Today is showing a clear theme

I’m fascinated by Liberty Dollars. From today’s Washington Post:

Liberty Dollars were coined by von NotHaus and an Evansville, Ind.-based group called Norfed, which stands for (sort of) the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code. In the late 1990s, the group began hawking its money as a hedge against inflation, and as a way to compete with the Fed. Von NotHaus makes the pitch online, using a raft of statistics and graphs that he says show the greenback is well nigh worthless.

I’ve read about them before, and understand the basic idea that the greenback is worthless. It’s a crock for reasons beyond what I’m interested in talking about here, so I’m content to accept that those who use Liberty Dollars are kooky. If merchants want to accept them as payment, that’s between the merchant and the customer. If a merchant refuses to accept them, that’s also between the merchant and the customer. Either way, the basis of commerce is something of value for something of value. Trade is good, and I’m not judge of what someone else considers good.

Our government’s position is that Liberty Dollars are Bad&#153. I think it’s over-reacting, considering no legitimate crime has been committed. I’m just surprised that the U.S. Mint didn’t invoke the children who might try to buy bubble gum with Liberty Dollars:

The U.S. Mint acted after federal prosecutors around the country began forwarding inquiries about the coins. “We don’t take these consumer alerts lightly,” said spokeswoman Becky Bailey. “Merchants and banks are confronted by confused customers demanding they accept Liberty Dollars. These are not legal coin.”

As I said, merchants and banks are free and capable to say no when confronted with Liberty Dollars. If they, or individuals, choose to accept them, that says more about our need for economics education than any indication of criminal activity. Prosecuting those who create and/or use Liberty Dollars is nothing more than a meddlesome trade restraint.

Post Script: Government shouldn’t provide that education, since education isn’t a legitimate function. But since it is our education provider, couldn’t we make a case that government is responsible for this? It won’t teach economics to everyone it educates, but it expects everyone to behave correctly. That’s a system with failure as the logical outcome.

More thoughts at defcon:blog

If you can’t decipher a calendar, please don’t vote.

The opening to a story about declining gas prices seems reasonable enough:

Pump prices — now at a national average of $2.28 a gallon for regular unleaded — already have fallen because of a slowdown in U.S. demand, a buildup in crude oil and gasoline inventories, the end of the summer driving season, a collapse in profit margins at oil refineries and a $17-a-barrel drop in crude oil prices since August.

Forget the journalist’s rambling list of causes, since the first two, decreased demand and increased supply, are sufficient. The remaining reasons mostly flow from the basic supply and demand argument. That’s not stunning, of course, as economic laws cannot be defeated by wishful thinking, often demonstrated as political grandstanding. That’s what makes this so frustrating:

Three out of 10 Americans think the recent fall in gasoline prices is a result of domestic political factors, including White House and Republican Party efforts to influence the November elections. That’s nearly as many as the 35 percent who attribute the recent price decline to market forces or supply and demand, according to the poll of 1,204 adults conducted from Thursday to Sunday.

The survey also showed that suspicions about the steep drop in gasoline prices over the past two months aren’t limited to the nation’s liberal strongholds. Sixteen percent of people who identified themselves as conservative Republicans, 26 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 29 percent of Southern residents think the plunge in prices is linked to the coming election or other political reasons.

That’s predictable. I was always inclined to agree with arguments for universal economics education as a graduation requirement, but really, the need for that is nowhere more obvious than in the incessant debate on gas prices. This ignorance gets perpetuated in the nonsense our elected leaders spew. The only control the government has in the market is the ability to cause harm or discontinue causing harm. People who wish to deny this are free to do so.

For a moment let’s pretend that the government has this power. If it did, it would work both ways. The government could decrease prices at will to influence elections. It could increase prices to benefit big donors. It could undertake all the nefarious actions people suspect. If it possessed such nonexistent powers, haven’t politicians shown a sufficient lack of scruples that we’d like them to get out of the game altogether? Would it be any surprise that they’re rigging it against us? Of course not.

Back in the real world, though, please remember that government has no such powers, so stop asking. It only drives the rest of us crazy.

Teaching tolerance one ignorant argument at a time

I’d planned to ignore James Taranto and his Best of the Web Today going forward, as his enthusiastic support for torture leaves him unfit to influence my thinking on anything. However, today’s edition is too instructive to withhold commentary. In reporting that Rep. Jim Kolbe knew of Mark Foley’s behavior, Mr. Taranto wrote:

Kolbe is gay, the only GOP House member to have publicly acknowledged homosexuality. And the revelation got us to thinking: We hear a lot about “homophobia,” or fear of homosexuality, but if Foley’s fellow Republicans failed to be alarmed by his “overly friendly” emails, maybe it was because of something more like homo-obliviousness. Most people just don’t think that much about homosexuality.

I know Republicans have a serious case of “homo-obliviousness,” as evidenced by their cries of foul every time the Democrats propose a Constitutional amendment to prevent same-sex marriage. Oh, wait…

When we first read those emails, we found them odd and a bit creepy. But it occurs to us that if a 50-year-old man sent a 16-year-old girl an email asking her to send a picture of herself, that would have set off loud alarm bells and brightly flashing lights. We know how the mind of a heterosexual man works, being in possession of one, and when a guy asks a gal he barely knows for a picture, it means that he has a sexual or romantic interest in her.

It’s quite important to distinguish between the minds straight and gay men, as we all know they’re different. Good grief. I think we all know how the next paragraph will play out.

When a guy asks another guy for a picture, what does it mean? When we stop to think about it, probably the same thing, but it wasn’t obvious to us because it simply isn’t part of our experience. We suspect the same was true of Hastert and other House leaders. Kolbe, on the other hand, because he is gay, probably understood better what Foley was up to and that it wasn’t good.

This is perhaps the dumbest possible defense of Republican leaders in the House. Believing that Rep. Kolbe would be better positioned to understand Mark Foley’s gay mind because he is also gay is offensive. There is no way for Mr. Taranto to wiggle out. Of course, I doubt he cares, as evidenced by this later comment on a story in which Missouri Senate candidate Claire McCaskill refused to dismiss fundraising help from former President Clinton, which she presumably should’ve done because he was also involved in a lying sex scandal. Parroting Ms. McCaskill’s response with his attempt at humor, Mr. Taranto concludes:

… say what you will about Mark Foley, at least you can trust him with your daughter!

I guess this is supposed to be funny, but I’m not laughing. This scandal is about abuses of power rather than some warped notion that one predator being gay means all gays are predators. That the Republican Party and its apologists don’t understand that speaks volumes.

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

The ethics of vanity

Here’s an excerpt from a presentation (from 2001, I believe) entitled “Rejuvenation of Aging and Photodamaged Skin Utilizing Fibroblast Conditioned Media”:

A newborn baby’s skin produces an abundance of compounds important to healthy young skin, including growth factors antioxidants, soluble collagens, and matrix proteins that confer structure to skin. Over time, environmental stressors like ultra-violet radiation, cigarette smoke, wind and pollution deplete these compounds. Meanwhile, as we age, our bodies gradually lose the ability to effectively produce these elements. So our skin wrinkles, sags and roughens.

This natural mixture of newborn skin compounds is produced by Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc. to from a pioneering process in the emerging field of tissue engineering that utilizes fibroblast cells from neonatal foreskins to produce human tissue replacements for the treatment of serious burns, wounds and other therapeutic indications. Fibroblasts are the cells responsible for growth and repair of the dermal layer of skin. The patented tissue engineering process stimulates normal human newborn skin fibroblast cells grown in the laboratory to deposit matrix proteins, including collagens, growth factors and antioxidants to form a human dermal tissue structure. In addition to assembly of these components into a tissue, the cells secrete soluble forms of these compounds into the solution (termed media) used to nourish the cells. The resultant fibroblast conditioned media is separated from the cells and tissue to serve as a natural, highly efficacious, ingredient for anti-aging cosmeceuticals. The fibroblast conditioned media contains the array of naturally produced factors which aging skin makes less efficiently and sometimes in smaller quantities.

Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc. sold its assets in 2003 to SkinMedica in bankruptcy. SkinMedica now has an array of products that include human fibroblast conditioned media. Its site does not indicate specifically that this means “developed from neonatal foreskins,” so I am not making that claim with regard to its products. However, Dr. Patricia Wexler said as much when she appeared on Oprah.

Does anyone else see the ethical quandary this presents? The boy has not consented to unnecessary surgery, yet a healthy portion of his body is amputated. The discarded foreskin is then used by a third party to develop a commercial beauty product¹. Somebody is making money on this, and it’s not the now foreskin-free boy.

Providing compensation to the circumcised boy would not change my opinion, or ease the violation of routine infant circumcision. That should be obvious. But it does further illustrate how little the rights of infant males are considered in the routine practice of circumcision in America. There is a disconnect when reason does not tell us that using an infant’s foreskin so that adults can pretend that time does not exist is not acceptable.

Note: It makes no difference if the human fibroblast conditioned media is used to treat burn victims instead of those too vain to age. The boy does not lose his right to bodily integrity because someone else suffered burns. Individual rights can’t be trumped by any notion of who “needs” the skin more.

¹ Two human collagen products, CosmoDerm® and CosmoPlast®, contain cells replicated from discarded foreskins.

You can’t make this stuff up

I’m going to stand on a strong limb here and say that a better opening for this story exists somewhere in the reporter’s mind:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plans to sponsor educational events and seminars aimed at reversing the steady decline in the number of federal employees with severe disabilities.

Will Tony Soprano being leading the educational events and seminars? A few clubs to the kneecap should take care of the problem. At least that’s the way I read the sentence. I actually laughed out loud. Why start from the beginning – why is federal employment of the disabled declining – when you can decide that the government simply doesn’t have enough disabled employees? It’s silly.

The story continues, talking about “targeted disabilities,” which I think is a strange way of promoting non-discriminatory hiring. Is the government actively excluding those with non-targeted disabilities? It’s worth asking. But more to my point:

Experts do not know what accounts for the decline, in part because of a lack of research and data. Some suggest that more disabled workers are retiring, as the baby-boom generation leaves the workforce. Some think that federal hiring practices work against the disabled, and some think the private sector has opened more doors to the disabled over the past decade.

The data show a problem decline, though, so like the Justice League on Saturday mornings, the government must act to bring about, um, justice. I’d like to think it’s because we have few Americans with disabilities, thanks to medical innovation that treats disease or trauma before it can become a disability. But I’d be merely wishing without evidence, sorta like the government. I’d start with research, though, sorta unlike the government.

I guess we can’t legislate vice out of existence

I haven’t written about the Mark Foley scandal because I haven’t had much to add. What could I really say that isn’t common sense? Bad Congressman. Duh. The interesting parts will develop between now and November 7th, at least. The blanket, unthinking conservative attack on gays as a scapegoat will continue, but better bloggers than me already have that covered. What I like is the blame being thrown at Democrats, as if it’s their fault for (allegedly) waiting until now to spring this news. Uh-huh.

The Democratic Party seems intent on replaying this mistake with the Foley affair. Let’s temporarily put aside the timing of the release of the Instant Messages and who-knew-what-when. Let’s just say for the moment that while the media currently hounds the Republican leadership, it’s a safe bet that it wasn’t the Republican leadership that plopped Foley’s IM’s into the lap of ABC News. If whoever was the errand boy delayed delivery to best achieve maximum political benefit, then the Democrats’ newfound status as the party of conventional morality will receive a decided blow.

But the real story here is the party’s eagerness to use victimized children as a campaign prop. The Patty Wettering campaign spot that I linked to earlier today tips the Democrats’ hand. Wettering is best known as a children’s advocate. Her own 11 year old son was kidnapped and never found. Thus, Wettering has the proverbial Cindy Sheehan cloak of putative “absolute moral authority” that the simple-minded so admire.

Yeah, okay, so the Democrats maybe held onto this information to use it an opportune time. Doubtful, but even if true, it’s clear to everyone but the most simple-minded partisan hack that the Republican leadership in Congress knew long ago. Any shame the Democrats may deserve in this, the Republicans have brought far more on themselves. But that’s not key here. What is key is that, if the parties were reversed in this story, we’d be calling this Karl Rove’s “October surprise”. What’s good for the goose…

Hat tip: John Cole

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.

I bet this isn’t in the Constitution

I’m happy to have contributed my share to this $20 million:

Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation’s capital “for commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, the money was not spent.

Now Congressional Republicans are saying, in effect, maybe next year. A paragraph written into spending legislation and approved by the Senate and House allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.

The original legislation empowered the president to designate “a day of celebration” to commemorate the success of the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to “issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

Like the gambling bill, I’m sure some legislator bundled this stupidity into a Must Pass Bill&#153. Well played, since no one can vote against it. But let’s pretend that declaring victory in Iraq and Afghanistan was as simple as enacting into law some lawmaker’s desire to hold a giant patriotic parade. Would this celebration make any sense? If those victories amount to a complete win in our war against terror, which is open-ended by definition, that would warrant a national party. Not at the expense of taxpayers, but a party no less. But is that what victory in Iraq and Afghanistan would represent? Of course not. Celebrating that with lavish ceremonies is no different than a linebacker celebrating every tackle.

Winning is what we’re supposed to do. Instead of expending the effort to win those wars, our current leadership would rather throw an “aren’t we swell” party. Patriotism isn’t real if it’s forced in some cheap imitation of 1984. If $20 million for what amounts to a national hug can be considered cheap.

Idiots, every one of them.