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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Saturday, August 27, 2005
We Spent Much of the Day Away My father-in-law wanted his ashes scattered in a pretty place. Is this irrational? As irrational as a coffin that my wife saw at a funeral home that had the option of various nature scenes painted on the inside--but that lacked a reading light. I have lots of pictures to show you of the Payette River, of Redfish Lake, of the Sawtooth Mountains, of interesting geology exposed in road cuts--even some more pictures of the house project. But it is late, there are many pictures, and I have to do a little research to make sure that what looked like a feldspar intrusion really was feldspar, before I blog about it, and make a fool of myself. Armed Bystanders As A Public Good I don't mention every incident that makes it on to the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog--there would be too many--but here's one of the several incidents in which the non-discretionary concealed weapon permit laws that I have long championed saved someone else's life: ALBUQUERQUE -- A man attacking his ex-wife with a knife inside a southeast Albuquerque Wal Mart was shot and killed by a 72-year-old man Thursday evening. Friday, August 26, 2005
Cleaning Out The Closets I have a Sears Craftsman Torque Wrench, 0-100 ft/lbs. I've used it about three times in almost 30 years. Never dropped, still in original box. Make me an offer. RCBS Premium Trigger Pull Scale, used about five times. Still in original box. Make me an offer. TAKEN!!! I have some Pachmayr rubber grips for a Colt Mustang. The left grip panel lost the little Pachmayr medallion very early on. They worked great for helping my wife get a good hold on the gun, but I generally carry the Mustang now, and I didn't want the extra bulk on what is, after all, a pocket gun. This is in the original Pachmayr packaging, and includes the extra long 4-40 screws that you need to fit these on a Mustang. Probably only worth a couple of dollars (plus shipping, which should be cheap). Make me an offer. Black plastic Colt grips for a Colt .380. As is typical for Colt quality assurance in those years, the left side has a gold colored rampant horsey, and the right side has the silver colored rampant horsey. Probably only worth a couple of dollars (plus shipping, which should be cheap). Make me an offer. Black wood (walnut?) Colt grips for a Colt Government Model Series 80. At least they got the medallions to match. Probably only worth a couple of dollars (plus shipping, which should be cheap). Make me an offer. Original Colt stainless steel (brushed finish) standard thumb safety off a Colt Government Model Series 80. (I'm lefthanded, so I switched to the ambidextrous safety immediately.) Probably only worth a couple of dollars (plus shipping, which should be cheap). Make me an offer. Texas Instrument Laser Printer: Free If you live in Boise, and want a 600 dpi laser printer, contact me immediately. The drum needs to be replaced to get rid of a very fine vertical line. Otherwise, it works fine. Is Homosexuality Genetically Determined? Michael Williams points to this article from the Boston Globe that definitely argues that the evidence suggests that homosexuality is, if not genetically predetermined, at least genetically predisposed. To the author's credit, he does acknowledge that a number of the studies that would (or could) suggest a genetic or congenital basis for homosexuality could also be showing differences based on behavior--or attempts to duplicate these studies have yielded much less compelling results: Then, in 1991, a neuroscientist in San Diego named Simon LeVay told the world he had found a key difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men he studied. LeVay showed that a tiny clump of neurons of the anterior hypothalamus - which is believed to control sexual behavior - was, on average, more than twice the size in heterosexual men as in homosexual men. LeVay's findings did not speak directly to the nature-vs.-nurture debate - the clumps could, theoretically, have changed size because of homosexual behavior. But that seemed unlikely, and the study ended up jump-starting the effort to prove a biological basis for homosexuality.Some of the research efforts involve manipulation of genetic controls which while interesting, may not tell us that much about the actual mechanisms at work in people: In June, scientists in Vienna announced that they had isolated a master genetic switch for sexual orientation in the fruit fly. Once they flicked the switch, the genetically altered female flies rebuffed overtures from males and instead attempted to mate with other females, adopting the elaborate courting dance and mating songs that males use.It might well be that there is a genetic predisposition that makes it possible for some kids to grow up to become homosexuals--and without that genetic predisposition and environmental influences, it would not happen. The problems of isolating correlation from causality is devilishly difficult. The article even suggests that "childhood gender nonconformity, or CGN" which is believed to be an early indicator of homosexuality, may be the reason that Freud developed his model for what causes it: Freud may have been seeing the effect rather than the cause, since a father faced with a very feminine son might well become more distant or hostile, leading the boy's mother to become more protective.The article opens with a discussion of two identical twins called Patrick and Thomas--one of whom suffers from CGN, and one who does not. Patrick is very effeminate, plays with the girls at school, not the boys--and has already gotten in trouble for insisting that he is a girl, not a boy. According to the article, Patrick is very likely to grow up to be a homosexual. I found myself wondering about this. There are very effeminate homosexual men out there--but more typical are homosexual men who are, to use the expression that sadly turned out to be true for Rock Hudson, "a man's man." It may turn out that there are multiple causes of homosexuality. The guy who lives for dressing up as Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland is probably not quite the same as the hypermacho gay man--and there are a fair number of gay men in the middle, who don't feel the need to go to either of these bizarre extremes. Over the years, I've worked with homosexual men who were very masculine, and I'm sure didn't suffer from GCN as children. One of these guys probably disappointed a lot of women when they found out, "Not interested in your gender." I've worked with guys for whom the expression "flaming faggot" was invented. I've also worked with guys who were so effeminate that everyone assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) were homosexual. If GCN is a good predictor of adult homosexuality, I would guess that the reverse is not true: a lot of adult homosexual men were not GCN. Interestingly enough, at the end of the article, the author tells us that perhaps Patrick's inevitable homosexuality remains a bit less certain than it seemed at the beginning of the article: After that fateful call from Patrick's school, she says, "I knew I had to talk to my son, and I had no clue what to say." Ultimately, she told him that although he could play however he wanted at home, he couldn't tell his classmates he was a girl, because they'd think he was lying. And she told him that some older boys might be mean to him and even hit him if he continued to claim he was a girl.Predisposition isn't predetermination. Men are genetically predisposed to impregnate women--lots of them. Monogamy and fidelity are "unnatural" in the sense that it takes a lot of social pressure to make us monogamous. There may well be men and women who are genetically predisposed towards homosexuality or bisexuality--and the startling correlation of homosexuality and child sexual abuse may be coincidence, or it may be an example of an environmental hazard that turns a predisposition into a sexual orientation for at least some homosexuals. Labels: homosexuality Thursday, August 25, 2005
A New Definition of Live Bait When I first saw the headline, I was going to make fun of it--after all, the puppies are dead when they are being used as shark bait, right? No. Brigitte Bardot, the 1950s and 1960s film star turned animal rights campaigner, has called on the French government to halt the reported use by fishermen on the island of Reunion of live puppies and kittens as shark bait.This is one of the reasons that I am a conservative, not a libertarian. It may be your property but there are some actions too cruel to allow. Even a cat or a dog can recognize that it is about to be mauled to death. Most state ban cockfighting, and that's an animal with far less awareness. The House Project: Permanent Power Coming! We went over to pick out toilets and sinks today at Consolidated Supply on Five Mile Road in Boise. Marilyn, the woman who was handling our order, clearly enjoys her work. Even better--our choices for faucets and finishes just about exactly matched the order she just submitted for her new house. Tuesday the builder had me call Idaho Power and request them to switch from construction power to permanent power--which means that the electrician has put in the panel, and he is ready for Idaho Power to move the meter. Here's where the meter will go:  Click here to enlarge Here's the circuit breaker panel inside the garage:  Click here to enlarge The roof trusses have been the critical item as far as schedule, and after a few delays, they finally arrived--and they make an impressive pile.  Click here to enlarge The front porch posts are now in place, just waiting for those trusses.  Click here to enlarge The crane to lift the trusses in place was supposed to be here Tuesday, then Wednesday evening (maybe Thursday morning). But the crane broke down, now it is scheduled for Friday. In the meantime, most of the exterior panelling is in place.  Click here to enlarge I've had a few questions from a reader whose husband is a builder in Oregon. Apparently, some aspects of this house would not conform to Oregon building codes--but upon further questions, it appears that these are all related to water damage to wood. There's a reason that building codes are different between here and Oregon--and water is one of the big differences. The air here is no dry that water damage (except that which is caused by a permanent water leak) is extremely rare. It is so rare that few people ask for a water damage inspection report when buying a house. (It still seems like a good investment.) Apparently in Oregon it would not be kosher to have the door sills at grade level--but as you can see from this picture, the concrete work actually is at a slope, so even very heavy rain isn't going to flow into the house.  Click here to enlarge Last house entry. Labels: house project Articles Concerning The Problem of Meth, Gay Men, AIDS, and Promiscuity I observed in the comments section of one of Professor Volokh's posts that there is a very large subset of gay men who engage in highly dangerous behaviors: meth & promiscuous, unprotected sex. The gay men didn't believe it. See ANDREW JACOBS, "Gays Debate Radical Steps to Curb Unsafe Sex," New York Times, February 15, 2005: That frustration has been ratcheted up by the growing popularity of crystal meth in New York, which many say has led to an abrupt increase in unsafe behavior and a spate of infections. Although exact figures are difficult to determine, a recent survey of gay men found that 25 percent had tried crystal meth in the last few months.See also here for a discussion of the dramatic increase in syphilis cases caused by promiscuous unprotected sex by gay men who are HIV+, and figure that they have nothing left to lose. And this one: A study by the Los Angeles Gay &Lesbian Center of 19,000 men who have sex with men (MSM) tested there for HIV between 2001 and 2004 shows a near doubling – from 5.8 to 10.3 percent – of reported use of crystal meth. Among MSM who tested HIV-positive, crystal use had nearly tripled – from 11.7 percent to 30.2 percent – in the same time period. Among users, 86.6 percent report use of the drug during sex.And here: Crystal meth - which can be snorted, smoked or injected - has been a popular gay party drug on the West Coast for more than a decade, and in New York since the late 1990s. In many cities, however, gay activists and health officials were not quick to confront the fact that the drug, by curbing inhibitions and boosting energy, encourages unsafe multi-partner sex and thus increases the risk of HIV transmission.From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Smith is one of a growing number of young gay men in Atlanta who believe they contracted HIV after meth abuse and risky sex. But in metro Atlanta, which has the largest concentration of gays in the Deep South, AIDS groups have not yet started meth-specific education campaigns. The problem, however, has become a crisis, say some therapists and medical experts who treat gay men.And from the New York Blade (a gay newspaper--the ads may be offensive): Planning for the First National Conference on Methamphetamine, HIV & Hepatitis, set for Aug. 19-20, began as a way to respond to a belief that increased meth use will lead to higher HIV and hepatitis rates, according to Luciano Colonna, executive director of the Harm Reduction Project, which hosts the conference.The article goes on to discuss--in somewhat cruder language than I care to quote--that because meth tends to cause impotence problems, they are mixing meth and Viagra. Labels: homosexuality Another Astonishing Michael Yon Report From Iraq Read it here. It is a powerful account of a raid in Mosul in which, in the heat of battle, Michael picked up a fallen soldier's rifle, and participated in the battle against terrorists. Chevrolet Equinox We've put about 5400 miles on my wife's Chevrolet Equinox so far, and I thought that I would report back on how it is going. The city mileage has been about what we expected--17 to 18 mpg (a little less than the EPA estimate of 19). We haven't done a lot of long trips in it, but one to Portland returned about 23 mpg, most of which was done at about 65 to 75 mph. For a sedan, this would be very disappointing; for a four wheel drive that weighs 3700 pounds, with room to seat four six footers in comfort, and five six footers a little more cozily, this is pretty decent. (I credit the five speed automatic transmission--the engine always gets to run at the most efficient speed.) I am still impressed with the ride/handling tradeoff. Even on very rough surfaces, and especially the highly irregular concrete of I-84, the ride is controlled and comfortable (as distinguished from the "floating on air" approach of some older luxury cars). Okay, it does have some body roll compared to my Corvette and our 2001 Malibu LS--but it sits a good bit higher off the road. It isn't objectionable, and I think most people realize that a 4WD isn't going to be a sports car. The only real problem that we have had with it is a reminder that the Equinox isn't intended for off-road use, but for paved roads that might be wet or snowy. We were driving down the still unfinished driveway at our new house, and we hit a rock--or rather, one of the wheels picked up a rock and threw it at high velocity. If the rock had been a bit smaller, there wouldn't have been enough momentum to do any damage; if it had been a bit larger, it wouldn't have developed enough velocity. A constant velocity joint in the driveshaft back to the rear wheels got dinged pretty hard, and a subframe assembly ended up with a very severe dent. This cost $1200 to repair, of which we paid $250 deductible, because this was considered a collision claim by our insurance company. Gasoline Really Isn't Expensive This page shows a graph of what a Texan has paid for super unleaded since 1979--and then showing that price per gallon adjusted for inflation. The price per gallon in constant dollars is now about the same as it was in 1979 (which was the Iranian Revolution gas crisis year)--and lower than it was in the mid-1980s. UPDATE: A reader points out that most of us were driving vehicles with much worse gas mileage in 1979 than today--making the cost of driving even less. True enough. In 1979, I had a 1978 Camaro Z28, which averaged about 13 mpg around town, and a 1979 Pontiac Grand Am, which averaged about 14 mpg around town. (It was wonderful having a job where I made money faster than I could spend it--then I went back to software engineering.) Now I drive a 2000 Corvette, which averages about 19 mpg around town. The Letter Bush Should Write To Cindy Sheehan It is here. For once, Scrappleface isn't funny, or clever, or acidic. But what a letter: You ask for what noble cause your son died? By Any Means Necessary I mentioned here that I wasn't much impressed with Pastor Doug Wilson and his rationalizations for slavery, nor was I much impressed with his leftist opponents in Moscow, Idaho. His leftist opponents did demonstrate plagiarism by Wilson. As I look over the other documents that Wilson's leftist opponents have put up, I don't know whether to be impressed with their integrity in presenting all the information (including some that shows them in a very poor light), or to wonder if their zealotry prevents them from realizing how poorly they come across with some of their actions. One of them is an attempt to get Wilson's New St. Andrews College shut down in the Central Business District of Moscow because educational institutions were not on the list of allowed businesses there. Is Wilson's operation a nuisance or a traffic problem? I would suspect not, but it is very clear the left was trying to shut them down for their political beliefs. Fortunately, the Moscow zoning department had the good sense to recognize that there was nothing improper about a school being in the downtown area. Another of these demonstrations that perhaps Wilson and his opponents have more in common with each other than either would like to admit, is this letter attempting to get New St. Andrews College's accreditation yanked. There are several accusations here that don't reflect terribly well on New St. Andrews College and its staff (if true), but most of these aren't really questions associated with academic excellence. At most, the letter complains about things which smack of credentialism, more than academic excellence: Two thirds of NSA's faculty do not have PhDs. NSA has the resources to hire PhDs., but evidently chooses not to do so.Gee, I think that describes quite a number of community colleges in the U.S. as well. Here's some bad news for Professor Gier: a PhD isn't necessarily required to be a qualified and skilled college professor, especially in the lower division classes. Of special concern is Wilson’s statement that a college degree is not necessary to teach in the K-12 schools that his own association accredits.More bad news for professor Gier: there are subjects where I would very much want the teacher to have at least a bachelor's degree--and there subjects where I'm not sure it much matters. A kindergarten teacher is primarily teaching social skills, and letters. This does not require a degree. It requires patience and a love for children. More typical of this letter attempting to get New St. Andrews College's accreditation yanked are complaints that are fundamentally political in nature, and are an attempt to punish Wilson for holding ideas that I will agree are destructive and historically misleading. But destructive and historically misleading ideas--as well as plagiarism--are actually pretty common in the "legitimate" academic community today. The left tends to turn a blind eye to these academic integrity problems on their side of the aisle. Rationalizations Poor Professor Volokh. He made the mistake of pointing out that homosexual sex is higher risk than heterosexual sex. Clearly, he must be a homophobe--and what is interesting is to read the comments where the gay PC patrol tries to prove that this is just homophobia. I couldn't make up some of these absurd claims, like this one: I would question something: "male homosexual sex is much more dangerous for the men".Except that homosexual men are more likely to be infected with AIDS, more promiscuous than heterosexual men--and heterosexual women who are recipients of anal sex (a minority of heterosexual women, obviously) are much less likely to spread AIDS. Women transmit AIDS to men through sex far less effectively than men transmit AIDS to women. Women also die much more quickly of AIDS than men, and so have less time to pass it on. Or this one: Further, STD's aren't the only risk out there. Pregnancy is another risk, and it falls exclusively on those people who have heterosexual vaginal sex. Should adults who might otherwise decide to have that type of sex be discouraged from it because there might be a pregnancy, despite the availability of preventive measures?1. Pregnancy isn't lethal (except in a fraction of 1% of cases). 2. Pregnancy isn't contagious. 3. The average pregnancy costs a few thousand dollars; treating the average AIDS case burns more than that in a single year. It is almost funny the arguments that homosexuals make to defend homosexual anal sex. Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Advertising Banner I'm about to use this animated GIF created by one of my readers to advertise the ScopeRoller product line. If you don't see something moving across the screen, let me know what Internet browser and operating system you are using.  If you want something similar done, email los_alamos@hotmail.com. Eric Rudolph On His Faith I mentioned a few days ago the bizarreness of Eric Rudolph murdering innocent people because of his opposition to abortion and homosexuality--and I assumed that his opposition was because he was a Christian. I should know better than to make assumptions like that. There are a lot of opponents of abortion that you don't think about: "Many good people continue to send me money and books," Rudolph writes in an undated letter. "Most of them have, of course, an agenda; mostly born-again Christians looking to save my soul. I suppose the assumption is made that because I'm in here I must be a 'sinner' in need of salvation, and they would be glad to sell me a ticket to heaven, hawking this salvation like peanuts at a ballgame. I do appreciate their charity, but I could really do without the condescension. They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible."Oh yes, there's a new book out claiming Nietzsche was gay. Labels: abortion Plagiarism There's a pretty devastating collection of images here demonstrating plagiarism in the book Slavery As It Was, with many sentences directly copied--sometimes whole paragraphs--from Fogel & Engerman's Time on the Cross. Now, part of what is going on here is that the left in Moscow, Idaho, is trying to sink a local preacher named Doug Wilson--about whom I know a bit, and whom I do not respect. Many of the criticisms that this bunch is making don't impress me--but this demonstration of plagiarism is very clear-cut. (Oh horrors! Wilson is against homosexuality! Run him out of town on a rail!) By the way, while Time on the Cross was indeed "a book that was highly criticized by historians of the South," as the plagiarism web page observes, it did serve as a useful corrective to some assumptions that had become common and perhaps too broadly applied. (Many of Time on the Cross's other claims were pretty effectively sunk by the critics.) It is also a reminder of the importance of understanding the context of your sources. For example, Time on the Cross and Slavery As It Was makes use of the WPA Slave Narratives--and as others have pointed out, these accounts were disproportionately house slaves (not field hands), and a very large percentage were under age eight when slavery ended--the age when many slave children went from a relatively normal childhood to working in the fields. Unsurprisingly, these accounts tended to have a nostalgic tone to them, and are hardly typical of slave life. A Proper Homecoming Gateway Pundit reports on Festus, Missouri, honoring a recently returned Iraq War veteran. I'm glad to see this. The willingness of young men and women to go into the military in time of war says something very positive about the national character. Not everyone is well suited to military duty, of course, and some probably are more effective staying in civilian jobs, keeping the tax revenue stream flowing. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.'s Civil War era poem, "Dear Little Man" suggested that those who didn't sign up for the Civil War (as his son did) were effeminate. I will not insult those who did not volunteer. I will express my gratitude and respect for those who were prepared to risk life and limb in the service of country--there are plenty of civilian jobs out there that pay at least as well, without the hazards. I know that Idaho is planning a big homecoming celebration for our Idaho National Guard units when they return in a few months--I look forward to that. Roger Ebert Pans A Movie Okay, that's not surprising, but I am pleased to see that there is actually a film so depraved that Ebert condemns it in extraordinarily strong terms. His review of "Chaos" is here: "Chaos" is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel -- a film I regret having seen. I urge you to avoid it. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's "only" a horror film, or a slasher film. It is an exercise in heartless cruelty and it ends with careless brutality. The movie denies not only the value of life, but the possibility of hope.His detailed condemnation of it, in a response to a letter from the producer and director, is here: In a time of dismay and dread, is it admirable for filmmakers to depict pure evil? Have 9/11, suicide bombers, serial killers and kidnappings created a world in which the response of the artist must be nihilistic and hopeless? At the end of your film, after the other characters have been killed in sadistic and gruesome ways, the only survivor is the one who is evil incarnate, and we hear his cold laughter under a screen that has gone dark.When it comes time to be creative, there are at least two ways to deal with evil in the world. Once upon a time, Hollywood made films in which good triumphed over evil; indeed, the Breen Code and the Hayes Code both required this. If someone was a victim, they had to be at least a little bad. Hence, in Psycho, the victim has embezzled money from her employer. She doesn't deserve what happens to her, but she has done wrong. At the end, Norman Bates is taken away to a padded cell. Evil was allowed to go forward--but only for a time. Was this unrealistic? Sure. Adults knew better (or should have known better). Kids, on the other hand, were handed a message: do good, not bad, so you don't end up getting stabbed in the shower. We all grow up, and learn that the world is a bit more complex a place than that, but promoting the idea, at least to the young, that we should strive towards doing good doesn't seem like a terribly dangerous idea. Then, in the 1960s, Hollywood decided that this was unrealistic. Freed from the limitations of the Hayes Code, moviemakers decided that antiheroes were fine, and that evil could win. Does this make for better art? Oh, probably. At least it makes for more realistic films. But what happens when you raise kids on a diet where evil often triumphs, and where good is so morally ambiguous that you have trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys? Do you suppose that it might create a perception that there's no real difference between good and evil? I find it interesting that movies that bucked this 1970s trend--such as The Wind and the Lion and Star Wars--made huge piles of money. Interestingly enough, Rocky, another great success of the era, has a hero who isn't 100% good (he is an enforcer for a loan shark, remember), but is still not evil--and Sylvester Stallone's 1976 interview explains this well: ''I've really had it with anti-this and anti-that,'' he said. ''That silver cloud always has to loom I want to be remembered as a man of raging optimism, who believes in the American dream. Right now, it's as if a big cavernous black hole has been burned into the entertainment section of the brain. It's filled with demons and paranoia and fear. Where are all the heroes? Even the cowboys today are perverts - they all sleep with horses. Let other people suffer and do all those pain things and put their demons up on the screen. I'm not going to.''It is very fashionable in some circles (I won't use the "l"-word) to insist that there is no right and wrong--that all values are culturally defined. What might be evil in one culture might be perfectly acceptable in another. As a progressive acquaintance in California once exclaimed, "Well, maybe the Holocaust was right--for that culture." Another progressive sort I worked with managed to put the concepts of moral relativism and absolutes into his intellectual blender, hit frappe, and explained that to attack a concentration camp that was executing people, if it was set up by a democratically elected government would be "fascist." Everything is morally relative--except for the unlimited authority of democracy. I was pleased to see Roger Ebert, who is an unabashed liberal, prepared to condemn this expression of evil. I wish that I saw him do it more often. Michelin Pilot Sport A/S vs. Goodyear Eagle F1 GS EMT It is time to replace the front tires on the Corvette. (Actually, the time was a couple of weeks ago, but I've been far busier than I should be.) The factory tire is the Goodyear Eagle F1 GS EMT. (EMT means runflat--I can drive 250 miles at 55 mph with no air, and not damage the tire.) In reading user reviews over at TireRack.com (which sells both brands), a great many buyers report that the Michelins are very noticeably quieter than the Goodyears. The Michelins are also less expensive--and this is not a trivial difference. The Goodyears are $279 each for the front, while the Michelins are $223 each for the front. (You pay a lot for runflat and the Y-speed rating--good to 186 miles per hour.) Do any of my readers have experience replacing the Goodyear F1 Eagle GS EMTs with other brands of runflat Y-speed rated tires? Please email me, and I'll summarize. Something Gets Lost In Translation There's a lot of cultural referents that seem to get lost in translation in the Far East. There was this concentration camp themed restaurant in Taiwan. And then there is this Taiwanese ad campaign for condoms: TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan has withdrawn an anti- AIDS campaign ad featuring a smiling nun holding a condom after it sparked an outcry from Roman Catholics, local media said on Wednesday. Professor Volokh Is Getting A Small Taste... of what happens when you offend America's least mature minority group: Sssh! We're Not Supposed To Be Talking About the relative risk of male homosexual sexual conduct: So some commenters to this post seem to think. To recap: My earlier post noted in passing that male homosexual sex is much more dangerous for the men than is heterosexual sex. To my surprise, three people e-mailed me with fairly detailed messages that either denied or minimized these risks. I decided to respond, because this is actually an important point, on which people need to know the facts.Hmmm. This sounds rather like what caused me to start asking hard questions about the presence of NAMBLA in gay pride parades--and played a major part in converting me from a libertarian about sexual morality into a conservative. Professor Volokh, fortunately, hasn't started receiving death threats or obscene phone calls directed to his kids. But if he keeps this up--pointing out facts that don't fit into the homosexual agenda--I'm sure that this will happen soon. Pat Robertson Needs A Seven Hour Broadcast Delay I don't assume that everything Pat Robertson says is stupid, but all that I can think is that he really does need a long delay on his broadcast so that he doesn't make a fool of himself: Oh yeah, like it would be possible to kidnap the President of Venezula without the high risk of him getting killed. "Take him out" is clear enough to me. Chavez is a dangerous thug--but he was elected in a relatively clean election. The White House reminded everyone that Robertson is a private citizen. He is a private citizen for a very good reason--he is astonishingly foolish. Question For You Machinists Okay, now I have a live center for the tailstock, and a dead center for the headstock. I was led to believe from diagrams that it is possible to turn a cylinder by using a center drill to put in the countersink holes in each end, and then put the cylinder in between the centers. In practice, this doesn't work--the cylinder won't spin on the dead center in the headstock once the tool gets to it. Am I missing something? Mexican History Different River points to an interesting and depressing article by an American who teaches English in Mexico, explaining why Mexico is in such desperate straits--and never seems to get out of them. Mark in Mexico has a thumbnail history of Mexico that is generally correct, but some of what he leaves out is important--and makes the history not quite so dark. A couple of amusing examples of the problems in the period between the 1824 and 1857 Mexican Constitutions: if I remember the lectures from my History of Mexico class correctly, Santa Anna was president of Mexico on eleven different occasions, sometimes by election, sometimes by military coup. He tended to resign because he enjoyed becoming president more than being president. He was a complete kook: at one point he arranged an expensive and elaborate state funeral for his leg, which had been shot off during the 1821-24 unpleasantness. What Mark in Mexico left out was that there were serious statesmen, such as Benito Juarez, who made a somewhat successful effort to make Mexico like a Spanish version of the U.S. Unfortunately, one of the legacies of these classical liberals was the Ley Lerdo, which broke up the large estates owned by the Catholic Church, on which vast numbers of Indians worked. The theory was that individual Indians would become successful farmers on the American model. In practice, it didn't work well at all. The Ley Lerdo had somewhat the same effect as the Dawes Act of 1887 in the U.S. (also known as the General Allotment Act). In both cases, classical liberal theory indicated that collective ownership was both inefficient, and not good for individual members of the collective. The idea was that because the yeoman farmer approach had worked so well for whites, it would work just as well for the Indians. The net effect was that many Indians lost their land to both bad economic conditions and unscrupulous whites who swindled them out of their land. Also left out of Mark in Mexico's account was the difficult and complex role of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church had been a protector of the Indians before the Ley Lerdo, but they were also a major conservative influence in the twentieth century, as they were in Spain, and at least one of the many revolts in the twentieth century was largely promoted by the Church (the Cristero Rebellion). Hence the bizarre restrictions that remained on the books, at least until a few years ago, on priests wearing clerical garb out of church. (I suspect that this is one of those laws not enforced for decades.) Anyway, if you have read this far, you should probably read this paper I wrote as an undergraduate about the Mexican Constitution of 1824, and the way in which the Los Angeles Times dealt with race before, during, and after the Pancho Villa Raid on Columbus, New Mexico. Slow Learners, But They Are Listening I've been frustrated over the Bush Administration's unwillingness to confront the very serious security problem of the borders, but they do seem to be capable of learning: WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 -Acknowledging public frustration over illegal immigrants, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that the federal government's border control efforts must be significantly strengthened.Especially because those who are released on bond are the ones who aren't from Mexico. If you are a Middle Easterner who is coming to America to die for Allah, you don't get deported or held right now, but released back into our society until your immigration hearing happens--and from what I have read, large numbers of these OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) do not show up for their hearings. My Sister Susan She was helping to sail a sizeable yacht from Hawaii to Portland--and has become very sick--sick enough that the Coast Guard has arranged for her transfer to a freighter, in the hopes that she can reach a hospital more quickly. She has become a rather fierce atheist in recent years (and I can understand the anger that has provoked this); please pray for God to use this emergency to soften her heart. Divorce Never Ends At least for the kids. My wife has been free of tears about the death of her father--and our daughter couldn't really understand this. Last night, my wife and I were out for a walk, and she suddenly broke down and started crying, as she explained that all her crying was when her father moved out when she was 16. "All my Dad's stuff was stacked in boxes, and on top of one of the boxes were his swim trunks, and I thought about all the times that we had gone swimming together. Then he moved out, and for six weeks, we didn't hear from him." "My mother couldn't come to my high school graduation, because she couldn't bear to see my father with another woman. When I got home, all she could do is ask me about Pat. 'Is she pretty?' And what should have been a really important day for me was all about my father, and his new wife, and my mother." Later wives don't like to be reminded that there were earlier wives, and my wife felt like she had been relegated to a lower priority. When she received her B.A. in 1994, and her M.A. in 1997--her father couldn't fly 400 miles to her graduation. His health was not a problem yet, and he and his third wife flew to Canada every year to see her kids. There are times when divorce makes sense--but relative to the number of divorces that take place, not very often. For the person getting divorced, the final decree closes the door. For the children, it doesn't. Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Brazilian Electrician Shot To Death In London I mentioned a few weeks back that it was beginning to look like police incompetence, not an honest mistake. This news account (admittedly, from the Independent, not exactly a high trustworthy newspapers) doesn't even look that good: None of the cameras at the scene of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July were working, a police document revealed.The article goes on to point out that de Menezes would have passed at least eight cameras that could have confirmed police reports of him running from them--and apparently, all eight cameras either malfunctioned or were inoperative. What are the odds of that happening? Quite a bit lower than the odds that London police shot someone to death when they didn't need to--and then erased the evidence of their criminal behavior. I am generally sympathetic to the police--especially in cases of suspected terrorism. But if your officers made a very serious mistake in judgment, the right solution is to come clean, beg for clemency--not destroy the evidence of negligence. Thanks to MuD & PhuD for the pointer. Motor Failure The parts arrived from Sherline to do more sophisticated machining--and shortly after I put the carbide insert cutting tool in place, and started facing this little piece of aluminum--the motor stopped. There is a circuit breaker that pops to avoid overheating, but that is supposed to reset automatically after about ten seconds. Even the next morning, this motor is dead. Tonight I guess I'll try to debug whether this is the motor or the speed controller (which feeds DC current to the motor). I am beginning to wonder if I might have done better just buying a new one. UPDATE: Odd, but the problem was that I wasn't using a grounded extension cord. I Saw Air Force One Yesterday Evening I was dropped off my step-mother-in-law, her sons, and her Canadian grandsons at Boise International Airport--and one of the grandsons pointed out that you could see Air Force One across the tarmac. (Alas, I didn't have a camera with me.) The Canadians were really quite jazzed about this. Blogger Citizen Smash (Formerly Lt. Smash) He's looking for a new job. If you are a hiring sort, you might want to see if you can find something for him. Monday, August 22, 2005
Great Moments In Cross-Cultural Pollination The Canadian relatives wanted to see the contents of our gun safe. The 16 and 19 year old boys were, as expected, absolutely amazed and fascinated. The 20 year old fiancee was both fascinated and terrified--which she admitted was an irrational reaction. It is amazing how effective the Canadian media's propaganda campaign is in shaping views--especially because they live in a far more dangerous metropolitan area than we do. Expressing Disapproval of Abortion By Killing Innocents I can understand people who regard abortion as murder, and I can even understand the reasoning (although not approve of it) when someone who is opposed to abortion decides to kill an abortion doctor, or destroy an abortion clinic. Destroying the building is akin to tearing up the rails to Auschwitz; killing an abortion doctor, if you regard abortion as murder, is akin to killing the guards at Auschwitz. But setting off a bomb in a public place, killing and injuring innocents, doesn't fit into this model at all: Rudolph, 38, admitted earlier this year that he carried out the Olympics blast, which killed Alice Hawthorne and injured 111, and detonating bombs at an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in Atlanta that injured 11 in 1997.I agree that homosexuality is a bad thing--but if Rudolph thought that homosexuality was a sin, why try to kill homosexuals? A dead homosexual is headed to an eternal punishment; a live one has the potential to repent of his sins. Rudolph imagines himself as a serious Christian; cutting short a homosexual's opportunity to repent of his sins, and sending him to an eternity cut off from God, is about as un-Christian an action as I can imagine. UPDATE: In spite of news accounts that label Rudolph as a Christian, this account quotes him quite directly: "Many good people continue to send me money and books," Rudolph writes in an undated letter. "Most of them have, of course, an agenda; mostly born-again Christians looking to save my soul. I suppose the assumption is made that because I'm in here I must be a 'sinner' in need of salvation, and they would be glad to sell me a ticket to heaven, hawking this salvation like peanuts at a ballgame. I do appreciate their charity, but I could really do without the condescension. They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible." Labels: abortion Stem Cells Again More good news on alternatives to embryonic stem cells: WASHINGTON (AP) - Harvard scientists announced they've discovered a way to fuse adult skin cells with embryonic stem cells, a promising and dramatic breakthrough that could lead to the creation of useful stem cells without first having to create and destroy human embryos.It isn't just controversy; it's a serious ethical issue, and one that even proponents of embryonic stem cell research should acknowledge raises legitimate questions about destroying human life in order to perhaps save human life. This Blog Was Very Quiet This Weekend We had a memorial service for my father-in-law Sunday afternoon, and we spent a big part of the weekend showing my stepmother-in-law's sons and grandsons around Boise, cleaning out files of irrelevant papers, and preparing for my stepmother-in-law to move to Canada with her son's. My father-in-law, like a lot of his generation, had never been a churchgoer. His pride prevented him from acknowledging that there was anything more important than himself. A couple of weeks before he died, my wife was visiting with him, and he said, "You know, I've never made fun of your religion, although I never had much need for it. But now I'm confronting the unknown, and I'm really scared." They prayed for a personal relationship with God--and a few days later, his stepson Brad did likewise with Richard. By the time Richard died at age 74, he had lost everything in which he took pride: his independence; his athletic prowess; his illusion of being charge of his life. Only in the last few weeks, as everything was stripped away from Richard--his dignity, even the ability to get himself a drink of water--did he start to see that he was going to leave the world as he came into it, completely helpless, dependent on others. There's a popular Christian song right now that talks about how some day, every knee shall bow before the Lord--but the greatest reward is for those who worship him now. Richard could have had a vastly more rewarding and satisfying life--but his pride got in the way. What a waste. |
