The Binary Circumstance

From the Seattle-PI:

In a caper worthy of Wile E. Coyote’s finest failures, two 12-year-old girls from Bainbridge Island are accused of attempting to elude punishment for a tardy assignment Thursday by poisoning their teacher, Kasey Jeffers, with a flavored lip balm they knew would make her ill.

Jeffers, 58, is violently allergic to strawberries — common knowledge at Sakai Intermediate School, according to police, who arrested the youths on suspicion of assault after they were accused of coating the rim of their teacher’s coffee cup and water bottle with strawberry lip gloss.

“They had discussed using real strawberries but decided that would be fatal and this would just make her sick enough to leave school, which was what they wanted,” said Mark Duncan, the island’s deputy police chief. “It’s 12-year-old thinking at its finest.”

The girls had a report due on Thursday — an assignment that one had failed to complete — and to avoid punishment they began to conceive their plan, Duncan said. Neither child has been in trouble before, according to police and school officials.

“They clearly did not understand what would happen to them, or think through that making a teacher sick is pretty close to killing them when you’re talking about anaphylactic shock,” the deputy chief said.

Both girls, who regaled classmates with their caper, were reported by their peers. But the damage had already been done. Though other students raced to warn Jeffers, she had already sipped from one of the tainted vessels.

“12-year-old thinking at it’s finest”?

There are plenty of adults who think much the same way, like when they hatch a political plot and pass laws that are harmful to their neighbors but not damaging enough to kill them outright.

I’d say the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Entitlement gone wild.

I could have said prosecutes but persecutes is more fitting.

The guy has survived HIV+ for 20 years and is now facing up to six years in prison.

From Reason:

The strange thing is, this wasn’t even a federal bust. It was a state task force that arrested Branson. Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2000. The problem is that under that law, Branson had to have been smoking under a doctor’s recommendation. The doctor who gave him that recommendation wouldn’t put it in writing because she worked for the University of Colorado. The school won’t allow its doctors to prescribe medical marijuana because to do so would put its federal funding at risk. Branson has since obtained written permission from another doctor, but he still must stand trial for the plants seized before he had that permission, when he was relying on the oral recommendation of the university doctor. She’s now in South Africa, and it’s not clear if the state will permit her to testify from out of the country.

Caught in the nexus of this sick web of federal blackmail, misplaced law enforcement priorities, and prosecutorial excess is Mr. Branson, who anticipates a slow, painful death if convicted, or if by way of a plea he is forced to give up his marijuana. He has indicated that he’ll commit suicide instead.

I’ve always maintained that with regard to HIV/AIDS, battling HIV is the easy part. Fighting ignorance has always been the most difficult challenge. No matter how much knowledge you throw at it, it keeps mutating into new forms that are highly resistant to all forms of reason.

This is an excellent example of what happens when the state starts playing doctor. Just wait for “universal” health care when politicians will make all the choices for you and your doctor.

A recent article from AmericanScientist.org detailed how marijuana is the least lethal of recreational drugs and alchohol is one of the most lethal. (Be sure to check out the graph by clicking on the small graph icon on the right side of the page if my link doesn’t work.) The fact that marijuana is illegal but alcohol is not tells you that our drug laws are not based on any effort to save lives.

It should also be noted that when the issue of medicial marijuana was recently decided by the Supreme Court, it was the liberals who created this confusion about state v. federal law with regard to medicinal marijuana.

From CNN:

In a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled the Bush administration can block the backyard cultivation of pot for personal use, because such use has broader social and financial implications.

“Congress’ power to regulate purely activities that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce is firmly established,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas dissented. The case took an unusually long time to be resolved, with oral arguments held in November.

The decision means that federal anti-drug laws trump state laws that allow the use of medical marijuana, said CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Ten states have such laws. [emphasis added]

The liberals are also the ones pushing for universal health care, although “conservatives” are starting to like it as well. Imagine what life will be like when the treatments you get for illnesses are decided by the Supreme Court rather than you and your doctor.

A comment was left on my previous post and I don’t want you to miss the link to this video.

It’s the story of a man with a brain tumor who could not get medical attention in a timely manner under Canada’s single-payer health care system and had to come to the U.S. for treatment.

Along with Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Sen. John Edwards supports “universal” health care. Would his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, have to wait in line for treatment for her cancer? Of course she wouldn’t. She’d get all the care she needed and you would pay for it, while you were waiting in line to get your own cancer or other disease treated.

While the politically well-connected were getting treatment at your expense you would be begging the government for permission to go to another country for treatment like the man in the video, or begging for reimbursement because you didn’t get permission ahead of time.

It’s also important to note that John Edwards made some of his fortune suing doctors, particularly OB/GYNs, alleging they caused cerebral palsy in infants. Those types of lawsuits which are probably based on junk science, raise malpractice insurance premiums. That cost is passed along to patients, and is one of the reasons why health care has become unaffordable in this country.

Don’t expect those who created the problem to fix it, especially is they got rich and powerful by creating it in the first place.

Hillary Clinton, famous for her failed attempt at a government-run health care plan during her husband’s presidency is promising “Universal Health Care” when she becomes president.

From Yahoo/AP:

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful
Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Monday to create a universal health care system if elected, saying she “learned a lot” during the failed health care effort of her husband’s presidency.

“We’re going to have universal health care when I’m president — there’s no doubt about that. We’re going to get it done,” the New York senator and front-runner for the 2008 nomination said.

[...]

Asked how she could improve on her failed effort to reform health care during her husband’s presidency, Clinton said pressure for change has built in the last decade and that would make tackling the issue easier.

“I believe the American people are going to make this an issue,” said Clinton. “I believe we’re in a better position today to do that than we were in ‘93 and ‘94. … It’s one of the reasons I’m running for president.”

The thought of Hillary Clinton and others like her managing my health care makes me, well…. sick.

The cost of health care is spiraling out of control because the politicians pander to special interests and pass regulations that are hostile to a free market in health care. Those who are now pushing for “universal” health care, rather than giving individuals more control over their own bodies and health care, want even more control over the market and individual lives.

Good medicine is based on science and rational thinking. Politics is not. Once medicine and science are married to government they cease to be science based, and become political instead. Treatments are tested and available only at the whim of those in political power, not because you need them. Rationing is inevitable. Those with political clout get what they want from the system, at the expense of others, and those without clout pay but don’t get what they need or want.

The damage from a “universal” health care system can be somewhat mitigated if a free market system is allowed to exist as well. But, as we’ve seen in Canada, once bureaucrats have control literally over every body in the country, they don’t give it up to competition.