Archive for December 2006
RIS – Rest in Shame
As if there remained any reason whatsoever to support or be active in the Libertarian Party, this should should remove all doubt. reason: In 2002, the Libertarian Party called you the worst drug warrior in Congress. No hard feelings? Barr: To be honest with you that’s never come up in our discussions. I’m not going to let minor disagreements come between us. It has never come up? Minor disagreement? Honestly, I did not even read the rest of the interview beyond that point. Utterly reprehensible. I haven't been a member of the LP for about 5 years, and haven't given them any money either. I used to give them upwards of maybe $500 per year from the mid-90s through about 2001. Whereas I never really begrudged doing that, I'm now ashamed to admit it.
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Gifts for Geeks
A reader and fellow blogger alerts me to a gift guide for geeks that he's taken the time to put together. Go ahead and see if there's anything you can get for a geek, or for yourself if you are one.
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By the way…
The new banner for the new design is from this photo (click to enlarge)... I'm standing just in front of our cabin in the woods. That's one reason why this new design takes on added significance for me. This place is quickly becoming my favorite in the world, and if you're a regular reader, you know how much I've been around and lived around the world. In hopes you can share in my delight, here's a few more photos I shot as raw footage for this project (click on the images for larger versions). Here's the oldest tree on the property, a cedar, and guys around who seem to know what they're talking about tell me it's probably 150-200 years old. And here's one with the cabin in view. And finally, here was my first cut on the project, which was to take the old cedar, crop it, and stand it on its side. Oh, and I'd also like to thank Neal Owings of Autodogmatic who emailed me last week and both mercifully and graciously offered his help (you can see from his blog that he knows what he's doing). I jumped at the offer, of course, but in the...
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Behold the Power
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Juvenile Impudence
I've had something on my mind for a few days since catching an entry from Billy before heading off for the weekend. He refers to an Andrew Sullivan entry displaying this YouTube video of an 8-yr-old girl with, shall we say, "certain views" about religion and a few other things. It's also partly an attack on Bill O'Reilly, whose response I will get to in a bit. I suppose the common reaction to such a thing is that it's a bit of an assault on the senses and sensibilities -- impudent, perhaps. Sullivan thinks it's the equivalent of the very devoutly religious using their kids to proselytize -- in which he is correct, as I've witnessed it first hand. Beck's is a wider integration. It's not his view of how 8-yr-old girls or their parents conduct themselves in a rational, enlightened society. And he's probably right. Kyle thinks it's essentially in-your-face leftism, and he's probably right too. So why is it bugging me? I suppose part of it is that a lot of what the girl says is simply true; but then again, all truths don't have to be uttered all the time, they don't have to always be in-your-face,...
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Now I’m Satisfied
At least until such point that I'm not, anymore. But I think that'll do it. I promise to stop torturing my kind readers with endless design changes. Perhaps you'll agree, though. If you begin with where I started, and then look at the various changes, and what I've finally and delightedly settled on, you can perhaps understand why I just kept at it. Delighted, I am. And I even hope it's pleasing to your eye as well.
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Richard Paey
Back in April, 2004, over 2 1/2 years ago, I posted that you could Rest Easier. You can rest easy now. Richard Paey, 45-year-old father of three, wheelchair bound and disabled from a car accident in 1985, suffering also from multiple sclerosis, is safely locked away for the next 25 years because he purchased pharmaceutical-grade medication to ease his suffering. This is the original Hit & Run article from Jacob Sullum I linked to. It's taken this much time for his appeal to reach the appropriate District Court. Denied. There's a lot of information out there, so I really don't need to rehash it. Balko Sullum's Hit & Run follow up Warren Meyer Balko roundup of other insanities Well... I don't know what else I can say. Depressing? Disgusting? Embarrassing? Yes, especially embarrassing. To think that I could identify myself with a perceptual tag -- American -- in a place where others who identify themselves identically, not only actively support such a thing, but perform and carry it out, institutionally, as a matter of "justice." My conscience reels in the shame, even though I'm quite clear that I have nothing to do with this, am not responsible for the actions...
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Or, Just Weep
Balko points out that it's the 215th birthday of the Bill of Rights, a set of ten original amendments to the original U.S. Constitution. "Celebrate its birth, or weep for its death." How about neither? How on Earth could I, and why would anyone celebrate an act of such presumption as to wrest authority in an area where no human being or institution comprised of them can morally have any such authority? It's a very simple principle, folks: to grant implies ownership or authority, which necessarily comes with the authority to take away or withhold. Assuming the authority to create a Constitution and grant certain "enumerated rights" means they can be taken away, so no one really has any cause to complain, on that score alone. It's the wrong argument. It's all baked in the cake. No one is alive today to accept responsibility for such a travesty, but the least one can do is to recognize that the new government of America had no more authority to establish a constitution and set of rights than it had, concurrently, to enslave Africans as a matter of law and later set them free as a matter of law. It is principally...
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Almost Christmas; Almost White
Up at the cabin with my side of the family: parents, and the families of two of my three brothers. Dad & mom are headed down to Houston later this week to spend real Christmas with my other brother and his two sons, so we all decided to do an Almost Christmas a week early. It's almost white, too. Temp dropped yesterday into the 20s and we got some light presip, so the ground is faintly dusted with a white substance at the moment. That's good, because the last two years we've had rain from warm storms coming through. One of the gifts I got was the DVD of V for Vendetta. I blogged of it, here, and of which, the comments are the meat of that entry. We watched it yesterday afternoon in the new "media room" addition, cranked the volume way up, and disturbed no one else in the house. I really liked that film, again. It's so packed with Uncommon dialog that you can probably watch it several times. It's very interesting how various aspects of justice, fear, symbolism, civil disobedience, destruction, revolution and art are all woven together. Then came dinner, which was quite different. My...
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John Sabotta Was Right
As much as I hate to admit it, he was right. I didn't like it much once it was up, and I grew increasingly ill-content with the whole thing. Just awful. I may not be finished with the new one and may try to play with the wording a bit, but I think I'm headed in a better direction. Of course, another alternative is to go with just the title, and put that tag line stuff over at the top of the left or right column, maybe even in conjunction with that "Philosophy of Freedom" presentation. Now there's an idea. Well, John, what do you think now? Update: Well, that...er, this, rather... ...didn't last long. Once I got to thinking about that tagline stuff going in the sidebar and a few other design changes, I got to work. Not done yet, but on the way. Update II: And now this is gone too, replaced with what you see at top (as of mid-Dec 2006) with some other font/color changes as well: And now I'm satisfied.
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“Land of the Free” Updates
Here's a Johnston update, a career-advancing DUI update, and "just another isolated incident." But nothing to be alarmed about.
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Sent Items
An email just out to an old friend concerning the subordination of the material to the spiritual, on the way to explaining why it's all about individualism vs. collectivism. This was prefaced by a question: ought people be free to determine their own values, whatever they may be? That question forms the foundation of where I'm trying to take this... And it's an important foundation because if this: [his argument about the material being subordinate to the spiritual] I agree, almost without qualification, with all of that, and always have. Almost without qualification. My single qualification is: free will, and free will speaks to the question I asked you. As an aside, free will is the only possible reconciliation between materialism and spirituality. I am a materialist in all respects except that I believe in free will (call that contradictory, if you like). It's the "God" I worship, if you will. Of course, most or all religions have held for free will. Most "strong materialists" I know acknowledge free will, and for those who don't, I have a simple question: what is the difference between actual free will and an individual who believes he has free will (which nearly everyone...
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Something You Probably Didn’t Know About Some Jews
At least I didn't. I'll fully admit it. But if you've got an hour, I highly recommend viewing this video of a Jewish political movement that lasted from the late 1800s through the 1950s in America. Why do I think it's noteworthy? Well, I'm not sure, exactly. I call myself the same thing they call themselves, but we are far different in an area so important it's almost a complete mystery that we could be talking about "the same thing," yet be so far apart. And from what I can see and hear, I'm not dealing with evil people, just incorrect ones. They have made one critical but fundamental error. I discussed all this with Billy in email through a few exchanges, but I don't really feel like writing a big entry right now and I could write thousands of words on this and if I get started, that's what it'll end up. So, let me just point you to this, and be sure to read his own link to himself in there as well. Take note that the issue turns on the principle of individual private property, in both cases, and that's where it all comes together -- if...
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Boggles
I wish I could just say I'm speechless, or slap my knee and laugh at the absurd hand dealt by what are shrugged off as "unintended consequences" by most, but the cause and implications are just all too unsurprising. So perhaps I should not have titled this "Boggles," because it really does not boggle my mind. Ever heard of the Wannsee Conference? I blogged about it here, too. The core principle at work is not just that the law is the law, but that it can be used to harm people rather than to effect justice. (An aspect of the conference rarely identified explicitly, is that more than it being a stage to get everyone on board, it was an effort to ensure that the Final Solution was legal according to German federal law.) We are headed down a road, now, in America where the law has even taken on a new twist. Not only is it used in the aforementioned manner, but as an opportunity for prosecutors to advance their careers. Can you imagine the soil that must stain the soul of the prosecutor and district attorney who decided to prosecute these two kids, when the tragic circumstances are...
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The Age of Some Reason
I wanted to blog this item last week, but for lack of time, here it is now, better late, I suppose. Robert Bidinatto points to an unforgivable flaw in an otherwise typically excellent Victor Davis Hanson essay. Who, exactly, does Dr. Hanson believe champions or represents reason today? Does he truly think that reason is the method of postmodern, relativistic leftists, who sneer at the very possibility of rationality and objectivity? Or is it the method of tenured Marxists in western universities, who blindly embrace the mysticism of Hegel and uphold the subjectivity of "class logic"? Or is reason the preferred method of Christian conservatives, who, like Hanson himself, believe that blind faith in some unseen, supernatural deity must supplant (as he puts it) "trust in reason alone"? Or does he perhaps see reason at work in the jihads of our fanatical Islamist enemies, whose envy-eaten rage against our Enlightenment-based civilization impels them to nihilistic orgies of suicide and murder, rationalized by the fantasy that they will be rewarded for their mayhem with 72 virgins in a supernatural afterlife? Looking around us at the world today, where does one see the slightest evidence of the presence and influence of reason?...
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Infants
The problem with the article I'm going to cite is that everyone will think it's an article about the specific thing he wrote about. But it's not. This statist impulse is a knee-jerk preference for deploying the force of the state (government) to achieve some benefit -- real or imagined, for one's self or others -- in place of voluntary alternatives such as persuasion, education or free choice. If people saw the options in such stark terms, or if they realized the slippery slope they're on when they endorse such interventions, support for resolving matters through force would likely diminish. The problem is, they frequently fail to equate intervention with force. But that is precisely what's involved. [...] Liberty is more often eaten away one small bite at a time than by one big gulp. I tried this reasoning on some friends. Here's how some typical attitudes were expressed: Delusion: "It's not really 'force' if a majority of citizens support it." Paternalism: "Force was a positive thing because it was for your own good." Dependency: "If government won't do it, who will?" Myopia: "You're making a mountain out of a molehill. How can [...] possibly be a threat to liberty?...
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A Day’s Work in the “Land of the Free”
That's the first "1,000 words." Here's the second. You know what? Since I'm tossing around clichés, here's another: every time I see something like this, I laugh. It's not because the image or its description is in any way funny. I'm laughing at you, dear reader. You; the one who thinks I just get way too worked up about the way things are going in the "Land of the Free." You; the one who thinks I overreact. You; the one who things I exaggerate. I get the last laugh every time. But that's only because nothing every changes. The picture at the bottom of this entry didn't change anything, and neither will that one above.
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20/20 Hindsight
This has got to be the saddest story I've seen in a while. It breaks my heart to no end. I was watching it a bit on the local and national news, last night, and thinking to myself: no chance they're finding him alive. Sad story, especially when you consider that had he just sat tight, he'd be warm at home with his wife and two daughters this moment. And now, for all the four of them, that will never happen again for the remainder of human history. Mistakes, even slightly to perfectly innocent ones, can be extremely costly. I don't know where on the scale I'd put the error that caused this tragedy, but the error was a long time (a week) before James Kim set out on his doomed trek to find help for his family. But setting out, as he did? It was the only decision a man could make, in that moment. He had no idea that rescue was forthcoming, within two days. It wouldn't have mattered if rescue had come 10 minutes after he'd set out. He knew that if they were not rescued soon, his children would freeze to death and he and his...
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Charming
You head all about Michael Richards' racist rant, did you not? But, did you see "the" video? According to the YouTube description, and Fox News, he is: Activist and bookstore owner Dr. Kamau Kambon, who taught African Studies 241 in the Spring 2005 semester at North Carolina State University. You know what? I don't care about his rant. Of course, as a white guy in this double-standard culture, I refrained from expressing that I didn't care about Michael Richards, either. I guess I'll just keep on walkin' on the egg shells around the brown skins. In case you think that's a "remark," I'm married to one of them.
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Running on Time
By all reasonable accounts, so far, it's a decent bet that the 2008 presidential election will feature Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain. Oh, boy. Can't wait for that one. Of course, it's going to be "the most important election of your life" -- superseding the last most important election of your life, which was...uh, just a minute...oh, yea: 2004. They just get importanter and importanter. Matt Welch has dealt John McCain a pretty scathing editorial, I think, in the LA Times. Will it make any difference? No, of course not. The only questions that get asked and answered, any more, concern themselves with degree -- how much poison -- a little, or a lot? But everyone is content to drink some. The 2008 election rigmarole will never get any more meaningful than if the whole thing was to be a contest over who is best dressed. In meaningful terms: it's a contest between the collectivist-communist behind door number one vs. the collectivist-fascist behind door number two. The common theme is what's important. The rest is just about what they're wearing. Both will promise, and try, to make the government run on time like never before. The one, for the children,...
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