Sempre un piacere

Take a fairy tale, like Little Red Riding Hood. The text starts from a given set of characters and situations -- a little girl, a mother, a grandmother, a wolf, a wood -- and through a series of finite steps arrives at a solution. Certainly, you can read the fairy tale as an allegory and attribute different moral meanings to the events and to the actions of the characters, but you cannot transform Little Red Riding Hood into Cinderella. Finnegans Wake is certainly open to many interpretations, but it is certain that it will never provide you with a demonstration of Fermat's last theorem, or with the complete bibliography of Woody Allen. This seems trivial, but the radical mistake of many deconstructionists was to believe that you can do anything you want with a text. This is blatantly false.

The text is open, but it's not THAT open. And the good news is that books will survive.

Orders of magnitude

Here is an example of why the government should NEVER be given any kind of planning power. This is the sort of thing that von Mises was talking about when he came up with the concept of the impossibility of socialist calculation.

At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion," wrote Steven Hayward and Erik Peterson in a 1993 Reason article. "The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was supposedly a 'conservative' estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion."

In what other field of human endeavor can you be off by more than 1200 percent without suffering any consquences. Even in sports, the GM who can't manage his salary cap can't expect to keep his job.

Stud-in-chief

I have my reservations about President Bush. I didn't vote for him. I won't vote for him in 2004. However, I think his gesture of visiting the troops at the front-line is worthy of praise. It's easy to denigrate this sort of thing as a PR stunt, but there's a reason that the 2nd Division's motto is "Follow Me". Say what you will about the man, but he is a leader of men. To denigrate him based on his personality is not necessarily unfair, it is, however, foolish.

I just wish I had a better idea of where it is that he truly hopes to lead us.

This sort of thing is just one aspect of what concerns me:

Nondefense spending has skyrocketed under Republican control of Congress and the White House, and critics say the outlays will hit the stratosphere with the passage this week of a drug entitlement for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office reported that nondefense spending rose 7 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, nearly double the 4 percent discretionary spending caps that President Bush insisted Congress honor.

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, nondefense spending has leapt 13 percent — 21 percent if spending on the war on terrorism is included. And he is poised to become the first Republican president to sign into law a new federal entitlement: the $400 billion Medicare expansion to cover prescription drugs.

You're not immune, gentlemen

Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Central District of California Florence Marie Cooper,
District Judge, Presiding D.C. No.
CV-99-13100-FMC

When these events occurred, July 10, 1998, it was clearly established that the amount of force Bybee says Erath used in handcuffing her was excessive, and a reasonable agent in Erath's position would have known that such conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Hansen v. Black, 885 F.2d 642, 645 (9th Cir. 1989) ("[T]he officers used excess force on Hansen by unreasonably injuring her wrist and arm as they handcuffed her."). Agent Erath, therefore, is not entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment as to Bybee's excessive force claim.

III. CONCLUSION

The district court correctly determined that Agent Erath is not entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment as to Bybee's excessive force claim. The district court also correctly determined that Agent Erath is not entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment as to Bybee's claim that she was unlawfully detained for 30 minutes in overly tight handcuffs that caused her pain. As to these claims, we affirm the district court's summary judgment denying Agent Erath qualified immunity.

I imagine agents for various Federal and state revenue agencies are going to start sweating once they realize the implications of this decision... if they're not immune here, they're probably not immune for the vast panoply of laws and Constitutional rights that they are violating and breaking every day in the course of their job. A government of laws, not men with guns and badges? Whatever shall we do?

The next thing you know, people will stop paying taxes that they don't owe!

Good onya, Lynne Meredith. One agent down, only 36 to go. Boy, the IRS sure needs a lot of agents to subdue one woman and a few teenage girls, don't they!

Got any doubt

...about the courts being crypto-fascist Star Chambers? It's ironic that Hollywood, in their fear of offending Islamic terrorists, love to portray bad guys as neofascists now, never mind the fact that there are plenty of the real deal already situated in the three branches of government.

"He [Judge Moran] has also warned me (by relaying a message through my attorneys) that I should be careful about what I say on my website and my email messages. He did not specify what specific speech I should be careful about. If and when he does specify what speech I should be careful about, I will let everyone know, assuming, of course, that letting everyone know what speech I am supposed to be careful about is not the kind of speech the Judge says I need to be careful about. Stay tuned."
- Joseph Banister

And here I always thought that we had Constitutionally protected freedom of speech. Such an odd thing to say, Judge Moran, especially for one presumably sworn to uphold the Constitution. And are you such a moron, judge, that you believe any true American is going to let you railroad him into jail while keeping his mouth shut like a good little victim? We're Americans, [reference to genetically unsound reproductive activity deleted], not Russians, Ukranians, Chinese, Jewish Germans, Rwandans, Bosnians, Sudanese, or Slavs, and we don't bow down to anybody except God - and some don't even do that.

Just answer the questions

I find it intriguing that the courts and pro-IRS sycophants will readily talk about how frivolous the following questions are, and how they reveal a total lack of legal understanding on the part of the questioner, but then stubbornly refuse to answer any of them. If the questions are so frivolous and simplistic, then just answer them! Sure, it may be frivolous and simplistic for me to ask you what 2+2 is, but for you to answer that Leibniz answered that question back in 1680 does not tell either a) the answer is 4; or b) you know the answer is 4. In fact, an answer like that makes me rather suspicious that you have no idea what the answer is. That, or you are terrified of what the implications of saying "4" will be.

1) Should I use the rules found in 26 USC § 861(b) and 26 CFR § 1.861-8 (in addition to any other pertinent sections) to determine my taxable domestic income?

2) If some people should not use those sections to determine their taxable domestic income, please show where the law says who should or should not use those sections for that.

3) If a U.S. citizen receives all his income from working within the 50 states, do 26 USC § 861(b) and 26 CFR § 1.861-8 show his income to be taxable?

4) Should one use 26 CFR § 1.861-8T(d)(2) to determine whether his “items� of income (e.g. compensation, interest, rents, dividends, etc.) are excluded for federal income tax purposes?

5) What is the purpose of the list of non-exempt types of income found in 26 CFR § 1.861-8T(d)(2)(iii), and why is the income of the average American not on that list?

6) What types of income (if any) are not exempted from taxation by any statute, but are nonetheless “excluded by law� (i.e. not subject to the income tax) because they are, under the Constitution, not taxable by the federal government?

And what is the response from the IRS to these six questions? Read it for yourself and see if you consider it a reasonable and credible answer. I submit that the following parody is a reasonable summary of the current situation:

Prosecutor: "Where were you on October 7th, at 5:20 p.m.?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Were you at Fred’s house that day?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Did you know Fred?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Is this your knife?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Can you explain why your fingerprints are on the knife?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Let's just say that on the day that the IRS goes on trial before the American people, I don't expect it to survive long.

Jonah goes off the deep end

I very much enjoy Jonah Goldberg's columns. But his most recent one, opposing the Defense of Marriage Amendment, is a howler of logic.

"The second problem with consequentialism is that it often works on the false assumption that we can know what the consequences will be. The last great constitutional disaster was Prohibition. The 18th Amendment was supposed to get Americans to stop drinking booze. People made straight-line predictions that if you made hooch illegal, people would stop drinking it."

This argument would make sense if the Defense of Marriage Amendment prevented individuals from being homosexual. In which case, it would probably not be called the Defense of Marriage Amendment, but something like the Defense of Unstable Teens Questioning Their Orientation Amendment. But homosexuals are not running around getting married despite the law, in fact, there are vocal segments of the homosexual community which are appalled at the very notion of monogamous queer commitment, which flies in the face of the more radical elements that have tended to drive the gay agenda in the past.

From a conservative and Republican perspective, I would think Mr. Goldber would support the DMA as a political wedge issue, if nothing else. But then, Republicans are too busy getting excited about selling their political souls to the AARP to spend much time lining up behind the one issue that will ensure political victory for the next generation and beyond.

It makes no difference to me. I see no reason why the government should be involved in any way, shape or form. Remember, conservatives, the State had no power to permit divorce until it was given the power to marry. Expanding government power on behalf of your own interests will ALWAYS come back to bite you in the end. This has been obvious since the days of Marcus Aurelias; it has been true since one man first held power over another man.

Jonah, they're here and they're queer. They don't want to get married. That's not what it's about.

Flashers

One of the most baffling decisions in the history of Man is the decision to REQUIRE Flash or some other form of technoglitter on your visitor's computer before you allow said visitor to access any information on your web site. I'm not a paleotechnoid UNIX guru who still insists on command line text-based Internet browsing, but I'm also not interested in anything that requires me to download megabytes of extraneous nonsense when all I want is the few bits of data that make up a company's telephone number.

The fact that the company hired a web design company to make pretty pictures bob, dip and weave neither impresses me nor makes me more likely to buy their products. In fact, the attempt to force me to install useless software on my machine in order to watch the pretty pictures only assures that I'm not going to visit their web site.

The Red Sea

From the Mogambo Guru: "I think that I am getting the hang of using a calculator and would like to, you know, show off a little bit, so I had an interesting session with a calculator. But for some strange reason, whenever I multiplied $38 billion a week times 52 weeks in a year, I got a wrong answer. Guess what I got? I know you are going to laugh when you see it, and remember that the calculator was obviously broken, as I kept getting the answer $1.976 trillion! Seeing a number that huge is like getting hit with a sledgehammer to the skull, as you realize that no sane person would voluntarily plunge his own country farther into debt at that rate - and I am talking about amassing debt to the tune of 20% of GDP here!"

$38 billion in new Treasury debt this week. Which is basically $2 trillion a year. Keep in mind that the annual US economy is only $10.4 trillion. That's where the 8.2 percent growth is coming from - growth by debt. This can only be paid off by inflation, so you would be wise to buckle your seatbelts.

Mogambo, you've got one vote for President. Mine.

Killing those fucking ragheads

Anti-Islamic hate speech? No, actually it is yet another example of the open-minded toleration practiced on campus these days. After writing an editorial on the dearth of conservative speakers being brought in by the university-funded Issues Committee at the University of Tennessee, a conservative activist who happens to be a Sikh was slagged rather viciously by the Committtee members who thought their email was secure.

"like most of you, i spent much of my day drafting a letter to the editor in response to the piece. however, i probably spent more time thinking about what a little brat this guy is and what i would do to him given the chance--torture that would put the spanish inquisition to shame" said one devotee of tolerance.

Another tireless activist for world peace concurred, suggesting ""...if you see one of those ragheads, shoot him in the fucking face."

Being somewhat technologically illiterate, these left-wing advocates of civil discourse were unaware that they were sending their emails to conservatives who did not share their desire to commit violence and torture on those whose opinions differed from their own. Now, how many times do I need to tell everyone - download GPG or PGP and encrypt your bloody email!

I actually had a brief chat with the head of the Issues Committee. She sounds like a very nice young woman, but she's obviously just beginning to learn the rules of the game. After telling me that some statements had been "misconstrued", she mentioned that she'd need to talk to her advisor first. Fair enough. I'm looking forward to hearing how they should have been construed. The Left does so love to twist the language; for a polyglot like myself, it's always a pleasure to view the contortions.

UT Deans Brown and Thompson are a little more experienced. Neither one is in the office today. I'm so shocked! At least they can give thanks for a timely Thanksgiving holiday.

What income tax

Does this sham of a court case sound anything like a government that is confident of its position before the law and Constitution? No way. The man was jailed for six months pre-trial for the "crime" of not withholding income tax from his employees, and the judge is not only shamelessly manipulating witnesses, but refusing to allow the jury to even look at the income tax code! No wonder the jury smelled a rat. I just wonder if the one hold-out from acquittal was a plant or had an IQ below 60.

Meanwhile, the corrupt IRS-federal court cabal has moved its "hearing" of former IRS agent Joe Banister to a military installation, to which all public access is forbidden in direct contradiction of Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 303 F.3d 681 (Sixth Circuit 2002). I imagine that the IRS-FC cabal would argue that the hearing isn't "quasi-judicial". And they're correct. It isn't judicial at all. I'm only surprised they're not holding it at Guantanamo Bay.

We are quickly moving towards the point where the income tax fraud is unmasked for all to clearly see. The IRS-FC cabal is getting increasingly desperate. The fact that they find it hard to win even when the decks are stacked will make them even more vicious until the light of truth sweeps them away altogether. By the way, someone with more time than me needs to create a repository of all these court transcripts for future use and reference. When someone does so, please let me know the link.

Amazing depths of ignorance

Evan Thomas - he of third generational Communist fame thanks to Miss Coulter and professional coward Al Franken - is quoted by Brent Bozell as saying: "I really don't get this whole debate ... anything that promotes commitment between couples, and helps the institution of the family, is a positive thing."

Meanwhile, "A Wirthlin poll from last spring for the Alliance for Marriage found 63 percent of Hispanics and 62 percent of blacks favored a constitutional amendment defending marriage." As I mentioned on Monday, this is why Hillary is sitting this one out. Forget the war, forget the economy. All Bush has to do is wave a little flag called Defense of Marriage Amendment - which no Democratic presidential candidate can support - and the ethnic minorities will desert in droves.

Sometimes the secular media reminds me of my dog. He sees what is going on around him, but has absolutely no idea why. You see, Evan, Christians are generally not huge fans of what the Bible calls abomination. If you're suprised by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to gay marriage, I'm sure you'll be shocked beyond words at their attitude towards the UN overseeing a Nobel prize-winning peace treaty signed in Jerusalem.

Oh, and there's a better way to promote commitment and preserve families. It's called abolishing no-fault divorce. Better yet, pass a law forcing the courts to automatically assign custody of the children to the non-filing spouse if they request it.

We've got the tea

Cal Thomas writes: The time when the Republican Party stood for something worth standing for is over. The "G" in GOP might as well stand for government. Smaller, less intrusive government with less spending and lower taxes is the stuff of history books and fond memories for a party that once had a purpose. But Republicans, having tasted power, are now drunk with it. Like the Democrats before them who became inebriated with the wine of success, Republicans now seem interested only in preserving their elective offices.

Truly there is less than a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.... Is it time for another revolution yet? Who's got the tea?

The Libertarians have it, Mr. Thomas. In shiploads. You are either for the use of government to control individuals or you are against it. If you are against the use of government to control individuals, instead of simply guarding their unalienable rights, you should not support the Republican party. Yes, Republicans are better than Democrats. So what? Democrats are better than Communists, but that's no reason to support them.

It's about Charlemagne

Of course the Euroelite permitted France and Germany to break the stability pact. The EU is not about economics, for all that it descended from the Common Market. A free trade zone was just the rationale for getting the ball rolling. The whole point is to restore the empire, and allow the heirs of Charlemagne to rule over Europe. This was Napoleon's dream, Hitler's dream, and is now being quietly, but methodically implemented by the faceless grey men of Europa Uber alles.

At least we have a new word

As in, I love him - though not in a Goodridge way.

8.2 percent

I don't buy this number either. Not in the least. It's called inflation, people. Get used to it.

Fred Hickey, editor of The High Tech Strategist says, "Over the past couple of weeks, I've listened to scores of tech company conference calls. In nearly every case, from Cisco to Foundry to Motorola to CDW, the story was the same - their best customer was the U.S. government."

Gee, I'm shocked. Apparently, compassionate conservatism is the kinder, gentler way to nationalize an economy.

The eye that never sleeps

As the US government claims to be building democracy in Iraq, they appear to be engaging in a little Constitutionally suspicious behavior at home as well. Deux Ego had an interesting experience yesterday.

Yes, I support the war on those who have declared war on us, or at least I will should we ever get around to declaring war as the Constitution demands. No, I do not support many of the questionable actions of the US government performed under the cover of war-making.

When did we change the name of the country to the Union of Sauron's Affiliates?

The fundamental metaphor

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms, the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand anything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack.
- Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

This signifies nothing about Mr. Stephenson, of course, as it is usually a mistake to identify a character, even the protagonist, with the author. But it is an interesting notion, and at least tangentially related to some of the points I have made with regards to belief systems, or the lack of them.

Mailbox - the violins wail

JH writes through the tears: Even though I proudly identify myself as a liberal, I absorb as much right wing media as I can and reading your column is always good for a laugh. I notice that your bio refers to you as a "Christian libertarian". Can you please tell me where in any Christian doctrine it says that its acceptable to call names like "Lizard Queen", "snob", "cold-blooded", or (and this is my favorite) referring to someone as being "in the direct matrilineal line of Lilith, daughter of Asmodael, Hell Baron of the Seventh Circle". I attended years of Catholic school and every time I called names like that I was told to go to confession. I know that for those of you on the right its all right to think this way about Hillary Clinton because she's the epitome of evil, but I forgot liberals think the right is evil and the right just thinks that liberals are mistaken. Congratulations on raising the state of debate in America.

Since JH is confused, let me explain that my column on WorldNetDaily is an op/ed column, wherein one is expected to engage in op/ed rhetoric. Everyone knows what rhetoric is, I hope? Although I generally prefer logos, using pathos occasionally is fun and a nice change of pace. The state-of-debate point cracked me up, since editors at some of America's largest newspapers have complained that they can't follow my references or the complex sentence structure that I favor and asked if I would please - ahem- make it more accessible. I suppose JH is only reading my column since he's bored with Maureen Dowd's constant delving into Plato, Goethe,Calvino, Nietszche, Open Text, Open Source, and, of course, the Conscript Fathers.

Perhaps I should imitate Paul Krugman and just make things up on the fly:

PK: President Bush's budget will cause ten million jobs to be lost next year!
Krugman Truth Squad: Um, Paul, the budget covers the next decade. So, even if you're right, which you aren't, that's one million. As in, ten divided by ten?
PK: (freezes for a long, uncomfortable moment like a deer caught in the headlights before trying to bluff it out) How dare you question my math, fool! Don't you know I am a professor of economics? At Princeton!
KTS: So, is this Quantum Economics or something?
PK: You hateful bigots, you are stalking me! (bursts into tears)

When did I ever write that liberals are mistaken? Sure, they're mistaken about what they call themselves, as they are anti-liberal. BTW, I never even write liberal, I only use left-liberal as a partial concession to the perverted parlance of American politics. I do think left-liberals are mistaken with regards to their fundamental assumptions, which I think tends to reveal their functional - and quite frequently, actual in the IQ sense - stupidity. I also believe that their ultimate goals of egalitarianism and one-world government are deeply and profoundly evil. I do not, however, believe that JH is very familiar with my column. He's clearly conflating me with other writers of the Right, although he does appear to know enough to avoid referring to me as a conservative.

It amuses me how America's left-liberals believe they can run around calling everyone stupid,hate-filled bigots, then yowl like wounded kittens every time someone writes something insufficiently adoring about the object of their idol worship. Don't bring it if you can't take it, Penelope. And stop blubbering, Paul!

An interesting exchange

One of my secular political sisters-in-arms, DN, (she's an atheist Libertarian) wrote:

Your article regarding atheists is being discussed at the Secular Web. Thought you might want to brave the flame.

VD: Thanks, checked it out. Very little interesting there, as I've responded at length to two far more lengthy and significant critiques on the blog. By the way, please feel free to tell Anti-Creedance Front that I'm a full-contact martial artist. He's welcome to try giving me a wedgie any time he likes.

Yes, I must confess, I didn't read the thread until after sending you the link. I was then embarrassed. Lesson learned. I'll pass along the wedgie challenge. :)

I suspect DN is at least an occasional reader of the column. She knows perfectly well that I don't hate her, or atheists in general. I will say, however, that the Secular Web forum dwellers definitely appear to fall squarely into the highly irrational category. I will survive the flame.