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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 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.
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Saturday, July 03, 2004
I Hope General Karpinski Is Lying This news account is worrisome: LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. general who was in charge of Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison said on Saturday she had met an Israeli interrogator in Iraq, a claim Israel denied but which was likely to irritate many in the Arab world.There's nothing wrong from a moral standpoint in having assistance from whomever will provide it. It would be, however, an extraordinarily dumb move politically to have had the Israelis involved in interrogating Arab prisoners in Iraq. Governor Berkeley on Schools And Printing I've heard different versions of this tale, but Morgan's book gives the quote, explaining Governor Berkeley of Virginia's view of Puritanism: "I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope that we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best overnment. God keep us from both!"Of course, this is the same elitist who said: "How miserable that man is that Governs a People when six parts of Seaven at least are Poore Endebted Discontented and Armed and to take away their Armes now the Indians are at our throates were to rayse an Universal Mutiny." [Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs, 162.] Virginia Sodomy Execution I'm reading Edmund S. Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, and I find mentions of executions for sodomy. At pages 124-125, Morgan mentions a Richard Cornish, "a shipmaster" executed for sodomy. Cornish's brother complained the following year that he was executed "through a scurvie boys meanes, and no other came against him." It would appear, however, that this was not consensual. At page 129, Morgan describes the "servant who was the victim of Richard Cornish's homosexual attack did not win his freedom by his master's execution." Instead, the servant's indenture was transferred to another master. Instapundit Should Be Embarrassed About The Lies In Which One of His Advertiser Engages I'm less than thrilled with the exact text, but it appears that at this point, the choices are the FMA, or letting judges order the states to recognize homosexual marriage, as happened in Massachusetts. Time to let your Congresscritters know that you care about this issue, and want judges reined in on this. Not surprisingly, Instapundit is running ads and providing editorial support for a campaign that is engaging in dishonest claims: The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) is unnecessary because individual states are already determining the definition of marriage within their own borders, as they have always done. Furthermore, Congress has already addressed the issue of same-sex marriage by passing the Defense of Marriage Act.And a U.S. Supreme Court ruling can (and almost certainly will) strike down state laws and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The FMA would, for the first time, write discrimination into the Constitution. This amendment would go beyond defining marriage and would deny rights to a group of American citizens. I urge you not to use our nation's most sacred document as a tool of discrimination.Also not true. The Constitution discriminates against criminals (see Amendment XIII: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted....") and against those under 18 (Amendment XXVI, which allows states to discriminate against minors in voting), and other provisions, now obsolete, discriminated based on race (Art. I, sec. 2, cl. 3: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.") The FMA undermines the purpose of the Constitution, which is to ensure that all Americans are treated equally.The Constitution's purpose is to define the form of the federal government, the relationship between federal and state governments, and mostly as an afterthought, what individual rights were outside the federal government's authority. The notion that the Constitution's purpose is to see "that all Americans are treated equally" is nonsense. We don't treat minors and adults equally; we don't treat convicted felons the same as the rest of us; we don't treat polygamists the same as monogamists. The Constitution has been amended infrequently and only to expand rights.Nope. Wrong on all counts. It has 27 amendments, and many did not expand rights at all. Amendment XI limited the authority of individuals to file suits against states; Amendments XII, XX, and XXV are strictly procedural changes that did nothing to expand rights. Amendment XVI (authorizing income tax) and Amendment XVIII (authorizing Prohibition) clearly reduced rights, not expanded them. Please do not subvert the principles at the heart of our founding document by supporting the FMA.Which principles would those be? The principle that the people have the right to decide state laws through their elected representatives? FMA is an attempt to guarantee that the marriage laws are made by elected representatives, not judges. As worded, FMA has some problems, but the current situation--where judges overturn state marriage laws--is not in accordance with the principles of the Constitution. I Hope Kansas Governor Sibelius Learns Something From This Tragedy A few months back, the Kansas Legislature passed a non-discretionary concealed handgun license law, and Governor Sibelius vetoed it: I do not believe the widespread legalization of concealed firearms that House Bill 2798 would allow would make Kansans safer. I do not believe allowing people to carry concealed handguns into sporting events, shopping malls, grocery stores, or the workplace would be good public policy.Well, guess what, Governor Sibelius, legal or not, some people are going to carry concealed handguns anyway--and they aren't good people. The victims obey the laws, and die:
Jail Time For Speaking Against Homosexuality No surprise, really, and part of why I get increasingly upset about the corruption of the Constitution: Stockholm (ENI). A Swedish court has sentenced a pastor belonging to the Pentecostal movement in Sweden, Ake Green, to a month in prison, under a law against incitement, after he was found guilty of having offended homosexuals in a sermon. Soren Andersson, the president of the Swedish federation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights (RFSL), said on hearing the sentence that religious freedom could never be used as a reason to offend people. "Therefore," he told journalists, "I cannot regard the sentence as an act of interference with freedom of religion." During a sermon in 2003, Green described homosexuality as "abnormal, a horrible cancerous tumour in the body of society".I have seen this news item in a number of places, but I can't find any source other than the ENI story, which may have left out details of the case. A few days ago, Professor Volokh was talking about how a nearly illiterate anti-homosexual letter written by a Mississippi judge would promote pro-gay-rights views. As offensive as that letter was (and it said things that I found offensive and ignorant), that judge wasn't sending anyone to prison--and this is part of what makes me so nervous about homosexual dominance of the legal system--they are sending people to prison for expressing opinions. UPDATE: Professor Volokh thinks homosexual dominance of the legal system is a fantasy, because they are only 2-3% of the population. Liberals are also a minority in America, but they dominate the bench. Slave owners were a minority in the United States, and even in the slave states, yet they completely controlled most slave states, and dominated the federal government for decades. UPDATE 2: This Swedish blogger has links to the court decision, translation and discussion of it. And Eric Rasmusen partly agrees with me that "dominance" doesn't mean majority control. Friday, July 02, 2004
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations Michelle Malkin hits the nail on the head with this one: Some lame-brained school officials have decided to ditch the sonnets of Shakespeare for the tripe of Tupac.Sixty years ago, many Southern school districts provided black students with 2/3 the hours of instruction of the white students. Why bother, the school board would argue, they aren't going to college. Today, the pursuit of "relevance" and "authenticity" is going to accomplish the same results. A Little Unclear On The Concept, Ralph? This news coverage of Ralph Nader's difficulties in getting on the Arizona ballot make me wonder if the reporter misquoted Nader. I hold Ralph Nader in considerable contempt, but I never thought he was this naive or stupid: Just hours before the developments in Arizona, Nader complained that the Democratic Party has "stepped up its obstruction tendencies" in challenging his ballot access. The consumer advocate said he had called the Kerry campaign three times Thursday, asking to chat with the candidate."Hello, Ralph? This is John Kerry. Just so you know: we will be engaging in dirty tricks. Let me turn you over to the Kerry Campaign Coordinator for Dirty Tricks, Electoral Division. We were going to name a Coordinator for Dirty Tricks, Skanky Women In Your Hotel Room Division, but it didn't seem like anyone would believe it." This Isn't Really News News is something that is unusual. This isn't, at least in places where I have lived, like Sonoma County: BEDFORD -- A 15-year-old girl was raped while fellow students watched after being drugged at a weekend party, police said.One of the reasons that I am a bit of reactionary about whether minors should be watching pornography is that a steady exposure to anything, especially for kids, has an influence on them. Liberals used to be quite insistent that advertising was a dangerous influence, especially on the young. That's why they banned cigarette advertising on TV many years ago, and screeched a lot about toy advertising during children's Saturday morning shows. They weren't wrong to be concerned--advertising works, at least some of the time. (They have a saying in the advertising business: "Half of all advertising is wasted, but no one knows which half.") That's why advertising is the industry that it is. Or do you think the television station turns off the mind control rays when the commercial is over? Does anyone seriously think that thousands of hours of cumulative exposure of 13-15 year old boys to images of women having sex (and especially pornography depicting rape) doesn't influence the attitude of the consumers towards women? There has always been a problem with guys taking advantage of gals while passed out, which is why the laws have for a very long specified that "passed out" means "no." Why add fuel to the fire? An intellectual is someone in love with ideas--often to the exclusion of real people, and the effects that those ideas have on real people and the world in which they live. This is why intellectuals loved Marxist/Leninist societies so much--the abstract principle of everyone working for the common good was so appealing, and if the idea didn't work in the real world? So what? It was such a cool idea. The ACLU is on my list of evil organizations not for their silly lawsuits trying to remove all vestiges of Christian symbols from our society, but because their false claim that the First Amendment protects all forms of expression (including obscenity and virtual child pornography) has played a significant role in the coarsening of our society. More Evidence Of Where The Supreme Court Is Taking Us Professor Volokh points to a newspaper account of how the inability to prove that some alleged child pornography involves an actual child is causing criminal prosecutions for child pornography cases to be thrown out: "Dean has gone to the Dark Side," Mason said. "Most of the lawyers who leave this office go to large firms or into private practice where they make a lot of money. They don't usually go out to become expert witnesses in child-porn cases."Volokh then points out that in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the government argued that non-obscene virtual child pornography -- i.e., material that looks like children having sex or posing lewdly, but that actually didn't involve the use of real children -- should be unprotected in part because otherwise it would be hard to enforce bans on actual child pornography. The Court rejected that argument....It is beginning to seem as though the choices are going to be aggressive prosecution of all obscenity (something that the ACLU and their puppets on the Supreme Court are almost certainly going to disallow), or allowing child pornography. I know enough about image processing that I believe that Boland's testimony is probably accurate. There is, to my understanding of the usual techniques for evaluating a photograph for doctoring, no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular photograph is of a real child, not something that has been modified from a picture of an adult. Even worse, it is possible to introduce image processing artifacts into a picture of a child such that you can't tell if it is a real picture, or a doctored image. I'm not really interested in reading any more defenses of child pornography, so save your emails. An Argument Against Lawyers? Professor Volokh points to a case in Mississippi of a judge who was not reprimanded for sending a nearly illiterate letter attacking homosexuality to the local newspaper, and ends his comments with: Finally, it seems to me that even most reasonable critics of same-sex marriage or of Lawrence v. Texas have to be appalled by the judge's position. Gays and lesbians should be put in some type of a mental institution? Over five million Americans locked up because of their sexual preference? (Note that his argument couldn't even be defended on the grounds that it's a call to restrict conduct rather than just orientation — if homosexuals are mentally ill, they remain mentally ill even if they stop having sex.)How interesting. By this reasoning, the prominent role of homosexuals in spreading AIDS ends up "being the strongest argument for" opposing the gay rights movement. I'm sure that Professor Volokh would consider that absurd. Yet he is taking one lawyer's offensive and rather bizarre letter and spinning it into an argument for the gay rights movement? Thursday, July 01, 2004
Speaking Truth To Stupidity The Quakers used to have an expression: "Speak truth to power." It means that you tell someone powerful something that they need to hear--no matter how painful, or how much risk you take. It takes real courage. Here's some more real courage. Bill Cosby is again saying that the major obstacle for young blacks today is not racism, but a culture of degradation: Cosby elaborated Thursday on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.This is courage. I wish it received more attention. Dave Kopel's List Of Lies in Fahrenheit 9/11 It's here. It's long. If Michael Moore's fans had any integrity, it might matter. For Those Who Are More Deranged History Nuts Than I Am This guy is putting up maps showing who won what states--and asking you to guess the year. One Of The Ways To Tell It's Fraudulent I just received an email asking me to click on a link to verify my ability to access my account. 1. I don't have an account with this bank. 2. The English is so broken that it is obviously written by a foreigner. More On Celibacy and the Catholic Church It turns out that while there is something called the Orthodox Catholic Church, my reader belongs to the Byzantine Catholic Church, which follows Greek Orthodox Church practices, but has allegiance to the Pope--and therefore the priests can marry. Of course, married Lutheran or Anglican priests can become Catholic priests without giving up their wives. Very strange. Another reader points to this explanation: Finally, concerning married Episcopalian clergy becoming Catholic priests, "the Holy See has specified that this exception to the rule of celibacy is granted in favor of these individual persons, and should not be understood as implying any change in the Church's conviction of the value of priestly celibacy, which will remain the rule for future candidates for the priesthood from this group."UPDATE: I'm told that since this article was written, "The cessation of the US decree blocking byzantine catholic married priests happened after the publication of the article so it wasn't wrong as published, merely overtaken by events." John Kerry, Hunter? John Rosenberg over at Discriminations points out some rather serious problems with the ads in which John Kerry is portrayed as a hunter: Virtually all of the extensive press coverage of this new ad says it pictures Kerry "hoisting a hunting rifle" (New York Times, cited above) or "with hunting rifle" (Washington Post).I'm not a hunter myself, so I will have to take John's word for this. I Guess This Isn't News From the Defense Department's website, Roger Hedgecock, a San Diego talk show host, interviews Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld: Now what’s actually happened? Right now you have the Iraqi Survey Group, which is a multinational group that’s out there reviewing documentation and looking at suspect WMD sites. I was with the Polish minister of defense this weekend in Istanbul, Turkey at the NATO Summit. And in the course of that, he pointed out that his troops in Iraq had recently come across – I’ve forgotten the number, but something like 16 or 17 – warheads that contained sarin and mustard gas.I know the Bush Administration wants to make this election race really exciting, so we don't get bored--but isn't releasing little details like as though it doesn't matter just making it a little too easy for John Kerry? Labels: Iraqi WMDs Oh Yeah, It's Time To Demand Affirmative Action! Someone is accusing his employer of discrimination, and an attempt to silence him politicially. His solution? He asked the regents to reverse the Law School decision and order him to be transferred to the constitutional law teaching vacancy.But you see, Natelson is a conservative, and says that the law school faculty, quite decidedly, is not. "I am a political conservative," he said in a 24-page supporting document. "To put it mildly, my law school colleagues are not. My views are fairly mainstream for Montana as a whole. I supported Ronald Reagan's campaigns for president and voted for President George W. Bush. I favor school choice, constitutional tax limitation and freedom-oriented solutions to social problems."Is Natelson right about this? Or is he whining for no reason? I don't know, but I guess I find it easy to believe, since I know that at many universities, a joint meeting of the Faculty Conservative Club and the Faculty Christian Club could be held in the smallest classroom, and still leave plenty of room for the Faculty Libertarian Club to meet. Thanks to Professor Volokh for the pointer. Richard Cohen on Fahrenheit 9/11 Cohen is a liberal, no friend of Bush, and he correctly identifies the sort of insanity that has taken over the Democratic Party: the stunning box-office success of "Fahrenheit 9/11" is not, as proclaimed, a sure sign that Bush is on his way out but is instead a warning to the Democrats to keep the loony left at a safe distance. Speaking just for myself, not only was I dismayed by how prosaic and boring the movie was -- nothing new and utterly predictable -- but I recoiled from Moore's methodology, if it can be called that. For a time, I hated his approach more than I opposed the cartoonishly portrayed Bush. An Amusing Alternative In States Where Concealed Weapon Permits Are Hard To Get Click here to see the video. I guess this is a real car ad. My Impala didn't have this option! UPDATE: Here's some other ads about the trunk monkey option. A couple seem to higher resolution versions of that ad; others deal with vandalism and car theft. http://media.trunkmonkey.com/video/suburban/Monkey1-high.wmv http://media.trunkmonkey.com/video/suburban/Monkey2-high.wmv http://media.trunkmonkey.com/video/suburban/Monkey3-high.wmv http://media.trunkmonkey.com/video/suburban/Monkey4-high.wmv http://media.trunkmonkey.com/video/suburban/Monkey5-high.wmv Time To Send The Bush Campaign Some More Money, I Fear Kerry's campaign has raised $170 million. Amazingly enough, it's not all from billionaires. Time To Round 'Em Up And Ship 'Em Out? The guy responsible for planning the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center is apparently trying to make himself die in the hopes of enraging his followers in the U.S. into taking action: Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is currently serving a life sentence, has reportedly stopped taking his insulin medicine and started eating M&Ms to make his diabetes worse. The blind cleric has apparently been upset about not getting the specific brand of tea he likes in prison.Is it time to discuss locating Abdel-Rahman's followers who are not U.S. citizens, and deporting them? I've never been thrilled about the idea of loyalty oaths, but when you are in the middle of a war, being fought on your own soil, they don't seem particularly absurd. During the American Revolution a number of states required every white male to take an oath of loyalty to the Revolutionary government. Those who refused lost the right to hold office, to transfer real estate, to sue, and to be armed, since, in the minds of the Framers, liberties and loyalty were reciprocal in nature. I'm not suggesting anything quite that extreme: non-citizens, however, who have been associated with Abdel-Rahman need to either clarify their position, or leave the United States. I see no reason why anyone whose loyalty is to a terrorist should enjoy the benefits of living here. Obviously, we can't do that to American citizens--although it would be entertaining to watch Michael Moore hem and haw as to which side he is on in the war on terror. Lincoln on Revolution Professor Volokh has a couple of posts here and here pointing to Lincoln's views on tyranny and revolution which have some relevance to the current struggle going on between the ACLU and the majority. Both are from the First Inaugural Address, as Americans prepared for Civil War: At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.And the solution? If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. . . .What would Lincoln have said in our current situation, where the ACLU, through its rather extraordinary power over federal judges, can deprive the majority of the right to make its own laws? I do not object to judicial review; I do object to judicial review that regularly ignores rights that are explicit (the right to keep and bear arms) while regularly finding rights that are, at best, implicit (such as overturning state laws against contraception and abortion). In other cases, the ACLU and its puppets on the Supreme Court find rights that are directly contrary to the original intent of the Constitution (such as Lawrence) and are based on a falsification of history. Celibacy and the Catholic Church I've received an email from a reader who insists that the Catholic Church doesn't mandate celibacy for priests, and that his priest is quite openly married. I suspect that he is referring to the Orthodox Catholic Church, which originally consisted of churches in an area of the Balkans that followed Greek Orthodox Church practices, but Roman Catholic Church liturgy. Anyone care to tell me more? Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Snake River Gorge At Twin Falls, Idaho This was last Sunday's trip. Here is the Snake River Gorge at Twin Falls, Idaho, showing the bridge across the river from the south cliffs, looking a bit east. 
Straight across. 
Looking a bit further west from the same spot. 
Looking down to the river, and yes that's a power boat down there. 
Looking further west along the Snake. 
Photoblogging I have a stack of pictures to dump on you. This first set is of the U.S. Assay Office in Boise, one of a small number of such offices that the federal government built across the West in the 19th century. This is where you would go to get your ore assayed for gold content, with an official government report. However, the historic preservation guy that was giving the tour indicated that they weren't quite sure what some of these symbols above the door meant. It's an 1871 building. If you know, let me know. 
Those Who Supported Democratus Interruptus With Iraq Whose side were they on? PARIS (AFP) - Al-Qaeda reportedly planned to target Spain as the weakest link of the coalition in Iraq to force its troop pullout, according to a document from the terror network. Chief Ideologist For Al-Qaeda Dies No, no, Michael Moore didn't have a heart attack: Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud, believed to be the chief ideologist for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, died in the clash in the al-Quds neighborhood in eastern Riyadh, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Two Great Moments In Entertainment News 1. Britney Spears announces that she is marrying for love, after that little 55 hour marriage in Vegas: NEW YORK (AP) - This time, she's marrying for love, Britney Spears said of her recent engagement to dancer Kevin Federline. "Marrying Kevin was the last thing I was thinking about doing," Spears tells People magazine in its July 12 issue. "But then I said, 'You know what? This is my life and I don't care what people think. I'm going to get married. I'm in love with him.'"Just to add to the depth of commitment of her new husband: "I kissed a bunch of frogs and finally found my prince," says Spears. "I feel like I've found my happily ever after."So he's not quite done with the results of the last serious relationship. It sounds like he's still a frog. 2. This single mom is complaining that guys aren't "beating down her door": LONDON (AP) - Being a single mother makes it difficult to find a mate - even when you're Nicole Kidman.Yup. Right. I believe that. She might as well be one of those waitress single moms that you see shopping at Wal-Mart. The ACLU Is At It Again Virginia has passed a law that makes sense to me, but I would be prepared to admit that others might genuinely see this differently. Perhaps the legislature has overreacted. But once again, the ACLU has gone off the deep end, insisting that this is a constitutional right: RICHMOND, Va. -- A lawsuit filed Tuesday challenges a new state law that effectively bans nude summer camps for teenagers, saying it violates the constitutional right to privacy.Oh yes, a nudist camp is just like swimming, playing baseball or riding a bus. Isn't that obvious? One of Virginia's justifications for the law was "that such camps could attract pedophiles and child pornographers." Could? Sorry, but that's like saying that if you drop a stone off a cliff, it could fall to the ground. Whether this justifies such a law or not is certainly a reasonable question, but since there is no constitutional right to be naked in public (although I'm sure the ACLU is torturing the text of the Ninth Amendment to find that right as well), I am hard pressed to see how they are going to make this fly. If you want to argue that Virginia's law is dumb, or unneeded, that's fine. I might agree with you, if you make the case correctly. I am aware that there are a lot of nudists out there, and they insist that what they do is completely healthy and unerotic. Shouldn't we trust parents to make the right decisions for their kids? Sure, when the ACLU defends the right of parents to make a host of other decisions for their kids: the right to home school them; the right to prohibit them from having sex with adults (a sensitive subject to ACLU, who have lately argued that 14 year olds have a constitutional right to have sex with adults); the right to put them to work in a factory sweat shop at age six; the right to beat them black and blue; and all the rest of the areas where the states, with liberal encouragement, have decided that parents aren't capable of making those decisions. Arguing that there is a constitutional right of minors to attend a nude camp based on privacy would, if the ACLU had any integrity at all, require the ACLU to fight dozens of other laws as well that enjoy support from conservatives, moderates, and even liberals. That's not going to happen. The ACLU is obssessed with sexualizing kids as young as possible. I guess I am not surprised, considering who their most important faction seems to be these days. Hollywood Complains About Offshoring I have some sympathy for blue collar and white collar workers whose jobs go offseas. My sympathy for this bunch (what I would have to call the platinum collar workers) is quite a bit smaller: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. cinematographers and other film industry workers have asked the Bush administration to take action against Canadian, Australian and other government filmmaking subsidies that they say have lured away tens of thousands of jobs.One of the traditional defenses of protectionism is protection of strategic industries. For example, there is a clear national security reason for a nation to have military hardware production at home. I think that you could make a national security argument for keeping ownership of mass media in American hands because of the danger of subtle propaganda being inserted into our entertainment or news programs. Of course, when it comes to the film industry, it is hard to imagine that the results of foreign propagandizing could be any worse than what the Sean Penn crowd already does. When Will Kerry Stop Whining About Jobs? From Reuters: WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - U.S. employment likely surged again in June, taking gains this year to some 1.4 million jobs and bolstering President George W. Bush's economic record ahead of the November election, analysts said onWednesday.Oh, here's something for Kerry to start whining about: But the improving job market and higher wages also herald a shift in the stance of the Federal Reserve, which is expected to raise official interest rates several times this year to prevent price increases from overheating the economy.Perhaps he whine about job losses in government unemployment offices instead. If Bush Came Up With A Cure For Cancer... Newspapers would headline it as, "Bush increases unemployment among doctors." I say this after reading the negative coverage--and almost zero positive coverage--of Bush Administration efforts to do something about mental illness. There's this report that indicates something that should not be a surprise to anyone: For consumers of all ages, early detection, assessment, and linkage with treatment and supports can prevent mental health problems from compounding and poor life outcomes from accumulating. Early intervention can have a significant impact on the lives of children and adults who experience mental health problems.The proposal is for early screening to identify children with potentially seriously mental health problems. And yet, what is the reaction to this? The commission recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions."Guess what? Those "newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs" work better than the older drugs. There were serious side effects to a lot of those older drugs (better than nothing, however) and that is part of what drove development of the newer drugs. There's no question that pharmaceutical makers have an economic interest in increasing the number of prescriptions. There's also no question that a fair number of kids have significant mental health problems, some of which will benefit from treatment. That someone may make some money as a result of wider mental illness screening doesn't make the concept invalid. Then there is this article: George Bush has got to go.I would love to hear where this paranoid sees this as mandatory. It gets better: George Bush wants your brain.Yup. Perhaps MoveOn.org neeeds another advisor. Associated Press Dishonesty Here's a powerful example of why professional journalists are far less competent than rank amateurs. An Associated Press journalist talks about the "mixed" reaction in Baghdad to the turnover of power, and quotes one artist about how "America these days, is like death." But as Adeimantus demonstrates, this "artist" was actually a favored painter of Saddam Hussein, with significant ties and benefits from the old government. Leftist Insanity Just Gets Worse I thought some of the anti-Clinton propaganda was over the top, but nothing like this. When I saw Instapundit's link to this, my first thought was that this was a pro-Bush parody of how the left sees him. (Note: it's really unpleasant artwork depicting Bush eating a child, blood splattering everywhere.) But as I wandered around the rest of the website, it seems to be a legitimate leftist website, promoting the usual leftist causes, including the ACLU. Andrew Sullivan reports that the ad appeared on the back page of the Nation (the most prominent hard left American magazine). Fireworks Safety Overblown? John R. Lott, Jr. and Ruth R. Smith of the American Enterprise Institute have a pretty startling article in the Los Angeles Times (free registration required) today: Though about 70 million of us live in states that allow all sorts of fireworks and firecracker use, 50 million other Americans who live in nine states, including New York and Arkansas, need a permit to even light a sparkler. The state of California bans some types of fireworks and allows cities to expand what is prohibited. Safety is the major concern of those who ban our celebratory backyard light and noise shows, but their fears are overblown.My first reaction to this was, "What?" But of course, the news media are really quite effective at creating false ideas of what is dangerous and what is not, largely built on the model, "If journalists enjoy something, it's okay, but if they don't enjoy it, it must be evil." (This explains their attitude about guns and cars.) Even on the question of fires, Lott and Smith suggest that restrictive laws, by encouraging people to set off fireworks in more remote locations, may start fires that are bigger and harder to put out because they take longer to find. I'm not sure that I completely buy that, but then again, I grew up in Southern California, where, it seemed, you could get some of our plant life to catch fire by staring at it too long. Supreme Court Rules Americans Unfit To Govern Themselves It's a parody from The Onion, and both funny and prophetic: WASHINGTON, DC—In a historic decision with major implications for the future of U.S. participatory democracy, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Monday that the American people are unfit to govern.While mildly amusing, what is really funny is Professor Randy Barnett's reaction: My question is why The Onion has Justice Scalia writing the majority opinion (with Justice Kennedy the lone dissenter).... Now I have my disagreements with Justice Scalia, but a refusal to defer to the American electorate or to doubt their competence in nearly all matters is not among them. If effective humor is based on truth, where is the joke--or even the irony--in this? Perhaps some reader can enlighten me on this humoric (which may not be a word, but it does rhyme with "sophomoric") choice.That's what makes it obviously parody, because Scalia is one of the few current Supreme Court justices that actually does believe that, unless clearly contrary to the Constitution, the people do have a right to make their own laws. The Onion is parodying Randy Barnett's theory of the Constitution in which the masses are not trusted to make their own laws, except for those laws that implement Barnett's libertarian ideas. Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Sen. Clinton Asks Rich People To Rob Themselves Of course, if that was all she was asking them to do--empty their own pockets for what Senator Clinton thinks are important projects--I wouldn't object: Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.I will agree that the superrich (George Soros, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Martha Stewart) are far too wealthy, and instead of funding leftist causes like MoveOn, the Democratic National Committee, and gun control groups, they should be contributing the interest on the interest on the interest on their capital to help those in need. But unfortunately, when Senator Clinton says, "you" she doesn't just mean the wealthy multimillionaires who filled that room, but those of us who aren't millionaires--and those who, on net, have no assets at all. A friend of mine, back in 1993, got into a discussion with his brother-in-law about the election. The brother-in-law had become a millionaire when a company he worked for skyrocketed up. "I voted for Clinton. I can afford to pay more taxes." My friend's reaction was, "Gee, that's wonderful. I can't." This, unfortunately, in a microcosm, is the problem of American politics. As the percentage of millionaires goes up, support for Democratic candidates rises as well. After all, "I can afford to pay more taxes" becomes true for too large a percentage of the population--but for some odd reason, the candidates they support seem to think that everyone that isn't on welfare or teaching is one of those millionaires. Halliburton Losing Money If the Iraq War was fought to give Dick Cheney's old company a chance to make a bunch of money, it doesn't seem to have worked: Halliburton, the world's second-biggest energy services company, warned investors on Tuesday of two unexpected charges, totaling $815m, to come in the second quarter of 2004. New York Times CBS Poll: Dead Heat This poll is showing Kerry 45%, Bush 44%, within the margin of error, and giving the recovering economy credit for improving Bush's numbers. (Their poll last month showed Kerry with an 8 point lead.) What is bad news for Kerry is the lack of enthusiasm among his supporters: As has been the case throughout the campaign, Bush’s backers are best described by their fervor for the President, while Kerry’s supporters are driven more by their dislike of the opposition than by Kerry himself. 56% of Bush’s supporters say they strongly favor Bush, while 32% back him with reservations. Kerry, meanwhile, inspires the strong support of less than one-third of his voters, while 37% are with the Democrat mainly because they dislike George W. Bush.I would guess that Kerry as panderer is why so many of Kerry's voters are voting against Bush, not for Kerry: Bush continues to have an advantage over Kerry on saying what he believes: 58% of voters think Bush says what he believes, compared to just 34% who say the same about Kerry. 55% of voters think Kerry says what people want to hear.Think about this: at least 10% of voters plan to vote for Kerry, but think he "says want people want to hear," as opposed to what he really thinks. These are not the sort of voters who are going to put enormous time, money, or energy into Kerry's campaign. I mentioned that the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll a few days ago involved registered voters, and showed Bush comfortably ahead of Kerry. Why does this poll show them neck and neck? It's all about surveyed population and how the raw data is weighted. By comparison, the CBS News/New York Times polls: Most CBS News/New York Times surveys are done by telephone. Anyone 18 years or older living in the continental United States is eligible to participate in our surveys.This means that they are interviewing not only people that aren't registered to vote, but may not even be U.S. citizens. They also weight the raw data to match the country as a whole: We make sure that our final figures match U.S. Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country.Of course, that means that their weighted data doesn't match who actually votes. Blacks, for example, vote less than the average; poorly educated people vote less than the average (which may be why blacks vote less than the average, being on average less educated); elderly people and Jews (again, one of those situations where there is significant overlap) vote at much higher rates than the average. An Amusing Remark About the State of Modern Education I'm not sure which edition Thomas Sowell refers to here, but I am not surprised: A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like "arraigned," "curried" and "exculpate" meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.Of course, Douglass had the advantge of growing up before television. Somewhat more ferocious, from that same column: People sometimes ask if I have tried to convince black "leaders" to take a different view on racial issues. Of course not. I wouldn't spend my time trying to persuade the mafia to give up crime. Why should I spend time trying to convince race hustlers to give up victimhood? It's their bread and butter. Today's Decision About the Child Online Protection Act I am disappointed, on a number of different levels. The decision, Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (2004) is here. Congress keeps passing laws intended to protect children from exposure to pornography online; the ACLU, the American Library Association, and the usual defenders of the unlimited freedom of speech position, keep filing suit, and the Supreme Court keeps striking down the laws. Congress writes a law specifically to address the problems that the Supreme Court comes up with--so the Supreme Court comes up with another set of reasons to strike down the law. This statute, the Child Online Protection Act, did not prohibit commercial pornography websites. It did require vendors of this material to provide some sort of method of keeping kids out. “(A) by requiring use of a credit card, debit account, adult access code, or adult personal identification number; “(B) by accepting a digital certificate that verifies age, or “(C) by any other reasonable measures that are feasible under available technology.” §231(c)(1).To avoid any confusion about this, Congress used a definition of obscenity taken almost verbatim from Miller v. California (1973) to make sure that there would not be question about whether protected free speech would be prohibited. In short, COPA said that if you want to offer all sorts of material that is technically illegal--and that the Court has previously admitted isn't protected by the First Amendment, you can still do so--just use one of the aforementioned methods to make it hard for kids to get to it. But even this wasn't enough for the majority. As Justice Scalia's dissent points out, Both the Court and JUSTICE BREYER err, however, in subjecting COPA to strict scrutiny. Nothing in the First Amendment entitles the type of material covered by COPA to that exacting standard of review.He is exactly correct on this. Strict scrutiny would be the right standard if COPA applied to a wide range of materials, some of which were within the definition of obscene, and some of which were not. But the definition of the material in question is just about exactly the Miller standard. The ACLU's argument is that all sorts of important educational and cultural material would be prohibited by COPA. The statute adapts the language of Miller, holding that to be obscene, the material: as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”Justice Breyer's dissent lists a number of examples that were cited as being prohibited to minors by COPA--and yet all of them qualify as "serious" works of value for minors: an essay about a young man’s experience with masturbation and sexual shame; “a serious discussion about birth control practices, homosexuality, . . . or the consequences of prison rape”; an account by a 15-year-old, written for therapeutic purposes, of being raped when she was 13; a guide to self-examination for testicular cancer; a graphic illustration of how to use a condom; or any of the other postings of modern literary or artistic works or discussions of sexual identity, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, sex education, or safe sex, let alone Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, or, as the complaint would have it, “Ken Starr’s report on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.” See G. Dillard, Shame on Me, Lodging 609–612; Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 871 (1997); Brief for Respondents 29 (citing Lodging 732–736); Brief for American Society of Journalists and Authors et al. as Amici Curiae 8, and n. 7 (referring to a guide on the medical advice site www.afraidtoask.com); 322 F. 3d 240, 268 (CA3 2003) (citing Safer Sex Institute, safersex.org/condoms/how.to.use); Complaint ¶1, Lodging 40–41 (“a Mapplethorpe photograph,” referring to the work of controversial artist Robert Mapplethorpe); Id., at 667– 669 (Pl. Exh. 80, PlanetOut Youth Message Boards (Inter-net discussion board for gay teens)); declaration of Adam K. Glickman, president and CEO, Addazi, Inc. d/b/a Condo-mania, Supp. Lodging of Petitioner 4–10 (describing how Web site has been used for health education); declaration of Roberta Spyer, president and publisher, OBGYN.net, id., at 15–16 (describing Web site as resource for obstetrics, gynecology, and women’s health issues); Brief for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts et al. as Amici Curiae 15 (listing works of literature removed from some schools); Complaint ¶1, Lodging 40–41.So what is the majority's argument? Not only are they insisting on applying strict scrutiny to materials that are not protected by the First Amendment, but they are insisting that the biggest problem here is that filtering software will be more effective than COPA, and that it is less restrictive of free speech for adults than COPA. Filtering software, of course, is not a perfect solution to the problem of children gaining access to harmful-to-minors materials. It may block some materials that are not harmful to minors and fail to catch some that are. See 31 F. Supp. 2d, at 492. Whatever the deficiencies of filters, however, the Government failed to introduce specific evidence proving that existing technologies are less effective than the restrictions in COPA.Again, if COPA made obscenity completely unavailable to adults (and if obscenity was protected by the First Amendment), they might have a point about the need to use a less intrusive method of achieving COPA's goals, but COPA does not make obscenity unavailable to adults. At most, it puts a minor nuisance in the way of adults, because an obscenity purveyor needs to have some sort of credit card number or other adult verification system in place. Wait a minute! Last year, Justices Stevens, Kennedy, and Ginsburg were all upset about the use of filtering software in U.S. v. American Library Association (2003) because, among other problems, it was inadequate: The unchallenged findings of fact made by the District Court reveal fundamental defects in the filtering software that is now available or that will be available in the foreseeable future. Because the software relies on key words or phrases to block undesirable sites, it does not have theWhich is it, boys and girls? Are filters this wonderful solution? Or are they hopeless, and will be "in the forseeable future." You know, if the Supreme Court actually followed through on this very broad definition of free speech, I could understand and forgive some zealotry on this. But after upholding the McCain-Feingold law's ban on political speech within 60 days of a general election, it's pretty apparent that this isn't about zealotry for free speech, but zealotry for making sure that kids get exposed to obscene materials. One of the many offensive pieces of spam that I received last year, after telling you in great detail exactly what sort of pictures were on their website, included this: "Share it with any adolescents in your house!" Pornography is at least occasionally used by pedophiles as a method of encouraging children to engage in sexual activity. That's certainly the implication that comes from pornospam making a suggestion like that. (Of course, Justice Ginsburg, when she worked for ACLU, promoted lowering the age of consent to 12, and the ACLU has argued that 14 year olds have a constitutional right to have sex with adults--which really means, that adults have a constitutional right to manipulate 14 year olds into having sex with them.) Censorship Rears Its Ugly Head The head of the government prohibits a novel that reflects badly on him. Iraq? Iran? No, Germany. You can understand why the left thinks so highly of Schroeder. Monday, June 28, 2004
If She Didn't Have Arthritis Before, She Will Afterwards This is in the "dumb reporters" file: Overgrown lots almost outnumber houses in some Prichard neighborhoods.I'm sure that Ms. Brown said "for my 38" and the reporter decided it was a 38mm (about a 1.5 inch diameter bullet--a veritable "hand cannon"). Things Canada Is Really, Really Good At Killing people at distances of 2000 yards and up. No, seriously, Canadian snipers working in Afghanistan have earned the respect of U.S. forces. Of course, it helps to have a country that is largely empty in which to practice. It Pains Me That There Is A Blog Devoted Just To This... ABUSE TRACKER I generally stay away from this issue, but the blog includes a number of reviews of a new documentary that looks at the question of clerical celibacy, and I think it is something about which Catholics need to think long and hard. If you want to defend it as a matter of tradition, remember that for roughly half the life of the Catholic Church, there was no requirement for clerical celibacy. Priests were allowed to marry--and many did. As one of my textbooks from High Middle Ages class (Christopher Brooke, Europe in the Central Middle Ages, 962-1154 2nd ed., pp. 123-4) pointed out: It is very likely that a high proportion of the clergy in the tenth and eleventh centuries were hereditary clergymen. Once again, our ignorance is very great; but wherever we go in Europe, we find traces of what seems to have been a widespread and quite accepted practice before the papal reform and the insistence on celibacy. Iceland, with its hereditary bishopric, was exceptional. But in no part of Europe was it wholly exceptional for an eleventh-century bishop to have children. Most of these were born, no doubt, before the fathers obtained high office. But there are plenty of instances of priests living openly with their wives.... List survive from a group of churches on the Welsh border in the mid and late eleventh century; most passed by hereditary succession. List survive of the canons of St Paul's from the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries onwards. At least a quarter of the first generation were married, and several passed on their canonries to their children. The founder of Tiron, preaching celibacy in Normandy about 1100, was nearly lynched by the clergy's wives, as had been the archbishop of Rouen, no less, when promulgating a decree against them in 1072. Sir Richard Southern has made famous the extraordinary story of how the twelve great-great-grandchildren of a tenth-century priest divided a substantial part of the income of Arezzo cathedral among themselves in the late eleventh century.Now, there was some arguments for celibacy at the time. As I understand it, the substantial power that clergymen at all levels exerted on economic affairs might cause him to unfairly benefit his children. This is pretty clearly no longer the case. There are some men (and women) for whom celibacy really is a gift. Throughout the first millenium of Christianity, there were large numbers of clergymen who were celibate, even without a rule requiring it. I know a Southern Baptist missionary, currently in Russia, but previously in South Africa and Thailand, who has no need or desire for a husband. However: this is unusual. Sex and romantic love are pretty much the norm for human beings, and you can get some pretty weird results if you refuse to deal with those desires. I don't think the clergy sex abuse scandal is just about celibacy, however. There have been a lot of homosexuals who have pretended that these priests are abusing boys because that's what is most available to them. I don't believe it. There are cases like this coming out: MANKATO, Minn. (AP) -- A woman who was abused by a Catholic nun 50 years ago at a boarding school will receive about $120,000 in a settlement, as well as an apology from the nun.I've argued for some time that there is some pretty good reason to at least suspect a connection between child sexual abuse and adult homosexuality. (This does not preclude the possibility of other causes of adult homosexuality.) UPDATE: A reader writes that if he were a celibate Catholic priest, he wouldn't be chasing after altar boys, but wearing a disguise and looking for commercial sex elsewhere. Doubtless true. I am pretty sure that the celibacy alone isn't the issue. From what I have read, fixated pedophiles were usually victims themselves. I suspect that some went into the clergy because it provided a method for getting at more kids; others may have gone in because they knew that they were homosexual, and hoped that this might be a way of directing their energies into something productive. There's a funny thing that happens when you crush down desires and pretend that they aren't there--they pop up in really odd ways. Look at what happens to the person who tries to stop smoking--and starts eating instead. Pretending the desires aren't there isn't healthy. Giving into them may not be healthy either. Confronting the problems is healthy. I know someone who is a family counselor out in California. He tells me that growing up, his mother broke just about every bone in his body. He has confronted what happened, and tried to work past it. Now he tries to help others confront their pain. I know someone else out in Califonia. He was molested by a Scoutmaster. His father was an alcoholic. His mother would bring complete strangers home for sex on the couch while the father was home, in the bedroom--I guess trying to get some sort of confrontation going. This guy has not confronted what happened to him, and the damage that he spread around because of it is unbelievable. Labels: child sexual abuse The Detention Cases Very complex set of decisions, with ideological soulmates often on different sides of some of these questions. Professor Volokh points out that Justices Thomas and Scalia ended up on opposite sides on the Hamdi decision, contrary to the widespread belief in liberal circles that Scalia does Thomas's thinking for him. (I've long been offended by this absurd claim, which essentially boils to the liberal belief that a black conservative obviously isn't thinking, and therefore they insist that Thomas is Stepin Fetchit in a black robe.) As much as I sympathize with the Bush Administration's desire to keep these matters out of the courts (we are at war, after all), I have suspected that some of these decisions were going to end up the way that they did. While the Court sidestepped the Padilla case based on jurisdiction, this one always seemed like a big stretch to me. Unlike Hamdi, Padilla was not taken in custody while engaged in combat, or in a combat zone. I suppose that you could argue that the U.S. is now a combat zone, but Justice Scalia's argument in the Hamdi dissent that you can't hold people indefinitely in the U.S. without suspending habeas corpus reminds us that this argument for Padilla would also allow indefinite detention of any American for whom there was suspicion of al-Qaeda involvement. Hamdi, of course, is a more complex question, since he was captured in combat, or at least in a combat zone. But he is a U.S. citizen. I can see how the Court could have honestly come to either decision on this. My inclination was that, being a U.S. citizen, he enjoys all the protections of the Bill of Rights, including access to our court-at least, as the opinion points out, to allow "a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker." Justice Scalia's dissent actually agrees on this: try Hamdi for treason, or release him. If he were an alien, we could hold him as a prisoner of war until the end of hostilities, but Hamdi isn't an alien, but a U.S. citizen. I am not impressed with Justice Thomas's dissent in Hamdi, which seems to be taking the view that in time of war, the President, since he has Congressional authorization for this, can hold enemy combatants with almost no judicial oversight. At least, I think that is what Thomas is saying--I found his argument confusing and unpersuasive, although rather similar to the justifications used during the American Revolution for rather extraordinary measures taken against Loyalists. I have not had a chance to skim Rasul v. Bush yet. More Economic Recovery From AP: John Kerry banging the drum about the poor economy is going to be a losing strategy in November, I suspect. How Liberals Gave Up Political Power Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about how Roe v. Wade (1973) ended Democratic Party ascendancy. The author is correct on this, but tiptoes around the particular group for whom abortion on demand made the biggest difference. Donohue and Levitt argue here that abortion on demand caused a dramatic reduction in crime rates in the 1990s because it prevented an enormous number of poor black boys from being born, who would have become this generation's criminals. (And before you make assumptions, Donohue and Levitt are liberals!) If Donohue and Levitt's claim is correct (and you can read about John Lott and John Whitley's criticism here), Roe v. Wade (1973) not only stopped poor black women from giving birth to a generation of criminals, but it also the most reliably Democratic voting block: poor black men and women. Labels: abortion Humor --- Reasons Why It's So Hard To Solve A Redneck Murder 1. All the DNA is the same. 2. There are no dental records. --- A blonde calls Delta Airlines and asks, "Can you tell me how long it'll take to fly from San Francisco to New York City?" The agent replies, "Just a minute..." "Thank you," the blonde says, and hangs up. --- The investigation of Martha Stewart continues. Her recipe for chicken casserole is quite efficient. First you boil the chicken in water. And then you dump the stock. --- A man is recovering from surgery when a nurse asks him how he is feeling. "I'm O.K. but I didn't like the four-letter-word the doctor used in surgery," he answered. "What did he say, " asked the nurse. "OOPS!" said the man ! Gone All Day Yesterday To Craters of the Moon National Monument I will post pictures this evening, probably. My wife and I blasted across the southern Idaho landscape, stopping at Shoshone Falls, the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center for a dose of PC-driven guilt tripping, and Craters of the Moon. The good news about the Corvette: 27.5 mpg on this trip, much of it with the cruise control set at 85 and 90 mph. The bad news: the combination of road noise and wind noise when driving on concrete is really, really fatiguing. Driving on asphalt wasn't bad at all--which tells me that the wind noise, while irritating, isn't the big problem. I-84 is just about all concrete, and it was draining. We went to Craters of the Moon for the wildflowers, which, according to the Idaho Statesman, were at their peak. As my wife observed, "Peak is a relative term." For a lunar landscape, I guess it was pretty impressive. Sunday, June 27, 2004
A Premonition of Empty Nest My daughter gets married in less than a month. My son is headed to California with a friend and his parents tomorrow for a week. I am on the edge of serious tears. I'm reaching the point where my wife and I will have fewer responsibilities, and fewer obligations--and so I should be looking forward to the freedom. But I'm not. So much of the last twenty years has been tied up with childrearing, and fun times (and sometimes trying times) with my kids--it's really a very painful change coming soon. It would help if I could devote my time and energy to something really important, but I still need to work for a living for a few years. |
