I can never read articles like this one without the words "unintended consequences" flashing over and over in my brain. The science of using genetically modified or alien species to achieve some human goal is one that has an extraordinarily spotty record. It's great in theory, and the biggest successes have obviously been with genetically modified plants and food animals, which exist and propagate under fairly controlled conditions. However, when we've introduced plant and animal species into the wild to solve some human "problem" we've often found the newly introduced invasive species to cause more problems than they solve.
Insects and microbes are a particularly touchy case, because once they're out in the wild, they could prove impossible to eradicate and to prevent from spreading to unwanted areas. A bug that could "swim in a pond and soak up sunlight and urinate automotive fuel" is a bug that could pollute vast bodies of open water, one might think.
The technology is fascinating, and has many possibilities, but it's frustrating to read an eight-page article that never does due diligence and goes beyond "Rah, Rah! Isn't this cool?" to ask hard questions about safety and responsibility.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Are We Supposed To Be Outraged By This?
Florida tells 91-year-old World War II veteran he must prove his citizenship to vote
Florida did an audit of its voter registration rolls and is trying to clean them up. It's hardly a huge imposition to have to provide some citizenship info, no matter whether you're a WW II vet or not. What does it matter that he's a 91-year-old vet? We all have to deal with paperwork now and then.
I think we should be giving Florida kudos for trying to protect the integrity of its elections.
Florida did an audit of its voter registration rolls and is trying to clean them up. It's hardly a huge imposition to have to provide some citizenship info, no matter whether you're a WW II vet or not. What does it matter that he's a 91-year-old vet? We all have to deal with paperwork now and then.
I think we should be giving Florida kudos for trying to protect the integrity of its elections.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
History Is Only Important As It Relates To Obama
Via Commentary Mag: Obama has added references to himself into the whitehouse.gov biographies of every President since Calvin Coolidge. Obama has thereby achieved a standard of creepy previously not seen outside Hollywood, The Soviet Union and North Korea.
The Candidate of Consequences
Power Line has a good article comparing Obama and Romney's analytical skills and experience. It's pretty sobering to consider that Obama has never in his entire life been in a position where his decisions -- and his failures -- had significant consequences, until becoming President. Wow. Romney has been dealing in terms of measurable success and failure his entire adult life.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that Romney is, in every measurable way, the more serious, tested, experienced person.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that Romney is, in every measurable way, the more serious, tested, experienced person.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Censors are Sofa King Stupid
Northamptonshire sofa firm's slogan branded 'offensive'
I admit I was completely puzzled for a minute by what anyone could find offensive about the company's ad slogan, touting that their prices are "Sofa King Low!" Finally, I said it out loud to myself. I giggled a bit. Really, don't people have anything better to do than find stuff like this to be offended by?
I admit I was completely puzzled for a minute by what anyone could find offensive about the company's ad slogan, touting that their prices are "Sofa King Low!" Finally, I said it out loud to myself. I giggled a bit. Really, don't people have anything better to do than find stuff like this to be offended by?
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Marriage
We're really being distracted by both political sides in this debate. My own views on gay marriage have always been clear to me: I oppose it. However, I was always troubled by holding that view and it was not until I thought more deeply into the issue that I realized why.
There are really two issues here.
First, the morality and legitimacy of gay marriage. This is a moral, cultural and religious issue. For thousands of years, marriage was sanctioned and sanctified by the church and there was very little government involvement in the institution. People who didn't seek church sanction had common law marriages. It was all rather casual.
It's hard for people to understand today in our heavily-monitored world, but for much of history, you could set out walking or riding, and in a day or two, a matter of less than a hundred miles, you'd be somewhere where nobody knew you, nor had they any easy way to check up on you. It was possible, in those days, to live an essentially anonymous life, unless you were a notoriously wanted criminal.
There were no master registries of your marriage. It might be filed in a church record, or at the county courthouse where you were married. But if that courthouse was 500 miles away, people just took your word on it for the most part. You were married because you said you were married.
Now we get to what is, for me, the real issue. The issue of government intrusion into the institution of marriage. At what point did we decide it was vital for government to monitor and be the sole arbiter of the legitimacy of a marriage?
I can't condone that. I reserve the right to speak with scorn and disdain regarding gay marriage, but I cannot abide the idea that the federal or state governments get to set the terms for approval of my marriage under God. It's between me, my wife and God. That being the case, I obviously have no standing to ask the state or federal government to set the terms for approval of a gay couple's marriage.
The problem, however, is that the state has intruded so deeply into the institution of marriage. It has set itself so firmly as the sole judge of what marriage is or is not -- it is even allowed to issue rewards and punishments to people based on their marital status -- that we cannot separate the issue of state approval of gay marriage from the issue of state control of all marriage.
So, my stand on principal is that I want the government out of the marriage business. That's rightly the role of churches and individuals. Any state role can be handled under contract law. If I want my spouse to have joint ownership of my possessions and right of inheritance, I can do that via civil contract. If I want to say that this is my wife in the eyes of God, that's not the state's business.
If "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" then Congress cannot rightly sanction the Christian concept of monogamous marriage while prohibiting other forms of marriage, because marriage is a fundamentally religious concept as much as it is a social concept.
The state needs to retreat to speaking in terms of rights of contract under civil law, not in terms of the religious and cultural language of marriage.
If we are a free people, then we do not need the state to set the terms of our marraiges for us. We have rights of free association, which would include the right to marry who we want. Our personal lives are not a proper subject for state intrusion.
I know that people think that if we condone all sorts of immoral unions that we contribute to the moral decline of the nation, but the moral strength of a nation does not derive from its laws. The reverse is true. A nation's underlying moral strength is reflected in its laws. If we are culturally and morally strong, then the laws are a mere afterthought. You cannot make people respect monogamous heterosexual relationships, and the cultural background that go with them, by forbidding them the alternatives. That respect can only flower in individual human hearts, and only by choice, and by following good examples, not by compulsion. If we are a moral people, we will appear to be a moral people. If we are a people in decline, we cannot halt that decline with laws forbidding moral decline.
There are really two issues here.
First, the morality and legitimacy of gay marriage. This is a moral, cultural and religious issue. For thousands of years, marriage was sanctioned and sanctified by the church and there was very little government involvement in the institution. People who didn't seek church sanction had common law marriages. It was all rather casual.
It's hard for people to understand today in our heavily-monitored world, but for much of history, you could set out walking or riding, and in a day or two, a matter of less than a hundred miles, you'd be somewhere where nobody knew you, nor had they any easy way to check up on you. It was possible, in those days, to live an essentially anonymous life, unless you were a notoriously wanted criminal.
There were no master registries of your marriage. It might be filed in a church record, or at the county courthouse where you were married. But if that courthouse was 500 miles away, people just took your word on it for the most part. You were married because you said you were married.
Now we get to what is, for me, the real issue. The issue of government intrusion into the institution of marriage. At what point did we decide it was vital for government to monitor and be the sole arbiter of the legitimacy of a marriage?
I can't condone that. I reserve the right to speak with scorn and disdain regarding gay marriage, but I cannot abide the idea that the federal or state governments get to set the terms for approval of my marriage under God. It's between me, my wife and God. That being the case, I obviously have no standing to ask the state or federal government to set the terms for approval of a gay couple's marriage.
The problem, however, is that the state has intruded so deeply into the institution of marriage. It has set itself so firmly as the sole judge of what marriage is or is not -- it is even allowed to issue rewards and punishments to people based on their marital status -- that we cannot separate the issue of state approval of gay marriage from the issue of state control of all marriage.
So, my stand on principal is that I want the government out of the marriage business. That's rightly the role of churches and individuals. Any state role can be handled under contract law. If I want my spouse to have joint ownership of my possessions and right of inheritance, I can do that via civil contract. If I want to say that this is my wife in the eyes of God, that's not the state's business.
If "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" then Congress cannot rightly sanction the Christian concept of monogamous marriage while prohibiting other forms of marriage, because marriage is a fundamentally religious concept as much as it is a social concept.
The state needs to retreat to speaking in terms of rights of contract under civil law, not in terms of the religious and cultural language of marriage.
If we are a free people, then we do not need the state to set the terms of our marraiges for us. We have rights of free association, which would include the right to marry who we want. Our personal lives are not a proper subject for state intrusion.
I know that people think that if we condone all sorts of immoral unions that we contribute to the moral decline of the nation, but the moral strength of a nation does not derive from its laws. The reverse is true. A nation's underlying moral strength is reflected in its laws. If we are culturally and morally strong, then the laws are a mere afterthought. You cannot make people respect monogamous heterosexual relationships, and the cultural background that go with them, by forbidding them the alternatives. That respect can only flower in individual human hearts, and only by choice, and by following good examples, not by compulsion. If we are a moral people, we will appear to be a moral people. If we are a people in decline, we cannot halt that decline with laws forbidding moral decline.
Scrubbing the Evidence
The Election Law Blog posts a statement from the Obama administration, regarding their egregious failure to verify the identifies of donors on their web site.
They purport they they rely on "a manual process to review any transaction flagged by AVS, also taking into account other fraud risk factors, and using fraud detection services provided by our credit card processor." Of course, this is bunk on stilts to anyone familiar with e-commerce transactions.
The Obama campaign refunded my own example transaction on 5/1/2012 -- nearly a full month after the donation was paid out. It's pretty obvious to me that they realized they were getting heat about this issue and decided to go through their transaction logs and refund the most egregious examples.
They purport they they rely on "a manual process to review any transaction flagged by AVS, also taking into account other fraud risk factors, and using fraud detection services provided by our credit card processor." Of course, this is bunk on stilts to anyone familiar with e-commerce transactions.
The Obama campaign refunded my own example transaction on 5/1/2012 -- nearly a full month after the donation was paid out. It's pretty obvious to me that they realized they were getting heat about this issue and decided to go through their transaction logs and refund the most egregious examples.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
OK, Think About What You Just Wrote
In an otherwise good story on plans by the USPS to avoid closing many rural post offices, the reporter offers up this gem of a paragraph:
I also have very poor internet service. There is absolutely no suitable broadband option available to me -- no cable and no DSL, and the nature of my work makes satellite internet untenable.
But apparently I'm farther behind the times than I thought! If I'm interpreting that paragraph correctly, if you have reliable internet service, you don't have to depend on letters and packages for such important items as mail-order prescription drugs! Apparently, with cutting-edge reliable, internet service you can actually receive your mail-order prescription drugs through the internet! What an amazing world we live in!
Among the concerns of rural residents is they lack reliable Internet service, so they must depend on letters and packages for such important items as mail-order prescription drugs.I rely heavily on a small rural post office: the mailbox at the end of my driveway got knocked down so many times I got tired of putting it back up, and it's a terrible place to hold packages. They're not safe and it's hard to keep anything sizable out of the weather at the end of my 150-yard-long farm driveway. So I have all my mail come to a PO Box at the nearby post office. It's a tiny branch that's had the same two lovely ladies on staff since I moved out here about 18 years ago.
I also have very poor internet service. There is absolutely no suitable broadband option available to me -- no cable and no DSL, and the nature of my work makes satellite internet untenable.
But apparently I'm farther behind the times than I thought! If I'm interpreting that paragraph correctly, if you have reliable internet service, you don't have to depend on letters and packages for such important items as mail-order prescription drugs! Apparently, with cutting-edge reliable, internet service you can actually receive your mail-order prescription drugs through the internet! What an amazing world we live in!
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Next Step In TSA Security Procedures
Welcome, travelers to Anthony Weiner International Airport! Please remove your underwear and place it in a plastic bin for screening!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
A Man "almost without any skills at all."
"In his 224-page book, Wilson can’t solve the mysteries ... such as how a man “almost without any skills at all” ruined a nation." A book about Obama? Not quite. Or, maybe.
Government Without Limits
You don't have to fantasize about what it would be like. You can see it in action all over the world today, including and especially in one of the world's biggest economic powers.
Chen Guangcheng case puts pressure on Chinese activists
I wonder what Chen Guangcheng and Lui Yi would think of Tom Friedman's wish to have the U.S. have China's form government for a day. The totalitarian urge is alive and well in the U.S. Thanks Tom, and all your fellow travelers.
I'm being sarcastic, but this is not idle snark or exercise. In the case of Obamacare's individual mandate, now before the Supreme Court, one thing that struck both justices and observer's was the administration's lawyer's inability to articulate a limiting principle for government authority. Basically, once the government can force you to buy products, there's very little it can't force you to do, no area of human existence, from cradle to grave, that doesn't fall within government's sphere.
The modern leftist interpretation of the Constitution is of a government with expansive powers over people with a limited number of protected rights.
Contrast that to the founder's vision, of a government with limited, defined powers and citizens with a vast, expansive assumption of rights and retained powers (See the Federalist Papers and the Constitution itself, Article I, section 8, and the ninth and tenth amendments).
The farther we drift from that original foundation, the more like China we become. And that isn't a good thing, in case you weren't paying attention.
UPDATE: I just read an article where a Harvard biology professor recommends government-mandated exercise. Harvard is a trend-setter in legal and social thought. So, the fact that statements like this are originating there is very troubling. It means senior faculty there have abandoned any respect for limited government:
Chen Guangcheng case puts pressure on Chinese activists
"I think that after the Chen Guangcheng incident, the situation for us will just become worse and worse, because in today's society government power has no limits," said Liu Yi, an artist and supporter of Chen."Government power has no limits." If only there was a country that had a constitution the put strict, defined limits on government power, to protect its people. If only we could compare life there with life under governments with unlimited power.
I wonder what Chen Guangcheng and Lui Yi would think of Tom Friedman's wish to have the U.S. have China's form government for a day. The totalitarian urge is alive and well in the U.S. Thanks Tom, and all your fellow travelers.
I'm being sarcastic, but this is not idle snark or exercise. In the case of Obamacare's individual mandate, now before the Supreme Court, one thing that struck both justices and observer's was the administration's lawyer's inability to articulate a limiting principle for government authority. Basically, once the government can force you to buy products, there's very little it can't force you to do, no area of human existence, from cradle to grave, that doesn't fall within government's sphere.
The modern leftist interpretation of the Constitution is of a government with expansive powers over people with a limited number of protected rights.
Contrast that to the founder's vision, of a government with limited, defined powers and citizens with a vast, expansive assumption of rights and retained powers (See the Federalist Papers and the Constitution itself, Article I, section 8, and the ninth and tenth amendments).
The farther we drift from that original foundation, the more like China we become. And that isn't a good thing, in case you weren't paying attention.
UPDATE: I just read an article where a Harvard biology professor recommends government-mandated exercise. Harvard is a trend-setter in legal and social thought. So, the fact that statements like this are originating there is very troubling. It means senior faculty there have abandoned any respect for limited government:
Lieberman, who chairs the Human Evolutionary Biology Department, said the cascading effects on human health and medical costs are so catastrophic that government should require exercise just as it mandates vaccinations and other public health measures.Men and women live longer now than ever before. We are larger and live healthier later in life than ever, but still any perceived defect in our health regimens is treated as "catastrophic." Never let a crisis go to waste, right?
Exactly How Is This a Threat to Our Homeland?
Rare white buffalo sacred to some in Native American community killed and skinned
This is certainly a sad story and I hope the perpetrators are captured and prosecuted for animal cruelty or destruction of the rancher's property or whatever charges are accurate and appropriate. But note this line:
The Department of Homeland Security? Really? Exactly what do buffalo killings have to do with homeland security? Do our federal agencies even pretend that there are jurisdictional limits on their powers anymore?
I was already of the opinion that the DHS is one of the most useless bureaucracies ever created. We already had the Department of Defense (what are they defending, if not our homeland?), the National Security Agency (presumably protecting the security of our nation, a.k.a. homeland), and the FBI (a law enforcement agency tasked with enforcing federal law within our homeland), not to mention probably a dozen other agencies that stick their fingers in every aspects of our domestic lives. Now I'm sure DHS is useless, if it's assisting in investigating buffalo killings.
This is certainly a sad story and I hope the perpetrators are captured and prosecuted for animal cruelty or destruction of the rancher's property or whatever charges are accurate and appropriate. But note this line:
Sheriff Randy Meeks said he was notified of the crime by Texas Parks and Wildlife. His office is investigating with the help of the Department of Homeland Security and the National Indian Council.
The Department of Homeland Security? Really? Exactly what do buffalo killings have to do with homeland security? Do our federal agencies even pretend that there are jurisdictional limits on their powers anymore?
I was already of the opinion that the DHS is one of the most useless bureaucracies ever created. We already had the Department of Defense (what are they defending, if not our homeland?), the National Security Agency (presumably protecting the security of our nation, a.k.a. homeland), and the FBI (a law enforcement agency tasked with enforcing federal law within our homeland), not to mention probably a dozen other agencies that stick their fingers in every aspects of our domestic lives. Now I'm sure DHS is useless, if it's assisting in investigating buffalo killings.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
These Colors Don't Run ... Or Burn
My comment on a Corner post about a little dust-up over the latest revival of idiotic talk about an anti-flag-burning amendment:
The very passion of those who support anti-flag-burning amendments is, ironically, the strongest argument against such an amendment.
"Burning an American flag is conduct — not speech," James Carey, says. Well, will the amendment prohibit the burning of all squares of cloth? Because that's the behavior. Is someone likely to be extremely upset if I go burn my pillow case?
But the flag is not, of course, just a pillowcase, not just a square of cloth. It's a symbol. It's an idea. That's why burning it is such powerful speech. It communicates, succinctly, utter disrespect for this nation and for the men who fought and died so that you'd have the freedom to desecrate the symbol many of them fought under. It's despicable. And that's exactly why it has to be protected.
People who burn flags are generally America-hating political dissidents. We do not find excuses to criminalize the expressions of our political dissidents in this nation. Leave that to China. Ask Chen Guangcheng about that.
If the ideals the flag symbolizes are as good and worthy as we think they are, then America-haters can burn a truckload of flags and never weaken a stitch of the real fabric this nation is made from.
The very passion of those who support anti-flag-burning amendments is, ironically, the strongest argument against such an amendment.
"Burning an American flag is conduct — not speech," James Carey, says. Well, will the amendment prohibit the burning of all squares of cloth? Because that's the behavior. Is someone likely to be extremely upset if I go burn my pillow case?
But the flag is not, of course, just a pillowcase, not just a square of cloth. It's a symbol. It's an idea. That's why burning it is such powerful speech. It communicates, succinctly, utter disrespect for this nation and for the men who fought and died so that you'd have the freedom to desecrate the symbol many of them fought under. It's despicable. And that's exactly why it has to be protected.
People who burn flags are generally America-hating political dissidents. We do not find excuses to criminalize the expressions of our political dissidents in this nation. Leave that to China. Ask Chen Guangcheng about that.
If the ideals the flag symbolizes are as good and worthy as we think they are, then America-haters can burn a truckload of flags and never weaken a stitch of the real fabric this nation is made from.
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