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Friday, May 9, 2008
Mothers against the virtual, the sweet, the hard (and more...)
by Eric MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) is a classic example of an organization which has departed so far from its original purpose that it ought to be renamed. Whether this is because of success in the war against drunk driving, or whether MADD has simply succumbed to ideologically driven activists with a neo-prohibitionist agenda I do not know, but the MADD outfit is getting so ridiculous that at the rate they're going they should just drop one of the Ds and hire Alfred E. Newman as their publicist. (Needless to say, such meandering by MADD is not a new topic here.) This latest stuff is almost that funny. I stumbled onto something a few days ago to which I'll return, but I'll start with the MADD's campaign against virtual drunken driving. Hmmm... Maybe that's drunken virtual driving? Anyway, Glenn Reynolds linked this post by "Simon Scowl" about MADD's campaign against "Grand Theft Auto IV" -- a video game in which players can virtually drive virtually drunk (and of course virtually steal, virtually rob, virtually commit murder, etc.). It's the virtual drunken driving that bothers MADD; apparently they're not only against the real thing; they don't want pretending: In the critically acclaimed open-world game, players have the choice of patronizing a bar and then attempting to drive drunk. While virtually under the influence, the screen becomes blurred and the controls are more difficult to use. Players also have the option of hailing a taxi or walking. The intoxication effects wear off after a few minutes in the game.Wow, that sounds at least as dangerous as imagining your brain to be a fried egg in a cast iron skillet. I think it's high time for a crackdown on imaginary dangers. Because, next thing you know, players might be imagining that they have assault weapons or something, and what if they're imagining they're drunk, plus imagining they have assault weapons? Imaginary people could die imaginary deaths! And we can't have that can we? Retorts Simon Scowl, Er... when you're sitting at home pretending to drive drunk in a video game, you're not out driving drunk. You probably haven't even left the house for days. You are a menace to nobody but yourself.You're guilty of nothing more than wasting time, and perhaps being what the shrinks call a "dry drunk." Hmm.... Maybe instead of subtracting the D, MADD could add a D. MADDD. "Mothers Against Dry Drunken Driving." (I kind of like the 3D effect.) Except they're against much more than that. The latest thing I stumbled onto was their campaign against alcoholic beverages which have the same alcohol content as beer, but which taste sweet. Like many bloggers, I was simply outraged by the story of the father whose son was taken away from him because he mistook Mike's Hard Lemonade for ordinary Lemonade at a baseball game and bought one for his boy. For that mistake, his child was taken to an emergency room (nothing was wrong with him, of course) and the predictable forces of bureaucracy did their damnedest to mess up the family. Opined Amy Alkon, who blogged about the incident: ...the CPS nitwits actually put the kid in foster care. Meanwhile, there are probably hundreds of kids in Detroit, in foster care and out, direly in need of assistance.(Via Glenn Reynolds, who calls the child seizure "a choice bit of idiocy.") At the time, I didn't feel motivated to write a post because I didn't have anything to say beyond my usual "yet another typical example of bureaucratic tyranny..." But I know I've expressed that sentiment before. So maybe I could have said, "this is the worst bureaucratic outage I've seen since the last bureaucratic outrage!" But that would have been so typical of me, and I didn't say anything because I really didn't have anything to add. However, I pondered what might explain the bizarre nature of the bureaucratic overreaction, so I decided to research the product itself -- Mike's Hard Lemonade. It has a bad rep, not because it's inherently bad, for it has the same percentage of alcohol as beer. Rather, the problem is that it's sweet, and the anti-alcohol bureaucratic community doesn't like that. It's in a group of beverages they refer to collectively as "alcopops." These are said to be "gateway drugs" (no, really) simply because they taste good, and because they taste good, they appeal to young people, especially girls. (Who are for reasons unclear to me deemed more in need of protection than boys.) Seriously, they're being called "girlie drinks" and "kiddie booze." More at Slashfood; Wiki entry here. Whether bureaucratic antipathy to "kiddie booze" was a factor in snatching the man's son away from him I don't know. But I hadn't known about the major campaign against these beverages nor had I known that one of the sponsors is MADD. Not because "alcopops" are any more likely to cause auto accidents than beer or wine (like beer, they're around 5% alcohol, which is why they're classified as beers for tax purposes), but because they are said to "target" the young. Exciting developments are under way across the nation to reclassify sugary, sweet alcopops, or flavored malt beverages, from their current beer tax classification to a more appropriate distilled spirit tax classification. Success in this reclassification effort will help prevent youth access to these soda-pop tasting, alcohol-laden beverages is because taxing them at a higher rate will make them less affordable to youth. Success will also result in removing them from shelves of thousands of retail outlets.Great. That probably means the taxpayers have to pay for the cost of the litigation. What if you're a taxpayer and you don't want to fund neo-Prohibitionist activism? The anti-alcopop crusaders make the "public policy" argument that the sweet beverages should be taxed at the same rate as distilled spirits: By classifying alcopops as beer rather than distilled spirits, marketers can make the products cheaper and more available, critical factors in marketing to young people. In California, beer is taxed at much lower rates than distilled spirits - 20 cents a gallon for beer compared to $3.30 a gallon for distilled spirits. Experts believe that imposing the proper tax rate would raise the price substantially and, thereby, reduce alcopops' appeal to young people. This beer classification is also costing California tax payers an estimated $40 million in state taxes each year.[3]But the reason for the tax differential is based on the proportion of alcohol. To tax a beverage with 5% alcohol at the same rate as a beverage with 50% alcohol simply means that it would no longer be profitable to make them. Why can't they just admit that's the goal, and not hide behind a bogus "fairness" argument? Obviously, nothing would stop anyone from buying vodka and lemonade or tequila and Margarita Mix, putting the two together, and ending up with the same thing as "alcopop." The campaign accomplishes nothing. What's the next step, once the dimwits realize this? Preventing distilled spirits and mixers from being sold in the same stores? Or maybe ban alcohol altogether? I should point out that I prefer bitter to sweet, and thus beer to "alcopops." Does that make me a more moral person? Or is sweetness more immoral because girls like sweet things? Can someone maybe explain? Because, the more I look at this the more confused I become. Some time ago, Reason's Jacob Sullum analyzed the "alcopops" issue, and pointed out the illogic of the taxation argument: ...the rationale for taxing liquor at a higher rate than fermented beverages such as beer and wine is that liquor has a higher alcohol content, usually around 40 percent. The "alcopops," by contrast, generally have an alcohol content of around 5 percent. So if the Board of Equalization's tax hike plan is implemented as advertised (i.e., limited to "alcopops"), California will be taxing drinks with a 5 percent alcohol content at a much higher rate than beer, which can have an alcohol content twice as high, or wine, with an alcohol content up to three times as high. Putting aside the question of whether this is good public policy, it is clearly contrary to the legislature's intent in distinguishing between fermented and distilled alcoholic beverages. If critics of "alcopops" want to tax the hell out of sweet, flavored malt beverages, they should ask the legislature to do so, instead of reinterpreting the law to fit their agenda.What fascinates me about the anti-sweetness fixation is not only that it assumes beer will only be consumed by adults (riiiight....) but that it overlooks the fact that Americans once preferred "alcopops" to beer: Beer is without question, like Pizza, Madonna, and fast cars, an icon of modern American culture. That the white working class American male is stereotypically referred to as "Joe Six-pack" is but one example of the dominance of beer as lower and middle-class America's preferred alcoholic beverage. But this was not always the case. 150 years ago, in the 1840s, hard cider held the position now held by beer as the preferred alcoholic beverage of the working class.OK, I better stop the quote there, because "log cabin" and hard anything has a slightly risqué ring to it and I want to keep this blog clean, if not completely sober. However, it's worth noting that cider was very popular among the founding fathers ("In the early days of our nation, the founding fathers and mothers and their kids consumed hard cider by the gallon," and"to the end of John Adams's life, a large tankard of hard cider was his morning draught before breakfast"). Thomas Jefferson is said to have written much of the Declaration of Independence in a tavern. Apple cider was so American that it really was more American than apple pie, as well as in the classical tradition (something I cannot ignore -- hence the longish quote): ....Thanks to the Romans, and all of their conquering, apples were spread around the world - leaving not only a tasty little fruit, but yet another convenient way to produce alcohol. Orchards really began to flourish in Europe during the Medieval Days, when those keen little monks added this to their long list of resources for food and alcohol production. The same could be said for the early European settlers. When they first came to North America, apples seemed a better use for alcohol production than anything else. So, "as American as apple pie" should read more like "as American as hard cider". The colonials also embraced hard cider, as not only was it easier to produce than beer or wine, but it was quite the cost effective way to make their hooch.OK, the Woodchuck brand is something I am familiar with, as I bought a case not long ago. To the crackpots at MADD, it's in the "alcopop" category, and thus bad. (Actually it is contemptuously referred to her as an alcopop here.) I don't know what's egregious; the fact that the favorite drink of the founding fathers was alcopop, or that imaginary drinkers can get behind imaginary wheels. Or maybe they're real wheels? I visited a friend the other day who has the Wii game, and his latest accessory is -- I kid you not -- a steering wheel!
I looked carefully, but I saw no warning label against drinking (either real or imaginary) behind that wheel. Anyone could drink and drive -- especially children! Factor in alcopops, and you've got children -- especially helpless girls -- drinking and driving! They could even take turns engaging in contests to see who's the best drunken driver. It's terrible. Why, it's almost as bad as Thomas Jefferson's drinking and writing... posted by Eric at 12:04 PM | Comments (2)
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Is The US Tooling Up For War With Iran?
by Simon There is a whole lot to cover on this subject so I'm going to give mostly links and let you make up your own mind. Be sure to read the comments at the links provided as they tend to add information or present countervailing views. We believe the only successful exit strategy from Iraq travels a road through Iran. In general we subscribe to a theory put forth by Stratfor that events will build up towards the brink of war before a peaceful resolution is possible. We don't necessarily believe that is how it has to be, rather we believe that is how our current leadership believes it has to be. Part of that strategy includes the buildup of rhetoric, the shuffling of resources, and the preparation in Iraq for a military action against Iran. We observe these events taking place. Much thanks to Yankee Sailor for his collections regarding the developing time line.
There has been a political split in the Pentagon since 2005, when those who wanted to move forward under the cooperative model as opposed to the unilateral model for military action were able to shift the Pentagon position through the release of official strategic papers. Under Gates, the Pentagon has tried to shift to a cooperative phase from what has been a unilateral phase of military action. The cooperative approach is championed by Rice, Gates, and people like Adm. Fallon. Many neo-conservatives, which unfortunately includes a bunch of big blue Navy folks I won't name specifically, form up the unilateral military action side.Money quote from the piece: Admiral William Fallon shakes his head slowly, and his eyes say, These guys [Iran] have no idea how much worse it could get for them. I am the reasonable one.
News continues to roll in that the United States may be nearing a decision to strike Iran. In my previous installment, I discussed the storm of tough talk currently unleashed from Washington. In this installment I'll lay out some of the other events in the region in recent weeks.Key graph: All this costs money, which in turn must be authorized by Congress, or at least a by few witting members of the intelligence committees. That has not proved a problem. An initial outlay of $300 million to finance implementation of the finding has been swiftly approved with bipartisan support, apparently regardless of the unpopularity of the current war and the perilous condition of the U.S. economy.
David Wurmser, formerly Vice President Cheney's Middle East adviser, writes in to comment on Iran's role in the Beirut crisis.
The Iraqi minister of defense pushed the debate with the Iranians over their provision of weapons to Shia militias one more step on Monday. Minister Abdul Qadir Obeidi indirectly confronted the Iranians, without naming them, with new findings that prove their involvement in the arming of Shia militias. Hezbollah's thug-in-chief, Hassan Nasrallah, addressed Lebanon today. What he said is not promising. You can read the entire transcript here, but it's not necessary. The following snippet tells you everything you need to know:I said . . . that any hand that reaches for the resistance [i.e., Hezbollah] and its arms will be cut off. Israel tried that in the July War, and we cut its hand off. We do not advise you to try us. Whoever is going to target us will be targeted by us. Whoever is going to shoot at us will be shot by us. Iraqi soldiers have begun evacuating families from portions of Sadr City, a sign that a large offensive will start shortly against the Mahdi Army militia that have long controlled the sector of Baghdad. Two stadiums have been secured for sheltering the evacuees as the government of Nouri al-Maliki attempts to break Moqtada al-Sadr's last stronghold and end mortar attacks on the Green Zone. Maliki also wants to end Iran's influence in Iraq, which caused Iran to cut off security talks with Maliki and the US:
Beirut Spring posted this photo of a bridge banner in Beirut that reads: "A gift from the municipality of Tehran to the righteous, resisting Lebanese people." All in all I'd say something was up. Namely a show down with Iran. I'd take the movement of the fleet as a sign of readiness for contingencies as opposed to the US initiating an attack. The question is: what will the Iranian response be to the dismantling of their proxies?
Hezbollah has taken control of the media in Lebanon, and their propaganda campaign has already begun. They are currently presenting themselves as liberators of Lebanon, and allies of the Lebanese Army against a corrupt government supported by pro-government snipers and brigrands. I GET AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER from an oil trader and today it includes this tidbit: "In an interesting twist of OPEC news - in the folder titled 'Adequate Supply' - Iran has chartered an armada of supertankers to act as floating storage for as many as 28 million barrels of crude oil that is backing up on them. Analysts are blaming worldwide refineries yet to recover from maintenance programs. It's not the first time that Iran has had trouble finding buyers; they temporarily floated 20 million barrels in 2006. No, I can't explain this in light of record oil prices and continual cries for more release of OPEC crude oil. "Note that 28 million barrels of oil is $3 bn dollars worth at current prices give or take. I wonder if Iran is expecting a strike on their refineries or oil fields?
Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 07:56 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, May 8, 2008
Where Is Obama?
by Simon Physics World reports that 20 Nobel laureates are asking Bush to work with Congress to restore funding for science that that was cut in the 2008 budget. Two fields financed by the Department of Energy have been particularly badly hit, with funding for high-energy physics falling to $688m -- some 12% less than Bush had requested -- and support for fusion falling by a third. The cuts led to Fermilab, for example, announcing plans earlier this year to lay-off 200 of the lab's 1900 staff.Fermilab is in Illinois. In theory such cuts should be of prime interest to Obama and the Democrat Party. So where is my Senator? Why isn't he speaking out on the matter (heh) and making the cuts an issue in his campaign? I was under the impression that the Democrats were supposed to be the party of science and technology. Is it just talk? Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 03:34 PM | Comments (13)
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Condensed Hillary Obama Rush post (rant-free version)
by Eric I'll be out until late tonight, so I thought I'd write an uncharacteristically short post consisting mainly of links, with few comments. (It kills me, because I always want to say more. But OTOH, blogging is supposed to be done like this, isn't it?) Glenn Reynolds links John McWhorter's discussion of Hillary Clinton which reaches the startling conclusion that she may be a monster after all. (An excellent read.) Robert Novak asks whether Obama is flawed or fantastic. (He thinks the next test will be how Obama handles Bill Ayers.) Jerry Seper has scooped an incredible treasure trove of documents from the late Sam Dash's estate, which details how close Hillary came to being indicted back in the 1990s. And Rush Limbaugh seems to be calling off "Operation Chaos": ...Limbaugh called off the operation yesterday, saying he wants Obama to be the party's pick, because "I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees."Hey Rush, I've been saying that for months. What took you so long to catch up? As I say, it kills me not to have time for a good rant. posted by Eric at 03:22 PM | Comments (3)
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World domination and other Vices
by Eric George Stephanopoulos says Hillary is negotiating the Vice Presidential spot: ABC's chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos told Charles Gibson on "World News" that Clinton is staying in the race to negotiate a spot on the Democratic ticket in November.If he is right, this changes the conventional wisdom a bit. What I'm wondering is why she would want the job that Vice President Garner famously said isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. And why would Bubba be content to accept being the first second laddie? Well, for starters, the famed Garner quote is wrong. He actually called it a bucket of warm piss. And in terms of prestige and publicity, the job is more important than it was in Garner's days. Plus it's more, um, lucrative: It took the invention of television for politicians to realize that the Vice-Presidency was worth a great deal more than what John Nance Garner, the first of F.D.R.'s three No. 2s, is famously said to have compared it to, "a bucket of warm spit." (Famously but incorrectly: Garner said a bucket of warm piss, which, though unquotable in the family newspapers of his day, makes more sense from the heat-retention angle.) The Vice-Presidency is a much, much better job than it was in the old days. Back then, you drowsed through endless sessions of the Senate, lived in a flyspecked boarding house on a muddy street, and nursed your resentments. Now you get a mansion, a staff, and a plane worthy of a Saudi arms merchant. And, if you like undisclosed locations, no longer have detectable Presidential ambitions of your own, and serve a callow President so in thrall to you that when you headed his Vice-Presidential search committee you felt free to find yourself, you can end up achieving total world domination.Was that written with Dick Cheney in mind? I'm thinking just maybe. Did Dick Cheney expand the role of the vice presidency to include world domination? Whether he did or not, I'm wondering whether the Clintons might see it as a precedent for further, um, expansionism? Sounds like a job for two. MORE: I'm not sure how this will affect Hillary's plan to put Rush Limbaugh on the ticket out of gratitude for Operation Chaos. They might make him Secretary of State, I suppose. UPDATE: Steve Kornacki argues that Obama does not need Hillary on the ticket, and analogizes to Reagan (among others): Reagan was 65 in 1976, and he knew that he'd get one final shot at the presidency in 1980, whether Ford won or lost (the 22nd Amendment would have kept Ford from running again). But Reagan also knew that causing any trouble for Ford in the fall of '76, and thus being blamed for electing Carter, would do his long-term ambition no good.Read it all. posted by Eric at 09:43 AM | Comments (2)
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Violating Victorian morality
by Eric Yesterday, I was rendered unconscious by intravenous administration of a drug called Propofol. The oddest thing about it is that I can remember every detail except the moment it was administered. No memory of what it felt like, no "drifting off," nothing like that. The IV line had been set up and was flowing, and I remember the anesthetist telling me they were going to give it to me, but then it's just a big blank until I woke up (a little less than an hour later). So it's more than just an anesthetic; it seems to either prevent or wipe out the laying down of any memory relating to the way it feels. So, not only did I feel no pain, I did not feel the effect of the drug which blocked it. When I woke up, there I was, apparently clear-headed, but with no memory beyond lying down with the IV in me. There was a time -- not all that long ago -- when not feeling pain was considered immoral. But anesthesia, by introducing the concept of not having to feel pain, changed the concept. Some argue that it went from being a spiritual to a political issue. From an abstract of a article titled "The Secularization of Pain": The rapid acceptance of anesthesia in 1846 appears to have had a political and social basis as well as medical. Two factors are particularly important. First was a change in the perception of disease and pain; both lost religious connotations and became biologic phenomena as part of a process of secularization that affected all aspects of Western society. Second was the growth of a sense of well-being and progress, which imbued patients and physicians alike with confidence in their ability to control natural processes. During the last half century, pain has remained secular, but the confidence in both progress and the ability to control nature may have diminished.Diminished, but still there. The reason it's still there is that we all must die. It is part of our nature to die. Conquering pain is one thing, but conquering death -- in many ways the ultimate reach in our ability to control nature -- still eludes science. Of course, when nature can be controlled, a debate ensues over who gets to be in control of the controllers. Why would the ability to avoid pain have been seen as immoral by Victorian moralists? Were they simply wrong? Or were the pain avoiders wrong according to the morality of the times? It's easy for us to dismiss out of hand the argument that short-circuiting pain constitutes "playing God," but in religious terms, isn't that precisely what is going on? Pain is as much a part of nature as death, and the human ability to eliminate it takes nature out of the equation, and puts man in charge. For those who believe nature is God, anesthesia gets between the individual and what God would seem to have ordained. Little wonder that the power to control pain would be so strictly controlled. The word "secularization" is a bit misleading in this context. "State takeover" is more like it, for it's as if taking God out of pain meant putting the state in control. Or is "secular" coming to mean statism? posted by Eric at 08:44 AM | Comments (4)
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Where The Voters Are
by Simon ![]() The above image is from a Pew Research Center Report on where the voters are vs where the candidates are. What surprised me most was that the center of gravity in America was Center Right (RINO territory) according to Pew. Althouse of Althouse and Jeralyn Meritt of TalkLeft had a dust up and Jeralyn thinks Obama is too far to the center to win in November. Althouse being the more sensible of the pair and better in touch with the electorate (lots of righties like to comment at her blog, Jeralyn excises them) gets the better of the argument. At least if Pew is correct. The Futurist (where I stole the graph) makes some very good arguments. He lists them as numbered points so go there if you want to see the rest. 3) The Democratic Party has been enslaved by fringe leftists. Obama and Clinton are nearly identical in ideology, yet very far to the left of the center of gravity. The purple oval I have inserted, along with the question mark, represents a vacuum in the moderate left. A large number of voters clearly reside there, but the Democratic party of today will not nominate someone who resides in the purple zone, leaving these voters as ideological orphans. Thus, Clinton and Obama have to lie (assisted by a complicit leftist media) to appear more moderate than they are, and hope that the public doesn't figure that out.Let me see if I can explain this a little. American retirement programs are tied up with 401k plans, which are in the main stock ownership plans. Over half of all Americans own stock. How do you think the Democrat plans to punish companies and the economy are going to go over with such people? I think a little history is in order. In 1978, Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code, later called section 401(k), whereby employees are not taxed on income they choose to receive as deferred compensation rather than direct compensation.[2] The law went into effect on January 1, 1980,[2] and by 1983 almost half of large firms were either offering a 401(k) plan or considering doing so.[2] By 1984 there were 17,303 companies offering 401(k) plans.[2] Also in 1984, Congress passed legislation requiring nondiscrimination testing, to make sure that the plans did not discriminate in favor of highly paid employees more than a certain allowable amount.[2] In 1998, Congress passed legislation that allowed employers to have all employees contribute a certain amount into a 401(k) plan unless the employee expressly elects not to contribute.[2] By 2003, there were 438,000 companies with 401(k) plans.[2]Hmmm. 1978. That would have been under Jimmy Carter with the Senate and House Democrat controlled. And 1984? Ronald Reagan. With the Senate Republican and the House Democrat. Under Carter the plans were for the elite. Under Reagan they got expanded to the masses. Interesting. Verrrrry interesting. So the question is. Despite the economic bump we are hitting will the electorate wish to punish business and raise taxes? I don't think so. So what should the Republicans promise? I think cutting taxes and cutting spending (including ending earmarks permanently) might work. So where do the candidates for President actually stand on earmarks based on their behavior as opposed to their promises? Well in the current Congress Hillary Clinton is a Champion among the Presidential Candidates at $340 million, Obama is in second place with $91 million, and poor old John McCain brings up the rear with $0. That is right a big fat zero. Way to go John. I know who I'm voting for. Even RINOs have some Republican principles. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 01:28 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Polywell Fusion Pr0n
by Simon posted by Simon at 04:04 PM | Comments (2)
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No, this is not a hunger strike....
by Eric But Glenn Reynolds did pick an extremely bad day to tantalize me with food. Normally I wouldn't have whined about hunger, but it just so happens that I've been starving for over 30 hours, and I won't be allowed to eat until tonight. Not that it's all that big of a deal; it's that I have to do it (plus drink gallons of Gatorade along with a nauseating 64 ounce drink which tasted like seawater sweetened with antifreeze) in preparation for a medical procedure I'd rather not discuss. Nothing serious; just a routine screening for men over 50. So, if I sound goofier than usual, it's because my electrolytes have been messed with, and on top of that I'll be getting sedated in a couple of hours. I will return this evening, and I do have access to this blog. Whether I'll be in an appropriate state of mind to blog, who knows? (Readers would be well advised to take into account that I might not be responsible for my contents.) posted by Eric at 11:42 AM | Comments (7)
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Bitter better strategy?
by Eric I like to joke about Bill Clinton when he gets into his "Angry Satyr" mode, and the picture of him in the Globe article I discussed yesterday is one of the best illustrations I've seen of that.
It is funny, and it isn't. There's something a bit sad about seeing him this way, and I say this because, even though I don't like him, I do remember the irresistible Bill Clinton charm and his very agile wit. What happened? By any standard, the man is clearly a liability to his wife's campaign. He is just not the same Bill Clinton that America loved (and loved to hate) back in the 90s. The lopsided North Carolina results indicate that despite hopeful predictions about the "Bubba Tour", his campaigning did Hillary no favors. I don't know what the analysts say, but I'm wondering whether it actually hurt her. If he was running around preaching to the coverted (people who would have voted for her anyway), might this have had the unintended effect of galvanizing Obama voters? Just a few days ago, polls were showing Hillary with 17% of the black vote, in a state where blacks comprise 35% of the vote. She could conceivably have won, and was certainly expected to do far better than she did. I'm wondering whether having her volatile, former president husband running around down there might have created a sort of black backlash against Hillary. Was he speaking mainly to white crowds? A couple of days ago, Glenn Reynolds linked NRO's Byron York, who said he was: Clinton's crowds are mostly white, just like they've been in Pennsylvania and Ohio and nearly everywhere else. In the south, they remind you of how many whites didn't migrate to the Republican party, and of how popular Clinton remains here. (In his two national election victories, Clinton managed to win Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida -- and lost North Carolina by about 0.7 percent in 1992.) "Been a Democrat all my life -- born and bred," an older man named Cecil tells me. "I know they say he's done this, he's done that, but he was no worse than all the rest," adds his wife, Nettie.It's fine to go after the small town white vote in Bubba's "front porch" campaign tours, but might Bubba have created the impression that he didn't much care about the black vote? Hillary's performance among black voters was the worst I've seen so far; Obama took a whopping 92% of the black vote. Did Bill Clinton inadvertently help get out the black vote? MORE: Post Politics (in a post titled "Angry White Female") links this discussion of a notable observation by Clinton surrogate Lisa Caputo: Right now on Hardball they have on a Clinton surrogate, former Clinton press secretary Lisa Caputo, just said that it's all about "white middle class voters" and in particular, that the "white middle class has been hurt the most by the economic downturn."(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Maybe Hillary thought that the best way to court the "Angry White Female" vote was to send in her "Angry White Satyr." It makes sense satyrically. MORE: In addition to the role of Bill Clinton, I think the attacks against Obama have in general helped boost his numbers with black voters -- not because the attackers have played the race card, but because of the principle of blowback, which I discussed earlier in the context of Philadelphia Mayor Street. The discovery of an FBI bug (normally a major scandal), generated great sympathy for Mayor Street, and enabled him to win when he should have lost. posted by Eric at 09:41 AM | Comments (2)
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Projecting defeatist strategy into the future
by Eric Some major doom-and-gloom for Republicans, from Newt Gingrich: Senator McCain is currently running ahead of the Republican congressional ballot by about 16 percentage points. But there are two reasons that this extraordinary personal achievement should not comfort congressional Republicans.If the above is right, then Republican defeat is inevitable no matter who the Democratic nominee turns out to be. And the strategy of voting for Obama in order to supply McCain with an easier opponent (which I have championed repeatedly) becomes unavailing. So, assuming the certainty of Republican defeat, Newt Gingrich -- much as I hate to say it -- makes a compelling case for Hillary Clinton as the nominee. The problem with that is that I think it's a very poor political tactic to go into an election assuming your side is going to lose. Additionally, Hillary Clinton supplies the anti-McCain right with more of an excuse to sit the election out, while Obama forces them to vote for McCain. Obama is thus the one guy who can unite the Republicans. But let's assume McCain loses. While Hillary might be a better president from the standpoint of national defense (and thus the country), would she necessarily be the best president from the standpoint of the Republican Party? Who would be more likely to have a second term -- Hillary or Obama? Who would inspire more people to vote Republican? Who would be more likely to foster a continuation of the current malaise? I just don't know the answers. I'm not that great at futuristic defeatism. (Or is that defeatist futurism?) posted by Eric at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Indiana, North Carolina
by Eric It looks like Hillary won Indiana, and the polls have not yet closed in North Carolina. I won't be live blogging the results, but Pajamas Media has great coverage, including Stephen Green's Drunkblogging and Bill Bradley's Special Coverage. And constantly updated coverage here. I'd be very surprised if Hillary didn't hold her lead in Indiana, so I'll stick my neck out and predict a win for her there. As of 7:37 p.m., Fox has called North Carolina for Obama. posted by Eric at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)
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Doggedly pursuing the "Humasexual" double standard
by Eric Coco is sleek and svelte, and has been compared to both Audrey Hepburn and Kim Novak. She's wonderful dog, but my only disagreement with her is that she's a Hillary supporter. That's not surprising, though. Because, being a pit bull, Coco admires grit and stamina, and Hillary Clinton has that. Moreover, Hillary is a female, and Coco prefers women to men. The combination of being tough like a pit bull, plus female, is enough to win Coco over completely. That Hillary has even been compared to a pit bull makes this whole thing a no-brainer, actually. And, far from being a no-brainer, Coco has the brain the size of your average lime. I don't spend much time discussing politics with Coco, but occasionally when the occasion arises, I'll run things past her. During the hubbub over the Hillary cackle laugh, I thought I'd let Coco weigh in on the laugh, and when I set it as my telephone ring tone and played it for her, she was curious and attentive, and listened carefully. (Not bad for a dog; many a politician would give their eye teeth to get a similar reaction from humans.) Today, when I learned that the Hillary/Huma sex scandal had heated up again, I thought I'd gauge Coco's reaction to the story. As you can see, she is not very happy.
She doesn't even want to look at it. Perhaps she's in denial. Then again, she might be jealous of Huma. (Coco is very possessive.) And according to the article, so is Bill.
Anonymous political insiders have told the Globe that there's been a major showdown, between Bill and Hill over Huma: Humiliated Bill Clinton went berserk and angrily ordered Hillary to ditch the sexy beauty who has dragged her into a lesbian love scandal that's spreading shock waves around the world, political insiders say.No, I am not making this up; it's a direct quote from the Globe, which also cites their previous reporting, as well as London's Sunday Times: As GLOBE reported in our May 5 issue, an avalanche of published reports are now linking Hillary, 60, and Huma as gay lovers. Rumors about a lesbian romance between HIllary and the aide who is with her day and night have also scorched the Internet -- and even popped up in the respected Sunday Times in London.There's more, of course. I'm not trying to pick on Hillary here, but the fact is that I have already posted -- repeatedly -- about the gay scandal allegations involving Barack Obama, and I'm trying to be fair. Whether there's any actual proof, who knows? Coco clearly thinks this "Humasexual" stuff is beneath her dignity, and even though I suspect that she might be jealous of Huma, none of it has changed her opinion about Hillary. Coco is family to me, so I respect that. However, there's a double standard which I think may be a bit over Coco's head. Suppose that Barack Obama was always in the company of a sexy male model who was with him night and day, 24/7. Wouldn't that be an even bigger deal than this? Would it remain in the tabloids? posted by Eric at 05:00 PM | Comments (2)
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Fusion Report 06 May 008
by Simon Richard Nebel tells about plans for commercializing the Bussard Fusion Reactor (BFR) at Talk Polywell. Richard starts off discussing who owns the BFR technology and patents. DOD is The Department of Defense. Currently the US Navy is funding the research. ...EMC2 owns the patents and the commercialization rights. DOD retains the right to use the technology free of charge. That's a pretty standard arrangement.From the way he is talking he seems pretty confidant of success. I sure hope he is right. Dr. Nebel also reports that the EMC2 contract with the Navy runs through August. So that gives some idea of when we might know the answer. To get an idea of what success would mean check out: Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion also check out the IEC Fusion Technology blog. The side bar at IEC Fusion Technology blog has links to various discussion groups. They can be found under the heading Working Groups. A good tutorial and a history of the project before the US Navy resumed funding can be found at: World's Simplest Fusion Reactor Revisited. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
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Prostitution is not racketeering!
by Eric While suicide is a very poor way of coping with federal racketeering charges, I have to say that I'm somewhat sympathetic to Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who left a suicide note explaining that she couldn't face spending 6-8 years in prison: "However, I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come to regard as this 'modern day lynching,' only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman," she wrote.(Link via Ann Althouse.) While we can debate the pros and cons of prostitution, it offends both common sense as well conventional jurisprudence to treat it as a major violent crime like armed robbery. But politicians need to get elected, so they keep passing more and more draconian laws, and the mischief-making RICO statute is a perfect example. Originally intended to go after the mob, the RICO laws have been used to go after poker games. Money laundering laws are another example. It defies common sense to suggest that ordinary drug users who buy drugs are "money launderers," any more than are customers of prostitutes. Yet as Eliot Spitzer and Rush Limbaugh learned, common sense has nothing to do with it. At the rate things are going, pretty soon hiring the wrong guy to cut your lawn could land you in the federal slammer. posted by Eric at 09:57 AM | Comments (1)
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How many times can the shock wear off?
by Eric In a piece titled "Obama Rebounds From the Wright Stuff," Bill Bradley said something that worried me: Yesterday's CBS poll has even better news for Obama, showing him opening up a lead on Clinton again and also leading John McCain. This is a pattern we saw a while back when Wright's sometimes incendiary sermonizing became a round-the-clock staple of cable TV, talk radio, and the blogosphere. As the shock wore off - in part due to its constant repetition - Obama rose up again. The same pattern happened again with Bittergate.I keep seeing this too, and not just in the Obamahillarython. I don't mean to sound like a scold or a moralist here, as I want to make a simple observation about what I think is an unconscious (and illogical) mechanism, and what might arise out of a perfectly natural human reaction to shock inundation. The schock factor -- and things that shock -- drive the news cycle, the talk radio cycle, the blog cycle, and even the fashion cycle. When elections are factored in, timing becomes critical, because there's an initial shock, then a wave of repetition, and than finally (when enough people tire of it), it tends to fizzle. Jeremiah Wright keeps coming back, and generating new shock waves, but there's only so much to be said, and only so many people who want to dwell on it 24/7. Most people -- no matter how informed they are -- do not belong to the Jeremiah Wright junkie subset of political junkiedom. Not even your ordinary political junkie can keep it up on the level of all Wright shock, all the time. (Thank God for Bill Ayers; at least there's shock rotation!) None of this is said to minimize Wright or Ayers -- as I've said I think the latter is far more egregious than the former, and justifies not supporting Obama. I am just saying that the ordinary citizen cannot be expected to be shocked all the time by the same thing, simply because of a steady diet of shock. But would anyone expect him to? Well, yes. Every time I turn on the radio, there's a steady diet of "new" shock -- most of which is not really new, but just being turned over. You could turn over a rotting carcass you'd seen before in order to express horror over "new" maggots crawling, but would it really be horror? My worry here is that while news, talk radio and even blogs are often driven by a desire to compete for the shock factor, what is the effect over time with ordinary people? Do they become harder to shock? If so, might that account for the erratically cyclical nature of the shock waves? More ominously, what are the longterm effects in terms of voting patterns? We've all heard about the backlash, or blowback principle; how might this work with ordinary voters? Clearly, this is why last-minute shockers are the most effective; hence every negative campaign that wants to be effective should always aspire to the perfectly timed so-called "October surprise." But what would happen if people were tired of surprises in advance? I'm still thinking of Mayor Street's bug! For those who've forgotten, the FBI planted a bug in his office during a corruption probe. Normally, the discovery of such a bug shortly before an election would doom a candidate -- especially a candidate behind in the polls as Street was. But in Street's case, race and BDS were brought into play, and the FBI bug scandal was transformed into a major advantage, with Street seen as a victim. Sympathy blowback is neither predictable nor rational, but in the right hands, it works. Are some partisans better at playing this game than others? Nor have I forgotten the way the Monica Lewinsky scandal created sympathy for Bill Clinton in such a way that ultimately, the crime of perjury was subsumed into his sex life. While some Americans sympathized with Clinton, many more came to sympathize with him by way of reaction against the people who screamed about the immorality, and who demanded that everyone else be as shocked as they were. Of course, the Lewinsky scandal occurred before blogs, and before the Internet was as influential as it is now. That phenomenon we once called "the news cycle" is now aggravated by so many things that it's unpredictable. Millions of people are shocked, millions publicly weigh in, millions tune out, and millions react against the shock. What happens to the issues over time? How are normal people to determine to what extent they are issues, and to what extent they are fuel for cycles? Honestly, I don't know anymore. While I know what I think about any given issue, I'm don't like repeating myself, and I'm beyond cynical. It would be unreasonable of me to expect people to be shocked if I am not. The more shocked people want me to be, the less shocked I am, and the more annoyed I become by those I perceive to be demanding that I be shocked. Is there such a thing as shock burnout? (Maybe that'll wear off too, so I can focus on "issues.") BOTTOM LINE: Wanting to shock people is natural enough, but scolding them into being shocked can backfire if they become annoyed. posted by Eric at 09:10 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, May 5, 2008
"pushed, not chosen"
by Eric Confused by the interpretation of unemployment statistics? Then b y all means don't miss Tim Worstall's Pajama Media piece on the subject. Worstall wonders whether some unemployment can be a good thing, and points out (gasp!) that some people actually choose not to work! ....places where people have looked at the employment to population ratio and declared that the jobs market is in fact worse than the straight unemployment rate would lead us to believe. For those who are economically inactive, the percentage of the adult population that not only doesn't have a job but isn't looking for one has risen. And, of course, the assumption is that they've been pushed, not chosen, and that this is thus a bad thing.More than perhaps. Maybe absolutely. (I'm reminded of friends who make a good living buying at thrift stores and selling on Ebay.) Anyway, if you enjoy such heresy, read the whole thing. posted by Eric at 09:35 AM | Comments (1)
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Conflating the crush of Rush
(while avoiding the decontextualization of power imbalances...) by Eric Yesterday (while contemplating a new Hillary Clinton comedy book that Dr. Helen linked), I opined that maybe there was a "bright side": Maybe Clinton II will conflate the annals of history into the annals of comedy.Today I see evidence of what can only be called a rush to conflation, headlined, "Hillary Laughs at Limbaugh Endorsement": Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a big laugh Sunday by saying on national TV that radio host Rush Limbaugh has "always had a crush" on her.A Rush crush? Come on! Is this really comedy, or do they secretly love each other? I'll say this for Hillary; she may be hedging her bets with the gag routine, but the first step in dealing with an issue is talking about it. I think they need each other more than either of them realize. For once I agree with Hillary. Rush has always had a crush on her. The only question remaining is what Hillary is being too coy to voice. Is it mutual? Has Hillary always had a crush on Rush? Or is this one of those relationships where there might be a power imbalance? If so, then which of the two has the greater power, and which one is in the subordinate, um, position? Hmm... I mean, who's the, um, heavy in this? Now come on. Really! I'm trying to be serious here! Any ideas? posted by Eric at 09:14 AM | Comments (2)
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Obama Has A Friend That Can't Dance
by Simon ![]() This is a picture of Obama's close associate Bill "Bomber" Ayers. He looks so wimpy for a bomber. Let me see if I can decipher the captions. Let me start with the top one. The group was dealing with the past with a kind of amnesia about violent actions. Bill Ayers recollected his adventurous violence with practical jokes. "Guilty as hell, free as a bird, it's a great country", he said. He also said his three sons were incredulous to hear that Bill had burned his draft card to protest the Vietnam War. "Burned your credit card"? asked one little boy. "Man, I'm not that stupid", Bill said.Next the bottom caption. Bill Ayers, August 2001, former Weatherman, stomps on U.S. flag. As a result of their friendship with Kathy Boudin and Dave Gilbert, Bill and Bernadine Dhorn raised Chesa Boudin.Here is a little background on the lovelies. Kathy Boudin's former "Weatherbureau" colleagues, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, now luminaries of Chicago's academic life, have been responsible for little Chesa since his mummy and daddy were locked up. Ayers, an admitted bomber, now is a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago's School of Education; and Dohrn is director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University. This select Weather family lives in Chicago's comfortable Hyde Park section and has every reason to be proud of Chesa Boudin.No mention of an Obama connection. But the article was from Dec. 2002 before Obama became a star. (Leave a comment if you have something interesting on an Obama connection). H/T Backyard Conservative via Marathon Pundit via Insty posted by Simon at 08:29 AM | Comments (4)
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"Exhibit No. 1"
by Eric The murder of a Philadelphia police officer during a bank robbery continues to dominate the front page of the Inquirer. As it turns out, all three of the robber/murderers are convicted robbers who have served time. From today's account: Police charged a journeyman boxer with murder and issued a warrant yesterday for an alleged accomplice in connection with the "assassination" of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski on Saturday after a bank heist by three ex-cons.Convicted robbers who had all served time? Shouldn't there be a law prohibiting such people from having guns? Yeah, there is. Merely by having the guns, the trio committed a serious gun crime which would have sent them all back to the slammer. I'm wondering, is it possible that armed robbers don't follow gun control laws? While I'm glad to see the criminal histories of these killers reported, as might be expected, its the Gun That Did It which really gets top billing. Here's today's front page: Since I posted about this yesterday, the perps have been identified and several details have changed, but the gun is obviously the most important aspect of the case, it's picture dominating the page. But it is no longer an "AK-47." Now it's described as "a Chinese SKS assault rifle," which "assassinated" the officer because it penetrates vehicles: "That officer was assassinated on the streets of Philadelphia," Mayor Nutter said in an interview yesterday. "There was nothing that could have protected him - that weapon penetrates vehicles."I don't know whether the revolver was a .44 magnum but those rounds also penetrate car doors. Many bullets do. Interestingly, yesterday Mayor Nutter called the killing "senseless," while today it's an "assassination." Are assassinations senseless? Whatever. The most important aspect of the case, according to the Inquirer, will be the gun, which would have been banned under Mayor Nutter's illegal and unconstitutional gun laws: The slaying also is likely to become Exhibit No. 1 in the city's effort to adopt stricter gun laws. One of several laws that Nutter signed last month in defiance of the state legislature bans the kind of weapon used to kill Liczbinski. The city's ability to enact its own gun laws is the subject of a lawsuit against the state.How does this SKS rifle make the case for stricter gun laws? Did Mayor Nutter's ban work? Or, to be fair to him (because his laws are illegal) lets assume that the state legislature had done what he wanted, and amended state law to allow Mayor Nutter's ban on "assault weapons." Would these three career criminals have given it even the slightest passing thought? If someone can explain to me how that law would in any way have deterred these career criminals from getting this gun (or any other gun capable of killing a police officer) I'm all ears. MORE: Not that anyone in the gun-banning community would care, but the SKS is not an assault weapon, nor was it designed as one. From the Wiki entry: The SKS has a conventional carbine layout, with a wooden stock and no pistol grip. Most versions are fitted with an integral folding bayonet which hinges down from the end of the barrel, and some versions, such as the Yugoslavian-made M59/66 variant, are equipped with a grenade launching attachment. As with the American M1 Carbine, the SKS is shorter and less powerful than the semi-automatic rifles which preceded it -- most notably, the Soviet SVT series and the American M1 Garand. Contrary to popular belief it is not a modern assault rifle. This is because it does not meet all of the criteria of a true assault rifle, though there are some variants that fall closer to the definition. It does not possess the capability for selective fire, and the basic design does not possess a removable magazine. Some selective-fire variants were produced in the PRC; however, the basic design of the SKS is semi-automatic in nature. The carbine's ten-round box magazine is fed from a stripper clip (see below), and rounds stored in the magazine can be removed by depressing a magazine catch (thus opening the "floor" of the magazine and allowing the rounds to fall out) located forward of the trigger guard.Assuming the SKS used in the murder looks like the one in the picture displayed by Commissioner Ramsey (described as having "apparently jammed with 25 of 30 rounds unspent"), that would mean that it was converted to accept a larger, after-market magazine. Such conversions (whether legal or not) tend not to work out, as the gun was not designed that way. Hence, they have a propensity to jam. From an SKS FAQ site: Myth #8 -- "The SKS uses high capacity magazines."In other words, adding the high-capacity magazine was a tactically stupid thing for these criminals to do. Which confirms the suspicion voiced by commenter dr kill yesterday: Could'nt be an AK. They never jam.But we need to ban them all anyway. That way, criminals won't have them. Besides, it might just as well have been an AK. Right? MORE: Astoundingly, Mayor Nutter stated that the NRA should apologize for the murder! "I think it's insane," Nutter said. "The fact that we put forward a piece of legislation to prevent the sale and use and transfer of assault weapons and have a Philadelphia police officer assaulted on the streets with one, I think makes it pretty clear to anyone who is confused about this issue that there's no reason for any citizen, any person other than in law enforcement or in the military to have such a weapon."(Via Scott Kirwin.) According to Nutter's logic, because an officer was shot by career criminals with an "assault weapon" the criminals already weren't allowed to have, that means law-abiding citizens should not be allowed have them either (even though the weapon used was not an "assault weapon"). (In his mind, if criminals shoot cops, that means citizens shouldn't have guns.) And if you don't agree with Nutter, you're "confused." posted by Eric at 08:13 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, May 4, 2008
Real Class Warfare by Simon Real class warfare has always been the upper classes against the masses. Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law Sc |