It has been awhile since I changed the look around here. I liked the fact that I (mostly) built the old page myself, but even I was getting tired of looking at it. Anyone who actually used the old blog roll will be able to in due time. (It has to be imported manually, so it is time consuming.) I'll also try to spruce up the title graphics and "personalize" it a bit.
So, come on in and kick the tires.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
A Hate Site? Nah! Nobody There But "Mainstream" Democrats
The U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission releases the following:
Which gets picked up by Matt Drudge:
Which elicits the usual well thought out rational response from the DK:
The Daily Kos, a class* act all the way.
NOTE: The word "class" in this case denotes a complete lack of actual class and an overabundance of general "wussiness." Not to mention a disturbing level of homophobia. It is good to know the Democratic Presidential candidates feel these are the sort of folks you want to kow-tow towards. What is the DK if not the Bob Jones University of the left?
Litigation Release No. 20228 / August 7, 2007
SEC v. Sierra Brokerage Services, Inc., et al., United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Civil Action No. C2-03-326
On July 26, 2007, the Honorable John D. Holschuh, U. S. District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, entered a Final Judgment as to defendant Jerome B. Armstrong ("Armstrong"). The Final Judgment permanently enjoins Armstrong from future violations of Section 17(b) of the Securities of 1933. The Final Judgment further orders Armstrong to pay disgorgement in the amount of $5,832, prejudgment interest of $3,235, and a civil penalty of $20,000. Armstrong consented to the entry of the Final Judgment without admitting or denying the allegations of the Commission's Complaint, except as to jurisdiction.
The Commission's Complaint, filed on April 14, 2003, alleged that beginning on March 6, 2000, Armstrong touted the stock of BluePoint Linux Software Corporation ("BluePoint") by posting unsubstantiated, favorable buy recommendations on the Raging Bull internet site. Armstrong posted over eighty such recommendations during the first three weeks that the stock of BluePoint was publicly traded. According to the Complaint, Armstrong praised BluePoint's investment value and encouraged investors who were experiencing trouble having their orders filled to keep trying. The Complaint further alleged that the promoters of BluePoint were secretly transferring stock in three other companies to Armstrong at prices below the then current market for those three stocks and that Armstrong made at least $20,000 by selling the shares he received from the promoters of BluePoint. The Complaint alleges that Armstrong did not disclose in his internet postings that he was being compensated for making the postings.
Which gets picked up by Matt Drudge:
DAILY KOS CO-AUTHOR FINED $30K FOR UNETHICAL STOCK TOUT
Wed Aug 08 2007 19:12:23 ET
Prominent liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong has agreed to pay nearly $30,000 in fines in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so, the NY TIMES reports.
Armstrong is the co-author of _Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics,_ with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. He is also the founder of the Democratic activist site MyDD.com.
Under the agreement, Armstrong neither denies nor admits to the allegations.
"It's good to see the matter finally end," Armstrong said in an e-mail message to the TIMES.
Which elicits the usual well thought out rational response from the DK:
Famous self-hating closeted homosexual and right wing propagandist blogger Matt Drudge has taken aim at the DailyKos community today. He's running the following "breaking" story:
[Drudge's post here]
BREAKING:
Matt Drudge is reported to still be cruising Florida gay bars in between sending traffic to his personal friend Breitbart's startup "news wire" in exchange for kickbacks and running goofy pictures of Hillary Clinton...
The Daily Kos, a class* act all the way.
NOTE: The word "class" in this case denotes a complete lack of actual class and an overabundance of general "wussiness." Not to mention a disturbing level of homophobia. It is good to know the Democratic Presidential candidates feel these are the sort of folks you want to kow-tow towards. What is the DK if not the Bob Jones University of the left?
Too Big A Price To Pay
Breast implants linked with suicide in study
Women who get cosmetic breast implants are nearly three times as likely to commit suicide as other women, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
The study, published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, reinforces several others that have shown women who have breast enlargements have higher suicide risks.
Loren Lipworth of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee and colleagues followed up on 3,527 Swedish women who had cosmetic breast implant surgery between 1965 and 1993. They looked at death certificates to analyze causes of death among women with breast implants.
Only 24 of the women had committed suicide after an average of 19 years, but this worked out to triple the risk compared to the average population, they reported. Doctors who perform cosmetic breast surgery may want to monitor patients closely or screen them for suicide risk, Lipworth said.
"The increased risk of suicide was not apparent until 10 years after implantation," the researchers wrote.
Lipworth said she believes that some women who get implants may have psychiatric problems to start with, perhaps linked with lower self-esteem or body image disorders.
"I think we don't even know how big of a problem it is because we cannot even pinpoint what proportion of women have psychiatric disorders," Lipworth said in a telephone interview.
"There could be a whole lot of different disorders."
Women with breast implants also had a tripled risk of death from alcohol and drug use.
"Thus, at least 38 deaths (22 percent of all deaths) in this implant cohort were associated with suicide, psychological disorders and/or drug and alcohol abuse/dependence," the researchers wrote.
I've never warmed to the idea of such artificial body sculpting at all. For starters, women seem to have a terrible idea of what men actually find attractive. Being incredibly thin AND having large breasts is not the recipe for attractiveness, and I'd say 90% of the guys I know feel exactly the same way. So it doesn't surprise me that the women who choose to have such surgery often don't like themselves very much. I don't know that breast augmentaton surgery is a cause as much as it is a symptom for a lot of these women, but it is still a sad story to hear.
There are so many different ways to be beautiful. Here is to the day when every little girl knows that already.
St. Louis, Speed Trap Of The Midwest
From the Post-Dispatch: We're slower than Boise? Magazine ranks us 'slow'
If we are so damned normal how come everybody looks at me oddly when I ask for some pork steaks and a pizza with extra Provel cheese?
St. Louisans are normal, not weird. And, boy, did that hurt us in the standings.
Fast Company magazine has classified our burg as a "slow city."
The July issue of the New York-based publication lists 30 "fast cities" around the world. These are, according to the story, places where young professionals congregate to start their futures.
Some major U.S. cities on the "fast" list are no surprise: New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. But it also lists some up-and-coming cities, such as Salt Lake City; Fort Collins, Colo.; and Boise, Idaho.
Other slow cities in the U.S. were Detroit and New Orleans, which the magazine says was slipping even before Hurricane Katrina.
The data used in the rankings include "energy," determined in part by the number of ethnic restaurants; economic opportunity; and creative and innovative culture.
The article says St. Louis is "too normal for its own good" and described it as "a spot as bland as a flat Bud Light." (Oh, a creative beer joke.)
The article also notes — as a negative, mind you — that St. Louis ranks last on CityVitals' "weirdness index."
If we are so damned normal how come everybody looks at me oddly when I ask for some pork steaks and a pizza with extra Provel cheese?
Shoot. Now I'm homesick.
The Best Thing I've Heard About McCain So Far
From Power Line: On property rights, no better friend
I'm not sure how much Federal legislation can help the matter, but it is better than nothing.
Oh, for crying out loud, McCain would risk exactly nothing to criticize the administration on its Kelo backing. (I believe I called them "idiots" back in the day.) We don't need a presidential candidate who conducts his campaign with a lot of nods and winks. If you are gonna stand for something, stand for something.
John McCain has done a service to the conservative cause by injecting the issue of private property rights into the presidential campaign. He did so in the first instance with a speech earlier this week to the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Rotary Club. The New York Sun has a good account of that speech. McCain plans to give a similar speech in New Hampshire soon.
Today, Senator McCain granted me an interview on this subject (inevitably, we also ended up discussing Iraq, and I'll report on this in a follow-up post). McCain's starting point was the Kelo decision in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of government seizure of private property for the purpose of transferring it to another owner, if the change in ownership might enhance the community through "economic development." McCain called this decision "disastrous" and contrary to our Constitution and our system. He found it more in line with the teachings of Karl Marx who stated that "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: abolition of private property."
McCain noted that Iowa reacted to Kelo by amending its constitution to prevent this result in that state. When the governor vetoed this action, the legislature overrode the veto. McCain sees this as indicative of how disturbing Kelo is to the public when proper attention is focused on it.
McCain said he's co-sponsoring legislation in the Senate to prevent, so far as the federal government can, such seizures of property. In 2005, in the aftermath of Kelo, the House quickly and overwhelmingly passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Sensenbrenner that would have prevented any government entity receiving federal funds from taking property through eminent domain for the purpose of economic development. The legislation passed the House overwhelmingly but died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. McCain said he wasn't sure how his legislation would fare, but that his allies John Kyl and Lindsey Graham (both of whom are on the Judiciary Committee) have expressed their commitment to the latest proposal.
I'm not sure how much Federal legislation can help the matter, but it is better than nothing.
I pointed out that President Bush has received criticism from property rights advocates for not getting behind the Sensenbrenner legislation. McCain responded that he doesn't like to criticize the administration, but did feel it hasn't given this issue the priority it deserves and that as president he would have been out front on the subject.
Oh, for crying out loud, McCain would risk exactly nothing to criticize the administration on its Kelo backing. (I believe I called them "idiots" back in the day.) We don't need a presidential candidate who conducts his campaign with a lot of nods and winks. If you are gonna stand for something, stand for something.
It's Like I've Always Claimed
You Are 83% Feminist |
 You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action. |
This will come in handy the next time the wife tries to take me to task about something!
Now, that was me taking the test honestly. Here are the results when I answer them in the exact opposite fashion.
You Are 21% Feminist |
 No one would consider you a feminist. You believe women should hold on to traditional gender roles. Well, that's not the world we're living in anymore. Time to wake up to the 21st century! |
Hmmm...I wonder why I didn't score a 17% there?
Conspiracy Theory Creation On The Cheap And Easy
It is a general human trait to want to impose an order upon the world around us, and by and large this is a good thing. All of science springs from this impulse, what the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce called our "Fixation of Belief." However, we do not always follow the road of critical inquiry all the way to the gleaming metropolis called "Scienceville." Many are content to call an end to their journey in little bumwad hamlets or festering backwaters that reality has long ago forsaken. The motivation behind such actions are varied, but it is safe to say many result from psychological needs divorced completely from the real world, like a person who chooses to believe that their parents really did send the elderly family dog to live on a farm in the country. The psychological need to believe the beloved pet wasn't put down is greater for such a person than the need to know how the world actually is.
For others the psychological needs are a little more nuanced and can manifest themselves in less purely personal matters, such as in the arena of national politics. Some people feel the need to create of the political scene a gnostic world of darkness and light, where good battles evil and where the stakes are the very soul of the nation. The actual chaos of the day wherein every political side wins, loses, miscalculates, cajoles, lies, persuades and is persuaded, is glossed over in favor of a fixed political drama where all roles and outcomes are pre-ordained.
People prone to see the world in such a way are also susceptible to the siren song of the conspiracy theory. The large singular events, like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination, that interrupt the normal flow of national life must, so these folks believe, be scripted as well in a like manner. No matter what happens it must be part of the larger gnostic storyline. So, every person with an anti-government axe to grind (or a rabid anti-Republican bias) is more prone to accept some wild 9/11 conspiracy. So, every raving anti-Semite sees Israel's hand in everything bad that happens in the Middle East. But, when one has chosen to live in the provincial backwaters of thought you can expect little else. The vistas open to such people are limited, just like the way the "skyline" of a small town is limited and never changes much. Where folks with critical faculties see limitations they see "patterns" which they value above any facts you might care to point out to them.
Indeed, it is distressingly easy to come up with your own conspiracy theory. All you have to do is turn your mind off for a few moments. Take this scenario:
Now, let me make this clear, the above is moronic and insane. I actually hesitated in writing it for fear of mimicking the plot of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum where a wild invented conspiracy gets adopted as the real thing. However, I wanted to show how little needs to go into things like this. A couple of links, a bit of the unknown or unknowable, a touch of paranoia, and a dash of fear mongering is all you need to be a first class "truther."
There will always be some of this in our society, and in every other society as well. Turkey, for example, has it's own variety of gnostic storytelling with the U.S. often playing the "force of darkness" role. A healthy society, however, will hammer such views with reality. We may not be able to eradicate these ideas, but we can at least recognize them and force them into the margins where they belong. An unhealthy society will acquiesce, as Hitlerian Germany and Tsarist Russia did to anti-Semitic propagandistic fables, to the ultimate cost of the entire society.
The question becomes: How healthy is our society?
I'm not sure.
Cross posted at MvdG.
For others the psychological needs are a little more nuanced and can manifest themselves in less purely personal matters, such as in the arena of national politics. Some people feel the need to create of the political scene a gnostic world of darkness and light, where good battles evil and where the stakes are the very soul of the nation. The actual chaos of the day wherein every political side wins, loses, miscalculates, cajoles, lies, persuades and is persuaded, is glossed over in favor of a fixed political drama where all roles and outcomes are pre-ordained.
People prone to see the world in such a way are also susceptible to the siren song of the conspiracy theory. The large singular events, like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination, that interrupt the normal flow of national life must, so these folks believe, be scripted as well in a like manner. No matter what happens it must be part of the larger gnostic storyline. So, every person with an anti-government axe to grind (or a rabid anti-Republican bias) is more prone to accept some wild 9/11 conspiracy. So, every raving anti-Semite sees Israel's hand in everything bad that happens in the Middle East. But, when one has chosen to live in the provincial backwaters of thought you can expect little else. The vistas open to such people are limited, just like the way the "skyline" of a small town is limited and never changes much. Where folks with critical faculties see limitations they see "patterns" which they value above any facts you might care to point out to them.
Indeed, it is distressingly easy to come up with your own conspiracy theory. All you have to do is turn your mind off for a few moments. Take this scenario:
There is something funny about the 35W bridge collapse. Why did it happen right at this time? Right at this place? After all the campaign for President is going fast and furious. Could it really be only a coincidence? I think not.
Fact: The Republicans will be holding their nominating convention in the Twin Cities.
Fact: Nefarious underground anti-war, Democratic and anarchist groups have vowed to disrupt the Republicans, including "blockading freeways and causing other trouble." What could cause more trouble than destroying a freeway bridge?
Maybe, just maybe the bridge collapse was staged to look like an accident so that liberals and other Democratic operatives could hammer the Republicans for their tax cutting ways. Almost immediately after the accident the usual media stooges and their liberal blogger brethren blamed Republicans for the collapse! How convenient!!!
Isn't it suspicious that a bridge that had just been checked would simply fall down? And it happened not in Toledo, or Tampa, or Tacoma, but Minneapolis/St. Paul!!?! Coincidence????? I think not. Beware folks, this is just the beginning!
Now, let me make this clear, the above is moronic and insane. I actually hesitated in writing it for fear of mimicking the plot of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum where a wild invented conspiracy gets adopted as the real thing. However, I wanted to show how little needs to go into things like this. A couple of links, a bit of the unknown or unknowable, a touch of paranoia, and a dash of fear mongering is all you need to be a first class "truther."
There will always be some of this in our society, and in every other society as well. Turkey, for example, has it's own variety of gnostic storytelling with the U.S. often playing the "force of darkness" role. A healthy society, however, will hammer such views with reality. We may not be able to eradicate these ideas, but we can at least recognize them and force them into the margins where they belong. An unhealthy society will acquiesce, as Hitlerian Germany and Tsarist Russia did to anti-Semitic propagandistic fables, to the ultimate cost of the entire society.
The question becomes: How healthy is our society?
I'm not sure.
Cross posted at MvdG.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Endarkened Europe
From the AP: Beasley scores first goal for Rangers and is taunted with racist chants
Borrowing a line from Monty Python...I'd call them a bad name but I can't think of anything worse than Montenegrin.
BIJELO POLJE, Montenegro: American midfielder DaMarcus Beasley scored his first goal for Glasgow Rangers and was taunted by racist fans during a 1-0 victory over FK Zeta on Tuesday night in European Champions League qualifying.
A small section of fans made "monkey chants" aimed at Beasley and teammate Jean-Claude Darcheville, according to Rangers' Web site.
"It happened to me a few years ago when PSV played Red Star in Belgrade, and I can't believe racist abuse is still in football," Beasley was quoted as saying on Rangers' Web site. "People can come to a match and jeer, but the racist thing just has to get out of football."
The 25-year-old Beasley, who was loaned from PSV Eindhoven to Manchester City last season, joined Rangers in June.
"It sickens to hear these chants, but when you are on the pitch, you have to try to blank it out," Beasley was quoted as saying. "It degrades the game for everyone. I will discuss the situation with Rangers because I feel strongly about it, and we will decide if we should file a complaint."
Beasley, who made his competitive debut for Rangers in a Scottish Premier League game last weekend, scored on a 20-yard shot in the 81st minute. Rangers advanced 3-0 in the home-and-home, total-goals series and plays Red Star Belgrade or Estonia's Levadia Tallinn for a berth in the Champions League.
Borrowing a line from Monty Python...I'd call them a bad name but I can't think of anything worse than Montenegrin.
Pope Kos
A new claim of infallibility has been lodged:
Thank you for condescending to speak to us your holiness.
we've been right about everything the last five years
Thank you for condescending to speak to us your holiness.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
New Worst Job Ever
Supplanting the old worst job ever, "crack whore," Democrats announced today the new worst job ever: White House Blogger
Every U.S. presidential candidate has a Web site, of course, but when the top Democratic hopefuls were asked on Saturday whether they would appoint a White House blogger if elected, all of them said yes.
Sure you get to put a White House job on your resume, but as a blogger you might as well not exist. You would have all the lack of credibility of a White House Press Secretary with none of the cache of...well...a White House Press Secretary.
I'm sure even bloggers within the same party would be embarrassed to link to you. You would be the butt of every joke, and probably be forced to post articles about the doings of the Presidential pets.
Grim. Mighty grim.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Your Musical Interlude, Part XII
Almost forgot this today. Too busy being sickened and outraged elsewhere.
This, luckily, is fun and full of life. Take it away Mr. Belew....
This, luckily, is fun and full of life. Take it away Mr. Belew....
Gene Hackman As Legal Precedent
No, really. Here is the setup from a ruling from the 6th District court:
It is hard not to see this as a sort of pseudo-Gestapo operation meant to be "persuasive" to high school aged youth, and as such I'm quite uncomfortable with state agents (which is what coaches at public high schools are, like it or not) using such tactics with non-adults. The upshot of all this is that the unrepentant ring leaders of the petition were kicked off of the team, while others who signed but "apologized" were allowed to return. Those who were kicked off sued saying their First Amendment freedoms were violated. The 6th Circuit disagreed, but I found their way of putting the opinion together....unusual:
Of course, setting the case up in this way doesn't do justice to the student's side of the argument. Presumably there is a difference between back-talk to a coach while he is engaged in his duties and the writing and circulation of a petition. To try and make a direct analogy between the two instances seem just plain wrong.
As if to underscore this bad analogy, the opinion states it a different way:
This seems an even more outlandish and harsh standard to saddle children with, on or off of a football team.
Indeed, whenever the opinion strays from the immediate facts at hand it becomes very grim. Basically, public school sports coaches are given the ability to not only punish whatever they deem "insubordination," but they may also compel speech against the will of any child. This seems needlessly authoritarian in a supposedly democratic state.
All this being said, I don't think the dismissed players have much of a case, on the much narrower grounds at issue. As when the court states:
Were the court to stay on this point I would have very few problems, but as written it seems to open the doors for abuse of student right whenever they attempt to employee the time honored device of voicing their grievances via a petition. It is ironic that in a country which honors the Declaration of Independence as a foundational tract all we can tell high school petition makers is, "Don't be so uppity."
Derrick Lowery, Jacob Giles, Joseph Dooley, and Dillon Spurlock(hereinafter “Plaintiffs”)were students at Jefferson County High School in Tennessee during the 2005-06 school year.1 All four were members of the Jefferson County varsity football team. Defendant Euverard became the head varsity football coach at Jefferson County in 2004. During the 2005 season, many of the Jefferson County football players, including Plaintiffs, became dissatisfied with Euverard’s coaching methods. Plaintiffs allege that Euverard struck a player in the helmet, threw away college recruiting letters to disfavored players, humiliated and degraded players, used inappropriate language, and required a year-round conditioning program in violation of high school rules.
In early October of 2005, after discussions with Dooley and Lowery, Giles typed the following statement: “I hate Coach Euvard [sic] and I don’t want to play for him.” JA at 745. Giles and Dooley asked other players to sign the petition, which would be held until after the football season. Giles and Dooley intended to then give the petition to Defendant Schneitman, the principal of Jefferson County, in order to have Euverard replaced as head coach. JA at 580. Eighteen players eventually signed the petition, including Spurlock.
Euverard learned of the petition on October 7, 2005. Darren Whitehead, another player on the team, told Assistant Coach Ricky Upton about the petition, who then told Euverard. Euverard called an all-coaches meeting on October 9. Schneitman was also present at the meeting. At the meeting, the coaches discussed how to deal with the petition. The coaches decided to question the players individually to learn more about the petition.
When the players arrived for practice on October 10 they were told to sit in front of their lockers and remain quiet. Players were then taken one by one into an office in the weight room where they were interviewed by Euverard. Assistant Coach Brimer was also present in the office, taking notes. All the players were asked the same questions:
1) Have you heard about the petition?,
2) Did you sign it?,
3) Who asked you to sign it?, and
4) Do you want to play football with Coach Euverard as coach?
It is hard not to see this as a sort of pseudo-Gestapo operation meant to be "persuasive" to high school aged youth, and as such I'm quite uncomfortable with state agents (which is what coaches at public high schools are, like it or not) using such tactics with non-adults. The upshot of all this is that the unrepentant ring leaders of the petition were kicked off of the team, while others who signed but "apologized" were allowed to return. Those who were kicked off sued saying their First Amendment freedoms were violated. The 6th Circuit disagreed, but I found their way of putting the opinion together....unusual:
A two-part test is used to determine if a government official is entitled to qualified immunity. First, the Court must determine if the official’s conduct violated a constitutional right. If this question is answered in the affirmative, the Court must determine if the right was clearly established at the time of the violation. Garretson v. City of Madison Heights, 407 F.3d 789, 796 (6th Cir. 2005). Thus, the Court must first determine if Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights were violated when they were dismissed from the football team.
In the 1986 movie Hoosiers, Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale, the new basketball coach at a small Indiana high school. On the first day of practice Dale makes an introductory speech to the players. All of the players attentively listen to Dale except two, who are talking to each other. Dale notices the two players talking, and the following dialogue ensues:Dale: Basketball is a voluntary activity. It’s not a requirement. If any of you feel you don’t want to be on the team, feel free to leave right now. Did you hear what I just said?
Player: Me?
Dale: Yes, you.
Player: Sure, I’m just kinda curious to know when we start.
Dale: We start when I say so.
Player: Ok, would you kinda let me know, ‘cause I’m kinda getting tired of standing.
Dale: Alright. Out. Out of here. Right now.
The two players then leave the gym. Shortly thereafter one of the players returns with his father, who informs Dale that his son has something to say. The player apologizes to Dale and asks for a second chance. Dale accepts the apology and tells the player to suit up. The other player is not heard from again.
The movie takes place in the 1950s, before the Supreme Court case of Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), which held that the First Amendment does not stop “at the schoolhouse gate.” Id. at 507. Assuming that Tinker was in force at the time of Hoosiers, would the players have a First Amendment claim against Coach Dale? That hypothetical case is not before the Court, but the instant case, although it contains different facts, presents a similar question: what is the proper balance between a student athlete’s First Amendment rights and a coach’s need to maintain order and discipline?
Of course, setting the case up in this way doesn't do justice to the student's side of the argument. Presumably there is a difference between back-talk to a coach while he is engaged in his duties and the writing and circulation of a petition. To try and make a direct analogy between the two instances seem just plain wrong.
As if to underscore this bad analogy, the opinion states it a different way:
The contour of First Amendment protection given to speech depends upon the context. For example, it is beyond question that citizens have a First Amendment right to criticize the government’s military policy. However, does this mean that an enlisted soldier has a First Amendment right to be disrespectful towards his commanding officer?
This seems an even more outlandish and harsh standard to saddle children with, on or off of a football team.
Indeed, whenever the opinion strays from the immediate facts at hand it becomes very grim. Basically, public school sports coaches are given the ability to not only punish whatever they deem "insubordination," but they may also compel speech against the will of any child. This seems needlessly authoritarian in a supposedly democratic state.
All this being said, I don't think the dismissed players have much of a case, on the much narrower grounds at issue. As when the court states:
Plaintiffs suggest that the issue is whether it is permissible for school officials to engage in viewpoint discrimination against student athletes. However, this formulation is overly abstract, and also misleading. This case is not primarily about Plaintiffs’ right to express their opinions, but rather their alleged right to belong to the Jefferson County football team on their own terms. The specific question presented by this case is whether Plaintiffs had a right to remain on the football team after participating in a petition that stated “I hate Coach Euvard [sic] and I don’t want to play for him.”
Were the court to stay on this point I would have very few problems, but as written it seems to open the doors for abuse of student right whenever they attempt to employee the time honored device of voicing their grievances via a petition. It is ironic that in a country which honors the Declaration of Independence as a foundational tract all we can tell high school petition makers is, "Don't be so uppity."
Par For The Course
Saw this at First Things: Pandering to Prejudices
This sort of intellectual dishonesty seems to be contagious. I picked up a copy of Skeptic magazine recently and I was horrified at the liberal use of shoddy rhetorical devices and ad hominem attacks which they were passing off as rational discourse. Maybe it is the effect generated from the (very enjoyable) Penn & Teller Bullshit television program, where humor and not-so-good natured put downs are the order of the day. But, the purpose of a television program is to be entertaining at least and maybe thought provoking at best. A magazine like Skeptic should aim considerably higher since the pages of a journal offer the opportunity for something a tv show could never deliver, namely the above mentioned rational discourse.
First Things continues:
Indeed, any polemicist like Dawkins would be a poor choice as book reviewer. It is in the nature of such people to just re-issue their own polemics rather than actually engage with material they disagree with. A review written by Dawkings is going to be about Dawkins and nothing else. The choice of the Book Review seems to indicate that they would prefer their readers to only read and know what Dawkins wants them to read and know. It sort of reminds one of those late medieval scholastics who made their pupils swear to never contradict Aristotle. "Stop thinking. We will tell you what is acceptable to think about."
More from First Things:
When you read things like this you really have to wonder if Dawkins is paying attention to what he is writing. After all, why are there 500 breeds of dogs? Largely because an outside force (i.e. man) has been directing their evolutionary path. This is an argument for "natural" mutation how exactly?
My own take of Behe, based on his earlier book Darwin's Black Box, is that he does a good job in taking apart some of the easy complacency built into the prevailing orthodoxy. There are very hard questions out there to which we do not have satisfactory answers. Behe contends the assumption that the answers to those questions will fall in line with the Darwinian orthodoxy is unfounded. On this Behe is correct, both from the view of formal logic and that of the scientific process. If Behe's negative critique is well founded, his positive postulation of Intelligent Design as the "answer" to all of these problems is far less persuasive, as it is more of a throwing up of hands instead of an actual answer. My own guess (and a guess it all it is) would be that something will come along which will modify the present Darwinian synthesis profoundly, possibly along scientific ideas that mirror the self-organizing philosophic premise of elan vital put forward by the French philosopher Henri Bergson.
That is why it is so damaging to the idea of science to have someone like Richard Dawkins out front and center. Dawkins is less interested in science than he is interested in attacking religion. For Dawkins, science is not the fruit of a free and open inquiry into the nature of the universe but a bludgeon he can use to bash those he calls delusional. Any use of science for ideological ends winds up perverting science. Dawkinism is in effect a new Lysenkoism.
You usually know that somebody is losing the argument when he loses his cool and resorts to bluster, abuse, caricature, and the invocation of authorities who agree with him. The New York Times Book Review, for reasons that surpass charitable explanation, gave Michael Behe’s most recent book, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, to Richard Dawkins for review. Behe is a biochemist, author of Darwin’s Black Box, and a proponent of Intelligent Design. Dawkins is an atheist polemicist against religion, holds the ill-named Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and is author of The God Delusion.
Dawkins begins by saying he feels “sorry” for Behe, whom he describes as the “poster boy of creationists everywhere.” Never mind that Behe is not a “creationist.” No less than three times in the review, Dawkins alludes to the fact that Behe’s colleagues in his university’s biology department have publicly distanced themselves from his position. The other biologists at Lehigh University disagree with Behe. It follows that he must be a nut. Further, “Behe is taking on Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Richard Lewontin, John Maynard Smith, and hundreds of their talented coworkers and intellectual descendents.” This is what is known as argument from authority.
This sort of intellectual dishonesty seems to be contagious. I picked up a copy of Skeptic magazine recently and I was horrified at the liberal use of shoddy rhetorical devices and ad hominem attacks which they were passing off as rational discourse. Maybe it is the effect generated from the (very enjoyable) Penn & Teller Bullshit television program, where humor and not-so-good natured put downs are the order of the day. But, the purpose of a television program is to be entertaining at least and maybe thought provoking at best. A magazine like Skeptic should aim considerably higher since the pages of a journal offer the opportunity for something a tv show could never deliver, namely the above mentioned rational discourse.
First Things continues:
All this raises interesting questions about the Book Review, which publicly claims to take care that a reviewer has no conflict of interest that would get in the way of a fair treatment of a book. For instance, is the author your brother-in-law? Apparently it doesn’t matter if a prospective reviewer has publicly and repeatedly heaped contempt on an author and his arguments.
First Things has a different review policy. We will on occasion choose a reviewer who is known to disagree, and disagree strongly, with an author. The purpose is to engage the argument and explain why it is wrong, with the author having a chance to respond. As the editors of the Book Review must know, Dawkins cannot engage Behe’s argument. It is not simply that he is not a biochemist. He is in principle disqualified because he is a militant atheist committed to a position of scientific materialism in which any reference to transcendent purpose or design is deemed to be delusional, meaning it is the product of a mental disorder.
It is hard to know what purpose is served by the Book Review in having Dawkins review Behe, except, possibly, to ostracize anyone who presumes to raise questions about prevailing Darwinist orthodoxies and, perhaps, to pander to the smug prejudices of the presumed readership of the Times.
Indeed, any polemicist like Dawkins would be a poor choice as book reviewer. It is in the nature of such people to just re-issue their own polemics rather than actually engage with material they disagree with. A review written by Dawkings is going to be about Dawkins and nothing else. The choice of the Book Review seems to indicate that they would prefer their readers to only read and know what Dawkins wants them to read and know. It sort of reminds one of those late medieval scholastics who made their pupils swear to never contradict Aristotle. "Stop thinking. We will tell you what is acceptable to think about."
More from First Things:
Just who does this Behe guy, “the disowned biochemist of Lehigh University,” think he is to disagree with the scientific establishment? Doesn’t he know that science progresses by conformity to conventional opinion, as Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin (!) have taught us? Dawkins’ clinching argument against Behe’s claims about the limits of natural mutation is that different kinds of dogs have descended from the wolf. Dawkins writes, “As I incredulously close this book, I seem to hear mocking barks and deep baying howls of derision from 500 breeds of dogs.”
When you read things like this you really have to wonder if Dawkins is paying attention to what he is writing. After all, why are there 500 breeds of dogs? Largely because an outside force (i.e. man) has been directing their evolutionary path. This is an argument for "natural" mutation how exactly?
My own take of Behe, based on his earlier book Darwin's Black Box, is that he does a good job in taking apart some of the easy complacency built into the prevailing orthodoxy. There are very hard questions out there to which we do not have satisfactory answers. Behe contends the assumption that the answers to those questions will fall in line with the Darwinian orthodoxy is unfounded. On this Behe is correct, both from the view of formal logic and that of the scientific process. If Behe's negative critique is well founded, his positive postulation of Intelligent Design as the "answer" to all of these problems is far less persuasive, as it is more of a throwing up of hands instead of an actual answer. My own guess (and a guess it all it is) would be that something will come along which will modify the present Darwinian synthesis profoundly, possibly along scientific ideas that mirror the self-organizing philosophic premise of elan vital put forward by the French philosopher Henri Bergson.
That is why it is so damaging to the idea of science to have someone like Richard Dawkins out front and center. Dawkins is less interested in science than he is interested in attacking religion. For Dawkins, science is not the fruit of a free and open inquiry into the nature of the universe but a bludgeon he can use to bash those he calls delusional. Any use of science for ideological ends winds up perverting science. Dawkinism is in effect a new Lysenkoism.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Fun With Data
I've put up a little discussion of recent tropical storm Chantal over at The Typhoon Times that might interest anyone who wants further confirmation that the Best Track datasets aren't as complete as we would all like them to be.
It's Just Another Day For The "It's All Bush's Fault" Crowd
Saw this from Shaun Mullen over at TMV:
I really find Shaun's post the most exasperating over at TMV, mostly because they are relentlessly one-sided. If there has been an attempt to see the other side of an issue or to frame new issues outside of a rigid ideological framework, it never makes it into print. The thing is, were Shaun writing on the Daily Kos his posts would rarely raise an eyebrow from me...but he isn't writing for the DK. The truth is I expect more from the folks at TMV.
I responded to Shaun's post as follows:
Look, I realize that Shaun and I would never agree on much...and that is perfectly okay. However, I'm not sure The Moderate Voice is the right vehicle for petulant snarks.
But I would like to ask a small favor of the bloggers who are all over this story: Is there even the slightest chance that the maintenance of this bridge and the hundreds of others in the Twin Cities had or have been postponed in any way because of the drain of federal funds for a certain $400 billion infrastructure improvement project (see photo) known as the Iraq war?
Please get back to me when you have an answer.
Thank you.
I really find Shaun's post the most exasperating over at TMV, mostly because they are relentlessly one-sided. If there has been an attempt to see the other side of an issue or to frame new issues outside of a rigid ideological framework, it never makes it into print. The thing is, were Shaun writing on the Daily Kos his posts would rarely raise an eyebrow from me...but he isn't writing for the DK. The truth is I expect more from the folks at TMV.
I responded to Shaun's post as follows:
If you want to look at the Federal Money budgeted by the Federal Highway Administration go here. (Page II-10 has the historical funding levels.)
Federal Aid has gone from 18.9 billion in 1997 to 36 billion in 2006. The budget request for 2008 was 40.3 billion. If you can find an “Iraq war” effect in that, good on ya.
Maybe not everything on earth is Bush’s fault.
Look, I realize that Shaun and I would never agree on much...and that is perfectly okay. However, I'm not sure The Moderate Voice is the right vehicle for petulant snarks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)