my weekly crime

Moved

2011-04-29T11:09:00.000-05:00

Moved to http://myweeklycrime.wordpress.com .

Japan

2011-03-15T10:26:00.003-05:00

My earliest memories are from the time my family lived in USAF housing in a suburb of Tokyo (Chofu/Fuchu). Before moving to Tokyo, we were in Okinawa, where my dad was part of the team to help oversee transfer to the Japanese government. He was very impressed with how prepared their people were for every meeting. My parents had great praise for the hard working professionalism and civilized nature of the Japanese. We kids loved watching "Utala Man" cartoons and going to the Yomiyuri Land amusement park.

Billy Beck has expressed similar praise over the years, having worked there a number of times.

It's heartbreaking to see the devastation, but important to realize that life goes on in most of Japan and they're quite civilized not to engage in looting.

I am TJIC

2011-01-21T16:37:00.002-06:00

I criticized Corcoran on the comment section of his article on the day of the shooting. However, on Jan 12, he posted a "flow chart" (his website is down, but you can see it on the RSS feed):

TJIC: Next question: do you think that a schizophrenic individual shooting up a politician, a judge, and a dozen civilians in Arizon served any purpose at all, or advanced civil rights in any way? If you answer “yes”, stop here. Your conception of “useful” differs radically from TJIC’s. Step 6: Congratulations – you agree with TJIC that the Arizona shooting was a tragedy, of which no good will come. Next question: do you think that an armed revolution, including assassinations, is morally legitimate in the US today? If you answer “Yes”, stop here. If you answer “No”, congratulations, you agree with TJIC.

If he had said that on the day of the shooting, I probably wouldn't have bothered to comment.

Radley Balko: "But he isn’t remotely libertarian, an ideology where the non-initiation of force is a pretty fundamental principle."

As I've argued here and elsewhere, I think the most effective action at this point is time is massive, non-violent civil disobedience. Not because I think that violence against particular individuals in government is an aggressive initiation of force—as has been documented on this website and elsewhere, many in the government have been employing the use of force against people who have done nothing to hurt anyone else—but because (1) such an act will be widely perceived as an initiation of force, ignoring what the government has done to people, and (2) the net result will be a pointless waste, accomplishing nothing positive. But at some point, if the government gets sufficiently awful and if peaceful attempts fail, I will change my mind about engaging in violence, as was done in the American Revolution, so long as attacks don't involve the killing of innocents. I hope like crazy that we never get to that point in my lifetime. With that in mind: I am TJIC.

Political Violence

2011-01-08T18:28:00.007-06:00

In response to the ghouls who are trying to exploit the mass murder at the political gathering in AZ, blaming the politicians and pundits for the tone of their rhetoric being too combative:

"Yes, the quality of political debate is abysmally bad. That is a direct result of how the exercise of political power has more intensely affected the lives of citizens. Voters recognize how all the government programs, laws, regulations, taxes, etc. are dominating their lives and threatening their futures more and more each day, so they are understandably alarmed and getting more desperate to stop the “other side” from taking advantage of them.

"All of this is the predictable result of putting moral questions up to a vote, of rulers making election contests into mock battles, pitting one “side” against another. (Warren mentions the “Coke vs. Pepsi” mentality, which is spot on.)

"Around the 2010 election, I read somewhere [added: here via Beck] that an election is nothing more than two or more armies getting dressed up, marching to the battle field, then counting which side has the most soldiers and awarding the spoils of victory to that side without actually drawing blood. And, as Billy Beck has pointed out for many years: “All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war.”

"My solution? Stop voting. Stop giving your permission to politicians to wield power over your neighbors. Work with your neighbors to solve problems via reason and persuasion, instead of resorting to force. Government, by definition, is the use of force."

(My comment here and here.)

Election 2010 Prediction

2010-11-02T16:22:00.002-05:00

I predict that the politicians who win the elections tonight will all violate their promises. They will exploit their power to give one group special privileges at the expense of all of our individual rights. It looks quite a bit like 1994 and we all saw how the "Contract With America" turned out to be mostly useless.

Projecting forward, I think Obama's people are going to exploit the image of Republicans as being obstructionists to try to boost his ratings for 2012. And, there's a good chance the GOP will offer up yet another pathetic candidate who will sap the enthusiasm of voters who would have voted against Obama.

Never underestimate the ability of Republicans to screw up any advantages they have at a given point in time.

But that's just one reason I have no intention of setting foot inside a polling station again. Richard Nikoley and Mike Soja offer some roundups of arguments against voting.

Anita Hill Turns Voicemail Over to FBI

2010-10-20T12:49:00.002-05:00

"Good morning, Anita Hill, it's Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology some time and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day."

Apparently, Anita Hill turned that message over to the campus DPS, who forwarded it to the FBI.

Why?

I don't know if Anita Hill lied to the Judiciary Committee two decades ago, but bringing her forward to make a public spectacle was inappropriate. They had interviewed her, found no real evidence, and should have dropped it at that, regardless of Nina Totenberg. And, while I don't agree with most of the Democrats' political objections to Clarence Thomas, I have other objections to many of his opinions, particularly the law-and-order cases when he helps to winnow away individual rights.

Bairo Ávalos

2010-10-13T13:26:00.005-05:00

Seven-year-old son of the first rescued miner, Florencio Ávalos, brought tears to my eyes. It was a beautiful thing to see that boy's overwhelming emotions. (Picture from CNN.)

Beck on Beck

2010-09-24T13:40:00.004-05:00

Billy Beck makes some observations about Glenn Beck, with which I tend to agree. I don't get the ubiquitous hostility and charges of craziness directed at him. His emphasis on faith at the Lincoln Memorial rally pretty much proved most of the pre-event hysteria dead wrong. It wasn't a "right-wing" political festival. Instead, it was a boring gathering of milquetoast religious speeches, something which isn't going to do any good to further the individual rights of Americans.

I've never listened to or watched Savage or Levin. I can't really argue too much about Billy's opinion of Hannity. For one thing, he tells people who phone him "great Americans" without knowing anything about them, other than the fact that they call him a "great American". But he's still smarter than Bill O'Reilly or any of the chumps at MSNBC. (Yeah, I know, that's not saying much.)

I was, however, surprised to see faint praise for Rush Limbaugh. I don't agree, because I don't think you can put your finger on "the bounds of his logic" because he so often makes ridiculously specious arguments with no logic. When Limbaugh is on the right side of an issue, or making a valid point about freedom and individualism, most of the time he's backing into it by accident, or at the very least, unable to universally apply such principles across party boundaries.

Stephen Colbert Testifies Before Congress

2010-09-24T13:25:00.006-05:00

What Congress Critter thought this would be a good idea? I'm all for mocking politicians and see no reason to show them respect. They are, after all, whores and thieves on the scale of trillions of dollars. But those people seem to think highly of themselves and the "dignity" of their profession, so what moron figured bringing Colbert before their committee made any sense?

Stephen Colbert is very quick-witted and can be very funny at times. But his always-on "Opposite Day" shtick gets tedious after awhile. And, his character is hard-wired to lampoon Republicans/"conservatives"— some of them make it so easy—but any good satirist ought to see just as many, if not more, targets among the Democrats/"liberals".

Tea Party

2010-09-20T12:05:00.005-05:00

When Rick Santelli, from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, stated on CNBC (Feb 19, 2009) that traders ought to engage in a "tea party" to protest the insanely irresponsible mortgage bailout, which was rewarding poor economic decisions at the expense of everyone else, I was a bit moved. At least some people on the national scene were getting just how reckless the Obama/Pelosi/Reid machine was and the level to which Americans ought to be resisting. To be fair, Bush signed TARP with a few Republican supporters, including McCain, so the Democrats were only accelerating the large-scale looting of the efforts of taxpayers started a few months before. And, while TARP was unprecedented in its scope and scale, it was the logical progression from all of the travesties mainly tracing back to FDR's authoritarian meddling in the economy in response to the Great Depression.

All of the political horrors being splashed across the news from the start of the new administration convinced me that in order to dissuade the government from trashing the free market with more of these legislative abominations, it was going to take the kind of determination and courage shown by the Sons of Liberty, who carried out the Boston Tea Party. Widespread non-violent civil disobedience could have warned the politicians away from going as far as they did, but that sort of movement never materialized. People were content to hold rallies and rely on elections, rather than demonstrating their resolve to shut down the machine of government through non-compliance.

When I saw news footage of tea party rallies in the days which followed, I quickly realized from the placards and t-shirts being shown that a good number of these people were rather ignorant, or at least hopelessly naïve. They had all sorts of different agendas, most of which were recycled Republican/"conservative" positions, rather than more principled advocacy of individual rights and across-the-board opposition to government abuse of power. Many were able to enumerate the misdeeds of the Democrats, but few had the insight to recognize that the vast majority of the GOP politicians were similarly unethical, but just in slightly different ways. At best, the tea party movement has targeted RINOs. Unfortunately, it hasn't done anything to weed out the more irrationally religious candidates and pundits, or the law-and-order types.

When the immigration stupidity in Arizona became associated with a large number of self-proclaimed tea partiers, I saw no reason to hope that this "movement" was going to accomplish anything for liberty, but could turn out to be a net loss—if for no other reason than people who could have taken a stand for individualism against the Democrats were going to be drowned out in the debate. The media focuses on the more vocal, more sensational, oversimplifying the issues and pigeonholing people. And, when political opportunists like Sarah Palin and Mark Williams hoisted the tea party banner for their own agenda, I realized that the people who were sincerely interested in liberty and reining in government on principle were going to lose the opportunity to debate the important moral questions. Instead, people are distracted by Cordoba House ("Ground Zero Mosque") and other irrelevancies.

Meanwhile, Democrat supporters have happily cherry picked the most irrational, ignorant self-proclaimed tea partiers as being representative of the movement, in addition to playing the race card because a few idiots (or perhaps agents provocateur) showed up at rallies with signs which were racist (or, at least, which could be portrayed as racist). But the race thing started before the tea party became hot, as one liar after another cynically accusing anyone who opposed Obama's agenda of only doing so because he was black, and not on the principles of freedom.

Salt

2010-07-24T01:31:00.002-05:00

Angelina Jolie as a female Jason Bourne makes this an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. I could pick a few nits on the plot, but I was sufficiently entertained to forgive them. Go see it.

Agnostic Manifesto Mess

2010-07-12T12:53:00.005-05:00

Balko puts himself somewhere around Ron Rosenbaum's position in his ridiculous Agnostic Manifesto. The comment sections both of those links are rife with excellent refutations of Rosenbaum's specious arguments. I cite one of my contributions below. The comments are so plentiful, I wonder if Rosenbaum has had the opportunity to read them all, or enough to see the errors he made. I would also hope that Radley saw enough to rethink his endorsement, so that in the future he could find (or make) better justifications for calling himself an agnostic.

I know Radley Balko has sneered at "smug atheists" in the past, which reminds me of one of my criticisms of atheism, before I realized that perception was wrong. For one, contrast the attitudes of the faithful who think they're going to heaven and all the rest of us infidels are going to burn in hell. No atheist I know could ever come close to that level of smugness, which when carried to the extreme leads to hatred, cruelty, and murder. You'll not find anything like that from an atheist qua atheist. Sure, there are plenty of people who are assholes about their disdain for religion, as with any group of people. To me, the "New Atheists" display an earnest, active resolution to enlighten people who may be ignorant about atheism (believing some of the nonsense Rosenbaum writes, for example), both as a way to protect non-believers from the ages-old bigotry against them, and as a way to redirect the energies of people away from the frivolities of imaginary things.

Smug? Consider the scientists, engineers, or musicians who put time and energy into studying a particular problem, trying to invent something good, or even just trying to understand what others have done before them. Confidence, satisfaction, and even joy are quite reasonable when things which don't make sense (or are not very good) are pushed off the table. But oftentimes, as was my own personal case, an outsider who sees this attitude mistakes it as an annoying smugness. But I suspect most of that misperception is driven by ego—not wanting people we may not like (for whatever reason) to be right or wise or smart.

Sometimes, one must put aside ego and work to be as honest and rational as possible. Read Hitchens or Dawkins, be open-minded, and don't fall for Rosenbaum's straw man model of atheism. If you're a self-described agnostic, you may realize you misunderstood the atheist arguments, and thus didn't have an accurate idea of what it means to be an atheist (which, of course, is a broad category which includes many variations). By all means, avoid becoming a catatonic skeptic, because that isn't wisdom. It's avoidance.

Here's my first comment (#28) at Balko's place:

Despite the common misconception, Richard Dawkins and other atheists do not have an absolute, 100% disbelief. In The God Delusion, Dawkins has a [Spectrum of theistic probability] scale from absolute belief to absolute disbelief, with agnostics in the middle. He puts himself close to, but not actually at, 100% disbelief. The common analogies are comparing a rational consideration of the possibility of a deity to the rational consideration of the existence of a teapot in orbit between Mars and Earth, or the existence of fairies in the bottom of the garden. Strictly speaking, I can’t rule out the teapot or the fairies, because tomorrow someone could actually provide proof. But I feel quite safe in disregarding such a “possibility” as too trivial to concern myself, like an infinite number of other similarly trivial “possibilities”.

That’s not agnosticism, either.

I identified as an agnostic for about 15 years. I considered atheists to be smug and often hostile to good people of faith. But I realize now that what tethered me to the theist side of the fence was residual Christian fear and guilt, as well as a kind of desperate hope that there was some kind of higher power. I even described myself as an agnostic leaning towards Deism.

I cut the tether [see #75 for more details] when I read someone point out how cruel it is to convince a child that their beloved grandfather would be burning forever in fire because he wasn’t baptized. All of the seemingly “well-meaning” traditional religions are poisoned with such hideous fundamental ideas, because it is necessary to inculcate people with fear and/or hate in order to keep them from “straying”, i.e., using their rational mind and dismissing religious tales as ridiculous fantasy–not to mention identifying the truly horrible aspects and applications. Leaders can only control the minds of religious followers so long as they use such despicable ploys. Even the Eastern and New Age religions are often poisoned with a worship of death over life. (Without such poison, they’re just silly fluff, mere fads.)

So, once I freed myself of that irrational anchor, I decided that, while I can respect people of faith who treat others respectfully and appreciate how much their beliefs mean to them, I should never again respect their actual beliefs. I don’t include the non-supernatural, rational beliefs like the 'Golden Rule' and [rules like] don’t commit murder. But I give no special exceptions for brises, religious education, slave garb for women, etc.. No, it’s not for me to decide how other people raise their children or treat their wives, but I also don’t have any reason to overlook cruelty and deception just because it falls inside some conceptual fence of “faith” (a wholly unvirtuous human quality).

I regret wasting my time on the agnostic fence and I would highly recommend that anyone who now considers him/herself an agnostic to critically question why. Read god is Not Great (Hitchens) and The God Delusion (Dawkins) if you haven’t already, rather than relying on hearsay about these people. I have a couple bones to pick with both, such as Dawkins’ utilitarian approach to morality and Hitchens’ occasional broad brush condemnations. But they do make excellent arguments against theism and agnosticism.

Jupiter Loses Stripe

2010-05-13T11:31:00.003-05:00

From The Daily Mail:

"Jupiter has lost one of its iconic red stripes and scientists are baffled as to why.
"The largest planet in our solar system is usually dominated by two dark bands in its atmosphere, with one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere.
"However, the most recent images taken by amateur astronomers have revealed the lower stripe known as the Southern Equatorial Belt has disappeared leaving the southern half of the planet looking unusually bare.
"The band was present in at the end of last year before Jupiter ducked behind the Sun on its orbit. However, when it emerged three months later the belt had disappeared."

How long before some scientist blames global warming?

Taser

2010-05-12T13:17:00.005-05:00

In response to an article at View From The Porch in which Tam made an offhand comparison between Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh, with which I generally agree, I noted some of Boortz's moral failings:

"I thought Boortz was a libertarian-leaning conservative.

That was before I heard Boortz advise a caller how to snitch to the IRS. Also, recently he expressed glee that the idiot cop used a taser on a non-violent streaker at a ball game. [Boortz's approval was done on-air but not mentioned in the preceding linked article.] The more I listen to Boortz, the more examples of anti-freedom ideas leak out from his microphone.

His "libertarian" principles run very shallow. Sure, he might be better than Rush in many ways, but I think it's worse to have someone who purportedly represents the libertarian position who undermines real application of the principles of freedom."

In a followup comment, "Divemedic" dissented:

"To Elliot: I don't have a problem with tasing the ball game streaker, even from a libertarian standpoint. Not only was he resisting arrest AND violating the property rights of the stadium owner and ball club, but he was violating the rights of the thousands of fans who paid to watch a ball game, not an idiot streaker.

IMO, this is no different than the "Don't tase me, bro" guy- why should one person who is disrupting the event and refusing to leave when instructed be given greater weight than the thousands of others there? The easy way to not get tased is to 1) not trespass, 2) leave when instructed, 3) not resist when being arrested for failing at #1 and #2."

To which I replied:

"Divemedic, when the taser was introduced to law enforcement, authorities claimed that it was to be used as a "non-lethal" alternative to using a gun or other more lethal force.

By that reasoning, the idiot cop could have been justified in shooting the streaker with a gun.

Please note that the taser is not actually non-lethal. In rare cases, people do die. If LEOs honestly only used tasers in cases where guns would be justified, one could argue that even a small risk of death is preferable to being shot.

But the reality is that LEOs routinely use tasers in an inappropriate fashion, even on old people, disabled people, and children. In many situations, they aren't reasonably justified in doing this. [Added: Nikoley gives an example of a video showing a cop's obviously sadistic pleasure in using a taser. His mom is right.] LEOs are supposed to be able to handle people in a professional manner, including using reason and, if necessary, physically restraining a smaller, weaker person without resorting to sadistic methods. And, if they're afraid for their safety, they shouldn't have become a cop in the first place. Fire the cowards who can't handle such situations.

The problem is that LEOs have become unaccountable, paramilitary automatons. They know that people like you will defend their inappropriate use of force ("don't tase me bro") and that they can do what they want.

I'm disgusted that you, or anyone else, could look at either situation and decide that "law and order" must be maintained, that not disrupting other people's "enjoyment" is of such a paramount importance that thuggish violence ought to be used to expedite the resolution.

This is the mindset that has led to SWAT teams swarming into the homes of non-violent suspects, risking the lives of innocent bystanders (like children), murdering family pets, and generally escalating a non-violent situation into a very violent one. Despite what apologists might argue, this happens hundreds of times a day.

Police are supposed to be professional and display exemplary behavior. They are supposed to be brave and strong, not cowards. They are supposed to use reason and restraint to resolve problems and defuse situations before they get violent, not inject unnecessary violence into them. And, most of all, they ought to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, not given a free pass to do things that would put us in prison for years."

Tam reminded me that my rant (which she incorrectly called "copypasta"—I didn't cut-and-paste, but rather included hyperlinks in my original commentary) was inappropriate in the comment section for that article she wrote. That's her place, so she gets to make the rules. However, if anyone would like to discuss this further, feel free to use the comment section in this article.

and a high chair for my wife

2010-05-06T01:53:00.003-05:00

Chris Muir sets the bar high for entries in the first annual Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. This follows on the heels of the 2005 Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publication (and 2008 reprinting) of various cartoonists' renderings, which triggered riots by savages in which more than 100 people were killed.

I still think Giovani di Modena's 1415 depiction of Mohammad burning in hell, as part of a fresco about Dante's Inferno takes the cake:

Dog Murders on Film

2010-05-05T12:57:00.010-05:00

WARNING: The following video involves a police raid in which one, or possibly two, family pets are murdered by cops. The murders occur off camera and the dogs are never visually shown, but the sounds are very disturbing to hear. (via Balko)

This is just plain evil. There is absolutely no justification for this. If you approve of laws which make drugs illegal, please explain to me how shooting pets in a house with children just to keep some people from smoking a plant makes any sense. How is pot more dangerous than a violent, paramilitary raid with guns blazing?

Mailmen, meter readers, cable/phone technicians all have to deal with dogs. I've never heard of any of them needing to kill a dog. [Update: I forgot to mention what cowardly pussies all these cops who murder dogs are. It happens all over the country, all the time. (Search for "puppycide".)]

I don't need to watch any fictional movies about a futuristic dystopia. We are there now.

P.S.: "The entire philosophy behind SWAT-style drug raids is that the death of a mother, a child, or the family pet is an acceptable risk to prevent flushing." — Commenter "Dr Mabuse" in a forum.

Big Brother Tax Threat Commercial in PA

2010-05-05T12:55:00.000-05:00

Balko, FNC. They are actually proud of their work.

American Idol

2010-05-05T11:15:00.000-05:00

I didn't bother to blog last week's Shania Twain show. I was busy, but I also wasn't enthusiastic about the show, anyway. Shania Twain is a beautiful woman and seems to be a nice person, but I just can't stand her songs. They are trite and the worst combination of pop and country. My interest in country music ended in the 70s: Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels, Glen Campbell, Mac Davis, the Oakridge Boys, Loretta Lynn, Lynn Anderson. After that, I quit paying attention. Except a few Randy Travis albums I own and a couple songs here or there, I just don't find any country music in the past few decades to be enjoyable, particularly the pop-ish women. That night, I picked Siobhan Magnus as the best performance of the night, with the caveat that all of the songs that night were annoying and stupid. To me, her song was just the least awful to hear. I don't think any singer could have made those tunes enjoyable for me. I don't know if Shania Twain fans could have enjoyed the American Idol versions. All the thematic choices of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Elvis, Shania, and Sinatra this season have pushed contestants into an awkward corner. I don't imagine any of them will ever cut an album with those types of songs, so what is the point? For whatever reason, people called in more votes for what I believe are clearly inferior singers, particularly Aaron and Casey. Perhaps they thought she was safe. Perhaps they thought she was too weird. Perhaps her poor song choices from previous weeks had caught up to her. Whatever the case, I was disappointed that her elimination left Crystal Bowersox being the only remaining singer whose performances have interested me. Sure, Lee and Michael have done decent jobs here and there, but I just can't get enthusiastic about them as artists. Unless one of the men does something fantastic, I can't imagine any excitment in the final showdown this season. It's Crystal's to lose. If she does lose, it will just make this season even more uninteresting.

South Park Punks the "Revolution Muslim" Punks

2010-04-23T16:40:00.015-05:00

South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were the target of threats by a group called "Revolution Muslim." These ridiculously stereotypical angry Muslims produced a video intimating that Parker and Stone would end up murdered, like Theo Van Gogh, for depicting Mohammad in a "blasphemous" way. Well, the joke was on the angry Muslims:

Mohammed appeared on Wednesday night's US episode of the cartoon with his body obscured by a black box, since Muslims consider a physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous. Last week, the character was believed to be disguised in a bear costume. When that same costume was removed this week, Santa Claus appeared.

The very idea of blasphemy against any religion is such an obviously human one. There is no god. But if there were a being of such awesome unimaginable power, would it really be necessary for people to protect this god from ridicule? It's not like this alleged creator of the universe would have the emotional constitution of a fragile young child being mocked on the playground for having a goofy haircut. This is supposed to be an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity. Few other human attitudes do more to highlight the absurdity of blind faith than throwing a temper tantrum and demanding that everyone else give respect to the irrational belief in imaginary beings.

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." —Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

The plot of episodes "200" and "201" are quite convoluted and silly, in true South Park fashion. But as with many episodes, it's a subversive, intentionally offensive morality play. Buddha is depicted snorting cocaine, Jesus admits viewing porn on the internet, but a box covers Mohammed at all times and even the mention of his name by the characters is bleeped in the audio. The closed captions, however, weren't altered. Even more absurd, a "lessons learned" speech at the end of the show, which made no mention of Mohammed, was completely bleeped out (including the closed captions). Apparently, Comedy Central completely caved to what can only be described as terroristic "warnings."

Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, and years before the murderous riots by angry Muslims, pissed over a few Mohammed cartoons, the episode "Super Best Friends" (July 4, 2001), showed an apparently innocuous cartoon version of Mohammed as part of the plot, but there were no riots, no death threats then. On April 5, 2006 and April 12, 2006, a two part episode "Cartoon Wars" had terrified characters throughout the US burying their heads in sand to show Muslims that they had no part in the airing of a picture of Mohammed on the show Family Guy (well, the South Park parody of Family Guy). They built the suspense, first showing an episode within an episode with a black censorship box. The next week, they were supposedly going to show it unedited, but Comedy Central wouldn't air it:

vs.

I still prefer the "Douche and Turd" episode, in which Stan decides not to vote for a school election, and is threatend by Puff Daddy to "Vote or Die" (an actual slogan he used in pro-voting commercials). As usual, their over-the-top theme serves to illustrate the stupidity of people feeling obligated to vote in an election, even if they don't like either candidate.

P.S.: Balko links to a story about a call to ink pens, for cartoonists everywhere to draw Mohammed on April 20, 2010.

Anthropomorphizing Nature

2010-04-23T13:46:00.002-05:00

At CNN, Alan Weisman tries to add a few more squawks to the chorus of Chicken Littles pushing the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) theory. He litters his unsupported hypothesis with the childish view of the entire world being a sentient being which is "striking back at us" for our environmental "sins", closing with the stereotypical alarmist imagery:

...if we don't pull carbon out of the way we energize our lives soon, a small clump of our not-too-distant surviving descendants may find themselves, as Gaia scientist James Lovelock has direly predicted, like the first Icelanders: gathered on some near-barren hunk of rock near one of the still-habitable poles, trying yet anew to eke out a plan for human civilization.

"Gaia scientist"? What's next, an astrology scientist? How can so many grown men and women go out in public and pretend that a 658-sextillion-ton rock measuring 25,000 miles around has a rational mind? This is Santa Claus and Leprechaun stuff.

Even more amazing is how these charlatans have managed to repackage socialism and convince so many people that there is a dire need to do the economic equivalent of carpet bombing modern industry.

As I wrote before, green is the new red.

What he said.

Musical Madness

2010-04-23T10:53:00.011-05:00

Radley Balko links to an article at Slate explaining the maddening trade-offs involved in tuning keyboard and fretted instruments. I was blissfully unaware of the concept of musical temperament and just assumed that musical notes were perfectly laid out in simple, integral frequency ratios. Thanks, Balko, for making me feel even stupider about music theory.

My introduction to playing music was on a trumpet in the sixth grade, which meant I had a very narrow perspective: one note at a time. I could hear when I didn't harmonize with another person's instrument, but that was either a matter of tuning, or a simple result of someone playing the wrong note. Not until high school did the band directors even attempt a cursory sketch of music theory: major, minor, and perfect intervals. Otherwise, it was just rote learning. Play what's on the page.*

Being a math geek, it always bothered me that the notes on a major scale were not symmetrical, making each letter two semitones apart--the reason there isn't a black key between every white key on a piano. Why not use a hexatonic, or whole tone scale, so an octave involved six notes instead of the seven notes in a diatonic scale? Put a black key between each white key and adjust accordingly. A C-major scale would no longer be void of accidentals, but wouldn't that force neophyte musicians to grasp just exactly how a major interval differs from a perfect interval? Alas, the symmetry of such a scale was swapped out for the concept of the tonic. Having done most of my playing on a one-note horn, and never having been taught improvisation, I still only have a fuzzy grasp of harmonics. The idea of connecting that to what's on sheet music and what's on a piano or guitar comes as naturally to me as playing Boggle in Spanish. I have a rookie-level ability to pronounce printed words (I have to look up how to pronounce words like "ciudad") and would be an abysmal failure at writing down words I know by ear ("quatro" vs. "cuatro").

Another mystery to me was the "Every Good Boy Does Fine" vs. "Good Boys Do Fine Always" discrepancy (treble clef versus bass clef). It didn't matter to me when I stuck to one instrument. But after a few lessons on the classical guitar (which was already rough going), I was asked to take lessons on the electric bass guitar to replace another student (Chris W.**) in the jazz band, because he was moving. If I recall correctly, his family had a change of plans so he quickly returned and I was spared the agony of compounding two unfamiliar tasks--playing a string instrument and reading bass clef. Unfortunately, it also meant I never resumed the classical guitar lessons.

* On my list of most embarrassing moments is the time I was hired at age 17 to be part of a trumpet trio playing Christmas music in front of a large congregation. At the last minute, we were told to transpose to another key to make it easier for the pianist. The other two more experienced players said "no problem" but I managed to inject a plethora of sour notes. "A little bit of humiliation goes a long way."

**My Best Man at my wedding, Carlos, played with Chris in a band, doing gigs for high school parties. They were often arguing over what songs to play. As a bassist, Chris was always wanting to play Rush songs, which are heavy on Geddy Lee's bass playing. Chris was most famous in the high school band for keeping a book of quotes of our band director's humorous impromptu aphorisms. After it became well-known, Mr. M. would add, "Put that in your little book, Mr. W!" afterwards.

B.O.H.I.C.A.

2010-04-21T17:50:00.003-05:00

From the AP:

President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.
Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, "I want to get a better picture of what our options are."

Here's an option: cancel all the rubber checks you've been writing and let people decide how to spend their own goddamned money.

Bill Clinton paraphrases Billy Beck

2010-04-21T17:12:00.002-05:00

When I first read the "hatriot" section of Bill Clinton's speech, I told my wife that he was quoting Billy Beck (well, almost). Apparently, Billy didn't miss that, nor did the many people who sent him e-mail about it.

Idol Season 9, Top 7

2010-04-21T14:39:00.006-05:00

Tuesday night was mostly disappointing:

Crystal Bowersox ("People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield) - Again, Crystal beats everyone else. This time, she outdoes the best of the rest by the biggest margin yet. I loved her a capella opening. She didn't allow the music to overtake her voice. Even a couple seconds of crying was forgivable, given the awesomeness of her performance. Speaking of forgiveness, the lyrics make reference to the more obnoxious side of Christianity ("no room ... no hiding"). Even an atheist like me can appreciate a moving gospel song about love and charity if it has a good melody and is sung beautifully. I just don't care for the hellfire, Left Behind crap.
Lee DeWyze ("The Boxer" by Paul Simon) - I love this song. While Lee didn't live up to the original, he did a very good job. It was very moving at times. There were a few rough spots, but not many. Even better than the original was a cover by James Taylor and Alison Krauss at the 2002 Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Paul Simon. It's worth it if you can find it. (Incidentally, Lee DeWyze, like Taylor & Krauss, skipped the verses which included the line: "Just a come on from the whores on Seventh Avenue." I listened Simon & Garfunkel's version for years, oblivious to the exact words they were singing until I actually read it.)
TIE Siobhan Magnus ("When You Believe" by Mariah Carey, et al.) and Michael Lynche ("Hero" by Nickleback) - I was disappointed with both performers. I'd say they were a distant third, behind a distant second, which is not a good place to be. Siobhan was very boring and her voice got nasal at times. Otherwise, her singing was excellent. Michael let the music overshadow his voice at times, even though his vocals were excellent, as well. Neither of them moved me, like Crystal and Lee.

I curse Casey for playing that song that the Clintons forever ruined for me.

Taking Bill Clinton to Task

2010-04-20T10:41:00.002-05:00

Radley Balko takes Bill Clinton to task for his cynical exploitation of the Oklahoma City bombing and his revisionist whitewashing of what his people did in Waco. I mentioned a few of the same things last Friday, in a response to an early Balko article.

Bill Clinton waves around Timothy McVeigh corpse

2010-04-16T16:30:00.003-05:00

At Balko's place:

Bill Clinton waves around Timothy McVeigh to demonize critics of the Democrats.
They’ll fine you if you don’t buy health insurance, jail you if you don’t pay the fine, and kill you if you dare not to submit to them trampling on your rights. That’s all OK to Bubba. “They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do.”
But if you dare to point out that they are trampling on our rights, election or no, you’re feeding into the mentality of monsters who blow up buildings with children inside.

P.S.: Damn, I mentioned Bill Clinton and destroying a building with children inside without even catching the irony.

Idol Season 9, Top 9 (part II)

2010-04-13T23:25:00.008-05:00

I'm glad the judges used their save on Michael Lynche last week. However, that means two go home tomorrow, increasing the likelihood of another "shocking result."

My picks for the Elvis show tonight:

Crystal Bowersox ("Saved") - As usual, the best of the night. Her only problem is that she's performed so well each week that she doesn't get bonus points for improving over the previous week that some contestants do.
Siobhan Magnus ("Suspicious Minds") - I liked both halves, unlike the judges. To me, the first part set up the second just as it was supposed to. I listened to it again to try to hear the notes Simon thought were off, but only one seemed to be ever so slightly off to me. My only complaint would be that she tends to get a nasal tone to her voice at times. In the top 10, she was torturing high notes on Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire". In the first top 9 (Lenon/McCartney), she gave a decent, but very boring rendition of "Across the Universe". I think this was her best since the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" (top 12), though Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" (top 11) is a close contender. She definitely peaked with Aretha Franklin's "Think" (top 20), and I'm hoping she can repeat that level of performance in weeks to come. I think that all depends on song choice and whether she can effectively work in some glass-shattering high notes without going overboard.
Lee DeWyze ("A Little Less Conversation") - Good, solid performance with a lot of energy. All the whinging by the judges about his facial expressions is getting tiresome and distracting. Who cares? If he sings well, then he sings well. This week, he was much improved. The past several weeks he's done OK, better than most of the men. I did appreciate his boldness last week having a bagpiper, though I wouldn't have brought him down that staircase in such a melodramatic fashion (putting him off to the side would have been more appropriate). It was great to see the reaction of the judges to that stunt, though.
Michael Lynche ("In the Ghetto") - Michael gave a very moving performance. I've always liked the melody of that song, but the lyrics (written by Mac Davis), when sung by white men like Elvis, seem patronizing and dripping of white guilt(*). Still, I don't want to read too much into Michael's choice to do that song, especially since he said the Crystal recommended it to him. Last week, I thought Michael's "Eleanor Rigby" was very good, almost great (he did go over the top at the end). I thought his changes to the original were very creative and interesting. I couldn't believe he was dead last in the vote.
Tim Urban ("Can't Help Falling in Love") - Nice voice. There were a few places where I think he should have used his strong voice rather than quiet voice, but he showed real talent. It's a shame he was cursed with a face that makes him look confused or dull at times, even when he apparently isn't. He has been improving, which is making VFTW look even more pointless. I understand why they did, but they would be a bit more credible today if they had gone with Andrew Garcia or Aaron Kelly. Not that I want them to look more credible, mind you.
Casey James ("Lawdy Miss Clawdy" by Lloyd Price) - Good, but not exceptional. He needs to watch his vibrato as he's going to start sounding like a goat if he's not careful.
Katie Stevens ("Baby, What You Want Me to Do") - I'm always a bit ambivalent about Katie. The song lyrics were too mature for her, in my opinion. Her voice was great, as usual, but I've always been a bit bothered by her appearance. I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but she looks like a very spoiled girl. In her interviews, she doesn't come across as egotistical, though. And, I can't deny her voice.

(*) In retrospect, the "child needs a helping hand" meme in 1960s was a driving force behind welfare. That has translated into government institutionalized single-parent motherhood with built-in disincentives to have a two-parent household or to escape the ghetto. This "helping hand" only feeds the cycle, which is ironic since Mac Davis originally titled the song "The Vicious Circle". The best thing the politicians did in that era was to end Jim Crow, which was government institutionalized racism, but they should have left things at that.

Shades of Red

2010-04-12T14:33:00.002-05:00

Warren Meyer points out how Obama fits the mold of a "Corporatist" more than a Socialist. I've also seen people describe him as a Mussolini-style Fascist.

Of course, the media marginalizes anyone who uses such terms (while stupidly lumping libertarians and anarcho-capitalists into the "far right-wing" category, along with neo-Nazis and skinheads, when they are as different as can be).

The term "collectivist" nicely ties the -isms with which to describe Obama into a simple category. Unfortunately, the average person is unfamiliar with the term, and doesn't think much beyond the arcane, useless 1-dimensional left-right continuum.

Entertainment Notes

2010-04-12T14:13:00.007-05:00

I haven't been taking the time to make any comments on American Idol here for weeks. I've been disappointed that the women keep getting cut. Previously, I'd predicted the opposite. Of course, the women have had a few flops. Tim Urban should have been cut early, but he's a VTFW pick (these are the people who kept Sanjaya in the competition). Funny enough, he's improved the past few weeks--not enough to win, but not horrible enough to give the worsters much satisfaction. The whole concept behind Vote for the Worst is halfway funny, but also pretty lame. Sure, it's fun to make fun of things, but at some point, if you're obligated to put something down all the time, it wears thin, like the Addams Family, where everything was supposed to be like opposite day. The maturity level is pretty low when the best they can do is talk about Kara DioGuardi, a grown woman, having lots of sex. What are they, 12?

Despite the corniness of the show, I still like Richard Nikoley's description of American Idol as an example of the American Dream.

At this point, I like Siobhan Magnus and Crystal Bowersox the best. I think Michael Lynche deserved another chance. He's better than many of the others, and I wish he'd improve his song choice and arrangements to be sharper.

I saw How to Train Your Dragon (in 2D, we got the showtimes mixed up). [update: That was a happy mistake, as I doubt a 3 year old would put up with wearing glasses for 2 hours] It's quite entertaining, a good children's movie. But we also learned that it's much too long for our 3 year old granddaughter. She managed to entertain and annoy the audience the last 10 minutes, playing keep-away-from-grandpa under the movie screen, until I could corral her off to the side, out of view. Otherwise, the movie was enjoyable for me.

After hearing so much about the movie Precious, my wife and I rented it. We almost let our daughter see it, but she wasn't interested. [update: FWIW, I mistakenly thought it was PG-13, not R. Another happy accident that my daughter didn't want to see it.] I would not recommend the movie, unless you like sad stories. Definitely don't let your children watch it, as it is very disturbing and very explicit. I wonder why such movies get such critical acclaim. Sure, the acting was convincing, but damn.

Google Docs

2010-04-03T08:53:00.003-05:00

Google offers a cloud-computing version of (Open)Office. Create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms. Export them to MS Office or OpenOffice format.

The Organization of No

2010-03-29T12:29:00.001-05:00

Warren Meyer points out something which should be obvious, though I can't recall ever seeing it articulated so succinctly:

"Government bureaucracies do not exercise power by allowing activities to occur – they only have power, and thus have reason to justify their continued funding and jobs, when they say no. Every incentive that they have is to say no. When a government agency allows progress to proceed smoothly, it is doing so because some person or small group is fighting against the very nature of the organization."

Dieticians Wrong About Fat, Ignore Processed Carbohydrates

2010-03-28T15:00:00.005-05:00

See update below.

Anyone who has been reading about honest nutritional science will not lift an eyebrow when Radley Balko says, "What do you know, the experts may have been wrong again..." to blame saturated fat for cardiovascular disease:

Ultimately, saturated fat...may be neutral for the heart. Meanwhile, some mono-unsaturated fats...and some poly-unsaturated fats...could be good for the heart.

...

If saturated fat doesn't adversely affect cardiovascular health, what does? Sorry, Nabisco: We should be giving a closer look to foods with a high glycemic index—a measure that reflects a food's influence on blood sugar levels, based on how quickly it is digested and absorbed. Typically, that means carbohydrates like cereal, bread, chips, and cookies.

In a 2000 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Harvard researchers...found that the quintile of women who ate food with the highest glycemic load—a measure that incorporates portion size—had twice the risk of developing heart disease than the quintile who ate food with the lowest glycemic load. A 2008 meta-analysis of 37 studies reported a significant association between intake of high glycemic index foods and increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, gallbladder disease, and breast cancer.

Read the full article for more details.

Meanwhile, CNN stupidly ignores the role of sugars in an article titled Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction. Ironically, they call processed food "purified" and "evolve[d]" when comparing its addictive qualities to "evolved" drugs like cocaine (as compared to coca leaves).

Look at the ingredients on your box of "low-fat" whole-grain packaged food. You'll see dozens of laboratory chemicals and industrially mutilated plant byproducts. How is that more pure than a grass-fed rib-eye steak? Or a serving of vegetables, nuts, or fruit you buy in their whole, unadulterated form and prepare yourself? And, how can they use the word "evolved" without remembering how the human metabolism evolved almost entirely before agriculture (and definitely before industrial junk food and sedentary TV/Internet lifestyles)?

Eat like our paleo ancestors did, whole foods including fatty meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, and fruit. Skip the packaged stuff. Stay active as much as possible, but don't engage in unnatural aerobic or "cardio" workouts (animals don't run on treadmills--they walk around all the time and occasionally sprint).

Addendum: Mark Sisson gives the lowdown on sugar, how it is so destructive to our health. And still, the "common wisdom" is that fat is the evil.

Some Background on the Window War

2010-03-27T14:29:00.002-05:00

A comment at the Walls of the City blog:

I, too have been following Vanderboegh in real time, before his Sipsey Street Irregulars website came into existence, via David Codrea's War on Guns website (which chronicles daily a dozen or more stories of police corruption, particularly with regards to gun laws--the sheer number of articles itself is a very bad reflection on the state of law enforcement) and the Western Rifle Shooters blog.

Vanderboegh wrote about a fictional Window War a decade or so ago, by his reckoning. It was a cautionary tale about gun control in the twilight of the Clinton administration. His repost occurred Feb 2009, just after Obama's inauguration, during the uncertainty of a gang of top administration officials who were far more leftist than anyone before in such high office, who brought with them the brazenly corrupt Chicago-style political thuggery. Couple that with the rotten, power-drunk federal law enforcement agencies, who even during the Bush years were already running amok, and anyone paying attention quickly saw the potential for more Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents (which occurred or started during Bush 41, before Clinton upped the stakes with the scary-looking gun ban).

The Window War has been in the works for a long time. Personally, I believe Vanderboegh is a principled man who is not itching for a fight.

Internecine Criticisms

2010-03-26T09:03:00.002-05:00

At Walls of the City I comment on this post, which is a roundup of criticisms of Vanderboegh's Window War:

I wrote a couple posts here and here about your article The Substance of Things, an objectivist critique of Vanderboegh's Window War. I personally think that such tactics are a miscalculation, which run the risk of "copy cats" escalating the subversive acts to things like cutting propane lines to a house (wrong address, actually) or making death threats. As Vanderboegh himself put it (in reference to a different matter), that's the Law of Unintended Consequence--you lose control over how things play out. Innocents get hurt. Bad people exploit the chaos to grab power.

My read of history is that civil disobedience--not just waving signs, but actual non-violent lawbreaking--gets much better results. It puts those in power in the position of showing who they really are, highlighting for the "fence sitters" and unaware just what is wrong with forcing people to buy health insurance, for example.

On the other hand, Roberta X's call "to regroup and plan for elections...for the states to take the matter to court" doesn't strike me as any more productive than the Window War. You can't vote yourself into freedom. Elected officials, by their very nature, will never relinquish power once attained, even if it is at the price of your rights. Trying to win a majority is a losing proposition.

Which lead me directly to your claim that "the government has never been the problem with our country." I could not disagree with you more.

Government was the problem when it ensconced slavery into the Constitution, when it interfered with the free market by imposing a government monopoly on mail delivery (something affecting us this very day), when it made Jim Crow laws, when it engaged in colonialism and foreign interventions (something affecting us this very day), when it imposed one collectivist "reform" or market "regulation" after another. No corporation or non-governmental group has the power of government to trample our rights and to behave unethically (harming the rights of others) purportedly in our name.

Spooner, Garrison, and Thoreau explicated the reasons why the government was wrong, why "its very Constitution is the evil." Government is aggressive force instead of persuasive reason, which by its very nature is immoral.

Now, while I assert that non-violent civil disobedience will likely get better results now than the Window War, the cartridge box or the ballot box...I do not agree with the notion that violence is never the answer. See this post at The Smallest Minority, or the Solzhenitsyn quote Vanderboegh cites here.

I've been reading Vanderboegh for years and I know he has not "been wishing for our backs to be against the wall" nor is he an "extremist... who pleasure[s] [himself] at the thought of another civil war." I may disagree with him about the usefulness of the Window War (and about God and the Constitution at root), but I do have respect for him as a principled individual, unlike those who cut propane lines, make death threats against legislators' family members, etc..

Silencing the Opposition

2010-03-25T23:08:00.003-05:00

MSNBC radio talk show host Ed Schultz, who boasts that he would cheat on elections to keep his party in power, calls for using the Fairness Doctrine to steal the resources that other people pay for to "equalize" radio talk show audience. As he put it: "If we're going to be socialist, lets be socialist across the board." (h/t Drudge)

I don't expect a cretin like him to understand the simple concept of private property--he is so far beyond the reach of reason. Why are the "right-wing" talk show hosts far more successful than "left-wing" hotheads like him or Air America? Because the audience, the consumers, freely choose to listen to what they like, which means most of them don't like his ilk. Imagine Shasta demanding to get an equal share of the cola market, by fiat. You want Coke or Pepsi? Too bad.

Of all the times I've heard assholes like Shultz, Pelosi, Durbin, Harkin, Bill Clinton, et al. (D) call for reinstating talk radio socialism, I've never heard a one of them call for applying the same rules to TV. None of them want to force CBS, MSNBC, CNN, and ABC to run stories about Tea Party protesters and all the nasty negative aspects of the bills (as opposed to the bland reporting they did on the run-up to the House vote). Though, considering how much Fox News blows them away in the ratings, I'm sure they might be willing to force Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow on millions of people who don't want them.

Beyond the issues of private property and individual choice, I want to know why "equal time" only extends to Democrats and Republicans. Why not libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, Tea Party independents, Naderites, or Bernie Sanders? Hell, what about the Nation of Islam, the Aryan Nation, or al Qaeda? Who decides which voices are valid? Who decides what proportion and why?

I guess if they can't get their socialism across the board, they can knock down radio towers. If that fails, they can pull a Hugo Chavez and just declare the stations illegal.

Social Security Bankrupt

2010-03-25T13:25:00.002-05:00

Jacob Sullum at Reason gives us the bad news: Social Security will go negative this year, six years earlier than predicted.

Meanwhile, we start to see the really bad news regarding the consequences of Health Care Deform:

Deere & Co and Caterpillar Inc said they are expecting a combined $250 million in charges this year as a result of changes to the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system that President Barack Obama signed into law this week.

Why do these Democrats act so surprised when the victims start reacting in anger, either symbolically or worse? And, is it any more surprising that the vandalism is directed at both parties?

Now, they're getting warmed up over Cap-and-Trade (i.e., Kneecap Business and Undermine Free Trade). While they're scaling back the House version, they're getting the camel's nose under the tent. In order to force Americans to limit carbon emissions, it has to hurt, and hurt bad, or people will keep doing what they're doing. All of this, of course, is based upon bad science. (If James Cameron wants to call anyone "out into the street at high noon and shoot it out", I'd suggest the weapon to be used be the scientific method of inquiry, which for centuries has necessarily included healthy skepticism in order to move beyond the flat-earth stagnation of "settled" diktats. Mr. Cameron, without any Hollywood glitz, explain feedback and runaway processes in the context of historical data.)

My daughter rolls her eyes when I say, "Want to hear something really scary?" and then proceed to tell her how Social Security will be gone when she retires. She's not interested now, but this fiscal house of cards that's starting to teeter is worse than any R-rated slasher movie I won't let her get at the video store.

Vanderboegh on Colmes

2010-03-25T13:11:00.000-05:00

Go listen.

Castro Applauds Obamacare

2010-03-25T12:39:00.004-05:00

Oh joy!

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

That Glenn Beck sure is craaaazy! All his talk of Socialism. Where does he get that stuff?

P.S.: Some unusual news: Hollywood actors and musicians actually denounce political tyranny going on today in Cuba. Unlike other apologists for mass murder and tyranny.

Escalation at Republican Office

2010-03-25T11:49:00.004-05:00

From Fox News:

Republican Rep. Eric Cantor's Richmond campaign office was shot at Wednesday night, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress.

Which brings to mind:

"Hold onto your butts!" -- Ray Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson) in Jurassic Park (1993)

Propane War?

2010-03-25T00:22:00.010-05:00

Every time I hit the web, I find more angry fallout from the Democrats' Health Care Deform atrocity--reactions which exceed the relatively weak Tea Party protests. I don't recommend doing these sorts of things--at this point I think peaceful civil disobedience would be the most effective means of getting people to face these issues rationally, with the advantage of being solidly ethical. But it's important to draw distinctions between the incidents, as the media tends to conflate them all together into one big sticky ball of racist, Timothy McVeigh scariness, which they'd like to attach to Tea Party protesters and Republicans in general.

The most prominent of late is the Window War, of which Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars takes credit for instigating, or at least inspiring .

There have also been some death threats mentioned in the news--even some cowardly threats against children of lawmakers, for example. So far, these incidents are few in number. Most, if not all, are likely hollow threats, but they do give Democrats lots of sympathy points. Committing a felony like that is just plain stupid, considering how easy it is to trace most of them.

On the Alan Colmes radio show Wednesday evening, I heard Alan speaking with Mike Troxel, who tried to weasel his way out of being held accountable for his actions. Colmes took full advantage of the situation, pressing Troxel to the point that he just sounded stupid. On Colmes' Liberaland:

On my radio show Tuesday night, Mike Troxel (pictured) of the Lynchburg, VA Tea Party defended posting what he thought was the home address of Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello. However, it was the address of Periello’s brother, Bo, that wound up on Troxel’s website. Opponents of health care reform were asked to drop by and “express their thanks” for Periello’s vote. Troxel’s defense was that the Congressman was unreachable at his office, not responding to phone calls, and refusing to explain his pro-heath care reform vote to his electorate. Now, the FBI is investigating the severing of a gas line at the home of Bo Droxel.

More about the incident here. Troxel, if you're going to be putting up addresses, not only should you make sure you've got the one you intend, but you should be man enough to take responsibility for it, instead of offering pathetic explanations like a child who gets caught with cookie crumbs all over his face.

Whoever cut the gas line at that house took it to another level. That could have easily ended up causing casualties. As with McVeigh and Andrew Stack (who flew the plane into the IRS building in Austin), such a blind act makes no effort to avoid harming innocents. I find it utterly despicable.

So, while some people like the window warriors may be trying to act ethically, with measured restraint, they're going to need to work very hard to distinguish themselves from the cowardly idiots. As I a commented at SSI:

Window warriors need to keep in mind a few things: When you're on someone else's property with a brick, you are putting yourself in danger of retaliation to your person (arrest, assault, deadly force). If you're not prepared for such an eventuality, don't pick up the brick in the first place. And, now that the "Window War" has started, don't whine that "...[a]nything they can think of to say is OK. But if you disagree with them you are the scum of the earth." (emphasis mine) Vandalism is not mere words of disagreement. Telling people to commit vandalism is not just words, but a call to action. I think I get why Vanderboegh is citing the threats here, and I don't see him acting like a victim here. I don't think it serves him for anyone else to pretend this is just about words of disagreement at this point.

Vanderboegh has repeatedly stated that he wants the window war to be enough of a warning to stave off a shooting war, like a rattlesnake shaking its tail wants to save its venom and avoid being hurt. I have my doubts, and I think that Billy Beck may very well be right when he wrote, "All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war." I think it either comes to that or the once free American individualist becomes an endangered species as this country devolves into just another European-style socialist mess.

P.S.: When reading the comment sections at SSI and elsewhere, be wary of the presence of agents provocateurs, who could be working for law enforcement, Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, etc.. I've seen plenty of remarks purportedly posted by those sympathetic to the window warriors or Tea Party "movement", yammering about courage and whatnot--often from anonymous comments, hilariously enough--that I've no doubt some of them want to see someone else escalate. Vanderboegh has written at length about handling plants in his former militia group, such as those who pretended to have a racist agenda. He reported them forthwith to the authorities whom he suspected of sending the plant in the first place.

Remember, the Democrats just grabbed immense power and they're going to be ruthless about keeping it and shutting down anyone who would dare threaten them. The usual warnings about The Reichstag Fire and Ft. Sumter apply.

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." -- Admiral Josh Painter (Fred Thompson) in The Hunt for Red October (1990)

Property Rights Work Both Ways

2010-03-24T01:00:00.006-05:00

In the comments section of Vanderboegh's reaction to an objectivist's objections to his "Window War", a few commenters made an obvious point which I wish I'd seen in my previous post:

B Woodman says, "He forgets ... who started stealing from whom first."

An anonymous commenter writes:

Had they applied the same logic to my own property rights (including the money I work so hard to earn) I would not have to resort to using a louder form of persuasion to get their attention. Hello?! Anyone out there? If you take something that belongs to me without my consent then I will do the same to you. Get it yet?

Roger wrote:

...the feral government has taken my personal property by force with the threat of violence for three decades of my life. My hard earned money represents my direct time, my blood, sweat and tears. It is stolen, never to be reclaimed, never to be recovered, and something I can never replace.

Unfortunately, Roger, like many others in the comments, goes on to repeat the bullshit Broken Window Fallacy when he says, "At least with a broken window, it creates jobs. Jobs that are needed." With that sort of inane thinking, we could evacuate a few towns and carpet bomb them to cure unemployment. Destruction of value is destruction of value. It is always a net loss to the owners. The benefit to others (new jobs) comes at a cost to the owners. (Which, in the case of the "Window War" is the point.)

Another anonymous commenter writes:

So by that logic, when the government begins to wage war on our property, they are waging war on our person. I'll accept his premise which would conclude with John Locke's premise on the rights of the people over the government.

Among the rest of the comments, there are the lame attacks on the objectivist author, concocting all sorts of fantasies and straw man arguments. A few collectivist interlopers come in to share their stupidity. But, curiously, a comment I posted early Tuesday never seemed to make it into the bunch. [Update: I resubmitted and it's there now, slightly edited.] See my previous post for the full text.

Shattered Glass

2010-03-23T07:19:00.006-05:00

I felt hung over on Monday because I was foolish enough to watch the news all Sunday, holding out hope that the Health Care Deform would be voted down. It's about like watching a train wreck about to happen, holding out hope that the school bus will somehow go 0-80 in 5 seconds to clear the tracks. Or, like watching election returns in 2008, just in case the tracking polls were way off. I at least saved myself some stress by changing the channels whenever a Democrat started spewing ridiculous horse shit. When Pelosi got up, I had to switch over to a Kung Fu movie for awhile, just to clear my brain of that ghoul's smiling visage and grating voice.

Over a decade ago, when I read others predicting impending tyrannies like this, I paid attention, though the vast majority dismissed them in Cassandra-like fashion. I took occasional opportunities here and elsewhere to echo such sentiments.

A few people recognize (for different reasons) that it is useless to hold out hope for a GOP majority in November 2010 and 2012 as a means to reverse this atrocity. For all the clamoring of Tea Partiers, media pundits, and innumerable bloggers, you can't vote your way to freedom. By the nature of democracy, that strategy is ultimately doomed to failure, but if ever there was a chance to put off this disaster for a generation or two, it's long since passed.

Many pragmatists recoil in horror at my decision not to vote. I read babbling about coming up with a better system, the ever-inane "love it or leave it", and, of course, charges that I don't really believe in the principles I espouse because I'm not shooting it out over every violation of my rights.

While I reserve the right to protect my rights and the rights of my family (and perhaps those of my neighbors), I see no value in getting myself or others destroyed for no real gain. Frankly, I would prefer civil disobedience on a massive scale to any sort of violence. As history shows, most civil wars or rebellions come at a heavy cost to innocents, and are almost always exploited by the less principled. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Starving the beast is the best option--if you can avoid its fangs.

At Sipsey Street Irregulars, Mike Vanderboegh is calling for a "Window War" in response to the audacious power grab by the Democrats. It's certainly more provocative than the mostly weak Tea Party demonstrations, though I've yet to see it gathering momentum. Without that momentum, it's a dud, which puts Mike and others in danger of losing their freedom (or worse), for what I consider to be insufficient gain. I recognize that it's their choices to make and I don't expect them to take council from someone like me, who prefers non-violent civil disobedience (whether en masse or on an individual, under-the-radar level).

In response to a post at "Walls of the City", Vanderboegh and a fellow irregular take exception to this so-called pragmatist, whose article contains the very opposite of pragmatism. A response from me:

I didn't see the word "sacred" in his remarks. That seems to be your word, not his. I would use a more common phrase: property rights are inalienable, like the rights to life and liberty.
But inalienable doesn't mean "in all circumstances" nor do I glean from his words that he makes such an argument. Again, those appear to be your words alone.
In addition, I don't see the objectivist argument as "pragmat[ic]" at all. It's the opposite: taking principles to their logical conclusion, instead of abandoning them when convenient (the hallmark of the pragmatist). Don't misconstrue what I just said. I'm not accusing you or brick throwers of abandoning principles, per se. I'd need more information to make such a judgment. The same applies to the objectivist author who, from what I'm seeing, has made some assumptions about intent.
Furthermore, unless the objectivist author has elsewhere expressed a desire "to shoot people for resisting in a way with which he disagrees," it's dishonest to put those words in his mouth.
I want to address some particulars, like the difference between "inalienable" and "in all circumstances."
If some crack head breaks into my house, he is violating my rights, thus his rights are superseded. That's one "circumstance" in which that man's rights don't apply--as a direct consequence of his choice.
It's all about context.
As for violence against property and violence against a person, I think he is correct that it is wrong to draw a moral distinction between the two. Suppose some arsonist burns down the house of an old lady. Take insurance and charity away. The consequence of violence on mere property is that she will die of starvation or exposure. That is effectively violence against her.
If you assert your moral right to do violence against the property of others, you thus assert the right to do violence against their person. For one obvious reason, the property owner may use deadly force against you if he sees you on his property with a brick. By your choice to do violence against his property, you have opened the door to the possibility that you will need to do violence to his person as a consequence of your choice.
Thus I would argue that you don't have cause to do harm to someone's property unless you have cause to do harm to him. That you draw a distinction between the two and decide that you'll do one and not the other, is a tactical decision, a personal value judgment. In effect, you decide to risk your life or liberty to inflict property damage, because you calculate that escalating would do harm to the message you want to send.
In other words, if you assert the right to do harm to the people who have done harm to you and your neighbors (via intolerable acts), but choose to limit your response to property as a tactic and a personal value judgment, you have not abandoned the principle of private property, assuming that your assertion is well-founded. If you consider what the Dems have done to be an initiation of force (by threat and by proxy), then your window breaking would be a reaction, not the initiation of force.
My ancestors fought in the American Revolution, with far less provocation. Personally, I think the Rubicon was crossed long ago and that only the strength of American individualism has proverbially kept Caesar's army from taking Rome until recent years.
Here is my take on the time of death.

Idol Season 9, Female Semi-Finals Week 3

2010-03-09T23:05:00.005-06:00

In the top 8 women, there were so many great performances I'm wondering if any men are going to show the sort of talent that will make the Top 12 have any sort of balance. Based upon what I've seen, I'd make the final six contestants include five females and one male, though none of the men stand out as a clear leader over the rest, so it's possible I'm being too generous. A few more weeks will separate the wheat from the chaff.

Of the top four I picked from Tuesday's show, I was hard pressed to decide how to order them. I watched them several times, each time getting goosebumps. I was drawn into each of these four performances. I'd be happy with any of them winning this season. But only one gets the prize, so here's my take:

Crystal Bowersox ("Give Me One Reason" by Tracy Chapman) - One chord gave away the song and her fingers hit every blue note with masterful skill. Even better, her voice. Her rendition surpassed the original. I like Tracy Chapman's music (minus the socialist crap in the song "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution"), but Bowersox showed how to do it even better tonight. From what I've seen, she is the most talented on instruments and the most polished performer. In interviews, she's a bit reserved. I don't have a problem with that, but it may hurt her in the voting.
Didi Benami ("Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac) - Like the judges, I was leery of her taking on Stevie Nicks, but her sweet and haunting voice gave the song something new and wonderful. She's not just another pretty face. I previously compared her to Megan Joy (at Megan's best), but this week she moved beyond that comparison. I was reminded a bit of Brooke White from Season 7, whose "Let it Be" was similarly captivating.
Lacey Brown ("The Story" by Brandy Carlile) - Close third. Another sweet and endearing performance. She made it seem effortless to pull off that melody. Even better, she gave it all the right emotions, making great use of the camera. I loved the lyrics to that song and, other than the lack of lines on her face alluded to in the song, she made it believable. If I could make one small change, I'd work on the final crescendo, which didn't quite match the quality of the rest of the song.
Siobhan Magnus ("House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals) - Very close fourth. The other performers did a little better this week due to song choice. But Magnus did a great job with what she chose. Her personality shines through in her interviews and she backs it up with consistent talent. At this point, I'm leaning towards her as my favorite to win this season, though I can't pinpoint why I feel that way. She hasn't played an instrument like most of the others, and that may be a weakness which could change my opinion down the road.
Lilly Scott ("I Fall to Pieces" by Patsy Cline) - Another very unique and charismatic performer. I liked how she changed up the song a bit, but not enough to lose some of the best qualities of the original. She doesn't have the clear, piercing voice of Patsy Cline, but she used what she had to great effect. Her quirky style, including her facial expressions, may be a bit distracting in this competition, as the other performers appear to be more adaptable. But competition aside, she'd stand up just fine on her own in her niche. Based upon tonight's song, she fell behind the leaders, but taking all three weeks of the Semi-Finals together, I'd put her above fifth overall.
Katelyn Epperly ("I Feel the Earth Move" by Carole King) - Good performance, though it suffered by comparison to the original. I agreed with the judge who said it was too copycat, especially her look. She should squeak by this week, but she'll have to bring more to rise to the level of the top five women I chose.

It was heartbreaking for me to see the other two stumble this week, especially Page Miles. She did so much better the previous week. Katie Stevens was my favorite the first week, but she peaked early and has done worse each subsequent week. Considering the talent of the remaining male performers, I'd much rather keep these two and get rid of four of the men.

Idol Season 9, Semi-Finals Week 2

2010-03-04T02:26:00.003-06:00

I'm going to combine the Tuesday and Wednesday show. As with the first week, the men are sucking wind trying to catch up to the women.

My top picks, in terms of goodness for this particular performance:

TIE Crystal Bowersox ("Long As I Can See The Light" by CCR) and Lilly Scott ("A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke)
Siobhan Magnus ("Think" by Aretha) - That note! That freakin' note! Wow! Parts of the song strayed a little from greatness. If she redid it in a recording studio, it would be a hit. Loved the mohawk from her earlier days.
Lee Dewyze ("Lips of an Angel" by Hinder) - Only guy worthy of competing with the women this week.
Katelyn Epperly ("The Scientist" by Coldplay) - It's supposed to be slow, judges. That made it sweet.
Page Miles ("Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson) - Not my sort of song, but she did it well. Close call between here and Katelyn.
Tim Urban ("Come On Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson) - Surprising comeback. Song was good from start to finish.
Aaron Kelly ("My Girl" by The Temptations) - Another surprising improvement. Nice voice control.

Honorable mentions: Did Benami (didn't deserve the harsh criticism), Katie Stevens (sounds so much better than you'd expect looking at her), and Michael Lynche (not as good as previous week, though).

Disappointments: John Park (I thought he was better than given credit the first week, but he blew it this week), Andrew Garcia (getting weaker), and Haley Vaughn (whose song last week wasn't horrible like this week, despite the critics).

Police Arrogance and Callousness over SWAT Raids

2010-03-03T18:55:00.005-06:00

Radley Balko tears apart a letter to the Baltimore Sun from former police officer, Lawrence Schweinsburg. Point by point he refutes the disinformation of that letter, citing the overwhelmingly damning evidence against the overuse and misuse of SWAT teams. These raids are creating more death and danger, even among non-violent offenders and innocent people.

It takes a stout heart and a strong stomach to read all the stories of law enforcement abuse reported throughout the blogosphere each day. Whether it's people's dogs being shot by police for no reason or cops and prosecutors routinely getting a free pass after brutalizing innocents, I have to wonder what goes on in the minds of the men and women in blue, who must realize that the ugly devolution of law enforcement over a period of decades has, in the eyes of more and more Americans, turned them into mindless paramilitary thugs who consider themselves above the law and just about everyone else a second-class citizen. Our hopes and dreams, our suffering, our very lives are all too often disregarded to protect a cop's pension or, even worse, merely a cop's pride.

Neal Boortz Advises Caller How to Snitch to IRS

2010-03-01T11:13:00.013-06:00

On Monday, March 1, 2010 at approximately 11:25 a.m. EST, a caller to Neal Boortz's nationally syndicated radio show complained about reporting people she knew who didn't file tax returns. I didn't hear the full context of how she knew these people didn't file, but she was bothered that the IRS purportedly didn't accept her attempts at snitching over the phone.

Neal Boortz spends much of his air time blasting the tax code as unfair. His book, The Fair Tax Book has, on its cover, a red circle and line over the letters "IRS". He has encouraged listeners of his national audience to engage in tax protests and has appeared at Tea Party gatherings.

Appallingly, this self-proclaimed libertarian helpfully instructed the caller how to accomplish her goal of snitching. Mr. Boortz told the caller she needed to fill out a form on paper (which she could download from the internet) and mail it to an IRS office in California. Neal was very smug and excited that he could help this caller to unleash the power of the federal government to make these scofflaws pay their "fair share".

The thing is, I have never in my life encountered anyone in the media (newspaper, TV, radio) instruct people how they can send a form to an IRS office to snitch on their neighbors. In over two decades of participating in on-line political debates, which often rage into massive "flame wars" that ocassionally escalated into posting home addresses and making threats, I never once saw anyone mention any such thing, even in reaction to participants who freely admitted that they chose, on principle, not to pay income taxes. I had to hear it from a "libertarian" leader, a featured speaker at Tea Party gatherings.

How utterly sickening.

How Soviet.

I know that Neal Boortz gets gas whenever anyone uses terms like "socialist" or "fascist", even when they are accurate, because he spinelessly fears being called "nutty" or a "McCarthyite" by anti-rational opponents. I use the word "Soviet" with exacting purpose. I do not literally think that when Boortz or his listeners report alleged law breakers to the federal government, the victims are going to be shipped off to arctic work camps. But I do recognize the parallels in the mindset of these IRS snitches to that of those Soviet citizens who turned in their neighbors, friends, and even family members to the Chekists. Some of these Russians did so out of fear or malice. But many, like Boortz and the caller, were offended that someone could get away with breaking the rules that everyone else followed, no matter how oppressive the system. In a "bussel basket of live crabs...the ones in the bottom keep dragging the ones who try [to escape] back in to their level."

Put aside the tragic cases where the victims of mistaken or malicious IRS levies have not actually violated the law, who paid what the law dictated in good faith, but who had their lives turned upside down because of a mistake or vendetta. It's possible that Boortz-type narcs could trigger some of these, but I'll assume, for the sake of argument that the victims of these tattlers are not following the law.

I'll dispense with people who come up with imaginative arguments that the 16th amendment isn't valid or that the tax laws don't actually impose an obligation. Such machinations are, from what I've read, futile and misleading. It's like someone who helped free a runaway slave in the 1800s offering a specious legal argument, rather than simply standing on the principle that slavery is morally wrong.

I pay my taxes, because I know what it would cost me and my family if I didn't. But there are a number of people who refuse to comply with tax laws for principled moral reasons. I'm referring to people who follow libertarian principles (video) to their logical conclusion. When respondents like Neal Boortz bleat about "the rule of law" or even more thoughtful ones wave the US Constitution about like a talisman, these principled tax evaders deftly cite Thoreau, Spooner, and Garrison (individualists and abolitionists) to knock down such weak arguments.

I have absolutely no problem with someone who rejects government as a whole, choosing to live his life on his own terms, handling business in a free market manner (as much as possible, considering the multitude of government monopolies one cannot easily avoid). Such people risk being dispossesed and prosecuted, and may have to forgo career opportunities so they can work "under the table." They have to live without bank accounts, credit cards, and property deeds. It sickens me that such people must face such high risks and sacrifices to be free, even though they have done nothing wrong nor tried to take advantage of anyone else.

There are also people who don't want their money being used to fund things they abhor, such as anti-war types who object to their hard work being exploited to build bombs which are dropped in foreign lands. These are also valid arguments, even if some of these people are hypocritical. (For example, no taxes for military spending, but taxes for schools and welfare. Or, no taxes for abortion, but taxes for unprovoked invasions.) However, the fact that some of them may be hypocrites in no way negates their assertion that it is fundamentally wrong to force them to pay for something they morally abhor. Rather, they ought to be consistent by applying the principle universally.

Mr. Boortz has also called for an end to the War on Drugs. I wonder if he encourages his listeners to report neighbors to the DEA or other law enforcement organizations. To be consistent with his angry insistence that everyone follow law on taxes or be turned in, he should have his callers inform federal law enforcement if they know of someone smoking marijuana for a medical condition, to name one example. After all, they are breaking federal laws. Even if Neal hates those laws and wants them repealed, wouldn't he want violators of existing laws to face the consequences so long as they are in place? Wouldn't he want them to be punished like anyone else who gets caught? Drag the crab back in the basket!

Speak with Authority

2010-02-25T00:05:00.001-06:00

My wife found this video:

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

There's also this video about war money:

War Money from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

I'm right there with you, Ronnie Bruce, if you think people should be able to choose not to give their money to finance wars. I just hope you'll agree with me that they have that same right to withhold their money for other things, rather than watching government waste it or worse.

Idol Season 9, Top 12 Males

2010-02-24T22:36:00.000-06:00

Only a handful of men sang well tonight. If viewers voted for all of the top 24 at the same time, women against men, this first week would have been a rout, with 4 guys going home. So many of these guys just don't belong in the semi-finals. I think the judges made some big mistakes in Hollywood week.

I'll just list the good ones:

Andrew Garcia ("Sugar We’re Going Down" by Fall Out Boy) - Nice performance. Perhaps, as the judges said, a little safe, but this guy is good enough that his "safe" version is superior to all the other performers. He'll go far into the finals.
Casey James ("Heaven" by Bryan Adams) - A very close second. Putting aside the annoyance of the judges (and my wife) going on and on about his looks, he gave a good rendition of that song. He'd have to have some great pipes to try to out sing Bryan Adams, but I don't think he does, and so I don't think he should try that approach.
Todrick Hall ("Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson) - I liked this much more than the judges or my wife. I didn't realize until I looked up on YouTube what the original pop song sounded like. Kudos to him for his originality. He was a bit rough around the edges, but showed real talent. I can't see him winning the top prize, but if he makes good song choices, he should make it several rounds into the finals.
Lee Dewyze ("Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol) - OK performance. When I replayed it, I liked it better than the first time. He seemed a bit nervous and constrained at times. He sounds, right now, like a cookie-cutter of the bands he's covered, so he'll need to show some more uniqueness to stand up to the competition.
Michael Lynche ("This Love" by Maroon 5) - Decent performance tonight. He'll get to the finals easily, but I don't see him lasting long there.
John Park ("God Bless the Child" by Billie Holiday) - Bad song choice for this venue. Still, he showed he's got a very good voice, which puts him ahead of everyone else not on this list.

Politics These Days

2010-02-24T13:39:00.006-06:00

I haven't been able to bring myself to blog about politics since August, when the Town Hall and Tea Party protests (*) were so wretchedly run over by the pro-Democrat Party smear machine. The intensity of the anti-reason in the political arena disgusted and disheartened me to the point that it was downright painful to spend too much time watching the mess, as I could guess, in broad strokes, how it was going to play out. I could not have done justice to it all without spending far more time than I was willing to spend--time in which I would no doubt have been filled with anger by focusing on the particulars. I don't care to put myself through that level of stress.

If Republicans do manage to block Health Care Deform and the worst of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda, if some small measure of rationality shines on the vermin who so hungrily eye our property and freedom, it may be a bit easier to spend time focusing on these things. But Republicans are unprincipled cowards, so I think there's a good chance they'll "compromise" far enough that the damage will still be horrific. Even if they managed to grow a spine and stop supporting the assault on individual rights, you can't vote your way to freedom. Voting got us where we are now.

And, while Obama's ambitions, if realized, would be devastating to us in the here and now, they're nothing compared to the impending doom of Social Security and Medicare. They've managed to build the nation's financial future smack dab on the top of a cryptodome, which is guaranteed to explode in the next couple decades.

* Clarification: I'm not among the Tea Party or Town Hall protester ranks. While many of these people that I've read or seen in interviews have, to one degree or another, an appreciation for how the government has screwed us with spending, bailouts, and Health Care Deform, just about all of them look to the ballot box to solve the problem. A handful have made noises about state secession, though I doubt many of those would be in favor of counties, cities, or individual people carrying forward the principle behind secession to its natural conclusion. In other words, they hate the current bosses, but only want to replace them, rather than allowing free, rational individuals be their own bosses. Furthermore, too much of their anger is directed at immigrants.

Idol Season 9, Top 12 Females

2010-02-23T22:49:00.000-06:00

With a couple exceptions, the best singers rounded out the end of the show, leaving everyone before them in the dust. My list, in order of performance quality:

Katie Stevens ("Feeling Good" by Michael Bublé) - She made the hairs on my neck stand on end. Her voice was very powerful, but expertly controlled. I didn't hear any pitch problems that Randy mentioned. Other performers were more unique, but none of them quite had the power and control. I think other performers will probably do better than her in coming weeks, but she's definitely finals material.
Crystal Bowersox ("Hand in My Pocket" by Alanis Morrisette) - She showed great talent with the two instruments and a great voice, integrating them all well in her arrangement. Better than any real-life street performer I've seen. Ought to squeak by into the finals.
Didi Benami ("The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson) - Very sweet and captivating performance. This one particular performance reminded me a bit of Megan Joy from last year--Meagan at her best, that is. I'm hoping Didi shows more variety and doesn't follow Megan's tiresome quirky-warbly-voice-on-every-song gimick. She'll probably be in the finals, but will need to be great to stay long.
Siobhan Magnus ("Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak) - She built from a mediocre start to a pretty good ending. Hauntingly beautiful. I expect she'll have even better performances to come.
Lilly Scott ("Fixin' A Hole" by The Beatles) - Very nice performance from a very unique artist. Definitely one of my favorite performers to make it several weeks into the finals. To do so, she'll have to be very careful in her song selection to showcase her strengths.

The other performances were mediocre to horrible. On a side note, I thought Haeley Vaughn did much better than she was given credit for. However, it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly how to describe it, but something about her pronunciation, enunciation, timbre, or whatever grates my nerves when I hear her sing. It could be, as one judge suggested, her tendency to smile so much while she sings. I wonder if some intense coaching could help her to smooth out her technique.

Conan Go Bragh

2010-01-23T02:01:00.007-06:00

Kudos to Conan O'Brien for a classy farewell speech and a pretty kick ass jam to close the show. Start at 32:00 in the following video for the speech and about 37:00 for the song:

Even with the masturbating bears and other such low-brow humor, O'Brien has a million times the class of the senile idiot on CBS who has imbued his increasingly dull attempts at comedy with appeals to the more hysterical, alarmist, dishonest political figures and ideas.

Leno is OK. He's no Carson and is a bit more dull (for my tastes) than O'Brien, but at least he isn't an arrogant fool. Also, Craig Ferguson often does a very good monologue and seems to be a good guy, though I wish he'd leave out the pathetic skits (Prince Charles, Aquaman, Murder She Wrote) and just get to the guests.

It's funny how 17 years ago I watched this tall redhead who looked scared as hell step into Letterman's shoes for the first night. I was disappointed, having been used to watching Dave for so many years after Carson, and feeling that he was cheated out of that job. But since then, I've come to appreciate how that goofy Irishman is a much better person.

Good job, Coco, and I hope to see you in 7 months on another network.

Deforming Health Care

2009-08-08T19:37:00.003-05:00

Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt.
— Charles Blow

What you're seeing at these meetings is not the brutish behavior of people too dumb to convince others with reason. On the contrary, this is the natural reaction of people when their attempts at reason have fallen on deaf ears and they realize the brutes are planning a feast with them on the menu. These people aren't "[b]linded by fear and passion" but passionately fearful of the dangers to their freedoms that the apathetic masses are blind to--in no small part due to the work of those like Charles Blow or Gail Collins, who argues for Obama's Health Care Deform, because it's something "those people pounding on the doors of a town meeting in Tampa and screaming at the fire marshals don’t want." (Yes, making the people you don't like mad is always a strong ethical argument for massive spending and regulation.)

Just listening to the arrogant office holders in recent weeks, I expected angry reactions and wondered how long it would be until fists were swung. The surprise reaction of proponents, and the lame attempts to dismiss and ridicule genuine anger only demonstrates how out of touch they are.

This inability to appreciate why people are shouting is a bad sign. As Beck points out, once again: "All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war."

"Health Care Deform"

2009-07-15T18:17:00.001-05:00

Said by Herman Cain, substitute for Neal Boortz on Monday.

It's so hot in Texas that

2009-07-15T18:08:00.004-05:00

From e-mail:

I saw a coyote chasing a rabbit and they were both walking.
The corn growing in the field is already popped.
Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.
A sad West River cowboy once prayed, "I wish it would rain - not so much for me cuz I've seen it-but for my 7-year-old."
You can make instant sun tea.
The temperature drops below 95, you feel a bit chilly.
Hot water now comes out of both taps.
You break a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m. before work.
You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

Al Gore likens fight against climate change to battle with Nazis

2009-07-07T12:20:00.003-05:00

Eventually, it may come to that. But Al Gore has it upside down and backwards. The fascists are the ones nationalizing industries and stealing the efforts of the most productive, to spend as they see fit. The ~~Reds~~ Greens are the ones depriving individuals of the freedom to make their own choices, putting arbitrary restrictions on what you can build or drive.

Sometime down the road, when historians look back, they will wonder how people allowed politicians to artificially inflate the prices of energy, construction, and transportation. Once you see $8/gal. gas and $700 utility bills, or when it costs you $10,000 to retrofit your house before you're allowed to sell it, and the economy takes the predictable nose dive in response, people are going to be eying their pitchforks when the likes of Al Gore speak. I think he's just getting a head start on this, hoping that enough idiots will buy his "anti-environmentalists are Nazis" bullshit to balance the rest of us who see the alarmists as the architects of our economic ruination, in need of tar and feathers.

Nomination for "Whip of the Week"

2009-06-26T12:33:00.004-05:00

Beck ought to consider this one:

He should have just called the police. I’m sure they would have been happy to shoot his dogs for him. Then we don’t even need to waste time with a trial; the P.D. can just release a statement that the officer acted with courage and professionalism and that’s the end of it.
—comment at Balko's place

Another contender: Via Politico:

As Friday’s debate dragged on, Republicans asked the House to observe a moment of silence for Americans who would lose their jobs as a result of the bill. Democrats objected.

Letterman vs. Palin

2009-06-12T09:17:00.007-05:00

Sarah Palin is milking this thing for all it's worth, continuing to pretend that Letterman intentionally made the joke about her 14-year old. In a segment I saw on FNC America's Newsroom, they ran with that presumption. Brent Bozell pontificated about statutory rape and whatnot. Bullshit. I don't believe for a second he realized that Palin had her younger daughter with her. It's obvious he intended to make the joke about Bristol, the 18-year old. I wish those people would stop lying about this. They're throwing away any moral high ground they might have had.

Letterman's shtick, from way back in the 80s when I first started watching him after Carson, is being an asshole. It can be funny when the butt of the joke is a grownup celebrity, for example. Going after Bristol was going too far. She doesn't deserve to be ridiculed on national television, just because her mother's a joke. And, when he did explain his intention and apologize, he poisoned the apology with more low blows, which made him look insincere. If he'd resisted doing that, I think the statutory rape lies would get far less traction.

Part of the problem is that Letterman has become more politically partisan in recent years. His Great Moments in Presidential Speeches was funny. Unfortunately, I have yet to see him showing Obama having a no teleprompter moment, or doing something else stupid. I realize that Obama's popularity amongst entertainers and the media makes him untouchable as the butt of a joke. But Letterman has previously had the guts to disregard popularity. Not this time. Instead, he's taken sides against Republicans pretty much all the time now, effectively eliminating half of the source material for political jokes. That's just lame.

As part and parcel of this, his show has had some climate change chicken littles, guys who predict massive catastrophe not supported by any real data. He doesn't challenge them, but gives them free reign to spread their hysteria on his show. Meh.

I miss Johnny.

Addendum: Someone remind New York State Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb that Republicans are supposed to be the ones who keep government out of the board room.

Minor edits for clarification.

More Reasons to Taze You

2009-06-05T11:11:00.009-05:00

Correction added

As if cowards with badges didn't already have enough reasons to indulge their sadistic side, Niagara County Court Judge Sara Sperrazza ruled that it is constitutional to use DNA from taser probes.

Wanna bet this portends an uptick in the number of unnecessary taser incidents? Wanna bet police departments will start systematically cataloging DNA samples from all taser incidents, from here on out?

Correction: The DNA wasn't taken from the taser probes. Rather, the suspect was tasered to force him to provide a court-ordered DNA sample. I still say it's a bad ruling, because it gives police yet another excuse to use tasers.

Tank vs. Citizen

2009-06-04T17:33:00.005-05:00

What kind of government runs over innocent people with tanks?

From comment section at Balko's place.

P.S. Regardless of whether you believe the Davidians started the fire, the fact is that the FBI tanks crushed women and children. They were quick to pull down the Davidian flag and raise the ATF flag, while people were still dying. That's not the act of crime fighters seeking to rescue children from alleged abuse. It's the act of military conquest.

Obsession with Foreign Opinion

2009-06-02T09:33:00.002-05:00

The American "mainstream" press wants you to be obsessed with what foreigners think about you and your government. Endless polls have been taken in Europe, the Middle East, Muslim countries, and across the globe, to tell you what they think of us. This naturally feeds those Americans who are critics of US foreign policy, our crass materialism, our lack of universal health care, our guns, and our bibles, to name a few. But how often does the media ask Americans what they think of foreigners?

I almost had hope when I saw a CNN poll asking Americans what they thought of Muslim countries. But by the fourth paragraph, CNN's Paul Steinhauser was already changing gears: "The poll also suggests that most Americans suspect people in Muslim countries don't think highly of the United States." Besides, it's not like this poll was undertaken by Al Jazeera, which might indicate that, for once, they wonder what we think of them. Same old same old.

I really do not give a shit for the opinions of some random asshole on the street, who is often the product of a pre-Enlightenment culture in a country controlled by theocratic despots, or a snooty European whose ancestors never experienced anything like the individualism of the American Revolution. Who the hell are those people to inform Americans how to conduct our affairs? (By the same token, the US has no business deciding how Iraqis or Afghans set up governments.) It's bad enough that ignorant American voters have been given the power to decide how to dispose of the productive efforts of their neighbors. Enough, already.

McCain vs. Obama

2009-06-01T02:50:00.003-05:00

In a comment at Balko's place, I wonder just how The Agitator, who purports to defend individual liberty, could possibly say such things:

Finally, Obama has disappointed. But he’s also been better...than McCain would have been on a number of issues. ...I merely said I preferred him to McCain, for a number of reasons. I still do.

I'm struggling really hard here to think of any significant particulars you might have in mind. I'm looking at the multi-trillion dollar boondoggles, which amounts to the government--based upon a panicked frenzy which precluded even a few days of review before signing into law--imposing tens of thousands of dollars in liens on you, your children, your grandchildren, and so on. Imagine the implications of those debts alone on the ability of people to live free lives.

But that's just the opening scene to this horror show. There's the government takeover of banking and auto manufacturing. The ~~Red~~ Green "reforms" (autos, utilities, construction, manufacturing), when put into full force will be tantamount to carpet bombing American industry. Health care "reform" will balloon the cost of medical care, just as in every other situation in which the government promised to cut costs by taking over industries. More liens on your life. More nanny-state regulations of everything you do.

Please, Mr. Balko, could you give some specific examples of your "number of issues" and "number of reasons" to still consider McCain worse than Obama? I have a few ideas of what you might say, but I just can't imagine how those could make even 0.01% of the difference on the lives of multiple generations that Obama's fast strikes at the American economy will make.

Dystopia Now

2009-05-26T14:00:00.006-05:00

From David Codrea comes this BBC article:

Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are already operating on Britain's roads.

Police forces across England, Wales and Scotland will soon be able to share the information on one central computer.

...Kent's Chief Constable, Michael Fuller, commented: "We've seen an increase of some 40% of arrests since we've been using this technology.

"I'm very confident that we're using it properly and responsibly, and that innocent people have nothing to fear from the way we use it."

Don't believe him? Well, just read this testimonial by an innocent person who had nothing to fear:

John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.

It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a "marker" on his car. That meant he was added to a "hotlist".

This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.

"I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?"

You're living in the country which gave the world George Orwell. That country looks a lot like the USA should be about ten years from now.

Full Colin Powell

2009-05-25T00:35:00.004-05:00

Colin Powell, the man who endorsed Barack Obama for president, claims, "I am still a Republican."

As a committed non-voter, an atheist, an opponent of the War on Drugs, etc., I don't support the GOP's goals--except their goal of thwarting the increasingly socialist Democrats. And, I have a whole graveyard of bones to pick with Powell's loudest Republican critics. But in this particular case, they are right on the money.

Colin Powell is the Benedict Arnold of the Republican party. He sold his fellow party members down the river, I suspect because he didn't like being called a "house slave." Maybe if the Democrat he endorsed was Joe Lieberman, instead of a radical socialist, I might be persuaded that he broke ranks on principle. Obviously, he did so for racial reasons, thus demonstrating a lack of character.

Republicans who continue to behave like cowardly semi-Democrats deserve to keep losing elections. The shame of it is that their failure means the socialist goals of Democrats are advanced even faster. That being said, anyone who takes advice from Powell should stock up on toilet paper, because they're going to get what you'd expect from a full colon.

Even though I oppose putting moral questions to a popularity contest, I can appreciate when a politician like Ron Paul gives voters a stark choice. The Rockefeller/Powell Republicans give voters a choice between slightly different shades of socialism.

Obama Motors

2009-05-21T18:11:00.004-05:00

Underdog Allen

2009-05-21T09:05:00.005-05:00

Carlos Santana was my favorite performer of the night, followed by Dr. Brian May. But the show is about singing, so I digress.

I was surprised when Kris won. Many people, including Simon, expected Adam to easily cruise into first place. But considering all the elements, Kris' win should not have been a "shocker" as some are portraying it. Kris is a damned good singer. His talents lend themselves to songs with more mainstream appeal. He comes across as cool and genuine, like the boy next door who worked hard to break into show business. I thought he distinguished himself on the Top 3 show, showing viewers that he was consistently good, often great.

Like I've mentioned previously, I thought Adam overdid the wailing and did so in songs where it didn't really fit. He didn't seem to me to be as sincere as Kris, but that could just be the way his face naturally looks. Early in the contest, my wife and I thought he looked a bit like Elvis. The Elvis part probably helped, but I'm sure young girls would have been more likely to wear out their redial buttons if they saw him as available.

Adam has some great vocal abilities. Hell, the guy outsang Kiss when he was on stage with them. When he makes an album, I hope he doesn't water down his strengths by putting his spin on more popular songs. He should stick to what he's great at.

After winning, I thought Kris redeemed himself by singing No Boundaries in a better key. He seemed quite shocked at winning, almost embarrassingly so. I noticed Simon didn't stand up with everyone else, which just made him look childish. Yes, he's the best judge, but he was wrong on this one.

I look forward to seeing what kind of album Kris makes. As much as I enjoy the TV show, I haven't yet bought any contestant's album for myself. (My daughter has albums by Carrie Underwood and Jordin Sparks, which aren't my kind of music.)

A Child's Medical Care

2009-05-20T13:19:00.004-05:00

Balko writes:

Here’s a tough one for you: Do parental rights extend to denying potentially lifesaving chemo for your kid? What probability of success does the treatment have to carry for a parent to be allowed to decline it on behalf of his kid? I don’t have an answer. I don’t think Christian Science parents should be permitted to let their kid die of an ear infection. But if chemo is going to make your kid’s last 3 years unlivable, and only has a 25 percent chance of success, I think parents should be able to say no. I just don’t know where or how you draw the line.

I've been kicking this one around in my head since I read about it. What galls me the most here is that this involves government functionaries making decisions, when they lack the incentives to appreciate the values of those involved. I would be far more comfortable with a grandparent, uncle, or sibling who took a child away from a parents who were neglecting to get their child medical treatment, in order to have the child treated. I don't buy the rule of thumb that an outside party is a better judge, when those closest to the conflict have the most to lose or gain and thus have intimate reasons to make their choices.

As an atheist, I don't care for making irrational choices based upon faith. Nor do I care for inculcating children with anti-reason. But I completely part ways with Richard Dawkins, for example, when he argues that outsiders should take away children from religious parents, on the grounds that brainwashing them with fundamentalist religion is abuse. The outsiders to which he would defer are likely to be completely irrational when it comes to politics, economics, and diet--to name some obvious examples. They would be government functionaries, who are not motivated to do their best, who often have incentives which run contrary to the interests of the children. If our culture hadn't been corrupted with dependence on government to solve social problems, to the point of near helplessness, perhaps private individuals close to the scene would be more inclined to do the right thing.

Obviously, if a parent is burning a child with a cigarette, sexually molesting the child, or doing other similarly monstrous things, I think outsiders have a right to step in. I agree that choosing not to go through with chemo isn't child abuse--especially when the teenager at issue doesn't want it, since he or she is old enough that his or her opinion should hold some weight, even if it isn't the final word.

I Strip Away the Old Debris

2009-05-20T00:38:00.006-05:00

The Obama administration's push to increase gas mileage means more expensive, smaller, less powerful cars. Your preferences for performance, utility, and safety will not be allowed to properly dictate the supply and demand.

Off the top of my head, about all the freedom that's breaking out under the benevolent hand of Obama:

What will happen is that to the extent that they can -- before, that is, the government finds ways to tamp it -- what's left of The American Man will keep real cars running as long as they can into The Cripples' Era. There are enough of them left that it will be a while before there are only Eloi remaining to pedal Social Motors toys around this great continent.
(Beck)

The title of this post, like the title of this blog, comes from the song Red Barchetta.

Addendum: I noticed on the wikipedia entry for the song Red Barchetta that Geddy Lee mispronounces "Barchetta" with a "ch" sound instead of a hard "k" sound.

Distraction Suffocation

2009-05-20T00:12:00.006-05:00

David Codrea wonders if police will call this a "distraction suffocation."

The famous "Only Ones" paradox: The only charge is "resisting arrest." I wasn't aware that a hand over the mouth while the forearm is wrapped around the throat was a standard technique.

Idol Finale a Tossup

2009-05-19T20:02:00.005-05:00

It seems to me that, as the number of contestants get fewer, the chance of having a great performance diminishes. Most of the top ten singers are so talented that having only two in the finale is disappointing to me. Yes, I know that's part of the game. I also think the original songs written for the finale are always a bit lame. This year's No Boundaries was no exception.

I've watched Idol since season 5 (Taylor Hicks), and the best finale had to be last year (David Cook). All the others, including tonight's, have been a bit of a letdown, for the aforementioned reasons.

Adam Lambert · Mad World · Adam's haunting rendition is closer to Gary Jules' arrangement than the original Tears for Fears. I prefer Jules to Tears, and Adam is almost as good as Jules. This performance was a bit smoother than when he previously sang it, without the wild riffs, which are usually a bit incongruous, and often frantic. He leaves that off this song, which was good. Grade: B+
Kris Allen · Ain't No Sunshine · One of my favorite songs. Kris makes it his own, making great use of his piano skills. I still prefer Bill Withers, but he puts a lot of energy into it. I wish it could have been twice as long. Grade: A
Adam Lambert · Change is Gonna Come · Paula's probably right about this being Adam's best performance to date. The last few measures were too loud which, like I said, made them a bit incongruous with the rest of the song. But it didn't go on and on, or get too screechy, so I'd call that a minor complaint in this case. Grade: A-
Kris Allen · What's Goin' On · Another great Motown song. Kris did a good job, but unfortunately it was too laid back. So he wasn't able to distinguish himself from Adam this round. Grade: B
Adam Lambert · No Boundaries · Another rather lame Idol Finale song--not Adam's fault. The performance was competent. Grade: B
Kris Allen · No Boundaries · Yes, the key was too high for his voice. He was really pushing to outdo Adam, but that made him sound at times like he was shouting, instead of singing. I wish he could come back and try it again. Even better, I wish they would have thrown out No Boundaries and let them sing another old hit. Grade: C+

I'm not going to bother voting on this, because I'd call it a tossup. I expect Adam to win the vote, but I don't think it would be much of an upset if Kris pulls ahead.

I'd probably be more inclined to buy an album by Kris Allen, because I grow weary of Adam's wailing, even if he has masterful control. Then again, if Adam chose to use his vocal range more selectively, more suitably matched with the song as a whole, he could put out some great stuff. I'm also interested to see Danny Gokey's first studio album.

Bad Health Advice

2009-05-19T11:18:00.004-05:00

The Agitator notes that Obama has chosen a food nanny to run the CDC. I'm just waiting for the day when the food dictators not only crack down on trans-fats and sugary sodas, but try to force people to eat more grain and vegetable oil, eschewing animal fat and eggs. Nearly all nutritionists are completely wrong about the impact of these foods on your health. Their advice for decades has, in all likelihood, lead to more obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer (the "diseases of civilization"). In the name of "public health", the food nannies may soon punish those of us who ignore official recommendations and try to improve our health based upon evolutionary principles. The so-called experts do not objectively analyze all medical research. They cherry-pick studies which conform to the current recommendations. Over and over scientists and doctor misinterpret findings, ignoring how insulin, not saturated fats, is the real killer.

Montreal Nannies

2009-05-19T10:40:00.006-05:00

The Agitator links to an article about a brave Montreal officer who protected Canadian citizens from a dangerous criminal:

Not unnoticed in the article was the fact that this scofflaw was an immigrant from the USSR. Living in Canada should have been an escape from this sort of bullying by police.

Training and Policy

2009-05-16T07:10:00.004-05:00

Fox:

The Times reported Dieter Dammeier said the officer acted within his training and department policy when he delivered the kick at the end of a televised high-speed pursuit Wednesday afternoon. [emphasis added]

I have absolutely no doubt that is true.

"Unfortunately these things never look good on video...," said Dammeier.

Ya think?

The suspects were allegedly throwing gang signs during the chase, El Monte Lt. Chuck Carlson told FOXNews.com.

Oh noes! Good thing no one was hit.

Do You Have a Mouse in Your Pocket, Mr. Balko?

2009-05-14T16:32:00.005-05:00

Radley Balko writes:

Obama: Still bad on the issues where we thought he’d be bad, and still bad on the issues where we expected better from him. Oh, and he’s also still breaking campaign promises.

Radley, what's this "we" nonsense? Some of us knew better, tried to tell you, and were kicked around by you for our trouble.

Addendum: To be clear, I don’t for one second expect that McCain would have made improvements in the way of individual rights (i.e., getting the government to stop squashing them so much). He voted for TARP. He co-authored McCain-Feingold. I long ago decided that McCain voted with Democrats when he should have voted with the GOP on principle, but voted with Republicans when he should have broken ranks on principle. Basically, the man has no principles.

Still, I doubt he would be chewing up $9.3 trillion in debts, with a hungry eye on medical insurance, and all the rest. He would suck, but he wouldn’t be on a hard push for more socialism, more socialism, more socialism.

Got Metaphor?

2009-05-14T15:46:00.006-05:00

Bloomberg carries this article:

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”
Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

I'm struggling to think of an apt metaphor here. Like a wife beater giving a lecture on the importance of mutual respect, an unrepentant junky burglar leading a DARE brainwashing session, an embezzler harping on accuracy in accounting. Is this a case of Dr. Strangelove Syndrome? Does this man not remember signing away $9.3 trillion for the next decade in his gotta do it right away can't stop to debate pass it right now fervor?

These reporters are going to share in the catastrophe of this spending. It eludes me why they still have shoes on their feet, when, as the last disaster to fill the Oval Office discovered, shoes make such a great method of instantly expressing disapproval during a president's speech. In a sane, rational, honest world, Barack couldn't stand up there without being pelted by every available loose object at hand.

The president pledged to work with Congress to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and said he was confident that the House and Senate would pass health-care overhaul bills by August.

Exactly how are they going to "shore up" these programs? Exactly how are they going to fund the "health-care overhaul bills"? More deficit spending!

Wow. Just, wow.

Idol Top 3

2009-05-12T22:09:00.000-05:00

I didn't have time to watch anything but the performances, so my thoughts are untainted by the judges' reactions. That's probably not a bad thing. Before tonight, my favorite was Danny Gokey. But he disappointed me in the Top 3 show, as did Adam. Kris Allen was the star of the night. But compared to previous weeks, all of the contestants have done better before.

Kris Allen · Apologize · Kris has emerged as the dark horse. This was the best song of the night. It wasn't great, but consistently good from start to finish. Nice piano work, too.
Kris Allen · Heartless · It had a good driving rhythm, and I wish it could have lasted longer. I realize they have time limits, of course, so that wasn't his fault. Nice choice of song.
Danny Gokey · You Are So Beautiful · Decent. Not a great choice, but safe.
Adam Lambert · Cryin' · As one of Aerosmith's repetitive songs, this was a poor choice. It was a bit loud and pointless, without giving Adam a chance to showcase his vocal range.
Adam Lambert · One · Boring and uninspired in the soft parts. The rest seemed forced and a bit frantic, nearly coming unhinged.
Danny Gokey · Dance Little Sister · Awful. Paula did Danny a disservice picking this song.

New Star Trek

2009-05-09T14:34:00.004-05:00

I saw the new Star Trek last night. I think The Wrath of Khan (1982) is still the best, but this comes in a very close second. The battles in the new film were some of the best, nearly on par with Khan. The modern CGI was used to great effect, without overshadowing the story or characters.

By far the best part of the movie was the cast. Two major roles, McCoy and Spock, were aptly filled by Karl Urban and Zachary Quinto. Urban channels DeForest Kelley without even trying. Quinto, in addition to looking like Nimoy, brought a fierceness to Spock I liked. Zoë Saldana was adorable as Uhura. Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead gives comic relief as Scotty (though I didn't care for his assistant, which was too reminiscent of the ridiculous Ewoks). Of course, no actor could reprise the original role better than Leonard Nimoy.

Chris Pine makes a completely different Kirk than William Shatner's, which is good in this case. I realize a lot of people don't like Shatner, but I appreciate that he's so quick to make fun of himself...and you just have to love a guy who'll do this.

My only disappointment was with the villain, Nero. Eric Bana had very little screen time--especially compared to Ricardo Montalbán, who was such a commanding presence for much of the second Star Trek movie. And, while the audience could feel the pain of Khan, and to understand what drove him, Nero is quiet and brooding, and his excuse for doing what he does is absurd.

The commercials say, "This is not your father's Star Trek." That's a bit of a backhanded slap at us geeky dads, but it's true. More specifically, it's not campy like the original series, nor is it covered in the increasingly silly politically correct utopian nonsense of later series. This future world is technologically advanced, but not sanitized. There is visible chaos when Star Fleet is mobilized, which strikes me as being more realistic than the more simplistic situations in previous movies and episodes, where the extras are more like stage props than real people. Being such a character-driven story, the chaos works quite well to make this an enjoyable film.

Poseidon Confounds Reds Greens

2009-05-08T17:07:00.004-05:00

From the BBC (via Beck):

An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.

Calling Intelligent Use of Tools Pathetic

2009-05-08T10:27:00.003-05:00

I previously commented about a good use of deadly violence by a victim of a home invasion. In the comments at Balko's place, I toss in a response to a commenter who seems intent on shaming rational people:

wallster: You are not ‘tough’ because you own a gun. By owning a gun, you prove that you are the one who is pathetic and scared. Get over yourself

By owning a car, does that prove you are weak and slow? Do you carry everything you need on foot, to make sure no one thinks any less of you?

There is nothing pathetic about being afraid of people who are willing to break into your home, rape, and murder you. A person who takes charge of her security by owning the most efficient means of protection is not pathetic or cowardly, but rationally intent on keeping her life (not allowing herself to be murdered), liberty (not allowing herself to be raped or prevented from coming and going as she sees fit), and property (not allowing thieves to take her things). The same for a man.

Expecting a 911 call to protect you isn't brave. Considering the number of examples of victims whose call to 911 didn't save them, why would you try to shame people into being that stupid?

No one has any obligation to give up anything which is theirs to murderers, rapists, and thieves. Furthermore, one is not obligated to rely on one's body, foregoing the use of efficient tools (guns, door locks, guard dogs) because some simpleton might consider that "pathetic" or cowardly.

Energy Policy Election Expectations

2009-05-08T09:52:00.003-05:00

My comment in response to a QandO article on Energy Policy:

arch: I predict that cap and trade, if passed by this pack of thieves, will result in a political backlash that will reverse the majority in the House in 2010. The narrative that only the rich will pay more taxes will collapse when people realize that cap & trade is a tax on everyone and everything.

My money is on the Democrats' ability to successfully persuade a sufficient percentage of voters to blame the inevitable economic disaster on Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big GOP. Sub-prime mortgages, Social Security and Medicare are Democrat constructions, but how many voters blame them?

Even if Democrats miscalculate their moves on this, why would you expect the voters who lined up to vote for an Obama nation, to see gutless, unprincipled Republicans as a fix?

Huge Waste of Time and Expense to Recover $8,500 Stolen by Police

2009-05-07T08:20:00.007-05:00

CNN reports that it only took 18 months and a lawsuit to get Tenaha, TX police to return $8,500 they stole from Roderick Daniels of Tennessee in October, 2007.

"I just feel blessed," Daniels said. "I am happy everything is going good right now. ... I just want to celebrate."

I'm happy that Mr. Daniels got his money, but just how blessed can he be to be deprived of his money for 18 months, and to have to give up his time and expense to pursue a lawsuit 800 miles from his home? If the civilians did this, they would be charged with armed robbery, extortion, and if Daniels refused, with kidnapping.

It gets worse. In a previous article, CNN reports:

Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson said they agreed to forfeit their property after Russell threatened to have their children taken away.

Not only did the thugs with badges steal these people's money, they actually threatened to kidnap their children. Again, if a civilian did the same thing, he'd likely be facing life in prison. The fact that they are not held accountable, like we are, makes civilians de facto second-class subjects. Instead of being expected to follow the same laws we do, these thugs and their masters try to justify their looting as a tool to fight drugs. Even worse, the mayor doesn't even make that excuse. According to pistolero:

Kevin's post yesterday reminded me of this story that I saw a few weeks back in the Houston Chronicle...
...
Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. "It's always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force," Bowers said.
Now, you'll note that neither Mr. Bowers nor any of his colleagues had any comment on whether innocent people were in effect having their possessions stolen from them; in fact, he seems to be saying that the ends justify the means. Any kind of income, eh, even stolen goods and cash, apparently. I wonder what the Founding Fathers would say, or what they would do. Something tells me it would involve tar and feathers, or perhaps even a rope and the tallest tree in the county...

Bye Allison

2009-05-07T01:06:00.001-05:00

Cry Baby the best swan song I've ever seen from a contestant. Good show, Allison. You'll go far.

Good Violence

2009-05-06T17:34:00.006-05:00

An armed college student killed a would-be murderer and rapist and chased away the bad guy's partner. Anyone who would prohibit the good guys from carrying an effective use of self defense would rather have the 11 good people raped and murdered, in the foolish belief that the two bad guys who were willing to commit mass murder would somehow have been afraid to break the gun prohibition law.

This is a case where there was a good use of deadly violence. The violence was in reaction to an attack. The violence saved the lives of 11 innocent people.

Contrast that with the bad use of violence that the invaders were threatening to do on these people. That violence was aggressive, an initiation of force.

Why can't gun control fascists discriminate between good and bad uses of violence? Why do they want people to be unthinking drones, incapable of using their minds to tell the difference?

(via Balko)

Plane Dumber

2009-05-06T17:21:00.003-05:00

I'll have to rethink what I said about the Manhattan Air Force One photo op. Looks like they're flip-flopping.

If Republicans were smart....

Nevermind.

Idol Top Four

2009-05-05T19:34:00.001-05:00

Adam Lambert kicked ass. Whole Lotta Love is his best performance to date. I appreciated the absence of Broadway-type gimmickry and the lack of any need to force his vocal wailings into a weak song. This song demanded it.

Allison Iraheta gave a solid performance doing Joplin.

Their duet was definitely the better of the night. They filled out the singers' roles like pros. I think they'll be the top two.

Danny Gokey crashed and burned on the final notes. The song has some good parts, but the chorus is annoyingly repetitive (not as bad as Levon). He should have done something else.

Kris Allen gave one of his best performances with Come Together. Danny is more talented and has been consistently good (except tonight), so I'm hoping he'll fare better in the votes. But the group is small and the competition tight, so I also think Kris could beat him out for third.

Plane Dumb

2009-05-05T12:21:00.007-05:00

Obama announced his staff would not release "the $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week."

The administration would like to toss the whole episode down the memory hole. Even if they chafe at being denied access to the pictures, the MSM will no doubt help to ~~fellatiate~~ facilitate Obama's attempted amnesia.

Given that there are already videos of the plane buzzing around, can you imagine if the photographs taken from the chase plane turned out to be crappy, or just mediocre? Most Americans have a short attention span for political news, but pictures are harder to forget. The more pictures, the longer people remember. Clearly, this decision to prohibit access to the images are all about protecting Obama's image.

Their audacity in spending $328,835 to take a photograph was bad enough. But tossing the overpriced pictures in the garbage is much worse.

(Yeah, I know one can obviously offer up the usual hypothetical of how the MSM, et al. would react to Bush doing the same thing. If anyone isn't convinced by the last 500 hypotheticals, one more won't matter. Willful ignorance is impervious to evidence and reason.)

Persuasion is Unnecessary

2009-05-04T13:51:00.015-05:00

In a recent comment debate, I've been chastised for alienating others, thus limiting my ability to persuade them to act for political common ground. That doesn't matter to me, and here's why: I do not write those comments or this blog primarily to persuade or convince others.

I do it for me.

It's not that I can't take criticism. For most of my life, I haven't been nearly as close to perfect as I am now, so I've had to eat my share of humble pie when people convince me (or I independently figure out) that I'm wrong. Most of my critics need no encouragement. So, if you have a substantive objection to something I write, don't hold back.

Just know that if you object on the grounds that I'm ruining the chance to make political converts, you're wasting your time. Whether I'm right or wrong has nothing to do with how many people agree with me. I outright reject using any measure of popularity to settle a matter of truth or moral probity, whether it's polls, votes, consensus ("sustainability NOW!"), or common wisdom. If I must be more genteel and diplomatic to convince you of the truth, if you would like me to be more moderate, and less "extreme," to avoid being marginalized, you might as well save yourself the trouble and close this window without delay. Nobody is forcing you to read this.

Before I get back to the debate over religion and torture, I'm going to relate a bit of background to my position. Anyone familiar with Billy Beck (cited above for his substantive exposition on the use of the word "extremist") will no doubt recognize a significant number of his arguments and phrases in what I write, including his attitude towards consensus, politeness, and persuasion. I could spend years cataloging the number of incidents in which someone attempted to disregard his argument, not for its merits, but because they regarded him as a foul-mouthed, arrogant jerk. Bearing in mind that he focuses his ire at selected targets (regardless of whether his critics understand why), he is unrepentant in eschewing such niceties. Read the comments for this article and search for his name. Here's a sample:

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen, but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch - and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence - humble as it is - is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years - not perniciously, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right."
(William Lloyd Garrison, "An Immediate End To Slavery", editorial in The Liberator, January 1, 1831, emphases original)

Word.

"This ain’t no disco."

I added quite a few comments there, too. Search for those, too. For example:

But what keeps a predator from just pretending not to be persuaded? What about an idiot who lacks the mental capacity to grasp the reasoning? What then?

Billy Beck and Radley Balko are goldmines to me, for different reasons. Balko is an invaluable source of frequent articles highlighting corruption and injustice. His efforts have influenced criminal trials and played no small part in Steven Hayne being fired. But Balko still balks at being smug or "extreme." Also, I felt that during the last campaign he too often focused his criticisms against Republicans, ignoring the horrible consequences to freedom inevitable under Democrats. He spiked a few of my comments and then posted this defense, which I took to be in no small part a reaction to my criticisms. I realize that during an election campaign, people cast a jaundiced eye at their critics, often assuming that the motivation is to influence the election outcome (which is pretty funny considering the fact that I don't vote). But to his credit, he has started to see the consequences of the election outcome. He generally focuses on civil liberties, but perhaps he'll find good reasons to object to a new class of government abuses once the filibuster-proof Democrats start passing laws and regulations. When they ram through carbon cap and trade systems, increased gun control, and universal health care, that will trigger waves of citations, shutdowns, and takings, along with the inevitable arrests and prison sentences for people who resist these additional restrictions on their freedom. (Dare I dream that he might even realize that a McCain administration would likely have made most of the same positive changes, with much fewer negative ones, considering The Maverick's voting record?) I know Beck will be on top of things, as he has been since the Clinton years, without apology for his brusque tone.

Back to the article on religion and torture, which triggered me to write this:

#27 ClubMedSux: ...if you want others to support your beliefs then alienating them is probably a poor strategy for winning their support.

#28 Dan: ...your rhetoric makes it much more difficult for us to work together for the things we do agree on, like the liberty movement. The libertarian and constitutional movements, energized by Ron Paul, will achieve little if we are not able to come together where we can.

Since I choose not to vote, I don't care about movements or political parties. (As much as I enjoyed watching Ron Paul make the other candidates look ridiculous by comparison, he isn't consistently on the side of freedom, either.) So if I have to give respect (in special cases) to anti-evidence, anti-logic, and anti-reason (i.e., faith), so that the people exhibiting such anti-thought don't switch sides against freedom, I have to question their commitment to principles. Democracy aside, why should I value having fair-weather allies? Such support seems arbitrary and capricious, not something on which to rely.

Idol

2009-04-29T03:52:00.003-05:00

Danny Gokey outdid everyone else in style and substance. The way he powered through the ending was impressive. Adam Lambert sang like a musical maniac, but more Broadway than American Idol, as Randy put it. The other three lagged well behind.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

2009-04-27T03:56:00.005-05:00

Spoilers below.

My son picked up The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) the other day. When I was younger, I watched the original from 1951. I don't recall thinking much of its message of moral relativism (making no ethical distinctions between the aggressive use of violence versus defensive). I just saw it as an example of a science fiction movie from that era, overshadowed by the uncertainty of the Cold War.

Having seen some reviews, I knew the new movie would have an environmental spin, rather than anti-war. Still, I gave it half a chance. Partly, I wanted to see how it compared to the original, and see if it had any notable special effects. The effects were underwhelming. The CGI of the destruction cloud was the low-quality "crumbly" type, for example.

As a skeptic of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hysteria, I expected the theme to be over-the-top hammer-you-on-the-head pontification. I got exactly what I expected. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) even used the phrase "tipping point," so common among the most hysterical AGW chicken littles. The only thing missing was a shot of Henry Waxman aboard an orbiting spaceship, directing everything.

The anti-human hostility of films like War of the Worlds and Independence Day isn't driven by a moral cause. Rather, it's simply a matter of conquest by outsiders. If anything, such films often poke fun of the naive pacifists. But the anti-humanity of this film is one of moral judgment, taken to psychopathic extremes. As the CGI locusts go about destroying human civilization, I can't help but wonder at the hatred for progress and industry expressed by the writers and producers of this film. In the end, Klaatu relents and calls off the swarms, but only after destroying the ability of everything electrical to function. But the movie ends there, without showing planes fall from the sky, infants in PICU beds dying, massive starvation, death on the order of billions as crops rot in fields, or any of the other obvious consequences.

The childishness of such a massive destruction of human success and ingenuity, without addressing the real-life consequences, doesn't quite sink to the level of absurdity present in The Day After Tomorrow, in which tens of thousands of years of climate change are compressed into a couple days, for dramatic effect. But that isn't saying much.

Green is the New Red

2009-04-23T05:10:00.005-05:00

Back in 2000 I looked up the platform for the Green Party and forwarded it to a colleague, in response to his offhand remark praising Ralph Nader's principles. From reading articles about the party, I knew they were more socialist than the Democrats, but I didn't realize how hard core they were until I read that platform. Yes, I know that party platforms are often just a token formality, not to be taken too seriously. But the political activity touted as pro-environment has been quite hostile to free markets and individual rights. If you had written fiction 20 years ago describing how the AGW crowd would behave, critics would have panned your writing for being ridiculously unrealistic.

I'm not sure when the phrase "Green is the New Red" occurred to me, but I know it was years ago and I had never heard anyone else use it. Had I thought of it before these moonbats, I might have reserved the domain or suggested to Warren or Anthony to use it.

I still like Richard's pithy summation from last year.

Idol

2009-04-21T23:31:00.000-05:00

<rant>Were I a producer of American Idol, I would ban Randy from stupidly booing Simon at the start of every show. I would also ban contestants from responding to criticism by saying they "had a lot of fun." Most importantly, I'd eliminate any contestant who held out their fingers as Ryan gave the number to call for them, as though viewers were too stupid to read the screen.</rant>

Danny Gokey did the best tonight, and I think he has the most commercial potential. Adam Lambert always has fantastic vocal abilities, but his performances seem a bit too formulaic to me each week (soft, emotive voice to open, then a crescendo of wild riffs). I doubt his commercial appeal will be as broad as Danny's. Allison Iraheta and Kris Allen were very good, as usual. The other three paled in comparison to everyone else.

More on Unintended Consequences

2009-04-21T20:42:00.004-05:00

As usual, Billy Beck hits the nail squarely on the head. I wish I had that cite from Gibbons when I wrote about repurposed drug warriors.

Or even this one:

In February, 1917, all political prisons, both those used for interrogation and those in which sentences were served, and all hard-labor prisons as well were emptied. It is a wonder that all the jailers managed to get through the year. ... (But from 1918 on, things began to get much better for them, and at Shpalernaya Prison they were still serving the new regime even in 1928, and why not!) ... (This was one particular part of the machinery of state that did not have to be destroyed and rebuilt from its foundations.)

(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, p. 459, 1973.)

The Anti-System

2009-04-21T17:28:00.004-05:00

Warren Meyer of Coyote Blog writes:

I have heard it said that capitalism is not a system, it is the anti-system. This is the true beauty of capitalism — it is the only way for human beings to interact with each other without compulsion. Every other approach to organizing society involves some group of people using physical force to coerce other people.

(Go read the whole thing.)

I couldn't begin to count the number of times in online discussions I have been challenged to come up with a "better system" when I have made ethical objections to government interference in the economy. But that challenge presupposes a system, wherein "some group of people [use] physical force to coerce other people." By accepting this premise, that the free market is a system to rule others by force, you unnecessarily cede the most important quality of your argument.

Once you give that up, the accusations start flying that you want oppressive monopolies and tainted food. And, if you want this, then you're not for freedom, but are secretly for a form of fascism, controlled by corporate fat cats.

Warren's observation that capitalism (free market) is the "anti-system" is right on point. If you're not imposing a system on others, then you (and those who don't fight against freedom), don't have the control necessary to maintain monopolies or to stop people from boycotting stores that sell tainted food. People like choices. They don't like risking their health buying food from a someone with a bad reputation. Why would giving them the freedom to make their own choices result in large numbers of bad choices?

Also embedded in the "better system" challenge is the ambiguity of "better." Better for whom? In a command economy, one can always find those who are better off (at the expense of others). But each individual gets to decide what is better for himself or herself, and in a free society, that individual gets to make choices for the better.

The New "Evil-Doers" Are Capitalists

2009-04-20T18:12:00.004-05:00

Balko cites Janet Napolitano on immigration:

What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor…

If someone wants to come here to do honest work, they aren't hurting anyone. Furthermore, the people who employ them are doing nothing wrong either. Their arrangement is their business, no one else's.

It's no surprise that this Obama hack is once again digging for any excuse to target their political enemies. (Still no word on whether those who mocked Bush's use of the term "evil-doers" will say anything about one of their own doing likewise.)

Plenty of politicians use illegal immigrants as a scapegoat. Typically, Republicans are caricatured as being intolerant of "brown people" and thus driven to overzealous attacks on illegal immigration. But Democrats, anti-free-market commentators, and even libertarian-leaning politicians and commentators regrettably fail to stand up for freedom on this issue.

I understand the complaints about "freeloaders" who come here to take advantage of welfare. The solution isn't to deny people the freedom to move from one place to another, but to end welfare, which is an infringement on the taxpayers to decide how to spend what they earn. Why deny freedom on one end in reaction to freedom being denied on the other? That's the worst of both worlds.

For example, Ron Paul is concerned with children born in the US whose parents are illegal immigrants getting "full rights" as citizens, despite all his reverence for the principles of the American Revolution. Whatever he calls "rights" which he wants to deny these children aren't actually rights, but privileges doled out by government. Actual rights have no borders, and depend on no constitution.

The more reasonable concern is security, though this is but an artifact of the myriad of actions behind the establishment of governments and their claims of sovereignty.

Smug Atheists Getting De-baptised

2009-04-20T02:09:00.008-05:00

Radley Balko links to a story about "De-Baptism Certificates."

...it strikes me as another example of smug atheists trying way too hard to assert their nonbelief.

But if you read the TIME article as well as the certificate itself, the explicit intent of the NSS is to make the church's census count of church members more accurate, in part to limit their proportion of political sway. That doesn't strike me as "smug" or trying "way too hard," but rather a defense against dishonest political tricks.

I left comments here, here, here, and here. The most salient argument I made concerns the importance of baptism to the the believer and non-believer.

UCrawford: …and it’s more likely to just polarize religious opinion against atheists because they’ll see it as us profaning their rituals…which it kind of is.

... But look at the ritual of baptism. Why do it? Because you fear that if you don’t engage in this strange rite, you will actually burn forever, even after you die!! And, you teach children that this is so, cruelly instilling fear in them. (Your friend who died in the car accident was only five years old, but since he wasn’t baptized, he is now being cooked and will be forever! Not only will little Jimmy not be able to play with you, he is right now screaming in agony! But God loves you.) Do you really, really think that such a ritual needs to be ridiculed to be any more profane?

Addendum:

I'm an American and I wasn't raised in any church. I voluntarily was baptized on my 18th birthday, so the particulars of these certificates don't apply to me. Even if they did, I wouldn't do it even if it were free, for the same reason I don't vote: I reject the underlying premise that our rights are subject to the outcome of polls or censuses. If 99% of the population joined a church, that still wouldn't give them the authority over the lives of the other 1%.

Unintended Consequences of Legalizing Drugs

2009-03-28T16:52:00.017-05:00

Discussions of drug legalization or drug decriminalization have been appearing more frequently in the "mainstream media." There have even been a few glimmers of hope that the federal raids on California medical marijuana establishments would abate, but I doubt this portends any sea change in the War on Drugs. Most of these recent noises are in reaction to events in Mexico and Afghanistan. Yes, more people are realizing that allowing legal markets for drugs will reduce most of the violence and other problems which are the natural result of "black markets." But most advocates of legalization suggest taxing and controlling the market. Going by the government's track record on other legalized "vices," drugs will be no different. But it occurred to me that there is a more ominous possible consequence.

If the war is called off, what happens to the warriors and their weapons? What happens to the extra prison space?

Should we expect these people, who have grown used to having great power, with scant accountability, to hang up their jack boots and find other work?

I honestly can't predict how they will be used, in this world where satire has become impossible. As ridiculous as it seems to us now, could their new purpose be a War on Global Warming, a War on Sharing, A War on Fat, or a War on Guns?

The Drug Warriors are already quite used to sending in SWAT teams, terrorizing people, and killing pets for non-violent crimes, typically with no remorse for collateral casualties or getting the wrong house entirely. They're used to using dubious snitches, economic deprivations which skirt due process, and prosecutorial overzealousness. When they've already lost any respect for the rights and privacy of civilians, why would any of these new "wars" be any less authoritarian and tragic?

Land of the Free (1776-2008)

2008-10-28T13:01:00.006-05:00

I made this picture just after Bush signed the Failure Reward Act. When even a Republican president and a congress with a relatively small Democrat majority could so easily steal nearly a trillion dollars in just a matter of days, it's time to call it. This isn't about Obama's impending election victory, either. McCain voted the same.

Election Horror

2007-06-10T18:11:00.005-05:00

So much to say these days. Barack, Hillary, et al. are duking it out to see who can promise the most "free" stuff to voters. And, with all the socialism dripping from their every word, they are still awful damned close to being "mainstream" in this, the land of the free.

Then there are the Republicans, who are spineless at best, trying to tap-dance around the abortion issue, immigration, Iraq, etc.. Ron Paul is the only one making any sense (as much as a rotten, no good politician can), but he is widely dismissed for his radical views.

I'll be sitting out this election, like the last one—on principle. Still, it's hard to detach myself as the horror unfolds, and the masses clamor more loudly for these assholes to take control of their lives—or rather, to stick it to the others they don't like. How dare they be rich, immigrants, insufficiently pious! It's like a hurricane of outrageous lies and absurd demands, bearing down upon every last inhabitant. And, those of us who take notice of little things like freedom can only cringe, knowing that words like “mandate” and “will of the people”—all false—will be spoken in stern voices as our freedom crumbles away.

It's easier to be ~~numb to it all~~ (Update:archived).

This water belongs to you, except when we need it...

2003-07-18T01:57:00.002-05:00

From The Payson Roundup: The U.S. Forest service took water from Fred Conway's privately owned ranch to fight forest fires. They never compensated him, even after he sent them a bill. When they came back, he fired a shotgun at the collection bucket.

[Jinx Pyle said,] "The Forest Service basically closed their permit and told them to take their cattle off, so they've got all their cattle on private land now and they use that water to irrigate as well as for drinking water. There's only so much water, so when the Forest Service comes along and starts dipping water it hurts their carrying capacity.

"When they did that last year, Freddy sent them a bill and they didn't pay it. So he told them, ‘No more,' and I guess he meant it."

Link via: Improved Clinch

Dangerous Lobster Ranchers

2003-07-18T01:11:00.001-05:00

The Sierra Times provides this story about Bob Eddy, an entrepreneur who raised Australian lobsters to sell to people traveling between Las Vegas and Reno. He ran afoul of the law, since he sold this prohibited species live to people who didn't have permits, i.e. people with a boiling pot of water and a bowl of butter waiting.

The Nevada Division of Wildlife boys roared in this Thursday -- 10 armed game wardens, two of the plainclothes guys in black shoes and black sunglasses from the "Nevada Division of Investigation," assigned to take care of any troublesome neighbors, and two state biologists assigned to kill, seize and destroy all of Bob Eddy's crayfish.

Why?

For violation of his state lobster ranching permit, duh.

Link via: American Liberty.

Weekly Criminal

2003-07-17T12:51:00.002-05:00

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car.
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better, vanished time.
I fire up the willing engine,
Responding with a roar.
Tires spitting gravel,
I commit my weekly crime.

—Rush, Red Barchetta

The song Red Barchetta is set in the future, when internal combustion engines have been outlawed. The narrator sneaks away each week to drive his uncle's beautiful sportscar through the countryside. He is doing what you probably do all the time: driving a car. And yet, he is a criminal. Every Sunday he commits his weekly crime. As governments increasingly control our lives with new laws and regulations, more and more decent people are made criminal just for trying to live their lives.

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. … —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged