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Labels: history Labels: humor Labels: health care Labels: gun history Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: health care Labels: homosexuality Labels: history Labels: abortion Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: gun rights Listen at length to any Neocon and it will soon become clear to you what drives them - fear. Oh my, they scare us, let’s kill them! The feminization of America has fallen squarely on the shoulders of Neocons. What a bunch of girly-men. We’re scared of the terrorist who might attack us - and you know why they would attack us - because we are so wonderful! Foreign Policy is the simplest venture of all - all one has to do is think what would happen if you went to your neighbor’s yard and took a leak. Do you think your neighbor will have anything to say about you pissing in his yard? It’s called blowback - its a causality relationship. You piss in my yard I’m going to have something to say about it. Foreign policy is as simple as one neighbor to another. But, no, its not because we are meddling in other people’s affairs - could never be something like that. It’s because we are Americans that they hate us. We are free and they hate us because of it. Please. Don’t be so boorish. Listen to this NeoCon in lemming-like fashion repeat the dictator Bush’s diatribe. Personally, I don’t listen to infants who only recently learned how to tie their own shoes or wipe their own butt. This kid has those kaleidascope eyes that betray his ideological hero-worship. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, terrorism Labels: gun rights, history Labels: history Labels: establishment of religion, humor Labels: homosexuality Labels: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, homosexuality Labels: search and seizure Labels: gun rights Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: gun rights Labels: cars
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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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THE MESOPOTAMIAN: TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD
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My Respect for the Profession is Declining
I mentioned a little earlier a debate going on via a professional historian email list, the Society for History of the Early American Republic. I am disappointed at how rapidly the discussion has declined to professors trying to defend their claim that Pennsylvania had no militia from the end of the French & Indian War (1763) until 1777, when Pennsylvania passed a new militia law. I pointed out that even if the Associations (voluntary military units) did not meet a formal definition of "militia" as defined by statute, they took orders from the Pennsylvania government, and were provided ammunition and some guns as though they were militia. Most significant of all is Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd series, volume 14, p. 8. Under the chapter heading "Papers Relating to the Militia" is a discussion of prisoner exchanges dated December 8, 1776. The document includesDoctor Gill and two privates of the Royal Artillery. (British.) for Captain Garret Graff and two privates of the Pennsylvania Militia.
Those who insist that Pennsylvania had no militia between the start of the Revolutionary War the 1777 militia statute are welcome to continue to believe this--but the people of the time clearly believed that Pennsylvania had a militia, and put it in writing. And professional historians (people with Ph.D.s and academic appointments) keep insisting, contrary to the 1776 document above, that there was no militia--and they cite secondary works: a book published in 1994, and a website by the Pennsylvania government.
I am beginning to wonder if my professors taught me wrong, emphasizing the importance of primary sources--the documents of the time. It appears that Cornell's defenders are reduced to using secondary sources to back up their claims--the primary sources that I foolishly use show that their secondary sources are in error with respect to the absence of a Pennsylvania militia in 1776.
Were my professors all wrong? Should I give preference to books and articles written centuries after the events over documents produced by the people that were there? Is this is what passes for professional historians today? Should I really be trusting secondary sources over primary sources for identifying the facts of the time? Is it really worthwhile to read a book that two different reviews have identified as grossly inaccurate about something as simple as the state of antebellum case law on this subject? (And that particular issue is one that I have read the primary sources--and Cornell either has not, or has chosen to ignore.) Perhaps I'm on the wrong mailing list.
The gullibility of historians when the Bellesiles fraud happened lowered my perceptions of the profession substantially. The bizarre state of this discussion makes me wonder if the politicization of history has perhaps rendered it more like creative writing than a serious social science.
UPDATE: It appears that the 1757 statute may have not lasted more than a year or two after passage. But there's still this problem that the official documents in 1776 refer to members of the "Pennsylvania Militia."
Funny Video
I have always been a big fan of Weird Al Yankovic. I think it takes more cleverness to write a parody than write the song that it parodies. Some years back, I took my son to see Weird Al in concert overlooking Clear Lake in California--and it was fun evening, with a surprisingly wide range of ages present.
I don't know how I missed this Weird Al song, "Ebay" which is a parody of the Back Street Boys "I Want It That Way." Someone put together a collection of pictures and text as a video for the song, and it is righteously funny. If you are familiar with the Back Street Boys song, the parody is funny in its own right. If you aren't, you can still appreciate the social commentary on eBay and how it works.
The SCHIP Veto
I've made the point for some time that the Christian commonwealth idea upon which this government was founded includes both private and governmental assistance to those who are in need of the essentials of life--and I would say that medical care qualifies. President Bush vetoed the SCHIP expansion bill because he claimed that it would provide government health insurance to families making $83,000 a year.
The Frost family of Baltimore has become the Democratic Party's poster child for why this program needs to go so far up the income scale. Michelle Malkin has some pictures of the three cars that the Frost family owns--along with details of a home for which they have almost $200,000 equity. There's also an email that Michelle Malkin received from some neighbors of the Frosts that is really very nice about them--but makes it clear that this is not a good example of people in need.
I won't try to summarize it; I'll just encourage you to read it. There are people who need the government's help. There are people who do not need the government's help. Giving help to those who don't need it sucks money out of programs for the truly needy--and in some cases, will be transferring money from working poor families to people who aren't at all poor.
I suspect that the Democrats may have porkified the SCHIP bill just so that they could force a veto, in the hopes of having an issue.
Interesting Definition of Tyranny
There has been a rather vigorous discussion of the Second Amendment happening at the Society for History of the Early American Republic list. This is a list used by professional historians, largely in universities and similar institutions. Robert Churchill started the excitement with a polite but critical review of Saul Cornell's A Well-Regulated Militia, which asserts that the right to keep and bear arms was not intended to be an individual right at all, but that developed this idea in the 19th century.
I am not impressed with Cornell's claims on this, largely for the reasons that David T. Hardy's very critical review in the April 2007 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal articulates. I threw my two cents in as well, and a torrent of defenders of Cornell's claims responded--including the astonishing claim that the Pennsylvania Constitution's 1776 and 1790 guarantees of a right to arms were not individual:That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. [1776 Penn. Const.]
and:The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.[Penn. Const. 1790]
The rationalizations for these are quite astonishing, and a pretty good indication of how important disarming the masses has become to the intellectuals of our society. Similarly, this professor decided that the Indiana Constitution of 1816's guarantee was not individual. My response is here.
One criticism of my careful effort to demonstrate that these were understood as individual rights produced this response from Bob Arnebeck on the list:Jon Roland provides us with the high ground, and I appreciate his
Now, argue if you want that the Iraq War was a mistake. But setting up and defending a democratic republic where there had been a dictatorship that routinely engaged in torture and genocide qualifies as "tyranny"?
website. However when he writes about the Second Amendment and adds "The people must always have the means to resist tyrannical government," what are we looking at? The weapon currently most successful in fighting tyranny is the IED. Is making them protected under our Bill of Rights? Why not the suicide car bomb? Something like the Shiite militias would be doubly protected here: freedom of religion and right to bear arms.To the degree that the Bill of Rights guarantees individual rights,
Quick! Alert the ACLU! Guarantees of individual rights are "undemocratic" and "abets tyranny"!
then it is undemocratic and abets tyranny. I could do with fewer automatic weapons on the streets, less pornography, and this insane idea that spending money is free speech so that the whole political system is bought by the rich.
Bob Arnebeck
Mental Illness & San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
No, he's not crazy, just an idiot. But this October 10, 2007 editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle takes him to task for a problem that is far more serious than the lack of same-sex marriages:"Laura's Law" was designed as a way to compel outpatient treatment for severely mentally ill people who pose a danger to themselves or others. It was named after Laura Wilcox, a 19-year-old Nevada County college student who was shot to death by a 41-year-old man who resisted his family's determined efforts to get him into treatment. It took effect in 2003, yet has been implemented in just one county, Los Angeles.
The severe problems of the homeless mentally ill have been getting a lot of attention from San Francisco newspapers of late--but unfortunately, those oh so liberal San Franciscans seem more interested in enforcing the laws against being a public nuisance than in helping the severely mentally ill. Here's a chance for liberals to do what they seem to love doing--spending tax money--and actually helping people that are in severely bad shape--another thing that liberals claim to want to do. But perhaps government funding of the Folsom Street Festival with naked men whipping other naked men is more important.
More than a year ago, we asked Mayor Gavin Newsom why San Francisco never exercised its authority under the law, especially with untreated mental illness being such a burden on the city's social services and police. On March 20, 2006, Newsom acknowledged that he "dropped the ball on that" amid other pressing matters. But he emphasized that Laura's Law was "something I was committed to early on" and he would make its implementation a City Hall priority.
He continues to drop the ball.
On Tuesday, Dr. Mitch Katz, director of the city's Department of Health, offered the administration's rationalizations for its neglect of Laura's Law. He explained that it's "fairly resource intensive" to identify and track people with serious mental illness who need compulsory treatment. It is, he added, highly controversial. Such a program would require approval from the Board of Supervisors, which would be difficult to obtain. Katz said he supports Laura's Law, but, given the political reality, he thinks the city's resources are better spent on voluntary treatment programs.
No one ever suggested it would be easy.
Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat and child psychologist who authored the "Laura's Law" extension last year, said his intent was that it would be used sparingly - but there would be cases where compulsory treatment could save lives.
"As a society, we need to step up to the plate to help people who, if left to their own devices, are going to be homeless, are going to get themselves in trouble or are going to hurt themselves or hurt others," Yee said. He added that it was "horrible" for a city to "summarily take away a mental health option" from professionals.
It's even worse when it's one the mayor identified as a priority.
The Newsom budget further narrows its mental-health treatment options with the planned cutback of 14 acute-care beds - critics say it will be closer to 21 - at San Francisco General Hospital. Newsom and Katz insist that many of the patients could be treated cheaper and more effectively in community settings. The professionals on the scene disagree.
"The people we admit are very, very sick," said Dr. Paul Linde, an attending physician in psychiatric emergency at SFGH. He said the vast majority of them are homeless, a "a solid 50 percent" are suicidal and perhaps 10-20 percent pose a danger to others. "If we could avoid putting them in the hospital, we would," Linde said.
The American Safety Net
I have previously linked to news stories about why the Canadian health system works so well--they are next to the United States, which handles their peak demand problem. This isn't just a few isolated cases, either, as this October 10, 2007 Fox News story reports:Mothers in British Columbia are having a baby boom, but it's the United States that has to deliver, and that has some proud Canadians blasting their highly touted government healthcare system.
"I'm a born-bred Canadian, as well as my daughter and son, and I'm ashamed," Jill Irvine told FOX News. Irvine's daughter, Carri Ash, is one of at least 40 mothers or their babies who've been airlifted from British Columbia to the U.S. this year because Canadian hospitals didn't have room for the preemies in their neonatal units.
"It's a big number and bigger than the previous capacity of the system to deal with it," said Adrian Dix, a British Columbia legislator, told FOXNews.com. "So when that happens, you can't have a waiting list for a mother having the baby. She just has the baby."
The mothers have been flown to hospitals in Seattle, Everett, Wash., and Spokane, Wash., to receive treatment, as well as hospitals in the neighboring province of Alberta, Dix said. Three mothers were airlifted in the first weekend of October alone, including Carri Ash.
"I just want to go home and see my kids," she said from her Seattle hospital bed. "I think it's stupid I have to be here."
Canada's socialized health care system, hailed as a model by Michael Moore in his documentary, "Sicko," is hurting, government officials admit, citing not enough money for more equipment and staff to handle high risk births.
Sarah Plank, a spokeswoman for the British Columbia Ministry of Health, said a spike in high risk and premature births coupled with the lack of trained nurses prompted the surge in mothers heading across the border for better care.
"The number of transfers in previous years has been quite low," Plank told FOXNews.com. "Before this recent spike we went for more than a year with no transfers to the U.S., so this is something that is happening in other provinces as well."
Reasons Why Sex & Suffering Don't Belong Together
But I guess statements like that just make me an old fuddy-duddy. From October 11, 2007 Associated Press:LYNN, Mass (AP) - Adrian Exley was wrapped tightly in heavy plastic, then bound with duct tape. A leather hood was put over his head with a thin plastic straw inserted so that he could breathe, and he was shut up in a closet.
Aside from Vice President Rockefeller's famous "death in the saddle" with his mistress--how often does any die from having consensual, heterosexual sex? It is something of an argument against confusing sex, pain, and humiliation, isn't it?
That, apparently, was the way Exley liked it. But the way it ended - with Exley suffocating - was not what he had in mind when he traveled from Britain for a bondage session with a man he had met through a sadomasochism Web site.
Exley's body was discovered in the woods last year, two months after he was bound up in the bondage "playroom" Gary LeBlanc had built in the basement of his suburban Boston home. LeBlanc, a 48-year-old Gulf Oil sales executive, detailed his responsibility in the fatal bondage session in a five-page suicide note, just before he put a gun to his head and killed himself.
Now the question is: Since Exley consented to the sex play, can LeBlanc be held responsible for his death?
Exley's family is suing LeBlanc's estate for unspecified damages, claiming wrongful death. Many bondage enthusiasts are watching the case closely, seeing it as lesson in where to draw the line of responsibility on consensual but dangerous sex.
"There's definitely the whole spectrum of thought on what really happened - whether it was a consent issue, or negligence or misunderstanding," said Vivienne Kramer, a board member of the New England Leather Alliance. "Everybody has their own ideas on what should have happened."
Exley and LeBlanc met through an online forum for gay men into rubber, leather and bondage. Exley, a 32-year-old stripper, used the screen name "Studpup," while LeBlanc called himself "Rubrman" and built a chamber with rubber mats on the floors and walls, chains, leather restraints, rubber suits and a hospital gurney.
Switzerland County, Indiana
Kind of a pretty area of Indiana along the Ohio River. Here's some video as I entered the county seat of Vevay.
They restored the county courthouse quite nicely--much better condition than several other county courthouses in that part of Indiana and Kentucky that I stopped to photograph.
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A very Midwestern looking water tower in Vevay:
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Here's the main drag of town:
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Like a lot of counties, they had to add onto the original courthouse--but unlike a lot of counties, they worked pretty hard to make the addition match.
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And here's the plaque thanking the businessman who made all the restoration and economic vitality of the county possible:
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Interesting plaque--but I'm asking some experts if this is just local legend or reality:
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Of course, it's not a county courthouse without an artillery piece in front!
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Imagine If They Kidnapped Her To Prevent An Abortion
Do you think the courts would have been this lenient? From October 11, 2007 Red Ink:Do you remember the Kampf's? No? They were the white couple up in Maine that were so livid that their 19 year old daughter had gotten pregnant by a black South African man that was serving time in prison for receiving stolen property and will be deported back to South Africa when his sentence is completed, that they kidnapped and tied up their pregnant daughter at gunpoint and were driving her to New York State in order to force her to have an abortion. Now does the name ring a bell? Yeah, I thought that might jog your memory. Well the wheels of justice appear to have four flat tires in Maine. The Kampfs have negotiated a plea deal that allows them to serve no jail time at all.
More On My Windows XP Problem
Thanks for all the help. I ended up using the chat room support from HP--and they suggested that I look around for the XP Media Center restore disks that I should have made when I first received the computer, rather than trying to unravel the security issues that were preventing XP Pro from sharing the workgroup MSHOME. Amazingly enough, I found the disk, restored XP Media Center--and everything is now working.
XP Professional Incompatible With XP Home?
HP got my notebook back to me--but where it had Windows XP Media Edition (pretty much the same as Windows XP Home), now it has XP Professional. Unfortunately, there seems to be some incompatibility with respect to workgroups. XP Pro can't see any other members of the MSHOME workgroup, and XP Home on my wife's computer can't see my notebook. I haven't even tried to look at the notebook from the Linux box.
My guess is that XP Pro is more demanding on permissions or something, and I guess Microsoft figures that no one would actually try to put to XP Pro and XP Home on the same LAN, so there seems to be nothing that clearly identifies how to resolve this problem.
I really do not want to send this notebook back to HP, and I just don't have the energy to spend another five hours on the phone to India. I'm hoping that someone out there knows the magic trick to get XP Pro to share a workgroup with XP Home PCs.
Was I Unfair To Ron Paul Supporters?
I received some email from a Ron Paul supporter who said that I was being unfair judging them all by the statements of a few whackos--and as the email exchange continued, he proceeded to add another Ron Paul whacko to the list:Fred T. was a pro-abort lobbyist(love of money?), is a CFR member and has never shown by his actions(not his words) to be a lover of liberty. The lash he wields may be gentler than Hillary, but a lash it will be.
I see that Thompson apparently did work for a firm that did some lobbying on behalf of abortion groups, and appears to have been rather peripherally involved in advice to them. I can't claim to be surprised, nor particularly pleased. Now, Ron Paul is pro-life, and introduced a bill defining that life begins at conception. This does not surprise me. Dr. Paul is an ob-gyn, and apparently seeing a late-term abortion performed as part of his residency left a deep impression on him. I can appreciate and even support a pro-life libertarian position; I just don't believe that a complete ban while a strong minority still supports abortion on demand will be enforceable. (There's a lot that can be done to strongly discourage abortion without a complete ban--and a lot of private persuasive effort that can be done to shrink that abortion on demand minority.) What astonishes me is the mental gymnastics that pro-choice Ron Paul supporters have to perform to explain why their positions are not incompatible.
CFR: Council on Foreign Relations. When I start to see people blathering on about the Trilateral Commission and the CFR, I can pretty quickly discount that they know much about anything. I've read so much John Birch Society literature over the years. It's unfortunate that the Birchers engage in these bizarre conspiracy theories, because much of what they have to do say about the proper role of government is quite sensible in a conservative vein--but then the CFR/TC stuff completely destroys their credibility. If two members of the CFR say the same thing, it's proof of conspiracy. If two members of the CFR say opposite things, it's proof of internal conflict within the conspiracy.
Conspiracy requires intelligence; stupidity is so much more common.You are aware that if you look at the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto you will see central banking, income tax, free public education among the planks and what candidate other than Ron Paul wants to undo these communist doctrines that we live under.
The problems with this statement are that:
1. The Communist Manifesto's "central banking" plank isn't the Federal Reserve System. It is actually:Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
The Federal Reserve System does not have a monopoly on banking or extending of credit. Not even close.
2. Support for free public education in America predates the Communist Manifesto. Thomas Jefferson (someone that many libertarians worship without actually understanding his positions) was among the big supporters of public education.
3. The income tax is hardly a Communist plot. The U.S. government during the Civil War adopted an income tax. I don't like paying income taxes. I would prefer a national sales tax--easier to administer, less discouraging to hard work. But seeing the income tax as a Communist conspiracy is deranged.Politics ultimately will not be our salvation, but what concerns me is this delusion that Hillary is the enemy, if she is why have the Republicans greatly enlarged government power, knowing that she might become President someday.
Because Republican politicians concentrate on getting re-elected more than anything else. Unfortunately, limited government as a system can only survive until the voters figure out that they can vote themselves money out of the public coffers. Some of this expansion was because voters demanded more; some was because special interests demanded more, and Republican politicians were afraid that if they didn't start shoveling out the money, a Democrat would win the next election.If the U.S.A minded its own business and truly unshackled the productiveness of free people, who would we fear?
Continual terrorist attacks. Islamofascism isn't angry at America about our support of Israel. It is angry that much of the world is both non-Muslim, and rapidly advancing in economic status, while Islamic nations have trouble getting out of poverty while sitting on an ocean of petroleum.Is being a truther worse than being a proponent of abortion?
Yes, being a "9/11 Truther" is worse than being a proponent of abortion. The "9/11 Truthers" are committed to claiming that the U.S. government did a horrible crime that Osama bin Laden has boasted was done by his people!
Oklahoma Parking Lot Protection Law
A few years back, Weyerhauser searched the cars of employees in the parking lot. Employees were told that if they didn't consent to a search, they would be fired. Eight employees with rifles in their car (apparently it was the start of hunting season) were fired.
In response, Oklahoma passed a law that prohibited employers from imposing a "no firearms" rule in parking lots that were open to the public, if the car was locked.
According to this article in the October 6, 2007 Tulsa World, a federal judge has ruled that employers are not just allowed to have a "no firearms" rule, but seem to be required to do so by federal law: U.S. District Judge Terence Kern issued a permanent injunction against an Oklahoma law that would have kept employers from banning firearms at the workplace under certain conditions.
I have some misgivings about the government telling private employers what rules they can have, for the same reason that I would be upset if the government told me that I had to allow anyone that wanted to walk about my property with a gun. But I am not at all impressed with anyone who makes this argument while using the 1970 OSHA law as the excuse--because that also told employers what they could do on their own land. OSHA was well-intentioned, and probably has saved lives, but the same could be said for Oklahoma's statute protecting the right of employees to have a gun in their car in the parking lot.
Kern decided in a 93-page written order issued Thursday that the amendments to the Oklahoma Firearms Act and the Oklahoma Self-Defense Act, which were to go into effect in 2004, conflict with a federal law meant to protect employees at their jobs.
Kern said the amendments "criminally prohibit an effective method of reducing gun-related workplace injuries and cannot co-exist with federal obligations and objectives."
...
Kern concluded that the proposed changes to Oklahoma law conflict with -- and are legally pre-empted by -- the 1970 Occupational Health and Safety Act.
That federal law requires employers to lessen hazards in their workplaces that could lead to death or serious bodily harm. The measure also encourages employers to prevent gun-related workplace injuries.
At the same time, I am very sympathetic to employees who drive to and from work, and are effectively prohibited from defending themselves because they can't have a gun in their car. I live somewhere very safe, so I don't worry too much about this, but there are plenty of people who are not so fortunate.
It would be nice to get Congress to pass a clarifying amendment to the OSHA statute to clarify that this was not the intent--but I rather doubt that this has any chance until the Democrats no longer control both houses.
Thanks to Arms and the Law for bringing this to my attention.
What You Do In Private Is The Government's Business!
Liberals like to argue that what consenting adults do in private is none of the government's business (as long as it involves sex or drugs, but not if it involves guns or hiring). But here's an example of liberalism run amok again--telling people who live in apartments that they aren't allowed to smoke inside their own dwellings. From NBC channel 11 in San Jose:Thought to be the first of its kind in California, the ordinance declares secondhand smoke a public nuisance and extends the city's current smoking ban to include multi-unit, multi-story residences. Smoking on city streets and sidewalks will be permitted under the ordinance, except in the location of city-sponsored events or in close proximity to prohibited areas.
Though Belmont and some other California cities already restrict smoking in multi-unit common areas, Belmont is the first city to extend secondhand smoke regulation to the inside of individual apartment units. Smoking will still be allowed in single-family homes and their yards, and units and yards in apartment buildings, condominiums and townhouses that do not share any common floors or ceilings with other units.
The ban for multi-unit apartment buildings will not take effect for an additional 14 months after the ordinance is passed, so that one-year lease agreements will be unaffected.
Smoking will be permitted only in designated outdoor areas of multi-unit housing.
Additionally, smoking will not be allowed in indoor and outdoor workplaces, or in parks, stadiums, sports fields, trails and outdoor shopping areas.
City officials have said that enforcement of the smoking ban will be complaint-driven.
Ron Paul Supporters
I'm impressed with the rhetorical excesses that I am seeing from Ron Paul supporters--the fanaticism that I heard from a couple of his supporters at the GRPC is apparently not just a quirk of those few. Over at Unalienable Rights, a Ron Paul backer:
As I have said in the past, I understand the non-interventionist foreign policy argument and I see some merit to it. But the people that did 9/11 were overwhelmingly from countries where we have never intervened in their internal politics. The only U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East back then were placed there at the request of the governments in question, in response to a very real fear of invasion by Iraq.
Oh yes, "dictator Bush." Come on. He was elected twice. The Iraq War Authorization for Use of Military Force passed both houses of Congress by wide margins.
Any Guesses As To What This Word Was Supposed To Be?
I'm looking at an order that was published in the August 30, 1794 Centinel of the North-West Territory (a Cincinnati, Ohio newspaper). It's an order for all members of the militia to be armed when attending church, and there's one word here that doesn't make any sense:The practice of assembling for public worship without arms may be attended with most sedlicious and melancholy consequences--it presents to an enemy of the smallest degree of enterprize to effect each fatal impression upon our infant settlements as posterity might long in vain lament.
I thought perhaps "sedlicious" might be a misspelling of "seditious," but that really doesn't fit, and I can't find any word that is close to that spelling that makes sense. Any ideas?
UPDATE: One reader suggested that it might be a typo for "sedulous" but that doesn't make sense in that context. Another reader pointed to these 1790 and 1792 uses of seditious--which are similar--but don't seem to be used in a sense different from the modern meaning of the word--which doesn't make sense in this context.
Kentucky Touring
On Sunday, I drove down through Kentucky, just to get an idea what the countryside my great-great-great-grandfather fought in looked like.
I was a little disappointed to find that Kentucky south of Cincinnati along I-75, at least as far south as I took it, was like a lot of other newly built parts of America. I could have been in west Boise, the suburbs of Raleigh, or many San Francisco Bay Area suburbs, at least with respect to the architecture.
When I moved a few miles away from the interstate, however, it started to get character--the kind of places that I have always imagined when hearing Elvis Presley sing "Kentucky Rain":Showed your photographs
You get to share in the experience as I wandered up along the south shore of the Ohio River!
To some old, gray bearded men
Sitting on a bench
Outside a general store
They said, "Yes, she's been here"
But their memory wasn't clear
"Was it yesterday?
No wait, the day before."
~ * ~ * ~
Finally got a ride
With a preacher man who asked,
"Where you bound on such a cold, dark afternoon?"
As we drove on thru the rain
As he listened I explained
And he left me with a prayer
That I'd find you
~ * ~ * ~
Kentucky rain keeps pourin' down
And up ahead's another town
That I'll go walkin' thru
With the rain in my shoes
(rain in my shoes)
Searchin' for you
In the cold Kentucky rain
In the cold Kentucky rain
This video I shot with the HP PhotoSmart E427. Considering the limitations of video mode on what is really a cheap digital camera--and that I was holding in one hand while driving with the other--it came out rather better than I expected. This is at 2x the actual speed.
I'll post some more pictures and video later.
UPDATE: Here's a picture of the Ohio River looking north from Kentucky, and a sign detailing a tragedy that took place there in 1868. The sentence about "The AMERICA rammed deeply into the UNITED STATES" almost sounds like a metaphorical description of the Civil War, doesn't it?
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Bumper Stickers & License Plates
As you might expect, the bumper stickers at Gun Rights Policy Conference ranged from humorous to infuriating. This particular truck had a collection that I got a good laugh from, and I suspect that the driver and I would have gotten along quite well!
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While I don't have a picture that came out well, I saw a rather surprising specialty license plate issued by the state of Indiana that I am surprised hasn't generated an ACLU lawsuit yet: "In God We Trust."
While not likely to produce a lawsuit from ACLU, I was slightly surprised to see this specialty plate:
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Pictures from the Folsom Street Fair, 2003-2006
Definitely not work-safe. For those of you who think I am being narrow-minded and a homophobic bigot for asserting that homosexuals are not like heterosexuals except for who they love--take a look at the Folsom Street Fair.
Yes, I know that there are some straight people who are part of the sadomasochistic bunch as well. But ask yourself--why is this kind of depravity so closely associated with homosexuality? Why is it that homosexuals choose to identify themselves with affiliated groups such as sadomasochism? Do you really think that this behavior isn't an indication of something desperately screwed up with this bunch?
A Very Nebulous Law--And Maybe That's The Point
From the October 8, 2007 Daily Mail:Stirring up hatred against homosexuals is to become a serious crime punishable with a seven-year jail sentence under a law announced last night.
I can't quite tell what would be unlawful--which may be the point--to create chilling effect on free speech. Will you be able to express opposition to homosexual-affilated groups like North American Man-Boy Love Association or sadomasochistic displays like the Folsom Street Fair? Would that "cross the line" or not? If you aren't sure, many people will decide just to shut up, and take no chances of going to prison.
The legislation - similar to laws already in force outlawing persecution on religious or racial grounds - will make criminals of those who express their views in ways that could lead to the bullying or harassment of gays.
The maximum sentence is longer than the average of around five years handed to rapists.
The announcement widened the rift between opposing supporters of freedom of speech and gay rights.
Christian groups condemned it as "a law to allow Christiansto be locked up for what they believe".
But the gay pressure group Stonewall said those who disapprove of homosexuals would have nothing to fear from the law if they express their views in a manner that is "temperate" and "polite".
Justice Secretary Jack Straw told MPs the gay harassment law will be included as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill currently going before Parliament, though ministers have yet to decide the wording.
Mr Straw said: "It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last ten years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality.
"It is time for the law to recognise this."
He raised the prospect of extending the law to cover to "transgendered" people and the disabled.
The new law aims to catch those who do not explicitly call for attacks or discrimination against homosexuals, as this is covered by existing incitement laws.
Instead, police will be allowed to pursue those who create an "atmosphere or climate" in which hatred or bullying can be fostered. Officials said it would not prohibit criticism of gay, lesbian and bisexual people or joke-telling.
The final decision over who has "crossed the line" will rest with the police.
If you want to know what sort of society Britain is becoming--and which America will become, if the ACLU has its way--well, there's this news story from the October 4, 2007 Daily Mail:Firemen who shone their torches [flashlights] at four men they found having sex in bushes have been disciplined by their bosses.
What a great future we have ahead of us in America.
The crew spotted the men engaged in illegal 'dogging' - outdoor sexual activity with strangers - on parkland known as the Downs in Bristol late one night.
After embarrassing the men by pointing their torches at them, the crew continued on their way to their fire station.
But one of the 'doggers' complained to Avon Fire and Rescue, ultimately accusing the four-man crew of being homophobic.
The firemen, who have 26 years of service between them, were then suspended on full pay for three months during an internal investigation.
Yesterday it emerged that two have been fined £1,000 each, another demoted to a rank which will see him forfeit a similar amount of money, while a fourth has received a stern written warning.
...
The crew have been transferred to other stations and ordered to attend an equality course.
But no action has been taken against any of the men believed to have been involved in the dogging.
The one who complained is said to be 'happy' at the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings in which the firemen were charged with bringing the service into disrepute and misuse of fire equipment.
The firemen, formerly members of Avon Fire Service's Blue Watch at Avonmouth station in Bristol, have been banned from discussing the incident, which took place at about 10.30pm on June 27.
But one of their colleagues said yesterday: 'This is a complete farce. All four officers have been let down by their senior officers when they needed their support the most.
'They have been treated as the criminals and it has been forgotten that they witnessed criminal activity occurring in a public place.'
Probably A Little Early To Start Using For ScopeRoller
Still pretty cool. This press release from the University of Michigan is about a new light and strong plastic:ANN ARBOR, Mich.—By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that's as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.
It's made of layers of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry with white glue.
Engineering professor Nicholas Kotov almost dubbed it "plastic steel," but the new material isn't quite stretchy enough to earn that name. Nevertheless, he says its further development could lead to lighter, stronger armor for soldiers or police and their vehicles. It could also be used in microelectromechanical devices, microfluidics, biomedical sensors and valves and unmanned aircraft.
Kotov and other U-M faculty members are authors of a paper on this composite material, "Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer Nanocomposites," published in the Oct. 5 edition of Science.
The scientists solved a problem that has confounded engineers and scientists for decades: Individual nano-size building blocks such as nanotubes, nanosheets and nanorods are ultrastrong. But larger materials made out of bonded nano-size building blocks were comparatively weak. Until now.
"When you tried to build something you can hold in your arms, scientists had difficulties transferring the strength of individual nanosheets or nanotubes to the entire material," Kotov said. "We've demonstrated that one can achieve almost ideal transfer of stress between nanosheets and a polymer matrix."
The researchers created this new composite plastic with a machine they developed that builds materials one nanoscale layer after another.
There's Gotta A Be Better Way
Suddenly, those overly detailed scanner devices don't look so bad. From October 5, 2007 Fox News:COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Security guards refused to allow a woman into a federal courthouse until she removed a bra that triggered a metal detector.
Lori Plato said she and her husband, Owen Plato, were stunned when U.S. Marshals Service employees asked her to remove her bra after the underwire supports set off the alarm.
"I asked if I could go into the bathroom because they didn't have a privacy screen and no women security officers were available," Plato said Wednesday. "They said, 'No.'
"I wasn't carrying a shank in my bra. If it's so dangerous, why did they give it back and let me put it on?"
Patrick McDonald, the U.S. Marshal in Boise, said appropriate security protocols were followed in the Sept. 20 matter, and guards suggested she simply remove the bra in her car outside, or find a restaurant bathroom.
"She's inflating it," McDonald said. "All of a sudden she just took it off. It wasn't anything we wanted to happen and it wasn't anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast."
Plato, of Bonners Ferry, said she was parked on a busy street and wasn't familiar with downtown Coeur d'Alene businesses. So her husband held up his coat to shield her from the rest of the people in the courthouse lobby while she removed her bra underneath her shirt.
I'm Not Laughing
This piece from The Onion is clearly intended to suggest that gun rights groups are just being paranoid:WASHINGTON, DC—The National Anti- Quartering Association, America's foremost Third Amendment rights group, held its annual gala in Washington Monday to honor 191 consecutive years of advocating the protection of private homes and property against the unlawful boarding of military personnel.
Believe me, I wish that the Second Amendment enjoyed even close to that level of support.
"This is a proud day for quarters-owners everywhere," said the organization's president, Charles Davison, in his keynote address. "Year after year, we have sent a loud and clear message to the federal government and to anyone else who would attack our unassailable rights: Hands off our cottages, livery stables, and haylofts."
The NAQA was created in 1816 in response to repeated violations of the Third Amendment during the War of 1812. The organization quickly grew in influence and cites its vigilance as the primary reason why the amendment has only been litigated once in a federal court since the Bill of Rights was ratified. The organization is also arguably the country's most powerful political lobby; every politician elected since 1866 has fully supported Third Amendment rights.
I'm Not Happy About the Headline
But how many events like this do you have to have before someone starts to question the deinstitutionalization policy? From the October 7, 2007 New York Daily News:A shirtless madman wielding stolen knives went on a bloody midtown rampage yesterday - stabbing a restaurant worker and a psychologist walking her dog before being shot by an off-duty cop, authorities said.
And in case you wonder if New York City needs "knife control"--he stole the knives from a restaurant, attacking a chef that tried to stop him.
Deranged Lee Coleman stood wild-eyed over the dog-walker, methodically plunging a knife into her body and face over and over - even pausing to change knives as the woman lay in a pool of blood, screaming for help.
The crazed mental patient got into several confrontations while running up Second Ave. near 35th St. before he took aim at Susan Barron, 67, who was walking to church to have her dog blessed, sources said.
Barron, who lives in the neighborhood, was stabbed at least 10 times in the face, neck, arms and abdomen, leaving her badly mutilated, witnesses said. She was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition.
"He was chopping down on her," said Andrew Fink, 29, who was getting into a cab when the attack took place. "I saw him hit her at least 10 times. She was screaming and crawling along the street and people were running away.
"It looked like she was trying to crawl into the intersection. She was crying out in pain. He looked very intent. He was systematically bringing the weapon down on her."
Police said Coleman, 38, has a history of mental illness and has been in and out of psychiatric clinics. He was off his medication, sources said.
He has prior arrests in Georgia in 2001 for child abandonment, assault, theft and receiving stolen property. He was also arrested in 2004 in New Jersey, but police were unclear on the charges.
A Troubling Encounter With Ron Paul Supporters
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President right now. He spoke at the Gun Rights Policy Conference Saturday night. No surprise: he's the most outspoken pro-gun candidate, and this isn't the first time that he has spoken there.
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There was a police officer and, I suspect, a Secret Service agent with him, based on these two vehicles outside:
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I can't blame him for the security--Presidential candidates attract nuts.
I voted for him when he was the Libertarian Party nominee for President in 1988--not because I thought he had a chance, or would make a good President, but because he was the standard bearer for the Libertarian Party, and the goal was to get people thinking about libertarian ideas.
I am no longer a libertarian. In the 1990s, my libertarian beliefs started to morph into conservative ones for several reasons:
1. A core libertarian idea is that the only actions that should be punished by government are those involving force, the threat of force, or fraud. The theory is that it doesn't much matter what others are doing--as long as their beliefs and actions don't cross the "force or fraud" line, it really doesn't make life all that difficult.
This is a beautiful theory. Raising kids in the San Francisco Bay Area really caused me to reconsider whether this beautiful theory had any applicability to the real world. I concluded that it did not.
Peer pressure didn't much influence me as a kid. I defended communism in 6th grade--when my peers were parroting the liberalism of their parents. (This was Santa Monica.) By junior high, I didn't mind being the only Republican and only supporter of free market capitalism in most of my classes. But I have since seen that this is a tremendously difficult position for most kids to take. The herd instinct is overpowering, and in a place like the Bay Area, it is quite destructive.
There comes a certain point where enormous damage gets done by subscribing to this doctrine that only "force or fraud" should be subject to governmental discouragement. For example, we have laws that prohibit public nudity or defecating in the middle of the street. A strict libertarian would say, "Why? As long as you clean up the mess afterwards, no one is hurt by it. And no one is really hurt by public nudity." You can go too far, obviously, in promoting virtue and discouraging vice, but there are actions that need to be discouraged to create a civil society.
2. Libertarian activists like to portray themselves as the descendants of the Founding Fathers, and the Constitution as a libertarian document. Studying American history carefully demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that the Constitution was not a libertarian document, and you have to pick and choose your Founding Father quotes with considerable care to portray them as libertarian.
The Constitution certainly sought to limit federal government power (and failed), which is a libertarian idea, but it left the states free to exercise power in all sorts of arbitrary and often antilibertarian ideas--for example, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which actually authorized the legislature to not only use tax dollars to support churches--but also to pass mandatory church attendance laws:As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.
3. Libertarianism suffers from the same reductionistic tendencies as many other political theories. This isn't because libertarianism is especially defective as a philosophy. Indeed, I think it has considerable merit as a direction (at least in much of America), but not as a goal. The problem is that strongly principled ideologies tend to attract people who are looking for single, simple answers to what are often complex problems. Is there poverty? Quick: it's all about (depending on what philosophy you have oversimplified) one of the following:
And the people of this commonwealth have also a right to, and do, invest their legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the subjects an attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can conscientiously and conveniently attend.
If you think I am exaggerating, I have met people who have insisted that each of these choices is the entire, or at least primary cause of poverty. The idea that there are many causes of poverty, and that there is no single bullet--and maybe there are as almost as many causes as there are people--is anethama to the reductionists. Even people who say that they know that the problem is multifactorial sometimes behave or lobby for solutions as though they believe that a single fix will solve everything.
This post is not primarily about Ron Paul. It is really about some of his supporters that I spoke to--and what I heard rather concerned me. You see, after the 1988 campaign, Ron Paul sent those of us who had contributed to his campaign a newsletter that concerned me enough that I decided not to contribute to further Ron Paul campaigns or projects. I see from this discussion at Flopping Aces that Ron Paul only contributed his name to that newsletter--he claims that he didn't write or even read some of this material that went into the newsletter. But shortly, you will see why I am concerned, nonetheless.
I have never been an unquestioning supporter of Israel. There are Christians who conflate respect for Judaism with respect for the nation of Israel--a country originally established by Jews who were not particularly religious--and who were held in considerable contempt by Orthodox Jews because of their secularism.
Nonetheless, while I have often been critical of how Israel does things, I generally give Israel the benefit of the doubt. A bad human rights day for the Israeli government is far above the best days that just about every Arab nation achieves.
I understand the non-interventionist foreign policy position that some libertarians espouse. I agree that the U.S. has far too often stuck its nose into the affairs of other nations, with often destructive results for both human rights and our pragmatic national interests. But the 9/11 attackers weren't Nicaraguans, or Costa Ricans, or Mexicans, or Haitians, or Iranians--countries in whose internal affairs the U.S. has intervened, and would at least have a plausible complaint. If anything, the U.S. has gone out of its way to be hands-off to the governments of Arab countries.
Whatever argument you want to make for non-interventionism, it doesn't fly to explain 9/11. Even U.S. support for Israel is a pretty inadequate explanation. We've poured absurd amounts of money into Israel--but also into Egypt. We've supplied the Israelis with weapons--but we have also pushed them very hard at times to play nice, and negotiate with the Palestinians and Israel's neighbors. And the results of forcing Israel to deal have more often than not been more bloodshed by what increasingly seems like a deranged bunch of monsters.
One of the Ron Paul newsletters that turned me off so much talked about how he would look up into the galleries of the House and see Israeli agents giving directions to members of the House as to how they were supposed to vote--and I begin to sense something about two steps back from "Jews are running the world." Nothing quite so direct and paranoid--but it gave me some real discomfort.
At the GRPC, I spoke to several Ron Paul supporters (who seemed to be a large fraction of the attendees, based on the buttons and such), and I found myself increasingly reminded of that newsletter. While we were standing in line for the buffet, I joined a conversation about the mistakes that Bush has made with respect to the Iraq war. He's made several very severe ones--even if you agree that the war needed to be fought. I pointed out that the several reasons for the war that enjoyed general support in the U.S. at the time, even among Democrats, and this one Ron Paul supporter suddenly said, "The Iraq War was about one thing: protecting Israel. Full stop."
The idea that the Iraq War is all about doing Israel's bidding--because those "Jewish neocons" ran the Bush Administration--is very popular in leftist anti-Semitic circles at the moment. For purposes of argument, let's accept that there was concern in the Bush Administration that Iraq, once in possession of a nuclear weapon, might use it against Israel. This does not preclude the other possible risks of a nuclear-armed Iraq such as a threat to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the dangers of escalation with Iran, or of Iraq supplying such weapons to terrorist groups. This complete oversimplification of the question to doing Israel's bidding, in conjunction with that creepy newsletter some years ago, really makes me wonder what kind of a crowd Ron Paul is attracting.
Another aspect that disturbed me was the crowd of Ron Paul supporters who suddenly showed up for his speech (but who had not been at the GRPC). There were signs that declared, "Ron Paul Will Save America." When Ron Paul arrived, there was a frightening intensity to the chanting, "Ron Paul! Ron Paul!"
I've volunteered for Presidential campaigns before. In 1980, I put a lot of effort into coordinating volunteers for the Ed Clark campaign. But I do not recall ever seeing this level of leader worship--what at least from the outside looked like fanaticism.
I don't mean that every Ron Paul supporter is a closet Nazi. But there was something just a little peculiar about what I saw and heard--and I found it a bit disturbing.
UPDATE: I'm told that another gun rights activist is also seeing similarly disturbing signs of a messianic following for Ron Paul--probably because so much of our political class has shown so little reason to be leading us. This is a very dangerous sign--when people start seeing politicians in that light. We all want someone decent (or at least smart) to follow, but we should never lose sight of the fact that politicians put their pants on one leg at a time--except when in public restroom stalls.
Gun Rights Policy Conference
If you don't know what this is--every year, several gun rights organization put together an event for gun rights activists in various parts of the country. It is free to attend, and they unload a pile of useful books and materials on you. I have never gone to one of these before--but being one of the speakers certainly incentivized me a lot!
Anyway, many of the people that you have heard of, if you are concerned about gun rights, were there. (Sorry about these pictures--I decided to bring my pocket HP PhotoSmart E427 camera instead of the Pentax. These are the sort of situations where the Pentax is a big winner.)
Robert A. Levy of the Cato Institute and Alan Gura, both of who are attorneys on the lawsuit that has so far) overturned DC's gun control law were there:
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I had a chance to talk to Mr. Gura at some length about what I could contribute to their efforts, if the Supreme Court decides to hear DC's appeal.
There was a panel discussing state legislative concerns which included several state legislators. As you might expect, all of them were pretty effective speakers, but Jackie Walorski, who represents the 21st district in Indiana's lower house, was just on fire!
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Dr. John Lott was there as well.
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Amusing story. There was an awards part of the program from 1:00 to 1:30, and the panel that I was on started at 1:30. So I wolfed down my lunch, and went for a swim. I figured that I could skip the awards part of the program, and just be back in plenty of time for the 1:30 panel.
Well, my arms haven't been swimming much recently, so I cut the swim short. Shortly after I sat down, they announced the James Madison Award for Journalism in Defense of the Second Amendment was awarded to... Clayton Cramer for Armed America! I was really not expecting this, in spite of winning this award some years ago jointly with Dave Kopel for our Tennessee Law Review paper.
Somehow I ended up on a panel about Popular Culture with Dr. Timothy Wheeler of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership and Nicole Stallard of Pink Pistols, the gay gun rights organization. Nicole explained that Pink Pistols opposes hate crimes laws, preferring to see shall issue laws in all 50 states instead. (I presume because they think it makes more sense to discourage or kill gay bashers instead of punishing a criminal after they have already victimized someone.)
It was also nice to see old friends like David Hardy and Don Kates--and to finally meet Dave Kopel in person--someone with whom I have collaborated for many years, but never actually met! I also met a lot of my readers--and people that only knew me by reputation.
It wasn't all work. I'll tell you in another post about my sightseeing in Kentucky, Indiana--and my visit to 1794 Ohio.
2008 Cadillac CTS
I reserved a compact at Enterprise Car Rental, but when I arrived in Cincinnati, I noticed a 2008 Cadillac CTS sitting there, so I asked, "how much would it cost to upgrade?" It was an extra $14 a day--how could I pass up this opportunity?
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It is not exactly beautiful, but you won't mistake it for anything else, that's for sure.
This was the standard engine, the 3.6L 263 horsepower version. It certainly had decent power for a rental sedan. I timed 0-60 in about eight seconds on a rural road in Kentucky, which is a bit weaker than the reviews that I have read suggested that I should see, but:
1. I didn't quite floor it coming off the line.
2. GM cars for some years have used a knock listener that retards engine timing so that you can use anything from regular to super unleaded--but lower octane means less power. When I filled up the car just before I returned it, I used regular unleaded, and I rather suspect that the previous customer did so as well.
Perhaps with super unleaded, and a little more skilled application of my lead foot, it might have done 0-60 in 7.5 seconds or even a little less.
The brakes were pretty respectable. I didn't really have a chance to find out how fade resistant they were--not even close to finding out (I am a responsible adult, mostly, when I rent cars), but they seemed quite sufficient for the power.
Handling wasn't Corvette-like, but compared to the last Cadillac I drove? Wow! Very, very little body roll, even on some pretty challenging windy roads in the back country of Kentucky. Very, very mild understeer at the cornering limits, completely predictable.
As several reviews that I had read observed, the steering is a bit too light. It is reasonably crisp, and manages to give you a little bit of road feel, but when you compare it to the Corvette, you can tell that someone at Cadillac was too focused on the drivers who want to steer with one finger. Still, it was a pleasant car to blast down rural windy two lane roads on, in a way that Cadillacs historically have not been. If Cadillac insisted on giving me one, I wouldn't turn my nose down at it, or trade it in on something else. (Hint, hint!)
I'm not sure the ride is going to satisfy the traditional Cadillac owner. It's a very controlled ride--not as harsh as the Corvette, of course, but where the Corvette lets you know--sometimes rather bluntly--that you have gone over a bad bump in the road, the CTS lets you know in a rather more civilized manner. But there's no floating, like the Cadillac Sedan de Ville I rented a few years ago. This is definitely a driver's car.
Gas mileage was pretty respectable. I don't know when the elapsed gas mileage meter was last reset--probably a long time ago, based on how little it budged even when I was driving it....energetically--but it stayed around 23.0 mpg until the last few miles of the trip, when I managed to knock it down to 22.9 mpg.
The instanteous mileage measure seemed roughly equivalent to the Corvette--maybe a bit worse. At 55 mph, it would stay in the range 28 mpg to 32 mpg. At 65 mpg, it was pretty consistently 23 to 25 mpg. The CTS is about 700 pounds heavier than the Corvette--but the CTS has a six speed automatic transmission, so there's a bit more efficient use of the engine RPMs.
The trunk is really, really tiny. The doors are also a bit lower than I would prefer. I kept brushing the top of my head into the frame as I entered the car. I'm only 5'11"--not exactly in the giant category. Aggravating the problem, GM seems to have abandoned the springloaded tilt steering wheel design that they have used for many years for something that requires you to manually lock and unlock it to move the wheel. This is clumsy, especially when getting in and out of the car, where the old design let you pull on a lever and have the whole assembly just pop up and out of the way of your knees.
Is this car worth $40,000 (what most of the rear drive Cadillac CTSs will go out the door for)? I must confess, an Impala SS gives you more interior room, comparable power, and I would say roughly equivalent handling, for $10,000 less. You could buy a lot of gasoline to make up for the slightly worse milage on the Impala SS. You could buy the Subaru Impreza WRX or MazdaSpeed 6, and tart them up all sorts of luxury options, and still have a pile of money left over.
The good news that the 2008 CTS will be available used from rental car companies in a year or two for probably $25,000--and then it will be reasonably priced, and not a bad little car.
I'm Back From the Gun Rights Policy Conference
It was a very useful and entertaining experience. I'll be blogging about a lot of different things--gun rights, the award that they surprised me with, a rather unnerving encounter with Ron Paul supporters, the Cadillac CTS I rented, encounters with Bigfoot in 1790s Kentucky, and touring the Ohio River Valley--but first, my luggage needs to arrive.
On the way to Cincinnati, my gun case arrived with me; the bag with my clothes arrived the next morning--which was mystifying, because the flight on both legs was only about half-full, and there was plenty of time to transfer my bags. Why one bag arrived but the other did not--that confuses me.
On the way back, the flight from Cincinnati to O'Hare was late, and by the time I arrived at the gate for my flight to Boise, they were already loading. I am not surprised that my bags didn't make the connection, since I almost didn't, and I was walking, rather quickly.
