Dispatches from Heck

The Democratic Electoral Trap

2012-01-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sometime next year — mid-2013 or so — the U.S. economy will crater. The Weimar-Republic-like inflation we've been worrying about will finally become a reality. The dollar will crumble. The "world's reserve currency" will have gone the way of the Euro which will likely crumble this year. The new "world's reserve currency" will be the Yuan and China will call the tune.

The Democrats are hoping they will be able to play the game for another inning or two, but they are probably wrong. Whoever wins the White House in 2012 will preside over the disolution of the American economy. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are hoping to be that someone. It is clear they have a death wish, because the party left standing when the music stops will never thereafter win another national election.

I'm assuming here that Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate and that Ron Paul will not be the Republican candidate.

There is a small non-zero probability that Ron Paul will secure the GOP nomination and go on to defeat Obama in November, but I'm not betting any actual money on it. If such a miraculous thing happens and if President Paul really does yank all our troops out of foreign countries and if he manages to cut a serious chunk out of the bloated federal budget... IF... the economy might be saved at least temporarily.

The short odds are on Romney or Gingrich going up against Obama... and losing. The winner loses and the loser wins. Could it be possible that the GOP is really smarter than we ever gave them credit for? That they will back a known-loser so that Obama gets re-elected and is thus in a target position when it all comes tumbling down?

I don't believe that. I believe the GOP is in denial: they don't believe a meltdown is imminent and they believe they can beat Obama with the likes of Gingrich. They will lose in November and thus save their party (accidentally) while condemning all the rest of us to Hell.

It will be a good time to be in debt. The resulting inflation will wipe most of that debt out by allowing the debtors to pay it off with cheap dollars. I may just refinance my house.

The Republican Electoral Trap

2012-01-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

The GOP is in serious trouble. They have tried with all of their might to marginalize Ron Paul, and they have been only marginally successful. This is inadequate. The GOP must be able to make Ron Paul a non-person, an almost impossible feat unless Paul is caught in bed with "a dead girl or a live boy". Not bleedin' likely.

So, what's the trap? It's this: Ron Paul supporters — by and large — will desert the GOP if Ron Paul is not the party's candidate. 'Big deal,' you say. 'Big deal,' I repeat. Yes, it is a big deal.

If Iowa can be believed, Ron Paul owns twenty-something percent of likely GOP voters, and over the course of time (if things go as they have been going) this will grow. The problem for the GOP is that most mainline Republicans simply want to beat Barack Obama in 2012. Ron Paul's supporters want Ron Paul to beat Barack Obama in 2012. These goals are at serious cross-purposes. If Ron Paul isn't the GOP's choice to cross swords with the incumbent, Paulistsas will either stay home on Election Day or vote Libertarian. What if, on Election Day, 20% or more of Republican voters don't show up? (I'm here positing that voting for some other party is, as far as the GOP is concerned, the same as not voting at all.) In order to make a decent showing, whoever is the GOP candidate will need every available nominally-GOP voter plus a smattering of nominal Democrats. A GOP candidate who cannot pull that off cannot defeat the incumbent President. Cannot.

Ron Paul can. Romney may if he sucks in a noticeable chunk of Democratic voters; don't bet on it. Santorum and Gingrich cannot, nor can any of those candidates who have dropped out of the race.

To summarize: the GOP seems intent on having Romney go head-to-head with Obama, but he will do so without twenty percent or more of the voters he's counting on, the voters he's depending on. Romney, no matter how good he looks the morning of Election Day, will lose to Barack Obama. Ron Paul may also lose to Barack Obama; it's possible a large chunk of Republicans will desert the GOP if Ron Paul is the candidate; it's possible. Walter Williams has already suggested that this election is a waste of money and air time. Ron Paul is, however, the only Republican who has a prayer of unseating Obama. That's going to be hard for mainline Republicans to handle. Can they do it? My money is on Obama.

Enemy Action

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

Dec 15th, 2011 — Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler was arrested at an airport in New York City after he attempted to check-in a locked gun box holding his Glock 27 pistol and ammunition to a Delta Airlines ticket agent.
Dec 22nd, 2011 — 39-year-old Meredith Graves, an RN studying for her MD and who has a Tennessee concealed weapons permit, was arrested on a gun-possession charge when she tried to check her loaded pistol at the WTC memorial.
Jan 2nd, 2012 — Ryan Jerome was enjoying his first trip to New York City on business when the former Marine Corps gunner walked up to a security officer at the Empire State Building and asked where he should check his gun.

A prominent political activist from California, a Registered Nurse-Medical student from Tennessee, and a combat Marine from Indiana, three vicious criminals now safely stowed behind bars in New York City where they won't be able to threaten the peace and safety of the community further. Score three for the Sullivan Law and New York's no-nonsense zero-tolerance for terrorists with handguns.

Military people will tell you: the first time it's an accident, the second time it's a coincidence, but the third time it's 'enemy action'. Is it possible this all has nothing to do with H.R. 822 now working its way through Congress? H.R. 822 would require states which issue concealed weapons permits to recognize permits issued by other states. People would always have to abide by the local restrictions, but these three would not have been arrested had H.R. 822 already been signed into law. 'Enemy action' indeed.

For a hundred years, New York State's 'Sullivan Law' has made it difficult to get a handgun permit in most of the state and damn-near-impossible in New York City where you have to be a close personal friend of the mayor in order to qualify. A NYS pistol permit is not even valid in New York City. As a result, most of the violent crime in New York is committed with guns obtained elsewhere from states with horridly permissive laws. Oddly, crime in those otherwise lax jurisdictions never seems to rise to the levels of New York despite Rudy Giuliani, 'America's Mayor', having turned the place into a veritable police state. To deter malefactors from continuing their dastardly pursuits, New York imposes draconian punishments: each of the three criminals mentioned above are facing three-and-a-half years in slam if convicted, loss of voting rights, and loss of their 2nd amendment rights — in perpetuity.

If convicted.

Therein lies the rub. New York's DA, one Cyrus Vance Jr., has some experience prosecuting such cases, three of which are now on his docket. Alas for Cyrus, that experience is mostly bad. Early in 2011, Jonathan Ryan of Florida was stopped by NYPD for making an illegal right-on-red (legal in NYS, illegal in NYC, go figure). During the stop, the police discovered a 9mm pistol in the car's glove box and arrested Ryan for illegal possession of a handgun. Facing three-and-a-half years in prison, Ryan nevertheless rolled his dice for double-or-nothing. The jury took thirty minutes to deliver a 'not guilty' verdict. The cops kept Ryan's gun anyway, but he walked out of the courthouse a free man. The newest three defendants are even more sympathetic and thus even less likely than was Ryan to be convicted. In view of that, Cy Vance may not even bother charging them. If Vance takes their cases to court, he will win or he will lose.

If he wins, he will spray gasoline onto the brush fire that H.R. 822 has been thus far. If he loses, his credibility (and possibly his career as a prosecutor) will lie in tatters — and he will spray gasoline onto the brush fire that H.R. 822 has been thus far. Win or lose, he loses. Beyond doubt, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-founder of MAIG, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, smells blood in the water. Is he smart enough to realize (or suspect) that the blood was put there on purpose?... that high-priced lawyers in the suburbs around Washington D.C. are waiting for him to take a nice, big bite? And I do mean 'big': Gura and Possessky PLLC has just been awarded $1.3 million in attorneys' fees for their win in D.C. v Heller where the Supreme Court struck down D.C.'s total ban on handguns. D.C.'s ban was barely more severe than NYC's regime whereby huge filing fees ($445) are necessary merely to have one's application considered. There is no guarantee that consideration will result in a NYC concealed weapons permit; in fact, it is a near-certainty that the application will be rejected absent some extraordinary circumstances. This 'restrictive may-issue' policy thus comes very close to a total ban, such that of NYC's 7 million-plus inhabitants, only 2,291 of them may actually carry a firearm with them wherever they go.

So... D.C. has had their total ban burned to the ground in D.C. v Heller (2008), and Chicago's ban has been ruled unconstitutional in McDonald v Chicago (2010). Is New York City next? One can only hope.

How Do We Pay For It?

2011-12-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

Whenever the question arises as to how a public works project will be paid for, the 'normal' answer is "Well, that's what taxes are for!" Libertarians (and, yes, I am one of them) take issue with this answer. It's a tough 'sell', but I believe that every thinking person, if they spend time actually thinking about the issue, eventually comes around to the libertarian view that almost everything in the 'public works' arena probably ought to be funded with voluntary contributions or subscriptions. Let's take a look.

Let's start with an easy assumption: Whatever the project, there will inevitably be those who think it's unnecessary or counter-productive or a poor use of scarce public funds. They will be opposed to spending money on the project. So the root assumption is 'you can't please everybody'. Nevertheless, those opposed to the project will be taxed their proportionate share.

There is a corollary to this: While nobody doesn't like Sara Lee, everybody doesn't like something. Everyone will be able to point to some project they wish hadn't gotten enough votes.

If the number of 'antis' is small it's easy to dismiss them as mere malcontents, but what about when the vote goes down 50.2% in-favor to 49.8% opposed? You have nearly half the populace being forced to fund a project they oppose. "Well, that's how the system works!" some will say (if they're part of the 50.2%). The rest will carry a grudge over their ultra-skinny loss. This is a bad way to run a community. Nothing good can come of it. That, however, is hardly the point.

We tax the community wall-to-wall for tasks that we feel will benefit the community wall-to-wall, but the undeniable fact is that our opinions as to who benefits are not universally agreed-to. We're guessing, and those guesses, good or bad, are backed by the political power to make them a reality via taxes, part of which comes from people who made different guesses. Is this really what we intend? Is this really a good idea in itself? Because what we're seeing here, stripped of all the trappings, is that we're forcing someone to fund our pet project du jour against their better judgement, and it doesn't matter whether that project is a war in the Middle East or cancer research. It is a given that someone will think it's a great idea and someone else will think it's a mistake.

The one great source of conflict here, the 'bone of contention', is what is called the 'free rider problem', and that has a corollary, a flip-side, too. What of those people who will be taxed for this new 'benefit' but who will never use it? You tax to fund a new art museum, but what of our blind citizens who cannot see the visually beautiful art that now populates the museum? What of the hearing-impaired who cannot use the audio guides? So we tax some more to provide Braille commentary and sign-language interpreters and on and on. If we do the project on voluntary contributions, what of those who didn't contribute yet who will enjoy the new museum? Having no universally fair method of funding the project, we fall back on what we assume is the least-worst solution: tax everybody. When I point out that this solution is favored simply because it involves the least effort on the part of those who propose, that it's the lazy way out, I'm accused of being politically incorrect.

"Political correctness" has been called 'the absurd notion that a turd can be picked up by the clean end.' There simply is no fair way to raise revenue, isn't that how it seems? When the 'anti's suggest that the proponents 'put their money where their mouth is', that's when the cries of "unfair!" ring out the loudest, but there's something to be said in favor of that position. If a project does, indeed, have broad popular support, it should be fairly easy to fund it from contributions. After all, we're dealing here with a project whose benefits will far outweigh the puny costs, no? Isn't that how such projects are sold?

If support for a project is so narrow that it cannot be funded from contributions, what does that say about how the people view the supposed benefit of the project? And, really, shouldn't the opinions of those taxpayers have some weight in the deliberations? If all they're willing to do is vote to have other people fund the project for their benefit, what does that say about the supposed 'benefit'? "Yes, this will benefit me, but not so much that I'm willing to invest my own money..."

That, in fact, is the rationale for having private investors handle much of what we think of as 'public works'. If a project is truly a beneficial improvement, the measure of that benefit is that people will be willing to pay for it after-the-fact on a case-by-case basis and for fees that far exceed what they might have been charged up-front in taxes. That is how 'profit' is defined, and wise investors will be willing to 'put their money where their mouths are' for the prospect of future profit.

When wise investors are not willing to front money for such projects, it's a warning that we ought to be adding some salt — much more that just a grain or two — to those promises of pie-in-the-sky we get from proponents of the latest boondoggle.

Taxes for public works? It would probably be more efficient to find an alternative way.

And before anyone holds up the Interstate Highway System as an example of 'a public works project that really worked out well', let me call all those people who complain that we don't have rail service like Europeans do and have them come over to talk to you. Do you know why we don't have rail service like the Europeans do? I'll give you a hint. It has something to do with the Interstate Highway System.

When you take the path on the right, of necessity you cannot take the path on the left. When you take the path of 'taxes', you give up the path of 'freedom to choose'. Is that the kind of 'bargain' you go looking for?

Enter The Dragon — Remembering Ray Faulk

2011-12-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing ads recently for Dragon Software which purports to allow a computer user to speak words and have the software load those words into a document or something else. It made me recall my old IBM buddy, Ramon D(avid) Faulk, 'Ray' to his friends and associates.

Ray graduated from UTexas (Austin) back in IBM's heyday and got hired by IBM as a mathematician to work on a hot new project out of the Thomas J. Watson Scientific Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. IBM in those days thought it might be possible to build a 'universal translator' given enough computing muscle, and it set a team to work making it a reality. Ray was on that team. After several years of disappointing (or 'no') progress, IBM's management reluctantly concluded that a Universal Translator was not as feasible as they had originally thought. They cancelled the project and reshuffled all the participants into other parts of the company. Remember, this was back when IBM didn't fire people or lay them off just because there wasn't any work for them to do. It was always possible to find a spot for someone in a company as big as IBM.

Ray got transferred to IBM's Field Engineering HQ in White Plains, NY as a programmer. FEHQ's Information Systems department (FEIS) back then did lots of heavy lifting, mostly concentrated on machine service schedules, replacement parts, and publications (manuals). All of this had to be managed in an inventory sense, shipped expeditiously where and when needed, and accounted-for and reported. There was lots to do for a talented application programmer, and Ray was that.

Unfortunately, Ray also had an obsessive personality. He had been hired to create a universal translator and he felt mortified that he had failed so miserably as to get the project cancelled. Yes, there were lots of others who had failed equally miserably or moreso, but Ray's failure was his and his alone. He could not let the mere cancellation of a project stop him from completing his task.

So he did his FEIS application programming tasks from nine-to-five and did other things at other times. Occasionally he would do those other things from nine-to-five as well because they were important. On the occasions that those important tasks pushed aside the tasks Ray was getting paid to do, he would come (as Maxwell Smart might say) this close to getting fired. But he worked for IBM; IBM didn't fire people for silly reasons like that.

Eventually, Ray managed to develop the theory (and the method) that allowed him to take the first giant step toward the now-forgotten Universal Translator. Here's the essential problem:

When we write, we put spaces between words and add punctuation marks to indicate to the reader where certain idea-clusters start or end. When we speak, we don't, unless we're Victor Borge demonstrating Phonetic Punctuation. (whenwespeakwedontunlesswerevictorborgedemonstratingphoneticpunctuation). How does the brain split this sound from that sound? They all run together in a continuous stream, yet virtually everyone who is fluent in the language spoken knows where those implicit blanks belong. The answer is that the human brain has the ability to guess (accurately, most times) that this sound represents a word. It guesses based on hearing that same sound thousands or millions of times in the past. When it encounters a new sound, it guesses that it's a word because all the sounds around it have been accounted-for. How in Hell do you get a machine to do that? This way:

Ray's method involved taking a stream of data and parsing it as if it were continuous data like speech. He had Barbara Argy, one of our co-workers, transcribe a chapter of a foreign-language book onto punched cards (that's how far back this was) eliminating all the blanks, commas, periods, etc. Ray's method didn't care what language the original text was in, nor was that information part of the program's input. Barbara used, I think, a Russian novel, using '@', '#', '%', and others for the Cyrillic characters our alphabet lacks. Ray's program read the string and did a statistical analysis of the frequencies of all the one-character strings, then it did the same for all two-character strings, then three, then four, then... At some point, he would start over at the head of the string and begin looking at the first character compared to the first two characters compared to the first three, four, five, six, etc., each time looking at the relative frequency of the strings. Every now and then during this process, the relative frequency of a string would drop to zero or near it. If he were looking at the prior sentence, for instance, he would notice a sudden drop when the string was 'everyn' as compared to 'every'. From this, the program would conclude that 'every' was a word and insert a blank following it.

Ray once compared this process to what happens in the game of "Ghost". In Ghost, players sit in a circle and one player starts by saying a letter. The next player adds a letter to it. Letters are added in turn until some player adds a letter that makes a word. The object of the game is to add a letter, one that could be part of a not-yet-fully-developed word, but not one that actually completes a word — to make the word longer and longer until finally some player is forced by "the collapse of variety" to add the one-and-only letter that can fit at the end of the existing string.

Using this schema, Ray's program split that chapter of Russian text into its constituent words making only six errors along the way. The errors were of the sort where a prefix might be snipped off a word or a portmanteau word would be split into pieces. The program did not know that the original text was in Russian. It did not use a dictionary. It built its own vocabulary dynamically as it went along.

Well, if you can do that to Russian, you should be able to do it to Welsh or Hungarian with equal ease. You should be able to apply the same technique to spoken language, breaking the stream of sounds to packets of sound and then assigning meaning to those sounds. This is the method infants use when they are pre-verbal. This is the method we will use when we meet our first extra-terrestrial.

When that day comes, and perhaps before that, I expect linguists will be splitting streams of continuous data and developing vocabularies from them, all the while wondering why they call the process "faulking".

Ray's method was the subject of a paper he published with his collaborator, Fran Goertzel Gustavson, and can be found in The IBM Systems Journal (1990), vol 29, number 2. It was titled "Segmenting discrete data representing continuous speech input". You can see the abstract here

Ray passed away a few years back. I'm sure he would have gotten a kick out of Dragon had he lived to see it.

Sean Hannity is an idiot. I get it.

2011-12-09T12:58:00.001-08:00

Sean Hannity recently made this remark: "Ron Paul is an isolationist. I get it."

Except that he doesn't get it. Or maybe he really does get it but would rather slander one of the few honest Congressmen around. I'm attributing his remark to stupidity; maybe it really is malice. Nor am I writing this just to defend Ron Paul. When Hannity made that (inexcusably stupid) remark, he wasn't just defaming Ron Paul; he was defaming me and everyone who thinks like me and Ron.

"Isolationist", as defined by Hannity and the other neocons, means anyone who doesn't think the United States should have a military presence in 145 countries, anyone who thinks the United States shouldn't invade any foreign country without a formal declaration of war issued by Congress and naming the country to be invaded/conquered, or anyone who thinks the foreign policy of the United States ought to be focused sharply on 'minding our own business'.

The opposite of "isolationist" for people like Hannity is "patriot", defined as someone who thinks it's perfectly OK for the President, without so much as notifying Congress, to ship the First Marine Division into the hell-hole du jour in order to show those gooks just who's the sheriff 'round these here parts. If a couple thousand or a couple million civilians get in the way, that's their tough luck. They should have been smart enough to have been born Americans, shor 'nuff.

I define 'patriot' somewhat differently, in case you haven't guessed, and you probably suspect Hannity and I differ on the definition of 'isolationist', too. To me, an isolationist is ready to pull up the drawbridge and seal off the kingdom, having first gotten everyone inside to hand over their passports. Their intent would be to isolate themselves from the cold, cruel world outside. An isolationist would never dream of popping off to Paris or stealing away to Stockholm. Noooooooo!! That would be... sleeping with the enemy! Horrors! Can't have our citizens doing that!

Perhaps Sean Hannity is a stay-at-home. Not me, and not Ron Paul, either. Keep your passport. Go to Barcelona whenever the spirit moves you. Bring me back a souvenir. The word Ron and I use for our foreign policy (singular, because we share the same one) is 'non-interventionism'. We think it's a great idea to travel and trade, to meet new people who may speak a different language and who see the world through different eyes, to talk with them and learn their views on topics for which we have formed our own opinions. What Ron and I don't advocate is forming those peoples' views for them by force of arms, nor do we advocate taxing American citizens to provide foreign aid to countries which are often ruled by dictators. Ron and I know (too well) how close to the truth Lord Peter Bauer was when he said

Foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

But as long as we're trading verbal insults, I suppose it's only fair that I get the chance to label Sean Hannity and all those who think like him: they're 'imperialists'. They're the nutballs who believe their own fantasies about 'American exceptionalism'. They think America is exceptional because God wanted it that way. Oddly, they have no explanation for why God would make us exceptional and then let our economy turn to shit. In truth, if America is exceptional it is almost entirely because of the inventiveness, the will to win, and the moral strength of all those who came here from other supposedly un-exceptional nations to make a better life for themselves, their families, and their fellows. And they did this all without any help from the government. What didn't make America exceptional was the foreign policy that led us to war with Mexico in 1846, to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893^*, war with Spain in 1898, war with half of Europe in 1918, or any of the dozens of 'conflicts' since 1945. It's not our military that makes us great, it's the people and the freedom of people to do great things.

People like Sean Hannity would like to see all that come to an end. If anyone deserves the term 'isolationist', it's idiots like Sean Hannity.

(*) - I'll bet you didn't know it was the U.S. Marine Corps which overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy — at the request of the Dole Fruit Packing Company whose owners were upset that the Hawaiians would no longer let foreign workers vote in local elections. Golly, if Sean Hannity gets his way and we stop letting Mexican workers vote in our elections, maybe the Marines will overthrow this government? No, doesn't work that way, does it?

In Praise of Julian Heicklen

2011-12-07T08:57:00.001-08:00

What?? You've never heard of Julian Heicklen?? I thought everybody had heard of Julian Heicklen!!

Julian Heicklen is a retired Penn State professor just recently arrested in downtown Manhattan for jury tampering. Right out there in public. In front of God and everybody. Right in front of the federal courthouse.

Julian was arrested for passing out flyers, some of his own making, others provided to him by FIJA, The Fully-Informed Jury Association.

FIJA has as their mission and goal to inform everyone who might ever become a member of a jury of their natural right to judge both the law and the facts concerning the case at hand. And here you thought the jury only got to decide whether the perp did it or not, didn't you? Nope. You also get to decide whether the perp was justified in doing whatever was done. This tradition has a long and colorful history. It is mentioned in the Magna Carta (1215 AD) as one of those rights the people can invoke against the King.

The Salem Witch Trials ended when prosecutors suffered 62 consecutive acquittals by juries that were tired of seeing their grandmothers burned at the stake, hung, drawn-and-quartered, and ducked in the local pond until they drowned.

John Peter Zenger, publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, walked out of court a free man when a 1735 jury decided that printing the truth could never be considered 'libel', even if it embarrassed the Colonial Governor. This case was the precedent for our own First Amendment.

Prosecutors similarly gave up prosecuting fugitive slaves after one Northern jury after another refused to send people to jail just for helping slaves escape.

If you get called for jury duty these days, you will be asked to swear an oath that you will administer the law as the judge explains it. You swear that you won't give a hoot about whether or not the law is good, bad, or indifferent, and that you will convict the defendant for violating a bad law exactly as you would convict for violating a good law.

Did you miss that? If Congress passes a law saying all Presbyterians have to move to Kansas and Nebraska — (they wouldn't, but let's just say they did) — you will send that Presbyterian to jail for the crime of 'living in Texas'.

"That's silly," I hear you say, "Congress would never pass a law like that!" Oh, yeah? How about... The USA PATRIOT Act that wipes out the Fourth Amendment (among other things)? How about the new National Defense Authorization Act that purports to allow the Army to arrest U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without a warrant and hold them indefinitely without trial merely on someone's accusation that they are a 'terrorist'? Recall that during the Second World War, President Roosevelt ordered all Japanese-Americans interned (in 'concentration camps'). Given those examples, how far are we away from "packin' all them Jews into boxcars"?

The judge has no authority to require that oath, and you have no obligation to answer it truthfully.

So Julian is defending himself (he is acting as an attorney pro se) because he will likely raise some or all of these points at trial, and a licensed attorney who did so would very likely be disbarred. Acting pro se also has another advantage: what's the judge going to do to Heicklen? Throw him in jail for 'contempt'? He's already in jail.

The prosecutor, one Rebecca Mermelstein, also has something of a problem. She's going to have to explain to a jury that Professor Heicklen committed a crime by espousing his opinion in public and that the First Amendment doesn't cover what he did. She's going to have to explain that if the law ever requires Jews to wear an armband with a yellow Star of David, she, Rebecca Mermelstein, will encourage all her family to comply and will prosecute any of them who don't. Oh, dear.

If the judge, Jack Weinstein, tries to suppress questioning along those lines he may find himself in a similarly uncomfortable position.

Along the way, the jury's historical power to acquit even in the face of evidence of guilt will garner more publicity than FIJA has ever been able to get on its own. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again!

Until the 20th century, it was fairly common for judges to instruct juries that they had virtually unlimited power — to acquit. If the prosecutor brings a charge of 2nd-degree manslaughter, the jury cannot bump that charge to 1st-degree murder, but a charge of 1st-degree murder can be softened to something lesser. Similarly, a jury may decide

this is a good law and he violated it — guilty, go to jail
he violated the law, but I don't think the law was ever intended to apply in a case like this — not guilty
I'm not going to let you enforce this obscene law in this jurisdiction — not guilty; I don't care whether he did it or not.

Even when the jury brings in a 'guilty' verdict, the judge can still issue a JNOV (judgment non obstante veredicto), a judgement notwithstanding the verdict, and acquit, but the judge cannot overrule a 'not guilty' verdict. Further, if the jury says 'guilty', the accused may appeal. If the jury says 'not guilty', it's 'game over' — the prosecution cannot appeal unless there has been a demonstrable failure of the system. The whole process is biased in favor of 'not guilty'.

Professor Heicklen's trial is going to be very interesting. Keep your eyes peeled.

Appreciating the Heavens

2011-11-29T19:57:00.001-08:00

Since acquiring a dog... about four years ago this week, as a matter of fact... Norene and I have been paying more attention to what's above us. That's because Riqui's (officially 'Suncatcher's Periquita') last walk of the day happens between 10:30pm and 11:30pm. We have started to pay more attention to things like 'summer constellations' and 'winter constellations' and phases of the moon (because we can walk the golf course's cart paths from about half-moon through full-moon and for a few days after).

The moon rises about 50 minutes later every day. Because the moon's cycle is about 28 days (more or less), it rises 1/28th of a day later each day. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, and 1/28th of that is 51 minutes and 20-some-odd seconds. Seven days' worth of that is 358+ minutes — pretty close to 6 hours. At 'new moon', the moon rises just around dawn. Half-moon (first quarter) is seven days later and has the moon rising around noon. At full-moon, the moon rises near sunset — the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the Earth. That's what makes the moon 'full'. From full moon on, the moon rises closer to sunrise than to sunset. Last quarter has the moon rising around midnight.

The stars are a different matter. The stars make a complete circuit (360 degrees) over the course of a year — 365 days — close enough for government work. The stars rise 1/360th of a day earlier each day. That comes out to about four minutes (plus or minus). Thirty days times four minutes is 120 minutes, two hours, 1/12 of a day, and one sign of the zodiac.

Over the course of a year, someone who looks up at the sky about the same time every night will watch the sky gradually change as the moon and the constellations creep across the firmament.

I recommend it highly.

Letters to the Editor

2011-11-22T08:30:00.001-08:00

I'm an inveterate letter-writer. I rap out snarlygrams to the St.Petersburg Times on a regular basis... or did. They tend not to print my letters anymore. I suspect I pissed Martin Dyckman off once too often and have been banned in perpetuity. On the rare occasion they do print a letter, they invariably send it through the editorial meat-grinder first so that any point I might have been trying to make gets lost on the cutting room floor.

I think I'll just publish them here.

09/02/2006

Subject: Price of Freedom?

A letter-writer Thursday cites the Alamo, the battleship Maine, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 as "the price of freedom". This writer badly needs a lesson in history.

In 1836, Texians (don't forget the "i") seceded from Mexico, and became an independent nation for 9 years before joining the United States.

The battleship Maine was destroyed by an explosion in a coal bunker, but it was a great excuse for us to grab some territory. No sabotage was involved.

It is now well-documented that FDR knew of the attack on Pearl Harbor in advance and declined to warn our sailors there because he wanted us in that war; this is much closer to "treason" or "accessory to murder" than it is to "price of freedom". Any infamy that day came from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I suspect that the next 10 or 20 years will also give us a different perspective on 9/11.

10/02/2006

Subject: It --does-- matter!

A letter-writer Saturday (Iraq has to be fixed) asserts: "[everyone] knows[s] the war in Iraq should never have been started. That doesn't matter anymore."

It certainly does matter, because if we come to believe that it doesn't matter, then it will happen again, although it is difficult to see how that might be worse than the present situation.

Legislation just passed by our Congress cancels habeas corpus and fundamental procedural rights of due process that stretch back to the Magna Carta. Federal grand-jury indictments for terrorism are no longer necessary. Under the new law, criminal prosecutions for terrorism can now be handled by the military, which is part of the executive branch of government, rather than by the judicial branch. There will no longer be any right to a jury trial in which the jury consists of ordinary citizens. Military personnel will decide the guilt or innocence of the accused and, unlike in federal-court proceedings, will be permitted to rely on hearsay evidence and evidence acquired by torture to convict the defendant. Right to counsel will be limited. There will no longer be a right to a speedy and public trial. Military judges, not independent federal judges, will preside over the proceedings. The military will be free to inflict cruel and unusual punishments on those judged to be terrorists, and being a citizen will not save you because anyone can be labelled a 'terrorist'. In fact, this letter might get me thrown in jail, next to the editors of the StPetersburg Times for printing it.

Until we decide that such things do matter and introduce our presidents and generals to a breathtaking new use for hemp, we can no longer call ourselves 'the land of the free'. This nation of sheep has at last begotten a government of wolves.

02/14/2007

Subject: No guns allowed

The shooting at a Salt Lake City mall occurred in a place posted as "No guns allowed". All the shoppers were unarmed because they were all law-abiding citizens... all except one.

The next time someone says "oh, we can't allow guns here... they're so dangerous!" point them at the Trolley Square Mall in SLC. All the disarmed shoppers were lambs before the slaughter until an off-duty police officer from some other city stepped up to the plate.

Except for Trolley Square's "No guns allowed" policy, some of those shoppers might still be alive.

03/30/2007

Subject: Kangaroo conviction

Interesting, the case of David Hicks, former kangaroo-skinner, now convicted terrorist: in order to be convicted, he had to 'prove' his guilt to the military tribunal. Funny, I always thought that was the prosecution's job! Lucky for them they managed to get a "voluntary" confession out of him.

Part of his 'plea-deal' is that he also promises never to say that he was mistreated at Camp X-Ray. I guess we'll never have to face hearing him suggest it was a case of "confess or stay here forever".

For those of you who say it can't happen here, it has now happened here.

04/15/2007

Subject: Virginia Tech

Those who say we can't do anything to prevent horrific events such as happened Monday at Virginia Tech are just plain wrong.

Virginia Tech is a "gun-free zone". A student who brings a firearm onto school grounds risks expulsion or suspension. Those who wish to actually graduate from college won't risk expulsion, so they go unarmed. It is they who become victims when a nut-case decides to make headlines.

We will never see the end of mass-slayings until we get past the bizarre notion that rendering law-abiding citizens 'prey' makes them safer. By all means, keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking it's possible to disarm everyone and thus prevent the next outrage. That sort of utopian delusion just sets us up by inviting us to remain unprepared.

It's time for us to grow up and face reality. Not all guns take lives; some of them save lives.

09/02/2007

Subject: Florida's Early Primary

The Democratic and Republican parties are treating Florida's primary as if they were paying the bill for it. Here's news for them: they're not.

If they want control over the conduct and the timing of Florida's primaries, let them get out their checkbooks. I'm sure the taxpayers of Florida will gladly allow them full control over all aspects of the primary process — for a small fee.

09/30/2007

Subject: Private roads are dead end for Florida

The Times' objection to private roads in Florida is that "motorists would get stuck with the bills", but who gets stuck with the bills for state-owned roads? Answer: everybody!

Has the Times forgotten so soon the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis? It wasn't even two months ago! That state-owned bridge on that state-owned highway collapsed because of poor maintenance. I wonder what kind of maintenance a private owner would have done on that bridge given the choice of "revenue if it stays up" and "lawsuits if it comes down"? Of course, the state doesn't have to worry about lawsuits because of their sovereign immunity. That's why they can afford to skimp on maintenance.

So... which would you prefer: higher bridge tolls or higher death tolls?

10/09/2007

Subject: WI officer shot self 3 times?

The AP report on the berzerk WI deputy who killed six and himself reports that he "shot himself in the head three times with a pistol".

If he was that bad a shot, how did he manage to kill six people?

It seems far more likely that the AR-15 he was carrying (a true assault rifle, unlike those available to ordinary people) was set to '3-shot-burst' and that he shot himself, not with his .40 caliber pistol, but with the AR-15 machinegun the police department issued to him.

And you think we can't be trusted with those things??

07/19/2008

Subject: Guns in homes

I find it disturbing that the Times would publish yet another diatribe from yet another uninformed ideologue. I refer, of course, to "Guns in our homes put children at risk" by Peter Gorski (7/19 Opinion). Even more disturbing is that you positioned it right next to an article on Hubert Humphrey who, were he alive today, would be writing an angry letter to the Times.

Gorski, a pediatrician, tries to make us believe that accidental shootings of children are "all too common". With 300 million firearms in the hands of 80 million gun owners, "all too common" would mean a million dead children each year. Next to that, 5,000 deaths (if that number is actually true) is statistically insignificant. In fact, Gorski here includes "children" up through age 24, many of whom are killed in drug-related turf wars — hardly 'accidents'.

Then Gorski points out that private handguns did not prevent the events of 9/11. Well, duhhh! Anyone who brought a gun to carry on those planes was arrested before they got to the gate. How stupid does Gorski think we are? (Don't answer that.)

Studies that Gorski doesn't cite suggest that private handguns prevent between 400,000 and 2,500,000 violent crimes each year, and almost none of them involved a loud noise — or a newspaper article, or a police report. Gorski is trying to convince us to save those 5,000 "children" but let those 2.5 million violent crimes be completed successfully. Remind me not to take my kids to him for medical care; this doctor doesn't understand 'triage'.

Gorski calls gun prohibition "the one fail-safe solution", ignoring its unintended consequences. What would Hubert Humphrey say? “Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible.” That's what Humprey said.

"Hubert's generation has largely disappeared", David Shribman says in the article next to Gorski's tripe. Indeed.

02/22/2009

Subject: re: Guess which ones carry guns (Opinions, 2/22/09)

Within the week, the (Memphis TN) Commercial Appeal posted a searchable database of all Tennessee concealed handgun licensees on the debatable assumption that the people of Tennessee had a right to know who among them was armed. The law in that state allows news organizations to acquire the complete list, but the C/A's abuse of that 'loophole' is about to result in TN closing off all access. The law here is just the opposite and the Times is upset that they cannot bleat far-and-wide the names, addresses, phone numbers, and birthdates of Florida's armed law abiding citizens because timid Floridians are in such great danger from them.

The canard that everyone else is much less safe because of armed law-abiding citizens (ALCs) is a patent falsehood which would have become as apparent to you as it is to everyone else had you done any research at all on the topic. You would easily have discovered, for instance, that where such records are kept they indicate that ALCs are among the safest of weapons carriers. You could have published that fact rather than the hoplophobic editorial you did publish.

You would have discovered that ALCs are 5.7 times less likely to be arrested for violent acts than is the general public, and that they are 13.5 times less likely to be arrested for anything than is the general public. Note, by the way, that these are arrests, not convictions. Tell me again how dangerous ALCs are?

As for the nonsense that ALCs are less-well-trained than the police, you would have discovered that 11% of police shootings involve the death of an "innocent bystander" but only 2% of ALC shootings. The typical police officer goes to the range when it's time to 'qualify' and shoots (maybe) 100 rounds. Your typical ALC uses thousands (plural) of rounds each year, and I know some who use tens of thousands. Tell me again how much danger Floridians are in?

The people of Florida are at no time safer than when they are sitting next to an ALC, and the more ALCs there are, the less anxious criminals are to ply their trade. Far from whining that you can't tell who's carrying and who isn't, you should be lobbying the legislature to make range time mandatory for all Floridians.

Of course, then crime would plummet and what would you have to write about? I see your dilemma.

11/14/2010

Subject: "Vouchers only for the faithful" (11/14)

Robyn Blumner makes a fairly obvious error when she criticizes "Vouchers only for the faithful" (11/14). She assumes that tax money is the rightful property of the state. Perhaps in some other system of government it is. Our system is founded on the notion that only people have rights. Governments have powers which are granted to them by the people via documents known as 'constitutions'.

In the case at issue, the people of the state of Arizona acting through their legislature made it possible for citizens to specify how much of their taxes will be routed to certain schools not part of the 'public school system'. Given the uniformly ghastly performance of those public schools, it's not difficult to see why Arizonans might be amenable to alternatives.

We have a federal system. Certain tasks are delegated to the federal government. Others are delegated to state governments. For that latter group, we are supposed to have up to 50 potentially unique solutions to common problems, a schema known as 'massively-parallel trial-and-error'. When there are 50 different ways to fund schools (for instance), we would shortly discover that one state was doing it very well, others good but not great, and still others poorly. Over time the poorer models would be discarded for better ones. This is called 'improvement'.

Opinions such as are found in "Vouchers only for the faithful" operate to ensure a static, one-size-fits-all model with no chance for experimentation and no chance for improvement. It begs us to cling to the status quo as if it were the only worthwhile option. It is a call for nationwide stagnation and a school system that will never get any better.

05/18/2011

Subject: Safer streets

Sunday's lead editorial, "Clear path to creating safer streets", contains so many errors of fact it is difficult to know where to begin addressing them. Perhaps the easiest error to dispel is that presented last: "Nine of ten firearms confiscated [in Mexico] came from the United States".

In fact, only a very small portion of the firearms confiscated in Mexico are traced at all. The vast majority of them are modern machine guns and are not available for sale here. A goodly portion of those are M-16s and M-4s which do, in fact, come from the United States, but they originate with Pentagon purchase orders, not a clandestine sale at a gun show. They wind up in the hands of the cartels because Mexican soldiers go AWOL with their government-issued machine gun. Mexico wouldn't bother tracing those; they know where they came from.

So, if twenty percent of seized guns are traced and ninety percent of those originated here, what is the net percentage? Then ask how many of those guns were seized simply because Jose Seis-pack may not have guns at all in Mexico. There, every gun is a crime gun, including those in the hands of the policia.

I highly recommend you do some research. Start at http://gunfacts.info/ . It will help you adhere to your mission statement.

Memories of days in black and white

2011-11-01T13:18:00.001-07:00

Eureka!

Out there on YouTube I found days... no, WEEKS of episodes from "Have Gun, Will Travel" (1957 ff), all well beyond their copyright date.

Just thought you'd like to know...

Le Petit Chateau

2011-08-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a three-week, 3,600 mile road trip: Niagara Falls, Monteal, and Quebec (city). I have to say: if I knew Quebec was going to be that much fun, I would have gone there directly and spent my whole vacation just wandering through its Old World-style streets. Alas, we only had three days.

On the first night, we had cheese fondue at Le Petit Chateau, 5 Rue St-Louis, right next to the Chateau Frontenac. It was so good we went back there the second night just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Nope, the second was as good as the first, and we had chocolate fondue for dessert. The third night in Quebec, we weren't in a fondue mood, so we had crepes en casserole there instead. Unbelievably good.

Given the normally high prices found in Canada and the painful 13% tax on nearly everything, it was a relief to find a restaurant so good that we could ignore the cost. I recommend it unreservedly.

Governments can't manage economies

2011-08-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting conversation a few nights ago with a Canadian waiter who is an economist on the side. He tried to tell me what's wrong with the economy. I felt sure he was missing something important: he thinks governments can manage their economies. There is no evidence to support this position.

The greatest selling point for free-market economics is that government does such a poor job at managing the economy. It does such a poor job that it's fair to say that they simply don't manage it, and since the economy is so important (everyone tells us) the fact they don't manage it must mean that they can't. The free market is left as the only plausible alternative.

The current economic mess is nothing more than an excellent example of what happens when you let demagogues hold the reins of power: they run the system into the ground. The United States is simply one facet on a multifaceted jewel. In Europe, the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are on the verge of toppling because their economies are so flimsy. France's economy is so-so. Germany is the 'last man standing' and is unwilling to auto-da-fe in order to keep the others afloat.

How did we get here? Especially, if you think governments actually can manage economies, you have a lot of explaining to do.

Now, there is the possibility that the free market might do a poorer job than government, although how it might be worse than this, economies world-wide on the verge of cataclysmic depression, is hard to imagine.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve was originally touted as the cure for the instability of the business cycle. Fourteen years after its creation, we had the Crash of '29 followed briskly by a depression that reached around the world. By that time, the 'free market' was a fading memory.

No, there is no credible evidence that governments can manage economies.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Big deal.

2011-05-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

It's all over FaceBook: Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. troops on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Whoop-de-doo! Somebody pass me another beer.

Let's have a quick reality check, shall we? ObL has been a non-issue for nine years, and a non-person for longer than that. The thing we should be happy about is that we now have proof-positive of how it should have been done in October 2001: a small team of highly-trained operatives inserted for a tightly-defined mission. There are mercenaries around the world, Soldiers Of Fortune they call themselves, who do this sort of thing for a living. Had we put a million dollar bounty on Osama's head in September 2001, we would have had that head on display for Christmas. Let that temper your revelry: we've been playing solitaire for ten years because it wouldn't look good in the press if anyone but the Seals/Rangers/Delta Force got credit for the op.

And what's with the 'burial at sea'? Helloooooo!! After all the hullabaloo over Obama's birth certificate, one might think somebody at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would be the least bit concerned about inciting another conspiracy theory.

Unless that was the idea in the first place... The Obama administration is facing a crisis of credibility over something called "Project Gunwalker" (this is Mike Vanderboegh's name for the ATF's catastrophically-failed "Project Gunrunner") because our own government appears to have allowed several thousand firearms to cross the border southbound without bothering to tell the Mexican government; for more detail, hop on over to 'sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com' and check it out.

Maybe the White House thinks a brand-new crackpot conspiracy theory is just the thing to get attention diverted from their own failures in the areas of 'defending the Constitution', 'strengthening relations with long-time international partners', and 'promoting transparency and openness in politics'?

As Mickey Rooney said to Judy Garland on numerous occasions: "That idea is so crazy, it just might work!"

Living in post-Constitutional America

2011-04-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

In light of yesterday's blog on Connick v Thompson, I thought I would link a few previously-made points together in a single post to illustrate how far from 'a free society' we have wandered since the Constitution's keel was laid.

We have these facts in evidence:

The avowed purpose of the writers of the Constitution (hereafter 'C~') was (paraphrased) 'to bind the government in chains'. They wanted a government which could do the tasks it was assigned and unable to do anything else.
As an addendum to this, the (so-called) Bill of Rights adds a wholebuncha 'thou shalt not's starting off with the First Amendment's 'Congress shall make no law...'.
All this happened because the axiom of the American system, the Declaration of Independence, informs us that 'to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men' and furthermore 'all men are created equal'.

Comes now the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) which seems to understand none of this. At least, there is no substantial evidence that they do.

In case after case, they agree, sometimes in overwhelming majority, that, yes, the government may feel you up at the airport without articulable probable cause merely because by your presence there you have waived your right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure; that, yes, the government may listen to your cell phone's emanations because you really can't have any expectation of privacy when speaking aloud in a public place, even from someone who can throw your ass in jail based on what they deliberately overhear; that, yes, the government may infringe your right to keep and bear arms when the government thinks it's a reallyreallyreally good idea to do so; that, yes, the government may take your house and give it to someone else who will pay higher taxes than you; and several dozen other, more egregious things.

Why might SCOTUS have such bizarre opinions, opinions which wind up being the law of the land, every bit as effective as the C~ they purport to implement? They might have these opinions because government always wants to get bigger and more powerful. There never has been one that didn't, so it's fair to suggest ours is not unique. They might have these opinions because SCOTUS is an arm of the government and it could be said 'works for the government'. They might have these opinions because each and every one of them came up through the ranks of government attorneys, having been DAs or AGs or assistants to them. They are the government.

Because of this architectural need of governments to grow larger, there is an adversary relationship between the people and the government. The C~ was supposed to block the government's ability to do bad things by, for instance, limiting Congress' powers to seventeen specific areas. As a further block, the Bill of Rights specifically mentions several areas which the government is forbidden to enter. Yet we have this odd situation: SCOTUS decrees that 'no right is absolute', that government may restrict rights when there is a 'compelling public need'. Suddenly, government has become the arbiter of which rights we have and how far we may exercise them. Those rights we received from God or nature because we are sentient beings have now been redefined as originating from government and thus modifiable by government.

Of those seventeen specific areas in which Congress may operate, one, the 'regulation of interstate commerce', has morphed into something bizarre. Under its current interpretation, Congress appears able to do anything because everything affects I/C in one way or another. We thus have a list of tasks for Congress to handle consisting of sixteen specific areas plus one other which is 'and anything else'.

The thirteenth amendment outlawed slavery — kinda. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States..." except that in time of war the government may force you to give up several years of your life, and possibly the entirety of that life, by drafting you into the military and sending you into combat. The thirteenth amendment is the first amendment which applies not to the government, but to you, the citizen. You may not have a slave, but your government may.

People ask why I believe we are living in 'post-Constitutional America'. The answer is that the C~ we have now does nothing it is supposed to do and everything it isn't supposed to do. We have become a police state and almost everyone thinks that's the way it is supposed to be: the land of the fee and the home of the slave.

We are where we are because of a concerted bi-partisan effort on the part of Republicans and Democrats to put us there. If you think we shouldn't be here, if you think we should be somewhere else, there is but one solution:

Stop voting for Republicans and Democrats. Get all your friends, relatives, and acquaintances to understand what Barry Goldwater used to say: "A government big enough to give you everything you want must also be big enough to take away everything you've got."

If you vote for Republicans or Democrats you are voting for ever-bigger government and you are part of the problem. Be part of the solution.

Tipping Point

2011-04-06T10:10:00.001-07:00

Allow me to make a quick plug for my newly-published novel, Tipping Point. This is a tale of the next U.S. Civil War and so far all of the reviews have been of the "couldn't put it down" sort. I'm really pleased with that. Every new author goes through a period of self-doubt: did I just write a pile of crap? Is anybody going to want to read this?

I'm feeling much better, now, thank you. I'm gradually warming to the idea that I might actually have some talent for spinning a compelling yarn.

If you're inclined, please click that link above and get a short synopsis of the plot along with a sample of the story. Then, if you like what you see, there's a further link there that will take you over to the Author House website where you can buy your very own copy. That would make me feel even better than I do already.

Clarence Thomas Stumbles

2011-04-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Slate.com is complaining about a recent decision by SCOTUS written by Clarence Thomas and labeling it "one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever". Well, yes, it probably is, but that's not Clarence Thomas' fault. For one thing, the Chief Justice assigns the writing of opinions based on whim, more than anything else. For another, all SCOTUS judges are bound by a concept called stare decisis, and can breach it only under the oddest of circumstances.

SLATE has found one set of such circumstances.

The key to the problem is another concept, prosecutorial immunity. By this is meant that a DA cannot be held responsible when an injustice happens, e.g.: the wrong guy gets convicted. There are obvious exceptions, such as when a prosecutor deliberately sandbags an innocent victim. Being an incompetent prosecutor, however, is not a crime, so prosecutors can always put on their 'stupid' face and walk away from their misdeeds. This is what happened in Connick v Thompson and SCOTUS largely has their hands tied.

That's the problem. Prosecutors are not idiots, but they play one when they're in front of a disciplinary board of the Bar Association, and they almost always walk away unscathed. The DUKE LaCrosse team case is an obvious exception. There, the players were able to prove that the prosecutor targeted them for political purposes. That prosecutor now sells burgers for the McDonald's Corporation.

Would you like to prevent future decisions like Connick v Thompson? Silly question. Yes, we'd all like to avoid the indignity of having our noses rubbed in our dysfunctional (soi-disant) 'justice' system. The solution suggests itself. 'Prosecutorial immunity' is a flawed concept whose time has come and gone, and it's time for 'prosecutorial immunity' to go away as well. When a DA or an AG withholds exculpatory evidence, even if there is no suspicion of wrong-doing, that prosecutor needs to have their license lifted, to be disbarred. Forever. In fifty states.

Too severe, you say? How about 'executing the wrong guy'? How about 'eighteen years in federal slam for somebody else's crime'? No, it's not too severe. In fact, it's the only way to make sure that prosecutors make 'justice' their first priority. Absent this incentive, a prosecutor's first priority will be 'get the conviction'. It's their ticket out of the DA's office. God alone knows how many innocent people went to prison so that Rudy Giuliani could become America's Mayor.

Clarence Thomas clearly stumbled nonetheless. After correctly interpreting the 14th amendment in the famous McDonald v Chicago, he can't claim ignorance. Here was the perfect opportunity to point out that the 14th amendment guarantees 'equal protection under the law'. Giving prosecutors a pass because they're prosecutors grants special privileges to one class at the expense of another. Thomas should have struck down all laws offering prosecutorial immunity as repugnant to the 14th amendment's guarantee of equal protection (or at least offered that as his excuse for upholding the lower court's decision).

Security Theater

2011-04-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

I've given up flying.

It's nothing to do with false modesty. It's simply that I refuse to put up with security measures that do nothing to improve my odds of getting to my destination and which simultaneously violate both the Constitution and rules of common decency while putting me at an unacceptable health risk. Don't even get me started on 'the presumption of guilty until proven innocent'.

I mean, really, if I were a suicide bomber intent on causing chaos, do you think I'd try to blow up a plane? Puh-leeze! After 9-11, there cannot be found anywhere under any circumstances an airplane full of people who will meekly stand by while someone tries to light their shoe or who will do anything but laugh at a hijacker with a Swiss Army knife. Think about it. Somebody announces they're taking over the airplane. Even if they have a pistol, how much ammunition can they have ready-at-hand? 30-some-odd shots? and while they're shooting at First Class, somebody in Coach is going to sucker-punch them into next Tuesday because everybody on board understands that they're all dead anyway if the terrorist gets hir way.

The terrorists understand that, too. They know they might kill a dozen or so before they're brought down, and their chances of seeing an airport during their remaining lifetime is approximately zero, or close enough for government work.

No. A terrorist intent on causing chaos buys a ticket on any flight and heads for the TSA checkpoint. There the terrorist blows hirself up, killing 80, 100, maybe 200 waiting would-be-passengers, all the TSA agents, all the screening equipment, and turning the entire departure area into a crime scene. Got it? That terminal will not be used for arrivals or departures until the police forensics boys and girls are done collecting evidence, and there will be a lot of evidence to collect.

And all of this happened before the first TSA agent said "Please step forward into the scanner area."

Net result: one dead terrorist, same as in the hijack-this-plane scenario above; dozens or hundreds of victims including a whole bunch of TSA grunts, lots more victims than the hijack-this-plane scenario above; no planes destroyed, but an entire terminal (in some cases, that will be the whole airport) shut down for the indefinite future.

You'll stop worrying about getting on an airplane. You'll worry about going to the airport.

Hijack an airplane? What? Do you think those terrorists are stupid? They may be crazy, but they are not stupid. They may be religious nutballs, but they are not stupid. They may be amoral killers, but they are not stupid.

TSA? They're stupid.

Think

2010-10-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

"DENKE"

"PENSEZ"

"THINK"

Back in the good old days (or you may think of them as "the bad old days") when IBM Ruled The Earth and dinosaurs were cooled with chilled ammonia, it was possible for an IBM employee to order (free of charge) from the Great Parts Depot in Mechanicsburg, PA, a desk sign proclaiming "THINK", and you could get them in almost every language known to man and in any of the four primary IBM colors: blue, mustard, black, and carmine.

Those of us in IT (Information Technology) used to have a mantra: "Machines should work; people should think." We tried desperately then to do the required thinking so that our machines could do the required working, and I think (!) that we were largely successful. I don't know who originated the tenet, but it was clear to all of us then that it was divinely ordained truth. "Machines should work; people should think."

This evening while walking Riqui The Wonder Dog it occurred to me that there is more truth contained in that mantra than anyone may ever have realized. In The World To Come machines will do more of the 'working' culminating in a time when machines do everything that constitutes 'work'. What will be left for us, the living, is everything else: thinking.

If we are not training our children to think, we are training them to be unemployed.

The Codex Magniloquens

2010-09-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

When I worked for IBM way back in 19mumble I spent my free time (such as it was) following an internal IBM online discussion group called WORDS FORUM hosted on the many networked mainframes IBM owned worldwide. Its denizens were among IBM's most gifted 'wordies'.

One of the many delightful products of WORDS FORUM was The Codex Magniloquens, a series of quatrains each restating a familiar proverb or witticism. The Codex is preserved elsewhere on the web, but I want to have my own copy, so I am replicating it here for your enjoyment (and mine).

To see the 'translation', highlight the entire quatrain. The explanation is white-on-white next to the first few lines and becomes visible when highlighted.

The Codex Magniloquens:

A lithoid form whose onward course "A rolling stone gathers no moss."
Is shaped by gravitational force
Can scarce enjoy the consolation
Of bryophytic aggregation.
Of little value, his compunctions, "It's no use locking the stable door
Who arrogates clavigerous functions, after the horse has bolted."
When once from circumscribing pen
Is fled its equine denizen.
What keeps the avian species warm? "Fine feathers make fine birds."
It's decorations pinniform!
When these impress, their owners' pride
Is comparably fortified.
For none who claims to represent "Time and tide wait for no man."
The Homo species sapient
Will loiter Einstein's fourth dimension
Or sea's quotidian declension.
Conducting to a watering-place "You can lead a horse to water,
A quadruped of equine race but you can't make it drink."
Is simple, but he may not care
To practise imbibition there.
That unit of the avian tribe, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
Whose movements one can circumscribe
"In manu", as a pair will rate,
Subarboreally situate.
Faced with material esculent "Too many cooks spoil the broth."
As source of liquid nourishment,
Avoid excess, 'twill but displease,
Of culinary expertise.
Observed the coroner: "Perpend, "Curiosity killed the cat."
"The death of this, our feline friend,
"Reflects preoccupation shown
"With business other than his own."
To carry haulm of cereal growth "It's the last straw
The tylopod is nothing loath. that breaks the camel's back."
But just one haulm too many means
That dorsal fracture supervenes.
When, nimbus-free, Sol marches by "Make hay while the sun shines."
The circumambient sky,
To graminiferous meads repair -
Your instant task awaits you there!
What's purveyed by the bakery, "You can't eat your cake and have it."
And oft partaken of at tea,
Is some temptation to ingest,
But cannot then be repossessed.
The first arrival hirundine "One swallow doesn't make a summer."
Should not be taken as a sign
That it is time to aestivate.
Hang on until you get a spate.
To offer cranial inclination "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."
Serves as well as nictitation
If equine quadruped intent
Is ocularly impotent.
Observe the avifaunal nations "Birds of a feather flock together."
Eschewing random aggregations,
Respecting taxonomic border
Arrange themselves in Wetmore order
The topologic reconnection "A stitch in time saves nine."
Of fabricated garb in section
Is efficacious for preventing
An ennead of like cementing
The gallon's aliquot divisions "You can't get a quart into a pint pot."
By eight and four have no provisions
To compass in the former's hulk
The liquid of the latter's bulk
Rhetoric art quite fails to turn "Fine words butter no parsnips."
The lactic oils within the churn
And (though its hearers stand amazed)
Leaves pastinaceous roots unglazed.
The felon who purloins the hart "Poachers make the best gamekeepers."
Reserved for mighty Nimrod's dart
Will, in exchange for coin or kind,
With utmost skill preserve the hind.
Omitted from one's cerebration "Out of sight, out of mind."
Midst periods of isolation--
Forsooth one ne'er doth ideate
One's amative consociate!
No matter how he pelf acquires-- "A fool and his money are soon parted."
Through moil or braving Satan's fires,
Delict or battle uncontested--
Erelong an ament is divested.
However bleak the sight may be "Every cloud has a silver lining."
Of nimbused tenebrosity
Remember that each vapour floating
Has within an argent coating.
The pond in some deserted mead "Still waters run deep."
Is home of bedstead, boot and weed.
Quiescent surface does not show
The range of hypogeal flow.
She who attends the bain-marie "A watched pot never boils."
With diligent expectancy
Will quit this sphere from inanition
Before it reaches ebullition.
To Hymen's altar ne'er proceed "Marry in haste, repent at leisure."
With rash and unconsidered speed;
For swift espousals oft beget
Protracted eons of regret.
By Tiber's side what's social law "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
Would much offend in Arkansas.
The wisest custom's to conform,
In manners, to the local norm.
The whiskered Nimrod now departs. "When the cat's away the mice will play."
Roll out the cheese! Lift up your hearts!
The murine nation's on a spree:
Ailurophobic revelry.
See Cavall, Gelert, and the rest "Let sleeping dogs lie."
Whose dormant state is manifest.
Ignore their cynophonic snores;
Do not alert these carnivores.
Careful observation shows "Blood is thicker than water."
That, when resisting viscous flows,
The living fluid in the veins
Beats that which gathers when it rains.
The bony herald does not spell "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
For martial veterans their knell;
Translucently their fate is that
They emulate the Cheshire Cat.
When glazing's used for every tile "People who live in glass houses
And panel in a domicile, shouldn't throw stones."
We warn the dwellers in these modules
Against projecting petrous nodules.
A rule regarding cock and hen "Don't count your chickens
Learned by successful husbandmen: before they're hatched."
Do not commence enumerating
Ere they have finished incubating.
Those of the fairer sex will find "Men don't make passes
Advances from the other kind at girls who wear glasses."
Will not come forth in their direction
Adorned with ocular correction
A porcine choral education "Don't try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes
Is not a worthwhile occupation. your time and it annoys the pig."
You won't account it time well used,
And hog or sow will feel abused.
The power over the demesne "In the kingdom of the blind,
Whose lords and serfs have never seen the one-eyed man is king."
(Though you may think it jocular)
Is held by him monocular
In the set with every human being "There are none so blind
Arranged by faculty of seeing as those who will not see."
The minimal elements are those
Who purposely their eyes do close.
Among the threefold classification "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Of methods of prevarication
Are falsehoods simple and accursed
And those with means and graphs--the worst.
The set of meals served at midday "There's no such thing as a free lunch."
Whose cost is such that none need pay,
Though many advertise it, still,
Its cardinality is nil.
If wistful thinking wanders on "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
To Suffolk Punch or Percheron
No mendicant shows hesitation
In espousing equitation.
A Yorkish gate, or ginnel, can "It's a long lane that has no turning."
Have finite length Euclidian,
Yet seem to fail to terminate
If pathologically straight.
Corporeal punishment "It's no use flogging a dead horse."
With dermal lesions evident
Is inappropriate if linked
To eohippus that's extinct.
Who emulates the bird well fed "Early to bed and early to rise,
And hesitates him not to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
Will find a positive correlation
With vigor, purse, and penetration.
On queen or twin when they recline "?"
The span from base to topmost line
Of one potentially a mother
Equates to that of any other.
Comparing levels of attainment "Blondes have more fun"
Of merriment or entertainment
You'll find the ones with golden braids
Outstrip those sporting sombrous shades.
Forbearance or but frugal use "Spare the rod and spoil the child"
Of friendly bar may well induce
A tendency to spoliate
In persons of more recent date.
Who emulates the great god Pan "Who pays the piper calls the tune"
If recompensed by mortal man
Shall airs and dances play for him
Pursuant to requester's whim.
Saltation of a sudden kind "Look before you leap"
Is contraindicated: Mind
Through observation circumspect
The end is the desired effect.
A holder that is content-free "Empty vessels make the most noise"
Or ship abandoned, all at sea,
In quantity of decibels
All other sources clear excels.
Of verbiage a minimum "Least said, soonest mended"
And best of all a zero sum
Is guaranteed to be the fix
In the smallest count of ticks.
Accusing sable epithet "The pot calling the kettle black"
Labeling as but purest jet
The darkest of all vessels cries
Ignoring beams in its own eyes.
A great expenditure of force "?"
Or huge amount of power of horse
On these success does not depend
The soft approach achieves the end.
At least one object does exist "All that glitters is not gold."
That is with auric splendor kissed
But, notwithstanding golden shine,
Disappoints the ones who'd mine.
Minimize each period's sum "No news is good news (?)"
Of verbal entities, and come
To pleasant circumstances where
Brief time's devoted to repair.

Numbers 1 to 10 by Hubert Phillips, 1943 Numbers 11 and 12 by Hugh Darwen, 1987 Number 13 by Geoff Butler, 1988 Numbers 14 to 18 by John Bennett, 1988 Numbers 19 and 20 by Paul Cohen, 1988 Numbers 21 and 22 by Christine Wood, 1990 Numbers 23 to 26 by Amy Varin, 1990-91 Numbers 27 to 30 by John Bennett, 1991-92 Numbers 31 to 37 by Evan Kirschenbaum, 2000 Numbers 38 to 40 by Geoff Butler, 2000 Numbers 41 to 43 by Evan Kirschenbaum, 2000 Numbers 44 to 51 by Chris Date 2002 Number 52 by Jerry Friedman 2004

As you can see, some of these do not come with explanations (those with "?" as the translation). If for one of these you know the answer, please drop me a line or add a comment.

Polluting the Landscape... or not

2010-09-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

The IKEA store in Tampa wants to put up a bigger sign.

I'm reminded of a story about Kingwood, Texas, from my days as a resident there. Herewith...

Kingwood is/was (according to Better Homes & Gardens) 'the best planned community in the world... period'. That's quite a reputation to live up to, and the boys and girls who 'ran' Kingwood did the best they could.

There was a plot of land on Kingwood Drive set aside for 'convenience/fast food' and Friendswood Development contacted the McDonald's Corporation to see if they were interested. They were, so Friendswood asked for a scale model/architect's view of the structure to occupy the northwest corner of (if I recall correctly) Kingwood Drive and Chestnut Ridge Road. A few weeks later the McDonald's crew were back with a scale model with little cars parked in the parking lot and people placed as if they were heading for the nearest BigMac.

"What's this?" a Friendswood minion asked pointing to a slender shaft sporting a golden "M" rising from the model.

"That's a 150 foot steel shaft so that folks driving by on US-59 will know there's a McDonald's here!" he was told.

"In Kingwood, nothing protrudes above the (tree) canopy," the McDonald's guy was told.

"Oh, but we have to have our logo visible from the highway!" they protested. When they were told 'no exceptions', they packed up their stuff.

"Let us know when you change your mind," the McDonald's guys told the Friendswood people.

So Friendswood contacted Burger King. "How about this nice plot at Kingwood and Chestnut Ridge?"

A few weeks later, Burger King showed up with a scale model showing little cars parked in the parking lot and people placed as if they were heading for the nearest Whopper.

"Why is this sign so bright?" a Friendswood rep asked.

"It's illuminated," the BK architect informed him, smiling.

"We don't do 'illuminated signs' in Kingwood," he was told.

The BK architect pulled a pair of wire snips from his back pocket, reached under the model, found the wires leading to the illuminated sign, and 'snip'. "No problem," he said. Two months later, there was a Burger King on that spot.

The first week that BK was in operation, I happened upon the manager while he was screaming into his phone at his regional manager, flecks of foam spewing from the corners of his mouth, demanding they resupply his store for the third time that week because they were out of everything. Again.

McDonald's eventually got a site in Kingwood up on Northpark Drive, but it was a second choice and they learned their lesson: Kingwood was a joint venture of EXXON and the King Ranch (which owns 2/10^ths of one percent of all the land in Texas); you just don't try to impose your will on a conglomerate that size.

So... what's wrong with Tampa?

Justice Elena Kagan

2010-08-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, Elena Kagan has been confirmed to be the 112^th Justice of the Supreme Court. This is a good opportunity to 'take inventory'. We start with short bios of each of the current justices:

John Roberts, Chief Justice: received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979. From 1979 until 1981 he clerked for a series of judges at various levels; in 1981 he moved over to the DOJ, then the White House Counsel's office until 1986, when he practiced law in DC for three years. In 1989 he went back to the DOJ until 1993, and then was in private practice until 2003 when he was appointed to the Court of Appeals for DC. In 2005, G.W.Bush nominated him as Chief Justice, and he took his seat September 29, 2005.

Antonin Scalia: received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School around 1960 and taught there until 1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio from 1961–1967, and taught law at U Virginia from 1967–1971. He served the federal government in various law-related positions from 1971–1977. He taught law at U Chicago from 1977–1982 and served on the American Bar Association 1981–1983. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat September 26, 1986.

Anthony M. Kennedy: received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School probably around 1960. He was in private practice in California from 1961–1975. In 1975, he was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. From 1965 to 1988, he was also a Professor of Constitutional Law at the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat February 18, 1988.

Clarence Thomas: received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri from 1974–1977, an attorney with the Monsanto Company from 1977–1979, and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth from 1979–1981. From 1981–1982, he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1982–1990. He became a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1990. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat October 23, 1991.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School probably around 1959. She served as a law clerk from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she held administrative positions at Columbia U., taught law at Rutgers from 1963–1972, and at Columbia from 1972–1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat August 10, 1993.

Stephen G. Breyer: received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School probably around 1964. He served as a law clerk during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, Harvard Law School, 1967–1994. During his tenure at Harvard, he was also Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, Special Counsel ofthe U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994.

Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr.: his official SCOTUS biography does not give any information about his credentials, not that this should disqualify him, but his career seems to start around 1976 so it's logical to suppose his law degree also dates from 1976. He served as a law clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1976–1977. He was Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1977–1981, Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981–1985, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985–1987, and U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1987–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990. President George W. Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat January 31, 2006.

Sonia Sotomayor: earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979 and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.

There is not yet an official bio for Elena Kagan, but we do know something about her career so far, and it's fair to speculate that her bio, when it's posted, will look a lot like what's already here.

Assuming you had the stamina to wade through all of this, it's time to test you on your comprehension. The eight justices profiled here have careers which total 221 years of experience -- prior to their becoming Supreme Court Justices. Lots of it is in 'academia' (about 76 years worth, much of it teaching), and some of it counts as 'private practice' (about 43 years) and some of that overlaps because these guys and gals are Hermione Granger-ish over-achievers and often held more than one job. The bulk of their experience, however, is time spent working at government jobs: mostly judgeships, with the occasional AG, AAG, DA, or ADA position thrown in; almost all of them were also 'law clerks' for prominent judges.

Which job in the 'justice system' do none of them have any experience with?

Defense attorney.

Every one of these Justices of the United States Supreme Court have prosecuted persons as part of their job as an [Assistant] Attorney for the Whatever of Wheresoever, but none of them have ever defended a person against a criminal charge.

Not one.

Ever.

And Elena Kagan won't break the mold.

Isn't it about time we had someone on the Supreme Court who has some experience defending us?

Summer House Cafe, 2605 Washington, Erie, PA

2010-06-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

I found a reason to get off the Interstate in Erie (other than that Jessica lives there).

If Erie has a bright central spot, it's located at the corner of Washington and W.26th Street.

The Summer House Cafe serves breakfast and lunch every day, and dinner on weekends. In marked contrast to far too many restaurants, the food arrives at your table hot and not unreasonably delayed. You won't mind the prices, either, and the menu is varied enough that even I found several dishes to enjoy (and you know how hard-to-please I am...). Along with the traditional a-whole-week's-cholesterol-in-a-single-meal fare, there are several dishes that are not merely healthy, but tasty as well. Order the hot chocolate. I won't say it arrives in a 55-gallon drum, but it's close; you'll be impressed.

Chef Jack Eaker tweaks the recipes every so often trying to improve individual dishes. He's already got a winning formula. If he makes it much better, Perkins' can pack their bags.

We (almost literally) stumbled across this place on Monday in time for breakfast, then went back Thursday for lunch, and Friday for breakfast again. It's that good.

OMG!!! You're driving so FAST!!!

2010-06-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

We're in Pennsylvania helping Jessica move into her new apartment, and as usual, I have (a) complaint(s) about Pennsylvania and Erie, her new hometown.

Pennsylvania seems not to have gotten the memo that the National Maximum Speed Limit (you know... '55 Saves Lives') has been repealed... in 1995. Pennsylvania's Interstate highways are still posted with the old double-nickels.

If you check the Internet for statistics relating speed to highway fatalities, all you get are opinions -- no hard facts, just "we feel strongly that...". Nobody wants to tell you what happened in Montana when NMSL was repealed.

When Congress finally faced the reality that NMSL was widely ignored (despite a change in 1987 allowing '65' in rural sections), they repealed it in 1995. Montana immediately (April 1) went to no numerical speed limit for their interstates. Their rule was "reasonable and prudent".

In the first nine months of R&P, Montana 'suffered' a 28% decline in highway fatalities. You're shocked; I can see it on your faces. "You mean I can do 150 and I'm safer than at 55????" Not precisely. At 150, if you have an accident, it will be memorable to everyone not involved; you'll be dead as a doornail. It's just that under R&P, accidents happen less frequently. Can you guess why?

There are two primary reasons:

With no speed limit per se, you won't have some fossil out there in the left lane 'doing the limit' and feeling justified about being a law-abiding citizen. With no limit, such drivers are forced to the realization that headlights behind them means they are 'slower traffic' and they move to the right lane and stay there. The technical term for this behavior is 'lane discipline'. It is the primary feature of the safest roads in the world. It's the reason the German Autobahn has such an enviable safety record.

The second reason was 'leaked' to me by a cousin who is a minion of justice on Long Island: '55' is fast enough to kill you, but slow enough to make you think you're safe. People who shouldn't be on the road at all then go driving at this safe speed and leave tragedy in their wake. In Florida we see this all the time: some Q-Tip driving the limit (or under) in the left lane (often with their left-turn signal blinking) because four miles ahead they have to turn left. Their erratic driving style can cause accidents that they simply drive away from. With no real speed limit traffic becomes, to the eyes of these 'road hazards', chaos and they abandon the high-speed roads to drivers who can actually drive. Incautious drivers who overrate their own ability to drive soon become 'Darwin Award winners'. What remains are cautious drivers with adequate skills, and you have an American Autobahn.

Postlude to Montana: under severe criticism from many quarters, not the least of which were localities whose speeding-ticket revenues went to zero, and insurance companies (fronted by their lobbying group, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety -- IIHS) who therefore had little or no reason to arbitrarily raise rates on individual drivers, the Montana legislature a few years later repealed R&P and set a fixed numerical speed limit. Montana's highway fatality rates obediently rose to near-historic levels.

It is widely recognized in medicine that 'quack remedies', even if they themselves are 'harmless', actually cause harm because they displace remedies which work. The same is true of 'quack legislation'. When we let organizations such as IIHS lobby legislatures for laws which benefit their constituents (in this case, the 80 insurance companies which fund its operations) we are the ones who suffer.

* * * * * * * * *

Beautiful Downtown Erie PA: Norene and I had occasion to go looking for an ATM that wouldn't charge us an arm-and-a-leg to make a withdrawal and so found ourselves driving north on State Street in Erie into the heart of deepest downtown. While stopped for a red light, I noticed that the next light was green, the next red, the next green, and so on. Because of the way the lights cycled, we stopped at every cross street all the way to our destination. It sure guarantees you won't speed through downtown, but it also guarantees that no one will actually want to go there, either. It has certainly cured both of us of any desire to see any part of Erie that can't be viewed from the interstate at the legal maximum speed as we flee the control freaks of PA.

Why 'Strict Constructionism'?

2010-05-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

The recent candidacy of Ron Paul struck a chord with many Americans largely because of Dr Paul's strict adherence to Constitutional principles. He is known in the House of Representatives as 'Dr No' because his is often the one 'nay' vote when all others vote 'yea'. This was the case when the USA PATRIOT ACT came before the House. He is the only Representative to have voted against it. With hindsight, many have discovered what it was he found so objectionable.

So perhaps it's time, at last, to ask why following the Constitution strictly is so all-fired important.

Background – How Legislation Happens
In 1994 Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took control of Congress launching their 'Contract With America', promising to reduce the size of government, lessen the impact of regulations, and generally to make government more responsive to the needs of the people. Of the 10 clauses in their Contract With America, ten promises they made in exchange for our votes, they managed to deliver two. I don't want to discuss whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, but I want to use it as a lesson in legislating and the impact of the Constitution.
If we read the Constitution 'for comprehension' we get an unusual education. We come away from it with the notion that it's (supposed to be) very difficult to get legislation passed. First, you need majorities in both houses, and then you need the approval of the Executive. If the Executive disapproves (vetoes the bill) it takes 2/3^rds of both houses to override the veto. That's a lot.
It's very much simpler to prevent things from happening, and it's clear that's what the Framers intended. To prevent things from happening you only need a majority in one house. If the Executive agrees that something ought not happen, you only need 1/3^rd control of one house to sustain the veto. Like jiu-jitsu, it takes less than half the effort to halt the process as it does to push it forward. This is not an accident, and it's in large measure why the Contract With America was a failure.
When the Senate was appointed by the state legislatures, there were three clearly distinct factions, and getting legislation passed required substantial agreement among all of them or the overwhelming agreement of two. The intent of the Framers was that only laws which were both good for the people and good for the states would ever see daylight.
In 2006 the Democrats swept into power in mid-term elections largely on their promise to end the War in Iraq. Once in power, however, they had a long series of excuses as to why they couldn't manage it. As we have seen above, all of that is bogus, because to stop a war you merely have to cut funding. That is, you need to prevent an appropriation bill going forward. The Democrats had slim majorities in both houses of Congress and yet couldn't manage to stop the minority Republicans ramming through a supplemental appropriation adequate to continue the war.
The American people, largely unaware of what's in the Constitution, gritted their teeth and muttered "Curses ! Foiled again !" (Oh, did I mis-spell 'fooled'?)
Why there are so many laws
You don't have to be in Mensa to figure out that something has gone seriously wrong with that plan. We now have laws that are clearly no good for the states, and laws that are clearly no good for the people. 'NAFTA' jumps to mind as a single example that fits both: it imposes draconian restrictions on the states' ability to police their own territory and this in turn causes increased danger for motorists confronted by unsafe vehicles on their highways. It's good primarily for corporations and it's a continuation of America's long tradition of mercantilism – government action on behalf of 'big business'.
'Federalism' is the system in which power is divided between a central government and multiple states (in our case). The idea is that the central government has the ability to limit actions by the states and the states have the ability to limit actions by the central government due to each having powers in different arenas. Few Americans today understand this concept and consequently develop what the Framers would have considered 'bizarre' notions of the relationship between the states and the central government. Many people today assume that any law passed by Congress and signed by the President binds the states absolutely. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The problem is 'bi-partisanship'. That is the doctrine that 'laws are OK if almost everybody agrees they're OK'.
Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution disagrees. It says (among other things):
"Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To ...

...legislate in seventeen fairly specific areas,

And ...

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
The plain wording of the Constitution says 'just these things and no others'. Not including a Department of Labor. Not including a Department of Energy. Not including a Department of Education. Not including a Department of Housing and Urban Development. Not including the FBI, or the CIA, or the ATF, or the FDA, or the FCC, and not including a host of other alphabet-soup agencies.
'But... but... but...' I can hear you protesting, 'no FAA ?? Do you want planes crashing in mid-air ??'. Well, no, and I suspect few people do, but if you think you need an FAA there's a method enshrined within the Constitution itself for fixing that; it's called 'the amendment process'. We have an FAA today without there being an amendment to legalize it because the American people looked at the problem and said "That sounds like a good idea; I won't object." We have a Federal Reserve System for the same reason. We have a Department of Education for the same reason. We have a myriad of departments and agencies for the same reason.
And none of them are legal, because Congress never had the authority to create them.
Instead, we were supposed to have 50 potentially-different solutions being tried more-or-less simultaneously, a technique known as 'massively-parallel trial-and-error'. In such an environment we would pretty soon understand that the Wisconsin Plan for Educational Improvement is a winner and the other 49 are something less, and that the Vermont Approach to Crime Reduction is the method we want to switch to next legislative session. That's federalism.
What we have, alas, is a one-size-fits-all solution mandated by the central government upon the states, none of whom any longer have the will to resist given that most of their citizens think that's the way the system works. In fact, it's the way the system is broken because it turns out that one size does not fit all.
In the rare case that a state actually challenges a federal law in federal court (does that sound like a stacked deck?) the federal court judges almost invariably side with the ones who pay the bill. They dance with the one 'at brung 'em. In the 2005 Raich v Gonzales, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to comment on the absolute absence of federal authority to deal with drugs of any sort and declined to do so.
Beyond that, there are those pesky amendments 1 through 10, known as The Bill of Rights. That is, in my opinion, a horrible name for them. It gives people the impression that those amendments grant us some rights. That's not even approximately true. Those amendments are all, each and every one of them, restrictions on the powers of the central government. "Congress shall make no law..."; "...shall not be infringed..."; "No soldier shall..."; "...no warrants shall issue..."; "No person shall be held..."; "Excessive bail shall not be required..."; "...shall not be construed...". The ones which come closest to actually granting something are #6: "...the accused shall enjoy...", #7: "...the right ... shall be preserved...", and #10: "...reserved to the States...". The clear and unmistakeable conclusion from their language is that these are all rights which existed before there was a Bill of Rights and before there was a Constitution and which, presumably, will still be with us after there is no longer a Constitution.
It is, nevertheless, clear that we are now living in post-Constitutional America, and we did it to ourselves. We continually vote for the politician who promises to do the most (and to bring home the most loot). We never seem to question the assumption that the function of Congress is to pass more laws. In fact, we encourage politicians to pass more laws; we insist on bi-partisanship; we insist that our Congressfolk must be 'team players' so that they can get more done.
The result, among other things, is a tax code which, when printed, occupies eight feet of shelf space. No one has ever read the entire thing, not even the so-called experts at IRS. No one knows what it says. No one understands it, and no one can follow its labyrinthine ways, and everyone, even the Commissioner of the IRS, has violated some of its many conflicting provisions. We are all criminals, and we volunteered for it.
Why you should care
The Declaration of Independence tells us why governments exist: we are "...endowed ... with certain unalienable rights; ... that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...". Everybody got that? Government exists to secure your rights. It goes further. It says that when the government is not doing that, we have "...the right ... to alter or abolish it...". That's pretty revolutionary talk.
The Constitution elaborates on this, especially in Article One, Section Eight that I mentioned earlier. Congress is there given certain powers and the presumption is that Congress will use those powers to fulfill the proper function of government, that is: securing the rights of we, the people.
That's not happening. Every day Congress passes another law that violates that principle. They've even passed laws (like the USA PATRIOT ACT) which violate our rights wholesale, and people shrug it off as if that's the way things ought to be.
But we know, deep down, that something is wrong. The government acts as if we, the people, exist to fulfill the needs of government. When we open our eyes and read our own history we have no trouble understanding that, to the contrary, government exists to fulfill our needs.
So... how did we get here? And where, exactly, is 'here'?
'Here' is post-Constitutional America. President George W Bush is reported to have snapped at one of his aides who warned him of a potentially-unConstitutional act: "Don't keep throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a god-damned piece of paper." There was a suitably-short period of outrage among those who think the Constitution is not, in fact, "just a god-damned piece of paper". Since they were in the minority, their outrage never amounted to much in a country which is now, de facto if not de jure, a democracy; where the bulk of the populace thinks the Bill of Rights can be repealed by a popular vote.
We're here because we've stopped understanding the Constitution. We don't understand it because it's not much taught in the schools these days, and that's at least understandable. Jefferson warned us: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Part of that education must be to know whence we came and whither we go. We cannot rely on schools which are run by the government to teach our children that the government is the servant. We might as well expect Catholic schools to teach their students that the Pope is just as fallible as anyone else. Fuhgeddaboudit.
Instead, we must educate ourselves about what the Constitution says, and even more importantly, what it doesn't say. And we have to teach others. Whenever someone says "There oughta be a law !" we should ask ourselves whether, in fact, there really ought to be a law and what it will cost us, not simply in money, but in personal liberty, if there is such a law. And maybe we should stand up and say, in reply, no, there oughtn't be a law.
Lyndon Johnson famously said: "You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." That's something we need to keep constantly in mind. And we need to make sure nobody else forgets, either.
What you can do about it
September 17th is 'Constitution Day'. It commemorates the day in 1787 when 39 convention delegates affixed their signatures to the Constitution. Exiting the building, Benjamin Franklin was accosted by a woman who demanded: "Dr Franklin, what sort of government have you given us?" Franklin responded: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
What can we do to keep it?
Most of us limit our 'public politics' to writing letters to the editor, and that's a great way to raise awareness of this magnificent document among our communities. So, first, speak up.
I won't suggest volunteering to address an American History class at your local school, since most of us who don't have stage fright might still feel some trepidation about taking on a subject as vast as The Constitution. We do, however, have to put ourselves in the position of being able to do that if we're to be effective spokesfolk for our way of life. So, second, educate yourself. Read the Constitution 'for comprehension'. Learn what our government should be doing, and what's it's doing that it shouldn't be doing. And complain. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Third, and most importantly, hold your legislators' feet to the fire. Don't ask them "what are you going to do in Washington?" Ask them "what unconstitutional laws are you going to work to get repealed if we send you?" All day long our legislators hear "Gimme, gimme, gimme". It's only natural for them to concentrate on the actions so many of their constitutents demand. We have to change that if we're going to keep our republic and our Constitution.
Appendix A
I spoke earlier about the FAA and that it has no Constitutional cachet.
Years ago I approached an official of the Libertarian Party and challenged him: "OK, the FAA is unconstitutional, but isn't this something the government has to do to keep planes from falling out of the air?"
He paused a moment to formulate an answer and then asked in return: "If the President went on TV tonight and announced that at the end of the month/year/fiscal year/whatever the FAA would cease to exist, what would happen?"
I must have had a dumb-founded look on my face, so he continued:
"At 9am on the following Monday morning, the CEOs of Continental, United, Delta, USAir, Southwest, and several other carriers would all be in the same conference room to discuss what they were going to do without a government-run FAA. And within the week they would announce the formation of 'FAA, Inc', and every Air Traffic Controller from Bangor to San Diego would have received a job offer with the new company, because Delta doesn't want their airplanes colliding with United's airplanes any more than you do."
The point he wanted to make was that services, if they're something valuable, will be provided by the free market. How do you know if they're 'valuable'? If people are willing to pay for the service, they're valuable, and someone will step forward to supply the service for a fee. If government doesn't structure a monopoly, there will even be competition by vendors vying to provide the service to you and to collect your money.
What if people aren't willing to pay for the service? In that case, it's fair to ask whether that service actually has value. Under the current regime, someone in Washington decides that some service, foreign aid perhaps, has value, and taxes you for it whether you agree with their assessment or not. This is the heart of the old saw that 'foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring wealth from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries'.
Most government 'services' would quickly go out of business if they were forced to rely on voluntary contributions from people who couldn't live without that benefit. It has even been suggested that all of government be funded strictly on voluntary contributions.
I wonder what size government that would get us?
Appendix B
Government isn't very good at doing most things.
The Framers of the Constitution understood the nature of bureaucracy. It was little different then than it is today. The basic problem is one of 'mode'. We have this tendency to engage in mono-modal problem-solving. We have a problem, so we all gather together and discuss it and take a vote, and whatever 51% of us decide is what we all do. Typically, if the problem is big enough, we'll hand it over to some bureaucrat for solving and give that bureaucrat a budget.
Well, if you give me a big budget and a staff and tell me to solve some problem, I absolutely guarantee that it will not be solved for several years... possibly never... because the instant I solve that problem, I'm out of a job. It's my civic duty to keep unemployment low.
The Framers understood this, and so they handed over to the central government a very small menu of tasks, and they are all (or almost all) tasks that truly require centralized control or coordination or both. So the Congress has the power to establish post offices and post roads, but not the power to run them. The federal government is not assigned responsibility for delivering the mail, just for saying where the depots will be and how to get from one to the other.
Big-government fanatics are fond of pointing to the Interstate Highway System as an example of a task that isn't in the Constitution but surely needed to be done. Until just recently the contrary arguments were strained and relied primarily on philosophy. We now have the perfect countervailing argument.
I-35W crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis MN, or did. On August 1st, 2007 it collapsed into the river killing 13 and injuring 111. The cause was faulty maintenance. Engineering reports over the course of at least four years indicated advancing problems with the bridge. Oddly, these problems were not addressed in a timely fashion. The State of Minnesota, the bridge's owner, is not capable of being sued because of the doctrine of 'sovereign immunity'.
Had that bridge been privately-owned, can anyone seriously assert that those engineering reports would have been ignored? Or that, having been ignored, the private owner could hide behind sovereign immunity? Because the latter is impossible, the former is implausible. There would still be a bridge over the Mississippi at Minneapolis. Yes, it would cost money to cross it, but which would you rather: a bridge toll or a death toll?

Asking The Wrong Questions in Arizona

2010-05-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

Arizona has begun their own 'immigration enforcement program', stopping anyone who appears to be in the state illegally (that is: if they look like Mexicans) and requiring them to prove their right to be where they are.

Now, don't get me wrong: my position on 'the powers of states' (I hate the meaningless term 'states rights') is that Arizona may legally do what it is they're doing. I just think it's a remarkably poor idea. It's another one of those all-too-common examples of the syndrome I call 'ask the wrong question; get the wrong answer'.

The 'wrong question' in this case focuses on 'immigration', and it will generate the wrong answer: send 'em back where they came from.

If you ask any of those 'illegal immigrants' why they come here, they'll tell you it's because they want to be able to support their families. Few... make that 'none'... will tell you they've come here to get on the welfare wagon. Similarly, few of those in favor of Arizona's draconian new 'Papieren, Bitte' regime will admit that what's behind all this is an attempt to keep those 'illegal aliens' from using up all of our valuable public services: police, fire, food stamps, unemployment compensation, etc. Yet, that is the baseline problem. The supporters of that new Arizona law firmly (and in their own minds, justifiably) believe that those 'benefits' are for the use of citizens, dammitol...

So... we frame the problem in terms of "they're doing something illegal and we have to stop all this law-breaking behavior". This allows us to completely ignore the underlying problem: that we make it attractive for slackers to live in this country.

Again, I'm not saying those illegal-border-crossers are coming here to stick their snouts into the welfare trough. It may be true, but I'm not saying that. It's irrelevant, in any case. What is relevant is that we American citizens stick our snouts into the welfare trough with a frightening regularity. Given the kinds of jobs those illegal-border-crossers typically work at, there also seems to me some room to doubt they've just come here for 'the easy life'... although it's almost certainly easier than what they're used to south of the border.

Raise your hand if your ancestors arrived here as immigrants. Hmmm.... there's a lot of you out there... OK, should we have sent all those immigrants back? No? Why? Because they applied for entry 'legally' during a time when there were no 'quotas' for immigration? (And, surprise! no passports, either, which did not become 'mandatory' until 1941!) At a time when anyone who knocked on our door was allowed in as long as they weren't carrying plague or a felony record? That's not the way the world is today, but I'm sure you know that.

Today, we require new immigrants to apply months or years in advance, go through a lengthy investigation, fill out a mountain of forms. The process is a pain-in-the-ass... deliberately.

Given all the good things immigrants have done for this country in the past few centuries, why do we now make it such a PITA? Now we're asking the right questions, or we're about to.

The process is now a royal PITA because unchecked immigration could overwhelm our welfare system. This was not the case when your great-grandfather/mother arrived from The Old Country. Back then we didn't have a welfare system to overwhelm, yet people came to us nevertheless. Why?

They came because America was The Land Of Opportunity.

In the absence of an all-pervasive welfare system, it would be again.

Are you ready to start asking the right questions?

'Avatar' as 'not-best-picture'

2010-05-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

God bless Blockbuster Express. For $1 we got to rent 'Avatar' and view it at our leisure at home. Now I have just one question outstanding: how did 'The Hurt Locker' beat out 'Avatar' for best picture?

True, Avatar presented 'corporate America' as rapacious savages and THL presented Iraqi-occupation troops as bravely heroic, and neither meme is as true as some would like to have us believe (or, in fact, as many people actually do believe). Perhaps it is because it is more acceptable to 'support the troops' (as they kill in the name of corporate profits) than to bash the capitalists (who make their profits the old-fashioned way)?

'Avatar' used lots of computer graphics. I don't know what the price/performance ratio is for CGI, but it still needs voice-overs, and that can't be cheap. THL looks like it was shot on-location and it had scads of 'extras' that all had to be paid. Also 'not cheap', merely 'cheaper'.

The thought that keeps gnawing at the back of my mind is that 'Avatar' is very much an avatar of Western Civilization's treatment of the native Americans: we killed them and/or burned them out of their ancestral lands because they were 'in the way'. It's not pleasant to have one's nose rubbed in one's own history... like a puppy being bowel-trained. Perhaps the Academy found it as distasteful as I did.

On the other hand, how else will we learn history's lessons?

'The Hurt Locker' as best picture

2010-04-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

I just watched "The Hurt Locker" which this time around won the Academy Award for best picture. Somebody please tell me that was a joke.

Granted, the staging was very accurate as to its portrayal of Iraq as a typical Moslem Middle Eastern hell-hole: garbage in the poorly-maintained streets, the locals living in 12^th century luxury, and a complete disregard on nearly everyone's part for the niceties of the rule of law. It probably also was accurate as to the intelligence level of everyone involved on the military side: the smart ones stay alive by being as wily and as suspicious as a feral cat; the others die in various gruesome ways that are, for the most part, painless for being mercifully quick.

If this film has any value it is that it shows the American people what all that money is being spent on, and it may urge a few more to wonder whether rescuing Iraq (or Afghanistan or Kuwait or ...) from its instant condition is worth the expenditure of even one American soldier's life. If it does that it's worth watching, but does raise the interesting follow-on question "how would we know we've 'rescued' them?"

But... best picture? The only way this could be a 'best picture' would be for the producers to take all the money they saved on script-development and cast salaries and use it to grease the palms of the judges. I'm not a film critic by any means but shouldn't an award like 'best picture' have some positive correlation to the coefficient of I-want-to-see-it-again ?

How to Write the Decision in McDonald v Chicago in 1 Page (no footnotes)

2010-04-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

Early in March the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of McDonald v Chicago, a case pitting one Otis McDonald, a black resident of The Windy City against the city fathers (sic). Otis wants a handgun so that he can protect himself, his family, and his property from the drug dealers who frequent his part of town, the poor part. The city fathers (sic) are opposed to letting the peasants have arms for their defense. You just never know what a peasant might do with such things.

Alan Gura of Heller v DC fame is lead attorney for the plaintiff and has written a brilliant brief arguing that the Second Amendment should be 'incorporated' against states, counties, and municipalities via the Privileges or Immunities clause of the 14^th amendment. If it isn't already plain, let me make it so: I think Gura is 100% correct on this issue and his strategy. There is a problem, however. For SCOTUS to incorporate via 'P or I' will overturn the 1873 Slaughterhouse decision. 'Overturning prior decisions' is something the Supreme Court prefers to avoid if at all possible. Slaughterhouse, most modern Constitutional scholars agree, was decided incorrectly by an obviously biased court and represents 'bad precedent' at its worst. A moral SCOTUS would have burned that decision to the ground decades ago, which tells you something about how long it's been since we had a moral SCOTUS...

Well, heck, if they don't want to overturn Slaughterhouse, I can help them out. Herewith, the McDonald v Chicago decision in under one sheet of legal paper -- without reference to Slaughterhouse (footnotes omitted):

* * * * * * * * *

Plaintiff McDonald wishes to keep and bear a firearm within the city limits of Chicago for a lawful purpose but fears prosecution under the laws of the City of Chicago based on municipal firearms regulations. Defendant City of Chicago pleads that the city has a 'substantial public safety interest' in minimizing the number of firearms within the city limits.

This court notes the wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of The United States of America which reads as follows (some punctuation eliminated for clarity): "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The court further notes that said Constitution is a limited grant of authority from the people to the federal government and that, together with its amendments, is the Law Of The Land.

The court further notes that the term "well-regulated" meant (at the time of its adoption) "operating as intended" and retains that same meaning in perpetuity, and that the term "militia" refers to the whole body of the people acting on the basis of that original authority which has been lent (not surrendered) to the federal government. All of this has been thoroughly covered in Heller and there is no need to plow that field again.

The remainder of the text of the Second Amendment to the Constitution declares that the (pre-existing and naturally-occurring) "right of the people to keep and bear arms" shall not be infringed. Unlike the First Amendment which declares that "Congress shall make no law...", the Second Amendment's requirement is much stricter: "shall not be infringed" certainly by the federal government, but this appears not to be limited strictly to any particular level of government. Presumably the power of the federal government may be used, perhaps is to be used, to ensure that this right is not infringed anywhere.

We therefore confidently assert that the federal government may not infringe the (pre-existing naturally-occurring) "right of the people to keep and bear arms" as by such devices as the National Firearms Act of 1934 (which imposes significant fees, arbitrary waiting periods and registration of otherwise-useful firearms and other weapons) and the Gun Control Act of 1968 (which prohibits unlicensed interstate commerce in firearms, ammunition and other weapons), and we strike these as unconstitutional in their entirety.

The court further asserts that a (pre-existing naturally-occurring) "right of the people to keep and bear arms" may not be infringed by States in violation of the Second Amendment to that Constitution which is "the Law Of The Land". As a consequence we strike existing and future schemes at the state-level to restrict, prohibit, tax, and register the acquisition and possession of firearms, ammunition and other weapons by 'the people' in their entirety.

Consequently, it should be clear that similar restrictions and prohibitions at the county, parish, and municipal levels as well as at all lower levels such as school districts and water districts (to name a few) are equally impermissable and we strike them in their entirety.

So ordered.

* * * * * * * * *

Now, that's what a proper Supreme Court decision from a moral SCOTUS looks like. Note the clear absence of any trace of equivocation.

Thoughts for Patriot's Day (April 19th)

2010-04-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

On the evening of April 18^th, 1775, two friends, co-conspirators, made plans for rousing the colonial militias in Middlesex County west of Boston. Paul Revere was to row across the harbor to a point outside the city where he would be able to ride a northern route into Middlesex to raise the alarm. William Dawes was to stay in Boston and signal Revere from the belfry of The Old North Church when the 'redcoats' started to move.

They had heard a rumor from an informer within the inner circle of General Sir Thomas Gage, military governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, about upcoming troop movements. The Governor General had just recently received orders from William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the colonial militias in Middlesex by seizing their arms and ammunition stored at Lexington and Concord. Gage had done this once before in 1774, just after his arrival from England, and that act had put the militias on a permanent high alert. The present action was scheduled for the 19^th of April with the 700 British troops moving late on the 18^th.

As Revere waited on the far shore in Charlestown, Dawes hung two lanterns in the Old North Church tower to indicate that British regulars were coming 'by sea' across Boston harbor. Revere took off westward to let the militias know that "The British are coming! The British are coming!" At the same time, Dawes slipped out of Boston and rode the southern route toward Lexington doing the same thing. Why everyone knows about Revere and almost nobody knows about Dawes is my favorite mystery.

At about 5am the British arrived in Lexington and were met by 77 militia and 100 spectators who had gathered to watch the 'festivites'. A British officer rode forward and ordered the militia to disperse and many of them decided to go home at that point. Just then, a shot was fired; no one knows to this day who fired the shot, but it was enough to get the battle started. Following a bayonet charge, the battle of Lexington was 'over' with 8 militia and one British regular dead.

At Concord later that day, perhaps 8am, the Britsh forces clearly did fire the first shot and this was met by effective return fire from the militiamen assembled. The British managed to do some searching for weapons, but found little or nothing to compensate them for their time. By mid-morning, other militia companies began arriving and jumping into the fray. By mid-afternoon, it is estimated there were between 2,000 and 4,000 colonial militia engaging the British troops, although half-heartedly. Many clearly thought this was a minor incident and would operate to chasten the regulars and make them leave the colonials alone. There were enough hardened militia, however, to chase the British troops back to Boston, inflicting 287 casualties along the way.

By the following morning, 20 April 1775, more than 15,000 militia ringed Boston, beseiging it. The War for Independence had begun.

* * * * * * * * *

For the longest time, the identity of the informer within Gage's organization was a mystery. Historians now believe they know who the 'mole' was: Lady Margaret Kemble Gage, the Governor's New Jersey-born wife is now considered the prime suspect.

* * * * * * * * *

Other important events which also happened on April 19^th

In 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began.

In 1993, the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX, was burned to the ground.

In 1995, a bomb exploded at the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

In 2010 (this year) American citizens, many of them, like me, 3%-ers, will hold a rally in Fort Hunt National Park on the Potomac River south of Washington DC. Many of them will be armed as a sign that (among other things) the federal government no longer enjoys their support. If things go very badly awry, we may get to hear the first shots of the next American Revolution. If things go very well, we will have started our long march back from the edge of darkness. That would be 'a very good thing'.

The Size of Government

2009-10-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Over on Sipsey Street ( http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/ ) they're talking about secession and the perils of "Leviathan government". Well, I mostly sympathize with them, being a closet anarchist myself, but all they do is complain about Leviathan; they might as well complain about the weather.

It's true that the size of government is in direct proportion to how much of our liberty it consumes. Is there anything we can really do about it?

The answer is that 'there should be'. In fact, controlling the size of government ought to be a relatively straight-forward proposition. The Constitution, after all, is rigged in favor of smaller government. The only reason we've got a three trillion dollar federal budget is that we just don't understand how the system works. Either that, or we're too stupid (as a nation) to figure it out.

OK, so how did we get such a monstrous-sized government? Answer: bipartisanship. It's the drive to be seen as 'a team player', to 'go along to get along', and to not be seen as 'blocking reforms' that impel legislators to vote for ever-bigger government programs... which, not coincidentally, implies ever-bigger government.

I pointed out elsewhere that the federal laws which we are all expected to comply with are printed in books which occupy nearly forty (40) feet of shelf space. Each new government program -- each new page in the CFR -- involves specifying things we-the-people must do and/or things we-the-people may not do, along with advantages granted to some and disadvantages dispensed to others, almost none of which are within Congress' article 1 section 8 grant of authority. Oops...

But the question on the floor is 'how do we reverse this?'. It's actually simpler than it might seem, although killing bipartisanship may be the hardest part.

Yes, bipartisanship has to go. It must be replaced with rabid partisanship: screw your program; I want mine! Cast in that form, the problem looks insoluble. What Congress(wo)man is going to be the proverbial 'dog in the manger'? You still have to 'bring home the bacon', right? The problem won't be solved in any meaningful sense until the day there is no bacon to be brought home. Fortunately (or, for some, 'unfortunately'), we're almost there. We are on the precipice of a financial catastrophe which is going to make 1929 look like an unsuccessful PTA bake-sale. The pig is dead.

Aside: government has only three ways to get the money with which to pay for the programs it enacts:

tax it
borrow it
print it

In the Dead Pig Scenario, option-1 is out because people are out-of-work, broke, destitute. They're going on welfare, not paying their taxes. Option-2 is also out because by this point, potential borrowers are beginning to suspect they might not get repaid, and they are (understandably) reluctant to throw good money after bad. Option-3 is the method Germany chose when its WW-I war reparations bankrupted their economy. We all know how that worked out -- people with wheelbarrows-full of Deutschmarks trying to buy bread. The German people grumbled and groused but there wasn't much they could do about it.

It's too dangerous to do that in early-21^st-century America; we have guns, and a revolution here would not be pretty. History would look back at The Reign Of Terror and decide that, compared to the upheaval in the United States, it wasn't all that bad...

So, what's a Congress to do when all of its favorite options are foreclosed? The size of government must shrink. The government will be forced to subsist on what the (collapsed) economy can still manage to produce. Less, actually; you have to maintain the productive workforce -- the economy's 'seed corn' -- as a first priority; government can have what's left over, and it won't be much.

Yes, this suggests a catastrophic reduction in the size of government. Social Security checks would stop... dead. Welfare would stop... dead. Pell grants would stop... dead. Highway Trust Fund payments would stop... dead.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to alter course before this happens? Wouldn't it be a better idea to stop spending money we don't have -- money we have to tax, borrow, or print -- before it becomes necessary to push that big red 'POWER OFF' button? Wouldn't it be a better idea to scale back the size of government before it all comes crashing down?

You can do it.

In fact, only you can do it. Tell Congress: "Stop spending. Stop spending regardless how noble the cause. Stop thinking about new programs you're beginning to think about. Stop thinking about how you can be the White Knight riding to the rescue of the downtrodden. Start thinking about programs you can eliminate... then eliminate them. Start thinking about programs you can't eliminate... and eliminate them anyway. Stop worrying about getting a 'bad rep' as a lone wolf who isn't a team-player. Worry about me, your constituent."

If you decide this is all beyond your power to influence up-or-down, buy ammunition.

You're going to need it.

Consequences are always 'unintended'

2009-07-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

I just heard someone complaining about 'insurance lobbyists' and suggesting they should all be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town (i.e.: D.C.) on rails. It occurred to me that he wanted the benefits of a huge government bureaucracy without any of the (unintended) consequences.

Nope. Not very likely.

As Barry Goldwater used to say 'way back there in '64: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you've got." That is almost precisely the situation we are in today. Government has expanded with such breathtaking speed since the mid-20^th century that today it intrudes into nearly every aspect of modern life.

Travelling out-of-state for business or pleasure? There's TSA at the airports, AmTrak at the train station, and the Interstate Highway System if you're going by car or bus. The 'security screening' at the airport is intense; that at the train station is (so far) less intense, but give it time; if you get within 75 miles of the border (and in Florida, that's almost the entire state) CBP claims the right to stop you for any reason (or none at all) to search you, your car, and all your passengers for contraband and to verify that you all have the right to be where you are. If you complain, you will be tazed and possibly killed. Talk about 'taking everything you've got'...

Are you in business? Did you get the proper license(s)? Have you applied for a taxpayer ID number so that you can be identified on your employees' W-2s? Even if you don't have employees, you'll still need it to file your business tax returns. And then there's OSHA and the NLRB to protect your employees, and ICE and CBP to lock them up.

Recently there was talk of something called "Real ID". The federal government was going to force states to modify their drivers' licenses to comply with federal security directives. The rule was that you would not be permitted to board an airplane or an AmTrak train (and soon intercity buses) without a federally-approved form of identification. The cost was phenomenal and the benefits illusory. Many states dug their heels in -- it was the beginning of the current 10^th amendment revolt we're hearing more about each day. The federal government postponed implementation.

Well, heck, why are they being so all-fired difficult? Isn't "protecting the people" one of the fundamental purposes of our government?

Ummm... actually, no. According to the Declaration of Independence, governments (all of them) exist to protect the rights of the people. When the Constitution was written, the writers wanted to be a little more... uh... precise. They wrote: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Still with me? It was the people's intent to do all these things (for themselves) and so they created... constituted... the federal government to handle all the 'details'. Silly peasants! Did they not understand that the meanings of words change over time so that, eventually, 'promote the general Welfare' would have an entirely different meaning than it did when the ink was wet, and that phrases like 'regulate Commerce ... among the several States' would become a grant of near-dictatorial power?

The people granted to Congress certain powers (in Article I, section 8) and it was James Madison's view that those were the only ways Congress could 'promote the general Welfare'. Among these powers was that of 'regulat[ing interstate] Commerce' which was then understood to be a sort of 'negative power'. Congress' duty as regards interstate commerce was to keep New York and Pennsylvania from 'ganging up' on New Jersey and Maryland. As it turns out, that's one of the powers Congress never actually needed (just as we've never needed the protection of the 3^rd amendment). The states were too busy trading amongst each other and making money hand-over-fist to ever think about entering collusive agreements against other states.

Doesn't matter. Over time, 'regulate [interstate] Commerce' has morphed into a Frankenstein monster, all because of that damned little verb: 'regulate'. It used to mean 'regulate the air pressure from my SCUBA tank so my lungs don't burst and I don't asphyxiate, either' and 'regulate the militia so they all understand what "about face" means and they know how to clean their rifles and can all shoot reasonably well'. Today it means 'bury under a mountain of words'.

In this way, Congress can do lots of things they ordinarily wouldn't be able to do:

The 2^nd amendment prevents government from infringing the right to keep and bear arms, but if those 'arms' or any part of them ever crossed a state line (or ever might cross a state line in the foreseeable future) they're 'interstate commerce' and they can be 'regulated' (i.e.: taxed and restricted so heavily that no one would ever think to 'infringe' them more).

In 1919 Congress knew they had no power to outlaw alcohol and needed the 18^th amendment (The Volstead Act) to give them the power (which lasted until the 21^st amendment repealed it). However, by the time Nixon was President, Congress merely relied on its power to 'regulate [interstate] Commerce' to enable Nixon's 'War On Drugs'.

Almost everything Congress has done since FDR has been justified as either 'providing for the general welfare' or 'regulating interstate commerce', and almost everything Congress has done since FDR would be viewed with sheer horror by anyone who was present at the Constitutional Convention in 1791.

The laws of the United States (that is: federal laws) are compiled in a series of volumes called the Code of Federal Regulations, or 'CFR'. It is so large that it is fair to say that no one knows what's in it. There are 50 major volumes divided into 'titles' that cover every aspect of modern American life. Were you to buy a printed CFR, it would cost you over $2,000 and when it was delivered you would have to have twenty feet of (sturdy) shelf space to store it. The index volume alone weighs 2 pounds, 10 ounces or 1.2Kg for the metrically inclined. Parts of your copy would be obsolete in three months; all of it would be obsolete in a year.

The CFR regulates everything including insurance companies. It is so arcane that it is not possible to go through life without violating at least one federal regulation. Since doing so would make any insurance company executive a federal criminal, and since every one of them has certainly done so, even if they can't say precisely which regulation they violated, it is incumbent upon those insurance company executives to stay 'friendly' with Congress lest they find themselves on the wrong end of a Congressional investigatory committee. Thus the presence of lobbyists.

My naïve little friend from the first paragraph wants the impossible: a huge government that works for his benefit.

He's going to have to give up one of those...

The Grass Rainbow

2009-07-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday and since I don't have to go to work, the dog gets an extra-long walk. A few months back, I realized I was being followed on those early-morning walks... by a rainbow on the grass which matched my pace the way the moon sometimes seems to follow you at night.

Investigating, I discovered a few surprising things:

The Sun has to be relatively low in the sky -- it has to be early in the day.

The grass has to be wet with dew, and the wetter the better, although there must be such a thing as ' too wet'. This also requires 'early' because after the Sun has been up for a while, the dew will evaporate. The droplet size also appears to affect the visibility -- the smaller, the better. This seems a reasonable assumption: the best rainbows are those seen at a distance when apparent droplet size is very small.

The viewer has to be walking West, that is: away from the Sun, with the Sun at the viewer's back.

The viewer has to be looking through polarized lenses. I have polaroid clip-on sunglasses, but probably any polarization will do the trick. I know this is true because when I flip up the lenses to get a better look at the colors, they vanish.

When all these things are true, you may find yourself seeing two rainbows, one on each side, emanating from about where your feet are, and arcing away at (Wikipedia says) 42 degrees, although most times I can see it only on one side, if at all. The shape of the grass rainbow is not circular as we're used to seeing with rainbows in the sky. Instead, it's parabolic or possibly hyperbolic.

They're very hard to see, even under the best conditions. I find it's easiest if I'm moving because then the rainbow itself moves against the grass and it's easier to pick out. If you go looking for a grass rainbow, I hope you find a good one.

Ask the wrong question; get the wrong answer

2009-07-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

There's a revolt of sorts brewing in several of the States that make up The United States of America (you've never thought of them in those terms, have you?). Something in excess of 20 states have passed 'sovereignty memoranda' (or memorials). These memorials remind the federal government that it is a government of limited power and a creature of the states and caution it (the fedgov) to cease and desist overstepping the bounds of its lawful authority.

Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say.

Well, as a matter of fact there is. All of these memorials concentrate solely (or nearly so) on the topic of 'regulation of interstate commerce'. In the past century or so, the federal government has gradually expanded the scope of its power to 'regulate interstate commerce' from its original very limited scope to the point that the federal government now claims authority over anything that might conceivably one day be involved in interstate commerce. The states protesting have, furthermore, cast their objections almost exclusively as protections of the 2nd amendment -- the right to keep and bear arms -- by announcing that henceforth firearms made entirely within the borders of (state) and which do not leave the confines of (state) are not subject to federal infringements such as the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) or the 1968 Gun Control Act (GCA68).

Sounds quite reasonable on the suface, doesn't it? In fact, until you start asking 'the right questions', it certainly does. The moment you begin asking the right questions, however, you realize what a bunch of nincompoops we have elected to represent us.

The Constitution grants to the federal government (Sect.8 clause.3) the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;". Today 'regulate' means 'bury under a mountain of legislation', but it didn't mean that when section 8, clause 3 was written. Then 'regulate' meant 'to make uniform or regular'. It is the same 'regulate' which appears in the 2nd amendment's 'well-regulated militia', where it means 'a militia which speaks a common language, has practiced operating as a unit, and can hit what they aim at'. It is the same word which today gives us the 'regulator' on a SCUBA tank, the device which makes sure you get air at the correct pressure whether you're two feet underwater or two hundred feet.

'Regulate commerce ... among the several states' doesn't mean that Congress gets to micromanage all transactions which cross a border. It means that Congress is authorized to put a stop to states colluding with each other to the detriment of other states. The goal of the writers of those words was The Free-Trade Zone of The United States of America. If they knew what was going to happen to their grandiose ideas, they would have stayed a colony of Great Britain.

So passing a "hands off our intrastate commerce" memorandum is the wrong answer you get when you ask the wrong question. Had they asked the right question, the answer would have been "none of our merchants are any longer required to follow your rules regarding (e.g.:) selling firearms to those who don't live in this state and if you send your federal agents in here to enforce your non-laws, they'll be arrested, tried, convicted, and hung by the neck until they are dead; have a nice day".

If that, or anything even vaguely like it, were to happen, a large portion of the federal bureaucracy would cease to exist, people in the affected states would suddenly notice that they are a damn sight freer than they were yesterday, and it might generate calls for more of the same.

No, I'm not holding my breath, either.

Thoughts on the Declaration of Independence

2009-07-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's just past the 4th of July and I'm meditating on one of the most significant documents in our culture: the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was not simply an astounding piece of prose, it was a breath-taking attack on everything that was then contained in the word 'government'.

At the time of the Declaration there was virtually no place on earth one could go to be FREE. Except for 'the wilderness' the world was controlled by kings and emperors; everyone else was 'a subject'. In England, the Magna Carta provided something by way of protection for the common man against the king, but not much. Your life was pretty much not your own to do with as you pleased. Yes, of course, there were political philosophers of the liberal persuasion (John Locke among others) who held that man was not simply capable of self-government but entitled to it, owing allegiance to no one. They, however, weren't in charge of things; the kings and emperors were.

So the sentiments in the Declaration truly were 'revolutionary', espousing some very out-of-the-mainstream ideas. Our Founding Fathers wanted to start a fire and they did. Consider:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it..." This is political arson: the sole function of government is to secure the rights held by common men as their heritage from God (or Nature or whatever externality doesn't offend your sensibilities); these rights can't be taken away by any earthly power. The king is employed by the people who consent to his governance! When the government stops performing its function the people have the right to dump it. In fact, it's a duty: "...it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government...".

The practical problem is: how does one 'dump' a government the size of ours? That's not a rhetorical question; it needs an answer. You can't simply vote the rascals out because the rascals count the votes. Think: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; the Iranians are just now discovering that it's a bad idea to leave control of the elections in the hands of the incumbents.

The revolutionaries knew how to dump a government; they were just too gentlemanly to say it in blunt terms, possibly reasoning that if people couldn't figure it out for themselves it was probably too late anyway. Besides, there was the example of the Revolutionary War itself. You dump a government, in the extreme, by taking up arms. You overthrow the government by force. (Where is that House Un-American Activities Committee when you really need them?)

That, in effect, is what the Second Amendment is all about. Why is the right of the people to keep and bear arms not to be infringed? In the end it is so that we, the people, may overthrow the government we created... by force when/if we need to. That we can resort to force if things get really bad may be the reason we have not yet had to resort to force. If we allow ourselves to be disarmed... 'for the children' or any other reason... that option disappears and if things then get really bad, the only option left will be to 'grin and bear it'.

Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in his dissent in Silveira v Lockyer (2003): "The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

The Constitution is the User's Manual for our government. The specification document is the Declaration of Independence. If something in the Constitution is unclear or hard to interpret, you go back to the 'spec' to find out what was intended. When you start to fully appreciate the incendiary nature of our founding document, it gives you a funny feeling... it gives me a funny feeling like looking over the edge of a very deep canyon. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Dispatches from Heck

The Democratic Electoral Trap

The Republican Electoral Trap

Enemy Action

How Do We Pay For It?

Enter The Dragon — Remembering Ray Faulk

Sean Hannity is an idiot. I get it.

In Praise of Julian Heicklen

Appreciating the Heavens

Letters to the Editor

Memories of days in black and white

Le Petit Chateau

Governments can't manage economies

Osama bin Laden is dead. Big deal.

Living in post-Constitutional America

Tipping Point

Clarence Thomas Stumbles

Security Theater

Think

The Codex Magniloquens

Polluting the Landscape... or not

Justice Elena Kagan

Summer House Cafe, 2605 Washington, Erie, PA

OMG!!! You're driving so FAST!!!

Why 'Strict Constructionism'?

Asking The Wrong Questions in Arizona

'Avatar' as 'not-best-picture'

'The Hurt Locker' as best picture

How to Write the Decision in McDonald v Chicago in 1 Page (no footnotes)

Thoughts for Patriot's Day (April 19th)

Other important events which also happened on April 19th

The Size of Government

Consequences are always 'unintended'

The Grass Rainbow

Ask the wrong question; get the wrong answer

Thoughts on the Declaration of Independence

Other important events which also happened on April 19^th