Well, I just was roaming briefly on the Internet, looking up a couple of things by a profile that I have been using off-and-on for years... johndrake6. The not so obvious reference is to a combination of the Prisoner and Danger Man - like many Prisoner fans, I believe that number six is actually John Drake from the series "Danger Man". Imagine my surprise in finding out I am no longer unique.
As near as I can tell, there are two new "Johnny come lately" upstarts with that profile name - using it much more pervasively (and it might just be one person, I did not pay that close attention). Ironically enough, the person is of nearly opposite political persuasion (which I, of course find ironic considering that #6 is a "Man vs. Society" themed character that doesn't fit with the big government liberalism that the other JD6 espouses - of course, he would see me, a conservative as a big government represser of people's rights, and we are probably in our own ways, both right).
Of course, I have a romantic idealised vision of myself as an independent thinker not constrained by societal or governmental norms - (s)he probably has the same idealized vision of him/herself (one can never be assured of gender just by screen name). Clearly we would have different ideas of what this ideal embodies (given some blogs on the huffington post on how Dems should dare Reps to filibuster health care reform, etc), but it is interesting to have one's semi-uniqueness copied. And I say semi-uniqueness because I obviously took the idea from somewhere else, but when I did, I did not see anyone else on the net that had that screen name anywhere on any search... and now I do, and it's not me :(
I guess I'll just start using the moniker jonathanE
ah... Rollerball and James Caan - another rugged individualist who triumphs against a repressive society - how I wish I could be that ;)
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Well, writing every day didn't work out...
So I am back a few days later. Just a quick little blurb on the proposed budget. I am no fan of George W. Bush; some of his policies were okay, some were not, but he was what I like to call a "big government" conservative... to my mind that is not a conservative at all. But the proposed budgets by Obama dwarf the big government Republicanism of the Bush era.
And I can hear the hue-and-cry now: We inherited this mess, it takes time, etc, etc, etc. The plain fact is that Keynesian economics does not work. It did not work to get us out of the Great Depression; it did not work in the seventies for Nixon, Ford, or Carter; it did not work for Japan in the nineties; it does not work in a boat; it does not work with a goat... it does not work, Sam-I-Am.
Whether or not the mess was inherited (and I can point out, and have in previous blogs that both the Dems and Repubs in congress are really to blame by setting up Fannie and Freddie the way they did, and I laid all that out in a previous posting) the solutions being posited make things worse, not better. Bailing out companies that are "too big to fail" rather than letting them file for bankruptcy and renegotiate contractual obligations sets up scenarios like we have now with AIG. They paid out $100,000,000 in bonuses to about 200 people this year - which means the average bonus is $500,000 - and there is much uproar about the ridiculousness of this act when they are still on the hook for $182,000,000,000 of taxpayer money (incidentally, the bonuses amount to about 1/2 of a percent of the money the Fed gave them - apparently the "it is such a small fraction of the money in play" argument only works for bills and earmarks in Washington DC). Honestly, the bonuses are not really that big a deal, but if AIG had filed for bankruptcy, restructured, and renegotiated contracts, everything would likely have been sussed out by now. The same goes for GM, etc.
But because of the Keynesian ideology, that is that the government makes jobs, these idiotic moves were made, along with a number of other "stimulus" ideas, all of which were as dumb as mailing out $300 refund checks to everyone. At least the B.S. Bush "stimulus" treated everyone fairly... the Democrat stimulus paid off unions (if GM doesn't restructure, unions don't have to take a contract hit, though I don't know why AIG is being paid off). And, effectively, AIG is being paid off (I know I shouldn't refer to a parenthetical idea in a non-parenthetical follow up, but what the hell) - Obama wants to tax deposits in banks that have paid back all the TARP money, but doesn't want to hold AIG to any account, despite the fact that they are not even close to paying off their debts...
But back to the budget - this was supposed to be quick, but my fertile (or was that febrile) mind wandered off again - this budget is approximately 25% of GDP, and the future expenditures laid out in this budget are projected to be in the range of 23 to 25% for the following two years. At his most profligate, FDR never exceeded 12.5% of GDP. Expenditures this high are completely unsustainable, and this does not even include "Health Insurance Reform".
And the basis for this thought is ludicrous - the Keynesian economic theory is pure sophistry, even one of the key advocates in FDR's administration admitted it didn't work after seeing it in play for eight years (his name eludes me now, but I will find it, and the quote and put it up later). Government cannot create wealth or jobs - it can merely shift wealth. The only way that a government job is created is by taking the money from the private sector. This is not to say that we should have no government jobs - clearly many are necessary - but piecemeal public works projects do nothing to stimulate the economy long term, they simply take money from a nervous private sector, and shift it into temporary projects - the private sector does not want to invest when the outlook is risky and they face an increase burden of taxation, and the worker in the temporary government job does not want to spend money because s/he knows her job is temporary.
An what is worse, the Democrats have tacitly admitted that tax cuts work in stimulating the economy - why else would they have a tax credit for new homeowners. This is saying that they believe that a tax cut will stimulate activity in that market. If they believe that this is true in one case, why do they shy away from it elsewhere? The answer, of course, is simple. To do tax cuts right requires careful analysis (of which I am not sure that anyone in Washington is capable), and it does not seem to be the populist idea that sells easily to voters.
Oh, and BTW, that no tax increases on the middle class that Obama promised is B.S., too. By letting tax cuts lapse, you increase taxes, and all it will take is you doing your taxes to see that the hit goes to the middle class more than it goes to the rich. Also, the tax on deposits in banks - gee, who makes those deposits, and I wonder if the bank will just send in the money to Washington without increasing fees? That seems likely (note: HEAVY SARCASM). And, of course, if health care legislation passes, your health plan (if you have one, and you are not a member of the right union that can strong-arm the president) will be taxed, too. Yep, he's definitely looking out for the little guy.
Not to mention that mandating that people buy health insurance upon penalty of fine and eventually imprisonment for continued non-compliance is grossly unconstitutional, makes a crime out of simply being alive (if you choose not to buy insurance), and ... no, wait ... that topic is for another day, I've been sitting here way too long, but that stuff is in the Senate version of the bill.
And I can hear the hue-and-cry now: We inherited this mess, it takes time, etc, etc, etc. The plain fact is that Keynesian economics does not work. It did not work to get us out of the Great Depression; it did not work in the seventies for Nixon, Ford, or Carter; it did not work for Japan in the nineties; it does not work in a boat; it does not work with a goat... it does not work, Sam-I-Am.
Whether or not the mess was inherited (and I can point out, and have in previous blogs that both the Dems and Repubs in congress are really to blame by setting up Fannie and Freddie the way they did, and I laid all that out in a previous posting) the solutions being posited make things worse, not better. Bailing out companies that are "too big to fail" rather than letting them file for bankruptcy and renegotiate contractual obligations sets up scenarios like we have now with AIG. They paid out $100,000,000 in bonuses to about 200 people this year - which means the average bonus is $500,000 - and there is much uproar about the ridiculousness of this act when they are still on the hook for $182,000,000,000 of taxpayer money (incidentally, the bonuses amount to about 1/2 of a percent of the money the Fed gave them - apparently the "it is such a small fraction of the money in play" argument only works for bills and earmarks in Washington DC). Honestly, the bonuses are not really that big a deal, but if AIG had filed for bankruptcy, restructured, and renegotiated contracts, everything would likely have been sussed out by now. The same goes for GM, etc.
But because of the Keynesian ideology, that is that the government makes jobs, these idiotic moves were made, along with a number of other "stimulus" ideas, all of which were as dumb as mailing out $300 refund checks to everyone. At least the B.S. Bush "stimulus" treated everyone fairly... the Democrat stimulus paid off unions (if GM doesn't restructure, unions don't have to take a contract hit, though I don't know why AIG is being paid off). And, effectively, AIG is being paid off (I know I shouldn't refer to a parenthetical idea in a non-parenthetical follow up, but what the hell) - Obama wants to tax deposits in banks that have paid back all the TARP money, but doesn't want to hold AIG to any account, despite the fact that they are not even close to paying off their debts...
But back to the budget - this was supposed to be quick, but my fertile (or was that febrile) mind wandered off again - this budget is approximately 25% of GDP, and the future expenditures laid out in this budget are projected to be in the range of 23 to 25% for the following two years. At his most profligate, FDR never exceeded 12.5% of GDP. Expenditures this high are completely unsustainable, and this does not even include "Health Insurance Reform".
And the basis for this thought is ludicrous - the Keynesian economic theory is pure sophistry, even one of the key advocates in FDR's administration admitted it didn't work after seeing it in play for eight years (his name eludes me now, but I will find it, and the quote and put it up later). Government cannot create wealth or jobs - it can merely shift wealth. The only way that a government job is created is by taking the money from the private sector. This is not to say that we should have no government jobs - clearly many are necessary - but piecemeal public works projects do nothing to stimulate the economy long term, they simply take money from a nervous private sector, and shift it into temporary projects - the private sector does not want to invest when the outlook is risky and they face an increase burden of taxation, and the worker in the temporary government job does not want to spend money because s/he knows her job is temporary.
An what is worse, the Democrats have tacitly admitted that tax cuts work in stimulating the economy - why else would they have a tax credit for new homeowners. This is saying that they believe that a tax cut will stimulate activity in that market. If they believe that this is true in one case, why do they shy away from it elsewhere? The answer, of course, is simple. To do tax cuts right requires careful analysis (of which I am not sure that anyone in Washington is capable), and it does not seem to be the populist idea that sells easily to voters.
Oh, and BTW, that no tax increases on the middle class that Obama promised is B.S., too. By letting tax cuts lapse, you increase taxes, and all it will take is you doing your taxes to see that the hit goes to the middle class more than it goes to the rich. Also, the tax on deposits in banks - gee, who makes those deposits, and I wonder if the bank will just send in the money to Washington without increasing fees? That seems likely (note: HEAVY SARCASM). And, of course, if health care legislation passes, your health plan (if you have one, and you are not a member of the right union that can strong-arm the president) will be taxed, too. Yep, he's definitely looking out for the little guy.
Not to mention that mandating that people buy health insurance upon penalty of fine and eventually imprisonment for continued non-compliance is grossly unconstitutional, makes a crime out of simply being alive (if you choose not to buy insurance), and ... no, wait ... that topic is for another day, I've been sitting here way too long, but that stuff is in the Senate version of the bill.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Trying to jumpstart my writing
So I am going to try to post once a day, whether I have anything to say or not (and, if you've read previous blogs, you might maintain that "not" is more often the case). Right now, I feel like addressing the capital punishment issue that The Acupuncturist raised on our last gaming session.
I have been personally reconsidering my opinion on this for several years, and I have not come to a satisfactory conclusion as yet, but my process has (essentially) been a moral one. I would say that taking a life in general is a morally reprehensible act, but one that is, at times, necessary. In many ways this feels like a moral "cop-out", but it is one that is essential to maintaining social stability (not in regards to the death penalty, but just in regards to appropriate use of force). There are times when a morally evil act can shift to morally neutral (I would maintain that it could never be morally good). For example, if your life is threatened and you take the life of the person who is trying to take yours. This is not a good act - though the end is good, the preservation of a life (yours), nor is it an evil act, assuming you had no recourse other than to defend yourself, and that your intent was not principally to take a life but rather to preserve a life.
Obviously, this is the case with self defense, and while there are nuances to the argument of the ability to defend oneself and the amount of force one should use in said defense are open to debate, I would think that this is a fairly sound line of reasoning. Of course, one could go to absurd extremes in justifying defense and try to distort the argument to absurdity, but this is fairly difficult to do. I believe that choice is inherent to a good or evil act, and when choice is limited, acts become, effectively, less good or evil. For example, if someone makes you punch a child in the face because they have a gun to your head and you believe they will kill you, is that evil. I would say probably not. It is certainly less wrong than making a choice to punch a kid in the face because they are annoying you. Likewise, if the tax man threatens to incarcerate me because I haven't paid taxes that go to good social programs, I have done no good by paying my taxes - the end results (helping the poor) may be good, by I cannot claim any responsibility for the good act - I was forced to do it.
So I have often argued from the "morally evil, but socially necessary" standpoint, which seems a bit weak to me, because, while still having a moral absolute (killing is wrong), it becomes very easy to slip into moral relativism, so I feel that any such argument should have sound precepts behind them. I am still marginally in favor of the death penalty, especially in particular cases, but I will not maintain that it has a deterrent effect, nor will I maintain that it is the "right" thing to do. It may, in rare cases, be the necessary thing to do for the well being of society, but it should be a last resort. That is where I am right now, but I am continuing to research, contemplate, and revise my thinking.
As to the point you made, Acupuncturist, I mentioned this on last Saturday - I do not think that the statistics on the disproportionate executions of the poor or minorities is a cogent argument. It is, without a doubt, persuasive, precisely because few people want to be perceived as racist or classist, so the argument uses spurious logic and guilt to manipulate people into adopting your side, and I feel that this is little better (if it is better at all) than using a scare tactic to intimidate people into being pro death penalty (e.g. if we don't kill the killers, they will be freed to kill more people - maybe you!). Here is the problem - it does not address whether the act of execution is right or wrong, it merely states that we execute a lot of poor people and minorities relative to the overall population. The main issue is that the poor to middle class commit more capital crimes than the rich. There are more of them, and they are in circumstances, in many cases, where crime seems like a reasonable option - whether this is gang violence, drug abuse that leads to murder, or whatever. Also, this line of reasoning can be extended to the absurd - not enough middle class whites are being imprisoned for burglary, so we should not arrest anyone for burglary until this injustice is fixed. What we need to do is address the reason why at risk communities commit more crimes, and as a result are punished more for them.
I could also say that there are a disproportionately high number of white male serial killers who have been executed - stop executing them until we find more poor minority serial killers to execute. This is, of course, an absurd statement, because for whatever reason, serial killers are mostly white, educated, lower middle class to affluent males. Because this is not a demographic that has been traditional discriminated against and who is not "at risk" in the conventional sense, it does not tug at any heart strings like the other argument does. (I actually have a theory about why serial killers are almost exclusively from this demographic, but I will address that in a later blog - plus it is pure speculation)
In short, we cannot arbitrarily mete out any punishment, nor can we establish quotas on who has committed a crime. All we can do is seek to punish criminal in a uniformly just fashion - something that our system has a bit of a problem with, but I believe that our system does a remarkably good job, despite some inadequacies - and we continue to seek to improve it.
Maybe this is too idealistic, but I am in a mood where I want to drag myself out of a funk, so I am forcing optimism on myself :)
I have been personally reconsidering my opinion on this for several years, and I have not come to a satisfactory conclusion as yet, but my process has (essentially) been a moral one. I would say that taking a life in general is a morally reprehensible act, but one that is, at times, necessary. In many ways this feels like a moral "cop-out", but it is one that is essential to maintaining social stability (not in regards to the death penalty, but just in regards to appropriate use of force). There are times when a morally evil act can shift to morally neutral (I would maintain that it could never be morally good). For example, if your life is threatened and you take the life of the person who is trying to take yours. This is not a good act - though the end is good, the preservation of a life (yours), nor is it an evil act, assuming you had no recourse other than to defend yourself, and that your intent was not principally to take a life but rather to preserve a life.
Obviously, this is the case with self defense, and while there are nuances to the argument of the ability to defend oneself and the amount of force one should use in said defense are open to debate, I would think that this is a fairly sound line of reasoning. Of course, one could go to absurd extremes in justifying defense and try to distort the argument to absurdity, but this is fairly difficult to do. I believe that choice is inherent to a good or evil act, and when choice is limited, acts become, effectively, less good or evil. For example, if someone makes you punch a child in the face because they have a gun to your head and you believe they will kill you, is that evil. I would say probably not. It is certainly less wrong than making a choice to punch a kid in the face because they are annoying you. Likewise, if the tax man threatens to incarcerate me because I haven't paid taxes that go to good social programs, I have done no good by paying my taxes - the end results (helping the poor) may be good, by I cannot claim any responsibility for the good act - I was forced to do it.
So I have often argued from the "morally evil, but socially necessary" standpoint, which seems a bit weak to me, because, while still having a moral absolute (killing is wrong), it becomes very easy to slip into moral relativism, so I feel that any such argument should have sound precepts behind them. I am still marginally in favor of the death penalty, especially in particular cases, but I will not maintain that it has a deterrent effect, nor will I maintain that it is the "right" thing to do. It may, in rare cases, be the necessary thing to do for the well being of society, but it should be a last resort. That is where I am right now, but I am continuing to research, contemplate, and revise my thinking.
As to the point you made, Acupuncturist, I mentioned this on last Saturday - I do not think that the statistics on the disproportionate executions of the poor or minorities is a cogent argument. It is, without a doubt, persuasive, precisely because few people want to be perceived as racist or classist, so the argument uses spurious logic and guilt to manipulate people into adopting your side, and I feel that this is little better (if it is better at all) than using a scare tactic to intimidate people into being pro death penalty (e.g. if we don't kill the killers, they will be freed to kill more people - maybe you!). Here is the problem - it does not address whether the act of execution is right or wrong, it merely states that we execute a lot of poor people and minorities relative to the overall population. The main issue is that the poor to middle class commit more capital crimes than the rich. There are more of them, and they are in circumstances, in many cases, where crime seems like a reasonable option - whether this is gang violence, drug abuse that leads to murder, or whatever. Also, this line of reasoning can be extended to the absurd - not enough middle class whites are being imprisoned for burglary, so we should not arrest anyone for burglary until this injustice is fixed. What we need to do is address the reason why at risk communities commit more crimes, and as a result are punished more for them.
I could also say that there are a disproportionately high number of white male serial killers who have been executed - stop executing them until we find more poor minority serial killers to execute. This is, of course, an absurd statement, because for whatever reason, serial killers are mostly white, educated, lower middle class to affluent males. Because this is not a demographic that has been traditional discriminated against and who is not "at risk" in the conventional sense, it does not tug at any heart strings like the other argument does. (I actually have a theory about why serial killers are almost exclusively from this demographic, but I will address that in a later blog - plus it is pure speculation)
In short, we cannot arbitrarily mete out any punishment, nor can we establish quotas on who has committed a crime. All we can do is seek to punish criminal in a uniformly just fashion - something that our system has a bit of a problem with, but I believe that our system does a remarkably good job, despite some inadequacies - and we continue to seek to improve it.
Maybe this is too idealistic, but I am in a mood where I want to drag myself out of a funk, so I am forcing optimism on myself :)
Friday, December 18, 2009
Kudos to a Democrat
What a coincidence, the day after a new post complaining about lack of leadership on the Democrat side, one senator steps up and convinces me he actually believes in what he is doing. (Actually, I'll be convinced if he moves in the senate the way he talks on the news - no offense, I have heard enough on both sides of people saying the right thing in public and doing the opposite on the job to be a bit wary)
The person in question is Senator Ron Klink (Dem, Pennsylvania, I think) - and, in brief, here is what he said. I won't include quotes because it isn't a direct quote, but I will capture the idea of what he said:
We have to realize we have the House, Senate, and Presidency. This bill is good for America, and we have to push it through, even if it takes an extreme measure like reconciliation. Even if it costs us politically, it is the right thing to do.
That is the gist of what he said, and I laud him for actually believing in what he is doing. I happen to think that he is dead wrong about what the bill will do, but at least he seems to believe in what he is doing. And of course, it should be no surprise that I believe he is wrong - he is a left-leaning Democrat (and did not shy away from saying so - more kudos in order) and I am a right-leaning Republican. It is just nice to see a person who actually appears to believe in what they are doing, rather than adopting a position that is politically advantageous for them (this applies to the right and the left).
I'll end with something he said that also echoed my sentiments - We have to have the courage to lead, even if it costs us politically. I think that this is an important thought - leading takes courage, and ignoring the political fallout when you are right is a difficult, but important thing to do.
Of course the problem comes up when a leader has courage but has ideas that are not right - as I would argue about health care, the economy, etc., and the Left would argue about George W. Bush. He clearly had the same idea, that it was better to be right than popular, and the Left stridently believes that he was not right, just as I stridently believe this bill is not right. I can respect the Left who take this position - recognizing that a person has the courage of his/her convictions, but that those convictions are incorrect, rather than labelling someone as evil or stupid, etc. I don't think that Ron Klink is stupid, I think he has a fundamentally different belief system then I do, and this is because of his education and experience, just as mine comes from my education and experience.
That's all folks.
The person in question is Senator Ron Klink (Dem, Pennsylvania, I think) - and, in brief, here is what he said. I won't include quotes because it isn't a direct quote, but I will capture the idea of what he said:
We have to realize we have the House, Senate, and Presidency. This bill is good for America, and we have to push it through, even if it takes an extreme measure like reconciliation. Even if it costs us politically, it is the right thing to do.
That is the gist of what he said, and I laud him for actually believing in what he is doing. I happen to think that he is dead wrong about what the bill will do, but at least he seems to believe in what he is doing. And of course, it should be no surprise that I believe he is wrong - he is a left-leaning Democrat (and did not shy away from saying so - more kudos in order) and I am a right-leaning Republican. It is just nice to see a person who actually appears to believe in what they are doing, rather than adopting a position that is politically advantageous for them (this applies to the right and the left).
I'll end with something he said that also echoed my sentiments - We have to have the courage to lead, even if it costs us politically. I think that this is an important thought - leading takes courage, and ignoring the political fallout when you are right is a difficult, but important thing to do.
Of course the problem comes up when a leader has courage but has ideas that are not right - as I would argue about health care, the economy, etc., and the Left would argue about George W. Bush. He clearly had the same idea, that it was better to be right than popular, and the Left stridently believes that he was not right, just as I stridently believe this bill is not right. I can respect the Left who take this position - recognizing that a person has the courage of his/her convictions, but that those convictions are incorrect, rather than labelling someone as evil or stupid, etc. I don't think that Ron Klink is stupid, I think he has a fundamentally different belief system then I do, and this is because of his education and experience, just as mine comes from my education and experience.
That's all folks.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
I guess I'm back
Well, over the past several months I have been both busy and neglectful. There has been a lot that I have wanted to write about, but I never made the time. Add to that some frustrating conversations and an occasional misinterpretation of my meanderings in the dimmer corners of my mind, and I haven't really felt much like writing, but here goes nothing - today's topic:
The Health Care Bill/Debate.
First and foremost, I am not going to debate the need or lack thereof for the health care reform initiative. Rather, I am going to address some rather specious lines of reasoning that are being touted as to why the bill has to get done, and elucidate on why these tactics make me suspicious of the motives. I am not going to debate the merit or lack thereof of a public option, I am just going to discuss White House and Congressional tactics, principally on the Democrat side. The reason that I am not bothering with the Republican side should be obvious (and no, it is not because I agree with them). The Democrats are driving the debate and have established the criteria of the necessity of this reform. More on that when I talk about the supermajority...
The Health Care Bill/Debate.
First and foremost, I am not going to debate the need or lack thereof for the health care reform initiative. Rather, I am going to address some rather specious lines of reasoning that are being touted as to why the bill has to get done, and elucidate on why these tactics make me suspicious of the motives. I am not going to debate the merit or lack thereof of a public option, I am just going to discuss White House and Congressional tactics, principally on the Democrat side. The reason that I am not bothering with the Republican side should be obvious (and no, it is not because I agree with them). The Democrats are driving the debate and have established the criteria of the necessity of this reform. More on that when I talk about the supermajority...
- We need this bill passed right now. If we don't get it passed by (insert date of choice) then (insert apocryphal saying of choice). Now, this one falls flat on the face of it - if the need is so imperative, why do the benefits not kick in for another four years and the tax increases and medicare cuts happen immediately - this would seem to say that it is imperative, but if people have health issues in the next four years, that is just too bad. A measured approach to any legislation is better - give the legislature a chance to (heaven forfend) actually read the bill so that they know on what they are voting. All of the deadlines are arbitrary and seem to me to stifle debate, making the promise of transparency ring somewhat hollow. If we are going to do this, do it well; do not rush it just to say we got it done. This smacks more of politicking and less of actual concern for the public.
- We need competition with the private sector - the heath care industry is a "monopoly". I have actually heard the White House press secretary pitch this one - the government needs to provide an alternate to the private sector because the private sector has a monopoly on health care. This just shows misunderstanding of the term monopoly. If the private sector being in charge of an industry is all it takes to have a monopoly, then every industry in which the government does not participate is a monopoly. Why, then, does the government not compete with car insurers, home insurers (in a way, they do), computer manufacturers, video game companies, mom and pop corner stores, etc. The competition angle of the debate is spurious at best - it is simply dressing up the issue to make it palatable to moderates. If the heath care system needs fixing and you believe that your plan will do it, do not make up a phony claim of monopoly - it just makes people suspicious of your motives.
- The Republicans are a party of "No" - they offer no ideas. and/or The Republicans are putting up roadblocks and we would like them to be part of the process. Neither one of these make a bit of difference. The Democrats have a supermajority. They have the House, Senate, and Presidency. They could pass this without any Republican help. In fact, if I were them, and I really believed that my ideas were good, I would try to pass the laws and make a point that the ideas were all my party's and none of my opposition's. If your ideas are diametrically opposed, and you believe yours are right, state your case, explain why you are doing what you are doing and be willing to take all of the credit and all of the blame. The fact that they are unwilling to do this again makes me think that they do not have a lot of faith in their ideas and they want a "fall guy" if they need it. Again, it looks more like politics and less like they believe in what they are doing.
Honestly, there are many other arguments that I could address, but I don't feel like it right now. In short, all I am trying to say is that if the Democrats want to allay suspicions of the independent voter (they will never convince the far right of the merits of the government option, so they shouldn't try; the reason far right and far left are so... well... far apart, is because their ideas run counter to one another. There is nothing wrong with this and neither side should have to compromise their core principles, they just have to convince a majority that their core principles are correct) they should just come out and say honestly what they believe are the merits of the system they propose - without attacking or making up phony claims. If you believe in it, stand behind it, use it to differentiate yourselves from the Republicans, and you will go a good way toward convincing people that your side is right. The way the process is going, it does not seem like the Democrats are committed to the idea or really feel like it is actually what is best. All of there tactics serve to make people question their motives rather than feel like they are being dealt with in an honest and open fashion.
More on the actual substance of why I personally feel that the bill (and the various iterations that have been proposed) are not actually good economically or for the health care system and my ways that I would reform the system in an upcoming blog.
... Oh yeah, and supergoober, I have reached Level 19 on two player mode of Tetris Friends, and Level 20 (Grand Master) in the 6 player version - top that!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Roman Polanski
Well, they finally got him. I know that this is an unpopular move, and many people have decried it because of the overcrowding in CA jails and the fact that we just signed a law releasing 40,000 criminals (inmates, if that fits your perspective better - assuming they were all captives in an unjust system and victims of an overzealous state - of course, the actual truth is somewhere in the middle) due to budget issues and because the victim has since forgiven him, etc., etc., etc.
Here is the problem that I have. Let's say he wasn't a famous film director, just the creepy Polish dude who lives down the block (irony duly noted, given my heritage and somewhat creepy disposition). Suppose this 44 year old guy invites a 13 year old model for a "photo-shoot", plies her with wine and barbiturates, gets her in a hot tub and has sex with her. He is then arrested, pleas guilty to a statutory rape charge instead of child molestation, and is released until sentencing. This guy then flees the country and spends the next 30+ years evading authorities. Would we have sympathy then?
I would say that most people would not, and given that these were the circumstances as I recall them (I don't know what he actually plead to, but I figured it would be something like statutory rape), I think that his personal issues stand separate from his directorial accomplishments. He is no better or worse than the rest of us. The European mentality stems from both an openness towards sexual mores (which I do not think really apply here, given the coercion) and from the fact that Europe is a classed society, where there is a long history of one class being better than another and getting to flout the law as a result. They are much more comfortable with this double standard because it has been culturally ingrained in them for thousands of years. It is also one of the reasons that we have an equal protection clause in our Constitution and why people are supposed to all be equal under the law. This was a guiding principle in the formation of the government, though it was not always put into practice - and this fundamental difference is what separates us from many other nations. A celebrity should not be free to get away with more stuff than anyone else - Paris Hilton goes to jail for a few days on a drunk driving charge just like anyone else in her situation (and yes, most people receiving a 30 day sentence for a similar charge get out in five days due to overcrowding - she shouldn't be punished any more because she is a celebrity either). Phil Spektor gets convicted of murder when he kills a young aspiring actress.
Obviously, there is some difference, celebs and the wealthy afford better representation, and can pull strings to get away with some stuff, but this should not be encouraged - Michael Skakel could have actually been tried as a juvenile and dealt with his problems after murdering his young neighbor, but the fact that he was part of the Kennedy "royalty" and the local DA was beholden to the Kennedy clan delayed his conviction until after his adulthood, leading him to be sentenced as an adult because of the continuing conspiracy to conceal the crime as an adult. Treating celebrities differently only creates problems in our legal system, and it does nothing to set up the sense of fairness that is supposed to underpin our system. This attitude is fine in Europe, but it cannot be tolerated here. Sorry, Roman, and I do love your movies, but you have to pay the piper. I liked Hemingway to, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a crotchety, depressed, suicidal drunkard. I appreciate Spektor's contribution to the music industry by bringing a number of great bands to the public eye, but he is still a murderer.
I never really liked Aurthur C. Clarke, however, and he is still a child molester, whether I like his work or not (but that brings new meaning to his novel, Childhood's End, now doesn't it?)
Here is the problem that I have. Let's say he wasn't a famous film director, just the creepy Polish dude who lives down the block (irony duly noted, given my heritage and somewhat creepy disposition). Suppose this 44 year old guy invites a 13 year old model for a "photo-shoot", plies her with wine and barbiturates, gets her in a hot tub and has sex with her. He is then arrested, pleas guilty to a statutory rape charge instead of child molestation, and is released until sentencing. This guy then flees the country and spends the next 30+ years evading authorities. Would we have sympathy then?
I would say that most people would not, and given that these were the circumstances as I recall them (I don't know what he actually plead to, but I figured it would be something like statutory rape), I think that his personal issues stand separate from his directorial accomplishments. He is no better or worse than the rest of us. The European mentality stems from both an openness towards sexual mores (which I do not think really apply here, given the coercion) and from the fact that Europe is a classed society, where there is a long history of one class being better than another and getting to flout the law as a result. They are much more comfortable with this double standard because it has been culturally ingrained in them for thousands of years. It is also one of the reasons that we have an equal protection clause in our Constitution and why people are supposed to all be equal under the law. This was a guiding principle in the formation of the government, though it was not always put into practice - and this fundamental difference is what separates us from many other nations. A celebrity should not be free to get away with more stuff than anyone else - Paris Hilton goes to jail for a few days on a drunk driving charge just like anyone else in her situation (and yes, most people receiving a 30 day sentence for a similar charge get out in five days due to overcrowding - she shouldn't be punished any more because she is a celebrity either). Phil Spektor gets convicted of murder when he kills a young aspiring actress.
Obviously, there is some difference, celebs and the wealthy afford better representation, and can pull strings to get away with some stuff, but this should not be encouraged - Michael Skakel could have actually been tried as a juvenile and dealt with his problems after murdering his young neighbor, but the fact that he was part of the Kennedy "royalty" and the local DA was beholden to the Kennedy clan delayed his conviction until after his adulthood, leading him to be sentenced as an adult because of the continuing conspiracy to conceal the crime as an adult. Treating celebrities differently only creates problems in our legal system, and it does nothing to set up the sense of fairness that is supposed to underpin our system. This attitude is fine in Europe, but it cannot be tolerated here. Sorry, Roman, and I do love your movies, but you have to pay the piper. I liked Hemingway to, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a crotchety, depressed, suicidal drunkard. I appreciate Spektor's contribution to the music industry by bringing a number of great bands to the public eye, but he is still a murderer.
I never really liked Aurthur C. Clarke, however, and he is still a child molester, whether I like his work or not (but that brings new meaning to his novel, Childhood's End, now doesn't it?)
Ah, peroxyacetone...
Well, well, well, a terror suspect apprehended buying hair and nail care products - will wonders never cease. Just as a quick note, in case anyone was wondering, he was trying to make peroxyacetone - a highly explosive and none-to-stable compound that is really easy to make. In fact, it's what the train bombers in Britain used a few years back.
I made some in lab this summer for a demonstration in chemistry, and, oh boy, is it ever fun. I had about a 2 gram pile of it on a 4"x4"x0.5" pine board (to protect the lab bench). 2 grams takes up about a half a golf ball sized pile (it is kind of fluffy - you could try to compress it into a smaller container, but I wouldn't risk that after it was dry, it would likely blow up while you were tamping it down). With ear plugs and the class well back, I had a lit match taped to the end of a 2 meter long stick - a touch of the match to the pile and BOOM!
goodbye board, meter stick, filter paper (that the substance was drying on) - the reaction was so energetic, it actually disintegrated most of the filter paper except for the parts that were actually driven into the board (and if you know anything about momentum, you know this takes a lot of force to drive paper into the grain of a pine wood board), the small board was shattered into three pieces, one of which flew 15 feet and landed in a student's lap, and scared the bejeezus out of the entire third floor. I felt the pressure wave (albeit only slightly) from seven feet away. Good times.
But seriously, this is dangerous stuff, and the guy was buying chemicals in quantities to make a lot - at least 100 times what I made, just in the one video purchase that they show on TV. It is really easy to make - mix fairly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and plain old acetone and add a couple of drops of something else, and, Presto! it precipitates out of the solution (no, I am not going to tell you the proportions, or the secret ingredient, or the concentration of H2O2 - if you want to blow yourself or someone else up, F--- Off! somebody else online will help you, but you can be damn well certain it isn't going to be me).
Why am I writing all this? I really don't know - just trying to indicate that almost anything can be made into a weapon if you want it to - ban guns and scary knives and chemicals all you want - bad people still do bad things. And yes, I am calling him bad - he isn't misunderstood or manipulated by his religion - he gravitated to this kind of ideology based on who he is. Most followers of Islam are not bad people, as are most Christians, Jews, Deists, Buddhists, Atheists, etc (I say not bad because it requires effort to actually be good - so I would say most people qualify as basically not bad). Bad ones are drawn to extremism - whether it is bombing the World Trade Center or an abortion clinic. It isn't the religion that causes the violence, it is the people - we could all be secular humanists and I would contend that there would still be violence; in fact, the most wholesale slaughters of the twentieth century were perpetrated by people who ascribed to no particular faith (Mao, Lenin, and Stalin - all of whom said that religion should be done away with). They did away with religion, and managed to wreak more havoc in a shorter time than most major religions ever have over their entire history - even the Crusades did not have the body count that any of the big three above did. (Liberal estimates of the death toll on both sides gets to about 3,000,000 - but most likely these are overestimates, because counting issues at this time were suspect at best)
I don't really know where I am going with this other than to say that humans seem to have a very violent streak - religions and societies at once have a mitigating effect and at other times seem to exacerbate the issue - which is why one cannot blame society or religion. Both of these are constructs created by people (while I do believe in God, spirituality, etc., religions are the human constructs for communal expression of their spiritual nature), and it is the people who are the issue- those suspicious of organizations, corporations, religions, etc seem to often forget that they do not exist independently of people, and that they are just a reflection of the dual nature of humanity. (BTW, if you want more non-religious massacres, I can get them any time - the Hutus massacring hundreds of thousands of Tsutsis, for example, based on tribalism, Pol Pot killing intellectuals, French killing British, British killing French, etc., etc., etc.)
Oh, well, we muddle through as best we can...
I made some in lab this summer for a demonstration in chemistry, and, oh boy, is it ever fun. I had about a 2 gram pile of it on a 4"x4"x0.5" pine board (to protect the lab bench). 2 grams takes up about a half a golf ball sized pile (it is kind of fluffy - you could try to compress it into a smaller container, but I wouldn't risk that after it was dry, it would likely blow up while you were tamping it down). With ear plugs and the class well back, I had a lit match taped to the end of a 2 meter long stick - a touch of the match to the pile and BOOM!
goodbye board, meter stick, filter paper (that the substance was drying on) - the reaction was so energetic, it actually disintegrated most of the filter paper except for the parts that were actually driven into the board (and if you know anything about momentum, you know this takes a lot of force to drive paper into the grain of a pine wood board), the small board was shattered into three pieces, one of which flew 15 feet and landed in a student's lap, and scared the bejeezus out of the entire third floor. I felt the pressure wave (albeit only slightly) from seven feet away. Good times.
But seriously, this is dangerous stuff, and the guy was buying chemicals in quantities to make a lot - at least 100 times what I made, just in the one video purchase that they show on TV. It is really easy to make - mix fairly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and plain old acetone and add a couple of drops of something else, and, Presto! it precipitates out of the solution (no, I am not going to tell you the proportions, or the secret ingredient, or the concentration of H2O2 - if you want to blow yourself or someone else up, F--- Off! somebody else online will help you, but you can be damn well certain it isn't going to be me).
Why am I writing all this? I really don't know - just trying to indicate that almost anything can be made into a weapon if you want it to - ban guns and scary knives and chemicals all you want - bad people still do bad things. And yes, I am calling him bad - he isn't misunderstood or manipulated by his religion - he gravitated to this kind of ideology based on who he is. Most followers of Islam are not bad people, as are most Christians, Jews, Deists, Buddhists, Atheists, etc (I say not bad because it requires effort to actually be good - so I would say most people qualify as basically not bad). Bad ones are drawn to extremism - whether it is bombing the World Trade Center or an abortion clinic. It isn't the religion that causes the violence, it is the people - we could all be secular humanists and I would contend that there would still be violence; in fact, the most wholesale slaughters of the twentieth century were perpetrated by people who ascribed to no particular faith (Mao, Lenin, and Stalin - all of whom said that religion should be done away with). They did away with religion, and managed to wreak more havoc in a shorter time than most major religions ever have over their entire history - even the Crusades did not have the body count that any of the big three above did. (Liberal estimates of the death toll on both sides gets to about 3,000,000 - but most likely these are overestimates, because counting issues at this time were suspect at best)
I don't really know where I am going with this other than to say that humans seem to have a very violent streak - religions and societies at once have a mitigating effect and at other times seem to exacerbate the issue - which is why one cannot blame society or religion. Both of these are constructs created by people (while I do believe in God, spirituality, etc., religions are the human constructs for communal expression of their spiritual nature), and it is the people who are the issue- those suspicious of organizations, corporations, religions, etc seem to often forget that they do not exist independently of people, and that they are just a reflection of the dual nature of humanity. (BTW, if you want more non-religious massacres, I can get them any time - the Hutus massacring hundreds of thousands of Tsutsis, for example, based on tribalism, Pol Pot killing intellectuals, French killing British, British killing French, etc., etc., etc.)
Oh, well, we muddle through as best we can...
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