First off, who carries a butcher knife on a blind date, “just in case?” I really, really hope I have never been out charming a woman on a blind date on pain of death. Be that as it may, I suppose, if you are the type to put a butcher knife in your handbag “just in case,” you’re the type to forget it and leave it when you go to Newark to get on a plane to fly somewhere later.

Be that as it may, the fact that the vaunted TSA managed to FREAKING MISS THE GREAT HONKING BUTCHER KNIFE in the woman’s purse is ridiculous.

I can’t improve on the woman’s travelling companion’s summary of the situation:

“Suppose someone else had this knife and their motive was to hijack the plane?” Bell Gowens said. “Come on, now. We had a butcher knife. How do you miss that? How many years do you need to get this right?”

How many years indeed? Apparently more than the three and a half years that have passed since 9/11/01.

It’s good to know that the Red states are showing America the way to morality. I mean, sure, it seems to be popular right now to starve their children, but at least two women can’t say, “I do.”

Of course, there is probably a fundamentalist preacher today sermonizing that civil unions in Vermont are causing these people to abuse their children.

The Beeb lets us know that the UN have chosen their Tsunami Relief envoy–Bill Clinton. Call me cynical (“Hi, Cynical!”) but don’t you get the immediate, gut reaction that had this been the Russian Far East tsunami disaster instead of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster with sun and sand at every photo op, he might have passed?

I like Bill better than our current President, but you always wonder about the frat-boy angle to everything when you hear him in the news. That’s why I miss him–he did more to undermine the idea that politics should be an important part of life than any libertarian could ever dream.

I’m not an economist, but I did specialize a bit in international political economy in grad school, and I read a couple of economics blogs, so I have learned a couple of home truths. One is that with every disaster, there seems to be some well-meaning person who attempts to find the silver lining in the cloud of despair. The piece ususally goes something like, “One positive thing to come out of the disaster will be the economic jolt from spending on reconstruction.” Since people will be employed rebuilding things, it will create jobs, thus boosting the economy, right?

Wrong. This BBC story details the first attempts to come to grip with the costs. I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news, but this is an unmitigated (and unprecedented) disaster. While many of the people who were killed or who have been made homeless were very poor, they had some wealth, and that wealth is gone now. Furthermore, many, if not most, of the deaths were of those who are or will be producers of wealth. So future wealth creation has been curtailed. In the short term, the efforts to provide food, clean water, shelter, and disease treatment to these people will be much more expensive than had they not been affected–another net cost. Any money spent on disaster relief is money that will not be spent on some naturally productive area of the global economy.

That money must be spent, spent gladly, and spending more now will prevent spending even more later. But just because disaster relief is a good thing doesn’t mean that it will be a good thing for the global economy. Remember the Asian Flu of the late 90’s? Only the Internet bubble and some fancy maneuvering on the part of the global financial community kept that from affecting us in the West. This may have a measurable impact as well.

One more note about economic rhetoric. The BBC piece talks about some of the countries “lowering taxes and spending more to stimulate the economy.” That is more realistically phrased as “borrowing from future generations to invest in reconstruction now in the hopes that a future economy will be stronger and able to pay of the debt.” It’s a reasonable move in the short term, though anyone watching the current US Administration will find that policy strangely familiar and unsettling. The longer you finance current consumption with debt, the greater the bill when it comes due–and it will come due.

Fortunately, it’s a good bet that this area will be more wealthy in the future. And it’s a sound investment to provide them relief now so a greater tragedy is averted. Remember, all that relief doesn’t have to come from the government: you can and should help, too.

Suddenly, lots of CEOs are probably rethinking how much they want to acquire hordes of Indian programmers, since they might get arrested for cooperating with the police there.

Now I’ve seen a furious debate over the question Spc. Wilson asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Both sides have good points: the fact that so many soldiers cheered means that there’s a HUGE morale problem. But it’s also true that there’s a tradeoff in armor versus mobility, and yes, soldiers and marines and sailors get killed in war, and we won’t change that any time soon.

However, one way Rumsfeld completely ducked his and the Bush administration’s responsibility infuriated me, and nobody I’ve seen has commented on it. His reply supposedly included this sentence: “You go to war with the army you have.”

Sure, when Iraq attacked through Cuba and took Miami so soon after 9/11/01, I was shocked and ready to go to war, too, and I think people complaining about timing should complain to Saddam Hussein since he start-

Oh Wait, WE Started This One

We could have gone to war with any army we wanted. We had the luxury of choosing the time and place, and, according to the Bush administration now, weapons of mass destruction weren’t a major reason to go, just an also-ran. So there was no time pressure, and Rumsfeld could have prepared for the contingency of taking Iraq with a “transformed” army (which he did well) and then holding it with a follow-on larger force (which he has failed to even consider until now).

Furthermore, Bush could have actually spent some time bringing the rest of the world along so we had partners in the initial invasion and even more to do the dirty, dull, dangerous drudgery that is occupation. We could have French and Spanish and German and Japanese and Saudi and Yemeni and Egyptian and maybe even Russian or Turkish troops on the ground being shot at along with us, providing some visibility and keeping the pressure on would-be terrorists.

But, Mr. Rumsfeld, you failed to plan, you failed to argue for more time, and you implemented a policy pretty much doomed to this kind of slog. It’s not yet hopeless, but if you had a bit of honor you would have stepped aside and let someone else finish this one.

I agree with The Economist: Resign, Rumsfeld.

The Federal Register at some point in 2003 hit a record 75,606 pages. There are now several hundred years of common law in effect. There were 187,017 patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2003 alone. It is no longer even possible for one person to know the entirety of the law pertaining to his every day activities, and it’s increasingly hard for even lawyers to know if a given action is legal or illegal in one narrow area of the law.

Is it even possible for a person to live a life without breaking a law, regulation, or violating some contract or other? Could even notorious shut-in Emily Dickinson not be accused of some zoning violation or state or federal environmental protection rule-breaking? Has anyone born since 1950 not broken a law or violated a regulation?

There has always been a certain amount of contempt for the law. The most notorious in the U.S. are alcohol regulations and taxes, which date back to the Boston Tea Party and Whiskey Rebellion. But it would be interesting to know if contempt for the law is increasing. Certainly I get the sense that people divide the law into technical and moral: some laws, such as murder or rape, engender moral opprobrium if you violate them. Many other laws, and I fear an increasing number of them, carry no moral outrage even in the strictest schoolmarms. Does anyone, even police, really care if most people routinely go 5 miles over the speed limit at the very least?

These are not new questions, by any means. But given the explosion of regulation everywhere and litigation here in the U.S., it’s worth raising again: the law increasingly resembles an excuse to seek protection money from average citizens in order to be left alone. Pay regulators fines, pay lawyers fees, pay “donations” to legislators, and, increasingly, pay outright bribes to everybody.

When it becomes an acceptable cost of business to pay outright bribes throughout the U.S., not just in the Northeast, then our standard of living may start to follow our legal system in resembling a third world country.

CNN reports that a talk show host has been fired for alleged obscenity. However, the radio host did this while criticizing local legislators who were taking action against a political group that, among other things, funded his show and were guilty of Speaking While Black. This provides further evidence for Lunchstealer’s contention that the FCC‘s new obscenity push is effectively rolling back the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution.

Note that the FCC never got directly involved. However, the station cited the FCC as the rationale for firing “suspending” the talk show host. “‘I’m walking on eggshells with the FCC,’ [the station manager] said.” Due to the complaint-driven method the FCC uses to get around restrictions on “prior restraint” of publication, intimidating political opponents on the airwaves is easy: just find something marginally offensive to someone and complain about it. In the new climate, station managers will preemptively stifle the dissenting political speech.

If the FCC were to auction off the spectrum and charge a minimal fee to spectrum rights holders to arbitrate rights disputes, none of this would happen. To those who argue that dissenting political voices would be taken out of the picture, I’d remind you of two things. First, Clear Channel is now in the business of syndicating Air America content. Second, just how much diversity is the government-regulated scheme getting you? Even less today than last month.

Let’s assume, for a moment, that Red and Blue really are inalterable and opposed. It’s not a wise or accurate assumption, but, for the sake of argument, let’s assume just that. What could Democrats do?

Grant McCracken has had a series of posts giving Democrats advice from a semi-disinterested Canadian’s point of view. It’s probably worth a read, left or right. He wants a conversation to really argue sincerely down to first principles in order to build respect for one another. He hopes it isn’t so that there are only a few fundamental, inarguable differences. Free markets can achieve social justice goals, or gay marriage can strengthen families overall.

But pretend for a moment he’s utterly wrong, and there’s no compromise possible on these first principles, but given the shared history and sheer annoyance of it all, you rule out total war or secession (or just giving in, buying a plaid flannel shirt and learning who Michael Waltrip is). What would be a political strategy for Red staters and Blue staters to both get what they want, assuming they still want to live in the same country?

Continue reading →

Well, perhaps I spoke too soon, it looks like some of the Dutch have taken to vigilante action against Muslims and Muslim institutions in Holland. I’d even go so far as to remind them that except for some very sporadic incidents (including the murder of a Sikh, not even a Muslim) that were quickly prosecuted, the aftermath of 9/11/01 in the US where nearly 3000 of us were killed was not very violent.

Remember, wait until you figure out what country may have been involved, and send your military over to do the hurtin’. Then whallop one or two others you noticed on the way in that you never liked anyway. That’s the New European/Transatlantic civilized way. Sigh.