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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Saturday, October 22, 2005
Kansas Supreme Court Revisits Limon Post-Lawrence Briefly, the Kansas Supreme Court refused to accept the ACLU's argument that minors had a "liberty interest" in having sex with adults, but did rule that the Kansas statute that punished adults having homosexual sex with minors more severely than adults having heterosexual sex with minors violated the equal protection clause. The argument is a bit complex, but there argument really comes down to this: Kansas had no rational basis for treating heterosexual child molesters less harshly than homosexual child molesters: As this review of the legislative history reflects, there is nothing in the legislative record regarding the legislative purpose for adding the opposite sex requirement. The only legislative purposes recorded relate to the general goal of less harsh punishment for those 18 years old and younger who had voluntary sex with another teen who was at least 14 and the goal of adjusting sentence disparities. It was opponents to the legislation who raised public health and moral concerns and none of them related to the difference between heterosexual and homosexual conduct.I don't dispute this. I see no reason why an adult molesting a minor should be treated lightly--the minor in most cases lacks the capacity to make this decision, and in all cases, the minor lacks the right to make major decisions like this; that's the parents' job. As some of the opponents to this special treatment observed: "2. LEGAL. . . . What is the state interest in making a distinction based on the difference in age? Is the victim less fondled or, in the extreme case, made less pregnant, simply because a defendant is near her own age? . . ." Testimony on S.B. 131 before the House Judiciary Committee, March 16, 1999.Now, there's one aspect of this decision that bothers me a great deal: Thus, we are directed in our equal protection analysis by the United States Supreme Court's holding in Lawrence that moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest.Our whole legal system is built on the idea that members of some "groups" are immoral, and should be punished: robbers; burglars; rapists; murderers; confidence men; drunk drivers. Now, you might want to argue that homosexuality isn't in the same category as these "groups," and I would not disagree. But the claim that "moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest" would mean scrapping most of our legal system. The U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence really meant, "government isn't allowed to disapprove of this group." What is rather amusing is that the ACLU wanted the "Romeo and Juliet" provision rewritten to apply to both heterosexual and homosexual molestation, so that Limon could be resentenced with the much lighter provisions: Limon asks this court to: (1) strike the language from the Romeo and Juliet statute that limits its application to members of the opposite sex and (2) reverse and remand this case with instructions that the State initiate any further proceedings under the Romeo and Juliet law within 30 days. The State argues that this court cannot judicially rewrite the statute and contends that, if the court were to declare the challenged classification unconstitutional, it must nullify the statute.The Kansas Supreme Court spent some time justifying striking the entire age difference provision--so that instead of Limon getting the lighter sentence, heterosexual molesters no longer get a lighter sentence: We hold K.S.A. 2004 Supp. 21-3522 unconstitutional as violating the equal protection provisions of the United States and Kansas Constitutions and strike from the statute the words "and are members of the opposite sex." We further hold that Limon's conviction and sentence for criminal sodomy pursuant to K.S.A. 21-3505(a)(2) violate his right to equal protection of the laws.The net result is that molesting kids, regardless of sexual orientation, is now a serious crime in Kansas--as it should well be. UPDATE: Several readers have told that I have misread the decision concerning the change to the law. Indeed I did. They didn't remove the Romeo-and-Juliet provision--which would have made sense, considering that they pointed to evidence of legislative concern that heterosexual relationships with a four year age gap can be quite destructive--they removed the exemption for heterosexual relationships. They did give the ACLU what it wanted--equality of treatment for homosexuals not by making heterosexual molestation more severely punished, by making homosexual molestation less severely punished. I am disappointed. Labels: child sexual abuse, homosexuality Where Did Al-Qaeda Get Its Money? Perhaps, indirectly, from the U.S. taxpayers, through our "contributions" to the U.N.: NEW YORK — The scandal engulfing the United Nations Procurement Department (search) now appears to be bottomless. It also shows signs of growing more sinister, especially where it involves a mysterious private company called IHC Services (search), which did big business with the procurement department until it was removed from U.N. rosters in June.Read the whole story; it makes a strong argument for cleaning house at the U.N. (perhaps with flamethrowers). Interesting Story For What Is Left Unsaid As you know, along with my co-blogger Pete Drum, I run the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog, where we record with minimal comment excerpts from news stories of civilians engaging in lawful self-defense with guns in the United States. When I started that blog, I expected to find, along with a lot of completely righteous victims fighting back, at least a few criminals who were engaged in otherwise lawful self-defense. Drug dealers get robbed, of course, and are often armed. What has surprised me is how rare this has turned out to be. I also confess that I expected to find quite a few cases (perhaps 15-20%) that fit the model that gun control advocates claim is common: people that could have safely backed away from a confrontation, but used a gun when they really didn't need to do so. Remember that we are relying on news accounts of these incidents, and the news media, overall, are pretty biased against gun ownership, so I would expect that the news coverage of what I call "legal but unnecessary uses" would not miss the chance to impugn the intelligence or morals of the defenders. While I haven't kept statistics on this, I have been startled at how few situations fit that description. There have been a few--but very few. It is interesting to read a news account like this one that leaves no question that the authorities consider this to be a legitimate act of self-defense--but there's a lot of implications hidden between the lines: CLARION - The 21-year-old Clarion University student who was shot to death Wednesday night was one of two intruders in an attempted robbery at the South Fifth Avenue residence, authorities announced Friday.Okay, so far, clear enough--Rusnock sounds like a complete victim in this, giving Mills a chance to not die. Then you see these odd statements in the story: Aaron and LeVier said the incident is still very much under investigation and additional arrests are possible.Of who? They have already decided that Rusnock's use of deadly force was legitimate--and the only other invader has been arrested. Ballistics tests are pending, the district attorney said, as are autopsy results.If they have made a decision not to charge Rusnock with killing Mills, what is being investigated? Officials also remain tight-lipped about the motivation for the alleged home invasion.To avoid libeling Rusnock, and also to avoid biasing a jury pool (since you know what an enormous readership I must have in Clarion, Pennsylvania), I won't say anything more, but the intelligent reader can read between the lines on this, I think. Friday, October 21, 2005
I'm Glad Michael Brown No Longer Runs FEMA Michelle Malkin has images of the emails back and forth between the FEMA grunts actually trying to save lives, and what it shows about Michael Brown is pretty telling. As she points out, this doesn't excuse the incompetence of state and city officials, but it sure suggests that Michael Brown was unqualified for his position. Harriet Miers might have been a better choice. Has Australia Perfected The Robotic Meter Maid? You might wonder: SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian authorities have apologized to the family of an elderly man who was given a parking ticket while he lay dead in his car in a suburban shopping center. Bizarre Misuses of An Image One of the more surprising aspects of the movie Blast From the Past which I praised highly a few days ago, was a scene where our hero goes into a nightclub called the "40s Club." At the time the movie came out, swing dancing had come back in a very big way (my daughter was doing a lot of at the time), and of course, our hero, being raised in an underground idealized 1950s America, turns out to be the best dancer in the place. One startling aspect of this scene was a Humphrey Bogart lookalike delivering the line out of Casablanca about "of all the gin joints" that she could have come in--but altered into a welcoming speech to the guests. I don't know if this was a piece of video magic, or just one of the many excellent Bogie lookalikes that are out there--but it really worked! Here's a lookalike use that doesn't sound like it should work at all: BEIJING (Reuters) - Late Chairman Mao Zedong is experiencing a revival in northeast China, but in an unlikely role -- as a wedding MC.There's no picture of him in the article, nor could I find one with Google. I guess Mao hasn't been sufficiently demonized by history in China yet. Somehow, I can't picture weddings MCed by an Adolf Hitler lookalike (except at very odd weddings). Really Good Article About The Nigerian Scammers You know all that email you get that starts out in very fractured English, "You are probably surprised to be receiving this email, since we have not previously made your acquaintance"? The guy (rarely, girl) has access to tens of millions of dollars--but to get the money, he needs some assistance from you. Respond to the email, and you will soon be asked to provide bank account numbers, perhaps front a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to set up the transaction--and if you are really gullible, they persuade you to fly to Nigeria, where you can be robbed by people claiming to be the police. (This Los Angeles Times article indicates that they may actually be police.) Anyway, the important quote is this from "Samuel" who has recently stopped doing this line of work: Scammers, he said, "have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy. They say the American guy has a good life. There's this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way."Just about every email scam like this that I have bothered to read emphasizes that the transaction is somewhat shady--that either the money was stolen from a government ministry, or it belongs to someone else, who died without heirs--something that indicates that you are getting something that you don't deserve, with little or no effort on your part. I can't ever approve of fraud, but the saying, "You can't cheat an honest man" certainly applies to the vast majority of these scams. This Isn't Just About Fraud It's also about corporations that need to pull in the reins a bit on what is often euphemistically called "customer development": American Express is suing the CEO of a communications company for payment of $241,000 worth of disputed credit card charges at a Manhattan topless club.Scores might indeed be dishonest about the charges, but there are a lot of corporations that are turning a blind eye to outrageous amounts of money being spent on prostitution and "adult entertainment." I worked in Marketing for one company some years back, and ended up going to Atlanta for a trade show. I went to the state archives; the rest of the group that I worked in (all married) went to a lap dance place--and I understand that hundreds of dollars categorized as "drinks" ended up on the expense report. Even if the morality of this doesn't bother you, the inefficiency should. There comes a certain point where these are not legitimate business expenses. You don't have to eat at fast food burger joints every night (although I did do so on several nights of that trip--to the amusement of our Accounting Department), but neither do you need to be spending money on lap dances marked on receipts as "drinks." Promoting Genocide Would you believe it? There's a professor who makes Professor Ward Churchill's statement calling the victims of the 9/11 attacks "little Eichmanns" seem moderate. This guy argues that all members of a particular race on this planet should be exterminated. You thought this had gone out of fashion with the death of Adolf Hitler, didn't you? Well, I'm afraid not. From Carolina Journal Online: RALEIGH — A Raleigh activist and bookstore owner told a panel at Howard University Law School on Oct. 14 that the solution to many of the problems faced by black people is the extermination of “white people off the face of the planet.” Dr. Kamau Kambon, who taught Africana Studies 241 in the Spring 2005 semester at North Carolina State University, also said this needs to be done “because white people want to kill us.”Professor Mike Adams gives a bit more of the context of the quote, but it doesn't help Kambon: And then finally I want to say that we need one idea, and we're not thinking about a solution to the problem. We're thinking about all these other things, but we're not dealing with a solution to the problem. And we have to start to think about a solution to the problem so that these young brothers and sisters who are here now, who are 15, 16 or 17, are not here 25 years later talking about these same problems.Now, Mike Adams says that North Carolina State University claims that Kambon is no longer affiliated with them--but at least as of right now, Kambon does continue to appear on their web site: Other Affiliated Faculty of InstructorsDo you suppose that calling for the extermination of an entire race is protected as "academic freedom"? I am beginning to see why I don't really have any future in academia. UPDATE: I guess the web page wasn't updated when he wasn't rehired at the end of the spring semester. Quick! Call The ACLU! To quote Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003) quoting Casey: These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.The news story is too gross to quote in full: A man was arrested after neighbors reported seeing him sexually assaulting his family's 10-year-old female Rottweiler, police said.And then it gets really unpleasant. He was convicted of exhibitionism last December and the police were just now getting around to arresting him? Thursday, October 20, 2005
Need Large Quantity of Very Small Silicone Gasket Sealant Tubes The typical size of silicone gasket sealant is 2.8 oz. or 3 oz. I need a source for really, really small tubes--say, 0.5 oz., and at an appropriately reduced price. I will need dozens of them, and on a recurring basis. I have decided that optimum performance of the ScopeRoller 11 and ScopeRoller Titan caster assemblies will be achieved by including a small tube of gasket sealant. I've discovered that this makes such a tight fit that the slop problems that have troubled some customers just go away if we put a little on the leg inserts. For reasons of cost and shipping weight, I want a really, really tiny quantity of this stuff. I've been out using Froogle, but I haven't found anyone selling smaller tubes than 2.8 oz. Understanding Multiculturalism Apparently the Dutch Minister of Integration, Rita Verdonk, has announced that, "The time for cosy tea-drinking with Muslim groups is over.Â? She has made it clear that Muslim immigrants can either integrate into Dutch society, or enjoy their tour of the Netherlands before returning home. She is looking for some way to prohibit the wearing of burkhas in public! Anyway, in the midst of a discussion of what this gutsy politician is doing, David Warren manages to articulate what I have long hated about multiculturalism: Now, in the multicultural view, anything is okay, so long as it is not traditional. Gay marriage is okay, pornography is okay, public prostitution is okay, abortion and euthanasia are okay, and of course, massive immigration from non-Western societies is more than okay. Indeed, anything that tends to dissolve the traditional order of society is okay. On the other hand, any effort to preserve traditional social and family structures, and their supporting moral order, is marked as Â?oppressiveÂ? under proliferating Â?human rights codesÂ?.Exactly. Every culture, to a multiculturalist, is equally valuable--except America's culture, because it is Christian, narrow, and conservative. Traditional doesn't make something okay. In some parts of the country, "traditional" meant racism, separate and crummy schools for blacks, and lynching. In too many parts of the country, "traditional" still means that education is a waste of time, and a woman's place is in the kitchen--not talking about politics with the men. Multiculturalism's problem is not that it objects to destructive cultural artifacts in America--it is that it refuses to levy equivalent criticism of Middle Eastern clitordectomy, the hip-hop culture that degrades women, and mass murder and rape when committed by thugs in Darfur and Baghdad. There are behaviors that are right and wrong--and the wrong ones are not confined to the United States. An Interesting Transaction Costs Problem My stepmother-in-law really can't (or shouldn't) drive anymore. She is now living in Canada--but her 1992 Nissan Sentra can't be driven there. Apparently the automatic seatbelts used on that model year for U.S. cars aren't lawful in Canada, so her sons can't use the car themselves, or sell it in Canada. The car has a few minor dents on the outside, but works well, and has no major problems. (I drove it up from California to Idaho.) They can take it back to the United States to sell it--but they are far enough from the border that it isn't just a matter of running an ad in the paper, and waiting for people to come and look at it. (They can't legally drive it in Canada, anyway. They will have to have it towed or carried to the U.S.--about $200 or so.) Car dealers in Bellingham will only give them about $1100 for it--and it is in pretty good shape. The sons offered to give it to either of my kids--but the time and cost of travelling to Vancouver to get it makes this far less attractive than it first appears. If there was someone in Washington State who had a rig that could tow or carry this Nissan, and spend a little time getting the California title transferred to Washington, they could pick this pretty nice car up for a bargain price. Why Bush Picked Miers Dr. John Lott has done a statisical analysis of how long it takes to get a federal judge, or a Supreme Court justice, confirmed--and concludes that the more obviously qualified you are for the job, the longer it takes: According to a study of judicial nominations I recently completed, the less distinguished the nominee--the less intellectually accomplished, the less prolific, the less impressive the record--the more likely it is that he or she will be confirmed. It also helps to be old, white and female.I really wish that Bush had picked someone like Judge Michael McConnell or Judge Janice Rogers Brown, but I wonder if he picked Miers for exactly this reason: fast confirmation means that Justice O'Connor (a turncoat) gets off the bench that much more quickly. UPDATE: Here's Lott's paper in Journal of Empirical Legal Studies concerning this. Another Mental Illness Tragedy I saw this mentioned on Fox News this morning--according to some reports, this woman is schizophrenic, and had stopped taking her medicine: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Coast Guard resumed searching for two missing children Thursday, a day after their mother allegedly threw them into San Francisco Bay near Fishermen's Wharf. The body of a third sibling was recovered.I don't know if California's insane mental illness laws are a factor in this tragedy or not; I do know that schizophrenia produces enormous grief among family and friends. Early recognition and treatment seems to be more effective, but unless you know what to look for, you won't recognize the need to get a loved one into a doctor. (And no, split personality is not schizophrenia, in spite of the common misunderstanding of the word.) Here's a list of symptoms that should cause you to start looking deeper. A Victory in Congress Both houses have now passed a bill protecting the gun industry from the negligent marketing suits that the gun control groups have been using to try and shut down the industry: WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill that would protect the firearms industry from massive lawsuits brought by crime victims. The White House says President Bush will sign it into law.Unregulated? If someone with no knowledge of the subject made this statement, it would be simple ignorance. But Kristen Rand can't possibly think the gun industry is "unregulated." Manufacturers are restricted on the caliber of weapons that they can sell without being classified as "destructive devices." They can't make rifles with barrels shorter than 16" or shotguns shorter than 18" without being classified as NFA weapons (with complex restrictions on sale, including fingerprinting and background checks). They can't make handguns with shoulder stocks without the same NFA restrictions, or guns that don't look like guns. Machine guns? They haven't be able to make those for private ownership since 1986. Every gun manufactured must have a serial number. Guns may not be sold or transferred across state lines except through a licensed dealer (with a couple of exceptions for inheritances). Gun dealers must keep detailed records of all guns bought and sold, and must run a background check for all purchases. Dealers may not sell handguns to anyone under the age of 21, or long guns to anyone under the age of 18. Many states have additional regulatory measures to control gun sales. Gun manufacturers are still responsible for injuries caused by guns that malfunction. Manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers can still be held responsible for injuries caused by unlawful and knowing transfers of guns without the proper background check or license. This is an unregulated industry? UPDATE: I think this is a permanent link to the text of the bill as passed by both houses. UPDATE 2: If you want to find out how "unregulated" the firearms industry is, click here for ATF P 5300.5 State Laws and Published Ordinances - Firearms (2005 - 26th Edition) and here for ATF P 5300.4 - Federal Firearms Regulations Reference Guide 2000 (1/00). Yeah, unregulated. Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Adventures in Machining I won an auction on eBay for a Sherline 5000 vertical mill, including a mill vise and some tooling: $325 plus $23 shipping. The House Project: Door Frames Ever wondered how door frames work? Neither did I, but someone out there must be curious. First of all, there's the door frame itself, to which the door hinges attach. At least most of the time there's also some bric-a-brac that hides the ugliness of how the door frame attaches to the studs, and hides where floors meet walls. These moldings are called base (floor meets wall), case (along the right and left side of interior doors), and header (at the top of interior doors). Okay, I'm a typical guy; I never look at these things when I buy a house. I don't particularly care, as long as they aren't incredibly obstrusive or grab my sleeve as walk in the door. My wife cares about these things (as wives often do), so we spent a lot of time at the moldings store, picking out exactly the right combination. Anyway, our builder scratched his head when he started putting the case and headers onto doors and asking, "Is this right?" His fashion sense is ultratraditional, and so I had to run up to take some pictures and make sure that the molding store delivered the right stuff. They did--but you get a chance to see how all of this fits together in the building of a house. Here you can see that there is a bit of space between the frame itself and the studs into which the frame is nailed--which the case and header moldings conceal.  Click to enlarge  Click to enlarge Here's a door with the case and header in place.  Click to enlarge Here's a closeup.  Click to enlarge We're going to have the case and header painted to match the doors, not the walls. Here's one of the carpenters cutting the moldings to size on a miter saw.  Click to enlarge Oh yeah, I couldn't get away without a picture of the view from the family room! It's a little dark because of the brightness contrast, and that black out of focus object is a bug of some sort on the inside of the sliding door.  Click to enlarge Previous house entry. Labels: house project Thermocouple Generators (Part 2) Thanks for all the responses. No, this isn't for the new house. The temperature differentials just aren't there. In winter, it may be 10 degrees at night and 65 inside the house; in summer, the water coming from the well might be 55, and the outside air temperature about 85 degrees in the late afternoon. These are not sufficient differentials to produce any significant electric power. I am not at liberty to explain exactly what my interest is--except that I have identified a source of absolutely free heat energy on public lands--and there's a lot of it. I am working the math to see if there's economic potential. While I wasn't thinking of it for the house, this article from the August/September 1993 Home Power reviews a commercial thermoelectric generator, the Teledyne 2T4P, which burns propane gas for the heat source, and generates about 750 watt-hours per day. The author pointed out that used strictly as an electricity source, it isn't cheap--but if you use the heat generated by burning the propane to warm the cabin, it is suddenly very economical--producing most space heat and electricity. Several of these might make sense as a winter alternative for those of us in cold climates where winter days are too short for photovoltaics to make much power. Global Thermoelectric is a Canadian company that offers thermocouple electricity generators: Global Thermoelectric is the world's largest supplier of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) and one of the world’s leading suppliers of remote power systems since 1975.Here's the website of the Icelandic company that I mentioned: Varmaraf ehf was founded in 2000 around applications of thermoelectricity in harnessing geothermal power, which is abundant in Iceland, where the company is based. Varmaraf has recently introduced globally unique thermoelectric generators as a result of an extensive product development effort. Their economic construction and means of achieving the world's highest available power density through innovative heat exchanger design are protected by patent applications. These devices are substantially more economical than solar generators when a stable excess heat source is available. The marketing effort is focused on off-grid applications until more efficient solid state means of converting thermal energy to electricity replace thermoelectrics.Here's a company in New Mexico that builds thermocouple electricity generators designed to sit on exhaust stacks and other high heat source components of industrial processes, so they are a cogenerator. This company FerroTec has bought the Teledyne power generation thermocouple product line--and they haven't finished updating their webpages to reflect this yet. Hi-Z is a consumer-oriented maker of thermocouple generators. Their HZ-20 product can produce 19 watts of power with a 200 degree Celsius differential. There's a nice graph on the HZ-20 product page showing how power output increases as the temperature differential increases. In addition, as the cold side gets colder, the power output goes up as well. The HZ-20 costs $154 for one unit. Outrageous Claims By Pat Robertson and Patrick Kennedy I mentioned two outrageous statements earlier today, one by Pat Robertson, one by Patrick Kennedy. It turns out that one of those outrageous came from a source that is not correct. Click here to find out which. You may be surprised. House Bans Obesity Lawsuits Against Food Industry Throughout most of human history, if you had said, "There will come a day when food will be so cheap and so available that most of the population will get grossly fat" almost everyone would have laughed, because the prospect of food ever getting that cheap would have seemed implausible. I thought the lawsuits against gun makers for "negligent marketing" were outrageous, but lawsuits against McDonald's because some of their customers lacked the self-control to stop eating really made my blood boil: House lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill banning obesity-related lawsuits against restaurants and food manufacturers. More than 20 states already have such laws on the books.I could stand to lose a few pounds myself, but I know where the fault lies--not with Jack-in-the-Box, or Wendy's, or Pizza Hut, but with myself. I like to eat--and if I fail to exercise sufficient self-discipline on this, it is my fault, not theirs. For anyone who finds such lawsuits sensible, here's a scenario that should make you realize how absurd these claims are. Lots of Americans spend too much time on the couch, watching the idiot box. One consequence is a generation that doesn't read, with poor health from lack of exercise. Should they have a right to sue the television networks and cable channels for putting too many interesting programs on the air? My Cat The Gang Member I've mentioned previously that as cute as Tater Tot is, he has delusions of being a lion, or at least a mountain lion.  Now he has another irritating quality. As you are doubtless aware, male cats (and less frequently, female cats) will mark their territory, usually by urinating on it, which leaves a distinctive scent marker. The human equivalent is when gang members "tag" territory with spray paint. (At least Tater Tot doesn't wield a pistol.) If you get a male cat fixed young enough, they usually don't start doing this, and Tater Tot wasn't a problem until...the sporran. A sporran is a traditional Scottish type of purse, worn with a kilt, often made of fur or leather. My wife is a member of a Scottish pipe and drum band, and so she borrowed a sporran from a friend. What was this sporran made of? It seemed to be fur. But what kind of fur? I think I can now guess. You see, shortly after Rhonda brought this furry bag into the house, Tater Tot went a bit crazy. First, he was on top of the sporran, demonstrating dominance. Then he started to mark territory--as if to tell this sporran (or at least the cat I suspect it was made from) whose territory this was. Anyway, the sporran immediately left the house, and my wife went on a cleaning rampage. But Tater Tot hasn't stopped. Anything that resembles his soft little bed--including my backpack, and a laundry basket--now must be given a gang-tag. Spraying him in the face with water isn't working. Suggestions? ID To Vote Law Struck Down in Georgia I happen to think there's some merit to requiring ID to vote--especially because of my experiences running for Santa Monica City Council in 1981. There was at least one that were still registered to vote, apparently having voted in the 1980 general election--but the manager of the building assured me this voter had been dead for at least four years. Nonetheless, this report indicates that a federal judge ruled that Georgia's law requiring ID effectively was a poll tax (which is contrary to the 24th Amendment prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections), because you had to pay $20 to get an ID card if you didn't have a driver's license. Worse, there wasn't a single place in the city of Atlanta to get an alternative ID card. I think the ID card requirement is a good one. Georgia needs to make the ID cards free, and make sure that they are a bit more accessible. Nice Column by John Stossel About Gun Control Stossel is an ABC reporter who often challenges liberal assumptions--in spite of who he works for. While this column isn't going to be news to anyone that has studied the issue, it is nice to see this news potentially getting out to the masses. I like this little touch: What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons? I put that question to gun-control advocate Rev. Al Sharpton. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "We'd be living in a state of terror!" Blaming God, Blaming Republicans Pat Robertson says that: Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year’s Emmy Awards. “By choosing an avowed lesbian for this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God’s wrath,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club” on Sunday. “Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?”Silly? Sure. But there's a secular equivalent: Meanwhile, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested that Katrina's devastation might be karmic payback for "the central role that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol" — prompting one New York newspaper to mock: "The left now believes it can control the weather."Notice the similarity? Both groups are looking for someone to blame, and while the secularists won't call it "sin," you can certainly see that they regard pollution with the same horror and revulsion that Pat Robertson regards Ellen DeGeneres. UPDATE: One of the "news stories" above turns out not to be true. Care to guess which one? The one quoting Pat Robertson. It turns out that datelinehollywood.com is a satire site: Good satire neatly straddles the divide between the believable and the incredible, and the Dateline Hollywood article quoted above achieved that balance so well that many readers mistook it for a straight news article. ... Those not quite convinced that the Dateline Hollywood article really was intended as satire are invited to read that web publication's explanation of their history, starting with their founding in 360 BC as Gladiators Weekly. Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Thermocouple Generators It is possible to generate electricity from heat difference across two dissimilar metals. This is called the Seebeck effect, and radioactive heat sources have been used to provide electricity for space probes that are headed far from the Sun, and a few isolated places here on Earth. The energy produced is not terribly substantial until the temperature differential is quite large--typically a couple hundred degrees. Still, thermocouple generators have some great advantages: no moving parts to wear out; effectively maintenance free; quiet. If you use base metals you often sacrifice some power output, but at the advantage of reduced capital investment. I started hunting for commercial thermocouple generator makers, and I found one--in Iceland. No surprise, that is the nation of fire and ice--and one of their production units provides electricity to a volcano observatory there. One end goes into the burning hot ground, the other into the glacier. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the web page address for the company, and I haven't been able to figure out what the google string was that I used to find it. Are you aware of any thermocouple generator makers? Planning A Bit Too Far Ahead Instapundit is all ga-ga over a National Academy of Sciences event: Space Settlement: Homesteading on the Moon?Now, I'm a firm believer in forward thinking, but isn't this just a bit too far in the future? Disputes about real estate ownership--like disputes about other forms of ownership--usually involve something that is in scarce supply. The surface area of the Moon (like any other sphere) is pi * diameter squared--or 14,657,402 square miles. That's 9,380,737,474 acres. Even if, say, one million people manage to migrate and stake out their claims (which I find rather unlikely), that's still more than 14 square miles of Moon per person. Now, it is true that not all land is equally valuable. The proof is the comparative price of land in central Nevada and coastal California. But at this point, the only significant difference between different parts of the Moon is that the south polar region probably has ice--but there's a lot of the south polar region--and I would imagine that the 59% of the Moon that has an Earth view is going to be quite a bit more valuable than the dark side. (As much as I want a dark sky for observing--and that would be a very dark sky--not having a view of the green hills of Earth might be a bit too depressing.) It is certainly true that land nearest the spaceports is going to be most valuable--but there not being any spaceports on the Moon yet, I think it is a bit premature to be worrying about that. I think the time to start worrying about property rights on the Moon will be when the first permanent settlement happens. Too Stupid To Stay Out Of Prison Normally, you pass large counterfeit bills one a time, in the hopes that the clerk who accepts the fake money won't remember you. As a general rule, you don't buy a stick of gum with a fake $100 bill; it is just too obvious that you are making change. It is even smarter not to counterfeit big bills, because they do tend to draw attention. This guy takes the cake for really, really stupid. Note the denomination of the bills. Then look at how he tried to use them, and where: Police in Twin Falls, Idaho, have almost $1 billion in fake money locked up in their evidence room — but it's not taking up that much space because the face value of every bill is $1 million, according to The Times-News.The article goes on to say that they are actually pretty good counterfeits, better than average. But I don't believe that one million dollar notes were ever printed, or at least, if they were, they were strictly used as exchange between Federal Reserve Banks. Nothing larger than the $10,000 bill was ever in circulation--and to try to hand them to a bank as collateral for a loan? Oh my, too stupid to stay out of prison. Hinrichs Suicide: Someone Is Not Playing Straight I mentioned a few days ago that the Wall Street Journal decided that there was nothing to the claims made by local media and repeated by a number of blogs that Hinrichs was a Muslim convert, and there was reason to suspect some terrorist intentions when he blew himself up (and apart) 100 yards from a crowded stadium. So explain why the next game to be played in that stadium has new security precautions in effect? Apparently, University of Oklahoma President David Boren described it as to handle severe weather or other emergencies. Here's a local newspaper article about the enhanced security measures--which are clearly intended to deal with a terrorist attack: They include bomb X-ray devices, many security cameras placed throughout the stadium and concrete barriers to block off streets or sidewalks.Is Boren worried that someone is going to smuggle a tornado into the stadium in a backpack? Hinrichs as a lone suicide with no terrorist connections doesn't make much sense when you look at these enhanced security measures. Encouraging Retaliation I mentioned a few weeks back that an initiative is being circulated in Massachusetts to define marriage as "one man, one woman." Homosexuals have set up a web site where those who sign will have their home addresses listed. The clear intent is intimidation. Here's a homosexual who has stated his intent to discriminate in employment based on who signs it: Well, think about it for a moment: by signing the petition, you are indicating that you believe there should be a second class of citizens with fewer civil rights than everyone else in the United States. I think that's fundamentally UnAmerican: this country is supposed to offer equal protection under the law. Why should I ever welcome you into my home? Or into my business? Indeed, why shouldn't I lead a protest rally against you in front of your home?Except that homosexuals insist that it should be unlawful for businesses to discriminate based on sexual orientation--hence, the ACLU's lawsuit against a printer who refused to print gay wedding announcements. Monday, October 17, 2005
Animal Cruelty! Call PETA! Whoops, It Is PETA! People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is tremendously self-righteous--but look who has just been charged: WINTON, N.C. — The cats and dogs two PETA employees have been charged with euthanizing and dumping in an Ahoskie garbage bin were killed by injections of pentobarbital, a barbiturate commonly used to put down animals, according to new warrants issued and served on Friday. Anyone Remember The Valerie Plame Affair? For all the talk about how the revealing of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative was going to bring down either Bush, or Cheney, or Karl Rove, or Scooter Libby (one of Cheney's aides) it is astonishing how little meat there has been to this story. Judith Miller, recently having testified before the grand jury for the fourth time, discusses what she told the grand jury, here. The short story is that if Scooter Libby intentionally "outed" Valerie Plame, he did it so carefully that it left no footprints in Judith Miller's memory or notes. Nor, it appears, did any other reporter get this information from any administration official. Progressive Reimagining of Constitutional History When I was teaching Constitutional History a couple of years back at Boise State, I pointed out that the "nine old men" who struck down so much of the New Deal legislation were not quite the reactionary conservatives that some would like to imagine. I pointed out that these "conservatives" decided Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), which struck down an Oregon law that was effectively a ban on parochial schools. This was based on Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), which struck down a Nebraska law against teaching foreign languages to elementary school students. These are definitely part of the same laissez-faire approach that motivated Lochner v. New York (1905) (everyone boo and hiss!) Similarly, in Powell v. Alabama (1932), the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment imposed on the states a right to not simply counsel, but adequate and competent counsel. (This is the Scottsboro boys case: a bunch of black teenagers and young men accused of raping a white woman--which charge she later recanted--and sentenced to death.) Stromberg v. California (1931) is another example of that "reactionary" Supreme Court striking down a California law that banned the display of red flags and other symbols of Communism and anarchism. And all of this takes place before Roosevelt has a chance to put any progressive or liberal justices on the Court. Professor David Bernstein has published a review in American Historical Review, which he has also put on the Volokh Conspiracy blog, of Ken Kersch's new book, Constructing Civil Liberties. It is worth reading Bernstein's review in full, but he makes the point that progressives have often been in opposition to civil liberties, and that they have reimagined constitutional history to make themselves look good: The whiggish narrative also asserts that a defining characteristic of American progressivism has been solicitude for the rights of oppressed minorities, especially African Americans. In fact, however, before the New Deal era most progressives were at best indifferent to African Americans’ plight. Indeed, some were openly hostile to African American, and launched such progressive schemes as the wave of residential segregation laws that swept through the United States in the 1910s. These laws were invalidated by a unanimous decision of the “conservative” Supreme Court in Buchanan v. Warley in 1917, to a chorus of criticism by progressive legal scholars. Sunday, October 16, 2005
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