I like to think of this as a "Third Culture" 'blog. It isn't about science per se, but at least one of the authors is a scientist, and it brings an analytic, empirical sensibility to current affairs and questions of public policy. Instead of ab initio ideology or "principles", insights from modern economics, environmental science, and other disciplines are brought to bear.
Thus I'm comfortable posting an announcement here for Tucson's premier "Third Culture" event, the fortnightly Science Salon. There an early-career scientist leads a discussion of a major idea in modern science, or of science policy, researchers' ethics, or the culture of professional science.
Thursday (tomorrow!), 1 Oct 2009, physicist Alan Cooney will lead a discussion on emergence:
Title: Something from Nothing
Abstract: Something cannot arise from nothing, so goes the adage, and this has long had an impact on the scope of scientific studies. Yet the scientific revolutions of the last 150 years beset us with examples like emergent systems (complexity from simplicity), quantum ones (literally something appearing from the vacuum) and even the Big Bang theory of creation. These revelations offer scientists the opportunity to tackle this philosophical quandary. In this Salon, we will explore more examples and the questions they raise, as well as ask if the persistence of the “something from nothing” myth retards our pursuit of science and the public's understanding of our field.
Time: 5:30 PM-7:30 PM
Location: The Auld Dubliner, intersection of University and Euclid, Tucson.
Fee: Free. Appetizers will be provided. Attendees must purchase their own drinks. The Dubliner features a modest beer selection and a declining but still respectable assortment of Irish and other whiskeys, in addition to the usual soft drinks.
These events are some of the best intellectual stimulation in the area, and a great way to meet interesting people. I'm pushing against a major research deadline, but may be there.
HT: Cory Christenson
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Lisull arrest about more than free speech.
By now readers have probably heard of Desert Lamp 'blogger Evan Lisull's arrest for ostensibly lawful conduct: writing on the sidewalk with chalk.
The charges have since been dismissed, but that only solves one problem. Police suffer harm for flouting the Constitutional and common-law bounds on their conduct so rarely that there is little incentive for them to respect our rights. Surely, gross misconduct is often--but not always--punished, even with a slap on the wrist. It's this 'blogger's opinion that such a "coarse-grained" or "low frequency" approach is insufficient: police should be made to toe the line. (You could call it a "broken window" approach: there's a slippery slope from Evan Lisull to Cheye Calvo and from there to Cory Maye--and even if there is no slippery slope, what happened to Lisull is bad enough!)
"But they won't be able to do their jobs if they know they'll be second-guessed", say right-wingers, who seem sometimes to get their idea of policing more from The Commish or Walker, Texas Ranger than from reality. (Regarding reality: one of us has trained in close combatives with the police, been drinking with the police, etc.) If that's the case, and they won't be able to simultaneously do their jobs and respect the rights of others, fire them all--if they cannot toe the line they are not qualified for their jobs. Fire them all and hire more intelligent ones. Pay them more and even raise taxes if we must. Given the power afforded to police, the lower standards for use of force, the ability to waste others' time and ruin their day, they must be strictly constrained. And I'll pay a dollar extra to get police who say "yes sir" and "no sir", too.
Why do I write of police misconduct? Seizures, including arrests, must only be made based upon probable cause. And if a statute explicitly exempts a person's conduct in its definition of an offense, then that conduct alone does not constitute probable cause. A letter I just sent to the Daily Wildcat has more:
Update: The Wildcat printed the letter, albeit with a curious wording change that takes the emphasis away from the Fourth Amendment issues. The UAPD, according to Lisull's account, claims he was not under arrest, but there was clearly a seizure, which is enough. And, reading the police report now posted to the Web, there may have been borderline probable cause. If an angry, flaky University employee calls to complain of chalk on walls, and in his own mind decides that the guy chalking the sidewalk must be responsible, is that probable cause? Possibly, but at some point in the seizure, when it becomes clear to a reasonable person that the caller was drawing unsupportable inferences, that should mean that there is no longer probable cause and the seizure must be ended: "you're free to go." Otherwise, for example, every time a senile old lady calls the police after deer eat her geraniums and claims "the colored kid next door, with the basketball and the rap music, he tore 'em up" the police could take the kid in question down to the station.
The charges have since been dismissed, but that only solves one problem. Police suffer harm for flouting the Constitutional and common-law bounds on their conduct so rarely that there is little incentive for them to respect our rights. Surely, gross misconduct is often--but not always--punished, even with a slap on the wrist. It's this 'blogger's opinion that such a "coarse-grained" or "low frequency" approach is insufficient: police should be made to toe the line. (You could call it a "broken window" approach: there's a slippery slope from Evan Lisull to Cheye Calvo and from there to Cory Maye--and even if there is no slippery slope, what happened to Lisull is bad enough!)
"But they won't be able to do their jobs if they know they'll be second-guessed", say right-wingers, who seem sometimes to get their idea of policing more from The Commish or Walker, Texas Ranger than from reality. (Regarding reality: one of us has trained in close combatives with the police, been drinking with the police, etc.) If that's the case, and they won't be able to simultaneously do their jobs and respect the rights of others, fire them all--if they cannot toe the line they are not qualified for their jobs. Fire them all and hire more intelligent ones. Pay them more and even raise taxes if we must. Given the power afforded to police, the lower standards for use of force, the ability to waste others' time and ruin their day, they must be strictly constrained. And I'll pay a dollar extra to get police who say "yes sir" and "no sir", too.
Why do I write of police misconduct? Seizures, including arrests, must only be made based upon probable cause. And if a statute explicitly exempts a person's conduct in its definition of an offense, then that conduct alone does not constitute probable cause. A letter I just sent to the Daily Wildcat has more:
Hitting a baseball thrown by my neighbor with a bat is not probable cause for my having hit my neighbor with a bat.
Writing in my lab notebook is not probable cause for my having wrote on the artwork in the Center for Creative Photography.
Driving my car on the street is not probable cause for my having driven it on the sidewalk.
Sending an e-mail to my brother is not probable cause for my having wired money to Osama bin Laden.
Writing with chalk on the sidewalk is not probable cause for my having wrote with chalk on a building.
Arizona Revised Statutes 13-1602, which establishes criminal damage as a statutory offense, is very explicit about what that act is: "Drawing or inscribing a message, slogan, sign or symbol that is made on any public or private building, structure or surface, _except the ground_ (emphasis mine), and that is made without permission of the owner."
The arrest of sidewalk chalker Evan Lisull for violating this statute, with its clear exception for writing on the ground, is not merely an infringement of free speech, and the dismissal of the charges should not be treated as a reprieve or amnesty: no reasonable person would believe that Lisull committed a crime. The arresting officers showed contempt for rule of law per se and for the "probable cause" standard governing the power to arrest, established by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The explicit exemption of Lisull's conduct in the statute makes it highly unlikely that the officers were even acting in good faith. They should be fired at once, and the University should consider itself fortunate if Lisull does not sue for damages.
Update: The Wildcat printed the letter, albeit with a curious wording change that takes the emphasis away from the Fourth Amendment issues. The UAPD, according to Lisull's account, claims he was not under arrest, but there was clearly a seizure, which is enough. And, reading the police report now posted to the Web, there may have been borderline probable cause. If an angry, flaky University employee calls to complain of chalk on walls, and in his own mind decides that the guy chalking the sidewalk must be responsible, is that probable cause? Possibly, but at some point in the seizure, when it becomes clear to a reasonable person that the caller was drawing unsupportable inferences, that should mean that there is no longer probable cause and the seizure must be ended: "you're free to go." Otherwise, for example, every time a senile old lady calls the police after deer eat her geraniums and claims "the colored kid next door, with the basketball and the rap music, he tore 'em up" the police could take the kid in question down to the station.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Let me decide whether or not to run over pedestrians, "by choice"
I'm a bit overdue for this one, but did you think I'd let it go?:
The old saying has democracy being three wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. The common rejoinder is that it's the worst system we know, except all the others. Bryan Caplan has markets being the superior alternative. With reservations, I tend to agree.
One of those reservations: Markets give much more choice than democracy, for example, in certain market systems, wolves and sheep alike can purchase mutton at their choice of Super Wal-Mart, Albertson's, or Costco.
But seriously, markets are only as good as the regulations that define them. "Let the market do it" is never an adequate answer. Market failure in the technical sense does exist (and is probably inevitable, although progress is certainly possible), and negative externalities are not a myth conjured up by leftists as an excuse. A market can even be worse than command and control if it creates the illusion in the minds of the gullible (I'm looking at you, "libertarian" global warming denialists) that harm to others is either "natural" or an inevitable precondition for prosperity.
Case in point: Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute. Quoting a recent Monday Message:
Dranias would take the ethical imperatives completely out of "going green", reducing it to a matter of fashion. Let consumers--special "green consumers" who care about the moral rights of others, about their welfare, their property, who treat both their neighbors and the distant unseen Kenyan or Bengali as ends in themselves--bear the full cost of this, while the restuvus get a discount for our craven willingness to continue to contribute to harm despite having the harm explained to us over and over and over again.
There are very good reasons for Arizona to not take too bold a unilateral action to lower CO2 emission associated with electricity generation, and less good ones for AZ to not do better at freshwater conservation, although it is important that this is done effectively and with the respect for individuals as having lives of their own that can only be provided by markets. Some of these are referenced, at least between the lines, in Dranias's message. But with his reduction of simple decency to fashion, Dranias is a better enemy of markets than the enemies of markets.
The old saying has democracy being three wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. The common rejoinder is that it's the worst system we know, except all the others. Bryan Caplan has markets being the superior alternative. With reservations, I tend to agree.
One of those reservations: Markets give much more choice than democracy, for example, in certain market systems, wolves and sheep alike can purchase mutton at their choice of Super Wal-Mart, Albertson's, or Costco.
But seriously, markets are only as good as the regulations that define them. "Let the market do it" is never an adequate answer. Market failure in the technical sense does exist (and is probably inevitable, although progress is certainly possible), and negative externalities are not a myth conjured up by leftists as an excuse. A market can even be worse than command and control if it creates the illusion in the minds of the gullible (I'm looking at you, "libertarian" global warming denialists) that harm to others is either "natural" or an inevitable precondition for prosperity.
Case in point: Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute. Quoting a recent Monday Message:
By letting entrepreneurs sell electricity from renewable sources to environmentally-minded consumers, competition shifts the costs of green policies to green consumers, keeping rates lower for everyone else.
Dranias would take the ethical imperatives completely out of "going green", reducing it to a matter of fashion. Let consumers--special "green consumers" who care about the moral rights of others, about their welfare, their property, who treat both their neighbors and the distant unseen Kenyan or Bengali as ends in themselves--bear the full cost of this, while the restuvus get a discount for our craven willingness to continue to contribute to harm despite having the harm explained to us over and over and over again.
There are very good reasons for Arizona to not take too bold a unilateral action to lower CO2 emission associated with electricity generation, and less good ones for AZ to not do better at freshwater conservation, although it is important that this is done effectively and with the respect for individuals as having lives of their own that can only be provided by markets. Some of these are referenced, at least between the lines, in Dranias's message. But with his reduction of simple decency to fashion, Dranias is a better enemy of markets than the enemies of markets.
New firearms laws go into effect on 30 September
The various new firearms laws--some good, some bad--passed this Spring go into effect on Wednesday, 30 September. They are:
I remarked on several of these, including SB 1168, earlier in the year. Of them, SB 1243 is the most important from a practical point of view, and those who carry should familiarize themselves with it thoroughly.
HT for the list: Alan Korwin
- HB 2532 Limited restoration of rights for people no longer deemed incompetent
- HB 2569 New penalty for smuggling people for profit, involving a deadly weapon
- SB 1113 CCW in liquor-serving places OK without drinking, unless no-gun signs
- SB 1088 Domestic violence protection extended to romantic or sexual partners
- SB 1168 Parking lots cannot ban firearms locked in vehicles, with exceptions
- SB 1242 Exemptions from CCW and more for more "proper authorities"
- SB 1243 Defensive display of a firearm in self defense defined and protected
- SB 1437 AZ High School Marksmanship Program instructor definition expanded
- SB 1449 Retroactive self-defense clarification ("Harold Fish gets away with murder" law)
I remarked on several of these, including SB 1168, earlier in the year. Of them, SB 1243 is the most important from a practical point of view, and those who carry should familiarize themselves with it thoroughly.
HT for the list: Alan Korwin
ACLU-AZ supports RKBA
I thought I 'blogged this over a year ago, but couldn't find the post when I needed to reference the policy change in an e-mail to (firearms law publisher) Al Korwin. Unless it is a duplicate post, it's quite an omission:
The ACLU's Arizona affiliate, ACLU-AZ, now supports the right to bear arms. From its Tough Questions about ACLU Positions policy FAQ:
"Never been operative" is a bit Orwellian; the Board of Directors during my tenure as a member acted as though the National policy was operative. Former Executive Director Eleanor Eisenberg's explicitly anti-RKBA and downright hoplophobic legislative testimonies against liberalization were nonetheless never official ACLU-AZ position. She was advised by the Board to cease opposing RKBA, followed this instruction for a while, and then became rather insubordinate about the matter around the time she resigned, but events played out in such a way that there was never time for a reprimand. No doubt Eleanor turned off the marginal gun owner to the ACLU; the organization's new affirmative pro-RKBA stance could bring such people back, were it actually publicized.
The ACLU's Arizona affiliate, ACLU-AZ, now supports the right to bear arms. From its Tough Questions about ACLU Positions policy FAQ:
The ACLU of Arizona, which is based in Phoenix, supports the individual right to bear arms – a right that is expressly identified in Article 2, Section 26 of the Arizona Constitution. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia. In July 2008, the ACLU of Arizona Board of Directors passed the following policy: “Resolved that ACLU of Arizona does not follow national board policy #47 that the right to bear arms is a collective, not an individual right. The Arizona Constitution expressly provides that the right to bear arms, to the extent constitutionally protected, is an individual right, so policy #47 has never been operative in Arizona.”
"Never been operative" is a bit Orwellian; the Board of Directors during my tenure as a member acted as though the National policy was operative. Former Executive Director Eleanor Eisenberg's explicitly anti-RKBA and downright hoplophobic legislative testimonies against liberalization were nonetheless never official ACLU-AZ position. She was advised by the Board to cease opposing RKBA, followed this instruction for a while, and then became rather insubordinate about the matter around the time she resigned, but events played out in such a way that there was never time for a reprimand. No doubt Eleanor turned off the marginal gun owner to the ACLU; the organization's new affirmative pro-RKBA stance could bring such people back, were it actually publicized.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Best of the 'blogs, week of 18-25 September 2009
I'm a little late this week, posting from Chicago.
In Arizona:
Farther afield:
In Arizona:
- Justyn Dillingham gives Irving Kristol the obituary he deserves,
- Evan Lisull discusses the implications of the state universities' effective "we admit all" policy on retention,
- The growth of video on the Web is obnoxious--I don't want to spend time watching someone put on a show for me--but Terry Bressi is adding plenty of text annotation to his fourteen-part series on the Gabrielle Giffords border checkpoint "town hall" meeting,
- Polling data pertaining to the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nomination is reported on Sonoran Alliance,
- "Tedski"--anonyblogging is silly--at Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion has a nice short one on the Arizona delegation and the Joe Wilson censure vote, and
- CLS just hit the big time, and also had a worthwhile if incomplete post on what isn't wrong with U.S. healthcare.
Farther afield:
- Mark Thoma links almost the entire Krugman-precipitated discussion of the state of macroeconomics,
- The DeSmogBlog crew's book about the climate change hoax has hit the shelves,
- Greg Mankiw is doing well in the newspapers, offering an excellent guest opinion about health care egalitarianism in the New York Times and a no-punches-pulled
- Tyler Cowen uses the word "agnostic" to mean "reserved" but is not a dullard on the subject integration of expertise and private life,
- Tom Palmer gives a link to a libertarian website from a country with a highly collectivist culture (I can see the old-timers' brains melting...),
- "Eric" at Classical Values sees a pattern of behavior in President Obama's relations with fringe groups,
- Megan McArdle reminds us that the victim-villain narrative is not a good explanation of recessions,
- and this month's Cato Unbound contributors are searching for a good explanation.
- Tyler Cowen uses the word "agnostic" to mean "reserved" but is not a dullard on the subject integration of expertise and private life,
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