Ban Pork and I'll Break Your Kneecaps

I'm not sure if the visitors to CNN.com just have a sense of humor or are really this inept, but there is currently a poll asking "Who would you rather have overseeing operations at US ports."

With over 50,000 voting:
36% Arab-based ports company
64% US-based Mafia

Well let me tell you something. Having Tony Sorprano running your ports might not be the best thing in the world, especially for all you law and order types. An Arab company running the ports is probably going to hire a much better US-based security force than any other company. Why? Because if anything happened on their watch, the fallout would be much more significant than what happened to the FBI on 9/11. The mafia is not going to do so much to protect the ports, just take some bribes and let everything go through.

The good news to letting the mafia in would be, the prices of drugs like marijuana and cocaine going down, so it would be cheaper to throw a decent party.

Good Test Case

I've been saying this for years. Finally a court case to see what happens.

If a woman can get an abortion, a man should be able to financially abort his responsibility for the child. And give up any parental rights. Until that happens, abortion should be illegal.

Women have wanted equal rights for years. The Equal Protection clause of the Constitution is without a doubt being violated by the differences in which parental decisions are treated legally.

No Federal Funding for Harvard

The Universities lost this round.  Today the Supreme Court ruled that colleges that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus no matter what they think of the military ban on gays. 

 

I actually agree with this decision.  I am against the federal government giving money to anyone, especially a college like harvard that has an endowment of several billion dollars from its alumni.  If the federal government is going to give anyone free money, it has the right to attach whatever strings it wants, much like an advertiser can have a "morals" clause in a contract it signs with Kobe Bryant. 

 

The best thing Harvard should do is say "fine, we don't want your money," but that reaction would surprise me.  Usually when someone or some group has the choice of losing money, or taking it up the ass on principles, they will gladly and quickly bend over.

 

That being said, the military ban on gay people is really dumb.  It has cost them  hundreds of millions of dollars in finding replacements for skilled workers who they banned after finding out they were gay.  It is also blatantly discriminatory.  Lastly, with all of our problems with recruiting people to serve, why close the doors on any specific group?

Crash Wins

Crash won for Best Picture tonight. I must say, I feel that it was the best out of the candidates, though I have not seen all of them. I thought that Brokeback Mountain would win. I have seen Brokeback; while it is a very good and passionate film, I think Crash was a more dynamic movie. It also had a faster pace and was overall more enjoyable.

It is rather interesting that it came to a contest betwee a movie about racism and a movie about gays to win the award. Perhaps our society is more comfortable about sorting out one mess before the next one. At any rate, I recommend to my readers to view both movies, at least once.

I also saw Walk the Line over the weekend, which was a very good movie. I'm surprised Joaquin Phoenix didn't win Best Actor for his great portrayal of Johnny Cash, including some very good singing. I highly recommend this movie as well.

Bottom line, see all of these movies, especially Walk the Line and Crash.

More Wasteful Prosecution

A Fairfax County man has pleaded guilty to the felony of bigamy.  This is another example of an old law that is still being prosecuted, wasting tax dollars where they need'nt be wasted. 

 

Whether or not you feel bigamy (having more than one wife at a time) is wrong, that doesn't mean it should be illegal, and even if it should be illegal, should someone really be sent to jail for it?  All this is is a form of adultery, which I think most would agree while immoral is not illegal. 

 

Instead of wasting thousands of dollars with judges and jail cells, why not just make the guy pay some type of restitution to his "victims?" 

Fascism Wins

While the death of one pioneer of liberty (see below) cannot take away our liberties, one law can.  And it has.  The USA PATRIOT Act was renewed by the senate by a huge vote.  Suffice it to say, I recommend voting against any senator who voted for this piece of legislation when his term comes up.

 

The act's name actually stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism."  The "appropriate tools" refer to (still) illegal wire taps, surveillance, record gathering, etc, that goes against the principles of the US Constitution.  Hitler could not have come up with a better law to quickly turn a country into a police state.  Actually, he did come up with the Reichstag Fire Decree, which does very similar things to the Patriot Act. 

 

Anyway, there are two schools of thought. 

 

Some believe that this is a good act because it allows us to go after terrorists, who cares if we lose civil liberties and our national identity as long as we are alive.  To those people, I say: Go to New Zealand, they are very neutral, very safe, you will be welcomed there, get the fuck out of my country because I DO NOT WANT YOU HERE.

 

The other school of thought can be represented by those who feel that "those who would give up liberty for security deserve neither" which was a principle of our Founding Fathers (particularly the man on the $100 bill, and believe me, he knew about terrorism and security). 

Harry Browne

Harry Browne, Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996 and 2000 died today, may he rest in peace.

Goats

First, read this article.

Now, I pose a question to all you ACLU people out there. Which of the following is the liberal viewpoint:

1. The goat's civil rights were violated
2. The man has the right to free expression (i.e. screwing the goat)

Which side do you liberals take?

2 Good Movies

Below are reviews of two movies made about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda: Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April.  I recommend both of them.  For those of you unfamiliar with the events, Rwanda has two "classes" of people, the Tutsi and the Hutu.  These terms were basically given to them by the Belgians during colonialism.  The Hutu outnumber the Tutsi by a considerable margin, and when the Belgians were in power, they installed all Tutsis as leaders.  When they left, they made the Hutu leaders, and the Hutu resented what had happened to them during the last several decades.  In the early 90s this resentment built up so much that in April of 1994, after peace talks failed and the president of Rwanda died, the Hutus began killing all of the Tutsis and their supporters.  A radio station, RTLM, played a large role in the genocide through propoganda and even helped organize some attacks on civilians.  By July, a Tutsi resistance force was able to claim most of the country, but not before a million people had died.  During this time, western nations and organizations, including the UN and the USA did practically nothing to stop the genocide.  A famous scene from one of the movies shows real footage of a US State Department official being questioned on the matter.  She says that they are aware of "acts of genocide" occuring.  The reporter asks how many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide, to which the politics of Africa creep in.  Now, for the reviews:

 

Hotel Rwanda, based upon true events in that country during the 1994 genocide.  Good movie and supposedly very accurate, but accuracy or not, it seemed very hollywood-like.  First off, the main two characters are played by stars Don Cheadle and Nick Nolte. Without giving too much of the story away HR shows us how the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines saved over 1200 tutsis and moderate hutus from almost certain death by bribing those in authority and using his connections in the military.  His wife is a tutsi and his children are considered half-breeds, so part of his determination is to save them, but he goes beyond just that, and overall its a good movie.

 

Another movie documenting the genocide in Rwanda is Sometimes in April, which I consider to be much better--though much darker--than Hotel Rwanda.  This movie does not have any big name stars in it, and it was actually made by HBO.  Similarly to HR, the main character of the story is a hutu who is married to a tutsi.  He attempts to save his family by getting them out of the country, but unlike HR, he finds much less success and much more death.  This movie is much more graphic in depicting the treatment of the victims and really giving you the feel of what it was like to be in Rwanda for those several months. 

Proof that Europe isn't free

Two cases this week, both dealing with Nazis, prove that Europe is not a free society.  We aren't talking about Nazi's rallying or hate crimes being committed.  We are talking about two people who said one thing or another about the Third Reich and managed to get in trouble because of it.  Not just civil problems but criminal.  In America, if you defame someone or say something really nasty to another person, you can be sued under libel and slander laws if the victim can prove that monetary damages were inflicted.  Europe, with its thin skin, obviously cannot handle people saying inflammatory comments. 

 

Case 1: David Irving, known by some as an historian and by others as a holocaust denier, was sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for stating, among other things, that the Nazi leaders did not personally order the genocide during World War II.  He based his claim in that he never found any documentation on this fact.  Though this seems to go against what most people think to be the truth, the man has the right to his opinion.  Nobody is being forced to listen to him, and most people think he's just some quack.  But not the authorities in Austria, you see, there are laws there prohibiting someone from denying the holocaust.  Pretty strange in my opinion, and I personally think those laws help their cause.  Why have a law about something that is undeniably true?  Holocaust deniers will say those laws exist because they are right and the establishment is trying to prevent them from speaking the truth.  Do I agree with them?  No, but I think laws prohibiting someone from talking about something in any way go against fundamental human freedoms. 

 

Case 2: Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, has been suspended from office for one month for calling reporter Oliver Finegold a "concentration camp guard" and a "war criminal."  Finegold is Jewish, and said that he was offended by these comments.  This is even more outrageous than case 1.  When a society has arrived at a point where calling someone a more colorful term than "bastard" can lead to being suspended from office for a month, that society is obviously a bunch of whiners. 

 

Dick Cheney once told Senator Leahy to "go fuck yourself."  What happened?  We had a good laugh. 

 

Europe, get your act together.

Ports

Many angry conservatives and liberals are demanding Bush's head over the UAE ownership of companies that will control several US ports. For those of you unaware of the situation, a British company that controlled six US ports was recently acquired by a company that is based in the United Arab Emirates.

I think this is one of the worst political scandals ever, but here's where I differ from most, there's nothing wrong with an Arab country owning our ports!

First of all, it was a British company before, so this isn't about us losing a domestic company to foreign control. I see no different between the British and the UAE.

Second, the security forces of the port, which includes US Customs, will all be based in the USA. Do any of you really care who owns the ports? This country was a free market the last time I checked, I see nothing wrong with us allowing foreign corporations to operate here.

Lastly, the big argument is that the UAE was a "home base" for Al-Qaeda. SO WAS THE USA. Where do you think they learned to fly and plotted their schemes?

Politicians like Hillary Clinton are jumping on this issue and saying that no foreign countries should control our ports. All of my points above address this issue. Anyone who agrees with these politicians is obviously uneducated or unaware of the situation; the politicians are playing on America's ignorance to use it for the own political gain.

Also, the UAE has been a pretty good supporter of the US for the last few years. They are doing this because, as an Arab country, they are seen as a haven for terrorists and can count their citizens as being among the usual suspects. We have very few allies these days, and I don't know why any American would want to risk losing one over a situation as trivial as this one.

We cannot sacrifice our free market principles because a few uneducated people are jumping on the idea of Arabs having something to do with the United States. Obviously you keep tabs on anyone dealing the the ports. But barring someone from doing legal business is a breach of our country's founding principles and ushers us down the path of fascism, not to mention losing a country that has supported us in recent years.

The Final Solution?

Read about this on Reason today.  Well, it seems the bigots can't get enough of stomping on gay people.  Since most of the people that don't like gays are not the most intelligent people in the world (read: Jerry Falwell), they are now trying to prohibit gay people from adopting children. 

 

Why are they doing this?  Who knows.  Statistics show that children raised by gay people tend to have the same chances of being gay as the rest of the population (obviously, since its not like you choose it).  Of course, the religious right doesn't understand this.  They think that having gay people adopt kids makes the kids gay.  So maybe if we don't let them "have" children, we will eliminate them, kind of like Hitler's "Final Solution" but a little less harsh, since we aren't killing them...yet.

 

The real hypocrisy is that the religious right hates abortion.  They say that adoption is a very good alternative, which I think everyone agrees with.  But many gay people adopt children who are physically or mentally disabled, which most couples avoid like a sick chicken.  These children just end up in foster homes, orphanages, or other undesirable locations.  Where do you think the kids would rather be? 

 

However, let's assume that we want to keep kids out of households that may cause the kids to be... whacky (for lack of a better word), later on.  I've introduced some rules that would lead to "mainstream" kids.

 

1. No children can be adopted by anyone with a below average (<100) IQ

2. No children can be adopted by anyone who attends a non-majority religious services (i.e. no Jews, muslims, hindus, etc.)

3. No children can be adopted by anyone without a college degree

4. No children can be adopted by anyone who has ever been or known a member of a fringe political group

5. No children can be adopted by anyone who was not born a US citizen

6. No children can be adopted by anyone who is married to, dated, or is friends with people of a different race

7. No children can be adopted by anyone who has committed any type of crime, including getting a speeding ticket (bad driving could endanger the child, or cause them to speed when they grow up)

8. No children can be adopted by someone who was fathered by or adopted by any of 1-7.

 

Now that we've taken care of all of the bad parents, we're left with about... 10 good ones, at best.  So, what do we do with the millions of children without parents? 

Possession of a Sweet Substance

A 12 year old boy in Aurora, IL has been charged with a felony for possessing powdered sugar at his school. He joked to another student that it was cocaine, he now faces up to 5 years of probation. I've never heard of a more crazy story. We're not just talking about the school sending him home, calling his mom, and telling her that he shouldn't joke about this, we are talking about a taxpayer funded police department going after a pre-teen for carrying dixie crystals.

Here is the number for the police department if you wish to call them: (630) 859-1700

The Problem With Govt Witnesses

The "Enron Trial" is currently underway.  Two key executives of the failed company, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are on trial for a melange of charges that could send both of them to jail for decades. 

 

This trial illustrates the problem with government witnesses.  Today, Kenneth Rice, who was the head of the internet unit at Enron testified against Skilling.  Rice has already pled guilty to numerous charges and faces up to ten years in prison.  A problem with our justice system is that it allows people such as Rice to make deals with the government in exchange for a lighter sentence.  Many of the things he is testifying on are "back room deals" that are very hard to corroborate.  Rice has a great incentive to lie; if his testimony is detrimental to Lay and Skilling, it will cast him in a more favorable light when his sentencing comes up. 

 

This situation is hardly confined to this case.  There are thousands of witnesses like Rice that testify every year.  The prosecutors have one tool that defense lawyers don't: they can directly influence jail time.  It is very disadvantageous to the defense that this system continues to go on.

 

We need to establish rules regarding sentencing.  Pleading guilty is one thing, turning into a government rat is another, specifically because the person has a conflict of interest.  If they lie about someone else, they get less time, where telling the truth might give them more time.  Testimony should never be compelled, it corrupts our system.

On confiscating firearms...

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to
possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to
carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”

--Adolf Hitler

So, to all of you who believe that guns should be in any way regulated, think of who's company you are in.

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of
depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

-Gandhi