Reason TV: Barack Delano Obama

Comic of the Day

Picture book title voted least likely to ever find a publisher:

Win

Tim Brown: "On a rare patch of green in north Texas, against a backdrop of confetti streams and honky-tonk reverb, there came the dawning of a baseball franchise.

A warm wind howled over the walls of Rangers Ballpark, whipping scraps of colored paper into tiny hurricanes. Ginger ale plumes filled the sky.

On a football Friday night in a football town, more than 50,000 folks swooned at the slider that froze Alex Rodriguez(notes) – of all people, Alex Rodriguez – and finished off a 6-1 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.
Cliff Lee, the mercenary left-hander who’d topped off their starting rotation. C.J. Wilson, who’d come from the bullpen to become a starter. Lewis, who’d remade his career in Japan. 


Josh Hamilton, the series MVP and likely league MVP, who’d fought drug addiction – sometimes well and sometimes not – to stand on that podium Friday night. Cruz, who’d once cleared waivers. Guerrero, given up as over-the-hill in Anaheim. Feliz and shortstop Elvis Andrus(notes), the spoils of the Mark Teixeira trade. Young, who for a decade watched them all come and go, and not three weeks after his first playoff game qualified for his first World Series game.


They ran in circles on a field trampled by friends and family, guzzling the ginger ale that honored Hamilton’s demons and waving to a crowd that couldn’t believe it was seeing this and refused to leave it.


Until the clock struck nine minutes past 10, these Rangers had borne the sins and failures of a half-century. They’d failed in Washington as the Senators. They hadn’t won in Texas. They were the epicenter of the steroid era, and were the oldest of the three franchises – the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals and Seattle Mariners being the others – to never reach the World Series."

WikiLeaks and the Iraq War Diaries

Wikileaks.org: "At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.

The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivalent population size."

Start digging. This site is altering the very playing field of a psuedo-Republic waging undeclared war, and theres no going back for people who care. 

Presumption of Guilt and Civil Camera Scams

"So... if it's *your* vehicle, and it wasn't stolen, isn't it *your* responsibility?
A red light run is a red light run. They can put whatever cameras they want on there. You break the law, you pay for it." - KnightWing, Blog Comment on the post 'Fraud of Southlake Texas'

This is something I felt would be better responded to in a post format, rather then starting an extended comment thread that most readers will never see.


In a legal setting, the accused has what is known as a presumption of innocence. The burden of proof to establish that a crime has been committed rests firmly with the accuser. Even with such a wrong doing having been established, further burden of proof lies with the accuser to prove the assertion that the accused is in fact the guilty party. 
In essence, the accused is innocent until proved beyond a reasonable doubt.


Let me proceed to set up an example:
A middle aged man living in Colorado owns a hatchet. While he is on vacation to Florida, his hatchet is used by his son to cut some branches off of a tree. While the branches of this tree are on property the man leases, the tree itself is in the neighbors yard. The tree gets sick, and dies. The family sues the man because it was his hatchet that did the cutting, ergo, he is responsible. After all, he did own it. 


An older woman owns a company that leases restaurant equipment to pizzerias in the surrounding areas. When a patron at the restaurant acquires salmonella from an improperly prepared pizza, she blames the woman who owns the oven. After all, she did own it.


Is assigning the blame to the owner, simply because he or she is the owner, the proper course of action?
No. Not even remotely. 


The responsibility lies with the one who committed the action, not the one who owns the property. 
Likewise, the responsibility for one running a red light lies with the driver, not the owner of the vehicle. When an officer of the law pulls a vehicle over for a moving violation, the fine is assessed to the individual who drove, not the owner of the vehicle. 


Now we return to the presumption of innocence. By presuming the owner of the vehicle to be the guilty party, the Red Light Camera system operated by RedFlex is a violation of this fundamental legal principle. With no way to prove who the driver of the vehicle is at the time of the alleged violation, there is no way to properly assign guilt. 


Additionally, I assert that the system is set up to intentionally make it easier to pay a minor ($75!!) 'administrative fee', in a paralegal administrative set up. One can request a formal court hearing, but the time and difficulty of doing such is not worth it for most individuals. Since the money is essentially poured into a quasi-private enterprise, it is a well laid scheme to make money for a selected group of individuals. 

Physiologists Punished Trapped Miners

This is the most horrifying part of the whole Chilean Miner saga:
"The psychology team became judge and jury of what the men could do for enjoyment and even how they could communicate with their families. When the men asked for cigarettes and alcohol, saying that these small pleasures would help them cope better than their daily phone call with the experts, the psychology team begrudgingly agreed to send down cigarettes but not booze - because ‘the average miner consumes large quantities of alcohol’, one of the psychologists said, and there is no telling how they will behave when inebriated in hot, cramped conditions. The men were furious. But only because they don’t understand the dangers of drinking, one of the on-site doctors snootily declared. ‘These are not PhD scientists, they are rough-and-tumble miners’, he said, giving a glimpse into the experts’ deep disdain for the men they were supposed to be helping.


But the thing that really tore the miners and their mental-health betters apart - the thing that ensured ‘the honeymoon was over’, as the lead on-site psychologist put it - was the psychology team’s ‘widespread censorship’ of family letters to the men. Early on, every time a family member wrote a letter it had to be submitted for psychological evaluation first, before being sent down the so-called umbilical cord to the men underground, so that any material judged ‘psychologically inappropriate’ could be removed. There was uproar when the families discovered that there was a backlog of letters waiting to be okayed. One of the miners had asked his wife during a video link-up: ‘Why don’t you write to me anymore?’ In fact she had been writing everyday, but her letters were awaiting ‘psychological approval’."

If there is ever a clearer illustration of the dangers of allowing an elite team of thinkers to control a group, it will be hard to identify. The evils of central control are in full bloom in this story, and those stuck underground are almost helpless to cope with it. 

Simply disgusting. 

Miners and Capitalism

WSJ.com "...If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?


Short answer: the Center Rock drill bit.


This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive.


Longer answer: The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.


This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany...."

Brilliant op-ed on how capitalism is the quiet force of progress, driven by a desire for profit. It saves lives.


Also, I'm trying to figure out what big news happened yesterday that was covered up by this mining thing. Yes, lives were saved. But it was far to big a production to be simply a miner rescue, it had to have been a distraction from something else. 

Chinese Military Reasonableness

Thomas P. Barnett: "The NYT reports that the U.S. military is alarmed at the rising anti-American tone and sentiment of younger Chinese military officers. This is the same U.S. military that assembles multinational war games in China's front yard and sells advanced weaponry to a small island nation off its coast--in addition to anyone else who will buy it in the region (and yes, business is very good right now, as weapons purchases are up 100% over the past half decade).


The U.S. military, which found its network-centric warfare roots in the seminal shell game known as the Taiwan Straits crises of 1995-1996, now takes inspiration from China's response since then (a build-up of anti-access/area denial assets that rely heavily on ballistic missile attacks to keep our carriers at bay) to launch its own AirSea Battle Concept--a new high-tech warfighting doctrine that makes no bones about specifically targeting the Chinese military.


And we wonder why the Chinese military seem to think we're their number one enemy? Are we honestly that clueless or has our disingenuity broken through to some higher, slightly irrational plane?"


Barnett goes on to imagine a reversed scenario, where the actions we have taken in Chinese waters are taken by the Chinese in US waters, and its quite stunning. No wonder the Chinese are pondering our threat level to them. 


I've been following this guy's blog since I read his excellent book Great Powers: America and the World after Bush; and he makes a lot of sense. If you like geopolitics, you'll like him. 

The Fraud of Southlake, Texas

Redlight Cameras.
A camera set up to monitor an intersection, and record video of vehicles passing through. Upon what is perceived as a violation, the owner of the vehicle is sent a $75 'administrative fee' eg, a fine, to identify someone else as the driver, or to request an 'administrative hearing'. No where is the actual driver of the vehicle identified, and no where is there any proof that the registered owner of the vehicle is in fact the offender. 


My understanding of our legal system is that we are innocent until proven guilty. 
My other understanding was that our 5th Amendment to the US constitution still applied.


Alas, this appears to not be so, as the halls of the cities are no longer filled with the clear notes of justice. 


Here is a sample of the Southlake Texas FAQ (Emphasis added):

Can the City, for any reason, waive a fee related to a red light violation?

Due to contractual obligations with Redflex, Southlake cannot waive any fees related to a red light violation.

Will I receive any points on my driving record for this violation?

No, this is a civil infraction that is not reported to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.

Does a red light violation caught on camera go on my driving record?

No. This is a civil penalty against the owner of the vehicle, not the operator. As such, it is not reported to the Texas Department of Public Safety. However, failure to pay the civil penalty may result in the reporting to a collection agency and/or the county assessor-collector or the Texas Department of Transportation who may refuse to register a motor vehicle alleged to have been involved in the violation.

....

These redlight camera's are little but cheap tricks to increase the revenue of the city, and are run by companies, not the police.

Not only is this morally wrong and repugnantly Orwellian, these red light cameras have been demonstrably proven to cause increased traffic problems.

Looking for Brooms

6-0 Texas, Taking a 2 Game Lead in a Best of 5 Series

Party like '99

Texas Rangers take 1-0 lead on Tampa, lead by the firepower of Cliff Lee

If the Glory Can be Killed, We are Lost

"At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By  disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammer blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world, And this I would fight for: The freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for this is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts.

If the glory can be killed, we are lost."

-John Steinbeck, East of Eden 

Sweet Smell of Advertising Shifts

A few years back, I distinctly remember being disgusted by a series of advertisements, a series that has only continued to bother me more as time has marched onward. Axe brand (which is owned and produced by Unilever) deodorant, shampoos, soaps and hair care products are targeted to a specific group, young adult males. I proudly count myself amongst this number.

Apparently, there are but three functions of the young adult male's mind, women, sleeping, and women. Beyond such transcendent concerns no attention can be spared. This theme has been the driving force of the marketing campaigns of Axe products for years now, as any interested viewer of any television programming can attest. Advertising is designed to sell products by fostering a desire for it in the individuals who create the marketplace.

Axe does this well by equating an exponential growth in the number of beautiful and flirtatious women in a man's vicinity to a linear growth in the amount of Axe product said man is wearing.


Effective? Yes. Amble through the men's personal hygiene portion of Wal-Mart to see how dominate this brand has become in a short period of time. The maxim of Sex Sells rings ever more true.


(One cool thing to do with Axe: Spray it all over your hand and then light it on fire on a dark night. Or don't, actually. But if you do, extinguish it quickly. If you are showing this post to your mother, redact this portion.)


Regardless of how offensive I have found Axe's marketing to be, both to my intelligence, the wits of women, and a moral society, it has never occurred to me to demand censorship of this content. Free content over muddled-yet-open airways are paid for by advertisers and Axe is but one of many. Their strategy is not particularly unique, just well executed.


Look! Over the horizon! A man upon a noble steed rides over the hills into battle. Armed with but a town and a bottle of Old Spice, he enters the young adult male marketing fray. Starting with the Superbowl, Old Spice began a blisteringly brilliant campaign with technically astounding film work, Voltaire's wit, and the idea that guys should 'Smell like a man, Man!'.





Separating itself from the competition by telling men their focus is not exclusively on women, old spice has helped make it right to be a man again.


These thoughts all came to me when I was brushing my teeth this morning, and I realized my younger brother had, within the past few months, switched from Axe products to Old Spice.


In other news, I don't use any of the described products myself, and will be earning absolutely no money from this post. Again.

All Done

Telegraph: "The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.
Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving nearly ten million soldiers dead.
...
"On Sunday the last bill is due and the First World War finally, financially at least, terminates for Germany," said Bild, the country's biggest selling newspaper.
Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany was made to sign the 'war guilt' clause, accepting blame for the war."


Good to see the Germans keep their word. We can put the past behind us now, yes?
They've already paid off the stolen bike from WWII as well. 
Now if  only my government could be so faithful at paying off debts. 

Maxim to Govern By

Kevin D. Williamson: "The resort to violence is what makes the question of what kind of things it is legitimate for states to do an important moral concern. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to shove a gun in somebody’s face to stop him murdering, raping, or robbing. It seems to me entirely unreasonable to shove a gun in somebody’s face to extort from him money to fund a project to get monkeys high on cocaine. Those seem to me fairly reasonable distinctions. It is illegitimate for government to use force or the threat of force for projects that are not inherently public in character.


The question of how much illegitimacy a state may perpetrate before becoming generally illegitimate itself is of real interest and has been, of late, the subject of some spirited discussion between some of my colleagues here and me. (You probably can guess on which side of the fault line I stand.)


But I would like to make it clear that I am not indulging in a figure of speech: I think it’s a pretty useful heuristic: If you’re not willing to have somebody hauled off at gunpoint over the project, then it’s probably not a legitimate concern of the state."


Short and Sweet rebuttal to an Economist article regarding the role of the State in the lives of Men and Women. 

Fowl Inflation

Made me laugh

Unleash the Ivory Knights, Republican Plan Part 2

This is a follow up post to Part 1, in which I analyzed the GOP plan for job creation.


After reading the remainder of the Neo-Contract-With-America, here are the remaining low points, I'll have a follow up with the high points soon. 


Low Points:
Reform the Budget Process to Focus on Long-Term Challenges: We will make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations. That means requiring a full accounting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, setting benchmarks for these programs and reviewing them regularly, and preventing the expansion of unfunded liabilities.


What is so saddening about this is the presumption that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid should still exist in the future, regardless of their fiscal feasibility or the morality of their existence. Future generations will continue to pay for the bloated growth of these programs, regardless of the sham of congressional oversight. 


Ensure Access For Patients With Pre-Existing Conditions: Health care should be accessible for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses. We will expand state high-risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage.We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick.We will incentivize states to develop innovative programs that lower premiums and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.


Ah, yes. Because the muddled hand of government intervention in this marketplace has had such stellar results in the past, let us reach forth and do so again. I thought the republicans intended to repeal Obamacare, yet they seek to retain what is one of the more damaging components, direct mandates upon insurance providers. 
Simple question that will clarify much of this issue:
What kind of customer would select an insurance provider who will expel the customer upon a customer's illness? 
There is no market for such a plan, and will never be so. Allow us the luxury of dealing with problems we have, rather then idling with concrete solutions to imaginary problems. 


Keep Terrorists Out of America: We will prevent the government from importing terrorists onto American soil.We will hold President Obama and his administration responsible for any Guantanamo Bay detainees they release who return to fight against our troops or who have become involved in any terrorist plots or activities.


It is the outrageously specific and splendidly hyperbolic points such as these that make my heart warm brightly for a return of a republican establishment. 


Require Tough Enforcement of Sanctions Against Iran: The Iranian regime is a state-sponsor of terrorism, has actively worked to harm our deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and violates the rights and will of its own people.It has declared its determination to acquire a nuclear capability, which threatens its neighbors and the security of the United States.We will work to ensure the government aggressively and effectively implements the sanctions tools Congress has provided


Has this party even looked at a map? We have Iran surrounded by nations swimming with US presence on both its east and western borders, and its solitary maritime outlet is dominated by the might of the US Navy. The reason for its persistent quest at gaining power in the region is because it feels threatened, and what reason have we given them to feel unthreatened? Escalating the situation is a nothing more then a persual of continuing war in the region. 

Colbert to Congress on Migrant Workers

Astonishingly Briliant.



Among the best lines:
"My great-grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants, he did it because he killed a man in Ireland..."

Also, note the actions of the Congresswoman at about 4:45 in the clip.

Strangest thing about this? His proposal is in line with the solution to this problem, just let more legal immigrants in.

Unleash the Ivory Knights, Republican Plan Part 1

Republican Party Plan for America: " Our Plan to End The Uncertainty and Create Incentives for Job Growth: If we’ve learned anything during the recession, it’s that we cannot tax and spend our way to prosperity.The best way to get people working again is to rein in the growth of government and end the uncertainty facing small businesses.By addressing both issues, our plan revives free enterprise and moves America away from a debt-driven economy."


Like the rest of this document, this platform, this neo-contract-with-America, it is brimming with lofty rhetoric but almost devoid of any concrete solutions. Eight pages into the document, and we are presented with the first presuppositions of action being put forward by a presumably victorious party. Here is the unwieldy named 'Plan to End the Uncertainty and Create Incentives for Job Growth', and your humble blog warrior's analysis. 


• Permanently Stop All Job-Killing Tax Hikes:We will help the economy by permanently stopping all tax increases, currently scheduled to take effect January 1, 2011.That means protecting middle-class families, seniors worried about their retirement, and the entrepreneurs and family-owned small businesses on which we depend to create jobs in America.


Is it really to much trouble to push for tax cuts? To go into a political battle with the objective of merely yelling 'STOP' at the top of the assembly's lungs is madness, or apathy resigned to defeat. Spending cuts followed by tax cuts is the recipe for economic growth, not the neo-Keynesian approach of maintaining taxes whilst increasing spending. 
Realistically speaking, this boils down to maintaining the Bush tax cuts. It would be more appropriate to make more tax cuts, and with that mindset, a compromise solution of maintaining the tax rate can be reached. This is little more then the absurd proposition that the current tax rates are low enough to allow economic growth to occur, which is clearly untrue. Maintaining the status quo is a miserable argument, and ought to be disbanded by any party serious about making things right in the country. Perhaps I err in assuming the national GOP leadership seeks to make things more free for the American people. 




• Give Small Businesses a Tax Deduction:We will allow small business owners to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their business income.This will provide entrepreneurs with a much-needed infusion of capital for investment and new hiring


Tax cuts are proposed, and how marvelously specific this is. 20% of business income is a meaningless token political phrase, designed to keep people enticed but with very limited practical implications. 
The next logical question to ask of the Republican party is this: Why stop only at small businesses? When I purchase goods and services from any establishment of commerce, I pay the taxes they owe the government. So do the world a favor and lower taxes on all businesses, and in turn, lower my taxes and spending rate. The hypocrisy of this is disenchanting.n 


• Rein In the Red Tape Factory in Washington, DC:Excessive federal regulation is a de facto tax on employers and consumers that stifles job creation, hampers innovation and postpones investment in the economy.When the game is always changing, small businesses cannot properly plan for the future.To provide stability, we will require congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more.This is the threshold at which the government deems a regulation “economically significant.”If a regulation is so “significant” and costly that it may harm job creation, Congress should vote on it first.


The solution posed here is worthless by all measures except that of electoral garnish. To cut the obscenity of the Federal bureaucracy we shrug against, eliminate the devastating Federal intervention into Health care, Agriculture, Energy, Education, Employment, and light bulbs! Real solutions lie not in another layer of mystifying government processes, but in eliminating the very processes that have caused these economic ailments. 


• Repeal Job-Killing Small Business Mandates:One of the most controversial mandates of the Democrats’ government takeover of health care requires small businesses to report to the Internal Revenue Service any purchases that run more than $600.This 1099 reporting mandate is so overbearing that the IRS ombudsman has determined that the agency is ill-equipped to handle all the resulting paperwork..We will repeal this job-killing small business mandate.


I concur, this, in and of itself, is a very fine objective. 




Additional analysis to come later. 

Voices

Well produced bundle of historical references speaking of liberty and the state. Well done, Mr. Hannity's crew.