Isn't That Just Like The Criminal AR,
Arsonist Until Your Convicted Then All Of A Sudden Your
Autistic?
Judge rejects bid for new trial by
convicted arsonist
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - A federal judge turned away a
request Monday for a new trial for a graduate student convicted last year of
firebombing scores of sport utility vehicles in a vandalism rampage that caused
more than $2 million in damage.
The motion by William Jensen Cottrell was
rejected by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner after a brief hearing, said
Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los
Angeles.
Cottrell sought a new trial claiming, among other issues, that
the court improperly barred his attorneys from presenting evidence that he
suffered from a type of autism known as Asperger's syndrome. His attorneys
claimed the medical condition made it difficult for him to understand the
intentions of his alleged accomplices.
Klausner sided with prosecutors,
who argued in court papers that Cottrell's complaint was "irrelevant to the
issues at trial."
In November, Cottrell, 24, a doctoral candidate at the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, was found guilty of conspiracy
to commit arson and seven counts of arson. Jurors acquitted him of the most
serious charge - attempting to use a destructive device, Molotov cocktails, in a
crime of violence.
The charges involved a series of firebombings in
August 2003 at dealerships and homes in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los
Angeles.
More than 100 vehicles were damaged or destroyed by vandals who
spray-painted the words "polluter," "smog machine" and "ELF," an acronym for the
radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front, on some of the
vehicles.
Cottrell testified that he planned to vandalize the SUVs with
spray paint and stickers but not burn them. He blamed the arson on
accomplices.
Fellow students Tyler Johnson and Michie Oe have been
identified by prosecutors as "fugitive coconspirators" and are believed to have
fled the country.
Cottrell is scheduled to be sentenced March 7. He faces
at least five years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney's
office
Courtesy: Marc R.
From The Center For Consumer Freedom
Comes.........
A Red Tape Wonderland
Over
the years we've identified a growing array of groups that attempt to restrict
your food and beverage choices to promote their political or financial agendas.
These days the anti-free market do-goodnicks at the American Public Health Association (APHA) are at the
top of the list. APHA recently endorsed a bevy of policy proposals aimed at
placing Americans' food choices into a red-tape wonderland.
The APHA's once-benign group of doctors, nurses, and social workers has taken
a decidedly political turn toward the diet dictators. At this year's annual
meeting, the group's Socialist Caucus (yes, APHA has an
entire "caucus" of socialists) sponsored or endorsed hundreds of presentations,
including one with the surprisingly candid title: "Controlling What We Eat."
APHA's many policy proposals included calls for "fat taxes," food marketing
restrictions, and mandatory nutritional information plastered on restaurant
menus. As we've discussed before, these proposals are driven by ideology, rather
than public health. To get a sense of the scope of these ideas, click here for more information on fat taxes, here for a discussion on food marketing, and here for information on mandatory menu labeling.
Given the APHA's now-obvious political bent, it's no surprise that many of
their policy prognostications stand in direct opposition to recently published
scientific evidence. What follows are excerpts from the APHA's most obnoxious
policy statements as well as rebuttals from recent peer-reviewed journals -- all
published in the months before APHA announced its positions:
- "The APHA therefore ... encourages the local,
state, federal and tribal governments to develop policy for a variety of
funding strategies to support the progress in alignment with the guidelines
including increasing the price of and decreasing the availability of foods of
low nutritional quality." Better put, the APHA is calling for a "fat tax" on snacks, soda, and other foods. But an
economic analysis of food regulations published in the October issue of the
American Journal of Preventative Medicine found:
Although there is some evidence that
excess consumption of [some] foods results in weight gain, there is no
evidence that a tax on these products would improve health and/or positively
impact obesity rates. Given the array of choices available to
consumers, narrowly defined taxes and subsidies may have limited effect on
improving health or reducing obesity due to the availability of substitute
foods. For example, taxes on soft drinks may reduce soda consumption but
increase the consumption of other beverages high in sugar and calories. Even
a "fat tax" may not have the intended effect if consumers switch from
high-fat to high-sugar products.
- "The APHA therefore ... Urges the development
of new policies and enforcement of current laws banning advertising messages
that provide misinformation, and those aimed at increasing the consumption and
purchase of foods of poor nutritional value by children." This
proposal comes only a few months after Imperial College School of Medicine
Professor David Aston found that food marketing to children has no discernable
impact on their diet. Citing numerous other studies on the topic, Aston wrote
in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine:
Despite media claims to the contrary,
there is no good evidence that advertising has a substantial influence on
children's food consumption and, consequently, no reason to believe that a
complete ban on advertising would have any useful impact on childhood
obesity rates.
- "APHA urges: Federal, state or local policies
to require fast-food and other chain restaurants (smaller, neighborhood
restaurants could be exempt) to provide consumers with nutrition
information." In addition to the lawsuit-ready liability created by labeled menus, the
American Journal of Preventative Medicine article found that menu
labeling was totally ineffective at curtailing improving people's diets:
A recent laboratory study of food intake
among normal-weight women found that explaining the concept of energy
density and providing nutrition information on labels during meals had no
impact on energy intake. Similarly, a controlled experiment in a
restaurant setting in England found that provision of nutrition information
had no effect on overall energy and fat intake. Although consumers may have
full knowledge of the health content of their [restaurant] meals, because
they may lack information of how the health content is translated into
actual health, consumers may still not make optimal food
choices