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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).
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Friday, August 03, 2007
Alamar Ranch I attended a meeting of the Boise County Planning and Zoning Commission last night. Alamar Ranch is a proposed residential treatment school for troubled teenaged boys. There has been some opposition to the project. The supposed objection had to do with increased demands on emergency services, but enough of the discussion in the local newspaper (the Idaho World) and at the hearing last night makes it clear that the real concern driving the opposition is fear that the boys that would be treated at Alamar Ranch would be there just to run away, steal cars, rape the local girls, and in general, turn Idaho City into the next Oakland. (Here you can see pictures of the historic, scenic part of Idaho City. There's no pictures of the rundown, trailer park portions of town.) Anyway, it was a large crowd that showed up--perhaps 200 people or more. Considering that total population of Boise County in 2005 was 7,535, that's pretty impressive. This was a hot topic. The Planning Commission staff report was clearly supportive of it, especially because Alamar Ranch has bent over backwards to satisfy every possible concern. The fire department wanted another emergency entry and exit road into the property. No problem. Alamar Ranch pointed to existing emergency service uses in similar facilities, and that they were minimal. They also offered to compare the emergency services use of any 37 home subdivision in the county, and reimburse the county for any emergency service requests above that baseline. There were concerns that boys at Alamar Ranch could demand the Bogus Basin School District provide services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004; Alamar Ranch put in writing that they would be taking care of all such needs of the boys it will be treating, and would reimburse the district for expenses that might fall on them. Alamar Ranch also agreed to contribute $500 per new student to Bogus Basin School District for any children of Alamar Ranch employees that were new additions to the schools. An economics professor from Northwestern Nazarene University shared the results of his economic analysis of the likely effects of Alamar Ranch. It would add about $800,000 to $1,500,000 a year to the local economy, because of the number of jobs. Since a lot of these jobs are pretty high paying compared to the average annual wage of $23,862 in the county in 2005, this would probably lift the Idaho City area a good bit. Even something as trivial as exterior lighting: Alamar Ranch will use full cutoff light fixtures to preserve the dark skies of Boise County. Contrary to my fears, quite a number of people turned out to speak in favor of Alamar Ranch. Some of them were neighbors; one was a competitor! There's a roughly similar facility in Garden Valley (another community in Boise County) that treats troubled teenaged boys and girls, and the director told of the enormous change in the lives of the troubled kids that they have helped. Another speaker was a psychiatrist from Boise who treats Idaho City kids, but because of the enormous distance that they have to travel, a fair number are medicated rather than provided the individual and family therapy that they need. Having Alamar Ranch in Idaho City would put at least one psychiatrist and many social workers and counselors in the community, where they would be available to provide services independent of Alamar Ranch. One woman spoke of having to drive 12 hours to southern Utah each way to visit her daughter, who is in a similar program, because there is a critical shortage of space in programs like this. Here's what I had to say: My name is Clayton Cramer. I live at 36 Sunburst Road, Horseshoe Bend. One woman I spoke to afterwards told me that she was very impressed with what I had to say; "I think you changed my mind about this." My daughter spoke about how the very similar program at New Haven Residential Treatment Center changed her life. As soon as she has statement up on her blog, I'll link to it. UPDATE: My daughter's statement is here. No matter how hard it may be, don't give up on your troubled teenager. Labels: Idaho politics Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Freedom Of Speech? What's That? CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) is attempting to prevent a guy named Robert Spencer from speaking to a conservative group called the Young America's Foundation. They are threatening suit against Young America's Foundation if they let Spencer speak to their group. Michelle Malkin has all the details. So, does CAIR think that they are in an Islamic country, where you can just shut people up, no freedom of speech? Of course, the idiot who signed the threat letter is CAIR's legal counsel--and 1993-98 served as general counsel for the Democratic National Committee, with which he is still affiliated. I'm afraid that Ferrigno's novel Prayers for the Assassin isn't as unlikely as it appeared when I first read it. When important lawyers for the Democrats are trying to suppress free speech on behalf of an Islamic extremist group, it tells you how important Islamic extremists are to the Democratic leadership. Labels: freedom of speech, terrorism Is That a Promise? Yet another new term: "vegansexual." From the August 2, 2007 New Zealand Press: A new phenomenon in New Zealand is taking the idea of you are what you eat to the extreme.If you click over to that link, you can see a (work-safe) picture of Nichola Kriek. I don't think she has to worry about "carnivores" wanting to have sex with her, unless perhaps they have been driven blind by too much meat. Labels: stupidity Photographers At Anti-War Marches One of my sisters, the one that lives in Portland, is a pretty serious leftist--thinks the world of Michael Moore, etc. I was talking to her last night, and she told me something that isn't completely implausible. She says the CIA is present at antiwar rallies in Portland, photographing everyone's faces. Now, before you call this paranoid, we do have a long history of "Reds Squads" whose job it was to keep track of radical groups. Cities, such as Los Angeles, had something called the Public Disorders unit, and a number of different federal intelligence agencies kept track of antiwar protesters during Vietnam. There's a story (perhaps apocryphal) of how after one rally in Wisconsin, all the different agencies exchanged notes and concluded that the undercover intelligence agents outnumbered the protesters. Now, I'm pretty sure that if there are any government agencies doing such photography, it is not the CIA. That's outside their legal jurisdiction; the FBI would be doing this, if anyone. But I am curious: have you been to antiwar rallies? Have you seen anyone who is obviously photographing not crowd shots (such as a newspaper or a blogger might use), but individuals? If intelligence agencies are doing this, there's no need to be obvious about it--unless the goal is to intimidate. If that's the goal, it is wrong. As examination of the antiwar movement's activities show, it is utterly ineffective, and just aggravates the paranoia. UPDATE: Here's some more information on the subject. He Opposed Invading Iraq--But Pakistan Is Another Matter Barack Obama opens his mouth, apparently trying to look tough. This isn't going to endear him to the billionaire wing of the Democratic Party. From Associated Press: WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.The major selling point that Obama has to the billionaires is that he opposed the Iraq War. I think he just threw away that advantage. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, terrorism Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Schizophrenia Research Interesting article about Reuters, July 30, 2007, about successful genetic engineering of schizophrenic mice: CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists have genetically engineered mice that develop the physical and psychological characteristics of schizophrenia, U.S. researchers said on Monday.Now, it is important to note that these mice have the same characteristics as human schizophrenia. It may not be the same problem. When LSD first appeared on the scene, scientists found the similarity to schizophrenia interesting, because there was some hope that understanding LSD might help to understand schizophrenia. But now we know that the similarities in results do not necessarily indicate similar mechanisms. LSD was a dead end towards finding a cure. Labels: deinstitutionalization This Was Utterly Unbelievable Since the source was a Polish newspaper talking about a document from a German government agency which encourages parents to sexually stimulate their 1-3 year olds, I wasn't much inclined to believe it. This was just too wacky. But the document does actually exist on the website of the German government agency--but marked "withdrawn." And Germans are discussing it--and quoting from it, with page numbers, which didn't appear in the Polish newspaper's account. And no, I won't reproduce those quotes in either English or German, because they are just too disgusting. There's nothing subtle about what the booklet tells fathers to do to their daughters. And here's an article from Der Spiegel about the withdrawal of the booklet. The question that comes to my mind is: what sort of sick monsters work for the German government agency that they would even think of distributing it? Child molestation: your government tells you to do it. Post-Christian Europe--what a wonderful place to be a kid! Labels: child sexual abuse Psychosis and Marijuana Unsurprisingly, only a few news organizations are covering this story. To my surprise, CBS News covered it on July 26, 2007, and without a bunch of excuses: (WebMD) Smoking cannabis, or marijuana, as a youth could boost the risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life by about 40 percent, according to a new analysis of published studies conducted by British researchers.Now, it is certainly possible that this correlation isn't that marijuana causes psychosis; perhaps people who are prone to psychosis are attracted to marijuana. As I mentioned some months back, a longitudinal study done some years ago established that the drug abuse/mental illness connection was causal, and that the drug abuse increase preceded the mental illness increase. I am not sure which drugs they were counting; probably not marijuana, since they were looking at hospital admissions for drug problems, and that wouldn't include marijuana. I've had several relatives whose bipolar disorder problems seem to have been greatly aggravated by marijuana use--pushing one of them into complete, decades-long disability, and another one very close to it. I know my brother was certainly smoking marijuana in the several years before his schizophrenic breakdown; I was astounded to visit his apartment at one point with my parents, and they didn't even notice the joint sitting on the coffee table--and this was at a time when marijuana possession was still a relatively serious crime in California. Yes, the increase in psychosis rate isn't huge. Most people that smoke marijuana aren't going to become psychotic. What if you are one of the small minority that does. Do you feel lucky? UPDATE: If you want to see a form of religious frenzy, read the comments on that CBS News story. Even the few people who managed to make a valid point--that it isn't clear whether this association is coincidence, or what the direction of causality is which the scientists quoted also pointed out--managed to make their points in a way that really shows you the desperation: This report is not science. It's major BS! It's propaganda written to serve a predetermined right wing political agenda. Since before the time of Christ mankind has smoked marijuana and hashish. Over those thousands of years there has been ample time for all the ill effects of marijuana and hashish to be amply discovered and displayed. But now, suddenly, somehow some new effect has been surfaced that has escaped notice for all those many centuries?Except that before modern epidemiology got its start in the 19th century examination of water-borne diseases (The Ghost Map is a very readable account), figuring out subtle connections like these were very hard to do. Unless a particular substance caused a very high fatality or morbidity rate, or the effects were visible almost immediately, it was very easy to miss. Except that the study didn't make the claim that every marijuana smoker would become psychotic--only increase the incidence of psychosis. Oh, This is part of the reason the feds were raiding that medical ganja clinic in LA, instead of helping to secure our borders. OOOOOHHHHH!Speaks for itself. Reefer Madness. It's all about social control. 100 years ago people had more freedom than we do today. There is a concerted, obvious effort on the part of the ruling class to use scare tactics, whether terror or drugs (both are the reason for "wars" waged by the U.S.), to convince people that their lives must be monitored and regulated by Big Brother, lest we harm ourselves or are hit by the odd suicide bomber. The mainstream media is, of course, the propaganda arm of the ruling class. In Albert Speer's book, 'Inside The Third Reich', he noted that Hitler was merely the first tyrant to make full use of modern mass communication. Such mass communication is now, of course, much more highly sophisticated. Read Noam Chomsky's books on propaganda and the mass media.Ditto. Where are all these poeple that have developed psychoisis from marijuana?Maybe it just makes some people spell badly. There is yet to be one record of anyone ever overdosing solely on Cannibis.And where did the article make any reference to overdosing? Does marijuana turn people into fanatics? Or do fanatics start smoking marijuana? Or is the addiction so severe that they go crazy at the prospect of not getting it? If someone discovered tomorrows that limes cause some horrible illness, I would give up my Minute Maid Limeade. I wouldn't turn this into a bizarre theory about how Sunkist Growers had bought off scientists to destroy their competition. Labels: substance abuse This Is A Remarkably Stupid Idea A purse in the shape of a machine gun. Another than a fashion slave, what woman is going to find a machine gun shaped-purse attractive? Some cop, somewhere, responding to a bank robbery, is going to see this purse, and think, "Patty Hearst."  And another fashion slave bites the dust. Labels: stupidity The Transgender Madness I've written before about the madness of the "transgendered"--people who insist that they are trapped in the body of the wrong sex, and who seek sex change surgery. Homosexuality seems downright normal by comparison. We have yet another example of how "transgendered" is really just a description of someone with very serious mental illness. From the July 30, 2007 Idaho Statesman: The state must provide female hormone therapy to an Idaho inmate who castrated herself after prison officials refused to treat her for gender identity disorder, a federal judge has ruled.This is someone who is really, really messed up. Labels: homosexuality I'm Not Surprised When the first details of this grisly crime came out, and that the victim's daughter was being held, it wasn't too difficult to figure out the significance of what she did to him: Police were investigating whether a mentally disturbed woman lured her Liberian stepfather to her home and then gagged, handcuffed and castrated him to avenge a history of sexual abuse.Fox News interviewed Brigitte's sister this morning, who confirmed that both of them were sexually abused by the stepfather from the age of 3 onward--and that repeated attempts to get help were ignored. Brigitte is under psychiatric evaluation at the moment. If what happened to her didn't make someone unbalanced, it would be surprising. There's an effort underway right now to get Idaho law changed to provide a mandatory minimum sentence for first offense child molestation. I find myself wondering if it might also be worthwhile for the state government to run ads aimed at raising awareness of the problem. My impression, from all my reading, is that for every fixated pedophile who devotes much of his life to the pursuit of children to victimize, that there are several pedophiles who are conflicted about their desires, feel some guilt about it, and might be sidetracked by an advertising campaign. Some pedophiles rationalize their actions with, "Well, I would have enjoyed this when I was their age." Pedophiles are generally former victims themselves. Only some victims grow up to become pedophiles; from what I have read, no one entirely understands why. From the outside, we can look at their rationalizations and see someone who is re-creating their own victimization--but this time, with the former victim now in charge. Because some--perhaps many--pedophiles have some doubts about their actions, an advertising campaign that seeks to get them to seek treatment before they victimize a child would seem like a darn good idea. There are enormous human costs of pedophilia. This case appears to be one such example. Aileen Wuornos is another. She says her grandfather sexually abused her. (Her father was a child molester as well--one guess why--and hung himself in prison.) Aileen, unsurprisingly, grew up homosexual (as victims of child sexual abuse disproportionately do), and worked as a prostitute. Then she murdered seven men, and was eventually executed for those murders. I'm sure that I will be accused of incipient liberalism, but I believe that a campaign aimed at both trying to get men (and a very few women) who are tempted to sexually abuse a child to seek treatment, and to get children who are being victimized to report that abuse, would probably save a few children from destruction. If Idaho spent a million dollars a year on a campaign like this, and it saved even five children from being abused, I would consider that money well spent. A child molested becomes a burden on the taxpayers because of the need for social services immediately, and later in life, when many victims turn their anger outward (more common with boys) or inward (more common with girls). A child molester who gets convicted is a big cost to the taxpayers, first for trial, then to hold him in prison for many years. If there are ways to save money--and save children from this abuse--spend the money. Labels: child sexual abuse, homosexuality The 1997 Lott Survey That Various Critics Claim Didn't Happen More about the Lott v. Levitt suit. Lott says that the data was lost in a hard disk crash. Here's a very long list of emails from people who remember Lott telling him about the hard disk crash, or who lost data from research projects that they were doing with Lott at the time. If Lott fabricated the 1997 survey, and the hard disk crash was a later excuse to cover that up, it would require that he destroy a hard disk in 1997 so that others would remember it later. The evidence that he did the 1997 survey is pretty persuasive. If Lott didn't do the 1997 survey--and the hard disk crash was the equivalent of Michael Bellesiles's flood that destroyed all his notes but that doesn't match the memories of others about when it happened and how severe it was--then not only is Lott lying, but so are quite a number of professors, many of whom do not share Lott's views about gun control. The evidence that he didn't do it? None--just suspicions and doubts by Lott's political opponents who have constructed everything from the Mary Rosh sock puppetry. Which is more likely? That Lott did a survey which he was able to replicate five years later with similar results, and he had a hard disk crash that caused the loss of the data? Or that Dr. Lott and a whole bunch of other professors, as well as at least one (and maybe two) survey respondents are all lying? Labels: academic integrity, gun self-defense What Causes Anti-War Activists? This article suggests that alcohol plays a big part: SILVERDALE — A college student was arrested Sunday in the slashing of 42 tires on 13 government vehicles in an Army recruiting office parking lot, saying he was angry about the war in Iraq, authorities said.UPDATE; There's a lot of this anti-war insanity going around. This news report from the July 5, 2007 Times of Trenton, New Jersey, I found linked at Michelle Malkin's blog made it sound like a random act of violence: WILLINGBORO -- An airman from McGuire Air Force Base remained hospitalized in critical but stable condition at a Camden hospital Thursday, a day after he was shot in the chest by another man who then took his own life.A few days later, MSNBC reported: WILLINGBORO — The Pennsauken man who shot and wounded a member of the U.S. Air Force before killing himself left suicide notes that indicated he was “angry at the government and wanted to make a statement” on Independence Day, one of the man’s relatives said yesterday. The Party of Treason The Washington Post has this article in which a top House Democrat admits that things aren't looking good in Iraq--for the Democrats, but they may looking good for America: House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.It would be a big problem for them because Democratic strategy for taking the White House next year involves losing Iraq. If the troop surge works--as it increasingly seems to be doing--the Democrats believe that they will lose the White House. This is such a profoundly self-centered approach--hopping to lose the Iraq War so that they can get control of the White House--and Clyburn is stupid enough to admit it. How any decent person can support people who regard success as "a real big problem for us" just shocks me. Thanks to Don Surber for the link. Labels: terrorism Monday, July 30, 2007
Experiments I Did Some Years Ago These are chances to take a very high speed road trip through Sonoma County, where I used to live. This is about 100 miles per house; this is about 150 miles per hour. It is astonishing how much video capture technology has advanced in the last ten years. This was shot on Hi-8 analog video, and then captured with an astonishingly slow process. A friend of mine and I have a devious business plan that wasn't any sillier than a lot of other companies that got funded, leased the fancy offices, and the BMWs, but because we didn't know anyone with gobs of money to burn, it didn't go anywhere. Dead Sea Scrolls In Idaho Yeah, really! They are part of an exhibit at the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls. Dead Sea Scrolls, a replica of the Gutenberg printing press. (You know what the first book printed on it was, right?) It is through Labor Day. The wife and I have a trip planned to Rexburg, so we'll hit the Museum of Idaho on the way back. I Just Love These Hate Crime Laws They show such creativity in how they are enforced. Professor Volokh has a detailed account of a guy who stole two Korans from a Pace University "meditation room," put them in a toilet and, I'll be polite, soiled one of them. He was charged not only with criminal mischief, but also aggravated harassment--a violation of New York State's hate crime statute, because this crime offended Muslims. This is most unfortunate. The accused should have applied for a National Endowment for the Arts grant instead, and called the results "art." There's a slippery slope here, no question. If we limit "hate crimes" to just violence against persons, then acts of vandalism (cross burnings, spray painting slurs on someone's door) don't qualify. There is a legitimate argument that knowing that someone did this to a Koran might might make Muslims feel hated, I suppose. But this incident is really not like burning a cross on someone's lawn. It is perilously similar to burning an American flag, or producing stupid art for rich people. Labels: hate crimes Let's Reserve Felonies For Serious Crimes Adam Graham applauds the effort of one of Idaho's legislators to get dog fighting turned into a felony: At this point, I’d lean towards toughening our laws. We shouldn’t need a repeat of the dog holacaust that occurred at Michael Vick’s place to stir our legislature to action. Sadly, I think that’s what it may take.As much as dog fighting repels me, I am a bit reluctant to make it into a felony. For most of American history, the distinction between a misdemeanor and a felony was quite dramatic. Until the American Revolution, most felonies were punishable by death. For example, from the July 27, 1749 Pennsylvania Gazette, Mary Rogers was sentenced to death for burglary in Boston, and granted a reprieve by the governor only after the hood was over her head. From the June 22, 1749 Pennsylvania Gazette: At a Court of Oyer and Terminer, held at Newcastle last Week, John Gillespie, and John Roach, were convicted of Burglary, and John Slain of Rape, and Sentence of death was passed upon them.There are many similar examples available. A felony conviction today takes away many of your rights. You lose the right to vote (in most states), to own a gun, to obtain certain professional licenses. And that loss is usually lifelong. Misdemeanors are generally not so severe. I think felonies should be reserved for only the most serious of crimes. Dog fighting is primarily done because someone makes money holding these events, or gambling on the outcomes. Here's the current statute that prohibits it; here's the statute that specifies the penalty: any person convicted for a first violation of any of the provisions of this chapter shall be punished, for each offense, by a jail sentence of not more than six (6) months or by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($100) or more than five thousand dollars ($5,000), or by both such fine and imprisonment.Since this is a crime done primarily for economic reasons, perhaps the better solution is to increase the penalties. Someone who makes a few thousand dollars at one of these events might think a little more deeply if the fine was in the $5000 to $50,000 range. Labels: Idaho politics Proof That The Idaho Statesman Publishes Every Letter It Receives Because if they were at all selective, they would leave out these proofs that Democratic prejudice is widespread: Hunters and rednecks have no respect for wildlifeAdam Graham observes: First of all, I have to wonder would the Statesman have published an article beginning with, “There are two species of man that I do not have much for: hippies and Blacks. At least Blacks being closely related to the chimpanzee have some excuse.” Or how about we replace it with Jews, Indians, etc.? The Statesman would have refused to run it, but instead, it’s okay to attack “rednecks.”Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Idaho Statesman doesn't publish every letter it receives. Maybe they think that this is one of the smarter letters they have received. Labels: overprivileged liberals Lunatic Left I was searching for all references to my website, and I found the ultimate expression of left-wing insanity: a blog called Revelations, which is simultaneously a "9/11 Truther," Holocaust Denier, Bush hater, and practically every other left-wing craziness combined. Oh, and the Jews put Hitler in power. (If there wasn't a Holocaust, then I guess it isn't as crazy as it sounds.) There's a link to what seems to be another blog the same group runs called "The World Can't Wait," with the slogan "Seeking U.S. Independence from the Zionist Yoke." I can't identify who the author is; I would expect a professor somewhere at a public university. Labels: conspiracy theory Laugh Or Cry? I don't know which. A reader sent me this link to a series of reports from Seattle bus drivers reporting "difficult" passengers--many of whom sound like they may be mentally ill. Some of these are so startlingly weird you want to laugh--and then you think about the suffering and confusion these people are going through, and you want to cry: 10/7/06 4:47 p.m. #140:And these were the ones that I could feel comfortable quoting. Labels: deinstitutionalization Lott v. Levitt Suit Some of you may be aware that John Lott filed suit against Steven D. Levitt for defamation of character in the book Freakonomics. Professor James Lindgren at Volokh Conspiracy has a detailed explanation of the suit (and Lindgren isn't exactly on Lott's side). While Lindgren clearly believed that Lott has a pretty strong truth claim against Levitt, he didn't think it was necessarily going to be something that would win in court. Now I see that there has been a settlement of at least part of the suit--and Lott seems to be the winner: In documents filed on Friday in federal court, the two parties outlined a settlement that requires Mr. Levitt, who is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the best-selling book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains the Hidden Side of Everything, to send a letter of clarification to John B. McCall, a retired economist in Texas.These would seem to be pretty severe admissions for Levitt. Each of these admits that Levitt made statements that were not only false, but that Levitt knew were false. Lott's research (replicated by a number of other economists) was profoundly troublesome to the gun control movement. Consequently, they were looking for any possible way to destroy him and his work. The "Mary Rosh" sock puppetry opened up the door to raise questions about Lott's academic integrity. Remember: the left is allowed to engage in all sorts of lies in their published work (see Ward Churchill and Michael Bellesiles) and the academy will bend over backward to give them the benefit of the doubt. Things work differently if you are on the right end of the spectrum. UPDATE: More here. Labels: academic integrity Sharp Tools Make All The Difference My chop saw wasn't doing a very neat or fast job cutting Delrin, as I mentioned recently, so I bought a replacement blade. I cut a small amount of aluminum and a lot of Delrin (which isn't much softer), and the original high speed steel blade got dull very quickly. This time, instead of spending $10 on a 10" steel blade, I spend $50 on a 10" carbide tipped blade. And my, what a difference! It cuts through Delrin like a hot knife through warm butter. The surface is so perfect that I don't feel any urge to sand it--and there's no need to run it through the vertical mill and flycutter to make sure that I have an even surface. I am supposed to be producing a 30 degree cut. When I measure it, it is within a degree of that angle. Labels: machining Consider the Source Here's an article saying that we might just win the war against terrorism in Iraq. Big deal, who is saying it? National Review? The Weekly Standard? No, this comes from two critics of the Bush Administration, and it appears in the July 30, 2007 New York Times: VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.An interesting thought: if by September of 2008 we have secured Iraq sufficiently that we can start withdrawing troops--will the Democrats take credit for the success, even though they claimed that the surge wouldn't work? If they do, the mainstream media will give them the credit, of course--and forget all the doom and gloom prognostication. Labels: terrorism Sunday, July 29, 2007
Why I Worry For America Some creep with a capital C had a web page devoted to the pursuit of little girls; it got a bit of media attention in the New York Times. The web site itself is gone, but the really creepy archive of it (minus the pictures of dressed little children that this creep photographed) is here. Professor Volokh mentioned it here, as well as the understandable but likely useless (perhaps even counterproductive) effort by a number of outraged parents to get the California legislature to make what this creep was saying illegal. (It might be more productive to find out why the government supports this creep--he's on some form of public assistance, apparently.) What's fascinating are the comments defending this creep made by the often quite disturbed and disturbing people that hang around Volokh Conspiracy. Here's one that really upset me: Until this guy hurts a child, who cares what he says. For the first time in human history all you children-loving "give away our freedoms to protect the children" folk have the identity of a potential child predator BEFORE he does anything, and you have a problem with that? Yeah we better ban this guy from being allowed to get his sexual release (no matter how gross) by not harming anyone, so he will go out and do the real thing and molest a child.This guy is a pretty stereotypical libertarian. You can read his blog (replete with foul language--how else can someone express himself?--here. This one really raised my blood pressure: We libertarians need to start hoisting the fascists by their own petards. A pedophile is, like Lewis Carol, a person who likes kids. If parents don't like the idea that others like their kids, they can stop having the damn kids! I think it great what the guy is doing and am considering taking photos of all kinds of kids. If the parents don't want photos, they can keep the kids indoors with their declawed cats.Sad to say, while most people I know who call themselves libertarians have enough grasp on reality to recognize that pedophiles are a danger, Libertarian Party Conventions were always great places to meet people so in love with an idea that they had convinced themselves that red equals green, 1 equals 0, and yes equals no. An ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory. Labels: child sexual abuse An Extraordinary Rendition That Doesn't Seem To Be Getting Much Negative Press Intelligence agents grabbed this guy in another country, fly him to the Middle East--and then executed him! I mean, if "extraordinary rendition" is so bad when the CIA grabs suspected terrorists off the street and flies them off to be interrogated, why was it okay for the Mossad to kidnap Eichmann from Argentina in 1960? Although perhaps I shouldn't mention it--I'm sure that the same crowd will just add this to Israel's list of crimes. UPDATE: I realized that this sounded a little flippant. I really am not keen on the regular circumvention of legal processes. But we are at war (although the Democrats sometimes don't seem to be aware of that), and we are fighting an enemy that makes the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union seem like they were playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules. You have to go back to Stalin, Hitler, and Imperial Japan to find thugs with the level of barbarism of al-Qaeda. Playing by a very narrow set of rules puts us at serious risk of losing heart. Lowering ourselves to their level risks the civilized values that are the reason that we are fighting these monsters. There is a saying that you must be careful who you pick as enemies--you are in danger of becoming like them. I have some misgivings about turning over captured terrorists to some of the Middle Eastern governments that assist us. Torture is reputed to be common in many of these systems--and I don't mean playing Christina Aguilera music, or having a female interrogator make the suspect think that she has smeared menstrual blood on him. I don't even mean waterboarding (which I consider arguably on either side of the line that qualifies as torture). I mean the sort of torture that makes you sick to even think about, no matter how evil the subject of that torture is. On the other hand, one of the mantras of leftist thought is that there are no universal truths, and we shouldn't impose our cultural values on others. Except in this one case! Then they suddenly decide that there are universal truths, and we do need to impose our values on our Middle Eastern allies. Labels: terrorism |
