I heard about this story on NPR and had some ambivalence about whether to post about it.   Essentially, the ATF is being accused of permitting 1300+ guns to be purchsed by straw buyers and shipped to drug gangs in Mexico.     Straw buyers are middlemen who can buy guns in the U.S. without raising a bunch of red flags and then resell them to people who can’t.

But, Fox News is reporting that some of the straw buyers were actually ATF agents, making he U.S. government an actual participant rather than just an observer.    According to the story, two .50 caliber machine guns were transferred this way.

Stories like this always make me wonder how much of the crime we hear about is actually facilitated by law enforcement.    It seems like cops are using the sting strategy as a replacement for investigative techniques a lot these days.    It’s easier to con someone into committing a crime than it is to actually track someone down who already committed a crime when no one was looking.   So, now we have cops  passing themselves off as children online to snare possible predators, cops distributing child porn to trap buyers, cops posing as prostitutes selling sex on Craigslist,  cops acting as suppliers of explosives to wouldbe terrorists, and now cops selling guns to drug cartels.    At the more local level, there are women cops posing as street walkers and male cops soliciting prostitutes.  The list just goes on and on.  If that weren’t enough, the mainstream news media are conducting their own sensationalistic stings (NBC’s To Catch a Predator) and, at least in the case of the Craigslist prostitutes, research organizations posing as child hookers as part of a junk science study.

Given the uproar over the supposition that Mexican drug cartels are getting their guns from the U.S., this seems like yet another stunning example of drug war idiocy.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

So as I was saying, Rovinj is incredibly beautiful.

I’m headed to Plitvice Lakes National Park today, then to Dubrovnik tomorrow.

“Idyllic” doesn’t quite do justice to this place. Rovinj is every caricature of a Mediterranean coastal town you can conjure, yet still authentic and wonderful. Think little kids footing soccer balls down narrow cobblestone streets. A bustling fishing harbor that actually smells of fish, and sounds of vulgar, sometimes singing boatmen. Red motor scooters parked against ancient, crumbling apartments with cast-iron balconies. Gelato, olive oil, fresh seafood, wine, and a soaring bell tower. And it’s all compacted into a town of about 12,000 that you can walk in about an hour.

The main section of the town was once an island (it’s now a peninsula). Centuries ago, the seaward side of the outer row of homes was a fortified wall to defend against pirates and invaders. As the town grew more populated, and the threats diminished, residents built homes into the wall, then knocked out spaces between their houses to form narrow alleys. Their back doors (or front doors, I guess), quite literally open to the sea.

More photos tomorrow.

Like Radley, I have dogs except mine are Siberian Huskies.  The  gray one is named Natasha (Tasha) and the white one is named Aleksei (Lexy).  Tasha is 12 years old and Lexy is 2.

Lexy and Tasha then (2009)

Lexy and Tasha now (2011)

My hobby is black and white film photography so the majority of photos I take are black and white and are printed in a traditional darkroom.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Women are holding protests called “Slut Walks” in reaction to a comment made by a Toronto cop to the effect that they should alter their style of dress to reduce the likelihood of rape.

I like seeing this kind uproar.  I think the sexual revolution burned out way too soon and a lot was left unfinished.  One of the attitudes that remains quite strong is that women owe it to their sex and society in general to avoid the appearance of an “unladylike” enthusiasm for sexual adventurism and by not doing so, they are fair game for insult (or worse) and have only themselves to blame.

Just as the drug war violates our natural right to control what we put into our own bodies, women live under a myriad of laws and attitudes that trample their right to control their own bodies when it comes to sex and nudity.

Not only did that cop’s comment insult women, it also impinged on men because we are a major beneficiary of the beauty of women’s fashions  Personally, I do not interpret the terms “provocative” or “slutty looking” as negative (and if I ever do, you can just bury me because I’m already dead).

The idea that women have a responsibility to dress conservatively so as not to excite men is precisely the same kind of idiocy we see violently enforced in some Muslim counties.    In deciding what to wear, a woman has only one authority to answer to and that is herself.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Took an early train this morning to Zagreb, then rented a car and drove to the coastal Croatian town of Rovinj. I went out of my way to spend a couple nights here, based on recommendations from a few trusted travelers. Off to explore.

Here’s another shot of Budapest.

Commenter johnl suggested breaking up the seriousness by observing the regular Friday music tradition (although this might not be quite what he had in mind).

Familiar to fans of the game Grand Theft Auto and people from Russia.

Or, if you prefer, the live version on stage.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

I just finished watching the 2009 movie, “The Most Dangerous Man in America” about Daniel Ellsberg and the release of the Pentagon Papers, a 7000 page top secret history of the Vietnam War. It is an excellent movie and of particular interest to those of us who witnessed, first hand, the Vietnam era anti-war movement.

One of the points made clear in the Pentagon Papers is that the American war effort in Vietnam started, not with Kennedy, but with Truman underwriting the French war to control the country. Another fact exposed by the Papers is that five U.S. Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) actively lied to the American public about the war. It’s noteworthy that three of those were Democrats and two were Republicans.  The culture of political deception is not party specific.

What Ellsberg suggests is that advisors to the President were of two varieties: those who were privy to super secret information and those who weren’t. Those who were privileged to know the truth were listened to, but those who weren’t, weren’t. Why? Because the advice of someone who doesn’t know the facts is not likely to be particularly useful to someone who deals with reality.

I think something similar happens happens when a new President takes over and inexplicably seems to perpetuate the very policies he railed against as a candidate. Why? Because as a candidate his rhetoric was based only on the limited facts available to him, but once elected, he is suddenly confronted with a reality he previously had no knowledge of. If you’re wondering how divergent those two sets of facts can be, the answer is very.

When I complain about the government having no credibility it is, in fact, because the government actually has no credibility. The history of war in the U.S. is a history deception.  It’s death and destruction justified by false pretenses. The government doesn’t suddenly become more honest or less secretive when a new President takes over.  All Presidents prefer secrecy because it frees them to act on their own without criticism. People behave differently if they think no one will find out what they’re doing.

If you think you know what is going on in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya (or any number of other countries), you have intentionally chosen to ignore history and convinced yourself that, this time, it’s different. Don’t delude yourself. It is not different (or if it is, it’s worse).

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Al Sharpton and Ron Paul are the two people I can’t imagine ever voting for, and yet… God bless ‘em for their contributions to presidential debates! They both liven things up, buck the Party Line, and sometimes just make plain sense (though, alas, not all the time).

Here’s Paul talking about drug legalization. He makes it sound like a common-sense mainstream conservative issue. Which of course it should be. Maybe soon it will be.

Making drug legalization a debateable issue (which, honestly, ten years ago it wasn’t) is half the battle. I like to think that organizations like LEAP (which I’m a member of) have helped this happen. Merely considering that the War on Drugs might be, I don’t know, misguided, used to be taboo in polite company. Now a call for heroin legalization gets raucous cheers in Republican debates. It’s great to see this shift because when it comes down to honest debate, the prohibitionists simply can’t win.

[--Peter Moskos]

I’ve honestly been pretty disgusted in the last few days by the torture apologists who think that everything done in this war on terror has been vindicated because we finally got Osama Bin Laden.

(Personally, I’ve been a little confused on the photo debate….No, I don’t think releasing them would quell any conspiracy theories, but I’d still like to see some visual proof. Not because I have some carnal desire to see a bloody picture of a corpse and feel like revenge has been found…but because I very much believe we deserve to and need to see the results of our government’s actions, no matter how vile or difficult to swallow they may be, and in fact, especially because of those reasons. There’s nothing moral about murdering a murderer. I wish we would have captured and tried him and tried to bring real justice, but that will have to remain an unfulfilled wish. But if we’re going to have leaders that do kill in the name of our country, and  have people celebrating that man’s death, we also need to see what that looks like, to understand that our actions have real consequences. )

But to get to the point here….I’m assuming you’ve heard that the nom de guerre of the courier that eventually got us to Bin Laden was provided by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj Al-Libi while they were in CIA custody. It took another 4 years to figure out the courier’s real name, and through the NSA and operatives on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they eventually tracked him thanks to one fatal call that put him on the radar and after which his now tracked license plate led us to the mansion sized compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (That’s a really shoddy summary, but I figure it will do for this purpose).

But at the end of the day, waterboarding, was not what led us t0 Osama Bin Laden. I’ll give you links to a few good pieces here, here, and here that breakdown the timelines and details. This hasn’t stopped a number of former Bush officials and Republicans from claiming torture was indeed the golden ticket.

My question, is even if it had been torture that led us to Bin Laden…does that make torture right? moral? Does that mean we never should have had the founding principle that torture is wrong? It’s one the first President of this country espoused.

So while you may be pondering those questions….FOX News has decided to ask it’s viewers the following: (I didn’t know how to insert the video–technically challenged—but it’s worth a click)

Who Do You Want Waterboarded?

When did that become an acceptable question?

And on that note….in last night’s first presidential debate for the GOP primary, Tim Pawlenty said he supports waterboarding in “certain circumstances”, and then said Obama should be challenged on his views on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Is that how far we’ve come? That it’s now completely alright to support torture in a mainstream televised political debate? And to even challenge those who oppose it?

I feel confused and lost and shocked.

What do you guys think?

[Alyona]

Police surrounded a man’s house after one of his “friends” warned the cops that he might be suicidal.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) the guy was down the street at a bar watching the whole thing on TV.

The mayor is calling it a very expensive ($75,000) hoax, but the cops are still investigating:

“He didn’t actually dupe us. He just was not in the house at the time when we thought he was based on the information – the best information we had at the time,” Oak Forest Police Chief Greg Anderson said.

Cops are referring to this operation as a “well-being check”.  They apparently take these well-being checks pretty seriously:

Oak forest police and officers from 16 other districts were called in. Negotiators called his home, but eventually got him on his cell phone. The chief said he never told investigators he was not inside his house.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

The Lede: “Floridians are going to have to start pulling up their pants and stop having sex with animals soon.”

(H/T Ross)

[Libby]

Phoenix Cop tackles 15 year old girl on camera.  According to the article, the girl was drunk and had already assaulted her mother and a teacher, so it’s not like she was just walking along minding her own business.

What I found interesting was this:

The video, uploaded in March, was found online by a police employee on Tuesday who showed it to a supervisor. The department said it was ‘greatly concerned’ by the incident.

And why are they “greatly concerned”?

‘Obviously we don’t like the video out there, and don’t want this to be the image of us within the community.’

You’ll be glad to know the officer had never previously been caught on video no previous record of excessive violence, but he is now on paid vacation administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation into whether it’s appropriate for a cop to slam a 15 year old girl onto a concrete sidewalk for walking away.  I think we can all guess what the outcome will be.

Luckily, the girl had no permanent injuries.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Fun history lesson from Budapest that Agitator readers might appreciate:

Budapest (and much of Hungary) was settled in the 9th century by the Magyars, an ethnic group thought to come from somewhere between Turkey and the Ural mountains. (Hungary’s ethnic makeup and language are unique to all of Eastern Europe.) Shortly after the cities of Buda and Pest merged in the 1870s, King Franz Joseph commissioned a panel of historians to pinpoint the specific year the Magyars settled the city in preparation for a grand celebration of the city’s 1,000th anniversary. The panel concluded the city was founded in 895. The government commissioned a massive building spree of parks, monuments, and gorgeous Art Noveau and historicist architecture throughout the city. Most of the more renowned landmarks in the city were built in conjunction with the anniversary, though many were rebuilt after World War II.

The problem? Most of the projects went way over deadline, and many of the more high-profile buildings (including the centerpiece: the massive, Gothic Revival style Hungarian Parliament) weren’t anywhere close to completion. The solution? Easy! The government merely “revised” the city’s founding date forward to 896 to accommodate the sluggish construction. The “Spirit of ’96″ has lived on ever since.

A few shots from city neighborhoods:

\”Pew Report: Political Opinion More Complex Than Left and Right\”

gee, you think?

(Meant to post this yesterday, but I think it fits in perfectly with the 2 party system is an utter failure conversations going on here at the Agitator)

[Alyona]

Kind of a mishmash of links covering today’s most urgent super important news items.

• Pakistan is debating whether the secret U.S. attack on bin Laden violated their sovereignty, but I suspect their public position will continue to be “We’re letting the U.S. attack us because we’re an important ally of theirs.”

• The U.N. is questioning the legality of what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has declared was the lawful killing of Osama bin Laden even though, according to Reuters, bin Laden was unarmed and not threatening his captors assassins.

• When I posted about single-issue political parties this is really what I had in mind (NSFW).

• The land of famine has now become the land of the middle class.  Maybe, once they get a taste of middle class taxes, they’ll long for the days  of famine.

• It’s probably time to brace yourself for TSA security screening on trains (and probably eventually buses).  I know it probably seems like they just make this shit up as they need it, but I’m sure this is for real.

• Look for government regulation of these eight activities in the future (especially if you have a brain aneurysm).

• It’s starting to look like the Syrians are next in the queue for our policy of liberating people from governments we don’t like.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Here’s my quick response to Peter’s post earlier today (because as long as I have the platform, why not?), in which he asks libertarians how they’d deal with “society’s f*ck ups.”

First, libertarians are an absurdly nonconformist, contrarian group. As such, I can’t speak for everybody. Some will say “let ‘em starve,” some will argue for private charity, some will talk about private security companies, and others will give a glib answer involving the second amendment. That disclaimer aside, I think it’s safe to say that libertarians generally agree that the world cannot be sterilized into a place free of all suffering, unfairness, or risk. None of us holds any delusion that we can intentionally engineer society to produce better people, or effectively rehabilitate screwed up people. We’re also convinced that incentives matter, and that creating a large welfare program will, at some point, discourage productive work and create a large underclass of lazy a-holes who live off of the labor of the rest of us. Thus, we’re stuck in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t conundrum. (I’m sorry, I know that answer feels unsatisfying, right? Listen: libertarians take very seriously the notion that power corrupts. If the success of a government program depends on having people in charge who are just a little less flawed than average, that doesn’t bode well for continued effectiveness).

In this way, we disagree with base conservatives, who seem to believe the best motivation is the reward/salvation that comes to the hardworking/righteous, independent of the privilege or disadvantages built-in to different people’s lives (e.g. privilege denying dude). That position also is at odds with the liberal platform, which appears to want government to regulate anything that poses any risk to anybody.

(Back up a minute: I know that not every liberal advocates government involvement in every aspect of our lives. What I mean is that the liberal camp includes many different types of activists who each have a different pet cause that they believe the government must get involved in: net neutrality, fuel standards, tobacco control, providing birth control, etc. Some of these may be more worthy causes than others, but taken as a whole => liberals want government to regulate EVERYTHING. Seriously guys, you need to choose your battles and start policing your own people.)

Good times in West Virginia.

[Kate]

Palo Alto cops have a defective breathalyzer.  Actually ten of them.

It is unclear how many DUI cases, if any, could be overturned or otherwise affected because of the devices’ use. Police and prosecutors emphasized that breathalyzers are preliminary screening tools used along with other field sobriety tests, such as asking suspected drunken drivers to walk a straight line.

Personally, I doubt that I could pass the field sobriety test stone cold sober even if world peace depended on it.   I can walk in a straight line, but not heal to toe.  And I  can’t even tell you the alphabet forwards unless I sing it.

So, let me be sure I understand what’s going to happen here.  The prosecutors are going to review their records and figure out if any of their convictions need to be thrown out?   I’m sure they completely trust their own objectivity in that endeavor.

[Posted by Dave Krueger who finally remembered to post who this was posted by]

The BBC reports a new UK survey has found that boys are more confident communicators than girls.

Of 6,000 children surveyed, 69% of boys said they were “very confident” or “confident” speaking in front of classmates, compared with 57% of girls.

The National Literacy Trust’s director said stereotypes of inarticulate male teenagers were “outdated”.

More boys than girls also said they felt confident “saying no to friends” (70% to 62%), “talking to new people” (67% to 62%), “explaining your point of view” (78% to 74%), “asking when you don’t understand something” (75% to 69%) and “talking with teachers (81% to 78%).

The only areas where more girls felt more confident were “talking to people online” (85% to 82%) and “listening to other people’s opinions” (93% to 89%).

I have some wildly over-generalized theories for why this might be:

• Boys are less attuned to reading cues from others. They may think they’re great speakers, but they’re oblivious to negative cues like eyerolling or bored, disengaged “uh-huhs.” The only cue they can read is a swift punch in the face when somebody’s finally had enough of their yacking. In short, boys are bloviators.

• Girls’ social culture (white girls in the middle-to-upper classes, anyway) in childhood and adolescence involves an unwritten, byzantine structure of indirect punishments for speaking out of turn or registering disagreement – ostracism, passive-aggressive insults – so it becomes easier for girls to keep their mouths shut than to risk breaking a rule. (I still remember “freezing girls out” of our social circle because they didn’t realize how much their motormouths annoyed the rest of us… because it would have been just plain mean for us to simply tell them to shut-up. Obviously.)

• The results don’t actually mean anything, because they 1)rely on survey answers given by children, who often respond to adult expectations to say just the darnedest things, and 2)they’re asking one person to evaluate their own performance in what is always a two-way process. A person’s confidence in his or her communication skills does not necessarily reflect the level of those skills.

Surveys like this always cause momentary hand-wringing over the implication that girls are lagging behind boys – I’m looking at you, Jezebel – and some commentators may accuse teachers of institution-wide gender bias (“teachers call on boys more often!”).  Because, apparently, this is still 1963, and women don’t have opportunities to enroll in college or excel in the workplace. None of this is to say I’m not a feminist; rather, I’m a feminist who is adamantly against fluffy social science getting picked up as news.

What do y’all think? Sexism? Biology? BS?

[Libby]

I’m skeptical of the very term prisoner “rehabilitation.” It seems rooted in a misguided sense of paternalism, implying there is some criminal class just waiting to be cured by us, the enlightened class. Rehabilitation implying there is something to “habilitate” in the first place. And this hogwash it is the very foundation upon which our whole prison system was invented.

But the truth is, and many people don’t know this, we don’t even try to rehabilitate. The Wall Street Journal reports that just 6% of prisoners were enrolled in vocational or college programs. Of course some argue against all programs for prisoners. But what’s supposed to happen when they get out (as 95% of them do)? Is this the best we can do with our $60-billion-a-year government-run system of incarceration? Maybe it’s time to try something else.

Even if we could “rehabilitate,” could you imagine a worse setting than in confinement, surrounded by criminals? And if prisons are just punishment, aren’t there better, cheaper, and more honest ways to punish? (Like, for instance, flogging ? But more on that later.)

[--Peter Moskos]

If you’re in the market, the Government has apparently decided to start selling off excess property. Over 12,000 properties ranging from “sheds to underutilized office buildings and empty warehouses” are being put on the auction block. There’s even a handy interactive map to let you see where and what you can buy.

I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it seems fantastic to be getting rid of some government waste. On the other hand, I certainly hope none of these buildings were built or acquired with eminent domain.

Which brings me to a bit of a radical idea: seems like “underutilized” buildings are exactly the kind of justification the Court has regularly used to justify seizing private property for economic development under the Takings Clause. So maybe we should institute a little reverse eminent domain: If you, private citizen, have a proposal for a better economic use for the government property, the government should sell it to you for the low-low price of “just compensation” and let you develop it.

Who’s with me?

[Kate]

Man that stuff is great. Smothered my jet lag in its sleep. Which enabled me to wake up to do some exploring this morning. Here’s a shot of the stunning Budapest waterfront.

[posted by your humble Agitator]

I just know there are some libertarians (small or big L) hanging out here. So answer me a few things I’ve been wondering for a long time.

Despite being a fan of tax-and-spend government policies and income redistribution, I’m also sympathetic to small government (yes, I walk a narrow line).

But I’m not fond of ideologies. I don’t like it when people have answers before they know the question. So why shouldn’t libertarianism be dismissed as just another ideology. Perhaps less government is the solution to many specific problems. But I refuse to believe anything is the solution to all problems. I’m willing to accept (or at least debate) libertarian positions on any policy issue. I’m not willing to consider libertarianism as the Correct Ideology.

That’s my basic problem. Here’s my real question: What is the libertarian answer to society’s f*ck ups? What about people who–through their own ineptitude, stupidity, laziness, or drug abuse–simply fail? What do we do about the undeserving poor?

I don’t want to see people starve in the streets. I certainly don’t want desperate people to mug me. At some point, in a rich and civilized society, don’t we just have to be compassionate… even to people who don’t “deserve” it? Isn’t that what government is for? Isn’t it cheaper than prison?

[--Peter Moskos]

In a shameful move, the trustees of the City University of New York voted not to allow my college to give an honorary degree to Pulitzer Prize-winning playing Tony Kushner. It’s the first time this has happened since 1961. Why? Because one of the trustees did some research on the interwebs and found some statements he says are anti-Israeli:

“I think it’s up to all of us to look at fairness and consider these things,” Mr. Wiesenfeld said. “Especially when the State of Israel, which is our sole democratic ally in the area, sits in the neighborhood which is almost universally dominated by administrations which are almost universally misogynist, antigay, anti-Christian.”

Kushner, according to his own accounts, has criticized policies and actions by Israel in the past, but is a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist, has never supported a boycott of the country, and shares views held by many Jews and supporters of Israel:

“This has been an incredibly ugly experience,” Mr. Kushner said, “that a great public university would make a decision based on slanderous mischaracterizations without giving the person in question a chance to be heard.”

You can a letter from Kushner here.

[--Peter Moskos]