Obama Tops Carter's Giving Away the Panama Canal

He's giving away the Internet. (After all the hanky-panky by US spy agencies, he may not have much choice. See this and this.)

Meanwhile, Putin is seizing Ukraine. Weak horse, strong horse...

The elite fools who govern us think there are no consequences to their arrogant stupidity. Of course, their response is to demand more power when the chickens come clucking home.

UN-type transnational kleptocrats would love to tax the Internet, and I bet some American politicians would go along for a cut of the loot. Human progress be damned.

America's Arrested Development

Radley Balko reports that in 2011 there was one arrest per 25 Americans (HT: Instapundit). The great majority of these were not for violent crimes.

Is this country still a free and democratic society? Seems doubtful, though I'd like to see the historical numbers and comparison to other countries.

She Always Struck Me As a Stuck-Up Member of a High School Student Council

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has no idea what Obama's Kill List is, and could care less. (HT: Ed Driscall@Instapundit and Reason)

I'm not accustomed to being on the same wavelength as Glenn Greenwald, but he nails it:

One expects corrupt partisan loyalty from people like Wasserman Schultz, eager to excuse anything and everything a Democratic president does. That's a total abdication of her duty as a member of Congress, but that's par for the course. But one does not expect this level of ignorance, the ability to stay entirely unaware of one of the most extremist powers a president has claimed in US history, trumpeted on the front-page of the New York Times and virtually everywhere else.

This person is being touted as the successor to Pelosi as the leader of House Democrats.

It would be funny if it weren't horrifying. You can smell the rot.

Dippy Wasserman Schultz.

More Intellectual "Property" Insanity

Tax strategy patents:

A tax patent is a patent that discloses and claims a system or method for reducing or deferring taxes.

So if someone sets up a trust, foundation, or other mechanism for tax purposes, they can be sued.

This is a real intrusion of intellectual "property" on people's actual property.

How about landscaping patents, to be enforced via aerial or space-based imaging? How about interior decorating patents, to be enforced via bounties to deliverymen and the like? (Until, in their never-ending quest to protect creative people and grow the economy, Congress can mandate home monitoring.)

Hair style patents, to be enforced by accosting people in the street and requiring documentation that they have paid a licensing fee?

I try to stay optimistic as a matter of moral principle, but it is increasingly hard to avoid creating a label titled Let It Burn.

Who Benefits?

Submitted as a comment on this piece:

Keep in mind that the Clinton Justice Department refused to attack the South Carolina prison plan even though it was pressed to do so.

Who was/is doing the pressing, and why? Excellent piece, Mr. Adams, but I hope you have more to say about this key point.

Having worked in the Civil Rights Division, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how perfectly correct and completely justified DOJ bureaucrats consider policies like the threat to South Carolina to be. And having lived and worked in the private sector and in parts of America far from the Beltway, I also cannot overstate just how insane such policies sound to most Americans.

Are the bureaucrats suing SC just crazy & disconnected from common sense, or is something sinister going on? (Intellectual honesty requires me to add that there might be a legitimate reason for suing, but I can't imagine what it might be.)

Might It Come to This?

A bill to reduce spiking of CA state pensions has been so watered down by union forces that backers have withdrawn support. (Apparently CA pensions are based on the last year's compensation, and employees are allowed to include things like unused vacation, sick time, and uniform allowances in that amount.)

I fantasize that the public unions will be willing to sell CA to the Chinese if that will get their pensions paid. When it comes to that, the dollar might be worth so little that it would be a bargain for the Chinese. A bargain for everybody except the country the public employees are supposedly working for.

But you can't really blame government workers for driving the best bargain they could get. The real blame lies with the employters who acceded to the ruinous obligations.

In a future, fiscally ruined America, can we envision a series of drumhead courts for the legislators who voted for those benefits, the executive branchers who proposed them, and their heirs? If you proposed or supported a bill that contributed to the state's bankruptcy, your assets get confiscated even if you're dead.

Entrepreneurship in America

To Nathan Myhvold's name, add Steve Gibson's:

Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission...“We perceive there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” he says.

Maybe this will finally bring the IP situation to a reductio ad absurdum.

A problem with today's USA is that when you think things have come to a reductio ad absurdum, they're just getting underway.

The intention of intellectual-property social contracts is constructive and in principle I endorse the concept, but they are metastasizing to the extent that society arguably would be better off without them altogether. Apparently it is necessary to end progress in science and the useful arts in order to save it.
*************
Our wise and good Congress at work:

While many companies ask other publishers to take down potentially infringing material, the law doesn't require content owners to do so before filing suit. The federal copyright statute also provides for damages ranging from $750 to $150,000 per infringement.

To repeat, this issue is tailor-made of the Tea Party. Orrin Hatch is a scumbag. I would be delighted to see him dumped like Robert Bennett was.

Another Straw for the CAmel's Broken Back

The California legislature is seriously considering a law to create a sex-offender-type registry for animal abusers.

To be financed by "a small tax on pet food".

The state is melting down and they propose another "small" extension of government financed by another "small" tax.

Incredible.

Dhimmitude to Grizzly Bears

I am delighted to share my property with wildlife--as long as they fully understand who belongs to the dominant species.

This Forest Service page has many interesting links related to the government's efforts to restore grizzly bears in the lower 48 states. Clicking through, I came to these Tips for Residents in Grizzly Country.

Unfortunately, the term 'grizzly country' is all too literal: the document discusses how humans, at their own effort and expense, should make themselves and their property unattractive to the bears (without harming the dears, of course).

My suggestion: enlist Charles Darwin to teach the bears that bothering humans has excruciating or fatal consequences.

Addendum 20100227. Oh, and by all means kill the orca that drowned his trainer, and was involved in two previous human deaths to boot.

I don't know if the brute is being kept alive because of squeamishness or greed. Maybe both.

In a society that, apparently, can never have too many counterproductive safety measures, why did SeaWorld make no provision for intervention? Squeamishness, stupidity, or greed? If the orca had been killed to save the trainer, would they have gotten worse publicity than they have after the trainer died?

In principle I agree that Dawn Brancheau (RIP) knew the risks and should not have been prevented from accepting them. In practice, I question whether that's the ethical foundation on which SeaWorld's operating policies rest.

Diana Moon-Glampers is a SoCal Educrat

See here and here. Berkeley High School is on the verge of eliminating after-school science labs because of the racial disproportion in their use. Apparently a performance gap between races is a no-no that jeopardizes funding, so the local educrats are reacting by penalizing the motivated high achievers. Harrison Bergeron High, Instapundit aptly names it. (The first link says 'too many white kids', but what about Asians?)

Then there's the vice-principal of a technology magnet school who locked down the place and called the bomb squad when a kid brought in a homemade motion detector.

France Strikes Again

After the monumentally incompetent Bush administration and the possibly worse Obama, it's bad form for an American to gibe at the Europeans, but I can't resist. From the BBC:

The French government wants to take the controversial step of introducing a new law banning "psychological violence" between married couples or partners living together.

The law is expected to pass.

I don't expect this law to be applied uniformly, objectively or fairly. I do expect it to be extended beyond cohabitants.

Could 'psychological violence' be invoked to circumvent the USA's First Amendment? Look for the usual suspects to get interested.

Addendum 20100107. Chicks on the Right captures the insanity:

What are they going to ban next? The silent treatment?

Yours truly comments. Here too.

Addendum 20100117. According to Rasmussen, 32% of Americans favor such a law (40% opposed and 27% undecided).

A republic, if you can keep it. More and more of us are uninterested in keeping it.

Addendum 20100303. The French are on the verge of passing a law requiring electronic monitoring bracelets for husbands who have a restraining order to avoid their wives.

Worst Decade Ever (?)

According to Reason TV, it was.

Think where we’d be if we hadn’t started with unprecedented prosperity and power. Think where we’ll wind up if we persist.

And we are persisting.

If governed as we are today, I question whether we would have won WW2 (or WW1 for that matter) or the Cold War.

America Was Once Like This

From the Daily Mail:

Unveiled: China's 245mph train service is the world's fastest... and it was completed in just FOUR years

Look at the images.

In four years, I doubt you could even get regulatory approvals to break ground in the US.

My Evil Idea

Gene Healy on making criminals out of all Americans:

There are now more than 4,000 federal crimes, spread out through some 27,000 pages of the U.S. Code. Some years ago, analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offenses on the books, and gave up, lacking the resources to get the job done...

You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl and his associated slogan, "Give a hoot, don't pollute."...Bills currently before Congress would send Americans to federal prison for eating horsemeat or selling goods falsely labeled as "Native American."

"Is that the system we have, that Congress can say, nobody shall do any bad things?" an exasperated Scalia asked (Deputy Solicitor General) Drebeen. The system we have comes pretty close, unfortunately. And a federal criminal code that covers everything delegates to prosecutors and the police the power to pick their targets at will, leaving everyone at risk.

(HT: Instapundit) So much for limited government in a free country. Note that the impetus is bipartisan. (Note also bipartisan legalization of things like intellectual-property banditry and expansive eminent domain.)

The law has become so complicated that Congressional researchers can't even enumerate the crimes that Congress has created? This is a job for...Artificial Intelligence!

Some public-spirited entrepreneur should create a software package that runs along the lines of a search engine. The enterprising prosecutor types in a target's behavior and the engine returns the crimes that are compatible with those actions.

In fact, every police department should have one! Initial versions might require an officer seeking a pretext for an arrest to call a dispatcher who will run the program and relay the options to the officer. Very quickly, however, voice recognition software can take the dispatcher out of the loop and automate the entire process.

(According to Healy's piece, Jim Webb is taking this issue on. Good for him. I'm glad I donated to his campaign against MacacAllen.)

This Contrast Was Worth Drawing

The Navy SEALS who captured the mastermind of the Fallujah atrocity are facing courtmartial for apparently punching him in the mouth.

Meanwhile, the military's powers that be managed to ignore Islamist mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan's increasingly flagrant dysfunction. (From a NY Post editorial via Instapundit.)

We are right back to being Carter's pitiful giant--and I see no Reagan on the horizon.

Who is Deborah Gyapong?

Whoever she is, she makes sense (boldface mine):

Our culture is suicidal, folks. Somehow the part of us that is still awake has to rouse the lethargic body and grab the phone and call 911.

As I said, this is NOT about Muslims. It is about the decay of western civilization and its embrace of some strange death wish. We're the ones who love death---our own.

How would an Islamist interpret multiculturalism and the post-atrocity handwringing? He might well conclude that the infidels acknowledge they are wrong and Allah is clouding their minds on behalf of the Faithful.

Zero Tolerance...of Political Opposition?

Instapundit reports on Scouts being expelled from school for concocted weapons charges.

How much of such “zero tolerance” is bureaucratic stupidity, and how much is outright evil?

School administrators are part of the social-services establishment, which is dominated by the political left. They presumably are disproportionately likely to favor gun control, to deprecate the individual’s right to self-defense, to dislike the military, and to view Scouting with suspicion as a paramilitary organization.

Are they misusing the power of government against their young and defenseless future political opponents?

"For the Children"

When budgets and bureaucratic turf are involved, it can be necessary to endanger children in order to protect them. Instapundit reports (boldface mine):

AND DON’T LET US CATCH YOU BEING NEIGHBORLY AGAIN: State bureaucrats threaten to fine, jail a Michigan woman for watching her neighbors’ kids. If people are neighborly, they need the state less. This cannot be permitted.

Glenn has unwittingly provided every "social-service" bureaucracy with a slogan to be posted prominently in parts of the building where the public is not allowed.

This is how Michigan spends taxpayer money while the state is undergoing an economic cataclysm.

Addendum. After I emailed him, Reynolds added the slogan above to his post.

wtf?

The Swiss arrested Roman Polanski in order to extradite him to the US for being convicted 31 years ago of having sex with a minor. The (former) minor has settled with Polanski and wants prosecutors to drop the matter. Will the prosecutor try to get her jailed if she refuses to testify?

Obviously a lot of resources and high-level negotiation went into setting this up. Who are the malefactors who are pushing this forward? What are their motives? (Wild unsupported speculation: was Polanski's invitation to Switzerland a sting that was arranged as part of the tax-evasion deal the US cut with Switzerland?)

The French are furious:

In America, Polanski is largely seen a child rapist who fled justice, but he is a cultural icon in France, where many feel he was persecuted for having sex with a girl who admitted it was not her first time.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he was "stunned" by the arrest, adding that he "profoundly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already known so many during his life."

The NY Daily News comments feature the usual online lynch mob, but there are sensible people there too. Skycap:

He had to live a life of exile most of his life over this. The gov’ts in Europe are demanding he be freed. This is just a feeding frenzy for the lawyers and legal workers. Nothing good will come about by torturing this person now. Set him free. We have better things to spend our tax money on wityhout making the USA look like a horde of pitchfork and torch carrying fools.

Steep:

skycap you got a point, we make the worst porno movies in America but want to play puritans by not showing t i t s on regular tv where in Europe they are laughing their arses off...and saying murder movies cutting people to pieces is an American specialty ...this is so funny its unreal

Maybe if Polanski appealed to Hugo Chavez for mediation or converted to a murderous version of Islam, Obama would personally quash the proceedings.

All this is being allowed to happen while we're trying to establish a united front with the Europeans regarding the Iranian bomb.

(Btw, the foregoing is irrespective of the low regard in which I hold Polanski.)

Addendum 20090928. Polanski's lawyers may have provoked the arrest by, in effect, taunting the authorities that they had not done so.

Audit the Fed?!

Barney Frank, like Ron Paul, wants to audit the Fed.

Given Barney Frank's key role in stopping the Bush administration's attempt[1] to reform Fannie Mae, his political career should be over. Instead he is a shoo-in for reelection. He has become even more arrogant[2] and proposes to do even greater damage.

This bill would take us directly to banana-republic status. The number of co-sponsors is itself a step in that direction.