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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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Gun Laws Don't Work
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Amitai Etzioni's Blog
Scrappleface -- Dangerously Clever Satire
Michael Williams -- Master of None
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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
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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!)
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Click here for a FREE NEWSLETTER on Ohio Gun Rights from Buckeye Firearms Association!
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Neocon Blues
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You Can Have My Cell Phone...
When you pry it from my cold dead fingers: SHANGHAI, China (AP) - China will soon require all mobile phone users to register with telecom providers or face a cutoff in service, state media reported Friday.
I am so suprised.
The new rule, announced by the Ministry of Information Industry, is part of a crackdown on telephone fraud and illegal text-messaging practices, and the country's thriving trade in counterfeit and otherwise illegally obtained mobile phones.
It is also expected to help authorities control "improper political commentary," the news report said.
More Evidence That There Should Be a Hunting Season...
For ambulance chasers. Maybe all year. Todd Zywicki over at Volokh Conspiracy discuses the lawyers looking for clients on whose behalf they will sue soft drink makers for creating an "attractive nuisance": The Washington Post reports that the long-anticipated lawsuit against soft drink manufacturers for contributing to children's obesity is expected to be filed in the near future.
The comments include an attempt by someone to remind us all that while this might be an abuse, there are legitimate needs for these sort of lawsuits:
Accroding to the article, the target is vending machines in schools and the legal theory is one of an "attractive nuisance." The suit is expected to be filed in Massachusetts as an "unfair practice" under that state's unusually liberal consumer protection law. According to Victor Schwartz, "Massachusetts is one of the few states in the country where plaintiffs do not have to demonstrate actual damage in a consumer-protection case -- just that a violation occurred."
The lawyers behind the suit are the ones who fashioned the successful tobacco litigation. Although the the defendants and the legal theory have been identified, the article suggests that the lawyers don't have a plaintiff yet....To Steve:
My response to that comment was simple:
how much of a crime was committed in the manufacture and use of asbestos in the last 60 years.
We will never know. But we now know that there are thousands upon thousands fewer "victims" and a much lesser crime (if one really existed) than before Judge Jack started the ball rolling to uncover the horrendous crime by the tort lawyers in these asbestos suits.I thought lawyers preferred wool or synthetics. Or is that they better get used to wearing asbestos suits after they lose their Final Appeal?
Oh, you mean lawsuits. Never mind.
There's A Sucker Born Every Minute
Why does this read like a subplot in a Woody Allen movie from when he made funny movies? Someone is selling what Different River is calling environmental indulgences--you know, like what the Catholic Church did that caused Luther to start Protestantism: A few months ago, I posted this story about a company that sells “Car/SUV guilt reduction” – that is, for $30-$80 depending on vehicle type, they will sell you a bumper sticker and claim they are using the money to offset your car’s pollution. After expenses, of course, which no doubt includes a salary for whoever thought this thing up – and a target profit margin that exceeds that of the oil companies.
It is a great scam. I wish that I had thought of it: separating rich environmentalists from their money. Just think what the price of a TerraPass for Laurie David's Gulfstream jet would cost!
The Death Penalty And Innocence
There's a very interesting article here about the death penalty. There is a very long and I found rather uninteresting discussion trying to show that the death penalty, at least as it is applied in the United States since 1976 really isn't a particularly serious human rights violation, because of how carefully questions of guilt are handled through what the author calls "super due process."
He does make a very valid point--that a person sentenced to death is far more likely to get his freedom as a result of the very thorough appeals process than a person sentenced to life in prison: As pro-death penalty activist Dudley Sharp points out, because of the massive effort spent reviewing capital cases a convicted murderer who is actually innocent is more likely to be set free if he is sentenced to death than if he is merely sentenced to life in prison....
Now, on the question of how many truly innocent people have been executed, this article points out that some of the claims on this overstate reality. Certainly, there has been an enormous improvement since 1976 in how accurately capital punishment is meted out in the United States.
One aspect of the liberal opposition to capital punishment that has long bothered me that Bilges examines in great detail is that many of those supposedly "innocent" persons sentenced to death, whose sentences were overturned on appeal or later retrial, is that many were not necessarily innocent: The DPIC List is most commonly criticized for intentionally confusing de facto and de jure innocence. Campbell's case-by-case critique shows that that 68 of the 102 defendants on the list as of 2000 are either not definitively innocent or were included on the list despite being convicted before the 1976 reforms. He argues that there is strong evidence of actual guilt in many of the DPIC cases. In many of these cases the original conviction was overturned on appeal, and the defendant was not re-convicted only because evidence presented at the original trial was disallowed at subsequent trials; or prosecutors elected not to retry the case; or key witnesses were no longer available to testify.
There's a long list of cases where the best that you can say, "Boy, someone did a lousy job, but it is hard to say with any certainty that this guy wasn't guilty."
Let me explain that at an intellectual level, I can approve of a system that puts enormous energy into making sure that a person convicted of a capital crime actually did it. That, to me, is the fundamental issue. If a person sentenced to death admits either at trial or after trial that he committed the crime, I can't see a strong argument against execution. If the evidence is overwhelmingly clear--two eyewitnesses to the crime, and no reason to doubt them--I can't see a strong argument against execution.
At an emotional level, capital punishment, makes my blood run cold. This morning I watched some tape of the mother of the little girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered down in Florida. That mother is filled with rage. She wants the monster who did this to her little girl executed, and she wants it now. Her emotions are completely understandable, and certainly, this monster should never have been out on the street, and he should never be out on the street again. I just want to make really sure that a person who gets executed for a crime really did it.
The Evil That Bush's Iraq Policy Causes
The United Arab Emirates is announcing elections--a first time for that nation--and women will be allowed to vote.
Okay, it isn't going to be quite as powerful or important as Congress, but it is a step towards representative government--something that would have been unthinkable before the invasion of Iraq.
Democracy is spreading, because of Bush's policies. Isn't it amazing how many liberals and progressives are treating it like a virus? I've heard too many people, not for attribution, claim that democracy is a Western idea, and won't work in the Middle East. Why? Wrong skin color?
More News About Waco Seeps Out
My friend David Hardy is an attorney--and some of his work played a major role in blowing holes in the FBI's claim that they never used incendiary rounds at Waco. He is still filing Freedom of Information Act suits, and there are still bizarre, sometimes downright comical pieces of information seeping out about the 1993 raid--stuff that would be funny, if more than 80 people hadn't died: Just thought I'd mention that I have a raher large webpage on the subject, based on three years of Freedom of Information Act suits to get information relating to it.
Far less comical--but unsurprising--is the attempts to get videos of the raid:
Just one sample: the raid and initial shootout were supposedly justified because Koresh was a reclusive paranoid who never left the building and thus could not be arrested without a major invasion.
I got the ATF reports that showed what the ATF undercover agents in the "undercover house" (across the street from the Davidian place) had done on February 19, nine days before the raid.
They went shooting.
With David Koresh.
He carried the ammo, they had the guns (until they loaned him a .38 Super). Then they went back home to plan the raid on the fellow who never left the building.On prying for the Feb. 28 videos ... after literally years of courtroom work, here are the results from the ground-based cameras:
If this seems implausible, let me point out that we have proof that the Treasury Department wanted to prevent evidence from being created:
a. Camera on tripod near the "radio van." Finally got it, but it shows nothing but a blurry image of a building maybe 300 yards away.
b. Camera mounted on telephone pole: ATF claims they can't find the tape.
c. Camera in undercover house: ATF claims it failed for mysterious reasons. Officially, it kept ejecting the tapes (apparently it was a videocam linked to a VCR) rather than recording, due to radio interference from radio van. Problems: (i) VCR remotes work on infrared, not radio signals; (ii) ATF tried to duplicate the event with potent radio signals and couldn't do so. My guess is that someone just removed the tape and "vanished" it.
d. On the side: still camera carried by ATF's PR officer. She claims she put it on a table in raid HQ and it vanished, together with the film. Gad -- a room full of law enforcement, and a thief sneaks in and takes it? Pretty brazen.... Assuming that the story is true, it'd be apparent that ATF realized, during and right after the raid, that evidence had better start disappearing, period.Rep. Barr emphasized the fact that we've heard a "great deal about taint," and he had the documents to prove it today. Barr displayed big blow-ups of a Treasury Department inter-office memo that placed serious constraints on the investigation into the Waco incidents.
My wife and I sat up and watched those hearings on C-SPAN. This was about the most damning evidence of intentional coverup that I could imagine--telling them to stop taking written statements because it might be used by the defense.
The following are excerpts from that memo:
"DOJ does not want Treasury to conduct any interviews or have discussions with any of the participants, who may be potential witnesses; the prosecutors do not want us to generate additional Jencks, Brady or Giglio material or oral statements which could be used for impeachment.
"...at some point we are going to have to interview the crucial witnesses and perhaps may have to take statements; while we may be able to wait for some of them to have testified in the criminal trial, the passage of time will dim memories;... DOJ does not want
us to make any findings or draw any conclusions from what we review; the prosecutors are concerned that anything negative, even preliminary, could be grist for the defense mill."
Someone Ordered Too Much of One Of Those Enlargement Drugs?
I'm just being playful: The Obelisk of Buenos Aires is covered with a giant condom to commemorate World AIDS Day December 1, 2005.
Boise Housing Prices
The Idaho Statesman has an article today discussing Boise's continuing "torrid" housing appreciation. Why, at this rate, in another century it will be like California housing! (I'm exaggerating, of course.) Idaho's housing appreciation rate outpaced the national average in the third quarter of 2005, making it harder to buy a home and increasing the property tax burden on existing homeowners.
Yup! When we moved here on the last day of 2001, housing was breathtakingly cheap--even in what could be considered very tony neighborhoods, like ours. Now, I see houses like this one, on about the same size parcel of land as ours (0.27 acres vs. 0.25 acres), just a little larger (2868 sq. ft. vs. 2755 sq. ft.). It has a pool as a big distinguisher, but it is only a couple of blocks over--and they are asking $405,000 for it. Based on some of the recent sales in our subdivision, this only seems slightly high.
Idaho housing prices were up 15.01 percent year-over-year, according to an Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight report issued Thursday.
That was well ahead of the 12.02 percent average national rate, which declined by 2 percentage points from the third quarter of last year.
Reaction to the Idaho figures was split, with federal officials insisting it was good news for homeowners, while Treasure Valley experts worried that it signals tough times ahead for area consumers.
"This just means more people are going to have a hard time buying a home, because wages in this valley have not gone up 15 percent," said Don Hubble, owner of Hubble Homes, one of the busiest home builders in the valley.
Rates of increase in U.S. home prices in the third quarter "were extremely strong, although some deceleration can be seen in a number of the faster-appreciating markets," said OFHEO's chief economist, Patrick Lawler, adding that "price momentum in the Pacific and New England states, in particular, has pulled back."
In the Boise metro area, home values in the third quarter were up 14.29 percent year-over-year, according to the federal study. The Treasure Valley finished in 74th place on OFHEO's list of U.S. metropolitan real estate markets, up from 117th place in the second quarter.
A reader insists that this housing appreciation has to stop soon because almost no one here can afford a home. He told me that the median household income here was only $29,000; there are almost no jobs outside the $6 to $12 per hour range; half of all marriages end in divorce here.
It seemed a rather too dark picture of this area, because I knew that our particular zipcode had a median household income of about $75,000 a year, so I started digging.
Ada County median household income: $49,775--or 95th highest in the country.
Marriage is a surprisingly healthy institution here, probably because there's a lot of Christians and Mormons here. The divorce rate for those age 15 or over is 12.2%. (I am going to guess that very few people under 15 get divorced.)
Almost Like Cops
But without the catchy theme song. I happened to wander into the Ada County Sheriff's Department web site. (Ada County is where Boise is located; Boise County is just north of Ada County--and Boise is not in Boise County.) I was startled to find all the arrests listed online, with the charges, mug shots, and when the arrestees are to appear in court.
This not being a very violent community, most of the arrests are substance abuse related--DUI; marijuana possession, and similar. Most of the mug shots give the impression of people who are a bit down on their luck, and certainly more objects of pity than fear.
Except for one picture, of a guy named Darren Ray Rowan (there's no direct link, but he was booked November 30 at 11:55 PM), arrested for Aggravated Battery, Violation of a No Contact Order, and Injury to Children. His mug shot makes him look like a pretty nasty character--and the bandage on his face suggests that he might not have ended up at the police station without incident.
House Project: Appliances Going In
I was actually up there yesterday, but I've been so busy yesterday and today, what with patent forms, X-rays, getting stuck in the snow....
When I got up there yesterday, the builder's son had just installed the wall oven, and was working on the microwave oven's position.
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Wall switches are in for most rooms:
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But there's a few places where it appears the electrician was kidnapped part-way through the job!
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I had mentioned the problem of how to surround the jetted tub--while still having a way to get access to the various moving parts inside. One reader's suggestion worked out rather well. (The wood still needs to be cleaned.) One screw holds the whole thing together, rather like a clever puzzle.
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The dishwasher is still out in the garage, as are the washer and dryer. (The cooktop has been mysterious in its movements, and the trash compactor was delayed by snow.)
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There's a downside to snow, of course--but look at this view from my back porch!
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Last house project entry.
I Think The ACLU Is Evil, But I Don't Think This Is True
I was just forwarded an email from a social conservative group called GrassFire.net that makes a claim that I find very, very hard to believe: The Salvation Army bell ringers are absent this year because the ACLU threatened many of the large retail stores. Rather than confront the giant, stores like Target, Barnes & Noble, Toys "R" Us, Kohl's and others have decided it's easier to turn away the bell ringers this Christmas!
Yeah, like the ACLU cares what Christians think. This sounds like a waste of money and time.
And that is not all. The ACLU has even succeeded in getting many other retail chains to drop the word "Christmas" from their advertising campaigns in an ongoing effort to strip Christ not just from Christmas but from our nation as well.
This is OUTRAGEOUS and UNACCEPTABLE!
[name deleted] the ACLU is aggressively and brazenly mocking our faith, and thumbing their noses at believers.
This is why Faith and Action delivered more than 20,000 petitions to their New York offices, and why I promised to return with even more as they continue to harass people of faith.
But here's the larger question: has the ACLU taken any legal steps to get retail chains to drop the word "Christmas" from their advertising campaigns, or to prohibit the Salvation Army from raising funds outside the temples of American materialism? I can't imagine any legal basis for a suit like that, and I would like to think that if the ACLU tried something like that, much of the rest of the conservative establishment would be piling on to pillory the ACLU for their hypocrisy--flag burning is free speech, but not the dreaded Christ-word.
So, is there anyone that knows of any legal actions that the ACLU has filed that might, conceivably, have been misunderstood by national chains as encouraging them to remove Christmas from their advertising? I find this incredibly hard to believe.
Understanding The Core Problem Is The First Step
I've been struggling with a big pain problem in my left ankle for about a year, although the problem has been chronic since about 1994. The highly touted physical therapy experts here in Boise took me from having a pain problem in my left ankle if I walked for a couple of miles to the stage where I could no longer walk for a couple of blocks.
Eventually, I ended up with a physical therapist at Howell Physical Therapy who started out by measuring my legs--and noticed something that several physical therapists, and two podiatrists seemed to have missed: my left leg is 1.5 centimeters longer than my right leg. Unsurprisingly, this puts considerable greater stress on my left foot and ankle.
Anyway, just to make sure that we weren't wasting everyone's time, the physical therapist asked my doctor to get some foot and ankle X-rays to see if my slow recovery is arthritis-related. There does seem to be mild to moderate arthritis in the left foot--but not the right. It makes you wonder if this could have been avoided had someone correctly identified the underlying problem--too long of a left leg--more than ten years ago.
Insulting My Corvette Prematurely; I'm A Celebrity!
I was complaining yesterday about my Corvette getting stuck on the road leading to my new house, and my concern that I might have to buy a 4WD for at least the winter months. (No, not a new one--one three steps up from beater class.)
As I was trying to get out of the parking lot at Treasure Valley Closets today (who are doing the closet organizers and massive bookshelf for the new house), I suddenly remembered that part of the problem is that the Corvette has traction control.
Traction control is a way of reducing tire spin when juvenily accelerating away from a stoplight. (I'm past that stage, of course.) It senses when one or both tires is beginning to slip, and reduces power to the wheels. This makes lots of sense on pavement, because even the weak and slow version of the Corvette that I have has enough power to spin these massive rear tires without even trying. It is also a good idea on wet and slippery pavement once you are under way.
Getting going on snow and ice, however, is another matter. You are going to get some slip, especially on ice--and even if one wheel gets traction, the other doesn't, and the traction control stops both of them from turning--so no motion. Turning off traction control lets at least the wheel that is grabbing something actually get you moving--although you need to exercise some care about this. If one wheel gets traction and the other is just spinning, you can very easily make a high speed circle, going in all sorts of unexpected directions.
The other surprise was sitting at lunch with my wife and a friend of hers, and having a complete stranger walk over to our table and introduce himself. "I read your blog." He saw me, thought it was me, and used the Corvette in the parking lot as confirmation.
Responsible Democrats
I've been careful in my blog entries to distinguish between the small number of Democrats who are engaged in purely partisan politics about Iraq, and those who are not.
There are some Democrats who opposed this war from the beginning for all sorts of absurd reasons, but they seem to be sincere. For many, the Vietnam War has left deep scars that makes all U.S. military operations abroad intrinsically suspect.
There are other Democrats--including, it seems, most of those who sit in Congress--who supported the Iraq War from the beginning, and while they may have misgivings about how the war has been fought (and I share some of those concerns), they know better than to cut and run.
Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is not one of my favorite Congresscritters--especially because of his support for every absurd gun control measure that comes along. But I am pleased as I can be with articles like this one that he recently wrote for the Wall Street Journal, worth reading in full: I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
Most importantly:
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.
It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
Unfortunately, the coalition of convenience between those who fundamentally hate America and those who see an opportunity to gain political advantage from opposing the war is in danger of causing us to take a course of action that will give us maximum cost (in lives, money, prestige) with minimum gain.
They're Just Kids--Aren't They?
A liberal friend of mine was upset because some 10 year olds were arrested for falsely claiming to their classmates that they had brought marijuana to school. (It was actually parsley.) Yeah, a bit of an overreaction, but it is amazing what "kids" are capable of these days: ORLANDO, Fla. -- Orlando police are searching for three people, including an 11-year-old, accused of kidnapping two women at gunpoint and raping them in a field, Local 6 News has learned.
Investigators said the trio abducted two women in October and then drove them to an area near the Crestview condominiums in MetroWest and raped them.
Detectives said one person sought for the crimes is between 14 and 17 years old and the other is only 11 years old, Local 6 News reported.
Bush Receives Jury Summons
I recall that something similar happened with Governor Jerry Brown some years ago--and he served on jury duty in Sacramento County! Admittedly, Bush has somewhat higher responsibilities: While most would agree that serving as president of the United States is more pressing than serving as foreman of a jury, McLennan County officials are waiting for Crawford resident George W. Bush, potential juror number 286, to respond to a summons to report Monday for jury duty.
"It is not uncommon that people don't respond for jury duty," said 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother, to whose court the president has been summoned. "It is unique having the president in this situation, so I have never faced this issue before and I am not sure what is going to happen. I am assuming at some point that we will hear something from somebody on his behalf."
White House spokesman Allen Abney said the commander-in-chief was not aware of the situation: "The White House has not received the summons yet."
He declined to elaborate on how the president would handle the jury notice when it finally did arrive from Bush's adopted home county.
Corvettes & Snow
I drove up to the new house yesterday to meet with a closet organizer subcontractor--or rather, I tried to drive up to it. Highway 55 is kept reasonably clear. Summit Ridge Road, in spite of the "limited maintenance" signs, was clear of snow. Shortly after I turned onto Sunburst Lane, I reached a spot of ice that prevented the Corvette from proceeding.
The snow wasn't deep enough to be a problem--it is just that one little stretch had turned to ice, and I simply could not get enough traction to move forward on it.
Four wheel drive tends to be overestimated in the popular imagination for its ability to handle snow, but this is definitely one of those situations where it would have done a lot of good. My front wheels were on snow--if those had been driven, I would have had no difficulty getting past the icy patch.
I really don't want to give up my Corvette--for nine months of the year here, it is a wonderful car. But I am beginning to think that I will need to buy a used 4WD truck or vehicle to get back and forth to the new house--and it wouldn't be a bad idea down in Boise on a day like today. This is our first really serious snowfall (although you Michiganders would laugh at it, I think), and I drove to work at an average speed of about eight miles per hour!
Levitt's Claims About Lott's Research
I mentioned a couple of days ago questions raised concerning Donohue and Levitt's claims concerning a link between abortion and crime. One of my readers who is a professor (and no, not Dr. Lott)--and who needs to remain anonymous, because he knows how committed to truth the academic community is, told me this: Levitt (Freakonomics, pp. 133-4) writes of Lott, "There was the troubling allegation that Lott actually invented some of the survey data that support his more-guns/less-crime theory. Regardless of whether the data were faked, Lott's admittedly intriguing hypothesis doesn't seem to be true."
UPDATE: The original had "Lott" where it should have had "Levitt."
This is rather like the pot calling the kettle black. In his article ``Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime'' (American Economic Review, 87:3, 1997, 1230-1250, Levitt has a variable that purports to measure the timing of mayoral and gubernatorial elections. Yet when another researcher, McCrary, ``Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Comment'' (American Economic Review, 92:4, 2002 1236-1243) tried to reconstruct this variable, he was unable to do so. Levitt was unable to say from where he got this variable. He might as well have made it up.
Levitt does reply to McCrary in ``Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Reply' (American Economic Review, 92:4, 2002 1244-1250), but tellingly he does NOT say where his timing variable came from, or why he is unable to say where it came from (Did his computer crash?).
McCrary also showed that Levitt's article had a significant programming error. Levitt claimed to give more weight to crimes with less variability, but actually gave the most weight to more variable crimes. This completely changed Levitt's empirical results. Levitt's reply does not seriously dispute this, but offers other reasons that his orginial thesis is still valid, the programming error notwithstanding. That is, Levitt doesn't let McCrary's facts get in the way of Levitt's theory.
So Levitt was well-aware of that his work was invalid, yet he cites his 1997 article in Freakonomics (page 220) without informing the reader that the article was thoroughly discredited. So of Levitt's article about crime one might use his own words: Regardless of whether Levitt's timing variable was faked, his intriguing hypothesis doesn't seem to be true.
If Only...
This is a troubling story. I wouldn't call this an argument for drawing a gun too quickly. I would call this a story that shows what sort of person gets a permit to carry a gun--a person who is decent and humane, and because of that, he hesitated: Brendan “Dan” McKown said Monday that he briefly drew his gun on Tacoma Mall shooting suspect Dominick S. Maldonado, but he’s not sure Maldonado saw it.
Gun control advocates like to portray concealed carry holders as either wannabe cops or bloodthirsty Walter Mitty types, looking for a chance to shoot someone.
He could have shot Maldonado, McKown said, but hesitated.
From his bed in Tacoma General Hospital, McKown told The News Tribune what he saw and did during the Nov. 20 mall shootings.
McKown, 38, said he carried a gun and even trained for situations where he could keep innocent people from getting hurt.
But the situation in the mall was just too surreal to fully comprehend, he said: A young man wearing a baseball cap turned backward strolling through the mall in white tennis shoes.
It looked like he could just as easily have been carrying a guitar, McKown said, instead of a semi-automatic rifle.
“I’m looking at this guy,” McKown said. “He’s a kid. I would have had to shoot him in the head.”
McKown just wasn’t ready for that. It’s not easy to shoot someone in the head, McKown said. McKown also didn’t want to get in the way of the police if they were handling the situation, and he knew he could get in trouble for brandishing a weapon in the mall.
McKown was struck by as many as five bullets, leaving his left leg paralyzed. He has about 10 percent movement in his right leg, said hospital spokesman Todd Kelley. Five other people wounded that day were treated and released from area hospitals.
I've twice been in situations where I had to decide whether to draw a gun and shoot someone. In one case, I wasn't sure if this was a real robbery, or a stupid stunt by a bunch of drunk college students. (I still don't know--but they drove away in a hurry when my wife and I dove into the bushes, and I reached into a fanny pack.) I prepared to draw and fire, but did not do so until I was more sure of whether this was a robbery or not.
In the other case, the kidnapping was very real--but the kidnapper was very drunk, and was having trouble completing the crime, dragging a woman out of her apartment and down the steps. I delayed because the victim was not actually yet in danger. Had he forced her into his car, I would have drawn and fired.
If you have never had to make a shoot/no shoot decision--trust me, it is a very heavy burden.
I'm Not Getting Enough Hate Mail, I Guess
This Los Angeles Times article about an Arkansas abortion doctor seems to be trying very hard to be even-handed--but there are descriptions of the reasons for some of these abortions that make words like "shallow" and "thoughtless" seem completely inadequate: Before, after and even during an abortion, Harrison lectures his patients on birth control. He urges them to get on the pill and to insist their partners use condoms.
I know that idiots like these two are probably not the norm for women getting abortions--but I have read enough over the years to make me suspect that they aren't completely unusual, either. You don't have to believe that human life begins at conception to be disgusted with this sort of callousness.
They promise. But Harrison knows many will be back.
His first patient of the day, Sarah, 23, says it never occurred to her to use birth control, though she has been sexually active for six years. When she became pregnant this fall, Sarah, who works in real estate, was in the midst of planning her wedding. "I don't think my dress would have fit with a baby in there," she says.
The last patient of the day, a 32-year-old college student named Stephanie, has had four abortions in the last 12 years. She keeps forgetting to take her birth control pills. Abortion "is a bummer," she says, "but no big stress."
I just love the terminology that the doctor uses to justify his practice: For several years in the 1980s, his clinic was picketed, vandalized and once firebombed. Protesters marched outside his home and death threats became routine. Harrison responded by making his case.
Thanks to Different River for the pointer.
He answered every phone call, replied to every letter in the newspaper and appeared at public forums to defend abortion rights. Eventually, the protesters in this college town left him alone. (Arkansas Right to Life focuses instead on educating women about alternatives to abortion, Executive Director Rose Mimms said.)
In the years since, Harrison has become more outspoken.
He calls himself an "abortionist" and says, "I am destroying life."
But he also feels he's giving life: He calls his patients "born again."
"When you end what the woman considers a disastrous pregnancy, she has literally been given her life back," he says.
Gouging After Katrina
No, no, not price-gouging--wage gouging. Different River points to reports of workers taking terrible advantage of businesses desperate for workers in New Orleans.
Interesting Patent
I have been searching for prior art in the U.S. Patent Office search engine, and I found an interesting idea in patent 6,639,718, by a Michael John Belcher of Auckland, New Zealand.
In case you aren't aware of it, one of the biggest problems with telescope mounts is making them rigid to the ground without making them heavy. There are ways to accomplish this, but it generally requires a lot of cleverness in the design.
Heavy in a telescope mount isn't a problem, as long as you don't ever plan to move the telescope. If you have a nice place to observe from, it doesn't much matter if the mount weighs a thousand pounds. But most amateur astronomers would like to be able to move their telescope, at least occasionally.
You have probably seen the mobile basketball hoops that have a hollow base. You move them into the desired location in the neighborhood, and then fill them with water--what this patent probably had in mind when it refers to a "flowable ballast." You drain the base to move it.
This patent seems to combine the ideas (along with some mount ideas as well), allowing you to get the combination of a reasonably portable mount with the stability of great weight.
So why hasn't this patent been turned into a production telescope mount? My guess is that it is because most of the time that amateur astronomers move a telescope to a location other than home, it is somewhere sufficiently remote that there isn't a hose and a large quantity of "flowable ballast" available.
It is still a clever idea.
Liberals Suppressing Religious Expression
This time, trying to suppress Christian symbols on private property: NOVI -- The multicolored nativity scene on the Samona family's front yard is under attack.
So it isn't the Christmas display that this guy objects to--it is specifically the religious aspects of it.
The Samonas' neighborhood association has ordered the Novi family to remove its seven-piece plastic display or face possible fines of $25 to $100 per week.
The family isn't budging and neither are its three wise men. The Samonas have vowed not only to keep the display, but also are threatening to enhance it."If you take this out, it's not Christmas anymore," said Joe Samona, 16, as he reached down and scooped baby Jesus from the creche on his parents' front lawn.
...
Last week, Joe's parents, Betty and Frank Samona, received a notice from the community association that sets regulations in their upscale Tollgate Woods subdivision. It said the family may be violating rules that prohibit lawn ornaments, statues or outdoor art from being placed on the lot without prior approval of the board of directors.
Then it simply says: "Please remove the nativity scene display from your front yard."
...
Dean Williams, the community association manager and author of the letter, said according to association rules in place since 2000 and signed by the Samonas when they bought the home in 2002, homeowners must request permission to place statues or lawn ornaments outside their home. The Samonas say they never signed any such document.
Asked why the letter specified that only the nativity scene be removed when several other objects stand on the lawn, Williams said the complainant -- another neighbor in Tollgate Woods -- complained only about the nativity scene.
"As a management firm, we do not go out and police. The community will decide what will be allowed and won't be," Williams said. "It's a community decision. It's not a management decision."
Williams would not reveal the identity of the complaining homeowner but read a portion of the complaint: "Although I'm not offended by it, I take issue about advertising personal beliefs and interests by putting them on display whatever the belief or interest may be."
I find these displays all rather silly and sometimes even a bit tacky--especially the secular symbols. It is Christmas, not Santa Claus Day. Homeowners associations certainly have the right to limit displays--but there is something unseemly about deciding to suppress specifically religious displays.
I suppose that the same argument that was used in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) to ban racially restrictive covenants could be used here. In Shelley, the Court held that even though these covenants were private contracts, they were enforced by the states, and therefore state enforcement violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. There is at least a plausible argument here that state enforcement of a covenant limiting religious symbols on the front lawn violates the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom incorporated against the states. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the courts to apply a consistent principle on this.
Swedish Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Free Speech!
Liberals must be horrified. Professor Volokh explains that a Pastor Ake Green had delivered a sermon in opposition to homosexuality, and was of course prosecuted for doing so. It is worth reading some of the comments on Professor Volokh's blog--you would think that homosexuals are an oppressed minority from the whining going on--not the controllers of the American judiciary.
Objectivity, Fairness, & The Academic Life
I used to be taken in by the claims that academics were focused on the pursuit of truth, and that objectivity and fairness were fundamental values in the university. Part of why I believed that was that, with a few exceptions, my professors actually fit that model. Of course, they were ancient--at one point when I was there, Sonoma State University's second most junior history professor had been there 25 years. A little more typical is trash like this: TOPEKA, Kan. - A University of Kansas professor who angered conservative lawmakers with comments about intelligent design and religious fundamentalism has apologized.
Oh, I believe that. And there are fairies in my garden, too.
Religious studies professor Paul Mirecki's apology came as his department formally approved a new elective class, titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design and Creationism," to be taught in the spring.
...
The class originally was to be called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." Mirecki, who will teach the class, prompted greater anger when an e-mail he wrote to a listserv was publicized.
"The fundies (fundamentalists) want it all taught in a science class," Mirecki wrote in the e-mail. "But this will be a nice slap in their big, fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category `mythology.'''
Conservative lawmakers questioned Mirecki's objectivity and accused him of taking aim at conservative Christianity. Some called for legislative hearings to investigate the course. The Legislature sets state funding levels for public higher education institutions such as KU.
In his apology, Mirecki called his earlier comments "ill-advised" and "offensive."
"My words in the e-mail do not represent my teaching philosophy or the style I use in class," Mirecki wrote. "I have assured the provost of the university that I will teach the course according to the standards this university rightfully expects - as a serious academic subject and in a manner that respects all points of view."
Carry Nation For The New Millennium
Prohibitionism has a new face: Authorities in Oakland, California, say they've identified six of the bow-tie wearing vandals who trashed two liquor stores last Wednesday.
Black Muslim men in suits with bow ties. Who do you think that could be?
Police say they'll seek arrest warrants on charges including terrorist threats, felony vandalism, conspiracy and robbery.
Workers at the two stores say a group of about a dozen men dressed in suits and bow ties stormed into the shops, smashed liquor bottles and knocked over racks of food. One attack was captured on a video surveillance camera.
The suspects, who were black, also ordered the clerks to stop selling alcohol to blacks. Police say that in both incidents, the suspects questioned why a Muslim-owned store would sell alcoholic beverages when it is against the Muslim religion.
Denial of Service Variant?
HostRocket.com claims to have turned my mail service back on--but it takes forever for emails to reach those accounts--and about half the time, they are getting rejected. They originally turned off my email because of a dramatic increase in mail attempts to my domain. I wonder if this might be a variant of a Denial of Service attack? Instead of trying to overload webservers, overload mail servers. Of course, it might be hard to distinguish intentional attack from the normal spam nonsense.
Email Inoperable
All of my email addresses on the domain claytoncramer.com are inoperable. At least senders are getting an error message: Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
I have informed my domain hoster (hostrocket.com) of the problem--I am completely at a loss what happened.
Subject: Test msg 2
Sent: 11/29/2005 9:35 AM
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
clayton@claytoncramer.com on 11/29/2005 9:36 AM
The e-mail system was unable to deliver the message, but did not report a specific reason. Check the address and try again. If it still fails, contact your system administrator.
< palrel13.hp.com #5.0.0 X-Postfix; host mx1.hrnoc.net[216.120.232.254] said: 553 sorry, this recipient is in my badrecipientto list (#5.7.1) (in reply to RCPT TO command)>
The only good news: I'm not getting any spam.
The Abortion-Crime Connection Re-Examined
I've mentioned before the paper published some years by Donohue and Levitt that argues Roe v. Wade (1973) caused much of the decline in violent crime rates in the 1990s. What was the mechanism, according to Donohue and Levitt? Abortion largely wiped out a generation of poor blacks, and poor black males are disproportionately violent criminals.
Donohue & Levitt's paper was treated like flatuence at a fancy dinner party when it came out. Pro-lifers unsurprisingly, were, horrified by the implied "Look what good things came out of this!" Pro-choicers properly recognized the gruesome eugenics implications.
I didn't find the idea preposterous, because there's no question that:
1. Poor black males are disproportionately violent criminals.
2. It is plausible that those most likely to abort were single, teenaged mothers--who under the best of conditions make lousy parents. Add in poverty, and #1 is not surprising.
Of course, the big problem that I always have with these multivariate correlation studies is that it is very easy to do these wrong--and there aren't a lot of people who have sufficient expertise to spot the flaws. Just about any reasonably well-educated person can look at a bivariate correlation, do the calculations, and see if the results are mathematically correct. (He may even be able to see if the choice of variables are appropriate, and aren't suffering from some other interesting problem.) Multivariate analysis is a bit harder; read this paper analyzing Donohue and Levitt's claims, and unless you are an economist who does this sort of thing on a regular basis, you probably won't be able to figure out which is correct.
In essence, these two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston are using Donohue & Levitt's paper as an example of the sort of mistakes that get made on this type of study: State?level data are often used in the empirical research of both macroeconomists and microeconomists. Using data that follows states over time allows economists to hold constant a host of potentially confounding factors that might contaminate an assignment of cause and effect. A good example is a fascinating paper by Donohue and Levitt (2001, henceforth DL), which purports to show that hypothetical individuals resulting from aborted fetuses, had they been born and developed into youths, would have been more likely to commit crimes than youths resulting from fetuses carried to term. We revisit that paper, showing that the actual implementation of DL’s statistical test in their paper differed from what was described. (Specifically, controls for state?year effects were left out of their regression model. ) We show that when DL’s key test is run as described and augmented with state?level population data, evidence for higher per capita criminal propensities among the youths who would have developed, had they not been aborted as fetuses, vanishes.
John Lott brought this to my attention, and he has some rather unkind things to say about Donohoue & Levitt: Personally, I think calling this a "programming oversight" is being much too nice. It is one thing for one regression to make this mistake, but apparently all their regressions made this mistake. More importantly everyone who works with panel data knows that you use fixed effects.
If this seems a rather uncharitable view to take, remember that certain academics called Lott's statistical work for More Guns, Less Crime fradulent some years ago--without any proof.
I don't think too highly of Professor Donohue; this email exchange between us should give you an idea of why. One good thing did come out of that: Donohue's insistence that civilian defensive gun uses are really uncommon: (Sure, every ten years some old lady in a wheel chair who couldn't use a bat or her fists shoots someone, but that Is at least as rare as [the] Hattori [killing].
As a result, I started the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog where my co-blogger Pete Drum and I put up news accounts of civilian gun self-defense incidents--and it is rare for a day to go by without at least one incident. There a few that fit Donohue's notion of legal but perhaps unnecessary uses of deadly force, but they are vastly outnumbered by incidents where the use of deadly force was not only legal, but unavoidable.
Damaging Bush But Doing Themselves No Good
The Washington Post has a survey that finds that all of this Democratic attack on Bush's Iraq policy may be souring Americans on the Iraq War--but the Democrats aren't getting any gain from it: Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.
I don't think the Democrats realize how badly this will rebound on them. If this partisan attack was about something like money, or the environment, it would be "just politics." But American men and women are dying in this war--and that's vastly more important than the vast majority of domestic policy issues. Those Democrats who are playing politics with Iraq (and let me emphasize, there are Congressional Democrats who recognize the seriousness of this matter, and aren't doing so) may manage to severely injure Bush, U.S. troop morale, and American foreign policy--and yet get no political gain from it, because of the anger that it is going to produce from the majority that sees this as politics.
Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.
...
Their poll also indicates many Americans are skeptical of Democratic complaints about the war. Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to "gain a partisan political advantage."
"Who lost China?" was the big question that soured U.S. politics throughout the 1950s. If the Iraq situation turns into a Vietnam-like disaster--or even close--there are going to be a lot of Americans who are going to listen very seriously to accusations that the Democrats "lost" Iraq for purely partisan purposes.
Rep. Cunningham (R-CA) Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes
News stories like this really depress me: SAN DIEGO - Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and hotshot Vietnam War fighter jock, pleaded guilty to graft and tearfully resigned Monday, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors to steer business their way.
I suppose that I could understand if the bribes were really, really enormous--but as a member of the House of Representatives, Cunningham gets an annual salary of $162,100, and a pretty spectacular pension. How many years of doing his job would it have taken to earn the $2.4 million in bribes? About fourteen years--maybe less, if you consider the pension.
"The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my office," the 63-year-old Republican said at a news conference. "I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family."
He could get up to 10 years in prison at sentencing Feb. 27 on federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud, and tax evasion.
Investigators said Cunningham, a member of a House Appropriations subcommittee that controls defense dollars, secured contracts worth tens of millions of dollars for those who paid him off. Prosecutors did not identify the defense contractors.
To put it more conventional terms--would you risk loss of a pretty secure job (members of Congress are very seldom defeated), your retirement account, your home, and several years in prison for 14 years of your salary, knowing that there are government agencies whose job it is too look for corrupt politicians? A person of low morals might be strongly tempted by 100 years worth of salary, but 14 years? This is not only corrupt, but irrational.
Ted Rall, Leftist Cartoonist
Make sure you click here to see the latest output (or is it excretion?) from political cartoonist Ted Rall. And the left wonders why we question the left's patriotism, integrity, and sense?
Boise Real Estate Prices
Yesterday's Idaho Statesman carried this article about investors buying Boise properties: Investors from outside the Treasure Valley have discovered Valley real estate.
But experts worry that the very things that make homes attractive to investors — affordable housing costs, a strong rental market, a superior quality of life — are threatened by the investment boom.
Property investors from California and other states are snapping up homes in Boise, Meridian and Eagle over the Internet and sight unseen. In the first nine months of 2005, Boise ranked fourth-highest in the nation for the share of home loans taken out by investors, according to LoanPerformance. Investors accounted for 20.5 percent of all home loans in the period — up from 11.4 percent in 2004 and 8 percent in 2003.
Real estate chat rooms and Web sites are full of talk about Boise, Meridian and Eagle, investors say. National magazine and newspaper articles list the Boise metro area as a top city for business and "underpriced" homes, according to local agents.
Boise city planning director Hal Simmons said he talks to real estate agents and developers who have seen "busloads" of investors from out of state come through the Valley and pick up properties.
"It's clearly a trend that (the Boise metro area) is being discovered and invested in by people outside of Idaho," Simmons said.
Why I Am Not A History Professor
A few days ago, I posted a few items about the history of Thanksgiving--including William Bradford's account of the 1621 feast: They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwelllings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, or which they took good store, or which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approach, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports. [William Bradford, Samuel Eliot Morison, ed., Of Plymouth Plantation: 1620-1647 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), 90.]
I also quoted from Winslow's letter of December 21, 1621: Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They four in one day killed as much fowl as with a little help besides, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king. Massoit with some 90 mne, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deer which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor and upon the Captain and others. [Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 90 n. 8.]
Now I see that the New York Times has published an article by "James E. McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University at San Marcos" that includes this astonishing claim: The native American food that the Pilgrims supposedly enjoyed would have offended the palate of any self-respecting English colonist - the colonial minister Charles Woodmason called it "exceedingly filthy and most execrable." Our comfort food, in short, was the bane of the settlers' culinary existence.
Do you see a bit of a conflict between the eyewitness accounts above and Professor McWilliams' description? I can give you a number of accounts of hunting from early Plymouth that show that the Pilgrims regarded hunting with great enthusiasm--it was hardly "the essence of savagery."
Understanding this paradox requires acknowledging that there's no evidence to support the holiday's early association with food - much less foods native to North America. Thanksgiving celebrations occurred irregularly at best after 1621 (the year of the supposed first Thanksgiving) and colonists observed them as strictly religious events (conceivably by fasting).
...
Popular as they might have been in 19th-century America, however, the earthy victuals that Thanksgiving revisionists arranged on the Pilgrims' fictional table were foods that Pilgrims and their descendants would have rather avoided.
The reason is fairly simple. Hale and her fellow writers seem to have forgotten that their Puritan forebears migrated to New England with strict notions about food production and preparation. Proper notions of English husbandry generally demanded that flesh be domesticated, grain neatly planted and fruit and vegetables cultivated in gardens and orchards.
Given these expectations, English migrants recoiled upon discovering that the native inhabitants hunted their game, grew their grain haphazardly and foraged for fruit and vegetables. Squash, corn, turkey and ripe cranberries might have tasted perfectly fine to the English settlers. But that was beside the point. What really mattered was that the English deemed the native manner of acquiring these goods nothing short of barbaric. Indeed, the colonists saw it as the essence of savagery.
Why is it so bloody difficult for professional historians to read the accounts of the people that lived there?
When Does Abortion Become Infanticide?
This article from the Times of London should cause some serious discomfort: A GOVERNMENT agency is launching an inquiry into doctors’ reports that up to 50 babies a year are born alive after botched National Health Service abortions.
When I was still living in Los Angeles, there was a brief stir about a late-term abortion in which the "fetal tissue" came out alive--and the doctors told the nurse to put the baby in a closet, so the crying noises wouldn't disturb anyone. It did, eventually, die, but it wasn't all that quick. The doctors were charged with homicide, but I don't know what ever happened.
The investigation, by the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH), comes amid growing unease among clinicians over a legal ambiguity that could see them being charged with infanticide.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which regulates methods of abortion, has also mounted its own investigation.
Its guidelines say that babies aborted after more than 21 weeks and six days of gestation should have their hearts stopped by an injection of potassium chloride before being delivered. In practice, few doctors are willing or able to perform the delicate procedure.
For the abortion of younger foetuses, labour is induced by drugs in the expectation that the infant will not survive the birth process. Guidelines say that doctors should ensure that the drugs they use prevent such babies being alive at birth.
In practice, according to Stuart Campbell, former professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at St George’s hospital, London, a number do survive.
“They can be born breathing and crying at 19 weeks’ gestation,” he said. “I am not anti-abortion, but as far as I am concerned this is sub-standard medicine.”
There is a point where an unborn baby is completely dependent on the mother, and removing it will cause immediate death. There is also a point where a fetus is viable--and it will die for the same reason that a one month old baby left alone will die--neglect. The abortion fanatics who insist that any point before a full-term delivery is legitimate to abort are playing into the hands of those who would prohibit all elective abortions.
Civilian Gun Self-Defense Next Door
Regular readers will know that I maintain a blog of news clippings of civilians in the U.S. using a gun in self-defense. I never expected such an incident this close at hand. I do not expect that this will make the newspaper--and yet such incidents are probably very common.
My neighbor Brett is about my age. Saturday in the wee hours of the morning, his two dachshunds made a heck of a racket, but he thought nothing of it. Sunday (today) about 5:30 AM, they made a racket again--and our dog Biscuit started making a racket as well. My wife assumed this was a call of nature--but Biscuit ran to the fence that we share with Brett, and went completely beserk. My wife assumed that Biscuit was barking because of Brett's dachshunds. Nope.
It turns out that someone went through an unlocked gate, and through the unlocked door from the back yard in to the garage. (Both of these security holes have now been fixed.) The dachshunds apparently made a serious effort to stop the intruder, but this guy was very intent on getting in.
He went to the room of Brett's daughter who was visiting from college (Brigham Young University), and actually entered her room--but by this point, Brett was up, and beginning to try and figure out why the dogs were making such an extraordinary racket. His wife then told Brett that there was an intruder. Brett grabbed a gun, and started searching the house. The intruder apparently hid in a bathroom until Brett got past him, and then ran down the stairs and out the front door. Brett didn't ever see him--his son was sleeping in the living room, saw someone pass through, and assumed it was Brett.
The police are of the opinion that this was probably a rapist, because of the level of persistence (making attempts on two nights in a row, and not being deterred by the dogs), and that he went directly to the daughter's room, and didn't steal anything.
Brett never got off a shot, and never even aimed a gun at the intruder--but the intruder must have realized that if the man of the house is looking for an intruder in Idaho, he's not going to blow kisses at you.
Brett is now busily enhancing security at his home. Being from Los Angeles, we already operate in full paranoid mode, so it doesn't change things much.
House Project: Some Pictures This Time!
My wife and I went up Saturday about noon and spent two hours collecting debris and throwing it into the dumpster. (Great exercise, by the way.) I guess that I should have taken a before picture, because there was a lot of junk in front and back. By doing the cleanup ourselves, it speeds up the process, and reduces the need for our builder to find unskilled labor--which is no longer available in the Boise area.
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The snow capped mountains all around are really cool, and even the snow blowing off the roof was pretty cool. Those of you who live in, and grew up in snow country may not share this view, of course, but my wife and I grew up in Southern California, and there's still something very picturesque about views like these, especially since some of them are from windows in our house: 
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Here's a view from the family room:
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Inside, many of the electrical outlets are installed:
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The empty holes are telephone and coax boxes.
Our electrician seems to have been interrupted while installing this outlet. It almost looks like one of those End Times movies where believers get raptured: 
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The toilets are all in--and working--which makes it feasible to move Big Bertha up there one of these weekends, assuming that we get clear skies again. (It's a lousy picture--no lights yet meant a long exposure.)
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The doors are out in the garage, waiting to be painted:
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The carpet and padding for the bedrooms is also sitting out there:
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We need gutters for the roof--snow melt refreezes on the sidewalk, making for slippery and dangerous surfaces. It also looks like we may need to have the front of the property graded so that it slopes a bit to the south, instead of a little to the north--which is causing water to pool at the end of the driveway.
