New hypothetical bullshit benchmark

Fuck asking, "Which candidate would you rather have a beer with?" I'd rather have a beer with my friends. Rather ask, "Which candidate would you rather work with?" Or maybe better, "Which candidate would you rather have working for you?"

Religion by any other name

There's a line commonly used by the science side in science vs. religion arguments, "Why would God give us the intelligence to learn and understand if we weren't supposed to use it?" This is a fun (and non-productive) rhetorical tool, and the unstated intent is that you're calling the other person a troglodyte, a luddite, and a fucking idiot with his head up his ass.

However, a variant of this line can also be used on other religions, to equally pointless effect:

Regarding STDs, pregnancy, etc, "conservatives" say that abstinence is the answer, "liberals" say that education and birth control is the answer. In my experience, most "liberals" would also agree that it is proper and important for HIV research to continue, to produce new and better drugs for the infected, and vaccines to protect the uninfected. However, the "conservative" approach of abstinence from sex and drugs would eliminate the virus from humans in 2-3 generations. The natural attack on this position is that it is completely unrealistic to expect people to behave themselves in the name of the common good.

NOW, let me grind the gears in shifting to - environmentalism. The banner carriers for global warning say we've got to cut carbon emissions to save the environment. I don't really have a problem with alternatives to pumping out carbon dioxide (and methane, which is much worse than CO2, and produced by some of the "solutions" to CO2 production, but that's a different argument), for a variety of reasons. However, the one true faith of environmentalism is that the answer is to STOP. STOP the fossil fuel burning, the end. Read Superfreakonomics, and do your own research here, but the data and models (the currently believed data and models, that is), state that if all human production of CO2 were to STOP RIGHT NOW, the effect would not be seen for 50-150 years, and even then, it's not clear what the effect would be.

However, God gave us a sign to show us the way (here's the bit about how God gave us intelligence to develop science so that we could solve our problems), the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. This divinely inspired volcanic eruption precisely demonstrated a simple, cheap, rapid, and reversible mechanism to reduce global temperatures. I think it might even qualify as a miracle because of its potential to save all life on earth, if the environmental doom-sayers are right. Mt. Pinatubo precisely injected sulfur dioxide into the proper layer of the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures, reversing the (presumed) sum total of industrial anthropogenic global warming. There should be a festival day commemorating this discovery.

The technology exists for humans to replicate this effect, cheaply. And, from the Pinatubo data (and this is DATA, real-by-God, measured DATA, not models or projections) we know how long the effect lasts (not long). So, it's cheap, we will almost immediately know if it's working (unlike waiting 50 years to see what STOPPING does), and if it's not working right, after shutting it off, the effect is gone in 1-2 years.

Al Gore does not like this. Many environmentalists do not like this. The general opinion is that "climate engineering" is voodoo hocus pocus, and should not be done. What should be done is to STOP. What does STOPPING require? Requiring people to change their behavior in the name of the common good. That should sound familiar, it's the unrealistic approach to sex and drug related problems, as mentioned above. But the environmental answer is different, because governments would FORCE people to change their behaviors, and that would be right because THIS problem is important enough to justify FORCE.

So here it is, the same people who on one day would gleefully say "Maybe God gave us the intelligence and resources to discover a new solution", would on the next day say "science and engineering are not the answer, a set of rules to regulate human moral behavior is the answer."

Everyone has his head up his ass.

"Moral authority does not belong in the hands of those who have the legal right to use lethal force."

Supreme opinions

Well, the supreme court should now be off deliberating on, amongst other things, the health care omnibus, in particular, the mandate that people buy insurance. One issue that was raised before it went to them was that one of the justices (I think Sotomayor), at the time that the law was being debated, said that it really needed to be passed. A second thing that I haven't heard mentioned is that years and years ago, when still semi-new to the court, Justice Ginsberg stated that she believed that the constitution should provide a right to health care. I almost started a column then (blogs didn't really exist yet), titled "Things that pissed me off this week", with that as the headliner. The beauty of the constitution is how vague it is, and when specific, it is specific in limiting the powers of the government. If the US government were specifically tasked with providing something to the citizenry, I fear that it would be a disaster, as a comprehensive statement of what is to be provided would be ridiculously long and complex (just like Obamacare), and almost immediately be outdated by advances. A simple statement would never be cleanly interpreted. At the time, I thought that Ginsberg's statement showed a very poor comprehension of the purpose of the constitution, and time has not changed my opinion of that.

On a similar, but different note, the "Marriage Amendment" is coming up for a vote in NC soon. I don't know how I really feel about gay marriage, but I know how I feel about amending the state constitution in order to monkey with the rights of the citizens. That's a no-brainer right there. In a letter from September 2011, William Barber, of the local NAACP essentially made that same statement. He buried it in multiple pages of rhetoric in which he got into the history of civil rights, how people have been trampled on before, etc. However, only one thing really matters, you don't use the constitution to step on somebody. As the Adaptive Curmudgeon said, stop and think about how your worst enemy could use it, before you pass it. And as someone else I know said, "If they'll do it for you, they'll do it to you."

And finally, once upon a time, representatives debated the constitutionality of a law BEFORE they voted on it. They didn't pass it, saying they would leave it to the courts to decide. That attitude is laziness, incompetence, and dereliction of duty.

Every Day

Every day, I see something that fucking breaks my heart. People are always suffering somewhere, whether it's people in Missouri who got flooded out, villagers starving to death in the latest African famine in a country so dysfunctional that food can't get in, or some young kid who just died in a stupid accident.

I just want things to get better for them. I don't know how things will get better for them. The few things that I know I can do to try to help seem so feeble and pointless.

Mostly, I just want other people to stop suffering so that I can stop feeling bad about them suffering. Maybe that's human nature, maybe I'm especially petty, but whichever, that fucking breaks my heart too.

I want to pay more taxes

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Getting what you deserve

IBM is laying off people. I don't know how much the people on top get paid, but it's probably a lot, and I could probably find out, but I don't feel like it, because it's not relevant. It sucks for the people being laid off. It sucks that IBM has lost business. To paraphrase Dale Dauten, it sucks that the people in charge aren't clever or creative enough to find ways to keep people productive and make money. It reflects very poorly on them.

So, what are we to do? If you're outraged over the executive's behavior, boycott IBM. Dump their stock, refuse to buy mutual funds that own IBM, and raise a stink. OR, conversely, buy a shit-ton of stock, get other like minded people to do the same, and take over the shareholder's meetings. That's the point of a publicly held business.

What's not productive? Whining like a little bitch that the executives don't deserve/didn't earn the extension of the previous tax cuts. There's a lot of uninformed gabbling about taxes and rich people, so let me state my position, which I believe, is based on tax law, the constitution, and the 16th amendment.

What is the purpose of taxation? It is not to create fairness. It is not to punish the rich, punish the poor, reward the rich, or spread the wealth around. The purpose of taxes is to, get ready, I think I'm saying this well, so pay attention:

---Get the government the money it needs to do the things it needs to do.---

Get that? There is no legal, moral, or constitutional justification for taxation as part of a social agenda. If somebody earns their money illegally, arrest them, but taxing extra because you don't like how much money they made, or how they made it is just about the same as what you're accusing them of.

In a honest tax system, the more money you have, the more taxes you pay. Nobody earns or deserves a tax break or a tax hike. Tax policy should be set by the needs of the budget and the economy (and that's enough of a minefield there). Anyone who justifies tax policy by what's "fair" or by what people "deserve" needs to read the constitution, or maybe they need to have it read to them.

I said it before, I said it again, read about Bills of Attainder.

MLKJ Day Snow Day

Lucky me (and you), this is the start of an annual tradition - The Annual Freakout Over a Perceived Slight to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

As you may recall, last year's broughaha was over the lunch menu that a school had for the day (MLK Jr. lunch menu). This year, it's about using the day as a snow makeup day, the first example I can give is for Charlotte (Charlotte/Mecklinburg MLKJ Day makeup day controversy).

As you may know, for the school year to count as having educated children, a minimum number of days are required. Hence the need for snow makeup days. They don't have to be full days, the kids don't have to learn anything, they just have to be in school. Southern areas have already been hit pretty hard with snow days, and are going to be scrambling to fit in the makeup days they need, MLKJ day is unfortunately positioned to be easily used.

Now, is going to school on a day intended to honor the man an insult to him? We can ask him, he's dead. If he weren't dead, we could ask him, but there probably wouldn't be a day for him, so it wouldn't matter. Anyway, let's look at the man's life, causes, and words to see if we can get a hint.

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.”

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

"We must use time creatively."

So, I think I'm safe in saying that this man, who earned a Ph.D., believed in educating everyone to produce sensible people who can behave intelligently. What would be the most offensive way to honor his memory? Going to school and learning something, or spending the day in idleness?