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If a corporation is accused of a crime, wll it have to give a DNA sample?
Say no to GMO corporatism!!!
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=108492
Thom,
Pawlenty is exercising the "2-Santa Claus" rule. From the article cited in my "David vs. Goliath" post above:
"It struck Robinson and others as odd that Pawlenty imposed the cuts at the beginning of the two-year budget cycle. In their view, Pawlenty had CREATED THE FINANCIAL CRISIS when he signed the appropriations bills and later vetoed the tax bill that was to have paid for the spending."
(Emphasis above - i.e., caps. - mine.)
@Charles - while I defnitely have civil liberties doubts about DNA databases, its use in crime prevention is straightforward ... not a person's 1st crime, but the 2nd crime.
If DNA is collected from a crime, the more people in your database, the more likely you are to make a match, then an arrest and prevent the 2nd crime.
There are definite problems of liberty and of proof, but the straightforward anticrime part is there. I suppose "smart rapists" will learn to get hair samples from their local barber or person begging on the streetcorner.
Here is another set of commandments that will help build a better world for our planet.
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=108511
On Saturday, March 13, 2010, I celebrated the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The third reading or the Gospel reading was on the Prodigal Son. The priest gave us the definition of the word, prodigal (recklessly extravagant and wasteful as well as extremely lavish and selfish). As the priest was giving us the sermon, I thought of the United States of Hell as the Prodigal Son. Yes, our nation is reckless, extravagant, wasteful, lavish, and selfish. Will our country ever reconcile herself with God or even return to God or even practice the Golden Rule? Will the United States of Hell ever decide to turn her back on mass murders and war crimes against God’s children?
There are two books on the Prodigal Son that may be worthwhile reading:
“The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Henri J. M. Nouwen and “The Wounded Healer” by Henri J. M. Nouwen.
Poor Carrie Lukas is stuck using bad math on her job calculations.
She uses the direct number of jobs created - the people on site - and not the jobs of the people not on site, e.g. steelmakers. Now maybe there's a problem with domestic content provisions, but to simply divide the cost of a project by the number of people at the actual construction site is ... well, just sad.
Oh, and she's lying about Spain too. That "jobs destroyed in Spain" study was debunked as soon as it came out.
I have a correction to make on Thom’s address. I have addressed my letter to him on his blog as Thom Hartmann, Houseboat, Portland, Oregon. Here is his actual address:
Thom Hartmann
The Loveboat with Louise and Higgins
Portland, Oregon
I have included Higgins in his address because even though he is a cat, Higgins seems to be more than a cat in the Hartmann household. Higgins has a special place in the home, such as being perched on his kingly throne for all to see him.
"Politically connected" green industries? Is THAT why Carrie Lukas and other right-wingers are against clean energy alternatives?
Also, according to Lukas, the government "stumbles" on green energy alternatives. It doesn't bother her that she's GUESSING about the amount of oil that can be produced domestically.
This ideologue's arguments make my head explode!
I fail to see how having a database of DNA will help find criminals. Matching DNA might narrow the search down to the 99.999 percentile but how does that locate the "criminal". This list will only be accurate as long as the person does not change jobs or move to a new community. Sex offender lists have proven just how ineffective these databases are.
When a horrible crime is committed after the perp might have been caught thru excessive collection of DNA, will the reichwing blame Obama for NOT collecting it?
As if the Constitution wasn't enough.
Why are we so enamored by technology. It seems intelligent people, like our president, can be turned into idiots as soon as they find another use of technology.
DNA stockpiling is a terrible idea. Think about how easily it could be used against anyone, lets say liberals. And the old story that it will be in a computer data base, as if computers can't be hacked or information removed manually.
Think about the no fly list, a list of a few hundred thousand names. How poorly is that information used? Imagine a list of over 3 hundred million with extensive DNA info. How long will it be before it all becomes useless?
And what about the fact that so many criminals, including predators are convicted and allowed back into society only to commit the same crimes again. I much rather have serial criminals, like murderers and sex offenders and even financial predators removed from society when convicted for good. Now that would make better sense than pretending that if we have everyone's DNA criminals will not still exist or it will be easier to find them.
D. Zane Smith,
Re: "This violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure."
That never stopped the Bush Administration...
The problem with gathering DNA from everyone one arrested is there is no probable cause; no pending crime to which the evidence gathered is the least bit relevant. Finger prints are used for identification, and are precisely the reason gathering DNA evidence is not justified. The government already has a way to identify you, they don't need the DNA to do it. The only thing the DNA is useful for is connecting you to a crime that the authorities have no probable cause to connect you to. This violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Texas Student Enrollment stats:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/research/pdfs/enrollment_2008-09.pdf
WHY IS TEXAS THE DEFAULT TEXTBOOK WRITER/PRODUCER?
In a quick Google search to compare California vs. Texas statewide education enrollment numbers, it appears that California (over 6 million in 2000) FAR outpaces Texas ( approx. 4.6 million in 2009) stats. So why is TEXAS able to call the shots?
CA Enrollment stats:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/enr80.asp
I'm still struggling my way thru "Atlas Shrugged" - there are still a couple of intriguing plot points to the story that are holding some modicum of my interest, hateful ideology not withstanding. I came across a single sentence over the weekend, though that, in my mind, pretty much encapsulates "What's Wrong With America Today".
A major plot line involves the affair between a married Steel Mill Owner and the female VP of a Railroad. These are apparently the "Heroes" of Rand's tale - they are honest business people, who claim that they do what they do simply to turn a profit for themselves, without regard for whatever "good" may come to other businesses or to society in general as a result of their actions. Their lives are made intolerably miserable by the allegedly more "civic-minded" people who apparently rule their world. Those characters, however, never fail to come off phony, transparent fools, who are, in fact, every bit as greedy, if not greedier, than Rand's "heroes".
In a discussion regarding some new and horrible regulation that is likely to force the closing of several of their client companies, and the world-view responsible for such regulations, the heroine says to the hero "We must NEVER see the world from their viewpoint!"
Isn't that pretty much where we've come to today? All the controversies facing our nation today seem to be championed by two sides with absolutely no interest in even finding out WHY the other side thinks as they think. How can progress ever occur in such an environment?
2) "David vs. Goliath" (Pawlenty)
Reminiscent of the days of civil rights lawyers William Kunstler and his partner, Ron Kuby, fighting injustice, a legal aid lawyer with a pony tail has vowed to fight Pawlenty all the way to the state supreme court over Pawlenty's "unallotments" and unilateral budget cuts. This will be fascinating:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/87627277.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3...
@Mark K - Right-wing Whackos have something more important than "cache" - they have CASH!
@Mark K 0 I'd bet that the CofCommerce knows that something will get passed, and they are just preparing the ground for the next battle. Whatever is passed will be only a temporary victory, as always, because the aristocracy never quits trying to return to the England of Dickens.
In regard to the drug violence that took the lives of a U.S. consulate worker and her husband in Mexico, it is useful to remember that the current drug violence shows us how “winning” the drug war is problematic. In Columbia, the Medellin Cartel was destroyed when the paramilitary police that people pretended didn’t exist turned the cartel’s method of violence on itself: killing family members, previously “untouchable” associates like lawyers, and bombing businesses and homes. Since life became untenable for the big-time drug lords in Columbia, the middlemen in Mexico took over the “family business.” The question now is if the U.S.—which covertly supported the technically illegal activities that took down the Medellin Cartel—is willing to support those steps in Mexico, with its potential to spill over into the U.S.. And even if the Mexican cartels are destroyed, they will simply go someplace else. Next stop—the U.S.? Or are we going to have to rethink the drug war? In this regard there is a precedent—Prohibition, when the illegal booze trade led to equally violent ways of conducting business.
1) Pawlenty Still Peeing (on Minnesota)
"Pawlenty carves up public works bill
Delivering on his threat to trim a $1 billion public works bill, Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Monday carved about one-third from the package of construction projects.
Higher education took the biggest share of the cuts, more than $100 million. More than $50 million in proposed borrowing to expand civic centers in Mankato, Rochester and St. Cloud was eliminated, as was land acquisition for state trails and natural areas. The bill now stands at $680 million."
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/87654367.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQ...
Thom,
Apropos to your interview with Barry Lynn tomorrow, you may be interested in the "60 Minutes" piece that aired last night. "Wall Street: Inside the Collapse" featured an interview with writer Michael Lewis about his new book, called "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine," which comes out later this week. It explains how some of Wall Street's finest minds managed to destroy $1.75 trillion of wealth in the subprime mortgage markets.
I don't know that I buy Lewis' premise that the collapse was not created so much by "evil" men, but by men ingnorant of the results of their actions. Interesting story, though.
Article and Video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/12/60minutes/main6292458.shtml?ta...
Is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce terrified that health care reform may pass? It certainly appears that way, since it is ratcheting-up it’s anti-health care bill campaign. Television ads I’ve seen are telling viewers to call and inform targeted Democratic lawmakers from the state that they come down with a case irritable bowel syndrome every time they think of the awful possibility, and it can only be cured if the lawmaker votes against it.
Also over the weekend, I found myself listening to Michael Medved’s radio show. He seemed to be having a civilized discussion with John Avalon, author of “Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America” in which Avalon blames both the left and the right for addling people’s minds. Medved may sound “reasonable,” but he takes his cues from his fringe-right callers. One them denounced the book and the author, refused to believed that right-wing “wackos” have the “cache” that left-wing “wackos” have; Medved, agreed, stating as “proof” that liberal college professors were more likely to get tenure that right-wing professors, as if he knew this for a fact. But what does that matter anyways, since most of the followers of the right-wing media disdain intellectual “elitists?”
The sad reality is that right-wing wackoism does have “cache,” as we can see from the current Supreme Court, right-wing obstruction in the Senate, and angry white guys flying planes into buildings. Even dim-bulbs like Sarah Palin have “cache” given the “right” audience, so much so that she is being spoken of as a serious possibility for president. Surely Medved must know that he is part of the 95 percent or so of talk radio that is right-wing, almost all of the “wingnut” variety. Perhaps he is implying that people like himself have no intellectual “cache” that is a threat to civilization, but their tens of millions of rapt listeners are not usually intellectual or value intellect anyways, rather preferring that their masters to be “idiot savants,” speaking to them on some subterranean level they can understand. The opposite of intellect is ignorance, and in this regard, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have a dangerous degree of “cache.” Their “soldiers” may be in the minority, but they seem like a whole army to weak-kneed lawmakers.
It is good to see Jesse Ventura coming on the show. His Tru.tv program on 9/11 was right on the mark.
I very strongly believe a new independent investigation of 9/11/2001 is absolutely mandatory for our continued freedom, and will drastically change the way we Americans think about the world and our future for the better.
We need to keep the pressure on for a new investigation!