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Labels: child sexual abuse Labels: humor
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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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That Newt Gingrich Quote
Sometime back in 1994-95, when Gingrich (along with a lot of other people) was promoting a fundamental change in the welfare system, Gingrich made a statement that struck me as common sense. (Many law professors doubtless see his statement as a sign of lunacy and narrow-mindedness.) Gingrich said something to the effect that a society cannot long survive where children are smoking pot at 12, having sex at 13, and doing drive-by shootings at 14. I remember seeing him say it on television--but I can't seem to find the quote on the Internet. Can anyone help me on this?
Recognizing "Pump and Dump"
A co-worker about my age forwarded me a copy of an email "investment newsletter" that he had been receiving on a trial basis, and that was now asking for him to subscribe. As I looked through it, I found myself suddenly suspicious that it was actually a "pump and dump" scheme done with a bit more cleverness than usual. Along with hyping a Chinese fertilizer company's stock, this newsletter had some mildly interesting but not terribly brilliant financial insights and subtle pro-Kerry stock market discussion. When I explained my concerns, I was startled to find that this guy with a Ph.D. did not know what "pump and dump" is. I fear that some of my readers may be in the same boat.
In the coarsest form, "pump and dump" means that lucky you receives an email from an "investment specialist" telling you that company X is about to experience dramatic appreciation in company valuation, and therefore stock price. The specialist's recommendation is STRONG BUY. They aren't asking you to buy through them, and at first glance, it might seem as though you have been fortunate enough to have received a very hot stock tip. (You, along with perhaps 500,000 other selectively picked email addresses.)
The company is often obscure, hard to research, especially on short notice, with a stock price in single digits, and a relatively small volume of shares traded daily. The market opportunity is narrow; the price will rise in the next few days. If you and a few hundred other suckers run out and start buying shares, indeed, the stock price will rise. To get the best price on the broker's commission, you will buy at least 100 shares, and perhaps 1000 shares. (Hey, it's only a $2 a share stock--you can afford to buy $2000 worth.) If there are only a few million shares outstanding, only 50,000 shares trade daily, and 500 suckers buy 100 shares each, that extra 50,000 shares is going to bump up the price quite dramatically. Indeed, the "hot tip" is self-fulfilling. You and the other suckers will drive up the price by buying.
Company X was trading at $2 a share before the "hot tip" went out. The tipster bought 50,000 shares. After you and the other 500 suckers have driven the price up to $4 a share over a day or two period--and while the buyers still have the sellers outnumbered--the guy who sent you the "hot tip" sells his 50,000 shares, and makes $100,000 profit.
The stock, unfortunately, will only keep rising as long as the suckers who read that email are still buying. What happens when the buyers stop buying? People who bought the stock at $2 a share with no knowledge of the "pump and dump" scheme will see an opportunity to sell their stock, but eventually, the pre-frenzy conditions return, and especially after the tipster's 50,000 shares start to flood the market, the stock price will start returning to $2 a share. Those suckers who are watching the stock carefully will see the fall, and sell--and perhaps make a small profit, but most will find that the price has fallen back down to $2 a share.
If you are lucky, you will get out without losing much more than the broker's commissions on buying and selling the stock. Or perhaps the stock will collapse so much from the sudden dumping of the tipster's stock that you will end up 100 shares of stock that can only be sold for $1.25 a share. Because it was a thinly traded stock, you might have to sell those 100 shares in several small chunks, each sale involving higher broker's commissions because of that.
You have made nothing, and perhaps lost a bit. The tipster, however, has made perhaps 50% or 100% on his initial investment. What the tipster has done, manipulating the stock price by spreading rumors to drive up the stock price, is illegal in the U.S. If the SEC can prove a connection between the tipster and the person who bought 50,000 shares three weeks ago, and sold it today, then someone is going to prison. But I would imagine that a clever person could probably arrange of this such that it would be a hard case to prove, and perhaps even a hard case to detect. (They do a better job than you might think on detecting insider trading. I've seen an example at a rival employer a few years ago, and the engineer who gave the information to a friend to arrange a spectacular kill, I'm sure regretted it by the time the SEC finished with the two of them.)
Back in 1990, when the company I worked for was bought out by DSC, the fact that all of us had made a modest amount of money on the buyout was a matter of public record. Within a few weeks, every engineer I worked with found himself besieged by phone calls at the office from "investment specialists" telling us about these wonderful opportunities in obscure companies. Some of these, in retrospect, were "pump and dump" schemes; others were probably just outright fraud from some boiler room operation pretending to be an investment firm.
The wonders of email allows "pump and dump" to operate at lower cost because you can pump the stock to thousands of people with no marginal cost, and because all those emails cause effects in hours, you can get much sharper rise and fall curves on stocks. Isn't technology grand?
Instapundit Thinks That Lowering the Drinking Age to 18 Would Help
But I am a little skeptical. These sort of problems are widespread, because we live in a culture that glorifies drinking, and provides no adult supervision to college students: NORMAN, Okla. — A 19-year-old student whose body was found the morning after a party in a fraternity house died from alcohol poisoning, officials said Friday.
Unfortunately, this problem is widespread, because a lot of college fraternities and sororities really are like Animal House--but without the laughs.
Blake Adam Hammontree had a blood alcohol level of 0.42 when he died, or five times the legal limit for drunken driving, said Kevin Rowland, chief investigator for the state medical examiner.
Yes, yes, I know that anyone 18 and over is an adult in America. But it seems like these recurrent news stories about alcohol poisoning deaths, student riots over sports, etc., suggest that a lot of 18 year olds are adults only in a legal sense--certainly not in the sense of being responsible.
It Helps To Know Who Your Enemy Is
This is a tragedy--and one that suggests that al-Qaeda isn't so much Islamic fundamentalism as just people that like to see suffering and death, and are quite prepared to slaughter fellow Muslims who aren't in 100% agreement with them: SIALKOT, Pakistan — A suicide attacker detonated a huge bomb inside a crowded Shiite Muslim mosque in eastern Pakistan during Friday prayers, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens, officials said.
Experts defused a second 11-pound bomb outside the same mosque shortly afterward in this city about 145 miles southeast of Islamabad (search), police said.
Police said hundreds of people were inside the Zainabia mosque at the time of the blast, which left body parts scattered inside.
...
The Al Qaeda operative killed in a shootout last weekend, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, was believed to be behind the kidnapping and beheading in 2002 of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (search) and two failed assassination attempts on Musharraf that killed 17 others in December.
Officials said Farooqi recruited for Al Qaeda in Pakistan and was responsible for other bombings against Shiite Muslims. He also was a member of the Sunni Muslim militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (search).
A Shiite leader in the main southern city of Karachi said Friday's bombing was retaliation for Farooqi's killing.
"Definitely, it was the work of the friends of Farooqi," cleric Allama Hassan Turabi (search) told AP. "The people who planned this attack perhaps don't understand that we are not supporters of America. ... We are also against America."
What Does It Take To Make Kerry Happy?
Kerry keeps saying that Bush needed our allies, UN backing, and so on for the Iraq War. Larry Kudlow points out what happened on the First Gulf War: Time and again on the campaign trail Kerry argues for a grand international alliance to win the Iraq war. He repeated this in the debate. But in 1991 the U.S. headed a grand alliance of 36 nations that was fully backed by a United Nations resolution. And Kerry still opposed that war to liberate Kuwait. The U.N.-backed coalition included Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar. All the pieces were there, including the cause of justice. Still he voted against it. How, knowing this, can anyone believe Kerry when he says he will show us a better way to defeat our terrorist enemies today?
If ever there was a military action that passed the “global test” — which Kerry argued for in the debate — the Persian Gulf War was it. It overwhelmingly met Kerry’s dubious standard — and still he opposed it. This reveals a credibility problem of the first order. Almost defining credulity, Kerry said in a brief statement on the Senate floor, in an accompaniment to his vote against the Persian Gulf War, that “The president made a mistake to unilaterally increase troops, set a date, and make war so probable.”
Too Hot, Too Cold, Never Just Right
This news story reports: More than 350 people who have committed crimes or are suspected of terrorist links have been arrested in a federal crackdown on foreigners with visa violations, part of a broader effort to prevent al-Qaida from disrupting U.S. elections.
It's hard to argue with that, right? Well, sure it is:
Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Homeland Security Department component known as ICE, are matching identities of visa violators nationwide with names on secret government terrorism databases in hopes of finding al-Qaida operatives.
"We're intensifying it in the days leading up to the election," ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said Friday.Advocates for Muslims and Arab-Americans don't fault the government for pursuing people in the United States illegally. But they say the FBI and ICE efforts, taken together, are triggering renewed fears that U.S. counterterrorism officials are targeting people based on their religion or ethnic or national origin.
Gosh! Can you imagine that! Why, our government seems to think that there is more risk of terrorists who are from Muslim and Arab countries! Why aren't they pursuing people from Scandinavian countries! Just think of all the terrorist attacks America has suffered from Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, and Icelanders!
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said in a statement that it had been contacted by ICE officials after raising concerns that the initiative "will be selectively carried out against Muslims and Arabs." Even after those talks, the group said it remained worried ICE would base many of its investigations on a government registry of men from 24 mostly Muslim and Arab countries.Advocacy groups also raised concerns about the FBI interviews. They say agents appear to be targeting some people multiple times.
Let's see, if they did mass roundups, the "advocacy groups" would be upset (and rightly so) because of how undiscriminating they were--but go back to people about whom the FBI has obtained information that gives them reason to be suspicious--that's not okay either, apparently.
Justice Department officials acknowledge the FBI is talking to people who have been helpful in the past but also to many others when they gain new information about them.
ICE officials insist their investigations are triggered only by alleged visa violations, not by a person's ethnicity, religion or national origin. Priority is given to "high-risk" violators whose names appear to match any of those compiled by the government's Terrorist Screening Center, a new FBI-run operation to consolidate U.S. lists of suspected terrorists and sympathizers.
ACLU Gets Caught Stretching the Truth--And Snarls
Orin Kerr, who blew the whistle on how news organizations misreported a recent decision as a defeat of the Patriot Act--based on a very misleading ACLU press release--now reports on their efforts to cover their dishonesty: So wait-- there is an alleged campaign to mislead the American people because someone sent an e-mail to Senate leaders and their staffers? Wow. That's quite a campaign.
Yup. Of course, this doesn't surprise a lot of Americans, who know that the ACLU largely abandoned their original civil liberties mission after the Skokie neo-Nazi march, and became just another leftist pressure group--admittedly, one with the enthusiastic support of a big chunk of the judges in the U.S.--but not a group particularly committed to either truth or the Constitution.
More substantively, note how the ACLU has shifted ground from its original position to something rather different. In its original press release, the ACLU claimed that the court had struck down a key provision of the Patriot Act in a rebuke to the Bush Administration. This time around, the ACLU makes no mention of its earlier claim and instead vigorously defends different, more accurate ground — that this was a 1986 law that was expanded by the Patriot Act. This is true. But who has said anything to the contrary? That is, except the ACLU?
Professor Kerr goes on to say: The ACLU does lots and lots of great work, and the organization has played a vital role in many areas of law.
Notice "has played": yup, the ACLU has a great history behind them--and that's largely where it is: behind them. The lawsuit over the presence of a cross on a mission in the Los Angeles County seal really shows me how far they have fallen.
But it seems to me that when you get caught trying to play games like this, it doesn't help your credibility to switch positions and then "blast" your critics for mounting "a concerted campaign to mislead the American public." I expect better from the ACLU, and I am disappointed by this.
I used to expect better from the ACLU. But I've woken up, and see them for what they are.
Eliminating Mandatory Reporting of Sexual Abuse of Children
Michael Williams has a bit about a recently signed California law that repealed the requirement to report child sexual abuse--for volunteers. It appears that the motivation is to protect Planned Parenthood. Michael mentions that one group claims that Planned Parenthood in California has seen 30,000 children--and never reported child sexual abuse. Considering that about 1/3 of girls and perhaps 1/10 of boys are sexually abused, it strains credulity to believe that Planned Parenthood is actually reporting sexual abuse, as they have been required to do so until now.
As I have mentioned previously, experiments done to find out if Planned Parenthood is reporting statutory rape indicate that it does not, and reassures callers who claim to be as young as 13 that their adult boyfriends who got them pregnant won't be reported.
Now, I understand why Planned Parenthood believes that it would not be good to be required to report sexual abuse of children. This might cause some of those children to not seek contraception or abortions. But the net effect is to make it safer for adult men to sexually abuse children. For that reason, I am surprised that the ACLU didn't file suit alleging that requiring reporting violated the right of free speech.
Not A Good Sign
I visited the volcano cam at Mt. St. Helens, and sure enough, it showed a cloud rising from the volcano. Now that page is "unavailable." I'll hope that this is because Drudge Report linked to it, and the server is overloaded in an IP sense, not overloaded in the pyroclastic sense.
The Advantages of Being Armed and Having a Skill
From Cushing, Thomas, History of Allegheny County, (Part 2) pp. 209-260: His father, John Varner, came from Lancaster county, Pa. He was a soldier in the Revolution, and a gunsmith by trade, which fact saved his life during the whisky insurrection. When the insurgents burned Neville’s house, being opposed to them, Mr. Varner feared similar treatment; so, sending his family away, he loaded all his guns and awaited the attack, which never came, his services in his trade being valued by the insurgents.
The subscription service Accessible Archives has recently added an enormous collection of county histories written in the latter half of the 19th century. As history, they aren't terribly impressive, being closer to boosterism and chronicle than real history, but they do contain an astonishing number of tax lists that identify early American gunsmiths. They are very numerous.
The Social Conservative End of the Supreme Court Bench Speaks
At least, two different newspapers are reporting this: But Scalia said his personal views on social issues have no bearing on his courtroom decisions.
It makes you wonder about the liberal end of that bench--and what they are wearing under those black robes.
“I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged,” Scalia said.
UPDATE: I am finding this story harder and harder to believe. CNN covered it, and makes no mention of this outrageous statement. If Clinton News Network wouldn't have given this enormous attention, who would? I notice that no one else is reporting this. I smell a libel suit coming. This would qualify as something that even under the relaxed standards of New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) would allow a public figure to win.
UPDATE 2: I notice that the article claiming this in the Guardian is datelined New York--which makes me suspect that they were just copying the Daily Crimson article, which is, after all, a student newspaper. (Student journalist: someone still learning the fine art of the profession, which involves telling believeable lies.)
UPDATE 3: A little simpler explanation from AP: He made a similar remark in a speech Sept. 20 in Washington, to chuckles from the crowd at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, while making the point that judges can have personal moral judgments. It is not judges' role to impose them on citizens, he said.
It sounds like the Harvard Crimson reporter needs to understand the concept of a "hypothetical" argument.
"Let me make it clear that the problem I am addressing is not the social evil of the judicial dispositions I have described. I accept, for the sake of argument, for example, that sexual orgies eliminate social tension and ought to be encouraged," Scalia said with a smile.
???
I saw this blog entry over at Adeimantus: Michael Moore apologizes to the nation for exploiting 9/11 and does his bit for homeland security...
I really scratched my head over it. Would the link take me to a very clever Scrappleface satire? No, much better. Click over yourself! (If you don't see the humor, visit here as well.)
Someone Is Sacrificing; Someone Else Is Whining
I mentioned a couple of days ago about CBS's dishonest article about bringing back the draft, and a mother concerned that her two sons might be drafted. Instapundit has posted an email from a parent whose son is in Iraq, emphasizing that they don't want draftees alongside them: I can guarantee you, because I had this conversation with Josh and with his comrades-in-arms, they DO NOT WANT conscripted kids with them. At home, hey are the finest men this country has to offer. Polite, generous and even lightly patriotic. At work they are the worst enemy of people who attack the S. They are committed to what they do. They don't need whining, snotty children linging to mommy's apron who they would have to babysit.
Yup. Mr. Becker should be proud to have a son who believes in something greater than just his own immediate happiness. It is amusing to me that the left spends so much time lecturing the rest of the society about the importance of being public-spirited, of being concerned for the greater good, and how everyone should look forward to being taxed and regulated for that purpose--but get their noses all bent out of shape about a draft for which only they are asking.
...
And please, don't fear for your sons. My son and his friends, WILLINGLY sleeping in holes in the sand and eating MRE's will make sure you and your sons can all sleep well in your soft beds after a quiet dinner.
Michael Becker
Phoenix, AZ
very proud father of LCpl Josh. The best man we know...
That line about sleeping in the sand so that the whiners can sleep well reminds me of Orwell's famous line: People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Which Candidate Has Made The "Legalize Rape" Promise?
And why haven't the media been covering this?
Obviously, one of them did, or that astute political observer Cameron Diaz wouldn't have said this: Ms. DIAZ: We have a voice now, and we're not using it, and women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. We could lo--if you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote, and those are the...
UPDATE: Seriously, Cameron Diaz makes statements like this, and the phrase "dumb blonde" comes to mind.
Is Kerry Abandoning Missouri?
This report indicates that the DNC has ceased television advertising there: 10. The DNC "no longer is airing TV ads" in MO. An ad analyst "says the DNC's departure leaves the impression" that John Kerry "is ceding" MO to Pres. Bush, "especially because Kerry ended his own" MO ads two months ago. ... The DNC's last TV ad in MO ran 9/24. TNSMI's Evan Tracey: "My guess is that they have chosen to 'cut and run.'" DNC spokesperson Chris Mather "denied that was the case," and said MO "is still considered a battleground." She "cited two radio ads" the DNC is airing "on St. Louis and Kansas City stations with predominantly black listeners."
So why is Missouri no longer a battleground state? As I pointed out in August, the state constitutional amendment to define marriage as "one man, one woman" brought a lot of voters to the primary polls who do not usually vote. I think it is fair to say that many of these voters are far more likely to vote for George Bush than for John Kerry (who, like on most issues, has played on both teams). Has the homosexual lobby, in its inordinate need for approval, played a destructive role for the Democratic Party?
Accuracy From Journalists
Orrin Kerr over at Volokh Conspiracy reports that news coverage of the decision by a federal judge yesterday striking down part of the Patriot Act is, in fact, not about the Patriot Act at all, but a 1986 law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Hey, what's a little inaccuracy when you have a crusade to fight?
UPDATE: The actual decision is here. While Patriot Act did make a revision to the ECPA (discussed on pages 20-22), that's not what this decision is about. The big issues here are:
1. May the government may issue a directive to an ISP to turn over information to the FBI about a particular subscriber suspected of terrorism or espionage?
2. May the government do this without a judge issuing a warrant?
3. May the government prohibit the ISP from disclosing that information to anyone?
Question #3 doesn't seem all that serious at first glance, except for the fact that there seems to be no method of appealing the government's decision to keep this secret.
Question #2 seems a more serious question, although I get the impression that the request for information here, based on existing use of pen registers and other antiquated phone technology, is that some of this information has not been found to require a warrant. I don't know for sure, but I can see why it would be a legitimate question.
Question #1 doesn't seem like even a serious question to me--provided question #2 is properly answered.
UPDATE 2: Professor Kerr points out here that it appears that the news stories came from an ACLU press release that got it wrong. (I'm being charitable to the ACLU.) Unfortunately, from my experience with subjects on which I have any expert knowledge, journalists usually rewrite press releases from interest groups--and generally interest groups with a leftist spin.
The Equivalents to the Minutemen
Michael Moore compared the insurgents to the Minutemen a while back. Yes, I can really picture the Minutemen doing this: BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Three bombs exploded at a neighborhood celebration Thursday in western Baghdad, killing 35 children and seven adults, officials said. Hours earlier, a suicide car bomb killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis on the capital's outskirts.
Michael Moore is an apologist for murderers. Of course, he's a leftist. That just goes with the territory.
The bombs in Baghdad's al-Amel neighborhood caused the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the conflict in Iraq began 17 months ago. The children, who were still on school vacation, said they had been drawn to the scene by American soldiers handing out candy.
Stories Like This Make Me Wonder How Low The Mainstream Media Will Go
This is from an article in the Tennessean, in which one of their columnists relates what he found out from talking to Marines in Iraq. Part of this indicates that NBC is engaging in at least questionable journalistic practices as part of their "Defeat Bush" campaign: Consider this story Rose saw reported: ''I was going through the battle damage assessment at my desk with NBC's Today on the TV. The attack occurred in the middle of the night. I had the footage of the attack on my computer, and here's Katie Couric (or whoever hosts it) showing the same bomb location.
And there are other examples of significant news that is not being reported, that should be:
''I had pictures of the bombed vehicles, which is how I knew she was talking about the same location. The next shot is kids being carried into a hospital. We had eyes on this for a long time. If there were kids in there, they were toting weapons or the terrorists used them as human shields. …
''I went to our Combat Operations Center and walked into them watching the same thing. I verified what I thought and spoke with our intelligence guys. They said the whole thing was staged and probably old footage. They track the footage and have seen repeat footage shown in the past. They also said to look at the footage and see if it makes sense. More often than not, it doesn't … pulling a child from rubble with relatively clean clothes. ''''The Najaf shrine — HUNDREDS of dead women and children were brought out after Sadr left,'' Rose wrote. ''They (Sadr's supporters) rounded them up during the battle and brought them in to be executed. Why? Because they anticipated the Americans would eventually enter the shrine and walk into a media ambush. We never went in. The people of Najaf love us right now because of that. They hate Sadr and want him dead.
This sounds like it should have been a major story. But it reflects badly on anti-U.S. insurgents, so don't expect any coverage of it on ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN.
''Have you heard that one yet (in the media)?''
No we haven't. We just get one side. That's bad journalism — by a news media acting in concert with Kerry.
Is there anything that the mainstream media won't do to defeat Bush?
No Terrorists Crossing The Border?
That's apparently what Tom Ridge thinks. This blogger points out the story that I covered as well--about an al-Qaeda member who crossed illegally a few weeks back.
What Are They Putting in San Francisco's Water?
From CNN: City prosecutors Wednesday said it was not illegal to perform naked yoga in the city -- even at the crowded tourist destination of Fisherman's Wharf.
You know, nudity isn't the worst of things that they do in public in San Francisco: it's the naked guys having (or simulating well) sex on floats in the middle of Market Street. But if the people of San Francisco want to live in a freak show, that's their business.
Prosecutors dropped charges against a limber nudist, known locally as the "Naked Yoga Guy," who made a habit of striking yoga poses in the buff in order to promote a book and his lifestyle.
The Naked Yoga Guy, whose name is George Monty Davis, had stripped to stretch nearby Fisherman's Wharf, prompting a public complaint. But prosecutors decided they had a weak public nuisance case against him because local laws do not bar public nudity.
Is This Really The Only Way For The Democrats To Turn Out The Vote?
Maybe I really don't want to use that phrase "turn out" for this story: (U-WIRE) BOSTON - If you're sick of the same-old, same-old in bed, a group of Harvard and Columbia University alumni are hoping college students will try a new type of orgasm that can only be obtained through voting - a votergasm.
Hmmm. Sort of the inverse of Aristophanes Lysistrata, where the women of Athens withhold sex to stop a war. Is this really the only way to get young men to vote? Or is this a way to get ugly young men with bad complexions to vote? Does this qualify as procuring an act of prostitution? Will any young voter do?
Votergasm.org President Michelle Collins defined the dually functioning verb and noun.
"When you go out vote and have hot sex with a young voter, culminating and completing that cycle, you have completed a votergasm," Collins said.
Votergasm.org is an online voter initiative campaign launched Sept. 4 to get 100,000 people nationwide to pledge to have sex with voters on election night and withhold sex from non-voters.
With 6,000 pledges to the cause, Collins said she anticipates "intense, multiple votergasms" the night of Nov. 2.
"Young people these days are hot," said Collins, a freelance writer. "They look better than ever, and they've got an opinion that really matters. Why not combine these things and make voting sexy and hot?"
I suppose if the point is to promote political action, then this means that those of who write political blogs (and thus cause many people to vote) deserve proportionately more attention, does it not?
More Symbolic Than Meaningful
This is still nice to see, even though it will never pass the Senate: WASHINGTON — A bill that would repeal most local gun laws in the nation's capital passed the House Wednesday, over the objections of city officials including the mayor and police chief.
The article goes on to point out the enormous problem that DC has with guns--many of which are completely unlawful in the District. So if the criminals aren't disarmed by these laws, why keep them?
...
The bill would repeal D.C's ban on semiautomatic weapons, allow guns and ammunition to be kept in homes and businesses, and do away with the requirement that firearms be registered. A companion Senate bill has already been withdrawn.
If the only people affected by DC's gun laws were criminals, then, sure, it wouldn't make any sense to repeal the existing laws. If these laws kept even one gun out of a DC criminal's hands and made no other difference, the laws would be useful. But DC's gun laws affect another substantial group: DC residents who aren't criminals, and are unable to own guns for self-defense. Who is more affected by these gun laws? The criminals, or their victims? It should be obvious to all but the most moronic that people prepared to commit murder, rape, and robbery, aren't terribly much concerned about something as trivial as a gun control law.
Decent people, however, with no criminal history, have a lot to worry about if they get caught with an unlawfully possessed firearm. They will be arrested, probably go to jail after conviction, and likely lose their job.
The criminals, on the other hand, aren't much bothered by any of these things. It's just part of the cost of doing business as a predator.
The Kerry Campaign Has Been Reminding Me of the 1984 Mondale Campaign
The same increasingly desperate rhetoric (remember the last minute campaign ads complaining that Reagan was going to develop SDI and then give it to the Soviet Union?), the increasingly tight-lipped and self-righteous body language of the candidate. Now I see the final admission that Kerry is desperate, and thinks he's going to lose: WASHINGTON - Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson joined the campaign of Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) on Wednesday as a poll showed support for the presidential candidate slipping among black Americans, a critical Democratic constituency.
Why is Jesse Jackson described as "civil rights activist"? Wouldn't the proper term be, "genteel extortionist and shakedown artist"?
The Pew Research Center said Tuesday its latest poll showed 73 percent of blacks supporting Kerry compared to 12 percent supporting President Bush (news - web sites). In 2000, Al Gore (news - web sites) won 90 percent of the black vote.
And why is Kerry losing so much of the black vote? Do you suppose that the gay marriage issue (on which Kerry, it seems, swings both ways) is the problem with what is, after all, a socially pretty conservative group?
CBS Continues With Its Dishonesty
This article about parents terrified about their children being drafted: "I go to bed every night and I pray and I actually get sick to my stomach," she says. "I'm very worried; I'm scared. I'm absolutely scared; I'm petrified."
Look: the only people pushing for a draft right now are Democrats--hoping to turn this into a method of generating popular opposition to the Iraqi war. I blogged about this in February, when the left was circulating a "the draft is coming back" email. That John Kerry claims Bush is going to bring back the draft when all the evidence is that only the Democrats want a military draft, is just dishonest fear-mongering on Kerry's part.
Beverly is petrified about a military draft – and she's not alone. There's an undercurrent of anxiety; mass e-mails are circulating among parents worried their kids could be called up.
"I think there's a good possibility," Beverly says.
But neither President Bush, nor Sen. John Kerry has said he will re-institute the draft. In fact they both say they won't.
Please Tell Me This is a Misquote
From Variety: Rep. Joe Barton (news, bio, voting record) (R-Texas), chair of the House Commerce Committee, told a meeting of the TV engineering trade group MSTV in Washington that broadcast network news divisions "need to have safeguards to prevent reporters from infusing their opinions into news reports."
There is no way to prevent this--except, perhaps, by ending television news. A more worthwhile question to ask is whether news organizations are really in the business of news, or promoting a particular political agenda.
Stopping Sobriety Checks For The Wrong Reasons
From the Oakland Tribune: OAKLAND -- Oakland police officers have stopped setting up roadblocks to check whether drivers are under the influence because of a rash of complaints from the Latino community and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente.
I'm no fan of these, "stop everyone and ask them questions" approaches. They waste a lot of time for law-abiding people headed somewhere, and I really question if they are that much more extra value for catching drunk drivers compared to looking for those who are driving badly. But this is the wrong reason to stop these sort of checkpoints--because they are catching people who are here illegally, driving without licenses, and almost certainly without car insurance. Being an illegal alien is almost a technicality compared to driving without car insurance.
The checkpoints, which allow officers to demand licenses and proof of insurance, are an effective way to get drunken drivers off Oakland's streets, city leaders agree. But the checks also have ensnared dozens of illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive yet otherwise obey the law.
"These checkpoints make people's lives miserable, not make them safer," said Jesus Rodriguez of Oakland Community Organizations, which filed most of the complaints about the checkpoints. "I've watched while the police have towed away cars (full) of groceries, leaving children crying on the sidewalk."
That sentence, however, that ends: "illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive yet otherwise obey the law." Let's see: they are breaking two laws (illegally here, unlicensed to drive) but "otherwise obey the law." That's rather like saying, "other than a little matter of drunk and disorderly and getting into a fist fight, these are law-abiding people." I mean, 1.5429 is, other than having a fractional component, a whole number.
Ex-Felons Are Allowed To Vote In Idaho
This was a surprise. I heard something on the local public radio station last night about how the ACLU is engaged in an outreach program to inform felons who have completed their sentences that they are eligible to vote in Idaho. (With the exception of those convicted of treason--they appear to lose the right to vote forever. See Idaho Code sec. 18-310.)
I have somewhat mixed feelings on this. Once someone has completed their sentence, why should they not get their rights back? On the other hand, I see no particular good reason for murderers, rapists, robbers, and other dregs of society to have any influence on elections at all. (Doubtless this is the reason that the ACLU is so interested in making sure that ex-felons vote here in Idaho.)
SUV Ownership
Those who bought SUVs and really didn't need them, are feeling the full consequences right now. I don't have any ideological objection to SUVs--I do find myself wondering what most buyers of these behemoths were thinking.
I have a need for something that large about once or twice a year--and it is a lot cheaper to rent something that size for a week on those rare occasions when I need it.
Academic Corner-Cutting: It's Becoming Epidemic At The Better Schools
From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard constitutional law scholar Laurence H. Tribe ’62 apologized yesterday for not properly crediting another professor’s work in his popular 1985 book God Save This Honorable Court, one day after a conservative political magazine accused him of plagiarism.
Dr. Ralph Luker became quite irritated with me a few weeks back for expressing my contempt at how widespread the problems of professional standards have become among historians. These are law professors, of course, not historians--but what is it about the academic community that it seems to have so many professors breaking the rules that they apply to their students? These aren't at third-string schools, either: Harvard and Emory are both top-flight institutions.
The Weekly Standard posted an article on its website Saturday charging Tribe with using language that closely mirrors sections of Henry J. Abraham’s 1974 book on Supreme Court appointments, Justices and Presidents.
And at one point in his 1985 book, Tribe lifts a 19-word passage verbatim from Abraham’s text.
...
Tribe’s mea culpa comes just three weeks after another prominent Harvard faculty member—Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree—publicly apologized for copying six paragraphs almost word-for-word from a Yale scholar in a recent book, All Deliberate Speed.
Last fall, Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz also battled plagiarism charges. And in 2002, Harvard Overseer Doris Kearns Goodwin admitted that she had accidently copied passages from another scholar in her bestseller The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.
University President Lawrence H. Summers told The Crimson in an interview last week—before the allegations against Tribe surfaced—that he did not see “a big trend” of plagiarism problems at the Law School as a result of the charges against Ogletree and Dershowitz, but indicated that a third case would change his mind.
“If you had a third one, then I would have said, okay, you get to say this is a special thing, a focused problem at the Law School,” Summers said of the recent academic dishonesty cases.
He declined comment last night.
I think the biggest problem is that when you have institutions that spend most of their time promoting the idea that right and wrong are not absolutes--some of the professors start to act on that idea.
Dealing With the Uninsured
The problem of the uninsured is a bit more complex than it is usually portrayed. There are (at least) the following categories of uninsured Americans:
1. Those who are unemployed, and are therefore not covered by an employer's health plan. In theory, COBRA was supposed to solve this problem, at least for those out of work for upto eighteen months. The problem is that COBRA only lasts as long as your former employer maintains a health insurance plan. My previous employer stopped paying health insurance premiums (and office rent, and paychecks), so I couldn't COBRA. (I don't think they went bankrupt; that would have been too organized.) I had to switch to an individual health insurance plan. It was available, but it wasn't cheap. A friend who was unemployed out in California ran into this problem as well. He had some pre-existing health conditions that made it effectively impossible for him to get individual health insurance, and his employer went out of business, preventing him from using COBRA. He had made a bit of money in startups, but he still needed health insurance, and was willing to pay for it--and for practical purposes, he couldn't get it.
2. Those who are employed, but the employer does not provide health insurance. There are a lot of small businesses like that, and the bulk of this discussion will be about a solution to this problem. Before you get too self-righteous--a lot of these are small businesses with 10-15 employees, most of them minimum wage or just a bit above that level. These businesses are profitable, but not spectacularly so. If they had to provide health insurance, they would probably just close up shop. Most of their employees would either end up in category 1, or working for Wal-Mart or other large employers with health insurance.
3. Those whose employers provide health insurance, but the premiums paid by the employee are very high. These employers are providing health insurance at their cost, providing no subsidy to the insurance. This is not wonderful, but it is better than category 2 employers, who do not even have a group health insurance program available. Unfortunately, the employees are usually very poorly paid, and either cannot afford the premiums, or believe that they are better off taking the risk of being uninsured.
4. Not everyone in category 3 is really unable to afford health insurance. Some decide that they really do not need it. Sometimes this is a carefully studied risk equation. "I'm 22, I'm in good health, I almost never see a doctor. Why should I spend $400 a month on health insurance premiums?" More often, I suspect, this is an uncalculated risk--people who don't think about it, and decide that they have better places to spend $400 a month.
5. Sometimes this is a temporary situation. I can remember being uninsured for about nine months when I was 20 or so, and I just wasn't thinking about it. As soon as I started to think about it, I ran out and bought at least catastrophic coverage.
6. Self-employed people (including some who choose not to work at a regular job) who can afford to buy individual health insurance, but simply will not spend the money.
There are probably more categories as well that I can't think of right now. Trying to boil the whole problem down to, "evils of capitalism" or "evils of the Republican Party" just doesn't fly. I am willing to believe that for the majority of uninsured in America, the core problem is that they just don't make enough money to afford their own insurance. But I wouldn't assume that this is an overwhelming majority of the uninsured.
To get the poor uninsured covered is almost certainly going to require redistribution of income--something that I am loath to do, but realistically, when medical providers write off bills as charity cases, they are redistributing the money from paying customers. It may be more efficient for the hospital to do this then for the federal government to tax you, filter the money through several bureaucracies, before it ends up with the hospital, but cost-shifting is income redistribution, nonetheless.
I know people who are making the conscious decision to be unemployed and uninsured (including their kids), because "God will provide." This seems foolish to me, but it is not a problem of poverty, except for being self-inflicted poverty. We can certainly solve this problem by providing health insurance for everyone, whether they are willing to pay for it or not. But why should all taxpayers be required to pay for health insurance for those who choose to be unemployed, or underemployed?
If I were to retire right now, and devote myself to writing history books, and blogging, my second biggest monthly expense (right after the mortgage) would be health insurance premiums. If the government were to step in and provide insurance for everyone, it would create a strong incentive for me to quit working for a big company, and do what I want to do. This would be good for me (or at least enjoyable for me), but it would not be good for the country as a whole to subsidize millions of productive people going into early retirement.
Now, I don't have a general solution here, but remember "the perfect is the enemy of the good." There seem to be a number of incremental solutions that simply aren't going anywhere. The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), whose members would seem to employ a lot of category 2 and 3 people, wants Congress to change the provisions of ERISA that regulate health insurance plans so that small businesses could form their own insurance pools. If you only have 10 employees, you get a lousy health insurance premium cost; if you have 40,000 employees, you get a much better price, partly because of economies of scale, but mostly because you don't end up with one very, very sick person whose employment is largely fictious taking advantage of a group health insurance plan--while only nine other employees pay premiums.
According to this web site promoting what they call Association Health Plans, small businesses are subject to state regulation right now, and this is supposedly much more onerous than being able to operate under ERISA's requirements. Moving AHPs under ERISA would allow small businesses to pool emmployees across state lines, gaining the advantages that large employers and labor unions have right now with group health insurance.
Not surprisingly, we don't hear John Kerry talking about AHPs. The opponents of this change include, of course, big insurers and the AMA: However, opponents say deregulated AHPs will benefit few small businesses, while fragmenting local insurance risk pools. If exempt from state laws, AHPs would be able to cherry-pick healthy employees, shifting an unfair burden onto insurers that currently provide coverage for individuals and small groups, according to a BlueCross BlueShield Assn. report.
I keep reading this carefully, and as near as I can tell, the opposition is that AHPs would include large numbers of people that right now are covered under individual and small group insurance plans--to the detriment of insurance companies that like to charge higher rates for these plans.
The Democrats do not want AHPs to operate like labor union group health insurance plans--it would take away a key advantage that labor unions currently enjoy relative to the overwhelmingly non-unionized small businesses that make up the NFIB. (Bush, of course, supports this change.) But is it really fair for this favoritism for labor unions and big corporations to keep millions of the uninsured from getting affordable health insurance?
UPDATE: One friend points out another common category: people who work for companies with health insurance plans--but who work less than the required number of hours to qualify as "full-time" (typically 30 or 32 hours a week). This requirement that you be "full-time" exists for a good reason; the insurer wants to make sure that people who might otherwise have trouble getting health insurance because of pre-existing conditions aren't put onto the company payroll for one hour a week as a cheap way of getting health insurance. There are a lot of hourly employees out there in this situation, and it means that a lot of spouses are working low wage jobs full-time just to get health insurance for them.
Another friend, in spite of being a self-proclaimed liberal, admitted that he knew of a family that could afford individual health insurance, and needed it--but preferred to buy a brand new SUV instead. Sounding surprisingly unliberal, he admitted that personal responsibility is one of the problems on this as well. I would say that this is one of the areas where John Kerry-style liberalism causes me to be a conservative--the unwillingness of the left, and many liberals, to admit that some of the problem isn't greedy corporations, but irresponsible people who figure that someone else will bail them out of their mess, so why should they buy insurance?
Rape Indictment Against Catholic Bishop
This is so sad: SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Bishop Thomas Dupre, the former head of the Springfield Diocese, was indicted Monday on child rape charges, accused of molesting two boys in the 1970s, the county prosecutor said.
He becomes the first Roman Catholic prelate indicted in the sex abuse scandal within the American church.
Dupre, 70, resigned Feb. 11 after nine years as head of the diocese, one day after The Republican newspaper of Springfield confronted him with allegations he abused two boys while he was a parish priest. Dupre cited health reasons for his departure. He retains the title of bishop.
When Bush Volunteered For Vietnam...
I'm not sure whether to believe this or not--but MSNBC (part of the mainstream media) published it: The standard rap against Bush is that he was ducking combat by joining the Guard. Actually, the Texas Air Guard had a program called Palace Alert that allowed pilots to volunteer for flight time in Vietnam. Three of Bush's fellow pilots—Udell, Woodfin and Fred Bradley—recalled to NEWSWEEK that Bush inquired with the base commander about signing up for Palace Alert. He was told no; he had too few flying hours at the time and his plane, the F-102, was by then deemed obsolete for air combat.
Now, I would like to believe that Bush did this. But I can imagine several alternative scenarios:
1. Udell, Woodfin, and Fred Bradley made up the story to help Bush.
2. Bush volunteered for Palace Alert knowing that he would be turned down because the F-102 was already too ancient a plane for combat against MiG-21s.
Of course, the story could be true, and is only coming out now because Bush, unlike Kerry, isn't running for president based on what he did more than thirty years ago.
File Under "Humor"
I would not encourage anyone to do this. It probably wouldn't really work, and besides, it could be used the other direction, also. But it's still pretty funny! Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their
days interesting. I went to the store the other day. I was only in there for about 5 minutes. When I came out there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. I went up to him and said, "Come on buddy, don't be a jerk. How about giving a senior a break?" He ignored me and continued writing the ticket.
I called him a bad name. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So I called him a way worse name. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket.
This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him, the more tickets he wrote. I didn't care. My car was parked around the corner and this one had a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on it.
I try to have a little fun each day, now that I'm retired.
