Sandusky: Damage by Act and Omission

There is the active damage done to his victims. There is also the harm experienced by young males who need mentors and role models, and will be less likely to receive them.

The End of Men?

I'm not sure why Instapundit linked to this two-year-old piece without mentioning its age. Slow news day? Anyway, a couple of reactions:

1. It's becoming ever more obvious that a good part of affirmative-action politics is about power, justice be hanged. The appeal to justice is a scam designed to disguise the thrust for power.

It's not true for everyone, of course--but it's true a lot. I suspect that it's disproportionately true for people in the upper levels of these movements.

2. Alienated Western men would be a fertile soil for Islam if Islam demonstrated the ability to run a technologically based civilization. Mustafaa El-Scari, a social worker in the Atlantic piece, may know that. So may the Turks...and the Saudis:

...a 2004 law passed by Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers, which entitles expatriates of all nationalities who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship with priority being given to holders of degrees in various scientific fields.[179] The Articles 12.4 and 14.1 of the Executive Regulation of Saudi Citizenship System can be interpreted as requiring applicants to be Muslim.[180]

Knowing it and being able to implement it are two different things.

3. Demographic competition is emerging between the modern and postmodern family and cultures like Mormonism and ultra-Orthodox Judaism, which foster traditional male-centered families. I'm not sure the postmodern family can reproduce itself, let alone keep up.

We may see the postmoderns (try to) use the power of the State to limit the reproduction of their competitors. Alternatively, technological solutions like artificial wombs may appear; such seem like science fiction...until they happen.

Addendum 20120627. Not only are some fringe cultures reproducing rapidly, the mainstream culture seems determined to commit suicide. (HT: Instapundit.) Some people will perceive an evil plan in this, but IMO it's unintended consequences.

What a difference five years make.

Father and Son & Father and Son

Chekhov and Robert Barr.

Hillary Trial Balloon?

Here. I commented (cache here):

I continue to believe that Vice President Hillary would appoint herself Senior Co-President and work toward her 2016 agenda. Yanked among Hillary, Michelle, and Valerie Jarrett (with Bill Clinton in the background), Obama might regret it if he won the election.

Earlier comment here.

Chinese Reforms Stall

The New York Times reports. A sidelined reformer speaks:

His fate, he says, paralleled a growing belief within China’s leadership that it has little more to learn from the West, especially after the global financial crisis of 2008 and China’s success in riding it out. “We’re suddenly so important,” he says, with more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Look at America. It has problems. We don’t have problems.”

Given the touchy nationalism of many Chinese, it is surprising, and arguably reassuring, to hear someone speak that candidly, even from the sidelines. (HT: Dinocrat.)

Vae Victis

The post-WW2 expulsion of German minorities from Allied countries was worse than I thought (HT: Instapundit).

It was nowhere near as bad as what the Nazis would have done had they won. That's a partial but inadequate excuse.

Well, let the truth come out. Hopefully it will not come out with typical postmodern malice.

Elinor Ostrom, RIP

Ever since her Nobel Memorial Prize I've meant to mention her but not, alas, this way. Her work could not be pigeonholed ideologically, so it got less attention than it deserves.

I cannot rule out, and venture to hope, that somehow, somewhere, in a manner we cannot conceive of, she continues to apply her sturdy humane Midwestern scholarly common sense.

Glenn Reynolds...Easygoing?

Usually, but this time he does not mince words:

Let me be clear. These people are not well-meaning do-gooders who have just gone a bit too far. They don’t actually “mean well” at all. They don’t mean well, they mean to be in control. They are power-fetishists, drunk on the joys of bossing the little people around. They are not good people. They are evil. They should be ashamed of themselves, but shame — like taxes — is for the little people.

A reminder that Glenn is a preacher's son.

His Lileks link is pretty blunt too:

A culture that redefines food choices as moral issues will demonize the people who don’t share the tastes of the priest class. A culture that elevates eating to some holistic act of ethical self-definition - localvore, low-carbon-impact food, fair trade, artisanal cheese - will find the casual carefree choices of the less-enlightened as an affront to their belief system. Leave it to Americans to invent a Puritan strain of Epicurianism.

But I must admit that if I had money, I would buy free-range meat and eggs for humanitarian reasons. But this is none of the government's business. I also welcome the day when meat is vat-grown.

Wyden & Issa Propose Digital Bill of Rights

Hurray! Bravo!

The Internet community should be taking assertive action to protect the Internet from those who wish to suborn it for their own political or economic ends. Doing nothing more than resisting attempts at censorship is is a static, defensive, ultimately inadequate strategy.

Democrat Wyden is one of the good guys: someone I can respect despite disagreeing with his ideology.

Hey, Stupid!

Yes, I'm talking to you, George Bush:

The day when a dictator falls or yields to a democratic movement is glorious. The years of transition that follow can be difficult. People forget that this was true in Central Europe, where democratic institutions and attitudes did not spring up overnight. From time to time, there has been corruption, backsliding and nostalgia for the communist past. Essential economic reforms have sometimes proved painful and unpopular.

Somtimes? Try usually:

Although all dictators are bad in their own way, there's one insidious aspect of despotism that is most infuriating and galling to me: the disturbing frequency with which many despots, as in Kyrgyzstan, began their careers as erstwhile "freedom fighters" who were supposed to have liberated their people.

Moron.

I respect the element of idealism in US foreign policy. However, it takes people, especially leaders, of real stature to implement successfully. as time passes, it is becoming more arguable that the world would be better of had Bush restricted himself to amoral realpolitik. Limited men should restrict themselves to limited agendas.

Soon an Endangered Species?

From fellow LI commenter Trooper John Smith:



Thanks for permission to repost!

Do Right Wingers Gloat?

According to Charles Johnson, we do:

If there’s one thing right wing blogs do better than whine about being persecuted by liberals, it’s gloat. They’re experts at it.

My reaction:

If there’s one thing that left wing blogs do better than sneer at conservatives, it’s gloat. They’re experts at it.

Gloating is enjoyable. Sneering is enjoyable. Whining is not enjoyable.

Therefore, America, the way to maximize your national happiness on Election Day is to hand conservatives a smashing victory. QED.

Bipartisanship!

Saul Bellow Reviews Fifty Shades of Grey

According to Artur Sammler:

...I was saying that this liberation into individuality has not been a great success. For a historian of great interest, but for one aware of the suffering it is appalling. Hearts that get no real wage, souls that find no nourishment . Falsehoods, unlimited. Desire, unlimited. Possibility, unlimited. Impossible demands upon complex realities, unlimited. Revival in childish and vulgar form of ancient religious ideas, mysteries, utterly unconscious of course astonishing. Orphism, Mithraism, Manichaeanism, Gnosticism. When my eye is strong, I sometimes read in the Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Many fascinating resemblances appear. But one notices most a peculiar play-acting, an elaborate and sometimes quite artistic manner of presenting oneself as an individual and a strange desire for originality, distinction, interest—yes, interest! A dramatic derivation from models, together with the repudiation of models. Antiquity accepted models, the Middle Ages—I don't want to turn into a history book before your eyes—but modern man, perhaps because of collectivization, has a fever of originality. The idea of the uniqueness of the soul. An excellent idea. A true idea. But in these forms? In these poor forms? Dear God! With hair, with clothes, with drugs and cosmetics, with genitalia, with round trips through evil, monstrosity, and orgy, with even God approached through obscenities? How terrified the soul must be in this vehemence, how little that is really dear to it it can see in these Sadic exercises. And even there, the Marquis de Sade in his crazy way was an Enlightenment philosophe. Mainly he intended blasphemy. But for those who follow (unaware) his recommended practices, the idea no longer is blasphemy, but rather hygiene, pleasure which is hygiene too, and a charmed and interesting life. An interesting life is the supreme concept of dullards.

Mr. Sammler's Planet appeared forty years before Fifty Shades of Grey.

Pregnancy and Accountability

Should a man be responsible for supporting a baby he didn’t want?, a State column asks. (HT: Instapundit.)

As did I, a couple of years ago.

Elizabeth Warren's New Strategery

Turn farther left. I kid you not. (HT: Commenter Moe4 at Legal Insurrection.)

The race would be over if...if only this wasn't Massachusetts...if only Scott Brown hadn't alienated the Tea Party whose efforts got him elected.

But it is and he did.

(Does Warren's decision mean she is worried about shoring up her base?)

Romney Overconfidence?

Romeny appointed liberal Mormon Republican Mike Leavitt to head his transmission team. Is he trying to see how many parts of the conservative coalition he can anger simultaneously?

I've posted that the rotting corpse of a syphilitic camel would be better than Obama. Is Romney trying to push the envelope?

Honest, Agenda-Free Oversight, I'm Sure

From the Atlantic: Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are (HT: Instapundit.)

Gee, a cynic might think the exaggeration is deliberate.

(I overlooked it because I don't have a TV. Recycled my tube when they went high-def and didn't upgrade. Don't miss it.)

Where Are My Manners?

Congratulations to SpaceX for the first visit of a private craft to the International Space Station.

May an off-earth economy become profitable, and then self-sustaining.

California Police Want to Be Secret Police, and the Assembly Agrees

Here.

I don't expect this to stay restricted to CA. Nor to police.

Down, down, down. The trend is down.

UN Eyes the Internet, Again

Pam Geller.

WSJ.

Another route to SOPA? Watch for Hollywood extolling internationalism (more than usual).

In fairness, America's ongoing attempts to impose SOPA on the rest of the world create skepticism that we can be trusted as an honest steward of the Internet. However, IMHO the UN proposal would take us out of the frying pan into the fire.

A Contemporary Conundrum

When an industry supports a politician who turns around and proposes raising their tax rate from 15% to 35%, they get upset. How can this be? We need to unleash the full power of postmodern insight on the question. Answer: it's their childish egos.

(The industry is the hedge fund business. Moreover, the administration is proposing to tax the sale of a hedge fund as ordinary income, not as capital gain.)

"There’s really no problem we can’t fix with more incarceration."

The title is a quote from Radley Balko. An honor student with divorced absentee parents, who is working two jobs and caring for siblings, has been sentenced to a night in jail for truancy: here and here. The judge should think about the American flag on his tie stands for.

But how did the case get to court? Was the judge told about the obviously extenuating situation? The administrators at Diane Tran's high school deserve as close a look as the judge does. My first reaction: they are at best stupid or gutless; at worst, bigoted and malicious.

Riehl Stupid

This is enough to bar one from polite society, but it's nothing compared to this:

Mitt leaned in close and said, "Man that Chuckles Johnson really takes it in the azz, doesn't he?"

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new record! Unlikely to be broken any time soon.

The implication is that Romney said this in a manner that could not be overheard. Anyone can post a revolting smear, but it takes riehl genius to involve your Presidential candidate in a manner that cannot be refuted. Not surprisingly, they're already having a field day at LGF.

Chiming In...

...re Kimberlin.

I threw this together as an expression of solidarity and will clean it up later. I'll start with the person whom perhaps I respect most in the blogosphere, Radley Balko. Also: The Blaze. Memeorandum. Legal Insurrection. Instapundit.

Little Green Footballs. Just kidding! Your search - kimberlin site:littlegreenfootballs.com - did not match any documents. Hey, look over there. A racist! Added later: Now there are some hits. Charles Johnson identifies Kimberlim as a "pile-on target" and claims, without providing evidence, that he (CJ) is being lumped in with Kimberlin.

Addendum 20120609. Such tactics are nor restricted to the Left. In fact, afaik the radical Left has not killed one of their targets.

A plague on both their houses.

Good for Them

Gay activists urge against prison time for Dharun Ravi, the student who taped a sexual encounter of a gay roommate who thereafter killed himself.

This kind of behavior earns my respect for their opinions more than any amount of screeching about supposed second-class citizenship.

The suicide was very unfortunate, but being a putz is not a sufficient reason for jail time.

National Gay Marriage

Five days ago, I remarked:

That said, I’m pretty sure the Left plans to use the judicial system to impose gay marriage on the country. It may take a Constitutional amendment to preserve the right of the states to decide.

That didn't take long (HT: Althouse):

Rep. James Clyburn, the House Democrats’ third-ranking leader, said on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown Monday that the question of legal recognition of marriage between same-sex couples should not be left to state laws, but instead ought to be decided at the national level, a position that puts him at odds with President Barack Obama....

If DOMA were repealed or struck down, then there could be two possible ways to pass a national policy of recognition of same-sex marriages:

• Enactment of an amendment to the United States Constitution...

• A ruling by the Supreme Court which would find in the text of the Constitution a right for same-sex couples to marry.

Sure Clyburn is at odds with Obama. Surrrrre he is...

Gay marriage is a pressing issue! How has the country survived so long without it? We'd better deal with it right away and not take any more chances. America, ignore the bigots who are using the economy as a distraction.

Freeman Dyson and Climate

I knew he is a skeptic about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). I hadn't known that he worked in the field.

sigh Only in America (Alas, Babylon?)

It's been a long time since I posted an image. Here's one:

Jack Welch Tells Women to Rely On Merit For Advancement. Fury Ensues.

As of this writing, the WSJ article is here; Google cache is here. An extract is here.

I'm not sure who I have less sympathy for: Welch or the executive wymyn. I felt the same way when Larry Summers shot his mouth off.

Imagine if Welch had criticized the "disproportionate" numbers of females enrolled in higher education.

The Economy and the Election

I want Obama to lose in November. The economy will probably determine the election, but I don't wish for bad economic news. I wish for economic news that accurately reflects the long-term effects of his policies.

If veridical economic news indicates that my assessment of Obama is incorrect, so be it.

Addendum 20120528. Forbes' Joel Kotkin notes that private-sector job growth has begun outpacing the public sector, and gives lists of cities with favorable employment climates (none in New England, iirc).

The Norfolk Racial Attack

A white couple, newspaper reporters out on a date, was beaten by a black mob: see here and here. It took two weeks for their own paper to report the attack. A cynic might note the publisher holds a post in the Obama administration. That cynic might also note that the publisher, Maurice Jones, is black.

A bigger cynic might note that had the couple followed John Derbyshire's much pilloried, with some justification, advice, the attack would not have happened.

yawn More Hype From Singularity "University"

Instapundit links to this.

That place has been open for almost three years.

If technology is accelerating like they claim, where are the profit-making transformational spin-offs? Where are the IPOs?

They'd Wreck America to Win a Single Election

The Democrats proposal to US stagnation: more identity politics, more regulation of business, more ammunition to trial lawyers. (HT: Instapundit.)

In effect the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act requires employers to perform some preliminary pretrial discovery for disgruntled female employees.

Let's not forget that Bush's Republicans federalized the Terry Schiavo matter.

Science Fraud on the Increase

Glenn Reynolds posts.

Also the distinctions among fraud, misconduct, shoddy research practices, and pseudoscience are getting blurred.

The notion, which appealed to me in my youth, that science operates in a higher untainted realm is no longer credible. Once upon a time one could think that although the hours were long and the pay was not competitive with professions that required less cognitive skill, a scientific career was free of sleazy grubbing after money and status. That illusion has vanished.

Summary of the 2012 Election?

Kipling:

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.

I hope not, but it's astonishing that Obama is not fifteen points behind and dropping. A bad indication of the country's common sense.

Addendum. Now I'm really worried: Peggy Noonan is optimistic. Remember her fawning over Obama and, into an open mike, over that political titan, Kay Bailey Hutchison?

Interview with Bear Attack Survivor

Slate reports.

The most appalling thing is that wildlife officials received death threats for euthanizing a bear that devoured a human and attacked another.

An eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth attitude crossing my mind wrt those who made the threats. Poetic justice: when someone makes threats that are credible beyond a reasonable doubt, punish them with the very threat they wielded.

Will Obamacrats Stop Bungling?

Maybe.

The Crony-Capital Crowd Finds Another Way to Rip Off Future Generations

Not just rip them off, eliminate them. (HT: Instapundit.)

Secondary Consequence of Intellectual "Property"

Equating IP to actual property is meretricious on its face, but Reason points out another problem: it diminishes the already-weakened standing of actual property.

Harry Reid is Slime

This. (HT: Instapundit.)

Jeff Goldstein nails it.

Romney: Signs of Sapience

1. In contrast to McCain, Romney may understand that the media are his enemies.

2. Romney said the election is about 'jobs not dogs'. The right tone: bringing the focus back on the economy without alienating the base. McCain would have excoriated his supporters for daring to ridicule Obama.

America's IP Hypocrisy Is Even More Egregious Than I Thought

Forbes reports. The USA: intellectual "property" rights are for me, but not for thee.

The More the US Declines, the More Arrogant the Government Becomes

Foreign banks are renouncing American accounts. Francisca N. Mordi at the American Bankers Association:

"They're going to drop Americans like hot potatoes," Mordi says. "The foreign banks are upset enough about the regulations that they're saying they just won't keep American customers, and it's giving (Americans living abroad) a lot of sleepless nights."

Expats are renouncing their citizenship.

...I asked myself, 'What am I gaining as an American?' And the cons outweighed the pros."

The danger I mentioned in 2007 (here too) is increasing.

On the IRS's "name and shame" policy: As the ship of state takes on water, the officers and crew blame the fleeing rats.

As Instapundit keeps saying, what can't go on forever, won't.

As we draw ever closer to the edge, all I hear is blah blah Sarah Palin blah blah social justice blah blah Christian nation blah blah marriage equality blah blah blah blah blah.

Dog Whistle Malfunction

Hilary Rosen said that Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life." Her apologists are claiming that of course Rosen meant work outside the home and only Dumb Conservatives would take her statement otherwise.

My suspicion is that Rosen did mean outside the home but deliberately chose language which smeared Romney.

Advice for the GOP

Race and gender cards fill the air everywhere. The Democrats and Romney may bring us the nastiest, most divisive campaign since 1968 or 1972.

Why are the Democrats doing this? To distract from the economy, maybe hoping that today's anemic conditions may come to be accepted as normal.

How to respond? Simply changing the subject is better than nothing, but it moves the discourse in the direction of the screaming match that the Democrats want.

IMO the way to go is, first, to link the Left's issues to the economy. If the country were prospering, old scars would be fading, old wounds would be healing, and new wounds would not be created. A rising tide lifts all boats, said President Kennedy. Then hit the Democrats on their own issues. The Left, having made a bad economy worse, seek to win the election by exploiting the very problems they created. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

That approach seems promising. It minimizes the high risk of an effort to unseat an incumbent President: if the economy recovers, Obama will win no matter what; if the economy does not recover, Republicans are refuting Democrat demagoguery by highlighting the Left's greatest weakness. Trying to profit from problems you cause. There you go again.

The Derbyshire Firing

He is undergoing cancer therapy which may affect cognition. That makes the case different from Coulter's. The decent thing to do would have been to suspend him and discuss his status when he is recovered.

But that would require a spine.

Cf. my comment at National Review.

Timor Belli Conturbat Me

I commented:

Gradually taking shape is a war that will make WW2 seem like a schoolyard tussle. Sooner or later, in five years or fifty.

For some time I've meant to post this but Terri said it before I did.

Coca-Cola and Leftist Boycotts

Bill Jacobson reports that KO is withdrawing support to an organization that supports voter ID laws. The numbered statements below will be submitted as a comment.

1. Newsbusters notes that Color of Change is Soros-funded. It’s worth remembering that Media Matters is as well.

Warren Buffett's company owns almost 9% of Coke and is the largest single shareholder.

2. Coca-Cola to the Alinsky Left: We're being good, Mr. Crocodile. Please eat us last.

Not just Coca-Cola. Big Business is not necessarily interested in preserving free markets. On the contrary.

3. The capitalists will sell us the rope we will hang them with.

Lenin was wrong. They're donating the rope.

End of Fiscal Year Spending Spree

Here, here, and here. Civil servants exhaust their budgets at the end of the fiscal year so they can say they need a bigger budget during the next FY. Is Obama really so stupid that he is surprised by this? Does he believe that only he and Michelle are entitled to squander government money?

When I worked for a government contractor, my boss had his end-of-FY proposals ready well in advance. He understood that the sponsor would spend the leftover money no matter what but preferred to spend it on its mission.

Smart Diplomacy and Reset Buttons

According to Instapundit, Canada and Australia are decoupling from the US and making contingency plans for our collapse. Reynolds:

No organization can survive corruption and ineptitude at the top forever. And we’ve had the worse political class in American history for a while now, though its rottenness has really accelerated lately.

If the collapse happens, they deserve to be hunted down and brought to trial. Hunted down from wherever they flee using, if necessary, what remains of our armed forces.

I'm not surprised:

Last year I remarked:

Will the world's financial traffic reroute around America the way the Internet routes around censorship? My guess is that we're not at that point yet, but if it happens it will happen faster than people expect.

Perhaps the global economy too, at some point? Not that we are imminently becoming a backwater--but if it happens, it could happen faster than people expect: for example, our global competitors might sign trade agreements with partners we spurn out of protectionism.

Dismayed, yes. Surprised, no.

Addendum 20120404 (HT: Instapundit): The USA is blocking Canada's entrance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Why? Who benefits?

Harvard Sex Week

In some professions people can be thirty or older when their training is complete. I don't urge them to be celibate until then.

Nevertheless, it strikes me that there is something profoundly amiss with the hook-up and friends-with-benefits cultures. I can't find words; the Gods of the Copybook Headings could express my unease better than I can.

The Left likes to package indoctrination as information or education: "teach-ins", for example. I don't flat-out assert that Harvard Sex week is postmodern indoctrination, but the suspicion strikes me as reasonable.

The foregoing will be submitted as a comment to Legal Insurrection's post on Harvard Sex Week.

Mitt Romney ?= Robert S. McNamara

Seems more that way every day.

Forbidden: the I-Word

Whose side is Reuters neutral on?

Bond prices decline as investors favor risky assets

...(Reuters) - U.S. Treasuries prices fell on Monday, with longer-dated debt yields touching 4-1/2 month highs, as investors further pared bond holdings on signs of an improving U.S. economy and some stabilization of Europe's debt troubles.

There's another reason bond prices fall. Reuters doesn't mention it---doesn't even use the word---, but Fox does: inflation.

I have noticed inflation while shopping for food and gas. IMO the Democrats and their MSM allies do not want such perceptions, including concern about stagflation, to crystallize into a national issue.

Reform in Russia

Under the democratic decent Yeltsin, Russia collapsed into thuggery and chaos.

I hope that the latest reform efforts succeed, but the operative word is 'hope'.

Gilding a Lily

Attributed to William F. Buckley: The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.

My variant: The trouble with liberalism is liberalism. The trouble with conservatism is conservatives. Ditto for libertarians.

Angry opponents are not a bad sign. Laughing opponents are.

The Left, initially incredulous at the Santorum surge, is reacting. (HT: National Review.)

How About Killing Predators Before They Attack Humans?

Re this. (HT: Instapundit.) Hunters would be happy to keep down the populations of deer and the like.

Silly me: a large predator is endangered. Its life is more important than a human's, of whom there are too many anyway. Unfortunately, there are nature- and animal-"loving" urbanites to whom this is not sarcasm.

sigh Even in Alaska...

A New Big Lie: File Sharing is Terrorism

Here.

See this too.

And look for Roman Polanski's Hollywood to become terribly concerned about the urgent need to stop pedophilia.

The Unemployment Numbers

The unemployment report for January was better than expected and the stock market went up sharply.

A number of conservative pundits claimed that the data does not reflect that discouraged people dropped out of the work force and/or stopped looking for work.

After going through various less-than-pellucid Bureau of Labor Statistics Web pages, I am skeptical about the claimed refutations: see here, and I stand by this:

If over the weekend Wall Street decides that something fishy is going on with the numbers, look for the market to give back its gains, and maybe then some, on Monday.

This guy seems to have his head screwed on right, as does Andy McCarthy. In contrast, the usually sober Legal Insurrection has gone off the deep end. (Instapundit links to a different reason for skepticism. Certainly, one can legitimately caution against reading too much into a single report.)

Among serious professionals, the post at Zero Hedge that triggered the brouhaha would be career-destroying if, as seems likely, it is an over-reactive gross error.

The Strange Case of Richard O'Dwyer

Apparently--I'll tentatively take the report at face value--, he may be extradited from the UK to the US for an online offense which is not illegal in the UK. I guess the extradition treaty governs, but this is bizarre. Maybe this situation was not contemplated when the extradition treaty was negotiated; maybe the UK authorities would like to jail O'Dwyer and are letting him be shipped to a country which will do it.

This strikes me as bad policy by the UK--and it strikes me as overreaching which the US could come to regret. (Not surprisingly, the negative consequences will not fall on those who are benefiting from the overreaching.)

For the time being, various despotic and soft-authoritarian governments may be entirely willing to watch the US putting in place the machinery to control online behavior. However, a case is emerging that America is not behaving as an honest broker on the Internet. When calls come for the US's role to be reduced--and they will--, we will no longer have the moral high ground.

The Singularity: Up or Down?

I'm not a singularitarian but the concept seems plausible. However:

Would the housing and financial crashes have been possible without high-performance computing? All those tranches on mortgage-backed securities were valued by heavy-duty number crunching on models which turned out to be grotesquely unrealistic.

The contention that even more powerful computers, possibly artificially intelligent ones, would have avoided the problem is not convincing.

It may also be true that today's sheer volume of government regulations would not be possible without computers.

Afterthought 20120310. Maybe the internally driven, i.e. suicidal, collapse of a civilization can also be viewed as a singularity.

Resolution: Ignore the Super Bowl

I made it after reading how a player was targeted because of his concussion history: here and here, for example. So far I've been keeping it.

The owners are amoral, the players are thugs, and the fans are louts. There are noteworthy exceptions, but not enough of them.

Historical Perspective on the Megaupload Seizure

From Harvard's Yochai Benkler: here and here. Like the man says, read the whole thing.

Kim Dotcom is an unsavory character, but the real crooks are media executives and their sockpuppets in government. (My first impulse was to use a stronger word than 'sockpuppets'.)

I've said it before and am saying it again: it's not enough to impede SOPA/PIPA. What's needed is to punish the people, in an out of government, who are pushing it. It's not enough for the anti-SOPA Internet constituency to play defense. I'd love to see a bill that reduces copyright terms to three years.

Is Any Honest Politician Left Anywhere?

The classic definition is that an honest politician is one who stays bought.

US politicians turned on the tobacco companies after receiving support from them for decades.

Kiwi politicians granted Kim Dotcom residency for a $10M purchase of government bonds--and then conspired with the US to arrest him, seize his assets, and extradite him. What is NZ's cut of the confiscated assets?

In a statement the Immigration Service said that “Mr Dotcom made full disclosure of his previous convictions and they were taken into account in the granting of his residence.

“The Immigration Act allows for discretion to be exercised in certain cases. In this particular case Immigration NZ weighed the character issue and any associated risk to New Zealand against potential benefits to New Zealand.”

They went right after those potential benefits, didn't they? But wait:

The Government has confirmed no minister was involved in the decision, but the Labour Party will insists that given the risks involved one should have been.

That's all right then, if the Government said so.

Afaic Dotcom is no bigger a rogue than the entertainment bigshots are; a fair comparison might show him to advantage. His problem is that his business never got big enough to compete with Hollywood's bribes.

Similar hanky-panky here.

Addendum 20120128. NZ admitted Dotcom. However, he was not allowed to buy the residence he rents, but was allowed to buy another luxury property.

Meanwhile, his assets are frozen, crippling his ability to hire representation. Innocent until proven guilty, uh huh.

Let me not be misunderstood: Dotcom is an unsavory character--but not as unsavory as the people who are going after him.

The Megaupload Takedown

Here. (HT: Instapundit.) Here. (HT: Democratic Underground.)

1. IMO this is part of the push to get SOPA passed. Will it work, or will it backfire? Given Republican deference to all things law enforcement, they might back off their newfound opposition to SOPA. Fingers crossed.

2. The victims are foreign nationals who were arrested in New Zealand. The pretext is apparently that a server was hosted in the US: or maybe Amerika isn't bothering with a pretext.

3. Why in the world are foreign governments putting up with this? There are all kinds of phony protests about US imperialism, but for real imperalism...nothing. Hopefully foreigners will protest to their governments the way Americans are protesting about SOPA.

4. Meanwhile, Obama has angered an ally and trading partner rejecting the Keystone pipeline.

5. Context: bupkis happened to the Americans who crashed the world economy.

6. When the chickens come home to roost because of such arrogance, it won't be pretty.

7. In some ways this is worse than Watergate. It is being done on openly a global scale with legal pretexts.

8. Not to forget the maneuvering about Assange and Wikileaks.

9. Having gotten the foregoing off my chest, I acknowledge that the news is very preliminary.

Afterthoughts 20120120:

10. The Megaupload founder Kim Schmitz is a piece of work.

11. NZ police were "happy to assist" the FBI even though there is no intention to try the arrested people under New Zealand law. Maybe NZ is happy for a pretext to get rid of somebody with Schmitz's rap sheet. Or maybe people got suborned.

Governance by False Dichotomy

Example: the distribution of wealth in the US. Either it's not a problem, or the government should confiscate the supposed excess. No alternatives enter public discourse.

Scott Brown Opposes SOPA/PIPA

Here.

Okay, I'll vote for him again. Donate again? Not so sure.

And it's premature to celebrate. I'm not at all sure that the legislation is dead. The politicians are entirely capable of announcing they've fixed the problems, renaming the bill, and ramming it through; or of slipping it into a larger bill.

Afterthought. My message to Brown:

Sir:

I was pleased to read your Tweet opposing SOPA and PIPA.

I suspect that the corporate backers of these bills are engaging in rent-seeking crony capitalism. Even if one concedes that their points have merit--I do not, for Hollywood has previously worked against innovations like the VCR--, their arguments are overwhelmingly outweighed by considerations of economic growth, fair use, and human rights.

NBER and SOPA/PIPA

The National Bureau of Economic Research has made all working papers more than three years old available for free download.

I am sending them the following:

I noticed your new policy of making older working papers freely available via SSRN.

You have struck a fair, even generous, balance between the public interest, your legitimate organizational interest, and the legitimate interests of your contributors and their organizations. You are setting a rare example at a time when the legitimate concept of intellectual property is being perverted by corporate rent seekers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians.

This infrequent user of SSRN and an even more infrequent user of NBER is taking a moment to say: thank you.

Beau geste.

Tim Tebow

This.

To Attack Romney's Record at Bain Is To Attack Capitalism...Who Knew?

Capitalism, too, has its useful idiots.

Lately the emphasis has been on idiot rather than useful.

If It Seems They Can't Get Any Dumber

Conservative cult hero supply-sider Arthur Laffer has mentioned that unrealized capital gains are "currently" not taxed. Apparently he thinks he's refuting Warren Buffett--by putting the matter of taxing unrealized gains on the table ("currently taxed at zero percent"...great choice of words). Undermining his party in order to supposedly win a debating point.

They Lie When Their Lips Aren't Moving

It's an election year, the country's finances are fundamentally out of balance, and the candidates, including the incumbent, hardly ever mention a VAT.

Is America No Longer the Land of Opportunity?

So claims WaPo columnist Harold Meyerson. His references sound plausible. Is he cherry-picking them? I'll have to think about it.

Then again, this WaPo piece by David Ignatius, published the same day as Meyerson's, is much flimsier than its companion.

And there is Thomas Friedman's The Way We Used to Be.

Golly, if all these brilliant people had the same idea, it must be Journolist correct.

Seriously: I agree that top US executives are grossly overpaid--but that doesn't mean the answer is for the government to confiscate the money. I suspect the highest-echelon compensation system is a monopoly; if so, it should be treated that way.

Fatheads

Why do people usually revert after successful weight loss? Evidence is emerging that the body goes on a war footing after a serious diet. (Anecdote: maybe not if the weight loss is very gradual.)

In other words, the people who have been sanctimoniously lecturing us about health and obesity may have all along have been completely unaware of something fundamental about how the body works.

Something to keep in mind the next time the parasite classes commission "research" and "studies" and use the results to create another regulation to create more phoney baloney jobs for each other for our own good.

The New, "Improved" Light Bulbs

Supposedly the new light bulbs make up for their expense via a long lifetime and savings on power. Iirc Instapundit has posted anecdotal evidence that the new bulbs do not last nearly as long as advertised.

A Congress that has consumers' interests at heart would make the bulb manufacturers live up to their commitments. This could be done, for example, with a time stamp on each bulb. A bulb that stopped working before the time stamp expired would be replaceable with a new bulb--one with a fresh time stamp, just to make the point clear to the industry.

I'm not holding my breath: the current arrangement lets the government practice crony capitalism and pander to the green lobby at the same time.

A New Precautionary Principle

The Precautionary Principle states that no innovation or policy change should be implemented until it has been proven to be safe. That is, no change should be adopted until every objection has been conclusively refuted; the burden of proof falls on those who propose the change.

My suggestion:

Disregard everybody who invokes or implies the Precautionary Principle.

Compelling Goverment Interest

That phrase is BS that the government, including a complicit judiciary, has cooked up to justify unConstitutional actions and policies. Just keep repeating the mantra long enough and the peasants will accept it.

Diversity, for one.

Sustainability, for another (HT: Instapundit).

SOPA

Hopefully it will be defeated or blunted, but Hollywood will be back--even if, heaven forbid, it passes.

Are we really going to throw a spanner in the works of 21st-century technology so Hollywood can continue to collect rent with its 20th century model? Big Media will only stop trying when its efforts are penalized by revoking some of the monopolistic privileges it already has. Target the DMCA or copyright terms.

What Would Jesus Henry VIII Do?

When those who "occupy" Episcopal and Anglican churches in NYC and London bleat how they think the founder of the Christian religion would treat them, they should have a similar, cautionary thought about the founder of the Church of England.

Coincidence?

1. "U.S. Urges Creativity by Colleges to Gain Diversity" (HT: researchok@LGF) It's news to me that achieving "diversity" is a "compelling interest".

In effect, a compelling interest means it's something that the government is doing without a Constitutional, legislative, or electoral basis because it would not survive scrutiny under any of those criteria.

2. Who needs overrepresented minorities?

3. Huzzah! Researchers have fabricated, um, discovered a nondiscriminatory law school entrance exam. (HT: Instapundit)

Polarization: An Unintended Consequence of the Internet?

The Web may actually have made people more partisan because it has become easy to cherry-pick data to support a preconceived position.

Bill Clinton Speaks

1. Seems reasonable to me:

Should you raise taxes on anybody right today — rich or poor or middle class? No, because there’s no growth in the economy. Should those of us who make more money and are in better position to contribute to America’s public needs and getting this deficit under control pay a higher tax rate when the economy recovers? Yes, that’s what I think

2. Maybe we need a supercommittee of one. Let Bubba do it.

(A supercommittee of ex-Presidents? No way: Clinton is the only one who is competent.)

Is a New Kent State on the Way?

By militarized police?

Repeating an Action and Expecting a Different Result

David Brooks released a trial balloon for Jeb Bush.

Afaic only the Kennedys have done more damage than the Bushes.

The Machines Are Conspiring Against Humans

I got an email offering me a 90-day extension of my TracFone service, but couldn't find the offer online. So I tried calling and got stuck in their automated system. The I tried the GetHuman.com site and got Could not connect to database.

This guy saved me even though the post is almost six years old.

One Term for the Fed Chairman

This reduces the temptation to manipulate rates in a manner that panders to politicians, the President in particular.

If a given Fed chair is supposedly irreplaceable--the Greenspan debacle is a counterexample--, the Fed is structured incorrectly and invested with too much power.

Maybe the single term should be made longer than the current renewable term.

Worst I've Seen Yet

Forfeiture abuse: the authorities are trying to seize the property of a motel owner who has cooperated with them against crime, leaving similar corporate properties unmolested.

Such seizures, of course, are the kind of thing that the Bill of Rights is supposed to prevent. Is the government returning to the days of predatory Roman tax collectors?

(The foregoing assumes that the facts of the case are as presented by the Institute for Justice.)

Never Spoken Were Truer Words Than...

...these:

The Internet’s full of small, vindictive, unbalanced, and ugly people who don’t have the slightest qualms about using any and every tactic imaginable to go after people who irritate them.

September 11 ,2001

Perry Links

Via texexec, here and here. The classic Political Math post is here. A serious Iowahawk weighs in.

On the Budget Negotiations

Relax, America.

Have a banana.

Flash Mobs and Yutes

In Philadelphia: here and here.

In Vancouver, after the Stanley Cup.

"Whose Side Are You On?"

Says Hillary Clinton to Libya skeptics.

Lord, I despise 1960s Boomers. (Whose side was Hillary on then? Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is bound to win.)

A disenchanted Hillary supporter vents here and here.

Obama Budget Speech and Ryan Response

The Obama speech is here. The Ryan response is here and here.

The Republicans were invited and felt betrayed: expecting a bipartisan address, they perceived the speech as a political attack.

But using a veneer of civility to hit below the belt has become an Obama trademark trademar: giving the finger to Hillary during a debate, criticizing SCOTUS to their faces during the State of the Union, and now this.

The Wisdom of Christina Romer

Before she returned to academia after serving as being Obama's chief economic advisor, Romer did much to turn the Great Recession into the prosperity we enjoy today. She has more:

Christina Romer: A Weaker Dollar Is Good For America

In a way, this is consistent with the position that US pre-eminence is illegitimate, so we might as well divest ourselves of both the prerogatives and responsibiliities of a superpower. Next: the Romer-Smoot-Hawley Tariff?

Meanwhile, Joe Stiglitz doesn't know what ails us, but prescribes redistributive taxation anyway.

Let's Call a Spade a Spade

James Taranto:

"Collective bargaining" is outrageous because it is an affront to democracy: a system of collusion between politicians and unions, which cuts out the taxpayers whose money they are spending.

Bargaining between government unions and Democrat politicians is misnamed as collective bargaining. It should be called what it is: collusive bargaining.

(It's my impression that it is unconstitutional to prevent unions from participating in politcs: for the same reason that businesses are allowed to participate. But is that privilege negotiable?)

Scott Walker is No Angel

His legislation proposes that government workers not be allowed collective bargaining on beneftis--but he exempts police and firefighters. In fact, such first responders have the biggest role in public safety. As such they should be more strongly disincentivized from striking than noncritical politics.

Okay, one says, but politics is the art of the possible.

But what about the proposed proposed no-bid sale of state-owned utilities (HT: Reason)?

Afaik Walker is doing more good than harm, but he isn't pure as driven snow.

On, Wisconsin!

The Democrats and government unions urgently to nip Walker's efforts in the bud because otherwise they will spread to other states--and then it will be possible to compare the economies of states in which government unions are curtailed and those in which they are dominant.

See here and here for summaries of Walker's proposals. I'll substitute better references when I find them.

Is Arianna Going Rogue?

Huffington : selling HuffPo :: Palin : resigning as governor.

Valerie Jarrett

Reportedly, she treated a general in dress uniform as a waiter. Per Instapundit, let's hope the story is an exaggeration.

Addendum 20110208. The incident has been smoothed over.