A Month of No Blogging

The trial (my first) has been keeping me busy. Thus, no blogging.

Took the day off today, as the trial is moving into a short hiatus to let the lead attorney on our side argue a motion in another case. I drove up to Annapolis; saw a bit of the Naval Academy, and grabbed lunch. It was pretty good drive.

Otherwise, things are good.

Victor Davis Hanson: What's Wrong with the Democrats.

VDH explains why the Democratic party is waning. Here are some bullet points:

- Class warfare doesn't resonate in a land where most people have jobs, cars, cell phones and computers, and obesity, not emaciation, is epidemic.

- Class warfare rhetoric falls flat when delivered by prep school grads and lawyers.

- The Civil Right Movement of the 60's was the right thing to do, but the next step, legislated equality of result, is tyrannical and oppressive:

When a liberal UC Berkeley chancellor remonstrates about "diversity" and "multiculturalism," lamenting that his merit-based entrance requirements have sadly resulted in too few "Hispanics" and "African-Americans" (he ignores that whites at Berkeley also enroll in numbers less than their percentages in the state population), what he really means — but won't say — is that there are apparently too many Asians, about 45 percent enrolled in Berkeley versus about 12 percent in the state population.

- The richest people in society tend to be over 65 -- so retohric about rescuing the elderly falls flat.

- Defense issues: "Would Al Gore have invaded Afghanistan less than a month after 9/11? If John Kerry were President and China invaded Taiwan, what would he do?" That 'bout sums it up.

- In all:

[T]he United States does not suffer from the sort of oppression, poverty, or Vietnam nightmares of the 1950s and 1960s that created the present Democratic ideology. Thus calcified solutions of big government entitlements, race-based largess, and knee-jerk suspicion of U.S. power abroad come off as either impractical or hysterical.

So just go read the whole thing already.

NYT Falls for Army Deserter's Fabrications

A blogger named SGT Ted has a bit debunking the myths of Army deserter Aidan Delgado. He also uses the same blogger template I do. Great minds think alike, I guess...

Weekly Standard Reviews Freakonomics

I kicked off this blog with some comments on Levitt and Dubnar's book Freakonomics.

Now the Weekly Standard has joined in with a review of the book by Dean Barnett of Soxblog.

Barnett focuses on the most controversial part of the book, that I blogged about ealier--the correlation between legalized abortion and a drop in the crime rate. He also links to Steve Sailer's article debunking any causation between the two phenomena. (Sailer also reviewed the other chapters of the book.) Barnett offered no reply to Sailer, but such a thing was probably out side the scope of his review. In any case, the book is worth a read.

The Cognative Dissonance of the Politics of Star Wars

Let me get this straight. With villains in Attack of the Clones that consisted of the “Trade Federation”, “Commerce Guild”, “Techno Union” and “Intergalactic Banking Clan”, etc., I’m being warned about the dangers of capitalism from a man who made perhaps more money from merchandising than any other man in history. I’m getting lectured about the dangers of greed from man who authorized, “C-3POs” breakfast cereal, “The Star Wars Christmas Special” featuring Bea Arthur’s musical number, and not one but two Ewoks made-for-TV movies.

LOL.

Deconstructing anti-Bush Bigotry

I've long believed that the left's caricatures of President Bush hinge on a Hollywood induced bigotry of southerners. In just speaking with friends from say, Portland, it is clear that Northerners view those wacky people with funny accents with a general opprobrium and a presumption that Texans and Southerners in general are dumb bigots. (The irony, of course, is that it escapes many of those Northerners how dumb and bigoted such a gross generalization about Southerners is.)

Well, it seems that after Laura Bush gave her joke-filled speech over the weekend (including one risque joke about George attempting to milk a stallion), the New York Times has a different view of the Bush's. (Via Instapunk; see also Malkin's response.) It seems sad that it takes jokes about horse masturbation to give the North Coast Liberals pause about their view of a Texas politician who talks funny. It's as if they are saying "huh, they can joke about bestiality. I guess they are more like us after all." Sad indeed that that sort of humor is what Northern libs can identify with.

Exactly What is Wrong with International Law as it is now Conceived

Free Saddam, Jail Blair

Time Travel Disproved

Theory disproved.

Failed Time Traveler Convention

This one seems to have escaped the notice of the far future time traveler. Bummer...

Here's another thought--what if we live in a "historical preservation zone"? That is, by international/ intertemporal-zone treaty, all the time-travel-technology-possessing governments of the future have agreed that no time travel can occur to a date earlier than a certain specified date (for whatever reasons). It would be like our nature or wildlife preserves: no human intervention; just observe. Perhaps we are in such a preserve. Thus, no matter how many announcements left to the future for a time traveler's convention survive, none will be acted on in any major way. Oh sure, perhaps there will be one or two rogues that show up, but nobody with access to anything wonderful or great will show up; and there will be no mass influx of future-dwellers.

Indeed, why don't they just come back and give us the technology for time travel itself? I mean, if we're going to ask for cold fusion, why not go for the whole enchilada?

Alternatively, maybe we are competing with a convention that is already well-known among all the time travelers? Perhaps in the year 3850 A.D., there is a kickin' party on the shores of some lake on the then-atmospherized Mars. What time traveler would want to visit Boston in May, 2005, when he can go to the pleasure palaces of Olympus Mons in 3850? Huh, how 'bout it?

Here's another thought experiment: say you've just developed a time traveling machine. Hoo-ray. And you have heard about an obscure group of thinkers in some medieval society (let's make it China, because that sounds more exotic) that in the year 1500 A.D. proposed a time travelers convention to invite future-dwellers to show up. Do you go there/then? I mean you don't speak the language. Wouldn't you be a little concerned about your safety? (Remember Timeline?) What if you get separated from your time-travel device? Wouldn't you also feel a tad concerned about the ethical/morality of the situation? What if you changed history? Could you return to the world you knew if you changed any single bit of history? (Remember Back to the Future II?) Perhaps these considerations are what led to the creation of the "historical preservation zone"?

Time Traveler Convention

Pass it on!

convention

Remember: write it down, and place it in a book that won't get used or lost for a long, long time. Go to your local library today! We need to get all the future time travelers to come back to this week at the MIT campus.

LOL! Too funny.