The advertising above is just a source of revenue. If the ads get offensive enough, I may drop them.
Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
|
|
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 ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
Magazines for cheap!
PayPal members: to make a contribution
Email me at blogmail at claytoncramer dot com. Sorry to be so indirect, but all spambots must die! But they haven't died yet! Include the word spamIamnot in your subject line to make sure that my spam blocker lets you through. |
Saturday, March 06, 2004
From My Friend Norman Heath What do you call a Democrat who opposes the ill-conceived, unjust and unwinnable war, and thinks the Republican president is a contemptible, despotic, ill-educated buffoon? A Copperhead. The president I was thinking of was Lincoln. Wanted: Someone To Check The Accuracy of My Research I have a spreadsheet consisting of firearms and valuations in probate inventories from Plymouth Colony. The probate records are all text online. I have been rechecking the information in the spreadsheet, in preparation for getting my book about firearms in early America published, and I've found a few mistakes (1 pound, 10 shillings, 0 pence when it should have been 0 pounds, 10 shillings, 0 pence). I do not expect these discrepancies to significantly affect the overall average--but it is good to be sure. If you have an hour or two, and would be interested in checking the spreadsheet contents against the particular probate inventories (you will find some interesting oddities there), please let me know. I don't expect you to do anything expect flag that lines where there seems to be an error. UPDATE: Never mind. I finished it, found a couple of guns in inventories that I missed the first time. Friday, March 05, 2004
There Is Something More Dangerous Than Trying to Rob An Armed Civilian From WNBC in New York: NEW YORK -- A would-be robber was in serious condition Friday morning after rounds were fired and he was wounded in a shooting incident on the Lower East Side.A .380 caliber revolver? Hmmm. Well, let's hope that the rest of the story was accurately reported. A .38 caliber revolver, almost certainly, but the only .380 caliber is the .380 ACP--strictly a semiauto pistol cartridge, not a revolver. Thanks to Pete Drum for bringing this to my attention. Impertinent Questions From the Telegraph: Sir - We are two "sixtysomething" ladies who have shared a home for the past eight years. As "two adults sharing the same address", we pay a reduced joint subscription to institutions such as the National Trust and, currently, a reduced joint premium for holiday travel insurance.The rest captures the indignation of two proper English ladies, confronting a Depraved, New World. Ashcroft's Campaign About Obscene Movies Over at the New Republic, Gregg Easterbrook attacks Ashcroft's legal pursuit of obscene movies by claiming that pornographers are more responsible than the mainstream media: THE PORNOGRAPHY THAT'S MORE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE THAN PARAMOUNT: As millions of people troop to a religious film that is totally inappropriate for children--yours truly is still trying to get his head around that--John Ashcroft's Justice Department has launched a war on obscene movies. But the Justice Department doesn't mean violent movies, it means movies depicting sex. Surely there are sex movies obscene in the legal sense of the word, that is, that forfeit their First Amendment protection: child pornography, and any films that depict rape or sexual killing as forms of pleasure. (Courts consistently hold that just-sex just-adults naughty movies are Constitutionally protected.) But then the major studios, not just the fly-by-night houses, have been depicting the sexual murder of women as a form of pleasure at least since the 1979 Paramount movie Bloodline, which starred: Audrey Hepburn.Easterbrook then goes on at some length about Vivid Entertainment, hardcore pornography makers, who as a matter of corporate policy will never depict violence. Easterbrook is upset that Ashcroft, rather than going after sexually violent movies, is going after movies that show sex. I could agree with Easterbrook that hardcore pornography is less destructive and degrading than many of the slasher movies, and even worse, movies that eroticize violence--but there's a little problem: the article that Easterbrook links to is very clear about who Ashcroft's Justice Department is pursuing obscenity charges: On April 8, law enforcement seized five movies produced by Zicari's California-based company, Extreme Associates, which bills itself as "The Hardest Hard Core on the Web."This isn't buried deep in the article, either. It is the main point of the article. Easterbook could have made an argument that this is the beginning of a slippery slope from violent hardcore porn to non-violent hardcore porn, but he doesn't make that argument. Does Easterbrook have a reading problem? Or is he so intent on going after Ashcroft that he isn't going to let the facts get in his way? Tony Blair Explains Reality to the Reality-Impaired The BBC web site has the full text of a rather impressive speech that Tony Blair gave recently, in which he explains why he decided to go to war in Iraq. Here's what I consider the most powerful and important part of the speech: Already, before September 11th the world's view of the justification of military action had been changing.And this is the problem. Al-Qaeda is an enemy that insists on a death match--that sees itself leading Islam on a crusade to subjagate the entire world. Nothing but death will stop al-Qaeda's brand of extremism, and pretending that it is possible to solve this problem with some sort of compromise is delusion. Loser Pays It turns out that at least California has done one thing right: they have imposed "loser pays" in what are known as "SLAPP" suits. If you haven't run into this acronym before, it means Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and this website explains it well: What are SLAPPs?Being a good liberal, Barbara Streisand filed such a SLAPP against an environmentalist who is trying to photograph the entire California coastline. Well, she lost. And California law apparently has a specific provision that requires files of SLAPP suits to pay the loser's legal costs--which in this case, comes to more than $200,000. Streisand, like most liberals, doesn't much believe in rule of law--especially when the rule of the superrich egomaniac comes first--and is refusing to pay up. A Judge Who Actually Cares About the Rule of Law From AP: ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A state judge on Friday barred the mayor of a college town from performing more same-sex marriages for a month, saying Jason West was ignoring his oath of office.Isn't this grounds for censure by the ABA, actually following the law, instead of doing what makes you feel good? Excuse Me, Irony Overload From Newsday: The burgeoning battle over same-sex marriage came to Long Island today when about 50 gay and lesbian couples went to town halls on Long Island to demand marriage licenses.For those who aren't aware of this, the term "Whore of Babylon" appears in Revelations chapters 17-19 as a symbol of evil, and Babylon remains a symbol of depravity to many Christians today. The San Francisco Chronicle, on the rare occasions when public behavior gets a little too depraved even for them to accept, jocularly refers to San Francisco as "Babylon by the Bay." (I'm thinking of a post-election party a few years ago where the evening's entertainment--happening in front of the Chief of Police, several county supervisors, and most everyone who was anyone was present--involved a naked man, a naked woman, restraint devices, cutting into the skin, and then urinating on the wound.) UPDATE: If you want far more detail about this party in question than I have given you--probably far more than anyone should know about this perverted show--click here. But let me warn you--this is something that Larry Flynt might consider too sexually perverse. John Kerry Wins North Korean Endorsement The U.K.'s Financial Times reports that the same people engaging in starvation, mental and physical stunting of an entire generation of a country, torture, and mass murder, are clearly favoring John Kerry in the race for the White House: North Korea's state-controlled media are well known for reverential reporting about Kim Jong-il, the country's dictatorial leader. Another Superrich Liberal Goes To Prison Martha Stewart was convicted on all counts. If the Democrats were still in charge of Justice, I somehow doubt that someone on such good terms with Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party would have been pursued: Embattled doyenne of domesticity Martha Stewart was a major Democratic Party donor for most of the 1990s, giving the legal maximum to the campaigns of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, along with more than $100,000 in additional cash to related Democratic causes. So This Isn't An Urban Legend, After All I remember seeing the claim that some years ago, a too narrowly focused copy editor at a newspaper saw the phrase "putting the budget back in the black" and not realizing what that meant, changing it to use the preferred language of the newspaper for "black": "putting the budget back in the African-American." Demonstrating that there is nothing that too bizarre for the Los Angeles Times: A Los Angeles Times music critic who wrote that a Richard Strauss opera was "pro-life" -- meaning a celebration of life -- was stunned to pick up the paper and find his review changed by a literal-minded copy editor to read "anti-abortion."Thanks to How Appealling! for the link. Idaho Supreme Court Strikes Down Indecent Language Statute as Violation of First Amendment The Idaho Supreme Court has decided that Idaho Code sec. 18-6409, which defines disturbing the peace to include using "any vulgar, profane or indecent language within the presence or hearing of children, in a loud and boisterous manner" violates the First Amendment's right of free speech. The majority opinion is long, rather hard to follow, and essentially takes the position that "vulgar, profane or indecent language within the presence or hearing of children" does not fall into the "fighting words" exception that the Supreme Court has long recognized. Well, what did the defendant say? The majority is so delicately concerned with the 13 year old that was exposed to this language that they won't even tell us what was said--they decide it entirely in the abstract. The dissenting opinion at least tells us what was said, and this certainly seems to fit the definition of "fighting words" much better than the language the Supreme Court decided constituted such in Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire (1942): The victim in this case was a thirteen-year-old boy, unrelated to Mr. Poe. He came to Mr. Poe's home with his mother to pick up his three year old half brother. Though the facts are in dispute, there is evidence that Mr. Poe had had a prior unpleasant contact with the child's father and was in an emotional snit. Within the hearing of the child Mr. Poe made a comment to the effect that the child's father "needed to add a couple of inches to the penis." The child was angry and left the house, most likely slamming the door. Mr. Poe then opened the front door while the child was in the front yard and began yelling at him that he was going to come after him and his father, words to the effect that he was going to "kick his ass and kick his father's ass." He referred to the child as a "Jew bastard." [emphasis added]Sorry, but if this doesn't qualify as "fighting words," what does? It is a direct threat of violence to someone presumably weaker than the defendant and in no position to defend himself. UPDATE: What is even more disturbing about this decision is that they still upheld Poe's conviction for disturbing the peace, on other grounds. The net effect of this decision was to make it legal to use indecent language around a child. If there were a question of whether the defendant was going to be punished or not, and the only way to avoid what the majority considered to be an injustice was to decide that indecent language was constitutionally protected, I could at least understand, although not agree. This seems to be just three justices intent on making sure that you can use vulgar language, even in a threatening way towards a child--and get away with it. Minnesota's Report on Concealed Carry Permits As required by law, Minnesota puts out a report every year reporting on the number of concealed carry licenses issued and denied, as well as criminal violations by licensees. I just noticed this report issued last year, after the first year of the new law. The results are pretty darn encouraging. Of 13,709 applications received, 12,780 were issued, 904 licenses were denied, and 25 were incomplete or pending. Agencies in Minnesota may refuse to issue licenses for good cause, and the list of "good cause" reasons, and the number of applicants rejected for this reason, sound like police are doing their job, but not being ridiculous about it: 1 Abuse of household member in Hawaii-unable to get disposition information from Hawaii.In a state the size of Minnesota, if there were no circumstances where applicants were disqualified for reasons listed above, you would wonder if they were just rubber stamping the process. Pretty clearly, they aren't. At the same time, the small number of such rejections suggests that the police aren't looking for excuses to refuse to issue. The table of licensees who committed crimes is also pretty comforting. With 11,381 permits outstanding as of December 31, 2002, here are the results for crimes committed by licensees: 4 Number of individuals holding valid permits that committed crime since issue.No crimes involving guns. Four crimes total--only one of which is a crime of violence, and the other three being signs of poor judgment. That's .035% of licensees committed crimes. Why Missouri's Concealed Weapon Law Problems Are Generating a Flood in Pennsylvania From Centre County, Pennsylvania's Center Daily Times: A legal challenge to Missouri's concealed-weapons law prompted Missouri's attorney general last week to ask counties there to stop issuing permits. But the law allows residents to carry concealed weapons if they have a permit from another state.Pennsylvania sheriffs have some discretion about issuing permits to non-residents, and quite a number do not issue to non-residents. Florida, of course, is another matter. Missourians have been applying for Pennsylvania permits because they are less expensive than Florida, and don't require firearms safety training. I do hope the Missouri Legislature straightens out this mess soon. UPDATE: One Missouri resident, not having received his Pennsylvania carry permit, decides to go for open carry: Well, I sent off for a PA permit since that is my only option right now. I guess I took the class for nothing except my own benefit which is fine. :) I work late at night and usually go home anywhere from 12 to 4am and I am in the downtown area. A friend of mine who was a football lineman in college and about 6'4 ran a business around the same area and about 2 years ago was attacked one night and robbed by three guys. The injuries put him in the hospital for some time. For the above reasons carrying protection is important to me. Until I can carry concealed I have been carrying my revolver, .454 Stainless 8" Barrell, in my hip holster in plain view. Now I don't flaunt it around and I only carry it around downtown here and once in a while into a nearby gas station. I do dress fairly well and always make sure to have a friendly look on my face if someone eyes me in line. I am impressed with how I have been treated by everyone. Not one person has given me a dirty look or anything other than a smile. Strangely I don't think most people even are aware of it being there since they are busy or tend to look you in the face when passing by. I have called the local police and made sure there weren't any laws against open carry. I even have had a few cops drive by me while going in or out of work and non of them have stopped or questioned me.If you don't know what a .454 is, the responses to that posting tell the story well: Do you mean you carry a .454 Casualland: You are well prepared if you are ever attacked.. Conservatives & Republicans Might Sit The Election Out? I saw this Robert Novak column yesterday, talking about how many Congressional Republicans were mulling over the possible advantages of Kerry beating Bush in November, and I thought, "What are they thinking?" Then there is this column at American Enterprise: Several weeks ago, I was talking to a friend over dinner. This friend was telling me about a call that he had received from the Republican National Committee, asking for money. My friend chose not to donate any money, although he has done so in the past. "Why should I?" he asked me, "So the Republican President and Congress can create another $500 billion entitlement?"My mind just boggles at talk like this. Look, I'm not happy about the increased spending under the Bush Administration, some of which reflects his priorities, but much of which reflects Congressional desire to buy off voters. I wish it were different, but does anyone seriously think that President Kerry wouldn't be pushing for even more spending than Bush, along with hefty tax increases? I wish that Bush were a little more vigorous in protection of marriage from the judiciary, but does anyone seriously believe that President Kerry would have spoken in support of amending the Constitution to protect marriage from the judges? I wish that Bush hadn't promised to sign an assault weapons ban renewal--but Bush lifted not a finger in public to get it passed. Does anyone doubt that John Kerry--who interrupted his campaigning to vote for the renewal on the Senate floor--would have aggressively lobbied Congress for such a renewal? James Lileks points out the big difference that all Americans who don't want to live in terror better think about long and hard before they stamp their little feet and sit out the election: Let's just be blunt: The North Koreans would love to see John Kerry win the election. The mullahs of Iran would love it. The Syrian Ba'athists would sigh with relief. Every enemy of America would take great satisfaction if the electorate rejects the Bush doctrine and scuttles back to hide under the U.N. Security Council's table. It's a hard question, but the right one: Which candidate does our enemy want to lose? George W. Bush.I am always amazed at how many people spend so much time around their fellow travelers that they do not understand the messy business of getting re-elected. The left's form of this delusion is the famous statement by Pauline Kael, New York Times film critic, after the 1972 election. She said that she didn't understand how Nixon won--no one she knew voted for him. The right's form of this delusion isn't quite so obvious. Instead, conservatives get furious because Bush is rolling out the pork barrel to get the votes of the moderates of America--the voters with no apparent political ideology at all. It's expensive to do this. It is impure, and I would agree with those who believe that many of these programs have no legitimate basis in our Constitution. So what? There's an election coming, and America isn't Burger King; you don't get to have it your way. Conservatives forget that they aren't a majority; there's a lot of people in the middle that the President has to buy off to get re-elected. Your choice is a very liberal Democrat, who is going to try and act like he's a moderate by election day, and a conservative Republican who often has to govern as a moderate in order to buy votes. Conservatives need to think long and hard about the two most important issues for the next President: the War on Terror (where no one seriously believes that Kerry and the assorted leftists that will make up his Administration would be competent), and appointments to the federal courts. If you aren't happy with the nonsense that comes from the Supreme Court today, what do you think the situation is going to be like after John Kerry appoints a couple of more Supreme Court justices? He'll be appointing judges like Justice Ruth Ginsburg, who supports lowering the age of consent to 12 at the same time that the ACLU argues that there is a constitutional right of minors to have sex with adults. The San Francisco Department of Public Health Study I recently made reference to a study commissioned by the San Francisco Department of Public Health back in 1990. I mentioned the study because the rates of child sexual abuse reported by respondents was extraordinarily high: 28% of men and 48% of women reported having been sexually abused as a child. One of my readers emailed me to criticize my use of this study, claiming that: 1. Those rates of child sexual abuse really aren't all that high compared to the general population. 2. The study in question was focused on substance abusers, who are almost certainly atypical, and very probably disproportionately child sexual abuse victims (which would contradict claim #1). 3. The study says that its results are not indicative of the state of gays and lesbians in San Francisco, because it wasn't a random survey. Let me deal with these, one by one. "Rates of Child Sexual Abuse On That Study Aren't All That Much Above the General Population" The reader directed me to this report by David Finkelhor, "Current Information on the Scope and Nature of Child Sexual Abuse," and told me that the numbers in that study were in line with those in the S.F. Dept. of Public Health study. I notice that the surveys listed in Finkelhor's report, however, are generally below the general population sexual abuse rates for females, and in line with the numbers that I was quoting for males. Of the nineteen studies Finkelhor's report summarized, nine included males. Eight of those surveys produced numbers that roughly matched the numbers I quoted: 8%, 6%, 7%, 3%, 1%, 3%, 4%, and 9%. The one very notable exception: a study by Finkelhor, Hotaling, Lewis, and Smith (1990) that reported 16% of males reported sexual abuse as children. This one outlier, however, still just over half the rate reported in the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health survey for homosexual males. This outlier study asked questions that included all unwanted contact, including that involving no age differential between victim and aggressor. I would suggest that this outlier study may include a lot of locker room "unwanted contact" of a sexual nature (snapped towels, hazing), or the sort of young teen peer masturbation activity which is pretty common--and for which some boys as adults may feel guilt, and regard retrospectively as unwanted. I am not denying that these are bad situations, but it might explain why this one study is such a serious outlier. I notice also that in box 3 of Finkelhor's report, when trying to make a guess at the number of child sexual victims, he used rates of 20% and 7% for women and men respectively, suggesting that he considers these to be responsible percentages. The percentage in the S.F. study--48% of lesbians, and 28% of gay men--is still quite a bit higher than you would expect relative to the general population. "The Report Was Disproportionately Substance Abusers" It is certainly true that substance abuse and sexual problems of all sorts are much more common among adult survivors of child sexual abuse, regardless of their sexual orientation, and if a survey were taken that was disproportionately substance abusers, we should expect higher reported rates of sexual abuse. The problem, however, is that the survey wasn't directed at substance abusers, because one of its goals was to find out something about substance abuse problems in the gay community of San Francisco. One of my reader's objections was that many of the surveys were handed out in gay bars and other places oriented towards substance abuse--but the report lists all the survey distribution points, and only five were gay or lesbian bars. The rest were distributed at gay and lesbian social centers (Women's Building, and Harvey Milk People of Color Caucus as two examples), at book stores, [Appendix C] as well as in the Bay Times gay & lesbian newspaper--54% of the responses being from Bay Times readers alone. [Vol. I, p. 4] One should expect that a survey of homosexuals would have a high rate of substance abuse. Sections 2 and 3 of Vol. I are devoted to a review of the existing literature concerning the well-known high rates of substance abuse in the homosexual community. That is part of why this survey was taking place. Why do homosexuals have high rates of substance abuse? There are many different theories. If, as I suggest, at least one of the causes of homosexuality is child sexual abuse--which definitely causes substance abuse--then this could be the cause. Even in substance abuse populations drawn from the general population, homosexuals are overrepresented. I blogged a few months ago about a study of female IV drug abusers in Los Angeles County--and lesbians were about 10x-15x overrepresented. (See this report: "Women injection drug users who have sex with women (WSW IDUs) comprise 20 percent to 30 percent of American women IDUs.") Yes, it is possible that the group that they sampled of IV drug abusing women was disproportionately lesbian for some curious reason--but why? What would explain this disproportion? The S.F. Dept. of Publich Health survey was carefully worded to emphasize that the intent was not to focus on substance abusers, but to get "an assessment of alcohol and other drug abuse needs and services among lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual men and women in the City of San Francisco." [Appendix A, p. 1] "The Study Says That It Isn't Representative of the Gay Community" Yes, the report is careful to make the statement about "not a random survey" and "cannot be generalized to the entire gay and lesbian population of San Francisco." (Vol. I, p. 3.) But it also says on p. 4, While limitations must be recognized, there are other reasons for having confidence that the survey results do not seriously distort the nature and degree of AOD use in the gay and lesbian community. First, the methods of distribution ensured that they [sic] survey would reach a variety of segments of the population. The multiple method approach dilutes the systematic bias evident in using personal networks or single institutions as modes of distribution.If anything, you might expect substance abusers to be underrepresented in this survey, not overrepresented. If you want to argue that this study has an atypical population, it would appear to have been a higher status group than average--not quite the severe substance abusers that you might expect. For example, 90% of respondents had attended at least some college, 28% of the men were HIV+ (about half the HIV+ rate of the San Francisco population of male homosexuals at the time), average income was $25,598 for men and $21,142 for women (which was still a pretty decent income in 1990 when this study was done; I was only making about $50,000 a year at the time, and I was in a high demand occupation in the Bay Area). The executive summary is very clear that the researchers who published this survey considered this data to be sufficiently reliable to use it for making statements about what homosexuals do with respect to substance abuse: Lesbians and bisexual women appear to use alcohol and other drugs more often, in greater amounts, and in combination more often than women in the general population.They then cited National Institute on Drug Abuse surveys for the Western U.S. for the comparison. (p. ix) There are similar categoric comparisons of "gay and bisexual men" compared to "the general population": Gay and bisexual men appear to use alcohol and other drugs more often, in greater amounts, and in combination more frequently than men in the general population.All of this suggests that, while not a perfect, random survey, it was considered sufficiently representative to make rather definitive statements about the substance abuse problems of homosexuals in San Francisco--so why refuse to admit that it can be used to make similarly definitive statements about the high rates of sexual abuse? Maybe San Francisco was awash in really messed up homosexuals back then. Maybe San Francisco was and is grossly atypical of homosexuals in America. This survey might be way wrong--but I haven't misused this data. What I found most painful about the way people react to this information is that there is so much evidence that should make people just get angry. San Francisco also commissioned something called the Young Men's Survey in the early 1990s. They gathered data about how young men (ages 12-25) were becoming HIV+. The saddest chart in this study is labeled "Year of First Occurrence of Injection Drug Use or Anal Sex Among HIV-Infected Young Men Who Have Sex with Men." Now remember, this survey only included men 12-25, so since the study was done 1992-93, the oldest men in the group were born in 1967. Yet the year of first IV drug abuse or anal sex is reported as 1974 (for one respondent), and 1977 (for another). That means that by age 7 and age 10 (at the latest), someone was either injecting himself, or getting sodomized. Which do you think is more likely? But of course, that could not possibly have anything to do with their sexual orientation as an adult. Labels: child sexual abuse Thursday, March 04, 2004
The Incredible Shrinking Nation! And not just because North Korea is starving its people to death: YANJI, China — At 16, Myung Bok is old enough to join the North Korean army. But you wouldn't believe it from his appearance. The teenager stands 4-feet-7, the height of an American fifth- or sixth-grader.This is all so monstrous. It's unfortunate that the left wants us to leave North Korean alone. I suppose, eventually, the whole country will become a small number of party officials, living high on the hog, surrounded by millions of pygmies (both in mental and physical capacity). It is almost comical to think about--except that these are human beings, being degraded by the insanity of North Korea's leadership. Bush & The War on Terrorism Instapundit quotes a reader about Bush and the War on Terorrism, and it is a powerful point: Bush seems to be falling victum to his own success. We have been so successful in the war on terror that the country doesn't see it as a war anymore. Why At Least Some Jobs Are Going Overseas Walter Williams' column points out that one reason that U.S. candy manufacturers are in trouble isn't just cheaper labor overseas--but cheaper sugar. Once again, protectionist trade policy protecting sugar manufacturers (many of whom are right here where I live in Idaho) has made it too expensive to make something in America: Chicago has been home to many of America's candy manufacturers, but today they've fallen on hard times. In 1970, employment by Chicago's candy manufacturers totaled 15,000, and now it's 8,000 and falling. Brach used to employ about 2,300 people; now most of its jobs are in Mexico. Ferrara Pan Candy has also moved much of its production to Mexico. Yes, wages are lower in Mexico, but wages aren't the only factor in candy manufacturers' flight from America. After all, Life Savers, which for 90 years manufactured in America, has moved to Canada, where wages are comparable to ours.Now, I don't think that this is a typical reason for why American jobs are going overseas--in general, there aren't a lot of commodities that our government keeps out with high tariffs--but there are probably more examples that you can find than just sugar. Kerry's Rich Contributors: Agents of the Iranian Government? From Insight magazine: Among Sen. John Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.There's more there that raises questions about Kerry's financial supporters. Yeah, It's Not a Hobby, I'm Saving Humanity This CNN story reports that the House has passed 404-1 a bill that provides rewards for amateur astronomers who find near-Earth crosser asteroids. (Thanks to Tyler Cowen for the link.) Here's a very detailed report about how amateurs discover near-Earth asteroids. UPDATE: I was wondering who was the one vote against: why Ron Paul, who almost certainly thinks that preventing global disaster isn't authorized by the Constitution. How To Become Wealthy A number of readers have asked me to blog a link to this article about how to become wealthy, because they have found it so valuable. Originally this appeared as a series of entries here, but since many of my readers are new, you may not be aware of it. John Kerry Shows How In Touch He Is With Gun Owners The Weekly Standard quotes from a speech Kerry gave in support of the assault weapons ban renewal: JOHN KERRY gave an extraordinarily silly speech in the Senate on Tuesday, stating, for example that "[t]here is a gap between America's Field & Stream gun owners and the NRA's Soldier of Fortune leaders." That's an absurd, self-serving comment, and just one of many. Another quote from the speech: "There is no right to have access to the weapons of war in the streets of America, and to those who want to wield those weapons, we have a place for them. It is the United States military." Again, there is little logic in that statement, either in the idea that "weapons of war" were being debated in the Senate, or that the military welcomes gun nuts. But because we have become used to absurd statements--divorced from facts and empty of argument--we get remarks like Kerry's.Let me point out that to the extent that there is a gap between gun owners and the NRA, it is more the other direction--a surprisingly large number of gun owners won't join NRA because they perceive NRA as a bunch too willing to compromise with the gun control lobby. These serious "gun nuts" think the NRA is too willing to melt the Second Amendment around the edges in the hopes of being accepted. I don't think that is a fair description of NRA, but it is a view widely held in some circles. Senator Kerry needs to come down from the multimillionaire zone, and talk to the average American gun owner. Yes, he will find a number that are willing to see the assault weapon ban renewed--and then he will discover that many of "sensible" gun owners think the assault weapon ban applies to automatic weapons. It doesn't. Senator Kerry also needs to look at the evidence about assault weapon misuse--there is almost none now, and the assault weapon ban didn't change that. (This article by me appeared in Shotgun News, March 20, 2000, pp. 28, 30.) Senator Kerry will also find that there are a lot of gun owners who don't own anything even remotely like an assault weapon, but who know that the real issue isn't the type of gun, but the person holding it. Which is more dangerous? A convicted felon in possession of a .22 rimfire rifle? Or a law-abiding adult with a Colt AR-15? Labels: gun rights Interesting Article About AIDS New Scientist reports on studies that suggest that another virus--with no apparent associated illness--may prevent HIV from causing AIDS: HIV patients who are also infected by a second, mysterious virus are less likely to develop AIDS and die of the disease, suggests a new study.One possible gotcha--much of this work is done with a rather specific population: Stapleton and his colleagues focused on one of the best-studied groups of HIV-infected patients - the Multicenter AIDS Cohort. This group is composed of men who have sex with other men. Some of the participants have been followed since 1984 and have had blood drawn every six months. Within this group, the researchers identified 138 men whose date of HIV infection could be determined within one year and good data was available on the progress of their disease.It is possible that this is a quirk of either the sample group, or HIV spread by sexual contact. My recollection is that some strains of HIV were most common among homosexuals, while other strains were more common among IV drug abusers. It certainly provides an interesting research opportunity. How Did Lionel Richie's Daughter Get So Spoiled? Read this sickening request by Lionel Richie's wife for $300,000 a month in support (she is divorcing him). I don't know why she is divorcing him--but after you read the description of their lifestyle, it is clear that the Richie household spends money in a very destructive way, including: monthly expenses that Lionel, 54, needs to cover: clothing, shoes, and accessories ($15,000); dermatology ($3000); laser hair removal ($1000); massages ($600); jewelry ($5000); gifts ($5000); and vitamins ($500). There are plenty of other costs Richie listed--like $20,000 annually for plastic surgery and her nine-year-old son's $125,000 boarding school tuitionI suspect that this is how much of the Hollywood set lives--and this may explain why they want to raise taxes on the rest of us--they feel guilt about what they are doing, and assume, therefore, that "rich people" (like themselves) need to be taxed more. Yet their support is for the Democratic Party, whose notion of going after "rich people" really means taxing people that work for a living. Recognize This Man? The FBI Wants Him For Making Child Pornography The FBI's decription of why he is wanted: On February 26, 2004, a federal grand jury in the District of Maryland indicted this individual and charged him with sexually exploiting a minor for the purpose of producing child pornography. On the same day, a warrant was issued for this man's arrest. It is alleged that this individual is involved in the sexual abuse of two young boys.   
Labels: child sexual abuse There Is No Neutral Position Between Barbarism and Civilization This New York Times news story about how intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Europe used a supposedly "anonymous" cell phone method to track down al-Qaeda operatives contains one great surprise: Swiss intelligence agencies were active participants in helping the U.S. and our NATO allies in tracking these guys down. Switzerland's neutrality seems to have gone up in smoke on 9/11. I'm glad to see that the Swiss can see something that the American left can't--there is no neutral ground between barbarism and civilization: Mr. Mohammed's cellphone number, and many others, were given to the Swiss authorities for further investigation. By checking Swisscom's records, Swiss officials discovered that many other Qaeda suspects used the Swisscom chips, known as Subscriber Identity Module cards, which allow phones to connect to cellular networks. Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Thinking More Seriously About Going To Law School As is becoming increasingly apparent, popular sovereignty no longer means much in the United States. Judges are becoming increasingly arrogant in their contempt for the Constitution. Not content with ignoring the clear text of the Constitution, and historical evidence of original intent, they are now finding rights that have no basis in the literal text or in original intent. The delusion of "living constitution" has given way to something a bit more bald-faced: judicial tyranny. If this were a libertarian revolution being handed down from the bench, I could at least respect it for intellectual consistency. But it isn't. The Second Amendment clearly protects an individual right. A pure text view of the Second Amendment is a bit too simple, and I could respect judges using original intent as a method of interpreting that text, even if it meant tolerating some types of gun control laws based on the evidence of how that right was understood in 1789, or in 1868. But that isn't what the tyrants in black robes are doing. They are striking down laws that they don't like, just because they don't like them, and pretending that what was a felony in 1789, should be understood as a constitutional right today. Conversely, what the federal and state laws required in 1792--that most adult men own or purchase a military weapon--has now become a felony in states like California. Yet the federal judges show deference to those laws. Law school, then, is the only method of access to the real power in our society. It does no good to sway the people, because judges arbitrarily decide which constitutional rights they will protect, and which rights they will invent. I am not talking about problems that the Framers of our Constitution did not think about. Some would argue that television and the Internet, not being within the knowledge base of the Framers, should not be considered "press" within the meaning of the First Amendment. I would disagree, but there is at least some basis for such an argument. Homosexual actions are not a recent invention. They were well-known and abhorrent to the Framers, and felonies everywhere. Thomas Jefferson, being one of the more liberal thinkers of that generation, believed that buggery (which included both bestiality and sodomy) should be reduced from a capital offense to castration: Death might be inflicted for murder and perhaps for treason, [but I] would take out of the description of treason all crimes which are not such in their nature. Rape, buggery, etc., punish by castration.Everything that follows from this--anti-discrimination laws, same-sex marriage--is therefore absurd to call a constitutional right--unless we understand constitutional rights to be what judges increasingly understand them to be: whatever judges believe would be good public policy, regardless of popular will. Popular sovereignty seems no longer to exist in the United States. Lawyers run America. If you want to have any influence, law school is where you need to go. Now, if interest rates would just rise about two points, I could go and do this. Labels: homosexuality Bush Administration Backs "Separate But Equal" At Request of Sen. Clinton No, really. A number of feminists, including Senator Clinton, want schools to have the option of sex segregation of classes: WASHINGTON - Federal officials plan to significantly loosen their restrictions on same-sex public education, giving schools the most freedom they've had to teach boys and girls separately in almost 30 years. |
