Right To The Point

Schiavo comments

2005-03-24T09:33:00.000-05:00

If anyone is still reading my blog, I apologize for not posting regularly. I've been conflicted and busy. Either I look around and can't think of anything to blog about or there are too many things to blog about, and not enough time to do justice to any of them.

Nevertheless, I want to add a couple of thoughts to the (largely uninformed) discussion of the Terri Schiavo situation. Here are a couple of aspect that I think could use some clarification:

1. Congress over-stepped its proper Constitutional authority by stepping into the Schiavo case.
Wrong. Congress has the plenary authority to define the jurisdiction of the lower Federal Courts, and broad constitutional authority to define the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. See Article 3, especially Section 2. Moreover, consider the 14th Amendment. That Amendment, by the way, expressly makes the LIVES of citizens of the several states a potential federal issue. Section 5 of the amendment expressly gives Congress the power to enforce Due Process and Equal Protection issues against the States. The "federalism" issue, which, by the way, most liberals hadn't contemplated since Bush v. Gore, and that, too, was also a misplaced complaint, is a red herring. The Federalism issue exists when we are talking about the Federal gub'ment butting into an area of state concern without proper legal authority. Please note that it is possible to have concurrent jurisdiction over issues. When Congress decides to step in and point out that it has serious concerns that one or more citizens are not getting equal protection or due process under the law at the hands of a state, then there is NO federalism problem.

2. There is no Due Process or Equal Protection problem because this case has been litigated extensively!
Wrong. Getting into court does not mean you get equal protection or due process. Would you consider your criminal trial fair if you get a jury? What if nobody of your race was allowed on the jury? What if you were facing a death sentence and weren't allowed to have an attorney? What if you were facing a death sentence and the prosecutor is allowed to also serve as your defense attorney?
Sure, you get a trial, but there are some SERIOUS questions about whether or not it was fair. In this case, Terri Schiavo has not had independent representation. Her husband is allowed to speak for her. Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with that, but the husband has a BIG potential conflict of interest. He may or may not stand to gain by her death. He may or may not have caused her condition. (Please read CodeBlueBlog's discussion of Terri's condition, especially here, and also here.)
Finally, I know you all know this, but Michael Schiavo is living with and has two children by another woman. Certainly, this doesn't prove any ill-will on Michael's part, but it is a big enough red-flag that NO court should blindly accept his statement about what his wife would want.

3. Terri's brain-dead and nobody would want to live in that condition!
Well, no. She isn't brain-dead, she's profoundly brain-damaged. I have no idea about whether she has any potential for rehabilitation, but she is most certainly NOT brain-dead. If she were brain-dead her body would not be able to sustain the primitive functions of life for long without artificial assistance. She breaths on her own. Her heart beats on its own. All her internal organs function. The only basic function that she cannot do is swallow, therefore, food was injected directly into her stomach where it was digested normally. This is not IV-feeding. It's pureed food being placed in her stomach.
I have no argument that many of us would choose, if able to foresee that we might be in that position to leave the instruction to allow us to starve. To be honest, I'm not sure what I would choose, largely because I do not know what her true state is. Nevertheless, the default is and always should be to prefer preserving life without the adult patient's express contrary desires.

4. The fact that the federal courts refused to order that the feeding-tube be re-connected proves that the state courts were correct!
Um... No. Here's the text of the statute as passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. The current status of the litigation is whether or not Terri can get a temporary restraining order (TRO) to have the feeding-tube re-connected so that she might live long enough for her case to be heard.
The problem is that the Federal Courts, so far, have used a procedural tactic to avoid the express intent of Congress and the President (that Terri Schiavo's case be given de novo review in Federal court to determine if she has had any constitutional rights infringed in being denied food and water.). What the District Court judge did was say that, in order to grant the injunction, the moving party (parents) would need to show a likelihood of success on the merits, and that based on what he could see (state court determinations, mostly) the parents were not likely to win, therefore no injunction. This will cause Terri to die before the court actually gives her a de novo review, as mandated by the statute. Granted, the statute does not expressly change the standards for an injunction, but the judge, in my humble opinion, is abusing his discretion because he is supposed to view the matter in the totality of the circumstances, and when failure to grant an injunction effectively ends the case because it destroys the subject matter of the suit, then the judge should use discretion to allow the case to go forward by allowing the injunction. In this case, because this is a preferred case, in that it is clear that Congress actually intended that Terri Schiavo live long enough to have her case be given a de novo review, the court erred by not following Congress's clear intent. Likelihood of success or failure is irrelevant as to whether the case should be heard.
Another problem, of course, is that at this stage, the federal courts have not done any fact-finding, and therefore has to rely on facts established in the state courts. That is precisely what Congress directed the federal courts to NOT do. Here's section 2 of the statute:

Any parent of Theresa Marie Schiavo shall have standing to bring a suit under this Act. The suit may be brought against any other person who was a party to State court proceedings relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain the life of Theresa Marie Schiavo , or who may act pursuant to a State court order authorizing or directing the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life. In such a suit, the District Court shall determine de novo any claim of a violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo within the scope of this Act, notwithstanding any prior State court determination and regardless of whether such a claim has previously been raised, considered, or decided in State court proceedings. The District Court shall entertain and determine the suit without any delay or abstention in favor of State court proceedings, and regardless of whether remedies available in the State courts have been exhausted.

The Federal Courts have, therefore, thummed their collective noses at Congress. Perhaps it was out of contempt for Congress's exercise over jurisdiction. Perhaps it was that the judges were making personal decisions about what they think is the proper outcome in the case. In any event, the judges were NOT following the law.

UPDATE: As I was finishing this post, the Supreme Court came down with it's refusal to hear the appeal. I wish I could say I was surprised. I am profoundly disappointed, however. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the Courts should get involved and order that Terri's life be sustained forever no matter what. I just think she deserves to get a proper review in Federal Court of all of the facts and circumstances of her case to determine if any of her Constitutional rights have been infringed, and I think she should live to have that hearing. If, after a trial on the merits, the court determines that here Constitutional rights have actually been protected, then the state-court findings that her husband is actually properly carrying out her wishes would be proper.

Scalia, the Civil Libertarian, Strikes Again!

2005-02-23T11:26:00.000-05:00

Most of my readers, I presume, are, like me, fairly conservative. That's a good thing. Nevertheless, I know that, on occasion, the a looney-leftist will find his, or her (or its???) way onto my blog.

I know that the leftists hold as an article of faith that Justice Scalia (all conservatives, really) hate civil liberties. (I know this because I go to law school, and am therefore surrounded by looney leftists.) Nothing could be further from the truth. Justice Scalia is one of the strongest defenders of Civil Liberties found in the U.S. Constitution who has ever sat on the Supreme Court. He is, however, unfriendly to the idea of new and exciting "rights" or "liberties" that are not found in the Constitution being declared to, in fact, be Constitutional.

That said, a case was decided yesterday in which Justice Scalia handed down the Court's opinion. It was a 5th Amendment "Double Jeopardy" case. Low and behold, Justice Scalia, as any Constitutional Scholar should expect, supported the individual's claim against the state.

I suspect that the looney leftists will develop a sort-of selective amnesia with regards to this case... Remembering that the Civil Right to be free from Double Jeopardy is still with us, but forget that Justice Scalia wrote that opinion, and Justice Ginsburg dissented.

The issue of the case, if you don't want to read the actual case, was basically this: If a trial court dismisses one or more criminal count after the prosecution has rested and failed to sufficiently support the charge, and if the state laws call such a dismissal a final determination with respect to that charge, may the prosecution, at the end of the trial (after the defense has rested) have the dismissed charges presented to the jury for determination?

NO!

Why? Because the defendant didn't have a chance to structure his defense around the idea of defending against that charge. Scalia pointed out that if the state law did not treat the dismissal as final, then the defendant would have been on notice that the charge might come back, and so bringing the charge back would not have violated the prohibition on double jeopardy.

TA-DAH!!! The anti-thesis of liberalism... Clear, Constitutional reasoning (for a change).

Wish us luck...

2005-02-23T09:50:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed I haven't blogged much this semester, so far. Part of the reason, I must confess, is that I've just not felt inspired to write very much. Another part is that I've been concentrating much of my spare time on preparing for the upcoming National Appellate Advocacy Competition. I'm on the UB team. We're going to be competing in the regional competition down in New Orleans... Next week.

I'm certainly not going to try to predict the future, but I'm confident that our team has a legitimate chance at performing well enough to make it to the nationals.

In other news, the courses I'm taking this semester are somewhat less than interesting. Trusts & Estates (It's on the Bar, that's why), Sales & Leases (It's on the Bar and, after the pathetic professor I had in Contracts, I figured I needed something related to contract law so that I would learn something, that's why), and Employment Law (It looked like it might be interesting and or useful, maybe). Fortunately, they're not tough, but I'm having a tough time caring about them. Even Federal Income Tax was more interesting than these classes.

I can't wait for this semester to be over... The day after my last final, my darling wife and I will be jetting down to Cancun to enjoy some sun and relaxation together for a few days. Er, well, considering the time of the flight out and when my final will be over, it's hard to consider it as being "the day after..." Nevertheless, It promises to be great fun. It seems like a long way to go to play mini-golf, but hey, no cost is too great if it makes the wife happy, right? Actually, the cost is pretty reasonable, all things considered.

Here's a question to leave all of my faithful readers (reader?) with... Why do you suppose the University of Baltimore would cancel classes for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but not for President's Day? I have my suspicions.

A final question for any and all practicing lawyers who may come across this page... I'm at the point where I have to decide whether I want to pursue a clerkship or not. I am not looking forward to poverty any more acute than I am currently living (which isn't all that acute, to be honest), but I understand that the experience and prestige of being a judicial clerk has substantial rewards. So... What's the real scoop? Is it worth it?

Thanks for any comments.

Europe unveils plan to overshadow the American economy

2005-02-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

England has some interesting employment standards and ideas about what constitutes discrimination. This is a story from last Summer that, somehow, I had overlooked. Nevertheless, it appears that in England you can't look for hardworking employees because that discriminates against the lazy.

I guess that fits... England IS in Europe, with Germany, after all, and we know that Germany tells women that if they don't take available jobs as prostitutes, then they can lose their social benefits.

If the English and the Germans ever truly get together, you'll have a government marriage service... Think about it; in Germany, you have to be a prostitute if that's the only job, and in England, you can't weed-out the people who don't actually want to do the job. Pretty soon, as the European Union gets into full swing, you'll get prostitutes who won't actually have sex with you, but still expect your money!

I like the American model... Prostitution (except as an elected official) is (generally) illegal, but the women in it, apparently, treat it as a true profession. Women who don't want to have sex can still opt for the traditional route and get married! That, my friends is freedom!

An EXCELLENT option

2005-02-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I didn't think of him before, but according to StudentLife of Washington Univ. of St. Louis, Ted Olson is on the very short-list for appointment to the Supreme Court.

BRAVO!!!

Mr. Olson is one of the nation's best appellate advocates and he's a brilliant intellectual conservative, and, by the way, a strong supporter of the Federalist Society.

I still say that Professor Eugene Volokh, or Justice Janice Brown would be excellent options, but I think that Ted Olson cannot be considered a second rate candidate to compared to anyone.

Ted Olson should have a relatively easy confirmation, so that's an additional plus. Nevertheless, since the Chief Justice slot is the almost certainly going to be the first slot to open up, I fear the desire will be to want either one of the current SCOTUS justices to take the spot (that would probably be either Justice Scalia or Justice Thomas), or another Supreme Court Justice from one of the states. The problem with moving a current SCOTUS justice to the CJ slot is that doing so means two confirmation battles, and only one additional conservative vote.

If President Bush is sly like President Reagan was when he moved Rehnquist to the CJ slot, and snuck Scalia in under the radar, then perhaps he can get one more true conservative on the bench without much of a fight. Unfortunately, I don't think the Dems will be that easy to rope-a-dope this time.

I won't fault President Bush for picking Mr. Olson under any circumstance, nevertheless, I am still in favor of the idea of President Bush using his political capital to push Justice Brown's nomination, and then, when the next slot opens up, to put Ted Olson into that seat. If my supposition is correct that Ted Olson will be an easier confirmation, then that would be a way to get another conservative vote on the SCOTUS even with declining political capital.

What a BITCH!

2005-02-04T14:17:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, if you can't say something nice about someone, you shouldn't say anything at all. If that's what you want to say to me, shove it.

I'm pissed after reading, "Cookie klatch lands girls in court" in the Denver Post.

Basically what happened was that two teenage girls decided that they decided to skip a dance and commit a random act of kindness. They baked cookies for their neighbors and dropped them off at houses that looked to be occupied by people who were still up. (i.e. The lights were on.) They delivered cookies around their neighborhood around 10:30 that evening.

A 49 year old bitch of an ungrateful hag for a neighbor, one Ms. Wanita Renea Young, suffered anxiety when the girls knocked on the door and dropped the cookies off. She called the police (who found no evidence of anything illegal) and then went to stay at her sister's house. The next day, she went to the hospital because she was so afraid.

I understand the Atkins diet, but being so anxious over a plate of cookies that you go to the hospital is just stupid.

The girls and their parents sent apologies for upsetting the bitch, and then decided to offer to pay her medical bills, if she promised not to sue them for anything else. That concession was just too much for the cookie-phobic wench. She said that the apologies "didn't ring true."

Hmmmm...

What kind of a hateful person sees the gift of a plate of cookies (which were, apparently perfectly tasty and did not contain some sort of poison) as an excuse to sue? Worse yet, Ms. Young could not stomach the thought of ONLY punishing the families to the extent of her actual medical costs... No, she wanted money for pain and suffering, and punitive damages.

I was going to include a link to Ms. Young's address so that you could write and let her know what you thought of her childish spitefulness, but, although WhoWhere.com Does have a listing for a "W. Young" I'm not certain that it's the same person.

So, in the absence of that information, I could find one listing for one of the girls' families. If you've got a spare $5 or $10, please consider sending it their way. No person should be punished for doing good, and teenagers who, on their own, decide to do an act of kindness for others, should not be taught that society thinks what they did was wrong.

The good news is this: For the bitch, the $900 that she was awarded probably feels like a loss, since she was so d--- greedy, and I doubt it will come close to making her happy. For the kids, if we can help ease the burden of the judgment, they'll learn that most people side with them.

As an aside, I do wonder if they could have attempted a 1st Amendment defense... If this was a "small claims" case, it might be that they can appeal the decision to a court of general jurisdiction. In that case, they might be able to argue that the cookies (and accompanied note) were a type of expression. An expression of altruistic concern and affection for their neighbors which is beneficial to the community. Therefore, to punish the expression, the court would have to find that it falls within some narrow class of speech "fighting words" or "fraud" or "intimidation" or "incitement to imminent lawless action." In this case punishing the speech would at once be against public policy, and unconstitutional.

The tort principle of "you take your victim as you find 'em" might not apply. That principle (also known as "the eggshell head man" principle) applies to situations where you do an act which is of the sort that could cause harm, but you didn't think it would actually cause harm, but that harm does end up happening. Typically, you'll see this principle when someone slaps someone on the back, and that breaks the recipient's shoulder, which wouldn't happen to a normal person, but the recipient had some rare bone disease, or some analogous situation. Dropping cookies off, might fall into that category if they contained some ingredient that caused a bad allergic reaction. This sort of response was NOT the sort of thing that flows from dropping cookies off. Even if knocking on the door at 10:30 PM might startle some people, the fact that the cookies were there and the police found no evidence of wrongdoing would have alleviated the anxiety.

Perhaps if the girls do appeal, and win, they could return the favor and file a suit for abuse of process. That would approximate justice.

Like I said, if you can afford it, please send a few dollars to them to help defray the cost of living near a nasty old bitch. Perhaps you could put "Keep doing good!" or "Don't let the Bitch get you down!" in the memo line.

Polygamy case raising interesting issues

2005-02-04T09:29:00.000-05:00

The Utah Supreme Court recently had oral arguments in the case of a former police officer who had 1+3 wives... It's an interesting case for a number of reasons. The Salt Lake Tribune has this article: "Ban on plural marriage questioned"

It implicates religious liberty, equal protection, and "fundamental freedoms" as recently refined in Lawrence v. Texas.

I think that the justices and attorneys were missing the point with respect to at least one aspect. The issue of potential child-custody problems came up, and the state was arguing that it would be too difficult with multiple more than the mother and father involved in the dispute... That's simply untrue. A "plural marriage" isn't like a partnership in the business sense, where if you have 5 folks who start a business as a partnership, they are each partners of every other partner. With a plural marriage (at least with a polygynous marriage) the husband has a distinct covenant relationship to each individual wife. The wives do not have a direct relationship to each other. From what I've heard, that's the most commonly misunderstood aspect of plural marriage. For whatever reason, many people believe that "plural marriage" means "orgy." For this reason, if husband and, for example, wife-6 want to divorce, only the children born to wife-6 would be at issue in the divorce, and the other wives would not be parties in the case.

All that being said, the court picked up on an interesting point... Is the state exclusively or almost exclusively picking on people practicing plural marriage for religious reasons? That would be, you might guess, a no-no. Additionally, the court noticed that folks who shack-up with someone other than their spouses while they are awaiting a divorce, are they not legally in much the same situation as those who engage in plural marriage?

One thing I found disturbing is at the bottom of the article, the comment of the Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, "We're just targeting criminals, child abusers."

That sounds good, but it's got a problem... Although the wife in question here was young (16 years old), apparently, according to earlier discussion in the article, the relationship would have been LEGAL had the husband not already been married. It seems to me that the State's argument is circular. We only go after criminals and child abusers, but if you have more than one wife, then you're a criminal even if the plural wife is legally of-age.

I've discussed this topic before (here and here), and I think it's interesting. I've never been convinced that the Bible prohibits the practice per se. In fact, I think there is strong support for the idea that polygyny (having multiple wives as opposed to polyandry, which is when one woman has multiple husbands) is expressly approved by the Bible.

Here's the question for you, if you oppose multiple marriage, can you articulate a persuasive argument against it which does not rely on cultural norms? (In effect that would boil down to "it's bad because I think it's bad and everybody I know thinks its bad.") If you make a Bible-based argument, I will expect you to deal with Nathan's comments to David and the fact that the only limitation in the Scriptural Law as to how many wives any many could have was for the king who was not to have "many wives."

"Come home, America. Come home."

2005-02-03T13:31:00.000-05:00

Iowahawk's guest comentator knows his subject...

Read "It is Finally Time to Exit the Oldsmobile"

By the way, it's most effective if you read it alloud with your best impression of the writer's voice.

NOTE: Major Drink Alert

UN's says of Sudan: "Nope, no genocide here!"

2005-01-31T13:25:00.000-05:00

Reuters has this article about an upcoming UN report on the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Apparently the article doesn't call the systematic hunting and murder of non-Muslims (i.e. Christians) "Genocide."

Do you think that means the situation isn't as bad as we've heard? Could be, I suppose. However, that's not necessarily the only answer with a strong probability of being correct.

Another possibility that I think is even more likely to be true than the idea that everything over there is actually nice would be that the UN is playing word games. You might wonder WHY the UN woud bother mincing words. The answer is simple, and founded within the ius gentium realm of international law. ("Ius gentium" means "the law of all people." Roughly speaking it's the most basic of true international law, if there is such a thing.)

You see, if the UN had found actual genocide, then they would have painted themselves into a corner. When genocide exists, under international law, ANY nation can take action to end it. Not only that, but, because of the UN's Charter, the UN is expressly designed to be the body by which that action is taken. (See Article 1 Section 1.)

Most scholars believe that when a serious violation of human rights laws, such as genocide is known to exist then it becomes the duty of any nation which has the capability to intervene to do so.

Knowing this, the UN has several positive incentives to NOT find genocide in Sudan.

The ones with power in the Sudan are the Muslims, so ordering a military intervention would risk angering other Islamic nations.
Finding genocide would would require the UN to act and they know that, when it comes to stopping attrocities, the UN has been wholly ineffective. Another failure would be the final nail in the coffin of the UN's credibility.
Finding a genocide would be a greenlight to the Bush doctrine of forcing despotic terroristic regimes to comply with international norms of human rights or risk being destroyed.
Finally (OK, there may be more), finding a genocide would force coutries like France and Germany to get off their butts and do something for somebody other than themselves.

Then again, perhaps Germany would welcome the chance to intervene so that the government could encourage these new immigrants to take the jobs the native Germans prefer not to do themselves.

"no one in the United States should try to overhype this election."

2005-01-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

I'm sure it was surprising to, well, somebody, that of all people in the United States, John Kerry was not all that keen on elections anywhere.

John "Mr. Ed" Kerry... Get over it. You LOST. Just because you lost doesn't mean that all elections are bad. As a matter of fact, the simple fact that you lost is proof to about 60 million Americans that elections are good!

To any Iraqis who read this, let me say, "Bravo, and Congratulations! Don't ever lose your courage. Freedom is costly and scary because it is obviously uncertain, but don't let that damage your resolve because the apparent security of the various flavors of communism/socialism/despotism are less stable in the long run. You won't know what will happen tomorrow when your free, but you will be able to make great plans for your and your children's future, if your free to chart your own course through uncertainty. God bless you, and know that so long as you strive for freedom, you will have friends in America."

"A full year's supply of sour kraut with purchase of any qualifying Moral Vacuum!"

2005-01-31T09:25:00.000-05:00

When I saw this article, "If you don't take this job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits" in the Telegraph (from the UK), I was speechless.

Go ahead and read it for yourself.

Essentially, Germany legalized prostitution in 2002 in an apparent attempt to curb the trafficking in women that was taking place in the underground prostitution industry. That's a thought, I guess. What would have occurred to me would be to catch and imprison (for a long time) anyone involved with the prostitution industry, and perhaps execute anyone who was found to have been knowingly involved in any trafficking of women (if the women were either kidnapped or in any way tricked into their current situation).

But, hey, that's just my idea... I guess legalizing it might work, in an alternate universe, I suppose.

So, our new best friend, the Law of Unintended Consequences has reared it's (initially attractive) head. In the government's attempt to end the trafficking of women, they've become the traffickers. That really is a great description of the situation. To continue to be eligible to receive the social benefits upon with she had become dependent, a woman is now forced to take any available job, if she hasn't found a job in her field within a year. Since prostitution is legal, brothels can advertise for employees. Now the woman highlighted in the story must take the job as a prostitute or become destitute. I guess you could say that she's gonna get screwed one way or another.

So... I've always said that every system functions exactly as it's designed and implemented, and that's true of legal/social systems as well. Therefore, we've learned a little about what the legalization of prostitution was really all about. Instead of being a means of protecting women who were being pulled into prostitution against their will, it was about making sure the government got a cut of the action.

I wonder, was the law originally passed after promising a year's supply of sour kraut if the legislators bought this moral vacuum?

Sometimes the consequences aren't exactly "unintended."

2005-01-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

I mentioned unintended consequences just the other day.

Sometimes, however, the negative consequence is fully expected. Then, what can you say of the court or legislature that implements the policy or law?

Malice?

That seems to be the right word. Maybe it was merely "Greed."

That's the case that Maryland is currently experiencing. Governor Ehrlich called a special session of the legislature at the end of 2004 to debate and pass a bill to deal with the sky-rocketing medical malpractice rates.

Plenty can be said about that topic, but what's important in this context is that, instead of actually trying to address the root cause, the Legislature (controlled in both houses by veto-proof Democrat majorities) chose to enact a law that imposed a tax on HMOs to help physicians pay their insurance premiums.

Governor Ehrlich (a Republican) promised to and did veto the bill, and then the legislature overrode his veto. The governor stated at the time he vetoed the bill that he didn't like the bill primarily because the 2% tax imposed on the HMOs was just going to get passed to the consumer.

Well, after the veto-override, HMOs have begun raising their rates. Realizing that despite the "big dollar" profits that Democrats always accuse HMOs of making, their profit margins have only recently become positive, and typically run around 3 or 4 percent. A 2% tax is devastating. It's a major disincentive to do business in Maryland. Insurers, when a state becomes unprofitable tend to stop writing policies and doing business in that state. Duh.

The insurance commissioner, Al Redmer, has a dual duty to make sure that insurance companies stay profitable so that they will continue to provide policies in the state, and that consumers are not shafted by insurers. The Maryland Legislature has repeatedly contemplated taxing HMOs, but just hadn't done it yet, and so the previous (Democrat) administration had prepared procedures for allowing HMOs to raise their rates. Everybody, in the legislature knew that an HMO tax was going to get passed directly to the consumers. When we had a Democrat governor, the thought that Democrats were going to increase the cost of health insurance directly was enough of a disincentive that the legislature never did pass such a tax.

Now that we've got a Republican governor, the Democrat leadership in the legislature apparently thinks that they can impose the tax and then blame the Governor's insurance commissioner, and therefore the Governor, for the increase in HMO prices.

That's exactly what they're doing.

Here's an article from the Washington Shaft, "Md Insurance Chief Criticized" The Washington Times has a better, more balanced article, "Md Democrats shift blame," that actually begins to examine the cause and effect of the situation.

I laughed when I saw that Senate President Mike Miller called Mr. Redmer "a lap dog for insurance companies."

Senator Miller is a trial lawyer. His firm makes loads of money off of Maryland's medical malpractice crisis. Heck, they're part of the cause for the crisis. Is it any wonder that Miller supported a measure that threw tax dollars into the mouths of the med-mal lawyers rather than a measure that might tend to shut those mouths?

Here's what I have to say to Senator Miller:

Senator Miller, it's better to be a "lap-dog" to the insurance companies than a lap-dancer for the trial lawyers.

LA prosecutors planning on letting another killer off-the-hook

2005-01-27T11:02:00.000-05:00

This is just a preliminary take on the LA train wreck legal implications.

Here's a Reuters article about it. (Here's a CNN story.)

As you probably already know, the accident appears to have been caused by a person parking a vehicle (one of those evil SUVs, of course) on the tracks in an attempt to commit suicide. At the last minute, the person (Juan Manuel Alvarez) changed his mind and jumped out. The train crashed into the Jeep and then collided with two other trains. Ten people died as a result.

The word is that the prosecutors plan on charging Alvarez with 10 counts of murder with special circumstances that would allow them to seek the death penalty.

The problem is they won't be able to prove it. If they charge murder (1st degree is what's required in almost every state to get the death sentence) and don't also charge manslaughter as a "lesser included" then he's gonna walk.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like what the guy did. I don't think he should be free, but that's what the law is going to require. Why? First degree murder requires an intent to kill another person. You can transfer the intent from one person to another via "transferred intent." (That's when you try to shoot and kill A, but miss and kill B instead... You're still liable for murder of B.)

Who did the SUV parker intend to kill? Himself

Perhaps the California criminal code doesn't require the intent to be to murder someone else, but even if it would allow the intent sufficient to charge murder to be the intent to commit suicide, the Alvarez chickened out and saved himself.

After that, the train ran into the SUV. The SUV didn't run into the train. From what I've read and heard, then what the Alvarez did was, at worst, criminally negligent. By parking his Jeep where he did, he wasn't trying to kill or hurt anyone besides himself. Once the intent to injure himself ended prior to the accident, the fact that he didn't move his vehicle appears to be extreme negligence, but not a new intent to create an accident that could result in serious injury or death.

Beyond that, the police themselves are referring to Alvarez as "deranged" and he was described as walking around muttering to himself, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He was trying to commit suicide, and according to the stories had tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists and stabbing himself. This was a guy with major mental issues. I seriously doubt that he had the mental capacity for negligence. The prosecution could probably get negligent homicide to stick, but murder... No.

Yes this is an outrage, but it does not seem to have sprung from any bloodthirsty intent, so the resulting death was accidental. If the prosecution goes after murder, they will lose the ability to seek any punishment whatsoever.

However, all of this being said, this is just my initial take on the legalities, and subsequent facts may change my mind.

Supreme Court ignores indications that the Law of Unintended Consequences has not been repealed

2005-01-25T14:34:00.000-05:00

Howdy, all... Sorry it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy, but mostly I haven't been inspired to write.

Well... Today I heard Rush mention a recent Supreme Court Ruling (Commr. v. Banks) about the tax consequences of judicial awards (and settlements of suits).

Here's an article about it.

I'll not go into the facts of the case, you can read it for yourself if you're terribly interested.

The issue of the case is whether an award, in its entirety, is taxable income to the litigant, or whether that person may exclude the legal fees associated in securing it.

The policy debate boils down to a question of whether the legal fees are discretionary expenses or business related, and whether the award is compensation for some sort of injury or a proxy for income.

By statute, (26 U.S.C. 104) settlements or awards for physical injury or sickness are NOT income and therefore not taxable. However, punitive damages are punishment of the defendant and therefore not compensation for sickness or injury and therefore taxable. If you're out of work because of a slip-and-fall, the portion of the settlement or award for the lost wages are proxies for lost INCOME and are therefore taxable.

However, if you're a business suing for lost profits, the award is income, but the expenses to acquire it are considered a ordinary and necessary business expense and is therefore deductible. Individuals, however, don't get to take advantage of that deduction (unless you're attempting to get alimony). That's not entirely intuitive after reading Section 212.

So, why does this matter? Because our friend, the Law of Unintended Consequences, is going to make settlements go even higher now. Because of the Court's decision, if you have a valid case, you're going to sue for even more than before because you're going to get less out of a settlement than before. In theory, lawyers might lower fees, but that theory is sheer fantasy, so it's not even worth discussing.

The L.A. Times article referenced above mentions a case where a plaintiff won $300K after years and years of litigation, and the court awarded legal fees of $1,000,000. The IRS contended that the entire $1.3M should be considered taxable income to the plaintiff. The article claims that a brief filed with the court contended that the plaintiff lost every bit of the award because of this. I suspect that this scenario wouldn't hold up to a Due Process and "fundamental rights" analysis because it would tend to discourage any pursuit of justice through legal means. Additionally, because the legal fees court awarded AS legal fees to be paid to the attorney, it would be difficult to argue (though I wouldn't put it past the IRS to try) that the legal fees were at any time the property of the plaintiff. At least with a contingency suit, the legal fees are a percentage of the award, and therefore taxing the entire award has the internal consistency of taxing monies that were awarded to a particular party.

I disagree with this ruling, but it's not all that much of a departure from current tax-law jurisprudence. I suspect that we will begin to see structured settlements now in which instead of being awarded, for example, $1M, the plaintiff will accept an offer of $600K, and the attorney will accept a direct payment from the defendant of $400K that does not reference the $600K award to the plaintiff. That's a structural difference that may be sufficient to keep the plaintiff from having to pay taxes on the $400K paid to the attorney.

At first blush, I'm uncomfortable with the implications of this ruling. However, the Court recognizes that this particular result is only applicable for (employment) cases that arose prior to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. (It's not yet codified in 26 U.S.C. 62(a)(19).) Nevertheless, I am still wary of broad interpretations of the definition of "income." I can't shake the suspicion that the 16th Amendment wasn't intended to abrogate the 9th Amendment without specific reference.

Michigan prosecutes abortionist

2005-01-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, folks, sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. After the holidays, I just didn't have anything to say. I know, there've been lots of news events, especially the Tsunami, but I just wasn't inspired to write.

But, today, I've been inspired by a story I saw to break my cyber-silence. It looks like Michigan has decided to prosecute an abortionist. That might be surprising. It wouldn't bother me if all states started prosecuting all abortions that weren't for pregnancies resulting from rape or in order to save the life of the mother. (See my rationale here.)Nevertheless, it's odd to see, until you read the facts.

Here's the whole story.

Basically a teenage boy and his pregnant girlfriend decided that the cheap option for them would be for him to hit her in the stomach over a couple of weeks to induce a miscarriage.

The state is charging the young man under Michigan's 1999 "Prenatal Protection Act." The teenage girlfriend was a full participant in the plan, but she wasn't charged... Does anybody smell a problem?

Yes, that's right, the 14th Amendment DOES have something to say about this. Michigan is discriminating in favor of women and against men. No man can ever take advantage of the safe-harbor provision of the law. The law specifically excepts the mother since she could legally abort the child. She gets a status-based exemption and he does not.

I suspect that the Michigan legislature never contemplated this. Perhaps the best option that the prosecutor could take would be to avoid the Prenatal Protection Act entirely and charge both of the teens with practicing medicine without a license. They were attempting to accomplish an abortion which is a medical procedure, so, perhaps it would stick.

I guess I'm just a little dumbfounded that the state would consider charging the young man in this instance. If the girl had gotten a couple of bucks together and gone down to her local abortion-doc, the state would have thrown her a ticker-tape parade, but instead, she decided to save the money and now her boyfriend is looking at prison until he turns 21.

I suspect that, in the end, the blatant gender inequity will force an appellate court to throw out any conviction. To bad. They both deserve to rot...

Pot (head) calls for boycott of black kettles

2004-12-22T14:52:00.000-05:00

Whilst listening to Rush this afternoon, I heard about this fellow who owns a movie theatre in Upstate New York. Turns out he has some standards for films that he shows in his theatre, namely he doesn't like outrageously political fare, and cheap gore-fest flicks.

Here's the article.

What got me to laugh about it was the irony... Read this and see if you see it too.

Steve Greenfield, secretary of the New Paltz Green Party, sees Bulay's radio ad as more than salesmanship, and he has threatened a boycott of the theater chain if Bulay does not "rescind the inflammatory ad and change the stated policy of barring movies based on social commentary content."

HA!

Sorry, I still find it funny... They are going to boycott the theatre as a form of (social comentary) protest of the theatre-owner's refusal to show certain films (can you say "boycott") because he himself is attempting to make a bit of social commentary.

The liberals are going to boycott the theatre because they find boycotting something based on a sense of morality to be morally repugnant and worthy of protest.

No doubt, they'll picket the theatre with big signs stating:

"Judmentalism is Wrong!"

"We will not allow intollerance to stand!"

I, personally, find boycotting a private organization as a form of social commentary for daring to boycott other private organizations as a form of social commentary to be morally repugnant and to be opposed... therefore I am calling on all of the blogsphere to boycott the New Paltz Green Party!

... and Un-Blause!

2004-12-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

I'm back, to more or less, normal.

The finals are done!

This semester the tests were odd. In Legeislation, the test was eerily simple. I think the professor wanted an easy test to grade so he wrote it so that everybody would be able to get almost all of the points. Luckily we don't have a mandatory curve, so the fact that the test was easy, shouldn't hurt the grades.

The Federal Income Tax final was also easier than I expected. The questions were simpler than the hand-out questions he gave in the class. I suppose there were a few facts he threw into the mix to provoke a visceral response instead of a reasoned analysis of the facts. I think I did well on that exam. We'll see.

The International Law final was... Hmmm... Well, I was prepared for it. I was ready for the "Identifications" (a list of 14 phrases/doctrines, cases, resolutions/conventions, or treaties of which we were supposed to provide a short description to prove that we read some of the material and or paid attention in class) portion. There were two essay questions, (each "question" was really a choice of 2 questions to choose to answer), and if you chose to do a pre-assigned take-home essay question, you would only have to pick one of the first two essay question options to do in the exam itself. The questions are as simple or difficult as you want to make them. From what I know of the professor, he wants you to make them fairly complex so that you can show off your ability to think through the implications of international law problems at some level deeper than the surface, and the fact that you, yourself, provide the complexity will show that it's not just parroting of the doctrines he discussed in class. Or, that's what I think the purpose of his test was. My hunch is that I either aced the test, magnificently, or I bombed by missing his point.

I know I passed all of the classes, the question is, beyond passing, how well did I do.

Oh well. On the menu for next semester: Sales & Leases, Trusts & Estates, and Employment Law. (Oh, yeah, I almost forgot... Moot Court.)

Big news in AIDS research

2004-12-14T14:37:00.000-05:00

Folks, this is big - Rutgers researchers may have stopped HIV.

Just so that you know, I do consider my self fairly savvy about many technical areas, though I wouldn't go so far as to think of myself as an expert in any of them. Medical things are no exception. I've learned far more about medicine that I ever wanted to know through personal experience, but I don't have much more than a gut-level feel for good medical science.

Nevertheless, the biological mechanisms mentioned in this article as the means by which the medicine seems to beat HIV are consistent with what I've learned about the disease over the years. I think this breakthrough could be the real thing, or at least a major step in the process of treating or curing AIDS.

Personally, I think that cancer research is more valuable to the world, but I certainly don' t begrudge serious advances in treatment for AIDS, especially when it looks like a potential cure.

As an aside, since AIDS is a virus, and the Cold is caused by a virus, this AIDS research might actually lead to a cure for the common cold, eventually.

Hat-tip to Drudge.

Update

2004-12-14T10:17:00.000-05:00

Two down... One to go.

I'm still on blause, but I thought I would let y'all know (as if you cared) that I'm making progress. It's wonderful how things that are scheduled do happen, and THAT's the definition of progress (in this context).

The only exam left is my Imaginary Law, er, International Law final. It's good to be almost done. It will be better to be done. It will be great to be (a) graduated, (b) admitted to the bar, and (c) employed at an obscene salary, but I'll take "good" for now.

One of my readers, and I'm not going to mention any names, decided to "harsh my buzz" as I wistfully fantasized about automotive bliss. I still want that CTS-V, but I'm toying with the idea of taking a "cheap" path towards driving Nirvanah in the near-term (within the next 5 years). I think I might buy an older Nissan 240SX and then at a later date goose it's performance up to around 250~350 Bhp. They handle really well, and quality used 240SXs can be found for very little. I think I could get 200 HP without doing anything radical, but I might cut to the chase and drop a V6 or small V8 under the hood. All in all, I think I could have a car that would fulfill the yearning deep inside me to experience driving, the way God intended, for around $10K.

What kind are you?

2004-12-10T09:53:00.000-05:00

I'm still on blause... This is a pleasant little distraction from my studies.

As for my soul...

You Are an Old Soul

You are an experience soul who appreciates tradition. Mellow and wise, you like to be with others but also to be alone. Down to earth, you are sensible and impatient. A creature of habit, it takes you a while to warm up to new people.

You hate injustice, and you're very protective of family and friends. A bit demanding, you expect proper behavior from others. Extremely independent you don't mind living or being alone. But when you find love, you tend to want marriage right away.

Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul and
Visionary
Soul

As for my way of thinking...

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical
Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it.

You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle.

You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

What Kind of
Intelligence Do You Have?

Political Variations of Seasonal Songs

2004-12-09T14:58:00.000-05:00

Howdy!... I'm still on blause, but I wanted to pop in and share a bit of my creativity, and invite you to be creative too.

This morning, on the radio, I heard that Chip Franklin is going to be having a contest for political lyrics for Jingle Bells. I was inspired and came up with two sets of lyrics which I sent in. Here they are:

First for those of you in or near Baltimore, you should appreciate this classic-to-be -

Be afraid.
Be afraid.
O'Malley'll kick your tail!
Ehrlich sneaks in and starts school fires,
And that's why students fail.

Be afraid.
Be afraid.
The thugs are NOT in jail!
O'Malley whined when Rob and Chip opined,
And on them threatened to wail.

Here's one for the whole nation...

Bush is in.
Bush is in.
McAuliffe earned his pay.
Without his help Bush had no hope,
But Terry saved the day!

Bush is in.
Bush is in.
The lefties cringe in fear.
The nation's made a hard-right turn,
At least Canada's has good beer.

Now, I would love to hear read what you can come up with. Feel free to pick any seasonal song that you like, and go for it!

Blause

2004-12-06T13:19:00.000-05:00

That's a new word... I just made it up, I think.

I am using it to indicate that for the next two weeks, I'm on "Blog-Pause." Hence, "Blause."

It probably won't be an absolute blause, but I won't dedicate much time to it. I've got (interim) finals coming up over the next couple of weeks, and I've got to keep focused on my subjects until I'm done.

After this semester's over, I'll have just two (or maybe two and a Summer) semesters to go. It's still so far away, but my mind is already playing tricks on me... Sometimes I think I can almost smell the cash. ;-)

Anyway, I just wanted to put you on notice not to expect to much from this blog over the next couple of weeks. (OK, I can predict what you're going to put in the comments... Regardless of what your expectations of quality from this blog may be, don't expect too many posts for the time being.)

See you on the other side of Inernational Law!

That was Dumb; this is Dumber...

2004-12-06T13:18:00.000-05:00

Below, I said that I hadn't found the text of the complaint filed by the Sun against Governor Ehrlich. Well, here it is.

I know elementary school kids who could think up better legal arguments than this. Professor Warnken would chastise the Sun's attorney's for not applying the "ACR" method that he teaches for dealing with "Constitutional Torts." (A = Applicability; C = Compliance; R = Remedy)

Applicability: Marginal, at best. For a "Freedom of the Press" issue, you've got to have identify whether the alleged perpetrator is a "government actor." That's the Governor [check]. Next, you have to identify if the alleged "victim" is a member of the press. Here, that's the Baltimore Sun [check], and David Nitkin [???], and Michael Olesker [???]. Finally you have to identify the particular right allegedly violated. The Sun is alleging that their ability to access news sources has been curtailed [check].

I'm not sure that Nitkin and Olesker actually have standing because they, themselves are not "the press." They are individuals who work as agents of a member of the press. If they were independent news free-lancers, then I would classify them similarly to the Sun, but they are just two of the Sun's agents. As "agents," I don't think that they have an independent claim to a "freedom of the press" right. Nevertheless, we'll for the sake of the argument, let them stay in for a little longer.

Compliance: To assess "compliance," you need to examine the state actor's actions to determine if they are consistent with the limits of the right allegedly violated. Here Governor Ehrlich issued an order that nobody on his staff should speak to Mr. Nitkin or Mr. Olesker. The "right" that the Sun alleges to have been infringed was "access to news sources." What does that "right" entail? Quite simply, not much. Access is a very limited right. It means you [the holder of the right] can get in. Freedom of the Press does NOT, however, convey any substantive right beyond what any other citizen has. Members of the press are given special locations in courts, for example, because the court is public, but since they cannot accommodate every person, the press stands in as representatives of the public. It's a rationing thing, not a new substantive right.

So, to analyze the "compliance" portion, you must ask if Governor Ehrlich's actions have actually denied access. Does "access" mean that government officials have to submit to interviews? Does it mean that those officials have to take the calls of a member of the press? No and No. Access simply means that you can lawfully make a bona fide request for an interview, and not that it will necessarily be granted. "Access" does not mean that you will get your phone calls taken or returned. It means that you can lawfully dial the number of the person you wish to speak to.

Therefore, we must see if the governor has kept actually denied access to anybody. He has not imposed a penalty (civil or criminal) upon any attempt by Nitkin or Olesker to get an interview or get a phone-call taken or returned. That assumes that Nitkin and Olesker have an independent right. Properly taken, the Sun can still get it's phone calls taken or returned and get interviews with executive branch officials, but they have to use persons other than Nitkin or Olesker. Nobody was barred entry to a public place.

The Governor has not violated any "rights."

Remedy: We already know that there is no right infringed by examining compliance, but we'll also examine the "remedy" question. What remedy does the Sun seek? They're going after "injunctive relief." That means they want the court to tell the Governor to do or not do something... They want the court to require the governor to rescind his order. Does that imply that they will actually get their calls taken or that executive branch officials will agree to have interviews with Nitkin or Olesker? Absolutely not! The governor can still fire any person who works under him for any reason. No executive official who wants to keep his or her job will speak to Nitkin or Olesker. Since that remedy won't actually affect the problem, the court won't order it.

In reality, is the Sun seeking the Court to REQUIRE the Governor and executive officials to take their calls and agree to interviews with Nitkin and Olesker? Is that a remedy that the court can grant? NO. It is absolutely the Governor's discretion with whom he will have interviews, unless he is under subpoena. More over, it's a basic 1st Amendment issue for the Governor, that is, the Governor has the right to speak which includes the right not to speak. Except for "contempt of court" issues the court cannot order a person to speak. Therefore, this remedy is not an option.

Applicability is suspect, there is no compliance issue, and there is no possible remedy that would aid the Sun.

Seeing that the Sun's case is both without merit, and possible remedy, I am prompted to contemplate if there is, in fact, anything new under the Sun's collective intelligence. I don't know how new it is, but there is apparently at least one thing beneath the Sun's intelligence, and that would be their lawyers' competence.

Do you suppose those lawyers would look at these two Mensa candidates and wonder how they ever got caught?

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

2004-12-03T16:04:00.000-05:00

I suggested before that the Baltimore Sun's lawyers were quite possibly incompetent since they're claiming that Governor Ehrlich's order that executive agency employees NOT speak with two particular Sun journalists was unconstitutional.

Now, up to this point, the lawyers might look stupid for what they say, but that can be part of the "posturing" aspect of negotiation. However, dynamics change when you go into court. When you file something with a court, you've really got to put-up or shut-up, and most lawyers know that they need to avoid filing frivolous suits because it damages their reputation in the community and in front of judges.

However, apparently that minimal level of common sense doesn't weigh down the attorneys for the Baltimore Sun.

Not only did they just file suit against Governor Ehrlich, they filed it in Federal Court!

HA!

The reason that's funny is that, when I spoke to one of the senior attorneys for the state who did some research on this topic after the Sun started whining like the cry-babies they are, I was told that the Sun MIGHT have a chance if they file in state court, mostly because they would be dealing with local judges who might be more intimated by the Sun than the Governor, and who might be easily swayed by public opinion. I asked him about the grounds and he mentioned that he suspected that the Paper would carefully craft their complaint as a STATE constitutional cause of action without mention to the U.S. Constitution (because if it's a Federal issue, the defendant can petition to remove it to Federal Court).

His theory was that any suit would be on Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights
which states:

Art. 40. That the liberty of the press ought to be inviolably preserved; that every citizen of the State ought to be allowed to speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege.

He said that it would be stupid for the Sun to file in Federal Court or file in state court with a Federal cause of action. Well, the Sun has proven that even with our low opinion of their intellect, we can still over-estimate them.

A few moments ago, on the radio, I heard that the Baltimore Sun's lawyers have, indeed, filed a complaint (subscription required, but i's free) in Federal District Court of Maryland in Baltimore asking for injunctive relief against the Governor such that the Court will force the Governor to lift his prohibition against executive employees aiding the two particular journalists. And, of course, they did it on First Amendment grounds.

I haven't seen the complaint, yet, but it sounded as if it might be on the theory that the Governor, by issuing the order preemptively prohibiting speaking to Olesker and Nitkin by executive employees, has infringed on the employees' freedom of speech rights.

That might almost have merit... If the one bringing the suit were an employee who's speech is being infringed upon, but it would still be a loser.

If, however, the Sun's theory is related to their freedom to report the news, their lawyers should be laughed out of court and sanctioned, severely.

It's just amazing... Federal Court is the last place these nut-jobs should want to be. A federal judge has a lifetime appointment, and therefore no need to care about public opinion, so the Sun's status as the major Maryland paper won't buy them all that much. Also, federal law is even more clearly behind the governor than state law!

Perhaps the Sun's lawyer is really an Ehrlich fan, and wants the Sun to lose in a stinging defeat. In any event, I suspect that early next week there will be a hearing, and the Governor will be found to be within his rights to demand his employees not participate with two particular journalists.

Do you suppose that the Sun has forgotten that it's not actually part of the government and doesn't have the ability to imprison someone for contempt? I'm just wondering.

I was about to hit "publish" when I heard another news-blurb. The Sun is apparently claiming that the Governor is "violating their Constitutional Rights" by basing his order on a desire to retaliate against the two reporters.

How dumb is that? Does the Governor always have to have happy thoughts about those who are trying to malign his character? Of course not! If he hadn't issued the order but, whenever Olseker or Nitkin called his office, slammed the phone down, would that violate their rights? It would be for the same purpose, right? If the governor can veto any official-capacity interview by an executive branch employee, then he can preemptively veto interviews.

Yup, they're just a bunch of cry babies.

"Hot" Wheels...

2004-12-03T10:07:00.000-05:00

Well, for those of you who know me personally, you know that I LOVE cars. So, it should come as no surprise that, as a law student, I spend the few moments when I'm not contemplating Constitutional issues and public policy implications of newly passed statutes, fantasizing about what kind of car I hope to be able to afford at some point not too long after I graduate.

I'm not alone... My wife has picked the new mini-van that she wants, the new Honda Odyssey. I can't say that I blame her. It looks sharp.

My automotive fantasies run the gambit. To clarify, they run the gambit of quick sporty cars to fast cars, to d@##-fast sports cars. I like smooth and flawless performance. That's I guess the best way to describe what I look for.

To all you truck and SUV aficionados out there, I bear you no ill will. If riding in them makes you happy, great! I can't imagine that DRIVING them makes anybody happy, but perhaps riding in them is a pleasant experience. Whatever, although I'm not a fan of trucks and SUV's I'm nothing like those environmental wackos who think it's a sin against mother nature. I think it's a silly choice, but, hey, it's your choice.

So... My decision-making process is far from complete for a couple of reasons.

I've got a year until I graduate, so I have time.
I don't have a legal job lined-up yet, so I don't know what kind of scratch I'll have to waste on unnecessarily fast personal transportation.

Assuming fabulous wealth immediately, or within a couple of years, I was seriously keeping an eye on the new Cadillac CTS-V. I mean, really take a look at the performance stats... Can you blame me?

NOTE: For the technically inclined among my readership, notice the torque curve on the graph that pops up... The LS2 V8 produces over 300 lb-ft of torque from about 16oo RPM on and tops at nearly 400 lb-ft at about 4800 RPM. Of course this would indicate amazingly smooth and breath-takingly immediate acceleration.

However, because it starts at about $50K, it's probably not going to be something I can spring for immediately upon graduation. And then, today, I came across this story, and will apparently have to re-think my choice... An M3, though it's no less expensive, might be my best option. (I would prefer the M5, (or see some pics of it here) but alas, it's somewhat difficult to get on this side of the Pond, and even more expensive.) Oh well, I suppose I wouldn't have to hide my face in shame over the performance of that car... I might feel a little self-conscious driving to church in it, but I would get there quickly enough.

Other than that, I'm still torn over what I should go after as a realistic shortly-after-lawschool-graduation car. I like what I'm seeing of the new Altima SE-R, I like the G35, the GTO has 400 horses that recommend it, and the Mustang is one horse that can speak up for itself quite well. But lets not ignore the need for a 'lil Zoom-Zoom, and turbo boom. There are lots of other cars that shouldn't be overlooked... The Acura RSX Type S, the TSX, and TL, or BMW 325 or 330 models are also all worthy vehicles. Worse (or better) yet, is the fact that there are lots of (late model) used cars that are probably excellent options that should be considered.

Oh well, at least I have a little time to contemplate my options. Chances are, those darned car makers will come out with new models by then and make my choices even more difficult.

Just currious, what cars (or trucks) are you looking forward to buying in the next few years? Practicality is a fine consideration, and if I were to buy a new car and was very price conscious, I would probably check out the Scion tC. I drive a Sentra now, so it's not as if I don't appreciate the benefits of a relatively inexpensive commuter car.

Cows

2004-12-02T09:59:00.000-05:00

This was sent to me by a friend... Thanks, friend.... If you would go ahead and get a blog, I would be able to link to this...

You may have seen something like this before, but I suspect there are some new additions, so go ahead and read the whole thing.

DEMOCRAT

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST

You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST

You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow.
Of course, that cow was a gift from your government.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You pretend to sell one, lease it back to yourself, and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately, they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows but you dont know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN (& Ukrainian) CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You have some vodka
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You hav e some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION

You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You dont milk them because you cannot touch any creatures private parts.
Then you kill them and claim a US bomb blew them up while they were in the veterinary hospital.

IRAQI CORPORATION

You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their moos.

POLISH CORPORATION

You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

FLORIDA CORPORATION

You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking cow.
Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people cant figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best-looking cow.

NEW YORK CORPORATION

You have fifteen million cows.
You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd.
So you pick some fat cow from Arkansas.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

You have millions of cows
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big hooters.

Cry-Babies

2004-12-01T11:06:00.000-05:00

For those of you not in the Baltimore area, you may not be aware of the latest stage in the ongoing battle between Governor Ehrlich and the Baltimore Sun. More appropriately, the battle could be described as being between any elected Republican and the Baltimore Sun.

Read these articles to get some of the background (here and here). The friction with Ehrlich started long ago. It was before I moved to Maryland, but it became acute when Bob Ehrlich started his run for the Governorship of the state. Of course, the Sun endorsed Kathleen "I'm not running on my name, but did I mention I'm a Kennedy Kennedy" Townsend, who was the most intellectually vacuous option available. Her primary qualification was that she was a Democrat. That was enough for the Sun, but in Maryland, a State where Democrats have a 2-to-1 registration advantage, it wasn't enough to win.

So, where we are now is this: Governor Ehrlich, about two weeks ago, sent out a memo to his staff that they were forbidden to speak with two particular Baltimore Sun writers, David Nitkin, and Michael Olesker. The Sun is taking a two-pronged approach to their retaliation. First, they're trying to prove that its still a bad idea to pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Today for example, they published 10 letters to the editor about this spat, and 9 of them were opposed to the Governor. Second theyre trying to use legal maneuvers against Governor Ehrlich because of his executive order that his people not speak to Nitkin or Olesker.

When you think about the equity and law of the matter keep these two things in mind:

Bob Ehrlich didn't pick this fight. The Sun has been hostile to him and every Republican they've ever met since the dawn of time. THEY picked this fight.
Their legal intimidation and any potential suit is moronic and without legal foundation.

This second point is the basis for the Letter to the Editor that I have written, and am submitting. What do you suppose my chances of getting it published are?

To the Management and Editorial Staff of the Baltimore Sun:

I've been passively following the growing friction between you and the Governor. Till now, I've been mildly amused by the tit-for-tat nature, but must admit absolute confusion over some of the most recent things that have come from the Baltimore Sun. Specifically I have a couple of questions for you:

Did your attorneys get their degrees from Cracker-Jack boxes?
Seeing as there is nothing in the US or Maryland Constitutions that can be read REQUIRING any person, much less an elected official, speak to any particular member of the Press, or, for that matter, any press at all, to what Constitution do you and your attorneys refer when you claim that the Governors black-listing of two of your most blatant fiction-writer journalists is "unconstitutional"?

There is absolutely NO support in the text of the Constitution or its First Amendment for the idea that anyone, much less the Governor must submit to questioning and aid near-libelous abuse at the hands of any particular reporter. There is no supporting authority in case-law that would add such a requirement for the Governor.

Truth be known, you and your attorneys should be sanctioned. It's professional malpractice on their part for them to suggest to you that you have any sort of claim to force the Governor or anyone on his staff speak to any particular reporter. It's a violation of their most basic duty to you and to the profession to be competent (See MRPC 1.1) If you intend to move forward, you might want your attorneys to brush-up on the relevant case-law, and also on MRPC 3.1, which requires that your claim NOT be frivolous. It is. The fact that your attorneys chose to use the term "unconstitutional" puts your lawyers squarely up against MRPC 4.1(a)(1), which forbids a knowing misstatement of material fact or law. The Courts will assume that your attorneys did actually attend a law school that taught Constitutional Law, so theyre in trouble.

If I were one of your lawyers, I would brush-up on my burger-flipping skills.

Perhaps some criticism can be laid on the Governor for wanting to chill Nitkin and Oleskers activities. Perhaps in a world where they performed their trade honorably, but they do not.

The old saying in Maryland (and probably throughout the country) is "Don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel." To some extent its a truism. However, Governor Ehrlich did NOT pick this fight. He and his administration have been consistently maligned by the Sun. Im surprised he didnt ban participation with any Sun reporter. You deserve it.

What the Governor cannot do, and what he has not done, is ban your reporters from physical access to public places where the business of the government takes place. Nitkin and Olesker are still free to show up, and they're free to ask for comments from Ehrlich's staff. By the same token, Ehrlich is free to order his staff not to respond or aid your reporters. You really should feel lucky that he didn't issue a blanket order banning participation with any Sun reporter. He would be well within his rights to do so.

I want to point something out to you. Notice that Maryland has a 2:1 Democrat-to-Republican registration. Notice that you endorsed the most vacuous candidate ever put forward by a major party for the Governor's race in 2000, and Bob Ehrlich, a Republican, still beat her. What I'm saying is that your barrels of ink are less effective now that we know its true color. Also, your loss (even more than KKTs) should tell you that your position as the only major Maryland newspaper isn't all that valuable anymore. Have you noticed that youre circulation numbers have been anemic?

Save what little credibility you have left Declare yourself to be staunchly pro-Democratic from stem-to-stern. We, the people of Maryland, know you are, but the sooner you recognize your bias, the sooner you can take steps to account for it. Saying you're unbiased is an insult to your readers, a disservice to the State, and convincing only to yourself.

Your actions remind me of a spoiled little kid who, upon not getting his dad to buy him the over-priced toy he wants goes crying to mommy to lament that daddy is being mean. You're cry-babies.

You're cry-babies, and, incidentally, whatever you're paying your lawyers, even if they're working for free, is WAY too much.

Regards,

And this is why you don't piss off the Nice Doggie

2004-11-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I linked to anything over at the Rottweiller Empire. To make amends, here is something Misha wrote about his take on Kofi Annan's apparent "surprise" over the fact that his son, Kojo, was thoroughly involved in the oil-for-food scandal.

We all knew that Annan (either and both of 'em) was (is and are) corrupt and desperately in need of the gentle and loving correction of a Turkish prison. Nevertheless, it's Misha's application of the English language in such a colorful manner that it would make Crayola's crayon-development team despair in envy that reminded me of why I love and fear the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller.

Put simply, the fear of having new terms of derision created specifically for your acts of idiocy and then, apparently, trademarked, should be sufficient to keep any moderately decent person in-line.

Enjoy.

Good Books

2004-11-30T10:55:00.000-05:00

As a non-sequitur to what I've been posting about for the last several weeks, I was inspired by Professor Hugh Hewitt to contemplate novels.

Of course, I should be studying for my Income Tax, International Law, or Legislation finals, but, alas, I'm not.

The criteria that Professor Hewitt suggested (as best I can remember) was:

That the book be a novel
That the book be written since WWII.
That the boob be worth re-reading.

Okay... I haven't read much fiction, except for the occasional opinion by Justice Ginsberg, in the last couple of years, but the thought of putting together a list struck me as a fun idea. I welcome your contributions to this list, my good reader(s). Here's my list.

The Hobbit - by J.R.R. Tolkien (actually, all of his Middle Earth books)
The Foundation - by Isaac Asimov (actually, all of the Foundation related books.)
Dune - by Frank Herbert (actually, all of the Dune Chronicles, except maybe the last one.)
Interview With The Vampire - by Ann Rice (I liked all of the Vampire Chronicles.)
Stranger in a Strange Land - by Robert Heinlein
The Pillars of the Earth - by Ken Follett
This Present Darkness - by Frank Peretti
Lord Foul's Bane - by Stephen R. Donaldson (actually, both The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, and The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I saw, when finding these links that Mr. Donaldson is at it again, and now I'm going to have to start into a new set of Thomas Covenant books. I hope they're as good as the first six.)
The Chronicles of Narnia - by C.S. Lewis (anything by him is well worth your time.)

I know, I know, there are lots of other books that deserve to be on the list. I've probably even read some of them, but they didn't spring to mind. Be sure to add your favorites. Please keep in mind the criteria... novel, after WWII, and worth re-reading.

The Difference between the Left and what’s Right

2004-11-18T11:37:00.000-05:00

I posted previously a link to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article about the danger of liberal groupthink in academia. This article was timed well to coincide with the news about liberals contemplating abandoning the US for Canada, and the various bits and pieces of hate and condescension about how dumb “red-staters” (i.e. people who voted for President Bush) really are.

I apologize for not posting frequently of late, but these things happen. Nevertheless, a couple of days ago, I saw Dennis Prager on the O’Reilly Factor. He mentioned that the Democrats were focused first on the economic questions (“What am I going to get out of this?”), but the Republicans, by and large, are focused primarily on principle (“What’s the ‘right’ thing to do here?”)

I think that’s true… But it’s too shallow. There are more fundamental differences between the political left and right. First, as most Republicans would point out, the Democrats’ economic ideas are socialism-lite and are bound to fail, in the long run. We would say, “Yeah, the Democrats are focused on economics, but they’re short-sighted and wrong.” (A proof of that assertion is well worth it's own post, and has been the subject of many a book, so we'll just leave it as something that many Republicans would say.)

The analysis needs to go deeper. WHY would democrats want to focus primarily on the materialistic calculus of the temporally current (usually local) situation? Why would the Republicans want to focus first on what’s “right”? The answer (and this is how it ties, loosely, to the groupthink article) is in the core presumptions of each side.

At various times in the past, I’ve written about “creation.” It’s an important topic, and does not necessarily need to be associated solely with the Biblical account of the origin of the universe and humanity, but, in reality it is. My assertion is that conservatives believe in the concept of “creation,” but that the political left denies it. I will further hypothesize that these core beliefs (presumptions… and both are the very essence of “faith” in that they address questions about which no real definitive answer can be had, so the belief itself serves as proof of what cannot be proven) have profound and far-reaching implications.

If you believe in creation, you probably believe in a Creator. If you believe in a Creator you might just believe in a Creator who cares. If you believe in a Creator who cares, you might believe that some things you say or do will be measured according to the Creator’s standards. If you believe that your actions will be measured against the Creator’s standards, then you have an absolute basis for belief in “right and wrong.”

If you do not believe in creation, then, to you, there is no Creator, and, ultimately, no reason other than pragmatic reasons to care about questions of “right and wrong.” If you don’t believe in any fundamental reason to differentiate between “right and wrong” then voluntary limitations placed on yourself and society without an immediate benefit will seem illogical and ignorant.

For example, an anti-creation justification for the prohibition on “murder” would be something like, “Nobody should kill anybody because I don’t want anybody to kill me, so I'll agree not to kill anybody else if they'll agree not to kill me.” By way of contrast, a pro-creation argument against murder might be expressed thusly, “Nobody should murder because everyone was created by a Creator who cares and who bothered to breathe life into everyone, and so murder is a direct offense against the Creator.”

Obviously, the pragmatic view works well in a balanced game-theory setting, but the Creation-based philosophy works to self-regulate a person’s actions even when nobody is watching.

Of course, there are other implications. Economically, “creation” philosophy buys into the idea of the “expanding pie” but “anti-creation” philosophy sees the world as a zero-sum game. The creation-based economic philosophy borrows, probably subliminally, from the Biblical idea that humans were created in the image of the Creator, not physically, but essentially. The creation-based philosophy, then believes that people are essentially creative. We don’t cause matter to come into existence from non-existence, but we can cause new value to come into existence where little value existed before. Creation-based philosophy argues that humans add value into the economic universe through mental and physical efforts, analogous to the way the Creator added matter to the physical universe through His (no offense intended to those who think the Creator is feminine) efforts.

Anti-creation philosophy firmly believes that all that exists is all there really is. If you take stuff from one place, then it doesn’t exist there any more. If one person has wealth, then another person doesn’t have it. In my opinion, it’s a very shallow view. Let’s say person A makes tools. He digs up the iron-ore and cuts the trees, and makes a hammer. Now, there’s less iron ore in the Earth, and a tree has been cut down. He trades that hammer for something representing money. Now person A has a pile of cash (or clams or beads) that person B can no longer enjoy. Person A, has been enriched by taking person B’s wealth, right? That’s an anti-creation view of economics. It recognizes the depletion of resources and the transfers of wealth but it ignores the creation of value. The iron ore in the ground wasn’t doing any good for anybody until person A used his own physical labor to dig it up and his mental and physical efforts to determine what shape that iron should take to be a useful tool. As a hammer, the iron ore can be utilized. Person B gave wealth to person A, that’s true, but he also GOT wealth from person A. In the hands of a tool maker, the hammer’s value was stalled. The tool maker (person A) had no use for a hammer, but in the hands of person B, that hammer helps him make furniture or houses, or what have you. Person B couldn’t make those things without a hammer, and so that hammer was his ticket to being able to invest his own mental and physical efforts to create new value of his own.

Anyway, that’s the Creation-based philosophy of economics. Investing mental and physical efforts creates new value. Therefore, if you can create new value, then it follows that some mental or physical efforts might create MORE value than others. This justifies differences in rates of pay. If society assumes that all people are equal, economically, and therefore anything you do is worth the same as anything anybody else does, then greater pay for one person is “unfair.” Furthermore, if all people are economically equal and no new value is ever really brought into existence, then higher pay for one person means that one or more persons is actually impoverished to some degree, to allow the higher-paid person to enjoy that wealth.

Does that sound like the American left to you? It does to me.

Back to the original questions, though… Why would the Left be concerned with the short-term economic impact of things, but the political Right be concerned with whether something was right (good)? This is a result of pragmatism. Pragmatically, all you can worry about, according to the anti-creation political Left is how much you yourself can horde. Politically, then, acting logically under the presumptions of the left, we would expect voters to vote for welfare solutions as fast and vehemently as possible.

For the creation-based political Right, voters would be expected to ask if some policy at question reflects honoring the principles of the Creator, as best the voter can understand them. If it’s not right for me to steal from you to enrich myself, then it’s no better for me to ask Uncle Sam to extort you to enrich me.

A friend of mine has loaned me, from time to time, a series of Jewish teachings. They’re from a series called “Jewish Explorations.” I, a staunch Christian, highly recommend them. The teaching on Esther is highly relevant to this discussion. The bad guy in Esther was a fellow named Haman. He held a world view that the universe was chaotic and nothing, in the terms of a big picture, can be controlled. However, he did believe he could control things in the short-term, so the plans he hatched were all about achieving short-term gain. Esther, and her cousin Mordecai, on the other hand, believed that it’s foolish to worry about the short term, because you can’t control anything, but God can and does govern the future. For example, when Esther was afraid to do what was right, to save all the Jewish people from Haman’s plot to have all Jews killed, Mordecai counseled her as illustrated in chapter 4:13-14:

“he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" (emphasis added)

Their belief was that God could and would make sure that His will reigns supreme, no matter what people plan or do, but our actions illustrate whether we are willing to put His will above our own concerns and do what’s right.

In summation, the difference between the left and what’s right is the core belief of each side. On the one hand (the left hand) you can believe that there is no Creator and you have to look out for yourself at the expense of all others, and good law evens the final score. On the other hand (the right hand) you can believe that there is a Creator, and so doing what’s good in His sight is far more important than short-term gain because the long-term result is at stake, and good law, therefore, levels the playing field so that everyone who wants to maximize their creativity can be a winner.

Anyway, that’s what I think. Does this comport with your observations of societal trends?

First they wanted parades, and now collective bargaining?

2004-11-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm weird... a little eccentric, or something... Nothing Teresa-like, but enough to provide me with a different take on things, ya know?

Anyway, when I saw the following headline:
Pastors Organize To Halt Gay Unions

I thought, "First parades, and now collective bargaining? If a gay union gets recognized where you work will you be forced to be gay, too, or will you be allowed to opt-out? In any event, as with every union, we know they'll get their dues in the end..."

Imagine my surprise when I realized they were talking about a local initiative to prevent legal recognition of gay marriage in Maryland. Go figure.

On the Protocols of Liberal Academic Society

2004-11-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a surprisingly good article titled Liberal Groupthink Is Anti-Intellectual

Read it.

(Hat tip to InstaPundit.)

Bad Attitudes

2004-11-10T10:16:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago, a reader seemed suspicious, or perhaps surprised at my assertion that the leading liberals were acting badly and expressing very hateful sentiments aimed at, well, most Americans for being insolent and disobeying the will of the benevolent (self-appointed) American nobility, i.e. the liberals. This reader asked me for links. I hadn't responded because, to be honest, I've been busy, but I have included a few that illustrate my point:

Maureen Dowd (11/4) The Red Zone This one was mostly a post-election pitty-party. Here's a representative quote,

"The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of
fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts;
he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel."

Maureen Dowd (11/7) Rove's Revenge This one is focused mostly on her hatred of President Bush and Karl Rove. Here's a representative quote,

"[Bush's] new health care plan will probably be a return to leeches."

Jane Smiley (11/4) Why Americans Hate Democrats - A Dialogue: The unteachable ignorance of the red states. I mentioned this article previously. Nevertheless, it's representative of lots of the nasty things that are being said in many places. I've decided to provide a couple of representative quotes:

"Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states."

"The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do—they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable."

"Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage—red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time. We have to give them more to think about than they can handle—to always appeal to reason and common sense, and the law, even when they can't understand it and don't respond."

Thomas Frank (11/5) Why They Won Mr. Frank is honestly trying to give Democrats constructive advice. However, he can't get past his true feelings... He refers to voting for a Republican as a "rebellion." His phraseology isn't as incendiary as Ms. Smiley's but his sense of superiority over the Republican voters who are apparently hoodwinked into voting for Republicans in spite of what he sees as logical inconsistencies. I mentioned this article previously too. Mr. Frank, apparently thinks that every business is as morally corrupt as his own employer (NY Times) and therefore any candidate that is business friendly is really aiding the the very thing the Republican voters are voting against. As it turns out, most companies throughout the nation are good places that provide jobs and useful products and services. He wouldn't recognize anything that's useful, because he works at the NY Times.

But the columnists are not the only places to look... Echidne of the Snakes has said may colorful things, like this election-night blurb about Bush being the "worst president ever."

LGF was kind enough to put together a thread of humorously hateful things that lefties had said or written after the election.

Of course, we can't forget Babs or Michael "more and more and" Moore (reaction to the election 1, and 2)

I do have compassion on sincere Americans who love the country and honestly (mistakenly) thought the nation and world would be better off with John Kerry as President. Many of them worked and wanted him to win so badly that the election results were are real blow that they hadn't adequately prepared for. I get it. The point the lefties need to remember is that the people who voted for President Bush (a) are sincere Americans, too, who just want the best for the Country, (b) wanted to win very badly, too, and (c) won because we had more people who showed up to vote!

Buck up, my fellow (but left leaning) Americans! The world hasn't come to an end, and there will be another presidential election in 4 years. You can try again to convince the nation that your vision for the future is best. In the mean time, it might be useful to learn who Americans really are. In the mean time, you really should find a way to survive the prosperity that's about to overtake the nation.

Finally, I would like to add a touch of knowledge to your depression. The liberals tend to think of themselves as the rightful leaders... The enlightened who are out of power by mistake and and confusion by the electorate. Check out PresidentElect.Org. They have all of the electoral results in the nations' history. Since President Lincoln, There have been 37 presidential elections. Republicans have won 23 of them (That's about 66% - almost 2 out of 3). The Democrats have won the other 14 elections. Republicans have won by actual majorities of the popular vote 17 times, and the Dems have only won with an actual majority 7 times. Take a dose of this coldhearted truth: Americans have not, generally, wanted to trust national leadership to the Democratic party since the Civil War.

NOTE: Yes, I did fix some typos and formatting errors.

Why Americans Hate Democrats

2004-11-05T17:08:00.000-05:00

Jane Smiley projects her malice to most Americans.
Janne Smiley wrote "The unteachable ignorance of the red states" as part of the "Why Americans Hate Democrats" series of articles.

Ms. Smiley attributes ignorance, racism, greed, bloodlust, and virtually every unsavory and/or malicious trait imaginable to those who voted for President Bush's re-election.

It's very much in line with Mr. Frank's article that I critiqued below, but far less constructive (not that his suggestions would help, but he did try to be constructive).

Let me respond, and this time very briefly:

1. Being a sore loser won't help you, and you can be d@mn sure that these articles will surface next election cycle and be used to tell everybody in the country what liberals really think of them. -- Thanks.

2. Perhaps the most concise reason Americans hate Democrats is that Democrats would seriously hold those hateful opinions of other Americans. -- Think of it like this: Americans didn't hate Democrats, we just thoroughly rejected the anti-Christian philosophies and watered down communistic agenda that Democrats brought to the table. You can be certain that some Americans DO hhate Democrats now that we've had a chance to get a glimps of what you really think of the "little people" that your candidates keep trying to pretend to care about.

I had predicted that the GOP was in a precarious place, in that they really had to deliver good and principled goverance to justify that we deserve to remain in power. Seeing what the Democrats really offer, by way of contrast, I'm not worried any more. You can bet you're sweet, tree-hugging, baby-killing, elitist, hateful ass we'll remember who you really beneath your election-year lies.

Count on it.

Democrats charting a course to even more spectacular failure

2004-11-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

It's hard to imagine a more overwhelming victory for the Republicans and massive defeat for the Democrats as we all witnessed on the evening of Tuesday November 2, 2004.

Thomas Frank, however, is busy plotting a course to even more resounding defeat in future election cycles. Here's his article from today (Nov. 5): Why They Won.

It's interesting because it's such an incredibly complete work of utter denial. He really does think of the Democratic party as the "party of the people" and that the cultural issues that the Republicans won on as something of a contradictory rouse.

Read the words he uses. The conservatives see the victory as the sign of a "revolution" or, more accurately, a "moral reawakening." How does Mr. Franks see it? "Rebellion." The little ingrates are rebelling against their rightful leaders! The little people in those dirty red-states have the audacity to say that the liberals are "elitists"! It must be the evil Rovian "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" plot to incite discontent on the part of the peasentry against the belevolent liberal nobility by labeling them as "elitists"!

Do you see how out of touch these liberal snobs are?

The liberals think that lowered taxes hurt the "working class" while helping the wealthy! Um... No. It lowers the government-imposed hurdles for the lower and middle classes to move up, economically. The people who are already wealthy don't have to worry about (income) taxes. It wasn't lost on the red-staters that Mrs. Kerry only paid about 12.5% in taxes on the MILLIONS OF DOLLARS she had in income, and absolutely nothing on the vast reserves of wealth that she had. It's not that we want her to pay more, necessarily, but it is so hypocritical of her and her boy-toy John to talk about "rolling back" (raising) the tax rates on the wealthy. It wasn't the wealthy who would be hit, it would be the people trying to become the wealthy who would be burdened.

The people who are creating and growing small businesses that would be slammed by John Kerry's plan. Note to liberal elite: Lots of "little" people would like to start their own companies and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle... maybe not be filthy rich, but be able to afford a nice house, with a nice yard, and drive a pleasant car (maybe even have two), and send their kids to college. To be able to accomplish these goals, would place most of them into the "wealthy" class that Kerry wants to punish, and the little people don't think that it's immoral to want a pleasant and comfortable lifestyle.

One other thing that I find funny is the way Mr. Frank sniffs that the "conservative revolt" is full of contradictions. Mr. Fraank, apparently thinks that the major media and entertainment businesses are perfect exemplars of all American "corporate culture." There are lots of corporations that are productive without attempting to corrupt the fabric of American society. ServiceMaster, Wal-Mart, Delphi, Motorola, UPS, etc. Miramax and the New York Times benefit from laws that allow business to function, more or less, freely, but they're not representative of overall corporate culture. It's the hight of elite arrogance to assume that the circle in which you travel is the only circle that counts.

Mr. Frank, I'll spell it out for you: We don't want to "Overthrow the aristocrats by cutting their taxes." - We want to become their economic peers and marginalize their leftist influence on our country by reducing the economic adantage that they have over us and are using to try to change our culture. Period.

Still, Mr. Frank, your blind. We don't wish you and your liberal cohorts ill, we want you to see reason and stop working against everything that Americans hold dear. You think you didn't motivate your base? You did, and very well, but their outnumbered... BIG time. And it's not about "class victimization" as you suppose. It's a cultural struggle, to be sure, but conservatives don't see themselves as victims. We see ourselves as responsible to do something to make sure you don't screw up the nation for our children any worse than it's already screwed-up.

You probably still chuckle to yourself, when you think of Reagan speaking of how a "rising tide lifts all boats." It's true, of course, but you don't think the little people are capable of rising, so your response to the cultural conservatives taking responsibility for the future is to advise your party to "dust off their own majoritarian militancy." You want class warfare. You want the "working man" to rise up against the working rich at the direction of the idle rich.

It's class warfare you're after, and your goal is to protect the cultural elite by having the "little people" attack the dirty but productive wealthy class before they can afford to join your country-club!

So long as you continue to be blind to the fact that most Americans want to do well by the merit of their own effort, by-in-large, and not be dependant on the nanny gub'ment for our sustenance, you're going to face increasing defeat. Eventually, you'll be forced to retreat to Martha's Vinyard, and be surprised that your gardener has chosen to cater to the sea of red-state working-rich rather than snobs.

In an effort to heal the divide, let me offer this, in all sincerity: Mr. Frank, and friends of Mr. Frank, please join us in America. Please feel free to present your ideals in the marketplace of ideas, and please abandon the notion that, because you see yourself as superior to others, that your ideas should be implemented over our objections. We don't hate you, but we refuse to be your serfs. We're going to work on making America a better place, a place where you are free to have illusions of superiority and grandeur, if you want, but where, if you like the freedom to have those illusions, it would be most productive for you to abandon them and join these patriotic "rebels" who mostly just love this country and truly believe that all men (and women) really were CREATED (by God) equal.

Have compassion on the grieving.

2004-11-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

Friends, In the Republican jubilation following the election, many of us may have forgotten the millions of heartbroken liberals around the country.

Echidne of the Snakes is a blog run by one such depressed liberal. She's even suggesting that the blue-states secede from the Union.

Off the cuff, joyous Republicans might be inclined to say, "OK, Buh-bye! Don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!"

However, that's not the right response. Conservatives have convinced the nation to trust us. We shouldn't pander to liberals to make-up for disappointing them, but by the same token, we need to respectfully stick to the principles that the voters decided to endorse.

The truth of the matter is that virtually all Americans want the same end result. We would all like to rid the world of suffering and poverty. In spite of what the liberals think, Republicans want peace just as much as they do, but we think that surrender is too high a price. "Peace" without liberty is no peace at all, and so we're willing to take a stand and make the hard decisions.

So, friends, remember that it reflects poorly on our character to be sore-winners. We're better than that, and despite the seething hatred the far left has for us, we can continue to grow our base IF (and only if) we conscientiously and respectfully hold to principles that ensure America's continued liberty and prosperity.

In My Crystal Ball...

2004-11-03T09:31:00.000-05:00

Well, now that the election is all over (admit it), it's time to make baseless projections about the future! I've got a few, and I'll share them. This is purely based on hunch, so if you don't like it, feel free to rationally suggest alternatives. My predictions/guesses/whatevers are not in any particular order, so don't read into their placement below.

Anti-climactic post election - Many people are gun-shy after 2000. For good reason. The election came down to a couple hundred votes, and for the first time a party decided to take the contest into the courts. (Don't even try to remember false history: The Democrats are the ones who dragged the election into the courts.) Courts don't like to solve politically charged issues (usually) but they will find answers to problems that are properly before them. That's what they do. It's not going to be like that this time. Or, that's what I think. I am certain that, as much as Kerry will want to fight for the presidency, no matter how unlikely it will be that he can win, he won't pursue it too long. Either he will have the good sense on his own to admit that the margin of votes was just not small enough that a litigated contest to the results will change anything, or he won't, but the leaders of the Democratic party, who have to think about the next Presidential election, and the next one after that, will realize that if they go to court AGAIN, with such a bad chance of winning, they will look horrible to the electorate. If this were just a couple thousand votes, and there were a bunch of reports of errors, they wouldn't look like sore losers as much, but somebody (probably Bill Clinton) will look at the party's actions in the national context and decide to cut their losses.

The next Clinton presidency - No, not her. Hillary has NO chance of winning a national election. Her negatives are just too high, and, to be honest, we know too much about her to trust her, in a national election. I mean Chelsea Clinton. Why her? Because she's not hated AND she has Clinton's name. IF she can be as smart as her parents, not be as disgusting as her father or as cold as her mother, then she has the potential to be a political powerhouse. I see her running for President in 2016 to 2028 time frame. I have time to be wrong. If she associates herself too closely to the fringe elements of the Democratic party in the mean-time she could ruin her chances, but as it is, she's not hated, and she has real potential.

Michael Steele will be the Republican nominee for VP in 2008 - Michael Steele is everything the Republicans say they stand for, and he's living proof that Republicans don't have a skin-color test to see if you can join the party. He's a social and fiscal conservative, and he's a powerful and intelligent speaker. I think he would make a fine Presidential candidate, but he won't be credible until he has some national-political exposure.

Condoleezza Rice will be the next Secretary of State - I haven't been totally happy with Secretary Powell, but he's not been bad. I suspect that he plans on leaving the administration. President Bush has nothing at all to lose by taking a hard line in international politics at this point. Since our international rivals were caught with their hands in Saddam's cookie-jar, the US can forcibly demand the moral high-ground, and Condi Rice is the type of person who can do it. It will be a good stepping stone for her, but from what I've heard, she's not all that socially conservative, so I don't think she has Presidential (or even Vice-Presidential) potential. I could be wrong, but for now I only feel comfortable predicting that she'll (before long) be the Secretary of State.

The Mainstream Media is in a hole and is still digging - The mainstream media isn't going away. However, it's going to have to change. After memo-gate, and missing-explosives-gate, etc., the media decided to gamble what credibility it had left (not much) on ousting George Bush. I'm not going to re-cap all of the reasons that the media will have to change, but internet-based (i.e. Blogs... i.e. me and all my virtual cohorts), and talk-radio-based news sources have shrunk the nation and the world. What I mean is that, in a small town, if you personally know the mayor, and the local rag reports that he's a drunken womanizing cleptomaniac, you will probably know whether or not it's the truth by way of your personal knowledge of the mayor. The "new media" is really a network of outlets that bring personal (often "hearsay") evidence to a huge proportion of the population. Your local paper might be able to pull the wool over your eyes about a mayor in a town in a neighboring state, but it has a harder time changing public perception of well known facts. In the final analysis, keep an eye changes in the media over the next 12 months. Just this morning, I heard that the Wednesday "60 Minutes" program is going to be cancelled. Look to see how FOX-News did in the ratings for election night. As it's position as the most trusted network in the nation is solidified, the management at other networks is going to force a change in the news divisions.

The UN is toast - I don't mean it's going to end, but it's going to have to change. Big time. It appears that officials from the UN were collaborating with the Kerry campaign. The UN needs the US a hell of a lot more than we need them. That's a simple fact. Another simple fact is that our international rivals (or nations that would like to see themselves as our rivals) were caught with their collective hands in Saddam's cookie-jar. It might be that bribe-taking is well respected throughout the world, but I suspect that being bought-off will lower their international political capital. I don't know what, exactly, is going to happen, but I think it's fairly safe to say that the UN was playing political poker with president Bush, and he called their bluff. Kofi Annan is going to be gone. Whoever replaces him is going to be from a nation that is not hostile to the US.

The GOP has significant political pitfalls it will need to avoid - I'm not giving anything to the Democrats here. The fact of being the politically dominant party has special pitfalls. The Republican Party can destroy itself if it betrays it's roots to placate the political opposition. Likewise, it can set itself up for a fall if it ignores the substantial minority (Democrats). The problems that I see are largely economic. I have faith that the Republicans are in the right with regards to how to handle terrorism and the Iraqi war (not that everything is perfect, but that, by-in-large, the President's plan/strategy will be successful over time). Now the Republicans HAVE TO deliver the economic goods. We've GOT TO demonstrate the strength of an unleashed economy. President Bush must demonstrate leadership on spending issues. Otherwise, it invites the Democrats to come back as the economically sensible party (which they aren't but that won't stop them from describing themselves that way). I don't know that the Republican party is doomed by its success, but the responsibilities and temptations of leadership can do us in if we don't hold fast to principle.

I guess I'll stop for now. Tell me how full-of-it I am in the comments, if you are inspired to do so (but do so rationally). Nevertheless, these are my thoughts.

Bin Laden sees Kerry as an ALLY

2004-11-01T09:07:00.000-05:00

This New York Post article indicates that the latest video message by Osama bin Laden contained more specific information and threats than has been widely reported. I wonder why.

Apparently, Osama has indicated that any state that votes for Bush is his enemy, and any state that votes for Kerry, he will consider to have voted for peace with him.

Could it be that Osama has been a sufficiently aware of American politics to realize that President Bush won't turn-tail and run from trouble, but that any Democrat, especially Kerry, can be expected to cower in fear whenever confronted by savages.

I'm certain that the fact that Bill Clinton has left the special ministrations of his private nurses to campaign for Kerry tells all the Islamofacists around the world that the President who gave the world the "courageous" retreat after a significant military victory in Somalia, but with depressing video, thinks that Kerry will be able to continue the Clintonian/Democratic tradition of head-in-the-sand cowardice.

So, why is it that the media hasn't broadcast that interpretation of the Osama video? I guess it's because the folks who run the media understand that American's aren't cowards and will vote for Bush in a 45+ state landslide if Osama's actual threats are released to the nation. Do you suppose that under a Kerry presidency, the major stations will rename themselves for clarity sake as "al Jazeera 1", "al Jazeera 2", "al Jazeera 3", "C-al Jazeera" and "MS-al Jazeera"?

Underpants Gnomes for Kerry

2004-10-29T13:48:00.000-04:00

This from Exit Zero (formerly what are they saying) has this:
Underpants Gnomes for Kerry

Very funny.

Ever wonder, "Where are they now?"

2004-10-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

No, I don't care about your highschool sweetheart, or your chess club buddies. Of course, I'm asking about the "missing explosives."

We don't know. Nobody does. IF they did get into the hands of terrorists, the chances are, the terrorists themselves probably don't even know exactly where the explosives came from. I, personally think that most of the explosives are sitting in a Syrian warehouse with a guard sweating bullets hoping to Allah that none of our Tomahawks have the site's location in its computer.

However, the inquiry is really about, "WHEN did the explosives go missing?" Anybody with a brain (i.e. not a moonbat-liberal) will realize that sneaking with TONNAGE of high-explosives is something much easier said than done, and to accomplish it would, realistically, take heavy machinery. Trucks. Bunches of 'em. Of course, lets assume that the terrorists and Saddam-loyalists DID have a gentleman's agreement with the local Teamsters' (We know that they're nearly all rooting for the Democrats, so I guess that's a reasonable presumption.) If they had tried to move trucks along the roads after the troops had taken over the area, our troops would have noticed. Remember, America's troops control the roads. The fact that a single person can sneak an IED through kinda proves, that the terrorists can't move large quantities of anything. It was even more true early after the invasion.

That means, of course, that, more than likely, most or all of the missing explosives were moved BEFORE the invasion. We wouldn't have been there to stop them at the time... That sounds plausible. However, is there any evidence that supports that idea?

I'm glad you asked! Of Course there is! Check out thisCandid(spy-satellite) camera snap.

Trucks at the site... Before the invasion. If Senator Waffles was really concerned about our troops, why isn't his complaint that we didn't invade SOONER? (And why, exactly, did he vote against the $87 Billion to provide additional support and supplies for our troops?) Yup, he's the same traitorous bastard he was back in the 70's, that's why.

Everything Old Is New Again...

2004-10-28T13:43:00.000-04:00

Or, John Kerry: Still The Same Traitorous Bastard He Was Back In The 70s.

Most of you know, the sort of crap that John Kerry said in his testimony in 1971 before the Senate. In short, he accused all American soldiers of being war criminals. For some reason, that didn't make the veterans and POWs happy, although it did tickle the Viet-Cong pink (or, redder).

So, that's what Kerry did THEN. What's he doing now?

We all know (and I agree that it's been played into the ground) the "voted for before I voted against" line as regards the $87 Billion that was largely for additional equipment for our troops on the ground. Kerry's been equivocal about his reasons why he changed his position. The fact that any neutral observer can see is that the vote was purely political. Actually both the original "for" and the later "against" votes were politically. Kerry was willing to needlessly endanger our soldiers by denying them support for political advantage.

That's not the end of it, however, we've got a new example: Senator Waffles is attacking our troops as incompetent. He's trying to attack the president, as if President Bush fell asleep at the post and somebody in a trench-coat snuck in behind him and stuffed 380 TONS of high-explosives into his pants. That's ridiculous. President Bush left the military execution of the war to the military, so any recriminations about particulars about the execution are a direct attack on the President. Additionally, there's no evidence that Sandy Berger has been over there!

The fact the Kerry would stump on this half-issue is telling. It's an old story, and the age isn't being presented. We knew the explosives were missing as soon as we arrived at the site during the war. He knows that there is no evidence that the military dropped the ball, that that won't stop his stumping on the issue. (How could the military have dropped the ball if the explosives were removed prior to the its arrival?) Let's not forget, additional information came out yesterday that the IAEA (an agency of the UN... Kerry's favorite club) had been warned about the explosives with a request that the explosives be destroyed, but the IAEA declined to do that. That happened, of course, back in 1995. If you'll remember, that was when Clinton was President, and Clinton, with the aid of Senator John Kerry were busy "fixing" everything under the Sun!

So, Kerry is being intentionally disingenuous and deceitful with regards to this ancient story. He's calling our soldiers incompetent. Perhaps that's better than calling them "war criminals," but knowing that he would vote against supporting them after he voted to allow the war to happen in the first place with hopes of gaining political advantage, is there any doubt that if he believed he could get an extra point in the polls, he would immediately declare our troops "war criminals"? I didn't think so.

President Bush has said that he would do "Whatever it takes!" to protect America and hunt down our enemies.

Kerry has shown he will do "Whatever it takes!" to try to grasp power.

Of course, that's because, as we know, Bush is a leader, and Kerry is a giggolo who will protitute himself for wealth and power. Yeah, he's a Democrat.

Dashing Daschle's hopes?

2004-10-26T10:38:00.000-04:00

Check THIS out!

Look at the Senate race. Daschel, the highest ranking senatorial Democrat, is in the political fight for his life. Right now, according to the latest polls, he's either neck-&-neck or down by 4% to John Thune.

Sweet!

Kerry... Stupid? Dishonest? Both?!

2004-10-26T09:48:00.000-04:00

The Drudge Report has thisupdate on the "missing Iraqi explosives" story that the New York Times came out with on Monday.

Kerry promptly added the story to his stump-speech. But... As with nearly everything printed by the New York Times, the story is somewhat "truth-challenged." The story doesn't mention when the explosives went missing. That would be because, ahem, the explosives went missing BEFORE the invasion.

Conceivably, that information would have been available to Senator Waffles, IF he had shown up for the security briefings.

I guess that leads to the question: "What did John Kerry know, and when did he know it?"

Did he know the explosives were missing and lie about it in his speeches?

Was he unaware of the nature of the missing explosives, and depend on all of his foreign intelligence from the New York Times?

If he knew, it shows, once again, that he's a liar. Not a little fibber, but a liar about major war-on-terror intel. It's not the same as President Bush, who was, apparently, wrong in his reliance on intel that was commonly believed by virtually every country in the world regarding WMDs. No, this would appear to be a deliberate attempt to deceive the American public about the War on Terror.

Moreover, and worse for Kerry, this information helps to validate President Bush's belief that Saddam did or was about to possess nuclear weapons. Since the explosives went missing before the US got to the site, if Bush was supposed to "guard" these explosives, then he needed to order the invasion sooner. Is that what Kerry is saying... That Preisdent didn't go to war fast enough? (Can you say "Flip-flop"?) And why is it important? These are the types of explosives used to start a nuclear reaction in a nuclear bomb. Hmmm... Why would Saddam need these types of explosives? I guess for the same reason he was developing banned weapon delivery systems.

If Kerry didn't know, it proves one glaringly obvious thing about his record in the Senate: He didn't take his responsibilities seriously in the Senate. Why should we believe that he would treat the job of President any more seriously.

Would a President Kerry, not only cut the intelligence budget, but totally disband our intelligence agencies, and rely totally on the New York Times for his information? For as "smart" as people say Kerry is, anybody who would step out of faith based on a New York Times article demonstrates significant cognitive deficiencies, or other mental problems.

Of course, we all can see that this is, once again, an example of collusion between the Democratic candidate and the major media outlets.

Is Kerry dishonest, or his he stupid, or is he both? I say "both," but does it really matter?

What made him think President Bush was really a Democrat?

2004-10-20T15:08:00.000-04:00

Senator Biden said Bush was 'brain dead' on the prescription drug bill.

I guess he's not the only Democrat Senator who is apparently confused about the subtle distinction between "supporters" and "opponents." (See here and here).

Emerging story: Canadians fear basic economics

2004-10-17T20:56:00.000-04:00

Here's the article from the Financial Times: Canada deals blow to cheap US drug imports

In spite of what most democratic voters think, Drugs are not magically cheaper simply because they hung out with the Canadians. Simply put, the Canadian drugs are "price-controled."

I don't have the time or interest to investigate the actual nature of the price controls to determine if they are a form of subsidization or a price-cap that forces the manufacturers to force U.S. consumers to eat the entire R&D expense.

In any event, the prices of the drugs are artificially low up there. Artificial price points can only be held at a great expense, but usually those expenses are hidden and dispersed. Unfortunately, as America has learned with the price-caps on immunizations that eliminated the profit margin to develop the vaccines in this country and has led to our current shortage. (Thanks Bill, you just had to give in to her on part of her communist dream, didn't you?!)

Artificially low prices will, if accomplished through subsidization, cause taxes to increase (or need to) if demand for the subsidized item goes up. If accomplished through price-caps, then the supply will dry-up.

It may be that Canada has implemented some of each. In which case, their taxes might go up, AND they might run out of their drugs. The demand, up there, will cause the Canadians who can afford it to head down to visit American pharmacies, just like they do for their medical procedures.

The point, of course, is one that Democrats refuse to acknowledge: There Is No Free Lunch!

It looks like the Canadians might have to come to grips with that reality soon enough. Either that, or they'll legislate that people enjoy their hearty "air-burgers" without complaint.

I hope this gets some real media attention. It won't though.

Bible Belt parents say, "I'm going as 'Cognitive Dissonance' this Halloween."

2004-10-15T17:13:00.000-04:00

Sunday Halloween Irks Some in Bible Belt

When I saw this article, I knew I had to say something.

I'll be short (for a change).

This little paragraph seemed to sum-up the sense of upset that some are feeling about Halloween being (celebrated) on a Sunday:

"You just don't do it on Sunday," said Sandra Hulsey of Greenville, Ga. "That's Christ's day. You go to church on Sunday, you don't go out and celebrate the devil. That'll confuse a child."

I can appreciate the desire not to confuse a child about religious things. HOWEVER, if you recognize that Halloween is a celebration of "the Devil" and/or other "dark" spiritual beliefs that are incompatible with Christianity (and I do), then it doesn't make it alright to "celebrate the Devil" on a Wednesday just because it's not a Sunday!

If you think that Halloween is an anti-Christian or at least wholly incompatible with Christianity, then just don't celebrate that stinkin' holiday AT ALL.

I think it makes a worse statement to your children to protest the DAY because it "celebrates the Devil" than to just go ahead and celebrate on a Sunday if you're going to do it all. If you protest the day, then you're telling your child that there is a real significance to what Halloween celebrates and it is incompatible with what you profess to be your faith, but you don't care about your faith enough to let it impact your life on any day but Sunday.

I won't let my kids celebrate Halloween at all. Period. Whatever my faults as a parent, my kids won't get mixed messages about this from me.

Debate #3

2004-10-14T12:16:00.000-04:00

Did you watch the debate?

I know you know I did. I was blown away by the President. He wiped the floor with Kerry. Senator Waffles, though still a smooth speaker, was just not impressive. He blamed everything in the world on President Bush. I have no doubt that if a question had been asked about why it's dark at night, Kerry would have blamed the President's "failed" energy policy, and talk about how, during the 90's he "fixed that."

Here's a transcript of the debate. (Yes there are some typos in the transcript, but I'm certain you will be able to see get the full impact, nonetheless.)

I was psyched by the President's performance, and knew that, hands-down he had beaten Kerry. President Bush was funnier, more responsive, and much more realistic than Kerry at every turn.

I was surprised when I got into work and got a chance to speak to a couple of co-workers. They thought that it was a clear Kerry win. I didn't understand that. Well, that's not entirely true. I knew they were both Democrats or at least liberal-leaning folks. When I asked about why they thought Kerry won the response was that, "President Bush avoided answering the questions and kept bringing up the No-Child-Left-Behind Act to questions that weren't about education, like the one about what would you say to the guy who lost his job, or for affirmative action."

That response opened my eyes. It was an anti-analysis reaction (that and it was straight from the Democratic talking-points).

What do you do when someone loses his or her job because the industry he had been employed in can nolonger operate competitively in the nation and has to relocate? You make sure that person is equipped to get into the high-value jobs that can efficiently utilize the resources in the area. THAT is "education." If an industry moves away, it means that the resources to continue it in the original location were not being utilized efficiently. That's the cold economic truth. President Bush has repeatedly, throughout this election cycle, insisted (correctly) that to make sure that there are jobs in America you need to make America the best place in the world to do business. [Note to Kerry: Businesses will NOT flock to America if the government attacks and hinders them!]

I see three potential responses to job losses due to industry migration:
1. Punish the business and erect trade barriers. Of course, that discourages business, injures the economies with which America trades, and artificially keeps resources in inefficient uses. It's an easy sell, politically, but it's economically ignorant.

2. Increase welfare-type give-aways that pay people to not work. Of course, that's exceptionally expensive, destructive to individual dignity, and subsidizes non-utilization of labor resources. For example, if you can make $20,000/year in cash and benefits by not doing anything, would you bother to get up and work 40 hours per week for only $30,000? Maybe, but you're much more likely to utilize your resources if the difference was greater. If the job pays $30K, and that's all it's worth to the employer, then the $20K government give-away makes it less likely that the employer will be able to fill the position.

3. Recognize economic realities, and encourage and enable people to utilize their labor resources in the more profitable (economically efficient) opportunities that do exist. That option, often, means education. More than that, it grows the economy, and allows our trading partners to grow their economies too by letting them efficiently utilize their resources. It also encourages individual dignity. People appreciate the fruits of their labor far more than what's merely given to them. (Here's an article about a study that says just that.)

The President's answer was correct, substantively, and it's the compassionate response to hardship.

Kerry's response was a boo-hoo session. It was a litany of, mostly, imagined ills, and all of them, of course, he blamed on President Bush. When he did finally get around to "answering" the question, to the extent that he did he lied about Pell Grants (President Bush's policy has expanded the availability of the Pell Grants so that more people can get re-trained to work in our economy), and then he suggested options #1 and #2, and seemed to give a little lip-service to #3. Kerry didn't give a real answer, he gave a stump-speech.

I read through the transcript to make sure that my perception was correct. Yes, the President did mention the No-Child-Left-Behind Act a number of times, but each time it was in the context of fixing "root-cause" problems. If you want to argue that the NCLB Act isn't all that effective at it's stated goal, that's something that can be honestly debated, but the President is correct at looking towards actual education as the primary solution to the true causes to the societal ills that were mentioned.

If you look at the substantive answers from each candidate, time and again, the President focused on solutions, and Kerry spouted nebulous and deceptive talking points.

Continuing to use the unemployed fellow question as an example, Kerry said he would close the "loophole" that "encourages" outsourcing. What loophole? Turns out, there's a tax policy established in the 1990s (back when everything was "fixed") that told US companies that income earned from over-seas operations that was invested overseas was not subject to US taxes. Closing that loophole would require either double-taxation, OR taxation on income that has nothing to do with the US economy. Look at it like this... Lets say you worked for a big international company and EVERY country in which your company had operations decided to do what Kerry wants to do. Operations in each country would have to pay taxes to every country in which the corporation does business. For sure that will discourage outsourcing, but it would also discourage investment and expansion into new markets. It discourages economic activity all over the globe.

This works both ways, of course. Many foreign companies invest in America and "outsource" jobs from their country into the USA (Daimler-Chrysler, Honda, BMW, Nissan, Toyota to name just a few). Profits that stay in the country in which they are earned encourage investment. This is true both in the USA and with our trading partners. More than that, the line-workers are not the only people affected. If it's more profitable to utilize the resources in another location, then investors get a lower rate of return, and customers pay higher prices.

For example, if the USA refused to import fruit, banana's would cost $10.00 per pound or more because there's not much USA that's geography appropriate for growing bananas. As a consumer, I'm sure you can recognize the advantage to not having to dedicate an unnecessary proportion of your income to products that are easier to obtain from elsewhere. Investors have an interest too. Many of America's retired citizens make a significant portion of their income from dividends from stocks and bonds. If you require companies to utilize less efficient means, then the wages for seniors decrease. Workers can retrain and get new, higher-paying jobs, but retired people are stuck.

I guess this shows the difference between Bush and Kerry. President Bush wants to fix problems and grow America. Kerry wants to pander and scare and perpetuate problems so he'll have familiar issues upon which to run. To me, it shows that President Bush is, once again, putting the interests of American citizens first, and Kerry was only interested in buying voting blocks.

In light of that clear difference, I have but one more thing to say, "Thank God George W. Bush is our President!"

Poisonous Truths

2004-10-12T08:47:00.000-04:00

Living in America is a great blessing. Living in any nation where the governed have a say in the governance is a blessing.

No doubt.

Nevertheless, America has an Achilles heel. Some truths cannot be spoken. No matter how true a statement is, if it regards a taboo topic, the speaker will be pilloried and the uncomfortable, unpopular truth will be ignored.

This is the state and condition of America as we head into this election cycle on a number of topics. The electorate has chosen not to care about the underlying issues in a number of areas and therefore is susceptible to sound-bite politics.

Classically, this is the case with Social Security. The retired among us, apparently, have nothing to do with their days but write angry letters and show up to vote. I don't know what happened to the generations who are now retired. Most of those people were very self-reliant as they grew-up, but now demand full support from Social Security... That is, from us. If you want to waste your breath attempting to educate them to the fact that Social Security is poised to break the nation, financially, and that the "premiums" they paid into Social Security for their retirement "insurance," is typically paid back to them with interest within the first three years or so, you can say all of that. It won't accomplish anything.

Many or most retired people, demand, partially on principle, but more on greed, that the government's promise of support throughout their retirement be kept, no-matter how destructive such support is on the current and future working generations. The truth of the matter is that the problem in this area is greed. Many or most of the retired among us did not choose to save sufficiently because they were certain that Social Security would be there for them. How they thought the couple of thousand dollars they socked into Social security would actually cover the cost of their retirement is beyond me, and it's something that they refuse to consider.

For these reasons, any meaningful reform of Social Security has been exceptionally difficult. President Bush has advocated, repeatedly, a plan to privatize part of the Social Security taxes paid by tax-payers below a certain age. The elderly oppose such a plan on the basis that they have allowed themselves to be scared into the belief that such a plan will cut their monthly allotment of loot. It won't, but they refuse to let facts get in the way of their greed.

As sad as the current state of the inability to discuss Social Security is, it pales in comparison to the serious problems we face. (At this point, if I haven't already pissed you off, my fair reader, you will more than likely become livid.) The "War on Terror" is another, and far more vital topic, about which Americans are willfully blind.

To be sure, we've been aided in our ignorance. The major media has no interest in the truth of the nature of the conflict, and it's one of the most uncomfortable truths that our nation has faced in the last century.

The truth is that, although America and our allies are fighting against the terrorists and their supporters, the Islamic world itself sees itself as our enemy. Certainly, we Americans don't intend to engage in some sort of "Crusade" to convert Muslims to Christianity by force, and we're not trying to steel their land or wealth. The fact that we've established representative governments in Afghanistan and Iraq should prove that point. That doesn't make a difference, though.

The fundamentalist Ismalists (not just those who have officially taken up arms against the US) intend to, sooner or later, take over the entire world by force. The "moderate" Muslims, are content to let that happen, generally, and don't feel all that motivated to destroy the "free" nations of the world (like the US), but are not really opposed to the work of the fundamentalist Islamists.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself this, "Where was the mass outcry against and denunciation of terrorism by the Muslim population in America after 9-11?"

The truth of this matter is disturbing, even for those of us who comprehend the nature of the struggle. It's a global battle. It started with Mohammed way back in the 6th Century. I don't know what, realistically, can be done, but, for sure, the best weapon against the ultimate goal is to implement representative governments that are required and do actually respect the differences of all citizens. Freedom of religion, and speech will, I think, cripple the advancement of the Fundamentalist Islamists.

A very good friend of mine had been undecided, until very recently, about who he would vote for in this coming presidential election. To be honest, in spite of my best efforts, he seemed to be leaning towards Senator Waffles. Because he was upset with a number of things that President Bush had done or hadn't done, and because he has close ties with Europe, the European discontent with America had really impacted him.

He was undecided. He's not undecided anymore.

He works in the intelligence/law enforcement community. As part of his continuing training for his current position, he had to undergo training and tactics for dealing with Fundamentalist Islamist terrorists. Part of that training was a fairly detailed lesson of the history and culture of Islam. His eyes were opened to the nature of the threat. He made a point of telling me that the instructor (a man who grew up in a Fundamentalist Islamist household in Saudi Arabia, but who's mother was a secret Christian who taught him to actually value others) never advocated a candidate, or party, and stayed totally away from political questions. Nevertheless, at the end of the training, he said that nobody in the room had any question about who they had to vote for... President Bush.

President Bush, and not John Kerry is actually dedicated to confronting the fundamental problem, and has set about the only course of action that appears to have any hope of stopping the Fundamentalist Islamists. Our policy of attacking terrorism wherever it festers and of leaving in our wake representative governments that respect individual liberties is the only plan that has a hope of stopping those who would destroy us.

My friend angrily asked me why President Bush didn't just make the case that he had heard for our policy and actions. He's right, of course, that if all of America were forced to sit down and be informed about the nature of the struggle, no other argument would be necessary. The problem is that what my friend learned was another poisonous truth. For a politician to speak it is political death. Americans don't want to believe that there's any real difference between how peace-loving we are, and how peace-loving they are. Americans would like to believe that everybody is just like us, and so once we get rid of the hand-full of bad-guys freedom, as fully as we enjoy it, will break-forth.

The best answer I could give him is that Americans, generally, are not sufficiently educated about the threat for the education to which he had been exposed to make a difference, and that there is no way to get America to sit down and digest the information he had been presented, and because of this, there is no way any politician can start to discuss this truth in sound-bites without sounding like a raving religious zealot himself and/or a racist.

There's a good chance you, fair reader, think that I'm some religious zealot and/or a racist, even now. It's not true. But it illustrates my point. Yes, I do have firm religious beliefs. And yes, I do not believe that any and all religions are "equal." This is not to say that I think that all those who don't believe similarly to me are evil, or less worthy of life or the right to their beliefs. To the contrary, I fully accept that all humans have an equal right to life, and that all humans must be free to come to their own conclusions about their religious beliefs, and that choosing to believe what I see as "true religion" is meaningless if there is no choice to believe otherwise.

That being said, a relatively objective analysis of religion is possible by looking at its results. Christianity, though its course in history has not always been pretty, has had the biggest impact for freedom and advancement of any major family of world-views. Islam, despite what you may think of the "benevolent" Sultans of a thousand years ago, has never really stood for true freedom or advancement for society. Likewise, the stark humanism of communism fits the description of a religion, and, unless you're trying hard to ignore the tens of millions of people murdered because of it, it's hard to say anything other than that the humanism that spawned communism is antithetical to peaceful human society.

To discuss this matter immediately produces a defensive response against the assault on our presumptions. To state that America, in order to defeat terrorism, needs to stop the advancement of Fundamentalist Islam sounds too much like religious intolerance. However, it's not racism or religious intolerance. It's a fact. Fundamentalist Islam does not allow for the possibility that anything but itself has any legitimate right to exist. It's a cancerous ideology. If you know anything about cancer, you understand that you cannot come to "detente" with it. If you don't kill it, it will, eventually, kill you (if something else doesn't do you in first).

Although we, in America, want to let everyone believe whatever they like, failure to act to stop Fundamentalist Islam will result in a loss of the ability to hold that value.

This is a poisonous truth. The President won't ever state it clearly, because to do so would be the end of his career. Fortunately, however, he's wise enough to recognize it. More than recognize it, though, he was able to see that there was an option other than a direct attack on the entire Islamic world. He saw that an expansion of liberty would work against Fundamentalist Islam. The sad truth is that Senator Kerry has been exposed to all of this information too. He could (and should have) come to the same conclusion, but he hasn't. Whether strictly for political gain or out of true naivete, Kerry wants to treat the War on Terror as a law enforcement matter. That tactic, if adhered to for a significant amount of time, will guarantee the destruction of America, and every vestage of Western Culture.

The war is on. The war is global. The war is between two mutually exclusive concepts and one will need to actually stop the other to survive. But for a politician to name the war, honestly, is to marginalize himself because the electorate is not prepared for the truth.

In other news... A name for DC's new MLB team?

2004-10-12T08:06:00.000-04:00

Those of you who know me know that I really don't care about sports all that much. I think it's a mildly amusing tool for vicarious competition around the water-cooler, but other than that, I think that most professional sports are mind-numbingly boring to watch.

That said, as a resident in the Baltimore-Washington area, I couldn't help but take note of the fact that the Montreal Expos will be moving to Washington DC and will be playing in the area starting next season. Now that DC has a team, the really tough work going forward is, of course, picking a name.

Certainly, they won't go with the "Washington Senators" again, and I seriously doubt that something as innocuous as the Washington Bi-Partisans will work.

I would like, with only a little tongue stashed in my cheek, to suggest the following name... Remember, a professional sports team name ought to have something to do with the area. Also, the modern trend has been to find some "politically correct" name that won't offend anybody. The Washington Wizards used to be the Washington Bullets, and, although some traditional Christians might be offended to the reference to the occult in the new name, it's plain to see that the Wizards have not been tapping into any supernatural source for success, so complaining about the name would merely be piling-on.

So... My suggestion for a name...

The Washington Scandals.

NOTE: Instead of "Washington," the team could use "DC," or "Beltway."

It's certainly not a name that necessarily favors one political party or another, or gender, or race. Also, "Scandal" is something that has a great deal of connection to the area. It's fun, too. Of course, the down-side will be picking a graphic for the logo. I suppose, if all else fails, they could use a stylized image of a blue dress, or even some tapes. Nevertheless, picking an image is secondary to picking the name.

What I think is even more fun is that the wives and/or girlfriends of the players will, no doubt, become known as "The Scandalous Women" (NOTE: Not a work-safe link!!!), and I'm sure that will increase interest in the team.

From the "Sucks to be Kerry" file...

2004-10-11T14:19:00.000-04:00

I saw this article and found it somewhat interesting... TV Group to Show Anti- Kerry Film on 62 Stations

Of course, since it was published by the New York Times, I don't know that we can trust anything it says. Nevertheless, it's interesting.

I almost laughed out loud when I read this line:

"It's hard to take an offer seriously from a group that is hellbent on doing anything to help elect President Bush even if that means violating basic journalism standards," said Chad Clanton, a Kerry spokesman.

Do the words "CBS," "60 Minutes II," "Dan Rather," "unimpeachable source," and "Joe Lockhart" mean anything to you? I dare say, the fact that the Swift Boat Vets are still around proves that their claims are much better founded than the crap that "See, BS!" has been airing.

I suppose that Kerry and his campaign ought to suggest to the "un-biased" producers and reporters at "See, BS!" that they should worry about "basic journalistic standards" before the complaints of Kerry's campaign will sound like anything other than the whining of a spoiled brat.

On the other hand, I did think that any applicable "equal time" laws would probably require the stations to air some President Bush material too. I'm glad to see that my observations weren't necessarily incorrect, or even unreasonable... Check out this paragraph:

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, an advocacy group promoting greater media regulation, said he did not think the film would qualify for a news exemption. And, he said, even if it did fall under equal time provisions, those are based on candidate appearances and in this case, since it is Mr. Kerry who appears, "albeit disparagingly," stations would be required to show Mr. Bush or possibly the independent candidate Ralph Nader, if they requested it.

Perhaps, CBS should make up for the time it spent airing the bogus stories about President Bush by airing "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal." It seems like a very reasonable suggestion to me. Don't you think?

Duelfer Report - Did Bush "Lie"?

2004-10-08T10:25:00.000-04:00

PREFACE
The anti-war / Pro-communist / Pro-murderous-tyrant crowd has been making noise for months that President Bush LIED. Their "proof" has traditionally been that President Bush hasn't been proven totally correct. Facts that tend to vindicate his choice of actions, and historical data that indicates his actions were widely seen as the rational and appropriate course of action at the time are overlooked.

I've beaten the particular dead horse about the subtle difference (that happens to be as clear as day to all people from about 1 to 120 years of age) between being proved "wrong" and "lying" previously, so I'll try to be relatively brief. As my friend, Trevor, has pointed out in conversation, it's a direct result of a post-modernistic world view which uses an ends-means value system and assigns moral blame to any opposition.

As you might guess, a discussion with someone who proclaims that "Bush LIED!" is substantially limited. As a matter of fact, one of my best friends has fallen for that line. His reasoning is somewhat more convoluted. He recognizes that Bush's intel was told him a single compelling story, that no nation with an intel organization made the argument that Iraq was not developing and or did not already possess weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, my friend insists that "Bush LIED" on the basis that the intel culture was so inept that no confidence should have been put in what they say. Of course, the problem with his assertion is that my friend now chooses to believe pieces (mostly out of context) of what the CIA says after that information has been filtered through the partisan anti-Bush editorial pages of major newspapers and press sources from Europe.

If you can't believe ANYTHING that our intel services say then what my friend is saying is that since our national "vision" isn't 20/20 we should close our eyes altogether. He refuses to address the question of, "What if the assessments were correct?" Obviously, if the assessments were correct, then Saddam could have either directly or indirectly gotten chemical or biological agents delivered over a US city by now (maybe worse). What would the response be to President Bush if he had said, "I can't trust anything you say, CIA, so I will not act against Iraq!" and then 30,000 unsuspecting civilians are killed? Of course, my friend, and every leftist, would be calling for President Bush's impeachment, and perhaps criminal prosecution (though I don't think that could possibly stick) for failure to listen to our magnificent intel services when they told him that Iraq was a threat to us.

Logically, you can't have it both ways, but, when you're motivated by a quasi-religious philosophy, such as post-modernism, logic and facts will never deter you.

THE DUELFER REPORT
This, I think, brings us the the much-vaunted "Duelfer Report" I'm not going to go through the entire document because neither I nor you have time for that. I will discuss, however, the CIA's"Key Findings" (PDF format) from the report. The looney-left's belief-disbelief dichotomy regarding what the CIA says notwithstanding, we'll assume the "truth" of what the document says in so much as that the document is based on "true" observations, and reasonable conclusions based on them. Absolute truth, of course, may never be known fully. The reason I think it's safe to assume the "truth" of the report is that the leftists have already proclaimed it to be the gospel. They are saying, "It proves there were never any WMDs so Bush LIED!" For those of you who do have time to spare, here's a link to the report's homepage so you can read the whole thing for yourself.

The FIRST paragraph of the key findings vindicates President Bush:
Saddam Husayn [sic.] so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
The subsequent findings show that Saddam was dedicated to the development of, intimidation by, and systematic use of WMDs. Not only that, it says that his current vehicle for moving towards his goal was by corrupting the Oil-For-Food (OFF) program. Through that program, Saddam had effectively mitigated most of the effects of the sanctions, was rapidly working actively enhancing his "dual use" capabilities so that he would have the means of reconstituting his WMD development as soon as the sanctions were lifted, and that he "was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and trade embargo, by the end of 1999."

I suspect some of my more stridently anti-Bush readers will cause me to regret this, but I'm going to leave some of the connections for the reader to make, and I'll get to my conclusions:

1. Saddam's activity reasonably looked like attempts to actively operate a WMD program. Instead of feeding the civilians with the OFF funds, he was developing "dual" use programs. We also knew that he was in the process of developing (banned) delivery systems (both missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles). We also know that several tons of banned WMDs had never been accounted-for, so it was unreasonable to assume that the WMDs had simply disappeared, especially with Saddam's track-record. Based on this, Bush's decision to move towards military action was entirely appropriate. Failure to do so would have been gross neglect of his duty to protect America. President's don't get to govern by hindsight.

2. The information about the OFF program demonstrates that key players in the UN were corrupted and could not and should not be trusted with regards to Iraq policy. Since France was the biggest recipient of Saddam's bribes (see this article), the fact that they recognized that Saddam was a threat but didn't want to do anything about it starts to make sense. Knowing what we know about France's corruption and complicity with our enemy, the fact that they opposed the war should be entirely discounted. The Taliban didn't want us to attack them... Hitler didn't want the Allies to resist... When friends of your enemies oppose you, that shouldn't give you a moment's hesitation in doing what you know to be in your interest.

3. A "global test" would have left us open to any terrorist state's systematic plan to attack us. A "global test" for American action prior to proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" (see Kerry's comment that terrorism is or should be primarily a matter of "law enforcement") of an enemy's involvement in actions of violent hostility towards us gives our enemies every reason to try to bribe our "allies" and then plan to and actually attack us first.

Saddam learned that, under Clinton, he could bribe our allies (at least the French, Germans, and Russians), and would be able to subvert the effect of the sanctions. In so doing, he was able to begin laying the ground-work to become absolutely dangerous to America. Under Clinton, and if Gore or Kerry were President, bribing our "allies" would have worked to keep America from acting in our own interest.

Literally, THANK GOD that President Bush is a man of conviction and resolve who puts his duty to protect America foremost, and whether the French will mutter insults at us at diplomatic dinner parties over their caviar and Champaign relatively low on his list of priorities.

CHANGING JUSTIFICATIONS FOR WAR
Finally, I want to say something about the new meme being pushed by the liberal Kool-Aid drinkers... The liberals are saying that because we are learning facts that support the decision to go to Iraq, but that are different than what we thought we would find, that the President is "changing his justification."

To illustrate what's wrong with this line of thinking, I'll use an analogy that most of us understand; a traffic stop. Lets say the a police officer gets a call over the radio to look out for a particular type and color of a car, with a general description of the driver, a direction last seen traveling, and two characters from the license plate. The reason to keep an eye out for that car was that it was identified as the vehicle used by an armed bank-robber leaving the scene of the crime moments ago. Moments later the officer sees a car matching the description, with a driver matching the description, and traveling in the direction indicated, with two letters on the plate as indicated.

Should the police officer stop the person? HELL YES!

He has probable cause, but not PROOF that the driver was the wanted suspect. Lets go forward and say that when the officer stops the car, he searches it for weapons (which is allowed), and in so doing he finds, instead of evidence that the driver had anything to do with an armed robber, bloody knives stuffed under the driver's seat, and hears some muffled sounds from the trunk. The Officer then opens the trunk to find a critically wounded child tied up who dies moments later.

Should we proclaim, when the officer puts down on his report that he originally pulled the suspect over as a suspect for the armed robbery that he LIED because the driver turns out not to have been the armed robber? Should we neglect the other evidence that he found as irrelevant since it's unrelated to an armed robbery charge? Should we fire the officer for popping open the trunk without a search warrant? The child's dead now, so why couldn't he wait for the warrant, right? Since the driver, we now know, wasn't the armed robbery suspect, should we proclaim that the officer is wrong for charging the driver with the murder because it wasn't the original reason given for pulling him over?

The analogy isn't perfect, but it gets the point across: People with executive authority can ONLY act based on their present knowledge at any given point, and subsequently learning you're right for reasons other than what you originally thought does not make you any less right in your course of actions.

President Bush did the right thing based on what he knew when the decision had to be made. The lefties try to say that the decision didn't have to be made when he made it. Of course, that's (a) false, and (b) Monday-morning-quarterbacking. The longer we waited, the more effective Saddam was at getting banned materials to support his plans to reconstitute his WMD programs, and the more likely that tens of thousands of Americans would have had to die to deal with the problem after it did NEED to be dealt with. (According to the standard of necessity that the looney-left uses, but won't describe.) Since we had no way of knowing how close to imminent Saddam's threat was, but we did know, for sure, that he intended to be a threat, then, in our post-9-11 world, early action must be preferred over later action.

Therefore, the Duelfer Report must be seen as a major vindication of President Bush. He was right to act on the data he had, and we are lucky he acted when he did.

[UPDATE: Yes, I did fix some spelling errors.]

RIP - Kerry/Edwards?

2004-10-06T08:35:00.000-04:00

Did you watch the VP debate last evening? (Transcript Pt. 1, Pt. 2)

I'll save you the suspense, I did. (I may have missed a total of 15 seconds, but I'll say that I watched the whole thing.)

Asking a similar question to what I asked after the last debate, "Who won?"

I would have to say, this time, in both style and substance, the Republican, Richard Cheney took this one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Edwards was bad on style. He wasn't... at all. I think that Cheney was just better, even in style, by a little. I would give the style contest to Cheney by, say, 52% to 48%.

The style contest was between an orator (Edwards) and a clear-spoken deliberator (Cheney). In the legislature, the qualities of an orator might be prized, but in an executive role, Americans (as far as I can tell) want a leader who is a clear thinker of sound judgment and resolve with much less emphasis on rhetorical skill. Cheney showed that he had those qualities and pointed towards the President as a prototype of leadership.

As for substance... I would give that one to Cheney by a ratio of 60% to 40%. Cheney pounded Edwards with facts. Edwards looked like he was twisting numbers to bad-mouth America. Stylistically, that's dangerous, but when Cheney was able to fire back with both barrels with substance that showed Edwards' vacuousness. both in his position and in his capacity, personally, Edwards took it in the shorts.

Let's not forget that Edwards demonstrated that Democrats can't tell the difference between "one" and "more than one." Edwards attempted to mock Cheney on Halliburton's dealings with Iran and Cheney's opposition to unilateral sanctions against Iran during Cheney's tenure as Haliburton's CEO. First, the implication of wrong doing is nowhere near proven. Second the central difference between then and now is the word "unilateral." A unilateral sanction means that only one potential trading partner (us) of HUNDREDS of potential trading partners (all the other countries in the world) will be prohibited from the trade opportunities. What that means is that the unilateral sanction will be a statement but entirely without effectiveness. The only people who will lose out, then are the individual businesses that could have traded with the particular country. That's unilateral. The current support is because of much broader support for sanctions. This means that American companies won't be penalized (at least very much) since other countries' companies will also not be trading with the sanctioned country. In the broadly supported sanctions circumstance, the offending country (Iran) is much more likely to be influenced.

Is this just me, or does this show a continuation of the pattern of a surprising inability, on the part of the Democrats to distinguish between one and more than one. Our coalition that invaded Iraq had more countries (at the start) than the original Gulf War (39, I think versus 34), and now still has nearly as many (30), and the Democrats call that "unilateral." Then again, the Democrats can't tell the difference between unilateral sanctions and broadly supported international sanctions.

The problem might be a more generalized inability to comprehend numbers... Edwards tried hard to exclude the casualties suffered by Iraq by defining the new Iraqi government outside of the "coalition." I think the better definition must include every sovereign that is aiding us, and that must include Iraq. FactCheck.org even got this one wrong. If you scroll down to the discussion of the "90% of the Casualties" section, FactCheck attempts to characterize VP Cheney's comment that our allies have taken "almost 50%" of the casualties as only refering to the Iraqis. Here's what Cheney said:

Cheney: The 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq , which leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent.

The key word, is "include." Cheney is being inclusive. FactCheck notes that in reality, the Iraqis have suffered about 38% of the casualties, but the non-US total including the losses by the Iraqis is over 45%. That's almost 50%.

But, there's MORE!

The reason I titled this post "RIP - Kerry/Edwards" was that Edwards made what I think will become a fatal mistake for the Democrats. In framing the discussion the way that he and Kerry have done, they have painted a picture of a weak and morally bankrupt nation. They try to point at President Bush, but they have to harp on negative themes and body-count. They attempt to capitalize on American fear, but, in doing so, they have abandoned the most powerful motivating factor in American politics: Hope for a better future.

Reagan epitomized it. Clinton didn't capitalize on it well, but the way he framed the debate, he looked like he wanted to move towards a better future. It's the future that's the key, not how bad things are at this moment. Americans may feel skittish, but we can look around and see that the nation hasn't fallen appart. There is no "stag-flation," and although we may not feel as giddily rich as we did during the tech-bubble of the 90's we don't, generally feel like we're in a depression, and some of us even realize that the growth has been impressive.

The phrase that's going to haunt John Edwards more than any other, I predict, was his closing comments when he spoke of the light of opportunity "flickering." WHAT?! Say you want to protect the future, but don't describe America as being near the edge of extinction!

I predict that Edwards has given the GOP a shinny new bullet. I suspect that it will find it's mark and take down the Kerry/Edwards campaign. Before, we all had learned that Kerry is a "flip-flopper," but now we know that Edwards is also special, he's a "Flicker-Flopper."

Perhaps we'll see the Democratic performance in the polls described as the "Flip-Flopper Flicker." In any event, Edwards has given a great and true way to ridicule the Democrats, and ridicule is probably the most effective form of opposition, especially if it's seen as fundamentally true.

Should there be a political test for Gun Control?

2004-10-05T14:12:00.000-04:00

This article, Shots fired into Knox Bush/Cheney headquarters struck me as funny.

We all know that the looney-left is forever bitching about the "need" for more gun control. Of course, it seems counter intuitive to a lot of people to try to limit or eliminate private gun ownership because the law abiding citizens will comply and disarm, but the criminals, of course, will not. The net result will be that the bad guys will have the guns and no innocent person will have an effective means to potentially ward-off an attack.

(I know, I know, the dope-smoking lefties, after taking a deep drag, will proclaim that if there weren't any guns then nobody would have guns and then we would all be happy, nice, and peaceful people with no inclination to commit violent crime, of any sort, anymore. Nevertheless...)

Then this story comes along and I realized what the problem is... The Democrats know they have no self control! They know they have no intention of controlling any impulse, be it towards sexual promiscuity and/or perversion, or towards laziness, or towards criminal behavior. They know that if they had a gun in their hands, the just can't keep from committing a crime, and therefore, the only way to stay out of jail, personally, is to get big-brother to take all those evil guns away!

In the interest of public safety, then I propose a psychological evaluation as part of any licensing procedure to acquire a gun. If, to a reasonable psychiatrist you appear to be a liberal, you should not be allowed to possess a gun. If you're a conservative, however, you can get whatever you want, because, as a conservative, you believe in personal responsibility, and know that you shouldn't go shooting at people just because you don't like them, even if you want to do so.

See, it all makes sense now!

Smoking gun?

2004-10-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

Folks, check out this CNSNews.com article:
Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh mentioned this article on his show, and so I suppose it's gotten a fair amount of discussion in the Blogsphere by now. I'm not sure what the general consensus is at this point, because I was exceptionally busy yesterday and unable to do my normal reading.

I'm not ready to jump onto this with both feet. To be honest, it seems almost too good to be true. Aside from the obvious that, if these documents are authentic, there can no longer be a question that Saddam was just as dangerous and a gathering threat that the President said he was. That the much maligned "bad" intelligence wasn't all that far off.

The thing I would like to point out, however, is how CNSNews is treating its source material. It's not cloaking the documents it has as the gospel and unassailable truth. It's indicating why it has great confidence in the authenticity of the documents, but stating up-front that there are some questions and isn't marrying itself to these documents.

This is how CBS should have handled its memo-gate scandal. If it had indicated why it thought the documents were true but also acknowledged that questions had been or could be raised that were not trivial, then they could have reserved their place, at least to some extent, as a news source rather than just a loony-left propaganda outlet.

In the final analysis, we don't have certainty in this information as the truth, but it looks like there might be some evidence that can be investigated. Perhaps we will have some conclusive evidence soon.

Who won the debate?

2004-10-01T08:23:00.000-04:00

I don't have much time to write today, so I'll just be giving some brief first-impressions, and they may surprise you.

Who won the first debate?

Senator Waffles.

Obviously, it doesn't change my mind, and I don't think he was right about much or anything. Nevertheless, Senator Kerry did win the debate for two reasons, IMHO.

1. Bush was the victim of his own success.

What I mean by that is that the Bush campaign, and those who are opposed to Kerry that are not part of the Bush campaign have been VERY effective at painting John Kerry as a bloviating flip-flopper. The truth is, he IS a bloviating flip-flopper, BUT he's not an unpolished bloviating flip-flopper. Prior to the debates, especially the first debate, each side races to be the underdog. Why? Because the simple truth is that rarely is a debate all that important, and rarely does one side totally crush the other, and so if you can convince people that you're the underdog, and you don't come out at a big loser, then you can tell people that you, by definition won. It's the same thing as winning a bet on a football game, even though your team lost by betting on the underdog and "beating the margin."

2. Kerry plays the part well
Again, I'm certainly not recommending Senator Kerry, but, let's be honest, Kerry has been winning elections for a long time for a reason. He speaks smoothly and forcefully. He trained as a litigator, ferpetesake. This is related to the first reason, but a bit more stand-alone. Yes, Kerry won the race to under-dog status, but even if he hadn't, he speaks well. He doesn't say much, but he says it clearly. People who come across as "mean" simply cannot survive at the top levels in a world of televised politics, and so most politicians who attain national status can play the part well. President Bush has a strong public image of a resolute leader who is not afraid to defend America, no matter what the French say. Kerry has cultivated the image of a "statesman" who can talk about the topics at length, and with pristine enunciation. Leadership, not so much. Kerry was able to masquerade his indecisiveness as a "plan," and in this debate, I think it played well. I don't think that it will stand up to scrutiny over the next few weeks, but we shall see.

However, lest the looney left get too excited about this, I don't think that winning the debate will really help, much. True, it might siphon a few undecideds towards him, but it wasn't a strong win.

What I wish President Bush had said more forcefully was:
1. The war in Iraq is a central part of the global war against terrorists and those who support them. Kerry hopes to conflate the issue and make it seem like President Bush is erroneously blaming Iraq for the 9-11 attacks. That's not what we've done. Saddam was a major supporter of international terrorism and the threat he posed was too grave to allow to fester.

2. We no longer live in a September 10, 2001, world. This has two parts, (a) When a threat is grave, and there is no hope that a non-violent method can resolve it before it we need to act, and (b) We cannot treat terrorism as a crime problem, it's a war problem, and wars are pursued differently than crimes.

3. Kerry speaks of credibility, but the credibility that counts is less whether your intelligence agencies have given you the right data, because that can be fixed, but far more about whether others can be certain you mean what you say when you say you will do something. In the 1990's the leader of France (Sorry, I forget his name at this moment) called President Clinton and asked him if he really meant what he said about Bosnia. President Bush will never have that sort of credibility problem. Libya knows that President Bush means business when he says that we're going after terrorists and every state that harbors or aids them.

4. There was no rush to war, and the war in Iraq WAS the last resort. Kerry said repeatedly that President Bush should have reserved war as the last resort and should have exhausted the potential remedies through the UN. Anybody who can read history knows, and President Bush hinted at the proper response... Seventeen resolutions didn't work, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that an 18th would have magically changed Saddam into a lamb. Therefore, once you know that diplomacy has no real chance of working, then sticking with diplomacy is a sign of cowardice. The war was a dozen years in the making and the debate in this country about whether to actually do the deed took over a year, and Senator Kerry was a staunch supporter of war at that time.

5. John Kerry's "plan" was a plan for more of the same feckless whining from the UN. John Kerry's "right way" to go to war is a blueprint to putting off the tough decision until it is absolutely too late to win a war we know needs to be fought until our enemies have have had plenty of time to prepare. In reality, John Kerry's plan is a way to procrastinate on the decision until a Republican takes office again, and it pretends that 9-11 never happened.

All in all, both sides have a great deal to be happy about...

For the Democrats and the "Anybody But Bush" crowd, they've got a fellow who can smoothly pronounce a position (regardless of the fact that the position has no substance) and look like a leader. What that crowd probably likes best of all is that they can know for sure that while looking and sounding like a "real" leader, he will never be a leader, since they hate America's position of power in the world.

For the Republicans we've got clearer target now. Kerry clearly stated that he believed Saddam to be a threat, but that he didn't really want to do anything about it. He believes that the war was a colossal mistake and he's the one to win it. That could be an argument to make if you agree with the idea of going to war, but have a difference of opinion about a particular tactic or strategy. You can't reasonably say that it was wrong to go to war and you know how to win. If he really thinks the war was wrong, he should vow to undo the wrong... not win. You vow to win, if you believe that the conflict should be won.

Also, Republicans have been reminded that this won't be a cake-walk. I never thought it was. Having painted Kerry as an unpatriotic flip-flopper so soon, the public may be inoculated to him at this point. The good news, I think, for Republicans, is that with that realization with a month to go, this should strengthen the resolve of the grass-roots. We know we don't elect the president to debate in the Senate, we elect the President to LEAD, and I am certain that President Bush still has a significant edge there.

Finally, if you watched the debate, perhaps you were as amused as I was that Kerry kept running back to his 4 months on a boat in Vietnam. I suppose he would have a hard time pointing to his record in the Senate as giving him the leadership perspective necessary to lead the country, but commanding a boat in a river is not a good proxy for leading a nation, and the world's only superpower at that.

Go ahead, feel free to tell me how wrong you think I am, but, please be so kind as to be specific.

PayPal minutiae

2004-09-27T22:07:00.000-04:00

At least one reader was unconvinced by my discussion of the possible PayPal abuse of discretion discussed below.

One overly self-confident reader insisted that PayPal's clause in it's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) cleared PayPal of any liability. Here's the clause:

PayPal also may, at its sole discretion, prohibit the sale of items which graphically portray violence or victims of violence, and lack substantial social, artistic or political value.

Question: How broadly can PayPal, who wrote that term, interpret the it?

An accompanying clause in the AUP says:

Examples of items that may generally be sold using PayPal:
...
War documentaries or documentary photos portraying victims of war or violence

Do you suppose that the author of a contract providing himself/herself/itself "sole discretion to prohibit the sale of items..." In some way related to violence, victims of violence, etc. Would be allowed to construe that "discretion" in a way that would allow it to "limit" (suspend) the account of a blogger who has a donation system (not sales) through PayPal who links to digital video of terrorist acts to protest and advocate against the terrorists?

This context of the link seems to be the essence of political speech, and the video itself was a "documentary" of the terrorist act.

Lets think of it like this: If PayPal is allowed to construe donations to be sales and determine that the blogger's discussion doesn't meet it's unspecified standard of "substantial social, artistic or political value," is there anything that they can't use to justify suspending an account? PayPal's discretion, in setting itself up as the final arbiter of political value on a blog that specializes in political discussion vests in itself not only sole but absolute discretion.

Is a contract that can be suspended at any time at the sole and absolute discretion of one of the parties an actual contract?

No.

The promise is "illusory"

Quoting from Calamari and Perillo on Contracts 5th Ed. Sect. 4.12(4):

Under current orthodoxy, a bilateral contract is void if there is no mutuality of consideration. If the promise made by one or both parties is illusory or indefinite it does not constitute consideration. An illusory promise is an expression cloaked in promissory terms, but which, on closer examination, reveals that the promisor is not committed to any act or forbearance.

If PayPal's discretion is allowed to gloss over the difference between "sales" and "donations" and allows it to assign no value to societal or political expressions that it doesn't like, or allows it to determine that the recorded account of a terrorist act isn't really documentation of an act of violence, then there is no safe harbor at all for anybody who discusses anything PayPal doesn't like (if they have an account of any type with PayPal).

I suspect that the particular reader who thinks the inclusion of the phrase "sole discretion" vests the holder with near god-like powers to disregard associated terms in an agreement is unconvinced in the least, so I'll go on.

I think I'm beginning to show that "sole discretion" is not absolute. So, how far does it go? How are the limits to discretion to be found. I suggested that "good faith" be the standard. Of course, my smug reader would hear none of that. So, who's correct?

Well, In Hodgkins v. New England Tel. 82 F.3d 1226 (1st Cir. 1996), the Court seemed favorably disposed to "good faith." Here's an excerpt:

The district court's reading of the written instrument's literal terms is not disputed. The IAW program form submitted by Hodgkins clearly reserves calculation and determination of awards to NET's discretion, and Hodgkins does not argue that he was not aware of these provisions. In the absence of any evidence proffered by Hodgkins that NET engaged in bad faith acts such as intentionally destroying records, we agree with the district court's finding that NET's conduct, including its repeated evaluations of Hodgkins' ideas, falls within the ambit of its "sole, exclusive, and complete discretion" over the IAW program's operation.
However, a question lingers regarding Hodgkins' argument that the discretion reserved by NET was so "unlimited" as to void the agreement. See Corthell, 167 A. at 81 (noting that a party's reservation of an unlimited right to determine the nature and extent of its performance renders its obligation too indefinite for legal enforcement). In Corthell, 167 A. at 81, the Maine Law Court confronted facts bearing some resemblance to those of the instant case. In that case, the plaintiff Corthell executed an agreement with his employer whereby he would be compensated for "all future inventions" with "reasonable recognition," "the basis and amount [of which] to rest with" the employer "at all times." Id. Despite the reservation of discretion to the employer, the Maine Law Court held that the employer's promise was not illusory and that the contract was valid. Id. at 82. Stating that the contract "was to be interpreted in good faith on the basis of what is reasonable and intended, and not technically," and also emphasizing that the contract contained specific language instructing that it should be construed in that manner, the court found that the employer's promise was not illusory based on the provision
for "reasonable recognition" and the parties' exhibition of a contractual intent. Id. (finding a valid enforceable agreement and also concluding that the employer breached it).

Granted, that employment situation isn't factually similar to this the PayPal/DailyPundit issue discussed below, however, the beautiful thing about "contracts" law is that the subject of the contract is often irrelevant. If there was an agreement, and terms, and consideration, etc., we've pretty much got a contract issue no matter what it's for. Of course, there are some special circumstances, especially related to family law, where the general rules get modified, but I'm not going there.

Unlimited discretion over a vital term of a contract will void the contract, unless that discretion is limited by "good faith."

"Abuse of discretion" or "Abuse of rights" under the classical analysis might not have been the precisely correct, or at least most easily proven, descriptor of PayPal's act of discretion. I think it still applies, although the basic exercise of "sole discretion" limited by "good faith" is an easier argument to make.

Nevertheless, in a desperate (and probably futile) attempt to enlighten my discretion-fixated reader, I'll move forward a bit farther. When "Abuse of Rights" is alleged, it is generally examined under (a) Malicious motive, (b) Exercise of the right is unreasonable and without any legitimate interest, or (c) The right was exercised form an illegitimate purpose. (Again from Calamari and Perillo, Sec 11.39)

I'm not going to argue that PayPal's motive was Malicious, and although I suppose I could come up with an argument that PayPal didn't really have a legitimate interest that motivated it's actions with regard to DailyPundit, I won't. I think that of the "Abuse of Right" theories, the "exercised for an illegitimate purpose" is the closest fit.

The apparent purpose of the AUP is to avoid being associated with the promotion of violence or the exploitation of violent criminal actions. (If you disagree, let me know what you think it's purpose is.) The AUP is available to anyone who wants to read it, so any potential client for PayPal would be able to read it first. In that way, it's not really to change the user's content, but to put the user on notice that they don't want to be associated with that sort of content. Fair enough.

This situation was one in which PayPal unilaterally decided that some content, despite its political and societal context was something it didn't like. PayPal then flexed it's contractual muscle, in the form of its "sole discretion" to attempt to coerce DailyPundit into eliminating the content it didn't like, even though that content was, to virtually any reasonable observer, not within the universe that the AUP seemed to prohibit. What was PayPal's purpose in it's exercise of discretion? Apparently it was not to protect its image (because if it was offended and didn't want to have its name and/or logo associated with a site that included the offensive content, it could have demanded that DailyPundit remove any links or logos immediately, but it didn't). PayPal's objective was, apparently, to influence the content of the internet to the extent that it had any leverage over content providers, to produce a world wide web more in tune with its vision of goodness. That's nice, but it's exercise of discretion to force users to act in accordance with its own political values appears to be an illegitimate purpose (one not contemplated by the original contract).

It's late... I might be making this stuff up... Or not.

Speaking of "sole discretion" in Tymshare, Inc. v. Covell, 727 F.2d 1145. 1154 (D.C. Cir. 1984) , Justice (then Judge) Scalia said, "this phrase is not necessarily the equivalent of 'for any reason whatsoever, no matter how arbitrary or unreasonable.'" This was a case in which an employer had a sales quota system which it could raise or lower as it saw fit and give bonuses based on that quota. The employer, after terminating the employee, retroactively raised his quota so he wouldn't qualify for bonuses he, otherwise would have been entitled to receive. Scalia went on to say, "that in using its quota adjustment authority (combined with its termination authority) to reduce Covell's compensation, Tymshare was not acting for any of the purposes implicitly envisioned by the contract." Id. at 1154-55.

What can we take away from this long posting? Well, if you're rational, you will probably think that, "Hmmm... I may not be certain that PayPal necessarily violated the implicit terms of the agreement with DailyPundit, but I see that it's exercise of 'sole discretion' would quite possibly be limited by the doctrine of 'good faith' in respect to the purpose of the agreement, and therefore positing that PayPal could be liable was a perfectly reasonable thing for the editor of this blog to do."

One final note... I really don't want to hear any complaints about this posting not having enough links to "prove" what I'm writing. It's late, I did the research necessary to demonstrate my points, and I've provided citations to authority (which may or may not be freely available on the internet... I didn't use the free sources myself, and I'm not going to stay up any later to find those free resources for you (if they do exist). You can believe what I wrote, or not. I don't care.

If you still think that my musing that Wire Fraud would be "absurd," then since I took the effort to educate you on this aspect of contract law, and I did provide URLs for you to look up the relevant statute yourself, you need to "prove" that wire fraud wouldn't apply in the circumstances as I posited. Otherwise concede that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

PayPal abuse of discretion?

2004-09-24T09:22:00.000-04:00

Bill Quick (Daily Pundit) is getting strong-armed by PayPal

PayPal has, apparently, decided that Daily Pundit is a "Hate Site." Now, to be sure, Bill has a sharp e-tongue, and a fairly quick temper, but that doesn't make his site a "Hate Site" in the sense of encouraging violence against some identifiable group or of encouraging or celebrating terrorism.

My take on the issue is that PayPal is abusing what discretion it gives itself in its contract ("Acceptable Use Policy") Here's the Policy as regarding "Offensive Material" which is apparently what PayPal was objecting to on Bill's site:

PayPal believes that it is important to respect the diversity of beliefs of our members, and generally permits the use of PayPal to pay for anything the law allows. However, PayPal cannot condone the sale of items or support of organizations that promote hate, violence, or racial intolerance. In addition, PayPal is a worldwide company with many users residing in countries where the possession or sale of items associated with hate organizations is a criminal offense. Therefore, PayPal will judiciously disallow organizations that promote or glorify hatred, violence, or racial intolerance (such as the KKK, Nazis, neo-Nazis, and Aryan Nation), from using PayPal to accept payments. Furthermore, such organizations may not be listed in PayPal Shops, nor may any website listed in PayPal Shops advertise or support such organizations.

PayPal also may, at its sole discretion, prohibit the sale of items which graphically portray violence or victims of violence, and lack substantial social, artistic or political value.

PayPal may also, in its discretion and out of respect for the families of murder victims, prohibit the use of PayPal to sell items closely associated with individuals notorious for committing murderous acts within the last 100 years, such as personal belongings of criminals, letters or artwork created by such criminals, or novelty items that bear the name or image of the criminal.

Further, PayPal prohibits a person convicted of a violent felony, or his relatives or associates, from using PayPal to benefit financially from the convict's criminal notoriety.

PayPal will review sellers that are brought to its attention by its worldwide community, and will look at the seller's entire website, and other public information to determine whether it falls within this rule. Examples of items that generally may not be sold using PayPal:
Items that bear symbols of the Nazis, the SS, or the KKK, including authentic German WWII memorabilia that bear such marks
Crime scene photographs
Morgue shots
Letters and artwork from notorious murderers
Electric chairs and related capital punishment items
Examples of items that may generally be sold using PayPal:
German coins and stamps from the WWII era regardless of markings
WWII memorabilia that does not bear the Nazi or SS markings
Books and movies about WWII or Nazi Germany, even if the Nazi symbol appears on the item
War documentaries or documentary photos portraying victims of war or violence
Items of historical importance associated with acts of violence against public figures.

[Emphasis in Italics added. ]

The problem here is that Bill wasn't "selling" anything, and even if that term is broadly construed, his site is almost entirely about political ideas, and even if the display of or links to images of terrorist actions is offensive to some, the manner in which it is presented almost certainly falls within "War documentaries or documentary photos portraying victims of war or violence."

In the final analysis, I suspect that PayPal has gotten an email complaint about Bill Quick / Daily Pundit, and in response to the complaint, PayPal has decided to investigate. According to their User Agreement, they indicated that they will limit accounts about which they get complaints while they investigate the complaint.

It looks to me like a liberal hate-monger has figured out how to harass conservatives who accept donations through PayPal by sending a complaint. It would be unreasonable for PayPal to not investigate, and in the mean time Bill Quick, or whoever else is the target of this harassment gets their normal operation interrupted.

IF that's the case, then the complainer could quite possibly face civil liability, and maybe criminal liability as well. It seems to me like sending a false complaint in order to interfere with someone's enjoyment of the benefits of a contract is "Tortious Interference with Contract." Also, and I haven't looked at the law in this area, so don't hold me to it, it may be an issue of some sort of wire-fraud, which would make this a federal criminal offense.

Wouldn't that be funny... You're a liberal crank, and decide to screw with some evil conservative/libertarian, and so you shoot off a baseless complaint to PayPal so they will, at least temporarily, suspend the account of the evil conservative/libertarian. As a result, you find your butt in a Federal Prison and a civil judgment against you too.

UPDATE: I forgot... Thanks to Instapundit for the heads-up.

Criminalizing "Reckless Sex"? Why not criminalize stupidity first?

2004-09-23T13:51:00.000-04:00

The Insta-professor posted a bit about a new proposed law to criminalize "reckless sex."

Anybody who has suffered a "sports-injury" from bedroom gymnastics might understand a call for some level of regulation on variations that, upon the calm reflection in the peace and quite of a hospital room while in traction, might seem to always be inherently dangerous no matter how expertly performed...

Well, that's not what this law is apparently trying to prohibit. Here's the quoted text:

"To convict, prosecutors would need to show beyond a reasonable doubt (i) a first-time sexual encounter between the defendant and the victim; and (ii) no use of a condom. The defendant would then have the opportunity to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the victim consented to the unprotected sex."

As most of you know, I'm a law student. When I see stuff about laws, my interest is piqued. Here's what struck me about the proposed law:

Presumption of guilt as to the basic elements of rape. (i.e. non-consensual sex). It seems as if this would be a Due Process problem to allow the legal presumption of non-consensuality of the sex based on evidence of (a) First-time, and (b) lack of a condom.
And then there's this, what makes either (a) having sex for the first time with a particular person, or (b) not using a condom illegal? From what I've seen, least one of the elements of a crime needs to be, well, against the law, that is, a violation of some right retained by another or by the government? E.g. "Speeding," presumably, is a violation of the government's right to regulate highway safety, and theft is a violation of someone's title to property. I could go on and on, but I won't.

While people who consider themselves smart enough to speak to a topic feel free to propose legislation, I'll throw my hat into the ring. Here's my proposal for a new criminal law:

(a)It shall be illegal to propose patently stupid statutes.
(b)"Patently stupid" shall include, but not be limited to,
(i) blatent violations of constitutional rights,
(ii) non-sensical verbiage, and
(iii) criminalization of actions that do not necessarily invade the rights of another person or the established provinces of governmental control.

If we could get this passed, we could go down to the (appropriate) state capitol and round up 90% of all legislators within 3 days of the beginning of the next legislative session!

Imagine the tax dollars that would be saved!

Maryland in play? (YEAH, Baby!!!)

2004-09-21T10:41:00.000-04:00

I don't know how long the Maryland results will be at the top of this page, but I thought it was interesting to take a peak at this new survey.
Survey USA - Current Election Polls

I know, I know, the margin of error is pretty high (4.1) but even if the full 4.1% goes to Kerry, that means the committed vote-spread is less than 10% in Maryland.

Did you notice, I said, IN MARYLAND!

Maryland is a traditional Democratic stronghold, although, Reagan did win the state in '84 (and GHWB may have won the state in '88), Democrats can almost always count on a solid Dem result from the Free State.

That result seems less certain at this point in time. What I like about it is that for the Democrats to keep Maryland, they'll have to divert their attention from other (bigger) electoral prizes.

The Free-State Republican Insurgency is taking its toll!

Now, all we have to do is keep the momentum for 6 more weeks.

Rather like a "CYA memo", no?

2004-09-20T13:22:00.000-04:00

EXCLUSIVE
// Mon Sep 20 2004 11:58:02 ET
STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:
Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.
Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.
But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.
Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

Since it wasn't a link, I've coppied the statement directly off of Drudge's main page.

I'm sure lots of folks are blogging about this by now, but I wanted to bring a thought to bear on the topic.

Did anybody else gag when they saw the line "...in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism"?

Excuse the heck outta me, but if there's no favoritism here, where is the CBS 60 Minutes II investigative report on Kerry's sketchy war record? The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have substantiated and stood by everything they've said. Sure, a few chinks in their armor have appeard, but the main topic of their book, Unfit for Command, has not been discredited.

If there's no favoritism, then why did CBS decide to run with forged memos with obvious signs of being false, and with family members of the supposed author, and document experts alike telling them that there are serious reasons to doubt the authenticity of the documents, but they won't provide a real investigation of anything unfavorable about Kerry?

I guess the question that arises is, what is it that Rather knows now that he didn't know back when the story was first aired? Since we know that there were plenty of warnings about the authenticity of the documents prior to the running of the story, then what, exactly has Rather learned in the last couple of weeks? The only thing I think he could have possibly learned is how easily and how conclusively the memos could have been proven to be fakes. We're less than two months before the election. If the story could get out there and not be too easily shown to be fake it would linger in the minds of the electorate and fester and persuade the moderately uninformed to dislike the overwhelmingly liked President Bush.

What else might Rather have learned? My guess is that he learned that the day and age where his word and that of the anchors of the other two big networks defined the truth as understood by America is over. Blogs and talk-radio may not be bigger than the traditional media, but they are now so big that they cannot be ignored. It's the new underground economy of ideas, just like I said, and it will not be ignored.

A Blog worth Bookmarking

2004-09-14T23:23:00.000-04:00

The University of Baltimore Federalist Society has a new weblog, The Well FED Society.

It won't be the place to go for the most partisan stuff, but if you want updates about what the Student Chapter of the Federalist Society at UB, is up to, it's the place to look.

I also expect that you will be able to get some original thought and analysis about law and public policy issues among the posts at that site.

Just remember, if you like to feed your brain, then The Well FED Society is a site you don't want to miss.

OK, that might have laid it on a little too thickly... But still, it's worth checking periodically.

Bias in Economics reporting... No! You don't say!

2004-09-13T10:25:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big fan of the New York Times... There are a lot of reasons to not be a big fan of the NYT. Nevertheless, this article Do Newspapers Make Good News Look Bad? looks pretty interesting.

Since it is from the NYT, I really should have fact checked every word, but since I only claim to be fairer and more ballanced than some warning you that you might need to be skeptical of what you get from the NYT means I'm, at least, beating them.

The point of the article is that bias in favor of the Democrats, or at least against the Republicans is pandemic in most traditional media, and even infects the economics reporting. What makes this a little more newsworthy than just claiming that the media is biased is that (1) We're talking about economics news, ferpetesake, and (2) this allegation isn't just a gut reaction, it's got some real statistics behind it.

Read the article.

The thing to remember, when developing a propaganda strategy, is that facts are, for the most part, neutral. How you choose to frame them and what you emphasize is where you can inject bias in "factual" reporting. It looks as if even the economics reporters in most media outlets have not overlooked that tid-bit of advice and are doing their part in the war against Republicans.

In other news:
Posting will be light this week and may continue to be somewhat light through early October. I'm sorry. We've got a number of things at ye ole law school that are demanding extra attention. I'll post as frequently as I can and or feel inspired.

Something to watch... Developing

2004-09-09T15:15:00.000-04:00

According to CNSnews.COM, "60 Minutes" or its sources might have been a tad bit to eager with the Bush records... Here's the article:'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake

Basically, typographical experts are finding reasons to believe that the memos that 60 Minutes has found were created on a modern Word Processor program.

Please note, THIS is why hearsay is not admissible. The person who supposedly made these claims is dead. Col. Killian cannot attest to the accuracy and authenticity of the documents. There's no way that these documents could possibly ever be used in court against President Bush because of evidentiary rules.

I don't know that the documents are fake, but it wouldn't surprise me, but the fact that there's no way to guarantee that they are authentic should give anybody who wants to use them a serious reason to approach them cautiously, lest your own credibility be seriously damaged.

Same old lies.

2004-09-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

It appears that when the going gets tough, the Dems go back to re-using lies that haven't worked for them before. Perhaps we should take heart... Sure we know that the Democrats don't have the intestinal fortitude to see national defense issues through the rough patches, but at least they are showing that they will stand by lies even after the lies have been exposed and blown away by the truth.

AP has this article: Democrats Say Bush Lied on Guard Service

It sounds like a real big story, right? It's not.

This is the same set of tired old lies and half-truths that have been floating around the lefty-conspiracy-theory crowd for years.

There are two main prongs of this current attack against President Bush, and one just plain stupid part.

The first substantive attack is that President Bush avoided taking his physical exam. Now they've added a new twist. They (CBS's investigative team from "60 Minutes) are now saying that files from Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984, indicate that Lt. George W. Bush disobeyed an order to get the physical. Did George W. Bush lose his flight status because he didn't take the physical? Yes. We've always known that. HOWEVER, there's more to the story than that Bush didn't report for his physical. At the time, he was trained to fly the F-102A, a fighter-interceptor. That's what was flown in that unit of the Texas Air National Guard (111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron). The rest of the story is that in 1972, when Bush was supposed to get his physical to retain his flight status, he was serving his commitment to the Guard, by express permission in the Alabama Air National Guard 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Montgomery, AL). They didn't fly the F-102(A) there. They flew reconnaissance jets there. President Bush was NOT rated to fly those aircraft. He would have had to take a slot in the training program for it to become rated for it, and he knew he was slated to be discharged in 1973. It made no sense to anyone for President Bush to take the physical to retain his flight status since he couldn't fly at the location where he was serving his commitment. This has been known for a long long time.

If President Bush had disobeyed a direct order which he was obligated to obey, he would not have been able to be honorably discharged, or he would have, at least, had to undergo some discipline. There is no record of that.

The second attack is that Ben Barnes (Former Lt. Gov. of Texas) is now claiming that he pulled strings for Bush to get into the Air National Guard, and now, Mr. Barnes poor conscience is bothering him enough that he has to confess to the press that he pulled strings.

Let's address the first question: Even if all of this is true, were any laws broken? I don't think so. Politicians doing favors for other politicians is the ugly truth of politics, and though it's very bad for the public image, there is no indication of any illegal activity (like a bribe or some other quid pro quo action). So what we've got is a situation that looks bad, if it's true, but not illegal, and we don't know to whom to assign any blame. Is it possible that Mr. Barnes took the task to pull strings upon himself to get himself into a position where he could ask for a future favor? That's as likely as anything else. There is no unequivocal statement about who asked for the strings to be pulled to help President Bush get into the Air National Guard.

Finally, whenever an accusation is made (against anyone) the credibility and motive of the accuser, in addition to the truthfulness of the accusation is fair game to be examined. Hmmm. When you take a look at who Mr. Barnes is, what he does, who he does what for, and what he plans on doing in the future, it looks highly suspicious. Mr. Barnes is a TOP fundraiser for the Democrats. He's a top fundraiser for Senator Waffles, and he, apparently, hopes to get some position in a Kerry administration.

These accusations are easy to frame in a bad light against President Bush, but, when examined don't appear to have much substance. They're just the same old lies.

Oh, and before I forget. Now, in response to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the veterans' group that has hammered Senator Kerry for some significant discrepancies in Kerry's record and his claims, the Democrats have come up with their own veterans' group, Texans for Truth. (That's right, no link for this band of brothers. You'll see why.) This group is attempting to insinuate that President Bush absolutely did not serve since they don't remember his service.

There are lots of things I don't remember. I had a very good friend at my first job. He and I worked in the same building for about a year, but we worked on different projects. I never saw him at the office. Since I don't remember seeing him at work, does that mean he didn't work? NO. It means I didn't see him.

All of this has the potential for becoming an issue in the campaign, but I think that, if handled properly, it won't. Why? John Kerry's record has become an issue because he's running, almost exclusively, on the 4 months he spent in Vietnam. If that's what qualifies him to be president, in his own mind, then we should examine what he did there. President Bush, on the other hand, hasn't held up his National Guard service as why we should vote for him. He's acknowledged his service, and that it wasn't as valorous as combat service, but that it's still honorable and he was honorably discharged. That's the extent of it from the Bush Campaign.

The question I've got is this: Is CBS/Dan Rather reporting to the FEC their roll in the Kerry Campaign? So far as I know, CBS has never run that kind of expose on Kerry, and the primary way the informatin has gotten out is by the Swift Boat Vets funding the publicity themselves. CBS just smells bad. Pehaps they should change their name to "See, BS!"

Tax basics

2004-09-03T21:04:00.000-04:00

In the comments of my previous posting on a Tax curiosity, I have apparently stoked the interests of (at least one) new reader. (See the comments.) The reply to the latest series of wild and uninformed assertions about the Tax Code was going to take a significant amount of space, so I figured a new post was appropriate.

In between the various insults for communicating authoritatively on what I know, Mr. Dave Huber has expressed a profound belief that the Tax Code is for a number of reasons unconstitutional. I guess I should expect people to get bent out of shape when they're emotionally invested in their particular idea and I can (relatively easily) smack it down. Oh well.

Nevertheless, our intrepid potential tax protester (or apparent sympathizer for them) has raised a few urban legend types of canards about income taxation. Apparently rabid libertarians are nearly impervious to logic and simple facts, especially when presented by someone who has sold his/her soul, like yours truly, and affiliated with one of the two major parties.

Well, since nothing I say will suffice, since I'm not a libertarian, and since I'm going to become a lawyer, I've decided to provide a link to this page, Jail Bait, by Mr. Harry Brown.

Let's go through the legally meritless ideas that Mr. Huber has thrown out.

1. Forcing Employers to figure out and withhold employees' income taxes is a type of involuntary servitude that is or should be prohibited by the 13th Amendment.

Think of it like this: Employers, generally, have to retain paperwork and interact with the government. Employees don't necessarily have to do so. To transact virtually any form of business, you have to get a license, or meet some other governmental standard. OSHA, and EEOC, and ADA, and on and on and on... (I know, very small businesses can usually escape their scrutiny, but that doesn't change the trend.) Licenses and various business regulations require the employer to perform certain acts, and those aren't being considered "involuntary servitude." Those actions are "costs of doing business." They are the friction in the system. Besides, the business has to do nearly all of those calculations anyway because the business is a "taxpayer" under the Code, and employee wages are deductible but records must be provided.

2. "Voluntary compliance"

Well... Did the IRS agent show up with a gun and make you file your return? The fact that your alternate options are bleak does not change the legal characterization of filing your returns as voluntary if there is no direct coercion. I freely admit that I could be wrong here. I'm basically borrowing from the Constitutional Criminal Procedure understanding of voluntariness.

This is the IRS definition of Voluntary Compliance:

A system of compliance that relies on individual citizens to report their income
freely and voluntarily, calculate their tax liability correctly, and file a tax
return on time.

Did you see the key word... LIABILITY. Voluntary filing does not mean that you can choose not to owe taxes. It means you can choose to comply with the law or be forced to comply and face criminal penalties. It may not be the definition you like, but that's the way it is.

Finally, take a look at 26 U.S.C. 1. (Please note that this is not the entire tax code, but it's the basic statute.) The tax is IMPOSED. It's not a solicitation for donations.

3. Didn't people used to pay their own taxes (no withholdings)?

Yes. So what? Congress changed the law around the time of WWII because they needed far more tax revenue. Prior to that time, about 85 to 90% of all citizens never had to worry at all about income taxes. Rich people are easier to find because they have assets that could be seized if they didn't comply. Congress decided that they would probably get the taxes they had imposed if the companies were required by law to collect them at the time they paid their employees. The individual citizens were much more likely to make mistakes or not comply, or whatever, and back then, they didn't have computers like today that simplified the analysis process. The companies had a lot more to lose if they didn't comply than most individual tax payers, so they were the logical place to tax.

Additionally, Congress likes to get employers to withhold taxes because it hurts less to get a somewhat smaller pay-check each week or month than to write one annual (or four quarterly) large check(s). Yes, this did make it easier to impose heavier tax burdens.

Let's be clear about where I stand on this. I DO NOT LIKE the fact that employers withhold taxes. I think citizens would choose much more frugally minded officials if they felt the tax bite more acutely. However, I see no reason to think that the withholdings are illegal. The Tax Code might be immoral, but it's still valid and authoritative law that was passed appropriately.

4. "...the great irregularities in passing the 16th Amendment."

I haven't bothered to find all of the history of the passage of the 16th Amendment. Here's one annotation that's pretty good.
Wikipedia has a real good history of the Amendment that I'll rest my case upon. Please not, especially:

Some Americans who object to income taxes claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified. The best-known proponent of this claim is Bill Benson, author of the book The Law That Never Was. However, federal courts have rejected appeals based on these claims, and some now consider them "frivolous" claims that are subject to sanction.

Please notice the explanation of "frivolous" which is basically what I explained in one of the comments mentioned previously.

5. Irv Homer is probably a great tax expert and the lawyers got him banned because they got pissed off at him!

I don't know what Irv Homer does or does not know about the tax code. I seriously doubt that he's an expert in the common usage, but I'm very certain that he is not an expert in the sense of what a court would allow to offer expert testimony on law, especially tax law. Having a J.D. (or an LL.M.) does not make you an "expert," but it's a significant indication of a basic level of knowledge. Asking inane questions of lawyers does not prove anything. But, let's remember what a witness's job is: The witness's job is to answer the lawyers' questions, and not the other way around. If Mr. Homer was asking a bunch of questions of the lawyers, then he wasn't being a witness, he was attempting to be an advocate.

What will get you banned from a court is not pissing off the lawyer, it's pissing off the Judge.

6. The tax code is a "ridiculous labyrinth"!

OK. I agree it's complex. So what? I'd love to have the tax code reduced down to one or two pages, but that isn't going to happen any time soon. The only argument you can possibly make is that the law is so complex that a person could not reasonably be expected to be able to comply with it without expert assistance, and that's some form of a denial of due process since it puts people in danger of violating the law even with sincere and diligent effort to comply.

That argument won't fly because, although the tax law is complex if you attempt to calculate your taxes based directly on the code and accidentally misunderstand anything, you will almost certainly end up paying too much, not avoiding taxes. The first section of the code sets down the basic rates, and after that, you start finding the deductions and exemptions.

Even if you could make that argument, you would need to be able to demonstrate actions that clearly indicate an attempt to comply, and you will then, probably only get off the hook for the penalties, and still be liable for the basic taxes.

7. All lawyers are jerks!

It's a (more or less) free country. You're welcome to that opinion. I suspect you hate being wrong, but hate even more finding out that the truth is not what you like. An awful lot of law is simply stating law the way it is. Advocacy is the art of framing the law and facts in a way that makes one side more persuasive than the alternative(s), but you still have to tell the law the way that it is.

Surprisingly, I'm not all that emotionally crushed by your apparent low opinion of me.

Dave Huber, in your future as a self-righteous tax-protesting long-term guest of the Federal government's enforced hospitality, I hope you learn how to read carefully what's written by those with whom you disagree. I suspect you'll have plenty of time to learn that. You can save your concern for me. When I make a legal argument, I bring all the evidentiary and logical ammunition I need, but thank you kindly for your concern.

* BREAKING NEWS *

2004-09-03T13:14:00.000-04:00

Bill Clinton Admitted to Hospital with Chest Pains for Bi-Pass Surgery

I just heard this on the radio... I can't find any links yet.
UPDATE: Here's a link to it.

Chest pains in a Democrat today... Perhaps he watched Bush's speech and then Kerry's speech, and then was sent over the edge when he saw the latest poll results.

Seriously though, as much as I think President Clinton was a very bad president, I don't wish ill health on him. He was annointed by God to be President while he was in office. I don't think that means that God liked what he did, but Clinton was the President. Perhaps his presidency was to test us. In any event, I pray that God protect him and help bring him to an understanding of the faith he says he has that actually impacts his actions.

Kerry's Health Plan?

2004-09-02T15:09:00.000-04:00

I don't know that Waffles and the Breck Girl are actually advocating this, but it just seems like something I would expect to be popular in heavily deomocratic areas.

If it works, I suppose it would lower prescription and other associated medical costs...

Wife finds a way to keep husband hard

2004-09-01T13:38:00.000-04:00

Hmmm...

Apparently rigor mortis didn't make her hubby stiff enough.

Deceased Husband Turned into a Diamond

At only half a carat, he may not be big, but she'll never complain that he's not hard enough.

As a final thought, now that hubby has been turned into a diamond, the wife will have to worry about other women trying to steal him more than she ever did while he was alive.

For what it's worth, no disrespect is intended to Ms. Wodziak. The fact that she loved her husband so much that she would want to turn him into a gem to keep him with her forever is touching, even though it's totally bizzare. The associations, however were too much to pass up, and this (attempt at) humor is mostly about human relations generally, and not really about Ms. Wodziak specifically at all. I hope that she is comforted in her grief and that turning her husband into a "Life Gem" helps her move forward and doesn't tie her to her pain.

Steele

2004-09-01T11:56:00.000-04:00

OK, folks, here's the text of one of the best speeches that has been or will be given at the Republican National Convention.

Don't get me wrong, Giuliani was good... VERY good, and there was a profound respect in McCain's endorsement of President Bush. Governor Schwarzenegger hit a home run too with his personalization of the American dream and the fact that it is fostered best in the GOP. You can only say good things about Laura Bush and her speech because she hammered home the humanity of President Bush and the immense respect he has for the gravity of the office of the President.

Nevertheless, Michael Steele's speech was a true gem of incompletely comprehended value. The essence of the innate goodness of conservativism was the underlying message. Compassion isn't found in maintaining the needy as an underclass, it's found in allowing the opportunities to make your own life better and provide as much as you're willing to work to attain for your family. Compassion is found in fostering an environment that won't punish hard work which provides self-respect and the inherent dignity of self-sufficiency. See it for yourself... Pt 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3.

Michael Steele's career is just at it's dawn, although he is at the highest position ever held by a Black American in Maryland. Mark my word... He'll either be the next Senator from Maryland, or he will be the VP candidate for the GOP in 2008. America would be lucky to have a man of such principle in a position of national authority

Tax curriosity

2004-09-01T09:36:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not suggesting a new revenue source, though I do get a chill down my back when I hear a politician remind us of something in the past with the phrase, "Let me tax your memories."

Anyway, last night in my Federal Income Tax class, I learned something new. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, but I was surprised nonetheless. First, a little background. The US Courts have decided to embark on an interesting tactic in interpreting tax statutes. The 16th Amendment allowed income taxes which had been prohibited before.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

That's rather broad language where it says, "...from whatever source derived..." OK. The Courts have therefore decided that the definition of "income" should be broadly construed. I guess that's a reasonable interpretation. But wait... Maybe it's not. The right to enjoy property is something protected by the Constitution (see the 5th Amendment), so broad abrogations of that right are, well, not to put too fine a point on it, improper.

Don't get me wrong. I know that my understanding of the Tax code and jurisprudence is very limited, and even if I understood it completely, my disagreement even if I'm 100% correct doesn't make my understanding the new law of the land. That's a shame.

In construing the term "income" broadly and consequently construing any deductions or exemptions narrowly, the Court has implemented a philosophy that the Federal Government's rights to personal property (in the form of income) is paramount to the rights of the taxpayer.

The 9th and 10th Amendments should prohibit against any such broad construction against individuals.

Amend. IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amend. X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

It seems pretty clear to me. Constitutional rights given enumerated to the individuals are not the extent of our rights, but a sketch of the panoply of rights that are not to be infringed. Not only that, but the Federal Government is supposed to be tightly bound to the Constitutional structure. A broad construction of the Government's ability to take property does not respect the individual's rights and it does not reflect the idea that the Federal Government cannot invade the province of the states or individuals without express Constitutional permission.

All of that to say, I'm not a big fan of the American Tax-Code jurisprudence. I think a better interpretation that is consistent with the 9th and 10th Amendments is to say "whatever source derived" means that the Congress is able to tax any income IF it SPECIFICALLY names it. Wages for labor... OK. Dividends on investments and other Capital Gains... FINE. Rents... NO PROBLEM. Broad interpretation that allows the courts or the IRS to fill-in-the-blanks to find income not specified or reduce deductions is precisely the opposite of the plain meaning of the 9th and 10th Amendments while not being a necessary interpretation of the 16th Amendment.

But that's not all!

The thing that surprised me last night was that I found out that when a crook embezzles funds, those funds are taxable (no surprise) AND that the government's right to the tax pre-empts the rightful owner's claim to have those funds returned!

Let's see how this works...

A embezzles from B.
B does not report the ill-gotten gain resulting from the criminal activity on his/her tax return.
The US prosecutes B for tax evasion.
A says "Give me my money!"
The US wins and convicts B, AND takes it's share of taxes as if the funds were B's income.
Whatever is left A can attempt to get back in a civil action.

What you may have noticed, in addition to not passing the smell-test, is that the funds are ALWAYS the rightful property of A. Lost or stolen property is still titled to the original owner, and the possessor has rights to it that exceed all but the original owner.

What that means is that, according to the common law (preserved in the 7th Amendment) the taxes obtained by prosecution of embezzlers must be held in "Trust" by the government and must be turned-over to the rightful owner when a claim is made. (Each jurisdiction has a statutory limit of how long the property must be held before the finder can claim title to it, usually 7 to 21 years, if I remember correctly.) This means that it's OK to tax the thief, but the government has to return the funds, completely, when the rightful owner claims them. Period.

If the government claims that taxing B based on classifying the embezzled funds, to which A has title, as the income of B, then the government is "taking" (5th Amendment) the property from B according to Due Process. However, it isn't giving A Due Process in the taking. It's A's property, therefore the taking should be pursuant to A's right to Due Process.

Maybe I'm being an idealist, again. Who knows. I would like to think that all of this will become moot before I start practicing law.

(But I won't hold my breath.)

Zero Intelligence Schools Strike Again

2004-08-31T09:15:00.000-04:00

It looks like a public school in Texans thought that the best way to deal with a crying 8 year old 3rd grader was to call the police had have the kid arrested and sent to jail.

Here's the story: Third-grader arrested for disorderly conduct 08/29/04

I predict fabulous wealth for the boy and his family. There are very few circumstances that I can imagine that would more clearly exceed the protections of qualified immunity under which police operate (generally, though I haven't looked closely at QI in Texas).

Well, I guess I shouldn't be too hasty. Most states require a "malice" (or "actual malice" which is a distinction I won't go into here) element. In Federal Courts, the statute that would allow sueing state or local officials 42 U.S.C 1983. Basically, it requires that the plaintiff show that the state actor (acting under the color of state law) (1) violated the plaintiff's Constitutional Right(s), (2) that the Constitutional Right was clearly established, and (3) that the contours of the right are sufficiently clear that the officer should have known that his conduct violated that right. I think that's not a big problem. The Constitution doesn't distinguish between the 4th Amendment rights of a child and those of an adult, so the right implicated here would be the right to be free from unreasonable seizure (arrest). Perhaps the child's out of control behavior would have risen to the level of disorderly conduct had it been undertaken by an adult, but this was a child at a school. A kid being fussy in a school won't rise to that level easily. However, that's not the part that will do the cops in... Apparently it's illegal to place a child in an adult facility, which is what they did.

State's usually have a different standard to overcome Qualified Immunity. Most states require that (1) the actor be a "public official," (2) the action be discretionary (not ministerial, that is, a legally required part of the official's job) and (3) the act be performed with "malice". I presume Texas is similar. (Note: Some states, especially in the South, are VERY strict in their interpretation of this test making it nearly impossible to overcome qualified immunity with much less than an outright admission of intent the official's malice.)

Here, we've got public school administrators and police, both of which are acting in their official capacities, so they're "public officials." Without putting too fine a point on it, no law required the school administrators to call the police just because a 3rd grader was crying and didn't want to go back to class (note: There's some ambiguity over whether the mother was involved in that decision, but it's still discretionary). "Malice" usually doen't have to mean an actual intent to cause harm ("actual malice" does), all it means is any improper motive other than to effect "justice." Whether Texas requires malice or actual malice, the threats to send the kid to jail if he didn't stop crying easily allow the inferrence of malice, and the allegation by the kid that the police threatened to let the adult inmates "get him" if he didn't stop crying allows little inference but that they were terrorising the child which would clearly be "actual malice."

I can't say for sure that the family will sue, or that if they do that they'll win. There may be evidence that the mother approved of the course of action. Nevertheless, I don't think a mother can consent to that kind of mental and emotional abuse by police. The mother certainly cannot consent to have the police violate the law which prohibits placing a child in an adult facility. All that aside, I suspect that the family will have a new car and be able to afford private school by this time next year.

On the nature of "Law"

2004-08-27T09:08:00.000-04:00

What is Law?

Is it like obscenity, in that we know it when we see it?

I'm a law student, so, you would think this is something that I should have learned on the first day of classes, right? Nope. We learned what several "sources of law" are (judicial pronouncements, legislative acts, executive regulatory orders, and Constitutions). Curriously, "What IS law?" never came up. (Not to be too Clinton-esque...)

Well, this semester, two of the (4) classes I'm taking that more-or-less confront that question directly.

International Law, and
Legislation

(As if you were interested, I'm also taking Litigation Process and Federal Income Tax.)

International Law, even more than Legislation requires the student to confront the most basic question in law, i.e. "What is law?" Luckily, we have an excellent professor, Professor Mortimer "Tim" Sellers. I, personally, began the class this week with the nagging thought at the back of my mind that there wasn't really anything that can be called "international law." I'm taking the course, though, because I know that enough people think that it does exist, that I should know what fantasy they are living in. It's a nice masquarade ball that pretends it's reality.

I still basically think that, but I've got a better understanding of why I think that.

Professor Sellers, after a bit of quasi-Socratic questioning of the students gave us his own theory of what "Law" is. He said that law is (and I'm showing it as a quote, but really it's a paraphrase as close to accurate as I can remember, so Professor Sellers, if I'm wrong and you read this, please forgive me), "A system of rules which claim to be moral and enforceable."

It's a little touchy-feely for me.

That was in the context of describing how International Law is presented. International Law has to have

Authority (The power to demand that it is obeyed.)
Validity (Actually implemented properly.)
Legitimacy (Of a sort which ought to be obeyed.)

After that was presented to us, Professor Sellers pointed out that the same questions are asked in all law, even domestic law. In Domestic Law, however, "Legitimacy" is rarely questioned, and when it is, there is a presumption of legitimacy which must be overcome by the one opposing the law. International law has no such presumption.

I pointed out that if there was no presumption of legitimacy, doesn't that prove that there is no existing "international law" but really just several principles which people (states) agree to.

Professor Sellers said, basically, that's the basis of one of the major bodies of thought on international law, and it's often called "positivism." The other body of thought draws on the idea of "Natural Law."

Without going too much farther into what went on in the first week of class, I'll say that all of this got me thinking. Is there international law? How can we recognize it? What is law?

I've come up with what, I think is a more basic definition of law than Professor Sellers'. Professor Sellers' definition would fit completely within my definition. Here it is -

Law is the product of the combination of will and force.

I got to that formulation by deciding to define law by what it does, and not what it "should" do. What does law do? Jurisprudential "Law" is that which bounds the actions and decisions of humans.

"Law" exists, then, as soon as two or more people interact. In a simple tribe, the law is whatever the strongest member says it is because he is the one who can cause his will to be obeyed. It could be that a physically weaker member could dictate the law if the will he espouses is voluntarily agreed-to by other members who are willing to combine their strength to enforce that will.

In complex and far-reaching societies, law must become systematic. It's systematized so that the leader(s) can continue to achieve what they will and so that those who are affected by that will will not become subject to unanticipated application of the leader(s) force. At some point, a society becomes so large that good ideas are not enough to achieve sufficient buy-in by those with the force who can help assure that the law-defining will is enforced and therefore actually becomes law. In virtually every society, that 'lil somthin' extra equates to "divine right."

What's a better reason to do what you're told than "Because God wants you to do it, that's why!"? In a monarchy divine right was easy to see. He's the king because God wants him to be king, and he's responsible to God, therefore rebellion against him is rebellion against God.

In America and other "democratic" societies (in the sense that there is some significant degree of choice in leadership by the people who are under the leader(s)), there is an underlying belief that individuals are sovereign and individually have innate worth (this derives from the idea that humans were created by God and therefore have some innate value, and since all humans are equally human, all humans have equal innate value). Therefore an orderly selection of leadership by the people ruled has innate legitimacy. The will expressed by that leadership, therefore, is a distillation of the will of the people, presumably. The force of the marshalled society, therefore is immense, but usually not necessary for enforcement.

The implication of my definition of law in the international sense is there is no super-structure established that really independently has force sufficient to impose its will over all nations, international law is a vague fantasy, at best.

The UN doesn't define law, really, since it does not independantly wield the resources and force to impose its will on the world. It only defined law to the extent that the nations which can lend force agree to actually lend the necessary force to impose the "will" of the UN. Th UN is useful because it does provide a forum for less powerful nations to attempt to persuade enough other nations to agree with their stances that they can discourage any nations or groups of nations contemplating a contrary will against them.

Some nations, however, don't need that. Specifically, the US is strong enough to actually do almost anything it wants to do (so long as it's will isn't too ambitious). By my definition that would make US foreign policy de facto international law.

Now, before you liberal anarchists (I'm sure at least one will see this) get all exorcised about what I'm saying, I'm not advocating for some sort of imperialistic expansionism. I'm describing a theory, and testing it.

I know I've reambled for a while on this and your eyes are probably glazing over, so I'll only add one more thought which will tie this positivistic theory of law to the Natural Law theories. My theory describes what law is, and that's all. It doesn't say what law should be, but it hints at it. Law may be the product of the combination of will and force, but that doesn't make it Just. Justice (Just Law) is the product of moral or righteous will combined with the wise application of force.

The study of Natural Law is the search for a systematic description of Just Law. Positivism, however, is just a description of law.

Arnold was right

2004-08-26T09:16:00.000-04:00

Do you remember about a month ago when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called the obstructionists who he claimed were basically cowards for their unwillingness to tell the electorate who they were really serving (i.e. the Democrats in the California legislature) "Girlie Men"?

He was right... And yet he wasn't as accurate as he could have been. He shouldn't have limited it to the California legislature. From the looks of it, the national Democratic party itself epitomizes everything that "girlie man" politics could be.

I'm not alone in my appraisal, and I can't even claim to be the first to put this idea forward. Ann Coulter, the sultry feminine embodiment of heart of passionate advocacy for conservative thought and policies, has touched on this topic more than once.

My comment about the national democrats being girlie men, or at least acting as one would expect of a girlie-man political party to act. (For the record, this "girlie man" discussion has not a darned thing to do with fudge or McGreevey beyond the fact that McGreevey is a Democrat.)

If you're female and suffer from delusions of self-innocence and purity, you might not understand the next part, but nevertheless, I shall proceed.

Guys, have you ever engaged in a heated argument with a woman? You lost, didn't you. Women, you know exactly how you won, and you also know that your little trick was not unintentional. Girls cry when they know they're wrong, and they want to get their way in spite of the fact that their ideas or arguments should be totally abandoned.

Call me sexist if you want. I've witnessed it. I've been the target of it, and almost every guy reading this has too.

Girls cry when they're wrong so that the decision won't be decided on the merits. They get their way by crying until the man gives-in to be nice.

This is how the Democrats are running their national campaign for the Presidency. The Democrats have been running the most despicable adds against President Bush. They don't have much or anything in the way of facts to back-up their slanderous activities, but they do have a sham veil of separation between those actually running the adds and the party. The former campaign manager for Senator Waffles is now the head of MoveOn.org (that's right, I ain't gonna link to it). Kerry isn't calling MoveOn a "front-group" for the Democrats, but they are far more clearly than the Swift Boat Vets are for the Republicans.

Consider how Waffles has been running his campaign. He says that he's a "war hero!" OK. If that qualifies him to be president (and he's saying that it does) then a reasonable investigation of it is warranted. He's not entitled to a new constitution whereby he has the right to be free from criticism simply because he can show he fought for the Country. That he served the country probably entitles him to our thanks, for that, but it doesn't confer on him some level of sanctification and infallibility. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have come out and called Kerry's record into doubt.

Of course, the major media outlets promptly jumped on the Swift Boat Vets and have attempted to discredit them. Oddly, one common refrain is that John Kerry is a veteran and therefore we shouldn't call him a liar. As illogical as that is, it's inconsistent. The Swift Boat Vets are ALSO veterans (of the same war and the same sort of service, and for many of them, the same time and place of service as John Kerry). If being a veteran meant that nobody could call you a liar, then defending John Kerry is the same as calling the Swift Boat Vets liars. The Kerry campaign has been attempting to intimidate TV stations that play the Swift Boat ads and Regnery, the publisher of the Swift Boat Vet's runaway best-seller, "Unfit for Command."

That, my dear readers, is what "crying" in the world of politics looks like. It's not arguing the point. It's not even filing suit because you have an actionable case of slander or libel. No, it's crying. Boo Hoo. The Swift Boat Vets are blowing Kerry out of the water with the fact that, for the most part, their story hangs together. Do they have some inconsistencies or reasons to question them? Sure. Nevertheless, they aren't changing their stories, and they have overwhelming evidence that backs-up their main points. Kerry, on the other hand, has had to (effectively) admit to lying, repeatedly.

Although, he has had to disavow his previous statements (that's the same as admitting what you said before was wrong, and in this case, they weren't innocent mistakes, they were lies), Kerry is spending all of his efforts to get the Swift Boat Vets silenced.

Well... Maybe we should be more sensitive... It could be that Waffles is just having an exceptionally rough patch of hot-flashes lately. "He" is about that age.

I have spoken often in this campaign about national security about rebuilding and leading strong alliances to find and get the terrorists before they get us. I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. But I also know that we can't be strong abroad unless we're strong at
home. ("The Fundamental Choice" John Kerry press release,
August 24, 2004.)

That's great except his spokesman says, when asked if Kerry still stands by what he said in protest of the Vietnam War:

"Absolutely," Hurley said. "He's a leader. He came back, and he spoke the truth."

If Mr. Hurley is speaking the truth, doesn't that mean that Kerry thinks it was morally correct to protest the defense of America? Does that mean that he finds it better to work against America's defense than for it? Hmmm... Based on Kerry's defense voting record, that seems plausible.

Do you ride a motorcycle or moped?

2004-08-26T08:41:00.000-04:00

A though occurred to me this morning in my commute to work that, I think, would be a true revelation to many motorcycle (and moped) riders...

Here it is.

Are you sitting down?

OK...

The traffic laws apply to YOU, too!

I know, I know. It's a new concept, but trust me, if your using a motorized vehicle for transit on public roadways, the traffic laws do actually apply to you. Heck, don't trust me. Look up the laws for yourself.

Basically, in practice this will mean things like:

You may NOT ride in between the lanes of cars just because traffic is moving slowly or is stopped.
You may NOT butt in-front of cars when stopped at a light using your talents at the prohibited art of driving between the lanes of traffic.
Though I don't generally like speed limits on interstates either, there is a speed differential (say 40 or 50 miles per hour) at which zipping past traffic becomes criminally reckless and or constitutes wanton behavior. Don't do that. Drive near the generally prevailing speed of the traffic to reduce the risk for yourself and everyone else on the road.

Now, here's a special word for you moped/scooter drivers: Stay the hell out of the way of traffic! Today, for example, a putz on a moped/scooter-thing rode past a row of cars in between the travel lanes to butt in front of me while we were stopped (and I was the lead car) at a red light. That was rude enough. THEN, however, when the light turned green, Mr. Micro-Putz revved up his mouse-powered moped and seemed to top out at about 25 MPH (in a 35 MPH zone) on a MAJOR commuter secondary road into DC. This, needless to say, did not engender visions of world peace and global community in me or the people who were stuck behind me.

I keep seeing the bumper-stickers admonishing car and truck drivers to "Share the road." Fine, I'll share it, but you motorcycle and moped drivers should stop stealing it. It's unwise (I guarantee that although I drive a small car, I will fare better in a Newtonian conflict betwixt our modes of transit regardless of "fault"), and it's unlawful.

They say "Curriosity killed the cat" but the currious cat killed the climber

2004-08-26T08:40:00.000-04:00

This is one of the saddest bits of irony I've seen in a long time. Daryl Hatten, a renowned rock climber, died when he fell from a tree while attempting to get a cat out of a tree.

What else can you say. It's sad but just too weird.

(Campaign) Money Bloggin'

2004-08-25T15:20:00.000-04:00

We hear about campaign finance reform and the like all the time, but most of us don't really know about how strange the dollar distribution for campaigns really is. Here's a little something of interest I found... It's the Campaign Finance information for Barbara Mikulski's (D-MD) 2004 Senatorial Re-Election campaign. Look at the top donors.

Did you notice what I noticed?

As of Today, August 25, of the top 100 individual donors to Ms. Mikulski's campaign for re-election to the Senate from Maryland, the Maryland donors don't show up until you scroll down to the 26th place. Of the top 100 individual donors to her campaign, 58 of them (assuming I counted correctly) are from outside of Maryland, and none of the donors of of more than $2000 are from Maryland.

Why do you suppose that is?

For grins and giggles, I decided to also look at the Campaign Finance data for E.J. Pipkin, Mikulski's Republican opponent. NONE of the contributions weree for more than $2000, and of the top 100 donors, only 30 were from out-of-state.

Draw your own conclusion about whether Mikulski is actually representing Maryland.

I've railed against the Incumbent Protection Act (a.k.a. "McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act," a.k.a. "Bi-partisan Campaign-finance Reform Act" (BCRA)") before. I still think it's horrible and a violaiton of what the 1st Amendment is supposed to protect. Nevertheless, I am not opposed to limiting outside contributions. If the money doesn't originate with people in the jurisdiction, then it should be subject to limits. I know that outside interests can be affected and they should therefore be able to voice an opinion. However, I believe that the electorate should be responsible for the candidates, and the candidates should be accountable to the electorate.

Is that such a silly idea?

Hot (sauce) Topic in Child Discipline

2004-08-25T11:54:00.000-04:00

ABCNews has ABCNEWSthis article about using hot-sauce for disciplining children. (Hat-tip to Drudge for the link.)

As to be expected, there is significant opposition to dabbing hot-sauce on a young child's tongue when the child does something worthy of punishment (lying, usually) with his or her mouth. Some objectors pretty much object to using any form of punishment on children that actually has any chance of altering that child's behavior.

I think that I oppose this particular form of punishment too, but for a vastly different reason. Let me differentiate my opposition to everybody else who opposes it. They, by-in-large, don't like the punishment because, like spanking, it causes pain. Presumably, to them, directly causing pain is morally wrong, and therefore all forms of corporal punishment are wrong.

That moralistic sophistry stands in direct opposition to both science and thousands of years of human development. I am a strong proponent of corporal punishment for children from the time they can start to consciously choose to obey or not till the time when psychological incentives outweigh minor physical pain (probably 12 to 14 years for most children). Those who oppose all forms of corporal punishment are under some religiously-induced delusion that children, all of them, can be reasoned-with. An understanding of how neural systems work would tend to obliterate any supposed scientific rationalization that corporal punishment for children is necessarily wrong.

Neural networks (of which our brains are a highly complex example) can continue to train themselves throughout their use, if designed properly. However, to be trained so that the proper neural processes (decisions) are utilized, there must be negative feedback. Positive feedback works too, but negative feedback cannot be neglected. For a negative feedback to work, the "penalty function" that feedback represents must be relevant to the decision process utilized. Young children simply do not have the rationality to appropriately appreciate a reasoned discussion of why one thing is right and the other is wrong. For example, a two-year old does not comprehend the danger that a moving car represents. If that child starts to run out into the street or wander off in a parking lot, the parent who wants to save that child's life will administer a quick swat on the tushy to provide immediate tactile feedback in association with the verbal admonition not to run off like that. The child will associate the physical feedback with the immediately preceeding behavior and will become trained (sometimes slowly) not to do that behavior.

True some children have other feedback mechanisms that might be optimized for them, but for the vast majority of children, corporal punishment is very nearly the perfect negative feedback mechanism.

Hot-Saucing is just another form of negative feedback. It's best associated with higher-level bad acts, such as lying, and is probably most effective for children between the ages of 4 and 8 years old. When you think about it, it's not all that different from the old-time "washing your mouth out with soap" that was highly common in my parents' generation.

Now, although, I think that "hot-saucing" is probably an effective negative feedback, I don't like it. Certainly, I think it should be up to the parent to use or not, but the reason I don't like it is that I love spicy food. I would hate to have a child associate spicy food with badness. I think that any punishment like this should focus on making a child eat a very unpleasant-tasting non-toxic substance, like soap. Washing a child's mouth out with soap will send a clear signal of displeasure associated with the bad act, but it won't associate punishement with a family of foods.

Anyway, I expect that I will have engendered the (self-) righteous indignation of parents who don't have the back-bone to effectively discipline their children so that their children will learn to behave properly. (This also goes for people without children who think they know everything about parenting, but haven't thougt-through the implications of their ideals.) I think that for parents who oppose corporal punishment, the main problem is that they hate feeling bad about having to correct their kid more than they want their child to avoid future pain. It's a form of selfishness, really.

"...a botched holdup in a Natchitoches Wal-Mart restroom..."

2004-08-24T10:38:00.000-04:00

TheNewOrleansChannel.com has this article:N.O. Man Says He Was Shot At In Wal-Mart Bathroom.

The title is from the first sentence in the article. I just never expected to see those words together. I don't know that I've ever been in a Wal-Mart restroom, but I never suspected there was all that much there I would want to steel. I guess it's true that one-man's crap is another man's treasure.

What, do you suppose, would qualify as "botched" for a holdup in a bathroom?

At what point do you think the robber realized their plans were going down the toilet?

And, I certainly would not want to offend the defenders of the alleged criminal, but does this make the would-be thief a "Fudge Snatcher" or a "Butt Pirate"?

I really need to stop now... -ed.

Marital Rape...

2004-08-24T09:58:00.000-04:00

I saw this story: Islamic leaders reject marital rape law proposal about legal domestic/criminal law developments in Malasia, and I thought it warranted a post.

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what line I want to draw here. I know that in Islam, it is emphatically the husband's right to demand sex from his wife. I know also that inability to perform, sexually, is a valid basis for a woman to demand a divorce under Islamic law. Nevertheless, the husband has most of the rights in Islam. He can ask for a divorce for no reason, although such cavalier use of divorce is officially frowned upon. (See this article... It's got lots of incorrect information about Western law and culture, as it's basically a propaganda piece about how much better and more just marriage in Islam is than in Western societies, but I presume the description of Islamic law and requirements is accurate.)

Anyway, marital rape is an interesting problem, legally. Without going into a great history of the development of sexual assault laws, marital rape was not recognized in Western law until recently. Basically, that's because marital sex was considered a duty (see 1 Cor, 7:3-5) and spouses were considered to belong to each other, sexually. Therefore, in Christianity, there was no such thing as non-consensual marital sex, and therefore there could never be marital rape. Notice, please, that no differentiation is made between a husband or wife's obligation to each other, so it was a sin for a wife to deny sex to her husband, and it was a sin for a husband to refuse sex to his wife.

Marriage implied, and virtually defined, consent. In the past, that presumption was, basically, unrebuttable.

Physical abuse is a different matter. In Christianity, abuse is prohibited. I wish I could find a crystal clear verse that says without any interpretation that husbands should never beat their wives. Colossians 3:19 is about as close as you will find. Ephesians 5:24-30 gives the basis for understanding why, scripturally, physical abuse is anethema. A husband is to love and care for his wife as Jesus loves and cares for the Church. Correction is sometimes necessary, but only with love and compassion.

So, marital rape, from a Christian (scriptural) perspective is a matter of abuse and not about sex. I should revise that a little, because in physically abusing ones wife in conjunction with the sex act, the husband defiles the institution of marriage because the focus of marriage is the spiritual unity of the man and wife epitomized in sex. Abuse that uses sex does not create a unity between a man and wife, but creates a dominance of one by the other that is entirely unlike the unity that God intended.

I don't want to go on much longer about this. I would be interested in reading what you think about it. My personal sense is that marital rape could be a real problem if prosecution for it becomes wide-spread. Specifically, I'm speaking of "advances" in rape laws that, basically, allow a woman to change her mind in the middle (maybe after) sex and transform the consentual act that was begun into a rape.

I think that the presumption of consent in marriage is much lower than it has been in the past. Maybe that's a good thing from a civil law perspective. It seems wrong to me that a marriage would not strongly imply consent to sexual relations to ones own spouse, but I can't expect people who do not adhere to Christianity to accept the Christian ideal of the spouses having a virtually absolute claim to each other's body and that sex is a duty that can be requested by either party.

In my world, I think that "marital rape" would not be a type of sexual assault in the criminal code. It would be a serious type of "normal" assault. A criminal record (and whatever penalty is associated with that conviction) for a spouse (husband) who commits marital rape is, I think, sufficient, if there are no other violent sexual offenses in that person's record. Without other sexual offenses that person should not be considered a "sex offender" for the purposes of the various databases that are now employed all over the nation (search).

Yale Professor Scolded for teaching facts... by NYT reporter

2004-08-20T15:36:00.000-04:00

Professor Volokh has this interesting post about a New York Times reporter who was saddened by the fact that a Yale economics professor taught his students facts and theories objectively. (Here's the article.)The reporter wanted the professor to slant the results of his research to yield a Democrat-friendly result.

Can you believe it... An NYT reporter, of all people, who wanted to see manipulated research to support Kerry... This reporter gave away the truth they won't say explicitly: The major media use polls in the hopes of MAKING news rather than reporting it! In a post-modernist world view, there is nothing wrong with manipulating research while pretending it's objective to influence the results in order to obtain the desired outcome. To the post-modernist, the only bad thing is not getting the right outcome.

For what it's worth, the economics professor, Ray C. Fair, a Kerry supporter, is the exception to the rule. He places accuracy over results and therefore is likely to be among the few liberals (assuming that he is one) who can be engaged in a substantive debate. As my Mom would say, "Well, wonders never cease!"

Just a little more "marriage" bloggin'

2004-08-19T14:46:00.000-04:00

I saw this article:
Could Marriage Cost Klum Her Contract? and was intrigued.

No, not because Heidi Klum is so hot (I admit it, she is.), but because the title mixed two words... "Marriage" and "Contract."

I'm not exactly sure if American law has jurisdiction over the enforcement of this contract, but if it does, I think Heidi has a very strong argument that Victoria's Secret won't be able to enforce the contract's terms based on whether or not she gets married.

As a general rule, a contract can inclued any terms that are not unlawful. "Unlawful" in this sense means more than just "illegal," it also includes legal things that are against public policy. For example, while adoption is legal, an American court would not enforce a contract for the sale of a baby. That's basically why surrogacay is a legally risky method of obtaining a child, because if the woman who gives birth decides she wants the child, even if she is not at all genetically related to it, she will probably be able to keep primary custody. Of course, I haven't taken Family Law yet, so I should probably stop blathering about that...

Anyway, my first thought when I saw this article was that a contract that has a term that is construed to keep a person from getting married is probably unlawful. It would be considered unlawful to have a commercial contract that required a person to get married, and therefore it is probably just as unlawful to have a commercial contract that keeps a person from getting married.

I was pleased to see that the lawyer who was interviewed for the article had a very similar public-policy argument. Her argument was that contracts cannot go against public policy ("unlawful" but not "illegal") and society favors marriage. Therefore a contract that keeps a person from getting married when he/she wants to get married would be against public policy. That's probably an easier argument to make. Marci Koch (the attorney) also made the comment that,

The truth is she might lose, because the court might say ‘Look, Victoria’s Secret has a right to demand whatever they want from the people who are their models.’

Perhaps Marci was just admitting that judges sometimes don't go the direction the law seems to indicate... they're human (sort of) too. I would like to think (I know I'm being overly idealistic, but I'll hold on to this fantasy for a little while longer), however, that any judge in America would (even if he or she were inclined to let a company make such a contract with its employees) say that the contract term is too ambiguous, and the models were not sufficiently warned of what they were selling in return for the contractual remuneration. The ability to enter a marriage (man + woman type) has been determined to be a fundamental liberty, and so to contract it away, the language verbiage should be fairly explicit.

Also, since, I presume, Victoria's Secret demanded on the "image" clause in the contract, and they probably were the primary drafters of that term, it would (should) be construed against them.

Target Audience

2004-08-16T08:35:00.000-04:00

For noticing that Jim McGreevey was being a particularly calculating politician and using his sexual propensities as a cover as a corruption scandal threatens to engulf him, I've been called a number of things.

The Elephant (RINO?) has accused me of not being much of a Republican, Christian, or Human, for that matter, because I dared refer to McGreevey's self-outing as the "Confessions of an East-Coast Fudge Packer." Here's a tid-bit of what he said:

Your use of the term 'fudge packer' seems to have alienated quite a few people,
and your argument was probably lost on them as well.

Lets go through this piece-by-piece:

As proud as I am of this blog, I don't have a readership of many thousands. Aside from the Elephant, the only people who seemed to be upset were raving libs who would have been alienated by the title of the Blog alone. They linked to this site after doing a technorati search on the McGreevey pitty-party and then declared my comments about the relationship of McGreevey's situatuion to the same-sex marriage to be "stupid."
My argument wasn't lost on those libs because they are impervious to logic! I know, I know, that's not exactly true, but libs suffer from terminal post-modernism and therefore perceive any disagreement as a personal attack and invariably refuse to consider any actual argument. To a liberal, there is no possible "good argument" in favor of a position they oppose, because all such arguments are seen as personal attacks.

I'm not sure, exactly, what Elephant means by stating that his gay relative is "far more of a republican, more of a Christain and more of a Human than I think you can hope to be."

Perhaps he's projecting... That must be it. What is a Republican if not someone who agrees with a substantial majority of the party's platform (I'm on-board with, pretty-much everything, although I would like these issues written with a greater emphasis on individual responsibility.)and is committed to helping the party succeed and become a more intellectually substantial organization? I've read on the Elephant's blog many, many (many) whinny posts about Republicans who either stick to their principles, and thereby upset the social sensibilities of the Elephant, or don't do enough which is consistent with their principles and, therefore deserve criticism.

I'm certain I'll step on a few toes with this, but what the H### is the Elephant speaking of in ranking my level of Christianity? To start-with, a practicing homosexual CAN be a Christian, just like a straight adulterer CAN be a Christian. However, being a Christian is more than just believing in Jesus Christ, and that He came, lived a sinless life, and died for all people's sins who would believe in Him, and then rose again."Living in Sin," for a Christian, is a state of heart that is unrepentant of a known sin (or sins). Everybody sins, according to the Bible, even Christians, but it's the state of not repenting for the sin and abandoning it that is the "Living in Sin" condition. When a someone who has received knowledge of salvation through Christ and made a profession of it consciously chooses to continue in sin instead of to repent and abandon it, that "Christian" chooses to seperate himself/herself from the grace that is supposed to accompany his life and walk in Christ. (I might be too generous with my interpretation, see 1 John 3:1-10)

There are lots of ways in which I fall short, and I don't have the time to list them all. However, I would like to abandon each sin or shortcomming of which I am aware, and deeply regret when I don't. That's repentence. Grace covers me in spite of my falls. I don't think I'm "Living in Sin," even though I may not be doing a great job of becoming like Christ day-by-day. For a practicing homosexual (or adulterer, or bank-robber, or any number of other sins which could become adictive), the situation is different. Being tempted to sin is not a sin, but giving in to that temptation is a sin. What's worse is when you know you're sinning, but decide to rationalize and justify your actions so that you can call your sin a form of goodness. Many Christians, especially recently, have abandoned the clear indications in the Bible that homosexuality is a sin and declared that any committed relationship is OK, because "love" is all important. That denial of the clear instruction of the Bible via rationalizations is the essense of living in sin.

Perhaps the Elephant's relative really does love God, and perhaps he is struggling to abandon his homosexuality. If that's the case, it's easily possible that he could be a more faithful Christian than me. However, if he is committed to continuing in his homosexuality, then he has removed himself from God's grace.

Finally, about being less of a "Human" than the Elephant's relative... I don't know how to respond to that. I suppose if you do a genetic analysis of the two of us, the Elephant's relative might have fewer genetic weaknesses. I've had cancer a couple of times, so I can't argue that I'm the best specimine of the species, homo-sapien. Nevertheless, I think what he meant was that I am not as "nice" or "politically correct" or "liberal" as his relative. OK. I can live with that. I don't think that ignoring continued wrongdoing demonstrates a beneficial social skill. A parent who doesn't teach his or her child boundaries sets that child up for major, and very painful confrontations in the future. Parents who love their kids don't like to discipline their kids (and that empathy helps them avoid punishing out of anger) but do use discipline to correct and teach correct behavior. Parent's who are selfish avoid correcting their kids (except out of anger) because it's uncomfortable to correct from a heart of love, and ignore the future pain and trouble an untrained child will face. The same is true with adults. Truth can be spoken in love or anger. To be honest, I was disgusted with Jim McGreevey (still am) when I wrote my first post about him, but it's not because I want ill to come to him. I have compassion for the people of New Jersey who are being manipulated by his political calculations.

I'm angry, just as I would be if a straight politician were doing the same thing and using the "I can't help but follow my heart," line to hide from substantial charges of official wrong-doing. It's a ploy. It's a rouse. It's deception. Politicians are different than the average-joe. Politicians make their character an issue by seeking office, and once elected, serve in a capacity of trust to the public. Political manuvering, such as McGreevey's, is calculated to cheat the public and manipulate the position of trust for ends unrelated to the electorate's best interests.

So... The Elephant is no longer a reader... Somehow, I'll survive. He said he's praying that God will show me "the way to greater compassion," but I doubt it... That's something that Christians say to try to pull the spiritual heartstrings of other Christians when they don't have a solid scriptural argument as to why the behavior they oppose is improper. Rarely do they actually pray more than once. Perhaps he should seek for guidance of what "compassion," let alone "greater compassion," is. Compassion isn't always warm and fuzzy... That's coddling. Compassion has to do with caring about the other, and that, sometimes means tender care, and sometimes means drawing a hard line to help correct improper behavior. I don't know that I'm in the right with how I present my arguments, but I know for sure that the essence of my argument is correct. That, I suspect, is what offends the Elephant the most. It's far easier to be offended by uncomfortable truths and claim that the one who presented an uncomfortable truth was being mean and use that to justify ignoring the truth than to look inside and see why it's so uncomfortable. (I wrote about that here.)

Today's Lesson in Political Correctness

2004-08-13T15:15:00.000-04:00

Class, today I learned that the phrase "Fudge Packer" when applied to a gay man who is using the relevation of his sexuality to distract from public attention his potential corruption problems and thwart the ability of the electorate to choose it's own elected officials is a bad thing to do.

Tough.

Believe it or not, I'm not always politically correct. Jim McGreevey thought that fudge packing was more important than his marital vows. For that, he doesn't deserve the title of "hero," he should be called a creep. Worse yet, Jim McGreevey determined that outing himself as gay, thereby humiliating his wife as she stood silently by his side, with the fake excuse that he was attempting to head-off the rumors that were bound to pop up, just to cover-up or distract us from evidence of more-or-less old-fashioned corruption while also preventing the public from having a choice in its leader deserves the title of "scum".

I'm not going to be kow-towed into mincing my words to placate the sensibilities of people who care not one whit about right or wrong. If you're uncomfortable with my wording, you can complain (won't do you any good) or you can chose to not read my blog, or you can examine yourself and determine if what you're attempting to do is silence a perspective through Orwellian "right-speak" restrictions.

Perhaps my phrasology reflects poorly on my promise as a budding attorney. Maybe so. It might be that I'll never be able to fully forget the difference between right and wrong, and perhaps that will limit my potential as a lawyer. I can live with being a lawyer limited by the remnants of humanity and an unshaken sense of morality. If that offends you, are you proud of your inability or unwillingness to distinguish between right and wrong?

I don't call every gay man a "Fudge Packer" precisely because it is a term that shames the chosen activity and implies the a low opinion of the character of the person who engages in it. I happen to have friends who are gay. They are, otherwise, fine people. McGreevey is a creep and a scumbag who is attempting to leverage his sexuality into an excuse for corruption and a cover so that he can eventually return to elected office. He has more than earned the title of Fudge Packer, but I try to keep this blog at or above PG so that ideas can be expressed clearly unencumbered by either overly vague references or unnecessarily course verbage, but hey, I'm the guy running the blog, and I make the decision of what gets posted.

NJ Governor makes strongest case yet against gay-marriage

2004-08-13T09:49:00.000-04:00

I expect that I'll post shortly about the legal implications of New Jersey Gay-vernor McGreevey's eventual resignation. For now, the thought that I find particularly interesting is the gay-marriage implication of what we've seen. My Way News has this article about the McGreevey's "Confessions of an East Coast Fudge Packer."

Very briefly: Marriage is NOT a right. Period. However, even if it were, the current prohibition against same-sex marriages (everywhere except Massachusetts) is NOT a 14th Amendment issue.

WHY?

Easy! Nobody is telling gay people that they can't get married and be parents. Gov. McGreevey is PROOF. He's been married twice and has fathered two children. Gay people CAN get married, but they must marry someone of the opposite sex.

Do you suppose the main-stream media will approach the story from this tack? I won't hold my breath. To his credit, Mr. McGreevey, apparently did not support gay marriage. Presumably, he realizes the political hypocrisy he would be engaged in if he were to claim the injustice that gays can't get married, when he's living proof that they can. I suspect, however, that the real reason is that he was attempting to deflect attention from his personal life.

Cal. Sup. Ct. voids San Fran. Same-Sex Marriages

2004-08-12T13:08:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to the much anticipated opinion in the case, Lockyer v. San Francisco. (NOTE: PDF file & the case will only be available here for 120 days...)

So far as I know, the other big blogs have not yet posted a link to it, so I feel very special.

In a nut-shell, the California Supreme Court decided a VERY VERY narrow legal issue and carefully avoided touching the substantive issue of whether same-sex marriage are constitutional. What the Court decided was that Mayor Gavin Newsom did NOT have the authority to disregard the California statute that forbid him from authorizing same-sex marriages. Since, therefore, the marriages were not properly authorized, the affected marriages are "void and of no legal effect" (p. 5 of the opinion).

The opinionn is 114 pages long, so enjoy yourself if you actually read the whole thing. I suspect that you don't need to since the court only re-itterated the well established principle that the executive branche does NOT have the ability to disregard a legislative mandated course of action without a judicial determination that the legislative mandate is unconstitutional.

Lets hope that the courts that look at the substantive issue can keep a clear head about themselves and remember that "marriage" is not a right, and that the state has a rational, important, and perhaps compelling interest in encouraging stable (long-term) male-female couplings (i.e. traditional families) over same-sex couplings, even if there is no Constitutional interest served by discouraging those same-sex unions. (See Lawrence v. Texas - private consensual nookie of any sort between consenting adults is beyond the reach of any government within the US.)

Slam-Am and Go FARR!

2004-08-12T09:34:00.000-04:00

It appears that Amtrak has suspended a conductor because he told the truth.

It's a little more complicated than simply stating the time of day... Apparently, Mr. Farr, the conductor, informed the passengers of his train that they were being delayed (84 min.) because of the "Senator Waffles' special train trip to disrupt people and productivity across America" tour (my title -ed.), and that, perhaps, they should consider that when they vote.

Hmmm...

I suppose Amtrak might have a leg to stand upon if it studiously avoided any political involvement, but it doesn't. As Mr. Farr pointed out, Amtrak allowed Waffles/Ambulance-Chaser campaign banners to be draped across it's property, not to mention, the Waffles campaign got to have a special train and was allowed to disrupt normal service. It looks to me like Amtrak is already politically involved, and because it is a government-run organization, the suspension of Mr. Farr could be easily seen to be intentional punishment and suppression of political speech in violation of the 1st Amendment.

What's more, Amtrak said they were suspending Mr. Farr because his comments "caused embarrassment to the corporation and the loss of good will of our passengers." This, I think, demonstrates a couple of things:
1. The Amtrak management knows its in bed with the Democrats and hates to have that pointed out to its customers, and
2. The Amtrak management has no concept of the general perception of Amtrak among the vast majority of Americans --- They have NO good will to lose anymore, and if the passengers had the money for any other option, most of them would have taken the alternative!

Oh... By the way, Mr. Farr has apparently found another way to annoy the Amtrak management, and is probably the real reason he was suspended. Mr. Farr is the Republican candidate/challenger going after the 1st Congressional district seat in Missouri.

Friends, let's do it! Click here to let Amtrak know you don't appreciate their blatant attempt to punish Mr. Farr for his political expression which is no more offensive than Amtrak’s support and accommodations already made to the opposing political party. This is what I wrote:

Please convey this complaint to the highest levels of Amtrak Management -

To whom this may concern,
I am livid at hearing that Amtrak has engaged in blatant punishment and censorship of political speech while engaging in similar speech as a corporation. Amtrak allowed Senator Kerry's campaign to utilize a special train and disrupt normal service and cover Amtrak property with its campaign banners, and all of this is political speech, and now has suspended Mr. Farr for pointing out this to his passengers when they were delayed by Mr. Kerry's special train. The fact that Mr. Farr is a GOP candidate for office makes his suspension by you appear, even more clearly, to be the suppression of political speech that Amtrak management does not prefer. Since Amtrak engages in political speech AND is a government-related entity, it is improper to now punish Mr. Farr for engaging in political speech, especially since it's true.

Try reading the Constitution... The 1st Amendment is particularly relevant to your actions, since your a governmental body.

NOW, contact Mr. Farr: Click here to email him. If you want to send a check directly to him, you can get it to him at:

P.O. Box 78335
St. Louis, MO 63178

The sweetest revenge would be to get Mr. Farr elected so that he would be able to have a voice in regulating Amtrak... perhaps privatizing it totally so that it would stop being a constant tax-dollar money-pit.
[NOTE: I spoke to Mr. Farr directly a few moments before posting this. He's a solid, but humble, individual, and is bravely facing a strong incumbent. He sounds like a person with exactly the type of character who should be in high office. People, lets do what we can, and make it happen!]

527s

2004-08-10T13:52:00.000-04:00

A fair amount of ink and cyber-ink has been shed on the alter of discussing the new "527" organizations.

It's pretty-well accepted, at this point, that the Democrats have been far more effective at leveraging these groups than have the Republicans. These organizations, which are supposed to be distinct from any particular party or candidate, are pretty transparent in their affiliation.

To my mind, I think that this is yet another example of "unintended consequences." This time, it's the Campaign Finance Reform law (BCRA) that is to blame. The goal, of course was to "get the money out of politics." Supposedly, its the "evil" money that corrupts, and somehow we were supposed to accept that elected officials would be very interested in ridding elective politics of the influence of money. Pardon me, but if you've ever seen a security official at an airport, it's not the money that corrupts it's the power and control that power affords over others that corrupts. Money is part of the problem, but it's not the CAUSE of the problem.

Now, more directly to the 527 issue. 527s, because they need to be, officially, distinct from the parties are able to play more directly to fringe elements, or, shall I say, narrow segments of the population with a distinct commonality of interest. Since the 527s are not political parties, they are, for all intents and purposes, un-regulated. What this has resulted in has been an increased radicalizing of the political atmosphere this election cycle than before. The Dems can't, officially, reign in MoveOn or any of the other radical commie-left organizations, and, they don't want to. With the official separation, the 527s can attack visciously and with little or no regard for truth and the democratic party can reap whatever rewards are to be had.

The unintinded result of making sure that the money was not flowing into the parties in a controlled , but less restricted fashion, the money is now flowing into para-political groups in an uncontrolled and unrestricted fashion. I would feel safe making a wager that, if all the money that goes to political races, political parties, and these para-political groups were to be added-up, it would dwarf any previous total (adjusted for inflation).

So, instead of making sure that money didn't corrupt the process, the BCRA has insured that money is playing a bigger part than ever and is working to galvanize the electorate far earlier than in previous elections. It reminds me of "control reversal" which was a condition on an airplane that will, if present, cause a command to accelerate in one direction result in an acceleration in the opposite direction. In hindsight, this result is totally foreseeable, but I suspect that the authors of the BCRA really did want to reduce the skewing influence of special interest dollars on the political process.

Once again, simple and elegant controls would appear to be more effective, if less explicit in their target. A better solution for campaign finance reform would be to allow unrestricted donations to candidates and parties by individuals and corporations so long as each donor is identified and that identity is made public. The public would then be able to tell who was giving what and how much and any influence would be easier to detect (infer) and could be confronted head-on. I would, personally, require that for a given election, no more money could be injected to help a particular candidate or influence a particular race from outside the represented area (state or district) than came from within. (i.e. no political party or outside group could donate more to a candidate than he raised from within the geographic area that he would represent.) That additional control might not be necessary if there is sufficient transparency, but the point is that people should not be restricted in their political speech through donations, and the current statutory scheme simply encourages greater factionalizing and radicalization of the process.

Straight Hate

2004-08-05T14:37:00.000-04:00

Bernard Chapin has written "On Heterophobia."

Basically, he says that he thinks that militant gay activists want to force all heterosexuals celebrate their homosexuality. He's done a pretty good job of looking at the state and condition of the tension between the militant homosexuals and the heterosexual majority. I especially appreciated his examination of the psychological techniques used to vilify anyone who does not whole-heartedly agree with the militant homosexual agenda.

As an initial analysis I can't really disagree with him. I think the root goes deeper, though.

Any of you who are familiar with the Biblical story of Adam and Eve will remember that the "apple" that they ate was really the "fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Some people take the story literally (I do), and some just see it as a metaphor for humanity's moral awakening. However you see it, the truth that it expresses is that all people have a fundamental, visceral, knowledge of the difference between good and evil. No person who is not utterly insane can escape that knowledge.

Homosexuals know that what they are doing is wrong. They don't like that little fact, but they can't escape it, because that knowledge comes from within. The militant homosexual activists either don't believe in God or they don't acknowledge that He really did not approve of homosexuality. In any event they want to equate homosexual activity with heterosexuality because they consciously or unconsciously believe that if they can make the rest of society accept their actions that their actions will stop being wrong, and they will then be able to escape the condemnation that they feel.

The problem, of course, is that the condemnation comes from within them not from outside of them. If homosexual activity was really morally equivalent to any other physical activity, then once society stopped actively punishing the activity, the homosexual community could "sell" itself and its activities solely on their own merits. But we all know that's not how homosexuality is spread. Logistically, it would make sense, and yet, homosexuals are still a very small percentage of society.

I propose that homophobia and, as Mr. Chapin calls it, "heterophobia" are really the same thing. I think that "heterophobia" is the wrong term. It's not a fear, it's a rage. It's a rage against the constant reminding that homosexuals get when they consider the vast majority of society which is not homosexual. That's upsetting because it pricks their conscience, and the knowledge of good and evil returns. Heterophobia is better understood as "straight hate." It's an externalization of the internal condemnation that they feel. It's far easier, psychologically, if a person can externalize internal guilt as condemnation from somebody else. In that case, the guilty person can be a victim because he or she has no control over the source of the condemnation. Homophobia, with few exceptions, is only ever held by homosexuals because they are the only ones who acutely feel the wrongness of homosexuality.

My theory explains a lot. It explains why the homosexual community is pushing so hard to require the acceptance of "gay marriage." All people, gay or straight, understand the intrinsic goodness of marriage. Marriage is good because it is Holy. It's Holy because God created it for humanity. If a homosexual union could be a marriage, then society would have to accept that it is morally equivalent to the God-ordained heterosexual union within the marriage that He created. Gays want to either get their activity sanctioned as Holy or make the rest of the world forget that marriage, in the traditional sense, is, actually Holy.

I don't think Mr. Chapin's wrong, but I think the inescapable pain caused by the constant self-condemnation caused by the knowledge of good and evil that each of us has is a better explanation for the actions of the militant homosexuals.

Maryland's best shot at a Republican Senator

2004-08-03T10:42:00.000-04:00

Alan Keys!

Of course, if he runs, he'll be running in Illinois.

I don't know how well that will fly, but he would be a good Senator for whatever state elects him. I just hope, if the Illinois GOP runs Alan Keys, that they get behind him 150%, because he'll need it.

...the new underground economy.

2004-08-03T08:32:00.000-04:00

I was going to post a nice long essay about the "omens" and "signs" about this upcoming election, but I've decided to keep it short(er) and sweet.

There's a lot of hot-air from both the Republicans and the Democrats about who, according to historical precedent, is likely to win. It's great for the ego of the one asserting that they've got history on their side because of X, Y or Z, but it's a useless line or argument.

The President isn't selected by a survey or historical trends. Even if, all things being equal, history tends to repeat itself, all things have to be equal to confidently assert that a particular thing will repeat. The sad fact of the matter is that this period in time has never existed before. (Profound, eh?) For the last couple of election cycles, the internet has existed, but I think it will start to show its true effect this cycle, just like, I think, the combination of 24-hour news and talk radio had an impact in 2000. It think the electorate isn't any more polarized than before, I think that it's polarized far earlier than before, so historical trends are less useful since, so far as I know, we've never had this kind of endurance race. Since we've got three months to go and we're basically at the kind of break-down we normally see within a week or two of an election, we don't know who will be able to keep their base motivated. Also, we don't know how, exactly, to anticipate the actual effect of the internet into this election cycle.

I'm speaking of blogs. Never before have so many people been able to express their opinion so easily to such a large potential audience. Each blog distills some thought or thoughts differently. These multiply distilled rationales will have an impact on the election, and nobody knows in exactly what way. Blogs won't be big (compared to television or radio), but I think they will be big enough to make a difference.

To make a long story short, I don't think the fact that Kerry got little or no measurable bounce from his convention should give the Republicans any comfort. Likewise, I don't think the fact that Waffles has a lead against a sitting war-time president should give the Democrats a reason to be smug.

My gut tells me that President Bush will win re-election, but I don't derive my opinion based on the "lack of bounce." My opinion is largely faith. I have faith that Waffles' record will fail to impress enough people that he will be able to gain victory. I have faith that a clear vision for the nation will inspire more people to show up and vote than a syrupy mish-mash of self-contradiction, even if there is some vague apprehension to the clear vision presented by the other candidate. I have faith that, when it's all said and done, the electorate will look at President Bush and realize that he, without reservation, puts America first, and that's more important to leading our nation in this time of heightened threat than being able to order exotic foods in flawless French fearlessly from menus that don't contain prices.

Perhaps a new omen will develop after this election. Maybe the new "best" indication of success will be something like the number of blogs that advance a particular candidate. Maybe... Maybe not. In any event, the impact of the internet, especially blogs, is going to be felt. Pretty speeches will count for less and less as the candidates' assertions and consistency can be checked by anybody and will be by many. In the political marketplace of ideas, blogs have become the new underground economy. I have a feeling that, in the end, the candidate who brings the highest quality "merchantable" ideas to the table which can be disseminated on the internet and withstand close scrutiny will be the one who will take advantage of the margin the internet has to offer.

(Nothing like) Reality TV (Or "Syrupy Waffles bad for America's health")

2004-07-30T09:22:00.000-04:00

I didn't watch the DNC convention this year. Did you? Did anybody except for the journalists and pundits who are contractually obligated to pay attention to this sort of crap watch it?
I guess not.

I think that "Reality TV" has been slumping in the ratings lately (but I'm not going to bother looking up a link to prove it...). Perhaps one of the most over-done genre of "Reality TV" is the
outrageous and unbelievable make-over type of show. I don't know why the donks thought that they could produce one and expect to get any real ratings when the professionals at this sort of thing have to struggle to get and keep their audience, and the professionals make shows that are, arguably entertaining (to some).

Anyway, Senator and now Presidential Nominee for the DUMB-o-cRAT party John "Waffles" Kerry rambled on and on last night. I don't have the time to go through Waffles drivel line-by-line and shred him, and besides, where's the sport? The old truism is that: "A moving target is hard to hit." Maybe that's what Kerry thinks he is, but people get tired and don't trust leaders who change their mind constantly and without a principled reason. Kerry's tactic has, I think, been to avoid changing his mind by being steadfastly on all sides of each issue. That way, he can say he didn't change his mind, and he can also argue that, whatever you want, he agrees with you. It more than boggles the mind to contemplate that Waffles is attempting to be the candidate of the hate-America-anti-war-neo-communists AND the pro-strong-defense-and-aggressive-protection-of-America "moderates."

However, I do have a few thoughts about the manure he was spreading (and yes, his does stink).

I will immediately reform the intelligence system - so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics.

Immediately, eh? I suppose it's the norm for major bureaucracies to change over night... or not. While we're on this, what (as Slick Willy might say) does he mean by "facts." Does he mean "evidence?" Perhaps, "conclusions that can be drawn with absolute certainty based on evidence?" How can we possibly know, for sure, that our conclusions are correct before some tragedy? I do, however, agree that politics should not factor into national defense decisions. It's a good thing that politics hasn't distorted President Bush's intelligence, and it's a crying shame that Slick Willy didn't have the strength of moral character to avoid political considerations (But the report says the affair, coupled with other issues, likely affected later discussions about using force against the terrorist.) I'm surprised that Waffles would attack the last DUMB-o-cRAT president like that...

And as President, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

When, exactly, do we have to go to war? Did we have to overthrow Afghanistan for American security? I think so, but not because they were about to overthrow us. I guess we went there because we wanted to enhance the security of American citizens, but not necessarily because America faced an imminent threat to it's continued existence. Iraq? Doesn't the same logic apply? Sure Iraq didn't attack us on 9-11, but do we have to let them attack us before we do anything? How about going to war when our best intelligence tells us that the danger that enemy represents is growing and is not likely to be abated through diplomatic means? I guess the president and Congress decides when we "have to" go to war, and they did this time. Hmmm... If we should only go to war when we need to, what does that say about Bosnia? We were never threatened, but it was deemed the right thing to do to help the endangered civilians. Did we need to do that? Was that wrong?

And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.

So... Think with me... America is attacked on our own soil by a non-national loose affiliation of militants. They aren't in one spot, and we know we will never be able to get them all, but as long as they live, they will continue to attempt to attack us. We can't possibly have a plan to win the peace, only to fight those who would attempt to kill us. should we not fight since we don't know how to do everything from the outset? I guess Kerry would let al-Qaeda have a free pass since nobody has a real plan to, ultimately, win the peace against them.

I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a President who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.

He knows what we have to do in Iraq, eh? I don't believe him. If he knows what to do why doesn't he tell somebody? I mean, really, if he knows what would save our troops from dying, then shouldn't he tell somebody? Is his entire plan to beg the French to come to our rescue in Iraq? Are they likely to come? We know how brave the French are, but even so, I fear that if they are attacked like Spain was, they would fold even faster. How, exactly, would that make our troops safer? The cheese eating surrender monkeys won't come to our rescue, and we shouldn't pretend like we need them to. You know what, I don't want a President who can beg and capitulate to virtually irrelevant countries like France to do things that we deem in our national interest. That sort of "credibility" is something we could do without. I would rather have a president who is credible to our enemies. Libya believed President Bush when he said that we were going to go after every supporter of terrorism, and they gave-up their nuclear aspirations.

I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.

Pardon, do you mean that force is only required AFTER we're attacked? Is Waffles saying that our enemies will always get a free-shot? That's what it sounds like to me. He should have ended the second sentence with "if we survive, or aren't scared into submission like Spain."

I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security.

Oh... my bad, I thought Waffles said that we were going to get our "allies" to help us. What happens if they don't help us? Will we still act? If so, does that prove that Waffles doesn't have credibility.

And I will build a stronger American military.

Prove it. Waffles consistently votes against military systems, I guess, by "stronger" he means that he expects each soldier to fight with their hands, and for that, they will need to be very strong...

We will add 40,000 active duty troops - not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives - and win the battle. And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.

Not in Iraq, eh? Are we just going to abandon the troops there, or do we already have enough troops in the field? Excuse me if I don't believe Waffles' claims that he will provide the newest weapons and technology. Perhaps he means that he will eliminate all weapons that are not "newest" and therefore make sure that no more than a few soldiers have any weapons at all. Perhaps he means that he will not purchase any new weapons? That's an easy solution and entirely consistent with his legislative stance. That way, the old technology we've already got will be the newest technology! Brilliant!

We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation - to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.

Sure, Waffles. Why, exactly, did you have "Peanuts" and "Slick Willy" speak at your convention. Aren't they responsible for the latest bit of nuclear proliferation in the world? Jimmy Carter guaranteed that North Korea got Nuclear weapons, and India and Pakistan got nuclear weapons during Clinton's tenure. I don't remember you being hopping-mad at Slick Willy about how he was selling missile guidance technology to China and letting every third-world country that could rub a few dollars together to get nuclear weapons on his watch. The only President in recent memory who has done a good job at making sure that dangerous crazes don't get nuclear weapons is President Bush. Saddam won't ever get nuclear weapons, and Libya has recently seen the light. Without a plan to continue and step-up President Bush's foreign policy trends, the way to lead this global effort is to endorse President Bush rather than to offer our enemies a free-shot!

America's domestic (economic) problems as seen by Kerry --

job sent overseas --> Simple economic theory says that businesses won't make significant changes unless it will increase revenues & profits. Therefore the only way to prevent jobs from going overseas is to erect a legal barrier which will put American businesses at an economic disadvantage, and result in fewer jobs in America, or by lowering the costs associated with keeping jobs here.
health insurance --> Well, selecting an ambulance chasing med-mal plaintiff's lawyer as his running mate has done loads to increase his credibility on the idea of making health insurance affordable. Despite health-care being important, it's NOT a right. You don't have a right to force a medical professional to render his services at whatever price you feel like paying. Health insurance is, often a perk. It's something that many businesses provide to their employees as part of their compensation package. Now, if every American is supposed to have health insurance, that simply raises the cost to employers of having employees. If American employees are increasingly expensive to employ, then employers won't employ people in America... See #1, supra. The other big side of the equation is to lower the cost of health-care which would make health insurance less expensive to provide. Primarily, to do that, you have to reduce the risk to physicians of loosing everything they have in a law suit. How likely, do you suppose, an administration that includes one of the nation's most successful ambulance-chasing plaintiff's attorneys is likely to be to increase the hurdles to suing doctors? Or, I suppose, you could simply tell doctors that they are not allowed to charge as much as they do for their services. That will encourage fewer and fewer people to enter the medical profession, and simply make health care theoretically afforable, but realistically impossible to find. So... Waffles, what's your plan to actually help this situation? We're still waiting.
pension has disappeared into thin air - and the executive who looted it --> Yeah... it's a sad story. Was there a crime committed? If so, prosecute. If not, how do you incintivize executives into NOT looting companies? And, what to do about all those poor folks who have lost their pensions? My only speculation is that Waffles expects to support them directly from the public treasury. Who's going to pay for it?
air pollution --> We all like clean air. OK. How does Waffles expect to make air cleaner. I suspect the solution will involve some level of increased controls on businesses. Those controls always involve some level of cost. Note, these costs only apply to businesses in America. By increasing the cost of maintaining businesses in America, Waffles would make businesses in America less profitable relative to foreign competitors. Therefore, we're back to the problem discussed in #1, supra.
families living in poverty --> I thought the Great Society and all the various forms of welfare would have fixed that by now. Hmmm... Does history provide a hint? Perhaps the government can, at best, only encourage the conditions in which wealth can be generated by a greater portion of society, rather than actually eliminate poverty. Besides, how does Waffles expect to pay for all of this?

His plan --

We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before.
incentives to revitalize manufacturing. --> That's nice. How, do you suppose, Waffles will accomplish this? What Waffles is talking about is a competitive condition in which the average worker can expect to be in such demand that there is a constant bidding-war over his (or her) services. Those conditions reflect an economic imbalance. The only way to economically justify the increased earnings is to increase the value the employee represents to the employer. OR... Rampant inflation would cause that. Of course, with high inflation, the dollars go up, but the wealth goes down... Kerry MIGHT be able to accomplish that. That's a way to make America poorer and destroy the value of what savings we have while making our wallets fatter. Brilliant! That's a DUMB-o-cRAT solution if ever I heard one!
We value an America that exports products, not jobs --> OK. I guess that means Kerry believes in making America a competitive place to employ people and run a business... We know that's not true. To export products, our products have to represent a relatively higher value per unit cost than our competitors' products. That means our products need to be better and or cheaper. If the product is established technology, then making it cheaper means cutting costs of production. How does he plan to encourage that from the White House? Cutting corporate taxes increases profit margins and allows businesses to lower prices, but I don't think that's Waffles's plans... I suspect Waffles doesn't have a clue.
we will trade and compete in the world (a fair playing field) --> A novel idea! How, exactly, will Waffles accomplish the goal of forcing foreign nations to not erect trade barriers to American industries? Surely, he wouldn't think of intimidating poor little countries to capitulate to America's economic might, right? That would... That would just be mean, right? Either we exert overt (often diplomatic) pressure by trying to force other countries to change their laws or we passively try to make them change by erecting reciprocal or punitive trade barriers of our own. The second, more gentlemanly, method creates a hidden tax on the American consumers. Is charging us more for what we are buying what he has in mind? Free trade is a realizable goal, eventually, but "fair trade" is a pipe-dream and a dangerous prospect since "fairness" is subjective to whomever thinks he or she should have more.
cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare --> Waffles, you arrogant, sniveling, gigolo, slut. What-the-hell are you talking about when you say, "tax giveaways?" If you mean "tax-cuts" then you're saying that every dollar belongs to the government and every dollar Big Brother doesn't confiscate is a gift to the person or people who did the work to earn it. The only chance Waffles has at reducing the deficit is that Bush's economic policies will continue to grow the economy even faster than Waffles will be able to pass spending through an opposition congress. If, instead, Waffles, is speaking about direct wealth re-distribution, then he needs to be consistent and end it across the board. If it's morally repugnant to give a company that employs people and creates products and services for the market, then it's surely more morally repugnant to give money to poor people who don't work and who don't provide products or services to anybody. All government-coerced wealth re-distribution is equally morally repugnant. A better argument can be made for the "corporate welfare" than for traditional poverty-subsidizing welfare, but they're both wrong. The only way to really cut the deficit is to cut spending (That doesn't seem to be part of the Waffles plan) or to increase tax revenues, and we know that raising taxes reduces tax revenues.
we won't raise taxes on the middle class... I will cut middle class taxes. --> Sounds great. I don't believe you, Waffles, but, OK. What, exactly does that mean? Does that mean that the government will take a smaller bite out of each paycut? Does it mean that the government will do less to limit each person's chances at accumulating increasing wealth? All of this is at-odds with the other goals of his platform. If you require each employer to provide health insurance, you have increased the cost of employment. Raises will be smaller. The raise that you don't get because of increased costs is a hidden tax, but it's wealth the government has kept you from having. If the government erects barriers to businesses seeking the most profitable modes of doing business, the reduced jobs will be a hidden tax, and the reduced profits will leave less money for the businesses to pay wages. These hidden taxes will land almost squarely on the middle-class. The upper-class has the ability to move wealth around, to a large extent. Because it is the upper-class that does the heavy-lifting in the major capital shifts in the economy, any attack on them will necessarily result in a huge hit to the middle-class.
I will reduce the tax burden on small business. --> What about successful small businesses in which the proprietor has become wealthy? Do you suppose that small businesses are more or less likely to be slapped with burdens like mandatory health-care and mandatory vacation and family leave under Waffle's plan? Maybe those aren't called "tax burdens" but they are governmentally imposed burdens and they will significantly affect the small business's ability to increase payroll ranks... That's right, ALL of Waffle's plans will reduce the ability of businesses, especially small businesses to be successful and employ people.
roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education. --> Great idea! These are the people who run businesses and invest. Those are exactly the people we want to punish! Oh... Hold on here... If the government is taking money away from the people who invest, who's going to invest in "job creation, health care and education?" I think that Waffles has confused some words. Darn... This is yet another example of why we need to make English our official language. I think Waffles meant to say "SPEND TAX DOLLARS" on blah-blah-blah. Investing is, well, a little different than spending. I guess that's a nuance that the French-smelling candidate didn't notice. The problem is, once again, the good that Waffles wants to accomplish is at odds with what he intends to do. If the government is going to spend the money, since he intends to soak the rich, who normally do invest, on jobs, health care, and education, then isn't that expenditure which is normally left to the market a form of corporate welfare? Isn't forced health-care coverage a cost that would tend to make our employees less competitive in an international labor market?

I'm sure glad that Waffles has provided a plan. Or, maybe not. He hasn't provided a plan to help America. He's provided a couple of ideas about initiatives he wants to put forward. His ideas would all injure America's economy.

Then again, perhaps America will be safer... If we could hide behind the ridges in the waffle, maybe the terrorists won't see us.

I suppose that might be part of the problem

2004-07-29T11:56:00.000-04:00

The MSN Health page has this article: Many Teens Want to Have Babies

I'm just spit-ballin' here, but I think that the phenomonon of either wanting to have children or not wanting to bother avoiding having children by teenagers might have something to do with the fact that, well, a lot of teenagers are having children.

The point of the article was, basically, that the teenage pregnancy problem in lower-income inner-city communities is substantially a result of a desire on the part of the teenage girls to become mothers. Here's the first snippet I want to point out to you, my fair readers:

As part of a larger study, Davies and colleagues questioned 455 low-income, black girls aged 14 to 18....

Nearly a quarter expressed a desire to become pregnant. These girls were 3.5 times more likely than those who did not desire pregnancy to have a boyfriend or partner at least five years older than they were. They were also more than twice as likely to have had a casual sexual partner in the recent past and to report inconsistent condom use.

Hmmm... At least one option should be to consider enforcing the statutory rape laws... That won't totally fix the problem, but if a 14 to 16 year old girl is pregnant, chances are she's having sex. In most states, at those ages consent on the part of the girl is irrelevant. Lock-up the pappa. If you put that kind of price on the activity, you will, at the very least, encourage more wide-spread condom use.

Here's another bit of the article:

Davies says it is pretty clear that the phenomenon is limited to lower-income adolescents who are more likely to perceive their future as bleak and motherhood as romantic.
...
Public health researcher Lorraine Klerman, PhD, who has studied teen pregnancy throughout her career, says the best hope of keeping young girls from viewing early motherhood as a desirable goal is to improve their educational opportunities.

NO!
The educational opportunities already exist. They exist for anybody who wants to take them and do the work those opportunities entail. Here's the point, education is not something that you can "give" to someone else. A teacher may give his or her effort, but the student has to choose to learn, and accept the education. The presence of the teacher is secondary, at best, to a student who has decided to learn.

The poor state of education in the inner city is a symptom, and not the disease. People who are willing to take responsibility for their own future are the ones, generally, who get the education that is a pre-requisite for many of the (legal) jobs that lead out of poverty. That unwillingness to take responsibility for ones own actions and future goes hand-in-hand with the failure to recognize the inherent value of ones own life.

If you don't value your own life, why would you put yourself through the pain and frustration of learning?

Also, what's romantic about having a baby? Before I attempt to answer that, I want to point out this sentence:

Davies says the findings indicate that girls who desire pregnancy behave in ways that will help them meet their goal, and that their perception of the role of the male partner in parenthood may be minimal.

Here's my stab an an answer to my own question. Married couples romanticize having kids too, but it's different. Marrie couples, often, romanticize being able to love and nurture a child, and that the work of raising the child is worth it because it demonstrates the profoudness of the parents' love.

For a teenaged girl who wants to have a baby and doesn't value the father's participation in the raising the child, I think the situation is exactly reversed. The girl doesn't love or respect herself. She thinks that if she has a baby, that baby will provide her with the love and respect she won't get from herself or demand of her boyfriend(s). The trouble of raising the child, to her, is the cost of getting the unconditional love of the child. The child's needs and future are of no (or at best, minimal) importance to that mother, and that's why she isn't concerned about making sure that she has a good father for the baby who will help raise and model what a responsible man is supposed to be as the child grows up.

The problem isn't societal, though it's wide-spread. It's intensely personal to a huge portion of the inner-city population. The solution must be personal, too. It needs to start in families. Each mother out there needs to value her child(ren) enough to treat herself with respect. She needs to instill in her child(ren) that they are intrinsically valuable and important. Not the self-importance of a spoiled-brat, but the actual value of a child who understands the he or she is accountable because he or she is loved and what he or she does is important enough to care about. The child(ren) needs to understand that he or she has enough value that the future should never be written off.

When a parent does that, the child is far more likely to plan for future success, and that means delaying child-rearing and obtaining education. When enough parents do that then the inner-cities will become concentrated centers of hope and potential. What are the chances of this happening? (I won't hold my breath.)

Why English needs to be made our official language.

2004-07-27T11:47:00.000-04:00

Federal District Judge Tom S. Lee, of the Southern District of Mississippi, decided last week thatMississippi's new late-term abortion law is probably unconstitutional. (Here's another story about it.)

For clarity sake, the current status is that Judge Lee has extended the preliminary injunction that enjoins the State of Mississippi from enforcing it's new Abortion law, he has not, exactly, declared the law unconstitutional at this point.

The Problem is this: Abortion is considered one of the "penumbra" of rights that are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, but nevertheless are, somehow, to be found in it. I shoudn't be too rough on the Court because the Constitution is, really, just a skeleton. It defines the fundamental structure of the government, but it doesn't fill much in, and so, the court has, reasonably, found that there are some rights that are retained by the individuals which are protected by implication in the Constitution, though not explicitly. Among those are rights that almost everybody agrees are valid, such as the right to vote, and the right to move freely from state to state. (Mr. Quick, if you read this, I discussed this right at some length on your site here.)

So... How the Constitution can protect the practice of systematically murdering helpless children is still beyond me, but I understand how and why it exists in the law. Basically, the Supreme Court avoided actually deciding the central issues that would be dispositive of whether an unborn child should be protected by law in it's original abortion case, Roe v. Wade. By expressly not deciding whether an unborn child was alive, the Court stayed only in the realm of whether the government could inject itself into a private medical decision of a patient regarding reproductive issues. The court had already said that a state could not tell a married couple whether or not they could use birth control because that was too invasive into individual rights. (Griswold v. Connecticut)

After Roe v. Wade, when abortion was now protected, but not totally (because the Supreme Court basically said that states could regulate it after "viability," or the point at which there really wasn't meaningful debate against the conclusion that the child is alive) the question became one of how much the states could legislate/regulate abortion in the area that the Supreme Court left open.

The question got answered, but in so doing, Justice O'Connor made sure that the state of the law was even less clear after the answer than it was before, as per her Modus Operandi. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case in which a Nebraska partial-birth abortion prohibtion law was overturned, the Justice O'Connor, writing for the court, said that states could not implement an "undue burden" on the "right" to have an abortion.

If you're asking, "What constitutes an undue burden?" you're not alone. The other Justices on the Supreme Court don't know either. (No cite for that because it came from an in-person discussion with a current Justice.)

The reason I titled this post "Why English needs to be made our official language." is that if it were an official language, we might be able to expect that the judges could discern the meaning of some of the words in the language.

Judge Lee hasn't been able to discern a reasonable meaning for "undue burden." It appears that an "undue burden" under his definition, is one that might actually prevent some abortions. However, by qualifying the burden that states may not impose as "undue," the Supreme Court implicitly endorsed that some burdens may be imposed. What burdens? Well, those haven't been defined, but if they aren't capable of having some impact then they aren't any sort of burden at all.

The Mississippi Law that Judge Lee is currently enjoining re-classifies pregnancies after 13 weeks (instead of the former 16 week point) as sufficiently late term that abortion clinics could not perform them. The law did not prohibit them, but it did require that any abortions after the 13 week point be performed at a regularly regulated medical facility, such as hospitals or outpatient surgical facilities.

According to the Picayune Item story, Judge Lee said that the law did nothing new to protect patient health.

Ummm...

The problem is that States have the ability to regulate what other types of surgeries are allowed to be performed where and by whom. Judge Lee appears to be setting himself up above the Mississippi Legislature in determining what laws are necessary to fulfill the State's purpose. I don't think that there's any disagreement that the State wants to reduce the numbers of abortions, especially late-term abortions. However Mississippi has scrupulously avoided prohibiting the procedure. As a matter of fact, one of the primary reasons that the Supreme Court gave for overturning Nebraska's law in Planned Parenthood v. Casey was that it made no exception for the health of the mother. If that's the main problem in an otright prohibition, then there should be no problem that the state has said that late-term abortions are permissible, but must be performed in a regular medical facility which is better able to handle life-of-the-mother emergencies.

Judge Lee, has apparently misunderstood the language in the phrase "undue burden" and thinks it means "any burden whatsoever." To protect against an infringement according to his definition, he is invading an area expressly left to State and making legislative value judgments, as if this were still a common law problem even after the state legislature has spoken within a reasonable understanding of the Constitutional framework as pronounced by the Supreme Court. This looks like a lack of deference for the sovereignty of the State more than a lack of respect for legislatures to me. If the Judge were acting reasonably within his proper function, he would defer to the state when it is acting inside of the constitutional boundaries enunciated by the Supreme Court, or at least within a not-unreasonable understanding of those boundaries.

As over-reaching as Judge Lee's current ruling is, it's not all his fault. Justice O'Connor's willingness to treat Constitutional Law like any other form of Common Law that can be molded as the Justices see fit to meet society has created a disrespect for the authority and sovereignty of the states and the other branches. When the Courts can say, not only, what the law IS, but also what it should be, they have elevated themselves beyond the reach of any authority, and not even their defining document, the Constitution, is strong enough to restrain them.

To my thinking, Justice O'Connor is the most dangerous justice on the bench. Her judicial philosophy elevates judicial whim to Constitutional gravity, and creates uncertainty in the law. We know less after she writes an opinion than before. That's not a coincidence. In a philosophy that treaurers the judiciary's role of finding the "just" result in each case before it, boundaries established by legislatures and the Constitution are obsticles. She's more dangerous than even the liberal judges because she plays in the middle ground and there is little telling of what will persuade her. Moreover, a judicial philosophy that focuses on only the "just result" in the present case is short-sighted by design. Maybe that's a good temperment for a trial judge, but it is repugnant to the purpose of the Supreme Court for that philosophy to hold sway as the final arbiter of Constitutional Law.

If English were to be made the official language of the U.S.A., then perhaps Justice O'Connor could be impeached for judicial fraud by using the language in Court Opinions in a way to decrease understanding of the law while pretending to explain what the law is. I know, I know, I'm dreaming again.

Survey: 80% of German Women prefer to be single

2004-07-23T13:14:00.000-04:00

Here's the story.

I'm sure I saw an unrelated survey, somewhere, that said 95% of men prefer not to be involved with women who don't shave their armpits.

I guess everybody's happy in Germany!

If you're not sitting down, please do so before you read this post

2004-07-23T11:27:00.000-04:00

You were warned... I refuse to be held liable for any injuries you sustain if you read this post while standing up and fall over from shock.

"Johnny Ramone was a fiercely Republican-voting, NRA-supporting musician…"

And don't overlook this:

For his news now, he hits the Drudge Report and Newsmax.com, Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," and "The O'Reilly Factor." He listens daily to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved. In L.A., people spend a lot of time in their cars, and he uses that time to educate himself, he says.

His list of favorite Republicans should humble the Republican National Committee, or at least get him invited to a GOP fund-raiser: Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Charlton Heston, [actor and close friend] Vincent Gallo, Ted Nugent, Messrs. Limbaugh and Hannity, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Wayne and Tom DeLay.

He relishes agitating his left-wing peers — and has since the band started in 1974.

This story was from back on March 11 of this year... How did I overlook it?

Hat tip to the Conservative Contrarian.