HABEAS WHA?

(Submitted as a letter to the Editor of "The Nation" magazine, 3/9/07)

Habeas corpus: "Produce the body."

At English common law, that was one of the writs a court could issue to command a sheriff (one of the King's servants and policy executioners) to bring forth a prisoner (being held pursuant to the King's law) and to explain the legal basis for the prisoner's detention.

PRESUMABLY (and contrary to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's recent assertions), that doctrine was preserved as a right in the US for people following the American Revolution.

David Sentelle and the other statist on the DC (federal) Circuit Court review panel asserted (2-1) that habeas corpus did not apply to anyone physically outside of the official geographic boundaries of the US. Supposedly, the doctrine is NOT a restraint on the POWER of the US government (as it was a restraint on the power of the King of England, who had no "Gitmo" to drag prisoners to, just Australia) but is, instead, a dispensation from a benevolent government to those lucky individuals who just happen, perhaps by accident, to be behind an artificially-drawn line on a map. Following the (il)logic of the DC Circuit, all the "king" would have to do is kidnap some schmuck and drag him or her across the border and, voila!, there would be no more pesky due process, no more pesky habeas corpus, no more pesky Bill of Rights! "In the US" means exactly that and nothing else.

According to David Cole, the poor dears on the DC Circuit could not find where the King of England had, by 1789, deigned to allow foreign nationals the right of habeas corpus. I am comforted to know that the DC Circuit finds the King's benevolences 218 years ago to be dispositive of my rights today. I mean, we gotta teach those Muslim "towel-heads" who's boss, right?

So, in total disregard of what most of the Founders said, over and over, in total disregard of what most learned scholars have said, over and over, silly little doctrines like "due process," habeas corpus, etc. are NOT restraints on the power of the US government, anywhere, anytime, but are, instead, subject to the political whims of, say theoretically, a cowardly, corrupt Congress and a nefarious, emotionally disturbed, dry-drunk Chief Executive. Theoretically speaking.

David Sentelle, Robert Bork, John Wu, Alberto Gonzales, Ed Meese, et als, have each expressed the notion many times that, contrary to the NINTH AMENDMENT, "rights" don't exist unless a court somewhere or a law explicitly says so. They would likely say that "rights" are not a restraint on government power but are conditional, depending upon what the "king" says. AND, government powers are UNLIMITED (contrary to the TENTH AMENDMENT) unless and until a court says otherwise. Screw the Bill of Rights! I'm sure Alberto Gonzales can find some exceptions.

Interesting. I dread what Samuel Alito, John Roberts, et als, are going to do with this matter.

"Uh-oh, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down!"

VOLTS vs. RESISTANCE

THE (APPARENT) PARADOX OF VOLTAGE AND RESISTANCE

(The following was written in the fall of 2006 as a statement of understanding of electrical technology.)

One of the issues that has caused me much confusion in my studies of auto technology is the apparent paradoxical relationship between voltage and resistance in a series electrical circuit. Now, for the benefit of the “electrically challenged,” most motor vehicles are electrically powered by 12-volt batteries which, by their very nature, produce what is called “direct” current (DC), as opposed to the 110-volt “alternating” current (AC) in most houses. Household alternating current switches polarity (+ and -) 60 times per second (60 Hertz) back and forth, while vehicular direct current does not change its polarity at all. It is a steady stream of current out of the battery (which is recharged by the generator/alternator) unbroken except by various switches. Most vehicles are negatively grounded, meaning the (-) pole on the battery is hooked up to the engine block, chassis and body, while most of the various devices are hooked up only to the (+) terminal through the fuse panel and/or the ignition switch, and then to the block, body or chassis for ground.
The general reader should know that voltage (volts) is merely the energy or “pressure” within a circuit; current (amps) is the “juice quantity” in a circuit (like gallons in a water pipe); while resistance (ohms) is any load impeding the flow of electricity in a circuit, much like a fire hose feeding into a garden hose. Every single part of an electric circuit inherently creates some resistance to the flow of electricity, even the wires. So, bulbs, motors, heating elements, hair dryers and such all produce resistances on a circuit.

The general reader should also understand that only a broken or switching voltage can be changed up or down through a transformer or coil. Thus, alternating household voltages are easy to transform (and usually are) while vehicular DC voltage has to be deliberately interrupted with a switch or breaker of some sort, to enable the steady magnetic field that surrounds all wires carrying a direct current to “collapse” through the wiring present to induce a current in other nearby wires, such as what happens in a vehicle ignition coil.

In a vehicle coil for a gasoline-powered engine (Diesels don’t have coils or electrical ignition), the primary ignition circuit runs from the battery to the ignition switch to the “primary” windings of a single wire in the coil to the ignition “breaker” points in the distributor which act as a switch to rapidly interrupt the primary current’s flow back to ground through the distributor and engine block. The secondary ignition windings (also a single wire) in a coil are nestled next to the primary windings, and they are much more numerous than the primary windings. As the distributor spins around the breaker points close and open, thus interrupting the primary current flow. More modern cars use transistorized switching components rather than mechanical breaker points.

The magnetic field standing around the 12-volt (or less) primary wire in the coil collapses back through the more numerous secondary windings in the coil, thus inducing a much higher voltage (over 30,000 volts) in the secondary windings. This high-voltage current jumps the air gap in the distributor between the rotor and the cap, then again jumps another air gap in the spark plugs themselves, thanks to the much higher available voltage. The plugs are grounded to the engine block, which is where the high-voltage surge wants to go. As the spark jumps the gaps in the plugs, the gasoline-and-air mix burns, and the pistons inside the engine are successively shoved down by the resultant pressure from the burning gases. That is essentially what makes the engine turn over and run.

A seeming paradoxical “beast” reared its ugly head most recently in a discussion of the effects of resistance in the secondary circuits that fire spark plugs in an engine, to-wit: that higher voltages are not “impeded” by existing resistances, per se, such as those encountered with the air gaps in distributors and spark plugs. Yet resistors are frequently used with other loads to “chew up” excessive voltage! What goes with that?

Ohm’s Law is the source of some of the confusion, even though it merely states the reality of the relationship among voltage (E), resistance (R) and current (I). Now, Ohm’s Law is neither good nor bad; it just is. Ohm’s Law is frequently used to calculate resultant unknown voltage. For those not familiar with Ohm’s Law, it holds that a single volt will push a single amp through a resistance of one ohm, and is expressed as an equation of volts = amps x ohms (1 = 1 x 1), or E = I x R. The reader also needs to know about Watt’s Law, named after James Watt. A watt is a unit of electric power (P), and it is the calculated product of the energy (volts) and the current (amps), P = V x A. The electric usage in most homes, for example, is measured in kilowatt-hours, a function of the number of watts consumed each month.
My confusion stems from a repetitive misunderstanding about the effects of resistance on voltage. There are some instances in which a given chain of resistance does not overwhelm available voltage. In fact, they seem mutually supportive in a literal reading of Ohm’s Law, where voltage is the product of current and resistance, and an unknown voltage must increase if resistance increases, assuming constant current.

However, in most real-world applications, voltage does not vary much: in vehicles it is usually fixed at 12-13 volts, and in households it is usually fixed around 110 volts. Those quantities rarely vary in dependable circuits. Most vehicle and household circuit systems are parallel circuits.

A parallel circuit in a vehicle would have the various loads hooked up to various wires coming from the (+) battery terminal while all being simultaneously yet separately grounded to the (-) terminal via the engine, chassis or body. A series circuit would have all of the loads hooked together heads-to-tails in a daisy-chain sort of arrangement between a single connection between the (+) and (-) terminals. Unlike a parallel circuit, wherein voltage remains constant thoughout the circuit and current (amps) is divided among the various loads, in a series circuit we have been taught that voltage is divided among the loads and current remains constant. Thus, Ohm’s Law (inverted thus: I = E/R, or R = E/I) will be useful to calculate the entire current draw or the TOTAL resistance in the entire series circuit, while the voltage is divided among the loads therein. And that current draw will be the same for each load in the series circuit.
Resistances vary, however, as devices and accessories are added or subtracted from parallel circuits, dividing up the amperage present, while in a series sub-circuit, each load therein will demand its own share of the voltage present while the entire circuit is limited to 12 volts in most applications. The voltage-resistance paradox does not really present itself in parallel-circuit-only situations. Where the paradox arises is best illustrated by the resistor wire or ballast in the primary ignition circuit, where the 12 volts going into the primary windings in a coil is cut to 7 or 8 volts by the ballast or resistor wire which is connected in series ahead of the coil and points. This happens to reduce the voltage expended within the primary coil circuit to protect the points from burning. It also reduces the likely current flow through the points, which potentially causes the actual burning. Less voltage will also carry less current.

As previously stated, the multiplier effect of the secondary windings in the coil will produce more than enough higher voltage necessary to jump the air gaps mentioned while itself carrying relatively modest current as well (current and resistance in a circuit are inversely related). Well, if Ohm’s Law shows that resistance and voltage are mutually supportive how, then, is a resistance able to “cut” voltage?
The short “answer” is that Ohm’s Law more readily defines what happens in an entire coherent circuit but is less clear as to what happens within that circuit. For an entire circuit, there are available only 12 volts in an automotive application. Ohm’s Law will show what current flows for the total circuit when there is an aggregate resistance load thereon. Once that current flow and resistance load is known, it will multiply out to 12 volts. BUT—if there are two or more loads in series in that circuit, while each load will receive the calculated circuit current flow, the available voltage will be divided between/among those loads.
For example, if a 12-volt negative-ground circuit has a lamp (also negative-ground) drawing 1 amp of current, it will burn with 12 watts (volts x current) and have a load of 12 ohms’ resistance (R = E/I). Now, if a resistor of 12 ohms is put in series ahead of the lamp, then the total circuit load becomes 24 ohms, and the total current draw is reduced to ½ amp (I = E/R). Both the bulb and the resistor will each receive ½ amp of current draw at a total of 12 volts. However, there will be a voltage “drop” of 6 volts at the resistor, leaving only 6 volts “available” for the bulb itself. The bulb burns half as bright (6 watts) because the current has been cut to ½ amp on a 12-volt circuit, but it also receives only 6 working volts to chew up its 1-amp load, with the same 6-watt result in either case!
Also, the apparent paradox is resolved because the available “reserve” voltage in the secondary circuit from the coil is always more than enough to overcome whatever resistances are created by the distributor, the plug wires and the plugs themselves. In other words, the plugs fire in spite of the resistance, not because of it, but the resistance does cut the excess current, which is not needed for the spark to ignite the gasoline.
Confusing? It is for me, but I try to keep it straight by remembering that series circuits are voltage dividers, with each component therein getting the same current, while parallel circuits are current dividers, with each component therein getting the same voltage.
It is difficult to apply Ohm’s Law to each component within a series circuit, so it may be left alone once the total circuit characteristics are determined. However, a series resistor can help to reduce available voltage (and current) where necessary therein without reducing total circuit voltage! If the current is cut down by the available resistance, then it will require less voltage to move that current, so the voltage seems to drop as well, though it is not directly affected by the resistance.