War On The Border

The Drug War in Mexico as chronicled by Newsweek is starting to cross the US border.

Late one night in January, an ambulance escorted by five unmarked squad cars pulled up to Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas. Out leaped more than a dozen armed federal agents to protect the patient—Fernando Lozano Sandoval, a commander with the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency. He'd been pumped full of bullets just across the Mexican border in Ciudad Juárez by gunmen believed to have been hired by a drug cartel. Lozano Sandoval's sole hope of survival was the medical team at Thomason, the only level-one trauma center for nearly 300 miles. U.S. authorities took no chances; in Mexico, assassins regularly raid hospitals to finish off their prey. Throughout Lozano Sandoval's three-week treatment at Thomason (which proved successful), the Americans funneled visitors through metal detectors, posted guards outside the commander's room and deployed SWAT teams armed with assault rifles around the hospital's perimeter. Officers "were ready for war if it should go that route," says El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.

Well isn't that something. US paramilitary police are having to guard Mexican nationals in America. Some one should call Houston and tell them we have a problem. In fact if some one would carry the message to DC it might be even more helpful.

Beyond those cases, 43 additional patients wounded in Juárez have been treated at Thomason this year, including a 1-year-old girl who was pinned against a wall by a truck involved in a drug-related shooting. All the patients have been dual citizens of Mexico and the United States or have had the proper documentation to enter the country, says a Thomason spokeswoman. Yet legal issues are beside the point for many El Pasoans. A recent posting in an online forum on border violence summed up the fear of many: "It is only a matter of time before the Mexican drug dealers send assassination squads over to Thomason hospital." The traffickers already occasionally kidnap Mexicans who have fled north to escape threats of violence in Juárez.

So the drug war violence in Northern Mexico is already crossing the border into the US and the people living along that border expect things to get worse. It is no surprise to me. I was predicting it 20 years ago.

Mr. Obama has promised to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan. I don't think he was expecting to handle a similar situation just a few feet across our southern border. Is he in for a shock.

"It's almost beyond belief." Juárez looks a lot like a failed state, with no government entity capable of imposing order and a profusion of powerful organizations that kill and plunder at will. It's as if the United States faced another lawless Waziristan—except this one happens to be right at the nation's doorstep.

In the past months I was predicting that it might take as long as five years for the Drug Cartel Wars to cross over into the US of A. Obviously I was misinformed. It is happening already.

The cartels operate largely with impunity. Police who defy them are eliminated, as in the case of Oscar Campoya, a municipal cop who was shot dead by assassins in March as he left a local precinct. Despite the presence of several witnesses, including fellow officers, there have been no arrests (only 2 percent of violent murders in Mexico are solved, according to government figures). Mario Campoya, the victim's brother, says Oscar had been pressured relentlessly by other members of the force to cooperate with the drug gangs, but had refused.

There is a saying in those parts plata o plomo - silver or lead. Roughly translated it means take our money and follow our orders or we will kill you. Of course one has to be careful. Cooperate with the wrong gang and a rival gang will kill you. Pretty soon no one wants to be a policeman. Even with pay enhancements from one gang or another it is not enough. In fact that is already happening. Mexico has had to move its army into some Northern Mexico border towns to keep law and order because the police forces were to all intents and purposes non-existent. Of course this has had the usual results. The army is now being corrupted.

Going back to Prohibition, Juárez has helped sate the ravenous American appetite for contraband. These days, the West Texas corridor is a key shipping and distribution center for drugs destined for various markets across the United States. According to a recent report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), 6 cartels, 129 midlevel organizations and 606 local groups engage in drug-trafficking activities in the binational region. As part of an elaborate, highly compartmentalized operation, some outfits specialize in transportation, others in enforcement and still others in retail sales. Guided by spotters on the Mexican side equipped with binoculars and cell phones, many shipments cross the bridges into El Paso alongside legitimate commerce. Once in the city, the goods are deposited in stash houses before being sent elsewhere.

Given the permeability of the border, it's not hard to imagine violence seeping over as well. American officials insist that's highly unlikely. The cartels "cannot operate here with impunity," says ICE's Kozak. "One reason we don't see that type of violence here is that it would never be tolerated." El Paso is crawling with federal law-enforcement agents—including representatives of ICE, the FBI, Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration—and all are monitoring events to the south like hawks.

Ah. The infamous: "it can't happen here".

Except it looks like it has already happened here in Las Vegas.

In an early morning news conference Police captain Vince Cannito said, "Cole (Puffinburger) has been found, he is safe and in our custody," he continued "It's just a blessing that this child has been found and he's in extremely good condition."

The six year old boy was abducted by alleged drug dealers posing as police officers on October 15, 2008. Three armed men tied up Cole's mother and her fiancee, ransacked their home and then took Cole after they didn't find money in the home.

Fortunately the outcome in that case was a good one. We may not always be so fortunate.

Now it is the so called social conservatives in cahoots with "progressives" who have pushed this drug war on us. But really they are not conservatives at all. They are radicals. Before 1914 and the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act there were no national laws against drugs in America. And of course in 1937 we got the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

Well back to the Newsweek article.

...the United States is less insulated than some might think. According to the NDIC report, the increased bloodshed in Juárez "could spill into the [West Texas] region," since it raises the threat that drug-trafficking organizations will "confront law-enforcement officers in the United States who seek to disrupt these DTOs' smuggling operations." (The report cites several armed encounters that took place on the American side in 2006.) The cartels' tentacles already reach deep into El Paso. Local banks are full of drug money, says Claudio Morales, who heads special operations at the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. "We're one of the poorest regions along the border, yet El Paso has some of the largest cash transactions" in the country. Many cartel henchmen are known to have moved their families to the Texas city to insulate them from the carnage back home—though that still leaves the families vulnerable to kidnappers. Kids whose relatives have been killed in the violence are showing up at the Children's Grief Center of El Paso. "We have a lot of kids that are really traumatized," says executive director Laura Olague. "There's a lot of secrecy, or fear, that whoever killed their parents or loved ones would come look for them."

It does seem like law and order is working in America to keep the violence down. And the gangs have an incentive to minimize the violence in America unless it is home grown. But the Mexican gangs do have their methods.

For now, drug organizations prefer to abduct their quarry in the United States and spirit them across the border before harming or killing them. Kozak says that in the past year, a half-dozen kidnappings tied to narcotraffickers have taken place in El Paso. One of them involved Miguel Rueda, a convicted smuggler who failed to pay a drug debt. According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. district court, Rueda was told to meet a former accomplice, Ricardo Calleros-Godinez, at a gas station in El Paso in February. After picking up Rueda, Calleros-Godinez allegedly pulled a gun on him, duct-taped his eyes, mouth, hands and legs, and drove him to a house in Juárez. Four or five days later, Rueda reportedly settled the debt through a transfer of family land and was freed. (He's now in Texas state prison serving a sentence on cocaine charges.)

The criminal group that perhaps best illustrates the porousness of the border is the Barrio Azteca gang. Founded in the 1980s in state prison in El Paso, the organization now counts thousands of members in Mexico and the United States and is believed to be affiliated with the Juárez cartel. Authorities say the gang has a penchant for brutality and engages in everything from extortion to trafficking to assassination. The Barrio Aztecas are "the wild card in all this," says Samuel Camargo, a supervisory special agent with the FBI in El Paso. "That probably has the most potential for violence here"—and it's an American creation. In January, the U.S. Attorney's Office brought racketeering charges against more than a dozen of the gang's members, and a trial began in early November.

So for all you who are in favor of keeping drugs illegal (they didn't used to be), how is it working out for you? We could end all this in short order by passing a few Federal Laws and letting States go their own way with respect to dealing with drugs. One only need consider that before the radicals got hold of the US Government in 1914 there were no national anti-drug laws.

"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government." - William Colby, former CIA Director, 1995

Do you suppose Colby was trying to tell us something?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Let Us Try The Conservative Solution

I have pretty much shown in a number of posts that government involvement in marriage, in making drugs illegal, and in running schools were the innovations of radicals. Those solutions to the problems they addressed don't seem to be working well.

So why don't we do the conservative thing and go back to the old ways? And if those don't work we can always try something radical again.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Getting A Daily Dose

The Swiss are giving in to the junkies.

GENEVA (AP) - Dr. Daniele Zullino keeps glass bottles full of white powder in a safe in a locked room of his office.

Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window.

Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

The program has been criticized by the United States and the U.N. narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse. But governments as far away as Australia are beginning or considering their own programs modeled on the system, which is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts.

Swiss voters are expected to make the system permanent Sunday in a referendum prompted by a challenge from conservatives.

The heroin program has won wide support within Switzerland since it was begun 14 years ago to eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s.

Zullino's office, part of the Geneva University Hospitals, is one of 23 such centers in Switzerland.

Patients among the nearly 1,300 addicts whom other therapies have failed to help take doses carefully measured to satisfy their cravings but not enough to cause a big high. Four at a time inject themselves as a nurse watches.

In a few minutes most get up and leave. Those who have jobs go back to work.

Junkies with jobs? What is the world coming to? Or rather what is the world going back to? The Swiss program is very much like one in effect in the US from 1914 when the Harrison Act was passed until about 1923 with the closure of last clinic in Baton Rouge.

It worked then, and it still works. Which is why we can no longer do that sort of thing in America. Which is rather fortunate. After all those drug cartels need to make a profit too. And think of all the street dealers such a system would put out of business. We certainly don't want to be putting retailers and wholesalers out of business in a down economy do we?

There is one small problem with the program. Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994. Now think of all the police, prosecutors, lawyers, prison guards etc. out of jobs because of that. Every junkie in America has a huge burden to bear keeping all those people working. If it were not for junkies taxpayers might not willingly pony up the dough to support all those folks. Another economic disaster in the making during hard times if this clinic idea ever caught on. As long as Americans keep hating junkies the jobs that depend on them are safe. So do your part. Hate a junkie today. A big part of the economy depends on it.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Racial Fear Card

Fifty Percent of the violent crimes committed in the districts occupied by Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Phillipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marijuana. - Harry Anslinger head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

And that is just one thing you can learn from watching this video.

Part 2
Part 3

MarijuanaConversation.org

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Success In Mexico

Mexico is having some success in fighting the drug traffickers that are causing so much trouble for Mexicans and their government.

President Felipe Calderón and his government defended their fight against public corruption and drug trafficking Friday, asking for greater powers to go after organized crime. They conceded that most Mexicans feel unsafe and that many police are unqualified to do their jobs.

One hundred days after calling for a sweeping overhaul of security forces, including a reorganization of the federal police into a single agency, Calderón and his cabinet cited some successes, such as the recent arrest of several drug captains and corrupt officials. But they acknowledged that the extreme violence unleashed in Mexico was daunting.

"We know the challenges are many and that the road that we have to travel is long and difficult. But we cannot and will not back down," said Calderón, who appeared with his government ministers at a day-long National Security Council meeting in which they reported on their fight against organized crime and the drug cartels.

More than 4,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Calderón declared war against the cartels in early 2007. The campaign has transformed border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez into war zones, complete with 20,000 occupying troops.

Calderón touted the recent arrest of Noé Ramírez Mandujano, a former chief of the anti-organized-crime unit at Mexico's attorney general's office, who is accused of taking at least $450,000 from drug traffickers in exchange for information about police investigations.

And that is what success looks like. It is rather fortunate that the Mexican government is not failing.

One point of success is that kidnappings are down 18% after the government broke up 53 kidnapping gangs. A rough extrapolation tells us that there were something like 250 gangs of kidnappers before the crackdown. Now down to around 200.

And here is another huge success. They are testing the qualifications of police officers already on the force.

In written answers to questions put to him by the National Congress, Calderón reported Thursday that half of the 56,000 police officers evaluated in a federal review failed to reach minimum standards. The examinations included drug and lie detector tests, psychological profiling and reviews of personal wealth.

Almost 50 percent of the officers tested, who work at the municipal, state and federal levels, received a "not recommended" rating. In states where violence and drug trafficking are greatest, the police fared the worst.

In the state of Baja California, where Tijuana is located, almost 90 percent of the officers received failing grades. It is not known how many will be fired or retrained. There are more than 375,000 police officers in Mexico.

The revelation that so many rank-and-file police officers fail to pass scrutiny is likely to come as no surprise to most Mexicans, who harbor deep distrust of law enforcement officers. A poll released Friday by a Mexican research group found that 60 percent of Mexicans do not feel safe and that the great majority do not report crimes because they distrust the police.

Well isn't that something. Only half are failing on average. Fortunately the failure rate along the border is not 100%. That would be a real disaster.

It could be worse. And I'm betting that before long it will be.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

I'm Looking For A Party

Every attempt to legislate vice into oblivion has led to vice + crime.

And yet socons keep falling for that trick. If you have studied the matter you know that Economic Socialism is at best a brake on the economy and at worst causes retrograde motion.

Cultural Socialism (using government power to end sin) always leads to an increase in crime. But socons - being the simple folks that they are - keep falling for the empty promises of Cultural Socialism.

So we have two parties whose main features are: Democrats - they know Cultural Socialism doesn't work. Republicans - they know Economic Socialism doesn't work.

I'm looking for a viable party that knows Socialism doesn't work. Period.

A Mutiny At Cawnpore

Sgt. Mom writes about some history she learned in her travels in the English countryside and its implications for the current troubles in Mumbai.

Not for the faint of heart or those with delicate sensibilities. But not much that has gone on in India the last few days is.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Immoral Nation

There has been a lot of back and forth at the places I post (Classical Values and Power and Control) about America becoming an immoral nation. So I have to asks a question of my readers and especially those commenting on my various posts. What can make America the moral nation that so many seem to crave?

Can government make people moral?

If so why did we give up on all the goodness that alcohol prohibition was responsible for?

OK. Scratch that. It seems that when government gets involved in the morality business it only makes things worse.

America is a mainly Christian church going nation - so can churches make people moral?

If so why are so many people who have had church weddings divorced? Why are there so many children of divorce from parents married in church?

===

OK. Government can't make people moral and churches are failing at the job as well.

Any one care to suggest fall back position?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Archaeologists Find Old Pot

Well this is a very different kind of pot for archaeologists. What they found was a marijuana stash.

OTTAWA - Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.

"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

Now there was one dedicated pot head. Not even death was going to separate him from his stash. No wonder it is so hard to keep the weed out of America if that kind of dedication is any indication of the mind set of current users.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Positronic Brain?

Researchers at a Hewlet Packard Laboratory have combined computer logic with at type of controllable variable resistor into a neural network that may in time be dense enough to mimic a human brain.

Also at the symposium, Snider unveiled a design that used memristors in their analog mode as synapses in a neural computing architecture. Memristor crossbars are the only technology that is dense enough to simulate the human brain, Snider claimed, adding that the HP Labs crossbars are ten times denser than synapses in the human cortex. By stacking crossbars on a CMOS logic chip, variable resistance could mimic the learning functions of synapses in neural networks.

HP Labs and Boston University were recently awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build the first artificial neural network based on memristors.

Also at the conference, Massimiliano Di Ventra of the University of California at San Diego described how memristors can explain biological learning in amoebas.

Isaac Asimov the inventor (in fiction) of the Positronic Brain would be so proud. And of course there is the possibility that one day a human brain could be downloaded into a positronic brain leading to a type of human immortality. Or at least a C3PO type cyborg.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Not So Long Ago

Time Magazine chronicles the anti-gay movement in Florida led by Anita Briant. The year is 1977.

In the heat of the campaign, emotions have got out of hand. A gay worker was hospitalized after a beating; others have received crank calls. Urges a bumper sticker: KILL A QUEER FOR CHRIST. After receiving many telephone threats, Jack Campbell, a gay-rights leader, has installed guards around his house. Bryant has also hired security men because of phone warnings.

Meantime, Bryant has stepped up her rhetoric, telling one interviewer that God does not like homosexuality because "the male homosexual eats another man's sperm. Sperm is the most concentrated form of blood. The homosexual is eating life." During a debate with Gay Rights Activist Bob Kunst, she startled the audience by breaking into a stirring rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Many Miami homosexuals think that they will be the ultimate winners this week, even if they lose what is expected to be a close vote. Their reasoning: Bryant's spirited attack has encouraged homosexuals all over the country to come out of their closets. Already, gay groups from Boston to San Francisco are organizing as never before. Says Kunst: "We have created a national issue, and we intend to stay with it."

I think the gay marriage movement represents the revenge of the gays.

You spew hatred - you get hatred back. Proof that God is just. You have to wonder though. Bryant was the leader of an ostensibly Christian movement. Why did/do so many Christians have hate in their hearts? Such attitudes are hobbling the Republican Party considerably because some how the party got identified with the haters.

Of course the foundation for the hate is fear. But isn't living in fear the antithesis of having God in your heart?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Strange times.

Inspired? by this William Burroughs Thanksgiving Prayer.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Probing Attack?

I don't know if that is intentional but, the attack in Mumbai, India looks to be having the effect of probing Obama's response to future attacks on America and elsewhere.

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama led global condemnation of grenade and gun assaults in India’s financial hub of Mumbai, the third major terrorist attack targeting foreigners in South Asian nations this year.

The U.S. will work “with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks,” Obama’s transition team said in a statement.

I was under the impression that The One thought that going after Osama and al Qaeda was enough. Evidently Reality Is Setting In.

And which politician on the international scene made the strongest statement?

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the “outrageous” attacks in India would be met with a “vigorous response,”

In any case I believe that Obama is going to get a lot of guff from the anti-war left. So far he seems to be ignoring it. We will see how long that lasts.

Policy wise Obama's domestic agenda - the one that requires money - is going to be held hostage to world events. If he cuts back military spending and there is an attack on the US he will be in trouble. If he fails to deploy a missile defense and there is a significant missile attack. He is in trouble.

So what domestic policy can he pursue that will actually raise money and lower economic output significantly? Why anti-CO2 measures of course. The fly in that ointment is the "lower economic output". Since he has promised to save jobs and get us out of a recession.

So is there a policy that might raise money for the government, please his supporters, and not be a hit on the economy? Yes there is.

Eric Nash can barely contain his excitement waiting to hear from Health Canada whether he can start growing marijuana for 250 patients now that the Federal Court of Appeal has struck down the government's monopoly on supplying medical marijuana.

That would be just the start. He says there are tens of thousands more who are ailing across the country, clamouring for his organic B.C. bud.

"There is a great opportunity here for the government to collect significant tax revenue currently being lost to the street market," enthused Nash, whose company, Island Harvest, has cleared the industrial security regulatory hurdles and meets the standards set by Ottawa to grow cannabis legally.

Tax revenue. Significant tax revenue and a blow to criminal gangs. A blow that will be harder to survive than a major bust. Revenue shortfalls for the gangs. What is not to like? Government gets more money - the gangs get less. If only we were as smart as the Canadians.

Now I also need to mention that opium is supporting the tribes in the Pakistan/Afghanistan tribal areas. Opium may be a harder nut to crack politically - but you know - when the pain gets severe enough we will take our medicine.

Cultural Maintenance

Now here is a story about a country that is serious about protecting its culture.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean prosecutors on Wednesday demanded a popular actress who tried to overturn the country's law that criminalizes adultery be thrown in jail for a year and a half for having an affair, local media reported.

South Korean enacted its adultery law more than 50 years ago to protect women who had few rights in the male-dominated society but critics say now it is a draconian measure no longer fit for a country with an advanced civil and family court system.

Actress Ok So-ri's case has created a sensation in South Korea after she admitted to an affair with a singer and called on the country's Constitutional Court to overturn the statute that can send a person to jail for up to two years for adultery.

The first rule when dealing with any court is to never admit anything.

Ok's lawyers were also not immediately available for comment but they have said in a petition to Constitutional Court: "The adultery law ... has degenerated into a means of revenge by the spouse, rather than a means of saving a marriage."

Last month, the Constitutional Court said adultery damaged the social order and therefore was a criminal offence.

I wonder if Liz Taylor movies were ever popular in South Korea? That was one busy lady in her prime.

Stimulus Package

H/T Helius

Standing

There is a rather long discussion going on at the Classical Values post The Government IS The Devil. In that post I suggested that the government was limited to protecting public order and that its intrusion into the business of schools (currently a socialist enterprise called the Public School System) and the socialization of morality through ventures such as alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition was wrong headed and that the championing of all three by Cultural Conservatives in an attempt to bring True Morality to the American Public through the use of government guns was at minimum misguided and at worst a consorting with evil in the hopes of doing good. And we all know how bargains with the Devil usually work out. Everything is going swimmingly and then the balloon payment becomes due.

Now a commenter brought up this point.

By advocating absolute liberty as an end to itself, devoid of any contextual reality such as the role of virtue, you're asking people to ask their government to stand for...nothing.

Well except in the craziness of my youth I never have stood for absolute Liberty. What ever the hell that is. Well maybe I do know what that is: "It is good to be King". Yes. It is. If you are the King. The kind of Liberty I have in mind is better expressed by Thomas Jefferson:

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

But you know. That Liberty thing. Scary stuff. Who knows what people might do if the government isn't watching. They might be having fun in unapproved ways. Why they could be harming their eternal souls. Or piercing their eye brows. I think the eye brow piercing probably hurts more. But that is just me.

In any case I'm not asking the government to stand for nothing. I'm asking it to stand for Liberty.

Probably the scariest substance on earth. Also the costliest.

What a weak lot so many Americans have become to be so afraid of Liberty. Men died to give it to you and you treat it like a toxic substance. I laugh at your wretched condition. Groveling before government to protect you from Liberty. Not a man among you - those who fear Freedom.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" Samuel Adams

Craven cowards the lot of you.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Mencken's Law

I made up my mind at once that my true and natural allegiance was to the Devil’s party, and it has been my firm belief ever since that all persons who devote themselves to forcing virtue on their fellow men deserve nothing better than kicks in the pants. Years later I put that belief into a proposition which I ventured to call Mencken’s Law, to wit:

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

The moral theologians, unhappily, have paid no heed to this contribution to their science, and so Mencken’s Law must wait for recognition until the dawn of a more enlightened age. - H.L. Mencken

H/T The New Liberty

Secular Right

John Derbyshire has started a blog called Secular Right. For those of you of that persuasion or merely interested: check it out.

The Government IS The Devil

I'm having a conversation with one of my social conservative friends about marriage and child welfare. This is what I had to say:

The government IS the Devil. Not metaphorically. Really.

Everything you get from government will have a price much larger than the value of the object gained. Some times the price will not be extracted from you. Sometimes it will be from your children, your grand children, or ten generations hence. But the full price the government wants will be extracted at compound interest.

We are still paying the price for trying to be a free people while holding slaves. My great great grand parents lived on another continent when all that went on. And yet the price is being extracted from me.

What I'm trying to teach you is that the only way out is Liberty. You put the government in charge of other people's children for their own good and some day the government will come after yours. Either intervene in a bad situation personally or leave it alone. There is no other way to save your Liberty.

A commenter who read this post said it was good but that he would have liked a longer exposition. So here goes:

Government IS the devil. Social conservatives of a different era got government into the marriage business to prevent race mixing. Cultural conservatives are now paying the price for their error.

The only answer that is equitable to all is to get government out of marriage: the libertarian solution. You really do not want government protecting your culture. Because some day in a way you can't imagine the protections sought will be used against your culture.

As I have been harping on since the election. The libertarian view (small limited government) is your best protection. You are now coming against Cultural Socialism. It is just as bad, maybe worse, than Economic Socialism. The answer is not more law to fix the law that created the mess. It is less law.

Government out of marriage.

How about a different example. Cultural conservatives of a different era were one of the forces behind the public school movement. They were intent on indoctrinating Catholic and Jewish immigrants into Real Americanism. Cultural Socialism at its finest. So laws were passed and now government controls the schools and you know social conservatives lost control. They instituted Cultural Socialism by passing laws and control got away from them.

Government out of the school business.

Some people wanted to use the law as a bludgeon. And now that bludgeon is being used against their offspring a number of generations down the road. The Devil will always get his due.

Government IS the Devil.

In any area that you chose to get government to do something for you it will ultimately be allowed to do something against you.

Which is why cultural conservatives have more to gain from libertarians than just their votes.

Down with Cultural Socialism.

"Any government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away." And that is not just true about economics. It is true about culture as well. Take it to heart.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Some Really Slick S****

Scientist at DOE's Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, have found a material that is very hard and slicker than teflon by a factor of 2.5X.

A superhard substance that is more slippery than Teflon could protect mechanical parts from wear and tear, and boost energy efficiency by reducing friction.

The "ceramic alloy" is created by combining a metal alloy of boron, aluminium and magnesium (AlMgB14) with titanium boride (TiB2). It is the hardest material after diamond and cubic boron nitride.

BAM, as the material is called, was discovered at the US Department of Energy Ames Laboratory in Iowa in 199, during attempts to develop a substance to generate electricity when heated.

I think they mean 1999.

Those chance findings have now developed into a $3-million programme at the Ames Lab to develop the BAM into a kind of eternal lubricant, a coating for moving parts to boost energy efficiency and longevity by reducing friction.

BAM is much slipperier than Teflon, with a coefficient of friction of .02 compared to .05. Lubricated steel has a friction coefficient of 0.16.

One way to exploit this slipperiness is to coat the rotor blades in everyday pumps used in everything from heating systems to aircraft, says Russel. A slick BAM coating of just 2 microns could reduce friction between the blades and their housing, meaning less power is needed to produce the same pumping power.

Bruce Cook, lead investigator on the Ames Lab project, estimates that merely coating rotors with the material could save US industry alone 330 trillion kilojoules (9 billion kilowatt hours) every year by 2030 - about $179 million a year.

BAM is also potentially attractive as a hard coating for drill bits and other cutting tools. Diamond is commonly used for this, and is harder, but it reacts chemically with steel and so degrades relatively quickly when used to cut the metal.

Ultimately it would mean multi-billion dollar savings per year. Think of what it would mean to reduce friction in automotive bearings by a factor of 8 and in addition eliminate the need for oil changes. Obviously there is a lot of work that needs to be done to get us from here to there.

One of the things this article points out is that you never know what you will find when you start looking - if you are paying attention.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Really Interesting Discussion

There is a really interesting discussion going on between Kelly and Edgar in the comments at Sanctification. May I suggest a read?

The Two Largest Political Parties In America

What are the two largest political parties in America? One is the Democrat Party. The other is the Independent Party. The Third largest? The Republican Party.

The balance of party identification in the American electorate now favors the Democratic Party by a decidedly larger margin than in either of the two previous presidential election cycles.

In 5,566 interviews with registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press during the first two months of 2008, 36% identify themselves as Democrats, and just 27% as Republicans.

The share of voters who call themselves Republicans has declined by six points since 2004, and represents, on an annualized basis, the lowest percentage of self-identified Republican voters in 16 years of polling by the Center.

The Democratic Party has also built a substantial edge among independent voters. Of the 37% who claim no party identification, 15% lean Democratic, 10% lean Republican, and 12% have no leaning either way.

By comparison, in 2004 about equal numbers of independents leaned toward both parties.

If you look at the graphs provided at the site it looks like the rate of shrinkage of the Republican Party is accelerating. And the really bad news for Republicans? In Swing States the Democrats are advancing and in Republican States the Party identification is evenly split.

If Republicans don't find a way to enlarge their tent they could go the way of the Whigs in a few more election cycles. I'd like to see a libertarian type party that was adult on foreign policy and defense take its place if it goes down.

The Republican Party's New Platform

I just got a comment at one of my blog posts on the attitude Real Republicans™ should take towards homosexuals. I ain't naming names or quoting the rest of the text but here is the gist of it:

Leviticus 18:22

[22] You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

Romans 1:25-28

[25] For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

[26] For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, [27] and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

[28] And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

[9] Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals , nor sodomites, [10] nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

==

Well you get the idea.

Not only will them homos not get the Kingdom of God, they are to be persecuted here on earth by a True Christian Government™ which the True Christians™ of the Real Republican Party™ will bring us any day now. As soon as they get elected.

Alan Keyes For President!

Sounds like a winner to me.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Diagnosis

Is the party over for the Republicans? National Journal thinks the Republican Party as currently constituted is done for.

Democrats are effectively courting voters with diverse views, but the Republican capacity to appeal to voters beyond their party's core coalition has collapsed.

You can't win national elections with a regional party that constitutes about 30% of the population. As with any campaign, military or otherwise the first thing to do to gain success is to look at the maps. And the electoral map tells the story. The party owns the most culturally conservative parts of the nation and nothing else.

First let us look at issue failures. Anti-abortion messages failed in two states. One of them being friggin South Dakota. Medical Marijuana was favored in Mississippi. Mississippi? Yep. Mississippi. And pot was decrimed in Michigan. Oh yeah. Gay marriage was voted down in California. By Democrats. Whoop te do. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. So what are the odds of a social conservative winning the Governorship in California? Zip. Nada. Bupkiss. Why waste your time?

Now is the party ready to face the map? Of course not. It generally takes 8 to 12 years of being bloodied to get the rank and file and the leaders to come to their senses. Next stop? Democrats gain seats in the Senate to the point of a filibuster proof majority. Stop after that? A veto proof majority.

There is one consolation. A lot of RINOs have been purged from the party. Which according to the purists is a good thing. Yep. Sure is. Fewer votes in the legislature is a really good thing. We still have another 50 Hose seats that are manned by the not so pure. And we could do to lose another 8 to 10 Senate seats to have a REAL™ Republican Party. Fortunately the geniuses who got us where we are still have the reigns. And if we get new leadership? Odds are, given the base, it will resemble the old leadership.

So my friends, what do you think the party has to do to get more votes? You know where I stand. And it has made me none too popular. Where do you stand? What is the cure?

Sanctification

I have always wondered why Christian social conservatives have trouble with gay marriage. Most Christian social conservatives have no problem with domestic partnerships. So it can't be legal rights.

So I'm guessing here that since they are always going on about the sacredness of marriage it must be something else. Holy matrimony. And what are the words of the ceremony? "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." "What God has joined together." So the unions are considered unholy by God's laws. OK. That makes sense. At least in their eyes. But look at the contradiction. It is no longer God who decides. It is not even the Church. After all there are many things holy in one church or religion that are unholy in others and yet those things do not seem to matter in a pluralistic America. For instance communion wafers if blessed by the Catholic Church are holy in that church and in other churches they are just crackers. There is no outcry about that. So I'm trying to see what it is. It can't be the sanctification by the Church or a church.

What seems to be the problem is the not the authority of the Church. The problem is the authority of the State to confer the status of marriage. So churches are no longer the arbiter between God and man. The state is the arbiter. So let me ask my Christian social conservative friends. Isn't making the state the arbiter between God and man a Christian heresy?

Which leads me to believe that it all went wrong with the Emperor Constantine who joined Christianity with the power of the State. It has been 1,700 years and despite that passage of time Christians still have not recovered. Jefferson with his "wall of separation" is derided by most Christian social conservatives. And yet in a way not recognized he was attempting to return Christians to their roots. And their roots were definitely not in the power of the state. In fact the state was originally considered the source of much wickedness. But now the State is considered the source of holiness. Well people can believe what they want to believe. I consider it passing strange though. Secular authorities confer holiness. That would make the State a religion. Well the worship of temporal power has always had quite a following. The The Egyptians had their god king or pharaoh. The later Romans were big on that sort of thing. The Middle Ages in Europe had it in a somewhat attenuated form. The Divine Right of Kings. So there is considerable historical precedent. Why not America? Why not the Church of America which confers holiness on a given marriage? Even stranger is that America has just elected The One. Well his divinity is tethered by a rather fragile thread. He will be Holy and Righteous only so long as he does what his followers want him to do. A complete inversion of what Modern religions believe. You are supposed to get holy by following religion not by religion following you. Some one is in for a rude awakening. Either That One or his followers.

The State is my shepherd. I shall not want. The cry of Socialists from the days of Karl Marx. "A Republic if you can keep it." Of course the State as a religion was the downfall of the Roman Republic. So it looks like we can't keep it. After a 1,700 year fight get get back to republican government it took only another 200 years or so to lose it. And why is that? Because the State as a religion is always tugging at humans. They like it. They have liked it for as long as there have been States. Well most of them like it. Me? Not so much. The Emperor is naked. He is also stark raving mad. But don't tell him that. It upsets the Emperor and enrages his followers.

So now maybe some of you can get a glimmer of why I have an antipathy to the State as arbiter of economics or culture. Those are both faces of the State as religion. Worship the one true god or face punishment. And with the state having the guns the punishment need not wait until the hereafter. Of course it is no longer a matter of the State just punishing the wicked which is probably a lawful job. Now a days the State can punish the merely sinful. That will keep folks on the straight and narrow. Or else cause a rebellion. Depending.

It is rather obvious that humans are more than passing strange. Interesting to watch though. Very interesting.

Naturally, not being well versed in Christian doctrine I'm sure my social conservative friends will show me the error of my ways. Have at it guys.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Looking At The Future

Some times you can tell a lot about the future by looking at the past. The past I want to look at was the Bush/Kerry, Keyes/Obama election results in Illinois from 2004.

I'm going to repost a bit I did then in its entirety. Jack Ryan was the Republican who Obama's confederates got kicked off the ballot. I'm not going to go into the details of that - you can look it up. Any way Alan Keyes was Ryan's replacement.

So here it is: Jack Ryan Republicans.

Here is a comment I made to one of my cultural conservative friends who said cultural conservative were the new American center:

Main Stream Media think they are the middle too.

They are no more correct than you are.

Think of how the Senate/Presidential race went in Illinois. Bush got 45% of the vote - 2,313,415 votes. Keyes got 27% - 1,371,882 votes. If you parse the numbers about 130,000 voted in the Presidential race that did not vote in the Senate race (more unhappy Republicans?).

Keyes didn't get the votes of the Jack Ryan Republicans. It shows.

So my Cultural Conservative friends - think of it. Bush would have won Illinois by picking up 6% of the votes (giving 51%). Alan Keyes would have needed to pick up 24% of the votes to get a similar result. What are the odds? I said in 2004 that the writing was on the wall for Cultural Conservatives as a political movement.

Have have words on the wall been written in big enough letters so you can see yet?

Well. We shall see won't we?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Heart Of The Matter

I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. - Ronald Reagan

So when will the party get back to its roots? Not soon I fear. Not soon.

Iraq - The SOF Agreement

SOF stand for the Status Of Forces. It is the agreement between the US and the Iraqis about how US forces in Iraq will conduct themselves once the UN mandate covering US troops expires. Iraq the Model has some interesting news not found elsewhere.

After the Iraqi cabinet voted in approval, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker met in Baghdad to sign the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

Both diplomats hailed the event as a “historic” one — not an overstatement as their meeting was the fruit of many months of deliberations and negotiations.
Reportedly, SOFA has a sister document whose details are yet to be made public. Radio Sawa reported that Zebari and Crocker signed “another long-term strategic agreement, which the U.S. ambassador said would shape relations between the two countries in all areas for years to come.” It’s actually surprising that there’s no mention of this second document anywhere in the media.

Now isn't that interesting. There is a Times Online article about the SOF agreement that says noting about the second document. I wonder why?

A Servant's Heart

I ♥ Sarah'cudda

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Help For Aging Brains

Scientists are finding surpising value in the daily use of small amounts of marijuana.

Ohio State University scientists are finding that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells.

Their research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Though the exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, chronic inflammation in the brain is believed to contribute to memory impairment.

Any new drug’s properties would resemble those of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive substance in the cannabis plant, but would not share its high-producing effects. THC joins nicotine, alcohol and caffeine as agents that, in moderation, have shown some protection against inflammation in the brain that might translate to better memory late in life.

“It’s not that everything immoral is good for the brain. It’s just that there are some substances that millions of people for thousands of years have used in billions of doses, and we’re noticing there’s a little signal above all the noise,” said Gary Wenk, professor of psychology at Ohio State and principal investigator on the research.

The scientists are now looking for a chemical that fills the appropriate receptors in the brain that do not cause a high. The difficulty is that if you find a chemical that fills a receptor you get all the effects of filling that receptor. Not just the effect you want. I think their search will be futile.

In any case to prevent memory loss - if you got 'em smoke 'em. In moderation.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Obama Recession

I was listening to Sean Hannity today and he is starting to call what is happening on Wall Street Today the Obama Recession. As of this post the DOW is at about 7,550 and oil is at around $49 a bbl. The Wall Street Journal explains the problem.

...investors are watching Congress and what they mainly hear are demands to raid the Treasury's $700 billion bank rescue fund for a mortgage bailout, or an auto bailout; or promises to spend several hundred billion dollars more under the guise of "fiscal stimulus." What Americans don't hear is anything that would encourage investment or risk-taking.

No doubt many Democrats figure nothing that happens before January 20 is on their watch, so they don't need to worry. But the deeper the economic fall, the harder the road back. The world could use a signal from Mr. Obama that he favors policies to put private capital back to work, not merely to grow the government.

What the markets also hate is uncertainty. And no one is quite sure what Obama is going to do. Would you invest in an industry if it was in line for a bail out? Probably, if it was a sure thing. You would get some return on the government money. However, no one knows what the government is planning. Auto bail out? No auto bail out? Who knows? This creates uncertainty. More uncertainty than usual. Too much uncertainty and investors park their money and wait for the dust to clear.

And what about his promise to raise taxes on the rich? Well if I was rich I'd sell all my investments and get the money out of the country before the Obama administration had a chance to grab the money. And if you look at what is happening on Wall Street that is exactly what appears to be happening. The tax year closes on 31 December. Expect the market to fall further. Maybe a lot further.

So what about the Obama economic team?

The three Treasury secretaries sparred on tax and spending policies. Mr. Paulson challenged Mr. Summers on Democrats' plan to raise taxes on wealthy individuals, arguing, "I don't think we're going to find that a tax increase is helpful here" and calling for lower corporate taxes to keep U.S. businesses competitive.

Mr. Summers emphasized cutting taxes on middle-income households, noting that such cuts could help to stimulate economic growth because middle-income households are more likely to spend tax breaks than are higher-income households.

Well sure. The middle will spend. The question is: who will invest? Without investment jobs dry up and under those circumstances the spending by the middle will go into paying down debt.

Which brings us to some recent research on the subject of stimulating the economy. It discusses how FDR's policy of hampering business greatly slowed the recovery.

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

So let us see. Does Obama want to punish capital? Yep. Does he want to enhance the power of labor? Yep. He will not do it the same way FDR did at least with respect to capital. I predict the net result will be the same. Fortunately Presidents are now limited to eight year terms. So there is a limit to the damage he can do. Unless he can get a repeal of the Presidential term limit amendment. I wouldn't put it past him to try.

Right Wing Progressives

Jonah Goldberg is discussing his book Liberal Fascismat Salon.

I don't have any problem with liberals or conservatives criticizing stuff that goes on in the popular culture ... [I]t's when you want to dragoon the state into these things, everything from hate crimes to these early interventions in childhood. You read "It Takes a Village" and Hillary [Clinton] declares that basically we're in a crisis from the moment we're born and that justifies the helping professions from breaking into the nuclear family at the earliest possible age.

You have a lot of this stuff on the right, I agree. [George W.] Bush had his marriage counseling stuff that he wanted to propose, I didn't like that. I think Ashcroft gets a very bad rap, but one of the things I did not like was him basically having this philosophy that since the federal government was an agent for a left-wing agenda that therefore it should be an agent for a right-wing agenda. I agree with you to that extent, that that stuff is bad, and it constitutes a kind of right-wing progressivism that I really do not like....

Well I don't like it either. But the progressives and the social conservatives had a long history together. Public schools, alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition. A history of failure. You know maybe the state is no better at solving social problems than it is at solving economic problems. Ya think?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Against The Nanny State

We have a contingent in America that wants to treat us all like children when it comes to economics and another contingent that wants to treat us like children when it comes to culture.

Two different kinds of nanny state. I'm against the nanny state.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

What Is A Fetus Worth?

I came across an interesting discussion of abortion at Admiral Quixote's Round Table. This is from the comments.

I spoke with my dh who did receive smicha (Orthodox) though he is not a practicing Rabbi; he learned the law as I have earlier stated; that if any harm came it was referring to the woman and her life, not to the fetus.

I also think the concept that a woman who had been judged guilty of a capital crime was executed even if she were pregnant, The life of the fetus was secondary to the pain and suffering of the woman forced to wait for her execution. That a woman condemned to death would be given more consideration for her emotional state than a fetus where there is no issue of guilt states a lot, imho, about the rights they would enjoy in terms of abortion.

Commenter Rachel Ann goes on to say that she would be willing to pay to save the life of a child who might be aborted if that is what it took. I think that is a much better answer than passing laws.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Jews And Partial Birth Abortion

Here is a bit of text that I think many of you will find very interesting.

The Jewish distinction (rooted in the original Hebrew text) between the life of the mother and the life of the child is emphasized in a striking text of the Mishnah (Ohalot 7:6):

"If a woman has difficulty in childbirth, the embryo within her should be dismembered limb by limb, because her life takes precedence over its life. Once its head or its greater part has emerged, it may not be touched, for we do not set aside one life for another."

This text seems especially remarkable because it refers to a procedure quite like what today is called "partial-birth abortion," and which is viewed with especial horror by abortion opponents. Even if one could be sympathetic about a first-trimester abortion when the embryo is still barely formed, the killing of a full-term fetus shortly before its birth seems abominable. And yet this is precisely the gory example which the Mishnah uses to clarify its position. As long as the fetus is still enclosed within the mother, it is in some sense a "limb" of the mother, and if the hard choice must be made between the life of the mother and the life of the fetus, the life of the mother takes precedence. However highly the fetus is regarded and however fully it has formed, it does not pass the threshold where it can be regarded as a "person" with equal legal standing to the mother until its head or the greater part of its body has emerged from her womb.

This Mishnah text makes a strong argument for the legal acceptability of abortion when it is necessary for the life of the mother, but the circumstances that will actually justify an abortion are not so clear. What is a "difficulty" in childbirth, and how great must the threat to the mother’s life be? What if the mother faces some serious physical injury because of the pregnancy or the childbirth, but her life itself is not in danger?

Maimonides (12th century) seemed to strictly limit the cause for abortion to a case where the mother’s life itself was threatened, likening the fetus to a "pursuer," one whom we are justified in killing because it is actively seeking to kill someone else. But most rabbis since Maimonides have not interpreted so narrowly. Most have agreed that serious physical injury to the mother is also grounds for abortion.

In fact, the prevailing position in halacha (Jewish law) today, though restrictive, is rather lenient. It is the position argued by former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ben Zion Uziel. He declared that abortion is permissible even for what he calls "a very thin reason," meaning that one should give broad latitude to how a woman interprets "difficulty" or "injury," or "life-threatening," and even allowing an abortion in certain circumstances of great emotional anguish where there is no physical danger to the mother. But how thin is "thin"? What about the case where the child is known to be physically or mentally defective? What about the regrets after consensual adultery? Does a woman’s shame or embarrassment at the consequences of her own actions justify the termination of a pregnancy? What about the woman whose education or career will be made difficult if she has a child to look after? Is the Jewish position simply abortion on demand?

Certainly Judaism never allows abortion for birth control purposes when having a child would be simply an inconvenience or embarrassment. But in practice there remains considerable disagreement among halachic authorities and among the various streams of Judaism concerning specific cases. For example, most Orthodox authorities do not permit abortion on the grounds that a fetus is severely defective. Conservative and Reform authorities would permit aborting a physically or mentally defective fetus.

Of course with the Jews, having no central authority since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, there are many contending schools of thought. In addition even when the Temple was in existence there was the oral or common law which modified the law handed down in the Torah. In fact the law was highly developed and it is where our common phrase "it depends on whose ox was gored" comes from.

What do I get from all this? That the various positions on abortion come out of religion and not some absolute rule that can be unequivocally applied and that the best thing the government can do is to stay out of the question and let the individual decide what is best.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Jewish Position On Abortion

I just found a most interesting document giving in layman's terms the Jewish position on abortion [pdf]. The document is authored by Rabbi Raymond A Zwerin and Rabbi Richard A. Shapiro. It is a very interesting document and only four pages long so it is well worth a read. It also provides a basis for deeper research. However, let me quote you the conclusion.

Due to the general leniency in matters of abortion, as well as a long standing Jewish insistence of the separation of religion and government in American life all four non-Orthodox Jewish movements - Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Humanist - are on record as opposing any governmental regulation of abortion. Moreover, many Orthodox authorities take the same position. What ever their opinion of abortion in any given situation, a vast majority of Jewish thinkers agree that decision making with respect to abortion must be left in the hands of the woman involved, her husband, her physician, and her rabbi. Out of this context in consonance with her Jewish heritage she can make a decision as she is permitted to do by the US Constitution.

Let me add that there is no definitive rule in Jewish law and decisions are made on a case by case basis taking into consideration the people involved, their personalities, their mental and physical health and other considerations (even the standing in the community i.e. such as serious loss of face that might imperil a woman's mental health in a case of adultery) according to the judgment of those involved. In all cases the fetus is considered the property of the woman and not an independent human being until it has at least partially exited the woman. Let me add that if the life of the woman is imperiled in the judgment of those involved abortion is mandatory. Such cases can include thoughts of suicide by the woman.

Now I understand my mothers insistence that I resist the abortion absolutists in the Republican Party.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Bailing Out Mr. Potatoe Head

Yeah. That is a funny spelling of potato. It is former Vice President Dan Quayle's trademark. Well Mr. Quayle is at it again. He is global investing chief of Cerberus Capital Management which owns Chrysler. And of course Chrysler wants in on the proposed auto bail out.

Let's assume that the powers in Washington -- the Bush team now, the Obama team soon -- deem GM too big to let fail. If so, it's also too big to be entrusted to the same people who have led it to its current, perilous state, and who are too tied to the past to create a different future.

In return for any direct government aid, the board and the management should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver -- someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical -- should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible.

That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others, and downsizing the company. After all that, the company can float new shares, with taxpayers getting some of the benefits. The same basic rules should apply to Ford and Chrysler.

These are radical steps, and they wouldn't avoid significant job losses. But there isn't much alternative besides simply letting GM collapse, which isn't politically viable. At least a government-appointed receiver would help assure car buyers that GM will be around, in some form, to honor warranties on its vehicles. It would help minimize losses to the government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

And what is one of GM's very big problems? Their Union.

The current economic crisis didn't cause the meltdown in Detroit. The car companies started losing billions of dollars several years ago when the economy was healthy and car sales stood at near-record levels. They complained that they were unfairly stuck with enormous "legacy costs," but those didn't just happen. For decades, the United Auto Workers union stoutly defended gold-plated medical benefits that virtually no one else had. UAW workers and retirees had no deductibles, copays or other facts of life in these United States.

Well the unions have a lot of clout with the incoming administration. Which may not be a good thing.

And too big to fail? Hmmm. Too politically connected to fail. And since we are speaking of politics Chrysler is in the thick of it.

As for Ford and Chrysler, if they want similar public assistance they should pay the same price. Wiping out existing shareholders would end the Ford family's control of Ford Motor. But keeping the family in the driver's seat wouldn't be an appropriate use of tax dollars. Nor is bailing out the principals of Cerberus, who include CEO Stephen Feinberg, Chairman John Snow, the former Treasury secretary, and global investing chief Dan Quayle, former vice president.

Government loan guarantees, with stringent strings attached and new management at the helm, helped save Chrysler in 1980. But it's now 2008, 35 years since the first oil shock put Japanese cars on the map in America. "Since the mid-Seventies," one Detroit manager recently told me, "I have sat through umpteen meetings describing how we had to beat the Japanese to survive. Thirty-five years later we are still trying to figure it out."

So the owners of Chrysler are loaded up with paid for political connections. You know this whole deal from top to bottom looks like Chicago politics and real estate deals with Tony Rezko. I think I detect a pattern here. And it is not one that gives any comfort. The money goes to the auto companies just like it went to Tony Rezko's housing rehab company and after a while the properties rehabbed fail any way. With the owners walking off with some very handsome fees. Well like they say in Chicago ubi est?

H/T Design News

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Uh Oh

The Dow closed below 8,000 today and Nymex Crude Oil Futures below $53. And the outlook for the semiconductor industry is not so hot either.

“In discussions with semiconductor suppliers, equipment OEMs, and contract manufacturers, a story of fear and great uncertainty has emerged,” iSuppli's Ford said. “As dramatic declines in consumer and industrial confidence began developing in late summer, order cancellations began to grow and in many cases, slowing orders degenerated into a complete stop in orders as players across the supply chain moved to extremely cautious positions in the face of increasingly negative economic news.”

The psychology of many industry players now has shifted to a "survival mentality," iSuppli said, with cost-control and cash-conservation considerations driving decisions.

According to iSuppli, "it is now clear that the semiconductor industry is already in decline and the remaining questions are how deep and how long this decline will extend in 2009 and possibly 2010."

Since most recoveries start out as "jobless" recoveries and that "jobless" phase lasts from 2 to 6 years depending on the severity of the downturn it is more than likely that we will not see unemployment decline until 2012 at the earliest.

The one bright spot for consumers and manufacturing is the decline in the price of oil. For oil producers? Well they are going to be hurting.

I have a friend who cashed out of the market when the Dow was 14,000. He told his broker SELL. His broker said, "Are you nuts?" Evidently not.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Killing The Republican Party

A comment piece (I'm not going to get the hackles up before the discussion starts by giving the name of the author) in The Washington Post talks about long term Republican prospects. It is not pretty.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.

But they need those votes!

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Well that is incendiary. Or inartfully phrased as I would put it but, it is true.

Here's the deal, 'pubbies: Howard Dean was right.

It isn't that culture doesn't matter. It does. But preaching to the choir produces no converts. And shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party -- and conservatism with it -- eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs.

Religious conservatives become defensive at any suggestion that they've had something to do with the GOP's erosion. And, though the recent Democratic sweep can be attributed in large part to a referendum on Bush and the failing economy, three long-term trends identified by Emory University's Alan Abramowitz have been devastating to the Republican Party: increasing racial diversity, declining marriage rates and changes in religious beliefs.

Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting.

With the exception of Miss Alaska, of course.

From LGF comes an excerpt from the above Washington Post piece that shows the hand writing on the wall:

...like it or not, we are a diverse nation, no longer predominantly white and Christian. The change Barack Obama promised has already occurred, which is why he won.

Among Jewish voters, 78 percent went for Obama. Sixty-six percent of under-30 voters did likewise. Forty-five percent of voters ages 18-29 are Democrats compared to just 26 percent Republican; in 2000, party affiliation was split almost evenly.

The young will get older, of course. Most eventually will marry, and some will become their parents. But nonwhites won't get whiter. And the nonreligious won't get religion through external conversion. It doesn't work that way.

Given those facts, the future of the GOP looks dim and dimmer if it stays the present course. Either the Republican Party needs a new base -- or the nation may need a new party.

I keep telling my socon friends that Palin didn't even mention any of the issues dear to the hearts of social conservatives as Governor of Alaska and she is as socially conservative as they come. No one knew her position until she got the VP nod. Hence her 80% approval rating.

That is the way forward.

Let me add a couple of other points. Spending like fools. Corruption. And an inability to articulate sound economics or any thing else for that matter are killers as well. We need sound positions and some one who can give the message. And we need to distance ourselves as a party from issues that are cringe making among those not in the base. Because the base is shrinking. And even if it wasn't you can't win elections with the base alone.

I ♥ Sarah'cudda

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The House Negro

It seems like Mr. Obama can't buy a friend.

The No. 2 leader in Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is dishing out criticism and offering a warning to United States President-Elect, Barack Obama. A new audio message has surfaced online where Al-Zawahiri calls Obama a dishonorable man.

According to the SITE Institute, a U.S. organization that monitors Islamic militant groups, Al-Zawahiri said Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X. He also called the President-Elect a “house negro,” a degrading term meaning he serves White people.

Wait a minute. Didn't he attend for 20 years a Black Liberation Church that was very friendly with the Nation of Islam? Yes he did. The guy just can't get a break. No matter what he does it is wrong. I guess he is already in the running for Worst President Ever™ and his term hasn't even started. Me? I hope he is ready to have his supporters turn on him. Because no one can possibly meet the expectations he has raised.

I support him. Why you ask? He hasn't done anything yet. Lucky for him.

H/T LGF

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A New T Shirt

Get ready for the new administration. Click on the link and see what I'm talking about.

It is not only good advice. It is funny.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Side Effects

Why are so many blacks aborting in comparison to the rest of the population? It is due to a lack of fathers. And why is there a lack of fathers? Well black men have been disproportionately swept up in the criminal justice system due to the drug war.

Demographics

If socons were really serious about reducing the abortion rate significantly they would be out front in calling for an end to the drug war. Crickets.

The disasters pile up and yet the faith in government solutions persists. And of course because of unintended consequences more government is required.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Government So Inept It Couldn't Make A Profit On A Whorehouse

It seems our government has a problem running businesses. Even businesses that should be a guaranteed profit without significant expertise required. Like selling liquor and sex.

Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the entire economy of our country to same guys who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze?

So now the government is going to run car companies? My bet? There will soon be cars, some without tires, some without steering wheels, and others without engines piled up in warehouses awaiting buyers who are sure to come. Some day.

They will get sold as government surplus and some one will make a profit getting them in running order and selling them to customers who want to buy them at a price they can afford. So let me ask you, if the people in the auto business in Detroit are so smart, workers and management, why can't they do it without government help? After all they have only had 30 years since the last bail out to figure it out.

Well OK. Cars are hard and whorehouses are unusual. Maybe the government would be better with medical services.

H/T Roger Kimball

Cross Posted at Classical Values

What Is Wrong With Detroit?

Here is a look at why the Detroit auto industry is going down in flames.

I'm a huge fan of the US auto industry. I'm one of the last people on my street who still buys American cars (Pontiac). But I'm extremely concerned. And given what's been going on, I am surprised at the engineering priorities in Detroit. I had the privilege last week of serving as a judge for the annual Society of Plastics Engineers Automotive Innovation competition. Unlike some design competitions, this one is a very big deal, and has been around a long time. Top engineering managers (mostly from the Detroit area) show what they consider to be their most important plastic designs in new production models. Winners are announced at a huge banquet (Nov. 20 this year) and the top brass show up because of the high quality of the SPE competition. It's truly the Oscars for automotive plastics.

I didn't get a sense of the urgency in Detroit as I listened to this year's presentations. It seemed like business as usual.

For starters, there were only two finalists in the environmental category. In contrast, "body interior" had five. Ford has begun an impressive campaign to replace a small percentage (5 to 12) of oil-based polyols in foams with a soy-based alternate. GM is using recycled content in an air inlet panel in the Chevy Trailblazer, diverting 445,000 pounds of plastic from landfills. Is this all the better we can do? What about some efforts to use blends of bioplastics to reduce our carbon footprint? What about game-changing efforts to reduce weight?

Let me see. 445,000 pounds is about 222 tons. That is not a very big deal. And of course that amount assumes a certain sales number for the vehicles the plastic parts will be used in. So given the huge sales drop Detroit is currently experiencing the number is no doubt optimistic.

One thing Detroit is pretty good at developing concept cars. Research vehicles full of innovations. What they are not good at is turning those ideas into products.

There is a lot of "we've always done it this way" in American auto manufacturing. And yet our government wants to dump $25 billion into this failed culture? I think a better idea is to let them fail. The resources could then be redeployed to companies that actually want to produce break through vehicles.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Buckypaper

Design News reports on a new material now in the research phase that is 10 times lighter than steel and 500 times stronger.

You’ve heard of airplanes made from carbon-fiber reinforced (CFRP) plastics. What’s next? Well there’s a sheet of carbon nanotubes—called “buckypaper”—that may create structures for another generation of airplanes. Carbon nanotubes are already being used as a filler in plastics, but only in loadings of 2 or 3 percent. Buckypaper would use significantly higher loadings. The idea of nanotube reinforced composites is not new. Nanotubes are notorious because they clump and tangle, and no one has been able to produce nanotube composites outside of a lab. Researchers hope that may be changing. Rice University in Houston, for example, has been awarded three patents that advance the technology. Lockheed Martin has been awarded another.

Professor Ben Wang and other scientists at Florida State University say they may have the answer. Exposing the tubes to high magnetism lines up the nanotubes in the same direction. Another breakthrough: creating some roughness on the surface so the nanutubes can bond to a matrix material, such as epoxy. The nanotubes in effect take the place of carbon fiber in a composite construction.

You can make extremely thin sheets with the nanotubes—thus use of the word paper. “Bucky” comes from Buckminster Fuller who envisioned shapes now called fullerenes. Stack up hundreds of sheets of the “paper” and you have a composite material that is 10 times lighter but 500 times stronger than a similar sized piece of carbon steel sheet. It’s easy to see why Lockheed Martin is interested. Unlike CFRP, carbon nanotubes conduct electricity like copper or silicon and disperse heat like steel or brass.

This may usher in an age of economical supersonic transports among other possibilities. Another possibility is that it could make low cost battery only cars feasible.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Tom Ligon To Talk About IEC Fusion Developments

Tom will be at the Philcon Science Fiction convention this coming Saturday, 22 Nov 2008. You can read what Tom has to say about his upcoming talk at Talk Polywell.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Why Is Mike Huckabee A Republican?

The relevant bit is about 9 minutes into the video.

You can see the rest of the videos at Jonah

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Why Did Social Conservatives Ally With Progressives?

Why Did Social Conservative Ally With Progressives?

Please discuss in the comments.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Jonah

Part 2
Part 3A
Part 3B
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Transcript of all six parts.

Read the book: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

H/T Ted Belman

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Articulating Economics

It has come to my attention that Governor Palin needs to improve her economic education. Please use these Amazon links to send her Free to Chooseand The Road to Serfdomto:

Governor Sarah Palin
550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 1700
Anchorage, AK 99501

Socialism

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, its inherent value is the equal sharing of misery.” - Winston Churchill

Did Obama Register For Selective Service

Read this and let me know what you think.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

What I Like About Palin

You know what I like about Sarah Palin? With respect to social conservatism she leads by example without any need for the heavy hand of government. And with respect to economic conservatism she puts her principles into action.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Iran - The Melt Down

Iran is in a world of hurt according to Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli in an article published by The Middle East Media Research Institute on October 30th.

At its two-hour emergency meeting in Vienna on October 24, the Organization of Oil Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to lower crude production by 1.5 million barrels/day (b/d), effective next month.

The reduction in production was OPEC's response to plummeting crude prices, which peaked at $147 a barrel last July but are now hovering in the mid-$60s a barrel, and appear to be trending downward.

Trending lower is right. The current trading range is $55 a bbl. and I have seen it as low, in trading, as $50 a bbl. And this is just the beginning of the economic collapse. So I expect to see prices going even lower with further production cuts as well. OPEC has had problems in the past maintaining supply discipline when prices are low. The temptation to cheat and try to squeeze out some extra dollars at the expense of the other members is great. Generally the Saudis maintain discipline and the rest of OPEC not so much.

So where is Iran in all this? They are definitely price hawks and here is why:

A recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suggested that in order for Iran to balance its budget, the price of crude oil must not fall below $95 a barrel. The equivalent figure for Saudi Arabia is $50 per barrel and for the United Arab Emirates and Qatar even lower. One should keep in mind that Iranian oil sells at a discount compared with the higher quality benchmark West Texas Intermediate.

Countries whose economies rely on the production of natural resources, such as oil, generally establish a stabilization fund for retaining windfall profits, such as when oil went over $140 a barrel, to be used in time of economic shocks, such as a sharp decline in the price of the commodity.

Iran has established such a fund to be managed by its central bank. It would appear, however, that President Ahmadinejad has dipped into the till too often, causing the departure/resignation of two consecutive governors of Iran's central bank in a little over one year. The assets of the Iranian stabilization fund are kept secret; however, a member of the Majlis (parliament) recently revealed that it has a balance of $7 billion, which would just about cover the cost of imported gasoline for one year.

And why is Iran importing gasoline? It lacks refining capacity for one. One reason for that is that it subsidies gasoline. Gasoline in Iran costs under 50¢ a gallon. Another reason it lacks refining capacity is that instead of spending on infrastructure, Iran prefers to spend its money on foreign adventures. Supporting Hizballah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and various insurgent groups in Iraq - among others. That is why Ahmadinejad has to dip into the till. Wars cost money. It appears that they may become more costly than Iran can afford at least long term.

And how about Iran's economy? It is not doing well internally.

Oil revenues comprise 80% of Iran's foreign exchange. If oil prices continue to plummet in the face of the world's worsening economic crisis - a crisis which may be just in its early stages - Iran, unlike the Arab oil-producers with hefty sovereign wealth funds to cushion their national economies, could face politically destabilizing events that could threaten the survival of the regime.

On the economic front, Iran could resort to terminating oil subsidies and restricting the import of non-essential consumer goods to conserve foreign currency. In fact, news from Iran last week suggests that both steps are under consideration.

Iran may also seek to reintroduce a 3% value-added tax (VAT) which it was forced to suspend after shopkeepers in the politically influential bazaars closed shops in protest, arguing that the VAT would further aggravate inflation which reached 29.6% in October.

The inflation rate is a problem. It is about 2.2% a month, barely tolerable for those living from hand to mouth. However, rates like that discourage investment in production capacity which ultimately makes inflation rise all the faster. A business would have to have a 40% or 50% rate of return in a year to make investments worthwhile in that kind of climate. And even that is problematic if the government decides to run the printing presses faster. What does the money get invested in? Currencies that are inflating at a much lower rate for one. Tangible goods for another. One thing you do not do in a situation like that is park your money in a bank.

What do countries which have a history of foreign adventures typically do in a situation like that? That is pretty obvious. They engage in foreign adventures. One foreign adventure they might try is cranking up their insurgent cadres in Iraq. However, they would face an ever strengthening American trained Iraqi Army. The army that cleaned the clock of Iran's cats paw, the Mahdi "Army", in Basra this past year. In addition Iran needs its Army to maintain internal order so using it for an attack on Iraq is probably not a good idea. Not to mention that such an attack would gather the wrath of the American Army.

So really, they are stuck between a rock an a hard place. It will be interesting to watch while the rest of the world goes into an economic meltdown.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Big Loss Of Power

I'm not talking elections here. I'm talking about my internet service. My isp lost power at about 8 AM local time and it has just come back at about 11PM local time.

I had a post ready to publish and a few more in mind that required some research.

Sorry for the interruption.

Oh yeah. This wasn't some small local provider. It was Comcast. They need to get some batteries and a backup generator for their plant. Like the telcos.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Goldwater Republicans

Can the Republican Party become the Party of Goldwater/Reagan again?

Governmentium

Here is a funny bit I found in the comments at No Quarter.

==

The Heaviest Element Known to Science

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neut rons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration.
This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Leaving It To Obama

Commenter Fritz in a reply to a comment by Edgar at Older Protestant White Guys had this to say about the "leave us alone" crowd in the last election.

Edgar, you state that the "leave us alone" crowd are at fault for Obama's victory. OK. I'm one of the "leave us alone" crowd and, while I did not vote for Obama, I certainly was not going to vote for McCain. As far as I could see, he was much less in favor of leaving me alone than Obama.

Social conservatives have to come up with compelling reasons for those of us who are not social conservatives to, well, put up with them anymore. And it will have to be a damn good reason because I for one am tired of them. I want a small and limited government. Social conservatives want a large and annoying one. And as long as that is true, we had might as well have socialists in charge because, for the most part (i.e. except for gun control), they are less obnoxious.

While I did vote for McCain I can definitely understand the sentiment. In fact if National Defense had not been my prime issue I might have done exactly the same thing. The smugness of social conservatives is a huge turn off for me. As a member of the "leave us alone" crowd I'm tired of it. I'm tired of "we know what is right" as an answer to every challenge of their policies instead of reasoned discussion. And God forbid you hit one of their hot buttons like the Drug War or abortion. They go stark raving loony.

Of course the crowd coming in is no better when it comes to their hot issues and I'm tired of them already. As a commenter pointed out in another post - the only people who generally want to get into government are people who want to do something. In fact they want to do a lot of somethings. All very expensive and producing results the opposite of those claimed. That fits in very well with the first rule of politics. Get elected and once elected betray those who elected you.

You know maybe there is some truth to the old wisdom about the general crookedness of politicians and the low morals of actors. The nice thing about actors though is that you don't have to buy a ticket to the show. With politicians there is no way to opt out. They have a captive audience so to speak.

I have a few words for their kind:

Leave Us Alone

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Twenty-Five Million

What is twenty-five million all about? It is the number of people who have used marijuana in any given year.

Since 1990 a reported 20.5 million people have used marijuana in an average year. From 1990 to 2005 annual usage was at its greatest reported level in 2002 at 25.9 million and its lowest level in 17.4 million in 1992. (See Table 1.)

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health and its predecessor, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, are among the most professional, sophisticated, and reliable population surveys conducted. Nonetheless, for both practical and methodological reasons they do not provide a complete accounting of drug use in the United States. For example in 2002 the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) revised its data collection procedures and increased their estimate of annual marijuana users from 21.1 million (as reported in the 2001 survey results) to 25.7 million.(9) NSDUH is a very extensive survey, and in 2002 respondents were paid to complete the entire survey. While this improved data collection, it also calls attention to incomplete data collection in prior years. At best, NSDUH provides data on the minimum number of drug users in the country.

A report by ONDCP on drug consumption in the United States includes this explanation why surveys likely underreport drug use:

"These estimates may be low. Users are likely to under report socially disapproved behaviors, even when those behaviors are legal. They would seem to have even more incentive to under report illegal behaviors. Given under reporting rates for tobacco and alcohol use, it might be reasonable to inflate marijuana estimates by about one-third."(10)

So let me see what that means for politics. The vote totals for this last Presidential election are 66,316,572 for Obama and 58,013,719 for McCain. A difference of 8,302,853. So let us be conservative about pot smokers and say there are 25 million of them. How many would be needed to tie the popular vote? About 1/3rd. If most of them vote Democrat (as popular perception would have it) even less - if they switch to the Republicans.

My question is - why isn't any party actively courting their vote?

Of course the Republicans can't do it. They have a Culture War to maintain. And the Democrats? It seems like a wink and a nod is good enough while they prosecute the Drug War even more fiercely than the Republicans.

A party that went after that vote in the current climate need not go whole hog. It could make Medical Marijuana a states rights issue. It seems perfect for a Republican Party that stands for Cultural and Economic Liberty. Or heck even a Democrat Party that only stands for cultural Liberty.

Of course such a move might not be enough to win Presidential elections, after all that depends on the votes in individual States. Still, if the Republicans adopted it it would prove their bonafides in moving to end the Culture War.

And how about that map of the States just linked to above? Eleven States have decriminalized Marijuana use. One of them is Mississippi. Another is Alaska. Thirteen have medical marijuana laws. (I did a quick count so some one correct me if I made an error). The trends are obvious. And as they say in day trading - the trend is your friend.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Man At Ease

Click for larger image.
The man at ease? Bush. The man who looks totally afraid? Obama.

It looks to me like he is going to have to make a lot of decisions he is not ready for. Not surprising for a man who voted "present" 130 times in the Illinois Senate.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

We Need Some Names

In the spirit of biPartisanship we are going to need some good nicknames for That One. Now some or all of these may not be the best but I want to start the ball rolling. Leave your ideas in the comments. I'll do another post if warranted on the really good ones.

President ACORN
President Fannie
President Hussein
President Marx (Groucho or Karl - makes no difference)
President Zero shortened to P∅ or PZero
President Meltdown
The Joke
The Fraud
O'Bummer
Leader Of The Cult - shortened to O'Cult for his followers
ObamAss

and of course the ever popular WPE - Worst President Ever. I also like DTR - Dumber Than Rocks. And WFA is a definite possibility - Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. NMP - Not My President could work.

Of course Michelle will need one as well and I think it is obvious based on her inauguration dress what that should be:

The Black Widow

Based on her temperament:

Grumpy or The Grump

Besides those I'm sure events will suggest others. The tone I want to strike is more ridicule than hate. But if a little hate creeps in? I think it is only fair.

Now how about his administration?

The Chicago Mob
Crooks and Clowns

Have at it readers.

Support Obama

The election is over, let's move on.

I, for one, fully intend to give Obama the same level of support Bush got for the last 8 years.

From the comments at US News revised slightly.

From Drug War To Real War

Yes. The War On Drugs has turned into a shooting war. In fact it has been a shooting war for quite some time in Afghanistan. So how is that working out? Not well. Here is a bit from 2007 explaining what the DEA is doing in Afghanistan.

Working first with the D.E.A. and then with the State Department, Wankel helped create the Afghan Eradication Force, with troops of the Afghan National Police drawn from the Ministry of the Interior. Last year, an estimated four hundred thousand acres of opium poppies were planted in Afghanistan, a fifty-nine-per-cent increase over the previous year. Afghanistan now supplies more than ninety-two per cent of the world’s opium, the raw ingredient of heroin. More than half the country’s annual G.D.P., some $3.1 billion, is believed to come from the drug trade, and narcotics officials believe that part of the money is funding the Taliban insurgency.

Wankel was in Uruzgan to oversee a poppy-eradication campaign—the first major effort to disrupt the harvest in the province. He had brought with him a two-hundred-and-fifty-man A.E.F. contingent, including forty-odd contractors supplied by DynCorp, a Virginia-based private military company, which has a number of large U.S. government contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world. In Colombia, DynCorp helps implement the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia, to eradicate coca. The A.E.F.’s armed convoy had taken three days to drive from Kabul, and had set up a base on a plateau above a deep wadi. With open land all around, it was a good spot to ward off attacks.

Much of Uruzgan is classified by the United Nations as “Extreme Risk / Hostile Environment.” The Taliban effectively controls four-fifths of the province, which, like the movement, is primarily Pashtun. Mullah Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, was born and raised here, as were three other founders of the movement. The Taliban’s seizure of Tirin Kot, in the mid-nineties, was a key stepping stone in their march to Kabul, and their loss of the town in 2001 was a decisive moment in their fall. The Taliban have made a concerted comeback in the past two years; they are the de-facto authority in much of the Pashtun south and east, and have recently spread their violence to parts of the north as well. The debilitating and corrupting effects of the opium trade on the government of President Hamid Karzai is a significant factor in the Taliban’s revival.

A fifty nine per cent increase? I'd say the drug warriors were making their usual progress. Backwards. The more they fight the stronger their enemies become. Say, haven't I heard something like that before? I'm sure I have.

Let us get a slightly less pro DEA look at what is going on. Here is something from The Guardian in 2001. It is the story of a smuggler.

"The cars come back and forth. I just take it to Mazar and sell it on to the guys who come in cars from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. I do it twice a month," Zafir explains.

From there the contraband wends its way up into the Urals in Russia, takes a left turn, heads for Moscow and St Petersburg before being smuggled onward to western Europe - 90% of the heroin injected in Frankfurt, Barcelona or Edinburgh originates in Taliban Afghanistan.

"Our dear friends, the Taliban commanders, they take the stuff from Kandahar and Jalalabad to Kabul," says Zafir, an alias agreed to protect his identity. "We take it on to Mazar and to Kunduz."

For the past five years Zafir has been a bit-player in the lucrative rackets that make millionaires of Afghan warlords and keep the Taliban fighters in guns, food, and fuel. "I've been working in the heroin business since the Taliban seized Kabul [in 1996]."

Brown-haired, blue-eyed in a turban, pale pink tunic, and black trainers, Zafir sweats anxiously as he discloses the details of the Taliban's heroin trafficking after agreeing to meet at a quiet spot in the mountains north-west of Kabul.

So there it is. Opium growing and heroin smuggling are financing the Taliban. So what makes a pile of vegetables worth its weight in gold? Prohibition. Those DEA guys are economic and military geniuses. Did I mention that they managed to increase the area of poppy growth in Afghanistan by 59%? Yes I did.

OK it is not just America and the DEA. NATO is in on the act.

NATO is fighting a war to eradicate opium from Afghanistan. Allegedly, the goals this time around are different. According to the British government, Afghanistan's illicit drug trade poses the "gravest threat to the long term security, development, and effective governance of Afghanistan," particularly since the Taliban is believed to be the biggest beneficiary of drug sales. Convinced that this time they are doing the morally right thing, Western governments are spending hundreds of millions of dollars bulldozing poppy fields, building up counternarcotics squads and financing alternative crops in Afghanistan. Chemical spraying may begin as early as this spring. But in retrospect, might history not judge this war to be every bit as destructive and wasteful as the original Opium Wars?

Of course it isn't fashionable right now to argue for any legal form of opiate cultivation. But look at the evidence. At the moment, Afghanistan's opium exports account for somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the country's gross domestic product, depending on whose statistics you believe. The biggest producers are in the southern provinces where the Taliban is at its strongest, and no wonder: Every time a poppy field is destroyed, a poor person becomes poorer -- and more likely to support the Taliban against the Western forces who wrecked his crops. Yet little changes: The amount of land dedicated to poppy production grew last year by more than 60 percent, as The Post reported last month.

So by being a direct instrument of the destruction of people's livelihoods we are making enemies? Who would have guessed that? Why it goes completely counter to DEA logic. Keeping people from feeding their families is supposed to make friends. And they should be eternally grateful. What is wrong with those people? Don't they know Americans and Europeans are their friends? The ingrates.

It seems as if all this effort to recruit people for the Taliban has put the war in Afghanistan in dire straights. (cue up Money For Nothing)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- A classified United States' review of its Afghanistan policies is likely to conclude the violence-torn country is in a dire situation, sources say.

With violence up 543 percent, opium poppy cultivation soaring and public support for U.S. intervention dwindling, unnamed sources told CNN Saturday the report's assessment of Afghanistan's future prospects will be grim.

The report, led by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute of the U.S. National Security Council and including input from 24 government agencies, is expected conclude that even if U.S. President-elect Barack Obama follows through immediately on his campaign pledge to beef up American forces in Afghanistan, the moves will likely come too late to fight an expected spring offensive by Taliban insurgents, CNN said.

Well that is optimistic.

So does any one have any idea about what to do? Yes. Soldiers. British soldiers.

British military commanders in Afghanistan have privately condemned plans to use Helmand as the launch pad for Nato's controversial new anti-narcotics policy, The Independent has been told.

British forces have avoided getting involved in anti-drugs operations until now. They fear the new operation will create another tier of enemies, alongside the Taliban, among traffickers and poppy farmers. However, the recent Nato summit in Budapest agreed, on US insistence, to extend the Afghan mission to include attacking the narcotics trade.

Them Americans are brilliant. I'll bet they get their advice from the DEA. Did I mention that DEA efforts increased the acreage devoted to poppies by 59%?

So how about some more details about how things are going in Afghanistan.

The US and NATO military commanders who till recent were riding on a high horse have suddenly become pessimistic and some have given demoralising statements. It seems that they have begun to see the obtaining ground realities more objectively and have realised that victory through use of force is not possible. They have appreciated that the Afghan Taliban have become too formidable a force and cannot be defeated militarily.

And the spring offensive will start up soon after Obama takes office. And what was the one war Obama promised to win? Afghanistan. Heh. Heh. Heh. He picked the wrong war.

And what is one of the key elements in the failure? I'm sure you have heard this before. But just for the sake of repetition here goes.

Afghanistan has turned into a narcotics state, which is now producing about 90% of the world opium; besides others the Taliban are making good use of opium money to fund their insurgency.

How unexpected.

That is Afghanistan. How about a little closer to home? Mexico. It seems that Mexico is having a few drug problems too.

Mexico in some ways is the most worrying place in the Western hemisphere. A low-level civil war between the drug cartels and the federal government has been fought over the past two years, and the cartels are winning. Senior Mexican officials charged with suppression of the cartels have been moving their families quietly out of the country.

Wow. A narco state on our very own border. I wonder how the DEA never anticipated that. No doubt a failure of intelligence. Of the brains kind.

So what is the internal state of Mexico? It looks like there will soon be a civil war too keep the Mexicans occupied. That should be some fun.

More than 1,100 people have been slaughtered in a blood bath of drug-related violence in one city just south of the U.S.-Mexico border this year – that's nearly four victims each day – and some say it is just part of a large crisis that is will soon spill over the border.

"The U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory for Americans who visit Mexico, citing Ciudad Juarez as a hotbed of criminal activity. A large Mexican metropolis in Chihuahua State bordering Texas, Juarez is Mexico's deadliest narcotics-war zone with two criminal gangs fighting for power – over city streets and drug-smuggling routes into the United States.

"The State Department is warning U.S. citizens of escalating crime along the border, stating that 1,600 cars were stolen in Juarez in July alone. Public shootouts, muggings, murders and bank robberies are rampant, and Mexican criminals harass U.S. travelers along border regions."

Cold blooded murder, public shoot outs, bank robberies, muggings, drug trafficking, and car thefts are common place in this cesspool.

Cue up Bob Dylan.

So how about a look at some of the recent violence? It is not pretty.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Twenty three died in attacks in northern Mexico in the past two days, officials said, as the United States warned its citizens to increase vigilance when traveling south of the border.

Twelve died in northwestern Baja California State, mostly in the volatile border city of Tijuana, and 11 were killed in Chihuahua, further east.

Border areas where rival drug cartels are battling over key routes into the United States are among the worst hit in escalating violence across Mexico this year in which almost 3,500 have died, including civilians.

And it only gets uglier.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — A beheaded man was hung from an overpass Thursday, a gruesome display even for this northern border city long used to drug-related violence.

Shortly after the grisly sighting about 5 a.m., police found the victim's head in a black bag in a nearby plaza, said state police spokesman Alejandro Pariente.

Pariente said the body was wearing black jeans, a red T-shirt and white sneakers, and was handcuffed. A banner apparently directed at rival drug-gang members was hung next to the corpse.

The victim's father identified the 23-year-old man.

Elsewhere, masked men gunned down two police officers in a convenience store in Chihuahua City, the capital of Chihuahua state, where Juarez is located, said Eduardo Esparza, spokesman for the state attorney general's office. After the killing Wednesday evening, assailants left a toy pig next to the bodies. Two shoppers also were wounded.

On Tuesday, a man wearing a pig mask was found hung in a residence in Ciudad Juarez. Near the body was a message threatening to do the same to others. Police believe the message was from drug gangs.

Swell. Just swell.

There is only one way to win this. Surrender you fools. The Drug War is going to destroy America if you don't. End Drug Prohibition Now. Any chance of that? No. Obama used cocaine and pot as a youth. Who would listen to an ex-druggie? The only way he could do anything is if the call to end it was bipartisan. I rate the odds of that as slim and none. Or maybe slimmer than none. We love our prohibitions in America. Besides don't criminals deserve to earn a living too? According to current policy: Yes They Do.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Older Protestant White Guys

Norman Ornstein discusses the hill Republicans have to climb to get back into power.

In so many respects -- culturally, ethnically, sociologically, internationally -- the election of Barack Obama has altered the landscape. It also has changed the political terrain, making the path for Republicans to return to majority status in the electorate daunting -- an uphill climb akin to scaling Mt. Everest. Without pitons.

The party certainly has come a long way since Ronald Reagan's landslide in 1980. So what does the party have left in terms of voters?

Most ominous for the GOP is what has been happening with younger voters. As a share of the electorate, 18- to 29-year-olds grew only slightly, from 17% to 18%. But they grew in terms of numbers of voters by more than 2.2 million (perhaps up to 4.5 million) and gave 66% of their votes to Obama. Partisan identity tends to crystallize in this age range. If Obama succeeds over the next four or eight years, these voters may carry their Democratic identity through their lifetimes. For Republicans, the danger is that their only reliable voting bloc may remain older white guys. Make that older Protestant white guys. Ouch.

Well that does not look very promising. So who has the party lost? It lost the fiscal conservatives due to profligate spending. It has also lost the socially liberal due to the pandering to the concerns of the Protestant white guys.

Republicans need to be more than just the only other option on the ballot in four years. They must find a message -- be it a more refined compassionate conservativism, the folksy populism of Mike Huckabee or even a fiscally conservative/environmentally conservationist fusion -- that speaks to the segments of the electorate that are growing. And then they need a leader to deliver it. At this early date after a dramatic election, there is no sign they have either.

I don't know that an environmentalism that is determined to wreck the economy is a sound move.

So lets look at the Democrat's coalition and see if we can figure out the problem. Who are they? Blacks, Gays, Jews, Catholics, pro-abortion folks, illegal drug users. There are more but there are enough there to make my point. It seems like a very disparate group with nothing in common. I mean what do pro abortion people have in common with Catholics? It is pretty simple really. These groups have all, in the last 100 years or so been victims of those Protestant white guys. All you have to do is to look at the electoral map of 2008. What does the Republican Party have left? Basically they have the Old South. Home of those Older Protestant white guys. And if you look at the map closely the Democrats have even been making inroads into the home territory of the older Protestant white guys. Not a happy prospect for the future.

Here is what one academic author has to say about authoritarianism in the South.

White Southerners, always hegemonic in defining the region’s history, politics and culture, frequently demonstrate, and have demonstrated, strikingly strong resistance to diversity. While Southern white party loyalties have switched from majority Democratic to majority Republican, intolerance of difference appears woven into the region’s political and social fabric, more so than in other regions. This observation draws substantial support from historical studies (Goldfield 2002), and other research examining specific elements of Southern culture, i.e. the Southern culture of honor (Nisbett and Cohen 1996), Southern Baptist and other evangelical Protestant religious traditions (Rosenberg 1989; Smith 1997; Green et al. 2003)

And as that resistance to diversity finally declines so does party loyalty.

So what is the way forward? Sarah Palin. Why her? She represents a new strain of deeply devout Protestant evangelical. The people of Alaska didn't even know her religious affiliation until this election. She did not practice the intolerance of those old Protestant white guys. No one had a clue about her stance on abortion. And that is a big clue. Basically she was fiscally conservative and socially moderate. In other words a libertarian. No surprise there. She comes from Alaska, the most libertarian state in the nation.

She represents a rebirth of the Leave Us Alone Coalition. About time.

H/T Hot Air

Cross Posted at Classical Values

What Is The Democrat Party?

The Democrat Party is a coalition of the oppressed and formerly oppressed Americans.

And who was doing the oppressing? Social conservatives of the Protestant variety.

Here is one example dealing with the public schools.

Separate Roman Catholic and Jewish schools were established in the mid-nineteenth century, first in New York City, and later across the country. This was in response to the overly anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish positions presented by most textbooks used in public schools throughout the nation, in the interest of promoting Protestant homogamy throughout the United States.

Until the Republican Party does something about being identified with oppressors it will be in a world of hurt.

My suggestion? Champion marijuana legalization. It would show that the party stands not only for Economic Liberty but also Cultural Liberty.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Leave Us Alone Coalition

Foobarista of foobarista left a comment at my post Republicans Stayed Home. This is what foo had to say:

The reason McCain lost is the Republicans lost the "Leave Me Aloners".

The problem was that small-government Republicans got swept aside by those who got used to the comforts of Washington. "Compassionate Conservatism" didn't help. Even people like me, who thought the WoT - including Iraq - were necessary had a hard time dealing with Bush's general incompetence in all things domestic.

He kept Congress funding Iraq by rolling over on everything else, which will likely end up being far more expensive to the country than the war itself, both in terms of government size and helping get Obama elected.

Now, given the choice between social-con big government and live & let live big government, any who isn't a bible-thumper chose the latter. (although I personally voted for McCain since WoT is a "voting issue" for me)

Now, the biggest danger for Republicans is to go for the Mike Huckabee "God, Guns & Butter" strategy, which will leave the large Leave-Me-Alone coalition in the Democrat camp for lack of anywhere else to go.

Obama may still overreach with his "communitarian" stuff like mandatory "volunteerism", etc and drive the Leave-Me-Aloners away, but I suspect he's smarter than that.

That describes my relationship to the Republicans to a T. It is really sad that there is no Leave Me Alone Party in America. I think it might get a few votes.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Republicans Stayed Home

So I'm trying to figure out why the Republicans lost. And I go back to one of the stats guys who misinformed me. Yeah I know. But he is an honest guy and is trying to figure out what his error was. Here is what Paul Marston has to say:

As usual, the media has missed the huge story of this election. Their story is that Obama registered huge masses of new supporters and got them to the polls. At first, that was what I thought, but that is not the key factor. I was expecting the highest percentage turnout in 100 years amounting to 130,000,000 voters, but instead as of 5:00 PM EDT, 121,146,964 people voted for Obama or McCain. In 2004, 121,069,054 people voted for Bush or Kerry. Hence in a hotly contested election in which a fortune was spent on the race, there was no big surge in voter turnout. The population is bigger and the number of registered voters is larger than in 2004, yet just about the same number of people voted. What are we to make of this? We know that a higher than normal percentage of minorities and under 30 youths turned out pushing up the Democratic votes. We know that about 15% of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton voted for McCain-Palin (the PUMA voters). So how are we to explain the results? The conclusion is inescapable. The Republicans stayed home in droves. Obama did not win the election, the Republicans gave it to him by not getting out and voting.

Remember when, before the election, I used to say:

Don't give it to him. Make him steal it.

I guess the Republicans weren't listening. Pity.

Paul goes on to say:

It goes without saying that when the results were widely different from what I predicted, I wanted to know how I could be so wrong. At first I thought it was because the PUMA voters did not turn out and vote for McCain-Palin but they clearly did. Then I thought that it was because Obama got millions of new voters to the polls and simply swamped the PUMA factor.

It was only when the turnout figures became available that I had to discard that theory. If the usual number of people voted yet more Democrats than normal turned out and there a sizable number of PUMA voters voting Republican, how could McCain-Palin have lost? When the results were staring me in the face, I was totally shocked. The smaller turnout meant that even fewer PUMA voters were required in the key states than I had calculated so McCain-Palin should have done even better than I predicted. Naturally my predictions were based on a normal Republican turnout. Who would have ever thought that the Republicans would fail to turn out in this election? While I am still busy trying to wipe the egg of my face, I am also extremely curious as to why so many Republicans stayed home. I imagine that I am not alone in wondering that at this point.

So lets look at some percentages.

"A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout. The percentage of eligible citizens voting Republican declined to 28.7 percent down 1.3 percentage points from 2004. Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 percentage points from 28.7 percent of eligibles to 31.3 percent. It was the seventh straight increase in the Democratic share of the eligible vote since the party’s share dropped to 22.7 percent of eligibles in 1980."

There is a rumor going around that it was the Romney Republicans who stayed home. Is there any evidence of that? Yes there is.

WASHINGTON - For four years, Utah conservatives have proudly proclaimed they lived in the reddest state in the nation.

But no longer.

That mantle now belongs to Oklahoma and Wyoming, where Republican John McCain scored bigger victories in Tuesday's historic election of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

For those of you not keeping up - Utah is a predominately Mormon State and Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

There is even anecdotal evidence relating to the recent attacks on Sarah Palin by former campaign staffers.

There was speculation that the culprits may be former aides to Mitt Romney, positioning their hero for a future presidential run.

I'm sure the Republicans will remember Romney's loyalty when 2012 comes around and respond in kind.

And how about Romney himself? Was he for McCain all the way or did he have reservations?

“And as we face the very real possibility of an Obama presidency, that’s the last thing we need,” writes Romney. “It’s more critical than ever that we have a strong Republican leader to act as a “firewall” against bad legislation, tax increases, and increased spending. And Mitch McConnell has proven he will stand up for us.”

You know, that doesn't sound like the position of some one who wanted a McCain win with all his heart.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

I guess I'm doing psychology today. From the wiki.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy."

The narcissist is described as turning inward for gratification rather than depending on others and as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige. Narcissistic personality disorder is closely linked to self-centeredness.

And lo and behold there is a classification system.

DSM-IV divides personality disorders into three clusters based on symptom similarities. This clustering categorizes the Narcissistic personality disorder as a cluster B personality disorder, those personality disorders having in common an excessive sense of self importance. Also in that cluster are the Borderline personality disorder, the Histrionic personality disorder and the Antisocial personality disorder.

BTW be careful out there. You can see almost anything if you look hard enough.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

From the wiki.

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a mental disorder. It is defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: "The essential feature for the diagnosis is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood." Deceit and manipulation are considered essential features of the disorder. Therefore, it is essential in making the diagnosis to collect material from sources other than the individual being diagnosed. Also, the individual must be age 18 or older as well as have a documented history of a conduct disorder before the age of 15. People having antisocial personality disorder are sometimes referred to as "sociopaths" and "psychopaths".

And here is a nice little bit on causes:

Glueck and Glueck (1968) saw reasons to believe that the mothers of children who developed this personality disorder usually did not discipline their children and showed little affection towards them.

Sound like any one you know?

A Little Late For Halloween

No Quarter posted the the video and lots of comments. And as a teaser let me post a bit of the transcript also found there.

MEACHAM: You know, they don’t let him out. And have you ever seen a victory speech where there was no one else on stage?

ROSE: Mmm.

MEACHAM: No adoring wife, no cute kid. He is the messenger.

THOMAS: There is a slightly creepy cult of personality about all this. I mean, he’s such an admirable –

ROSE: Slightly. Creepy. Cult of personality.

THOMAS: Yes.

ROSE: What’s slightly creepy about it?

THOMAS: It — it — it just makes me a little uneasy that he’s so singular. He’s clearly managing his own spectacle. He’s a deeply manipulative guy.

Yes he is. You might want to look at my post Cult of Personality and the companion video Master of Hypnosis. We have seen these cults before and they almost always end badly. I think Lincoln got it best in the American context - "You can't fool all of the people all of the time."

And when the tin god is found to have clay feet? When Hope is gone? Well it turns ugly. I wonder if he will be like Lyndon Johnson who declined to run for a second term? We will have four years to find out.

What They Didn't Like

I was looking at a site called "Republicans For Obama" in an effort to figure out why some Republicans found Obama attractive. And guess what? It was Republican Cultural Socialism that turned them off. Even more so than Obama's Economic Socialism.

The comments were especially interesting. I think they have a lot of expectations that will not be fulfilled. However, I think they have pointed out the very thing that makes Republicans a regional party. The Culture Wars.

The Real Stealth Candidate

Commenter Sue at Just One Minute had this to say:

I was reading something today that had quotes from the people of Alaska about Palin. One was a democrat who had liked her before she ran for VP. He didn't realize her religious beliefs, her abortion beliefs, her belief that marriage was between a man and a woman. She has been governor of his state for 2 years and he didn't know those things about her. And now he has doubts about her. Seems to me if she had been intent on pushing her personal beliefs on anyone, the people of Alaska would have known those things about her. Her popularity in Alaska will take a hit over things that she had no intention of pushing on them.

I think this tells us everything we need to know about the way forward for Republicans. Social conservative views scare Democrats. So how did Palin get around that to win an 80% approval rating as Governor of Alaska? She did not make social conservatism in any way shape or form part of her campaigning or governing policy.

She was not about the social conservative agenda. She was about fiscal responsibility and sound governance. I think if the Republican Party takes that approach they can start winning National elections again.

Scaring people about your politicians and your policies is no way to win an election. And the worst part of the scaring is that the national media scares the easiest on these issues.

The Republicans are going to have to decide: are they the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage party or are they the sound governance/low taxes party.

Note: the anti gay marriage deal in California was pushed over the top by Democrat cultural conservatives. The Republicans no longer have a lock on cultural conservatives.

BTW how long do I think it will take the Republicans to get it? If history is any guide about twenty to forty more years. Why? For one thing preaching to America is more important to them than winning elections i.e. they are not a serious political party.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Where Is The Faith?

From the comments at Honest Government And Fiscal Responsibility by commenter auh2ogirl:

The fact that prop 8 was voted through, as prop 2 was here in FL, was in large part due to the black and latino vote, yet Obama won FL and CA tells me that the time for candidates to be elected on socially conservative platforms is over.

The GOP is going to get votes because they have convinced people that the R platform is better on reform, liberty, and economics. People can take care of their own souls without the help of government.

Of course Republican Cultural Socialists don't believe that people can take care of their own souls without the help of government.

Oh ye of little faith.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Move In The Right Direction

I was having an ongoing discussion with a social conservative, Rick, at Just One Minute about the place for libertarians in the Republican Party. He doesn't think there should be any place for them. So I said:

And Rick,

Goldwater was quite a libertarian. We need to put him down the memory hole. Yes? No sound Republican Party would countenance a guy like that. Why he is held up as an ideal is beyond me. You don't like his policies do you? I hope not. It would ruin my faith in your bonafides.

If you like Goldwater who can I trust to tell me what Real Republican™ should believe? And you know I'm told Reagan was a follower of Goldwater. You don't think he was good for the Republican Party do you?

BTW black conservative Democrats in CA put the anti-gay marriage measure over the top. So I guess when I'm in my real conservative mode I can be a Democrat now. That is good to know.

I think Huckabee is in the wrong party - The Democrats now are the party of economic liberals and social conservatives.

So Rick,

If you just gave up your silly ideas about economics and patriotism you would probably be much happier with the Democrat Party.

Think of how lucky we are. Economics has no voice at the table but social conservatism will be well represented. Is this a great country or what?

Change we already believe in. Well some of us anyway. Real conservatives should be ecstatic Obama has won. And you know those ministers just love the War On Drugs. Why? Well it brings government contracts to their churches for drug user rehabilitation. Thank the Maker Bush supported his church/government partnership or that financing might have been avoided. However, thanks to the social conservative policies of Bush the Democrat Churches now have a steady supply of funds.

I'm always surprised at how well the social conservatives policies work out in practice.

What a roaring success alcohol prohibition was. In effect a partnership between progressives and social conservatives. And now that partnership is back in action. We will all be morally up lifted.

"I tell you that the curse of God Almighty is on the saloon." -Billy Sunday

And another oldie but goodie.

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and the children will laugh. Hell will forever be rent." -Billy Sunday

Social conservatives and progressives - together again at last.

Is this a great country or what?

I believe if we can get the Cultural Socialists and the Economic Socialists all together in one party they will be easier to defeat. So this past election is a move in the right direction.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Choosing The Robber Barons

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - Clive Staples "CS" Lewis

America chose the robber barons.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Who Sent Him?

In Israel when some one rises in a field unexpectedly (usually politics or business) they say "he has a horse". So who is Obama's horse? The folks at Cannonfire think the CIA sent Obama. Is it true? Who knows? Maybe in 4 years or so it will become evident.

I can live with the results, whatever those results may be. True, I had planned to compose an An die Schadenfreude in the event of a McCain win, but an Obama presidency will eventually grant us Puma-folk some lovely told ya so opportunities. Besides, Barack Obama has such a fascinating history that I now would prefer to keep him in the spotlight.

What I call "The 1981 mystery" (discussed here) seems the most promising area of research. Although the proposition that American intelligence recruited a young Barack Obama may seem absurd at first, this theory explains quite a few things.

(I don't see why Obama supporters should be afraid to track these clues. Who knows? The truth may work to his credit.)

For quite some time, this blog has asked questions about Barack Obama's charmed college years. Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard are all very expensive schools. How did he pay for his education, relocation, and living expenses? Loans could explain much of the story, though not all of it. Scholarships? He was, by all accounts, a less-than-diligent student, at least until Columbia.

His grandmother earned a decent living but was not wealthy. After Columbia, he took a $12,000 a year job as a community organizer, which indicates that he felt unpressured to repay loans.

How did he become President of the Harvard Law Review? Via a "writing contest," or so we are told, although Obama refuses to allow us a glance at the winning opus. He never wrote anything for publication during his Harvard period, although any truly ambitious law student would have done so. Obama defenders have argued that other Presidents also had a phobia for writing, but this is not true.

And how did this little-known, utterly unpublished "author" score a massive advance for the autobiographical Dreams From My Father? Nothing about the project indicated high sales -- in fact, Obama had only a hazy idea of what he wanted to write about, even after he cashed the check for his advance. Most tyro authors are very lucky to sell 5000 copies of a first book, and the writer gets maybe a buck a copy. Obama received enough money to maintain an office, to keep his family in comfort, and to finance a trip to Bali. And even under those luxurious circumstances, he missed the deadline by a wide mark. (Some believe that he used a ghostwriter; see also here.)

The article has links if you want to get deeper in to the subject. The comments also contain a lot of interesting speculation. Personally I like the Dr. Khalid al Mansour theory of who funded Obama these days. Right now the evidence for any theory is sparse. We have four more years to dig. Who knows? We may find something.

Abortion Plank

The Republicans need to rebrand from the party of religious conservatives to the party of smaller government.

That is the essence of the Goldwater/Reagan approach to politics.

I'm all for an anti-abortion plank for the Republican Party like this:

We believe strongly in the sanctity of life but, we also believe abortion is none of the Federal Government's business and that it should be left up to the States, within the limits of the Constitution, to regulate it. We think adoption should be encouraged and will do our best to see that it happens more often.

McCain Is Against Coal

You know. That looks to me like a McCain dirty trick. Bringing out the charge with barely enough time for Obama to respond.

Soothe The Monkeys

The problem with social conservatism with respect to candidates winning elections is that it gets the monkeys screaming. That does not help win elections. Soothe the monkeys.

Tell what you want to accomplish.

1. Clean out the corrupt - Start with our own house.
2. Fiscal responsibility
3. We don't want to change your life - we want to get government out of it. Think RR (Except for his drug war BS - maybe we can correct that flaw. We are in effect financing a war against ourselves on our Southern border. This is at minimum considered militarily inept.)
4. Get the economy moving again.

Core message?

Leave Us Alone

Is our rallying cry.

You know why I just love Palin to death? I think she can convince socons to do the right thing.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Obama Economy - An Anecdote

Commenter Sara at Just One Minute gives us this little gem.

Well, the owner of the dry cleaners my d-i-l manages came in this morning and informed 3 of the workers that because of Obama's election and the higher taxes he is facing as a result, 3 employees would be eliminated. He then let them go on the spot.

Penny says every one that got fired today voted for O and they don't understand why. One girl as she was leaving told Penny, "this isn't the way I was told it would work."

But it is the way things do work. What a lesson in economics we are about to get.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Kind Of Fever

I have seen this kind of fever before. The voters wanted to do something "historic". We did it once before in Illinois. Carol Mosely Braun. A one term Senator.

Honest Government And Fiscal Responsibility

I just went back and looked at the contract with America. What were the promises of the contract?

On the first day of their majority, the Republicans promised to hold floor votes on eight reforms of government operations:

* require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress;
* select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
* cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
* limit the terms of all committee chairs;
* ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
* require committee meetings to be open to the public;
* require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
* and implement a zero base-line budgeting process for the annual Federal Budget.

It had not one social conservative plank. Nothing about gays, marriage, or abortion.

It was all about honest government and fiscal responsibility.

Let that be a lesson to you social conservatives who think enacting your favorite policies are an electoral winner. There is nothing wrong and much admirable about living with and adhering to those policies. There is a lot wrong with trying to enact them into law. It doesn't win votes.

The single most useful policy change to win back Americans is to give up Republican social policy planks. And do something to prove you are serious about it. Agitating to end the drug war for instance would be a very good sign to the electorate. It would show that sound policy, not belief, is the core of the Republican Party.

Marxing Off A Cliff

Eric of Classical Values makes the point in his post A building, not a tent, that economic conservatism is the cement that held the Republican party together. Commenter Bob Smith made a very interesting point that confirms that view.

Another commenter asks a question:

I don't know exactly who is to blame for the disappeance of the cement

Bob answers:

Not, who, what. Specifically, the cement disappeared once Republicans started thinking that government was the way to get things done. Not only is that corrosive of the values you mention, but it makes them indistinguishable from Democrats. And since Democrats own the media and can therefore do a much better job pushing the idea that Republicans are racist, greedy, selfish jerks, the Democrats will always win the contest of "who can use the government to get things done". "Compassionate conservatism" is not only neither compassionate nor conservative, but the phrase itself betrays its flaw: it uses the language of the left in implying that conservatism is not compassionate unless it destroys itself and embraces Marxism. Many conservatives have lived for so long under liberal doublespeak that they cannot identify this problem. That's because they have been conditioned by our educational establishment and media to internalize the left's lingo, talking points, and frame of reference, so they frequently lack the language to rebut liberal political rhetoric.

Let me repeat the key point:

the cement disappeared once Republicans started thinking that government was the way to get things done

And it doesn't matter what the project is. The economic projects of the left or the social projects of the right. So what exactly was our biggest failure in the last 8 years? No one stood up and said NO with a loud enough voice to make it stop. Certainly not Bush. And not McCain either.

So what is left? Well McCain has given us Sarah. If she can expand her education and we can maintain her as a national figure for the next 4 years we may have a worthy candidate in the next Presidential Election. If she wants to do it.

Why does she work for me? Because she comes from the most libertarian oriented State in the nation. And she has way more charisma than Andre Marrou.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Obama Wins It

Damn

I guess Plumbers, PUMAs, and Palin were not enough. Oh, well. We are in for a rough 4 years.

Reports from Boyztown

I believe Boyztown in Chicago is the Belmont/Halsted area. HillBuzz has the report.

You can tell the Obama supporters on the street, though. They look really worried. Word’s spreading fast here that Obama’s going to lose — the big Reifenstahl-styled rally Obama planned for Grant Park has been downgraded, according to police we know. Instead of one million people coming out to hear his concession speech tonight, the city is now expecting only “tens of thousands”. The world’s biggest celebrity doesn’t seem to be drawing the crowd he hoped.

More later when we get the chance — back to our stations — another four hours or so until polls close here.

If turnout and excitement for Obama are as dismal in the rest of the city as they are in Boystown, this could be a VERY bad night for Dear Leader.

Let us hope so.

I Just Voted

In Rockford, Illinois. No long lines. Very well organized.

You know where I stand. Let us see what happens.

Pollsters Need The Anecdote Factor

Sean Malestrom is looking at one of the things the pollsters are missing. The anecdote factor. Why is it important? Because polling is an art not a science. First how about leading indicators. Actual facts on the ground that can be checked.

In my second post about the election, I told you to keep an eye on Iowa for if Obama comes back here, a state he should have locked at this time, he is toast. Well, Obama is back in Iowa which means he is toast. If it is competitive in Iowa (it was very competitive in 2004), that means that McCain is running as well as Bush or better and has FL, CO, IN, NC, OH, NH, and VA all comfortable. McCain going to Maine suggests Obama is performing worse than Kerry or, rather, Obama’s support is ’soft’ among Democrats.

No surprise there. Except to the fans of Obama.

Sean discusses the nature of insanity in the Shrinking Media™.

From my perspective, it has been sheer comedy watching pundits and observers attempt to ‘rationalize’ the candidates’ visits to states the public polls say are not in play. When McCain and Palin hip hop across Pennslyvania, is it because the public polls are wrong? NO! It is because McCain is doing a ‘hail mary’ strategy to launch all efforts on Pennslyvania in order to win it as a last ditch effort to save his campaign. What about Obama visiting Pennslyvania, is it a suggestion the public polls are wrong? NO! It is because Obama is only going there to respond to McCain and clean up whatever mess he makes. What about when McCain went to New Hampshire? Could it be the polls were not the reality on the ground? NO! It is because McCain is senile. So how does this explain Palin going to Iowa which is considered a ‘lock’ to Obama by polling? Could the polls be wrong and that it may be more competitive than we thought? NO! The only possible answer is that Palin had gone completly rouge and is going to Iowa to jumpstart here 2012 presidential campaign (this ‘rationale’ was so hysterical I actually spit coffee on my monitor. The idea of the VP candidate deciding to run off to Iowa to start his/her own presidential campaign is hilarious in itself). But why is Obama going to Iowa then? Could it, possibly, be the polls in that state are more competitive than we think? NOOOO. The reason why Obama is going to Iowa is to make up for his trip to grandma, and as a pitstop before he goes trick-or-treating with his kid (I kid you not! People actually think this). When McCain goes off to Maine, they are going to run out of excuses as they have already used the ‘insane candidate’ one.

Well, it is a little late for Maine. Iowa is good enough for me. More Electoral Votes too.

So what are the analysts missing in the electorate that is making their numbers so crazy? People.

Real political analysts (meaning not hacks or unprofessional pundits), use historical trends, demagraphical data, and other ‘truths’ of past elections. Much of this cannot be translated into a chart or graph. It is a myth that analysis is done via math or graphs or computer models. The original economists, for example, used only words and essays. Political analysis is not about math. Political analysis is about people. To analyze politics, you must be able to analyze people. In other words, the poet and novelist becomes the political analyst, not the mathematician and software engineer. Politics is all about people.

It seems no one is interested in studying ‘people’ anymore. Look at the political analysis currently. There is very little analysis of the current ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, for example, or the person from Pennslyvania or person from Iowa. In fact, there are no people. There are only numbers. Stark, lifeless, numbers. The problem with leveling political analysis to nothing more than a soup of numbers is that it cannot measure intensity. What does intensity have to do with politics? Well, everything. Intense people are those who vote.

OK. We will come back to that subject in a minute (Sean wanders).

How about a look at a poll aggregator that I have on my sidebar. Fivethirtyeighgt.com. What are they all about? Sean says: "FiveThirtyEight Is Propaganda Site Masquerading as a ‘Calculation’ Site". And then he backs up his pronouncement with some observations.

And, for another ‘neutral’ media entity that is actually a player in the Obama campaign strategy of ‘inevitable victory narrative’, is Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.

I was first made aware of FiveThirtyEight when, after explaining to a friend why the probability of Obama losing Pennslyvania is very high, he laughed and said McCain’s chances of winning the election was 5%. I went, “What!? Whoever told you that?” “This website…” I went to the website and, instantly, I could tell it was a hack. Political campaigns are a very uncertain business which can change overnight for one candidate or another. No political scientist would seriously say a candidate has 5% chance to win the election. Maybe if the candidate was a social conservative running in San Francisco or a communist running in Kansas, this might be true. But for a presidential election? No. Not even Mondale was given that percentage. The ‘interviews’ with Dan Rather are raised flags because after 2004, Dan Rather lost all ‘neutral’ status after the forged memo scenario (in 2004, the retiring Dan Rather put up memos from early seventies whose fonts count only have been done in a modern word processor, an obvious forgery). I’ve met Dan Rather personally as he was raised in my area. He is a nice guy. But no network will hire him for news now for the reason of partisanship.

Here are some of the (many) problems with FiveThirtyEight:

-Nate Silver’s ‘news stories’ carefully follow Obama Campaign’s strategy, used both in the primary and now in the general campaign, of inevitable Obama victory (which no political analyst, worth their salt, believes as no election is inevitable), showing pictures of a closed McCain Campaign office and declare “It is all falling apart”, etc. etc.

-Nate Silver says he is busy with real life job and life but when the Zogby poll, that had McCain +1, came out, he responded to it ASAP (and on Halloween night of all times!). Now, I don’t trust Zogby because he was off in 2004. I also know, for a fact, Zogby is contractually obligated to weight more Democrats in his polling (and weeks ago, when the AP showed a close poll, Zogby got ‘angry’ at them). However, Zogby also publicly declared Obama’s declaration of ‘inevitable victory’ ismore about strategy. Nate Silver doesn’t bother to tell his readers why Zogby became famous in the first place. It was because Zogby was the only pollster who picked up on the Gore surge in the 2000 election. This, alone, is why people are listening to Zogby closely now. (I still don’t trust him as he has been all over the place. However, that might had been intentional). The ‘rapidity’ to deconstruct a positive McCain poll obviously should be a flag raiser. Real political scientists never rush to deconstruct or denounce anything.

-There is absolutely no questioning as to why the candidates are going to solid blue areas. In fact, there is strangely no questioning to the polls at all.

-Nate Silver, on his FAQ page, says he incorporates 2000, 2004, and 2006 election returns. What about 2002? In 2002, in a historical upset (President’s party loses seats in the off year election), Republicans performed well and made gains in both the House and Senate. In fact, exit polls were seen as ‘unreliable’ and thrown out that year with only ‘votes’ counted (which is how it should be done anyway). Only after the election did we realize the exit polls were thrown out because the analysts/media couldn’t believe the results.

-Nate Silver bans all internal polling by the reason that internal polls are used to manipulate opinion while public polls are ’scientific’. He has it totally backwards.

OK. There is more. But you get the picture.

OK. Let us get back to the people question.

One of the reasons why Democrats lost the elections of 2002, 2004, and won in 2006 so handily is the appearance (and disappearance) of the phenomenon I refer to as ‘Broken Glass Conservatives’. Conservatives are generally apathetic and have been lately about their candidates. While Bush was a Republican, he was not a conservative. He was conservative on a few things, the things that mattered most to conservatives (foreign policy, judges, taxes), but Bush has no interest in the conservative movement and doesn’t want to ‘lead’ it unlike Reagan. So conservative support for Republican candidates have been very soft (as illustrated in 2006). But if a Democrat or the legacy media (who conservatives believe are the same) insult or attack conservatives or what they believe, the result is ‘broken glass conservatives’ meaning the apathetic, soft Republican (or Democrat) conservative suddenly turns enraged and will literally walk over ‘broken glass’, if need be, to vote. ‘Broken glass conservatives’ phenomenons are all easily prevented if someone had some sense. An example of a ‘broken class conservative’ scenario would be Congressman Murtha (twice) declaring western Pennslyvania as ‘racists’. Remember, Murth’s district is mostly Democrat, and they know about Murtha’s shenanigans (the idea of ‘he’s a crook, but he is OUR crook’). But conservative Democrats took the insult personally and, out of the blue, Murtha’s safe seat suddenly becomes competitive . In 2004, the ‘broken glass conservatives’ were generated by, what conservatives felt, media bias in that veterans who served with Kerry were never had the spotlight shown (which they resorted to their own ads which became the ‘SwiftBoat Ads’) as well as Dan Rather and the forged memos.

In 2008, there are more phenomenons of the ‘Broken Glass Conservatives’ than I have ever seen…

-Conservatives believe the media has been outrageously fawning over Obama and doing everything it can to protect him. This has enraged them even more than in 2004.

-Obama’s comment of people in rural areas were nothing more than ‘bitter clingers’ who cling to guns and religion have caused lingering outrage at him. This comment, alone, is one reason why Pennslyvania turned on him.

-The Bail-Out Bill enraged many and was when conservatives finally abandoned Bush. But Bush is not on the ticket anymore so that doesn’t matter. Rather, the enragement is aimed at Pelosi and Reid, the leaders of the House and Senate.

-Media treatment of Sarah Palin generated many ‘Broken Glass Conservatives’ and even overlapped to the Hillary Clinton supporters.

Of course Sean being thorough has more points. One of them is that Nate has undecideds splitting 50/50. What are the odds of that?

And then comes the Palin factor. The Palin factor is cultural and if you understood America (which the elites currently do not) you would instantly get this.

Palin is representative of something within the American mythos that many outside America may not get. There is a mythos of America of the frontiersmen and women, living in log cabins, going through harsh winters, hunting, surviving through the elements. When Palin was introduced, the photos and her history left many jaws dropped. She grew up in a log cabin, hunted, survived the harsh Alaskan winters, had a large family, and generally appear as if she walked out of a history book on America’s frontier. Palin’s life history matches many American’s grandmothers and great grandmothers. (Camille Paglia, ardent feminist and Obama supporter, admitted as much). Much of the appeal Palin holds is that she is representative of the mythos of the American frontierswoman. I think this is why she keeps being compared to Reagan because Reagan draped his speeches and actions in the American mythos. But she has more in common with the mannerisms and personality of Truman than Reagan.

Anyone who knows anything about analyzing this election knows the reports of Palin ‘dragging down’ the McCain ticket are laughable. It is pretty clear she saved the ticket. The base would not be mobilized or passionate if Palin was not there. When Palin was announced, McCain Campaign could not keep up with the donations coming in. McCain knows he needs her in order for his ticket to win. He knows she pulls largers crowds than he does.

Sean then goes on to discuss the civil war in the Republican Party and what the election of McCain/Palin will mean in terms of winners and losers in that war.

And now let me close with one of the most under reported factors in the race. The PUMA factor.

This election has been the strangest one I have ever seen. It started off with conservatives fearing and despising Hillary Clinton (they’ve always hated her) as she made her climb for the White House. Yet, now, conservatives and Hillary Clinton voters are campaigning side by side. Gay activists for Clinton are campaigning side by side with fundamentalist conservatives against Obama. In Pennslyvania, as I’ve said before, the phone banks and people in McCain offices are democrats. While it is usual to hear the fringe of one party to describe the opposing candidate as evil incarnate, the PUMAs have the strongest language for Obama beyond the most right wing conservative. “He is a proto-nazi!” they say. “Do you really believe that?” I ask them. “Yes. We do.”

There are some new political symbols appearing. The PUMAs have adopted the cougar or bobcat as their symbol. The Palin conservatives have adopted the moose (could this eventually replace the elephant?)

Election night will be very long because pundits will be stunned at what is going on. They think this is already over and election night is just a coronation. All these electoral map projections and polls, yet votes weren’t cast yet.

Consider Obama toast, guys. He will join Dukakis, Dole, Gore, and Kerry in the ashbin of history.

Did you get that? Gay activists for Clinton are campaigning side by side with fundamentalist conservatives against Obama. That is not supposed to be possible. It is like the lion lying down with the lamb. Historical. A change of Biblical proportions even.

You know, this may be the beginning of a political re-alignment. Or at least the beginning of respect.

In any case there is much more I haven't covered. You should read it all.

And for those of you who want to follow along here are some interactive electoral maps:

CNN electoral map

Not a CNN electoral map

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Don't Give It To Him - Make Him Steal It

I had twenty topics ready for blog posts today, but I'm just not into it: maybe later. No retreat - get out and vote. And bring a friend. Every vote counts - if even just a as show of support. If McCain wins this - and I'm optimistic - the popular vote totals will be just as important to grant him legitimacy over and above an Electoral College win. Vote. Every bit of support counts.

Don't give it to him. Make him steal it.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Window Stickers - Hippies For McCain Palin

It is a little late in the election season for campaign material but I'd like to show you a very special set of window stickers for McCain/Palin made by Matthew Lopina from Prints Design. Here is what it looks like on the back of my mate's van. Obviously it is perfect for tinted windows.

Here is another view.

You can click on the pictures for a larger view.

Needless to say those stickers are very pretty and Matthew has been just a prince to deal with. You need custom graphics? Prints Design is the place to go.

Prints Design is dedicated to one thing... customer satisfaction. And at a price far less than franchise print shops can offer.

Did I mention that the stickers are very pretty, easy to apply, and the execution first rate?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

PUMA Power

Paul Marston takes a look at how the PUMA factor is affecting the polling.

The results of the polls for President are all over the map. If the polls are supposed to be correct to a 95% degree of certainly give or take 2 or 3 percent, how can the polls be that much different for the same candidates when taken at the same time? The simple answer is that they should not be that far apart. If you take a look at the polls making up the average at www.realclearpolitics.com on October 23rd, you will see a range from Senator Obama being up over McCain from 1 to 14 percent. Now there is such a thing called an outlier poll. That is where that other 5% comes into play and statistics says that the result could be outside of that normal sampling error of 2 to 3 percent. So let’s say that happened with both the 1% and 14% results and throw those away. That still leaves a range of 2 to 11% and that is way outside the margin of error on both polls. How come?

Take a look at the polling results for the 2004 election. Here you do not see the wild differences between the various polling firms. In the same time period in October of 2004, the range was from a 1 to 6 point lead for Bush. That is a five point spread and within the margin of error. That is a big difference between the current 13 point spread that is way outside the margin of error. To have this kind of spread indicates that something unusual is happening that is causing problems with the adjustments polling companies have to make to get the sample of voters to properly represent all of the voters. No random sample of voters perfectly represents all voters and polling firms have to weight their results to force them into being representative of all voters.

Of course they could reduce this adjustment by increasing the sample size by a factor of 10X. But then the polls start to cost real money. About 500 to 1,000 responses is considered a reasonable rate. Fairly good accuracy at a reasonable cost.

If their weighting algorithms are not correct, this would skew the results. Still, major national polling firms have a lot of experience and they have learned how to fine tune these algorithms pretty well. What is far more likely is that the sample simply does not accurately represent the voters in the area being polled as a whole due to some new factor. Obviously, when the polling companies look at the results from other polling firms and they see results different from their own outside the margin of error; they know something is amiss just like I do. This has caused them to try and tweak their weighting algorithms during the election season. Departing from tried and true weighting algorithms is a risky thing to do, but what choice do they have?

The fact of the matter is that instead of properly correcting for this unknown factor, they have only made things worse. I know of nothing else that could cause such wildly different results. This problem in turn has resulted in totally different headlines about what is happening in this election. Some say that the race is tightening considerably and others saying that the gap is widening to the point of being a landslide. The Drudge Report for October 22nd showed both of these claims. If you believe the Zogby results, then we are heading for a blowout. If you believe the Associated Press result, we are headed for another squeaker election. Obviously, they both cannot be right so which one is correct? That is precisely why the folks at www.realclearpolitics.com prefer to average all the polls hoping that the various sampling errors will balance each other out.

Well that was a real hoot. The race is tightening/widening depending on who you believe.

What does McCain believe?

Meantime, back at the McCain camp, their strategy makes no sense. They have practically conceded Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico and are still pursuing some blue states. They are not overly worried about Ohio and Virginia either. Neither do they seem very worried about all of those toss up states. So what is going on here? Clearly, the McCain campaign thinks the narrowing algorithms are correct, but isn't that just wishful thinking? They pulled out of Michigan when the Democratic Rossman Group/MIRS poll had them down by only 5 points. Yet they persist in Pennsylvania when the RCP average has them down by 10.5 points. No one has them closer than 8 points right now and no one has had them closer than a tie in the last six months. They sent Palin to New Hampshire where they are behind from 8 to 13 points. Why would they do this? They cannot be that stupid unless they think they are on to something.

Remember that the McCain camp has their own polling firm and are running their own private polls. The only answer that makes sense is that the McCain folks are convinced that their own polling firm has figured out what factor is causing all those wildly differing results from the other polling firms. Whatever this factor is, it is something that the tried and true weighting algorithms are not handling properly. In a previous article, I speculated that it could be that the Bradley Factor is alive and well in this election. Since this is the first presidential election with a black candidate, the weighting algorithms are just not equipped to handle the race factor. The fact that the race card has been repeatedly played in this election could be causing the Bradley Factor to be much more prominent than it ordinarily would be.

Yet Gallup Polling claims that the Bradley Factor is a wash at best and could actually be adding an extra 3 points to Obama's total in a kind of reverse Bradley Effect. Looking at where the McCain folks are competing when they would seem to have no chance, they all have one thing in common. They were carried by Hillary Clinton and in some cases even after it was obvious that Obama had it locked up. McCain was bound to pick up some of Hillary's supporters anyway after the way Hillary was treated by the Obama campaign. These are the so-called PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) folks. Clearly the McCain folks think that there is a P.U.M.A. Factor in play which is a variation of the Bradley Factor. The results that Hillary got simply cannot be explained by race alone. It was the positions that she took that were different than Obama's that resonated with these voters. Because Obama has such an extremely liberal voting record, there were some issues where even Hillary agreed with McCain more than she did with Obama.

There is way more and you should read it all for it is good.

And then you should read his quantification of the PUMA factor at The McCain-Palin Landslide and How Big is the P.U.M.A. Factor?.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

USA, USA, USA, USA, USA

H/T Ace of Spades Hq. which has the usual moronic discussion in copious quantities.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Real Margin Of Error

I was over visiting The Volokh Conspiracy's discussion of the polls. And I Said something like:

America is not a predominately socialist/communist country.

As to why the polls are wrong: the pollsters are cooking the books. Operation Chaos screwed voter ID numbers. Republicans don't like being polled. PUMAs are being seriously under counted.

Commenter LM came back at me and said that saying that America is not a socialist/communist country was a veiled smear. Well that set me off for another round. And this is what I said (revised and extended):

LM,

Interesting - saying America is not a "share the wealth" country is a smear. OKy doake.

Second,

How about all the predictions of Obama wins in the primaries that saw 10, 20, 30, and in some cases 40 point swings (polls vs reality) in Clinton vs Obama.

Big Obama Win Predicted.

Of course the pollsters have gotten all that fixed and now their predictions of a big Obama win are right on the mark. Why take Pennsylvania for instance. Despite a big Obama loss in the primaries, Obama has converted all those Clinton voters and Republicans and is now poised for a big win there.

Sure it is possible. What are the odds?

The polls this year are GARBAGE. Let me spell it out for you: G. A. R. B. A. G. E.

Their connection to reality is tenuous at best. They called a bunch of people. They got answers to questions. They then adjusted the numbers to match their proposed model of reality. Which is all good if their model is correct.

But suppose most of the D surge in registrations was Operation Chaos people? Those should be shifted from D to R. Or perhaps their view of defecting Democrats is about 20% of Hillary voters and it is actually 40%. Obviously if you get "too many" of them in a sample you have to scale it back 60% or 70% of that demographic.

And how about the 80% that won't answer the pollsters. Does their demographics match the 20% that do answer?

With those kind of response rates you have a self selecting sample. A no no in statistics. Not random. All opinions don't have an equal chance of being sampled. So what is the weighting for that? Well you sample the people that don't want to be sampled and adjust your samples to match the total pool. But how do you randomly sample people that don't want to be sampled to find out what the bias is?

But it is worse. All these numbers are shifting all the time and from place to place. And sample demographics vary from day to day. How many church goers are you going to sample from 9AM to 1 PM on Sunday? How many employed people will you get from 8 AM to 5 PM on workdays? If you sample in the evenings how many 2nd shift workers do you get? How many long haul truckers do you get on any day?

In Hillary vs Obama the polls at least about 1/2 the time weren't even close. No where near the "margin of error". All we know is the statistical margin of error given the sample size. We know nothing about the real margin of error.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Big Obama Win Predicted

The pollsters at Gallup are predicting a 13 point win for Obama.

Me? I've looked at their numbers (you should too) and I don't believe them. History will show that the pollsters have been consistently wrong all through the primaries and they will be no better in the general.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Obama Wants To Privatize Public Housing

Warren Throckmorton looks at some of the insider public housing deals going on in Obama's Chicago.

The same Sun-Time article adds,

The tenants there had no heat from Dec. 27, 1996, until at least Feb. 3, 1997, when the city of Chicago sued to turn the heat on. The case was settled later that month with a $100 fine.

It was during that time that the area’s new state senator, Barack Obama, got a $1,000 campaign donation from Rezmar. The date: Jan. 14, 1997.

When asked about the incident, Senator Obama said he “never had a conversation with Mr. Rezko about the matter.” The Boston Globe later probed for more about these events, but the Obama campaign did not answer their specific questions.

I asked Ms. Turner if she was aware of an occasion when Obama publicly confronted those managing the properties in decline about the worsening conditions. She was unaware of any such confrontation, saying that Obama “was for privatizing of public housings,” and added:

Just take a look at who all signed on to privatizing public housing, as well as who received the managing contracts as well as who benefited from these moves.

When asked specifically, who Ms. Turner referred to, she said,

Valerie Jarrett and, Daley and William Moorehead, Reverend Brazier, and Reverend Leon Finley were his friends they received contracts for managing CHA properties, some were indicted such as Moorehead.

How about a look at some of those properties?
Doug Ross has more photos and a discussion of Obama campaign donations from developers.

It is amazing that this crook from Chicago has even the smallest chance to be President of the United States. Help reduce his odds and show your support for McCain/Palin by voting Tuesday. Remember:

Don't give it to him. Make him steal it.

Obama: We Will Bankrupt You

He is talking about how he will bankrupt any investment in new coal power plants. I think that is just the start.

BTW Obama's State, Illinois, has a significant coal mining industry.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Something To Play With

An interactive electoral map. Change states from blue to red and see what the Electoral College numbers look like.

Here is another map some people like better. And it is not CNN.

Racing Towards Riots

Erica Jong predicts that if Obama loses there will be a second civil war in America. One wag at the site linked (Hot Air) had this to say:

If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me.

The sad part is that this is starting to sound like a good idea.

RedWinged Blackbird on November 1, 2008 at 10:53 AM

Now let me see if I can figure out the order of battle. One side believes in gun control and the other side believes in the right to keep and bear arms. You know it is a tough call, but I'm betting on the side with more firearms training and firearms in their possession.

My ugly prediction? About 22 cities with disturbances that last more than a day and 15 with major arson. About 27 dead unless the arsonists manage to torch buildings full of people. My number one city on the list is Chicago. Obama already has Grant Park staked out. Just like '68. Number two? Detroit. And you know what? For once I hope my prediction is totally over wrought. Here is one case where I would love to be proved wrong. Totally.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Anecdotes Just Keep On Coming

Via a comment at HillBuzz comes a link to audio of a Republican Operative who says some pretty outrageous things about the state of the election. Things like McCain is way ahead in Pennsylvania. And that McCain has a chance in California. Who could believe it? Here are the numbers the operative gives according to GOP internal polls.

NJ McCain 48 Obama 43 Undecided 7
MI McCain 44 Obama 42 Undecided 10
CA McCain 43 Obama 44 Undecided 9 Barr 3
PA McCain 55 Obama 33 Undecided 10

Undecideds are going for McCain by 4 to 1 the operative says.

If you want to listen to the audio you can click here.May I suggest that you do a save as - because the audio loads slow (even with broadband) and it might not complete if you open it in a tab or a window. Or you can listen to it at YouTube. The whole thing is a little under 6 minutes and really worth your time because it is very interesting.

Of course the whole thing could be nuts and the national polls could be right. So may I suggest:

Don't give it to him. Make him steal it.

Because it is not over until it is over and that won't be until the morning of 5 November. Every vote counts. Not just in the win/loss column but also as a show of support.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wrong On Wright

Mr. Obama tells what a wonderful man Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright is. "The best of what the black church has to offer", says Obama. No doubt Obama was sleeping through the sermons.

H/T Pal2Pal

You Betcha

HillBuzz has this to say about their Halloween Report.

Halloween costumes are a reflection of the zeitgeist in that moment — Palin and McCain were the costumes on people’s minds, because they are who are in the pop culture’s imagination right now.

The ticket that is best represented in Halloween costumes in an election year is the ticket that has won the White House since people first started paying attention to this anecdotal barometer.

If that’s true, then there’s a chance this election could not even be close and McCain/Palin could absolutely TROUNCE the Democrats. We’ve never seen that many representations of a Republican ticket out at Halloween. Never.

The report is from - you are not going to believe this - Chicago. And you know what else they report? Not one single Obama costume. None. ∅.

Based on this obviously anecdotal report the HillBuzz guys expect a McCain/Palin blow out.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Master Of Hypnosis

This is a follow up to my post Cult of Personality. The best antidote to these techniques is to read and analyze the speeches. Bring your rational mind to bear. You might also be interested in this speech by another master of the technique that has themes similar to an Obama speech.

H/T the comments at AAPS News of the Day which are a must read if you want to understand more.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Reducing The Risk

I know a zero risk society. There are lots of people there and more moving in every year. It is called a graveyard.