Movie Review: ANNIHILATION (2018)

As those who know me in real life know, I sometimes criticize Hollywood for its lack of originality and propensity for remakes. So when Hollywood makes something original--okay, this is an adaptation of the science fiction novel by Jeff VanderMeer rather than a purely original work--it's important to support it in order to encourage more of them.

So last week I saw the film Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman. How was it? Find out...

The Plot

College professor Lena (Natalie Portman) is grieving for her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), who has been sent on a covert military operation and has gone missing. Her grief is soon interrupted by his sudden reappearance at their home. He can't remember very much and soon begins suffering from a mysterious illness. On the way to the hospital, their ambulance is ambushed by some Men In Black types, who take Lena and Kane to a mysterious base.

It turns out Kane had volunteered for a mission into a mysterious "Area X" in western Florida where an alien presence from a fallen meteor has spread throughout the nearby land--and is threatening to spread into inhabited areas. Nobody who has been sent to explore the afflicted area has ever returned--except for Kane, and nobody is sure how. Another team, consisting of Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), and Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), is being prepped to enter Area X, and Lena persuades them to allow her to accompany them, citing her experiences in the military and as a biologist. The clock is ticking with Kane apparently dying, and Lena wants answers.

They pass through the mysterious "Shimmer" bounding the area to find a place where time flows differently and where the plants and animals are being mutated by alien forces. It's a place of beauty and horror and as the women go deeper, things get weirder and the body count rises.

The Good

*The movie is never boring. There were a couple moments where I was tempted to look at my watch, but I never did so. That's pretty rare these days. It moves along at a quick clip and between the beauty and the creepy (I'll get to both of these later), there's always something to grab and hold your attention.

*There's a lot of well-done subtext, including depicting two characters' fraying romance by showing their reading choices--one is reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the other is reading a magazine.

*The acting, particularly by Portman and Rodriguez, is really good. Although everybody in the group goes into Area X armed, Portman, playing an actual veteran, shows that she knows what she's doing with her weapon. There's a sexual scene partway through the film where she does a good job conveying her conflict and feelings--or lack thereof--as well. I have never heard myself or anybody else discussing acting during a sex scene of all things. And as they go deeper into Area X, Rodriguez gets convincingly scarier.

*Hollywood's depiction of women is so hit-and-miss that the Bechdel Test was invented to analyze it. The film's main cast is almost entirely female, several of them are scientists, and they go into Area X on a scientific mission, so it passes the test with flying colors.

*The film is visually beautiful. The realm within the shimmer is full of color and strange life, all of which is very well-done. It gets downright psychedelic at times. The "Shimmer" has engulfed formerly inhabited areas--someone's small house by the lake and an old military base--and seeing what happens when nature reclaims human works is pretty interesting in and of itself.

*The visuals of the film convey grossness and horror as readily as beauty. I'm not going to be specific to avoid ruining anything for anybody, but there're some truly squicky bits in the videos left by previous expeditions that the women find, as well as when they find the previous expedition's members. One of the mutated creatures of Area X is quite scary, and when it opens its mouth and starts making noise, it sounds disturbing.

Seriously, the art director, cinematographer, and special effects people need to earn some awards for this.

*The ending is rather ambiguous. I'm not going to go any farther for reasons of spoilers, but it's something that can certainly generate conversation.

The Bad

*There are some moments of weak dialogue that's too on-the-nose and doesn't sound like how people actually talk. For example, a character is cheating with another and one of them asks if the other's spouse, "knows of our affair." It'd be more realistic if the character asks if the wrong spouse knows "about us" or if they "know." That bit was so poorly written that I was all, "Huh?" right in the middle of the movie.

*Sometimes the sound is too loud. The music, though it's important in making the film as trippy and mind-bending as it is, is sometimes overpowering.

*During the climax, some of the more energetic manifestations of the Shimmer look a little too obviously CGI.

The Verdict

I doubt I'll see it a second time, at least anytime soon, but it's a very weird and well-done movie. I strongly recommend seeing it, not only because it's good but because it'll encourage more book adaptations and original material from the Powers That be. 9.0 out of 10.

Blast from the Past Movie Review: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

As part of the introduction of a spin-off podcast focusing on the James Bond films, Myopia: Defend Your Childhood is doing an episode on the science fiction film The X-Files: Fight The Future based on the hit FOX television series. I was a major fan of the show when I was in later middle and early high school, so this was definitely a childhood favorite. Here's the podcast. And now for the review...

The Plot

FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) have been reassigned from their usual job of investigating the X-Files (unexplained FBI cases involving the paranormal) to investigate a bomb threat against a federal building in Dallas. At the same time, a young boy in Texas discovers a cave with the skeleton of a Paleo-Indian who'd died in combat with an extraterrestrial...and the aliens' nefarious mind-controlling black oil. It turns out the bomb threat and the cave's contents are related, and our favorite FBI agents find themselves once more locking horns with the nefarious Syndicate and mastermind The Cigarette-Smoking Man...

The Good

*The opening scene where a pair of Paleo-Indians hunt down an extraterrestrial in Ice Age Texas was awesome when I saw it nearly twenty years ago and it was still a lot of fun. As Nick pointed out, this was before CGI became so all-encompassing. That's a real alien there, not a video-game creation. And the cave-men display some tactical sense--they're fighting an enemy with gigantic eyes in the dark, so they use their torches to disorient and blind it.

*There are some really good character moments. One of the most entertaining moments is Scully (a medical doctor) diagnosing her own symptoms as she goes into anaphylactic shock after getting stung by a bee. When we first see Mulder and Scully, their bantering shows a lot of what we need to know about them as people. We don't need to be told much if anything. And Mulder makes a great speech to Scully at one point.

*Per the above, the film was designed to appeal to those who weren't already X-Files fans. Mulder's back-story comes out in a drunken rant in a bar, for example.

*We learn some interesting stuff about the aliens and the Syndicate. I won't give away a lot of information for spoilery reasons, but there is a quote from The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien I found appropriate: "It is difficult with these evil folk to know when they are in league, and when they are cheating one another."

*The movie is very 1990s. There are references to the Waco siege and the Ruby Ridge shootings. The Dallas bomb-threat is very reminiscent of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing in terms of both concept and visuals. I remember reading somewhere that the government conspiracies, aliens, etc. were what filled the gap between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the War on Terror and that's plain here. There're even references to the dangerous African "killer bees" and the all-powerful Federal Emergency Management Agency (here're some comments on FEMA from a conspiracist POV) that are very 1990s. Heck, the movie even has a character refer to FEMA as "the secret government."

*There's a really good cliffhanger "WHAM!" moment I did not see coming. Bravo.

The Bad

*If the aliens that the Syndicate is working with are that old and powerful, why the need for the conspiracy in the first place? The British were only a few thousand years' more advanced in terms of technology and organization than the Stone Age aborigines of Australia and they didn't need indigenous proxies to work for decades to prepare the way for them. They just swept in, took the lands they wanted, and wiped out most of the natives in the process. To cite the Dalek from Dr. Who, a conflict between them and us would not be war, but pest control. There's an in-universe explanation involving the leverage the early Syndicate had, but given the back-story revealed for the aliens, I don't think that would work.

*To that end, it would have been better if the prologue took place in the 19th Century or early 20th Century, using Comanche Indians or cowboys instead of cave-men. This would show the alien colonization scheme was only a few decades or a century old. The aliens would be a powerful and dangerous opponent, but weak enough that they couldn't just sweep right in and take over.

*Mulder manages to get to Antarctica at one point in 48 hours. That seems to be pushing it, especially given how he's likely being watched. It would have been better if the events in Antarctica took place in, say, Canada. It would be closer to the Syndicate's North American center of power and wouldn't take as long to get there. Mulder wouldn't need to buy plane tickets or anything else that could give away his location--just drive there.

*When a Syndicate base is collapsing, one of the minions asks about Mulder. Why do they even care about him? He's their enemy and the only reason he isn't dead is because he has allies with leverage on the Syndicate (I think in one episode Assistant FBI Director Walter Skinner tells The Cigarette-Smoking Man that if anything happens to Mulder, some damaging information is getting released) or because they don't want to make him a martyr ("kill Mulder and we take the risk of turning one man's quest into a crusade"). Him getting killed in a way that doesn't look like a murder would be good for their plans.

*A character is shot in the head at one point (but not lethally). We only see the wound intermittently.

*There's a scene that I described as "the alien water-slide of doom" that should break a character's legs (or at least hurt him rather badly), but it really doesn't.

The Verdict

It's an entertaining film that you should go see, especially since they're reviving the series. 8.5 out of 10.

A Former Soviet Solution To Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem throughout the world.  Overuse of antibiotics, especially pre-emptively soaking animals in them or people badgering doctors into prescribing them antibiotics for viral infections (which cannot be treated by antibiotics) or other issues, has led to many diseases becoming resistant to more and more antibiotics.  People taking them until they feel better and then stopping is also a major problem.

Here're some links showing just how dire the situation is.

Drug-resistant "white plague" lurks among the rich and poor

Health chief warns age of safe medicine is ending

In our globalized world, foolish antibiotic policies in India have led to antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis strains in Britain. An antibiotic-resistant bacteria that gets on an airplane could well trigger another pandemic.  Tuberculosis was the 19th Century's version of AIDS--compare the musical Rent and the opera La Boheme.  I remember reading about immigrant screening at Ellis Island and how people who had tuberculosis were turned away.  Thanks to human foolishness, an older killer has undergone a not-so-glorious resurrection.

A member of my alternate-history forum whose name is Jello Biafra said in the former Soviet bloc, bacteriophages were used for decades as an alternative to antibiotics.  Basically a bacteriophage is a virus that kills bacteria.

Here's an article about how there's research into bacteriophages capable of killing MRSA, which is a very dangerous disease.

British biotech boasts antibiotic breakthrough

The article on phage therapy describes many hurdles to use of bacteriophages.  The most aggravating of these, and the one most easily dealt with, is regulatory.  The FDA is apparently very reluctant to approve such things, and given how individualized the treatment is, it might be necessary under current law for the FDA to approve each and every individual treatment.  That would be bloody absurd.

The FDA should lower the regulatory barriers to bacteriophage research.  In fact, given the lack of interest in the private sector in researching bacteriophages for various reasons, it might be prudent for the FDA to fund the research.   I generally favor small-government solutions to problems, but if there's market failure going on and the stakes are this high, it's time to be pragmatic.  An antibiotic-resistant pandemic could kill tens of millions, while fear of such could throw a wrench into the globalized economy that has helped contribute to a generally-peaceful world.

(Per my comment about Ellis Island, imagine if it became necessary to screen travelers from India for super-tuberculosis.  Heck, imagine if it became neccesary to quarantine India entirely.  That would be a very bad situation.)

An Idea for a Left-Wing Techno-Thriller

On my message-board this morning, a Turkish (I think) member posted the following link.

"China worried by U.S. Revolt."

Apparently the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, despite its rather small size, has gotten the attention of the Chinese government.  Although the Chinese government hasn't claimed it's an incipient sign of proletarian revolution or something like that--this isn't the 1960s anymore--they are actually endorsing the protesters.  They make the claim that if the problems the protesters are pointing out aren't dealt with, things would get worse.

However, someone on the board seized on some Iranian officer's comparison of "Occupy Wall Street" to the Arab Spring and suggested a scenario for a bad techno-thriller--the Chinese militarily intervene in the United States to stop the "American Spring," much like how the Soviets intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia to maintain Communist rule in Eastern Europe.

That gave me an idea for the rarest of all beasts--a left-wing technothriller.

Imagine a world where the United States, due to irresponsible spending, is extremely, EXTREMELY indebted to China, much more so than today.  The United States government has radically cut services and raised taxes severely, in order to pay off its foreign debt.

When protests break out and the U.S. is unable or unwilling to contain them, the Chinese intervene militarily...

(Let's say for the sake of the argument this is in the distant future where the Chinese are capable of a trans-Pacific invasion or it's more subtle, like importing Chinese police and soldiers to crush dissent in the same way the Iranian government has used foreign enforcers to crush the "Green Revolution.")

Ironically, this kind of thing has happened before, albeit typically a long time ago.  Various European powers occupied Mexico during the U.S. Civil War due to non-payment of debts, while the first U.S. military interventions in Latin America were designed to forestall such things.

More recently, due to massive Third World debt and consequent structural adjustment that leads to cutting education and the like in Third World countries, there have been calls by people like Bono of U2 for debt-forgiveness.

An overt Chinese military intervention to ensure debt payments continue is much more severe than anything done by the West in recent years, but it might take something more severe to make people think.  The "Republic of Gilead" depicted in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was far more monstrous than any realistic overreach of the American Religious Right would be, but I think Atwood's goal was to make a point, not depict a realistic American theocracy.

I've got enough on my plate these days, so I'm not going to be writing this.  If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, have at it.  Although the economics involved are rather left-wing, the fact it involves the invasion of the U.S. by a nominally Communist power with the stated aim of repressing its population for the invaders' economic benefit, a publisher of "right-wing gun porn" might actually be interested in it. 

Acknowledgement of where the idea came from would be nice...

Two More MARTA Columns

As the saga of the Metro Atlanta TSPLOST comes down to the wire, I figured it would appropriate to post the other columns I wrote as editor of The Johns Creek Herald.

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-07-12-188183.114126-sub-Local-MARTA-expansion-should-be-supported.html

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-07-26-188416.114126-sub-Compromise-key-to-successful-transportation-tax.html

Since I wrote these columns, things have changed.  Here's the project list as of a few days ago, the one the executive committee wasn't able to cut down to the proper size.

http://www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com/docs/Project_List_for_08-11-11_EC_Meeting.pdf

Now for some commentary, which might appear in a later column:

I'm rather leery of some of the transit projects not being fully funded.  Although the roundtable folk seem to think they'll be able to get matching funds from elsewhere (read: the federal government), given the financial problems in Washington these days, I don't think that money is coming.  It would be better to fully fund every project, even if that means reducing the total number of projects, rather than relying on outside help that may never come.

Especially foolish is providing only two-thirds of the Clifton Corridor cost.  The top end cost of extending MARTA to Emory University and the CDC, which would be a most worthy project, is $1.5 billion.  What good is half a rail line?  If they do it on the cheap, I fear they might simply create a rapid bus line instead of a heavy rail line.  Assuming they build a new road or lane rather than adding buses to the already-congested areas around Emory, buses would still need to be fueled, each bus would need drivers, and although I haven't used MARTA buses, based on what others have said I think they're slower than the trains and their service isn't as good.

And then there's the I-20 East extension in which they budgeted only one-third of the cost.  That's even worse, since there's no alternative to the trains in the area I can think of.

Although I know due to the context Jesus is talking about the cost of discipleship, I'm still reminded of the unfinished tower in Luke 14:28-30:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?  Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, `This man began to build, and was not able to finish.'

Luckily the list the executive committee puts together Monday (hopefully) isn't the end of the story.  When the list goes before the full roundtable, the officials can alter it as they see fit.  The final list isn't due until October.

On the bright side, maybe not budgeting all the money could provide an incentive to get things done under budget?  Just so long as it's not done shoddily, putting lives at risk...

My (First) MARTA Column

Now that Sunday alcohol sales (see my "Will to Power" post) is done with, I've been in need of a new topic to write column after column about.

And so I found it--the transportation one-percent tax, or as I've always called it, the TSPLOST.

(For those of you who aren't from Georgia, a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax or SPLOST is a one-percent sales tax implemented for a limited time to pay for certain projects, like a new government building or a land-purchase.)

Here's my first column:

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-06-28-188000.114126-sub-Expansion-of-rail-beneficial-for-the-state.html

When I was in Griffin, I did some state-level stories about the passage of the TSPLOST, which took multiple legislative sessions, as well as the Atlanta-Macon passenger rail line that was on the unconstrained project list and was a topic of political debate in Griffin and Spalding County's local government.

However, Matt Schafer pointed out in a Facebook discussion that expanding MARTA northward would be more effective than the Atlanta-Macon line in getting commuters off the roads and after some thinking, I've come to believe he's correct.  The Atlanta-Macon line would take care of people commuting from the southside, but I think there are more commuters coming from the north.  Plus expanding the MARTA Red Line north would be within one county (Fulton) and not be so difficult politically, unlike a multi-county Atlanta-Macon line.

I concede MARTA does have some issues that would make suburbanites leery of it coming to their county, but I think that would be more applicable to Cobb and Gwinnett, which historically rejected MARTA, than to North Fulton, whose residents already pay the MARTA tax but have to drive down to North Springs to actually use the train.  Plus MARTA's own leadership wants their agency merged into a wider Metro Atlanta transit entity--an entity including the other counties' transit systems (like Cobb's bus line) might be more effective and more palatable to voters and taxpayers.

I've written a second column about the first wave of cuts to the unconstrained project list.  I'll post it here when it goes live, probably this coming Tuesday.

The voters will approve the regional sales tax in 2012, but the final project list must be completed by August 15 of this year.  I think I'll be flacking for rail expansion all summer long.

A Proposal to Keep Cobb's Libraries Safe...

Recently, I got quite a scare.  Cobb County, where I grew up, was considering closing most of its library system in order to fill a $31.5 million budget gap.

Proposed Cobb budget plan would close most libraries, slightly increase taxes

(Luckily, the Cobb government found a way to keep the libraries open, although cutting public-safety was not the ideal way to do it.)

Given I spent many hours haunting the now-closed Merchant's Walk Library (replaced by a new library nearby) and the Mountain View library that would have survived even if the cuts were implemented, this was not something I liked at all.

And cutting libraries is a bad idea for more than just personal reasons.  Given how job applications are increasingly becoming online-only, libraries provide the major opportunity for people who don't have computers (or who have dumped their Internet connections to cut costs) to apply for jobs.  The unemployed finding jobs means tax revenue and consumer spending, which means more tax revenue.  If the county government made it more difficult for those without home computers to find jobs, it would be shooting itself in the foot.

Furthermore, libraries provide a ready source for books for students in the local schools, who will need to use them for required-reading assignments and research for their papers.  This is especially applicable to poorer students who may not have lots of books at home or Internet access and who might not have ready access to a car to get them to a farther-away library.

And finally, libraries provide major opportunities for those who seek to learn outside of school.  I learned a colossal amount of things I would never have learned otherwise if I did not have access to the library system.  Over the years, I probably read thousands of books.  And this wasn't just for pure entertainment or the joy of learning--many of those books had to do with improving my personal writing.  The document "General Writing Tips" on my computer is full of bits of useful advice I'd gotten from books I would not have even known existed if I hadn't gone wandering the shelves--it's a file I really should read more regularly.

Without the library system, I would have never reached my full potential.  And I had parents who cared a great deal about my education and put a whole lot of effort into it--when I was very young, my mother read to me an hour per day.  Someone not similarly blessed would be in need of the library system even more.

Now, libraries are government programs and require tax monies to sustain them.  As a conservative/Libertarian, I'm not a fan of high taxes and generally believe low taxes promote economic growth.

(And lest anyone start, Reagan and Bush 2.0 both spent colossal sums, the former on the military expansion that pressed the Soviets so and Social Security and the latter on the Iraq War, which was truly a massive drain.  The fact both ran up deficits does not disprove supply-side economics, since both were big spenders.  If a tightwad president still ran deficits under a low-tax regime, THEN the anti-supply-siders would have a much stronger point.)

I will admit, there comes a point when taxes are too low to gather the necessary revenue--the far left end of the Laffer Curve.  Although I lived in Cobb County most of my life, I'm not familiar with the tax rates so I cannot comment intelligently on whether or not they're too high or too low.

However, there's a way to increase Cobb County's income without raising taxes per se.

House gives final approval to Sunday alcohol sales bill

According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, allowing Sunday alcohol sales could raise $3.4 million to $4.8 million for the state of Georgia.  The AJC quoted the group's vice-president, Ben Jenkins, as saying this was "state tax revenues."  This means there are additional monies to be had for local governments too, on top of the money going to Atlanta.


If Cobb County were to legalize Sunday alcohol sales, it would raise additional funds.  I don't know how much, since I am not familiar with how alcohol is taxed, but in these economic times, every little bit of extra money helps.  Legalizing Sunday alcohol sales would provide additional revenue for the county to provide needed services--not just libraries, but others as well.


I no longer live in Cobb County, so my voice would carry less weight than those living there still.  Those of who do live in Cobb County, if you could contact the county commissioners with this suggestion, it would be very helpful for the long-term future of your community.

Mitch Daniels: A Good Republican Choice for 2012

I've been pondering the possible Republican nominees for 2012 and here are some thoughts:

Firstly, a candidate who is too socially-conservative is not going to be a contender nationally.  Although I admit a bias against social-conservatism-as-government-policy, it's not just my personal distaste coming into play here.  American demographic trends are against social-conservatism.

http://nationaljournal.com/magazine/u-s-transforming-into-majority-minority-nation-faster-than-expected-20110331

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/pew_research_center_values.php?nr=1

And those are just magazine articles.  The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South also corroborate this position.

Huckabee, Palin, etc. will probably win the South and Midwest, but they will probably lose urban areas and due to increasing urbanization in the United States, they will be doomed.  Look at Clinton's 1996 victory-map--Dole won the "heartland" and still lost.  Bush nearly did so in 2000 and McCain did lose in 2008.

Now, this does not mean I am suggesting the nominee not be socially-conservative personally.  A president who lives their values as opposed to paying lip service to them while violating them in private (Gingrich and Vitter come to mind) would be much better for the cause of social-conservatism than trying to use the government to impose these values on a society that increasingly rejects them and provoking a backlash.

Secondly, Republicans should nominate a candidate who can be taken seriously.  It is very hard for me to take Sarah Palin and Donald Trump seriously as politicians due to them being reality-TV stars, despite other accomplishments they may have had.

(I'm thinking more about Trump when I say that, although I'm not going to hate on Palin as being a "quitter" like some leftists will.  She quit because defending herself against her political enemies' lawsuits cost the state money--the same people calling her "quitter" are the ones whose behavior led to her resignation in the first place.  My beef with Palin has to do with her misreading part of the health-care bill and getting the "death panels" meme started.  If that comes out in a debate, she's dog meat.)

Furthermore, Trump is a Birther or is at least pandering to them with his "I'm sending investigators to Hawaii" routine.  I don't think conspiracy-theorists are going to do well in the general election--look at how people look down at the John Birch Society, for example.

Also, the candidate should not be too inexperienced.  I rather like Bobby Jindal, but I don't think he's experienced enough quite yet.

Right now, I'm thinking Mitch Daniels would be the best candidate.  As governor, he turned around the financial situation of the state of Indiana and his call for a truce on social issues should help make him more electable at the national level.  I notice some similarities with Ron Paul, although Daniels seems to support the drug war (he cites his own arrest for smoking weed as a college student as a good thing, or at least he did in 1989).

Getting him through the Republican primaries, however, could be rather problematic.  The "truce on social issues" thing has already gotten a lot of people upset.

In Support of the Bahraini Protesters...

Hosni Mubarak has been removed from power and the Egyptian military is overseeing reforms in the county's corrupt, schlerotic government (I hope), but here's something else potentially going wrong in the Middle East.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12471243

Bahrain is a largely Shi'a state ruled over by a Sunni royal family who employs foreign thugs to keep their people down.  It's also home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

There are Egypt-style protests brewing there that may well bring down the monarchy just like the Egyptian protesters brought down Mubarak.

There's one key difference though--the presence of a militarily-powerful neighbor that doesn't want its own oppressed masses getting ideas.  And I'm not talking about Iran, although that designation certainly applies.  I'm talking about our "friends" the Saudis.  The BBC article suggests the Saudis might intervene militarily if the al-Khalifa family looks like it's losing control of Bahrain, much like how the Soviets intervened in Hungary to crush the rebellion that had thrown out their Communist puppet government in 1956.

I hope Barack Obama tells the al-Sauds to keep their oppressive, terrorist-enabling fingers off Bahrain.  If the U.S. doesn't want a Saudi military intervention in Bahrain, it's not going to happen.  A long causeway connects Bahrain to the Saudi mainland and anything on that causeway is vulnerable to aerial and naval attack.  If we don't want Saudi troops crossing the causeway, they're not crossing the causeway.

I'm sure certain parties are going to go on about the dangers of radical Islam in this situation, with Iran standing in for the Muslim Brotherhood, but that would be rather foolish.  Based on the slogans the BBC is reporting, this is a non-sectarian popular uprising, not an Islamist one.

The only way terrorists will benefit from this is if the Bahraini monarchy or the Saudis crush the uprising and it appears the U.S. supported or allowed it to happen.  Then Osama bin Laden and his ilk will have a field day recruiting people who will be very upset at the United States and its allied regimes.

However, if the U.S. tells the Saudis to keep out and the Bahraini monarchy falls, something tells me that will generate a lot of good press for the United States among the Bahraini public and in the wider Middle East.

In Support of the Egyptian Protesters...

We're now several days into the protests in Egypt and things are not looking good for President Hosni Mubarak's semi-dictatorship.  The ruling party's headquarters in Cairo has been looted and set on fire, police stations have been looted of arms, some policemen have defected to the protesters, and the soldiers seem remarkably unenthusiastic about restoring order--they're letting protesters climb around on their vehicles. Mubarak has demanded his Cabinet resign, I imagine throwing them to the wolves to protect his own skin.

On Neal Boortz this morning, Boortz and a caller who was a Navy vet discussed how they think the fall of Mubarak could lead to the takeover of the country by Islamist theocrats and this new regime would control the Suez Canal, "the most important waterway in the world."

However, it seems to me the Muslim Brotherhood has mellowed since the days when they assassinated Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who signed the peace treaty with Israel as part of the Camp David Accords.  If I recall correctly, they even have representatives in Egypt's parliament and have denounced al Qaeda and been denounced in return.

This CNN link indicates that the Brotherhood is weakened and hasn't been involved in the protests.  This MSNBC link quotes the protestors' Facebook page describing their demands.  Basically they want to be rid of Mubarak and his son, whom he wants to succeed him North Korea-style, have free elections, and end the state of emergency that has been used to justify repression of dissent and judicial torture.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a more detailed article about the protestors' demands, but I cannot find it right now.

The link also describes the protests as including both Christians and Muslims and rich and poor.  One Muslim man tried to shout an Islamist slogan and was hushed up by the protesters, indicating that most of them aren't interested in a theocracy.

This link indicates the protests are about freedom and democracy, something we as Americans should get behind. U.S. President Barack Obama has told Mubarak not to order the protests crushed and I think the $1.5 billion per year the U.S. has been paying Egypt since the Camp David Accords were signed is at risk.  Good for him.  If the U.S. is seen as backing a corrupt, oppressive regime in this time of crisis and said regime falls, it will give "street cred" to the most anti-American elements of Mubarak's opposition.  And that, controlling the Suez Canal, is not something we can afford.

Hopefully Mubarak, like the ruler of Tunisia and his mafia-like family, can take the hint and scram.  One of the links mentions several limousines went to the airport and several private jets took off afterward, so perhaps the rats are abandoning the sinking ship.

Go freedom!

More Tuscon Shooting Aftershocks...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/peter-king-strict-gun-control_n_807323.html

Now this is interesting.  U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) would like to introduce a bill that would forbid bringing a gun within 1,000 feet of a government official.  He's a Republican, which makes him somewhat different from most gun-control supporters.  I don't know enough about him to make a judgment call on what sort of Republican he is, so I'll restrict my commentary to the proposed bill.

I assume since the article refers to "carrying" a gun, this wouldn't mean those who keep guns at home wouldn't need to remove them if a politician came to their neighborhood.

However, this law wouldn't have stopped Loughner from perpetrating his rampage.  He was already intending to commit murder, which is already illegal.  It would only deter law-abiding citizens from bringing their guns within 1,000 feet of certain officials, which would mean the only one at a future assassination attempt who is armed is the criminal.

(Now, you could say this would avoid the police accidentally shooting an armed citizen trying to stop the would-be assassin, and I will concede that.  However, there have been incidents, like the Pearl High School shooting in Mississippi in 1997, in which armed bystanders have subdued attackers before they can do more damage, so this solution too has its problems.)

Also, is it reasonable to expect those who openly carry guns or have concealed-carry permits to call ahead everywhere they go, lest a politician be there?  That strikes me as an unreasonable infringement on the rights of those who carry guns.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2041448,00.html

I dislike the title, since not all mentally-ill people are potential mass-murderers and therefore shouldn't be denied their right to bear arms, but the article made a really good point.

However, the article does have a solution to the problem that isn't knee-jerk idiocy like the measures proposed in the last blog entry I wrote or the non-solution I mentioned earlier in this one.  Pushing the states to make sure that people who, due to dangerous mental illness (not PTSD or Asperger's Syndrome, but something like Loughner's or the Virginia Tech shooter's) are on the lists of people who cannot legally buy guns and that these lists can be checked by gun salesmen is an actual solution to the problem.

That is the sort of reform that should be implemented, not banning everybody from purchasing high-capacity magazines, using crosshairs in political imagery, or carrying guns within a fifth of a mile (roughly) of a politician.

Political Hay-Making Attempts from the Tucson Shooting Have Begun

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html

The attempts to exploit the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for political ends has already begun.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who first ran for political office after the death of her husband and injury of her son during a shooting, announced she will introduce legislation intended to target high-capacity magazines.

In support of this measure, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) said the following, according to Politico:

"'The ability to buy a weapon that fires hundreds of bullets in less than a minute,'” said Quigley. "'He had an additional magazine capability. That’s not what a hunter needs. That’s not what someone needs to defend their home. That’s what you use to hunt people.'"

How knowledgeable is Rep. Quigley about what sort of guns people "need"?

For the record, high-capacity magazines probably aren't necessary for run-of-the-mill burglars, muggers, home invaders, would-be rapists, violent crazed exes, etc.  However, I remember an account of a Korean-owned small business during the 1991 Los Angeles riots that was besieged by a large number of rioters.  The proprietors attempted to defend their business with their personal arms but found themselves outgunned and were forced to flee.

(I saw a CNN special about the riots long ago and I think it was a jewelry store--I remember seeing an older Korean lady later berating passers-by about their lack of human dignity from the ruins of the shop afterward.)

Higher-capacity rapid-fire guns would have been useful about then, since the proprietors were dealing with a much larger number of opponents who also had at least one superior weapon.  Situations like that don't happen very often, but in at least one case, such a weapon would have been helpful in defense of one's business if not one's home.

If any gun-control measures should be implemented as a result of this incident, it should be a tightening-up of the existing laws preventing those with certain degrees of mental illness from getting guns.  And "mental illness" should be defined very tightly, lest some Iraq or Afghan vet with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder be banned from owning a gun.

On a more sinister note, Politico reports Philadelphia Democrat U.S. Rep. Robert Brady said he intends to introduce a bill criminalizing the use of threatening language or symbols directed toward federal officials or members of Congress.

On my alternate-history forum, someone posted the image of a map Sarah Palin created depicting crosshairs on states whose representatives voted for Obama's health-care reform package.  I heard the map was taken down from Palin's web-site, but it can be found here:

http://www.wisepolitics.com/sarah-palin-crosshairs-map-target-list-2989.html

However, the map does not call for any kind of violence--I think the red markers are for representatives who lost elections, not their lives or personal health.

Furthermore, although certain parties (some members of my message-board, for starters) tried to pin the shooting on the Tea Party, right-wing extremists, etc., it's not just them who use allegedly-threatening imagery.

DailyKos also used gun-related imagery re: Giffords.  Scroll down to post #65 to see it:

http://boards.bengals.com/showthread.php?t=76933&page=3

Given how the shooter Jared Lee Loughner is a 9/11 Truther (among other conspiracy theories), using the same standards the loopy-lefties (not all lefties, just the loopy ones) used to blame Palin and the Tea Party for the shooting in Tucson, one could blame DailyKos and the "netroots" in general for the shooting.

However, according to the more recent events, the shooter had a personal grudge against Giffords because she didn't answer some nonsensical question about how the government is controlling people through grammar a few years ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_gunman_11

I don't see how it's really fair to blame any political faction, be it the Tea Party or the netroots, for this episode, and it's NOT cool to start infringing on people's freedom of speech as a result.  I don't claim to be a mind reader, but I'll bet Brady had Palin's "crosshairs" imagery in mind when he proposed this bill.

There are already laws against actually threatening politicians and crosshairs imagery in the context Palin's group and DailyKos used it is NOT a "true threat."

First News Article Round-Up of 2011

Here's my first news-article round-up of 2011...

http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb-gwinnett-receive-federal-784889.html

Cobb and Gwinnett Counties rejected participating in MARTA back in the 1970s and Gwinnett rejected it once again in the 1990s.  This is a significant turnaround.  Whatever concerns there are about costs and importing hooligans via train (crime around Lenox went up soon after MARTA connected there) must've paled in the face of the possibility of $4 per gallon gasoline starting next summer.

Given Atlanta's notorious traffic, anything that will take cars off the road will certainly be beneficial.  Although the project paying for itself via fares is unlikely, reducing congestion and air pollution will be a major benefit and in my opinion, worth paying for.

And including Cobb and Gwinnett in MARTA might improve the governance of the organization, which has been plagued by boneheadedness and corruption in the past.

Of course, there's the issue of finding money to pay for MARTA expansion, especially in a time of budget deficits.  I don't think monies from the TSPLOST voters will vote on in 2012 can be used to pay for MARTA operations, but they could be used to pay for building the lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/world/asia/04china.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/world/asia/index.jsonp&adxnnlx=1294156855-LPhLoeD57e9INs3S6Z+r/Q

This is good news.  Considering how the alternative to reprocessing nuclear fuel is burying it somewhere for 10,000 years (and making sure our descendants know not to mess with it) or letting it pile up at the nuclear plants themselves, this is very good news.

One quibble: The article states that the National Research Council found that Bush's reprocessing program would have been uneconomical.  Here's the actual report and it's much more nuanced--the technology is not at the point needed to justify an accelerated timetable for building reprocessing sites. 

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?recordid=11998

That does NOT mean that reprocessing in the United States is uneconomical.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/to-beat-back-poverty-pay-the-poor/

Now this is interesting.  It reminds me of something that Richard Nixon proposed back in the 1970s, a guaranteed minimum income.

I'm not a big fan of handouts, but in the countries where this has been implemented, they've imposed all sorts of conditions on it like making sure one's children are educated and giving the monies to women rather than men. 

(Lest anyone accuse me of bashing men, I read about micro-financing in Haiti and how they gave the money to women because the men would gamble it all away on cock-fighting.) 

In the long run, this could break the cycle of poverty, producing a net gain in income (from educated workers rather than vagrants) and savings (lower incarceration and law-enforcement costs, for one).

However, IF such a thing were to be implemented, I would make it conditional on not drinking, smoking, and especially doing illegal drugs.  Drug- and alcohol-testing is surely doable.  Including classes for the adults receiving the monies would also be a good idea, since lack of education contributes to poverty and related problems, plus there is a "culture of poverty" that makes things worse for the poor that needs to be eradicated.

China May Be Inclined to Ditch North Korea, According to Wikileaks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea

A few days after I posted my theory about how China would benefit from allowing North Korea to collapse and the two Koreas to unite under Seoul, Wikileaks was so kind as to provide the world's media with an ungodly amount of secret diplomatic correspondence.  The documents show at least some elements of the Chinese government are thinking in the same way.

(In fact, the Chinese officials were willing to concede far more than I expected--they would tolerate U.S. troops in united Korea provided they stayed south of the 38th Parallel and wouldn't mind a "benign alliance" between the US and South Korea.)

Some members of my alternate-history forum think that the release of these cables will push the Chinese back toward supporting the North rather than cutting it loose for its bad behavior.  I hope that this is not the case.  Continuing to enable North Korea is making things worse for everybody (the Chinese government itself, the neighbors, and the millions suffering under Kim's odious rule) and provides a continued rationale for U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan, something the Chinese government I imagine doesn't like even if they are more tolerant of this than I expected.

How China Can Take Down North Korea--And Benefit In The Long Run

I was checking out CNN the other day and I found this article.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/24/zakaria.china.korea/index.html?hpt=T2

This is something similar to an idea I've had and posted on my alternate-history forum (we have a political-chat section).

Basically, North Korea is heavily dependent on China for 40% of its food and a larger percentage of its energy--I cannot recall how much, but I'm thinking 60% at least.  The news analysts I've read have suggested that without Chinese support, North Korea will collapse.  The Chinese know this and have been sustaining the North Korean regime in order to avoid a refugee crisis on their border and avoid the unification of Korea under Seoul, a move they fear would lead to U.S. troops on the Yalu River, their border with the Koreas.  This was one of the reasons they intervened in the Korean War, preventing the odious Kim regime from being plowed under half-a-century early.

However, the Cold War is over and China is one of our larger business partners.  We really have no reason to use Korea as a springboard to invade China and consequently, they have no reason to fear us doing so.  The only potential flashpoint between us and them is Taiwan and that grows less and less likely due to increasing Taiwanese investment in China and trade between the two.

So if China cuts off support for North Korea and the Northern regime collapses, the Chinese will likely have to deal with refugees, but not a hostile army on their border.

Here's where China's gain comes in.  China right now is sitting on mountains of foreign exchange and their economy has been growing at a brisk clip despite the global recession.  They have huge amounts of cash, which they've been investing in resource-producing ventures in Africa and other places.

They could easily make some deal with Seoul, the U.S., or both in which, after the North collapses, the U.S. will withdraw its soldiers from the Korean Peninsula back to Japan and the Chinese will fund the reconstruction of the North, which is a basket case far worse than East Germany ever was.

China will benefit by no longer having to subsidize North Korea, by removing U.S. troops from their backyard, and gaining massive investment opportunities in newly-united Korea.  Unless China starts treating Korea as a colony, they will gain an ally.  After all, trade between South Korea and China is fairly extensive ($100 billion as of 2006), and both of them are not fans of the Japanese, to put it lightly.  A united Korea allied to China is a geographic dagger pointed at the heart of Japan, a thought that I would imagine fills the hearts of the Japanophobes over there with glee.

South Korea will benefit by not having their capital under constant threat of the North's masses of artillery and not having to put up with constant provocations from the North for fear they'd use that artillery.  Furthermore, the decades-long artificial division of Korea by foreigners will have ended and the massive costs of bringing the North up to South Korea's standards will be largely borne by the Chinese.  Plus the North has large amounts of natural resources Southern businessmen can exploit, although in my scenario, the Chinese would make a grab for those as well.

Although the situation will be, in the short run, very painful for the North Koreans, in the long run, they will be freed from the atrocious rule of the Kim Dynasty without a war that could and likely would kill millions of people.

(The Korean War killed two to four million people, IIRC, and a second war could involve the use of nuclear weapons against South Korea and/or Japan and consequent retaliation in kind from the United States.  It would get bad.)

The United States will benefit by having one less foreign commitment, one that could potentially lead to a massive war if the North goes completely psychotic and attacks the South or Japan, which we are treaty-bound to defend.  Furthermore, a united Korea (that has possibly inherited the North's nuclear arsenal) allied to the Chinese will rattle the Japanese and give them incentive to maintain the current arrangement with us.

Of course, the best-laid plans of mice and men do often go awry.  If the Chinese pull the plug on the North, Kim could try something desperate like invade South Korea and take Seoul hostage in order to extort aid to keep his regime in power or, as his little empire crumbles, fire nuclear-tipped missiles at the Chinese as revenge.  Although the Chinese could offer the North's ruling elite asylum in China to give them an alternative between desperate action and being torn apart by their own starving slaves, this may or may not work, depending on connected to reality the Northern leadership is.

Furthermore, a member of the alternate-history forum said China would not allow the North to collapse anytime soon due to the massive amount of blood and treasure expended in the Korean War to keep the Northern regime going.  I think the figure is that one million Chinese soldiers died there, including Mao's son.  The guy on the forum said the relatives of the men who died are still alive and would raise holy hell.

Well, China is an authoritarian state.  Surely they know how to cover up embarrassing political secrets and deal with people who raise holy hell.  The Chinese government could also justify it, should it become known to the general public, by pointing out that North Korea's erratic and violent behavior is most ungrateful (as it causes PR and other problems for the Chinese) and un-harmonious (by disrupting the worldwide economic order).

Obviously the plan has its risks, but it's worth a thought.

A Bit of TSA Humor, Some of It Vulgar

I was reading a story about the Transportation Security Administration's ongoing controversy about the body scanners, the pat-downs, etc. on Yahoo and in the comments section, I found this gem.  The person who posted it uses the handle "Patrick."

TSA is looking for a new slogan:



1. Can't see London, can't see France, unless we see your underpants.

2. Grope discounts available.


3. If we did our job any better, we'd have to buy you dinner first.


4. Only we know if Lady Gaga is really a lady.


5. Don't worry; my hands are still warm from the last guy.


6. Throw a few back at the airport Chili's and you won't even notice.


7. Wanna fly? Drop yours.


8. We've handled more balls than Barney Frank


9. We are now free to move about your pants.


10. We rub you the wrong way, so you can be on your way.


11. It's not a grope. It's a freedom pat.


12. When in doubt, we make you whip it out.


13. TSA: Touchin', Squeezin', Arrestin'


14. You were a virgin.


15. We handle more packages than the United States Postal Service.


16. The TSA isn't silly; they just want to inspect your willy.


17. Stroke of the hand, now the law of the land.


18. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem.


19. Let your fingers do the Walking.


20. Cough.


21. Reach out and touch someone.


22. Can you feel me now?


23. When we're done with you, you'll need a cigarette.
 
Here's Patrick's Yahoo profile:
 
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HV6JJSGCZNRVW4IPZJV7JKUCSA
 
I figured despite the controversial nature of the subject, we can all use a laugh.

TSA Hassles Those With Prosthetics

Our least favorite federal agency, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), is behaving even more obnoxiously.  On top of groping people or using excessively intimate scanners, now we have people with prosthetics being harassed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40278427/ns/travel-news

And John Pistole, rather than acknowledging he may be going too far, is being an arrogant blowhard.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40234326/ns/travel-news

"I'm not going to change those policies," he said, according to MSNBC.  No couching the language or nuance at all--he simply refuses to compromise.

Well he darn well better, or he might find himself unemployed.  It's a lot easier to fire a department head who makes himself unpopular than abolish an entire government agency, even one as resented and relatively new as the TSA and with his attitude, he'd be remarkably easy to scapegoat.

Personally, I think it would be better to abolish the TSA and go back to the pre-9/11 way of doing things, only with more effort being put in to ensure procedures are actually followed.  If I remember correctly, if the procedures had been followed, at least some of the hijackers would not have been allowed onto the aircraft.  John Stossel backs me up on this. 

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=123823&page=1

Methinks certain people found an opportunity in 9/11 to pull a power grab--after all, Tom Daschle said "you can't professionalize unless you federalize."  What an arrogant tool.  And it was George W. Bush who signed off on this--more proof the man had no backbone when domestic issues were concerned.

James Madison said if tyranny and oppression ever came to America, it would be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.  Let's not ignore the legitimate dangers of terrorism, but at the same time, let's not allow the terrorists to win by sacrificing our freedom to travel (literally) unmolested.

Here's a way to write your federal representatives and the president.  Those of you who don't like the current airport security regime, write your Congressmen (and Senators, and the President) and let them know.

http://www.congress.org/

Obama, South Korea, and Free Trade

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/asia/12seoul.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Good for Barack Obama to be continuing to push for a free trade agreement with South Korea and committing to drastically increase America's exports.  The last thing we want to do is start throwing up barriers to international trade.  During the early days of the Great Depression, nations desperate to protect jobs at home threw up trade barriers, ending what The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression called the first age of globalization and making the whole situation much worse.

And we all know what happened after that.

However, Obama and Congress should make sure that any free trade agreement with South Korea enables truly free trade.  The Ford Motor Company, which didn't need governmental largesse to get themselves out of trouble when things got bad, has sounded the alarm about some of the shenanigans South Korea pulls to keep foreign cars out.

http://www.ford.com/freetrade

American consumers will benefit from having more automotive choices available to them regardless of whether the free trade agreement enables South Korea's government to continue meddling with foreign automotive imports, but more American cars being exported means more jobs in America, which will help get the economic engine of our country running at full clip again.

The article about how the current US-SK FTA "locks in" the one-way automobile trade doesn't do that great a job proving South Korea's government engages in shenanigans to keep foreign cars out, but the article about trade barriers describes them in chronological detail. 

Some of the stuff like auditing the taxes of those who buy foreign cars strikes me as repressive and undermining the rule of law.  If South Korean cars are truly competitive with foreign cars--and considering how many we buy in the U.S., I'm pretty sure they are--the South Korean government need not indulge in petty goonery to discourage its citizens from buying American cars.

News Article Round-Up: Electric Cars and Elizabeth Smart

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/10/leaf.volt.electric.cars/index.html?hpt=Sbin

This is good.  One of the big problems of fully-electric cars is that miles-per-charge is low and there's no electric infrastructure analogous to to the existing gasoline infrastructure, but an advanced hybrid design like Volt eliminate that problem by having a gasoline engine run the generator when the batteries get low.  Obviously this won't eliminate the need for gasoline entirely, but 37.1 MPG is a big improvement over current gas mileage.

(I've divided miles driven by gas in the tank and I've deduced my Accord gets around 24 MPG on average, although I can't differentiate between highway and city driving since I don't drive in only one environment while on a single tank of gas.)

Hopefully the prices will go down as technology improves so the tax credits can be phased out and the cars will stand on their own two feet.  And hopefully they'll improve the Leaf's mileage-per-charge or build more charging stations so owning an all-electric car is practical for all uses, not just in-town driving.

http://www2.wspa.com/news/2010/nov/10/elizabeth-smart-outwitted-captor-win-freedom-ar-1073303/

I'm impressed at how clever Elizabeth Smart was to use religion (and the possibility of getting his hands on more "wives") to manipulate the vile SOB who'd kidnapped her into taking them to a place she'd be more likely to be recognized.  Good job.  And based on her testimony and how she bears herself in the courtroom, kudos to her for getting on with her life and being such a strong person.  She's orders of magnitude higher on the food chain than that lowlife Brian Mitchell is.

And for the record, I don't believe Mitchell is insane.  From her accounts of the nine months he held her, he strikes me as far too clever and manipulative.  Methinks he's cranking the loony prophet act up to be put in a mental hospital rather than an ordinary prison where the other inmates will tear him apart*.  I'll give his defense attorney credit for being gentle with Smart, unlike the way some accused rapists' defense attorneys behave toward rape victims, but he's got to be almost criminally naive if he really thinks Mitchell is nuts enough to merit "not guilty by reason of insanity."

*Rapists and especially child molesters are not very popular in prison.  Not at all.

Bagel Leads to Government Child-Snatching

Courtesy of Grimm Reaper from my alternate-history forum:

http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/losing_a_baby_over_a_poppy_seed

Now that I've gotten your attention with the headline, time for discussion...

For starters, a drug test more stringent than the federal government's, a drug test that can be failed if someone eats a bloody bagel, is entirely too strict.  I agree that they should change that immediately.  Even the child protection types said they had problems with this hospital before.

One of the comments suggested that informed consent be required for any test, while another comment said that according to some of the documents, the hospital does the drug-testing in order to ensure the child won't be at risk of drug withdrawal soon after birth.

However, wouldn't it be a good idea to drug-test the infant, as part of the usual battery of tests they do on newborns, rather than drug-testing the parent?  An infant is not going to be eating a bagel with poppy seeds on it, after all.

I will take a moment to show some empathy for the hospital--if they do the drug test and send the kid home with parents they suspect to be on drugs and something happens to the kid, they're going to catch hell if it gets found out.  The state of Pennsylvania overreacting with an order to take the child when they could have simply sent one person (not several people and certainly not cops!) to maybe talk to the parents to see what is going on is probably the worse outrage of the two.

I hope the parents take everyone responsible to the cleaners.