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Labels: global warming
Never forget!
I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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J. Norman Heath's Blog--a circus rigger and Second Amendment scholar (really!)
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Why Homosexuality and Freedom of Speech Seem to Be Incompatible
A few weeks back, I pointed out that one of my concerns about homosexuality was the manner in which it seemed to be squelching so many other freedoms as it became the dominant force in the society. The analogy is to the 1830s and 1840s, when even Americans with only a mild concern about slavery became concerned how freedom of speech and freedom to petition Congress were being lost because the slaveowners--a very small but powerful minority--objected to any public criticism of what they did.
Professor Volokh has provided another example of how this is playing out in the modern world, where again, a small but powerful minority is suppressing public criticism of what it does. In this case, a street preacher in Britain carried a sign condemning homosexuality, was attacked by a mob--and punished for provoking them to violence. Imagine if a court sentenced a woman to prison for wearing a short skirt, and used as evidence that it was provocative that while dressed in that manner, someone raped her.
Yes, I know about the case in Florida some years ago where a man accused of rape was found innocent by the jury because they believed his claim that it wasn't rape, but theft of services. (He said he didn't pay a prostitute, and the manner in which she was dressed, and at what hour, was one of the pieces of evidence the jury used to decide that he was telling the truth.) This is not equivalent. The analogy would have been if the jury had sent her to prison, rather than releasing the man accused of rape.
Neutrality Towards Religion?
Professor Volokh gives an example of a law that seems to have survived challenge on Establishment clause grounds even though it appears to discriminate against the non-religious. He isn't happy with this conclusion, it appears.If the Establishment Clause is interpreted, as the Court has suggested, as mandating neutrality towards religion, this seems to be a violation; and in any event, constitutional or not, it seems quite unfair, and in my view likely a violation of statutory bans on religious discrimination.
The core problem here, however, is that while the Supreme Court has taken this view--that the Establishment Clause mandates neutrality towards religion--the evidence of original intent demonstrates that the Establishment Clause was not understood to mandate neutrality towards religion. Once again, I remind the reader that if you read this, you will see clear evidence that the Framers of our Constitution were not neutral towards religion. They were certainly pro-religion--because in the framework of the time, this meant generally supportive of Christianity in its many different denominations, with a tolerance (although not equality) for Judaism and certain other ideas that weren't too far outside the mainstream. The notion that the Framers believed that atheism was on the same level playing field as any Judeo-Christian religious belief is simply not supportable by items such as this from the Delaware Constitutional Convention of 1776:The Convention met.
Or this, from the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution:
On Motion of Mr. McKean,
Resolved unanimously,
That the following Words be added to the Profession of Faith made by the Members of this House respectively, to wit, "And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine Inspiration." [Claudia L. Bushman, Harold B. Hancock, and Elizabeth Moyne Homsey, ed., (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1986), 209.]And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:
Or the 1776 North Carolina Constitution:I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.
And no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State.That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.
Or this from the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution: Art. III. As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffcused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of the public instructions in piety, religion, and morality: Therefore, To promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic or religious societies to make suitable provision, at Proceedings of the Assembly of the Lower Counties on Delaware 1770-1776, of the Constitutional Convention of 1776, and of the House of Assembly of the Delaware State 1776-1781 their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.
I agree with Professor Volokh that the law in question seems to discriminate against the non-religious, and this seems to me to be poor public policy. That doesn't make it unconstitutional, however.
The Establishment Clause prohibits Congress from passing laws "respecting an establishment of religion," not laws "respecting religion." An establishment of religion had a rather precise meaning to Americans in 1789--an established church, one with special legal status relative to other churches, as many of the states still had at the time. The notion that the same Congress that passed the First Amendment was neutral about religion is absurd: they opened in prayer. They hired a chaplain. They specified this oath for members of Congress: Resolve, That the form of the oath to be taken by the members of this Houses, as required by the third clause of the sixth article of the Constitution of Government of the United States, be as followeth, to wit: "I, A B a Representative of the United "States in the Congress thereof, do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) in "the presence of Almighty GOD, that I will support the Constitution of the United "States. So help me GOD."[Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1789-1793, Monday, April 6, p. 7]
This is the same Congress that passed this Thanksgiving resolution: Resolved, That a Joint Committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the People of the United States, a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed, by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of Government for their safety and happiness.[Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1789-1793, Friday, September 25, 1789, p. 123]
Neutral towards religion? Hardly.
Why The Boomer Generation Isn't Supportive of Legalizing All Drugs
Randy Barnett over at Volokh Conspiracy asks why the Democratic candidates--all of whom are part of the Boomer Generation--are shying away from legalizing drugs. He does recognize that while many of the Democratic candidates clearly smoked marijuana in their youth (and may still, for all we know), he suggests that they are afraid of taking such stand for fear of voter reaction--even from the Boomer Generation voters.A reader writes: "Naah -- they're just scared to tell the truth because they're afraid it might lose them votes." I cannot argue with this, but what is the political dynamic at work? Is the baby boomer electorate so puritanical that they would punish progressive polititians who voiced support for liberalizing or legalizing intoxicants, or simply marijuana? Are Gen-Xers? Gen-Y? I am not sure this changes my fundamental frustration with the boomers whose pontification I used to have to listen to when I was young--especially by those a few years older than me in Bill Clinton's age group.
Later, Professor Barnett argues: Or do these formerly moralistic, self righteous boomer politicians (you really had to live through this to understand) lack all courage of their convictions? I have my own theory, but it is of course a sweeping and therefore highly questionable generalization: The "Me Generation" was and remains committed to one overriding principle. Whatever they may happen want at the time. When they wanted to have sex ("free love") and use drugs they defended this on moral grounds, but when they become parents they don't want their children to use drugs so they oppose legalization. The constant principle here is what they happen to want at the time. Perhaps all generations are like this as they age, but this generation was unusually noisy when its members were younger about how morally superior they were to their elders ("Don't trust anyone over 30" they used to say--which used to be called the "Generation Gap")--as well as to anyone else who disagreed with them. Somehow I think younger readers who are now taught by old boomers know what I mean.
I think Professor Barnett misses the most obvious reason why the generation that smoked marijuana and experimented with even more hazardous drugs (LSD, for example) may have changed their tune: They learned from their drug abuse, and decided it was a bad idea.
My wife and I are pretty unusual in that we didn't do drugs--but most of our peers did. Many of our peers are now vigorously in support of the War on Drugs because they look at all the damage that they did to themselves, and have decided that they don't want their kids to go through the same hell.
I used to share Professor Barnett's "anything goes" view, and I still suspect prohibition is not the most effective way to solve the problem of drug abuse. I am a lot more sympathetic, however, to the prohibitionists than I used to be. Most of the Boomers were starting to use marijuana in high school and college. Today, at least in millionaire leftist cesspools like Sonoma County, California, marijuana usage and binge drinking are the norm by junior high--and peer pressure is enormous on those who are not getting wasted. (According to a psychiatric emergency room doctor I spoke with there, girls cutting themselves is now the norm as well.) My daughter tells me that many kids in middle school were obviously intoxicated when they showed up for classes--and teachers pretended not to notice. Parents commonly supplied beer to their 9th graders for parties; some parents supplied marijuana to their middle school kids as rewards for good grades.
Two different kids have described to me students engaging in obviously illegal activities in front of teachers in Petaluma, California high schools. One told that kids would regularly drink alcohol in the back of the classroom (Petaluma High School). Another reported seeing a student rolling joints in front of the teacher (Casa Grande High School). I've talked to drug rehab counselors treating 2nd graders with marijuana addiction problems.
A lot of people have looked back at what they did as teenagers and young adults--and they have learned from their mistakes. Professor Barnett doesn't seem to have even considered the possibility that the majority might actually have a rational basis for their belief that keeping various drugs illegal is a good thing.
UPDATE: I just noticed Professor Barnett's admission: "And I hasten to add, though I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, that I have never even smoked marijuana--not once--then or now." Hmmm. This might explain why he, unlike his pot-smoking Boomer cohort members, remains committed to legalization.
A Broad Definition of Disaster
I found this in the September 30th report from Brandywine Associates, who manage one of my mutual funds: Extremely remote backup
I'm glad to see that Brandywine isn't investing in TransOrbital--what kind of disaster is someone imagining where the data would only be safe on the Moon--and anyone would care that the data was still safe?
La Jolla, California-based TransOrbital, the first private company authorized by the U.S. government for commercial flights to the moon, plans to pack its lunar orbiter with servers, data, computers and digital cameras with the hope of establishing a new frontier in the world of remote backup. The company says moon storage promises to protect critical data from earthly disasters, though “delays are implied” when it comes to accessing the data from earth. TransOrbital’s lunar orbiter, Trailblazer, which will also deliver business cards, cremated remains and other items on behalf of paying customers, is scheduled for an early-2004 launch.
To The Moon & Mars
You are, I'm sure, anxiously waiting for me to weigh in on this. I think space travel is cool. A century from now, all the other software that I have written will pale into insignificance compared to the very small amount of telemetry processing software I wrote for the Voyager missions. There's a good chance that you get your phone service or DSL service over equipment that I helped to bring to market, but compared to the exploration of the universe of Voyager? That's nothing.
In the great debate about sending men or robots to explore the universe, I'm generally more partial to robots. Robots are a lot cheaper; they don't require oxygen and water recycling systems; they don't take much room; they don't get painful state funerals, either. The incredible Martian probe failure rate should give us great pause at sending a manned mission there.
Nonetheless, manned space flight is appealing. There are actions that a human can do that a robot simply can't. If we send a biologist with an adequate laboratory, he'll be answer the question of life on Mars far more adequately than ten unmanned probes.
There's a time to do this, however--when we have the deficit under control. In another four or five years, the deficit will be approaching a tolerable level; by FY 2012, we are supposed to be again running a surplus. Fortunately, President Bush's proposal doesn't involve a big expenditure right now. Instead, he is proposing a modest increase in NASA budget, and eliminating some programs that are expensive and not terribly sensible expenditures.
I was talking to a co-worker about the proposed Moon base. I explained that while it doesn't make much sense if the goal is to go to Mars as a one-shot deal, a Moon base makes a lot of sense as a long-term strategy for exploration. Why? It turns out that, contrary to what many had assumed, there is ice at the lunar poles (later confirmed by other probes). Ice, of course, contains both rocket fuel (hydrogen) and air (oxygen), both of which are necessary for a long expedition to Mars. Every pound of hydrogen and oxygen that we get from the Moon is a pound that we don't have to lift out of Earth's gravity well. (The Moon has a gravity well, of course, but it is far less, and even getting escape velocity from Earth at the distance of the Moon is a bit less demanding than it is from Earth's surface.)
Irony Overload: "Britney Believes in 'Sanctity' of Marriage"
From this news story here. I can't bear to quote the rest of it, except that when asked about her feelings for her husband of 55 hours: "That's a personal question," she said, before changing the subject to promote her new video, "Toxic."
Toxic? Yeah, that describes the effect that she is having on herself, and the culture.
Ecstasy & Marijuana Use: Effects on Memory
This report suggests that ecstasy and marijuana aren't quite as harmless as some people would like to believe: People who take the recreational drug ecstasy risk impairing their memory, according to an international study which surveyed users in places including the UK, other European countries, the USA and Australia.
I'm only mentioning this because some of you may not remember that clearly what you were like before you started doing these drugs!
The study, which also surveyed non-drug users, found that those who regularly took ecstasy suffered from mainly long-term memory difficulties, and that they were 23 per cent more likely to report problems with remembering things than non-users.
The British research team, led by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, also questioned volunteers about their use of other recreational drugs. It found those who regularly used cannabis reported up to 20 per cent more memory problems than non-users. Their short-term memory was mainly affected.
In Case You Missed This on Fox News & Drudge Report This Morning
From Drudge Report: In what political watchers are calling possibly the biggest gaffe in years, former Vice President Al Gore is set to give a speech tomorrow on the perils of global warming -- on what is expected to be the coldest day in New England in nearly half a century!
Yeah, yeah, global warming causes extreme weather, Gore says.
Paul Johnson wrote a book some years ago called Intellectuals. One of the points of that book was that intellectuals love ideas more than people. Hence Karl Marx, complaining about the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists--gets his maid pregnant, and as soon as she starts to show, fires her.
One of the defining characteristics of the left has been its love for grand theories, to which they tenaciously hold, even after the evidence is abundantly clear that the theory is wrong. In 1890, it was still easy to believe that socialism was going to solve the problems of exploitation of the workers, poverty, and crime. In 1930, you did not have to be terribly blind to believe that the Soviet Union represented the future of the world.
By 1970, and certainly by 1980, it was obvious, from all the examples that were available, that the Soviet Union was not the future. It was obvious that democratic socialism, in the few places where it had been given a fair trial, had failed. It simply lacked the productivity to help the poor. (The capitalist welfare state, for all its flaws, at least produces enough wealth to alleviate real poverty through income redistribution.) The absence of resource scarcity information through the price system also meant that socialism misallocated resources. In spectacular cases, such as the Aral Sea disaster, socialism produced individual environmental disasters that the capitalist West collectively could not create.
Yet intellectuals (at least those on American college campuses), by and large, remain committed to democratic socialism, and many continue to have sympathy for the Soviet Union and its modern progeny, such as Hussein's Iraq and Castro's Cuba. Why? Because the ideas are so attractive as ideals (at least, to many underpaid college professors) that the practical failure of these ideals doesn't matter.
Similarly with the intellectual desire to see global warming, in spite of at best contradictory evidence about the matter. I hope Gore can't give his speech without his teeth chattering.
It's Always Amusing to Look at Imported Automobiles...
Especially those imported from the United States! I ran into this amusing ad for "***CHEVROLET CHEVELLE V8 Baujahr 1969*** Komplett restauriert und geht wie die Hölle!!"
Non-Linear Response to Inputs in Public Schooling
Professor Gary Blasi's Los Angeles Times article that Discriminations brought to my attention brings forth some very disturbing statistics about the disparities in education with the Los Angeles Unified School District: The federal test scores tell us whether students are reading or doing math at basic, proficient or advanced levels for their grade. In LAUSD, white fourth-graders are three times more likely than African American or Latino fourth-graders to be identified as "proficient" readers, while fully 70% of the district's African American and Latino children cannot read at even a basic level. In math, the education gap in Los Angeles is even wider: White eighth-graders are 10 times more likely to be proficient in math than African American or Latino students, three-quarters of whom score at a "below basic" level. Compared to African American and Latino eighth-graders in all nine urban districts, Los Angeles students were dead last in math, with just 3% scoring at a proficient level.
Now this is very disturbing, without question. There are some basic skills that you must have to get a decent job, and to be a good citizen. What's gone wrong here? According to Professor Blasi: Given what we know of the conditions in the schools attended by poor, nonwhite students, we should not be surprised at these results. Poor test scores mirror precisely the dramatic inequalities in educational opportunity at our schools. Take the issue of teacher quality: There is little doubt that well-prepared teachers are critical to a child's education. Yet African American and Latino elementary school students in the district are nearly three times more likely to be taught by a teacher lacking a full credential.
How crowded are the schools that black and Hispanic students attend? Are they three times as crowded? Are they ten times as crowded? Somehow, I am skeptical that the crowding of minority schools or the disparity in teacher quality is enough to explain such shocking results.
It should be obvious to just about anyone that the problems of crowding and less qualified teachers can only be a part of this problem. These are shocking differences--and unfortunately, the left doesn't ever seem to ask questions about the cultural values of the parents and what influence those might have on education.
Memo to Liberals: There Is No Oil On Mars Or The Moon
Instapundit brought this amazing article to my attention: Halliburton on Mars: Take me to your CEO
Oil is generally believed to be a byproduct of ancient life. I think we can say with considerable certainty that there is no oil on the Moon, and the chances of there being any on Mars is so small that no rational person would be bidding on the contracts for it.
When President Bush inspires us onward and upward to Mars this week, his political calculations may be more earthly. Expanding space exploration is a wonderful aspiration for America and humanity -- and also quite promising for the Houston economy, the national aerospace industry, and one company in particular that has long pondered exploration of the red planet: Halliburton.
Yes, the firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney -- fabled beneficiary of no-bid multibillion-dollar military contracts and high-priced provider of Kuwaiti oil -- is determined to drill on Mars and the moon. Surely this scheme has nothing to do with the Bush space initiative. But somehow, no matter what worthy motivations lie behind the president's policies, he and Cheney always appear to be shilling for their corporate clientele.
(Consider former Treasury Secretary Paul O' Neill's revelations about early Iraq war planning, which included a March 2001 memo -- titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" -- that mapped out potential post-Saddam petroleum exploration.)
Maybe Joe Conason doesn't think that Haliburton's interest is oil drilling--but I sure don't see that from what he wrote.
It really would be good if liberals took some science classes somewhere in college. "Learning to Love Mother Earth" isn't a science class.
The Function of Police
I'm not an anarchist, but I can at least understand why this is sometimes an attractive idea to those who are full of youthful idealism--a whole society based on enlightened self-interest! Liberals, in defending the status quo, often argue, "Who will protect you if the government doesn't do it?" As this news story demonstrates, there are times that the function of government is to protect the criminals from the victims: COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Two Danish car thieves called police for help when they realized the angry victim of their latest crime was in hot pursuit in another car.
The car's owner decided to chase the men after witnessing the theft from his home in northern Denmark, the local daily Berlingske Tidende said Monday.
The hapless thieves, aged 19 and 21, called the police to report themselves and asked to be picked up at a nearby road, the newspaper said.
The Full Details of This Will Make a Fine Psychiatric Journal Article
Either that, or someone has a most unusual computer virus: German police are investigating after an angry man returned a computer he had just bought saying it was packed with small potatoes instead of computer parts.
The store replaced the computer free of charge but became suspicious when he returned a short time later with another potato-filled computer casing, police in the western city of Kaiserslautern said Monday.
Shooting The Critic
I made a flip remark about how the Philipines must have some serious problems indeed, because of a series of shootings over karoke performances of My Way. Then I see this news story: NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York mobster has confessed to killing a man by shooting him in the back because he heckled a woman singer and swore at him in an Italian restaurant, according to court documents.
...
Police said Broadway chanteuse Rena Strober was singing "Don't Rain on My Parade" at Rao's, an East Harlem restaurant when a patron, Albert Circelli, criticized her performance.
After an exchange of words and gestures, Barone pulled out a .38 caliber revolver and shot Circelli. A second shot hit another diner in the foot.
It's Not About Freedom: It's About Control
Libertarians often argue that they are on the side of homosexuals because it is the side of freedom. But this story is another reminder that no, it's not about freedom, it's about control: The six members of Atlanta's Human Relations Commission said Monday they believe Druid Hills Golf Club has violated a city ordinance by not extending spousal benefits to the partners of gay members.
So the problem here is that the club does not discriminate against homosexuals; it doesn't grant any unmarried couple the privileges that homosexuals are now demanding.
"It's clear that Druid Hills Golf Club does not deny that they treat married couples and couples that have a domestic relationship differently, and the [city] ordinance clearly states that they should not be treated differently, and that's it," said Dr. Fernando A. Gonzalez, a commission member, following two hours of testimony.
...
During testimony, club President Joe Cahoon stressed that while the 1,100-member club will admit gay and lesbian members, it will not recognize domestic partners or other unmarried couples as spouses.
The club's concern, he said, is that if it extends spousal privileges to same-sex couples, the same will have to be afforded other unmarried pairs.
This is a private entity--not a government. They have rules that apply equally to both straight and gay--and even that isn't enough to make homosexuals happy. Does anyone seriously doubt that in another ten years, homosexuals will be insisting that churches, temples, and mosques solemnize homosexual marriages--and suing those not prepared to go along?
This Is What Passes For Intelligent Criticism of U.S. Policy on the Left
Click here. It's not even effective enough to make me angry.
Odds & Ends: Colonial Gun Ownership
First, the Digression
I'm reading John Putnam Demos' Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982) at the moment. Other recently read books are Demos' A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony and Carol F. Karlson's The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. (In case you are wondering why: my wife is teaching a literature class this semester on Hawthorne & Poe, and had originally wanted me to come and speak about Puritan culture, witchcraft, and related issues.)
A little digression: Karlson's book, in spite of the title, and many of the references that I have seen to it, is a careful and thoughtful analysis from what might be called a feminist view of witchcraft trials in New England. I've seen more than my share of ranting and raving arguments, usually advanced by political hacks with little actual knowledge of the subject, that portray witchcraft trials as part of the vast phallocentric conspiracy against uppity women.
Karlson does advance the argument that the witchcraft trials can be understood as, at least in part, a struggle over the proper place of women in society--but she also makes the case that much of this struggle was over the question of property ownership--that those accused of witchcraft were disproportionately women who had personally inherited significant wealth. This was a little unusual in New England, where widows normally inherited only the use of 1/3 of the real property of her husband--the dower third. Karlson, however, is careful to emphasize that this is an insufficient explanation, because there are so many accusations that do not involve such situations, and of course, there are men accused of witchcraft as well (although generally they were husbands of women accused of witchcraft).
Demos' Entertaining Satan has been something of a disappointment. Demos' A Little Commonwealth has long been considered a great survey of Plymouth Colony social structure, with some implications as well for the larger issue of Puritan New England. I certainly have found it thoughtful, well-organized, and rich in statistical measure. (As Professor John McCarthy of Stanford likes to say, "Those who will not do arithmetic are doomed to talk nonsense.")
Entertaining Satan in places is quite readable. When Demos is telling a story--giving us the human details of a sequence of events--his discussions are illuminating and interesting. Unfortunately, Entertaining Satan suffers from an overdose of Freudian and neo-Freudian analysis to explain witchcraft. Much of this stuff is just unreadable, and I'm sure that an expurgated version (minus the mildly critical remarks about homosexuality) will have to be published one of these days, so that this version can be put on the bonfires of Political Correctness.
One area where Demos is quite interesting, however, his is discussions of how witchcraft accusations seem to often be directed at people of low socioeconomic status who manage to rise to positions of considerable wealth. Demos suggests that to Puritan society, which was a little focused on class distinctions and was also somewhat hostile to the capitalist acquisitive model at first, there was something just a little "supernatural" about poor people working their way up the ladder to wealth--almost as though some sort of dark forces were at work. (Think of the sequence in the movie Oh God! You Devil where the rock star's soul gets taken after his seven years of fame, or think of Stephen Vincent Benet's short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster.")
Another interesting point that Demos makes is that in a number of cases, it appears that external conflict was followed by witchcraft hysteria--that as long as there was an external threat, the community lacked the energy to look for internal enemies. It was only after external threats had evaporated, and the community had a few years of peace that witchcraft accusations became a big issue. This certainly puts Arthur Miller's The Crucible, with its implications that McCarthyism was a witchhunt reaction to the Cold War, in a whole new light. If Demos is correct, the time for McCarthyism--if you buy the "McCarthyism as externally provoked paranoia" theme--would have been the 1960s, not the 1950s.
The Main Point Promised in the Title of This Entry!
I am, of course, astonished at how much material has already been mined by historians on the subject of gun ownership in Colonial America. Entertaining Satan has a couple of passages that remind us that guns were not rare items in this period, and certainly not kept locked up in government armories. Demos quotes the son of the first regular pastor at Wethersfield, Connecticut:The meeting-house was solid made, to withstand the wicked assaults of the redskins. Its foundations was laid in the fear of the Lord, but its walls were truly laid in the fear of the Indians, for many and great was the terrors of 'em. I do mind me that all the able-bodied men did work thereat, and the old and feeble did watch in turns to espy if any savages was in hiding near, and every man kept his musket nigh to his hand. [Samuel Smith to his son Ichabod Smith, January 1, 1699, in Sherman W. Adams and Henry R. Stiles, The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut (New York: 1904), 1:153-55, quoted in Demos, Entertaining Satan, 343-4]
I also notice that Demos on p. 358 mentions yet another example of a person fined for transferring a firearm to the Indians: John Carrington was fined ten pounds "for bartering a gun with an Indian."
Democrats: Slow Learners, But Learning?
From MSNBC: Jan. 19 issue - In 2000, Al Gore proposed issuing federal licenses to gun owners. The idea didn't sit well in conservative Red States and, some say, it may have cost him the election. Now a new survey of presidential candidates suggests Democrats are moderating their stances. All six major contenders—Wes Clark, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman—oppose both the licensing of gun owners and the registration of handguns. (Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley Braun support both; Al Sharpton and President Bush didn't answer the survey.) While the six Dems favor restrictions like a renewal of the assault-weapons ban and background checks at gun shows, they also affirm their support for gun ownership. They "refused to be 'Gored'," says Jonathan Cowan, president of Americans for Gun Safety, which conducted the survey.
I would like to think that they are learning about the importance of the right to keep and bear arms--but I would be inclined to think that they are just learning to lie.
Restoring The Cave Optical Mount
I took the Cave Optical equatorial mount over to a sign shop to have it professionally repainted today. I am also busily polishing and cleanign the engraved setting circles. At some level, the $175 that I paying to have it repainted (and the rusty parts sandblasted) isn't completely rational.
The mount, made by Parks Optical and sold under the Cave Optical label, is quite definitely an example of 1960s design. By modern standards, it is too heavy for the weight it can hold, and the controls are crude. So why am I bothering to put the money and time into restoring it?
My father bought this mount for me in 1971, just before the close Mars opposition that year. It replaced a pipe fittings mount that my father had built out of scraps found in various junkyards. My father was one of those people that could build just about anything. It might not be beautiful, but it worked--and he could build stuff out of utter junk! I wonder what he could have done if he had gone to university in 1928, when he graduated high school, and earned a mechanical engineering degree.
I think the final price out the door of Cave Optical's storefront in Long Beach was $215. That doesn't sound like much today, but for my parents in 1971, that wasn't a trivial expenditure. In a lot of ways, this mount is a reminder of my father, and of much simpler times. In 1971, my brother was still well; my father was still working; I was just about to enter high school.
I had requested 6" setting circles on the scope, instead of the standard 4" circles. The 4" circles fit on a 1" shaft; the 6" circles fit on a 1.5" shaft. After my father and I reached home with the mount, I noticed that one of the 6" circles had such a sloppy bushing in it to make up the difference that it was grossly and obviously off-center. The next day, my brother drove me down there to get Tom Cave to make it right.
More than thirty years have passed since then. Two years after that trip with my big brother Ron, he sank into schizophrenia--from which he has not recovered. In 1974, I graduated high school in a maelstrom of chaos caused by my brother's problems. In 1976, my father died of a heart attack (perhaps induced by incompetent care at the hospital in Barstow). For all that was wrong with the world in 1971, there are times I wish I could be 15 again, when life was simple, and the height of my aspirations was an equatorial mount with a clock drive.
Calling All Venture Capitalists!
If you are one of those people with a few million dollars sitting around, and you are looking to take some risks in exchange for 10x or 100x return, keep reading. If you are one of the unfortunate few that still has to work for a living, stop reading now.
A couple of acquaintances believe that they have come up with the next killer application--something that can read and understand standard English sentences, even of considerable complexity. When I was out of work back in 2001, I coded up their ideas. When I started, I was a little skeptical, but they were paying me to do it, so I didn't care if they were deluding themselves or not.
After spending a few months on it part-time, I am no longer so skeptical. By the time I finished coding the prooof of concept, and typed in about 30 sentences to train it, I could see that they had come up with something quite amazing. I find it quite plausible that they have come up with a technique for truly understanding arbitrary natural language.
There are a lot of query engines out there right now, but the vast majority of them do not actually understand, or even try to understand, the actual meaning of the query. They look for certain keywords, and the results are often quite amusing when they aren't disappointing. The techniques that my friends have come up with are a quantum leap forward from anything that I have seen in this area.
My friends have a business plan; now they need about $7.5 million to get their company profitable. If you are a venture capitalist, you are used to funding operations where that amount of money is the first round of financing. The advantage of this opportunity is that it is all software--no hardware design, no risky ASIC turns, no questions of whether the hardware can be built.
If my friends aren't deluding themselves, this has the potential to change the world in the same way that personal computers changed the world. Even if it turns out that it isn't quite the revolutionary change that they hope, I suspect that some of the software that will come out of this is still going to be a high value proposition nonetheless.
So, if you have no better place to invest $7.5 million right now, please contact me, and I will arrange to put you in touch with them. They are pursuing a number of venture capital opportunities right now, but the more potential investors, the better.
The Limits of Free Speech
Instapundit has made some sardonic remarks about this case in Indianapolis, in which a woman was arrested for driving a car with a naked woman painted on it. Now, before you get too tut-tut about those narrowminded Midwesterners who don't appreciate true "art," the article has an interesting quote in it: Indiana Civil Liberties Union Attorney Ken Falk saw a photograph of the painting and called it "very graphic."
Now, when the ACLU's Indiana attorney calls it "very graphic," I would guess that this is probably not going to be a very close call for anyone else.
He agrees the case could test Indiana statutes that restrict the exhibition of obscene matter and dissemination of matter harmful to minors.
"The question is, is this constitutionally protected expression, and is it trumped by the interest we have in protecting minors?" Falk said. "Part of that might depend on Indiana law."
Instapundit's remark about this case: Apparently, the drop in actual crime has produced a surplus of free time among police forces.
This is quite similar to what he had to say last month when Cleburne, Texas, sent out undercover agents to arrest a woman for selling a vibrator. I agreed with him on that one--but this is a rather different case. The police didn't go looking for this "breasts and pubic area" decorated car; it was there in plain view, driving down the street. The police are obligated to enforce all laws that they see being broken (and this is actually a felony in Indiana). We would not want the police deciding which laws they were going to enforce, and which they were going to wink and nod about.
I think a round of layoffs is in order.
Now, perhaps Instapundit thinks that there should be no laws against public obscenity. I think you would find that even most liberals in America would agree that there are appropriate limits to what is displayed in a public place. There are few people that would consider it appropriate to have hardcore pornography plastered up on billboards, or graphic pictures of murder, brutality, and suffering. (Think about the efforts of feminists to suppress pro-lifer use of gory and graphic pictures of abortions.)
WMDs in Iraq
This isn't quite what a number of governments--including the French--thought Iraq had, but in a technical sense, yes, we have found chemical weapons in Iraq: BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Danish and Icelandic troops have uncovered a cache of 36 shells in southern Iraq, and preliminary tests showed they contained a liquid blistering agent, the Danish military said Saturday.
Danish troops? Icelandic troops? Boy, for a "unilateral" action in Iraq, there sure are troops from a lot of other countries present. I didn't even know Iceland had a military!
A U.S. commander said the shells were buried in the desert and were thought to be leftovers from the eight-year war between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which ended in 1988.
The shells were found near Al Quarnah, north of the city of Basra where Denmark's 410 troops are based, the Danish Army Operational Command said in a written statement.
The Rancho Cotate High School Conservative Club Story Just Keeps Growing!
From the Santa Rosa [Cal.] Press-Democrat: The student-led Conservative Club at Rancho Cotate High School has become a lightning rod for conservatives, bringing an avalanche of e-mails to the Rohnert Park school from throughout the country and attracting offers of support and aid for its 17-year-old leader.
...
The school in the past week has received thousands of e-mail messages from conservatives around the country who learned of Bueler from newspapers, talk radio and Web sites, a school district official said. Even conservative leader Phyliss Schlafly has stepped into the controversy, offering to debate one of the Rancho Cotate teachers next month on the topic of liberal bias in the classroom.
The school district's superintendent, meanwhile, has hired an independent investigator to look into Bueler's allegations of student threats and teacher inaction.
Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District Superintendent Michael Watenpaugh on Thursday met with the school's faculty and brought in two attorneys to discuss students' free-speech rights and the responsibilities of teachers in protecting students. The attorneys were from the county schools' legal office and the California Teachers Association.
Watenpaugh, who started his Rohnert Park job last fall, also issued a statement in which he concluded that Rancho Cotate's principal was wrong to suggest that Bueler stay home a few days last month "for a cooling-off period" after the student had complained of threats from other students.
"I do not believe as the new superintendent that that's appropriate. Students need to be in school," he said.
The school since has provided a staff member to temporarily escort Bueler between classes.
Selling Toys: Telescope Mount, Colt AR-15
I'm starting to sell off various toys that I no longer need, to raise cash for a larger equatorial mount. That means I am interested in finding a buyer for an Orion EQ-2 equatorial mount with clock drive (well suited to telescopes that way perhaps seven pounds or less). If someone wanted to give me $100 plus shipping charges, I would be happy. You would pay about $250 for new (including what is probably a better clock drive).
The other toy that I am toying with selling is a Colt AR-15. This is the model sold through 1983, with the triangular handguards, flash hider, and bayonet lug (for all those bayonet charges that you make against burglars). Obviously, that will have to be through a licensed gun dealer in your state.
If you just want a semiauto rifle of AR-15 pattern, you could probably do better buying a new one from another maker. If you are a collector who just has to have one of the original Colt AR-15s, let me take advantage of your irrational lust! It has been fired certainly less than 1000 rounds; I am the original purchaser. (To think that I drove most of the length of California in 1984 with this rifle in the window of an S-10 Blazer and didn't even get a single strange look!)
It is all original except that I have replaced the original two screw unit that holds the lower and upper receivers together with a push pin--much faster for dismantling it to a size that fits in a suitcase. I will also include the GI cleaning kit that goes into the buttstock storage space.
There are a few rust stains on the flash hider and front sight base. These are not deep rust--just stains left over from having to store it in a less than ideal location after the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act forced movement to a more...friendly jurisdiction. It comes with the two original Colt 20 round magazines, and if you need more, I am up to my armpits in new 30 round magazines for it that I can sell you.
Anyway, as I had mentioned a few days ago, visiting here showed me that these SP1 models command absurd prices. If someone offers me $1000 for it, I'll be quite happy to take it. Remember that you'll have to have a Federal Firearms Licensee in your state send me a signed copy of his FFL for me to ship it. If interested, email me, and I'll send you some pictures.
CableOne Was Out of Service For About Twelve Hours
Since they are my ISP, that meant that I wasn't receiving email, or able to blog, or do any of about forty important activities! This is the first such outage in the seven months that I have been on cable modem service, but it was impressive. When I called technical support, for many hours all I received was a busy signal--as every other customer in Boise called to whine.
