A Hot, Humid Sunday

Yesterday my wife and son went to the bank less than a mile from here, and it was raining like crazy there, but we didn't get a drop here at the house -- isn't that weird? You can almost throw a rock from here to there. In these stifling summer days we have little storm-cells that pass from left to right across the map, some people get rain and thunder and lightning and some don't. Sometimes you can see the storm on the horizon, hear the thunder, and it just passes by. Right now it's hazy out there, and I haven't been out but I just know what it's like. Think I'll stay in and have a cup of coffee before I get the paper.

A couple of things in the news this week jumped out at me. One was the deal that the government made with the guy they suspected of mailing anthrax to people a few years back.

The U.S. Justice Department agreed to a $5.8 million settlement with scientist Steven Hatfill, ending his lawsuit that claimed the government improperly identified him as a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

As part of the deal, the agency will pay Hatfill a $2.8 million lump sum and will purchase an annuity that will provide him $3 million through 20 annual payments of $150,000. Hatfill Lawsuit Settled by U.S. for $5.8 Million

Yes, they improperly identified him as a suspect, and they hassled the poor guy to death.

Remember -- somebody sent anthrax to some people in 2001, it all happened in the fog of confusion following 9/11 when we thought America was swarming with terrorists. Anthrax powder got sent to some journalists' and Senators' offices, and a package broke open in the Brentwood post office; five people were killed altogether and another seventeen were infected with it but survived. Hatfill had worked for government "biomedical" laboratories, and he definitely had some shady stuff in his background, but rather than investigate him as a regular suspect, the FBI decided to make a big publicity stunt out of it all. They invited journalists along when they searched his house, for instance.

To give you an idea what this guy's life was like -- he was parked on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown and the FBI had their van parked right behind him. He got out of his car and was going to take a picture of them, and as they took off they ran right over his foot! The DC cops came and he ended up with a a ticket for "walking to create a hazard" on Wisconsin Avenue. If that isn't being hassled ...

So this week, he and his lawyers quietly closed the case. He will now be receiving nice checks, courtesy of the taxpayer (that's you). I don't know if he mailed the anthrax or not, but this is a perfect example of the deterioration of our sense of justice. In the US we have laws that regulate how the government can investigate a crime and pursue a suspect. They have to gather evidence and build a case, decide whether to charge the person, then there is a trial where the evidence is presented and finally a judgment is offered. You know, I shouldn't have to say this, it should just be what we do. But somebody at the top of the federal government decided along the way that we don't need any of that -- harassment, torture, and interminable confinement should be good enough. Now, finally, at least in the this case the arc of justice is beginning to bend back, and the FBI is going to pay the guy a lot of money.

This reminds me of the case of Richard Jewel, remember him? Somebody set off a pipe bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. Jewel saw a suspicious backpack, cleared the area, saved lives, and the FBI harassed him mercilessly. I can remember seeing live TV shots of his apartment all lit up, swarming with FBI guys trying to find evidence that Jewel was actually the bomber. Another guy, Eric Rudolph, later confessed. Turns out Jewel was a hero, not a terrorist, he was just a security guard doing his job and in the end he sued every newspaper and television network that had said he was the bomber, bringing in a pretty penny.

Again, there is a process, and it works. You think the guy committed a crime, charge him. By all means, investigate, find the bad guys, catch them, bring them to trial. There is nothing like "coddling criminals" in either of these situations. The fact is, we have a criminal justice system that works. Maybe sometimes somebody gets away, and maybe sometimes somebody gets charged wrongfully, but a balance has been found in American justice between protecting citizens' rights and maintaining order. Harassing people and denying them representation doesn't make it any more likely that they are guilty. There is plenty the FBI can do to investigate somebody, and they should do all of it, but the press plays no part in it, hassling people isn't part of it. Invite the journalists to the courthouse, not to the suspect's house when you're searching it. Announce the verdict to them at the end of the trial, don't tell them before you've even charged the guy.

I can't say I like the idea that we're going to pay Steven Hatfill a nice pension for life, but I really don't like my tax money to be subsidizing a federal government that hassles people without having any evidence on them either.

Another thing in the news suffers by having the most boring name ever: FISA. The federal government can listen to your phone calls without a warrant for 72 hours, if they think you're a terrorist and they don't have time to get a warrant. Okay, I think that probably sounds fair to most of us, there is some oversight by the courts and some accountability, in the end if it turns out to be a false alarm they have to throw out the information they gathered.

But for several years the federal government was just listening to everybody, you and me, everybody. They went to the phone companies, asked them to let them listen in, and a number of the big telephone companies did give them access to people's phone calls. They weren't supposed to do that. It is against the law to do that. You aren't suspected of terrorism, are you? Why are they listening to you then?

This week Congress debated what they call a "compromise," and it looks like it's going to pass. The new FISA bill will give the phone companies immunity for giving away our privacy. There is some wording in there that says it's okay to break the law if the government asks you to. I really don't like the sound of that, and lots of other people don't either.

I know, nobody really cares. So the government listens to your phone calls -- you've got nothing to hide, right? What if they caught everybody who ever did anything wrong? If they listen to enough phone calls, they could do it. They could catch kids planning pranks, adulterers, maybe you call somebody when you're stoned or you admit running a red light to somebody. It isn't me, my life is so boring they can watch me every second of the day without catching me at anything, but I think people need to have privacy when they talk to each other, it's just part of being free. Just a second, cussing isn't against the law, is it? Okay, I still don't want them listening to my phone calls.

(Man, some soprano is singing the Lord's Prayer on WPFW -- this is goose-bump stuff!)

In other news that came out this week, HIV rates have gone up in young gay males, especially blacks. The Post:

The number of young homosexual men being newly diagnosed with HIV infection is rising by 12 percent a year, with the steepest upward trend in young black men, according to a new report.

The double-digit increase in young gay men is about 10 times higher than in the homosexual community overall, where the number of new infections is going up about 1.5 percent a year.

The report, released yesterday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appears to confirm impressions that a "second-wave" AIDS epidemic is underway in gay America. HIV Rate Up 12 Percent Among Young Gay Men

I'm pretty sure I can predict how the nuts will play this, whatever, there is a serious epidemic in our community and we need to fight it with education and good practices.

There was one aspect of this that jumped out at me:

Previous studies have found that gay black men on average have fewer sex partners, are less likely to use drugs and are no more likely to have unprotected intercourse than gay white men. Consequently, their higher rate of infection does not appear to arise from riskier behavior.

Instead, it reflects the higher prevalence of HIV -- as well as syphilis and gonorrhea, which increase a person's susceptibility to HIV -- in the black population.

Some people would like to argue that anal sex is a risky behavior that increases your probability of getting HIV/AIDS -- but anal sex with an uninfected person is no risk at all. Some people would argue that "homosexual sex" is dangerous, but in fact "homosexual sex" with an uninfected partner is no riskier than any other kind of sex. This seems obvious but it is important: you risk getting HIV when you have any kind of sex with an HIV-infected person, and you do not risk getting it if you have any kind of sex with someone who doesn't carry the virus.

These warnings about gay sex and anal intercourse only make sense if you assume a person is having sex with strangers. In that case, you don't really know the HIV status of your partner and the laws of probability come into play: it's Russian roulette. This goes for women as well as men, white as well as black, straight as well as gay. Indiscriminate promiscuity equals risk.

In America, the black population has been hit with HIV harder than the rest of us -- the HIV rate for black women, for instance, is twelve times higher than for white women. A CDC web site says, "Of the estimated 18,849 people under the age of 25 whose diagnosis of HIV/AIDS was made during 2001–2004 in the 33 states with HIV reporting, 11,554 (61%) were black " So even though black gay men are more careful than whites, the probabiliity that a new partner is infected is higher. The real problem is that this is also a population that is less likely to have access to medical services, including testing.

The point is that it is not promiscuity that causes the increase in the statistics, but simply the fact that there is a higher probability of a partner being HIV-positive. This is a nasty trap. Well, we know our bigoted friends are going to use this information to "prove" that gay people are disgusting, and it won't bother them if black people look bad at the same time.

I guess the Big News this week had to do with guns. The Supreme Court ruled that people in DC can have guns in their homes for self-defense and hunting, even loaded ones. A couple of people came by to talk to me after the ruling was announced, as if suddenly Washington DC is going become dangerous.

I was in China a year or two ago, and my translators and I went through a rough-looking neighborhood. I said, "Is it safe to walk here?" They just laughed. They said, "Nobody has a gun, they're illegal here. You might be careful of pickpockets though." That's just how it is, where guns are outlawed even outlaws don't have guns. Sometimes I go to Europe, and the people there are absolutely baffled by American gun violence. I have tried to explain about the Constitution, I tell them there is just no way people are going to give up their guns. They look at me like I'm insane, oh well, we are a strange country in some ways, aren't we!

Oh - how about Louisianna and their "academic freedom" idea! This is just great. They passed a bill down there, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), to ensure what they call "academic freedom." Ars Technica explains it:

The text of the LSEA suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to "assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories." Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

Love the way they twist freedom around to mean the freedom to teach kids stupid things. I mean, there's enough irony there to hang a magnet on. Just watch for a new group in our county: Citizens for a Responsible Academic Freedom.

On more thing, this was kind of nice. Adam at Maryland Politics Watch has been reviewing Maryland political blogs. They got web statistics for several of the bigger sites, but not for us. Well, he could have emailed me, I would've sent him some numbers -- actually, after I saw this I did send him out server stats. But it is interesting to see how they see us there:

One blog for which we do not have data is Jim Kennedy’s Vigilance blog. Kennedy is President of Montgomery County’s Teach the Facts group, which advocates for a liberal, open curriculum on gender identity issues in the county’s schools. Kennedy acts as a patient ringmaster in the Chuck Barris mold while dozens of mostly anonymous liberals and conservatives battle it out on everything from nature vs. nurture to the origins of religion. MPW friend Dana Beyer even made news there by announcing her 2010 candidacy for District 18 delegate against a crowded forum of hostile anons. Vigilance must get tons of visits judging from its comment counts but Kennedy seldom strays into non-gender issues.

Chuck Barris? Uh, okay, I guess I do feel like this is the Gong Show at times. I have gonged a couple of Anons over the years. And actually, I do feel like a "patient ringmaster" at times. People are always telling me to ban this or that troll, and it is tempting, but I've only had to do it once, the one we called "Illiterate Anon" was just unacceptable, all the time. Oh, I've deleted a lot of comments, there is one guy these days who just doesn't understand the concept of civility, but generally he does us a service by demonstrating just what it is we're up against. I'd have to say it's kind of fun being the patient ringmaster, I post something here and people comment and the issues really do get debated thoroughly. Every comment comes into my email but I don't read every word of it unless something catches my eye. It's also interesting to see the server stats for some of the other blogs. If I'm reading these right, we get a few more visitors than any of the liberal blogs the MPW has reviewed.

I went outside a little while ago to take some pictures, and man it is humid! It's a good day to stay indoors. Of course, having said that, I am going to get my keys and go do some honey-do stuff.