Monday, April 12, 2004

Freedom of the Press, Scalia Style

"A federal marshal guarding Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ordered two reporters to erase audio recordings they were making of Scalia’s speech to a group of high school students in Mississippi on Wednesday, prompting protests from local journalists who said they were victims of official interference with the press.

As Scalia was addressing an afternoon assembly at the Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg, Deputy U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube confronted the journalists and told them they must erase their recordings because they violated the justice’s policy against audio- or videotaping of his public appearances."

I guess he thinks he has achieved rock star status.

From this Washington Post article.

Via the Modulator who also links to Eugene Volokh’s thoughts on this.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/12 at 05:59 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Surf's Up

Here’s a surfing move I never saw in my years living in Hawaii.  It’s called the “Superman.”

Here’s a link to a few other surfing photos.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/12 at 05:49 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Sacred Guns

The private ownership of guns is a decisive issue here in the U.S.A.  At least for some individuals.  David Yeagley is looking at this from a historic and religious perspective in a piece titled “Can A Christian Pull the Trigger?, Thoughts on Self-Defense."

My answer.  Yes, they can.

A couple interesting historic notes from Yeagley’s piece.

"In 1619, the colony of Virginia had statutes that not only required everyone to attend church on Sunday, but “all such as bear arms shall bring their pieces, swords, powder and shot” or be subject to a three-shilling fine.  That same statute was renewed in 1632, and again in 1738. 

Connecticut law in 1636 declared that the militia leader of each settlement was required to have “two pounds of gunpowder and 20 bullets” in his home, and he was to inspect the other men’s arms for serviceability.  A year later, 1637, a fine of five shillings was imposed on anyone failing to meet the law.  In 1650 Connecticut required every man above the age of sixteen to possess “a good musket or other gun, fit for service."

Yeagley’s concluding statement.

"But take it from me, an Indian:  turning your weapon over to someone else means only one thing—surrender.  It has never meant anything else.  It means you submit to a greater power. 

So, is the American government greater than its people?"

The comment thread is interesting reading, also.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/12 at 05:32 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Fun With Peeps

I’ve never cared for Marshmallow Peeps. When I was a kid, from time to time I would receive them in an Easter basket, but they would never be eaten.  After a time, the little Peeps would become stale, and harden up, and at that point the little Peeps would become instruments of war between my brothers and I.  Duck projectiles.

Claire Wolfe has found another use for Peeps.  As shooting targets.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/12 at 05:18 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Break It Down

"Anyone who lives in a city like mine and interests himself in the fate of the world cannot help wondering whether, deeper than this immediate cultural desperation, there is anything intrinsic to Islam—beyond the devout Muslim’s instinctive understanding that secularization, once it starts, is like an unstoppable chain reaction—that renders it unable to adapt itself comfortably to the modern world. Is there an essential element that condemns the Dar al-Islam to permanent backwardness with regard to the Dar al-Harb, a backwardness that is felt as a deep humiliation, and is exemplified, though not proved, by the fact that the whole of the Arab world, minus its oil, matters less to the rest of the world economically than the Nokia telephone company of Finland?"

Theodore Dalrymple, writing for City Journal, in a piece titled “When Islam Breaks Down."

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/12 at 05:05 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Wretched Excess, Unless It's A Movie, I Guess

Since that fateful day in September, 2001, the television images of the World Trade Towers collapsing have been, for the most part, relegated to television newsroom video vaults.  Why is this, you may ask?  Well, according to this article, the following are some of the reasons why, beyond it supposedly being a “wretched excess.”

"Pundits and naysayers may decry the flood of special news coverage, feature documentaries, town hall meetings, memorials and concerts planned this week to commemorate the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil."

We can’t have the pundits and naysayers decrying now can we.  And this.

"The strategy is, ‘Don’t gorge yourself,’ “ added Fischoff, who recommended most people take a break every 20 minutes or so (the National Mental Health Association has also advised viewers to limit their exposure to 9/11 memorial programming). “People watch something and get upset—thinking if they watch more and get more information, they will get less upset—but the opposite happens."

Or this.

"It’s like a scab—for those of us who were there and so close and immersed—and it’s kinda being scraped away again (by the memorial coverage),” Walter said. “When it happened, it felt like the TV coverage was on all the time . . . this IV drip of information I was on for days. I’m not sure whether Americans want to go back through that."

Here’s Laura Bush on the subject.

"First lady Laura Bush says television networks should show restraint this week when broadcasting images of last year’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center because the trauma is still “so raw” for most Americans, particularly children. She also advises parents to shield youngsters from the graphic scenes by either turning off the TV or taking young children out of the room."

Here’s another article which states that ABC’s policy was an outright ban, while NBC’s policy was to show the video of 9/11 "exceedingly sparingly," and CBS’s policy was to limit coverage.

There were many other television news personalities, pundits, nannies and scriveners who “felt” that Americans shouldn’t view the horrific attacks of September 11, and destruction which ensued, too many times because, well, because it could harm our fragile psyches.

No longer is that the case, as NBC hits the streets with the made for teevee movie Homeland Security - The Days That Changed Our World.

I guess a movie about September 11 is okay, rather than actual coverage of September 11, though, since a movie can carry the disclaimer “Based on Actual Events,” even though the majority of it may be made up.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/11 at 05:32 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Saturday, April 10, 2004

Lottery Turf War

I have to admire a 77 year old woman who has run a private lottery for as many years, if not longer, than Michigan has been in the gambling business.  Not only that, her private lottery business paid off better than so called legalized gambling.

"Officials say Heloise Johnson, 77, of Oak Park was the “matriarch” of the private lottery, running it with her daughter and three adult grandchildren."

It’s a shame the state had to get their hands on the operation.

“Authorities break up private lottery, seize $2.2 million."

Posted by John Venlet on 04/10 at 03:44 PM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Water Balloons in Space

Complete with photos and videos.  “Did you ever wonder what it would be like to pop a water balloon in space?"

Via Fred Lapides.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/10 at 07:12 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Toleration Obfuscation

Atrios asks “Would you tolerate thirty thousand dead Americans?, after reading a Washington Post piece titled “Tolerating Casualties, From the Top Down."

My answer, Americans tolerate thirty thousand plus dead year in and year out.

The link, just previous, will take you to the U.S. Department of Transportation Traffic Safety Facts 2000. There were 37,409 traffic fatalities recorded in the year 2000.

Atrios, and the bevy of commentors at his blog, 305 comments at 8:42 A.M., are not so concerned with the deaths of military members, as they are concerned with using the deaths of military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan to as a rallying point to advance their political agenda. 

Posted by John Venlet on 04/10 at 06:34 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Bloody Shiite

"Unless you have the instincts of a pre-Reformation Catholic peasant-or Mel Gibson — it is nearly impossible to grasp this appreciation of suffering and death. But here it is not death as a redemptive power, death as spectacle — a public expression that seeks the admiration of man as much as God. This is what, in my mind, separates Shia radicalism from its Sunni counterpart. Wahabbi and Palestinian suicide bombers seek honor and glorification by killing their enemies; the Shiites’ spiritual apotheosis, on the contrary, comes from having their enemies kill them — a kind of suicidal exhibitionism that fetishizes Hussein’s fate at Karbala. Early Christians felt that the blood of martyrs nourished the Church; Shiites believe that martyr blood will embellish their own holiness and that of their families for untold generations."

Steven Vincent, writing in the National Review, in a piece titled “The Ungovernable Shiites—It’s their tradition."

Via J. Bowen at No Watermelons Allowed.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/10 at 05:52 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, April 09, 2004

Two on Digging Into the Mind

Here are a couple of interesting pieces delving into psychology.  First, at the New Statesman, we have a Peter Watson written piece titled “Why psychiatry has failed." The piece was written in July 2002.  An excerpt.

"One hundred years ago, in The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud unveiled the unconscious, and “the psychological century” was born. It has turned out to be a huge disappointment. The gene and the quantum were conceived at the same time as Freud conceived the unconscious; yet, although they have led to sophisticated technologies, psychology and psychiatry, by most standards, are failures. More people than ever are on anti-depressants; drug abuse is rampant; psychotherapies don’t work; our jails are fuller than ever."

Next, we have a piece published at The Edge, which is a conversation with Martin Seligman.  The piece is titled “EUDAEMONIA, THE GOOD LIFE A Talk with Martin Seligman." An excerpt.

"Clinical psychology, social psychology has, in our lifetimes, been able to relieve an enormous amount of suffering, notes Martin Seligman. “Can psychologists can make people lastingly happier?,” he asks.

“We are able to look at the causal skein of mental illness and unravel it, either by longitudinal studies — the same people over time — or experimental studies, which would get rid of third variables...We’re able to create treatments — drugs, psychotherapy — and do random assignment placebo control studies to find out which ones really worked and which ones were inert.” But, he notes that one result of this success is that 90% of the science in psychology is now based on the disease model, and this has resulted in three costs:

“The first one was moral, that we became victimologists and pathologizers. Our view of human nature was that mental illness fell on you like a ton of bricks, and we forgot about notions like choice, responsibility, preference, will, character, and the like. The second cost was that by working only on mental illness we forgot about making the lives of relatively untroubled people happier, more productive, and more fulfilling. And we completely forgot about genius, which became a dirty word. The third cost was that because we were trying to undo pathology we didn’t develop interventions to make people happier; we developed interventions to make people less miserable."

Both pieces make for interesting reads. 

Posted by John Venlet on 04/09 at 09:00 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

An Adventure in Tech Support

So, yesterday, was pretty much eaten away, for myself, with chasing the tail of a tech problem.  My computer is a DELL Inspiron 8600. It’s a nice laptop, a gift from the lovely Melis.  Aesthetically pleasing to look at, the computer and the lovely Melis, the feature I enjoy most, about the computer, is its wireless capacity.

Anway, I had been having problems with the No Treason (NT) site, and only NT’s site, loading correctly.  When I would click over to the site, I would receive the first couple of sentences from the most recent post, but none of the background, or other posts.  When I would hit my refresh key, I would receive even less of NT’s posts, and could view HTML code and what not, but I could not get the entire page to load.  So I called DELL tech support.

I got right through to DELL, actually a young lady in Alabama, informed her of my problem and fussed around for 45 minutes or so, to no avail.  She recommended I call Microsoft for tech support.  When I reminded her that the software was factory installed, and DELL is responsible for tech support on factory installed software, she informed me that since she couldn’t figure it out, the only thing I could do was contact Microsoft.

I called Microsoft. Need I tell you what I was informed after 30 minutes on the phone with them?  Yes, I needed to contact DELL tech support for assistance with this problem.  I once again call DELL. This time I get a young lady down in Texas.  I explain to her the hoops I’ve jumped through so far, all to no avail of course, and ask if she can figure this out.  After reviewing the previous call’s notes, and some additional fussing around, I still have the same problem.  The call ends with a recommendation to contact, you guessed it, Microsoft. Time spent, an hour and a half.

So I call Microsoft, once again.  I explain to Microsoft the issue, again, the results, none, and ask if they can help figure this out.  The reply is, yes, they can, for a fee of 35 bucks, which can conveniently be charged and work commenced immediately.  I pony up the 35 bucks and end up talking with Sunvi, in New Delhi, India.

I spend an hour and a half on the phone with Sunvi, and let me tell you, this guy was sharp.  He knew his way around the insides of a computer and had a grasp of software issues that was voluminous.  An outsourcing success is the way I would describe my experience with Sunvi as a representative for Microsoft. So, Sunvi determines what the problem is.  The problem is a McAfee software called Privacy Service. If that software is uninstalled, I can access NT without any problem.  Sunvi recommends dumping McAfee and installing Norton or some other software.

Since I have already spent money on McAfee, I decide to get ahold of them to determine if they can solve this issue.  I first think of calling them on the phone for tech support.  This is not a cost effective solution.  Meaning, they want to charge me, by the minute via a 900 number.  I don’t consider this servicing an already paid customer.  The other options McAfee offered were email support or live chat.  I choose chat.

I get connected via chat and start working with a guy by the name of Robert.  I inform Robert of what has taken place so far, including the fact that if McAfee’s software is uninstalled, the problem is resolved.  Robert recommends reinstalling the glitch producing software, after defragging, running scan disk and disk cleanup.  This, I am informed, will take care of the problem.  I follow the instructions to the letter after ending the chat support session which lasts about 1 hour.  I have the same problem, so I initate a chat tech support with McAfee again.  Wouldn’t you know it, I have to jump through all the same hoops with a new technician that I had jumped through less than an hour ago.  To no avail.

Needless to say, McAfee’s “Privacy Service" software remains uninstalled from my computer.  McAfee states they will contact me by email with a solution, but who knows when that will be.  The one positive aspect of this exercise in futility was my Microsoft outsourced call to Sunvi in New Delhi.  I did enjoy the banter we shared over the phone as our conversation ranged far beyond matters of tech support.  Plus, Sunvi solved the problem, though McAfee’s software is the actual glitch.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/09 at 07:43 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

There Are So Many Things Wrong in this Story

The headline on my ISP homepage reads "Girl, 9, Cuffed and Arrested." The link leads to a MSNBC posted story from AP with this headline.  “Girl, 9, cuffed and arrested over missing bunny." The sub headline reads "Florida police defend detention, say it was at request of victim."

Let’s take a look at the article.  Here’s the opening.

"A 9-year-old girl accused of stealing a rabbit and $10 from a neighbor’s home was arrested, handcuffed and questioned at a police station."

Stealing is wrong, and further into the article, you can read how the 9 year old girl, I think, realizes this because she admits taking the rabbit, but not the 10 bucks.

The second paragraph.

"A Pasco County sheriff’s deputy found the black-and-white rabbit, named Oreo, hopping around in the girl’s living room, according to the arrest report. She was read her rights and taken away in the back of a patrol car."

Great.  The absconded property has been located.  Return the bunny to the next door neighbor girl, lecture the 9 year old a bit, and her mother, and then let the situation be handled by the girl’s mother, rather than handcuffing, reading the girl her Miranda rights, and hauling the kid away.

What does the sheriff’s department have to say about the arrest?

"Sheriff’s spokesman Kevin Doll defended the arrest, and said if the victim of a crime wants an arrest, deputies are required to act if there is enough evidence."

Just following orders and procedures, citizens.

"Lori Ventura, the mother of the child who owns the rabbit, said the girl has been involved in other incidents and needs help."

Indeed.  The problem here, is, the mom is basically admitting she is a rotten parent and is denying her own rights and responsibilities as parent.  She is acknowledging she is a slave to the state and abrogating the welfare of her daughter, her right, to the state also.

I can only shake my head in disgust at the lack of rationality in all the individuals involved.  Well, except for the 9 year old girl.  I can understand her lacking rationality, and a sound moral compass, but at least she admitted her wrongdoing.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/09 at 07:17 AM
(5) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

It's Not Really a Secret

"The answer is not foreign aid, which is corrupting and often worse than useless. In many cases, it actually further impoverished an already poor country. Enriched urban elites bought luxury goods, while donated food and socialist controls drove down the local price of food, ruining the farmers on whom these subsistence economies had depended.

We now know that the secret to curing hunger and poverty is capitalism and free trade. We have seen that demonstrated irrefutably in East Asia, which has experienced the greatest alleviation of poverty in the history of man. In half a century, places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea have gone from subsistence to First World status. And now free markets and free trade are lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty in India and China."

Charles Krauthammer in a column at Townhall.com titled “How times have changed."

Via PrestoPundit.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/09 at 06:02 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Hans-Herman Hoppe in the Morning

Andy Duncan, posting at Samizdata, has finished reading Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed and has provided us with a review. His opening remarks.

"I used to be a singer in a rock and roll band.

Well, okay, maybe not, but I was a lead guitarist in a punk rock band. I even had my Fender copy tuned so I could play the major rock chords with a single sliding finger, just like those anarcho-punk legends, Crass.

If only our band had possessed some luck, a good manager, a driving licence between us, some money, a van, and a small pet monkey named Brian, we might have made it big. Especially if the lead guitarist had actually possessed any talent.

But, alas, this punk dream faded, as it did for a million others, and my brush with anarchy submerged itself for another twenty years. However, much to my surprise it resurfaced again last year, a little rusty but largely unscathed, when it experienced a depth charge blast from Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s mental mind bomb, Democracy: The God That Failed."

I like a good “mental mind bomb.” Get a cup of coffee for this one, it’s a longer post.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/09 at 05:15 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 7 of 11 pages « First  <  5 6 7 8 9 >  Last »