April 2006 Archives

Rush Limbaugh gets off with a slap on the wrist for his drug use.

Talk about mixed feelings here, for me. Limbaugh has repeatedly called for severe sentences for drug users, and an average joe caught in the same circumstances as he could see lengthy jail time.

There's no justice in sending someone to jail for taking pills, so I should be glad for Rush, but it would be justice of the poetic variety to see him sent up. Most importantly, it would have demonstrated how absurd our drug laws are for a person like him, whose drug use harmed absolutely no one, (save perhaps himself) to be prosecuted and sentenced to umpteen years in the pokey.

That sort of thing happens every day to the not-so-rich and famous.

Talkleft has the scoop on the legal deal.

Richard Combs has the essential information on the higher gas prices of late. He reminds us John Kerrey was advocating a 50 cent increase per gallon of gas. Democrats are now asking for investigations into price gouging. Conclusion; price gouging by businesses, bad. By government, Okey-dokey!

Also:

The federal excise tax on gasoline already adds twice as much (18 cents) to each gallon as the average oil company's profit (9 cents), and most state excise taxes are far higher than that. Now, it turns out that almost half of ExxonMobile's profit went to the tax man, too!

Of course if we're ever to lose our dependency on oil, high oil prices will be the catalyst. There's no better way to spread incentives to find alternative fuels.

The new White House Press Secretary, writing in 2000:

Never in recent history have two major presidential candidates seemed so dispensable. Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!
[...]
George W. Bush, meanwhile, talks of a pillowy America, full of niceness and goodwill. Bush has inherited his mother's attractive feistiness, but he also got his father's syntax. At one point last week, he stunned a friendly audience by barking out absurd and inappropriate words, like a soul tortured with Tourette's. He vowed to rip into "terrors" -- his shorthand for "tariffs and barriers" -- in order to secure our economic well-being. He predicted victory, "because we speak in a language people understand." We thus find ourselves having to choose between two men who are searching for gravity -- not "gravitas," which has come to mean "intellectual pretension," but actual anchorage on the Planet Earth.
[...]
Bush has a different sort of problem. He has to persuade people he's smart. He recently tried to dazzle reporters by discussing the vagaries of Congressional Budget Office economic forecasts, but his recitation of numbers proved so bewildering that not even his aides could produce a comprehensible translation. The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby. Who can forget the time he vowed defiantly not to let the opposition put him in cufflinks? (He meant "handcuffs.") On the policy side, he has become a classical dime-store Democrat. He gladly will shovel money into programs that enjoy undeserved prestige, such as Head Start. He seems to consider it mean-spirited to shut down programs that rip-off taxpayers and mislead supposed beneficiaries.

Many more examples of Snow's discontent with Bush can be found here.

For all the talk of Republicans being a well organized political machine I can't imagine a Democrat tolerating such dissent.

Neal Boortz has a five step plan to curb illegal immigration:

1. Close the borders. Not next month. Now. ... [snip]

2. Immediately pass legislation providing for harsh penalties for any and all businesses and individuals who hire illegal aliens. ...[snip]

3. Heavily tax all wire and other transfers of money from illegal aliens to their homelands. If Mexico is getting $20 billion a year from illegal aliens in the U.S., seize about 30% of it. Call it a fine. That $7 billion could also be spent on border and immigration control.

4. Change the law so that any child born to a person in this country illegally does not automatically become an American citizen. That child will adopt the citizenship of its mother.

5. Put an end to providing all but emergency social services to illegal aliens. No food stamps, no welfare benefits, no access to taxpayer-funded government schools ... no taxpayer-funded government services except for life saving medical care.

[Emphasis mine.]

Surely I don't need to point out that it's the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which grants citizenship to all born in the country. You can't just 'change the law' in that case.

Why do I hear that same proposal from so often from the anti-immigrationists? And what's with a so-called libertarian calling for new taxes?

A 'television seance' claims to have captured the voice of John Lennon on audio tape. They haven't revealed what John has said, but you can find out by ordering the program for $9.95 on pay per view.

But for a bargain $4.95 I will channel Alferd Packer for you. Cash in advance please.

^{I should have had the chicken...}

If you pay attention to these sort of things you couldn't miss Thursday's FDA pronouncement on medical use of marijuana:

A past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.

And if you follow the issue at all you know that's simply garbage. In 1999 the National Academy of Sciences (an organization devoted to actual science, as opposed to the FDA) published an overview of research on medical uses of marijuana. Although the research is incomplete, (because of political barriers) there is quite a bit of evidence that pot is a useful medicine.

The FDA also ignores Sativex, a prescription drug available in Canada and Europe, which is essentially just liquid marijuana. It's been proven to be helpful for a variety of ailments.

The FDA sounds here much like Bagdad Bob in his last days as Iraq's spokesman, except they don't have that charming take on the English language.

Ampersand says, "Government spending is not up, up, up."

Brandon Berg argues to the contrary, and does the heavy lifting to back up his position. Of course, I recommend you read and judge for yourself.

Jim Henley:

"The Bush Administration has nothing against terrorism per se. You may, but they don’t."

You'll have to read the rest; I won't give it away.

But I laughed anyway. Some Indymedia cretin has posted the home addresses of various right-wing bloggers and pundits.

But in a moment of high comedy, Jeff Goldstein and Stephen Green are listed with Montana and California addresses, respectively. Jeff and Steve are regular attendees at our Colorado blogger meet-ups.

I suppose they should be worried, but if Indymedia readers are as dense as the original poster, they're probably only dangerous to themselves.

I wonder in which state would they place Walter in Denver?

Update: 7:47 PM. It seems that perhaps every address listed at Indymedia is incorrect. Could anyone be that wrong unintentionally?

More, 7:52. Huh?

A few years ago while driving across Nebraska, I came to this -

- just out in the middle of nowhere. It's immediately recognizable for what it is, a replica of Stonehenge made of scrapped cars. I had no idea such a place existed until I saw it. More here.

One of the major goals of libertarianism is, in my view, to educate people on the real nature of government. Especially, that government derives its power from the use of force, the ability to kill and imprison people. This isn't a particularly profound insight, nor is it terribly controversial. Most anyone who's put a few moments of thought into the subject would likely come to the same conclusion. To my experience few people have put even that small effort into their philosophical assessment.

That government is based on force, (or violence, or coercion if you rather) isn't a condemnation of the idea of having government. Rather, it's an admonition to use government judiciously and wisely, instead of for frivolous and arbitrary purposes. Case in point:

Megan Forbes cooled her heels in jail for a few hours Sunday, long enough for her to rue installing the wrong kind of garage door behind her historic home and then failing to answer a summons on the municipal violation.

The head of Boulder's Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board is furious that Forbes was hauled to jail for an infraction so minor, but Forbes herself is taking it in stride.

"It's a done deal," Forbes, a dietitian, said Thursday. "I'd rather just leave it alone."

On Wednesday, she told the Daily Camera, "It was a lesson learned, for sure. The law's the law and you have to make sure you're doing everything right."

But Tim Plass, chief of the landmarks preservation board, said he "was absolutely shocked" by the arrest.

"For someone like Meg to get hauled off on a Sunday morning as she is going to church is unacceptable," he said.

"It's a lack of communication between various parts of the city government. It could have been averted."

City officials, too, regret that such a minor miscue landed Forbes in jail, but none seems to have a surefire solution to ensure it won't happen again.

Ah, yes, we all agree it's wrong to put people in jail for having the wrong kind of garage door. But the landmarks board and other city entities have authority only via their ability to do that sort of thing. Otherwise homeowners could ignore the board and city regulations and remodel their houses as they wish.

It seems these city functionaries don't understand their own power, as each quoted in the article strains to point out how they don't want to send people in jail -

Assistant City Attorney Janet Michels noted that Forbes didn't go to jail because she installed the wrong kind of door but because she failed to appear in court to explain why she didn't answer a summons issued by the preservation board.

She easily could have forestalled her arrest by asking the court to suspend the warrant while she worked out a compromise with the design board, Michels said.

Julie Brooks, spokeswoman for the Boulder police, said the officer who arrested Forbes on Sunday had not been instructed to get tough on garage door scofflaws.

"We do keep a list of warrants," Brooks said. "And when officers have time, they do look up warrants in their districts . . . and go out" and ring doorbells.

"If it's a warrant, anybody can land in jail," she said. "The warrant itself says the officer is commanded to take the person into custody."

Ironically, while Forbes apparently ignored the summons, she did meet with the preservation board's design team and had worked out a compromise, agreeing to install a garage door that was more in tune with the design sense of the neighborhood.

"There's never an intent to put someone in jail over something like this," said Chris Meschuk, historic preservation planner for the city.

Nancy Kornblum, a member of the design review committee, said she hopes "there's a way to find another form of penalty - a civil penalty rather than a criminal penalty."

Typically, a summons is issued "only after a homeowner's repeated failure to comply," Kornblum added.

Of course civil penalties are collected through force, as well as criminal ones. I suppose it's true that each of these bureaucrats doesn't actually want to see homeowners jailed. That's a lot of bother and expense for the city, plus it makes the city employees look rather monstrous. But if they have real objections to putting people in jail they should stop issuing citations. I guess it would be tough to give up that power.

A doormat with a rather libertarian theme. From Target, of all places.

H/T.

It's worth pointing out that the large pro-immigration rallies of the past weeks are the result of a planned strategy by Republicans. Large numbers of Republicans have pointed to immigration reform as the leading issue for the 2006 elections, and the reforms currently debated in DC are a direct result.

Any bets on whether the demonstrations will help or hurt their election chances?

Quoting Radley Balko, for the umpteenth time over the past few years:

Drug cops in Falmouth, Mass. sent a hot, young female cop to pose as a student at the local high school. She befriended several adolescent boys with low self esteem by pretending she was interested in them, then she asked them to get her marijuana. If you've ever been a high school boy, it won't surprise you to learn that they came through, even though most of them had no history of drug use at all, much less of drug peddling. Of course, they were promptly arrested, booked, and touted out as the latest Drug War trophies.

What a sick spectacle. Is this really what it's come to? Manipulating emotionally fragile teenagers into commiting crimes they otherwise wouldn't have commited with fake romantic advances? This isn't fighting crime. It's creating crime. Any Drug Warrior want to proudly stand up for this one?

Yes, that's what it's come to. If you're going to win the war on drugs you're going to have to put a lot of people in prison.

All Time Hall Of Fame blog post here.

Here's a guy you might not want to keep on the roster - Curt Weldon. I know what would be said if he were a Libertarian, or even a Democrat.

Addendum: More Mooniness, via Gary F.

This Peevish post leads to this one at Mahablog, which in turn quotes David Gerrold, all discussing the nature of evil. Here's some of the Mahablog post:

For a long time I’ve noticed that when racists are portrayed in films they are nearly always depicted as people who are scowling (or smirking) and disagreeable all the time; think Rod Steiger in The Heat of the Night. Yet in my experience — I grew up in an all-white redneck zone — racists can seem to be lovely people in any other context; they can be soft-spoken, considerate, and reasonableness itself except on the matter of race. It’s as if some part of their conscience were missing. It can be hard to grasp that nice Mr. Smith who voluntarily cuts the grass on the church lawn, or sweet Mrs. Johnson who bakes pies for the old folks’ home, would be capable of evil. Yet history tells us that a whole lot of “ordinary” people have taken part in evil acts in the past.

Gerrold writes, “I think evil occurs as a complex cocktail of forces.” I suspect most people are capable of evil if they get caught up in these forces. This is not an excuse for evil, but a warning to take care to recognize those forces and avoid them. People fall into evil because they don’t recognize evil as evil. They mistake it for justice, or righteousness, or even God’s Will.

“Evil does not see itself as evil,” writes Gerrold. “Those who commit evil acts do not see those acts as evil or even malicious. They see themselves as justified.” This is exactly right. [emphasis mine - ed]

And I mostly agree. As I read through all these posts, each by left-leaning bloggers, I was thinking of the evils of leftism, motes and planks in eyes and all that, so I got a chuckle from this comment -

It’s amazing how far we’ll go to justify our own actions. Not to start an argument here (as in, if anybody wants to argue this, please don’t), but for example, it seems to me that the entire political theory/party known as libertarianism, particularly the objectivist variety, is just an attempt to be able to not want to pay your taxes, and feel virtuous about that.

I'm not going to argue, but to point out the irony. I was thinking the opposite, of the evil of forcing a version of societal justice via the extraction of the efforts and blood of others.

To take the racist analogy a step farther, a racist can see his views as an extension of good. Society, according to him, would be better off if someone mowed the church lawn, and baked pies for the invalid, and took action against the _________ (name your disfavored ethnic group here). He then is likely to discount the rights of the _________ , by giving them less than full human status, or illegal status, or somesuch.

The leftist social engineer does the same, rationalizing that the property owner doesn't really own his property, including his labor, or at least isn't entitled to own it. Society would be better off that way. Remember the labor theory of value? The error is the same as that of the racist, although it is more socially acceptable these days.

Equal time: I can think of (at least) one obvious example of rightwing conscience failure, too. I've heard some linking the lowered crime rate in the U.S. to the high rate of incarceration. For the sake of argument I'll assume that link to be true. The evil that's been done to incarcerate so many, including long sentences for petty crimes, criminalizing victimless 'crimes,' and overloading the justice system to the point where many innocents are in jail, none of that is justified by the good of having a lower crime rate.

I think I've said before, good intentions are not enough.

Matt Welch, Farewell to Warblogging.

"I used to think blogs would transform ideologues into nonpartisan truth-seekers. Man, was I wrong."

If you've followed Radley Balko's investigations into police tactics related to drug raids you may remember some of the 'cops shoot dog' stories he's mentioned. Now he's worked it into a full length post at Reason. Here's a bit:

In the course of researching paramilitary drug raids, I’ve found some pretty disturbing stuff. There was a case where a SWAT officer stepped on a baby’s head while looking for drugs in a drop ceiling. There was one where an 11-year-old boy was shot at point-blank range. Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It’s happened with all five.)

Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog.

I suppose this is a good time to mention longtime In Denver Malamute Edgar passed away due to a sudden illness last week. We are now dogless for the first time in a decade.

Our friend Andy is collecting donations in memory of his friend who recently passed away.

We don't ask for much around here, but this time go see if you can help.

From Jacob Sullum, Iran's Enlightened Prohibitionists:

Nowadays a 600-milliliter bottle of unadulterated ethanol can be purchased in a pharmacy for less than $3. "The common recipe," the Times reports, "is to mix one shot of alcohol with two shots of juice, preferably pineapple." The story quotes an unnamed official who "said the decision to permit such widespread production of alcohol was made to limit the number of deaths and casualties caused by illegal drinks. Some 19 people were killed in 2004 after drinking bad bootleg liquor."

The conclusion that drinking, while a sin, does not merit the death penalty makes Iran's mullahs look enlightened and compassionate next to America's drug warriors, who reject "harm reduction" measures such as the distribution of clean needles for heroin injection because making drug use safer might make it more appealing. From this point of view, the unsanitary practices, unreliable quality, and unpredictable purity associated with the black market are not unfortunate side effects of prohibition but added deterrents to drug use.

Are people better off dead than high?

Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents? ~Peg Bracken

I'm blown away by this site. The photography just makes me hungry. I've been thinking for quite a while now of starting a similar project here in Denver, if I ever get the time and money.

I've never had a bad meal from a taco truck. I don't know why that is, perhaps they just try harder?

H/T.

John Tabin has the full text of a National Review interview with Modern Drunkard founder Frank Kelly Rich. A few highlights:

Q: Well, what do you think the culture in America is like right now towards drinkers?

FKR: It’s weird. It is kind of going both directions at once. It is tending to move toward prohibition. The pendulum tends to swing every hundred years in that direction. MADD is getting more powerful. They are attacking the bars to get rid of cigarettes. Now they’re trying to get rid of happy hours and making shots illegal. But at the same time some states are getting rid of their old blue laws where you can’t buy liquor on Sunday. They also did a “pop the cap” thing in North Carolina where they raised the [allowable] level of alcohol for their craft beers. So it’s going in both directions. We’re kind of stuck in the middle now but I tend to see it going toward prohibition because MADD is becoming more powerful. I just think these kinds of nanny groups are moving in that direction.

Q: Is it just MADD or are there any other groups?

FKR: There is a whole bunch of them. All these nanny organizations. They’re against almost anything that is fun.

Q: The Center for Science in the Public Interest?

FKR: Yeah. Then there is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has a huge half-billion dollar budget. They give all of this money to all the anti-drinking groups like MADD. It’s funny too because that organization was founded by one of the Johnson brothers of Johnson & Johnson. What they do now is they produce a lot of the pharmaceuticals that are kind of trying to replace alcohol.
I see a conflict of interest there.

Not so unusual, I think, that politics can move in two direction simultaneously. Elected officeholders tend to respond to interest groups, and both the nannyists and the liquor lobby are fairly well organized. Here's a cute story -

Q: We have a president who is a former drunk and is now a professed teetotaler. What do you think of that?

FKR: Yeah, I guess he was a pretty wild boy until he was, what, 40, 42? Then he went solidly straight. I’ve heard rumors that he is drinking but of course there is no proof of that.
I think he needs to drink. I think he needs to have a couple of drinks.
Back in the day though presidents used to drink like crazy. FDR was loaded every night. Even Ronald Reagan drank a couple of beers a day I think. I don’t know about Carter. I’ll bet Clinton did.
In fact, I had a friend who was a waitress at some Louisiana [Arkansas?] place. I’m not sure if this was when he was governor or president. But he had this system where he would only drink the neck of the beer down and then she would have to bring him a new. This happened all the time. This made it look like he wasn’t really drinking all that much.

More political observation:

Q: In parts of the world it is completely illegal to drink. I’m speaking specifically of the Middle East. How much do you think that is a contributing factor to the radicalism there?

FKR: Oh absolutely, I’ve always said that. I’ll be talking with these prohibitionist types and they’ll be like, “There’d be no crime. Everybody would be so much happier. There’d be no domestic abuse if we just got rid of alcohol. It would just be this beautiful paradise.”
I’ll be like, “Can you think of one place in the world where those laws are actually in effect and how peaceful they are?” And they’re like, “Well …” And I’ll be like, “The Middle East!”
It’s not peaceful there at all. Everybody is always blowing each other up. They have got really oppressive laws for women. They have honor killings all the time. It is a really unhappy, unstable place.
I think if they started drinking, if they started introducing alcohol into that culture it would definitely help out. If you get off work and you’re all pumped up about some new cartoons in Denmark or something, if you had a couple of beers you could just chill out. But there’s no release in that place.

And to {ahem} top it off:

Q: And you landed in Denver precisely because you thought it was a good bar town?

FKR: Yeah, specifically one bar. I knew I was going to launch this magazine but wasn’t sure where so I moved to Denver because my parents live up in the Rockies. So I visited them and came down to Denver. I was just driving through town and I was on my way out when I saw this sign for the Lion’s [Lair]. It was this old great retro sign up above this bar. So I stopped in there at about noon and got drunk and I met all these really great people. In the daytime it was all these old men telling stories. In the nighttime it became this hipster place for kids. The bar was just the epitome of what a great American dive was. I had spent the previous year driving around the country investigating these and I said this is the best dive bar in America. So I slept in my car – or passed out – and then in the morning I had a couple of bloody marys and started walking in concentric circles until I found a place for rent about two blocks away and I moved in.
I wrote my third and fourth book right inside that bar on and old Tandy laptop.

The Lion's Lair is still there, still as he describes it. One very memorable evening Mrs. In Denver and I managed to get into a Reverend Horton Heat show there - we've been fans since a decade-and-a-half ago when we lived in Dallas. The Rev had played several nights preceding that night in the Denver area, at several venues, each with hundreds of fans. But the Lion's Lair is not much bigger than your living room. We got in early, staked out a couple of bar stools, and didn't budge all night. By the time the show started they had crammed a hundred-plus people in there, it seemed. Couldn't have been legal. The Rev played just on the other side of the bar from us, not much farther than arm's reach away.

The strangers on bar stools next to us became friends by the end of the night, and we still keep in touch with them. Frank Kelly Rich was right about the Lion's Lair, and I recommend the rest of the interview.

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar created a stir with his speech on the floor of the Senate this week. I'd like to point out some highlights -

My own family migrated to Colorado in the 1850s—almost 20 years before Colorado became a state. We came from northern New Mexico and Santa Fe--a city we helped found over 250 years earlier, before there was a Plymouth Rock or a Jamestown. We pioneered the settlement of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where we have farmed the same land for generations.

Also:

Solving our nation’s illegal immigration problems is a matter of national security.

To that end, the first priority of immigration reform must be to provide for adequate and sensible border security and renewed federal commitment to enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.

The Judiciary Committee bill contains several provisions that will strengthen enforcement both at the border and within our interior.

It contains more than thirty provisions that will ensure the security of our Nation’s borders.

Among the numerous provisions, the bill:

Doubles the number of Border Patrol agents—adds 12,000 new agents over the next five years...

We've had large increases in the number of agents before. In 1990 we had 4,561 agents, in 1996 the number ballooned to 6,386, and 10,468 agents in 2000. Also, the number of illegal immigrants soared from about 450,000 per year in the early 90's to 750,000 in the late 90's.

So, by those numbers, if we double the number of border patrol agents, how many more illegal immigrants can we expect? Millions! I've uncovered Salazar's secret agenda!*

^{*In case you're new here, you should know that I'm kidding, and I'm aware of the logical fallacy in the above, and I'm fine with millions of Mexican and other immigrants. However, I am skeptical of government's ability to control the situation, barring police state tactics.}

Reuters:

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Football referees in Nigeria can take bribes from clubs but should not allow them to influence their decisions on the pitch, a football official said on Friday.

Fanny Amun, acting Secretary-General of the Nigerian Football Association, said bribery was common in the Nigerian game.

"We know match officials are offered money or anything to influence matches and they can accept it," Amun told Reuters on Friday.

Amun first made the statement earlier in the week to a football seminar in the capital Abuja, prompting protests from other officials.

"Referees should only pretend to fall for the bait, but make sure the result doesn't favour those offering the bribe," Amun said.

Maybe they could make the process transparent, so each team could pay equal amounts, and the refs could make a good living.

H/T.