Stephen Cobb's Personal Blog

U. S. Sentencing Commission Considers Shortening Terms for Imprisoned Crack Offenders

Good article here on the debate about the U. S. Sentencing Commission considering shortening terms for imprisoned crack offenders. This may be the end of one of the most obvious forms of institutionalized racism in America. Consider this congressionally imposed rule:

"The mere possession of five grams of crack cocaine requires a court to impose a minimum term of five years' imprisonment, regardless of mitigating factors that may be present in the case. In contrast, the possession with intent to distribute 500 grams of powder cocaine is required to trigger the five-year mandatory minimum."

So white folks who do powder get to slide, while black folks who do crack get serious jail time. Hello? Crack IS cocaine. This is discrimination, pure and simple. The good news is that things may be changing. Too bad about all those families ripped apart by this late twentieth century incarnation of the Jim Crow mentality.

Intellectual Property Inanity: Genes, Surnames, Our Past

I've just finished reading Michael Crichton's Next, a hoot of a book that totally skewers the patenting of genes (along with a lot of other harmful trends in scientific and medical research). He makes a convincing case for ending the patenting of genes and a lot of other naturally occuring material. As the strangely inspired judge states toward the end of the book:

Another Dependable Author: Cruz Smith and Stalin's Ghost

Just got the latest Martin Cruz Smith novel: Stalin's Ghost. This is another in the Arkady Renko series and as good as any of the others, all the way back to Gorky Park. I don't know how Smith does it, but he captures the essence of Russia time and again, over time, as the country has emerged from the Cold War to its current state of nationalist resurgence.

Is the Russia that Smith describes the real Russia? Well, between the previous installment, Wolves Eat Dogs, and Stalin's Ghost, I was fortunate enough to spend about a week in Moscow. Everything I experienced there meshed perfectly with the Moscow that Arkady inhabits in this latest installment. (I only wish I had used the metro while I was there--you'll understand when you read the book).

So my guess is that all the other Arkady Renko novels are equally realistic. Each captures a part of the Russian reality, not the whole story, but enough to give you a lot more insight into the country and its people that many history books and documentaries. And they are enjoyable books, dependably tense, full of surprises, and the persistence of Arkady, a character who seems to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune despite himself and his utter lack of respect for [illegitimate] authority.

GWMO Saga: We make it to Nashville (promise we won't sing)

Tuesday morning was wait-and-see time in our Fairfield Inn hotel room in Centerville, Ohio. Waiting for the phone to ring and Jim, the service manager at Planet Ford, to say "Your vehicle is ready." Jim called before noon. He said the necessary belts had been ordered and we would be ready to go by about 5PM for an estimated $450. We took Jim at his word and checked out of the hotel. We headed to a nearby Starbucks. Layla wore her Service Dog outfit and behaved wonderfully, as usual.

Layla

We nursed several lattes and cappucinos for several hours. I finished reading the truly awesome 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Just as I have suspected for years, the Americas were full of people before they came into contact with Europeans, people who had been taking care of these two continents for centuries, from the woods of New England to the Amazon delta. Makes me very hesitant to call St. Augustine the oldest city without some serious qualifications.

Before buying the Great White Mobile Office, seen in the background of the picture above, and discussed at length in other posts, I had not really thought about the problems of recovering such vehicles when they go astray, or just won't go. This recovery vehicle was capable of lifting 80.000 points, a lot more than the 18,000 gross vehicle weight of the office. Operating one of these recovery trucks is obviously an art. And when you need one there is no substitute. So we were grateful to Sandy's Towing of Moraine/Dayton for sending one out so quickly, and to Richard, the operator, who came up with an ingenious solution to our immediate problem of how to get the GW to Planet Ford.

The [Great White Mobile] Office Saga: Part Deux, Ohio here I/we come

...we join the story in progress...Stephen has won the bidding on a 35 foot long mobile classroom that was up for sale on eBay, allegedly built in 1987, supposedly equipped with a 460 Ford engine , and less than 1800 miles on the clock. He plans to use it as an office in New York but first has to get the thing from Ohio to Florida where he will equip it...

Landed late in Columbus. Met by anxious Pastor Dan who drove me to the church parking lot in Urbana where the thing has been sitting. Looked it over best I could in the intermittent rain. Dan was keen to get to the Friday night high school football game that was in progress nearby [apparently attended by a huge crowd--cheers and band noise could easily be heard several miles away--the type of high school game where the ball is dropped from a helicopter].

I handed over a banker's check and...

Skybus Delivers: Cheap seats and relatively few hassles

Looking for the quickest and cheapest way to get from St. Augustine, Florida, to Columbus, Ohio? Skybus is answer. Could also be the answer if you are going between any two of these places: Skybus routes

Ten seats on every flight are sold for only $10. The rest cost more as plane fills up. I tried them out for the first time on Friday, to make the trip from Florida to Ohio to collect the Great White Office. I paid $90 including all fees, taxes, government surcharges, etc. That was at least $40 less than any other commercial flight I could find from Jacksonville, and this plane left from St Johns County airport just 3 miles and a cheap cab ride from my house, as opposed to 50 minutes and a $45 fare to JAX. To book...

The [Great White Mobile] Office Saga: An idea, an auction, a leap of faith

Once upon a time we lived in Florida and it was good. In fact, the living in Florida still is good. But a few years ago we found a magic valley in the North, in a state called New York, a hidden place peopled by cool folk and planted with many crops and trees. We bought a house on a hill there and it was good to visit. Then we thought, wouldn't it be nice to live here most of the time?

But there are some things lacking in our house on the hill, and I'm not just talking about no fibre optic net connection. There is no office space for my office stuff. There is a single car garage that would make a nice office but that would take a fair amount of professional contract work to convert, work I might not be there to oversee. So I thought, what about those offices they have on construction sites? And that's how we got into this... The [Great White] Mobile Office

UK Land Registry Axes Online Deeds

Good example of the downside of accessibility as UK Land Registry ends online access to deeds. Relates to something I long ago term the J. J. Gittes Dilemma, after the 1930s Los Angeles private detective immortalized by Jack Nicholson in the 1974 classic "Chinatown." It takes Jake Gittes several days and several beatings to uncover a land fraud which would--arguably--take just a few hours or even minutes to uncover on the Internet today. On the other hand, the expansion of freedom of access to 'public' records

One could argue, as I am inclined to do, that the need to access some records in person, or in writing, or through licensed channels, is not an undue hindrance to access. I have yet to find a single state official who can justify making details of my property ownership in Florida available to anyone, in any country, at any time, for any reason, with no fee, process of authorization, or record of access, which is the current state of affairs.

(I'm not even sure there are any state officials who realize that a. this is the state of affairs they have created and b. it is a problem.)