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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, October 23, 2004
Kerry's Secret Plan My friend Don Kates has used his substantial undercover skills (especially that Amazonian parrot of his) to find out the story on John Kerry's secret plan for Iraq: Since John Kerry announced the existence of his secret plan for victory over terrorism, public and media interest in its secret details has been intense Some of the details are finally surfacing based on perhaps inadvertent comments by the senator and his chief foreign policy adviser, Richard Holbrooke, Predictably the revealed details are stirring up multiple controversies. The controversies have, in turn, prompted various critical revisions of the secret plan. Part Of Why I Appreciate The Guardian Is their ability to make fools of themselves. This is the left-wing British newspaper that tried to recruit fellow left-wing Britons to write letters to Clark County, Ohio, trying to persuade them to vote for George Bush. The results were counterproductive: The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election.Oh great! This guy (doubtless a Democrat) just called his neighbors parochial illiterates! Wouldn't they like to know who this "senior local politician" is! But I don't understand! If there's an illiteracy problem, why is he worried about his name getting in print? Those hayseeds won't be able to read it anyway! Mr Katz wrote yesterday that the paper had considered the possibility, but "we didn't believe it". He insisted: "Folks in Clark County itself have best recognised the spirit of the enterprise. Local media coverage has been consistently fair and good humoured." Friday, October 22, 2004
Why Are Oil Prices So High? I've heard some of the explanations, and they make some sense: the hurricanes shut down production in the Gulf of Mexico for a while. There has been unrest in Angola. But the Iraq situation shouldn't matter much; they haven't shipped that much oil since Gulf War I. Dan Gifford, a long-time journalist, tells me about the following interesting items that he has heard recently. From financial journalist Jim Cramer (no relation) on CNBC's "Kudlow and Cramer" show: I don't want to sound too conspiratorial here, but there's something about this oil market that just doesn't smell right. Do you think certain big hedge funds could be buying oil contracts to drive the market up in order to make our current leader [George W. Bush] look bad?From Jon Burnham, Burnham Financial Group, October 12, 2004, CNBC-TV, "Closing Bell" 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET: The price of oil is high because it's being pushed up by speculators and money from the big hedge funds. The important thing that gets lost in all that is that there is no shortage of crude oil in relation to current demand.And from Adel al-Jubeir, Advisor to the Saudi Crown Prince September 28, 2004 at about 1:40 PM Pacific time, CNBC interview with Maria Bartaromo: We believe the price of oil should be between $22 and $28 per barrel. $25 is a good reasonable price. There is no extra demand accompanying today's very high price for oil. We are seeing no extra customers lined up and there is no shortage of supply. The high prices we are seeing are due to speculation in the oil markets.Then we have this interesting item from the New Yorker (of all places): On August 6th, a week after the Democratic Convention, a clandestine summit meeting took place at the Aspen Institute, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The participants, all Democrats, were sworn to secrecy, and few of them will discuss the event. One thing that is certain, however, is that the guests formed a tableau that not many people would associate with the Democratic Party of the past. Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the future of progressive politics in America. The billionaires were not especially close socially, nor were they in complete agreement about politics or strategy. Yet they shared a common goal: to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.Now, the Quantum Fund is no stranger to oil trading. But what is interesting is another remark in the New Yorker article. After explaining that Soros has contributed $18.5 million to defeat George Bush: Critics of Soros see his donations as brazenly hypocritical, considering that, until recently, he was a leading crusader for campaign-finance reform in America. Starting in the late nineteen-nineties, he donated eighteen million dollars to groups that supported the cause, and he is credited with having contributed significantly to the passage of the McCain-Feingold law. When Soros was asked about this reversal, he said, “This is the most important election of my lifetime. These aren’t normal times. The ends justify every legal means possible.”Now, Soros has said in the past that he would give away all his billions if he could be guaranteed of defeating Bush--and you wonder, since Soros has been a big player in currency markets in the past, if he could be manipulating oil prices right now. Remember this: until oil prices started skyrocketing in early summer, the economy seemed to be flying upwards. What would it cost for Soros, Lewis, and some of the other billionaires to manipulate oil markets? It doesn't have to last for long--just long enough to derail the economy into October. You don't need to actually buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil. You can buy and sell oil future delivery contracts for a fraction of the final delivery price. (This highly leveraged nature of futures contracts is why you can make--or lose--an enormous amount of money in commodities trading.) Once you start playing with the price of a commodity, and causing panic buying, you can jerk the price up--or down--quite impressively. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that people at Soros's level can probably spend two or three billion dollars to adjust future prices of 50 or 100 times that much oil--at least for a few months. The Quantum Fund was, back in the 1990s, what is called a "global macro fund", described this way: By borrowing money to buy and sell futures contracts—themselves a powerful form of leverage—macro funds possessed the capability to move indexes like Japan's Nikkei or to influence significantly the value of important international currencies.Now, supposedly the Quantum Fund isn't that powerful anymore. But is it powerful enough? Soros also returned to an active role in the Quantum Fund in 2002--after 9/11, when it became apparent that Soros was going to have to do something to bring down George Bush. Large scale commodities market manipulation can't continue indefinitely, and you can lose your shirt on this sort of thing--but Soros has already said that he was willing to lose it all to defeat Bush. On the other hand, with a little care, he might actually make money. This article reports: Soros, the founder of Quantum Endowment Fund, one of the world's largest hedge funds, was dubbed "The Man who broke the Bank of England" for his role in betting heavily that the pound would fall in 1992. As a result, Britain suffered a humiliating exit from Europe's exchange rate mechanism -- the precursor to Europe's 12-nation currency. It was rumored that Soros earned $1 billion in a day with his bet against the British pound.Of course, I doubt that an oil play like this could be kept secret indefinitely--but certainly, President Kerry's Justice Department isn't going to prosecute George Soros for winning him the election. If we suddenly see oil prices drop down again after the election, I certainly hope the Bush Administration will take a serious look at possible market manipulation. But if Bush loses, there won't be investigation at all. "If It Leeds, It Bleeds" This used to be operating rule of local television news. I guess the problem has spread to "respectable" journalism: BAGHDAD, Iraq--Basking in the sun by the Al Hamra Hotel swimming pool, a Spanish journalist complained to me that "all my editors want is blood, blood, blood. No context. No politics." Hmmm, I Don't Know What To Make Of This Okay, WorldNetDaily is somewhat out on the fringe in a lot of ways. What shall we make of this story about the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? Richard Clarke and the Clinton administration were understandably worried about terrorism. At one high-level planning meeting before the Olympics, Clarke has even theorized that terrorists might hijack a 747 and crash it into Olympic stadium. Remember the Bojinka-related "planes as bombs" plot. But in the "feel good" Olympic games of 1996, in the lead up to the Clinton re-nomination, when "everything is wonderful," no official even speculates as to whether Islamic terrorists might be behind the Olympic bombing. An Amazing Quote From John Kerry He really has taken this "internationalist" idea a bit far, at least for an American President: Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."Now, if the John Birch Society claimed that Kerry had said this, I would wonder about its accuracy. But this is from the Washington Post. Another Suppression of Free Speech A movie theater wanted to show a film critical of one of the candidates--and the threats of violence by the candidate's supporters caused the movie theater to cancel the showing, out of fear. One guess which side is using fascist tactics: The emotion of this politically charged presidential election got the best of some people. People who came out to see the anti-Kerry film, "Stolen Honor" were already upset that management of the Baederwood Theater cancelled the showing after threats of civil disturbances.You know, leftists had better think long and hard about their willingness to use violence and threats of violence to suppress free speech. Do they really want to turn violence into an acceptable form of political activity, especially when our side has most of the guns? Interesting Documentary That Should Change A Lot of Minds But few Americans will ever see it, probably because it would change too many minds about the election. It discusses the problems of guerilla warfare, during and after occupation. It pulls no punches: U.S. forces repeatedly violated the Geneva Convention in frustration, killing prisoners. The insurgents set off bombs, set mines in roadways, killed collaborators who worked with us, and killed our soldiers. Even those that weren't trying to kill us didn't want us there. We imprisoned 200,000 people, and tried 100,000. There were a lot of rapes and other forms of sexual abuse committed by allied troops. But I guess that's where the differences start. You see, we executed at least 800 people for their involvement with the previous government. When Nazi guerillas operating in civilian clothes killed our soldiers, our military engaged in criminal behavior, executing without trial German soldiers who had been taken prisoner while obeying the law of land warfare. We tried and executed large numbers of German "Werewolf" fighters who were engaged in warfare even though not wearing uniforms, by military trial. Even two years later, some of these units were carrying out assassinations and bombings in German cities. It took four years before Germany (at least, West Germany) was able to hold democratic elections, and ten years before we and the other allied powers gave Germany full authority over its own affairs--and we still have troops in Germany (although not as an occupying force). I really wish that every American could see this documentary, and understand that what is going on Iraq is really not all that startling. There is, of course, one difference: Truman's political opponents weren't calling us evil for having overthrown Hitler, and ending a government that engaged in genocide and torture. Moral Absolutism & Moral Relativism Professor Volokh disagrees with Mike Adams's claim that Clifton Snider's problem is "moral relativism": This argument that the Leftist excesses in the academy stem from "moral relativism" is one I've heard often -- but I wonder why we should think that moral relativism is the problem. In fact, as Prof. Adams points out, Prof. Clifton's error is that he's too morally dogmatic: He's so wedded to his position being morally right that he blinds himself to the possibilities that (1) he's mistaken, (2) even if he's correct, others may disagree with him without being bigoted or foolish, (3) in any event, it may be wrong for him to use his English class to spread his moral views about the Bush Administration or whatever else.There are actually two separate issues here. Clifton Snider at CSULB is clearly a moral absolutist about homosexuality; if you disapprove of it, you are a homophobe, and you are going to burn in hell (or whatever the secular equivalent of it is). For many years, as I was growing up, the argument in favor of allowing homosexuality (and then requiring everyone to approve of it) was that there are no moral absolutes, and therefore what two guys do in private is no one's business but their own. I don't think that anyone making that argument really believed it; the real issue was that homosexuals knew that the dominant moral code of American society said that homosexuality was wrong, and the conflict between what they did, and a moral abolutist position, meant that they had to jettison one or the other. The complete moral relativist position--there is nothing right or wrong, whatever you want to do--is at least philosophically consistent. But few people believe in it, because then it allows homophobia, racism, sexism, apartheid, destruction of Mother Earth, eating meat, etc. A true moral relativist is reduced to defending his position, whatever that may be, by appealing to the listener's self-interest or selflessness. If he fails to persuade everyone else of his position, the moral relativist might not be happy, but since he doesn't believe in right and wrong, what's left? He can't even get all self-righteous about it, and mean it. What I, and many others object to, is the claim that moral absolutism is WRONG (with capital letters and all the disapproval that goes with it)--followed up with what Clifton Snider is doing at CSULB. Dr. Snider is only doing openly what is actually a widespread but less openly stated view in many universities: "You are a sinner, because you do not worship at the idol of Political Correctness. We will hammer you in lectures and mark you down in classes until you see the error of your ways, and abandon your heresy. Be glad that we don't have the authority of the auto da fe... yet." What Dr. Snider is revealing is the fanaticism that gave us the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, and the Gulag Archipelago--a desperate fear that someone doesn't agree with you--and you know better. I believe that there are moral absolutes; as I said above, almost everyone does. The difference is that I am sufficiently secure in my intellectual position that I don't immediately discount everyone that disagrees with me as a idiot or a fool. (But work at it--you can persuade me of that!) I have changed my political positions over the years, usually because I have found that a very ideologically satisfying argument did not fit my real world experiences very well. As the saying goes, "An ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory." As an example, I used to be a big fan of drug decriminalization. I still think that some form of it could be useful, but living in a place like Sonoma County where, for practical purposes, nearly all drugs are legal, effectively free, and supplied to many kids by their parents, makes me shudder at a full libertarian decriminalization strategy. Occasionally, a very persuasive argument has caused me to rethink my position--sometimes because the argument is thoughtful, and sometimes because the ugliness of the counterargument has shaken me. I still oppose a complete ban on elective abortions, but only because such a law is not currently enforceable. You can't look at pictures of aborted fetuses anymore than you can look at pictures of corpses at Auschwitz without saying, "What happened here? Is this really something that shouldn't bother me?" I look forward to the day when 85% of the population agrees that elective abortions will be severely limited (perhaps for rape, incest, and life-threatening deformities), and the Constitution is amended to correct this. I guess that's the difference between Dr. Snider and myself. I am not ashamed to call myself a moral absolutist. How You Can Tell Liberals Have Been In Your Schools It's the gags on the students: A federal district judge has ordered Michigan’s Ann Arbor Public Schools to pay $102,738 in attorney fees and costs in a case involving a high school’s refusal to let a Christian student express her views on homosexuality.Of course, it isn't just in Michigan. It's pretty clear from reading Dr. Clifton Snider's web page that there is a reason he doesn't tolerate opposition to gay marriage--or maybe it is just a coincidence that he is rather specialized in Oscar Wilde. There's nothing wrong with Oscar Wilde's literature--but let's not forget that he and lot of his circle spent their time hiring poor little boys for sex--sometimes traveling to countries even more impoverished than England to hire them cheap. This topic came up when my wife took Victorian Literature some years ago, but of course, since Wilde & friends were going after little boys, not little girls, the professor did her best to make excuses for it. (Let me add that you can find great intellectuals chasing little girls at the time, too. Flaubert wrote a rather graphic description of his sexual use of 13 and 14 year old Egyptian girls.) Oh yes: homosexuals are just like the rest of us, except for who they love--and often they beat those that they love. At least, that's what homosexuals seem to be saying: (CNSNews.com) - The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association is launching a first-of-its-kind "LGBT Relationship Violence Project" to educate medical professionals about domestic violence in lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender communities.One in three? I know that there is domestic violence in straight homes; my wife and I are trying to help out in a couple of situations that we know about here in Boise. But one in three? I managed to get all the way to 15 years old before I was even aware that domestic violence existed. I was sitting in a car with my mother in Oregon, and I saw a guy in a car not far from us suddenly and without apparent provocation hit the woman in the passenger's seat. If the sun had suddenly exploded, I could not have been more startled: men hitting women? What? UPDATE: I received an email from someone who runs a website devoted to raising awareness of domestic violence. One of the links was to a page from the Family Violence Treatment and Education Association: The overall rate of physical assaults by men against their female partners is 11- 12 per 100 couples; the rate is 12 - 13 per 100 couples for women against their male partners.If there were no overlap between the men battering women and the women battering men, then the overall rate for the general population would be about 23-25% of couples. However, I hope that this won't be a surprise when I tell you that there is overlap. You find couples where the man beats the woman, and never the other way around, and vice versa--but from what I have seen, it is pretty common for both to be present in one couple. I would be surprised if the rate for the general population is higher than 20%. It still shows that LGBT relationships have much higher rates of domestic violence than the average for the population. I presume that this figure for the general population includes LGBT couples, although since there are so few of them, they probably don't increase the average very much. Remember that homosexual men are about 4-4.5% of the male population, and lesbians are about 1-2% of the female population. I would also suspect that lesbians, in spite of being quite rare compared to male homosexuals, are probably half of the long-term homosexual relationships. Imagine If This Guy Were A Christian... And his guidelines for writing a paper included: Subjects to AvoidDo you suppose that California State University Long Beach wouldn't fire him, immediately? So explain why Dr. Clifton Snider gets away with this? He explains that there are certain topics that are not acceptable: 4. Topics on which there is, in my opinion, no other side apart from chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science (for example, female circumcision, prayer in public schools, same-sex marriage, the so-called faith-based initiative, abortion, hate crime laws, the existence of the Holocaust, and so-called creationism). For example, see Terrence McNally's "Just a Love Story," Los Angeles Times, 13 February 2004: B15. McNally correctly concludes that those who oppose same-sex marriage do so for one reason: homophobia. "Homophobia," as Robert Goss points out, "is the socialized state of fear, threat, aversion, prejudice, and irrational hatred of the feelings of same-sex attraction" (Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993: 1). In other words, homophobia is to gays and lesbians what racism is to people of color. Neither homophobia nor racism can be tolerated in civilized, rational debate; therefore, I will not accept either as arguments, however disguised, in your papers.His guidelines for a research paper just take my breath away, because in each and every case, when there is a political nature to a suggested topic, he presents one and only one possible perspective as the basis for a paper: 2. "Recreational" Drugs (legalization of, medicinal use of; you must know the current legal status of these issues at both the state and federal levels). For marijuana, probably the best approach is to narrow your topic to medicinal use. See Eric Bailey's "Key Court Victories Boost Medical Marijuana Movement," Los Angeles Times, 23 December 2003: B1+. Even the usually conservative Press-Telegram is calling for a "carefully regulated system of legalization and high taxation" of drugs (editorial, "Gangs and Prohibitions," 3 October 2004: A20).In a very few cases, Dr. Snider presents politically charged questions in a form that is neutral (often because it is so brief): 23. Hiroshima: Was Dropping the Bomb Immoral?But it is just astonishing that so many of his topics are so obviously biased to the left, both in how the question is asked, and how the sources he suggests are biased in that direction. As an example, the gun control topic could have suggested a couple of articles by Dr. John Lott as well--but that would involve admitting that there is more than one side. Just to add to the fascist tendencies of Dr. Snider, when Mike Adams took Dr. Snider to task for this narrow-mindededness, Dr. Snider insisted that Adams was violating his copyright by reproducing parts of it. You can see the nasty letter from Dr. Snider here, and Mike Adams' response: Being exposed as an ideological bigot isn’t much fun, is it? It is especially disheartening when you have been bullying helpless college students and finally encounter an opponent that you cannot control. That would be me.What's really funny is how Dr. Snider has updated his guidelines: Notice to my students: someone has published illegally in what purports to be an "article" material from my web site, that is, portions of my assignments. The article, among many misrepresentations, implies I require that you write about certain topics.Gee, Dr. Snider tells his students that certain topics are unacceptable, because if you disagree with Dr. Snider, you are expressing "chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science...." Dr. Snider certainly has the right to assign topics for a class. The question is: should tax dollars be used to pay for political indoctrination? UPDATE: I see that one of Dr. Snider's students has filed a complaint: A Long Beach student has filed a complaint against Snider for using an hour and a half of his English class instructional time to talk about his disapproval of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.I can't claim to be surprised, really. My wife and I both had professors who believed that the primary purpose of a university classroom was to engage in political indoctrination, often without even a pretense of relevance to the subject in question. Examples: a "Music of the World" class in which the professor ranted about how whites trashed the environment, unlike the Indians, who lived in harmony with nature. (If you don't recognize that as factually challenged polemic, you have some reading to do.) A "Critical Thinking" class where the professor used most of the lecture time to attack President Bush Sr. for the Gulf War. A "Womens Studies" class where the professor became incensed because my wife actually did what she was supposed to do: critically evaluate a paper about White Privilege and Male Privilege. Thereafter, for the remainder of the semester, when my wife would raise her hand, the professor would say, "No questions? Okay." Thursday, October 21, 2004
Okay, Identify The Political Leanings of This Writer I won't tell you who wrote it--just listen to the statements, and tell me if this is a leftist, liberal, conservative--and then guess what magazine this appeared in: Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, American Spectator, Village Voice, The Nation? Structurally, the United Nations is utterly incapable of assuring the rule of law and human rights in many of its member countries. Human rights abusers Russia and China, for example, have veto powers in the Security Council. And of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, composed of many unremitting human rights abusers, Sudan itself is a proud member.Okay: he's promoting the idea of a coalition of nations intervening without UN approval in the affairs of other nations. He holds the UN in contempt. Ready to make your guesses? Nat Hentoff, old-time civil libertarian (a fairly quaint creature in modern leftist terms), writing in the Village Voice. One of the reasons that I respect Hentoff, even though I often disagree with him on particular issues, is that he actually stands for something--human rights--and he does so consistently, not just when it is a chance to pro-UN and anti-American. Some of the other parts of the article are worth reading, too: A woman and teenage girl who were raped and abducted by soldiers in western Darfur have claimed that the Sudanese army organized airlifts of sex slaves to serve as the "wives" of government soldiers in Khartoum. . . . "Each of us was raped by between three and six men," said Bokur [Hamis, 21]. "One woman refused to have sex with them, so they split her head into pieces with an axe in front of us." —Benjamin Joffe-Walt, Sunday Telegraph, London, September 19A previous week's column points out that part of what prevents UN action is Sudan's oil industry, which has bought off many nations--including the ones that John Kerry thinks should have some sort of veto power over U.S. foreign policy: In a recent study, Reeves focuses on "the many European and Asian companies that are now propping up the Khartoum regime by means of large commercial investments and capital projects," and as a result, becoming accomplices in genocide.Isn't it amazing that the left has been screeching "No blood for oil" but seems to turn a blind eye to what is much more clearly the corrupt exchange of oil for murder, torture, and rape? I suspect that this is for a very simple reason: the left's primary motivation is the destruction of human rights. For all their efforts to pretend that the Soviet Union was a perversion of communism, the evidence is clear enough, when they refuse to turn any of their rage at George Bush against the Islamic government of Sudan, or nations like Russia and China. The Mackris/O'Reilly Suit I see from CNN's coverage that O'Reilly's attorneys are demanding that if Mackris has tapes of O'Reilly's disgusting phone conversations (which the length and detail of the claimed quotes in the complaint would suggest), that they produce and play those tapes in open court. At first glance, this looks like the actions of someone who is confident that the tapes don't support Mackris's claims, or provide some context that might demolish the claim of sexual harrassment. For example: some of the conversations might have involved Mackris as the aggressor--which would make O'Reilly look like a real cad, but destroy the sexual harrassment claim. However, there is another possibility: if Mackris taped these conversations, and did so unlawfully, then producing those tapes would open her up to criminal prosecution, and I think prevent those tapes from being used in court. But according to this website, New York is one of those states where it is lawful for one party to record a phone conversation without informing the other party. Since it appears that the vast majority of these alleged conversations involved two New Yorkers (O'Reilly and Mackris), I can't see that this strategy would help O'Reilly at all. Perhaps there's some subtle point here that I am missing, but if O'Reilly did indeed do something wrong, demanding that Mackris play the tapes gains O'Reilly nothing, and destroys O'Reilly's reputation. If O'Reilly did nothing wrong, or at least nothing that qualifies as sexual harrassment, demanding that Mackris play the tapes makes lots of sense for O'Reilly--and no sense for Mackris at all. If there are no tapes--then Mackris's complaint starts to smell like fiction. UPDATE: Drudge Report, relying upon unnamed sources, is reporting that Mackris is deeply in debt--consistent with the possibility that she made up (or embellished) this story to solve her financial problems. More Reactionary Narrow-Minded Talk By Bill Cosby He was being a pest in Milwaukee, this time: "It is not all right for your 15-year-old daughter to have a child," the comedian said Wednesday night. "I'm 67 years old. I'm not talking to you any different from a grandfather who would say, 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'" Neck and Neck Real Clear Politics electoral vote map shows Bush with 227 votes, and Kerry with 206--and 105 votes still battleground. If Bush wins Florida and Pennsylvania, or Florida and Ohio, or Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Hampshire, that puts him over the top. Kerry, on the other hand, has to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, and at least three other states to win. More On Why Blacks Are Slipping Out of the Safe Democratic Column This article from the Boston Globe, earlier this year, discusses the pivotal role of black clergy--historically part of the liberal coalition--in opposing same-sex marriage in Massachusetts: The three major associations of Greater Boston's black clergy, exercising their considerable influence within the minority community and asserting moral authority on civil rights matters, have shaken up the debate over same-sex marriage with their insistence that the quest by gays and lesbians for marriage licenses is not a civil rights issue.No, Mr. Rushing, they are recognizing that the analogy that homosexuals use to being black is bogus. A handful of leading black clergy in Boston are prominent supporters of gay marriage, but all work in historically white denominations. They include the Rev. William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association; the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, the American Baptist minister who is minister of Harvard University's Memorial Church; and Bishop Gayle E. Harris, a suffragan bishop in the Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts.It would have been nice if the reporter had mentioned that Rev. Gomes might have a conflict of interest on this, being openly gay. But within historically black churches, where most black Protestants worship, there appears to be a near consensus that marriage should be defined as the union of a man and a woman. Among those who have voiced their opposition are the Rev. Ray A. Hammond, pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community, and the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, pastor of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge.Exactly. What was wrong with laws against interracial marriage was that they were contrary to the Biblical truths upon which this nation was founded. I am hoping that the Bush campaign will emphasize the yawning gap between Bush and Kerry on not only same-sex marriage (where Kerry has taken both sides, as usual), but also on the question of whether judges may impose same-sex marriage on the states (where Kerry, for once, hasn't waffled). Of course, that would require Bush to really, really want to win. There are days I find myself feeling like Bush Jr. is as bad as Bush Sr.--neither seemed to really want to win--at least, not badly enough to offend the liberals. Oh Dear, Some Nasty Person is Accusing Kerry of Being A Liberal Yes, well-known right-winger Michael Moore: Moore said Kerry may not be perfect, but is far superior to former Vice President Al Gore and this year's other Democratic presidential hopefuls. "There's a reason that they're saying Kerry is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate," said Moore. "It's because he is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate." Washington State Really Is Becoming California A school district in Puyallup, Washington, banned Halloween costumes and celebrations in the schools, and gave three reasons. Two of them make perfect sense, and the third one? Well, this story really catches the insanity well: The superintendent made the decision for three primary reasons, Hansen said. First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time. Second, some families can't afford costumes and the celebrations thus can create embarrassment for children. Do Facts Even Matter Anymore? I found this news story from about a month ago that didn't seem to get much attention: Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of Oil-for-Food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his infamous war on the U.S. Right Down to the Wire... This is going to be very, very close. Yes, Bush has a lead in a number of the polls, but it is a lead within the 95% confidence intervals for surveys of this size. Ordinarily, I wouldn't worry too much, because Democrats tend to be less motivated than Republicans to vote--but this is not an ordinary year. The Democrats have engaged in a campaign of lies unprecedented in my memory, of which Fahrenheit 9/11 is the centerpiece, and the "Rock the Vote" lies using a faked draft notice--with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's faked signature--is the most outrageous. The Democratic Party has decided that getting the White House matters more than protecting liberal democracy from Islamofascism. The cynicism of this strategy takes my breath away--and I have regarded the Democratic Party with contempt for a very long time. Perhaps most of the best examples of the "tell them anything to get elected" nonsense was Edwards claim that electing Kerry was equivalent to visiting a faith healer. As Charles Krauthammer (an MD, although apparently paralysis during medical school turned him into a columnist instead) observes: This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."Is there anything more cynical and loathsome than Edwards' performance? It makes me long for the 1984 campaign of Walter Mondale who was an unashamed liberal, and claimed that the government could do all sorts of wonderful things for those in need--but never claimed that the government was God. Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Very Specialized Thieves My neighbor came back from deer hunting about 1:00 PM, and parked in his driveway. He was hot and dirty, and went in to take a shower. When he came back a couple hours later, the deer was still in his Jeep--but his rifle, binoculars, and hunting knife were no longer in the front seat. Well, no surprise there. Even in Idaho, there are thieves. But the story gets more bizarre. I asked him to describe the rifle. Browning A-Bolt Stainless Stalker, .270 Winchester, with a Bausch & Lomb Elite 3000 scope. The binoculars were Nikons. (So my neighbor has good taste.) He mentions a friend who lives about a mile over was recently burgled, and the thieves took just two rifles, binoculars, and a hunting knife. His friend calls, having just heard about my neighbor's burglary. What were the two rifles stolen from his friend? Browning A-Bolt Stainless Stalkers, with Leupold scopes. What's going on here? Is this a very selective, very discriminating thief, with exquisite taste? The coincidence is just a little too hard to imagine. The Dishonesty of the Democrats Rock the Vote is still using a fake draft notice to scare young people into voting for Kerry. When you click on it, it takes you to a discussion of the draft that says this: The possibility of a new military draft is not a hoax or an Internet rumor. It's a real issue and it demands real answers.Real answers have been given. There is no support for a draft by the President, by the military, by Congress. The only people who seem to want a draft are the Democrats who introduced a draft bill. Deeper down, you find this dishonest piece of doubletalk: This is not a hoax. Congress voted tonight on the military draft.So "Rock the Vote" says that we should get on the case of the 402 members of Congress who voted against a draft. Why doesn't this say, "Any Member of Congress who votes for this bill should be able to explain why we need a draft"? The dishonesty of the Democratic Party is just beyond belief. More Voter Registration Fraud This news report would seem to suggest that George Soros and the other leftist billionaires received a bit less than they hoped for with these voter registration drives: COLUMBUS - Thousands of cards mailed by county election boards to newly registered voters in Hamilton County and throughout the state are being returned because the people can't be found.I'm glad that many of these Democratic operatives are too stupid to insert real addresses, but I worry about the ones who are smart. If you registered Bob Jones, Max Jones, John Jones, and Larry Jones to vote at the same address, the post office would certainly deliver registration cards for all of them. How would they know how many Jones' lived at that address? Bob Jones goes and votes in person--and Max, John, and Larry all vote absentee ballot. How would you know that there is only Bob Jones living there? You wouldn't. Voter fraud is a rather fundamental part of how the Democratic Party operates, at least in the places where I have lived. When I ran for Santa Monica City Council in 1981, there were some amazing things that I found while talking to people and walking precincts. At the time, the registrar was removing voters from the rolls if they had not voted in the 1978 or 1980 general elections--yet when I talked to apartment managers, they told me that some of the people that I was trying to find had been dead for four years. I was told that there were fourteen people registered to vote in the two bedroom house across the street from Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda's house in Ocean Park. Another source, a mailman, told me that when he opened up apartment mailboxes, where at the time you commonly listed all the names receiving mail at that apartment, he would often see five or six different names--in two bedroom apartments. (To be fair, some of this was probably residence fraud to get kids into Santa Monica's really excellent public schools.) Voters should have to show photo ID to vote, to confirm that they are who they say that they are. Absentee ballots should be limited to those actually out of town, or permanently too disabled or ill to get to the polls. Even then, if you can plan far enough ahead to vote absentee, you can go somewhere that your photo ID can be checked to verify that you are who you say you are. If the current rules for voting were used for buying a gun, the Democrats would be in an uproar, and I would share their concerns (although perhaps not their solutions). What Causes High Health Insurance Costs (A Joke With a Point) A co-worker sent this to me recently, because we have a pet duck. (It looks just like the AFLAC duck.) It's a joke, but the punch line has an important point about why medical care has become expensive, and thus health insurance. (Obviously, not the only reason.) ---- A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, your pet has passed away." The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure. The duck is dead," he replied. "How can you be so sure", she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few moments later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and took it out and returned a few moments later with a beautiful cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed the bird from its beak to its tail and back again. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, jumped down and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck." Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys, and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried. "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead?!!" The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20. But what with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it all adds up." Blacks Coming Home to the Republican Party? It's an intriguing thought. Remember that for much of American history, blacks were Republicans, and it wasn't hard to see why. The Republican Party was committed to at least legal equality for blacks, and the gradual abolition of slavery. Democrats recognized this; Eric Foner's Free Labor, Free Soil, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War quotes one of the early Republican politicians to the effect that all the Democrats had to do in some Northern states was yell "Nigger, nigger, nigger" to discredit Republican candidates. Democrats repeatedly suggested that the Republican goal was full social equality, and black men marrying white women. This is why you will sometimes see Lincoln quoted rather negatively about blacks, not because he was particularly racist, but because he was having to pander to the voters to get elected. After the Civil War, Democrats in the South were the party of Jim Crow, lynching, and segregation. When blacks were excluded from the Democratic primaries in southern states, it was because the Democratic Party was committed to white supremacy. Thomas Sowell has made the point that in some parts of Texas, Republicans even into the 1940s did not have candidates for many offices, because there were so few white Republicans, and it would have been suicidal to run a black Republican for office. The move of blacks into the Democratic Party was largely a function of the Depression (which hit blacks especially hard, partly because so many of the New Deal measures had the effect of pushing blacks out of good jobs by empowering labor unions--which were largely racist. Unsurprisingly, this created economic dependency for blacks (as it did for many whites) on the welfare state, and tied the fortunes of the poorest blacks to the major promoter of the welfare state, the Democratic Party. So much has changed in America in the last forty years. Back when President Bush flew to Baghdad in secret for Thanksgiving with the troops, part of how he got away from the reporters was by driving away from his ranch with Condoleeza Rice. Some bloggers at the time commented how dramatic a change this was--that a mixed race couple could drive somewhere in Texas without being immediately noticed. If you don't find that a dramatic change, let me tell you a little story. There was an older black man named Lindsey at the church I attended in California. When he was in the military in the late 1950s, he was driving through Texas. A deputy sheriff pulled him over. This should have been a simple traffic stop for the offense of Driving While Black--but when Lindsey opened his wallet to get out his driver's license, the deputy saw a picture of Lindsey with his wife. His wife is pretty light, and on a faded black and white photograph, she looked white--so the deputy arrested Lindsey and took him to jail for the night, while they tried to find some more serious charge to bring against him. (I suppose Lindsey should consider himself fortunate that they were bothering with such formal procedures as actually arresting him.) The United States has changed quite dramatically. If you had told a Texan of 1955 that there would be a day when a white man and a black woman would drive somewhere in a car without attracting attention, he would have laughed. If you had told him that the white man was President of the United States--and a Texan--he would have asked if the black woman was a whore. If you had told him that the black woman had a Ph.D., and was the President's national security advisor, making decisions about how to deploy U.S. troops--he would have called the mental hospital, and told them there was a need for the tight-fitting jacket that laces up in the back. As for the reaction when you explained that the President was headed to Baghdad to have dinner with U.S. troops, who were occupying Iraq along with our allies Mongolia, Poland, the Czechs, and the Bulgarians--over the stern opposition of France and Germany--the 1955 Texan's brain would have exploded. Is Kerry Ineligible Because of the Fourteenth Amendment? I started scratching my head on this as well--having forgotten the section that disqualifies people for giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. (Think: Fourteenth Amendment had to deal with people who assisted the Confederacy during the Civil War.) There are two very interesting examinations of this question here and here. Professor Volokh's examination seems quite complete--at least, I didn't find anything directly contradictory to it from my digging around. Both come to the conclusion that Kerry is almost certainly not in violation--but reasonable people might disagree. Blacks in Play I've been saying for some months now that the days when blacks were a safe 90% vote for Democrats were over, and gay marriage was one of the reasons. Here's an article from the Washington Times by "Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr.... of Hope Christian Church ... co-author with George Barnaof of High-Impact African-American Churches.": This year's October surprise will be a critical mass of the black, Christian community standing up for biblical concepts of righteousness and justice. These courageous black voters will attempt a risky, but important strategy.I don't know if I have that much confidence that the Pew numbers are understated, but I do think that the Democrats have put themselves in a difficult situation with respect to gay marriage. Now, the other issues such as the lousy conditions of inner-city education and the lack of economic opportunities for inner-city blacks, should have caused blacks to bolt from the Democratic Party years ago. Gay marriage, however, is an emotional issue, and as Jackson points out, "unrestricted same-sex marriage promises to rend the fabric of an already traumatized family structure." Whether it is rational or not to regard this as a more important issue than decent education, it is an issue that is breaking the Democratic lock on black votes. I think the Bush Administration understand this. Why, do you suppose, this is happening? In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 2 election, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has traveled across the country making speeches in key battleground states, including Oregon, Washington, North Carolina and Ohio. In the next five days, she also plans speeches in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida.Rice is talking about national security in these speeches, but the message is, I am sure, not lost on black Americans, that one of their own is at the pinnacle of power in Washington. Canadian Health Care Do you notice that the left is a little less interested in talking about the Canadian health care system these days? Partly, this is because the border is highly permeable, and plenty of Americans know Canadians. We have some relatives by marriage who live in Vancouver, and the stories of the health care system there are pretty disappointing. This article from the Canadian National Post is also a reminder that if you have anything that requires a specialist, or non-emergency surgery, Canada may not be the best choice: The waiting times to get brain, orthopedic and plastic surgery soared by as much as seven weeks in the past year, as increased spending on health care did little to make the system faster, a new Fraser Institute report concludes.As I have pointed out in the past, I suspect that some sort of income redistribution to deal with the uninsured poor is inevitable. It is already happening through "cost shifting," by which doctors and hospitals raise their rates on paying patients to cover uncollectable bills from the uninsured. My concern is that whatever scheme the Democrats come up with will involve massive subsidies to people that can afford to pay for their own health insurance. Unfortunately, almost any scheme that tries to avoid this will involve a pretty massive bureaucracy to make sure that those who are subsidized are truly in need. I don't have a single solution, and I don't think that there is one. It is inelegant, but a series of piece by piece solutions is probably the most sensible way to deal with the problem of health care--solutions that solve one problem group at a time, and hope that eventually, not too many people will have fallen through the cracks. Assault Weapon Lies Revealed By FactCheck.org Apparently, the Democratic 527s aren't above telling lies (what a surprise). FactCheck.org fact checks MoveOn's newest ad: This latest ad from Moveon PAC is about as misleading as it can be. Through words, graphics and sound effects, it invites viewers to think that the expiration of the ban on 19 semiautomatic assault weapons will allow people legally to buy fully automatic machine guns that can fire "up to 300 rounds per minute." That's false.A Democratic 527 telling lies? Well, that's no surprise. What's the next Democratic ad going to say? Are they going to claim that Bush has a secret plan to force all women to wear burkhas? Peter Jennings Needs to Get Out of His Liberal Bubble This article from channel 7 in Omaha is hilarious: Another big question regards an ABC internal memo from the political director suggesting that reporters need not "reflexively" hold both sides of the presidential election "equally" accountable.I would be happiest if ABC, CBS, and NBC would admit that they are Democratic cheerleaders, and drop the pretense of objectivity and fairness. Of course, that would sink their ratings overnight. Tuesday, October 19, 2004
The Illegal Alien Problem & Los Angeles's Finances This article points out that there is a strong connection between the illegal alien problem and the inability of Los Angeles to hire enough police without another tax increase: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A proposed $500 million tax increase to put more police on the streets of Los Angeles has drawn fire from opponents who say top law-enforcement officials are trying to scare voters into approving it with commercials that raise the specter of a suburban crime nightmare.Not just the federal government. Los Angeles doesn't allow its police to turn over illegal aliens to INS. Two Americas There really are two Americas, like Kerry and Edwards say. One of those Americas involves people that still have to work for a living. The other involves people who are obscenely rich, who can make statements like this, and mean it: Hometown hottie Matt Damon doesn't rest when it comes to politicking for his presidential pick John Kerry - even whilst in Germany!You'll notice that the obscenely rich ones are Democrats, like John Kerry, Matt Damon, George Soros, and Peter Lewis. The More I Think About This, The More Upset I Get When Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) introduced a bill to bring back the draft last year the argument was: Increasingly we will be a nation in which the poor fight our wars while the affluent stay home.... As a veteran, I strongly believe that fighting for our country must be fairly shared by all racial and economic groups." The objection was that poor black people were going off to fight this war. This is amazing, because one of the most startlin aspects of coverage of this war is how many of the armed forces we see in Iraq are white and Hispanic (probably because so many are reservists, not regulars). Yet, for most of this country's history, the big struggle was to get black people into the military. Bernard C. Nalty's Strength for the Fight chronicles the history of blacks in the U.S. military--and what a struggle it was to get them there. Reasons To Vote For John Kerry Make sure that you aren't drinking anything when you read this. A long-time acquaintance, who is French, has been trying to persuade me to vote for Bush. Unlike some of the other email I get, from people who claim to be conservatives, but don't want me to vote for Bush (for reasons that quickly turn out to be that Bush isn't a leftist), this guy doesn't pretend to be a conservative. But his argument of late is that Kerry supports traditional Republican values, such as limited government: Clayton: as any one of our age, I accept that there is some good in the classic republican doctrin: smaller government, fiscal restraint, respect for alliances, and deeply regrets that on this base I just cannot vote for Bush. This Crack/Voter Registration Drive Nexus Is Spreading From New Mexico: City police raided a home on the 700 block of Edith Street on the southeast side over the weekend and found seven completed voter registration packets alongside suspected illegal narcotics. On Promoting Hatred of America in School The Weekly Standard has an article by a Dan Gelernter, who attends Amity Sr. High School in Woodbridge, Connecticut. If you want to know why so many of his classmates do not love America (their description), it is because of the way that American history is taught: My textbook last year, for example, was the 12th edition of The American Pageant by David Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen, and the late Thomas Bailey. Its chapter on World War II has more than a page on the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor and one sentence on the Bataan Death March. (What does one infer from this about the value of an American life?) It spends no time at all on the American GI, but gives a comprehensive discussion of the number of women who served, and where. (It carefully refers to "the 15 million men and women in uniform.") The discussion, in short, is warped, incompetent, anachronistic.Sad to say, this is a recurring problem with a lot of textbooks--the need to balance everything by race, sex, and nation, means that students get a pretty warped understanding of American history. I am sure that most students get out of school thinking of Japan as a "victim" in World War II--not an aggressor whose troops enslaved tens of thousands of women as prostitutes, murdered vast numbers of civilians, engaged in torture on a massive scale, and performed germ warfare experiments on POWs and civilians. But how would any of that reflect badly on the U.S.? Promoting Flu Panic There's a gun control fanatic named Arthur Kellermann who works at Emory University (formerly home of professional liar^H^H^H^Hhistorian Michael Bellesiles). Now he is trying to promote a panic about flu (one guess why): Today's flu shot shortage could trigger a public health "catastrophe'' this winter if a bad flu strain emerges and patients swamp already overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, the nation's largest organization of ER doctors warned Monday.Fortunately, not everyone is operating in full political games mode: But ER doctors' alarm drew an angry rebuke from the Department of Health and Human Services. Another Parallel Universe Speech This is from the parallel universe where the Iraq War doesn't happen, oil prices stayed low, and gasoline was still $1.29 a gallon. ---- Speaking before the Sierra Club, Senator Kerry harshly criticized President Bush's energy policies: "President Bush's bankrupt energy policies once again show his lack of concern for the environment. Because of his unwillingness to pursue the farsighted 50 cent per gallon gasoline tax that I voted for in 1993, we are accelerating global warming, leading to a catastrophe for generations yet unborn." ---- And since Kerry never takes the same position two days in a row, in that same parallel universe where Congress did not increase the business vehicle tax credit limit to $100,000: ---- Addressing the annual meeting of the United Autoworkers of America, Senator Kerry attacked President Bush's unwillingness to assist the American auto industry in recovering from the 2001-02 recession. "American autoworkers are losing their jobs, while Americans buy imported cars. President Bush is out of touch with working Americans. It is time for a President who believes that American jobs matter more than Japanese jobs." ---- The problem, unfortunately, is that because John Kerry has no discernible principles--not even liberal ones--you can construct almost any sort of Kerry attacks Bush argument, with only a few completely bizarre enough to be unbelievable. It does not seem that there anything that George Bush has done that doesn't come under attack from John Kerry, because this isn't about what is good for America--this is about getting John Kerry into the White House. Labels: global warming If We Hadn't Invaded Iraq Over here is a Kerry speech from the parallel universe where Bush decided against invading Iraq (no permanent link--scroll down to 10/19/2004): Democrat Presidential nominee John Kerry delivered a speech today condemning President Bush for failing to invade Iraq in the follow-up of military action against the Talaban and Al Qaeda in Afghanastan. "Leaving this tyrant in power in contravention of numerous United Nations resolutions is unconscionable," Kerry told the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "He has left available a base of operations and a source of supply and money."Worth reading in full. Is there any question in anyone's mind that this wouldn't be the attack speech by Senator Kerry? Is There Any Lie That John Kerry Won't Tell? One of his campaign staff: Special-interest groups backing Kerry are fueling rumors of a draft in a second Bush term. MoveOnStudentAction.org is launching a nationwide campus "Feel a Draft?" campaign to demand an exit strategy in Iraq and urge Bush to detail a specific plan to avoid the draft.Congress has voted 402-2 against a draft. The draft bills were introduced by Democrats. Bush has emphatically said that he doesn't want or need a draft. The military is very clear that they don't want or need a draft. These "go-it-alone policies" that have dozens of other nations fighting alongside us in Iraq? Is there any lie that the Kerry campaign won't tell? The Power of Boycott Isn't it nice to see that when the television networks decide to appeal to stereotypes about homosexuals that consumers use their muscle to express their disapproval? Oh, excuse me, I got that wrong. The consumers were using their muscle to express disapproval of a television show because it promotes sexual immorality. That must be censorship by narrow-minded bigots! NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Walt Disney Co.'s best shot at reviving its sickly ABC network may have plenty of skin and sin, but "Desperate Housewives" also has fewer original advertisers than it did just a few weeks ago. John Kerry Shows His Feelings About Unions From the Boston Globe, a fiercely pro-Kerry paper: ORLANDO, Fla. -- Last summer, John F. Kerry refused to cross a police picket line and address the US Conference of Mayors meeting in Boston. Last night he rode in a motorcade that crossed two Florida police picket lines en route to a get-out-the-vote rally in vote-rich Orlando.I am not a pro-union guy--not even slightly. I understand why unions formed in the nineteenth century, and even into the twentieth century, I could have some sympathy for their position. But labor unions (with a few very honorable exceptions) were fiercely racist. Many, into the 1940s, had explicit "no blacks" provisions, and even those that allowed blacks into the union, often segregated them into black locals--who got called last for jobs. Labor unions and picket lines are based on threats of violence. My father was home unexpectedly one day, and I asked him why. He was a member of the Boilermakers-Blacksmiths Union, and explained that they were on strike. "Can't you go to work anyway?" "Not if you want to live," was his response. A friend of mine worked in California during World War II. She and other girl weren't keen on joining the union. They slashed the other girl's face with a knife to make her see the error of her ways. Another friend grew up in Michigan. His father was a labor union official. They were sitting in a coffee shop, and overheard a conversation at the next table that expressed disapproval of unions. His father was holding a coffee mug, so he turned around and broke the mug on the guy's face. Labor unions have a rather interesting carte blanche to use violence. In U.S. v. Enmons et.al. (1973), the Supreme Court ruled that under the federal extortion law, blowing up buildings was not illegal: Five specific acts of violence were charged to have been committed in furtherance of the conspiracy - firing highpowered rifles at three Company transformers, draining the oil from a Company transformer, and blowing up a transformer substation owned by the Company. In short, the indictment charged that the appellees had conspired to use and did in fact use violence to obtain for the striking employees higher wages and other employment benefits from the Company.The Supreme Court went on to argue that the Hobbs Act was not intended to prohibit the use of violence and threats of violence to achieve "legitimate collective-bargaining demands" for members of labor unions. Maybe the Supreme Court is right about that. But labor unions have worked on this theory for a long time--that threats of death, destruction of property, etc. are all legitimate methods for achieving their ends. Can you imagine what the reaction would be if corporations used this argument to justify threats of violence to get a better price from a supplier? Back to Kerry crossing picket lines. One of the few non-violent methods that labor unions have of achieving their goals is voluntary compliance of union members and their sympathizers with picket lines. To cross a picket line for someone who claims to be pro-union should be nauseating to union members. Thanks to Michael Williams for the link to the Boston Globe article. Me, When I Was Younger, I Think From one of the Canadian papers, the National Post, a series of articles about the campaign in the American heartland. The first article is about Hamilton County, Indiana, which they call the most Republican county in America--and it doesn't sound, from their description, like they are far off. This quote from this 21 year old sounds like something that I might have said at that age, when I was young, idealistic, and not yet very well off: Chris Lariviere, the 21-year-old front desk clerk at a Noblesville hotel, is casting his first presidential ballot in November. He, too, is voting for Mr. Bush, so the rich will continue to get tax breaks. Mr. Lariviere is all for helping the rich. French Not Respecting Native Americans Enough This is a really, really vulgar thing to do--it makes naming your high school's sports team "the Warriors" or "the Redskins" seem downright respectful. I guess the message of the 1960s song "Cherokee Nation" didn't survive translation into French: The headdresses worn, with little else, by dancers at the Crazy Horse club in Paris have provoked a complaint from descendants of the Sioux warrior after whom the cabaret was named without their permission. I Hope It Doesn't Take 5000 Years To Find Him From the Telegraph: The German man who discovered the frozen corpse of a prehistoric iceman in the Alps 13 years ago is thought to have suffered a similar fate to his famous find after he disappeared in the same mountain range at the weekend. Well, It's About Time! It's the headline in the Guardian from an article they reprinted from Salon: Team Bush declares war on the New York TimesThe article carefully avoids discussing that this is rather like when the U.S. declared war on Japan in 1941. A continuing source of frustration for me has been how Republicans, including the Bush Administration, have tried to make friends with the hard left of the American media, when this is simply not one of the options. Because the hard left is committed to government control of everything (except if it involves sex or intoxication), there can be no friendship there. Sad to say, it's only a metaphorical declaration of war. Those Japanese Makers Include Everything With The Television I guess Toshiba learned from the Japanese car makers, whose claim to fame used to be that almost everything was standard: An Oregon man discovered earlier this month that his year-old Toshiba Corp. flat-screen TV was emitting an international distress signal picked up by a satellite, leading a search and rescue operation to his apartment in Corvallis, Oregon, 70 miles south of Portland. Tommy Franks Tells Kerry To Tell The Truth Not like John Kerry ever lets truth get in his way (New York Times, may require registration): President Bush and Senator John Kerry have very different views of the war on terrorism, and those differences ought to be debated in this presidential campaign. But the debate should focus on facts, not distortions of history.Franks' column goes on to point out specific factual errors in Kerry's statements in the sort of direct and blunt way that I expect an American soldier to do. No weasel wording; no careful use of phrases that provide deniability. If America elects a dishonest, manipulative liar like John Kerry to the White House, we are going to spend four years watching him make excuses for why we can't win the War on Terror, and might as well negotiate instead. As We Say In My House, TMI Too Much Information. Governor Schwarzenegger tells us the consequences of his speech at the Republican National Convention: MONTEREY, Calif. (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday that his speech backing President Bush at the Republican Convention in August resulted in a cold shoulder from his wife, Maria Shriver, a member of the famously Democratic Kennedy family.Maybe I'm just narrow-minded, but I really don't think that there was a need to share that information. He could have perhaps hinted at this, something like, "For 14 days, my wife was a little cool with me." What it does tell us, however, (assuming the Governator wasn't just playing for laughs) is that Maria Shriver is a pretty petty person. Her husband makes a speech, and she's not interested in him anymore? Mixed marriages: not a good idea. Available For Phone Bank Activities on Election Day This is going to be a very important election--the equivalent of the 1944 election in some ways, and in some ways, even more important. The writing was on the wall by November of 1944 that Nazi Germany was going to lose; it is not so clear that this is the case right now. (In case you have ever wondered where the expression "writing on the wall" as a statement of fate or prophecy comes from: Daniel ch. 5.) Idaho is pretty obviously going to go for Bush, and by a wide margin. I wish that I could be of help in the swing states--and then it occurred to me: my phone service is flat rate to any residential phone number in the United States. If anyone out there can get me in touch with someone at NRA or the Bush campaign who needs me to take Election Day off work, and spend it doing "get out the vote" calls to NRA members or Republicans, I'll make myself available. Black Support for Kerry Eroding I've been pointing out for some time that one of the core constituencies of the Democratic Party--blacks--are beginning to move towards Bush, and the gay marriage issue is one of the reasons. This news story provides more clear evidence: The Joint Center poll of 1,642 adults was conducted Sept. 15-Oct. 10, four days before the third and final presidential debate, and had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.The election is close. Bush needs to be running campaign ads emphasizing Kerry's past history of support for gay marriage, and his current opposition to a constitutional amendment defining marriage as "one man, one woman." It is hard to imagine that there are a lot of Bush supporters who are going to vote for Kerry because of such an ad--but it is easy to see a fair number of blacks who were planning to vote for Kerry either changing to Bush, or not voting at all, if Bush runs such an ad. More Evidence That Cracks Rots Your Brain... Or maybe stupid people do crack, I'm not sure. The guy arrested for doing fraudulent voter registrations for the NAACP--in exchange for crack--used some names of "voters" that, shall we say, were just a tad suspicious: DEFIANCE, Ohio (AP) - Elections officials knew something was wrong when they got voter registration cards for Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Michael Jordan and George Foreman.So it makes you wonder wonder: How many fraudulent voter registrations have been filled in with names like James Smith, Joseph Williams, Lavanda Stevens, and other plausible names? You should not be able to vote anywhere without showing a state issued picture ID. Why don't we have a federal law on this? I presume because it would interfere with people voting early, voting often. More On The O'Reilly Lawsuit Interesting news item. I don't know if this guy is telling the truth or not, but it certainly is more consistent with Mackris' behavior than her lawsuit. It doesn't say a lot good about O'Reilly, but certainly better than the accusations that Mackris has made against him: Scandal-hit Bill O'Reilly's accuser had a crush on the talk show host and voluntarily engaged in "intimate" phone talks with him, according to a former friend of the woman.Uh, allegations like the ones in Mackris' lawsuit? The Bush Administration Isn't Doing Enough... Or so a bunch of AIDS activists claim: Arlington police arrested 21 protesters yesterday after they chained themselves to the front door and one another at Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters during a demonstration against administration policies.Gee, where did those 40,000 new infections come from? Does AIDS just mysteriously arrive? No. Your chances of getting AIDS are close to zero if you take these very, very easy steps: 1. Engage in sex only in a mutually monogamous relationship--and stay in that relationship for years, not hours. 2. Do not reuse needles. There are a small number of people each year that will get AIDS in spite of following these steps, but it's tiny. The problem is that ACTUP doesn't like to be reminded that there are consequences for your actions. Random sex in public restrooms in bathhouses is dangerous; having sex with prostitutes is dangerous; sharing needles with other drug addicts is dangerous. In 1981, no one knew. Is there anyone that doesn't know that now? It is rather like the people that started smoking after 1964--when cigarette packs started carrying the warning label. You were warned. You were stupid. If the government does anything to alleviate the consequences of your stupidity, that's strictly a nice thing that they do for you. It is not something that you deserve, and whining that they aren't doing enough? Tough. Monday, October 18, 2004
Indicting U.N. Officials Another reason why we need to follow Senator Kerry's lead, and become more willing to work with with them: American prosecutors are preparing charges against Benon Sevan, the former head of the United Nations oil for food programme, who has been accused of accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks from Saddam Hussein's regime. News From Afghanistan Alas, it was boring, because it was good news: elections held; women voting; people risking life and limb to defy the Taliban; a nation struggling to free itself from decades of civil war, because the U.S. and our NATO allies intervened. This was good news, and a reminder that Bush made a good decision. Remember that many of the bad news stories about Iraq were coming out of Afghanistan about two years ago: As another report noted: "After months of what proved to be empty threats, military commanders and ordinary Afghans said yesterday the vote was a serious setback for the holdouts of the hardline Islamic regime that was driven from power by U.S. bombs almost three years ago for harbouring Osama bin Laden. 'Yesterday was a big defeat for the Taliban and a huge defeat for al-Qaida,' said Lt.-Gen. David Barno, the top American commander in Afghanistan. 'It shows that the political process is overwhelming any influence they may have.'Well worth reading, and well worth forwarding to your liberal friends who are revelling in Bush's "failure" in Iraq. There's an NRA Bumper Sticker Here, Somewhere, I Just Know What makes this story so ridiculous is that this guy got in trouble for having an unregistered handgun--issued to him as part of his official duties with a police department: LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Police Department's anti-terrorism chief is no longer strapped.The beginning of the story says "licensed" but later it says "registered." Licensing only applies to carrying a handgun in California; registration is required of all newly purchased handguns, and handguns brought in from out of state--but this applies to police agency issued weapons? This is insane. But everything about California gun laws is insane. California's Proposition 66 Warning: graphic descriptions of crimes committed by people that may be on the streets, soon. One of the arguments against concentrations of wealth is this op-ed piece about Proposition 66, which purports to be a "correction" to California's Three Strikes Law--one that will apparently release the sort of monsters that need to be kept in prison until they start to smell bad. According to this op-ed piece, these are some of the depraved monsters that Prop. 66 will release: Joseph Noble is a sexual predator who targeted extremely young girls. In a typical case, Noble tried to force a seven-year-old girl to perform oral sex on him, choking her into unconsciousness. He told police that he had fantasized about raping and murdering two-year-old girls. Sheriff's deputies found a note he had written, which said in part:So who is pushing this measure? According to the author:I have an incredible lust for young, tiny, innocent virgins. Sadistically raping or sodomizing a beautiful young girl gives me incredible pleasure. Their screams of agony are music to my ears, as I brutally mutilate their undeveloped tiny genitals for hours at a time.Noble is serving 25-to-life for indecent exposure. At trial, he admitted he still has violent sexual fantasies about children. The sentencing judge said Noble "has all but promised he is going to re-offend." The measure is primarily bankrolled by a wealthy man named Jerry Keenan, whose son killed two people while driving drunk and high on marijuana. An obscure provision in Proposition 66 could force the early release of Jerry Keenan's son from prison.If an ordinary person were in a situation like this, where a family member had committed crimes that sent them to prison, it would be sad, but that's justice. But when someone really wealthy has this problem.... This news account has an explanation that is damning no matter whether you believe Jerry Keenan or not: Proposition 66 is bankrolled by Jerry Keenan-- Richard Keenan's father. Keenan has spent over $1.5 million to put Proposition 66 on the November ballot, and if it passes, Richard Keenan could have his sentenced by about three years.If he's doing it for his son, I can understand, and still be angered. But if he is doing because he thinks it is wrong to send people off to prison for their third felony (where the first two felonies are violent crimes against people), well, I guess I know where the son learned his notion of morality. Some of the other advocates for Proposition 66 seem to be typical liberals: Dorothy Erskine advocated Proposition 66 in the Times because of her nephew Brian Smith, who is serving 25 years to life. Erskine said Smith has prior felony convictions for burglarizing an unoccupied house, stealing a car and using force on the driver. Smith was at a mall in Cerritos with two women in 1994 when they were stopped for shoplifting. The women were released after a few years, but Smith is still serving because the crime was his third strike.Note: "stealing a car and using force on the driver": the formal definition of that is robbery. Here's a clue for you: if you don't want 25 years to life, don't run around committing felonies--or at least stop after the first two. How hard is that? Which Way Is The Election Going To Go? I was listening to NPR on my way back from lunch, and they were interviewing some Democrat-leaning pollster talking about how the voter registration drives that the Democrats have been running have been getting a lot of young people, who disproportionately have only a cell phone, and so are not being caught by the normal survey methods. (Shades of the 1948 Dewey debacle!) One of the guests went on to claim that while blacks in Pennsylvania were normally 8-9% of the vote, because of the registration drives, he was expecting blacks might be 11-12% of the vote this time. I don't think that Bush has it in the bag, by any means. But I do wonder about several points: 1. Here's a story about a guy who was just arrested for filling in 100 voter registration forms himself, because he was being paid in crack cocaine for each form he received. Another person living at the same residence gave police the card of an NAACP voter registration organizer as the person was paying them (presumably in cash, not in crack). There have been enough news accounts around the country (Colorado, Florida) recently of overzealous (or greedy) sorts working these campaigns who are just making stuff up to get paid. Obviously, a lot of the new voter registrations are real--but how many? It only takes a few people who register 100 non-existent voters to make those new voter registration drives look much more successful than they are. If there were an organized effort from the top down, I would be worried that these non-existent voters would vote anyway. (Why, oh why, don't we require that you show an ID when you vote?) But this doesn't look that organized. 2. For most of recent history, Democrats have had a hard time motivating their constituencies to vote. They registered millions of new voters? Great! How many will actually make it to the polls? I remember back in 1980, the Libertarian Party managed to get enough registrations to get on the ballot--but I found out later that some of the activists gathered those signatures by going down to Venice Beach with a big sign that said, "Legalize pot here!" Technically true--the Libertarian Party was committed to decriminalizing marijuana--but many of those signing the form did not realize what they were actually signing. When I was organizing the Clark for President literature distribution effort in 1980, and managing the campaign of the Libertarian Party's candidate in the 28th Congressional District, I contacted lots of these registered Libertarians--or at least, I tried to contact them. Many of the addresses were imaginary. Were these people too stoned to know where they lived? Were they homeless, and just made up a plausible address? I don't know. Even the ones that I contacted were often stereotyped druggies--sometimes barely coherent, and often as not, distinctly not libertarian (except about drugs, yeah!) 3. There is one issue that the Bush campaign has not used: gay marriage. Kerry has taken at least two sides of this issue, and it is one on which he is very vunerable in the black community--a constituency that Kerry has to have to win. This is an area where blacks are socially much more conservative than the average, and where the analogy to the civil rights movement rankles more than a few black pastors. (Here's an article about how black pastors persuaded blacks in the Georgia legislature to change their position, and allow a marriage amendment on the ballot.) The Bush campaign should, in the last two weeks, reproduce text from Kerry's 1996 article in The Advocate, emphasize that claiming to oppose same-sex marriage--while refusing to back a constitutional amendment to remove it from the realm of judicial action--is dishonest. Bush isn't going to offend very many of his committed voters with such a campaign, but it would cause more than a few of those leaning towards Kerry to either not vote, or vote for Bush. Even those who care nothing about gay marriage itself will see this as more evidence of Kerry pandering to whatever side seems more powerful at the moment. UPDATE: Drudge finally a link to the Toledo Blade story about the crack cocaine voter registrar. Contrary to what you might assume (crack, as many of the opponents of mandatory minimums will tell you, gets harsh treatment because black people use it), the person arrested is unmistakeably melanin-challenged. World Leaders & The U.S. Election Putin, in spite of his often strong disapproval of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, makes it clear who he thinks the terrorists in Iraq want Americans to vote for: DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said Monday that terrorists are aiming to derail U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s chances at re-election through their attacks in Iraq (news - web sites).Putin was careful not to endorse Bush, or express a preference--but I think you can figure it out. Now, there is a promiment world leader endorsing Kerry (and Kerry isn't too happy about it): KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's former prime minister has urged Muslims in America to vote for US Senator John Kerry in the Nov 2 presidential election, saying President George W. Bush has been 'the cause of the tragedies' across the Muslim world.But I guess there's no obvious connection between the sufferings of Muslims and terrorist attacks on the United States. You will recall that this "moderate" Islamic leader made headlines a year or so ago for saying that Jews run the world. If I were the Bush campaign, I would be running film footage of Mahathir's "Jews run the world" speech, and this endorsement of Kerry. |
