Britain: Court Bans Man with Low IQ from Having Sex
February 6th, 2011My default setting is that the state should have nothing to do with what consenting adults do in their bedrooms.
In the case below, however, “Alan” has an IQ of 48 and lives in government housing.
What should the role of the state be in a situation like this?
Via: Telegraph:
A man with a low IQ has been banned from having sex by a High Court judge who admitted the case raised questions about “civil liberties and personal autonomy”.
The 41 year-old had been in a relationship with a man whom he lived with and told officials “it would make me feel happy” for it to continue.
But his local council decided his “vigorous sex drive” was inappropriate and that with an IQ of 48 and a “moderate” learning disability, he did not understand what he was doing.
A psychiatrist involved in the case even tried to prevent the man being given sex education, on the grounds that it would leave him “confused”.
Mr Justice Mostyn said the case was “legally, intellectually and morally” complex as sex is “one of the most basic human functions” and the court must “tread especially carefully” when the state tries to curtail it.
But he agreed that the man, known only as Alan, should not be allowed to have sex with anyone on the grounds that he did not have the mental capacity to understand the health risks associated with his actions.
Under the judge’s order, the man is now subject to “close supervision” by the local authority that provides his accommodation, in order to ensure he does not break the highly unusual order.
The judge concluded: “I therefore make a declaration that at the present time Alan does not have the capacity to consent to and engage in sexual relations.
“In such circumstances it is agreed that the present régime for Alan’s supervision and for the prevention of future sexual activity is in his best interests.”
Research Credit: rmf
Egypt: Gas Pipeline Attacked
February 5th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal:
An Egyptian gas pipeline in the Sinai peninsula was attacked Saturday, cutting off supplies to Jordan and Israel.
The pipeline was attacked by “subversive elements,” Egyptian state TV reported. There were no further details on those responsible, but the attack was the latest sign of deteriorating security in the key buffer between the Egyptian mainland and Israel.
Beijing Bomb Shelters House One Million People
February 5th, 2011Via: Telegraph:
To understand how far ordinary Chinese have been priced out of their country’s property market, you need to look not upwards at the Beijing’s shimmering high-rise skyline, but down, far below the bustling streets where nearly 20m people live and work.
There, in the city’s vast network of unused air defence bunkers, as many as a million people live in small, windowless rooms that rent for £30 to £50 a month, which is as much as many of the city’s army of migrant labourers can afford.
In a Beijing suburb, beneath one of the thousands of faceless residential tower blocks that have carpeted the city’s peripheries in a decade-long building frenzy, one of Beijing’s “bomb shelter hoteliers”, as they are known, agrees to show us his wares.
Passing under a green sign proclaiming “Air Defence Basement”, Mr Zhao leads us down two flights of stairs to the network of corridors and rooms that were designed to offer sanctuary in the event of war or disaster.
“We have two sizes of room,” he says, stepping past heaps of clutter belonging to residents, most of whom work in the nearby cloth wholesale market. “The small ones [6ft by 9ft] are 300 yuan [£30] the big ones [15ft by 6ft] are 500 yuan.”
Beijing is estimated to have 30 square miles of tunnels and basements, some constructed after the Sino-Soviet split of 1969, when Mao’s China feared a Soviet missile strike, and many more constructed since to act as more modern emergency refuges.
The fact Mr Zhao can easily rent out 150 such rooms, with the connivance of the city’s Civil Defence Bureau with whom he has signed a five-year contract and invested nearly £150,000, is testament to China’s massive unfulfilled demand for affordable housing.
Gibbs: Important U.S.-Egypt Relationship Will Remain
February 5th, 2011Imagine my shock.
Via: AP / Washington Post:
The White House says that whatever government emerges in Egypt, the U.S. expects its relationship with its key Arab ally to continue to provide regional stability.
Related: U.S. Discussing Transition Plan with Egyptians
Mubarak Family Fortune Could Reach $70 Billion
February 5th, 2011Via: Guardian:
President Hosni Mubarak’s family fortune could be as much as $70bn (£43.5bn) according to analysis by Middle East experts, with much of his wealth in British and Swiss banks or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and along expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.
After 30 years as president and many more as a senior military official, Mubarak has had access to investment deals that have generated hundreds of millions of pounds in profits. Most of those gains have been taken offshore and deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upmarket homes and hotels.
According to a report last year in the Arabic newspaper Al Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive.
His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionaires. A protest outside Gamal’s ostentatious home at 28 Wilton Place in Belgravia, central London, highlighted the family’s appetite for western trophy assets.
Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton University, said the estimate of $40bn-70bn was comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.
“The business ventures from his military and government service accumulated to his personal wealth,” she told ABC news. “There was a lot of corruption in this regime and stifling of public resources for personal gain.
Related: Cheney Calls Mubarak a Good Friend, U.S. Ally
Research Credit: ottilie
The Youth Unemployment Bomb
February 4th, 2011Via: Business Week:
In Tunisia, the young people who helped bring down a dictator are called hittistes—French-Arabic slang for those who lean against the wall. Their counterparts in Egypt, who on Feb. 1 forced President Hosni Mubarak to say he won’t seek reelection, are the shabab atileen, unemployed youths. The hittistes and shabab have brothers and sisters across the globe. In Britain, they are NEETs—”not in education, employment, or training.” In Japan, they are freeters: an amalgam of the English word freelance and the German word Arbeiter, or worker. Spaniards call them mileuristas, meaning they earn no more than 1,000 euros a month. In the U.S., they’re “boomerang” kids who move back home after college because they can’t find work. Even fast-growing China, where labor shortages are more common than surpluses, has its “ant tribe”—recent college graduates who crowd together in cheap flats on the fringes of big cities because they can’t find well-paying work.
In each of these nations, an economy that can’t generate enough jobs to absorb its young people has created a lost generation of the disaffected, unemployed, or underemployed—including growing numbers of recent college graduates for whom the post-crash economy has little to offer.
Madoff and JP Morgan
February 4th, 2011Via: Guardian:
The UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) was warned about Bernard Madoff in October 2008, two months before the fraudster confessed that his investment empire was a sham, according to a lawsuit unsealed in New York.
The allegation was made in a suit filed against JP Morgan, one of Madoff’s banks, on behalf of the fraudster’s victims.
According to the suit, filed by the court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, executives at JP Morgan allegedly told Soca that they were concerned about “investment performance achieved by its [Madoff’s business] funds which is so consistently and significantly ahead of its peers, year-on-year, even in the prevailing market conditions, as to appear too good to be true – meaning that it probably is”.
The lawsuit, which cites internal emails, claims that employees in the bank’s “equity exotics & hybrids” desk found that the so-called feeder funds which brought in new investors knew little about Madoff’s operations and asked few questions. “It’s almost a cult [Madoff] seems to have fostered,” one employee observed.
The suit is damning of JP Morgan’s alleged role in the scandal. It claims that Soca was informed by JP Morgan “only in an effort to protect its own investments” and the bank did nothing further to stop the fraud even though it had informed the authorities.
“While numerous financial institutions enabled Madoff’s fraud, JP Morgan was at the very centre of the fraud and thoroughly complicit in it,” according to the suit. It details ways in which Picard alleges the bank sought to make money from investment funds that fed money to Madoff.
According to the court filing, a senior executive at the bank was told Madoff had “a well-known cloud” over his head and was suspected of running a Ponzi scheme 18 months before his empire collapsed leaving thousands of investors penniless. The 114-page suit claims the bank did not pay attention to billions of dollars passing through the fraudster’s main JP Morgan account.
California Cities Top Most Miserable List
February 4th, 2011Via: Reuters:
If the saying “as goes California, so goes the nation” still rings true, then Americans are facing a depressing future, according to a list of the country’s most miserable cities.
Ravaged by falling house prices, high unemployment, a massive budget deficit, rampant crime and high state taxes, California filled four of the top five spots in the Forbes list of unhappy urban areas.
Stockton, in the state’s Central Valley, topped the list, followed by Miami, in Florida, Merced, Modesto and Sacramento — all in California.
New Mexico: Tens of Thousands Without Natural Gas Service; State of Emergency Declared
February 4th, 2011Via: Mercury News:
With tens of thousands of people across New Mexico without natural gas service, Gov. Susana Martinez on Thursday declared a state of emergency, ordered all government offices be shut down Friday and urged schools to “strongly consider” remaining closed for the day.
Demand has soared because of extremely cold weather across the state since Tuesday. New Mexico Gas Company said rolling blackouts in West Texas also impeded the delivery of natural gas into New Mexico.
Martinez declared a state of emergency for all of New Mexico, urging residents to turn down their thermostats, bundle up and shut off appliances they don’t need for the next 24 hours.
She later announced all state operations not providing critical services would be closed Friday to decrease the strain on energy resources throughout the state.
“Due to statewide natural gas shortages, I have ordered all government agencies that do not provide essential services to shut down and all nonessential employees to stay home” on Friday, Martinez said after meeting with public safety personnel in Albuquerque.
Son of Ex-Enron Boss Found Dead
February 4th, 2011Via: AP:
The youngest son of former Enron President Jeff Skilling was found dead in his Southern California apartment this week.
John Taylor Skilling, 20, was found dead in his Santa Ana home around 10.30pm on Tuesday after his friends called police when he didn’t show up for a planned dinner, police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.
Paramedics found bottles of prescription medication near the younger Skilling, who friends said had been distraught after breaking up with his girlfriend, according to Bertagna.
Jeff Skilling’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said there was no indication of suicide and the death appeared to be an accidental overdose. A comedy movie was queued up on the young man’s computer screen, Petrocelli said.
