Friday  24 Apr 2015           comment?

Wednesday  22 Apr 2015           comment?

Last summer, the FBI gained access to a suspect's hotel room by staging a failure of the hotel's Internet service and posing as repairmen. A federal judge recently ruled this unconstitutional. Were it allowed, it would enable warrantless access to just about anyone's property.

As the US Attorney noted, "the government uses ruses every day in its undercover operations". Yes, but courts don't always like it. (Note the choice of term: ruses sounds less unsavory than deceit.)

Effective law enforcement is worth having but so is having authorities set a good example. The FBI's motto is Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity but it doesn't say just what they mean by integrity.

Police in the USA can lie with impunity during interrogations. This is common knowledge. Less well known among Americans, perhaps, is that it's not the case everywhere. A German statute lists deceit along with physical abuse and fatigue as unallowable means for influencing criminal suspects.

And speaking of differences between American and German norms: the USA's use of armed drones runs afoul of German law, which matters because the drones are controlled via satellite antennas sited on an air base in Germany. For years, the USA made carefully-phrased denials. And the German government could claim ignorance, at least until certain secret documents came to light detailing the chain of control.

Family members of Yemenis killed by a drone strike have been unable to get an acknowledgement or apology from the USA. They are now suing the German government for having allowed drone strikes to be controlled via facilities in their territory. This will be the first time a victim of a US drone attack gets a day in court anywhere.

Friday  17 Apr 2015           comment?

New mural in town. Click on the pic for the uncropped version.

Thursday  16 Apr 2015           comment?

Speaking about a recent interception of a US plane over the Baltic Sea earlier this month:

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said the Russian aircraft did a roll in front of the U.S. aircraft and showed its belly to the pilot to indicate it was armed.

Red-tailed hawks do the same thing, also as a display of arms (well, claws).

Sunday  12 Apr 2015           comment?

On the left, the center cap from a yoke of a B-29 bomber made in 1945.
On the right, a logo Airbus used from 2001-2010.

And speaking of aircraft companies' graphic designs with rotational symmetry, an oft-repeated story has it that the BMW logo was intended to suggest a propeller against a blue sky. BMW says no, it was originally just a design using Bavarian state colors.

Thursday  09 Apr 2015           2 comments

A dove recently built a nest in a tree next to the window at my left as I type this. Whereas bird nests I was familiar with from the Eastern US were made of twigs and mud, this one is just twigs. I wondered if that was because there isn't much mud to be had here, but I hear it's just the way doves roll.

The eggs in this nest haven't hatched yet, so for now there isn't much to see other than the parents exhibiting remarkable patience. I've seen a dove get all protective and chase other birds out of the tree. And I've seen the change of the guard, where the mate comes by and takes over incubation duty.

This species, Eurasian collared dove, was introduced to North America only a few decades ago. Wikipedia says "almost all nests are within 1 km (0.62 mi) of inhabited buildings." This nest is within 1.5m.

Tuesday  07 Apr 2015           1 comment

Today, another excerpt from an amicus brief. Cases as contentious and historic and interesting as the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage don't come along often.

The (Alabama-based) Foundation for Moral Law cites the anthropologist J. D. Unwin, quoting from his 1934 book Sex and Culture:

Dr. Unwin concluded that the most successful societies, those which advanced most rapidly and retained their advanced state, were those which restrained sexual energy by heterosexual monogamous marriage. He wrote that "if the male as well as the female is compelled to confine himself to one sexual partner, the society begins to display some expansive energy. It bursts over the boundaries of its habitat, explores new countries, and conquers less energetic peoples."

You'd think they'd pick a quote that showed the benefits of chastity in the best possible light. There are loftier achievements to aspire to than conquering less energetic peoples; was that the best they could find?

It's no accident they didn't quote what Dr. Unwin says a few pages later:

Furthermore, no man has yet proved that human energy is a desirable thing. All we know is that in the past it has been displayed in uneven quantities, and that the amount displayed by any society has varied from time to time. In the past, too, the greatest energy has been displayed only by those societies which have reduced their sexual opportunity to a minimum by the adoption of absolute monogamy (para. 168). In every case the women and children were reduced to the level of legal nonentities, sometimes also to the level of chattels, always to the level of mere appendages of the male estate.

I'm no scholar of anthropology and I can't say how good Dr. Unwin's work is. But the guy had a more nuanced understanding than the people quoting him here.

Sunday  05 Apr 2015           comment?

Later this month, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in four consolidated gay marriage cases. I won't presume to predict the decision, but should it be in favor of gay marriage it's not going out on a limb to predict the initials (AGS) of who will write the most scathing dissent.

In the meantime, we consider some of the amicus briefs. Robert Oscar Lopez says it's totally unfair to kids to be brought up by same-sex couples. Before describing his experience as a COG (child of gay parents), he assures the court that his brief is

more than mere personal or anecdotal reflections but rather a body of scholarly work by educated and largely professionalized COGs...

"professionalized"— this doesn't bode well.

On page 27, an associate of Mr. Lopez recounts the horror of his childhood:

I had to pay constant homage and attention to the adults' identity. The importance of their identity required some study. I had to read Patience and Sarah,27 and I had to view The Killing of Sister George.28 Other children were reading Little House on The Prairie29 and seeing Oliver!30 At the same time there was a constant dichotomy at play—simplistic and hostile, black and white. Their sex and identity meant everything. To them heterosexuals meant nothing—breeding, low-level amoebas splitting in their conservative bedroom communities. Our house was overrun with newly minted lesbians planning their divorces and alimony strategies. In one case this meant renting U-Hauls to clean out the house when their husbands were at work.

Scholarly! Footnotes and everything.

Another amicus brief notes that

Holy Scripture attests that homosexual behavior and other sexual perversions violate the law of the land, and when the land is "defiled," the people have been cast out of their homes. See Leviticus 18:22, 24-30. Although some would assert that these rules apply only to the theocracy of ancient Israel, the Apostle Peter rejects that view...

That totally clinches it.

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27	Alma Routsong, writing as Isabel Miller, Patience and Sarah, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1972 (1969).
28	Directed/produced by Robert Aldrich (Palomar Pictures 1968); based on the 1964 play by Frank Marcus.
29	Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie (1935).
30	Directed by Carol Reed, Oliver! (Romulus Films 1968).