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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'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, February 09, 2008
Disestablishing Scientology I've mentioned in the past the bizarre situation where one particular religion enjoys a special tax status under U.S. law. People paying Scientology for their bogus training on the way to "Theta Clear" have been allowed to deduct these expenses as charitable contributions--even though they are clearly payment for services. There has been a case working its way up through the federal courts challenging this special treatment that Scientology gets. (Why? Probably because Scientology is the religion of Hollywood, and this special treatment decision was reached during the Clinton Administration.) In this case, a couple named Sklar are arguing that Scientology is allowed to do this, then should be allowed to treat Jewish school tuition the same way. If the courts actually treat the Sklars' case the same way as Scientology, then they will effectively create a religious school tuition tax deduction. This article from the February 8, 2008 New York Sun tells what happened at the appellate court hearings: During arguments on the case this week, three judges who ride the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals expressed deep skepticism of the IRS's position that the way the agency treats Scientologists is irrelevant to the deductions the Orthodox Jews, Michael and Marla Sklar, took for part of their children's day school tuition and for after-school classes in Jewish law. This isn't as good for those who put their kids in private religious schools as a tuition tax credit (since it only reduces your adjusted gross income by the tuition amount, not the taxes you pay), but it would certainly create some real competition for public schools. I happen to think that the right solution is to scrap Scientology's special treatment--not expand it. Something like this should come from a legislature--not imposed by the judiciary. Labels: establishment of religion The World's Clumsiest Optical Bench Before I spend the money on the square aluminum tubes on which to mount the upper and lower tube assemblies, I wanted to make sure that I had the dimensions right. I set them up at about the right distance in the garage.  Click to enlarge You may be wondering, "Can you really get everything aligned adequately to test whether the focal point is correct?" By eye, no. I was beginning to get rather frustrated with all this, then I pulled out the Orion Deluxe Laser Collimator that I bought several years ago, turned it on, and everything became much easier. Then it was just a matter of making some adjustments to the diagonal, and adjusting the collimation screws on the main mirror. Then I opened up the garage, and tried to bring the 35mm eyepiece to focus. That should be about 56 power. What did I see? The snowbank in front of the house, which is far too close to focus--but I could see what seems to be a Ford pickup truck at the edge of the field--and quite large. So I stand up, look that direction--and where's the pickup truck?  Click to enlarge I think it might be over at the Good's house (the people that were neighborly a few days ago and brought the road grader up our driveway). But I sure couldn't find it with the zoom lens on my camera. I have increased confidence that I haven't wasted a pile of money! Labels: telescopes Friday, February 08, 2008
The Amicus Briefs Keep Flying In! The amicus briefs in support of striking down DC's gun law just keep flowing in. Here's a brief by ten retired U.S. generals (two major generals, five lieutenant generals, three full generals) and the American Hunters & Shooters Association (which was actually set up as a "reasonable alternative" to the NRA) arguing that a complete ban on handguns in DC, and effectively a ban on self-defense use of long guns, makes it harder for the military to train soldiers. And a brief by Georgia Carry, Inc., pointing to the racist roots of gun control. Some of the material is clearly the result of mining my "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" paper published some years ago in Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy. I'm slightly miffed that they didn't cite that paper. Of course, as some people have pointed out, I'm a rather controversial figure--best not to have my name too closely attached. Pink Pistols, the LGBT gun rights group has a brief. And there's even more of them available here! This is beginning to look like a parade. Here's the brief signed by 250 members of the House of Representatives, 55 members of the U.S. Senate, and President of the Senate who you all know as Vice President Cheney. And a partridge in a pear tree! UPDATE: Here's the Second Amendment Foundation's amicus brief, which focuses on grammar--and cites to the paper by Joe Olson and myself about the meaning of "bear arms." It emphasizes that "right of the people" necessarily includes much more than just militia members--even much more than the unorganized militia. It also emphasizes the self-defense aspects of the question. UPDATE 2: And here's the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership amicus brief, emphasizing the role of gun control in enabling genocide in much of the world--and in making oppression of the freedmen possible after the Civil War. It's nice to see them quoting from Eric Foner's book Reconstruction. I'm sure that this will steam him pretty good for writing an honest history book that doesn't conform to the politically correct standards of academia today. Love that quote from Judge Kozinski's dissent in Silveira v. Lockyer (9th Cir. 2003)! Labels: gun rights Gun Makers: Come To Idaho! Red's Trading Post points to the efforts of the Idaho Department of Commerce to encourage firearms and ammunition manufacturers to move to Idaho by advertising at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas. This ad includes Art. I, sec. 11 of the Idaho Constitution, which is worth reading if you live somewhere like Texas or New Mexico, and think that your state constitution is pro-gun. Well, it is, but not like ours: The people have the right to keep and bear arms, which right shall not be abridged; but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to govern the carrying of weapons concealed on the person nor prevent passage of legislation providing minimum sentences for crimes committed while in possession of a firearm, nor prevent the passage of legislation providing penalties for the possession of firearms by a convicted felon, nor prevent the passage of any legislation punishing the use of a firearm. No law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or ammunition. Nor shall any law permit the confiscation of firearms, except those actually used in the commission of a felony.Some states are actually trying to push gun makers out. We'll take them. Labels: gun rights Bryan Fischer's Sense of Humor His most recent posting over at Idaho Values Alliance about the disastrous recent Republican primary actions is titled, "Electile Dysfunction." Labels: 2008 presidential candidates The Transgendered 3rd Grader To be blunt, I find it very, very difficult to believe that this situation isn't an indication of some pretty serious trauma in this kid's life. From February 8, 2008 channel 9: The article mentions that the child "had left to go to classes in another district for about two years." Hmmm. Divorce? New stepfather? It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Labels: homosexuality Thursday, February 07, 2008
Dick Morris Makes An Interesting Point It's about why Clinton is still in the race, and may still win the nomination. From the February 6, 2008 New York Post:
Let me emphasize that Dick Morris doesn't like Hillary Clinton--and vice versa. I've read that much of the gender gap that dominated discussions of the last several elections was actually a single woman gap--that married women voted pretty much like their husbands (or vice versa), and that nearly all of the difference in voting was by single women. I had imagined that single women tended to vote Democrat because of abortion (since married women were less likely to be having abortions), but Morris is making an interesting point that anyone who wants to win elections better think long and hard about: it isn't primarily the 25 year old woman with a professional career making $50,000 a year who is voting Democrat, but the woman whose husband or boyfriend left her with two or three children--and at best, a beat up heap of a car. A conservative argument would be that feminists, by making divorce so easy, have encouraged a lot of men to flake out on their responsibilities. I saw the prominent historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese make that exact argument some years ago on Firing Line. She pointed out that for women like herself, with a Ph.D. and a professional career, feminism has been a very good thing--but that feminism has been a disaster for the vast number of women living in a trailer park, trying to keep their kids fed with little or no child support. This is true. But it is an incomplete statement, too. There are a lot of teenaged girls who are coming out of disastrous home lives, who hook up with the first guy that is prepared to pretend to love them--at least until she's pregnant, and or until he finds another gal who still looks good. There are some steps that government can take that might deal with some of this--such as more aggressive enforcement of statutory rape laws--but at the core of the problem is that there are an awful lot of kids growing up in very screwed up homes. There's a limit to what the government can do about those problems, without video cameras in every home, and an army of child protective services employees watching all the screens--and pretty obviously, that's neither possible nor desirable. I'm not seeing any solutions at the moment. But this underclass of desperate women with dependent children and sperm donors (I hesitate to call them fathers) is a real issue, and one that isn't going away very quickly. I am not surprised that Hillary Clinton is getting their votes; what is a surprise is that some of them vote Republican anyway. It's Just a Game I'm sorry, but I'm not prepared to believe that this divorce was anything but a game to force Rhode Island to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The case is Chambers v. Ormiston (R.I. 2007). The facts of the case are that Chambers and Ormiston, both women, were residents of Rhode Island. In May of 2004, they went to Massachusetts, and got "married." Then they came back to Rhode Island, and on October 23, 2006, they filed for divorce in Rhode Island--insisting that Rhode Island, which does not recognize same-sex marriage, should recognize it for purposes of divorce. And what do you know: the Rhode Island Supreme Court said that there is no same-sex marriage recognized in Rhode Island law. Therefore, they would not untie a knot tied elsewhere. Is there anyone who doesn't see this "divorce" as a little game to try and trick Rhode Island into recognizing a marriage? The goal, of course, would have been then to go back to court, and argue that if Rhode Island was prepared to divorce them, then they had effectively recognizes same-sex marriage. Labels: homosexuality And Perhaps They Will End Up With More Little Fighter Pilots, Too From one of the Australian news services: I'm not sure that I believe it. Note that this is categorized as humor. UPDATE: Here's an older news story from June 24, 2006 Science Daily confirming this. Labels: humor Plato's Republic I read a bit of Plato in high school, as I think everyone does--in particular, the Parable of the Cave, which I found quite thought provoking. But I never read Plato's Republic, although I often see it referenced. This has never bothered me, and perhaps it should. (Hey, I'm a computer geek, not an intellectual.) Anyway, I'm reading Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's Ideas That Changed the World at the moment. It's a series of two page articles, lavishly illustrated, about various major ideas...well, the title gives it away. The page on "Philosopher-Kings" has this to say about The Republic and Plato: Among philosophers, Plato was surely the best-ever writer and perhaps the greatest-ever philosopher. He was, however, a member of an Athenian brat pack of rich, well-educated intellectuals, who resented democracy and felt qualified for power.Except for the militarism--and at least on some topics, censorship, this is a disturbingly accurate description of the intellectual, media, and political elite of the Democratic Party. Grow Up, Everyone Yes, I'm disappointed. Yes, I won't trust McCain on much of anything but War on Terror and maybe gun rights. But ask yourself: would you rather have a President who can't be trusted, and may do the wrong thing on issue after issue? Or a President that you can count on to do the wrong thing on all the same issues? And probably screw up the War on Terror as well? I can't quite figure out what went wrong here. I know that there are still conservatives in America, and since I have some readers who approve of what I say, I know that there's more than one or two of them. But we better get our act together, darn quick, or we are going to start lose not just at the national level, but the state levels as well. Who will McCain pick for VP? Some cynics have suggested Joe Lieberman. Others have suggested Romney (good choice), Fred Thompson (better choice), Mike Huckabee (bad choice, made especially so because of his strong physical resemblance to the VP in season four of 24. (And no, I don't think that Huckabee would be that useless.) Remember that McCain stands a pretty decent chance of not surviving his term. That's not a wish, nor is a suggestion. It's just a harsh reality of the abuse he suffered, his health, and his age. It would be really nice if it turns out that the reason Romney pulled out of the race was in exchange for the VP slot. Not perfect, of course, but it might put Massachusetts and perhaps a couple of the other New England states in play for the Republicans. Not necessarily winnable, but at least the Democrats would have to spend some time and money to hold those states. In the meantime: we have to figure a way to at least hold Republican and conservative Democrat seats in the House, and if possible, retake the House. (At least not lose any more seats in the Senate.) Based on last time, what is going to make this possible will be Democrats who are weak, or scandal ridden. Unfortunately, the only example I know of right now is my U.S. Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig--and he's a Republican. We also need to be grooming some Republicans in state legislatures who can move up to Congress later. Of course, maybe I'm kidding myself. Maybe there aren't that many conservatives left in America. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Romney Clearly Loves America Perhaps he was only putting a positive spin on a decision made for more pragmatic reasons, but this is a darn impressive way to leave the race. From February 7, 2008 CQPolitics: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suspended his campaign for president Thursday, clearing the main obstacle from Arizona Sen. John McCain ’s path to secure the Republican nomination. I had some misgivings about Romney's sudden conservativism--and I have more than misgivings about McCain's increasing liberalism--but Romney clearly sees that the War on Terror takes precedence over his own personal ambition. I applaud Romney for that. Romney for VP? Labels: 2008 presidential candidates The Heller Briefs The Respondent's Brief (which is to say, the one written directly by the attorneys who represent the guy who brought the suit against the District of Columbia for its absurd gun control laws) is now visible here. I provided significant input and comments during the writing of it--as some readers of my book Armed America have already figured out, from some of the historical facts included in the brief. Dave Hardy at Arms and the Law points to this February 5, 2008 Washington Post article about the brief, and calls it "quite a fair one." I agree. Perhaps liberals are beginning to figure out that they are going to lose. Dave also links here to a variety of law professor blogs discussing the merits of the case. You can hear the desperation in some of the negative comments at those blogs. The Academics for the Second Amendment amicus brief, which I helped to write, will be visible shortly, as will some other briefs which I contributed inputs to as well. UPDATE: The NRA's brief is here. UPDATE 2: And here's another brief that I provided significant input and data for. Labels: gun history, gun rights A Rather Peculiar Article It almost reads like two different people wrote the article, and didn't communicate with each other. From February 6, 2008 Popular Mechanics: And then, immediately following: Just how much influence the sun has on global temperatures has been the subject of sometimes acrimonious debate. While an upswing in solar activity may cause a warming trend, it was discounted in the mid-1990s as the sole driver of currentHmmm. China has the worst winter in more than a century. I've previously mentioned snow in Baghdad, Cyprus, record cold in Bulgaria and Siberia and across the U.S. And you know about my driveway! And now this article. Wake up, people! The anthropogenic global warming scam is an attempt to loot your pockets and enrich businesses intent on being in the carbon credit trading business:
Labels: global warming Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Who Pays Taxes? Since the Democrats are going to make a big issue of "screwing the rich" on taxes, I thought you might find this interesting. According to this article, the bottom 50% of American income tax filers pays about $27.4 billion in taxes. Exxon in 2007 paid $30 billion in income taxes. One corporation (admittedly, the largest one on Earth), paid more income taxes the bottom half of filers? Now, I can't find anything that says that Exxon paid $27.4 billion to the U.S. government. I get the impression from articles like this from U.S. News & World Report that much of this income tax may be to foreign governments. This Exxon balance statement again jus says "income tax" without identifying whether this is to the federal government, state governments, or Arabistan. You can read this in two ways: 1. When you buy gasoline, you are contributing to foreign aid! 2. When you buy gasoline, you help some corrupt politician somewhere else put money at best, into his Swiss bank account--and at worst, in al-Qaeda's pocket. Tuesday, February 05, 2008
A Peculiar Need I'm full of peculiar needs. I need some dust covers to go over the ends of the telescope tube assemblies. I'm thinking either elastic bowl covers large enough to go around a 20" diameter bowl (so like something a restaurant would buy), or shower caps that you might find aboard an alien spaceship--especially the bigheaded aliens that the original Star Trek series so often used. Any hints? I've tried Google, but looking for 20" bowl covers isn't doing the job. UPDATE: Large (22" diameter) stuff sacks, such as are used for large sleeping bags, have been suggested. Since I am going to have to create a light shroud for the telescope anyway (attached to the tube ends with Velcro), I may just buy a little extra, and some elastic, and make the dust covers myself. Hey, at least I am not going to make the cloth myself! Labels: telescopes What A Miserable Set of Choices I don't recall the last time I was this disappointed with my choices--and by the time we hold the Republican primary here in Idaho in May, most of the choice will almost certainly be made. I'm not the only blogger disappointed with the results. Professor Mike Rappaport at The Right Coast lists the objections that he has to McCain. Some of them are objections with which I completely agree with Rappaport: There are some areas where I disagree with McCain, but to steal John Kerry's favorite word, I have a more nuanced disagreement: 4. McCain opposes strong interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, for top members of Al Qaeda like Khalid Sheik Mohammed.I understand McCain's reasons for this. As I pointed out in my discussion of 24 and torture, there are certainly a few circumstances where it might be the only way to get information necessary to save innocent lives, and that it is best to leave terrorists in doubt as to whether it might be used against them. I was tempted to paraphrase Bill Clinton's famous statement about abortion, "legal but rare," but that's just a little too playful for such a serious subject. I think that waterboarding crosses the line between "strong interrogation techniques" and torture. I believe that it is best to leave such practices unlawful--and recognize that there may be circumstances where if torture is actually necessary to save innocent lives, the President has it within his authority to pardon someone for such an unlawful act. If this happens on a regular basis (to the point where the President has a stack of fill-in-the-blanks forms for this), I would be very skeptical that there's good reason for it. There are a few aspects of McCain that I agree with, for example, his recognition that premature withdrawal from Iraq will make a real mess. I can admire his courage and service to America as a naval aviator and POW. But there's a lot about McCain that I don't like. This article from American Thinker points out that McCain's American Conservative Union rating isn't really all that impressive--and is getting worse over time. To my surprise, McCain voted against the 2004 renewal of the federal assault weapons ban. Not to my surprise, McCain voted to close the so-called "gun show sales loophole" which is really the private party loophole. There's nothing special about gun shows. Many states have no laws against private party sales of guns. There's a legitimate argument for requiring background checks on firearms sales, but that's properly the job of the states--not the federal government. I would be more tolerant of such a requirement once we get the Supreme Court to make a clear statement that the Second Amendment protects an individual right--and applying strict scrutiny as the standard for laws regulating that right. I'm concerned also that McCain has so many skeletons in his closet (such as the Keating 6 scandal) that the leftist news media, once he is the Republican nominee, will use to hammer McCain into defeat. Now, if the matchup is McCain vs. Clinton, this won't be a problem. Clinton doesn't have a skeleton in her closet; she has a warehouse full of them, and there won't be much traction against McCain on this basis. McCain vs. Obama might be another matter. (I doubt that Obama is all that clean--he is an elected official, after all--he just looks clean compared to Senator Clinton.) Rapport also makes the argument that while McCain is the Republican most likely to defeat the Democrat for President--because he is so far to the left--that it might be better for the Democrats to win this election. I've seen this argument made quite a bit, especially by pro-life Republicans. The argument is essentially, better to get whipped, and let the Democrats run the country into the ground, so that Republicans can take control again in 2012. There are several problems with this theory: 1. The winner of the 2008 presidential election will be picking at least two, and probably more, Supreme Court justices. If McCain wins, there is a real risk that they will be Justices like O'Connor and Souter--Republicans who are hard to tell sometimes from Democrats. His statement over at the Federalist Society page (like that of Romney, Huckabee and Ron Paul) are all about the same--and if they do so, great! I just don't trust McCain to appoint judges that so fundamentally disagree with his policy positions. Of course, if Clinton or Obama win, there is a near certainty that they appoint Democrats, and almost certainly in the style of Breyer or Ginsburg. The living, breathing, constantly mutating Constitution will be completely unrecognizable. Gay marriage? Mandatory, for every state. Striking down statutory rape laws? Very possible. Requiring churches to officiate at gay weddings, or lose their tax exempt status? Possible. McCain's choices will likely be bad, but I doubt that they could be as bad as the choices that Clinton or Obama will make. 2. We are at war. Now, I think Clinton will actually try to win--but she will be fighting a Democratic majority (perhaps a stronger majority than now) that includes significant numbers of the billionaire's wing of the party, who desperately want us to lose the War on Terror. I think McCain will end up being stronger than Clinton for that reason alone. I do worry about McCain's legendary temper. Our enemies should fear that our President might overreact, but that's not quite the same as actually having someone short-tempered whose finger is on the nuclear button. Obama is another matter. Obama seems to represent the bilionaire's wing of the party rather too well. I really don't want someone up there who I have to worry is going to let George Soros and Michael Moore's view of foreign policy influence what we do. 3. What if all the suffering and blunders that the Iraq War represents, starts to bear fruit? We're already see some serious improvements in that theater. The last thing I want is for the party that has aggressively tried to lose this war then get into office and try to take credit for it. The economy is also taking a dip right now (standard business cycle stuff, as near as I can tell). I don't want the Democrats to take credit for a recovery that is almost certainly going to happen anyway. I can't spend the time right now to discuss my feelings about Romney. I'm not thrilled with him, or his sudden conservatism. Was he misleading people when he was governor Massachusetts? Or is he misleading them now? Will he tack to the left if he is running against a Democrat in the general election? I don't know. Huckabee manages to combine the worst aspects of populism and liberalism together. I can't take him seriously. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Monday, February 04, 2008
Dealing With Snow This morning my wife and I grabbed our snow shovels, planning to move enough snow to use the Trailblazer to crush down the remainder. As I was working my way down the hill, pacing myself to avoid snow shovel induced heart attack, our neighbor Dave called to me--and then I noticed someone using a Bobcat (a type of small earthmoving equipment) driving up the common road. It turned out Mr. Helmick had brought his Bobcat over to help out one of his friends who lives in the same subdivision--and was quite to willing to do some snow removal for the rest of us for a very reasonable fee. Now, liberals would complain that he was taking advantage of our need because he had something that we didn't have. I would say that he had capitalized the equipment, and I was quite prepared to pay him $50 to make several passes over our driveway--a very reasonable price compared to shoveling it myself. Anyway, you can see the results here.  Click to enlarge  Click to enlarge The sun is out today, and we're beginning to get some melt.  Click to enlarge One of our neighbors outside of the subdivision was feeling neighborly, and without asking for any money decided to clear the common road in--and our driveway.  Click to enlarge That's one of the virtues of living here. A lot of people are prepared to work for a reasonable rate of pay, and others do things out of the goodness of their hearts. Labels: house project The Telescope Is Coming Together Actually, rather literally. As you can see from this picture, the top tube assembly now has the eyepiece focuser and the elliptical mirror installed.  Click to enlarge At this point, I need to drop the mirror into the mirror cell, put the parts in rough alignment so that I can verify the exact spacing required between them, and the buy the aluminum square tubes that will hold it all together. I mean, alternatively, I could just visualize spacedness, and have a very Marin County kind of telescope! Labels: telescopes RezkoWatch There's a blog with this name devoted to examined indicted Syrian-born Antoin Rezko, and his connections to various Middle Eastern crooks and Barack Hussein Obama. I rather doubt that Obama is any dirtier than the average Democratic politician. (Read my friend Stacy McCain's book Donkey Cons if you want your eyes opened about this.) Obama just looks so clean compared to the Clintons. This is not a high standard of comparison. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Sunday, February 03, 2008
Barack Obama, Liar He was here in Boise over the weekend for a rally, and emphasized that he is not trying to take anyone's guns. He's a liar. It isn't just that he supports bans on semiautomatics, and more possession and purchase restrictions. He claims that he wants more laws to keep guns out of the inner cities. Why? Does he think black people lack the sense that white people have? He was a member of the board of the Joyce Foundation, the primary funder of extreme gun control measures in the United States. And he claims that he isn't trying to disarm Americans? He's a liar, through and through. UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Check back here regularly--you will find a lot of material about gun rights issues. UPDATE 2: Sportsmen for Obama has a number of surprisingly recent statements by Obama that show where he stands on gun control. If you want to have a hunting weapon, that's okay, but for self-defense--or if you live in an "inner city" (which is a euphemism for "black people can't be trusted with guns")--well, you are out of luck. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, gun rights Interesting Notions of Causes of Mental Illness In the early 19th century, the causes of mental illness were subject to quite interesting speculations. I've mentioned previously a 1645 diary entry by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, who ascribed the insanity of the wife of the governor of Hartford (not yet merged into Connecticut colony) to excessive study and writing books. (Women weren't supposed to write books.) In looking at T. Romeyn Beck, “Statistical Notices of Some of the Lunatic Asylums of the United States,” Transactions of the Albany Institute (Albany, N.Y.: Webster & Skinners, 1830), I see a list of causes of mental illness from the Connecticut mental hospital opened at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1824. Some of them aren't particularly bizarre ideas for possible causes such as "blow on the head" and others are even today recognized as possible causes of mental illness: "intemperance." But I see eight patients listed as ill because of "excessive study" and six listed as "Predisposition from various causes, (one from novel reading)." "Honest, professor, I can't study hard enough to get an A on this test--I don't walk to end up hospitalized." Labels: history Welfare Benefits for Polygamous Marriages Good news--this is only in Britain--not the U.S. (so far). From the February 3, 2008 Telegraph, thanks to JammieWearingFool: Husbands with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long Government review, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.As I have previously mentioned, the ACLU's president several years ago indicated that the ACLU would defend polygamy. I really don't see how the courts will say no once the ACLU files suit to demand legal recognition of polygamy. After all, other countries are doing it--and for the U.S. Supreme Court, that's certainly more important than our Constitution. We Can't Serve You, Sir--You Are Too Fat I mentioned a couple of days ago about how the British National Health Service is discussing paying a truly shocking amount of money for "surrogate mothers" to bear children for couples who can't have them (both heterosexual and homosexual couples)--while life threatening illnesses (not elective procedures like this) are too expensive for NHS to handle. I've also mentioned in the past that while some legitimate medical procedures were on long waiting lists in Canada, the Ontario Health Minister was enthusiastically supporting having the government pay for sex change operations--a procedure that is at best elective, and at worst, a waste of money. Now, a friend points me to this proposal being considered in the Mississippi legislature that is a logical outgrowth of the idea that we are all in this together with respect to health insurance--a law that would prohibit restaurants from serving the obese. Now, if I ran a restaurant, there are people who might suggest need to go elsewhere. But that does not seem to me to be the government's job, anymore than it is their job to tell you who many children to have, what position to have sex in, or whether or not you are allowed to have cookies in the house or not. Government health insurance is going to inevitably lead to all sorts of bizarre struggles about what is to be allowed, what is to be banned--and what is to be required. For some people, a big family is a blessing from God. For others, it's a weird and somewhat freakish form of genetic imperialism. I'm sure that if the federal government becomes the single health insurer, as many Democrats want, there will be calls from the ZPG crowd to insist that the government only pays for the first two children. If I have to pay for liver transplants for alcoholics--I am going to insist (not that anyone will listen to me) that the government prohibit these alcoholics from drinking. If I have to pay for medical care for the obese, it is perfectly understandable that the government start telling restaurants that they can't serve the obese. If we have to pay for AIDS treatment, which is very expensive, it is perfectly reasonable to insist that you don't engage in risky behavior. Having the government be the ultimate insurance company means "one noose, one neck." We are all in this together. At best, we end up paying an increasingly absurd amount of money to deal with bad lifestyle choices. At worst, we end up with an increasingly authoritarian level of control over personal choices. Labels: health care Disappointing Errors in Serious Books Irving B. Weiner, Donald K. Freedheim, John A. Schinka, Wayne F. Velicer, Michela Gallagher, Randy Joe Nelson, Alice F. Healy, Robert W. Proctor, Theodore Millon, Richard M. Lerner, M. Ann Easterbrooks, Jayanthi Mistry, William Michael Reynolds, Gloria E. Miller, Handbook of Psychology (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 434, tells us that because of a shortage of mental health care being received by mental patients:: In 1968 the Lanterman Petris Short Bill was passed by Congress to address this concern....How many errors can you get in a single sentence? Let's rewrite this to match the facts: In 1967 the Lanterman-Petris-Short bill was passed by the California legislature...And LPS wasn't passed by to address the shortage of mental health care at all. It was passed to institute a more exacting due process requirement for commitment, thus emptying the state mental hospitals. The net effect was not to improve provision of mental health care, but to move those who were hospitalized back into the community--where for the most part, they ended up living on the streets, and not getting mental health care. I am just flabbergasted that what is apparently a serious standard work could have an error this gross. On the same page, they refer to 1957 Short-Doyle Act, and recognize that this was passed by the California legislature. You would think that the presence of Short's name in both acts might have caused someone to ask some questions. Labels: deinstitutionalization Heated Driveways The snow is deep enough today that even the Trailblazer might not make it out--or if it did, might not make it back up. And the snowthrower is in the shop. So today will be spent reading Henry F. Buswell, The Law of Insanity In Its Application to the Civil Rights and Capacities and Criminal Responsibility of the Citizen (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1885) for nuggets useful to the next book. Heated driveways typically cost about $10 to $15 per square foot in addition to the cost of paving. If you have a traditional suburban driveway, that's a few thousand dollars--a very tempting expenditure. But if you have a driveway that is 600 feet long (like mine), that's at least $60,000. You can buy a beat up pickup or a new ATV, put a snowplow on it, and buy enough gasoline to run that plow for decades without even getting close to that kind of money. I think we'll plan on having asphalt poured this summer, and then get an ATV and snowplow. |
