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Saturday, December 11, 2010
Can man's war against nature be carried too far?
Future Pundit makes me want to get down and dirty. I often worry that I am too clean. I mean, I bathe daily, I brush my teeth and I floss, I do my laundry every week, and it sometimes gets to be a real drag, and I wonder what's it all for? Am I going to die clean, and die an early death? A theory holds that auto-immune diseases and some other disorders related to the immune system are caused by a lack of exposure to microorganisms that our immune systems are designed to handle (this idea is known as the Hygiene Hypothesis). The absence of real enemies makes the immune system incorrectly attack friendlies and to otherwise malfunction. Are imbalanced immune systems due to clean environments making people depressed?(Via Glenn Reynolds.) There's more at the link, but the bottom line is that cleanliness is unnatural: there is mounting evidence that disruptions in ancient relationships with microorganisms in soil, food and the gut may contribute to the increasing rates of depression.There are some some intriguing comments which posit that depression largely results from purposelessness: ...the useless you depresses you.And what a purposeless study that would be! I am all for believing in the ultimate pointlessness of life (or at least in the possibility of pointlessness), but still, I think that it is important to be as active as possible doing something. Those who think life is pointless would do well to find a point -- preferably a cause greater than themselves. Let's take Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson as two examples. They were so busy discovering, inventing, tinkering, and coming up with new ideas, that they probably didn't have time to contemplate the purposelessness of life. Now, some might call that foolish and say that they missed out on an important ultimate realization, but I think they were better off being purposeful than purposeless. And not only were they better off, we are all better off. The strange thing is, neither one of them was known for adhering fastidiously for what we take for granted today as basic standards of personal hygiene. At his inauguration, Jefferson was described as "decidedly unkempt in hair and toilet." However, he does seem to have bathed regularly (which in those days may have meant weekly or monthly). Unlike Benjamin Franklin, who was said to have "hated water baths." Then there was Thomas Paine who " was apparently so unkempt in his appearance that one contemporary called him "the most abominably dirty being upon the face of the earth." Franklin and Jefferson lived to be 84 and 83 respectively, and although Paine only made it to 72, it apparently took more than being dirty to kill him ("Paine's last years were marked by poverty, poor health and alcoholism.") Considering that the average life expectancy in colonial America was 25 years of age, all three of them did pretty well. Nature used to have its way with people, and bad organisms ran amok. Since those days, modern medicine has waged a steady war against nature, and has learned how to thwart many of the bad organisms which used to routinely kill people. Whether we are thwarting too many of them (and thwarting them too much) is a good question. While I can't see dirty as being healthy, it is very possible that an excess of cleanliness is unhealthy. I'd hate to be pouring my natural life down the drain. posted by Eric at 02:17 PM | Comments (2)
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Will someone please eat my Christmas homework?
Regular readers know I have an occasional penchant for verifying the accuracy and sources of popular quotes attributed to famous and respected people. There is a widely circulated quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln that I just haven't been able to verify: The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.My question, obviously, is did Lincoln say that? I can't place my trust in sites which are biased against religion, and so I kept looking for a named source. The only one I could find that is readily quoted was a book titled Salvation for Sale (a biased-sounding title, although that does not mean the scholarship of the author is unsound). The quote has been thrown like a dagger at bloggers who claim the country was founded on the Christian religion, but I have not seen it refuted anywhere. Of course, how do you refute a quote? The duty, it would seem, would be for whoever offers the quote to provide a linked source proving it. Which comes down to Salvation for Sale, the full title of which is Salvation for Sale: An Insider's View of Pat Robertson by Gerard Thomas Straub (described as "a former producer of the 700 Club"). What his bias might be, I do not know. He has written other books (which have won awards) and he is a religious man, but I'd like to have a close look at the Lincoln quote to see what if any source he provides. Except this is the Christmas season and I just plain don't have time. I cannot check out every last damned quote that I see thrown around on the Internet. There is simply too much. True, I might have been able to do it for Isaac Asimov, but this is Abraham Lincoln. Priorities, you know.... Perhaps one of our readers who are concerned more deeply than I am can step up to the plate. As someone who believes in building coalitions, I like to think that I have readers on both, um "sides" of this issue. (Meaning that some readers would like the quote to be true, while others would like it to be false.) Please feel free to dig in, and dig! As to my own bias, I really don't have much of an emotional stake in Lincoln's views of the unknown. They are of interest to me, but I don't look up to the man as an ultimate authority figure whose views are binding on me. Besides, I worry that debating views of the unknown is ultimately a purposeless activity. Yet its purposelessness does not prevent its politicization, which sets up a festering contradiction. Should we politicize purposeless debates over the unknown? Don't ask me. I'm too busy with Xmas. posted by Eric at 12:35 PM | Comments (1)
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But What Has It Got To Do With Politics?
S.M. (what a great set of initials) McCain is blogging about a blogger busted for incest. Since it is a political hit piece you know how it runs. The miscreant is a left wing blogger who was a big Obama supporter. It is just a matter of time (human nature being what it is) until some prominent R gets found with a 15 year old and the Ds will claim moral superiority because "at least an 18 year old can consent." Yeah. The cad waited until his daughter was of age. Of course the incest loving blogger could go all biblical on us and say that he liked her a Lot. I don't think these kinds of stories say anything one way or another that is useful about politics. I'm reminded of one of Reagan's best friends and big money boys dying in the arms of his mistress while RR was President. Bloomberg I think - something like that.... (some one remind me if you know) Gossip is no doubt interesting (Larry Craig?) but what does it have to do with politics? Well it does draw eyeballs. And since it is Christmas time I'm going to get in the spirit and sell something. Song (comedy bit?) #11 (Green Chri$Tma$) on this compilation is particularly relevant. Dr. Demento Presents: Greatest Christmas Novelty CD H/T Instapundit who seems to have quite in interest in sex which allows me to indulge while claiming a smidgen of moral superiority. Which of course if found out will automatically make me morally inferior. But by outing myself on the subject.... Well it never ends. But it isn't, except in the crudest precincts, politics. A certain A.S. - take note. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 03:04 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, December 10, 2010
You Know, Pythagoras Was Persecuted And Eventually Starved To Death
Over at HotAir, Ed Morissey asks if Obama's triangulation has flopped. We've been hearing a lot about 1994 lately, but people tend to forget that Ross Perot made a real showing in 1992 and was a major factor in 1996 -- for Clinton, moving toward the middle meant squeezing the space his 1996 challenger could occupy in between Clinton and the Perotistas, while for Obama this movement may open a space for the Naderites. And Clinton was able to triangulate pretty deftly by supporting two issues -- free trade and welfare reform -- that had significant support among certain segments of his coalition. As many have noted these past couple days, the hated "Bush tax cuts" have been the left's bete noire for some time -- you'd be hard pressed to find a leftish faction with much good to say about the portion going to those making over $250K. And politics in general was more top-down 16 years ago, with the Internet a novel phenomenon and the term "blogger" still some years off, while far left Democrats were not still psychologically scarred from six years of being relatively powerless. It remains to be seen whether the Obamaphile press can drag their man across the finish line, but things certainly aren't looking good right now. posted by Dave at 08:08 PM | Comments (2)
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Copyright tyranny
The copyright slimebags have gone after Matt Drudge for using an allegedly copyrighted photo in the Drudge Report. What I find especially remarkable about the lawsuit is their damage demand: As the Wild West of online copyright enforcement very, very slowly sorts itself out, a group that seems to be trying to enforce -- or, depending on your point of view, abuse -- the rights of the Denver Post to a photo has filed suit against the Drudge Report.Drudge is a mighty big fish, and I hope he defends this aggressively, because the First Amendment is being systematically destroyed in the guise of upholding copyright law. In the name of copyright enforcement, not only are blogs being sued, but web sites are being shut down by the government without any regard for due process. So, I hope Drudge retaliates and sues Righthaven (for engaging in a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, along with RICO violations, and whatever), and that he ends up owning Righthaven. The problem is, his insurance carrier will most likely take charge of the case and urge him to settle (which would only help enable the bastards). posted by Eric at 01:58 PM | Comments (4)
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Barbie needs a good lawyer
An FBI alert over a Barbie doll with a video camera has generated a lot of interesting discussion by people who are worried that the dolls might somehow be used by pedophiles to make kiddie porn: ...that the new "Video Girl Barbie" comes with a hidden camera, which could be used to record child pornography.Naturally, everyone assumes that the "evidence" and the "search" would relate to an adult pervert -- you know, the guy in a long overcoat who waves the doll and says, "Hey little girl, wanna play with Barbie?" That scenario is certainly a possibility, but I'm surprised that so many people are missing the most likely criminal conduct these dolls could facilitate. Children filming themselves! According to the laws we live under, children who photograph themselves nude are violating the child pornography laws. The female students at Greensburg Salem High School in Greensburg, Pa., all 14- or 15-years-old, face charges of manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys, who are 16 and 17, face charges of possession, according to WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh, which published the story on its Web site on Tuesday.A Barbie doll is not a phone, but "her" camera "can shoot 30 minutes of video footage and be uploaded to a computer via USB." Saying "Barbie did it" would probably not be a defense. That's because if we are to be strictly logical, the adults among us must recognize that Barbie is not a human being. Which means that "she" cannot be an actual child pornographer, even though the manufacturers have created a situation where it is easy for her to become a virtual one. Where are the outraged feminists? I mean, why put poor Barbie in the position of being a proxy porn producer, when we all know that the evil men are most often the real cultural villains? Why isn't Ken being made a proxy porn maker? Where's the virtual equality? I don't know, but if I were the manufacturer, I would cover my ass by putting some sort of label on the toy. WARNING: THIS VIDEO DEVICE IS NOT SOLD OR MARKETED OR INTENDED FOR USE BY MINORS! ALLOWING CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH THIS ADULT TOY WHILE THEY ARE OTHER THAN FULLY CLOTHED AND BEHAVING IN A RESPONSIBLE MANNER MAY SUBJECT THEM AND/OR THEIR PARENTS TO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT CONCERNED PARENTS NOT ALLOW ANY UNSUPERVISED ACCESS TO THIS TOY AND THAT THEY OBTAIN APPROPRIATE LEGAL ADVICE. posted by Eric at 11:05 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, December 9, 2010
Instapundit Says: Buy This Book
The man's sex obsession is on view for all to see. My kinda guy. The book: Lube Jobs: A Woman's Guide to Great Maintenance Sex If you buy the book from the above link it is almost $2 cheaper than the Instapundit link. I wonder why? And if I use this link the price is up $1. Lube Jobs: A Woman's Guide to Great Maintenance Sex Interesting. Further: I just checked again and the first link is now the same price as the Instapundit link and the second link is now $1 less than either price. A real time market to be sure. Well. Maybe. Oh yeah. If you buy from one of my links I get a cut at no cost to you. From the review section: Some 20 suggested scenarios include creative manual, oral, toy-enhanced, and coital approaches, including body shots (a porn staple), front-seat fellatio, backseat bonking with porn on the laptop, bathtub blow jobs, and closet canoodling. While the constant servicing-a-car wordplay may annoy some readers, the advice is sound and fun. Lighthearted illustrations would have been a nice touch, but the book does quite well as is. Most people spend the largest part of their adulthood slogging through committed relationships, and they need books like this. Recommended for public libraries."--Library Journal --The library was never that exciting when I was growing up. Except for the National Geographic. Other wise known as "Half-Naked Savages". Of course with my Dad's box of Playboys in the basement (I kid you not) I didn't visit the library near as often as I might otherwise have needed to. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
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People, who hate people, are the luckiest people in the world?
Not only did I love Sarah's latest post ("Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Human"), I also loved her comment: ...if I hear ONE MORE twit-line (or read it) in move or book saying something like "We are a plague on the Earth" I'm going to... become even more angry than I am.Those who say "We are a plague on the Earth" are by definition self hating. As well as haters of humanity. And hating people is bad. Hate sucks, right? So I have a question. Why aren't groups that hate humanity (and who openly admit that they want to bring about an end to civilization) being included by the vaunted SPLC among the innumerable "hate groups"? What's the rule? Is it that some hate groups are perfectly OK? It seems that hating people in the name of loving the planet is not considered hate but love. While I've always had the same sort of naturally antisocial tendencies that many of us have, there is something ominous about this. I would hate to see hatred of humanity become schmaltzy. I mean, think about it. They're taking simple misanthropy (long a perfectly normal and wholesome thing) and contaminating it with love! Excuse me while I throw up, but hating in the name of love makes me sick. posted by Eric at 12:55 PM | Comments (6)
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The lying truth, the leaky truth, and the truth-truth!
I haven't written much about WikiLeaks, but I think there are two separate issues: one is the First Amendment, and the other goes to the damaging nature of the leaks (often called "national security"). It's pretty basic that the right to say or publish something does not make saying or publishing it right. The principle is grounded in common sense, and it applies to ordinary speech like profane, or foul and abusive language in a similar manner. I support the right of people to use extreme words and terms I would never use, and as I support the right of people to publish material even though when a good argument can be made that it clearly damages national security. Of course, not everyone thinks the WikiLeaks damage national security. Some -- and Ron Paul is a good example -- think that the truth should always be welcome, no matter how damaging it may be. "In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it."I think Assange clearly intended to damage national security, and whether in the long run he will have been successful remains to be seen. Ordinary people (including people in other countries) know that bad shit happens in war. Bad shit happened in World War II, and American and British troops sometimes did things which were shocking. It's the nature of war, and I think that more people are capable of seeing the big picture than is commonly realized. But certainly in the present context, the leaks have to be seen as harming the United States, regardless of what the various and ultimate "truths" turn out to be. That there is plenty of material containing plenty of truths to debate for the next few decades is undeniable. The debate centers on whether the leaks are helpful or harmful, and again, that depends on perspective. What is truth, anyway? Consider the way WikiLeak lover Glenn Greenwald excoriates the American majority for disagreeing with him: Just for a sense of how pervasive these lies about WikiLeaks have become, consider this Pew poll from today, which purports to find that 60% of Americans believe the latest WikiLeaks disclosure harms the public interest, while only 31% believe it helps it (apparently, a majority of Americans demand: keep us ignorant about what our Government is doing in the world!!). But the whole poll is grounded in an absolute falsehood: the Pew release refers to "the WikiLeaks website's release of a huge trove of classified document"; describes "the release of thousands of secret State Department communications"; and praises the public for "make[ing] a distinction between WikiLeaks itself and the press' handling of the document release"I have to say, it certainly came as a surprise to me that the leaks do not constitute a huge trove of classified documents, and do not involve the release of thousands of secret State Department communications. I guess that means the WikiLeaks Wiki page is lying. Along with millions, I have been led to believe that the leaking of official documents was the whole idea: In October, the group released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with major commercial media organisations. In November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing U.S. State department diplomatic cables.The entry carries on at length about the breadth and scope of the documents, their classified nature, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Now that I know I've been duped, I can sleep easier. MORE: In light of my earlier post in which I discuss my reluctance to get involved in a Tea Party war that some non-Tea Partyers want to start, I find myself wondering whether -- and to what extent -- WikiLeaks ought to be considered "a Tea Party issue." I don't think it is. But that does not mean that individual Tea Partyers might not have a multiplicity of strong opinions on the subject. In my area, many of them would agree with Ron Paul, and some of them might very well label those on the other side to be warmongering neocons. What that means is that it just isn't likely to be a Tea Party issue. Nor is it a major issue for the overall public, as this chart indicates: People are slightly interested, and only slightly less interested than they are in "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Single digits. Hey, maybe the double digit issues are where the consensus truly lies.... MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, Perry de Havilland explains why he dislikes Assange but nonetheless supports WikiLeaks: If you think the state is too powerful, yet you do not want to see the state damaged by systemic attacks like Assange's Wikileaks, then presumably you think the state's power can be trimmed back significantly within the system. Indeed this was long my hope as I am a minarchist and thus see some role for the state in keeping barbarian hordes at bay, preventing plagues and putting out fires (the 'nightwatchman state')... but I think now that the idea this roll back of modern pervasive regulatory statism could ever be achieved via democratic politics is not just naive but verges on delusional.It's an ongoing worry -- beyond the WikiLeaks issue. posted by Eric at 10:50 AM | Comments (2)
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Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Human
There's this disturbing trend I've observed recently - okay, the last thirty years. It's part of what I was talking about yesterday, in a way. For a book to be considered serious, or introspective or relevant, it has to attack the past or western culture or civilization or tech or... humanity. Continue reading "Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Human"posted by Sarah at 01:34 AM | Comments (13)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Faith In Force
Punishing sinners. A thankless pass time. A LOT of money in it though. According to Judeo/Christian philosophy punishing sinners is reserved for the Maker. Punishing disturbers of the peace is allowed. Where our "religious" friends go off the rails is in conflating the two. Vice may be unseemly. It is not crime. Vice is to be regulated. Crime punished. You can't stop people from doing damage to their immortal souls - called in some cases "a learning experience". You can create quite a bit of crime by trying to suppress vice though. Who are the disturbers of the peace? Well fashions in vice abatement change over time. For a long time in America alcohol was the favored target. Now we have new ones. And even those are on the verge of passing in the next 10 to 20 years. I wonder what/who we will be hating in 2030? Since every society needs something/someone to hate I propose the Andromeda Galaxy. It is sufficiently far away so that it is probably safe for a while. Of course part of the problem here is the fragmented nature of the hate market. Some hate bankers, some politicians, Jew hatred is coming back to more normal levels, and some people are even so picky as to hate only Democrats or on the other side only Republicans. Such a very interesting dichotomy in America. The Democrats want to force you to do one thing. The Republicans another. They are united in their belief in force. Which is rather far from a belief in the Maker. Me? Like any human I have my petty hatreds. I refuse to elevate them to the level of principle. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 05:37 PM | Comments (3)
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An irritating feature that can't be turned off. But that's life.
This morning I was irritated to find a stupid piece of spam posted in my name on my Facebook Wall. Eventually I figured out what happened (no, they had not hacked my actual FB account), and I tried to post a helpful warning to whoever might be reading my Wall. But I can't do that, as I am only allowed 420 characters: Your status update is too long. The maximum status length is 420 characters, but it is 826 characters long.OK, so here's what I tried to write but was not allowed to write on my Wall. Facebook Mobile sucks. It appeared that someone had hacked my FB account, because this morning I saw a ridiculous entry purporting to be from me on my Wall -- along with a photo I never uploaded. What had happened is that a spammer had managed to randomly guess my Facebook "personal upload email" address. These are randomly generated and naturally, the spammers crank out millions of randomly generated spam emails until they get a hit. (As they did earlier.) There is no way to stop the feature. Nor is there any way to turn off Facebook Mobile (a feature I do not want and do not use.) The only thing you can do is change the blasted "personal upload email" address and hope the spammers don't randomly generate the new one. When they do, it will again appear that "you" have posted to your Wall, even though you did not. Sigh. An email address I don't want but have to have, and anything that is sent to it by anyone becomes a Wall post from "me." Talk about putting words in people's mouths! Sometimes I get a little tired of irritating features that can't be turned off. But if I look at the big picture, isn't that the nature of life? MORE: If I feel like sharing, will this button help feed the downtrodden masses?
posted by Eric at 12:13 PM | Comments (3)
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Where's the war? And who are the warmongers?
A lot of people are hoping to start a war between social conservatives and libertarians in the Tea Party, and I think that represents wishful thinking on their part. That there is no denying the existence of sharp differences in philosophy within the Tea Party tent has long been obvious; I have written a number of posts about it, and I make no secret of being in the libertarian camp, nor have I ever denied my disagreements with social conservatism (especially the statist variety). But because I have also long favored a coalition between libertarians and social conservatives on issues they can both agree upon, I see no more reason for starting a "war" than the social conservatives I have encountered. Because of the horizontal, grassroots nature of the Tea Party, I think it would be very difficult to start any real war. For starters, the Tea Party is based largely on showing up at a given event. If local Tea Party organizers in, say, the RTL camp decided that a mass demonstration in front of the local Planned Parenthood headquarters was in order, they would be as free to show up as those who disagreed with the demo would be free to stay home. There is nothing new about disagreement on that issue. Ditto gay marriage, marijuana legalization, or demanding that condom lessons be stopped in schools. Individual Tea Partiers have different positions on these issues pro or con, which means that large turnouts from "THE TEA PARTY" in its entirety could hardly be expected. Few would show up. So how do you start a "war" that way? I'm reminded of the old slogan "what if they gave a war and nobody came?" For there to be a "war" between libertarians and social conservatives, they would have to agree to have one. I might be wrong, but don't see such an agreement as forthcoming. It certainly isn't going to come from me. I merely disagree with social conservatives on those areas where I disagree, just as they disagree with libertarians on those areas where they disagree. As these disagreements are well known, and as the coalition enters its third year, I'm not seeing anything resembling a call for war within the Tea Party movement itself. The whole thing seems awfully contrived, and I am tempted to ask "who benefits?" In that regard, an article in Reason (Class War:How public servants became our masters) sheds some light into what drives the Tea Party more than any other issue. Our rulers, that's what! They -- and I do mean they -- are the uniting force that motivates libertarians and social conservatives to show up together in strength. They make disagreements on other issues pale by comparison. They want to bury us all. And they aren't checking cards at the gates of the nation's doom to see whether we are libertarians, social conservatives, or some non-conforming mishmash of both. ...54 percent of the economy is private, 28 percent goes to the feds, and 18 percent goes to state and local governments. The trend lines are ominous.That's what I think drives the Tea Party, and that's why the latest divide-and-conquer strategy will fail. Every day I see examples, large and small, and I don't have the time or energy to blog about all of them. (Just yesterday I read about the mandate for back up cameras on cars, and about bureaucratic insistence that doctors be chaperoned when examining patients even though neither the doctors nor the patients want chaperons.) These people are running our lives, ruining the country, and they are doing it with our money, and even though it is clear that the money has run out, they demand it anyway. Which naturally leads me to suspect that it is they who want the Tea Party to have a war. They can make all the noise they want, but I for one am not about to go to war on their say-so. Sure, they might be very powerful, but they don't have the power to declare war within the Tea Party, do they? Well, I guess maybe they can declare a war within their media echo chamber, but they can't draft me or make me fight, can they? UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all. I appreciate the comments, including the disagreements. I'm not inclined to go to war, and I don't think disagreement constitutes war. (As I pointed out in a comment to M. Simon's earlier post, I don't even think disagreement necessarily constitutes hate!) posted by Eric at 10:52 AM | Comments (78)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Moving backwards with government assistance
When I was younger and considerably more irresponsible than I am now, I bought a used car for almost nothing, which the guy sold me because the (automatic) transmission had conked out and he couldn't move it. Actually, the car could be moved, but only in reverse. The transmission was dead in all forward gears, but in reverse it operated as would any other car. While the car was a little over four miles from where I lived at the time, it occurred to me that if I could just get it home without having it towed (which would have cost more than I paid for the car) I would have a great deal. To do that, though, I would have to drive it in reverse for four miles across town. Yes, I was crazy enough to do it. My thinking was that when you drive a car in reverse, people usually have enough common sense to understand what that entails, and they just sort of shrug while you slowly work your way in reverse past them -- presumably to get back to wherever it was you wanted to go but made an error, or to return to that parking space you missed. Obviously, driving in reverse is not a good idea at peak traffic times, so I figured I would drive the disabled car home at a time well into the wee hours of the morning. It was much easier than I thought it would be. The only hard part was craning my neck while driving. I wrapped my right arm around the passenger headrest, and just kept going. What made it even easier was the fact that at 3:00 a.m. the lights in Berkeley are almost all timed, so I didn't have to sit at lights idling with the brake on looking like I had gone through the light and idiotically stopped without continuing "forward." There were a few other drivers on the road, but they had more important things to do than worry about a car backing up. All they were interested in was me getting out of their way and their staying out of my way -- and how on earth would they have known that I was driving a car in reverse for over four miles? So I made it home. My neck was sore as hell the next day, though. The reason this bizarre true story from my past came to light is that Glenn Reynolds linked a very irritating article about government run amok. Federal regulations are to require backup cameras on all new cars by 2014. By 2014 all new cars sold in the U.S. will have a factory installed back-up camera. These rear-view cameras, already standard on many luxury cars, could help prevent 300 death and 18,000 injuries. It's the law!All I can say is that law would have spared me a very sore neck if they'd had the cameras back in the old days. I wish they'd had them! Except I'm wondering whether that's the purpose. Does the government really want to facilitate long distance driving in reverse? Hardly. I think the idea is the ongoing idiot-proofing of everything. The reason there are so many accidents caused by people driving in reverse is that there are so many incompetent drivers on the road who either don't or who can't look before backing up. The latter include fat people, people with back problems, and the elderly, and a whole host of clueless people who simply do not have the manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination, brains, whatever it is you call it. For reasons that defy logic and common sense, the government experts who run everything are bound and determined to make it easier for them. What they don't realize is that they're also going to make driving in reverse a lot easier for the people who are young, coordinated, and above all video-game savvy. I'm glad I'm not a teenager, because I can just see backup camera facilitated reverse street racing as the Next Big Thing. It's more fun than flying under instruments-only conditions. Be the first on your block! Hell, they're probably doing it already. I'm sure it's a neat game once you get the hang of it. Probably becomes second nature. Almost makes me wish I were young so I could experiment. (Everything will be so much safer.) posted by Eric at 11:20 PM | Comments (6)
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War Baby
I would like to thank the Japanese and Germans for starting WW2. Without the war my mother would not have met my father and I would probably be some one else. If I was anyone at all. On Dec 7th, 1941 my Dad (God rest his soul) was in the Coast Guard. Not long after the attack he was in the Navy for the duration. He was a Chief Petty Officer (Damage Control) on the AOG-27 USS Escatawpa a gasoline tanker that was involved in the Battle of Okinawa. AOG-27 USS EscatawpaBTW the 9.5 knots is the top speed. The economical speed is 8.5 knots. Cruising the Pacific in such a ship must have been daunting. I served on a frigate, the USS Bainbridge. When I was on it we had TWO Dual 3" 50s aft. And a top sustained speed (nuclear powered) of above 30 knots. Although I was in a combat zone for a while the only time we ever went to general quarters was for drill. I had nothing like kamikaze attacks to deal with. Of course being in engineering I would have been the last to know. Unless we took a hit. My general quarters station was damage control central. My dad and I used to swap sea stories when he was with us. All because of WW2. Which started for America today. 69 years ago. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 06:36 PM | Comments (4)
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Remember Pearl Harbor, lest it become "outdated content"
I try to remember every year. And I can't think of a better reason than the fact that (unlike Bing) Google would have us forget. So what did I do? In spite of if not because of the obvious irony involved, I promptly Googled Google on the subject and found a Google discussion -- titled "Why is there no Google Doodle in honor of December 7th? (Pearl Harbor)." Right up at the top, a red bar warns, "This discussion contains outdated content." As outdated as remembering Pearl Harbor, no doubt. Like this outdated remark from a whole year ago: 12/7/09 Have we already forgotten about "a date that will live in infamy"? Then again it looks like people have already forgot about what actually happened on 9/11 as well...Or, how about a turkey doodle day? 12/7/09 You can do "Turkish National Day" but not pearl harbor day?? The Japaneses market will probably be offended I'm sure.....I'm using Bing!For that occasion, Google very thoughtfully turned one of their O's into an Islamic crescent. Then there was this outdated comment: 12/8/09 They devote a week and a half to Sesame Street, yet don't observe Pearl Harbor Day, the birthday of the Constitution and the birthday's of our military branches. I'm waiting to see if they are going to observe the birthday of the Bill of Rights. I did notice that their competetion, Bing.com, is observing Pearl Harbor Day in the memory of those who lost their lives and did our nation a great service. Without them, they probably wouldn't have a job. And I may have found a new search engine. I talk loudly and proudly and my friends will get wind of what has happened today.Things were even worse than poor Jessica imagined. Google did snub the birthday of the Bill of Rights, but they didn't just leave the plain old Google logo: they substituted a special logo to celebrate the birthday of LL Zamenhof: Today is the 118th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Bill of Rights, but the buzz is not about the ten amendments. Instead, it is all about what search engine Google did, or rather did not do today. Internet is on fire right now with people discussing why Google chose to honor the 150th birthday of the 'father' of Esperanto L.L. Zamenhof rather than honoring the anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights, a milestone event in the history of the United States.I guess now that it's a year later, that issue is "outdated content." Why would Google think the invention of a language that faded into near total obscurity is more important than the Bill of Rights? I think Glenn put it well. "They're citizens of the world at Google."I prefer being a citizen of the United States who remembers Pearl Harbor. UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all. Comments appreciated, agree or disagree. UPDATE: Co-blogger M. Simon is a veteran whose father served in World War II. Check out his Pearl Harbor Day post. posted by Eric at 03:05 PM | Comments (18)
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Predictable, but not dull
Repeating myself is no fun. Nor is saying "I TOLD YOU SO." But in today's news, I see that President Obama is selling out the left, and making a right turn: Obama sells out the left: a Republican win on taxesNothing could fail to surprise me more. Things are right on schedule. Here's what I said in February, (and I was repeating myself even then): As I argued earlier, if Obama moves to the center now, not only would he look weak, but there's a serious risk that he might just save enough congressional seats to keep it in Democratic hands. And if that happens, the American voters (who remain center-right) would be much more inclined to vote him out in 2012.And now that they have lost, it is in his best interest to have his most beatable opponent on the GOP ticket in 2012. If only this weren't so predictable. It's not dull, though. Train wrecks never are, even if you see them coming. (No, that is not a prediction that the Republicans would ever unwittingly help ensure that Obama gets a second term. After all, the presidency is theirs for the taking, isn't it? Why would they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?) posted by Eric at 11:03 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, December 6, 2010
Letting people in nursing homes suffer is a small price to pay...
Quick question. What gives the Drug Enforcement Administration the right to determine what pain medications elderly people should be getting, when they should get it, and who gives it to them? Kohl wants to change DEA rules that allow pharmacists to dispense drugs to nursing home patients only with a verbal or written prescription from a doctor. Advocates say this results in unnecessary medication delays because most nursing facilities do not have a full-time doctor on staff and may have trouble reaching a doctor at crucial moments.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Excuse me, but isn't this a medical issue? Or are senior citizens suffering from pain in rest homes now considered criminal suspects? I have no doubt that the DEA would say that it isn't trying to deny rest home patients pain relief, but that the goal is to stop the illegal diversion of drugs to the black market. If so, then why are they not simply going after the people who they determine to be actually diverting and selling the drugs? Instead, by making it harder for everyone else to get them (under the guise of crime prevention), they're sending a clear message that they consider everyone who supplies or needs pain meds to be a potential suspect. Do they really think a single drug-diverting criminal entrepreneur will be deterred by this harassment of law abiding people in pain and their caregivers? Has not history shown that drug criminals who flout the laws will simply adjust their tactics as needed? (If anything, they might see this as another opportunity to make more money if street prices go up.) The DEA's tactics remind me of the silly (and largely discredited) idea that making it tougher to buy guns will stop criminals from getting them. Pain relief prevention will not prevent crime. posted by Eric at 04:01 PM | Comments (2)
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Gratuitous and premature prognostication
When I was exploring a blog which Glenn Reynolds linked recently, I found a fascinating left-wing comparison of Sarah Palin with Mike Huckabee, which is so refreshing in its honesty that I couldn't resist sharing it: * General GOP crap: Palin believes and pushes a bunch of asinine right-wing nonsense about the economy, environment, guns, war, etc., as does Mike Huckabee. A wash.OK, let me admit my bias: to say that I prefer Palin over Huckabee would be understatement. (No surprise to anyone who has read this blog.) But what I think is irrelevant. Regardless of my or anyone's personal biases, to see that Sarah Palin is far more likely than Mike Huckabee to draw votes from independents, libertarians, and possibly disgruntled leftists does not require a degree in political science. Little wonder the left is hoping and praying that Huckabee will be the nominee. The trouble with comparing Palin and Huckabee is that no choice that simple will ever be before the voters. Instead, they (the GOP primary voters) will most likely have to choose between Palin, Huckabee, Romney, and Gingrich. In the last cycle, Huckabee and Romney tended to cancel each other out, but that was before Palin, who may very well take votes from Huckabee and Romney (probably more from the former than the latter), but the three way split could conceivably put Gingrich on top. If Palin is number two, then whoever decided to drop out first could be the king maker. Or the queen maker. posted by Eric at 12:15 PM | Comments (12)
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Hating Democrats
R.S. McCain is looking at the Jew hating faction of the Democrat Party. And like any good reporter he picks a particularly ugly example for our entertainment and enlightenment. But history intrudes. Nazi Germany is now history. And so is the interregnum it brought to Jew hating. Jew hating in America peaked in 1944. It was so virulent among Republicans that my mother has never forgiven them despite the train wreck that is the current Democrat Party. Which is why, despite Jews earning like Episcopalians, they vote like Puerto Ricans. Hatred has consequences that often far outlive the hatred. "Unto the tenth generation....." I believe is the rule of thumb. A well rated DVD on the subject: The Longest Hatred: A Revealing History of Anti-Semitism H/T Instapundit Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 07:14 AM | Comments (1)
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Practice Run
I was reading Beyond The Nanny State which was discussing the TSA and other outrages and came across this comment:
You don't get it do you? The Drug War was the prototype for all this. Beating up on dopers was just a practice run. And fine practice it was. Now that everyone is a suspect (contraband doncha know?) the government has well established practices for dealing with just such a situation. Effective? Of course not. But neither is the Drug War. And ineffectiveness has led to no widespread outcry against the practices endemic to that little war on contraband. Let alone serious complaints on civil liberties grounds. Excepting for a few of us cranks. H/T Instapundit Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 06:21 AM | Comments (2)
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moral lessons from the war on drugs
There is right and wrong. At least I still like to think there is. Drug laws contaminate our sense of right and wrong. Think about it. The big divide in criminal law is the distinction between malum in se, and malum prohibitum. Prohibitory substance laws treat malum prohibitum crime more seriously than many malum in se crimes. You can't do that and pretend that traditional notions of right and wrong won't be affected. When my father was a kid, heroin and cocaine were available over the counter without prescription. They were no more immoral to buy than sudafed was until recently. Yet because of nearly a century of imprisoning people, SWAT team raids, a relentless stream of propaganda and ever more draconian laws, the possession of such drugs is now regarded by many as malum in se. There has been an attempt to accomplish the same moral shift with guns. You'd almost think there was no such thing as malum in se, and that right and wrong were relative concepts. If you did, you'd be a moral relativist. But if right and wrong are being made relative by the laws, then who are the moral relativists? posted by Eric at 12:04 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, December 5, 2010
Is that a cucumber in your underwear or are you just happy to be pickled?
Glenn Reynolds has a very amusing editorial comparing Barack Obama to Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel, who has cranked up the knobs to 11. The more I watch this administration at work, the more I think we're seeing the first Nigel Tufnel presidency.Normally, we are conditioned to see 10 as the scale number that cannot be exceeded. But that's only because we've been stuck in our backward decimalistic thinking which sees things on a scale of 1 through 10. By taking us to 11, Obama has either defied the laws of math or else he has elevated us to elevenism -- a system newer than the newest new new math. What he did not realize is that the setting of 11 would make the frogs jump: For Nigel Tufnel, turning the knobs to 11 was a way to excite the crowd, and Obama's approach has certainly done that, if not quite in the way that Obama intended. While many Americans were uneasy about big government before, Obama's shock-and-awe approach got them downright upset.Hmmm... And if we consider the Gore frog hypothesis in light of the latest scientific evidence (that if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly heat it up, the frog will freeze to death before it realizes it's actually boiling), then the rapid turning up of the knob has obviously caused a concomitant rapid freeze in the economy -- precisely in accord with the new counterintuitive law of physics we now know to be true! So it doesn't matter whether the frogs are avoiding the sudden freezing or the rapid boiling; the point is that they are jumping out of the pot. Glenn continues: Obama's advisers thought that the sudden introduction of numerous big-government programs would produce a sort of shock-and-awe effect, paralyzing opposition and getting the public used to the idea of European style government involvement in American life. But instead of shock and awe, Obama's approach has produced shock and action, with the Tea Party movement and other anti-big-government protests sweeping the nation like wildfire, and producing the biggest Democratic midterm defeat in generations.The Spinal Tap analogy is so rich that I think the film may be truly prophetic. I mean, consider the cucumber scene -- which so eerily anticipates the TSA brouhaha that I am flabbergasted. Glenn concludes by asking whether there will be a Spinal Tap-style "happy ending to a humorous story of ineptitude and decline." Well, I think we are in a pickle. I'd call it the final "solution" for cucumbers and frogs, but this is getting sick. (Plus, I don't like violating Godwin's Law on Sundays....) UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all! (And I don't know what I would do if someone limited me to 800 words!) posted by Eric at 12:05 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, December 4, 2010
Frozen in denial
Well, it looks as if I've been in denial about Global Warming. Turns out that it's killing people: At least 60 people have died across Europe during the current cold snap, as snow plagued transport in Britain on Friday and serious flooding prompted mass evacuations in the Balkans.I anticipate that there may be cynical doubters and stubborn denialists out there who will say that if people are freezing to death, it's the opposite of warming, but they just don't understand. Freezing is caused by warming! "this shows that the climate is becoming more dynamic, and thus large shifts in the wind patterns are possible - in this case, sub-tropical air being trapped further south than usual."Hey, as any idiot knows, if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly heat it up, the frog will freeze to death before it realizes it's actually boiling. posted by Eric at 02:23 PM | Comments (5)
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"you don't know who's enemy"
While there don't seem to be very many film directors in Afghanistan, I recently watched an excellent film -- Osama -- about a girl in the era of Taliban rule whose mother encouraged her to disguise herself as a boy, because that was the only way for the family (which had no remaining men alive) to survive. It is a harrowing tale, and I won't spoil the plot, other than to say the girl's "crime" is eventually discovered by the Taliban. A grim reminder of how awful the situation was before the events of 9/11 caused the United States to remove the cutthroats from power. From a review: "...Barmak's unflinching docu-drama depiction of the frightening Taliban terror is a traumatizing watch-but a necessary one. Filmed with the country's only 35mm camera at a total cost of the price of used Volvo...".Have to admire a director like that. Out of natural curiosity, I wondered whether the director (Siddiq Barmak) had done anything since. Sure enough, he has, and his most recent one is a sort of black comedy titled Opium War in which two wounded American GIs stumble onto a struggling Afghan family who live in an abandoned tank as they cultivate poppies -- which come in handy for the wounded GIs, who ease their pain by licking the pods. It sounds interesting, and it was screened at festivals, and submitted to the Academy Awards: Afghanistan's official submission to the 2009 Academy Awards.[1] Opium War was screened at several international film festivals, including the 2008 edition of Rome Film Feast where it won The Golden Marc'Aurelio Critics' Award for Best Film.[3]But it seems to have died on the vine. I cannot find even a hint of it being available anywhere, for rent or for purchase. Why might that be? I always hate it when I want to see a film and I can't. So I kept looking around, and finally found an interview with the director which scared the crap out of me. He fears for his country, and claims that the Taliban is on its way back to power. Obviously, that would mean an end to Afghan films, as well as any hope his children might have had to finish their education. Bad enough as that specter is, the most shocking allegation he makes is that NATO forces (including the US, natch) are deliberately helping move Taliban troops from the South to the North. Here's background: Siddiq Barmak is currently one of only a few filmmakers in Afghanistan who is able to make feature films in his native country. His first feature film, "Osama", portrays a young girl who is forced to don a disguise as a boy in order to support her mother in the Taliban era. The film won a Golden Globe Award, and made a great demonstration of Afghanistan's film heritage and its possible future to the world.And here's the embed (hope it works). As I lack access to classified information and haven't spent my time reading through the WikiLeaks, I don't know how true the man's allegations of treachery are. But the bottom line is that he is losing hope because (in his words) "you don't know who's enemy." It didn't take long to find confirmation that the Taliban (long a problem in the South) is taking over in the North. The process is chilling, and seems numbingly familiar: The fighters swarm into town, assemble the villagers and announce Taliban control, often at night and without any resistance.Here's the typical village-by-village pattern: Before the Taliban invades a village, its arrival is sometimes preceded by a letter.Naturally, they're also killing people, and inflicting arbitrary punishments: Taliban members executed a man known as Sayid Arif, who they said worked for the Afghan government, by pulling him from his car and shooting him. They left him in the road with a note on his chest that said for whoever works with the government, "this is the punishment," said a tribal elder named Abdullah.WaPo readers are assured that the US troops are opposing them, so I guess clueless Americans like myself are supposed to hope that's true. But the above was written in August, and I didn't find this more recent piece in Military.com especially reassuring BRUSSELS - A senior NATO official says U.S. and NATO forces are helping the Taliban reach out to the government in Afghanistan as a first step toward reconciliation with the insurgency.I hope the fix isn't in. Or else it will be Osama time again (if you'll forgive the pun). And people will say that the enemy will have been us. MORE: Back in 2006, Michael Yon warned about the growing Taliban threat, and of course the opium: approximately half of Afghanistan's economy is based on opium, meaning roughly half the economy thrives in a chaos that also funds world-class terrorists. Experts who study the calculus of the narcotics trade know that the problem is growing out of control in Afghanistan because every additional poppy lanced for its opium unleashes an oozing flow of black-market dollars. Those dollars are not taxed by the Kabul government, but by the virtual government of the Taliban. Perversely, poppy farmers grow poorer with each successively larger crop, because their bounty boosts supplies while driving prices lower, and they need to grow more each year just to stay even.Of course, if the Taliban regains power, they'll abolish opium growing once again, and plunge the country into further economic despair. As to what makes opium so profitable, well... I think M. Simon and I have written a few posts about that over the years. posted by Eric at 11:29 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, December 3, 2010
Good Lovin
The Best Dead version of Good Lovin I've heard on YouTube. Cross Posted at Classical Values posted by Simon at 04:25 PM | Comments (7)
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Holiday Recipes
Despite our best efforts the holidays are once again upon us, and so in the spirit of the season I'd like to share a recipe that I've enjoyed annually for some years now. Traditional Two-Minute Bodybuilders' Low-Carb High-Omega-3 Christmas Dinner You will need: Put all ingredients into the blender and mix for 11 seconds on high. (Did you put the top on? I hope so!) Drink from blender. Merry Christmas! Now go work out. Feel free to share any recipes you've enjoyed in the comments. posted by Dave at 11:44 AM | Comments (4)
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Family Values
I love discussing the wedge issues between libertarian Republicans and Christian Conservatives. Evidently it is a subject that interests Instapundit who sent me to Dana Loesch. Who is hot on the subject. Since they brought It up I'm feeling a few words coming on. First a redefinition of sorts: Uh it is not Christians vs Libertarians. It is Statists vs Libertarians. On the Right Statists manifest mostly as Christians On the left they are Socialists. I see no value in choosing between Secular Socialists and Christian Socialists. It is rank bias of course that I do not care to rank the factions. A commenter said:
According to my rough surveys about half the Christian "Conservatives" are really liberals. i.e. "It is not The State that is the problem. It is who is in charge. Put good Christians in charge and all will be well. And BTW the dopers deserve it. I don't care about no durn Prohibition Amendments." And why do I call Christian "Conservatives" liberal? Because like all liberals they believe that there are a lot of things that can be fixed with a liberal application of government. They believe in the Daddy State. Liberals are more inclined to the Mommy State. Family values. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 10:23 AM | Comments (11)
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What we call "privacy" is just an unclosed loophole
I really liked Glenn Reynolds' latest InstaVision interview: I talk with Jim Meigs of Popular Mechanics, who explains the creepy side of the information age. Corporations compile information on you. Can this information be used for nefarious purposes? What happens if a stalker gets a hold of your information?I like to think that at age 56, I'm a bit old to attract stalkers, but I would love to at least have the ability to make it harder for whoever these people are to invade my privacy. While it is annoying for corporations to be gathering all of this information on every last thing we buy and every movement we make, it didn't take long for an obvious thought to cross my mind. Surely, a lot of people are annoyed by the constant encroachments on their privacy, and would be willing to pay in order to "opt out." Starting with credit cards. Suppose you don't want a record of all your purchases to be public information. There's always paying with cash, right? But suppose you don't want to lug cash around all the time. And what about the growing trend of businesses that refuse to accept cash? Think I'm kidding? Try to buy something as mundane as an iPad. Apple stores will not accept cash: Being disabled and on a fixed income, Campbell held off on buying a computer until the Apple iPad came along. It was small, mobile and perfect for her needs. So, little by little she saved up the $600 she needed to get one.Well, screw Apple then. I consider their policy to be un-American as well as Orwellian. I consider paying with cash whenever I want for whatever I want to be as American as apple pie. No Apple for me! If this is a sign of the times, then we are living in times that suck, and I can think of no better argument against keeping up with the times than boycotting this asshole company. In fairness to Apple, I should point out that their policy generated such an angry backlash that Apple was forced to reverse its no-cash policy. For now.... I hope this does not represent a growing trend, because cash is one of the few vestiges of privacy remaining in this once free country. However, a major problem with cash is that a lot of people don't like carrying large sums cash around. In a comment yesterday, I opined that while there is "an absolute right to walk down the street with hundreds of thousands of dollars in your pocket," that it "might be stupid" because of the risk of robbery. I now realize that I spoke in haste, because if you had hundreds of thousands of dollars on your person, you might have just as much to fear from the police as from a criminal. Police love to take money away from citizens, and they so so at every opportunity. Naturally, our fearless courts uphold them when they do. Driving with large amounts of cash has been held to be a crime: Federal Appeals Court: Driving With Money is a CrimeNo drugs were ever found. So all they need to do is have a dog bark at you. I get barked at all the time, because not only do I have an attitude of insolent familiarity with dogs, but I smell like Coco, who has been favorably compared with Audrey Hepburn and Kim Novak. That's enough to drive most red-blooded American drug sniffers crazy. They might even want to mount me. So I better not exercise my right to keep and bear large sums of cash that the courts say I no longer have. There are numerous reports involving government shakedowns of people carrying cash. Even a Ron Paul staffer was grabbed at an airport and detained by the TSA. His "crime"? Merely having $4700 in cash. Bastards. But my ranting does not solve the privacy problem. Carrying cash is problematic even if the government doesn't take it away from you. So my thoughts turned to plastic. It seems that there ought to be a way to simply buy a prepaid debit card, and then use that in place of cash. I mean, this is free market America, right? Where there is a demand for something (and surely there is a demand for financial privacy), clever entrepreneurs ought to be competing with each other to offer such privacy services. I looked and looked, and while I found sites like this which discuss the options, I learned about a huge stumbling block. Guess what? It's not big business. It's the government. Unfortunately, the federal government recently passed a law that requires all credit card issuers to collect SSNs. This was post-9/11, so I assume the motivation was tracking terrorists' finances. Some go even further; Morgan Beaumont's application form, for example, asks for a copy of your passport or drivers license! No thanks."Sigh" is right. Apparently it used to be possible to buy an anonymous debit card, but they cracked down. Call it the war on drugs, call it the war on terror. It's really a war on privacy and on freedom, and the government is behind it. What I can't decide is whether I'm still naive enough to hope that a Republican Congress might do something about it. (Or should we just give up on hope?) Because pretty soon, all exit routes will be blocked, and the fence will be a done deal. People will not know they are encircled until it is too late - like putting in all these very deep, robust fence-posts with no fence panels. All seems open. One day you will wake up and the panels are in, you are trapped and they can decide what law they wish to impose to nail whomsoever they desire.How many warnings do we need? MORE: Right after publishing this post, I saw a Wired piece titled "Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Credit Cards in Real Time" Federal law enforcement agencies have been tracking Americans in real-time using credit cards, loyalty cards and travel reservations without getting a court order, a new document released under a government sunshine request shows.I guess the Fourth Amendment has now gone from being a loophole to being an optional loophole -- depending on the whims of government agents. It's a disgrace. Who are these people, and why do they get to spy on us? As I've said before, in some ways the tyrannical King George was more accountable, for at least his subjects knew who and where he was.... And they were allowed to use cash. MORE: Regarding debit cards, I did find one loophole which apparently has not been closed -- store gift cards: Gift cards offer far more anonymity than the prepaid debit cards because they can be used without disclosing any SSN. Although many terms of use say they require online registration of the card if you want to use them to make online purchases, the registration usually asks for a name and an address, not a SSN. Gift cards can be paid for with cash at many locations like Rite Aid, 7 eleven or countless other stores. They also work as an anonymous card at most stores where a regular debit card is accepted, again, without a related bank account.As to how long the government will allow its subjects to buy them anonymously, who knows? For now, a clever store chain might consider raising the maximum limit, and marketing them as "privacy cards." UPDATE: Thanks, Memeorandum for the link! posted by Eric at 10:04 AM | Comments (5)
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The Sharp Edge Of Guilt
Yesterday I was hanging around in the kitchen with my older son, waiting for the coffee to brew, and he made some joking comment about my being oppressed when I was growing up. I told him I was oppressed enough, or at least women were, in that time and in that place - as they still are in many times and in many places. Yes, I like to point out and do - often - that it wasn't a gigantic conspiracy of men against women that kept women down for six thousand years because frankly most men can't conspire their way out of a paperbag. (I suspect women are naturally better at it. No, don't hurt me. Just women seem to be naturally more socially adept. But even women couldn't manage a conspiracy of that magnitude.) And I like to point out - and do - it wasn't shoulder to shoulder but the pill and changes in technology that liberated women or at least that made attempts at liberation reasonable instead of insane. (Of course, shoulder to shoulder makes for better movies and books, which is why everyone believes it.) Continue reading "The Sharp Edge Of Guilt"posted by Sarah at 09:49 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, December 2, 2010
Eric Told me I Could Do Shameless Self Promotion
So, blame this on him. The paperback of Darkship Thieves is out. I'm buried in the next Elise Hyatt mystery -- A Fatal Stain -- which was due a month ago. I will do more Heinlein posts and others as soon as I get this written. Meanwhile, I have put up -- again -- the recording of my reading the first chapter of Darkship Thieves. (Yes (rolls eyes) I REALLY sound like that. It's not a put on. I'd pay money to get rid of the stupid accent.) I'm also doing a giveaway. And a colleague of mine was kind enough to post a review of DST. So, if you find yourself at odds and ends or trying to avoid work this morning, shashay (amble, walk, leap, lope -- whatever you prefer) on over to According To Hoyt and poke around. :) MORE: This is Eric, and yes it is my fault! Not only did I tell Sarah that she could do shameless promotion, but I will shamelessly assist her in doing so, by bumping this post to increase its visibility! posted by Sarah at 08:07 PM | Comments (6)
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Hard Drugs
It is rich, but Raich has come back to haunt those hoping for a legal answer to Obama Care. Just as I predicted in Letter to a Friend. Reason Magazine has the news. According to a federal judge in Virginia, ObamaCare's individual mandate to purchase health insurance is constitutional under the Commerce Clause because, under precedents set by previous cases, "Congress has broad power to regulate purely local matters that have substantial economic effects, even where the regulated individuals claim not to participate in interstate commerce." The ruling, which was released yesterday, dismissed an argument by Liberty University, a Christian school based in the state, that the law should be invalidated because, among other reasons, it unconstitutionally requires individuals to purchase health insurance.With the previous understanding the government was merely leasing the taxpayers. It now owns them. But you have to admit the dopers got what was coming to them. And now the rest of us are going to get it. Good and hard. The Raich case was about pot. So maybe Marijuana is a hard drug after all. Evidently in aggregate it will be hardest on those who don't use it. A very peculiar drug to be sure. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 01:18 PM | Comments (10)
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the wages of sin?
I'm a 56 year old man who sometimes enjoys contemplating the beauty of ruins. I don't want to say that I "celebrate the beauty of decay" because that might sound decadent and distract from my purpose here, which is to stick to an activity considered normal and wholesome. Contemplating the beauty of ruins is certainly normal enough that entire industries have grown up around it. It's so mundane that most of the people who contemplate ruins are called "tourists." However, in my case, I don't have get into all-out tourist mode and travel all the way to Rome or Athens to contemplate beautiful ruins. In Philadelphia I used to enjoy visiting the crumbling ruins of the ancient Eastern State Penitentiary (just as I used to enjoy Alcatraz in San Francisco). And I have gotten quite a kick out of visiting the beautiful ruins of once-lovely Detroit. How "normal" an activity that is, I don't know. But let's suppose that during a hypothetical visit to an awful neighborhood in Detroit, I was set upon by a pack of thugs and robbed and beaten. That such a thing might happen would certainly be a possibility, but here's my question. Would it be my fault? Would I be said to have asked for it? Would people condemn my interest in photographing ruins as an immoral activity which invited the assault? And would an attack on me be considered occasion for sermons against the evils of taking pictures of old buildings? I doubt it. So why is it that if a twenty-something woman wearing a short skirt were to go into the very same neighborhoods surrounding the crumbling buildings, many people would consider an attack on her to be her fault? M. Simon's earlier post about blaming rape victims for being slutty reminded me of the many things that can be seen as triggers for criminal behavior. People who run around wearing Ipods, driving nice cars, or just wearing business suits in the "wrong" neighborhoods might be just as likely to be targeted by criminals as a young woman deemed slutty looking. So why is there more of a tendency to blame "sluttiness" (or hedonism) for criminal conduct than, say "conspicuous consumption"? And the more I think about it, a guy wearing a nice suit might be more likely to become a crime victim than a slutty-looking girl. So why is the latter more blameworthy? There was a local Detroit case I blogged about not long ago involving a 12 year old who was charged with shooting a 24 year old woman to death. My post drew commenters who went out of their way to blame the victim by making an unsubstantiated claim that she was a "stripper" -- something which in their mind made her blameworthy. As I pointed out in response to the comments, a victim's occupation is irrelevant to a murder charge. ...I don't see the relevance of the victim's career choices to this discussion -- any more than the make and model of her car. Whether she was a stripper or not (and I have not seen that in the news accounts), murder is still murder.The latter reminds me of this video: In the minds of these thugs and their culture, anything that might happen to that gay man would be his fault, and not theirs. Most Americans aren't like that. But not all. Consider some of shocking stuff that has been said about the murdered Detroit woman elsewhere which I will not quote. (That last link is so appalling that I should probably warn readers not to visit the site if you are upset by vicious racist profanity. I should probably consider myself lucky to have such civilized commenters.) This is not to say that it isn't advisable to use common sense in avoiding potential dangers, but I think that once we start blaming victims for the actions of their attackers, it is a short step to letting the criminals completely off the hook. Or worse yet, allowing them to become a perverse sort of free ranging morality police. I do not want to live in a society where women have to cover themselves in order to feel safe. I'll take the Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy! culture any day. However, freedom is not without its risks, as I often acknowledge. It isn't free. posted by Eric at 12:40 PM | Comments (14)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, December 1, 2010
the modern exclusion of traditional gay inclusion
One of the hot topics of today is the DADT quagmire, which I don't feel especially compelled to discuss right now -- mainly because I don't like joining in news-driven choruses in rote response to the appearance of news items. (Allahpundit noted that despite the hype over the poll that's generating the current fuss, "there may be greater support for repeal within military families than within the general population.") I have mixed feelings about DADT, because I think sexuality ought to be a private matter, and if the reverse of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is "Ask and Tell," then the many people who don't want to asked about their sexuality will be asked. I think the invasions of privacy in the old anti-gay days sucked. And while no one seems to be thinking about the privacy question, I still think that asking someone where he puts his dick sucks -- even if no penalty is supposed to attach to the answer. OTOH, I also have a problem with the idea of telling someone that he may not disclose his sexual interests at all. So the "Don't Tell" part strikes me as at odds with human reality. I'm not in charge of the military, though, and I don't think these personal issues should ever have been made be political questions. I wish people did not care about these things, and I guess that means I'm not living in the real world. (And now that we're being forced to show our genitals to government bureaucrats, my concerns over privacy probably make me a ludicrous anachronism....) However, I continue to be intrigued by definitions, and I almost missed a new one which touches on a puzzling question I've asked and polled. Memeorandum linked a thoughtful post at Maggie's Farm titled "I'm A Gay Guy And A Veteran." I clicked the link out of curiosity, and for a moment it seemed I'd been misled. Cleverly and playfully hoodwinked! For while the author was calling himself gay, he was not using word "gay" in the modern sense. Nor was he merely using it in the traditional sense. I'm a gay guy, meaning I'm pretty carefree and happy, pretty tolerant, and not a homosexual.Well, "gay" certainly does mean "carefree" and "happy" according to the traditional definition, but I am unable to find any definition of the word anywhere which means "not a homosexual." That particular exclusion does not appear in the word's long etymology: gayPutting aside the slang-derived modern definition, the suggestion of immorality, or looseness or licentiousness, is traditional enough to appear as one of the definitions in my stodgy old Webster's New International Dictionary (Second Edition, 1957): Note in particular traditional definition number 5: Given to social pleasures or indulgence; hence, loose; licentious; as, to lead a gay life.There is nothing in that traditional definition which is incompatible with being heterosexual or homosexual. But it doesn't mean "not a homosexual" any more than it means "not a heterosexual." Traditional gays can be straight, bi, or gay. The term is inclusive! (I have no problem with inclusion, as long as it isn't done in an exclusive manner....) IMPORTANT UPDATE: I should remind readers that "happiness" is now being proposed as a new mental illness category. Obviously, if that were to happen, then gays would become mentally ill again. Sneaky bastards, aren't they? posted by Eric at 11:04 AM | Comments (18)
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A Culture For Libertines
I was over visiting Stacy McCain's thanks to Instapundit where there was a discussion going on about a Muslim gang that raped white women and girls - some as young as 12 - in the UK. So of course the question of culture comes up. And of course the decline in morals in the West. And how we still have a slut/madonna duality. It just seems these Muslim boys had it worse. Evidently the difference between mutual agreement and force was lost on them. Which may have had to do with their Muslim culture. Especially its attitude towards non-Muslims. One of the commenters said: This issue is a symptom of the degradation of the WestThe double standard Re: women is not Western, it is human. Personally I prefer the "girls just wanna have fun" attitude of Western women. Every culture has its pitfalls. I'll take ours. The range of acceptable possibilities is wider. i.e. we are more adaptable. A survival trait. Another commenter said: -The behavior of the Royal Family is nothing new. Such activities have been the norm for all such families ever since the first king was crowned.And why is it so prevalent in the West? We are richer. With wealth comes the "diseases" of wealth. i.e. human nature is what it is. I like it. But I always did like strong independent women. Rich cultures have more of them. I liked strong women so much that I married one. Twenty eight years and four children ago. #1. An artist It is possible to raise strong families without "Victorian" attitudes. Our current situation is difficult because we don't have "rules" that correspond to the current situation. Over the next 100 years - if we remain rich - we will develop the cultural tools needed. In the mean time - as in any learning situation - there is going to be a lot of wreckage. Rule of thumb: if 50% of your experiments are not failures you are not learning fast enough. Girls who are not dependent on men are going to be more sexual generally. Girls who can control their "fertility" are going to be more promiscuous. When there are not enough suitable men around women will be more promiscuous. In America we like sending a lot of men to prison. Especially dealers in dried plants and plant extracts. This contributes to our family problems. Ironically you find that the folks who most hate "cultural breakdown" also really like putting the hammer down on the dealers in dried plants and plant extracts. It is a wonder to behold. Humans is some very funny animals. Maybe some one needs to write Cultural Rules For Aristocrats. "Or How to Get By With Loose Morals In An Age Of Plenty." Exhibition vs discretion could be one of the Chapters. It is all about etiquette. Americans don't have any. Jerry Springer? The Gong Show? The $1.98 Beauty Contest? And how do you write an etiquette where people's ideas of proper decorum are so divergent? Could this be the basis for a Right and Proper Moral Panic? I hope not. If we are lucky this will all pass before some one gets the bright idea that what we need is a law, or twenty. It will all pass if we give culture and wealth time to work. I remember the Christmas tree bomber lamenting that his culture was losing its his hard edge in soft America so he had to act fast. Before he didn't want to act. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 08:20 AM | Comments (18)
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