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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, October 01, 2005
Global Warming & Solar Change Contributions This article summarizes a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters: The new study is based in part on Columbia University research from 2003 in which scientists found errors in how data on solar brightness is interpreted. A gap in data, owing to satellites not being deployed after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, were filled by less accurate data from other satellites, Scafetta says.Notice that word "minimally" in there. Since we don't really have a clear understanding of the connections between solar output, surface temperatures, and consequent natural processes that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (for example, the carbon dioxide/limestone interaction), perhaps a little more humility is in order from the Kyoto Treaty proponents. Labels: global warming Thursday, September 29, 2005
So These Are The Out of Town Real Estate Speculators This San Diego guy describes how he is currently putting down deposits on houses being built here in Boise, and explains the risks involved, and how to avoid them. Unfortunately, my realtor tells me that there are a lot of out of towners doing this in Boise right now--and I fear that he doesn't fully understand the extent that what he warns about, has sucked him in: Make sure the area is experiencing actual population and job growth. You want to ensure that the price growth isn't just fueled by rampant investor speculation. if so, when it comes time to sell, you won't have any buyers.Yes, we do have actual population and job growth--but the price inflation seems excessive for that growth. Maybe all the speculators are just bidding up the prices for each other? To quote a song of some years ago, "Who's zooming' who?" Interesting Comment About What Has Taken Over The Democratic Party Right Side of the Rainbow (a right-of-center, gun owning, gay Texan--talk about someone who could meet all of his likeminded peers in a phone booth) links to an especially unpleasant set of comments over at Democratic Underground: If Republicans lose, these people will govern youI fear that the last few years has done something very worrisome to the Democratic Party--knocked many of the centrist (often corrupt) activists out of dominant positions. The "Bush = Hitler" crowd seems to be increasingly important, not only because they are the millionaires providing the money, but also the committed sorts prepared to work hard to elect people like Governor "I have a scream" Dean. ADHD Drug Warning The FDA is requiring a pretty serious warning label--what is called a "black box warning" on one of Eli Lilly's drugs for treating ADHD: WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors Thursday about reports of suicidal thinking in some children and adolescents who are taking Strattera, a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.My wife was startled, when she was teaching elementary and middle school, how many kids were labeled ADHD. The article above went on to mention that 7% of kids are believed to be ADHD. I think back to my childhood--and my wife had the same experiences--there were very, very few kids who had the symptoms of ADHD when we were young. Now it seems to be epidemic. Our suspicion is that a lot of what schools label ADHD is really PDDD--Parental Discipline Deficiency Disorder. As one parent told a teacher friend of my wife, "I've given up on trying to make him behave. That's your job." There's no question that small children--especially little boys--are full of rampaging energy, and getting them to stay on a task involving sitting at a desk is often a struggle. But my wife noticed that a lot of the ADHD kids were coming from extraordinarily screwed up home situations. Not just divorced homes (that's the norm where we lived in Sonoma County), but situations where the biological father was not allowed to take the child; where the mother was clearly in chaos herself. Another point worth mentioning: the Papolos' book The Bipolar Child points out there is substantial overlap between bipolar disorder and ADHD. WebMD mentions studies that attempted to identify adults with both; it would appear to be a pretty common combination, and bipolar disorder aggravates ADHD. I wonder if some of the kids being diagnosed as ADHD might actually be bipolar; manic phase bipolar, especially in a child, can be easily confused with an attention deficit. A lot of these serious, but not psychotic mental disorders, are similar enough to be confusing. A relative of mine was misdiagnosed for a number of years, including schizophrenia. (Here's an example of the complexity: extreme forms of bipolar disorder in mania phase can include schizophrenic-like hallucinations, although this is somewhat rare.) He was eventually correctly diagnosed as bipolar disorder (which runs in our family), put on Welbutrin under the pretense that it was to help him quit smoking--and he experienced a dramatic recovery. If you have a child who is full of energy, sharp as a tack, defiant, precocious, intent on being in charge of every situation, and the school is suggesting ADHD--I would suggest that you get at least a second opinion about this from a child psychiatrist. I would also recommend that you read the Papolos' book The Bipolar Child. There's a lot of grief that you may saving yourself by understanding what you are confronting, and understanding it very early. Everything California Seems To Follow Us Here First the other Californians moved to Idaho. Then the traffic jams started. Then some of the nice small town feel of the place--with people being so friendly and strange teenagers being polite to you--started to evaporate. Then the housing started to get expensive (although still cheap by California standards). Now: earthquake swarms in a town about 90 minutes north of here! A cluster of earthquakes south of Cascade has been shaking items off shelves and jolting residents out of their sleep this week.Oh, but the news story ends with one very un-California aspect: Sean Christian, an eighth grader at Cascade High School, was woken up by a temblor that shook his Clear Creek home Tuesday night. Everyone Hates Karl Rove Not just Democrats, who imagine Karl Rove behind all dark conspiracies--especially the ones where Democrats shoot themselves in the foot. Ann Coulter hates Karl Rove too. After listing a number of situations where President Bush has assisted liberals to defeat conservatives: Karl Rove is Bob Shrum with a good cause. (Shrum has run eight presidential campaigns; number won: 0, number lost: 8.) Bush calls Rove the "architect" of his 2004 victory. In 2004, America was at war and the Democrats ran a gigolo to be commander in chief. The nation hasn't changed so much since Reagan was president that the last election should have even been close.One thing that I keep reminding people of is that Bush really isn't very conservative. That's a source of frustration to Ann Coulter, obviously, and irritation to me. I suppose the reason that I am merely irritated by this is that I do not share Ann's view that a firebreathing conservative would be a runaway winner in national elections. It is true that on some issues, Americans are generally quite conservative--gay marriage, for example, as Coulter observes, is something that even many Democrats look upon with distaste. On the other hand, state after state repealed their sodomy laws because there is a bit of a libertarian streak in America: "I don't much care about what you do in private; just don't make me pay for it, watch it, or require me to give any official approval." Another reason that I don't think America is the firebreathing conservative place that Ann wants to believe is that there's a lot of millionaires in this country--more than five million of them--and I can't imagine more than a few of them voting for a conservative, especially one that wanted to lower income taxes. Remember that if you have a net worth of say, five million dollars, income taxes are optional; you buy municipal bonds, live on your $250,000 a year income, and owe no income tax, either state or federal. I suppose that this is how liberal Democrats felt when "I did not have relations with that woman" sat in the Oval Office. They knew (or should have known) that a serious liberal was unelectable, and it was better to get 2/3 of the pie, rather than demanding everything--and get nothing. Corvettes, Tires, and Wear When Big O replaced my front tires yesterday, they pointed out that the insides of the tires were markedly more worn than the rest of the tire, and suggested a four wheel alignment. This would cost $90. Ordinarily, I would have said yes, but because the wear pattern was identical on the two tires, and because it was only really severe because I had gone a bit past the intended service life of the tire, I delayed a decision until I had a chance to gather a bit more data. It turns out that at least the C5 generation of Corvette intentionally has strong negative camber to improve cornering, and this wearing out the front tires on the inside is normal. While some Corvette owners (and apparently at least one dealer) prefer to adjust the camber to zero degrees, I read this interesting discussion of camber adjustment for the Corvette that inclines me to leave it alone. In case you are wandering what camber is: here's a nice description with drawings of camber, caster, and toe and the significance of each of these for wheel alignment. Camber, caster, and toe are rather like pitch, yaw, and roll (which define the X, Y, and Z motions of an airplane). They define the positioning of the tire relative to the suspension components in three dimensions. Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The Horror Stories From New Orleans The more I think about this, the more troubled that I am. There were news stories that were not terribly precisely sourced--and some involved, "I heard" or "Others said" but there were a lot of news stories like this one that quote National Guardsmen, who are identified, and make specific claims of things that they had seen: Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.This isn't a rumor, or a "I was told" or "She said." This is a claim that National Guardsmen who are named told the reporter that they had seen these atrocities that the authorities are now flatout denying. This account from the Australian newspaper The Age again quotes people that were present and who have claim to have seen very serious crimes taking place: "I haven't been to hell, but now I think I saw it inside that stadium," Anthony "Bud" Hopes, 32, of Brisbane, said.These are not just rumors spread by irresponsible figures like Mayor Nagin. These are directly quoted, attributed statements--in some cases, to people with official responsibilities for enforcing order. I no longer know what happened in the Superdome. Either a number of people told reporters complete lies--that they had seen 30-40 bodies in the freezer when they hadn't--or someone is telling lies now. Either the National Guardsman who described two people murdered--one beaten to death, the other a little girl whose throat was slit was grossly wrong--or this news account which has been widely circulated, is wrong: "I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalled the doctor saying.I can see reasons for reporters to make up these stories: it was all about getting Bush. I can see reasons for officials in Louisiana to spread rumors or even make stuff up: more money from Washington because Americans feel guilty about not getting there in time to prevent these horrifying events. Perhaps they didn't realize that these horrifying stories would reflect badly on the people that elect them. I can't quite see why the tourists and the National Guardsmen would make up these horrifying stories of things that they claimed to have seen. I can also see a reason why New Orleans officials might be interesting in making all this unpleasant discussion disappear. These crimes would indicate that perhaps a small number of monsters in the Superdome were prepared to do horrible things to others, but this doesn't necessarily speak badly about the people of New Orleans. There are creeps in every city. But if the evacuees in the Superdome were really so depraved that they would not collectively stop children from being molested in plain view, then there is something truly depraved about a significant fraction of the population there. Think about it for a minute: if you and a few hundred of your peers were in a location like this, and you saw someone molesting a child, even a complete stranger, what would you do? I know that most every adult man that I know would walk over, and grab the molester. If the molester was lucky under such circumstances, he would be beaten to a pulp. As I said: I don't know what happened. I do know that some of these horrifying news accounts were not presented as "We have heard" or "Someone said" but actual identifiable persons, quoted, named, and describing eyewitness experiences. I think there is a legitimate reasons for Congressional inquiry. Were the witnesses accurately quoted? (Reporters, in my experience, aren't very good at that.) What really happened with these reports? The press spends a lot of time pretending that it is some sort of superhero, with the First Amendment emblazoned on the front of its tights, instead of a big red "S". I want to know if the professional journalists are as careful as they claim to be, or if some of this reporting was massaged for political purposes. More Fun Machining I needed to center a 3/8"-16 threaded hole in a Delrin cylinder. The first couple of times that I did this, it worked great. I put the workpiece in a 3 jaw chuck, faced each end, and then used a center drill in the tailstock to make a small hole. Then I used a 5/16" twist drill in the tailstock to enlarge the hole, and then used a 3/8"-16 tap. The first two times that this worked well, I was doing this to a cylinder that was only about 3/4" long. Then I tried to center a hole in a 3" long cylinder, using the exact same approahc and tools--and it didn't work. The hole was way off--about .05" difference from one side to the other. Possible sources of difficulty: 1. I know that twist drills are intrinsically less accurate than center drills. Should I look for a 5/16" center drill to make the pilot hole for the twist drill? Or should I start with a twist drill the diameter (or slightly smaller) than the pilot hole of the center drill, and gradually move up in size? 2. Is it possible that that the 3 jaw chuck can't hold a piece of Delrin that long without high speed rotation causing it to wiggle slightly off-center? Is the solution to drill the center drill and/or twist drill at very low speed? UPDATE: I have been told to try using a steady rest to prevent wiggle. The Restraining Order Against New Orleans Here's the memo asking for the restraining order against their gun confiscation. One Million Million Dollar Homes This article reports that there are now more than a million million dollar homes in the U.S.: For the first time, there are more than 1 million owner-occupied homes in the United States worth $1 million or more, according to a Census Bureau survey published late last month.Here in Boise, a million dollar home is still a pretty amazing piece of real estate--usually a very large house on a big chunk of land. On the other hand, the house that I am building north of here will probably appraise for $290,000 to $320,000 when it is done in several weeks--but in Sonoma County, where I used to live, it would be at least one million dollars, and perhaps because of the views, closer to two or three million dollars. (You don't generally find such houses of only 2300 square feet on 11 acres in Sonoma County.) You pay a lot for having too many millionaires as your neighbors--and you pay a lot less for a house by living somewhere like Boise, where millionaires aren't a dime a dozen. There's Only One Way To Think Those narrow-minded reactionaries aren't prepared to accept a diversity of viewpoints--everyone must be propagandized to the one true philosophy: On Sept. 21, David Parker was scheduled to go on trial in Lexington, Mass., for an incident that resulted from him disputing the 'right' of a local public school to introduce his then-5-year-old son to the issue of homosexuality.Can you imagine the media uproar if a school district had given kindergartners materials that asserted that "homosexuality is wrong" and a parent showed up to request that his son be left out of these sessions? The difficulty we are confronting is that there is a faction that believes that they are right, and those who disagree with them are wrong--and are prepared to use their control over the schools to propagandize our children to accept our point of view. Hitler was asked shortly after he became Chancellor if he was concerned about his political opponents, and his response was that he wasn't too worried; he had control of the schools, and the generations growing up would be taught what to believe. As it turned out, he was right. A generation of Germans grew up who were fanatical, who had no problem running concentration camps, and were prepared to die for Hitler's "master race." Some things never change. Durable Goods Orders For August Way Up! It seemed a little odd that the Fed raised interest rates this last time with the Katrina disaster apparently sapping the life out of the economy. The August durable goods numbers (an important leading economic indicator) suggests that the Fed correctly identified the direction of the economy: WASHINGTON — New orders for big-ticket manufactured products rose in August at the fastest pace in three months, providing a reassuring sign that American factories are not headed for another slump. Alcohol & Guns Don't Mix Of course, alcohol doesn't mix with any technology that gives you mechanical leverage: CANTON - William T. Dailey III came out of his apartment with an AK-47 in his hands.I received an email from a reader yesterday asking if conservatives had learned anything from alcohol prohibition. My response was that I wasn't sure, but Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign and efforts to get employers to drug test employees showed that they had learned that reducing demand was more effective than reducing supply. Articles like this one cause me to ask, "Have advocates of decriminalization of drugs learned anything from these sort of tragedies?" The advocates of drug laws aren't just bluenoses out to prevent people from having a good time. They are attempting to prevent these intoxicated-based tragedies from becoming more common. You can argue that marijuana would replace alcohol, with no net increase on stupidity-induced tragedies. We really don't know for sure, but I sure wouldn't want beer to get any cheaper, and marijuana, if legal, is likely to make beer seem expensive. (It is a weed, after all.) You can argue that attempts to prohibit opiates move private tragedies into problems of drug trafficking, and I would agree. On net, opiate prohibition is probably more destructive than legalization--but don't forget that we are mostly moving the damage around, we aren't ending it. Tires I mentioned a few days back that it was time to replace the front tires on the Corvette--actually, a bit past time to do so. After asking around in the Internet newsgroup alt.autos.corvette, I ordered up two Michelin Pilot Sport A/S tires in my size, 245/45YR17 ZP, from Tire Rack, for installation by their local installer here in Boise. (In this case, Big O Tires on Main Street.) In case you have ever wondered what all those numbers mean that describe tires--in this case 245/45YR17 ZP: 245 is the width of the tire; /45 is the aspect ratio (the tire height is 45% of the section width); Y means that it is safe for extended use at 186 miles per hour; R means it is a radial; 17 is the diameter of the wheel that the tire goes on; and ZP is Michelin's term for what Goodyear calls a "runflat." You can drive for many miles on the tire with no air, at reasonable speeds, without damaging it. The Corvette uses runflats because in the pursuit of ultimate performance, the front tires are on 17 inch diameter wheels, and the rear tires are on 18 inch wheels. This means that even if you wanted to waste the limited interior space of the car on a spare, you would need two spares: one for the front wheels, one for the rear. Instead, Chevrolet elected to use runflats for all but the very highest performance Corvette (the Z06) as a way to save space. The downside is that runflats usually ride a bit more harshly than conventional tires, usually somewhat noisier, and they are priced higher as well. I haven't been happy with the noise level of the Corvette since I bought it. My wife is so unhappy with the noise level on concrete that she really doesn't like to go on trips in it. At least part of why I replaced the Goodyears when they wore out on the front is that a number of Corvette owners have noticed that the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S is substantially quieter than the Goodyear runflat that comes standard on the car. I wasn't expecting a big improvement from replacing the front tires; most of the tire noise on concrete comes from the rear tires, which have an enormous resonance chamber in the rear. I measured an average of 92 decibels on concrete headed to Big O, and 91 decibels on concrete headed back. I wouldn't consider a one decibel reduction significant, since I wasn't on the exact same patch of concrete, and tires at the end of their lifetime are different from tires at the beginning. Still, I did notice some improvement in ride quality--the Michelins are definitely less harsh. When the time comes to replace the rears, I will probably put Michelins there as well. To give you some idea of the price difference: the Goodyears were on special at Tire Rack for $273 each; the Michelins were $223. Just A Coincidence, I'm Sure This may be too disturbing for those with sweet and gentle souls (those who haven't lived in the San Francisco Bay Area). There are things so bizarre that I'm not even sure if I can call them a moral failing so much as a sickness: RICHMOND, Va. — A Richmond man referred to by police as a "person of interest" in the disappearance of a Virginia Commonwealth University student was arraigned Monday morning on child pornography charges. Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Great Moments in Correlation Analysis One of the great hazards when doing correlation analysis is to assume that correlation indicates causality. If you find that A is present, and so is B, it is tempting to assume that A causes B. But it could also be that B causes A--or perhaps there is some underlying causal factor C that causes both A and B. It could even be a coincidence that A and B are both present. There are methods for showing that the correlation of A and B is not likely to be coincidence, but there is still the problem that you may have not considered all the possible factors that may explain why both A and B are present. So here we have this paper that has apparently been published that compares the United States to other "prosperous developed countries" and concludes that high rates of social problems in the U.S. are caused by the disproportionately religious beliefs of the population: RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.So what other countries is this guy comparing us to? The article isn't terribly specific, but it appears to be Britain, Japan, and a number of European countries. There are, of course, no other significant differences between the U.S. and those other countries. From my own research, I can tell you that there are substantial differences in murder rates within the U.S.--and if you compare the white non-Hispanic murder rate of the U.S., it is quite comparable to Western Europe--places that on average, are white, and non-Hispanic. Nearly all of the difference in murder rates between the U.S. and other "developed countries" is in the black and Hispanic population of the U.S. I'm sure that others will pick apart the other socially destructive behaviors that the paper uses as markers, and point out the numerous ways in which the U.S. is different from Japan and Western Europe. I would like to say that I am amazed that something so obviously junk science would get published in a scholarly journal--but I am really not surprised. Academic standards evaporated when the left seized control of the ivory tower. Victor Davis Hanson On The Corruption of the Academy It's a long piece, with examples of how university presidents have given into the deranged victimology crowd that runs many universities today. I don't mean that they are a majority of the faculty; just that a loud and vicious cadre can achieve its goals if it doesn't let decency or honesty get in the way. As usual, it is long, detailed, and very well-written--I would encourage you to read it in full--especially just before the next vote for more bonds for your state university. There a couple of interesting items that I thought it worthwhile to excerpt to pique your interest. One is about the new chancellor of UC Santa Cruz: But Chancellor Denton has her own shortcomings. They do not revolve around mere impromptu remarks, nor have they been trailed by public apologies and task forces. Yet in its own way her controversy goes to the heart of the same contemporary race-and-gender credo that governs the university, enjoying exemption from normal scrutiny and simple logic.It must be rough to relocate on a combined salary of $467,000. I always wondered why so many faculty were prepared to tolerate not only pretend academic departments ("ethnic studies" for example), but also to have filled so many tenured positions with people whose political agitation took precedence over scholarship (and yes, I mean people like Michael Bellesiles). Professor Hanson has some inside knowledge of the process: For some two decades, I often watched entire departments of 50-something white male philosophy and English professors, themselves often hired ABD ("all but dissertation": a graduate student who hasn't finished his thesis) in the booming job markets of the 1960s--and who subsequently became mostly unpublished and undistinguished classroom teachers--take it upon themselves to hire only minorities and women, lecturing passed-over young white males about the need for diversity. These entrenched and often mediocre senior professors did everything for the cause except take early retirement, though many advised the perennially exploited part-time instructors to "move on" or "get a life."Well, that explains quite a bit, if that was the way things actually worked. Labels: homosexuality Eleven Catholics Priests... No, it's not the start of a joke: CHICAGO — Eleven priests suspected of sexual misconduct with minors more than 20 years ago have been barred from clerical work, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago said Monday.They should have been barred from breathing instead. (Okay, that was a cheap shot.) I try, very hard, to understand why the Catholic Church was so forgiving for several decades of pedophile priests. I can somewhat understand that the Church for a long time was so focused on forgiveness that it didn't realize that they were played by some of these creeps. But that was then; this is now; and the Catholic Church's eyes can't still be shut. I am hard pressed to see why these eleven priests shouldn't be defrocked, and sent out into the cold streets of Chicago to live. Molesting kids is a bad thing; for a clergyman to use his office to do this is even worse; to justify their actions to the victims (as some pedophile priests have done) as a spiritual action adds a new level of evil. Women & Gun Self-Defense Generally, most civilian gun defense use involves men, defending themselves from other men. A little more rarely, it is a woman defending herself from a man. Here's a real strange one: a woman defending herself from a female armed robber: An Albuquerque woman faces armed robbery and child abuse charges after she allegedly tried to rob an Albuquerque bookstore – but was stopped by a clerk at the store. No Lie Too Outrageous There's a guy who is appearing at antiwar protests claiming to be a Republican ashamed of his own party. His name is Jeb Eddy. There's one little problem: Wizbang says: The only problem is that he's a complete fraud.And then lists his political contributions over the last few years--all to Democrats. Just to be sure, I went to OpenSecrets.org and looked up Jeb Eddy of California. Sure enough: every political contribution that Jeb Eddy has given (going all the way back to 1998) is to Democratic candidates and Democratic organizations. There isn't a single one to a Republican or even non-partisan organization. (Click here to see 2004 and 2002 contributions by Jeb Eddy; here to see 2000 and 1998 contributions; here to see that were no 1996 or 1994 contributions.) Now, this sort of dishonesty isn't new. Back in early 2004, the musician Moby had this to say about how Democrats should swing the election to defeat Bush: Moby suggests that it's possible to seed doubt among Bush's far-right supporters on the Web.At the time, I pointed out that you shouldn't believe everything that get in email from supposed Republicans, for this very reason. At about the same time, I started receiving emails from people who claimed to be "lifelong Republicans" and "conservatives" concerned about Bush's Iraq policy. What I found interesting is that the more questions I asked them, and the more I read their responses--it was apparent that they were neither Republicans nor conservatives--and didn't even know enough to be able to fake it well. They were raving leftists, who thought that they were smart enough to lie about their political orientation, and get away with it. It makes you wonder, doesn't it, if the reason that the left is so focused on calling Bush a liar has something to do with projection? This crowd can't be bothered with telling the truth about even something as trivial as their party affiliation. Not surprisingly, this flaming leftist is a wealthy person who lives in Palo Alto. Who else but a millionaire can afford leftist policies? Labels: abortion The Constitution As Genie in The Lamp Professor Volokh is gathering himself all sorts of personal insults for pointing out that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had defended all sorts of bizarre and extreme positions back in the 1970s, when she worked for the ACLU--and yet Republicans still allowed her appointment to the Supreme Court without making a big stink about it. Previously, Volokh has pointed out that Ginsburg supported lowering the age of consent to 12 in federal territories and properties. Now he is pointing out that Ginsburg appears to have argued that prostitution is Constitutionally protected: These [federal] prostitution proscriptions are subject to several constitutional and policy objections. Prostitution, as a consensual act between adults, is arguably within the zone of privacy protected by recent constitutional decisions. See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).Similarly, she seems to have argued that polygamy statutes are unconstitutional: This section [48 U.S.C. §1461] restricts certain rights, including the right to vote or hold office, of bigamists, persons "cohabiting with more than one woman," and women cohabiting with a bigamist. Apart from the male/female differentials, the provision is of questionable constitutionality since it appears to encroach impermissibly upon private relationships. [Endnote: Cf. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 439 (1972).]This is no surprise; the ACLU today argues that polygamy is a Constitutional right, and one that they intend to protect through the courts, as a logical extension of Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Now, there might well be legitimate public policy arguments about whether prostitution should be illegal or not; Nevada's experience suggests that legal and regulated prostitution is more effective at dealing with the problems of pimps and STDs than the current strategy of complete illegalization. It is at least an interesting argument as to whether laws prohibiting polygamy are good or bad; I strongly support such laws, because of the destructive effects that it has when a small number of wealthy men monopolize the supply of women. Nonetheless, whether such laws make good sense or not is completely different from the question of whether they are Constitutional. What I find disturbing in reading through the comments that various readers have made about this subject on Professor Volokh's blog is to what a large extent the U.S. Constitution has become a genie in a lamp: wish for what you want, abuse the document a bit, and a genie (wearing black robes) will grant your wishes. The Constitution defines roles and responsibilities for both federal and state governments. There are some areas where the Constitution and its amendments clearly limit the authority of the government (slavery isn't lawful; requirements for search warrants or probable cause; freedom of speech; freedom of religion). There are other areas where the Constitution clearly grants authority to the government (provide for a national defense; regulate interstate commerce). Much of the legitimate conflict comes down to definitions: is someone growing wheat (or marijuana) that never crosses state lines engaged in interstate commerce? Did the Framers intend for freedom of speech to cover all speech, even the vulgar, slanderous, and that which provokes violence? Is animal sacrifice a protected expression of "freedom of religion"? For the most part, the Constitution leaves the states free to pass whatever laws they deem appropriate for the public welfare. These laws may make sense; they may be stupid--but simply because someone finds a law stupid or ineffective does not make it contrary to the Constitution. Labels: polygamy This Is Your Wakeup Call, America The traditional explanation for the sort of behavior that this news story describes is that the deprivation and want of ghetto life makes animals out of kids like this. Please explain why it is that these victims of deprivation and want used their camera cell phones to send pictures of the crime. Even I don't have a camera cell phone. Four Central Florida middle school students were arrested Monday for allegedly ripping off the clothes off classmates and then snapping photos with their cell phones, according to a Local 6 News report.The media is soaking boys in a culture that says that girls are sexual objects, available for the use of whatever pimp can get their hands on them. There comes a certain point where the results of what the entertainment industry produces is destructive enough that something has to be done. I'm not sure what, exactly, but this is completely out of control. Media Racism As The Cause? The Los Angeles Times discussion of the reports of horrifying crimes in the Superdome has a pretty searing indictment of the news media, and suggests that race had something to do with it: Journalists and officials who have reviewed the Katrina disaster blamed the inaccurate reporting in large measure on the breakdown of telephone service, which prevented dissemination of accurate reports to those most in need of the information. Race may have also played a factor.I don't find this hard to believe as an explanation. I suspect that racism is actually quite a bit more common among the very liberal news media than they like to admit. Still: I find myself wondering why it is that the most outrageous claims were being perpetuated by black public officials (like Mayor Nagin) and black civil rights leader Randall "cannibalism" Robinson? Why is that this account by a couple of law professors upset about how badly white America is treating black refugees repeats similar stories from the Astrodome? Something is still not right here. Monday, September 26, 2005
This Isn't A Typical News Story From Around Here Largely because of the make of stolen car: At about 5:40 p.m. Thursday, Garden City police went to Auto Access at 5225 W. Chinden to check for a stolen Ferrari. When they arrived, they discovered Michael Widner, 26, sitting alone in the car.What? They didn't charge him with littering? Whenever I Start To Feel Old... I read a news story like this: When the surviving members of a World War II fighter squadron hold their reunion in Boise this week, old friends likely will swap stories of camaraderie, heroism and romance.And suddenly, I feel young! Why I Get Angry At The ACLU's Campaign... To turn pedophilia from a crime into a Constitutional right. The news story below involves an adult and a bunch of girls. It does not appear that any of them were the victims of forcible rape. The middle school and high school? They are less than a mile from my house; my son attended the middle school, and now attends the high school. This is not an abstraction: A former Meridian School District teacher serving life in prison for rape and having sex with underage students in the 1980s is up for parole this spring — and one of his victims said she can't believe that he could be paroled.I keep making this point--and the advocates of lowering or abolishing the age of consent keep pretending otherwise--kids overwhelmingly lack the emotional maturity to recognize manipulation by a skilled adult predator. This Is So "Duh!" John Lott and Mario Villarreal point out that a recent commission appointed to look into the problem of voter fraud suggested that requiring a photo ID before you can vote would substantially solve this problem--and the responses of some Democrats make you wonder how much of a vested interest they have in maintaining a system of voter fraud: ON Monday, a bipartisan commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter and ex-Secretary of State James Baker surprised most observers and agreed that Americans should be required to have photo IDs to vote. In fact, though the American debate over this is vitriolic, photo IDs are commonly used to prevent voter fraud across the world.I really don't like the idea of requiring people to have IDs, but I like even less the idea of "Vote early, vote often." You may remember the brief concern last year when Milwaukee--a city with 382,000 registered voters--asked the state to supply them with 938,000 ballots for the general election. Powerful Editorial in the Wall Street Journal About Katrina Rebuilding It points out that the vast quantity of money that Congress is being guilt-ridden into appropriating for rebuilding is going to among the most corrupt states in America: "We're getting a lot of calls" on emergency aid abuses, reports Gen. Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. Last week, police officers found a treasure trove of food, drinks, chainsaws and roof tarps in the home of Cedric Floyd, chief administrative officer for the Jefferson Parish suburb of Kenner. Mr. Floyd is one of several city workers who will likely be charged with pilfering.I am pleased to report that my representative in the House was one of eleven members with the good sense and courage to vote against the Katrina relief bill. An Interesting Explanation for Canada's Failed Gun Registry The Winnipeg Sun has a report indicating that the existing scandal in which government funds were given to ad agencies that did very little--so that they could contribute money to the Liberal Party--may be small potatoes compared to the billion dollars Canadian spent on Canada's gun registration program. (Original estimated cost: $2 million Canadian.) I had assumed all this time that the problem with this program was really gross incompetence, but the Winnipeg Sun article gives the impression that something a bit more corrupt is being done with the money. Captain's Quarters is suggesting that this waste of money may have even a darker motivation: Like most gun-control programs, it has done little to remove weapons from the hands of criminals, making the overall effect of the registry more onerous on law-abiding gun owners. It also cost much more than the Liberals acknowledged at the initiation of the program; the registry has drained finances from other law-enforcement efforts. |
