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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Friday, May 30, 2003 :::
I have a big test tomorrow (CFA level 1, if that means anything to you), for which I've been studying. I've been reading less blog material than usual this week, but I don't seem to be writing much less.
I'd heard that FIFA (this is soccer) was planning to move the Women's World Cup, previously scheduled for China this fall, to a different country, and that it was down to the United States and someone else (Norway?). Over at the Kitchen Cabinet, Kate reports that the U.S. has been given hosting duties, despite our having hosted it last time.
Kate also writes about road rage, with her own story. She concludes:
I had an idea the other day--fortunes handed out at toll booths. Maybe we also need mandatory "sounds of the ocean" playing in automobiles, as well. Yeah, that'd go over well--as well as the ignition-lock seatbelts went.
Questions:- "Fortunes" as in "fortune cookies"? Or does part of your toll buy you a lottery ticket? And why?
- Would mandating "sounds of the ocean" decrease road rage, or increase it?
Meanwhile, Colby Cosh has discovered again that the Canadian government cares more about Ontario than about Alberta. After the SARS outbreak in Toronto:
When the feds pumped $20 million into helping Ontario tourism to recover from the outbreak, Alberta officials praised the move. [...] On April 24 provincial health minister Gary Mar offered Ontario access to Alberta operating-room space to take the pressure off of cramped Toronto-area hospitals and even said that Alberta public-health workers could be sent to relieve their exhausted Eastern counterparts.
And now that Alberta has had a cow with spongi... uh, "mad cow disease", the response from Ontario and Ottawa:
Ontario Agriculture Minister Helen Johns is looking at ways the province could prevent Prairie cattle from entering her province.
Ottawa's decision not to waive the two-week waiting period for employment insurance for laid-off beef industry workers, was criticized Thursday by Saskatchewan's premier... Federal Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart, who waived the waiting period for workers affected by SARS, said enough measures are already in place to help workers affected by the mad cow situation.
We're all shocked. Especially Captain Renault.
I should study.
::: posted by Steven at 7:49 PM
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Professor Volokh points out an interesting commencement address about the politicization of the judiciary.
This is a law school commencement, BTW. I think undergrad commencement addresses are generally too political, but a judge speaking to law grads should have some room to comment on the judiciary.
::: posted by Steven at 6:00 PM
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The Massachusetts Senate engaged in all sorts of mischief last night. They passed a statewide smoking ban, and voted to repeal or gut the voter-approved "clean elections" law, the voter-approved limitations on bilingual education, and the requirement that students pass the MCAS test to graduate from high school.
None of this got a roll call vote.
In other local news, the Red Sox traded third-baseman Shea Hillenbrand for a pitcher. I like Hillenbrand because he seems to make a remarkable catch every once in a while (I guess he's good at the plate, too, but that's not why I like the guy). But the people who know (at least on the radio and in the paper this morning) seem to agree that this is a good trade for the Sox.
::: posted by Steven at 11:44 AM
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Andrew Sullivan's "Email of the Day":
Have you noticed that the NY Times is running banner ads at the top of The Onion's website? I'm most annoyed at this. I read The Onion to laugh at made-up stories with forged datelines and invented quotes. Wait, no, maybe that's the Times. I'm getting confused.
::: posted by Steven at 1:35 AM
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Proposed Seat Belt Law Fails Again Wednesday's House vote to strengthen the seat belt law ended in a tie. And Thursday as Newscenter 5's Janet Wu reported, lawmakers voted 89-59 against reconsidering Wednesday's vote, in effect leaving the law as is.
::: posted by Steven at 1:10 AM
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Thursday, May 29, 2003 :::
Nordliner discourses on evolving euphemisms for abortion:As you know, Democrats are reluctant to talk about abortion — they'll do anything to avoid uttering the word. They say, "right to choose." Or "reproductive rights." Or whatever else the euphemism of the day is.It seems clear what John Kerry will be saying, for the duration of the campaign: "right to privacy." That's his code, to let the folks know he's foursquare behind abortion-on-demand. I'm so tired of Democratic obfuscation I'd almost vote for the candidate who comes out and says — and defends and champions — "abortion." That's what it is, after all. Of course, "abortion" itself is something of a euphemism, isn't it? Even if you want to consider it surgery, wouldn't "fetus removal" be more consistent with how we speak of other surgery? ("I had my appendicitis aborted.") But the fetus is removed from the discussion in favor of an abstraction, the pregnancy; we "abort" a pregnancy.
::: posted by dWj at 5:06 PM
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Nebraska Lawmaker Proposes War With Iowa (link from How Appealing)
A Nebraska lawmaker is so fed up with constituents crossing the state border to gamble that she proposed going to war with neighboring Iowa.
"I've been cautioned that the members of the Iowa Legislature might not take it kindly,' said Sen. Pam Brown of Omaha.
Brown's proposed amendment read: "The sovereign state of Nebraska declares a state of hostility with the sovereign state of Iowa until such a time as the state of Iowa ceases the unjust and relentless appropriation of the resources of the citizens of Nebraska."
To be fair, she goes on to make it clear that this is a publicity stunt. In other words, this isn't conclusive proof that she's been licking toads.
But look at the way that's worded -- "unjust and relentless appropriation of the resources of" people who deliberately, of their own free will, buy a portion of their entertainment out of state. The notion that the state of Nebraska has a prior claim to its citizens' "resources" is appalling.
I admit that this is pure speculation, but I can't help but suspect that she would characterize a tax hike as "just", if not "relentful". Some taxes are necessary, but few are voluntary, and almost all are more regretable than allowing people to spend their money out-of-state. It all goes back to the question of whether the state owns its citizens, or vice versa. Senator Brown and I appear to hold opposing positions on that question.
::: posted by Steven at 4:03 PM
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The Massachusetts House has been working on making failure to use a seat-belt a "primary" offense, i.e. allowing police to pull people over just for not buckling up. There was a tie vote in the House yesterday, and there's likely to be an other vote (a motion to reconsider) today.
::: posted by Steven at 12:39 PM
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Sasha Volokh has been writing some interesting dispatches from Europe (Venice and Barcelona) recently.
::: posted by Steven at 12:02 PM
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ABC News offers a piece on criminal profiling.It's practically the nature of a profile to be wrong, he said, because they're not used for easy cases. "If it's a slam dunk and you apprehend the suspect within 12 hours, you never get a profile," said Fox.Otherwise, Brown said, they contain vague generalizations that are true for most any serial killer — describing a "loser" between the ages of 25 and 35, who has trouble with women. "Most profiles generated are what I call a 'duh' profile," she said.
::: posted by dWj at 11:35 AM
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Kate's back.
::: posted by dWj at 10:07 AM
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Busy almanac today, as fifty years ago today, on Bob Hope's fiftieth birthday and JFK's thirty-fourth, Norgay and Hillary reached the peak of Mount Everest.
::: posted by dWj at 10:06 AM
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Wednesday, May 28, 2003 :::
My suggestion, in reading Lileks today, is that you skip half-way down, starting with the following:
Right before I woke up I dreamed I had an assignment: write a bad feature story in the style of the New York Times. When I woke I had the last sentence still in my head; I stumbled next door to the studio, woke up the Mac, and typed this sentence:
Over in the field, a hound was hunched over excreting a “striver,” the local’s term for the hard, elegantly tapered stools for which the wild dogs are renowned.
Then, if you have too much time on your hands and wish to read more on the topic, try this Simpsons episode.
::: posted by Steven at 2:20 AM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003 :::
Lowry's latest syndicated column is about the so-called museum looting in Baghdad.
Robert Deutsch, an archeologist at Haifa University and a licensed antiquities dealer, shakes his head at all the coverage of the museum sacking. The Times originally reported that 170,000 pieces had been stolen. "Nonsense," says Deutsch. He points out that there would have to be "miles and miles" of display area for such a massive amount of material to be readily available for the snatching.
Subsequent reporting has cited roughly 30 items stolen from the museum's exhibition area, although hundreds more were taken from well-secured storage areas in an inside job (Saddam Hussein's cousin was the museum's director). But the most valuable pieces appear to have been kept safe, in what is shaping up as the "Great Civilization-Rattling Heist That Wasn't."
::: posted by Steven at 3:44 PM
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George Will relates the suggestion that [I]n the East Indies outpost of the Dutch empire, where a notably relaxed and tolerant Islamic faith had long flourished, Krakatoa, by terrifying and dispossessing people, may have catalyzed the much fiercer form of Islam that fused with anticolonialism. It is alive and dealing death today.
I tend to think lately that a lot of large consequences that seem to stem from random details — whether Krakatoa counts as a "detail" or not — were more or less waiting to happen, in their generalities, in one form or another, and that any other trigger.
::: posted by dWj at 3:42 PM
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The Kitchen Cabinet is back. At least Lily is.
::: posted by Steven at 2:34 PM
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Donald Rumsfeld reassures me, We do not have an American "template" we want to impose: Iraqis will figure out how to build a free nation in a manner that reflects their unique culture and traditions.
What President Bush has outlined are some broad principles that are critical if Iraq's transition from tyranny is to succeed: that Iraq be a single country, which does not support terrorists, threaten its neighbors or the world with weapons of mass destruction, or threaten its diverse population with terror and repression; that it have a government that respects and protects minorities, provides opportunities for its people through a market economy, and justice through an independent judiciary and rule of law. ...
The ultimate political outcome must be decided by the Iraqi people, within the broad principles of the rule of law, minority rights, individual liberty, and representative democracy. One ought not expect the Iraqi outcome to replicate any other system.
I've been concerned about "overreach"; these goals here seem reasonable and necessary.
::: posted by dWj at 1:57 PM
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Lileks saw the new Matrix movie. He thinks it's pretentious and lacking in realism. More surprisingly, he didn't think it particularly exciting.
::: posted by Steven at 1:46 AM
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Monday, May 26, 2003 :::
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
::: posted by Steven at 12:14 AM
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Sunday, May 25, 2003 :::
I was told of a bomb scare today in Boston near Boylston and Arlington (near the public garden, if that has more meaning to you), but I can't find anything on the Internet about it, nor have I heard anything on the radio or the television. I wonder if this was a misunderstanding.
::: posted by Steven at 10:05 PM
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The latest entry at the Kitchen Cabinet is several days old. It's about Kate and Lily being visited by the FBI. If anyone is collecting bail money on their behalf, let me know.
::: posted by Steven at 5:01 PM
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