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Labels: abortion Labels: global warming Labels: abortion Labels: abortion
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).
Sorry, high pressure isn't included.
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Other blogs you may enjoy:
My civilian gun defense use blog
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Pete Drum's Web Page
Gun Laws Don't Work
instapundit.com
Dissecting Leftism -- By John Ray
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Right Thoughts
Final Protective Fire
Amitai Etzioni's Blog
Scrappleface -- Dangerously Clever Satire
Michael Williams -- Master of None
Another Conservative Blogger
A Group Blog By Iraqis
THE MESOPOTAMIAN: TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD
Specializing in discussions of discrimination and affirmative action
An Iraqi dentist
Promoting children being raised by their own parents
A federal law clerk opines about the law
Michelle Malkin's blog
Impearls: a blog as electic and interesting as mine
Proving that the United States military does more than kill people and break things.
May not agree with this group on everything, but stopping the ACLU is high on my list
A conservative/moderate black blogger.
Another sensible American
Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party
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Maggie's Farm: Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
A blog dedicated to "Documenting Saddam Hussein's support of Terrorism"
The blog of one of my fellow bloggers on the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
J. Norman Heath's Blog--a circus rigger and Second Amendment scholar (really!)
Buckeye Firearms Association, for you Ohio gun owners and activists
Click here for a FREE NEWSLETTER on Ohio Gun Rights from Buckeye Firearms Association!
Another conservative.
Neocon Blues
Conservative Oasis
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An Idaho State University student. A Democrat. Someday, she'll start paying income taxes and change.
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Moral Equivalents of Minutemen
Remember when Michael Moore, lionized guest of honor at the Democratic National Convention, called the terrorists in Iraq the moral equivalent of the Minutemen? The dead included six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats, three Bulgarian crew members and two security guards from Fiji, officials said. In one video, insurgents are seen capturing and shooting to death the crash's lone survivor, identified by the helicopter's Bulgarian owner as a Bulgarian pilot.
Michael Moore has never admitted that he was wrong (doubtless because he doesn't think that he was wrong). The Democratic National Committee, if it had anything like integrity, would admit that it was a serious mistake to treat Michael Moore as a hero.
Photovoltaics
I had mentioned a few months back that I had been doing some research into possibly using photovoltaics for the new house--but it was still a pretty questionable decision, because Idaho's tax code only allows a deduction from income taxes, not a tax credit, for solar systems.
I received the estimate from the contractor that we were going to have build our house--and we are looking at $9200 for electric poles, meter, and assorted engineering work by Idaho Power to get us electricity.
A 2.5 kilowatt photovoltaic system would cost about $17,000 installed. We would probably need to use a propane electric generator for at least part of the winter months, but still, with the Idaho tax deduction, this is beginning to look like a feasible alternative. I would get to deduct $5000 from my income in the first year (about $400 reduction in taxes), and $3400 in years two through four (about $272 reduction in taxes). This comes to $1216 savings in taxes. Photovoltaics would therefore be about $6500 more than having Idaho Power supply us--plus the cost of a propane electric generator to compensate for winter shortfall.
I Bought My Wife A Chevrolet Equinox Last Night
She's happy. I will say, the rear seat legroom is impressive. So is the front seat legroom.
I Think Wendy's Chili Is Safe To Eat
I don't particularly like it, but I no longer worry about finding human body parts in it. Today's news: LAS VEGAS (AP) - The woman who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili last month has been arrested, the latest twist in a bizarre case about how the 1 1/2-inch finger tip ended up in a bowl of fast food.
The important clue about Ayala is this:
Anna Ayala was taken into custody late Thursday at her Las Vegas home, police said.Ayala's claim that she found the finger tip, complete with a well-manicured nail, on March 22 initially drew sympathy. But when police and health officials failed to find any missing digits among the workers involved in the restaurant's supply chain, suspicion fell on Ayala, and her story has become a late-night punch line.
To put it rather bluntly, I am inclined to believe Wendy's. Some people make a living filing suits about bad food. You have to wonder when a case like this pops up.
Ayala hired a lawyer and filed a claim against the Wendy's franchise owner, Fresno-based JEM Management. But after police searched her home in Las Vegas and continued to question her family, she dropped the lawsuit threat, saying the whole situation was just too stressful.
"Lies, lies, lies, that's all I am hearing," Ayala said after police started questioning her. "They should look at Wendy's. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?"
As it turns out, Ayala has a litigious history. She has filed claims against several corporations, including a former employer and General Motors, though it is unclear from court records whether she received any money. She said she got $30,000 from El Pollo Loco after her 13-year-old daughter got sick at one of the chain's Las Vegas-area restaurants. But El Pollo Loco spokeswoman Julie Weeks said last week that the company reviewed Ayala's February 2004 claim and paid her nothing.
"Judicial Insanity"
This is the title of a column by Charles Krauthammer--hardly a conservative. While he criticizes DeLay and other Congressional conservatives for their over-the-top remarks about the judiciary, his harshest criticism is for the judges: Provocation is no excuse for derangement. And there has been plenty of provocation: decades of an imperial judiciary unilaterally legislating radical social change on the flimsiest of constitutional pretexts.
Krauthammer points out that Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was different from the more recent cases in that democracy was not allowed to operate, because in most of the South blacks could not vote and were therefore not part of the political process--not at all the case with the questions of same-sex marriage, abortion, and sodomy laws.
...
What other advanced democracy would radically legalize abortion by judicial decree rather than by democratic will expressed through legislatures or referendums? What sane democracy allows four unelected robed eminences in Massachusetts to revolutionize the very definition of marriage, the most ancient institution in society?
This is not just deeply undemocratic. It is politically crazy. Democracies work as stable social entities because when people are allowed to settle issues themselves by debate and ballot, they are infinitely more likely to accept the results when they lose. To deny them that participation is to risk instability and threaten social peace.
It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said that Roe v. Wade "halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue."
I would differ with Krauthammer a bit on this. Brown involved a constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws that Congress passed to prevent states from discriminating against blacks. Still, Krauthammer does come to the right conclusion: The prestige the courts inherited from Brown fueled their arrogant appropriation of legislative power in areas radically different and suffering no disenfranchisement -- abortion, gay rights, religion in the public square. For decades they have been creating law, citing emanations from penumbras of the Constitution visible only to their holinesses.
This is my objection to the imperial judiciary. They are making this stuff up as they go along.
GM's Troubles
There's a stack of discussion going on right now here and here about why GM is in trouble. I think Glenn Reynolds has it right--the problem is the extremely generous health insurance and pension plan that GM has for its employees. Those who are complaining that GM doesn't build reliable or interesting cars have it wrong.
From my experiences with too many cars that I have bought over the last 30 years, GM's cars are about on par with Mazda and Mitsubishi in reliablity, and just a bit below Nissan. When people talk about how reliable Japanese cars are, they really mean, "Honda and Toyota." One of the tipoffs to me that there really isn't that much of a difference in reliablity is that extended warranties cost very nearly the same amount of money for Japanese and American cars of about the same value.
As for the claim that GM isn't building interesting cars, I'll tell you about my current shopping experiences. My wife needs a new car. Because our new home is going to be in an area that gets a bit of snow, the new car needs to be a 4WD. It doesn't need to be off-road capable; just enough ground clearance and traction to deal with snowy roads. It also needs to have enough room to hold four adults in comfort, or to carry my wife's drum. (She is in a pipe and drum band.)
What have we looked at? Compact SUVs under $25,000: Chevrolet Equinox, Saturn VUE, Suzuki Grand Vitara, Suzuki XL7, Toyota RAV4, Jeep Liberty, Subaru Forester, Nissan XTerra, Honda CR-V.
The Suzuki Grand Vitara's back seat was only suitable for small children, and it had too little storage space--and on top of it all, the gas mileage numbers were disappointing for such a small vehicle, especially on the highway: 19 and 22. Their XL7's back seat was still so cramped that I couldn't get in and out of it without considerable effort.
The Toyota RAV4 was just too small for her needs. (Not a bad little car, however.)
The Jeep Liberty might have been a good choice if we needed a capable off-roader, but the down side was the gas mileage numbers: 17 in city, and this is with a V6.
The Subaru Forester and the Outback were just too small. (Both looked like good choices, however, if you didn't need much cargo capacity.)
Nissan XTerra might have been a good choice if you needed more serious offroad capability. The combination of gas mileage and price blew it out of the running.
Honda CR-V was actually a pretty interesting choice. It was still a bit small on cargo space, but it was at least worthy of consideration. It was a bit more expensive than the Equinox, although it would probably be cheaper once you consider resale value, better gas mileage, and repair record.
The Saturn VUE was quite interesting--a very fast vehicle on top of it all. The interior was astonishing dull--the first vehicle that I have noticed this about. Still, aside from being a little deficient in cargo room, it was a pretty interesting car.
The Equinox is beginning to look like the Goldilocks SUV--just small enough to get adequate gas mileage (19 and 25) and decent acceleration (0-60 in 8.5 seconds), just big enough that no one is cramped in the back seat, and plenty of cargo room. It is also pretty well-appointed inside, and not ridiculously expensive.
The Equinox and VUE are at least in the running compared to offerings from Honda in the compact to medium sized SUV. That's actually pretty impressive to me.
UPDATE: I hadn't actually planned on buying a car this year, but as I mentioned a few days ago, I wasn't thrilled about the death traps that my son could afford to buy. Feel free to throw some money into the tipjar through PayPal to help me out!
Glaciers, Global Warming, & News Reports
Drudge Report has links to two different articles about a recent study of Antarctic glaciers--and the differences between the two articles are a reminder of the importance of being complete and balanced in your coverage. The Financial Times article leaves out some rather important points that the AP story does not. The Financial Times article is breathless: Glaciers in the Antarctic are retreating at an increasing rate, in what scientists said on Thursday was a clear sign of climate change.
Later, the article tells us,
Most of the glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula, near the southernmost tip of South America, have retreated over the past 50 years as temperatures have warmed, according to a study from the British Antarctic Survey and US Geological Survey. Inland glaciers appear to be accelerating their descent to the ocean, threatening to raise the sea level.
David Vaughan, one of the authors of the study, said: "The widespread retreat of the glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula over the past 50 years was largely caused by climate change. Are humans responsible? We can't say for sure but we are one step closer to answering this important question."
The survey joins a growing body of research on climate change. A study of the Arctic last year found that the ice cap was half the thickness it was 30 years ago and a tenth smaller. Of the 244 glaciers surveyed in the Antarctic, 87 per cent had retreated, by an average of 600 metres. The rate of retreat accelerated to 50m per year in the past five years, faster than at any other time in the past half century.
The AP coverage by Emma Ross of the same story is considerably more careful to tell us the more complex story:
The survey, published on Friday in the peer-review journal Science, is the first comprehensive study of glaciers on the coast of the Antarctic peninsula. It examined more than 2,000 aerial photographs going back to the 1940s and satellite images from the past 40 years to map the ice's retreat. Temperatures have risen by about 2° Celsius in the past 50 years, a "dramatic" rise, said Alison Cook, a co- author of the report. LONDON (AP) - The first comprehensive survey of glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula has shown that the rivers of ice are shrinking, mostly because of warming of the local climate.
Why didn't the Financial Times include that "32 glaciers... are showing minor advance"? Making no mention of what the remaining 13% of glaciers were doing leaves the casual reader with the impression that they were neutral--not that some were actually growing. Why did Financial Times not include the careful point that "the behavior of the ice on the peninsula is not necessarily a reflection of what's going on elsewhere in Antarctica"? Why did AP include that the peninsula is "much warmer" than elsewhere in Antarctica? These are all important points that make the story a bit less breathless, and a bit more careful.
It is unclear, however, whether the increased temperature causing the shrinkage is a natural regional effect or a result of human-influenced global warming, said the scientists who conducted the study, published this week in the journal Science.
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed more than 2,000 aerial photographs dating from 1940 and over 100 satellite images from the 1960s onwards.
They calculated that 87 percent of the 244 glaciers going out to sea from the peninsula have retreated over the last 50 years and that the pace of shrinkage has accelerated over the last decade. Until now, scientists were uncertain whether the glaciers were growing or melting.
"Fifty years ago, most of the glaciers we look at were slowly growing in length but since then this pattern has reversed. In the last five years the majority were actually shrinking rapidly," said the study's leader, Alison Cook of the British Antarctic Survey. "However, 32 glaciers go against the trend and are showing minor advance. Had we not studied such a large number of glaciers we may have missed the overall pattern."
The Antarctic peninsula is a small segment of the Antarctic continent, located at the South Pole, and the behavior of the ice on the peninsula is not necessarily a reflection of what's going on elsewhere in Antarctica, said another of the investigators, David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey.
Temperatures seem to be much warmer there than on the rest of the continent.
Overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) & Political Civility
A recent David Brooks column argues that Roe v. Wade (1973) has played a very destructive role in American politics: Justice Harry Blackmun did more inadvertent damage to our democracy than any other 20th-century American. When he and his Supreme Court colleagues issued the Roe v. Wade decision, they set off a cycle of political viciousness and counter-viciousness that has poisoned public life ever since, and now threatens to destroy the Senate as we know it.
I somehow doubt that Roe did this all by itself. It may not have even been the major player. I also think that many of the pro-life activists would not have been any happier if their state legislature had legalized abortion on demand, instead of the Supreme Court. Still, state legislatures making the decision would not have created a national pro-life movement.
When Blackmun wrote the Roe decision, it took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts. If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate.
Idaho would probably still have a ban on elective abortions; California and New York would probably be as loose as they are today, and perhaps another ten to twelve would be that loose or close. (Remember that California's supreme court had struck down that state's fairly restrictive abortion law even before Roe was decided.) My guess is that at least half of the 50 states would still have either a complete ban on elective abortions, or a procedure similar to that used in California before 1969, where a panel of three doctors (one a psychiatrist) had to approve the request--and there would be a fair number of requests rejected.
Would this be a bad thing? The money spent by pro-choice groups lobbying and litigating these last 32 years could have been spent on bus tickets for pregnant Idahoans. Pro-life groups would have been spending their money on homes for unwed mothers. (A few farseeing sorts might have been promoting abstinence, and distributing condoms.)
The nutcases running around killing abortion doctors and firebombing abortion clinics would probably have found some other cause to discredit by their involvement. We would not be arguing whether it is okay to pull a child who is a few weeks from birth halfway out of the womb so that the doctor can shove scissors into her skull, and then suck the brains out. (If that doesn't horrify you, please stop reading my blog.) Most importantly, the principle that laws are made by the people or their representatives--and only the clearly unconstitutional laws were to be struck down by the judiciary--would be somewhat intact.
Now, let's not kid ourselves. Before Roe, the judiciary has a long history of willfulness. This is part of why I don't have quite the confidence that Brooks has about how much more civil our political processes would have been. Without Roe, there would have been some other decision from the Supreme Court that reflects the left's domination of the federal judiciary.
Because of lifetime tenure, the courts are a trailing indicator; the judges now on the bench reflect the dominant ideas of the 1960s. The rest of the country has largely moved past the "pot, socialism, and free love" values of the Hippie Generation; "God, guts, and guns" seems to be a more typical value of a younger generation. This struggle that we are seeing over the federal judiciary and Bush's nominations is really an intergenerational struggle, I think.
Ann Althouse argues that Brooks is wrong; that overturning Roe will not allow a democratic debate without the bitterness: But it's not possible to redo the last 30 years. We already are where we are, and those who think abortion should be legal have spent these decades -- or their whole lives -- thinking abortion was not only legal but a constitutional right. To take that right away now would not give us a chance to have the democratic debate we never had. It would be a wholly different experience of taking away a right, after the bitter politics had built to the level where the side opposed to the right has finally gotten its way, after we have already become polarized. What makes you think that won't be insanely bitter?
I think she is right about this. But so what? The same argument could have been made by supporters of "separate but equal" in say, 1950. A whole generation had grown up thinking of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) as defining the Constitutional rights of state governments to segregate. There was enormous bitterness, largely in the South, when Brown v. Board of Education (1954) struck down the existing order for two entire generations.
If a precedent came to the wrong conclusion, or was wrongly decided, then upholding it just to keep a minority comfortable is wrong. I think that Roe could have come to a similar conclusion (at least for first trimester abortions) by original intent arguments. (See Blackstone's Commentaries for an examination of the state of English law on early abortions.) Because the methodology was wrong (and it was based on a lie, anyway), subsequent precedents have been even more wildly wrong.
A Democrat Is Complaining About Judges Making Laws?
I understand the arguments that some have advanced that the cloture rule (requiring 60 votes to shut off debate in the U.S. Senate) prevents majority oppression--that there will come a day when Democrats will have a slim majority, and might use the absence of the cloture rule to run roughshod over Republicans. (This, of course, would require Republicans to be willing to stand up to the Democrats--a rare event indeed for most of my lifetime.)
Still, there is something terribly entertaining about these complaints: Democrats called Brown and Owen judicial activists who should be stopped before they get lifetime appointments. "The nomination of Janice Rogers Brown is a prime example of a nominee who sees the federal bench as a platform to advance her own extremist views," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Extremist views? You mean like striking down state laws based on false history? How about overturning amendments to state constitutions passed by popular vote because the Supreme Court decided that the people's decision was irrational?
And Owen "is an example of a judge who is very eager to make law from the bench," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's top Democrat.
I Don't Know Whether To Believe This Testimony Or Not
I am too repelled by it to quote it. If the testimony is as Drudge Report reports it here, the security guard who was asked to fetch the Vaseline for Michael Jackson should have grabbed Jackson by the neck, beaten him to death, and then called the police to receive a public service award.
I Hope Greenspan Is Right
He says that China real soon now is going to unlink the yuan from the dollar: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Growing economic pressure will compel China to alter its policy of pegging its currency to the U.S. dollar at some point, and the sooner it happens the better, Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said on Thursday.
I sure hope that he is right. The yuan's artificial exchange rate means that yes, Americans can buy cheap (and usually badly made) Chinese goods. It also means that a lot of other people are being forced out of jobs, and not just Americans, but also Mexicans, Japanese, Taiwanese, and a heck of a lot of people in the former Soviet bloc.
The influential U.S. central bank chairman, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee, emphasized he could not say when China might act but said he had no doubt it would.
Greenspan effectively aligned himself with stepped-up Bush administration pressure for Beijing to drop its decade-old currency peg that U.S. manufacturers say gives China an unfair trade advantage that has cost millions of American jobs.
"The sooner they move off this fixed (rate), the better off for China's economy," Greenspan said in response to questions after urging lawmakers to move fast to cut U.S. budget deficits or risk putting the economy in peril of stagnation "or worse."
He also makes the point that a lot of Republicans need to hear: Greenspan told lawmakers the U.S. federal budget was "on an unsustainable path" where big deficits push up interest rates and ever-increasing interest payments.
The danger was that shortfalls would keep rising as a percentage of economic output.
"Unless that trend is reversed, at some point these deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse," he said, and it won't improve unless some action is taken.
Was This An April Fools' Joke?
It makes me think that someone read Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty, then an article about offshoring of engineering jobs: Here’s their basic idea:
If it is a gag, it is a very carefully put together gag, with a serious web site.
Take a used cruise ship, plant it in international waters three miles off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, people it with 600 of the brightest software engineers they can find around the world (both men and women), and run a 24-hour-a-day programming shop, thereby avoiding H-1B visa hassles while still exploiting offshore labor cost arbitrage and completing development projects in half the time they’d take onshore or offshore.
“As more people have run the [offshore] gauntlet and found the joys of traveling to India coach class and having three weeks of stuff on their desk when they come back, [they discover] it’s much more disruptive than they ever imagined it would be,” explains Mr. Green.
Before you think, “sweat-ship,” hear them out. These workers, they say, will each have private rooms with baths, meal service, laundry service, housekeeping and access to on-board leisure-time activities. Picture the Love Boat with a timecard. Staff can make the three-mile voyage into town in their off hours by calling a water taxi. Or they can spend time shopping in the on-board duty-free shop.
“Engineers can be kind of quirky in some ways, but they can be really productive if you give them the right setting,” says Mr. Green. “We think we’re going to be putting them in the perfect setting. Very few distractions. They’ll be with similarly motivated people who are really interested in advancing and doing this engineering work. It’ll be this perfect place for getting engineers to work.”
It is already the case that American technosauri (that's the plural of "technosaurus") have discovered that Indian software developers aren't enough cheaper than having the work done here--so they are beginning to move the work to China.
Guess what? Not every software engineer in India has the command of English that you might expect. Wages aren't as low in India now as they were several years ago, and competently managed American companies away from the coasts can do the same work for just a bit more money--without the language barriers, cultural obstacles (and there are a few), and physical distance problems.
Devastating Article About Racism & Failure
It is by Richard Lamm, formerly Democratic Governor of Colorado, and for many years, a professor at the University of Denver. There is the article itself--"Two Wands"--which should be widely read and discussed. Then there is the problem that an internal publication of the University of Denver refused to consider publication of it--too controversial. It has a powerful opening, and you should read it in full: Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition. But, alas, you can t wave both wands. Only one.
And then there is a spectacular comment by someone using the pseudonym, "Truth Dowser":
Which would you choose? I understand that many would love to wave both wands; no one can easily refuse the chance to erase racism and discrimination. But I suggest that the best wand for the society and for those who live in the ghettoes and barrios would be the second wand.
This metaphor is important in correctly diagnosing one of the most significant problems facing contemporary America: the large economic, education and employment gap between Black/Hispanic America and White/Asian America. The problems of crime, educational failure, drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, and unemployment that burden certain groups threaten our collective future. They form a nation-threatening social pathology that must be addressed in broader terms than we have done to date.
Most discussion of minority failure blames racism and discrimination. I m an old civil rights lawyer and such racism and discrimination clearly still exists. But the problem is, I fear, deeper than the current dialogue. We need to think honestly about these problems with new sophistication. One of these new areas is to recognize that increasingly scholars are saying culture matters.Tapping unique new sources of racism is very rewarding, as it brings such things as grants, endowments, tenures, and mandatory student fees. It is thus only natural that liberals find racism everywhere they look for it. Racism-dowsing turns an obscene profit when every well drilled is a gusher.
Every time my wife and I discuss going back to school to get our PhDs (since there are no full-time teaching jobs if you only have an MA), we eventually come to our senses, because the academy is controlled by the ideological insanity that found Lamm's article "too controversial," but thinks that Ward Churchill's "little Himmlers" article to be a sign of intelligence.
Great Article About CEO Employment Contracts
I try not to sound like one of those whining leftists, but articles like this one infuriate me. I don't mind seeing a CEO get well compensated for doing great work. I don't even mind seeing CEOs making million dollar plus salaries; to run a large corporation well is not easy. I do mind incompetents getting tens of millions of dollars that the corporation wasn't obligated to pay: Hewlett-Packard's board has just come through a tumultuous couple of months in which it proved itself strangely generous with people who failed or are unproven. Back in February, when HP's board booted CEO Carly Fiorina with a $42 million package of which $21.4 million was severance pay, I suggested the overlooked story in such mammoth sendoffs is CEO employment contracts. Most bigtime CEOs now have them, and they generally specify the opulent goodbye goodies years in advance, when no one is paying much attention.
The column goes on to discuss the very generous employment contract that the new CEO, Mark Hurd, received.And Hurd's severance deal? It's the same as Fiorina's, meaning he participates in a special program for HP senior executives. The terms of the program don't seem especially lavish, which is why Fiorina's massive exit package was a bit puzzling. Now a new explanation sheds further light on the nature of HP's board. A little-noticed analysis of Fiorina's severance in the New York Law Journal, plus a separate analysis by Graef Crystal, suggests that HP's directors simply ignored the severance program and awarded her far more than was called for. (HP didn't respond to a request for comment.) That is their right, of course—they made the policy, and they can unmake it.
Why indeed? Especially because Fiorina's failures have a lot to do with the current effort to reduce HP's headcount.
But why would they shower extra dollars on a CEO who was being fired for poor performance?
Are They Serious? Or Trying To Force A Confrontation?
I am somewhat sympathetic to the concerns (at least, some of the concerns) that motivated the Texas House to pass this bill, but I can't possibly imagine that the superlegislature of nine that meets in Washington, DC, is going to allow this to survive: The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill banning homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals from being foster parents.
I hope that it is not a surprise to most people that children learn quite a bit from the home in which they are raised. I wouldn't want foster parents to be alcoholics, drug addicts, or engaged in domestic violence. (I presume and hope that the Texas agency responsible for foster parents is already making an effort to keep those categories out of the program.) I also wouldn't want them to be raised in a home with drag queens and some of the other more bizarre (but not terribly unusual) segments of homosexual culture in America. (Example: self-identified homosexual couple who sexually abused a foster kid in Pennsylvania.)
If the bill gains approval from the Texas Senate, the state will be allowed to investigate the backgrounds of current foster parents and remove children living in non-heterosexual households.
All future foster parents will be required to disclose their sexual preference on an application form, a legislative aide said.
There are certainly homosexuals who act gender-appropriate, and know better than to have orgies in front of the foster kids. But like quite a number of other behavior-defined minorities, the government discriminates based on disproportionate behavior, and with the rather singular exception of homosexuals, the courts have generally accepted this as having a rational basis. Every convicted felon isn't going to be a violent criminal in the future--but convicted felons are sufficiently disproportionately among violent criminals that this form of discrimination is generally accepted.
Awesome Photo of Io Transiting Jupiter
Photographed from French Polynesia with a Celestron 14. There are advantages to being in the tropics!
Go here to see all the details.
This Was Filed Under "Reuters Odd"
But from news accounts that I have read over the years of lawyers embezzling funds, the only thing "odd" about this is the length of the sentence the lawyer received: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A lawyer convicted of stealing settlement money from vulnerable clients, including $250,000 from a brain-damaged infant, was sentenced on Tuesday to more than 14 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Oh yeah, just a couple of years ago Tehin listed himself as a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association.
Nikolai Tehin, 58, of San Francisco, was found guilty last October in the embezzlement of more than $2 million from his clients' settlement packages.
"This is the most severe sentence I've ever received from a federal court judge," Tehin's attorney, Harold Rosenthal, said in a telephone interview.
During years defending people in medical malpractice and personal injury cases, Tehin would regularly deposit settlement checks into his firm's account and not tell clients he had received the money, according to court papers.
Religion Clause Blog
University of Toledo Law Professor Howard Friedman has a blog devoted to discussion of the religion clause of the First Amendment, and related cases. One recent entry mentions this article alleging of widespread anti-Semitism at the Air Force Academy: Air Force Academy, Colo., April 19 - Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.
I am shocked--and I would like to see some persuasive evidence of this. I suppose if this were 1930, or 1940, I would find these claims plausible--but in more than 25 years attending Christian churches, I think that I have once heard any remark from a person who identified himself as a Christian that could be interpreted as prejudicial against Jews--and never anything like the remarks contained in the linked article.
There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.
I have heard some pretty ferocious anti-Semitism over the years, but just about always from people who were quite emphatically not Christians.
The Billionaires Are Busily Plotting Behind Closed Doors Again
Whenever rich people get together, you can be sure that they will be figuring some way to fund leftist causes, so that they don't have to worry about Aspen and Sun Valley getting crowded with the riff-raff like you and me: George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks.
You would think that the Brookings Institution, the Joyce Foundation, and America's universities weren't already fully funded.
The Scottsdale, Ariz., meeting, called to start the process of building an ideas production line for liberal politicians, began what organizers hope will be a long dialogue with the “partners,” many from the high-tech industry. Participants have begun to refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group.
Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists on how to seed pro-Democratic think tanks, media outlets and leadership schools to compete with such entrenched conservative institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Leadership Institute.
One of the big problems that conservatives face is that our side simply doesn't have the kind of money that the left has available to it. I know that there are a few rich conservatives, but there aren't many of them, and they are notoriously reluctant to put that money into political causes. I will say this for the hard left--if they have to put ten million dollars into a political cause, they are willing to do it.
Immigrant Calls For Enforcing Immigration Laws
In this case, the Terminator: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the nation's policy on preventing illegal immigration is too lax, telling a group of newspaper publishers the United States needs to "close the borders."
What he actually meant was to enforce the existing laws, including building a fence along the border to make sure that immigrants follow legal procedures, and to allow us to verify that those entering are not security threats.
News Stories To Ruin Your Morning
Like this one: Recurrent intelligence reports say al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear device or is preparing a radiological explosive -- or dirty bomb -- for an attack, according to U.S. officials, who also say analysts are unable to gauge the reliability of the information's sources.
The classified reports have been distributed to U.S. intelligence agencies for several consecutive months and say Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, has stored the nuclear device or dirty bomb in Afghanistan, said officials familiar with the intelligence.
One official said the intelligence is being questioned because analysts think al Qaeda would not hesitate to use a nuclear device if it had one.
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In February, U.S. intelligence and security officials said information showed bin Laden had asked Zarqawi to focus future attacks on targets inside the United States.
Feminism & Stereotypes
I try very hard to not buy into my wife's hostile view of feminism--and then I read blogs like this one, and I realize that my wife has a much clearer picture of the deranged ranting that passes for intelligent thought in feminist circles.
An amusing example of what passes for careful thought from this Ph.D.: When pro-choice feminists like Wolf, or liberal men, or a lot of women, even, say things like, "I'm pro-choice, but I am uncomfortable with... [third-trimester abortion / sex-selection / women who have multiple abortions / women who have abortions for "convenience" / etc.]" then what you are saying is that your discomfort matters more than an individual woman's ability to assess her own circumstances. That you don't think that women who have abortions think through the very questions that you, sitting there in your easy chair, can come up with. That a woman who is contemplating an invasive, expensive, and uncomfortable medical procedure doesn't think it through first. In short, that your judgment is better than hers.
Now, you may agree with her on this particular case (abortion). I am skeptical that a general ban on abortion can actually be enforced, since there is still a large minority that supports unrestricted abortion, and a small majority that supports allowing abortion under many circumstances. But unless you are an anarchist, you do believe that, as a general rule, the majority, working through their elected representatives, have superior moral judgment to any single individual. That's what laws are.
Think about the hubris of that. Your judgment of some hypothetical scenario is more reliable than some woman's judgment about her own, very real, life situation?
Criminal Behavior Along the Border
Yup! There's a bunch of not very bright people along the Arizona-Mexico border, breaking some minor laws, being belligerent, and encouraging others to break the law. No, not the Minuteman Project--the ACLU's "Legal Observers."
The Minutemen claim to smell the ACLU crowd smoking pot, and here are some pictures that seem to confirm this.
The more serious criminal violations (okay, it's WorldNetDaily--take it with a grain of salt): ACLU monitors sent to the border to watch Minuteman activity and report civil-liberties abuses to authorities have begun flashing lights, sounding horns and warning off illegals and their "coyote" human smugglers from entering territory patrolled by the volunteers.
Thanks to Michael Williams for the pointer.
...
A volunteer reported, according to the South East Arizona Republican Club, "The ACLU is getting desperate to get something on the Minutemen and are trying to provoke incidents now."
"They pushed one of the Minutemen the other night trying to get him to push back. Didn't work. Then last night they walked up and shined a spotlight right in a Minuteman's face from six inches or so away. Didn't work that time either. We immediately report these types of contacts with them to the sheriff to counter any claims they try to make against us. They should be called the UCLU (Un-American Civil Lawsuit Union).
"They give us the middle finger every chance they get to try to get us to react. We are still trying to figure out if that is their age or IQ."
How Not To Sell Cars
GM is in big trouble, and I think I know why: they have some absolutely amazing vehicles for sale, and haven't figured out how to tell anyone about them.
A couple of days ago, I mentioned how impressed I was with the Chevrolet Equinox. This is a compact, pretty good gas mileage SUV. The one that I drove was nicely equipped (lacking only the ABS brakes option to make me happy), and has an MSRP of about $24,000. The EPA mileage estimates are 19 and 25. It felt like it had gobs of guts, and road tests indicate 0-60 is about 8.5 seconds--pretty good for an SUV, and especially one that gets gas mileage like a medium to large passenger car.
It turns out that the Saturn VUE shares the Equinox's platform, but uses a Honda manufactured 3.5 liter V6 that turns out 250 horsepower--and gets from 0-60 in 7 seconds. It has somewhat better mileage numbers. The VUE is slightly more expensive than the Chevrolet Equinox, a little smaller, and to be honest, not quite as visually appealing, inside or out. (Of course, I'm not a 20something, which may explain why it doesn't appeal to me.) I was pleased with the test drive, although the Equinox had a bit better ride, I think, perhaps because it is seven inches longer.
So why aren't these flying off dealer lots?
Domestic Terrorist Organizations
Some circles like to portray neo-Nazis as just more extreme versions of conservatives. I've always found this offensive, because there the ideological underpinnings of neo-Nazis in America are so contrary to conservative ideas. Movements such as World Church of the Creator are explicitly pagan, and hold Christianity in the same contempt that some of the weirder factions of the German National Socialist Party did.
This article about the FBI's investigation of domestic terrorism organizations does contain a telling quote from one of these nutcases that really shows how far removed they are from anything even vaguely conservative: James P. Wickstrom, who calls himself the world chaplain of the Aryan Nation, uses "Death to the Jew" as a mantra of sorts. He also regularly calls for the deaths of government leaders, including the president.
Liberals criticize conservatives for wanting too much government (on some things) and too little government (on others). This guy Wickstrom sounds like he is pretty consistently in support of way too little government--not a particularly conservative idea.
...
"I tell you we do not need this Congress and legislative body," he said in the same speech. "We don't need these vile bastards telling us what to do on our property and with our water and with our children. We don't need to tell them we have to wear a seat belt. We don't need have to be told anything."
Of course, he is not completely representative of the neo-Nazi movement. If you read The Turner Diaries, you know that the author was a big fan of big government: gun control (for non-whites); government direction of the economy (to help poor whites); and a lot of other policies that have a distinctly big government tone to them.
It just doesn't seem to be terribly accurate for liberals and leftists to keep implying that neo-Nazis are just more extreme forms of conservatives. Big parts of the neo-Nazi movement in America seem to be closer to the Strasser/Roehm national socialist wing of the German NSDAP (which is actually close to modern American progressivism, without the snazzy uniforms, but with the alternate orientation). I can understand why liberals and leftists wouldn't want anyone to be aware of this, of course.
This Is Not Okay
This is a disturbing article by Nat Hentoff, one of the few liberals that I can take seriously: Actually, there is much that U.S. interrogators can learn from their counterparts in Uzbekistan on how to break down prisoners. One of the CIA's jet planes used to render purported terrorists to other countries—where information is extracted by any means necessary—made 10 trips to Uzbekistan. In a segment of CBS's 60 Minutes on these CIA torture missions (March 5), former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray told of the range of advanced techniques used by Uzbek interrogators:
There are techniques for obtaining information that are not really torture--largely what I would call discomfort methods, such as cold, heat, lack of sleep. I am not happy about the use of such techniques, and I would not consider them appropriate except against suspected terrorists, but I don't think that they really qualify as torture. Some of the other techniques that Hentoff discusses, however, such as waterboarding, really do qualify as torture.
"drowning and suffocation, rape was used . . . and also immersion of limbs in boiling liquid."
Two nights later on ABC's World News Tonight, Craig Murray told of photos he received of an Uzbek interrogation that ended with the prisoner actually being boiled to death!
Murray, appalled, had protested to the British Foreign Office in a confidential memorandum leaked to and printed in the Financial Times on October 11 of last year:
"Uzbek officials are torturing prisoners to extract information [about reported terrorist operations], which is supplied to the U.S. and passed through its Central Intelligence Agency to the U.K., says Mr. Murray." (Emphasis added.)
Prime Minister Tony Blair quickly reacted to this undiplomatic whistle-blowing. Craig Murray was removed as ambassador to Uzbekistan.
On the BBC (October 15), Steve Crawshaw, director of the London office of Human Rights Watch, spoke plainly about George W. Bush's continual, ardent assurances that this country would never engage in torture:
"You can't wash your hands and say we didn't torture, but we will use what comes out of torture."
CIA director Porter Goss also engages in what George Orwell called doublespeak. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 17, Porter Goss said, "The United States does not engage in or condone torture."
I think giving a terrorist the impression that he is going to be turned over to a country like Uzbekistan would be an acceptable practice to get them to talk. After all, prosecutors often use the threat of long prison sentences to persuade defendants to testify against their co-defendants--and a long prison sentence isn't much different from implying that someone is going to be shipped to Uzbekistan--as long as it does not actually happen.
I can understand why, under certain extreme conditions (nuclear weapon hidden somewhere in a city, great certainty that we have people with knowledge of where), torture might seem like an appropriate response. The regular use of torture really degrades us as a nation. I am not happy about this.
Cingular: Makers of Silence
A few months back, I had a problem with my wireless phone service. Cingular bought out AT&T Wireless, I received one bill from the new company in December--and no more bills. Not surprisingly, since I received no bills, I paid no bills. After a couple of months, they cut off my service. So I called up, paid the bills, verified that they had the right address--and they could give no explanation for why two bills went astray.
Today, no service again, but not because of unpaid bills. They don't know why at the service desk, and after 20 minutes on hold for technical support, I gave up.
AT&T Wireless Service was very reliable and competent. Cingular is not. Oh yes, I could barely understand the customer service guy--very thick accent. (Hispanic, I think.) There are places where the ability to speak English clearly does not matter. Phone service isn't one of them.
Cars
I have not been impressed with what my son can buy for $2000 or less in the local market--generally heaps, or cars so small that my wife and I don't feel particularly safe having him drive them. So we went and did a little investigating of new cars last night, figuring that my son can drive the Malibu until he can afford something better, in a year or two.
The Chevrolet Equinox really impressed me! This is a very small SUV--not as tall, wide, or massive as a TrailBlazer, much less the garguantuan beasts like the Tahoe or Suburban. Yet it has a lot of room inside, and a number of very clever design features about how the rear seats slide and fold.
What surprised my wife and I was how well it combined ride and handling--very smooth and quiet on the broken concrete of I-84, and yet it still handled a bit more like a sedan than an SUV. The Equinox we drove had the optional all wheel drive--power directed to the wheels that are getting the most traction.
I had been in initially wary of the Equinox because it was only a 185 hp horsepower, and in a vehicle that weighs about 3400 pounds, that couldn't get up and go. But it does, rather well. It's not as quick as our Malibu, but it isn't much slower. Part of the trick is that it has a five speed automatic, and I believe that they have gone for a taller final drive ratio to compensate for it. The EPA mileage estimates are 19 and 25--not quite as good as my wife's Malibu, but not a lot worse, and certainly impressive for such a big vehicle.
The sales person was a reminder that we aren't in California. She pointed to one of the storage compartments as the pistol storage, and another location as a good place to "hide your rifle."
I am not really keen on buying a new car right now, but since I work for HP, I get the factory invoice plus $100 price on it--which is about $1000 off MSRP, and probably about what I could get by hard bargaining. (HP is a supplier to GM, and they have worked out some sort of deal for employees. There are actually lots of these deals available to HP employees.)
