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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Why Prayers for the Assassin Looks Less and Less Implausible When I reviewed Prayers for the Assassin here, as much as I enjoyed it, I expressed my belief that certain aspects of what brings about the Islamic States of America were implausible. We've taken one more step down the path towards plausibility. The imams who were removed from a flight out of Minneapolis for their somewhat suspicious behavior are now not only suing the airline, but the passengers whose concerns provoked their removal. Fortunately, Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) has introduced a bill to prevent such lawsuits. Count on the Democrats, the party of treason, to block it. Think about it: if you have to worry about being personally sued for expressing concern about someone's suspicious behavior on an airliner, will that make you less willing to mention that suspicious behavior? Of course. And that's doubtless the purpose of why the imams arranged this stunt. I would not be surprised if this lawsuit was planned well before they did the things that were clearly designed to create suspicion. By creating an environment where airline passengers and crew are reluctant to take any action when someone is behaving in a manner that legitimately raises concerns about terrorism, it will make more terrorism easier in the future. That's quite intentional. Labels: terrorism Peace Activists Show Their Love of America and Ability to Persuade Others From one of the leftist alternative newspapers in Portland (as if the Portland Oregonian needs a leftist alternative): If the cause of peace is worth supporting — and we believe it is — then peace protesters must demonstrate the values they promote. The vast majority of the estimated 15,000 protesters who took part in a peace march Sunday in downtown Portland did just that. They were well-behaved, well-intentioned and serious about their cause.But apparently not! The fact is that much of the "peace" movement in America is really "Hate America" and "Any enemy of America is a friend of mine." The Democrats' vote in the House yesterday was a vote for the people that torture people to death to just hang on until September of 2008--they'll have a free hand then. Let's not kid ourselves: the Democratic Party has been taken over by only slightly more subtle forms of the guy who thinks that defecating on the American flag is an appropriate way of disapproving of the war. Labels: terrorism Telescope Eyepieces for Sale  The Orion 9mm orthoscopic I bought new about ten years ago; the Omcon 18mm orthoscopic I bought used two or three years on Astromart. Both work well; I bought new University Optics 18mm and 9mm orthoscopics a few days ago because...well, because I could! Both of these eyepieces are little ragged and worn looking from handling, and might benefit from cleaning, but when I swapped them for the new eyepieces looking at the Moon (157x and 78.5x, respectively), there was so little difference in optical quality that I wasn't sure if I could see a difference. Anyway, my extravagance is your opportunity: $35 each includes shipping (in the U.S.); $65 for both of them. A Culture of Violence: It Is So Depressing It's an article about how school kids are now buying knife-proof vests because of the level of the violence. No, not in Los Angeles, or Harlem: March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ashgar Jilow used to sell stab-proof vests to nightclub bouncers and security guards at his London military surplus store. Now his clients are kids as young as 10 who fear they're going to be knifed at school or on the street.I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again, unless liberals finally learn: the core problem of gun violence (and knife violence and fist violence) is the cultural values that say that aggression and hurting other people is the way to get what you want. Fix the cultural problems, and the weapons don't matter. Fail to fix the cultural problems, and you can ban everything--violent people will find ways to turn everything into a weapon. Thanks to The Real Gun Guys for the pointer. Labels: decline and fall of Western civilization, gun rights More Astrophotos The nice thing about seeing these on the blog, is that unlike vacation pictures or baby pictures, you can just skip right over these, and you don't have to say things that you don't mean like, "Oh, how adorable she is," instead of what you are really thinking, "Is this the same species as we are?" I still need to figure out how to get these a bit sharper. I'm not sure if the problem is that I am not precisely focused, or if the atmosphere is quivering too much. This was shot at ASA 100, 1/90th second, prime focus:  Click to enlarge This was shot at ASA 800, 1/15th second, with an 18mm eyepiece:  Click to enlarge ASA 800, 1/20th second, 18mm eyepiece:  Click to enlarge ASA 1600, 1/2 second, 9mm eyepiece:  Click to enlarge ASA 1600, 1/2 second, 18mm eyepiece:  Click to enlarge At least you can tell it is Saturn! ASA 1600, 1 second, 7mm eyepiece:  Click to enlarge This is the longest exposure that I am going to show you, 30 seconds, ASA 1600, prime focus, of the Orion Nebula (M42):  Click to enlarge As you can see, there is still a little bit of a tracking problem. I have figured out how to make vernier adjustments to the polar alignment without the suffering involved in using the polar alignment scope. (Suffering, because you have to get down on your knees, then scrunch down even more, trying to look up the scope in th polar axis of the mount, towards Polaris.) I just need a bit more patience, and I will be able to share much longer exposures. Labels: astrophotography Friday, March 23, 2007
Improving the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog We have a third blogger who has joined the team, and he made a very good suggestion: along with the labels that we are starting to apply to describe the category of situation (home invasion, burglary, residential robbery, business robbery) he suggested that we apply state labels as well. This is very easy to do--just search for all blog entries with a particular state name in them, and then go through and pull out the situations where the event happened in one state, but the article or name of the publication included another state's name in it--then label the whole bunch at once. It may take a few days to complete the state labeling process, but when we are done, it will be quick and easy to see every incident that took place in say, Kansas. I would caution, however, that comparing the number of incidents may be misleading. There's no guarantee that the news media report similar incidents at similar rates in different regions of the country, and some incidents that are lawful in Texas are generally not lawful in much of the Northeast. Labels: gun self-defense There Was A Time When This Would Have Been An Act of War, And Led To War But the left is pretty much in control now, so we'll all sit around like it's 1936, and we don't want to offend Herr Hitler by insisting that he pull his troops out of the Ruhr. We're going to pay a very heavy price for this--and perhaps even more importantly, for this: WASHINGTON (AP) - A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress' boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy.The Democrats have just told the crowd that tortures people to death with power tools, blows up children to get their car bomb past a checkpoint, and beheads hostages on videotape, that they just have to wait a bit longer, and they will get what they want. The Democrats are the party of treason, enablers of torture and barbarism. Labels: terrorism Humor One of the astronomy mailing lists pointed me to this funny French insurance commercial. Careful with those big lenses! Labels: humor Thursday, March 22, 2007
New Addition to the Primary Sources Page It's a 1943 Los Alamos document concerning nuclear weapons design. I can't vouch for its provenance, but I know enough about the subject to find it plausible, especially because one of the conclusions about the mass required for a bomb reflects the early uncertainties that I read about elsewhere. Labels: history Run, Thompson, Run! This article in National Review Online by Dr. John Lott points out that Guiliani has a lousy record on gun rights (no surprise--he was mayor of New York), and this his claims that gun control was part of how he lowered crime rates isn't supported by the data that is currently available--but there was a change that seems more likely: Giuliani is justifiably proud of New York City’s dramatic drops in violent crime during the 1990s, but his claim that “the single biggest” factor was taking guns off the street is weak, to say the least. There is no academic research by economists or criminologists that indicates that gun control mattered at all. But there are other more obvious explanations, including the massive increase in the number of full-time sworn police officers, which grew from 26,844 in 1990 to 55,408 by 2000. The growth in the per capita number of officers in New York City was roughly five times the rate in other large cities. The city also greatly improved its hiring standards and increased officer pay.Lott observes that the other major Republican candidates aren't any better on gun rights--but points out that former Senator Fred Thompson (currently starring as the D.A. on Law and Order would finally give gun owners someone to cheer about. UPDATE: Dr. Lott tells me that somewhere between his submission and publication, the number of officers was mangled from 39,779 to 55,408. Still an impressive increase in officers on the street. Labels: gun rights Global Warming Hype I mentioned a few days ago an outstanding documentary about the global warming swindle. I did a little digging--and found that one of the key points of that documentary, that there is strong evidence that solar activity changes, by altering cosmic ray flux, which changes the amount of cloud cover--plays a substantial role in altering temperatures here on Earth. I knew that there were scientific papers published about this--but I had no idea how many. Here are some excerpts and abstracts that I found with this search string in scholar.google.com: "Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate," Space Science Reviews, November, 2000: A correlation between a global average of low cloud cover and the flux of cosmic rays incident in the atmosphere has been observed during the last solar cycle. The ionising potential of Earth bound cosmic rays are modulated by the state of the heliosphere, while clouds play an important role in the Earth''s radiation budget through trapping outgoing radiation and reflecting incoming radiation. If a physical link between these two features can be established, it would provide a mechanism linking solar activity and Earth''s climate. Recent satellite observations have further revealed a correlation between cosmic ray flux and low cloud top temperature. The temperature of a cloud depends on the radiation properties determined by its droplet distribution. Low clouds are warm (>273thinspK) and therefore consist of liquid water droplets. At typical atmospheric supersaturations (sim1%) a liquid cloud drop will only form in the presence of an aerosol, which acts as a condensation site. The droplet distribution of a cloud will then depend on the number of aerosols activated as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and the level of super saturation. Based on observational evidence it is argued that a mechanism to explain the cosmic ray-cloud link might be found through the role of atmospheric ionisation in aerosol production and/or growth. Observations of local aerosol increases in low cloud due to ship exhaust indicate that a small perturbation in atmospheric aerosol can have a major impact on low cloud radiative properties. Thus, a moderate influence on atmospheric aerosol distributions from cosmic ray ionisation would have a strong influence on the Earth''s radiation budget. Historical evidence over the past 1000 years indicates that changes in climate have occurred in accord with variability in cosmic ray intensities. Such changes are in agreement with the sign of cloud radiative forcing associated with cosmic ray variability as estimated from satellite observations."Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate," Science November 29, 2002: It has been proposed that Earth's climate could be affected by changes in cloudiness caused by variations in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays in the atmosphere. This proposal stems from an observed correlation between cosmic ray intensity and Earth's average cloud cover over the course of one solar cycle. Some scientists question the reliability of the observations, whereas others, who accept them as reliable, suggest that the correlation may be caused by other physical phenomena with decadal periods or by a response to volcanic activity or El Niño. Nevertheless, the observation has raised the intriguing possibility that a cosmic ray-cloud interaction may help explain how a relatively small change in solar output can produce much larger changes in Earth's climate. Physical mechanisms have been proposed to explain how cosmic rays could affect clouds, but they need to be investigated further if the observation is to become more than just another correlation among geophysical variables."Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth's Climate," Physical Review Letters, November, 1998: During the last solar cycle Earth's cloud cover underwent a modulation more closely in phase with the galactic cosmic ray flux than with other solar activity parameters. Further it is found that Earth's temperature follows more closely decade variations in galactic cosmic ray flux and solar cycle length, than other solar activity parameters. The main conclusion is that the average state of the heliosphere affects Earth's climate."Altitude variations of cosmic ray induced production of aerosols: Implications for global cloudiness and climate," Journal of Geophysical Research 2002: The indirect radiative forcing of atmospheric aerosols is sensitive to particle size and concentration, which are influenced significantly by nucleation processes. Via its role in aerosol formation, cosmic ray may affect the cloud condensation nuclei abundance and hence the global cloud properties and climate. Systematic variations in ionization rates due to the modulation of cosmic ray radiation by the solar cycle are sufficient to cause notable variations in aerosol production, and we find that the signs of such variations are altitude-dependent."The role of solar forcing upon climate change," Quarternary Science Reviews 18 (1999): Evidence for millennial-scale climate changes during the last 60,000 years has been found in Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic ocean cores. Until now, the cause of these climate changes remained a matter of debate. We argue that variations in solar activity may have played a signiÞcant role in forcing these climate changes. We review the coincidence of variations in cosmogenic isotopes (14C and 10Be) with climate changes during the Holocene and the upper part of the last Glacial, and present two possible mechanisms (involving the role of solar UV variations and solar wind/cosmic rays) that may explain how small variations in solar activity are"The influence of cosmic rays on terrestrial clouds and global warming," Astronomy \& Geophysics August, 2000: We analyse the new ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) D2 cloud data to ascertain if a connection between cosmic-ray flux and cloud cover exists. Despite a previous finding that total-cloud factor and cosmic-ray fluxes were correlated, our results indicate that only the low-level cloud follows solar activity over the full period, 1983–94. Using several proxies for solar activity and the radiative forcing calculated by Ockert-Bell (1992) for the ISCCP cloud types, we estimate the possible impact that such a solar–terrestrial connection may have on climate. We conclude that, possibly excluding the most recent decades, much of the warming of the past century can be quantitatively accounted for by the direct and indirect effects of solar activity.And there are dozens, perhaps hundreds more papers that come to similar conclusions. Labels: global warming Wednesday, March 21, 2007
More Mental Illness Commitment Case Law Okay, most of you can just keep scrolling. Some people find this interesting, besides me. The cases that came before the federal courts from the 1960s onward were complicated by the range of categories involved. Some of the cases involved those who were civilly committed—meaning that they were not accused of a crime, but either the government or family sought hospitalization. The justification might be that the patient was potentially a danger to himself, to others, or simply might benefit from treatment. Other cases involved commitment related to criminal charges. Some involved patients who were held indefinitely because they were not competent to stand trial. In other cases, the question of whether a person hospitalized as criminally insane might be civilly committed after expiration of his sentence. Adding yet another dimension to these cases was that some states used similar procedures for the mentally ill and the retarded. While obviously very different in their circumstances, both categories had in common the long standing legal doctrine that such a person might not be held responsible for their actions. Where they differed was that a mentally ill accused at least had the potential to get well enough for trial, while the mentally retarded accused did not. One perhaps representative case from the 1950s was Greenwood v. U.S. (1956), in which the plaintiff was arrested for robbery of a post office and felonious assault on a postal employee. Psychiatrists determined Greenwood to be insane, and he was hospitalized first in a federal mental hospital, then a state mental hospital, because there seemed no likely prospect of his recovery. The Supreme Court upheld the federal law that allowed Greenwood to be held until he should recover sufficiently to stand trial. In Baxstrom v. Herold (1966), the Supreme Court struck down a New York State law that allowed a criminally insane convict to be civilly committed at the end of his sentence to a mental hospital for the criminally insane. The Court did not completely rule out the possibility of such a civil commitment, but insisted that the patient had a right to the same due process rights as a non-criminal subject to civil commitment. New York law did not provide that opportunity. Labels: deinstitutionalization How To Make An Argument For Prior Restraint of Newspapers Read the Roanoke Times, which published a list of all concealed weapon permitholders, and compared those with permits to child molesters. As Michelle Malkin's column about this points out: Two weeks ago, the Roanoke Times published an online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders in the paper’s community under the sanctimonious guise of “Sunshine Week.” The database included both the names and street addresses of some 135,000 Virginians with permits to carry concealed weapons. Columnist Christian Trejbal patted himself on the back for making it easy to snoop on the neighbors: “I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It’s nobody’s business but mine if I want to pack heat. Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone’s business.”Now, after a number of people pointed out that the list was incomplete, and included people that were hiding from domestic violence problems--and now were no able to hide from their abusers--the Roanoke Times depublished it. But read the commentary by the "journalist" responsible for this decision, and you can see that the guy is unrepentant for what he did. Labels: gun rights An Amusing Reference to John Lott's Book More Guns, Less Crime There's a case Frederick v. Morse just decided by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. the decision itself seems pretty unremarkable to me--indeed, the only thing remarkable about it is the stupidity of the school district not immediately backing down on their stupidity for trying to punish a student for a stupid free speech stunt done outside of school grounds. This is one of those cases where the school district was so clearly in the wrong that there should be a special penalty for wasting everyone's time on this. But what makes this mildly amusing is that the decision discusses that, sure, the banner in question, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" could be interpreted as subverting the school's antidrug efforts, but as the judge observes: All sorts of missions are undermined by legitimate and protected speech — a school’s anti-gun mission would be undermined by a student passing around copies of John R. Lott’s book, More Guns, Less Crime; a school’s anti-alcohol mission would be undermined by a student e-mailing links to a medical study showing less heart disease among moderate drinkers than teetotalers; and a school’s traffic safety mission would be undermined by a student circulating copies of articles showing that traffic cameras and automatic ticketing systems for cars that run red lights increase accidents. Tamron 28-200mm Zoom Lens I mentioned a few days ago that the older zoom lens I had wasn't doing a particularly good job with my Pentax K10D. The Tamron 28-200mm zoom seemed like a good choice, although some of my readers indicated that it has a tendency to "hunt" in autofocus mode at longer focal lengths--a good zoom lens at a reasonable price of $150-$170. But you know me--I don't spend any more money on anything than I have to. Someone on Astromart.com offered one for $85, including shipping. Monday I used PayPal to pay for it; today it arrived in the mail. You can tell from looking at the box that it isn't new, and there's a smudge or two on the lens, but other than that, it looks new.  Click to enlarge Here's a picture that I took of the modest little home up the hill with the older zoom lens at 205mm:  Click to enlarge As you can see, there's chromatic aberration and no matter how hard I worked the manual focus, it was never sharp. Here's a picture of the same house taken with the Tamron 28-200mm with a bit of backlighting from the Sun:  Click to enlarge Here's the house down the hill, again at 200mm:  Click to enlarge Here's two pictures of Breadloaf Rock at 28mm and 200mm. Breadloaf Rock is a local landmark caused by a lightning strike long ago. (The white face is the result of humans painting it--not the lightning.)  Click to enlarge  Click to enlarge Labels: photography This Probably Doesn't Make Sense Unless You Live in the Boise Area Last December, I bought my wife a cute little electric heater that, when you turn it on, does an adequate simulation of a fireplace--that is to say, it looks like flames are moving back and forth, and it has a very nice simulated cherry wood mantel around it:   When we got all the parts out of the box, we noticed that there were two places where the wood was scratched badly enough that I called up the manufacturer, and asked them to replace the two parts.   It took a while, but a box soon arrived--and instead of just sending us the two parts that were damaged, they sent everything! (Not the electric heater that fakes being a fireplace, but I suspect that you can buy one of these at a very reasonable price, if you look around.) So we replaced the two scratched pieces--and we now have a very heavy box containing everything you need to put one of these together (except, of course, for the electric heater). If you spent a hour or so sanding and refinishing the two damaged pieces, you would have trouble telling it, and it is a rather attractive piece of furniture. It is very heavy, and I'm not inclined to ship it anywhere--but if I could get $75 for it, I would be happy. It's Snowing in Hell It must be. A New Jersey Superior Court judge just ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun--and this wasn't a squeaky clean defendant, either. (In fact, it is someone who I think I would strongly, strongly discourage from owning a gun, lest he follow through on his past actions and mouth.) Thanks to the Bitch Girls for the pointer. This is going to be overturned on appeal, partly because it is contrary to an existing New Jersey Supreme Court precedent about the Second Amendment not applying to the states, and partly because the plaintiff in this case isn't going to win any awards for appropriate behavior. The threat to kill his wife's boyfriend and burn the store that she worked in down around her suggests a certain...instability, I guess. Labels: gun rights Looking for Gun Rights Events At Which To Promote My Book We're fast running out of media interested in the book, so I'm thinking that there might be gun rights conferences and such that would be interested in having me as a speaker. And before you suggest it, the NRA Annual Meeting next month in St. Louis isn't possible. Even if what I did were important enough for NRA to pay attention to, it was already too late when the book came out to try and get on the program. I tried to get the NRA Store to sell my book at the Annual Meeting (author available to autograph the book, I was thinking, would goose the sales a bit), but this isn't going to happen it seems. So, are there any gun rights groups or organizations out there that might be worth flying cross country for? Labels: my books Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Earliest Use of the Phrase "Politically Correct" I've found a startlingly early use of the phrase "politically correct"--and in very close to the modern sense of the word, in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793): This, I believe, has produced much of the confusion and perplexity, which have appeared in several proceedings and several publications on state-politics, and on the politics, too, of the United States. Sentiments and expressions of this inaccurate kind prevail in our common, even in our convivial, language. Is a toast asked? 'The United States,' instead of the 'People of the United States,' is the toast given. This is not politically correct.The bonus round, for those of you suffering under Critical Legal Studies courses in law school is this trivia question. What is the earliest use of the phrase "patriarchal" in decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court? I haven't found an earlier example than Reynolds v. U.S. (1878): Professor Lieber says, polygamy leads to the patriarchal principle, and which, when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism, while that principle cannot long exist in connection with monogamy. Maybe I'm Just Trying To Find Something Positive in Today's Ugly Local News But I suppose that stuff like this causes local outrage and shame is a good thing. Where I lived in California, the first of these events would not have led to resignation--and the second story would not have been news, because it was so depressingly ordinary: A Mountain View High School English teacher has resigned after his early morning arrest on charges of driving while intoxicated, officials said.The second story is much more depressing, but as I said, where I lived in Sonoma County (with not quite twice the population) events like this were barely news--and this has been a major news story for days in the Idaho Statesman: Two 14-year-old boys confessed to sexually assaulting a female classmate March 9, according to documents and statements at a court hearing on Monday.Okay, this is bad. But it gets worse: Fisher said the teens began drinking the morning of March 9. At some point, the victim passed out.That sounds like someone was trying to emphasize how degraded the victim was by what happened. As I said, in Sonoma County, stuff like this was barely news. At one point, the local paper there indicated that they had a full-time staff at the District Attorney's office handling just minors raped while passed out cases. Now, Rev. Fischer of the Idaho Values Alliance thinks this is a case for why there should be at least one parent home, to provide supervision. I agree that this is definitely part of the problem. Unfortunately, at the very moment that most parents say, "I can leave Suzy or Johnny alone without them hurting themselves," is precisely the age when the problem ceases to be cuts, bruises, and burns, and becomes STDs, intoxication, and rape. Yes, I would not be surprised if exposure to porn may be playing a part in this sort of thing. But let's not kid ourselves: for lots of 14 year old boys, the brain isn't the organ that directs what the rest of the body does. Porn may aggravate the problem, but that's not the core. (It is rather like pouring gasoline onto a bonfire, when you combine porn with teenaged boys.) That's why teenagers need lots of supervision. There's one other whining, moralizing point I'm going to make. My wife pointed out that the rest of the degrading details of this story suggest a contempt for girls above and beyond two teenaged boys who wanted sex. Local liberals at the Idaho Statesman were having so much fun a couple of days ago making fun of the Idaho State Police pursuing an investigation of criminal behavior at some of the local bikini bars. (This isn't Los Angeles; I don't think there are any topless/bottomless places in Boise, although I could be wrong.) After all, why can't we be sophisticated and cool, like they are in big cities? I suppose it says quite a bit about Boise liberals that they think going to a bar and paying way too much for a drink to watch someone who is 3/4 woman and 1/4 silicone wiggle in front of them is sophisticated. (Now, if they were a couple of 14 year old boys, they might have that excuse.) But ask yourself what it says to 14 year old boys when they find out their father goes to a place to leer at a woman he doesn't even know? Do you suppose that might influence how they regard a girl who is passed out at a party? Labels: decline and fall of Western civilization Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) Professor Randy Barnett has a paper about Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), the Eleventh Amendment, and the definition of "sovereignty" that he is circulating for comments; he blogs about it here. First, a little background on Chisholm v. Georgia (1793). Chisholm was the executor of an estate of a man who had supplied Georgia with goods during the Revolutionary War--and who had never been paid. Chisholm sued the state of Georgia in federal court for payment. Georgia did not want to pay (I'm not sure why), and denied that the federal courts had any jurisdiction in such a matter. U.S. Attorney-General Randolph argued in Chisholm's behalf. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise, deciding the case in Chisholm's favor. This being an early decision, much of the form that you may be used to in reading Supreme Court decisions isn't there; it is actually pretty confusing. There was a pretty dramatic negative reaction in Congress to this. A corrective amendment to the Constitution was passed by 2/3 of both houses of Congress on March 4, 1794 and ratified by 3/4 of the states February 7, 1795--astonishingly quickly, suggesting that it enjoyed very broad support. The text of the Eleventh Amendment: The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.Barnett's paper makes several points that are quite interesting--and one that just strikes me as wrong. One of Barnett's claims is that Justice Wilson's opinion held that states enjoyed no sovereignty (in the "we're immune from suit unless we give you permission to sue us" sense). This is true; Wilson's argument definitely denies that a state is free to do as it wishes. Randolph, while refusing to deny that states enjoy sovereignty: I acknowledge, and shall always contend, that the States are sovereignties.But Randolph also pointed out that they were not completely sovereign under the Constitution, since there were a number of powers that they gave up as a condition of ratifying the Constitution of 1787: I resort, therefore, to the body of it; which shows that there may be various actions of States which are to be annulled. If, for example, a State shall suspend the priviledge of a writ of habeas corpus, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it; should pass a bill of attainder or ex post facto law; should enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; should grant letters of marque and reprisal; should coin money; should emit bills of credit; should make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, should pass a [2 U.S. 419, 422] law impairing the obligation of contracts; should, without the consent of Congress, lay imposts or duties on imports or exports, with certain exceptions; should, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, or keep troops or ships of war in time of peace; these are expressly prohibited by the Constitution; and thus is announced to the world the probability, but certainly the apprehension, that States may injure individuals in their property, their liberty, and their lives; may oppress sister States; and may act in derogation of the general sovereignty.But a theme that appears in both U.S. Attorney-General Randolph's argument, and Wilson's opinion, emphasizes the injustice of allowing a state to welsh on a contract. Randolph observes: Are States then to enjoy the high priviledge of acting thus eminently wrong, without controul; or does a remedy exist? The love of morality would lead us to wish that some check should be found; if the evil, which flows from it, be not too great for the good contemplated.Wilson's decision also points out the importance of contract: Is there any part of this description, which intimates, in the remotest manner, that a State, any more than the men who compose it, ought not to do justice and fulfil engagements? It will not be pretended that there is. If justice is not done; if engagements are not fulfilled; is it upon general principles of right, less proper, in the case of a great number, than in the case of an individual, to secure, by compulsion, that, which will not be voluntarily performed?Where Professor Barnett goes off the rails is his assertion that Wilson's argument that: Let a State be considered as subordinate to the People: But let every thing else be subordinate to the State.indicates a libertarian understanding of individual rights relative to the state. Wilson's rhetoric emphasizing that states are not sovereign, but to see this as evidence that Justice Wilson and other Framers regarded individual rights as taking precedence over legislative authority in the states is an extraordinary stretch. State government during the early Republic period adopt all sorts of antilibertarian laws. When such laws are overturned, it is not based on this free floating libertarian presumption that Barnett keeps finding where ever he looks, but on specific provisions of either state constitutions, or the federal constitution. Labels: constitutional history, history Global Warming Awareness Walk in a Snowstorm; Strange Definition of "Muzzled" I mentioned a week or so ago the couple whose trek across the Arctic to raise awareness of global warming was cut short by severe cold and frostbite; this is almost as good: As the world’s warmest winter on record drew to an end with a weekend snow storm, a group of religious leaders started walking across the state Friday to bring attention to global warming.Hebrews 11:1 tells us: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.This bunch goes one up from the Bible's standard of faith--they have faith in something that can see isn't true! (Looking at the denominations represented, however, and knowing their view of the Bible, this does not surprise me.) And the NASA scientist who claims the Bush Administration muzzled him because of what he was saying about global warming? A NASA scientist who said the Bush Administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he'd done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years.How many interviews would he have done if there hadn't been anyone getting in his way? Labels: global warming Monday, March 19, 2007
Have The Democrats Already Taken Over The Executive Branch? There's a gun store in Twin Falls, Idaho, called Red's Trading Post. Here's the version of the story that I have heard from their employees--but one of their former competitors tells a similar disturbing story--minor technical mistakes in filling in firearms transfer forms are being treated as willful violations. For example, the Form 4473 has spaces for city, county, and state on the purchaser's address. Because Twin Falls is the name of both the city and the county, over five years, about 320 out of approximately 10,000 buyers filled in the city "Twin Falls" but neglected to fill in the county--and the clerks at Red's apparently didn't notice, or figured that it wasn't a big deal. (The buyer is required to fill in all the spaces; my recollection from my days as a gun dealer is that the dealer can't fill in any of these boxes.) There's another box on the form where you fill in "Handgun" "Long gun" or "both." Two of the forms didn't have any box checked. Now, there does come a moment when improperly filled in forms cross the line from a technical violation to a willful violation--for example, failing to get a street address, or checking the buyer's ID. Ditto for the gun dealer who doesn't have the paperwork on guns--like the 500 or so guns that disappeared from the inventory of the gun store that sold the Bushmaster used in the DC sniper case. These sort of violations would seem a valid point for taking perhaps quite serious actions against a gun dealer, including license revocation or criminal charges (for 500 missing guns). But at least the side that I am hearing of what happened to Red's and one of their Twin Falls competitors sounds more like the Brady Campaign is running BATF. Red's Trading Post has an online petition here. I'm curious: is this level of hypercritical BATF audit going on elsewhere? It would not be the first time. In 1982, when the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution looked into the matter, they found considerable evidence that BATF was concentrating on technical violations rather than felons in possession of firearms--probably felons tend to shoot them, while collectors tend to just stand their open-mouthed. One of Red's employees told me: The irony is that the statement from the ATF agent still rings in my head when he told my Mom and I that we were "one of the best small gun shops that he had inspected." I am confident that we will do well in Federal Court but I am concerned about everyone else. That is why I started the petition.I have received many e-mails and phone calls from others going through the same thing. An attorney spoke at the AcuSport distributor show in Reno in January telling about this problem and the rapidly declining rate of FFL's. If you have any more questions then I would love to answer them. UPDATE: George A. Fogg, one of my Maine readers, writes: One of the local gun shops that I visit a lot here in Maine is having similar problems as what you relate on your blog. They have told me that the ATF is so picky that it is ludicrous. It is not missing guns or selling to a felon but rather the stuff that is easily missed by clerks who are extremely busy such as abbreviations, missing the county and not putting the word county with the county name. Labels: gun rights When The Facts Aren't Right, It's Hard to Trust the Conclusions I mentioned a few days ago the rather upset commentaries on the Parker v. DC (DC.App. 2007) decision by Professors Dorf and Spitzer. I've been commenting up a storm over at History News Network, where Spitzer's article appeared. I just noticed that along with a rather bizarre interpretation of the various nineteenth century U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning the Second Amendment, Spitzer has the core facts of U.S. v. Miller (1939) so far wrong that he cannot possibly have read the decision: The Parker majority view, however, asserts that Miller protects only a “weapons-based” right focusing “only on what arms are protected by the Second Amendment,” because the Supreme Court upheld Miller’s conviction for carrying a sawed-off shotgun (a gangster weapon regulated by a 1934 federal law) across state lines, as possession of that weapon held no “reasonable relationship” to a militia. [emphasis added]Go read U.S. v. Miller (1939) for yourself. Right at the beginning--where no one who has actually read it, and certainly not someone whose title is "Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science" should have missed it: A duly interposed demurrer alleged: The National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, U.S.C.A.-'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' [307 U.S. 174, 177] The District Court held that section 11 of the Act violates the Second Amendment. It accordingly sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment.Who appealed it? As the title of the decision shows, and as the text of the decision shows, the U.S. government appealed that decision--not Miller (for obvious reasons--he won). You are entitled to your own interpretation of Miller (within reason-- "Miller was exempt from NFA34 because he was the Martian ambassador" isn't going to work), but you are not entitled to your own facts. Labels: gun history Sunday, March 18, 2007
Humor A reader sent me this. If you have ever spent much time working with tools, you will appreciate the validity of this! Note: the gratuitous remarks about women today may well have been true 20 years ago; today, equality of sexes means that there are plenty of men who use tools in these ways! UPDATE: I always wonder if these clever pieces of writing circulating around the Internet are violating copyright. A reader informs me that "from a piece by Peter Egan, first published in Cycle about 20 years ago. You can get a printed copy in his first compendium, "Side Glances", like I did, for about $20." If Mr. Egan or his copyright holder wants this taken down, I'll do it promptly. Alternatively, they might regard this as a free advertisement for the book! Another reader has an addition to the list: 4 1/2 inch angle grinder- cauterizes as it maims. Labels: humor |
