May 30, 2004
More on the Lightning Strike
LITTLETON — A 47-year-old man killed when lightning struck a driving range at a golf course Saturday was identified Sunday as [deleted by W.] of Littleton, according to the Jefferson County Coroner's Office.
[Deleted]'s 16-year-old son also injured at the Meadows Golf Club in unincorporated Jefferson County remained hospitalized.
University of Colorado Hospital would not release his condition on Sunday.
Three other people were treated and released by an ambulance crew at the golf course southwest of Denver.
Les Wilson of Littleton, who said he was on the driving range about 25 feet from the father and son, said the lightning came shortly before 1 p.m. without warning from overcast, but not threatening, skies.
[...]
Six people were killed by lightning in Colorado last year; three lightning-related deaths were recorded in 2001, and two in 2000, according to the National Weather Service.
May 29, 2004
Another Lightning Death
Five golfers were struck in a Denver suburb today, one fatally. As I've noted before, this happens more often than one might think.
Good Morning
Nice to see everyone last night.
For the record, I had no problem getting up at six this morning.
Update: Gary Farber has the details. Well, details of something.
May 27, 2004
May 25, 2004
Update! Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash 3.0! Update!
The biggest yet. We've reserved space at the Denver Press Club. Expect the turnout to be high. With this much advance notice, you've got plenty of time to make airline reservations.
Bump and update:
Various items will be available in a silent auction format, with proceeds benefitting The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. If you have anything you'd like to donate, contact me walter..at..walterindenver..com (without the extra dots, natch) You'll get some nice publicity for your trouble.
Remember, the Denver Press Club is at 1330 Glenarm, just a little way North of Colfax in downtown Denver. We'll get started around 7 PM, or thereabout.
Kudos to Zombyboy for the graphics and Darren Copeland for the lead on the Denver Press Club.
May 22, 2004
Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup
It's that anxiously awaited time, when nervous bloggers put on their Sunday best and come out for all the world to see. Jed's collecting entries this time, so get on over and send your best post of the last month or so. All Colorado bloggers are eligible, even ones in exile. Even ones who are just over the border in neighboring states. Go!
May 21, 2004
Sheriff Masters
I was just mentioning him the other day. He has a book out this week, The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War.
A very pleasant surprise, popular Denver weekly Westword features a story about the good sheriff and his book as the cover story of the latest edition. It's a mostly glowing account of his career and reformation from a militant drug warrior to one of the drug war's primary critics. I can understand the tone of the article - I've met Bill Masters a few times and I don't think one can help but be impressed with his honesty and good will. He strikes me as honest to a fault and willing to risk his own career for a greater cause.
The Westword article, written by Alan Prendergast, is a must read for anyone with the slightest interest in the issue. Or any issue.
A few excerpts:
Masters says he's only doing what every police official should do: let the public know his limitations. To illustrate this, he recounts a story from early in his career, when he was Telluride's town marshal and the city fathers came up with a complicated plan for plowing the streets that required motorists to move their cars to various locations depending on the day of the month. "I told the town board, 'We can make this happen,'" he recalls. "But in those days, most people in Telluride didn't know what month it was, much less what day. We started giving out 400 parking tickets a month, in a town of maybe 400 cars. We were towing dozens of cars a day.
"People didn't take it out on the people who passed the law; they took it out on the enforcement people. We had our cars vandalized. People were up in arms over this stupid parking regulation. Eventually they changed the law. I should have realized that a good peace officer would have gone to the town board and said, 'This isn't going to work.' We're the ones out on the street. We can tell you what can work and can't work. Too often we say, 'We can do it; just give us more money and manpower and jails.' Just to increase our own bureaucracy, we gladly sign on."
[...]
Two other items stand out.
One is a snapshot of several kilos of cocaine piled in a chair, a souvenir from a sprawling conspiracy case Masters investigated decades ago. The picture was taken in Colombia; the sheriff came across it while serving a search warrant in Telluride, but only a fraction of the dope was ever seized.
The second is a battered copy of the state statutes from 1908, found in a forgotten crevice when workers were remodeling Telluride's old jail. The book occupies a lonely space on a shelf above thirteen volumes of the current Colorado Revised Statutes. The juxtaposition makes for a useful visual aid whenever Masters launches into one of his favorite topics, the relentless expansion of government over the past century. God gave Moses ten laws, he notes; the state legislature has given the citizens of Colorado more than 30,000.
"When you get to that number, lawlessness becomes commonplace," he says. "We have to triage all this. Which ones do we pick that we're really serious about?"
[...]
The true turning point for Masters came in the course of a subsequent, even more emotional murder investigation. Buffy Rice Donohue, an eighteen-year-old girl fighting a cocaine problem, had disappeared from Montrose in 1993; her skeletal remains were found in San Miguel County eighteen months later. Through physical evidence and witness interviews, Masters built what he calls a "great case" against David Middleton, an ex-cop from Miami with a history of sexual violence. But by that point, Middleton was on his way to death row in Nevada for the brutal rape and murders of two other women, and the Montrose district attorney refused to take the case.
"It would have been a lot of work, and the county couldn't afford it," Masters says. "I gave the district attorney's office $50,000 in drug-seizure money, no strings attached, just because I wanted him to think about prosecuting this case. He spent it on something else."
In 1997, Masters attended a summit at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia, that allowed investigators from different jurisdictions to compare notes on Middleton's cross-country rampage of rape and murder. The sheriff was disappointed to discover that the bureau's famed team of serial-killer trackers and profilers, celebrated in books and movies, consisted of a few agents and clerks, loaded down with more files than they could possibly manage. He took some comfort in seeing all the young faces around the building, bright-eyed agents in training who, Masters hoped, might someday catch violent men like Middleton before their assaults turned deadly. Then it was explained to him who all those young people really were.
"They weren't FBI agents at all," Masters says darkly. "They were DEA agents, more fodder for the drug war. We'd spent days going over all these pictures of murdered girls, all these unsolved cases. And I'm thinking, 'What do people really worry about? The people smoking pot in their basements, or some weirdo kidnapping your daughter?' Statistically, of course, that's not much of a possibility, but that's still more of a concern of mine than all the potheads put together."
[...]
But Masters insists that the drug war is primarily focused on locking up American citizens -- and, in the process, squandering resources and manpower that could be better devoted to homeland-security interests.
"A quarter of the FBI case filings in the year before 9/11 were drug cases," he says. "Who was looking after the terrorists? Nobody. We have 10,000 DEA agents. Is it more important to prevent the next terrorist attack or to bust Cheech for having a bong? In the year before 9/11, we arrested almost 750,000 people for possession of marijuana -- and one foreign terrorist."
He shakes his head in disgust. "You'd think real conservatives would be looking at what works, what's the best result you can get for the money," he says.
There's much, much more in the article, all worthwhile.
I don't pretend that much of the material on this blog is all that important, but this is. My copy of the book should be here soon.
May 20, 2004
Tancredowatch
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-CO, is making waves again:
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo has an idea to recoup some of the money Hispanics send south of the border.
A tax.
The Colorado Republican got the idea this week after reading about a report on the estimated $30 billion in remittance sent to Latin American countries each year.
[...]
Tancredo couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday, but his spokesman, Carlos Espinosa, said the congressman is suggesting a 5 percent tax.
I've written before on the ethical problems of taxation. Let me go out on a limb and assert that stealing money from people is wrong.
Tancredo isn't happy with Mexican immigration. Now he's proposing to legally steal immigrants' money. His wing of the conservative movement is as morally bankrupt as any political group in the country.
May 19, 2004
Sports!
Khalil points out that his is a local blog, covering sports. As the only professional athlete blogging, that I know of, I feel I should point this out.
OK, before anyone goes to Google, I can't imagine that I'm the only professional athlete blogging. But I don't know of any others, so I'm secure in my own ignorance.
Mrs. InDenver just giggles when I say 'professional athlete.' Something about 'except the athlete' part.' She must know something.
The Latest
Gary Farber has news from Colombia. Spelled correctly.
It's a familiar story about violence and death, facilitated by the Drug War.
Colombia really is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but I don't recommend visiting. I sure liked it, though.
May 18, 2004
So Close
The Rocky Mountain News editorial page:
So Lynndie England, the woman at the heart of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, has invoked the Nuremberg defense. As the MP photographed holding a leash attached to an Iraqi prisoner told Denver News 4's Brian Maass last week, she was just following orders from "persons in my higher chain of command."
But the "just following orders" defense against war crimes charges, so frequently used in the Nazi war crimes trials after World War II, has been thoroughly discredited. Indeed, the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal clearly state that "the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
When it comes to war crimes that's true, but our government and its employees use that sort of defense every day. It's no more valid than in war time situations, but we have learned to accept it. When an IRS agent seizes a person's possessions the agent says, Well, it's the law. When a judge sentences someone to decades in prison for simple drug possession the judge says, Sorry, but the law compels me.
Personal responsibility should override higher authority in every case, not just in war time.
Wishing
Get an eyefull of this:
A North Korean missile shipment to Syria was halted when a train collision in that Asian country destroyed the missile cargo and killed about a dozen Syrian technicians.
U.S. officials confirmed a report in a Japanese daily newspaper that a train explosion on April 22 killed about a dozen Syrian technicians near the Ryongchon province in North Korea. The officials said the technicians were accompanying a train car full of missile components and other equipment from a facility near the Chinese border to a North Korea port.
A U.S. official said North Korean train cargo was also believed to have contained tools for the production of ballistic missiles. North Korea has sold Syria the extended-range Scud C and Scud D missiles, according to reports by Middle East Newsline.
I'd like to believe that my tax money has some beneficial purpose, and that somehow the good guys made this happen. I have no shred of evidence that that's what happened, just wishful thinking.
May 17, 2004
Why Libertarians Matter
Casual observers might look at the 2000 presidential presidential vote totals and conclude that the Libertarian Party is in a state of decline. The party's 1996 vote totals were much better.
However, by any other measure, the Libertarians have shown steady growth. 606 LP members hold elected office. Many of those are 'dog catcher' level non-partisan races, but some are important offices decided by partisan races, where Libertarians beat out Democrats or Republicans. One good example is Sheriff Bill Masters, one of the few politicians I find to be respectable. In 2000 the LP became the first minor party in almost a century to field candidates for the majority of US congressional seats.
During each four year presidential cycle the membership numbers grow. Last time around voters registered as Libertarian grew to over 200,000. That may seem like a small number, but it's quite difficult for any minor party to convince voters to change affiliation from major parties, and it's more than the Green Party.
Besides running in and winning elections one of the important functions of the LP is to act as a clearinghouse for freedom issues. The party is a sort of meetup point for property rights activists, 2nd Amendment supporters, and drug decriminalization advocates. The LP and its members are often government watchdogs, bringing up issues that the press routinely misses or ignores. See Illinois LP Director Jeff Trigg's excellent blog and the amazing amount of corruption he's highlighted there.
As the best organized of the minor parties the LP does valuable work in fighting for ballot access. Many states have onerous and unconstitutional ballot access requirements, but it takes money and organized efforts to challenge these laws in court. Cases like this, when state government officials make efforts to keep minor parties off the ballot, are important in keeping the democratic process open to the people.
Much of this is possible because the people who bother to affiliate with the Libertarian party are much more politically active than the average voter. The LP has more influence on issues, especially on the local level, than its numbers might indicate, because LP members are more likely to be organized and show up at public debates and meetings. That in itself is a good reason to join the LP.
May 15, 2004
Church Politics
A Colorado Bishop has risen to national prominence in the past few days because of a letter he sent out to parishioners telling them how they must vote. Not just elected officials, but voters themselves must not support candidates who support "intrinsically evil": same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and "illicit" stem-cell research, which relies on tissue from aborted fetuses.
While pundits argue over the limits of church and state, let me bring up another question. What should you do if you agree with your church's moral position but think it practices terrible political strategies? For example, imagine that your church decreed that members shouldn't support drug legalization. You concur with your church that people shouldn't do harmful drugs, but firmly believe that drug prohibitions actually encourage drug use, and decriminalization would save lives and limit drug use.
What would you do then? Support a harmful position for the sake of maintaining church membership? Publicly feign support to your church and secretly vote against it at the ballot box?
Yeah It's Cute. It's My Blog. Shaddap.
I think the Mrs. will like it.
May 14, 2004
No-Holds Barred
Who would win? Walter, of course.
Not that there's anything wrong with Costello.
N.B. I live in Denver. Never been to New Orleans, although I'd certainly like it.
Libertarians?
Luis asks, "Is this the Libertarians' Year?"
Another valid question would be, "Do Libertarians matter?" They do. Maybe I'll write about that later.
May 13, 2004
Ultimate Outsourcing
It's not just your job that might be sent to a foreign land. It's you. Permanently.
I wonder if these guys will object?
The Ted Kennedy Interview
It's like I'm interviewing a planet...A fleshy, magnificent anvil with ears is what you've got.
May 12, 2004
How To Deal With A Probing Press
By LARRY ROHTER
BRASÍLIA - Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has never hidden his fondness for a glass of beer, a shot of whiskey or, even better, a slug of cachaça, Brazil's potent sugar-cane liquor. But some of his countrymen have begun wondering if their president's predilection for strong drink is affecting his performance in office.
In recent months, Mr. da Silva's left-leaning government has been assailed by one crisis after another, ranging from a corruption scandal to the failure of crucial social programs. The president has often stayed out of the public eye and left his advisers to do most of the heavy lifting. That has spurred speculation that his apparent disengagement and passivity may somehow be related to his appetite for alcohol. His supporters, however, deny reports of heavy drinking.
And so on. Not too flattering.
Press Release
In view of the frivolous news article, that was dishonest and offensive to the honor of the President of the Federal Republic of Brazil, with serious damage to the nation's image to the world, published in last May 9th's edition of the newspaper The New York Times, the Justice Ministry has determined, under the terms of Article 26 of Law nº 6.815, that the presence in the national territory of the author of this article is unsuitable. Under the circumstances, the Ministry has decided to cancel the temporary visa of Mr. William Larry Rohter, Junior.
Brasília, May 11, 2004
Luiz Paulo Teles Ferreira Barreto
Acting Justice Minister
Well. That'll show 'em.
May 11, 2004
A Fun Time Was Had By All
It started with this Radley Balko article on FoxNews.com, pointing out what should be obvious, that companies which outsource labor to poorer countries help the labor markets in those poorer countries.
The protectionist American Joblog takes issue with Radley, and an argument ensues in the comments. That comment thread, now aproaching 300 (!!) entries, features Micha Ghertner and Jonathan Wilde of Catallarchy.net, as well as other rational thinkers. In my biased opinion the Catallarchy fellows completely dismantle the protectionists. One especially telling entry by Evan Williams:
Let’s take this hypothetical situation: there’s a country in the middle of the pacific, named “Shabangodia”. Now, this country is very populous and rediculously wealthy, even by OUR standards. Janitors make in the order of $400,000 a year. Their cost of living is also much higher than ours. Now, let’s say that a shoe company in Shabangodia decided, in order to save money, to outsource their labor to poorer countries, like the United States. The shoe company sets up shop outside Raleigh, North Carolina, and offers jobs making shoes @ $200,000/year. Now, other shoe manufacturing jobs outside of Raleigh pay $25,000 year or so. But back in Shabangodia, shoe jobs pay $800,000/year. So, the shoe company is saving money by outsourcing to Raleigh. Meanwhile, shoe makers in Raleigh have the opportunity to make 8 times as much as they would have previously.
My question is, those folks in Raliegh who are making much more money, do you think that they’d say “wait, wait a minute, SURE I’m making 8 times as much as I used to, but I should be making $800,000, just like those folks in Shabangodia! I’m being taken advantage of!”? No, of course not.
Likewise, the folks in Cambodia who are making much more than the mean wage in their country are in the same position. You may believe that they’re “being taken advantage of”, but in all reality, relative to their situation, they’re better off.
Of course the protectionist blog gives up, bans the Catallarchy guys from commenting, and declares victory. Then, they issue a press release, complaining that Balko, the Cato Institute, and Catallarchy are picking on them!
At last check, a writer at the protectionist blog links to an article equating Libertarianism to a religion and hoping that Radley Balko gets raped in prison.
Just so you have a clear idea of what us free marketers are up against.
May 10, 2004
Facts, Research
"Marijuana shown not addictive, not gateway."
May 09, 2004
Immoral
Mark Shea, ostensibly a moral person, in the course of discussing Andrew Sullivan and the prison abuse in Iraq:
He's right, of course, that we have to atone for it. And part of that atonement should be considering the possibility that trying to build a culture built on pleasure and absolute personal autonomy which rejects the moral norms by which Western civilization has lived since the ascendancy of Christianity--in short, the very sort of culture Sullivan is laboring to build--is exactly the wrong way to go about it and is, indeed, an excellent way of assuring more Abu Ghraibs in the future.
I haven't bothered to read Sullivan's opinion - I don't care about it. I'm more concerned with Shea's jump from personal autonomy to torturing prisoners.
He starts out with a classic statist error, conflating 'we' with our government. Perhaps he's just being lazy, and doesn't really mean to say that each of us are to blame for what happened in Abu Ghraib. I can assure you that I'm not to blame. Shea can atone for it all he wants, but I haven't even been a particularly enthusiastic supporter of the war, much less the torture of prisoners.
Personally, I'd rather see the perpetrators atone than Shea. He doesn't like personal autonomy, but it's precisely that which causes the torturers to be accountable for what they've done. We Libertarians are fond of saying that with personal freedom comes personal responsibility. I would hold those prison guards and their superiors personally responsible for what happened. It stands to Shea's reasoning that if people aren't personally autonomous then they are part of a collective, and the collective is responsible for the actions of any of its members. So, I suppose it makes sense that Shea do the atoning as well as anyone else.
Another mistake he makes is assuming that personal autonomy and "the moral norms by which Western civilization has lived since the ascendancy of Christianity" are incompatible. Perhaps it's true in his case, he couldn't be a moral person if left to his own devices.
What's most troubling about Mark Shea, who presents himself as a Catholic evangelist, is that he's a stranger to the basics of morality.
May 08, 2004
Is There A Doctor In The House?
| Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Walteritis | |
| Cause: | bee sting |
| Symptoms: | lumps, puncture wounds, itching, glowing in the dark |
| Cure: | bleach |
I doubt the veracity of the diagnosis, as I've been drinking bleach for days now with no sign of improvement.
Found via Andy, who is not quite as sick as you might have thought.
Different Planet
The consensus of the political class is that current spending rates for all levels of government are not only necessary but possibly too low. Outsiders taking a more sober view might not see it that way, I know I don't.
Count Denver Post columnist Bob Ewegen on the pro-spending side of the argument. I've met him and once participated in a lengthy conversation with him, and he seemed reasonable and sympathetic to the libertarian view of government. However, his recent writings about the TABOR amendment show that he has a very different world view from us. A portion of today's column:
But Bridges is a political realist who knows how hard it would be to win approval of that initiative in the face of the fierce campaign that Republican conservatives, led by Owens, are already waging against it. That's why he visited the Capitol Tuesday to urge Democrats to compromise - even if that meant abandoning the personal income plan in favor of a bill that merely released TABOR's notorious ratchet.
That ratchet stems from a provision that always bases next year's spending limit on this year's limit or this year's actual collections - whichever is lower. That means if you're entitled to $100 this year, and your population grows by 1 percent while the consumer price index rises 2 percent, you'd be entitled to $103 next year. But if the recession cut your actual revenue to $50 this year, you'd be limited to $51.50 next year - and could never regain the lost revenue base.
For us limited government types the ratchet effect is one of the most attractive aspects of TABOR. Actual cuts in government spending are rare as hens' teeth in American politics, so this one opportunity to shrink spending is precious.
Rhetoric is one thing, but when it comes down to cutting the budget even most of the Republicans in the state lege get gun shy. So when Ewegen and others mention the ratchet effect they assume that reasonable people will want to eliminate it. (Note that in his example spending is cut by half in one shot. That's never happened and likely never will.)
Meanwhile those of us who think the state overspends by billions will try to keep TABOR and strengthen it if possible. It's still the best spending limit in any of the 50 States.
May 07, 2004
Letter From DC
Our friend Matthew is adjusting to life in our nation's Capital:
I was an idiot and told this lady the truth: "I don't drink, I don't use what are currently illegal drugs, I don't overdose on legal drugs, I don't smoke anything, and I don't support any of those actions, in fact I make Beaver Cleaver look like a crack-head. That said, I am 100% opposed to the War on Drugs as I consider drug usage to be a victimless crime, that destroys more families than did WWI and II combined, not to mention I am pretty sure that the DEA is one of the most offensive agencies on the face of the planet because they strip away our right to choose." A nice summary of my stance if I do say so myself.
Now if I'd been paying attention, which at 7:15AM I'm not really awake enough to figure out how to tie my shoes let alone much else, I would have noticed that attached to her purse strap was an ID badge with the DEA logo on it. And if I'd been a little more awake I would have also noticed that four other people standing and sitting well within earshot also had DEA badges strapped on their belts, bags, jackets, etc. As if by magic, I woke right up. Actually it wasn't magic, it was the DEA badge wearing clowns all telling me about how evil drug usage is....at once....in rather loud voices...at once....did I mention they were loud?
I love it.
Blogs Aren't Journalism
That's because blogs don't have editors, who could catch glaring spelling errors, as well as errors of fact in content.
Not that my spelling is any good at all.
May 06, 2004
Time
I've been too busy to post much, but much to my astonishment the blogosphere carries on without me.
Like MacArthur, I'll be back. Except without the camera crew.
May 05, 2004
TABOR Survives
The State Lege adjourned for the season without putting together a proposal to kill the TABOR amendment. I'd like to think it was because there are a bunch of principled statesmen on the hill, but it seems it was just because they couldn't agree on a bill.
Like Cubs fans they cry, "Wait 'til next year!"
Next year when taxpayers will be in season again.
May 04, 2004
I'm Noticing a Trend
Q: I gather that you agree with me that it's unfair that such a relatively small number of military people have to bear the brunt of the effort?
A: I do think it's unfair. The ancient Greeks, for example, had a requirement that every free Greek male had to fight in every battle. The idea was that if you're going to have the privilege of citizenship, you have duties that go along with that. Now, many people want to have the privileges of citizenship without the duties.
This is offensive on so many levels. If the term 'a free country' has any meaning, in the sense of individuals being free, then citizenship doesn't carry legal obligations to the government.
via Resurrectionsong.
May 03, 2004
Comment Promotion
Severin, from the post below, concerning the DEA agent who accidentally shot himself:
If I were his doctor I would refuse to give him any drugs because of his pain. If he complained I would tell him that DEA agents like himself told me that people are not really in pain and if I prescribe them medications to relieve their pain then the DEA will arrest me. That I am only a doctor, and the DEA is the only one who knows how much pain a person is in and how many painkillers are required for any injury or disease. Without guidelines from the government, how am I supposed to know how many pain killers I can legally prescribe and I don’t have the current guidelines for self inflicted gun shot wounds, so he should go to the store and get some Advil.
(This sounds extreme but I had an operation last year and that was what I was basically told by my Doctor, so I took advil and it didn't do crap for my pain but I just grinned and bore it. At least he was able to use an anesthetic during the actual operation as that is not yet made illegal, but give it time)
He's not exaggerating. For some perspective on the issue see this story from Reason magazine.
This Is Not Funny
A federal drug agent shot himself in the leg during a gun safety presentation to children and his bosses are investigating.
The Drug Enforcement Administration agent, whose name was not released, was giving a gun safety presentation to about 50 adults and students organized by the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association, witnesses and police said.
He drew his .40-caliber duty weapon and removed the magazine, according to the police report. Then he pulled back the slide and asked someone in the audience to look inside the gun and confirm it wasn't loaded, the report said.
Witnesses said the gun was pointed at the floor and when he released the slide, one shot fired into the top of his left thigh.
Have some sympathy, will you? I see that smirk. Knock it off.
May 02, 2004
Sticking To the Issues
You all know the story - ABC reads on air the names of the U.S. servicemen and women killed in Iraq. It's a move widely seen as an anti-war statement. Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of several ABC affiliates, refuses to air the show, citing the anti-war politics. Sinclair's move is widely seen as an attempt to protect the Bush administration.
All that is fine with me. I hold hold both Bush and the leftist anti-war activists with roughly equal disdain. I try to keep up with the arguments on all sides and judge them on their merits.
So it's somewhat distressing to see this. That's a link to an Atrios post detailing the arrest in 1996 of one David D. Smith on a charge of a misdemeanor sex offense. A trivial event, except that Smith is the CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting Group.
Atrios' contribution to the war debate in this case is to demonstrate that if you oppose his anti-war stance you risk personal humiliation. How that helps the debate is beyond me. All it says is our side must win at any cost!
Twenty lashes for the first person to say, 'Yeah, but the Republicans do worse.'
You Don't Say
Via MTPolitics comes this report from New Zealand.
As the government shrinks, the nation prospers. Who'd have thunk?
The Ethicist
One of the first blogs I ever came across was Diana Hsieh's Noodlefood. I don't don't visit as often as I should, so I risk missing things like this.
That's where I found this link to a review of "The Ethicist" Randy Cohen's book, The Good, the Bad, and the Difference; How To Tell Right From Wrong in Everyday Situations.
To summarize; Randy Cohen has some serious lapses in his ethical reasoning.
This is of some interest to me. Many free market advocates think that economic ignorance is the biggest problem we face as a society, and with good reason.
I think we have a bigger problem when it comes to ethics. Judging from election results, most voters don't have a problem with confiscating large amounts of property from some people and awarding that property to others. It's called progressive taxation, and it's ethically indefensible. But where most people wouldn't dream of personally participating in such a practice, they have no problem with government doing it on their behalf. From what I know of Randy Cohen's politics, I don't think he has a problem with it, either.
May 01, 2004
Meme
1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title.
I wrote a letter on a nothing day
I asked somebody “Could you send my letter away?”
“You are too young to put all of your hopes in just one envelope”
I said goodbye to someone that I love
It’s not just me, I tell you it’s the both of us
And it was hard
Like coming off the pills that you take to stay happy
Someone above has seen me do alright
Someone above is looking with a tender eye
Upon her face, you may think you’re alone but you may think again
Saturday Reading
Catallarchy.net is observing May Day with a memorial to the victims of Marxism. It's thirteen blog posts featuring historical documents, essays, and photographs of the brutality of Marxist regimes.
Here's part of one:
The Tally
Although exact figures are difficult to find, The Black Book of Communism estimates the following as the number of deaths caused by regimes headed by followers of Marxism.
USSR 20 million
China 65 million
Vietnam 1 million
North Korea 2 million
Cambodia 2 million
Eastern Europe 1 million
Latin America 150,000
Africa 1.7 million
Afghanistan 1.5 million
Other 10,000
Total ~100 million
Note that some of those estimates are thought to be on the low side.
The entire series is highly recommended.
Update: Radley Balko notes he wrote a related article last August.