News of the Day 11-15-06

Yet another former supporter of the ridiculous crack-powder disparity, this time a fed judge, comes out against the ridiculousness. Maybe, maybe a window is opening. . . . If you've wondered how the manipulation of genes might actually happen in "technocorrections," this article will explain it to you. You can "silence" genes and keep them from doing their work, basically. Got some bad ones causing greater tendencies to addictions or impulsive behavior? See where it could go? . . . An application of where it could go. We get DNA from offenders. We screen them and start trying to "cold hit" family members. Since a lot of offenders have family members as fellow crooks, law enforcement is seeking to find other guys, even if no one's been reported yet. So the old conundrum--how much prevented crime (and there are a lot of misses here) overrides invasion of privacy and possible false arrest? "We're kind of blundering ahead with this technology," worries William Thompson, a criminologist at the University of California, Irvine, who would like to see the government open up the database for independent scrutiny and statistical analysis. He is especially concerned about reports of faked test results and poor-quality lab work such as cross-contamination and sample mix-ups. So there you go. . . . Not sure if this qualifies as "technocorrections." In the line of the old "play Barry Manilow to scare them away" ploy, businesses in Britain and Wales are broadcasting "mosquito units" (little high pitched chirps that young ears can hear but old ones like mine can't) to run off loitering teens. Not sure, either, what the actual crime prevention effect is, but I always liked Manilow okay so this seems more fair. . . . Turns out SuperMax isn't so Super. Turns out we hyped our crackdown on the bad guys and then didn't give it the resources to do the job. First time something like this has ever happened. . . . "Mothers Against Methamphetamine"? Hadn't heard this one yet. They're lauding ID as the best state in attacking the problem. Descriptions of a couple of interesting programs, too. . . . ONE PERCENT OF THE INTERNET IS PORN. This get your attention? Becomes important when the federal government is using porn as a justification to end net neutrality and to get greater control of what's available. And, it's an interesting stat, IMO. But that tells us more about me than I should let you know. But once I told you about Manilow, that didn't really matter anymore, did it?