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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 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 17, 2004
Any Guess When This Was Said In Congress? I found this while doing some digging--and I suspect that most people will guess way wrong as to what year: The mode of treating the Indians in general was reprobated as unwise and impolitic. The Indians are with difficulty to be reduced by the sword, but may easily be gained by justice and moderation; and, although their cruelties are alleged as reasons for a different conduct, and the sufferings of the white people pathetically deplored, these narratives, it was said, are at best but ex parte evidence--we hear nothing of the sufferings of the Indians--but if Cornplanter's speech were read, it would set the matter in a very different point of view, and furnish a complete answer to all the charges of their accusers.So you think 20th century? The 1880s? Try January 26, 1792. It's in Annals of Congress, 2nd Cong., 1st sess., 337-338. Richard H. Kohn's Eagle and Sword I've just finished reading Kohn's Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802, and I am a little perplexed. Most of his argument (that Federalists sought the creation of a military establishment as part of their campaign for a larger central government) makes sense, and fits into the framework of my other research. The fierce denigration of militia competence by some Federalists in the 1790s also makes sense. Kohn claims that Federalist motivations for expanding the standing army from a frontier Indian-fighting organization was because some Federalists hoped to use the New Army as a method of cowing Republicans and suppressing Republican treason in the event of a French invasion. Militias (where Republicans would often be dominant among both men and officers) might not follow orders to do this. Still, I find myself a little put off by Kohn's claims about the Newburgh Conspiracy, and I get the impression that when he first published those claims, he had significant opposition to them. For example, he makes the claim that the Newburgh Conspiracy wasn't just a bunch of upset Continental officers who wanted to get paid, but was actually part of a larger proto-Federalist conspiracy to frighten the states into expanding the authority of the Continental Congress with the threat of military coup d'etat. I notice a lot of suppositions and admissions of a lack of evidence in Kohn's text in that particular chapter. I'm curious: is there any consensus on Kohn's claims concerning either the Federalists and the Newburgh Conspiracy, or his larger claim that Federalists sought a large military establishment for reasons other than defense? I Should Write More For Print Magazines--and Blog Less I just received an acknowledgement that my article "Fools and Gunpowder" about colonial mishaps will be published next year--and that I should be expecting a $1000 check for it. Since I spent about two hours writing that article, it definitely is more profitable than blogging. (Some would say that it also is a more finely crafted a piece of work. Hey, even I would say that.) Anyway, think of this as a hint to either: 1. Visit one of the advertisers on my blog, and maybe even buy something. 2. Throw some money into the PayPal tip jar. 3. Send links to interesting entries here to your other favorite bloggers, so as to increase the volume of regular readers, and make blog advertisers more interested in advertising here. Friday, July 16, 2004
What Does Marriage Mean? From City Journal, concerning marriage: Do most American husbands and wives honor the principle of sexual exclusivity in practice? The best evidence says yes. In their rigorous and acclaimed 1994 study on American sexual behavior, University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann and his associates found that 65 to 85 percent of American men and more than 80 percent of American women (in every age group) had no sex partners other than their spouses while married. These figures are remarkable, especially if we recall the many ways in which popular culture has mocked or trivialized human sexuality and the demands of marriage in recent decades. Marvelous Web Site! These guys apparently show up to counterprotest leftist demonstrations. These signs are spectacular! Funny! Clever! I'm surprised that A.N.S.W.E.R. hasn't beaten them to a pulp! Make sure you click over to some of these--I'm giving you the text, but the graphics are splendid! One is a picture of Kurdish victims of chemical weapons with the caption, "Nope. No WMD's here..." Another has Obi Wan-Kenobi warning Luke Skywalker about the infamous spaceport: "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany." Your guess which building! Another reminds you that General Wesley Clark was responsible for the largely ineffective--but lethal to civilians--bombing in Yugoslavia: "Leftists for Wesley Clark. It's OK, he only bombed white people." And my favorite, explaining that, with a few minor exceptions (listed), "War has never solved anything." Reads Like An Onion Parody, But Apparently Isn't From the Telegraph: British television is to sink to new lows with a reality game show based upon the exploits of a group of porn stars living in a Big Brother-style house. Legalizing Prostitution: Does It Reduce Girls on the Street? Maybe not. This article about New Zealand contains a number of disturbing pieces of data (assuming that they are correct): A year after a law change designed to get prostitutes off the street, a price war driven by teenage sex workers has flared on the streets of South Auckland.Banning sex workers from the streets "might breach the Bill of Rights"? I guess New Zealand has judges as insane as ours. It gets more disturbing: Mama Tere Strickland, a transgender former sex worker who runs social agency Te Aronga Hou, said the streets of South Auckland had become "a highway of cheap love" with girls being coerced into the business by "pimp" boyfriends.I expect to see other bloggers defend this as free enterprise and becoming full members of the society. I Would Hope That This Is A Vital Concern of Others, Too This AP story describes Bush's visit to a conference about the problem of human trafficking (the modern term for slavery and related practices, many of them involving both adults and minors forced into prostitution): Bush's remarks at the first-ever national training conference on human trafficking address an issue of vital concern to Evangelical Christians, one of the most important components of Bush's political base nationally. Conservative religious groups around the country have helped focus the White House's attention on trafficking.You might almost get the impression from this paragraph that this isn't an issue of "vital concern" to others. Or was this just another AP article trying to make Bush sound like a captive of a special interest group? Ferocious Sarcasm From Iraq Alaa, who blogs at The Mesopotamian has a ferocious entry, of which I will only present one spectacular paragraph about Iraq's Arab "brothers": Also, somewhat it seems to us that cutting the heads of hostages is not a particularly good way of illustrating the Arab and Islamic nobility of spirit; especially if it is done in the name of Allah. I mean we are puzzled, because we thought that Allah was The Merciful; the Compassionate. But hard as we try to understand our brothers, we don’t seem to be able to comprehend the merciful nature of their actions. Perhaps we are not sufficiently well trained philosophically and too ignorant to appreciate the finer points of theology and the relationship between beheadings and various forms of murder to monotheism and Jihad in the name of The Merciful, the Compassionate.Read the whole thing. Rape Is A Crime of Sexual Violence Cathy Seipp over at Volokh Conspiracy explains her struggle with feminists who refuse to acknowledge the sexual component of rape--while criticizing her for writing for Penthouse: A few months ago I found myself at lunch with a couple of women my age who kept insisting that (a) rape is purely a crime of violence, not sex, and (b) since I write for Penthouse sometimes, I'm part of the problem, because pornography contributes to a rape culture by sexually objectifying women. (Uh, I feel I should point out here that I've never written porn for Penthouse, just pristine articles about Hollywood topics that could run in any PG-rated publication.) The logical retort — that if rape is only a crime of violence, not sex, then what does sexually objectifying women have to do with rape? — only occurred to me once I was driving home.Very true. But there's an even stronger piece of evidence that rape is a crime of sexual violence--and both are important components to the crime. If rape were strictly a matter of violence, as many feminists insist, then rapists wouldn't be rapists: they would just beat their victims to a pulp. Adding sex to the violence puts a rapist's more vunerable parts out where they are more readily available for injury, leaves DNA, and lengthens the time that the rapist is actually at the scene of the crime, and therefore at risk of being caught. It should be obvious to all but the most ideologically controlled brain that sex is a critical component of rape. While I doubt that any reasonably normal man is going to become a rapist because of reading Penthouse, I don't find it at all difficult to believe that a guy with serious emotional problems who already holds women in contempt could persuade himself, from watching pornography, that "all women are like that." Why do I find this believable? A few years back, I read a newspaper account of a rapist who was caught by a strategy that doesn't seem plausible. The rapist had forced his way into the victim's apartment, and raped her at knife point. She told him to call her in a few days so that they could do it again. He actually believed that this rape committed at knife point was something that the victim looked forward to having done again--and he called her a few days later. Police were waiting when he showed up at her apartment. Does pornography make rapists, or even contribute to rape? I doubt it, or at least I suspect that as a causal factor, it's probably lost in the noise compared to other factors. But I would not be at all surprised if it contributes to a perception by rapists that "they all want it." This is also why I get especially disturbed by the knowledge that there is commercial production pornography that depicts rape and murder. Why do anything that makes rapists feel normal? I have the same objection to child pornography, and books and articles intended to make pedophiles feel like they are just victims of an oppressive society. Unsurprisingly, when Attorney General Ashcroft decided to pursue federal criminal obscenity charges against Extreme Associates, a company that specializes in hardcore movies depicting rape and murder, liberals got all in a tizzy about it. Is Penthouse part of the problem? I haven't see it in many, many years. Back when I was 19 or 20, I would buy it occasionally. (Unlike Playboy, which really did have some worthwhile articles, Penthouse was a skin mag pretending to be serious--unlike Hustler, which was a skin mag with no pretenses at all.) I do remember rather vividly a "pictorial" in which the associated story involves a teacher and his student having sex in the classroom. It wasn't clear if she was supposed to be college age or high school age--and perhaps that was the point. Did it contribute to making a pedophile feel more comfortable going after an underage girl? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. But this set of pictures contributed nothing to our society. If such materials went away, it would be no loss. I expect all the good little liberals and libertarian law professors to start hammering away at me for this. Fine. Your theories are bankrupt. Time Warp Problems At NEA Convention This article by an anonymous employee of the National Education Association reports that Marian Wright Edelman made a curious claim during her attack on George Bush during the recent convention: Another moment came in nostalgic mode, when Children's Defense Fund founder and liberal icon Marian Wright Edelman was honored with a Friend of Education award. She responded with a gratifying sermon on the old time religion. Channeling the spirit of Sojourner Truth to blast the Bush (-Powell-Rice?) administration, she repeatedly brought the crowd to fever pitch. It was charming.This is one of the oddities of the modern era. For the first time in decades, a Republican President has abandoned realpolitik with respect to supporting petty little thugs, and has aggressively worked on overthrowing torturing thugs and misogynistic theocrats. About the only un-elected governments that Bush can said to "support" are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan--and no one has any illusions that either government would be replaced with something better--at least right now. Some of this is because the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that there was no pragmatic argument for allying ourselves with these little creeps. Some of it is because Bush has recognized that our traditional foreign policy of promoting stability--not democracy--is short-term. It is not only evil for what it does to the people of the Middle East, it is dangerous for the United States, because it keeps the masses poor and discontented. Societies with large comfortable middle classes are generally less interested in going to war than in going out to dinner, or watching a movie. Here: This Should Give You Nightmares NewsMax always makes me cringe a bit--not quite at the level of Art Bell, but they still cover stuff that seems pretty out there. This story discusses a new book that is out that claims that al-Qaeda already has tactical nukes in the U.S., ready to be used. Impossible? Not in the least. The story does ask why the Bush Administration isn't doing more. What, exactly, would they do? Run a press release about it? I don't think so. More likely they would be searching the country for such weapons. Different radioisotopes have different radiation signatures (at least those isotopes that are gamma ray emitters, as is the case with both plutonium and U-235). You can't completely shut off those gamma rays; shielding only reduces the amount that escapes. Obviously distance creates a geometric effect; double the distance, and the number of gamma rays detected drops by 1/4. At a long enough distance, or with enough shielding, you wouldn't be able to identify that a gamma ray was coming from a nuclear weapon rather than a random decay result from U-235 or plutonium naturally present. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is a small quantity of plutonium present in the soil. The same reaction that we use to create plutonium happens in any uranium deposit: 238U(n, gamma) --> 239U--(beta) --> 239Np--(beta) --> 239PuSo to find a hidden nuclear weapon means that NESTs (Nuclear Emergency Search Team) would have to be moving through big cities--probably street by street, I would guess--looking for a telltale gamma ray signal. I'm not sure how big the equipment has to be to do this. UPDATE: A friend who is a bit more knowledgeable on practical nuclear technology responds: You don't build a 10KT bomb in a 35 pound package. The U.S. W-48 warhead component of the M-45 AFAP 155mm nuclear artillery shell weighed about 120 pounds and yielded 70-100 tons (one actual proof test yield: 72 tons according to a Web source). The W-54 Davy Crockett warhead component is said to have weighed 51 pounds with a yield of 18 tons + radiation effects. Without the high compression from a relatively large explosives assembly, and a heavy inertial tamper, how are you going to get enough burnup to yield 10Kt? Both are precluded by the 35 pound weight. If this yield:weight were feasible, we would already be using it. An example US production 10Kt warhead: W-44 at 170 pounds (vintage 1961 design) used in ASROC anti-submarine weapon. Whoopi Goldberg's American History Lesson She gets fired by Slim-Fast as a spokesman for her crude joking about Bush. (Remember: Slim-Fast is run by a heavy Democratic contributor.) And Whoopi's response? "America's heart and soul is freedom of expression without fear of reprisal," she said in a statement.Huh? This is nonsense. Or perhaps she has forgotten this little incident? Danson, while still married, was involved with Whoopi Goldberg. She broke off the romance when he appeared on television in blackface and proposed to her. Who Defended Martha Stewart This Morning? Fox News brought on a former Virginia governor and a former Vice Presidential candidate to discuss the meaningless question about whether Bush is going to dump Cheney or not. But because Martha Stewart's sentencing is the hot not very important topic of the day, they asked both of them to express an opinion on this. And which of them cast Martha Stewart as a victim for insider trading? Why, the Democrat, Geraldine Ferraro, of course. There wasn't enough evidence to get an inside trader conviction against Stewart. I understand that. But the standard of proof is quite high in a criminal case, and that she needed to lie to the SEC about what she did (the basis of her conviction) tells me quite a bit about her. If a Republican were defending her actions, you might say, "Oh, those evil Republicans, they only care about rich people." But when a flaming leftist like Ferraro does so, why? Because Martha Stewart is a big contributor, overwhelmingly to the Democratic Party. And why wouldn't she be? She is, after all, extremely rich, and is therefore a major beneficiary of Democratic Party policies. An Interesting Point About What Will Happen Early in the Kerry Administration One of the comments on an otherwise interesting examination of expert opinion about the Kerry Administration's foreign policy: Does anyone doubt that he'd be early-on severely "tested" by the bad guys? So, who will he have brought in with him, to design his skirmish responses? And to whom will these folks be listening? Does anyone believe that the far-left "Let America Be France" crowd will not credit themselves with his election, and thus absolutely insist on some control over foreign policy/war fighting? Hasn't the pattern pretty well established itself, over the last half-century, in actual, objective cause-and-effect?Now, even if the Kerry Administration had serious foreign policy people involved, I think there is a real risk that al-Qaeda and friends would redouble their efforts in order to see what Kerry's mettle is. Even if Kerry did the right thing (and even I am not quite as cynical as the comment), this means significantly enhancing the risk of attack. Terrorist Dress Rehearsal? This news account sounds like a dress rehearsal for a repeat of 9/11: a bunch of Middle Eastern men who are together before the plane boards--but all sit separately, and engage in such suspicious behavior that passengers and flight crew can immediately see it: As we sat waiting for the plane to finish boarding, we noticed another large group of Middle Eastern men boarding. The first man wore a dark suit and sunglasses. He sat in first class in seat 1A, the seat second-closet to the cockpit door. The other seven men walked into the coach cabin. As aware Americans, my husband and I exchanged glances, and then continued to get comfortable. I noticed some of the other passengers paying attention to the situation as well. As boarding continued, we watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They continued to look at each other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something. I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel anxious.The FBI apparently stopped the men for questioning on arrival--the reporter describing seeing law enforcement holding 14 Syrian passports. Michelle Malkin has asked some of her sources in the security services, and they confirm the outline of this. This link has been spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire. Oh yes, then there's this local news story from the Boise Idaho Statesman of July 9: Local and federal authorities are trying to piece together information about a May 24 incident in which three men were stopped for "suspicious" photo-taking at Boise Towne Square mall.Although law enforcement officials offered few details, the incident is mentioned in a July 12 Time magazine article about a crackdown on photography at potential terrorist targets.According to the FBI, the men were described as "Middle Eastern-looking males, slender build, mid-20s, approximately 5-foot-10." But Lynn Hightower, Boise police spokeswoman, said witnesses aren't sure whether the men were of Middle Eastern descent. It's also unclear whether the men were taking photographs, videotaping or both.I have completely lost patience with the ACLU's whining about "racial profiling." UPDATE: Here's a bit more from the author of the first article I linked to: Two days after my experience on Northwest Airlines flight #327 came this notice from SBS TV, The World News, July 1, 2004:UPDATE 2: Michelle Malkin has substantially expanded her coverage of this, pointing to a number of curious incidents that other air travelers have noticed of late that suggest that there is a lot more of a war going right now involving Arab terrorists than the mainstream media are willing to cover. The Washington Post is apparently aware of the original story on this--and sitting on it."The U.S. Transportation and Security Administration has issued a new directive which demands pilots make a pre-flight announcement banning passengers from congregating in aisles and outside the plane's toilets. The directive also orders flight attendants to check the toilets every two hours for suspicious packages."... Thursday, July 15, 2004
What Happened To The Libertarian Party? http://www.libertyunbound.com/">This very long account at Liberty magazine reminds me of Libertarian Party conventions that I attended as a delegate in the early 1980s. There were a lot of well-intentioned, fairly naive, often very smart people there. And there were a lot of complete and utter kooks, too, often with pretty severe emotional problems. I disconnected from the Libertarian Party in the late 1980s, even while remaining sympathetic to their positions, because it became apparent that it was a delusion to think that this bunch would ever be electorally successful on a national scale. (They have at times been regionally important players.) Those that were at all mainstream in their values tended to leave, and what remained behind seemed to be people who were decidedly out of the mainstream--people for whom the emotional satisfaction of being a big fish in a small pond took precedence over actually winning. There are doubtless a lot of well-intentioned sorts remaining active in the LP--but as this account of the convention shows, there are too many people who spend too much time talking to their fellow nutcases to realize how absurd their rhetoric sounds to the ignorant 99% of the population that doesn't agree with them. "America is a Christian Nation" Professor Volokh (among others) isn't too pleased with a plank in the Texas Republican Party's platform that asserts this is a "Christian nation." I have a number of objections to it as well, although generally not the same ones that bother Cathy Young at Reason and Professor Volokh. One area where I do strongly disagree is this: Well, for one, if a town council passed a resolution affirming that it was an Italian or Polish town, there'd be a strong reaction, too. Such a resolution would be perceived as a clear statement that members of other ethnic groups are not welcome.The philosophical basis of our laws here isn't based on race or ethnicity, but on a broad Judeo-Christian worldview. This (until recently) so informed our laws that when the Supreme Court ruled in Holy Trinity Church v. U.S. (1892), they made the statement "this is a Christian nation...." This was obiter dictum; the decision allowing a Catholic priest to make a work contract from outside of the United States could have been decided strictly on the clear intent of Congress. But it does make clear something that the secularists and homosexuals who seem to dominate the legal profession don't like to be reminded of--this was, from the beginning, a Christian nation, and our laws, for good and sometimes for bad, reflected this world view. Does this mean that others aren't welcome? No. But it does mean that the values of society reflect (or at least, should reflect) the values and laws of the overwhelming majority of the population. The majority has both a moral obligation and a legal obligation (as codified in the Bill of Rights) to respect minority rights. (When I say, "Bill of Rights," I mean the real one, not the Bizarroworld version that the Supreme Court is using where acts that were universally felonious when the Bill of Rights was ratified are now constitutionally protected.) The secular minority, however, has an obligation to respect the rights of the majority to make laws, not striking down laws simply because they don't fit the current fashion of the intellectual elite. Increasingly it is apparent that the legal profession has no intention of showing any judicial restraint. There is a high-handedness apparent in Lawrence that smacks of Lochner v. New York (1905)--a decision whose results I approve of, but not its methods. They need to think long and hard about this; there is a real danger that when the times comes that the majority gets tired of being repeatedly backhanded by the courts and corrects the problem, that respect for minority rights is going to get treated with about the same gentleness as the majority has been shown in cases like Lawrence and Roe v. Wade. This isn't right, and it won't be good, but it is inevitable. It's Just A Little Gesture... But one that reminds me that a lot of Americans still appreciate what our soldiers are doing: DALLAS (AP) - Eight soldiers flying home from Iraq for two weeks of R&R flew in style instead of coach after first-class passengers offered to swap seats with them.There's also this apt characterization of Michael Moore by the family of a soldier whose funeral was in Moore's mockumentary Fahrenheit 9/11: The family of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone was shocked to learn that video footage of the major's Arlington National Cemetery burial was included by Michael Moore in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11." Why The Supreme Court Will Strike Down the Defense of Marriage Act Professor Volokh argues that those supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment who claim that the Supreme Court will strike down DOMA are getting ahead of themselves: Now I don't want to quibble with the "every . . . constitutional lawyer" — Sen. Santorum is entitled to a bit of hyperbole. But even taking that into account, it semes to me the Senator is just wrong. The Court did not clearly say or signal that DOMA was unconstitutional; the Court held that criminalizing sexual conduct violated people's liberty, not that homosexual couples were entitled to equal access to the benefits flowing from marriage. And my sense is that most constitutional scholars (not all, but most) that have considered the issue believe DOMA would be upheld. Indeed, some people, mostly liberals, have argued that DOMA is unconstitutional — but not remotely the broad swath that Santorum is suggesting.One little problem: the Supreme Court did signal its intentions on this in Lawrence. First of all, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas homosexual sodomy statute under the Due Process clause: We conclude the case should be resolved by determining whether the petitioners were free as adults to engage in the private conduct in the exercise of their liberty under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.And what rights are protected under the Due Process clause? According to the Supreme Court: In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), the Court reaffirmed the substantive force of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. The Casey decision again confirmed that our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education.Gee Due Process clause gives "constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage" and the Due Process clause strikes down a law against homosexual sodomy because it discriminates against homoseuxals. Is this clear enough? I really don't want to live in a society where individual rights exist only at the whim of the majority. But neither do I want to live in a society where the majority is overruled based on what is currently fashionable among lawyers and other members of the elite classes. The alternative would be for judges to follow the Constitution, as it was written and intended, instead of whatever pretzel they twist its words into meaning today. Turning what was a felony in 1789 and 1868 into a constitutionally protected right is a good example of pretzeling the Constitution. Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Bad Investor? Tax Cheat? Over at National Review Online, Donald Luskin asks this question: Mrs. Kerry is filthy rich. Why is her taxable income so small?It turns out John Kerry's wife has assets of somewhere between $900 million and $3.2 billion--yet: The Kerry campaign has disclosed Mrs. Kerry's 2003 income as $5,115,000. Using a conservative estimate of her wealth at $1 billion — at the low end of the Los Angeles Times' estimates — then we can easily see that her investments yielded only a miniscule one half of one percent last year.Luskin asks if she is really that incompetent of an investor, and suggests that there may be a reason that the Kerry campaign is refusing to reveal anything but the first two pages of her tax return. Now, I can see several interesting possibilities. One is that she is so incompetent that she can't even get a return equivalent to putting her money into a checking account. Another is that a careful audit of her taxes might reveal some...creativity. It can't even be lots of charitable contributions. I discovered a few years ago, when I had a remarkably good year (thanks to Nokia's acquisition of my employer), that above about $130,000 gross income, you start losing your charitable deductions. A person who makes $10,000,000 a year, as near as I can tell, gets almost no more benefit on his taxes from giving $1,000,000 to charity than giving $5,000. He might well give the extra money, but it won't lower his federal income taxes more than a couple bucks. (Talk about a really stupid tax policy, if the goal is to encourage charitable giving.) I just love how Kerry and Edwards are running a campaign about the "Two Americas" and about how rich people are screwing over the poor--while one of them is married to a woman who makes George and Laura Bush look like plain folks by comparison. UPDATE: A reader tells me that I have it wrong about the declining benefits of charitable contributions in the higher brackets. I experimented a bit in TurboTax with last year's tax return, and sure enough, even with a seven figure income, a $100,000 charitable contribution gives a $29,000 reduction in income taxes, so high charitable contributions still give you some significant gain. It's not quite as good as when you are in the under $130,000 income bracket, but it's not trivial. I don't know exactly what I did wrong several years ago when I was confronting this issue. An Infantryman Blogs From Iraq I just found this relatively new blog, "MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq," by one of our soldiers in Iraq from San Francisco. The punctuation is often so-so, and the spelling and grammar worse, but I suspect that this says more about the circumstances he is working under. At times his writing is quite eloquent (see the poem at the end of this entry). His language is "colorful," as you might expect from someone whose job involves going hunting for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It is very evocative of life there--rather reminds of me of the movie The Big Red One. Here are some excerpts, such as this entry from today: We had one day here awhile back, where we had all the terps try to teach us some Arabic, to get the basics down, but of course all "Joe" wanted to know was how to say pick up lines and cuss words in Arabic. That's Joe for you. ("Joe" is your everyday average soldier, a "Joe") If I had 4 stars on my collar, I would make it mandatory that every single soldier that goes to Iraq takes like a 2-week crash course in Arabic. I don't know how many times just knowing a couple key phrases in Arabic has come in handy for me out here. Especially on T.C.P.'s (Traffic Control Points) a T.C.P is kinda like those damned Alcohol sobriety checkpoints back home, but instead of looking for drunks, we're looking for terrorists and weapons of mass destruction (Bush said they're out here, somewhere). Basically a T.C.P. is a checkpoint on a busy street where we search cars for weapons and at the same time wait around for a car bomb to drive up. TCP's aren't necessarily the safest things. Some times the interpreters are busy or not around to help so knowing some Arabic is helpful. A good example of when knowing some Arabic has been helpful is when we're doing a dismounted foot patrol through a Shiite part of town or something and everybody is just staring us uncomfortable, you just bust out the smile and the hand wave and say "Salaam Malakem". It totally eases up the already tense situation, makes us not as threatening to them, and they smile back and say Malakem, salaam (The return greeting). And that barrier between you and them kinda goes away.This entry from July 12: In case you're wondering, the painting I have displayed on this website up above, is called Guernica, and was done by Pablo Picasso. It's about the bombing of Guernica that left sixteen hundred civilians killed or wounded. Guernica is one of my favorites by Picasso. In fact, I had a poster of it hanging up on my barracks room wall back at Fort Lewis. Now when I look at it, it kinda reminds me of Iraq, in a way. The dark colors, the grays, and the women with outstretched arms, with that look on her face that says "why?" reminds me of the house raids we do out here, the scared crying Iraqi women in the corner, holding her child, who is also crying, while we search her house. The animals remind me of all the animals that roam freely in the streets here, at times they seem just as scared of us as the people. And the fallen soldier, with a broken sword stirs up a bunch of emotion as well. I don't know, I don't want to be all gay, and get all deep and emo, but what I like the most about this mural and what makes this such a powerful piece for me is that even with all that imagery of war and destruction going on in this painting, if you look by the fallen soldiers hand, in the bottom middle of the painting, you see a little flower growing.Really touching entry from July 7: One time, while out on a patrol Justice Kennedy's 180 On Sodomy Laws The Curmudgeonly Clerk (a federal law clerk) points to another blogger's article about how Justice Kennedy went from a defender of sodomy laws (right after Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) to writing the opinion in Lawrence that overturned Bowers. The Curmudgeonly Clerk gets added to my blogroll. There's a lot of good stuff over there. The Case for Underwear Yes, we all get frustrated with enhanced airport security after 9/11, but still: MINNEAPOLIS - Daryl Miller didn't make it through airport security because he couldn't keep his pants on.So, will the ACLU argue that this is a free speech issue? "Second Thought" and Other Forms of Viral Browser Hijackers My son's computer has been infected by the "Second Thought" browser hijacker. It can't be easily removed, because it puts entries in the Windows registry that reinstall it each time your computer reboots. If you try to remove the programs that do the reinstall, another set of programs with different names restore it. There are instructions on how to remove it here, but I'm not sure it completely corrects it. Not only does "Second Thought" keep sending you to porn sites, but many of them come up in a frameless browser window that you can't easily close--and when you do finally kill it, it brings up more porn sites windows. System performance soon reaches the point where your computer is only useable for watching porn site advertising flash by on your screen. Trying to remove it means that you get dozens of "link not found" OK? messages popping up on your screen when you reboot. Microsoft Antivirus doesn't catch it. The various adware and spyware utilities that I use don't remove it (because "Second Thought" has infected the registry in some subtle way). Now, what's really amazing is that the scum that wrote this actually have a website (http://www.2nd-thought.com/) where they pretend that they are doing you a favor! Welcome to Second Thought! We are your Internet companion to make sure you have a second opinion when you surf. We pride ourselves in broadening your knowledge of the web.You may not want to visit their site unless you are very sure that your system is sufficiently secured. I attempted to email their "support" address to ask how to remove this piece of trash, but the email, of course, bounces. By "broadening your knowledge of the web" they mean that they send you to porn sites. At least some porn sites actually pay for every visit that you can throw their way, and it would appear that "Second Thought" was written to capitalize on this financial opportunity. If you want to know why I have become pretty darn angry about online pornography and the targeting of children, it's because of programs like "Second Thought." A co-worker had problems with this at home, and discovered that the way his system became infected was that his kids searched for Playstation 2 videogame "cheat codes," and visited a site that offered such codes--with "Second Thought" automatically downloaded as part of it. This is part of the problem--the porn panderers are targeting kids. The next time I install an operating system, or buy a computer, you can be darn sure it won't be Microsoft. One of my co-workers tells me that when he was taking a grad school computer security class last year, found out that part of why Windows is so full of security holes is because in the interests of performance, many of the application layer functions execute at kernel layer. This makes it a little too easy for clever applications to redirect ISRs, and modify various operating system services. UPDATE: A reader complains that only "some" porn panderers are targeting kids. Fair enough--some require credit card numbers or AVS to get past the lurid opening screens. I've been hijacked to screens that required credit card numbers of AVS, however, that still showed far more than most kids should see. Federal Marriage Amendment Goes Down To Defeat There were only 48 votes for it, and 50 against. This quote from Senator Daschle shows how dishonest these turkeys can be: But Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said there was no "urgent need" to amend the Constitution. "Marriage is a sacred union between men and women. That is what the vast majority of Americans believe. It's what virtually all South Dakotans believe. It's what I believe."And what will he say after the Supreme Court rules (as they hinted in Lawrence) that bans on homosexual marriage are just bigotry? His excuse then will be that by the time Congress and the states act, there will be thousands of married homosexuals, and who would want to break up those marriages? Obviously, the six Republicans who voted against it are going to have some explaining to do the voters, but I expect that some will claim that they were trying to protect the principle of states' rights. What will the 43 Democrats use as their reason? Obviously, not states' rights--a principle that Democrats last embraced to justify segregation of public schools. Lord Butler's Report The good news is that it concludes that Blair did not intentionally mislead anyone. Much like the Senate Intelligence Select Committee report, it does conclude that there were serious flaws in the intelligence gathering and assessment mechanisms. Some of the interesting parts of the report include this explanation of why so many intelligence agencies around the world might have misread the WMD situation in Iraq: 53. It is a well-known phenomenon within intelligence communities that memory of past failures can cause over-estimation next time around. It is equally possible to be misled by past success. For 45 years of Cold War, the intelligence community’s major task was to assess the intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union and its satellite states14. As the details which had been sought became more accessible, ?rst through glasnost’ and explicit exchanges of data under international agreements and then fairly readily through open sources after the dissolution of the Soviet empire, most of the intelligence community’s conclusions were vindicated – at least in the areas in which it had spent the largest part of its efforts, the Soviet bloc’s military equipment, capabilities and order of battle.With respect to Libya's decision to get out of the nuclear weapons development effort, the report seems to argue that Libya might have done this anyway, but suggests that the invasion of Iraq may have accelerated the process: 77. Colonel Qadha?’s dramatic change of policy should be viewed in the wider context of his decision in the late 1990s to move towards rapprochement with the West through, among other things, an attempt to resolve the Lockerbie issue. Much of Colonel Qadha?’s motivation for this rapprochement was economic. He recognised that he needed western, and especially US, investment in Libya’s economy. The UK was important to him because it offered the best route to the US.Many pages cover the long history of how British intelligence agencies have watched Iraq's programs for developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons--and there was no serious question that throughout the 1980s and 1990s, these were a major activity of the Iraqi government. Even when these assessments declined, there was still reason to be worried: 207. From our analysis of JIC assessments in this period, we are left with four strong impressions. First, of effective - but not demonstrably complete - work carried out by the IAEA and UNSCOM to supervise the dismantlement of Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes, together with those missile programmes prohibited under United Nations Security Council Resolution 687. Secondly, of a progressive reduction in JIC estimates of Iraq’s indigenous capabilities in the period to 1994/95. Thirdly, however, of growing suspicions and concerns underlying JIC assessments between 1995 and 1998 of Iraq’s chemical, biological and ballistic missile capabilities, which were exacerbated and reinforced by Iraqi prevarication, concealment and deception. We detect signs that this context led to the JIC making its estimates of Iraqi capabilities on an over-cautious or worst case basis (not always declared as such).On the question of Iraq's WMD programs: 397. For the reasons given above, even now it is premature to reach conclusions about Iraq’s prohibited weapons. But from the evidence which has been found and de-brie?ng of Iraqi personnel it appears that prior to the war the Iraqi regime:Concerning the purchase of yellowcake (uranium ore):a. Had the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when United Nations inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted. 499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.was well-founded. Labels: Iraqi WMDs What A Shocking Concept: 11 Year Olds Should Not Have To Dress Like Whores If you are disturbed by the attempt to market the street whore look to the elementary school set, you may be heartened by this: An 11-year-old girl from Redmond, Washington, says she has had enough of the low-cut, tight-fitting styles of today. And recently she did something about it.And yes, I'm thinking of the infamous Abercrombie and Fitch marketing campaign: marketing, to seven-year-old girls, thong-style panties featuring slogans like "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink."This sexualization of children is one of the most disturbing aspects of what calls itself liberalism today--and it is a position that makes absolutely no sense relative to liberalism's traditional concern for protecting children. It does, however, make perfect sense if you consider what group liberalism now caters to more than the weak and powerless. Every Girl Needs a Father Like That Jenna Bush describes the father/boyfriends interaction: Jenna also described how the president interacted with the girls' boyfriends. "He's not the shotgun-dad type, he's the joking-around-to-the-point-where-he-scares-the-heck-out-of-them type." Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Iraqi Police and National Guard Units Make Mass Arrests of Common Criminals Iraq the Model has a post about it. Obviously, you aren't going to see this in the leftist controlled news media: The IP carried out a huge campaign yesterday to clean up Baghdad from criminals.I try to visit Iraq the Model daily now. The Department of Justice Report on Use of the PATRIOT Act You can read it here. Obviously, this is DOJ's attempt at defending that they are using the law appropriately, and to good purpose, but unlike many of the critics, this report provides detailed examples of criminal prosecutions (many, not all for terrorism-related offenses) that would have been difficult, much slower, or impossible before PATRIOT. One example of a change that I was not aware of: In the past, investigators had to waste precious time petitioning multiple judges in multiple districts for search warrants related to the same case. The USA PATRIOT Act, however, streamlined this process, making out-of-district search warrants available to law enforcement in terrorism cases. Section 219 of the Act now permits a federal judge with jurisdiction over the offense to issue search warrants that can be executed in other specified judicial districts.Some of the terrorism-related cases involved money transfers to terrorist groups such as Hamas, but also groups in Colombia as well. The uses of the PATRIOT Act for non-terrorism cases include a kidnapping for ransom, and a very large number of child pornography and child molestation cases (which is perhaps the reason the ACLU has spent so much time attacking the PATRIOT Act): In Operation Hamlet, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used section 210 to assist in dismantling an international ring of active child molesters, many of whom were molesting their own children. In the process, they rescued more than 100 child victims. The perpetrators photographed and videotaped the abuse and then exchanged it amongst the ring of child molesters over the Internet. In some instances, the abusers molested the children while simultaneously running a “live-feed” via a webcam so that the other molesters could watch the abuse occurring in real-time. In other cases, the abusers traveled to each others’ homes so that they could molest the children together. Subpoenas were issued to Internet service providers during the investigation requesting relevant information. With this information, much of which could not have been obtained quickly prior to the USA PATRIOT Act, investigators were able to identify many members of this molestation ring and obtain search and arrest warrants. As a result, twenty-one people have been indicted in the United States, resulting in nineteen convictions. Two more are awaiting trial. John Kerry's Tin Ear This news story tells me that Kerry just hasn't a clue about appropriate behavior: Sen. John F. Kerry [related, bio] upset some families of 9/11 victims yesterday when he arrived - late - to a private memorial dedication in a sirened motorcade and glad-handed as though he were on the campaign trail. |
