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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).
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THE MESOPOTAMIAN: TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD
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A Very Clever Innovation on the Internal Combustion Engine
While working out in the gym, I read a very interesting article in Autoweek about a guy named Crower who has invented a six-stroke engine. This isn't that article, but another one that Autoweek ran about this idea. The essence of the idea is that when the exhaust gases leave the cylinder, spray in water. The water immediately turns to steam from the engine heat--and drives the piston down. What was purely a stroke returning the piston to position to accept another charge of fuel and air is now a power stroke. (Yeah, you still have to exhaust the steam.)
The printed article I read quoted Crower as saying that it used about 40% less gasoline than a conventional four-stroke engine. The online article also indicates that there was no longer a need for much of a cooling system, because the conversion of water to steam--and then exhausting that steam--took away most of the engine's heat: The engine has yet to operate against a load on a dyno, but his testing to date encourages Crower to expect that once he gets hard numbers, the engine will show normal levels of power on substantially less fuel, and without overheating.
Now, this might be the 200 miles per gallon carburetor of 2006, but at least at first glance, this is not a completely absurd idea. In a four-stroke engine, you have four cycles, only one-fourth of which are producing power. In Crower's six-stroke engine, you have six cycles, one-third of which are producing power.
“It’ll run for an hour and you can literally put your hand on it. It’s warm, yeah, but it’s not scorching hot. Any conventional engine running without a water jacket or fins, you couldn’t do that.”
Indeed, the test unit has no external cooling system—no water jacket, no water pump, no radiator; nothing. It does retain fins because it came with them, but Crower indicates the engine would be more efficient if he took the trouble to grind them off. He has discarded the original cooling fan.
So far he has used only gasoline, but Bruce believes a diesel-fueled test engine he is now constructing—with a hand-made billet head incorporating the one-third-speed camshaft—will realize the true potential of his concept.
If Crower's description of how cool the engine operates is correct, there should be significant improvements introduced by the greater differential in temperature between combustion and the cold state, as well as not having to use any energy running a water pump. (Of course, you still need a water pump to run water into the cylinder, so that's probably not a net gain.)
Apparently, this uses as much water as gasoline, but in case you haven't noticed, water is not in short supply, and we don't have to buy it from countries that seem to breed dangerous fanatics. Unlike the hydrogen car dream, there's no need to build an entire new infrastructure for water. I think the gas station in Amboy, California, is the only place that I have ever fueled up a car where water wasn't available as well. (It may need some filtering, however.)
Anyway, it is a neat idea, and I hope that Crower gets a chance to try this out.
Why Pro-Lifers Should Not Be Backing Some Of These Bills
I mentioned a few weeks ago my concern about a bill under consideration in South Dakota that would ban effectively all elective abortions: I understand that opponents of abortion regard it as a great evil, and I certainly agree that it needs to be reined in very substantially. But a law like this is far more likely to produce a resounding victory for pro-choice advocates in the courts than a less aggressive strategy.
Well, both houses passed it, and now similar measures are under serious consideration in Mississippi. The Mississippi bill does exempt pregnancies caused by incest or rape--a position that makes very little sense if the goal is to protect innocent human life, but does make sense if the goal is to discourage abortion as a form of retroactive birth control.
If the goal is to make yourself feel good, or to stir up your base, then an extreme law like this probably makes sense. If the goal is to substantially reduce the number of abortions (which should be the primary objective of every pro-life advocate--and a goal of even reasonable pro-choice advocates), you need a law that is going to survive court challenge.
Let me make this point very strongly: If your goal is to reduce the number of abortions as quickly as possible, passing extreme laws such as South Dakota's, is not the right strategy. Even judges and ordinary citizens who believe that Roe v. Wade (1973) was wrongly decided, may be reluctant to uphold such a law. Give them a law that isn't "extreme": for example, a ban on elective second and third trimester abortions. This doesn't require the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade (1973) (which granted the states substantial authority to regulate or even prohibit late abortions).
More importantly, there are a lot of Americans who find abortion distasteful but are reluctant to follow the logical consequences of their distaste--at least, right now. You really do not want this crowd in the middle to suddenly help elect a Democratic majority in the Senate. If you thought it was hard to get a judge like Alito confirmed, imagine the situation with Democrats in the majority!
If you want to do something about making elective abortion go away, there are two things that you must remember:
1. Abortion is not going to be criminalized or even significantly regulated in California, New York, Massachusetts, or about 20 other states. As long as a quarter of Americans wants elective abortion readily available, making it unlawful will only reduce the incidence--and perhaps less than you think. It may just increase the number of bus and airplane tickets sold. You need to spend a lot more time persuading Americans that abortion is an horrifying, morally repugnant procedure. Or persuading Americans that abortion is a terribly inefficient method of birth control. Take your pick; you will find pro-choice Americans who can be persuaded by one or both of those arguments.
2. To the extent that extreme positions influence people, it is to move people in the opposite direction. When gun control advocates talk about relatively mild gun control measures, such as registration or background checks, it tends not to have much impact on the middle of the political spectrum. When they talk about banning guns or restrictive licensing, or attempt to demonize gun owners, it drives people in the middle, who may not care strongly about the issue, into the pro-gun camp. Nelson Shields, second chairman of Handgun Control, Inc., described it well when he described his organization's goal as the prohibition of private ownership of handguns, but that they were going to take a slice at a time until they got the whole loaf.
A ban on partial-birth abortions? That might be one that the new Supreme Court could uphold. A ban on elective abortions in the third trimester? That might be feasible with the new Supreme Court. Requiring parental consent (with a few exceptions) might be tolerable to the current Court. South Dakota's law is an attempt to take the whole loaf at once--and it isn't going to work--at least, not unless Bush or his Republican successor gets to appoint one or two more conservatives. Pro-lifers may eventually get the whole loaf, but it requires taking it one slice at a time, and at each step, persuading a strong majority of the American population that this slice makes sense.
I understand your desire to end elective abortion overnight. It isn't going to happen. Concentrate on one slice at a time, and save 50,000 lives this year; 65,000 lives the year after that; 200,000 lives by 2010. That's a lot better than laws that do not survive court challenge--and consequently do nothing at all to reduce the number of abortions.
Did You Hear One Of The Justices Fell Asleep During Oral Arguments Yesterday?
I'm sure if this was a Republican justice, you would have heard about it: It’s a question that has been asked many times: If Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell asleep during a case, would the media notice? The answer, apparently, is no. On March 1, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of a Texas redistricting plan. One only has to look at the accompanying graphic to see how exciting Justice Ginsburg found the case. FNC correspondent Megyn Kendall reported it this way on Wednesday's Special Report:
Ginsburg is 72, and has struggled with cancer. ABC News, buried deep, at least mentioned that she had her head down for 15 minutes, but insisted that this isn't unusual (although disturbing) for judges to appear to be sleeping during oral arguments, and "we need to give them the benefit of the doubt." I'm sorry, but I'm not paying them to sleep on the job. What they are doing is somewhat important, in case you weren't aware of it.
"It is one of the biggest redistricting cases the high court has heard in years, but the special two hour argument proved less then compelling to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who at times appeared to be, well, asleep."
Not one of the three broadcast evening news programs sought fit to mention Ginsburg's nap, although both NBC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News covered the hearing.
Oh well, perhaps this means that she is ready to step down, and let Bush appoint ano ther conservative to the Supreme Court.
New Articles Up
"The Perfect Is The Enemy of the Good," Shotgun News, February 1, 2006, pp. 28-29.
Why demanding ideological perfection from political candidates is a good way to elect antigunners.
"Washington State's Open Carry Ban," Shotgun News, March 1, 2006, pp. 26-27.
The interesting history of Washington State's ban on open carry, which suggests that it was not intended as a general ban on open carrying of firearms, but a way to prevent the Black Panthers from walking into the statehouse armed.
Mayor Newsom's Marriage Breaking Up
I would consider it very bad taste to gloat about something like this, but if there is a straight couple that more typifies California liberalism than Mayor Gavin Newsom and his wife, actress Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, I can't think of one right now. I've blogged previously about the incredibly vulgar speech that she gave at gay rights fundraiser in New York City, with the implication that certain "capabilities" of Mrs. Newsom are what keeps her husband straight. Now, their marriage is apparently on the rocks--and Newsom's new girlfriend has him attending Scientology-front group events.
You Wonder Why These Things Happen
I ran into this news story about one of the actresses in Brokeback Mountain. She apparently attended a private Christian school in San Diego County--which is, unsurprisingly, not happy about what she has gone on to do in her career: Carla Williams raised a daughter her way – a comfortable North County home, elementary and middle school at Solana Beach's Santa Fe Christian where, according to its credo, “the Bible is the standard upon which the educational program is based,” and acting classes at the “family entertainment”-oriented Christian Youth Theater.
Well, I can't claim to be surprised by this reaction to what she has gone on to do as an actress:
By the time her precociously talented daughter reached ninth grade, Williams was driving her north on Interstate 5 to Hollywood nearly every day for auditions.
...
A provocative film about two cowboys in Wyoming whose friendship becomes a romance, “Brokeback Mountain” is a long way from the rigorous religious precepts of Santa Fe Christian and the G-rated productions of “The Sound of Music” at CYT. Nevertheless, Carla Williams is ecstatic about her daughter's success: “She's sweet, she has a heart, I'm so proud of her.”
Not so proud is Santa Fe Christian headmaster Jim Hopson. “We don't want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie,” said Hopson, who turned down a request from a Union-Tribune reporter to visit the school and chat with students about the movies and one of their own being up for an Academy Award.
“Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution. We would not approve of her movies and TV shows (including the teen drama “Dawson's Creek”). We'd not like to be tied to 'Brokeback Mountain.'
“I hope we offered her something in life. But she made the kinds of choices of which we wouldn't approve. 'Brokeback Mountain' basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote. It's not the word of God.” Her career, meanwhile, was taking off. She co-starred with Kirsten Dunst in “Dick,” a movie about a couple of teenagers who finagle their way into the White House to meet President Nixon; the HBO film “If These Walls Could Talk 2,” playing a lesbian college student; and a lonely girl who befriends a dwarf in “The Station Agent.”
More than once, I've talked to Christians who don't understand why their kids turned out the way that they did. Sometimes, in spite of all the best efforts of parents, their kids end up taking a worldly path. But when I read this article, I can't claim to be very surprised:
The actress told one interviewer, “My parents are so proud. I did a movie called 'Dick.' I got naked on stage (in an off-Broadway show). I did this HBO thing where I'm a lesbian. I mean, good God, I'm just causing shame to my household.”
Hardly the case. Carla Williams, who lives in Rancho Santa Fe and works in a Del Mar scrapbook store, champions her daughter's personal and professional choices: “I'm proud of her.” Home-schooled for a year, she returned to Santa Fe Christian for eighth and ninth grade. At 16 came the part that propelled her into the media spotlight, high schooler Jen Lindley, a girl with a reputation, on the WB's “Dawson's Creek.” The show was a forerunner to such current fare as “The O.C.” and was a target of the Parents Television Council, which monitors sexual content, violence and profane language. “Dawson's Creek” ended its run in 2003.
Gee, what a surprise.
During that period, Michelle became legally emancipated from her parents, who are divorced. She took a small apartment in Burbank. Her mom, though, was there regularly. Her father, a commodities trader, lives in the Virgin Islands. The situation, Carla Williams said, allowed Michelle “to have her own finances and also work the long hours necessary for a show like 'Dawson's Creek.' ” She graduated from high school via correspondence courses.
Someone Who Specializes in Pre-1800 Literature And History Could Make Some Money...
There's a couple of psychiatrists who are offering a $1000 reward for something that I suspect can be found: Our research suggests that the concept of "repressed memory" or "dissociative amnesia" might be simply a romantic notion dating from the 1800s, rather than a scientifically valid phenomenon. To test this hypothesis, we are offering a reward of $1000 to the first person who can find a description of "repressed memory" in any written work, either nonfiction or fiction (novels, poems, dramas, epics, the Bible, essays, medical treatises, or any other sources), in English or in any work that has been translated into English, prior to 1800. We would argue that if "repressed memory" were a genuine natural phenomenon that has always affected people, then someone, somewhere, in the thousands of years prior to 1800, would have witnessed it and portrayed it in a non-fictional work or in a fictional character.
Now, I know people who have experienced cases that fit these requirements. I am pretty confident that this phenomenon is real. I suspect that the reason that these doctors can't find any pre-1800 examples, in real life or fiction, is that:
To qualify as a bona fide case, the individual described in the work must: 1) experience a severe trauma (abuse, sexual assault, a near-death experience, etc.); and 2) develop amnesia for that trauma for months or years afterwards (i.e. be clearly unable to remember the traumatic event as opposed to merely denying or avoiding the thought); where 3) the amnesia cannot be explained by biological factors, such as a) early childhood amnesia -- in which the individual was under age five at the time of the trauma, or b) neurological impairment due to head injury, drug or alcohol intoxication, or biological diseases. Also, the individual must 4) "recover" the lost memory at some later time, even though the individual had previously been unable to access the memory. Finally, note 5) that the individual must selectively forget a traumatic event; amnesia for an entire period of time, or amnesia for non-traumatic events does not qualify.
1. The volume of published literature expands dramatically in the 18th century, and if even 1% of fiction had such a theme, the sheer volume of published work expands the number of such works likely to use it.
2. Once a particular idea appears in literature, other writers tend to borrow it, especially those who are weak on creativity. Look at how often the "bump on the head causes temporary amnesia" plot device appears in 1950s through 1970s television shows.
Today's Machining Lessons Learned (And They Didn't Even Hurt!)
I was having some problems figuring out how to produce nicely finished, 1/4" long slices from an aluminum tube that is 1.25" ID, and 1.50" OD. My miter saw would make reasonably nice slices, and very quickly. The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to use the lathe to face the ends, nor could I figure out how to polish the exterior of the slices with sandpaper, because the jaws on the chuck are about 1/2" deep. This means that the slice sits inside of the jaws--no way to move the cutting tool across the face, and no way to put the sandpaper against the exterior of the tube. You could have the slice sticking out of the jaws, but this doesn't seem like a very precise position, so I wouldn't have much confidence that cuttin across the slice would give me a properly parallel face.
In addition, I need to run a boring bit along the inside of the tube to enlarge it to 1.251" ID. With the slice all the way in the jaws, if I moved the boring bit all the way along the inside of the slice, I was in danger of running into the face of the chuck, where the slice sits against it. That would damage the boring bit, and perhaps the face of the chuck.
First solution: it turns out that you can not only hold the workpiece on the outside with a 3 jaw chuck, you can also hold the workpiece (when it is a tube) on the inside. I put the tube slice onto the outside of the jaws, and then expanded them until they held it tight. This lets me polish the outside of the slice.
While the jaws are about 1/2" deep inside, on the outside, they are about 1/8" deep. With the slice on the outside of the jaws, I can face each end of the slice to get a perfectly parallel and beautifully finished end. (Obviously, first one end, then the other.)
How to get the inside bored without endangering the tools? I put the slice inside the jaws, but barely so. This leaves about 1/4" between the face of the chuck and the back of the slice. I can now run the boring bit through the slice, and still see it as it clears the back. I still have to be careful, but at least I can make this bore as one continuous operation, without risk.
This Is Such A California Story...
A Ferrari. A crash on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Who was driving it? Who owns it? What's a stolen car doing on the scene? Where is "Dietrich," and what is this gun magazine doing there? Oh, yes, and there's a Malibu meditation teacher in the story, too: The mystery deepened Monday in the case of the puzzling crash last week of a $1-million Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
Oh yeah, Eriksson's blood alcohol level was .09%. So where does the meditation teacher come in?
Sheriff's detectives said Monday that they believe a gun's magazine discovered near the wreckage is connected to the crash, and they plan to interview an unnamed person who they believe was in the car with Swedish game machine entrepreneur Stefan Eriksson.
The crash has also garnered the attention of a leading Scottish bank, which has informed sheriff's investigators that it may own the destroyed car. At the same time, detectives are trying to figure out why another exotic car in Eriksson's extensive collection, a Mercedes SLR, was listed as stolen by Scotland Yard in London, said Sheriff's Sgt. Phil Brooks.
...
Brooks said detectives have called in Eriksson for another interview. Eriksson has declined through the security guard at his gated Bel-Air estate to comment. An attorney who has previously represented Eriksson in civil matters, Ashley Posner, also declined to comment Monday.
But some city leaders in Malibu, where the crash has been the talk of the town, were less circumspect.
"The guy should have had an IQ test," said Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Ken Kearsley, who has been following the coverage of the crash with a half-grin. The driver's IQ "couldn't come up above 60 if he was doing 120 on PCH," Kearsley said.
But in fact, Brooks said Monday, the car was traveling 162 mph when it crashed, far faster than the 120 mph originally believed. The Ferrari, with just a few inches of undercarriage clearance, hit a bump at a crest in the road, sending the vehicle airborne and into the power pole, Brooks said. Carol Moss, a longtime Malibu resident, activist and meditation group leader, said the accident came as no surprise.
"It was horrendous, but Malibu is full of idiots," she said. "There are a lot of wild cars and irresponsible people. The roads are dangerous. You always see people with those sorts of cars. You see some wild behavior."
But, in keeping with her Zen frame of mind, Moss extended an olive branch. "Everyone is welcome to attend the meditation group. Even the drag racer."
Driving Californians Out
I hate to argue with the Wall Street Journal about this, especially because I agree with their conclusion, that California's limousine liberals are driving middle-class Californians out of the state, but I think they are a bit too focused on economic reasons for the exodus, and not enough on the culture war aspects: It takes hard work to drive anyone away from California's sunshine and scenic vistas, but politicians in Sacramento have been up to the task.
What's wrong with this argument is that Idaho's income tax rates are pretty high, too. The Idaho corporate income tax rate is 7.6%. The maximum marginal personal income tax rate is 7.8%--less than California's, but if you are filing a joint return with a taxable income of $45,000, you are in that top tax bracket--unlike California.
The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090--or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.
What's gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California's rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.
But the worst growth killer may well be California's tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state's taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small0business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs.
There are certainly some economic advantages to living and working in Idaho, but from a tax standpoint, Idaho isn't so dramatically superior to California. What I hear from recent California arrivals as the reasons why they moved here is that they were tired of the density, the crime problem, and above all, the sense that they were no longer wanted there: their moral values were contrary to the dominant philosophy of the place, and they simply would not continue trying to raise children in communities that regard Christianity as a problem to be stamped out.
What is really amusing to me are the people that move here because they acknowledge that they would not want to raise children in a community that shares their values. Shortly after we arrived, I met a couple who seemed like they would be very Bay Area. He was a freshly minted doctor; she had a Masters of Fine Arts, and was definitely on the artsy side of things. By their own admission, they were very liberal--but after looking at where they wanted to start a family, they concluded that Boise made more sense than any of a number of other communities where their political and social values were the norm.
At least they recognized the paradox. Many years, my wife and I were sitting at All American Burger in Santa Monica, shortly after the left moved in and took over. At the next table, two of this crowd were talking--and it was so predictable, I was able to quietly tell my wife, "Within 30 seconds, they will be discussing the Owens Valley aqueduct and the corruption involved in it." Sure enough, it happened, on cue. The most amusing part of their conversation, however, was when one of them explained that the Los Angeles area had an enormous number of jobs, very active "in a laissez-faire sort of way, but there's absolutely no provision for public policy planning!"
Neither of them figured out that there was a connection there. And it seems that no one in California has figured out that creating a society where middle class values are no longer acceptable means that eventually, you lose the people that make a society livable.
Why I Think Long-Term Bond Yields Have Some More Room To Rise
This projection by economists says that the economy is going to boom this year: The US economy is set for a strong rebound in the first quarter of 2006, shaking off the hurricane-related weakness of the fourth quarter, a survey of business economists showed.
Booming economies don't have to produce demand-pull inflation, but they usually do so. Expectations of inflation (even short-term) tend to drive up bond buyer demands for long-term bond yields.
The survey of the National Association of Business Economists called for the economy to expand at a robust 4.5 percent pace in the current quarter -- the fastest since 2003 -- after a disappointing 1.1 percent annualized rate in the fourth quarter.
"The NABE panel sees the economy roaring back in early 2006 following the fourth quarter's tepid 1.1 percent growth," said Stuart Hoffman, NABE president and chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.
"Our forecasters expect the economy to shake off the effects of last years hurricanes and surging oil price."
The report based on a survey of 53 economists projected the overall pace of growth for 2006 at 3.3 percent.
This should be strong enough to allow the Federal Reserve to lift its base interest rate to 5.0 percent, the economists conclude.
ScopeRoller: A Little Boasting, And A Question
I received a request for shipping quote from Australia for casters to fit a Celestron CI-700 mount. I asked the potential customer if he had access to a micrometer--and then I explained that the more precisely I can fit the leg inserts to the tripod legs, the less need there is to use adhesive to prevent rotation of the casters within the tripod legs.
He responded that he understood what I was talking about--he has a Losmandy G-11 with my caster products in it. This had me really confused--I have sold some caster sets to Australia, but not to this guy, and not for the G-11. It turns out that he bought the G-11 mount from someone in Florida, and my caster set was included.
I will be putting together a display ad for Astronomy this week--probably a 1/3 page ad. Such ads are not cheap--$800 or so per issue, but I now support such an extensive line of mounts with both casters and Quick Release Toe Savers that I believe that the ad will pay for itself, at least--and perhaps create the firestorm of sales that will have me trying to decide whether I need my day job or not.
I am also considering adding a new product to the product line. So here's a question: I would like to buy rings made of either aluminum or some very hard plastic, such as Delrin, that are 1.25" inside diameter, about 1.5" outside diameter (maybe a little smaller if aluminum, or a little larger, if plastic), and 1/4" to 1/2" long. I've been trying my usual sources, but I have not had much luck, probably because such gadgets, if they are commonly manufactured, aren't called "rings" or "spacers."
I could make these myself by starting with 1.75" diameter Delrin rod in 1" lengths, then drilling a hole through it with a 1.25" drill, then using a parting tool on the lathe to make little slices. This is just slower and more wasteful of material than buying the rings already made. I've looked for aluminum tube that is 1.25" inside diameter--but it tends to be very thin walled--and I need something that I can thread and get significant purchase on.
UPDATE: I've found aluminum tubing that is the right dimensions--I'll just have to cut it without bending it.
A Psychiatrist Looks At Gun Control
It is a long but very well-written article by psychiatrist Sarah Thompson (thanks to Arms and the Law for the link), explaining some of the psychological processes involved in the gun control movement: projection; denial; and reaction formation. Dr. Thompson is careful to emphasize that not every gun control supporter is doing so because of emotional difficulties. My experience is that most gun control supporters do so because they haven't really thought about the problem very carefully--and once they have to defend their positions against a carefully reasoned opponent, a lot of gun control supporters start to realize that the problem is a bit more complex than it first sounds.
I've written here about the increasing effort to prohibit self-defense in the United States. I've written here about talking to gun control advocates--and why it is important to persuade them, not insult them. I think that having read Dr. Thompson's article, you will see some obvious connection to the points that I make in those two articles.
Dr. Thompson writes about denial as a factor--that gun control advocates often support restrictive gun control laws as a way of avoiding admitting that they may not be safe. Let me give you an example. There was a woman that I my wife worked for, many years ago, named Vicki. My wife was a substitute teacher; Vicki was the principal. At a social function, my wife suggested that firearms safety instruction was probably a good idea--because even in our little pocket of millionaire liberals, there were kids coming from homes where guns were not only present--but unsecured.
Vicki was Jewish, and explained that the reason she supported very strict gun control was that when she was growing up in the Los Angeles area in the late 1950s, there was an anti-Semite who harrassed and threatened her family. At this point, you are probably thinking, okay, there's a certain logic to this--if you are afraid of being murdered by racists, you might think, "We'll just disarm them."
But this anti-Semite was a Los Angeles policeman--and some of this threatening was being done while he was working. So how will disarming all civilians make Vicki safe from racists with a badge? It obviously would make her less safe--but denial isn't just a river in Egypt--it allowed Vicki to avoid confronting that this is not a safe world, and there are times that the best solution is the ability to shoot back.
ACLU, Hard At Work
David Bernstein, over at Volokh Conspiracy, has an interesting story about what happened when the right of a restaurant to tell neo-Nazis to not wear swastikas conflicted with their right to be served. Guess which side the ACLU filed suit on behalf of? There is a German restaurant called the Alpine Village Inn, in Torrance California. A group of four neo-Nazis went there to eat, each wearing a lapel pin with a swastika on it. The management asked them to take off the lapel pins. They refused. The management asked them to leave. They refused. The management called the police, who arrested them.
When I was living in Santa Monica in the early 1980s, rent control activists were major players in local politics--after all, you have a right to live three blocks from ocean, and pay $335 a month in rent, don't you? Anyway, a landlord in Los Angeles declined to rent to a rent control activist, and was sued into submission under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, on the grounds that this was arbitrary discrimination.
Then, remarkably, the Southern California ACLU gets involved, and sues the restaurant for calling the police on the Nazis! This much I've confirmed from media accounts. According to the commenter who first alerted me to this story, "the defendants' insurer eventually settled following unsuccessful pretrial challenges to the complaint, believing they could not prevail under California law!"
The lawsuit was brought under California's Unruh Act, which provides that "all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, or medical condition are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever." The California courts have held that the protected classes delineated by the Act are not exclusive; the Act also protects arbitrary discrimination by a business establishment based on similar characteristics to the above. Apparently, the insurer thought that "political views" was sufficiently similar to "religion" that the courts would likely rule against the insured. (This was, after all, the Rose Bird Court, which issued a series of absurdly broad and illogical rulings under the Unruh Act; in one of those opinions (Isbister) Bird personally gratuitously insulted a little old lady who donated money to a Boys' Club as one of the "select few" who wish to be "insulated from the 20th century" because the Boys' Club didn't admit girls.)
I understand the reasoning behind the laws prohibiting racial discrimination--as an attempt to make up for many decades of governments requiring racial discrimination. I also understand the common law concept of requiring innkeepers to serve all customers on an equal basis, and I can see how it provides a basis for antidiscrimination laws. But there comes a certain point where common sense needs to play a role in this. I have T-shirts that I would not wear into leftist controlled sections of this country, such as my "Celebrate Diversity" shirt with pictures of a "diverse" set of handguns. This might be misinterpreted as racially derogatory, and of course, gun control activists tend to be somewhat irrational when they see even two-dimensional handguns. I would not think of wearing this out on the street in Los Angeles, and if I went into a restaurant, and they refused me service, I would be irked, but that's about all.
Professor Volokh thinks that I am suffering from "ACLU Derangement Syndrome." It is cases like this that expose the ACLU as a bunch of truly deranged people.
House Project: Almost Done!
The last .01% of any project seems to take forever. We went up there Saturday (you will see why, in a moment), and the builder had finished replacing the baseboard in the laundry room, bolted the dishwasher and trash compactor into place (they were free to move front to rear--quite disconcerting), and put some wood spacers in to keep the microwave oven from moving in the cabinets. All that is left is to get three of the doors to stop trying to close themselves. I do not want to live in a house occupied by ghosts!
The builder is reluctant to mess with moving the door frames to solve this problem (which were probably caused by settling of the foundation), because it would require substantial repainting. He tried a solution that I found on the Internet--bending the hinge pin, so that it resists closing. He tried roughening the hinges with a file. Neither of these solutions fixed it--and our builder apparently has no other solution, short of moving the door frames. Any other ideas out there?
Anyway, there is so little left to be done on the inside--just the door hinges--that we started to packing up books to move them on Saturday. From now, we will try and move something up there, everytime we visit. We have a very large built-in bookshelf in our current family room, and that's part of why we had an enormous built-in bookshelf added to the office.
You can see it, with all the books removed.
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Unfortunately, we have no big boxes around the house, and no book boxes. So we ended up using plastic shopping bags. You know how libraries in rural areas have bookmobiles in which they take books to outlying areas? This looks like a bookmobile run by morons.
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Not every book gets to go. We are culling a few books that are outdated, unwanted, or that don't justify a second read. (But hey, if you want them, we can work out a deal.)
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Anyway, after moving this small load of books into the office, we started scouring the hillside for building debris (largely cardboard and paper scraps), and mounding up for the builder to haul away. This was a surprisingly demanding task, since we have more than eleven acres, and some of the scraps were astonishingly heavy, considering that the wind moved them where they were. Our feet were too muddy to go back into the carpeted office, so I had to settle for taking a picture through the window, giving this effect that reminds me of Disneyland's "The Haunted Mansion" ride.
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While talking to the builder, we found out that Friday, a co-worker and his wife had come on by. Since our builder had seen me with this co-worker at the site, he gave him a tour. The co-worker is thinking, "This might be a nice place to live." So perhaps I will have someone to carpool to work with in a few more months.
Last house project entry.
Advantages of Living in Boise
My wife and I went to Eagle Island State Park recently--which is about ten minutes drive from our house in West Boise. We went there looking for bald eagles, which live along this river. Ask yourself how many big cities have views like this, this close to an urban center.
The water along the river is still ice-covered in places--but the sun was out.
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The mountains behind Boise.
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