Sunday, December 27, 2009

“Text-messaging ban to begin in NH - Eagle-Tribune” plus 4 more

“Text-messaging ban to begin in NH - Eagle-Tribune” plus 4 more

Text-messaging ban to begin in NH - Eagle-Tribune

Posted: 27 Dec 2009 08:05 PM PST

If it's your New Year's resolution to stop texting while driving, a new law will enable police around the Granite State to help you keep it.

"Texting has become a social and cultural explosion," said state Rep. David Campbell, D-Nashua. "It's done by people of all ages, and it's been shown by numerous studies that it is the number one most dangerous act you can do while driving."

Gov. John Lynch signed the law in August banning texting while driving. But it is still legal to text while driving in Massachusetts despite attempts to pass a ban there.

Campbell, who sponsored the New Hampshire bill, said recent studies have shown texting while driving to be even more dangerous than driving drunk.

The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, also bans using two hands to operate any other electronic device while driving. Violators can be hit with a $100 fine.

New Hampshire was the 15th state to outlaw texting while driving. Four have followed suit since August, bringing the total to 19. Six states, including Connecticut and New York, ban use of hand-held cell phones.

Campbell said he decided to sponsor the legislation after seeing a middle-aged man in a business suit driving a Volvo on the interstate — with a laptop on the dashboard. The state already has a statute that outlaws distracted or negligent driving, but Campbell said his research showed it had never been enforced.

"Eating a Big Mac or putting on your makeup, while they're dangerous behaviors, they're pretty hard to enforce," he said. Texting, he said, will be more clear.

New Hampshire State Police Capt. John LeLacheur said people are still free to talk on their phones — and the law allows people to enter numbers or letters to dial a phone number.

"We're not going to stop people from using their cell phones. It's not a cell phone ban," he said.

LeLacheur said serious instances of texting while driving are clear to police — he recently saw one.

"(A driver) had both hands on the top of the steering wheel and both thumbs going, so it was obvious to me that he was texting," he said.

Soon, that could result in flashing lights and sirens in the rearview mirror. But it might not mean a ticket just yet — LeLacheur said he expects police will hand out warnings first, unless there is an accident or very obvious offense.

"Any time there's a law change, we will do what we can to educate the public," he said.

People are free to bring cell phone records to court to contest the traffic violation, LeLacheur said.

Area police to enforce law as needed

But some local police departments said the new law will not lead to any major changes in how they operate.

Derry police Capt. Vern Thomas said officers will continue to pull over erratic drivers, just as they always have.

"It doesn't change anything for us about enforcement," he said. "Except that when you see someone impeding the flow of traffic and you determine that (texting) was the cause."

He said although it can be difficult to tell what a driver is doing behind the wheel, the department would be as vigilant as possible.

Salem police Capt. Shawn Patten agreed it could be hard to determine if there is reasonable suspicion somebody is texting.

"If it's a law on the books, we'll certainly enforce it if necessary," Patten said. "... The intent is to change the behavior, not be punitive. So hopefully, as with any enforcement effort, the behavior will change."

State Sen. Robert J. Letourneau, chairman of the Transportation and Interstate Cooperation Committee, said he thinks the law will be properly enforced.

"I think this is the first shot over the bow — to let people know we're serious about this," he said. "If it doesn't work, we'll tighten it up some more."

Letourneau said he was a "live-and-let-live-kind-of-guy," but supported the law.

"It's not the same thing as a seat belt law," he said. "That's a personal choice thing. If I'm not wearing a seat belt, I don't put your life at risk."

Proposed ban fails in Massachusetts

While a text-messaging ban succeeded in the New Hampshire Legislature, similar legislation encountered obstacles in the Bay State.

A bill passed the Massachusetts state Senate in May that would ban text messaging, e-mailing and surfing the Web while driving. The bill was sent to a conference committee, but a final version never made it to the governor's desk. That bill was passed a day after a Central Catholic High School senior was killed in a car crash in Methuen.

Police originally believed the victim, Rebecca Solomon, 18, of Methuen might have been texting, but later determined she was not. The vote also came a month after an MBTA trolley accident in Boston injured 50 people. The driver was text messaging his girlfriend, investigators said.

State Sen. Steven Baddour, D-Methuen, and state Rep. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead, have expressed support for a statewide measure in the past. But some localities have taken the matter into their own hands.

The Boston City Council voted this month to outlaw texting while driving in the city. In Marblehead, voters will be able to voice their opinion on the practice with a warrant article that would outlaw texting while driving.

Drivers support new law

A small sampling of Southern New Hampshire drivers asked about the law said they generally favor it.

Diane Malley of Manchester said texting requires both hands and a lot of attention.

"I would say just talking on the telephone takes people's attention away from driving," Malley said. "It has mine."

She said that's especially the case with younger drivers, who have less experience and take a little longer to react, putting other people on the road at risk.

"It's a growing problem as more and more drivers text," she said.

Phil Gile of Londonderry, who does not text, said it's not just young people texting while driving.

"I've almost been hit quite a few times," he said. "It's not just young kids, either. I've seen guys my age, women my age."

His wife, Kim, said she thought texting was the most dangerous thing a driver could do.

"Texting requires concentration. You can't concentrate on driving while you're concentrating on that," she said. "I could see it causing a lot of accidents."

But Joyce Ozelius of Londonderry was conflicted.

"I think we're overregulating, but it's an issue," she said. "It's a problem."

While Ozelius said she does not always agree with creating new laws, she doesn't think anyone should text behind the wheel.

"You don't eat a turkey dinner while you're driving," she said. "It's just another distraction."

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RealClearPolitics HorseRaceBlog - RealClearPolitics

Posted: 27 Dec 2009 07:29 PM PST

Ezra Klein had a provocative column in Sunday's Washington Post, arguing that it's time to eliminate or substantially weaken the filibuster in the United States Senate. He writes:

The modern Senate is a radically different institution than the Senate of the 1960s, and the dysfunction exhibited in its debate over health care -- the absence of bipartisanship, the use of the filibuster to obstruct progress rather than protect debate, the ability of any given senator to hold the bill hostage to his or her demands -- has convinced many, both inside and outside the chamber, that it needs to be fixed.

Klein cites a study from Barbara Sinclair showing that the filibuster is used much more frequently now - up from 8% of "major bills" to 70%. This is as sure a sign as any that reform is needed, that the two parties can't be allowed to succeed by using the politics of obstruction anymore.

Yet Klein's reasoning is imprecise. After all, the legislative process has not become "broken." It is largely the same process as it was decades ago. The real change has occurred within the two Senate parties. They are using the filibuster more aggressively in their quest for political success. This raises an important question that Klein leaves unaddressed: if the parties are more unrelentingly partisan now than in ages past, is it prudent to lower the barriers that prevent them from enacting sweeping policy changes?

On this question, I come down squarely in the negative. The increased use of the filibuster is not so much a consequence of Senate "dysfunction" as it is a desirable check upon it. Given this, it makes much more sense to leave the filibuster intact.

The following chart demonstrates that the two political parties have become substantially more polarized over the last 45 years. It uses the DW-Nominate methodology to track the ideological distribution of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate from the 89th Congress (1965-1967) to the 110th (2007-2009):

Ideological Distribution of US Senators.jpg

Three important trends are evident from this picture. First, the party extremes have grown farther apart. Second, there are now fewer genuine moderates in the United States Senate than at any point in the last half century. Third, there used to be a sizeable ideological overlap between the two parties in the Senate. It no longer exists. Put simply, the Senate parties have become ideologically polarized.

This helps explain the increasing use of the filibuster. As the parties drift apart ideologically, the majority party will more likely introduce legislation that the minority party can't accept, giving the latter a stronger incentive to block it via the filibuster. Using the filibuster is thus a rational response when one finds oneself in the smaller half of a polarized chamber, which is more likely to be the case today than 45 years ago.

This points to a highly beneficial purpose the filibuster can serve. Per Klein, it is indeed an obstructionist tool, but it is also a way to promote moderate policies, even as the parties have become more ideologically extreme. In other words, thanks to the filibuster, an ideologically extreme majority party cannot simply enact its policy preferences as it sees fit. Instead, it must either find common ground with some on the other side, or do nothing. In other words, the filibuster has an effect similar to that of a large body of water on the climate of the neighboring coast, keeping the temperature from getting too hot or too cold.

Think of it this way. When Democrats are in charge, they will endeavor to pull the policy needle to the left. To succeed, they will have to negotiate with the pivotal legislator. If the status quo is retained, that would be the 60th senator, who will sustain a filibuster if he is not satisfied. On the other hand, if the filibuster is eliminated, the Democrats will only have to appeal to the 50th senator, who will by definition be more liberal than the 60th. Policy outputs would thus shift leftward, perhaps dramatically so. The same goes for the GOP. When Republicans are in charge, they must find common ground with the 60th senator, which will result in much more moderate policies than what we'd see if the filibuster is eliminated. I would point to the 109th Congress. If George W. Bush had to appeal to Norm Coleman rather than Mary Landrieu, the Republicans would have gotten plenty more done, and their policy outputs would have been much more conservative.

Over time, this suggests that changes in control of the Senate will not yield big swings in policy output so long as the filibuster is allowed to remain largely as is. Liberal majorities will have to negotiate with a center-right senator, and conservative majorities will have to negotiate with a center-left senator. Eliminate it, and you'll see bigger swings in policy as control of the upper chamber changes hands.

We are thus faced with a choice. We can get rid of the filibuster to facilitate legislative policymaking, but we should brace ourselves for ideologically polarizing laws that will leave a third to a half of the country deeply unsatisfied. Democrats will enact very liberal policies; Republicans very conservative ones. On the other hand, keeping the filibuster in place will mean less gets done - as the two polarized parties have trouble finding common ground - but whatever policies are produced will be more moderate and less offensive to the losing faction.

I strongly favor moderate-if-infrequent policy changes. It is not ideal - the sundry compromises in the "moderate" Senate health care bill are highly objectionable to me, and of course the filibuster can be used for narrowly partisan purposes - but it is preferable to the alternative of ideologically polarized policy-making.

An institutionalized filibuster was not a provision that the Framers implemented when they created the government. Still, it has tended to crop up during highly polarized periods in American political history: the fight between Democrats and Whigs over the Bank of the United States, the ante-bellum political breakdown of the 1850s, the post-war fights over civil rights, and of course today.

While the Framers did not make provisions for a filibuster, the procedure nevertheless reminds me of Madison's thinking in Federalist #10:

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction...

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

Madison argues in this consequential essay that "the latent causes of faction are...sown in the nature of man." Thus, the only way to control its ill effects is by proper management within the government. Madison believed that a large republic characterized by a system of checks and balances could accomplish this task.

I would suggest that the increased use of the filibuster is a way to check two political parties that resemble factional cliques, neither of which broadly appeals to the whole country. Eliminating it would allow for more legislation to be passed into law, but I fear this legislation would have a factional element to it - and like Madison I believe that a well constructed government should "break and control" the "violence of faction."

That's an interesting phrase Madison uses - "violence of faction." It turned out to be quite prescient. After all, the Civil War was more of a sectional war or a factional war than anything else. Today, with the two parties so divided, it is not unreasonable to worry about the long-term effects of one side pulling the policy needle so far in one direction. Eliminating the filibuster might mean that the victorious party gets a lot more done, but how will the losers react over time?

I doubt very much that there would be another civil war! Still, "violence" doesn't necessarily imply war, or even physical confrontation. We could instead see ever more violent passions on the two ideological poles, as the losing side is increasingly outraged by the many "tyrannies" of the majority party. It's easy to take for granted the bonds that hold the national Union together, but that does not mean they are indestructible. Allowing one side or the other to enact root-and-branch changes via a bare majority could, over time, weaken them as the losers become more frustrated and angry.

There could also be violent swings in the policy needle. If nothing more than a simple majority is necessary for sweeping changes, what stops a newly victorious party from undoing all the reforms implemented by the old majority, and instituting its own set of big changes? What would be the long-term consequences of that? If every biennial or quadrennial election brought the prospect of big changes in public policy - how could we practically plan for the future? We all expect things in 2013 to be generally the same as things in 2009. Eliminate the filibuster, empower a bare majority to impose ideologically extreme policies, and that expectation could become unreasonable.

Meanwhile, if we keep the filibuster in place, we will likely stop major policy reforms from being implemented today - but that does not mean that we have prohibited them forever. After all, we have biennial elections in this country, which means that those whose policy goals have been thwarted can re-litigate their case before the electorate as many times as they like. They can hit the stump, advocate for their policy proposals, try to convince constituents of filibustering senators to vote them out of office, and send a more favorable majority to the new Congress. If the opposition has been crassly political, filibustering not out of honest disagreements but narrow partisan calculations - the policy advocates will have a strong case to take to the voters. Additionally, advocates can always return to the drawing board, and come up with a better policy proposal, one that can forge the kind of broad coalition that the filibuster requires. Put simply, retaining the filibuster makes it harder to solve problems, but certainly not impossible.

So, I'm drawn to the following conclusion. As much as I would like to see Congress solve big problems more ably, I do not want to see solutions that are ideologically extreme, as I think that over the long run they could cause more trouble than they solve. In the absence of broad policy agreements - which are clearly lacking here at the end of 2009 - I am glad for the institution of the filibuster and would staunchly oppose attempts to modify it substantially. Keeping it as is will mean fewer reforms are ultimately passed, but those that are passed stand a better chance of succeeding in a broad, diverse republic such as ours. So long as the two parties are so far apart ideologically, I will support the filibuster, regardless of which side is in charge.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Bomb suspect came from uppercrust family, best schools; friends and ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 27 Dec 2009 08:41 PM PST

The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab. Family members told The Associated Press they could not comment but expected the family to issue a statement.

Mutallab was working with the FBI and not expected to grant media interviews, Information Minister Dora Akunyili said.

The elder Mutallab was "a responsible and respected Nigerian, with a true Nigerian spirit," she said. He had been estranged from his son for several months and alerted U.S. officials last month about the youth's growing hard-line Islamic religious beliefs.

A close neighbor told the AP he believed Abdulmutallab did not get his extremist ideas from his family or from within Nigeria.

Basiru Sani Hamza, 35, said Abdulmutallab was a "very religious" and a "very obedient" to his parents as a boy in the well-to-do banking family.

"I believe he must have been lured where he is schooling to carry out this attack," Hamza said. "Really, the boy has betrayed his father because he has been taking care of all their needs."

Rimmer, a teacher at his high school in West Africa, said Abdulmutallab had been well-respected.

"At one stage, his nickname was 'The Pope,'" Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. "In one way it's totally unsuitable because he's Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura."

But Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, Rimmer said.

In a discussion in 2001, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Rimmer said. At the time, Rimmer thought the boy was just playing the devil's advocate.

He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn't right to be in a place where alcohol was served.

Rimmer also remembered the youngster choosing to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London.

Rimmer described the institution — an elite college preparatory school, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans — as "lovely, lovely environment" where Christians often joined in Islamic feasts and where some of the best Christmas carolers were Muslims.

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The Next Play He Calls Might Be The Biggest of His Life - First Coast News

Posted: 27 Dec 2009 07:15 PM PST

We ask them to spend nearly every waking hour from August through December with their X's and their O's and their film projectors.

Then we ask them to spend nearly every waking hour the other seven months on recruiting.

To be sure, real workers in the real world face enormous pressure. They coach football, and get lots of perks.

But in a culture where accountability is something to be shoveled off to the next sucker down the line, their place of employment comes with a rigid measure of success or failure. Ever try to bargain with a scoreboard? Those implacable numbers up there in lights - they are the captains of the fates of men such as Urban Meyer.

It is easy to reduce them to figures on a television screen, there to bleed for our entertainment. Gladiators in headphones. It is easy to forget they have vulnerable bodies, vulnerable psyches, vulnerable families.

Perhaps Meyer - intensely feeling every headache in his flock -- is wired a certain way that makes him even more exposed to the centrifugal stress forces of his profession. He has been a head coach only nine years. For historical context, Joe Paterno coached his ninth season - in 1974.

This is a most odd situation, the head coach being a coach in waiting. It might work. Might not. Florida has to try, and so does Meyer. He is only 45.

But he'll need time to study the down and distance of his world. The next play he calls might be the biggest of his life.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Tribes are buying back ancestral lands - Deseret News

Posted: 27 Dec 2009 08:34 PM PST

OMAHA, Neb. — Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust.

Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining.

Tribes put more than 840,000 acres — or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island — into trust from 1998 to 2007, according to information The Associated Press obtained from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act.

Those buying back land include the Winnebago, who have put more than 700 acres in eastern Nebraska in federal trust in the past five years, and the Pawnee, who have 1,600 acres of trust land in Oklahoma. Land held in federal trust is exempt from local and state laws and taxes, but subject to most federal laws.

Three tribes have bought land around Bear Butte in South Dakota's Black Hills to keep it from developers eager to cater to the bikers who roar into Sturgis every year for a raucous road rally. About 17 tribes from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and Oklahoma still use the mountain for religious ceremonies.

Emily White Hat, a member of South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux, said the struggle to protect the land is about "preservation of our culture, our way of life and our traditions."

"All of it is connected," White Hat said. "With your land, you have that relationship to the culture."

Other members of the Rosebud Sioux, such as president Rodney Bordeaux, believe the tribes shouldn't have to buy the land back because it was illegally taken. But they also recognize that without such purchases, the land won't be protected.

No one knows how much land the federal government promised Native American tribes in treaties dating to the late 1700s, said Gary Garrison, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. The government changed the terms of the treaties over the centuries to make property available to settlers and give rights-of-way to railroads and telegraph companies.

President Barack Obama's administration has proposed spending $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations. The program would pay individual members for land interests divided among their relatives and return the land to tribal control. But it would not buy land from people outside the tribes.

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