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Wednesday, January 31
Wright State Honors Symposium
by
Charles Rowland
on Wed 31 Jan 2007 10:57 PM EST
Today I attended a speech by Ambassador Tony Hall at Wright State University. The speech, focusing on poverty issues, was sponsored by the Wright State University Honors Program. There is a lot we can do to prevent death by starvation and, what's more, it's very easy. The Wright State Honors Program has begun a program in micro-financing that is lifting people out of poverty without fostering an addiction to aid. If you have any extra money, please consider giving to this worthy cause.
Do Americans Drink Too Much (or not enough)?
by
Charles Rowland
on Wed 31 Jan 2007 09:30 PM EST
Are people in the US are generally heavy consumers of alcohol?
Monday, January 29
Scotch. Neat.
by
Charles Rowland
on Mon 29 Jan 2007 10:01 PM EST
Many who drink Scotch whisky neat say they do not want to spoil the taste by adding water. However, equally as many will say that adding a touch of water, particularly if it is pure, soft spring water, (ideally the same spring water used in the making of the particular whisky!) serves to enhance the distinctive aroma and flavour of a whisky. Tap water may contain high amounts of chlorine and therefore would not complement any whisky - your best bet is to opt for bottled Scottish mineral water! Adding ice to a whisky is such as a shame because it will only dull the fine taste and wonderful aromas. Similarly, carbonated water is not an ideal accompaniment for whisky as it may interfere with the aromas also. Adding mixers such as ginger ale, soda and even coca cola, is a popular trend, however it begs the question - why drink whisky at all if you need to mask the taste?
A History of Dayton, Ohio
by
Charles Rowland
on Mon 29 Jan 2007 12:31 PM EST
from OhioHistoryCentral.com In 1796, Israel Ludlow founded the town of Dayton along the Miami River near the mouth of the ... more » Friday, January 26
Homer Drunk Driving Quote of the Week
by
Charles Rowland
on Fri 26 Jan 2007 08:00 PM EST
Marge: Homer! Don't Drink and Drive! Homer: Ok...I'll drive between sips.
Wednesday, January 24
www.GatorPress.com - The Truth About Drunk Driving
by
Charles Rowland
on Wed 24 Jan 2007 09:45 PM EST
The MADD Myth Of The Drunk Driving Holocaust & the Politics of the New Prohibitionists
Driving a motor vehicle while shitfaced drunk is a bad idea. There is no disputing that. You should also avoid playing with weapons and power tools while intoxicated. This is simple common sense. However, did you know that more people die from choking on their food every year than are killed by drunk drivers? The true number of innocent people killed by drunk drivers is about the same as the number who drown annually in swimming pools, or die in ATV accidents. It is in fact a tiny number.Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) have cited an average of 25,000 alcohol-related traffic deaths per year. This figure is an intentional, dishonest, self-serving, politically motivated lie. This can be seen in definitions and national numbers from NHTSA's own publications.The phrase "Alcohol-related" means that at least one of the participants in a traffic accident had consumed a "measurable amount" of alcohol, however small, or an alcohol container is found in any of the vehicles involved. If 30 people in a Greyhound Bus die in a crash, and one passenger has a liquor bottle in their luggage, this is called an alcohol-related crash! One empty beer can is "evidence". This dishonest way of accounting produces the following logic: 95% of all fatal accidents are "sobriety-related" because a sober person is somehow involved. See how foolish and dishonest this is? So, when you hear that "40% of fatal traffic accidents are alcohol related", you are hearing an inflated number. Many accidents include passengers, the other driver, and pedestrians. All of these people must have zero alcohol intake in order to make the accident non-alcohol related. If any one of them has the smallest trace of alcohol, the whole accident is called "alcohol related".But wait, it gets worse. Lumped together in the term "alcohol related" is all drugs, including prescribed medication! If there is a prescription bottle for Xanax, a "roach" in the ashtray, a package of rolling papers, or anything else that can be construed as drug-related, the accident goes into the 40% category - even if the drugs are found on a passenger or pedestrian! So, since most elderly Americans are taking some type of prescription medication, their unfortunate traffic deaths become a significant part of these phony statistics. So, the government statisticians start with defective definitions, deceitfully discard nondrinking drivers to create false high percentages, add drinking pedestrians to the mix, then for extra spice they add drug possessing drivers to their cauldron of fraudulent figures. The final mess is taken out of context then spoon-fed to the MADD mothers and the 6 o'clock news as if it were the Word of God when it's actually propaganda to support severe laws that defy logic and the Bill of Rights. NHTSA's numbers are lies but the resultant brutal laws are very real. Laws such as the confiscation and sale of cars for drunk driving, "implied consent" laws, "sobriety checkpoints" and no right to a jury trial if arrested on federal land which is 21% of the total and growing. Incidentally, the federal government owns more than half the land in the West. For example, it owns 83% of Nevada, 65% of Utah and 62% of Idaho and Alaska.Here are the real numbers:There are about 35,000 fatal traffic accidents each year in the United States. About 40,000 people die each year in these accidents. 60% of these accidents are single-vehicle. 80% of these are drivers or passengers, 5% are motorcyclists, and 15% are pedestrians. Fatal accidents comprise one half of one percent of reported traffic accidents.Here's the logical meltdown of the fictitious 40% figure:More than 2/3 of traffic deaths are single vehicle crashes, so now we're down to 13%. Out of this 13%, 60% are accidents in which no person involved had a blood alcohol level over .10, so now we're at 5%. Over 1/3 of these cases are drug related, not alcohol related, which leaves us at 3%. Half of these cases were caused by road conditions, weather, and sober drivers making errors, which puts us at 1.5%. So, we can say that about 1.5% of traffic fatalities are caused by alcohol-impaired drivers. The other 98.5% are caused by other things! Instead of 25,000 the true number is about 600 innocent people killed annually by drunk drivers. Of course it's sad those innocent people died. But one might compare that number to the 2,000 children, most age 4 and younger, who die every year due to abuse or neglect. Or compare it to the 180,000 who die from negligence in hospitals per year. Those are all big numbers, but again, there are 280 million people living in the United States.How drunk is drunk? USA Today states that a .08 blood alcohol content is "reached by a 120-pound woman who has 2 glasses of wine in 2 hours, or by a 160-pound man who has 3 drinks in 2 hours." With attention focused on redefining "drunk," people tend to forget that when the definition of drunk was dropped to .08, "impaired" was reduced to .05 - that's a shot and a beer - or essentially "zero tolerance." From .05 to .08, the police may arrest you at their own discretion and charge you with DUI. That means virtually everyone who stops at a bar is subject to arrest. If these people constituted an actual threat of imminent danger to the community, it would be all to the good. But they don't. They're just regular folks like you and me. There is no evidence that persons below .12 constitute any danger at all. A nationally publicized study in the February 1997 New England Journal of Medicine concluded that driving with a BAC of .10 is no more hazardous than talking on a cell-phone while driving. That, however, is not the way the study and newspapers described the situation. Their words: "Cell phone talking is as dangerous as drunk driving!" The only significant difference between talking on a car-phone or talking to a passenger in your car is that passengers can be more distracting. And yet, the study shows that phone-driving is equal to driving legally drunk. So how risky can "impaired driving" be?! That's clear evidence of how greatly the public has been misled about drinking and driving. Some of you might remember that New Orleans for many years had drive-up Daquiri stands, where you could pull up and get mixed drinks. There was no law against drinking while driving in Louisiana until a couple of years ago. You could sip from a whiskey bottle with no fear of arrest. So, was there carnage on the streets of New Orleans? Not at all. In fact, the numbers of "alcohol-related" accidents and deaths in Louisiana was right at the national average, and didn't go down after the law was changed in the mid 1990s. Changing the laws in Louisiana did not save lives, although it did harm businesses and turn a whole group of previously law-abiding citizens into criminals. And that is the real problem. When virtually everyone who drives away from a pub or restaurant after having 2-3 drinks is subject to criminal arrest - that's a police state. When a drivers license can be confiscated before trial, that's a police state.How did it all get so fucked up?Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was founded by a group of California women in 1980 after a 13 year old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Since that time MADD has developed into one of the largest and most powerful political action/advocacy organizations in the U.S. MADD's activities were originally geared towards legitimate educational and victim support. MADD's political focus was geared towards removing chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers from the nation's highways. Responsible social drinkers who drove home after a wedding or after good conversation with friends at the neighborhood pub were not targets of MADD's efforts. To the extent that MADD has worked to support victims and to educate the public about legitimate chronic alcoholic/drunk driving issues it should be commended. Unfortunately, in recent years the organization and most of it's local chapters has been taken over by ultra-conservative, anti-alcohol extremists who have adopted a political agenda that threatens the second coming of Prohibition. If MADD's attempts to criminalize all beer drinkers really saved lives it would be one thing. However, all available valid government data indicates that it does not. Around 1985, MADD's principal founder Candy Lightner left the organization she founded after demanding a $10,000 bonus on top of her $76,000 per year salary from the "male executives" that had taken over the "Mothers" group. Lightner cited a lack of focus on the real public safety issue, that of getting chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers off the road. Maybe that's why Lightner began working for a liquor industry trade group - the American Beverage Institute. Lightner became a lobbyist working against laws lowering the legal standard of drunk from .10 to .08. Today MADD is a slick, multi-million dollar operation that in addition to hardsell mail and telephone soliciting, has a catalogue delivered to more than a million homes, selling the lies along with merchandise such as T-shirts, key chains, watches and many more MADD specialty items. MADD was the focus of an NBC exposé in which Tom Brokaw looked at the "boiler room operation" of telephone solicitors that worked day and night collecting money and spouting lies for MADD. The company operating the boiler rooms kept 72 cents of every dollar raised of a reported $35 million in telephone contributions. MADD isn't the only organization feasting on concocted paranoia: Two years after MADD arrived on the scene, Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) was founded by a high school hockey coach named Robert Anastas. Eleven years after he founded it, Anastas retired from SADD, but not without abundant financial rewards: The SADD board of directors gave Anastas a retirement parachute worth more than one million dollars: He received a compensation package worth $316,398 upon his resignation; a $150,000 retirement package and a consulting contract that pays $195,000 annually for two years, $85,000 annually for the next five years, and $75,000 every year after that. It is a big business convincing America that alcohol causes a lot of people to die in horrible crashes. But there are many victims of the resulting legislation.Enforcement: The number of people arrested in Kemah, Texas each year is greater than the number of innocent fatalities caused by drunk drivers in the entire United States. To beef up revenues, police agencies unleash special squads to target "impaired" drivers. The suspect is shackled, his car is ransacked, he's searched and tossed in the patrol car, then photographed, fingerprinted, thrown in a cage, and if he declined to submit to an alcohol test, he may be strapped down, have needles plunged into his body and have blood extracted from his veins. And then, even if that person is found Not Guilty, he will spends hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars for the repugnant experience. It's tantamount to armed robbery, kidnapping, and assault and battery, to say the very least. Once arrested these otherwise law-abiding citizens are subjected to imprisonment; huge fines and court costs; costs of probation; unjust property forfeitures; made to attend political re-education meetings; psychological testing; involuntary forced labor; public humiliation; loss of driving privileges; loss of jobs; their self esteem; and destruction of their families. All of that happens because of lies - a witch hunt. "If one life can saved, then it's worth it," say the MADD mothers. This scenario, in varying circumstances, happens about 2 million times every year in America. Drinking and driving is far from being the No.1 cause of accidents. Can you imagine if all the above misery were inflicted on stop sign runners and speeders? When drivers cruise through stop signs or try to beat yellow lights, those are acts that can cause serious accidents: Acts that unquestionably claim far more innocent victims per year than alcohol. If a cop spots you trying to beat a red light and writes a ticket, you willingly, albeit grudgingly, pay about $100. However, you will not be arrested, you will not lose thousands of dollars, you will not be carted off to jail, you will not lose your right to drive, you will not lose your car, you will not be placed on probation, you will not be forbidden to leave the state, you will not be forced to attend a behavior modification program, and your life will go on. If you've read this far, you've seen enough to realize that the "war on drunk drivers" is not being waged solely against drinking drivers who are merely pawns in a much larger game: This is a war against alcohol. Over the past decade, there's been a reported gradual decline in "alcohol-related" fatal traffic accidents. MADD is taking credit, and many are mindlessly giving it to them. What they don't mention is that there has been a gradual decline in ALL traffic deaths, not just "alcohol related". I bet it has more to do with anti-lock brakes, safety inspections, and air bags. The only thing MADD can rightfully take credit for is the wanton vandalism of the Bill of Rights and for inflicting chaos upon the lives of millions of drivers who have harmed no one but have nevertheless been dragged through the criminal justice system while being denied their "inalienable rights" and watching their bank accounts wiped out and placed in the hands of those who wish to rob more powerless drivers. During the past ten years, a lot of draconian laws have been passed. The drinking age has been raised from 18 to 21 (the kids are still drinking, but without any supervision - or they've turned to drugs). Have fatality rates due to drunk drivers really dropped? Nope. The general trend for all traffic deaths has gone down, due to air bags and anti-lock brakes. There is no indication that MADD's agenda has accomplished anything. Their initial mission, to remove chronic alkies from the roads, was accomplished a long time ago. Since then they have become ineffective - but they have too much money and political clout to simply fade away. So they are now into preventing "date rape", raising taxes, and supporting gun control laws - issues that have nothing to do with drunk driving.Ten thousand years ago, the discovery of the intoxicating effects of fermented barley may have motivated the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The desire for beer may have been sufficient to perpetuate a fundamental shift in human society. Our forefathers gathered at taverns where they hoisted a mug of ale and decided to fight for liberty. Drinking beer has been a benefit to society, and when they make beer drinkers into criminals (and they have done so), you are no longer living in a free country.Twenty years ago there was a group of ladies who started a group to educate the public on the dangers of drunk driving. They have evolved into a political cause hell bent on changing America's social habits. They have used flawed data and inflammatory rhetoric to achieve their goals and will continue to do so in the future. The biggest threat to this country today is social engineering, not the beer coming out of Milwaukee. If people choose not to drink then fine, but when they try to make criminals out of people who enjoy a legal and taxable product then it is time to question their credibility and that of those who support their efforts. Drunk driving - the real thing - is bad. But the "cure" has now become even worse than the disease. GATOR Tuesday, January 23
MADD Man
by
Charles Rowland
on Tue 23 Jan 2007 07:00 AM EST
Sunday, January 21
Speed Trap Exchange
by
Charles Rowland
on Sun 21 Jan 2007 05:33 PM PST
Wouldn't it be great if someone set up a web site where drivers could be warned about speed traps. Well, the national leader in motorist rights, the National Motorist Association (www.motorists.org) has done just that. Before you set out on those over-the-road vacations check out http://www.speedtrap.org/ where you can find information that may save you a hefty fine. I have been a member of the National Motorist Association for over two years. Their philosophy mirrors my own and they do a tremendous amount for American Motorists. Friday, January 19
Supreme Court Roundup
by
Charles Rowland
on Fri 19 Jan 2007 08:16 PM EST
Among the cases the Supreme Court accepted Friday: _A challenge to the prohibition in the McCain-Feingold campaign ... more »
Quote of the Week
by
Charles Rowland
on Fri 19 Jan 2007 07:35 AM EST
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
-- Emo Philips Wednesday, January 17
Fourth District Slams use of PBT as trial evidence
by
Charles Rowland
on Wed 17 Jan 2007 05:28 PM EST
The Fourth District Court of Appeals slam the use of portable breath test devices as trial evidence in State v. Shuler, 168 Ohio App.3d 183, 2006-Ohio-4336. The unique facts of this case were that the defendant was stopped on November 6, 2004 for making an erratic, improper turn. He was "asked" to leave the vehicle for submission to field sobriety tests. In addition, the officer administed a portable breath test to the defendant. The PBT result was .078 (below the legal limit). The defendant was arrested and taken to the station where the results of the BAC test were .126. Shuler argued for admission of the PBT test as evidence. The trial court denied the PBT's admission saying that the PBT devise and technology are not sufficiently reliable to be used as evidence. This should be viewed as perverse since the very same technology is often used by the courts as a basis for probable cause. See State v. Coates, Athens App. No. 01CA21, 2002-Ohio-2160, 2002 WL 851765 and State v. Gunther, Pickaway App. No. 04CA25, 2005-Ohio-3492, 2005 WL 1594836. The court stated, "PBT devices are not among those instruments listed in Ohio Adm. Code 3701-53-02 as approved evidential breath-testing instruments for determining the concentration of alcohol in the breath of individuals potentially in violation of R.C. 4511.19. PBT results are considered inherently unreliable because they may register an inaccurate percentage of alcohol present in the breath, and may also be inaccurate as to the presence or absence of any alcohol at all. See State v. Zell (Iowa App. 1992), 491 N.W.2d 196, 197. PBT devices are designed to measure the amount of certain chemicals in the subject's breath. The chemicals measured are found in consumable alcohol, but are also present in industrial chemicals and certain nonintoxicating over-the-counter medications. They may also, appear when the subject suffers from illnesses such as diabetes, acid reflux disease, or certain cancers. Even gasoline containing ethyl alcohol on a drivers clothes or hands may alter the result. Such factors can cause PBTs to register inaccurate readings such as false positives. See Tebo, New Test for DUI Defense: Advances in Technology and Stricter Laws Create Challenges for DUI Lawyers, Jan. 28, 2005, www.duicentral.com/aba_journal/. This lack of evidential reliability provides a basis for excluding PBT results from admissibility at trial. See Elyria v. Hebebrand (1993), 85 Ohio App.3d 141, 619 N.E.2d 445; State v. Kerns (1998), Van Wert App. No. 15-97-8, 1998 WL 142384. Wow, but they are still good for P.C.
Wednesday, January 10
Ohio Supreme Court to rule on police DUI testing
by
Charles Rowland
on Wed 10 Jan 2007 05:42 PM EST
COLUMBUS - The Ohio Supreme Court will decide whether police officers are allowed to stray from court rules when giving roadside sobriety tests to suspected drunken drivers. The case justices heard Tuesday challenges a 2002 law that loosened the standards for when the tests can be used as evidence at trials. The tests commonly include requiring suspects to prove their ability to walk and turn without stumbling, to stand on one leg and to smoothly move the eyes from side to side. The rules, approved by the Ohio Supreme Court, say the officers must adhere to federal standards for giving the tests, which can determine reasonable suspicion of intoxication. Instructions for breath tests are not involved in the current case before the court. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has one set of commonly used standards for how to administer the tests, which include instructions on how to "score" various tests, such as the eye movement test. The Ohio Supreme court is considering whether lawmakers overstepped their authority when saying officers only have to be in "substantial compliance" with the rules instead of following them exactly. The case testing the relaxed rules was brought by John Boczar, of Ashtabula County in northeast Ohio, who tried to keep an officer from testifying about the sobriety tests Boczar had to perform when pulled over. Boczar's attorneys argued that the officer had not strictly followed federal standards on how to conduct the tests. They claimed Ohio's law allowing officers greater leeway in conducting the tests infringed on the rights of courts to determine rules of evidence. However, a county court allowed the officer's testimony and Boczar pleaded no contest to a charge of driving while intoxicated. The court said the new Ohio law gives a judge leeway in determining whether an arresting officer followed the rules when conducting roadside tests. The 11th Ohio District Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. Ohio's law grew out of a 2000 Ohio Supreme Court decision that threw out the conviction of a woman who claimed arresting officers did not strictly follow the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rules for conducting roadside sobriety tests. Justice Paul Pfeifer was among the justices who voted to throw out the 2000 case because the prosecution wavered from the strict adherence to testing guidelines. He said lawmakers crossed the line in allowing the adherence to be weakened. "The General Assembly crowded in on this court's rule-making duty," Pfeifer said. Sponsors of the law said it was needed because the standards for the tests were too strict and made it too easy for the courts to prevent prosecutors from using sobriety tests at trial. The Ohio law permits judges to allow evidence if the officer conducted the tests in "substantial compliance" with the federal rules or other recognized standards but does not spell out what "substantial" means.
Tuesday, January 9
Notes on Neo-Prohibition
by
Charles Rowland
on Tue 09 Jan 2007 09:46 PM EST
In a Pew poll in 2001, 74% of Americans believe the "War on Drugs" is a failure. The news media ... more »
Challenging the Breath Test (Part IV)
by
Charles Rowland
on Tue 09 Jan 2007 07:00 AM EST
External alcohol or other substances such as solvents, cleaning fluids, police car exhaust fumes, or other agents may interfere with the test results. There are thousands of sources of alcohol that may potentially contaminate the air in the room. Modern machines try to eliminate this defense by testing the room air in what is referred to as the "ambient air" or "air-blank" tests. The machine must read a 0.000 to show that the air is clean prior to the test and that the sample chamber is purged of alcohol vapors. If the amount of ambient alcohol exceeds a "significantly detectable level" on the BAC DataMaster it will produce a "Blank Error" status message. Usually this is done by comparing the current blank test with the last blank test and measuring any difference. According to the manufacturer of the BAC DataMaster, "[t]he blank test should be able to return within .003 of the last blank reading." Did your officer apply lotion and/or alcohol based hand santizer prior to the test? Did the cleaning lady at the police station clean with an alcohol based cleaner? This may be a basis for suppression.
Monday, January 8
300 Broward DUI cases could be tossed out
by
Charles Rowland
on Mon 08 Jan 2007 03:49 PM EST
BY NATALIE P. McNEALnmcneal@MiamiHerald.comAbout 300 drunk driving cases in Broward County could be thrown out, following a state appellate court ruling that improper maintenance of the alcohol breath-test machines renders the results inadmissible. The Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld a judge's ruling to toss out Intoxilyzer results in a DUI case because the machine had been tested with tap water instead of distilled water. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement requires that the breath-test machines use distilled water. Defense attorneys argued that tap water may skew results. Both the Broward Sheriff's Office and Davie police department used tap water to test the machines. Tuesday, January 2
Getting Rid of the Death Penalty in NJ?
by
Charles Rowland
on Tue 02 Jan 2007 09:25 PM EST
Today, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, set up by the legislature, issued its report recommending that the sentence be ... more »
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There is no right or wrong way to drink Scotch whisky - it's all down to personal taste at the end of the day. However, here are a few suggestions: