4/09/2004
Blogads are Strange
Why the heck are the blogads on my blog for Vietnamese personal ads and something about leaving Saigon in 1971? WTF? A couple of posts comparing Iraq to Tet and I get that?
I need better blogads...so...guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns guns
beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer beer
NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA GOA NRA
That should do it.
Update--10 Aor, Noon WTF? I mean, what the f*ing F*? John F*ing Kerry for President is one of my blogads? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
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A Libertarian Position on Campaign Finance
Given that my idea for massive civil disobedience of the BCRA ran afoul of reality, I figured I should propose my own solution to the BCRA problem. So here it is. My solution is: no regulation on the size of campaign donations. Any adult citizen (sorry non-citizens, you don't get to play in this game. Think of it as incentive to become a citizen.) or group of adult citizens, in any form, can give as much money to any party or candidate for office as they wish (or can afford.) Buckley v. Valeo said the money is speech, and Amendment I says the Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of same. Pretty simple really.
The one caveat: voters must have the ability to make an informed decision, so that even if a candidate or party is bought and paid for, they can make ther decision knowing who did the buying and paying. Accordingly, all donations, of any amount, must be reported, on the candidate/party/group's webpage (mirrored on the FEC page). The Top, say, 50 donors and the amount given must be on the front page, visible immediately when the page is opened (a column down one side is the easiest way to do this.) Any donations, single or cumulative, over a certain threshold, say one month's salary at poverty level wages, must be reported within 24 hours. Other donations have 72 hours.
That's the short term fix. The long term is rooted in Libertarian philosophy, and the quote (sorry, I can't remember the source), "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first thing to be bought and sold are legislators." Get the government out of everybody's business. If the government isn't bothering you, and better yet, isn't allowed to bother you, you won't be giving money to politicians trying to get special favors from them.
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1600-LT Smash Hits It on the Head
Quoting would be pointless. Just read it.
Thanks to GeekWithA.45 for the pointer.
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Andrew Sullivan has posted a tremendous email from a Marine in Fallujah.
Quote:
"A lot of terrorists and foreign fighters are holed up in Fallujah. It has been a sanctuary for them. If they have not left town they are going to die. I'm hoping they stay and fight.
This way we won't have to track them down one by one."
"I'm hoping they stay and fight" I think, honestly, that this sentiment is shared by most of our military forces, especially the combat arms, killing people and breaking things branches. (Disclaimer: I am a member of the U.S. Army. But my opinions are my own) Stop hiding, stop blowing up women and children, come out and fight like honorable men.
Two battalions of Marines, going into a city full of enemy guerillas who've decided to come out of the shadows and fight a stand up fight...Hue City, 1968, anyone? The Marines kicked the VC's asses there in 1968. May the Saddamites suffer the same fate. God bless our fighting men as they go in harm's way.
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4/08/2004
2120 Syntax error corrected! Haloscan comments now functional!
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GeekWithA.45, aka He Who Is Wiser Than I, proposes an alternate course of action where he notes that Democracy works for whoever shows up.
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1100--More Thinking on The Smallest Minority's Important Question WeckUpToThees! proposes civil disobedience of McCain-Feingold in the blogosphere. I really like the civil disobedience idea, but I think that doing it via the blogosphere is working too much on the periphery, and at any rate, I'm not sure his idea would actually be in violation of the law, since it would be discussion, not paid advertising. But he did plant the seed in my mind.
What would the Feds do in the face of truly massive civil disobedience of this law? What if individual American citizens were to walk into each and every local cable operator, TV, and radio station, and buy 15 seconds of airtime for a commercial that specifically named a candidate? What would they do in the face of that kind of massive frontal assault on their law? It wouldn't need to cost that much money-even a commercial running at 2am violates the law.
The NRA is expending resources trying to set up a television network to get their word out around Mc-F. What if every one of their 4 million members was arrested for buying illegal commercial time? What if the GOA, ACLU, Sierra Club, NOW, and every other issue advocacy group mobilized their members to do the same? Millions of Americans arrested for exercising thier Free Speech rights. Think that would make SCOTUS sit up and take notice?
Update GeekWithA.45 has revealed my ignorance on the subtleties of the BCRA. Private citizens can buy all the ads their bank accounts can handle. Further research reveals that PACs can as well-provided they do so with regulated 'hard' money. So my idea of millions of citizens trying to buy ads is all flash, no bang.
What is restricted is campaign spending by corporate entities and union treasuries. Nasty thing is, most of the serious issue advocacy groups-the NRA, the AARP, Sierra Club, NOW, GOA, etc-and this list includes hundreds if not thousands of smaller local groups-are incorporated. There is hope on this front, however-Rep Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD6) has introduced HR 3801, the ÂFirst Amendment Restoration Act (FARA). So write, call, email your Congresscritters to support his bill.
The first item I post that other people actually link to, and it's built on an error of fact. How mortifying. I shall now flagellate myself with a wet noodle.
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4/07/2004
What is the Democrats' obsession with Vietnam?
Now it's Senator Robert Byrd, former high-poobah in the KKK, comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Why? Why do they see Vietnam as the Greatest Failure of All Time? Guess what guys, we actually were winning that war one the ground, it's just that we lacked the political will for the fight, thanks in no small part to the Anti-War crowd that John Kerry was a part of. Maybe that's it. They keep going back to Vietnam because they see it as their side winning. Which brings me to the potentially nasty thought: Do they really want us to lose in Iraq? I think that there truly are a lot of people on the Left that want that to happen. They want out troops to die, and us to go home with our tail between our legs so that they can feel superior. Bunch of sick f&*ks.
Incidentally, al-Sadr, the s@#thead Shiite terrorist 'holy man' who is one of the main catalysts behind the current fighting and whom John Kerry refers to as a "legitimate voice" has picked up the lingo and is promising to turn Iraq into "another Vietnam." Guess the guy must be a Democrat.
If the Dems want to draw analogies to Vietnam, I'll draw one that they probably won't like: I think, when all is said and done, we will look at the fighting that started this week as, militarily, very much like the Tet offensive of 1968. It looked really bad on TV, but in reality broke the back of the VC. That's what I see happening here. The terrorists have forced our forces to go in after them, and it looks quite ugly at the moment, but they are authoring their own demise.
Update I guess I wasn't the first to see the similarity to Tet '68. This guy has a lot more detail about that fight. Read about it here.
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1800--Tremendously thought provoking stuff over here at The Smallest Minority Reading that, and a couple of Kevin's linked essays got me very depressed. The discussion in the comments section, as far as I read it, is great too. The key quote in the whole thing is this one, attributed to Justice Antonin Scalia:
"It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution.
We are free at last, free at last. There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands."
Alexis de Tocqueville posited that the Republic was through when Congress discovered it could bribe the people with the people's money. I don't think he even conceived the consequences of the courts deciding to ignore the written Constitution when it clashed with their vision of some ideal society. When that happens, and Smallest Minority is presenting evidence that it is happening, what to do?
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once. " [Emphasis added]
-- Justice Alex Kozinski, US 9th Circuit Court, 2003
Is that all that's left? I hope not. I do find some hope in the concluding part of GeekWithA.45's review of Restoring the Lost Constitution. There's a ray of hope in the long term. Of course, the trouble with the long term is you have to go through the short term to get there. So for now we have to wait, watch, and agitate.
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Also from San Francisco S.F. State may drop engineers school
This just makes no frigging sense. Engineers actually do useful, productive work. They design and invent widgets and technologies to improve our lives. They design and build buildings, bridges, roads, etc. Why don't they consider getting rid of any of the various "ethnic studies" departments? As far as I can tell, the only thing graduates of ethnic studies programs produce is more ethnic studies programs. Oh, and more demands for more programs that vacuum more money out of my paycheck. But despite their lack of production of anything useful, they're untouchable, because they have loud obnoxious advocacy groups who complain about how they're being "oppressed." Meanwhile, the engineers just do what they do, designing and building actual stuff that actually makes our lives livable.
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SFPD stops hunting the Zodiac
I don't really have any comment here, except that this means that America's most famous unsolved serial killings may never be solved. The Zodiac can join Jack the Ripper in history.
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What the hell is Ted Kennedy's problem? Just read this article by Jay Ambrose on Kennedy's recent bloviations, especially comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Money quote: "As for Iraq being another Vietnam, Kennedy might pause to reflect that it was his brother John who stepped up our involvement in that Southeast Asian country so as to make extraction difficult."
I do have to disagree with Ambrose when he says that there's a place for Kennedy's positions in the Senate. No, there isn't. There is no place in the Senate for people who advocate things that are unconstitutional, as most of Kennedy's positions, especially those relating to guns, are. There's no place for a Senator who conspires to obstruct judicial confirmation in order to influence the outcome of cases. Why the hell hasn't the Senate ethics committee dragged Kennedy, his aides, and reps from the various lefty groups named in those memos? Are they afraid of bad press? Guess what, you're already getting bad press.
Personally, I think Ted's real problem is that, deep down, he knows he's getting old, and despite all his time in the Senate, he's the most most historically insignificant of all his brothers. And I'm including Joe Jr., who died in WWII. At least he died doing something worthwhile.
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0730--It sucks being a West Coast baseball fan living on the East Coast Stayed up to watch the Giants play Houston last night, hoping to see Barry Bonds hit #660 and catch Willie Mays. Game didn't end until almost midnight. Ouch. At least the Giants won. Tonight's game is on ESPN2 as well-Bonds vs Clemens. 600 HR hitter vs 300 game winner, first time in baseball history. Should be great.
But will someone please tell ESPN to get Chris Berman off their baseball shows? God that man is annoying. Not Dick Vitale, but still. Why can't they put the Joe Morgan/John Miller crew on these games? They're so much better.
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4/06/2004
On a Happier Note Baseball season is officially in full swing, pun intended. And the Mighty G-men are 1-0, thanks to yet another superhuman game by the incomparable Barry Bonds. 3-3 with a walk, two doubles and a game-tying 3 run homer. The dude is what, 39, 40? It's just insane.
Oh, and the NHL playoffs are coming. SJ Sharks hosting the St Louis Blues on Thursday. Life is good.
Yes, I loathe most things from Kalifornia, but I do love my teams.
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Noonish Something I just don't understand Drugs. I just don't get drugs. Can anyone out there in Blogland enlighten me? Why the heck do people feel the need to do drugs? I know that Timothy Leary character used to talk about LSD and expanding your mind. I assume one's mind would have to expand in order to make room for seeing things that aren't there-pink elephants, green dragons, flying monkeys, and the like. Reality is pretty damn interesting on its own, if you just bother to look. Hell, the sheer size of the blogosphere is evidence that there's a whole lot out there that folks like me think is interesting enough to write about. Why in the heck do people feel the need to put some poisonous substance into their body/brain so they can invent unreality?
Some people, I guess, take drugs because to them life is just so awful they just want to get away from it. But what's so bad that the drugs aren't going to make it worse in the long run? OK, you felt really good and your problems went away for a while. Well, now you've lost a few hours of your life, you're out the cash you spent on the dope, and you're hooked on something that's going to fry your brain eventually. Why? Add in some of the other nasty side effects for good measure-link the junkies who start committing crimes to finance their habit so doing the drugs makes even less sense.
Of course, the War on Drugs is a failure. You'd think we'd have learned after Prohibition. The WoD has basically become an excuse for the ongoing War on Your Civil Rights. Ever expanding police search powers, more and more infringements on your right to bear arms because the criminals who sell drugs, and people who use them, keep shooting people.
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Needless to say, I think drugs should be legalized-with one very important caveat. If you chose to take drugs, that is an implicit and legally binding acknowledgement that you agree to be responsible for any consequences. That I, Heartless Libertarian Taxpayer, cannot be made to pay for your rehab or for any damage you do to yourself or others. It's that simple: be responsible for yourself and your actions, and you can pump your body full of all the poison you want.
This should also apply to other annoying Nanny State laws, like mandatory seatbelt and helmet laws. People (adults-anyone who doesn't buckle up a kid should be arrested for child endangerment) should be free to not wear them if they so choose. But they should also be responsible for their own hospital bills when they get into an accident and assume a vegetative state.
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4/05/2004
1730 EDT
I was hunting around for Ronald Reagan's superb Goldwater Stump Speech. I wanted to add it to my list of links, because it really is one of the greatest conservative stump speeches in recent memory. One place I found it is on AntiAuthority.com, which has the look of a very interesting site.
Not sure how current it is-the most recent "New Addition" is over a year old-but it might bear linking to in its own right.
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The Liberal Mind Continues to Defy Logic
"I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important." -John "F-bomb" Kerry
Senator Kerry says that rap and hip=hop music are "interesting." It's also some of the most mysogynistic crap this side of a snuff film. But I haven't heard NOW taking the good Senator to task for his statement. Actually, NOW has been amazingly quiet about the general denigration and ojbectification of women in rap and hip-hop music. Kind of like they were quiet about Bill Clinton's sexual harrassment, alleged sexual assault, and general boorish behavior towards women.
Moral of the story: if you're on NOW's "Good Guy" list, which basically means you support abortion on demand unconditionally, you can do just about anything you want to women, and they won't complain. But if you're not on their list, you so much as look at a woman wrong and they'll call for your nuts on a platter.
Now that I think about it, of course NOW supports John Kerry. He's just as two-faced as they are.
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You may ask why Arrogant Bastard Ale is a Non-Sponsor. First of all, running this blog doesn't cost anything except time, so I don't need corporate sponsor money, although any and all donations will be appreciated.
Second, I can't buy the stuff in the state of South Carolina. Apparently beer over 5% or somesuch alcohol content is illegal here. Any other state, I'd blame it on nanny-state, "for the children" blissninnies, but here in SC I'm not sure if it's them, the religious anti-booze types, or the lobbyists for Budweiser, Coors, et al., trying to ensure market share for their weak ass pisswater. Fizzy yellow beer is for wussies.
I love Arrogant Bastard, and pretty much all the beer made by Stone Brewing. But the only way I can get it is to have people send it to me from states that sell it. I don't like it enough to drive all the way to friggin' Virginia Beach to get some.
And as for the Non-Sponsors...this will be a list of companies/groups/people whose products and/or services I enjoy enough to recomend to others, but who are not sponsors of my site. Because I don't have sponsors.
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This blog is now officially operational. Huge thanks to Mad Ogre and GeekWithA.45 for inspiration and technical assistance. And to all the folks over the The High Road, for helping me hone and articulate my worldview.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
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4/04/2004
I don't need the Department of Labor to tell me that the employment picture is looking good.
My alarm clock/radio is set to a country station, and it goes off early enough that they're still playing the all-night syndicated show that keeps truckers awake. Yesterday I woke up to a commercial for J.B. Hunt Trucking. They weren't advertising their services-it was a Help Wanted ad, offering truckers $6-10k more than what they're getting now. And when big trucking companies are hiring, you know things are looking good.
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