September 2004 Archives

Remember, there are other choices.

I'll just write a little because I'm sure other people will be writing a lot. First off, I scored the debate like a boxing match, giving each candidate a score for each exchange. According to my total, it came to 287 - 273 in President Bush's favor -- but admittedly, I'm biased. I counted approximately 30 camera shots that violated the debate rules. Senator Kerry mentioned or alluded to Vietnam 5 times, and mentioned or alluded to Ronald Reagan twice.

President Bush did a good job staying on message, but he stumbled a few times and hesitated over words a little too much. His best point was that John Kerry can't expect to get more allies on board in Iraq if he insists that it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have pointed out, but didn't, that Germany and France have said they won't send troops no matter who wins the election, and that they don't have many quality troops to send, anyway, and that they were making money off Saddam. Bush also dodged a question about whether or not a 9/11-size terrorist attack would be more likely if Kerry gets elected. I thought the President handled the question about Kerry's character superbly and graciously. However, I had high expectations for Bush and he didn't live up to all of them.

Senator Kerry did better than I expected. I don't like most of his positions, but I think he did a good job presenting them. Kerry strikes me as a better extemporaneous speaker than rehearsed, and I was impressed by his speaking ability. Much of his presentation was flat and unemotional, but that doesn't generally bother me (and he wasn't Gore-like). He didn't contradict himself or blatantly flip-flop on anything, and he did a good job staying within the time limit. He dodged a few questions -- such as whether or not our solders in Iraq are dying for nothing -- but didn't seem obvious about it.

As for Jim Lehrer, I didn't like his performance much. He didn't ask any foreign policy questions that didn't relate to the War on Terror (except for the one on Darfur) -- nothing about trade, nothing about AIDS in Africa, nothing about relations with China, nothing about the European Union, nothing about South America, nothing about Mexico, nothing about the WTO or the IMF, nothing about Kerry's Senate record, and so forth. It got to the point where the candidates were just repeating themselves, and Bush even stopped himself once and pointed out that there wasn't much else he could say about North Korea that he hadn't said twice already. Most of the questions were about things Bush has done, and very few were about things that Kerry had ever done, which made it easy to criticise the President. Still, that's part of the territory with being the incumbent.

The rules weren't overly restricting, and everything went smoothly. If anyone ends up benefiting I think it'll be Kerry, because for me at least he exceeded expectations. One of the best debates I've seen.

Update:
I've been trying to figure out why I feel like Kerry had the edge even though I gave Bush a higher score, and I think I've got it. Bush got more points because he scored a few serious blows, whereas Kerry didn't. But Kerry's performance was smoother and more consistent.

There isn't much in the legal or political world that I respect more than a jury verdict. Even when it comes to cases like OJ -- who we all know was guilty -- once a jury makes a decision I'm generally satisfied. Do juries make mistakes? Sure. But there's no institution closer to the public pulse than a jury, and I'd sooner trust a panel of citizens with just about any question of law than I would trust a judge, legislature, or president. That said, even though I disagree with Jack Balkin's characterization of declining federal executions, and even though I'm strongly in favor of the death penalty, if juries are reluctant to impose it then that's fine with me. Mr. Balkin links to a Los Angeles Times article saying that Ashcroft isn't pleased with the trend:

A small number of federal districts, including pockets of Texas and Virginia, were accounting for the bulk of death cases. Experts decried the geographical disparities.

For Ashcroft, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, the solution was to seek the death penalty more often and more widely.

Since then, he has pushed federal prosecutors around the country — often over their objections — to be more aggressive in identifying prosecutions that could qualify as federal capital cases. Much of that effort has been in states that have banned or rarely impose capital punishment.

That's fine with me. Prosecutors need to do their jobs and enforce the laws, and if they don't like the laws to such a degree that they can't do so then they should quit.

With public support for the death penalty in decline, jurors have rebuffed calls for the death penalty in 23 of the 34 federal capital cases tried since 2001, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, a court- funded group that assists defense lawyers in capital cases.

I don't think the Times' claim that public support for the death penalty is waning is accurate, but if juries in particular instances decide not to impose the death penalty then I've got no problem with that.

Mr. Balkin says:

Juries all over the country are telling the courts that death is a matter of last resort, to be used sparingly, and only in the most serious cases. In many places they do not want it to be used at all. This is not timidity. It is not lack of empathy for victims. It is not insufficient concern with justice. It is civilization. By comparison with these juries all around the country, who regard the taking of a criminal defendant's life with supreme seriousness, Attorney General Ashcroft seems a savage, bloodthirsty brute.

Mr. Balkin is attempting to construe "civilization" in a certain way, and it's far from obvious to me that many people would agree that executions are necessarily "uncivilized". Capital punishment has been prevalent around the world in every culture for thousands of years, and aside from technological progress it's hard to see how our modern culture is particularly more civilized than those of our ancestors. Much of the argument depends on the definition of the word.

Even aside from that, however, I think it's ungenerous to cast the Attorney General as a "savage, bloodthirsty brute" when his primary concern in this matter appears to be that the law is not being applied equally across the nation, and that that inequality may be the result of the decisions of his subordinates. Inequalities that stem from jury differences are fine, but the federal government is supposed to treat everyone the same. Prosecutors are not elected, they're appointed bureaucrats, and they're supposed to be following the lead of our elected representatives.

Radley Balko thinks Dennis Miller has become nothing but a shill for the President, and based on the few times I've seen his show, well, Mr. Balko may be correct. One of his commenters thinks Mr. Miller's new image was crafted for career reasons... possibly, but I think his ultimate aspirations are political and not in the entertainment field. Mr. Balko's final paragraph, however, is below the belt:

I guess the right needs its Janeane Garofalos and Margaret Chos.

I rarely watch CSPAN, but my brother loves it and he's staying with me this week so I caught a bit last night. The thing that really stood out to me was how stupid the callers were and how ill-formed and absurd were many of their points. Maybe there aren't a lot of callers to choose from, or maybe the screeners don't know what they're doing, but the people who call in to talk radio programs generally seem to be quite a bit more knowledgeable and coherent. Then again, many talk radio programs probably have a much larger audience than does CSPAN.

Prolix: Tending to speak or write at excessive length. See Synonyms at wordy. As in,

Each candidate gets 90 seconds to answer a minimum of 16 questions and 30 seconds to comment on his foe's answer. This two-minute limit would seem to help the "on-message" Bush and penalize Kerry's much-remarked-upon prolixity.

OpinionJournal had a couple of great articles yesterday that I meant to write about but I never found the time. The first is about a bureaucratic rebellion inside the CIA, and I find it quite easy to believe. It's pretty well-known that America's career bureaucrats tend towards the left, and there's no reason to think it'd be any different at the CIA. The second article explains how christianity and capitalism can work together. It's far too long, but the thesis is good: capitalism doesn't require greed.

Candace gives the award for most awkward come-ons to:

Poets.

"So, yeah, I'm not very cool, but I'm a poet. I'm not very successful, really, or interesting, but by a poet's standards, I'm pretty successful, my friends are published by Penguin and stuff. Did I mention I'm a poet? I'll invite you to my next poetry thing, but I kinda need your number first. You know, if you want to hang out for a while, to at least decide if you think you might want to come home with me, despite the fact you have a boyfriend and all, you don't have to go home with your friends, but if not, that's okay, just make sure I get your number..."

The thing is that when most girls hear "poet", "musician", "artist", or "actor" they swoon. It's interesting to consider why that is, because most people in those professions are essentially unemployed. Seeking out such men wouldn't appear to be a winning strategy for a woman, and whether or not you think most people make wise choices you have to admit that it's unusual for a whole class of people to make similar bad decisions. So there must be a reason.

I speculate that because our society is so wealthy and we enjoy so much luxury without even realizing it, most women don't feel much of a need to find a successful man. Most men aren't specifically attracted to professionally successful women, and nowadays women are in a similar position. More women can provide comfortable lives for themselves, so it's less important to them to find a successful husband.

As for men, what do we get out of the new deal? Imaginary girlfriends and internet pornography. And an incentive to write poetry.

Poker? I don't even know 'er!

Anyway, no existing artificial intelligence could understand that joke. Likewise, I think Scott Chaffin at The Fat Guy is right in thinking that no existing AI could beat a human poker master. However, I think he's hasty in dismissing speculation that people are writing bots to play online poker and are raking in the dough from unsuspecting internet players.

Are poker ‘bots’ raking online pots?: after "these online sites are RIGGED!" and "I'm calling tech support about collusion!", bots are probably the biggest source of idle chit-chat and/or creeping Nixon-like paranoia on the interweb. As this article explains, it's highly unlikely that you're sliding pixelated chips to software programs. There's talk of one up in that Canada, called Vex something-or-other, that is rated a "master" at 2-handed games. Well, a) big whoop: only a dumbass plays two-handed unless they're squaring off against someone they know (we're talking regular ring games here, not tournies), and b) "master"? What the heck is that? By my reckoning, the only masters of this game are walking around Vegas with rolls of $1000 bills that would choke a horse and getting on the teevee on a semi-regular basis (cf., Doyle Brunson, TJ Cloutier, Daniel Negreanu, etc., etc., etc.) All that is to say I don't spend a lot of time worrying about robots. If someone wants to give their judgement over to a piece of software when they're playing for real money...well, let's just say I've written software, and poker ain't completely logical.

I've written software too -- and am getting a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence -- and I'm positive that it wouldn't be hard to write an AI that could beat average to good poker players in an online format. "Vex something-or-other" probably refers to Vexbot, a component of Poki's Artificial Intelligence, a project led by Darse Billings from the University of Alberta.

According to the Poki FAQ:

Q: How good is Poki?

A: The older version of Poki that plays in full 10-player games is better than a typical low-limit casino player, and wins consistently against average opponents; but it is not as good as most expert players. The newer programs being developed for the 2-player game are quite a bit better, and we believe they will eventually surpass all human players, perhaps within a few years, or less.

Sounds reasonable to me. If Poki ever can beat human poker masters then that means that bluffing and "tells" are unnecessary to winning the game. Poki probably does "bluff", but only based on statistics, not intuition, and that seems like a very different thing to me. Imagine how effective an AI could be that could read human facial expressions in addition to crunching numbers?

Walter Olson at Overlawyered writes that Purdue Pharma has spent more than $250 million successfully defending itself against lawsuits related to its product, Oxycontin. Every legal attack so far over the "often-abused painkiller" has failed, but look how much the suits have cost the company anyway! The obvious solution is to institute a "loser pays" rule such that if you sue someone and lose you have to pay their legal costs. Such a rule would clearly reduce the incentive to sue by adding additional risk to the process.

My question is whether or not there is some type of suit that is often doomed to failure and yet beneficial to society at the same time? That is, is there any reason not to burden losers with the whole cost of the legal action? I suppose one could take the argument too far and say, well, why not execute people who initiate a losing lawsuit? That would create a disincentive as well. True, but such a policy would add an externality to the system, whereas merely shifting costs does not. Are there circumstances in which it's a good idea to allow plaintiffs with little hope of victory to impose huge legal costs on defendants?

Thanks to Asparagirl for the pointer to this background page on Anousheh Ansari, the woman who's primarily responsible for the establishment and funding of the Ansari X-Prize. I didn't know much about her before, but her story and history are quite fascinating. As Asparagirl points out:

Burt Rutan and Paul Allen have been getting a lot of the credit for their roles in the recent attempt at the prize, and rightly so. But most of the actual prize money, and the prize's name, comes from tech entrepreneur and self-made millionaire Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American woman who immigrated to the US at 16--because the hardline Islamicists back in Tehran would not have let her study such unsuitable and unfeminine subjects as math and science.

Iran's loss is the world's gain; Ansari (and her brother-in-law, who also donated some of the prize money) is helping make commercial space travel a real possibility in our lifetimes--heck, a real possibility in just the next 15 years. And as if that weren't enough, she's also a living, breathing, geeky rebuke to the narrow-minded, anti-female, anti-science, anti-progress world of the fundamentalists and ayatollahs.

Is it really a surprise that parents in New Zealand want to know when their underage daughters get abortions? I mean, kids can't go on field trips without parental consent, they can't borrow money, they can't sign contracts, they can't pose nude, they can't buy cigarettes or drink, they can't join the army, they can't... and so forth. But abortions? No problem! Why in the world should a parent be involved in something so trivial?

An opinion poll in New Zealand has found substantial support for parents' right to know if their underage daughter wants to have an abortion. The poll sends a strong signal to a liberal government that critics accuse of pursuing a politically-correct agenda.

A proposed piece of legislation called the Care of Children Bill entrenches an existing situation that allows girls of any age to have an abortion without their parents' knowledge or consent.

Opposition politicians are pressing for the provision to be changed, pointing out that parents are required to give their consent for their children to undergo any non-urgent medical procedure - apart from an abortion.

Many parents are horrified at the notion of school staff whisking their under-16 year old daughters off for an abortion during school hours, leaving parents out of the loop in what is likely to be the most traumatic decision their child has ever made.

No, seriously? Those parents are just prudes.

The pro-life Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child points out that schools are obliged to inform parents if even mild medications are given to children while away from home, yet abortions are exempt from this policy.

Now if only abortions could cure headaches....

So what do pro-abortion folks think of a proposal to require parental notification (not even parental premission!)?

Top medical bodies including the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) are against her proposal, saying it could prompt girls to have illegal or "back street" abortions, putting themselves at risk of harm.

"This proposal is a backward step and sends a dangerous message to young girls, who may be confused, desperate and vulnerable," said NZMA chairwoman Dr Tricia Briscoe.

Hm... if a young girl is feeling "confused, desperate and vulnerable" isn't that exactly when it's most necessary for her parents to be involved? No, what nonsense! That's when the government should step in and encourage the girl to "make her own decisions" without being burdened by a couple of old folks who just happen to share some genes with her.

More-conservative-than-me (that is, more reluctant to stick his neck out with a wild prediction) blogger XRLQ is considering a joint resolution to debate the possibility of forming a committee to discuss the merits of joining the Bush Landslide Bandwagon.

In the past, I’ve chided other bloggers for predicting the outcome of the election far too early in the game. Even now, a mere 34 days before Colorado votes to disenfranchise itself and every state elects a challenge-proof slate of electors for Bush or Kerry, a lot could happen. Maybe Kerry will tank tomorrow’s “debate” and come back swinging in the next two. Maybe, but probably not. So I’m going to stick my neck out just a little bit and make a prediction that can go one of two ways: either Kerry takes it away tomorrow, or he’s toast. The only caveat is that we won’t necessarily know the winner immediately after the “debate.” I recently spoke to a well-known pollster, and he said it always takes a few days for perceptions about the “winner” or “loser” of any debate to sink into the public psyche. So I’m giving this French-looking, French-acting, formerly fake Irish American until next Monday to convince the public that we had a debate on Thursday, September 30, 2004, and that he won it. Stay tuned.

But it's so much more fun to make intuitive predictions months in advance!

How can you tell when a Democratic Presidential would-be is doomed and struggling just to protect down-ticket candidates? Matthew Dowd gave three signs, and I'd like to add a fourth: the candidate brings on Jesse Jackson and his "passion for justice".

Rev. Jesse Jackson has joined the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as senior adviser.

Jackson will serve as a campaign spokesperson by participating in events and rallies in key battleground states to "energize" voters. ...

"For over forty years, Jesse Jackson has brought his commitment to equality, opportunity and progress to our most vulnerable citizens," said Kerry.

"His passion for justice is second to none. John Edwards and I are proud to have him as part of this campaign and we look forward to the weeks ahead as we travel the country together with a message of hope for all Americans," Kerry added.

Mr. Jackson is such a polarizing figure that he can only end up hurting Kerry's chances if he's displayed much publically, but he can be effective in certain select areas to bolster down-ticket Democrats. Supposedly. The thing is, even some blacks are disillusioned with their race's self-proclaimed spokesman.

A group of African-Americans protestors gathered outside the Sheraton hotel in downtown Chicago Monday to protest Jesse Jackson during his 32nd annual Rainbow/PUSH conference.

Protestor Willie Ellis said he wanted to tell America, "Open your eyes: Jesse Jackson is for Jesse Jackson and Jesse Jackson only.

"He stole from the people long enough. It's time the people know the true man Jesse Jackson is. He has rode on black peoples' coattails long enough," Ellis told CNSNews.com. ...

The protestors held signs reading "IRS Do Your Job: Investigate Jesse's Family";
"Jesse if you want to be a leader go and get yourself elected"; and "Jesse: With leaders like you who needs enemies?"

Protestor Harold Davis said Jackson "is a shakedown artist and nobody holds him accountable."

I know Mr. Jackson has a passion for something that starts with a "j", but it isn't "justice".

Even though my blog traffic has been increasing, it's kinda sad to see that the vast majority of my visitors are coming from search engines rather than referrals... and many of the searchers are looking for porn. What's with that? I don't have any porn here. Is this unusual, or do you other bloggers notice a similar phenomenon? Eh.

I'm not a big fan of Bill O'Reilly, but the first part (of three) of his interview with President Bush is pretty good. He asks a couple of tough questions, and I think the President handles them well. (I only read the transcript, I didn't watch the show.) I'm looking forward to the other two parts when they come out. A key exchange:

O'REILLY: Would you allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon?

BUSH: We are working our hearts out so that they don't develop a nuclear weapon, and the best way to do so is to continue to keep international pressure on them.

O'REILLY: Is it conceivable that you would allow them to develop a nuclear weapon?

BUSH: No, we've made it clear, our position is that they won't have a nuclear weapon.

O'REILLY: Period.

BUSH: Yes.

There's more, and I don't agree with the President's position on illegal immigration (as an earlier post today makes obvious).

Update:
Wretchard has more on striking Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Orin Kerr has written an article about "Digital Evidence and the New Criminal Procedure" and has asked for comments. In general I think the article is excellent, but I think Professor Kerr is missing an important facet of the issue. I sent him the following email (slightly edited).

Professor Kerr,

I'm not a lawyer, so I hope that I didn't miss anything in your article that already addresses this issue: namely that in many cases it will be impossible to recognize digital evidence even when you see it, particularly when encryption is in play. (I did a search in your article for "crypt", just to make sure, and didn't find a mention.)

I wrote about this issue in the context of ownership and intellectual property here:
http://www.mwilliams.info/archives/002948.php

Essentially, any digital file is just a sequence of ones and zeros, and any evidence a file may contain depends heavily on how those bits are interpreted. The same file could theoretically be a grocery list when loaded into a text editor and a diagram of a bomb when loaded into an image viewer. Further, when a file is properly encypted it is essentially indistinguishable from random noise. Even if a judge were to issue a warrant for the decryption key, there's no way for anyone to prove that the file actually is encrypted and not just a bunch of random numbers.

In general though, I like your paper a lot. As everyone in society gets more tech-savvy I expect law enforcement will be able to work more precisely as well.

Oakland's police department has quit checking for drunk drivers because they were catching too many illegal immigrants.

OAKLAND -- Oakland police officers have stopped setting up roadblocks to check whether drivers are under the influence because of a rash of complaints from the Latino community and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente.

The checkpoints, which allow officers to demand licenses and proof of insurance, are an effective way to get drunken drivers off Oakland's streets, city leaders agree. But the checks also have ensnared dozens of illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive yet otherwise obey the law.

This next paragraph made me laugh... does that make me a bad person?

"These checkpoints make people's lives miserable, not make them safer," said Jesus Rodriguez of Oakland Community Organizations, which filed most of the complaints about the checkpoints. "I've watched while the police have towed away cars (full) of groceries, leaving children crying on the sidewalk."

Hey! Get off the sidewalk! Go cry somewhere else.

It's mind-boggling that illegal immigrants apparently have their own city councilman -- the President, even! -- and that anyone cares when they're caught for, you know, breaking the law. If we as a society want to have open borders, then let's vote on it! But as long as the law says otherwise, it needs to be enforced.

Fortunately for Oakland, Councilman Larry Reid isn't insane.

Reid said he has little sympathy with Rodriguez's position.

"I don't care if they are illegal immigrants," Reid said.

"They should not be driving on our streets without a license, without insurance. I expect the Oakland Police Department to do its job and get them off the street."

Gee, how controversial.

Here's an email I sent to a friend about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's ugly and probably doesn't flow well or even make sense in places. I'm too lazy to clean it up, but I thought you all might be interested, nonetheless.

---

I just finished it, and I thought the end was really depressing. Sirius just died out of nowhere! I completely foresaw that Harry was being tricked, and I liked all the layers. Hermy talks him into checking on Sirus before leaving which gets them caught; the house-elf betrays them, which was obviously going to happen from the very beginning; and then the Department of Mysteries trap. That all worked well. But the way Sirius showed up and then died without a word or on-screen struggle left me feeling a bit empty, like it wasn't really resolved.

Which makes me think that Sirius will be back. Also, I think the arch was introduced so that Voldemort can be fed into it in book 7.

I liked how neatly some other plot points were tied up, but Dumbledore's exposition could have been replaced with action. So Harry has to stay with his aunt for his own protection? Why not demonstrate that to us, show the dementors impotently circling his house? Dumbledore had to explain too much that could have been shown instead of told.

I liked all the tension between the three kids near the beginning and middle of the book, and it was really frustrating to me, as I'm sure was intended. I liked the development of Harry and Cho's relationship, and I'm glad it ended. It wouldn't have made any sense if it had developed into some long-term thing just-like-that, but it makes a ton of sense as a short-term crush that falls apart, as do most real relationships. Harry's going to end up with Ginny, right? I figured that from the first time she was introduced, and I like how it's playing out.

I also like Luna Lovegood. She was a great character, and fun to get to know. Neville needs to develop more... he had so many opportunities to do something right near the end of this book, and he kept screwing up anyway. I want him to succeed eventually, please!

I liked how Harry forgot about Snape, because I did too. I really liked the scene where Harry saw Snape's memory Harry's father and Sirius, it made Snape into a very sympathetic character. Although, to be honest, I'd always sympathized with Snape. I'm going to be VERY upset if Snape turns out to be a baddie, despite Dumbledore's assurances. Actually, I kinda want Snape to take Harry in near the end of the series. That would be nice.

Meanwhile, why doesn't Lupin have more to say to Harry about Sirius' death? Lupin is the only one left of the four friends, and he seemed close to Harry in the earlier books. (Book 3?) I don't want Harry and Dumbledore to get all tight, because Dumbledore is hardly a character at all, he's just a force of nature.

I liked the Death Eaters, although they could be developed more individually. Malfoy and Bella are cool, but since the books avoid POVs other than Harry's we don't get to see much of what they do.

Anyway, book 5 was my favorite so far. I need to re-read 4 because I think I've forgotten much of what happened in it.

I should post this, but it'd be too hard to clean it up and make it readable.

Reader Bruce Cleaver mentioned Rees's First Law of Quotation but got it a bit wrong. Though not in the law itself, Nigel Rees does mention Mr. Cleaver's preferred default sources: Winston Churchill and Mark Twain.

Hence, Rees's First Law of Quotation: `When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to George Bernard Shaw.' The law's first qualification is: `Except when they obviously derive from Shakespeare, the Bible or Kipling.' The corollary is: `In time, all humorous remarks will be ascribed to Shaw whether he said them or not.'

Why should this be? People are notoriously lax about quoting and attributing remarks correctly, as witness an analogous process I shall call Churchillian Drift. The Drift is almost indistinguishable from the First Law, but there is a subtle difference. Whereas quotations with an apothegmatic feel are normally ascribed to Shaw, those with a more grandiose or belligerent tone are almost automatically credited to Churchill. All quotations in translation, on the other hand, should be attributed to Goethe (with `I think' obligatory).

Shaw, Churchill, Wilde, Lincoln and Twain are, in fact, fixed in the popular mind as practically the sole source of witty and quotable sayings. But what is alarming is the way in which almost any remark not obviously tied to some other originator will one day find itself attributed to one of these five.

I myself have had great success attributing dubious bits of wisdom to Benjamin Franklin.

The recent hurricanes have devestated Haiti, so please keep the people there in your prayers. If you can do more then please consider it.

GONAIVES, Haiti - Doctors are performing amputations without electricity or running water while waste from this city's shattered sewage system contaminates mud and floodwaters, infecting wounds that threaten to turn gangrenous.

Photo
AP Photo

More than a week after the passage of Tropical Storm Jeanne, the calamity in the northwest city of Gonaives has overwhelmed Haitians and foreign rescue workers.

Thousands remain hungry. Jean-Claude Kompas, a New York doctor who rushed to his native Haiti to volunteer his services last week, says he has treated 30 people for gunshot wounds received in fights over scarce food. Another of his patients was a child whose finger was chopped off with a machete — possibly also over food.

Jeanne killed more than 1,500 and left 200,000 homeless in the northwest city of Gonaives. With another 1,000 people reported missing, the toll is sure to rise.

"It's sad but true that the missing will slowly be started to be counted among the dead," said Brazilian Army Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, in charge of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti.

The Bible teaches:

James 2:14-16
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

Matthew 25:34-40
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"

We who favor smaller government and less coerced compassion should be eager to step up to the plate and demonstrate that it doesn't take a tax collector to open our wallets.

(HT: Hugh Hewitt for the link to WorldVision, a Christian relief organization.)