World's Smallest Violin

[Daniel Andrew] Wolcott, 22, is awaiting trial for allegedly stealing a $7 million private jet in St. Augustine, Fla., in October and flying it to Briscoe Field in Lawrenceville.

He's been in jail since then in lieu of $175,000 bond. He faces charges in Florida and also may be subject to federal charges.

Wolcott's parents, Scott and Diane Wolcott, have been at odds with [County Sheriff Butch] Conway since November over dental floss not being allowed in the jail.

They say their son's inability to floss caused him to develop gingivitis and gum pockets, which if left untreated could become full-blown periodontal disease.

Besides thinking that Butch Conway may be the coolest Sheriff name since Kansas' own "Jack Daniels," I'm just not feeling the sympathy that I should here. I mean, here's a kid who could suffer from full-blown periodontal disease. The horror! If periodontal disease is allowed to run free in the prisons of America, the terrorists will have won.

But Butch Conway is on the case. Luckily for little Daniel Andrew, Conway had in his jail the perfect cellmate to ensure that Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott could sleep peacefully in the knowledge that someone was looking after their boy's periodontal health, among other things:

"I had him moved to a cell with Bart Corbin," Conway said Sunday. "[Corbin's] trained in dentistry, and if there are any complications, they can advise the medical unit. [Wolcott] just had his wisdom teeth out, so I think it's a good thing he's in a cell with a dentist."

The bad news is that Dr. Corbin cannot presently practice dentistry: he's about to go on trial for gunning both his wife and his girlfriend to death.

I salute Sheriff Conway for finding the best possible solution for what must be for him a very difficult situation.

Guess I oughtn't be surprised

You scored as Latin. You should learn Latin! Though a dead language, Latin is present in science, history, English, and, of course, the Romance languages. Have fun with those declensions! Latin 80% Spanish 67% French 60% Arabic 40% Chinese 40% English 0% Japanese 0% What language should you learn? created with QuizFarm.com

We've gone a long way, baby

So I have to confess, Nick and I have this bad habit of buying bad old sci-fi movies. Mostly they're of the "nuclear monster" variety (Them, Empire of the Ants, Pirhana) but occasionally we just like a plain old "Going to the moon for the first time" romp. Tonight's offering was 1953's "Project Moonbase" written in both story and screenplay by Robert Heinlein.

Oh yeah, it's cheeze. After disposing of the bad guy commie spy, a male major and a female colonel find themselves trapped on the moon (they were supposed to just take pics of the dark side, but the bad guy used up all their fuel and they had to land). The short version is that love blooms and a general known familiarly as "Pappy" suggests they get married "for the good of the country." Such marriage makes up the last scene. Joke, nervous laugh, The End.

Yeah, it's vintage Heinlein: campy, romantic, and with plenty of silly hats to go around. He has a female President, yet generals can in all earnest still threaten to spank colonels if they get too big for their britches. Heinlein never imagined that the only military spanking going on in the space age would be gay paratroopers posted on websites. Our reality surpasses even the fertile imagination of Heinlein.

On a personal note, I'm pretty proud of my crew this week. Jaley came in third in the city spelling bee, despite forgetting to tell us that she was even in it and therefore giving herself only 3 days to study her words. She was one place from getting a trophy, was the last girl, and will never again forget how to spell 'bacteria.'

And boys will be boys. Mine took part in a Halo2 tournament sponsored by the PSU College Christians this weekend, splitting up onto two teams and thankfully being assigned different brackets. After mowing through all the college boys (including a few who had to give up their trash talk due to an excess of crow on the palate) their teams faced one another in the finals. I'm proud to report that they are both competitive and cooperative: they agreed before the tournament began that if either of them won, they'd split the prize money. They kicked everyone's ass, fought each other like hell in the finals, and split the prize between their teams. I'm so proud I could just burst...

And Doubt Creeps In

The civil war in Iraq is underway in all but name, and even those who have denied its possibility most vociferously are starting to bolt:

"Sometimes you have to wonder if those who say that Arabs just don't have a culture that can embrace equality and freedom don't actually have a point."
-- Neal Boortz

"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."
-- William F. Buckley

And as much fun as it is to say, "I told you so," such an attitude doesn't help much. What does help is facing the reality of the situation: Democracy, in order to succeed, demands a certain type of people with a certain type of outlook and an economic standing that is the result of a long process of development, ultimately leading to a moderate and prosperous middle class. Even then, it demands people who are sufficiently self-governing to not need a dictator to maintain order.

Those things are not found in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Liberia or Ivory Coast. They are quite possibly not found in Russia or Columbia or Venezuela.

It makes perfect sense. In order to choose among several parties, there must be a difference (else why have two parties?) and voting will be based on those differences and will result in policies that choose one over the other.

In underdeveloped nations, the dichotomies are either economic (few rich v. many poor) or religious (Shiite vs. Sunni) or tribal (Tutu vs. Hutsi). In none of those cases are the losers going to take a loss without taking up arms, which is why in much of the world, elections are followed quickly by dictatorship or civil war. There has never been much reason to believe that Iraq would be any different but for the ideology that democracy, somehow, magically, in the face of experience to the contrary, has the power to transform those for whom the greatest passions in life are non-negotiable into people willing accept the will of their opponents in those areas.

In Iraq:

Influential figures close to the US administration have long been emphasising the dire consequences should sectarian divisions escalate into all-out conflict. Andrew Krepinevich, a Pentagon adviser who heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a military think tank, warns that if civil war breaks out “the outcome may be that we help the rise of another Saddam Hussein who is ruthless enough to deal with the problem”.

As strange as it may sound to the American mind, the rise of another Saddam may be the only hope to keep Iraq in one piece. The other possibility (and the one I expect, frankly) is the disintegration of Iraq into at least three countries: an Iran-leaning Shiite nation in the south, a Kurd nation in the north (unacceptible to Turkey and sufficient to provoke either invasion by Turkey or civil war in it) and an impoverished, Syria-leaning Sunni nation in the center. None of them will be democracies. The streets in each will run red with the blood of religious or ethnic minorities.

Of course, the question (or rather, the accusation) will immediately arise, "You are condemning those people to live under a Saddam." I'm not the one blowing up their mosques and killing their neighbors. They are doing that themselves.

And if that's what they choose to do, how can we expect that formalizing those choices with ballot boxes is going to make the outcome any different?

Yellow Fever



Phillip Wang groks the essence of whiteness

(This is for Bethany, who didn't think "Fear of Girls" was funny)

Unravelling

What we're seeing, in real time, is the unravelling of the Bush Administration.

It started with Harriet Miers. Up until then, Bush did a lot of things (cough...Medicare...cough) that made the base of his party cringe, but they always cringed and voted with the Prez. That went on for 5 years, and then came Miers. The thing conservatives had spent 30 years building, they were not going to turn over to a presidential crony. They rebelled. Bush blustered, called them names, made a few enemies of former friends, then finally backed off.

Then it happened with the domestic spying. More bluster, more eyes opened. Most importantly, more ertswhile closed mouths opened. More opponents (nee enemies) created within his own party.

It's happening again with the port deal.

Now frankly, I don't give a damn who runs the ports, just like I don't care who owns the Empire State Building. What are those foreigners going to do? Haul it away? But that's not the issue. The issue is the pattern.

The deal was announced, completed and out of the blue. Conservatives went ballistic (and Democrats, to be sure, but they go ballistic about everything and can be ignored), and the Bush administration said that A) Bush didn't know about the deal, and B) he would veto any congressional attempt to stop it. This from a president who will soon enter his 62nd consecutive month without vetoing anything, meaning that this deal is very, very important to him.

So conservatives are wondering what's the deal? Why does Bush care so much about this since he ostensibly didn't even know until it was a done deal?

In the words of professional Muslim baiter Neal Boortz (who has been on board with the Prez more than any Libertarian I know):

There just must be something here under the surface. Something unseen. Something undisclosed. The Bush White House just can't be this blind to the legitimate concerns of the people and of those in Congress who are concerned about this move.

The reason is unimportant. The pattern is very important, because it speaks directly to his ability as president to keep his own party under control. Bush does something stupid (stupid politically; I have no idea whether this is stupid financially) and digs in, ignoring the base of his own party. The Dems hate him. The conservatives are starting to mistrust him. Presidents in their second term are lame ducks 15 minutes after they are innaugurated.

That means Bush will, most likely and if he keeps it up, accomplish nothing of substance for the rest of his term. Think "James Earl Carter".

Iran was a lot of fun that time, too.

Math Test

OK, so I'm driving back from OKC today, 4 hours of uninterrupted Trans-Siberian Orchestra, when I started working on a problem related to the speed limit on the turnpike:

If you were to drive 80mph rather than 60mph, in what percentage of the old time would you reach your destination?

Show your answers.

I can think of like 4 ways to solve the problem, but I'm looking for the easy one.

Oh, and I want to thank my wife for not killing me tonight. Yes, the reason that I have not updated lately is that I was on the road and destroyed her laptop doing something stupid. So next week's blogging may be a little sparse as well, since I'm back on the road.

Private Eye needs to search some more:

And do you think it is wise for Christians to pull their children out of the public schools?

What about the Bible studies they start and the witnessing they do, all of that would be lost. Sure a lot of bad stuff happens in public schools, but Christians should not isolate themselves. We can be in the world but not of it.

While I'm not going to tell Christan parents what they ought to do (God gave me my kids and he gave them their kids), I would be remiss if I neglected to point out that this argument is not only the most popular excuse of the lazy Christian parent, but it is rubbish.

What about all the bible studies they start? Well, how many Bible studies are there in any given public high school? If there are none at yours, then the point is moot, because your kid hasn't started one. If there is one, then the point is moot again, because your kid doesn't need to start one.

Education serves two purposes, to stimulate the intellect and to build character (for those who doubt that, read John Dewey and Horace Mann). Is the public school, objectively, the best place to stimulate the child's intellect? Is the public school, objectively, the best place to build the child's character?

If you answered 'no' to either, then you are not doing right by your kids. Maybe you have no choice, and I cannot criticize someone for whom the schools are the only choice. But if you DO have a choice, and you choose less than the best for your children, ask yourself why. You might be surprised at the answer.

How are we supposed to engage the culture? Christian kids have a lot of ministry opportunities in the public school, should we remove the salt and light? I've known Christian kids whose faith has grown once they started attending a public school.

How are we supposed to engage the culture? Oh, by being scout leaders, 4H leaders, baseball coaches, football coaches, youth leaders, having kids over to your house, volunteering at a shelter for homeless or battered women, becoming a foster parent. There are literally hundreds of things that YOU can do to engage the culture that do not involve putting your children under the tutelage of a system that has shown that it simply cannot teach a significant plurality of its charges, no matter how low they drop the standards. If you want to change the culture, that's YOUR job, adult. How many 3rd grade disciples did Jesus have?

The issue is really very simple. When you look objectively at the public schools, at how much money it spends for the amount of educating it does; when you look at its philosophy; its product, and its methods, do you come to the conclusion that the public school is the absolute best you can give your child?

If it is, then great; that's where your kid needs to be. If not, don't deceive yourself by thinking that you're sending an 8-year-old evangelist off to do God's work. Most likely, you are sending a sheep to the slaughter.

I'm not sure if this is wrong or just amazing.

Irony is delicious

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) -- American scientists fighting back against creationism, intelligent design and other theories that seek to deny or downgrade the importance of evolution have recruited unlikely allies -- the clergy.

And they have taken their battle to a new level, trying to educate high school and even elementary school teachers on how to hold their own against parents and school boards who want to mix religion with science.

So let me get this straight: scientists are trying to hold their own in a political battle against people who would mix religion and science by getting the clergy to join their side of the battle. OK, that makes sense in a Captain Joseph Yossarian sort of way, I guess.

There's always time to go back to school.

In praise of inefficiency

As our good friends in Washington shake their heads about the various failures of FEMA and Homeland Security, pointing fingers at one another and heaping scorn on the men they confirmed as competent and efficient sometimes mere months ago; as their flapping mouths spin tales of federal disaster aid spent on strippers and tattoos, of thousands of debit cards given away by mistake or to people who didn't qualify for them, I say, "Keep it up, guys. You're doing great!"

Seriously. Giving money to people who spend it exactly as they wish is probably the least harmful thing government can do with it, other than just leaving it alone in the first place.

Yes, it's a waste of resources, frought with self-interest and fraud, on a scale such as the world has never experienced. But if Congress is going to steal those resources from the people who created them (and it is now clear that, Republican or Democrat-led, they are going to do exactly that), the best possible solution is that nothing comes of it but richer strippers and bigger tattoos.

The federal government will spend $2.8 trillion dollars this year. That's approximately $50,000 for a married couple with three kids. Not only is it probably more than they earn, but it's enough to give them their very own bureaucrat, full-time, to watch over them and make sure they obey the millions of regulations that turn every citizen into a lawbreaker.

Believe me, the last thing you want is to get your money's worth from government.

Failing the bounds of the Constitution to contain the devouring maw of government, the best we can hope is that the damage they do, they will do poorly and inefficiently. I pray that we never get all the government we are paying for.

And besides, the world can always use better and bigger tattoos.

The Bush Exception

A former Justice Department lawyer says Lord Acton had it all wrong:

(Viet) Dinh, now a Georgetown law professor, urged the CPAC faithful to carve out a Bush exception to their ideological principle of limited government. "The conservative movement has a healthy skepticism of governmental power, but at times, unfortunately, that healthy skepticism needs to yield," Dinh explained, invoking Osama bin Laden.

Dinh brought the crowd to a raucous ovation when he judged: "The threat to Americans' liberty today comes from al Qaeda and its associates and the people who would destroy America and her people, not the brave men and women who work to defend this country!"

It was the sort of tactic that has intimidated Democrats and the last few libertarian Republicans who question the program's legality.

Now frankly, I don't know whether the surveillance program undertaken by the President is legal. I don't even know whether it's a good idea. Like most things, I suspect it can be used for both good and ill. Most people would agree that if used to spy on al Queda operatives it's good and if used to spy on political opponents it's bad. But the problem I have is the desire of cheering conservatives to chuck the principles of limited government just because one of their own now wields the power to do both.

The reason for limited government is not because it's cheaper, the reason for divided government is not because it wears a smiley face. The reason for both is that a distrust of government is built upon the experience of centuries of untrustworthy government, and the government which governs most is certain to govern worst. Conservatives have forgotten the first lessons, because they are as historically ignorant as their liberal colleagues.

Conservatives would be the first to scream if President Gore desired to spy without oversight, because they do not trust him (and rightly so in my estimation). Yet they trust Bush, wrongly in my estimation.

Why wrongly? It has nothing to do with what Bush has done, but with what Bush is. Bush is a man, subject to the same temptations all men are. The reason to not trust Gore is not that he's a bad guy (I don't think he is) but because putting unchecked power in his hands in dangerous; absolute power corrupts absolutely. The same reasoning applies to Bush. The same reasoning must apply to me.

What conservatives are saying when they say Bush can be trusted with unchecked power is that Bush is immune from the temptation to abuse that power. And it saddens me that Christians, who above all men ought to understand temptation, and sin, and how good motives can be twisted into bad actions, see Bush as one who is without temptation to sin.

There is only one who is without sin, and Bush is not him.

Blogspot appears to be having a post-dropping problem this weekend. I've got a few in the can, but I'll wait a bit before posting them so they're not wasted.

Please stand by...

Onward Christian Soldiers

Good article on CS Lewis and the problem of war:

"I have often thought to myself how it would have been if, when I served in the First World War, I and some young German had killed each other simultaneously and found ourselves together a moment after death. I cannot imagine that either of us would have felt any resentment or even any embarrassment. I think we might have laughed over it."

Sentiments such as these are something that many modern minds seem unable to comprehend...

There is justice in the Universe

TOKYO - Eight people in southern Japan forked over 150 million yen ($1.27 million) to a man who promised huge returns involving fake American $1 million bills and then disappeared with their money, a news report said Thursday.

The eight, including three who have filed for personal bankruptcy because of the huge outlays in the scam, are considering filing a criminal complaint with police, the national daily Asahi Shimbun said.

When I worked in consumer protection, we always had these kinds of folks ripped off in Nigerian scams of unending variations... the one thing they had in common was that the scammed always combined dishonesty and credulity in a most adorable fashion.

Back in my day they used Roger Whittaker

Shopkeepers in central England have been trying out a new device that emits an uncomfortable high-pitched noise designed to disperse young loiterers outside their stores without bothering adults.

Police carrying out the pilot project in Staffordshire say some of those who have tested the "Sonic Teenager Deterrent," nicknamed the mosquito, have talked of buying one of their own...

Fear of Girls

For everyone who ever played Dungeons and Dragons or wore a cape to school, this is your movie.

Hit the girls and make them cry

Megan swings and misses:

Equal rights should also take into account the fact that physically most women and men are NOT of equal mass and strength.

Regardless of whether hitting ought to exist (which is a separate point worthy of debate), what about men who are not of equal mass and strength? Does a man not have the right to hit back if he's hit by a smaller man? edie_ on law.com also brought up the issue of children in the same vein: you can hurt them a lot worse than they can hurt you. Do equal rights, then, rely on body size? Since men are not equal in size, have they equal rights?

I think it all misses the point. If men and women are - as proposed by feminists - to be treated the same always and everywhere, then there remains no logical reason not to strike a woman back as one would a man, and Vox Day is vindicated. That's one reason I led with his quote below and in the Fire Swamp: his logic is impeccable. And wrong.

One should still not hit a woman. And if denial of the consequence means denial of the premise, then let it be denied and feminists be damned.

The reason one does not hit a woman does not lie in women's expectations of equality, but rather in the facts of what men are. The idea that men should not hit women, based as it is in chivalry, is a response to the fact that men naturally prey on the weak. One place I disagree with Heinlein's societal adaptation in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is in his idea that a society where women are scarce they will call the tune. I defy him to show where that has ever happened. In reality, the strong men will take as many women as they can and allow the weaker men to fight it out for the dregs. Women, being physically weak, have no ability to deny to men what they wish, and there has never been a polygamous society where it was normal for a woman to have many husbands, yet men only have one wife. Reality works differently.

Given that because of an advantage in pure physical power men call the shots, right or wrong, it is necessary - if one wants to preserve peaceful society - to establish rules to blunt the destructive tendencies of strong men. The third of Gautiers' Decalogue of Chivalry stated that one ought to respect and protect weakness, which given the fact that women are weaker than men, means that one ought to protect women. It doesn't matter whether they want it or not, whether they deserve it or not, whether their own philosophy would get them punched in the mouth if a man were to follow it.

What, then, about equal rights? The fact is that equality of rights does not presume equality of talents or of results, mass or strength, and it certainly does not mean - no matter what feminists say - that one ought to pretend differences do not exist.

The primary struggle of the past half-millennium of Western society has been how to protect human rights in the face of real power differentials and the fatal tendency of mankind toward plunder. The King had power, the lord had power, the strong man had power. The woman who would wield power was usually forced to work through a man, whether a lover or a son. Few and far between are the queens who could personally defend themselves against even one of her average soldiers. Protection of rights has only been realized in the fact that rights do not lie in strength or power but that the latter must be limited in order to realize a peaceful society. It has been limited by religion, by Constitutions, by laws and codes and customs, but in every case it has been realized because men have decided that an external rule must be raised to protect the weak from the strong.

Does it mean, then, that a big man should never punch a small one back? No, because we're dealing with groups and generalities, and many small men are stronger than bigger men or will at least win the fight. Size is not a determining factor. Sex is, because while one can always count on hearing stories about "my sister, who can kick guys' asses," in reality such women are scarce enough to be negligible. Women have their own sports leagues for a reason.

Does that mean, as some feminists assert, that such protection is condescending? That holding a flailing woman rather than punching her angry face means you are treating her as less than you? Perhaps it does. So what? What a feminist thinks society ought to be does not mesh with reality, and that reality is that with power is abused by men unless they enforce rules to keep it under wraps. "Never hit a woman" is one of those rules, and serves society to the protection of all the weak, not just those wearing "This is what a feminist looks like" T-shirts.

Chauvinism for the rest of us

Vox Day follows the logic:

Yes, most men are afraid to openly advocate hitting women. I'm not. If a woman offers sufficient provocation, then deck her, with no more thought than you'd give a man who offered similar offense.

This equality is exactly what women have been demanding... of course, once a rational mind points out the obvious consequence, women like Morgan don't like it. Hey, you've come a long way, baby.

While getting hit back is certainly a logical consequence of women demanding equality, just because women demand it, is that sufficient reason to give it to them? Why should what a woman wants determine how I treat her?

It's interesting how such an attitude immediately descends into boorishness - not from Vox himself but through his fans - as a quick read through the comments demonstrates.

I once had a feminist give a huffing demonstration when I held a door for her, arms crossed, eyes aflame, as if I was assaulting her by the very act of allowing her to go first.

"Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I need you to condescend to me," she said.

"I'm not holding the door because you're a lady," I said. "I'm holding it because I'm a gentleman."

She went through.

Corporate Welfare by any other Name

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, an early favorite among some Democrats for the 2008 presidential nomination, told the United Auto Workers on Wednesday that she backing their efforts to launch a so-called Marshall Plan for the U.S. auto industry...

Under the proposal the UAW has been touting to lawmakers this week, automakers that invest in fuel-efficient technologies, such as hybrid vehicles, could get federal aid to support retiree health benefits.

The name comes from the aid program the United States launched to help European nations rebuild after World War II. It was named for then Secretary of State George C. Marshall...

"The manufacturers and the UAW have called for a Marshall Plan. Let's marshal our forces and get it done," Clinton said. "This is truly about the future of America."

Liberals are in a strange predicament. After years - even decades - of complaining (rightly) about corporate welfare, they have finally come to realize that even the largest corporations can't promise something for nothing. Well, they can't deliver something for nothing. Like all politicians, corporate politicians - which is what bureaucratic big business management mainly consists of - can promise whatever they want. And they have, for decades.

No one doubts the US auto industry is in trouble because of those promises. Their bonds are considered junk by the market, they accrue horrendous losses every quarter, and sales of the only vehicles they make that provide decent margins, SUVs, are being pummeled by high gas prices.

But the question is, "Why can't US automakers compete in a world where the two largest nations are finally becoming rich enough to conceivably order tens of million of new vehicles?"

The answer is twofold. First, wages are too high. While it would be wonderful to be able to pay Americans wages 3 times what their competitors make, it's not reasonable to assume they can do it forever. Wages must be based on the actual value added in the job, and when the American auto industry was in its heyday, those wages could be afforded because there was really no one else in the world making cars. No longer. As soon as someone can provide an economic reason why US autoworkers are worth 3x what their Japanese or Korean competitors earn, they can keep their high wages. In the meantime, the cuts will continue.

Second, GM is still obligated to pay pensions and benefits to hundreds of thousands of retired workers, and while these benefits were promised, they are promises that cannot be kept. No company can afford to pay more people not to work than it pays people to do its business.

The unions recognize that pensions and health care are the automakers' Achilles Heel, which is why they are trying to surrepticiously make those promises a government obligation. They don't care who pays the bills (and I can't say I blame them) they just want them paid, and if that means that GM becomes a welfare client under the guise of a Marshall plan that will marshal taxpayers' dollars into the pockets of former autoworkers, well then they can always find a politician willing to do that.

Especially one who wants to be President.

Dynasty

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — When the Bushes and Clintons held hands before 15,000 mourners at Coretta Scott King's funeral on Tuesday, it looked like a prayerful moment in the life of the nation. But as almost anyone watching America's two leading political families knew, underneath the tranquil image was a drama of ambition, rivalry, love and alliance that could shape the 2008 presidential election...

It was one of the most public manifestations to date of the odd friendship and mutual need of two dynasties that, on the surface at least, have almost nothing in common. But as President Bush put it in an interview with CBS News last month, "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton." Mr. Bush made the remark in a telling exchange with Bob Schieffer, who said, "Well, you know, if Senator Clinton becomes president." ...

In the meantime, associates of former President Bush and Mr. Clinton say that the two have moved beyond their road show for tsunami and hurricane relief into a genuine friendship and that they have told members of each of their parties to stop complaining about the bond.

Let's see, we have 3 more years of GWB, then figure 8 of Hillary. Then perhaps the Governor of Florida might like a shot for 8 years. Since Chelsea will become constitutionally eligible for the Presidency in 2015, it looks as if the next quarter century might just be as tidy as the last.

I thought it was at best meaningless when the nation was given a choice between a Boomer Republican Yalee who inherited money and a Boomer Democrat Yalee who married it, but if we can get an agreement that no Clinton will run against any Bush, the money boys can forget the whole Democrat/Republican thing all together. In fact, if we can find a suitable Bush to marry Chelsea, we might even be able to get rid of those pesky elections and just pass the office by inheritance. Didn't Britain try that once?

And the good news is that there's no need for campaign reform legislation if there are no campaigns.

Thoughts from the Inbox

Thanks, Magruder and Jozum:

It occurred to me this morning that fully half of all Americans are below average, in every category that be be meaningfully measured. And what has Bush done about it? Nothing. Let's impeach him.

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside-down, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 C. The Russians used a pencil. Your taxes are due again--enjoy paying them.

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, and it's worked for over 200 years. This makes a lot of sense since we're not using it anymore.

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse is that you cannot post "Thou Shall Not Steal," "Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery" and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

I wonder why our war with Mexico isn't on TV

The Department of Homeland Security said there have been 231 documented incursions by Mexican military and law enforcement personnel into the U.S. since 1996.

“There is little doubt that the majority of these incidences are accidental,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., chairman of the Security Investigations Subcommittee. “However, there are several reports of intentional violations of U.S. sovereignty by groups, often smuggling hundreds of pounds of drugs, which appear to be associated with members of the Mexican military or police forces,” McCaul said.

I'm betting that it's not on TV because if it was, someone might actually insist that someone do something about it.

I was thinking last night how hard (or not) it would be to invade the US. Think about this for a minute. The majority of our working military is halfway across the world. Sure, we have more (barely) soldiers, sailors, and airmen on our soil than overseas, but most of our 'fighters' are away fighting or cavorting vis ze frauleins.

We are about to start a war with Iran. When this happens, a) the Straits of Hormuz will be closed, and b) a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq will close both supply lines from Kuwait and retreat lines to Kuwait. Much of our fighting power will be pinned down half a world away. They might fight through or not, but they will not be able to do anything about border incursions here.

Only the Mexicans could invade (Canada has no real army, eh?) because no other nation in the world has the troop ship capacity to get an army here. China can't even invade Tiawan. But if Mexico pulled such a stunt, we would just nuke them since we would not have the short-term soldiery to stop them. On the other hand, they would find themselves in a similar war as we have in Iraq, and for the same reasons. That's why I have have a hard time saying bad things about the 'terrorists' in Iraq who are fighting us for no other reason than that we are there. We'd fight the Mexicans as well, just because they are here.

So after thinking about how bloody unlikely it would be that anyone in the world could mount or hold a successful invasion of the US, even if our army was pinned down half a world away, it suddenly occurred to me that our army is completely unnecessary for the defense of the nation. We are susceptible to missile attack, but soldiers can't help there. We have to go looking for our wars - not that that has ever proved a problem for Presidents - but there's no army that can bring a war here.

Maybe that whole Founding Father warning about standing armies has some merit after all. If you give someone a hammer, he'll go looking for a nail. If you give a commander an army, he'll go looking for a war.

A Straw Man

Apparently, the US has no monopoly on silliness:

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, condemned the weekend attacks in Beirut and elsewhere...

However, Mr Straw suggested a parody of Christianity would also provoke strong feelings.

"If people looked at these cartoons and were to replace the images of the Holy Prophet with images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, they can see that, even in our culture, if they were directed at the Judeo-Christian traditions, there would be similar outrage," he said.

Yeah, I remember when Andres Seranno produced "Piss Christ,' a photograph of a crucifix submerged in his own urine, and mobs of angry Christians torched embassies in 6 nations and rioted, holding placards that called for the decapitation of those who would mock Christianity.

All Bad Things Come to an End

The bane of our times is the widespread belief in human competence.

That's not of course to say that no one is competent - a great many people are and are capable of doing a great many things quite well - but even a shallow peek into history will show that most of the catastrophic financial problems of mankind were caused by people who should have known better and followed by flocks of soon-to-be-sheared sheep who presumed that because someone was on the contemporary equivalent of CNBC, that person was therefore competent. We believe in experts and that others "know what they are doing," and nowhere is that presumption more widespread and more dangerous than in the realm of central banking.

I'm going to cut a long story very short, just giving enough of the backstory for you to (probably mistakenly) assume I'm competent to talk about it. How's that for irony?

Central banks hold gold as a backing for their currencies. They have since central banks were established and they will forever, because as Alan Greenspan remarked to Dr. Paul in House testimony a few years back, in a financial emergency gold may be the only currency acceptable to settle accounts between nations. That's fact #1.

Fact #2 is that gold acts as a barometer of currency strength, and a rising price of gold in a nation's currency has long been recognized as a harbinger of economic troubles. Therefore it's no coincidence that the bottom of the gold market came precisely when the US dollar was at its strongest. 'Inversely proportional' sums it up. Gold has more than doubled in 4 short years since then.

Fact #3 is that central banks, paying heed to both fact #1 and fact #2, have a vested interest in making the price of gold low in their currencies if they want to project economic 'strength'. One way to do that is to sell gold, depressing the price. But because the gold they hold ostensibly belongs to the nation rather than the bank, they have no right to sell it. How then can they have their cake and eat it, too? How can they ensure the gold is sold, yet at the same time retain legal ownership of it?

One way is to 'lease' that gold out. By leasing it to a bullion bank (for a percentage return, usually 1% or 2%) they can keep it on their books while the bullion banks sells the gold into the market and invests the dollars in higher-returning vehicles, like t-bills. This excess supply of gold causes the price to fall, making the currency look stronger than it is. A falling gold price also ensures the bullion banks get a double return: an interest spread and a gain from the short sale. So long as no one knows, they can do it a long long time.

But it was a trap. The more gold that was sold, the lower the price fell, but bullion banks found that whenever the price of gold turned upward, they were suddenly trapped with literally millions of ounces in losing short positions. Buying those ounces back to cover their loans would raise the price more, wiping out their gains (oops, never thought about that, huh?) so the only way to preserve those gains was to suppress the price further by selling more and more gold.

But the longer the price was held down, the more cental bank gold was needed to supply a market that had a seemingly endless apetite for it. At last, in a trade that will go down in infamy, the Bank of England sold outright (after all but saying gold was worthless) several hundred million ounces of gold at the very bottom. Gold turned and began to rise. Fast. And as gold rose past the point where much of the dumping had occurred, it quickly became apparent that bullion banks if bullion banks had truly shorted thousands of tons, they could NEVER buy the gold back to cover what their borrowings - the best they could do was promise to pay that 1-2% interest in perpetuity and have everyone pretend all was well.

But all is not well. A group of gold bugs led by controversial analyst and former NFL tight end Bill Murphy created a group colled Gold Anti-Trust Action (GATA) and filed some lawsuits and started noising about the likely outcome of this massive shorting of gold. Someone was buying it and hauling it away (I think in a rickshaw, but that's just a guess) and the central banks denied they had leased the gold out, or at least they denied it was in the enormous amounts alleged. GATA has been steadfast, but has remained marginalized by a mainstream press for whom a PR on the Fed's letterhead might as well be penned by Moses.

Until now. As the price of gold continues to rise, and as companies like Barrick start to admit billions of dollars in investment losses via these schemes, other banks and brokerages are starting to take notice:

St. LOUIS - Cheuvreux, the equity brokerage house of the French bank Credit Agricole, distributed a 56-page report today endorsing the findings of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) that the price of gold has been surreptitiously suppressed by Western central banks and that those banks do not have the gold they claim to have.

The report, written by Cheuvreux’s mining sector analyst in London, Paul Mylchreest, is titled "Remonetisation of Gold: Start Hoarding."

It repeatedly cites GATA by name and foresees an "unprecedented" rise in the gold price. But what is more, the report accuses central banks of “covert selling.”

According to the report, Cheuvreux has raised its mid-cycle gold price estimate to $900/oz from $750/oz, and sees the possibility of a spike to $2,000/oz, or higher.

Now all of that may be distilled into two things, and if you only take two things from all this noise, let these be they:

First, the central banks of the western world, in a dishonest attempt to show financial strength, set up a scheme in which they leased their gold, allowing it to remain on their books as an asset while simultaneously selling it in the market. That has ended, the gold is gone, and they are trapped. It was incompetence of the highest order, and will result in untold financial troubles across the western world. Gold is currently at a quarter-century high in part because of this.

Second, because the gold to be recovered must come from a market that is already supply short, the price will fly, far surpassing the old high set in 1981. Personally, I think the Dow and gold will meet at around 3000, like they met at 800 during the last gold bull (check a chart some time) until all the crooked, secret, and incompetent deals of the past two decades are unwound. It will be public and it will be bloody.

But no, there's a third thing, and it may be the most important of all. Everything I've said of gold above is also true of silver. In fact, it's doubly true for silver, becase while leased gold exists SOMEWHERE, leased silver is consumed. It's gone. And there is not enough silver in the world to return it all. If gold is going to the moon, silver is going to Alpha Centauri.

As is too often the case, those in government decided they knew better than the market what prices ought to be and they manipulated the markets to give a phony impression of strength. As always it worked for a while. As always perverse incentives trapped them. As always the entire economy will pay for their incompetence, and eventually we'll learn our lesson. Note the title of the French report once again.

We'll stumble through it, like our grandparents did. And then our grandkids will elect idiots to do the same thing, and they'll learn the same lesson again.

I started off with a strange statement, that it was a bane of humanity to believe in human competence. But how does one example a trend make? The answer is that this example - a combination of unforeseen effects, bad judgement, bad incentives, diversion, and secrecy - is repeated nearly every time the government intervenes in a market to make things better. Yet we continue to believe that wise men in Washington, elected or not, can work to make our lives better. They can give us a free ride that lasts forever. They can borrow and spend us all to prosperity.

But the one-way street that trapped the bullion banks and will result in billions (if not trillions) in derivatives losses is the same street that Washington is taking us on in regards to debt. It cannot rise forever; it can only rise until debt service costs meets income. And when they do, we will learn that we have consumed our future, just like the bullion banks consumed their future.

Yet we're sure they know what they're doing, and we're too busy paying our credit card debts to question it.

They all look the same to me

"...while some imams urged restraint in their Friday prayers, others were outspoken. At the Omari mosque in Gaza City, 9,000 worshippers were told those behind the cartoons should have their heads cut off. In the West Bank city of Nablus, Imam Hassan Sharif said: "If they want a war of religion, we are ready."

Somehow, the Arkansas Times can't find a distinction:

We told you yesterday about a new push by the American Taliban, otherwise known as the American Family Association, to get a coming episode of Will and Grace scrubbed because the AFA said it would include a guest appearance by Britney Spears playing the host of a Christian-oriented TV cooking show known as "Cruci-fixins." NBC, having been recently hammered over a Jesus role in the failed mini-series "The Book of Daniel" apparently isn't going to let this one burn hot.

NBC affiliates got the following e-mail today:

To: NBC Affiliate General Managers and Corporate Executives

Some erroneous information was mistakenly included in a
press release describing an upcoming episode of "Will &
Grace" which, in fact, has yet to be written.

The reference to "Cruci-fxins" will not be in the show and
the storyline will not contain a Christian characterization
at all.

We value our viewers and sincerely regret if this misinformation
has offended them.

You buying this was all a misunderstanding? Not us. Again, the angry Muslims got nothing on our Taliban.

Christians who boycot advertisers have nothing on angry Muslims, I guess.

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident

Thomas13 inquires about the source of natural law:

"I am really curious as to what anyone might think these 'natural rights' are?"

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

"They certainly arent empirically verifiable."

Quite correct. Like democracy, wherein the fact is unthinkingly accepted that the majority has a right to tell the minority what to do merely because there are more in the majority, it is axiomatic.

It is, however, an axiom that has served humanity (relatively) well as protection from the historical depredations of government, being the considered result of a long period of reflection and compromise and bloodshed.

Perhaps there is nothing to them in the scientific sense (is there anything to beauty in the scientific sense?) yet they are natural, as they can be found rooted in human law across continents and millennia, and they can be justified so long as one accepts the axiom that the individual owns himself and has the right to defend himself.

If he owns himself, he owns his life (his future), and no one has the right to kill him. If he owns himself, he owns his liberty (his present), and no one can rightly enslave him without his consent. If he owns himself, he owns his property (his past work) and no one can deprive him of it.

If he has the right to defend himself, then he has the right to join with others to collectivize that defense ("to secure these rights").

But that being the case, government is naught but the delegated rights of the individual ("deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"). "Just powers" are then limited to the self-defense rights of the individual, and it is tyranny for the group (represented by government) to do what it is immoral for the individual to do, because the only rights the government has are delegated by individuals. If it is immoral for me to steal (to deny another the right to his property) then it is immoral (whether legal or not) for the government to do that on my behalf.

Implementing that has been the conundrum of government (how do you pay for collective defense without stealing from - taxing - those being protected?) and man, being imperfect and having what Bastiat called the 'fatal tendency' to wish to live at the expense of others, always manages to turn universal protection into universal plunder.

And if the words 'universal plunder' don't describe our current system of taxation and regulation, I don't know what does.

Dude, are you stoned?

OREM, Utah - An man who called police to report the theft of a quarter-pound of marijuana was arrested when police recovered the bag of pot and then invited him to come to the Public Safety Building to identify it.

Kory C. Tippetts, 18, identified the pot as his and then was arrested and booked into the Utah County jail for investigation of possession of marijuana in a drug-free zone with intent to distribute, police said Tuesday.

Tippetts had called police on Monday evening after he returned home and found that someone had broken a window, got cut on the glass, and crawled into the house. Tippetts told police the only thing missing was the quarter-pound of marijuana he was selling...

A Five Year Plan to call our own

Bob Novak on why Bush is not the son of Reagan:

The president proposed that the government preside over a wide array of non-petroleum energy options. That has all the characteristics of an "industrial policy," with the federal government picking winners and losers. While violating the Republican Party's free market philosophy, this is a course with a lengthy pedigree of failure all over the world.

...and yet the Republicans in the chamber cheered and cheered.

There really are only two options to solve our energy issues. Either the free market will do it, with all the mess and fits and starts and 'unfairness' that freedom brings, or the best and the wisest and the most gallant will sit in a room and decide for the nation who will make what and who will invent what, preferably according to a 5-year-plan.

The latter is the approach of the socialists, the Soviets, and the Democrats. It is also the approach of Bush and much of the GOP. While Novak is correct that such central planning has a 'lengthy pedigree of failure' (one might even replace 'lengthy' with 'unanimous'), he is incorrect in assigning a free market philosophy to the GOP.

Oh, it may be in the platform. And they may talk about it on the Sunday morning blabfests. But the nominal head of their party is putting more and more of the free market under the authority of government and they cheer and cheer, vote and vote.

Maybe there's something magical about America that will allow us to avoid the troubles that arise when the government tries to run everything, to be everything. That's what we're playing to find out, I suppose.

You can't hide class

Debra Jackson said she likes shopping at the Dollar Palace because it is convenient and casual.

"I don't have to get all dressed up like I'm going to Wal-Mart or something," she said...

(hat tip: Boortz)

Happy Groundhog Day.

The Amazing Disappearing Fetus

ABC News goes looking for it:

A local baby made medical history by becoming the first in the world to undergo a unique heart surgery before she was even born.

It was the baby’s only chance, major heart surgery when the mother was just 7 months pregnancy, as medical reporter Kathy Fowler reports.

KATHY FOWLER ON SET: When Jay and Angela Vanderwerken went for a routine 20-week ultrasound, they learned two things about their unborn child. First, that it was a girl. But then they were told the devastating news that their daughter had only half a heart…

I wonder if the conspicuous absence of the Greek word for 'unborn baby' has anything to do with the fact that this was a broadcast report, complete with ultrasounds and pics of family, rather than a printed story. It's so much easier to say 'fetus' when you're not watching her kick or have her heart operated on.