February 2008

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Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.

-William Pitt

February 28, 2007

Setting "Eternal Hope" Straight

The poor, misguided blogger who goes by the name “Eternal Hope” has sparked an interesting conversation over at DailyKos. It all starts with Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research noting on her excellent blog (see also our blogroll) the story about Al Gore’s mansion allegedly consuming more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. Says Eternal Hope:

…it turns out that the NCPPR is a 501(c)3 organization, meaning that they can't advocate for or against the election of a candidate. Since they have done so, they have violated the law.
… First of all, I submit that the NCPPR is guilty under the "working against a candidate" clause. The fact that they are promoting a smear against Al Gore means that they are working against his potential candidacy, in violation of 501(c)3.

I find this argument interesting on two grounds.

First, Al Gore is not a candidate for any office. I know you guys have got that big fat “Draft Gore” button up on the screen at Kos, but the law applies to people who are candidates under… the law. Not people who are candidates in your head. I can’t consider Ridenour’s piece to be any kind of advocacy against Gore even if he were running, but we can’t even ask that question because Gore really, really, is not a candidate in the really real world.

Second, as I shared with the Atlantico email list just this morning;

The issue then becomes one of haves and have-nots, and the Left doesn't seem to mind. Gore can jet-set and have his inefficient mansion, because he is wealthy enough and popular enough to get contributions to help pay for carbon offsetting. You got the financial ability to cover yourself, Rammage? No? Wealthy donors to bail you out? No? Then you'd better watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems. Buy a Prius and shut your pie hole, while Gore enjoys the benefits of privilege - because he's EARNED IT.

I don’t know whether Al Gore actually has zero carbon footprint – I’ll grant him the benefit of the doubt that he does, because that isn’t where my complaint lies. My complaint is that the Left’s argument in defense of Gore (dutifully trumpeted by Eternal Hope) is one of environmental inequality – in fact, environmental elitism. The logic is no different from saying that it’s okay to drive one’s Hummer through wetlands and over tortoise eggs, if one is wealthy enough to purchase extinction offsets. It becomes an issue of money-makes-right. Is that what the Left stands for?

I apologize to Amy Ridenour, but I couldn’t bring myself to cast a vote in the Kos poll – or even glance at the results. It would sully the reality of the situation to suggest that a vote means anything. Ridenour’s comments are simply not illegal, and Gore’s defenders have some inconsistencies to ponder.

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February 27, 2007

Playing Politics with the Iraq Troop Surge

I really like it when the media frames a debate the way I would do. NPR’s Ron Elving was apparently willing to accommodate me for this piece on the Iraq troop surge.

I, unlike most self-described libertarians, recognize that it would be foolish for the Bush administration or military commanders to announce a pull-out date. But that doesn’t mean I am not looking forward to seeing the troops exit Baghdad. And that’s exactly what the troop surge would lead to if all goes well. As Elving notes:

The question now is not whether more U.S. troops will be committed but whether they will accomplish what most Americans want: an expedited disengagement.

While Democrats jockey to get the credit for the eventual troop withdrawal - Senate Democrats are considering legislation that would revoke the 2002 authorization of force that allowed the Iraq invasion, which would probably be followed by legislation revoking the laws of supply and demand so they can ram through some kind of socialist healthcare and attempt to nationalize Big Oil – the fact is that this has been the culmination of US efforts to get Iraq’s government on its feet all along, as I have noted before. The Bush administration has not been able to effectively convince Americans of the progress, partly because it brings up the obvious questions of when our troops will be done and get to leave Iraq – a question that the administration can answer in terms of benchmarks but not in terms of timetables, as Ron Elving and I have already mentioned to you.

In Elvings’ piece from this week (the one I quoted above), he implies that there are some who wish the American troop presence in Iraq could just go on and on – an indefinite pseudo-occupation that would presumably continue to take the lives of good American soldiers. Except that I don’t know anybody who wishes for that. But that’s my only complaint with Elvings’ view of the troop surge. As he ends;

So the surge will go forward. Those who want U.S. involvement to end as soon as possible must now wish for events in Iraq to render a clear verdict, pro or con. If the surge works well, the phased withdrawal so many Democrats demand (and for which so many Republicans wish) can still begin this year. If the surge fails utterly, withdrawal becomes inevitable.

The next task for Democrats and the media, really, is to write the story so that it looks like the troops only came home because the Democrats had the mandate of the people to shut off Bush/Cheney’s blood spigot. Just tell yourselves that otherwise, it never would have ended.

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Researching Dracula = "Good Behavior"

I have to share this story about a man released from prison because of his contribution to the literary world:

An American historian sentenced to seven years in prison for sexual perversion and abuse of minors won early release from prison Tuesday because he wrote a book about Dracula, his attorney said.

According to the BBC, his writing counted as “work” in prison. It’s just kooky.

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February 20, 2007

Virginia General Assembly (Updated)

Try to follow this logic. The Virginia General Assembly is poised to pass legislation allowing youths as young as 14 to make decisions regarding alternative medicine. Though the wording of the current bill reportedly gives judges discretion on the matter, 14 is being referred to as the “age of consent” on the issue. Of course, that same kid is still 2 years too immature to drive, and 4 years too immature to make his own decisions about smoking, dropping out of school, or joining the military. He is also 7 years too young and immature to drink wine with dinner or have a beer at the game. Perhaps if he were to claim any of these were medicinal, it would suddenly be okay - pending judicial review. (Story at Virginian-Pilot on line.)

In other news, the House Finance Committee voted down legislation that would have allowed a 40 percent tax credit on contributions of at least $1,000 toward private schools serving children with disabilities. Which horrific special interest group would discourage donations to schools for disabled kids? The Virginia Education Association, for one. Again, try to follow this logic:

They said money that would pay for the credits would reduce general funds available to public schools.

The lesson? When push comes to shove, those disabled kids had better back off of the ~~taxpayers’~~ VEA’s money.

And lastly, legislators have shot down a bill that would protect homeowners who use legally owned weapons to defend their lives, their families, and their property. The bill would have protected homeowners from wrongful death suits, but not from criminal suits (obviously). One last time, try to follow the logic of those opposing the bill:

But Henry County prosecutor Bob Bushnell, speaking for the Virginia Commonwealth's Attorneys Association, said the legislation would shield someone who opens fire on a mentally ill person who wanders into his home.

It also would provide immunity to a drug dealer who shoots a police officer who enters a home unlawfully because he didn't notice that a magistrate forgot to sign a search warrant, Bushnell said.

(emphasis mine)
So according to Mr. Bushnell, if an officer enters my home unlawfully, and I take him to be a non-police officer who has entered my home unlawfully (the only difference here being his occupation), then I should not be able to defend myself? Keep in mind that during the average unlawful home entry, there isn't a lot of time for asking whether the masked man in fatigues is a police officer or a criminal. Besides which, a criminal might lie.

I guess I’ll just take comfort in the fact that I’m not a drug dealer, and therefore the police would never enter my home unlawfully.

Update: MichaelW of ASecondHandConjecture comments at QandO that Virginia follows the Castle Doctrine; Thus the legislation in question concerned civil liability, but Virginians are already protected from criminal liability if they shoot a violent intruder. It is true that the legislation was about civil liability – the sponsor was concerned with a homeowner facing a wrongful death suit filed by the family of an intruder that had been killed – but my understanding of Virginia Law is that the Castle Doctrine is not spelled out in Virginia. It may be implied or understood, but my understanding is that is as far as it goes.

Of course, I am no lawyer, and the scenario in the QandO story is a bit off of my original point anyway. My point is that the reason given for killing the legislation was that homeowners might take advantage of the freedom to kill trespassers wantonly, or at least inappropriately. And I understand the concern, I guess. But the appeal that one of those trespassers might be a police officer instead of just a citizen is one I find lacking. If the intruder is there illegally, then the homeowner should be explicitly protected under the law. If the intruder is there legally, then the Castle Doctrine does not apply, and the now-dead legislation would not have, either. Whether the intruder is a cop or not shouldn’t matter at all to this discussion. Their lives are not to be held above those of citizens.

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February 18, 2007

The Moral of the Tale of Marcotte and McEwan

Back on Friday, I read an article at Politico.com claiming liberal bloggers are “impudent, impotent, unreflective and unaccountable.” Not surprising if coming from a Republican, but in case you haven’t heard about this article, it’s coming from Dan Gerstein.

Gerstein calls lefty blogs onto the carpet for hypocrisy and a failure to address the real issues in the recent John Edwards/Marcotte/Whatshername fiasco. Let’s start with the obvious fact that the rightosphere was going to go nuts over these hires. The question isn’t whether or not these bloggers would be attacked – the question is how political allies should to respond to it. This is where Gerstein notes that the ball was dropped.

[Left-wing bloggers] have decided that the best way to fight the “right-wing smear machine” that they so despise is to create an even more venomous, boundary-less, and destructive counterpart and fight ire with more ire.

As Gerstein writes, these tactics are fine if a blogger’s objective is to engage in hate/counterhate with their ideological counterparts, or to drive an echo-chamber and the mutual-visit traffic so many sites enjoy. But neither arguments nor elections are won on the outer fringe. It is important for the serious blogger to read and engage people of opposing views in a serious manner. People simply aren’t persuaded or turned on by mud slinging or flamespraying, and neither party can win without the support of The Middle. You know, The Middle? That part of the electorate that generally claims to vote for the lesser of two evils? Some of those who defended Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte might not give a rip about The Middle. But John Edwards does, and his supporters have to as well – even his bloggers.

I am not saying that Marcotte and McEwan are less than capable writers. And I’m not even bothering to belabor the point that they weren’t well vetted – that’s obvious. I am simply saying that while it’s fine to defend their right to publish the hateful anti-Christian diatribes that sparked all of the controversy, it’s a different matter to defend the content of their writing, or to suggest that the only reason the two were attacked is because they "speak truth to power".

Too many (nearly all) on the e-Left missed the point and tried to defend these writers simply because they were being attacked by the Right. And the Edwards campaign has suffered an early embarrassment. For a candidate who currently makes the “Oh, and him” list after Senators Clinton and Obama, that’s serious.

The main lesson that serious political bloggers might take from all of this mess is that the enemy of your opponent is not necessarily your friend.

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February 13, 2007

Some Google News

It is being reported that a court has ruled that Google News breaches copyright law by linking to articles on the internet without consent. A group of Belgian newspapers brought the suit, which Google may appeal. Two thoughts:

1. This image is one of the most delicious I have ever seen. There is nothing wrong with irony, my friends.

2. Why bring this suit? I can't see the point. As the Times OnLine notes:

Analysts said they could not understand why the group, which has filed a similar action against Yahoo!, was pursuing the case, and that newspapers benefited from having stories indexed on Google News, which made their sites more prominent and boosted traffic.

“It’s utterly mad what they’re doing,” David Bradshaw, principal analyst with Ovum, said. “Google makes you relevant, it helps people find you. I can’t see how these people think being listed would be damaging.”

[point finger] Exactly. I'd love to be listed on Google News. They can even have free access to the AtlasBlogged cache, with no complaints from me (though technically Rammage owns the site). But the suit really does seem stupid on its face.

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February 11, 2007

Communists, Fusion, and the Moon

In reading up on the plans China has to go to the moon and mine He-3 for future nuclear fusion reactors (thanks McQ), I found a lot of what I expected. Quick points,

1) No, silly, they don't have fusion reactors in China... yet. As I noted in the comments section at QandO, I would think any mining plans floated today and enacted around 2020 would be in expectation of viable fusion reactors sometime soon afterwards. Plan ahead.

2) Yes, China is serious about fusion power. They have some excellent research scientists and facilities. This isn't a "cold fusion discovered!" story.

3) Isn't this freaking cool? He-3 is literally just lying around up there. I mean, trips to the moon are prohibitively expensive, but that can change. You aren't thinking fourth dimensionally, Marty!

4) :A quote from Lawrence Taylor, a director of the University of Tennessee's Planetary Geosciences Institute in Knoxville

When you have a communist regime in a capitalist network, you have huge amounts of cash and the ability to direct it.

So... how many Americans view that as a good thing? Something we should strive for?

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February 10, 2007

Digital Rights Management

Earlier this week, the BBC hosted an on-line debate regarding digital rights management. I was taken with the very first comment, which seemed to thrash from pro-property rights to anticorporatism. I'm sharing it here in hopes of getting the libertarian perspective on the issue.

Pirates can get around any security that is put in place, so it is only the rest of us who suffer. I certainly won't pay money for a product which I will never technically own. I used to be able to buy a cd, use it wherever I liked and even sell it on afterwards. Now all of a sudden I can't necessarily even play the music I've bought wherever I choose to play it. I can't believe we have let the greedy music industry get away with it for so long! Steve Jobs is only in it for business gain though.

Chris, London

What's your take?

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Pelosi and the Plane

Many on the right have seized the opportunity to criticize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for requesting a bigger military jet than the one Dennis Hastert used during his tenure. Except that the right got it wrong.

As the New York Times noted in this article :

Ms. Pelosi and fellow Democrats said that House security officials insisted that she travel in a government plane and that if she had her way she would fly on commercial craft. They suggested that Republicans were hypocritical, scheming sexists trying to deny the speaker the same protection afforded her male predecessor.

[emphasis mine] I have no idea how this is sexist, but it certainly was hypocritical. Many Republicans, including the White House, seemed embarassed that anybody tried to call Pelosi out on this issue. As for myself, I understand that the "red meat" section of the rightosphere could jump the gun when knowning half the story, because that's the game both sides play. The danger of jumping the gun is that you can get disqualified from the event, and that's exactly what happened here.

I appreciate those Republicans who were honest enough to defend Pelosi and even make light of the situation. At the top of the list, Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), quoted in the same Times article as saying:

Next week, we are going to steal their mascot and short-sheet their beds.

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February 7, 2007

On Trial for Publishing the Danish Cartoons

Philippe Val, publisher of the French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo went on trial this week for publishing the infamous Danish Cartoons.

The charge is “publicly slandering a group of people because of their religion” (I have seen several variants of this, so I guess the translation is a bit open to interpretation.) The charge carries a possible six-month prison sentence and a fine of up to €26,800. Val was quoted as saying, "In a democracy, we're all shocked by what people say and do. We just have to learn to talk about it.”

The shame is that he even needed to say that. As Rammage so eloquently noted last year, this situation puts the American Left in quite a quandary. Which value is more important – freedom of the press, or respect for the cultural and religious beliefs of those in third world countries? Is it okay to print cartoons that criticize Islamists, or is it not?

But even if Americans answer that question correctly, it may not help Mr. Val in his trial over in Europe. After all, Europeans have criminal bans on swastikas, headscarves, and “hate speech” (potentially on line, as well). I have no faith that justice will prevail.

Of course, maybe I will be surprised. After all, Germany recently announced that it will not push for a EU-wide ban on swastikas and Holocaust denial. There may be some pockets of Europe where dialogue is preferred to prison when dealing with those with whom one disagrees. I sincerely hope Mr. Val is in one of those pockets.

While I am on the subject of Holocaust denial, let me share with you an amusing point by the Brussels Journal:

If Turkey joins the EU then we will have the comedy situation that denial of the Armenian Holocaust is a criminal offence in France, whilst mentioning it is a criminal offence in Turkey. The happy result of this could be that the entire population of France could be lifted and placed, Midnight Express like in Turkish prisons. Of course the entire population of Turkey could then find itself extradited to France and imprisoned there.

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February 4, 2007

Bad, Virginia Legislators, Bad!

Thus always to Payday Lenders.

As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, the Virginia General Assembly is tackling the "problem" of payday lenders. I use the quotation marks not to imply that there is no problem, but rather to note that my legislators are not limiting themselves to their proper role in this matter. They first considering a repeal of the Payday Loan Act of 2002, but have since moved toward simply capping the fees lenders can charge for these small short-term loans.

Detractors (and the media) continue to insist on comparing the fee levels to compounded interest, which is not accurate or appropriate. For example,

the House of Delegates [today] advanced legislation that would cap the interest lenders could charge on short-term loans of $500 or less... The rate cap would reduce the interest on a two-week loan from $15 per $100 to $2.77...

As the article notes, the bill is not sure to pass as is. But something will be done, because legislators have decreed that something must be done. They don't even mind that payday lenders may go out of business. In fact, bill supporters are downright flip about it:

"If they can't make money off of 72 percent interest, I think they need to reconsider their business plan," said Helen O'Beirne, a spokeswoman for Virginia Partnership to Encourage Responsible Lending.

At least the General Assembly killed the proposal to outlaw anonymous sperm donation, which I think is a euphamism for one-night stands. I don't know how they planned to enforce that, but I'm sure there are some who would be willing to give it a try.

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A Conservative Professor's Discrimination Suit

Virginia State University is a historically black university located just outside of Petersburg. It was the United States' first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for black Americans (an oft-repeated point of pride which I first heard when visiting VSU, back when I worked for the SMV). My problem with that, of course, has nothing to do with the students being black, and has everything to do with asking why the state is using my tax dollars to support higher learning for anybody at all. But that's not even the issue I wanted to discuss today.

It has been alleged more than once over the years that VSU discriminates against conservatives on its own faculty. The latest case is Jean R. Cobbs, an outspoken conservative black woman who was a professor at Virginia State University with more than 27 years of tenure when, in January 2005, she was fired for reasons that look to me pretty unfounded. She sued the school, its president, and its provost, claiming that her termination was simply retaliation for her testimony in another suit, years earlier, in which the school and its president were accused of racial discrimination.

VSU has offered Cobb $600,000 to settle the suit out of court. A Goy and his Blog notes that this benefits the university, its president, and its provost in that they do not have to admit any wrongdoing or shell out any of their own money in order to make both Professor Cobb and her lawsuit go away:

the settlement guarantees an end to the public controversy. Much better to rob VSU’s students of a half million dollars in funding than to let the internet, mainstream media and public-at-large get hold of the details of this case. Think what a can of worms that might open!

Well, yeah, I live less than half an hour from VSU, and I've heard this case mentioned exactly zero times on the local TV and radio news. The Richmond Times-Dispatch carried one story, and it hasn't been mentioned much elsewhere.

I don't think, however, that discrimination against conservatives in academia is so systemic as to warrant some sort of Academic Fairness Doctrine or Equal Time provision. Nor do I support Rammage in his grudge against Atlas Blogged reader feminist mom. But I wish that Professor Cobb was able to wring a public acknowledgement of wrongdoing out of VSU - and getting paid in a manner that punishes the wrongdoers personally, instead of with tax dollars. As it is, she stands as yet another example of how an academic career can be broken by politics. If we must be saddled with state universities, then this behavior shouldn't be tolerated in them.

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If We Could Just Redeploy...

I still keep hearing the argument from some that the violence in Iraq is caused by our presence. If we could just redeploy out of Iraq, they'd stop killing each other. I can't think of a more naive assessment of what's going on in Iraq. Just yesterday,

132 people were killed and 305 were wounded in the thunderous explosion that sent a column of smoke into the sky on the east bank of the Tigris River.

'It is a tragedy. The terrorists want to punish the Iraqi people. There was no police or American presence in this market yesterday,'

Of course our soldiers are targeted. Of course an argument can be made that our troops should be withdrawn sooner rather than later. But as has been noted repeatedly over the last couple of years, that will certainly escalate the violence, not end it.

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February 2, 2007

Superbowl Hack

As Super Bowl XLI looms large, what is the most potent attack we will see this weekend? Peyton Manning's laser-accurate throws and precision wideouts? Defensive powerhouses Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher? Adam Vinateiri's clutch kicking? Chicago special teams rookies Robbie Gould and Devin Hester?

How about a malicious JavaScript code that could leave your computer exposed and vulnerable? The website for ~~Joe Robbie~~ ~~Pro-Player~~ Dolphin Stadium has been hacked and a Trojan keylogger placed on it.

The www.dolphinsstadium.com and www.miamidolphins.com sites are affected by the attack, as are mirror copies of those sites, such as www.proplayerstadium.com. Security experts strongly advise Web surfers to avoid these sites until the compromise is contained.
The NFL's Superbowl.com Web site is not affected by the hack, Thompson said.

Ryan Naraine at ZDNet says in a 17:15 update today:

All the affected Miami Dolphins sites... have now been disinfected but there is evidence that hundreds of other sites have been hijacked and rigged with the malicious JavaScript code. I've confirmed that the one-line code has been planted on an internal page of the U.S. government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Marketing site.

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February 1, 2007

Because it's That Time of the Year...

I think everybody has a favorite line. What's yours?

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