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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, October 11, 2003
The Suit Blocking Missouri's New Concealed Weapon Permit Law Here's an article about it. Essentially, the argument is that the Missouri Constitution, Art. I, sec. 23, says: That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons.The opponents of the new concealed weapon permit law are insisting that "but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons" means that concealed weapons are a violation of the Constitution. Not so. This provision to the state constitution was added in 1875 to clarify that the state legislature had the authority to prohibit or regulate the carrying of concealed weapons, and that anyone who sought to justify carrying concealed weapons under Art. I, sec. 23, was wrong. This did not mean that concealed carry could not be made lawful by the legislature. This isn't just my opinion. State v. Wilforth (Mo. 1881) was decided under this same Missouri Constitution provision. The Court held that a ban on concealed carry was constitutional. The exact language used suggests that the legislature was within its discretion in passing a ban. There is nothing that directly claims that the provision in question required a ban on concealed carry--only that "but nothing herein contained is intended to justify the practice of wearing concealed weapons" was intended to give the legislature authority to pass a ban on concealed carry as they saw fit. State v. Shelby (Mo. 1886) clearly grants legislative discretion in what laws may be passed to regulate not only concealed carry, but even open carry when intoxicated or in certain places. While not explicit that the "justify the practice" clause allowed the legislature to legalize concealed carry, it's hard to read the text of this decision's comments and not come to that conclusion. The right of the legislature to prohibit the wearing of concealed weapons under state constitutions, in many respects like our own, is now generally conceded. Indeed, our constitution, in express terms, says that it is not intended thereby to justify the practice of wearing concealed weapons. The portions of the act which make it an offence for any one to carry concealed upon his person a dangerous or deadly weapon , is clearly within the legitimate domain of legislative power.State v. Keet (Mo. 1916) is a bit on point to the question. Apparently, the Missouri legislature had at times provided certain exceptions to the general ban on concealed carry. The provision exempting those who carried a weapon in self-defense from the penalty of the law originated in Revised Statutes 1879, § 1275. That provision was expressly repealed by the act of April 28, 1909 (Laws of 1909, p. 452), and has never been re-enacted.Clearly, the Missouri legislature had the authority to allow concealed carry under some conditions, and the Keet decision doesn't dispute that they had that authority. Lots of states in the 19th century amended their state constitution right to keep and bear arms clauses to specify that the state had authority to regulate the manner in which arms may be born, to give authority to the legislature to ban concealed carry, especially because of the uncertainties associated with Bliss v. Commonwealth (Ky. 1822). (That's a very slow document to load--it's an image, not text.) Kentucky's arms provision of 1891 includes "subject to the power of the General Assembly to enact laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed weapons." The 1850 arms provision was, "That the rights of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned; but the General Assembly may pass laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed arms." No one has seriously argued that Kentucky's similar provision meant that the state lacked authority to license concealed carry. You can check here for a pretty complete list of state constitutional provisions. I would also point out that while many late 19th century decisions by other state supreme courts upheld concealed carry bans, sometimes based on the presence of a exception for concealed carry like the Missouri Constitution has, and sometimes not, most of these bans included exemptions for travelers. The Missouri statute that previously banned concealed carry exempted peace officers. Does this mean that the previous statute is also unconstitutional? Of course not. UPDATE: Eugene Volokh notices a similar limiting clause to another part of the Missouri Bill of Rights--and by analogy, with a similar result. Being Realistic About Nature Les Jones has some comments about environmentalist delusions and wild animals, sparked by the recent death of grizzly bear delusionist Treadwell in Alaska. It's all worth reading, especially his personal experiences with bears, but this is really the important point about bunny-hugger delusions: There are competing metaphors for wild nature, from the Bible's benevolent Garden of Eden to Tennyson's concept of "nature, red in tooth and claw." John Stuart Mill once remarked, "If there are any marks of all special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals." More Irony Overload A reader sent this to me. I still in awe of the chutzpah of these guys: Earlier this week, Sharman Networks Ltd., the company that distributes the Kazaa Media Desktop software, accused the RIAA and several entertainment companies of violating its copyrights by downloading an unauthorized version of the Kazaa file-sharing software and using it to hunt down the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of alleged music downloaders. Sharman Networks charges the RIAA and its representatives of using Kazaa Lite, a version of Kazaa not distributed by Sharman, to hunt down Kazaa users in order to file their own copyright claims against alleged file sharers.The people responsible for Kazaa are suddenly concerned about copyright violations? Friday, October 10, 2003
A Blogger Writes About a Self-Defense Shooting in His Home This Week Not what you might expect: a black guy shooting a thug who smashed through the front window: About 1:25am EST on October 8th, I awoke to the sound glass breaking. It wasn't that drinking glass-breaking sound. It sounded like a window breaking. I proceeded into the family room (where I heard the sound). I peeked around the entrance and there is this guy just standing there looking around. Then I see another guy coming through the broken window. And then I noticed that the first guy is carrying a gun. Now I'm thinking at warp speed to myself, "Should I announce my presence or should I shoot?". But thinking about my family (wife and 7-month old downstairs, my 5 and 4 year old upstairs) won out. I quickly stepped out from where I was hiding and fired at the man with the gun approx. 10 feet away. He fell to the ground. I then pointed my shotgun at the broken window and I could see someone running away.If anyone sees any press coverage of this event, let me know. UPDATE: I'm told that this great story turns out to be a little too good. Consider it at least untrustworthy, and probably false. Blood Pressure is 120/74 That's the good news (especially for someone who's 46 years old, and carrying about 25-30 pounds more than I should). I went into the doctor this morning because my wife had noticed an odd little lump on my lower eyelid. The doctor said it was a clogged mucus gland. She injected some painkiller into my eyelid (yes, that hurt as much as it sounds--a very sensitive area), then used a scalpel to drain it. Haunted House Abuse For those of you who don't live in America, let me explain. Halloween is a traditional American holiday. It is derived from pagan beliefs, having morphed through the Catholic Church's All Hallow's Eve, and post-World War II, into a sugar-intensive event that happens every October 31st. At least until recently, in most communities, kids dressed up in costumes, usually scary, and went door to door. When you answered the door, they yelled "Trick or Treat" and you put candy or other snacks into bags that they were carrying. "Trick or Treat" referred to the fact that once upon a time, those without treats for the kids would find that the kids had played various pranks on them--usually nothing too terribly destructive to the house. When I was little, children up to about 12 or 13 did this, before becoming way too mature. While trick or treating has declined in the appropriately paranoid 1980s, a lot of the kids that are doing it now are teenagers. This has always struck me as inappropriate. It was a kids' holiday--a little kids' holiday. The paranoia induced by a few highly publicized (and perhaps urban legend) poisonings of kids means that little kids tend to go Halloween parties now. I haven't been keen on Halloween for a number of years for the following reasons: 1. It is excessively focused on supernaturally scary stuff, and little kids are sometimes freaked out by all this, because many can't distinguish reality from fantasy until surprisingly late. (Some never get past this stage; this explains the last few California state budgets.) 2. All that sugar is not good for kids, and especially these days, when so many of them are obese by age 10--why encourage it? 3. There is one subculture in this country that demonstrates its emotional immaturity by turning their urban concentrations into giant Halloween parties, with a very strong sexual component. Of course, the Satanic theme goes over well with some members of this subculture anyway. "Haunted houses" have been, at least for the last twenty years or so, a common fundraiser for local charitable groups. They take an existing house or building (the older the better), and use decorations, minimal lighting, scary sets, and people dressed up as monsters, and then have kids wander through, getting the wits scared out of them. These are good fun for kids of seven and up, and even adults can have a laugh from these, especially watching the reactions of kids who are first scared, and then laugh. A few years back, some morons at a church in Southern California thought that the most effective way to get their message across about the evils of abortion was to put on a "haunted house" at Halloween that included a scene depicting an abortion clinic. Instead it being a "it's fun to be scared" event, it was just sickening. I would consider that it was a form of false advertising to lure people in so that the church could engage in propagandizing against abortion. There's a legitimate place to promote the anti-abortion message, even using revolting pictures of what an abortion looks like; this wasn't one of those places. Now, we have a new example of propagandizing in an inappropriate way, it seems, from the other end of the spectrum: A haunted house in Wentzville, Missouri is not being allowed to open because of 16 different scenes, some of which have same-sex kissing and a whipping dominatrix.Why can't this crowd won't let children retain some innocence for at least a few years? One of the reasons that I can't take seriously the claim that homosexuals make that they are "just like everyone else" is the continual need to sexualize everything, no matter what the age of the audience. Now this sickness has become so much the norm, because of homosexual dominance over Hollywood, that it is becoming the norm in the entire society. Enough. Let children be children, at least for a few years. Labels: abortion Insuring the Uninsured Ramesh Ponnuru has an article over at National Review Online about Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) and his effort to make it easier for small businesses to offer health insurance for their employees--and it doesn't cost the government anything: Senator Jim Talent, a Republican from Missouri, thinks he can put a dent in the problem. When he was in the House, he championed a measure to let small businesses pool together to offer health insurance to their workers. It passed the House with bipartisan support, but stalled in the Senate. Talent's first speech in the Senate, to which he was elected last year, was devoted to breaking the logjam.The article goes on to explain that some critics say that it won't actually do much good. Maybe not. But if it doesn't cost anything, why not give a try? If it made it affordable for small businesses to provide health insurance to a million people--and without a penny of taxes--wouldn't that be a good thing? Every solution doesn't have to be perfect--just better than nothing at all. The Constiutional Right to Bare Feet How Appealing! points to this recent court case in which a guy ejected from the library for not wearing shoes insisted that his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments were thus being violated. The U.S. 6th Court of Appeals didn't buy this argument, showing rare sense for federal judges. As far as I am concerned, his case made about as much sense as if he had cited the Second Amendment's "right to bare arms" and then argued it included feet as well! Prominent Scholar Using a False Name Online? No, I don't mean John Lott as "Mary Rosh." I mean Michael Bellesiles as "Benny Smith." The Emory Wheel makes a strong case that this is the situation. Keep the Missouri Concealed Weapon Permit List Secret? This article reports on efforts to change the new Missouri concealed handgun permit law so that the list of who gets a permit is available to the public. In general, the gun control advocates want the list to be public, and the NRA wants the list to be restricted. You may be surprised at where I stand on this question. In discretionary issuance states, news organizations have often argued that concealed handgun license permit information should be public record, in order to look for evidence of corruption or favoritisim. This is a very legitimate concern, and many of the abuses that have been discovered in California have come out of this requirement that the information (at least most of it) is public. In a non-discretionary issuance state, however, the corruption or favoritism argument really doesn't fly that well, because there is either no discretion, or almost no discretion, as to whether to issue a permit or not. Those who argue that there's a need for these records to be public are barking up on the wrong tree in Missouri. Another argument advanced by the gun control advocates isn't quite as silly: "It's simple: the proponents ... do not want to have news stories that a permit holder pulled a gun and shot someone. The improper use of concealed weapons is the strongest argument we have against these laws," said Luis Tolley, spokesman for the Brady Campaign, a leading gun control group.On this question, they have a valid point. There have been very, very few murders committed by concealed handgun licensees. If the state agency responsible for issuance of permits chose to cover up the involvement of licensees in serious crimes, having this information public would make it a lot easier to demonstrate this. I don't see much reason to make this assumption, because generally, state agencies tasked with this responsibility are hostile to widespread issuance of permits. But I do agree that this is a possibility, and at least name and city of licensees being made public can't do a great deal of harm. But, you say, what about criminals using this information against a licensee? Republican state Rep. Larry Crawford said the records closure was put into the concealed gun law because of "concerns that publicizing who has a license could lead to those people being targeted for theft of their guns."This argument seems silly to me. There's a handgun in about 25% of all homes, and probably higher in Missouri. Knowing that someone has a carry permit, and therefore might have a gun in their house would seem like a good reason for a criminal to: 1. Not break into a licensee's house while they are home. 2. Assume that the licensee probably has the handgun with them when they leave the house. What about a criminal using this information to attack a licensee, and shooting them first thing? Why doesn't the criminal do that now? Because a gunshot makes a lot of noise, and attracts attention. A random criminal isn't going to know if a particular victim is on the licensee list. Someone who intends to commit a serious crime against a person, and checks to see if they are a licensee will certainly know what the expect--but that sort of fairly unusual crime assumes: 1. a high level of planning (atypical of most murderers); 2. that the killer won't just stand back at 50 yards and shoot the victim with a rifle. In short, the scenario where having this information public record puts an individual at higher risk than they are already seems to me to be unlikely. I don't think privacy of licensee records is a really important issue, either way. I can see some weak arguments on both sides of this issue. I just don't think it's worth an enormous amount of fighting to make the records either open or closed, except in an discretionary issuance state. UPDATE: Here's a reminder that liberals are real interested in privacy when their ox is being gored--in this case, demanding that lists of state operated abortion clinic clients be kept confidential. Anti-Semitism and Anti-Capitalism Tyler Cowen of the Volokh Conspiracy has an article in the latest Front Page about "The Socialist Roots of Anti-Semitism." If you weren't aware of the common nineteenth century roots of socialism and anti-Semitism, it's worth reading. The only idea that I would add to Professor Cowen's article is that anti-Semitism in European history has often been driven by economic interests and the desire of the poor to have someone below them. In the medieval period, Jews dominated the moneylending industry because the medieval Catholic Church regarded any lending of money at interest as usury, and therefore subject to excommunication. It appears that at least some of the anti-Semitic riots of the medieval period in Western Europe were whipped up by those members of the lower nobility who owed significant sums, and these riots, by killing the lenders and destroying the records, were an effective method of clearing their debts. I'm reading Benzion Netanyahu's Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain right now, and he makes the argument that the rise of anti-Semitism in Spain during that century was tied to the emergence of what might be called proto-democratic urban government. These emerging demagogues regarded Jewish converts to Christianity as a threat because of both their economic power and their high political status in the royal governments. In nineteenth century America, a broadening of the voting franchise--for white men--often meant a loss of the vote for blacks. New York State, for example, took away voting for free blacks in 1821 when it gave the vote to all free white men, regardless of property qualifications. Free blacks who voted (because they met the property qualification) before 1821 were generally associated with the Federalist Party, thus aggravating the broad franchise crowd of the Democratic-Republican Party of the time, who held the Federalists to be part of a elite conspiracy of wealth. The loss of voting rights for free blacks in Virginia in 1723 follows the rising status of indentured whites. Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom makes the case that one of the motivations for the seventeenth century development of slavery in Virginia as a race-identified institution was the need for the colonial elite to give a bit more wealth to poor whites without having to give up land. Hence, creating a permanent class of slaves gave poor whites someone to exploit and look down upon. In twentieth century South Africa, apartheid started as laws reserving certain high-paying jobs for whites. This was a way to raise the economic status of Afrikaaners, and largely impacted the businesses owned by the upper class British white capitalists--who up to this point, had been willing to employ regardless of race. As should be obvious, at least part of why neo-Nazis and similar expressions of racial hatred remain strong among the poorest whites in our society--the methamphetamine class--is that it provides someone to look down upon, and hold in contempt. From what I have seen of the meth class, they desperately need someone to hold as inferiors, and picking on blacks, Jews, and other groups that can be classed as "the Other" serves an important psychological need. It is no surprise to see that anti-Semitism remains associated with the crudest and nastiest forms of socialist and populist thought--the Al Sharpton wing of the Democratic Party. For very poor blacks, the need to have someone to look down up is every bit as strong as it was for white crackers a generation ago--hence the willingness of black politicians to claim that Jewish doctors inject AIDS into black babies in the hospitals, and the anger at Korean immigrants who have managed to become successful merchants. Thursday, October 09, 2003
An Interesting Email Exchange Between Professor John J. Donohue III and Myself Professor Donohue contacted me via email, apparently trying to persuade me that he is a fair and honest scholar, as distinguished from Dr. Lott, of whom Donohue says, "Lott has repeatedly tried to deceive the public...." My opinion of Dr. Lott's work remains unchanged: I am disturbed by the problems associated with the 1997 survey that disappeared, and the unfortunate--even amazing--set of coincidences that made it impossible to prove the existence of that survey. I find myself disturbed by the sequence of events that led to the "2% shots fired" statement that Dr. Lott claimed came from that 1997 survey. I find Dr. Lott's claims plausible, but I also know that multivariate correlation analysis, even with the best of intentions, is easy to screw up because of assumptions and errors. If someone intentionally fiddles the assumptions, proving that the results are wrong may be very difficult indeed. My opinion of Professor Donohue, however, keeps dropping, largely based on the statements that he has made in email--statements that lead me to conclude that he is: 1. prone to prejudicial assumptions about people based on the most irrelevant of criteria; 2. either woefully ignorant of a subject on which he purports to some expertise, or is the sort of fierce ideologue that he claims Dr. Lott is. Let me give you some examples (Donohue's email to me are in italics): Donohue had included this statement on p. 9 of this paper: As an earlier president of the Connecticut Chiefs of Police Association once stated, “We are concerned about the increasing availability of handguns and the ease with which a person can get a pistol permit. [A] permit is dangerous in the hands of a neophyte who goes to a bar and shows off his phallic symbol to the boys.” [emphasis added]My email statement to him was: The quote from the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association official is pure and simple character assassination. This notion of gun ownership as a phallic substitute is hackneyed and outrageous. Do you honestly not realize that this is quivalent to saying that support for freedom of the press is just an excuse for pornographers to peddle smut?Donohue's response tells me an enormous amount about Donohue's willingness to judge people by stereotypes: Also, I don't see why you should be so touchy about the comment by the Connecticut Chief of Police. It would be rather remarkable if a man with a deep personal insecurity wouldn't try to do something to mask that and getting a gun is just one of the ways that might manifest itself. It doesn't mean that everyone who gets a gun does that but in the class of people who mis-use guns I would imagine the need to pump up a flagging masculine identity is a very prominent factor in gun mis-use (which I assume the police chief had observed). When you see a car with oversize tires and the radio blasting at full strength don't you draw similar conclusions? I certainly don't think everyone who has a car has a problem. [emphasis added]I assume that the radio blasting at full strength means the driver is under 25, and goes to a college near where I live. I don't assume that the driver is insecure. Kids play their music too loud. I think I did this as well when I was that age. I didn't do it because I was insecure; I did it because it sounded better loud! Oversize tires? What it can mean: 1. He got a good deal on the car from the previous owner (who spent too much hopping it up). 2. If the rear wheels are a lot larger than stock, but the front wheels aren't, he's probably a drag racer, who enjoys the exhilaration of acceleration. This is not necessarily an indication of insecurity, anymore than someone who likes rollercoasters is insecure. (I hate rollercoasters.) Misuse of that acceleration on a public road is a sign of irresponsibility and immaturity, but not necessarily insecurity. 3. If the rear and front wheels are larger than stock, and the same size, I assume that the driver is trying to improve cornering and braking. That's why I have sometimes upgraded one or two tire sizes on cars that I have owned. Perhaps that's a sign of "insecurity" to you; to me, it's a sign that someone wants a somewhat safer automobile. 4. You make the change from "goes to a bar and shows off his phallic symbol to the boys" to gun misuse. How interesting. I don't dispute that gun misuse may represent insecurity problems, along with intoxication, immaturity, and being short tempered. These are common problems of teenagers and some adults. Unsurprisingly, people with these sort of problems into adulthood tend to have enough criminal problems that they can't get permits, because of felony convictions, recent violen misdemeanor convictions, histories of mental illness, and similar disqualifying actions. Donohue claims that As for your conclusions about the VPC claims, you make my point -- the data is incomplete. It is quite likely that a substantial proportion of the concealed weapons permits holders who have committed murder haven't been caught ( which is also true for those without such permits).On what basis do you make that claim? Remember that about 2/3 of murders in the U.S. are cleared. Unless you are suggesting that permit holders (who are 1-2% of the population) are committing a large fraction of the 35% of unsolved murders, your claim doesn't fly. Moreover, the fact that someone shot someone and wasn't charged with murder doesn't mean that the gun was necessary. You can always grab a baseball bat or use your fists to defend yourself and the vast majority of the time that Lott or Kleck thinks a gun was used defensively, the bat or fists would have done just fine. I don't know what the net effect of guns is, but neither do you.It must be wonderful to be young, in good physical condition, and never outnumbered. Have you ever had to defend yourself from a violent mental patient without a weapon? I have. Have you ever been threatened with a gun during a robbery? I have. Have you ever had to stand on a street corner, watching a kidnapping by a drunk with a big knife, and have to decide whether to use a gun while you wait for the police to show up? (They did show up--45 minutes after I reported the kidnapping.) Outside the ivory tower, things don't work that way. (Sure, every ten years some old lady in a wheel chair who couldn't use a bat or her fists shoots someone, but that Is at least as rare as [the] Hattori [killing].I spent about 30 minutes looking for recent news stories involving civilians using guns outside their home (where a concealed weapon permit would be either necessary to possess the gun). You don't know what you are talking about. Here's a story from Tuesday, October 7th: A woman is kidnapped, a gunpoint, by two guys wearing gloves. She successfully draws her gun and shoots one and drives off the other, preventing what was apparently going to be rape and murder. On September 21st: The shooter defends himself and his girlfriend from an enraged former boyfriend pointing a gun at them as they drove away from their home. Apparently on September 14th or 15th: Robber fired a gun at a convenience store clerk and was shot dead. On September 11th: In this case, the robber was apparently not armed, but his victim being armed meant that the victim didn't have to break a bone beating him with a bat. Here we have four instances where a gun was used outside the home to protect someone from criminal attack in the last month. How many more incidents do you suppose that there were that I didn't find with my quick search? How more incidents were there where no shots were fired? Do you still want to defend your position that necessary defensive uses of a gun are about as common as Hattori's death? I smell one of those ideologues that Donohue accuses Lott of being. In any event, those people always get guns if they want them in discretionary states, so it is pretty much a non-issue.)If you mean that they can buy guns, in most discretionary carry permit states, sure, but they can't lawfully carry them--and the discussion was about carry permits--so this claim makes no sense. If you mean that they can get carry permits, this is nonsense. Anyone who makes such a statement had better claim ignorance, not expertise. Los Angeles Police Department issued not a single CCW from 1984 to 1992. Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that in a city of more than three million, and a pretty violent city at that, there wasn't a single civilian with a legitimate need to carry a handgun for self-defense? When I was living in Santa Monica (a city in Los Angeles County), I was curious, so I called the Santa Monica Police Department, and asked how one applied for a CCW. The answer? They didn't issue them; call the sheriff's department. You should know that the Los Angeles County Sheriff at the time, Peter Pitchess, had publicly stated that only judges and on rare occasion, public officeholders, should be issued permits. That's part of why he lost Salute v. Pitchess (Cal.App.3d 1976). Afterwards, Pitchess was now required to review the applications before consistently denying them--before, he didn't even bother to do that. How many people do you know who have California CCWs? How many do you know have applied and been rejected? In many cities in California, if you ask for an application, you will be discouraged from applying for one, so that they can say, "Well, we don't get a lot of applications." You aren't this ignorant. This Is What Gun Control Advocates Are Trying To Stop... when they oppose wider issuance of concealed weapon permits. From the Northwest Indiana Times: MERRILLVILLE -- A 28-year-old Gary woman said she knew what it meant Tuesday when she noticed the man holding a gun to her head was wearing gloves.Funny, but I just received an email from a well-known academic who claimed that legitimate defensive gun uses are quite rare. UPDATE: Ah, what the heck. I'll start adding to this entry with all the defensive gun shooting outside of the victim's home, so that I can provide a detailed list for this supposed scholar that such incidents are actually quite common. For example, this incident from September 23. Lopez allegedly raised a gun toward Hyatt as Hyatt tried to leave the scene with the woman in her car. Hyatt stopped the car, got out and shot the victim in the chest with his .44-caliber Magnum. On September 16 in Buffalo, New York. A gunman attempting to rob a Northland Avenue convenience store is dead after he fired a shot at a clerk Monday afternoon and the store owner returned fire, hitting him in the head, police said.On September 13: PROVO — The wrong end of a gun barrel wasn't what the man who was attempting to rob the Provo Greyhound Freight and Travel depot was expecting Thursday afternoon. The Economic Recovery Is Happening Slowly Enough to Delay My Retirement Plans I had sort of hoped to semiretire (that is, be able to afford to teach for a living) when my son graduates high school in three years--but that was dependent on a spike in long-term bond interest rates, with S&P A-rated corporate bonds hitting about 9% yields. To make interest rates reach that level, we would need a significant federal deficit for a couple of years. It now appears that the combination of the economic stimulus provided by the tax cut and the recovery that was probably going to happen regardless of the tax cut is going to increase revenues enough to make the scary $475 billion deficit for fiscal year 2004 not happen. There will still be a deficit, but perhaps not high enough to give me the long-term bond yields I need to make this plan to teach happen. It is beginning to look like only somewhat lower grade corporate bonds, such as Ford, are likely to give yields in the 9% range. Good for America; bad for me. Khomeini Speaks! Well, the Ayatollah's grandson speaks to Christopher Hitchens. He is a relatively junior cleric—a sayeed—but he wears the turban and robe with some aplomb and was until recently a resident of Qum, the holy city of the Iranian Shiites and once the Vatican, so to speak, of the Khomeini theocracy. As soon as it became feasible, however, he moved to Baghdad (where he would have been executed on sight until a few months ago) and is now hoping to establish himself in Karbala, one of the two holy Shiite cities in southern Iraq. He refers as a matter of course to the work of the coalition forces in Iraq as a "liberation." He would prefer, he says, to live in Tehran, but he cannot consider doing so until there has been "liberation" in Iran also.Irony overload! I Was Starting to Worry But the good news on the economic front is beginning to come in: WASHINGTON (AP) - New claims for unemployment insurance fell last week to their lowest level in eight months, a hopeful sign that companies may be having a bit more faith in the staying power of the economic recovery and thus are easing the pace of layoffs.There are a lot of people I know in California who are out of work right now, and economic recovery is going to be good news to them. Of course, that's good news for President Bush as well, and bad news for the Democrats. Wednesday, October 08, 2003
More Evidence of Nefarious Abuse of Civil Liberties by the Bush Administration! The NBC station in Philadelphia is reporting that a bug found in the mayor's office was planted there by federal law enforcement. Mayor Street, of course, sees this as political dirty tricks. Another possible explanation is a little deeper in the story: Williams said it was unclear if the surveillance was directly related to two ongoing federal investigations in Philadelphia.Well, obviously this is a political dirty tricks effort. I mean, why would anyone assume that there was something illegal about the city government giving a no-bid, $1 million-a-year contract to the mayor's brother? The same crowd that is convinced that Haliburton receiving contracts in Iraq must be the result of dirty dealing by VP Cheney seemed to have missed this one. (Or is it just that Mayor Street is a Democrat?) Some People Are Too Stupid to Survive I'm not gloating. Think of this as a warning for bunny-huggers. ANCHORAGE -- A self-taught bear expert who once called Alaska's brown bears harmless was one of two people fatally mauled in a bear attack in the Katmai National Park and Preserve.And from BBC: "Living without weapons or fire, Treadwell studies the animals, all the while protecting them from humans who would kill them for trophies and their valuable body parts," it says.Why am I not surprised that they were from Malibu? Marin County would have been even more appropriate as a symbol of out of touch with reality liberalism. Grizzly bears are powerful and dangerous, sometimes aggressive animals. At a minimum, if you are in grizzly bear country, you should be carrying a rifle in .30-06 caliber or larger, firing solid bullets of 200 grain weight or above, because hollow points won't penetrate deeply enough. (I suspect that a semiauto in .308 with a 20 round magazine might do the job, but the National Forest Service publication on the subject leads me to be more confident with the extra power of .30-06.) A .44 Magnum handgun is for those situations where you can't be carrying a rifle, and plan on shooting the grizzly as it opens its mouth to see if you taste good. How the Public Feels About the Ten Commandments For some odd reason, this didn't get a lot of press attention. Gallup surveyed Americans to find out how they felt about Roy's Rock down there in the Alabama Supreme Court building. The results are quite startling. In spite of the negative press Justice Moore has received about this, and several decades of elite propaganda on the subject, 77% of Americas disapprove fo the court decision ordering removal of Roy's Rock. I guess that they figured that Americans they surveyed didn't really understand the full extent of the constitutional issue, because they asked the question a bit differently two weeks later, emphasizing the constitutional question: Turning now to the controversy over the Ten Commandments monument in the Federal Judiciary Building in Montgomery Alabama, which comes closer to your view – [ROTATED: you think the Ten Commandments monument should be REMOVED from public display because of the U.S. Constitution's provision about the separation of church and state, (or) you think the Ten Commandments monument should NOT be removed from public display because of the U.S. Constitution's provision about freedom of religion]?Of course there is no "separation of church and state" provision in the U.S. Constitution, but even with this nudge to get Americans to take the "right" position, the answer was still 77% saying that it should not be removed. This is a huge percentage--enough that a constitutional amendment to correct the warped jurisprudence on the subject could probably pass. One of the reasons that I am skeptical of unlimited democracy is that 51% can oppress the other 49%, but when you see more than 3/4 of the population taking a media unpopular position--even with a not completely accurate question, intended to push them to the other side--well, that's pretty amazing, isn't it? Some of the other questions are pretty startling as well, with 90% approving of "In God We Trust" on U.S. money, 78% approving of "Non-denominational prayer at public school ceremonies", 70% approving of "Ten Commandments monument in public school or gov't building", and 64% approving of "Federal funds for social programs by Christian religious organizations." When you ask questions about "Federal funds for social programs by Islamic religious organizations" and putting monuments commemorating the Quran in public buildings, the majorities go away--doubtless a reflection of the fact that this is a Christian nation (at least, most Americans think of themselves that way, even if they don't follow through on living as Christians very reliably). In spite of decades now of elite opinion makers pushing their "separation of church and state" nonsense, and Justice Moore's less than straightforward method of getting the Ten Commandments into the building, there is still an enormous support for keeping Roy's Rock in the Alabama Supreme Court rotunda. Elite opinion makers ignore this at their peril. Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Is This Really True? If So, It's Probably Criminal This article in the Weekly Standard says that: Davis has a meeting with his cabinet tentatively set for Wednesday afternoon, followed by a conference call with second-tier agency directors. His aides reportedly have requested boxes from the state archives, and have inquired as to the availability of paper shredders.I don't find this too hard to believe--there are probably lots of criminal actions that Davis will need to cover over in how he has administered California government. But if this is really true, I hope that someone is taking steps in court to prevent this from happening. A Progressive Newspaper Endorses McClintock I'm still a little in shock. The alternative Orange County paper--the Orange County Weekly--has endorsed McClintock because: 1. He's honest (unlike the other major candidates against whom he is running); 2. The Democrats have spent money in ways that are progressive at all, and have raised taxes on low and middle class people to fund their pork (and McClintock won't); 3. Schwarzenegger is surrounded by the "moderate" establishment Republicans who tend to be partial to corporate subsidies, while McClintock is a serious conservative on spending; 4. Whatever wrong (from the progressive point of view) ideas McClintock has, the Democratic legislature won't let him do those things--but McClintock's use of the line item veto can restore some sanity to the California budget. Here's a taste of this editorial: Let’s be blunter: even if McClintock was as ruthlessly ambitious and unprincipled as the other candidates (he isn’t), he would still deserve support in this special election.I agree with much of this editorial. A lot of what Davis and the rest of the Democrats in the California legislature have done isn't liberal or progressive--it's just corrupt, buying support from public employee unions on the backs of the vast majority of Californians who aren't millionaires, and can't afford continuing increases in their tax burden. I know lots of California millionaires. Are you surprised to know that most of them support people like Davis, Bustamante, and the rest of this supposedly liberal, but closer to fascist bunch? Monday, October 06, 2003
More Curious Connections on the Groping Story Let's be careful on this: Arnold has admitted behaving boorishly, so at least some of these allegations about him are true. He says some of the others are lies. This news story in the leftist LA Weekly points out that at least one of the accusers has some connections that the Los Angeles Times (a newspaper about up there with the National Enquirer for journalistic competence, and the New York Times for integrity), failed to mention--for some odd reason: The Times maintains that none of the women came forward at the behest of Schwarzenegger’s opponents. That claim, however, is looking increasingly dubious. One of the three women in the story says she came forward at the urging of Jodie Evans, described by the Times as a peace activist and "co-founder of the women’s peace group Code Pink." At best, this is an incomplete, misleading description.Another story by the same reporter who is traveling with the Schwarzenegger campaign describes one of the stories that is so obviously politically motivated (and probably false) that even the national media, in their pimping for Governor Davis, are refusing to carry: There, as Schwarzenegger is wrapping up, a small band of protesters, several of whom say they were organized by the hotel and restaurant workers union (HERE) in L.A., show up to demonstrate.Of course, there were "SUV-type vehicles" 25 years ago, but no one called them that then, and they weren't so terribly common. How Things Have Changed Since I Was Young When I was young, there were riots on college campuses. What was the underlying concern? The draft. A war in Vietnam. Racism. None of these riots were justified, but they were at least based on real injustices, or perceived real injustices. What was this riot based on? City crews and business owners were cleaning up Monday after an alcohol-fueled riot broke out after the Minnesota State, Mankato, football team lost its homecoming game Saturday night.It's a bloody football game! I would say that anyone who doesn't have enough sense to deal with their school losing a game without going on a rampage doesn't have enough sense to be trusted with a gun, a car, or any other dangerous piece of machinery for a few years. (Ditto for alcohol.) They certainly need a few months digging ditches with a shovel before they come back to college. This is Rich There's pressure on to get a journalist fired for writing a story that certain people don't like. (And it wasn't that many years ago when writing stories like this was something that leftists claimed was protected by the First Amendment.) So when they couldn't get the New York Post to fire him, this little group of thugs decided to harrass him, with hundreds of phone calls and emails from their members, all saying pretty much the same thing. What sort of right-wing fascist group would do that? MoveOn.org, of course. So the editor is getting his revenge, with this column inviting everyone to let the leader of MoveOn.org, Noah Weiner, know what we think of their tactics. He has a right to marshal his worker ants, he said in words or substance, because he's serving a higher good - in this case, the muzzling of a journalist of 40 years standing. And, by extension, the defeat of President Bush next fall.There is nothing more absurd than a self-righteous leftist. Of course, his organization, which was originally founded to promote the idea that Clinton's perjury was "just about sex" and we should "Move On" is now terribly, terribly concerned about Schwarzenegger's somewhat lesser misdeeds. By the way, if you have a blog--consider that you have a moral obligation to reproduce this information, this especially Noah Weiner's phone number. He needs to know how strongly we feel about this attempt to suppress freedom of the press! Another Example of Eyewitnesses Describing a Different Iraq This is a story from the Austin newspaper, quoting a foreign service officer home on a five day visit: "There's just an incredible amount of productive stuff going on over there, with a lot of Iraqi participation," he said. "To come here and see it portrayed as a failure in the making -- it's very superficial and inaccurate."Someone should gather all of these accounts of what is really going on in Iraq, and put them together. The title could be, "Falsifying news for partisan gain: the story of how the national media in America mislead and distort." You can find a lot of these examples by going through Instapundit's blog (where this link came from), as well my blog, and that of a number of others. I really, really want to believe that the national media's inability to accurately tell the story is because they are stupid. The alternative is that they are so intent on "getting" George Bush, that they would return Iraq to a totalitarian dictatorship. Of course, it woudn't be the first time that the left chose to lie in the defense of torture, murder, and savagery. "I have seen the future, and it works." I Wish This Was True The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about the rage that California voters now feel about the political system there. There's one interesting vignette that I wish was true: Christian Reynolds, 32, left the Marine Corps and settled down in a Concord condo with his significant other and their three small children only to discover he had been turned into a criminal by the governor - by failing to meet a gun registration deadline he didn't know was coming.I wish this was a big chunk of the upset at Davis, but I doubt it. As long as Californians (and Americans in general) get almost all their knowledge of crime and guns from watching television and reading rags like the Los Angeles Times, they are going to remain committed to laws that criminalize the law-abiding gun owner, while doing little to punish murderers, rapists, and robbers. Does Anyone From the U.S. Virgin Islands Read This Blog? The reason that I ask is that I have recently noticed something interesting: the U.S. Virgin Islands law on concealed weapons appears to recognize concealed carry permits issued by other states or territories. § 460. Reciprocal recognition of out-of-state licensesI've checked the other sections, such as title 23 sec. 456, which sets out the qualifications for a permit, and title 23 sec. 454, "Persons who may be licensed to carry firearms." It appears that if your state fingerprints you and does a background check for issuance of a permit (and all do, to my knowledge), the U.S. Virgin Islands should recognize your state's carry permit while you are vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Now, this all seems very clear--but I also know that gun control laws in the territories are traditionally notoriously restrictive, out of fear of the natives getting restless. (And no, I'm not kidding about that. Hawaii and Puerto Rico have surprisingly strict gun control laws at least partly for that reason.) It would be very interesting for a local to find out if the law says what it seems to say. UPDATE: Someone pointed out to me that fingerprinting is not required in some states as part of the background check requirement. Be careful about this. I still would like some sort of clear statement about whether a state license that does conform to the Virgin Islands requirement is sufficient. I suppose I will have to write them a letter. Plagiarism? Alan Dershowitz is being accused of plagiarism. When I first saw the claims--that he had reused quotes from another book--my reaction was, "Huh?" It's quite common to look up another book's sources, and cite the original source. (This is also useful for catching academics pulling a Bellesiles.) If you can't find the original source, it's okay to reuse the quote, but you cite where you found it: Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (New York: 1981), quoted in Peters, 45, 48, 51. But the accusation was that Dershowitz had gone back to the sources cited by another book. That's not plagiarism. However, the accusation now is something a bit worse. Finkelstein said that borrowing citations from Peters’ book is worse than borrowing from others because, he asserts, the book is biased and unreliable. “He not only plagiarized, but he plagiarized from a certifiable hoax.”Now this is a serious matter. If you go back to the original, and use the same quotes, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you don't have the page numbers right, then it suggests that you didn't really look up the original source--just copied the quote and citation from a secondary source. That is plagiarism. If Dershowitz had actually gone and looked up the quotes from Innocents Abroad in a newer edition, he would have realized that the page numbers were different. He would not have been able to find the quotes on pages 349, 366, 375, 441, and 442 of the 1996 edition. I haven't looked at Peters' book, or Dershowitz's book, so I don't how accurate Finkelstein's claim is. If true, however, it's devastating. What's Really Happening in Iraq There's finally a significant number of news reports that give a bit more balanced portrayal of the situation. This article from the British Observer is still critical of some aspects of the U.S. occupation, but is careful to distinguish reality from what the left wants to hear: As last week's report by the Iraqi Survey Group makes clear, the stated rationale for the Anglo-American war - destruction of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction - was at best exaggerated and at worst plain wrong. There was a case for deposing Saddam, the Pol Pot of the Arab world, but it was not the case made by George Bush and Tony Blair. They could have pleaded Saddam's past use of WMD against his own people; the present threat, from his security services, to every Iraqi man, woman and child; the future threat from WMD, and biological weapons in particular, for, as the ISG report also makes clear, Saddam was concealing work on two BW agents and conducting new research into two others. But they didn't. Their unilateral war may make Iraq more safe, but the wider world less so. Disturbing, indeed. |
