| Tuesday, March
30, 2004 w
Another one for "the Crazy Years" file.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/News/2004/03/17/pf-384726.html
"Corrections Canada won't let guards at
maximum-security prisons wear stab-proof vests because it sends a
confrontational "signal" to prisoners, says a department spokesman. "If you
have that kind of presence symbolized by (a stab-proof vest), you're sending
a signal to the prisoner that you consider him to be a dangerous person,"
said Tim Krause."
Ya think?
----------------------------- Joel Rosenberg
612.824.3150 AACFI-certified MN Carry Permit Instructor and Certifier BCA-validated
Minnesota Carry Permit Instructor NRA-certified Range Safety Officer, Pistol
Instructor, Home Firearms Safety Instructor, and Personal Protection
Instructor http://www.ellegon.com/homepage.phtml
The mind boggles...
Subject: Rollback.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34496-2004Mar29.html
-- Roland Dobbins
=================
We have seen this before, but it's worth recalling:
Subject: Yes, can you remember your history?
Profiling. Please pause a moment, reflect back, and take the
following Multiple Choice test.... no need to keep score. The events are
actual cuts from past history. They actually happened! Do you remember?
1. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes were
kidnapped and
massacred by:
a. Olga Corbitt
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzeneger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
2. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
3. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in
Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
4. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up
by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a
70 year-old Jewish-American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in
his
wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
6. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S.
Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
7. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
8. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time
by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
9. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were
bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's
women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
10. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used
as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two,
one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by
the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
11. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan
against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
12. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered
by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and
40
Nope, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling,
do you? So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly
fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be
allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches of
80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification,
secret
agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old
Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winning former Governors,
and leave Muslim Males between the ages 17 & 40 alone
because of profiling.
Let's send this to as many people as we can so that the
Gloria Aldreds and other dunder-headed attorneys along with Federal Justices
that want to thwart common sense, feel doubly ashamed of themselves if they
have any such
sense.
As the writer of the award winning story "Forrest Gump" so
aptly put it,"Stupid is, as stupid does."
================
======================
Subject: Re: Roland Dobbin's "Artificial Life"
It's fiction, but a detail of Michael Crichton's
"Jurassic Park" used a similar method: Make the reconstituted dinosaurs
dependent on lysine and then not provide any in the environment of the
island. That and making all the dinos female so reproduction couldn't take
place.
Neither method worked very well. Again, fiction, but
it could offer a caution to be EXTRA careful when dabbling in this arena.
Best Regards,
Doug Hayden
===============
Famous last words
Jerry
In the story on artificial life, one interviewee said, "Another safeguard
scientists are designing to provide total control over artificial cells is
to make their lives dependent on chemicals that do not exist in the
environment.
Withdrawing the critical chemicals would result in the death of the cells,
particularly if they should escape into the environment."
Yeah, right. That works until evolution sets in, and the artificial life
gets a plasmid that allows it to do without that artificial chemical; or
somebody else's artificial life makes that chemical. Pandora had this box,
see. . .
Ed Hume
====================
...and so oil cuts will
be implemented; and oil prices will continue to increase.
Of course, the Saudis know that one very
effective way to instill discontent in the American public during election
year is to raise the price of gasoline to levels that the American public
finds unacceptable. They knows that, historically, an unhappy public has
voted for change.
The only legitimate way for President Bush to
remain in office is to move massive amounts of oil into the United States,
and get the price down. That has to happen pretty quickly; while the
voting public has a short memory, it is not microscopic in length. People
had better be breathing easy 6 months before the election.
But there is another, non legitimate way for
President Bush to remain in office. Some - like Bev Harris, at Black Box
Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ - believe that the elections are now
being rigged on a scale not possible prior to the advent of computerized
voting machines. The new machines generate no receipt or physical card;
and as such, it is completely impossible to audit the results. You cannot
do a recount, for there is nothing to count. If you vote for Jones, but
the machine internally records a vote for Smith... how would you ever
prove it later?
And so, life is interesting. Restrictive and
expensive, but interesting.
If President Bush moves aggressively to
placate the people prior to the election, we will know that he is
traditional. If he acts ineffectually or fails to act at all, and loses
the election, we will know that he was foolish. And if he acts
ineffectually or fails to act at all, and still wins the election...
Then I guess we'll all know something else.
Like I said. Interesting.
>Charlie
According to Kate O'Beirne in the latest
National Review, what Bush is mostly doing besides a massive TV campaign is
good old fashioned precinct organization work to gather in Republican votes
in places where the Republicans are mostly too discouraged to go to the
polls: there always are enough people who would have voted for the
losing side but didn't vote to have changed the outcome of nearly every
major election in the US. The best known was Woodrow Wilson who won by fewer
than one vote per precinct in California (which determined the election).
Mr. Bush seems to operate on a fairly
easily discerned set of principles, a sort of pragmatic middle class
protestant ethic; which is a Good Thing. He's not as fundamentalist on Big
Government as Coolidge, alas, but he's in that direction. But he's aware of
his limits, and listens: sometimes to the wrong people.
Bush was for a while entirely surrounded
by neo-Jacobins pretending to be Conservatives, but that seems to be
changing. It is now possible to differ with Sharon and only be labeled an
anti-Semite by a small group, who have spread that virus so often that many
have become immune to it. (Whether the assassination was the right thing to
do or not, it is not obvious that we should all cheer the blowing up of a
man in a wheel chair as he comes out of a mosque; he may be an enemy, he may
deserve death, but the image is not obviously one with which everyone
eagerly associates themselves.) As the "support all our causes or you are an
anti-Semite" argument loses force, more rational debate can take place.
It was not surprising that the first
suspicion on the President's part was that Iraq was involved: they had,
after all, tried to kill his father, and one does not lightly or easily
forget a thing like that. It was not hard for the neo-Jacobins to induce
Bush not to forget Iraq.
The Afghan invasion was necessary and
proper. The Iraq War is debatable: but it IS debatable, and there are
arguments in its favor. Friends and relatives, people I trust, who were very
much opposed to the Iraqi War but who are now over there and in a position
to see what is happening have come around to the notion that it wasn't such
a bad idea after all. I remain unconvinced, but there was a salutary lesson
for our enemies, and the splendid performance of the US military went a long
way toward restoring confidence in our armed forces: national self-esteem if
you will. Agreed much of the despair after Viet Nam was dispelled by the
First Gulf War, but not all. And the people of Iraq are much better off. If
Bush can build anything like a stable republic in Iraq it will be an
achievement with very long term results. He is not likely to do that before
next January.
The Conservative objections to Bush --
other than the War, which most of us opposed even if the egregious Frum
managed to get National Review to read out of the Conservative Movement all
those not vigorously on board the neo-conservative National Greatness
imperial bandwagon -- has been his devotion to the Rockefeller Republican
notion that you can Do Much Good with the power of the federal government:
far from eliminating the Department of Education he has given it new powers.
Far from eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts he has increased
its budget. He has spent more money than any president in history, all to
what he thinks are good causes: it's a bit like Clinton's "They are our
bombers now": The big social schemes are "our" schemes now.
Conservatives didn't like big government
in the past, and even National Review has come around to realizing that the
execrable Frum and the neo-cons have been advocating doctrines at odds with
everything Conservatives have favored. Big government doesn't solve the
problem, big government is the problem. And some of the Conservative base
has become discouraged by all this, and since those have tended to be the
shock troops of the Republicans, getting them motivated again is going to be
a problem.
There are signs that it's working, though.
People close to me are going back into Republican precinct work, having
dropped out over the years. Kerry scares them.
Bush doesn't have to steal the election.
He can buy it the old fashioned way, with tax money: spend and spend, elect
and elect. That seems to be the strategy of some of those around him. Of
course that will alienate much of the Conservative base. The neo-cons think
the Old Right has no place to go, and that is the power struggle around the
President now. National Greatness or just plain old patriotism?
Now if we are to have Big Spenders in
Washington, I would prefer Bush to Kerry if for no other reason than Bush
seems to be aware that he has some limitations: he doesn't honk at me in a
New England accent, and he is not entirely surrounded by The Enlightened who
will Do Good for all of us Benighted. Laura Bush knows her husband doesn't
walk on water and she doesn't have a national agenda of her own; she doesn't
even like politics. We can rely on her to keep Bush somewhat sane.
And I think Mr. Bush's heart is in the
right place. Brains are easy to come by. What's needed just now is some
principles: and I can hope that Compassionate Conservatism has had its
fling, and we can go back to Conservatism with a bit of compassion. At least
Compassionate Conservatism was principled, and not merely an election
strategy. It mostly sounds good. Indeed, much of what it advocates is good,
but should come from that Tocqueville called "the associations" rather than
government. Private action, not Big Government, really can implement
"Compassionate Conservatism." The Salvation Army is a very good example.
But I don't worry that the Republicans
will steal the election with some witless schemes to falsify election
returns.
You really, really ought to look at this:
It's titled,
Jim's DIEBOLD PAGE
(or: "how to hack an
election"!)
He lists
the numerous flaws in the new Sequoia
electronic, paperless voting machines from Diebold. Its so obvious, so
unethical... it's enough to make you heart sick. He'll walk you through
it step by step, if you have the stomach for it.
Check it out. Give it some press, if you
will.
What was that old quote? "For evil to
triumph, it is only necessary that Good Men do Nothing"?
You're a Good Man, Jerry. Don't let the bad
guys win. Please read this.
Thanks - Charlie
I have no great confidence in the new
voting machines, and for all their faults the punched cards served
California well for a long time: they provide an easily counted
balloting system that preserves a paper trail, and had not Gore's people
made so much of the possible senility of their voters ("Our people are too
damned dumb to know who they are voting for, but since we know who they
really wanted, and the results were not that, clearly it was fraud") we
would still have them here.
Elections have been stolen, and voting
machines have been tampered with, and ballot boxes stuffed: Kennedy got more
votes in Cook County than there were registered voters, as I recall. But I
doubt there's any great conspiracy at work here.
=====================
Subject: At the intersection of the Education Mess,
the Marching Morons, and Federal Overstretch
....lies the federal child tax credits.
Two is Enough, by Dalton Conley: why large families
don't deserve tax breaks.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097913/
The author argues his thesis using the following
reasons:
* microeconomic (the large expenses come with the
first child),
* macroeconomic (we need neither vast armies of farm
hands nor a vast industrial proletariat),
* educational (large families are less likely to
devote parental attention to education),
* sociological (large families are associated with
poverty),
* and demographical (unlike Europe, our
immigration-friendly country is in no danger of demographic collapse).
He also goes into his interesting statistical
methodology.
You may disagree with one or many of his positions,
but he makes an impressive argument. How would such a policy influence
educational and political scenarios? And is such a policy feasible?
--Catfish N. Cod (expatriate Mississippian @ a Boston
university) catfishncod@yahoo.com
Well I don't entirely disagree. Needs
thought and discussion though.
===================
On Education:
The Lesson:
Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and
gathering them around him, he taught them saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they that mourn.
Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are they who thirst justice. Blessed are
you when persecuted. Blessed are you when you suffer. Be glad and rejoice
for your reward is great in heaven...
Then Simon Peter said, "Do we have to write this
down?" And Andrew said, "Are we supposed to know this?" And James said,
"Will we have a test on it?" And Phillip said, "What if we don't know it?"
And Bartholomew said, "Do we have to turn this in?" And John said, "The
other disciples didn't have to learn this." And Matthew said, "When do we
get out of here?" And Judas said, "What does this have to do with the real
life?"
Then one of the Pharisees present asked to see Jesus'
Lesson plans and inquired of Jesus his terminal objectives in the cognitive
domain... and Jesus wept.
Brice Yokem Senior Programmer/Analyst
=====================
Subject: Travesty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/30/science/space/30TOWE.html
----- Roland Dobbin
Ugh.
The wages of Spam:
Subject: Payback.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34489-2004Mar29.html
-- Roland Dobbins
Couldn't happen to nicer guys...
Here is an essay from the Cornell Review about what
appears to be a hate crime coverup by the authorities where a white female
student was badly beaten by four blacks (some or all were also females).
Below that is a link to an article on it from the Cornell Sun.
http://www.cornellreview.org/nftuart.cgi?num=32
http://www.cornellsun.com/articles/11217/
Louis
Hate crimes can only be committed by white
straight males. For better links see below.
====
The following interchange from another
conference:
You mis-remember my argument about how to destroy our
foes. I did not say to use "democracy"--that's "W's" approach, about which I
have reservations that would rival Ron's. I said to use
*degeneracy*--attacking fundamentalist Muslim societies with Cultural
Weapons of Mass Destruction (including ones delivered over the Internet).
Thus, I don't want the young of enemy societies surfing news sites. I want
them watching "music videos featured Madonna gyrating half-naked", which is
exactly what the TNR article said they were doing!
And please note what they were *not* doing. They were
not listening to some Mullah extolling the virtues of *jihad* against (or
even some or Communist Apparachik talking about "burying) the United States.
We don't need other society's young men to spend their time discussing the
Federalist Papers. It suits our strategic goals just fine for them to be
spending all their time trying to make money and get laid.
Jim
==
Jim,
You are so absolutely correct that it boggles my mind. Christianity went
down in the West in large part because it suddenly found itself in a very
competitive marketplace not only for ideas but even more basically for
attention. If the kids are watching videos on the internet or with satellite
TV they are not reading the Koran or listening to a Mullah.
They certainly are not thinking about Islam when they are fantasizing about
Britney.
I now have new found respect for Britney Spears. She's doing all she can to
undermine the Jihadis and she doesn't even know she's doing it.
R
But the Jihadis *absolutely* know she is doing it.
Alas, our analysts in the West simply have not connected the dots.
Quite soon after 9-11, one of George Tenant's direct reports gave the
after-dinner speech to JMI Equity Fund, L.P.'s annual meeting.
("JMI" stands for "John Moores' Interests" and, as you can expect, there are
probably a dozen different related entities like JMI
Realty.) Anyway, talking with him briefly afterwards, it was clear that he
did not have a clue about why the Jihadists hate us so much and how very
justified they are in doing so. Strange, since it jumps right out at one
when one reads Samual Huntington, et. al. or even the Sunday New York Times
Magazine's article on Sayyid Qutb.
But yes, "How Can You Keep The Down On The Farm, After They've Seen Par-ee?"
was a current question long before the term "Rock & Roll" (as in, "Sex,
Drugs, and Rock & Roll") was coined. The short answer is "you can't", at
least not over two or three generations.
Of course, I *like* sexual degeneracy. I even wish I was 30 years younger so
it would make sense for me to partake. But (as all of you know) it scares me
to death that there are *no* populations *anywhere* that have proven
themselves to be both demographically and economically (in the sense of
keeping an economy like ours going) sustainable. Sexual degeneracy is
expensive, and primitive economies can't afford it. At least not outside of
the tropics. So, while reproductive reality is "fundamentalist", economic
reality is out-of-control liberal. It follows, then, that since we can't
seem to do anything about the demographics of those who sustain our society,
we should use the military might our economy gives us to do something about
the demographics of those who sustain the societies that hate us. (That is,
kill their leadership and subdue their followers with C-WMDs.)
Jim
O subtle one, O serpent...
And see below
===============
Australia's Daily Telegraph reports that a memorial to
Captain James Cook may be removed from the coastline there because it serves
as a reminder of European dominance in the region.
A large anchor, some pine trees and flagpoles marking
the spot were Cook landed at Kurnell in 1778 face the axe because they fail
to sufficiently address the area's aboriginal origins.
The trees, Norfolk Island pines, will be removed
because they were introduced by the Europeans. The intent is to return the
land to its original vegetation where possible.
"The pine trees in the open grassland are at odds with
the more natural 'bush' up the hill," the plan says. "The message is one of
European domination over the Australian landscape."
Louis
Perhaps they can return the state of
medicine and the economy and sanitation of all of Australia to pre-Cook
levels. That will clean the place out nicely and the remnants of the Vikings
will have some place to go...
=============================
I have sometimes
expressed the opinion that smart people aren't having kids, and that is a
damned shame. Now from another conference:
For your information/amusement:
A top Washington, D.C. lady public relations colleague
in practice in the public policy space whom I have been riding for years
about her childlessness (she is now in her very late 30s) brought the book
GETTING TO "I DO" (
http://www.amazon.com/ to my attention this week. She had plucked it off
a friend's bookshelf, and, apparently, something in it had opened her eyes
to the fact that her own psychology--not just the nature of the men she had
happened to have met over the last 20+ years--was responsible for her still
looking for "Mr. Right" (instead of being divorced, collecting child support
from "Mr. Right"--let's not romanticize the "base case" *too much*). She
urged me to read the book so I could do a better job of talking women like
herself into pursuing a life change that would lead to more personal
satisfaction (the "Top PR Exec" thing has gotten really old for her in the
last few years, and of late she has found herself forced to start dating
married men (about which I warned her in her mid-30s, as pretty a girl as
she is).
http://www.amazon.com
got me right to the book, of course, and when I clicked to order it,
recommended as its companion book, WHY MEN LOVE BITCHES. Obviously I ordered
that one too and could not *wait* to tease the woman who recommended the
original book to me about it.
But having gotten my money for a second book, Amazon's
marketing engine did not give up trying to sell more. After I finalized my
order it popped me over to a web page entitled: "AMAZON THANKS YOU". On this
page were listed still more books that Amazon's computers figured a man (I
believe it knows I am "Mr.") who ordered GETTING TO "I DO" and WHY MEN LOVE
BITCHES might also buy:
Rules:Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing Heart of Mr
Right by Sherri Ellen/Schneider Fein (Author) Price: $5.99 Used & new from
$0.75
Race, Evolution, and Behavior by J. Philippe Rushton
Price: $14.00
Why Men Love Bitches by Sherry Argov Price: $14.95
Used & new from $9.40
The Boys and Girls Learn Differently Action Guide for
Teachers by Michael Gurian (Author), Arlette C. Ballew (Author) Price:
$13.97 Used & new from $13.12
Useful Idiots by Mona Charen Price: $11.18 Used & new
from $9.95 at Amazon.com.
So I ordered those....
Of course, Amazon's computer was not done with me. It
sold me Jared Taylor's book, THE REAL AMERICAN DILEMMA, and then solicited
me to buy:
Alien Nation by Peter Brimelow (Author)
Price: $11.20 Used & new from $2.81
Race by Vincent Sarich, Frank Miele
Price: $19.25 Used & new from $12.50
A People That Shall Dwell Alone by Kevin B. MacDonald
(Author)
Price: $32.95
and I bought Vincent Sarich's book.
By then, Amazon realized it had a "live one", so it
proposed that I pay $85 for Arthur Jensen's, THE g FACTOR (which I did).
The only mental model I can come up with to explain
Amazon's computer's behavior is that it has the concept of
"human-nature-realistic" programmed in as a category.
Jim
Not one of those ordered through my web
site. Sigh.
In fact, Amazon seems to have an
interesting association engine.
g
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