Thursday, February 19, 2004

Tie a Rubber Band Around It

When I was a kid, still living at home, I can remember times when we were traveling as a family, all ten of us, Mom, Dad and their eight progeny, and having to take make water.  Now, this is no big thing you know, unless each kid needed to use the facilities at a different time.  There was no way this was going to happen.  Multiple stops just weren’t feasible when you were traveling with a Vista Cruiser full of kids, gear and what not.  The title to this post is what my Dad, and Mom, would tell us boys, and there were six boys, if the bathroom thing got out of hand.  Well, I wish I would’ve known the following at that time.  I maybe could’ve sued my parents.

But some parents say… The right to go to the bathroom, they say, is a health and civil rights issue and as taxpayers, they think it is a freedom they pay for.

From an article titled Parents attack bathroom policy.

I cannot quote any more from the article.  The absurdities contained within have caused me to need a cold beer.  I’ll make sure my bladder is drained prior to enjoying it.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 04:43 PM
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Keep the F*** Out of My Car

I like New Mexico, I really do.  They have a wonderful trout fishery in the San Juan River and I’ve landed trout over twenty-two inches in length on bugs as small as a size 22 Chocolate Midge.  Run your cursor over the photo at that link and see exactly how small that fly is.  But this post isn’t about wonderful January afternoons with a fly rod in my hand.  This post is about this travesty.  What travesty is that, you ask?  The travesty of New Mexico’s professional jobholders attempting to enact a law that would require every single vehicle on New Mexico’s roads to have an ignition interlock device, or, in plain English, a breathalyzer installed.

If such an intrusive law is actually enacted, there will soon be no such thing as an illegal search whether you are in your car or your home.  As much as it pains me, if this travesty becomes law, I will no longer visit the San Juan River outside of Farmington, NM.

This story is linked through Drudge, but I have not been able to access the story through the link provided.  I linked this story through Google News’ news search engine.

Update:  Is He Serious?  Glenn Reynolds posts a link to this story and notes,

“...Eugene Volokh, who is surprised that people are more exercised over one than the other.”

Here’s Eugene Volokh’s entire post.

If I may, I would like to address Eugene’s observation, above.  Rational analysis of why more people are exercised over this than fingerprint gun interlocks should lead one to the conclusion that almost every Tom, Dick and Harry owns a vehicle.  Not everyone owns a handgun, and, in fact, I would posit that a large percentage of New Mexico residents would prefer that individuals not be able to own a handgun.  Got it?

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 01:23 PM
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And None To Soon

AP Newsbreak: Bill Moyers to Leave PBS.

Via Drudge.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 01:19 PM
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Eyes Wide Open Apologist

Read this,

My reference to ‘the great scandal’ of Lenin was not meant as a criticism of Lenin. I do not regard Lenin as a mass murderer, any more than I regard Cromwell, William of Orange, Robespierre, Napoleon, Lincoln, Roosevelt or Churchill as mass murderers.

or this,

As Stalin said in 1931:

‘We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us.’

Everything that was defensible in Stalinism, and everything I would defend about the Soviet Union, is in these three sentences. Everything else was negotiable, was debatable, could have been done otherwise, can be criticised, denounced, condemned. And I have done so often enough, but not enough to satisfy you and your ilk. Nothing that I say ever would be, and please God it never will.

Ken MacLeod, self proclaimed ”...member, albeit a bad one, of Trotskyist sects and of the Communist Party. I’m still a socialist, albeit a bad one.”

Try as I might, I cannot, and will never, understand individuals who think along these lines.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 08:07 AM
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Social Security or a Sinking Ship?

Social Security is a program of dubious constitutionality (which even the government admits) which is nothing more than an intergenerational wealth transfer. It is in no sense a savings or investment or insurance program. It is explicitly not an insurance program, contrary to propaganda, a fact established by the government’s own lawyers when the matter came before the Supreme Court. It is not investment because (1) current revenues mostly go toward current payments and (2) whatever surplus exists is “invested” in non-marketable government bonds (which incidentally reduce the apparent size of the budget deficit.) The government spends all the money it takes in from payroll taxes, but government spending is fundamentally unlike business spending because the government generates almost no sales revenue. When the government spends money it doesn’t do so for the purpose of making a profit and providing a return for investors — it’s consumptive spending, not productive spending.

From Cap’n Arbyte’s look at the Cato Institute’s proposal for Social Security reform.  The post includes links to the pdf file of Cato’s proposal, among others.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 07:56 AM
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“Life lesson: If you just want to take it easy, don’t join the freakin’ army….”

A story about a U.S. soldier who had “a romantic vision” of life in the Army.  Romance is for love, bub.

Via Jon Henke at Questions and Observations.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 07:41 AM
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The Situation in San Francisco

I think this comment, “Anarchy? Pfft. Get real.” inspired by Bill O’Reilly ranting, sums it up quite well.  Complete with photo.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 07:16 AM
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Love and Freedom, Understood

Greg Swann.  Just read it.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 07:02 AM
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Dissolution Blues

Here’s the headline, Maine Town’s Push to Dissolve Itself for Tax Breaks Could Signal Trend.  One can only hope, hey?  Of course the head wonkety wonk, Gov. John Baldacci, is opposed.

Gov. John Baldacci, who opposes allowing Atkinson to dissolve, contends that deorganization would only shift the tax burden, adding about $400,000 to the unorganized territory’s school budget alone.

Via Mises Economics Blog.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 06:43 AM
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30 Years Ago

On February 13, 1974 Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union and on February 14, 1974 the Soviet Union formally charged him with treason. Which is somewhat bassackwards since he was now a free man, but the charge was mere propaganda.

On February 19, 1974, Solzhenitsyn’s family was released from Soviet bondage and joined him in Switzerland.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/19 at 06:00 AM
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