Category: Ranting

I’m sure his self-defense is sincere

Rep. Chris Cannon made a few comments about the scandal surrounding former Representative Mark Foley. Consider:

“These kids are actually precocious kids,” Cannon, R-Utah, told KSL Radio’s Nightside. “It looks like uh, maybe this one email is a prank where you had a bunch of kids sitting [around] egging this guy on.”
…

“Frankly, this is the responsibility of the parents,” Cannon said. “If you get online you may find people who are creepy. There are creepy people out there who will do and say creepy things. Avoid them. That’s what you have to do. And maybe we can say that a little more to the pages.”

Personally, I don’t find those comments particularly infused with a “blame the victim” mentality. I think he did try to deflect the scandal a bit by highlighting the alleged prank by one of the pages involved, as well as a common sense statement that does little to address the heart of the scandal, i.e., the alleged cover-up. Whatever. Rep. Cannon is a politician, so this sort of non-response is unsurprising. His response to outrage over his original statements wouldn’t be surprising if he backed up his response with his votes on various matters. Consider:

“The point of what I said is that institutions can’t protect kids in a day when you have instant messaging and cell phones that do texting but also take pictures.,” Cannon said in an interview Friday. “Parents need to take some responsibility and teach their kids what to do.”

Perhaps Rep. Chris Cannon could demonstrate his opinion the next time some inane bill comes before the House to protect kids from the dangers of this or that cultural obscenity, a “danger” I suggest is considerably less harmful than the advances of a sexual predator.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

It’s still the warrantless causing the problem

I’m sure I’m stepping into intellectual muck with this, but why should that stop me? This ruling seems absurd:

The Bush administration can continue its warrantless surveillance program while it appeals a judge’s ruling that the program is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday.

Obviously, the Bush administration’s claims of harm from terrorism should this surveillance program be scuttled (temporarily, at least) have some merit. However, is it too unreasonable to put a halt (permanently temporarily, at least) to the warrantless part of it? Unless the court intends to find that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t cover government action if the spooky people threaten us, I don’t understand why forcing the Bush administration to use existing FISA wiretapping provisions that allow for retroactive warrants would be unreasonable.

The Bush administration’s legal “reasoning” is what’s new here, not the Fourth Amendment. The administration should have to prove itself, not receive a temporary reprieve from obeying the Constitution.

Principles used to defeat “If it feels good”

More Best of the Web obtuseness from James Taranto, this time regarding a story about the torture of British soldiers in Iraq in 2003. First, from the news report:

An inquest was told that Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, thought that they were being taken to hospital for treatment, but instead they were moved to a compound run by Saddam’s military intelligence.

The harrowing ordeal lasted for hours until Iraqi agents killed the pair. The soldiers were buried in a shallow grave.

That’s a heinous crime, which I can’t imagine any civilized person would deem as anything other than the worst sort of sub-human action. Essentially, this is proof that we’re the good guys. I didn’t need more evidence, but the world is cruel. But what’s Mr. Taranto’s take? Consider:

We keep hearing that if we don’t accord Geneva Convention protections to al Qaeda detainees, our soldiers will be at risk of mistreatment. But here is how an enemy–one that, unlike al Qaeda, actually is a signatory to Geneva–treats Western soldiers. So what exactly do we gain by even meeting our obligations under the Geneva Conventions, much less exceeding them?

We keep our dignity and the moral high ground. We retain the right to become indignant at such violations, and to act on them. We hold true to our ideals. Most importantly, we remain human. That’s worth something. Everything, in fact. It’s shameful that the Wall Street Journal’s editors can’t understand that.

Congress could be where thinking began

Congratulations are in order to the United States Congress. In a bold move of understanding, it stripped a needless provision from the port security bill it passed over the weekend:

Congress is patting itself on the back for passing the Port Security Act last Saturday. But the day before, a House-Senate conference committee stripped out a provision that would have barred serious felons from working in sensitive dock security jobs. Port security isn’t just about checking the contents of cargo containers, it also means checking the background of the 400,000 workers on our docks.

Felons will not be barred from crucial jobs where a reasonable person not using the wonderfully intuitive powers of deductions granted to our smartest leaders might believe that to be a Bad Idea&#153. But leadership involves understanding the full picture of society, those “unintended consequences,” if you will. When viewed together with this provision of the port security deal, the good senators (Sen. Frist, in particular) understood that we wouldn’t want to exclude a significant portion of American adults.

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement last night on legislation to tighten maritime and port security regulations and, in a last-minute move, added an unrelated measure that seeks to ban Internet gambling.
…

The port security and Internet gambling legislation was approved 409 to 2 in the House and on a voice vote in the Senate early today, as lawmakers rushed to leave Washington for their fall reelection campaigns. Senate Republican and Democratic leaders announced it would be passed by voice vote after the House’s late-night vote.

You see, foresight! The Congress knew that many Americans could now become felons for operating a financial institution that offers customers a service they want violating Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s morality funding drugs and terrorism¹! That’s bad, and they should pay the price, but we still need secure ports. We don’t want no stinkin’ foreigners handling that job.

¹ From the Washington Post’s article:

Proponents of the crackdown said the industry, which is mostly based overseas, provides a front for money laundering, some of it by drug sellers and terrorist groups, while preying on children and gambling addicts. Americans bet an estimated $6 billion per year online, accounting for half the worldwide market, according to analysis by the Congressional Research Service.

Am I going too far out on a limb to request that the reporter investigate this claim rather than accepting spoon-fed horseshit from some political hack? I don’t think so.

No constitutional protection for you!

I came across two curious quotes about Virginia’s proposed amendment designed to diminish the Bill of Rights.

“Nothing will change,” said Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), one of the amendment’s sponsors. “All this would do is prevent the gay rights crowd from gaining any perceived right to marry by going to the courts.”

If nothing will change, why go through the process of putting a hateful limitation in the Bill of Rights? Oh, right, activist judges who might find a “perceived” right. I keep forgetting that our rights are open to the subjective view of the not-really-a-majority majority. If enough people don’t like you for their own reasons, you’re out of luck. As a bonus, there’s no need to consider whether or not a judge would actually interpret Virginia’s Constitution so that gays “gain” the right to marry.

“Opponents are looking for every single nuance to say why we’ve put this on the ballot,” said Del. John A. Cosgrove (R-Chesapeake), another sponsor of the amendment. “All the brouhaha about unintended consequences and any partisan motivations are just scare tactics.”

I’m an opponent, but I’m not looking for nuance here. The wording and hysteria makes it fairly obvious that bigotry explains this proposed amendment. But Del Cosgrove’s dismissal of the brouhaha about unintended consequences is an amusing insight into his understanding of government action, as well as his shameful agreement with exclusionary politics at the expense of justice and logic. He wants this amendments language to fight the potential for activist judges to read a right in the Virginia Constitution that he claims isn’t there. Okay, so a strict textual interpretation. So how would he decipher this, without needing an activist judge to decide that unmarried individuals actually means same-sex individuals?

“This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”

Allow me to grant for a moment the notion that this language achieves the specific “interest” of the Commonwealth. This is still nothing more than a bigoted assault on the Bill of Rights. That’s shameful, whatever the excuse.

Money over sanctity

The Phillies stumbled into a disaster last night:

Know this: There are no excuses. But also know that the Phillies were on the phone to the people in charge of such things at Major League Baseball in New York last night, expressing their concern about the way this whole thing was going down. From the time that the first raindrops began to fall, at about 4:30 p.m., there was concern within the Phillies’ organization that as each hour passed last night, the team would be put at a greater and greater competitive disadvantage for tonight’s game in Florida.

It was, in some ways, the perfect storm (you should excuse the expression). Nobody has said this out loud, but the problem was that, because of an earlier rainout, St. Louis and San Francisco already might have to make up a game on Monday in an attempt to settle the NL Central race between the Cardinals and Astros. If the two teams were still tied, they would have to stage a play-in game on Tuesday, after which the winner would start playing its Division Series on Wednesday.

However, the National League has to have one playoff series start on Tuesday because of its network television contract. If the Phillies and Nationals had to play on Monday, and then the Phillies and Dodgers had to have a play-in game on Tuesday, there is a chance that the NL would be in total chaos and unable to fulfill the television contract.

Which meant that the Phils had to wait all night.

I agree with the first sentence; the Phillies bungled enough chances in the previous 158 games that last night’s fiasco by Major League Baseball was self-inflicted. However, Major League Baseball should have a little more foresight. It’s absurd to force a team in a playoff race to start a game at 11:32 pm when it must fly to the next city when the game is over. The Phillies now must win at least two more games than the Dodgers this weekend. That would be a challenging task without the added bonus of finishing the previous game seven hours after its scheduled start time. Any other game would’ve been rescheduled, but poor planning caused inflexibility. That’s bad management. Major League Baseball must fix that when it negotiates its next television contract.

The Central Planner’s Handbook for Protecting the Ignorant and Ungrateful

Libertarians understand the stupidity of this action by the New York City Board of Health:

The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city’s 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease.

This is absurd, because the eventual “logical” step is banning the sale of packaged foods with trans fats within the city limits. At what point do citizens stand up and demand that government not turn a city into an institution where permission for every decision must be granted by some small group of public officials claiming to be experts? This is lunacy, although not a surprise.

Chicago is considering a similar prohibition affecting restaurants with less than $20 million in annual sales.

Why only restaurants with less than $20 million in sales? Even if this type of policy made sense, it’s counter-intuitive to impose this regulation on the smallest members of the group while leaving the largest free to attack its customers’ arteries offer any menu item its customers desire. The restaurant industry is a small-margin business, so those with lower sales have less fiscal cushion in their budgets. I’m most amused that Chicago loves big restaurants while it hates big stores. But government knows best.

Lynne D. Richardson, a member of the Board of Health and a professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said yesterday that restaurant owners might still see an advantage in the long shelf life of trans fat products.

“But human life is much more important than shelf life,” she said. “I would expect to see fewer people showing up in the emergency room with heart attacks if this policy is enacted.”

Expects? Obviously the greedy restaurant owners don’t care about their customers (repeat business is insignificant in restaurants, right? No?), but should she support public policy based on hopes rather than logic? If diners want foods with trans fat, and restaurants can’t serve it, diners will stay home and eat their bad oils and margarines and whatever else will no longer be allowed. If When that happens, I’m fairly certain the same people will show up in the emergency room with heart attacks. That gets back to the likelihood that the planners will admit that the policy isn’t having the intended effect, thus justifying the need to ban trans fat products from grocery stores.

If people wanted strictly healthy diets, everyone would be vegans who eat only raw, organic food and exercise every day. They aren’t those people. We can cry about that, but statist public health policies won’t make it any more our reality than it already isn’t.

Update: Based on information provided in by Chris in the comments, the New York Times report about Chicago considering a trans-fat ban affecting restaurants with less than $20 million in sales is wrong. The ban under consideration involves restaurants with greater than $20 million in sales. My analysis is now worthless for the facts, but that doesn’t make the ban any wiser. Screw the poor, screw the rich. It’s still the same stupidity. Regardless, I should’ve checked those facts first.

Abusing language to abuse people

I’m “stunned”:

Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed over the weekend to alter new legislation on military commissions to allow the United States to detain and try a wider range of foreign nationals than an earlier version of the bill permitted, according to government sources.

Lawmakers and administration officials announced last week that they had reached accord on the plan for the detention and military trials of suspected terrorists, and it is scheduled for a vote this week. But in recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government could designate civilians as “unlawful enemy combatants,” the sources said yesterday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill.

We don’t believe in enumerated powers or a limited executive any longer, so why bother with descriptions of who qualifies as an “unlawful enemy combatant”? We can trust the benevolence and good intentions of whichever administration occupies the White House to not abuse its allegedly plenary power. It’s worked well so far.

Is it January 2009 yet?

Howie Mandel is better at Deal or No Deal

President Bush wants Americans to physically beat the hell out of our enemies after we capture them. We all know that. And we all know that a silly burden like proof of guilt is only for unpatriotic wimps who love terrorists. What does it matter if an innocent man is tortured, as long as we feel safer. It’s better to torture too many people than too few. Anyone?

His stance is preposterous, but his threat to disband CIA interrogations if he doesn’t win capitulation from the United States Senate on his right to torture anyone for any reason is too much. Like a kid who doesn’t get his way, he wants to take his ball and go home. That isn’t leadership. Again he’s using fear to tell us why we need to let him do whatever he wants. Essentially, he’s told America to fuck off and he’s blaming everyone who believes torture is wrong. He’s a petulant, little man who wants every perk without any accountability. Watch this and try to disagree:

He should not be president. I’d start muttering about impeachment, but then Vice President Cheney would lose the Vice designation. Is it January 2009 yet?

Update: Congress reached a compromise deal with the White House on the torture issue, but details are unclear. As such, I’m holding little hope that the compromise incorporated any principles. President Bush will ignore what he doesn’t like, anyway, so it details probably don’t matter.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for the video link.

When will Congress ban Happy Meals?

Shocking news from the futurists:

One in five children is predicted to be obese by the end of the decade.

Uh oh. Someone wants more of my money. And who is that someone?

… Wednesday’s report [by the Institute of Medicine] spotlighted the government’s VERB campaign, a program once touted as spurring a 30 percent increase in exercise among the preteens it reached. It ended this year with Bush administration budget cuts.

VERB encouraged 9- to 13-year-olds to take part in physical activities, like bike riding or skateboarding. Slick ads, at a cost of $59 million last year, portrayed exercise as cool at an age when outdoor play typically winds down and adolescent slothfulness sets in.

The demise of the program “calls into question the commitment to obesity prevention within government,” the panel concluded.

[Emory University’s Dr. Jeffrey] Koplan was more blunt, calling it a waste of taxpayer money to develop a program that works and then dismantle it.

We all know the government is the only effective way to stop kids from being fat. Why do the fiscal conservatives hate fat kids? Sometimes I wonder how I sleep at night? Of course, I also wonder, if we encourage children to ride a bike or a skateboard, how will they accomplish what they’re now so wonderfully motivated to do if they don’t have a bike or a skateboard? There are poor parents in America who believe food, clothing, and shelter are more important. Their kids will be at a disadvantage, no? How much government taxpayer money is enough, so we don’t miss anyone?

Specifically to Dr. Koplan’s point, it’s a waste of taxpayer money to develop a program. Notice that I used his sentiment, but put the period in the correct place. It’s amazing what can happen when political principle meets grammar. Taxpayers save money, which is especially useful to me since I don’t have children targeted by that $59 million. I’d rather we spend it wisely. If that means I hate fat kids, so be it.

Or here’s an idea. When I was a kid, my brother and our friends liked to play football. You know what held us back? No field to play on. Fields existed in ready supply at neighborhood schools, as you’d expect, but we weren’t allowed on. If we’re going to have public provision of education, and all of the facilities apparently necessary, why not open them to the public paying for them. Liability blah blah blah. Football is a violent, dangerous sport etc. etc. etc. I know. Bikes and skateboards are dangerous, too. Solve the barriers imposed on money already spent on mostly idle property instead of creating new programs. It’s a suggestion.

Or government could leave parenting to parents.