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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, May 29, 2004
This Explains Everything! I've long wondered why historians, even more than a lot of other academic disciplines, suffer from such a leftist orientation. I may have found the answer in an essay about history and relevance by Professor John Shy in A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence, p. 4: Most historians read the documents of the past more systematically and carefully than they read today's newspaper. They reconstruct the physical environment of the past with painstaking care, while usually taking their own almost for granted, often hardly noticing their immediate surroundings. How Expensive Were Guns in the Colonial Period? I have a pretty extensive database of firearms transactions (probate inventory valuations, purchases, or assessment as part of confiscation), but it is always helpful to convert a value in pounds sterling into something that we can appreciate today. I examined 135 century Plymouth Colony probate inventories from the period 1628-1687 (including some of ancestors), and there was an average of 1.48 guns per inventory (for all inventories, including those without guns). The average assessed value of the guns was no more than one pound, zero shillings, eight pence. (Because other items were often included in this lists, the actual value of the guns was probably a bit less.) By comparison, a ship leaving Boston harbor in 1649 bought 4,200 quarter-pound loaves of bread for 42 pounds, five shillings, or a bit less than ten pence per pound of bread. Guns in Plymouth therefore had an average value of about twenty-eight pounds of bread, or the equivalent of fourteen to sixteen modern loaves. Guns were not expensive. Friday, May 28, 2004
It Almost Appears That Iran Has Semi-Officially Declared War On The U.S. When you read stuff from MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), you have to remember that they have an interest in portraying the various anti-Israeli forces in a less than glowing light. When I read their summary of an Arabic language newspaper account I was a little skeptical: "[The newspaper reported that it had obtained] a tape with a speech by H.A., a [Revolutionary] Guards intelligence theoretician, who teaches at the Revolutionary Guards' Al-Hussein University. [In the tape, H.A.] spoke of Tehran's secret strategy aimed at taking over the Arab and Muslim countries by means of helping revolutionary forces and organizations. H.A. is regarded as one of the advisors of a branch in the organization, and has published a number of works on exporting the [Islamic] revolution and the method of the struggle against the world arrogance [i.e., the U.S.].Another account, from an Iranian newspaper: The previous day, Iranian sources had statements on the same issue. At a ceremony marking the four-year anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon, reformist MP and Secretary-General of the International Committee for the Support of the Palestinian Intifada Ali Akbar Makhatashemi-Pour called on Muslim countries to open their borders with Iraq to troops of Muslim martyrdom bombers. "We, the Muslim countries, must create a storm front against the U.S. and Israel. The half-million member organization that was created in Beirut [i.e., Hizbullah] is not sufficient. Many young Muslims are willing to carry out martyrdom operations against the American Crusaders." [3]I don't have anyone fluent in Arabic to check the claim about what was in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), May 28, 2004, nor do I have the text available. However, the source for footnotes 3 and 4 is another matter. A co-worker is an Iranian immigrant. He tells me that the translation is 100% correct, but it's pretty close. This is tantamount to a declaration of war, if the Iranian government knows about it (which they almost certainly do), and if it describes actual events, not just empty boasts. An Antidote For Patriot Act Paranoia A splendid speech by Michael B. Mukasey, chief judge of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, about the Patriot Act: What measures we should take to protect ourselves, both abroad and at home, is now the subject of heated debate as we participate in a war against extremism, not so much to make the world safe for democracy as to achieve a more modest-sounding but, I would suggest, no less important goal--to make the world safe for us. Regrettably, like many debates, our current one already has seen its share of half-truths and outright falsehoods.In other places, he points out that the wall between counterterrorism and criminal investigation prevented the FBI from arresting at least of the hijackers: The statute also breaks down the wall that has separated intelligence gathering from criminal investigation. It allows intelligence information to be shared with criminal investigators, and information that criminal investigators unearth to be shared with those conducting intelligence investigations. I think many people would believe this makes sense, although a series of bureaucratic decisions and a stark misreading of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for years made this impossible, and thus prevented the government from fulfilling its most basic responsibility under the Constitution: "to provide for the common defense [and] promote the general Welfare."He also points out that many of the supposedly innovative and dangerous new provisions of the law, such as "sneak and peek" have been used for many years. The Patriot Act only codified--and in some cases, increased protections--of these procedures. I think most people would have been surprised and somewhat dismayed to learn that before the Patriot Act was passed, an FBI agent could apply to a court for a roving wiretap if a drug dealer switched cell phones, as they often do, but not if an identified agent of a foreign terrorist organization did; and could apply for a wiretap to investigate illegal sports betting, but not to investigate a potentially catastrophic computer hacking attack, the killing of U.S. nationals abroad, or the giving of material support to a terrorist organization. Violations like those simply were not on the list of offenses for which wiretaps could be authorized.I really wish that I believed the ACLU's zealous misrepresentation of the Patriot Act was based on ignorance. They aren't ignorant. Thanks to the Federalist Society blog for the link. More On The Iraq/Al-Qaeda Connection This excerpt from Stephen Hayes new book points out that the Clinton Administration was absolutely sure of an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection: By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way: "The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers."This includes Richard Clarke, in spite of his later denials: Five months later, the same Richard Clarke who would one day claim that there was "absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever," told the Washington Post that the U.S. government was "sure" that Iraq was behind the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al Shifa plant. "Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it," wrote Post reporter Vernon Loeb, in an article published January 23, 1999. "But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."Why didn't I see this reported when the media was covering the 9/11 Commission? More specifically, what intelligence did Richard Clarke see that allowed him to tell the Washington Post that the U.S. government was "sure" Iraq had provided a chemical weapons precursor to the al Qaeda-linked al Shifa facility in Sudan? What would compel former secretary of defense William Cohen to tell the September 11 Commission, under oath, that an executive from the al Qaeda-linked plant "traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX [nerve gas] program"? Labels: terrorism Here's An Interesting Free Speech Question What are the limits of free speech? SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court is deciding whether to throw out the conviction of a 15-year-old boy who served 100 days in juvenile hall for writing a poem that included a threat to kill his fellow students.I agree with that, but what makes this criminal conduct? If I were to write a novel Puritan Guerilla in which an angry father, grieving over the loss of his daughter to the hip-hop culture, decides to take revenge on the entertainment industry by assassinating record company executives, would that be criminal conduct? (I only have one chapter written so far.) What makes a poem criminal conduct? Is it the student's status as a student? "At the heart of this case is the First Amendment right of any young person to explore the whole range of his emotions and experiences, and write about disturbing subject matter without fear that he will be punished should his work be misinterpreted," said Ann Brick, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney.This really is a difficult one. Such a note given to a bank teller represents a serious threat--the teller can't discount the possibility that the "poet" might draw a gun and carry out his threat. The ACLU's position has some merit as well--but the question comes down to whether his poem being "misinterpreted" is reasonable or not. (And yes, there is a difference between, "I will" and "I can.") Let me give a slightly silly hypothetical that might illustrate the problem. Imagine a guy across the street from you wearing a swim suit starts to scream, "I'm going to shoot you! I'm going to shoot you!" You can see that he doesn't have a gun. He is threatening you, but he obviously has no way to immediately carry out that threat. Now put the guy in a long coat. He might, indeed, have a gun on him. You don't know. He might just be crazy. Now, have him put his hand under his coat while he screams that threat. You still don't know for sure if he is going to shoot you. He might not have a gun at all. Do you have to wait for him to actually pull out a gun and have it visible? It might be too late by then. Perhaps it is only a toy gun. Perhaps he is only going to brandish it, and not aim it at you, or shoot you. Most people would agree that at the point that you see the gun, this is a serious, credible threat. A fair number of people might agree that reaching for a gun (whether you see it or not) makes the threat serious and credible. The circumstances matter a great deal. At some point, you need to apply a standard of reasonableness. As much as I dislike such standards, because they lack a bright line separating two cases, I'm not sure that there is any alternative here. I Guess Al-Qaeda May Be Headed My Direction This news report indicates that a Denny's manager spotted two of the seven together: The FBI office in Denver has received "numerous" calls about the seven people believed to be associated with al-Qaeda pictured Wednesday in newspapers.The news report suggests that the FBI dropped the ball on this report. I am so surprised. Pictures and descriptions of these two are here and here. Shukrijumah has a $5 million reward for his capture. This might be worth printing the wanted posters out, and keeping them in your car, in case you see this two together on the road. UPDATE: A later news story throws some serious suspicions about this. Oh No, Another Group Thinks It Is Going To Form A New Society For a long time, libertarians talked about the Free State Project, and a number are now talking about moving to New Hampshire in large numbers to "take over." Now, someone named Cory Burnell who runs ChristianExodus.org is talking about Christians moving in large numbers to a state to re-establish a Constitutional government--and then seceeding from the U.S. Both of these are flawed ideas--for reasons that I will explain shortly--but what makes Burnell's plan especially flawed is the proposed state: South Carolina! This is the state that led the Confederacy's abortive exit from the Union the last time. Talk about bad symbolism! Any non-Southern state would make more sense. At least the Free State Project is proposing to lead by example, instead of proposing what will certainly become treason. (Yes, treason, unless Congress voluntarily allows South Carolina to seceed.) What makes both of these ideas better suited to science fiction than to the real world? The Free State Project has the problem that libertarians--at least those who agree with 90% or more of libertarian ideas--are not that common. At best, they represent perhaps 5-10% of the U.S. population. There are a lot of conservatives with strong libertarian sympathies (like myself), but who draw the line on some particular part of the libertarian program. For some, it's gay marriage, or abolition of age of consent laws, or legalizing sales of crack, or allowing unregulated sales of machine guns to crack sellers, or abolishing laws against drunk driving, or scrapping the entire welfare system, or withdrawing all U.S. forces inside our borders and figuring that al-Qaeda will lose interest. If you think of yourself as a libertarian, and think I am misrepresenting these as libertarian ideas--spend as much time attending Libertarian Party conventions, and working on LP campaigns as I have, and then we can talk. Okay, maybe 10% of the U.S. population are hardcore libertarians; I would guess that the vast majority of them can't just pick up and move to New Hampshire. They have jobs, and often, jobs that aren't easily portable. (My experience has been that libertarians are big fans of free markets, but very, very few are rich. I'm not quite sure of the direction of the causality arrow, but in my experience, the correlation between hard left and being rich is just astoundingly strong.) They have family that would make a cross-country move difficult. Perhaps they enjoy having feeling in their toes and fingers during the winter months. There are a lot more Christians in America than libertarians--but a surprisingly large number of them are going to be reluctant to move to a state that is going to probably pass laws to promote public morality that I would consider excessive, and compared to most Christians in America, I'm pretty conservative. The same problems about jobs, weather, and family connections are also going to be an obstacle. Here's my suggestion for "separatists." Move somewhere that the values of the population largely line up with your own. You will be a lot happier, and a lot less stressed. Don't do it with the hope of taking over the government. If the values of the population are in line with your own, you won't need to take over the government. Note that the values can be aligned without full agreement. I live in a city where, I am told, the Mormons are the majority. Christians have significant religious differences with the Mormon Church--but Christians and Mormons manage to co-exist here because we share quite a number of values, and that's enough to make a working society--and one that works much better than the cesspool that we left in California. The core problem that people like Cory Burnell is upset about, however, isn't democracy, but judicial tyranny. If the same energy that Burnell and his followers put into their South Carolina project were spent on encouraging Christians to be active participants in the political process, there would be no need to ghettoize ourselves. The gay marriage issue is a clear political flash point. There is a clear majority in support of reining in the judges by amending the Constitution, and surprisingly enough, some of this majority is not only not Christian, it's not even religious. I have one vigorous atheist friend, hates Bush, and yet agrees with him on the gay marriage issue. To mobilize this clear majority, unfortunately, is turning out to be difficult. My wife expresses her despair about this, and it is a major struggle to get her to vote sometimes, because as she puts it, "It doesn't matter who we elect. The judges make the laws, and the people don't matter anymore." Part of the problem is that so many clergymen, as much as they are worried about the moral collapse that the entire gay marriage matter symbolizes*, are reluctant to say anything to their congregations--they are terrified that someone will accuse them of being homophobic, or bad Christians, or worst of all, conservatives. * I say "symbolizes" because there is an even bigger problem that Christian churches have overwhelmingly accepted, and that is the collapse of traditional marriage. What used to be considered an unfortunate, but rare event--one that most churches tried their best to discourage without sounding judgmental--has become the norm. Quota...Excuse Me, Goal Time At The Democratic Convention This isn't really a constitutional or legal question--if the Democratic Party wants to set quotas for anti-globalization placard waving moonbats, that's their business--but it does tell me something rather interesting about how much control 2-3% of the population has over the Democratic Party: Democratic parties in 15 states and Puerto Rico have set numerical goals for gays and lesbian delegates at the party's national convention this summer, double the number that set a standard in 2000.Since homosexuals are about 2-3% of the national population, this means that the 2000 convention was already overrepresented. Delegates didn't "look like the nation as whole," with respect to sexual orientation. Perhaps 5% of Democrats in the U.S. are homosexual, since I would expect homosexuals to disproportionately vote Democrat, but it is hard to imagine that the convention requires a higher percentage to make the convention look like the Democratic Party, much less "look like the nation." In California, the target is 22 gays and 22 lesbians among the 440-member delegation....The first problem is that homosexual men outnumber homosexual women about 3 to 1. Even in San Francisco, the Department of Public Health has long used the percentages of 11% of men and 4% of women are homosexual. It is utterly implausible that California as a whole is 10% homosexual--or that lesbians are 10% of California women. I suppose that I should be pleased. The Democratic Party, by making itself less representative of America, is going to be that much closer to adding gay marriage and "sexual autonomy for minors" as planks to the party platform. For Those Who Wonder If These Iraqi Bloggers I Keep Quoting... are some sort of paid stooges: here are some pretty bitter remarks by Zeyad, who has written about how al-Sadr simply no longer enjoys any real support among Iraqi Shiites. Here he complains about what he believes to be a very light punishment of U.S. soldiers who pushed his cousin into the water--and who apparently drowned: At last, the four soldiers that forced my late cousin into the Tigris at Samarra have been 'REPRIMANDED'. They still insist that no one had died even though Zaydun's DEAD body had been retrieved from the river. Also makes me wonder, if no one died, why did they offer a handsome sum of money to the family in return for their silence? And why did the mentioned Commander (the one who was also 'reprimanded') impede the investigation and LIE to the Army investigators? The stench of cover up is overwhelming. This won't go unpunished. Iraqi Bloggers Talk About Good and Evil Iraq the Model: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”His comments about international Arab solidarity will doubtless upset many American leftists: really laughed at a scene that was not supposed to be funny at all. I was watching the news and they showed a report about a huge demonstration organized in Lebanon by Hizbullah. The estimates said that there were about 500 thousands of She’at Muslim protesting against the “violations” of the American army in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerballa. Thursday, May 27, 2004
Administrivia People that send me email that I have to use digital authentication stuff to reply to? Sorry, life is too busy to bother. Sometimes they have something useful to respond to, but I'm busy. Blogging may drop a bit in the next few weeks. I have a stack of books to read for the revision of my book to make the picky, picky, picky reviewers happy. The ACLU's Stunning Hypocrisy About Free Speech I mentioned yesterday about the street preachers who were arrested and convicted of disorderly conduct for demonstrating on a public sidewalk against homosexuality, outside PrideFest in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This seems like a pretty clear freedom of speech violation--even if the signs they were carrying were offensive to the people inside. A reader points out that a somewhat similar situation has been in play in Salt Lake City, but the ACLU has stepped up to the plate on that, yessiree: I couldn't help contrasting the account of "street preachers" at a gay celebration event with that of street preachers at LDS Conference in Salt Lake City. The LDS church bought the street that seperated two pieces of property in downtown Salt Lake from the city (main street), developed it into a plaza, and agreed to allow pedestrian traffic through the area. However, they insisted on reserving the right to regulate behavior (i.e., no sunbathing, smoking, proselyting, etc.). In short, people needed to be respectful.As I said, the situations are not quite the same. There are some legitimate questions about whether a government may engage in this sort of land deal when the goal is to turn public property into private property simply as a way to suppress free speech. But while the Salt Lake City situation involved public property turned into private property by questionable methods, the situation in Harrisburg has no similar ambiguity. Where's the ACLU? If they want to push for the right of offensive speech in Salt Lake City, why not in Harrisburg? It seems increasingly clear that the ACLU has abandoned its support for freedom of speech, if that speech is directed against homosexuals. UPDATE: A reader points out that the arrests in Harrisburg were for crossing a 50 foot "buffer zone" around PrideFest. As Professor Volokh has pointed out: there's no justification for imposing such a 100-foot-diameter buffer zone around a political event, with little evidence of past court orders that had been flouted (as in Madsen) or of a serious threat of more than just possible fisticuffs (as was the case in the Second Circuit case a year or two ago that involved an intended protest outside the United Nations).The operative rule of the ACLU for a very long time has been that if you find something offensive, change the channel. If homosexuals can't bear to see offensive signs, perhaps they need to toughen up, and have to put up with offensive trash, like the ACLU says we are required to do. UPDATE: Professor Volokh points out that the ACLU may not have been asked to assist in the Harrisburg situation. They seem to have plenty of energy to spend on matters such as the County of Los Angeles seal suit. I have become profoundly skeptical that the ACLU stands for anything anymore but leftist agitation. UPDATE 2: Why do I hold the ACLU in such contempt? Because, to quote Alan Dershowitz, formerly a member of the ACLU board, "America needs a civil liberties union. It no longer has one." The traditional notion of civil liberties (freedom of speech, freedom from torture, unreasonable search, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience) seems to have disappeared in the ACLU's pursuit of a more important agenda: homosexuality, abolition of statutory rape laws (and these are closely tied issues); gay marriage; removing even trivial historical symbols of Christianity (such as the cross in the County of Los Angeles's seal)--these are the ACLU's primary goals today. They have become another leftist pressure group, having abandoned what was formerly a noble position that crossed the political spectrum. I could somewhat forgive their unwillingness for a long time to defend the Second Amendment. This, for a variety of historical reasons, has not generally been considered a civil liberty. I could not forgive the active effort of some chapters to back an ahistorical defense of restrictive gun control. To actively fight against an explicit guarantee of the Bill of Rights--while devoting most of their energy to positions such as gay marriage, legalizing child molestation, and abortion--none of which are explicitly protected--well, that just shows where they are going. The ACLU's misunderstanding of the First Amendment's establishment clause has reached positively Alice in Wonderland proportions. The same Congress that wrote the First Amendment hired a chaplain, wrote this oath of office: 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]The Senate's official response to Washington's first address to them: We commend you, sir, to the protection of Almighty God, earnestly beseeching him long to preserve a life so valuable and dear to the people of the United States, and that your administration may be prosperous to the nation, and glorious to yourself.[Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1793, Thursday, May 7, 178, p. 23]The ACLU's notion of separation of church and state would have been unrecognizable to not only Thomas Jefferson, one of the leading disestablishmentarians of the time, but also the primary author of the Bill of Rights, James Madison: It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.The ACLU pretends that its bizarre "separation of church and state" position--more extreme even than the federal courts are sometimes prepared to accept--is a simple zeal for protecting the Constitution. This is nonsense. The ACLU's position on religion is not the Constitution--it is the zeal of people who are anxious to remove all reminders of America's religious heritage--because that heritage offends the ACLU's most important constitutency. The ACLU's increasing willingness to show its hand--that the short-term goal is lowering the age of consent to 12 (a position that Justice Ginsburg, at one time an ACLU attorney, has advocated as well), is really frightening. Homosexual readers who send me emails trying to persuade that of course, pedophilia is wrong, and sick, but young teenagers, well, that's different. (And these are people trying to persuade me that homosexuals aren't a bunch of sickos.) I know for a lot of academics, these disputes are interesting philosophical problems. These aren't abstract concepts; this is not a game. These are children whose lives are going to be seriously disrupted, just so that the ACLU's client groups can have sexual access to kids. Causality: A Concept Beyond Some Reporters, Perhaps? This wire service report about the increase in the number of criminals kept in prison seems to see no possible connection between rate of incarceration and dropping crime rates: WASHINGTON (AP) - America's inmate population grew by 2.9 percent last year, to almost 2.1 million people, with one of every 75 men living in prison or jail.Gee, imagine that! We make sentences longer, more people spend time in prison for crimes, and crime rates fall. Who woulda thunk it? Now, there might well be an interesting question if the crime rates fell dramatically, and then the percentage of the population being locked up each year continued to rise. Because a substantial portion of the population in prison each year was there in the previous year, we should not be even slightly surprised that strict sentencing laws cause the percentage of inmates to rise each year, even though crime rates continue to fall. The total prison population is cumulative. If you don't understand why, consider this hypothetical, with a small state prison, when a tough new sentencing law goes into effect: 1991: 500 inmates in prison 1992: 100 new inmates get sent up the river; 50 existing inmates are released or die; 550 total inmates 1993: 95 new inmates get locked up; 55 existing inmates die or leave; 590 total 1994: 93 new inmates; 59 die or leave; 624 total 1995: 90 new inmates; 62 die or leave; 652 total 1996: 85 new inmates; 65 die or leave; 672 total In each of these years, the number of new inmates drops because of falling crime rates; 10% die or complete their terms--yet the total number of inmates continues to rise. Perhaps the problem is that the reporter was mesmerized by the two conflicting views she had to consider: "The prison system just grows like a weed in the yard," said Vincent Schiraldi, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, which pushes for a more lenient system.Hmmm. Longer sentences mean that people who commit crimes like murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault are in prison, not on the street. Shortly thereafter, we get lower crime rates. Maybe it is just a coincidence. The report also presents these alarming numbers: In 2003, 68 percent of prison and jail inmates were members of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12 percent of all black men in their 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.7 percent of Hispanic men and 1.6 percent of white men in that age group, according to the report.Spend some time looking over the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports; you will see that there is a reason that blacks are very disproportionately locked up in prison: they are very disproportionately involved in crimes like murder. National Crime Victimization Survey data also indicates that crimes like robbery are also disproportionately done by blacks, to blacks. You might be able to make a good case that this reflects structural problems of racism and poverty. You might be able to make a case that many people in prison are there for drug offenses, and probably shouldn't be in prison at all. High rates of black incarceration, however, reflect high rates of black crime (and for the crimes with victims, high rates of black victims). UPDATE: A reader asks, "How many of those prisoners are legally here?" This press release from Congressman Elton Galegly (R-CA) says, "Our jails and prisons overflow with immigrants who’ve committed crimes — nearly 30 percent of inmates in federal prisons are illegal immigrants." Hmmm. Maybe our high incarceration rate is because we are locking up a lot of criminals that came here illegally from other countries. Modern Fitness Equipment I haven't used a gym since about the time that fitness was invented--or at least, enough Americans had such sedentary jobs for people to actually go looking for exercise, instead of waiting for it to come to them. My employer has a very nice, very heavily subsidized fitness center on site. (I had reached the upper limits of the combined rower/bench press antiquity at home.) Some of the equipment wasn't much changed since Carter was President, but the elliptical machine is certainly a vastly superior alternative to running, or running on a treadmill. The stationary bicycle also impressed with me--such a clever use of electronics to optimize heart rate! Rivulets of sweat were pouring off of me in no time at all. Gee, What Took So Long? From the Telegraph: Abu Hamza, the radical Muslim cleric, has been remanded in custody after the United States sought to extradite him from Britain to face terror charges.I expect the usual leftist whiners will be complaining about persecution of Muslims by the United States. This charming fellow has expressed his opinions before. This news report from late 2002 gives us some insight into this guy's philosophical assumptions: Sheik Abu Hamza, affiliated with London's Finsbury Park mosque, tells an audience that non-believers should be killed or sold into slavery in a tape converted to digital files and smuggled onto the Internet.You can see the video of his presentation endorsing slavery and murder as proper Islamic practice here, starting a bit more than half way through the tape. And here's a story from the Scotsman about the charges that led to this monster's arrest. Want To Get Rich and Be a Patriot Simultaneously? There's a $25 million reward for this guy. It would almost seem like it might be worth your while, if you were out of work, and had nothing better to do, to memorize his picture, and spend a bit time hanging out in the places that you might expect to find this guy (fertilizer stores, pilot schools, construction sites that use explosives). I'm Sorry, But Was This A Neo-Nazi Setup? Professor Volokh segues from the ACLU's objection to a tiny little cross in the County of Los Angeles seal to an apparently serious attempt by two black members of Rhode Island's legislature to get the formal name of the state changed from "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" (the formal name, because it is actually a merger of two existing colonies) because: The advocates said that while plantations referred to a farm or settlement in Colonial days with no negative connotation, today it most commonly conjures up images of slaves toiling in fields and suffering indignities at the hands of their masters. . . .This reminds of when that DC official used the word "niggardly" (which has nothing to do with the similarly sounding racial epithet), and had to quit because of it! If neo-Nazis or the Klan made up some of the stuff that black "leaders" do on supposed behalf of their constitutents, we would recognize it as insulting racism. Iraqi Lt. Col. With Same Name As 9/11 Plotter? The Wall Street Journal reports on a curious coincidence: One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.What are the chances that your local newspaper is going to report this story? Zero? Why? UPDATE: I keep looking for someone in the mainstream media to pick up the story--and this is a big story--but so far, nothing. I did find this report on Spinsanity from last November that argued that the possible Iraqi/al-Qaeda connection through Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was overstated: Yet the only documented contact between Shakir and the Iraqi government is Shakir's own claim that he obtained a job at an airport "through an Iraqi embassy employee."Hmmm. The rosters, unless there is another Iraqi by this same name, would provide the documented contact. I don't know anything about Spinsanity. They claim to be "countering rhetoric with reason" and don't at first glance seem like a leftist apology organization. Some of their other arguments, however, aren't very persuasive: Regarding the alleged April 2001 meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent, "the Iraqi agent in question, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, has been in U.S. custody for months and, according to U.S. intelligence sources, denies ever meeting Atta."Gee, if I was being held by the U.S., would I be looking forward to admitting meeting with the leader of the worst terrorist attack in world history? If he was lucky, he might get the Abu Ghraib treatment. Did Richard Clarke Decide To Send Bin Laden's Relatives Out of the Country? Michael Moore for a while was making a big deal about the departure after 9/11 of a bunch of relatives of Osama bin Laden. This news story indicates that Richard Clarke has told a couple of apparently conflicting stories about who approved their departure: Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush’s chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.I don't see any reason to believe that allowing them to depart was a mistake, but Clarke's continually changing story about this makes me wonder a bit about his credibility. Or perhaps he is just looking for a job with the Kerry Administration? One Reason The European Union Doesn't Make Sense As a Nation Of all the reasons why the European Union doesn't make sense as a United States of Europe, this is one that I didn't think about, but perhaps should have: BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union told its bureaucrats Wednesday to cut their verbiage in a drive to eliminate translation backlogs exacerbated by the bloc's unprecedented enlargement.Twenty languages puts a substantial burden on any government. The number of successful multilingual nations is really, really small. Switzerland manages okay with four languages, but then again, each canton is pretty well monolingual. Belgium has Dutch, French, and German--and has a long history of parallel political parties split by language. Most other multilingual societies were slow motion train wrecks: the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the Russian Empire; and the Soviet Empire. America is likely to be added to this list, if we don't resist the multiculturalist nonsense. Wednesday, May 26, 2004
More Good News From Iraq This roundup of good news contains some amazing gems that you are not going to see on mainstream media: While we're on the topic of higher education, bet you never heard of a new high-tech Shia university at Hilla, south of Baghdad. "Through a radical program to educate young religious leaders Qazwini [the university's founder] and his students want to make Islam synonymous with tolerance, human-rights and democracy, while they have little time for the Shia establishment led by Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf whose they feel offer little guidance for dealing with contemporary life... 'Some religious people who want to represent Islam want to return us to the Middle Ages'," says one of the students. " 'Islam must deal with the issues of contemporary society. They should focus on today's issues such as globalisation, democracy and modern life'." Are we seeing the beginnings of Islamic Reformation? Free Speech Not Allowed On Public Property? This is an odd news story, and perhaps there is more to it than this source is telling. I can't seem to find any other coverage of what would seem to be a pretty gross violation of freedom of speech. But perhaps it is because of who did the complaining: HARRISBURG, Penn. — Three pastors conducting street preaching during a PrideFest event last year earned mixed court verdicts April for trespass and disorderly conduct.If you can find any coverage of these events that shed more light on what made preaching on public property into disorderly conduct or "defiant trespass," please enlighten me. UPDATE: Professor Volokh did a Nexis search (the joys of being full-time faculty), and reports here that the news accounts suggest a clear free speech violation. It was on a public sidewalk, and while the signs may have been obnoxious ("Got AIDS Yet?"), if obnoxious speech was not protected, most of the moonbat brigade that shows up for anti-globalization protests would be arrested as well. Russian Academy of Sciences Weighs In On Kyoto Treaty Their report to President Putin says it won't work: MOSCOW, May 17 (Reuters) - The Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases has no scientific basis and puts the Russian economy at risk, Russia's leading scientists said in official advice to President Vladimir Putin.Thanks to the Edge of England's Sword for the link. 9th Circuit Rules For State Authority On Assisted Suicide As much as Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law bothers me, there's no question in my mind that the state has the authority to pass such a law, along with many other laws of dubious value or morality. Attorney-General Ashcroft's efforts to stop this law consisted of threatening to revoke prescription privileges for physicians that prescribe medicines for the purpose of suicide. Much of the decision centers around the question of whether the federal government has exceeded its authority in doing so. The majority insists that the federal law on which Ashcroft bases his argument was intended to prevent Dr. Feelgood operations (doctors that prescribe drugs without sound medical reason). Judge Wallace's dissenting opinion argues on page 6637 that because prevention of suicide was one of the reasons discussed when the Controlled Substances Act was debated, that even physician-assisted suicide should be considered an illegitimate action, and therefore Ashcroft's actions might qualify as a legitimate step against such doctors: The Controlled Substances Act’s legislative history suggests that some members of Congress envisioned the physician-registration provisions primarily as a mechanism to stem the flow of controlled substances into illicit channels, Moore, 423 U.S. at 135, but the record also specifically identifies “suicides and attempted suicides” as a “[m]isuse of a drug.” H.R. REP. NO. 91-1444 (1970), reprinted in 1970 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4566, 4572; see also Dangerous Drug Diversion Control Act of 1984: Hearing on H.R. 5656 Before the House Subcomm. on Health and the Env’t, 98th Cong. 365 (1984) (statement of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Chairman, House Subcomm. on Health and the Env’t) (expressing concern that “[d]rugs legally manufactured for use in medicine are responsible for a substantial majority of drug-related deaths”); 130 CONG. REC. 25,851 (statement of Rep. Rodino) (1984) (reporting that “diversion” of prescription drugs “is responsible for 70 percent of the deaths and injuries due to all drug abuse”). Viewed holistically, the record “does not demonstrate a clear and certain congressional intent” to preclude physician-assisted suicide from regulation under sections 823 and 824.I'm not quite sure which side is right about this part of the question, but I do get quite a laugh watching the same bunch that is horrified by state legislatures passing laws about sodomy start up the eloquent rhetoric about the authority of the state legislatures. From the 9th Circuit's decision: We begin with instructions from the Supreme Court that the “earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide” belongs among state lawmakers. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 735 (1997). In Glucksberg, Justice O’Connor emphasized that “[s]tates are presently undertaking extensive and serious evaluation |
