Monthly Archives: February 2010

Via the newest member of my blogroll.

All wars are a nightmare to those involved. Thank God, most of us don’t know what it is like and have ever been involved in the fights. Most of us have never suffered from hunger, from invaders, or had no home, no clothes and no hope. In most countries of the world, the present generation has no idea about War World II, or they judge on it from shots published by Lifemagazine. There’s another side you have never seen.  The photos featured in my post today were taken in the former USSR during World War II on the occupied territories.  The authors of most of them are not known — these are photos from family archives posted online by grandchildren of those who took part in the war. Some of the photos belong to the Soviet journalists of that time- Vladimir Lupejko and Dmitri Baltermants. The photos are shocking and cruel, but they should teach us to respect others’ lives and dignity. We are equal and we are not born to be slaves. [Emphasis added.]

Via Instapundit, The British PoW Who Broke into Auschwitz — and Survived. A compelling read, posted in full below, because I will not suffer this article the indignity of excerption.

Denis Avey, even at the age of 91, cuts a formidable figure. More than 6ft tall, with a severe short back and sides and a piercing glare, he combines the pan-ache of Errol Flynn with the dignity of age. This is the former Desert Rat, who, in 1944, broke into — yes, into — Auschwitz, and he looks exactly as I expected. He removes his monocle for the camera, and one of his pupils slips sideways before realigning. It is a glass eye. I ask him about it. He tells me that in 1944, he cursed an SS officer who was beating a Jew in the camp. He received a blow with a pistol butt and his eye was knocked in.

If Avey’s story is difficult to believe, it is worth bearing in mind that it is not without precedent. In 1944, the British PoW Charlie Coward, a sergeant-major from the Royal Artillery who had attempted escape 14 times, infiltrated the camp dressed as a Jewish prisoner to gather intelligence from a British Jewish naval doctor interned there. After the war, Coward testified at the IG Farben trial in Nuremberg. His life story was made into a film The Password is Courage in 1962, starring Dirk Bogarde.

Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust authority, is in the final stages of researching aspects of Avey’s story with the intention of granting him the title of Righteous Among the Nations. “For obvious reasons this honour cannot be based on Avey’s word alone,” says Susan Weisberg, spokeswoman for Yad Vashem. “Each case must be substantiated by eyewitness testimonies and archival documents of the period.”

Avey, born in 1919 on an Essex farm, lived a rough-and-tumble lifestyle and grew into a daredevil. “I once jumped from a branch 45ft high, just for the thrill of it,” he says. “I had a shock of red hair and a temperament to match.”

He also had an affinity for the underdog. As head boy of his school, he used his physical strength to protect the weaker boys. “If there is one thing I’ve always abhorred it is bullying,” he says. “I could dish it out back then. Legislation wouldn’t let me now.”

These traits would serve him well at war. In 1939 he volunteered for the Army — because he was too impatient to wait a week for the RAF. “I ended up in the 7th Armoured Division, the original Desert Rats,” he says. “We operated behind enemy lines in Egypt. In 1942 we were ambushed. I was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans.”

Avey was a troublesome prisoner. In the summer of 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz, in Poland, and interned in a small PoW camp on the periphery of the IG Farben factory. The main Jewish camps were several miles to the west. “I’d lost my liberty, but none of my spirit,” he says. “I was still determined to give as good as I got.”

But he knew immediately that this was a different order of prison. “The Stripeys — that’s what we called the Jewish prisoners — were in a terrible state. Within months they were reduced to waifs and then they disappeared. The stench from the crematoria was appalling, civilians from as far away as Katowice were complaining. Everybody knew what was going on. Everybody knew.”

Remarkably, Avey was able to think beyond the war. “I knew in my gut that these swine would eventually be held to account,” he says. “Evidence would be vital. Of course, sneaking into the Jewish camp was a ludicrous idea. It was like breaking into Hell. But that’s the sort of chap I was. Reckless.”

According to the historian Sir Martin Gilbert, Avey’s hunch was right. “Auschwitz would not become known as a place of extermination until the spring of 1944,” he says. “When the world found out, there was outrage. After the war, British war crimes investigators were desperate to find PoWs with information about the camps.”

Avey’s audacious plan was made possible by Ernst Lobethall, a German Jew from Breslau, who worked alongside Avey at the Farben factory. Although fraternising was forbidden on pain of death, the two men became friends. “We spoke out of the corner of our mouths,” Avey says, “a difficult thing to do in German.”

He discovered that Lobethall had a sister, Susana, living in England. “I wrote to my mother, who told Susana that Ernst was alive. She posted 200 cigarettes to me via the Red Cross. Miraculously, four months later, they arrived. The cigarettes were worth a king’s ransom. Ernst suddenly became rich.”

With the cigarettes, Lobethall was able to buy boots and scraps of food that would later save his life. He also used them as bribes to help Avey to gain entrance to the Jewish camp.

“Despite the danger, I knew I had to bear witness,” Avey says. “As Albert Einstein said: the world can be an evil place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. I’ve never been one to do nothing.”

The operation was planned meticulously. Avey found a Dutch Jew with a similar physique and persuaded him to exchange places for a day. Avey knew that they marched past each other at the same time every week. “The Nazis were rigid, you see,” he says. “To them orders were orders, to be carried out exactly. That was what allowed me to find a way round them.”

Avey shaved his head and blackened his face. At the allocated time, he and the Dutch Jew sneaked into a disused shed. There they swapped uniforms and exchanged places. Avey affected a slouch and a cough, so that his English accent would be disguised should he be required to speak.

“I joined the Stripeys and marched into Monowitz, a predominantly Jewish camp. As we passed beneath the Arbeit Macht Frei [work makes you free] sign, everyone stood up straight and tried to look as healthy as they could. There was an SS officer there, weeding out the weaklings for the gas. Overhead was a gallows, which had a corpse hanging from it, as a deterrent. An orchestra was playing Wagner to accompany our march. It was chilling.”

They were herded through the camp, carrying the bodies of those who had died that day. “I saw the Frauenhaus — the Germans’ brothel of Jewish girls — and the infirmary, which sent its patients to the gas after two weeks. I committed everything to memory. We were lined up in the Appellplatz for a roll call, which lasted almost two hours. Then we were given some rotten cabbage soup and went to sleep in lice-infested bunks, three to a bed.”

The night was even worse than the daytime. “As it grew dark, the place was filled with howls and shrieks. Many people had lost their minds. It was a living hell. Everyone was clutching their wooden bowls under their heads, to stop them getting stolen.” Lobethall had bribed Avey’s bedfellows with cigarettes. “They gave me all the details,” he says, “the names of the SS, the gas chambers, the crematoria, everything. After that, they fell asleep. But I lay awake all night.”

In the morning, Avey joined other prisoners for a roll call, followed by “breakfast” — a husk of black bread with a scrape of fetid margarine. “It wasn’t enough to sustain life. Everything was designed to make you waste away.” They were formed into groups and marched out of the camp, again to the accompaniment of an orchestra.

“When we passed the shed again, I slipped in to meet the Dutch Jew,” he says. “That was hair raising. Although I trusted him, I couldn’t be sure that he’d turn up. And if an SS officer had looked in the wrong direction at the wrong time, that would have been it.”

The changeover went smoothly, and Avey returned to the PoW camp. “The Dutch Jew perished, but I’m certain that this short reprieve prolonged his life by several weeks,” he says. “Whether that was a good thing, I don’t know.”

In 1945, as the Soviet Army closed in, the Nazis abandoned the camp and herded 60,000 prisoners in the direction of Germany, in what would become known as one of Death Marches. Avey, who by then was suffering from tuberculosis, was among them. Around 15,000 prisoners died on the way. “The road was littered with corpses,” he says. “I saw a chance to escape and seized it.”

He found his way to Allied lines and was transported back home. Two days before VE Day, he arrived at his parents’ Essex farm half-dead with exhaustion and sickness. They had not expected to see him again.

If Avey’s story still sounds implausible, there is no doubt about the help he gave to Lobethall. Last year the BBC screened a moving documentary, during which Avey learnt for the first time that his old friend had survived the war and died in New York in 2001. Before his death, Lobethall recorded a video testimony for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, during which he emotionally recounts how his life was saved by Avey’s initiative and Susana’s cigarettes. This is the only moment that I see Avey’s steely façade falter.

“I was hospitalised for two years after the war,” Avey continues. “In 1947, I went to the military authorities to submit my information about Auschwitz. Their eyes glazed over. I wasn’t taken seriously. I was shocked, especially after the risks I’d taken. I felt completely disillusioned, and traumatised as well. So from then on I bottled it up, and tried to piece my life back together.”

Sir Martin Gilbert says: “By 1947, the trials of Nazi war criminals had been and gone. The war was over and people just wanted to get on with their lives. There was a whole mind-set of not really wanting to know what had happened any more. Many people had stories that nobody was interested in. It must have been very painful.”

Readjusting to normal life was hard. Avey became addicted to adrenalin, racing fast cars, travelling to Spain for the running of the bulls. He was plagued by nightmares and flashbacks. Even today he shows signs of trauma. He always carries an expensive gold watch, so that “if ever I find myself in a fix again, I’ve got something to fall back on”.

Sixty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, when eyewitnesses are dying out and Holocaust denial is burgeoning, Denis Avey’s extraordinary tale has finally found its moment. “I’m talking to you so it will do some good,” he says fiercely, pounding his fingers on the table for emphasis. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

An uncle on my mother’s side of the family spent most of the war as a Nazi prisoner of war, experiencing much of what Mr. Avey describes above. While interned, his sole possession was a lighter that he guarded at all costs.  It sustained his soul.

By the way, that article appeared on a blog aptly named GoodShit, which provides an extraordinary amount of interesting links (e.g. this), pictures (Not-all-SFW, to say the least), and original commentary. For our collective future reference it’s on my blogroll.

Apollo 8 was the first spacecraft to orbit the moon, which of course involves transiting the ‘dark side of the moon.’ Upon return to the sunlit portion of the moon, and reestablishing communication with planet earth, Astronaut Lovelle uttered the following epic statement – see video @ 0:11.

By the way, it was Christmas Day, 1968. Transcript below:

089:32:50 Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston. [No answer.]

089:33:38 Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston.

089:34:16 Lovell: Houston, Apollo 8, over.

089:34:19 Mattingly: Hello, Apollo 8. Loud and clear.

089:34:25 Lovell: Roger. Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.

089:34:31 Mattingly: That’s affirmative. You’re the best ones to know.

Epic read here about Andre the Giant, the legendary professional wrestler beloved in and out of the the ring.  I found this story particularly interesting.  Andre’s incomparable drinking ability (read the whole article, Andre once drank 119 beers in a six hour sitting) produced a medical breakthrough in anesthesiology.

Giants are not made long for this world, and toward the end of his life injuries and health problems caused by the acromegaly caught up with Andre. It became difficult just to walk, let alone wrestle, so he retired to his North Carolina ranch to drink wine and watch the countryside. He declined myriad requests for a comeback, despite promises of lavish payoffs. He was simply in too much pain to perform at the level he demanded of himself. Then he received a call from [WWWF Promoter extraordinaire] Vince McMahon Jr.

McMahon was in the midst of taking his WWF promotion national. He’d scored big-time with his Wrestlemania events on pay-per-view, and asWrestlemania III approached, Vince Jr. was hot to make it the biggest thing yet. To make that happen, he needed Andre the Giant.

Andre was in France visiting his ailing father when the call came. He thanked Vince Jr. but said there was no way he could get back in a ring, even though he very much wanted to. Not willing to give up, Vince Jr. flew to France to speak with Andre in person. He took Andre to see doctors specializing in back and knee maladies. Radical back surgery was proposed. If successful, the procedure would lessen Andre’s pain and perhaps make it possible for him to get in the ring for Wrestlemania. If Andre was game, Vince Jr. agreed to pay for the entire cost of the surgery.

The time arrived, and the anesthesiologist was frantic. He had never put a person of Andre’s size under the gas before and had no idea how much to use. Various experts were brought in but no solution presented itself until one of the doctors asked Andre if he was a drinker. Andre responded that, yes, he’d been known to tip a glass from time to time. The doctor then wanted to know how much Andre drank and how much it took to get him drunk.

“Well,” rumbled the Giant, “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.”

Epic. “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.” Savor that for as long as necessary, then continue reading.

And thus was a solution found. The gas-passer was able to extrapolate a correct mixture for Andre by analyzing his alcohol intake. It was a medical breakthrough, and the system is still used to this day.

Five months later, Andre the Giant wrestled a “body-slam” match against Hulk Hogan and brought down the house.

Two liters of vodka. Warm and fuzzy. Side by side like that, the two sentences hardly make any sense. For most of us, two liters of vodka means a one-way ticket to Blackout Island aboard the good ship Regurgitania.

After Wrestlemania, Andre retired for good. His beloved father died in 1993 and Andre returned to France to be with his family. He was still there when, on January 26th, 1993, Andre died in his sleep of heart failure at the age of 47.

The key to Andre the Giant is this — even as a youth he knew that his disease would dramatically shorten his life. He knew there was no cure, and lived every day with the understanding that death could shamble around the very next corner. Knowledge of this sort can darken a life.

It did not darken Andre’s.

He chose instead to pack his days with as much insane, drunken fun as they could hold. Instead of languishing in the darkness, he chose to walk in the sun. [Emphasis added.]

I admire bloggers who aren’t afraid to engage in  bit of rank speculation, for instance the following:

There are rumors out new President elect Barack Obama may be growing a mustache, which is spectacular news. I am clinging to my audacity of hope that he will rule with what has historically been a successful Vice President.

Hold on. This is America. No one rules, presidents included. We elect people to govern. There’s a galaxy of difference between the ruling and governing. Next, I have no idea what this blogger means by saying “[Obama] will rule with what has historically been a successful vice president.”

If he misspoke, people wouldn’t be listening, they’d be thinking, ”What a fine mustache.” It would be the most politically savvy move, also following in the footsteps of the greatest civil rights activist and African American mustache advocate in the history of the world.

Only time will tell.

Friday Cab Roundup – yeehaw! But I digress.

First up is the Amir Cab.  While this driver certainly isn’t the first person to name his/her business or cab after him/herself, Amir cab doesn’t earn any style points.

My apologies for the blurry image. I present to you Black White Cab. Perhaps the idea of a post-racial society inspired this name?  No.  A post racial cab would just be “Cab.”  Then again President Obama, the herald of our non post-racial age, gave his autobiography a decidedly non-post racial subtitle – Dreams from My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance. So go figure.

The In Touch Cab, a Cab name that a marketer could spin a number of ways. The Cab that keeps you in touch with others.  The Cab you can keep in touch with – it connotes the idea that you can call the cab directly.  The Cab that understands you.  The Cab in touch with its feelings.  Maybe that’s it!  In Touch Cab is another way of saying ‘Sensitive Cab.”  I suppose if In Touch Cab was pink it’d be a dead giveaway that In Touch is man-code for sensitive.  But In Touch Cab isn’t pink. It’s not sensitive, it’s just in touch, with you.  Great name.

FuturePundit (see blogroll – a great daily read) has an article up today discussing an study sure to catch Steve Sailer’s attention, as well as HBD pundits Half Sigma.  FuturePundit’s article is well worth reading, so I’ve pasted it below.  Take special note, though, of the article’s title . . .

Intelligence Tracked To Brain Regions

Snark Alert.  Yes, interested readers, in breaking news, scientists have tracked intelligence to the brain.

Spearman’s g-factor comes from a distributed set of brain regions.

PASADENA, Calif.—A collaborative team of neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California (USC), and the Autonomous University of Madrid have mapped the brain structures that affect general intelligence.

The study, to be published the week of February 22 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds new insight to a highly controversial question: What is intelligence, and how can we measure it?

The research team included Jan Gläscher, first author on the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, and Ralph Adolphs, the Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and professor of biology. The Caltech scientists teamed up with researchers at the University of Iowa and USC to examine a uniquely large data set of 241 brain-lesion patients who all had taken IQ tests. The researchers mapped the location of each patient’s lesion in their brains, and correlated that with each patient’s IQ score to produce a map of the brain regions that influence intelligence.

Of course, if IQ differences can be traced down to physical differences in brain regions then IQ is a product of physical qualities of brains.

Connections between the brain regions matter too.

“One of the main findings that really struck us was that there was a distributed system here. Several brain regions, and the connections between them, were what was most important to general intelligence,” explains Gläscher.

Once the genetic causes of intelligence differences become known and DNA testing becomes ultra-cheap the dating and mating game will change quite drastically. Equally intelligent people won’t have equal odds at making smart babies because some will have some IQ-boosting genes on only one out of a chromosome pair and others will have the boosting genes on both chromosomes. The latter will make the most attractive mates for those who want smart babies. Also, in vitro fertlization with genetic testing to select embryos will become the rage for those most ambitious about their children.

If When Sailer and Sigma comment on the study I’ll link to it.

Via Instapundit, comes this stunner, which not even the Onion could have thought up.

Atlanta Progressive News has parted ways with long-serving senior staff writer Jonathan Springston. Apparently, Springston’s affinity for fact-based reporting clashed with Cardinale’s vision.

And, no, that’s not sarcasm.

In an e-mail statement, editor Matthew Cardinale says Springston was asked to leave APN last week “because he held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News.”

Emphasis added. By the way, this is a great example of the passive voice softening a sentence that would be more forceful in the active voice.  I’d have written it like this.

Atlanta Progressive News editor Matthew Cardinale asked Springston to leave APN last week “because he held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy.”

Via Google News. Regardless of what you think about the merits of nationalized health care versus the United States’ half-nationalized system versus a free market in health care, you should appreciate this Canadian politician’s remarkable display of chutzpah.

An unapologetic Danny Williams [Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador] says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a “minimally invasive” surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,” Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

“I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics.”

No reasonable person could disagree, Mr. Williams, unless you have long advocated for a national health system in Canada and the prohibition of a competitive free market alternative for those willing and able to pay for it. Then there is considerable room for proponents of an alternative system to criticize you.

The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn’t closing properly, creating a leakage.

He said he was told at the time that the problem was “moderate” and that he should come back for a checkup in six months.

Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure, he said.

His doctors in Canada presented him with two options – a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would’ve required breaking bones, he said.

While Williams might agree that waiting in line to unnecessarily break chest bones may be good enough for the average Canadian, he’d prefer a private doctor in Miami.

He said he spoke with and provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who is also from Newfoundland and Labrador. He advised him to seek treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.

That’s where he was treated by Dr. Joseph Lamelas, a cardiac surgeon who has performed more than 8,000 open-heart surgeries.

Williams said Lamelas made an incision under his arm that didn’t require any bone breakage.

“I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time,” the premier said.

Williams sought personal efficiency, in other words. Who wouldn’t?

Williams said he didn’t announce his departure south of the border because he didn’t want to create “a media gong show,” but added that criticism would’ve followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.

“I would’ve been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. … I accept that. That’s public life,” he said.

Well, it’s tough to escape charges of blatant hypocrisy and elitism when you’re determined to have your cake and eat it too. It’s also surprising that Williams is so interested in escaping political controversy. After all, he is a proponent of the fur seal (pup) hunts, which ensures he will never get with Eva Mendes.

“(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that.”

One hypocritic act is an outrage. Lots of hypocritic acts are a statistic. Duly noted sir.

Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province’s health care system.

“I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people,” he said.

“We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who’s doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week.”

I thought Williams just wanted the less intrusive, non bone breaking surgery?  Newfoundland’s state health care provided proven options to fix his heart valve, but he declined them.  Fair enough, but rank-n-file Canadians must not like it very much, especially if the reason the surgery isn’t offered is because of Canada’s health care system, rather than simply due to Newfoundland’s small population.

He quipped that he had “a heart of a 40-year-old, so that gives me 20 years new life,” and said he intends to run in the next provincial election in 2011.

“I’m probably going to be around for a long time, hopefully, if God willing,” he said.

“God forbid for the Canadian public I won’t be around longer than ever.” [Emphasis added]

Wow. I don’t know if a politician could say something more arrogant than that. Well, Marie Antoinette did (arguably), but look how well that turned out for her.

Williams also said he paid for the treatment, but added he would seek any refunds he would be eligible for in Canada.

But of course. He also steals takes home extra ketchup packets from McDonalds.

“If I’m entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would,” he said.

“But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven’t even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don’t know what I’m entitled to, if anything, and if it’s nothing, then so be it.”

He is expected back at work in early March.

Now. Some TV that’s good for you.

Michael Moynihan had a short article on Reason’s blog today subtly criticizing the Root for including United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on its list of Black People We’d Like to Remove From Black History. Moynihan begins thusly:

Over at The Root, where Slate magazine sequesters black journalists [emphasis added], Michael Arceneaux decides it’s time to excommunicate certain undesirables from the African-American brotherhood.  Because “while we love our own,” he writes, “we sure do dream of erasing a few of them from the history books.”

Talk about the royal “We.”  What’s galling are the reasons the Root includes Justice Thomas on an unwanted list inclusive of murderous despots, thugs, and infamous corrupticrats:

[Thomas] looks to the Constitution as “colorblind,” says he’s a man who just happens to be black and opposes government programs intended to help minorities.

A colorblind Constitution. The horror. What sort of illiberal individual could entertain such a notion? And where did Thomas get the idea that government social programs’ eligibility criterions should satisfy the equal protection components of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.  No true Scotsman black man could hold such views.

If Justice Thomas has ever patronized himself by saying “I just happen to be black” I can’t find it on the Internet. Take away the racial prism that Root views through and Justice Thomas is a black man who reaches legal conclusions based purely upon his logical faculty and reason. In a word, Clarence Thomas is an individual. A reading from Ayn Rand comparing the merits of individualism with race-driven ideology is appropriate here:

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.”

In a sad twist, Root judges Justice Thomas by his “own character and actions,” but seeks to excommunicate Thomas from his “collective of ancestors” for failing to agree with the moral, social, and political stances held by the majority of the living members of his race. Look out Prof. Hutchinson, you might be next.

UPDATED: 2/23/2010 @ 11:45 a.m.

Frankly I’m surprised that Kanye West didn’t make Root’s list, considering that Barack Obama – while the sitting president of the United States – called West “a jackass” with a most sincere tone of voice.

UPDATED: 2/23/2010 @ 1:00 p.m.

Cavan got me going in the comments, so here’s our dialogue:

Cavan:

Well spoken. I find the very idea of “removing” some aspect of black history a bit perplexing. If they can do that can we just selectively remove Hitler from “white people” history? Clarence Thomas is as much a part of black history as Martin and Malcolm. That is, assuming that “black history” means the history of black people, and that membership in this group is determined by only skin color? Except in the case of Clarence Thomas where apparently membership is determined by his views? “Black History” is about race, if you chose to identify yourself by race instead of by intellect… I say you’re stuck with the identity you chose.

And Ayn Rand can insult the human race for its base collectivism all she wants… but she might as well complain about our weak bones or the fact we only have two hands. Humans are very visual creatures, and race–being a visual characteristic–will always be used to make the mental shortcuts known as stereotypes. Honestly I’ve never wondered why we don’t define race by voice patterns or smell–but logical me wonders it now.

Unfortunately its also a very dominant issue. It’s like the Sriacha Sauce of modern issues. No matter what you had before, if you put Sriacha on it–it now tastes Sriacha. No matter what the issue was before, once race gets introduced its about race.

Ryan:

I’ve achieved Sriracha sauce enlightenment. I put gobs of it on stir fry at Pho King Express (the one next to Stout) last friday and it enhanced, rather than overpowered, my meal. I believe all human beings are capable of a similar enlightenment whereby we interact with each other based upon character, content, and creed rather than primitive racial animus and collectivism.

I’ve been doing volunteer mediations in the local (female) juvenile hall and witness first hand some very basic forms of racial collectivism amongst the inmates there. The inmates are teenagers, come from the most broken of homes, and more broadly ‘communities’ that rely primarily upon race to draw social, cultural, and ideological lines. Moreover their prison environment is conducive to forging protective and information alliances. In light of those factors, the fact that race governs a good portion of the inmates relationships, actions, and responses is quite understandable. I do not fault those children.

But I fault the Root’s black intelligentsia because although they possess every resource to rise above the ugly, racial collectivism that centuries of racism forced them to retain, their ‘unwanted list’ clearly displays their refusal to do so. I further fault our society for tolerating (so long as it is non-white) explicit, racial-ideological collectivism. Finally, Salon “sequestering,” as Moynihan put it, their black commentators into a separate but public (equal?) forum (the Root) where they can serve as the de facto intelligentsia of African-Americans is insulting – a stunning example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[UPDATED 4/1/2010 @ 3:00 pm] – I’ve added some of the subsequent commentary below:

Joel Dreyfus [Managing Editor of the Root]:

Have you guys ever heard of humor..irony.. tongue in cheek? Are we collectivist, separate-but-equal, unintellectual agenda black folks barred from using such devices? The list was meant to be funny. And even the description of Thomas was ironic!!! I know, sometimes it doesn’t translate in print, but you guys need to, as my younger staffers would say, chill.

We’re not sequestered; we target a specific audience that feels underserved and whose views, perspectives and opinions are generally ignored by the mainstream media and the mainstream Web. We make a point of presenting a range of black opinions: conservative, liberal, middle of the road, and even, occasionally, humorous.

One of the wonders of the Internet is you can narrowcast to whom you want and if there is a market response to your content it means you are successful. And you don’t have to read us if you don’t want to.

I find it amusing that you and other sites have faulted Slate for “segregating” The Root. Just a little research would have shown that we were created just two years ago, more than a decade after Slate. We are in the same group for corporate convenience.

I find most news/intellectual/discussion sites on the web racially segregated in a much more blatant fashion – by omission. The Daily Beast recently posted a list of the most important journalists of the Left and Right. Such lists are more gimmicky than substantive but it reflected a common viewpoint that makes New Media not very different from Old Media: not a single African-American journalist made the list.
Quite possibly, you have been the exception and you have published the thinking of a diverse group of African-American, Hispanic and Asian thinkers.

We’re comfortable in our skin and we have created a place where our audience is taken seriously and can engage in a spirited debate that reflects a broad spectrum of views. And occasionally, we even make them laugh.

Joel Dreyfuss, Managing Editor, The Root

Ryan:

Mr. Dreyfuss, I appreciate your thoughtful response. You lamented the fact that not a single African-American journalist made the Daily Beast’s list. I simply do not care what race, quantum, or color, any of those distinguished journalists are. My sole concern is whether their work product merits inclusion on the list. Now, I’m quite sure you too care deeply about merit. Our difference is that you take race into some account, and I do not. Nor do I consider the race or races of the authors of the articles I link to, comment on, or criticize.
Although you intended the ‘unwanted list’ to convey humor and/or irony, I submit that expressing desire to oust an individual (J. Thomas) from the African race for failing to conform his socio-political views to those the Root believes are appropriate for African-Americans is a peculiar strain of racial collectivism. Standing on the ideological shoulders of better individuals than myself, I contend we should judge others based solely upon their choices, ideas, and actions as individuals, and treat every individual equally, especially as a matter of law and government. Contrary to your young staffers’ recommendation I will not chill my advocacy in that regard. Finally, I think Flavor-Flav is pretty awesome, and it wasn’t cool for the Root put him on its unwanted blacks list. I appreciate you taking the time to share your viewpoints on my fledgling blog.

Pila:

Mr. Dreyfuss,

“The list was meant to be funny.”

I will agree that the list is a joke, but not in the way that you suppose it is.

The list can be broken down into three categories:
1.) Easy Targets
2.) Conservatives
3.) Murderers

If the list really were meant “to be funny,” it would make the most sense to compose it of all Easy Targets, as Conservatives and Mass Murderers are generally not know for their hilarity.

The inclusiveness of the list is as telling as the fact that Clarence Thomas got more words written about him than anyone else.

The article is blatant, and your response is disingenuous.

Pila Sunderland,

Mike:

Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas was the only conservative black man George Bush Sr. could find to fill the “black seat” vacated by Thurgood Marshall (a seat Thomas has proved woefully inadequte to fill). He was a perfect choice to advance the conservative agenda – a black man willing to defer at every turn to Scalia.

Ryan:

You call Thomas an Uncle Tom for precisely the same reasons I criticized the Root article for creating an unwanted list in the first place. You consider Thomas first as a member of a racial group before you acknowledge his individuality. As a result you feel (implicitly or explicitly) his ancestry should take precedence over his individual logic and ration, and when Thomas steps out of the African-American mold you demean his individual capacity to do so by labeling him as merely an Uncle Tom.

The Humble Libertarian (“HL”) (see blogroll) is a good read every day, but this post is particularly timely and insightful.

Mike Huckabee even sat out the CPAC convention with a bad case of sour grapes, saying: “CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years, one of the reasons I didn’t go this year.” Well, Mr. Huckabee, if you don’t stand for liberty, I pray fervently that the Republican Party knows better than to stand for you in 2012.

This is how it needs to happen. The socialists, fascists, and Fabians hijacked the U.S. Democratic Party over the last century to accomplish their political agenda. I am not unconvinced that the libertarians need to do the same with the Republican Party.

I mostly agree. Only 20% of the country polls as ‘liberal,’ yet liberals dominate a good portion of the political conversation, the Democrat party in general, and apparently occupy 99.99% of the Republican party’s time and attention.

Another interesting point:

Then there’s the fact that they actually gave a standing ovation for Dick Cheney’s surprise speech at CPAC. He joked that “A welcome like that almost makes me want to run for office,” and actually received more thunderous applause. The guy who “vice presided” over eight years of the most radical growth in Federal size and power ever gets that kind of reaction from all of Huckabee’s crazed “libertarians?”

I wish their middle fingers had given him a standing ovation.

To recap, Huckabee boycotts CPAC because it’s too libertarian, allegedly libertarians CPAC-goers cheer for Cheney in spite of his big-government track record, and now HL is about to have an aneurism about the whole situation.

I think Cheney got a big welcome because CPAC-goers are more republican than libertarian (yes, in spite of the fact Ron Paul won the straw poll), Cheney is a Republican, and most of all Cheney has aggressively challenged and criticized the Obama administration in a way no one else, Limbaugh included, can do.

If anything that just shows how looney the Huckabees of the Republican party are. Huckbaee never would have cheered for Cheney because of Cheney’s stance on homosexuals. By the way, the Corner didn’t like much of what Glenn Beck had to say at CPAC, either.

My take is that the Huckabees make Mitt Romney look like a reasonable Republican. The trouble is that Romney is a long way from being a Buckley, much less a Libertarian. HL linked to Cato’s VP destroying the notion that a Romney-like Republican is (a) good for our country (b) considered electable by moderates / tea partiers.

By contrast, Gary Johnson will be good for our country, and is electable - except amongst the Huckabees.

Obama Tops Bush at Ducking Press Conferences:

President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor’s record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

President George W. Bush’s longest stretch between prime-time, nationally televised press conferences was 214 days, from April 4 to Nov. 4, 2004. Mr. Obama tops that record on Monday, going 215 days – stretching back to July 22,

Another way to look at it is that President Obama hasn’t given a news conference since UFC 100, which by the way was awesome.

I received a most interesting text message while at the bar this weekend.  A certain J. Love had an epiphany regarding the proper tying of a bow tie.

Now understand the bow tie theory as balance between one tensor and two angular vectors. Inform the world.

I’ve never tied a bow tie, but I look forward to doing so if for no other reason than to better understand bow tie theory.

BONUS: Agape Cab. Fairly profound as cab names go. Here’s Wiki’s summary.

Agape (Christian theology) the love of God or Christ for mankind. (pronounced /ˈæɡə.piː/ AG-ə-pee;^[1] and sometimes /əˈɡɑː.peɪ/ ə-GAH-pay after the Classical Greek agápē; ModernGreek: αγάπη [aˈɣapi]), also called parental love, is one of several Greek words translated into English as love. Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love. Although the word does not have specific religious connotation, the word has been used by a variety of contemporary and ancient sources, including Biblical authors and Christian authors. Thomas Jay Oord has defined agape as “an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being.”^{[citation needed]} In his book, The Pilgrimage, author Paulo Coelho defines it as “the love that consumes,” i.e., the highest and purest form of love, one that surpasses all other types of affection. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors have used forms of the word to denote love of a spouse or family, or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to philia—an affection that could denote either brotherhood or generally non-sexual affection, and eros, an affection of a sexual nature.

[UPDATE 2/26/2010 @3:30 pm]

Von Mises has a snazzy, signature bow tie available for the bargain price os $25.00.  Description below:

“The ends come to a point in a triangle shape. When you tie it, an interesting complexity appears. On one side, the point edge is in front. On the other side, it is in back. The overall effect is quite beautiful and elegant, nearly polyphonic and 3-D in its appearance. I’ve come to feel more comfortable with this style but I was at a loss to find new versions of this style, even though it doesn’t look dated at all. It looks, in fact, very stylish!”

Only time will tell if J. Love’s bow-tie theory holds up to a polyphonic, point-edged bow tie.

The WSJ piles on VDH’s point re: Joe Biden.

Victory has a thousand fathers and Mr. Biden is but one of the many phonies.

Not sure whether to file this under the humor, stupidity, or political chicanery categories. Via VDH:

Biden’s Timeline —”Dead, flat wrong”

1990: Biden votes against the first Gulf War and Bush I’s efforts to get Saddam out of Kuwait.

1998: Biden supports Bill Clinton’s call for regime change and “to dethrone Saddam Hussein over the long haul.”

2002: Biden asserts that Saddam has biological and chemical weapons and is seeking a nuclear arsenal, proclaiming, “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat.” He then votes in October for 23 writs authorizing President Bush to remove the dictator by force if need be.

2005: Joe Biden reassures the country that we must stay in Iraq: “We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out – equally a mistake.”

2006: Biden declares that a sovereign Iraq is not sustainable, calls for trisecting Iraq into three separate entities and demands that President Bush “must direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008.”

With regard to Biden’s ill-conceived see here and here plan to subdivide Iraq into three countries (which a bi-partisan majority of the Senate supported, to be fair to Biden), it’s interesting to think about it’s connection to the Peter Galbraith scandal.  Apparently Galbraith would have made a lot more money if the US had divided Iraq.  This article accuses the previously linked to New York Times article of dishonestly distancing Biden from the Galbraith scandal.

He adds that “Mr. Bush has spent three years in a futile effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad, leaving us without a real political settlement, with a deteriorating security situation — and with nothing but the most difficult policy choices.”

2008: Joe Biden forecasts, “The surge isn’t going to work either tactically or strategically. … Tactically it isn’t going to work because … our guys go in and secure a neighborhood, but because we don’t have enough troops, we have to turn it over to the Iraqis, and they can’t hold it or won’t hold it.”

Joe Biden votes for legislation to oppose the surge, declaring that, “It’s an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq.” He reiterates that the surge will not only fail, but make things worse: “I believe it will have the opposite — I repeat — opposite effect the president intends.”

Biden later elaborates on that: “The purpose of the surge was to bring violence in Iraq down so that its leaders could come together politically. Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together. …There is little evidence the Iraqis will settle their differences peacefully any time soon. I believe the president has no strategy for success in Iraq.”

Biden then tells Gen. Petraeus that he is  “dead, flat wrong.” He later concludes there is “no end in sight” in Iraq and staying is “killing us.”

2009: A Vice President Biden accepts the Bush-Petraeus plan of continuing a U.S. combat presence in Iraq, and accepts the status of forces agreement and timetable of withdrawal as negotiated with the Iraqis by the Bush administration to remove U.S. combat troops as envisioned by the end of 2011.

2010: Biden claims credit for winning Iraq: “I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

VDH also has some interesting, timely commentary on the debt / budget fiasco in Greece.

The Greek Lesson

No, I don’t mean the classical Greeks, but their present-day counterparts.

Economists have given us all the usual diagnoses of what went wrong in a now bankrupt Greece — high taxes, tax cheating, too generous retirements, unsustainable entitlements, government corruption, and anemic demography.

Add to such socialism the natural foreign policy and collective expressions that always follow statism in the modern Western world — increased pacifism, utopian pretension, moral equivalence, cheap anti-Americanism — and we have the foreign policy expression of Greece (and much of the EU) of the last 30 years. (A citizen who believes by birthright that he is to be taken care of by the state always hates the state that can never do enough, in the fashion that the country who is taken care of militarily always hates its protector.)

In other words, Greece is the canary in the mine of the impending crack-up of the modern welfare state. It is a great gift to us all, this example. A year ago, the socialists, even as they were juggling and falsifying their books, were bragging that the Wall Street meltdown was a referendum — and capitalism was doomed. Now, the entire socialist dream is exposed and even the most ardent statist knows that there is no longer enough “others” to pay the tab.

The poor EU learned that the Greek siesta, the 10PM Athenian dinners, the state power company vans at the beaches in the workday afternoons, the kafenions full of 50-year-old men at 11AM, the angry students perpetually in the streets at each hinted reform, and the moonlighting telephone employees all came at the expense of far harder-working Scandinavian and German socialists, who apparently  now realize a nice two weeks each year on Santorini or Crete aren’t worth billions of their own Euros in rescue bailouts

FYI, VDH is one of the world’s foremost experts on classical greek and roman history, and spends a portion of each year in Greece. I’ve read a portion of one of his books, and look forward to reading more of them.  One of my favorite VDH articles, which I’ll link to when I find it, was his refutation of another classical scholar’s critiques of VDH’s historical writing. Talk about a duel. Flaming Sambuca shots all around.

This might be my favorite cab, the Sea Cab.  A brief reading from John Masefield is appropriate:  

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

I’m pretty clueless as to the inspiration behind the name Theus Cab. Any help is appreciated.

Cozy Cab is what you hail when you need to cuddle. I guess that makes it my wife’s favorite cab. Cozy is a decent name. Perhaps “comfort” cab would have been too much, as  Cozy cab appears no more comfortable than, say, Theus Cab. Or this clunker…

Yellow Cab. BORING..

A while back I linked to a Reason article discussing the growing divide between lower paid, tax paying, and risk bearing, private sector employees and their under worked, over compensated, risk free, public sector beneficiaries.  I came across this article via Instapundit. A long time Democratic party advisor has been squeezed out of his own party, a la Evan Bayh. He’s pissed, and says the reason is twofold: Democrats’ lack of tolerance for intra-party dissent and being utterly beholden to unions, especially the SEIU.  Some excerpts below:

“What I said about Andy Stern and the SEIU? Sure, they’re thugs,” said Caddell, a former adviser to President Jimmy Carter, who until Monday* had an informal advising role with the primary challenger to incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

“What they have created is a world in which there is no dissent. Don’t look at me. Look at [Sen.] Evan Bayh. People, with some justification, may think that I’m crazy. But he is the center of the establishment if there was ever was someone,” Caddell said. “When there’s no room in the Democratic party for him and there’s no room in the Democratic party for me, and the unions do get to make those kinds of calls in defense of the indefensible, because, ‘We own you,’ well, the Democratic party will be finished.”

“I think the public unions are going to take the country and the Democratic party down the tubes,” Caddell said. “They’re in the business of taking care of — of asking taxpayers, asking ordinary people, to pay for people who make twice as much as they make, with benefit packages they will never see, and they’re told, you may not cut those.”

Caddell said he was not attacking government employees but that the system “has grown into something far beyond what it should be.”

“How are you going to tell a person who makes $40,000 that they must pay money to make sure that people keep jobs who make $80,000, roughly, and who have defined pensions that they will never see?” Caddell said. “You cannot ask ordinary Americans who have no jobs, whose pensions have been ransacked, and whose pay has been stagnant, to keep rewarding people who don’t face the same kind of conditions and risk.”

“The people who pay for it are suffering,” he said. “The taxpayers are going to explode. This is the big coming issue of our time.”

Understanding the Surge is a phenomenal documentary that explains the background, tactics, sacrifice, and effects of the Surge in Iraq.

Understanding the Surge from ISW on Vimeo.

Did some cab spotting this weekend, camera in tow.

First up is the Time Cab. In a perfect world the Time Cab would be a flux capacitor powered Delorean. Oh well.

Unfortunately I can’t muster any insightful or witty commentary about the Century Cab.. Hopefully you can. Recommendation: Me thinks it’d be awesome if Century Cab’s owner renamed his cab Centurion Cab and dressed as a Roman soldier.

Eye Cab. I like the Eye Cab, but I’m not sure why. I think the owner of Eye cab should, like Prince, adopt a symbol – perhaps the Eye of Providence – as his cab’s name.

Here’s a doozy – Call Me A Cab. It’s creative, and makes me think. Why does the cab want to be called “A CAB?” Why not just “CAB.” I think “Call me Cab” would be awesome, because it’d be a play on “Call me Ishmael,” the famous opening line of Moby Dick.

Surely the sky-blue Aviator Cab is the cab of choice for pilots, or anyone going to Lindbergh Field. Good info on San Diego’s “Special Relationship with Charles Lindbergh” here.

Nice Cab. When I see the Nice Cab I think of episode ten of season ten of South Park, Miss Teacher Bangs A Boy, because a sub-theme in that episode is the men of South Park saying “Nice . . . ”

Over on Cato’s blog, Doug Bandow writes the following:

The public is unhappy with government.  How could it be otherwise, given the mess our governors have made? Reports the Washington Post:

Two-thirds of Americans are “dissatisfied” or downright “angry” about the way the federal government is working, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. On average, the public estimates that 53 cents of every tax dollar they send to Washington is “wasted.”

Despite the disapproval of government, few Americans say they know much about the “tea party” movement, which emerged last year and attracted voters angry at a government they thought was spending recklessly and overstepping its constitutional powers. And the new poll shows that the political standing of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who was the keynote speaker last week at the first National Tea Party Convention, has deteriorated significantly.

The opening is clear: Public dissatisfaction with how Washington operates is at its highest level in Post-ABC polling in more than a decade — since the months after the Republican-led government shutdown in 1996 — and negative ratings of the two major parties hover near record highs.

Surely this is a moment for a true political entrepreneur, someone who believes in liberty–across the board–willing to challenge Washington’s bipartisan consensus that government should grow ever bigger and more expensive.  Someone who opposes expensive, and often deadly, social engineering at home and abroad.  Someone willing to simply leave the American people alone, rather than determined to conscript them into yet another annoying, intrusive, and expensive national crusade.  Someone willing to back up his or her rhetoric about individual liberty with action

Where ever could we find such an individual, Doug? While you keep looking, I propose Gary Johnson, whom I wrote about here and here.

Interesting read here.  Apparently, during WWII teenagers from Hawai’i enlisted in the armed services to essentially camp out on a number of tiny Pacific islands and report the weather and any enemy (and British) activity. Sounds like a pretty awesome time, especially if you’re a spearfisherman, aside from the fact that the Japanese attacked several of those islands and killed a number of volunteers. Excerpt below:

Beginning in 1935, the U. S. Army secretly assigned 170 Hawaii schoolboys to desolate islands to hinder England’s expansion in the Pacific equatorial region. The army told the boys, ‘You will colonize and help establish claim to the Baker, Jarvis and Howland Islands. They’ll become famous air bases in a route to connect Australia and California.’

* * *

Twelve students at a time were placed among the islands for six months. They were given 50-gallon drums of water and food staples. The ocean teemed with edible fish; it took about five minutes to step out on a reef and spear mullet and snapper for the day’s meal.

Boys charted the weather, checked in with the Army by shortwave radio, read school books they took with them, and waited for six months to end. Some re-enlisted to help their families.

* * *

Should curious Englishmen stop by, boys were to claim the islands as “their home” and radio the U.S. Army immediately.

They built a church and dedicated it to the memory of Amelia Earhart who, with Fred Noonan, had disappeared while flying to Howland Island which is 1700 miles southwest of Hawaii.

Jarvis, Howland, and Baker Islands were once valued for the guano deposits filled with phosphate birds left there (reason for the U.S. Guano Act of 1856). Other than having doo-doo from birds using islands as a nesting and roosting place, there was virtually nothing on the islands: treeless, sparse, only scattered grasses, vines, and low shrubs.

* * *

Two of the boys were killed during air raids and a submarine shelling at Howland Island on December 8, 1941. The Japanese shot down the American flag over their ‘Amelia Earhart church.’

Wiki has more info on Howland island’s WWII history here:

Ground for a rudimentary aircraft landing area was cleared during the mid-1930s, in anticipation that the island might eventually be used as a stop-over for a commercial trans-Pacific air route and also to further U.S. territorial claims in the region against rival claims from Great Britain. In keeping with its intended aviation role, Howland Island became a scheduled refueling stop for American pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on their round-the-world flight in 1937. WPA funds were used by the Bureau of Air Commerce to construct three graded, unpaved runways meant to accommodate Earhart’s modern twin-engined Lockheed Model 10 Electra.

The facility was named Kamakaiwi Field after James Kamakaiwi, a young Hawaiian who had arrived with the first group of four colonists, was subsequently picked as leader and spent a total of over three years on Howland, far longer than the average recruit. It has also been referred to as WPA Howland Airport (the WPA contributed about 20% of the $12,000 cost). Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea and their radio transmissions were picked up on the island when their aircraft reached its vicinity but they were never seen again.

Finally I must note that someone has formed the “Fictional Nation of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis.”

Well, this is not good.

On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments [] in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century,” says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. “If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department’s request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

Bold emphasis mine.  Unfortunately as a matter of precedent the DOJ probably has a legal leg to stand on by analogizing a cell phone’s whereabouts to “Pen Registers,” a la Smith v. Maryland. In Smith v. Maryland, the government installed a “Pen Register,” at a telephone company’s headquarters. Pen registers create switchboard records of a particular phone line (who you called, when) but don’t record conversations.  The Supreme Court held that the warrantless installation of pen registers (and the introduction of pen register records as evidence) do not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court reasoned that telephone users don’t have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy because pen registers don’t intrude on the conversation itself, and the phone user voluntarily turns over the information (who he called and when) to the phone company.  As such, the government can access pen register records without a warrant.

The DOJ is probably arguing that cell phone whereabouts are analogous to pen register record. Put another way, spot the difference between warrantlessly tracking a cell phone’s whereabouts and warrantlessly accessing calling records. Like land-line telephone users, cell phone users are aware phone’s can be tracked, have the option of turning off the phone, and the government is not intruding on actual conversations. You can extend that argument quite a ways, too.

For instance, what’s the difference between tracking cell phone whereabouts and a cop following a vehicle all day long? If it’s OK for a cop to warrantlessly follow a vehicle to track its whereabouts, what would be wrong with electronically tracking the car’s whereabouts via its GPS, or its occupant’s cell phone? What would be wrong with the government creating a database / system to warrantlessly monitor every person’s whereabouts, activities, and associations 24-7 via their GPS, cell phone, or other electronic device? No one has a reasonable expectation of privacy insofar as their electronic devices are concerned, get it? How about mandating that everyone carry a trackable device? Why not expand the database to warrantlessly track: (a) who you email and when; (b) websites you visit; (c) channels you watch; and (d) movies you netflicks?

I condemn the DOJ for taking the position that the government can electronically track or monitor citizens without a warrant. Warrantless electronic tracking is Orwellian. Widespread, warrantless electronic monitoring will have a chilling effect on freedom of assembly and speech. If the government has sufficient reason to electronically track an individual’s whereabouts the government should be able to prove it has probable cause sufficent to justify a magistrate issuing a warrant.

Just imagine what will happen if the thought police find out that David Brooks regularly reads Steve Sailer’s politically incorrect blog. Off with his head!

Original link via Drudgereport.

Update:

Frankly, it’s comforting when someone with more legal and blogging credibility than me reaches the same conclusion as me. Jim Harper at the Cato Institute expounds on the ‘chilling’ point I made yesterday regarding the DOJ’s argument that warrantless electronic surveillance is A-OK with the Fourth Amendment:

If you have a mobile phone, that’s the upshot of an argument being put forward by the government in a case being argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals tomorrow. The case is called In the Matter of the Application of the United States of America For An Order Directing A Provider of Electronic Communication Service To Disclose Records to the Government.

Declan McCullagh reports:

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their—or at least their cell phones’—whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

The government can maintain this position because of the retrograde “third party doctrine.” That doctrine arose from a pair of cases in the early 1970s in which the Supreme Court found no Fourth Amendment problems when the government required service providers to maintain records about their customers, and later required those service providers to hand the records over to the government.

I wrote about these cases, and the courts’ misunderstanding of privacy since 1967’s Katz decision, in an American University Law Review article titled “Reforming Fourth Amendment Privacy Doctrine“:

These holdings were never right, but they grow more wrong with each step forward in modern, connected living. Incredibly deep reservoirs of information are constantly collected by third-party service providers today. Cellular telephone networks pinpoint customers’ locations throughout the day through the movement of their phones. Internet service providers maintain copies of huge swaths of the information that crosses their networks, tied to customer identifiers. Search engines maintain logs of searches that can be correlated to specific computers and usually the individuals that use them. Payment systems record each instance of commerce, and the time and place it occurred. The totality of these records are very, very revealing of people’s lives. They are a window onto each individual’s spiritual nature, feelings, and intellect. They reflect each American’s beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and sensations. They ought to be protected, as they are the modern iteration of our “papers and effects.”

This is a case to watch, as it will help determine whether or not your digital life is an open book to government investigators.

UPDATE II:

Excellent legal discussion here on the merits of the government’s case. I liked this comment the best though.

Once again, the government is in the position of killing its parents and asking for mercy as an orphan. Once again, the government is citing as a common business practice an activity that it mandated so as to get around the Bill of Rights.

And once again, here is an activity wherein lawyers have twisted plain English to mean something special, contrary to what the man in the street thinks the words mean, and then act huffy (see many comments above) when questioned.

I have talked to many people about this case. There is not one of them that does not feel that the government is violating privacy, is fundamentally cheating, on this one. Many, though, shrug and feel that the government and the growing police state will get away with it.

What fundamental constitutional busy-bodiness requires that 911 calls always identify exactly where the caller is? I have trouble squeezing this one even into the much abused Commerce clause. Still, the nanny state mandated tracking this information. Then, with this law, the state takes a second pass, and asserts that, because this information is routinely tracked (because they mandated it), then there can be no possible concern in the police state tracking it now, and in the past, with no limits on man-power or vehicles, to them tracking it for everyone at all times.

The founders were literate, and they would have read Milton, who in Paradise Lost wrote

And with necessity,
The tyrant’s, plea, excus’d his devilish deeds.

Or as C.S. Lewis updated the formulation,

“‘Useful,’ and ‘necessity’ was always ‘the tyrant’s plea’.”

This last election cycle saw state employees abusing their authority to harass and discredit private citizens who questioned their favored candidate. Those on the left have claimed that the previous administration can and would do anything, abuse any right to have its way. Those on the right were horrified at rank intimidation of political discourse found in the current administration collecting emails of dissenters. How can those on either side honestly accept the 4th amendment suffering a death of a thousand cuts.

Only a lawyer, enamored with some ill-argued, ill-thought out precedent, could misunderstand that the blind acceptance of any and all intrusions of technology would soon eliminate the 4th amendment entirely. The complete loss of privacy *is* the complete negation of the 4th amendment.

Lawyers can often lose sight of the Constitutional forest for their trees of legal fiction.

Last night Gov. Johnson released the beginnings of his economic plan at a Reason Foundation event. Me likes. Arnold Kling summarizes the plan as:

Not down to specifics, but states right at the top “Scale back entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which threaten to bankrupt the nation’s future” and later “Legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana; emphasize harm reduction for other drugs…Expand free trade and legal immigration. “

But Kling is doubtful of Gov. Johnson’s chances in 2012:

As he describes how he governed New Mexico, Johnson is quick to mention his hundreds of vetoes. He does not come across as a coalition builder. Instead, he seems to be one who tries to rally people around his ideas. Johnson wears his ideology on his sleeve–not up his sleeve, which is what I think that Obama did with his vague, gauzy campaign rhetoric. (I think the true source of anger among independents is not over the state of the economy. It is over the fact that as a candidate Obama did not warn people of the statist onslaught that he was going to unleash as President.)

I see very little chance that Johnson could capture the Presidency, or that he could accomplish much if somehow he were elected. However, his potential to help the libertarian cause is very high. He could raise the profile of libertarian thinking, so that more people start to listen for something other than the mainstream progressive and conservative slogans.

Keep in mind the Masonomic view that politics is not about policy. It is about the relative status of various groups. Johnson does not represent a coalition of groups. The Democrats represent a coalition of minorities and people who identify themselves as the educated elite (note that Obama gets to qualify on both counts). Republicans represent a coalition of non-urban whites and people who identify themselves as sticking up for traditional American values. Libertarians represent…what…a cult of oddballs and misfits?

Personally, I don’t think that Libertarianism and true conservatism – at least as I understand them – are so far apart that both groups couldn’t rally around a Libertarian-ish candidate like Gary Johnson. Isn’t that why Ayn Rand hated the idea of a Libertarian party? Because it could create a brain-drain from the conservative party and allow the social conservative, evangelical wing of the Republican party  to take over? I read that she also detested Libertarians for stealing her ideas.

I think the problem may be that there aren’t that enough Libertarians and Republicans on the conservative end of the red spectrum (note to self – must find better shorthand to differentiate between socially conservative, big government Republicans and conservatives – perhaps “Huckabees” for the former and “Buckleys” for the later?) to vote Gary Johnson into office. (Note to you: I’ve decided to run with the “Huckabees” and “Buckleys” terminology, until someone comes up with something better in the comments, hint hint.) Unless, of course, the GOP takes a lesson or gets better at challenging democrats.

Right now, lava is flowing out of the earth’s core and oozing out of a relatively tiny rock, the island of Hawaii, in the midst of the largest geographic feature on planet earth, the Pacific Ocean. Pretty nuts.

Also nuts is that the largest residential subdivision in the United States, Hawaii Ocean View Estates, is built on the southern rift zone of the largest active volcano on earth, Mauna Loa.

Finally, tomorrow is the day the batshit crazy Iranian Mullahs promised to bring an extra high level of smack down on the “Iranian people’s righteous indignation.” Read the whole thing. Excerpt below:

I believe that the Iranian regime has assembled the largest armed force in history to protect it from the Iranian people’s righteous indignation on Thursday the 11^th.  There will be hundreds of thousands of police, revolutionary guards, Basij, and people bused in from the countryside to Tehran.

Additionally, the regime is shutting down communications, especially in Tehran.  Iranian Tweeters say internet is largely gone, and cell phones are not working.  None of this is new, and in the past the dissidents have managed to beat the censors; it will be interesting to see if the mullahs’ trusted advisers (mostly Chinese) are more effective this time.  They certainly have failed in China, and the Iranian authorities have demonstrated an almost supernatural ability to screw up their own plans.

A case in point:  the political center of the city is Azadi Square, and workers have been stringing loudspeakers (and probably cameras) all over the  square and the approach routes, in order to drown out the chants of the demonstrators.  So today they tested the system by broadcasting the national anthem.  Except it was the shah’s anthem, not the Islamic Republic’s.

On a related note, I found Brett Stephen’s recent WSJ article Seven Myths About Iran to be an interesting, contrarian read. Excerpt below:

(5) The Iranian regime is headed for the ash heap of history. The best policy is to do as little as possible until it crumbles from within.

Communist regimes were also destined for the ash heap. Unfortunately, it took them decades to get there, during which they murdered tens of millions of people. It matters a great deal to Iran’s people, and its neighbors, that the regime go quietly. But it also matters that it go quickly, and waiting on events is not a policy.

(6) The more support we show Iran’s demonstrators, the more we hurt their cause.

This was the administration’s view after the June 12 election, as it walked on tiptoes to avoid the perception of “meddling.” The regime accused the U.S. of meddling all the same.

But protest movements like Iran’s (or Poland’s, or South Africa’s) are sustained by a sense of moral legitimacy that global support uniquely conveys. When will American liberals get behind Iranian rights, as they have, say, Tibetan ones? Maybe when President Obama tells them to.

I bring to you, Mogogo Cab. For many moons I wondered about the meaning of Mogogo. You have to admit, it’s a pretty mysterious, weird name. If I had to guess I’d say someone got high, mispronounced “Mo-Fo” as Mogogo, and an opportunistic cab driver to be named his vehicle Mogogo so his friend never forgets that one night he was so wasted he couldn’t even swear.

UnFortunately the Internet exists to sap the mystery out of anything remotely interesting by supplying actual information. Alas, sometimes I prefer conjecture. Anyway, a minute on Google reveals that Mogogo is Eritrean in origin. A Mogogo is a type of stove (picture here) used to bake Injera, a traditional Eritrean bread.

Apparently, baking Injera consumes 40% of Eritrea’s energy resources.  As such, building a more efficient Mogogo “can potentially have dramatic positive impacts on the Eritrean standard of living.”  Improving the efficiency of baking Injera is so important that the Eritrean Energy Research and Training Division of the Department of Energy of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Water Resources (really) apparently invented and rigorously tested a “finite element heat balance model for an electric” Mogogo.  Awesome. Abstract of their lengthy report is below:

The greatest energy savings is attained by using enjera batter with a low water content (a savings method in widespread use in the Eritrean Highlands) and a cooking style that produces moist, thick to medium thick enjera. Major improvements in efficiency are also predicted if cooking plate thermal conductivity is improved. Modeling predicts that most of the efficiency improvements can be obtained by simply using modified clays of higher conductivity, rather than changing to metal cooking plates. The modeling in combination with the experimental results aid in formulating a series of actions to aid in the promotion and development of improved enjera cooking efficiency.

Mogogo is also the name of at least two restaurants, one in Copenhagen and another in Holland.

I’m looking forward to riding in the Mogogo cab. I want to ask the cab driver whether he uses a traditional wood or dung fired Mogogo or broke down (stepped up?) and purchased an electric Mogogo. I’d like to inquire whether the Mogogo is a well known Eritrean symbol. Most of all, I’d like him to laugh at me, ask what the hell I’m talking about, and tell me that his buddy couldn’t say “Mo-Fo” one night at a bar, it came out as “Mogogo,” and that’s why he named his cab Mogogo. Because it’s funny, not serious.

Rogan went on a uniquely funny commentating tear Saturday night about spilled ice in the Octagon. It was awesome. Link to video here. Transcript, via MMAMania, is below.

“Oh we got a problem, somebody spilled ice all over the Octagon. That’s a big problem, that’s a lot of ice. This is gonna take some time. This is a disaster. Look at it, they knocked the bucket over. This is “The Three Stooges.” What are you freaks doing? Now everybody’s booing. Now there’s even more pressure. Now they’re sweeping it out. That’s good. Put it on the side and watch [Octagon girl] Arianny (Celeste) fall on her head. There’s still ice! There’s still too much! GET BACK IN THERE! YOU’RE NOT DONE! THERE’S ICE ALL OVER THE FLOOR! What are these guys doing? There’s 100 pieces of ice still on the floor and these guys just scrambled out because of the pressure. What a disaster. There’s ice everywhere! Those cornermen, somebody needs to kick their ass.”

A gem of an article regarding the rise of Thought Police in Australia. Read it.

THE dark spectre of illiberalism is slowly poisoning Western liberal democracies. You won’t hear about it from much of the left-liberal press. It is part of the problem and its silence only confirms that basic liberties integral to Western liberal democracies are under threat. That is why you may not have heard about the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is being prosecuted under hate laws in The Netherlands for his opinions about Islam. Agree or disagree with Wilders, this is the thundering march of the thought police. And don’t for a moment imagine that Australia is immune from this menace to democracy. In a trial that began last month, Wilders is being prosecuted for offending a “group of people”, for incitement and discrimination against Muslims. The summons describes scenes from his film Fitna as reason enough to put the leader of the Freedom Party in prison for up to two years.

In a sign of how twisted our Western antennae have become, the violence incited by Fitna is not against Muslims. Instead the film shows footage of Muslims preaching violence against the West. Yet Wilders is on trial for his opinions.

I’ve seen Fitna, and i liked it. Links here to part 1, and part 2. Fitna is sharply critical of Islam, and is in part a response to the fact that Muslim extremists murdered Wilders’ friend, Theo Van Gogh for making a truly beautiful movie, Submission, that reveals the brutal, misogynistic, treatment of women rampant in Islam. Link here to watch Submission.

More excerpts from the Thought Police article:

Shutting down public debates will only drive discussion underground where, away from the blowtorch of challenging views, they will fester and grow more extreme in private. And shutting down offensive debate at the request of loony objectors just encourages more thin-skinned outrage, with ever more outlandish claims to protection from free speech, and increasing censorship. If you really want to discredit bad ideas, the surest way is to expose them to free and full debate. Remember, too, that plenty of ideas that were once regarded as offensive by a group of puffed-up, moralising sophisticates have prevailed.

If these same arguments defending freedom of expression are not made each and every time someone is prosecuted for their opinions, the great danger is that these kinds of stifling prosecutions will be regarded as the norm in a society that has seemingly forgotten or forsaken its values.

By the way, here is Ezra Levant’s homepage where he blogs about his efforts to combat Canada’s thought police.

UPDATE:

More Aussie thought police, this time trying to coerce Google to censor youtube videos the Australian government deems inappropriate. Hat tip to Instapundit for this link.

Good read here on Ayn Rand that touches on her best, darkest, and most controversial ideas:

Who is Ayn Rand, and what does her renewed popularity mean? A refugee from Soviet Russiawho fled Communist dictatorship in the 1920s, Rand called herself a radical for capitalism rather than a conservative. Her vision, articulated in several novels and later in nonfiction essays as the philosophy of Objectivism, earned her a sometimes cult-like following in her lifetime and beyond it.

Politically, Rand wanted to provide liberal capitalism with a moral foundation, challenging the notion that communism was a noble but unrealistic ideal while the free market was a necessary evil best suited to humanity’s flawed nature. Her arguments against “compassionate” redistribution, and persecution, of wealth have lost none of their power and persuasiveness. In an era when collectivism was often seen as the inevitable way of the future, she unapologetically asserted the worth of individual and each persons right to exist for himself.

However, Rand’s radicalism went further, rejecting the age-old ethic of altruism and self-sacrifice. While she was hardly the first philosopher to advocate a morality of individualism and rational self-interest, she formulated it in a uniquely accessible way and a uniquely passionate one, not as a dry economic construct but as a bold vision of struggle, creative achievement and romanticism.

All this accounts for much of Rand’s appeal. But that appeal is severely limited by the flaws of her world-view.

One of those flaws is Rand’s unwillingness to consider the possibility that the values of the free market can coexist with other, non-individualistic and non-market-based virtues–those of family and community, for example. Instead, Rand frames even human relations in terms of trade (our concern for loved ones is based on the positive things they bring to our lives) and offered at best lukewarm support for charitable aid. When charity is mentioned in Rand’s fiction, it is nearly always in a negative context. In Atlas Shrugged, a club providing shelter to needy young women is ridiculed for offering help to alcoholics, drug users, and unwed mothers-to-be.

Family fares even worse in Rand’s universe. In her 1964 Playboy interview Rand flatly declared that it was “immoral” to place family ties and friendship above productive work; in her fiction, family life is depicted as a stifling swamp.

In pure form, Rand’s philosophy would work very well if human beings were never helpless and dependent on others through no fault of their own. Unsurprisingly, many people become infatuated with her philosophy as teenagers only to leave it behind when concerns of family, children, and aging make that fantasy seem more and more implausible. For some, Rand becomes a conduit to more sensible small-government philosophies.

Fast is doing thirty six (36) knots in a sailboat. Granted, it’s the Alinghi 5, but 36 knots is still fast. As in “I hear he’s real fast, Johnny” fast.

Good read here about the upcoming America’s Cup duel between BMW Oracle and the Alinghi 5. I particularly enjoyed this bit:

The crew has also become accustomed to Alinghi’s speed. Mr. Butterworth described a recent day when a sailor who had never been on the boat came along [on the Alinghi 5].

“He’s sitting on the back and we’re doing 36 knots,” he recalled. The man uttered a curse, Mr. Butterworth added, “and he says, ‘Is this right?’

“We said yeah, this is normal now.”

Love of the sea truly is a strange and unaccountable emotion. Sailboat porn below.

Until I watched War Dogs of the Pacific this weekend, I was unaware that marines invading Guam, Saipan, Iwo, etc. relied upon dogs to patrol the jungle and sniff out entrenched Japanese troops. Nor was I aware that American families contributed to the war effort by donating their household and farm/ranch dogs to the Marines. Anyone who has had a good dog understands the familial bond between dog and man, and that donating a good dog to war is quite a sacrifice.

From the film’s website:

It’s 1942, somewhere in the Pacific: Deadly ambushes by entrenched Japanese in the thick jungles take a heavy toll on American troops.  Marine commanders were willing to try anything, including using dogs to sniff out the hidden enemy.  But even with their superior senses, nobody anticipated just how effective they would be.

“War Dogs of the Pacific,” a one-hour documentary directed by Harris Done, tells the incredible story of the Marine Dog Platoons of World War II. It’s a heart-warming exploration of the unique bond that formed between the young marines and their dogs. They teamed up to perform dangerous missions, but their success at finding the hidden enemy saved countless lives in the Pacific. These dogs proved themselves worthy of the title, ‘man’s best friend.’

Filled with tales of devotion, bravery and sacrifice, the story is told by the dog handlers themselves, the film follows the men and their dogs through training and into combat, from the invasion of Guam to operations on Saipan, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The film is filled with exciting historical footage and many never before seen photos.

A few more pictures from the website:

Can’t figure out how to embed this video, but click on this link and watch.

From the comments:

Let’s not forget about all the tax benefits that will accrue to these firms from the phantom “losses” they have incurred. Hard to believe. This is the stuff that starts revolutions…

Better bloggers than me produced some outstanding work over the weekend. Enjoy.

From Reason, Breaking News: Progressive Democratic Fantasies Face the Bracing Slap of Reality.

In the truer-believing regions of the progressive political world, the broad agenda of carbon price hikes, centralized health care, greater regulation, increased taxes, and government-mandated diversity in boardrooms are not just sound and moral policy. They are inherently popular, if only the usual obstacles to justice and reform can be neutralized or removed.

V.D.H.

David Kopel, How the Right to Arms Saved the Non-Violent Civil Rights Protesters.

For Salter, the right to own a handgun was apparently a crucial part of his ability to exercise his right to defend himself and his family, which was a sine qua non of his ability to stay alive in order to exercise his First Amendment rights to advocate for enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Wayne Root’s Lessons Obama Should Have Learned Watching the Super Bowl:

I am probably the only politician in America whose day job is Las Vegas oddsmaker. I’ve learned many valuable lessons from sports and sports betting. On Sunday I made a fortune for thousands of my clients by picking the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl upset. Obama, Reid and Pelosi might snicker, but they obviously don’t understand the difference between Vegas and Washington D.C. You know what it is? In Vegas the drunks gamble with their own money. Maybe we need a politician in D.C. who understands the psychology of winning; who understands the motivation of risk versus reward; who has the guts to take gambles; and the courage to back his convictions with his own money, instead of the taxpayers’ money.

I wrote about Gary Johnson a little while back in an open letter to the GOP:

By the way, do you know Gary Johnson? Former two term governor of New Mexico?  Take a look at what he did when was Governor (in no particular order):

• He didn’t raise taxes as Governor once.
• He vetoed over 1,000 spending items.
• He cut taxes 14 times.
• In a state dominated 2 to 1 by Democrats he served two terms.
• He left New Mexico with a balanced budget.

He’s a pretty tough dude too, which resonates with the American spirit. For instance:

• He competed in the Bataan Death March, a 25 mile desert run in combat boots wearing a 35-pound backpack.
• He climbed to the top of Mount Everest, despite a broken leg.

Far more compelling, however, than Gov. Johnson’s mountaineering, low-tax, lower-spending, and balanced budget bonafides are his views on the socio-economic issues that really matter to non-evangelical Republicans.  PLEASE. Have a look at Gov. Johnson’s forum.

It appears he’s a “States’ rights” guy on abortion. And presumably every other issue not enumerated in the federal Constitution.

On civil liberty, Gov. Johnson has this to say:

“The government should not intervene in the private lives of individual citizens unnecessarily. Personal liberty and freedom from unwarranted governmental control or regulation should allow law abiding individuals to pursue their own desires as long as they are not causing harm to other people.”

In other words, Gov. Johnson generally favors punishing, where necessary, the consequences of one’s actionsrather than proscribing one’s conduct.

Although Gov. Johnson, does not advocate drug use, he would end the war on drugs, especially marijuana because continuing the war on drugs is “simply a waste of money and human resources and fails to deal with the real problems of abuse.” Makes sense, no?

Go ahead, check out out Gov. Johnson’s views on national defense, terrorism, the federal reserve, health care reform, and immigration. Huckabee may not like them, but Scott Brown voters in blue, purple, and red states will like them.

Remember how Bill Clinton’s welfare reform message resonated with voters of every stripe? Many of Gov. Johnson’s messages will too.

Look, GOP, Sen. Brown’s big win in Massachusetts last night has given you a very short lifeline. Use it wisely.

One last thing. You know how in your eyes Hollywood’s smug, ignorant “elite” symbolizes the Democrat party? And you find Democrats generally repugnant for it? Well, a good portion of the people in Massachusetts who voted for Sen. Brown are emblematic of the voters you absolutely need to win a majority in Congress and elect a Republican president. And – listen – a lot of those voters (I’ll call them “Scott Brown conservatives”) considerPat Buchannan or Mike Huckabee emblematic of the GOP.

Now, I’m a Gary Johnson conservative. But no one knows what that is, yet. So, for the purposes of this letter, consider me a Scott Brown conservative. And when people lump Huckabee, Buchannan, and me into the same category, I hate that. It’s not cool. As in “shooting guys in the dick is not cool” not cool. And that’s what it feels like, GOP. Serially.

I apologize for my long note, I lacked the time to write a shorter letter.

Pictured is Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’s initials, inscribed in the concrete sidewalk across the street from my apartment building.

Via Instapundit, Boingboing reports the following. I can hardly believe I’m typing pasting this sentence:

[The] Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films.

Why you ask?

They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia.

A couple of my former girlfriends are gonna be pissed – no lucrative future in the Aussie porn industry for them.

Moreover:

The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films.

I dunno what to say. I’m shocked. Don’t Australians have any imagination? Don’t they think flat-chested women such as Kate Hudosn are pretty hot, not at all pedophilic, and totally deserving of the opportunity to do porn? By the ACB’s logic small-dicked men should be similarly banned from porn. How about short people? Baby-faced people?  This idiocy  reminds me of this (actual) headline on Reason a while back – When Hairless Genitalia is Banned, Only Criminals Will Have Hairless Genitalia.

Indegeneity is relative, not absolute. It is best understood on a spectrum. I understand indegeneity as a function of several factors, including being a distinct, historic, cultural group identified by an exclusive membership that inhabits a defined, and usually isolated, territory, and has historically lacked the capacity for self-determination or has effectively been denied self-determination by technologically advanced, foreign forces.

With that in mind, read this article about a truly indigenous person, Boa Sr. Excerpt below:

The last member of a 65,000-year-old tribe has died, taking one of the world’s earliest languages to the grave. Boa Sr, who died last week aged about 85, was the last native of the Andaman Islands who was fluent in Bo. Named after the tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to the pre-Neolithic period when the earliest humans walked out of Africa.

Boa was the oldest member of the Great Andamanese, a group of tribes that are the the first descendants of early humans who migrated from Africa about 70,000 years ago and who arrived on the islands around 65,000. Other groups went on to colonise Indonesia and Australia

I’d put the Hadza tribe of Tanzania right next to the Great Andamanese on the far end of the indigeneity spectrum. Here’s an excerpt from the National Geographic article about the Hazda people:

They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars. They are living a hunter-gatherer existence that is little changed from 10,000 years ago. What do they know that we’ve forgotten?

* * *

About a thousand Hadza live in their traditional homeland, a broad plain encompassing shallow, salty Lake Eyasi and sheltered by the ramparts of the Great Rift Valley. Some have moved close to villages and taken jobs as farmhands or tour guides. But approximately one-quarter of all Hadza, including those in Onwas’s camp, remain true hunter-gatherers. They have no crops, no livestock, no permanent shelters. They live just south of the same section of the valley in which some of the oldest fossil evidence of early humans has been found. Gene tic testing indicates that they may represent one of the primary roots of the human family tree—perhaps more than 100,000 years old.

What the Hadza appear to offer—and why they are of great interest to anthropologists—is a glimpse of what life may have been like before the birth of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Anthro pologists are wary of viewing contemporary hunter-gatherers as “living fossils,” says Frank Marlowe, a Florida State University professor of anthropology who has spent the past 15 years studying the Hadza. Time has not stood still for them. But they have maintained their foraging lifestyle in spite of long exposure to surrounding agriculturalist groups, and, says Marlowe, it’s possible that their lives have changed very little over the ages.

For more than 99 percent of the time since the genus Homo arose two million years ago, everyone lived as hunter-gatherers. Then, once plants and animals were domesticated, the discovery sparked a complete reorganization of the globe. Food production marched in lockstep with greater population densities, which allowed farm-based societies to displace or destroy hunter-gatherer groups. Villages were formed, then cities, then nations. And in a relatively brief period, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle was all but extinguished. Today only a handful of scattered peoples—some in the Amazon, a couple in the Arctic, a few in Papua New Guinea, and a tiny number of African groups—maintain a primarily hunter-gatherer existence. Agriculture’s sudden rise, however, came with a price. It introduced infectious-disease epidemics, social stratification, intermittent famines, and large-scale war. Jared Diamond, the UCLA professor and writer, has called the adoption of agriculture nothing less than “the worst mistake in human history”—a mistake, he suggests, from which we have never recovered.

UPDATED:

To further illustrate the spectrum of indegeneity consider that approximately 230,000 years ago Neanderthals were the dominant hominid specie in the continent of Europe.  Approximately 40,000 years ago Homo Sapiens began settling in Europe, and within 10,000 years completely displaced Neanderthals. See Neanderthals in Our Midst, noting that:

“[M]any experts have maintained that humans completely replaced the Neanderthals, consistently out-doing them and slaughtering them when they got in the way. Other anthropologists, however, believe that rather than dying out, the Neanderthals assimilated into early human populations through interbreeding, also known as admixture.”).

Carbon-dated, anthropological evidence makes clear that Neanderthals are the indigenous hominid of Europe, at least with respect to Homo Sapiens.  If an individual today could demonstrate that he/she possesses Neanderthal blood, which may actually be possible through mitochondrial DNA studies, he/she would theoretically possess inherent indigenous rights [under, say, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] against Homo-Sapiens.

Read Joe Rogan’s blog. Here’s an excerpt from a particularly interesting post, We’re Getting Closer to Forever:

The idea I’ve been bouncing around in my head over the last couple years is that life, the planet we live on, the universe it resides in and everything that takes place in the entire dimension is really just a gigantic, impossibly complicated mathematical program moving towards a predetermined outcome. That everything; from subatomic particles, to hyenas, to the blow jobs, to solar flares – everything that exists in the entire universe is really just a part of an infinitely complex program totally beyond our comprehension that is moving towards a very certain goal.

* * *

If you were an alien, objectively looking at life on this planet you might very well look at technology as a type of life form.  In nature we see many patterns of parasites infecting a host and causing the host to destroy itself so that the parasite may be born. There’s a aquatic worm that grows inside of a grasshopper, and once it’s developed sufficiently to live outside the host it programs the grasshopper’s brain to head towards water, jump in and drown while the worm burrows out of it’s body and hatches into the water. The superior organism has lead the inferior one willingly to it’s own destruction so that it can reach the next stage in it’s development.
I think that very well may be what’s happening to us.

Rogan’s a pretty cool dude. I met him outside my local pub – Stout -  after he did a comedy routine at the House of Blues. Rogan graciously allowed me the courtesy of rambling on about how cool it’d be if he [Rogan] and Bas Rutten were the UFC’s announcers. He explained that it’d be senseless to have two color commentators, no matter how awesome Bas Rutten is, and, after all, someone [Mike Goldberg] has to plug the sponsors. Nevertheless, I’d still be cool with Bas Rutten and Rogan. Maybe the UFC can have a separate pay per view broadcast with Rogan and Rutten on the mic. You heard it here first.

On ancient Athens:

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

-  Edward Gibbon -