Category: Current Events

Luciano Pavarotti dead at 71.

UPDATE: Countertop has more.

It’s always hard when you’re part of a group that large segments of society look down upon, to know when jettisoning your wackos (and every group has them) is the preferable thing to keeping them. On the one hand, the wackos hurt the image of your group with the public at large. On the other hand, they often times make significant contributions to your group’s activism, and ostracizing them will actually hurt more than it will help. I say this in answer to a question in one of Clayton’s posts:

If it is a tiny minority, why do supposedly respectable gay rights groups like Lambda Legal and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force feel the need to defend it or provide legal advice about how to deal with the legal consequences? This would be equivalent to Focus on the Family providing instructions for Christians about how to get away with assaulting homosexuals–confirming a false and nasty stereotype.

Gays are at a point now where they ought to think about shedding their wackos, and distancing themselves from gays who choose to have sex in public places. But as the article that Clayton updates with points out, a lot of these guys are living normal, respectable lives, outside of their bathroom habits.

I’m not sure why it’s so hard to believe that these guys aren’t necessarily gay.  If you’re a mainstream, out of the closet gay guy, you don’t need to resort to public restrooms to get your cheap thrills, you can go to a gay bar and pick someone up.

But if you’re in a marriage, and have absolutely no dignity, or care little for your commitment for your spouse, a cheap thrill at an airport bathroom while on a business trip might seem a convenience with little chance of the wife finding out. Affairs and prostitutes cost money, and time. Hotels show up on credit cards.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending sex in public, but I’m also not sure I’d dismiss the notion that this might not be a problem that’s limited to the gay community.

The NGLTF is calling out Senator Craig for his hypocrisy, which I think is only appropriate, but I do think the are going a bit far here:

“And by the way, why are Minneapolis tax dollars being used to have plainclothes police officers lurking idly in airport restroom stalls?”

Because people complained about lewd acts occurring in them. I won’t complain about NGLTF calling out Craig for hypocrisy, he deserves that, but let’s not go so far as to defend sex in public places. If I’m in an airport bathroom, and some guy starts peeping into my stall, and making hand gestures, then gets into the stall next to me, and starts with a “wide stance” that involves his foot and/or hand in my stall, you can bet it’s going to make me a little uncomfortable. I don’t think it helps build tolerance of gays to suggest that the police shouldn’t be investigating reports of lewd acts in public restrooms.

Hat Tip to Clayton Cramer.

Gonzalez is out.   Now can we please get someone running Justice who will clean up the ATF?  And maybe, just maybe, have some respect for people’s constitutional rights?

Gonzalez made me pine for the days of Ashcroft.  He was that bad.

I should state as a disclaimer that I firmly believe that pigeons are rats with wings.   But here’s another reason to stoke my, perhaps irrational, dislike of pigeons.

Chances are my sister and father know someone among those officers decked out in ninja gear.  The high school they speak of is where I graduated from.

I agree with Scott Adams that conspiracy theories are a boatload of fun, as are the people who sincerely believe in them.  Interesting enough, I think he touches on the appeal of them:

I believe the intent of the movie is to alarm people into being more skeptical of their government. It had the opposite effect on me. It made me happy to think there might be a plan. If the war on terror is real, it scares the shit out of me. But if, as the movie claims, it’s entirely manufactured, and the war in Iraq is meant to be a permanent conflict to sell weapons and control oil – that is much less scary. It means the war will stay where it is and no one will “follow me home.”

It also means the nuclear bomb ambitions of Iran are a lie. That’s one less thing to worry about. All I have to do is stay out of the National Guard and invest my money in defense contractors and I’ll be safe and happy. Those shadowy rich guys are doing a great job!

I’ve long believed that the Truther movement is largely a reaction to a fear of what the actual truth behind 911 (that it was committed by 19 middle eastern hijackers who were, in their minds, fighting a jihad against the United States) would mean.  I think most conspiracy people are actually, even if unknowingly, influenced by Scott’s feeling.  I think he was just honest enough with his feelings to recognize it for what it was.

If 9/11 was a conspiracy by our own government, than it’s not so scary.  Presumably we can expose the truth, make people aware, and change things.  It’s certainly a lot easier to quell uncertainty and unease by adopting this kind of view, than it is to believe the solution will involve a lot of killing, uncertainty, and the possibility of more attacks from people out there who hate us, and who we can’t influence or control.

No, not this NRA, I’m talking about the National Renderers Association. They have formed a committee relating to biofuels. Who is the NRA? Well, according to their website:

The NRA is an American Trade Association, whose business is to promote the interests of it’s members. Members of this association are all in the business of rendering, i.e. transforming waste from the meat industry into useable products for animal feeds and technical use. Renderers are even known as the original recyclers. On average slaughter houses, packing plants, supermarkets, butcher shops and restaurants collectively generate at least 40,000 metric tonnes of animal byproduct each week. Without the rendering industry, byproducts from meat and poultry processing would fill up landfills very quickly and the decomposing waste would contaminate our soil and water with disease-causing microorganisms and vermin. For more information on this and related subjects see the Environmental perspective page found on this site.

This is the kind of biofuel I can get behind; the kind made from waste product. I certainly like it a lot better than screwing up the economy to give ADM nice fat subsidies, along with artificially inflated corn and feed prices.

Well, I think Ed Brown, the notorious tax protester, is going to choose the latter option.  It’s a very well written post.  These are the kinds of people I’d honestly prefer not have guns.   They make normal gun owners look like whack jobs.  Taxes are not a reason to threaten to murder people, and whether he ends up dead or in prison, I won’t shed a tear for him.

But I will say this, his situation is an interesting study in how power works.  If you defy your governments laws, eventually men with guns will come and exert the government’s power over you.   All power comes down to that.   To those people who believe that small arms can never be effective against an oppressive government, Ed Brown’s continuing resistance to government power shows that the notion is incorrect.  If it wasn’t for being armed, he’d be in federal custody already.

I believe Mr. Brown is gravely mistaken in his belief that the government has gotten so out of control that violence is an acceptable solution.   I’m sympathetic to the idea that the government has made too many encroachments into our liberties, and that our federal government exercises power beyond its constitutional limits, but the government has done no wrong so grave that taking up arms against it, and against its agents, it warranted.

Marksmanship is generally pretty poor among Iraqi soldiers and insurgents, from what I hear.  Now it seems they can’t even fire into the air correctly.   If you’re going to fire a gun into the air, you should do it straight up.   The terminal velocity of the bullet isn’t high enough to kill.  It’s when you fire at too low an angle that you risk killing or seriously injuring someone.   Clearly they need to take some lessons from folks in Kentucky.