Defense Department sees protests as terrorism:
Antiterrorism training materials used by the Department of Defense teach that public protests should be regarded as “low level terrorism,” according to a letter of complaint sent to the department today by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
Former AmeriCorps Official Says Obama Removed Him for ‘Doing My Job‘
Keep some of that extra weight, it might be helpful afterall
The 11 people every youth group needs
Readers: please understand that I am using deliberately sarcastic and overdone language in a specific attempt to add some humour. I’ve been writing such serious stuff in the past two months that I thought it might be nice to have a little fun. Please read this piece with a sense of humour and humility. It is not my intent to be too offensive.
Remember in the presidential debates when everyone was screaming about how Iran was this huge threat to the world and we need to keep “all the options on the table?” Remember the axis of evil? Remember this article from two years ago explaining how leaving Iran alone might actually lead to a popular revolution and do our dirty work for us? …erm… sorry about that last one - it only got 4 diggs.
But nevertheless, I’m feeling another bout of “I told you so” coming on. Before we began really screwing with the middle east in 2003, Iran was about to go significantly more towards the pro-western side of the Islamic Republic spectrum. By now, we probably could have been travelling there on vacation - maybe even having some foreign exchange students waking us up at 5am doing yoga or whatever it is they do on our living room carpet?
But one of the unintended consequences of having a nut like George W. Bush at the helm is that people in the middle east are going to be scared. And people who are scared vote like, well, they freaking vote like people who are scared.
Remember what happened in our country when we got scared? We federalised airport security. We passed the PATRIOT act. We supported two undeclared wars. We re-elected GW for chrikey’s sake.
Iran of course got scared and elected their own nut:
And this guy was the Iranian equivalent of GW in a lot of ways - aggressive language and posturing and so on. And while I don’t speak Persian, I’m sure he’s probably said a few dumb things and had a few awkward moments.
Nevertheless, the people in Iran are about to kick this guy out. Moreover, it could result in more than that - perhaps some radical reforms in their system of government. All of this in spite of a bunch of old white men making juvenile threats to Iran (have I ever mentioned how much of demagogue Mike Huckabee is? And yes, for anyone who wants to accuse me of “changing” definitions or using them inappropriately, I mean the freaking dictionary definition of demagogue - “a person, esp. an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.”).
Anyway, fortunately Huckabee isn’t in federal office and US threats against Iran have been a little bit less overt in the past few months. This has led to problems for Islamic fundamentalists in Iran who have been able to maintain power, in part, because they can play on people’s fears of an aggressive US, thus, diverting pressure away from reform.
If we want the people of Iran to have the most success in reform, and also want to foster long-term stability - perhaps even future trade and diplomacy with Iran (but I ain’t hosting any exchange students - especially this guy) than our federal government should not do any of the following:
For once in the last century, maybe the US can mind its own business. Perhaps our politicians will realise that the world doesn’t need Team America to play good cop / bad cop in every internal conflict and reform effort under the sun.
Let’s leave Iran alone for a little bit and let freedom and liberty do their thing.
I wasn’t surprised to see that Oregon’s unemployment numbers have steadily risen over the past five years. I’m even less surprised that it has reached a whopping 12.4% and is second in the country.
A lot of people will point to the recession as the chief culprit for high unemployment - not merely in Oregon, but around the world. And while it is true that businesses closing puts immediate pressure on unemployment figures, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
The state of Oregon, for example, decided to tie the minimum wage to rising prices in 2004. This was put to the voters as a way to “lift all boats” in a rising tide of wage-increase and general prosperity. It was argued that the poorest would benefit as employers were forced to pay them more and that the increased wages would stimulate the economy.
Oregon now has the second highest minimum wage and the second highest unemployment rate (behind Michigan). These two statistics are directly correlated. The minimum wage is not a rising tide that lifts all boats - rather it is a barrier over which one has to jump to get a job. Raising the minimum wage does not force employers to pay their employees more - rather, it forces them to fire anyone who is not productive enough to earn for them at least their worth in the new minimum wage. Any employer who continues to employ a worker who earns them less than the minimum wage will eventually go out of business (or at least he will have to subsidise this worker by taking from other employees, investments or profits).
If the federal and state governments want to see employment numbers go back up, they should abolish the minimum wage.
Of course the first fear is that existing workers would suddenly have their wages dropped drastically. But this is fundamentally false - as these employees are currently demonstrating that they can produce at greater than the minimum wage (otherwise they would not be employed). What would happen is that companies, even individuals, would suddenly be able to afford more help. This would increase their efficiency, their profits and money moving into the least productive members of society.
But governments have an interest as well - they would see their revenues rise as more employment and more income means more revenue.
At the very least, it would put downward pressure on unemployment - working against the increase that are being facilitated by the recession.
Please feel free to read my full analysis of the minimum wage:
The Minimum Wage I: Economic Analysis
The Minimum Wage II: Social Analysis
Politics and Church
Onward Christian Soldiers. Rumsfeld’s intelligence briefings - check the link for pictures. UPDATE: Rumsfeld denies involvement.
Liberty University Shuts Down Campus Democratic Party Club
As the history of alcohol prohibition underscores, there are also many non-economic reasons to favor legalization of vices: Prohibition rarely achieves its desired goals and instead increases violence (when was the last time a tobacco kingpin was killed in a deal gone wrong?) and destructive behavior (it’s hard enough to get help if you’re a substance abuser and that much harder if you’re a criminal too). And by policing vice, law enforcement is too often distracted at best or corrupted at worst, as familiar headlines about cops pocketing bribes and seized drugs attest. There’s a lot to be said for treating consenting adults like, well, adults.
But there is an economic argument as well, one that Franklin Roosevelt understood when he promised to end Prohibition during the 1932 presidential campaign. “Our tax burden would not be so heavy nor the forms that it takes so objectionable,” thundered Roosevelt, “if some reasonable proportion of the unaccountable millions now paid to those whose business had been reared upon this stupendous blunder could be made available for the expense of government.”
Legalizing vice will not balance government deficits by itself — that will largely depend on spending cuts, which seem beyond the reach of all politicians. But in a time when every penny counts and the economy needs stimulation, allowing prostitution, gambling and drugs could give us all a real lift.
Just Politics
Perhaps it really is torture.
FEMA coloring book to traumatize your children.
New Dilemma for the Dollar: China and Brazil are moving away from the dollar.
Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush:
No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.
Genetics and Missing Links
Scientists may have found one of the “missing links” in human evolution–one of the ones creationists use as proof that evolution is false.
According to Former Chief School Inspectors Students in Disadvantaged Areas Actually Just Have A Poor Gene Pool.
Michael Vick is released from jail (does anybody even remember him anymore?)
It was a great day when the activities at Guantanamo Bay finally began to be drawn down by the Obama Administration. The activities at Gitmo were a black mark on the United States throughout the Bush administration.
Yet now, the man who rode into the White House on a white horse promising a radical reversal of neo-conservative policies has just reversed his reversal:
In a move that could reignite tensions with liberals in his own party, President Obama is planning on Friday to resume the Bush administration’s highly controversial military tribunal system — which Obama suspended his first week in office — for some Guantanamo detainees, according to three administration officials.
President Obama has expanded Bush’s disastrous foreign policy, his corporatism and the reckless spending and deficits of the last eight years.
But what should we expect? Politicians promising change, whether outright lying or simply powerless of elicit change, are going to fail every single time. The reason is because that whilst politicians may promise change - Government itself never changes. The very nature of government is exploitative, murderous and contrary to basic human freedom. Even those more noble politicians such as Ron Paul can only go so far to slow, limit or (most optimistically) suspend the inevitable growth of leviathan.
I was quite impressed that the words were finally articulated by Judge Andrew Napolitano at Campaign For Liberty’s rally in St. Louis in March regarding the second amendment:
If a politician tells you that he’s in favour of the Second Amendment because he’s a hunter - he is no friend of the Second Amendment. Here is the dirty little secret of the Second Amendment that you never learned in public schools. The Second Amendment was written to give you the right to shoot at the government when it becomes a tyranny.
Now the Democratic governor of Montana has signed into law an incredible attempt to erode the power of the Federal Government as it applies to gun laws. Let me just lay it out from the bill:
A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce...
What this functionally means is that items that the federal government loves to regulate and prohibit: handguns, silencers, ammunition, scopes and so on - would be perfectly legal in Montana and exempt from requirements to engage the Federal framework of registration.
Montana’s argument is sound - those items which are made in Montana for use in Montana are not being involved in “interstate commerce.” That small clause of the constitution which lies at the heart of many federal laws, including drug laws, alcohol laws, transportation laws and firearms laws among other things is being directly challenged by this legislation.
Attempts like this with medical marijuana have promoted Federal officials to react by performing armed raids of citizens in California, for example. Aside from the aggression on behalf of the federal agents - these confrontations generally were non-violent. However a very different scenario is now set up in Montana.
Gun loving people in the state are going to take advantage of this law. They are going to buy silencers, ammunition and guns - and a percentage of these are going to be willing to put Judge Napolitano’s words into action. A federal raid on gun-loving, moderately anti-government individuals may very well result in violence.
Unfortunately, this is the inevitable result of an aggressively growing central government that has run out of external enemies to prosecute. Those enemies of the state begin to be revealed from within. Average people, who merely want to keep the means to defend themselves or even exercise their rights of bearing arms may risk violent interaction with Federal agents in Montana.
EDIT: Looks like Tennessee is also on board.
Here are a few examples. It’s estimated that New York State has about 10,500 local government entities, from townships to counties to special districts. A year ago a bipartisan state commission said that New Yorkers could save more than a billion dollars a year by consolidating and sharing local government responsibilities like public security, health, roads and education.
One commission member, a county executive, said, “Our system of local government has barely evolved over the past one hundred years and we are still governed by these same archaic institutions formed before the invention of the light bulb, telephone, automobile and computer.”
…
In my native Great Plains, North and South Dakota have a combined population of just under 1.5 million people, and in each state the rural areas are being depopulated at a rapid rate. Yet between them the two Dakotas support 17 colleges and universities. They are a carry-over from the early 20th century when travel was more difficult and farm families wanted their children close by during harvest season.I know this is heresy, but couldn’t the two states get a bigger bang for their higher education buck if they consolidated their smaller institutions into, say, the Dakota Territory College System, with satellite campuses but a common administration and shared standards?
Torture:
Torture Irnoy: During WWII, the US executed Japanese Soldiers for waterboarding US POWs.
The Banality of Bush White House Evil
Churchgoers more likely to back torture
Obama
Obama’s experience with surgery may lead to the one question government will need to answer before talks about universal healthcare have any gravity.
(Insert funny, anti-Obama Joke) as Air Force One’s appearance over NYC causes fearful idiots citizens to evacuate, run, and hide. But perhaps the Feds knew Air Force One photo-op flyover might spark panic in the city - and simply didn’t give a hoot.
The Economy
Maybe it’s time to actually start literally destroying money to save the economy.
Chrysler has a fork in the road: bankruptcy or control by its union workers.
Misc.
Talk about DIY!.
Keeping in line with the “regionalization” of education, UK primary schools have some big changes coming.
GetReligion.org is commenting on a Pew poll about the reasons why Americans change their faith. The poll results seem flawed, because Pew decided moving from one Christian denomination to another counts as a change.
Porn and paper pastors. Who is really your pastor?
“Now, some professed Christians sin outright, by never physically attending an actual, in-person church. We’ve talked about that, and they aren’t our focus. But others do attend a church — physically. They come in, they sit down. They sing, they may give financially. They may look at you, Pastor, as you preach.
“But you know their heart belongs to another.
“Their real pastor isn’t you. It’s Dave Hunt. Or it’s John Piper. Or it’s John MacArthur, or Ligon Duncan, or Mark Dever, or David Cloud, or Joel Osteen. Or it’s Charles Spurgeon, or D. M. Lloyd-Jones, or J. C. Ryle. Or Calvin, or Luther, or Bahnsen, or de Mar, or R. B. Thieme, or J. Vernon McGee.”
Poly/Econ
On his first visit to the Vatican since his divorce with Diana, Prince Charles will be receiving facsimile copies of petitions to annul Henry VIII’s marriage. For those who are not familiar with that story, it was the point in religious history where Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation era.
Since we talked about it at one point, this professor at Brigham Young University thinks brick-and-mortar universities will be obsolete and replaced by pre-made, recorded content (such as podcasts).The Quiet Coup: Former IMF chief economist discusses the US economy:
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
More Police
Tempe pastor: Border Patrol beat him at checkpointNo Cause for Arrest
I saw an ad for Fairtrade products in the supermarket the other week. It told a little story, something like:
Miguel works on a citrus farm in the Dominican Republic. Thanks to you buying Fairtrade, he gets a good wage and decent working conditions. Fairtrade guarantees a better deal for third world producers.
Let me first state that I have no disagreement with the motives of Fairtrade. It’s a moral and decent thing to want to see humanity lifted out of poverty, quality goods produced and sustainable practices developed. The question, however, is whether Fairtrade actually is a reasonable means to achieve these motives.
Let’s look at Miguel - and not in the limited way that the ad portrayed him. Why is Miguel working on that citrus farm? Why isn’t he working a desk job in the US in an air-conditioned office and making $40,000/yr instead of, say, $2,000/yr? Well, Miguel doesn’t have the skills, education and abilities to justify an employer investing thousands of dollars in capital to make his job easier. If Miguel’s current boss built him an air-conditioned break room, increased his pay arbitrarily by $1,000 a year and changed his methods to be more environmental, then his profits would evaporate, his business would go under and Miguel would be worse off.
But also, apart from charity, Miguel’s best option is the citrus farm. If he isn’t working his job on the citrus farm, then he is making less money doing harder work. He might be begging, working in a sweatshop or selling drugs. His current job is sustainable because his skills and education have earned it - it was not given to him unmerited by a benefactor. He is producing real wealth for himself, a profit for his employer and a product for consumers. This is how wealth is created - albeit at the slowest rate for Miguel.
Preferring Miguel - Hurting Others
Actually, Miguel is not getting a raw deal working on the citrus farm. Miguel’s alternatives are not as good as what he gets in monetary and non-monetary compensation. By making Miguel’s deal more “fair” - we are effectively tying up more scarce resources in supporting Miguel and forgetting completely about Dawa, Marcus and Hugo on the margins.
When Fairtrade producers get a higher distribution of wealth for the same essential product (less the pseudo-moral feelgoodery of the Fairtrade logo) as non-Fairtraders, then those less-connected producers on the margins get less and slide closer to poverty. In other words, for every Fairtrade product bought for a higher price than the actual product deserves - that is extra wealth diverted from those producers most on the margins.
Fairtrade doesn’t guarantee a better deal for all Third World producers - it guarantees a better deal for some, richer and specially connected Third World producers and, in fact, a very unfair deal for others - again those even poorer than the ones being helped by Fairtrade.
Fairtrade benefits go only to those producers large enough and rich enough to pay the nearly one thousand dollar a year certification fee, as well as a premium per unit of product and also must be able to afford the expenses of Western labour standards. They also just have to be plain physically large enough to justify the attention of Germany’s Fair Labelling Organization (FLO)- which certifies some Fairtrade products. The FLO and certifiers like it just aren’t interested in smaller producers.
You Bought Fairtrade? Give Yourself a Pat on the Back!
Why, then, do people buy Fairtrade? A few people might argue that it tastes better, looks better or is otherwise of a higher quality than non-Fairtrade. However, this is subjective, and there is no quantifiable way to demonstrate that this is the case.
What we need to admit is that we like attention. We like to look moral. We like to be gracious benefactors. We like to be owed something. Look at Fairtrade’s marketing efforts - they don’t say it tastes better or focus on the quality of the product itself. Rather - they are selling the feeling of being a benefactor. By paying an extra 5% for your coffee, you - YES YOU! - can be a righteous and moral person - a footsoldier in the crusade for human justice and fairness.
We see the same thing with Global Warming products. By paying KLM Airlines an extra £15 when you purchase a ticket, you can have your emissions offset. This, despite the fact that there is no proof that the cost of your flight is doing £15 of damage to the environment, or that KLM will use this £15 in such a way that gives, quantifiably, the same return to the environment. Can’t we just write the check to “the environment”(ala “Santa Clause”) and bury it in the garden?
The only benefit that is created by going Fairtrade, is the same benefit some of us get from giving change to the homeless or running laps for cancer - we feel just a little better about ourselves and the world we live in.
But we shouldn’t feel better about buying Fairtrade. All we’re helping are the better-off Third World producers - and we’re actually setting up serious financial obstacles for smaller, poorer farmers.
Economy and Politics
China Slows Purchases of U.S. and Other Bonds
The King of America
When dealerships run away, Ford is left with the taxes.
22 year-old sperm still works!
The US’s latest attempt at catching up to Europe’s rail network.
Bleep Tha Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police killed a man with a taser at the Vancouver airport and then lied about what happened - until a cell phone video of the incident showed up.
Pirate Bay people found guilty of aiding piracy.
Women fight back (politically) in AfghanistanDHS warns of right-wing extremism.
Boston College Campus Police: “Using Prompt Commands” May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity
Here’s an argument against vigilante justice. You know Melissa Huckaby, the 28-year-old California Sunday school teacher who is a mother of a five-year-old, and who is accused of raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl? Well, there is another Melissa Huckaby who is also 28, has a five-year-old daughter, and teaches Sunday school. She lives a few miles from the accused Melissa Huckaby but has nothing to do with her. The Melissa Huckaby who isn’t accused has been receiving death threats, and she fears for her safety.
More Links
The internet is forever
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote:
“Today there is much focus on our rights.. Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.” “I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,” he said. “Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities? …Or how can you not reminisce about a childhood where you began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance as little kids lined up in the schoolyard and then marched in two by two with a flag and a crucifix in each classroom?”
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