another site
So my mother's friend's husband is stuck in a hotel in Saudi Arabia and this is the order menu they gave him
Do I have any Arabic speaking followers that can help make sense of this but also, tag yourself, I'm "Normal doubt" pic.twitter.com/MVemyCCON9
— Vlada ✨????✨ (@vladadraws) May 24, 2020
Thanks to Prof. Mark Liberman (Language Log) for the pointer.
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From a letter to parties by Judge John Coughenour (W.D. Wash.):
As reflected in the General Orders recently issued by the Western District of Washington, the coronavirus pandemic has substantially affected the Court’s ability to conduct in-person proceedings. It is the considered view of most judges in the Western District of Washington that criminal jury trials are not likely to resume prior to 2021. The Court cannot configure its courtroom for trial to comply with the social distancing guidelines promulgated by local and national health officials, and the Court is not confident that potential jurors will (or should) respond to subpoenas before they are convinced that it is safe to do so. Therefore, the Court will continue the trial dates in pending criminal matters consistent with future General Orders, which exclude the time of such continuances under the Speedy Trial Act.
However, the Court believes that it is important to maintain existing case schedules to the greatest extent possible under the current circumstances. Therefore, in granting future continuances of trial dates, the Court will keep case management dates the same absent a showing of good cause. This will ensure that trials are efficiently resolved once in-court proceedings are safe for the parties, counsel, and jurors.
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From a letter to parties by Judge John Coughenour (W.D. Wash.):
As reflected in the General Orders recently issued by the Western District of Washington, the coronavirus pandemic has substantially affected the Court’s ability to conduct in-person proceedings. It is the considered view of most judges in the Western District of Washington that criminal jury trials are not likely to resume prior to 2021. The Court cannot configure its courtroom for trial to comply with the social distancing guidelines promulgated by local and national health officials, and the Court is not confident that potential jurors will (or should) respond to subpoenas before they are convinced that it is safe to do so. Therefore, the Court will continue the trial dates in pending criminal matters consistent with future General Orders, which exclude the time of such continuances under the Speedy Trial Act.
However, the Court believes that it is important to maintain existing case schedules to the greatest extent possible under the current circumstances. Therefore, in granting future continuances of trial dates, the Court will keep case management dates the same absent a showing of good cause. This will ensure that trials are efficiently resolved once in-court proceedings are safe for the parties, counsel, and jurors.
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Good news today for fans of internet privacy. Several members of the House of Representatives have arranged to resurrect a plan to stop the federal government from collecting or accessing Americans’ web browsing and online search histories without a warrant.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D–Calif.) announced this afternoon that she and Rep. Warren Davidson (R–Ohio) have succeeded in weekend negotiations to get the House to consider an important surveillance reform amendment that died by a single vote in the Senate.
As the House and Senate have been hammering out legislation to renew expired provisions of the USA Freedom Act (which itself reformed the surveillance authorities of the PATRIOT Act), lawmakers unhappy with the extent that these laws have been used to secretly collect Americans’ data have been pushing for stronger protections.
One proposed Senate amendment by Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) and Sen. Steve Daines (R–Mont.) would prohibit using surveillance authorities to secretly (and without a warrant) collect Americans’ browser and search histories through third-party record collections, such as those of internet service providers.
When the amendment came to the Senate floor on May 13, the final vote was 59-37, one vote shy of the 60-vote threshold to amend the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020. Four senators were absent from that vote, including Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), and it would have likely reached the 60-vote threshold had they been there.
Fortunately, complicated bicameral legislative processes sometimes save the day. The USA Freedom Reauthorization Act had already passed the House with some modest reforms (the records collection program revealed by Edward Snowden is officially dead, though it unofficially died last year). The Senate added an additional amendment by Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D–Vt.) to bolster the process that allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to name independent advisers to represent the interests of American citizens and advocate on behalf of those targeted by these secretive surveillance processes.
Because that amendment passed, the bill then heads back to the House for another vote. This gives Lofgren and Davidson the opportunity to amend it again, thereby restoring the Wyden-Daines proposal.
“Without this prohibition, intelligence officials can potentially have access to information such as our personal health, religious practices, and political views without a warrant,” Lofgren noted in a statement today. “As such, I urge my colleagues to support the Lofgren-Davidson amendment and Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”
The amendment is expected before the House Rules Committee Wednesday morning and, assuming it passes, could be voted on Wednesday evening on the House floor. If it passes, it will head back to the Senate again for yet another vote.
Watch ReasonTV’s recent interview with Wyden about surveillance reforms:
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Last week, I had the privilege of being one of several commentators in the Balkinization symposium on two new books on secession: Timothy William Waters’s Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World (Yale University Press, 2020) and F. H. Buckley’s American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup (Encounter Books, 2020). My piece is available here. Buckley and Waters have now responded to their critics. Buckley’s response is here. Waters’ is divided into two parts: one covering general issues, and one those specific to the United States.
Buckley’s response doesn’t focus much on the points I raised, instead choosing to focus on those of others. Waters’, however, did respond to my concerns that secession referenda of the sort he envisions might be influenced by political ignorance, and that they could lead to the establishment of states that are more unjust and repressive than the ones they displace:
Somin’s fear that secessionists might be “severely oppressive” shouldn’t concern us. Not because they won’t, or because small is better. (I argue at length against assumptions that smaller states are worse, but avoid Buckley’s claim that they’re necessarily better. Better is the state whose people desire it.) It’s because there’s no data to support the fear that they’ll be worse – besides, we have few ways to ensure good behavior by existing states. It’s less a prudential objection, more a default preference for the status quo.
And Somin suggests an ameliorating move I favor: nothing precludes additional requirements – human rights, minority protections, denuclearization. A right of secession isn’t self-actuating, it needs diplomatic support – so secessions are moments of leverage (which we don’t have over existing states).
But change is risky: Why vote on such momentous questions, when people are so demonstrably ignorant? Somin worries people will make foolish choices. But that’s a concern for democracy in general. Existing states are often ethnicized and no more likely to promote unbiased decision-making; at most, they have the grim virtue of stable expectations. Yes, the stakes are higher in secession – which is precisely why it’s desirable to ask the people directly. To say people cannot be trusted is to say that the most essential question of governance cannot be asked. (Nothing prevents states from incorporating elites or legislative input. And Somin’s point suggests something I didn’t emphasize in Boxing Pandora: the best referenda will be two-staged. A confirmatory vote would have dramatically reduced Brexit’s dysfunction.)
I actually agree with much of what Waters says above. For example, I too believe that there should not be a strong default presumption in favor of existing governments, and have made a similar argument myself. It is certainly true that existing states are often “ethnicized” and feature racial and ethnic discrimination and oppression. Waters is also right that political ignorance is a more general problem with democracy that goes beyond the specific example of secession referenda. Not only do I agree with that point—I’ve even written an entire book about it. More generally, I agree with Waters’ thesis that secession should be more easily and widely available than it is under the status quo in most countries.
That said, I do still have a few nits to pick here. While public ignorance is a serious problem for a wide range of democratic processes, it is likely to be especially pernicious when the issue at hand is heavily tinged with racial or ethnic hostility, as is often the case with secession referenda. In addition, the consequences of secession may be harder for “rationally ignorant” voters to assess than are those of more “normal” political decisions. Moreover, the combination of ignorance and bias may exacerbate the risk of creating a new state that is more oppressive or otherwise worse than the old.
This doesn’t mean that secession referenda should never be held. But it does mean they may often require special safeguards. Thus, I am glad to see that Waters endorses my “ameliorating move” of imposing additional requirements on secessionists, such as adherence to human rights norms. I also agree with him that “confirmatory” second referenda may often be desirable. But notice that these restrictions would be significant constraints on Waters’ initial, relatively simple framework, where secessionists would be allowed to form a new state any time they win a simple majority vote within a territory they themselves define.
That said, I think there is more common ground than divergence between Waters and myself on these issues, especially now that this exchange has narrowed the disagreement over the conditions under which a referendum should lead to the establishment of a new state. My differences with Waters are not as great as our shared reservations about the status quo.
Finally, I continue to believe that expanding opportunities for people to “vote with their feet” will often be a better way to increase political freedom than secession. I outline that argument in greater detail in my contribution to the Balkinization symposium, and in my just-published book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.
I urge interested readers to read the other contributions to the symposium (available at the Balkinization website), which raise a variety of important points about the possibilities and limits of secession, both in the US and around the world. There are pieces by Jack Balkin, Sanford Levinson, Michael Lind, Cynthia Nicoletti, and Robert Tsai.
Thanks to Sandy Levinson and Jack Balkin for putting this event together!
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Today the United States is likely to pass a grim milestone: 100,000 estimated deaths from COVID-19. To mark the occasion, and also to provide a snapshot of New York/Washington, D.C. life in these tentatively de-quarantining times, Reason Roundtable podcasters Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch deliver a series of faulty metaphors including but not limited to: “I, Pencil,” on-campus sexually transmitted diseases, government hole-digging, and probably something having to do with Spider-Man.
The gang also discusses the Libertarian Party’s busy nominating weekend, Sputnik Sweetheart, and Suderman’s new splattercore band Viral Death Radius.
Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.
Music credit: “Chasin’ It” by Audionautix
Relevant links from the show:
“The President and Governors Alike Botched the Pandemic Response,” by J.D. Tuccille
“Liberals Have Rediscovered the 10th Amendment’s Value During the Coronavirus Pandemic,” by Ira Stoll
“The CDC’s New ‘Best Estimate’ Implies a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Below 0.3%,” by Jacob Sullum
“It’s Going To Be Hard Enough To Get Kids Back to Day Care After COVID-19,” by Shoshana Weissmann
“How Much Credit Should Lockdowns Get for Reducing COVID-19 Transmission?” By Jacob Sullum
“D.C.’s So-Called Reopen Plan Is a Suicide Pact for the Restaurant Industry,” by Robby Soave
“COVID-19 Herd Immunity Is ‘Still Very Far Away,’” by Ronald Bailey
“Jo Jorgensen Wins Libertarian Party Presidential Nomination,” by Brian Doherty
“Libertarian Party Picks Spike Cohen as Its Vice-Presidential Candidate,” by Brian Doherty
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Good news today for fans of internet privacy. Several members of the House of Representatives have arranged to resurrect a plan to stop the federal government from collecting or accessing Americans’ web browsing and online search histories without a warrant.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D–Calif.) announced this afternoon that she and Rep. Warren Davidson (R–Ohio) have succeeded in weekend negotiations to get the House to consider an important surveillance reform amendment that died by a single vote in the Senate.
As the House and Senate have been hammering out legislation to renew expired provisions of the USA Freedom Act (which itself reformed the surveillance authorities of the PATRIOT Act), lawmakers unhappy with the extent that these laws have been used to secretly collect Americans’ data have been pushing for stronger protections.
One proposed Senate amendment by Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) and Sen. Steve Daines (R–Mont.) would prohibit using surveillance authorities to secretly (and without a warrant) collect Americans’ browser and search histories through third-party record collections, such as those of internet service providers.
When the amendment came to the Senate floor on May 13, the final vote was 59-37, one vote shy of the 60-vote threshold to amend the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020. Four senators were absent from that vote, including Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), and it would have likely reached the 60-vote threshold had they been there.
Fortunately, complicated bicameral legislative processes sometimes save the day. The USA Freedom Reauthorization Act had already passed the House with some modest reforms (the records collection program revealed by Edward Snowden is officially dead, though it unofficially died last year). The Senate added an additional amendment by Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D–Vt.) to bolster the process that allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to name independent advisers to represent the interests of American citizens and advocate on behalf of those targeted by these secretive surveillance processes.
Because that amendment passed, the bill then heads back to the House for another vote. This gives Lofgren and Davidson the opportunity to amend it again, thereby restoring the Wyden-Daines proposal.
“Without this prohibition, intelligence officials can potentially have access to information such as our personal health, religious practices, and political views without a warrant,” Lofgren noted in a statement today. “As such, I urge my colleagues to support the Lofgren-Davidson amendment and Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”
The amendment is expected before the House Rules Committee Wednesday morning and, assuming it passes, could be voted on Wednesday evening on the House floor. If it passes, it will head back to the Senate again for yet another vote.
Watch ReasonTV’s recent interview with Wyden about surveillance reforms:
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Last week, I had the privilege of being one of several commentators in the Balkinization symposium on two new books on secession: Timothy William Waters’s Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World (Yale University Press, 2020) and F. H. Buckley’s American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup (Encounter Books, 2020). My piece is available here. Buckley and Waters have now responded to their critics. Buckley’s response is here. Waters’ is divided into two parts: one covering general issues, and one those specific to the United States.
Buckley’s response doesn’t focus much on the points I raised, instead choosing to focus on those of others. Waters’, however, did respond to my concerns that secession referenda of the sort he envisions might be influenced by political ignorance, and that they could lead to the establishment of states that are more unjust and repressive than the ones they displace:
Somin’s fear that secessionists might be “severely oppressive” shouldn’t concern us. Not because they won’t, or because small is better. (I argue at length against assumptions that smaller states are worse, but avoid Buckley’s claim that they’re necessarily better. Better is the state whose people desire it.) It’s because there’s no data to support the fear that they’ll be worse – besides, we have few ways to ensure good behavior by existing states. It’s less a prudential objection, more a default preference for the status quo.
And Somin suggests an ameliorating move I favor: nothing precludes additional requirements – human rights, minority protections, denuclearization. A right of secession isn’t self-actuating, it needs diplomatic support – so secessions are moments of leverage (which we don’t have over existing states).
But change is risky: Why vote on such momentous questions, when people are so demonstrably ignorant? Somin worries people will make foolish choices. But that’s a concern for democracy in general. Existing states are often ethnicized and no more likely to promote unbiased decision-making; at most, they have the grim virtue of stable expectations. Yes, the stakes are higher in secession – which is precisely why it’s desirable to ask the people directly. To say people cannot be trusted is to say that the most essential question of governance cannot be asked. (Nothing prevents states from incorporating elites or legislative input. And Somin’s point suggests something I didn’t emphasize in Boxing Pandora: the best referenda will be two-staged. A confirmatory vote would have dramatically reduced Brexit’s dysfunction.)
I actually agree with much of what Waters says above. For example, I too believe that there should not be a strong default presumption in favor of existing governments, and have made a similar argument myself. It is certainly true that existing states are often “ethnicized” and feature racial and ethnic discrimination and oppression. Waters is also right that political ignorance is a more general problem with democracy that goes beyond the specific example of secession referenda. Not only do I agree with that point—I’ve even written an entire book about it. More generally, I agree with Waters’ thesis that secession should be more easily and widely available than it is under the status quo in most countries.
That said, I do still have a few nits to pick here. While public ignorance is a serious problem for a wide range of democratic processes, it is likely to be especially pernicious when the issue at hand is heavily tinged with racial or ethnic hostility, as is often the case with secession referenda. In addition, the consequences of secession may be harder for “rationally ignorant” voters to assess than are those of more “normal” political decisions. Moreover, the combination of ignorance and bias may exacerbate the risk of creating a new state that is more oppressive or otherwise worse than the old.
This doesn’t mean that secession referenda should never be held. But it does mean they may often require special safeguards. Thus, I am glad to see that Waters endorses my “ameliorating move” of imposing additional requirements on secessionists, such as adherence to human rights norms. I also agree with him that “confirmatory” second referenda may often be desirable. But notice that these restrictions would be significant constraints on Waters’ initial, relatively simple framework, where secessionists would be allowed to form a new state any time they win a simple majority vote within a territory they themselves define.
That said, I think there is more common ground than divergence between Waters and myself on these issues, especially now that this exchange has narrowed the disagreement over the conditions under which a referendum should lead to the establishment of a new state. My differences with Waters are not as great as our shared reservations about the status quo.
Finally, I continue to believe that expanding opportunities for people to “vote with their feet” will often be a better way to increase political freedom than secession. I outline that argument in greater detail in my contribution to the Balkinization symposium, and in my just-published book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.
I urge interested readers to read the other contributions to the symposium (available at the Balkinization website), which raise a variety of important points about the possibilities and limits of secession, both in the US and around the world. There are pieces by Jack Balkin, Sanford Levinson, Michael Lind, Cynthia Nicoletti, and Robert Tsai.
Thanks to Sandy Levinson and Jack Balkin for putting this event together!
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Today the United States is likely to pass a grim milestone: 100,000 estimated deaths from COVID-19. To mark the occasion, and also to provide a snapshot of New York/Washington, D.C. life in these tentatively de-quarantining times, Reason Roundtable podcasters Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch deliver a series of faulty metaphors including but not limited to: “I, Pencil,” on-campus sexually transmitted diseases, government hole-digging, and probably something having to do with Spider-Man.
The gang also discusses the Libertarian Party’s busy nominating weekend, Sputnik Sweetheart, and Suderman’s new splattercore band Viral Death Radius.
Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.
Music credit: “Chasin’ It” by Audionautix
Relevant links from the show:
“The President and Governors Alike Botched the Pandemic Response,” by J.D. Tuccille
“Liberals Have Rediscovered the 10th Amendment’s Value During the Coronavirus Pandemic,” by Ira Stoll
“The CDC’s New ‘Best Estimate’ Implies a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Below 0.3%,” by Jacob Sullum
“It’s Going To Be Hard Enough To Get Kids Back to Day Care After COVID-19,” by Shoshana Weissmann
“How Much Credit Should Lockdowns Get for Reducing COVID-19 Transmission?” By Jacob Sullum
“D.C.’s So-Called Reopen Plan Is a Suicide Pact for the Restaurant Industry,” by Robby Soave
“COVID-19 Herd Immunity Is ‘Still Very Far Away,’” by Ronald Bailey
“Jo Jorgensen Wins Libertarian Party Presidential Nomination,” by Brian Doherty
“Libertarian Party Picks Spike Cohen as Its Vice-Presidential Candidate,” by Brian Doherty
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“We’re going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we’re going to do it even faster than we thought. And it will be a complete victory. It’ll be a total victory,” declared President Trump at the White House coronavirus task force press briefing on March 18. He hinted that a second news conference in the next day or so would feature “some potentially very exciting news…having to do with the FDA.”
A day later the president asserted that the malaria and arthritis drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine had “shown very encouraging—very, very encouraging early results” in treating COVID-19. The president also praised the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for moving quickly, saying that drugs have “gone through the approval process; it’s been approved.” Consequently, Trump added, “we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.” He suggested that using the drugs to treat patients suffering from COVID-19 could be “a tremendous breakthrough” and “a game changer.”
On March 28, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization allowing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to be distributed and used to treat certain hospitalized patients with COVID-19. A month later, the agency warned about heart rhythm problems and noted that “hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19.” Nevertheless, Trump let slip on May 19 that he was personally taking hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus preventative treatment. Yesterday, the president said that he has just finished his hydroxychloroquine and zinc treatment regimen.
Sadly, accumulating scientific evidence is ever more strongly indicating that the president’s hopes for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as breakthrough treatments for COVID-19 are not being borne out.
The latest blow to those hopes was a huge observational study published last Friday by researchers in The Lancet. Researchers assessed nearly 100,000 COVID-19 patients from 671 hospitals on six continents with about two-thirds of the patients hailing from North America. They compared those being treated with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or clarithromycin with a cohort of patients who did not take those drugs.
The researchers controlled for multiple confounding factors such as age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, underlying cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, diabetes, underlying lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and baseline disease severity.
Ultimately, they found that for patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, there was a 34 percent increase in risk of death and a 137 percent increase of risk for a serious heart arrhythmia compared to those patients not taking the drugs. The risk of death and heart arrhythmia increased to 45 percent and 411 percent, respectively, for those treated with hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic. Being treated with chloroquine alone resulted in a 37 percent increased risk of death and a 256 percent increased risk of serious heart arrhythmia. There was also a 37 percent increased risk of death among patients taking both chloroquine and antibiotic. That combination slightly boosted the risk of serious heart arrhythmia to 301 percent.
In the wake of the increased mortality and heart arrhythmia risks reported in The Lancet study, the World Health Organization has decided to pause the ongoing randomized controlled trials using hydroxychloroquine that it is overseeing. Patients in those trials who are currently being treated with the drug will continue to receive it until they have finished their courses of treatment. The agency will evaluate the data so far collected from the trials and plans to issue an evaluation by mid-June of the evidence for harm, benefit, or lack of benefit from using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.
The best way to nail down the therapeutic risks and benefits of drugs is through randomized double blind placebo controlled clinical trials in which patients are randomly assigned to either the treatment group or the placebo group. Neither the researchers nor the participants know to which group individual patients have been assigned. In mid-May, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced that it is sponsoring a randomized control trial to evaluate the efficacy of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in treating COVID-19 patients. Preliminary results from that trial are not expected until some time in October. No news yet on whether the agency will continue with the trial in light of The Lancet results.
Perhaps hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in some combination will still turn out to be a game changer helping to lead to total victory against COVID-19, but that happy outcome is looking ever less likely.
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