatment but warns that for 1 or 2 percent, there are terrible negative side effects which include depression, social ostracism, difficulty finding or keeping a job and suicide.

You might be thinking to yourself, how horrible. Thank goodness parents of newborns don't actually have to face such a scary situation. But according to Milloy, the imaginary treatment described above is real. "Obstetricians, doctors, and midwives commit this procedure on infants every single day, in every single country. In reality, this treatment is performed almost universally without even asking for the parents' consent, making this practice all the more insidious. It's called infant gender assignment: When the doctor holds your child up to the harsh light of the delivery room, looks between its legs, and declares his opinion: It's a boy or a girl, based on nothing more than a cursory assessment of your offspring's genitals."

Milloy continues the crazy narrative with explanations on how, beginning with the doctors gender assignment of your baby, the child's life is "instantly and brutally reduced from such infinite potentials down to one concrete set of expectations and stereotypes, and any behavioral deviation from that will be severely punished—both intentionally through bigotry, and unintentionally through ignorance. That doctor (and the power structure behind him) plays a pivotal role in imposing those limits on helpless infants, without their consent, and without your informed consent as a parent. This issue deserves serious consideration by every parent, because no matter what gender identity your child ultimately adopts, infant gender assignment has effects that will last through their whole life."

And just to drive home the point that Milloy is actually criticizing the doctors declaration of a baby's sex and isn't just using the gender assignment thing as some sort of metaphorical critique, I present this quote. "Infant gender assignment is a wilful decision, and as a maturing society we need to judge whether it might be a wrong action. Why must we force this on kids at birth? What is achieved, besides reinforcing tradition? What could be the harm in letting a child wait to declare for themself who they are, once they're old enough (which is generally believed to happen around age 2 or 3)? Clearly, most children will still turn out like we'd expect, but it's unlikely the extra freedom would harm them. On the other hand, we do know the massive harm caused to some children by the removal of that freedom...Think carefully. Infant gender assignment might just be Russian roulette with your baby's life."

If this article was written anywhere else, I probably would of had to do some research to verify that it wasn't satire. But this isn't satire and as easy as it would be to simply say "this is bat shit crazy" and move on, I feel it deserves some sort of reasoned response.

First, instead of clearly writing what she is arguing for, Milloy instead chooses to heavily saturate the article with rhetorical ploys meant to emotionally persuade the reader. Some of the examples I've already quoted above include calling the doctor's declaration of sex an "insidious" act and comparing it to playing "Russian roulette with your baby's life". Yea, that's right. Milloy seems to believe that a doctor stating "it's a boy" or "it's a girl" is analogically comparable to putting a bullet into a revolver, spinning the cylinder, putting it to the child's head and pulling the trigger.

Milloy uses a similar maneuver at the beginning of the article with his carefully constructed story. She presents a mother facing a somewhat authoritarian doctor ominously wanting to perform a treatment on the new born which may result in long-term negative side effects. It is then revealed to the reader that the hypothetical treatment is actually real and occurs ever day in the form of infant gender assignment. The problem with this, of course, is that a doctor stating the sex of a child is not a treatment. It is, well, just a statement of what is observed. The word treatment implies the use of medical intervention against some sort of illness or injury. That term obviously doesn't apply here.

This leads me to my next point. When a doctor states the babies sex, he or she is simply stating the child's biological gender. It's hilarious how Milloy describes this as an insidious treatment performed without parental consent based on nothing more than a doctors opinion. I'm guessing that for all of human history, whenever a child was born, one of the first things the doctor, midwife or parents have done is to look between the child's legs to see if it was a boy or a girl. But according to Milloy, this very act is to "instantly and brutally" reduce a child "from such infinite potentials down to one concrete set of expectations and stereotypes, and any behavioral deviation from that will be severely punished."

Generally speaking, looking at a child's genitalia is a good way to determine biological sex. It should be noted though that there are exceptions to this rule. Intersex is the term typically used to describe individuals with a congenital anomaly of the reproductive and sexual system. It seems there are some disagreements as to what should be included in the term intersex and there hasn't been a lot of work done to collect statistical information. According to a 2000 study by Anne Fausto-Sterling, up to 1.7% of babies are born intersex. This statistic includes a wide range of major and minor disorders, some of which are apparent at birth (ambiguous external genitalia) and some which are not (external organs appear male or female but there are internal or chromosomal differences). A second often used statistic is that approximately 1 in 2000 babies are born with ambiguous external genitalia. I found this stat used in a lot of different places but could only find one article which cited it to a 1998 paper by Kenneth Kipnis and Milton Diamond called Pediatric Ethics and Surgical Assignment of Sex. Anyway, taking these two statistics together it seems we can conclude that just over 1% of babies born may have some sort of major or minor intersex condition which would not be obvious at birth.

So after eliminating the rhetorical ploys, what are we left with? It is still not entirely clear what Milloy's argument is. It seems as if she is saying something like:

Transgender and intersexed individuals experience higher rates of psychological distress and suicide. These problems are caused (or mostly caused) by being assigned the wrong gender at birth by a doctor. Therefore doctors shouldn't be allowed to declare the sex of a baby.

Again, there's a great deal of vagueness in Milloy's article which makes it difficult to restate her argument with complete confidence. This is apparent if you read through the comment section of the article where typically the few people that tried to defend her believed she was talking about infant gender re-assignment (when a baby is born with ambiguous genitalia and a doctor performs surgery on the child to make them look more like their assigned gender).

Anyway, the first premise, that transgenders and intersexed individuals experience higher rates of psychological distress and suicide, can be verified as true through available statistical information.

The second premise, that these problems are caused (mostly caused) by being assigned the wrong gender at birth, is where things go terribly wrong. I think it's more than a little naive to believe that the distress experienced by transgender people would all but go away if a transgendered child was given the ability to declare their own sex at a young age.

To demonstrate, lets do a little thought experiment. Imagine Milloy's world comes to pass and doctors cannot "assign" a child's sex at birth. A child is born, the sex has not been declared by the doctor and the parents even raise it completely gender neutral. At the age of three, the child, who is biologically a boy, declares that it believes it is a girl and the parents then allow her to wear dresses, play with dolls and do whatever other things little girls like to do. Now according to Milloy, the child has been spared the trauma of being assigned the wrong gender and therefore shouldn't experience the sort of psychological distress transgenders often do. Of course, this completely overlooks the elephant in the room. Namely that the child is still transgendered; identifying as a girl but having the biology of a boy. As such, she will still face prejudice from society at large and still have to deal with the confusion of having the body of a boy yet identifying as a girl. As such, I think it would be a safe assumption to believe that as a group transgenders would still have exceptionally high rates of psychological issues.

Though it's not addressed in the article, I think it can be assumed that Milloy is wanting more than just the banning of doctors declaring the babies sex. That alone would really change nothing. It seems that what Milloy really wants is for parents to also have to raise the child in a gender neutral way until the baby can decide for its self.

So how is all this to be carried out? Would there be laws making it illegal for doctors to declare the sex of the child? What would they put down for medical records? Would there be laws which forced parents to raise their child in a gender neutral way? If so, how would this be enforced?

Most importantly, how would raising children in a completely gender neutral environment effect those that do not have intersex issues? The truth is, we really don't know. While some so called experts say that it would allow a child to develop free of limiting gender norms, others believe that it can only cause confusion at a point in life when clarity is needed.

In the end I think it's plain to see that this is at best an ill-conceived idea on Milloy's part. But it does raise the interesting question of how we've gotten to the point that it could be taken seriously enough to be published in a major online news magazine.


Slate: Don’t Let the Doctor Do This to Your Newborn

Critique of Ed Krayewski's NYPD Cops Put Pregnant Woman in a Choke Hold Over Grilling In Front of Her House

I'm a little disappointed in Ed Krayewski's post on Reason.com titled NYPD Cops Put Pregnant Woman in a Choke Hold Over Grilling In Front of Her House

The blog post begins with reactive, angry, rhetorical language which attempts to preemptively group any potential critics as "police apologist" asking, did you think "Eric Garner should've just fucking complied with police if he wanted to live? Did you think Jahmiel Cuffee should've known better after his first eight marijuana arrests and done a better job hiding from the cops?" This, of course is to set the stage for what must be another obvious example of police abuse, but as I say bellow, this is anything but obvious. It would be nice if we could first read the story first without Krayewski's blatant attempts at Poisoning the Well.

The post then goes on to state "this story involves a pregnant woman, who was put in a chokehold by New York City cops, because she was grilling in front of her house." But when I read the linked New York Post story, I find the facts far less clear than presented. First, the police did not put Rosan Miller in a choke hold for grilling in front of her house. According to the NY Post article police were attempting to arrest her after she and her brother "started slapping at police" to prevent them from arresting her husband. Hmm, I don't know about you but that sounds a lot different than police rolling up on her for cooking some burgers on the sidewalk, snatching her up and tossing her in the cruiser.

Quoting the NY Post article, Krayewski then writes that the woman released photos that she said show the cop putting her in a chokehold. He then goes on to mention that chokeholds are banned by the NYPD but cops may consider the maneuver used a neck restraint. Here are the images released by Rosan which were taken from a cell phone video:

After reading the NY Post article and feeling Krayewski's post wasn't doing the story justice, I started to read articles put out by other news organizations. Strangely I found that they all included some or all of the above images (Huffington Post, Dailymail, Gawker) but where is the actual video from which they come? Could it be the video presents a less compelling story than the pictures?

The only article I could find which did provide the video was the NY Daily News. Here is a link to it so you can watch it for yourself.

Video of NYPD Officer 'Chokehold' on a Pregnant Woman

Though the still pictures may leave the impression that the officer may have used a chokehold, the video (at least in my mind) clearly shows the officer simply trying to control the uncooperative woman in order to put hand cuffs on her.

I haven't taken the time to write this criticism because I'm an apologist for police. On the contrary, I have been critical of law enforcement's decades long move towards becoming ever more militarized and less concerned with constitutional restraints (though this is largely the fault of law makers and judges). My criticism is with the unreasoned, emotional reaction this case has received by those in the media. I'm not trying to say that police didn't do anything wrong. I'm only saying that based on the so called evidence presented, there is nothing that demonstrably shows they did anything wrong.

Recently there have been a number of high profile cases where video taken by a bystander clearly demonstrates abuse by police. Krayewski writes about a number of these in his post. It is absolutely essential that journalist report these incidents to help shine a spotlight on the problem of police misconduct in hopes of curbing future incidents. But as terrible as these incidents might be, journalist still have a responsibility to judge each allegation independently (referring to opinion pieces) and to report the facts of the case completely and without bias. Though Krayewski isn't alone in his frenzied reporting (talking about you Gawker, and HuffPo), I expect more from Reason.

Is it racist to not want to judge by race?

Last month the Supreme Court, in a 6-2 decision, upheld a Michigan Constitutional amendment banning the use of race as a factor in college admissions. It was a controversial decision which sparked a great deal of debate among both opponents and supporters of affirmative action.

One of these debates occurred on Fox News Sunday between Jennifer Gratz and Shanta Driver. I had seen the two present their views before and both pretty much stuck to their normal scripts, at least until the very end when Driver dropped a bombshell by saying "this is a racist decision that takes us back to an era of states rights where white majorities can disenfranchise minority communities and now prevent us from getting higher education."

So, if I understand correctly, Driver believes that the members of the Supreme Court who voted to allow the amendment to stand are essentially being racist because they are not in favor of discriminating on the basis of race.

You might think that perhaps Ms. Driver let her emotions get the better of her during the interview and that she doesn't really think that it was a "racist decision"...except that there is a very long quote of her responding to the decision on BAMN (By All Means Necessary) which starts by saying "Today's Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on affirmative action in Michigan is a racist decision."

Jennifer Gratz gave what I thought was a perfect response to Driver's cheap tactics saying "I think it is unbelievable that someone would sit here today and say prohibiting racial discrimination is a racist decision, I think that that tells us where the level of discourse is today. Look, good people can disagree. But we can’t have name-calling and baiting like this.” Couldn't have said it better.

David Eckert Story: War on Drugs vs Civil Rights - Part 1

David Eckert Story: Part I

For those of you who have not heard of David Eckert's encounter with the police, here is the short of the long story: Last year Mr. Eckert was pulled over by police for failing to yield at a stop sign. Law enforcement thought that because he was acting nervously and stood strangely that he might be hiding drugs up his anal cavity, so they acquired a warrant and had doctors: check his anal cavity multiple times with their finger, give him multiple enemas causing him to defecate in front of them, gave him multiple x-rays and finally, performed a colonoscopy on him. All of this was done without his consent. No drugs were ever found. The hospital later billed him $6000 for their "services".

I was shocked by the story when I first read about it but didn't want to get too worked up until I looked into it further. Often times there is more to a story than what the initial headlines tell us so I decided to put a little effort into investigating this one. I have read a great many accounts of what happened that day and have acquired numerous sources of information. The following is my attempt to convey the story in a complete and accurate way.

Detailed Account
On January 2, 2012 around 1:00 P.M. officer Robert Chavez of the city of Deming police department pulled over David Eckert in the parking lot of a local Walmart for allegedly failing to yield at a stop sign.  It should be noted that Officer Chavez did not witness the alleged traffic violation but was acting under the direction of Sgt. Detective Bobby Orosco.

During the stop, Officer Chavez noticed that Eckert did not make eye contact and that his hand shook when he gave the officer his license, registration and proof of insurance. Finding his behavior suspicious, he asked Eckert to step out of the vehicle and conducted a Terry pat down for any weapons. None were found. While Eckert stood next to his car, Officer Chavez noted that his posture was erect and that he kept his legs together. Officer Chavez informed Eckert that a uniformed officer would soon arrive to issue him a citation for the traffic violation (which leaves the impression that Chavez was in plain clothes). A short time later Officer Villegas arrived and issued the citation.1

At this point Officer Chavez tells Mr. Eckert he is free to go. As he turns to return to his vehicle, Officer Chavez asked if he could search his vehicle. According to Chavez 1, Eckert agrees but in the federal lawsuit 2, Eckert adamantly denies this. Officer Chavez reports that he then asked to search his person for narcotics or weapons which Eckert refuses.

Officer Chavez then calls in a canine unit from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department. Officer's Green and Arredondo respond with their canine named LEO.  According to Officer Green's report, LEO "indicated and alerted to the presence of an unknown narcotic odor on the driver's seat of the vehicle."3 According to Chavez's report a Hildalgo county officer informed him that he had dealt with Eckert before and that he was known for inserting drugs into his anal cavity and had been caught in Hildalgo county with drugs in his anal cavity.1 The federal lawsuit states that it was Officer's Orosco and Arredondo that informed Chavez that Eckert was known for inserting drugs into his anal cavity. The lawsuit also states that this information was false.2

Eckert was then placed in "investigative detention" and transported to the Deming Police Department while Chavez filed the affidavit to obtain a search warrant. Eckert's vehicle was searched but no contraband was found.4

According to the lawsuit, Eckert requested the right to make a telephone call but Officer's Chavez and 

Hernandez informed him that he was not under arrest and therefore did not have a reason to call anyone.2

Officer Chavez completed the Affidavit for Search Warrant, had it approved by the Deputy District Attorney Daniel Dougherty and signed by Judge Daniel Viramontes.1

Once the warrant was obtained, Officer Chavez transported Eckert to Deming Emergency Room to have medical staff conduct a search of his anal cavity. Dr. Ash, the attending physician, refused to carryout the search expressing that he believed it was unethical.

Officer Chavez contacted Deputy District Attorney Dougherty who advised that he could take him to a different ER facility. Officer's Chavez contacts the Gila Regional Medical Center located in neighboring Grant County. They agree to carryout the warrant. Officer's Chavez and Hernandez transport Eckert to the facility.4

Eckert was admitted to Gila Regional Medical Center around 9:04 P.M. While there, Eckert, who never gave consent and protested the entire time, was given the following procedures:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no foreign objects were found.2, 5

2. Doctor Wilcox then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with his fingers; he reported that he felt something soft which could have been stool.2, 5

3. Doctor Odocha performed a second rectal exam of Eckert with his fingers which concluded around 10:30 P.M.. Doctor Odocha reported that there were no masses found apart from the soft stool.2, 5

4. Doctor Odocha ordered that Eckert be given enemas until all results were clear. Hospital staff gave Eckert a total of three enemas. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of a nurse and Officer Chavez three times. Each time Officer Chavez inspected the stool. No narcotics were found.2, 5

5. A second x-ray was taken; no narcotics were found.2, 5

6. On or around 1:00 A.M. Eckert was prepped for surgery. Doctor Odocha then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus and his large intestines were inspected.. The procedure was completed on or about 2:15 A.M; no narcotics were found.2, 5

According to David Eckert, Officer's Chavez and Hernandez harassed, mocked and berated him by making derogatory remarks about his compromised position.2

Eckert was released from the hospital about 20 minutes after the completion of the colonoscopy.4 

He was driven back to the Deming Police Department by Officer's Eckert and Hernandez and then to his home by Sergeant Lovelace. He arrived at his home around 5:00 A.M.5

1. Affidavit For Search Warrant

2. Federal Lawsuit

3. K-9 Officer's Report

4. Incident Report

5. Motion for Partial Summary Judgement, Affidavit For Search Warrant, Misc. Medical Records

http://www.loweringthebar.net/2014/01/colon-case-settles.html

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3209305.shtml#.Ut_eF9Io5ix

http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/11/07/something-needs-clenching/

http://www.popehat.com/2013/11/07/what-is-the-quantum-of-proof-necessary-for-police-to-rape-and-torture-you-in-new-mexico/

http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/05/dont-appear-to-be-clenching-your-buttock

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/06/this-dog-can-authorize-anal-probes/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/15/the-war-on-drugs-hits-a-new-low-with-the-police-probe-of-david-eckerts-guts/

Miley Cyrus

My oh my, Miley Cyrus created quite a controversy with her performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Strangely, I can't seem to stop thinking about it myself though it isn't as much the performance that has got a hold of me as it is the commentaries written about it.

The response which I find the most irritating is that it is somehow wrong to criticize Miley's performance for its raunchiness. For instance, Clinton Yates writes in the Washington Post "But what exactly is so disturbing about Miley Cyrus? It seems that we still can’t handle what it’s like for a young woman to be able to perform, as she chooses, without layering in a heavy helping of insults as well...When the white, 20-year-old, former child star and daughter of a country singer goes on stage and does something that the so-called ruling classes deem unseemly, it starts a firestorm."

Soraya Chemalys of Salon writes "The shame-filled objections to women like these are simply a double standard about power and worthiness. The outrage and “disappointment,” cloaked primarily in concerns about, “sluttiness,” “selfishness,” “craziness” and “inappropriateness,” add up to one thing: female unworthiness...Women, we’d like everyone to keep thinking, are unworthy of too much agency, authority, power and self-expression. Otherwise, everyday people would be decrying every top-billed male performer for engaging in the exact same behavior that Cyrus did last night. It would help if we taught kids, in school, to be critical of stereotypes, to understand constructions of gender, race and ethnicity, and to appreciate the important difference between sexiness and sexualization. Miley Cyrus deserves critique for the racially objectifying elements of her performance, and even for the production of an artistically questionable, odd and distasteful set involving bears and bad dancing. But Cyrus is most likely be criticized instead for being “slutty”or ”crazy” — and those words matter and speak volumes."

And finally Anne Theriault from HuffPost writes "Now, let's be clear: there was definitely a lot of slut-shaming going on, and it was really fucking disgusting. But what was equally disgusting was white feminists' silence over Miley's minstrel show.

What Miley is doing is cultural appropriation. She, a wealthy white woman, is taking elements from black culture in order to achieve a specific image. Her status as a member of a traditionally oppressive race and class means that she is able to pick and choose what parts of black culture she wants to embrace without having to deal with the racism and racialization that black women live with every day. In short, she can imagine that she is being "ghetto" without having any concept of what living in a ghetto would really mean."

So you see, if you are among the many people who are critical of Miley because of the somewhat pornographic content of her performance, you are actually a sexist pig more concerned about keeping females from acquiring too much power and can't seem to recognize Miley's true crime which is that she is actually a racist.

To be fair, I do recognize that there are a number of people who have run to their favorite social media outlets and simply labeled Miley with some derogatory terms without expressing any sort of actual coherent criticism. But the type of commentaries I quoted above don't seem to be pinpointing their attack to this narrow group of people. Instead they paint a picture of Miley's critics which fits their world view all the while ignoring or distorting the actual complaints. I'm not sure if this is a purposeful straw man argument or if it is truly something they are blind to. I mean, the complaints against Miley are pretty simple to understand. They can probably all be lumped into the categories of either bad taste or parental concern. Why is it so difficult for far leftist to simply accept that people are legitimately criticizing her for the reasons they give and that they are completely sensible criticisms to make?

This is especially true in the area of parental concern. The Parents Television Council (PTC) issues a complaint against MTV for airing the show with a rating of TV14 (suitable for 14 and up) and who can blame them? Would you really want your 14 year old son or daughter exposed to this sort of raunchy performance? Of course there are those who believe that exposing kids to sexual material is really not that big a deal. And while there hasn't been as much research in this area as there should be, the studies that have been conducted would disagree. For instance, this 2012 study published in Psychological Science concluded that Children who watch films with a high sexual content tend to lose their virginity earlier and have more partners. Not only are they more promiscuous, they are also more likely to engage in risky sex such as not using condoms.





http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/the-tongue-the-twerking-the-teddy-outfit-should-someone-have-stopped-miley-cyrus-vma-performance-8785494.html

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/children-exposed-to-sex-on-screen-go-on-to-be-promiscuous.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/real-healing/201208/overexposed-and-under-prepared-the-effects-early-exposure-sexual-content

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/anne-theriault-/miley-cyrus-vma-performance_b_3819177.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-26/entertainment/41447063_1_cyrus-is-miley-cyrus-diplo

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/26/miley_cyrus_joins_the_boys_club/

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Red Herring Example

Came across this clip on a couple of politically oriented blogs. Setting aside the politics (which I try to do with some degree of regularity), I found this to be a good example of the Red Herring fallacy (A red herring is an argument which is used to distract from the original issue by introducing some irrelevant issue or topic).


Blitzer starts by essentially repeating the point that Paul Ryan had made in a video which was played moments before this video starts.

He (Blitzer) says 'So the question is, just to be precise, he does call for dramatic changes for people 54 and under. But anyone who is 55 or older or any senior living in Florida right now they have absolutely nothing to worry about because if his plan were to be approved because it would not affect them at all. You accept that, right?"

Red Herring #1
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz responds by avoiding Blitzer's very specific question about anyone 55 or older having no change to their medicare with this amazing Red Herring: "No, Paul Ryan's views two years ago on Medicare and how we can shore it up and preserve it for future generations were extreme and wrong then and they're extreme and wrong now and made even worse by the fact that now they're in charge of the House of Representatives, and actually if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan became president and vice president of the United States, they would be able to end the Medicare guarantee, shred the health care safety net that Medicare has provided for more than 50 years, and turn Medicare into a voucher program, leaving seniors really out in the cold because as health care costs grow larger than the voucher provides, seniors wouldn't have enough money to cover their health care costs. And we know that the Romney/Ryan plan would increase Medicare premiums by $6,300 each year for seniors, Wolf, so.."

This probably normally works but today Blitzer feels like lighting up the grill. Blitzer trys to bring her back to the original question by saying: "But we're talking about, but he says there would be...he says he's not calling for any changes for anyone who is 55 or older including anyone who is on Medicare right now. Those changes, let's say I accept...Let's say we accept all those, the description you have of all of those changes, that affects people 10 years from now...let's say 65 or 67 when they're eligible for Medicare. But it doesn't affect anyone who is receiving Medicare right now or those who have 10 years to go, 55 and older.

Red Herring #2
Wasserman-Schultz responds "It certainly does and I'll tell you how...First of all, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan presume that the people who are younger than 65 years old who have spent decades in their (Blitzer corrects her and says 55) ok, so 55 and younger (Remember, the original point was regarding people 55 and older, not younger people. By talking about younger people she moves into her next Red Herring) We'll start with that age. Those people have spent decades paying into Medicare and because of the arbitrary cutoff of 55 years old that Romney and Ryan have established that means that we would no longer for those people have Medicare be a guarantee. Instead, we would shred that safety net. It would no longer be a guarantee. It would be a voucher. They'd pay more than $6,000 more in premiums to pay for their Medicare coverage and because health care costs often rise higher than that voucher would at a faster rate the voucher wouldn't provide for all the health care costs

The back and forth gets convoluted from here, so you can watch the video for the rest of it.

Then and Now

I must be getting old. It seems like the world has changed so much since I was a boy, especially in the realm of music. Whenever I turn on the radio (which is rarely) I always find myself muttering about how terrible the songs are both musically and message wise. Music is largely subjective so perhaps I just have different taste than the majority of people listening to the radio. But what about the message? Has mainstream music really changed that much from when I was boy or am I just being a crotchety old man? This was the thought in my head on the way to work today so I thought I would take a moment to look at the Billboard top 5 songs as of today and today's date thirty years ago. Lets start with today's date back in 1981:

1)9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
-A song about the difficulties of work.
2)Keep on Loving You by REO Speedwagon
-A song about love and commitment while facing difficulties.
3)Woman by John Lennon
-A song about love
4)The Best of Times by Styx
-A song about two people in love in a difficult world.
5)I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt
-A silly song about loving rainy nights.

And now today's top songs:

1)Born this Way by Lady Gaga
-A song about accepting who you are.
2)Fuck You(Forget You) by Cee Lo Green
-A song about a guy whose girl broke up with him and is with another guy so he
just says fuck you alot. "I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough, I’m like
f*ck you and f*ck her too."
3)S & M by Rihanna
-A song about well, sado-masochism. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but
whips and chains excite me".
4)Fuckin Perfect by Pink
-A song about self esteem. "Oh pretty, pretty please, don’t you ever feel like
you’re less than f***in’ perfect.(how poetic)
5)On the Floor by Jennifer Lopez Featuring Pitbull
-A song about dancing and drinking at the club with sexual double meanings. "Now
pump it up and back it up like a Tonka truck...All I need is some vodka and some
chunka coke and watch a chick get donkey konged"

This might not prove one way or another whether I'm a crotchety old man but I think the comparison speaks for itself. If this is the kind of stuff we are filling our kids heads with it is no wonder they are more dysfunctional than ever.