I can now read the other half of the blogosphere. For the past week or so I've been having to avoid any and all mentions of the latest Star Wars movie cause I hadn't seen it. Actually, I still hadn't actually seen the second one. With Camille out of town I decided I would take the opportunity to rent eps 1 and 2 and then on the third day see ep 3 in the theater. Unfortunately (and bizarrely), episode one wasn't at the video store. Doesn't matter too much since I've already seen it, but I found it odd that they would have ep two in stock but not ep one. Anyhow.

My thoughts on the prequel trilogy: Lots of fun.

Yes, the dialogue was pretty stiff. It was pretty stiff in eps 4-6, though. It's not as though its gone from Shakespeare to Jean-Claude Van Damme. In fact, only a few of the complaints I've seen lodged against the new trilogy don't apply in some form or manner to the old. The only huge criticism that only applies to the new set are the incongruities between the two trilogies. That frustrates me a little bit as an expatriate of the comic book world, but life goes on.

Frankly, I consider a lot of fandom's reverence of the first set (4-6) and scorn for the second (1-3) to be more a matter of perspective than anything else. Most fans saw the original Star Wars at a young age when special effects and adventure were enough to keep them locked to something. I suspect a lot of people were either looking for that "Wow!" feeling again, which the movie couldn't possibly deliver, or inversely were looking for the story to become more sophisticated as they have.

But in my opinion, the best thing that the original set had going for it was its pageantry. And if there's one thing that was retained from 1977 to 2005, it's the gusto. In fact, I'd say that my biggest complaint about eps two and three is that the actors themselves forgot that and took their roles a bit too seriously. Palpatine and Kinobe were the only one two that seemed to be having any fun playing their parts. Yeah, the series was darker than its post-dated predecessor, but this came across as more moody than dramatic (or even melodramatic, which would have been preferable).

I call my current next-door neighbor at Thrifthaven the Nineties Hippie or the Post-Modern Hippie. He seems to have welded the 60's to the 90's to modestly interesting effect. Think tie-dyed shirt in a black trenchcoat. Very quiet dude, though. I say "hi" to him as I leave and he says nothing back. The only time we did talk was when he knocked on my door late at night to tell me I'd left my car lights on. I appreciated the sentiment and started cheerfully saying "hi" to him every time I see him. He still didn't respond, though, until almost a week ago.

I was sitting in the chair right outside Strang's place, enjoying the breeze. Out comes the Pomo Hippie with a wide grin on his face. I nod "hello" and he actually, verbally said hello. Smiling hugely. In addition to not being a talker, he's not much a smiler, either. I think it extremely odd and wonder who put what in his kool-aid.

Then I hear his door open again. A girl (probably about 18, PMH is probably 21 or 22) comes almost stumbling out. She's getting her shoes on and tucking her shirt in as she walks.

She stops when she sees me and perceptively notices, "Hey, you're white."

"Yes, I am."

"But there's usually a black guy sitting there!"

"Yes, but right now I am sitting in it and he is not."

"Cooooooool!"

She left me with the impression that she was about as dumb as a bag of bricks, but anything that can make the Pomo Hippie smile can't be all bad.

The list of Jason Parises keeps growing and growing.

Now that the filibuster situation has come to a temporary halt and it's being pushed off the front page, it's time for me to follow my time-honored tradition of talking about issues people care about after they care about them.

The issue can be broken down into two sides of the same question: Is the unprecedented planned filibustering of over half a dozen judges egregious enough to justify doing away with the rules that have been in place for a few decades now?

There are two ways that I can approach this issue. I can approach it as an ideological partisan that does not want to see any more "compromises" like Justice Souter, or I can approach it as a political philosopher considering my fictional parties, the modern Federalists and Whigs. Since most of my current readers weren't around for the whole Feddies/Whigs thing, the basic premise is that I created two political parties and belief systems between which I am completely divided. Sometimes I can look at it through the lens of the politics that fictional superhero world with a sort of detachment that I cannot when I see an (R) or (D) by a particular politician's name.

From an ideological standpoint, I am very disappointed to see the Democrats in a position to tell Bush who he can and cannot appoint to the federal judiciary. I am disappointed that the Republicans have allowed the Democrats to frame the issue as though the filibustering of judges is the norm and changing senate rules is not (senate rules change all the time, only one judge who never enjoyed majority support has ever been filibustered). And I have lost a good deal of faith in Senate Majority Leader Frist, who has managed to become the second most powerful person in the Senate, if that.

To be frank, there are a number of issues that I disagree with the President's nominees on. Some of them appear to be well to my right politically and therefore, theoretically, I ought to support Bush's hand being tipped towards more moderate nominees. Here's my general problem with that: Judges move to the left after appointment. As the New York Times loves to put it, they "grow in to office." To take an example, take a look at the Supreme Court. There are four liberals, three conservatives, and two pro-Roe and pro-campaign finance, and pro-affirmative action moderates. Here's the rub: all but two of the justices of this court were appointed by Republicans. The two Democratic nominees, Breyer and Ginsburg, are, to say the least, not moderate. And with time, as I said a couple sentences ago, judges seem to move to the left.

As such, I'm not just worried about Justice Owen being the next Reinquist (especially if she is taking his spot), but I'm also quite worried about Justice Alberto Gonzalez being the next David Souter. I'm content to take a chance on Gonzalez to keep Reinquist's spot conservative, but I am extremely wary of replacing a conservative with a "moderate." The temptation to try to make history behind the robe is great for liberals and conservatives alike. To give you an indication of how strongly I feel about this, I am worried that a compromise pick like Orrin Hatch could turn a 180. And I don't trust the Democrats for one minute to decide who is in the mainstream and who is wacko-conservative (to be fair, if I was a liberal I wouldn't trust the Republicans. It's an ideological issue more than a moral/ethical one).

So with all the above in mind, part of me really wants to stick with Bush and whomever he nominates unless his position and name have the initials A.G.

But I'm not so short-sighted as to believe there aren't consequences to quashing the filibuster. Republicans won't have the senate forever (though, to look at the map, they do have a pretty natural advantage for a while at least). Maybe I don't trust the Democrats not to turn a 180 on nixing the filibuster when the positions are at their worst, but to the extent you assume it to be so it will become so.

There are larger issues at hand right now than who Bush picks for the court. And I am generally pretty good (better than I let on, actually) about seeing both sides of the issue. So out with Democrats and Republicans and in with the Majority and Minority Parties.

The Majority Party believes, not incorrectly, that the Constitution does not require a 3/5 majority for "advise and consent" in the Constitution. It says that nowhere in the Constitution and it has generally been so by tradition rather than Constitutional Mandate. So the Majority Party is quite angry that the Minority Party can talk all day about tradition when it comes to uphold the filibuster but ignore the tradition (with one exception many decades ago) of not filibustering the President's picks. Particularly when they know that the pick has a majority of votes (whereas above counterexample did not). The Majority Party also sees more and more vacant seats and they know that if those seats are not filled while their president is in office, they will be filled while the other president is in office. They know this because the judges they held back prior to their president's election have spots that they are now seeking to fill with their guys (and gals). But there are legitimate concerns here that the Minority Party has a vested interest in finding any and all of the president's picks unacceptable. Time is, after all, on their side. If not in four years than in eight or twelve.

The Minority Party, on the other hand, believes that without requiring more than a majority the President can appoint very radical nominees. If the Majority Party can control their own, and most of the members of the Majority Party have constituents that are well to one side or the other of the rest of the nation (as is true with both parties), there are little safeguards to prevent a complete lunatic from getting a judgeship beyond trusting the opposing party (which neither side does - and for good reason!). The Senate has traditionally been the "more deliberative" body where most of the compromise gets done. I'm personally not sure about the compromises, but I the thought of requiring more votes to get laws passed does warm my anti-government heart. Except that somewhere along the lines my side wants to change more things and the other side wants more things to say the same. That might have something to do with which party is the Majority Party and which direction those changes are more likely to go. But regardless, on the whole I do prefer gummed up works rather than a parliamentary system where a slim majority passes whatever it wants.

And the scary part is that these appointments, lunatic or no, last forever! (or until death or resignation of said justice, whichever comes first. It'd probably be death or resignation, but even if so that could well be forty years down the line.

And, of course, throughout all of this the partisans on both sides are making their case that the very Constitution is at stake. Members of the Minority Party who thought getting rid of the filibuster when they were in the majority was a good idea suddenly reconsider because of the extremism of the President that was elected by the majority of the public. Members of the Majority Party who had no problem letting the other team's president's picks die in committee without a complete up-and-down vote are considering it completely outrageous that their guy's picks might not get a full vote.

And somewhere along the way, people like me start paying more attention to Blockbuster Online, cable TV, and CDR Indexing.

But now that my position is irrelevent (as though it were ever relevent!), I can give my thoughts. Here they are:

• I think that every justice should be voted on by the entire Senate. No dying in committee, dying by filibuster, or dying by blue slip.
• And I think that it's generally a good to require more votes to get things done.
• And try as I might, I cannot honestly reconcile the two. And frankly, I'm a bit suspicious of anyone that does not believe there are competing ideals at stake here or believes that only one of the ideals really matters.
• And I wish that I could trust the Democrats a lot more when it came to reasonable nominations.
• And I'm sure they wish they could do the same for Republicans.
• And I'm gonna go sit somewhere else and think/do something else instead of sitting here thinking about this.

I never commented on the runaway bride thing cause I didn't even know about it until it was over and the story itself didn't interest me. But I did find one tidbit of more recent developments in the case (italicized state notations added):

The 32-year-old woman faces one felony count making of false statement and one misdemeanor count of making a false police report.

The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and the misdemeanor up to a year in jail if she is convicted. She could also face up to $11,000 in fines and be ordered to reimburse authorities for the cost of the search.

"We believe this is a reasonable next step in the case. We believe the grand jury made the right decision," said Gwinnett County (GA) District Attorney Danny Porter.

[...]

Several state and county agencies already said they will not ask her to reimburse them for a total of $10,000 spent in additional search costs. But the city of Duluth (GA) still is seeking repayment of about $40,000 and Mayor Shirley Lassetter said her city attorney has been in negotiations with Sartain.

[...]

The office of Wilbanks' attorney, Lydia Sartain, said no statements will be issued until next week. Sartain has said she does not think Wilbanks committed a crime in Gwinnett County (GA). Authorities in Albuquerque (NM) had said they would not charge Wilbanks.

For those of you that didn't follow the story, Ms. Wilbanks ran from her home state of Georgia to New Mexico. The city and county involved in Georgia have come down on her and her family - citizens of the area. New Mexico, on the other hand, has completely given her a pass despite the fact that they were simply drawn in cause that's where she landed.

In a random case, one would guess that the town where she comes from and has ties would be more lenient and understanding than one that was just circumstantially drawn in. I suppose it's mostly a matter of money. Georgia agencies, no doubt, spent a lot more money investigating it than did its New Mexico counterparts. But even so, it's bad PR for Georgia authorities (even if they're doing the right thing) and it wouldn't be bad PR for New Mexico authorities to do the same.

I've been with Blockbuster Online for less than an hour and they've already irked me.

I commented the other day that Blockbuster seemed to have a better selection than Netflix. Well, it's easy to appear to have a better selection when you list a whole bunch of videos that you don't have. Roughly 25% of the stuff that I was interested in are "Coming Soon." Nowhere was this mentioned prior to my signing up. Instead, it showed the item and had an "Add to Queue" button which kinda sort of gave me the impression that if I was a member, I could watch it. (If you try to put it in your queue, you're sent to sign-up/log-in screen, which you must do to find out that an item is not available now and will not be until... who knows? It doesn't say. These are not new releases that I'm looking at and it's not just lost DVDs (which I'd understand). Entire serials that non-members see doing a search are "coming soon".

Does anyone know if Netflix does this or, if they show something on their site can I be at least somewhat assured that I can actually order and watch it?

I guess I can't be too surprised. I probably should have known better than to trust a dishonest company.

Forbes came out with their "Best Places for Business and Careers" for 2005. Houston came in 13th among large cities, behind only Austin, Atlanta, and Phoenix among true metropolii. Disturbingly, Boise, Idaho came in first. In the section for smaller towns, Pocatello actually came in 11th. Idaho Falls, the equally towned small city where I work, didn't make the list. That actually makes me question the methodology somewhat. If Pocatello is so great for business, and Idaho Falls isn't, then why are all the jobs up here in Idaho Falls?

My first thought was that they were lumping the two together, but the population given (77k) doesn't represent that (Poky and IF each have roughly 50k, not counting suburbs).

Very odd.

[via HCT]

I've been meaning to post on the whole filibuster issue for a little while now, but I'm apparently too late:

These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement would clear the way for yes-or-no votes on some of Bush's nominees, but make no guarantee.

Under the agreement, Democrats would pledge not to filibuster any of Bush's future appeals court or Supreme Court nominees except in "extraordinary circumstances."

For their part, Republicans agreed not to support an attempt to strip Democrats of their right to block votes.

One of three things is going to happen:

1. President Bush is going to get all of the nominees presently under consideration confirmed.


2. Democrats will decide that one of the candidates that they already knew was under consideration qualified as an "extraordinary circumstance" and Majority Leader Frist will act decisively and quash the filibuster.


3. Democrats will will decide that one of the candidates that they already knew was under consideration qualified as an "extraordinary circumstance" and Majority Leader Frist will resume discussions, effectively ending his chances of becoming president.

Update:
After having read the further matter, I have come to two conclusions:

1. This deal sucks.


2. Bill Frist has probably lost my vote in the primaries.


3. I suddenly have a lot more appreciation for Tom DeLay.

... cause nothing says "authentic country musician" like moving to Connecticut.

Beldar has an excellent post about judicial nominee Priscilla Owen and how she has been misrepresented in the LA Times. Though I agree with him on Owen, I am inclined to disagree with both of them on the case itself:

The legal issue raised by the case was whether Kirby, the vacuum cleaner manufacturer — which hadn't hired the rapist, and was in fact twice-removed from him — could be held responsible for the rape. A majority of the Texas Supreme Court held that in these particular circumstances — because of the unusual degree of control that the manufacturer had retained and enforced on its distributors like Sena's company — the manufacturer could be held liable even at its remote distance from either the rape or from Sena's investigation and hiring of the rapist.

[...]

Let's look at an analogy that might strike closer to home (so to speak) for more average citizens. Suppose you hire a general contractor to remodel your house. He in turn hires a painter, who jumps your back fence and rapes your next-door neighbor. Justice Owen would read Texas law to say that the rape was not your fault, and that your neighbor can't successfully sue you (but can sue the rapist and, maybe, your general contractor). But the result and maybe the logic of the majority opinion from which Justice Owen dissented suggest the opposite — you're on the hook, baby, 'cause that rapist couldn't have gotten into your back yard to jump your fence unless you'd hired the guy who hired him, so get out your wallet (or call your homeowners' insurance company and tell it to get out its wallet). Now, Justice Hecht thinks — and he's probably right — that on these slightly different facts (or if it'd been Tupperware instead of Kirby vacuums), the majority would have stuck to old, traditional tort law, and that the majority's departure in the Read case was an aberration. But when we're looking at promoting judges to a life-tenured position, do you want the squishy, sympathetic judge who makes aberrations, or the firm (i.e., old-fashioned), principled judge who sometimes says, even if it's harsh, "You've been hurt, but you still can't sue these particular folks for what happened to you because it wasn't their fault"?

I agree that in the above case it is probably not the fault of the homeowner. However, I don't think we can take that and universally say that nobody anywhere should be held accountable for the people they hire themselves hire. I imagine that the above case would be different if, for instance, the homeowner knew that there had been problems with the general contractor before (because the contractor generally hires the same painter) and hired them anyway. That's not what Kirby did, of course, but it is one example of how someone can be held accountable for the actions of someone that they hired had hired.

Or, in the case of Kirby, distanced themselves from the salespeople precisely to avoid liability in, among other things, cases like this (or more common than rape, cases of theft).

As it turns out, the Kirby business model is not one with which I am completely unfamiliar. To say the least. Beldar is absolutely right that Kirby maintains a distance from its distributors, who maintain a distance from the actual salesmen (they are careful to point out that they are not employees but independent contractors). While I'm ordinarily inclined to agree with Beldar and say that a company without control cannot be held liable, one of the reasons that they use this particular model is to insulate themselves from lawsuits. Or if that wasn't their motivation, it's been a benefit that cannot have escaped their attention.

The world of Kirby sales is a somewhat seedy one. Fly-by-night companies set up. They'll hire a bunch of contractors that they will later be very reluctant to actually pay. They'll change the Then when things start getting hot, they'll fold and pop up somewhere else under a different name. The original company will be bankrupt, but no one has lost any money and the stiffed employees have no recourse. Whether or not this is legally the way it should be, it is the experience of at least half the people I know that have worked in that system.

The employees, like the customer, often give these companies the benefit of the doubt because they are allied with the Kirby name. In the case of the customers, they let them in to the home in part because they think that they actually work for Kirby. Kirby simultaneously benefits and avoids liability.

Kirby, of course, can easily turn a blind eye to all this because they're contractors. They profit from it, but are not responsible for it. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to what the legality of it is as it exists now, but if I were a juror and the prosecution could demonstrate that the company was hiding behind contractors to limit liabilities, I wouldn't have a problem voting in favor the plaintiff.

As you (hopefully) can see, I've made some changes to the template. The mugshot on the upper left will now rotate on each siteload. It's a collection of thirty-or-so pictures I took for posts, past mugshots, and out of the pure excitement that comes with having a digital camera. I've been working on getting some kiddy pictures of myself into the mix, but that'll have to wait until another time.

I've also tightened up the look a bit. It should look better for those of you on 1024x768 resolutions if you have things off to the side. Some fonts have been changed, so you should either be seeing Palatino Linotype or Times New Roman. I was thinking about Raleigh DmBd BT, one of my favorite fonts, but I can only seem to get that in Bold or Bolder. Besides, does anyone else have Raleigh DmBd BT or even know it exists? If you have Office, you should have the Palatino font.

Lastly, I'm majorly beefed up my FURL/Headlines section. If you're not keeping an eye out over there, you're missing out. It's probably one of the more interesting parts of the site.

This is a stepping stone to some bigger changes on the way. I was hoping to get RSS-out set up since a number of you have complained justly raised the issue. It's also a necessary ingredient for the next phase of changes but I could barely get RSS-in working for FURL.

If any of you notice any problems, please let me know. One can only check one's own work for so long.

It was something of a delayed New Year's Resolution. Almost five months delayed, but it eventually came around. I noticed in December that there were a lot of areas in my life where I was dissatisfied with myself and they all seemed to kind of feed in to one another: finance, diet, and tobacco.

Overeating leads to smoking. The availability of cigarettes gives me permission to overeat. The easiest food to procure and overeat is fast food, which adds up very quickly in cost. It was a cycle I couldn't quite figure out how to get out of. Most of it went back to smoking because that was the biggest X-factor. I'd successfully reined in expenses before, and successfully dieted before, but my two previous attempts at quitting smoking didn't work out. I was fired the first time - giving me way too much time on my hands. The second time... I honestly can't remember what happened that time.

So New Year's I was going to quit. That lasted all of a day and a half. But I had managed a boring, lonesome four-hour drive from Hailey to Pocatello without incident. That was a start. So instead of quitting cold turkey, I made a series of rules: No smoking in the car, no smoking after 8pm, and no smoking while doing anything else (such as watching television or my video game play). In addition to hopefully weening me off the habit, the first two had benefits all their own (I'd be able to drive Eel in my car and cigarettes wouldn't disrupt my sleep).

As January came to a close, I was getting a handle on the new regulations. Even having removed the biggest "problem area" (the car), I noticed a couple smaller problem areas, such as lunch at work. Ironically, knowing I'd be limited later led me to increase consumption when I could - leading me to start smoking straight through lunch. There was still an overall decrease and at the beginning of February, I added new ones: Couldn't smoke more than one cigarette per hour period (such as 1-2pm), couldn't smoke more than one every fifteen minutes, and couldn't smoke on the balcony or in the apartment courtyard. March was another set: couldn't smoke on the apartment complex at all, couldn't smoke twice in any hour (if I started one at 1:13pm, I couldn't start another one until 2:13pm), and couldn't be drinking anything while I smoked.

But it was April's that got to me. I'd adjusted pretty well to the previous sets, but April left me working four hour shifts at work without any tobacco relief and having to get in my car and drive to the nearest park when at home. By this point Camille was starting to notice my disposition changing (and not for the better!). Nonetheless, I was starting to get a handle on it when April 21st rolled around. As some of you know, April 21st was the fifth anniversary of a friend's death and for me is the worst day of the year. I fell off the wagon completely and chain smoked about five cigarettes.

Afterwards, I threw the remaining cigarettes away, threw away my lighters, and most importantly, I threw away my smoking jacket. The smoking jacket was a Walmart cheap-o that I bought last year. It got washed one too many times (because of smoke-stench) and the zipper's teeth started falling out. It became symbolic of something and I decided that I would throw it away when I became serious about quitting.

And this time I was serious. It's odd. On the previous two attempts, I was quitting because I felt like I should or because I needed to. This time, however, I actually wanted to quit. I was engaged to Camille by this point and I didn't want to be a smoker when we were married. The April regulations had been so tough that it stopped being relaxing. In an odd, simple way, it was time.

Simple, but not easy. I didn't particularly have the physical addiction that plagues many smokers. For me it was habitual. Psychological. Deeply psychological. I knew that, but I don't think I appreciated it until the first week after quitting. It's difficult to describe how it feels to rip that particular backbone out of your life. For some reason, I think it was more difficult than it was the previous two times. I think it's because this time I knew that it was permanent. Whether I ever smoked again or not, I was pretty determined never to be a smoker again.

But I broke and I did smoke again. One half a cigarette. I threw away the second half and the rest of the back. I'd do this on a couple more occasions. Oddly, I don't consider it a real failure. On the whole it's actually been good for my efforts. I learned two things about my progress: my system was rejecting the cigarettes, as I'd figured it would after a week or so, and that I was able to puff and walk away because I felt stupid doing it. I wasn't getting the high or the relaxing effects. I was just sitting there, at a Phillips 66 station, failing. It made snuffing the cigarette easier.

And it's made me a lot less fearful. Life does not come to an end if I falter, so I needn't worry so much about faltering. I don't need to even think about it. They're there if I need them, but biologically and mentally I have no need of them. I haven't faltered in over two weeks now. Haven't felt the desire to.

Weight is often an issue with folks that have quit smoking*, though since it was part of a three-fer decided last December, I've actually lost a little weight. Not much, but some. I haven't been eating great, but I've been eating at a level I can sustain indefinitely without, apparently, gaining weight. It's moderately slowed down the rate at which I've been losing weight, but I'll take that. I've also been exercising, riding 5-15 miles on my recumbent bike daily. Before getting the bike set up, I was walking up and down Red Hill.

And on a last note, Camille has been wonderful throughout this entire ordeal. She's had to deal with me when I've been cranky and snippy. From the start, she's said that the more times you try to quit the more likely you are to succeed and that even if I don't make it this time around, it'll set me up better for the next one. I went about this all an odd way. A lot of people that I've sort of broached the subject with (usually to explain odd behavior such as walking across the street to smoke a cigarette in a parking lot) has said that if I was serious about it I would just quit instead of these increasing regulations. For a person that tends to be all-or-nothing, though, I think that this is the only way I could have quit. Fighting one tobacco demon at a time.

* - I hesitate to say that "I've quit" as if it's something that has been done. I won't have quit quit until I'm buried in the ground not having smoken a cigarette. But given that I have gone a month without completely caving, two weeks without even a minor falter, and at least a week-and-a-half since feeling even a fleeting desire to falter, I really feel pretty good about my chances. But we'll see how it all goes. The important part is that I have definitely reached the point that I would have to start smoking again, rather than just resume smoking. A distinction with a difference larger than I would have thought.

I've decided that the time has definitely come to join an online movie service. My assumption has been that it would be Netflix, but doing a side-by-side comparison between Netflix and Blockbuster's online service, I gotta say that the latter seems to have, if not a bigger selection, a better one. Both claim over 40,000, but I've run across several things that Blockbuster has that Netflix does not. Particularly in the area of anime, which is a bit ironic because Blockbuster's brick-and-morter animation section has always stunk. I'm really not a huge fan of Blockbuster in general, preferring Hollywood. Blockbuster's ads have frequently been dishonest, even before the "No Late Fees" scam (if you say "5 days" you can't be all inclusive. If you could, then returning a video a day after you rent it would be a "two day rental"... which it's not).

But... it's got more of the stuff I want - TV shows and anime in particular. And it's cheaper.

Decisions, decisions...

More details to follow, but I have an announcement to make.

One month ago today, I completed a cigarette.

I have not completed one since.

Via Adrianne and Mac, I found an interesting article about an Alabama Catholic school that tried to stop a young lady from walking at graduation because she was pregnant. There is little that I can say that those two and Kathy the Cake Eater haven't about the incident, except to say that I'm a bit more perturbed about the sexism than their making the perfect the enemy of the good. That Catholics see the moral glass as half-empty and that they are not willing to compromise one "evil" (premarital sex) to avoid a greater "evil" (abortion) is reasonably well documented.

But the fact that they let the child's father walk makes it pretty certain that they are at best insincere and at worst... something worst. I think it's a combination of both. It doesn't seem that there was any doubt that he was the father, or at least that he was doing certain sinful things that could make him a father. In either case, it takes two to tango. I tend to get frustrated when the response to unwanted fatherhood is "he should have thought of that before he had sex" and the response to unwanted motherhood is "she should still have a choice" and the continued notion that pregnancy is something that a man does to a woman rather than something they do together, but this is no less infuriating. In fact, given that she's kept the baby (and thus done the rightest thing she could in the Catholic moral code under the circumstances), and we don't know for sure that the guy that was allowed to walk would, it infuriates me a bit more.

Which brings me to the point that Adrianne, Mac, and Kathy all made, though Adrianne went the farthest in to, at some point you've gotta try and see the moral glass as being half-full. Sometimes, I believe, what you do about your sins once they're committed says as much about your character as how many you commit. Though I do understand the Catholic point-of-view that they're not bound to bend to the mores of contemporary society. I understand, but I'm not Catholic and those two facts are not completely unrelated.

I want to clarify my thoughts below a bit.

I'm not arguing that people (rich or poor) are not responsible for their own behavior. My belief in such is one of the cornerstones of my view of government. The point that I was trying to make was in objection to Jane's assertion that the poor just seem to naturally make more wrong choices more often. They probably do, but that's only a part of it and that even if it doesn't relieve them of irresponsibility, money is a great weapon in the fight against obesity and the lack of it is a hinderence to it.

The best analogy I can come up with is chemical dependence. Nothing is simpler than not being al alcholic - all you have to do is not drink alcohol. But simple, of course, does not mean easy. Money can help, though. If you can afford 28 days in Arizona to dry out, your chances of beating it are a lot better than someone that can't. Another example is smoking: he who can afford Nicorette, acupuncture, and Welbutren is a lot better off than someone that can't. That's not to say that those that can't are doomed, but it is to acknowledge that their struggle is tougher than one without that help. Neither is easy and neither is impossible, but they are not the same.

And while it may be just as simple for the poor to be healthy, that doesn't make it as easy, either. The wealthy can afford a wider array of food to keep the diet interesting. That's not just a luxury, either: the more 'interesting' a diet is the more likely someone is to be able to stick with it. There's also gym membership and exercise equipment. Different things work with different people, and some people's options are limited.

From a policy standpoint, I'm not sure what this means (if it means anything at all). I'm not a big believer in redistribution of wealth and I do think that there are other factors so that even if they could afford more options, there'd still be a gap. I'm also loathe to argue that it's not their fault (and so society should be "compassionate" and "understanding") cause it is poor. That's why I agreed with Sammler and Linus even as we disagreed.

The only other thought I have on the subject is a grinning agreement with Dymphna:

You know those micro-credit programs that places like Bangladesh have? We need a micro-mentor program for the underclass. Someone who can show them how "the rich" (which is anybody with a home and a paid-for decent car and regular employment)make decisions.

"More than anything, to me this list demonstrates the inherent dangers of direct democracy. That person who nominated Martha Stewart over Andrew Jackson [to be on the list of 100 Greatest Americans] is the same one standing in front of you in line on election day as you gaze longingly at the ballot booth that seems so far away. You've spent months weighing the pros and cons of the candidates, watching innumerable news reports, live debates, and opinion shows in an attempt to make an informed vote, and it will all be cancelled by someone who only read the Ladies' Home Journal article about the candidates' wives and their favorite recipes. Despite the fact these average Americans -- the very ones who use the word "greatest" in reference to Dr. Phil -- can't breathe and walk concurrently, people still favor referenda as a way to address issues. God help us all." -Centinel

At the urging of the government and some advocacy groups, a couple credit card companies have decided to double required minimum payments:

Over the past few years, low minimum payback rates of between 2 and 2.5% have encouraged Americans to spend, spend, spend -- and to rack up an average credit card debt of close to $10,000 per household. For the estimated 40% of cardholders who carry a balance from month to month, the low minimums free up cash. But paying off a big charge little by ever-so-little also means that a $1,000 debt can turn into a 22-year commitment -- and that you'll accumulate thousands more in interest in the meantime.

"People are now in a revolving debt cycle that they'll never escape," says Adam Brauer, a debtor advocate and in-house counsel for Debt Settlement USA in Scottsdale, Ariz. "So the government nudged credit card companies into saying, 'This isn't working.'"

While part of me objects to these guard-rails of personal finance, I know far too many people that have sunk in to debt with small, innocuous products and services that required small, innocuous payments. So I'm rather conflicted on the matter.

It's my personal belief that except in extenuating circumstances, you shouldn't use a credit to get what you can't buy outright. This on one hand makes me applaud the decision (because it'll bring a lot of people closer, if not close, to my thinking - by necessity), but also makes me fail to see the reason behind it (the minimum payment shouldn't be such a big deal because no one should be paying it).

The article mentions how difficult this could be to big-time debtors and those that can't afford to double their payments, and that's the big downside. I can't help but wonder why they didn't have the new minimum payments only apply to new cards and phase it in rather than hit people with a significant increase in payments that they may not have budgeted for. Is there a law against giving different people different minimum payments? I guess I can see some pretty big logistical issues, but it might make things easier for some.

This is going to cause defaults among the hand-to-mouth set. But I suppose those losses will be offset by fees levied on others who make the payments but make them late or in smaller amounts than required.

I've been pretty ignorant as far as how minimum payments worked (I thought it was just the interest). So if nothing else, I learned something new this week.

Jane Galt tackles class and obesity, making some quite good points about about media coverage and how if one is determined to avoid obesity, they can do so even if they're poor. On top of that, chances are if they were all given $20,000 next year their eating habbits would probably not significantly improve as many of the factors that lead one to become above-poor such as education and drive would not be there.

But then is where she loses me:

[Poor people are] not stupid, and they're not particularly ignorant, though they're probably not as up on the ins-and-outs of saturated fats and Omega-3's as your average food-obsessed young professional. They are choosing to eat the way they do. Which is the second problem with this sort of thing. By treating the poor as if they are not choosing their diets in any meaningful sense, people license themselves to start making choices for the poor. John doesn't realise that his hamburger is killing him, so I'll just take it away and give him a nice sliced turkey sandwich and an apple and if Johnny is very, very good Mommy will take him to the zoo later.

While that may be true, it still might be worth asking why the poor make the decisions that they do. If it's not a lack of education, then what it is? I can't help but feel a sense of Calvinistic predestination here. They can't be educated or corrected, they are just rotten to the core and damned.

Which is hogwash.

It's one thing to suggest that being poor dooms one to obesity or that bad decisions are not a factor. Both are undeniably false. But it's another to suggest, as Jane seems to, that the non-poor are morally superior by birth. The fact that the middle and upper classes have more culinary options than do the poor is probably significant. Even more significant is that the above-poor have more to lose by dying young and probably have a greater respect for themselves and therefore less willingness to do themselves harm (melodramatic suburban teens aside).

To some degree environment, and education, play a role here. Even if we don't believe it is the government's place to combat whatever those factors are, we still have to make that concession.

Armed with a recumbent bike and the desire to keep myself distracted while burning calories, I'm wading through all of the episodes of SouthPark. One of the most interesting things about watching the first season is how unremarkable it is. It's good stuff and funny, but has nowhere near the edge that it presently does. Anna and I watched it when it first came out and I remember getting the Kyle and Stan characters confused. While watching seasons 6 and 7 I wondered how I possibly could have been so oblivious. Watching season one reminded me that the two characters were somewhat interchangable. Cartman wasn't quite Cartman yet. And, of course, the social satire wasn't nearly as biting as it has been more recently. Midway through the first season, the show hasn't quite found itself yet.

The other thing about watching it and ruminating on SouthPark in general is how much Comedy Central has really siezed the "young and cool" demographic that MTV has always so craved. Chapelle is another example. Chapelle is on indefinite hiatus, but that's by no fault of the network and the important achievement CC was the one that gave the man a show and it worked tremendously. And, of course, the Daily Show. They've succeeded by finding the better talent while MTV seems to languish producing shows that focus groups think that young people should like, coming across as the aging hippy trying to remain relevent.

On Sunday I left Eel's apartment three times. The first time I left, I stopped and went back because I forgot something or another. The second time I left, I'd gotten in my car and driven a few blocks when I realized that I'd forgotten my phone. The third time out, Eel's landlord - who'd been working on the garden and saying "Hi" and "Bye" to me on each visit - asked if I had found whatever it was I kept coming back for her.

"Not really," I explained. The first trip back I forgot my laptop, but when I got back in I decided that I didn't need it. The second time I realized that I forgot my cell phone. Except that I didn't forget my cell phone here, but I forgot it this morning before I came over. I just forgot that I forgot it this morning and so I really didn't forget anything at all, I just thought I forgot."

After a couple seconds of silence, she repled, "I hope you and Camille take very good care of one another."

A while back I FURLed a couple of articles relating to Richard Florida's Creative Class. The Creative Class is an idea by Richard Florida (whom I've discussed before) that says that it's not low taxes or less regulation that attract people but rather artsy culture and tolerance and diversity. Amazingly, these theories have proven very popular with urban liberals who don't mind taxes, like regulation, and really like artsy culture. I'm not sure which predated which, but Florida's ideas can be pretty closely tied to the whole "World Class City" idiocy that has recently infected Houston.

Which is why I don't like the theory very much.

Which is really kind of funny because I do value in a city many of the same things that he does as far as art centers and whatnot go. The amenities that large cities have is probably what I miss most about Houston. Houston ranks #7 on Florida's Creative Class Index behind six college towns (or cities right by college towns) including Austin, which is #2 and a city I wouldn't have minded living in.

But a good argument can be made that Florida's theories don't hold water under scrutiny. As the saying goes, corrolation does not equal causation. It's my guess that these cities didn't attract people because they flow money into the arts that young people are interested in, but rather money started going to the arts because a lot of young people started moving to these towns which were "hot" for other reasons (related to industry).

But regardless, I don't think you can fake culture any more than you can fake being World Class. You are or you aren't based on your city's position in the world economy, not whether or not you have a seven mile stretch of under-utilized light rail. People most often move to find work rather than be where it's cool to be. Those that do the latter are often not the kind of employees that large businesses (outside of dot-com) are particularly interested in.

None of this is to knock Houston or Austin, of course. Austin, I think, came by its nature pretty honestly by virtue of the 50,000 college students that live there. Houston, I think, would be surprised to learn that it values the arts. But one of the greatest things about Houston, in my view, is how many things it is without trying really hard to be them (until the whole World Class fever hit, anyway).

But however much I may want a city that is more lively than bland, I'd rather live in Oklahoma City with a job than Seattle without one.

[links found via Dustbury]

You know, if Pocatello could look year-round like it looks right now, I wouldn't be able to afford to live hear because it would be too expensive. The grass is green, some of the lakes that drained out last summer and fall are refilling. The mountains may not be calcified, but I can life with that.

• I got a search in my SiteMeter for "Thrifthaven." At first I was kind of surprised at the coincidence, but then I thought about it and it made sense that the prefix "Thrift" and suffix "haven" were bound to meet somewhere at some point. I was kinda surprised that they happened to meet at a Baptist school in Tennessee.
• I sat down on my recumbent bike yesterday and in my 20 minute ride was interrupted no less than four times by people asking to borrow money. First was Snowflake, whom I loaned ten dollars. Second was Strang, whom I reminded already owed me $5. Third was Snowflake, who said she actually needed $10 rather than $5. Last was Saul the Mumbler, who ended up borrowing the $10 I wouldn't loan Snowflake.
• I was just thinking on my drive up here: I should have made some T-shirts. Something like "I spent a night at Thrifthaven and all that wasn't stolen was this lousy t-shirt" or something. I guess I still could, but since I'm not posting as much on the apartment, it wouldn't have as much appeal. Not that I would really expect people to spend $15 on a shirt about a pseudonymed apartment complex in Pocatello, Idaho, that no one has ever heard of.
• May do it anyway just so that I can have one. Gawd bless Cafe Press!
• For the first two months or so since he got out of jail, Strang had been wearing the same clothes day after day after day. It was a yellow t-shirt with pants so low that you could see his crack and ripped so high that you could see the bottom of his bottom on one leg. It was getting so bad I was thinking about buying him some new clothes myself. The good news is that he's apparently bought himself some clothes. The bad news is that he's getting a lot of visitors at odd hours.

"The editorial complains that the new amendment allowing sale and slaughter of old and unadoptable horses was included as a rider on a "must-pass" spending bill, arguing that such emotionally charged issues should be open to public debate. On one hand they have a good point, sliding legislation on any issue through the back door is bad government. On the other hand, suppose we had a referendum on the care and feeding of the stray and abandoned cats & dogs that are euthanized annually. That too is an emotional issue, and it is quite possible that the majority would vote for 'the government' to feed and care for these critters in perpetuity. That would be a very expensive warm and fuzzy feeling." -Anthony Swenson

blogHOUSTON has been following the fallout from a Houston Chronicle editorial that suggested that Florida's new laws regarding child molesters is too tough.

While there's outrage abound by the editorial itself, I don't actually think it too far gone. Less so cause it's mean to child molesters and more because if it doesn't work then I wouldn't want to pay the $4 million pricetag. That's not to say that I agree with the editorial, but there may be some legitimate questions there.

I do, however, have one question. The Chronical editorial board has suggested that it would be more effective to have better (or more) probation officers with more tools. Fair enough, but didn't they just say a few months ago that probation laws are too tough and that they should focus on educational programs? So by combining those two editorials, are they not suggesting that child molesters just need to be sent to night school?

Now that is scary. Disregard second paragraph.

I really like this quiz, pointed out by Kevin. It at least breaks up the Democrat/Republican mold somewhat. Interesting that I had the same results as Kevin and his entire readership (or at least those that commented on the post in question. This is the first type-setting quiz on politics that actually has a group for Republicans that are neither super religious or libertarian. Reading over it, though, I can't help but wonder if the category should have been called "libertarians who pragmatically sold out."

----

Enterpriser

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Enterpriser typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic or agree with the group on all issues.

Enterprisers represent 9 percent of the American public, and 10 percent of registered voters.

Basic Description
As in previous studies conducted in 1987, 1994 and 1999, this extremely partisan Republican group’s politics are driven by a belief in the free enterprise system and social values that reflect a conservative agenda. Enterprisers are also the strongest backers of an assertive foreign policy, which includes nearly unanimous support for the war in Iraq and strong support for such anti-terrorism efforts as the Patriot Act.

Defining Values
Assertive on foreign policy and patriotic; anti-regulation and pro-business; very little support for government help to the poor; strong belief that individuals are responsible for their own well being. Conservative on social issues such as gay marriage, but not much more religious than the nation as a whole. Very satisfied with personal financial situation.

Who They Are
Predominantly white (91%), male (76%) and financially well-off (62% have household incomes of at least $50,000, compared with 40% nationwide). Nearly half (46%) have a college degree, and 77% are married. Nearly a quarter (23%) are themselves military veterans. Only 10% are under age 30.

Lifestyle Notes
59% report having a gun in their homes; 53% trade stocks and bonds in the stock market, and 30% are small business owners – all of which are the highest percentages among typology groups. 48% attend church weekly; 36% attend bible study or prayer group meetings.

2004 Election
Bush 92%, Kerry 1%. Bush’s most reliable supporters (just 4% of Enterprisers did not vote)

Party ID
81% Republican, 18% Independent/No Preference, 1% Democrat (98% Rep/LeanRep)

Media Use
Enterprisers follow news about government and politics more closely than any other group, and exhibit the most knowledge about world affairs. The Fox News Channel is their primary source of news (46% cite it as a main source) followed by newspapers (42%) radio (31%) and the internet (26%).

* - Well maybe not entirely

Since I managed to irritate half of my readership last week with my generalizing post on a particularly agitating discussion style used by liberals, what else to do but irritate the other the half with a generalizing post on a particularly agitating discussion style used disproportionately by conservatives. If you want disclaimers, you can go here.

In The Common Ground Con, I noted that liberals believe themselves closer to the center than they are and are often astonished to discover that their seemingly common-sense views are opposed by seemingly intelligent people. As I said before, it's impossible for a conservative to maintain this delusion because a majority of academia, opinion media, and entertainment media veer left. So they labor under the opposite delusion: That those who disagree with them then are almost automatically represented by those media (or academic) figures they despise. Sex before marriage is automatically likened to a Sex in the City-style hedonism. Homosexuality is represented by a Gay Pride parade complete with leather outfits.

While both sides tend to exaggerate the extremism of their opponents, conservatives managed to exaggerate the extremism of people who agree with them on all but the particulars. If you're against regulation of private entertainment systems such as cable and satellite, you're in favor of porn during family hour. If you have a different assessment of a brain-damaged woman in Florida's condition, you're part of the Culture of Death regardless of how pro-life you may be on abortion. If you disagree, they're ready not just to dismiss your agreement, but dismiss you as someone whose views are too immoral or amoral to be taken in to consideration. Even if they'll accomodate your view politically, they'll quite often use the same rhetoric they did before.

But the thing is that this is mostly rhetorical. Whereas liberals present themselves as being in the mainstream and then slowly pull you to the left if you'll follow, conservatives rhetorically put themselves a great deal further to the right than there actual position. The longer a conversation goes, the more liberal a liberal starts to seem and the less utterly insane a conservative does. In the end this all evens out. In a 50/50 country, the average liberal is almost inherently the same distance from the center as the average conservative, but you'd never know that when one side is talking about how much you probably agree and the other is finding and maximizing every difference.

The always-touchy subject of abortion comes to mind. Abortion is murder, they'll say. Except even conservatives are willing to make an exception in the case of rape and incest. A rape victim is not allowed to murder the rapist, so why in the world should she be able to murder the product of the rape? Liberals point this out and conservatives get into a huff often without explaining the case. The truth is that most pro-life conservatives don't consider abortion 1:1 as compared with a born baby. If they did in their hearts, this country would be in the thrust of a civil war to prevent a million murders a year. Abortion clinic bombings would make as much sense as killing an SS soldier that's responsible for countless lives. 'Respect for the law' and all that comes up pretty short when 'the law' is killing millions a year. There are fringe conservatives that believe these things, of course, but by-and-large conservatives reject this notion everywhere except in their rhetoric.

But the longer the conversation lasts (and in the cases where you aren't dismissed as amoral, immoral, or a flaming liberal, which depends on how far to the right the particular conservative is), the more reasonable you'll find their position. The more you'll see that they will make the appropriate exceptions and so forth. But their rhetoric will return straight to form once the particular issue is dealt with and an agreement (to the extent necessary) is reached. Even when pragmatic, they're rhetorically dogmatic.

So why do conservatives take this somewhat antagonistic and defensive posture? I believe it's because they recognize that they're losing. It's ironic for the party that has both houses of congress and the presidency to be losing, but conservatives have been losing for decades. The ideal of reducing government has been replaced by rechanneling it. Neither Reagan nor Bush eliminated a cabinet-level department. A Republican president with a Republican congress has come out in support of civil unions. Roe v. Wade has been strenghtened rather than diminished and the Phantom Privacy Amendment has become more enthrenched in the American psyche than ever. Even Bush's many successes (tax cuts, NCLB, etc.) have come at the expense of conservative ideals (balanced budget, federalism, etc.).

On some level I believe that conservatives recognize this and feel besieged. Besiegement, of course, warrants a more defensive posture. If a lot of Republicans still seem angry after winning three consecutive elections, it's because they've had to win them on Democratic terms. America hasn't become more conservative as much as conservatism has been redefined for the consumption of America.

Granted, some of this has changed since the 2004 election and many liberals are starting to display this same tendency (Jesusland). But the fact that there are grumblings in liberal circles similar to the way conservatives more generally are, and these grumblings come in the face of a third narrow defeat, only underscores that the rhetorical extremism is driven by the defensiveness that rejection causes.

For the most part, the debate below on the Common Ground Con seems to revolve more about stereotyping generalization than anything else. Even prior to this discussion, it's been obvious for me for some time now that I don't have the problem with generalization that others do. Most of where I have seen this pertains to women and men.

The most recent reminder of this was during the whole scuffle about Lawrence Summers's comments about women in the sciences. A lot of the counter-argument seemed to revolve around the idea that it's wrong to make such generalizations and that the generalization is wrong because so-and-so is a female and is great at science. Neither of those two things, in my mind, address the issue of whether or not guys are wired to be better in the maths and sciences and women in more communicative fields.

I'm sure there's an actual logical or mathematical name for it, but I have little difficult using what I call the Rule of Tendencies. The RoT being that a single or cluster of counterexamples does not disprove that a general thesis is generally true.

The example I use in a comment below is women, men, and height. There are a lot of women out there over 6' tall. At least a million in the United States, probably. Even so, the average person over 6' is going to be male. The same is true for women and the sciences. My fiance is a whole lot more math-wired than I am while I'm a lot more language-wired than she is. Does that prove that men are not, in general, more wired for math? It does not.

The same can be true of political parties. A woman is more likely to have voted for Kerry than a male is. While the tendency is not as strong as the height example above, it is nonetheless observable both in statistics and experience. Gun-owners, people with children, and rural people are all more likely to vote Republican. There are plenty of gun-owning, church-going, mothers that vote Democrat, but it's nonetheless true. Most creative-types are left-of-center, but I'm a creative-type that's right-of-center, but most creative types are still left-of-center.

In the Common Ground Cons post, I was mostly pointing out a particular debate tactic that liberals are prone to use and conservatives are much less prone to. I probably should have put the word "some" in front of liberals, but I didn't think the absense of that word would lead people to believe that I meant 'all.' Given the strident tone of the post, I probably should better forseen how it would be read. (I also, as pointed out by TP and Kevin, should have been more particular about how I was defining the words.)

That said, I don't believe that such generalizations are inherently unuseful because they are not always accurate. I've certainly found the generalizations I make about conservatives helpful in avoiding some of the tactics that conservatives are more likely to employ.

And more broadly, I find generalizations of groups to be helpful, so long as they are not taken to excess or considered fact unless conclusively disproven. I've found the pop-psychology books to be a lot more helpful when they make distinctions by gender (even though in some ways I'm an outlier).

Some Comment Spammers are sneaking through Captcha, so I've had to institute a 7-day moderation scheme instead of the previous 90-day. So until further notice, any comment on a post more than 10 days old will have to be moderated. I apologize for th inconvenience.

I've got my new CD burner and software working and it's all going quite fantastic. I've noticed something, though.

I've switched back and forth between Nero and Adaptec/Roxio since I've been burning CDs. Since getting a portable MP3 player and later an MP3 player in my car, I've noticed that they index files differently. If I put on an MP3 CD burned with Nero and play it straight through, it will play - more or less - in alphabetical order. The exceptions are too rare to mention and make sense as to why they would read that way.

An MP3 CD burned with EZCD, on the other hand, will not index the files in alphabetical order. In fact, I can't determine how exactly it decides which file would go first. On the CD I was listening to today, it was a song that started with "H" (Hey, Hey, My My) rather than "A" whereas some "A" (Alabama) songs are almost halfway through the CD. A-M is generally towards the front and N-Z is generally towards the back, but there is little rhyme or reason as to which song goes where. Two versions of the same song with the same title may be as far apart as a dozen songs from one another.

I'm not complaining as much as I am confused. Honestly, a part of me really prefers what EZCD does cause that way I can listen to a 100-song CD straight through without all of the version of a particular track being lumped together. On the downside, it makes songs nearly impossible to find. So I dunno.

So my questions:
1) Does anyone know why EZCD doesn't put them in alphabetical order.
2) Does anyone know how to get EZCD to do what Nero does or vice-versa?

I ordinarily don't do the Friday Five cause... well, I never really got in to the habit of it and I don't really blog much on Fridays now. Regardless, this week's had one question that begged for an answer, so I'll answer it:

5. What is the worst movie sequel ever made, what is the best sequel ever, and what movie should have had a sequel but didn't?

Worst sequel: Highlander 2
Best sequel: Spiderman 2?

Most needed sequel: This is the one that I wish I had time to answer at great length.

But the answer is unquestionably Zero Effect. This movie could have had a sequel every Thursday 8/7pm or some other great time slot on network TV , but it didn't take. Might not have been the same without Bill Pullman anyhow. Outstanding character, solid premise, good writing. Would have made a super television series, but at the least would have been wonderful as a movie franchise as well.

[via TP]

This evening I read this and watched this.

I found the video particularly interesting. If you don't want to download/stream the video, there's a swath of links here. The basic gyst of it is that cordial relations broke down in a panel/meeting that was about trying to be cordial when discussing politics. Liberal Dave Winer's behavior reminds me a great deal of a general agitation with the way that liberals carry themselves in conversation.

Winer said during the discussion and afterwards that he was certain that liberals and conservatives can find some common ground. I gotta tell you, any time I hear a liberal say that, I immediately get suspicious. Republicans and Democrats have quite different ideas of partisanship and bi-partisanship. A Republican believes that something is bi-partisan so long as it has the vote of a couple of Democrats, even if 95% of the Democrats voted against it. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that bi-partisanship is Republicans coming around in their thinking and agreeing with the eminantly reasonable and thoughtful Democrat policies and when Republicans don't (because they are Republicans for a reason), Democrats get into a huff and complain about how partisan the Republicans are.

Politics is a zero-sum game. That's not to say that Republicans and Democrats cannot live together, be friends, get married, and so on. But it is to say that in the political realm, one party is winning and one party is losing. Any politician that will give up their beliefs (or their supporters' beliefs) "for the sake of the country" quite simply does not have what it takes to be a congressional leader. Clinton started compromising with Gingrich because he lost in '04. Gingrich started compromising with Clinton because he lost in the `95 furlough. Democrats that are complaining that Bush, after having won three straight elections, is not compromising are largely posturing. That's not because Democrats are more fake than Republicans, but because they're the party out of power. The inverse of that would be the GOP's amnesia regarding federalist ideas because they are the party in power.

But I'm getting off track. The reason I get suspicious when liberals start talking about "common ground" is that they are quite frequently planning (consciously or subconsciously) to simply walk you through the steps they walked through to come to the conclusion that they did. When you break with them at one point or another, they'll start all over at the begining of the track and repeat it. Further obstinance on your part will result in a failure on their part to understand why you are failing to understand them. In this agitation, you can almost always bet the words "No, you're not listening" or "No, you don't understand" to cross their lips. Then repeat track.

Winer brings up the "awful" economy as something "we can all agree on." Except that at least one person in the audience, Stan Brown, didn't agree. Winer, an unusually thin-skinned liberal, went nuts. Brown's laughter was inappropriate, don't get me wrong, but after the righteous indignation of that Winer started digging in to how utterly unreasonable Brown's position was. It was quite clearly not the voice of a man who was interested in finding some point in between what liberals believe and what conservatives believe.

No, instead what was supposed to happen is that we are all supposed to agree that the economy is a wreck. Then, we're all supposed to agree that the reasons for this are some combination of Bush's pro-business policies and the deficit. From there it's a short step to it being Bush's fault that the economy is bad and then a short hop, jump, and skip to saying "So we should oppose Bush's policies" and voila, we've found our common ground. I have had this discussion over and over and over and over again. When at some point I jump off the ship of that logic and say "Be that as it may, I'm supporting Bush" I am looked at like "But you understand, so how you can you not understand?"

A lot of this stems from the first link, Blue State arrogance. Leftists control academia and liberals (I'm making a strong distinction here) control entertainment media, the opinion page and editorial boards of most newspapers, and a majority of the pundits on television outside of Fox News. This makes it a lot easier for liberals to fall into a false sense of where the country stands. It's not difficult for a liberal to get themselves into a comfortable bubble. Unless they solely stick to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, talk radio, and partisan media, they can't miss all the people out there that think that they're wrongheaded and clueless. Almost no one that goes to college can harbor that conceit.

Over and over again, I see Democrats believing that they occupy the middle of American politics right before they lose elections. Even if one notes that Gore won the popular vote in 2000, he won it by the narrowest of margins and if Democrats and moderates combined don't comprise the majority, the Democrats are in even more trouble. But that's not the case and the "middle" is divided almost equally between the parties. And yet conservatives call themselves conservatives (however it be qualified) and liberals call themselves moderate. I don't think it's necessarily an underhanded tactic by either side, but a reflection of where each of them see themselves.

This is actually starting to change a little with the Republicans continued narrow success. A lot more Democrats are starting to see themselves as beleaguered and surrounded by people they don't understand. Republicans, having controlled congress and both houses of congress out of their third consecutive election, are starting to get the impression that the majority of the public agrees with them. I suspect, however, that this will immediately evaporate with one Democratic success.

So with all this, it's not surprising that many believe until election time that Republicanism is limited to religious fanatics and rich people. Since the 2004 election, liberals have somewhat split in to two camps: those that believe 51% of the American public are religious fanatics and uneducated dopes, and those that believe that they are well-intentioned and honest people who just haven't quite realized that they are being used by the Republicans. It's not because Democrats are inherently more delusional than Republicans - Republicans have different delusion but one that is equally arrogant in its own way - but rather because it's difficult for the mind to comprehend another mind of equal intelligence coming to vastly different conclusions.

Which brings me back to Dave Winer. While he's a particularly thin-skinned example, he is nonetheless an examplar to me as to why I rarely discuss politics these days with liberals.

Some of you may be thinking "But Republicans are the same way!" I respectfully disagree. Conservatives are obnoxious in entirely different ways. Enough for a whole 'nother post, probably.

Camille and I very belatedly celebrated our engagement last night at the Continental Bistro in oldtown. The Bistro is probably the nicest restaurant in town and has some crawfish bisque that is to die for. It even got Southern Louisianan Camille's approval. It's not cheap, but we've definitely found our special occasions restaurants. We're going to try to find a special occasion every month or so.

This weekend we hope to go to dinner theater to see some black comedy or another with a local theater group. Last weekend we saw a production of Twelfth Night and a couple weeks before that we saw a short film festival where I got to see Rick's well-directed production. We're both something of homebodies, but I'm glad that we're taking advantage of the fact that this is a college town and there are some definite advantages to that (both the Twelfth Night and short film festival were university-related).

She's just gotten off four or five or six pretty rough rotations. But she has a couple light rotations before she becomes a Third Year resident in a residency that will jump from 13 to 17 people or so. That will be nice.

I may be late to the party, but I just ran across Sea Code, which takes a ship out in to international waters in order to skirt American law:

SeaCode presents Hybrid-Sourcing(tm) an innovative engineering service which creates high-end software engineering jobs in the U.S. while still providing lower overall costs for our clients. This approach combines the capabilites and convenience of our San Diego-based software engineering center with the proximity and reduced costs of our unique ship-based engineering facility. The result of this completely new business model is the creation of U.S. engineering jobs and lower blended costs for U.S. clients.

I had a friend several years back that was trying to hook me up with an IT job on an offshore rig in the gulf. The idea of working in such a closed environment really had a certain appeal, as did the 7-days-on, 7-days-off aspect. It seems to me that one of the best things it has going for it is that I could see young people lining up for the chance to work in such a unique environment. With food presumably provided, it would make for quite an... interesting lifestyle for the young and single.

Except that the goal isn't to hire Americans. Rather than skirting taxes or OSHA laws, their target seems to be immigration law. But on the other hand with the exception of employee salaries, most of the rest of the purchases will be from the US leaving 90% of the money here. They also point out that the employees will be making a decent salary ($24-40k) with most expenses (including healthcare) paid. It's possible they could find Americans willing to work under those circumstances, but probably not of the caliber they're looking for.

Not sure what to think of it. I have some serious doubts as to whether or not the money saved by cheaper labor would actually be sufficient to offset the costs of... well... everything.

One of the odd things to consider is that if I am wrong and it is successful, we could have a wall of ships stationed off our coastline. That's kind of a creepy thought.

My printer deliberations ended when i needed to make an order for some other parts. In addition to a new printer, I'm the proud owner of a new 250GB Western Digital HD, 17" Samsung flatscreen LCD monitor, Samsung 52x32x52x CDRW, and Roxio's latest CD burning software. It cost a good $600 in all (not accounting for those pesky mail-in rebates), but there comes a time when you're spending more time getting the old crap to work than it would take to earn the money to simply buy new stuff. Keeping the computers from overheating with a 19" monitor lugging away at a 4x2' shared with a computer was simply too much to ask. I haven't been able to reliably burn a CD in at least six months and could have spent forever trying to figure out whether it was the software, hardware, or both. Truth is that both were probably ready to be replaced and now I've done so.

But that brings me to the printer. I ended up going with the Samsung ML-1740 laser printer.

Now the strange thing is that last night, I told it to print something. It hummed and whirred, and much to my surprise it printed out the requested document without any futher action required on my part. I still don't understand this concept entirely. I kept asking it if it needed me to reload the paper twelve times like the old printer or smack it upside the head. I offered to give it the same moral support I gave its predecessor by cussing my head off. It simply replied by spitting out more printed sheets.

I can't say that I mind a printer that's too busy working to chit-chat.

There's apparently a group of lefty political activists called the Austin People's Legal Collective.

Disregarding everything else about the group, I cannot imagine a more ominous, creepy name a group can give themselves than People's Legal Collective.

[via Chris]

On the advice of a bunch of you, I decided to get a recumbent bike. I actually got it back in December, but the box made a really good table to put stuff on by the door and... okay, I was just really lazy. I've been a little more serious as of late about getting in shape. I've gone up and down Red Hill about ten times in the past week. It was bordering on rain today, so I had to cut my trip short. I've had recumbent bike parts strewn about my apartment the last few days, but because it was bordering on rain today I had to cut my trip short (one trip up instead of two or three) and I had the time to get to putting it together.

It was actually kinda a neat process. The biggest hold-up on putting it together has been a lack of screws. I looked and looked and looked, but couldn't find the screws to save my life. It took Camille less than five minutes. It still looked like the little baggie didn't have enough screws in it and sure enough, I counted them out and I was missing a bunch. But I figured they wouldn't just give me half the screws, so I started constructing it. Sure enough, they had attached the screws to various parts of the bike. So I'd usually run across the screws I needed for a particular part attached to the prior part. It felt a little like a treasure hunt.

So anyway, I've got it all together now. I tried riding it, but after about ten minutes my legs felt like lead. I guess my trip up Red Hill took more out of me than I thought.

But in any case, I got a recumbent bike and no weather excuse.

Now I just need something to do while on the bike. Maybe I need to restart up my EA NCAA football seasons. Or maybe my long-overdue subscription to NetFlix is due.

Thomas Jefferson used to speak admirably of the yeoman farmer, rugged citizens of the new American nation that lived self-sufficiently off their land. While farming has been commodified and the land of yeoman farmers has long since gone, in some ways the spirit lives on. The notion of private property was one of the foundations of our country and is the very foundation of our economic system. Even in areas where we deviate from the free market model, we often do so in ways that allow people to acquire land. Government programs that help poor people get their own house are neither unpopular with liberals or conservatives. While ownership of all sorts of property is good, the ownership of land is paramount.

It's ironic, then, that our local and state governments' tax policies make it so land is the one thing that we never truly own.

If I buy a comic book, that comic book is mine. I can read it or not. I can put a match to it and burn it. But unless I do something to it or create unrelated financial obligations that the money the comic book is worth is required to make amends, no one can take it from me. If the comic book becomes super valuable, all the better. If it becomes worthless, I still have it to read or ignore as I choose. The same is true of a car. The car may require maintenance, and if I fail to perform it could die, but the broken and rusted piece of junk is still mine. I may have to pay the government money in the form of registration and emissions test and it may have to pass a safety inspection for me to be able to use it on public roads, but even if I refuse to do so I can drive it on my own property or let it sit there and gather dust. Absent unrelated financial obligations, no one can take it from me. No matter how much or how little it is worth, I never have to buy it again just to own it. Once the last payment is made, I never have to make another payment in order to give it up.

We've apparently decided that property (land property, to be specific) is different. If I own a tract of land outright, I still have to pay the government to keep it. I have to make payments on that land for the rest of my life. A lifetime of payments on my own property. Furthermore, how much I pay depends on things beyond my control. If the area in which I live becomes popular, the land values will rise. Due to nothing I can control, no action on my part, and no decision that I've been made, I can be forced to give up the property that I have bought and paid for simply because I can't make the continually rising payments. Or you could be caught in the crosswind of an ambitious mayor's use of targetted foreclosure so that he can remake your area in a way he sees fit.

But not even including eminent domain or the raising of tax rates, you're at the mercy of your surroundings as to whether or not you can afford to live on the property you've purchased. In this way, the Property Tax is fundamentally different from any other tax there is (with the possible exception of the estate tax). Yes, you have to pay taxes on income and that's not voluntary. But once you pay the taxes, most of the rest of the money is yours to do with as you please. You will likely have to pay taxes again later in the form of sales taxes, but once you fend off that two-headed beast, the rest of it is yours until the day you die. No one can take it from you unless you incur debt. You will not have to make another payment on it. It's yours.

And this is the case for anything you purchase except when it comes to the ownership of one of the cornerstones of our society.