White pow(d)er

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Reason Magazine - Mind the Gap

Why is there such a wide disparity in sentencing for cocaine possession in the United States? You can get slapped with a mandatory 5 year jail term for possessing just 5 grams (one fifth of an ounce) of crack. To get the same sentence for possession of cocaine powder you'd need to be caught with half a kilo on you. For mandatory 10 year sentences the amounts are, half a kilo of crack or 5 kilos of powder.

Overall, sentences for offenses involving crack are three to six times longer than sentences for offenses involving the same amount of cocaine powder. This injustice has fallen disproportionately on blacks, who account for more than four-fifths of federal crack offenders but only a quarter or so of cocaine powder offenders.

The sentencing commission, having concluded that the 100-to-1 gap between crack and cocaine powder has no scientific basis, has been urging Congress to address the disparity since 1995. It also has tried to shrink the gap on its own, only to be overruled by Congress.

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Love in the aisles

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Julie Burchill on why she loves Tesco
The idea that Tesco has always been a corner-shop-crushing colossus is a lie, one perpetuated by bitter, third-rate businessmen who would dearly love to have achieved a quarter of what Cohen did but lacked the ability and luck to pull it off, and who now seek to clothe their envy and hypocrisy in the rhetoric of care for the community. But with a bit less moaning and a bit more ingenuity, what's to stop them doing the same? Instead they would rather spend their time whining, in the manner of one Ken Stevens of the Federation of Small Businesses in East Sussex to the Brighton Argus newspaper, "Where they start selling everything cheaper, that can be very damaging." Gosh, selling things cheap to people - burn them down, let's, and make the world safe for greedy, over-charging rotters!
I've had something of a love-hate relationship with Burchill over the years. When she's on form she's as sharp as a pin and funny too but she lost the plot a while ago and her love affair with Israel turned my stomach. But, ever the fair-minded reader, I have to admit that she's back on form with this piece. It helps that her first paragraph is spent ridiculing that irritating, self-regarding fruitcake, Jeanette Winterson.

Via Tim Worstall

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Good news, and just in time for the Christmas binge

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Junkfood Science: Stop the presses! Bariatric surgeons admit obesity does not increase risk of dying or risks for heart disease
Today brought another unbelievable example of ad-hoc reasoning, as well as a remarkable admission that the war on obesity is without scientific merit. It appeared in a paper published in the journal for the American Society for Bariatric Surgery (now called the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery), which is edited by the Society’s president, Dr. Harvey Sugerman, M.D. FACS.

The article, “Do current body mass index criteria for obesity surgery reflect cardiovascular risk?” was “work presented at the 2005 American Society for Bariatric Surgery Meeting in poster form.” The authors, led by Edward H. Livingston M.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine, reported that the conventional risk factors for cardiovascular disease “decreased with increasing degrees of obesity.”

Yes, you read that correctly, decreased.

 “Therefore,” the authors argued ... “the criteria for obesity surgery should be changed to lower BMIs than are currently used.” This twist of logic is reminiscent of the new American Heart Association’s Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women which admitted that virtually all heart disease occurs in women without “risk factors,” so rather than admit the risk factors themselves are bogus, they argued that therefore, all women of lower “risk” should be treated for these “risk factors.”

Keep eating those chocolates.

Via The Englishman

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I don't beeelieeeeeve it! #893

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UPDATE  5-30pm: Radio 1 has backed down!  They decided that in the context of this song the word 'faggot' had 'no negative connotation'. Do what?

Well it certainly wasn't meant as a term of endearment, that's for sure.


Radio 1 censors Pogues' Fairytale
BBC Radio 1 has said it will stand by its ban on the word "faggot" from the Pogues' 1987 Christmas hit Fairytale of New York to avoid offence.
Who's going to be offended after hearing it for the last twenty years, for fuck's sake? The phrase 'Happy Christmas your arse' and 'an old slut on junk' will, however remain unaffected. You will also be able to hear the full version on Radio 2.

Radio 1 has an embarrassing history of banning records. Remember 'Relax' way back in 1984? Banned by Radio 1 for its 'suggestive' lyrics. 20 years later Frankie Goes to Hollywood's manager back in '84 was listening to Wogan on his car radio at 8-30 am and what comes on? Yep you guessed. Relax. On Radio 2! On Wogan!

Tossers!

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Man the barricades

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John Pilger: Left for dead by New Labour, liberal Britain must urgently fight back
Britain is now a centralised single-ideology state, as secure in the grip of a superpower as any former eastern bloc country. The Whitehall executive has prerogative powers as effective as politburo decrees. Unlike Venezuela, critical issues such as the EU constitution or treaty are denied a referendum, regardless of Blair's "solemn pledge". Thanks largely to a parliament in which a majority of the members cannot bring themselves to denounce the crime in Iraq or even vote for an inquiry, New Labour has added to the statutes a record 3,000 criminal offences: an apparatus of control that undermines the Human Rights Act. In 1977, at the height of the cold war, I interviewed the Charter 77 dissidents in Czechoslovakia. They warned that complacency and silence could destroy liberty and democracy as effectively as tanks. "We're actually better off than you in the west," said a writer, measuring his irony. "Unlike you, we have no illusions."

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Eat healthily, die young

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Medieval diets 'far more healthy'
"If you put (their diet) together with the incredible work load, medieval man was at much less risk of coronary heart disease and diabetes than we are today," said Dr Henderson.  However, he did acknowledge that people today did have one advantage over their ancestors when it came to staying alive. "If you got to 30 in those days you were doing well, past 40 and you were distinctly long in the tooth," he concedes.
"...people today did have one advantage over their ancestors when it came to staying alive." 

Erm, yeah, people today, erm, actually manage to stay alive! 

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One lump or two?

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Sperm clue to 'disease immunity'
The female reproductive tract is a "hostile environment" for foreign cells which are readily attacked by the immune system but sperm move through apparently undetected. Sperm are also protected from harm in the testes from the male's own immune system. The Imperial College team says it has found specific sugar molecules on the surface of sperm which seem to be responsible for evading the immune response.

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Great start to the week

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BBC - Radio 4 - Today

John Humphries was on form this morning giving both Bob Ainsworth and Peter Hain a good kicking. To be fair to the two hapless representatives of this government, they really had nowhere to hide but, even so, it was enjoyable witnessing their discomfiture while tucking in to my toast and tea.

Here's Peter Permatan defending the government's record on pensions.



And then comes Basra Bob trying desperately to put a positive spin on the army handover in Iraq.


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Best Technology Quotes of 2007

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Steve Ballmer:
Oh, Steve. Sometimes you have to wonder if Steve, as CEO of Microsoft, is ever actually told what’s going on at the company. On October 2nd, we had the following quote:

“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.”

On October 24th, a mere 22 days later, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook. It’s good to know you can just throw that sort of money at a “fad”. That’s not to mention the fact Microsoft has added social networking features to Xbox Live. He really should read those daily memos before going out and making comments.
This guy talks crap so often yet remains in his job you have to wonder if he's got photos in his safe of Bill Gates at one of Michael Jackson's pajama parties.

Sony:
During the RIAA case against Jammie Thomas, Jennifer Pariser of Sony shared her rather… “unique”… viewpoint on the idea of backing up/ripping music from your legally purchased CD:

“When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song… (it’s) a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’,”

Wow, that’s just amazing. So, even though you legally purchased your CD, you can’t do as you please with for your personal enjoyment. Good to know.
Check out the others at Mashable

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