Intemperate Language

Sad to say, but in the finest traditions of Net discourse I sometimes refer to persons not personally known to me as "commie faggots." For example, I might write something like, "Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is a commie faggot."

This is a most unfortunate formulation and it illustrates the great opportunities I have for significant spiritual development.

It is interesting to note, however, that the phrase is not technically incorrect when applied to persons of a certain ilk.

The adjective "commie" is an abbreviation of the word "communist". Communist is another word for socialist. Thus if someone advocates government ownership and operation of significant portions of a nation's economy - i.e. courts, police, army, education, health, etc, then it is fair to call them a socialist and thus fair to call them a communist (small "c").

The noun "faggot" is a slang term which can refer to members of the gay community but which can also refer (like most slang terms that refer to members of the gay community) to persons who lack a certain decisiveness of action traditionally identified with masculinity (but also possessed by Margaret Thatcher). Thus a person who wants to spend an excessive amount of time conversing with his enemies instead of killing them (or at least making it clear to them that they are at risk of being induced to assume room temperature), could be described as a "faggot".

I do realize, of course, that the use of technical terms that take longer to explain than to say interferes with effective communication and so I will endeavour to restrain myself in the future.

Luckily, the power of HTML allows one to call someone a commie faggot lefty wimp without using the more derogatory term.

Why There's No Entitlement Crisis

There would be an entitlement crisis if the Feds were actually required to pay entitlements and the Feds had no assets. Neither of these suppositions is true.

Let's take the big three - Medicaid, Medicare, and Socialist Insecurity. Medicaid is pure welfare. Medical 'insurance' for the poor. Welfare can be cut any time -- see 1996 -- without the recipients being able to do anything about it. Medicare is welfare too. Originally created without any dedicated taxation, it was the gift of a grateful Congress to the nation. It can be cut any time. Socialist Insecurity seems like an 'entitlement' but, in fact, the Supremes have ruled that Congress can cut off anyone it likes (even if they've paid FICA contributions all their lives). Read it and weep:

FLEMMING v. NESTOR, 363 U.S. 603 (1960) -

To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of "accrued property rights" would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands. See Wollenberg, Vested Rights in Social-Security Benefits, 37 Ore. L. Rev. 299, 359. It was doubtless out of an awareness of the need for such flexibility that Congress included in the original Act, and [363 U.S. 603, 611] has since retained, a clause expressly reserving to it "[t]he right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision" of the Act. 1104, 49 Stat. 648, 42 U.S.C. 1304. That provision makes express what is implicit in the institutional needs of the program. See Analysis of the Social Security System, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 920-921. It was pursuant to that provision that 202 (n) was enacted.

We must conclude that a person covered by the Act has not such a right in benefit payments as would make every defeasance of "accrued" interests violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

So bennies can be cut or eliminated at any time.

Then there's the issue of assets. The Feds own almost 30% of US real property. Hard to say what that's worth but it amounts to a fair chunk of change. Included in this portfolio is prime Manhattan real estate, the headlands on both sides of the entrance to San Francisco Bay, acres on Waikiki Beach, a stretch of the NE Pacific ocean 400 miles wide by 1400 miles long (560,000 square miles) with all its resources, all of the oil and other resources of the outer continental shelf at least 200 miles off all the coasts of the US, a large island in the Virgin Islands, most of Alaska, etc.

Worth a pretty penny.

Domain Name Trademark Infringement demand letter

I registered the Internet Domain Name offshore.com in November 1994. In 1995, I got the following demand letter (which I posted to Cyberia-L a net list for lawyers). In January, 1997 Network Solutions put offshore.com on hold because of the trademark dispute. NSI has adopted the new Domain Name Dispute Resolution Process developed by ICANN and has said that on-hold domains will be released "during the first quarter of 2000." After release, PennWell will be free to proceed against me again. NSI informed me by letter that offshore.com would be taken off hold on 29 March so I assume it is now unencumbered. I may use it to start a major offshore information site or I may sell it. I'll let you know.

Here is a free sample of a Domain Name Trademark Infringement demand letter so you all won't have to work up a sweat drafting one. Be sure to file the serial numbers off before using it.

BTW, *my* offshore refers to Offshore Investing. I take it their's refers to oil wells.

DCF

STUART, BIOLCHINI, TURNER & GIVRAY
ATTORNEYS
330 FIRST PLACE TOWER
15 EAST FIFTH STREET
TULSA, OKLAHOMA 74103-4340

(918) 582-3311
FAX (918) 582-3033

November 7, 1995

VIA Certified Mail
Return Receipt Requested

Duncan Frissell
Frissell Associates
332 Bleecker Street, No. F-34
New York City, NY 10014

Dear Mr. Frissell:

Our firm serves as counsel for PennWell Publishing Company "PennWell"),
which owns and publishes Offshore magazine. PennWell first registered its
trademark "Offshore" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
under Registration No. 840510 on December 12, 1967. Over the past 28 years
PennWell has expended substantial amounts of time and money to establish and
promote the "Offshore" name throughout the world.

It has come to our attention that you have registered the name
"Offshore.com" as a domain name on the Internet. It is out opinion that the
unauthorized use of the trade name "Offshore" violates PennWell's rights to
the protected use of its trademark under federal and state law. Your use of
the domain name "Offshore.com" as an Internet on-line computer address is
trademark infringement in violation of 15 U.S.C. P1114. It is further
likely to cause confusion as to the source or sponsorship of such Internet
address in violation of Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act and common law.
Under general principles of trademark law, it is irrelevant whether Frissell
Associate had the intent to infringe on PennWell's mark. Liability for
trademark infringement depends not on intent, but on the likelihood that the
similar trademark will cause confusion. Obviously, the potential for
confusion inherent in Frissell Associates' use of PennWell's mark is
substantial.

Accordingly, unless we receive written representation from you by November
30, 1995 that Frissell Associates will cease and desist from all use of the
name "Offshore," we have been instructed to commence legal action against
Frissell Associates in order to assert and affirm PennWell's right to its
protected use of the "Offshore" trademark, and to terminate the confusion
that results from your unauthorized use of "Offshore" in the Internet. Such
lawsuit would include demands for injunctive relief, money damages for lost
profits, costs, and attorneys' fees. While it is PennWell's desire to
attempt to avoid litigation to resolve this matter, PennWell cannot afford
to allow confusion in the marketplace or among readers and advertisers of
"Offshore."

We anticipate hearing from you or your counsel on or before November 30,
1995 to resolve this matter and to avoid the unnecessary time and expense to
both parties if legal proceedings are required.

Very truly yours,

Robert F. Biolchini of
STUART, BIOLCHINI, TURNER & GIVRAY

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

On NeoNazis in the Paul Campaign

Perhaps the World's deviates are attracted to libertarianism because we won't punish them.

November 1971 Society for Iindividual Liberty Conference Columbia University School of Law, NYC. Everyone who was anyone in libertarianism was there. In a restaurant on Broadway after a session I'm sitting across the table from one of the giants of this young movement (you've all heard his name). He is telling me all about how the Holocaust didn't happen.

It didn't bother me then or now. When you're part of a movement that wants to abolish the State, disputes on WWII history are pretty minor.

You Never Expect the Islamic Inquisition

So I'm browsing blogs and read this post on Volokh on Spanish philosophical debates on the justification for conquest of the New World; which leads to this bibliography on the literature of justification; when I'm brought up short by an exerpt from this book:

Patricia Seed. Ceremonies of Possession: Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640. Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xviii + 199 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliographical references, and index. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-49748-5; $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-521-49757-4.

Chapter 3 ("The Requirement: A Protocol for Conquest") examines a legacy of conquest unique to Spain. The requerimiento was a written statement that all Spanish adventurers and colonists were obligated to read aloud (usually without benefit of translators) before subjugating indigenous peoples. Composed in 1512 by the legal scholar Juan Lopez Palacios Rubios, the requirement has long been known to students of Spanish-American history not only for being a basic source on Spanish notions of conquest as "just war," but also for its abundance of textual inconsistencies, which occasionally border on the absurd. To cite one example, the text of the requirement states: "[W]e will not compel you to turn Christians. But if you do not ... I will enter forcefully against you, and I will make war everywhere and however I can, and I will subject you to the yoke ... of authority of...." (p. 69). Thus, besides its status as a canonical historical source, the requirement is also one of history’s enduring conundrums. In this chapter, Seed seeks to provide a satisfactory solution.

Notable for its etymological plumbs into key legal, martial, and political concepts, and for its rigorously cited synthesis of extant scholarship on Christian and Islamic Spain, Seed’s "archaeological" inquiry into the the origins of the requirement concludes that the text was influenced by Islamic and Jewish intellectual traditions to a far greater extent than previously realized. The perplexing features of the document--which was
regarded in its day by some Spaniards as "ludicrously and tragically naive (Gibson, Spain in America, 1966), utilized later by Protestant commentators as evidence of the depravity of the Spanish soul, and today recognized by us as idiosyncratic, if not paradoxical--are, in fact, the product of a hybridization of cultural logics alien to the main trunk-line of Western intellectual thought.[4] Seed demonstrates how the concept of jihad, a term meaning "fighting according to the proper legal principles" (p. 72), approximates the requirement’s notion of "just war," and how one of those "proper legal principles," the da a or "double summons" preceding a battle, was an Islamic precursor for the later Spanish practice of reading a formal speech prior to subjugating native Americans. Furthermore, Seed effectively maps out several plausible pathways whereby these Islamic concepts--as well as important institutions
like tribute-collecting ( jizya ) (pp. 78-83), censustaking (p. 83, n. 57), and ethnically segregated townships ( ahl al-dhimma ) (pp. 84-88)--reemerged in the sixteenth century as important colonial practices and policies in Spanish America.

Although the Muslim "core" of the requirement was seriously challenged by Las Casas in his debates with Sepulveda in 1550, it was not until 1573 that significant changes of wording severed the document from its Moorish moorings.

In other words: The harshness of the Spanish Conquests was caused by the adoption of Islamic traditions from the 700 years of Islamic control in Spain.

A $10,000 Toll?

Governor Jon Corzine (D-New Jersey) has proposed a series of toll hikes for the state's highways that provide a dramatic lesson in the potential costs of government:

TRENTON — Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Tuesday proposed the biggest financial gambit in New Jersey’s history, arguing that almost quadrupling highway tolls over the next 15 years could help generate about $38 billion to help the state pay off half of its debt and pay for transportation improvements.

Drivers would face a maximum 50 percent increase in tolls on the state’s three toll roads — the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway — every four years, beginning in 2010, and subject to inflation...

That's a 50% increase every 4 years plus an additional adjustment for inflation. After 2022, the tolls would increase every 4 years in line with inflation.

One of the lowest tolls on New Jersey Turnpike these days is $0.65 for a 2.9 mile trip from Exit 14C Jersey City to Exit 14A Bayonne. Lets see how this would change (without inflation adjustment and without rounding). And just for fun, let's keep the 50% increase every 4 years after 2022:

Turnpike Tolls Exit 14C Jersey City to Exit 14A Bayonne
(Rounding not applied)

2008 $0.65
2010 $0.98
2014 $1.46
2018 $2.19
2022 $3.29 Corzine's proposal stops here but let's carry on…
2026 $4.94
2030 $7.40
2034 $11.11
2038 $16.66
2042 $24.99
2046 $37.48
2050 $56.22
2054 $84.34
2058 $126.50
2062 $189.75
2066 $284.63
2070 $426.95
2074 $640.42
2078 $960.63
2082 $1,440.94
2086 $2,161.42
2090 $3,242.13
2094 $4,863.19
2098 $7,294.78
2102 $10,942.17

Pretty impressive, isn't it?

Across the Persian Gulf...

but libertarianism certainly demands a commitment to ending a war one thinks is unconstitutional and unwise.

'Unwise' can always be an easy case to make concerning a war -- but 'unconstitutional'?

It strikes me that the Iraq Campaign of WWIV was not the least approved military action in US history but the most approved. Which makes sense because as society becomes more bureaucratic, military force authorizations will become more bureaucratic as well.

Here are five approving acts or events.

1) The Persian Gulf War Resolution adopted January 12, 1991.

The initial fight with Iraq was approved by just about everyone on earth save Jordan and the PLO. The UN, NATO, the Politburo of the Soviet Union and the Democrat-controlled US Congress all approved the military response to the invasion of Kuwait.

The invasion was ended after 4 days of ground fighting with a cease-fire agreement which was immediately and persistently violated by Iraq during the subsequent 12 years including shooting at US and British aircraft and an attempt to assassinate George H. W. Bush.

2) The World Trade Center Bombing February 26, 1993.

There is quite a bit of evidence that the '93 plotters were connected to Iraqi Intelligence.

"Now, how did a young man who had led a seemingly normal life up until August 1990 suddenly become a world class terrorist six months after Iraq invaded his country of residence? Where did he get such sophisticated explosives training in just six months? (The real Abdul Basit's degree, remember, was in electronic engineering, not chemistry, which Swansea Institute does not even teach.) "

If one is attacked, no "Declaration of War" is required because - guess what - you're already at war.

3) Bin Laden's Fatwa or Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places dated August 23, 1996.

My Muslim Brothers of The World:
Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy --your enemy and their enemy-- the Americans and the Israelis. they are asking you to do whatever you can, with one own means and ability, to expel the enemy, humiliated and defeated, out of the sanctities of Islam.

If war is declared against a country, it doesn't have to declare war itself because - guess what - you're already at war. There's no rule stating that one cannot conduct a war against an international conspiracy rather than a nation state. Indeed, WWIII was fought more against an international conspiracy than against any nation states. Once one is at war, strategy and tactics are the responsibility of the Executive Branch - not Congress. Who you attack in response and when is a strategic or tactical choice. If one happened to already be at war against a nation that was right in the heart of the Middle East, it might be convenient to finish that war to take a terrorist-supporting state off the board in the course of a larger war against Osama and others seeking to reestablish the Caliphate.

4) The New York City and Washington DC Attacks of September 11, 2001.

If one is attacked, no "Declaration of War" is required because - guess what - you're already at war. Once one is at war, strategy and tactics are the responsibility of the Executive Branch - not Congress. Who you attack in response and when is a strategic or tactical choice. For example: What was the first foreign nation invaded by US forces following the Pearl Harbor Attack of 1941? Answer - France, specifically French Morocco. Thus, there is precedent for resuming a conflict with a nation such as Iraq which, after all, we were still at war with and which had committed numerous acts of war against us.

5) Authorization for Use of Military Force adopted September 18, 2001.

Provided broad authority for the use of military force. Once one is at war, strategy and tactics are the responsibility of the Executive Branch - not Congress.

6) Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq - Resolution of 2002 adopted October 16, 2002.

Provided broad authority for the use of military force. Once one is at war, strategy and tactics are the responsibility of the Executive Branch - not Congress. BTW, 6 of the 12 stated justifications for the use of force against Iraq in this Resolution do not involve WMDs.

Being a good libertarian anarchist, I naturally oppose the socialist provision of military services. I would prefer privatization of our foreign policy and the use of Letters of Marque and Reprisal governed by Rules for Captures on Land and Water. On the other hand, as a good libertarian anarchist, I oppose the concept of national sovereignty -- ours or anyone else's.

As to the issue of whether or not a war is "unwise". Note that war is a two (or more)-party activity. If someone is at war with you, you are at war whatever your opinion happens to be about the matter.

I think it's safe to say that since the first domestic attack on the US by Arab/Islamic forces in the modern era, we've been a war whatever our opinion happens to be about the matter.

But it's not a 'real' war, is it?

The Kaiser, Imperial Japan, Hitler, and the USSR; those were real enemies in real wars, weren't they?

Question -- how many civilians in the Continental US were killed (in total) by those enemies? Somewhere in the vicinity of 6. Perhaps there were a few more killed during WWI, WWII, and WWIII in espionage operations here. Meanwhile, our current enemies have killed somewhere in the vicinity of 3000. Sounds 'real' to me.

But let's think further about this argument: but libertarianism certainly demands a commitment to ending a war one thinks is unconstitutional and unwise.

Is the above true? Does libertarianism qua libertarianism require us not to do unwise things (whether they are a love affair or a war)? I would guess that libertarianism demands that we not aggress not that we eschew unwise behavior. Lots of human behavior is both unwise and does not violate the non-aggression axiom.

Does libertarianism qua libertarianism require us not to do unconstitutional things. Depends on the constitution, doesn't it? Libertarian archists (in the US) may feel themselves bound to be defenders of the US constitution but surely libertarian anarchists (or non-US libertarian archists) would not be so bound. I don't see that defense of a (particular) constitution is a particularly libertarian value.

Vouchers for Millionaires

New York City Pays Tuition for ex Viacom COO

The New York Sun reports that the US Supreme Court in a 4-4 split decision leaves in place an Appeals Court order that requires New York City to pay thousands of dollars a month for a private school to educate the son of a former Viacom COO. At issue, whether the multi-millionaire and his AD/HD son have to try a government school first or can just pick a private school and then get the city to pay for it. Here is a history of the case from a sympathetic source.

Thomas Freston, who brought the case on behalf of his son, is a former co-Chief Operating Officer of Viacom. In 2004, according to this 2005 USA Today article, he received $4.2 million in base pay and $16 million in bonus pay (plus many extras).

A Cypherpunk Joins the Marines

Those of us in the libertarian anarchist community have had few representatives to cheer for in our current contretemps. There was John W. Perry the libertarian NYC Cop who died at the Trade Center on 9-11 but that was about it.

But now comes news that Sameer Parekh has reported to Marine Corps OCS at Quantico. A cypherpunk and crypto entrepreneur, Sameer was in Budapest on 9-11:

I was at the Backpack Hostel in Budapest, Hungary as I watched the towers fall. I sat there as a fellow backpacker bounced up and down on the sofa in glee.

It's been six years, and I've made a number of false starts since then. Nine days from now, I will report to OCS, and once I complete the ten weeks in Quantico, I will finally begin my task to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

I chatted with Sameer at the CFP conference in Toronto in 2000 about his plans to bum around Europe. I assume that Sameer's hair is a bit shorter these days. Why so it is:

Surprisingly, a number of libertarian anarchists have supported the current war or at least some version of the current war (see J. Neil Schulman). Not in the sense that state war is a good idea but in the sense that state war is what currently exists. While they may prefer private war, they deal with the reality of state war as they deal with the reality of state roads.

In particular, they don't think that the imposition of the Caliphate over the whole of the earth is a good idea.

Sameer -- Good luck at OCS and in the fight from an old soldier!

Duncan Frissell, Tech Sergeant CAP (Retired).

Here are some cypherpunk posts by or about Sameer.

The New Economy

So I walked into a shop on New York City's Lower East Side and spoke to the proprietor. He went into the back and returned with a new, conservative, wool, pinstriped, men's suit. I gave him $25.00 in cash and walked out with the suit.

Now the suit was made in China. I had bought it for $24.95 on eBay. I have purchased three suits from the same source. The other two suits cost me about $35.00. No mention was ever made of sales taxes. The seller uses eBay and mail order catalogs to sell similar items throughout the US.

By any standards, the price is amazing. Even more amazing would be an economic analysis of the nature of the transactions involved.

Climate Change Deniers in Newsweek

The Truth About Denial

So Newsweek is beating up on climate change deniers this week. One minor problem with the lead though:

Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies.

Then there's this:

The response to the international climate panel's latest report, in February, showed that greenhouse doubters have a lot of fight left in them.

What's the problem? Simple. Climate Change 2007 The IPCC 4th Assessment Report isn't out yet. See the future tense on the front page of the IPCC's website. "The IPCC 4th Assessment Report is coming out." And:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. It is currently finalizing its Fourth Assessment Report "Climate Change 2007", also referred to as AR4.

So what came out in February? The political summary of one part (about 1/3) of the final report.

IPCC adopts major assessment of climate change science

Paris, 2 February 2007 – Late last night, Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adopted the Summary for Policymakers of the first volume of “Climate Change 2007”, also known as the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis”, assesses the current scientific knowledge of the natural and human drivers of climate change, observed changes in climate, the ability of science to attribute changes to different causes, and projections for future climate change.

Not released is the actual report on the science of climate change. That won't be adopted until November or December.

If AR4 - when finally released - is "a definitive statement on the science of climate change" it will answer a few of the following questions but still leave the hard ones unanswered:

1. Is the Earth warming?
2. Did human activity cause it?
3. Is the level of warming dangerous or can we live with it?
4. Can it be reversed?
5. Are the changes required to reverse warming worse than the harm it is likely to cause? (e.g. impoverishment of mankind)
   
6. Will plant growth, cloud formation, etc. mitigate it without human intervention?
7. Should we reduce GHG releases to reverse warming or use technical means to remove GHGs from the atmosphere? (e.g. dump an iron-oxide solution into the Arctic Ocean to cause a plankton bloom.)
8. What changes in human activity should be made to reduce GHG emissions?
9. What forms of social organization should direct those changes? (i.e. Is a bureaucratic command economy the best designer of solutions to such problems?)

Lots of questions still unanswered.

The Universal Brotherhood of Man

It doesn't matter what your race, creed, or color is; you can still be a son of a bitch. -- Duncan Philip Frissell 1899-1965

Another Muhammad Cartoon Controversy

So a Christian chaplain at New York's Rockland County jail was passing out some of Jack Chick's anti-Muslim cartoon tracts.

Jail hiring Muslim chaplain after uproar

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW CITY, N.Y. -- The county jail where a Christian minister handed out anti-Islamic cartoons announced it will hire an imam for its Muslim inmates. The Rockland County Jail also said it will provide religiously appropriate food. Rockland Undersheriff Thomas Guthrie said Tuesday that the imam will work one day a week, joining the jail's priest and rabbi.

The Christian chaplain, the Rev. Teresa Darden Clapp, was suspended with pay last month after inmates complained she was passing out anti-Islam booklets. In the cartoon panel stories, a tract titled Men of Peace? said Islamic fundamentalists who commit terrorist acts are not "bad Muslims" but "very good Muslims" who act in accordance with their religion. Another tract, titled Allah Has No Son, said Allah is not God, Muhammad was no prophet, and the Quran is not the word of God. Both stories end with people being convinced Islam is false. In one, a Muslim converts to Christianity. Local Muslims have called for Clapp's dismissal, and the county requested an independent investigation.

Clapp has not commented public about the controversy and has not responded to messages seeking comment.

Jack Chic's tracts are famous for their anti-Catholicism and stories of strange conspiracies. One tract argues that after demons created the Catholic Church to draw Christians away from Christ (based on Alexander Hilsop's pamphlet The Two Babylons: Papal worship Revealed to be the worship of Nimrod and His wife), Rome created Islam to produce the warriors required to destroy true Christianity.

Ironically, even though the Rev. Teresa Darden Clapp takes a pretty literalist reading of scripture, she somehow missed 1 Cor. 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

Buddhist Children of Lesbian Moms are per se Un-American

How do I know? The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey asked one:

"Jhanelle said that as a Buddhist and the daughter of two lesbian moms, the pledge "doesn't represent my family or my beliefs".

From a story about how laws which have been declared unconstitutional (such as one requiring non-pledging students to stand during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance) still remain in the law books and on the websites of the State of New Jersey.

Private Schools

I'm not a big fan of school choice for tax morality and state control reasons.

Schools are a real problem though.

Slave schools are set at zero cost -- out-of-pocket. That was not too much of a problem when private schools were cheap. Low cost differential.

But even with low inflation (and with the labor/goods cost ratio skewing in favor of labor school inflation has been high), private schools end up costing the vast amounts of money (over time) since slave schools remain artificially fixed at zero price.

Home schooling, family coop schooling, and Lancasterian schools can help control private educational costs.

Children working with their parents (for money) over the nets can reduce costs as well and change the economics of child rearing.

Obviously, the income foregone by the parent-teacher will continue to be the major cost. Educational materials are freely available for the cost of a high-speed net connection.

Alternative ed will continue to be helped by the piss poor performance (and the political, moral, and social atmosphere ) of slave schools.  Sending one's child to an institution specializing in child abuse will not be economically justified even at zero cost.

Why Homeschooling & Christian Schools

Students attend the few conservative schools extant for a number of reasons. Just as blacks would eschew attendance at schools run by the KKK (if they could gain admittance); conservatives loathe commie schools.

I'm looking for a Montessori school for my grandson. In the course of the search the obvious occurred to me. New Jersey has thousands of pre, primary, secondary, and tertiary schools and almost all of them are run by hard core lefties.

The administrators and teachers believe in such things as high taxes, taxes, affirmative action, welfare, medicare, medicaid, social security, collectivization of schools, etc. Not to mention all the politically correct garbage.

No wonder home schooling is also very popular.

I would guess that if lefties faced a situation in which all schools were controlled by conservatives, they'd reject government monopoly schooling as well.

Despotism tempered by Dynamite

(B)y our constitution we are governed by a Despot who, although in theory, absolute - is, in practice, nothing of the kind - being watched night and day by two Wise Men whose duty it is, on his very first lapse from political or social propriety, to denounce him to me, the Public Exploder ... and it then becomes my duty to blow up His Majesty with dynamite, and, as some compensation for my wounded feelings, I reign in his stead.

After many unhappy experiments in the direction of an ideal Republic, it was found that what may be described as a Despotism tempered by Dynamite provides, on the whole, the most satisfactory description of ruler - an autocrat who dares not abuse his autocratic powers.

--Utopia (Limited) or The Flowers of Progress by Gilbert & Sullivan -- 1898

Liberties Lost 1960 to the Present

Since 1960, Americans have lost the liberty to:

Open a secret US bank account.
Purchase firearms capable of firing generally available fixed ammunition by mail.
Open a secret foreign bank account, trust, or corporation.
Accumulate untaxed earnings in a secret foreign bank account, trust, or corporation.
Purchase new, fully automatic, firearms.
Buy high-volume flush toilets.
Discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, age, etc. in employment and other commercial transactions.

Liberties Gained 1960 to the Present

Since 1960, Americans have gained the liberty to:

Commit sodomy.
Commit fornication.
Commit adultery.
Own gold.
Enforce gold clauses in contracts.
Privately possess obscene materials not featuring children.

Liberties Lost/Gained 1960 to the Present

One convenient use of a blog is to widely distribute information
which you, alone, possess. I am going to start two simple lists of
liberties that Americans have lost and gained since 1960. I am well
qualified for this task since I was politically conscious (in a
limited sense) in 1960 and I've been thinking about the topic ever
since. The blog format will also allow me to add to the lists as I
think of entries. The individual items on the two lists will be
restricted to America, will be short, will be in random order, will
consist only of liberties lost or gained from government
restrictions, and may be linked to definitions or examples as I can
be bothered to find the links.

I am doing this because I frequently listen to political commentary
and note that most hard core right wingers and libertarians believe
that many liberties have been lost while more centrist commentators
tend to see the gains. Neither side attempts a comprehensive
listing. We'll see how I do.

The initial lists will be short but I will add to them as time goes by.

Passport Renewal

Renewing your Passport in the Modern Era:

The best way to renew your passport is to package your application, photos, old passport, and money into one of the large (soft) Express Mail envelopes. Include a self-addressed smaller cardboard Express Mail envelope with a $14.40 Express Mail stamp already on it for State to use to return your new (and old) passports. Ship it all off. Wait one week normally. Two weeks in this Spring of our discontent.

Print/Bookmark the following page from the http://www.state.gov/ website:

How to apply for a Passport Renewal
http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/renew/renew_833.html

Application for Passport by Mail: DS-82
http://travel.state.gov/passport/forms/ds82/ds82_843.html

Form: Application for US Passport by Mail (revised)

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/79960.pdf

Helpful Hit for Mailing Your DS-82

http://travel.state.gov/pdf/DS-82HelpfulHints101106.pdf

How to Get Your Passport in a Hurry

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/first/first_831.html

Old Application for Passport by Mail (to compare and highlight the enhanced privacy violations of the new one).

http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/contrib/potluck/Docs/passport-app.pdf

Get two passport photos.

Fees:

$67 Renewal
$60 Expedited Service Fee

Postal Money Order for $127.00 (Pay to "U.S. Department of State")

$14.40 x 2 = $28.80 Express Mail Two Ways

circa $155.80

Mail to:

National Passport Processing
Post Office Box 13349
Philadelphia, PA 19101-3349

As for the application itself... State has been playing games with the form. They have added additional info requests and reduced the number of responses that they officially label 'optional'. As always since 1988, they want your SS# and say the law requires that you provide it. But no one has ever been fined for failure to do so. Pure bluff.

Compare the current DS-82 with previous application (above). On that form, the following categories were marked optional:

Occupation
Travel Plans
Length of Stay
Emergency Contact ("If you wish...")

It was one page instead of two and it cost $40.

You can probably leave the above items off if you want (as well as "Employer"). I know many applicants who have declined to supply SS# 's since 1988 (one in 2007) and no one has been refused a passport or been fined. We've been putting a Post-it Note on the form covering the SS# with the label "This Space Intentionally Left Blank".

The slick drafters of the Privacy Act Statement finessed the issue of what info is mandatory as follows:

CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE TO PROVIDE INFORMATION With the exception of your Social Security Number (see Federal Tax Law statement on Instruction Page 3), you are not legally required to provide the information requested on this form. However, failure to do so may result in Passport Services' refusal to accept your application or result in the denial of a U.S. passport.

You're supposed to guess what's mandatory and what's not.

In any case, using this system we recently received a new passport in a week and a day. Essentially the same delay as a year ago before the current surge in applications.

Talk Radio Anti-Seminar Caller

Hello Mr. Right-Wing Radio Talk Show Host,

Short time listener, last time caller.

I've never listened to your show before. In fact, I've never
listened to a radio before. But I like your show. I used to hate it
(even though I had never heard it). You used to be lousy but you've
gotten a lot better recently.

I'm a Democrat. I've voted Democrat ever since I started voting in
'32 (except for '48 when I proudly cast my vote for Henry Wallace)
but I'm voting Republican this year.

Please cut me off.

I have only one concise, relevant point to make...

Why They Hate Us

1. We refused to surrender (submission/Islam) after Muslim armies conquered 2/3 of Christendom from 632-770 AD.
2. We beat them at the Battle of Tours - 732 AD.
3. We briefly recovered portions of Christian territory during the Crusades 1095-1291 AD.
4. We defeated the fleet of the Sultan Ali Pasha at the Battle of Lepanto - 1571 AD.
5. We defeated Turkish forces at the Battle of Vienna - 1683.
6. We became much more technologically, economically, socially, and culturally advanced than them - 1492 AD to the present.
7. We refuse to return Al-Andalus (Spain).
8. And most of all -- We refuse to sumit to the will of God/Allah.
   

If the World Trade Center...

If these buildings:














Had had some of these:






















Phalanx CIWS (Close-in weapon system)



They would be alive today!

Foreign Law

I wonder if Justices Breyer and Kennedy will apply this foreign law:

Germany to monitor Madonna show: German prosecutors are to monitor Madonna's concert to determine whether a mock crucifixion could be construed as insulting religious beliefs.

Superiority of Exorcism to Psychiatry

How is exorcism superior to psychiatry?

Unless he works on patients involuntarily committed to his care by the state, a shrink needs the patient's permission to cure him.

In the case of driving out devils, the exorcist doesn't generally need the patient's permission because he's not treating the patient he's expelling a tresspasser. He's working on another entity that lacks the protections of natural law.

The Day They Took the Times and the Post

The current contretemps on treason in the MSM reminded me of the following scene in Allen Drury's 1973 novel Come Ninevah, Come Tyre. In the novel (one of two alternate endings to the string of novels beginning with 1959's Advise and Consent), a Soviet dupe has become president of the United States and "bad things" are happening. After initially supporting good liberal President Edward Montoya Jason, the Times, the Post, and columnist Walter Dobius (Walter Lippmann) publish editorials and news stories designed to expose his complicity in murder and treason. Then:

It might have been entitled, had there been a wry historian to record it, "The Day They Took the Times and the Post"; and it posed for many Americans--who did not then have, and would never again have, the opportunity to answer them--many questions:

How would you react, for instance, if you were walking down a street in New York or a street in Washington, and suddenly you saw some sort of disturbance going on at the doors of two distinguished newspapers? Not a big disturbance, you understand, just a minor sort of scuffling, a quick coming and going, a few frightened people, a flurry, a fuss?

Just the sudden arrival at the doors at the same moment in each city, of a couple of police vans . . . the sudden entry into both buildings of small groups of armed and uniformed men . . . a pause of perhaps ten minutes . . . and then the emergence of the uniformed men, hustling along between them a handful of other men, handcuffed or with guns at their backs, obviously angry, terrified, protesting, some dressed in business suits, some with coats off and sleeves rolled up, some, perhaps, crying with a bitter irony, "But this is the Times! (or the Post!) You can't do this to us!" . . . and then a swift clanging and locking of doors, a sudden roaring of engines, a sudden disappearance down the crowded street . . . and then, just visible from the sidewalks, a momentary cluster and swirl of frantic people inside . . . and then their abrupt, hurried, almost furtive dispersal, so that all is quiet again . . . and the streets returning immediately to their normal hustle and bustle, the uncaring rush and hurry of life, after an elapsed time of perhaps a quarter of an hour. . . .

Just exactly what would you do, in such a circumstance? Would you shout out frantically to your fellow passers-by, "Help! Help! They're taking the Times! (or the Post!) Help, citizens! Help, freedom lovers! Help, fellow believers in American democracy! They're taking--they're taking--they're taking-the press?"
Would you immediately leap forward, in company with all your fellow citizens, alerted and made knowledgeable by your cry, a great, angry, overwhelming mass, noble and not to be denied, to rescue in savage scuffle, yourselves unarmed against armed and ruthless men, the once arrogant but now wan and horrified souls being dragged off to--who knows what?

Would you, if rescue failed, throw yourselves heroically in front of the vans, the sheer weight of your massed bodies stopping their escaping surge with a sickening and bloody crunch?

Would you cry havoc and let slip the dogs of civil rebellion to save your free press?

Why, no, of course you wouldn't.

In the first place, two thirds of you wouldn't even glance up from your busy scurrying down the streets on your own private affairs.

And of the third of you who did notice, perhaps only a handful would be informed enough and sophisticated enough to have an inkling of what was going on.
And of that handful, half would think, very quickly, Well, it's none of my affair, I'd better get on by just as fast as I can and forget about it, I can't afford to get involved.

And half again would think, Oh dear, they can't do that, but how can I stop them, oh, dear, I might get hurt, I guess I'd better not try to do anything, oh, dear.

And of the three or four left, perhaps one or two of you might half start forward--and then as abruptly stop, appalled by the unbelievable occasion, paralyzed by the knowledge of your own unarmed vulnerability, aware that you were almost entirely alone, aware that you might very well be instantly shot down. . . .

And so they would take the Times and the Post, and any others across the country they might want to take, in exactly the same way . . . and in the offices so swiftly and smoothly made vacant, other men would suddenly appear, from outside, perhaps, but more likely from other editorial desks, or from obscure offices on other floors, rising from their places in the composing room, or converging swiftly from the library stacks, or entering from the business department--just as they actually have in so many other newsrooms in so many other doomed lands . . . and presently, without the world being aware of even a pause or a hitch, the presses would roll again . . . and next day, just as always in the world where the Times and the Post and their sister publications are such permanent, immutable and reassuring fixtures, the regular editions would appear, containing editorials, headlines and news stories fervently praising the President of the United States, hailing his Administration and all its works, endorsing his policies in every phase--praising, praising, praising, praising the Russians for their forbearance and cooperation--urging, urging, urging the people of the United States to accept with a docile and unprotesting compliance the yoke so shrewdly, cleverly and unanswerably prepared. . . .

20 CFR 404.1035

20 CFR 404.1035

§404.1035 Work for a communist organization.

If you work as an employee of an organization which is registered, or which is required by a final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board to register under the Internal Security Act of 1950 as a communist action, communist-front, or communist-infiltrated organization, your work is excluded from employment. The exclusion is effective with the calendar year in which the organization is registered or the final order is in effect.

You probably have to pay income and SS taxes. But such work doesn't count towards your SS qualification.

Unconcealed Carry

So you live in a commie state that hasn't enacted concealed carry laws. Or you don't like to apply for a license even in a concealed carry state. Or you lack the funds necessary to obtain a suitable firearm. Does your state or nation restrict purchases of edged weapons?

Not to worry. Thanks to the power of the Internet you can still obtain the deadliest personal weapon that does not involve gunpowder or sharp edges.



The Quarterstaff.

Â?The short staff or half pike, forest bill, partisan, or glaive, or such like weapons of perfect length, have the advantage against the battle axe, the halberd, the black bill, the two handed sword, the sword and target, and are too hard for two swords and daggers, or two rapier and poniards with gauntlets, and for the long staff and morris pike.."
George Silver
Paradoxes of Defence, 1599

Buy a nice hickory one here. Learn how to use it here. Great exercise.

Democratic Torture?

A constitutional democracy that practices torture is an oxymoron.

Surely one could imagine a national constitution that permitted torture as well as a democratic majority that approved of it so it can't be an oxymoron. Andrew Sullivan may be trying to say that torture violates natural rights/natural law but is uncomfortable with the baggage attached to those concepts.

CATO Institute Advocates State Licensure!

Dale Carpenter has a new CATO paper out opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment.

In it he discusses various legal and constitutional issues involving the FMA but he doesn't analyze it from a libertarian perspective. Peculiar for a libertarian writing for a libertarian think tank.

The FMA would seem to prevent states from licensing same sex marriages (SSM). Isn't the prevention or elimination or government licensing generally the libertarian position?

It sounds to me like the FMA is promoting the libertarian position on Dom Rel law. It prevents the states from regulating SSM. SSM's can still be established by the parties. All they have to do is find a church or jump a broomstick.

Now all libertarians have to do is find out a way to prevent state regulation of OSM and the rest of us can be freed from state oppression.

Return Dom Rel law to private institutions like the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Coven, etc.

Here's an "inside baseball" question to Dale and other libertarians who support state licensure of SSM:

Suppose that I'm a massage therapist in a state that does not license massage therapy. I organize a group of my fellows to petition the state to license massage therapists. We are seeking to increase the professionalism of massage therapy and restrict entry so that we can increase our incomes (in other words gain all the benefits that the other licensed professions have.

So what would be the libertarian position on this proposal? Do libertarians generally support or oppose the extension of licensure to new professions? Or do they favor ending the licensure of existing licensed professions? Isn't the answer obvious?

How is the licensing of private sexual unions different from the licensing of professions (save that such licensure would seem to be much more invasive of personal life)?

I know. Without state licensure of sexual congress you can't receive the 1001 benefits.

What became of the lost libertarianism of my youth...?

Dodging Immigration's Truths

Dodging Immigration's Truths: "On the one side will be older baby boomers demanding all their federal retirement benefits. On the other will be an expanding population of younger and poorer Hispanics -- immigrants, their children and grandchildren -- increasingly resentful of their rising taxes that subsidize often-wealthier and unrelated baby boomers."

Samuelson in USN&WR.

If immigation of Mexican hordes will lead to a tax revolt, it sounds like a great idea. Somehow, however, I doubt it. I would guess that it will lead to higher taxes (like everything else).

Republicans with Gay Children

David Boaz on Dick and Mary:

"Dick Cheney is not the only leading conservative with a gay child, though he is certainly the most prominent. The disconnection between their personal relationships and their political stance must be taking a toll on some of them."

Andrew Sullivan on Dick and Mary:

"And yet, at the same time he heads a party that would strip his daughter and her girlfriend of all legal rights."

Suppose that a libertarian anarchist has a child who takes a job with the IRS. Is there any requirement in libertarian theory that he remain close to or distant from this child? Is there any requirement in libertarian theory that he change his views on the morality of taxation because of the choice made by his child? If a child becomes a Democract, does that require his parents to start voting for Democrats?

I didn't think so.

What's so hard to understand? One is not required to change one's views because of something one's child does.

I would also guess that Mary and Heather retain a few legal rights. The Supremes said they can fornicate and lewdly cohabit. They can vote, hold public office, make contracts, etc. You can't shoot them without justificaion.

Don't credit anyone who claims someone has been deprived of all legal rights. We've never practiced outlawry.

Note the same overblown rhetoric in immigration discussions. Illegal aliens retain plenty of rights in America.

Start Beating Your Kids

If you want to help your children, I recommend poverty, divorce, and child abuse -- but just for their own good.

"Yes Ossifer, I'm an abusive parent. I beat my wife and kids daily, I quit work to provide my family with a poverty-stricken existence, and I intend to desert them ASAP. But I'm not a bad person. I'm doing it for their own protection.

Someday, through no fault of his own, my son may fall in with bad companions, join an international terrorist conspiracy, and be found guilty of an historic mass killing for which he faces the death penalty. If I treat him properly and responsibly now, he may well receive the death penalty but if I abuse him, he has a good shot at life imprisonment.

What else could a responsible parent do?

Where's my belt?"

Traditional Views of Immigration

Leviticus, Chapter 19, Verses 33 and 34:

33: And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.

34: But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

The Magna Carta:

(41) All merchants may enter or leave England unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs.

The Declaration of Independence:

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Modern Lit

W.H. Auden 1, "The Pristine Words Only Academy" 0:

Jacob Behymer-Smith is a ninth-grader at the Coral Academy of Science, a public charter school in Nevada. He's participating in the Poetry Out Loud contest, which is run by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and in which high school students compete at reciting a great poem that they've memorized. Behymer-Smith chose W.H. Auden's The More Loving One; so far, he's progressed from his school competition to a district-wide competition, in which he placed first. On April 22, he'll be competing in the Nevada statewide competition. You'd think that the Coral Academy's officials would be happy for him, and would be trying to support him.

You'd be mistaken, because -- horror of horrors -- Auden's poem, it turns out, contains unspeakable vulgarities. To be precise, it contains the words "hell" ("Looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell") and "damn" ("Admirer as I think I am / Of stars that do not give a damn"). That, the Dean of Students at the Coral Academy opined, is "inappropriate language," as opposed to the "pristine language" (her words) that she thinks ought to be presented to the school's students.

And because of this, the school insisted on April 7, Jacob couldn't perform his poem.

Since almost all literature published since 1922 (the same date the Copyright Act is currently locked on) is garbage anyway, and since we have more lit than anyone could read in a lifetime available for free, it would be no loss if one read nothing published after 1921.

Applying for an SS card in 1968

In the '60s, most Americans who got SS cards did so for one of two reasons --  they were entering the work force or taking the SAT test.

Not being an early member of the work force, I had no SSN in 1968 and got one so I could take the SAT.

It was a relatively simple process.  My mom drove me down to Richards Street (?) in downtown Honolulu to the SS office.  I had my birth certificate with me.  The birth certificate was to establish birth date and, hence, age.  Identity was not an issue.  The process resembles the application for a Taxpayer ID Number (TIN) for a business, trust, or estate today.  The number was merely designed to distinguish one taxpayer from another.

The SS office was right off the street with no security of course.  No security in those days.  I walked in, filled out a short form at a stand-up table.  This was the same basic form used since the program's origins in 1936: Name, Address, Employer, DOB, Place of Birth, Parent's Names. 

I handed my SS-5 form and birth certificate to a clerk seated at a desk with a typewriter -- minimal or no barrier.  She rolled a strip of SS cards into her typewriter and typed my name in the blank, tore it off, and handed it to me for my signature.  Although I don't remember, she would also have used a mechanical  number stamp to put the number on my SS-5 form to make sure that it was connected to the right number.

Like all SS cards of that era, it read: For Social Security and Tax Purposes--Not for Identification.

Boy, he sure got that right!

A prediction of what would become of the District of Columbia:

Thomas Tredwell, New York Ratifying Convention

2 July 1788Elliot 2:402

The plan of the federal city, sir, departs from every principle of freedom, as far as the distance of the two polar stars from each other; for, subjecting the inhabitants of that district to the exclusive legislation of Congress, in whose appointment they have no share or vote, is laying a foundation on which may be erected as complete a tyranny as can be found in the Eastern world. Nor do I see how this evil can possibly be prevented, without razing the foundation of this happy place, where men are to live, without labor, upon the fruit of the labors of others; this political hive, where all the drones in the society are to be collected to feed on the honey of the land. How dangerous this city may be, and what its operation on the general liberties of this country, time alone must discover; but I pray God, it may not prove to this western world what the city of Rome, enjoying a similar constitution, did to the eastern.

Rehnquist on the Visual Depiction of the Prophet

Here is another caricature of Mohamet:

It is on the frieze of the North wall of the Supreme Court's courtroom.

"Muhammad (c. 570-632) The Prophet of Islam. He is depicted holding the Qur'an. The Qur'an provides the primary source of Islamic Law. Prophet Muhammad's teachings explain and implement Qur'anic principles. The figure above is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet."

I guess so.

There have been complaints:

"United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist recently rejected complaints by a coalition of Muslim groups offended by a frieze, depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and turned down their plea that the marble sculpture in the Supreme Court's chamber be removed or altered. He disagreed the sculpture was a sacrilegious "form of idol worship" and drew attention to the rich symbolism of the Qur'anic motifs and Islamic beliefs. It is true that in Islam the depiction of the Prophet is considered a form of apostasy, because it may encourage believers to worship someone other than Allah. The friezes though, carved of Spanish marble and in place since the Court building opened in 1935, show allegorical figures and a process of eighteen great lawgivers. Muhammad is included among other historical figures including Confucius, Moses, Napoleon and Charlemagne. The bearded Muhammad is shown clutching a scimitar in his right hand and the Qur'an in his left hand. The coalition had also complained that the curved oriental sword in the Prophet's right hand "reflects long-held stereotypes of Muslims as intolerant conquerors." Furthermore, the protesters said, Supreme Court literature about the frieze incorrectly identifies Muhammad as the "founder of Islam," when he is in fact recognized as "the last in line of prophets that includes Abraham, Moses and Jesus." Rehnquist replied that the depiction of Muhammad "was intended only to recognize him, among many other lawgivers, as an important figure in the history of law; it [was] not intended as a form of idol worship," and that "[a]ltering the depiction of Mohammed would impair the artistic integrity of the whole." Rehnquist also dismissed the objection to the curved sword in the marble Muhammad's hand as reinforcing the stereotypical image of Muslims as intolerant conquerors: "I would point out that swords are used throughout the Court's architecture as a symbol of justice and that nearly a dozen swords appear in the courtroom friezes alone." Rehnquist said the description and literature, however, would be changed to identify Muhammad as a "Prophet of Islam," and not "Founder of Islam." The rewording, based upon "input of numerous Muslim groups," would also say that the figure "is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor Adolph Weinman to honor Mohammed, and it bears no resemblance to Mohammed." Aziz Haniffa, Religion: Court Rejects Plea to Deface Figure, INDIA ABROAD (New York), Mar. 21, 1997, at 38."

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan and Joshua Micha Marshall for pointers.

Spielberg and Munich

The Volokh Conspiracy - Spielberg and Munich:: Yes. In the poster’s world, the filmmaker does have an obligation to praise the current administration.

Let's look at the theatrical films on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the last 40 years:

Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).

Little Drummer Girl (1984).

Munich (2005).

The first film is pro-Israel, the last two are anti-Israel. That's not very many films for such an inherently photogenic topic. One wonders why.

Critics of the contemporary cinema (or to identify it properly, the contemporary left-wing cinema) are merely suggesting that its prejudices should be highlighted as an analytical tool. Since Hollyweird obviously seeks the deconstruction of the US and Western Civilization and its replacement with Godess knows what, it is perfectly appropriate to point out the race, gender, affectional preference, and religio-philisophical backstory of film production.

What's sauce for feminist and queer theorists is sauce for the gander.

I'm shopping this screenplay about a world-girding conspiracy of the MLA, MESA, and the Screen Actors Guild to destabilize American society so that it can fall like an overripe fruit into the hands of its enemies. I like Kiefer Sutherland as the lead -- a take-no-prisoners radio talk show host defending traditional American values ('but with a little sex in it', and a little torture)."

Spielberg and Munich:

The Volokh Conspiracy - Spielberg and Munich:: can anyone come up with a single example of when Bush has said that the 'enemies are not human beings?

Evil is a characteristic of volition. Animals or hurricanes can't be described as evil. Humans and other volitional beings, devils, gods, figures of myth, aliens can be described as evil. Thus the use of the term evil as applied to our enemies in WWIV who seek world hegemony, is a statement of their volition, their humanity. Those who would rob them of their capability of being evil are the ones who would rob them of their volition and their humanity.

"We will give them more than they deserve.

We will give them Justice."

The Modern World

So I was reviewing my comments on the Volokh Conspiracy by googling my name within the volokh.com domain. I saw this response to one of my comments:

The Volokh Conspiracy - Column Idea for David Brooks:: "A translation of Beowulf has got to be a lot better than the original. I remember slaving away with that epic in some English class along the way. One of the reasons why I never had any interest in that as a field of endeavor. "

an then recalled that I didn't have Beowulf on my Handspring. I googled beowulf e-book, found it on the Memoware site, clicked download, told it to install directly. Since my Handspring was in its cradle, I hit the button and the short file was in moments later.

Slightly over one minute from desire to fulfillment. "Hwaet! We Garden in geardagum..." Now all I need is the e-book of Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer.

Mirror of Justice: Phoning it In

Mirror of Justice: Phoning it In: "is there any evidence that this administration treated the process of deciding to go to war with the moral seriousness required by Catholic teachings? Or did they instead, as the Downing Street Memo said, fix the evidence to reach the policy conclusions they already desired?"

I think there is some evidence. One of the main reasons for resuming the Iraqi war was never mentioned by the Administration (strategic benefit).

After Afghanistan was liberated -- arguably a pure just war as testified to by the presence of Canadian and German troops (after the victory) -- the Admin had to decide what to do next.

It discovered a very convenient target. A nation we were still at war with since the 1991 cease fire, a nation where we had aircraft in the air and advisors on the ground in the North. The continuation of the war was proved by Iraqi threats to our aircraft every few weeks (targeting radar) and US & British destruction of their radar sites every few weeks.

The fact that our war with Iraq had started with the approval of everyone except Jordan and the PLO, was another sweetener. Since the war was already on, and since Gulf War I easily met just war principals, that sort of analysis was minimized. Combined with geography -- a country whose control would isolate both Iran (surrounded except for Russia) and Syria. Split the Middle East, allow us to remove troops from Saudi Arabia and offer the possibility of a more democratic regime...

Note the fact that we didn't even have to meaningfully invade Iraq's sovereignty since we had already impaired it (with full UN approval) via Kurdistan and no-fly zones.

Lots of arguments in favor. Most of those arguments could not be made because they would prove too revealing.

Yes, the Federal Government can Learn

For many years, if you entered the United States Postal Service's two URLs into your browser -- sans www. -- you got bupkis:

http://usps.com

http://usps.gov

The United States Power Squadrons at http://usps.org was always more flexible.

Finally, the USPS has decided to conform to more standard notation and have configured their servers so that any of the four variations will deliver you. The two above and the following two all work. And it only took a decade or so.

http://www.usps.com

http://www.usps.gov

p.s. The Google spell checker supplied the following votes for the spelling of bupkis:

Bupkis 76,200

Bupkiss 13,600

Bupkes 11,600

Whatever did we do in the bad old days to answer these vital questions?

Time to send the Black Berets back home?

Is Paris burning? It looks like a job for the Black Berets of the Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade:

French Intellectuals to be Deployed in Afghanistan To Convince Taleban of Non-Existence of God

The ground war in Afghanistan hotted up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of Taleban zealots by proving the non-existence of God.

Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris's Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of pavement cafes at strategic points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the philosophers' ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to everyone else.

They won't have to travel far from the Rive Gauche. Just hop the RER to the Northeast.

Carte Blanche

Just in case you need a real Carte Blanche:

Dec. 3, 1627

It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.

Richelieu

Or perhaps you prefer the original French:

« C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du présent a fait ce qu'il a fait.
« 3 décembre 1627.
« Richelieu. »

The Unforgiven

You shot an unarmed man!

Well, he should have armed himself.

-- Clint in The Unforgiven.

Lowest Area Code

201 (Northern New Jersey) -- Still the lowest after all these years; though not the best.

Selling Religious Discrimination in the New York Times

October 2, 2005
New Tower in Mecca Is Offering Shared Ownership for Muslims
By FAYE RAPOPORT

Le Meridien Towers in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is scheduled to open early in 2007 as the first shared-ownership property marketed exclusively to Muslim travelers. RCI, a leading vacation exchange company based in Parsippany, N.J., will support the property with services that include giving club members access to RCI's worldwide network of affiliated properties.

Where is Laura Z. Hobson now we need her. Here is the NYT promoting a travel real estate deal restricted to Muslims -- located in a city that has banned non-Muslims since it was founded. I wonder what the Public Editor will have to say?

Perhaps the Times has gone libertarian on us and come to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act's public accommodation discrimination ban. Or maybe it thinks that creed discrimination by an international hotel chain is the same as creed discrimination in a church or church school. If so, it should tell us and say that Gentleman's Agreement, which also attacked creed discrimination in the lodging industry featured bad social policy ideas. We'd like to know.

Je Me Souviens - 11 September 2005

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

--James Russell Lowell Poet & Abolitionist (1845)

Bombs Away

No, the devestation from our recent contretemps does not resemble the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. Fire and Flood leave quite distinct markings on the land.

Peace At Last

If Peace can be described as that period of time during which no one beyond the families of the fallen pays any attention to military casualties, then Katrina has brought America Peace.

Race and Risk

Some have said that race played a role in the risk of death from Katrina. In fact, it is too early to tell which way the odds will break. We currently have no idea how many are dead much less the racial composition of the dead compared to the racial composition of the affected parishes/counties.

It's possible that the white death rate was higher than the black death rate. We'll see. I expect the total deaths will be lower than many current guesses.

One thing we do know is that sex, age, income, race, ethnicity, and religion played a significant role in deaths on 9/11. Male, young, affluent, white, Irish & Italian, Catholics were disproportionately represented among the dead because of the demographics of both the financial services industry and the various fire and police departments.

Given the firms for whom many of those in the World Trade Center worked (as well as the large number of fire fighters and other rescue workers) the other demographic facts should not be that surprising. The victims were overwhelmingly male (about 75 percent), young (many under 40, most under 50), and white (about 75 percent). Only about eight percent were black, nine percent Hispanic, and about six percent Asian. About 75 percent were born in the United States; the rest came from many countries. Together New York and New Jersey accounted for about 87 percent.

We now know that the Upper East Side had the most losses (44), while Hoboken, NJ had the highest proportion of loss of any area, losing 39 residents, or about one per thousand. The number is probably even higher if parental addresses are taken into account. It is not surprising that many of the victims lived in very affluent parts of the metropolitan area, including the Upper East Side and Basking Ridge New Jersey.

I wonder why none of those communities complained?

I Have Proof! Proof!

I have proof that Federal Reserve Notes are not money. Read it and weep:

"This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury, or at any Federal Reserve Bank."

"Will pay to the bearer on demand FIVE DOLLARS"

I don't think you can redeem these FRNs any more. But back when you could wander into your neighborhood Federal Reserve Bank and demand "lawful money of the United States", they would dig out some US Notes and hand them over:

Something Missing

I've been looking at an awful lot of pictures of people waiting in lines and sitting around recently, but there's one thing I haven't seen. I haven't seen any sign of a book or even a periodical.

It strikes me that the latest contretemps would be an ideal time to finish that second volume of Forty-One Years in India by Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar.

Why don't the denizens of New Orleans choose to deploy an entertainment device that requires no batteries and has some resistance to wetting?

Airlines to Fly Up to 25,000 Refugees Out of New Orleans

Airlines to Fly Up to 25,000 Refugees Out of New Orleans

The airlines have been asked to provide narrow-bodied planes, like Boeing 737 and Airbus A-320 models. The T.S.A. will screen passengers, as it normally does at airports, and it will create passenger lists for the airlines.

But they won't have to present government-issued photo ID to fly.

Where Have All the Libertarians Gone?

So an LP press release complains: 14 Marines Killed in Iraq as President Bush Vacations.

I recall a time when libertarians advocated that our rulers take as much time off as possible to reduce their effect on our lives. "No man's life, liberty, or property is safe as long as the legislature is in session." What happened?

This is just one example. We have Instapundit Glenn Reynolds advocating federal support for stem cell research.

We have numerous libertarians supporting state licensure of same-sex marriage instead of advocating an end to state licensure of opposite-sex marriage which I always assumed was the libertarian position.

William Patry's copyright blog had a funny post on the religious side of the Copyright Office. It answered questions like, "What do they say when you try to register a work wih Jesus as the author."

But it occured to me that copyright registration problems are the least of some publisher's worries. I wonder if anyone with a bad temper has noticed this Project Gutenberg header:

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Koran, by Mohammed

Title: The Koran

Author: Mohammed

Release Date: September, 2002 [EBook #3434]

Don't they know who the real author is?

Osama's Choice

So, once Osama re-establishes the Caliphate, he's got another decision to make: Do I go the traditional route and move into Topkapi Palace:




Or try 19th Century modernism and move into Dolmabahçe Palace:

WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea...

[Addition]One of my few readers suggested that Osama might prefer The Alhambra but I think it might have problems of defensive depth (although being in the range of French forces is not as dangerous as it once was):

Citing Foreign Law

I think right wingers haven't given enough thought to the benefits of citing foreign law. Here's some foreign law that conservative justices could use to justify their opinions.

The Efficiency of Ideology

From my comment about a comment to a Volokh Conspiracy post:

Don't you ever face difficult decisions that could go either way, irrespectively of your conservative principles?

Not really. The purpose of having an ideology (or, say, a theology) instead of making everything up as one goes along is efficiency. Just as modern production techniques produce more goods for less labor than primitive pre-specialization and pre-trade economies, the adoption of an ideology saves the individual time and effort and allows one to have answers readily at hand even for questions one has never before encountered. The answers may not be perfect, but they'll be fast and "good enough" (if one's ideology or theology is good enough). There do continue to be problems "at the margins" but one is able to vastly reduce the amount of work one has to do.

The Power of Punctuation

Mandatory Harassment Free Workplace Training [The ambiguous, bureaucratic, original formulation.]

Mandatory Harassment-Free-Workplace Training [What the bureaucrats probably meant.]

Mandatory Harassment -- Free Workplace Training [What some would prefer.]

Mandatory, Harassment-Free, Workplace Training [The ideal towards which mandatory workplace training should strive.]