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Labels: humor Labels: fake hate crimes Labels: global warming
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
Specializing in discussions of discrimination and affirmative action
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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
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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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Pentax K10D
This isn't going to be a full, highly technical review--just my impressions of it, and a few pictures of the camera, and with the camera. (Obviously, it is difficult to photograph the camera with itself, except for the limited opportunities that mirrors make possible.) Some of the pictures below (if you click on the thumbnails) were taken with the K10D, and I have not reduced their size--so these may take a while to download, even on high speed connections. (It could be worse--the K10D allows you to use RAW mode instead of JPG, which makes them even larger.)
The camera is much more like a 35mm SLR than most consumer digital cameras: in dimensions; in appearance; and how quickly it turns on and is ready to take pictures. It isn't quite instant on (like a film camera), but it is ready to start snapping in a fraction of a second.
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In this side view, you can see the manual focus switch (at the bottom: MF, AF.S, AF.C) and the button near the top with an arrow head. 
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This pops up the built-in flash:
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This is sufficient for most indoor applications; there is a hot shoe to let you put on a flash for professional applications.
Here are some cat pictures to give you some idea of the precision of the 10.2 megapixel sensor (within the limitations of JPG's compression scheme, which inevitably causes some loss of fine detail). This our cat, Tater Tot the Tiny Terrorist.
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Here's the cat that hangs around the restaurant in town where we went for breakfast this morning.
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Here's a fine detail test at the restaurant, with the included zoom lens at full magnification (55mm).
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Here's the same object with the zoom lens at lowest magnification (18mm).
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This is one of those examples where digital zoom is no substitute for optical zoom. No matter how much you might try, you won't be able to digitally magnify the small print enough to get a decent image.
You still need to worry about excessive contrast. My wife is babysitting our builder's horses at the lot across from us. The high brightness of the snow relative to the horses can probably be adjusted in my PC. I think there are some settings in the camera as well to handle this--but I haven't read the entire manual yet. (To paraphrase a friend's comments about a very overbuttoned television remote control: "I think I could start thermonuclear war with this thing.")
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Both of my cameras use USB cables to talk to a PC--but while of course identical on the USB end, they are different where they hook to the cameras. This is unfortunate; I guess that I will be using this USB hub of mine after all.
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It took a little while, and a call to Pentax (where amazingly enough, technical support was provided by a North American), but here's the trick to getting an older, non-autofocus Pentax-compatible lens to take pictures.
1. Instead of "Green Mode" (which is auto everything), go to USER mode on the left top dial.
2. Hit Menu on the back, and scroll over to Custom Setting.
3. Scroll down to "Using aperture ring", and change setting to 2, "Permitted."
Ignore the MF setting. That seems to make no difference.
I have an 80-205mm telephoto zoom lens from an older Pentax film SLR, and I was interested in using it. It does work. It doesn't autofocus, so once you have depressed the shutter release button half-way, you turn the focus on the lens until a little "in focus" indicator shows up in the viewfinder, and you get a beep. This tells you that you are in focus.
Remember that because of the smaller size of the sensor than 35mm film, you have to multiply all the focal lengths of 35mm camera lens by 1.5 to figure out the equivalent for the K10D. Once I did this, I figured out why this older zoom lens produced beautiful images at 80mm (actually 120mm with this camera), but rather fuzzy and disappointing at 205mm (or 307mm with this camera). I have probably exceeded the optical capabilities of this zoom lens.
The light isn't great right now (too many clouds), but I'll post some pictures using the zoom lens soon.
Humor
I received the following holiday wishes, originally written by one David Ryan:To all My Democrat Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere , And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms.
For My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Faking Hate Crimes
I mentioned a while back that a "hate crime" against a homosexual student at Boise State, upon more investigation, turned out to be a fraud. The student attacked himself, punching himself, and beating himself with a stick, so that he could claim that Idaho's passage of a "one man, one woman" constitutional amendment was promoting violence against homosexuals. Not surprisingly, Boise State had a grand mal seizure of guilt about how "homophobic" it and the rest of Idaho is--but precious few words when they realized that this "hate crime" didn't happen.
The student--whose name hasn't been published until now because he was a "victim"--is now identified:Authorities announced today that Alex "A.J." McGillis, 20, of Boise must appear in court on charges of resisting and obstructing officers. The charge specifically relates to a false report McGillis made to police Nov. 9. in connection with what was initially reported to police as a battery on the greenbelt somewhere between Taylor Hall and Friendship Bridge. According to police reports, McGillis initially claimed a white male struck him from behind with an object while using anti-gay expletives and proceeded to hit him in the face several times, causing him to lose consciousness. McGillis later admitted to authorities he used a stick and his own fists to self-inflict his injuries. The falsified attack quickly prompted student and administrative organizations around Boise State to sponsor the "No Oppression Tolerated, Not On Our Campus," rally and a candlelight vigil in the Quad. Several student representatives and BSU administrators stressed tolerance and the need for civility on campus at the rallies and for several days after. Hundreds attended the rallies. The prosecutor's summons orders McGillis to appear in Magistrate Court no later than Jan. 10th on the charge. Filing a false police report is a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of $1,000 fine and one year in jail.
Now, I'm sure that liberals everywhere will be full of excuses for what McGillis did, minimizing its importance, and saying that he has suffered enough.
Imagine how they would have responded, however, if this had happened?
1. A man reports being grabbed by a group of homosexuals, raped, and taunted, "You'll want to come back for of this, won't you?"
2. Social conservatives organize rallies demanding that "something be done" to make it safe for straight men, and decrying the tolerance of homosexual rape.
3. After police find inconsistencies in his story, and failures to match the physical evidence, the man admits that he faked the whole thing, and there was no homosexual rape.
Do you think that conservatives would be sitting around making analogous excuses such as, "Well, there are homosexuals who rape straight men--maybe it didn't happen in this case, but it could have!" Do you think liberals would be making excuses for why this inflammatory false crime report shouldn't be punished severely?
New York City Camera Crooks
I mentioned a couple of days ago that I had submitted an order online at FotoConnections.com, and when I called the salescreature to "confirm" the order (really, give them a chance to do a high pressure sales job for a $149 battery for the camera), I was so upset with his dishonesty that I told him to cancel the order--that I wasn't interested in doing business with people with these sort of sales tactics.
So today, I get notification that they have shipped the camera and charged my Discover Card! I wasn't here, so UPS couldn't get a signature, nor will they, for that package. I'm sure that they are going to try and charge me a restocking fee, or at least for shipping and packaging--and I'm not paying these crooks a penny.
By the way, I ordered the camera from Idaho Camera on Wednesday afternoon for $999 plus Idaho sales tax. On Thursday afternoon, it arrived by DHL. I'll give a detailed review at a later time, but I'm pleased as punch with the camera.
By the way, here's a list of complaints from others who have had similar experiences with FotoConnection. They are crooks, through and through. And here. And here. And here, including this account that is so similar to mine that it is obviously company policy:I read the horror stories, but I thought I would give it a shot anyways (they were about $200 cheaper than the other online retailers). I ordered online and got instant email confirmation. The next day I get a call to "confirm my mailing address". After confirming, he says "you are aware that this camera doesn't come with a battery"? Armed with the consumer feedback, my reply was, "This isn't a US retail product then?". "No." Since I knew this might happen, I asked him to cancel the order. He tried to sell me a battery "for cheap", but I refused.
On that same page, this guy's experience matches my RiteBuys and FotoConnection experience:I read a few reviews on Foto Connections and the overall rating seems positive. So, I decided to take a chance, I ordered a Canon EOS 10D for $1199. The next day got a call to confirm the order. Just like one of the review described, the salesman seems very irritated. He said the camera is out of stock it would take a few weeks to re-stock, and the one I order is not a US model, battery and charger not included. A so called "US model" is available for $1499.99 street price. Another bait and switch shop!
and:What a bunch of crooks! The camera I ordered, a Nikon D70, was supposed to be available in stock... Once I placed my order on their web site, I received the infamous phone call described in other postings. After trying to sell me over-priced accessories, and trying to scare me with bogus information to push me to buy an additional battery pack, the "salesman??" proceeded to tell me my order would be shipped in 4 to 6 weeks. Needless to say, I canceled the order right then and there. Save yourself the aggravation. Shop elsewhere. There are plenty of honest retailers around. No need to patronize these crooks!
And:FotoConnection advertised a low price for a high-end digital camera. I called them to confirm that this was a U.S. model with U.S. warranty and came with all accessories. They said yes to all. After I ordered, they told me it's an import with no U.S. warranty, no battery, and no charger. Then they offered to sell me a much higher priced model. I canceled my order.
And this site has people who are far angrier--so angry that I can't quote them, because I don't put language like that on my blog.
I'm planning to report this bunch of crooks to the New York State Attorney-General's Consumer Fraud division--and from the comments that I'm finding, many others have done so already. So why are they still in business? It's almost like someone isn't doing their jobs in Albany.
UPDATE: I just realized something rather interesting about the credit card process. Discover Card tells me FotoConnections has a $931 charge against my account that has been "authorized" but not "posted." This is equivalent to what happens when you rent a car--typically, a $200 or $300 charge is "authorized" but until you return the car, and sign the final paperwork, this is only a reserve amount--not an actual charge to your card. Why would you only do an authorization on an item that you have already shipped?
My guess is that because I canceled the order, they shipped the camera without posting the charge as a way of flying under the radar. I had checked my Discover Card account online that afternoon, after canceling the order, but saw no charge from FotoConnections. My guess is that they shipped the camera with the expectation that if I ordered the camera from someone else, I would assume that the UPS shipment from FotoConnections was that camera coming from another vendor. As soon as I signed for it, they would then post the charge--and demand a 15% restocking fee to take back the camera that I didn't order.
It is entirely possible that the camera that they shipped is actually what I was trying to order--a U.S. warranty Pentax K10D 18-55mm lens with all the factory standard accessories--but after dealing with these crooks, I would not be surprised if it was just a camera body ("oh, you thought you were ordering the version with the lens?"), or was missing the battery (since the salesliar at FotoConnection initially claimed that it came without a battery--as they said to other customers), or had stripped out the factory parts and substituted some inferior replacements. With the long list of complaints against these crooks, and with the dishonesty and deceptive tactics of the salesliars at FotoConnection and RiteBuysk, why would I expect anything else?
UPDATE 2: Michael Williams posts about his "too similar to be coincidence" experiences with oneclickdigital.com and wawadigital.com. One reader comment about wawadigital.com is especially disturbing:In addition to agreeing with everyone's comments regarding this company, my biggest mistake was not cancelling my credit card immediately. To date they have taken me for over $2,000. Identity theft is the only thing the "sell". I hope someone enjoyed the plane ticket in Dubai that they purchased with my card!
UPDATE 3: Another blogger tells me that after his experience with oneclickdigital.com, the credit card he used to start this transaction ended up with a $2000 charge for what I presume were season tickets to the New York Knicks. Hmmmm. Maybe it would be best to get going on having my credit card number changed, to avoid this grief.
UPDATE 4: UPS made another attempt to deliver today. Of course, I checked the return address--no mention of FotoConnection--instead, it was something like "GE Shipping Services" with a Brooklyn address. They are shipping this with signature required--but they won't put their own company name on it? This fits my model above for why the charges were "authorized" but not "posted."
So Much For The "Jobs Citizens Won't Do" Argument
In the aftermath of a highly publicized INS raid to arrest illegal aliens working at the Swift meatpacking plant:GREELEY - The line of applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant earlier this week was out the door Thursday.
You almost wonder: if the Bush Administration had decided to enforce the law on this in 2005--and made a point of the impact this would have on putting citizens and legal residents to work--if the Republicans would have lost control of Congress?
Among them was Derrick Stegall, who carefully filled out paperwork he hoped would get him an interview and eventually land him a job as a slaughterer. Two of his friends had been taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and he felt compelled to fill their rubber boots.
"Luckily, they had no wives or family they left behind. But it was still sad. They left their apartments filled with all their stuff. I took two dogs one of them had. The other guy had a cat I gave to my sister," he said.
Greg Bonifacio heard about the job openings on television and brought his passport, his Colorado driver's license, his Social Security card and even a color photograph of himself as a young Naval officer to prove his military service.
"I don't want to hassle with any identification problems because of my last name," said Bonifacio, a 59- year-old Thornton resident of Filipino heritage.
...
Bonifacio was hoping to get a job in production or fabrication. So was Nathan Korgan, a former construction worker whose company closed and moved to California.
"I feel bad for the kids, but good for me," said Korgan of Tuesday's raid.
Like many others who had mixed emotions about the raid, Maxine Hernandez said she was upset that families were torn apart, but believes illegal immigrants should not get work using fake documents.
"I guess I'm in the middle," she said. "But I do think they should have planned (the raid) better so that innocent children wouldn't be left behind."
Hernandez, who had gone to the employment office because her husband was there to apply for unemployment insurance, decided to apply for a job at Swift on a whim.
"My whole family used to work there. My mom, my aunt, uncles," she said. "I guess it sort of runs in our blood."
More Uses For LEDs
A reader tells me about his use for LED lighting:For me your posts on LED replacements for incandescent lights is very apropos. For my 37' sailboat
I only have 225 amp hours of house battery from a pair of Trojan T-105s. It's only practical to use 30-40% since you don't want to take a lead acid battery much below 50% charge and then want to recharge quickly to avoid sulphation. Also, when cruising you seldom get the batteries above 80% charge unless you motor a lot. I'm also replacing eight if the interior lights that we use extensively such as the ones over the galley, 4 bulbs, and the two fixtures in the salon where we read, another 4 bulbs, with these.
At nearly $40 a pop, I'm not doing the ones we use only for short periods.
Your Aid Money Pays To Enforce Sharia Law
From the Times of London:WHEN people around the world sent millions of pounds to help the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, few could have imagined that their money would end up subsidising the lashing of women in public.
As much as some people want to imagine that the problem is confined to the Middle East, or a few extremists who just happen to be Muslim--no, it isn't. You can see why feminists, progressives, leftists, etc., are throwing themselves so wholeheartedly into the pro-Muslim, anti-U.S. camp.
But militant Islamists have since imposed sharia law in Aceh and have cornered Indonesian government funds to organise a moral vigilante force that harasses women and stages frequent displays of humiliation and state-sanctioned violence.
International aid workers and Indonesian women’s organisations are now expressing dismay that the flow of foreign cash for reconstruction has allowed the government to spend scarce money on a new bureaucracy and religious police to enforce puritan laws, such as the compulsory wearing of headscarves.
Some say there are more “sharia police” than regular police on the local government payroll and that many of them are aggressive young men.
“Who are these sharia police?” demanded Nurjannah Ismail, a lecturer at Aceh’s Ar-Raniri University. “They are men who, most of the time, are trying to send the message that their position is higher than women.”
In one town, Lhokseumawe, the authorities are even planning to impose a curfew on women — a move that social workers warn will force tsunami widows to quit night-time jobs as food sellers or waitresses and could drive them into prostitution.
None of that daunts the enthusiasts for sharia, who gather in droves whenever there is an opportunity to glory in its enforcement.
The scene is always the same, and it has been enacted at least 140 times in squares and market places in front of mosques, from the towering minarets of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, to humble village places of worship.
The transgressor can be a man accused of gambling or drinking alcohol. But if it is a woman guilty of wearing “improper” clothing or being caught in proximity to a man, there is a particular ritual to the punishment.
She is dressed in white robes and veiled. Policemen escort her up on to a stage erected before a jeering crowd, which, witnesses say, is usually almost exclusively male.
Forced to kneel, the woman waits while a masked man ascends the platform. He is carrying a cane with a curved handle designed to give the inflictor of God’s punishment a better grip. From the loudspeakers, a man’s voice sonorously recites the appropriate religious chastisement. Then he begins to count. With each number, the cane descends with a vicious lash.
According to witnesses, male onlookers often roar in delight and hurl pious imprecations at the victims, working themselves up to a pitch of excitement.
In one collective punishment last summer, four women denounced for gambling were given between six and 10 lashes. One passed out as she was dragged off the stage.
Looking For Christmas Gifts?
I was given two books for my birthday. One is Jim Edgar's Bad Cat: 244 Not-So-Pretty Kitties And Cats Gone Bad which is either a clever, sometimes funny (if you ask me) or uproariously funny (if you ask my wife or daughter) collection of cat photographs with amusing sometimes very slightly vulgar or double-entendre captions. (If you regularly watch broadcast television and find none of it offensive, ignore "slightly vulgar or double-entendre" in the last sentence.)
The other is Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. If you read Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea you will probably enjoy this as well. I'll write a more detailed review shortly (and perhaps try to peddle a longer version to a few magazines), but in the ultrashort form, I'll call it a well-researched popular history of the settlement of Plymouth Colony--and King Philip's War (fought five decades later). I might quibble a little on his emphasis of the Pequot War's motivations, but overall, the book is much better than some of the "scholarly" work that has appeared on the subject. Philbrick is aware that these wars did not involve simple polarities of virtuously victimized Native Americans and evil, merciless, bloodthirsty white people.
If you've read every primary source about Plymouth, you won't find much new here, and there are a few minor factual errors with respect to Plymouth and Massachusetts militia law and weapons obligations--but this doesn't impair the conclusions he draws or the power of the narrative he weaves.
Fallen Angels
I think that I recall hearing about this novel by Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn some years ago, but I was too busy working for a couple of startups and getting a BA and an MA at the time to be reading anything light. Instapundit mentioned that it was now available online, for free, so I figured, what the heck.
I've always enjoyed Niven's fiction, and to a lesser extent, Pournelle's novels, such as Janissaries. When the two of them work together, the results are a reminder that synergy is true: the combination is often more than the sum of the parts. Neither of them is exactly a master of characterization, but Niven's characters are usually a bit better fleshed out.
Both Niven and Pournelle are big idea writers. Niven is stronger on thinking through the social implications of scientific and technological change. (It is still, however, quite jarring to read Niven's short stories from the late 1960s and early 1970s set in the 1990s and later--and be utterly amazed at how dramatically he missed the social transformation that feminism created.) Pournelle seems to do better at seeing the political and historical implications. When they work together, the results are often magical. Lucifer's Hammer, set in 1970s California, and The Mote in God's Eye set in the 31st century, are both richly textured and intricately plotted works. I've had occasion to read both of them for the second time in the last few years, and found much to enjoy on the second pass.
I'm not quite so enthused about Fallen Angels. This may be an example of a book with a prophetic ring to it that suffers from rapidly changing events. When it came out in 1991, the question of whether the Earth was warming or not was utterly open to question. The novel's tells us that the 1970s climatologists who warned of a coming ice age might have been right. Perhaps the discrepancies between theory and measure of solar neutrino production signaled that the Sun was actually starting to turn off as part of some long-term cycle--which might explain previous ice ages. Now the neutrino discrepancy has been resolved, and while there is considerable argument about how much the Earth is warming, and how much of that might be increases in solar output vs. anthropogenic warming, it does seem clear that we are not in danger of a sudden ice age--although we now know that there have been ice ages that have arrived just about as dramatically as the one in Fallen Angels.
Another area where history took a different turn is that America moved noticeably to the right in the 1990s. Many of the utterly deranged ideas that dominate America in 21st century Fallen Angels's America, while still dominant in most universities, no longer appear likely to be become wildly popular in the general population. (Outside of places like Sonoma County and other ecolunatic asylums, of course.) Fallen Angels does suggest mechanisms by which Greens and related totalitarian groups might have taken power without winning over the masses, but at least as related in the book, these seem like implausible methods, unless the masses had been disarmed first--and there are enough hints in the book that this has not happened.
There is one rather amusing quote where the dean tells a physics professor that so-called objective truth in the physical sciences is an invention of white, heterosexual males, and all I could think of was some of the faculty that taught at Sonoma State University. One of the textbooks I was assigned for a mandatory multicultural indoctrination class argued that the "binary logic used in computers" was peculiarly Western, and there was no reason to believe that it was valid in other societies. I guess those cruise missile guidance systems just stop working when over Muslim or Hindu nations.
One aspect of Fallen Angels that I found tiresome was the continual bashing of Senator William Proxmire. Even in 1991, Niven and Pournelle's attempts to turn "proxmire" into a verb, indicating an ignorant political hostility to scientific research, was clumsy. Some of Proxmire's efforts to stop government funding of research often reflected his political ambitions, and were not particularly accurate or fair. But there is enough really questionable research funded by the government that I doubt that Proxmire was always wrong.
Another aspect of the novel that made no sense was the continual linkage of New Age anti-materialistic spiritualism to Christian fundamentalist Creationism. There is no alliance even slightly possible between the two groups. Any bunch that would have security forces relying on channeling of two million year old avatars to find fugitives, and would turn museum mineral displays into discussions of the spiritual healing capabilities of various crystals, would simply not tolerate Creationism as an "equal time" discussion. Christian fundamentalism, whatever you might want to say about it, has never been hostile to the physical sciences, or technology. Even the biological sciences have never been targets of criticism, except for the relatively narrow fields of evolution and the application of biology to human beings. Fundamentalists are not alone in their concern about ethical considerations related to such matters as eugenics, genetic engineering, and embryonic stem cell research.
It also seems as though the novel's web pages were scanned in--not produced from the original word processor file. Many of the typos are common OCR failures, where two or three letters end up turned into a single, utterly wrong letter. Bored? Need some light reading to take on your next airplane trip? Download! It may entertain you.
What Constitutes Distortion?
There's an article in Inside Higher Education in which various academics complain that their work has been distorted by Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family:When academics feel that their work has been distorted in the press, they frequently have to settle for griping to colleagues or writing a letter to the editor. But for Carol Gilligan, a prominent psychologist and author of In a Different Voice, a mere letter did not suffice. When she was alerted that James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, referenced her work in a Time magazine column, she denounced his interpretation of her research — posting her views Monday in a video on YouTube.
Okay, I don't find it implausible that this could have happened. But I do notice this rather interesting statement in the article:
In his magazine piece, Dobson criticized Mary Cheney’s decision to become pregnant. “[T]he majority of more than 30 years of social-science indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father,” he wrote last week. Dobson backed up his claims by citing Gilligan’s work. Gilligan is a renowned expert on gender and human development and is a professor of education and law at New York University.
“I was stunned to hear that James Dobson quoted me in Time magazine,” Gilligan says in the video. “I had no idea. I was mortified.” She says that there is nothing in her research that would lead anyone to agree with Dobson’s claim that same-gender families are unhealthy for children.The video was commissioned last Friday and quickly edited over the weekend by Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out, an advocacy group for gay rights. Besen said that he has grown weary of Dobson mangling science to advance a political agenda against gay families. Last summer, he started contacting researchers to alert them whenever Dobson cited them in his writing.
Now, it is certainly possible to accurately quote particular statements out of an article or a book in a way that completely inverts or distorts its meaning. This can be the result of intentional deception, failure to understand the material adequately, or excessive zeal for a particular point of view. But I would like to see a bit more example in this article--especially when it suggests that there are no particular points of Gilligan's work used by Dobson that Gilligan gives as examples.
“None of them know this is going on,” Besen said of the academics. “That’s how [Dobson] gets away with it.” This certainly holds true for Gilligan. In the video, she states that she learned of Dobson’s article after Besen notified her. While Gilligan does not appear to dispute any specifics in Dobson’s article, she says that Dobson distorts the meaning of her work which does not support his conclusions. [emphasis added]
Person A can cite work by B that comes to dramatically different conclusions than B's overall work, without it being a sign of inaccuracy or dishonesty. Sometimes, it is simply that B own conclusions don't match B's work. Sometimes, it is that the political agenda that B favors requires different results.
I should point out that contrary to popular opinion, James Dobson isn't an amateur in this area:Dobson earned a doctorate in child development from the University of Southern California in 1967. He was an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for fourteen years. He spent seventeen years on the staff of the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in the Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics.
Shocking Display of Manners
A few days back, I applied for an adjunct position with the Boise State Computer Science Department. The particular class that they wanted taught is an introduction to computer science: sorting algorithms; object-oriented concepts; a lot of the stuff that is just beyond programming, and where you start to enter the realm of something that can be properly called computer science. It was a bit of a long shot, because while I have the work experience to teach this class, I don't have exactly the right education for it.
Back when I was young, if you applied for a job, you normally received some sort of response. It was usually a form letter telling you that you weren't qualified, or they had filled the position, but at least you knew that your resume was received, and someone had at least looked at it long enough to decide that it wasn't worth calling you in for an interview.
When I was last looking for a job with some seriousness, in late 2001, I sent out 300 resumes. I may have received responses from five employers. Most never bothered to respond. I was pleased to see an email from the Computer Science Department telling me that they had filled the position. I hope this becomes a trend for other employers.
It Really Is True
You do not want to deal with New York City camera operations. I mentioned yesterday the RiteBuys.com scam of advertising the Pentax K10D with the 18-55mm zoom lens for $839--but when I called up to "confirm" the order, it was not only high pressure to buy accessories, but then it turns out that this is the version sold outside the U.S.--no warranty. With the warranty, it was $899. When I said cancel, the response was, "okay, $889." This sort of sleazy game playing isn't something that I am willing to encourage, so I told them to just cancel the order.
I moved my way up the list to the next lowest price for the Pentax K10D, an operation called FotoConnection.com. The email asking me to call to "confirm" the order looked suspiciously similar to RiteBuys.com--and the game playing was just different. "Sir, I noticed that you didn't order one thing for your camera--a battery." A rechargeable battery is standard on the Pentax, but okay, what are they going to charge me? $149 for the two hour battery--which means it is now more expensive than buying a retail camera store in Boise. Then the liar at the other end says, "No, I didn't say that it didn't come with a battery, but the battery that comes with it is only good for 15 minutes."
Now, the reviews I've read are pretty clear that this isn't the case, but why take the chance that this operation might actually remove the factory battery and put in one that has a very short lifetime?
Over the years, New York City has developed a reputation for some of the sleaziest, most manipulative, most dishonest retail phone sales in the United States. This is my first and second experiences now with this sort of high pressure garbage. Thanks, I've had enough.
UPDATE: One last try. Broadway Camera advertised the same camera for $855. UPS Ground would add $44.89. Okay, it is still $100 cheaper than the local camera store, and no sales tax saves another $60. The salescreature at the other end of the phone immediately wants name and credit card information, but when I asked him, "Does this have the U.S. warranty? Or is the version sold outside the U.S.?" Yup, it was the non-U.S. version. So what about the prominently displayed, All products we carry are factory fresh and come complete with all manufacturer supplied accessories and carry a 1 year labor, 90 day parts warranty.
That's the international warranty. "Where do I have to mail it for warranty work?"
"Japan."
There was a U.S. warranty version available for $104 more--but now we are looking at $959. With shipping, it comes to just about exactly what Idaho Camera sells it for. I save on sales tax, but $60 isn't so much money, and there are some advantages to buying it from an operation where I can go and make a noisy scene in front of other customers if they try to play sleazy New York City camera games with me.
UPDATE 2: Several readers report that what I suspected--that many of the discount sleazy New York City camera dealers are actually one operation--is true. This is a collection of photographs of the storefronts in question. The photos are terribly meaningful to this story, but what the photographer found when he started chasing down who these businesses really are is enlightening.
B&H Photo is one of the only well known New York City camera mail order operation that is on the up and up--and their prices are not any threat to most retail camera stores.
You Have To See This One!
David Zucker has some fun at the expense of the Iraq Study Group's deranged proposal to make Iran part of the peace process.
The Efficiency of eBay
I am a little annoyed that this water filter housing ended up selling on eBay for $100--considering it was almost new, and cost me about $800+ less than a year ago--but I am impressed with the efficiency of eBay for maximizing prices for other items.
I've been trying to buy a Pentax K10D with the 18-55mm zoom lens kit. The lowest price that I have been able to find from a dealer was RiteBuys.com, which has it for $839. I found the same Pentax offered on eBay one day old. (The buyer discovered it was too small for his hand, and the camera store wanted an absurd restocking fee.) Okay, that's plausible, so I bid on it. There are now ten hours left on it, and the current bidding price on it is $732.05--close enough to the new price at RiteBuys.com that I don't mind spending an extra $100 to get something brand new with no questions about warranty, and probably have it in hand a bit quicker. I would not be surprised if the final price on this barely used camera comes within a few dollars of the brand new price. Even more amazing is how many bidders on eBay are bidding brand new K10D's with the 18-55mm zoom lens well above RiteBuys.com's price.
Similarly, I've been looking at Jaguar X-types on eBay as well. Now, I don't need the AWD capabilities so badly that I am prepared to spend the $16,000 to $18,000 that I would expect for a used one, but if I can find some dealer who is so desperate to unload inventory that I can get one still under warranty for $8000 to $9000...well, I don't expect that to happen, but I can always dream, can't I?
There are lots and lots X-types being offered, many of them just coming off lease, I think. Generally these are 2003 and 2004 models with 12,000 to 40,000 miles on them. Not surprisingly, the dealers are setting fairly high reserves, so in spite of often quite vigorous bidding, of 23 that I have bid on, only one actually sold--a 2003 with the smaller engine (2.5L) and a manual transmission, with almost 45,000 miles. The price, $13,750, was decent for the buyer, but not such a deal that I regret not following the bidder up the ladder.
UPDATE: I was slightly suspicious of why RiteBuys.com was substantially cheaper than other vendors. They called today to confirm the order and try to sell me accessories. It turned out that the $839 price is the "import" version--not the version sold here with a U.S. warranty. That's $899. When I said to cancel the order, it was now $889. It may well be that, as the stereotyped New Yorker claimed, that no one else has any cheaper--but I won't do business with people that rely on these sort of sales tactics.
Well, I Assume It's Satire
If it wasn't, it would be the end of the gay rights movement in the West:HELLO EVERYONE. I know it's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been very busy working on my book and television and web projects. However, after receiving this press release from the Huffington Post, I had no choice but to return. This is an absolutely fantastic idea, and I urge everyone to participate.
PRESS RELEASE
EMBARGO DATE: December 15, 2006, 4 PM.
IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM AND TOLERANCE, AND IN HARMONY WITH OUR GAY MUSLIM BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WE PROUDLY ANNOUNCE THE FIRST MARCH TO MECCA, FEBRUARY 14, 2007
Human Rights Watch, Moveon.org, ACT-UP, the Huffington Post and David Geffen are proud to present the March to Mecca, a celebration of peace that calls all gay brothers, sisters and people undergoing sex-reassignment to march to the holiest of holy cities, Mecca, the capital city of Saudi Arabia's Makkah province on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2007.
The march, a brainchild of activists and celebrities who acknowledge that more gays are dying from Islamic fundamentalism than from the policies of George W. Bush, will begin 12 noon sharp in Jeddah, the stunning night-life friendly Saudi Arabian city located on the coast of the Red Sea.
"Not marching in these countries, in this era of terror, seems cowardly," says event co-organizer Sharon Stone. "I'm embarrassed to say at social gatherings I even blamed the United States for everything. But I realized it's the radical Muslims - not the US - who want gays dead, and for that I am truly sorry."
Paris' gay Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, who was stabbed by an immigrant Muslim, is organizing the European contingency which features Limahl, Johnny Hallyday and Ciccolina. Whoopie Goldberg, along with Robin Williams will be hosting the kick off party at the Sheraton Riyadh. There will be refreshments and karaoke, hosted by David Hyde Pierce.
Beth Ditto, lead singer of the Gossip, who will perform with the newly reformed Yaz, thinks the march is overdue. "Forget right wing Christians. They don't hang gays for being gay. Islamofascists do. That's why were asking moderate, non-violent Muslims across the Western Province to join hands and embrace gay people everywhere."
The Environmental Movement's Fascism is Showing
Fortunately, not everyone is so easily intimidated:WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, has sent an open letter to Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Snowe (R-Maine) in response to their recent open letter telling the CEO of ExxonMobil to cease funding climate-skeptic scientists. (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf).
A college student tells me that one of her professors has assigned a paper about how to deal with global warming, and already informed the students that such a paper should not question that it is happening, or what is causing it. Anthropogenic Global Warming has become the new religion of the left. Don't question it; I suspect that the faith of many leftists will not survive the experience.
Lord Monckton, former policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, writes: "You defy every tenet of democracy when you invite ExxonMobil to deny itself the right to provide information to 'senior elected and appointed government officials' who disagree with your opinion."
In what The Charleston (WV) Daily Mail has called "an intemperate attempt to squelch debate with a hint of political consequences," Senators Rockefeller and Snowe released an open letter dated October 30 to ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, insisting he end Exxon's funding of a "climate change denial campaign." The Senators labeled scientists with whom they disagree as "deniers," a term usually directed at "Holocaust deniers." Some voices on the political left have called for the arrest and prosecution of skeptical scientists. The British Foreign Secretary has said skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and must be denied access to the media.
Idaho's Groceries Sales Tax
I mentioned a few days ago that there are good ways and bad ways to help poor people. We are getting a chance to discuss this in Idaho with respect to the sales tax on groceries.
A number of Idaho legislators are interested in abolishing or phasing out the sales tax on groceries. Not surprisingly, the Idaho Values Alliance likes the idea of doing something to reduce the tax burden on families. The Idaho Statesman has an editorial that argues that what needs to be done is to increase the groceries sales tax credit line on the Idaho state income return. Right now it is $20 per person, and $35 per senior citizen. (Do senior citizens buy almost twice as much groceries as the rest of us? I don't think so.) Why do they want the tax credit increased--rather than eliminate the sales tax on groceries? Because it makes it easy to restrict the tax credit to poor people and senior citizens.
My first complaint about this proposal is this: lots of senior citizens are not poor. Some certainly are, but an enlarged groceries tax credit that benefits poor people should benefit poor people. Someone who is 70 years old with $50,000 a year in income (and there are lots of retirees for whom this is true) has no more need for a groceries sales tax credit than a 40 year old with $50,000 a year in income. If the goal is to help poor people, then help poor people.
My second complaint is that it is not terribly efficient to collect $100 million in sales tax--and then return most of that money to taxpayers through a tax credit. Maybe it would be best to just not collect it in the first place. The Idaho Statesman complains that many of the very poorest people don't file state income tax returns, and so would not get the benefit of an enlarged groceries sales tax credit. But they would get the benefit of abolishing the collection of sales tax on food.
California, for a very long time, has not collected sales tax on groceries. They have long distinguished between meals in restaurants and other hot food to go (such as a burrito at your local 7-11), and groceries. It isn't elegant--but at least it was a clear rule. For a few years in the 1990s, they attempted to tax snack foods, and so soft drinks were taxed--but drinking water was not. Eventually, the complexity of the rules became absurd, and I think they returned to the old rules.
So that's my proposal: abolish sales tax on any food item that isn't sold in a restaurant or heated. The poor get the benefit immediately--no need to file a tax return a year or more after the sales tax was paid. As near as I can tell, the only reason that the Idaho Statesman wants a complex scheme of collecting sales tax on groceries, then returning some of it to some people, is that they want to continue using it as a method of redistributing wealth. If it were all going to poor people, it would be at least defensible as some type of system of helping the poor. But because they want to include all senior citizens in it (many of whom are actually wealthy, by any definition), it is going to be a redistribution of wealth both downward and upward, in the grand liberal tradition. I see no reason that a family that is making $30,000 a year should be paying sales tax on groceries so that a senior citizen who is making $50,000 a year from investment income and pensions gets a tax break.
More LED Fever
I mentioned here that I discovered that Maglite makes an LED conversion for the C and D cell Maglites. I was at Home Depot today, and I found the LED conversion on the shelf. They are specific to 2 cell, 3 cell, or 4 cell Maglites, although they don't care whether C or D cell. (No surprise; the voltage varies with the number of cells, not the size of each cell.)
This is even simpler than the Mini-Maglite conversion; you just unscrew the head, unscrew the retainer that holds the bulb in place, put the LED unit in, and then put the retainer and head back on the flashlight. Yes, it is definitely brighter than the standard bulb. (I've never used the brighter, krypton bulb in the Maglites, because they have a reputation for being a little too shock sensitive.) I would expect it to also last longer than the bulb, because of the improved efficiency. Unlike the situation with the Mini-Maglite conversion, the reflector is unchanged, and location of the LED is approximately the same as for the bulb, so the ability to adjust focus from narrow to broad is unchanged.
The packaging describes it as a "3 watt LED," so that would mean it is drawing about one amp per second from the two D cells.
Amazing! Something We Still Make In America!
I've been mulling over a way to go Victorian on my workbench--no, no, I won't be using lumps of coal to illuminate the work area. The problem is that all of my tools were spread out on a six foot long conference table, and there just wasn't room to keep the power miter saw, the tool grinder, and the sander all ready to roll. (The saw in particular required a bit of clearance on each end when cutting three foot lengths of Delrin or UHMW polyethylene.)
So I was thinking of putting up shelving on the wall--but because of the vibration involved, it would take some pretty hefty screws into the studs, and some pretty hefty brackets. Over at Home Depot, I asked if they had some type of free standing metal shelving unit, and the guy at the Service Desk said, "Gorilla Shelving."
Back in the appropriate department, we hunted around for a while until we found a metal framed free standing shelving unit that promised that it would support 7500 pound properly distributed. It stands six feet tall, six feet long, and eighteen inches deep, made of a clever interlocking system that the packaging promised required no bolts. There's nothing on the package that says "Gorilla Shelving" but to my surprise, it appears to be made in Chicago, Illinois, by Edsal Manufacturing Company. There's nothing that identifies country of origin on the packaging or the instruction sheet.
It was not what I would spectacularly cheap, on a dollars per pound basis: $125 for something that weighs 175 pounds is about what I would consider to be a reasonable price. When I put it together, it was indeed quite rigid, and in a couple of places "percussive adjustment" (use of a hammer) was required to get a couple of the shelves to slide into the frame. While no bolts are required to assemble it, there are bolt holes where each shelf lines up with the frame, and I may put some bolts in to make it more rigid.
To make it very steady--especially when using power tools--I've put all sorts of heavy objects that needed storage on the bottom shelf, including 2000 rounds of 7.62 NATO ammunition.
Click to enlarge
More On The Slavery Reparations Suit
I am always amazed at how being too close to a suit impairs ability to read the decision. On the H-SLAVERY list, of which I am a member, one of the participants in the suit wrote the following, and my responses:From: Deadria Farmer-Paellmann
There's a pretty significant difference between intentional lies and ignorance. I would be very, very surprised if, ten years ago, many corporations had any idea what role their corporation, or its ancestors, had played in slavery. Once the question was raised, in-house counsel would have started looking into it, but corporations are focused entirely on the future, and have almost no curiosity or interest in anything that does not directly influence their profitability.
Please don't jump the gun on this one.
As they say: "you have to be in it to win it." We're still in court because of our "consumer protection" allegations due to corporate lies about their roles in slavery. But a trial would look identical to the one for our "crimes against humanity" allegations that were dismissed.Either way, defendants face a trial on their role in enslaving Africans. Either way, a win would cause them to have to pay "restitution" to Black folk regarding slavery. Also, any other American offended by the lies can get justice from this victory too. More (consumer) power to us all. As Malcolm X said, "by any means necessary".
No, the appellate court decision is quite clear that there can be no suit for those past actions--only for fraud.
And that "by any means necessary"? Hmmm. If corporations decided to solve the problem of these suits "by any means necessary" in the style of say, John Grisham's The Firm, we would all be horrified.I guess defendants can settle the "reparations" case now or face an army of consumers in court real soon -- not just slave descendants. That would cost them multi-billions. What would you do if you were the CEO?
Actually, here's a more direct link.
By the way, contrary to what was reported by AP, the consumer fraud aspects of the case have been critical from the very beginning. The companies have tried to down play them, and the media just never seemed to understand it (or maybe they did).
We've had a petition going on the consumer fraud allegations for over a year now. Some members of this list have already signed it. We will be sending it to Defendants' Institutional Investors real soon. The petition is here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ReparationsNow/
Here is a link to the full opinion:
http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx, see "Opinion", then "Past Week",
then In Re African American....By the way, when you read the Opinion, please take note of the fact that the appeals court reversed the "with prejudice" aspect of the lower court ruling. What that means is that we "can" bring our reparations claims again -- and we will. That's another victory in this appeal.
No, the opinion is very clear: The claim of the suit brought by people who were enslaved in the 1960s "legal representatives of slaves" was dismissed "without prejudice" and the consumer protection claims was also dismissed "without prejudice." These claims can move forward.
The closing paragraph of the opinion is very clear:The dismissal of the claims brought by the plaintiffs who claim to be legal representatives is affirmed, but on the merits (statute of
What this means is that the claims filed by those who were descendants of slaves, or claiming to sue on behalf of their estates, is dismissed "with prejudice" (meaning that it cannot be refiled) because the statute of limitations of the various states completely precludes such suits for violations of state law. Furthermore, the suits for violation of federal law are dependent on the Thirteenth Amendment and 42 USC 1982--and nearly all the claims associated with slavery reparations are actions that took place before the abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment, and before passage of 42 USC 1982.
limitations) and so with prejudice.
No, the only parts of this suit that remain alive are:
Overall, we won this appeal, ask the defendants. It is a world history first. May our ancestors finally rest in peace.
1. The claims of those who were enslaved and who are still alive. This is completely and utterly unsurprising, and the particular individuals who were enslaved in the 1960s should easily win such a suit against anyone that was complicit in such enslavement. But even here, the decision makes it clear that this claim overreaches:Cain Wall, Sr. claims that “during the time that [he] was enslaved”—
which he contends extended into the 1960s—“one or more of the defendants were doing business in Mississippi or Louisiana. Some of the defendants had reason to know of the enslavement of Cain Wall and yet failed to take steps to eliminate same, while they continued to inure benefits from the illegal, but sanctioned system of servitude post-emancipation." But there is no claim that the defendants subjected Wall (or any other class member) to involuntary servitude or did anything to perpetuate or exacerbate his condition. The claim is that they took no steps to free him. The briefs suggest no basis for thinking that there is any kind of Good Samaritan legal duty to eliminate a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment committed by someone else.
And indeed, this is correct. There have been some ugly cases over the years where people stood by and watched a rape take place, and made no effort to prevent it, or even to call the police--and there is no legal obligation to do so.
2. Consumer fraud claims based on corporations falsely claiming to have not been involved in the slavery business. This is going to be a lot harder to win than it looks, since it would require some evidence that the corporations in question knew about the involvement of their corporation or its ancestors in the slavery business.A seller who learns that some class of buyers would not buy his product if they knew it contained some component that he would normally have no duty to disclose, but fearing to lose those buyers falsely represents that the product does not contain the component, is guilty of fraud.
But how do you prove that the people running Aetna today knew, before this whole matter came up, that Aetna had written life insurance on slaves 150 years ago? I would find it almost unbelievable that anyone at Aetna knew this ten years ago. Be well,
J.D.? And she misread the decision this badly? Oh, that's sad.
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, J.D., M.A.
LED Fever
I was watching Mythbusters this evening (yes, I guess I identify with the cast a bit too much), and one of the myths that they were testing was whether the energy required to turn on a light justifies leaving the light running for at least short periods of time.
The answer seemed to be, "No." There was definitely more electricity consumed when starting different types of light bulbs than in steady state, but the worst was one of the long fluorescent tubes--where the startup was equivalent to about 23 seconds of consumption. For all the other lights that they tried, the startup consumption was a fraction of a second.
To do this, they measured both peak power, and total consumption for an incandescent bulb, a compact fluorescent, the long fluorescent tube, and--an LED light! I presume that they were comparing lights of equivalent light output, which makes the total consumption numbers quite fascinating.
The incandescent bulb sucked up 90 watts. The compact fluorescent: 10 watts. The LED light: one watt. Hmmmm. Electricity is cheap where I live, but hey, if the LED lights aren't too expensive, this could well be a net savings of money, depending on how long the LED lights last.
They also did an experiment to measure lifetime of the various lights, switching the lights on and off every two minutes for six weeks. They claimed that this would be roughly equivalent to five years of ordinary switching on and off of lights. At the end of the six weeks, only the LED light still worked.
One difficulty with comparisons is that the compact fluorescent and LED lights are typically rated in terms of watts consumed--and what you care about is light produced (which is measured in lumens). Since most of what an incandescent bulb produces is heat, the more efficient light source will have a much lower wattage for the same number of lumens. A 100 watt incandescent bulb produces about 1700 lumens.
What confuses me is that there are a lot of LED "bulbs" out there (arrays of LEDs that screw into a standard light socket), but the lumens output are so low that I find myself wondering if there is some conversion between LED lumens output and incandescent bulb output. Otherwise, people are seeling really low output LEDs as replacements for incandescents.
