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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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Gun Control Advocate Admits the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban Doesn't Matter
From National Public Radio's March 11, 2004 broadcast: The Violence Policy Center is one of the more aggressive gun groups in Washington, DC, and analyst Tom Diaz is their assault weapons guy. It's his job to emphasize just how deadly these guns are. So how does he feel about the effort to renew the assault weapons ban?
And then Diaz explains what NRA said back in 1994--banning guns by brand and irrelevant features just makes the makers change the brand and remove bayonet lugs--which makes no real difference. Banning guns by function affects vast numbers of guns--which makes the law politically impossible. Maybe they need to focus on the person holding the gun, not the gun itself?
Mr. TOM DIAZ (Violence Policy Center): If the existing assault weapons ban expires, I personally do not believe it will make one whit of difference one way or another in terms of our objective, which is reducing death and injury and getting a particularly lethal class of firearms off the streets. So if it doesn't pass, it doesn't pass.
A convicted felon with a .22 rimfire rifle is far more dangerous than a law-abiding adult with an AR-15.
Not Entirely An Urban Legend
Remember when you were young the story that, "professional boxers have to register their hands with the police department as deadly weapons"? There are variants involving karate black belts. I've always assumed that this was pure urban legend--I even assumed that back in sixth grade. Oddly enough, there is at least one place where it's true. From the Guam Code Annotated, on the Guam Attorney-General's website: §62100. Registration Required. Any person who is an expert in the art of karate or judo, or any similar
Thanks to Jon Roland for bringing this to my attention.
physical are in which the hands and feet are used as deadly weapons, is required to register with the Department of Revenue and Taxation.
Part Of Why I Get So Angry At Those Making Excuses For Pedophiles
I'll only give you the first paragraph of this story from Northwest Indiana. If you click over to read the details, you are going to be much, much angrier: CROWN POINT -- Sexual abuse may have contributed to the November death of a 3-year-old Merrillville boy who had a history of heart problems, officials said Friday.
It gets a lot more ugly.
Victoria, Australia Bans Swords
This is almost comic, at first glance: SWORDS will be outlawed from July under new laws to curb the growing use of the weapons in street brawls.
Unfortunately, the problem that they are confronting is real--a society where civilized behavior seems to be in danger:
Police Minister Andre Haermeyer said the ban would help police overcome a culture of young people arming themselves with swords.
"For most people running around the street carrying swords there is absolutely no reason for them to be carrying those weapons," he said yesterday.
From July, anyone found possessing or selling a sword without a permit will face up to six months' jail and fines of up to $12,000.
Existing sword owners must surrender their weapons to police, sell them to a licensed dealer or apply to the Chief Commissioner for specific approval.
Collectors and people with legitimate cultural, religious or military reasons to own swords will be exempted from the ban, but must store them under lock and key and have a burglar alarm. Last week, a 13-year-old boy was arrested and charged after allegedly charging police with a sword near Castlemaine, in central Victoria.
What next? Clubs? Rocks? All of these laws are attempts to avoid confronting the fundamental immorality problem--and banning the weapons doesn't fix this. It just means the victims can't fight back.
A 21-year-old man had his hand severed by a samurai sword in a confrontation between 40 men in the Fitzroy Gardens a fortnight ago -- the second brawl involving swords in 24 hours.
Huy Huynh, 19, was chased from the Salt nightclub and hacked to death nearby in July 2002 by a mob using samurai swords and machetes.
The new laws will make it illegal to sell swords to anyone who does not have a permit.
First Self-Defense Use of a Gun Under New Missouri Statute
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of March 11, 2004:
Man repels 3 robbers by firing hidden pistol
It turns out that the new law, along with requiring issuance of concealed carry permits, makes it lawful for any 21 or older who can lawfully possess a handgun to have one concealed in his car.
Robbers pointed a gun at Bryan Rutherford and demanded that he hand over valuables from his pickup Tuesday evening in Lemay.
Rutherford didn't pull out cash or jewelry. He pulled out a .22-caliber pistol hidden in his vehicle and opened fire in what authorities believe is the first instance of self-defense with a concealed firearm since the Missouri Legislature loosened the state's gun laws.
The man holding what turned out to be a BB gun on Rutherford was hit several times in the torso before he and two accomplices fled. Three suspects were later captured and charged.
Rutherford was uninjured.
The precise status of the concealed carry law at the time Rutherford fired is cloudy. But in any event, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch said Thursday that Rutherford would not be charged.
The Anti-Defamation League Has To Pay Up
I will tell you that I have had a bad taste in my mouth about this bunch since the late 1970s. Tom Hayden & Jane Fonda's Campaign for Economic Democracy was pushing for a rent control law in Santa Monica because of the egregious rent increases that were taking place. (After the Rent Control Board set up shop, they actually found out that there had been 6% annual increase in rents during this period--when the local Consumer Price Index rose 13%. Oh well, what's a few lies when you are taking control of the government?)
I was a renter in Santa Monica at the time, and I was very, very worried about the "Two Minute Hate" tone of the campaign. I was also concerned about the destructive effects of rent control in New York, as well as the underlying principle that property rights are a human right. I put together a flyer on bright yellow paper expressing my human rights concerns about this, pointing out the parallels between how the Nazis had dehumanized Jews and the way that the rent control advocates were dehumanizing another unpopular minority: landlords. If you think I exaggerate, I understand that for the first year or so that the Rent Control Board met, when a landlord got up to speak at a hearing, the members of the Board would all turn their chairs away, so that they wouldn't have to actually look at him.
I walked over a big chunk of Santa Monica, eventually handing out about 5000 flyers, paid for out of my own pocket (at a time when I was 20 years old, and not exactly rich). Within a couple of weeks, I received a letter from the Anti-Defamation League, telling me that I should not distribute flyers like this, because the Holocaust was unique, nothing like it had ever happened before, or would happen again. It was pretty obvious that they had decided to take sides in a political dispute, and hoped to intimidate a political activist into shutting up.
So when I see that the Anti-Defamation League has been ordered to pay $12 million to a couple that they falsely accused of being anti-Semites (based on illegally tapping their phones), all I can say, "Good!"The Anti-Defamation League's payment of more than $12 million for defaming them has been transferred to their bank, according to a Thursday press release from their lawyer, Jay Horowitz of Denver.
Abraham Foxman at the Anti-Defamation League keeps screeching that Mel Gibson's The Passion promotes anti-Semitism--a position that many Jews who have seen the film quite emphatically dispute.
...
The money went to the former Evergreen couple more than nine years after ADL officials in Colorado denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites, based on illegally recorded secret interceptions of the Quigleys' telephone conversations.
William and Dorothy "Dee" Quigley had feuded with their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candice Aronson. The Aronsons contacted the ADL in 1994 after listening to the Quigleys' phone conversations on a Radio Shack police scanner.
They said they heard the Quigleys discuss a campaign to drive them away with Nazi scare tactics.
The ADL advised the Aronsons to start recording the conversations. Hundreds of hours of recordings were turned over to Jefferson County prosecutors, who charged the Quigleys with hate crimes - only to drop the charges, and pay the Quigleys $75,000, after listening to the recordings and concluding the remarks were made in jest.
The Quigleys won a $10 million verdict against the ADL in federal court in 2000. An appeals court upheld that verdict, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused last week to review the case.
There are some very serious anti-Semites in the world today, and certainly some in America. I guess they must be pretty well hidden, however, because the Anti-Defamation League seems to be putting too much effort going after people that aren't anti-Semites at all--and stirring animosity that doesn't need to be there.
Interesting Coincidences On The Spanish Terror Attack
From an AP news story, this makes you think al-Qaeda, not ETA (which has apparently denied involvement): "March 11, 2004, now holds its place in the history of infamy," Aznar said Thursday.
I recall that September 11th was picked for the World Trade Center attacks because the date has some significance in the Arab world. Maybe the selection of March 11 for this horrifying crime is a coincidence--but it would fit in al-Qaeda's traditions, and the number of deaths suggest a level of competence and barbarism that ETA has apparently not shown in the past. (ETA usually attacks politicians and police--not civilians.)
The attack occurred exactly 2 1/2 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States - and there [are] 911 days in between the terror attacks in Madrid and those in New York and Washington.
There can be no compromise with whoever does crimes like this. I don't call it an "act of war," because there are rules in civilized warfare.
UPDATE: This article in the Guardian presents evidence that argues this might well be the work of ETA--perhaps of a younger generation that perceives that ETA's increasing weakness required a barbarous proof of their strength. The article also points out: Last night the newspaper El Mundo reported that the EU's police agency reported in December that Eta was changing its operating method. It warned of a scaling up of attacks, and talked specifically of attacks in the capital in which several devices would be successively detonated in strategically important locations. It also warned of possible attacks in France.
In addition, the explosive used is fairly distinctive, and is of a time stolen by ETA in France a while back, and used in previous explosions.
400 Horsepower V8; 0-60 in 4.6 Seconds; Seats Five; 25 mpg Highway
Yes, it's a Cadillac: BMW has its M cars, Mercedes has AMG and now Cadillac has its V-Series. That's the name of its upcoming lineup of high-performance models recently announced for production. The first model to get the V-Series treatment is the CTS entry-level luxury sedan, a move that has made this already agile four-door a force to be reckoned with among the world's great sport sedans. The transformation begins with the installation of the drivetrain found in the ultrahigh-performance Corvette Z06 that includes the LS-6 V8 good for 400 horsepower and 390 pound-feet of torque and a six-speed manual transmission. The Cadillac's limited-slip rear axle gets a short 3.73-to-1 final drive ratio to optimize acceleration. An enlarged dual-exhaust system allows the driver and surrounding motorists to appreciate the full-bodied rumble of this superb V8. Cadillac claims a 0-to-60-mph in just 4.6 seconds. Suspension upgrades include new shock absorbers and stabilizer bars, along with 27-percent firmer spring rates compared to the standard CTS.
South Koreans Take Politics Seriously
The National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo-hyun. The parliament voted to impeach Roh after hours of scuffles and protests that included one Roh supporter setting himself on fire and another man trying to drive his car up the parliament steps and into the building.
If only Bill Clinton's supporters had felt so strongly during his impeachment hearings. :-)
I recall reading a P.J. O'Rourke essay about South Korean politics a few years ago where he described how one protestor cut off the end of his finger to write his candidate's name in blood. They take politics a little too seriously.
Here's a Clue for Detainees From Gitmo
Learn to tell more plausible lies. Everyone knows that Gitmo isn't a summer camp--although at least some released detainees indicated that it wasn't really all that bad--but this story from the London Mirror is so absurd that I can't take it seriously: Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than required, claimed Jamal.
UPDATE: The Telegraph reports a bit more about the detainees--and the money they were paid for their story:
A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished.
But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to torment the most religiously devout detainees.
Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.
The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.Ruhal Ahmed, 22, was facing re-arrest over a charge of stealing a set of wheels and tyres from a Honda car in Tipton in March 2001, as well as driving without insurance and an MoT. He faced a two-year jail sentence if convicted.
Hmmm. Their credibility seems a bit weak.
Although the CPS shelved the case when it emerged that he was being held in Cuba the warrant had still been valid.
Magistrates were also told that Mr Ahmed was accused of defaulting on payments owed to a teenager he beat up in 1999 with fellow Guantanamo Bay detainee, Asif Iqbal.
The CPS spokesman said yesterday that it would not be following the theft case through.
Instead Mr Ahmed and his fellow detainees spent yesterday discussing offers for their stories in the region of £60,000 or more.
One of the five - Jamal Udeen, 37, from Manchester, has already signed a £60,000 deal with the Mirror newspaper and ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald.
Rewriting History Concerning Marriage Licenses
I see that the latest attempt to justify gay marriage comes from a newspaper called the Desert Dispatch, for the California high desert: The founders of our nation were as unfamiliar with marriage licenses as we are with parent licenses. The very thought that government could license your marriage was as repulsive then as a parent licensing is today. Even well into the 1800's the idea of obtaining a license to have a spouse was unheard of. The government simply did not have that authority to intrude into the private lives of American families.
The article then goes on to claim that marriage licenses were introduced in the 1800s as part of the scheme to prevent interracial marriage.
Nope. Completely false (although you will find a lot of people making this claim around the net, as part of the campaign to discredit the state monopoly over defining marriage). Here's a list of Maryland's colonial marriage laws from Archives of Maryland 75:686, that show that "authority to intrude in the private lives of American families" goes back a long ways: 4. All Persons, desiring Marriage, shall apply to a Minister for contracting thereof, and cause due Publication to be made, according to the Rubric of the Church of England, at some Church or Chapel belonging to the Parish wherein the Woman is resident. 1717, ch. 15, §. 1.
Of course, the interracial marriage laws were already present during the colonial period, and were not dependent on marriage licensing:
5. If there be no Minister or Reader in the Parish, an Advertisement of such intended Marriage, shall be set up at the County Court-house Door, to remain there Three Weeks: Of which the County Clerk shall make Certificate under his Hand, and the County Seal. After which Publication and Certificate, any Minister duly qualified, may Marry the Persons so published, according to the Liturgy of the Church of England. Saving to the Minister of the Parish his just Dues. Ibid.
6. Persons contracting Marriage without such Publication and Certificate, or without Licence from the Governor, shall forfeit 5000 lb Tobacco. Ibid. §. 2.
7. Every Minister joining such Persons in Marriage, without Publication or Licence; or any ways infringing this Act; shall forfeit 5000 lb Tobacco. Ibid.12. No Minister, Pastor or Magistrate, shall, upon any Pretence join in Marriage any Negro whatsoever, or Mulatto Slave, with any White Person, on Penalty of 5000 lb Tobacco; one Half to the Use of Free-Schools, the other Half to the Informer. 1715, ch. 44, §. 25.
The 1777 laws from Archives of Maryland 203:166 are even more clear about the need for a marriage license:
13. Any Free Negro or Mulatto, intermarrying with any White Person, shall become a Slave for Life (excepting Mulattoes born of White Women, who for such intermarrying shall only become Servants for Seven Years): And any White Man or Woman intermarrying with any Negro or Mulatto, shall become a Servant for Seven Years: To be disposed of at the Discretion of the County Court, and applied towards the Support of the County School. 1717, ch. 13, §. 5.XII. And be it enacted, That all licences for marriage shall be issued by the clerk of the court of that county where the woman shall have her usual residence, under the seal of his county, in the following form, to wit:
Marriage licenses were apparently required in England; here's a reference to a 1628 marriage license in Durham, and another reference to a marriage license in 1629 England. There are a number of books that make reference to colonial marriage licenses in their title: The Marriage License Bonds of Northampton County, Virginia, from 1706 to 1854 by Stratton Nottingham. New Jersey also licensed marriages: "A marriage license was recorded at Piscataway, N.J., on December 19, 1670, between Hugh Dunn and Elizabeth Drake...."
Whereas application hath been made to me by A. B. of ________ county, and C. D. of _______ county, for licence to be joined in holy matrimony: These are therefore to authorise and license you to solemnize the rites of marriage between the said persons, according to law, appearing to you no lawful cause or just impediment, by reason of any consanguinity or affinity, to hinder the same.
Given under my hand and the seal of my office this _______ day of _______ in the year seventeen hundred and _______. To the reverend Mr. _________ __________, or any other person qualified by law to celebrate the marriage in the state of Maryland. County clerks to issue licences, &c.
XIII. And be it enacted, That there shall be paid to the clerk granting such licence the sum of thirty shillings current money, and he shall annually in the month of November, return on oath a list of licences by him granted, the date, and the persons to whom granted, to the treasurer of his shore; and shall at such time pay to such treasurer twenty-five shillings current money for each licence by him granted, for the use of this state, under the penalty of one hundred pounds current money, and may retain five shillings on each licence for his trouble.
Since the Lawrence decision was based on false statements about the history of sodomy laws, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised that efforts to justify gay marriage are also being made based on false history.
Gay Marriage Updates
Both houses of Wisconsin's legislature have passed a state constitutional amendment that bars both gay marriage and civil unions. Another vote is required in January, and then approval by the voters in 2005. Wisconsin! The Cheese state isn't quite as liberal as Minnesota, but it is still pretty liberal.
The Kentucky State Senate has also passed a state constitutional amendment to the same effect; still waiting for action from the lower house. I guess there's no great surprise on that, but the lopsided vote, 33-4, gives some idea of the magnitude of sentiment even among legislators.
I am disappointed to report that the Idaho State Senate killed a state constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage here.
It looks like homosexuals have sunk their cause with lawlessness in San Francisco, New Paltz, and Multnomah County.
Viagra & Methamphetamine
No, it's not the punch line to a vulgar joke. (But if it were, the question which the punch line answers would be, "What did you give him?") It's from the headline to a New York Times article (registration required) about those people that are just like you and me, "except for who they love":The expanding recreational use of crystal methamphetamine and Viagra is apparently fueling increases in syphilis, H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases among gay and bisexual men in the United States, according to new studies reported here on Wednesday.
At a meeting on preventing sexually transmitted diseases, Dr. Samuel J. Mitchell of the San Francisco Health Department said a study had found that 17.4 percent of 1,263 gay men who had gone to the city's sexually transmitted disease clinic had used crystal in the four weeks before their visit. Crystal users were more than twice as likely as nonusers to be infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, 4.9 times as likely to receive a diagnosis of syphilis and 1.7 times as likely to test positive for gonorrhea.
Dr. William Wong of the San Francisco Health Department said that another study found that gay men who used both crystal and Viagra together were 6.1 times as likely to receive a diagnosis of syphilis as those who did not use either drug.
In a study of 388 gay men, Dr. Gordon Mansergh reported that his team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the San Francisco Health Department found that 16 percent had used crystal methamphetamine the last time they had anal sex. Crystal users in the study were twice as likely as nonusers to have engaged in unprotected receptive anal intercourse. In the men's last anal sex encounter, 6 percent had used Viagra. The Viagra users were 6.5 times more likely to report having had unprotected insertive anal sex during that encounter. Viagra was not linked to receptive anal risk behavior.
For three consecutive years through 2003, syphilis rates among women have fallen by 50 percent but have increased by 65 percent among men. Among women in 2003, there were 1,229 syphilis cases reported, down from 2,445 in 2000. Among men in 2003, there were 5,844 cases, up from 3,532 in 2000. Gay men accounted for more than 60 percent of all syphilis cases in 2003, compared with 5 percent in 1999.
Condoms & HPV
I've mentioned before that there is serious question about the effectiveness of condoms for preventing the spread of HPV, a virus that appears to cause cervical cancer. The Bush Administration is now considering requiring a warning on condoms: The Bush administration is considering requiring warning labels on condom packages noting that the contraceptive devices do not protect users from all sexually transmitted diseases, a Food and Drug Administration official said Thursday.
Oh I know, you are probably thinking, "those Religious Rightists in the Bush Administration are trying to stop people from having fun." California--hardly in control of the Religious Right--already has such a labelling requirement with respect to condoms & HPV.
Most recent studies indicate condoms do not safeguard against human papillomavirus, or HPV, a little-known but widespread sexually transmitted disease that, untreated, can cause genital warts or cervical cancer.
Why is HPV "little-known"? Because it does not do any harm to men--they just pass it on to their next female partner. I remember well when this connection was first discovered, and a biology professor explained to our Biology of Aging class that as the number of lifetime sexual partners went above three, a woman's risks of cervical cancer increased quite dramatically. You could hear the gasp from a number of girls in the class.
Back when cervical cancer epidemiology was first being studied, early in the 20th century, they noticed that Jewish women in America had much lower rates of cervical cancer than Gentile women. There was a theory for a while that circumcision (still not so common among American Gentiles at the time) played some protective role. What Professor Benko told us was that it now appears that at the time, Jewish women were far less likely to have had multiple sexual partners than Gentile women, and that was the reason for the difference--not circumcision.
Unsurprisingly, Democrats--the party that cares about women, unlike those uncaring Republicans--seem intent on keeping the silent epidemic going forward: But some lawmakers feared that such labels could turn people away from using condoms, thereby increasing the risk of contracting diseases such as AIDS, chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Except that properly warning people that condoms aren't 100% effective at stopping the spread of HPV, and therefore thousands of cervical cancer deaths a year, isn't "undermining" their effectiveness at all. Waxman is probably scared that if women realized the risk that they are taking by trusting in condoms--instead of reducing their number of sexual partners--things would get very, very unpleasant on Capitol Hill. This would also be a serious problem for the entertainment industry, which lives on selling the idea that casual and promiscuous sex has no serious consequences.
"Anything that undermines the effectiveness of condoms for these uses will have serious public health consequences," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. "Are condoms perfect? Of course not. But reality requires us not to make a public health strategy against protection, but rather to ask a key question: compared to what?"
California Supreme Court Tells San Francisco To ...
"stop issuing marriage licenses as queer as a three dollar bill." Well, no, but they did tell Mayor Newsom to stop issuing marriage licenses not in conformity with California law. I suppose that we should regard this as a victory, but I think of it more as a statement of how weird American politics has become that the mayor thought he could just ignore the law.
In other good news, the Massachusetts legislature has passed a proposed amendment that allows them to ban gay marriage, but allow civil unions.
House Votes To Increase Fines For Indecent Broadcasts
The vote was surprisingly lopsided: 391-22. Those who are upset about this can thank Howard Stern, Janet Jackson, and "Bubba the Love Sponge."
The courts have generally not taken the position that broadcasting enjoys all the same protections as newspapers under the First Amendment. But shouldn't radio, television, and movies enjoy the same protections as print media, under an original intent theory? Even if they did, the First Amendment was not understood by the Framers as a shield against all punishments for what you published. You could be prosecuted criminally for libel back then (and you still can, in a number of states); you could be sued for libel; you could be criminally prosecuted for publishing obscenity. What the First Amendment protected you from was prior restraint, and punishment for publishing the truth.
There's one other point worth considering. I don't buy the argument that some conservatives have made, that the First Amendment's protections were only intended for political speech. I just don't see the evidence for this claim. It is, however, the case that broadcasting, for most broadcasters, isn't being done because of their concern for the public good, but because it is a very profitable business. I am reminded of the Supreme Court's decision upholding Ohio's film censorship law in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915): It cannot be put out of view that the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit, like other spectacles, not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion.
Obviously, this is no longer good First Amendment law. It does, however, make a point that people like Larry Flynt and Howard Stern, when they wrap themselves in the flag and the First Amendment, are hypocrites. They aren't pumping sewage into the public arena because of high ideals; they are in it for the money. (Hugh Hefner at least pretended that he was trying to free America from its Puritanism, but it was still about making money, producing a more refined form of sewage than say, Hustler or Howard Stern.) Paying fines to the FCC is just one of the costs of pumping sewage: an effluent charge. It is somewhat amusing to see the same liberals who are upset about "rich people" defending people like Howard Stern as though he is a modern Tom Paine or Margaret Sanger.
Canada is Generally a Peaceful Place...
But when a serial killer gets to work there, Canadians give up nothing to Americans. I won't give you any details on this story--it's horrifying, and repulsive. If you read Unintended Consequences, this won't be a surprise.
Alias Star Makes CIA Recruiting Video
My daughter, before she went off to college, was a big fan of Alias: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jennifer Garner, who plays spy Sydney Bristow in the television series "Alias," has turned her talents to recruiting real-life spies to work for the CIA in a video on the agency's employment Web site.
Here's the part that surprised and pleased me:
"Although the show 'Alias' is fictional, the character Jennifer Garner plays embodies the integrity, patriotism and intelligence the CIA looks for in its officers," the CIA said on its Web site www.cia.gov. Garner was not paid for the recruiting video, a CIA spokesman said. "She did this out of a sense of patriotism."
The Passion As Teen Slasher Movie?
This article in Variety about the audience demographics mentions that while the audience is generally older than average for a movie, it also has a lot of 18-30 year olds coming to see it as well:"It looks surprisingly like the audience for a lot of our films," said Rick King of AMC, nation's second-largest chain. He said the heaviest demographic for "Passion" shows was ages 18-30. "Most of the people I'm seeing look like they've been in a theater before," he said.
Now, here's the part that startled me a bit--but also heartened me as well, because this unexpected audience probably needs the message more than most:
Younger filmgoers make up the bulk of "The Passion" crowd, but Bob Berney, whose Newmarket is distributing the pic, said the aud --- as a whole --- is older than average. "The R-rating is limiting younger kids, but it is getting teens and college kids," he said. But, "like ('My Big Fat Greek Wedding') it's also getting an older audience." Young males who flock to slasher pics seem to be taking an interest in "The Passion," which has been widely characterized as gory by reviewers.
Fangoria editor Anthony Timpone said, "It's sparked an interest in my readership because of the extreme nature of the it as well as the controversy." The magazine hasn't covered "The Passion," but Timpone said horror helmer David Cronenberg (news) recently suggested he should. And at least one horror fan site, E-Splatter.com, has given "The Passion" the thumb's up: "As a horror fan, I was more than satisfied. This is not some kiddie Christ film. This is the real deal."
U.S. Citizen Charged With Espionage For Iraq
From AP: An American citizen was arrested Thursday on charges she acted as an Iraqi spy before and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, accepting $10,000 for her work, prosecutors said Thursday.
Well golly gee, what happens when you google Susan Lindauer? You find her name and city listed as a signer on PEACE PLEDGE: TO STOP SPREAD OF ANTI-TERRORIST WAR TO IRAQ. You find that she gave a deposition claiming to know for a fact that Libya wasn't involved in the Lockerbie bombing--but that it was done by the Syrians (who have a long-standing enmity with Hussein's Iraq). There's a Susan Lindauer listed (perhaps not the same person) involved with one of the gun control groups here.
Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md., and was to appear in court later in the day in Baltimore, authorities in New York said.
She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein.
According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Lindauer made multiple visits from October 1999 through March 2002 to the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan.
There, she met with several members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the government of Iraq that allegedly has played a role in terrorist operations, including an attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush, the indictment alleged.
The government said she accepted payments from the Iraqis for her services and expenses amounting to a total of $10,000, including $5,000 she received during a trip to Baghdad in February and March 2002, where she met with Iraqi intelligence officers.
Very interesting.
UPDATE: Here's the indictment at The Smoking Gun.
Walter Williams on Gay Marriage
I'm impressed. First Thomas Sowell, well-known libertarian economist weighs in on why gay marriage is a bad idea, now Walter Williams (not quite so well-known) libertarian economist weighs in with almost exactly the same arguments that I use: Here's my question: Are homosexuals the only Americans permitted to change the definition of marriage, or do people with other sex orientations have that right as well?
Here's why I ask that question. Suppose a woman and a horse appeared before San Francisco County Clerk Nancy Alfaro applying for a marriage license, or it might be a man and a sheep. What argument might the County Clerk have for not issuing them a marriage license?
After all, the woman or man might say, "Our definition of marriage includes animals, plus my horse or my sheep will be eligible for my employee health care benefits and my inheritance at my death." It would appear that a denial of a marriage license would be sufficient grounds for a discrimination lawsuit. After all, animals have rights as well as humans.
But there are other possibilities. Some people might feel that the definition of marriage should be expanded so as to include group marriage. What argument would the San Francisco County Clerk have against the issuance of a marriage license to three, four or 10 men or the like number of women who wanted to marry?
Improving Teaching at the High School Level
Greenspan says that the job recovery should be coming along soon, but he made some other important points about problems that may be holding us back as a nation: Instead, Greenspan said the country needed to explore avenues to make sure that all Americans had the opportunity to get a good education and then be able to return to school to improve their job skills.
Yes. I've blogged in the past about how teaching credentials, especially at the secondary level, are keeping a lot of skilled professionals out of that job market. I understand why, especially at the lower grades, where most learning disabilities are discovered, there is a strong case for specialized training. By high school, however, it seems unlikely that this specialized training is really necessary.
Greenspan said that support for community colleges has been an area where government investment in education has paid off. He said community colleges were likely to provide critical support to boosting job skills in the future as more and more workers see the need to upgrade their skills over their careers.
He also suggested there was a need to upgrade teaching in American high schools, citing a 1995 study by Boston College that showed American students scored higher than students in other countries in math and science in the fourth grade but by the 12th grade had test scores well below international averages.
"Many of our students languish at too low a level of skill and the result is an apparent excess of supply relative to a declining demand" for workers with low skill levels, he said.
For a lot of people who are currently working in private industry, they simply can't afford the one to two years attending school full-time to get a teaching credential. In this last recession, after the dot-com bust, there were a lot of people with degrees in math and science who were suddenly out of work. In some ideal world, they could have taken jobs teaching math or physics--and probably improved the quality of high school education. Spending two years in school full-time just wasn't an option--they needed jobs now.
Two states, Idaho and Pennsylvania, have now adopted a fast-track approach to this problem. The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence has a testing procedure for those with a bachelor's degree, including a background check. Both Pennsylvania (search for REG 3752) and Idaho have decided to accept the ABCTE certificate as a substitute for a teacher's credential. Unsurprisingly, the Idaho teachers' union is not happy.
UPDATE: Here is an absolutely devastating discussion of the problem of teacher certification by retired physics professor Donald E. Simanek. Along with demonstrating that education majors are near the bottom of the heap in academic capability, he also argues that much of what makes a good teacher does not require specialized training: Ross Perot was asked what can be done to improve education. He responded "Torch the teachers' colleges." That's one of the few things he's said with which I can agree. Don't hire teachers who wasted their college years in fluff education courses purporting to teach them how to teach. Hire teachers who concentrated on learning and understanding what they teach.[3]
He also has some unpopular things to say about the level of preparation of students entering college, relative to previous years--and what he says I have heard from many professors with similar experience:
...
We must prune the university of those things that have nothing to do with the development of the mind, and of anything that distracts one's energies from mental development. Sports and physical education would be kicked out on both criteria. I am realistic enough to know that there will always be distractions from the educational process, but universities should not condone or support such distractions, and certainly should not make them a part of the university or a required part of any curricula.
Next to go should be the entire school of 'professional' education, which purports to 'teach one how to teach.' This is the field that, in its vain attempt to gain respect, clothed itself in meaningless jargon and become indistinguishable from a pseudo-science. It has miserably failed to achieve its own objectives. Its product (certified teachers) should be evidence of its failure. Education courses have long had the reputation of being 'cake' courses without content.
...
Teaching is an honorable activity. Some argue that courses in 'education' make one a better teacher. Better than what? Better than your auto mechanic? I take that back; I am sure that some auto mechanics could make better teachers than some now in the schools. At least mechanics know how to do something and how to accompish desired results.
Most teachers have learned 'methods and skills' of teaching, but don't have a solid understanding of the subject they teach. So they end up 'teaching' trivia, misinformation, and intellectual garbage, but doing it with 'professional' polish. Most do not display love of learning, nor the ability to do intense intellectual activity of any kind. Lacking these qualities they cannot possibly inspire and nourish these qualities in their students.
To improve teaching we must attract people of higher intellectual ability. If this is done the mechanics of teaching will not be a concern. To attract such teachers we must pay them more, give them more academic freedom and better working conditions.
...
Colleges and Universities should only grant degrees to those who have demonstrated intellectual ability of a high order. We could then safely let any of them teach at any level, without further certification. We should not insult their intelligence by requiring them to take courses in 'education.'
Why do I insist that teachers should have high intellectual ability, even though they will teach courses of low academic level? Three reasons: (1) they will know their subjects thoroughly, (2) they will have acquired the ability to reason and critically examine information and arguments, and (3) they will be worthy academic role models for students. Having these qualitites they will be far less likely to "teach" untruths, lies, myths, pseusoscience, pesudo-intellectual nonsense, and superficial fads. They should even be capable of spotting and correcting errors and misinformation in textbooks.
I do not worry that some of these teachers will be unable to acquire teaching skills. Most of these skills are common-sense anyway. I am wary of anyone trying to set up 'criteria' or rating scales for teachers. Some of the most inspiring and effective teachers I have had violated many of the accepted rules for the mechanics of teaching. But they knew their chosen field thoroughly, loved it, and their enthusiasm inspired their students. Genius will usually transcend mechanics. In the field of education we have had too many mechanicians and too few geniuses.When I began teaching college physics nearly 30 years ago, we could count on perhaps 5 to 10 percent of the students in freshman physics being well-prepared, bright, intellectually curious, and hard working--capable of earning an honest A grade. About as many more were not so bright, but still hardworking, and earned Bs. Teachers wrote off the rest as hopeless. They would never really learn physics. They'd probably 'get the picture' soon and change to a major that didn't require physics, so no great harm would be done. One could confidently bet that they weren't doing well in their mathematics and chemistry courses either.
Now, in the school where I teach, it's not uncommon to have a class in which there's not one student meeting this outmoded criterion for an A or B student. One is faced with an entire class of the calibre of those we used to 'write off' and ignore. There may be no one, save perhaps an occasional foreign exchange student, to set a standard of high achievement, demonstrating to the others that mastery of such difficult material is possible by mere mortals.
Today we are searching, like Diogenes, for anyone capable of earning an honest A.
Try as we might to maintain grading standards in the sciences, we are under great pressure to adapt to the grade inflation that has caused some departments on campus to give nothing but A and B grades, even to students who never 'crack a book.' In some 'disciplines' the only way to get a C or below is to annoy the instructor, or fail to attend class! It does seem that the disciplines that have shown the greatest grade inflation are those where the course 'content' is mostly 'hot air.'
Simanek's gas law of education: Courses with the most inflated grades are those containing the most hot air.
I've even had students ask, with some indignation, "Why must we work so hard in a physics course to get a measly C when we can get A's in non-science courses without ever studying?" I respond, "Why hy should there be any course on campus you can get an A in without studying?"
I once taught a course where one student scored nearly 100% on every one of my exams, while no one else could score above 50%. Several students got up courage to confront me and complain that I was making the course "too hard for anyone." I pointed out that it was obviously not too hard for the student doing nearly perfect work. They responded, 'That's not fair--he studies all the time!" They were not at all happy when I suggested they try copying his method for success.
Enslaved Europeans
It isn't exactly news that Arab slave traders enslaved Europeans; our word "slave" actually comes from "Slav," peoples that were often enslaved in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. But here's news coverage of Ohio State University historian Robert Davis's new book that puts some numbers to this: In a new book, "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800," Mr. Davis calculates that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by pirates called "corsairs" and forced to work in North Africa during that period.
It is unfortunate that from the rather narrow view of history that Americans learn, we think of slavery as something rather peculiarly American--a special sin staining the American experience. It really isn't. Throughout human history, slavery has been more the norm than the exception. It has often been a sign that a society has moved from a primitive state, to a civilized one, that it held slaves. Savages don't take prisoners of war; they build mountains of skulls, instead. Enslaving your defeated enemies was often a sign of a relatively humane and enlightened commander. John Locke, who we now think of as an enlightened thinker for his time, was quite clear on this:
The raids were so aggressive that entire Mediterranean seaside towns were abandoned by frightened residents. "Much of what has been written gives the impression that there were not many slaves and minimizes the impact that slavery had on Europe.
"Most accounts only look at slavery in one place, or only for a short period of time. But when you take a broader, longer view, the massive scope of this slavery and its powerful impact become clear."
The pirates, sailing from such cities as Tunis and Algiers, raided ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic as well as seaside villages to capture men, women and children, he says. They were put to work in quarries, in heavy construction and as oarsmen in the pirates' galleys. Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life by some act that deserves death, he to whom he has forfeited it may, when he has him in his power, delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service; and he does him no injury by it. For, whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he desires.
I do wish that when American history is taught in the lower grades, that a little more effort would be made to emphasize that slavery is really the norm; the efforts of Christians in the West to abolish slavery, and then Western imperialism driven in part by a desire to abolish slavery elsewhere, is the shining exception.
STDs & Anonymous Sex
This Reuters article discusses a new survey of the spread of syphilis: The Internet was one of a number of factors contributing to the rise in syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases among gay men, Aynalem said. Other contributors included the increasing use of the recreational drug crystal methamphetamine and the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra.
So 60% of all syphilis cases are happening in a population that represents, at most, 2.25% of the U.S. population? (About 4-4.5% of men are homosexual or bisexual, and men are just under half the population.) Obviously, it could be that only a tiny fraction of homosexual men are part of the anonymous, random sex crowd--but it does suggest that there is a dangerous pathology in behavior present when syphilis is so disproportionately homosexual.
Nationally, the incidence of reported syphilis has increased by 18 percent in the last three years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For male homosexuals it has multiplied 12-fold.
Between 1999 and 2003, the proportion of all U.S. syphilis cases among gay men jumped to 60 percent from 5 percent.
If Viagra is also part of the explanation for this, then it doesn't say much for the maturity of this crowd--guys old enough that they need Viagra, but so emotionally immature that they are engaging in promiscuous and risky sex.
Libertarian Purity Test
David Bernstein over at Volokh Conspiracy pointed to this online libertarian purity test. Okay, I scored 45--but there's a reason, and it is the problem with tests filled with binary answers. As an example, the question asking whether Social Security should be abolished, my answer was NO. I think Social Security is a very bad program in almost every respect, but a lot of people have retired, or are about to retire, based on the belief that Social Security would be there. They paid into the program, and made financial decisions based on the assumption of getting a check every month when they retired. To abolish Social Security without some sort of phase-out would cause enormous chaos and suffering--enough that it would completely discredit the entire government. The same is true for many other government programs: overnight abolition would cause problems so severe that they would make the liberals look like prophets.
I was surprised that the test didn't have more questions about the programs that redistribute wealth from the poor and middle class to the very wealthy, such as the National Flood Insurance Program (which subsidizes people with beach houses), or farm price supports. These are programs that from a simple justice standpoint should be abolished overnight, and for whom any disruption and chaos this caused would be a good thing, because a lot of the superrich liberals would have to dip into their own bank accounts to pay for their luxuries.
In case you are curious: the question asking whether all laws prohibiting consensual sex between adults should be abolished, I said YES, assuming that this didn't include the laws against sex in public places. I don't think that laws regulating adult sexual relations are a good idea, although many of them are certainly Constitutional.
"What If He Takes The Gun Away From You?"
One of the recurring methods by which gun control advocates discount the possibility of a mere woman defending herself with a gun is to say, "What if he takes the gun away from you? You'll be in more danger than if you didn't have a gun at all!" Here's a story where a woman is in jeopardy, someone takes away a gun--but it doesn't end quite the way the gun controllers would like to think: Sheriff's Lieutenant Rich Maricelli says the woman parked her pickup truck in a lot on campus, and a man asked if she could give him a lift to his vehicle and maybe jump-start it for him. She agreed. But the man pulled a handgun out of his jacket and told her to drive up Deer Creek. [overly graphic description of removal of clothes, being bound, raped, deleted] He set the gun down between the seats; and she managed to free her hands, get the gun, leap from the truck and roll down an embankment. She later told detectives she was prepared to use the gun if the man came back for her.
Awesome Picture From Hubble
It really makes you realize how tiny you are, when you see a picture with that many galaxies in one field!
One Kilometer Asteroid Hit: 1500 AD
Interesting article in Science News: Scientists may have discovered the impact site of one big space rock that smacked into the South Pacific just a few hundred years ago. In eastern Australia, researchers have found jumbled deposits of rocks more than 130 m above sea level that they propose were left by a tsunami. That debris has been dated to about A.D. 1500—a date that matches when the Maori people inexplicably moved away from some areas of New Zealand's coast, says Stephen F. Pekar, a sedimentologist at Queens College in New York. On New Zealand's Stewart Island, two sites sport possible tsunami deposits at elevations of 150 m and 220 m, respectively.
I'm glad that I live up high enough not to worry about tsunamis. Thanks to Instapundit and A Voyage to Arcturus for the links.
The source locations and heights of waves that could have lofted materials to those elevations steered the search for the impact's ground zero to beneath the sea southwest of New Zealand, says Pekar. Sure enough, he and his colleagues have discovered a crater there that's about 20 km wide and about 150 m deep. Samples of sediment taken from the seafloor southeast of the crater, but not those obtained elsewhere around the crater, contain small mineral globules called tektites, one hallmark of an extraterrestrial impact. That pattern suggests that an object may have struck from the northwest—a path that would have taken the blazing bolide over southeastern Australia, where aboriginal legends mention just such a fireball.
The rock that created tsunamis off New Zealand 500 years ago may have been around 1 km across, the researchers say. Ward and his colleagues previously estimated that a 1-km-wide asteroid slamming into the Atlantic Ocean about 600 km off North Carolina could send 130-m-tall tsunamis over beaches from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod within 2 hours. In 8 hours, tsunamis between 30 and 50 m tall would scour European coasts.
The Death of Marriage in Scandinavia
Stanley Kurtz's article in the Boston Globe claims that gay marriage (or rather its equivalent) in Scandinavia is destroying heterosexual marriage there. You may be surprised to find that I am a bit skeptical of his claim: Data from European demographers and statistical bureaus show that a majority of children in Sweden and Norway are now born out of wedlock, as are 60 percent of first-born children in Denmark. In socially liberal districts of Norway, where the idea of same-sex registered partnerships is widely accepted, marriage itself has almost entirely disappeared.
There are a lot of changes that have taken place during this time, and I don't see that Kurtz's article really shows a causal connection there. He does point out that homosexual marriage caused a purge of conservative clergy from the Lutheran Church in Nordland County, Norway, a hotbed of same-sex marriage, but I don't quite see that Kurtz's explanation of how one caused the other makes much sense. Kurtz also observes:
Certainly Scandinavia's system of registered partnerships is not the only cause of marital decline. Factors like contraception, abortion, women in the work force, individualism, secularism, and the welfare state are also at work. These factors are weakening marriage throughout the West. Yet scholars note that many family changes that eventually sweep the West show up first in Scandinavia, probably because of Scandinavia's unusually large welfare state and its notably strong secularism.
Same-sex registered partnerships are Scandinavia's latest contribution to Western family change -- a sharp cultural separation between the ideas of marriage and parenthood. Even before the establishment of registered partnerships, many Scandinavians were starting to have their first child outside of marriage. Although the couple's relationship was still considered experimental through the birth of the first child, most parents did marry before the birth of the second child.
The problem with this system is that unmarried parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. So as Scandinavians separated the ideas of marriage and parenthood, family dissolution rates rose -- placing first-born children at particular risk. The growing Scandinavian separation of marriage and parenthood made it difficult to deny marriage to same-sex couples. Yet the creation of registered partnerships has only locked in and reinforced the separation between the ideas of marriage and parenthood, thereby accelerating marital decline.Clearly, in a place where de facto gay marriage has gained almost complete acceptance, marriage itself has almost completely disappeared.
Doubtless, but I find myself wondering if the decline of traditional marriage and the rise of same-sex registered partnership (what Kurtz calls "de facto gay marriage") both reflect the underlying moral decline of the population--not that gay marriage causes the collapse of marriage. I think the bigger issue that needs to be confronted is the underlying factor--moral decline.
CBS News Playing to the Rich Again, Trying To Hurt Bush
I was watching CBS Evening News tonight, while doing the bench press, and they carried a report about the Bush tax cuts, saying that for many taxpayers, the "Bush tax cut" really hasn't turned out to be that big, because of the Alternative Minimum Tax. They then interviewed one of those typical working class Joes who has been snookered out of his big tax cut by AMT: a financial planner. Oh yes, that's a typical working person.
What just amazes me is the nerve of this claim. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which the reporter characterized as an unfair and antiquated part of the tax code, was originally put there to prevent high-income taxpayers from paying no federal income tax at all. Let me quote from the IRS's history of the AMT: Taxpayers who are not required to pay tax under the regular tax system may still be liable for tax under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) laws. These laws create an equity in the system, requiring higher income individuals with certain deductions to pay tax. Without the AMT laws, these individuals would pay little or no tax while those with lower income levels and no deductions would pay higher tax.
I have never had to pay AMT, although I came close one year. I exercised my stock options with great care (10,000 shares one year, 6,000 the next) to avoid this. I would guess that AMT is almost never an issue for people making less than $100,000 a year. Yet CBS News wants us to believe that large numbers of Americans are losing their "Bush tax cuts" because of AMT? If so, these are almost certainly the "rich people" that John Kerry claims got the lion's share of Bush's tax cut. Oh yes--these rich people are also disproportionately found among the millionaire talking heads that do network broadcasting. What a coincidence!
Yet Another Wrinkle in the Bond Market
Larry Kudlow's National Review column is about how, in spite of the recent drop in bond yields, he doesn't believe that this can continue much longer: If you are among the pessimists who believe the U.S. recovery is going to sink, or that the China boom is on the verge of collapse, then buy bonds. But if you stand with the optimists and expect a world economic recovery, then it's time to take profits off the table in the bond market.
Without anywhere near Kudlow's expertise, I am betting on the same--that we'll see 10-year Treasuries with yields above 5% within a year or so, and 30-year Treasuries above 6%. That's why I am only buying bonds with short maturities, expecting to throw a lot of money into long maturity A-rated corporate bonds when they start giving yields of 7.5% to 8.5%. (Hey, I can dream about 9%.)
Over the next twelve to eighteen months, the 10-year Treasury rate will surely move toward 5 percent, signifying a considerable sell-off from today's 3.7 percent. But there are scarier implications in the current disparity between commodities and bonds. If commodity prices and the 10-year rate peak together, then we're talking about an 81/2 percent Treasury rate. Undoubtedly the truth will land somewhere in between. Either way, selling ? not buying ? into this bond rally makes a lot of sense.
What I found really fascinating about Kudlow's column, however, was a scheme that I didn't know about: Economist Victor Canto makes a good case that the current bond rally is a function of the "carry trade." This is where the purchase of a long bond ? in this case the 10-year bond, which holds a higher yield than a short-term maturity ? is financed by taking out a short-term loan, allowing the investor to keep the difference in rates between the two maturities.
Sure enough, there isn't much risk here. The only way that this becomes risky is if the short-term interest rates rise so quickly relative to the 10-year Treasury that you can't sell the 10-year bonds in time. It's quite rare for bond prices to fluctuate that quickly.
For the foreseeable future Alan Greenspan has virtually guaranteed a 1 percent fed funds rate anchor to Treasury yields. Unless and until either jobs or inflation (or both) shoot higher, the 1 percent funds peg will continue. So, traders are borrowing at 1 percent in order to capture a 3.7 percent yield on the 10-year Treasury. The "carry" on this is a handsome 270 basis points profit. Nice work for little risk, especially during a stock market correction where the risk quotient is considerably higher.
You do have to pay careful attention to the bond yields to make sure that you are making money, and you also need to be borrowing in big enough chunks to get the federal funds rate on your loan. It does seem like a pretty safe way to improve your return on capital, assuming that you can go borrow a few million dollars without too much hassle.
"Did You Know the Pro-Gay Marriage Crowd Has No Sense of Humor?"
"No, but hum a few bars and I'll try and fake it."
Two days ago, I posted a pretty serious item about Senator Hatch's proposal for a federal marriage amendment that solves some of the federalism concerns that many people have expressed about the version that is currently under consideration. I made one statement that was a mixture of serious and attempted humor, and as often happens when I attempt humor--or for that matter, anyone attempts humor in a text-only medium, not everyone "got" it.If the point is reached where a majority of a state wants gay marriage, they'll probably legalize polygamy, bestiality, and then combine them into polygamous bestiality.
For those who are humor-impaired, "and then combine them into polygamous bestiality" was attempted humor.
But this raises a serious question that the pro-gay marriage crowd seems to run from: what makes marriage intrinsically between two people? Why not three, or five, or eight? Why do they have to be humans? France, a while back, allowed a woman to marry a dead man (her fiancee died in a motorcycle accident). I can see the following arguments that the pro-gay marriage crowd might advance to defend why what they are wanting is okay, but polygamy, and interspecies marriage is too weird to argue seriously against:
1. "That's disgusting." And how does that differ from the majority view of homosexual marriage? We are back to a "that's icky" argument. Sorry, but the Supreme Court has spoken--simple prejudice has no place in the law.
2. "Animals aren't humans." Okay, we are on our way to a tautology. Why is this a problem? You could make the same statement about two men getting married: "One of them isn't the opposite sex."
3. "We love each other. Why shouldn't we be able to get married?" Love is a many-splendored thing, and to be blunt, I've seen married couples whose relationship wasn't markedly more loving than most pet owners have for their pets. Our society has many expressions of love, some erotic (as between husband and wife), some fraternal in nature, some Platonic. Yet we do not expect everyone who has a very close friend to get married to them, and I think that even most of the pro-gay marriage crowd would find it ridiculous to get married to every really close friend.
4. "What harm does it cause to the society for us to get married?" What harm does it cause to the society for Ed and Janet and John and Lisa and Mark and Fido to get married? Almost any argument that you can make against polygamous bestiality can be applied with equal validity to gay marriage.
5. "But homosexuals are just like everyone else, and we shouldn't be discriminated against." This is the only argument that has a ghost of a chance of surviving the giggle test. If you accept that homosexuals are just like everyone else--no different from heterosexuals--then you could make this case. Guess what? There is certainly no consensus in support of this claim; there's not even a majority (except on the federal bench, probably) that buys this claim. However, you can certainly find animal rights theorists who say the same about animals. "A boy is a pig is a rat is a dog," as Priscilla Feral of the Animal Liberation Front likes to say. Princeton professor Peter Singer says the same thing, and about sex with animals--and he is considered a great intellectual by the same crowd that is defending gay marriage. What makes Feral and Singer wrong, and you right? Oh dear, we're getting back to that question of absolutes and universals again--and once you go down that road, where do you get those absolutes and universals from, if not a theistic base of some sort? Then what happens to gay marriage--a position that none of the world's major religions has ever supported?
Stanley Kurtz's article in the Weekly Standard last year pointed out that many of the same academics that were arguing for gay marriage ten years ago--and have clearly won in the only population that matters anymore, judges and law professors--are now arguing for "polyamory," or the notion that any number of humans that want to get married as one unit should be able to do so.
Once that battle is won, the next battle, I suspect, won't be animals, but children, for the simple reason that the ACLU has been working hard to get age of consent laws repealed. But a bridal gown for Fido will be coming, shortly after all laws prohibiting sex with children have been abolished by judicial order.
They Can't Wait Until They Get Home?
Those little TVs in cars are getting bigger, clearer, and more explicit: DETROIT - Andrea Carlton hadn't planned on telling her daughter about the birds and bees until she was 8 or 9. But that changed the night 4-year-old Catherine spotted a porno movie flickering on a screen in a minivan nearby.
Perhaps the ACLU can take one of these cases, arguing that the Constitutional right to watch pornography while driving is implicit in the right to free speech.
"Just like there's no windows in a strip club, you shouldn't be able to see inside windows in a car when they're watching X-rated movies," said Carlton, a 26-year-old from Gurnee, Ill.
More and more Americans are buying vehicles with DVD players, usually to keep the kids entertained. But an increasing number of other people on the road are catching a glimpse through the windows of more than just "Finding Nemo" and "SpongeBob SquarePants."
Needed: 2" Threaded Diagonal For A Few Days
Okay, the Chromacor for the 5" refractor arrived yesterday, and I started preparation to install it--and then I discovered that the 2" diagonal that came with the refractor isn't threaded. (There is something on the inside of the barrel that looks like threading, but according to Photon Instruments, this just prevents internal reflections.)
Okay, I could buy a 2" diagonal that is threaded for filters, but I only need this for a few days to make sure that the Chromacor justifies its expense in improved image. If not, back it goes. So if you hve a 2" diagonal threaded for 48mm filters lying around, and you could let me borrow it for a few days, I would be happy to pay the shipping costs both ways.
FBI Misconduct in the Oklahoma City Bombing Case: More News
From AP: WASHINGTON (AP) - Terry Nichols' attorneys say more than a dozen FBI documents that raise the possibility of additional accomplices in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing weren't turned over by state prosecutors or the federal government for Nichols' murder trial defense.
Whether this affects Nichols's trial on murder charges in state court is far less interesting and worrisome than the question of whether we can trust the FBI to do its job properly.
The documents, which were cited in a recent series of Associated Press stories, include two 1990s teletypes from then-FBI Director Louis Freeh's office citing possible connections between Timothy McVeigh and a gang of white supremacist bank robbers, the lawyers said.
The judge in Nichols' trial has said he will dismiss the state murder charges against McVeigh's co-conspirator with prejudice - making it very hard for prosecutors to resurrect the case - if the lawyers can prove that documents that could have aided their defense were withheld.
Starting in Brady v. Maryland (1963), and I gather somewhat inconsistently since then, the courts have held that denying the defense information that might show the defendant's innocence--or at least the guilt of others--is a violation of due process. This isn't just something that the wine and cheese set should worry about. If a judge sentences someone to prison--or death--I want to be absolutely sure that the prosecution has provided all the information to the defense that might assist the defense.
The government has an enormous advantage in any criminal prosecution. Unless you are a multimillionaire, you have no chance of even achieving approximate parity with the prosecutor's office in resources. The government has other advantages as well. They can legally reward and punish witnesses in a way that only organized crime figures can match or exceed. To achieve truth and justice, the scales have to be tipped pretty strongly in the favor of the defendant. That's why so many of the procedural protections of the Bill of Rights make the prosecutor's job so hard.
Being absolutely sure that the courts have convicted the right person is essential, not only because of the injustice of punishing an innocent party, but also because of the risk of letting guilty parties continue to predate.
There's one other reason why getting it right matters. The government sometimes avoids providing Brady material to the defense to cover wrongdoing by police or prosecutors. One good example of this I saw during the second Congressional hearings about Waco. An April 14, 1993 memo from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms directed investigators into the initial Waco raid: DOJ does not want Treasury to conduct any interviews or have discussions with any of the participants, who may be potential witnesses; the prosecutors do not want us to generate additional Jencks, Brady or Gigolo material or oral statements which could be used for impeachment.
In other words, we may have screwed up; let's make sure that our screwup doesn't appear at a subsequent trial. Why? Because the government was busily losing the trial of Randy Weaver in Idaho at that moment, because of governmental misconduct. I was shocked and horrified by the discovery that the Justice Department knowingly avoided a proper investigation for fear that government wrongdoing might be used by the defense at trial.
This sort of criminal behavior isn't just bad by itself. It's bad because it creates a profound mistrust of the entire system. Perhaps Timothy McVeigh might have done some horrifying crime even if the Waco inferno hadn't happened. But we know without question that Waco--and the Clinton Administration's cynical manipulation of the criminal justice system to protect what was at best a bunch of incompetents in BATF and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, started McVeigh down the path to mass murder.
Justice Scalia Tells The Truth About What Has Gone Wrong
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution," Scalia said at a conference Uptown on the merit selection of judges.
Scalia is correct that homosexual sodomy has been criminal since at least the sixteenth century in English and American law. He isn't quite right about abortion. First trimester abortions seem to have been legal under English law. The prohibition on first trimester abortion is a bit more recent.
"So we now have a constitutional right to abortion, something that had been criminal for 200 years," he said. "We have a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy, something else that had been criminal for 200 years." Scalia was the keynote speaker at conference at on "Judicial Independence and Accountability" at the Audubon Tea Room sponsored by the Louisiana Organization for Judicial Excellence, based in Baton Rouge.
Scalia didn't articulate this point, but the real problem with choosing judges on "merit," is that inevitably this means that the elite of the legal profession--an elite of an elite--defines merit. Because the legal profession is utterly dominated by the left, this means that selecting judges based on merit really means picking judges who have contempt for popular government, because it so seldom comes to the "correct" results.
Judged on merit
The group advocates merit selection of judges -- a system that typically involves a governor picking a state district or appeals judge from a list of names winnowed by a blue-ribbon commission -- rather than direct elections. His talk followed panel discussions with lawyers, judges, law professors and media experts on campaign finance, judicial conduct and merit selection.
Ideally, Scalia said he would choose merit selection of judges. But when you have courts trying to rewrite laws, he said, "there's a lot to be said for electing judges."
Scalia blasted the existing system, which he said allows courts to change the laws, and not the people.
"What 'we the people' want most of all is someone who will agree with us as to what the evolving constitution says," he said.
"We are free at last, free at last," he said. "There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands."
One of my wife's English professors made the same criticism of a lot of post-modernist literary criticism that Scalia is making of how the courts have freed themselves from that bothersome text of our Constitution: "At a certain point, you don't even need to read the book" for which you are writing a criticism. The difference is that literary criticism doesn't really influence that many lives. When the Supreme Court decides that what was a felony when the Constitution was written is now Constitutionally protected behavior--or, as I expect the current leftist majority there to do one of these days, and decide that what was legally required when the Constitution was written (gun ownership) may now be completely prohibited, the consequences will be much more severe.
Miracles of Newspeak
From a news story about an outbreak of HIV at Southern colleges: While all but two of the men infected in the outbreak had sex at least once with another man, they typically did not consider themselves to be gay or bisexual, according to North Carolina's research.
I understand why homosexuals insist that just because someone has sex with others of the same sex doesn't mean that they are homosexual. They are insisting that same-sex pedophiles aren't homosexuals, and neither, necessarily, are men who have sex with other men for money. But now, highly promiscuous guys having casual sex with other men, also aren't homosexuals? This damage to the meaning of words like "homosexual" is getting more bizarre by the moment. Next, I suppose, we will learn that everyone who has AIDS is, by definition, not a homosexual.
That finding worries health officials who fear their prevention messages - mainly tailored to strictly gay or straight men - might not be getting through to those who do not identify themselves as homosexuals, even though they have casual sex with men. Leone said most of the people infected didn't think they were at risk.
"We've been somewhat remiss in focusing on people's sexual identity," Fitzpatrick said. "It doesn't matter what their sexual identity is, we need to focus on their behaviors."
Those infected also frequently traveled outside the state, used the Internet to meet partners and were 34 times more likely than non-college men to have sex with other college students.
Canadian Government: One That Makes Me Appreciate The Intelligence of Ours
No, I'm not making fun of their gun registration program originally budgeted at two million Canadian dollars, now reaching two billion Canadian dollars--and most of the guns aren't registered yet. It is this little farce: Canada said on Tuesday it was looking at ways to cool down four trouble-plagued submarines it bought from Britain after a report revealed temperatures in one craft hit 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit) on a patrol.
The problem in the engine room of the Victoria -- revealed by opposition legislator Bill Casey -- is the latest in a long line of hassles with the second-hand submarines that Canada agreed to buy in 1998 for C$750 million ($570 million).
...
Pratt told Parliament that Canadians were getting "incredible value for their dollars with these submarines" because the craft had 80 percent of their operational life left and had been bought for a quarter of their real value.
Casey was less impressed, telling legislators that "we bought these boats six years ago and not one of them works. Two are tied up, two are in dry dock."
A Rare Glimpse into Freemasonry's Initiation Rites
I've seen the claim before that the Freemasony initiation rites include a threat to kill anyone who reveals the "secrets" of the order. It appears that there is some truth to this: NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Masonic initiation ritual ended in tragedy when a man was shot in the head and killed with a gun thought to contain blanks, police said on Tuesday.
Fortunately, New York State, where this tragedy took place, has pretty strict laws to make sure that only responsible adults may possess handguns.
They said 47-year-old William James was accidentally killed when Albert Eid, 76, confused a loaded .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol with another gun during the induction ceremony in Patchogue, on New York's Long Island, on Monday night.
"During the ceremony, an inductee was shot and killed when a lodge member used a real gun instead of a blank pistol," Suffolk County Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
Police officer Heidi Cummings said Eid pointed a gun at James' head while another member beat a garbage can like a drum as part of the rite in the basement of the suburban Southside Masonic Lodge, about 50 miles east of Manhattan.
UPDATE: A Freemason emailed me to tell me that the secret ritual involves a symbolic cutting of the throat--not a gun. (I wonder if someone decided to update it to modern times.) This Freemason site claims that there were no Freemason activities scheduled for that evening.
Abstinence Pledges Among Teenagers
Reuters is reporting that a study of STDs among teenagers shows that those who took a pledge to wait until marriage for sex had the same rates of STDs as those who did not: PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. adolescents who pledge not to have sex until they are married have about the same rate of sexually transmitted diseases as other teenagers and they often fail to keep their pledge, according to a study released on Tuesday.
That's very discouraging. But then you have to ask: if they are using condoms less, why is their STD rate the same?
The study of a nationally representative sample of about 15,000 youths aged 12 to 18 found that 88 percent of teenagers who pledged to remain virgins until they are married ended up having sex before marriage.
...
Adolescents who pledged abstinence were much less likely than others to use contraceptives the first time they had sex. Consequently, their risk of getting STDs and becoming pregnant was as high as non-pledgers, the study found.
Only 40 percent of male pledgers had used a condom in the past year compared with 59 percent of those who did not promise to avoid sex. Among females, the gap was 47 percent to 55 percent. The study found that pledging did succeed in delaying sex, reducing the number of partners and led to earlier marriages but it did not reduce the rate of sexually transmitted diseases.
So perhaps the real problem here isn't that the abstinence movement does no good, but that it needs to include a discussion of, "Just in case you lose your resolve, have a condom available. Don't combine moral failure with STDs and pregnancy."
UPDATE: A reader points to another article about the study here that says that 99% of non-pledgers and 88% of pledgers have sex before marriage--and asks if these numbers are plausible. I must confess, when you find that 99% of a population does anything, other than breathing, it makes you wonder how random was this sample?
From a Friend in San Francisco
I don't know if this was original with him, or if it came from somewhere else, but I got a laugh from it. The friend in question is very cosmopolitan, definitely not religious, and the sort of person who I would have expected to find the whole gay marriage thing very cool: A scene at City Hall in San Francisco
"Next."
"Good morning. We want to apply for a marriage license."
"Names?"
"Tim and Jim Jones."
"Jones? Are you related? I see a resemblance."
"Yes, we're brothers."
"Brothers? You can't get married."
"Why not? Aren't you giving marriage licenses to same gender couples?"
"Yes, thousands. But we haven't had any siblings. That's incest!"
"Incest?" No, we are not gay."
"Not gay? Then why do you want to get married?"
"For the financial benefits, of course. And we do love each other. Besides, we don't
have any other prospects."
"But we're issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who've been denied
equal protection under the law. If you are not gay, you can get married to a woman."
"Wait a minute. A gay man has the same right to marry a woman as I have. But just
because I'm straight doesn't mean I want to marry a woman. I want to marry Jim."
"And I want to marry Tim, Are you going to discriminate against us just because we
are not gay?"
"All right, all right. I'll give you your license. Next."
"Hi. We are here to get married."
"Names?"
"John Smith, Jane James, Robert Green, and June Johnson."
"Who wants to marry whom?"
"We all want to marry each other."
"But there are four of you!"
"That's right. You see, we're all bisexual. I love Jane and Robert, Jane loves me and
June, June loves Robert and Jane, and Robert loves June and me. All of us getting
married together is the only way that we can
express our sexual preferences in a marital relationship."
"But we've only been granting licenses to gay and lesbian couples."
"So you're discriminating against bisexuals!"
"No, it's just that, well, the traditional idea of marriage is that it's just for couples."
"Since when are you standing on tradition?"
"Well, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere."
"Who says? There's no logical reason to limit marriage to couples. The more the
better. Besides, we demand our rights! The mayor says the constitution guarantees
equal protection under the law. Give us a marriage license!"
"All right, all right. Next."
"Hello, I'd like a marriage license."
"In what names?"
"David Doe."
"And the other man?"
"That's all. I want to marry myself."
"Marry yourself? What do you mean?"
"Well, my psychiatrist says I have a dual personality, so I want to marry the two
together. Maybe I can file a joint income-tax return."
"That does it! I quit! You people are making a mockery of marriage!!"
A New Fraud
I just received this email: Dear Wells Fargo valued customer!
The link, however, doesn't take you to www.wellsfargo.com/verify, but http://68.104.255.61:82/verify/ instead. I don't have a Wells Fargo Bank account, but if I did, I might have been taken in. Watch out!
Please read this important message about
security. We are working very hard to protect
our customers against fraud. Your account has
been randomly chosen for verification. This is
requested to us to verify that you are the real
owner of this account. All you need to do is to
click on the link below. You will see a verification
page. Please complete all fields that you will see
and submit the form. You will be redirected to Wells
Fargo home page after verification. Please note that if
you don't verify your ownership of account in 24 hours we
will block it to protect your money. Thank you.
http://www.wellsfargo.com/verify/
UPDATE: A reader reports: I've gotten messages like that twice - one purporting to be from Ebay and one from Paypal (I don't have accounts with either). They both use that IP address, which by the way is someplace in Shanghai.
The Ebay and Paypal verify scheme is HIGHLY intrusive. They demand all your bank account numbers, your credit card numbers (even the little 3-digit verification code on the back that you almost never use) and your Mother's Maiden name (the skeleton key to half of America's financial information).
Fill it out and you're signing your life away.
Also note the URL is an HTTP server, not HTTPS (the encrypted version of HTTP). Legitimate businesses almost always use HTTPS for security.
Expect to hear lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth when these scammers start cashing in on all the info they've taken.
The ACLU Needs To Change Its Name
From National Review: The ACLU is defending those who abuse children while attacking those who give them moral guidance. This contrast reveals the priorities of today's ACLU.
This is rather the same argument for why Paladin Press was held responsible for a murder committed by someone who read Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors, and put it to work. I expressed my concerns about where such lawsuits could lead here, but I was also very clear:
The Manhattan-based public-interest law firm is defending the North American Man-Boy Love Association in a $200 million civil lawsuit filed by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Curley. The Curleys claim that Charles Jaynes was driven by the literature and website of NAMBLA, an outfit that advocates sex between grown men and little boys, reportedly as young as age 8.
Jaynes did not simply read NAMBLA's materials and ponder its message. He and Salvatore Sicari actively sought a boy with whom to copulate. They picked 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge, Massachusetts. They lured him into their car as he played outside his home in October 1997. [graphic description of rape and murder deleted] Jaynes and Sicari were convicted of these crimes in 1998, for which they are serving life sentences.
...
Within the realm of nonfiction, as revolting as its ideas are, NAMBLA certainly has a First Amendment right to argue that America's laws should be changed to permit sexual relations between adult men and third-grade school boys. Most Americans would disagree vehemently, as well they should. That's called debate. It's the American way.
As ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director John Reinstein sees it: "Regardless of whether people agree with or abhor NAMBLA's views, holding the organization responsible for crimes committed by others who read their materials would gravely endanger important First Amendment freedoms."
...
NAMBLA is "not just publishing material that says it's OK to have sex with children and advocating changing the law," says Larry Frisoli, a Cambridge attorney who is arguing the Curleys case in federal court. NAMBLA, he says, "is actively training their members how to rape children and get away with it. They distribute child pornography and trade live children among NAMBLA members with the purpose of having sex with them."
Frisoli cites a NAMBLA publication he calls "The Rape and Escape Manual." Its actual title is "The Survival Manual: The Man's Guide to Staying Alive in Man-Boy Sexual Relationships."
"Its chapters explain how to build relationships with children," Frisoli tells me. "How to gain the confidence of children's parents. Where to go to have sex with children so as not to get caught...There is advice, if one gets caught, on when to leave America and how to rip off credit card companies to get cash to finance your flight. It's pretty detailed."
"In his diary, Jaynes said he had reservations about having sex with children until he discovered NAMBLA," Frisoli continues. "It's in his diary in 1996, around the time he joined NAMBLA, one year before the death of Jeffrey Curley."
The practical, step-by-step advice Jaynes followed goes far beyond appeals to sway public opinion in favor of pedophilia. Such language aids and abets felonious conduct. If such conspiracy results in homicide, it is reasonable for NAMBLA to face civil liability if not criminal prosecution.
Ohio's Court of Appeals found NAMBLA complicit in an earlier child-rape case. NAMBLA's literature, discovered in a defendant's possession, reflected "preparation and purpose," according to the Buckeye State's top bench.Here's a simple rule: if a book promotes the abuse of others, no responsible person should be part of publishing, selling, or distributing that work.
The ACLU, of course, in their craziness, decided to support the right of Paladin Press to publish a "how-to" book for contract killers, and is doing likewise in defending NAMBLA's right to encourage the molestation of children.
One of these days, I am going to meet an ACLU member, face to face, and I am going to ask him or her to sign a contract in which they give up the right to sue by themselves, their estate, friends, and family members, for a book that I will write and have published titled, Torturing to Death ACLU Members for Fun and Profit. We'll see how serious they are about freedom of the press. If they decline to do so, I'll organize picketing of their home for several months by people carrying signs calling him or her a supporter of child molestation. That should teach them!
Hatch's Federal Marriage Amendment Proposal
Professor Volokh examines Senator Hatch's alternative Federal Marriage Amendment, and makes some very good points about ways in which it might be misinterpreted by the courts: The more I think about it, the more I dislike the first sentence of the Hatch FMA draft, even while I generally support the second. The draft reads:
Professor Volokh points to a number of other pitfalls on this language.
Civil marriage shall be defined in each state by the legislature or the citizens thereof. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman.
Here are the possible problems with the first sentence:
1. This morning, I mentioned that the sentence would almost certainly prohibit common-law marriages, which several states (including Hatch's own Utah) recognize, and which I don't think anyone intends to just erase. I still think that's clearly right: The whole point of common-law marriages is that they were defined by judges (though of course subject to the possibility of legislative modification, as with nearly all of the rest of the common law), not the legislature or the citizens.
2. The first sentence is pretty clearly intended to get the courts out of defining state marriage law. That would reverse the Massachusetts Goodridge decision -- but it would also keep courts from doing the normal sort of gap-filling definition that courts routinely (and largely unobjectionably) do. Statutes often define some matter only in general, and leave it to courts to figure out the details. The amendment would apparently prohibit this, since it purports to take courts entirely out of the business of participating in defining marriage -- not just defining it in a final, legislature-superseding way as in Goodridge, but also helping the legislature define it by interpreting vague terms in the marriage statutes, or filling other gaps.
3. If you read this literally, then this means that marriage-related bills can't be vetoed by the governor. There is Supreme Court precedent for the proposition that "the legislature" in some parts of the Constitution (though not in all parts) means "the legislature plus a gubernatorial veto, if the state allows a gubernatorial veto" -- but why enact language that's literally not quite right, and hope that the courts will rescue you?
It is very important to think in these terms because after all, why is this amendment even required? Because of willful misinterpretation of the existing Constitution by judges on this subject. I hope someone who matters gets Volokh's concerns expressed to Senator Hatch, before he puts this one in the hopper.
Achille Lauro Hijacker Dies in U.S. Custody of Natural Causes
From AP:
That's certainly more than he deserved. I really hate terrorists (which makes me some sort of a bigot, I think, by current academic standards--after all terorrists comes in all types), but even by the "standards" of terrorists, shooting an old man in a wheelchair and shoving him over the side of a ship is extraordinarily cowardly.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Mohammed Abul Abbas, head of a Palestinian splinter group and mastermind of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship in which an American tourist was killed, has died in U.S. custody in Iraq, Palestinian and U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The ship was commandeered by Abbas' small Palestine Liberation Front. Palestinian militants threw an elderly wheelchair-bound Jewish American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, overboard.
Abbas was captured in Iraq in April by U.S. forces. Late Tuesday, officials in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Abbas had died in U.S. custody.
In Washington, a U.S. official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Abul Abbas died recently of natural causes while in U.S. custody. The official said his health had been deteriorating.
Oh, yes, we perhaps weren't supposed to be holding him in custody: When Abbas was captured, the Palestinian Authority demanded his release, saying the United States had pledged not to prosecute him as part of a blanket promise not to press charges against Palestinians who acted against Israel before interim peace accords were signed in the 1990s.
Well yes, I agree, when the Palestinian Authority, headed by Yasser Arafat, appeals to the United States to follow the rule of law, with the wonderful moral example that they have provided, we have a clear obligation to listen to their request for us to jump, and then say, "How high?"
I'm Glad To Be In Company With Thomas Sowell
I've gotten a lot of flak lately for my satirical entry about getting married to someone near and dear to me, and for suggesting that the arguments for gay marriage based on analogy with miscegenation statutes are misleading. But Thomas Sowell, the well-known libertarian economist, has weighed in on not only the absurdity of public officials breaking the law to perform gay marriages, but also the underlying question about gay marriage: Love affairs are personal relations. Marriage is a legal relation. To say that government should not get involved in legal relations is to say that government has no business governing.
Homosexuals were on their strongest ground when they said that what happens between "consenting adults" in private is none of the government's business. But now gay activists are taking the opposite view, that it is government's business -- and that government has an obligation to give its approval.
Then there are the strained analogies with the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King challenged the racial laws of their time. So, the argument goes, what is wrong with Massachusetts judges and the mayor of San Francisco challenging laws that they consider unjust today?
First of all, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were private citizens and they did not put themselves above the law. On the contrary, they submitted to arrest in order to gain the public support needed to change the laws.
As private citizens, neither Mrs. Parks nor Dr. King wielded the power of government. Their situation was very different from that of public officials who use the power delegated to them through the framework of law to betray that framework itself, which they swore to uphold as a condition of receiving their power.
The real analogy would be to Governor George Wallace, who defied the law by trying to prevent black students from being enrolled in the University of Alabama under a court order.
...
The last refuge of the gay marriage advocates is that this is an issue of equal rights. But marriage is not an individual right. Otherwise, why limit marriage to unions of two people instead of three or four or five? Why limit it to adult humans, if some want to be united with others of various ages, sexes and species?
Marriage is a social contract because the issues involved go beyond the particular individuals. Unions of a man and a woman produce the future generations on whom the fate of the whole society depends. Society has something to say about that.
Even at the individual level, men and women have different circumstances, if only from the fact that women have babies and men do not. These and other asymmetries in the positions of women and men justify long-term legal arrangements to enable society to keep this asymmetrical relationship viable -- for society's sake.
Neither of these considerations applies to unions where the people are of the same sex.
This Also Sounds Like It Came From Scrappleface, But It Didn't
From Reuters: OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - An Oklahoma woman shot her husband to death during a fight after the couple watched a daytime TV talk show on how to survive domestic violence, officials say.
Yeah, don't call him violent! He'll pull a gun on you to show that's not true!
...
Police and prosecutors said the couple was in bed on Feb. 24 smoking marijuana and watching a Montel Williams TV talk show on surviving a lover's attack. Teri told her husband that his actions resembled those of abusive husbands featured on the show, which caused Cecil to turn violent.
Cecil then struck his wife, fetched a handgun and fired a shot into the bed's headboard near Teri to show that he did not like his wife calling him a violent partner, police said, citing a statement the wife gave to investigators.
New Jersey Files Suit Again Nissan; Failed To Warn Customers About Thieves Wanting Their Headlights
No, this isn't from Scrappleface, although it reads like it should be: NEWARK, N.J. - New Jersey authorities sued Nissan North America Inc. on Monday, alleging the automaker failed to warn customers that the super-bright headlights on its Maximas were hot targets for thieves.
What next? Who will New Jersey sue for failing to warn tourists that they need to watch their wallets and purses when visiting Newark?
The suit, filed in Superior Court in Somerset County, also alleges Nissan profited by having customers purchase anti-theft kits that should have been provided for free. The company's dealerships also profited by performing repair work on cars victimized by thieves, state Attorney General Peter Harvey said.
"We allege the company sold cars with these fancy lights, but kept consumers in the dark about how attractive the headlamps were to thieves," said Reni Erdos, director of the state Division of Consumer Affairs, which filed the suit. "Nissan's actions, or lack thereof, rendered consumers vulnerable to the criminals who targeted their vehicles."
California Legislators Propose Lowering Voting Age To 14
Everytime I say that things couldn't get any crazier in the unlocked ward, I see something like this: A proposed amendment to California's constitution would give 16-year-olds a half-vote and 14-year-olds a quarter-vote in state elections.
Better informed than their predecessors? Sorry, but that just doesn't fly. I haven't seen an enormous difference in knowledge level between the kids here in Boise and the ones in California (with whatever advantage there is going to the kids here in Boise), and my son tells me that a big chunk of his 10th grade geography class was unable to find Israel on a map. I have seen example after example both at Boise State and Sonoma State University (where my wife and I received our BA and MA degrees a few years ago) that showed that large numbers of kids were getting out of high school with educations grossly inferior to what we received in the 1970s.
State Sen. John Vasconcellos, among four lawmakers to propose the idea on Monday, said the Internet, cellular phones, multichannel television and a diverse society makes today's teens better informed than their predecessors.
The idea requires two-thirds approval by the Legislature to appear on the November ballot.
"When we gave the vote to those who didn't own property, then to women, then to persons of all colors, we added to the richness of our democratic dialogue and our own nation's integrity and its model for the world," Vasconcellos said, calling it time to further extend the vote.
Even if you accept the bogus claim of "better informed than their predecessors," there are problems of maturity as well. There is nothing quite as amusingly arrogant as a 14 year old's knowledge of the world. This is not a new problem. Mark Twain is responsible for that most powerful indictment of the immaturity of youth: When I was fourteen years old, I was amazed at how unintelligent my father was. By the time I turned twenty-one, I was astounded how much he had learned in the last seven years.
At 14, 15, 16, lots of kids have stopped listening to their parents--but often are listening to their teachers. Can anyone figure out why Democrats would want 14 year olds, who spend six hours a day being indoctrinated by the teaching wing of the Democratic Party, to vote?
Also, 1/4 vote for 14 year olds, and 1/2 vote for 16 year olds? What's with that? What happened to equal protection of the law? What happened to "one man, one vote" from Baker v. Carr (1962)? Is the rationale that 14 and 16 year olds are 1/4 and 1/2 as informed as adults? By that reasoning, my vote deserves about twenty times the weight of the average voter. Is it because 14 and 16 year olds are 1/4 or 1/2 the economic influence? By that reasoning, Bill Gates gets more votes than all of California combined. This is just madness (also known as mainstream California political philosophy).
The voting age is arbitrary. I think you could make a legitimate argument for setting it at 17, 18, 19, maybe even 21. There is nothing magic about any of these numbers. The real test of whether Vasconellos and fellow liberals believe that 14 year olds are really that responsible and informed, however, is when they propose to lower the age for all adult activities to 14: handgun purchases; trial as adults; potentially facing the death penalty for their actions; ability to make contracts.
I am not surprised that Vasconellos is behind this. This is the legislator who thought that California needed a self-esteem commission, some years ago. From that has fallen the delusion of self-esteem education, in which school kids are told that they are "special" and to feel good about themselves--instead of schools teaching them to actually become competent at something--which would actually make them feel good about themselves. Self-esteem programs are so transparently phony that I am not surprised that they don't work.
A few years back, I spoke before a California legislative committee of which Vasconellos was the chair. At one point, Vasconellos argued that concealed weapon permits in California really aren't that hard to get. It was all that I could do not to start laughing at him. That conversation left me with one of two possible conclusions: he's a raving idiot, or he is hopelessly dishonest.
When Rights Collide
A few days back, I pointed out that when you find two rights guaranteed by the Constitution in collision, it is usually a sign that the government has gotten just a little enthused about being active. One example was when the California Supreme Court decided that freedom of religion was less important than forcing all employers to provide contraception. No one can seriously argue that forcing the Catholic Church (which opposes nearly all methods of contraception) to provide contraceptive prescription does not impinge on their freedom of religion. It would be like requiring all employers in California to pay for meat for this employees. PETA, half a dozen vegan advocacy groups, and some religious organizations, would be genuinely upset that they were being forced to pay for something with which they disagree.
I gave the example also of Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), where freedom of religion (the desire of Amish to not send their kids to grades above eight) conflicted with Wisconsin's mandatory school attendance law. The Supreme Court started us down a foolish path with that decision, exempting the Amish from a law that applied to everyone else--and thus putting freedom of religion in conflict with equal protection fo the law. The Amish were given a right that others from Wisconsin did not enjoy.
The newest example of overreaching government, demonstrated by rights in conflict, is the case that the Supreme Court has decided not to hear: the Boy Scouts have been excluded from a Connecticut employee charity fundraising campaign. What are the rights in conflict here?
Does a private organization have a right to freedom of association and to free speech? Yes, as the Supreme Court ruled four years ago. Boy Scouts of America may exclude homosexuals in hiring, and may express their belief that homosexuality is wrong.
Connecticut decided that they would not allow non-profits that discriminated against homosexuals to participate in the employee charity fundraising campaign. By so doing, Connecticut decided that Boy Scouts of America does not have the right to participate on an equal basis with other non-profits. Connecticut has thereby discriminated against Boy Scouts of America because they are exercising their right of freedom of association:The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, located in New York City, acknowledged that Connecticut's law has a "foreseeably adverse impact" on the ability of groups such as the Boy Scouts to express their views about homosexuality.
Rights are in conflict--and unsurprisingly, anti-discrimination laws protecting homosexuals take precedence over freedom of association and free speech. This isn't just my cranky idea. The Supreme Court said that in Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale (2000):
"Since the medium is, in part, the message, any regulation of the medium will to some extent restrict the message," the court said.
But Connecticut also has the right to protect groups, such as gay men and lesbians, from discrimination in employment and other areas, the three-judge appellate court said. As the definition of "public accommodation" has expanded from clearly commercial entities, such as restaurants, bars, and hotels, to membership organizations such as the Boy Scouts, the potential for conflict between state public accommodations laws and the First Amendment rights of organizations has increased.
Here, however, we confront a difficult problem: at least two rights in this conflict are Constitutionally protected: freedom of speech, and freedom of association. Freedom of speech is clearly protected by the First Amendment. Freedom of association is a bit more indirect, but as the Supreme Court observed in NAACP v. Alabama (1958): It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the "liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.
What is the right that is in conflict? The right of homosexuals to not be discriminated against by the Boy Scouts of America. And where in the Constitution is that right found? Connecticut has passed a statute to that effect, and somehow, federal judges will find some way (eventually) to rule that "equal protection" mandates that every state must have such statutes. But why does this merely implied right take precedence over the freedom of speech right that is boldly and explicitly in the text?
I've written before about my concern that imposing acceptance and equality for homosexuality is fast destroying the rest of our freedoms. In this case, the freedoms that are being lost are freedom of speech, freedom of association, and equal protection of the laws. Are these really less important than anti-discrimination laws?
A Better Federal Marriage Amendment
A number of law professors have expressed concern that the language of the Federal Marriage Amendment goes too far--that it would prohibit state legislatures from recognizing marriage. I disagree, but not too strongly. The language is less than clear, and it seems clear to me that if any state wants to recognize gay marriage--that is to say, if the voters or their elected representatives decide that, after careful thought (or as careful as voters and legislators are capable of performing), that would be fine with me. If the point is reached where a majority of a state wants gay marriage, they'll probably legalize polygamy, bestiality, and then combine them into polygamous bestiality.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), it seems, is introducing an alternative to the Federal Marriage Amendment that resolves the problem of federalism: "Civil marriage shall be defined in each state by the legislature or the citizens thereof. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman."
The people or the legislature could still allow gay marriage. Even judges could impose gay marriage based on a state constitution (as happened in Massachusetts). But no judge could misconstrue the U.S. Constitution to require either federal or state governments to recognize or offer gay marriage.
UPDATE: Click here to find out that the pro-gay marriage crowd has no sense of humor--or perhaps I am not very good at making humor obvious enough in this medium.
A Gay Journalist On Gay Marriage
From the New York Times (registration required): Last week, my boyfriend's best friend, a lesbian, told him she was taking her girlfriend to go tie the knot in San Francisco the first week in April. She wanted him to be there, absolutely. He got all worked up about it, but not the way you might think.
I've long suspected that groups like Lambda were doing a PR job for the more average homosexuals.
"This whole gay marriage thing is so annoying," he said. "It's aping a bourgeois lifestyle that I've lived my life trying to avoid. I feel confused and betrayed."
He is not alone. Many gay men and lesbians — in fact most of the ones I know — are not jumping to jump the broom. They like their status as couples living between the lines, free of all the societal expectations that marriage brings. But since they don't want to feed politicians using gay marriage as an election issue, they are largely mum.
"It's very hard to speak freely right now," said Judith Butler, a gender theorist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "But many gay people are uncomfortable with all this, because they feel their sense of an alternative movement is dying. Sexual politics was supposed to be about finding alternatives to marriage."
...
"I like being an outlaw," said Roz Lichter, a lawyer who won't marry her partner.
"We don't have any of the typical social roles imposed on how we live," said Philip Galanes, a novelist in a long-term relationship with no wedding plans. "We have the freedom to be husband and wife rolled into one. If there's so much creativity among gay people, maybe it's because we're allowed to be freer in life in all kinds of ways."
Or maybe it's because we're allowed to be single without being stigmatized.
At least we used to be. These days, with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund publishing an "educational guide" stating that gay people are "very much like everyone else," mowing lawns and having children, and that not allowing them to marry keeps them "in a state of permanent adolescence," you have to wonder if the freedom to define your own life in your own way is going the way of cigarettes in bars.
"Being gay and single is the new smoking," Mr. Rudnick said. "It won't be socially acceptable anymore, and you will have to go outside." Or as Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, told me: "It used to be that the whole point of coming out of the closet was to get people to stop asking you when you are going to get married and have children."
Thanks to the reader who pointed this to me, but didn't want his name used. (It makes me feel like an "outlaw" to have people give me anonymous tips!)
For those who wonder why this website sometimes seems like Homophobia Central, let me clear up some confusion for you:
1. I am not doing this to get more hits on my blog. I have almost certainly damaged by ability to get links from better known bloggers by not toeing the blogospheric party line on homosexuality.
2. I grew up in Southern California, and I was pretty liberal about homosexuality, until I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, and saw the influence of homosexuality on the culture up close and personal. The Bay Area's depravity is more than just that influence, but that is certainly part of what makes the place so disturbing.
3. I had said almost nothing in a public forum about homosexuality for many years. I stopped partly because I grew tired of the death threats, obscene phone calls to my children, and the rest of what I have learned is pretty common homosexual behavior. I've written about a number of controversial issues, and none of them have ever caused this kind of reaction. Obviously, many homosexuals are prepared to engage in civilized discussions, and I often exchange emails in ways that are productive and thought-provoking. But why is that when I have written about the evil of affirmative action, or totalitarianism, or gun prohibition, I don't get death threats, threats to engage in obscene demonstrations in front of my house, and obscene phone calls to my home?
4. Shortly after I was invited onto Volokh Conspiracy, homosexual activists brought up things I had written in Internet newsgroups in the early 1990s--and shortly thereafter, I was too hot for the Volokh Conspiracy. This was something of a turning point; it mad me realize the enormous hazard to free speech that homosexuals represent, as evidenced by their inability to hear ideas that they don't like.
Is This A Normal Disclaimer On A Government Web Page?
At the bottom of the California Department of Motor Vehicles website: The content found herein may not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Schwarzenegger Administration.
Who's in charge of California government, if this is true?
If I Were Writing a Vicious Satire of the European Welfare State...
I might write something like this, but it would be too ridiculous to believe that anyone would be gutsy enough to file such a suit. At least the court didn't buy his argument: BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court rejected a legal bid on Friday by an unemployed man who wanted the state to provide him with free pornography and trips to brothels because his wife is in Thailand.
The court in the southern town of Ansbach ruled that social services did not extend to satisfying the 43-year-old's sexual needs after he attempted to sue his local welfare office because it had refused to finance his appetite for prostitutes and porn.
"He wanted them to pay for four trips to the brothel a month, eight porn films a month, plus condoms," said court spokesman Peter Burgdorf. "He also wanted some sort of appliance for self-gratification to use when watching porn."
Most Common Musical Hallucinations
You were thinking about this, weren't you? Everyone occasionally has a catchy tune they just can't seem to get out of their heads but in a musical hallucination the song is heard as if it were really being played.
So what explains the other common musical hallucinations?
Dr Nick Warner, a psychiatrist based in Wales, told a Royal College of Psychiatrists' conference in Liverpool that "Abide with Me," a favorite at funerals, is a particularly recurrent tune in musical hallucinations.
He and his colleague Dr Victor Aziz studied 30 elderly people who experienced musical hallucinations.
...
"Outstanding was the fact that the hymn "Abide by Me" turned up six times in 30 people," he said in an interview.
About one in 10,000 people over 65 years old have musical hallucinations, which are most common in elderly people suffering from hearing problems.
...
He suspects that in the subconscious mind the tune written by Henry Lyte gives people a sense of comfort and hope.
"The words of "Abide with Me" are tremendously uplifting, hopeful words about heaven and God not abandoning us when we are dying," he said.The tunes ranged from "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" to "Yes, We have No Bananas" but just over half heard some sort of religious music, either hymns or Christmas carols.
Please Tell Me This is Satire
To say that a cloud of suspicion fell on her parents is an understatement. And now her father plans to run for Michigan state legislature? LANSING - John Ramsey, father of slain child pageant star JonBenet, is seriously considering a run for the Michigan House of Representatives.
Use of 9/11 in Bush Ad
I understand a lot of Democrats are upset about this. The ad was actually pretty subtle--it reminded us that we have been through "tough times" and some of these challenges are new. (Text is here.)
I can understand why the Democrats are upset. Reminding people that we live in a dangerous world may cause them to start asking, "Would I rather have George Bush in charge in a dangerous world? Or Hanoi John?"
More On Plymouth Probate Inventories
One of the interesting aspects of how goods are grouped in these seventeenth century Plymouth probate inventories is how often books and weapons are appraised together as though this were a natural category: Armes wearing Clothes and Lyberary 04 10 00
Books Armes & Amunition 03 05 00
1 Gun and 2 bibles 01 05 06
Things Unseen & Forgotten
It sounds like the title of a very literary book, doesn't it? Or a program on National Public Radio. Actually, it's an item in a probate inventory of Samuel Parker, Sr., "deceased the seauenth of Nouember 1684": Item to half a dozen of Napkins 00 03 00
Those numbers at the right are the valuation in pounds, shillings, and pence. How do you value items that you haven't seen and that no one remembers?
Item to things unseen & forgotten 00 10 00
Something of the appraiser's confidence in his work can be deduced from this line totaling the value of the goods: The sume totall if noe Mistake in Cashing up is 133 06 06
The Passion Continues To Surprise Hollywood
From AP: LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" took in $51.4 million in its second weekend to remain the top movie, racing past the $200 million mark in just 12 days.
If you want to know why Hollywood is surprised, read Michael Medved's Hollywood vs. America. In that book, Medved (who is Jewish) explains that the entertainment industry is severely out of touch with America. Medved reports that when he would ask movers and shakers in the movie business what percentage of Americans regularly attend church, they would often guess, "Oh, about 5%." It is no surprise that they missed the enormous market potential of a film aimed at a Christian market.
...
"The Passion," Gibson's bloody re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion, has grossed $212 million so far in the United States and Canada. The movie is expected to top $300 million, said Bob Berney, president of Newmarket Films. The independent distributor was hired by Gibson to release "The Passion" after Hollywood studios passed on it.
The film, which stars Jim Caviezel as Christ, held up strongly, with receipts down just 39 percent from its huge opening weekend of $83.8 million. Movies debuting to such high numbers often drop 50 percent or more in their second weekends.
"The Passion" propelled Hollywood to a second straight weekend of rising revenues after a prolonged slump. The top 12 movies grossed $131.5 million, up 39 percent from the same weekend last year.
Before "The Passion" opened, box-office revenues had been running 7 percent behind last year's. Two big weekends for "The Passion" have pulled the industry virtually even with last year's receipts, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
...
"The Passion" rode a storm of debate over its grisly violence and accusations of anti-Semitism to become the first religious blockbuster since the 1950s epics "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur."
Its success indicates Christian crowds rarely targeted by filmmakers will flock to theaters when a movie suits them.
"I think it does show there's an ignored market, but the way I look at it, it's film by film. To make this work, you have to have a brilliant film. The audience is very discerning," Berney said.
In the next week, "The Passion" will climb past the $228 million total take for "Signs," the top-grossing movie Gibson has been connected with. Even adjusting Gibson's "Lethal Weapon" grosses for inflation, "The Passion" will be his biggest hit.
"Here's one of the most popular movie stars in the world. Who would have thought he would out-gross all his big summer blockbusters with a movie about the crucifixion?" said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations.
It's Not About Freedom; It's About Power
Seattle's mayor has decided to recognize city employee same-sex marriages performed elsewhere for the purpose of benefits. Okay, stupid, possibly illegal but here's the follow-on ordinance he is proposing that reminds us that it is about coercion, not freedom:The ordinance Nickels was to send to the City Council on Monday defines "spouse" as a husband or wife in a same-sex or opposite-sex marriage.
UPDATE: A Seattle-area homosexual tells me the ordinance is just an extension of the existing requirement imposed on contractors with respect to domestic partners. Can you imagine what would happen if a city in say, Wyoming, prohibited contractors from offering domestic partners coverage for homosexuals? The courts would step in, call it "simple bigotry" and that would the end of that.
If approved, the ordinance would protect gay married couples from discrimination in employment, housing, parks and other city facilities. It also would require contractors doing business with the city to recognize gay marriages among their own employees.
UPDATE 2: Someone asks, "Will the Mayor now direct the relevant city departments to recognize CCW's from other jurisdictions/states with the same vehemence that he insists they recognize these "marriages" - fair is fair?" Washington State, you see, does not recognize concealed handgun licenses issued by other states. At least such a policy would involve recognizing lawfully issued licenses, not ones out of a Cracker Jack box.
Age of Consent
A reader points out that the same crowd (like Justice Ginsburg) that argues that the age of consent for sex should be lowered to 12, based on an assumption that young teens are capable of making rational decisions and resisting pressure from adults, does not usually accept the idea that young teens should be tried as adults for crimes. Why? There needs to be some consistency on this. If you are legally competent to make decisions about sex and abortion, why aren't you legally competent to be tried for murder as an adult?
