Month: April 2007

I didn’t comment much on the Duke Lacrosse team "rape" fiasco, and in retrospect I’m glad I didn’t. But this data is more salient than a cable news marathon:

If you go to the website reporting the annual National Crime Victimization Survey, as many people do, you can look up the rape statistics in "Table 42: Personal Crimes of Violence 2005: Percent distribution of single offender victimizations, based on race of victims, by type of crime and perceived race of offender."

Under "Rape/Sexual assaults" the survey reports 111,490 rape/assaults in 2005 in which a white was the victim. The "perceived race" of the offender was reported as white in 44.5 percent of cases, black in 33.6 percent of cases, "other" in 19.6 percent of cases.

Where the victim of rape was black, in 36,620 cases, things were rather different. The "perceived race" of the offender was reported as black in 100.0 percent of cases. White offenders? "0.0*" percent.

The asterisk means that the sample included ten or fewer reports. The federal crime statistics show that white-on-black rape was almost non-existent in the United States of America in 2005.

For American GIs?

You know you want it.

"In the new book burning we don’t burn books, we burn discussion of them instead. I am referring to the ongoing collapse of book review sections at American newspapers, which has accelerated in recent months, an intellectual brownout in progress that is beginning to look like a rolling blackout instead," – Art Winslow, National Book Critics Circle. He has sparked quite a debate. And a campaign.

I do not know all the facts about the decision by the US military to bring extremely serious charges against an officer, Lt. Col. William H. Steele, who supervised the Camp Cropper detention facility. Camp Cropper was a site where torture and abuse occurred, as it did at almost every U.S. detention camp in Iraq. But Steele, of course, is not being charged with the war-crimes that took place there. He is being charged with treason. My own sources describe him as a man of integrity, a man who actually tried to treat detainees as human beings. Another James Yee? I don’t know. But I’m deeply skeptical of this accusation.

A scientist analyzes the language of Senator Clinton.

Another win for marriage equality in New England. Well, it isn’t exactly civil marriage, but it is a form of "spousal union" which gives all "the same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples". The term "spousal union" strikes me as a breakthrough – a euphemism that isn’t really a euphemism. The bill uses both terms "spousal union" and civil union." Notice how this happened: by legislative action alone, in a conservative state, as a pragmatic measure, with humane and conservative intent. This is the path the national GOP chose not to take. History will not remember them kindly for it. It also seems to me that New England’s regional support for gay couples makes a reversal of the Massachusetts breakthrough even less likely than it was before. Now: California. The legislature has passed a civil marriage law. Why is a Republican governor now deferring to the state court?

Alex Massie, a former guest-blogger here, now has his own. Check it out.

Here’s classic b.s. from the prohibitionist lobby on pot:

National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow fears the problem is not being taken seriously because many adults remember the marijuana of their youth as harmless.

"It’s really not the same type of marijuana," Volkow said in a telephone interview. "This could explain why there has been an increase in the number of medical emergencies involving marijuana."

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Adminstration, marijuana was involved in 242,200 visits to hospital emergency rooms in 2005. This means that the patient mentioned using marijuana and does not mean the drug directly caused the accident or condition being treated, SAMHSA says. The number is up from 215,000 visits in 2004.

Notice the carefully parsed statement: "This could explain." And yet, there’s no evidence at all that it does actually explain anything, except perhaps that pot-smoking is enjoying a resurgence. (By the way: I wonder what the annual number of medical emergencies involving alcohol is. Not "could be", but is.) There’s no question that pot is stronger now than in the 1960s; there’s equally no question in my mind that any minor should be prevented from smoking it. But legalization and regulation could help restrict its use among minors, the way we do with nicotine today. And it could also help regulate its potency. But such measures would be a function of a rational drug policy, as opposed to the completely insane one we live under today.