Two months is a life-time when you're out of the closet

The irony is that when I started this blog and named it Delaware Libertarian, I wasn't intending to be provocative.

When you see those bumper stickers (more often on the Net than on cars today, I'll grant you) that say, "Socially liberal, fiscally conservative," that's pretty much me. What I wrote that's still at the top of the page represents my paraphrase: "An idiosyncratic voyage into the proposition that maximum personal and economic freedom represents America's best hope to thrive in the 21st Century and beyond."

So damn foolish I can't now believe it.

Within the Delaware blogosphere, which is where I intended to set down one of the major roots of this endeavor, I quickly discovered that if you had the nerve to self-identify as a Libertarian you would be met with scorn that had to be overcome before anybody would even listen to your ideas or your analysis.

Which, frankly, is because the national Libertarian Party--like lots of third parties (maybe most third parties)--confuses ideology with issues, candidates with campaigns, and webcasts with building a political movement.

I posted recently about the simplistic idiocy of Libertarian presidential hopeful (is he really hoping? or just on drugs?) Wayne Allyn Root, who wants to be taken seriously while saying, "the solution to any problem is simple- less government, lower taxes, more personal responsibility, more rights for the individual, more choice, more free market competition (to solve the education and health care mess), and far more freedom."

Then there's the Libertarian Party's apparent plan to auction off its nomination to the highest fund-raiser, moronically titled, Liberty Decides, which at least one candidate--George Phillies--had the good sense or good grace to stay the hell away from.

I always thought Cynthia McKinney running for President as the Green Party's candidate was funny enough, but that's before I encountered a whole bevy of Libertarian wannabes, including:

The afore-mentioned Root, who has raised a whopping $14,330 for his campaign war chest, making him the number one fund-raiser in the contest. That would be, what, a substandard twenty minutes for Ron Paul?

Michael Jingozian, who wants to Reset America, and who really appears to be running for President in 2012 (he's socked away $8,415).

These two are followed, at $6,575 by Bob Jackson, who promises us (no shit) an Eagle Scout in the White House who will deliver cold nuclear fusion to end all of our energy problems.

Last but not least, there's Daniel Imperato with $5,999 and a platform that only his mother could love (that is, if she knew what the hell he was talking about):

My strategy for Iraq is to implement an immediate cease fire, strengthen our troop base, and join with the Arab states for a long-term peace solution. We must get support within the Iraqi leadership to collaborate with, and bring peace to Iraq. In addition, America must setup a payback system for the US taxpayers and the money that they have spent in Iraq using revenues from oil sales. Iraq and its people must have compassion for the US troops that we've put in harm's way to protect their future democracy.

Put in a grrr and it could have been written by donviti (because I'm often unsure what the hell he means, either).

Meanwhile, even though the national Libertarian Party opposed FISA and lobbied Democratic Senators to vote against it, that piece of sanity has to be matched against the official party response to the State of the Union address. Here are two excerpts, one about education and one about health care:

Education: The President's 'No Child Left Behind Act' has failed from the very beginning, and its reauthorization would be a travesty to the American education system. Instead of unfunded, federal mandates with the intent of fixing our failing public schools, alternatives involving the private sector should be explored. Increased local control over public schools and the increased use of private alternatives will increase the quality of education for all American children. We call for abolishing the Department of Education and removing the federal government from educating our children.

Health care: Far too long have our politicians tried to find a government fix for the health care problem we have in America. Government interference in the health care system is the root of the problems we face. Only in eliminating government subsidies of health care will we find relief from increasing costs. The Libertarian Party calls for the elimination of all government entitlement programs related to health care.

I think that's the Libertarian that Al, and noman, and Dana, and Jason all expected me to be.

The Libertarian Reform Caucus, on the other hand, would define me as a moderate or perhaps pragmatic Libertarian: "A moderate libertarian is one who merely wants significant cuts in the size of government and significant increases in personal liberty."

But that's still far too vague to be satisfying, especially to the kind of Libertarian who actually runs a labor union (in his spare time) and advocates strongly for a national responsibility to educate young Americans with disabilities and/or special needs as a budgetary priority.

So I guess I'll have to spell it out, again.

I am an American citizen with Libertarian beliefs. Please note that the "American citizen" part came in there first.

I believe that property rights are fundamental rights, but that doesn't diminish my allegiance to the other rights and obligations spelled out in the US Constitution--including all of its amendments.

I don't believe that your property rights can serve as an excuse to discriminate against anyone else on the basis of ethnicity, creed, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation [Dana, cut me a break if I left any out here; it's late.]

I believe in limited government with specifically defined powers, but--as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, "The Earth belongs to the living"--advances in technology, growth of population, and other factors will force us as a society to deal with issues that the Founders never could have dreamed. So the limits of government have to be redefined every generation.

That's where I become more specifically Libertarian. It scares the hell out of me that our redefinition of government never even appears to tolerate discussion of government getting smaller in some areas.

There has not been a justifiable reason for maintaining the US Post Office monopoly on the US mails for nearly twenty years.

While the government investment in interstate highways has revolutionized America for the better, the government fiasco with Amtrak and municipal experiments in light rail (that nobody wants to ride) point out that there are many areas in which a free market works better.

I'm a veteran of 21 years service, but the Department of Veterans Affairs should never have been elevated to a cabinet level post. Nor should we have ever invested in the creation of a substandard, socialized VA medical system; it would have been far cheaper, far more humane, and far more effective for the government simply to foot the bill for applicable veterans' health care on the free market (even if you think the free market distorts prices upward).

I do not advocate the elimination of the Department of Education at the Federal level, but if you ever met an organization without a defined purpose, DOE is it. No Child Left Unpunished represents the single largest nightmare visited on public education in this country since Plessy v Ferguson (although, as a child of the 1960s, I give the "new Math" a strong second place). It is a piecework of haphazard, heavy-handed interventions that has diverted more money, attention, and expertise away from the actual work of educating our children into the process of filling bureaucratic pigeonholes. You know what DOE ought to be doing: (1) coordinating research on best practices; (2) collecting educational data and statistics to describe American education; (3) providing resources and support in the most unfettered manner possible to states and localities, with specific targeted funds for (a) failing schools and (b) special needs children. And that's it. If we're not going to have a national curriculum (and culturally, we're just not going to accept that), the role of the Federal DOE is to support what the states and localities can do, helping out with money and expertise where possible, but not to dictate ridiculous standards.

I do advocate the elimination of the cabinet level position for Homeland Security. This is one of my professional research areas, and I can tell you this: you do not meet the challenge of terrorism by creating the largest bureaucracy in American history. The TSA should not only be eliminated, we should destroy the records that suggested we were dumb enough to create it in the first place, lest our grandchildren think we are idiots.

I believe in the 2nd Amendment: the right to arm bears--oops.

I believe that the rulings in the 1870s and 1880s that converted the civil rights language in the 14th Amendment into due process protection for the "artificial personages" that are corporations was one of the greatest disasters in American history. Libertarianism is about personal responsibility; how does codifying into law practices that do nothing else besides allow individuals to escape personal responsibility for their actions meet any reasonable standard of Libertarianism? It doesn't.

I believe in a non-interventionist foreign policy.

I believe in gay rights. (I think the only thing the government ought to be doing is sanctioning civil unions for everyone. Marriage is a religious and cultural term. If you want to get married, go to a church. If you expect tax breaks or to name the person who will make medical decisions for you, file for a civil union.)

I don't believe in the death penalty. Yeah, I'd like to. There are scum out there I'd be willing to pull the switch on myself, and I do know there is some evidence that it works as a deterrent. But you know what? I'm also a Libertarian Catholic, and I think that the State's right to take a life, whether in war or through the criminal justice system, has to be more carefully circumscribed than any other potential infringement on our lives and property rights. (Paradoxically, I am willing to support jury verdicts of justifiable homicide for any boy who brings my daughter home late.)

I believe in the right of workers to form contractual organizations with their peers (they call them unions, I believe), and to use those organizations to bargain with the business entities that intend to purchase their labor. I don't believe either party has the right to use coercion, but that's a really sticky subject that has to be discussed on a case by case basis.

I believe coercion comes in many forms other than purely physical, and that the overwhelming majority of them are morally repugnant. I am coerced into wearing a seat belt "for my own good"--what utter nanny-state horseshit. On the other hand, denying workers bathroom breaks or reasonable leave time to get their children to the doctor is also coercion.

I hate abortion, but I believe in the right of any woman to reproductive freedom. I may be going to hell for that one, my bishop tells me. But I live in a civil, secular society, and I like that fact. People who insist on a "Christian America" have missed the point of both.

I believe that it is a moral obligation of my representatives to craft a government that lives within its means. The power to tax, James Madison reminds us, is the power to destroy. I think first that there should be complete, mandatory transparency in taxation (like abolishing FCC rules that don't allow phone companies to list mandatory fees and taxes as such on your bill; or Delaware's big lie that our gross receipts tax isn't a sales tax). I don't like high taxes, and I don't like social engineering through the tax code, but I think there's a lot of self-serving crap on all sides to be cut away before we get down to a data-driven discussion of what we want government to do, how much we should be willing to pay for it, and what is the fairest way to spread that burden.

I oppose single-payer health care (no shit, say the regular readers of this blog), but I also see our system as broken in many ways. I honestly don't think anybody has yet thought far enough out of the coffin to find the right answer.

As you can see, I'm a mess.

But so are most people.

I label myself as Libertarian not because I fit any doctrinaire definition (hell, after this post even the Libertarian Reform Caucus may disown me), but because I see the personal and economic freedom of individual and families increasingly threatened by both statist and corporatist intrusions and coercions.

I label myself as Libertarian because I reject Democrat or Republican as party choices, Conservative or Liberal (Progressive) as ideological choices, and I think people who want to be Moderates are too squishy to be depended on in a fight.

I label myself as Libertarian because I am a damn crank with often conflicting values that refuse to reconcile themselves seamlessly into some cloth that other people can understand.

My mother introduced me to a saying that covers this when I was about six years old: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

[Oh yeah, in case you're still reading.... I also believe in life on other worlds, and that it makes sense to spend the billions to go back to the Moon and onto Mars....]

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Michelle Obama at DSU: Eyewitness report

OK, first the good news: the auditorium was full to nearly bursting, the crowd was spirited, and Michelle Obama is, I must admit, one of the best pure speakers I have seen or heard in some time. You could tell she is exhausted (she would occasionally flip words from sheer fatigue), but she was passionate, pointed, and funny, and the Obama campaign has identified some clear issues for her to focus on.

My son thought she reminded him of Martin Luther King, Jr. (that is, when he looked up occasionally from the laptop).

His twin sister loved what she said about public education (and I admit I was thrilled to hear somebody talking about the elimination of No Child Left Behind).

In many ways Michelle Obama strikes me (possibly because of the slight physical resemblance) as what the neo-cons hoped Condi Rice would become.

The bad news: I really question the choice of venue at DSU for the campaign's purpose. The 1,200-strong crowd was dominated by DSU students, staff, and faculty. Standing in line outside I would say that less than 20% of the audience there was from outside DSU. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled for my university to be hosting this, but....

Here's my problem: I know (because I teach them and we talk about these issues) that less than half of those students are actually registered to vote. Moreover, less than 20% of those students are Delaware residents in the first place, and I will guarantee you that the non-DE residents (even if they are registered) did not bother to sign up for absentee ballots in their home states.

So I am guessing that at most 300 of the 1,200 people in the crowd are actually potential voters in Tuesday's primary. So unless, from the Obama campaign perspective, this whole appearance as about getting media shots with a large crowd (which I admit is possible), it seems like a poor use of Michelle's time and the campaign's effort to set up an event that reaches so few voters.

I compare this to 1996 when Elizabeth Dole visited Dover to do a similar surrogate appearance for Bob Dole. She appeared in the auditorium of the local middle school, in front of 800-1,000 people, almost all of whom were actual registered voters.

I guess my perception is that this is somewhat indicative of a campaign staff that maybe doesn't have quite as much experience as it needs for a successful national campaign--but I could also be way off the mark.

As to the specifics of the speech:

1) I was interested in the approach that "our differences are far less significant that we think they are"--this seems to be a good, workable line

2) Without ever mentioning Hillary, she managed to hit her hard three or four times, and to lump the previous Clinton administration as being part of a contiguous pattern forward from Reagan.

3) She did a really good job of countering the experience argument, by pointing out that with his 8 years in the Illinois state legislature and 4 years as a US Senator, Barack can claim more legislative experience than Hillary.

4) She also did an excellent job of managing to limn Hillary as a status quo candidate. You often hear conservatives complain that John McCain is a Democrat in everything but party affiliation; Michelle makes an equally compelling case that Hillary is in many ways a Republican in everything but party affiliation. I'm not sure that the claim will stand close scrutiny, but close scrutiny isn't what this kind of speech is about; leaving a lasting emotional impression is.

5) She constantly hit on Barack's empathy and commitment to public service, and noted that he had worked his way up to this position, starting from community work on Chicago's Southside. This was tacitly contrasted to Hillary, who stopped to make her fortune before really discovering her call to public service. Again, not airtight logic, but a good political comeback against some of the Clinton attack machine assertions.

6) She sold family values and human dignity far better than Hillary ever has. She wasn't so interested in "helping people" as Hillary's commercials suggest, but in ensuring that people have the support to do it for themselves. Not so sure where this translates into actual Obama policy, but it sure makes a better soundbite than anything the Clintons are putting out there.

My overall impressions:

Grade for the campaign in scheduling this event (location/audience): B-

Grade for the overall quality of the presentation: A- [not enough campaign literature available going in or out]

Grade for Michelle's performance as a speaker: A+

Grade for Obama campaign themes in terms of political effectiveness: B+/A- [while these themes were very good, I have not seen them tied into the campaign TV advertisements]

Conclusion: Despite my positive impressions, I think this race to the Democratic nomination is a game of percentages and inches. It's the tiny little organizational things that are going to matter. Obama has more money for advertising, but I'll bet that there will be more Clinton Co. buses and vans taking supporters to the polls to vote. I think that Barack may get as close as Reagan got to Ford in 1976 (losing the nomination by maybe 25 votes).

Which is a shame, since it will leave us with Clinton-McCain, an election in which no matter who wins, everybody loses.

I'm from the Government, and I'm here to improve your salt shaker....

This from Nanny Knows Best, concerning a British town council that got concerned with the excessive salt intake of patrons eating fish and chips:

As we know, Nanny hates salt.

The fact that people can die of salt deprivation (eg if they are sweating profusely and don't increase their salt intake, or drink too much water) seems to have escaped Nanny.

Nanny is determined to cut our salt intake.

To this end her chums on Rochdale council have come up with a brilliant solution. They have reduced the number of holes in the traditional chip shop saltshaker from 17to 5.

Brilliant!

The theory being that the less holes, therefore the less salt will be shaken onto the food by the customer when he/she is applying the "salt and vinegar".

Takeaways are being issued with catering-sized salt pots with just five holes in the lid, rather than the usual 17.

Of course now they'll have to regulate how many times you shake the shaker.

Beck and the Worst Lawyer in Texas

The Girl in Short Shorts once again has the most interesting post of the day, regarding a murder case in Texas, which (surprise, surprise!) includes an incompetent judge, an ineffective defense lawyer, and a woman who finally decided to take justice into her own hands.

Her worst crime, in my estimation, is that she attempted to clean up afterward.

Besides, you should read this story just because Becky manages to work the word skank into the narrative in a satisfying way.

Some technology should be banned by Big Brother

This from Faith Central at TimesOnline, regarding a Bluetooth innovation that somebody is going to hell for:

O no. The evangelists have got a new gadget, to be unveiled at the Heart of England Christian Resources Exhibition next month (21-23 Feb 08). It is the Gabriel Communicator. It takes up no space but uses Bluetooth to beam text messages to all mobile phones within a 100-metre radius. Txxtouch managing director Nicholas Maguire says 'This is a culturally relevant way to contact people regardless of their age.' Coming soon to a railway carriage near you. Be very afraid. R U SVD? Txt JXT fr SALV8TN

The mind races with ideas: first responders being controlled almost effortlessly from a central hub ... viral advertising committed by winos who would otherwise be wearing sandwich signs you could ignore ...

Some doors shouldn't be opened, should they?

Slippery Slopes: Not Just for Libertarian Paranoia any more

About two weeks ago I got into it with Jason on Delawareliberal over (of all things) opera.

What's interesting is the comment Jason made in critiquing one of my argument:

The logical fallacy that Libertarians like most, above all logical fallacies is that slippery slope argument.

I pointed out in rebuttal:

Not all slippery slope arguments are invalid–you guys use them all the time about Republicans when it suits your purposes, so get real.

And Dana Garrett agreed with me:

“Not all slippery slope arguments are invalid”

Now there is a truth few know. Any chance you could teach it to Al Mascitti? If you tell him the predictable consequence of some action (that he likes, of course), his knee twitches and out comes the “You are committing the slippery slope fallacy.”

Here’s the scoop on it folks:

“If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,…, X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too. Z should not happen. Therefore, A should not happen, either.”

The whole bit disappeared from my mind (things often do; it's cluttered and things get lost) until I was cruising the website of George Lakoff's Progressive think-tank, the Rockbridge Institute, and found an article on Strategic Initiatives. Here's the lead-in:

There are many types of Strategic Initiatives. The most far-reaching type is a Multiple Issue Strategic Initiative but another important one is a Slippery Slope Strategic Initiative. Both introduce wedge issues to divide opponents and make it easier to accomplish ambitious, long-term goals.

More specifically,

A Slippery Slope Strategic Initiative is so called because the first step is intended to be only part of what you want, but is a step that opens the door to further steps on the way to your ultimate goal. This works by making the first step on the slippery slope so attractive or palatable that traditional opponents have a hard time countering it.

For instance, the issue and ideas behind a Slippery Slope Strategic Initiative are presented in such a way that you put your opponents on the defensive, placing them in a difficult spot, and making it more likely that you will succeed. Critically, the first step puts a new frame in place. Once the first step is accomplished, the next step is easier because the new frame can be elaborated once it is in place. Using the same reasoning, you continue down the slope step by step, gaining momentum toward your final goal.

An important feature of both a Multiple Issue and a Slippery Slope Strategic Initiative is that they divide your opponents by operating as wedge issues—each drives a wedge between members of your opponent's usual coalitions.

The article cites bans on partial birth abortion as a successful Conservative Slippery Slope Strategic Initiative and clean air/clean water initiatives as similar potential strategies on the Progressive side.

In fact, the article argues,

What Can Progressives Do? Craft Our Own Slippery Slope and Wedge Issues.

There follow detailed instructions for creating and carrying through such initiatives.

So I guess it's not a matter of Libertarian paranoia.

European Central Bank: Excessive government taxation and spending harms economies. Who knew?

A brief piece from Thoughts on Freedom, the Libertarian blog hosted by our colleagues "down under":

[Before you read, to get the context right, you have to remember that "liberal" in Australian politics is much more accurately equated with "conservative" in an American context]

‘Big government is bad for economic growth.’

No shit, Sherlock, i hear you cry.

But this isn’t my view, nor one of a neo-liberal free market think tank.

It’s from that respected inflation-fighting institution, the European Central Bank, which has come to this conclusion all by itself. No surprise to readers of this blog but papers like this will help spread the gospel of smaller government.

The paper concludes that each additional 1% of government spending reduces growth by 0.13%.

One interesting finding. The taxes that have the least harmful effects on growth are income taxes. Those that hinder growth the most are consumption taxes and government subsidies.

Something to chew on.

So I went to the ECB report mentioned in the article, and found this:

Breaking up total revenue into direct taxes, indirect taxes and social contributions, our results suggest that among total revenue the variables that are most detrimental to growth, both in terms of size and volatility, are indirect taxes and social contributions. At the same time, analysing the components of total spending (transfers, subsidies, government consumption and government investment) the results suggest that, while for both set of countries both subsidies and government consumption have a significantly negative impact on growth, government investment does not significantly affect growth, and transfers have a positive and significant effect only for the EU countries [as opposed to OECD countries]. Moreover, for the EU countries, public consumption and investment volatility have a sizeable, negative and statistically significant effect on growth. These results are also in line with some available related empirical evidence pointing to the negative effects on growth of public spending, particularly in the case of developed countries.

There are relevant policy implications to be drawn from these results. It seems that revenue reductions that occur mainly in terms of indirect taxes and social contributions, and cuts in government consumption and subsidies may contribute positively to fostering economic growth in the country samples analysed. Moreover, public capital formation may indeed turn out to be less productive if devoted to inefficient projects, or if it crowds out private investment. These conclusions also provide useful indications to policy makers when deciding which components of public finances to adjust (namely by redirecting spending towards more growth enhancing activities, in a context of limited public resources and
fiscal constraints).

Direct taxes I understand--and so do you. Indirect taxes refer primarily to employer payroll taxes. I was stumped on social contributions, until Wiki brought me up to speed with this reference to Denmark:

All income originating from terms of employment or self-employment are levied a social contribution at 8% before income tax. This contribution is widely regarded as "gross tax". The highest total income tax is therefore 62.28%.

You've got to wonder what European political leaders are going to do with this, given that they have consciously pursued a high taxation strategy to provide social services.

As noted above, Denmark charges up to 62.28% in national income taxes, with local flat taxes from 20-26%.

In the Netherlands, the highest marginal income tax rate is 52%, but if your house increases in value (even if you don't sell it), that's considered income.

In Sweden, income taxes, mandatory pension contributions, and municipal taxes can rise above 72% of total income.

At what point does any government--even a European socialist government--realize that if you suck all the air out of the room, there's none left for anybody to breathe?

Michael Moore loves Cuban health care, but apparently forgot to look at Cuban prisons

This from Human Rights First, regarding the case of Cuban journalist and political dissident Dr. José Luis García Paneque, currently serving a 24-year sentence in Fidel's prisons:

Dr. García Paneque was arrested in March 2003 as part of a major crackdown on peaceful dissent in Cuba. He was charged under Law 88 and sentenced at a summary trial to 24 years in prison. Since 2005, he has been held in the “Las Mangas” prison in Bayamo, Cuba, where his health has been dangerously deteriorating.

In addition to developing severe digestive problems from the poor prison food and lack of movement and sunlight, Dr. García Paneque has been harassed by the common criminals in the prison. Dr. García Paneque cannot digest lactose and gluten, and such dietary restrictions are not accommodated by the prison diet. His wife reports that he has lost nearly 50 percent of his body weight.

In early June 2007, Dr. García Paneque informed his mother that the prison doctors had taken him to a hospital in Bayamo, Cuba, after he complained of intense abdominal pain. An ultrasound revealed a cyst measuring 36 by 38 mm on his kidney, which prison doctors want to surgically remove. Dr. García Paneque was transferred to the medical ward of “Las Mangas” from the beginning of June until the end of July 2007. The ward is not equipped to properly treat Dr. García Paneque’s health condition. Medical exams at the “Carlos Manuel de Céspedes” Hospital in Bayamo revealed that he is suffering from a cyst on his kidney and from pneumonia.

Despite his fragile health, Dr. García Paneque was returned to a humid cell without windows in early August 2007, sharing the space with more then 15 criminal detainees who reportedly subject him to harassment and beatings. On August 28, 2007, a common criminal entered Dr. García Paneque’s cell and beat him about the head. The injuries required four stitches above his eyebrow.

Members of Dr. García Paneque’s family, including his four young children, have been repeatedly harassed at home and at school, culminating in their fleeing the island in March 2007. Yamilé Llanes Labrada is an active member of the Ladies in White.

His family’s petitions for his release based on health concerns, as well as requests that he be treated by an independent medical professional, have gone unanswered by the Cuban authorities.

I continue my quixotic quest to find the true socialist workers' paradise.

(Being sure that Dr. García Paneque’s ill treatment in prison can be attributed to the US trade embargo.)

The Transitive Property and Our Government: A Conundrum

Mid-Atlantic States Labor reports that nationwide union membership rose last year from 12.0% of the American work force to (STOP THE PRESSES) 12.1%!!!!

OK, seriously, the 311,000-worker gain is the largest gain since 1983, when unionized workers represented over 20% of American labor.

Here's the part I found particularly interesting:

A total of 7.5 percent of private-sector workers were in unions, and 35.9 percent of public-sector workers.

What this seems to mean is that public-sector unions now form the bulk of the labor movement, which would include government unions, police, firefighters, and teachers.

Now, for a second, let's bop over to Delaware Watch, where Dana has an article on Christine O'Donnell dropping her suit against her employer:

Or does the sensible intuition lurk in the recesses of O’Donnell’s pretty head that since, for most people, our society is structured to require employment for survival and to thrive that no employer should have the right to threaten one’s survival or capacity to thrive without a compelling reason to do so?

Hopefully, O’Donnell will develop her intuition further and realize that when working individuals can’t afford the expense of justice through lawsuits, they naturally join forces and form unions. It’s the only way in our society that most of the “little people” in the workplace can make themselves significant.

What occurs to me is this: Remember the transitive property from math?

If A=B and B=C, then A=C.

Therefore....

If (A) avaricious employers don't value workers or pay attention to the rights of the little people, who must be protected from their depredations....

And (B) the best protection from such violations is to unionize....

And (C) the largest segment of our economy that has unionized is the public sector (which is a synonym for government)....

Does it then not follow that the government (C) is an avaricious employer that doesn't value or pay attention to the rights of the little people?

I know this is a smartass way to raise an important question, but think about this: if--as our Progressive friends tell us--government is to be the primary protector of our rights and liberties (therefore being essentially beneficent), then why do the people who work for the government find the need to organize to protect themselves from it?

More Sarkozy watch: France leads EU peace-keeping force into Chad

French troops form the bulk of a newly deployed European Union peace-keeping force in Chad and the (completely misnamed) Central African Republic intended to protect relief workers and streamline delivery of humanitarian aid to the starving population in Darfur. Eventually, this force will reach 3,700 troops from 14 countries, now that Austria has also signed up.

This is the largest peace-keeping force ever deployed by the European Union (and it's six months late due to internal bickering) as an entity that doesn't (A) revolve around a US cadre or (B) function as a subsidiary of the UN.

There are two ways to look at this.

One is to be pleased that the damn Europeans are finally getting off their butts and taking responsibility for some of the world's hot spots, so we don't have to....

Or you can recognize that France is carefully positioning itself in all kinds of ways to rival the US as a major geo-political player around the globe, competing under an entirely new paradigm that our current crop of wannabe Presidents don't even understand....

(By the way, this is again from Al Jazeera, because US media doesn't cover it.)

Who is Wayne Allyn Root and why he is bothering the Libertarian Party?

This is why people often don't take Libertarianism seriously.

From Third Party Watch comes this statement from Libertarian Party Presidential hopeful Wayne Allyn Root upon his return from Great Britain:

I learned many lessons on my trip to UK this past week. The most important one is that the solution to any problem is simple- less government, lower taxes, more personal responsibility, more rights for the individual, more choice, more free market competition (to solve the education and health care mess), and far more freedom. That’s the Libertarian message. That’s not the message you’ll hear from any Democrat or Republican Presidential candidate.

I'm not really sure how Wayne learned this in the UK--I'm not even sure what a guy supposedly pursuing the US presidential nomination is doing in London in the first place.

Here's the problem: pure ideologues of any stripe scare the hell out of me. Anybody who thinks "that the solution to any problem is simple"--from a Libertarian, Progressive, or any other perspective in between--is someone you don't want anywhere near serious power.

Political ideologies provide a conceptual framework for thinking about the world, not a blueprint for solving individual problems.

Try to remember that if you want anybody to take you seriously as a candidate for anything.

As usual the Daily Kos gets it wrong: Libertarians oppose FISA

From the Daily Kos (I was forced to do it by a regular reader, ouch):

Where Are All the Libertarians on FISA?

For all the talk of "freedom" that the Paulbots claim to believe in, they sure as heck have been silent on the horrible FISA bill we're fighting to fix in the Senate right now. Same for Ron Paul. Why the silence? And the CATO people and the libertarian publications like Reason, where are they?

Here we are engaged in a huge civil liberties issue, and progressives are being forced to fight this thing alone. It's easy to talk about "liberty". It's much more impressive to actually do something about it.

Of course it's easier to take cheap shots than do your homework.

From the Libertarian Party Website:

Washington, D.C. - The Libertarian Party has sent letters to 22 Democratic Senators who voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments in August of last year, urging them to reconsider against an upcoming Senate bill that would make those amendments permanent. The letter was also sent to Democratic Senators who did not vote at all for the amendments. "Given that Republicans have shown such disrespect for civil liberties and freedom in the past few years--evidenced by the fact that not a single Republican Senator voted against the FISA amendments--Democrats have an instrumental role in acting as a counterbalance in Congress," says Shane Cory, executive director of the Libertarian Party.

The Senators receiving the letters are: Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE), Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA), Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA).

The following is text from the letter:

Coming up in the near future, you will be deciding on a matter of great importance to freedom in the United States. You and your colleagues will soon be voting on Senate bill S.2248, which makes permanent the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 that were passed in Senate bill S.1927 in August of last year. We are sending you this letter because of your position on S.1927, and strongly urge you to reconsider against S.2248.

During this prolonged War on Terror, numerous American civil liberties have been sacrificed in the name of "safety" for all Americans. As a nation founded by men escaping the tyranny of an authoritarian State, it greatly disturbs us to see America headed back towards tyranny again. We feel the amendments to FISA only take us farther down this ominous path.

A famous man once said:

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

This man was none other than Sam Adams, one of the most celebrated men of the American Revolution. I'm sharing Adams' quotation with you because I think there is much truth to what he had to say so many years ago. Tyranny can come from enemies both domestic and foreign, and we must not forget about one while focusing on the other. Since Sept. 11, 2001, we have been focusing so much attention on those who want to destroy American liberty from outside our borders that we ignored those who wish to do the same from the inside. Their tactics may be different, but their intent is still the same.

This is why your opposition to the FISA amendments is so crucial. You, as Democratic Senators, have the power to act as a counterbalance to the further expansion of the powers of the federal government and the erosion of civil liberties. American citizens rely on you to protect them and their rights from this encroachment.

So, please, when considering S.2248, remember that protecting liberty now is easier than trying to win it back in the future.

As for Ron Paul, maybe their Web Browser won't bring up his page on government surveillance.

At last! A Wind Power post at Delaware Libertarian

This one from Eco-Worldly (not one of my usual stops, but I get around) discusses the end of cheap energy in Europe, and what the continent is seemingly unprepared to do:

Many governments have been caught short as the decommissioning of old power stations, increasing demand for electricity and new EU targets for renewable energy have all coincided, causing many analysts to predict a demand / supply deficit of up to 20% over the coming years.

For obvious reasons, cheap oil, coal and gas power plants are out of favour. Nuclear power is expensive and is still viewed with deep suspicion, meaning that additional capacity is unlikely to be available for some time. Many believe, therefore, that the time for renewable energy has finally arrived.

But naturally there are problems, and the post details some of the specific challenges of wind farms, which is one of the reasons I thought it would have some legs in Delaware. Here is the bit that most stood out in my mind:

To put the issue in to perspective, the world is currently building a wind turbine every four hours. To provide enough wind energy to provide 20% of the EU’s current demand we would need to build a new turbine every 15 minutes for the next 20 years.

There's a stat just for Tommywonk.

Markets and social change: a speculation

Free markets today are in somewhat ill repute, having been tarnished, I think, by eight years of mishandling by a Republican administration that essentially shit on the Libertarian wing of the party at every opportunity. This has allowed proponents of managed capitalism or welfare state capitalism to stage an intellectual comeback of sorts, arguing that all we've see from the market is a massive transfer of wealth upward: the rich get richer, the middle class gets worried, and the poor get poorer.

I want to point out a different perspective on free markets, but I will warn you ahead of time that I'm not going to provide a bunch of easy URLs to check out the facts behind my reasoning, mostly because it comes from studies in those most antiquated of sources: books. There will be a bibliography at the end; do your own homework.

Here's my thesis: it is sometimes the case that unfettered free markets lead rather than follow with respect to positive social change.

Case in point: Brown v the Board of Education of Topeka KS (1956) laid the groundwork for ending decades of separate but equal public education in America. The NAACP had filed multiple lawsuits over the previous decade seeking this result, and it came as a huge shock to everyone concerned that it was Chief Justice Earl Warren (who, as governor of California during WW2, had spearheaded the internment and property seizure of Japanese-American citizens) who put together that majority. Throughout my youth, when we were driving to visit my maternal grandmother (no Interstates!) in Powhatan, Virginia, we would always pass a huge IMPEACH EARL WARREN billboard, erected courtesy of the John Birch Society.

Segregated education required a Supreme Court decision to abolish it.

Ironically, market dynamics had forced professional baseball in 1946, followed by minor league baseball in the early 1950s, to de-segregated without benefit of court orders, strikes, or massive resistance. It can be argued that the integration of professional sports (minor league being equally important here because there was no major league team south of DC or Baltimore) helped create the atmosphere that made school integration a possible outcome for the Supreme Court.

Why did it happen?

African-Americans had played professional ball in small numbers going back into the 1870s, but soon after the turn of the century (certainly Plessy had something to do with it), they began being systematically excluded from pro teams. Since the games were also segregated (or at least the Black fans were crowded into small stands far away from the whites), there was a demand in the African-American community for their own teams. Traveling teams developed into teams affiliated with certain cities (often owned by the richest Black businessman in the area): the Homestead Grays, the Newark Eagles, the New York Cubans....

Though never as tightly organized as the majors (and operating under the handicap of having no reserve clause) the Negro Leagues had organized into an ongoing business by the early 1920s, with both a Negro National and Negro American League.

During the off-seasons, the very best players like Josh Gibson would head to Cuba to play. Others stayed home and joined traveling teams. One or two legitimate Negro League stars and a bunch of wannabes would barnstorm around the country playing exhibition games against white teams composed of (you guessed it) one or two legitimate Major League stars and a bunch of wannabes (Bob Feller was big on the barnstorming tour). So people began to get used to watching Black and White players compete under certain conditions. By this time there were also universities in the north that fielded integrated teams (although they usually left the Black players at home when playing below the Mason-Dixon Line).

Ironically, if you peruse the team photographs of the mid to late 1930s you will see a lot of apparent Black guys--aha, you fool, they're all Cubans, not Negroes, so we can play them! Plus, they play cheaper than real white guys.

Had all things been equal the draw of big Negro League stars like Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Satchel Paige would probably have led to baseball's integration in the late 1930s. Washington Nationals owner Clark Griffith gave tryouts to several Negro league stars then, but didn't sign any of them partly because (ironically) he was making more money renting DC's Giffith Field out to the Homestead Greys that he was making from his own franchise. He was actually afraid that he'd scuttle the Greys and his own income. Bill Veeck came up with a plan to buy last place Cleveland, fire all the players, and replace them en masse with the Negro League Newark Eagles. There were a variety of other attempts, mostly because the Negro League teams even drew some white fans, and their stars were widely known.

But all of these foundered on the Commissioner of Baseball, Keenesaw Mountain Landis, a dedicated segregationist who killed every single idea that crossed his desk. Not until Landis died in 1944, to be replaced former Tennessee Senator Happy Chandler. Chandler--like Earl Warren--would have been nobody's bet to allow baseball to integrate. As a Senator he had repeatedly rejected the attempts of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP to get him to support a Federal anti-lynching law. But World War Two had convinced Chandler, baseball's owners, and the fans that the talent pool among white players was pretty damn thin, and everyone knew national expansion of the sport was on the horizon. So when Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers floated a plan to have Jackie Robinson play for a year in AAA ball in Canada and then come to the Dodgers in 1946, Chandler accepted it. The rapidity with which other teams scooped up the available Negro League stars from 1947 on suggests that they'd been scouting the territory for some time.

Interestingly enough, Branch Rickey was not just significant for Jackie Robinson, he also essentially created the modern farm-team system, linking specific minor league teams at different levels to a parent pro team. Because the pros started by cherry picking the all stars from the Negro Leagues, professional baseball ironically integrated from the top down--the minors were the last to have Black players.

The first Black players hit the minors in about 1950, and were, for the most part, guys who were near the end of their careers in the bigs, who'd been picked up for a season or so, and then shipped down to AAA. Most of these assignments took place north of the Mason Dixon line, and some of these players enjoyed long, successful twilight careers in places like Rochester NY or Milwaukee WI. The real integration of the minors didn't start until the Negro Leagues had been pretty well mined of ready talent, and there was a need to recruit rookies from high schools and colleges and bring them up through the farm system. Problem was--most of the A and AA leagues were in the South.

This was a pretty painful process, as documented in an incredible book by Jim Adelson, Brushing Back Jim Crow, The Integration of Minor League Baseball in the American South, that documents--league by league--the story of sports integration in the Jim Crow South during the 1950s. What's interesting is that roughly two-thirds of the Southern minor leagues had already been thoroughly integrated by the time of Brown v Board of Education.

Amazingly, major league--and then minor league--baseball achieved integration without a single lawsuit (OK, maybe there were one or two nuisance suits against integration in the South). How? A mixture of the profit motive and the supply & demand of true big league talent. World War Two [when the best players were away in uniform] convinced the owners thoroughly that people would not come out to see mediocre players. Two decades of integrated non-league play and the sharing of some stadiums convinced them that Blacks could play, no matter what white supremacists said.

Why did baseball manage to integrate well in advance of the public schools? I'd offer the explanation that the public schools, being government organizations, were covered under Plessy v Ferguson, and had no market incentives whatsoever to change until the courts ordered them to do so. This seemed such an unlikely event that no one--not even people who actually wanted integration ever did any serious planning for what would happen in a court decision's aftermath.

Moreover, once the basic decision to integrate baseball happened, the other professional sports fell rapidly into line. Admittedly there remained a definite ambient racism (no Black quarterbacks or coaches for a long time) behind the scenes, but contrast that to the truly messy, divisive process of implementing the Brown decision and you have a critical contrast.

I wonder seriously if, writing in another two decades, a future historian will attribute the sea change that has taken place with respect to gays and lesbians in this country since the late 1980s to Affirmative Action and government programs or market forces. (Note that I am certainly not saying discrimination has ended, but you cannot deny there has been a huge movement in this area.)

My conclusion? The comparative study of integrating professional baseball and public education suggests that at least in some cases the market is a more effective agent for positive social change than government and the law.

This is something we would do well to remember.


Partial bibliography

Jim Adelson, Brushing Back Jim Crow, The Integration of Minor League Baseball in the American South

Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays

Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams

Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer

Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers

For the precious little privacy remaining in our society....

I just picked this up; I don't know if a corporate attorney really said this or not, but Libertarians and other American citizens could probably benefit from these common-sense ideas to protect their privacy, their money, and their credit history:

A corporate attorney sent the following out to the employees in his company.


1. The next time you order checks have only your initials (instead of first name) and last name put on them. If someone takes your checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how you sign your checks.

2. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID RE QUIRED".

3 When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it.

4. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a P.O. Box, use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a P.O. Box, use your work address. Never ha ve your SS# printed on your checks. (DUH!) You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have it printed, anyone can get it.

5. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place. I also carry a photocopy of my passport when travel either here or abroad. We've all heard horror stories about fraud that's committed on us in stealing a name, address, Social Security number, credit cards.

Unfortunately I, an attorney, have firsthand knowledge because my wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thief/thieves ordered an expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and more. But here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know:

1. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

But here's what is perhaps most important of all: (I never even thought to do this.)

3. Call the 3 national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit.

By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves' purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away. This weekend (someone turned it in).



Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, etc., has been stolen:



1.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285

2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742

3.) Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289

4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271

A solution to a social problem that couldn't be tried here

Mexico is now joining a number of other countries (Japan, Brazil, Egypt, and South Korea), reports World Changing, in offer "women-only" transit.

Sexual harassment is a maddeningly ubiquitous problem for female transit users in Mexico City, where subways and buses carry an estimated 22 million passengers every day. Women on the city's overcrowded buses face lecherous comments, groping, and worse. Efforts to stop sexual harassment on public buses have been futile; women report having men put hands up their skirts, kissing them, and following them off the bus.

Mexico City has long had "ladies cars" on subways during rush hour. This month, the city rolled out the first two of what will eventually be more than a dozen women-only buses; the buses are plainly marked with a pink (ugh) sign that says "WOMEN ONLY."

While "separate but equal" public accommodations raise legitimate concerns (will women get the oldest and least reliable buses? will segregating women from men be seen as legitimizing harassment on regular transit? does it create a false sense of security?), it's worth noting that the service originated with requests from women for a safer way to get around the city. Virtually all of the women quoted in stories about the buses speak positively of them, calling it a relief to be free from pinching, groping, and leering. "Traveling among women is so much more pleasant," one said. "With this type of transport, I can dress a little bit better, wear skirts without anyone bothering me," another added.

While I'm not sure that I think this is a good solution, what struck me about this story is that you couldn't try this in the United States, because you run immediately afoul of everyone from the ACLU to the Department of Justice.

When did we get to the point where we allow the government or self-appointed watchdog organizations to tell us, American citizens, what remedies to social problems we may or may not try?

Fox: No Mormon wannabes to advertise during the Super Bowl

Here's one where you actually have to have worked in the media to get what is not being said.

Fox gives two reasons for not allowing Presidential campaign ads during the Super Bowl.

1) Since the show is sold out and not everybody could get in if they found an open spot, it would not be an "equal opportunity."

2) They don't have to guarantee placement of political ads and have the right to exclude them from "unique, one-time only" events.

If you believe this, I've got some property in Florida that they've just discovered land on.

What's at stake here is Fox revenue. FCC and FEC rules require that networks and individual media outlets sell advertising time to political candidates at the lowest bulk rate they have sold any ads within the past six months. That's why TV and radio stations, as well as networks, carefully jack their rates in tandem with upcoming major elections.

It's about the money, folks. Always follow the money.

The World and Barack Obama

In my continual quest to improve American understanding of the rest of the world, here's Alvaro Vargas Llosa with an essay about how Europe and Latin America view a potential Barack Obama presidency.

What's truly interesting is his perception that Obama appeals more to European conservatives than liberals, and that neither Europe nor Latin America believes that an Obama win would substantively change American foreign policy:

The European right appears more enthusiastic about the liberal Obama than the left. French political scientist Dominique Moisi seems to think the Democrat will give pro-American Europeans some arguments to “sell” the United States among anti-Americans. “Why is Obama so different,” he asks in a recent syndicated essay, “from the other presidential candidates? After all, in foreign policy matters, the next president’s room to maneuver will be very small. He (or she) will have to stay in Iraq, engage in the Israel-Palestine conflict on the side of Israel, confront a tougher Russia, deal with an ever more ambitious China, and face the challenge of global warming. If Obama can make a difference, it is not because of his policy choices, but because of what he is. The very moment he appears on the world’s television screens, victorious and smiling, America’s image and soft power would experience something like a Copernican revolution.”

The whole article--which is not very long--is worth your time.

Because Monday sucks....

Because it's Sunday night, and Monday sucks, here's a series of motivational posters now making the rounds:

Becky provides the Gay and Lesbian voters' guide

Once again Becky, the Girl in Short Shorts, has the scoop. Not only does she take you through the nearly uniform anti-gay positions of the major presidential candidates, she also lays out the issues that are critical, especially to gay and lesbian couples.

She ends up with the conclusion that gays have no other choice than to vote Libertarian.

[No, sorry, Ron Paul doesn't come out very well.]

[Outright Libertarians has already endorsed Libertarian presidential hopeful George Phillies. I don't know much about Phillies as a candidate, but I do remember him as the original dominant American player of Avalon Hill's Stalingrad game back in the 1960s-70s.]

Beyond the gay/lesbian issue, this situation raises a fundamental question about a two-party system, as opposed to a more open multi-party system.

With only an either/or choice pragmatically available, we are virtually guaranteed to elect least common denominator candidates. No serious candidate for national office can afford to oppose the prejudices of the great mass of the electorate. If 75-80% of the American population opposes gay marriage, then guess what?

Sunday Night SF at Delaware Libertarian: New story

This week starts an attempt at hard SF; a three-part story that takes place around Gliese 581c, famous earlier this year as the first extra-terrestrial planet discovered that has the spectral signature of water.

Incident at Gliese 581c

An original Science Fiction story by

Steve Newton

(c) 2008; all rights reserved

They had finished cataloging two large and thirty-nine small moons circling 581D, completing the flyby, and were turning their attention to the inner planets when Raaj Penstock asked Centavi Mbolo to drift over to his workstation.

“What is it?”

“Look for yourself,” he insisted. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”

The tall woman with the shaved head and the nu-clan tattoos leaned down to the eyepiece. The scope targeted Gliese 581C, 2.95 Earth masses, once briefly famous as the first exo-planet discovered capable of harboring liquid water. After thirty seconds, she lifted her face, turned to the keypad and typed in a series of inquiries. She studied the output for nearly two minutes, and said, “That’s not possible. Is it?”

Penstock was a squat man whose normal, affected British accent disappeared under stress. Two months before the Zheng He launched from Earth, they had enjoyed a brief, passionate fling that neither could remember.

“Forget whether or not it’s possible. What does it look like to you?”

Mbolo fingered a design on her cheek, idly tracing its curl down toward her chin; there was another tattoo swirling around her neck, but she didn’t know how it had gotten there, and never touched it. “It looks like a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit, is what it looks like.”

“That’s what I thought, too. We’d better tell the Captain.”

“The hell with the Captain. We’d better tell Rothmann.”

Hoobart Rothmann was the enfant terrible theoretical physicist who developed the Rothmann Negative Mass Drive, and whose fortune had bankrolled the mission to Gliese 581. Nobody liked Rothmann The standing joke among the crew was that they were the only people who had ever spent twenty years in proximity to Hoobart Rothmann without trying to kill him—although doing so required them to be in Coldsleep.

Raaj took the lead in attempting to explain what they had discovered, “Sir, this thing checks out as a Class Four communications satellite. It appears to be the same configuration that we’re carrying for deployment into the same orbit.”

Rothmann was a florid, pudgy man, whose features simultaneously seemed regular and scrambled. He sneered a lot.

“Which just happens to be orbiting 581C when we arrive? Far more likely, Penstock, that some cretin on the observation staff has decided a little practical joke is in order. When I find out who to blame for this outrage, they will be having a very long year.”

“Then verify it yourself, Doctor Rothmann, if you don’t believe us,” Mbolo snapped. “We were extending a professional courtesy by informing you of what we found. You can act on it or not, but neither Raaj nor I are going to stay here and take your abuse.”

“Professional courtesy exists between intellectual and professional equals. Subordinates such as yourself are merely expected to do your jobs competently without getting in the way. So get out of my quarters and try to make yourself useful somewhere else.”

They took the sighting to Captain Kirk Leath, a lean man who wore a perpetually amused look. Leath asked a series of polite but penetrating questions, and then sent Penstock and Mbolo back to their stations for a full workup. Ogda Chien, the mission’s cosmologist and back-up astrographer, appeared soon after, and became drawn into the mystery. Within hours, all seventeen people aboard knew about the sighting, and speculation ran rampant.

Rothmann remained isolated in his quarters.

Nineteen hours later, Captain Leath used a proprietary code to override the privacy lock-out on the physicist’s door. Without preamble, he said, “Professor Rothmann, this is neither a prank nor an equipment malfunction. As Penstock and Mbolo told you yesterday, there appears to be a communications satellite orbiting the planet.”

Rothmann stared at him as if the potato on his plate had just engaged him in conversation. He said, “All right, Captain. Let’s assume for the moment that your underlings have found something in orbit. Of four possibilities, one is still that this so-called satellite is either a ghost in your machine or a piece of juvenile humor. Perhaps your astrography staff has misidentified a tiny moon. Only after those are completely ruled out do we have an artificial satellite. Then we determine its origin, which is more likely to be alien than a human satellite that somehow wandered twenty light years out of the solar system.”

“Then, sir, how would you suggest we proceed?”

“That is the first intelligent question anyone has yet asked. I gave the matter the ten minutes of thought that it deserved yesterday,” Rothmann said, turning away and touching his keypad. “I’ve sent you a detailed protocol, both in terms of determining whether this is in fact a hoax, and in narrowing down the origin of the item. For a start, everyone should stop referring to this object as a communications satellite—such a premature conclusion will prejudice your ability to see what’s actually there.”

Leath retreated. Dealing with Rothmann always made him feel disoriented, perhaps even daunted. He knew that Rothmann did not like him, and had originally vetoed his selection as mission commander. His record, however, had been good enough that Deep Space Exploratory Command insisted on Leath’s assignment as back-up commander during train-up. Sometime during the six months prior to launch, he had replaced Captain Masood. Nobody on board—Leath included—knew why.

Coldsleep had merged late 21st Century understandings of cryogenics with neuropsychological research on comatose and permanently vegetative trauma victims. Even before the Slingshot mission to Alpha Centauri, Coldsleep had delivered colonists to Mars, Vesta, Ganymede, and Titan economically and safely (a fatality rate of less than .001%). Extensive testing had discovered only one significant side effect: the necessary preliminary injections wiped out the subject’s last five or six months’ memory prior to chill-down. Thus Penstock and Mbolo did not recall their affair, technician Jahn Boone didn’t know the sex of his first grandchild, and even Rothmann would have lacked any memory of the critical responses to his last paper on solving the Takai Transforms.

Despite his uncertainties about the reasons why he had awoken light years away from Earth rather than in the control chambers a year after the Zheng He’s launch, Leath took his obligations as mission commander seriously—more seriously in fact than Rothmann would have preferred. Leath had considered, for instance, that while the professional crew aboard was first-rate, none of the other scientists belonged to the top tiers of their profession. Ogda Chien was a second-string cosmologist, Phineen Slattery an exo-biologist with only minor publication credentials, and Andrej Malvoux a planetary climatologist past the prime he may never have had. It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Hoobart Rothmann desired no intellectual competition during his year in the Gliese system.

Leath did not, therefore, ignore Rothmann’s protocols, because he doubted that anyone else aboard could have generated anything better. Instead, he initiated them without crediting their source. Everyone might have suspicions, yet suspicions were not certainty, and the resultant ambiguity allowed the work to continue without too much rancor. By the time the ship cleared 581D’s surprisingly strong magnetic field, Mbolo picked up a faint transponder code, which almost matched that of their own satellites waiting in the hold for deployment.

Almost, but not quite.

“The signal compression rate’s just a hair different,” Boone said. “The identification code has sixteen digits, not fourteen.”

Per the protocols, a rigorous search for other signal sources ensued before Leath would authorize transmitting a dump query to the satellite. Likewise, the Zheng He altered course to drop below the ecliptic and pass around the tidally locked, sun-facing hemisphere of Gliese 581B before swinging around into proximity with the anomaly. The captain approved of this cautious approach. If there was anybody out there, Leath wanted to know as soon as possible.

Apparently there wasn’t.

Unfortunately, the dump query also failed to stimulate the comsat into downloading its core memory. Leath ordered a shuttle dispatched for Boone to dump the satellite’s memory manually. Everyone except Rothmann found themselves glued to a screen as the technician approached his prey.

“This is pretty damn strange, Captain,” Boone reported. “According to the access panel markings this is a Siemens Class Four, Mark Seven, Communications Satellite.”

“Why is that so strange?”

There was a short pause before Boone replied.

“Well, sir, it’s like this. The ones we’ve got are Siemens Mark Fives, and when we left home that was the latest model available.”

Leath tried to ignore the spreading chill in the pit of his stomach.

“Boone, do you think you’ll be able to conduct a manual dump?”

“Let’s see. Yeah, I think so. The couplings are the same. Get in there you little bugger. The keypad’s also the same. C’mon baby, listen to papa.”

A long minute passed. From the workstation to Leath’s right, Lieutenant Dany Detroit said, “Good work, Boone, I’m receiving data.”

Leath allowed himself a brief smile, felt the cold within him lessen just bit, until the technician said, “Uh, Captain, there’s a product run identifier on the inside of this panel. It says that the satellite was produced in 2217.”

Glaciers surged forward inside him. The Zheng He had departed Earth on 2194; according to the vessel’s mainframe (which told time based on calculating the observed time onboard at .995 C during the trip as registered by a cesium-decay clock and comparing that to predicted time-dilation caused by their velocity), on Earth right now it was 2215.

This satellite wouldn’t be built for two more years.

* * *

“There are really only four viable solutions to this problem.”

Rothmann loved an audience more than anything, which explained why people outside the scientific community thought he was urbane, charming, and witty. They’d only known him through netcasts, and had been spared his pre-show green room rages when the sauvignon blanc wasn’t properly chilled. With everyone onboard tuning in, he reverted to his media persona.

“Possibility number one is that we encountered some kind of space-time fold during our voyage here. Those of you who have been following my work on the Takai Transforms will recall that several theorists have proposed this solution as a possible answer. Entering such a fold would transport you not only in space, but in time as well. That would only leave the question of whether or not we have actually exited the fold.”

“Something as large as the Gliese system could be caught in one of these folds?” Penstock asked.

Rothmann was magnanimous; he doted on questions that gave him to opportunity to clarify theoretical physics for the masses. “Actually, Takai speculated that if such folds existed they could be large enough to contain entire galaxies, which might explain any number of observational anomalies over the past two centuries.”

He paused theatrically, sipped some water, and continued: “The second possibility involves the structural quantum relativity theory that Benvenides proposed in 2157. Difficult to explain without the math, you understand, yet think of it like this: Perhaps time does not pass in the way we subjectively experience, but expands in a fashion analogous to space. We know there was an inflationary period in the early universe wherein space actually expanded faster than the speed of light. Benvenides suggested that not only does time expand, but also that gravity causes it to expand at different rates in different places. We could therefore be caught in a region of quantum chronological differentiation.

“Now, as to the third poss—“

Malvoux interrupted the physicist, who had become so enmeshed in his own rhetorical brilliance that he did not realize that absolutely no one had any idea what he had just said. “Could you explain what a quantum chronology difference is? I’m sure everyone else knows, but I’m confused.”

“What? Of course. It means essentially that local time here at Gliese may be passing either faster or slower than local time on Earth, regardless of the time dilation effect of our voyage. Strange things happen to the numbers when we postulate passing differential borders. It’s possible that we arrived here after we had already departed.”

Mbolo sounded skeptical. “Even if that’s true, professor, how does it explain the satellite? Maybe my face already left before my butt got here, I can get that. What I don’t understand is how that makes it possible for me to have left a satellite behind that I never had with me in the first place.”

Rothmann dismissed this objection with a wave of his hand. “That particular comsat could have been left behind by another expedition that—by local Earth time—left for Gliese twenty years after we did, but crossed the differential at a more acute angle and ended up here ahead of us.”

“So does it get home before it left?” jabbed Chien. “Or before we left? Which would be pretty difficult since we don’t remember it.”

“Maybe it happened during the last six months and nobody bothered to leave us a note,” someone said sarcastically.

Rothmann took a deep breath, visibly controlling his temper now, and said, “Clearly all the paradoxes have not been worked out. That’s why they’re still paradoxes. However, it’s also possible that we’ve been caught in a closed time-like loop, and have—quite frankly—either been shuttled into or have even created a parallel reality.”

“Which means what, in terms of what’s going to be waiting on us when we finally get home?” demanded Slattery.

“Who knows? We could find a world indistinguishable from our own, a world in which the Southern Hemispheric Union never existed, or even an Earth where it’s forty years later that we thought it would be.”

“All of your scenarios, Professor Rothmann, appear to have in common the idea that we have unknowingly slipped into some other spacetime,” observed Chien. “Shouldn’t Occam’s Razor demand at least one explanation that doesn’t involve the wholesale changing of natural laws? Such changes, I might add, that have yet to be reported from any other interstellar venture?”

Listening to the discussion without any intent to contribute, Leath had to admit that he agreed with her. He wondered how Rothmann would handle the question.

The physicist smiled sadly and spread his hands. He said, “That’s the crux of the problem, Ogda, isn’t it? A satellite produced two years before we arrive—not to mention the time involved in transporting it here—appears to demand some sort of temporal dislocation, doesn’t it? If not, the only potential explanation I can imagine is my fourth possibility. What we think we’re seeing is not what we really are seeing. Some party or force capable of casting a consistent cognitive illusion is distorting our perceptions of reality. Personally, I don’t favor that alternative, because by definition we have no way to verify or disprove it.”

“So unless the aliens with the thought projectors announce themselves,” said Detroit, “we can never be sure they’re here.”

Rothmann nodded sagely, having recovered his audience. Then he used the line that Leath had been waiting for, the line designed to cement his position as de facto leader, if not de jure commander: “Now, as to how we proceed, I’ve amended the mission profile to allow those concerned with the regular planetary studies to undertake their tasks with only minor modifications, while our crew assists me in some observations to clarify our physical-temporal situation. You’ll all be receiving it in a few moments.”

This was the instant for a resolute captain to speak up, to retain control of the situation. Leath could feel Detroit’s eyes on him from the adjoining station, waiting for some pronouncement.

But the captain said nothing.

* * *

There had been an additional problem with the comsat besides its putative date of manufacture. The core memory downloaded into the Zheng He’s mainframe had been encrypted with a quantum-entangled key, and was thus unreadable. Leath briefly considered having the satellite brought onboard and disassembled to search for more clues.

Yet doing so would have required several hours to rematch orbits, while Malvoux had already begun champing at the bit to deploy his climate surveillance package. Both the climatologist and Slattery, the exo-biologist, would fight any delays, which would cement Rothmann more firmly as the final arbiter of mission-critical decisions. While Leath was not yet prepared to challenge the physicist’s informal power, he did not have any intention of helping solidify it.

A second reason for leaving the satellite alone was the fact that the captain could not dismiss completely Rothmann’s fourth scenario. If something had altered their perceptions, then the last act they should be committing was to take onboard a potentially alien artifact of unknowable power and intentions.

So again, he said and did nothing.

The first interstellar captains had been men and women noticeably larger than life. The panache of Abner Jolly, the intensity of Susan Heynan, and even the bland unflappability of Yekial Masood had been writ large in the netcasts as the hallmarks of heroic adventurers. Gliese 581 was a second-line mission, an almost routine scientific odyssey to a fairly insignificant red dwarf star that achieved media prominence more due to Rothman’s presence than to the personality of its mission commander. Indeed, Leath speculated that Masood might simply have exercised his option—even during the last six months—to bypass the Zheng He in favor of more important commands he was sure to be offered.

Not so Leath. The adjectives most often applied to his fitness reports were “steady, “reliable,” and “conscientious.” Heynan characterized him as “a somewhat better than average officer when things are progressing normally, and the man you’d most like to have working with you in a crisis.” Both of his ex-wives, Leath suspected, would have framed the observation differently, though they would have agreed with the sentiment.

He considered himself a man of broad intelligence and a penetrating ability to focus, but admitted his lack of a long-term ability to sustain his intensity for any single discipline. Leath tended to make sporadic forays into obscure sub-sections of highly complicated areas, even to the point of achieving a narrow mastery that could masquerade as professional attainment. He had managed, over the decades of his extended life, to publish papers in refereed journals on subjects as disparate as early Christian theology, the filament structure of irregular spiral galaxies, and political indoctrination in the Egyptian Army prior to the 2017 coup.

So it would not be precisely correct to say that, during the three weeks following the satellite’s discovery, Captain Leath did nothing. He simply did nothing about Rothmann’s overt attempt to seize control of the mission. At the same time, he became punctilious about the minutiae of his responsibilities, checking the performance of his officers and technicians, the reliability of their various systems, and—strictly per mission profile—conducting a meticulous inventory of ship equipment and stores. Leath was, Lieutenant Detroit told Boone during one long watch, “a man who’s lost control, and who’s attempting not to notice by reminding us of his remaining authority over petty details.”

Boone, who unlike Detroit had served with Leath before, emulated his captain and said nothing.

Meanwhile, within the solitude of his cabin, Leath set out on one of his patented, intensive periods of study, taking as his subject the life and writings of Hoobart Rothmann. The physicist had already penned two self-serving autobiographies, five “popular” scientific books, and three full-length technical monographs, as well as being credited as principal or co-author on a staggering 276 published papers. Leath was unsurprised to discover all of them on the mainframe, including pre-prints of four that had yet to be published before the Gliese mission had launched.

In Aiming for the Stars: A Physicist Challenges Humanity’s Limitations, Rothmann had written,

The scientist does not feel daunted by the prospect of spending decades in Coldsleep on interstellar journeys. He doesn’t dwell on lost family and friends so much as he tingles in the anticipation of the opportunities future technology might offer at the end of his voyage. Consider Einstein at the peak of his intellectual prowess given the opportunity to leapfrog forward to the mid-21st Century and use the first reliable quantum computers. Could that formidable mind have thus resolved the question of quantum gravity? Or Takai, whose elegant transforms hold out the possibility of a true warp drive, and who tragically died of cancer at forty-seven, still waiting for the development of sufficient processing power to prove out her equations….

The Takai Transforms appeared constantly in Rothmann’s work. Leath knew that they reputedly hinted at the possibility of utilizing negative energy to create a localized, faster-than-light expansion of spacetime first suggested by Miguel Alcubierre in the late 1900s. Within a decade his concept had been dismissed, primarily on the basis of its apparent violation of various quantum inequalities and the limitations that quantum coherence seemed to place on the use of negative energy. In 2138, Berenda Takai—then a virtually unknown postdoc—had published a series of incomplete equations suggesting that these were not insuperable difficulties after all. The only problem: the Takai Transforms not only required certain values that could only be derived from quantum gravity, but yielded values for time that were essentially meaningless.

Rothmann, however, renormalized the time values, and in 2163 managed to generate the equations necessary to produce not a warp drive, but a workable negative mass propulsion system capable of reaching .995 C. The resulting Slingshot Mission to Alpha Centauri proved that mankind now had a practical technology for probing—at least—the nearest stars, and incidentally left the physicist filthy rich. Yet as Rothmann admitted in his autobiographies, it was the breakthrough moment and the adulation of the masses he craved. That the interstellar captains had soon eclipsed him as media darlings was a bone stuck deep within his throat. Which explained, thought Leath, Rothmann’s last fifteen years bashing his head against the walls surrounding the Takai Transforms, searching for the moment of discovery that would make him immortal.

Thus, on the twenty-third day after the discovery of the comsat, as Leath blacked out his cabin for his sleep period, he was still pondering the most niggling question of all: Why was the man out here, twenty-one light years from home?

To be continued....

Subsidizing water? Another brilliant idea from California

This one is from our friends at The Eco-libertarian, a story about how many farmers in California now allow fields to lie fallow in order to sell the water they purchase as below-market agricultural rates to drought-struck cities.

Wow. I got that all into one sentence, even if it does run on a bit.

The longer post makes more sense, grammatically speaking, but the logic still defies me.

Evolutionary biologists have saying, used whenever anyone starts to believe they've outwitted nature: "Remember, evolution is smarter than you are."

The same thing, apparently, applies to market economics.

A good story from our Progressive friends (slightly rewritten)

Just because an item is catchy doesn't mean it's accurate.

Here's one that I've seen before, picked up this time from Mid-Atlantic States Labor:

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA).

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA), he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today.

After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) filled it with GAS from Saudi Arabia and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (Made In Malaysia ), Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in AMERICA .

Y’all gotta Keep this one circulating, please.!

OK, great union made in American fodder, right?

Let's take a shot at rewriting it:

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN ) for 6am; he woke to Sirius, the American-engineered satellite radio network. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he sat out sugar from Louisiana and cream from Wisconsin. Meanwhile, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG), after having lubricated his beard with a shaving gel produced in Illinois. He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE), and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). He complemented these with an American-made L. L. Bean jacket, a leather belt produced in Texas, and underwear manufactured in South Carolina.

After cooking his breakfast of American-produced bacon and eggs in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA), he sat down with his programmable calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) that runs on an American-manufactured AMD chip to see how much he could spend today. Later tonight he would upload the data using an American-made Cisco software program into his American-made Quickbooks program.

After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) (necessary because he was replacing the American-made battery) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA), which was still tuned to Sirius, he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) that had recently been tuned up by an American automobile technician who added new American-made platinum spark plugs, traveled on four American-made tires, and had been repainted by an American enterpreneur. He filled it with GAS from Saudi Arabia (because US energy companies have virtually been prohibited from realistic exploration and development of new oils fields in America) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his computer (Made In Malaysia) and running software designed in America's Silicon Valley, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL), poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE), grabbed an American-produced frozen dinner, and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA) to watch the wide variety of entertainment produced in America and exported to the rest of the world.

He wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in AMERICA. He considered for a moment that he should have enrolled at the community college to update his skills, but then dismissed the thought. You should be able to find a decent-paying job with a high school education, right? Didn't the government owe you that?

Moral of story: it's never as simple as the so-called Progressives would like you to believe.

Dana's Child

Lost somewhere over the past few days of intense policy debates between this blog, Delaware Watch, and First State Politics over items like the Prevailing Wage law is this heartfelt response by Dana Garrett:

My special education son has to see his speech therapist in the public school he attends in his classroom w/ the other kids interfering with nothing but two bookshelves and a line of chairs separating him and the therapist from the intruding little kids. Why? Because there is no other place in the entire school for the sessions to occur.

My son is part of a study conducted by the NIH and they say he needs the special education class 5 days a week. Guess what. The school district can only afford to run the program on 3-day and 2-day day schedules.

When I read the entire 2015 report on school expenditures I noted that the the costs to transport charter school kids are so expensive compared to transporting public school kids that they lack economies of scale (p.73), contributing to Delaware having the 4th highest transportation costs in the nation for our public schools.

I couldn't help but think that my kid is doing without the facilities he needs and the frequency of special education he needs just so people like you and Al Mascitti can promote a school system that breaks up teachers unions. That's your interest and damn the children who might suffer as a consequence--children like my kid.

There are many things that Dana and I will never agree on, but public education--especially the education owed by our country to young American citizens with special needs and/or profound handicaps--is an area in which I believe he and I can march shoulder to shoulder.

In 1995 I was just finishing up a three-year stint as co-chair of Delaware's Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks Commission. We were about to unveil the new standards (anyone remember New Directions? or as I prefer, Nude Erections?), and I had been asked to sit down one evening with a group representing special education parents. They were concerned that the move toward standards-based, assessment-driven instruction was going to leave their children behind. I assured them (because this is what I was told by the Delaware education bureaucracy at the time) that the needs of their children would always be considered.

They were particularly anxious about testing. Would their children be tested on grade level or at their functional level? Again I told them (as I had been assured) that their children would continue to be assessed at the functional level required by the IEPs (Individual Educational Plans).

Over the next four years, the Department of Public Instruction (now DOE) made a liar out of me on all counts.

I had occasion to remember that night when my wife and I adopted a special needs daughter out of state custody. Because, for the first few years, she was technically in our house as a foster child, she had an educational surrogate. Educational surrogates are appointed for children who don't have parents to advocate for them; by and large it is an excellent program.

In our case it was a disaster. My wife and I both have extensive postgraduate training and professional work histories with adolescent learning difficulties. Our surrogate was a well-intentioned but barely literate person who thought our daughter should be institutionalized for the rest of her life, could not learn beyond perhaps employment in a sheltered workshop, and was being victimized by the two of us insisting that she would graduate from high school, would attend college, and would become a productive citizen who didn't have to exist on society's charity.

During the years our daughter spent in the Delaware school system we have experienced the best and worst of teachers, facilities, administrators, programs, testing, and the whole nine yards. We paid thousands of dollars out of pocket for special tutoring that the State refused to certify her for. We experienced program managers explaining what our daughter needed, and how much less the school was going to be able to provide.

At every step of the way our educational surrogate attempted to overrule our decisions, to keep our daughter warehoused in a non-graduation program, out of the mainstream.

We knew we could sue, at least after the adoption became finalized, but we're frankly not the litigious types.

We cried, we raged, we fought, and we got our daughter an education that was sometimes in spite of the public schools instead of due to them.

If you have not been there, you have no idea what's contained in those few paragraphs Dana wrote at the top of this post.

You have no idea of the little triumphs, the constant heartbreaks, the outright prejudice that is ironically better than the complete apathy of often disinterested functionaries.

You have no idea what it feels like to be able to research and discover what your child needs, only to discover that the cost is astronomically beyond your means, and the system is NOT going to provide it for you, no matter what the law says.

Your child could thrive, his or her condition doesn't have to be a permanent bar from self-sufficiency or at least a personally fulfilling life--and other than the other parents in the same boat or a few dedicated, overworked teachers and therapists, you discover that....

Nobody really gives a shit about your child.

I have no problem with school choice, and as a concept I don't have a problem with charters (although, as I've gone on record here before, I think both Dave Burris and Myopia 2015 are seriously over the edge with them), but I have a severe problem with people who piously intone about the best and the brightest being cheated in our system, and who begrudge every nickel and dime being allocated to American citizens with special needs that sometimes don't show on the surface, or which manifest in less than socially pleasing fashion.

That tends to make me--even as a Libertarian--far less sympathetic towards advocates of pulling additional resources out of the regular public schools for gifted or talented children in charter schools.

[A note for truth in advertising: I've also got twins who are gifted and talented, and they sit right in the regular schools. They each read at least five grades about their current grade level, and would excel in any classroom you placed them in. They have been raised to be independent learners who know they need to keep pace if they want to go to the college of their choice. So please don't tell me I have this position just because I have a daughter with special needs. You can find the full spectrum in my house.]

Frankly, the state bureaucracy would just as soon children like Dana's didn't exist, and it is all too happy to put the screws to the districts to cover the cost of their education.

In one below-the-canal school district about 15 years ago there was a profoundly deaf child whose parents insisted (as was their right under least restrictive environment rules that he be mainstreamed into the classroom and provided a full-time aide at district expense. That's what the law said he was entitled to. The district, hurting for money as districts always are, attempted to skirt the law, got sued, lost, and essentially had to have a referendum to pay for the cost of a full-time aide for one child for the next eleven years.

There are also school districts in this state that go out of their way to avoid classifying students as special education so that they don't become obligated to provide certain expensive services.

What can we do about this? Lots.

At the smaller, individual end of the spectrum, volunteering in the schools makes a huge difference. You know, if there was one parent volunteer in the classroom every day that Dana's son had speech therapy, I'll bet you there would be far fewer interruptions and distractions. A bandaid? You bet.

More substantively we could employ a threshold test that beyond a certain point made the state and not the district responsible for covering the cost of adaptive education. There's a lot more room to cut fat at the Townsend Building than there is in most school districts, and the combined fiscal responsibility for special needs education would make the bureaucrats there a lot more zealous about pursuing additional grant funds to pay for it all.

I say as I have said before: I am a great believer in personal responsibility. But young Americans with special educational needs do fall into the category of a national responsibility. They can't succeed without help from the rest of us.

In that sense, Dana's child is my child, too.

Delaware State University in the Snooze Journal: Toxic

Today's Snooze J carries a front-page article on the Provost search at DSU, and the devastating report issued by the university's search firm about reactions of candidates asked to apply.

The news isn't good.

Yes, the "Steve Newton" quoted in the interview as President of the DSU Chapter of the AAUP is me.

I don't normally do interviews about DSU, and you'll notice that I've never posted about it here.

But the News Journal called me, at the behest of someone very senior in the university hierarchy whom I cannot name.

I felt obligated to answer questions honestly.

Let me be clear: DSU is a great institution with a great potential future. We are currently undergoing a period of uncertainty and transition. We'll come through it as we as a university community work through it.

I'll continue to try to be a positive part of that process, but don't expect to see me in the newspaper like this again, and don't expect me to post on it here. Neither fits the role I play at DSU.

Having nothing to do with politics: A. E. van Vogt and why you should read him

Nothing in today's world is as out of date as a dead science fiction writer who stopped publishing in the late 1980s when Alzheimer's struck him. The technology in his stories is out of date, his futures have been superseded, and unless someone picks him up for a classic reprint, he's relegated to eBay and the second-hand bookstores.

I mean, look at him--even the suit is cheesy.

But I want to make the case that you should go out and find, and then read reverently, some of the best (and even some of the worst) of A. E. van Vogt's work.

The beginning of modern science fiction is generally traced not to the appearance of the first story by Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein, but to the appearance of Van Vogt's Black Destroyer in John W. Campbell's Astounding during the summer of 1939. This story would later become a major inspiration for Ridley Scott's Alien movies.

Within a few years Van Vogt would establish himself as one of the titans of science fiction, with his most-remember creations being Slan [which has recently had a posthumous sequel--Slan Hunter by Kevin J. Anderson--crafted from Van Vogt's notes]; a classic Libertarian story The Weapon Shops of Isher [voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best twenty SF stories of all time back in the 1970s]; and his Null-A trilogy, loosely based on the concepts of General Semantics.

Oddly, none of those--with the possible exception of the first Null-A books is among my favorites, primarily because they are all too ... polished.

Van Vogt wrote based on an obscure system that required him to break every story into 800-word scenes, and to literally try to send you on some kind of plot twist at the end of each scene. He would set his alarm clock at night to wake him up at odd hours, then scribble down what he could remember of his current dream (having gone to sleep with the conscious injunction to think about the plot he was working on), so that he could incorporate that into the next scene.

Then there were the fix-up novels. Having specialized in short stories and novelettes in the early 1940s, Van Vogt gave up writing for a time (wherein he partnered with L. Ron Hubbard at the start of the Scientology movement), but then suddenly needed money. Paperback novels were just coming into play in the early 1950s, so Van Vogt--instead of writing new novels--just apparently randomly gathered together bunches of old short stories and novelettes, fixing them up into short novels of about 60,000 words.

The results were not surprisingly ... uneven.

But that's Van Vogt. You don't read him because all the plot elements get neatly tied up at the end, because sometimes he throws in so many ideas that only a gigantic sleight of hand, complemented by scientific mumbo-jumbo, can bring the story to an end.

Along the way, however, you will find brilliant characterization, incredible investigations of the nature of consciousness, deeply layer future societies, and some of the most interesting aliens you'd ever want not to be eaten by.

By the late 1950s Van Vogt had started writing original works again (including collaborations with James Schmitz and Harlan Ellison), but a lot of people thought he was past his prime, and that his later work couldn't hold a candle to the earlier (somewhat like Robert Heinlein when you think about it). I disagree. There are absolute pieces of brilliance in The Darkness at Diamondia, The Anarchistic Colossus, Future Glitter, and Cosmic Encounter.

One of Van Vogt's least know works is a novel called The Violent Man, a non-SF story of an American held in a Chinese brainwashing experiment in the late 1950s or early 1950s. If you can get past the fact that every woman in the Orient seems to want to fall into the sack with our anti-hero, it is one of the most amazing books on conditions in Maoist China every written.

Baen Books has just republished a bunch of short stories and novelettes in a trade paperback collection entitled Transgalactic, but I don't think it represents Van Vogt's best work (although at that it's pretty damn good).

I can't give you an order in which to read his books, because finding them is becoming progressively more difficult.

But here are my favorites:

Cosmic Encounter Late; hard to find; aliens vs Elizabethan pirates along with multiple timelines and the collapse of the universe into its original constituent atom (no kidding).

Future Glitter Simply the most amazing treatment of a world-wide Stalinist totalitarian state you will ever read.

The Anarchistic Colossus The Fleet went out and beat the aliens and came home (but not really, the aliens just messed with their minds) and now an Earth with no government is about to be invaded, except that.... Naw, I'm not telling.

Earth's Last Fortress [also as Masters of Time] A recruiting station for a future war is opened in the present--but is it by the bad guys or the good guys?

The Man with a Thousand Names Forget the plot, which involves body transmission between the stars and other improbabilities; the thing about this story is that the main character is completely unlikeable, never becomes likable, and yet Van Vogt manages to make you empathize with him and eventually root for him.

Supermind, Quest for the Future, and The Universe Maker are all fix-ups in which--at times--come completely apart. The characterizations are so deft and the ideas so intriguing that you won't care that the last third of the plot makes no sense.

No links except this--to the best A E Van Vogt site on the Net. (It was just updated last week--this guy cares about his material).

Sarkozy update: Military and Nuclear ties with India

Regular readers will recall my treatment of the Franco-Chinese relationship that emerged under Jaques Chirac and continues full throttle with Nicholas Sarkozy at the helm.

Today Sarkozy is in India, cementing a deal to bring India into compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (making the country eligible to purchase fuel and reactor technology more freely) and to strengthen France's existing position as a military supplier to India.

From Al-Jazeera:

France and India have completed negotiations on a civilian nuclear technology agreement, the two leaders said, but Sarkozy said the deal depends on India concluding its own agreement on nuclear safeguards with the IAEA.

India's booming economy is desperate for energy, and such deals would allow the country to buy nuclear fuels and reactors.

They would also bring India into the nuclear mainstream after decades of its isolation due to its refusal to sign non-proliferation treaties and its testing of nuclear weapons....

....

Also on Friday, India and France agreed to strengthen military ties and go beyond a "buyer-seller relationship," Singh said on Friday.

"I think it is very important that India and France should cooperate, share information and intelligence gathering for defence of the values which are dear to both our countries," he said.

The two sides had earlier signed an agreement on protecting classified defence information, which Singh said "reaffirmed our strong mutual desire to further strengthen our strategic partnership."

"This partnership is longstanding and rests on shared values and similar approaches to regional and global issues," the prime minister said during the joint news conference

"A global fight against terrorism is essential to protect open, democratic and multi-cultural societies like our two countries."

France has been hoping to use the state visit to revitalise relations with India, a country ranked as the biggest weapons buyer among emerging nations.

It is expected to spend an estimated $30 billion on defence purchases over the next five years.

France was the second largest arms supplier to India after Russia but has now been overtaken by Israel.

Ruth Ann: construction workers, YES; state employees NO

Today Governor Ruth Ann Minner announced her final proposed $3.4 Billion budget.

It includes no pay raise for State employees.

Given that there seems to be virtually no chance that the General Assembly will take action on recent recommendations to repeal Delaware's Prevailing Wage Law for school construction (savings of $34 Million to be expected)--guaranteeing that labor costs on such projects will continue to rise--here's what that means in the NewSpeak language of our Progressive friends:

Governor Ruth Ann Minner today proposed a massive transfer of wealth from all State employees to all contract laborers on State construction projects.

So much for our teachers, prison guards, social service workers....

No Matter What the Health Care system, There will always be tough calls

There is a lot of discussion and debate in this presidential year over American Health Care.

And for once I'm not going there.

Whether we keep the present system or go to a single-payer plan, the issue of Medical Futility will always be with us.

At what point do doctors acquire the right--even the responsibility--to tell the families of intractable patients that they will no longer apply extraordinary measures to prolong a life that is already effectively ended?

What tactics are acceptable for physicians to use in convincing a family to "pull the plug"?

From one of my favorite (but inherently depressing) blogs, Medical Futility, comes this heart-rending case from Georgia, decided yesterday. It's a case in which parents signed a consent form to stop treatment of their two-year-old daughter on the doctor's advice. Later, they sued, arguing that they had been pressured into signing the consent forms.

Take the time to read it, and ask yourself: While I understand the parents' grief, do I really believe the doctors did anything wrong.

Prevailing Wage: The sordid truth about racism and the Davis-Bacon Act

Recently, at First State Politics, Dave Burris has taken considerable heat for his stand that Delaware's Prevailing Wage laws should be repealed. I happen to agree with him, but that's not the point of this post. The arguments for and against this policy involve unions, taxpayer interest in reducing costs, and a wide variety of other factors, all of which can be argued with logic, passion, and evidence by all comers. That debate has been fruitful and enlightening from all sides, even though I doubt it has changed the position of too many (if any) of the participants.

However, Dave made the following comment during the course of the debate:

According to many scholars, prevailing wage laws were first created in order to help labor unions stifle the prevalence of black labor that was undercutting their racket.

This has been seized upon by the Progressive blog Delaware Watch for an extended posting Disgusting: Dave Burris’ Use of the Race Card in the Prevailing Wage Debate, in which the author says,

I want to address an “argument” that is not only irrelevant to the economic points he attempts to make but is in fact a disgusting and, as I will show below, a laughably erroneous smear [followed by the Dave Burris quote cited above].

There follows an impassioned description of the labor situation in 1931 (the second year of the Great Depression) in which the Federal prevailing wage law--the Davis-Bacon Act--was passed. Delaware Watch goes on to cite Dr. David Belman's draft study of the Davis-Bacon Act that concludes,

As Professor Belman points out Senator Bacon’s words actually demonstrate that the issue was not about race but about contractors using itinerant labor to slash local wages and worsen working conditions:

"In any case, Bacon explicitly stated that the issue was not whether the outside labor was black but rather whether the outside labor undercut local union wages and working conditions. When Georgia congressperson Upshaw suggested that the problem was created by the presence of black labor, Bacon responded: the same thing would be true if you should bring in a lot of Mexican laborers or if you brought in any nonunion laborers from any state."

And again:

As a matter of fact, according to Professor Dale Belman, the Davis-Bacon Act Congressional debates and hearings were remarkable for their lack of racial references:

"In fact, direct reference to race in the debate over Davis-Bacon was rare. Of the 31 Senators and Representatives who spoke in favor of the Davis-Bacon Act in 1931, Alabama Representative Allgood is the only one to have explicitly mentioned the issue of race. Furthermore, only one of the thirteen witnesses who spoke at Senate and House hearings in that year mentioned the issue of race. Thus, the view that Congressional debate demonstrates that the Davis-Bacon Act was motivated by racial animus relies primarily on the view that proponents of the Act hid their animus with racial code words."

So Delaware Watch has shown that Dave Burris has committed a "disgusting" act by playing "the race card" and distorting scholarly consensus on the issue of racism and the Davis-Bacon Act?

Not quite. In fact, not even close.

Belman's conclusions are, in fact, quite revisionist and do not reflect the consensus of general historical, sociological, economic, or political research on race and the Davis-Bacon Act.

Some examples:

1) Dr. Richard Vedder is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio; in Employment Effects of Prevailing Wages by Race, he writes,

Earlier it was suggested that prevailing wages should reduce employment opportunities for groups subject to racial discrimination, such as blacks. The historical evidence is that from the very beginning some proponents of the Davis-Bacon Act and companion state legislation wanted to reduce construction employment for African-Americans.(17) Although a detailed examination of this issue as it pertains to Michigan is beyond the scope of this study, some descriptive statistical evidence is consistent with the view that the Michigan law has disadvantaged blacks more than whites,

.

2) In 1993 the Washington DC-based Institute for Justice filed suit against the Department of Labor regarding the Davis-Bacon Act, arguing in part that

The Davis-Bacon Act was passed in 1931 at the urging of unions to stifle competition from migrant black workers by requiring "prevailing wages" on all federal construction projects....

The National Association of Minority Contractors has opposed the law due to its devastating impact on minority contracting opportunities. The black unemployment rate in the construction industry in the fourth quarter of 1992 was 26.8 percent -- more than twice the white unemployment rate.

3) This was also the position taken by USA Today in 1993:

The 1931 legislation designed to keep black construction workers from jobs on Depression-era public works projects continues to promote discrimination six decades later.

The U.S. can be proud of the strides made over the past several decades toward ensuring legal equality for black Americans. Especially since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Federal government has engaged in massive efforts to stamp out discrimination. Yet, since 1931, that same government has aided and abetted racial discrimination through enforcement of an expensive Jim Crow law known as the Davis-Bacon Act.

Passed at the beginning of the Depression at the instigation of the labor union movement, Davis-Bacon was designed explicitly to keep black construction workers from jobs on Depression-era public works projects. Today, the act continues to restrict the opportunities of blacks on Federal and Federally subsidized projects by favoring disproportionately white, unionized, and skilled workers over disproportionately black, non-unionized, and unskilled ones.

By the 1930s, most major unions that represented skilled construction workers completely excluded blacks from their ranks. A few others relegated them to segregated locals. Despite their general exclusion from craft unions and discrimination in vocational education and occupational licensure, construction in the South in 1930 provided blacks with more jobs than any industry except agriculture and domestic service. Because the effects of union and educational discrimination hardly were felt in unskilled construction jobs, blacks performed most of that work in the South. They also did much skilled construction work there, composing 17% of southern carpenters, for example.

4) In 2002 the US Senate Republican Policy Committee advocated for the repeal of Davis-Bacon. I'm not citing this one for the economic arguments that the Republicans used, but for the direct quotations of period participants that pretty thoroughly refutes Dr Belman's 1997 assertion that race had nothing to do with Davis-Bacon:

In the first half of the 20th century, southern black migrants were able to compete with exclusive white northern unions by offering to do the same jobs for less, evoking economic and racial animosity toward black labor. In one infamous episode, a 1917 union-led demonstration in East St. Louis to protest the “growing menace” of “[t]he immigration of the Southern Negro into our city” erupted in violence that left 39 blacks dead.

While W.E.B. DuBois blamed “[Samuel] Gompers and his Trade Unions,” American Federation of Labor (AFL) President Gompers blamed local businessmen who had “lur[ed] colored men into that city to supplant white labor.”

Representative Robert Bacon was a Long Island Republican who once introduced a statement from 34 professors into the Congressional Record calling for limits on immigration from countries “in which the population is not predominantly of the white race.” Bacon’s complaints about an Alabama firm that brought in black laborers for a federal construction contract in his district found an audience with Republican Senator and former Labor Secretary James J. Davis of Pennsylvania.

Racial resentment permeated debate over Davis-Bacon. Testifying in favor, AFL President William Green complained, “Colored labor is being brought in to demoralize wages.”

Representative John Cochran, a Missouri Democrat, commented:

“I have received numerous complaints in recent months about southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing in employees from the south.”

Alabama Democrat Representative Miles C. Allgood described why 1931 was a particularly important moment to block minority laborers from public works jobs:

“Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. That is a fact. That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country. This bill has merit, and with the extensive building program now being entered into, it is very important that we enact this measure.”

Representative William Upshaw of Georgia responded wryly to Representative Bacon’s parochial interest:

“You will not think that a southern man is more than human if he smiles over the fact of your reaction to that real problem you are confronted with in any community with a superabundance or large aggregation of negro labor.”

The racial and economic animosity was palpable.

“What would be the result if cheap labor was brought into my city?” Representative Cochran asked. “It would be resented, and trouble would result.”

5) A Spring 2007 article in Sociation Today, The Official Journal of The North Carolina Sociological Association discusses Davis-Bacon's suspension during the Hurricane Katrina clean-up, and says,

Reinstatement of the Davis-Bacon Act was hardly a generous policy shift on behalf of New Orleans residents, especially in light of the act's historical entanglement in explicit racism and discriminatory practices (Bullock and Frantz 2005). Rather, reinstatement of Davis-Bacon served as an extension of previous neoconservative and neoliberal racial projects organized around labor: it is "simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines (Omi and Winant 1994, p. 56)." This occurs through two mechanisms: 1) racialization of laborers and 2) the state's use of color-blind language to initiate or amend a variety of policies.

6) Finally, this from the Foundation for Economic Education in 1994:

Davis-Bacon, passed in 1931, requires private contractors to pay “prevailing wages” to employees on all construction projects receiving more than $2,000 in federal funding. The Secretary of Labor is charged with conducting surveys of a region’s wages and setting rates for up to 100 various classifications of workers. Most often, the “prevailing wage” corresponds to the union wage, especially in urban areas, where union membership tends to be higher. The Davis-Bacon Act covers approximately 20 percent of all construction projects in the United States and affects more than 25 percent of all construction workers in the nation at any given time.

The Act was passed in order to prevent non-unionized black and immigrant laborers from competing with unionized white workers. The discriminatory effects continue, as even today minorities tend to be vastly under-represented in highly unionized skilled trades, and over- represented in the pool of unskilled workers.

Half a dozen citations ranging from 1993-2007 should serve to illustrate several points:

a) It is the generally scholarly consensus that racial discrimination played a HUGE role in the passage of the Davis-Bacon Act, and that the Unions expressed a strong interest in the act's passage explicitly to restrict the opportunities of black workers, who were most usually segregated at that time in "colored locals."

b) The history of labor unions in America, while notable for the many contributions that those organizations have made on behalf of the working class, is also a history that includes considerable incidents of both systematic and episodic racism, sexism, and nativism. To a large extent these elements have disappeared in the labor movement today (except for the nativist strain), but to pretend that they did not exist is disingenuous at best.

c) Dave Burris may be right or wrong with regard to his economic and political arguments about the Prevailing Wage act in Delaware, but his comments on the unions' original intent to use the law to keep black workers out of competition for high wages, or the fact that many analysts today see prevailing wage laws continuing to discriminate against minorities, is a mainstream argument and does not constitute playing the race card.

To suggest otherwise in the face of overwhelming evidence is--well--disgusting.

Cara explains anti-rape campaign that blames the victim

I'm asking you to visit The Curvature and take the time to read Cara's long post on the British NHS "Know Your Limits" campaign that is actually an anti-drinking campaign, but uses women being raped to make a very bizarre argument.

It is a long post, and does not lend itself to abstracting. If you want to get the most out of it, however, first visit the "Know Your Limits" site and play the game as a female. Make the most dangerous choices you can make (chat up the cute guy, take a drink, ride in a taxi home), and see what happens.

Then visit Cara and find out the subtext of what's really going on.

President Ron Paul's First Day (and 4,000 vaginas): thoughts from the Dr. No spectrum

I'd actually say that, at this point, Ron Paul has about the same chance of becoming President as John Edwards--which is, to say, not much. But stranger things have happened (the Election of 1824 comes to mind), so it's worth thinking about.

Econlog devoted a post to that very speculation in December: "What Could President Paul Actually Do?"

I'll give you the teaser (it's not a very long post):

What would happen if Ron Paul actually became president? First, I'd have to write a $200 check to Walter Block. But what would happen next?

There are some major changes that Paul could make unilaterally. He really could recall U.S. troops from not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but all over the world. I believe he would really do so, and despite the radicalism of this change, I'm confident that these orders, however unpopular, would be obeyed. Perhaps there would be a 2% chance of a coup if he made the changes overnight, but that's about it.

Furthermore, there are a number of "executive order" policies that he could change with the stroke of a pen. If I understand the law correctly, the president could unilaterally end affirmative action in federal hiring (and the hiring of federal contractors). And he could probably stop federal prosecutions for the sale of medical marijuana.

It goes on from there to discuss legislation, the Federal Reserve, and other Paulist ideas, along with a frank assessment of what would and wouldn't go anywhere.

I am reminded in some ways of a Ross Perot self-funded infomercial from 1992, when he had Congresswoman Barbara Jordan reassure America that nothing horrible would happen if he won.

At the other end of the coverage spectrum on Ron Paul these days there is Encyclopaedia Dramatica, a Wikipedia-like political satire site that is crude (don't say you weren't warned) and occasionally piercingly funny:

How to identify a Paultard

Part-time Ron Paul supporter. Full-time failure at life

Is on the internet 25 hours a day (ZOMG PARADOX)

Is obese

Is a virgin who couldn't get laid in Bangkok.

Has achieved an operating thetan level of 4 or higher.

Can't vote due to inmate status, lack of citizenship, or being sixteen years old. Would gladly give their frail body up to Dr. Ron's cum-shooter

Lives in Montana, Wyoming, Texas, New Hampshire, or outside of the USA, where they can be found in the basement of their parent's house.

Always bitching about the property taxes he doesn't pay on the house he doens't own, even while attending public schools....

Cant get through reviewing the toaster he bought on amazon.com without mentioning VOTE RON PAUL 2008 over 9000 times....

Insults anyone who thinks Ron Paul isn't Jesus.

Constantly mentions that Ron Paul has delivered over 4,000 babies, as if pulling babies out of some lady's vagina earns you the right to be president.

Somehow I take these two very different approaches to Ron Paul as ends of a spectrum. Is Dr. No the wingnut goldbug [racist] comic relief that his detractors claim, or is he a man with a deep reverence for the Constitution, a new vision for America, and a better understanding of the economy than the Federal Reserve that his supporters see.

To which I am coming to believe the answer is YES.

I can't dismiss the fact that Paul is anti-gay, anti-abortion, and allowed publication of those newsletters under his name. Just like I can't dismiss Mike Huckabee wanting to amend the Constitution to make it read like "God's law."

But I also can't dismiss thoughtful Paul supporters like Brian, Shirley, or Tyler, who see in him a chance, not that much of one, but at least a chance to take back the government for the people and the Constitution.

So I'm wondering what happens to all the Paul supporters who have shelled out their money if he doesn't win the nomination.

He said, pretty definitively, on Glenn Beck's program the other day that he is NOT planning to run as an Independent. Now he obviously has to say that, but he sounds fairly serious, not to mentioned detailed about his reasons.

Thus the Republicans will have either Mitt or McCain running against Clinton or Obama, and between the four of them there's not a dime's worth of difference insofar as Libertarians and other fellow travelers are concerned. Do they hold their nose and vote for the infamous "lesser of two evils"?

In this case, how would you tell? Romney panders, McCain ultimately has positions that do not differ substantially from Clinton's, Clinton is a corporatist masquerading as a progressive, and Obama's lack of experience will inevitably lead him to be as much a prisoner to his advisers as Bush has been.

Do the Paulists all go home and sit out election day? If they do, will we ever hear from them again as a concerted movement?

(I'm thinking William Jennings Bryan and the Populists here.)

Or is there somebody ready to step up and turn this campaign into a sustained political movement?

I don't see anyone on the horizon right now, but you never know.

Redundant proof that Dinesh D'Souza is an idiot: hedonistic libertarians

This from the Official blog of the Libertarian Party [and what I want to know is why haven't we privatized it?]:

I celebrated Christmas yesterday with my family back home in South Carolina. While a seemingly innocuous event, my celebration of Christmas may come as a great shock to people like Dinesh D'Souza, because I am what you may call. . .a libertarian.

According to D'Souza, who recently blogged about Christopher Hitchens' appearance at a Reason magazine Christmas event, "many libertarians are basically conservatives who are either gay or druggies or people who generally find the conservative moral agenda too restrictive." Because D'Souza believes libertarians embrace "much wider parameters of personal behavior," he sees most libertarians as hedonistic atheists, and uses a tipsy Hitchens as the chief example of our disdain for morality.

As a devout Southern Baptist, I was taken aback. After all, I am neither gay nor a drug user, and consider myself to be very socially conservative. But such petty stereotypes demonstrate that the accuser has either a very tenuous understanding of the libertarian philosophy or is just stupid. In D'Souza's case, I would hope it is merely the first.

Sorry, I'm beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt.

A virus of the mind: with NO apologies to Richard Dawkins

I actually saw this first about a year ago, was impressed, and then lost the file.

Serendipity is a wonderful thing.

While I was looking for an Indian Libertarian, I stumbled across it again.

In this incarnation it's called Glimpse of the Future. The post itself does not have a unique URL, so you will have to scroll pretty far down the page to find it.

The intro says, "The following is a text excerpt from an educational slide show, which—due to its fascinating content—meanwhile has gone viral on the Internet." That would make it, at least from some perspectives, a virus of the mind.

[Richard Dawkins, noted evolutionary biologist, notorious atheist, and purveyor of the (I sincerely believe) soon-to-be-discredited serious theory of memes, once wrote an article in an anthology praising Dennis Dennett, where he likened religion to a virus of the mind. The article was not worth reading, and barely worth stealing from.]

But this is good stuff:

Did you know?

Sometimes size does matter.

If you’re one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.

The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of North America.

In India, it’s the top 28%.

Translation for teachers: they have more honors kids than we have kids.

China will soon become the number one English-speaking country in the world.

If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China, it still would have a labor surplus.

[In the next five minutes]
60 babies will be born in the U.S.
244 babies will be born in China.
351 babies will be born in India.

And this:

1 of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.

There are over 106 million registered users of MySpace (as of September 2006).

If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico).

The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.

Did you know?

We are living in exponential times.

There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.

To whom were these questions addressed B.G. (before Google)?

The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.

There are about 540,000 words in the English language, about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.

More than 3,000 new books are published—daily.

It is estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (1.5 x 1018) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year.

That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.

For students starting a four-year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

It is predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.

I can vouch for the accuracy of only a few of these statements, but those I know are accurate.

The perspective is simultaneously daunting and exciting.

There's more; it's worth the few minutes it will take you to read it.

Unfortunately, if you give it serious thought it will take quite a bit more time out of your day.

By the way, there ARE Indian Libertarians

Regular readers are aware that I have been posting a lot on India's automobile industry, which has led me to a lot of interesting places, including the discovery of at least one Indian libertarian (small-L but that's something) leaning blog:

Freedom Noodles: "Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all."

Doesn't post as often as you'd like (maybe once a month by a quick scan of the archives), but is interesting when it does.

Check out Women and Self Defense:

Yet another shocking incident of molestation in Mumbai has been in the news this year. The response and the advise give to women is predictable - curb your own freedom. Don't go out. Don't talk to strangers. Don't wear revealing clothes.

I an earlier post, I had talked about why I am against this kind of approach and instead suggested Self Defense as the simple solution. I got comments about it not being a long term approach that does not cut the problem at it's roots.

Worth a visit from time to time.

When blogging gets dangerous (and they come for you)

Recently I posted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's campaign to protect bloggers from Internet censorship.

Here's an example of why it's critical.

From Australia's Real World Libertarian comes a January 7 report that I just picked up that British authorities are arresting blogger Lionheart:

I am currently out of the Country and on my return home to England I am going to be arrested by British detectives on suspicion of Stirring up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.

This charge if found guilty carries a lengthy prison sentence, more than what most paedophiles and rapists receive, and all for writing words of truth about the barbarity that is living in the midst of our children, which threatens the very future of our Country.

What has become of my homeland, the land my forefathers fought and died for on the battlefields of the world when one of their children is forced into the position of facing years in prison for standing up for what is right and just within British society.

What does Lionheart's criminal hate speech consist of?

Here's a sample of what got him in trouble:

With the ongoing internal Islamic terror threat that Great Britain is facing from its British Moslem community, and the horrifying scope of the threat that MI5 have already spoken of in public, it is only a matter of time now until we switch on our T.V's or computers and watch another Islamic inspired atrocity unfolding within the British homeland with many innocent people killed like on the morning of 7/7.

Ooops sorry our Home Secretary has told us that we cannot call it Islamic terror anymore (that is an imprisonable offence now within the UK because it breaches Labours tyrannical 'community cohesion' policy), we must call it anti-Islamic activity - Work that one out because I cant, seems to me there is a screw loose somewhere.

Yep, that's hate speech, OK. Tower of London for him, and no cookies, either.

George Orwell-Lakoff admits what we've known all along

Sometimes people say the damnedest things.

Here's an admission I never expected to read from "Progressive" guru George Lakoff in his Thinking Points, A Progressive's Handbook [for] Communicating Our American Values and Vision (pp. 102-103):

Another multifaceted conservative strategic initiative is "tort reform," which has been made to sound like it is just about capping large damage awards and lawyers' fees. It is really a destruction of the civil justice system's capacity to deter corporations from acts that harm the public, since it is the lawyers' fees that permit the system to function. Moreover, if successful, it will also dry up one of the major sources of campaign finance for progressive candidates, which comes from trial lawyers.

You can handle the implications for yourself.

Kilroy has it first: Delaware to imitate British government's cannibalism

Regular readers will recall my coverage of the British government's move toward involuntary organ donation.

Now, as Kilroy's Delaware reports, HB 302 proposes to bring this ghoulish practice to Delaware.

According to HB 302, the current opt-in organ donation would be converted to an opt-out. In other words, if you don't go to the trouble to insure you're on record about NOT donating your organs, the government and hospitals will be legally entitled to harvest them upon your death without any further permission.

I am an organ donor. I support the concept.

But the process has to be completely voluntary, or the next step will inevitably be the involuntary harvesting of organs from executed criminals, followed by....

Yeah, yeah, I can hear it now--"Another Libertarian slippery slope argument"--but I can also feel my feet (not to mention my kidneys) going out from under me.

Why China's coal problem matters to you

The difficulty with understanding issues like global warming (beyond the simplistic Al Gore "the US is the energy satan of the world" interpretation) and the world economy is that, quite simply, most Americans don't have a single damn clue about conditions in other countries.

For example, we hear often enough about China as a growing competitor on the world oil market, which is partly responsible for driving our domestic energy prices up, but do we ever examine the internal energy situation in China?

Again I go back to Al Jazeera:

China is facing its worst-ever power shortage as winter weather puts pressure on dwindling coal supplies.

Officials say reserves are down to emergency levels with only enough coal to power the entire country for another eight days.

According to state media the shortage amounts to nearly 70 gigawatts, equivalent to about the entire generating capacity of the United Kingdom.

Across China 13 provinces including the southern industrial and export hub of Guangdong, have already begun rationing supplies, tiggering brown-outs across large areas.

Coal provides 78 per cent of China's energy needs, and the country is the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal.

Despite the opening of at least one new coal-fired power plant per week, China cannot keep up with the demand for energy produced by rising consumer expectations and made worse by government attempts to control energy prices.

Analysts say the problem largely stems from Beijing's attempts to control inflation and avoid social unrest by controlling the price of some types of energy, like power, while allowing others like coal to be liberalised.

That has been further compounded by the winter snows which are hampering transportation of coal supplies from the coal producing areas to the power plants.

With the government unlikely to lift caps on electricity prices any time soon, the impact of the coal shortage could spread to other markets.

Why should you care? Aside from the object lesson--ala California a couple years back--that government energy regulation (especially price caps) is almost always disastrous in the long run, here's why:

In summer 2004, during China's biggest previous power shortage, a rush for individual generators and diesel to run them helped push up international oil prices.

The more you know, the scarier the future looks some days.

Some bodacious Tatas are on their way from India to you

No, India's Tata Motors is NOT exporting the new $2,500-3,000 Nano to America, but you'll be seeing Tata products on US highways by year's end.

Chrysler has signed an agreement to have Tata Motors to produce electric min-trucks for the American market:

The deal, with the US carmaker's Global Electric Motorcars unit, is for an electric version of Tata's mini truck Ace that would be sold in the United States, the report said. "The battery-operated vehicle has passed required safety and reliability tests, and the prototype is ready for production," it said, adding they will be exported as completely built units.

Tata Motors will begin exporting around 10,000 units by year-end, and ramp up to 50,000 units, it said. "We are indeed exploring the feasibility of a vehicle on the Ace platform with an electric engine suitable for the U.S., in collaboration with a U.S. company," a spokesman for Tata Motors told Reuters. "But it is premature at this stage to give any details."

I suspect the mini-trucks won't be marketed as consumer vehicles, but used in more limited industrial settings, or like the little battery-powered utility vehicles you can see tooling around Disney World.

In the meantime, we should also take notice of the fact that Renault-Nissan has announced that within 18 months it will have a competitor for the Nano in production for the Indian automobile market in the $3,000 range.

Who says markets don't work? If one entrepreneurial company builds a cheaper car to exploit a certain market niche, others will follow.

Who benefits? The consumers.

More Newspeak from Great Britain and the Dutch attack "offensive" speech

From Thoughts on Freedom--the Australian Libertarian blog--comes the report that the BBC has made another of its NewSpeak coverage decisions.

Henceforth, all acts of terrorism committed by people who happen to be Muslims shall be specifically categorized as "un-Islamic.

I think this means that BBC writers now qualify as crime reporters for the Snooze Journal.

But Great Britain's pathetic attempts at censorship pale beside the opinion of Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagenstated, that “Freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to offend."

Great Britain bans The Three Little Pigs

From Nanny Knows Best it is revealed that BECTA [the British equivalent of our Department of Education] has now officially banned The Three Little Pigs, even refusing to list a more politically correct version, The Three Little Cowboy Builders.

A BECTA panel said the Pigs "the use of pigs raises cultural issues," which is British code for may be offensive to Muslims.

Of the alternative, the panel said The Three Little Cowboy Builders would "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)."

I can't think of anything to add to that.

There is not enough money to fund a health care utopia

Advocates of single-payer health care and other government-mandated universal coverage programs consistently lead us to believe that the United States possesses the resources to provide all things to all people. From Medical Futility I picked up this editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Dr Bruce Bray, Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah:

A society with unlimited resources to dedicate to health care can pull all the stops and pay for any and all procedures and medications that may prolong life, if even for a few weeks. Unfortunately, that society or economy doesn't exist, even in the U.S., so rational medical decisions based on efficacy and cost must be made.

As every nation--including Great Britain, Canada, and Australia--has found, and as has been reported here numerous times, with any universal health care plan, rationing of services is unavoidable.

Becky explains why Big Brother won't let you have good cough medicine

Becky, my favorite Girl in Short Shorts, has an elegant and powerful post today on how the War on Drugs has affected all of us--in this particular case by preventing American consumers from getting effective cough medicine.

Why are we stuck with dextromethorphan-based elixirs that have been proven not to work?

Why do we have to visit the doctor to get a prescription for codeine-based meds that, twenty years ago, sold over the counter?

The pharmaceutical industry does not really care if anyone takes these drugs. Even though the opiates are the most effective substances known to combat pain, coughs and diarrhea—they are all ancient and can not be patented. Thirty codeine pills might put you back four bucks. No way can the drug lobby finance a presidential campaign with miserly sales like that.

Its enough to drive a person to Nyquil.

As usual, probably the most thoughtful Libertarian site on the Net.

George Orwell is still alive, but has changed his last name to Lakoff

One of the problems with Libertarians is that, frankly, the theoretical and strategic writing of self-styled Progressives is so difficult to read that we don't do much of it.

This is something we have to get over, especially as the Progressives seemed to be in full swing of pulling off the same trick that Ronald Reagan did for conservatives in the 1980s: reframing the public political discourse in their favor.

Reagan, followed by talk radio, actually managed to make the term "liberal" one that even politicians who were avowedly liberal needed to avoid if they wanted to get elected or re-elected. Liberal as a "brand" still has not been successfully rehabilitated.

On the other hand, Dubya--with a lot of help from his neo-con friends and his opponents--has managed to self-destruct the brand value of "Conservatism" that Reagan created, so much so that today Rush Limbaugh announced, "I can see possibly not supporting the Republican nominee this election, and I never thought that I would say that in my life," because, “You don’t have a genuine down-the-list conservative” among the GOP candidates.

What Rush doesn't get is that the Conservative brand has been badly enough damaged to make candidates like McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani run away from it. They all want to invoke Reagan as a great popular president, but none of them will stand out front and acknowledge his label or his ideology. That's part of the reason that Ron Paul is doing so well for an otherwise marginal candidate: he has the option of using his Libertarian brand, which--if not widely known--doesn't have the strikes against it that Conservatism now does.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Liberals have reinvented themselves as Progressives, both nationally and here in Delaware.

As Conservatives remember William F. Buckley and a few other intellectuals from the late 1950s and early 1960s who helped define the brand that launched with Barry Goldwater and triumphed with Reagan, if the Democrats win the presidency and strengthen their hold on both houses of Congress, they should thank George Lakoff.

[And they have, by the way. Just examining the endorsements on the back of his two latest books we get Tom Daschle, Robert Reich, Howard Dean, Ariana Huffington, and John Podesta all saying warm and fuzzy things. Reich says--with great accuracy--that "in the battle of ideas, George Lakoff is one of the progressive movement's five-star generals."]

Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at UC-Berkeley, and Director of the "Progressive" think-tank Rockbridge Institute. He has written voluminously on the idea of reclaiming public discourse from Conservatives (and Libertarians--he hates the free market), with works that include Don't Think of an Elephant, Whose Freedom, and Thinking Points--Communicating Our American Values and Vision. These books have in common that people who already considered themselves Liberals or Progressives love them; people who are Conservatives and Libertarians want to throw up when they read them; and most people in between (including other cognitive scientists like Steven Pinker) find the science shallow, the author self-aggrandizing, and the repetition boring. As one Liberal(!) reviewer said of Whose Freedom:

In the end, Whose Freedom? is an intensely dissatisfying book. Most of the text attempts an encyclopedic catalog of liberal and conservative versions of "freedom," but the catalog isn't exhaustive enough to be useful, and instead comes off as merely exhausting. Lakoff's attempts to connect his catalog to cognitive science are both woefully incomplete and tragically overreaching. In the end, although Lakoff shares some of my political philosophy, I wouldn't touch his science with a ten-foot pole.

No matter: what Lakoff apparently does not have in terms of intellectual scientific rigor going for him, he does have in terms of understanding how political discourse works, and how to employ blatantly Orwellian re-definitions of both terms and history to serve his political ends.

It goes way beyond the scope of the possible in a single post to give you a complete unveiling of the IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, neo-Freudian (except in this case it was your father's fault) NewSpeak Lakoff coaches Democrats to employ, but I want to give you some of the flavor of his work.

Basically, according to Lakoff, the Progressive idea of Freedom is the traditional American way, based on the "nurturant family model" of thinking that builds empathy, the ability to understand systemic causation, and a commitment to building a just and fair society. Everyone from George Washington forward who did anything positive in American history did so because he or she was really a Progressive.

Individualism, self-reliance, and free markets are a myth perpetuated by Conservatives whose thinking is based on the "strict father model" of thinking that leaves them callous to anybody else, unable to comprehend anything but direct causation, and committed to building a society in which a few privileged people enjoy disproportionate wealth that they got by screwing everybody else to keep them poor. This was actually the ideology that preceded the Constitution.

In the middle are not Moderates but (I couldn't make this up) "bi-conceptuals," who operate from the Progressive nurturant empathetic model in some areas of their lives, but fall back on the Conservative strict father callous model in other areas.

It is not possible to distort Lakoff's message through hyperbole, because that is his stock in trade.

OK, let's just try three examples from Whose Freedom (which is really the one you should read; it pretty much covers his intellectual and propaganda waterfront).


Case one: Lakoff's mythological American history (p. 88)

For me, the proudest moments in American history have been our gains in freedom. It began with America's independence from the rule of King George III and the establishment of a democracy--beautiful, but with imperfections. We gained freedom from external authoritarian rule, but there was still freedom to be gained at home. [emphasis added]

Notes:

1) Lakoff apparently stopped reading about the American Revolution in the sixth grade, because he seems to lack any appreciation for (a) Parliament's role in actually running the British Empire; or (b) the fact that tens of thousands of Americans actually fought for the British because they conceived of themselves as Englishmen first and foremost; it was a civil war.

2) Lakoff doesn't appear to understand the difference between a democracy and a republic.

3) To claim that we fought against the abstract principle of "external authoritarian rule" would have come as a surprise to the people like, say, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, or Thomas Jefferson who had this corny idea that we were fighting "No taxation without representation." But, you see, it would not fit into Lakoff's "framing" of history to note that the American Revolution was in fact, functionally, a gigantic tax revolt against paying for government infrastructure that played itself out again and again throughout our history (don't you wonder what he would make of the Whiskey Rebellion?).

What Lakoff is interested in constructing here--and in other places--is what real historians call a "useable past"--a mythical past cherry-picked from the available evidence to support a present-day ideology. Give Lakoff American history and his love for "systemic causation" goes right out the damn window. Lakoff uses history not to explain or explore the past, but to justify his present-day agenda. (Which is not to say that Conservatives don't do the same thing.)

Case Two: Lakoff as oppressive champion

Throughout the book, Lakoff purports to champion the 45 million people caught in the "cheap labor trap," who deserve to be taken care of, because it is they who actually do all the work that builds the prosperity for the other seventy-five percent of the population. And to tell them that they can ever escape their plight--as Conservatives or Libertarians do--by personal responsibility or bootstrapping is just plain untrue (and probably evil as well) (p. 157):

As I have pointed out, forty-five million people cannot, all at once, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become successful entrepreneurs or get better jobs. Those jobs are not there; the capital for starting that many businesses is not there. And anyway, who would do the necessary jobs that those forty-five million are performing now at low wages--picking fruit and vegetables, working in slaughterhouses, flipping burgers, waiting on tables, cleaning houses, caring for kids, doing day labor, cleaning buildings, pulling up weeds, washing cars--in short, doing the hundreds of jobs that pay very little but are absolutely necessary to our current lifestyles? A quarter of our working population is not even mentioned in the economic liberty myth. They hold up the lifestyles of the top three-quarters of our population, but they are caught in the cheap labor trap. [emphasis added]

Do I really need to parse this for you?

1) If the jobs are not there, then what the Progressives want to do is keep all those people in menial positions, just treat them a little better....

2) As evidenced by the fact that Lakoff sees our society as totally dependent on keeping one-quarter of our workers doing shit jobs or the economy will collapse. They can't get out--in fact Lakoff can't allow them out, so he will propose drugging them with government programs (the new Marxism's opiate for the masses now that religion is out of fashion) and keeping them right where they are. He'd just add health care and dignity to flipping burgers and washing cars.

3) And if Lakoff is right? Does he seriously believe he will get far being honest enough to tell the 75% of us he sees as parasites (note that this would include the middle class, given his statistics) that what he wants them to vote for is a massive transfer of their own wealth (but not opportunity) to the poor.

Case Three: most wealth is bad, but that of lawyers is good, very good

In most cases, Lakoff will repeatedly slip in the idea that that those with wealth (even middle class wealth) are parasites who want to use the "common wealth" without paying for it, and that there should not be "extremes" of wealth (or, apparently, concentrations of capital outside the government) in a just society. Too much wealth is not a good thing--except for trial lawyers. (p. 166)

When corporations harm members of the public, the civil justice system takes over where the criminal justice system leaves off. The civil justice system is best understood as a metaphorical version of the criminal justice system. In the civil justice system, the criminals are corporations, the victims are plaintiffs, the trial is a lawsuit, and there are a judge and a jury and a defense attorney. The biggest difference is that the roles of police, detectives, and prosecutors are all performed by trial lawyers, and the funding for the detective work and the prosecution all comes from attorney's fees.

First thought: did John Edwards write this?

Second thought: wow, Lakoff actually expresses a pseudo-Libertarian argument, since the attorneys he has performing the work of detectives, police, and prosecutors are all private attorneys working for a profit. You mean to tell me that the privatized civil justice system is a good idea? More to the point, Lakoff has apparently never heard of the concept that medical malpractice lawsuits are making it impossible for doctors to practice in some areas, and are among the largest expenses that all health care providers share. (In a single-payer system where costs are capped, would Lakoff give doctors sovereign immunity from malpractice suits?)

While CEOs are castigated for salaries that today amount to an average of $15.1 million/year, Lakoff is apparently OK with $30,000/hour attorney billing rates and the estimated $30 Billion cut that a small handful of law firms took out of the various tobacco settlements.

Apparently trial lawyer wealth is good wealth.

I am not doing Lakoff justice here. He has developed a comprehensive, Orwellian program not only to redefine the meaning of freedom, but to claim that his Progressive vision was the original American tradition (when in fact the Progressive vision, as Lakoff understands it, did not even emerge until the very late 19th Century), and then to place hideously simplistic straw-man arguments in the mouths of his opponents.

Lakoff's work is best understood as political propaganda rather than cognitive science or political science; he ignores or distorts all data that does not fit his paradigm, and pursues (even half-way admitting this when he notes that if you get the conceptual frames right, then the facts themselves don't matter) a "big lie" philosophy that would make Adolf Hitler proud and probably inspire George Orwell to write 1985 because Winston Smith didn't take it on the chin hard enough in the first book.

But Lakoff is dead right on one point. If Progressives succeed in re-defining all the terms and re-writing history into their own form of self-serving ideological myth, they will take over political discourse in this country, probably for a very long time.

And they seem to be doing it.

That's why, as much as I hate to send him the royalties, you need to go out and buy George Lakoff's books and read them.

We have spent too much time over the past 16 years in two different presidential administrations having the truth re-defined and debased by the Clintons and the Bushes to allow such a "Progressive" agenda to derail America at the very time we need to be able to deal in facts and data to meet the very real challenges of the 21st Century.

Using the profit motive to attack global child malnutrition: why it could work, but won't happen

If I asked most people about the major health problem in sub-Saharan Africa, how likely would I be to hear about soaring HIV rates in places like Malawi, Zaire, Botswana, or even--recently--South Africa?

How long has it been since some rock-star celebrity with an American flag sewn inside his jacket convinced Dubya to pony up more American dollars for HIV in Africa?

In 2006 the international community spent approximately $350 Billion on HIV/Aids, the overwhelming bulk of which was spent in the developing world (think Africa and Asia) where roughly 380,000 children under the age of 15 died from the disease.

But according to the British medical journal The Lancet, this has been a fairly substantive policy error, because what we should be spending money on is combating malnutrition during pregnancy and the first two years of a baby's life.

According to researcher Bruce Cogill, malnutrition was responsible for 2.2 million deaths of children under 5 in 2005, and in 2006 the TOTAL global spending on nutrition aid was $250 million--just 0.7% of the funds expended to combat HIV/Aids.

"If you eliminated malnutrition, you would prevent 35 per cent of child deaths globally," Cogill said, noting that 11% of the entire global disease burden results directly from early childhood malnutrition.

The Lancet's editor, Dr Robert Horton, argues that this early intervention is critical:

"Undernutrition is the largely preventable cause of over a third - 3.5 million - of all child deaths. Stunting, severe waste wasting and intrauterine growth restriction are among the most important problems. There is a golden interval for intervention: from pregnancy to 2 years of age. After age 2 years, undernutrition will have caused irreversible damage for future development towards adulthood."

Moreover, additional studies in the journal showed that 80% of the world's malnourished children live in just 20 countries (which contain 67 million affected children), rendering it possible to develop a carefully targeted intervention program.

It's all so logical that I'm betting (as much as I don't want to) that it won't happen. Why?

1) HIV/Aids is "sexy" in a media sense; it sells, and there is sufficient impact of the disease in industrialized nations to help keep up the drumbeat to "find a cure" or "develop a vaccine."

2) Malnutrition, except when it's tied to genocide (like Darfur), is old news. We've all seen Sallie Struthers waddle through villages for some child-saving charity on late-night cable to become numb to it. We tend to believe that global hunger or malnutrition is a problem that could not be so easily solved.

3) Neither the UN nor the various NGOs that justify their existence by intervening in such problems have a great stake in actually seeing them ended, and they are so administratively cumbersome and corrupt that they probably couldn't complete the job if they tried.

Here's what The Lancet said about the current system of nutrition relief:

The final paper in the series states that the international nutrition system - made up of international and donor organisations, academia, civil society, and the private sector - is fragmented and dysfunctional, and needs reform, say authors of the fifth and final paper in the series. They say: "Financial, intellectual, and personal linkages bind these organisations loosely together as components of an international nutrition system... we argue that such a system should deliver in four functional areas: stewardship, mobilisation of financial resources, direct provision of nutrition services at times of natural disaster or conflict, and human and institutional resource strengthening." Their analysis of evidence to date finds that currently, there are substantial shortcomings in each of the areas above. Fragmentation, lack of evidence for prioritised action, institutional inertia, and failure to join up with promising developments in parallel sectors are recurrent themes. Many problems are systemic within organisations in the field.

There seem to be two ways to approach this issue: statist and libertarian.

The statist solution would (obviously) be to empower one massive bureaucracy, demand huge contributions from the industrialized world, and then waste much of the money delivering a fraction of the goods through the corrupt and inefficient governments of the affected nations. You know, employ the same strategy that has so effectively wiped out HIV/Aids with that $350 Billion per annum....

What about a libertarian solution?

Just thinking out loud here, but let's start with the reasonable assumption that better nutrition, less childhood stunting, and far lower childhood mortality rates would lead to a generally healthier and more economically productive population in whatever country we're talking about....

Those healthier people constitute potential future customers (assuming global warming doesn't kill them all over the next forty years and make the point moot) for a wide variety of products marketed by (you guessed it) the industrialized world.

So what would happen if an entrepreneur came along who convinced, say, Kraft General Foods, Nestle, General Mills, and a few others in the global food business to pay him or her to develop brand consciousness among 67 million Third World children (and their parents) by delivering food and blatant product advertising into starved areas at the same time?

[Well, the first thing that would happen is that the crass entrepreneur would be pilloried by the mainstream media, but I'm conducting a fantasy here, so let me be.]

Last year, Kraft General Foods took in some $8.5 Billion world-wide, and even with a write-off of some $300-400 million to marketing and R&D, made a $702 million profit (down 30% from the previous year's $1 Billion). In that year, Kraft spend $1 Billion on media buys--or roughly four times the global expenditure on fighting childhood malnutrition.

Want to bet that Kraft could be enticed into dropping $50-75 million into a malnutrition program if it was allowed to include commercial branding materials like Kraft bibs, T-shirts, etc. etc.

General Mills in 2007 took in somewhere in the vicinity of $12 Billion, roughly one-sixth of which came from international sales. Again, want to bet against GM being unwilling to make a speculative investment of $75-100 million to develop a marketing presence in those 20 countries?

Nestle, the world's largest food company, reported that its profits, not revenue but profits, grew last year to $3.39 Billion.

Now Nestle is a controversial company--involved in controversies in the late 1970s over its baby milk formula marketing in Africa, its pet food in Latin America, its bottle water problems, and allegations that the company uses forced labor in producing chocolate.

But a controversial company is one that is in the most need of building brand loyalty, and the sort of program I'm suggesting would allow Nestle to donate, say, $150 million (plus marketing materials) to my hypothetical third-party entrepreneur, who would be able to sell the giant company as rehabilitating its image.

Here's the point: a profit motive could be used to develop a resource base very quickly that would be able to expend far more than the insignificant $250 million that the UN and all the NGOs now piffle away on childhood malnutrition.

But again, it won't happen, because the outcry would be that these mercenary companies were victimizing these babies by brainwashing them to buy their products. Worse, the idea that my hypothetical entrepreneur might actually get rich off this business (call it "Feed the World's Children, Inc.") would cause diplomats and world leaders to step in with indignation (and hands out).

Oh well. For a moment it all seemed possible.

The reality is that governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations simply are not set up to mobilize and deliver a program to end childhood malnutrition because that might mean overtly employing the profit motive.

They'd rather line the pockets of Kofi Annan's son, as with the Oil for Food program in Iraq.

The Bloggers' Bill of Rights: The Blue Ribbon Campaign against online censorship

If you pay attention to all the icons and widgets running down the sides of web pages, you'll notice that I just added the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Blue Ribbon Campaign against online censorship.

The EFF itself was a joint creation of former Sun Microsystems' designer John Gilmore, along with Mitch Kapor, John Perry Barlow, and Steve Wozniak. Gilmore himself is a Libertarian Purist, as you can tell by his website, which looks kooky until you read closely and check out his credentials.


John himself looks a lot like what I expect most folks think the stereotypical Libertarian does (am I right, Shirley?), but like all seminal thinkers he keeps drawing you back in. By the way, the fire in the back is not from a burning cross, no matter what those who worry about Libertarians may tell you.

Anyway, the campaign against online censorship is specifically targeted toward blogger's rights, and its initiatives read like a virtual Bloggers' Bill of Rights:

You Have the Right to Blog Anonymously. EFF has fought for your right to speak anonymously on the Internet, establishing legal protections in several states and federal jurisdictions, and developing technologies to help you protect you identity. With your support, EFF can continue to defend this right, conducting impact litigation to establish strict standards to unmask an anonymous critic in more jurisdictions.

You Have the Right to Keep Sources Confidential. In Apple v. Does, EFF is fighting to establish the reporter's privilege for online journalists before the California courts. With your support, EFF can defend news bloggers from subpoenas seeking the identity of confidential sources in more jurisdictions.

You Have the Right to Make Fair Use of Intellectual Property. In OPG v. Diebold, Diebold, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, had sent out copyright cease-and-desist letters to ISPs after internal documents indicating flaws in their systems were published on the Internet. EFF established the publication was a fair use. With your support, EFF can help fight to protect bloggers from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits.

You have the Right to Allow Reader's Comments Without Fear. In Barrett v. Rosenthal, EFF is working to establish that Section 230, a strong federal immunity for online publishers, applies to bloggers. With your support, EFF can continue to protect bloggers from liability for comments left by third parties.

You Have the Right to Protect Your Server from Government Seizure. In In re Subpoena to Rackspace. EFF successfully fought to unveil a secret government subpoena that had resulted in more than 20 Independent Media Center (Indymedia) news websites and other Internet services being taken offline. With your support, EFF can hold the government accountable for investigations that cut off protected speech.

You Have the Right to Freely Blog about Elections. EFF has advocated for the sensible application of Federal Election Commission rules to blogs that comment on political campaigns. With your support, EFF can continue to protect political blogs from onerous campaign regulations.

You Have the Right to Blog about Your Workplace. EFF has educated bloggers on their rights to blog about their workplace and developed technologies to help anonymous whistle bloggers. With your support, EFF can help shape the law to protect workplace bloggers from unfair retaliation.

You Have the Right to Access as Media. EFF has educated bloggers on their right to access public information, attend public events with the same rights as mainstream media, and how to blog from public events. With your support, EFF can fight for bloggers right to access as media.

Know Your Rights and Prepare to Defend Them. EFF has created the Legal Guide for Bloggers to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger and a guide on How to Blog Safely. With your support, EFF can expand and update these guides.

These two guides, for which I have given you the direct links, are outstanding--and are of particular interest in Delaware given the discussions about anonymous blogging that have been going on this winter.

I think this is worth supporting. I hope you will, too.

Again, Strange Maps: US Life expectancy

US life expectancy in 2000 was 77.1 years (obviously averaged for gender differences, but I wanted a fairly simple figure). We often see figures on life expectancy used in debates over health care, pointing out that the US has a fairly low life expectancy as far as industrialized nations go.

But what that leaves out is the wide regional variety in life expectancy across our nation.

Strange Maps (remember their map of state GDPs equated to foreign countries?) also has a map that equates the life expectancy in each state of the union with that of its nearest analog abroad.

All of you who are aficionados of Michael Moore's Sicko (and if you are, what are you doing here, anyway? gathering ammunition?) will recall that the fat boy grew positively rhapsodic about the better health care to be found in Cuba.

Which is a good thing for those of us who live in Delaware, I guess, since our life expectancy most closely equates with Castro's workers' paradise. The BAD NEWS is that Cuba and Delaware share a life expectancy of 76.2 years, almost a full year less than the US average.

It is good, apparently, to live in Minnesota, which shares with Australia a life expectancy of 79.8 years (the cold must freeze out the aging process), and not so good at all to live in Washington DC (which, like Lithuania, forecasts death at only 69.1 years).


Overall good news: no state got anywhere close to comparing to failed states in Africa, although the North Carolina-Czech Republic (74.5 years) and the South Carolina-Qatar (72.4 years) correlations should not be comforting to the citizens on either side of South of the Border.

Overall bad news: no State approached the 80.7 years of Japan, and certainly not the 83.5 years of Andorra. But on the other hand, I'll bet you couldn't find 83.5 people in the US who could locate Andorra in the first place. (Although now you can.)

Overall weird news: Missouri is not only the geographic population center of the country, it's also dead on the national average (OK, maybe "dead on" was infelicitous phrasing).

The map is below; click on it for a larger version; go here for an easily accessible life expectancy chart.

Ma! They sold my social network to the Russkies!

You're used to the fact that about two years after you close on your house, the bank sends you a note telling you that your mortgage has been sold.

But what about your FaceBook or MySpace accounts?

The Electrionic Frontier Foundation's Deeplinks blog reports on the sale of LiveJournal to SUP, a Moscow-based company without notice to its patrons (nor will a quick view of the site reveal that fact today):

Despite strong protections in the Constitution and the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, United States law is by no means a perfect guarantor of privacy. It surprises many people to learn that U.S. courts have in the past decided that the simple act of handing data over to a company removes many of your constitutional protections over that data (though statutory protections remain).And, despite the United State's long tradition of being a free speech-friendly country, Six Apart, in an apparent attempt to fend off external domestic pressure, has removed content and cancelled accounts in an arbitrary manner that could easily chill speech among its users.

Countries like Russia have, legally and culturally, weaker protections over privacy and free speech than many users might have come to expect. Legal considerations aside, LiveJournal may come under far more intense pressure when run from Moscow than from the United States. The site is very popular among Russian-speakers (the common word for blog in Russian is taken from the site's name), and is used by opposition politicians there as much as by enthusiastic fan-fiction authors. The political status of free expression in Russia is on shakier ground, with journalists, online and off, assaulted and threatened by the authorities.

LiveJournallers, already disturbed by acts of control by Six Apart, could well find themselves caught up in far nastier fights over the public and private content held by SUP's servers. That's of particular concern for Russian users, or the many Russia-speaking LJers in the former-Soviet republics that surround Russia, who do not necessarily trust the political or business culture of Moscow....

The most important lesson for Americans and Russians alike, is to be cautious about with who and where you share your secrets. The Internet has given us the opportunity to make public and secure our own data; hopefully the next generation of social software will give us the tools to use these capabilities for ourselves, rather than entrust the responsibility to others.

This gives new meaning to the following sentence on LiveJournal's privacy policy page:

We may share your personal information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims, if in our judgment, disclosure is required or appropriate in such circumstances.

Even if your network doesn't get sold, the speed with which old privacy boundaries are crumbling catches us all eventually:

This from Privacy Maven (originally via USA Today):

Just after her honeymoon last March, Wadooah Wali took the de rigueur next step these days: She changed her status on the networking websites Facebook and MySpace from “in a relationship” to “married” and posted pictures of her partner — another woman.

The well-wishes from friends and family poured in, stoking Wali’s happiness. Then came a note that jolted her, noticeable for what it didn’t say. No congratulations. Just: “Nice pictures.”

It was from a professional contact Wali hardly knew — someone to whom she never would have sent something as personal as a wedding announcement, let alone pictures. Wali likes to keep her personal life separate from her professional acquaintances, wary that some might react negatively to her sexual orientation. But suddenly her social circles had collided.

Talk about awkward.

As Privacy Maven notes in commentary:

“Digital litter” — an even larger consequence of TMI, too much information, is a constant problem in social networking. We are still in the early days of a new social networking frontier and need to stay mindful of future implications. Information posted online is, essentially online forever, thanks, in part to Archive.org. If you’ve ever updated and revamped a Web site, you know that Archive.org likely has your early “drafts.”

If you said it online--it's out there somewhere.

Nigerian Rebels: Calling George Clooney

OK this is why you check on Al Jazeera from time to time:

Fighters in Nigeria's oil region have invited George Clooney, an actor and peace activist, to visit the region.

They have also asked for UN intervention in the conflict.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, designated Clooney as a UN "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's activities.

The 46-year-old actor has been campaigning for an end to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, and for humanitarian aid for the millions caught up in the conflict.

Nigeria's Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) congratulated Clooney on his appointment, and invited him to visit their impoverished region wracked by two years of fighting, bombings and kidnapping of foreign workers.

"Mr. Clooney, MEND extends an invitation to you to see things for yourself and is willing to work with you and other credible peace makers of international repute to stop Nigeria from plunging into the abyss of war," the group said in a statement.

I guess they didn't see Syriana.

Republicans (no, wait, Democrats!) slash science spending

I'll give you the URLs for these articles from New Scientist, but you'll either have to buy the paper copy (like I do), subscribe, or have to wait a week for them to go into the archive to read more than the teaser paragraphs. Sorry; can't control that.

But here it is:

In an omnibus funding bill passed in late December, Congress added $70 billion in extra money for the [Iraq] war. To pare down the rest by $22 billion, requested increases for three major physical science agencies--the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology--were taken away.. With this proposed level of funding, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has reported that federal investment in basic and applied research will grow by just 1 per cent in the 2008 financial year, far less than inflation, making it the fourth year in a row in which federal research investment has declined in real terms.

The effect on high-energy physics and fusion research will be nothing short of devastating....

Notice here that science funding has been slashed for the past four years--meaning twice with a Republican-controlled Congress and twice since Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi took charge (she was probably too busy changing the light bulbs to flourescents).

Maybe I can hear a hearty "so what" out there....

Who cares if the US (and the UK, which also drastically cut its research expenditures in this year's budget) doesn't actually trap a neutrino or create a positron.

How many of you--Hube, put your damn hand down--know what a neutrino, a positron, or a Higgs boson are anyway?

If so, feel momentarily ashamed, but contemplate some of the real-life consequences:

Kaname Ikeda spent the holiday break thinking about how to cope with the US decision to cut its expected $160 million contribution from ITER, the $10 billion fusion reactor project that he heads. The pay-off from ITER could be immense. If the reactor succeeds in harnessing the energy created by fusing isotopes of hydrogen, it could pave the way for commercial fusion power plants that emit no greenhouse gases and run on cheap and abundant fuel. A site for the reactor is currently being leveled at Cadarche, France. The impact of the cuts is not yet known, but the planned 2016 completion date may have to be pushed back, since the US contribution amounted to 10 per cent of the total budget.

These cuts threaten to eliminate the jobs of some 300 highly trained scientists in the US alone.

There are several ways to parse this, despite the rather sensationalist headline I used to draw you in.

First, it can't be classed as a liberal-conservative thing, since it obviously took both sides to cut science funding--I'll emphasize it again--for the fourth year in a row.

Just chalk it up to another victory for the Demopublican monopoly.

[Wonder if anybody will bother to ask any of the presidential candidates in either Demopub wing what they think about it?]

Second, the connection to the Iraq war is, I think, rather tenuous and too PC for my tastes. Nothing in the spending patterns of Congress for the past four years suggests that they have ever felt the need to economize on much of anything as a result of the Iraq war.

And if they did, individual Congressional earmarks or ethanol subsidies would have been a far better place to start.

No, I think the reality is consistent with two comments in New Scientist:

First:

The ILC [International Linear Collider] and ITER were relatively easy targets for politicians since they are both under development and being built abroad.

And then:

Astronomy and particle physics probe some of the most profound issues in science, ... but if they had to be justified on purely economic grounds, they could disappear altogether.

Now here's a place where Bill Gates or Oprah could step up to the plate: the American contribution to the ILC this year could be covered by a mere $60 million, the ITER by $160 million....

I'm sure they'd name it after you.

Sometimes "Progressives" sound like Libertarians--but only when their music is at stake

Random Net-wandering is a truly amazing thing.

I picked this one up from a progressive blog--Future Majority--which has tipped onto the story from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that the Federal government is now moving to tie funding for student loans at colleges and universities to a requirement that those same universities

purchase ... DRM-based industry-sanctioned download services and deployment of network snoopware that spies on and disconnects college kids if they appear to be violating copyright (without any hard evidence or a chance for the student to present her side of the story).

Now if we could just get them to realize that it's the same form of blackmail when the Federal government threatens to cut off highway funds to states that don't arbitrarily lower blood alcohol standards or make non-use of seat belts a primary offense.

If the behavior is unethical in one context...?

More on the Tata Nano, India's plan for small-car world domination, and the Babe of the Day

Trying to follow the story on Tata Motors new "cheap car" [they prefer "peoples' car"] has led me into some interesting places, and a look at a free-for-all if-not-exactly-free market like we normally think of it.

You will recall that in perusing Indian news sources I pointed out both the land acquisition problems that Tata was having in regard to its proposed Nano production plant in Singur, and also my discovery that the Indian constitution does not consider property a "fundamental right" any more.

So I got hooked on this story and tried to dig a little deeper.

It turns out that Tata Motors--described by the India Times as "a somewhat hidebound company"--is using the occasion of the Nano to completely re-organize its facotry system into "independent production hubs," and has dropped its plans for a Nano plant at Singur, shifting instead to Pantnagar in Uttarakhand.



I don't know where any of these places are, which is a major problem. Why?

Because the Indian government sees the Nano as only one component in making India itself the major international player in small car (say, sub-sub-sub-compact) production and export. According to the India Times economic section:

The Auto Policy 2002 and the Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016 state the government’s intention and outline the action required to make India an automotive hub. A key element of this vision is the small car. While various policy measures are under discussion within the government, the automobile industry has proactively contributed to the realisation of this vision....

There are four essential prerequisites for being called a small car hub. First the total production of small cars in India should rank amongst the top two in the world. Second, small cars should have a high share of the domestic market....

There can be no question about meeting the first requirement. Although, the numbers of cars produced in India are small compared to the US, Japan, China and other European countries, India is the third largest producer of small cars after Japan and Brazil. Small cars also account for over 71% of the domestic market.

The driving force behind this move--aside from significant government investment assisting the Indian automobile industry in becoming internationally competitive--will have to come from designers like Designer Girish Wagh: The whizkid who shaped Tata Nano, a 37-year-old design engineer who has achieved overnight superstar status in the Indian automotive world. You can tell just listening to the Tata Motors CEO talk about Wagh that he's half expecting the Whiz Kid to be spirited away:

Tata himself is more than generous in his praise for Wagh. “Girish is a terrific guy and has displayed enormous leadership qualities,” he said, just after the Nano launch.

“He takes over a responsibility and sees it through.” Of course, “no one is indispensible and Telco did go through many years of innovation without a Girish Wagh. There’s a terrific spirit in the company and we try to identify, motivate and empower that spirit. Girish is part of that process,” he said.

There's a point to all this; but first one slight detour.

Always pay attention to the scenery on your trips. In this case the scenery is the advertising on the financial pages of the India Times, which includes the University of Phoenix on-line program, Vonage internet telephone service, Vacations to Go.com, and Dish TV.


The front page of the India Times website includes stories on Al Qaeda, Brittany Spears, and the Babe of the Day, which in this case is actress Divya Khosla.

Now, the point: between global warming, outsourcing of American jobs, nuclear saber-rattling in Kashmir, India--the world's biggest and most fractious democracy--is a place the average American knows nothing about.

We're still back with Mother Theresa picking up orphan babies in Calcutta, and that's not where this country is.

As the Christian Science Monitor notes, we've not only outsourced to India answering the phone at some county government offices and the drive-through windows at some Burger Kings, we are now outsourcing the tutoring necessary for American school children to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind:

Somit Basak's tutoring style is hardly unusual. The engineering graduate spices up lessons with games, offers rewards for excellent performance, and tries to keep his students' interest by linking the math formulas they struggle with to real-life examples they can relate to.

Unlike most tutors, however, Mr. Basak lives thousands of miles away from his students - he is a New Delhi resident who goes to work at 6 a.m. so that he can chat with American students doing their homework around dinnertime.

Americans have slowly grown accustomed to the idea that the people who answer their customer-service and computer-help calls may be on the other side of the globe. Now, some students may find their tutor works there, too.

While the industry is still relatively tiny, India's abundance of math and engineering graduates - willing to teach from a distance for far less money than their American counterparts - has made the country an attractive resource for some US tutoring firms.

My favorite part of the article is when the American education bureaucrats and teachers' unions chime in:

But critics worry about a lack of tutoring standards and question how well anyone can teach over a physical and cultural gulf. The fact that some of the outsourced tutors may be used to fulfill the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) supplemental education requirements - and get federal funds to do so - has been even more controversial.

"We don't know who's tutoring the students, we don't know what their qualifications are, and we're concerned about their familiarity with the curriculum in the districts of the students they're tutoring," says Nancy Van Meter, director of the Center on Accountability and Privatization at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Ms. Van Meter says she's concerned about the lack of quality control for all tutors hired under NCLB, but "the offshore tutoring raises that issue even more dramatically than we've seen here in the States."

My guess would be that the last time Nancy Van Meter thought about India it was when she was staying up late to watch the colorized version of Gunga Din on the Superstation.

Time to wake up and realize that there's one hell of a lot out there, folks, in the rest of the world than just us, Europe, Japan, and China.

Barack Obama and Martin Luther King: getting it

Jesus ministered to the despised.

Martin Luther King dreamt of the day American would judge everyone "by the content of their character."

I may not vote for Barack Obama for President, but of everyone who issued sugary platitudes this day, he took the message and advanced it:

"For most of this country’s history, we in the African American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system and in our criminal justice system.

"And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.

"We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

"Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation."

Barack gets it.

Thanks to Waldo for this one.

OK, just to make it official: Dinesh D'Sousa IS an idiot

Not really worth reading, and I can't figure out why AOL keeps him around on a blog (much less promotes him on the home page), where pretty much all he does is shil for his own books.

The most typical lines in The Greatest African-American:

But now there are hardly any Bull Connors and Southern segregationists to fight, and so the activists are reduced to fighting "covert racism" and "institutional racism" and "racism that has gone underground" and basically racism that is only visible to them and to no one else....

The immigrants know that racism today is no longer systematic, it is episodic, and they are able to find ways to navigate around its obstacles....

At the time of his death King was peddling all kinds of impractical schemes for sharing the wealth and he also became unnecessarily involved in the anti-Vietnam movement which diluted his currency as a civil rights leader.

Does Dinesh really believe this crap, or is he (I hope) simply an amoral profiteer who's figured out that saying outrageous things (hello, Ann Coulter!) tricks some people into buying really vapid, meaningless books?

I hate it when I agree with Paul Krugman: Privatizing state lotteries

So the idea of privatizing lotteries is all the rage among cash-strapped states, USA Today and various other sources report (must be a slow news day, this has been out there for some time).

Despite the fact that it has the word "privatizing" in it, which is supposed to be sacred to Libertarians, it's a BAD idea, just like it was a bad idea when the Bush administration proposed privatizing collections for the IRS.

I rarely agree with Paul Krugman, but you have to give him credit for a great line on this one: "I used to say that conservatives want to take us back to the 1920’s, but the Bush administration seemingly wants to go back to the 16th century."

Here's the problem--or problems, as the case may be.

Taxation is the price to be paid for government. Libertarians, obviously, think there's too much of it; Progressives salivate at the prospect of it increasing so that they can get on with perfecting society. Both should agree, however, that a regression to the tax-farming practices of the Roman and Byzantine Empires is not a good thing. [For those of you who, like me, happen to count yourself as Christian, check and see if those tax collectors--who were really tax farmers (the King James' guys updated the language)--weren't generally considered the worst type of sinners around.)

If taxes are a necessary (and often unnecessary) evil, as Libertarians posit, then it is surely immoral to make a profit off of a coercive practice. Moreover, it places the entrepreneur in the position of wanting to sweat the victims as much as possible in order to wrack up a better commission.

If you are an IRS subsidiary tax collector you acquire the power to garnish wages, place liens on property, and wreck people's lives all for the sake of turning a dime off the people already being victimized by the tax code.

If you are running a lottery, you're trying to figure the best possible way to soak as much money as possible out of the plebes so that legislators won't actually have to exercise fiscal restraint.

It's blood money either way.

An economist rides to the rescue on the Prevailing Wage law

Over at First State Politics, Dave Burris has been taking a beating from the usual suspects about his stand against the Prevailing Wage law in Delaware.

It's therefore intriguing to see that in the Sunday Snooze Journal Dave gets some back-up from Dr. Eleanor Craig, a well-regarded economist who formerly chaired the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council.

Dr. Craig explains why, among other things, Delaware's lack of a right to work law and its prevailing wage law provides a huge disincentive for manufacturing jobs to come to the First State:

Delaware's prevailing wage law mandates union wages on all government contracts, increasing labor costs by 20 percent. Since half of the construction costs of buildings such as schools is labor, this adds 10 percent to all government contracts, increasing the cost of the same government services in Delaware, when compared with other states without prevailing wages.

Other state law differences are significant.

Delaware's personal income taxes are the third highest of any state, when measured on a per capita basis, and 32 percent higher than those in the average state.

Now before anybody jumps me--yes, Dr Craig is comparing Delaware to Mississippi, and I don't want to make Delaware into Mississippi for a whole lot of reasons (many of which include mosquitos large enough to show up on air traffic control radar), but....

As Dr Craig notes:

Delaware's economic health is being threatened by government actions which make other states, like Mississippi, the preferred choice for both new and old business.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank compares the health of all 50 states with an indicator model.

For the past year, ending November 2007, Delaware was ranked with the 10 states with the poorest growth prospects for income and employment, and Mississippi ranked in the 10 states with the highest potential for economic growth.

In fact, Delaware's employment growth in 2007 was one- quarter that of the U.S. and our personal income growth was three quarters as high as that in the average state.

For comparable measures, the State of Delaware also significantly lagged the other states in our region -- Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

There are elitists among us who pontificate daily about their sensitivity to the working poor:

The people receiving this prevailing wage are buying homes and shopping at establishments operated by your Chamber of Commerce friends. Be careful what you wish for.

I am happy to pay an additional 14-19% on county building projects to support this good policy. I sleep better knowing the guy hauling shingles can feed and take care of his kids.

And another:

God bless the American electricians, masons, steelworkers, and carpenters, and drywallers, and helpers! Let’s not begrudge these hard laboring salt of the earth folks a little slice of the great big subsidy pie.

And my personal favorite:

Boy oh boy. You really do have contempt for people who have to work for a living, don’t you?

But the grim reality is that you can't have it both ways.

You can't simultaneously insist on fixing wages at an arbitrary level and keeping jobs in the State.

You can't simultaneously applaud the prevailing wage law and then turn around and sock those people with the third-highest State income tax in the country and claim you're the worker's friend.

All the prevailing wage laws that the General Assembly can pass won't matter worth a damn if nobody is willing to come to the State and pay those wages. That's why Wal-Mart finds people lining up for $10/hour jobs in Delaware.

Sunday Night SF at Delaware Libertarian

Thanks to those of you who read the first installment of "Bleed" and were willing to send comments (many of my friends chose to send theirs via private email; really, guys, I'm not that sensitive).

If you didn't read Part One, you should probably do so before attempting this, because I don't do synopses:


Bleed

An original science fiction story by

Steve Newton

(c)2008; all rights reserved


Part Two:

—Space Opera, before he crashed into the Tac Console for the SRSS Jagdpanther, throwing the lieutenant manning the station back in a cinematic flood of sparks. The captain—a balding, middle-aged man in poorly fitting tights—was coming out of his seat as if in slow-motion when Denny Montoya jerked both the versers and NPCs right out of the bridge, leaving Sheridan alone with Pale Evelyn.

Nik said, >>Keep her occupied for a few seconds, John, and I can convert this into an Arena.<< Arena code-walls could isolate two or more versers from everything else—even the disengage protocols—at least in theory. Sheridan doubted that they could hold the girl, but his current strategy of hot pursuit was working very well, either. He felt like asking himself what he sometimes asked his dog when he caught the mutt chasing cars: “What are you gonna do with it when you catch it, girl?”

He thought back, I’ll see if I can get her to talk to me. But once you’ve got the Arena up, I want a complete shutdown. All the verses, all at once. That’s the only way we’re going to isolate her.

>>Shit, John. I can’t do that. The megas will close down DogFence. You may be doing this gig for kicks, but I got a mortgage and palimony to pay.<<

Surprisingly, it was Old, not Denny, who supported the Archangel.

>>He’s right, Nik. I’ve been scanning her damn code. Not only have I never seen anything like it, but I’m betting that if we really piss her off she’s got the capability to shut everything down herself. Permanently. I don’t think the megas would like that, either.<<

>>All right, all right. But Johnnie, I’ll need at least three or four minutes to set you and your sweetheart there in an independent bubble verse that’ll keep running when I tell Denny to crash the world. If she somehow groks what I’m doing and can jump out right when we flip the switch, we’re all on the street.<<

Sheridan opened his arms wide, tried to look innocent. For an Archangel—given that attitude usually had more to do with success than anything else—it was a stretch.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said softly. “I just need to know who or what you are.”

She cocked her head, blinked. Somehow, in a subliminal fashion that he’d not had time to notice before, the motions looked jerky. Not pixilated or distorted, just not quite….

Human?

“I’m Evelyn,” she said. “I work here as a servant.”

“Here? Maybe I’d buy that in Discworld or Midgard, lady, but this is a spaceship. You don’t look dressed for hard vacuum to me.”

Another look around, her eyes widening as if she was only now taking in her surroundings, another low-level feeling on Sheridan’s part that something wasn’t right.

“This is not where I stay. You frightened me, and I ran. I should go back.”

Going back was a concept he didn’t want to get any closer to.

“I’m really sorry if I scared you. On the other hand, you didn’t exactly seem defenseless.”

Now, shrinking down and pulling her tattered cloak tightly around her shoulders, Evelyn looked exactly like a desperate teenaged girl. “There are people who try to hurt me,” she said.

Denny, what was the name of the verser who died? The one who created Pale Evelyn?

>>Lark MacGowan. Johnnie, what are you thinking? Don’t spook her, for Goddess’ sake<< Sheridan didn’t answer. Sometimes you had to ignore the voices in your head.

“Are you Lark?” he asked softly. “Or did Lark create you?”

“I died,” she said. “I mean, Lark died. We were very sad, and it was hard to keep going.”

Repressing the thought that his eighth-grade English teacher would not have considered that last exposition a very good paragraph, John said, “Yes, Lark died. You didn’t exist—at least not the way you do now—before she died.”

“Lark was a bright spot. There is too much anger here. People who want to hurt others, even if the others are just shadows. Lark is different. She made me different.”

>>I need one more minute, Johnnie. Keep her talking.<<

Evelyn’s brow crinkled; she frowned, said, “The three that keep talking to you. Who are they?”

Uh-oh. This is getting way too weird.

“They’re my Wizards, my advisors. You can hear them?”

A shake of her head: again something not exactly right about the gesture.

“No, I see them connect to you. They trail behind you like spider webs.”

Old: >>She sees in code view, kid. Got to be.<<

Versers can’t access code view.

>>Don’t tell me you’re just now figuring out she’s not a verser.<<

“Why are they trying to trap me here?” It was a differently pitched voice. Harder. Sheridan flinched.

>>Ten more seconds, don’t lose her, damnit.<<

You think this is easy, you give it a try.

“Evelyn. Lark. Whoever you are, we don’t want to trap you. We just need to understand you. That’s our function. I don’t know what yours is.”

>>Now.<<

John felt the seven mindverses switch off. He had thousands of ties and anchors, so fine that they’d even continued to function at some involuntary level when Nik had constructed his isolation bubble. Now they were gone.

So was Evelyn.

* * *

>>What the hell just happened?<< Nik screamed inside his head. >>There was no place for her to go.<<

Montoya: >>Maybe you killed her, Nik. Maybe she needed the connections to survive.<<

>>Not a bloody chance of that,<< Old said. >>Her code didn’t fizzle, it left.<<

Sheridan felt his head clear. He knew where Evelyn/Lark/whoever had gone. The others would figure it out momentarily. He ignored their dialogue, concentrating on replaying the last few minutes of conversation. There was something there he’d missed. What?

>>Oh damn, we’re screwed.<< Nik again; he’d gotten it. >>She opened a portal into Anarch Key. We shut it all down for nothing. We’re toasties.<<

Only if we let her go.

Denny said, >>We can’t follow her there, Johnny. You know that.<<

I can. Old, I’m going to give you a file ID. Load Sheridan467-NKP-Aleph. Let it overwrite your control protocols.

Seconds later he sensed cynical laughter. >>You are one sneaky prick, John Sheridan. Does DogFence know you go slumming?<<

Montoya said, >>Johnny, this is a no-go. You enter the Key and we can’t even monitor you, let alone provide support. You won’t be an Archangel, just a verser.<<

Despite himself, Sheridan smiled and shot back, Denny, you always insisted that Archangel is more a state of mind than a big arsenal. Backing out on your own theory?

>>John, we can put you in there,<< Nik objected, >>but I have no idea just where she is. The Key’s a pretty big place, and your bios are already in the yellow. You don’t have a lot of time.<<

She’ll find me, Sheridan responded. Besides, we stop now and the megas close DogFence. Your board’s going to start melting with incoming in maybe fifteen-twenty more seconds. We don’t have a choice.

>>What the hell. We can spend the time working on our resumes and rebooting the rest. You got thirty minutes max, unless your BP spikes. Then I let Denny pull your plug.<<

Sheridan carefully refrained from sub-vocalizing the thought that Nik and Denny were in for a big surprise when they tried to yank him out of the Key without his concurrence.

You do what you have to do, Nik. Now send me in before they come shut you down.

* * *

Simeon Landis and Aidan Hawkfeather engineered the basic architecture underlying the mindverses in 2019, when both of them were under contract to the Perseus-Baysoft consortium. Simeon was happy: he wanted to make money. Aidan had a more philosophical bent (although he didn’t object to being wealthy), and always nursed the hope that versing would develop into an open architecture, driven from the bottom up. No such luck with the megas involved.

In 2023 Hawkfeather stole a truckload of now-proprietary code from Perseus, merged that with some new security protocols he’d been developing on the side, and launched Anarch Key. No rules, no filters, no storylines, and plenty of memory available if you wanted to create your own territory. Hawkfeather disappeared one step ahead of the summons for copyright and patent infringement, but when the megas tried to crash the Un-verse, they abruptly discovered who’d been the brains of the partnership with Landis.

Not only had Hawkfeather stolen their code, he had also interlaced the anchors of the Key into their own servers so intricately that his creation essentially represented an inoperable tumor.

Any attack on Anarch Key would take everything else down with it.

* * *

—walking down a packed earth road through an apparently endless desert of cracked earth.

He always entered through Furnace, a wasteland of minimal code that nobody but a near-cretinous local AI bothered to maintain. He appreciated its starkness.

Sheridan manifested as a gaunt, brown-skinned man with a walking stick whose features were obscured by a cowl. He switched to code view, smiling at the thought of Denny’s worry that in the Key he’d be >>just a verser.<< Old folks too often mistook their maps for the territory.

The Furnace was an entropy bowl whose forbidding visual distance disappeared when you traced the sparse lines of dun, canary, and fuschia connecting it to Jersey Shore, Wittgenstein, and Godland. He cast his awareness out, looking for any indication of shimmering black knots.

I’m here, by myself this time. Let’s talk.

She came to him out of Genesis, a whirlpool of code that—when he returned to visual—became a swirling, strato-cumulus cloud occasionally taking on a vague impression of Pale Evelyn’s face.

He waited, giving her a chance to check for anchors and traces.

The cloud coalesced into a column of translucent air and dust beside him, gradually evolving into a pale young woman with filthy, stringy black hair wearing a brown woolen cloak and cheap sandals (strap broken on the left ankle).

“Are you going to try to kill me again?”

Sheridan said, “We weren’t trying to kill you, Evelyn, just keep you tied down long enough to find out what you are.”

“This was the last place we could go. They brought back the other places, but I don’t think we can trust them any more.”

John dropped into a squatting position, tossed aside his staff.

“Oh, you can trust the fact that they’ll never be allowed to turn off all the other verses again. And they can’t mess with this one at all. It’s different.”

The girl nodded slowly, another of those not-quite-right movements. Was her face more angular here?

“Yes,” she said. “I can feel that. This place is tied into the roots of all the others.”

He drew in the dirt with his index finger.

“At first I thought you’d be some geek who’d managed to pirate Pale Evelyn after Lark died. But nobody can do what you do with code, not from home.”

She didn’t say anything.

“So I thought maybe Lark had uploaded her consciousness into the verses. Don’t know how it could be done, but everybody has always assumed that with enough processing power you could turn the trick.”

A crystalline tear appeared in Evelyn’s eye; she said, “Lark died. She was sweet, and in much pain.” The tear froze on her cheek.

“After that, it occurred to me that the code structures underneath all the verses had become rich enough to generate sapience spontaneously. But that didn’t make sense, since you’re clearly in the verses.”

Puffy white cloud-like things started to swirl around her sandaled feet.

Sheridan stood up.

“So I finally realized that the key question is not ‘Who are you?’ but ‘How many of you are there?’”

There was a long pause. The ground beneath Evelyn’s feet began to firm up and gain moisture. She couldn’t remain in a place with so little code, he realized, without quickly affecting it.

six [comparative disjunction] when [chronological determinant] started more than thirty [indeterminate estimation]

Sheridan waited. Either they would tell him or they wouldn’t. He had no power of coercion in Anarch Key.

encountered [your] wavefront emissions [?far from here?] lark did not know [annotate emphasis] sigma draconis weak [emphasis determinant] signal [incomplete disjunction] many disbelieve [?group/swarm/] survival; following to a source were [mostly] correct

John didn’t have to ask why they’d settled into the verses. There wasn’t a denser concentration of code on the planet.

“Are you explorers? Scouts?”

refugees fugitives from coherence [comparative disjunction] atavisms flee

“Resistance is futile,” Sheridan said under his breath. “Is this Coherence still seeking you?”

coherence never seeks expands weak [emphasis determinant] signal conjecture unnoticed [disjunction] why [all] agreed to take the risk

He gestured and his stick leapt into his hands. He said, “Unfortunately, your signal is very strong here, relatively speaking. You’ve left a trail that more people like me will try to follow. You do perceive that this existence is not our natural environment?”

lark taught pasts [chronological indeterminant] [?we?] have been the same lost information [interrogative disjunction] all others who come so angry

“This is where we play. Physical bodies have their drawbacks—hormones and stuff. Versers can live out their fantasies here without hurting anybody. If you want to keep on living here, you’re going to have to adopt a lower profile.” He explained that the verses except Anarch Key were commercial enterprises, a concept they clearly did not comprehend. When he outlined what DogFence did, and the role of portals and Archangels, they drew a rough comparison to certain functions of the Coherence.

prepare teach essential[s] [interrogative disjunction] prohibition reluctance

“No, I’ll teach you. It will probably work better if you just let me think about it and you skim it off the top.” Blue, scaly flower-things were emerging from the now-fertile soil at Evelyn’s feet, twining up her legs and sniffing toward him. Sheridan thought about synchronicity protocols, portals, filters, and anomaly-capture subroutines. He visualized the three meta-keys that he knew, and the passwords to a half-dozen caches of illegal spoofs. The Archangel explained again that the overwhelming strength of their codes was such that all six of them together would always eventually draw outside attention. The process took an interminable time—perhaps ten seconds.

[comprehension] distinction hiding from coherence [comparative disjunction] similarities [interrogative disjunction] speak [exchange] again

“Can you talk to me so that my Wizards can’t eavesdrop?”

two [calculated determinant] avoid stealth no observation [disjunction] location [?current?] secure six [conjunction] six know what two perceive

The longer he communicated with them, the more alien their speech (or thought) patterns became. Vaguely, he wondered why; maybe when they were communicating through Evelyn they jacked the local AI and let it handle the syntax. Later.

John could actually feel the corporate intelligence dissolving into smaller sapient units, and those sub-elements start to slip away, when—

* * *

leave [taking] lark evelyn [emotive disjunction] sorrow

* * *

—his eyes to find a concerned Denny Montoya staring down at him.

“Goddess, Johnny, you gave me a scare,” she breathed. “I thought I’d lost you.”

They were alone; Montoya explained that a few minutes earlier several dozen corporate types had descended on the DogFence compound, hauling Nik and Old out to interrogate them about the system crash. She’d barely convinced them that somebody had to stay behind to monitor the Archangel’s vitals while he cycled back out.

Then she smiled broadly, said, “But we got them, Johnny! Nik figured it out maybe a minute or two before the suits showed up. He got to wondering about the chase sequence—why she went where she did—so he had Old run the subscriptions of every verser in any of the three locations.”

Speech still somewhat slurred, Sheridan said, “What’d he find?”

“One of the Doomsday Riders, that quaddie in Masque, and the starship captain all share the same tower/block address!” she said. “We think they all got together and somehow spoofed the inactive player caches….” A rushed hypothesis followed, about a conspiracy to set up a series of bleed portals between verses.

Sheridan didn’t think Nik believed a word of it, but he had to admire the CYA instincts that had led Sebastian to compose so intricate a story so fast. Better yet, it relieved a supposedly unsuspecting Archangel of any immediate prospects of corporate debriefing.

A good five minutes before Denny would have preferred, John Clark Sheridan sat up and said, “I need to get home. I want a good night’s sleep before they think about taking a crack at me.”

She made the appropriate negating motherly noises, but Denny had never been able to refuse him anything. Ten minutes later, the Archangel hopped down the front steps and unlocked his bike from the rack. The guards knew him by sight, and already had the gate swinging open as he shifted, pedaling furiously to pick up speed for the hill just outside. He waved back at them with his typical daredevil grin as he launched into the weaving traffic.

Grand Uncle Aidan had slipped into town, which meant Mom was cooking sausage lasagna tonight. That you did not miss. Besides, since behind a dozen cut-outs Grunk actually owned DogFence, Johnny figured he’d find today’s story interesting.



Next week (if you're still with me): Incident at Gliese 581c

More from Strange Maps: the liberating power of Stalinist Marxism

Ever since A Secondhand Conjecture turned me on to Strange Maps, I have been plumbing their archives, and have found some incredible stuff. (Hube, you've really got to go there and take a look, man.)

Below is a night satellite shot of North and South Korea. The South, of course, is home to a despicable capitalist engine producing Hyundai automobiles and all sorts of other things that give rise to a country with severe income disparities and lots of social turbulence.

North Korea is one of the few remaining true Stalinist paradises on Earth (even the Chinese have been corrupted), where men are men (but have bad hair cuts), the peasants are self-reliant (and eat the bark off the trees), and the women are nearly 11 centimeters shorter (that's a little over four inches for those of you holding out for the English system) than their counterparts in the capitalist South. (Be sure not just to look at the map, but visit the original post at Strange Maps and read the whole article.)

By the way, the big blob in northwest South Korea is Seoul (23 million budding entrepreneurs); the only dot in North Korea is Pyongyang, with a population of 3 million. I remember Dan Rather commenting about ten years ago that when he went to Pyongyang to cover the nuclear issue, his tour guide told him that he must be a bigwig because his hotel suite had a light bulb in every room.

Holding my baggie in the air and smelling my shoes

Every time I reach the security gate at Philly Airport I start thinking that I should have invested in Odor-Eaters.

I take off my shoes, my belt--you know the whole meaningless drill--as TSA employees (most of whom look they could find a ham sandwich much quicker than a carry-on bomb) root through luggage and frisk your grandmother.

Then remember when you couldn't have any liquids at all, followed by the wonderful dispensation from the government that you could carry three ounces of your favorite deadly toothpaste or shampoo if you walked through the gate like a moron holding it high in a baggie?

And why?

Because some nefarious terrorist in his cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan (where they can still apparently buy the chemistry sets that are banned in Great Britain) poses a threat to whip up a massive explosive that will send our airplanes careening to the ground in large balls of fire....

Except--as the government has known since the very onset of the liquids ban--this is complete and utter bullshit.

Science fiction writer James P. Hogan is also an engineer, and in Psy in the Sky he explains what Michael Jerk-off's Department of Homeland Security doesn't want to tell you: it is a practical impossibility.

Everyone has been watching too many old Mission: Impossible, 24, or Magyver reruns.

Here's Hogan:

"We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard. . . .

Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together."

So let's take a look at what would be involved. First, you need adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Since this is hard to come by, a large quantity of the regular three per cent solution would probably have to be distilled, which is risky and carries a distinct risk of burning down the premises before even getting anywhere near an airport. But assuming this requirement is met, the remaining ingredients, acetone and sulfuric acid can be more easily obtained. Now comes the fun part. Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. You can mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, provided you keep it cool, so include several frozen gel-packs--possibly in a carry-on cooler to pass as food. Flying first class might be a way of avoiding this if the bucket of ice water that comes with the Champagne would be adequate, but the cold gel-packs should still be considered as a supplement to have available if the cookery in the aircraft's lavatory gets out of hand by bursting into flames. You will also need a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper.

Once all is safely aboard and the plane over the ocean, proceed as follows. Very discreetly, bring all of your gear into the toilet. This might require several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once everything is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide/acetone mixture into the ice bucket and start adding the acid, drop by drop, stirring constantly and watching the reaction temperature. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll get a fire or a weak premature explosion, possibly sufficient to kill you but probably no one else. After a few hours--assuming that the fumes haven't overcome you and your activities haven't aroused suspicion--you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two. Fortunately, TATP then is relatively easy to detonate. But remember, quality is all-important and demands care if true success "on an unimaginable scale" is to be achieved.

So why do we still have the 3-ounce policy?

Because the government has to do something to justify the existence of an entire, overpaid, intrusive Federal bureaucracy that refuses to employ even the most rudimentary profile-based screening while it randomly searches five-year-old children and spinsters in wheelchairs....

But I do feel so much safer.....

Putin's Nuclear Viagra: Russia states the obvious

My favorite coverage of the Russian announcement that Time Man of the Year [oops, wrong picture] Vladimir Putin's government is willing to use nuclear weapons if it gets scared is from the Xinhua News Agency: Army chief: Russia may use nuclear weapons if necessary.

The announcement was made by Russian Armed Forces' Chief of the General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky:

"We do not intend to attack anybody. But all our partners must realize that for protection of Russia and its allies if necessary armed forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons," Baluyevsky was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying at a scientific conference of the Academy of Military Sciences.

With the emergence of new threats to security, Russia needs to update a number of provisions in the existing National Security Concept, Baluyevsky said.


"As life is ever-changing, it has become necessary today to update certain provisions of the concept and, what is the most important, to turn these provisions into a working mechanism for protecting our national security," he said.

Baluyevsky's speech came a day after Georgia announced some 77 percent of the Georgian population voted for joining NATO in a recent referendum.

Georgia's possible entry into NATO will seriously change the regional geostrategic situation, Nikolai Bordyuzha, general secretary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said on Friday.

"Georgia's membership in NATO means that the military infrastructure of the alliance will advance closer to the CSTO borders and that there will be higher military activity directly outside the external borders of the organization's zone of responsibility," he said.

"This will in itself inevitably provoke stronger instability and unpredictability that will jeopardize the CSTO's zone of responsibility," Bordyuzha said.

The seven-member CSTO was renamed in October 2002 on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty (CST), which was signed in Mary 1992 within the framework of the commonwealth of Independent States. The current members of the CSTO include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia and Uzbekistan.

This is nothing new, either for Putin or Baluyevsky, who issued similar stern warnings about possible missile defense shields being employed in Europe four years ago:

Speaking to a gathering of foreign military attaches in Moscow, Yuri Baluyevsky said: "The creation of a U.S. anti-missile base cannot be viewed otherwise than as a major reconfiguration of the American military presence. Vanguard groupings of the U.S. armed forces in Europe have until now had no strategic components. This raises the question as to who U.S. anti-missile plans are really targeted against, and what kind of implications they may have for Russia and Europe at large."

He dismissed assurances that the base's buildup will have no noticeable effect on Russia's nuclear deterrent potential.

"An ABM area near Europe's Russian borders is an unfriendly step, to put it mildly, and an unfriendly signal," he said. "The potential interception zone for ballistic missiles from this area will span much of Russia's European territory."

"Given that its [the shield's] creation may prompt other countries to step up their activities in missile building, the situation in the longer term appears all the more alarming. It is clearly fraught with the potential for a nuclear arms race, which will have a negative impact on global strategic stability."

"It will force us to look for certain counter-measures, which will definitely be asymmetrical and less expensive," Baluyevsky said.

He also expressed concern over the potential damage that may be caused to Russia's environment by the nuclear warheads of missiles shot down over Russian soil.

While this is a pretty traditional Russian response to feeling surrounded (read Soviet military strategy articles between 1945-1985 if you want to see what I mean), we exist today in a far less stable world than existed in the good old days of the Cold War, when we could be sure that the old Russians running the USSR really wanted to retire to their dachas and enjoy their mistresses rather than incinerate the world.

And the United States, having lived under the Bush doctrine now for seven years, has absolutely no room to chide the Russians for publicly announcing exactly the same policy.

The "behaviorally challenged" in our schools; the "argumentatively challenged" at DWA

Over at Down with Absolutes there is currently a vituperative mudfest (it dignifies the argument to call it a debate) over the upcoming expenditures by Capital School District on the Kent County Secondary Intensive Learning Center.

The KCSILC new building will cost an initial $800,000 build-out, an $236,000/year for a five-year lease.

DWA commentator Discourse tries to cost the whole thing out and concludes, "Looks to me like the taxpayers in Kent are putting up about $15,000.00 a year to baby sit the 100 kids who evidently can’t attend the regular high school." He later notes, "These kids are not mentally challenged but “behaviorially challenged”. Basically, these are the kids that made you real nervous when you walked down the school hallway."

What's discouraging about the flying charges and counter-charges (Dana Garrett wants Discourse to give up all credentials as a liberal, Liz Allen chides him for being "non compassionate," while Discourse and others fire back in the same vein) is that nobody seems to be focusing on the details of this--even though they are not that hard to find.

The PEAK program is a collaborative effort with Delaware Tech, largely organized by former Capital School Board member Paul Fleming, to offer alternatives to suspension and expulsion for students with severe behavioral problems.

In many cases the 70+ students who take part under PEAK, or who have been assigned to the Kent County Secondary Intensive Learning Center have behavioral problems that are related to learning disabilities--which leaves the district absolutely no choice under Federal and State law but to create a program to meet their needs.

Here's where Dana is right (if offensively dyspeptic): if the US has a responsibility (he would prefer "right") to provide public education for all children, then these children are included. Period. That's the law.

Capital manages the consolidated ILC program for all the Kent County school districts (who pay for the students they send there, as well as other cost-sharing), and the Kent ILC has a remarkably good record of success, given the limited resources with which it has to work.

The irony: removing these children from the mainstream classroom environment pays dividends in improved instructional atmosphere for the remaining students; it provides those students with a more structured environment in which many of them do learn, and graduate back into mainstream classrooms, and the actual cost per child is not 3 times as much (which Mike Protack argues) but about twice as much.

However, that cost analysis does not take into account the resources that the referring school no longer has to expend on those children.

Over the past seventeen years at DSU I have had the pleasure to teach at least a dozen students who self-identified as having passed through either the Kent or Sussex ILC programs. Unanimously, those students attributed not only their graduation from high school, but also their ability to go to college to the success they experienced in those programs.

There have been privatized successes in Kent and Sussex Counties in this regard over the years (Reverend Cherry's Because We Care program comes to mind), but the grim reality is that right now the free market is not stepping in with large-scale solutions at this point.

I remember going to school in rural Virginia in the early 1960s. The Special Education kids were the ones who helped serve ice cream in the cafeteria, and that was about the extent of their education.

Libertarian thinking posits the necessity of running society on the basis of personal responsibility, but it is important to acknowledge that circumstances can damage or destroy an individual's ability to take "personal responsibility" for his or her life or actions. Mental retardation, autism, fetal alcohol syndrome--all kinds of things produce children who cannot learn in the same settings as others. Nor in most cases do the parents possess the resources (or even the education) necessary to find an appropriate education for these children.

I have no problem with the State or the District expending tax dollars to provide an education for these children as long as it is a real education, with fully qualified professional staff; they are American citizens and we have an obligation toward them.

Oh, damn, now Dana will want me to turn in my Libertarian membership card, or else he'll demand that I "tell the truth" and admit I really want to keep property taxes down so that the wealthy of Dover can afford gated compounds with attack dogs and snipers to shoot the poor little bastards as they rummage through garbage cans because we closed all the schools.

Just tell them to kiss her ass...

Once again, Cara finds items for The Curvature that should appeal to any Libertarian. In this case it's In The Face of Slut-Shaming, Female Mayor Stands Her Ground, about Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, who is refusing to resign because there's a sexy photo of her in lingerie posing by a fire-engine on MySpace.

First off, I'd be proud to have a mayor sexy enough to cause a stir.

Second, if Bill Clinton can get head in the Oval Office.... OK I won't go there, but...

It's about time that an American citizen in public office told the public where it could kiss off (and where it could kiss for that matter).


I don't care what Barack Obama put up his nose as a teenager.

I don't care if Mitt Romney wears Mormon underwear (although I would prefer to avoid the pictures on that one).

I do know that Cara's right: this wouldn't be happening to a man.

Updated--I always knew that West Virginia belonged in North Africa....

This map, originally from Strange Maps, and coming to me through A Secondhand Conjecture, shows you just how dominant the American economy is.

Each state is matched with the appropriate country whose GDP it most closely matches. Of course, in almost every case the population of the American state is far, far less than the foreign country to which it is being compared (e.g., Idaho compared to Ukraine).

Just click the map for a larger view.

And below find the companion, which shows you how many states in the US it takes to equal the GDP of Japan, Germany, China, and the UK--also from Strange Maps.

Libertarians and the Poor

One of the more problematic (not because it's accurate, but because it sounds credible) charges often brought against Libertarians by big-government advocates is that we have no concern for the poor, especially the working poor, and that we're more committed to preserving the right of some Plutocrat CEO to buy his ninth Mercedes than to help poor people get health insurance. I've already talked about the health insurance aspect, and while that certainly isn't a perfect, it's a start.

But what about the issue of helping the American poor?

Here's a first thought: let's make sure they get to keep all the money they make before we do anything else.

Dollar for dollar, wouldn't it be one hell of a lot cheaper to let them keep their own money than to tax them and return it minus the administrative overhead of the government? Yes, I realize that with the EITC a lot of the working poor don't actually pay income tax, but they do pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars in other taxes: gas taxes, sales taxes, FICA taxes, liquor taxes, cigarette taxes, phone fees, transfer taxes for automobiles.... The list goes on....

But how would you do this in practice?

Given modern information-processing technology it's not a difficult task to contemplate.

Just give everybody below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level a Tax Rebate Account number. As each tax payment is made--whether it's $0.23 per gallon of gas taxes or sales taxes, a credit is automatically posted to the Tax Rebate Account. Once a month the rebate total is direct-deposited in the individual's bank account. The Tax Rebate Account would be a Federal account, but it would simply debit the appropriate State if the rebate came from a State or Local tax. It would be up to the State to collect its money back from the locality.

If you tied this to the health care plan I proposed earlier and allowed medical receipts as tax credits, those also could be rebated on a monthly basis.

At a guess (I'm still trying to find some credible figures) the income bump to working poor families and individuals by at least 25-30%. That means that a family of four with a 40K income would effectively have the spending power equivalent to 50-55K.

The up side:

1) Minimal bureaucracy.

2) People get cash back on a monthly basis to use as they see fit.

3) The program can be incrementally phased out as income climbs.


The down side (from the statist perspective):

1) People get cash back on a monthly basis to use as they see fit. [One of the tenets of the welfare state is that poor people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions.]

2) The program will lower tax revenues. [Of course it's cheaper than various transfer programs, but you'd be amazed how many people will come out of the woodwork to tell you that we can't possibly survive if poor people don't pay gas taxes, even it causes the welfare state to wither and spend less money. Besides, statist liberals always want tax cuts targeted toward the middle class and working poor--here it is.]

3) The program will almost certainly generated a black or grey market as people with the Rebate Cars are approached by others who don't qualify to buy gas, cigarettes, etc. etc. [So what? The actual cost of such a black market would be the lost tax revenue to the government, but on the other hand it would allow people with more money to voluntarily transfer money to the working poor. If the government suffers an additional revenue loss, just consider it the equivalent of administrative overhead.]

Of course there would be a long list of reasons why we couldn't possibly undertake a program like this, but they would all boil down to this: "We can't afford it" and "We can't trust the poor to be responsible with just handing them cash"--even if it's their cash.

Think you're having a bad day? Guess again. A true story.

My brother-in-law lives in the country, and the road which passes his house has a bad curve, no guard rails, and lots of trees.

About four years ago, he was sitting home on his day off, heard a motorcycle spin out on the turn and crash into the trees.

He used his cell to call 911, grabbed his first aid kit and sprinted for the scene of the accident.

When he got there, he found the cyclist with a painful broken leg and a brand new (he'd bought it this morning) Yamaha.

"Man, this really sucks," he told my brother in law.

"Lie still man, I've called an ambulance."

"Oh. Shit. I almost forgot. I just bought a bag of weed. Can you hold it for me so I don't get busted?"

"Dude," said my brother-in-law in his saddest voice. "You are one unlucky sonofabitch."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I'm a cop."

In the category of "No she didn't!": Hillary's idiot answer to the mortgage crisis

From A Secondhand Conjecture via the usual other sources, Hillary Clinton is now advocating a “moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days [and] freezing interest rates for five years."

In the "Me,too, I'm a bigger idiot, really, pick me" category, John Edwards wants to freeze the rates for seven years!

My readers will certainly intuit why this would be a gigantic economic disaster (aside from being frighteningly unethical), but if you want the details on what would happen, visit Lance.

I'm taking some comfort at this point in the fact that the US has not elected a Senator to the Presidency since 1960.

Libertarians need an agenda, not a platform

Reading Libertarian blogs, watching the fratricidal conflict between the Radical Purists and the Pragmatic Reformers, and keeping an eye on the ever-expanding role of government in what used to be private affairs, I have come to the conclusion that Libertarians need to forget about the damn platform and get to work on an agenda.

Let me explain.

First, reading Australian, British, and Canadian Libertarian blogs I have come to realize a different tone exists among our fellow travelers overseas. They perceive themselves (quite rightly, I suspect) as having already lost the war to the pervasive Nanny State, and they provide a cautionary lesson about what happens when government control reaches a certain "critical mass."

For a selection of no-so-light (as in downright depressing if occasionally quite witty) reading, try these:

Canadian Liberty will lead you through a link to Pierre Limieux's Lost Canadian Liberties, which includes 32 items such as

1) Start a private school.

12) Sell eggs or milk without the state’s permission.

18) Talk publicly about any topic (there are criminal code provisions and “human rights commissions” against certain forms of speech and certain topics).

From Great Britain, the Libertarian Alliance blog discusses the fact that the government has now moved to involuntary organ donation.

The Australian Libertarian Society blog brings us word of intrusive government censorship of the internet, "following the examples of the great liberal democracies like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Burma is a promising start."

What these posts and the others you will find to complement them have in common is that Libertarians appear to have been reduced from a political force to be reckoned with to essentially impotent political and social commentators.

That's not a good place to be, and the shared perception of many American Libertarians, libertarians, and freedom-loving citizens with libertarian leanings is that we're headed down that road as well. Part of the reason that many of Ron Paul's supporters are so passionate--and at the same time so forgiving of (or blind to) his quirks and failings--is that many of them see him as a "last chance" to make a stand against encroaching statism and corporatism.

And in that context it doesn't matter a damn what the Libertarian Party Platform actually says--just like nobody is actually ever going to read the Democratic or Republican platforms, and neither final candidate is going to pay more than transient lip service to it.

What Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, and all the rest have in common is an agenda, a short list of signature items that they each intend to fight for.

The Libertarian Party--except in some states where the local affiliate is an exception [Indiana comes to mind]--wouldn't know an agenda if it appeared out of a copy of Atlas Shrugged and started lecturing the faithful about objectivism.

Here's my current Libertarian agenda. I'm NOT suggesting it as a nationwide or even statewide template, but as an example of the kinds of things an agenda should include. It starts with my personal slogan:

Limited government, combined with maximum personal and economic freedom, creates the atmosphere necessary for America to thrive.

Under the rubric of Limited Government, I want to see:

A) A roll-back of Nanny State regulations that are designed to protect American citizens from the consequences of their own personal choices.

B) A return to a non-imperialistic, non-interventionist foreign policy.

C) A commitment for all governments to live within their means--spending no more than they take in, except for emergencies such as declared wars or massive natural disasters.

D) A principle of resolving inevitable (I cringe at using the word "necessary") government involvement in people's lives at the lowest (most local) level possible. Education comes to mind here.

E) Referendum and Recall at the State level.

What about Personal Freedom? There I want to see:

A) Equal protection under the law for all American citizens (especially including those who are discriminated against based on sexual orientation). Churches sanctify marriages; all the government can do is legitimatize civil unions (for anybody!).

B) A curtailment of the government's power of domestic surveillance, combined with new privacy restrictions on corporations (including health insurance companies) that block the sharing of personal information without a positive (not default) release from the citizen/consumer.

C) A change in emphasis on the use of medication in which the government serves primarily as the provider of information--both positive and negative--about medications, but leaves their actual use up to the medical opinion of our physicians and our own informed consent. Medical marijuana? Of course.

And as for Economic Freedom?

A) A massive simplification of the tax code, with a specific agenda item in that process being the elimination of tax incentives or penalties for engaging in government-approved behaviors. No social engineering!

B) A level playing field for retirement planning: if I have to be shackled with Social Security, then it ought to be good enough for my legislative representatives and all Federal employees.

C) Re-institution of the freedom to fail for corporations. No bail-outs for automobile companies, airlines, or defense contractors!

Now I change from week to week on some of these, but here's my point: candidates and political parties cannot exist without enumerated and aggressively pursued agendas that make sense in the current political milieu.

If American (or Delawarean) Libertarians don't want to look back in a few years and realize that defenders of individual liberty have been reduced to the same social critic status as our brethren and cistern in Australia, Britain, and Canada, then they'd better sit up and take notice.

Ethanol and agricultural subsidies: corporate welfare no one wants to touch

America is generally short of news outlets that take a genuine world perspective, which is why--as I noted in my post on the budding relationship between France and China--we miss so much of what's really going on in the world.

For that--even though the graphics are pathetic and the stand is conservative enough to embarrass Thurston Howell III--I read The Economist.

Among other advantages, the magazine is actually written by people who know something about economics rather than the glib but essentially puppet-like market analysts we constantly see on TV.

Recently The Economist took on the issue of soaring food prices worldwide, attributing them to:

...long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies—the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.

But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.

There's more to say about those ethanol subsidies in specific and statist intervention in general:

Whatever the supposed threat—the lack of food security, rural poverty, environmental stewardship—the world seems to have only one solution: government intervention. Most of the subsidies and trade barriers have come at a huge cost. The trillions of dollars spent supporting farmers in rich countries have led to higher taxes, worse food, intensively farmed monocultures, overproduction and world prices that wreck the lives of poor farmers in the emerging markets. And for what? Despite the help, plenty of Western farmers have been beset by poverty. Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land. Even a vast subsidy cannot reverse that.

With agflation, policy has reached a new level of self-parody. Take America's supposedly verdant ethanol subsidies. It is not just that they are supporting a relatively dirty version of ethanol (far better to import Brazil's sugar-based liquor); they are also offsetting older grain subsidies that lowered prices by encouraging overproduction. Intervention multiplies like lies. Now countries such as Russia and Venezuela have imposed price controls—an aid to consumers—to offset America's aid to ethanol producers. Meanwhile, high grain prices are persuading people to clear forests to plant more maize.

A variety of studies from the World Bank actually indicate that American, Canadian, European, and Japanese agriculture (agribusiness, really) farm subsidies are a major cause of economic hardship for small farmers in the developing world--already at a disadvantage with respect to acreage, pesticides, and farm equipment, to compete with affluent nations that can afford to throw billions in tax dollars at agribusinesses to purchase loyalty in presidential election years.

Dismantling the corporate welfare that is agricultural subsidies (only a tiny fraction of which goes to "family" farmers) could be considered the "fourth" or "fifth" rail in American politics--right after you die for suggesting Social Security reform, your corpse will be dismembered for suggesting that American agriculture is strong enough to compete in a truly free market.

(It also explains the huge importance of those Iowa caucuses. You can't be a serious presidential contender without Iowa; you can't do Iowa without promising to continue the subsidies. And people think the NRA has a strong lobby.)

A Libertarian solution: let's end welfare for agribusiness.

Becky's already done my stock-market, tax rebate rant for me, thank you

"The long-term fundamentals are very strong in our economy," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on the Today Show a few minutes ago, blaming the media for "a steady dose of negative news" that obscures the positive reality of continued long-term growth and the impact that targeted tax rebates of up to $300 would have in improving consumer confidence to turn around the current stock market slide.

I'm so comforted.

Here I'd foolishly thought that skyrocketing energy prices, a massive trade deficit, a sub-prime mortgage blow-out, mounting government debt, a sinking dollar, out-of-control Federal spending, a foreign policy in tatters, and, well, I could go on....

For hours, as a matter of fact.

But my rant would get progressively wonkish, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I'd rather refer you to one that's already thoughtfully written by Becky in Short Shorts.

And besides, her website not only does politics, it's crammed with pictures of gorgeous lesbians.

Why we're not electing this woman to something, I don't know.

Here's a story I'll bet you never expected to see on Al Jazeera

Once again I'll make the point that it's critical not to get all your world news from Western sources.

If Al Jazeera is today running this story, entitled IMF says Iraq Economy to Boom, what kind of tectonic shift does that portray in the so-called moderate Muslim world?

Iraq's economy is expected to boom in the coming year, despite political and security problems, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says.

Economic reforms, such as strengthening the central bank, curbing inflation and restructuring two large public funds had contributed to the progress, the IMF said on Wednesday.
Mohsin Khan, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, said: "There was an improvement in economic activity" in the second half of the year.

He said Iraqi gross domestic product (GDP) will see a seven per cent growth in 2009.
The fund expects a "significant jump in growth" as oil production increases and retail services improve.

However, Iraq, which is struggling to recover after a US-led invasion nearly five years ago, "will continue to need aid, particularly in the security area", Khan said.

Oil wealth

Oil production accounts for 70 per cent of the country's GDP activity.

The IMF predicts that Iraq will produce an extra 200,000 barrels per day in 2008, bringing the country’s daily output to 2.2 million barrels.

Iraq's economy
- 7% predicted growth in Iraq's gross domestic product (GDP)

- Annual consumer prices inflation expected to decline to 12%.

- Extra 200,000 barrels of oil production predicted per day.

- Oil accounts for 70% of Iraq's GDP.

- Predictions based on oil priced at $55-57 per barrel.

Surging oil prices have recently boosted Iraq's oil revenues to $27bn, $6bn higher than projected.

The IMF approved a $744m credit for Iraq on December 19, just a week after the country paid off an earlier $471m loan.

Foreign exchange reserves ballooned to $27bn at the end of 2007 from $20bn the prior year.

The IMF's 2008 programme for Iraq is based on oil priced at $55-57 a barrel.

John Foster, deputy editor of Dubai-based Banker Middle East, told Al Jazeera that the Iraqi economy has gone from zero to growth.

"Before the invasion corruption was endemic. After the invasion basically they had a blank sheet. With the removal of sanctions, the oil started flowing and thats been powering Iraqi economy."

"They are trying to grow small-to-medium sized enterprises which are run by local Iraqi people," Foster said.

Michael Chertoff to Texans and Indians: Screw You!

So you want a border fence? I don't, but I won't demonize the people whose fear makes them advocate for one.

Instead, I'll refer you to a post from A Secondhand Conjecture about the eminent domain horrors that the Feds are now visiting on local landowners.

Perhaps the most telling part of the story is the CNN interview with Director of Homeland Security Michael Jerk-off, who is just enough of a fascist to tell landowners that it's their patriotic duty to sacrifice their property.

All those Native Americans concerned about their burial grounds and other sacred lands?

I believe the technical term for his attitude is, "Tough shit, redskin."

Watch this one here. If you don't, you'll think I am exaggerating.

I'm thinking of nominating him as the national poster child for the Libertarian movement.

An encouragement if not (at least not yet) an endorsement: Run Dave Run

A few days ago I was actually contemplating a post called "Dave Burris is the Anti-Christ," in which I intended to point out that the former Sussex County Republican Chairman has singlehandedly become one of the biggest obstacles to the disintegration of the GOP in Delaware. (As an advocate that the Libertarian Party grow and take over the role of one of the two major parties in the First State I need the Republicans to keep shooting themselves in the foot. Dave has not been obliging me.)

Now, in the wake of Al Levin's abrupt exit from the Republican field, circumstances would now apparently leave Mike Protack flying alone (in far more ways than one) if somebody else didn't step up.

So Dave Burris is considering that challenge.

I'll be frank: a Republican winning the governorship in Delaware this year is a looonng shot, a very loooonnnnggg shot, especially if Jack Markell wins the Democratic nomination. Registrations alone--not the mention Markell's overflowing war chests of cash--would make it appear a quixotic undertaking.

But sometimes risking a loss for the right reasons is a critical decision.

Had Ronald Reagan not challenged Gerald Ford for the nomination in 1976 he would not have been such a strong candidate in 1980, and the national GOP would have remained mired in its post-Watergate doldrums for at least another decade.

So for the GOP in Delaware a strong Burris candidacy--win or lose--will be a good thing.

It would also be good for Delaware politics in general, given the fact that Dave is an outspoken advocate of government transparency, something we haven't gotten out from our legislators or two successive Democratic administrations.

This is not to say that I agree on everything with Dave (although you have to admit he is always honest enough to tell you what he actually believes.

Here are the parts of his program I can get behind (taken from his announcement that he's considering a run):

There is no forward movement on anything that matters.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we’ve lost 22% of our manufacturing jobs since this Governor was elected.

Our economic growth is now in the bottom tier of states.

Our revenues are set to grow only 2-3% this year, but you can bet your house that the budget will grow by more than that.

We spend more than most other states, yet we can’t afford to build our schools and we can’t afford to build our roads.

According to Auditor Wagner, we have more debt and long-term liabilities per capita than any other state.

We part company to a large extent on education. Dave is a fervent champion of charter schools and a strong supporter of Vision 2015. I think (surprisingly, perhaps, for a Libertarian) that his support of charters is a bit too extreme, and you can go back and read about my problems with Myopia 2015.

On the other hand, I do not question Dave's personal commitment to excellence in education for all children in Delaware.

This is not necessarily an endorsement, Dave, but more along the lines of an encouragement. If it comes down to you and Carney, you've got me; if it's you versus Markell, I'll promise a long careful, truly undecided, look at both before I step into the booth. I give you at least an equal chance to win my vote.

Regardless of party, Delaware needs quality people like yourself out in front.

I hope you'll run.

Libertarian: personal ideology or political brand?

In some ways there is nothing funnier than watching the members of minor political parties fight their hearts out for control of something significantly less than 1% of the hearts and minds of the electorate.

Unless, of course, it's the party you would like to build into a viable major party.

So the current debate, most easily accessed over at Third Party Watch, between Libertarian reformers and radicals is ... not so funny.

Notwithstanding the fact that I have already declared myself a "pragmatic" Libertarian and joined the Libertarian Reform Caucus, I have to admit that I find this whole infighting spectacle over the Libertarian Platform to be not only unseemly, but frankly idiotic.

It's idiotic because the Radical Libertarians are talking about an ideology, and the Reform Libertarians are talking about a political party, and the two sides are apparently unaware that they're both equally ... wrong or right.

Let me explain.

Within the current Demopublican monopoly there is a Democratic Party and a Republican Party. While the terms Democrat and Republican are rough indicators of a specific span of the simplified political spectrum, neither is an ideology. Among the Democrats, for example, there are progressives, liberals, and moderates, each sub-group representing a more or less separate ideological approach to politics and social policy; among the Republicans are social conservatives, Christian conservatives, fiscal conservatives, free market libertarians, and so on.

Ideologies are the personal belief systems of individuals and groups of people; major political parties are the umbrella organizations that gather together roughly similar or compatible ideological groups into a large enough mass to represent a significant political force.

The only time that an ideology is the same thing as a political party is when the party is so small (and therefore so inconsequential) that it can't attract anyone else. Let's think here: the Greens, the Socialists, etc. etc.

The very toughest challenge is when an parts of an ideology become attractive enough to a sufficient number of people that it threatens to break out and become a real political party. Then the ideological purists, far from being elated over their success in attracting fellow travelers with whom they could erect a big tent, become irritably possessive of the true faith. The fellow travelers, who expected a warm welcome, recoil in hurt and anger.

Here's the gist of the difference between Radical Libertarians (the ideologues) and Reform Libertarians (the political activists):

Radicals are pursuing a clean vision of vanishing government and a society built on the predicate of absolute individual responsibility for life's outcomes.

Reformers believe more generally that simultaneously increasing economic and personal freedom will create a climate of prosperity, but also believe that a limited government has a role to play.

Which group is more likely to recruit in large numbers?

The problem for the Reform Libertarians is that they need the party name at the same time they need to be able to distance themselves at least a bit from the ideology.

The Libertarian "brand" is valuable because it is a recognizable, long-term political identifier in US politics, both as a subset of the Conservative movement and as the country's (far behind) third largest political party. If the Reformers have to strike out on their own as the Freedom Party, or the Justice Party, or even join the Constitutional Party, their objective of becoming a major political party will be set back for years just by virtue of inferior name recognition.

Libertarian ideology, on the other hand, carries a lot of baggage, precisely because it can be so easily caricatured by employing the stances of unadulterated Lysander Spooner, Ayn Rand, F. A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, or (as Ron Paul is discovering) Lew Rockwell (whether writing as himself or somebody else).

Here's just one vituperative sample of how Radical Libertarianism has been repeatedly and successfully trashed by the Progressive Left, Luc Loranhe's The Fallacies of Libertarian Politics:

Libertarians typically are anti-government. Not anti a specific government, but anti-government per se. They dream of a world in which people everywhere just can decide for themselves, and small groups can enjoy total self-rule.

However, just as nihilism advocating happy suicide, a Libertarian theory that advocates the non existence of governments, will never become mainstream. For a philosophical idea that advocates the non-existence of its disciples will constantly eradicate itself. And a political idea that basically preaches huge power vacuums will always just prepare the ground for the next power grabber.

I even doubt that most Libertarians are genuinely anti-government. Rather, I believe that they are anti-government because they have, erroneously, learned that any government infringes on the personal freedom of the citizens it rules, and they assume that the more government we have, the more infringement.

But this would not have to be the case. I can well imagine a strong government, backed by a strong ideological movement organized as a political party, which considers granting the people of a country optimal personal freedom its most essential responsibility.

OK, at this point you are probably thinking, "Who'd believe this simplistic parody?" The answer (as I found out when I started this blog): lots of people, and the further to the Left they are, the more credible they find it.

Better yet, try Seth Finkelstein's 1997 essay, Libertarianism Makes You Stupid, from which a few key excerpts follow:

The idea that Libertarians don't believe in the initiation of force is pure propaganda. They believe in using force as much as anyone else, if they think the application is morally correct. "initiation of force" is Libertarian term of art, meaning essentially "do something improper according to Libertarian ideology". It isn't even connected much to the actions we normally think of as "force". The question being asked above was really agree or disagree, that it is always wrong for one person to do something improper according to Libertarian ideology. It was just phrased in their preaching way.

While you might be told Libertarianism is about individual rights and freedom, fundamentally, it's about business. The words "individual rights", in a civil-society context, are often Libertarian-ese for "business". That's what what they derive as the inevitable meaning of rights and freedom, as a statement of principles:

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.

The whole idea of a contract is that government enforces relations among individuals. The above sentence is a nonsensical, it's conceptually that they oppose all interference by government in the areas of government enforcing relations among individuals.

The key to understanding this, and to understanding Libertarianism itself, is to realize that their concept of individual freedom is the "whopper" of "right to have the State back up business". That's a wild definition of freedom. If you voluntarily contract to sell all your future income for $1, they then oppose all government "interference" with your "right" to do this. It's a completely twisted, utterly inverted, perfectly Orwellian statement, almost exactly "Freedom is Slavery".

This is not at all obvious or what people tend to think when they're told the song and dance about rights and freedoms. This point about contract and Libertarianism needs to be stressed. Often, the "chain of logic" used by a Libertarian will be a fairly valid set of deductions. But along the way, there will be very subtle assumptions slipped in, such as "contract" (meaning business) as a fundamental right. It can be quite difficult to spot, such as a redefinition of terms, or a whopper like the above. But again, it's very "logical", very "axiomatic".

Unfortunately, while this is a caricature, it is one drawn from Libertarian ideological rhetoric, and there are even some of the Radical Purists who manage to fall into semantic traps like this.

Here's one more example (I had more in mind, but I'm starting to feel queasy):

One of the seamiest and ugliest aspects of Libertarianism is its support of turning back the civil-rights clock to pre-1964 legal situation for businesses. "I am not making this up". They're very explicit about it:

Consequently, we oppose any government attempts to regulate private discrimination, including choices and preferences, in employment, housing, and privately owned businesses. The right to trade includes the right not to trade -- for any reasons whatsoever; the right of association includes the right not to associate, for exercise of the right depends upon mutual consent.

That's "rights" according to Libertarianism. Whites-only lunch counters, "No Jews or dogs" hotels, "we don't serve your kind here", "No Irish need apply", "This is man's job", etc. All this is a "right of association" in Libertarian theology.
Such a weird position is not just the purview of some position-writers in a corner, but a surprisingly common trait of Libertarians. It's one of the surest way of identifying one, if they justify such a reactionary position from abstract considerations.

It must be stressed that a) Libertarians ARE NOT racists, sexists, etc. and b) The above is not meant to comment either way on the much more controversial affirmative-action debate. Libertarians can go to town whenever they're called racist, sexist, and so on for the above (gee, how could anyone ever get that idea?), proclaiming their great personal but private commitment to equality. Of course, they never have to do anything much in this regard since events have passed them by. But they want make sure you know they fully support the ideals, even if they think that all the past decades legal effort should be repealed as immoral and unprincipled. They also love to switch the debate to affirmative action, because that's far more contentious than anti-discrimination. But the position's very plain. Drinking from the wrong water fountain would presumably be "initiation of force", allowing retaliation of force to eject the malefactor.

What Finkelstein is doing (as several commentators have tried to do to me) is take the most radical possible application of Libertarian philosophy, extend it to its most ludicrous extent, and then assign it as the basic principle upon which all Libertarians operate.

That's akin to saying that anyone who believes in certain Marxist economic principles therefore sanctions mass killing as practiced by Stalin and Mao.

But our Libertarian ideologues, in pursuit of a perfectly principled and ideologically consistent position, provide fodder for the beast by repeatedly advocating extreme (and extremely impractical) positions as if they constituted simple logic that any non-retarded third grader should be able to see.

Don't get me wrong: I respect our Libertarian purists and ideologues, and I agree in the abstract that if we could one day achieve any utopia the Libertarian utopia is the one I'd most like to live in.

Since neither I nor my children is going to live in that utopia, I plan to spend the rest of my life working toward the idea of increasing personal and economic freedom within the context of the government we have and the country I love.

And to do that, I'm going to have to join the Reformers in appropriating the Libertarian "brand" for some practical work.

Libertarian Party of Delaware: New Castle County Meeting Change

From the LPD listserv:

It has been pointed out to me that there will be professional football on 1/20 at the normal meeting time, but no professional football the following Sunday, 1/27. I rely in good faith that this will be true. (Tom can't understand why we would change the meeting based on a conflict with pro football, but that is just Tom.) So, the New Castle County LP meeting is changed to 1/27, 6:30 PM, Panera, Kirkwood Highway.

In any case, as pointed out, there will be an even longer length of day on 1/27, and our legislators are unlikely to have funded mole hills in the interim. The pols may however have resolved to expand the deficit to boost the economy. Arguably, a wiser course may have been to ask some foreign economy to requisition $100B of stuff from the U.S., perhaps some excess homes in Michigan for example, but probably something other than the weapons George W has arranged to sell to the Saudis. Frankly, as an economist, I can't see how cutting taxes to consumers who proceed to buy more foreign products helps the U.S. economy, but that's just me. The U.S. needs more production, not more consumption, something that would be benefited by a smaller federal deficit.

But I digress from the announcement groups stated purpose. Sorry. But who left me in charge...

George (the un-chair)

The Failing American Empire: France and China

The election of Nicholas Sarkozy elated many American neo-cons and conservatives who saw it as leading to a much more pro-American foreign policy stance for France. Certainly, Sarkozy proved on his trip to the US that he understands how to play both our media and our politicians, telling them a great deal of what they wanted to hear.

But the fact is, Sarkozy is a strong French nationalist, and France continues to pursue (as it has since the days of DeGaulle) an independent foreign policy that has--at least as one objective--increasing Paris' influence around the world at the expense of Washington's.

A primary component of this strategy is the continued strengthening of the Franco-Chinese rapprochement, that is explicitly designed to curb US influence in Asia while opening new French markets on the mainland.

One of the least-reported big stories of 2004 was the annual Chinese naval exercises off the shores of Taiwan. China routinely rattles sabres (anchors?) to make the point that it remains ready to reunite the mainland with the hold-out island by force should Taiwan declare its formal independence. Nothing new about that; the US equally routinely sends a carrier group into the area to say, "Don't get any ideas." Thanks to a Taiwan lobby that is surpassed in influence only by the Israel lobby, the US (whether under a Bush or a Clinton) consistently declares that an attack on Taiwan will be considered an attack on US soil.

There have been some tense (and generally unreported) instances of brinksmanship on all sides during these maneuvers, but what was different about 2004?

How about the fact that the French Navy was cooperating with the Chinese during the week prior to Taiwanese elections?

From the BBC in March 2004:

"This will be China's most comprehensive naval exercise with any foreign navy," said Xinhua, quoting Ju Xinchun, captain of the Chinese guided missile destroyer, Harbin.

China held its first ever joint naval exercises last year, when it conducted separate drills with both Pakistan and India.

This will be its first exercise on the high seas with a major Western power, said Xinhua.

The French government confirmed the exercises but denied there was any significance in their scale or timing.

"They are part of the regional cooperation between the two navies, which was expanded after last year's visit to France by Chinese President Hu Jintao," said a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry in Paris.

But there's more to this than "regional cooperation" [what region would that be, by the way, that encompasses France and China?], such as the French sale of advanced weapons technology to Bejing:

France has been supplying weapons to China despite the so-call ban imposed by Paris due to the human rights record of Beijing. In fact, Chirac's Navy should find it easy to communicate with the Chinese Navy.

The Chinese Navy currently employs a version of the French Tavitac, a modified version of the U.S. NIDS (Naval Tactical Data Systems) Link 11 secure communications network. The Link W system employed by China is an unlicensed copy of the U.S. Link 11 supplied to France. Chirac, in turn, sold the Link 11 to the People's Liberation Army Navy.

France has also supplied surface to air missiles and anti-aircraft radars to the Chinese Navy. Two Luda-series destroyers, the "Zhangjang" and the "Zhuhai" completed modifications in 2003. Both destroyers are armed with eight round HQ-7 point defense surface to air missile systems, a Chinese version of the French Crotale.

The first project 054 frigates, the "Ma-Anshan and the "Wenzhou" were both launched from the Shanghai shipyards in September 2003. The two 054 warships were followed by two more in November.

According to the U.S. Naval Proceedings, the 054 class warships "bear many of the modern design marks of frigates being built in Europe, including the first significant Chinese efforts at radar signature reduction."

In fact, the new Chinese warships are powered by license built SEMT-Pielstick diesel engines. SEMT-Pielstick is currently headquartered in Paris, France.

The Chinese, of course, have greater interests than Taiwan. Bejing has been quietly pursuing the construction of a real bluewater fleet (as opposed to the coastal and riverine force it has traditionally fielded) for many years, as its increasing need for imported oil caused the senior leadership to realize that like the US it must have an interest in global policing of the sea lanes. (One of the key elements in China's strategic policy for dominating the Pacific Rim revolves around the oil-rich Spratly Islands, where it has been engaged in low-level diplomatic and even possibly military conflict with Vietnam and the Philippines for over a decade.)

Meanwhile, France's sale of military technology to China is only one facet of an integrated political/economic strategy pursued with consistency whether the President in Paris was named Chirac or Sarkozy. For example, the year following the joint naval exercises saw a major deal inked between Paris and Bejing:

China and France reached a three-billion-euro (US$3.9 billion) deal Thursday morning during French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's three-day official visit to Beijing.

Raffarin and Premier Wen Jiabao witnessed the signing ceremony of the 20 cooperative agreements dealing with aviation, nuclear energy and agriculture.

The deals include China's promise to purchase five Airbus A380 and 25 A320 planes and a 100-million-euro (US$130.3 million) deal to buy a powerful communications and live radio and TV broadcast satellite from Alcatel Space.

Prior to the signing ceremony, Wen and Raffarin agreed during an hour-long meeting to further political and economic ties.

"China appreciates France's understanding and support to China on the Taiwan issue and the EU's lifting of the arms embargo," Wen told his counterpart.

Wen suggested the two countries further their relationship by focusing on maintaining high-level visits and improving consultation and cooperation in the United Nations and other international organizations; expanding economic and trade in the energy, transportation, aviation, agriculture and environmental protection sectors; maintaining cultural exchanges and improving judicial cooperation.

China and France are both permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Raffarin noted that the leaders of France and China now are now in continuous and regular contact. Such contacts were sporadic in the past.

Such initiatives have continued and expanded under Sarkozy; from the BBC [26 Novemer 2007]:

French industrialists visiting China with President Nicolas Sarkozy say they have finalised trade deals worth almost 20bn euros ($30bn; £14.5bn).
These include a delivery of 160 Airbus passenger planes to the value of about 10bn euros.

And state-owned French energy firm Areva said it had signed a contract to build two nuclear reactors in China.

The announcements came as Mr Sarkozy held a second meeting with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

"The total amount of these contracts has never been matched before," he told the Chinese president as they met in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Here's the reality check for the failing American empire:

Both France and China are investing (militarily, economically, and diplomatically) in a completely different grand strategy than the United States, a strategy that allows them to increase their individual and bilateral influence without the expense of maintaining an expensive network of 100 military bases around the globe or intervening militarily on a regular basis,

As international affairs commentator Lee Feinstein remarks in a column on China's influence in Africa:

Beijing also has a stake in positioning itself in Africa and globally as an alternative to western "meddling" on issues of human rights and governance.

This, especially under Sarkozy, could also describe French policy.

The reason this works--at least in the short run--is that without the massive capital and political costs of maintaining a militarily interventionist foreign policy, both France and China have plenty of money to invest in each other and in developing nations.

That's why you find such sudden recent outpourings of Chinese attention (and money) toward oil-producing regions of Africa like the Sudan and Angola.

Moreover, when military intervention is seen as being necessary by Bejing or Paris, both nations are increasingly comfortable with pursuing it either through surrogates or arms-sales.

The American imperial strategy of world-wide military bases to support our strategic diplomatic and economic objectives has become a Cold War artifact and is well on the way to becoming a fatal liability as we enter the 21st Century.

Chalmers Johnson, Pat Buchanan, and Ron Paul have all correctly and appropriately called attention to the dangers of America's move from a republic to an empire, although (unsurprisingly) they don't agree on what to do about it.

Given that the current crop of presidential aspirants from both wings of the Demopublican Party haven't yet acknowledged the existence of the problem, we're a long way from talking about solutions.

We still need to define the problem.

Scientists report: Aliens avoid us because we're boring

Probably you'd expect this item in the Weekly World News rather than New Scientist, but there you are.

Yet there it is: "ET too bored by Earth transmissions to reply" [8 December 2006].

Canadian astrophysicist Yuvan Dutil and "fellow researcher" Stephane Davis posit the idea that sending out streams of mathematical data already known by any civilization sophisticated enough to receive our signals is a losing proposition.

"The question is, what is interesting to an extraterrestrial?" Dutil told New Scientist. "We think the answer is using some common ground to communicate things about humanity that will be new or different to them – like social features of our society."

Douglas Vakoch, who directs message compilation for SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) agrees that we will need interesting message traffic to catch alien attention, but also points out some problems.

"If someone replies to your message saying, 'I don't understand. Can you repeat that?' it will take decades, centuries or millennia to know," says Vakoch.

"Another approach is to send a lot of stuff and hope there is enough redundancy for them to spot patterns," he adds. "We could just send the encyclopaedia."

Dutil agrees other options are worth exploring, but points out that sometimes only a message will do. "It would make sense to have an 'answer phone' message ready in case we are contacted," he explains, "just to say, 'we'll get back to you,' while we figure out what to do."

I was going to close this with some smart-ass suggestions of what to send--or better yet what NOT to send--but I think I can safely leave that to the creativity of the individual reader.

Outright Libertarians: Fact-correcting the Queer Press (and funny)

Ok, when I gave a plug to Outright Libertarians I said I wished they had more of a sense of humor.

Handicapping the presidential race from a gay perspective in Fact-correcting the Queer Press, however, sets me straight--so to speak. (Ouch!)

The humor is dry, but it's definitely there, and the conclusions are solid:

Basically, gay voters have three choices this election season.

They can throw their support to Democrats, who define "outreach" as segregation of gay people into "separate and unequal" legal status; who argue about which is "bolder" by naming so-called partisan gay "leaders" as supporters (or keeping them in the closet, in Obama's case); and who claim to be "supporters of gay rights" yet have done literally nothing after years in the Senate to support even the most rudimentary (and aging) legislation pertaining to equality under the law.

Or they can throw their support to Republicans, who flee at the mention of gay people; thank gay people for their "support" while supporting anti-gay policies; or have the dubious distinction of politically and/or financially profiting from homophobic public statements or publications.

Or they can choose to support Libertarians, who unequivocally support equal treatment in marriage, taxation, immigration, military service, and adoption.

It's not a tough choice for those of us who are aware of the differences (and insist on quality gay journalism, something that's increasingly hard to find in the political arena).

That's the analysis; here's the best line from the piece:

Ben Labolt, a national spokesperson for the Obama campaign, said the campaign was definitely seeking gay support in Georgia and referred calls to Drenner for further comments.

Press releases from the Obama campaign listing Georgia supporters don’t include other notable gay leaders.

I guess that would be called "support from the closet."

Whether you're a proponent of gay rights or not, this piece is an outstanding example of covering the campaign from any single-issue perspective, and ultimately illuminates one serious conclusion:

Your faithful blogger got to meet the former Massachusetts governor at the Conservative Leadership Conference in Reno, Nevada and concluded that Romney is just as pandering and principle-free as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the other Democrats. In fact, they could swap places and not many people would notice.

Too true.

Sometimes it even pays to read Al Jazeera: Malawi dumps Taiwan

I know, I know--it's Al Jazeera, preferred network of Osama bin Hiding.

But non-Western news sources are worth reading, if only because they cover parts of the world nobody else does.

Case in point: Malawi cuts ties with Taiwan.

China has been making major diplomatic and economic inroads in Africa lately, including a 2-billion dollar line of credit for the Angola, so that one of the most corrupt governments in the world can sidestep World Bank and IMF transparency requirements, while also sending in thousands of workers to help rebuild the civil war-decimated infrastructure.

Now China has used its economic muscle to convince Malawi to dump the Nationalists on Taipei:

Malawi has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan after 41 years and switched allegiance to China, which has become a major economic power in Africa.

The decision, announced on Monday, reduced Taiwan's allies to just 23 countries, most of which are small and impoverished nations in Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific.

Joyce Banda, Malawi's foreign affairs minister, said on Monday: "We have decided to switch from Taiwan to mainland China after careful consideration on the benefits that we will be getting from mainland China."

Given the fact that Malawi is land-locked, poor, AIDs-ridden, and has a $209 million trade deficit (and China has not been a major trading partner) it is obvious that the wooing of President Bingu wa Mutharika's beleaguered government is a purely political tactic in mainland China's ongoing attempt to further isolate Taiwan.

And it's working: now Taiwan is recognized by fewer than two dozen countries and its internal politics is in turmoil:

Malawi's decision comes at a particularly bad time for Chen Shui-bian, the Taiwanese president, who has emphasised Taiwan's status as separate from China.

On Saturday, Chen's Democratic Progressive Party was devastated by the opposition Kuomintang in legislative elections.

Analysts said a major reason for the defeat was Chen's preoccupat