Civil liberties – Page 10

Don’t They Know There’s A War On?

Published on August 5, 2008

Yeah, a war against common sense…. from Slashdot:

Kozar_The_Malignant writes

“A laptop containing the unencrypted security data for 33,000 travelers using the Clear system was stolen at San Francisco International Airport on July 26, according to CBS5 Television. The Clear system allows travelers who register and pay a $100.00 annual fee to speed through airport security by using a smart card at special kiosks in some airports. TSA has suspended new registrations in the system, which is run by a private contractor, Verified Identity Pass, Inc., a subsidiary of GE. The laptop was apparently stolen from a locked office at SFO. The company has now decided that it might be a good idea to encrypt the data in their systems. They are in the process of notifying customers that all of their personal data, including name, address, SSi number, passport number, date of birth, etc. has been compromised.

Are They There Yet?

Published on August 3, 2008

my first cavity search

It’s a canard of the liberal left in the USA that the country is on the verge of fascism, but it’s been 8 years now and an observer might reasonably ask, “When do they stop teetering on the verge and tip right over the cliff?”

When this sort of thing is starting to become such an everyday occurrence it’s not even notable any more, I’d suggest:

Police Raid Berwyn Heights Mayor’s Home, Kill His 2 Dogs

By Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 31, 2008; Page B01

A police SWAT team raided the home of the mayor in the Prince George’s County town of Berwyn Heights on Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after he brought in a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been delivered to his doorstep, police said.

Yes. Delivered by undercover cops.

Mayor Cheye Calvo was not arrested in the raid, which was carried out about 7 p.m. by the Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and county police narcotics officers. Prince George’s police spokesman Henry Tippett said yesterday that all the residents of the house — Calvo, his wife and his mother-in-law — are “persons of interest” in the case.

The package was addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, said law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

Tippett said police are working to determine for whom the drugs were meant.

Calvo said yesterday that he did not know how the drugs wound up on his doorstep. He works part time as the mayor and serves as director of expansion for the SEED Foundation, a well-known national nonprofit group that runs urban public boarding schools.

“My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs,” Calvo said. “They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don’t think they really ever considered that we weren’t.”

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he — wearing only underwear and socks — and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs’ carcasses and pools of the dogs’ blood, Calvo said.

More

Here’s some more backstory on the shootings and much more here on the corruption and brutality of Maryland cops. They don’t have a great record.

The dogs were pets, labradors to be precise, hardly the most agressive of animals, and they were running away from paramilitaries invading their space. They weren’t shot because they were a threat, but purely to terrify and intimidate the mayor and his family.

These are classic School of The Americas terror tactics and exactly the kind of thing that was done in Chile, Argentina or any number of Central American puppet states to intimidate and harass elected officials who might threaten the military or police with accountability for their political and financial misdeeds.

Prince George’s County has a reputation for brutal, dirty cops but it’s hardly alone in that. It appears that America’s police and security forces have been turned into a unaccountable collection of virtually private paramilitaries, weapons to be used by the corrupt rich against the very people that are paying for that corruption.

When heavily armed police trained to be amoral, murderous thugs are then given free rein to profit from bribery and the ludicrous ‘war on drugs’, how then can anyone we be surprised when they use those same weapons to stop anything and anyone that might cut into those profits? It’s not as though anyone in government gives a damn that the US is way over that fascist cliff and accelerating. In the dying days of the GOP it’s everybody for themselves and the devil take the hindmost. If I was an as yet uncorrupted local politician I’d be buying myself a shotgun or two. Or several.

The Age Of Entitlement

Published on August 3, 2008

There has been much criticism this week of the dyslexic student at Plymouth’s Peninsula Medical School who’s sueing to have multiple choice exams removed from the curriculum in a teaching system which already allows extra support.

The BMA calls this learning disability ‘the gift of dyslexia’ and sees no reason why dyslexics should not qualify as doctors.

Speaking as a patient my view on dyslexic doctors is simple, clear and unequivocal – if it comes down a clash between the right of someone with a learning disability to follow their dream, and my right not to be killed as a result of their doing so, then I say sorry, choose another profession.

That is neither nice nor nasty, but simple self-preservation.

We are all different I have a degree of dyspraxia – I’m a bit clumsy – and synaesthesia, and I have depth perception problems. But my IQ (if you accept the validity of IQ in the first place) once tested in the top 3% of the nation.

I *choose* not to drive a car, although this causes me social problems and narrows my career choices, because I know I’d be a potential danger to the public. Similarly I decided not to be an engineer – not because I’m too thick, but because I have no aptitude for numbers. I might even be diagnosed as dysnumerate, were my middle class parents seeking to game the system in my favour. Certainly any railway, bridge or large building designed by me would be a danger to the public.

So too a person who has difficulty reading, writing and spelling (for whatever reason) has no aptitude to become a doctor and is a fool to think they do. A large component of the practice of medicine consists of clear and accurate observation, record keeping and prescription. There are minor spelling differences between hypo and hyper, for instance, yet the difference in meaning is vast and immediately life-threatening.

“0.1mg or 01mcg? Ooooh, not sure, let me squint a little…”

Doesn’t work, does it.

But the primary reason why this student is unqualified to be a doctor is not her dyslexia; it’s that she’s putting her own career ahead of her future patients’ interests. That’s not someone I’d want to treat me or anyone close to me.

If you’re bright enough to be interested in medicine as a career then you surely should also be bright enough to see the danger you might pose to a patient. How does the Hippocratic oath go? “First do no harm”? I can’t see how this student could take any such oath in good conscience. Or maybe she doesn’t have a good conscience; maybe she sees notions like ‘care for the patient first’ as boring old shibboleths which cannot be allowed to interfere with her own personal life choices.

This student and those supporting her are incredibly selfish – but then again, what can we expect from the flower of 3 generations of entitlement culture?

Just by way of hyperbolic illustration, here’s where making allowances gets you:

Doctor barred by state helps in U.S. executions

By Henry Weinstein
November 15, 2007 in print edition A-17

Note This article includes corrections to the original version.

A doctor who was barred from taking part in executions in Missouri because of concerns his dyslexia would interfere with his ability to administer lethal injections is helping the federal government carry out death sentences in Indiana, according to court documents.

The physician has been the target of more than 20 malpractice suits, was barred from practicing at two hospitals and was publicly reprimanded by a state agency for failing to disclose those suits to a hospital where he treated patients, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper identified the doctor as Alan R. Doerhoff of Jefferson City, Mo.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan Jr. of Kansas City, Mo., banned Doerhoff from participating “in any manner, at any level” in lethal injections in Missouri.

The judge said earlier he was “gravely concerned” that the doctor responsible for “mixing the drugs which will be responsible for humanely ending the life of condemned inmates, has a condition [dyslexia] which causes him confusion with regard to numbers.”

Federal officials, however, have made Doerhoff part of the execution team at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., according to court papers filed on behalf of several inmates there. All condemned federal prisoners are executed at that prison.

Among those executed there was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh.

Ah well, if this student wins her case and goes on to qualify, I’m sure Jack Straw can find her a similar place at one of his Titan prisons.