Bedford (PA) County Drug Task Force Creates Jobs.

(Story is from the Altoona Mirror.
The only reason I am linking it is the online version does not include the mug shots or names of the accused. Believe me, the print version took great joy in including both.)

After an eight month investigation, the Bedford County Drug task force ruined the lives of 21 addicts in a show of force and idiocy on Tuesday. In a second "fuck you" to the accused, the Altoona Mirror published color photos of each of the 21, who I must add, are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

"Operation: Scarecrow," as it is called, follows "Operation: Cupid's Arrow," which in February took 15 of the most violent non-violent addicts off the streets. Bedford County DA Bill Higgins, of course, thinks this is serious business. At a press conference, he said "Just like the 15 arrested in 'Operation: Cupid's Arrow,' these offenders will be zealously prosecuted."

"Operation: Scarecrow"? "Operation: Cupid's Arrow"? Can we have "Operation: Harm Reduction," next please?

Sheriff Charwin Reichelderfer then proves that he almost gets it, but that his mind just can't finish the leap.

I know from experience that many of these people will be characterized as just users by their friends and family. While they may be selling stuff to support their own habit, there is no question they are bringing this poison in our community and selling it to our kids. And for that they're going to be held accountable.

Bolds are mine.

Let me scan through the list quick and see how many have charges related to selling drugs to minors. Perhaps one. I say perhaps, because a few of these hardened criminals apparently were also parents, and got charges added if they had a child in the car with them.

Which I admit is not only stupid, but child endangerment. Drugs are illegal, leave your damn kids at home, or with a sitter.

But selling it to "our kids"?

Do you have proof of this assumption, Sheriff Charwin, or are you just jumping right to the most emotional target possible to corrupt the jury pool and further tar these child murderers drug addicts? Or are you trying to convince your self? Asshole, or asshole suffering from cognitive dissonance, I can't decide.

There is no reason to try to corrupt the jury pool, since I'd bet my car all 21 will take a plea. That's how it works. The ADA offers you a shitty plea, and then threatens that if you take it to trial, they will push for whatever crazy number of years they think sound believable. All 21 of these criminals victims are going to be facing felonies, and chances are all 21 will take the plea. The only ones who actually should take the plea are those offered ARD or IPP or some other path to clearing their record, but the threat of years in prison can affect your decision making.

Look, I know. Drugs are illegal. Selling drugs is illegal. They all broke the law. I get it, I really do. And unless it is far down the memory hole, I do not know anyone affected by this operation.

But I still know them. I see my past self in every picture. I know the game, I know the story. Some of them are runners for the actual dealer, delivering drugs and protecting the dealer. Some of them were hooking up a friend they probably used with a hundred times before. A few of them were probably straight set up by the Confidential Informant and actually are innocent. Some of them were only getting for someone else so they could make enough to get a fix. And, yes, some were driving to Baltimore and bringing back product to sell and support their own addiction.

8 months. Untold amount of tax payer money. 21 low level dealers, at the worst, off the streets facing a felony that will follow them forever. The one girl is only 18. One guy is 19. Welcome to adulthood.

And by the end of the week, 21 more will step in to fill whatever cog in the machine they happened to occupy. The heroin and cocaine will keep flooding the area. More people will get addicted. Then in 8 months or so, "Operation: June Bug," or the like will scoop up another group.

The cycle, it keeps on cycling.

21 jobs available today in Bedford County. It's high risk, but the profession is booming no matter the economy. No experience needed, just a self-destructive personality.

We've lost the war on drugs. The war was never winnable in the first place.

Why are we still fighting it? Why are there still casualties?

Isn't it time for harm reduction?

Going to link to LEAP, and shut up.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Alt-Med Vampires

Feel the need to comment on this. If you want the full story, head on over to Respectful Insolence to hear from someone actually qualified to take this on. Much thanks to Orac for watching this trash so I don't have to.

Alt-med practitioners, at least the slimy ones, seem to have a habit of abusing dead celebrities to sell their woo and attack modern medicine. Why would Steve Jobs be any different?





Orac, you are a stronger man than I, because I can't get through 10 minutes of that before the nausea sets in.

Mercola:This is not routinely done for two primary reasons. The first is that it in no way, shape, or form addresses the original cancer, and it can easily spread to the new liver. But more importantly, he had to be placed on large doses of drugs to suppress his immune system so he would not reject his new liver. Tragically this is the very system your body uses to help control cancers. The liver has enormous regenerative capacity, and if they only removed the portion of his liver that contained the malignant cells, he would not have to take those dangerous anti-rejection drugs.

Orac? Insolence please.

I've discussed the issue of liver transplant for neuroendocrine tumors like insulinoma (which is what Jobs had) before. While it is arguable whether a liver transplant was the best decision for Jobs in 2009, it was certainly not outside the standard of care, nor was it unreasonable. Mercola also makes a very silly statement when he states that "if only" they had removed the portion of the liver containing the cancer, Jobs wouldn't have needed all those nasty immunosuppressants. Well, duh! Give that man a prize for stating the obvious as though it were some brilliant insight! Here's the issue: Transplant is not even considered for insulinoma metastatic to the liver unless the metastases are unresectable (i.e., they involve two or more lobes or are too close to major vascular structures). And what defines resectability? To boil it down to its essence, although there are certainly other considerations (the aforementioned vascular structures, for example) it's basically the ability to remove the liver tissue containing all of the metastase(s) and still leave enough liver tissue behind to survive on. Contrary to what Mercola thinks, the liver's regenerative capacity, although truly impressive, is not limitless, particularly if the liver is compromised by cirrhosis. Take too much liver, and the patient will die of liver failure because the liver can't regenerate fast enough (or just enough) to achieve function consistent with life. In addition to that basic equation, we just don't know whether Jobs' liver had been damaged or otherwise compromised by the insulinoma; it's possible that his liver wasn't in the best shape at the time, leaving less capacity to regenerate.

Thank you, back to the woo. From the interview transcript....

DM: There were some comments that he was leading up to his death, and people would post comments on Facebook and are asking why I couldn't get in touch with him and offer him some therapy. I'm not a cancer expert like you are, of course, but I believe someone like you could have really made a difference. My understanding is that your therapy was offered to him, but could you go to that process of why he chose not to undertake a natural or alternative approach to cancer?

DG: He wanted to see an alternative. In fact when he was first diagnosed, he got some dietary program - again, he was very secretive of that - So I don't exactly know what he did at that point. But through his acupuncturist, there was communication. He was getting acupuncture, and he was doing some alternative things as far as I know. This acupuncturist actually talked to me, discussing the situation. She was really anxious for him to come and see me. But he chose not to do that.

You know, I always respect the patients' right to choose the therapy they want to choose, so I would never dispute that. The patients have to make the decisions based on what they want to do. But she was very adamant; in fact, she knew about all my works in the alternative world. He had seen alternative-type practitioners. She really wanted for him to come and see me. He chose not to do that. From my perspective, it was unfortunate, because he was such a gift to the world in terms of his inventions and genius in the past 30 years.

I don't need a medical degree to deal with this one. This is simply two vampires pissing all over a deceased man to sell their "treatment." The "phantom acupuncturist" is a great touch. It lends the story a certain aura of verisimilitude. I'm sure the acupuncturist is unnamed due to privacy concerns, and not lack of existence.

Not that it matters one bit, since Steve Jobs is conveniently dead and unavailable to either confirm or deny any of this. Of course, if he just would have went to Dr. Gonzalez for treatment, he'd still be with us today. *insert eye roll here*

Orac, can you deal with this, because if I do it is going to be libelous.

Particularly vomit-inducing is the way Gonzalez turns around the argument based on a "patient's right to choose." Frequently, those of us who support science-based medicine, when confronted with the story of a patient who chooses quackery instead of medicine and suffers harm or dies as a result, will sadly say that a competent adult has the right to choose quackery if that's what he wants, mainly because he does. Self-determination is a basic human right. Here, we have Dr. Gonzalez turning that argument on its head, sadly shrugging his shoulders and expressing regret that Jobs had the right to choose his own course and chose SBM instead of quackery. After his flirtation with some sort of diet and unknown "alternative" therapies, Jobs appears to have turned to scientific medicine and never looked back, at least as far as we can tell based on the limited information available from press accounts. There's one thing that's for sure, though. If SBM couldn't save Jobs, Gonzalez sure as hell couldn't save him either, his claims otherwise notwithstanding. Now that Jobs is dead, Gonzalez's claims have the added bonus for him of being unfalsifiable, even though Gonzalez's methods have already been shown to be worse than useless for pancreatic cancer.

Thanks again, Orac.

Seriously. Dr. Mercola? Dr. Gonzalez? How about less pissing on the dead and more proving your treatments work, and no, I am not talking about anecdotal "evidence." Give me five bucks and ten minutes and I'll provide anecdotal "evidence" that I can cure cancer with a kick to the shin. Real evidence. Major journal articles. Double blind studies. Documented case histories. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

I'll wait.

Seriously, I'm in no hurry.

Got all the time in the world.

La la la la la.


Protip: Real evidence is not coming because their treatments do not cure cancer, or anything else for that matter, other than perhaps heavy wallet syndrome. Think I'm wrong? Then fucking prove it.

Prove your treatments work and I'll be right there in line to kiss your ass. Until then, can you please leave the dead to rest in peace?

Iran sentences film actress to 90 lashes, I check calendar to make sure this isn't the year 1316

Patriocentric Theocracy? Check.
Whipping women who don't know their place? Check.
Punishment that proves the point of the woman's "illegal activities?" Check.

Is this the plot of an important novel showing how religion can warp peoples sense of morality? A film showing how women suffered in a long ago, unenlightened time? A parable on the dangers of Dominionism and Patriocentric bronze age beliefs in the modern world?

Nope, it's just "modern" Iran.

The Envoy at Yahoo brings us today's news to both make you sick and piss you off.

An Iranian court has sentenced an Iranian actress to 90 lashes for her role in a new Australian-made film

90 lashes? And not with a wet noodle either? What the hell did she do, shoot a porn in Mecca?

portraying social alienation, drug use and political oppression in Iran.

Oh. Ah. Um. All I can imagine is the following exchange.

"This film says that we alienate and oppress people here in Iran."
"Those bastards! Round them up then alienate and oppress them. That will teach them!"

While I hesitate to use the word "lucky" at anytime when referring to the violent abuse of women under a draconic theocracy, at least they didn't try to stone her to death.

Which I am sure would have been the sentence for filming a porn in Mecca.

"In an outcome that could have been lifted from the pages of the movie's script"--"My Tehran for Sale"--the film's lead actress, Marzieh Vafamehr, "was arrested in July and received her sentence at the weekend, according to reports quoting Iranian opposition website kalameh.com," the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"Vafamehr often appears with a shaved head and no headscarf in the film, which also explores cultural oppression in Iran and taboos such as drug use," the paper said.

Granaz Moussavi, the Melbourne-based Iranian-Australian director of the film, declined to comment to the paper out of respect for the actress' family's wishes. Her portions of the film were "shot on the sly in Iran with a local crew in 2008," the paper said.

No headscarf? Shaved head? Shot on the sly? ....

Sorry, I can't bring myself to sarcastically imply this is a rational reaction. I try not to use the word much, but this is evil.

And fucking insane.

Since its disputed 2009 presidential elections, Iran has intensified a harsh crackdown against those perceived to violate its strict Islamic code, but often sentences are cruel and arbitrary. A moratorium had been declared on stoning in 2002, but the nation's Islamic courts have continued to hand down stoning sentences in accordance with the strict wording of the law. Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but human-rights groups estimate that scores of women were stoned to death in Iran during the 1980s and 1990s. One documented case of such a stoning was captured on a horrifying video in 1994. In 2009, two men were stoned to death in Iran on charges of adultery and murder.

Two gay teenagers, identified only by their initials, were stoned to death in Iran in 2005, and two gay men received a death-by-stoning sentence last year after filming themselves having sex.

Various parliamentary reforms have been mounted to reduce the penal system's harsher sentences, but they are not binding on the country's independent judiciary.

Wait....what?

not binding on the country's independent judiciary.

Once more?

not binding on the country's independent judiciary.

They are killing people with fucking stones! Who thinks that is a just punishment? Religious fanatics who believe every word of their holy book is true, other than the parts that don't let them stone people to death, rape their own wives, and in general be self-righteous pricks. Fuck parliamentary reforms, fuck independent judiciaries. Religion is the issue here. Yeah, it is batshit insane religion, but it is still religion. No change is going to come until the underlying cause is dealt with, and that requires dragging Iran kicking and screaming into at least the 20th century.

They whipped a woman, 90 times, for acting in a film. Not a porn. Not a snuff film. Not even a breast filled teen comedy. It was a film with a message, a point, and no matter how much the Iranian authorities dislike the point, they proved it with their actions.

Let me be clear.

There is no justification possible for whipping a woman. There is no justification possible for whipping a dog, let alone a human. This isn't about a film, just as the stonings aren't about gay sex or adultery. It is about a patriarchal religion taken to extremes by men who have lost all touch with actual ethics and morality, refusing to accept the passing of time and the end of male values uber alles attempting to put uppity women in their place and GLBT people back in the closet through fear and violence.

Patriocentric theocracies have no place in the modern world. People are not property. Women are not your slaves, your wives are not sperm receptacles, girls are not fuck machines, and no matter how hard they make you, gays are not temptations sent by the devil.

If God exists, and agrees with Iran, I would rather burn in hell.

*sigh*

At least it could never happen in the United States.

The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 and 2005

and

According to Gary North, women who have abortions should be publicly executed, "along with those who advised them to abort their children." Rushdoony concludes: "God's government prevails, and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them." Reconstructionists insist that "the death penalty is the maximum, not necessarily the mandatory penalty." However, such judgments may depend less on Biblical Principles than on which faction gains power in the theocratic republic. The potential for bloodthirsty episodes on the order of the Salem witchcraft trials or the Spanish Inquisition is inadvertently revealed by Reconstructionist theologian Rev. Ray Sutton, who claims that the Reconstructed Biblical theocracies would be "happy" places, to which people would flock because "capital punishment is one of the best evangelistic tools of a society."

and

For connoisseurs of surrealism on the American right, it's hard to beat an exchange that appeared about a decade ago in the Heritage Foundation magazine Policy Review. It started when two associates of the Rev. Jerry Falwell wrote an article which criticized Christian Reconstructionism, the influential movement led by theologian Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, for advocating positions that even they as committed fundamentalists found "scary." Among Reconstructionism's highlights, the article cited support for laws "mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards." The Rev. Rushdoony fired off a letter to the editor complaining that the article had got his followers' views all wrong: They didn't intend to put drunkards to death.

Ah, yes, accuracy does count. In a world run by Rushdoony followers, sots would escape capital punishment--which would make them happy exceptions indeed. Those who would face execution include not only gays but a very long list of others: blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of "unchastity before marriage," "incorrigible" juvenile delinquents, adulterers, and (probably) telephone psychics. And that's to say nothing of murderers and those guilty of raping married women or "betrothed virgins." Adulterers, among others, might meet their doom by being publicly stoned

Yep. Could never happen here.

Jay Sekulow brings the crazy

Via Ed Brayton



Seriously?! Is it April 1st and I slept through the whole fucking winter? You have to be kidding me. Is there any end to the insanity coming from the religious right?

Do you know what it takes for the Constitution to be amended? 2/3rd super majority in both the House and the Senate, and then ratification by 3/4 of the States.

As Ed says at his blog, "Paris Hilton will win the Nobel Prize for Physics before that happens."

Muslims make up 1% of the United States. Only a small percentage of that 1% wants Sharia Law imposed in this country. Almost without exception, everyone else is opposed to the idea. It isn't even an option in my dystopian fever dreams of theocratic future American, let alone the current, modern US.

Sekulow,of the American Center for Law and Justice, is fear-mongering. He can not actually believe the words coming out of his mouth. If he does, he needs serious help. This is a calculated lie to scare the fuck out of Christians that he obviously feels are stupid. We do not live in a country where a significant percentage of the population wants Sharia law. It is a non-issue. It is a scare tactic that insults the intelligence of those it is aimed at. I can only hope that Christians realize this and stop letting people like Sekulow play them.

*sigh*

Paris Hilton winning a Noble Prize for Physics? Hell, it's more likely that Sarah Palin will be appointed Empress for life of the United Christian States of America tomorrow by Barack Obama.

Sharia is not taking over the United States. Get a fucking grip on reality.