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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, January 25, 2003
Defend Yourself: Go to Jail This is another incident from New York State, in which a man engaged in what was apparently a lawful defensive use of a gun--and is in jail, because the gun wasn't registered. Every time the gun controllers say that they want licensing of guns to keep them away from criminals, I find myself looking at cases like this, and saying, "So why is the guy who engaged in a lawful defensive use in jail?" Friday, January 24, 2003
That Rolling Stone Article Yes, I aware that some of those quoted in the article are now saying that they were misquoted, or the quote is just false. This raises an interesting question. Which of the following is more likely? 1. That people who make their living in the AIDS treatment industry, whose careers might well be impaired if not ended if enough pressure were applied, and are in daily contact with people with AIDS, have been pressured into claiming that they were misquoted? 2. That a reporter who works for Rolling Stone, a magazine published by an openly gay man, decided to make up quotes for an article that would be profoundly useful for those who are hostile to homosexuality? Perhaps the reporter wanted to get himself fired? You tell me which you think is the more likely possibility. Yes, Andrew Sullivan has ripped the reporter a new orifice over this article, but you may recall that Sullivan (who is HIV+) came in for some criticism for his time spent searching for sexual partners willing to skip the appropriate pieces of latex. (And there are more discussions of this here, and here. Search for "Andrew Sullivan" barebacking, and you will have more sites to visit than you can shake a stick at.) Can anyone imagine a reason why Sullivan might have an interest in distracting attention away from a very, very dangerous activity: unsafe sex by HIV+? A Google search for barebacking returned the insignificant number of about 23,600 sites; searching with dejanews found 3,090 references in news group, almost all before the Rolling Stone article came out (and a very few, apparently involving horses in the original, non-disgusting use of the term). Hey, maybe it is all or mostly fantasy. Right now, I see no reason to disbelieve the Rolling Stone article. It's not like the magazine is exactly pandering to Focus on the Family members. More Evidence of Global Warming! Right here. Yes, yes, I know, extremes of weather can also be an indicator of global warming--but considering how newspapers use record highs to prove the environmentalist/socialist agenda, I guess it's equally fair to use records lows to prove the opposite. Labels: global warming There's Hope for Berkeley Yet! See this description of what happened when a student signed up for a class titled "Political Science 137B: Marxism and Fascism in the Far East." I am amazed that this professor hasn't been publicly tarred and feathered by the students--or even the rest of the faculty. (Thanks to instapundit.com for the pointer.) Thursday, January 23, 2003
That Rolling Stone Article About "Bug Chasers" It's finally out, and it's powerful, and frightening. I'm giving you some excerpts here, but I strongly encourage you to go and read the whole article. It is shocking, and I hope that it makes people wake and realize that there is something desperately, desperately wrong that a whole subculture has formed seeking to become infected with a disease that turns life into a living hell: Carlos nonchalantly asks whether his drink was made with whole or skim milk. He takes a moment to slurp on his grande Caffe Mocha in a crowded Starbucks, and then he gets back to explaining how much he wants HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. His eyes light up as he says that the actual moment of transmission, the instant he gets HIV, will be "the most erotic thing I can imagine." He seems like a typical thirty-two-year-old man, but, in fact, he has a secret life. Carlos is chasing the bug.The article quotes a young man named Hitzel who went through a stage where he actively sought to become infected, but now realizes it was a terrible, terrible mistake: Hitzel's experience started when he moved from his home in Nebraska to San Francisco with his boyfriend. When that relationship broke up, Hitzel was at the lowest point in his life, and alone. He sought relief in drugs and sex, as much of each as he could get. At first, he started out just not caring whether he got HIV or not, then he found the bug-chasing underground and embraced it. He was sure he'd get HIV soon anyway. He thought he would always feel exactly like he did then; he was certain that ten, twenty, thirty years later he'd still be partying every night. It lasted only six months -- then Hitzel got sick with awful flulike symptoms and lost a lot of weight. A doctor's visit cleared him of hepatitis and other possible problems, but the clinic sent him home with an HIV test he could do himself. Hitzel waited before doing the test and decided to go home to Nebraska, to give up the bug chasing and the rest of the life that was killing him. Once he got home, he did the test and found out he was positive. He now wakes up each day with a terrible frustration that's just below the surface of his once sunny demeanor. He hates the medication he has to take every day, and he realizes that HIV affects nearly every part of his life. While he was bug chasing, Hitzel couldn't imagine ever wanting to be in a relationship again. But now that he's getting his life back in order, he realizes that being HIV-positive can be a roadblock to new relationships.This is somewhat equivalent to someone who starts smoking today--with two differences: 1. Not every smoker will end up desperately sick. Every HIV+ will end up very ill, and stay that way for years. 2. Most smokers with cancer, lung-related ailments, or heart disease, while they cause enormous expense to their private insurance company, are not a major expense to the taxpayers. These young men who are choosing to become infected will overwhelmingly be an expense to the taxpayers. Labels: homosexuality, STDs Second Annoying Reminder & Ad I will be keynote speaker at CounterAttack, a grassroots gun rights activist conference in Dallas February 8-9. If you haven't already made reservations, it's not too late! I will also be leading a workshop on issues of race, gun control, and how activists can deal with these issues. You think you know everything there is know about the Bellesiles scandal? My keynote address will be a history of the scandal--not all the details of where Arming America is fraudulent, but the whole, somewhat amazing story of how the fraud was discovered and exposed. Besides, you get to meet me as something other than a disembodied collection of electrons. The difficulties that the travel industry are having at the moment means that there are some real bargains on airfare and hotel acommodations still available for this event. My friend Jim March, who played a major part in sending the Millionth Mom March into financial disaster by requiring San Francisco government to stop subsidizing it, will also be there to speak. Jerry Springer Mulls Run For U.S. Senate And you thought things were vulgar and disgusting with Bill "Frat Boy" Clinton in the Oval Office! Imagine Jerry Springer on the floor of the Senate. This is a guy with absolutely no notion of appropriate limits on what to put on television--as long as pandering to the masses makes him money. I'm imaging Springer on the Judiciary Committee interviewing a candidate for the federal bench. "So, Judge Johnson, have you ever slept with your mother? Your sister? Livestock? Do you mind if we bring some of them into the hearing to tell us their side of this?" See the story here. If Pigs Had Wings... The Salt Lake Tribune carries a story from the Los Angeles Times (of course) about the claim that making concealed weapon permits more available increases crime. Stanford law professor John Donohue is quoted: In short, he doesn't sound like he knows with any certainty whether these law reduce or increase crime, or maybe do nothing at all. It gets better: Donohue said right-to-carry laws may deter violent crimes, such as murder or robbery, in some situations, while encouraging them in others. For example, he said, an attacker may wrest control of a handgun away from his victim.Does he have even a single example of such an incident involving a concealed weapon permit holder being disarmed by an attacker? Police officers are frequently disarmed by people that they are arresting, because they have to get very close to pat them down and put on the handcuffs. Civilians are in an entirely different situation. I have never read of a concealed weapon permit holder being disarmed by an attacker. Perhaps it has happened somewhere--and perhaps, somewhere, there are flying pigs--but not enough to make me wear protective headgear against pig droppings! Also, otherwise law-abiding citizens may become "emboldened to do bad things, some of them violent" in the heat of the moment, Donohue said.I am aware of three concealed weapon permit holders that have committed murder with a gun, and only two were in states that had made this change to the law--and we are talking about a period approaching 15 years in Florida, and more than 10 years in most of the other states. One was in Florida, where the killer was about to lose his carry permit--because the state law was changing, so that prior sealed felony convictions would no longer be sealed. He invited his ex-wife to meet him at a restaurant, where he killed her, and committed suicide. It is hard to believe that without a carry permit, that this guy would not have committed this crime. UPDATE: For those who have read the Violence Policy Center's License to Kill IV: More Guns, More Crime: it is very interesting to read newspaper accounts of some of their examples of carry permit holders committing crimes. Shall we say that the stories get more interesting, and more ambiguous. For example, their version is: On October 21, 2000, cab driver and concealed handgun license holder Wayne Franklin Lambert, Jr. was driving home two passengers, Lance Hughes and Kevin MacDonald. During the drive, Lambert pulled over and at some point shot both passengers with his stainless steel Para-Ordance 45 caliber pistol. Hughes, shot three times in the back, died at the scene, while MacDonald died in surgery hours later. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Lambert told one passerby at the scene that the two men had tried to rob him, he then told two other passersby that the two men had tried to jump him, and he told a cab driver who later appeared at the scene that the two men had tried to flee his cab without paying the fare. At a press conference six weeks after his arrest, Lambert told reporters that he shot the “rich kids” in self-defense, that they were drunk, possibly drugged, attackers. According to the Austin American-Statesman, before he went into surgery, MacDonald stated that although Lambert and Hughes had argued, Hughes didn’t try and hit Lambert. MacDonald claimed that Lambert was offended by something they had said, challenged them to a fight, and threatened to call the police to accuse the two passengers of trying to rob him. On April 9, 2001, Lambert died in jail while awaiting trial.But when you read newspaper accounts, you get a much murkier version, including this newspaper report that, Taxi driver Wayne Franklin Lambert Jr., 53, who had a gash over his left eye that required 18 stitches, told police he acted in self-defense. But he also gave differing accounts to witnesses as they happened upon the scene: They tried to rob him; they tried to run out on his fare; they jumped him.Somehow, a gash requiring 18 stitches, while not enough to prove Lambert's version of the story, doesn't quite fit with MacDonald's claim that "Hughes didn't try and hit Lambert." There were a lot of inconsistencies in Lambert's story, and he changed that story several times, which is doubtless while he was charged. (It didn't help any that one of the dead men was shot in the back three times.) Was Lambert a victim who defended himself, or a hot-headed drunk (he was drunk at the time) who lost his temper and murdered two people? I don't know. I can see, from the news accounts, some evidence on both sides of this, which will never be resolved, because Lambert died before going to trial. Ann Coulter Manages To Write a Column That Is Accurate, Funny, and Not Particularly Nasty... I knew that she could do it! There are some wonderful lines in it, in which she points out that the Supreme Court is supposed to be deciding the constitutionality of a law, (This isn't a permalink yet) not whether it makes everyone happy or not: Even the wackiest Supreme Court rulings always make a big show of pretending to consult the Constitution before announcing, for example, that Christmas displays must have a particular ratio of reindeer to virgins. I don't know whom the Supreme Court thought it was fooling, but Americans were not fooled. The Growing Constitution has grown into a collection of primal urges, devoid of law. People believe their wild irrational appetites should find expression in Supreme Court opinions. Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Gun Licensing Is Only To Catch Criminals... See this article from the New York Daily News, then, about a prosecution of a recent arrival in New York City who shot a career criminal who had broken into his home: Ronald Dixon froze in fear when he saw an intruder enter his toddler son's bedroom, and his heart pounded wildly after he fired two shots in a confrontation with the stranger. Later, upset that he might have taken a life, Dixon shook as the wounded man lay in his driveway.And so why is the District Attorney prosecuting Dixon for shooting a guy who forced entry and had a 14 page rap sheet? District Attorney Charles Hynes is in the difficult position of prosecuting a hardworking, law-abiding Navy veteran for defending his family and home.Make no mistake about it: gun licensing isn't to catch the criminals. It's to catch their victims. Thanks to Rachel Lucas for the pointer. Why Planting a Bomb in The Capitol Isn't Terrorism More evidence that competence with English and logic are no longer required to be a professor: Laura Whitehorn never thought her invitation to speak at an African and African American Studies graduate seminar would attract a second glance.It's nice to know that Ms. Whitehorn is such a master of the bomb making arts that she knows when the bomb is going to go off, and such a master of mind reading that she knows when the janitors will have all left the building. Let's see, planting a bomb in a public building, where people go to visit, is the "opposite of terrorism." And I love how she defines planting a bomb in a building as "encourag[ing] the government...." I guess armed robbery qualifies as "encouraging charity" as well. McDonald's Obesity Suit Dismissed From Associated Press: NEW YORK –– A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of New York children that claimed McDonald's food caused them to suffer health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.This is the sort of lawsuit that deserves sanctions against the attorney who brought it for filing a frivolous lawsuit. This is also why, as much as I agree in theory that trial lawyers do a lot of good, they do so much bad that I will almost always be on the opposite side from them in any dispute. This is the sort of dishonest, manipulative, greedy behavior that leads to the sign one business here in Boise has up. It says, "99% of lawyers ruin the reputation of the rest." No Comment Necessary From Drudge Report: XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE JAN 21, 2003 17:59:25 ET XXXXX Labels: homosexuality, STDs Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Human Shields & The Gene Pool This story is about how hundreds, perhaps thousands of committed leftists and pacifists from around the world--though so far, mostly from the West--are headed to Iraq to act as human shields: A first wave of mainly Western volunteers will leave London this weekend on a convoy bound for Iraq to act as "human shields" at key sites and populous areas in case of a U.S.-led war on Baghdad.I am somewhat amused that Ken Nichols thinks the Iraqis aren't white--otherwise why throw that in? If there is anything that the focus on precision munitions has demonstrated, it is that the U.S. is very concerned with reducing the number of Iraqi body parts that have been to thrown around. If there is a genetic predisposition to gullibility, or to defending a government that regularly tortures people to death, cuts out tongues, gouges out eyes, drills through hands, and issues identity cards that list a government employee's job title as, "violator of women's honor," this should make some progress towards removing this from the gene pool. Better Yields With Bonds I just bought some Capital One bonds due in July of 2004, with an annualized yield of 5.24%. For those of you who are not thrilled with the lousy returns from your money market funds, consider buying investment grade bonds with fairly short maturities. You will have to go to the lower reaches of the investment grade ratings, but even Moody's Baa3 rated bonds have pretty respectable one year default rates (2.5% for the period 1983-99)--and even defaulted bonds, on average, eventually return most of their face value. Still, you don't want to invest too much in any single bond, especially at the low end of the investment grade ratings. One advantage of these short-term bonds is that when interest rates start to run up again, these short-term bonds don't lose much capital value, because you can always just hold them to maturity. I have some confidence that after Gulf War II completes, Iraq will again be a major exporter of oil, and the new government, call it puppet if you want--will probably be quite interested in both selling a lot of oil to pay for repair to their Hussein-ruined country, and to help out the U.S. by driving the price of oil down a bit, thus driving up our economy. Why Did Scott Ritter Become a Defender of Saddam Hussein? This news story certainly makes me wonder if Hussein has some embarrassing pictures that might explain the dramatic change in the last few years: Colonie -- The Internet sex case that led to the arrest of a former U.N. weapons inspector was not his first involvement with police on that type of crime, a person familiar with the case said Monday.Hmmm. Depraved, and a slow learner, too. You would have thought the first arrest would have caused him to wonder if this strategy for finding little girls was wise. A Little Late To Be Reporting This As News... But quite an interesting page about a memorial for 9/11 in Sandy, Utah. Lots of pictures. The Lott (John Lott) Controversy Has Been Resolved The 1997 survey on defensive gun use that some people have been saying was a fraud, and never took place? The matter has been resolved. Someone (an attorney) came forward who was surveyed in the right period of time, with the right sort of questions. Professor James Lindgren, who had clearly become very skeptical of Dr. Lott's claims that the survey did happen, and a hard disk crash destroyed all his data, has interviewed the attorney who was surveyed, and Professor Lindgren finds him credible. Best of all, even Tim Lambert, a gun control advocate who has been Dr. Lott's chief inquisitor on this matter, seems to have accepted the validity of this evidence. I've seen the email on this from the attorney in question--a former assistant district attorney who was fired for defending himself from a criminal attack using a gun. (No charges were filed; his employer, I guess, figured it was better for him to be dead than alive.) I am very happy to hear that this is resolved; Dr. Lott and I have been talking almost nightly about this matter for the last week, and I doubt that it has been good for his blood pressure. Monday, January 20, 2003
Senator Daschle's Skeletons in the Closet It's always useful to see corporate welfare promoters embarrassed by the left, such as this article about Senator Daschle from LA Weekly, explaining why he chose not to run for President: Right after then-Congressman Tom Daschle dumped his first wife for a younger, prettier one, the former Miss Kansas Linda Daschle went to work as chief lobbyist for the Air Transport Association, the airline industry’s main lobby; she then became the senior vice president of the American Association of Airport Executives; and these days hangs her hat at the pricey top Washington law/lobby shop Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, headed by former GOP Senate leader and ex–Reagan chief of staff Howard Baker — where she peddles influence on behalf of a long list of lucrative aviation clients. The clients for whom Linda lobbied brought more than $5.86 million into Baker, Donelson in one three-year period, including Northwest Airlines ($870,000 from 1997 through 2001) and American Airlines ($1.26 million in fees). Northwest was already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy even before 9/11. American, which has had six fatal crashes since 1994 (not counting 9/11) and has been repeatedly fined by the FAA for a skein of safety violations, had the reputation as the most unsafe major U.S. carrier.Now, 9/11 was a pretty good argument for bailing out the airlines, but yes, the airlines were already in trouble before that point--and this sort of sleazy relationship is one of the reasons that government regulation, even when necessary, has such dangerous consequences. You know the famous saying by Thomas Sowell: When legislatures control buying and selling, the first thing to be bought sold will be legislators. A Better Caliber of Conman If you are like me, you probably receive several dozen " 419" con emails a week, from people claiming to be the son or widow of some recently deceased African strongman with lots of money that needs a foreign participant to help move out of Nigeria, the Congo, or South Africa. Sometimes, the conman claims to be the director of some government agency with illegally obtained funds, and he wants your help. You just need to provide some good faith money, and in exchange, you will receive millions of dollars. That such emails are sent to you, picked at random, isn't supposed to make you suspicious. Anyone that would get taken in by the vast majority of these scams is a person whose greed is only exceeded by their stupidity. But today, a friend forwarded to me a new, and considerably better caliber of con. I still can't imagine anyone with the intelligence of a rutabaga being taken in by this, but it it isn't quite as blatantly a scam as the usual ones: From: Chief Onyema Ugochukwu CFR, NIPSS.And if you find this letter persuasive or intriguing--just go throw some money in the tip jar to the left--it will be about as likely to make you rich. Reasons To Not Have a Discover Card Back in December, my wife's purse disappeared. We thought it had been stolen, so we frantically started calling credit card companies to shut down accounts. One of those accounts was our Discover Card. A few days later, my wife's purse showed up at a friend's house. Then, in January, our Discover Card statement arrived--with a $35 late fee, a bit of interest charges, and an upset "your account is past due" nasty note. What? So I dug around--and I couldn't find any evidence that we had paid the bill in December. It soon became apparent that we did not receive a bill in December. Okay, the post office might have lost our bill, or perhaps someone stole it from our mailbox. (We've had outgoing mail stolen before.) I called up Discover Card this morning and asked for a copy of the December statement--and they informed me that the reason that I didn't receive my December statement is that they didn't send it to me. When an account is closed, they are unable to print statements--even a closing statement. She was able to read off the charges (one of which, for $25 from eBay, is suspicious), but she could not print the December statement. After I whined about this for a while, she agreed to drop the late fee of $35 (though not the interest charges), since they hadn't sent me a bill. The more I think about this, the more angry I get. What sort of a system would not automatically send a closing statement when the account is closed--and wouldn't even allow you to print a copy for a customer? It isn't that the information isn't available, because the service representative could see the December statement, and read it to me. I am seriously considering closing my Discover Card accounts, and going back to using MasterCard only. |
