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"O'Connor should be remembered as one of the worst contributors to American jurisprudence in recent history. She was notorious as a "swing vote," equally maddening to Left and Right at various times. But she consistently held one of the most expansionist views of judicial power, committed always to the most capacious version of the Court's authority over American life. A few years ago I told my students my "O'Connor rule" for saving oneself a lot of trouble: If the Court has declared anything unconstitutional, and the vote was 5-4, and the fifth vote was provided by O'Connor, the case was wrongly decided. Reading the opinions is necessary only to confirm that judgment."

Crow T. Trollbot

It's laughable how the mainstream media is treating the election in the Iranian dictatorship as if it's legitimate. See here for better researched commentary. The new Iranian President was about as "elected" as Stalin was. But we mustn't give President Bush any excuse to actually do anything to help along regime change in Iran, so the charade goes on.

I think space missions are cool and all, but here's a pretty interesting article about why it may be wasteful and an inappropriate way to spend taxpayers' money.

Eminent domain is supposed to be able to be invoked for the public good. What's changed is that now it can be used merely to benefit the politically connected. This decision says eminent domain is no longer for roads and schools, it's now for Costcos and condos.

"To my knowledge, in the time I have served as secretary of Defense, the idea of reinstating draft has never been debated, endorsed, discussed, theorized, pondered, or even whispered by anyone in the Bush administration."

This is technically true. The discussion went on in the DoD:

"...the Secretary of Defense and Department of Defense manpower officials have stated recently that a draft will not be necessary for any foreseeable crisis. They assume that sufficient fighting capability exists in today's "all-volunteer" active and reserved Armed Forces for likely contingencies, making a conventional draft of untrained manpower somewhat obsolete. Yet, Defense manpower officials concede there are critical shortages of military personnel with certain special skills such as medical personnel, linguists, computer network engineers, etc... a draft of men and women possessing these critical skills may be warranted in a future crisis."

Then they started setting up the databases, designing the draft cards, started putting out the call for draft board volunteers, and hired Widmeyer Communications to "secure compliance and... mold public opinion" to support it.

Rumsfeld employs classic Bush Administration spin tactics by changing the subject, arguing that the Administration has never considered bringing back the Vietnam-era draft, which is true. But the substance of the claim is that a Skills draft will be instituted, which Rumsfeld cleverly avoids by talking about something completely different.

Where I come from, this is called lying.

Like the monster in some ghastly horror movie rising from the dead for the umpteenth time, the space shuttle is back on the launch pad. This grotesque, lethal white elephant -- 14 deaths in 113 flights -- is the grandest, grossest technological folly of our age. If the shuttle has any reason for existing, it is as an exceptionally clear symbol of our corrupt, sentimental, and dysfunctional political system. Its flights accomplish nothing and cost half a billion per. That, at least, is what a flight costs when the vehicle survives. If a shuttle blows up -- which, depending on whether or not you think that 35 human lives (five original launchworthy Shuttles at seven astronauts each) would be too high a price to pay for ridding the nation of an embarrassing and expensive monstrosity, is either too often or not often enough** -- then the cost, what with lost inventory, insurance payouts, and the endless subsequent investigations, is seven or eight times that...

http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?r ef=/derbyshire/derbyshire200506160749.asp

And so we get: September 16, 2003: John Ashcroft accused librarians of fueling "baseless hysteria," and of having been "duped" by liberals. "Ashcroft mocked and condemned the ALA and other Justice Department critics for believing that the FBI wants to know 'how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel.'"

Gee, how does The National Review feel about this? It advocates explicitly adding libraries to the list of organizations subject to the law, justifying that by listing the libraries the 9/11 hijackers used in Germany... I'm having trouble making out the argument there. It's pretty breathless: "Atta used computers at the public library and worked out at a Delray Beach health club." Health clubs are scaaaary! It too belittles librarians' concerns, of course:

"'I am dismayed by librarians' uninformed opposition to the Patriot Act,' says Maria Vagianos... 'Librarians commit a disservice to society and to their profession when they succumb to the ignorance that they are charged to dispel.'"

"These dangerously naïve or clandestinely seditious librarians are beyond foolish. They potentially jeopardize the lives of American citizens."

Google this one up and you'll come across a motherload of library organizations who are very seriously tackling the issues of intellectual freedom involved in this law. Dismissing those librarians as hysterical dupes of terrorists is not exactly calling them pinko commie fellow travelers... but we're already on our way. When does someone use the senior Bush's "card carrying" epithet?

Do another Google and you'll be able to easily find stuff like "The Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." Book number 4 on the list: The Kinsey Report, because it tried to "normalize deviant behaviors." Yep, those Patriot Act supporters are true believers in intellectual freedoms... They'd never abuse surveillance powers, no ma'am.

"the tradition of fillibustering judicial nominations..."

What tradition?

I've heard that they started doing it when they couldn't block the nominations by having the majority vote.

Also look up "Reed's Rules". http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/barnes200503 070752.asp

The House used to have filibuster. It doesn't anymore. What makes the Senate so special?

What's the point in having a majority if the minority can simply block any changes you want to make?

And don't laugh - people lost everything during the McCarthy era simply because they associated with somebody who belonged to the wrong political party.

I'm going to let Jonah Goldberg take this one:

Senator Joe McCarthy was a lout, generally speaking. But he was on the right side of history and, in a broad sense, of morality as well. If, in some sort of parallel-universe exercise, the same number of (now proven) Soviet-Communist spies, collaborators, sympathizers, and the like were somehow switched to Nazis, and McCarthy went after them with the same vehemence as he went after Reds, Joe McCarthy might well have universities and foundations named after him today. Just imagine if a ring of Nazi party members were found to be working in Hollywood, never mind the State Department, taking money from Berlin to advance the Nazi cause. Does anyone really think "McCarthyism" would still be denounced as an unmitigated evil, often put at the front of the parade of horribles alongside Hitlerism and Stalinism?

I suppose my problem isn't with privacy efforts per se: if you have a legitimate technical reason, as other replies have discussed, that's fine and wonderful. Maybe the results would be the same either way. But it sickens me to see so many people apparently motivated by the thought of protecting terrorists, acting more afraid of Bush and Ashcroft and bogeymen-du-jour than of the people who thought it bright to drive airplanes into buildings. Sometimes we have to pick the least bad option.

Maybe this article will prove enlightening. One of the more interesting quotes:

The Pakistani-born, Queens-reared Babar frequented the New York Public Library (NYPL). As Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee September 22: "We found out after we locked this guy up that he was going there because that library's hard drives were scrubbed after each user was done, and he was using that library to e-mail other al-Qaeda associates around the world. He knew that that was a sanctuary."

Most of the only time knowing what the bad guys did at a library is only helpful after the fact, but that can help a lot. Creating all these anonymizing systems in libraries is attracting the people that the government is rightly worried about. Is it really bright for governmental organizations (like public libraries) to expend the extra effort to do that?

Let's see how long it takes for this to get modded down to "-1, Troll".

Some thoughts on your thoughts

As another responder pointed out, most of the security rules are regarding the airport, not the airline. you *can* run an airline where people are allowed to carry guns, you just can't use the normal federally regulated airport, because guns are illegal there.

Of course the thought of voluntarily getting into a pressurized metal tube at high altitudes with a bunch of knowingly armed and self-righteous people tends to make people think of other airlines. and therefore a commercially bad move. same with stripped naked. ugly would go looking for pretty, who would know better than to show up there.

federal mandates on planes allow the airlines to discriminate (against people carrying guns, people on the do-not-fly list. for example) federal mandates allow the locking of the cockpit door, it was the pilots union that demanded it. If you congregate in the front of a plane, you are not breaking a federal law, you are breaking an airline rule.

BUT, that said, let's have a little word about federal regulations/mandates/laws and how they differ.

federal laws, mandates and regulations are slightly different things. worth checking on. remember the "real-id" act is a *mandate*, there is no requirement for the states to follow this *mandate* simply that the federal government will not recognize that state's ID as legit. they're not "forcing" the states to comply, (those of you who have had credit trouble might recognize this argument.)

federal safety *regulations*, (OSHA for example) are not there to protect you from something. they are there to make sure there is a well defined line between "my fault" and "your fault" that's all. If I did not wear a hard hat on a constructions site, I would be in violation of OSHA regulations, would I be arrested for it? no. the company I worked for would insist I wore one, because if I wore one they would not be liable in the case of my injury. Federal regulations about airports and airlines are the same. do this and you won't be liable for this kind of problem. If you don't follow these rules, so be it. on your own head be it. It is not against the law just to carry a gun on a plane. But, if the airline allows it, and something goes wrong, (anything, it not even be directly tied to the fact that you have a gun) the airline would be liable for everything. they did not conform to the rules. If the airline follows every rule, and something still goes wrong, they can say "not our fault!" and walk away.

----I have conferred with someone here, and I may be mistaken about the status of guns on planes being actual law, but I suspect there are conditions. also, the illegality of guns on planes has to do with interstate commerce laws, oddly enough... so if someone could substantiate this, I will happily retract the bits of the above diatribe that apply to guns.)----

rules about guns, knive, nailclippers, mean that already the popular misreading of the 2nd amendment doesn't apply, (and a bit of the 4th) and rules about making silly jokes mean that the 1st doesn't apply either. "no gathering at the front of the cabin" rule, that's the 1st again, so, does the constitution apply?

here are a few links that come up if you google (FAA regulations guns)
http://www.fletc.gov/artesia/travel.htm
http://www.akdart.com/gun1.html
http://www.packing.org/airlines
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel092601.sh tml
http://forums.officer.com/forums/archive/index.php /t-12995.html
and of course,
http://www.nationallampoon.com/nlbs/santa/xmas/faa .asp

THE LAST STAR WARS
It opens next week. I saw it, and here's the thing: It's unbelievably bad. O I'm telling you this because movie critics won't. So far all the early reviews -- all of them, from Variety to the Hollywood Reporter to Time magazine -- have been favorable. Why? Because while the movie critics of my long-ago youth were middlebrow snobs suspicious of populist entertainment, today's critics have turned into toadies. They are afraid of being on an audience's bad side, afraid that a movie they will pan might really strike a chord. Since it's a foregone conclusion that the final Star Wars is going to make a jillion dollars, the safe thing for critics to do is say nice things about it. The only nice thing I can think to say about it is that it's not quite as mindspinningly wretched as its predecessor, Attack of the Clones, but it's plenty awful anyway. Even Yoda gives a rotten performance. Go see it if you must when it opens next week, but at least you got one fair warning here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_08_corner-archive.asp#062506

JAR JAR BINKS
[JAR JAR BINKS SPOILER]
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_08_corner-archive.asp#062515

Star Wars VI
THE FINAL Star Wars is, as writer-director George Lucas promised, a tragedy--but it's not the tragedy Lucas thinks it is. Ever since he began making his second set of Star Wars movies a decade ago, Lucas said that Episode III: Revenge of the Sith would be the unvarnished story of the young knight Anakin Skywalker's degeneration and conversion into the black-helmeted, black-outfitted Darth Vader, the villain of the first three films. The tale of woe it really tells is that of George Lucas himself, the final chapter in the sad degeneration of a vital, vivid, and highly amusing moviemaker into a dull, solipsistic, and humorless incompetent. Lucas had more than a quarter of a century to figure out why Anakin Skywalker went bad. And here's what he came up with: [SPOILERS FOLLOW]
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/ 000/000/005/611ajqxt.asp

"HOLD ME, ANNAKIN! HOLD ME AS YOU DID BY THE LAKE ON NABOO!"
Just a little taste of what Cornerites are in for if they go to see Star Wars at midnight. Enjoy.....suckers.....
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_15_corner-archive.asp#063403

Jason Appuzo [Liberty Film Festival] objected to the needless insertion of politics:

[LOTS OF SPOILERS]
This is in large part what irritates me about Lucas' recent remarks. He's actually created a good storyline here, and he's publicly clouding it with nonsense about Bush and the current war. Politics has nothing to do with Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith takes a largely dismissive view of politics, and of movements (whether Jedi or Sith) that assert deep insight into human relations. This is why Vader's late utterances about "his Empire" - a clear dig at Bush - ring so phony, so out of place. Politics are not what have been motivating Anakin for the previous 2+ hours - then, out of nowhere, he starts speechifying like an adolescent Napoleon.

THE LAST STAR WARS
It opens next week. I saw it, and here's the thing: It's unbelievably bad. O I'm telling you this because movie critics won't. So far all the early reviews -- all of them, from Variety to the Hollywood Reporter to Time magazine -- have been favorable. Why? Because while the movie critics of my long-ago youth were middlebrow snobs suspicious of populist entertainment, today's critics have turned into toadies. They are afraid of being on an audience's bad side, afraid that a movie they will pan might really strike a chord. Since it's a foregone conclusion that the final Star Wars is going to make a jillion dollars, the safe thing for critics to do is say nice things about it. The only nice thing I can think to say about it is that it's not quite as mindspinningly wretched as its predecessor, Attack of the Clones, but it's plenty awful anyway. Even Yoda gives a rotten performance. Go see it if you must when it opens next week, but at least you got one fair warning here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_08_corner-archive.asp#062506

JAR JAR BINKS
[JAR JAR BINKS SPOILER]
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_08_corner-archive.asp#062515

Star Wars VI
THE FINAL Star Wars is, as writer-director George Lucas promised, a tragedy--but it's not the tragedy Lucas thinks it is. Ever since he began making his second set of Star Wars movies a decade ago, Lucas said that Episode III: Revenge of the Sith would be the unvarnished story of the young knight Anakin Skywalker's degeneration and conversion into the black-helmeted, black-outfitted Darth Vader, the villain of the first three films. The tale of woe it really tells is that of George Lucas himself, the final chapter in the sad degeneration of a vital, vivid, and highly amusing moviemaker into a dull, solipsistic, and humorless incompetent. Lucas had more than a quarter of a century to figure out why Anakin Skywalker went bad. And here's what he came up with: [SPOILERS FOLLOW]
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/ 000/000/005/611ajqxt.asp

"HOLD ME, ANNAKIN! HOLD ME AS YOU DID BY THE LAKE ON NABOO!"
Just a little taste of what Cornerites are in for if they go to see Star Wars at midnight. Enjoy.....suckers.....
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_15_corner-archive.asp#063403

Jason Appuzo [Liberty Film Festival] objected to the needless insertion of politics:

[LOTS OF SPOILERS]
This is in large part what irritates me about Lucas' recent remarks. He's actually created a good storyline here, and he's publicly clouding it with nonsense about Bush and the current war. Politics has nothing to do with Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith takes a largely dismissive view of politics, and of movements (whether Jedi or Sith) that assert deep insight into human relations. This is why Vader's late utterances about "his Empire" - a clear dig at Bush - ring so phony, so out of place. Politics are not what have been motivating Anakin for the previous 2+ hours - then, out of nowhere, he starts speechifying like an adolescent Napoleon.

THE LAST STAR WARS
It opens next week. I saw it, and here's the thing: It's unbelievably bad. O I'm telling you this because movie critics won't. So far all the early reviews -- all of them, from Variety to the Hollywood Reporter to Time magazine -- have been favorable. Why? Because while the movie critics of my long-ago youth were middlebrow snobs suspicious of populist entertainment, today's critics have turned into toadies. They are afraid of being on an audience's bad side, afraid that a movie they will pan might really strike a chord. Since it's a foregone conclusion that the final Star Wars is going to make a jillion dollars, the safe thing for critics to do is say nice things about it. The only nice thing I can think to say about it is that it's not quite as mindspinningly wretched as its predecessor, Attack of the Clones, but it's plenty awful anyway. Even Yoda gives a rotten performance. Go see it if you must when it opens next week, but at least you got one fair warning here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_08_corner-archive.asp#062506

JAR JAR BINKS
[JAR JAR BINKS SPOILER]
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_08_corner-archive.asp#062515

Star Wars VI
THE FINAL Star Wars is, as writer-director George Lucas promised, a tragedy--but it's not the tragedy Lucas thinks it is. Ever since he began making his second set of Star Wars movies a decade ago, Lucas said that Episode III: Revenge of the Sith would be the unvarnished story of the young knight Anakin Skywalker's degeneration and conversion into the black-helmeted, black-outfitted Darth Vader, the villain of the first three films. The tale of woe it really tells is that of George Lucas himself, the final chapter in the sad degeneration of a vital, vivid, and highly amusing moviemaker into a dull, solipsistic, and humorless incompetent. Lucas had more than a quarter of a century to figure out why Anakin Skywalker went bad. And here's what he came up with: [SPOILERS FOLLOW]
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/ 000/000/005/611ajqxt.asp

"HOLD ME, ANNAKIN! HOLD ME AS YOU DID BY THE LAKE ON NABOO!"
Just a little taste of what Cornerites are in for if they go to see Star Wars at midnight. Enjoy.....suckers.....
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp ?ref=/thecorner/05_05_15_corner-archive.asp#063403

Jason Appuzo [Liberty Film Festival] objected to the needless insertion of politics:

[LOTS OF SPOILERS]
This is in large part what irritates me about Lucas' recent remarks. He's actually created a good storyline here, and he's publicly clouding it with nonsense about Bush and the current war. Politics has nothing to do with Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith takes a largely dismissive view of politics, and of movements (whether Jedi or Sith) that assert deep insight into human relations. This is why Vader's late utterances about "his Empire" - a clear dig at Bush - ring so phony, so out of place. Politics are not what have been motivating Anakin for the previous 2+ hours - then, out of nowhere, he starts speechifying like an adolescent Napoleon.

National Review couldn't figure that one out either, but there was much rejoicing at the outcome.

The Institute for Justice does great work. They're basically the libertarian version of the ACLU. Congrats to them on their victory in court.

Part of the checks and balances on runaway legislation was the /appointment/ of U.S. Senators by the legislature of their state. This helped ensure the U.S. Senate represented the /STATES/ and provided a potent check against the expansion of federalism.

We ruined that balance with the 17th Amendment.

Since then, we've reaped. The federal government has seen runaway expansion since 1913 when 17th Amendment and the amendment allowing /direct/ income tax were both passed.

"When senators represented states as states, rather than being super House members as they are now, they zealously protected states' rights. This term became discredited during the civil-rights struggle of the 1960s as a code word for racism -- allowing Southern states to resist national pressure to integrate. But clearly this is an aberration. States obviously have interests that may conflict with federal priorities on a wide variety of issues that defy easy ideological classification. Many states, for example, would probably enact more liberal laws relating to the environment, health, and business regulation if allowed by Washington."

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartle tt200405120748.asp

http://www.nhinet.org/hoebeke.htm

Try and read with an open mind. This isn't a Democrat or Republican issue. Both parties are corrupt because we unbalanced the rules of the game. While we still have a horizontal division of power, we removed the vertical division between the states and federal government.

Want to see a more "fair and restrained" federal government? Take a step BACK from the populist edge and repeal Article XVII.

John Podhoretz just posted a warning:

It opens next week. I saw it, and here's the thing: It's unbelievably bad. O I'm telling you this because movie critics won't. So far all the early reviews -- all of them, from Variety to the Hollywood Reporter to Time magazine -- have been favorable. Why? Because while the movie critics of my long-ago youth were middlebrow snobs suspicious of populist entertainment, today's critics have turned into toadies. They are afraid of being on an audience's bad side, afraid that a movie they will pan might really strike a chord. Since it's a foregone conclusion that the final Star Wars is going to make a jillion dollars, the safe thing for critics to do is say nice things about it. The only nice thing I can think to say about it is that it's not quite as mindspinningly wretched as its predecessor, Attack of the Clones, but it's plenty awful anyway. Even Yoda gives a rotten performance. Go see it if you must when it opens next week, but at least you got one fair warning here.

It opens next week. I saw it, and here's the thing: It's unbelievably bad. Oh I'm telling you this because movie critics won't. So far all the early reviews -- all of them, from Variety to the Hollywood Reporter to Time magazine -- have been favorable. Why? Because while the movie critics of my long-ago youth were middlebrow snobs suspicious of populist entertainment, today's critics have turned into toadies. They are afraid of being on an audience's bad side, afraid that a movie they will pan might really strike a chord. Since it's a foregone conclusion that the final Star Wars is going to make a jillion dollars, the safe thing for critics to do is say nice things about it. The only nice thing I can think to say about it is that it's not quite as mindspinningly wretched as its predecessor, Attack of the Clones, but it's plenty awful anyway. Even Yoda gives a rotten performance. Go see it if you must when it opens next week, but at least you got one fair warning here.

There is no evidence that DDT itself was responsible for the effects on birds (ie bald eagles). The buildup of levels of DDT in the food chain is not the cause of the problems with the birds. There is no "toxic level" of DDT which kills a bird or causes cancer.

The connection is that DDT is so effective as a pesticide that it wipes out the insect larvae that are the food source for the fish, the fish are the food source for the eagles. Fewer insects, fewer and smaller fish... fewer fish, the Eagles have a smaller food supply and have to look to alternate types of food for survival. Their eggs are fewer and the shells are thinner, their offspring are more likely to be deformed.

This misunderstanding of cause and effect and the resulting ban on DDT now plays a major role in the 2.7 million deaths per year from Malaria.

Curiously, the one presidential candidate who favors undoing this mistake and lifting the ban on DDT is Ralph Nader:
http://www.csrl.org/malaria/
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bate20040603 0904.asp
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm

So consider transferring to a school where the science professors aren't teaching propoganda or teaching Rachel Carson's fictional writings as fact.

From BoingBoing:

Right wing blogs go ape over George Lucas article in Wired
Steve Silberman's excellent story about George Lucas in the current issue of Wired is inciting a good deal of mouth foaming and carpet chewing on conservative blogs. Says Steve: "My Lucas story has blown up on right-wing blogs like Instapundit and the National Review Online, after being referenced on a conservative forum about film called Libertas. What's strange is that -- with the exception of Libertas -- Lucas' 'statements,' particularly re: Fahrenheit 9/11, are being condemned with no link to the story or the online QA, as if Lucas' supposed opinions are just in the air somewhere. And while Lucas critiqued F911 in the interview, the wingers are characterizing him as a 'Moore-loving liberal.'" Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:51:45 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Actually, it's the Left that's opposed to fluoridation now too. See here:

For eons now, liberals have teased conservatives about one thing (well, many things, but I'm thinking of one in particular): the fluoridation of water. "Oh, you work at National Review? What do you do, write editorials denouncing the fluoridation of the water supply?" Ha, ha, ha. (Actually, we spend our time advocating separate lunch counters for Negroes.) In many quarters, "fluoridation of water" is a code word for right-wing kookery. Well, imagine my surprise -- and delight -- when I was talking recently with a dentist friend of mine and the subject of water fluoridation came up: "We still have to fight on that, all over the country," he said. "What," I said, "you mean the Birchers are still at it?" "Oh, no," he replied. "It's the Left. The opposition comes from the environmentalist, earthy-crunchy, sandal-wearing Left." Well, well, well. Who's laughin' now, baby?

I personally think DST is idiotic and pointless.

Here is a...semi-serious piece on it

http://www.nationalreview.com/miller/miller2005040 10806.asp

"Congress passed the first DST law in 1918 and repealed it the next year. Franklin Delano Roosevelt imposed year-round DST for three years during the Second World War. In 1966, Congress approved a uniform DST standard for the whole country. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon had the nation go on DST for 15 consecutive months in order to conserve energy. The last president to modify DST was Ronald Reagan, who advanced DST's start date to the first Sunday in April."

"As Michael Downing points out in his new book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home. They also tried to make a case for agriculture, though they didn't bother to consult any actual farmers. One pamphlet argued that DST would benefit the men and women who worked the land because "most farm products are better when gathered with dew on. They are firmer, crisper, than if the sun has dried the dew off." At least that was the claim of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, chaired by department-store magnate A. Lincoln Filene."

"We're also informed that DST helps conserve energy, apparently because people arriving home when the sun is still up don't switch on their lights. Didn't it occur to anybody that maybe they compensate by switching them on earlier in the morning? Moreover, people who arrive home from work an hour earlier during the hot summer months are probably more prone to turning up their air conditioners. According to Downing, the petroleum industry once was "an ardent and generous supporter" of DST because it believed people would hop in their cars and drive for pleasure -- and guzzle more gas.

But the very worst thing about DST is that it's bad for your health. According to Stanley Coren, a sleep expert at the University of British Columbia, the number of traffic accidents and fatal industrial mishaps increase on the Monday after we spring forward. The reason, presumably, is because losing even a single hour of sleep over the weekend makes a lot of people a bit drowsier on what we might usefully call Black Monday. Unfortunately, there's no compensating effect of a super-safe Monday as we go off DST and "fall back" in the autumn."

http://www.mcmaster.ca/inabis98/occupational/coren 0164/two.html

either. Defense of the institution seems to be heavily qualified at best. They do some incredibly stupid things.

Traditionally, the World Bank has been run by European socialists pretending to be capitalists. Bush pulled rank this time (since we're the largest funder of the thing) to put Wolfowitz in charge. I suppose it was easier to try to reform it than to kill it, from a political perspective. Personally I'd have zero-funded it (and quite a few other things; I laugh at people who think Bush is an "arch-conservative").

either. Defense of the institution seems to be heavily qualified at best. They do some incredibly stupid things.

Traditionally, the World Bank has been run by European socialists pretending to be capitalists. Bush pulled rank this time (since we're the largest funder of the thing) to put Wolfowitz in charge. I suppose it was easier to try to reform it than to kill it, from a political perspective. Personally I'd have zero-funded it (and quite a few other things; I laugh at people who think Bush is an "arch-conservative").

let me get this straight. you're saying that the reason why no one defended sokal's targets is that the responses were too hard to write. geez, it's only been 7 years. you keep trying to limit this critique to just sokal, but i've clearly pointed out that many other prominent scientists and philosophers think the postmodernists are full of shit. for example, when jacques derrida was awarded an honorary phD from cambridge, 20 of the world's most prominent philosophers signed a letter of protest (read about it here)

so not only are their science writings not comprehensible to scientists, but their philosophy is viewed by real philosophers as "tricks and gimmicks." they've been caught red-handed pretending to understand scientific concepts that clearly they do not, and yet they get to keep their jobs. if a scientist got caught pulling this type of shit, he or she would never work again.

i must confess that your attack on scientific methodology left me baffled. i can't even imagine what a system that did not "privilege" knowledge over emotion would look like. if we say that problems which defy mathematical summarization are hard, it's because THEY ARE. you fucking solve the navier-stokes equations, you enlightened prick. i'd love to see you apply your touchy-feely, emotion-privileging theories to the problem of turbulence and produce results that are in any way useful to humankind.

everybody knows that there aren't enough women in the sciences, but blaming scientific methodology itself is absurd. that's like blaming democracy for the results of the 2004 election. the problem is that our shitty culture tells women to become homemakers instead of scientists, not that science is inherently stacked against women.

"We're not going to find someone running for president who advocates [the] reform of [marijuana] laws. What is required is a genuine republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually."

Someday some state will legalize marijuana and they'll win big like Nevada with gambling. The first one in is normally the big winner. With the minor exception of Native American casinos in CT, Nevada won the lion's share of gaming revenues and the state won the taxes. It's going to make some state a ton of tax revenue. Think of it like this: "Fortune favors the bold."

Thanks for your post. Good stuff.

Most of you who aren't Canadian aren't aware of the severe restrictions on free speech in Canada. For one, "hate" speech is restricted, i.e. you cannot disparage a particular identifiable group. This is why Ernst Zundel was just deported to Germany for spreading "hate" and Jim Keegstra was convicted of spreading hate. The reality is that, while they should have lost their jobs, they shouldn't have been arrested and convicted for saying what they did.

Even more significant is the freedom of the press, where journalists had their personal files seized unilaterally by police who were trying to investigate a "leak" in their department due to corruption. At least those reporters in the US who refused to identify their sources probably still have what they have.

The reality, however, is that the only cure for the negative aspects of free speech is more free speech. As long as someone is not specifically attempting to incite violence or other acts of crime against an individual, or is commiting libel, they should be able to say whatever they want. A great article on the erosion of free speech rights in Canada is available here.

One thing is certain - even though the US may not be to many /.ers the most welcoming place for free speech lately, there are other places that are far worse.

We "bash" Bush because he is doing a bad job as a president.

An opinion of yours, one that I do not share.

Unfortunately, a large portion of the populous is still ignorant of the facts, so he got reelected

The facts? Ok. About WMD in Iraq, see here. For a LONG time the US knew that Saddam was hiding weapons. Before Bush even took office, Kerry was talking about WMD and Saddam.

Instead of trying to tout this as Bush lying, you SHOULD take a look at the evidence, which says that THERE WERE WMD IN IRAQ before we got there (He had them, and used them on the Kurds.), ask yourself, where the hell did all Saddam's WMD go? Maybe Syria?

You should spend some time in America or read NRO or something. Your ideas aren't bad or completely wrong but they could be tempered with more exposure to all Americans -- not just the Americans from slashdot or popular American media.

Hey, moron...a pen name is the name that everyone knows you write under. No one knew who Gannon was.

What do you mean, "no one knew." Everybody who needed to know knew. The FBI knew. Dan Bartlett knew. Scott McClellan and his staff knew. Gannon's employers knew. No, your problem is that you didn't know. Which fits in perfectly with your "freedom for me but not for thee" mindset.

He managed to get into the press corps and lobbied softball questions, some of them without any factual basis.

Do you read The National Review? You should. There's a great article in today's issue that takes a little trip back in time. During the Clinton administration, the President -- not just his staff, but he personally --regularly got questions so soft they'd make Gannon's look like the Spanish Inquisition.

Drop the smoke screen about "softball" questions. The bottom line here is that you're pissed off because Gannon was openly supportive of George W. Bush, and that's just something you can't tolerate.

he knew the contents of the memo that was leaked before almost anyone else knew them

That's a lie. Gannon didn't say word one about the memo until two days after it was described in detail in the Washington Post. If you compare the way Gannon described it to the Post article, you can clearly see similarities that lend credence to the idea that Gannon got his information from the same place everybody else got theirs: the morning newspaper.

it certainly make him a legitmate target for investigation

Bullshit. Drop the pretense, please. He was "a target for investigation" for one reason and one reason only: He was openly supportive of George W. Bush. There are some folks out there --you chief among them, apparently --who think that only liberals should be allowed to report the news. Or maybe you believe that only members of party Y should be allowed to report the news when party X is in power ...oh, wait. No. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I can't do that. Because if that were the case, you would have gone apeshit on March 19, 1999, when Ken Walsh asked Bill Clinton, in an open press conference, whether Clinton would be mad at the people who called for his impeachment in 10 or 20 years when it all had blown over. If everything you're saying about yourself is true, then you would have absolutely blown your stack at a question like that coming from an open supporter of the President in the press room. But you didn't, did you? No, you only decided to start flinging poop when you found somebody who was just as partisan as every other member of the press corps, only on the side opposite your own.

You are a fucking hypocrite.

Kind of interesting to see that a Chicken can be trained to play a perfect game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

From The Corner:

Well, fundamentally it's an effort to make an argument for new stem cell lines, by undermining the viability of all the existing lines, including those federally funded. There's not much new to it, except now it's dressed up in a "new" study, when everyone has always known that these lines (not just the Bush-approved ones, but almost all ES cell lines developed past a certain stage) were developed with so-called mouse feeder cells. To call this "contamination" is simply dishonest. A good number of cell products used in humans are developed with feeder cells from animals, and some of these (not embryonic cells, but other cell products) have been successfully developed into medical treatments in the past.

A couple of key points. First, it is not true that all the Bush-approved lines were developed with these mouse feeder cells. There are sixteen lines (not counted in the LA Times's "20 or so" available lines) that have been frozen in an early state, so as to wait for better cell development techniques. These have never been exposed to mouse feeder cells or any other cells, they are frozen and could be used if these folks had a better method to suggest.

Second, the FDA has a lot of experience dealing with cell products (again, not embryonic stem cell, but others) developed with such animal cells. Then-administrator of the FDA Mark McClellan, in testimony before [the president's bioethics council] in September of 2003 [found here] was asked about the mouse feeder layer issue in embryonic stem cells, and he replied: "We've certainly had experience, successful experience, in thousands of patients in documenting the safety of cells that have been exposed to animal feeder cells, mouse feeder cells, and the like."

This new study strikes me as a partially dishonest repackaging of old worries in an effort to put new pressure on the Bush administration's funding policy. The trouble with it, as with all similar efforts by the researchers, is that the policy is based on a moral conviction, not a scientific assessment. Even if what they are saying were correct, it doesn't change the moral problem with embryonic stem cell research, and so will not change the policy. And from what I can see, it isn't correct either.

Par for the course, alas. What a course!

perhaps you should consider the entire paragraph for Lord Acton's letter:

Perhaps you should consider posting the entire paragraph, then, rather than a disemboweled quotation full of ellipses. This quotation is frequently referenced, with plenty of false statements made about its context as well.

For example, Eureka Street, a Jesuit publication, writes, "The key to Acton's thinking lies in his next sentence: 'Great men are almost always bad men.'"

The best actual source I could find was From the National Review, which no one trusts:

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holder of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. The inflexible integrity of the moral code is, to me, the secret of the authority, the dignity, the utility of history. If we may debase the currency for the sake of genius, or success, or rank, or reputation, we may debase it for the sake of a man's influence, of his religion, of his party, of the good cause which prospers by his credit and suffers by his disgrace. Then history ceases to be a science, an arbiter of controversy, a guide of the wanderer, the upholder of that moral standard which the powers of earth, and religion itself, tend constantly to depress.

Ironic, isn't it, that the Jesuits would have a different "next sentence?" Unless, of course, Acton recycled the same line in many different works.

You have to be shitting me. Do you really believe the US Government would spend money because it was getting TOO MUCH information?

The truth is, you can probably download a packet sniffer off Sourceforge that's more powerful than the dread Carnivore. And that's probably what the FBI's doing now.

No, the FBI now demands what they want from ISP's who collect and sort all the information for marketing purposes. Thanks to the Patriot ACT they no longer need court orders. It's now easier than ever to get wiretaps and snoop on US Citizens. There ARE more than ever and it's getting worse.

If my Government wants to respect my privacy, they can stop their own and other's snooping. What happened to the principle of an inviolable post? My communications, snail, phone, email and others should be private, damn it. I resent my government spending my money to tap into it and I resent the collection of such information by fools who think it's worth money. Such efforts, like ticket sorting are a waste of everyone's time and money. When it's collected, it's done at your cost and you only pay it only when there's no reasonable alternative to the service you need and the cost can be pushed onto you. That, or you're dealing with the wrong people.

I know that this idea of increasing the limit has been kicked out in at least one column by Jonah Goldberg (don't have the link handy now, but it should be on National Review). This also goes hand in hand with ideas such as the Enumerated Powers Act (every law congress passes must point out where in the Constitution allows them to pass the law) and the idea of Federalization (those pesky ninth and tenth amendments). This also contains the interesting idea that Congressional gridlock is good. How many *good* laws have come out of Congress in the past ten to twenty years, how many horrible laws?

Nephilium
"I meant," said Iplsore bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?" Death thought about it. "CATS," he said eventually, "CATS ARE NICE." -- Death is obviously not a dog person Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

I present this link to Donald Luskin's piece for National Review. It's well worth reading, and provides an interesting contrast to the piece from The New York Times: Reform lies at the Times

None of which is related to the fact that steal 12.5% of my money just isn't fair. Let me invest it and earn 8-9% annually over the 45 years I work.

And here's another look at why the crises is much closer than Lowenstein believes by the same author.

> ...misinformation coming from the right.

Yea, from the newpaper to the left of Stalin. If you want to read a more balanced discussion of the problem try here:

Donald Luskin on Social Security Reform & Crisis on NRO Financial

I think the problem is, getting something out of a news source with a different point of view requires the ability and inclination to think critically about your own point of view, or your thinking will never rise above "what a bunch of liberal/conservative/religious/atheistic nutcases" and you'll gain nothing from the experience. Critical self-examination is not something that comes naturally to... well, anyone, really, though some people take to it more readily than others and it does get easier with practice.

Basically you have to apply something like the scientific method, or at least a healthy skepticism, to each and every one of your beliefs about the world. Including the ones your parents and community told you when you were a little kid and you've kept in your head without questioning ever since. (Those are the hardest, but parents and communities can be wrong too.) Assume for the sake of argument that you're wrong about X. What things that you've observed about the world make more sense if X isn't true?

Do that thought exercise at least once a day with some value of X that actually matters to you, and even if you don't change your mind, you'll suddenly find yourself much better able to defend your point of view.

Unfortunately, Internet or no, it's much safer and more comfortable and easier to gravitate toward people who think the same way we do than it is to think honestly about the fallibility of your own beliefs. As much as I agree that the net makes it much more practical to expose yourself to a wide variety of opinions, it also makes it equally practical to shield yourself from them. Reading Salon and The National Review Online is a lot more work than just choosing one or the other.

On the other hand, I agree that it is much more desirable to let the users decide, rather than forcing something down their throats from above. It's just too bad that the decisions they seem to be making (assuming my informal survey is representative) aren't the ones that would lead to a well-informed, thoughtful electorate.

NRO: The father of five, I'm something of an expert on animated feature films, if I do say so myself -- and Pixar productions are simply and incomparably the best. Your stuff delights my three-year old, my thirteen-year-old, the three kids in between, and their parents and grandparents. How do you guys do it?

Good: Simple. We don't make movies for kids. We make movies for adults, actually ourselves, and then just make sure there's nothing in them that the little ones shouldn't see. The local cineplex is littered with movies made by studios who want to second-guess what the audience wants. We find we get better results by making what we want, and then assuming that there are other people like us out there.

If audiences in general are underestimated, kids really get the patronizing treatment. Two things are often forgotten about kids. One: They have no taste. They will watch just about anything. This is normal and healthy. Taste comes later. Two: They are not stupid! Kids are born intelligent, and there's no good reason to make dumbed-down entertainment for them.

"Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy."

That essay is one of my all-time favorites.

His book might be good but make no mistake about it, John Derbyshire is a creepy right-wing bigot.

You can read his weird daily posts over at National Review's blog The Corner.

Check out this article here where he hints at the long standing right-wing fantasy that white caucsians are, in fact, smarter than the rest of the world.

There is much more where that came from. Feel free to read his archive here.

His book might be good but make no mistake about it, John Derbyshire is a creepy right-wing bigot.

You can read his weird daily posts over at National Review's blog The Corner.

Check out this article here where he hints at the long standing right-wing fantasy that white caucsians are, in fact, smarter than the rest of the world.

There is much more where that came from. Feel free to read his archive here.

His book might be good but make no mistake about it, John Derbyshire is a creepy right-wing bigot.

You can read his weird daily posts over at National Review's blog The Corner.

Check out this article here where he hints at the long standing right-wing fantasy that white caucsians are, in fact, smarter than the rest of the world.

There is much more where that came from. Feel free to read his archive here.

Bill Justen, West Memphis, Tenn.:

Pretty good, I guess. But my feeling is, if you're going to sell cigars in the gift shop, you should be able to smoke them, too. I bought a pretty pricey smoke and wanted to enjoy it as I strolled along the Avenue of the Stars, and I was told in no uncertain terms that smoking was not permitted. When I asked why cigars are sold in the gift shop, I was told that these cigars aren't "the smoking kind." Am I missing something? P.S.: The Sharon Stone robot figure in the Hollywood Atrium is busted.

Forgive us for having been propagandized into hearing how "missile defense" will protect us from ICBMS for the past 25 years. Hearing every year or two about "successful tests" that turn out to be abject failures, lies that keep the corporate welfare billions cranking out for defense contractors, even during years when the programs were actually halted by Congress. Despite your assurances, jazzed up with fanboy jargon, WMD experts project North Korea's nuclear ICBM program to be the real thing about now, or soon. Iran, too. And even happy talk about "only Mach 6" (3,500MPH) is just more bankrupting wishful thinking that fattens defense corporations while atrophying the diplomacy that actually keeps the world safe.

Of course, you're an Anonymous Coward strutting your unquestioning faith in fascist corporate welfare terminology on Slashdot. No reason to think the bar is still too high, because the Pentagon marketers have "made progress" in white papers, which of course equals "success". In fact, it's quite likely that, despite their worthlessness for any purpose but enriching defense contractors, bankrupting superpowers and spreading fear, you're a fan of Star Wars systems as much for their connection to the movie, as for your possible employment by the industry. Let me clue you: Vader's lightsaber didn't work just because it lit up and looked scary. Even though it did open the floodgates on big budgets, it was just a fantasy. In real life, the complexity of these systems vastly overwhelms any calculus for their use that requires protecting billions of people. We're better off reapplying the hundreds of billions of dollars, millions of hours of smart people, and endless propaganda towards building peace among competing nations than in pretending we've gotten rich defending from them, until the final test proves us all apocalyptically wrong.

"The Guardian" didn't call for the assassination of the President of the United States. In order to properly say that, such a call to action would have to appear as an unattributed editorial on their editorial page, thus representing the views of the editorial staff.

Instead, according to the very article you link to, it was a tasteless joke by one writer, in an article that appeared in the TV listings.

This is like saying that the National Review called on the United States to invade Arab countries, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity. Allowing something to be printed in a publication isn't the same thing as endorsing it.

The currency analysis is half right. While a low dollar might (should) help alleviate a trade deficit, the US is also running an historically large budget deficit. The US is financing itself with debt, largely purchased by entities outside of the US. So, if the dollar continues to fall, the US runs the risk of losing an awful lot of investors. To make US Govt debt attractive, you then get higher interest rates, which will in turn kill off investment and growth by the private sector.

This theory was dispelled in the 80's when Regan made his much criticized his supply side tax cuts. Krugman himself gave chicken little 'the sky is falling' predictions about these only to have the largest economic growth period since the end of world war 2.
This is dictated from the Laffer Curve, the modern accepted theory of economic behavior. Part of the defined behavior is that the deficit increases(which always makes me wonder why people suddenly get upset when this happens after supply side tax cuts). However, tax receipts increase as well as household wealth. Some of you may remember Regan's quote about "rising water lifts all ships", this is exactly what he is talking about.

This relates very closely to the whole idea of the deficit. One can look in the media and see millions of documents talking about how evil deficits are and how they will ruin the U.S. economy. Some how people are failing to see the relationship to borrowing and paying back money and how it relates to the government.

For example, if one were to buy a house usually it requires a loan for a large amount of money from the bank. This loan requires you to pay back the total amount of the loan over time, but during that time the capital you have purchase with that loan acrues value on its own. By the time the loan has been paid off the capital can generate revenue either by its inherent properties(for example factory equipment at a comopany) or by selling it for a market price higher than what it was purchased for(and hopefully adjusted for inflation you make a profit!)

The government borrowing money from 'itself' with the supply side cuts to stimulate the economy is a Good Thing(tm) and as we are already seeing the US economy is chugging right along after the Bush cuts in 2003.

You then can get into a vicious circle of high rates and a collapsing economy (as opposed to the virtuous circle experienced when our budget was under control under Clinton).

Unfortunatly my economic history is vauge under Clinton so I cannot comment on this statement. I do know that he raised taxes several times in the late 90's, but I don't have the raw numbers handy to analize it.

You shouldn't critcize someone like Krugman unless you actually understand the whole picture.

Krugman has absolutly no credibility. Like I described before when the world of economics moved on passed Keynesian theory and onto Laffer theory Krugman never got the memo. Not to mention his own political adjenda that is quite bias. As a matter of fact he has an entire column dedicated to correcting his half-truths called The Krugman Truth Squad.

The following is from Volokh:

Quebec's Human Rights Commission has ordered a man to pay a $1,000 fine because he referred to another man as a "fifi," the French equivalent of "fag." Worse yet, the comment wasn't made to the complainant (which would at least raise red flags about an implicit threat or true harassment of the individual), but to his "traveling companion." According to the CBC, the "Rights Commission ruled that the term was an inappropriate way of referring to homosexuals and adds to the disgrace and lack of respect of human dignity people are entitled to."

Now, it's obviously not nice to call someone a "fifi." But when the State can punish individuals for "inappropriate" comments they make in private, noncommercial contexts, the slippery slope towards authoritarianism is steep indeed. This, of course, is not the first example of the growing Canadian intolerance of freedom of speech.

Thanks to Professor Moin Yahya for the tip.

Any Canadians offended by most post should read this before emailing.

End of post from Volokh

So as long as your speech is politically correct, you are fine. Otherwise, the State will fine you big bucks for speaking out.