TheAgitator.com
Morning LInks
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010- New PHD scandal rocks the professional sports world.
- Gene Healy on the chorus calling for Obama to don a cape and fix the oil spill.
- Ohio Supreme Court rules cops can issue speeding tickets based on a guess-timate.
- Just so I have this straight: The suicide rate at the Chinese Foxconn factory is no higher than the rate in the rest of the country, the workers are paid more than they’re paid in other factories, and they’re certainly better off than if the plants had never been built. But consumers should feel guilty about it all anyway?
- Albuquerque police department using its helicopter for the really important stuff . . . like busting parties where there’s underage drinking.
Farhad Manjoo is a douchebag, all of his articles are terrible they are an easy skip. Even when his editor gives it a punch headline, do yourself a favor and just don’t read it.
I don’t know if Farhad Manjoo is a douche bag but his articles are typically void of thoughtful analysis.
I had no idea doping was so prevalent in professional poker.
Personally, I’m ashamed at these people! I would NEVER use performance enhancing drugs like caffeine on a more than daily basis.
Yeah, I’m doped up on caffeine right now. I’ll stay doped up for most of the day… then start again tomorrow.
dang, Radley- I guess you really were moving. I was starting to think things were quieting down…
Minor nitpick…Bernalillo County Sheriff’s run the party patrol, not Albuquerque PD. Albuquerque PD used their helicopter a while back to make a Krispy Kreme run. DWI and underage drinking are a big problem in Albuquerque, and APD / BCSO always flex their muscle with checkpoints (constitutional or otherwise) and party patrols. Naturally, MADD cheers them on every step of the way.
That Ohio speeding story reminded me of the “looks fasts” Toyota commercial from a few years ago. Still makes me laugh, except I actually live in Ohio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xu-LdnIe8
Re: helicopters, I learned something fun the other day. Apparently city/county PDs in Georgia will use helicopters to try to track down motorcyclists who are speeding and/or trying to get away. And if they manage to pull that person over, they send that guy the bill.
I can’t believe marijuana was listed as a performance enhancing-drug in the Poker story. Can’t the drug-warriors make a decision about MJ and stick with it?
Drug-warrior: “It’ll turn you into a brain-dead basement-dwelling couch potato with no ambition or drive to do anything productive, so we need to ban it for your own good…oh unless you’re an athlete. In that case it’s a performance-enhancing drug that gives you an unfair advantage over competitors, so we need to ban it for the health of the sport.”
I mean, logical disconnect is par for the course with these guys. It just gets so over-the-top ridiculous sometimes. Personally, I play poker like shit unless I’m sober, and even then I’m not spectacular.
From the poker players drug item:
Poker players are using drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, Valium, and other prescription medications, as well as substances including caffeine, energy drinks and guarana to get an edge over their opponents….
Damn. Reality and human nature seem to infect every friggin’ thing humans do these days. Is there no refuge where we can escape ourselves? All I can say is that someday, after humanity destroys itself and cockroaches take over the planet, the world will finally once again be the pure and harmonious paradise it was before we got here.
For what it’s worth, when I graduated from high school in 2000, the local PD busted a grad party with a helicopter as well. You’ve never felt like a criminal until you’ve had a helicopter spotlight silhouette you.
I am a poker player, but poker is not a sport. Neither are chess, synchronized swimming, and curling.
I’m surprised that Ritalin wasn’t one of the drugs mentioned. You would think that a drug that is SPECIFICALLY made and marketed to help people focus and improve memory would be the drug of choice for these “athletes,” right?
I’m pretty certain you will never be invited to join the International Olympic Committee until you become a little more open-minded. My understanding is that an activity becomes a sport by a majority vote of a committee comprised of superior people (similar to the way mental illnesses are invented — or uninvented).
@ 12
Adderall, is responsible for at least two semesters of dominating finals performances for this mid-to-late 90′s undergrad.
Go PED’s!!
In VA at least, I’ve had friends get their tickets thrown out or reduced because the cop just estimated the friends’ speed based on the cops’ speed instead of radar gunning them from a stationary point. A police officer’s estimation of speed sounds like bite mark analysis to me. I’d be shocked if they say anything besides “he was driving real fast” in court. And this in a situation where 7 mph vs 15 mph over vs 20 mph over means greatly differing penalties and points.
re: factory: In general I get this feeling that we’re moving away from thinking of economics as a set of unfortunate constraints on ideal moral behavior, and toward thinking of it as a sort of mantra, an ends in and of itself: an unquestionable fact that’s accepted a bit too readily. Where would we be if everyone just gave up on thinking of how the world could be better, and just accept these economic just-so stories? Isn’t it possible that we would then lose some of the very innovations that have driven economic development?
I admit this is sort of vague, and might be totally off-base, but it’s a sincere question and I welcome comments (if you think it’s bullshit or historically false, please elaborate). I’m not questioning politics or policy, and I don’t mean for it to be political per se. I’m just wondering; is it a bad thing for a society when economic conclusions are answers in and of themselves to moral questions?
Gene Healy nails it. No one in partisan politics wants to admit the BP oil spill is the result of massive failure by both the government and a corporation. And neither side wants to admit that no one has the resources to effectively deal with this either.
But it’s still all the Republicans fault, as if Democrats don’t get huge campaign contributions form oil companies. Obama is at fault because he’s just supposed to fix shit and if he can’t, then he’s a fucking dick for not being magic enough like Jesus and Ronald Reagan.
You get what you pay for with free speech.
I’m a big fan of the hippie speedball when I play poker. Smoke a joint outside the casino then have coffees over the next few hours.
But, but, but … they’re breaking the law. Teenagers with beers, oh my. Every resource should be brought to bear against these criminals. Oh, yeah, and lock them up for as long as possible. We don’t care how much it costs, just so these criminals are off the street.
Poker’s a sport?
I don’t know of the details behind the Foxconn situation, but if that writer and anyone else someone feels morally culpable for what may be going on there, wouldn’t we want them to stage boycotts? Isn’t that the ideal? If you’re bothered by a company, don’t buy their stuff. If enough people are bothered, maybe they change. If not, well, you’ve stood for your principals and made the necessary sacrifices.
Even the most libertarian and independent-minded among us have a little kid inside us who want Mr Alpha Male President Man to fix everything. And in day to day reality, 90 percent of the people on this planet want somebody else to solve their problems. I personally wish that people, when they’re afraid, could expand their cognitive powers instead of allowing their fears to contract them. I include myself in that group: as Frank Herbert wrote in DUNE, “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.”
In regards to the speeding story, isn’t that exactly how it was always done before they invented the radar gun? And let’s get the story straight. Which way do you want it, cop has to see you run a red light or violations should be machine scored, scantron style?
I think you mean “PED” not “PHD”…
On Tuesday I heard some guy talking about the Maryland law regarding videotaping of police on the Ron Smith show as I was driving home. I thought “Wow, that guy’s got a good message, he sounds like Radley Balko…”
And it was Radley Balko!
Thought you did well on the show, man.
Smurfy… if the cop wants to use the eyeball test, I’m all for it… with one stipulation.
Cop must submit to a double blind test of his ability to judge a speed of a vehicle within 3 to 4 miles per hour of actual on ten separate vehicle speeds. It must have been carried out within one month of his testimony, and it must be administered by a panel of defense lawyers.
If he can do that, he can submit his expert testimony to the speed of the vehicle.
We all know it won’t happen because we’ve seen how rigorous expert testimony is in this country, and we also know that tickets are all about revenue generation and not safety. This would cost municipalities too much money.
Smurfy-
I just want the direct profit motives removed from the agency enforcing the traffic laws. There are too many incentives to run speed traps, shorten yellow lights, seat belt check points, dwi checkpoints, etc. LOTS of abuse by police and the cops end up being roving tax collectors on the king’s highway.
In all fairness, President Obama isn’t solely guilty for spreading this perception among the public at large. This has been, at the very least, the basic platform for every presidential candidate since FDR.
I can’t wait until the first physicist gets pulled over for speeding in Ohio.
At Foxconn it was obviously the employee benefits that were causing the suicides. If my employee benefits paid out 10X my annual salary for a suicide, I would have killed myself years ago. Foxconn’s new contract is a good change and brings it more in line with benefits packages in the west.
I wish I could say I was surprised about a helicopter being used to breakup underage drinking parties but it was actually known to occur from time in the county where I went to high school.
“Ohio Supreme Court rules cops can issue speeding tickets based on a guess-timate.”
It’s all good. Major League Baseball extends the same courtesy to its umpires.
Safe? Out? Who gives a fuck? The only thing that matters, as with the cops, is that the umpires are obeyed.
If we don’t obey the cops instantly and fully, it will be anarchy in the streets.
“Can’t the drug-warriors make a decision about MJ and stick with it?”
Wait til they get their hands on this one…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7787039/Cage-fighter-ripped-out-heart-of-training-partner.html
From farhad’s article
10 suicides so far this year out of 800,000 employees which will give us a an approximate suicide rate of 2.5 per year per 100,000 employees
CDC
United States suicide rate 11 per year per 100,000 pop
Appropriate title
“The new path to a higher meaning in life: work in a Chinese sweatshop.”
RE: Foxconn
If you look at the company employing 800,000 workers and say, yeah that’s the same as the statistical average for the population, you aren’t looking at it right. Not all of those 800,000 work at the place where the suicides are occuring, or in the same job situation. To get the correct rate we would need to know how many work in that specfic place and in the same job catagory as the workers that committed suicide. Only then would the true rate be known, and it would be far higher than the rate for the population as a whole. Even the slate article describes it as a “physically and psychologically brutal job”.
Re: Foxconn
I don’t care what you say, Radley, the conditions in China are what we here in the United States would consider half a step this side of slavery. From what I have read, I would liken it to the thread and textile mills on New England in the late 1800s.
So, yes, we should feel guilty feeling like our time (money) is worth less than Chinese workers time.
That oil leak will continue until damn near Christmas if not longer and I think that everybody with very much knowledge of that kind of thing has known that from the start.
I have spent a great deal of time over at The Oil Drum to try and learn a little bit about what is going on. Most of those guys have said from the start that junk shots and top hats were all efforts worth trying but the relief wells are what will eventually shut that leak down.
I still don’t understand why relief wells are not standard operating procedure when you drill a well since they are the only thing that will actually stop a leak.
Just seems like to me it is a pay me now or pay me later kind of thing. I have no idea how much a relief well costs but it makes all kinds of sense to me.
Robert,
Right, if you do an analysis. My point was meant to be, that absolutely no analysis was done. Acting like the information given in the article meant anything on it’s own is stupid.
On the other hand, given the information presented in the article, I think my sarcastic analysis might still be closer to the truth than Farhad’s earnest non-analysis.
When I played rugby for UC San Diego, we went to Arizona to play UA and ASU. After playing UA, the team went to a party that night (I think it was a Thursday). I was standing outside when all of a sudden it turned to daylight. A police helicopter was shining a spotlight on the house. Moments later a bunch of cop cars show up to break the party up.
One of my teammates, who was over 21, got a ticket for “presence at a gathering that could have turned into a riot”.
Apparently the city sent out helicopters a couple nights a week to do this.
The use of a helicopter to break up an underage party is utterly ridiculous! How would the sheriff’s office feel if that chopper went down on such a frivolous mission?
Helicopters can be great for a variety of public safety operations. Their use for EMS transport is well documented, but even in that area, med flight services seem to overuse choppers to get their numbers up. Of course, helicopters can be useful for search and rescue, fugitive searches, and chases (allowing a chopper to take over for ground units can reduce casualties on all sides, though some suspects will continue to speed and still kill themselves). But, like SWAT, aviation services can be used in a manner in which it looks like the agency is trying to justify the existence of the program, and that is bad for taxpayers and potentially unsafe.
The use of helicopters to bust easy targets will probably continue until one of the helicopters crashes into the event that the crew are trying to break up…at which point the PD will decide that it was a Really Bad Idea. Helicopters have a lot more risk attached to them than police cars or any other form of terrestrial transit, and they cost a lot to operate. On any cost-benefit grounds, this is a really bad way to use taxpayers’ money.
Graham:
You think one major screw up will stop PDs from screwing up in the same way countless more times? Really? Are you new here?
They’d probably more likely try to charge the defendants with felony murder than stop using the helicopters so much.