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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, June 07, 2003
Police Corruption Isn't Just Bribes on Speeding Tickets This disturbing article reminds me of the scandal that brought down the government in Belgium a few years ago. The opening of the story captures the weirdness of this well: France's latest public scandal reads like a cheap Hollywood thriller - except it's much more difficult to believe.If the claims that are being tossed around are correct, a kinky serial killer received police protection because so many high officials were involved with him. This wouldn't be the first time; Henry Mayhew exposed the involvement of London police in Victorian England in ignoring child prostitution, kidnapping, etc., and the response of the larger society was to be outraged at Mayhew for bringing this to their attention. There have been a number of embarrassing examples in recent times in the U.S. such as Hollywood Division of LAPD in the 1980s, or NYPD (I think, any year). Unsurprisingly, liberal gun control advocates get very upset when you point these depressing reminders of how widespread police corruption is, because being liberals, they know that we are right, but being gun control advocates (which is the larger motivator for them), they don't want to admit that limiting gun ownership to the police means that crooked cops have little to fear. Telescope For Sale Televue Ranger, QuikPoint finder (which seems to be inoperable at the moment), EQ-1 equatorial mount with clock drive and slow motion controls, Thousand Oaks Type 2 solar filter, and a case that I built from a plastic tool box, foam, and a little imagination. The scope is as I bought about three years ago. If you want a grab-and-go scope for star parties that will ooh and awe the crowd with the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn, or for setting up on your back deck, this is a good choice. It's not well suited to anything deep sky (although I have barely seen the Ring Nebula with it, and M42 is pretty neat). It works well for solar observing--with the solar filter, of course! This was my first high quality refractor, and I am selling this in order to either buy a big Dobsonian or a Televue 102 (can't quite decide). I regularly use 160x on Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn; under good viewing conditions, it will tolerate 200x before the images gets soft. The Ranger is not completely color-free; it's far better than the achromats that you find in department stores and the low-end refractors that Meade and Celestron sell. I would characterize it as a semi-apochromat. You have to look for the color on Jupiter, it's not offensive on the Moon, and I can't really see any on Saturn. I've posted a detailed review of the scope and the mount on my web site. I would like to get $650 for all of it, plus actual shipping charges. Remember that you will need a mount of some sort for this scope for any astronomical use, so you are saving $150 by getting an equatorial mount and clock drive included, and the Thousand Oaks solar filter costs $70 new. 
Friday, June 06, 2003
Perhaps I've Spent Too Much Time Reading Colonial Newspapers of Late... But this parody of the New York Times--as it might have reported the aftermath of the Revolutionary War--is really funny! (This may load quite slowly for those of you still on dialup.) The Picture That Barbra Streisand Wants Censored Yup! Good-hearted liberal that she is, she doesn't support censorship of "art" (much of which is intentionally deceptive and misleading), but she does want the government to prohibit this factual picture from being available for you and me to see. (It's a big picture, so click here.) She claims the reason is "security," but I suspect it's more that she doesn't want everyone to see how absurdly large her home is. Wednesday, June 04, 2003
A Question For You Law Students and Lawyers Out There I'm going to be teaching Constitutional History this fall. (For those who remember Jeff Goldblum's terrible remake of The Fly: "Be afraid. Be very afraid.") It's an undergraduate course, and the emphasis is the history of how the U.S. Constitution came about and changed, with an emphasis on the associated philosophical and social changes. I have no intention of teaching all the various details of constitutional law. ("A man's got to know his limitations.") A number of the students in the class are pre-law, and by the time I finish off the semester, some of those that weren't thinking about law school may have changed their minds. (And perhaps the same may be true for some of the pre-laws, for all I know.) I haven't decided on a text yet (since I was called in as a last-minute replacement), but I am leaning towards Kelly, Harbison, and Belz's The American Constitution: Its Origins and Development, while still considering Michael Les Benedict's Blessings of Liberty: A Concise History of the Constitution of the United States. Along with the textbook, I am going to make use of primary sources. In the latter part of the class, of course, a lot of these will be Supreme Court decisions (Lochner, Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education). In the early part of the course, I was planning to use an excerpt from Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England where he talks about the rights of Englishmen, probably James Otis's The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. Do you have any suggestions on primary sources that you found especially illuminating of the differing strains of the notion of human rights and how those ideas changed between the Philadelphia Convention and the present day? Does Hold to Maturity Still Make Sense on Bonds? Apparently, even with the recent 15% capital gains tax rate--holding bonds to maturity still makes sense. I decided to grind the numbers a bit, to make sure. I plugged in the numbers for some Treasury bonds that I hold that are due in November, 2016. Even though those bonds are now worth 40% more than I paid for them--and in 2016, they will be worth par value, or $1000 each--it still makes sense to hold them to maturity, because of the 7.5% yield that I will earn each and every year from now until then. Remember: if I sold them right now, that 40% capital gain would be taxed at only 15% by the federal government--and the interest payments I will get for the remainder of the bond will be taxed at 28-31% (depending on how much I make each year)--and it still makes more sense to hold these bonds to maturity. I tried the same numbers on my Capital One Bank bonds, which are due in July, 2004--and it still makes more sense to hold the bonds to maturity. My guess is that the Fed will lower interest rates one more time--probably a quarter point only--and the combination of the tax cut, end of Gulf War II, and the final painful liquidation of the 1990s high-tech bubble, will cause a sudden and impressive market expansion. I have toyed with the idea of buying a decent yielding value stock, like GM (5.5% annual dividend, based on the last quarter), and riding it up as the stock market continues to fly--but I must confess to still being a bit skittery about what sudden surprises from al-Qaeda might do to the market. More Signs That The Left Is Short on Real Problems To Fix The Weekly Standard has an article about how Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is considering suit against the federal government for funding historic preservation of a building. What building? The Old North Church, in Boston. You know, "One if by land, two if by sea"? It's an historic building. It's not in the best of shape. The Old North Foundation, which runs a gift shop and tours of the old building, asked for funding to replace the ancient windows in the building. They didn't ask for money to run church services, or to proselytize on behalf of Episcopalianism (assuming that the Episcopal Church is even interested in that sort of thing anymore). They wanted money to help restore a building that is at the core of important and secular events in American history: Paul Revere's ride into rural Massachusetts and history. The First Amendment was intended to prevent funding of particular denominations. Even if you accept the argument that the government shouldn't encourage religion in general (a position that seems hard to defend from the historical record), funding preservation of a building of great historic significance isn't funding religion. Giving money to the Old North Foundation is like giving money to Colonial Williamsburg ("a not-for-profit educational institution," to quote their website). The First Amendment's "establishment of religion" clause was intended to make sure that a particular church did not have more rights than other churches. If the liberals at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have their way, foundations that are affiliated, no matter how loosely, with a church, will have less rights than those foundations that are completely secular--an almost complete reversal of original intent. Liberals sometimes ask me why I hold liberalism and the ACLU in such contempt. Well, look at the players, Barry Lynn used to be ACLU's legislative counsel, and ask yourself why I should take seriously groups that believe in a rigorous application of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment with respect to race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin--but then believe that any foundation associated with a religion deserves less rights than a similar secular institution. I'm Famous! Eugene Volokh was interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education about academic blogging--and he mentioned me there. This Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Bill Before Congress I have some concerns that the federal government is overreaching on this. It's clear, even if you accept Roe v. Wade (1973), that the states are free to pass such a partial-birth abortion ban. It's a repugnant procedure, performed in the third trimester. This statute (HR 760, readable at http://thomas.loc.gov), has an exemption for performing such a procedure to save the life of the mother, so it's completely defensible under the scheme developed in Roe. Even most of the usual suspects who love abortions whenever and for whatever reason recognize that this procedure sounds like something that might have been performed at Dachau. If veal were still "obtained" in this way, the animal rights groups would have beaten the left into expressing "concern" about it, but because it's a child about to be born, the left could care less. This news story about the bill contains a statement that leaves me thoroughly confused: Opponents of the bill say the procedure known as dilation and extraction is performed only rarely, and that the vague definition in the legislation could make other procedures used in the second trimester legally questionable.But when I read the bill, it sounds pretty narrowly drafted: `(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. This subsection takes effect 1 day after the enactment.Do you see anything here that could apply to any other procedure except a partial-birth abortion? I don't. If this proposed law applied only to federal government facilities, on military bases, in national parks, the territories, or in some other way was limited to those areas where the federal government has exclusive authority for public safety, I wouldn't have any question about the validity or sensibility of such a law. But this is properly the state's responsibility under the state's police powers. As the bill's introduction explains, "at least 27 States banned the procedure" after it became known in the mid-1990s. (Why the others haven't banned it says quite a bit--and not positive--about the morals of the legislators in those states.) Federalism means that not every violation of law is the federal government's responsibility. Putting the magic phrase "in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce" just doesn't cut it. Everything affects interstate commerce in some subtle way, by liberal logic (hence the Gun-Free Safe School Zones Act). Banning partial-birth abortion is the job of the states--not the federal government. Labels: abortion Early Sex, Depression, and Suicide Attempts USA Today (try not to snicker at the source) is reporting that a Heritage Foundation study analyzed data for 14-17 year olds (n=2800) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. They found some significant differences between those girls who were sexually active, and those that were not: The Heritage study finds:Now, I can see some reasons why this correlation might not indicate a causal relationship between early sex and depression. For one thing, children with bipolar disorder tend to be sexually precocious; early sex and depression may both be symptoms of bipolar disorder. Another explanation is that whatever else has gone wrong for this child may have encouraged them towards early sex; both of these might be symptoms of a severely messed up childhood. Sexual abuse of children often leads to both suicide attempts and promiscuity. I've seen press reports of recent studies that suggest that for a large percentage of girls under 16, their first sexual experience was unwanted and often rape; these might also be explanations for the correlation, without early sex necessarily being the direct cause of depression and suicide attempts. Nonetheless, it is, I think, worth seriously studying, especially because liberals use their control over the entertainment media to market sex to young teenagers as a magic solution to everything. Labels: child sexual abuse Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Don't These People Have Some Real Injustices to Pursue? The case is King v. Richmond County, Georgia; the decision is from the 11th Circuit. It turns out that Richmond County has used a seal on legal documents for at least 130 years that includes a sword and a stylized outline of the Ten Commandments: The Seal is circular, with the words “SUPERIOR COURT RICHMOND COUNTY, GA” inscribed around the perimeter. The center of the Seal contains a depiction of a hilt and tip of a sword, the center of which is overlaid by two rectangular tablets with rounded tops. Roman numerals I though V are listedThere's no text of the Ten Commandments. The only place that this seal appears is on court documents, and it's not terribly big. The decision came to the right conclusion--that there is no violation of the First Amendment by using these seal, but the argument is really convoluted. Why? Because the lower courts are straining mightily to stay within the Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) decision--which is just crazy. As this decision explained the actions of the trial court, it had to determined: (1) whether the Seal had a secular purpose, (2) whether its primary effect was to advance religion, and (3) whether it fostered excessive entanglement between government and religion.Those of you who have read my examination of religion and government up to and including the First Congress (the same one that passed the First Amendment) know that #2 can't be justified by the historical record. (I've recently updated it with something from the Delaware Constitutional Convention of 1776 that will utterly shock the lawyers, please evangelical Christians, and probably cause brain damage to ACLU members.) Our government believed strongly in advancing religion, by which they meant the religion of the vast majority of Americans: Christianity. The intent of the First Amendment's protections was to prevent any particular denomination from receiving special favors relative to others. If you had raised the question to the First Congress of whether Judaism should enjoy the same favors as Christian denominations, there would have been some grudging acceptance of it; if you had asked about putting Islam, or Buddhism, or atheism on an equal footing with Christianity or Judaism, most members of Congress would have doubtless wondered if you were entirely sane, and even the free-thinkers among them would probably have asked you to keep your voice down, for fear of this getting back to their constituents. See Ben Franklin's letter to Ezra Stiles of Yale, shortly before Franklin's death. I confide that you will not expose me to criticism and censure by publishing any part of this communication to you. I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd.Historically, this "do not advance religion of any sort" theory is wrong, and Lemon is wrong for that reason. But here's a bigger question: don't the plaintiffs in this case have some better example of abuse of government power to pursue? I could understand if someone were forcing prayer in public schools; I could understand if they were suing to prevent the Ten Commandments from being taught in public schools; I could understand if some religious groups were being granted some tangible advantage over others. But this is about an almost ideographic representation of the Ten Commandments that most people won't even notice. Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the pointer. Labels: establishment of religion Is Appointing a Guardian for a Fetus a Dangerous Innovation by Florida's Governor Bush? Professor Michael C. Dorf's recent column in findlaw.com mentions that Governor Bush has ordered the appointment of a legal guardian for a fetus in a rather difficult case involving a severely retarded woman who appears to have been raped--because she is now five months pregnant. My first reaction to reading about this was that this was an interesting innovation, showing the cleverness of pro-life forces. But while reading through Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, I was astonished to discover that this is nothing new: An infant in ventre fa mere, or in the mother’s womb, is supposed in law to be born for many purposes. It is capable of having a legacy, or a surrender of a copyhold estate made to it. It may have a guardian assigned to it[q]; and it is enabled to have an estate limited to it’s use, and to take afterwards by such limitation, as if it were then actually born[r]. And in this point the civil law agrees with ours[s]. Perhaps Bellesiles's Problems With Arming America Aren't So Unusual There is a very depressing article here about recent allegations that Philip Foner, a prominent labor historian who is now history himself, engaged in massive plagiarism from other scholars, and that examination of his footnotes revealed some serious accuracy problems: JOHN EARL HAYNES Mr. Haynes is co-author with Harvey Klehr of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America.There are even more serious problems in this report--including the claim that Foner destroyed unpublished documents, thus making thus unavailable to other historians. Unsurprisingly, many of the defenses of Foner are the same sort of leftist ad hominems that I have learned to expect when you point out that an historian's "scholarly work" fails to conform to accepted standards of scholarship. Of course, maybe there are no standards of scholarship anymore. UPDATE: If you want to read the post-modernist defense of deception and plagiarism, here's the defense of Foner's actions by "Michelle Kilbourne, Ph.D." on the H-LABOR mailing list archive: To write history is to bring your baggage--yourHmmm. Plagiarism, citing documents that were still classified and therefore unavailable to Foner, destroying unpublished documents are "errors" and you know, none of us can achieve objectivity anyway, so it's all okay, isn't it? Cabinet Official With a Sense of Humor The Washington Post carried this recent email exchange between the Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Mel R. Martinez and...someone: Greetings Mr. Secretary. Although there are no humans on Mars at present, I would like to invite the human race to consider Mars as an ideal location for a vacation home or just a place to get away from it all. Would you consider offering incentives to those who might want to build a home on Mars? I'll tell you, it is a beautiful place and oh, let me tell you, there is nothing like Autumn on Mars. And please don't tell me that you are looking at Venus first. Kindly, The Price of Government Health Care... Britain's National Health Service has figured out that some people are wasting health resources by their lifestyle choices: Smokers and overweight people will be asked to sign contracts with their doctors to agree a programme to quit smoking and lose weight under radical plans being drawn up by the government.Of course, they aren't going to ask anyone to stop engaging in promiscuous anal sex--which is a major risk factor for AIDS. So far, this is only a "reminder" that patients are being irresponsible--no one will be refused medical care if they insist on bad lifestyle choices. But to hear the professional victim advocates talk, this is a crime against all that is decent: Claire Rayner, president of the Patients' Association, branded the proposal to ask smokers and overweight people to sign healthy lifestyle contracts as "oppressive and obscene".And here's another gem, which while it has an germ of truth to it, is very misleading: Geof Rayner, chairman of the UK Public Health Association, said the plan focused too much on the individual without considering the wider social reasons behind poor health.There's no question that some health problems are genetic in nature--if there is a history of diabetes in your family, your chances of getting it are higher than the general population--but if there is a history of diabetes in your family, you would be well advised to watch your weight, get a lot of exercise, and be careful not to make simple sugars a big part of your diet. Ditto for cigarettes: there is evidence of a genetic predisposition to lung cancer, with some people at little risk of getting it, even if they smoke, while others are at much higher risk. But that doesn't mean that the individual choice to smoke isn't a factor. This entire culture of victimology disgusts me. It is one of the most absurd components of liberal ideology--that everytime something goes wrong, the person suffering is a victim. Sometimes it's true: you do everything right, and bad things happen. But there are so many disasters that people bring on themselves, and the liberal response is, "Poor baby! You're a victim! We'll make it all right!" Monday, June 02, 2003
The Truth About Dogs & Cats HOW MANY DOGS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB? Golden Retriever: The sun is shining, the day is young, we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and you're inside worrying about a stupid burned out bulb? Border Collie: Just one. And then I'll replace any wiring that's not up to code. Dachshund: You know I can't reach that stupid lamp! Rottwieler: Make me. Boxer: Who cares? I can still play with my squeaky toys in the dark. Lab: Oh, me, me!!!!! Pleeeeeeeeeze let me change the light bulb! Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I? Pleeeeeeeeeze ,please, please, please! German Shepherd: I'll change it as soon as I've led these people from the dark, check to make sure I haven't missed any, and make one more perimeter patrol to see that no one has tried to take advantage of the situation. Jack Russell Terrier: I'll just pop it in while I'm bouncing off the walls and furniture. Old English Sheep Dog: Light bulb? I'm sorry, but I don't see a light bulb. Cocker Spaniel: Why change it? I can still pee on the carpet in the dark. Chihuahua: Yo quiero Taco Bulb. Pointer: I see it, there it is, there it is, right there, see it, right there... Greyhound: It isn't moving. Who cares? Australian Shepherd: First, I'll put all the light bulbs in a little circle... Poodle: I'll just blow in the Border Collie's ear and he'll do it. By the time he finishes rewiring the house, my nails will be dry. The Cat: "Dogs do not change light bulbs. People change light bulbs. So, the real question is: How long will it be before I can expect some light, some dinner, and a massage? ALL OF WHICH PROVES, ONCE AGAIN, THAT WHILE DOGS HAVE MASTERS, CATS HAVE STAFF. If There Is An Argument For Bringing Back Stocks As a Punishment For Sexual Immorality, This Guy Is It! I am only aware of this creep because a judge issued a temporary restraining order against this jerk for writing about his torrid affair with a beauty pageant contestant who is now promoting chastity and sobriety. After reading this creep's description of the events in question (and if the creep's description of it is accurate, which seems quite arguable), I can see why she would be promoting both chastity and sobriety. I don't generally see an argument for prior restraint, even for what this creep had to say about this gal, and even if it is false (which I don't find implausible). His web page describes an utter pig of a guy--and it does seem like an argument for bringing back putting a person in stocks in the village square for several hours for sexual immorality and utter boorishness. Hate Crimes That Didn't Happen Michelle Malkin's column gives a number of examples of Muslims who pretended to be victims of hate crimes in the aftermath of 9/11, often for insurance reasons. There's nothing specifically Muslim about this--burning down buildings to collect the insurance on an unsaleable business is part of a long American tradition, unfortunately--but it is a reminder that all you have to do is say, "hate crime" and the news media fall all over themselves to report these incidents, with no serious inquiry as to what really happened. Unfortunately, this isn't just the case with Muslims. A few years back, there was a rash of "gay bashing" cases that turned out to be self-inflicted injuries. One was a lesbian minister in San Francisco who, after enough inconsistencies in her story, admitted that she had done this to herself, and made up a story of being attacked by gay-bashers. There have been other incidents that I've read about over the years as well that turned out to be frauds--blown up into an indictment of American society's homophobia--but actually, more an indication of someone's need for public attention in a political cause. There are, of course, gay bashing hate crimes out there--but the news media show very little willingness to use the same skepticism that they would for someone claiming to be the victim of "Republican bashing." |
