Mayor Bloomberg -- Second Hand Smoke Kills

New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) - Testimony before the New York City Council Health Committee on Int. No. 256 -- In Relation to the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places and Places of Employment (October 10, 2002)
On assuming office, at my direction, Dr. Frieden examined the conditions that were making New Yorkers sick. He found that tobacco use was the number one cause of preventable death in New York City, killing more people than TB, AIDS, homicide, suicide and alcohol combined. Today, we have the results; now we must act

How can we tell that NYC's mayor and Health Commissioner doesn't believe this. Easy. If they did, they would seize the children of all NYC smokers to protect them from death. But they don't. So second hand smoke must not be very dangerous.

Letter from Prof to AF Academy Cadet -- via Instapundit
Apparently genuine:

From: Peter Kirstein
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:46 PM
To: Kurpiel Robert C4C CS26

Subject: Re: Academy Assembly

You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honour.

No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries with AAA, without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us. September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra.

You are unworthy of my support.

Peter N. Kirstein
Professor of History
Saint Xavier University.

Notes to the author... That would be "rain (not reign) death and destruction" and no aircraft deploy AAA, that is, Anti-Aircraft Artillery.

'Terror inspector' plan: 10 in each county

A confidential draft proposal to enlist municipal code inspectors in the fight against terrorism would train 10 volunteers from each county - a total of 210 statewide - to spot bomb-making materials and the components of chemical and biological weapons.

Fabulous idea! Provides just the legal basis residents require to resist warrantless regulatory searches of their private dwellings. Regulatory searches of dwellings without probable cause has been the wet dream of local governments for a while. They run into problems because of the remaining protections of private dwellings under the 4th Amendment. Private residences don't usually satisfy the exceptions to the 4th that the courts have used to allow other sorts of regulatory searches.

These factors are such things as limited discretion, lesser intrusion, implied consent, highly regulated industry, lessened expectation of privacy, etc. Things which don't usually apply to private homes.

When you convert a limited regulatory search into a more general law enforcement search, you make it even more likely that occupants can resist a search that is no longer purely regulatory. Good news.

Hawaii Election Results
So Hawaii has a lesbian (and hence female), libertarian, Republican governor. Shocking. Who'd have thought that a Republican could win. Where do you suppose Bill Quinn is these days?

Unmarked Spanish Graves Tell Tale of Franco Regime

Oct. 31, 2002
During the 36 years that Gen. Francisco Franco ruled Spain, tens of thousands of his political opponents went missing and are now believed to have been executed. Their descendants are still searching for the bodies in mass graves. Claire Marshall reports...

The story tells of a project to dig up the bodies of those executed by Franco. Unanswered is the question of what the diggers are going to do with the bodies of those executed by the anarchists, communists, and wishy-washy social democrats. Or didn't those worthies get around to executing anyone?

Postal Service Porn

Can it be true that the USPS is selling "adult" material on its website? At least Showtime-grade adult material. Has anyone told the Concerned Women of America?