Well, the first meeting of the Northern Nevada Libertarian Party completed without incident. We had seven people show up, which may not sound like much, but was actually pretty impressive considering how it was thrown together in about a week. In fact, it looks like we might be a little too agile for the state LP; they didn’t get the e-mail out to their mail rolls about the meeting until this morning.
I like catching everyone off guard. It’s a good thing. It means we’re doing something right. Always attack, never react - let the enemy do the defending and the reacting.
Fortunately, it appears we have a good, well grounded group starting. Nobody was talking about protests or discussing the constitutionality of arcane Federal projects that have been around for over a century - we just all agreed that the government needs to be smaller, that it needs to intrude less in people’s lives, and that as long as we’re all heading in the same direction, we’ll do just fine. Some, I’m sure, came to that conclusion from a different direction than others, and that’s okay - as long as we all have the same general destination in mind, this will turn out all right.
There will be a meeting on December 10th at 6 p.m. at (I think) the Washoe Flats Steakhouse, where we’ll hopefully be able to build on this last meeting and get to work on dealing with the various arcane details that are part and parcel with developing a new political party. There’s much to do - mailing lists to compile, state and national bylaws to address, and the small matter of coming up with a coherent political strategy that will satisfy enough people across a number of counties. I feel confident that we’ll get this done - it definitely appears that each person that was there tonight brought something to the table, and I know there are a number of potential contributors waiting in the wings that will easily add to what we’re looking to accomplish.
Okay, this post really has nothing to do with blunderbusses; I just wanted to highlight a couple of brilliant government-sponsored blunders. Both examples are from the SF Gate:
(11-12) 04:00 PST Fresno — California authorities plan to unveil a highway safety program to alert motorists when heavy fog makes driving hazardous in the San Joaquin Valley.
[…]
Officials with the California Department of Transportation and the California Highway Patrol say the new changeable message signs will update automatically when visibility sensors detect poor driving conditions.
That’s right - the same state that’s good for a $28 billion deficit and wants a federal bailout has set up a system to let people know that there’s fog… y’know, on the off chance that not being able to see was an insufficient warning. Apparently, some people can’t seem to grasp that, if it seems like they’re driving through the middle of a grey pea-soup filled cloud, they might be… um… driving through a grey pea-soup filled cloud. Of course, any questions asking how one expects to see a sign letting you know that you’re driving through a nearly impenetrable gassy wall of water vapor when your vision is impaired due to driving through a nearly impenetrable gassy wall of water vapor were quickly refracted and ignored.
Meanwhile, if you guessed that those banks we’ve been throwing money at aren’t using the money to increase the credit supply but instead to increase executive compensation and fund bank buy-outs, well, good news…
Members of Congress complained Thursday that banks haven’t used $163 billion infusion of capital, already received or promised by the government, to open credit lines for more lending.
[…]
Treasury has so far has devoted $250 billion of the bailout money to buying equity in banks and another $40 billion to insurance giant American International Group Inc. The hope was that the infusion of news capital would enable them to increase lending, but so far that hasn’t happened, lawmakers said at a hearing by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.
Instead, some of the recipients of the money have continued to pay dividends to stockholders, provide pay raises and bonuses to executives and other employees and level takeover bids at other companies. Lawmakers said they want to impose restrictions on all those activities for companies getting bailout money.
That’s right - our crack team of legislators gave the banking industry $750 billion dollars to increase liquidity but failed to require that banks spend that money on actually increasing liquidity. So, instead, they’re treating the money like college kids routinely treat financial aid checks and spending it all on their friends. Of course, legislators are also the same people that think that, when you’re driving in fog, what you need is a sign letting you know you’re driving through fog, so I guess this shouldn’t come as a huge shock.
I know that I’ve been historicallyharsh about the Libertarian Party in thepast, especially lately. Their foreign policy is, I still think, a little nuts - if the bullies that beat the crap out of me for no particular reason in school were any indication, leaving everyone else alone will not result in peace or prosperity. To quote “Team America“, some people are just assholes, and pretending that it’s a virtue to imagine otherwise is dangerous. There’s also the attitude that I’ve stumbled across when I talk to many “Libertarians”, the complete unwillingness to work with others and compromise, the firm death-grip embrace of the idea that “symbolic” action is the same as real, honest-to-God political action (or at least a solid substitute)… ugh.
That said, the Republicans and Democrats have abandoned me. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is pushing for fiscal conservativism anymore. Nobody is pushing for smaller government, either in funding or in roles. The only question that anybody has any interest in addressing right now is, “Which way shall we grow the government this election cycle,” with the unfortunate side-effect that both sides have decided that it’s far better to cut funding to the other side’s programs to the bone so we have a government that’s 50% schizophrenic and 50% underfunded. The result is a government that tries to do far too much with far too little, a concept that Nevada is at the forefront of. In fact, I have a message for Republicans everywhere, especially in this state:
Smaller government does NOT mean cutting the funding of programs to the point where no government program does what it’s supposed to do anymore. It means eliminating programs so there’s still money for programs that people actually want.
Coincidentally, yes, I’m sorry to say, most people want some government programs. Until we come up with better alternatives to them, they’re going to stick around… which, in a roundabout sort of way, brings me to where I’m going with this…
With the help of some Libertarians, I’m helping to create and join the Northern Nevada Libertarian Party, which, at least for now, will serve as a catch-all to organize Libertarians and libertarian-minded individuals throughout the parts of Nevada that aren’t currently organized (i.e. everywhere except Clark County). Yes, this even means I’ve paid dues to the national LP, which means that, yes, I am officially a Libertarian again… officially. It’s either that or try and cherry-pick among Republican and Democrat candidates for various offices, which isn’t entirely out of the question, either, but not particularly likely.
So… what’s the point?
If Obama’s victory in the primaries has indicated anything, it’s that the Blue Dog Democrats are relegated into minority status in the Democratic Party and will remain there for at least the next four years. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is doing a fine job of mimicking Chernobyl while doing its absolute best to pretend that the semi-libertarian wing of its party doesn’t exist. In short, the United States is starting to veer into single-party territory and the GOP has absolutely no plan or idea what it’s going to do about it.
This, believe it or not, bodes well for the Libertarian Party… if it’s willing to take advantage of the situation.
US politics needs two parties. It doesn’t matter which two parties it is - it’s a very rare event indeed when the US experiences more than four years of single party dominance. Consequently, if the GOP continues to circle the drain, the LP has a decent chance of forging a coalition among the fiscally conservative elements of the GOP and the socially liberal budget hawks of the Democratic Party (i.e. the so-called “Blue Dog Democrats”). It won’t be as ideologically pure as the LP would currently like it to be, and compromises will almost certainly have to be made, but it will be a party that has a far better chance of pushing a freedom-promoting agenda through our political system than anything we’ve seen to date.
My goal is to get started on that at the local level. In order to accomplish anything, the LP must start locally - it’s the only place it can really afford to do anything, to be honest. National elections are huge, expensive, exhausting affairs with a very poor return on investment for third parties. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible for a dedicated locally oriented third party to direct resources at a specific race or two, slowly building support on a district-by-district level, and organically grow into something relevant. As time passes, each locally oriented branch combines into a relevant state tree, which in turn can branch into other states… well, you get the idea.
The seed has been planted. I’m grabbing a handle on the plow. Anybody care to join me?
There are two comments that, I think, sum up the LP’s problem nicely:
Robert Burr:
2. The Libertarian Party is just too beyond the American mainstream. It is both its blessing and its curse. There is a considerable number of people, anywhere from 10 to 20% of the U.S. population who are loosely libertarian. However, these small “L” libertarians are more moderate than the party and much of its platform. This perpertually dooms the party to appealing to only a small segment of the population. On the reverse side, this has probably also prolonged the party’s lifespan. The LP has been around for 36 years. Compare that to the last effects of the Reform Party, the Progressive Party, etc.
Thomas W Cornell:
Now I know why the UNR group will not affiliate with the Young Americans for Liberty even though that group has now been officially endorsed by Ron Paul.
I am also aware that one of the organizers of the group will not state who she was going to vote for.
I can only assume that the UNR group is just another Republican front like the Republican Liberty Caucus.
The problem with the Libertarian Party isn’t just that it’s not in the mainstream - it’s that it’s a religion. It’s one thing to have extreme views, which the Libertarian Party certainly has plenty of. It’s quite another to decide that any freedom-loving organization that doesn’t wish to associate with you anymore is an apostate heresy that’s clearly in league with the High Demon Republicrat. Most political parties are inclusionary - they invite as many different disparate coalitions as possible to join with them, with the hope that they’ll find just enough in common to get some votes and at least satisfy some of the demands of the group. Not the Libertarian Party, though. They’d rather be principled, even if it means that their principles will never see the light of day.
This approach is seriously flawed. Actions speak louder than words. The only way a political party can display action is by winning elections. Yes, the Libertarian Party can be somewhat disruptive by sponsoring various initiatives such as the usual medical marijuana measures that seem to enjoy success from time to time. Unfortunately, most of those only occur via voter initiatives, which means that the Libertarian Party platform is effectively locked out of any government that happens to still believe in some sort of representative democracy. This, for better or worse, includes the ever-growing Federal government, which means that, in the long run, the current LP strategy is a losing one.
The Libertarian Party needs to win elections, and it needs to start doing that sooner than later. The Libertarians need to realize that it’s okay to settle a little; it’s called picking your battles. The gold standard isn’t coming back. We’re not privatizing every single roadway. Mentioning either of those things turns people off just as fast as trying to push “intelligent design” in schools or removing the word “God” from the Pledge of Alliegance. Instead, let’s focus on issues that really matter to voters. Reframe the Drug War arguments so they make sense - stop focusing on demand and focus on supply. You want marijuana to become legal? Tell the farm lobbies that they’re welcome to grow it as a highly profitable cash crop - this has the advantage of eliminating the drug dealers that make it a “gateway drug” in the first place while also finally giving you the kind of financial backing that you need to get something like this through a legislature or two. Forget about allowing every single weapon under the sun - urban areas will never allow the legalization of automatic weapons no matter what the Constitution says and there are really good, practical reasons for this. Instead, push for concealed carry permits - yeah, they require registration, which is unfortunate, but it’s a far better compromise than “ban all handguns”, which is the direction most city councils and their voters take these days, Heller be damned. For the love of all that is good and holy, stop trying to make monetary policy a central issue. That’s not something you throw at the voters - seeing as neither microeconomics nor macroeconomics are a standard part of any primary education in the United States, you might as well be speaking some obscure Austrian dialect of German for all the good it’ll do you. Save that plank for once you’re in a position to actually do something about monetary policy, and not a minute sooner. It’s not like you’re going to overturn the Federal Reserve via voter initiative anyways.
Finally, stop treating the Constitution like it’s the Bible. Does it deserve more respect than it currently gets? Of course. However, the key to actually doing something useful in American politics these days is to acknowledge the simple reality that, at the moment, the Constitution is being interpreted rather flexibly at the moment. If you really want to do something about that, get yourself elected so that you can pick Supreme Court justices that are a little less inclined to play fast and loose with the interstate commerce clause. Otherwise, you just sound like that guy at the sporting events that keeps quoting esoteric and obscure rules that the refs are never going to enforce, no matter how loud you yell.
Real change comes from winning elections. Anything less than this is simply an exercise in feel-good futility.
Between moving and work, I haven’t had much time to write anything as of late. That changes now.
Barack Obama is our new President. No big surprise there, though, to be fair, I was reasonably impressed with McCain’s performance. He didn’t run a perfect campaign, of course, but to be able to at least make it competitive during an economic downturn and complete hatred for the incumbent party should be commended. That said, his election has inspired me to actually get involved in politics again - back in college, I was mildly involved in the College Libertarians and the local Libertarian Pary branch, and I think it’s high time I jumped back in.
This has, sadly, led to a bit of a problem: How? And, equally importantly, with whom?
The trouble, of course, is that I’m not a Republican - I’m an atheist who believes in a sane drug policy and fiscal conservativism. Needless to say, the Republican Party ran away from the likes of me the instant they embraced “Compassionate Conservativism”. Once in a while, they’ll throw the more libertarian-minded people a bone and let Ron Paul get some attention, but therein lies the rub: I don’t want to be a sideshow. I’m not a Truther, I don’t believe that if we pack up our military and go home that everyone will just leave us and our friends alone (as if that works in a schoolyard, much less the real world), and I don’t believe that there’s any value whatsoever in exhausting energy on our current government’s variances against the official positions laid forth in the Constitution. No, we don’t rely on a literal interpretation of the Constitution. We haven’t since we started having a professional full-time army and never bothered to amend the Constitution to allow that. Perhaps we should, but we don’t - the sooner we accept reality and find a way to work with it, the better off everyone will be.
So, okay, maybe not the Republicans… perhaps I should sign up for a stint with the old LP? Sure, their foreign policy is insane, but it’s small enough where my voice would be heard. Besides, major political parties consist of various disparate coalitions of individuals with entirely different needs and wants - I mean, what does a poor retiree, an environmentalist, and a Hyphenated-American have in common? Very little, except they all predominately vote Democrat. Surely that means there’s room in the LP for someone who enjoys fiscal conservativism, social liberalism, and a strong foreign policy. There’s just one small, tiny problem… what Libertarian Party?
I propose we disassociate ourselves with the word: “Libertarian” as I believe that it damages our mission of spreading the word on campus. Not only do our values not fully line with the party; their apathetic, isolationistic, and stubborn attitude is damaging and dangerous towards our cause. The Libertarian Party was an idea that our parent’s generation created, and it has failed. I suggest we find new and more effective ways of transforming our campus, our state, and our nation, and this is why I propose we change our name to that of a national organization we can actually be proud of: Students for Liberty. I suggest we change our club constitution to include our party stance, our goals, and eliminate all ties with that of the Libertarian Party. Through this, under the support of the newly founded Students for Liberty organization, we can effectively become more attractive to like-minded Americans.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Libertarian Party has failed. Completely, totally, and utterly failed.
Okay - I know I said I’d write out the speech I want McCain to give by now. Unfortunately, I’ve reached a bit of a quandary; I was going to write out a little speech explaining his choice of Gov. Palin, but the SNL thing went reasonably well and she’s starting to actually enjoy being around the press. So, a good chunk of it has changed, and thankfully for the better because it means that, for the first time in a while, I finally get to use some good football analogies.
For the sake of those of you that are finding this place via Google, I’ll state right here and now that I’m a bit of a college football fan. I go to every Nevada home game, or at least I have been this year. I originally got hooked during my Pep Band phase and, though familial and work concerns have interfered from time to time, I’ve made it a point to catch as many games as I can. Since I root for Nevada, it’s pretty safe to say that we’re the underdog more often than not; we’re what sports analysts call a “mid-major program”, which is a polite way of saying that we don’t have the budget, the facilities, the tradition, or the coaching to consistently hang with big boys. Over the years, I’ve seen some impressive wins, far more impressive near-misses, and far too many horrendous meltdowns.
When this election season started, I thought for sure that it didn’t matter what Republican candidate was thrown on the ticket - we were in for one horrendous meltdown. I’m talking USC-Washington State territory here. The economy didn’t look good, the housing bubble was starting to burst, gas prices were through the roof, Bush was less appreciated than Paris Hilton, Iraq was improving but still rather spotty - by all rights, all the Democrats had to do was field a halfway capable candidate, get their house in order, and then steamroll the poor sap the Republicans were going to throw on the ticket.
The trouble with predictions is they’re frequently wrong - if they weren’t, we wouldn’t even bother having elections or playing football games. We’d just throw together a couple of fantasy lineups, run the numbers, and pick a winner. What I didn’t know at the time was that the Democrats were going to blow their load in the primaries. I also didn’t realize, at least at first, that the Democrats were serious about choosing either a woman that half of the country already decided they hated ten years ago or choosing someone younger than my mother. I definitely wasn’t expecting the young guy to put up any sort of a fight, nor was I expecting him to have all kinds of fun and exciting connections to racist preachers and erstwhile terrorists.
To put this into football terms, this would be somewhat similar to Nevada going to, say, Texas. Nobody in their right mind would ever expect Nevada to hold up against Texas. Nobody with half a clue would expect Texas to throw a red shirt freshman quarterback against Nevada that was as likely to throw the ball to the opposition as to his own team when there’s a perfectly serviceable senior quarterback available that just wasn’t quite as flashy during practice. I mean, the freshman can play next year - let him learn behind the senior and get some experience as a backup, right? Certainly nobody would expect the first quarter to go by and find Nevada down by 3…
Then came the convention. It was to become Obama’s shining moment - the moment when he would rally the base, drive into the end zone, and put this game away once and for all. It was shaping up to be something special, too, with all kinds of flash and a packed stadium full of fans. Obama saw the receiver… he threw long…
Nevada is now up by 4! The crowd is silent, stunned… mortified by what they’re seeing unfold in front of them. I thought we already won this thing, they mutter to themselves. Instead, they’re watching their prize freshman, highly touted by all of the scouts, make unforced turnovers and struggle to move the ball against that was supposed to be a highly mediocre defense.
Then came halftime. Texas made adjustments. Nevada was ecstatic.
The third quarter started, and things immediately started to look bad. Nevada threw in a freshman QB of their own and tried to open up the offense, hoping to catch Texas off guard. It worked at first, but once Texas realized that the new QB couldn’t read a basic defense, they shut the offense down in nothing flat. Then, the weather began to sour. The field was becoming a sloppy, slippery mess. All Texas had to do was just run the ball, using its superior line against Nevada’s suspect defense. Sure, it wouldn’t be pretty, but it would be effective; plus, it would keep their freshman QB from being in a position to make any serious mistakes.
The fourth quarter is now. The weather is clearing a little. Nevada is still close, but they’re down by about a touchdown. Their offense is starting to move again. Obama is fumbling the ball. Texas’ coaching staff is too busy focusing on the fans and not enough time on the field. No, Nevada’s chances aren’t good, but they’re a heck of a lot better than anybody expected they would be by this point.
As far as “Texas” fans are concerned, this game shouldn’t be anywhere near this close. They’re probably right, but it doesn’t matter - it is close, and, as long as they keep playing like it’s not, they’re going to be in for one hell of a surprise when this game ends.
Go ahead, “Texas”. Keep playing not to lose. This Nevada fan won’t mind one bit.
I know I haven’t posted much - various personal and work-related concerns have pretty well knocked me out as of late. That said, I have been keeping up on things and, like many others out there, I’ve been getting well nigh burned out on the petty politics that I’ve been seeing. McCain wants to focus on Obama’s association with Ayers. Obama wants to paint Palin as a moose-toting, gun-killing idiot savant that is only a heartbeat away from dragging our country into the Middle Ages, where plague was “God’s will”, ‘intelligent’ design was too radical and knowledgy, and contraception meant becoming a castrato. Personally, I just want this to stop so we can all focus on how Joe the Plumber isn’t really Joe at all - he’s actually a pod-borne replicant from the planet Sn’rl-x who is sabotaging our elections in order to better facilitate the success of the impending and inevitable invasion.
First up, some candid thoughts from Obama about Bill Ayers, former Weather Underground terrorist:
My fellow Americans,
Throughout my campaign, my opponents have tried time and again to paint me as something I’m not. Time after time, they focus on my friends in Chicago politics - outstanding citizens like Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers - and then attempt to divine conclusions regarding my political leanings and affiliations based on these associations. They look at Tony Rezko and say that I’m a corruptible opportunist. They look at Bill Ayers and say that I’m spooning with terrorists during late night trysts while Michelle is commiserating with Oprah and Tyra Banks about all of the ways that men suck. Only one of these conclusions is correct. Like all politicians, I am, in fact, eminently corruptible and highly opportunistic. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have made it this far.
This brings me to my association with Mr. Ayers. The time has come for me to finally explain it, once and for all, definitively and clearly.
In politics, there are two kinds of people - those who wish to become politicians because they enjoy the fame, and those who get into politics because they enjoy the game. I belong to the former category. For people like me, politics is great. It gives me a chance to fill stadiums in Germany and be treated like a rock star throughout the world without having to exhibit the slightest discernment of talent. I don’t have to know how to sing. I don’t have to know how to play sports. I don’t even have to look good, though it helps to at least not look like an aging troll like my opponents always do. Seriously, Edwards’ hair scared the living crap out of me. The best part is, unlike so many rock stars of time past, I don’t have to slip into anonymity like Ed Espinosa - just by virtue of being here, my name is going to go down in the history books, with other greats like Adlai Stevenson, Walter Mondale, and Bill the Cat. In the sports world, I would be the quarterback.
There are others, however, who enjoy politics for an entirely different reason. They prefer to linger behind the scenes, pulling strings here and there, brokering power deals in shadowy back offices. These are the kinds of people that are most successful when they’re never noticed - people like Karl Rove, Tony Rezko… and Bill Ayers. These are people who, if you plan on getting anywhere in politics, you absolutely have to go through. In the sports world, they would be coordinators or scouts, people that don’t get much attention, but if you get on their bad side you’re done. The reason is simple. Most people have neither the time or patience for politics. The few that do, the few that really enjoy politics for its own sake, not as a vehicle for fame and stardom but instead because they find the art and science of politics positively fascinating, are rare. Rare things have the uncanny knack of becoming valuable, even when they have no discernable benefit to anyone. Just ask those with radium watches or AMC Pacers.
When I was a younger politician trying to make a name for myself, I had a choice. I could either become a Republican or I could become a Democrat. Considering my upbringing and my personal history, the choice was clear - I was definitely not raised in a conservative environment, not by any stretch of the imagination. So, I became a Democrat, which left the next choice - where do I make a name for myself? If you’re going to become a famous, powerful Democrat, Chicago is a pretty good choice. Sure, San Francisco is an obvious liberal stronghold, but just being linked with the Bay Area makes you politically radioactive east of the Sierras. Chicago, on the other hand, has some natural advantages for someone like me. It’s urban enough where liberals in Manhattan and San Francisco can feel comfortable associating with me. It’s blue collar enough to at least not be a hindrance in places like Kansas, South Dakota, or Minnesota. Best of all, there’s a nearly invincible Democratic machine, continuously groomed and immaculately maintained for nearly a century. It’s the perfect starting point for a young, ambitious politician like myself. All I needed to do was ingratiate myself to the powers that be.
Bill Ayers established himself as a political player in Chicago long before I showed up, which meant that, if I planned on becoming a political player myself, I needed to get on his good side and get there fast. So, I did. I got involved in education reform, a field that a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago would be understandably interested and active in. Keep in mind that I didn’t make him a professor - even though he blew up some buildings when I was a pre-teen, somebody still decided it was a good idea to put him in charge of educating people on how to… well… educate people. Many people far older and, at the time, far more established than me made that decision. It was my decision to decide whether I was going to play along or if I was going to condemn myself to obscurity by trying to fight him. Keep in mind that, at the beginning, I was just a lowly college graduate working in non-profit community groups. Objecting to Ayers’ involvement with projects I was working on would’ve received no publicity and no press. Who would’ve cared what I thought back then? It would have been the equivalent of a Walmart greeter expressing disgust with the behavior of Sam Walton - nobody would have cared and it wouldn’t have made a difference. So, like so many working Americans, I was faced with a choice - I either learn to work with the crazy guy in the office and make the most of things, or I try to be “principled” and either become unemployed or find a different line of work. Like many working American plumbers, electricians, and drywall installers, I chose to work with the crazy guy.
Now my opponents wish to hold that against me, as if I had a choice whether or not to work with the crazy guy. Sure, I kind of did - I could either work with Ayers or give up on politics, on fame, on superstardom. For me, that wasn’t really a choice. If given the same opportunity, I doubt most Americans would choose differently.
My fellow Americans, I’m sorry I had to work with people that you might find objectionable. I’m also sorry that you might work with people I might find objectionable, like unlicensed plumbers, independent media, Blue Dog Democrats, or Republicans. Rest assured, though, that if you give me the opportunity to help you avoid working with undesirable people by tanking the economy and making it damn near impossible for anybody to work at all, I will do everything within my power to avoid working with someone that you might find objectionable. In fact, with any luck, I won’t have to work with anyone at all.
First, after watching the Red Sox/Rays game, I have the following question:
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Personally, I’m not sure which way to vote on this one. I’m pulling for a Red Sox vs. Manny World Series, if only because watching Manny try to take on Red Sox Nation singlehandedly would be highly entertaining. Past that, it’s a little difficult to get excited about the Phillies, and as for the Rays… yeah, okay, Tampa Bay has never made it to the playoffs before. Great! Glad to see they could make it. Even so, it’s a little hard to get excited about a team that had to remove “Devil” from their name because… why, again? If there’s anything funnier than a team with the name “Devil” in it and teal being part of the official uniform (NOTE: What is it about Florida teams and teal?!), I can’t think of it.
General Motors has held discussions about acquiring Chrysler, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported late Friday.
The talks between GM and Cerberus Capital Management, which owns Chrysler, began more than a month ago, the Times reported on its Web site.
I’m not even sure who this is a worst idea for, and I’m not the only one. On the one hand, GM has an opportunity to buy a competitor with minimal foreign marketshare, a reckless overabundance of trucks and SUVs that nobody wants in its inventory and its product pipeline, and absolutely no marketspace that anybody believes it has any sort of leadership, save for possibly a fading minivan segment if you’re feeling generous. Concurrently, Chrysler has an opportunity to get bought out by a company that may be filing for bankruptcy within the year. It’s a win-win!
(Wait… wait, no… no it’s not.)
One final note…
What is it about women and bathrooms? Thankfully, the ESO isn’t like this, but there seems to be an overabundance of women with wacky hangups involving the bathroom. I remember working with one woman who absolutely refused to do anything in a public bathroom, especially if there was anybody else in said bathroom. I’ve run into women that get offended when people dare to poop in their bathroom - even when the other person happens to live there! The list goes on and on and on… and I have to wonder here - what kind of wacky, puritanical madness led to this state of affairs? Why on earth is it more ‘ladylike’ to pretend that you’re just hanging out in the bathroom, doing absolutely nothing at all, instead of treating the bathroom as a place of purpose where you dispose of bodily waste? Are you seriously telling me that it’s more ‘ladylike’ to pretend that you’re just “hanging out” in what is essentially a publically available entry point for either a sewer system or a septic tank? Would you pretend to hang out over a manhole? How about a dumpster? Why does hanging out in front of a dumpster pretending you don’t have trash make any less sense than “hanging out” in a bathroom pretending that you don’t pee or poop?
Here’s a hint: Women that don’t poop aren’t women - they’re robots. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like robots - I think they kick ass, and if we can find a way to pull off a convincing lovebot, I’d be all over that like white on ranch. Of course, if we had lovebots, we’d have to be careful to ensure that our reproductive equipment doesn’t get rootkitted somehow; last I checked, human beings have numerous security vulnerabilities that are trivially easy to exploit…
Perhaps it’s best if we just move on.
Finally, this wouldn’t be a blog at all if I didn’t mention that our stock market is apparently destined for great and terrible things at the moment. It’s at times like these that I’m thankful that, up until very recently, I’ve historically been too poor to think about a savings, much less a retirement plan. The good news, at least on a personal level, is that, assuming I start a retirement plan sometime in the near future, I’m going to be buying rather low. So, with that in mind, I mean no offense to those whose lives are wantonly devastated by the current financial climate, but I’m an incredible cheapskate - the lower the market goes, the happier I’ll be at this particular moment. Perhaps I could buy some stock that’s worth less than my truck! Sure, it would take some effort, but with a little time and patience, I think it’s possible.
As a further aside, I’ve decided it’s official: My truck shall henceforth be known as Serenity. Don’t worry, it’s running fine - it’s just starting to make some interesting noises around the transfer case region again. Good times.
New job that forbids posting on blogs or message forums while at work, per corporate policy? Check.
Infant at home? Check.
Hour long commute in each direction to work? Check.
Moving soon? Check.
And people wonder why I don’t post more…
Here are some thoughts that I’d love to spend a little more time developing, but want to throw out there so that way there’s something halfway fresh and interesting:
Openfire rocks my world. As far as open-sourced projects go, it’s in pretty solid shape, even if it has the traditional “What the heck is that?!” name going. Openfire is an open-sourced instant messenger server based on Jabber (the same protocol used by GTalk and later versions of iChat, among others) that can also be used as a gateway for other, more common protocols, like ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and so forth. What’s nice about Openfire isn’t just that it’s fairly lightweight (uses only 64 MB of RAM by default, unless you configure it to use more), or that it integrates fairly cleanly with Active Directory (yes, you have to look up a few LDAP structures in ADSIEdit, but you only have to do it once). Openfire can also archive all messages that pass through it into a database of your choosing, including Microsoft SQL Server, which means that you can keep tabs on what employees are chatting about, maintain archives of internal chats, and control who gets access to what on the outside. Very, very handy, and since it’s legitimately free, even the smallest businesses can implement this without much pain. The one drawback is that it works best with the corresponding Spark IM client; I say it’s a drawback because, though Spark is fairly functional, it misses a lot of nice yet common features, like the ability to change fonts and font colors. Normally I wouldn’t sweat that much, but having my default color turn out to be pink with no way to change it is a little obnoxious. It does do the job, though, so I’m not going to sweat it much, and it does integrate with Openfire’s various features and plug-ins quite nicely.
I don’t really care what Obama’s or McCain’s health care plans are - if either of them involve spending government money to “fix” health care, we’re going to be in trouble. Here’s the deal: Right now, the federal government isn’t just operating at a deficit - it’s hemorrhaging cash in the worst possible way imaginable. According to the US Treasury, our current debt is, as of October 7th, $10,224,252,192,942.42. On January 1st, 2008, the debt was $9,229,172,659,218.31. That means that, in the course of 10 months, we borrowed nearly one trillion dollars. We increased our debt by over 10% in less than a year, and we still haven’t started paying a dime for the infamous $700 billion bailout of the financial sector. Since the economy is slipping, tax revenues are only going to go down, which means the debt is only going to get worse unless something is done to either curtail spending (i.e. slashing programs - big ones) or raise revenue (i.e. raise taxes by a lot more than either McCain or Obama can dare suggest). As McCain was kind enough to point out in last night’s debate, the last president to raise taxes during a recession was Hoover; it would be an understatement to say that didn’t end well.
Speaking of programs, take a look at this graph from the US Government Accountability Office:
To put that into perspective, our current GDP is roughly $14.3 trillion. According to the Heritage Foundation, the federal government has been bringing in about $2.5 trillion in tax revenue, or about 17% of our GDP; whether that includes transfer payments like Social Security is unclear. If that chart is even remotely accurate, by 2016 we can count on spending all of our current federal taxes on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, assuming we only spend what we tax and we don’t increase taxes.
Needless to say, neither is going to happen - we’re going to borrow like mad and we’re going to have to either raise taxes or start breaking promises. By 2080, we’re probably going to be doing a lot of both.
The trouble here is not that health care is broken, or that our bureaucrats spent program money like water, though there is some truth to both of those statements. The simple truth is that these programs, though sold as “pay-as-you-go” programs where each person pays in and then, after a set amount of time, gets their money back as health care and a nominal retirement, are not really “pay-as-you-go” programs, and never were supposed to be. Think about it for a minute - do you really think that the first person to receive money from Social Security put anything into it? How about the first generation? Do you really believe for even a second that FDR & Friends got together and created a program that nobody could cash out from for 20 years until the first people finally put in enough to get something back? Of course not, which is why any politician that pretends otherwise is either foolish or duplicitous. If it was that simple, why get the federal government involved at all? Why not just say, “Okay, American citizens, you’re hereby ordered to put some of your money in a savings account” and be done with it?
The answer is simple - that’s not what Social Security and its ilk were ever about. Ever.
The point of these programs was to provide a nominal retirement and some basic health care to people that couldn’t provide it for themselves. It was supposed to be paid for by those that could provide it, which means that every dime your parents put into Social Security went to their parents, and every dime that you’re putting into Social Security right now will go to your parents. That’s how the system was designed to work, and, as long as people aren’t living for too long and having lots of kids, the system will work just fine. Of course, as time has passed, we’ve enjoyed longer lifespans, with not-quite-as-long productive lifespans, meaning we’re able to work longer, but not as much longer as we’re able to live. At the same time, we’re also having fewer children, which means there are fewer taxpayers supporting our social programs.
So, while the entire model that underpins our current programs, the one that pays for the promises politicians made to our parents 30 years ago, slowly erodes and collapses, what are our current politicians promising? Obama wants to create a small business health tax break, pay for catastrophic health costs, and create a public national health insurance company that competes against private companies, or at least provides insurance when the private companies refuse to. Considering how well the last set of GSEs were run, I’m not exactly inclined to support the creation of another one. McCain, meanwhile, wants to give everybody somewhere between $2,500-$5,000 to offset health insurance costs. Granted, that’s not quite as spendy as Obama’s plan, but we’re still talking about up to $750 billion (that’s $2,500 times 300,000,000 Americans) that’s going to have to materialize out of thin air.
We’re spending over $1 trillion a year that we don’t have right now. How are we going to come up with enough money to meet either of their spending promises?
The answer: We can’t.
Right now, The China Probrem is on, and it’s… it’s pretty messed up. I can’t do it anymore!
Since I’m feeling less textual and more visual at the moment, I’ve decided that today’s post will be about some random wildlife I’ve been seeing around the apartment complex as of late.
First, some raccoons…
These were pointed out to me when, while I was outside, a neighborhood girl tried to get my attention. At first, I was a little confused, especially since I didn’t know her at all, until she pointed towards that ledge.
Then, I became really confused.
Fortunately, I think the raccoons were about as confused by our presence as I was by theirs. That said, when I grabbed my camera and took my picture, I learned that nocturnal creatures really don’t like sudden, unexpected flashes of light, which is why I don’t have more pictures of them; after firing the camera off, they started to work their way down to ground level. As cute and rabies-free as they looked up there, I wasn’t about to get cute and cuddly with one up close.
Next up… our door frog:
I have no idea whether this is a frog or a toad. I have no idea what kind of frog or toad that is. What I do know is that little amphibian (about the size of the palm of my hand - more on this in a second) has been hanging around our front door for months. I have no problems with this; I’m sure that, in some culture or another, having a frog on our porch is considered good luck, and besides, it undoubtedly helps address the proliferation of bugs in the area.
That said, this particular frog has a thing for the indoors. One time, the ESO and I opened the door, only to discover that the frog was sneaking into our apartment. Unfortunately, it made it in, which meant I had to get it out of there. Being the kind of guy I am, I just picked up the amphibian (hence how I know for a fact that it’s about the size of my hand) and carried it outside. In exchange, the frog pissed on my hand. I suppose it was a fair exchange.
There is one bug, however, that even that frog won’t touch. I present to you… our potato bug:
Okay, to be fair, this picture is a couple of years old, but I thought it would be rather weak to have a “wildlife” post with only two pictures. So, here’s the freakiest, biggest bug I’ve seen in a long, long time. I wish I thought to put a quarter or something next to it, because, believe me, it dwarfed anything smaller than a half-dollar. According to the ESO, she used to see tons of these things when she was a kid - they’d get stuck on her screen door and start hissing. Personally, I’m not a big fan of bugs that make noise, especially when they’re big enough to make serious crunchy noises if I try to step on them.
I hate bugs.
Oh, and yes, this is the best I’ve got. If you want something more serious, go read about the latest and greatest way Congress is earning its record low approval ratings.
Welcome back, everyone. I know I’ve been gone for a while - between the new job and my dad visiting, things have been rather busy around here. Now that normalcy is beginning to return, however, I should be able to maintain a somewhat more or less regular pace.
Since just about everyone and their mother is weighing in on the bailout, I suppose I can join the fray. Before I begin, I’d like to make a note about my qualifications: I took three semesters of Economics. I got in A in Micro, either a B or a C in Macro (don’t remember), and a D in the third one, which I was a little too distracted to focus on. This means that, as far as economics go, I’m probably in “So, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night” territory. With that in mind, I will state that, in principle, I agree with those that say that there should be no bailout and those who made poor investments should just learn to accept the consequences. There’s quite a few of them out there, to be honest, on both sides of the political spectrum, and it’s understandable - why should I have to pay for the mistakes of a bunch of people far richer than I ever will be? I mean, personally, I don’t really care why they failed. I don’t care if it’s because Congress decided to order banks to lend to uncreditworthy people to increase minority home ownership, or if it’s because people decided to use financial instruments that nobody understands, or whatever. It’s really not important. What’s important is that a bunch of rich people are about to stay rich because our tax money is going to keep them that way. F— that!
Then I remember where my money is and who’s in trouble.
I’m not going to pretend I know what caused this mess, though I do have some ideas; one of those ideas is that there’s no single thing that anybody did (Congress, the banks, whatever) that caused this to occur. Part of it could be Congress trying to increase home ownership. Part of it could be overregulation causing financial institutions to seek profits via more unconventional means. Part of it could have something to do with the ginormous mess that is Fannie and Freddie. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that, if we just let the financial sector melt itself down into slag, we’re all going to lose a lot more than $700 billion. We’re already beginning to see some proof of this. Want to buy a Honda? Expect to see interest rates that are at least 4% higher than they were last month. Planning to do any building? Expect to see the interest rates for equipment purchases to go up at least 1.5%. Imagine what would happen if it wasn’t just increasingly expensive to get a loan - imagine if it was damn near impossible.
Long story short, thanks to the joys of fractional reserve banking, if the banks decide they can’t loan money anymore, either because they’re broke or just plain scared, we’d be looking at a severe loss of money supply. The last time we lost a huge chunk of the money supply, it took World War 2 to get us out of it. I’d rather not see a reprise of that, and, if that means we pay off some people I’d rather not see paid off, well… things could be worse.
Think about it this way: Let’s say you’re a farmer in a farming community. You’re a good farmer - you tend regularly to your crops, you make sure they’re well watered and fertilized, and you make sure you only till as much land as your labor can support. You make a decent living doing this, as do most of your neighbors. There’s one neighbor, however, that isn’t quite as good of a farmer as everyone else. Perhaps he was greedy and planted more seed than he could keep up with. Perhaps he was lazy and didn’t tend to his fields as regularly as he should have. Whatever the reason, his crops are failing and weeds are beginning to take over - noxious, virulent weeds that strike fear into the hearts of every other farmer in the community.
At this point, you and your fellow responsible farmers have one of two choices:
Let the bad farmer get what’s coming to him. Let his crop fail, let the weeds wipe him out, and let someone who knows what they’re doing take over that farm.
Get the community together, bail the bad farmer out, and have everyone pull the weeds out of the farm before the weeds spread to every other farm in the community and wipe out everybody’s crops.
With most business failures, you can get away with pulling option 1 - yeah, you might get a few weeds on your farm, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. In this particular case, though, the failing companies are really big farms and their “weeds” spread really fast. Consequently, for better or worse, we’re going with option 2. Option 2 has drawbacks, too. For starters, you have to ignore your farm while taking care of your bad neighbor’s farm. Worse yet, the bad farmer can continue to do business and sell the few crops that are successfully growing on his farm. If you don’t let him do that, after all, he won’t let the community get on to his farm and pull the weeds. But, it’s either that or we watch the weeds take over the community and bring everybody down.
That’s my take - I don’t like it, but, given a choice between spending $700 billion that we don’t have and watching a few trillion dollars in equity just disappear, well… I know that “trillion” is a bigger number than “billion”, so let’s just go with the smaller number, m’kay? M’kay!
That’s right - they’re crying about dead trees. Best of all, they want the trees to know they care, because, y’know, trees care what people think. No, really! It’s true! The world really does revolve around us! If we can just tell the trees that we care, they’ll stop killing us!
(NOTE: I’m not touching “Lipstick-Gate” or whatever the hell it’s called. It’s a pointless and stupid news cycle distraction. I also didn’t see the Gibson interview of Palin, so I’m not touching that, either. In fact, I’m kind of burned out on politics at the moment - it’s just the same chum churning through the water, over and over and over again, and I’m sick and tired of it.)
All over sports radio, just about everybody is weighing in on the end of the BYU-Washington game. Jake Locker, quarterback for the Washington Huskies, ran the ball in for a touchdown with two seconds on the clock, bringing the score to 28-27, BYU still on top, with only a routine PAT between Washington and overtime. Needless to say, Jake was excited - he just saved the game for Washington, after all - so, in a fit of passion, he tossed the ball over his shoulders and began cheering with his teammates.
Then came the flag. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Excessive celebration. 15 yard penalty. Suddenly, a routine PAT became a less-than-routine 35 yard PAT attempt. BYU blocks it. Game over.
Here’s the video:
There are two schools of thought regarding what happened that day:
The Pac-10 version (the game was at Washington, so it was officiated by Pac-10 referees) is that, according to the rules of the game, the referee did precisely what he was supposed to do.
The common sense version is that, yeah, rules are rules, but there has to be some flexibility, some interpretation.
The truth is, the refs did the right thing. Their job is to enforce the rules of the game. According to the 2008 NCAA Football Rules and Interpretations (note - it’s a PDF), Rule 9, Section 2, Article 2c:
2. After a score or any other play, the player in possession immediately
must return the ball to an official or leave it near the dead-ball spot.
This prohibits:
(a) Kicking, throwing, spinning or carrying (including off of the
field) the ball any distance that requires an official to retrieve it.
(b) Spiking the ball to the ground [Exception: A forward pass to
conserve time (Rule 7-3-2-d)]. (c) Throwing the ball high into the air.
(d) Any other unsportsmanlike act or actions that delay the game.
Did Locker return the ball to the official? No. Did he leave it near the dead-ball spot? No. That, in and of itself, means he was in violation of the rule, which means that the ref, according to the rules, had to enforce the following penalty:
PENALTY—Dead-ball foul or live-ball foul treated as dead-ball foul.
15 yards [S7 and S27] from the succeeding spot. Flagrant
offenders, if players or substitutes, shall be disqualified
[S47]. If a player or an identified squad member in uniform
commits two unsportsmanlike fouls in the same game, he
shall be disqualified.
There it is - 15 yards, first offense. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. The rule is what it is. The referees aren’t supposed to enforce the rules based on their own personal whims - they’re supposed to enforce the rules equally and consistently. That’s what we call fair these days.
Therein lies the problem.
At some point in recent history, we stopped assuming that humans were irrational and consequently needed to be dealt with flexibly. We, as a society, collectively decided that flexibility was inherently unjust - why should the rules be applied one way with one person, then applied entirely differently with another person? Why should the rules be applied one way in one circumstance, yet applied differently in a slightly different circumstance? This, I suspect, was the direct result of the recent stressing of math and science in education, with a lowering of importance for art, music, and literature. With art, music, and literature, there is no one right way to do things. When there’s a method, there are ways to work around it, or subvert it entirely. With math and science, however, at least the way it’s taught, there’s only one right way to do things. When you add 2 and 2, you get 4. You do that by adding the quantity of 2 to another quantity of 2. There is no other way. There is no other answer. Even if you get higher-level and start throwing in different bases, yeah, you might be able to say the answer is actually 11 (base 3), but it still represents the exact same quantity represented by 4. You’re just labeling it differently.
With this idea firmly implanted into the fabric of modern society, it’s no wonder we want rules to be interpreted as IF…THEN statements. It’s so much more scientific, more methodical, more enlightened. It’s perfectly logical. If I break a rule, then I should get punished. Equally importantly, if you break the same rule, then you should get punished the same way. Simple. Logical. Pure. There’s just one problem. Conditional statements work great with computers because they’re deterministic, which is a really fancy way of saying that, in theory, if you feed the same data and the same program to the same computer, you will always get the same answer because the computer will always take the same steps each and every time to get there.
Try that with a person.
Heck, try that with a real computer. Real computers exist in the real world, which means that they’re bound by the exact same real-world forces that we are. Thus, they’re victim to real-world problems like electrical shorts, manufacturing defects, heat, theft, water, and so on. Any of these real-world problems will change the computer’s answer because it changes the program, the data, or quite probably both. People are even less deterministic. In fact, even in mathematics, there’s a term for this - it’s called non-determinism. For example, think of a shopping list. The data is simple enough - milk, eggs, meat, cheese, vegetables. Does it matter what order we put them in the basket? Probably not. You might be able to optimize somewhat - perhaps the milk and eggs are next to each other, so getting them one after the other is a good idea. However, there might be more than one optimal solution. There might be no optimal solutions - if you only have 30 minutes to get your groceries and the cashiers are taking 35 minutes to check people out, you’re in trouble.
Somewhere along the way, our society chose to forget that. It’s understandable - about 50 years ago or so, the best minds in the world largely forgot that. That’s how, at one point, people decided that the best method of flood control was something simple, something methodical, something scientific - pave over rivers with concrete, raise the channels nice and high, then watch the river flow as fast as possible to sea. Makes perfect sense, at least on paper. Trouble is, the system only works well when nature brings in rainfall within the design parameters of those concrete channels, when people aren’t dumping stuff into the channels that alters their flows, when trees aren’t falling in, and so on. None of these factors are even remotely guaranteed - on the contrary, each of these problems is guaranteed to happen at least once, at which point the entire system will fail. The best minds in the world figured that out fairly quickly, which is why they’re playing with Quantum Mechanics, Chaos Theory, and String Theory, all of which are non-deterministic. Society as a whole, however, tends to take a little more time to learn. There has to be something to replace the old paradigm, something for the rest of the world to latch on to that they can use to get useful things done. The trouble with new ways of thought at any point in time is that, being new, they have few known practical uses, at least at first. Turing machines, for example, were nearly pointless theoretical exercises in 1936. Now, they’re a core foundational concept for computer science students. Quantum mechanics is, for 99.9% of the world, a nearly pointless and incomprehensible theoretical exercise. Soon, however - very soon - it will become the basis of modern computing. However, it took over 100 years and proving Einstein wrong (like I said, 50 years ago or so, the best minds in the world thought the world was deterministic) in order to get to a point where we will soon have a practical application of a theory that few currently understand at even the most basic level. This means that people will need to be able to work on these devices, which means bright minds will need to simplify, or ‘dumb down’ quantum mechanics enough for less bright people to be able to work on their clever machines.
Does the kid at Jiffy Lube need to know about hydrodynamics to change your oil? Does the guy at the big box computer store need to know about Ohm’s Law in order to remove the virus from your computer? Of course not. Do the products that they’re working on rely on these principles, among others to work properly? Yes, but it doesn’t matter - none of those details will help you troubleshoot those devices enough to make learning more than the most basic concepts behind those ideas worth learning. But, you will learn the basic ideas behind those principles - you’ll learn a distilled, simplified form of those ideas, sure, but you’ll know them just the same. You’ll know that, if you change the oil of a car that’s been running for a while, the oil will be hotter than if the car sits for a while, and you’ll know that the oil will come out of the block faster if it’s hotter. You’ll know that, if you have a 250 watt power supply in your computer, and you have a bunch of devices in it that draw more than 250 watts, your computer won’t function. In the same vein, people will learn that their computer works just as well off as it does when it’s on. People will learn that, with their new computers, given the same data and the same program, their computer can give them entirely different answers at random.
At that point, in order to fully grasp and utilize these ideas, we will need to change how we teach our children - we will need to teach them that the world, even in theory, is not deterministic. Once they grasp that, the idea that humans are deterministic will seem as quaint and silly as the idea that skin pigment has a strong, direct correlation to intelligence does today. Suddenly, zero-tolerance rules, explicitly designed to turn school administration into an exercise in pure determinism, will disappear in the new paradigm. Workplace rules that treat humans like robots will disappear - if even your robots are non-deterministic, why would you expect your humans to be any different?
Then, finally, referees will be able to call a football game with some semblance of independent judgment, and everybody will understand why.
According to a pointless piece of eye-rolling anti-EU extrapolation that appeared in a number of newspapers, a smattering of MEPs are calling for the introduction of strict new advertising guidelines that could eventually lead to Eva Herzigova’s breasts being taken out and shot.
At least that’s the gist of it. As far as I can ascertain, the story largely represented a brilliant excuse to print the supermodel’s infamous Wonderbra ad for the 80 millionth time, on this occasion under the headline “Goodbye Boys”. Even though the Hello Boys campaign ran 14 years ago, editors just can’t let it lie. Rather than fading into obscurity it has, if anything, grown to represent some kind of sexual Year Zero which still haunts their collective mind’s eye to this day. Just as Philip E Marlow from Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective was obsessed by visual memories of his mum enjoying a bit of off-piste afternoon dick in a forest, so the image of a semi-naked Eva gawping with awestruck joy at her own overflowing cups is forever frozen in their consciousnesses, and they’re doomed to reproduce it again and again in a bid to help themselves and their readers come to terms with its sheer psychological impact. It wasn’t just an advert. It was the 9/11 of tits.
And now some killjoy EU busybodies want to travel back in time and ban it! Or something like that! Boo! Typical! Let’s bomb Brussels! Or maybe just France! Etc!
I don’t know why, but the idea of an exclamation mark following “Etc” just strikes me as hilariously ludicrous. There’s just something about the dissonance of a term used to indicate a nearly apathetic inability to fully enumerate a set of information and a punctuation mark whose sole function is to indicate extreme force and emotion. It just makes my funny bone resonate with tingly goodness.
Or, perhaps I’m just a geek. Sue me.
Nonetheless, “The EU vote on the report is not legally binding but it could be used by governments to justify the biggest shake-up in the industry for years.” Or it could not. Who knows? Uh-oh, we’ve accidentally printed that photo of Eva again. Argh! Only one thing for it: we’re all going to have masturbate our way back to sanity together. Right, readers? Three … two … one … go!
Yeah, the article goes on like this. I’d keep going but, well, I’m spent. Ah… bliss…
Any blog can give you the big news highlights of the day. Want to read McCain’s speech? Be my guest. Want some early thoughts on it? Professor Bainbridge to the rescue - or is he? Perhaps you’re not a McCain fan, or even a fan of conservative political ideology. No problem - the Huffington Post is there.
So, what are my thoughts? Who cares? There are thousands of people far more qualified than myself who can pick apart the speech and overanalyze it into oblivion. Let them have their moment. Instead, I will report on the news that really matters - the stuff that absolutely nobody is touching on. That’s right - I’m here to tell you that there is no body in that tree.
The suspected remains of a WWII airman discovered in a jungle region of Papua New Guinea have turned out to be the moss-covered branches of a tree.
Hikers on the country’s Kokoda Trail found what appeared to be the remains of a parachutist tangled in wires and dangling in a tree two weeks ago.
Australian and Japanese forces fought several battles in the area in 1942-3.
The Australian military sent a team to investigate the “body” only to discover it was a branch tangled in vines.
Rest easy, my fearless readers. Wherever there’s a story about corpse-shaped tree limbs, I’m there. Whenever somebody finds a suspicious looking tree limb in Papua New Guinea, I’m there. When the world seems topsy-turvy and upside down, when the forces of darkness are arrayed against you, keeping you away from the news that really matters, I’m there.
In all seriousness, though, after reading the reactions on the Huffington Post to McCain’s speech, I have to wonder - who did they think the audience of the speech was, exactly? Of course McCain was talking traditional Republican talking points. He was in a room full of Republicans! In other news, pastors give sermons about God in churches! Egads. What, did Obama’s speech really trail off of the usual Democratic talking points? Sure, he talked about cutting some bureaucracy here and there, but he also talked about nationalizing health care, increasing taxes on the top 5% to the highest rates since the Carter administration (that’s what “I will cut taxes cut taxes for 95% of all working families” plus “If you don’t [have health insurance], you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves” means), legislating equal pay for equal work (define “equal”), and so forth. Yep, Obama definitely strayed off the beaten path there, let me tell you what.
What’s funny is that, when people talk about “failed Republican ideas”, I don’t think it means what people really think it means. I don’t think people are really saying, “Gee, you know what - Republicans were wrong. We need more government. We need our government to spend more money. We need government to make more choices for us. Yeah, that’s the ticket.” What people are saying is that we need government to actually do what it says it’s going to do, and we need politicians to do something totally and radically out of character for them - do what they promise to do. Ethanol subsidies pointed at corn farmers does not make government smaller, more effective, or even help solve the problem the program is “supposed” to fix. The PATRIOT Act did not make the government smaller, more effective, or help solve the problem it was “supposed” to fix. The TSA… you’re kidding me, right? The list goes on like this, and each of these government programs were created during a Republican administration. One would think that it would go without saying that, if Republicans start acting like Democrats, people are just going to start electing Democrats - and that’s precisely what they’re doing. However, people aren’t happy about that - the proof is the record low approval ratings of Congress. That’s why McCain was stressing the old-hat Republican values - he was signaling to both the American people and the Republican Party that he wasn’t standing for the “Compassionate Conservativism” that Bush Jr. unleashed upon America, but instead for more of a Reaganesque agenda, though hopefully with less Iran-Contra cream filling.
Personally, I’m okay with that. It’s only when your money is free that it’s possible to talk about social freedom - if everybody’s broke, it won’t matter what legislation is on the table regarding abortions, drugs, or gay marriage.
NIAGARA FALLS — It didn’t take long for the city worker accused of putting a “whites only” sign on a public works drinking fountain to realize it was a really bad idea.
“There’s going to be trouble,” a co-worker predicted shortly after James Curtis put up the sign Aug. 13 in the public works yard, according to court papers filed in the case.
Curtis, 52, of 80th Street, a 26- year employee in the Public Works Department, told police before his arrest last Friday that he took down the sign after he realized he might get in trouble.
By that time, an African-American co-worker had photographed it with his cell phone.
[…]
Court papers do not make it clear how, but a black co-worker ended up with the sign after he photographed it on the drinking fountain. In his statement to police, the worker told detectives he took the sign, put it in his locker and later gave it to Emmett Cox.
Cox and five other African- American public works employees — collectively known as the Niagara Falls Six — filed a still-pending racial discrimination suit against the city in 2003.
An investigation of the sign by police and the state attorney general’s office soon followed.
[…]
Curtis pleaded not guilty to second-degree aggravated harassment, which normally is a misdemeanor.
But city police, who filed the charge Friday, categorized it as a racially motivated hate crime, which bumps up the charge to a Class E felony.
Okay, let’s get some disclosure out of the way:
I’m white.
I’ll be honest - I’m the kind of guy that thinks the idea of a “Whites Only” sign over a water fountain would be hilarious, though that would die down after, oh, two seconds or so. Then again, I watch and enjoy South Park and Family Guy, so I think we can all safely assume I have no taste.
Engaging in any sort of a practical joke when you work for the government is categorically a bad idea. Government agencies do not have senses of humor; if this guy couldn’t figure that out after working for one for 25 years, well, he deserves to get fired.
To understand what he’s being charged with, we need to start with the misdemeanor charge. What’s second-degree aggravated assault?
Aggravated harassment in the second degree.
A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or she:
1. Either (a) communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or (b) causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise, with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or
2. Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate communication; or
3. Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise subjects another person to physical contact, or attempts or threatens to do the same because of a belief or perception regarding such person’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct; or
4. Commits the crime of harassment in the first degree and has previously been convicted of the crime of harassment in the first degree as defined by section 240.25 of this article within the preceding ten years.
Aggravated harassment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.
It’s pretty safe to say they’re trying to, at a minimum, nail him on subsection 1 - if his sign is legally annoying and alarming, he’s toast. Much of that would depend on how seriously the Niagara Falls 6 took the sign and how seriously a court would find their concerns. Now, let’s take a look at New York’s hate crime laws (scroll down to Article 485). If you’ll notice, in subsection 3 it escalates the aggravated harassment charge:
Section 485.05 Hate crimes.
1. A person commits a hate crime when he or she commits a specified offense and either:
(a) intentionally selects the person against whom the offense is committed or intended to be committed in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct, or
(b) intentionally commits the act or acts constituting the offense in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct.
2. Proof of race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of the defend- ant, the victim or of both the defendant and the victim does not, by itself, constitute legally sufficient evidence satisfying the people’s burden under paragraph (a) or (b) of subdivision one of this section.
3. A “specified offense” is an offense defined by any of the following provisions of this chapter: section 120.00 (assault in the third degree); section 120.05 (assault in the second degree); section 120.10(assault in the first degree); section 120.12 (aggravated assault upon a person less than eleven years old); section 120.13 (menacing in the first degree); section 120.14 (menacing in the second degree); section120.15 (menacing in the third degree); section 120.20 (reckless endangerment in the second degree); section 120.25 (reckless endangerment in the first degree); subdivision one of section 125.15(manslaughter in the second degree); subdivision one, two or four of section 125.20 (manslaughter in the first degree); section 125.25 (murder in the second degree); section 120.45 (stalking in the fourth degree); section 120.50 (stalking in the third degree); section 120.55 (stalking in the second degree); section 120.60 (stalking in the first degree); subdivision one of section 130.35 (rape in the first degree); subdivision one of section 130.50 (criminal sexual act in the first degree); subdivision one of section 130.65 (sexual abuse in the first degree); paragraph (a) of subdivision one of section 130.67 (aggravated sexual abuse in the second degree); paragraph (a) of subdivision one of section 130.70 (aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree); section 135.05 (unlawful imprisonment in the second degree); section135.10 (unlawful imprisonment in the first degree); section 135.20 (kidnapping in the second degree); section 135.25 (kidnapping in the first degree); section 135.60 (coercion in the second degree); section135.65 (coercion in the first degree); section 140.10 (criminal trespass in the third degree); section 140.15 (criminal trespass in the second degree); section 140.17 (criminal trespass in the first degree); section140.20 (burglary in the third degree); section 140.25 (burglary in the second degree); section 140.30 (burglary in the first degree); section 145.00 (criminal mischief in the fourth degree); section 145.05(criminal mischief in the third degree); section 145.10 (criminal mischief in the second degree); section 145.12 (criminal mischief in the first degree); section 150.05 (arson in the fourth degree); section 150.10(arson in the third degree); section 150.15 (arson in the second degree); section 150.20 (arson in the first degree); section 155.25 (petit larceny); section 155.30 (grand larceny in the fourth degree); section155.35 (grand larceny in the third degree); section 155.40 (grand larceny in the second degree); section 155.42 (grand larceny in the first degree); section 160.05 (robbery in the third degree); section 160.10(robbery in the second degree); section 160.15 (robbery in the first degree); section 240.25 (harassment in the first degree); subdivision one, two or four of section 240.30 (aggravated harassment in the second degree); or any attempt or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing offenses.
4. For purposes of this section:
(a) the term “age” means sixty years old or more;
(b) the term “disability” means a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.
So, by the looks of things, what the city police department is trying to do is bump the aggravated harassment charge (one of the listed offenses that can be labeled a “hate crime”) by claiming that Mr. Curtis had a “belief or a perception” regarding black people that convinced him he should put up that sign. Near as I can tell, the only belief or perception that he had was that he’s a good enough shock comedian to get away with putting up racially insensitive signs at work; I doubt that will be enough to land a hate crime charge against him. The only way, I think, that they would be able to pull it off is if they could prove that Mr. Curtis legitimately believed that “colored” people should not be allowed to drink at that drinking fountain, and, unless he has a subscription to some Aryan Brotherhood paraphenalia that the news article didn’t mention, I doubt they have enough evidence to make that stick. Ultimately, I suspect this is a CYA move by the city - make sure to be as firm and thorough as possible against the guy and hope it’s enough “due diligence” to make the racial discrimination suit go away.
Personally, I do think that James Curtis was an idiot for putting that sign up, but I also think this is getting blown wildly out of proportion; from where I’m sitting, the city should have canned him and that should have been the end of it. Instead, some people thought it would be fun and enriching to claim the city was engaging in systemic racism (the only way a racial discrimination suit would fly), which has led to the city feeling compelled to ruin a man’s life in order to cover its ass. I fail to see how that’s just or right.
Moral of the story: If you work in government, assume everyone around you has no sense of humor. Since humor, by definition, is tragedy + time, it’s pretty safe to assume that somebody will find the “tragedy” component of your humor to be offensive, especially when it involves segregation and civil rights.
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