Cap-and-Trade Explained

We've been meaning to mention Paul Krugman's superior article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine ["Building a Green Economy"] about "cap-and-trade." If you're like us, about all that's sunk in from the cacophonous media din about the legislative proposal is that it has something to do with limiting carbon emissions and it's controversial with both right and left critics.

Krugman explains cap-and-trade -- and gives a truly 'fair and balanced' explanation of the alternatives -- in a simple, straight-forward way. It's definitely a good read that will make you feel a whole lot smarter when you've finished.

The Front Page

The front page of today's News Journal offers a red flag warning about five things that consistently go wrong in Pensacola. If you're thinking of relocating to this place, be aware (from top to bottom) that--

• Education is a shockingly low priority for the majority of voters in this Northwest Florida community, for reasons we suspect are partly political (unreasoning anti-tax sentiment for anything and everything) and partly cultural (a deep distrust of intellectualism common throughout the South);

• Even out-of-state developers with problematic books and huge lawsuits for shoddy workmanship pending against them in their own back yard tend to see Pensacola as a chump that can still be looted for big bucks;
• In the rare event a local government comes up with a good idea to enhance, rather than destroy, a natural wonder and a leading office-holder like Pensacola Mayor Wiggins sees clearly that it should be a public works project, there will always be some subordinates who will obstruct the idea.
  
• Unthinking religiosity is so rampant here even "rank-and-file" members of a mainstream church "as well as a top diocese priest" claim sex abuse by priests is a media problem which isn't being discussed in local parishes;
• Our county commissioners, judging by court records of the past decade, include a lot of criminals and complete morons.

Mother Nature blessed the Gulf Coast with much beauty. Then she let a lot of dummies in the door to balance things out.

Show Trial for a Pedestrian 'Crime'

Let's get this much straight, members of the press. Riding an unlighted bicycle at night isn't a "crime" in Florida. It's a "noncriminal traffic infraction."

In the case of the tragic death of 17-year old Victor Steen, who was run over by a patrol car as it chased him on and off the streets of his own neighborhood, Pensacola's police department may have a county judge on its side. But quite a bit higher up in the legal food chain the department is facing the prospect of an expensive civil suit spearheaded by the Levin Law firm.

We're putting our money on the Levin Law firm. When those in charge of enforcing the law ignore or subvert it for the sake of some imaginary "blue line" of immunity, there's no avenue for justice left except a civil law suit.

Yesterday, County Judge John Simon filed his so-called "verdict" in the inquest hearing. Functionally, the "verdict" really works as a non-binding recommendation to the same state's attorney office which passed the hot potato to the judge in the first place.

This is the self-same state's attorney office, by the way, that has exclusive power to produce (or not) all the potential evidence at the inquest free from bothersome inconveniences like cross-examination by an opposing lawyer, objections to incompetent, inadmissible, or unreliable evidence, and counter-evidence coming from another side.

Such an inquest, sad to say, more closely resembles a political show trial than a fundamentally fair judicial proceeding. Like a show trial, it provides cover for the more politically powerful principals involved and hots-up the booboisie and message board mavens who might, just might, be selected for the jury pool when the city gets sued. Viewed from one perspective, the entire charade can be seen as serving the local government's anticipated defense of the hugely expensive civil rights and wrongful death suit which everyone knows is coming.

Shortly after the county judge's decision was released yesterday, attorneys Bill Cash and Aaron Watson made a brief appearance with Steen's mother outside the federal courthouse to speak with the press. As we earlier surmised might be the case, the lawyers for the dead boy's estate focused on the same excuse for chasing and killing Steen with a patrol car which the prosecutor offered at the inquest: young Steen was riding a bike with no lights.

In an early dispatch posted yesterday on the Pensacola News Journal web site, one reporter wrote:

Watson noted in details several policies that Pensacola police officers are required to read and sign in their training to become officers with the department. These policies will likely become part of his argument that [Jerald] Ard ignored long-standing policies within the agency when he pursued the teen.

Most notable were passages that refer to when and how officers are allowed to conduct a chase.

"A pursuit will be terminated when the individual officer or any supervisor determines that the risk that the injury has increased and is outweighed by the desirability or the necessity of the apprehension," one of the policies reads.

"Victor Steen didn’t have a light on his bike," Watson wondered aloud.

The lack of light on Steen’s bicycle was cited by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Highway Patrol as the only crime Steen had clearly committed before he fled.

A later report avoids reference to "the only crime" of Steen and substitutes instead, "He had not committed a crime prior to the officer encountering him." But the damge has been done.

Let's get this much straight, members of the press. Riding an unlighted bicycle at night isn't a "crime" in Florida. It's a "noncriminal traffic infraction" which Florida state law expressly makes equivalent to jay-walking.

Under that law, many more reasonable alternatives to killing young Steen were available to officer Ard, starting with ignoring it -- as we have noticed the local constabulary almost always does. For other examples, he could have followed state law and issued --

a bicycle safety brochure and a verbal warning to a bicycle rider or passenger who violates this subsection. A bicycle rider or passenger who violates this subsection may be issued a citation by a law enforcement officer and assessed a fine for a pedestrian violation... .

That officer Ard would endanger an innocent boy with no record of past misconduct, innocent passers-by, and even himself by deliberately engaging in a dangerous high-speed chase just to make "a citizen contact" shocks the conscience. Indeed, so far as Ard knew, no crime had been committed by anyone.

However, officer Ard likely isn't the only one who should be blamed for the tragic outcome of this "citizen contact." Face it: many cops aren't rocket scientists. Some are hot-dogs who thrive on the adrenalin rush of a chase. Others habitually dehumanize anyone who's guilty of "being black."

Those are two among many other reasons municipalities are required by federal civil rights law to make sure the on-the-job conduct of all personnel stays within the bounds of the Constitution. They can do this by producing clear and lawful written policies -- and then thoroughly and competently training subordinate policemen how to obey those policies. This is a basic constitutional requirement of all federal, state, and local government officials.

The fundamental idea is that in our society no one acting in an official capacity -- from the President of the United States on down to the local policemen on the beat -- has unfettered discretion to deprive another of "life, liberty or property" without due process of law. They can't just make it up as they go along to satisfy some personal urge or emotion or bias or idiotic fantasy. Superiors in the chain of command must constrain the conduct of subordinates by promulgating and enforcing cognizable standards consistent with the law of the land.

There are some, shall we say, peculiarities evident in the quoted portions of the Pensacola Police Department policy manual that lead us to suspect that when the civil lawsuit is finally filed, officer Ard won't be the only person in the hot seat. Policy makers at the very pinnacle of the Pensacola Police Department also have some serious explaining to do.

Dept. of Amplification
04-07 am

Sean Boone of the Independent News reports the same events. Unfortunately, he also misstates the legal record.

It isn't true that the county judge "found Pensacola Police officer Jerald Ard to not be at fault... ." The Judge's findings are here.

What he found was that the evidence which the State's Attorney office was at liberty to cherry-pick did not establish "probable cause" to believe officer Ard committed "murder" or "manslaughter." That's quite different from finding Ard wasn't at "fault."

But we aren't going to snarl something like "Why can't we have a better press?" All is forgiven.

As we have pointed out before, the arcane "inquest" procedure which the local State's Attorney office chooses to use only when the spotlight is on a policeman's misconduct is a relic of the 12th century. Reporter Sean Boone probably wasn't around back then.

Surprise, Surprise

Pensacola's Independent News reports that late yesterday "the State Attorney announced ... that they have reviewed the ruling of Judge John Simon concerning death of Victor Steen. The State is in agreement with Judge Simon’s ruling that no crime was committed. Therefore, this office will take no further action in this matter."

What a surprise. We expected the State's Attorney to wait at least a day or so before announcing his foregone conclusion.

Electoral Shock Therapy

Not long ago we mentioned a relative who was a lifelong Republican and a highly successful office holder until, as he says, "the party left me." He's not alone:

Life-long Republican Chris Currey has a thoughtful piece over at David Frum's place, explaining his belief that his party has lost its mind. Currey doesn't exactly break new ground -- his fears and concerns will no doubt seem familiar to most who keep up with current events -- but his piece is worth reading anyway.

Steve Benen is right. Republican businessman Currey's article is thoughtful and compelling. Bennen also is right when he says that when a political party goes bat-shit crazy, as the neo-Republican Party so clearly has, "the only way to bring it to its senses is for it to suffer electoral humiliation."

The GOP went sharply to the right after the 2004 elections, and it lost in 2006. Republicans then went even further to the right, and lost in 2008. In response, they went even further still to the right.

If 2010 is an electoral bonanza for the GOP, the party will assume that the way a party wins elections is to have its members become stark raving mad. If 2010 is another humiliating failure for the GOP, the party may be more inclined to identify their most ridiculous and dangerous habits, and consider where they went wrong.

Republicans appear to have lost Chris Currey, and with good reason. But unless Currey has a lot of like-minded friends voting in November, the party won't bother to try and get him back.

We've said it before. It needs repeating: in a two-party democratic system, both parties need each other to stay honest and responsive to the needs of the nation as a whole. Restoring the Republican Party's sanity is as important to the Democratic Party as it is to the nation's political health.

If it takes electoral shock therapy, so be it.

Slacks and the City

Pensacola Independent News publisher Rick Outzen drops trou on his blog for a 'Miss Lonely Hearts' advice column.

"Citizen Contact"

An Escambia County small claims-type judge, sitting by request of the State's Attorney office and informed exclusively by evidence presented only by the prosecution without any opposing counsel's presence, has ruled "that Officer Jerald Ard's pursuit of Victor Steen after spotting him in the early morning hours of Oct. 3 was lawful." The county judge's full opinion is here.

Now, who could have predicted this?

A number of things leap out at anyone who reads the opinion closely. Some that may support the police officer's defense and some that cast doubt on it. For now, however, we want to focus on just one of them. It's a minor issue in some respects, but one that affects everyone who may have the misfortune to be peddling past a Pensacola police officer in the future.

The judge explicitly finds that when Officer Ard began chasing the teenaged bicycler with his patrol car, he had no probable cause to believe a crime had been committed, much less that Steen might have committed it:

Officer Ard intended to make a "citizen contact" with Mr. Steen in an effort effort to discover whether there was any criminal act committed...

Nevertheless, the judge concludes that the patrol car chase (at speeds never mentioned) was "lawful" in part because "Mr. Steen operated his bicycle between sunset and sunrise without the appropriate front and rear lamps." In other words, the boy was bicycling through the dark without a light or reflectors.

In very nearly two decades' residence in the Florida Panhandle, we have not seen the day -- or, rather night -- pass without spotting at least one bicyclist in the Pensacola area navigating through the gloom without lights. It shocked us years ago when we first moved to the beach. The fact is, almost no one in Escambia County rides a bicycle with the "appropriate front and rear lamps."

We can't explain it, other than by inferring it reflects a chronic, long-term lack of enforcement of the bicycle laws. Too bad some lawyer wasn't allowed in the "inquest" courtroom to inquire about the last time Officer Ard, or any other Pensacola policeman or county deputy sheriff for that matter, arrested a bicyclist for violating Florida Statute 316.2065.

Now, all of a sudden, they're free to willfully run them down whenever they want to make "a citizen contact"?

Another Mining Disaster

This may seem like a month for mining disasters. But it happens too often to be a coincidence. As the AP reports:

Though the cause of the blast was not known, the operation run by Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co. has a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas, safety officials said.
* * *
Massey Energy, a publicly traded company based in Richmond, Va., ... ranks among the nation's top five coal producers and is among the industry's most profitable. It has a spotty safety record.

In the past year, federal inspectors fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at Upper Big Branch. The violations also cover failing to follow the plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up, and having improper firefighting equipment.

The New York Times adds:

For at least six of the past 10 years, federal records indicate, the Upper Big Branch mine has recorded an injury rate worse than the national average for similar operations. The records also show that the mine had 458 violations in 2009, with a total of $897,325 in safety penalties assessed against it last year. It has paid $168,393 in safety penalties.

Although the exact cause of the latest disaster is not yet known, the Times reports that a United Mine Workers spokesman's "current theory was that the explosion might have been caused by a buildup of methane gas in a sealed-off section of the mine. A similar type of explosion occurred in the 2006 Sago mining disaster, which left 12 miners dead after trapping them underground for nearly two days."

Just last month, Massey Energy bought a rival coal company, further reducing competition in the energy market. The company paid $960 million.

That was a deliberate corporate choice. Although Massey Energy has one of the worst safety records in the nation, it chose to spend its profits on another corporate acquisition rather than improving mine safety.

Corporate greed over worker safety, Wall Street avarice taking the world economy to the brink of destruction, irresponsible bank lending run amok, oil and coal corporations outright buying congressmen and senators, federal financial regulators secretly using taxpayer money to soak up worthless brokerage assets, municipalities driven to bankruptcy's doorstep by "nomadic thievery"...... Something has gone seriously wrong with America's moral compass.

And this has consequences. This week, it was the lives of twenty-five or more miners. Next week, it could be yours.

minor edit 04-06am

We Are All Responsible, Now

Glenn Greenwald says we are all responsible now for the murder of a Reuters journalist, his driver, and several others, and the serious maiming of two children, who were shot by U.S. troops in 2007. Our military falsely claimed that the victims were taking hostile action and then refused to release any supporting evidence. Now, we know why: the only evidence was damning of the military itself.

Wikileaks today released a leaked videotape of the crime. The video was taken by a U.S. Apache helicopter. Judge for yourself, as in a democracy we must, whether the murders, the lies, and the cover-up by our own military are corrosive to our morality and freedom.

Mine Rescue

As promised, history rhymes if it doesn't repeat: 114 mine workers rescued in Shanxi Province, China.

Avoiding 'Nomadic Thievery'

"We live in a gangster state, and our days of laughing at other countries are over."
-- Matt Tabbi, Rolling Stone

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi has a caustic summary of the Jefferson County sewer fiasco that has reduced Birmingham, Ala. to "the status of an African debtor state." Today, every single resident of Birmingham, from new-born babes to the oldest nursing home resident, now owes Wall Street $4,800. ["Looting Main Street: How the Nation's Biggest Banks are Ripping Off American Cities with the Same Predatory Deals that Brought Down Greece"].

In Birmingham --

Here you can see a trail that leads directly from a billion-dollar predatory swap deal cooked up at the highest levels of America's biggest banks, across a vast fruited plain of bribes and felonies — "the price of doing business," as one JP Morgan banker says on tape — all the way down to [Birmingham resident] Lisa Pack's sewer bill and the mass layoffs in Birmingham.

Once you follow that trail and understand what took place in Jefferson County, there's really no room left for illusions. We live in a gangster state, and our days of laughing at other countries are over. It's our turn to get laughed at. In Birmingham, lots of people have gone to jail for the crime: More than 20 local officials and businessmen have been convicted of corruption in federal court. Last October... Birmingham's mayor was convicted of fraud and money-laundering for taking bribes funneled to him by Wall Street bankers — everything from Rolex watches to Ferragamo suits to cash. But those who greenlighted the bribes and profited most from the scam remain largely untouched. "It never gets back to JP Morgan," says Pack.

At the root of the scandal one finds--

• ordinary city department heads unable to understand the impossible complexities of financing contracts cooked up by Wall Street
• a local politically-connected fixer paid by Wall Street to offer 'consultant' expertise who recommends those contracts to municipal officials
  
• criminal bribes handed out like Easter candy by Wall Street to greedy local politicians
• good-ol'-boy pay-offs by one Wall Street bank to another Wall Street bank to preserve the first bank's lucrative monopoly on farming Birmingham residents for every last nickle they own, and
• predatory lending practices that "at one point" left Birmingham holding more worthless toxic credit default swaps than New York City.

It's a cautionary tale for any municipal board of modest talents with an ambitious development project that's spending oodles of money for nothing much visible in an effort to find financing from out-of-state sources who won't make their own financial statements public except to a limited number of insiders.

What you want to avoid is the Birmingham fiasco, where the bankers "find suckers in some municipal-finance department, corner them in complex lose-lose deals and flay them alive."

In a complete subversion of free-market principles, they take no risk, score deals based on political influence rather than competition, keep consumers in the dark — and walk away with big money. "It's not high finance," says Taylor, the former bond regulator. "It's low finance."

And even if the regulators manage to catch up with them billions of dollars later, the banks just pay a small fine and move on to the next scam. This isn't capitalism. It's nomadic thievery.

Panama City Plunge

We've said it before: if your money-grubbing idea for how to market your beach community to tourists is to encourage everybody to get drunk and high, then the least you could do is wire-off the high balconies.

Or, not.

"On a personal level, I got to know Matt quite well over the past few years, and he was a wonderful young man from a great family. Matt was an extremely talented person who was very bright and possessed a great, dry sense of humor. He could not wait to join the Notre Dame family."

Instead, you might tweak the promos just a little, and adopt a new slogan. How about:

"Come to Panama City for Spring Break:
It's to die for."

History Rhymes, Again

"History never repeats, but it often rhymes."
-- Mark Twain (attr.)

Scholars can't really tell you where or when the witticism so commonly attributed to Mark Twain was uttered, but it's just the sort of thing which that biting skeptic of human nature might have said. In any event, he surely would have added a sarcastic rhyme this week after news of the latest coal mine disasters in China.

Five times this week -- five! -- scores of Asian miners have been killed by flooding, gas explosions, or sudden collapse of mine shafts. The worst appears to be in Shanxi Province where 153 workers have been trapped for over a week. Hopes were raised yesterday when mysterious "tapping" noises were heard coming from the mine Thursday, NPR reports.

Ironically, this same week at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, the centennial commemoration of the famous "Cherry Mine" disaster in Illinois was just winding up. Above ground a hundred years ago, mysterious tapping noises were keeping hopes alive in north-central Illinois, too.

The Cherry Mine disaster has historical importance beyond the grim numbers of the dead and surviving widows, mothers, and siblings left bereft and penniless. Subsequent investigations established that company executives were deliberately and repeatedly violating what few laws there were protecting worker safety and preventing under-age employment.

Those findings led to a number of progressive worker safety laws including, one year later, creation of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and, among the states, one of the first worker compensation statutes. A fascinating, and historically accurate, two-part diary on Daily Kos ["How Regulation Came to Be"] explains the connection in detail.

All of which provides a useful reminder, in today's era of Tea Party and neo-Republican attacks on "government" in general, of just what life was like before progressive ideas became the law of the land.

Electrifying Sight to See

While we've been out and about visiting saner parts of America, we found ourselves a few nights ago driving through central Illinois. It was a balmy night, the long-sought promise of Spring finally arrived. The warm, sweet smell of freshly-turned earth filled the air.

Suddenly, off to our left in the pitch dark of a moonless night we spotted an impossibly high rhythmically blinking red light. Before we could say "Close Encounter" the vista expanded. It seemed as if an entire army of red-eyed creatures a couple of hundred feet high was staring menacingly at us.

As daylight broke, we regained consciousness. Painfully, we slid out from underneath the rental car, rose to our feet unsteadily, and took a cautious look around. No aliens, anywhere.

What we did see, though, was no less astonishing: the new "Rail Splitter Wind Farm" between Springfield and Peoria.

Here is an aerial view. Here are the numbers. Here are the folks operating it.

And below is the answer to a good friend's first question when we called in our report. He asked, "Do they make any noise?"

minor edit
4-02am

April Fool's Day Joke

Got it! Obama's drill-baby-drill speech, yesterday, was just an early April Fool's joke. Oh, that Obama. He's such a kidder!

Some people just can't take a joke. Here's the real Obama (about 1:20):

"...but what wouldn’t do a thing is John McCain’s new proposals to open up Florida’s coast line to offshore drilling."