Category Archives: law

Canada’s doctor-assisted suicide killed 10,064 in 2021

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Canada’s healthcare is free to the user. It’s paid for by taxes, and it includes a benefit you can’t get in the US: free, doctor assisted suicide, euthanasia. This is a controversial benefit, forbidden in the Hippocratic oath because it’s close to murder, and includes the strong possibility of misuse of trust. Assistance by a trusted professional can be a bit likes coercion, and that starts to look like murder — especially since the professional often has a financial incentive to see you off.

From Charlie Hebdot (a French, humor magazine): The medical association refuses to participate in euthanasia — Why? People are already dining quite well on their own waiting in the emergency room.

In 2021, according to Statistics Canada, Canada assisted the suicide of 10,064 people, 3.3% of all Canadian deaths. There were about 4,000 more, non-assisted suicides. In Quebec, the Canadian Provence where Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is most popular, 5.1% of deaths result from MAID. The Netherlands has a similar program that results in 4.8% of deaths. In Belgium, it’s 2.3%. These countries’ suicide rates are far higher than in the US, and account for far more deaths, per capita than from guns in the US. My guess is that suicide is common because it is free and professional. It’s called “Dignity in Dying,” in Europe, a title that suggests that old folks who don’t die this way are undignified.

In Canada, about 80% of those who requested MAiD were approved. A lot of the remainder were folks who died or changed their mind before receiving the fatal dose. If you attempt suicide on your own, it’s likely you won’t succeed, and you may not try again. With doctor assisted suicide, you’re sure to succeed (even if you change your mind after you get your lethal shot?)

In Canada you don’t have to be terminally ill to get MAiD, you just have to be in pain, and extreme psychological pain counts. Beginning March 17, 2024, depression will be added as a legitimate reason. According to Canadian TV news, depressives are lining up (read some interviews here). Belgium and Netherlands allows elders to be euthanized for dementia, and children to be euthanized on the recommendation of their parents. France passed similar legislation, but the doctors refused to go along, see cartoon. I applaud the French doctors.

Rodger Foley says he’s being pressured to ask for medical suicide, picture from the NY Post

There have been persistent claims that Canadian doctors and nurses push assisted suicide on poor patients, telling them how much bother they are and how much resources they are using. There has been an outcry in British and American newspapers, e.g. here in the Guardian, and in the NY Post, but not in Canada, so far. Rodger Foley, a patient interviewed by the NY Post, recorded conversations where his doctors and nurses put financial pressure on him. “They asked if I want an assisted death. I don’t. I was told that I would be charged $1,800 per day [for hospital care]. “I have $2 million worth of bills. Nurses here told me that I should end my life.” He claims they went so far as to send a collection agency to further pressure him. In another case, a disabled Canadian veteran asked for a wheelchair ramp, and was told to apply for MAiD.

Even without outside pressure, many people seeking MAiD often cite financial need as part of the reason. A 40 year old writer interviewed by Canadian television said that he can’t work and lives in poverty on a disability payment of just under $1,200 a month. “You know what your life is worth to you. And mine is worthless.”

The center of the argument is the value of a person in a social healthcare state when their economic value is less than the cost of keeping them alive. Here, Sabine Hossenfelder, an excellent physicist, argues that the best thing one could do for global warm and to preserve resources is to have fewer people. Elon Musk says otherwise, but Ms Hossenfelder claims this only shows he is particularly unworthy. There’s a Germanic logic here that gave us forced euthanasia in the 1940s.

I find euthanasia abhorrent, especially when it’s forced on children, the elderly, and depressed folks. I also reject the scary view of global warming, that it is the death of the earth. I’ve argued that a warm earth is good, and that a cold earth is bad. Also, that people are good, that they are the reason for the world, not its misfortune. It seems to me that, if suicide aid must be provided, state-funded hospitals should not provide it. They have a financial incentive to drop non-paying, annoying patients. That seems to be happening in Canada. A patient must be able to trust his or her doctor, and that requires a belief that the doctor’s advice is for his or her good. Unfortunately, Canadian politicians have decided otherwise. I say hurray for the doctors of France for not going along.

Robert Buxbaum, April 25, 2023. The medical profession is shady even when you pay for services, see Elvis Presley’s prescription. There’s always a financial interest. Even based on old data, the US is not a particularly high-murder country if suicide is considered murder.

Abortion and Childbirth in the US vs China

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There are a lot of abortions in China, and not many births. Last year, there were about 9.7 million abortions in the major clinics and almost 12 million live births. That’s about 8.5 live births per 1000 Chinese population and 79.7 abortions per 100 live births. If you include the minor clinics and the abortion pill, it’s likely that there are more abortions than live births in China. It’s the preferred method of birth control. In the US, the ratio of abortions to births has grown but we have only about 1/4 as many abortions as births.

Births and abortions per year in China to 2020, from The Economist, 2023. The biggest change is decreased births, not increased abortions.

The birthrate in China is low and decreasing. China had pushed for one-child families as a cure for overpopulation and a route to a richer China with abortion promoted as a safe, painless way to end an unwanted pregnancy. Billboard ads continue to show happy women who are leading their best life now that they’ve had an abortion. Of course, during the one-child years, if you had that extra baby, the state might take your baby him or her. Condom ads were forbidden, and remain so to this day.

China seems to have succeeded too well. The population has leveled out, and has began to decline this year — likely too fast. Meanwhile the economy has grown by an average of 10% per year for 40 years, so that China is now, likely the second largest economy on the planet, but has such an old population that this is unlikely to continue. One down-side of the heavy reliance on abortion is that it’s produced a severe sex imbalance. The Chinese chose to abort mostly girls. It’s also resulted in an active sex trade. I’ve claimed it will lead to war, famine, or an economic collapse in the next ten years.

Add for a Chinese abortion clinic. See how happy the lady is. Chinese ads have English because it’s cool — it suggests that this clinic serves Americans and British too.

In the US, there were 3,664,000 births in 2022, 12.012 births per 1000 people. That’s 1.5 times the birth rate of China, and a 1% increase from 2020, but significantly below the birthrate of the boomer generation. In the last year, there were 928,000 abortions, see graph below, or 25.3 abortions per 100 live births. Our population is as old as China’s, but the additional children suggests that our society will continue longer.

In America, the case for abortion is that it’s a woman’s right, see ad below. Anti-abortion is presented as slavery and a Republican plot for male domination. Politically, this has been a winning argument for Democrats; helping them win big in elections. They made good on the argument and amended the Michigan constitution to allow abortion till birth with the father having no say. The legal and religious establishment has gone along. They may want some limitations, but there is no consensus on what the limitation should be.

Abortions per year, US, Guttmacher Inst. report, 2022.

It’s been suggested that a good way to lower the abortion rate would be higher taxes to provide more healthcare and child benefits. That may be, though I’m not sure it’s the direct, sure route. China has free healthcare and benefits. I suspect that the preachers should do more personally to deal with the vulnerable. Another thought is to promote is rural living. In the US and China, rural areas have higher birth rates, while the cities have low birth rates and high abortion rates. The highest abortion rate in the US is in Washington DC.

In the US, abortion is presented as a right, and as a Republican anti-woman plot.

My overall sense is that Children are good: Admittedly, they are expensive hobbies, but they are worth it, for the parents, for the nation, and in particular for the child. Children are a beautiful part of life and a beautiful part of any environment, IMHO. They like to grow amid sunshine and fresh air.

Robert Buxbaum, March 14, 2023

Our Jail Minimums are Huge, or non-existent

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The United States has more people in prison, per-capita, than any other developed nation, see graph below. Our rate is double Russia’s, and barely below Cuba’s. About 38% of our prisoners are black. That’s a sign of cultural differences or systemic racism; perhaps both.

A major reason for our high prison rate is our huge minimum sentences. In Michigan, as most states, if you possess a firearm when committing a felony or an attempted felony, two years minimum are added to your sentence. The judge’s only allowed input is to add time, or to drop the felony charge. By law, two years minimum have to be added before (not during) the sentence for the underlying felony. It increases to 5 years minimum if you have a prior conviction, and 10 years if you have two or more prior convictions – on top of whatever the Judge decides for the crime. Typically, for a repeat offender, the judge will sentence zero for the felony, because 10 years is enough. Or he will drop the felony charge. The standard penalty, is either the huge minimum, or zero. About 25% of those in Michigan prison, are serving this minimum. Many others who should have gotten a month, or a year, were let go with nothing to avoid giving the minimum -crazy.

Countries with the highest prison population per 100,000 as of January 2023 (from statistica). No country in Europe makes this chart, Russia included.

These laws are specific to guns. No other deadly weapon is treated this way. A knife assailant serves the sentence for the assault only with adding 2 to 10 years minimum. We could go a long way to reduce the prison population if this add-on were moved or severely shortened. I’d like it shortened to 3 months, and broadened to all deadly weapons.

Minimums serve a purpose, I think, preventing violent felons from going free with a good sob-story. But our minimums too long to prevent crime and now only prevent rehabilitation. After ten years in prison, released felons have no life to return to, and no family. The only life they have is crime. It’s been speculated that our huge minimums make felons more violent. Saint Thomas Moore theorized this in the 1500s: A criminal facing a long prison sentence might as well kill the witnesses and hope to escape.

The Michigan State shooter,who killed 3 last week was a felon whose charge was dropped to avoid sending a mentally unstable black man to prison for 2 years. Anthony McRae, had a history as “a hell-raiser,” and was known to be mentally unstable. He had been shooting his gun outdoors near his home, and upon arrest was in possession of a concealed, loaded gun with no permit. These could be changed as firearm felonies, punished by 2 years minimum, or the Judge could drop the case, leaving McRae with his gun. The judge dropped the case, and returned the gun. McRae went on to kill with it. If the minimum were lower, 3 months say, I believe the judge would have convicted Mr McRae’s to that minimum, and taken his gun.

As it was, the judge was faced with the choice of ordering 2 years or nothing.

Our drug sentencing minimums are too high too, especially for “bad drugs.” These carry a 5 to 10 year minimum sentence with no chance for parole. But “dad drugs” are often the ones black people take: LSD, Crack, Heroin, and Methamphetamine. The drugs white politicians take are treated leniently, e.g. mayor Ford of Toronto, or Hunter Biden. I think we’d do everyone a favor by reducing drug minimums, even for bad drugs; for this, too, 2-3 month minimums should do with the judge having discretion to add.

There should be a maximum sentence too, I think, to stop hanging judges. And there should be rehabilitation, but it’s not clear we can manage that. The unions have opposed work-rehabilitation, calling it slave labor. Leader Dogs for the Blind allow prisoners to train guide dogs; it does wonderfully, but something bigger is needed. Lacking good rehabilitation, the smallest sentence that serves as a deterrent is what we should aim for.

Robert Buxbaum February 22, 2023. The original design of Sing-sing included work-rehabilitation in many crafts. The unions complained, and rehabilitation was stopped. Sentencing is a tough balancing act.

Fauci, freedom, and the right to be wrong.

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Doctor Anthony Fauci has been giving graduate addresses at colleges around the country for the past few months, telling students about his struggles and successes in the medical research world, hammering a moral point that they should expect the unexpected and have no tolerance for “the normalization of untruth”, and for “egregious twisting and lies” as were leveled against his approach to COVID (and global warming, it seems). Untruths, racism, and lies spread by “some elected officials”, presumably his exboss. Here is his speech to the Princeton graduates, or see a brief summary of his talk st the University of Michigan.

Dr. Fauci may have the best intentions in criticizing others and deputizing students to enforce the truth.He certainly seems sure that his truth and intentions are 100% pure, but what if Fauci wasn’t quite right, or what if you thought his cure to the pandemic was less than marvelous. His truth may mot be real truth, or real truth for everyone. Beyond that, even if he were always 100% right on science, I believe that people have a fundamental right to make mistakes. “I have a right to be wrong,” as Joss Stone says (see music video). Freedom from imposed righteousness is a fundamental good. Even assuming that Fauci’s lockdowns were the height of righteousness, we have a right to take risks and to act against our own best interests, in my opinion. Consider a saint who really knows what’s right and only wants to do only what’s right. I doubt that even the saint wants a jailer to force it upon him and remove his free will. And the right of the rest of us may not want to do what’s ideal and healthy. We like ice cream even thought we know it’s fattening, and we should have the right to smoke too.

This right to our mistakes is something we deserve, even assuming that Fauci knows the truth for everyone, and that everyone has the same truth, and that all of his rules were for the best. But different people are different, and people’s preferences are different. “A sadist is a masochist who follows the golden rule,” as the saying goes, and Fauci may have been out-and-out wrong.

Humor from a time when one could tolerate hearing that their truths might not be true.

Concerning COVID, I’ve noted that, despite Fauci’s lockdowns and mask mandates, The US did worse than Sweden, and my home state of Michigan did worse than Sweden — worse in terms of deaths, and far worse economically. Michigan has the same size population as Sweden and the same climate and population density so it’s a good comparison. Florida did better than we did too, though they too didn’t close the schools or have mask mandates. Their economy did better too, and children’s education.

Was Fauci right to shut K-12 schools, or to send college students home? Maybe he was only half-right, or totally wrong and blinded by politics. The more Fauci and friends deny having political interests, the more they seem political. Many Fauci’s emails have become public, and he seems highly political, and very often wrong. He also does not take seriously the economic or mental or educational problems caused to the workers that he now blames on his critics. He also seems takes it as a given that those pushing hydroxychloroquine or surface disinfection were liars, despite scientific opinion on the other side.

Fauci’s push for masks went with his claim that surfaces were not major spreaders. I think the opposite is true, and used my blog and YouTube to push iodine as a surface sanitizer and hand wash. Most diseases are spread by surfaces, and I see no reason for COVID to be different. Iodine is known to kill COVID virus, and all virus, fungus, and bacteria. It’s far more lang-lasting than alcohol, too. Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I’m right, and I have a right to express my science without fear of censure from Fauci’s deputies. As I see it, when an infected person coughs out-spews big droplets and small droplets. The big drops contain far more virus particles. They fall quickly and dry, ready to be picked up by someone who touches the residue. As for the smaller drops, some are certainly locked by masks, but these have fewer virus particles. Besides, the mask just becomes a new surface; you’ll touch your mask to adjust it or take it off. Unless you disinfect your hands with something strong like iodine the virus on your hands will go to your eyes or nose. Trump favored Chlorox for surfaces, and was skewered for it by Fauci and his experts. I think that was wrong, made worse by claims that he was not telling you to inject the Clorox.

On climate too, we do students a disservice by closing the discussion. It’s clear that Gore’s inconvenient truth isn’t completely true, nor are his remedies beneficial, in my opinion. To stop someone’s ability to make mistakes is to wrong him, and limit him. The same applies to many things; the fellow in power always thinks he’s right, and will always have allies to back him. When Robespierre was the enforced virtue and truth during the French Revolution, everyone agreed, but we now think he was wrong. Robespierre removed the head of France’s greatest scientist, Lavoisier. It would take another generation to grow another head like that.

In terms of interesting speeches to the graduates, As Marx said (Groucho), “I thought my razor was dull, till I heard his speech.” There here’s a speech against something.

Freedom is the right to be wrong, and stubborn, like Groucho. Now that’s a graduation speech!

Robert Buxbaum, October 28, 2022

A new, higher efficiency propeller

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Elytron biplane, perhaps an inspiration.

Sharrow Marine introduced a new ship propeller design two years ago, at the Miami International Boat show. Unlike traditional propellers, there are no ends on the blades. Instead, each blade is a connecting ribbon with the outer edge behaving like a connecting winglet. The blade pairs provide low-speed lift-efficiency gains, as seen on a biplane, while the winglets provide high speed gains. The efficiency gain is 9-30% over a wide range of speeds, as shown below, a tremendous improvement. I suspect that this design will become standard over the next 10-20 years, as winglets have become standard on airplanes today.

A Sharrow propeller, MX-1

The high speed efficiency advantage of the closed ends of the blades, and of the curved up winglets on modern airplanes is based on avoiding losses from air (or water) going around the end from the high pressure bottom to the low-pressure top. Between the biplane advantage and the wingtip advantage, Sharrow propellers provide improved miles per gallon at every speed except the highest, 32+ mph, plus a drastic decrease in vibration and noise, see photo.

The propeller design was developed with paid research at the University of Michigan. It was clearly innovative and granted design patent protection in most of the developed world. To the extent that the patents are respected and protected by law, Sharrow should be able to recoup the cost of their research and development. They should make a profit too. As an inventor myself, I believe they deserve to recoup their costs and make a profit. Not all inventions lead to a great product. Besides, I don’t think they charge too much. The current price is $2000-$5000 per propeller for standard sizes, a price that seems reasonable, based on the price of a boat and the advantage of more speed, more range, plus less fuel use and less vibration. This year Sharrow formed an agreement with Yamaha to manufacture the propellers under license, so supply should not be an issue.

Vastly less turbulence follows the Sharrow propeller.

China tends to copy our best products, and often steals the technology to make them, employing engineers and academics as spys. Obama/Biden have typically allowed China to benefit for the sales of copies and the theft of intellectual property, allowing the import of fakes to the US with little or no interference. Would you like a fake Rolex or Fendi, you can buy on-line from China. Would you like fake Disney, ditto. So far, I have not seen Chinese copies of the Sharrow in the US, but I expect to see them soon. Perhaps Biden’s Justice Department will do something this time, but I doubt it. By our justice department turning a blind eye to copies, they rob our innovators, and rob American workers. His protectionism is one thing I liked about Donald Trump.

The Sharrow Propeller gives improved mpg values at every speed except the very highest.

Robert Buxbaum, September 30, 2022

Girls are doing better, Boys are doing far worse.

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When I began college in 1972, the majority of engineering students and business students were male. They from the top of their high school classes, and from stable homes mostly; they went on to high paying jobs. Boys also dominated at the bottom of society. They were the majority of the criminals, drug addicts, and high-school dropouts. Many went off to Vietnam. Some, those who were handy, went to trade schools and a reasonable life, productive life. Society did not seem bothered by the destruction of boys in prison, or Vietnam, or by drugs, but there was an outcry that so few women achieved high academic levels. A famous presentation of the problem was called “for every 100 girls.” An updated version appears below showing the status as of October, 2021. A more detailed version appears further down.

From the table above, you can see that women are now the majority of those in college, the majority of those with a bachelors degree or higher, and a majority of those with advanced degrees. Colleges added special tutoring, special grants, and special programs. Each college had a Society of Women Engineers office, and similar programs in law and math. All of these explicitly excluded men or highly discouraged their presence. The curriculum was changed too; made more female-friendly. Dirty, and physical experiments were removed, replaced with group analysis of the social interactions — important aspects of engineers that boys were far-less adept at doing well. Perhaps society and engineering is better off now, but boys (men) are far worse off. This is particularly seem by the following chart, looking at the bottom. Boys/men provide the vast majority of the prison population, of those diagnosed as learning disabled, of those expelled, or overdosed, and among the war dead.

I’ve previously noted that a majority of boys in school are considered disruptive, and that these boys are routinely diagnosed as ADHD and drugged. It is not at all clear that this is a good thing, or that the drugs help anyone but the teacher. I’ve also noted that artwork and attitudes that were considered normal for boys are now considered disturbing and criminal like saying I wish the school was blown up. The cure here, perhaps is worse than the disease. I’m not saying that we should encourage boys to say such things, but that we should acknowledge a difference between an active and a passive wish. And we should find a way to educate boys/men so they don’t end up unemployed, addicted, or dead. Currently boy, particularly those at the bottom are on the scrap-heap of society.

Here is some source material for the above:

Robert Buxbaum, May 28, 2022

A Nuclear-blast resistant paint: Starlite and co.

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About 20 years ago, an itinerate inventor named Maurice Ward demonstrated a super insulating paint that he claimed would protect most anything from intense heat. He called it Starlite, and at first no one believed the claims. Then he demonstrated it on TV, see below, by painting a paper-thin layer on a raw egg. He then blasting the egg with a blow torch for a minute till the outside glowed yellow-red. He then lifted the egg with his hand; it was barely warm! And then, on TV, he broke the shell to show that the insides were totally raw, not only uncooked but completely unchanged, a completely raw egg. The documentary below shows the demonstration and describes what happened next (as of 10 years ago) including an even more impressive series of tests.

Intrigued, but skeptical, researchers at the US White Sands National Laboratory, our nuclear bomb test lab, asked for samples. Ward provided pieces of wood painted as before with a “paper thin” layer of Starlite. They subjected these to burning with an oxyacetylene torch, and to a simulated nuclear bomb blast. The nuclear fireball radiation was simulated by an intense laser at the site. Amazing as it sounds, the paint and the wood beneath emerging barely scorched. The painted wood was not damaged by the laser, nor by an oxyacetylene torch that could burn through 8 inches of steel in seconds.

The famous egg, blow torch experiment.

The inventor wouldn’t say what the paint was made of, or what mechanism allowed it to do this, but clearly it had military and civilian uses. It seems it would have prevented the twin towers from collapsing, or would have greatly extended the time they stayed standing. Similarly, it would protect almost anything from a flame-thrower.

As for the ingredients, Ward said it was non-toxic, and that it contained mostly organic materials, plus borax and some silica or ceramic. According to his daughter, it was “edible”; they’d fed it to dogs and horses without adverse effects.

Starlite coasted wood. The simulated nuclear blast made the char mark at left.

The White sands engineers speculate that the paint worked by combination of ablation and intumescence, controlled swelling. The surface, they surmised, formed a foam of char, pure carbon, that swelled to make tiny chambers. If these chambers are small enough, ≤10 nm or so, the mean free path of gas molecules will be severely reduced, reducing the potential for heat transfer. Even more insulting would be if the foam chambers were about 1 nm. Such chambers will be, essentially air free, and thus very insulating. For a more technical view of how molecule motion affects heat transfer rates, see my essay, here.

Sorry to say we don’t know how big the char chambers are, or if this is how the material works. Ward retained the samples and the formula, and didn’t allow close examination. Clearly, if it works by a char, the char layer is very thin, a few microns at most.

Because Maurice Ward never sold the formula or any of the paint in his lifetime, he made no money on the product. He kept closed muted about it, as he knew that, as soon as he patented, or sold, or let anyone know what was in the paint, there would be copycats, and patent violations, and leaks of any secret formula. Even in the US, many people and companies ignore patent rights, daring you to challenge them in court. And it’s worse in foreign countries where the government actively encourages violation. There are also legal ways around a patent: A copycat inventor looks for ways to get the same behavior from materials that are not covered in the patent. Ward could not get around these issues, so he never patented the formula or sold the rights. He revealed the formula only to some close family members, but that was it till May, 2020, when a US company, Thermashield, LLC, bought Ward’s lab equipment and notes. They now claim to make the original Starlite. Maybe they do. The product doesn’t seem quite as good. I’ve yet to see an item scorched as little as the sample above.

Many companies today are now selling versions of Starlite. The formulas are widely different, but all the paints are intumescent, and all the formulas are based on materials Ward would have had on hand, and on the recollections of the TV people and those at White Sands. I’ve bought one of these copycat products, not Thermashield, and tested it. It’s not half bad: thicker in consistency than the original, or as resistive.

There are home-made products too, with formulas on the internet and on YouTube. They are applied more like a spackle or a clay. Still, these products insulate remarkably well: a lot better than any normal insulator I’d seen.

If you’d like to try this as a science fair project, among the formulas you can try; a mix of glue, baking soda, borax, and sugar, with some water. Some versions use sodium silicate too. The Thermoshield folks say that this isn’t the formula, that there is no PVA glue or baking soda in their product. Still it works.

Robert Buxbaum, March 13, 2022. Despite my complaints about the US patent system, it’s far better than in any other country I’ve explored. In most countries, patents are granted only as an income stream for the government, and inventors are considered villains: folks who withhold the fruits of their brains for unearned money. Horrible.

Chinese billionaires keep disappearing with facebook twitter’s help. Alibaba’s Jack Ma is the latest.

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Jack Ma, disappeared billionaire owner of Alibaba.

Every 25 years or so, for the past 1500 years China gets a new dictator who rounds up the rich and famous for loyalty trials, imprisonment. and worse. This was true of Li Ping following Tianamin Square, and Mao Zedong who killed some 75 million as part of his 10,000 flowers, great leap purges. The current dictator, Jenping Xi. Like, has been rounding up anyone he worries about, and that’s basically anyone he might worry about. The latest is Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, China’s version of e-bay and Amazon. Until his disappearance, he was the richest person in China.

Ma had not been seen in public since October 2020, when he and two top lieutenants of Alibaba were called to meet with regulators. He reappeared months later in a 40 second video (some say a hostage video) to say he is more rested now, and that he is positive that China’s regulators do not stifle innovation. As typical for China, there is no information about his whereabouts. What’s novel is that US media companies are involved helping Xi to trace potential opposition and keep questions out of the press. This includes Google, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as US media outlets.

71st Cannes Film Festival - Screening of the film "Ash Is Purest White" (Jiang hu er nv) in competition - Red Carpet Arrivals - Cannes, France, May 11, 2018. Fan Bingbing poses.
China’s biggest starlet, Fan Bingbing, vanished from sight and the internet for months. She may have said something critical, but has reappeared and recanted it.

In the past the news and social media would have been full of negative comments about China, and Ma’s detention , both from within and without. Now there is hardly anything and what little there is, is mildly positive about Xi. For three months there have been no e-mail or published tweets or Facebook posts from Ma or his lieutenants. Similarly, there is no room for negative speculation within China, and little within the US. The company’s planned IPO was cancelled, one that could have been the richest in history, but this fact got virtually no press, not in China, not in the US. Regulators cancelled it just two days before the start of trading. You’d expect screams from inside and outside China; instead, the story has been covered only briefly by CNN and the Financial Times, generally putting a pro-China spin on it. They stress the importance of regulations and avoiding monopolies, and don’t mention that Alibaba competes with Amazon, e-bay and Walmart. The expectation is that Ma and his higher-ups will be found guilty of monopoly trading and abuse of power. Under Xi, these crimes that have sent corporate leaders to prison for 12 to 20 years.

Ren Zhiqiang, missing billionaire, sentenced to 18 years.

Consider the fate of Ren Zhiqiang, the 69 year old chairman of Huayuan property conglomerate. It was one of the largest property groups in China, but Ren vanished in March 2020 after being heard to have complained about how the government was handling COVID-19. He was expelled from the communist party, and in September 2020 sentenced to 18 years in jail for “taking bribes and abuses of power.” There was hardly a trial, and as with Jack Ma, Facebook and Twitter helped the party silence Ren and his supporters. The result is that he had no recourse to the court of public opinion. About a month later, Facebook and Twitter did the same to Donald Trump, banning him for life from Facebook, Twitter. All other platforms joined, these included Snap and Reddit. As in China they also banned his main lieutenants and his main supporters, including the my-pillow man. The internet services also closed (deplatformed) Parler, the only competing web-service that allowed Trump and his supporters to post.

It can help to have public outcry, as Xi found after he disappeared China’s most popular movie starlet, Fan Bingbing in July 2018. Fan is a star of Chinese TV and movies and appears in Iron Man II and X-Men. As with Ma and Ren, Facebook and Twitter removed all posts, comments, questions, and complaints about Fan, releasing only the official statement that she was under investigation and taking a break. Unlike Ren, Fan reappeared a year later, April 2019 with no official charges filed. Nor has there been any official report. She has apologized for misdoings. and is supposed to have paid some $150 million, but she’s free. My guess is that the pressure of 100 million Chinese fans is what helped Ms Fan to un-vanish.

Chairman of Anbang Insurance Group Wu Xiaohui attends the China Development Forum in Beijing, China
Had Wu Xiaohui, former chairman of Anbang Insurance Group, and owner to the Waldorf Astoria.

A less positive outcome is when there is no outcry. When Wu Xiaohui, chairman of the Anbang Insurance Group, and the owner of New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel vanished for two years. When he reappeared, he faced a quiet trial that sentenced him to 18 years in prison. The usual charges: fraud and abuse of power. Wu’s mother claimed she had no access to her son for those two years. Anbang, once one of the largest insurers in China, was taken over by its insurance regulator who has applied to liquidate the company. Why liquidate? Probably because it’s the easiest way to remove potential Wu loyalists.

In the US, there are some claims that Facebook, Twitter, Reditt and a few other companies have too much control of public discourse. Others claim that these companies exercise too little control. These companies claim the right to silence opinion they consider untrue, or inflammatory, and they have been allowed to deplatform their competition. Congress is moving to be in charge of who they silence. I’ve found they don’t like pro-Israel sentiments. While they don’t put words in my mouth, I don’t like it that they take words out of my mouth. As a result, I’ve cut back on my use of these platforms.

Jack Ma reappeared after 3 months in this 40 second video, shot from an unknown location. To me, it looks like a hostage video, “I’m well and being well treated …” Biden has argued that now is the time to move closer to China.

As I write this, Trump is impeached for the second time. The charge is inflammatory speech. Like with abuse of power, there is no way to prove you didn’t do it, especially after the internet giants silence you and anyone stupid enough to support you. Among Biden’s first acts is to undo Trump dictates that kept China from providing the technology underlying the US power and water system. Clearly Biden feels it is important that China should have a hand in this. I surely am not going to suggest that the bribes Biden is supposed to have received from China played any role. I will say that, when I ran for water commission, one of my goals was to help make the water system more resistant to cyber attack.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum. February 8, 2021. As an update, I see that Jimmy Li was arrested. He’s the founder of Hong-Kong’s most popular newspaper, Apple daily. No comment in the US, or from the Vatican. Li is Catholic, and the Vatican used to chime in when prominent Catholics were arrested.

A pacifist’s personal protection, a 22 revolver.

3 Replies

Before a pacifist buys a gun, there are two critical questions to ask: One is ‘how would I feel if I killed a criminal?” The other is ‘how would I feel if I missed and killed someone else? In my case, I’d feel awful either way. My thinking, even with the criminal, is that I tried my best to do more good than bad, and part of that is to minimize the chance of killing needlessly. Statistics suggest that gun carrying, in general, does good by deterring violent criminals. To be able to stop a deadly attack, while minimizing the chance of killing– particularly an innocent bystander — I’m inclined to a low power gun that’s easy to conceal and easy to aim well. This leads me to suggest a 22 revolver with a barrel that’s not too long to conceal, nor too short for good aiming, 2.5-4″ seems ideal.

An analysis of what percent of people stop attacking when hit by one bullet of different calibers. The 32 and shotgun are the best, in part because the shooter tends to stop shooting at one shot. With a 9 mm, the shooter keeps on shooting, likely doing more damage than necessary.

At this point I’d like to say that I am not a gun expert. I’ve fired perhaps 15 guns in my life including 5 revolvers. The easiest of these to shoot was a Glock 9mm, heavy, large and powerful, but it think it would be too large to carry or draw in a deadly situation, and the Glock was not cheap. The 22s were all smaller guns, and the 22 cartridges, especially the 22lr, are dirt cheap, costing 8 to10¢ each, or $40-$50 for a box of 500. It’s not the 9mm are super expensive, but they cost 25-30¢ each or $25 to $30 for a box of 100. The price is higher today, over $1 each, because of an ammo shortage, but it’s coming down.

Another advantage of the 22 is that the kill power is lower. A 9mm round will go through the person you are shooting at, and kill the person behind, and can kill on a riccoshet. I like that the 22 won’t do this. I also like that the 22, more effective than almost any other round at stropping a criminal, and getting him to go away. As the chart above shows, there is a 60% stop after the perpetrator is hit once, and that’s my goal — getting him to go away. A shotgun is far more effective as a deterrence, over 80%, but it is much more likely to kill, and much harder to conceal carry. The chart above is from a wonderful analysis of the effect of different calibers used in crimes, read it here. The author, Greg Ellifritz, suggests that the reason the 22 is so effective at stopping a criminal is psychological: criminals stop if shot even once, especially from a civilian, and only civilians use 22s. Larger calibers are better appear to be less effective, though they will be better at stopping a really determined attacker, e.g. someone on PCP. But that’s not the environment I work in, and I suspect it’s not the majority of crime. Overall, one shot from a 9mm does not do a good job stopping an attacker. Another good option is a 32. It was the choice of Theodore Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover. It tends to be used by detectives and other professionals, but the bullets are expensive.

I’ve done a meta-analysis of Greg Ellifritz’s death data, and confirm that the 22 is the second least deadly of all bullet types, after the .25. Of 154 people hit with 22 bullets, there 28% fatalities, 43 deaths. The 9mm is more deadly: of those hit with a 9 mm bullet, 44% died, in part because people shooting 9mm tend to shoot more bullets, nearly twice as many as 22 shooters in danger situations.

It takes two hands to cock a semi-automatic, that is to draw the first round into the chamber. Gif from ammuniotndepot.com

Handguns for 9mm rounds tend to be semi-automatic with light triggers and large magazines. Guns for 22 tend to be revolvers with heavier triggers and small loads, 5 to 7 rounds. I suspect that a light trigger leads to more missed shots and misfires, and I notice that many folks with semiautomatics, find they jam in danger situations. In the famous duel between Hamilton and Burr, Hamilton hit the branch above Burr’s head, likely because he’d set his trigger very light. Burr’s trigger was set heavy, and he shot straight. When you are nervous, gun with a light trigger can go off early and miss or kill the wrong person. A lot of the people killed with guns in Detroit, I notice, were killed by mistake, because the shooter missed, or because of a ricochet (I did an analysis of Detroit crime early on in this blog). A ricocheting 22 has very little kill power left.

A single action revolver requires cocking by that can be done with one hand; a double action doesn’t need any cocking. Gif from ammuniotndepot.com

Every semi-automatic I’ve tried required a two handed, “racking” step, see above. Thus, unless you leave a cartridge in the chamber while walking around, you need two free hands and an extra second or two to rack the first bullet before you can shoot. That’s OK on a range, but in a danger situation racking is a problem. Even trained policemen with semi-automatics have been killed by knife-wilding criminals because the criminal didn’t need the extra second or two while the policeman racked the first round.

Racking takes strength and coordination, plus an awareness of legal isuess. If you rack too soon and the situation de-escalates, you could be charged with “brandishing.” In most states it’s illegal to brandish a weapon in a non-deadly situation. You have to wait with your gun in your pocket or holster until you are in mortal danger. With a revolver, you don’t need to rack. Even a single action revolver can be cocked with one hand while the weapon is in your pocket. See the process in the figure above. Double-action revolvers don’t require cocking, and that can be a plus. On the other hand, I figure that the sound of a gun cocking might be useful to signal to a criminal that you are serious without getting you into the problems of brandishing.

De-cocking a single action revolver.

Revolvers have another interesting plus in that it’s easy to un-cock revolver, even using one hand, see gif. With semi-automatic pistols, there rarely a graceful way to remove the bullet from the chamber, certainly not with one hand. In theory, you can shoot from your pocket too; it’s something I’ve seen in the movies, but a semi-automatic will almost certainly jam if you try. If the assailant grabs your arm, or otherwise attacks you, you have every right to fire, but you don’t want a jam, or to hit yourself. Most defensive shootings are from close range.

Speaking of jamming, even experts get jams on a fairly regular basis, and beginners have this problem a lot. They forget to hold the gun tightly enough, or they buy rounds that don’t quite match the gun. Rounds that are too weak or powerful cause problems for semi-automatics. I’ve never seen a revolver jam, and if the round doesn’t fire, you can click again, and another round will appear. With a semi-automatic, clearing a jam is a lot of work: more than I can expect in a danger situation.

I should mention that the folks from ammunition depot, the place I got the gifs, recommends 9mm semi-automatics for personal protection because of the extra “stopping power”. Read their opinion here. I disagree, and here is one last reason: Like many other suppliers, they are out of 9mm cartridges, and have been for months. Perhaps it’s panic buying like with toilet paper, or a manufacturing disruption; 22 lr cartridges are still in stock. Supply problems will likely go away, but it’s another reason to look at the 22.

Robert Buxbaum, December 11, 2020. Some vocabulary words: a bullet is the projectile that comes out the barrel. A round = a cartridge. It’s the thing that you put in the gun before shooting. There are several 22s, all with the same size (diameter) bullet, 0.223″ OD, but with different lengths and power, from short to wmr. Different guns can use different cartridges. Meir Kahane was killed by a 22, as was Bobby Kennedy.