The Golden Gate

Oh man.

The Banterist, who is always good for a rich belly laugh, has posted his “Obligatory 2005 Retrospective”. As you can imagine, it is full of greatest hits. Be sure to check it out.

My favorite is “To the Person Who Found My Camera”. Here is a sample:

As you may have noticed, the Casio Exilim is a 2.0 Megapixel beauty with a 4X digital zoom. At under a half-inch thick, it’s the perfect camera to put in your pocket and lose while dining out.

No doubt, you’re wondering why the memory card contains 17 close-ups of a cat’s ass.

I will explain, but first I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I am not attracted to cats, nor do I have any kind of collection of cat derrieres. I have no political or artistic statement to make. I am not trying to turn a tawdry collection of feline bungs into a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. All my cat relationships have been platonic and I did not in any way derive pleasure from having said photos in my possession.

I’m sure the discovery of 17 close-up shots of a cat’s ass were surprising for you, to say the least. Possibly unnerving. Maybe they were wholly upsetting. Honestly, I’m not sure how I would react either. I can only hope you discovered the shots after you finished the delicious spinach dip - Houston’s signature item. If you did not, you have my apologies as well as my camera.

Regardless of the shot capacity of a 256-Megabyte memory card you’ve no doubt been asking yourself, and anyone in your proximity, why someone would ever be carrying 17 shots of a cat’s ass on his or her person. Indeed, that’s 17 cat ass shots too many…

Do yourself a favor and read the rest on your own.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last” –Sir Winston Churchill

The cause of the tsunami has been discovered.

Glad they figured that out.

Oh man. Check this out. And have fun. I sure did. Chat on!

Nothing new. Just more complex structures and different framing on the same old government controlled utpoia. I laugh at “Free Trade Agreement”. They are many, many pages that are negotiated over the course of years. Hysterical. This is not “free trade”. Free trade would require at most a few sentences. Something like this: “As of this date, the signatories hereby rescind and/or declare null and void any restrictions, quotas, or tarrifs between the two countries in any industry or industries where they previously existed or were instituted by the governments of said Countries.”

Politics be damned. It would be the right thing to do for all.

Free trade agreements, my ankle.

The cartelization of the global textile trade dates back to the 1950s when America coerced a major developing exporter, Japan, into short-term “voluntary” export restraint arrangements with quotas, which became commonplace between developed countries seeking to protect an influential domestic industry and poor countries seeking to shield nascent export opportunities from retaliation. Such deals evolved into the Multi-Fiber Arrangements, which institutionalized governments’ management of the trade. The 1995 Agreement on Textiles and Clothing abolished the MFA over a ten-year transition period, freeing textiles in a manner consistent with global trade rules beginning January 1, 2005.

For China’s competitive textile industry, the prospect of quota-free trade was an immensely appealing inducement for its government to join the World Trade Organization. Since January 1 Chinese exports of clothing and textile products to the United States, the world’s largest textile market, have jumped more than 40%.

Anxious about Beijing’s growing economic clout and nebulous military ambitions, the Bush administration has invoked safeguard clauses embedded in China’s conditions for WTO membership to unilaterally re-institute limits on import levels of individual product lines. In the eleven months since the expiration of the MFA, the administration has exercised this option for 19categories of clothing.

The appeal of the accord struck between the American and Chinese governments is clear. Washington constrains foreign competition in 34 textile product lines without having to rule out further trade restrictions or annually renew the quotas, as would be the case with the 19 items it had already subjected to safeguards. Beijing pockets average growth rates of about 15% per annum in the pertinent textile categories over the life of the agreement, which exceeds the 7.5% per annum ceiling America must admit under China’s WTO accession agreement.

Unhelpful intervention

Nevertheless, the justification and efficacy of government meddling in trade matters — especially in the case of Washington’s embrace of textile quotas — is dubious. Not only are political means counterproductive, but such interventionist measures tend to generate real dislocations in its wake where only supposed ones existed.

Read the rest on your own.

This is big stuff:

On Nov. 20, the Tribune began an inquest: We set out to assess the Bush administration’s arguments for war in Iraq. We have weighed each of those nine arguments against the findings of subsequent official investigations by the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee and others. . . . After reassessing the administration’s nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of “the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq.” We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world’s security, stop the butchery–or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.

Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now–what this matrix chronicles– affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003.

Read the entire, detailed piece.

Via Instapundit and Steve Antler.

As we have probably all heard by now, the NYT printed leaked information informing us that the Bush Administration has been selectively spying domestically with the NSA via FISA. [I think in 30 instances].

Was this legal? Check out this post by a level headed libertarian with full legal analysis. Good stuff. Read it all.

And Pejman reminds us that this is really just the nature of gov’t and quotes an excerpt that deomstrates just how disingenuous the dems are being:

In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has “inherent authority” to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress’s decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.

“The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes,” Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, “and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General.”

So much for philosophical consistency. Of course, asking a partisan hack or a politician not to be a hypocrite with double standards is like asking a bear to shit in a toilet. And use paper. And flush.

Hubris demonstrates his analytical and systemic prowess over at INDC Journal in this post on blogging.

Alexandra over at All Things Beautiful has a great post on The Clash of Civilizations. You get three guesses as to which civilizations [and the first 2 guesses do not count].

Just keep scrolling, reading, and clicking. She really has put together an impressive post.

And as I have mentioned before in passing we should be looking at this clash through the lens of Spiral Dynamics.

Islam is Red, GW Bush is Blue, those profiting in the War on Terror are Orange, those anti-war are Green. Those who see all sides as well as their limitations…are integral or yellow.

Those who see the dangers of Red, are grateful Blue is keeping them in check, can understand Orange’s desire for profit and appreciate the services they are providing [especially logistics], demands that Green, if it is going to condemn GW that is also condemns Islamo-fascism and Saddam and can see the need for war at times, are Yellow or Integral.

Some of you may have noticed that most [all?] TypePad blogs were down this weekend for some period of time. Then they were back up, but the posts were only showing through December 10th. Then they were back up and current, but the images were “to be restored this weekend”.

That means that Wuzzadem and Hubris and The Marmot and Dennis the Peasant were all down…just to name a few.

Well, Wuzzadem has written an open letter to the wonderful TypePad gods. It is…well…hysterical.

Here is a taste:

How have you been? Haven’t see you around much lately.

Just wanted to write brief note to say thanks, but somehow cliche expressions like “Thanks for everything” could never adequately convey my deep sense of gratitude, so I want to go over a few of the things you’ve done for me lately and thank you for each of them individually.

First of all, thanks for giving me a break from posting to my blog, or for that matter reading any other TypePad blogs for the last 16 hours or so. I needed a break from posting, and eliminating TypePad blogs from my reading choices allowed me to focus on all the great non-TypePad blogs out there.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Part 0: Introduction

“When people are free to act, they will always act in a way that they believe will maximize their utility, i.e., will raise them to the highest possible position on their value scale. Their utility ex ante will be maximized, provided we take care to interpret “utility” in an ordinal rather than a cardinal manner. Any action, any exchange that takes place on the free market or more broadly in the free society, occurs because of the expected benefit to each party concerned.” –Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market

“We must not be afraid to be free.”–Justice Black

Human beings have an inexhaustible spirit. Through wars, pestilence, oppression, disasters, genocide and personal tragedy, human beings continue to express creativity and ingenuity to the very degree that they are allowed the liberties to do so. It is an unquenchable and inexhaustible Spirit. It is the best—the Divine—within each of us that makes it so. And while at times, we have varying degrees of access to the divine within us, and sometimes the light is dim and flickers, the fact remains that there is a god or goddess in all of us waiting to come out and play.

What if we could integrate our work and our play? Our spirit and our finances? Our economics and our purpose? Our job and our internal worship? The mundane and the divine?

My assertion is that not only is this possible…it is necessary…for the conscious evolution of the planet and for our survival and thrival as a species. Not to mention our personal happiness. As many of us our satisfied–that is we have all the nice stuff. Cars, houses, fine clothing, computers, iPods, great relationships, money…but we remain unfulfilled.

How many of us are seeking something. Trying to fulfill ourselves with something outside? How many of us have done this ourselves? Seeking, looking, grasping…some of us desperately. And yet, what we seek is right within us all along waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be unleashed. Waiting for the full integration into our daily lives…

–

Spiritual and Capitalism are two words that we seldom, if ever, hear in the same sentence unless derisively or pejoratively in this Country. The conventional and majority “wisdom” states that they are diametrically opposed. That one cannot live a truly spiritual life and be a capitalist and that a capitalist is never really up to any good.

Is this conventional wisdom truly wise? Is it even remotely accurate?

First, we must define “capitalism” and “spiritual” if we are to get anywhere in this discussion.

It is worth noting that “capitalism” is a term that was coined my Marx—the greatest self-anointed enemy of capitalism—someone whose economics theories have virtually all been empirically disproved—to live. The irony there is obvious on both counts. Prior to Marx, there was no definition or characterization of “capitalism” really, for it was not a system at all—it was very simply the application of liberty in the economic domain. “Free Market” meant just that—that the market was free and unrestricted. What was the market? Humans engaged in voluntary associations for mutual benefit. Nothing more. That association may have been a mine worker freely associating with the owner of a mine for some agreed upon amount of money per unit of work [hours or perhaps ponds of extracted materials, etc.] or a provider of transport for someone who wishes to travel somewhere or to send goods to a market in another geographical area or someone wanting to “buy money”—that is, take a loan out with the contract obligation to repay it plus a fee [interest], but in no case could there be violent coercion. It is also noting additionally, that “coercion” does not mean “influence” as in political vogue today, as it abrogates free will and muddies the waters. By coercion, we mean violence or the threat of violence against person or property.

It is truly a triumph of rhetoric over reason that the thinking—debunked for over a century now—that in the free market one person always gains at the expense of another still prevails among many laypeople. What has been known almost since the beginning of economics becoming a science is that both parties always benefit—or at least expect to do so—otherwise they would never engage in the association to begin with. For humans always expect—through all their choices and actions—regardless of if they are proven right or not, to benefit or improve their lot by their choices.

Of course, “liberty” does not mean you are “free” to aggress against another’s person or property as an extension of their person though their labor. Therefore, the only “restrictions” were and should be that force and fraud [fraud is implicit force or implicit theft] were actionable torts. Liberty does not mean you are free to do anything you like. Liberty and freedom are different distinctions. What liberty does mean is that you are free from violent aggression from another. You are therefore not “free” to aggress against another, as to do so would violate his or her liberty.

So “capitalism” as it is so ill-named, is liberty practically applied—the ability to freely associate for mutual benefit. Nothing more and nothing less. Anything else is a moral judgment or characterization or perhaps an aesthetic condemnation and therefore not appropriate for a definition as such.

There are, of course, questions of morality and aesthetics, which often confuse this definition or muddle the thinking around it, but for our purposes, we will address those later, if at all. However, that does not mean that they are not important and valid questions. I would love to have that dialogue, it is just beyond the scope of this piece. Let’s is suffice to say that just because you can to something does not mean you should do it. Unfortunately, in this highly politicized and philosophically muddled society, the distinctions among ethics, morality, and aesthetics have become blurred.

What then, is spiritual, for surely, “capitalism is the least spiritual system of economics” is it not–according to the conventional wisdom?

Spirituality or “being spiritual” means so many things to so many people. It may mean following this spiritual text or that spiritual text. It may mean being “Christ-like” or “possessing the Buddha mind” or it may simply mean being pious or acting for the good of others. For still others, it is following the directives of this spiritual leader or that spiritual leader. For still others it is “opening to the Divine” or “becoming one with all things” through meditation and “spiritual practice”. For still others, it is accessing their own consciousness or their creative spirit. How then can we come to a universal definition of “spiritual”?

For this, we must understand the spirit of human beings.

Spir·it n:

1. a vital force that characterizes a living being as being alive
2. somebody’s will, sense of self, or enthusiasm for living
3. an enthusiasm and energy for living
4. somebody’s personality or temperament
5. somebody or something that is a divine, inspiring, or animating influence

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

For our purpose, we will define “spiritual” as: accessing and liberating to the largest degree possible that which is our vital life force and the best we have within us—our creativity, our inspiration, etc. That is, by demonstrating behavioral alignment or pure expression of our highest values.

This could be through art, community, leadership, study, contribution, entrepreneurship, our job roles, or our chores. It could be liberating our minds through meditation. It could be making love to our partner, for anything with which we bring our Spirit to, and engage fully unleashing our highest inner self, can be, and will be, a spiritual experience and we can bring this to most activities, most notably, our ideas and the implementation or actualization of those ideas or visions.

That being the case, let’s examine capitalism, and not-capitalism very briefly.

Anything other than unfettered capitalism—full economic liberty—is marked by increasing intervention by the State. That is—the government.

What then, is the nature of government? Government in any form [from democracy to socialism to communism to monarchism or dictatorship] has two inalienable qualities:

1. a monopoly on the initiation of force over a declared geographical area, often under the pretense of “protecting” its citizens—whether they need it or want it or not;
2. it exists and operates by levying taxes—that is the coercive and compulsory appropriation of money, which if any other organization or group or individual were engaged in would be called “theft” and prosecuted

The more the government intervenes in the affairs of its citizens [including “assisting” its citizens], the more the use of force is employed and to pay for the increase in government “services”, taxation, or debt, must increase—more force. If it is taxation, it is direct and immediate force. If it is debt, it is delayed force as future generation will have no choice in the matter—they are, in a real way, enslaved to the government as a result.

Therefore, the government is always committing the very same acts that it is entrusted to prevent: violence and theft.

The emperor indeed has no clothes, yet all of society is raving about how wonderful his robes are, and how we should make more of them in various colors.

We have already seen that the most spiritual a person can be is liberation of their spirit, often through creativity, and that they have the inalienable right over their own person and body [and by extension their property] is accepted as natural law and our intuitive moral sense. It is obvious that the use of force against someone—one of the few things all humans can agree on as criminal unless it is purely defensive while protecting your person or property—is dampening to their Spirit, not liberating. Therefore, the more the government intervenes, the less “spiritual” and the more liberalized [free] the economy, the more spiritual, as human beings are free to fully express themselves in every domain of their life, including the economic.

Therefore, Capitalism is the most spiritual system.

What of the “evils” of capitalism? Some people think we have a free market in America, and/or in the Western Industrialized core of nations. We do not. We do not have capitalism. We have something between “mercantilism” and “corporate statism”. Most people who argue about the evils of capitalism know not what they speak of, nor even what system we operate within. In fact, America is not a democracy at all—it is a constitutional republic—an important difference.

But let’s leave politics aside for this discussion. For our purposes, we have the needed definitions:

Capitalism: liberty in the economic domain—that is the ability to freely associate for mutual benefit.

Spiritual: The liberation of human creativity or the human “spirit”—that which is highest in ourselves.

Given those definitions, clearly Capitalism is the most spiritual economic system as it allows the freest expression of our highest values to be fully integrated into our life in all domains.

But again…what of the “evils” of capitalism? Of course the problem with capitalism is not really a problem with capitalism per se at all—for all it does is free people to do what they want or can do and receive something in exchange. What about pollution? What about fraud? These are not capitalist. These are criminal. And they flow not from a system—but from action by people at lower levels of conscious and moral development.

What capitalism has done is expose man’s faults for all to see, not created them. Systems do not create these problems, people–individuals–do.

What about contribution? What about caring for others? What about giving? One of the major errors committed by detractors of Capitalism and liberty is that they presuppose of the government was not handling something it would not get handled. I think we can all see how silly that idea is on its face, once exposed.

However, with this increased liberty, we have proportionally increased our responsibility and our need for an acceleration of the evolution of consciousness and the values spheres to levels that will reduce our negative impact on those around us, the environment, future generations, and our very selves. However, if we are to avoid the use of force, we must do this though education, encouragement, and by becoming more aware as consumers and supporting those companies with leaders who are consciously mindful on their impact. Or, we can use the force and forceful apparatus of government, but we need to at least be honest about what we are doing: using our local, state, and federal representatives to impose our will and value sets on those around us with courts and police–who have guns–because we are impatient and self-righteous.

Is that the kind of world we want to advocate? Or would we rather raise the conscious stage to universal care voluntarily?

“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”– Thomas Jefferson

“…since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter madness to speak of a free people’s state.”–Marx

We have defined both “spiritual” and “capitalism”. What then, is “Spiritual Capitalism”?! Spiritual Capitalism really requires no knowledge or even acceptance of the above, although it is certainly helpful to you to do so. What is required for Spiritual Capitalism is an integral approach—that is, integration of your spirituality and entrepreneurship or the free market. It is that simple.

What a shame that most are dis-integrated. That is, they live separated lives. They go to a job they hate getting paid by people they do not like or by companies that lack integrity. Some have said that the idea that I charge for the work I do is “wrong with the universe”. Which is more out of alignment with the “universe”:

1. Living your spiritual purpose and getting paid for it voluntarily though exchange with clients seeking your services
2. Working for AOL and having to shower when you get home because of the slimy dealings you had to witness in the marketing department and getting paid for that

You be the judge.

The Buddha spoke of “right livelihood” as part of morality. That is, be certain that what you are doing does not harm others or assist others in harming others. The cleanest and clearest way to be fully integrated is to live your spiritual purpose [which is always about being in service to Other or the world] and market that service with integrity and clarity.

What a beautiful world we could create together. A world of people living their highest purpose and exhibiting their highest values—contributing to one another in the deepest way–and being in service of Spirit while simultaneously attaining prosperity as a result. Fully integrated beings.

To do that there are five simple components:

1. Live life consciously
2. Discover your [Spiritual] Purpose
3. Develop an Entrepreneurial Spirit
4. Define Your Values and Change Beliefs Where Necessary
5. Knowledge and Skill Acquisition

We will explore each of them in the coming installments of this series as well as the common blocks to achieving prosperity through purpose.

For other interesting I.D.E.A.s, visit me here.

More gorgeousness here.

Over at the inestimable jewel’s place you can check out this round up of all things anti-globalization today.

The round up is good, but go for the picture of Mama Moonbat at the bottom of the post. I think this woman has milked it for about all it is worth. Someone please let her know she is embarrassing herself at this point. Sheehan–not Malkin. Just to be clear.

So much for this super “breakthrough” that was being trumpeted ’round the globe. Check it and all the updates at the Marmot’s Hole. Stunning.

UPDATE: Instapundit has more on this, including what might be further fallout if the allegations turn out to be true, and the report of the vehement denials and promises to produce proof by the researcher in question, Hwang Woo-suk: “South Korea’s best known scientist said Friday he stands by his breakthrough stem cell research despite a barrage of fraud allegations, and vowed to prove the findings within days.” - updated by rich 12/17/05

December 16, 2005 - The art of life is making necessary conclusions from insufficient premises. - anonymous

I just came accross notes I took on a book I read in the mid 90’s by Richard Brodie who writes in a field called memetics called Virus Of The Mind (a fantastic, quick read), and it got me thinking.

The wide world we experience often differs dramatically from the world we actually live in. The “facts” on which we build our understanding of what is happening are “spun” by media savvy spin doctors from every pulpit, but even more by our emotional responses to the information we are given. If our actions are a function of our thinking and values, and our thinking and values are a function of the information we get, how can we protect ourselves from the spin of our conventional media providers (polititicain, priests, professors) and the independent bloggers in the seemingly more and more conventional blogsphere?

So, take a ride with me…

“(Insert your most recent annoying person) is a big fat idiot!”

These simple and fighting words make for confrontive and often invigorating conversation. But are they an example of the very behavior they are denouncing?

Yes, I agree with Mark Twain when he said that “A person may be intelligent, but people are stupid.” At the same time, as Ken Wilber puts it, “no one is stupid enought to be 100% wrong.” We all use our intelligence to build reasonable conclusions from incomplete information. When that information is partial, inaccurate, or distorted, the conclusions we build are likewise “screwed up.”

You know, “stupid, idiotic, clueless, dumb, hare-brained, Bush-like…”

Since we are all operating on incomplete and inaccurate information of one type or another, we all say “off the mark” or “stupid” things now and again. When we do, it is often helpful for people to get in our face and point out our glaring mistakes with an epithet or two (or 20…).

However, our stupidity cuts both ways. Not only do we say stupid things, but more often, we hear intelligent things stupidly. Sometimes, someone can say something that is “right on” but we distort it according to our stupidity and end up calling them an idiot. The people who see the intelligence of the person we are calling an idiot then experience us as an idiot, often expressing their observation in lengthy and clever ways - to the delight of the crowd who agrees with them, and inflaming further invective from others…

Who wins in this battle? : The very stupidity each person is denouncing.

In blogs, this is all good and fun - I mean, HELL, I “IS” one!

In politics, when we empower the idiots with legislation, guns, TRILLIONS, and public podiums, it is tragic.

Richard Brodie gives this example inVirus Of The Mind:

–

In 1992, 37,776 people were killed by guns in the United States. An other
40,982 were killed by automobiles. Yet a casual look at reporting would
verify that guns get much more coverage than cars, even though almost half
the gun deaths (18,169) were suicides. I’m not saying guns shouldn’t get
more coverage after all, this gun problem is new and growing, while the car
problem has been with us for decades. But people get a distorted picture of
the dangers involved.

Just doing a simple calculation, the chance of any one person dying in an
automobile accident in a given year in the U.S. are one in 6224; the chance
of dying in a gun incident other than suicide is less than half as likely:
one in 13,005. If you put yourself in a low-risk group by not being a
criminal or a police officer, the odds get considerably better. But what are
people more afraid of: guns or cars?

If you’re like most people, the answer is guns. and it’s likely because of
the distorted media coverage. This kind of disturted coverage leads to an
outcry from the populace, which often leads to politicians going
off–forgive the pun half-cocked with “solutions” to the problem.

Now let’s get a handle on what it really means to have a one-in-6500 or a
one in 13.000 chance of dying. lt’s as if you lived on an island in the
South Pacific with a population of 650. You make your living by swimmuing
around in the azure waters around your idyllic paradise and spearing fish
for dinner. Yum, yum. About once every 10 years. a stray shark happens by
and eats a swimmer. That’s a one in 6500 chance of any one per­son being
eaten by a shark. just the same as the odds of dying in an auto­mobile
accident in the U.S. in 1992.

Also, about once every 20 years, two men get into an overheated argument
over a fish or a woman and one of them kills the other one with his spear.
That’s a one-in-13,000 chance of being killed in an argument, just the same
as the odds of being killed by someone else with a gun in the U.S. in 1992.
These are very sad events, and probably dinner table conversation for quite
a few days, but not the be-all and end-all of life. Fortunately, since you
live on an isolated island, these events come and go, and life goes on.

But now imagine there are 392,000 of these islands all linked by tele­vision
and INN (Island News Network). This brings the total population to about 254
million, similar to the U.S. today. Every night, INN reports on the goriest
of the 107 shark attacks and 54 spear deaths that day. Suddenly people’s
picture of the world is quite different. From a peaceful existence disrupted
only by a tragedy every few years, you go to a fear-ridden hell filled with
fear and terror.

Isn’t this interesting? Nothihg has changed except the addition of
television. Yet now it feels like you’re living in a dangerous world, not an
idyllic paradise. Same number of shark attacks; same number of spear deaths.
What happened?

Television news.

–

Thank Dick!

The question becomes: What is your “Television news?” What are the sources of information you use to get the “facts” on which to build your world, your opinions about who is or is not an idiot? Towards what emotions are they spun to inflame in you, and towards what purpose?

Intolerance breeds intolerance, and when communication breaks down, violence increases. When we cannot find enough common ground with our adversaries (political, military, or familial) to build negotiated solutions, our only alternative is to force them or be forced. And as Ayn Rand put it through the character of Francisco D’Anconia, “when force becomes the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.”

Of course, to find common ground, to look for where people are right rather than self-righteously pointing out where they are wrong, requires energy, time, and patience.

Screw that, who was the idiot that wrote this anyway?

Mark Michael Lewis
http://LastingHappiness.com

A lot has happened since my initial post on the big hoo-hah regarding an in-house San Francisco Police Department video production.

Yesterday a local gay community media outlet, the Bay Area Reporter, carried the story that gay police officers participated in the Police Christmas-party video that stirred up the local brouhaha:

“Yes, there were gay officers in that video, but I’m obviously not going to say who they are,” Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco POA, told the Bay Area Reporter. “They were willing participants. In fact, as I’m looking at this … almost half the officers involved in the video were either black, female, or gay.”

If you want to check out the videos for yourself, go here.

Reaction to this news from the Left was as swift as it was predictable:

Transgender activist Robert Haaland said the fact that women and minorities were involved in the videos proves that simply diversifying a workforce does not eliminate homophobia, sexism, and racism.

“Even in our most diverse work places we can have intense racism and sexism. Attitudes don’t necessarily change,” said Haaland, who believes the videos have provided the city with “an opportunity for reform” and that the system should now be revamped to provide “clear markers for acceptable behavior with clear lines of accountability so that police officers will conduct themselves appropriately.”

[..]

“I’m sure [the police officers involved] all had their sensitivity trainings. They know that videos like this are not meant for the public. That adds a certain illicit quality to it, doing something they know is forbidden and yet that our homophobic and racist and sexist society also permits,” said [UC Professor of Pyschiatry Dan] Karasic.

The solution, according to an editorial in the same edition of the Reporter:

We’d like to see an improvement in the culture of the department that currently impedes openly gay male officers from being promoted past the rank of sergeant – we are unaware of any serving currently. The police force’s diversity is underutilized, and that needs to change, too. Maybe if more minority officers were promoted, they could help change the culture within the department, and bring more empathy to the job. This improved climate, in turn, would boost morale in a more positive way than the seamy videos.

Meanwhile, the officers involved have been hitting back, led by the video’s producer, Officer Andrew Cohen, who retained an entire cohort of high-powered attorneys to defend him and help shore up his public image. Also , the captian of the Bayview station who was featured in the video — Capt. Richard Bruce — has demanded an apology from Police Chief Heather Fong and Mayor Gavin Newsom for what he called “smears” and overreactions to the video by the Chief and the Mayor.

Local online outlet The Wall named Officer Cohen as it’s “Scapegoat of the Week”, and cited the favorable press Cohen has gotten in the past.

The president of the San Francisco Police Union also weighed in:

“I know [the Mayor] has to deal with a lot of constituencies in this city,” police union president Gary Delagnes said. “But just because of some videos, you don’t throw the whole department under the bus for the sake of political expediency.”

Then San Francisco Chronicle media critic Steve Winn chimed in with his view that the whole video flap was really a tempest in a teapot, and the police brass and the politicians were missing the point of the self-parodying and satirical police video entirely:

Much of the blur and static around the police video caper has to do with the unstable nature of humor across the cultural spectrum. Satire and parody, especially, have gotten swept up in an engulfing tide of mockery and scorn. In today’s accelerated media swirl, things no sooner happen in the world than they are minutely minced by everyone from radioheads Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken to the Comedy Central tag team of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to an army of instant-response bloggers.
[...]
Satire, certainly, can and often should be scalding. The death of Richard Pryor summoned up memories of a consummately gifted comic artist who held back nothing when it came to the hot-button topics of race, drugs or sex, but reserved his most withering scorn for himself. There was, in his work, an underlying humility, a sense of things that mattered being at risk.

At its heart, satire is meant to mend rather than destroy. The ancient Roman writer Horace viewed satire as a means “to tell the truth, laughing.” For John Dryden, the 17th century English poet, “the end of satire is the amendment of vice.”

In other words, according to Winn, the videos, like all satire, are a form of ridicule which is intended to ultimately produce an outcome of reform.

Clearly, Mayor Newsom didn’t see it that way. For his part, the Mayor has defended his response to the video, denying that he and Cheif Fong overreacted or rushed to judgment:

“If this occurred in any business in the private sector, none of us, I think, would criticize the company for taking aggressive and swift action,” Newsom said. “But for some reason, some people have lowered the bar here in San Francisco.

“The bar is so low in San Francisco that people think it’s fun and games to run over an alleged homeless person, to make fun of different races and communities, to make fun of the police chief … to enact skits of people not doing their job,’ Newsom said in describing some of the content in the videos.

Yesterday all 20 of the suspended SFPD officers were cleared to return to work. An investigation and blue-ribbon comission are going to continue to look into the whole matter, and further departmental changes and disciplinary action may be forthcoming.

A couple of final points: Officer Cohen seems nonplussed by all the attention his video is getting. And part of the reason for that seems to be Cohen’s belief that his identity ought to shield him from the business end of the PC buzzsaw:

“I’m a liberal Berkeley Jew with two biracial children, who was raised by a very strong liberal woman,” he said. “I’m not going to be the victim of someone else’s weird notion of political correctness.”

But it’s one of the features of weird notions of political correctness that context, fairness and balance are removed from the equation. It’s our modern version of the Scarlet Letter or the Salem witch trials — once accused, you’re presumed guilty. Period. Never mind your track record as a dedicated cop who’s made a difference nor your “solid liberal credentials.”

Also, Steve Winn’s points about satire and culture are well taken; it’s nice to hear a nuanced cultural view expressed amidst all the yelling. I encourage you to read his excellent piece “Laugh at your Own Risk.”

Also, the Chronicle’s Debra Saunders hits the issue squarely when she points out:

[Police Chief Heather] Fong intoned, “This is a dark day — an extremely dark day — in the history of the San Francisco Police Department for me as a chief to have to stand here and share with you such egregious, shameful and despicable acts” by SFPD members.

You know, I’d save that rhetoric for when a police officer or a civilian is shot — not for a prank video.
[...]
The Special City’s homicide rate is the highest in a decade. The murder toll hit 92 Tuesday. That makes for a dark day in San Francisco.

An SFPD officer added:

Sonia Mariona, a patrol officer, said, “Our hearts are breaking right now, and nobody wants to address that. We are undermanned, we are outgunned, we don’t have support and, at every turn, we are going to be persecuted by our own department.”

Exactly. And that’s just it: whereas the Left in our city seems to see “diversity” and more quotas and community outreach and identity hires and promotions as the “solution” for the situation, the issue runs far deeper and more fundamental than that. For many years now, the city of San Francisco has uttterly failed to take public safety or public sanitation issues seriously. As a result, our police force feels outgunned, overworked, abandoned and persecuted, and this feeling seems to be shared by a wide swath of officers, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.

Sure, perhaps there are things about Police “culture” that ought to be changed. But I say that it’s the culture of San Francisco — the political culture — that needs to change first and foremost. Let’s see the polticians and the police brass get as worked up over public safety and sanitation as they’ve gotten over these videos.

As Saunders points out:

People dying — that’s serious. And if you want to do something about it, you don’t announce you are going to suspend 20 officers or even one officer — Andrew Cohen, 39, without pay for producing the tapes. Not when you are 264 field officers short of a city mandate.

Let’s get our priorities straight.

I don’t always agree with everything that the Washington Post’s George Will writes. But I certainly appreciate and applaud the fact that he, essentially, “gets it.”

Take this excerpts from today’s column “Paralyzed by Collectivism” (see, right there — fantastic title):

The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society’s balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism — of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America — is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals’ lives. This is done in the name of equality.

People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.

Therefore, one of the collectivists’ tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern — the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. They stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.

Will’s piece today addresses environmentalism and energy production. It’s a very worthwhile — if brief — read. So by all means, go read the whole thing.

Nice one over at Ed Driscoll’s place on the topic.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone of Team America and South Park fame said they “hate actors” and that they have no idea why we look to them for political leadership/direction at all. Why listen to them? “They are actors, which means…they read stuff someone else wrote.”

You can see the whole rant on the unrated Director’s Cut of the DVD in the special features

I have been wondering this for some time:

“I think for a government to follow the American model of saying, for the benefit of each patron, we will provide three drinks only, would be very interesting to look at.”

Where did we go wrong?  Has it always been like this, or was I just too young to notice it before?  When did it become part of the government’s remit to decide how much I can have to drink on a Friday night?  How much I can smoke, and where I can light up?  When did we agree to that?  Can we put our finger on an exact date, or did they just go on reaching and over-reaching to see just how far they could go, getting further into our lives with each passing year?

You can read the whole silly mess if you like. Sortapundit is pretty darn funny with his comical fisking of another do-gooder with a moronic idea.

Forgive them…they know not what they do.

When did THIS happen: when did we stop asking how the government should be kept out of our lives? When did we stop asking IF the government should be in our lives at all?! Somewhere along the line in the last 100 or so years we started to look to the government to save us, make us healthy, protect us, feed us–what’s next? Clothe us and tuck us in at night? Nahhh. That’s what a NANNY would do. Surely we have outgrown that.

Or have we?

We need to awaken the debate again about the true nature of government–an entity that is based on a monopoly on the initiation of force over a given geographical area and one that is supported by money taken with that force. It used to be called tribute. Now they call it taxes. An entity that is supposed to protect us from the initiation of force.

Does no one see the irony? Do people no longer realize that government is an entity that we need to be wary of? The same people calling Bush Hitler want MORE government in other areas. Are they mad?

Sometimes–not always, but sometimes–I long for the hastening of this society to collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions so we can get back to true liberty–which is what works best.

Over at Cold Fury, Al has a great post that covers much ground in a small space. Here is the meat of it:

Of course the battle isn’t won. The couple hundred thousand Sunni clerics in Iraq are calling Zarqawi a jewish CIA agent, in order to get out the vote. But hey, that isn’t that much worse than calling Bush a lynch mob leader (which the NAACP did in 2000) or claiming that Bush had the N’awlins levees blown up because he hates black people, which Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) did last week in congressional hearings. So we’ve got a ways to go before we achieve a neat, orderly democratic process in Washington, much less in Iraq. But the future holds much promise.

Analysis: The U.S. does need to get out of Iraq because we are seen as a pain in the ass. Mainly a necessary pain in the ass, but still a pain. The Sunnis attack us to maintain credibility with their rank and file and to jockey for position and power, the Shiites ride our back because as a majority party they will fare well in a democracy, and because it’s the course of least resistance right now, and the Kurds are with us because we have been their steadfast protector against both Saddam, and bruised Turkey. In addition to acting as political lubricant, we are also acting as the foil, the invader, against which many of the parties can rail so as to rally their own people against… something, lower interest rates and inflation not being quite as high on the radar in a country with major crime and infrastructure problems. In other words, our mere presence probably encourages some of the violence and attacks, just as much as it prevents a slippage into anarchy or mullahocracy.

So we do need to pull out, but not before the Shiites and Sunnis have invested much in the political process, and not before the security forces have become more proficient, less sectarian managers of society’s bad elements. The Sunnis need to realize that if the U.S. pulls out too quick, the Kurds and Shiites will be coming with long knives, to pay them back for a half century of vicious repression. The Shiites need to realize that if the U.S. pulls out too quick, the Kurds and the Sunnis will break off thanks to the threat of Shiite retaliation and in the Kurds’ case, nationalist ambitions, and the Shiites might as well send Turkey and Iran engraved invitations to invade and partition the country. Rather like the U.S. in the post Civil War era, our various regions may not have liked each other that much, but the happenstances of history and geography threw us together, and we could do much better as a unitary whole than as two or three divided mini-nations.

But be sure to…well.. You know.

Video is HERE.

A Google engineer has warned that if the performance per watt of today’s computers doesn’t improve, the electrical costs of running them could end up far greater than the initial hardware price tag.

Check it here.

I sure hope this is not true:

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not.  Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

How many other Presidents and Congresspeople do you think feel too restricted by that little “piece of paper”? Precious little protects us from them. Our life, liberty, and property is always on the table.

Vigilance.

I should not even be surprised by this kind of appalling misuse of funds any more, but I always am.

Un-fucking-believable.

On the Democratic Implosion

Contrast the Democratic reactions to respective advice offered by Congressman Murtha and Senator Joe Lieberman. The former is a respected but not nationally known Democratic figure; the latter ran for the vice presidency of the United States. The Democrats gushed over Murtha’s bleak Dean-like assessment that the war is essentially lost and that we must leave as soon as possible. But then when a vote was called on the issue, they voted overwhelmingly not to follow the congressman’s prescription.

In contrast, when Lieberman returned from Iraq and gave a cautiously optimistically appraisal that our plan of encouraging elections, training Iraqis, and improving the Iraqi economy is working both inside Iraq and in the wider neighboring region, he was shunned by Democrats — who nevertheless by their inaction essentially agreed with Lieberman and so made no move to demand an immediate withdrawal. How odd to be effusive over the Democrat whose advice you reject while ignoring the spokesman whose advice you actually follow.

Read it all. And you would do well to read Hanson on a regular basis. His logic and clarity are hard to refute regardless of your political leanings.

Hat Tip: LGF

Playboy Magazine in…wait for it…in braille. Once you get done shaking your head in disbelief, go check it out and the rest of the Banterist’s site.

Maybe some people really do read it just for the articles.

Naaaaaahhhhhhhh.

For a couple of years now, I’ve been hanging around “The Wall” — a local EZ Board message board dedicated to San Francisco Politics which is run by a gent who goes by the handle Able Dart. I’ve gotten grist for more than one Golden Gate item from hanging around that place, I’ll tell you.

Well, look out, because now The Wall has entered the blogosphere. I’d encourage anybody with even a passing interest in San Francisco politics and/or culture to go give it a look right now.

Able Dart’s most recent post on the new Wall blog concerns the puerile San Francisco Police Video Scandal that’s the obsession of the moment for our local media outlets. Local pols, journalists and “activists” are foaming at the mouth and spinning around in frantic little circles, while prognosticators are taking odds on which heads will roll and when. Here’s the lead from The Wall:

It seems that this city has to have a police scandal of some kind every few years, which is then used to try and pry some changes inside a hidebound department, but usually only ends up with the replacement of a politically hapless police chief.

The newest scandal, of course, is about a series of blue humor videos produced for a Christmas party at Bayview station. The videos feature a number of sociocultural stereotypes reinforced by the basic nature of police work. The police officer/videographer made the mistake of putting some of the more humorous clips on a website, and then the leaks to the press and Mayor’s Office came-a-flowing.

There is nothing new about this phenomenon, nor about political bluenoses making a scandal out of it. What is truly unfortunate about this particular case is the timing, which seems rather deliberate.

Many people who are not police officers will find some of the imagery in these videos offensive. The question comes however, whether it should even be judged by standards outside the environment of what police work has become…

So check out The Wall and read the rest of this excellent piece, which has a lot to say about “Community Policing” and what gets noticed by the media. You’ll probably want to make The Wall a regular stop. I can see myself linking to them on a fairly regular basis — if their first few days of operation are any indication, The Wall will soon be essential reading for any SF observer.

Plus, you gotta love a guy who uses the term “hidebound” in the very first sentence one of his inaugural posts.

Once again the Christmas season is upon us. This is the time of the year that many of us look forward to above all others. A time for giving and singing and celebrating. A time to be spent with close friends and family. However, this can be a very difficult time of the year for those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

That is why I started the Adopt-A-Liberal Foundation. For about the same amount of money you would spend a month on ammunition or to buy Ann Coulter’s latest book, you can make a huge difference in the life of a liberal.

Here’s how it works. ..

You will want to read the rest on your own. It is funny indeed.

It will be interesting to hear what, exactly. the courts will say, this time out.

If the San Francisco Handgun Ban law somehow DOES stand up in court, I think many people — myself definitely included — will be utterly shocked. It’s my impression that many people who voted in favor of Proposition H thought they were voting for some kind of “symbolic” measure, which had no chance at all of actually becoming law.

Background/Context: last month, 60% of San Francisco voters supported Proposition H, which, among other things, bans the sale or possession of handguns in the City and County of San Francisco. From the San Francisco Voter Guide:

Proposition H is an ordinance that would ban the manufacture, distribution, sale and transfer of firearms and ammunition within San Francisco.

Proposition H also would prohibit San Francisco residents from possessing handguns within San Francisco. An exception would allow residents to possess handguns if it is required for specific professional purposes. For example, San Francisco residents who are security guards, peace officers or active members of the U.S. armed forces would be permitted to possess handguns.

The Board of Supervisors would be required to enact penalties for violation of this ordinance.

Proposition H would take effect January 1, 2006. Until April 1, 2006, residents could surrender their handguns to any district station of the San Francisco Police Department or the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department without penalty.

Of course, the new law was challenged almost immediately. Like many people, I initially felt pretty certain that Prop. H would be struck down on appeal, just as the 1982 San Francisco Handgun ban was. (The text of that 1983 appeals court decision is here.)

But digging a little deeper I noticed that the 1983 decision actually held that “local governmental bodies” like the City of San Francisco are NOT, in the court’s opinion, “prevented” by State law “from regulating all aspects all aspects of the possession of firearms.” The Court of Appeals actually struck down San Francisco’s 1982 handgun ban primarily based on a concern over LICENSING. From the 1983 decision:

…the more troubling question is whether the [1982] San Francisco Handgun Ordinance merely regulates possession or instead constitutes a licensing ordinance in violation of the express preemption of Government Code section 53071.

The San Francisco ordinance does not mention the word “license” or “permit” and it does not establish a licensing procedure of any kind (unlike the ordinance struck in Sippel v. Nelder (1972) 24 Cal.App.3d 173, 101 Cal.Rptr. 89). However, it exempts from the general ban on possession any person authorized to carry a handgun pursuant to Penal Code section 12050. Thus, its effect is to create a new class of persons who will be required to obtain licenses in order to possess handguns

It was this question of “City creating a new class of persons who will be required to obtain licenses” that was the deal-breaker, it seems, in the eyes of the 1983 court.

The authors of Prop H have tried to get around this deal-breaker by writing the following language into the text of the new San Francisco Handgun Ban law. (The entire text of the law is in PDF form here, if you want to read it for yourself):

Section 6. State Law
Nothing in this ordinance is designed to duplicate or conflict with California state law. Accordingly, any person currently denied the privilege of possessing a handgun under state law shall not be covered by this ordinance, but shall be covered by the California state law which denies that privilege. Nothing in this ordinance shall be construed to create or require any local license or registration for any firearm, or create an additional class of citizens who must seek licensing or registration.

If the courts accept this as dealing sufficiently with the licensing issue, then it appears that there’s at least a chance that the courts may actually affirm the City’s latest Handgun Ban law.

A reminder, perhaps, to “be careful what you vote for.”

UPDATE: Here’s a window into how Prop H. passed with such big numbers. It comes from a Handgun Ban supporter, who describes attempting to persuade “undecided” voters with the following reasoning: “…it might only be symbolic anyway, kind of like schools and the military, in the sense that even if we voted ‘yes,’ it would still be a court that made the decision (but ONLY if we voted yes, so ‘let’s vote yes and leave the choice to someone who deals with crime and it’s tributaries for a living - a judge.’) People who were undecided REALLY responded to that…”

Great.

UPDATE: Welcome California Conservative readers. The outcome of the legal challenge to San Francisco’s handgun ban law will certainly have statewide (and probably nationwide) implications. I’d welcome comments from anybody that has an opinion or insight into the upcoming court battle.

UPDATE: The San Francisco Chr0nicle had a front-page story on this issue today (12/05/05): “Some citizens fear for safety if courts uphold S.F.’s voter-approved ban on handguns”.

UPDATE: Stephen Chapman of the Chicago Tribune is less than impressed with Prop. H. In a column entitled “San Francisco’s Pointless Handgun Ban, he writes that the new law is akin to “fighting alcoholism by prohibiting beer sales to Mormons.” Chapman makes several valid points in his enjoyable piece, but his contention that the new law “clearly” conflicts with the California constitution is debatable, after reading the actual 1983 decision. Stay tuned.

over at the Hess Report via Glenn.

Of course, I agree with the analysis of the problem, but not with the whole of the solution recommended.

You can read this book [PDF 2.3 MB] on exactly HOW to begin doing this–that is, really solve the problems of government being out of control and congress-people being subject to bribery or influence peddling through PACs, etc. , etc.