When a judge misjudges

"The judge who asked an alleged rape victim why she 'couldn't keep her knees together' might lose his job."

A Canadian judge is facing the possibility of removal from the bench after he faulted a 19-year-old woman who said she was raped for not doing enough to defend herself during the alleged attack and suggesting that she wanted to have sex.

Among Federal Court Justice Robin Camp's remarks during a 2014 sexual assault trial, according to a notice of allegations posted on the Canadian Judicial Council website:

"Why couldn't you just keep your knees together? Why didn't you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn't penetrate you?"

Young women, the judge said, "want to have sex, particularly if they're drunk," according to the notice.

He also said that "some sex and pain sometimes go together" and "that's not necessarily a bad thing."

Camp's controversial remarks resulted in an investigation by the Canadian Judicial Council, a federal body that polices judges.

He is expected to testify Friday before a five-member committee as part of a week-long proceeding that began Tuesday and will end next week in Calgary, Alberta.

The committee will decide on Camp's fate after hearing evidence and testimony. (lots more)

"Guns and alcohol"

"Volokh breaks it down in a way even Obama should understand... but wont. Because as he said he wants to politicize it."

Every day, about 30 people are killed in the U.S. in gun homicides or gun accidents (not counting gun suicides or self-inflicted accidental shootings). And every day, likely about 30 people are killed in homicides where the killer was under the influence of alcohol, plus alcohol-related drunk driving accidents and alcohol-related accidents where the driver wasn’t drunk but the alcohol was likely a factor (again not including those who died in accidents caused by their own alcohol consumption). If you added in gun suicides on one side and those people whose alcohol consumption killed themselves on the other, the deaths would tilt much more on the side of alcohol use, but I generally like to segregate deaths of the user from deaths of others.

So what are we going to do about it? When are we going to ban alcohol? When are we going to institute more common-sense alcohol-control measures?

Please read the whole thing. That guy should be in the Supreme Court.

“Apparently I am still indestructible”

"Lemmy, the grizzled perpetual badass who fronts metal icons Motörhead, has seen healthier days. His band was forced to cancel a few shows earlier this year when the nearly 70-year-old rocker was stricken with gastric distress and dehydration, and he now walks with a the aid of a stick because “my legs are fucked.” He also suffers from diabetes, but he’s found an interesting way to combat the illness; instead of his usual Jack Daniels and coke, Lemmy has switched to vodka and orange juice in order to stay healthy."

“I like orange juice better,” he told The Guardian in a recent interview. “So, Coca-Cola can fuck off.”

"To Stop Teen Drinking Parties, Fine The Parents"

"Many parents felt drinking was inevitable, she says. One mother told Friese, "I'd rather they make their mistakes when they're at home than when they're away."

"The bottom line is you can't provide alcohol to minors, period," says Bernadette Compean, an alcohol beverage control officer with the Ventura Police Department.

Public health researcher M.J. Paschall, also with the Prevention Research Center, recently did a study comparing cities in California that had social host laws with cities that did not.

"We found that cities with more stringent and enforceable social host laws had lower levels of drinking at parties among teenagers compared to cities with less stringent laws, or without any kind of social host law," Paschall says.

Necessary evil or more nanny state run amuck?

Medical News Today: "Alcohol does not benefit the heart, claims new study"

"The 155 researchers - from the UK, continental Europe, North America, and Australia - pooled and analyzed data about links between drinking habits and heart health from 56 epidemiological studies covering more than 260,000 people of European descent."

They found that people with a particular gene consumed 17% less alcohol per week, were less likely to binge drink, and were more likely to abstain from alcohol altogether, than non- carriers.

These lower alcohol consumers typically had a 10% average reduced risk of coronary heart disease, lower blood pressure and a lower body mass index (BMI). (read more)

Drugs and alcohol

Two things: This is a video of Bill Hicks comedically discussing drugs. He is speaking for humorous effect, to provoke laughter at a comedy club. His act is a mixture of truth and fiction.

This is a link to another 6.5 minute video of Birmingham characters and their commitment to cider. They are the real deal, real people. These characters are not in a comedy club paid to be funny. I am not clear what cider is but it sounds terrible. The video is not for the faint of heart. I had to turn away twice, I mean actually turn my head and stop looking. The same freaky old man, twice. Come to think of it, maybe that is his comedic act.

Jeeze, Louise.

Regarding recent Colorado marijuana legislation, some of the conservative sites on my regular circuit, yours too I betchya, put me in mind of the 1920-1933 era of control freaks descending upon the weary public apparently too tired to stand up for their own natural born rights, with their insistences and one-size-fits-everything moralizing legality, spurious claims and outright power moves to control the behavior of everybody else. Basically to have good solid piss all over the freedom of their fellow citizens. Back then, prohibition was a way of expressing through law, "I really do not like you, now change!" A forceful and aggressive indulgence on a national scale. I feel forced to remind today's conservative writers be sure to take an extra hatchet with you to the dispensaries, Carrie. I will not mention which old woman I have in mind specifically but the name sounds a little bit like Schmallah Schmundit. Prohibition did not make sense to me when I first heard of it at about ten years old, and prohibition of any sort never did make sense to me this whole time, and prohibition still does not make sense now. All arguments sound like worn out old ladies banging on the same discredited prejudices.

One commenter actually wrote the three latest mass killers had two things in common, madness and being exceedingly fond of marijuana. He thinks that is a winning argument and not a joke with its own copyrighted template -- "A man killed thirty people in a theater today after smoking a bowl of pot and from skipping his medication for psychosis, but mostly from skipping his meds for psychosis."

The reporting I've seen is deplorable. Photos of long lines suggesting that is the situation across the whole state. Presenting that as representative. I asked and was told that only twenty dispensaries went the recreational route. The law too dodgy, beta testing aversion, all the other dispensaries are sticking with the old rules for now until things are more fully sorted. Thus the long lines shown in photographs. Anyone claiming something so ridiculous as Colorado being one big choom gang is full of shit. And aggressively so.

Oddly, the owner of the dispensary a few blocks away is named Carrie. I just now gave her some candy. She is beautiful, gorgeous in fact, and not anything conservative caricature would have her. And her husband is an upstanding dude too. He is nothing that conservative imagination would have him to be.

Now, the characters in and out of the bottle shop downstairs on the other hand are a whole different story, along with the people that run it, an entirely different harsher more dangerous and darker little world down there. You never know what is going to happen and the whole place, front and back and all around invites vagrants and panhandlers and sidewalk pissers.