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this should show up in consolidation

by Donald Sensing, 5/26/2008 06:49:00 PM. Permalink |

Tennessee government guilty of usurpation?
Last July Tennessee raised the state tax on cigarettes to 62 cents per pack - a 42-cent per pack raise. That made Tennessee’s cigarette tax higher than any of the eight states it borders, in some cases, much higher.

And Tennessee’s ruling class seems surprised - but shouldn’t be - that smokers living within an hour’s drive of the border, which is almost all Tennesseans, are cruising to another state the buy their smokes. Maybe smokers (I am not one) drive more than an hour, I dunno. But drive they do, even though their purchase savings are greatly offset, if not eliminated, by the cost of the fuel they use and the wear and tear on their autos.
Unless, of course, they buy a lot of cigarettes. And therein lies the problem. It is also against the law in Tennessee to bring more than two cartons per person (I think, but it could be per vehicle) of cigarettes into Tennessee.

Under state law, bringing more than two cartons of cigarettes into the state without paying Tennessee taxes is a “Class B” misdemeanor, carrying punishment of up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine. Bringing 25 or more cartons is a “Class E” felony, with minimum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum of six years plus a fine of up to $3,000. In addition, the specific state statute dealing with untaxed cigarettes provides that vehicles used to transport more than two cartons “are considered contraband and are subject to seizure,” says a Department of Revenue statement.

Farr said that agents have been instructed to seize any vehicle carrying more than 25 cartons of cigarettes without Tennessee tax stamps. In cases where three to 24 cartons are involved, he said vehicle seizure is “at the officer’s discretion.”

As one wag remarked somewhere on the Internet, Tennessee’s increased revenue from the rise in taxes will be used to pay for stopping freelance bootleggers. James Joyner (whence the cite) asks, reasonably enough,

How this can possibly be constitutional is beyond me. First, what gives Tennessee police officers the authority to operate across state lines? Second, surely seizing a vehicle potentially worth upwards of $40,000 for the “crime” of possessing more than two cartons of cigarettes amounts to excessive punishment under the 8th and 14th Amendments?

First, Tennessee revenooers can’t make arrests outside their legal jurisdiction, but they may cross state lines in the otherwise performance of their duties. But the Constitutional questions are compelling, I think. I’d argue against what Tennessee is doing because of the Commerce Clause of the main body of the Contitution:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, reads as follows:”The Congress shall have Power …To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

I think it’s simply beyond arguing that Tennessee is attempting to regulate commerce across state borders, authority for which is reserved by the Constitution to the US Congress, and is thereby usurping a federal power.

Where does personal use end and bootlegging begin? Bootlegging meaning reselling the smokes in Tennessee for profit, not buying a dozen cartons for Aunt Esmerelda, who is too weak to drive because of her emphysema, and who pays back the exact amount of the purchase.

Tennessee does have a legitimate interest in prohibiting bootlegging of cigarettes, and for that the 25-carton limit seems reasonable to me. But conviction for actual bootlegging would require more than possession of some arbitrary number of cartons, would it not? If a legger bought other-state cigs, saving $4.50 per carton (45 cents per pack), then he’d have to charge his illicit customers at least half that to recoup costs and make a profit. So, 25 cartons bought at $4.50 discount = $112.50, call half of it profit at resale, or $66. Do that six days per week and the legger nets almost $400 per week.

But the state has brought all this on itself because it raised the tax and thereby generated the incentive for the majority of Tennessee smokers to buy across state lines. That’s the trouble with vice taxes, they require inordinate resources to enforce and often criminalize what would otherwise be seen as quite reasonable behavior. Tennessee’s standard sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation, why not just tax cigarettes at that rate (9.25 percent where I live) and be done with it?

Oh, I know, I know, don’t bother to try to enlighten me.

Labels: Business and Commerce, Consitutional Issues, Domestic Politics

by Donald Sensing, 9/28/2007 02:34:00 PM. Permalink |

The Peroxide Plot
Three Muslim would-be terrorists, trained in Pakistan's death (to others) camps, have been arrested by German authorities for plotting to attack Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport with explosives.

Bombs more powerful than Madrid, London: “Monika Harms, the German federal prosecutor, said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and obtained some 680kg (1,500lb) of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives.

‘This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings,’ Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany’s federal crime office, said at a joint news conference with Ms Harms.” (Guardian)

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a bleaching agent with common household uses. I've used it as a wound disinfectant and it's particualrly effective at removing blood stains, though it tends to remove fabric color as well as the blood.

The the stuff you buy in a drug store is only about three percent strength, far too weak to use as an explosive. In more concentrated forms it can be used alone as a rocket fuel or as a rocket fuel component. The famed Bell Rocket Belt, for example, used H2O2 as a monofuel. H2O2 is still used for thrusters in spacecraft.

Used alone, H2O2 needs a catalyst to ignite. But it can be combined with acetone to produce a highly volatile liquid explosive. Acetone is also a commonly available household chemical, used in nail polish for example. Larger and purer quantities are commercially obtainable without much difficulty. Acetone plus H2O2 is called triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an explosive. It is very easy to ignite (hence dangerous to handle). But obtaining H2O2 in the high concentration required to make a powerful TATP bomb is not easy; even chemical-supply companies rarely offer H2O2 in greater concentration than 30-35 percent, and for a big bang from TATP, 70 percent or higher is needed.

Thirty-percent H2O2 can be distilled into higher concentrations. Since the three men were arrested with 1,500 pounds of the stuff, I'm guessing that is what they wanted to do. That amount would distill down to about 650 pounds of 70-percent strength stuff. CNN reported that German sources said the bomb attack, just days from being carried out, would have produced an explosion equivalent to more than half a ton of TNT.

Der Spiegel reports that the three men had legally obtained 730 kilograms (>1,600 pounds) of chemicals, which raised the attention level of the authorities.

A few days ago, police experts secretly swapped the 35-percent solution of hydrogen peroxide contained in 12 barrels for a diluted liquid that only contained 3 percent of the chemical. ...

[T]he men had all the necessary components ready -- they had even already procured a military ignition mechanism for the explosive device. "An attack was imminent -- it was only a question of time," said one high-ranking security expert. Probably the men wanted to place the bombs in one or more cars and explode them in front of the target.

TATP was said by British authorities to have been used in the London bus bombings and apparently is favored by such attackers because it is free of nitrogen, a common component of explosives. TATP is thus undetectable by nitrogenous-compound sniffing scanners.

Even had an actual high-explosive bomb not been intended, a weaker form of TATP could cause considerable damage if used as an arson agent. It burns very hot and will burn right through aluminum. This was apparently the plan of the 2006 al Qaeda scheme to down 10 airliners over the mid-Atlantic in one day.

Though the planned attacks were intended to take place on airports, authorities said that the actual targets were not aviation facilities or aircraft, but against crowded facilities such as restaurants, bars or clubs at or near the airports. If so, then the 35-percent solution of H2O2 probably would have been sufficient to make a potent flame weapon, basically a low-order explosive (with luck) that spread burning TATP through the targets.

Der Spiegel says that this barely-thwarted attack is a wakeup call for Germany that it is definitely a target of Islamist terrorists. This may be difficult for the German people to accept, since they consider themselves as having good relations with the Middle East. That doesn't matter to Islamists, of course, who mainly despise the Arab governments with whom Germany gets along so well. The Germans are learning what I've said before - you may not be interested in terrorists, but terrorists are definitely interested in you.

Labels: Terrorism

by Donald Sensing, 9/05/2007 02:49:00 PM. Permalink |

Medical care to be denied to people with unhealthy lifestyles
That's the bright idea of a Tory panel in Britain.

Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles should not be treated by the NHS, the Conservatives said today.

In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles.

And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive "Health Miles" cards.

Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables.

That's the inevitable end of socialized medicine. As a Canadian wrote recently (I'll try to find the link again), the main object of a free-market, insurance-based medical system is curing disease or injury, but the main object of government-run medical system is controlling costs, for which cures are secondary. Hence, said the new head of Canada's medical association, you can get a hip replacement for your dog there is a week, but it will take a year for you to get one for yourself.

So who in Britain will get to say whether you are leading a healthy lifestyle worthy of medical care? Oh, just guess. No doubt the Tories would create a new Department of Lifestyle and Health Benefits Qualification Assessment.

Labels: Government, Health Issues, UK

by Donald Sensing, 9/04/2007 02:51:00 PM. Permalink |

15 answers to Creationist nonsense
A highly read-worthy article in Scientific American offers, "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" (printer version here). Part of the answer to the creationist claim, "Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created," is this:

[E]volution implies that between the earliest-known ancestors of humans (roughly five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows. But one should not--and does not--find modern human fossils embedded in strata from the Jurassic period (144 million years ago). Evolutionary biology routinely makes predictions far more refined and precise than this, and researchers test them constantly.

But a recent announcement by anthropologist Meave Leakey (the most famous and respected family name in the business) busts a hole in the evolutionary descent of modern humans as presently accepted. Until now, scientists thought that the ancient species Homo habilis ("man with ability"), was the evolutionary ancestor of Homo erectus ("Erect man," and no juvenile snickering, either). Dr. Leakey's research postively disproves that idea.

Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches thought to be in a straight ancestral line to Homo sapiens.

Scientists who dated and analyzed the specimens — a 1.44-million-year-old Homo habilis and a 1.55-million-year-old Homo erectus found in 2000 — said their findings challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other. Instead, they apparently lived side by side in eastern Africa for almost half a million years.

If this interpretation is correct, the early evolution of the genus Homo is left even more shrouded in mystery than before. It means that both habilis and erectus must have originated from a common ancestor between two million and three million years ago, a time when fossil hunters had drawn a virtual blank. ...

The challenge to the idea of a more linear succession of the three Homo species is being reported today in the journal Nature. The lead author is Fred Spoor, an evolutionary anatomist at University College London. ...

Dr. Spoor, speaking by satellite phone from a field site near Lake Turkana, said the evidence clearly contradicted previous ideas of human evolution “as one strong, single line from early to us.” The new findings, he added, support the revised interpretations of “a lot of bushiness and experimentation in the fossil record.”

I amk not claiming that this discovery invalidates the theory of evolution, far from it. It just caught my eye how immediately SciAm's defense of the existing theory of human evolution was knocked about. Who says? Not me. Here is what Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, had to say about the Spoor-Leakey report (same link):

The new findings, Dr. Lieberman said, highlight the need for obtaining more fossils that are more than two million years old. In addition, he said, they show “just how interesting and complex the human genus was and how poorly we understand the transition from being something much more apelike to something more humanlike.”

So it seems that the human family tree is much less clear than SciAm makes it out to be. While the new finding does not affect the present understanding that H. erectus was the ancestor of modern humans, it does knock a huge hole in SciAm's claim that there is a, "succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern." In fact, the fossil researchers said they were surprised at how much less like modern humans the H. erectus fossil was than they expected it to be (read the article for why). So there seems now to be a big gap in our understanding of our descendancy, for which researchers will doubtless start to intensify their quest for additional finds.

Anyway, the rest of the SciAm piece is worth your time.

Labels: Religion, Science

by Donald Sensing, 8/11/2007 02:54:00 PM. Permalink |