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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).
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Saturday, December 18, 2004
The ACLU's Concern About Privacy I mentioned a while back that the ACLU's latest campaign to protect terrorists is manipulative and dishonest, by suggesting that government terrorist data mining results would be shared with the local pizza parlor. It also appears that the ACLU are also hypocrites, according to this New York Times article: The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders' commitment to privacy rights. Friday, December 17, 2004
British Scandals What happens when you cross Bill Clinton's sexual morals, willingness to lie about it, and the nanny immigration problems of some of his appointees? You get a story like this: KIMBERLY Quinn returned to her London home last night, as a leaked document appeared to further undermine her former lover David Blunkett, who resigned as home secretary on Wednesday.This scandal has too many parts! What next? Is there going to be some corrupt contract letting, or will it be tied to Oil-For-Food-And-Palaces? And most surprising of all, since Blunkett is a British politico, there's no call girl, and no buggery. The Fetus Kidnapping I had mentioned this bizarre story earlier today, and how macabre it all was. There's more news now: MARYVILLE, Mo. (AP) - Authorities Friday arrested a woman they allege came to the home of an eight-months-pregnant woman - purportedly to buy a dog - then strangled her and cut the baby from her womb. Authorities found the abducted infant in good health, ending a day of frantic searching.It gets more tragic: Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., was charged with kidnapping resulting in death, Graves said. Montgomery, a mother of two, had been pregnant but lost a child, Graves said, though it was unclear when or under what circumstances.This is the most chilling part: one of my readers tells me that he remembers reading of a similar incident 12-15 years ago in New Mexico, where the killer used a key to get out the baby--and the news story indicates that this isn't a unique incident: Several pregnant women have been killed in recent years by attackers who then removed their fetuses, in some cases to pass the children off as their own.What sort of derangement would cause you to want a child so much that you would murder someone, and then rip them open to get out a baby? I don't know that I could cut a woman open to get out a baby, even if the mother was already dead, and I was trying to save the baby. To go out and murder someone for this purpose? Wow. Hitler As Tax Dodger This story about Hitler's tax problems before he got himself elected as Chancellor of Germany begs for some sort of commentary, but I am too perplexed to figure out what it is: BERLIN (Reuters) - Adolf Hitler spent years evading taxes and owed German authorities 405,000 Reichsmarks -- equivalent to $8 million today -- by the time his tax debts were forgiven soon after he took power, a researcher said on Friday.Oh dear. Another prominent author, political troublemaker, and talented public speaker comes to mind--but has Michael Moore ever gotten in tax trouble? Social Security Reform The strongest argument for allowing people to treat at least part of Social Security like a 401(k)--that is, you can make some choices about how to invest the money, and then actually invest it with a responsible mutual fund--is the miserable return that Social Security actually provides. Another reason is the almost insane rules that govern the payout. For starters: there are some arcane rules about your contributions in the last few years before you start drawing on it. The last ten years before my father died he was underemployed through a combination of being over 50 and in seriously declining health. He was a welder, and often worked on construction sites in places where being a young man was a real advantage. One job he had involved climbing a 195 foot ladder, carrying about 50 pounds of welding equipment on his back. By noon, it was over 100 degrees. His health was declining (what a surprise), and between 55 and 60, he was having trouble finding work. My father had worked for more than forty years, and had paid quite a pile of money into the Social Security fund. At about the same time, my brother became disabled by schizophrenia. My brother was in his late twenties, and had worked for about ten years (including three years in the U.S. Army). Yet his Social Security check, based on his last few years of working pretty steadily, was substantially higher than my father's check. My father collected his rather piddly Social Security check for only about five or six years before he died of a heart attack. My brother has been collecting that very substantial disability check now for almost thirty years. (And yes, while there was, and remains some serious abuse by those claiming mental disability to get Social Security disability, my brother's disability is very, very real.) I'm sure if you dug around, you could find all sorts of much more outrageous examples of how Social Security's rather bizarre rules create terrible unfairnesses. Another argument for changing the system (although I'm not sure that Bush's proposal will actually address this) is that the average lifespans mean that Social Security works unfairly to the advantage of whites. The average life expectancy for a white male born in 1970 is 68.0; for a black male born that same year, 60.0. For white and black females, the life expectancy is 75.6 and 68.3, respectively. To get the full retirement pension from Social Security, if you were born in 1970, you will need to be 67 years old. That means that a thin majority of white males, black females, and a large majority of white females will receive that full retirement benefit. A large majority of black males will not; more than half are going to be dead by 67. Because Social Security taxes are regressive (there's a cap on Social Security payroll taxes, and everyone pays a flat rate up to that cap), this means that black males are disproportionately subsidizing the rest of the system, paying taxes that they will not be able to get back in services. You would think that liberals would be upset about this. The 401(k) system is better, only because you can start pulling money out without penalty at 59 1/2, and there is even a way to start pulling it out a little earlier, the 72(t) provision. If you have reason to believe that you aren't likely to make it to 67--or even 62, where you can get at least some money out--you can take advantage of these alternatives. Social Security's current scheme is just absurd in its one size fits all approach. Having said that, I will say that there is some merit to one concern that liberals express about completely privatizing Social Security, in the "make it into a 401(k) plan" sense. That concern is that there are ways to get and spend that money on really stupid things. A friend went to work at a telecom startup and he told me that at lease one of the 30ish people that they hired was so convinced that he was going to get obscenely rich, that he cashed out his 401(k), and bought himself a very, very fancy automobile. The final results of that startup weren't very pretty--as was true of many in that time. I sold a car some years back to someone who had just $3000--he had cashed out his 401(k) when he lost his job, and figured that he needed a car more than a retirement fund in 30 years. My wife knows someone who spent the contents of her 401(k) taking care of her declining and elderly parents--and now has nothing but a Social Security check, and that isn't much. All of these are truly horrifying results, and I would agree that each of these cases are arguments against being irresponsible. Talk all you want about, "Well, that's what they get for being stupid." If there are enough people like that, Social Security will take care of them, and if it involves raising taxes to pay for it, it will happen. If we have to maintain some sort of Social Security system to take care of the terribly unlucky or the terribly foolish, I can live with that. If a Social Security reform involves requiring that the beneficiary not start taking money until they have reached their life expectancy, I think I can live with that, too. Binge Drinking Problems in the U.K. There are people out there who argue that raising the drinking age to 21 was a "terrible idea," and that we should lower the drinking age to 18. There is a good federalism argument for allowing the states to set drinking ages, without any federal government carrots or sticks about this, but Britain is one of those "enlightened" countries where the drinking age is 18, not 21--and guess what? There's a big and growing problem there with binge drinking: Teenage girls in Britain are binge drinking more than boys, turning the tables on a traditionally male practice, a study has shown.This may be a shock to certain enlightened sorts (whose own children haven't reached the teenaged years), but most teenagers are immature, and are often not really quite up to the task of making good decisions--and Britain's experience with 18 as a drinking age suggests that giving them alcohol responsibility doesn't make them more mature. Right now we have a hodgepodge of different ages: 18 to make contracts; 18 to drop out of school (in many states); 18 to buy firearms, and 21 to buy handguns; a variety of ages for sexual consent; 18 to vote. I've long considered "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote" one of the great bumper stickers of the 1960s: short, sweet, and completely shallow. Does that mean "Too old to fight, too old to vote"? Does that mean, "Too disabled for military service, too disabled to vote"? If there is an argument for a single age of adulthood, fine. But I can't imagine that the crowd (like Justice Ginsburg) that wants the age of sexual consent lowered to 12 is going to go along with handgun sales, joining the Army, or going to work in a factory at 12. Stem Cells At Work But not embryonic stem cells: German scientists say they're the first to use stem cells to grow human bone, using the master cells to repair skull damage on a 7-year-old girl, the Associated Press reports.Now, it might well be that embryonic stem cells are going to be effective, too. This work with rats would suggest that it could be: IRVINE, Calif. - So far, not a single person has been helped by human embryonic stem cells.Still, if fat stem cells can do the job--without any disturbing ethical concerns, shouldn't they? I get the impression that for a lot of people, they would prefer using embryonic stem cells in order to make abortion more acceptable to the masses--rather like if the Nazis had been successful in making soap from Jews, and then offered it cheaper than ordinary soap to make every German a beneficiary of the Holocaust. Labels: abortion Liberals Out To Suppress Free Speech Again But fortunately, a federal judge wasn't prepared to go along with them: PLANO, Texas — Last year, school officials told 9-year-old Jonathan Morgan he couldn't give classmates Christian-themed candy canes at his elementary school´s "winter break" party.Now, there's a bit more to the story. According to the school district's attorney: Richard Abernathy, the school district's attorney, said he respected the judge's order. But Abernathy said the order was unnecessary because the district recently decided to allow the distribution of all materials -- religious or otherwise -- at Friday's parties. That decision was shared with campus administrators Dec. 1, he said.Now, the ACLU wasn't responsible--directly--for setting a color bar for party supplies, but the extreme manner in which the ACLU has sued or threatened suit against governments around the country has chilled free speech, by making administrators paranoid. You want an example of this chilling effect? It's this ban on Christmas trees in public buildings: NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — Pasco County (search) officials have banned Christmas trees from public buildings after their county attorney decided they were religious symbols.Oh yes, what started this slash and burn approach? Previously, the county barred religious symbols from its buildings but allowed Christmas trees. The county attorney reconsidered that stance, and decided the trees also were religious symbols, after a man sought to display a menorah in a public building, Johnson said.And what, exactly, is the problem with a menorah in a public building? I can agree that it would be a problem if a menorah was allowed--but no symbols of other religions. I can agree that it would be a problem if visitors to the building were required to perform some religious ritual to these symbols. I don't see that allowing religious symbols in a public building, on an equal basis, and without any special benefit or obligation associated with them, is a problem. It doesn't create an establishment of religion, as the Founders would have understood it, nor does it interfere with freedom of religious worship. The insanity continues. New York City schools have a policy prohibiting any religious symbols. Okay, I can sort of understand that. The purpose of school is education, not indoctrination. If you want to go for a completely secular purpose for school, I can live with that. But the definition of "religious symbol" vs. "secular" is ludicrous: 1. The display of secular holiday symbol decorations is permitted. Such symbols include, but are not limited to, Christmas trees, Menorahs, and the Star and Crescent.At least in New York City, a Christmas tree is "secular." But a menorah is secular? Here's an explanation of the menorah: Definition: The menorah is one of the oldest symbols of the Jewish faith. The seven branched candelabra probably originated as a version of the Babylonian world tree- the seven arms likely represent the seven days of creation and the seven visible planets.This website also affirms the religious significance of the menorah, specifically as it relates to Hannukah: The flames of the menorah burned and burned and burned and burned and burned and burned and burned and burned. For eight days they burned. (I bet you counted). Those eight miraculous days were chosen as the eternal symbol to commemorate the miracle of Chanukah - the eight day long Festival of Lights, where we light the Menorah each evening, publicizing the miracle Hashem performed some 2000 years ago.A menorah is secular in about the same way that a crucifix is secular. Historian Jobs In The Federal Government I'm always impressed with the agencies that hire historians--like, the Department of Homeland Security--an organization that hasn't existed long enough to really move from "current events" to "history": This position is located in the Office of Public Affairs, Office of the Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The incumbent is responsible for assisting the DHS Historian in the historical, procedural, and administrative tasks involved in establishing the DHS History Office; in preparing for and conducting oral history interviews; in researching, writing, and editing a variety of historical products; and in providing historical information, analysis and other historical support. My Mother's Cat, Ditto Ditto is back home, and if she could talk, what a tale she could tell! It appears that she was hit by a car somewhere near Redding. Someone with the same feeling about cats as my mother found it, took it to a veterinarian, and it recovered. My mother put considerable effort into it, and finally, was reunited with Ditto--much thinner and a bit the worse for wear. Dept. of Justice Memo On The Second Amendment Professor Volokh reports that The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has taken the view that "[t]he Second Amendment secures a right of individuals generally, not a right of States or a right restricted to persons serving in militias."You can read it here. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm pleased to see that: The collective-right and quasi-collective-right positions have many adherents, (32) although the preponderance of modern scholarship appears to support the individual-right view. (33)Among the examples of "the preponderance of modern scholarship" listed in footnote 33 is: Clayton E. Cramer, For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (1994) Labels: gun rights Moonbats Michael Moore and his moonbat brigade played some part in helping defeat John Kerry last month; I don't think anyone seriously doubts that the deranged hatred of these conspiracy buffs played a part in discrediting Kerry. But what's really amusing is how little things really change. Back when I was an T.A. for "Twentieth Century World" history class at Sonoma State University, one of the assigned readings was from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. It is a powerful description of the working conditions of coal miners in Britain; it is hard to read it without understanding why coal miners were among the most militant of trade unionists, and often quite sympathetic to both democratic socialism and Communism. Orwell's description of why socialism failed to gain support among the middle class is, I think, incomplete, but his description of the moonbats of his time is rather prescient in describing what has happened to the Democratic Party, which has allowed the moonbats to hijack it: One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England. One day this summer I was riding through Letchworth when the bus stopped and two dreadful-looking old men got on to it. They were both about sixty, both very short, pink, and chubby, and both hatless. One of them was obscenely bald, the other had long grey hair bobbed in the Lloyd George style. They were dressed in pistachio-coloured shirts and khaki shorts into which their huge bottoms were crammed so tightly that you could study every dimple. Their appearance created a mild stir of horror on top of the bus. The man next to me, a commercial traveller I should say, glanced at me, at them, and back again at me, and murmured ‘Socialists’, as who should say, ‘Red Indians’. He was probably right-—the I.L.P. [Independent Labor Party-jj] were holding their summer school at Letchworth. But the point is that to him, as an ordinary man, a crank meant a Socialist and a Socialist meant a crank. Any Socialist, he probably felt, could be counted on to have something eccentric about him. And some such notion seems to exist even among Socialists themselves. For instance, I have here a prospectus from another summer school which states its terms per week and then asks me to say ‘whether my diet is ordinary or vegetarian’. They take it for granted, you see, that it is necessary to ask this question. This kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people. And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years on to the life of his carcase; that is, a person out of touch with common humanity.You name the bizarre cause, and it has a substantial following among the moonbat wing of the Democratic Party: gay marriage; lowering (or abolishing) age of consent laws; taking a tiny, historic cross out of the County of Los Angeles seal; animal rights (as distinguished from laws against cruelty); partial-birth abortion; antidiscrimination laws for the "transgendered." It is almost as though they want to lose--or they spend so little time outside their little community of cranks that they don't realize how out of touch they are. Yet Another Reason the ACLU Should Support Victory Over Terrorism This story about the militarization of police forces is depressing. I can't disagree with the need for this sort of hardware in the hands of a civilian police force, considering the enemy that we are fighting: Racheting up its firepower, the sheriff's office is getting a 30-foot boat with mounted machine guns for homeland-security patrols at the Port of Palm Beach and offshore.I've pointed out before that the best hope for bringing everything back to sanity again is an overwhelming defeat for the forces of Islamofascism--something so dramatic that we can safely dismantle Fortress America. If the ACLU and the rest of the leftist crowd that dominates elite opinion in America has its way, this is going to be a way of life forever. This is Macabre My first thought was, "Who would do such a thing?" A very confused abortionist? SKIDMORE, Mo. -- A 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant was killed Thursday and the fetus was taken from her body, authorities said.UPDATE: Baby found alive. Thursday, December 16, 2004
Ann Coulter Sure Is Mean--But Funny Her latest column is about people that keep getting paid in spite of losing: Lawyer Mark Geragos should go into business with political consultant Bob Shrum and defend Sen. Arlen Specter's claim to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They should advertise exclusively on MSNBC. Maybe they could even get Al Gore to endorse them and hire Howard Dean as their spokesman. Our motto: "A HUMILIATING DEFEAT EVERY TIME – OR YOUR MONEY BACK!"I keep wondering: why do Democrats insist that Republicans are the stupid party? San Francisco Proposes Banning Handguns Five county supervisors have put a handgun ban initiative on the ballot for next year. Not "gun control," not a waiting period, or a background check, or a measure to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, kids, and crazy people, but a complete ban on handgun ownership by law-abiding adults. The only exceptions are for police officers and security guards. Of course: police officers work for the government and are therefore trustworthy in a way that you or I obviously are not. Security guards work for corporations, protecting corporate assets, which are important enough to allow an exception; you or I protecting ourselves from robbery, rape, or murder--well, that's just not important enough for an exception, is it? I just love the euphemisms that these totalitarian thugs use: "The hope is twofold, that officers will have an opportunity to interact with folks and if they have a handgun, that will be reason enough to confiscate it," he said.I love that: "an opportunity to interact with folks...." What they mean is that if the police find someone carrying a gun, they can arrest them and confiscate the gun. Oh, but they already can do so. It is unlawful to carry a concealed handgun in California without a permit (Cal. Penal Code 12025), or to carry a loaded firearm in an incorporated area (like San Francisco) openly (Cal. Penal Code 12031) and when they arrest you for either violation, they confiscate the gun. So where are these "interactions" going to take place? In your home. Now, if they are arresting you for commiting a crime, they already confiscate the gun, and it is a rare moment indeed when a person gets a confiscated gun back in San Francisco--even if criminal charges are not filed. So what this really means is that if the police come to your home because you are a victim of a crime--and they find a gun--they'll confiscate it--and make sure that you are even less able to defend yourself next time. "Second, we know that for even law-abiding folks who own guns, the rates of suicide and mortality are substantially higher. So while just perceived to be a crime thing, we think there is a wide benefit to limiting the number of guns in the city."Wait a minute: I thought liberals supported the right to suicide. They certainly support physician-assisted suicide. But they oppose suicide with a gun? Does anyone besides me find that just a bit bizarre? Where Housing is Cheap There are parts of America where a sizeable fraction of Americans can buy a three bedroom, two bath house by writing a check or pay for it with their credit cards--like Clovis, New Mexico. I asked the National Association of Realtors search engine for three bedroom, two bath houses there, and it returned six houses below $50,000, and two below $40,000--and no, they aren't contemporary with the Clovis Point. Here's one that was built in 1981, and asking $37,500. A friend brought to my attention that people in Clovis drove cars worth more than their houses. For Those Of You In the Western U.S. There's a new federal law that allows you to get a free credit report from each of the three big credit reporting agencies every year. This is being phased in by region, so those of us in the Western U.S. get to take advantage of it first. Click here to request a free online report. They ask enough questions that it seems to be reasonably secure. The report is extremely detailed--and I can see why lenders are so impressed when they see my credit rating score. The Patrick Stewart Version of A Christmas Carol My wife and I have long been partial to the version starring George C. Scott as Scrooge, lavishly produced some years back. We saw the recent version starring Patrick Stewart as Scrooge last night on TNT. The Patrick Stewart version follows the text of Dickens novel much more closely than the George C. Scott version, but I confess that the Patrick Stewart version left a bit cold. Some of it is that Stewart's acting is more restrained than Scott's, and to be honest, Scrooge is a character whose suffering and realization of where he has gone wrong needs to be a little more emotional. Also, some of the special effects in the Stewart version, in spite of the intervening years of technical advancement, were not terribly impressive. The theme music in the Scott version was also quite a bit more effective in setting mood. I can't fault either version, really. Anyone that isn't moved by either version may need some late night visits. Just In Case I Wasn't Clear Enough Yesterday I am not proposing or suggesting that there should be laws against Brittany Spears feeding her dog a $179 steak. I am suggesting that this is a pretty bad sign for the values that Ms. Spears holds. Just in case you didn't follow the link yesterday: this is the biggest single charitable contribution my wife and I will be making this year, to assist World Vision's efforts to prevent children from sold into prostitution. If you are looking at some sort of year-end bonus, and feeling like doing something worthwhile with some it--that's my recommendation. Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Whatever Happened to Free Speech? Okay, so this is a public school, and there is an element of coercion (either go to this assembly, or one of two other events), but imagine if a hip-hop band were prevented from performing at that school? The ACLU would all over it based on free speech grounds. It appears that in the struggle between free speech and the ACLU's twisted notion of the establishment clause, free speech loses: Rossford High School officials were considering letting a Christian rock band play during an anti-drug assembly next week, but decided yesterday to cancel the performance because of concerns over having religious music played in a public school. There's a Whole Bunch of Ways To Examine This News Story It's about Brittany Spears taking her dog to dinner: Britney Spears has treated her pet chihuahua to a £93 [$179] steak. The singer ordered the prime cut of meat when she took Bitbit out for a gourmet meal at the Picasso restaurant in the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas.Well, there's the "Gilded Age Revisited" view: no one should be so rich that they indulge in a meal approaching $200, much less for a dog. With $179, Ms. Spears could have sent 45 homeless people to McDonald's for dinner--and in Las Vegas, it wouldn't have been difficult to find 45 homeless people. She could have rescued four girls from lives as child prostitutes. There's the animals rights view of it: Why shouldn't Brittany's "domestic companion" live as well as Brittany? Oh, but she fed Bitbit a steak, which meant killing a cow. What a conundrum for the animal rights activist! Then there's the "the entertainment industry is wretched excess" view: maybe copyright law needs to be corrected so that money doesn't pile up in such obscene quantities that makes this possible. And yes, the entertainment industry isn't the only offender on this. Politicians Discussing Restrictions on Abortion Try to guess which ones before you read this excerpt--you will be shocked: Dec. 20 issue - The week after Thanksgiving, dozens of Democratic Party loyalists gathered at AFL-CIO headquarters for a closed-door confab on the election. John Kerry dropped by to thank members of the liberal 527 coalition America Votes. When Ellen Malcolm, president of the pro-choice political network EMILY's List, asked about the future direction of the party, Kerry tackled one of the Democrats' core tenets: abortion rights. He told the group they needed new ways to make people understand they didn't like abortion. Democrats also needed to welcome more pro-life candidates into the party, he said. "There was a gasp in the room," says Nancy Keenan, the new president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.Now, I understand why the pro-choice extremists--the ones who believe that partial-birth abortion is just fine--are concerned. Slippery slopes are real; once you accept one set of restrictions, it is very easy sell the next set of restrictions as an incremental change. Gun control advocates used this strategy very effectively for many years in the United States, and are continuing down this path in other countries, such as Britain, Australia, and California. But let's get real: the slopes are most slippery when elite opinion is waxing the surface. If the news/entertainment and judicial elites had been vehemently opposed to gun control, there would have been little or not reason to worry about sliding all the way to the bottom. The elites are still fiercely supportive of abortion in this country--the "ban all abortions" slope is lined with sandpaper and spikes, not wax. Labels: abortion This Is Only News To The Left An article about being a Republican faculty member who must write under a pseudonym: My new tenure-track digs include a large office in a historic building with leaded-pane windows, sills deep enough to stack files on, and shelves on three walls filled with my own books, departmental gems, and junk from years past.He then goes on to discuss the lack of reaction from his students in a classics class when he asked them to "use Virgil's view of the world to comment on what's happening in Iraq"--and was met by stony silence: After class, I asked one of the students for his read on what had happened. How could the response be so heated but the question left unengaged? He replied: "You know how it is. Students don't want to disagree with their professors. Most of the students around here are pretty conservative, but they get the strong sense that their professors are liberal. And on issues like these, they're afraid to disagree." They had made assumptions about how I would think and were reluctant to contradict me.I did my best when teaching to encourage a wide range of opinions--and perhaps it says something about Boise State University that students did not seem to be afraid to express a wide range of opinions. Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Oh No, There's Diversity In Education, Call the ACLU! Yup! More than one point of view is being represented in the classroom, time for the ACLU to show up and ask the courts to suppress heresy! HARRISBURG, Pa. — The state American Civil Liberties Union (search) plans to file a federal lawsuit Tuesday against a Pennsylvania school district that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution (search).I can understand why the ACLU fought the teaching of Creationist ideas. Some of the groups connected to that were saying in court that these ideas weren't associated with a particular religion--while they were sending fundraising letters to me saying that their campaign was an attempt to put Christianity back into the classroom. I guess those groups don't have the same version of the Ten Commandments that I do--the one about bearing false witness. But intelligent design is not particularly associated with a religious belief system, and this statement by the school district in question is a perfectly legitimate and sensible statement: School board member William Buckingham spearheaded the change as the leader of the board's curriculum committee. He has said that he proposed the change as a way of balancing evolution with competing theories that raised questions about its scientific validity.And this is a completely true statement. Evolutionary theory has been evolving ever since Darwin first published his work on the subject--as good science should evolve, when it runs into problems. Additionally, district officials said they would monitor the lessons "to make sure no one is promoting but also not inhibiting religion."Yes, just like the First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..." I have pointed out that intelligent design may not qualify as a fully scientific theory (because it necessarily precludes any sort of experimental verification), but that does not prevent it from being an important and effective skeptical component of the scientific process. Labels: intelligent design Monday, December 13, 2004
Companies That Ban Guns That's the title of this article that originated at USA Today, but has appeared in a number of newspapers, such as the Detroit News. I think that employers that are on the "guns are bad" kick are generally wrong, but I see their point--a little. They are concerned about the "guy gets fired, gets escorted to the parking lot, fires back" scenario, and I'm sure that it happens. The problem is: what happens if the guy gets fired, goes home, stews about it for a couple of days, and then comes back with a gun and decides to murder his boss? "He's not following the rules!" Gee, I guess Human Resources can give him a bad reference. But a strict adherence to the "guns not allowed on company property" policy means that when Mr. Angry comes back in the front door, there's no realistic chance that anyone inside is going to be able to shoot back. Now, I will admit that at most companies, there's really no need to have a gun in the office. If company politics are that rough, or the people you work with are that dangerous, it may be time to look for a new employer. Where I work is pretty secured, and I don't feel unsafe in the building, or even in the parking lot. But there are times that having a gun in your car in the parking lot isn't a bad idea, especially if you live in a rough section of town, or have to traverse one back and forth to work. It's funny some of the policies that come about on this. I used to work for a company in California where the CEO was a rabidly anti-gun Brit. There was no policy about guns at work--none at all. I had a carry permit, and on occasion, I would carry to and from work. (I was getting regular death threats from America's loudest and most juvenile victim group at the time--your guess which one.) Then, our VP of Engineering started getting death threats from a coked-out employment agent--and he was leaving his phone number at the end of the death threats on the voice mail. I carried in the building as well for a while, until it was clear that this nutcase was long distance only. Then we got bought out by a Texas company--and they had a strict "no guns on company property" policy--even in the parking lots. Not what you would expect from Texas, what? Windows Likes RAM Greedy pig that it is. Hard to believe, but I used to run Windows 1.0 on a box with 1 MB of RAM. (Yes, that's 1 MB, not 1 GB.) I just upgraded my wife's laptop from 64 MB to 256 MB--and now it flies. I just upgraded my desktop from 160 MB to 256 MB--and I can see the performance gain, although it's not quite as dramatic as what happened to my wife's laptop. Now, who wants a 32 MB DIMM and a 64 MB module for an HP Pavillion N3402? Hey, At Least He's Consistent Arthur Kellerman expresses his opinion--I'll let you guess what device he doesn't think you should have in your home, and wants the government to prevent you from having it: On the other hand, [device] might make real families in a real emergencies waste precious time, says Arthur Kellermann, MD, MPH, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Atlanta's Emory University.So what device is it that Arthur Kellerman wanted the government to block you from having? No, not a gun. He was resisting government approval of automated external defibrillators (AEDs). His reasoning about AEDs is as specious as his reasoning about guns. Kellerman says. "If you have $2,000 burning a hole in your pocket, join a health club; get help stopping smoking; get help lowering your cholesterol. Sure, AEDs have saved hundreds of lives. But we have saved hundreds of thousands of lives with primary prevention of heart disease. And we don't know whether having an AED in the home will make a family less interested in prevention."Hey, I've done all those things. I'm taking Lipitor for cholesterol; I've been working out for the last six months, to the point where I've had to add new notches inward on my belt, and I've had to go buy new pants with a smaller waist. My blood pressure a few weeks ago was 108/82. But I'm considering moving in the next year or so to a place that is a little bit rural, and having an AED might be the difference between surviving a heart attack long enough for the paramedics to arrive, and not doing so. And Dr. Kellerman, as usual, knows better than me what I should do. How liberal of him. Sunday, December 12, 2004
Christmas Trees, Feline Terrorists, & The Meaning of Christmas After I became a Christian as a young adult, I rejected having a Christmas tree. My reason was very simple: the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol, appropriated by the Church as part of its attempt to bring in the heathens of northern Europe. In retrospect, one of the defining moments of how far Christmas had gotten from Jesus Christ was when I was perhaps 12 or 13, one Christmas Eve, and my sister's boyfriend, who was Jewish, showed up at our door with a cake. I looked at the cake, and said, "What's that for?" "It's a birthday cake," Jeff explained, with a twinkle in his eye. "Whose birthday is it? Yours?" "It's Jesus' birthday." "Oh, yeah." Did I feel foolish! Eventually, about the time my daughter turned six, I gave in to the peer pressure, and we got a Christmas tree, and otherwise tried to fit into the surrounding culture of northern California, where Christmas is the time of year where everyone pretends to be in good spirits and concerned for others for no apparent religious reason. I suppose it's better than nothing. Here's our Christmas tree--decorated, for the first time, without our daughter. In previous years, we held off on getting a tree until she came down from the University of Idaho, but this year, she's married. (Minor sniffle.) 
Our cat, Tater Tot (whom I call Tater the Tiny Terrorist, because he is so ferocious), went beserk, and keeps stealing low-hanging ornaments from the tree, and batting them around until they break. Here's a picture of Tater that really captures his nature: 
And here he is behind bars, where he belongs: 
Here's the real reason for the season: 
Merry Christmas, and late Happy Hannukah to all! What Does The "Arab Street" Think About Bush? Interesting article by a liberal Democrat teaching English in Damascus, Syria: Since I began teaching in Damascus six months ago, I have been continually surprised to find support and even admiration for Bush in that city, mixed in with the usual polemics about American imperialism. The presumed wildfire of anti-American and anti-Bush sentiment that has consumed much of Europe and Asia has apparently skipped over parts of the Arab world, where people often have more in common with Middle America than they do with the Middle East. I Hope This Is Intended As Satire From the San Francisco Weekly, an interview with someone pushing for California to secede from the Union: He's part of a renegade-minded group of Golden State residents who believe Christian doctrine is once again being unreasonably imposed upon Californians by a far-off central government. These patriots are now plotting a return to those halcyon summer weeks 158 years ago, when Californians were briefly on our own.So the theory is to have the Europeans invade us to impose democratic values because, unfortunately, the majority voted for Bush? Now, I understand that a lot of leftists are upset to discover that the masses don't share their values--in spite of the left's near complete domination of the educational system and entertainment business. But maybe the solution is federalism: California can continue to pass laws that Red State America regards as crazy--but then again, the left would have to allow places like Texas to pass laws that Blue State America regards as crazy--like laws against homosexual sodomy, such as Lawrence v. Texas (2003) struck down? Jim Treacher on Being Defenseless in Britain I had mentioned a couple of days ago the absurdity that defending yourself from someone who is attempting to kill you is not considered legally safe in Britain. Jim Treacher has a few choice words about the correct way to respond: Hit the intruder's fists, knees, elbows, and feet with your face, ribcage, and genitals. This will subtly wear him down and require him to stop for a glass of water. |
