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Labels: history (IsraelNN.com) A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers' committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose. The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that "the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals." The next sentence delineates the particular goals that are realized in this manner: "In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done." The paper further theorizes that Arab women in Judea and Samaria are not raped by IDF soldiers because the women are de-humanized in the soldiers' eyes. The process to qualify for Lifeline Service depends on the State you live in. In general, you may qualify if... In addition to meeting the guidelines above you will also be required to provide proof of your participation in an assistance program, or proof of your income level. Labels: gun self-defense Labels: gun self-defense, terrorism She will hold a press conference Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, to recant her claims of abuse, attorney Byron L. Potts, who represents Williams, told The Charleston Gazette on Tuesday night. "She has decided she has been living this lie for approximately two years and she has decided to tell the truth," Potts said. "She fabricated the story and she did this in retaliation because she was having a relationship with one of them." But former Logan County prosecutor Brian Abraham, who was in charge of the case, said no one ever went to jail because of Williams' statements. Instead, Abraham said Tuesday night, he decided early in the case not to rely on Williams' statements, but on the physical evidence and the statements of the co-defendants. Labels: fake hate crimes Two of the racist quotes recently attributed to Limbaugh, which praised slavery and Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray, may have been falsified and then magnified in the media echo chamber. The quotes were published in a 2006 book by Jack Huberman, “101 People Who Are Really Screwing America.” Asked Thursday for the source of the quotes, Huberman said he had no comment. His publisher, Nation Books, also declined to comment. Labels: low standards of journalism Former Meridian Middle School teacher Ashley Beach admitted Tuesday to having sexual contact with a 13-year-old male student earlier this year. Beach will find out in December if she will have to go to prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to one count of felony lewd conduct. Two other counts of lewd conduct were dropped as part of a plea agreement with Ada County prosecutors. The 37-year-old Beach, a former teacher at Meridian Middle School, is accused of having sex with a 13-year-old student between June and September. An Ada County grand jury indicted her on the three charges earlier this month. Labels: child sexual abuse Labels: homosexuality That's something a lot of us have long wondered about. Once we have the study's results, we'll know at last whether it is wise to give guns to drunken teenagers. Labels: gun rights Labels: health care If legislators are going to be cutting individual programmatic functions in other agencies, though, it’s going to be interesting to see how they do it. Currently, the Legislative Budget Book used by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee JFAC) uses an “incremental” way of describing the budget for the new fiscal year. In other words, it starts with the amount the agency received the previous year, then makes various adjustments to that figure to produce a “maintenance” figure—which would allow the agency to continue doing what it’s been doing—then adds new programs and requests. In other words, the programs that have been approved in previous years aren’t listed in detail in the budget book, at least as it currently exists. So it’s not clear how members of JFAC would receive program-specific information in order to cut existing programs. Certainly the budget development manual provided by DFM to the agencies doesn’t look any different. Labels: Idaho politics Labels: gun rights Candee’s home had been ransacked. An intruder was still inside. As her 25-year-old son moved toward the cellar to check out a noise, Deanna, 48, started into the house, said Wilson Candee, Deanna’s father-in-law. The intruder confronted her and grabbed her by the hair, Wilson Candee said. Adam heard his mother scream, went to her aid and pulled the intruder off. He and the stranger began to struggle. The fight ended, Oswego County Sheriff’s officials said, when Deanna grabbed her pistol and shot the man. Phoenix police found Timothy Hartigan, 39, dead in a bedroom when they arrived shortly after 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Sunday, Wilson Candee provided details about the struggle based on his conversations with Candee, his grandson, and investigators. Candee legally owned the gun with which she shot Hartigan, sheriff’s department officials said. ... Wilson Candee said the intruder’s motive did not appear to be theft. Money left in a wallet was untouched and no articles appeared to have been gathered for removal, he said. But he said he was told the house had been thoroughly vandalized with doors broken, glass smashed, and pictures and knick knacks knocked from the walls. Cutlery was strewn along the hallway leading to the bedroom. There also were signs that the intruder had cooked bacon and eggs, he said. Hartigan had a history of mental illness, according to his former wife, Denise L. Cunningham, and a man answering the phone at Hartigan’s mother’s home who identified himself as Hartigan’s brother-in-law. When Hartigan was taking his medications he was a great guy, a good father to his two children and a good friend to many, Cunningham said. He was artistic and enjoyed drawing and woodcarving, although he did less after he was diagnosed, she said. “When he was on his medicine he was a good person,” Cunningham said. “He would never have dreamt of doing this.” Cunningham said her former husband was diagnosed a decade or so ago and recently had been treated at University Hospital. “His son and I had just gone to visit him ... we actually saw him a week ago today,” Cunningham said. The hospital released Hartigan on Tuesday, she said. Hartigan’s illness could not be learned Sunday. A spokeswoman for the hospital declined to comment, citing privacy regulations. Hartigan was no longer living at the downtown Syracuse YMCA, where he had resided about eight years, Cunningham said, and she didn’t know where he was living after his discharge. Labels: deinstitutionalization, gun self-defense Labels: gun rights Labels: my books
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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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An Astonishing Book That I Had Never Read
I was sitting over in the Boise Basin Library, in Idaho City last Thursday evening, waiting for a job interview. The Boise County Treasurer has resigned her office a year before her terms ends, and I was interviewing with the screening committee for the job. (I was number three on their recommendation list to the county commissioners--not bad, considering the deputy treasurer, who has years of experience in the post, is ahead of me on the list.)
Anyway, while waiting, I started reading a book the title of which is well known to me--but which I confess that I have never read: Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery. I was only able to get about five chapters before I was called--and I intend to finish reading it.
Here is a guy who was born a slave, remembers receiving his freedom when a Union Army officer came to the plantation, and yet there is no bitterness there. What astonishes me is to read such a generous commentary:I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government. Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery—on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive — but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose. When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already led us.
The struggles that Washington went through to learn to read--and from there, become a teacher, and the founder of the Tuskegee Institute--are astonishing reminders of how someone starting with nothing but the ambition to succeed and the character to do the right thing, can overcome enormous obstacles.
Washington has gone out of fashion the last forty years or so because he was in conflict with W.E.B. DuBois concerning the right solution to the problems of blacks in the postbellum South. DuBois believed that nothing short of demanding full legal, social, and political equality, and immediately was acceptable. Washington's belief was that blacks needed to develop as an economic force, by becoming skilled craftsmen, needed to happen first--because Southern whites were simply not prepared to accept or even consider black political equality.
It is easy to see Booker T. Washington as an "Uncle Tom." But I think the better explanation is that Washington understood the ugly realities of the South; he grew up there, and had been a slave. DuBois had attended integrated public schools his entire life in the North; he was the first black Ph.D. in History from Harvard. While DuBois could write, movingly, in The Souls of Black Folk about the intrinsic "twoness" of being black in America--always with two identities--I guess that Washington better knew what was possible then and there. Like John Adams' famous assertion that he must study war, so his sons could study science, so that their sons could study art--Washington understood that as long as blacks were impoverished, because they worked in low skill, low status jobs, there was no realistic hope of achieving anything like political equality in the South.
There's a lesson here today. I know that in many inner cities, getting good grades is regarded as "acting white." And yet that is the only realistic way to break the cycle of poverty and degradation.
An Encouraging Story Of Helping Others
From a blog called Rented Spaces:At age 54, Ed Pierce thought his income from rental properties in West Virginia and South Carolina would provide sufficient income to retire in Rock Hill, S.C., and be closer to his adult daughter.
My guess is that when Pierce's tenants resolve their employment problems, they are going to show Pierce that his willingness to go the extra mile for them was well worth it.
When his tenants told him they couldn't pay their rent, he could have started the eviction process. Instead, he went back to work at a local Walgreens.
"I sat with them and prayed for better times," Peirce told a columnist for The Herald. "These are stand-up guys. Family men. Proud. They paid me before, when they were working. You don't show your faith, your Christianity, in words. You do it in deeds."
While we tend to think of landlords as disgruntled ogres who clamor outside your window for their monthly monthly check, property managers are generally very reasonable and even generous people.One of Pierce's tenants worked in construction and has a wife and two small kids. A second worked in utilities contracting and has a baby in the house. Both tenants got laid off several months ago.
Good Sign
I had two job interviews yesterday, one with the Idaho Department of Corrections, and the other to replace the retiring Boise County Treasurer. I am third on the recommendation list for the latter job--which is really, all in all, pretty astonishing, considering that I have no experience in public finance.
It's a long, long drive to Idaho City (the county seat), so while it would be nice to have a salary and benefits again, it would be at a very high cost in terms of time and driving costs. Now, if there were a non-profit that would hire me to do what I do best--writing law review articles on the subject of gun rights--that would be ideal. But that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
The good news, however, is that my suit fits noticeably looser than when I when to Chicago on September 11. I'm guessing that the treadmill is slowly doing its job.
Academic Derangement Syndrome
In much of the academic community, everything is boiled down to the triumvirate of the left: race, gender, and class. (And lately, sexual orientation.) So I read articles like this, and I have to hope that the paper is being quoted out of context:
Yes, a lack of rape is because those Israeli soldiers hold Arab women in such utter contempt. But if there was a lot of rape going on--that would also be a sign that Israeli soldiers hold Arab women in contempt. This sounds like one of those papers that started with the result--Israeli soldiers have dehumanized Arabs--and then looked for a way to twist the data to match that result.
I'm sure that if this same author were examining al-Qaeda's use of power tools to torture people to death, that would be a sign of al-Qaeda's fundamental respect for the humanity of the victims--that they were important enough to torture.
Welfare Cellular Phones
Fascinating. Apparently, cellular phone service has joined the category of fundamental human needs.SafeLink Wireless is a government supported program that provides a free cell phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers.
Qualifications:
It appears that this has a limited number of minutes per month--apparently so that it is used primarily for emergency calls. It is rather astonishing how rapidly something that used to be a luxury is now considered such a necessity that the government subsidizes it.OR
AND
A Most Curious Statistic
I've seen this claim made before, and it was so unbelievable--and so offensive--that I just assumed that those making the claim were playing some sort of dishonest game on this. Perhaps they were picking one year where there was something wrong with the method by which the National Crime Victimization Survey gathers data.
The claim is that in the 2005 single-offender rapes/sexual assaults in the National Crime Victimization Survey data, there is simply no rape of black women by white men. Black women are raped entirely by black men. And sure enough, that is what the 2005 data shows. Now, the number of rapes that make it into the NCVS data is small enough that there's an asterisk next to the 0.0% that says the sample size was so small (less than 10 incidents in the sampled population) as to be statistically not significant.
So I started going back, year by year. The link above shows data back to 1996. In 2004, it is still 0.0% of rapes that were white offender, black victim. And in 2003. In 2002, it is 14.2%. In 2001, it is 13.4%. In 2000, 7.0%. In 1999, 0.0%. In 1998, 7.2%. In 1997, 0.0%. In 1996, 13.5%. And every year, the percentage is statistically not significant, because the number of incidents was based on "about 10 or less" crimes.
I'm really quite curious about this. This isn't the 1950s South, where a white guy could probably get away with raping a black woman, as long as he didn't do it in the middle of town at high noon. And it isn't that there isn't interracial rape. While the bulk of white victims are victimized by white offenders, in every year, there are black offenders/white victims, from a low of 7.0% in 2000 (and not statistically significant, because 10 or fewer crimes), to a high of 33.6% in 2005 (and in that year, statistically significant).
Let me emphasize: this is from the National Crime Victimization Survey, not crimes charged, or the results of police investigations sweeping something under the rug. This is based on crimes reported by victims. There is something terribly, terribly bizarre about this.
Great Article in the Latest America's First Freedom
My co-blogger on the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog, Dave Burnett, has a spectacular article (and the cover story) in the latest America's First Freedom. He uses the data from more than 4100 incidents that we have blogged since 2003 to present a very useful statistical model of gun self-defense in the U.S. I'm proud to be associated with a fine young man like Dave Burnett; I'm very glad that I started the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog when I did.
Job Interview Tomorrow
With the Department of Corrections. No, not prison guard--systems analyst. (It has been so long since I applied that I no longer remember whether this is Java or C#.) Non-profits interested in hiring me so that I can continue to produce scholarly works on gun rights need to get moving, or risk losing me--and my free time activities.
I Thought Automatic Weapons Were Available Everywhere
There's a news story about a guy in Massachusetts who is being charged with terrorism, and the October 21, 2009 WBZ channel 38 article includes this rather interesting statement:'SHOOTING PEOPLE AT A MALL'
To hear the gun control fanatics tell the story, you can get machine guns, bazookas, etc. at practically every gun show. And yet the government says that Mehanna found that getting machine guns wasn't so easy. Fascinating.
Prosecutors say Mehanna had "multiple conversations about obtaining automatic weapons and randomly shooting people at a shopping mall."
"The conversations went so far as to discuss the logistics of a mall attack including coordination, weapons needed and the possibility of attacking emergency responders," Loucks said.
"They had discussions regarding how to do it, whether to do it from multiple entrances, what to do when emergency responders arrive," he added.
The plan was scrapped because the men could only get handguns and not the automatic weapons they wanted.
"They determined it was not feasible to go forward," Loucks said.
Prosecutors would not say which malls were targeted.
THE OTHER SUSPECTS
Loucks said Mehanna conspired with two other men: Ahman Abousamra, who authorities say is now in Syria, and an unnamed man, who is cooperating with authorities in the investigation.
Investigators say the men "were inspired by the success of the Washington D.C. area snipers who were successful in terrorizing the public" in 2002.
According to authorities the three did not believe civilians were "innocents because they paid taxes to support the government and because they were non-believers." [emphasis added]
This is one of the reasons that I encourage those who have concealed weapon permits to be armed when going to crowded public places. One of these days (maybe, one of these days again), there is going to be a mass murder in a public place that doesn't involve mental illness, but terrorism. The life you save may not just be your own, orthat of your loved ones, but a complete stranger who some terrorist has decided needs to die for the greater glory of Allah.
Hate Crime Victim Says She Made It Up
What makes this especially weird is that the guys she accused of raping and torturing her--and at least one of them supposedly did these horrible crimes because she was black--pleaded guilty. From the October 20, 2009 Charleston (W.V.) Gazette:CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Seven people pleaded guilty for their part in abusing Megan Williams -- but now Williams says that abuse never happened.
My first reaction was, "Well, maybe she made it all up. And these guys decided that since there was no way that they would get justice with Rev. Al Sharpton screaming 'racism,' they should take a plea bargain." It is certainly the case that our justice system has almost gone topsy-turvy--from a society where a white person could get away with horrible crimes against black victims to travesties like the Duke lacrosse rape case--where the prosecutor pursued innocent (although sleazy) white defendants even when he know that the "victim" was lying.
Still, there are aspects of this that don't make sense. Did Williams stab herself in the leg and burn herself with hot wax? Was this some sort of S&M thing? All quite mystifying. As I have pointed out in the past, there are a surprising number of "hate crimes" that turn out to be completely faked by the "victims," and some "hate crimes" that turn out to have no bias component at all--such as Matthew Shepard's murder.
Lies About Limbaugh
There are a bunch of "quotes" from Rush Limbaugh floating around. Some of them are believable: offensive, but not spectacularly those. Some are offensive, but perhaps the full context would make them obviously satirical. And some of them are so false, and completely made up, that even the hard left is beginning to back down and admit that they are not true. The Weekly Standard is reporting that Rachel Maddow has now admitted that the quote about giving the Medal of Honor to Martin Luther King's assassin is "apparently" not true. Even leftists trying hard to justify jettisoning Limbaugh from the purchase of a football team are admitting that some of the "quotes" are probably false:
The originator of two incredibly inflammatory quotes refuses to identify where they came from--and no one has them on audio? And they "may" have been falsified? CNN now admits that they can't source the quotes:News anchor Rick Sanchez used the purported quote on CNN, but has now issued a retraction.
And MSNBC has admitted likewise:
"Earlier this week we provided quotes attributed to Limbaugh to illustrate why some people and players felt that Rush Limbaugh was too divisive to be an NFL owner. One of these quotes, which was in a column in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and in a book largely about conservatives, was refuted by Limbaugh. We have been unable to independently confirm that quote. We should not have reported it and for that I apologize. I feel it is important to hold folks accountable when they make mistakes, and that should include myself and my team," said Sanchez.During the 3:00PM ET hour of live coverage on MSNBC Friday, co-host David Shuster admitted that racially charged quotes he and other hosts attributed to Rush Limbaugh had not been verified: “MSNBC attributed that quote to a football player who was opposed to Limbaugh’s NFL bid. However, we have been unable to verify that quote independently. So, just to clarify.” Shuster did not formally retract the quote or apologize.
What just amazes me is how completely and utterly disconnected from honesty the left has become. Of course, if you don't believe in right and wrong, then what's wrong with lying?
Today's Really Weird Question
Do you know of an authentic 19th century courtroom in Idaho or an adjoining state? Obviously, if it is in use today as a courtroom, it will have been updated, so I'm looking for something that is almost certainly intended for film production.
Did This Used To Be A Problem, But No One Reported It?
The October 20, 2009 Idaho Statesman reports on a 37 year old teacher who has pleaded guilty:
I've seen some sad booking photos, but this is perhaps the saddest ever.
When I was young, there were rumors about male teachers who got in trouble for sex with their junior high age students. But of course, these were always "heard it from someone who heard it from someone." Nonetheless, this has always been a little bit of a problem. I'm always sad to hear of it, but I'm not surprised: men are naturally more sexually aggressive than women, and I am not surprised that some men can't resist temptation, and some girls are seeking the validation and approval of the father figure that isn't present.
As a friend once described it, "Girls are looking for emotional intimacy; boys are looking for sex; they end up making up a trade." It's potentially quite hazardous, in both physical and emotional terms, when we're talking about 12, 13, 14, even many 15, 16, and some 17 year olds. But when one of them is an adult? We expect the adult to know better, and look for someone who is at least an adult.
I don't recall ever hearing of women teachers seeking out 13 year old boys for sexual relationships when I was young. Now, you can't seem to get through a month's news coverage without these incidents popping up. Was it happening back in the 1960s, but no one was getting caught? Were such incidents hushed up? Or are women achieving equality with men by sinking to the same low level?
I suppose if these situations involved approximate equals (you know, the 24 year old teacher and the 17 year old student), I could disapprove, but it wouldn't seem so sick. But this 37 year old has children almost the age of her sexual partner. What possible sexual attraction is there to a 13 year old boy for a woman this old? Or is the pursuit of innocence just as appealing to some women as it is to some men?
Same-Sex Marriage in Maine On The Ballot
You may be aware that Maine's legislature voted to recognize same-sex marriage recently; Stand for Marriage Maine has put a referendum on the upcoming ballot, giving voters a chance to override the legislature. If you are in Maine, you know what to do.
Love Dave Hardy's Wit
He reports over at Arms and the Law on a new National Institute of Health study, which is supposed to:"investigate whether adolescents who consume alcohol and/or carry firearms, and/or whose daily activities occur in surroundings rich in alcohol and/or firearms, face a differential risk of being shot with a firearm or injured in a non-gun assault.""
What next? Studies to find out if giving alcohol to teenagers increases sexual activity?
The Danger Of Precedents
PajamasMedia publishes "The Danger of Precedents." And one of the nastiest of the leftists who tries to stir up trouble in the comments makes the mistake of claiming that the original intent of the Second Amendment was to protect the right of states to maintain militias. I've just posted my response, with links to the appropriate pages in Annals of Congress and Journals of the Senate, which if this guy had any sense, will send him running away with his tail between his legs.
1502 Pages
The Senate's health care reform bill is here. It is 1502 pages long. The table of contents listing its sections is 13 pages alone. So why is it so long? Because it is trying to do too many things at once. There are sections for "Encouraging Development of New Patient Care Models" and "Linking Payment to Quality Outcomes Under the Medicare Program" and "Improving Payment Accuracy."
Many of these individual sections probably do good things--but why did they have to be bundled with so many other unrelated sections? Were they not strong enough to stand on their own? Could we not have passed a "Linking Payment to Quality Outcomes Under the Medicare Program" bill by itself? Why not? Is there something in there that required a quid pro quo to get it passed?
If these changes are necessary to save enough money to pay for the rest of the program, and they are so clearly going to save money--why didn't Congress vote those measures into law months ago, and start saving money immediately? My guess is that either the cost savings isn't that clear, or there is some special interest group that Congress has to pay off to get some other part of this Frankenstein's monster passed.
I am one of those people that suspects that bogus malpractice lawsuits, while a real problem, are not the major part of our health care costs. Yes, there are some spectacular lawsuits based on bogus science. Yes, those lawsuits encourage defensive medicine--ordering more tests than are really necessary--but my experience from the time when I was briefly uninsured, many years ago, is that the presence of insurance tends to drive extra tests, too. It doesn't cost anything (at least for the doctor or the patient), so you might as well be sure. Still, some restraints are probably necessary--so what does this bill say about the subject of medical malpractice? Pages 1211-12 essentially say, "Yeah, Congress should consider maybe looking into this." There's nothing except empty platitudes and "Congress should consider" on those pages.
There are provisions related to encouraging reduced teen pregnancies starting on page 503. This is a non-controversial idea to just about everyone, and yes, the bill does seem to have provision for "messages that focus on abstinence, responsible behavior and choices, family communication, relationships, and values." (While I can't follow exactly what the strikeouts are doing to the current code sections, section 1804 of this bill seems to restore abstinence education funding.) I would prefer that we reduce teen pregnancies by persuading teens to delay sexual activity, but contraception is still a vast improvement over abortion. But again: why couldn't this be a separate bill? It would allow a straight up and down vote that could have been passed through Congress and signed into law months ago--and this bill would be that much simpler.
Starting on page 508 is a section concerning "Programs of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention." While parts of this are uncontroversial (smoking cessation programs, paying copayments and deductibles for well baby doctor visits, for example), other parts look like they were added in response to some national gym trade group: "A program that reimburses all or part of the cost for memberships in a fitness center." Perhaps this makes sense--but again: why does this all have to be shoved into a single bill? Lack of confidence that it would survive a straight up or down vote?
And the Elder Justice Act? A quick read through it doesn't seem bad. But again: why not pass this separately, and make the rest of the bill that much shorter, simpler, and easier to understand?
The unseemly haste to get all these separate, barely related, and often completely separable provisions passed makes it look like Congress has something to hide.
Idaho Budget Cutting
Sharon Fisher has an article at New West's blog about the painful process of budget cutting for Idaho state government:
This is, as I understand it, how the federal government does budgeting as well--start with an assumption that every program is necessary, and at its current level, and then adjust accordingly. Now, if every governmental program was created for good reasons, and those reasons remain just as valid today as they did when it was created, this would be just fine.
But we all know that programs acquire a life of their own, and even when they no longer make sense--or at least, don't justify as big a slice of the pie as they used to--they survive. I gave two examples to my students last week: the strategic helium reserve (originally in support of our warfighting dirigible fleet) that persisted into the 1990s. The last I checked, this program was still consuming money in figuring out how to dispose of the assets and liabilities. The other was the program that required U.S. military bases in Germany to use anthracite coal from the U.S. for power generation, shipped in American bottoms. More than a decade after our bases stopped burning anthracite coal, at the request of the German government, we were still shipping it over--and then burying it on leased land.
It's a big project to sit down and revisit the decisions to create every program. But when a budget crisis arrives, maybe that's what they need to do. They may not get much else done in the meantime, but perhaps that a feature, not a bug.
Suffering Insomnia?
This will cure it! “This Right is Not Allowed by Governments that are Afraid of the People”: the Public Meaning of the Second Amendment When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified for the abstract. And click here to download the paper.
We're shopping for a nice home for this wriggly little puppy at various top rated law reviews.
It's kind of cool to be the senior author on an article where my juniors are a law professor, and a clerk to a U.S. appellate court judge.
Everyone whining about how I am not sufficiently PC about open carry can read this, and tell me who loves you!
Deinstitutionalization Sure Was Peachy For This Guy, Wasn't It?
From the October 18, 2009 Syracuse Post-Standard:Schroeppel, NY - When Deanna Candee and her son, Adam, returned from a shopping trip Saturday to their Schroeppel home, they suspected something was wrong when they saw the garage door open.
This is, unfortunately, a recurring situation for many of the mentally ill since deinstitutionalization: in and out, in and out, homelessness, shelter, and back again. The problem is never really solved. For those with schizophrenia, the institutional setting didn't really solve the problem, either, but at least they weren't going to be killed in a tragedy like this. Once Deanna Candee knows why this happened, it is likely that whatever trauma this incident has for her is going to be worse--once she realizes that Hartigan wasn't in his right mind, and this entire disaster could have been prevented.
There are so many of these tragedies--and yet the mainstream media choose to ignore it, because it doesn't suit their agenda.
Open Carry in Banks--Not Smart
My daughter was in a bank in Nampa recently--and there was another customer there with a holstered gun. She was a little surprised that this is not only legal in Idaho, but constitutionally protected--and it definitely made her uncomfortable.
Look, my daughter's no hoplophobe. We did all the tradition father-daughter things growing up: teaching her to shoot pistol and center-fire rifle, attending submachine gun class together (you've done that with your daughter, haven't you?). Like most Americans, she's generally pro-gun. But open carry in a bank?
There's a time and a place for everything, and like the open carry event at the Boise Zoo last year, this is really not a way to make friends and influence people (at least, to our side). Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean that you should do so.
UPDATE: I'm impressed--there are people who think that we have pretty much lost the battle over gun rights in America. Perhaps all these "send us money now or the police will finish confiscating the last 1000 guns in America" fundraising letters are making some people unaware of what enormous successes we have had of late.
Interesting Surprise Saturday
One of my students brought in a copy of my book Armed America and asked me to autograph. The surprise is that it was the paperback edition--which I didn't know existed!
