: re: In Overturning Conviction, Supreme Court Says Fish Are Not Always Tangible

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 10:37 AM
Subject: re: In Overturning Conviction, Supreme Court Says Fish Are Not Always Tangible
To: "letters@nytimes.com"


To the Editor:
   The Sarbanes-Oxley statute  of 2002 may indeed be "too broad" as
justice Kagan opines. It may even be so vague as to be
unconstitutional. But to find as this court did that a fish is not a
"tangible object" is to gut language of meaning. It is to say that no
law can mean anything.
   A lawyer's world--like a republic--is built of words. If this court
is to play Humpty Dumpty, declaring that “[w]hen I use a word, it
means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." then it
has ceased to interpret the laws enacted by Congress. It has declared
itself the master. And like Humpty Dumpty, the damage may be
irreparable.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/us/justices-overturn-a-fishermans-conviction-for-tossing-undersize-catch.html?_r=0

re: 

How to Develop New Antibiotics

To the Editor:
    The other Emanuel is also a weasel. When he writes: "Because it
costs at least $1 billion to develop a new drug, the prize money could
provide a 100 percent return — even before sales", note the "could"
and the "at least". He knows that the latest estimate published puts
the cost of a new drug at $2.6billion, putting the claimant of such a
$2billion prize firmly back in the red.
   Worse, when he writes that " any new antibiotics that might be
developed to fight these drug-resistant bacteria are likely to be used
very sparingly under highly controlled circumstances, to slow the
development of resistant bacteria and extend their usefulness" he
ignores the history that shows we can expect a pirate lab
(traditionally in India) to immediately start producing the same
compound in violation of the patent. "[H]ighly controlled
circumstances"  might apply within the U.S., but new resistant
organisms would be cultivated elsewhere by over-use of the pirate
product.
   But he's not done. By the end of the column, what had been a
$2billion dollar prize is now $2billion per year. Surely the merit of
a plan that depends on cash incentives depends on knowing what it
costs.
   No patient should trust a physician as lawyerly as Dr. Emanuel. No
nation should be guided by his counsel.
Barry Haskell Levinehttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/how-to-develop-new-antibiotics.html?_r=0

: re: Did the Torture Report Give the C.I.A. a Bum Rap?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 7:46 AM
Subject: re: Did the Torture Report Give the C.I.A. a Bum Rap?
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   As professor Cole notes "The [C.I.A.'s torture] report is, to date, the closest thing to official accountability that we have". This is why the report--and not the sanitized executive summary of the report--must be made public.

  For the rest, Cole gives us a long riff on post-hoc ergo propter hoc; CIA claims that some actionable intelligence was gained after torture in no way demonstrates that torture was necessary to get that intelligence.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/opinion/sunday/did-the-torture-report-give-the-cia-a-bum-rap.html

: re: Democracy Is in Recession

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 11:54 AM
Subject: re: Democracy Is in Recession
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   I'm sure the plight of Botswanans weighs heavily on Thomas L. Friedman. But who's missing from his list of countries in which democracy is in retreat? How about 84 million Egyptians? When I read "All Men...inalienable Rights" I don't find a clause exempting Arabs. Perhaps Tom didn't like president Morsi. But el-Sisi's coup ousted the president whom the Egyptians has chosen, and el-Sisi has been gunning down political protesters in the streets, and torturing and imprisoning and hanging those who disagree with him. Yeah, democracy is in retreat. But it's not served when the U.S. or Tom winks at "our son-of-a-bitch".

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/opinion/thomas-friedman-democracy-is-in-recession.html?_r=0

: re: U.N. Warns That Yemen May Collapse as Qaeda Fighters Make Big Gains

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 10:22 AM
Subject: re: U.N. Warns That Yemen May Collapse as Qaeda Fighters Make Big Gains
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

     For decades, the Saudis have  backed repressive, unrepresentative Sunni client governments in Yemen. This has contributed materially to a Yemen that is today simultaneously a hotbed of al-Qaeda and a beach-head of Persian influence in Arabia. Both groups are working for the overthrow of the Saudi government.

     The coronation of king Salman is an opportunity to review, to assess, and to abandon  a policy that does not work. A stable Yemeni state--be it Sunni, Shia or secular--would serve Saudi Arabia and the world far better than the current chaos.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/world/middleeast/al-qaeda-yemen-military.html?_r=0

worth the wait

no reservations!
Kiraku takes forever
but the food's bomber

: re: Congress, Don’t Be Fooled; Obama Still Believes in Unlimited War

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 8:02 AM
Subject: re: Congress, Don’t Be Fooled; Obama Still Believes in Unlimited War
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    Whether president Obama still believes in unlimited war or not is immaterial. Our constitution is explicit; the power to declare war belongs to Congress and to Congress alone. Our Supreme Court has determined ("Schechter Poultry") that the peculiar powers of one Branch of government cannot be ceded or delegated to another. Whether it is against foreign States or against non-State actors--as in the First Barbary War--it is for Congress to declare war or not. That power cannot be delegated through an AUMF.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/opinion/obama-still-believes-in-unlimited-war-isis.html

Subject: re: Atlantic Corals: Colorful and Vulnerable

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 9:26 AM
Subject: re: Atlantic Corals: Colorful and Vulnerable
To: "letters@nytimes.com"


To the Editor:
    That "[t]he canyons that are being considered for protection are,
[in Dr. Auster's words] refuges for organisms that used to be more
widespread. " points to the elephant in the room. Our continental
shelf has been bulldozed by bottom-trawlers over the last half
century. Whole ecosystems have been demolished before we ever knew
they existed.
  Of course these canyon environments must be protected. But the
bigger need is to ban bottom trawling as we banned drift-nets.
Barry Haskell Levine


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/science/atlantic-corals-colorful-and-vulnerable.html?_r=0

strange butterfly

under great pressure
Gandalf metamorphosized
beneath Khazad-Dum

Subject: re: Economic Plan Is a Quandary for Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 8:23 AM
Subject: re: Economic Plan Is a Quandary for Hillary Clinton’s Campaign
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   If I owned the largest corporation in Arkansas, I would count myself clever to put the governor's wife on the Board of Directors,whether she brought relevant skills and experience or not. And so it was that Hillary Clinton was paid by WalMart from 1986 to 1992. And in those years, it was impolite in Arkansas to mention the burden to the State of WalMart's employees living below the poverty line.

     Hillary Clinton is herself a totem of the cozy relationship of wealth to power. She is no part of the solution.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/us/politics/economic-plan-is-a-quandary-for-hillary-clintons-campaign.html?ref=todayspaper

: re: ISIS Is Losing in Iraq. But What Happens Next?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 7:55 AM
Subject: re: ISIS Is Losing in Iraq. But What Happens Next?
To: "letters@nytimes.com"


To the Editor:
   Of course, "[i]n Iraq, the good news always seems to come mixed
with bad". that's because Iraq is dead. The artificial state that was
invented by Sykes and Picot in 1916 was doomed when L. Paul Bremer
purged its only national institution--the army--of Sunnis, and it died
when David Petraeus armed and empowered sectarian militias. Prime
minister al-Abadi may indeed be "a good man in a difficult position"
but he's pounding on the chest of a corpse. All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't put Iraq together again. The U.S. would be
foolish to try.
Barry Haskell Levine



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/opinion/isis-is-losing-in-iraq-but-what-happens-next.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0