The Interocitor

LA Daily Bugle?

Patterico has a long post up detailing the LA Times Dog Trainer and its accuracy and objectivity over the past year. All I can say is that there's clearly a reason the Times web content goes behind a firewall after 7 days. Here's one small excerpt regarding minor corrections:

[T]he Dog Trainer ran a prominent front-page article about a guy who used to work for Tyson Chicken. He related harrowing tales of his mass slaughter of chickens, saying he had killed 80,000 chickens in a shift. He said his time at Tyson was more haunting than when he had killed enemy soldiers in Panama, or when he had spent time in prison for manslaughter. This was a great story, except that he didn't kill 80,000 chickens in a shift, he was never in Panama or even in the military, and he didn't go to prison for manslaughter.

As they say, go read the whole thing. Indeed™

Predictions for 2004

Well, everyone else is doing it, so let me channel Jeanne Dixon and see what's in store.

1. After Howard Dean wins several early primaries, Hillary Clinton will enter the race at the urging of centrist Democrats. Dean's momentum will falter, but he'll still take the nomination at a divided Convention. His VP will come from the Democrat Left, possibly Nancy Pelosi.
2. Osama bin Laden will be killed by US commandos attempting an arrest, and his body will be positively identified. Several other high-ranking al Qaeda members will be captured alive in the raid. After questioning, they will be tried by military tribunal and hanged. Bush will be roundly criticized by the Left for this barbarism.
3. Colin Powell will resign as Secretary of State, effective January 2005. In mid-summer Dick Cheney will withdraw his name as VP candidate, for health reasons, and be replaced by an African-American at the September convention, straining the Democrat coalition.
4. With a robust economy bouyed with the unexpected re-emergence of a strong Internet sector, George Bush will be re-elected with well over 60% of the popular vote, losing only the District of Columbia.
5. The Republicans will gain 5 Senate seats and 23 House seats, mostly in the old South.
6. Nader will run and come in fourth, behind the Libertarians, with less than 0.5% of the vote.
7. There will be a major al Quada attack that fails, and several car bombings in American cities that succeed.
8. Ronald Reagan will die, as will Margaret Thatcher. Bush will stop campaigning to attend both funerals, as will many others on both sides of the aisle. Howard Dean will attend neither, and speak ill of Reagan the day before the funeral.
9. Robert Mugabe will pre-empt the inevitable civil war in Zimbabwe by interning most white citizens and appropriating their property. A number of his black opponents will disappear. Conditions for internees will be horrible, with a sizable death toll and rumors of summary executions. Near the end of the year, Britain will intervene, deposing Mugabe in amazingly short order, but saddling themselves with guerrilla activity and a difficult reconstruction. The UN General Assembly will condemn Britain for racism and neo-colonialism. The US will back Blair 100%, joining the UK's veto of several French-sponsored UN Security Council resolutions.
10. Saddam Hussein, and most of the Ba'athist heirarchy, will be convicted of genocide and mass murder, and publicly hanged by the new Iraqi government.

Wal-Mart and Health Insurance

The meme seems to be that Wal-Mart foists its worker's health coverage on the state, by offering little or none of its own. Daniel Weintraub reports this is not the case at all.

...Wal-Mart has structured its health benefits to emphasize catastrophic care. While the company has relatively high deductibles – up to $1,000 for a plan that costs an employee $13 every two weeks – it also pays 100 percent of medical charges above $1,750 a year in out-of-pocket expenses. ... Wal-Mart has no lifetime caps on its coverage...

The idea of health insurance, after all, is to prevent unexpected medical bills from bankrupting and devastating an individual. In this regard Wal-Mart’s coverage might be on the cutting edge. While it leaves individual workers responsible for routine expenses, Wal-Mart’s coverage steps in when things get serious and then covers everything, forever. Doesn’t sound so bad.

And that's not even the whole story. One thing that you never see quoted, and is always missing from those benefit tables, is the insurance company's negotiated discounts with its preferred medical partners.

Even if NONE of an expense is covered due to deductables, the patient often pays significantly less due to these standard discounts. I've seen one case where a hospital's charges were discounted from a $43,000 rack rate down to $1300, before the insurance/patient split was calculated. That's unusual of course, but routine discounts of over 50% are not uncommon.

Given these negotiated discounts, any insurance is better than no insurance.

BCS bites USC one last time

For those who have access to hi-def TV, ABC has announced that the Sugar Bowl will be in HDTV, and the Rose Bowl will not. Why? Apparently there is only one production truck available for the Bowl games, and since the Sugar Bowl is the BCS Championship, there you have it.

Which is more than annoying as standard-def sports utterly suck on any HD TV. Time to haul out the old Sony.

Chicken Run?

I went down to the local Ralphs to find some eggs. Not a whole heck of a selection for some reason. The only thing left that wasn't dated in November was "Naturally Preferred Cage Free Grain Fed" brown eggs, a Kroger (Ralphs) house brand. Inside the carton is the following amazing statement:

Naturally Preferred™ eggs are the product of our cage-free operation and vegetarian feed based on grains and soy beans. The hens live in open "community houses" where they have feed, water, nests, roosting poles and plenty of area to exercise. Hen's diet consists of grain-protein, seed and vegetable derivatives, with no animal fat or fish/shellfish by-products. There are no antibiotics or hormones added.

No this isn't the Onion or Monty Python -- this is capitalistic consumerism at its finest.

LAUSD craters

Amazing editorial in the LA Times last Friday. Not for what it says, but for what it ignores.

The editorial notes that LAUSD scores are marginally up, mostly among white and asian kids, but that scores among Latinos and African-Americans are down. Apparently way down, as, buried in the next-to-last paragraph is the fundamental statistic:

In L.A. Unified, 77% of the students are Latino, 12% are black and 72% come from low- income families.

What does this really mean? That anybody and everybody who possibly can has put their children in private schools. Only 11% of the LAUSD enrollment is white or asian. Given that half the population has gotten out, even African-Americans are underrepresented. The east-side schools are running year-round and double sessions and the valley and westside schools are either empty or receiving bussed-in kids.

Would that the LA Times recognize that the majority of families have voted with their feet, and stop opposing efforts to let the rest choose. At the very least allow parents with kids in double-session, year-round schools vouchers to lighten the load. But no. The answer is "a commitment now from principals, teachers and parents."

That's about as blind as you can get.

Air France details

The LA Times, in a copyrighted article today, lays out several details about the Air France flight suspension:

• Six passengers on yesterday's AF flight 68 pinged the terrorist database -- one of these was a licensed pilot.
• The flight was cancelled after check-in [or maybe boarding], and several passengers may have been detained.
• All passengers were questioned.
• The previous day's flight 68 was met at LAX by security in a remote hanger, and all passengers were subjected to intense scrutiny.
• The only likely US target for such a flight would be Los Angeles [given the flightpath over western Canada and Montana/Idaho/Nevada, this makes a lot of sense (although London might be a possibility) --km].
• Al Qaeda has a history of targeting LAX, and often returns to previous targets and plans.
• At least one comm intercept mentioned AF flight 68 specifically.
• Other intecepts mentioned a coordinated attack involving multiple planes.
• Mexican flights into the US are receiving hightened security.
• The French bent over backwards to assist, and made that assistance known in the loudest possible terms ("We are so not Weasels!")

Even if authorities make arrests in the Air France investigation, one FBI official cautioned against overconfidence.
"This threat was pretty specific," the official said. "It's not the only threat."

I live less than 2 miles from LAX, so I hope they get every last one of these jerks.

UPDATE: Welcome to Instapundit readers. Feel free to read the whole blog.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The New York Times reports:

A Pentagon official said Wednesday that the Bush administration was particularly concerned about international flights originating in France and Mexico.

Since Sunday, officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, and the United States Northern Command have increased the number of jet-fighter patrols over American cities and the number of aircraft on alert, officials said. Patrols have been increased over Washington and New York City.

And you can see frequent contrails over Los Angeles, too.

EXPECTED UPDATE: The French let them go.

The seven questioned men, who all had tickets for Air France Flight 68 to Los Angeles, were on a watch list provided by U.S. authorities, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. But all were released after questioning Wednesday night, the spokesman said.

Still more on Free Speech

According to the 11th District Court of Appeals (which is now rivalling the 9th for wrong opinions), non-profit organizations must choose between free speech and being untaxed. If they wish to engage in untrammelled free speech, it will cost them -- certainly a new meaning of the word "free."

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a law requiring some nonprofit political groups to report contributions and expenditures to the I.R.S., saying the Constitution does not guarantee what amounts to a tax subsidy.

The decision, by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, reverses a Mobile federal judge's ruling last year that requiring such groups to report income and expenses unconstitutionally restricts free speech...

The law, which took effect on July 1, 2001, requires all groups given tax-exempt status under Section 527 of the tax code to disclose their officers, address and other identifying information, along with donor names, size of donations and expenditures....

"Congress has enacted no barrier to the exercise" of the political groups' constitutional rights, it said. "Rather, Congress has established certain requirements that must be followed in order to claim the benefit of a public tax subsidy."

Another boxcar on the train...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Christian
Happy Hannukah Jewish
Joyous Kwanzaa surely you joke
Happy Holidays not everyone has a holiday
Winter Greetings Latitudinally divisive
Season's Greetings Christian codewords
Happy Solstice Flat earthers and space aliens

I give up. Let Lileks explain it. Merry Christmas

What the Dems think of voters

Chris Muir hits the nail on the head.

TIME snubs Bush

While TIME's "Person of the Year" award to "The American Soldier" is a good choice (and better than, say, Howard Dean), one wonders why George W Bush wasn't even on the list of contenders. Yes, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield and Bremer get noticed, but so do Jessica Lynch, Kim Jong Il, Frank Gehry and a number of folks you have to google to identify. But not President Bush. Does seem like an odd oversight, if not an intentional snub.

Oh, and most of TIME is now behind a subscriber-only wall. Sigh. Par for the course.

Kwanzaa Story

Gail at The Right Coast has a Kwanzaa story that probably won't make the evening Happy News hour. She's not particularly enamoured of the "traditional" African-American celebration, or its promoters.

Prop 187 Junior

Ron Price, author of Prop 187 -- the anti-illegal-immigration act that passed the voters 60-40, but was scuttled in a backroom deal by since-fired Governor Davis -- has a new try out for signature. It removes the most objectionable portion of Prop 187 (requiring that parents of schoolchildren prove the parent's legal status, even if the children are American citizens), and adds a few new wrinkles. Here's the official summary:

Reference number: SA03RF0048

Public Benefits. Driver's License. Eligibility. Immigration Status and Identity Verification. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Summary Date: 12/01/03 Circulation Deadline: 04/29/04 Signatures Required: 598,105 . Proponent: Ron Price, [phone number redacted]

Amends Constitution to require providers of public benefits to verify whether applicants are lawfully present in the United States. Prohibits state or local public benefits for any aliens classified as ineligible under federal law. Requires state and local officials to report immigration law violations to federal authorities; failure to report is a misdemeanor. Requires state to verify driver's license applicant's identity and lawful presence in United States. Prohibits the state and its political subdivisions from accepting identification documents not issued by a state or federal jurisdiction. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: This measure could result in increased annual costs to the state and local governments in the tens of millions of dollars to verify citizenship or immigration status of persons receiving specified public services. This measure could also result in program savings over $100 million annually to the state and local governments, primarily counties, due to reduced expenditures for certain public services.

The LA Times discusses this initiative in today's paper, with the expected objections from "immigrant's rights" groups, along with significant hand-wringing from several Republicans. One concern for Republicans is the damage that the original Prop 187 did to GOP prospects with Latino voters, whose participation in elections is constantly increasing. Latino clout in the Legislature is increasing even faster, as districting is done by resident, legal or not.

Linda Boyd, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, added: "You know the damage that happened as a result of 187. It puts the Republican Party in a difficult spot. Officially, our party is not going to have a stance on it."

Now, I opposed Prop 187, mainly due to the effect it had on the native-born (US citizen) children of illegal aliens. But the current initiative is much calmer, and simply tries to restrict the State from taking active measures in welcoming people who are cutting in line ahead of law-abiding immigrants. Yes, I have reservations -- I'd not like to see children bleed to death because their parents won't take them to an emergency room -- but I expect that the courts will whittle that kind of thing out of the law. The things that matter (IDs and proactive aid to illegals) will stand up in the courts.

Here is the entire text of the proposed Amendment, which can be found on the Secretary of State's site, or at http://save187.com

PROPOSED LAW

SECTION 1. Title

This article shall be known and may be cited as the “Save Our State” Initiative.

SECTION 2. Findings and declaration

The People of California find that they have suffered and are suffering from economic hardships caused by the presence of illegal aliens in their State, and that illegal immigration is encouraged by public agencies within the State that provide public benefits without verifying immigration status. The People find further that illegal aliens have been given a safe haven in California with the aid of identification cards, including driver’s licenses, that are issued without verifying immigration status. The People are frustrated by the conduct of their State that contradicts Federal immigration policy, undermines the security of our borders, and demeans the value of American citizenship. Therefore, the People of California declare that the public interest of the State requires all public agencies within the State to cooperate with Federal immigration authorities to discourage illegal immigration.

SECTION 3. Verifying applications for public benefits

Article XVI A is added to the Constitution to read:

Article XVI A Verifying Applications for Public Benefits

Section 1. Verification of identity and eligibility

It is a compelling government interest to remove the incentive for illegal immigration provided by the availability of public benefits. Neither the State nor any of its political subdivisions shall contradict the objectives of Federal immigration policy, nor shall they provide any State or local public benefit, as defined in Title 8 of the United States Code, to any alien classified as ineligible for Federal public benefits by that Code. Therefore, all agencies of the State and its political subdivisions that provide State and local public benefits shall:

(a) Verify the identity of each applicant for such benefits and that the applicant is eligible for benefits in accordance with this article.

(b) Provide any employee or agent of the State, or any political subdivision thereof, with information to verify the immigration status of any applicant for such benefits and to assist the employee or agent in obtaining such information from Federal immigration authorities.

(c) Hold all employees and agents of the State and its political subdivisions responsible for making a written report to Federal immigration authorities of any discovered violation of Federal immigration law by any applicant for such benefits; any employee or agent who fails to report, or any supervisor who, knowing of such failure to report, fails to direct the employee to report is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Section 2. Additional verification requirements

To prevent fraudulent applications for public benefits, additional verification procedures shall be required as follows:

(a) The State shall verify the identity of each applicant for a California driver’s license or identification card and that the applicant’s presence in the United States is authorized under Federal law.

(b) All agencies of the State and its political subdivisions that provide State and local public benefits shall refuse to accept any document for any purpose of identification unless it is issued by a state or federal jurisdiction that is recognized by the United States Government and is verifiable by state or federal agencies.

SECTION 4. Application and enforcement

The provisions of this article shall be enforced uniformly without regard to race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or national origin. Any person who is a resident of the State shall have standing in any court of record to bring suit against any agent or agency of the State, or any political subdivision thereof, to remedy any violation of any provision of this amendment, including but not limited to an action for mandamus. Courts of record shall give preference to actions brought under this article over other civil actions or proceedings pending in the court.

SECTION 5. Severability

If any provision of this amendment or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, that invalidity shall not affect any other provision or application of the amendment which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to that end the provisions of this amendment are severable.

CA Initiatives -- the People's Sausage Factory

Ever want to see what initiatives people are trying to get on the ballot? Or just how looney they can get? The CA Secretary of State lists all the initiatives submitted, along with their current status here.

Here's my current favorite:

[Proposed ballot summary] Amends California Constitution to provide the King James Bible as a textbook to grades one through twelve, to each of those pupils whose parents do not opt-out by specific objection, for voluntary reading and study.

There are 3 intitiatives in circulation relating to the treatment of veal calves and pregnant farm pigs. Another eliminates traffic and parking fines, substituting community service. Yet another seeks to establish a "Car Buyers Bill of Rights."

There are also any number of reapportionment, budget-balancing, tax-raising, and recall-fixing ideas in the mill. The full text of the initiatives can be found here. Rules and procedures for qualifying initiatives can be found here.

UPDATE: How did I miss THIS?

Dean

Howard Dean, or as Andrew Sullivan calls him, the International Man of Mystery, says this about the US mission in Iraq:

To succeed we also need urgently to remove the label "made in America" from the Iraqi transition. We need to make the reconstruction a truly international project, one that integrates NATO, the United Nations, and other members of the international community, and that reduces the burden on America and our troops.

Now, what exactly is wrong with "Made in America"? Is Dean saying that the US doesn't have the experience, legitimacy or talent to build a democratic state? And that the UN or NATO or Europe do? Not to put too fine a point on it, but the USA showed Europe how to build republican forms of government, not only 60 years ago, but way back when King George III and Louis XVI were running things. Both were slow learners.

Considering the sucess of the UN in Bosnia (see Srebrenica), the NATO quagmire in Kosovo, and Europe's inability to write a Constitution shorter than War and Peace, I'll stick with "Made in America."

We may have feet of clay, but at least it's only clay.

Free Speech Conspiracy

The Supreme Court last week decided, in McConnell vs FEC, to strip Americans of their rights to criticize politicians during elections. Oh, they left some loopholes, akin to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, but broadcast communication channels are now closed to free speech by organized groups. The only corporations exempted were the media owners themselves, which were granted exclusivity in poitical advocacy, in return for their editorial support.

Why? So that politics might avoid the "appearance of corruption." Yes, really. In order to prevent politicians from seeming corrupt, we need to prevent any organized group from saying "this person is corrupt." At least where people will hear it, on radio or TV. Make it so.

*sigh*

What we need, then, is an open conspiracy -- a public cabal -- to defy and/or overturn this law. Some of this can be within the law's limits, such as voluntary web campaigns for or against indentified candidates, or placement of Free Speech Conspiracy icons on web pages. Creative crowding of the law's permissable activites should be encouraged. Intentional purchase of banner ads on premeir web sites during the election cycle should be considered. In particular, "issue ads" attacking politicians who sponsored this travesty should be spread as widely as possbile. Example:

This commerical is illegal. The people who paid for it could be fined or go to jail. Why? Because Congressman X doesn't want commericals criticizing him during an election. Call Congressman X, and ask him why he fears criticism. Ask him if he believes in freedom of speech. Ask him if he remembers his oath of office. Demand he sponsor repeal of the political gag law. Then vote for the other guy.

The conspiracy should have the following goal: Make our problem their problem. Make the opponents of free speech defend their position come re-election. Either they repeal the "issue ad" provisions, or they try to plug all the loopholes we create and/or exploit. But we need to act, simply griping and acquiescing will just lead to more of the same. Speech codes, anyone?

We need to treat this like Roe v Wade or Plessy v Ferguson. However long it takes.

UPDATE: For a Conspiracy logo, I suggest the EFF blue ribbon, with "Free Speech Conspiracy" as the text. See also Matthew Hoy

Fighting the gerrymander

Mark Paul of the Scramento Bee has an interesting column up about how to reduce gerrymanders. His solution: "mixed-member proportional representation", a parliamentary-style system where a unicameral legislature is elected half from districts and half from party lists. Voters vote twice, once for a local rep and once for party. The proportional seats come from the party list in proportion to the party vote.

I think this is too radical, as it 1) unicameral, and 2) very party-oriented. Many people in CA would object to being forced to choose a party. Here are two alternatives that are less radical:

Multiple-member/single-ballot districts: Halve the number of Senate districts, and then elect two Senators and four Assemblypeople from each district, with each voter getting one Senate and one Assembly choice. This makes gerrymanders ineffective, and allows sizable minorities within a district to elect a representive. It doesn't solve the prolem of monolithic districts (e.g. San Francisco or South-Central LA), but those aren't "solvable" anyway -- that's just the way they vote. It will, however, prevent all the legislators from such districts being off-scale partisans.

Mixed at-large-list/multiple-member/single-ballot districts: Halve the number of Senate districts, then elect one Senator and 2 Assemblypeople from each district. Elect the other half of the Senate and Assembly from separate state-wide at-large lists, with each voter getting one district choice and one state-wide at-large choice for each house. Top however-many win. This also makes gerrymanders difficult for several reasons and allows independants (e.g. good-government types), advocacy groups (Sierra Club, NRA, Teacher's Union) and minor parties (Greens, Libertarians) the ability to cleanly compete for seats. Given the recall election candidate list, one would want to have a largish signature requirement (maybe 5,000) to get on this portion of the ballot.

Both of these systems also solve the "minority-majority" districting problem, which is the flip side of gerrymandering, and allow all minorities a fair shot at organizing and electing members.

Saddam

I really don't have anything to add to the blogosphere's thorough coverage of the Saddam capture.

All I can say is congratulations to the US forces that worked so hard to run this guy to ground. Your efforts are appreciated, and you are all heroes in my book.

Now let's go get that other guy.

Emperator's New Clothes

Dan Weintrab at California Insider has read through the "spending limit" portion of the CA "budget-balancing" ballot questions and is unimpressed. According to this excerpt from the OC Register, via PrestoPundit, Republican lawmakers are aghast. And no, it doesn't seem to be a matter of the Hard Right not liking any compromise -- the actual proposal has utterly no enforceable content. It's cosmetic.

Given this, Arnold's promise to revisit the "rights" of illegal aliens, and his non-reaction to a court's quashing of the 600,000 signatures collected to put the "employer-paid health care mandate" up for referendum (i.e. voter veto), I'm not impressed with the new Governator so far.

The Party jumped on Arnold's bandwagon because he seemed the only Republican who could win, but we seem to have made a false assumption. McClintock is looking better again.

UPDATE: See So Cal Law Blog for a roundup of other reaction.

Concealed Carry in the City of Hawthorne

Michael Williams (Master of None) applied for a concealed-carry permit in his home twon of Hawthorne, CA. He filed all the (many) required forms, and jumped through the (many) required hoops. They turned him down flat. He has posted an open letter on his site -- worth reading. Here's an excerpt:

As you are aware, there are a great many people in the city of Hawthorne and the surrounding communities who carry concealed handguns and have never bothered to go to their police chief to ask permission. I have no doubt that you and your officers encounter such people on a daily basis, and that you can attest to the fact that withholding permits from law-abiding citizens does nothing to prevent criminals from carrying weapons themselves. As you are aware, men and women intent on committing felonies are not concerned with obeying state laws on concealed carry.

On the other hand, I have a great respect for the law. I followed every appropriate procedure in my application for a permit to carry a concealed weapon....

And yet, after all that, you denied my application for a CCW without giving any reason or justification -- nothing but a verbal notification...

There was a lawsuit some time back (Lake vs. City of Los Angeles (PC 008 329)), stating that police chiefs could not blanket-deny applications as LA's Daryl Gates had the practice of doing. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find it online. But Gifford v Los Angeles (B142639) and Salute v. Pitchess(61 Cal.App.3d 557) seem to be good places to start.

I wonder how many permits have been issued in Hawthorne, out of how many applications, and if this data is available through the Freedom of Information Act. I also wonder if an independant appeals procedure is in place. Looking over these opinions, though, I think Michael might want to talk to a lawyer, which I am not.

Democrat fundraising news

According to Aaron:

Al Sharpton has less support in Democratic Party contributions than Lyndon Larouche. In fact, Larouche has more than Sharpton, Carol Moseley Braun and Dennis Kucinich, combined.

What I find remarkable is that the Dems find LaRouche unacceptably crazy, yet include Sharpton, Kucinich and Braun in their debates. I wonder how the BCS would score it.

More bad news for the Kyoto Treaty

Mars announced today that it would not sign the Kyoto "global warming" Protocol, even though scientists have shown conclusive evidence that Mars is experiencing massive global warming. As Martian spokesman Tars Tarkas announced today in Helium:

The evidence isn't clear that Martian warming has anything to do with the high levels of CO2 in the Martian atmosphere. Accordingly, we cannot agree to increase the output of our atmosphere plants until the Bush Administration changes its evil ways.

OK, I made that up, but Mars is warming. It's probably not our fault. (via Best of the Web)

More on McConnell vs FEC

Hoystory has two posts up on the case. One has long excepts from Justice Scalia's dissent, the other is a Call To Arms.

A good start

AP reports:

STERLING, Va. - Two North Carolina men were the first people charged under Virginia's anti-spam law, authorities said Thursday.

Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh and Richard Rutowski of Cary each face four felony counts of using fraudulent means to transmit unsolicited bulk e-mail, according to Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore.

"Hate Speech"

Professor Volokh links to an analysis of a recent Rwandan genocide trial in which defendants were convicted for tribal incitement -- hate speech. Considering that the speech in question contributed to the mass genocide in Rwanda, one is tempted let it go. But as the good professor points out, these things set precedents, and international courts are rather unlikely to accept the US interpretation of free speech.

What Volokh does not touch upon, but what worries me after McConnell vs FEC, is the degree to which the US Supreme Court accepts the US interpretation of free speech. If the Court is willing to limit political speech in the interest of higher goals (e.g. "clean elections"), then what assurance, exactly, do we have that this same Supreme Court won't limit speech in the interest of "racial harmony" or "personal dignity" somewhere down the road? Considering the recent tendency of the Court to cite foreign law in its decisions, this is becoming increasingly likely as speech-code regimes become more common overseas.

It is becoming more clear to me every day that while pragmatism is a quality to value in a legislator, or even in a trial judge, it is not a particular virtue on the appellate bench when basic rights are at issue.

The Electoral College is necessary

This post over at Miller's Time has finally prompted me to write about something that I've been postponing for a while: a defense of the Electoral College. Apologies to den Beste for the length.

After the 2000 election, most Democrats, and many others, jumped all over the "anachronistic" Electoral College, decrying it as a vestige of the past that needs reform or elimination. Why not just have a national vote for President? After all states don't mean all that much any more. Others asked "why winner-takes-all in each state?" Let's divvy it up by Congressional seat, they suggested (Maine and Nebraska do just this (although it didn't matter in 2000)). Or perhaps apportion the electoral vote to the percentage each candidate won in the state?

I like none of these -- of all the arrangements, the electoral college still seems best. While it has the obvious (and recently demonstrated) "defect" of deciding close elections differently than the popular vote, this defect is intentional, and serves a purpose.

The Framer's reasons for an Electoral College were several. In order to accomodate the small-state/big-state compromise that led to the 2-vote-per-state Senate, they needed a method to allow small states slightly greater weight in selecting a President. There was great fear that, in a strict popular vote election, the urban states would decide all contests, and no candidate would even consider the issues of the smaller and rural states. Yet they wanted the election conducted in the States, not in Congress. The EC solved this, providing a tie-breaker in close elections where the candidate taking the most states (of any size) has an advantage (the two "senate seat" votes). This is precisely what happened in 2000.

Another reason is what we would today call a "firewall." Even in 1787, state politics were dicey enough that no one in, say, Virginia, wanted to absolutely rely on vote-counting in, say, New Jersey. After all, Eldridge Gerry (inventor of the "gerrymander") was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. In more recent years, vote-counting in Chicago and St. Louis has been quite suspect. In a close election for President, there would be great temptation for local officials to pad the vote if the election was strictly by popular vote. Even with the EC it happens (e.g. 1960 Chicago), but the damage cannot extend past the given state's electors. Note that much of the controversy in Florida in 2000 involved local vote counting practices, state election official's behavior, and the Florida Supreme Court's wholesale rewriting of election law. Which brings up the next point...

A third (and probably more modern) reason is that recounts in a close election are also limited to the state or states in question. Consider the mess in Florida. Then consider the mess of a nationwide recount, with 50 state Supreme Courts, 50 sets of state election officials, and tens of thousands of local election boards. Some of whom are going to cheat to get their man over. There is no natural closure in a close election in this kind of system. We'd still be at it.

Lastly, there is the matter of needing a majority. In the electoral vote system, it is quite possible to have a majority of electoral votes without a majority of popular votes -- the last President to be elected with a popular vote majority was George Bush the Elder. Clinton, Carter, Nixon (1968) and Kennedy all were elected with less than 50% of the popular vote. But the EC all gave them a majority as the splinter party votes were eliminated at the state level. Of third-party candidates in recent history, only George Wallace in 1968 won any states. In a direct vote system, the requirement for a majority would be necessarily abolished. This is perhaps acceptable, but could lead to Presidents elected with over 60% opposition.

Now, what about the "fairer" Congressional-district apportionment, or straight state-wide vote apportionment, rather than winner-take all? The first will be a non-starter until there is no such thing as a Gerrymander. It is easy to "fix" the partisan outcome in a congressional district by careful attention to district line drawing. Wonderously odd results can be manufactured. In 1988, the two major parties polled even for Congress, but the Democrats gained a large majority of seats due to gerrymandering. The second option allows significant third-party vote totals, or nearly any such vote totals in a close election, to throw the whole thing into the House of Representatives. Nader would have received enough electoral votes in 2000 in this system to throw the election into the House (and therefore to Bush). Historically, this has been a bad thing, so I see no reason to make it more likely.

One last note, of the suggested alternate choices, only a popular vote method elects Gore in 2000. No matter how you apportion electoral votes (winner-takes-all, congressional district or statewise proportional) Bush wins (if only in the House), and in the congressional district system, Bush wins handily.

Wanted: human shields

Due to the increased attacks by Iraqi mass murderers irregulars, the US is seeking to re-establish the "human shield" program originally created by international humanitarians in partnership with the former Iraqi regime.

Wanted are European and other peace activists who are willing to help prevent guerilla attacks on mosques, utilities, pipelines, hospitals, hotels, clerics and international aid workers. At this time, the level of participation remains uncertain, but organizers hope that the former human shields who defended the Iraqi people from the dangers of imminent liberation will return en masse, now that the side issue of defending a genocidal dictator has been removed.

(from an idea at scrappleface ;-)

Freedom of (Approved) Speech

The Supreme Court today decided that political speech was essentially a commerical activity that could be regulated just like any other, or thereabouts. "Money is not speech" and therefore any speech that is funded by money can be regulated. Apparently, Congress' power to regulate federal elections trumps the First Amendment. Futher, the decision is not limited to the case at hand, but leaves the door wide open to further "fixes."

As John Eastman points out:

In recent years, Congress has passed major legislation restricting 1) pornography on the internet; 2) kiddie porn on the internet; and 3) issues advocacy 60 days before an election--core political speech. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of one of these restrictions, held that one was unconstitutional, and strongly suggested the remaining restriction was also unconstitutional.

According to Sandra O'Connor, internet porn, including virtual kiddie porn, is protected by the 1st Amendment, but dissing your Congressman during an election is criminalized. Sometimes I wonder how long this "voting" thing will be tolerated.

Eugene Volokh excerpts some of Thomas' dissent, in which Thomas notes that nowhere in this decision is there any bar to Congress regulating the media as to political content:

The chilling endpoint of the Court's reasoning is not difficult to foresee: outright regulation of the press. None of the rationales offered by the defendants, and none of the reasoning employed by the Court, exempts the press. This is so because of the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of distinguishing, either as a matter of fact or constitutional law, media corporations from [nonmedia] corporations.

In fact, the majority opinion all but advocates further restrictions on political activity to close loopholes:

We are under no illusion ... Money, like water, will always find an outlet. What problems will arise, and how Congress will respond, are concerns for another day.

Then there is Scalia, who states the case bluntly as ever:

This is a sad day for the freedom of speech. Who could have imagined that the same Court which, within the past four years, has sternly disapproved of restrictions upon such inconsequential forms of expression as virtual child pornography, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U. S. 234 (2002), tobacco advertising, Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U. S. 525 (2001), dissemination of illegally intercepted communications, Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U. S. 514 (2001), and sexually explicit cable programming, United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803 (2000), would smile with favor upon a law that cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government. For that is what the most offensive provisions of this legislation are all about. We are governed by Congress, and this legislation prohibits the criticism of Members of Congress by those entities most capable of giving such criticism loud voice: national political parties and orporations, both of the commercial and the not-for-profit sort. It forbids pre-election criticism of incumbents by corporations, even not-for-profit corporations, by use of their general funds; and forbids national-party use of "soft money" to fund "issue ads" that incumbents find so offensive.

The sad fact is that the Supreme Court has abandoned the First Amendment, and left regulation of political speech solely in the hands of Congress, which of course wants as little as possible interfering with their infinite re-elections.

The hands on the Revolution Clock move a little bit closer to midnight. The full decision is here.

UPDATE: See a list of other commentary at So Cal Law Blog

XRLQ vs 405

Mrs. XRLQ reports that XRLQ (pronounced "Jeff") dropped his bike on I-405 and is in hospital recovering from a severe concussion. No broken bones or etc, luckily. Drop by his site and say hello. Apparently he's asked for his laptop ;-)

New blog addresses

Both Patterico's Pontifications and Confessions of a Political Junkie have moved to new sites, running Moveable Type.

KaZaa should die

I'm very much not a fan of the MPAA and its clueless response to filesharing and all things digital. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is a classic case of rent-seeking legislation when coupled with the repeated extensions of copyright terms. However, when I see things like this, I hope the MPAA takes every last dollar they have:

In what some people consider true irony, Sharman Networks has effectively shut down distribution of a version of its file sharing software that it said violated a copyright. The owner of KaZaa.com contacted Web sites offering downloads of KaZaa Lite K++ and cited its rights under Digital Millennium Copyright Act. According to ZDNet Australia, Sharman has succeeded in eliminating the software's availability. KaZaa Lite K++ did not require users to download advertisements, as the full KaZaa does. The Lite program also had features to help users remain anonymous when they were downloading files.

As I pointed out here the Sharman version of KaZaa is rife with spyware, adware and other malware. Under some circumstances, KaZaa can use your computer to do Sharman's network computing tasks. READ THE LICENSE AGREEMENT!!!!!

K-Lite was a free, 3rd-party hack that stripped out all the malware, providing only the basic "filesharing" functions. KaZaa, which makes its living violating copyrights, is using copyright law essentially to defend its right to hide malware in its products. While it is true that K-Lite is a copyright violation -- and both versions are aimed at the rampant copying of digital works -- this is like Michael Savage suing someone for hurting his feelings.

People who live by the sword shouldn't compain about other people's swords. I truly hope that the MPAA's many suits against Sharman utterly destroy them.

BCS is bunk

It seems that each year, the human polls say one thing, and BCS says another. We've managed to go from a system where the 2 top teams never play for the national title because they're playing in different bowls, to a new improved system where the two top teams never play for the national title because some checklist formula picks the wrong teams.

Hopefully, this year is the end of the BCS, at least in its current form.

The whole idea of evaluating teams (or movies or sex partners) by a checklist formula is utter nonsense. Further, combining a bunch of different nonsense does not turn it into sense. The critical subjective factors rarely get much weight. This is the kind of thing process-oriented people devise, mainly as a blame-avoidance device. However, considering that BCS comes out of an academic committee, it doesn't surprise me that they do it this way.

This is like rating movies by strength of cast and their previous roles, box office take, budget and running time, and only as an afterthought considering input from the critics and movie-goers. I don't care how you weigh the numeric factors, the result is still likely wrong. You will note Oscar doesn't do it this way.

Put another way, it's like computer dating without pictures.

AP and the Coaches' Poll have had the thing right all along. The betting seems to be they'll have it right again (USC-LSU-OK), and USC will get a BCS 3rd. The problem was never the polls anyway, but the Bowl invite system. Reform the BCS by getting rid of all the computer folderol, and use three polls of knowlegable human beings to select the bowl berths. Failing that, junk the whole thing.

UPDATE: Calpundit agrees

Nobody likes the LA Times

The LA Times was roundly criticized on the Right for its pathetic coverage of the recall election. Now that Schwarznegger is Governor, is it any better? Kevin Drum of the leftish Calpundit thinks not. It's still pathetic. He's really upset with their content-free article on the spending cap fiasco, something that bothered me this moring as well. Kevin thinks the bias in the Scramento bureau isn't Left or Right, though, but something far worse....

This is really starting to piss me off. Why is it that the LA Times, with three separate reporters contributing to their story, can't manage to spend a few paragraphs explaining in plain English what the points of disagreement were? Instead, the story is just an enormous mess that explains nothing except that a bunch of people in Sacramento are unhappy with some other people. Who edits this stuff?

Liberal bias? Conservative bias? Forget it. I think the LA Times Sacramento bureau has an incompetence bias. They insist on writing political stories as soap operas instead of spending some time telling us what's really at stake and what's really going on. They need to knock it off.

Dog Trainer, indeed.

UPDATE: A day late, the LA Times details the Legislature's policy differences.

Which historical lunatic are you?

I had low hopes for this, like most of these "which are you" tests. But I must admit, this one is pretty much spot on.


Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From Rum and Monkey.

Hillary on Bush

"This administration is in danger of being the first in American history to leave our nation worse off than when they found it."
--Senator Hillary Clinton

Even if Bush's administration was a failure -- and it is far from that -- there have been some pretty spectacular failures in US history: Buchanan and Hoover come to mind. Does she really mean to say that she thinks Buchanan's acceptance of Southern sucession, or Hoover's inability to prevent the Great Depression left the US better off?

How about Johnson's war? Watergate? Carter's stagflation? Or her husband's sloth with respect to al Qaeda, North Korea and Iraq?

It's amazing how ignorant and/or stupid these self-acclaimed smart people can be.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a recent miserable failure.

Another update: Here's a link to the world's biggest miserable failure.

LA Times "Capital Journal" Review of "The Reagans"

George Skelton, not a member of the VRWC, doesn't seem to like the CBS Showtime teledrama "The Reagans". Admittedly, his viewpoint is one of a political columnist, not a movie critic, but he utterly lays waste to the film's factual pretentions.

He was always a doddering old fool, if we're to believe a three-hour hatchet job that Showtime ran Sunday night. Even back in his 30s, as a film star driving around Hollywood in a new convertible, he was befuddled. Needed direction in every phase of his life.

Never mind that Reagan served six terms as head of the Screen Actors Guild. It must have been luck and magic that got him overwhelmingly elected — and reelected — governor and president. And, of course, the Soviets self-immolated; that couldn't have been the old B-movie actor leading America to victory in the Cold War.

No, according to the TV movie, Reagan was led around by a badgering wife. He was the puppet of business interests and conniving aides. He was a dunce.

Imagine the Liberal dreamer's alternate timeline -- filled with really, really smart presidents -- Carter (76, 80), Mondale (84, 88), Clinton (92, 96) and Bartlet (2000) showing us how live in a peaceful, multilateral world. There'd be Russian Soviet tanks in Tijuana and Quebec. But on the positive side, France would like us.

(Hat tip: BoiFromTroy)

Arthur Clarke on the future of technology

Interesting interview with Sir Arthur Clarke, inventor of comm satellites, and the last remaining icon of Old Guard SF. I had the honor of dining with him once, long ago, when he came to my college to speak. I love this rebuttal to those who view TV as a "vast wasteland" (and the Internet as a vaster one):

...But I’m not impressed by the attacks on television because of some truly dreadful programmes. I believe that every TV programme has some educational content. The cathode ray tube – and now the plasma screen - is a window to the world. Often it may be a very murky window, but I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that, on balance, even bad TV is preferable to no TV at all.

And this:

I have often described myself as an optimist. I used to believe that the human race had a 51 per cent chance of survival. Since the end of the Cold War, I have revised this estimate to between 60 and 70 per cent. I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, if only because it offers us the opportunity of self-fulfilling prophecy.

I do have one quibble with another item, though: the etymology of the verb "to boot" (to start a computer) has little to do with kicking it, as he suggests, but with the "bootstrap routine" -- a tiny piece of code loaded first, sometimes by hand, that told the computer how to read the device(s) that held the rest of the startup code.

How not to behave

It seems, even in Houston, running over the McDonald's manager with your car is not considered an acceptable method of complaining about your hamburger. I wonder if eating stale bologna sandwiches for ten years will give this lady a clue. I sure hope so.

Incompetent Spam

Professor Volokh is ranting about linguistically-impaired spam. I usually don't look at it long enough to check for that. But what really bothers me is incompetent spam.

Examples: Spam in a foreign language or even non-Latin character set (e.g. Cyrillic). Spam that is just a raft of HTML. My favorite form is spam with text that doesn't match the image (e.g. a penis enlargement ad with a picture of Norton Utilites).

There really should be standards.

CA budget mess and how to fix it

BoiFromTroy explains the Davis financial meltdown and has a few suggestions for Arnold and the Legislature. Ideas seem reasonable to me. Only problem is that tomorrow is the last day for ballot measures to be added.

I thought it was just me

Ever wake up one day, and everyone is talking about some "celebrity" that you've never, ever heard of? And all of a sudden references to the new "star" are oozing from every pore of the media monster? And you feel like you've been living in a cave for a year?

Thus my reaction to Paris Hilton. At first, I thought that the "Paris Hilton Sex Tape" involved something going on at a Hilton in Paris, and I wondered who was in it. Then I slowly discovered that there was a *person* named Paris Hilton, and that this Paris Hilton was involved in some porno that was flooding the Internet. In fact, the buzz was so high, that even blogs were trying to see how many times "Paris Hilton" could be used in an entry, in order to boost traffic. Humph! Not me, nosiree -- I have more class than that!

Then all of a sudden, Paris Hilton has a sitcom, ads for which are being video-spammed all over whatever network it's on. You can't avoid it. Go figure -- from zero to sitcom in a month, near as I can tell. I glad that my ignorance of Paris Hilton up until a month ago wasn't just me. For once.

Wonder how that Paris Hilton sex tape got out...

UPDATE: I stand corrected. The Paris Hilton show is a "reality" show, not a sitcom. Another reason not to watch it.

One upset Democrat

Orson Scott Card, SF writer (Ender's Game) is way upset and frustrated by the dishonorable people who've hijacked his Democratic Party. According to Card, they are quite willing to promote American defeat if it will regain them power. Better to rule in Hell, I guess. His conclusion:

I can think of many, many reasons why the Republicans should not control both houses of Congress and the White House.

But right now, if the alternative is the Democratic Party as led in Congress and as exemplified by the current candidates for the Democratic nomination, then I can't be the only Democrat who will, with great reluctance, vote not just for George W. Bush, but also for every other candidate of the only party that seems committed to fighting abroad to destroy the enemies that seek to kill us and our friends at home.

And if we elect a government that subverts or weakens or ends our war against terrorism, we can count on this: We will soon face enemies that will make 9/11 look like stubbing our toe, and they will attack us with the confidence and determination that come from knowing that we don't have the will to sustain a war all the way to the end.

As they say, read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

My first spam

Well, somebody has finally spammed my kcm -at- interocitor.com address. Guess that " -at-" stuff doesn't work so well. The spam? Here's the start:

First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction, this is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret.

We are top officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation....

Sigh, and here I was hoping for something original. BTW, SpamAssassin scored it 17.5

Cops 9, 9th Circuit 0

The Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit on a search warrant case in an opinion released today. The vote was 9-0, with Justice Souter writing the Court's opinion. According to AP:

LaShawn Banks was taking a shower when masked and heavily armed officers broke into his Las Vegas apartment in 1998 looking for drugs.

The Supreme Court used his case to clarify how long police must wait before breaking into a home to serve a warrant. The court ruled 9-0 that if police had waited any longer than 20 seconds, a drug suspect could be flushing evidence down the toilet....

Justice David H. Souter, writing for the court, said that because police believed there were drugs in his apartment, officers had more reason to rush.

"Police seeking a stolen piano may be able to spend more time to make sure they really need the battering ram," Souter wrote.

Now, I don't care much for the drug war, but this does seem to be yet another case of common sense prevailing over the outside-the-mainstream 9th Circuit judges. Oh, what about Mr Banks? What happened after his privacy was "invaded" 40 seconds too soon?

The Las Vegas police and federal officers found 11 ounces of crack cocaine and three guns during the raid.

UPDATE: Professor Volokh has more

Who does he think he's kidding?

In an op-ed in today's LA Times, entitled "Smart Tax Laws Would Put More Money in California's Pocket", UCLA Professor Kirk Stark suggests a way to maximize deductibility of state taxes against federal tax. Noting that the repealed car tax increase was tax-deductible he suggests that not only was repeal a bad idea, but the state needs to restructure taxes in general to increase deductible taxes while decreasing non-deductable ones. His suggestion:

Repeal the sales tax and replace it with some tax, any tax, that is deductible for federal income tax purposes....

How exactly should the state change its tax structure to take advantage of the saving possibilities? Because the federal income tax deduction is most valuable to individuals in the highest federal income tax brackets, the most effective strategy would be to replace the sales tax with an income tax on high-income individuals. Or if Proposition 13 were on the table [...] then increased property taxes could be used to replace sales taxes. That sort of fiscal reshuffling would be highly controversial. Because the distributional effects of these taxes are so different, some people would pay more in taxes while others would pay less.

Just so. And here is the little problem he neglects to mention: Most of the tax increases would fall upon the people who receive the fewest state services, and most of the reduction would go to people who are the largest consumers of state services. In fact, with this proposal, large numbers of people who now only pay sales taxes would suddenly have no tax burden at all. Making it all the easiser to get their votes for more taxes, bonds and other funding for the services they consume. Which doesn't seem to bother Professor Kirk as he also suggests that the "reform" be structured to increase overall taxation.

While I do like my Schedule A deductions, I'm not so stupid to think that increasing the taxes listed there is going to save me money overall. Who does Professor Stark think he's kidding?