Confusing?

Antonia Zerbisias notes: "How people can vote for the first African American president in American history, with all that implies, while simultaneously voting to discriminate against gays is testament to the incoherence of American politics and the lack of clear cut philosophy guiding people's choices...."

"....How do some people deny other people the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even when it's no skin off their noses?" she asks.

She's correct that there's a lack of clear-cut philosophy at the heart of what she sees as the disconnect.

The right of people (of any and every gender...and number) to marry, free of government preference or censure, free of state interference, is based on an ultimately individualist position: the individual right to choose the structure of one's own consensual relationships.

Pretty much everything Barack Obama stands for, though, is antithetical to individualism. And so Obama's voters made a mistake individualists wouldn't make. That's not a surprise.

Update:

I found this quote here at MSNBC:

"I think it's mainly because of the way we were brought up in the church; we don't agree with it," said Jasmine Jones, 25, who is black. "I'm not really the type that I wanted to stop people's rights. But I still have my beliefs, and if I can vote my beliefs that's what I'm going to do.

What Ms. Jones actually means, of course, is "if I can vote to make others behave according to my beliefs, that's what I'm going to do".

A perfect example of what I'm talking about.

And this (another perfect example) in the same article:

"What the church does is give that perspective that this is a sacred issue as well as a social issue," said Derek McCoy, African American outreach director for the Protect Marriage Campaign. "The reason I feel they came out so strong on the issue is one, for them, it's not a civil rights issue, it's a marriage issue. It's about marriage being between a man and a woman and it doesn't cut into the civil rights issue, about equality.

I'm sure Mr. McCoy wouldn't have a problem if, say, his behaviour was to be affected by, say, a strict Muslim view, then. After all, to Mr. McCoy it's "a sacred issue as well as a social issue"; it's not at all about his right to choose his own consensual relationships.

Yeah, I'd say "the lack of clear cut philosophy guiding people's choices" is exactly the problem, Antonia.

Finally.

And it's about time. A Democrat says it, in an open letter to journalists):

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city. -- Orson Scott Card

I have huge differences of opinion with Mr Card, but he's right about what he's saying here.

Read the whole damning thing.

A grateful H/T to QandO

Understand? This financial mess is *not* a result of free-market failure.

Big "gun control" laughs at Boston Legal

Gun Control - The best bloopers are here

"If you don't vote..."

"If you don't vote..." so the saying goes: "...you don't have a right to complain".

Uh, horsepuckey. If anything, it's actually "If you vote, then you don't have a right to complain." And here's why:

If you vote, you are accepting the process, with all that entails. So, if you vote: that's your kick at the can because you believe that voting *is* the concrete embodiment of you having your say. After all the talking and investigating, it's your folded and popped into the box decision.

Well, the results are what they are, all nice and proper like you say you like it, so now, if it's anyone, it's *you* who can shut up and just live with it.

Me: I'll just keep right on complaining and speaking my mind. After all, I had *nothing* to do with that voting nonsense.

(me at StageLeft)

The Presumption of Innocence...

It's important.

Read this.

Howard Husock.

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities

...written in AD 2000. 8 years ago.

Understand this: you have only two choices.

You can have an imaginary economy based on the day-dreams of ambitious bureaucrats and politicians. Or you can have a real economy based on what people really trade and why they do so. You don't get both, and one doesn't work.

Imaginary economies work as well as imaginary parachutes.

So, yeah...I don't want no steenking bail-out. The capital everybody is worried about is still all out there. This is just a fight about who gets to keep it, and--if it's the government keepin' it--how much they get to pretend it's worth.

h/t Billy

Close but no cigar...

Taxes could get sky-high with aerial technology (The Press of Atlantic City/Richard Degener)

A new high-tech aerial photography system that can spot an illegal porch from 5,000 feet is being marketed to tax assessors as a way to grow revenue...

"We're not supposed to be spying on people. When it gets to the point where we're doing aerial spying on people's lives, I've had enough," [State Senator, Jeff] Van Drew said.

Well, yeah, Jeff...I guess that's true. I mean, it is true--but what makes aerial spying the point where the line between right and wrong gets crossed?

Anyways, you've had enough, so please quit and take a few more meddlers with you. Mmmm'kay thnx.

You got it wrong, Nancy.

Pelosi: We must insulate Main St from Wall St.

Nope. Actually, we must insulate Wall Street and Main Street from Pennsylvania Avenue.

In other words, separate the economy from the government just like we separate the church and the government--and for exactly the same reasons.

For decades...

...Canadians have been commenting that the CBC has a strong statist-leftist (essentially Liberal/NDP) bias, and the statist-leftists have been denying it.

Yeah, well now the publisher of CBC news just plain admits it.

Except he titled the admission "We erred in our judgment."

The truth is they finally got caught with no room to weasel about it.

And it's not really a compliment if Mr Cruikshank is just realizing the bias exists.

Quote:

"Your third party vote is not wasted. It serves to enslave your mind just as well as a major party vote does."--Brad Spangler.

Link to article containing quote.

Great news about Hemingway's cats.

Now all someone has to do is give me one decent reason it was any of the gummints business anyways.

Tax dollars at work.

Do you get it...yet?

You poor bastards have been voting for the lesser of two evils for so long that evil is all that’s left now.

Billy at The Agitator.

A Democrat I respect...

My head is still shaking!

ex-DEMOCRAT Mike Gravel (former Democrat US senator) speaking on radio regarding Sarah Palin.

QandO for the file. It's a great listen.

I'm still laughing at the show's hosts.

Addendum: I was thinking about this post and doing some follow-up surfing and, in all fairness, the guy is now a Libertarian, so I read. I guess that's no surprise for me since a) I come to my corner of the LRQ with my political growth starting from the left, as well, and b) the guy was making sense.

Investors Daily article...

...Stealth Socialism ...well worth the read.

H/T New Paltz Journal by way of Billy.

The same madness has deeply affected Canada as well.

Social justice means massive State interventionism.

It just sounds prettier. That's why they use it.

Dion Liberals would ban assault rifles in Canada...

OK...I'm a reasonable man, willing to entertain an opposing argument.

If assault rifles are such a bad, bad thing for anyone to have, how about we start with "police & government first"?

Then maybe we'll talk.

Palin

I have my disgareements with Ms Palin.

But I freakin' LUV watching Obama supporters in panic mode.

By the way, didn't Mr Obama make some kind of big speech a couple of days ago? Not much mention of it on the news ;-)

This article is almost too stoopid for words...

If Everyone's Talking, Who Will Listen? (Washington Post)

The article starts off talking about how there's just so much freaking information out there...

But the implications for our democracy are troubling. To achieve their goals, political movements need to reach and influence tens of millions of citizens. Despite conventional thinking that the Internet helps spread information, such reach is actually impossible online...

The opportunity to educate [read: propagandize--ed.] millions of citizens, so essential to significant movements of the past, has dwindled. In the early New Deal era, the Roman Catholic "radio priest" Father Charles Coughlin promoted ideas for economic reform to a weekly audience estimated at 40 million, which helped pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt to enact Social Security, the Works Progress Administration and other programs...

Plain english translation: "If there isn't any rationing of the media, of information, people might/will stop acting like sheeple. It'll be harder for us folks who know better than most people to manipulate them.

The madness doesn't stop:

Rather than call for government regulation of technology itself...

Yeah, let's not take away people's computers. Folks might not stand for that.

perhaps the best way to limit the avalanche is to make the technologies that overproduce information more expensive and less widespread. It could be done via a progressive energy tax designed to keep energy prices at a consistently high level (while providing assistance to lower- and middle-income Americans)...

Make the price so high they just stop using 'em.

It's possible that over time, an energy tax, by making some computers, Web sites, blogs and perhaps cable TV channels too costly to maintain, could reduce the supply of information. If Americans are finally giving up SUVs because of high oil prices, might we not eventually do the same with some information technologies that only seem to fragment our society, not unite it? A reduced supply of information technology might at least gradually cause us to gravitate toward community-centered media such as local newspapers instead of the hyper-individualistic outlets we have now.

Plain english translation: tax stuff until people can only go to the few places the zombie who wrote this drivel likes for their information ration.

But why be surprised? Take a look at what this pompus airhead thinks is good news, and why:

This solution may sound radical and unlikely, but as an environmental analyst, I've spent long hours studying energy consumption. Two years ago, I wrote an article speculating that the real problem behind America's loss of manufacturing jobs was low energy costs that made shipping so cheap that employers had overwhelming incentive to send jobs overseas. My argument that higher energy prices could reverse 50 years of outsourcing was met with skepticism. Yet that's exactly what has begun to happen this year as the high cost of oil has brought some manufacturing jobs back to such cities as Bowling Green, Ky., and Danville, Va.

That's a "socially concious" way of saying that "high energy prices" is good news and "low energy prices" is bad.

Tell that to your wallet. Watch your wallet belly-laugh.

Dusty Horwitt is a lawyer who works for a nonprofit environmental group in Washington.

Really? There's a shocker.

What a fukkin dolt. As my brother says: "Gawd save me from people with a plan."

All of which ties in nicely with this.

Good on ya , Conrad

Lord Black on Strip Searches and fellow inmates (National Post).

Best wishes.

Mr. Biden

Mr. Biden might be the purest proof recently of the idea that political ambition is about obtaining power, not about principles.

Now the Vice-Presidential candidate with Mr. Obama, Mr Biden had this to say a short while ago:

On Mr. McCain: "I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off."

On Mr. Obama: "Is he ready? Right now I don’t believe he is, the presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training."

Obviously, he just wants the job. He'll work for anybody.

People are going to find out what "suspended" means...

...because Der Rodham didn't quit her campaign. She suspended it.

Billy might be wrong and, if so, I'm wrong too.

There is nothing I trust about that woman. Except her ambition.

Rules are not a substitute for thought...

Over at Billy Beck's Two-Four:

'Til tomorrow, ponder this item, ladies and gentlemen, linked at Say Uncle.

I have no idea what Billy will have to say about it, but I'm going to concentrate on this, from an online commenter named "Steve":

I witness crimes and call 911 on a weekly basis and there is nothing I can do but watch the crime take place and relay the information to 911. If I had known that I was able to intervene I could have stopped a violent sexual assault in front of the YMCA on Tuesday evening. So what's the law? Are we intervening on our own now or what? [emphasis mine]

Note that Steve is not asking whether or not he "should" intervene; he's asking something different. Steve wants to know if he is "able" to intervene on his own and asks, looking for an answer: "what's the law?".

That's pathetic. What is this "we" garbage? I'm able to decide that sort of thing for myself.

Finally...

BRITISH COPY EDITOR NARROWLY AVOIDS CLICHÉ!!!

A bus doesn't plunge: "One dead and 44 hurt in bus fall" (BBC).

Will wonders never cease?

Pro-censorship mental gymnastics...

Lea Anderson writes in The Calgary Herald:

Demanding the elimination of human rights laws to allow a journalist to be offensive or contemptible to a fellow Albertan is not the longstanding western tradition I know.

Actually, Lea, (other than the quickly overturned Alberta Press Act) allowing a journalist to be offensive or contemptible to anyone, Albertans included, is *exactly* the longstanding western tradition I know.

But let me ask you, Lea: what mental contortions could lead you to actually propose censorship while stating:

Milke demands we gut our human rights laws, the very week George Bush requested China allow more basic rights and freedoms, and the week Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died. He was famous for chronicling the abuses and terror of the Russian gulags, one of the biggest human rights catastrophies ever.

??? I just don't get that. Solzhenitsyn was punished because he was a journalist who offended someone.

Perhaps you aren't familiar, Lea...China and The Soviet Union aren't exactly known for...uh...freedom of expression. In fact, and to be specific, Soviet bureaucrats found Solzhenitsyn very offensive; that's why they put him in the Gulag.

I understand you might find this complicated, Lea, but it might help you to read the next bit and pay special attention to the bolded, underlined parts.

From Wikipedia:

During World War II, he [Solzhenitsyn] served as the commander of an acoustic recognizance unit in the Red Army, was involved in major action at the front, and twice decorated. In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, he was arrested for writing a derogatory comment in a letter to a friend, N. D. Utkevich, about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he called "the whiskered one," "Khozyain" ("the master") and "Balabos", (Odessa Yiddish for "the master"). He was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organisation" under paragraph 11.[12] Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was beaten and interrogated. On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by a three-man tribunal of the Soviet security police (NKGB) to an eight-year term in a labour camp, to be followed by permanent internal exile. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time. [emphasis mine]

In other words, Lea, I think your position on this subject is kinda contemptible; the sheer lack of logic you display is offensive to me, especially every time I think of you voting.

I admit though, I was especially entertained by this word salad of yours:

Milke's attempt to defend free speech abuses by eliminating human rights is an assault on our dignity.

You toss those terms together ("free speech", "abuses", "rights", "assault", "dignity") with such careless, delicious abandon; it reads almost like you understand them.

Oh, of course I trust the government...

...and the folks who work for 'em.

Words fail me. This just just horrible.

...and par for the course these days.

He's (she's ???) got a point.

I think we need to change the name of our country to Kafkada... (batb at SDA)

I don't know batb at all, but still that's straight up dead on the money.

Update on Mandatory Voting...

Readers may remember a discussion I had with Werner Patels over at his blog on the subject of mandatory voting (details here).

As I described in the post at the link I just referenced, Werner found me difficult and asked me not to post at his place. I comply: king/castle and all that, as I noted.

However, I revisited the thread to see what had gone on in my requested absence, and I noticed a few things, and I'm still free to comment here.

First: Werner's statement that:

Australia has implemented mandatory voting -- an entire country like that (especially Australia) isn't wrong when it goes down that path.

Sorry, Werner, "another country did what I think is a good idea" isn't a rebuttal; it's just a variation on the old logical fallacy known as "the appeal to authority". In other words, nice as Australia might otherwise be, so what?

Second, this paragraph from Werner:

Sorry, but unless you [ed.--meaning me, Ron] can show me that you are at least somewhat a decent person who is not only concerned with his own beer-drinking or hockey-watching time, and how going to the polls would cut into that "precious" me-time for you, I refuse to waste my time with someone who leaves his dirty boot imprints on our democracy.

Do me a favour, Werner, don't trot out "unless you can show me..." after telling me I'm not welcome to speak at your place to what you're writing. That's just bad manners.

In any case, dealing with your pre-emptive (and, as it happens, wrong-headed) smear, I hardly drink ever (a six-pack would be a very heavy year of drinking for me), and I don't watch more than a couple of hockey games every few years. Also and in any case, your valuation of the usefulness of what I do with my time is worthless when it comes to being a good argument for how I owe some of it to accomplish what you want.

My time is *my* time, and I use it for *my* purposes. I have enough respect for you to allow you the same, in spite of your very evident lack of regard for me or the time or differing values of others. And you have the gall to question if I'm decent all the while you trot out that authoritarian, clearly coercive "force 'em to vote" nonsense.

Third: commenter "Ben" followed with this:

Interesting how Ron Good claims that he doesn't have time to vote, but he DOES have time to write long posts explaining why he doesn't have time to vote!

I agree with you, Werner that non-voters give up all rights to the benefits of democracy. It disgusts me when people say give excuses for not voting, and then complain about the outcome. If you don't vote, then as far as I am concerned, you forfeit your voice.

Again, Ben, for starters, my time is *my* time, just like yours is properly yours. Also, I think posting my opinion in detail and perhaps affecting the viewpoint of others is a hell of a lot more civilized (and, I think, more effective) than pushing people around either with my vote, or by forcing people to vote. So: I didn't *ever* say I didn't have time to vote; I said my time is my time and I have other things to do with it.

And these two quotes coming up aptly explain why I don't--and won't--agree that my rights are contingent on your approval or the approval of some democratic vote:

"Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good." John Stuart Mill

"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." from The Law - Frédéric Bastiat

(And no, that's not an appeal to authority: the relevant thing is what they said, not who said it,)

But then, Ben, you take the "forcing folks to do what you want" stuff to a brand new level:

Well, after some thought, I have the following proposal. Make voting mandatory, but in addition, force voters to write a simple test before voting. This doesn't need to be a long test -- maybe just 3-5 short-answer questions, asking them to specify the main issues of the campaign, and each party's view on each issue. For simplicity, the parties could be limited to the Liberals, PCs, NDPs, and Greens, but the voter could address other parties' views if they want. The test would also be designed to ensure that he voter is not forced to divulge their preferences, i.e., it would be non-partisan.

If the voter gets a minimum 60% grade on the test, then they can vote who whomever they want. Otherwise, they are not allowed to vote, and they are fined some pre-fixed amount.

Ah, so "after some thought" your genius proposal is to force folks to vote except they have to also write a test first to see if they're qualified, and if their test answers don't meet your suggested bureaucratic approval, you fine 'em and disenfranchise 'em.

Fourth: Ben closes his post with:

And if all parties agree to the new rule (which they should, if they really are worried about low voter turnout), then voters will not have the option of voting for the party that would repeal the law.

Ah, I understand. If Ben has his way, in the name of freedom, voters forced to vote would also be prevented from voting for what they might vote for.

Man, and you think those statements somehow display a logical and deeply considered commitment to freedom and individual rights, Ben?

Fifth: Werner ends the thread with:

at least people will have to participate in the democratic process, which would make the eventual outcome at least halfway legit (unlike the current government in Alberta, which claims majority status but has the support of less than 22% of the entire electorate).

Uh, yeah...a democratic vote is somehow more legit if people are forced to vote than if they choose to vote. That's just weird.

I don't think *I* will play along.

On Language (New York Times)

So what effect has capitalizing “I” but not “you” — or any other pronoun — had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot. There have, of course, been plenty of rich and dominant cultures throughout history that have gotten by just fine without capitalizing the first-person pronoun or ever writing it down at all. There have also been cultures that committed atrocities even while capitalizing “you.”

Still, there seems to be something to it all. Modern e-mail culture has shown that many English speakers feel perfectly comfortable dismissing all uses of capitalization — and even correct spelling, for that matter. But take this a step further: i suggest that You try, as an experiment, to capitalize those whom You address while leaving yourselves in the lowercase. It may be a humbling experience. It was for me.

Tata Air Car

Gawd, I love capitalism :-).

...sucker runs on compressed air and needs a 1 litre vegetable oil change every 50,000 miles.

Omar Khadr's lawyer said:

"We're hoping that the Canadian public will recognize that if you put aside any concerns or guilt or innocence... and look at the compassion we feel, that children have a special significance in society," (Canoe News/CP).

Why in the world would I want to put guilt or innocence aside?

...in a courtroom, no less.

Given the strong emotional response from the public to the video, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae cautioned that Khadr's fate should not be subject to a "popularity contest."

"He was brainwashed and sent in to fight NATO troops. I think we all recognize that's deeply troubling to Canadians," said Rae.

"We have our troops there, obviously it's deeply troubling to all of us. The issue is not that. The issue is, isn't it appropriate for Canada to take responsibility for Mr. Khadr?"

Canada?

Nope. I wasn't involved and none of my friends were either.

But, heck, I'll go with the brainwashed bit for the sake of argument. Let's see where that takes us...

So... If not Omar, how about the parents taking responsibility and paying the appropriate price? Would that work for you, Bob?

After all, isn't responsibilty a direct correlate to control? Who controlled him, Bob? It wasn't "Canada" pulling Omar's strings.

Mandatory Voting...

Over at Werner Patel's blog (Werner Patels - A Dose of Common Sense) Werner's running a couple of posts in favour of mandatory voting, here and here.

I gather Werner is displeased at my behaviour on his blog because he's asked me not to post there any more. I'm not sure why he found me that troubling, but: fine with me; it's his place, so if that's how he wants it, that's what he gets. Castle/king and all that very good stuff.

But that doesn't mean I'll just let things slide. After all, Werner did say: "From now on, please stay on your blog..." ;-)

I challenged the idea of forcing people to vote on ethical grounds. You can read the details by visiting his site, and in any case Werner didn't really address those objections. He chose instead to engage in name-calling and also to note how lots of folks agreed with him.

Well, OK, he's free to behave how he wishes at his place...

But anways, all purely ethical considerations aside in favour of more practical considerations, I was re-reading the two threads, including additional queries posted by ScruffyDan, and I came across these curious exchanges:

Scruffydan:

Mandatory voting may increase voter turn out, but not voter education. I fail to see how forcing uneducated voters to cast a ballot will make things better.

...to which Werner replied:

Voter education as such is a hopeless undertaking -- at least, in this country. We'd have to raise the general level of education first and then move on to political education. As this re-education process will take decades, and we don't have time to wait for that, must happen now:

(a) Mandatory voting (plus stiff fine for those not voting)

Evidently, Werner thinks (even apart from the ethical considerations he chose not to discuss) that forcing uneducated people to vote *now* will somehow still improve things--even though the voters won't be motivated or knowledgeable.

Exactly how that will work isn't explained but I'm sure the mental gymnastics required to even make the idea seem sensible would be thrilling to watch.

But there's another flaw in Werner's reasoning.

Werner and I had this exchange:

Werner: "Look at the rotten and corrupt government Albertans are now stuck with because so many people didn't do their share".

Me: "Actually, by your logic, the damage was caused by the only people who *did* do their share: the folks who voted."

In reply, Werner wrote:

The last Alberta election clearly demonstrates what happens when people are too lazy to vote (they were home getting drunk or watching a moronic hockey game, no doubt): we end up with a government that has no democratic legitimacy (with only 22% of the electorate, it is certainly not a majority government and therefore doesn't deserve the number of seats it claimed for itself) and that views itself as being not accountable to voters at all (after all, only a tiny minority of voters showed up for the election, so the government doesn't feel obligated to do right by the people of the province).

and Werner had stated earlier in the thread that "Most of those who stayed home would not have voted for Stelmach, because the 22% who did already represent his only remaining core support (give or take).

That's fascinating.

If Werner is correct (and he has no way of knowing, actually--he's just assuming) then, logically, Werner *must* be saying:

• that it was the *left* that was too lazy, too ignorant, too selfish or too stupid to vote, and
  
• that Mr Stelmach's supporters were the only folks responsible enough to do what Werner calls "their civic duty".

I'm not sure those were the points Werner was trying to make, but those are the only things that logically follow.

------------------------------------------

An aside:

Don't take this post as any sort of blanket condemnation of Werner. I disagree with him lots about this issue and others, but he often makes good points; he works to be benevolent and he's worked hard to gain some considerable skills. Plus, he's brave enough and straight-up enough to put his real name behind what he says. He stays on my "Blogs I Appreciate" list.

This is *my* place.

From an article written by...

...Imam Zijad Delic in the Ottawa Citizen:

The limitless free speech model -- which posits that the solution to harmful and hateful speech is more and better speech -- does not work for minority communities, and our complaints illustrate that.

Too bad, Imam Delic. It works for me, and I'm a minority of one. What you propose doesn't work for me.

What your complaints best illustrate is that you are willing to use the force of law, and are ultimately willing to use "main force", to compel some level of obedience to your standards.

I object, and I refuse.

Quite frankly, I obviously respect you far more than you evidently respect me. Because: as long as you physically leave me and mine alone, I don't give a rodent's butt about your standards--except that you're welcome to them, and you are free to live by them. And that's not me giving you permission--that's me understanding your rights.

You are also free to offend me, to call me and the ideas I hold dear every and any name and insult you can muster, wherever and whenever you like, and you are free to tell people that you don't think they ought to support me in any way; you are free to tell people that they ought to dislike me.

As long as I treat you likewise, what you can't properly ever do is touch me, or tell others that they should touch me, in any physical, tangible way, ever, at all. And, consequently, you can't properly shut me up.

Your problem with the "solution to harmful and hateful speech [being] more and better speech" is actually only that you understand that accepting that definition requires more effort on your part than you are willing to provide; accepting such a definition requires skill and patience--and, ultimately, better arguments, and it requires a commitment not to coerce others. Simply, your abject lack in those areas is exactly why--and the only reason why--that definition doesn't work for you.

You wrote:

The fact is that a discussion of free speech cannot be divorced from a discussion of who in our society has the power to express themselves and through which medium.

Oh, horse puckey. Wrong. The fact, instead, is that a discussion of free speech must be divorced from a discussion of who in our society has the power to express themselves and through which medium.

In any case, as long as you have access to a working mouth, let alone a podium, a megaphone, a CB radio or a photocopier, you unarguably already have all the tools you need to express yourself.

If you want room in a national magazine, you are free to buy one or build one, and all you need then do is freely convince enough people to read it. That's what Macleans has already done; you just don't want to have to go to the trouble yourself. If I didn't know how hard you are working to take away my ability to speak freely, I'd have to say you were just plain lazy. As it is, you merely value expediency in getting what you want over principles. In other words, you are impatient and willing to push people around.

Besides, the fact I read your article is more than evidence enough that you have sufficient access to express your views. You plainly disagree with me and, yet, here you are: in the Ottawa Citizen, with a potential world-wide audience--and it didn't cost you a dime. Clue in, Imam Delik: you have the freaking Internet.

All of which are side issues.

Understand this, Imam Delic, my right to free speech is not up for negotiation in any case. It's mine, pure and simple--and no one except a band of arrogant, self-righteous, presumptuous thugs would ever consider curtailing it.

A beautiful article on...

...use of the semi-colon (Slate).

From the article:

Slate's founding editor, Michael Kinsley, once noted to the Financial Times that "[t]he most common abuse of the semicolon, at least in journalism, is to imply a relationship between two statements without having to make clear what that relationship is." All journalists can cop to this: The semicolon allows woozy clauses to lean on each other like drunks for support.

I use semi-colons but only ever as a way of joining discrete sentences that share not the same general thinking but, instead, more the same thought. In other words, I use them only when the connection between two sentences is clearly much closer than the general relationship between other sentences in the same paragraph. I use them to recognize a connection, not to imply a connection.

I also don't ever use semi-colons to connect anything that couldn't otherwise stand as two complete sentences.

I love punctuation, so: how about you? How do you use semi-colons, if you do?

Where things come from...

Talking about Ireland's refusal to go EU over at Werner Patel's place...

One well-known writer (whose name shall not be mentioned; I'm not interested in laying troll-bait) noted the essential difference between the view of human rights held in Europe as opposed to Britain and North America. Succinctly, the difference is that Europeans generally regard human rights as mere permissions granted by God or government, while the classical liberal (British/North American) tradition holds that humans have rights innately, entirely regardless of the opinion of governments, God or deists/theists.

That difference is glaringly obvious when examining the machinations of the EU dogmatists--just as obviously as it is when examining the "Civil" legal theory of Quebec law as opposed to the (albeit eroding) "Common Law" underpinnings of English Canadian law.

You've described where the impetus is coming to erode Britain's autonomy and common law legal tradition; in Canada the eroding of common law and individual autonomy comes just as directly from the heavily Quebecois (in other words: European) influenced eastern Canadian large-L Liberal party and the NDP/marxist and Bismarkian/European influenced Fabian statists they raid for practical ideas on how to increase or (where necessary) re-apply the power of the State.

Freedom, limits and blasphemy.

"I don't think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy," said Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. "There can be no freedom without limits."

Look: there is *no* proof for the existence of a deity--not any proof, not for any of them, not God, not Allah, not Odin or Zeus. There is proof that each of those had adherents, but--again--no proof whatsoever for the existence of the deities themselves.

That makes *all* religious/theological belief mere opinion.

Freedom with limits is just newspeak code for a discussion regarding the size of the cage and who gets to be the zookeeper. Making blasphemy illegal just makes religious people the zookeepers.

I am a human being. I am no one's property and no one's rightful subject, and I am likewise subject to no deity or deities.

So, to Mr. Wade of Senegal or any others who would restrict or remove my freedom of expression based on such charges:

If you attempt to charge me, convict me, fine me or jail me based on your mere wish not to be offended, understand that I will always take those attempts as mortal threats to my life, peace and security, and that I will hold all who act in support of such attempts as mortal enemies as well.

I will not instigate aggression, but--anytime I choose, whenever it suits me, and whenever I think it's necessary and appropriate--I *will* fight back.

In other words: Don't Tread on Me.

Pay attention.

These people get it.

For reasonable people who believe in equality and safety for all, it is easy to condemn Boissoin’s hurtful and inflammatory language. Furthermore, the temptation is strong to want to silence such an angry diatribe which might find an audience of people willing to join his war against equality.

While it is difficult to support Boissoin’s right to spew his misguided and vitriolic thoughts, support his right, we must.

If Boissoin was no longer able to share his views, then who might be next in also having their freedom of expression limited. Traditionally, the LGBT community’s freedom has been repressed by society and its laws.

Plus, it is far better that Boissoin expose his views than have them pushed underground. Under the glaring light of public scrutiny, his ideas will most likely wither and die.

The BCHRC should pay attention.

h/t Ezra Levant

(You know, I really don't know much aboutwhat Ezra thinks about a lot of things; I'm just not that familiar. But I agree completely with his opinion regarding so-called Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals. There are courts for real grievances.

Commissions and tribunals are insults just by their existence; they are designed specifically to control people politically as opposed to control acts of aggression or fraud.)

What Mark Steyn and Macleans are putting up with in BC is both absurd and frightening; the Commissioners are acting like ideological thugs--but the Alberta Human Rights Commission order against Rev. Stephen Boisson is so dementedly juggernautish in it's bullying, the reasonable mind staggers.

As Mr. Levant (properly) puts it:

It is the most revolting order I have ever seen in Canada. Ever.

I'll excerpt a few lines from her ruling:

In this case, there is no specific individual who can be compensated as there is no direct victim who has come forward...

That's insane already. No-one was hurt. The complainant was an officious intermeddler, a busybody, the town scold, an anti-Christian activist named Darren Lund who had an axe to grind, and Andreachuk gave it to him.

Dr. Lund, although not a direct victim, did expend considerable time and energy and suffered ridicule and harassment as a result of his complaint. The Panel finds therefore that he is entitled to some compensation.

So a busybody with no standing spends time filing complaints -- and gets a tax-free reward for doing so. Oh -- and for his "suffering". Not suffering at the hands of Rev. Boission, but "as a result of his complaint". People in the community ridiculed Lund for filing the complaint -- as they should. And so Andreachuk will get the pastor to pay for that. Why the hell not? Who's going to stop her? Her political patron, Ed Stelmach?

There's more--and it's not pretty. Go Read. And pay attention (and, no--as it happens I don't agree with the good Rev one tiny bit...but that's not the point).

Wal-mart in Peace River Alberta

Check over at QandO for a neat article on Wal-Mart.

We have a Wal-Mart coming to Peace River (Alberta) really quick. I mean, it's already here, it just hasn't opened. I couldn't be more pleased. Middle of June.

I work in a small, family-owned business here in Town and there's some competetive crossover with stuff Wal-Mart carries. So: we're gonna have to work to keep customers happy, and that's great because it means that--besides making business more fun, more challenging--every other small retailer in town is gonna have to up it's game, too. The best way to do that is to treat customers better than Wal-Mart does...and that's not easy. Wal-Mart is really good at what they do.

Customers have *all* the power in Wal-Mart territory.

That's a good thing (fun link).

Hmmmm....

If voting doesn't work to lower taxes--and it never will: "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else". Bastiat/1850--there's always this:

Fuel protests herald grim times for European green policy

After hundreds of angry drivers shut down highways in England yesterday in protest against green automobile taxes, and drivers and fishermen in France and Spain paralyzed their ports and roads in a fuel-tax protest, politicians began to signal Europe's ambitious emission-control policies may soon have to be abandoned.

While Europe has led the way in using tax incentives to encourage people to buy low-emission cars and to build carbon-neutral houses in order to meet Kyoto targets, it has become increasingly apparent that inflation-battered voters are no longer willing to go along.

Political leaders in Britain and France are seeking the reversal of tax policies designed to make polluting vehicles more expensive, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and some British ministers calling on their own governments and the European Union to relax ecologically friendly taxes in order to give relief to citizens suffering from fast-rising food and fuel prices.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper launches a European tour today to persuade leaders that Canada's greenhouse-gas policies are acceptable, he may find the gaps between their views have narrowed, as formerly ecologically assertive leaders react to rising voter backlash against green policies.

The guy who wrote the headline doesn't get it.

These aren't fuel protests; these are tax protests.

The protesters quite sensibly aren't targeting the private companies. They're targeting the government. One can only hope this really means more folks are finally catching on.

--By the way, when you think of "Big Oil" you might have the wrong folks in mind anyways.

As The Economist points out:

...the national oil companies (NOCs) [are] owned or controlled by the governments of oil-rich countries, which manage over 90% of the world's oil, depending on how you count. Of the 20 biggest oil firms, in terms of reserves of oil and gas, 16 are NOCs. Saudi Aramco, the biggest, has more than ten times the reserves that Exxon does.

Check this Federation of American Scientists publication, the 2007 report to Congress titled: The Role of National Oil Companies in the International Oil Market (PDF--and, by the way, Foxit Reader, which is free and scum/malware free, works better and faster than Adobe Reader IMNSHO).

From the report:

Every firm in the top ten reserve holders, with the exception of Lukoil, in both 2006 and 2000 was state owned. Among the major international oil companies, Exxon Mobil is ranked fourteenth, BP seventeenth, Chevron nineteenth, Conoco Phillips, twenty-third, and Shell is ranked twenty-fifth in 2006. These five firms hold only 3.8% of world liquid reserves, and their major holdings are in the United States and Canada.

In contrast, the top ten firms listed in Table2 hold 80.6%of the total world liquid reserves. The top ten companies in 2006 in Table 2 have an average reserve to production ratio of 78 years, with INOC, the Iraqi National OilCompany, the highest at 173 years and Lukoil, a privately held Russian company,the lowest at 24 years.

H/T SDA

Please, someone tell me...

What are the good and honourable reasons leftists/socialists would be against secret ballots anytime?

Secret Ballots May End in [American] Union Elections If Obama Becomes President.

...[U]p until now, a worker could placate union supporters and sign a statement saying that he wanted a union and then vote against the union when he was protected by the secrecy of the voting booth.

While the Bush administration promised to veto the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act,” Obama has made his feelings about the legislation very clear. Last year, Obama promised, “We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s not a matter of 'if'; it’s a matter of 'when.' We may have to wait for the next president to sign it, but we will get this thing done.”

I think the reason is that union activists/supporters want their intimidation targets more easily identified, but if anyone has a better, non-thuggish reason, I'd love to hear it.

After all, maybe I just don't understand.

Rules are not meant to *replace* thinking...

Grapevine student with top grades won't be valedictorian (Dallas News)

Anjali Datta's GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the Grapevine High School history, but she can't be valedictorian and get a one-year scholarship from the state because she graduated in three years instead of the usual four.

Rules are not meant to *replace* thinking. Or honour.

That's something this shining light (Shadle Park (Spokane) High School's Andrea Nelson) understood at the 3,200-meter Washington state championship race.

The awards ceremony took place, then Nelson got off the awards stand, walked over to Cochran, removed the first-place medal from around her neck and draped it over Cochran's.

"It's your medal," Nelson said to her, the Tri-City Herald reported. "You're the state champion."

Later, said Nelson: "She totally deserves it. She crushed everybody."

There are *no* principles involved.

from CNN: Sources: Dems could meet Florida, Michigan half way

Clinton and her supporters have been pressing for a compromise that seats as many delegates from the two states as possible. Clinton's Web site encourages people to write to the Rules and Bylaws Committee.

"There is one number that we are going to be satisfied with, and that is 2.3 million people having their votes counted," Clinton supporter Tina Flournoy said. About 600,000 people voted in Michigan and about 1.7 million in Florida.

Understand this: if Clinton thought she'd lose in those states, she would be fighting every bit as hard to ensure those 2.3 million people wouldn't get their votes counted.

Principled bahaviour isn't her strong suit.

Not that I have a dog in this race anyways; Clinton, Obama or McCain...jeezuz, you poor Americans. That's your top 3 for President???

There's always Toronto...

...and the mayor is an idiot.

Miller aims to ban handguns, shut ranges

Mr. Miller has pushed for a national handgun ban and for tighter controls at the U. S. border, and said yesterday he made no apologies about banning sport shooting [in Toronto]. He pointed to the shooting death of bystander John O'Keefe on Yonge Street this year by a legally registered handgun.

"After John O'Keefe's tragic killing, I don't think there's any defence for sport shooters any more," he said. "It's a hobby that creates danger to others.… Guns are stolen routinely from so-called legal owners."

"Do we as a society value safety or do we value a hobby that creates danger? And nobody can deny that that hobby directly results in people being shot to death on the streets of Toronto."

Does this reasoning make sense?

Well, try substituting automobiles for guns, and stolen or street racing car accidents for shooting deaths. If it makes sense for the one, it oughtta make sense for the other.

Let's ban cars and motorcycles while we're at it, then.

Miller may love his children, wife and his dogs--but he's still a shallow-thinking twit. I'm sure the criminals will pay a lot of attention to the ban. Don't they always?

H/T SDA

Leading Edge Nanny Statism...

I wrote my last post about Zero Tolerance, and Mike asked me:

Honestly Ron, where do you find this stuff...it would be funny if it weren't so common.

OC noted:

"This is the stuff of life. Greasy-pated, microphallic bureacrats, strutting around trying to impose their tiny, little wills."

Yup, and Britain's Daily Mail is one prolific source of examples. After all, Britain is leading edge these days when it comes to nanny-statism.

Like this one: Health and safety zealots tell youngster her 2ft paddling pool needs a lifeguard

For nearly a quarter of a century, Lourdes Maxwell has celebrated the arrival of summer by putting a paddling pool in the garden. This year, however, her two grandchildren and the children of her neighbours may have to find another way to cool off in the heat.

Miss Maxwell's local council has decided that the pool - which is only 2ft deep - needs a lifeguard.

The 47-year-old divorced mother of three has also been told she must have insurance before she can inflate the toy outside her house in Portsmouth.

The health and safety edict came after she wrote to the city council asking for permission to put a bigger pool in the communal garden outside her home.

Not only was she told it was too dangerous, but the council told her to empty the existing pool.

After her MP intervened [emphasis mine], the local authority softened its stance, saying Miss Maxwell could have a pool if she paid for insurance and ensured supervisors were on constant watch...Miss Maxwell, who is a full-time carer to her son Aiden, said yesterday: "It is absolutely pathetic. I have had a paddling pool outside the front of my flat every summer for 24 years, ever since Aiden turned one year old.

"Neighbours' children would come and enjoy the pool and I would give them ice lollies. It was always a very social occasion."

She added: "Now suddenly I'm not allowed.

"I asked around for insurance and they just laughed at me. No one offers insurance for paddling pools.

"I'm always there to supervise but they're trying to tell me I need lifeguards for a kiddies' pool as well - it's crazy."

Nigel Selley, Portsmouth Council's neighbourhood manager, defended the ruling yesterday.

He said: "We did not have sufficient assurances that the risks associated with providing such a facility would be well-managed.

"We have since spoken to Ms Maxwell and she is aware of our concerns for child safety and the risks associated with drowning."

Oh yeah, she's certainly aware of your concerns, Nigel.

Zero Tolerance means "Zero Thinking"...

Teenager, 16, fined for littering ... after letting balloon go at charity event

Newcastle Council said it had a zero-tolerance approach to littering.

Stephen Savage, director of regulatory services and public protection, said:

"We believe pursuing action against offences like this sends out an uncompromising message that litter dropping in the city will not be tolerated."

Yeah? Well, understand this, Mr. Director of Regulatory Services and Public Protection:

I *will* protect myself from *you*.

Fresh from...

...the Hugo Chavez School of Economics, comes Maxine Waters (D-umbass, California) with this remarkably honest (albeit totally inept) bit of threatening at the recent United States Congressional Hearings on oil prices.



Well, it's nice to see that she's honest enough to flat out state that "liberal" and "government take over" are pretty much synonymous, while still progressive-ly dishonest enough to want to backtrack big-time when she forgets herself and trots out the very accurate, but totally useless for propaganda, "S-word".

S'okay, Maxine. We absolutely understand.

h/t Two-Four

Oh gimme a break...

California mulls steep tax on adult entertainment

The last time I remember this ridiculousness being floated (in 2005) it was:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, characteriz[ing] her bill introduced last week as a way to make the Internet a "safer place" for children. The bill would impose a 25 percent tax on the revenue of most adult-themed Web sites.

Yeah right.

It'll make the Internet a more profitable place for cash-sucking bureaucrats and professional moralists, and a lot less safe for anyone else with a wallet is what it'll do.

Note that *all* the sponsors of that 2005 legislation were Democrats, not fundie right-wingers.

Other Senate sponsors of the legislation--all Democrats--include Thomas Carper of Delaware, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. (CNET)

Anyways, this time it's Democrats again, in California (Yahoo News)--and the same magical 25% target.

California. Well, yeah...bank robbers rob banks 'cause that's where the money is. Even if Willie Sutton didn't exactly say so.

And, what???...do politicians think that 25% sounds enough like stealing a measly quarter or something?

Anyways, I LUVVED this quote from the ABC article on the subject of California's "efforts".:

College students who were lobbying at the Capitol Monday to push for fewer education cuts want any way to boost state coffers, even if the money came from a questionable source.

"When you're going for a greater cause, it doesn't matter where you get the funds, as long as it's a legal source of funding and it's going to improve the future and the economy," says college student Bridgette Dussan.

Ah, so all you gotta do is write law that makes it legal, *then* take it.

Because she "think[s] it's going for greater cause" is what makes it all right.

Yeah, I love modern educations.

In the meantime, Assemblyman Charles Calderon (Democrat dontcha know...) claims he's doing it (...sniffle...choke......) for the poor porn workers, and the caring folks who have to, you know, help them pick up the pieces:

"there is something wrong with the porn industry. The workers don't usually have a long career and California taxpayers end up footing the bill at a time when the state is broke".

"When they come out, they come out with no skills. They come out unemployed. Many come out addicted. If they go on unemployment or on welfare or Medi-Cal, that's a cost to the state."

Oh, Chuck, you're *so generous*...with someone else's money.

Angry Studies Departments...

Bumped into the phrase "Angry Studies departments" at Small Dead Animals, in a post by Vitruvius.

I'd never encountered it before, but it evidently stems back to a post by someone named Jim, I gather relating to the old Duke affair..

Anyways...what a perfectly appropriate description.

Find of the Century: Wisdom.

Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.7 An Ceiling Cat doed teh skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.

9 An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good.

The lolcat Bible Translation Project.

Here's a mixed-up story...

...Christian group appeals human rights violation CTV/CP

TORONTO -- A provincially funded Christian group is appealing part of a tribunal ruling that found it violated the rights of a worker who had to quit after revealing she was gay.

Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal ordered Kitchener-based Christian Horizons to compensate Connie Heintz and to end a code-of-conduct agreement for its 2,500 employees.

The contract, which all staff must sign, forbids workers from cheating on their spouses, having pre-marital sex or homosexual relationships, using pornography, and "endorsing" alcohol or tobacco.

The group says it will no longer require employees to sign the agreement, but it will be appealing the remainder of the tribunal's order.

The evangelical organization is funded almost entirely by the province and operates more than 180 residential homes in Ontario for people with developmental disabilities.

Just exactly *how* did the Christian organization violate the rights of the worker involved? After all, it was the worker who actually signed and then broke the contract.

So, lets sort out this *some* of the right and wrong in this story:

1) a Christian group ought to be able to demand its employees uphold what it sees as "christian" standards. That's a no-brainer; after all, people can freely choose to work for the organization, or not. I guess it's also perfectly OK if they decide they don't want employees to sign such a contract, too--but they equally ought not to be forced into that decision.

2) The government ought not to fund religious organizations, for any reason. That's a no brainer, too; religious people can fund religious organizations if they want them enough. In the same vein, why should (for example) atheists be forced through taxation to support religious organizations? Why should, say, gays be forced to support organizations that don't like them (and wouldn't choose to hire them)?

3) Not that The State ought to be in the charity business in the first place, but it still remains that if I hire someone to do something, I accept their standards or I don't hire them in the first place. That's a no-brainer, too. Why was the government hiring an agency whose ethical (as in hiring) standards were at odds with its own standards?

4) Any agency, religious or otherwise, equally, ought to accept the standards of its employer, or it ought not to work for them. The religious organization in question knew full well it was accepting a secular task, on behalf of a nominally secular government--and it knew the sort of HR practices that are part of that package. The religious organization was fully free to try to help disabled people on its own terms without being hired by the government, without accepting the State's payments.

5) The religious organization had an employment contract that an employee freely signed. The employee then broke the terms of the contract. Instead of faulting the employee for breaking the contract, the so-called "Human Rights Tribunal" of Ontario instead ruled that the organization owed the contract-breaking employee some compensation.

6) Why would a gay person choose to work for a homophobic employer...and lie to do it?

So what we have is a lovely mish-mash of unprincipled behaviour on pretty much everyone's part. And the result?

The result is that now religious organizations don't even have the right to insist that their employees meet their moral standards.

In other words, the result is stupid.

Sad. Just sad.

Rich Nikoley over at Honestylog.com also writes (well) about this. I've got something to say, too, because this is just sad.

The so-called DC Madam (actually the human being, Ms.Deborah Jeane Palfrey, an honest and discreet business woman) killed herself.

Here's why:

I cannot live the next 6 to 8 years behind bars for what you and I have both come to regard as this 'modern-day lynching' only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman

Who did she hurt? No one. Who did she betray? No one. Who did she steal from? No one.

Evidently there must are...people...(I guess that term still applies)..that think--that must think--somehow her death was necessary for "the common good".

Read what she wrote.

There are so many laws that cause this kind of real damage, all in the name of some hideously abstract "common good". Please stop putting up with them.

1000% classy.

Opponents carry injured hitter around the bases to ensure her first-ever home run

Central Washington players help a Western Oregon rival, hurt rounding the bases, to touch 'em all.

I think I have something in my eye...

This *is* curious...

According to Jonathan Kay at the National Post, Denis Lemelin, the National President of CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) responded to Mr Kay's query about CUPW's boycott of Israeli made products this way:

Re: Jonathan Kay asks: Now that CUPW is boycotting Israel, will Canada Post deliver mail to the Israeli embassy? April 28.

[small portion edited]...Unlike the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian mail, CUPW has no plans to block mail to and from Israel as of yet. [editing and emphasis mine]

The curious part:

Is the "as of yet" part just sloppy (as in: heat of the moment) writing, a veiled threat to refuse to deliver such mail in the future, or (maybe??? I would hope not) an indication that blocking mail for partisan political reasons has been a CUPW tactic in the past?

You can read what Mr. Kay posts as Mr. Lemelin's full response at the link given above, but--as does Mr. Kay--I think that's a very curious thing for Mr. Lemelin to write.

I wasn't aware that CUPW had the authority to determine which mail will or won't get delivered. Actually, I wasn't aware that CUPW would even imagine they had that authority. My reading of the Canada Post Corporation Act would seem to indicate that any such authority rests with the Canada Post Corporation itself, in other words: with management (or, obviously, the Federal Government), not with the Union.

My reading/understanding of the Canada Post Corporation Act, PART II: GENERAL POSTAL MATTERS/Offences and Punishment:

Abandonment of mail

49. Every person commits an offence who unlawfully and knowingly abandons, misdirects, obstructs, delays or detains the progress of any mail or mail conveyance.

[and]

Delay of mail

50. (1) Every person commits an offence who, without reasonable cause, refuses to permit or delays permitting any mail or mail conveyance to pass on or use any road, ferry or other route or mode of transport access to which is under his control.

would seem to indicate that doing so would be a direct violation of the Act.

(For some possibly relevant insight into how Canada Post itself generally views a refusal to deliver mail, see this 2006 article at LibCom.Org regarding a past decision by a postal worker who refused to deliver some mail.)

Me (as Grammar Nazi) and the new Sonata ad...

...A well dressed guy in a tux (obviously a sort of Redford/Indecent Proposal clone) says to the fella standing by the Sonata: "I'll give you a million dollars to spend one night with it."

Evidently making a judgement on what a night with the Sonata would be like, the fella says "No."

Or is that not what the ad intended ;-)

If you can't build it...

...steal it.

Chavez is at it again still.

"If they don't want to reach an agreement with us, I'll sign an expropriation decree. I'll take immediate control."

Well, you wanted to know...

...if Obama was smart enough to be a decent President.

Jury's in. Nope. He's the same old clueless when it comes to economics.

And this proves it.

"I don't want somebody to save essentially 25 bucks -- that's what the savings would yield for the average driver -- and now they're potentially driving over an unsafe bridge," he said.

It's not *his* 25 bucks in the first place. He's the same old same old when it comes to understanding that, too.

Read the link for more stoopid details.

Lord Lloyd-Webber:

"In dress rehearsals, she was flawless."

Class.

I'm impressed.

The almost automatic leap of stupidity:

I'm doing my daily stroll at FARK and I run into a post about prostitution busts (actually "john" busts, it seems) in Memphis.

Then it's over to the comments, where I find a unit named fiegel07 getting perilously close to common sense:

I've never really understood why prostitution is illegal. If people want to pay to have sex, then who are we to stop them? Legalize it...

Now, I'm sure feige107 means well, but, yup, he follows immediately with the ever-so-common leap of stupidity:

...and tax the transactions.

We all see it everyday whenever the subject of so-called "legalising" some so-called sin or other comes up: "legalize it, tax it".

All I've got to say is that a "sin tax" is nothing more and nothing better than a bribe paid to governments for permission to do what isn't their business anyway; it's just protection money.

It's Good News Week...

Blind homeowner captures intruder(IndyStar.com)

A blind homeowner used the wrestling skills he learned more than 30 years ago to overpower an intruder and hold the man at knifepoint until police arrived this morning.

“I just kind of panicked and just kind of went crazy after that,” Allan Kieta said. “I’ve wrestled all my life. My dad’s a Marine; he taught me some stuff. You’re thinking in your head all this survival stuff.”

Fun read.

"Cowardice does not make you safe. It makes you a safe target.
D.Amon at Samizdata.

Global Warming: What Common Sense Sounds like...

OSU climatologist [George Taylor] vacates hot seat (Lake Oswego Review)

You didn't think they'd stop at cigarettes, didja?

Punish all drinkers for crimes of drunks, say health chiefs.

Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: 'Third-party damage from alcohol is much greater – in terms of violence and the damage to unborn children, the first sexual experience and the percentage of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.'

Is it painfully obvious to you yet that these bozos started with cigarettes knowing that what they really wanted wouldn't fly until the principles had been put in place by going after smokers?

They won't stop with booze either.

I read something like this...

...Public spaces sold to the highest bidder...and I don't know where to even start.

So how about:

Yeah, it was ever so much more pastoral when governments just stole enough money to build the things, wasn't it.

And spare me the twaddle about mom and pop stores...obviously a whole bunch of folks have decided not to keep shopping at 'em. Grow up. Life's like that.

H/T to LFR for a great, fun to read, post.

Let Freedom Reign

"Thoughts on Gun Control" by Dinosaur. Read it (police officer comments on the gun registry.)
Most are older comments, but still relevant, although it's is good to remember that it ain't properly anybody's business who owns a gun in the first place--any more than it's proper to know who owns a kitchen knife.

Wal-Mart has every right to store video...

...and record purchases of firearms at its locations (link to Yahoo News).

Wal-mart is a private company, and potential gun-owners are free to shop elsewhere, they are free to not shop at Wal-Mart if they choose.

Now, the NRA (with whom I generally have little quarrel) says:"

I view it as a public relations stunt that stigmatizes law-abiding firearms purchasers exercising their freedom under the Constitution," said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

Actually, I doubt that's what it is. A person's "freedom under the Costitution" doesn't include "the right to purchase arms under personally-desired conditions from any seller".

Who knows, there are probably lots of willing capitalists available to fill the niche market Wal-Mart has abandoned and I sincerely--and I mean this--wish them very, very well. And, actually, I trust Wal-Mart way more than the government with the information, anyways.

Just so you know where I'm coming from:

• market solutions with no politicians involved: always the best policy
• I absolutely support private gun ownership,
• I am opposed to government registries, and
• criminals who use guns oughtta pay a very high price.

A co-founder of Greenpeace...

...supports nuclear energy.

From Newsweek:

Reporter:

What about the issue of nuclear waste?

Patrick Moore:

As is now planned, I'd establish a recycling industry for nuclear fuel, which reduces the amount of waste to less than 10 percent of what it would be without recycling.

How many Americans know that 50 percent of the nuclear energy being produced in the U.S. is now coming from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads?

The environmental movement is going on about how terrible it will be if someone does something destructive with these materials. Well, actually the opposite is occurring: all over the world, people are using former nuclear-weapons material for peaceful purposes—swords into plowshares. This constant propaganda about the cost of nuclear energy—that's just activists looking for the right buttons to push, and one of the key buttons to push is to make consumers afraid that their electricity prices will go up if nuclear energy is built. In fact, it's natural gas that is causing [energy] prices to go up. [emphasis mine--RG]

Another case of expediency over principles...

Toronto Police Chief Calls For Forced DNA Samples before a conviction (Citynews.ca).

The problem, Blair says, is the delay between arrest and trial. He said it can take up to three years to secure a conviction, in which time the accused could commit more crimes.

But didn't I read somewhere about a presumption of innocence?

And isn't there something in our wimpy Charter of Rights and Freedoms about the right not to be compelled to be a witness in proceedings against that person in respect of the offence.

My thinking is that The Police Chief's brainstorm would run counter to Section 13 of the Charter as well if the DNA evidence was used to support another case.

There is nothing right about a law that prevents...

...this man from being my neighbour.

The couple talked about the decision for him to return to Mexico in the office of their immigration attorney, Mira Mdivani, shortly before Marquez left last month.

"You don't feel safe in the streets. You don't feel safe anywhere because of a lot of things going on right now," he said. "The police pull you over for no reason."

"I want to be free, to go wherever I want to go and not be scared. In the long run, it will be worth it. We can have a better life and we won't be scared anymore," Marquez said.

When he was in the United States, he worked at construction jobs, doing everything from picking up trash to cleaning sewers and provided about two-thirds of the household income.

Sure, deport people right back home if they cause a problem, and be quick about it. But this guy didn't "cause a problem".

I'm not so afraid of bad people that I think it's better this guy be forced back to slum; that solution just increases the number of the bad creeps' victims.

In the meantime, because it's just false advertising, might as well take the Statue of Liberty down.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Should you trust governments?

From The Times Online: Ten conspiracy theories more ridiculous than the Diana "plot".

Here's one:

2. In 1959, when Francois Mitterrand was already a famous politician, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt outside the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. His car was riddled with bullets but he leapt to safety.

When the gunman and the organiser of the attempt were arrested they were able to prove that the whole thing was a fake organised by Mitterrand to win favourable headlines and implicate General de Gaulle. Charges against the "assassins" were dropped. Mitterrand was later elected President of France.

That one is true. Guess about the other nine.

I trust dollars more than votes. The guys wanting dollars but not votes don't force me to buy their stuff; I'm free to do without any of it.

PROOF the west won the cold war.

HERE

Another goal is: do the same with radical Islam.

And the other religions.

Please understand...

...the reason I'm putting this here is absolutely *not* because I think people should vote. I'm no democrat.

I'm putting it here so you'll understand at least a few of the reasons I don't accept that any governmental body has any right to control me just because (or even though) they have been elected.

Oh. Even when smart people vote, it doesn't get any better, or any more legitimate.

This for "left" anarchists who hate right-wingers...

There might be something about the Right that you aren't familiar with, and that's precisely the anti-statism you search for, work for, as an anarchist.

But these days, "the Right" is generally applied to corporate-statist conservatives, as if no other tradition existed.

But an anti-statist Right did exist. And still does to a degree larger than most present day leftists expect, and to a much larger degree than most leftists pundits acknowledge, even as they claim historical competence.

That's the preamble.

For you left anarchists, then, who are not aware of the Right's still present anti-statist cohort, it might help to see what the conflict between big-government, interventionist rightists and right-anarchists looks like in real life. Here's an example found at lowercase liberty, the blog of BK Markus:

a page containing two conflicting obituaries for Murray Rothbard, one by the National Review's William Buckley, and a response by Lou Rockwell.

Read the obits.

Oooooh, is this the wooden stake?

Oooooh, is this the much wished for "wooden stake" in Hillary's candidacy?

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

H/T Two-Four.

(Note re Two-Four: I've been reading Billy Beck's blog for years--and his Usenet posts for more than a decade. I know of no other writer I would give as wide an endorsement. Billy's blog is absolutely, for sure, on my daily read list. I'd fight to defend him, for my benefit.)

Blazing Cat Fur

Right off the bat: I haven't read everything on Blazing Cat Fur, so this isn't a "no qualifications" endorsement of all that you will find there, but it *is* a ringing endorsement of at least one particular post: You have a Social Condition courtesy the HRDC.

H/T Small Dead Animals (again: not an unqualified endorsement, but certainly credit where credit is due).

Note: I was kinda hoping against hope that the BCF post was an elaborate April Fools joke...nope.

Yeah, yeah...

...rules and all that (BBC).

A soldier from the Commonwealth who served more than four years in the British Army, including two tours in Iraq, has been told he can't become a British citizen because he applied on the wrong date.

Rogers Jean-Baptiste was born in St Lucia. He made his application this January, but was told by the Home Office that because on the same date five years earlier he was outside the UK he didn't qualify.

At that time he was actually serving on a British base in Germany.

And, still, folks argue that "bureaucrats and politicians" is the way to go.

Mind-boggling.

Another case of...

gender profiling?

Suspicious conversations with children cause arrest of Folsom man (Loomis Telegraph) h/t Fark:

"It's an odd charge," said sheriff's Sgt. Jim Byers, noting the statute intends chiefly to protect school-grounds neighborhoods. "The family was at the Folsom Borders Books story-telling time, where he (spoke to one of the children), and for lack of a better term, he creeped the mom out. Then, a few days later at the El Dorado Hills Library story time, she saw him again striking up conversation with her children. And then, he does it again. We felt it justified a criminal complaint, she signed it and he was arrested."

And if some woman had spoken a couple of times to her kids at a bookstore, she'da still called the police?

Somehow I just don't think so.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

This link to an earlier post of mine is relevant.

Yeah, well, it occurred to *some* people, Alan.

From: Scrutinizing the human rights machine (National Post)

"Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association...[and] one of the main agitators for the establishment of [the Canadian Human Rights Commission]" stated:

"It just never occurred to anybody that this instrument we were struggling to create would ever be used against the expression of opinion."

Are you freaking serious?????

Exactly what could the Commission ever have handled that wasn't already illegal under the criminal code, except matters of opinion?

They have every good reason to be afraid...

March 24/2008: Tiny Bhutan Will Vote Today to Trade Absolute Rule for Democracy (Agence France-Presse).

...[F]ather and son have traveled the country to explain to its 670,000 people why the nation should embrace democracy.

“The former king said, ‘Today you have a good king, but what if you have a bad king tomorrow?’ ” said Kinley Dorji, managing director of Kuensel, the national newspaper.

He's right, but the solution he's proposing comes with its own huge hazards.

Best wishes, though.