Psychedelic Drugs...

Interesting essay by Sam Harris...

You Can Still Tie Your Shoelaces...

Reader and friend Simon M. passes along this video:


Simon says:  “I just hope Obama doesn't see the video because he'd make it law that we take it.”  Scary thought, that...

The Flow of Mistrust...

Richard Fernandez analyzes the current NSA scandals, and concludes:

For this reason the current crisis of trust in tech cannot be dispelled without resort to a political solution, just as the question of trusting the USAF with nukes cannot be severed from the question of whether those in charge of the Air Force daily dream of nuking America or not. The Administration is part of the problem. Though they pretend it is not, the quality of their character is relevant. In fact, the doubts over that quality are the central element in this crisis of trust. It spreading the contagion of mistrust into the system. The vector of doubt doesn’t go from Tech to the Administration. It goes from the Administration to Tech.

Read the whole thing; it's excellent.

Junk the Whole System...

The conclusion from a post by Megan McArdle:

When government has power, it will be abused. Sometimes that's the unavoidable side effect of something we need to do. But this isn't. It's time to junk the entire elaborate system.

She's talking about corporate income taxes and charitable deductions.  I'd extend those same thoughts to the rest of the personal income tax system as well.  It's time to start over...

Trust Us...

People email me stuff.  This one's from Larry E., and I'm quoting it in its entirety:

They won't keep your data secret. There is a long track record of abuses already. Its seems that even low level employees, whether at the IRS, the Passport office, the DMV, the Hospital or wherever, can improperly look at your data and often do even if for their own amusement. The more data they have and the less segmented it is, the less secure it will be. This means they can look up everything they have about you, from your shopping habits, your gun purchases, your travel, who you know where your girlfriends are.

And I'm sure you know from being in the Software industry, that despite the best intentions about keeping customer databases secure, they get copied and accessed by multiple people for multiple reasons. Usually good, but that means that lots and lots of people get access to sensitive data. Sometimes account numbers, SSNs, addresses. A lot of stuff.

We can all be targeted at any point should we come under the scrutiny or run afoul or annoy some public employee or official.

At any point, because there are millions of laws and regulations on the books and thousands more every year. Despite our own best efforts we are all scofflaws of one sort or another.

And possibly more importantly is that this means that political opponents can be targeted subverting the entire free election process.

All it takes is for a “high government official” to decide they have reason to believe you are a terrorist and you can be disappeared. Without a trial. Without evidence. Nothing. Because this trustworthy official has decided.

Think about that. Your only safety is trying to keep your head down and not get noticed. Decidedly the opposite of free speech in a free society.

Trust us. We are doing this for your own good.

Trust us. It’s for national security.

Trust us. Those people we killed without a trial, they were terrorists.

Trust us. We can’t show you the evidence, its secret.

Trust us. We have determined that our own actions are legal.

Trust us from a government that is caught lying continually.

Trust us from a government that has proven itself incompetent at every level.

Trust us from a government that invokes executive privilege over matters they claim they had no involvement of.

Trust us from a government that hides behind state secrets at every turn.

Trust us from a government that despite all of the intelligence gathering, secrecy, destruction of liberty has show they still cannot keep us safe. Yet all of these abuses continue.

How America Lost Its Way...

Niall Ferguson on the same subject I wrote about a few days ago.  Here's just one of several excellent points he makes:

Who benefits from the growth of complex and cumbersome regulation? The answer is: lawyers, not forgetting lobbyists and compliance departments. For complexity is not the friend of the little man. It is the friend of the deep pocket. It is the friend of cronyism.

We used to have the rule of law. Now it is tempting to say we have the rule of lawyers, which is something different. For the lawyers can also make money even in the absence of complex legislation

Read the whole thing...

Happiness...

Quote of the Day...

From Mark Steyn's current piece on the drone debate:

The guys with drones are losing to the guys with fertilizer — because they mean it, and we don’t.

If the fertilizer reference escapes you, Mr. Steyn is referring to the Taliban's homemade bombs, which use ammonia-based fertilizers mixed with oil as their explosive...

We're Playing Defense – and That's the Problem...

Peter Munson is a Marine officer who recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan.  He's written a very thoughtful piece, the heart of which starts with this:

Since I returned home, a darkness has grown in me as both I and our nation have failed to live up to the sacrifices of these young men and women. I had no expectation of “victory” in Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever that would mean. Nor did I expect some epiphany of strategic insight or remorse from the nation’s brain trust.

I just found that I could not square the negativity, pettiness and paranoia in the discourse of our country’s elders with the nobility and dedication of the men and women I had seen and served with in Afghanistan.

Over time, as I listened to the squabbling, I realized that about the only thing Americans agree on these days is gratitude bordering on reverence for our military. It troubled me that the sum total of consensus in our discourse is deference toward the defenders of our nation. 

Please read the whole thing...

Oh, and On That Election...

Naturally, I'm far from overjoyed by the results. 

The result that has the most direct impact on us is the passage of Proposition 30 (California).  That one is going to smack us in the pocketbook in a most unpleasant way.  It's also an indicator to me (as if I needed any more indicators!) that Californians are utterly committed to going the way of Greece.  They've got the pedal to the metal, and are heading for the cliff.  Except that I think with this election, they've actually done it: they've driven off the cliff.  I don't see much chance of a return to sanity for California after this.  The best that can be hoped for is that there will be a future opportunity to come back in and rebuild from the ashes.  We're going to be leaving within the next couple of years, and maybe much sooner.  This was the final straw for us, and I don't think we'll be alone.  I had so hoped that Californians would climb back in off the shelf on this one...

Obama's win I'm much less upset about.  First of all, unlike Proposition 30, I was expecting this one to go the wrong way.  Second (and thankfully), we still have a split Congress; the Republicans are still firmly in control of the House.  Gridlock will ensue, I hope.  There's one immediate concern, though: the fiscal cliff and what will or will not be done about it.  Anything at all could happen now, in the lame duck Congress.  I wouldn't put any compromise past the big-government Republicans.

In the longer term, I haven't quite reached the level of despair for our future at the national level that I have for California.  The situations really are quite different. 

In California, we have a progressive executive and an overwhelmingly progressive Assembly and Senate, with a ludicrously ineffective minority of conservatives – and the trend is for more progressive members.  The results for San Diego County elections were instructive: it looks like a long-time big-government conservative Representative (Bilbray) has lost to a progressive opponent (Peters), and it looks like our new city mayor will be a flaming progressive (Filner).   San Diego has long been the largest city in California with any semblance of a conservative government, but now that is crumbling before our eyes. 

At the Federal level, things are not quite so bleak.  We have a Senate with a tiny Democratic majority, and a House with a solid Republican majority.  Obama won't be able to pursue his progressive agenda without an effective opposition.  There will still be ballot box opportunities to get the Federal government back on track.  While it won't be good for our country, I do believe it's true that four more years of Obama-style progressivism will breed more, not fewer, conservative-leaning voters.  Hillary Clinton is the most likely Democratic candidate in 2016.  The Republicans have a huge field of quality candidates to choose from, and some of them are not big-government Republicans.  It remains to be seen, of course, whether the Republicans will be smart enough to choose a small-government candidate (like, say, Paul Ryan).  But my real point is that they will have a chance to do so.  So I haven't quite reached full on despair at the Federal level. 

I see no such possibilities for California.  I see an endless spiral, downward, for California.  Man, I really, really, hate to say that...

I'm Tired...

I ran across this piece from an email that incorrectly attributed it to the actor Robert David Hall.  It was actually written by Robert A. Hall, formerly a Massachusetts state senator and a Marine Corp veteran.  According to Snopes, it's also been attributed (wrongly) to Bill Cosby.  Ah, the delights of the Internet!

The message here is one that I'm sure resonates with many people who aren't lefties...

I'm 63 and I'm Tired
by Robert A. Hall


I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked hard since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought Mc Mansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of China the crime and violence of Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of Iran , and the freedom of speech of Venezuela ..

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari’s law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.

I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madras Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I #@*# sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military.... Those are the citizens we need.

I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught.. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I'm tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.

Truth: Obama's Biggest Opponent...

Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal with an interesting take on Obama...

Canada has a Front-Row Seat...

...from which to watch the U.S. go down the drain.  Conrad Black is the author; here's his blistering conclusion:

And now, in an astounding demonstration of national fecklessness, a failed president is running slightly ahead in the polls of a challenger who has a real CV, unlike recent presidents, but who is so politically oafish and plastic, he makes Elmer Fudd seem charismatic. The incumbent has raised the national debt by 50% on what had accumulated in the 220 years of American independence prior to four years ago — that is $17,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States, in just four years. And Mr. Obama’s tocsin is the comprehensive assertion that: “Experts agree that my plan will reduce the deficit by $4-trillion.” These magic 13 words confirm the reduction of the deficit from $1.5-trillion annually to $1.1-trillion annually in the next ten years, in a country that four years ago had a money supply of only $900-billion.

About 70% of the American deficit is “bought” directly or through the banking system by the Treasury’s 100% subsidiary, the Federal Reserve, and the minimal interest paid on it is recycled back through the Federal Reserve to the Treasury, so the cost of borrowing is zero. It is the ultimate Ponzi scheme, the fiscal nirvana of endless, mountainous debt, rendered easily bearable because it doesn’t cost anything. It is a fraud, a mirage. It all possesses the hypnotic allure of the Gotterdammerung — as the Gods ascend to a burning Valhalla. If this administration is re-elected, Canada, as it has for the entire mighty spectacle of the inexorable rise of the United States, will have the ring-side seat for a disaster. Prudent, hesitant Canada, ran 14 federal government surpluses in a row. We are the pigs in the brick house — it isn’t a heroic position, neither daring nor stylish, but Canadians are peering through the portals of their stout solid home, transfixed and astonished.

The fact that Willard M. Romney is still running almost even in the polls despite his demiurgic implausibility as a candidate, afflicted by a one-person pandemic of foot-in-mouth disease, illustrates the concern of the American voters. Either Romney lucks through and numerate sanity starts to return to American public life, or the most self-destructively incompetent regime since James Buchanan brought on the Civil War, will come back and stoke up a truly spectacular inferno that will purify America in a mighty economic Jonestown. There will be no more tugging at a trouser leg from Canada — either a comradely pat on the back, or a neighbourly blast with a fire extinguisher, but this operatic crescendo can’t continue for one more full act.

Now go read the whole thing...

No Comment Required...

The Lawyer's Party...

Via reader Simi L., The Lawyer's Party in American Thinker, by Bruce Walker.  It's over four years old, but still perfectly applicable.  Here's the lead:

The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.

The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.

Go read the whole thing...

The Wrong Lesson...

Bruce Schneier has a nice piece up on CNN (of all places!), all about drawing the wrong lessons from horrific events.  This was prompted by the Aurora shootings, of course...

Eastern Europe?

The Economist has some ideas about naming the various bits of Europe.  My favorite: “Solvent Europe”, which Estonia is part of...

Cartoon of the Day: Redaction...

Today's Day-by-Day cartoon is excellent. A clip:

A Grinch? Really?

Imagine you're the parent of a little girl, four years old, who's been diagnosed with leukemia – then treated, gone into remission, and has no traces of the disease left.  Then suppose you're contacted by the Make-A-Wish foundation – a charity that gives dreams-come-true trips or experiences to children with life-threatening illnesses, especially when those families can't afford to do it themselves.  What do you do?

This is exactly what happened to William May and his daughter McKenna.  Mr. May decided to block the gift from Make-A-Wish, so the money could be available for a child who was actually sick.  McKenna's mother is unhappy about this decision, and is now collecting donations on her own to fund the trip.  And now the New York Post has weighed in, calling Mr. May a “Grinch”.

I have several reactions to this story.  The first one is to admire Mr. May's honesty and morality, and to applaud him for the wonderful lesson he's teaching his daughter.  The second is to wonder what on earth this story is doing in the public domain – it seems to me that this is the family's business alone, and the Post should butt out...

The Gathering Storm...