Allergic to Bull

Why Limbaugh’s Comments are Not a Fluke

2012-03-04T15:32:00.000-05:00

So for the last few days there has been a dustup because Sandra Fluke testified before Congress about how she was a law student at Georgetown Law and she and other students had trouble affording birth control pills and the school, which is a Jesuit school, didn’t provide coverage. Then Rush Limbaugh said this:

"What does it say about the college coed who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex?" Limbaugh continued, “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex."

And then he said this:

“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

And now we see that Limbaugh apologized, which I think is right. Using birth control does not mean she is a slut, unless you think a woman is supposed to be chaste until marriage. And no, this is not prostitution under the D.C. Code or any other jurisdiction that I know of.

But in a way, Obamacare and its mandates make this kind of thing inevitable.

We’ve all been there, 17 or 18 years old, and we get into a fight with our parents or maybe a sibling does. “You can’t control me!” the near-adult says.

And the parent says, “as long as you live under my roof you will do what I say!”

For two hundred years we have understood intuitively that “freedom” and “independence” are closely related concepts. Hell, when Destiny’s Child wanted to make a feminist anthem for the movie Charlie’s Angels, they called it “Independent Woman.”

Gerald Ford once said that “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”* It also means that the government gets to scrutinize everything in your life. It’s inevitable. If someone has to pay for something, they are inevitably going to ask basic questions, like 1) where is this money going to, 2) is this the most economical way to spend the money, and 3) do you really need what I am being forced to buy for you?

Let’s take a less explosive example: Lipitor. It’s a drug that reduces cholesterol. If there was a mandate requiring Lipitor coverage for every single person, then the questions would start. Why do you need it? Are you eating right? Are you exercising? Or more rudely: why would I have to pay for your unhealthy lifestyle.

Or it might get really rude:

(Language warning.)

And the examples of this are legion. I am not a fan of multiple piercings and tattoos, but I definitely take a “to each their own” attitude about that. But if I am forced to pay for antibiotics and tattoo removal, I am going to start having an opinion about whether you should be doing that sort of thing in the first place. If I have no choice but to pay for your skin cancer treatment, maybe I will have an opinion about you laying in a tanning bed all the time, or on the beach just sunning yourself.

And the examples of people needing treatment due to their “lifestyles” are legion. There is the obvious example of STDs. And there is always this:

You might need age verification to see that and if you don’t want to watch it is video I have used before, of people intentionally getting hit in the, ahem, beanbag. Yeah, it’s admittedly pretty funny... unless they go to the ER and you have to foot the bill, or if you have to pay for in vitro fertilization because their "boys" no longer swim. Then you start to resent that you have to subsidize their stupidity.

And personally I don’t mind paying for regular birth control, but I recognize the Catholic Church’s right to object and I believe in their right to refuse to pay for it. And when it comes to abortion—including the morning after abortion pill which is also in this mandate—and I am required to pay for it, I’m going to start asking some rude questions, the first of which being, “why the hell weren’t you using birth control?”

Now there can be a good answer to that question—the most obvious being rape. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to ask that question. I don’t want to be that involved in your life.

But if I am paying for it, I have to be. You can’t just hand out money with no strings attached. There has to be oversight. Which means that we have to ask those rude questions, like 1) where is this money going to, 2) is this the most economical way to spend the money, and 3) do you really need what I am being forced to buy for you?

See if you are paying for it yourself, you can say, “none of your damn business” to all of those questions. If a private insurance company voluntarily covers these kinds of things, you can say, “this is between me and my insurance company.” But if I have to pay for it—either through taxes, or by being forced to buy insurance that includes that kind of coverage—then it is my business.

And I don’t want to make it my business in most cases. What do I care if you spend 5 hours a day in a tanning bed? What do I care if you have every appendage pierced? What do I care if you smoke?

Liberals tell us to get the law off their damn bodies. They tell us that we should not care about things that the law has cared about for a long time, such as whether two men have sex, or whether a woman has an abortion. And then they push this law on us that forces us not only to care about those things, but about whether you smoke, get body piercings, or get a sun tan. Because under Obamacare, each of those things affect us, financially.

And in truth I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t mind want to be that involved in other people’s lives. But when you involve my money, then you start to involve me. You do not create a zone of privacy by inviting scrutiny.

So by attempting to mandate that all institutions provide free birth control—and abortion pill, let’s not forget that—the Obama administration invited us to ask the basic questions: 1) where is this money going to, 2) is this the most economical way to spend the money, and 3) do you really need what I am being forced to buy for you? And Rush Limbaugh chose to personalize it by asking about the justification of a young woman needing constant birth control.

None of this excuses Limbaugh’s bad judgment in calling Fluke a slut and a whore and it’s good that he apologized.

But what Obama has proposed forces us to discuss the amount and appropriateness of sex among college students, to make it a matter of valid government concern, when I think most of us would like to keep the government out of it completely.

And that is centered wholly on my policy preference for a respect for the “right to privacy” and not touching at all on the court-invented “constitutional” right to privacy found in cases like Roe. As I have said before, if Roe v. Wade means anything, it is an extreme application of the right to control one’s own medical destiny. And Obamacare tramples all over it. Which is why I think Justice Kennedy in particular will vote to strike it down.

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* This quote has been apparently misattributed to Thomas Jefferson. But regardless of the source, it is undeniably true.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates. And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here. And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

Friday Frivolity: The Joustin with Justin Edition!

2012-03-02T17:40:00.000-05:00

So apparently there is an app in the iPhone called Joustin Beaver! Here’s a pic of some of it:

Apparently the idea is that it is a light parody of the life of Justin Beiber where... well, let’s Kotaku explain it:

Joustin Beaver is about a beaver, who looks as much like Bieber as a cartoon beaver can, floating down a river swatting paparazzi and signing autographs, all the while trying to avoid being sucked into the “whirlpool of success”

You can even watch it in action, here:

(“Beaver Exposed”? Really? You had to go there?)

Yeah, so it’s kind of the usual silly stuff you see in the iPhone all the time. I mean it’s not exactly Angry Birds or Jetpack Joyride (which is silly, but also a lot of fun). This just looks silly and like a waste of a small amount of money.

So then Justin Beiber’s lawyers sent the game company a cease-and-desist letter and the game company responded by suing Beiber and his lawyers.

Now first you might rationally wonder “can they do that?” as in, can they sue preemptively this way, and the answer is yes. They can do that to obtain a declaratory judgment—essentially what we would normally call an advisory opinion, but of course the courts have refused to give out advisory opinions so we call them declaratory judgments. It’s a huge difference. (Note: sarcasm.)

And I suppose there is value to that. Would you invest in this game company knowing that they faced the threat of being shut down by Beiber’s lawyers? So the game company has a good reason for wanting to get this issue settled.

But at the same time, this seems kind of dumb on the Beiber camp’s side. The game is just enough “parody” to be protected speech, in my humble opinion, which means that I don’t believe their chances of winning are very good. But in doing this, they have given something to the game company infinitely more valuable: publicity. I am willing to bet that since the suit has been filed, their sales has been at least doubled.

This is what we talk about when we talk about the Streisand effect. It means that the attempt to suppress speech ends up generating publicity that harms your ultimate cause. And it is funny that it is a common enough mistake that we have a term for it.

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On the other hand, if you have a smart phone you should check IGN’s mobile site all the time. They have constant app store updates telling you about tons of apps that are absolutely free that make this game look like the POS it probably is. My favorite free game right now? Jetpack Joyride, although I wish it had some of the humor of Halfbrick’s other classic (which also stars Barry Steakfries), Age of Zombies. Seriously, there is very little reason to pay for most apps on the iPhone unless it is really vital to doing something important.

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On Breitbart’s Death: Why Do They Do This?

2012-03-01T16:46:00.001-05:00

So today we get the news that Andrew Breitbart has passed away. I’ve never actually met the guy, indeed only corresponded with him once, after an interviewer implied he was an alcoholic, and just asking a few follow up questions about that. He wasn’t in my orbit, so much as in the orbit of people who are in my orbit, if that makes any sense. I mean it is no great disclosure to say that Patrick Frey and Mandy Nagy are friends of mine. I know Patrick is in shock, and I suspect Mandy is, too.

And it is shocking. He wasn’t shockingly young to die. I mean at 43 you are definitely starting to get the warnings about diet and exercise, and so this isn’t like a twenty year old ball player dying, but it is still on the young end of the spectrum. But it was still kind of out of the blue, and that is shocking.

And I think it is hard to believe because... you half expect him to show up on Red Eye tonight and explain that this is just a massive prank on everyone, like they suspected when Andy Kaufman died.

And of course like clockwork you see the ugly side of all of this. You know it without me saying it, but apparently many on the left couldn’t help but dance on the grave of Breitbart. I mean, look, I am not above dancing on the grave of a dictator. I was positively overjoyed when Kim Jung Il died, even writing “may you roast in flames you evil son of a bitch.” But he was a dictator, a tyrant, and well... even my state flag advocates for the death of tyrants:

But all Breitbart was, was a political enemy. Not a tyrant but just a guy who engaged in speech some didn’t like. And because of that, many on the left are cheering his death.

I am not going to quote this ugliness to you. I mean if you have to look, you can find it here, here, here and here, but really do you need to look? Do you have any doubt what kinds of things they said and will say? Of course not. It’s all “yippee! He’s dead! A person I disagree with is dead!”

Yes, yippee a wife is without her husband. And his four young children are without a father. And friends across the country break down in tears:

And the predictability of this ugliness—dancing on his grave before it is even dug—robs me of anything to say. It’s already been said in other instances where famous conservatives (or libertarians as was the case with Breitbart) have died, or been diagnosed with dread diseases. And moreover when people have said these kinds of awful things, other people pointed at it and denounced their ugliness, so even that part is predictable.

So we know what they are going to say, and they know we are going to report it and denounce it and it is going to make them and the movements they represent look bad. And they do it anyway. They know it is going to hurt their pet causes, but they still do it anyway.

And all one can conclude is that they can’t help themselves. They feel so much joy at his death that even knowing it will hurt their cause, embarrass any publication they work for, and generally convince decent people that they are cretins, they have to do it anyway.

And maybe I am wrong in a way for not recording and reciting the vile things they said personally. After all, as Jonah Goldberg said in that interview: “One of his favorite pastimes was to retweet all of the hate that people threw at him because he considered it a badge of honor.” So somewhere up in heaven right now, Breitbart is checking his holy twitterfeed and smiling at all the hate being spewed at him. And maybe the best tribute to him is to publicize this spewing of hate.

But I don’t have it in me to do that right now.

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Julian Savulescu of the Journal of Medical Ethics Whines That All this Speech is a Threat to Freedom of Speech

2012-03-01T07:11:00.001-05:00

So yesterday I told you about a horrifying piece in the Journal of Medical Ethics entitled “After-Birth Abortion: why should the baby live?” In it they argued that well some babies are so deformed or whatever that they really shouldn’t be allowed to live and so we should be allowed to kill them and call it After-Birth Abortion to make it sound less horrifying than the correct term (which is infanticide)?

You think I am exaggerating? Well, go and read the original and judge for yourself.

One aspect I didn’t get into in my original post is that, well, this shouldn’t surprise you but some people have had some very strong reactions to it. So we get Julian Savulescu, Editor, Journal of Medical Ethics writes a piece entitled “Liberals Are Disgusting”: In Defence of the Publication of “After-Birth Abortion.”

Now he starts off reasonably enough talking about how they got death threats. “This article has elicited personally abusive correspondence to the authors, threatening their lives and personal safety.”

That is undoubtedly wrong, and I hope they have reported such death threats to the authorities and that the authorities take it appropriately seriously.

But then he complains about “abusive emails” writing:

The Journal has received a string [of] abusive emails for its decision to publish this article. This abuse is typically anonymous.

I am not sure about the legality of publishing abusive threatening anonymous correspondence, so I won’t repeat it here. But fortunately there is plenty on the web to choose from. Here are some responses:

“These people are evil. Pure evil. That they feel safe in putting their twisted thoughts into words reveals how far we have fallen as a society.”

“Right now I think these two devils in human skin need to be delivered for immediate execution under their code of ‘after birth abortions’ they want to commit murder – that is all it is! MURDER!!!”

“I don‘t believe I’ve ever heard anything as vile as what these “people” are advocating. Truly, truly scary.”

“The fact that the Journal of Medical Ethics published this outrageous and immoral piece of work is even scarier”

(Comments from http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ethicists-argue-in-favor-of-after-birth-abortions-as-newborns-are-not-persons/#comments)

He goes on (and on) but here is the real whopper, folks, when he says this:

What is disturbing is not the arguments in this paper nor its publication in an ethics journal. It is the hostile, abusive, threatening responses that it has elicited. More than ever, proper academic discussion and freedom are under threat from fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.

I think it is time for a Rule 5 facepalm:

Now of course one of the comments he quoted above borders on an actual threat, saying “I think these two devils in human skin need to be delivered for immediate execution...” I am not sure that is an actionable threat—and indeed the answer might vary wildly by jurisdiction—but I think perhaps a police officer should go by this person’s house and discuss his or her intent in writing that.

But the other comments? They are nothing more than citizens expressing their opinions. And contrary to what Mr. Savulescu says, criticism is not a threat to freedom of speech. That is indeed, what is supposed to happen in a free society. When someone says something you don’t like, you don’t threaten them or bomb them, you just counter them with your own speech.

(And that is leaving aside defamation and similar dishonesty where defamation suits and the like are the appropriate remedy.)

Indeed, his argument doesn’t even make sense. I mean he is criticizing them for criticizing him, so isn’t he “suppressing” their freedom of speech, by his “logic?”

And this passage trying to argue that what these people wrote was not so bad is just pathetic:

As Editor of the Journal, I would like to defend its publication. The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and John Harris in defence of infanticide, which the authors call after-birth abortion.

The novel contribution of this paper is not an argument in favour of infanticide – the paper repeats the arguments made famous by Tooley and Singer – but rather their application in consideration of maternal and family interests. The paper also draws attention to the fact that infanticide is practised in the Netherlands.

Besides engaging in the fallacy of the appeal to authority, I don’t particularly care if it is not a new argument. If all of these other people have made this argument—hell if the Netherlands practices it—then a pox on all of them, too. Killing a baby is just plain wrong and if you can logic your way into drawing the appalling conclusion that it is okay to kill a baby, then you have officially become so cloistered in academia that you are in danger of disappearing up your own arse.

I mean pardon the bad language, but it has to be said.

I went to one of the most “academic” law schools in America and I can tell you that in that environment some of the craziest stuff gets advocated. I won’t name the professors but there is one who says that the constitution was amended in the 1930’s to require the New Deal. I don’t mean that Roosevelt pushed into the court a set of justices that interpreted the constitution differently—that is a very reasonable theory. I mean he believes it was actually amended, without anyone knowing it let alone knowing that they were doing it as they did it. Another argued that judges should be able to overrule statutes whenever they didn’t make sense. That is you don’t have to wait for the statute to violate the constitution, the judge only has to decide that it doesn’t make sense. When I tell other people about these kinds of ideas, I literally have a hard time convincing them someone actually said that. In other words, it is so off-the-wall that people have trouble believing that anyone would advocate for that.

People in academia get into this environment where common sense and plain thinking is devalued, where everyone is afraid to tell anyone that something is a bad idea—especially the students who are hoping and praying that this professor will give them a hearty recommendation—and pretty soon they find themselves spouting the most idiotic stuff with no negative feedback. So then when this kind of stuff gets out to the real world, and suddenly they face just and harsh criticism, it’s a bit of a shock, I am sure.

The reality is that the opinion that it is ever okay to commit infanticide is evil. I won’t say that this publication is evil for having printed it. They argue that they are a forum where all well-reasoned views are welcome. And there is a value to putting this stuff out. As they say sunlight is an excellent disinfectant.

But I would wonder how far they would be willing to go. For instance, Mr. Savulescu turns up his nose at the racism in one comment. But what of a well-reasoned argument for the extermination of a particular race or believers in a certain religion? Would he publish that too?

I am not in favor, for instance, of saying that certain books can ever be banned, however evil they are. Mein Kampf, for instance, is a vile book and is literally banned in many countries, but I think the precedent it sets for censorship is a greater danger than the dead pen-hand of Adolf Hitler. But at the same time I have absolutely no problem with a book store saying “I refuse to sell this book.” One may be free to publish it, there is no God-given right to a publisher or to have it stocked at a book store.

So if they are a true free-fire zone where the most vile, most non-PC arguments are made, that is one thing. But if they are not, then they have to ask why this is acceptable speech in their minds.

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The Journal of Medical Ethics Imitates South Park (By Advocating “After-Birth Abortions”)

2012-02-29T16:31:00.001-05:00

I have only started to read the article by Alberto Guibilini and Francesca Minerva, entitled (risibly) After-Birth Abortion: why should the baby live?, but it is so full of evil I am likely to fisk it at a spare moment. Seriously, it is so bad that it falls into a rare exception to Godwin’s Law. As you might know, Godwin’s law stands as an injunction against comparing anyone or any policy to Hitler, the Nazis, etc. But there is an exception: when they actually sound like Nazis.

You know, like this:

Euthanasia in infants has been proposed by philosophers for children with severe abnormalities whose lives can be expected to be not worth living and who are experiencing unbearable suffering....

Although it is reasonable to predict that living with a very severe condition is against the best interest of the newborn, it is hard to find definitive arguments to the effect that life with certain pathologies is not worth living, even when those pathologies would constitute acceptable reasons for abortion. It might be maintained that ‘even allowing for the more optimistic assessments of the potential of Down's syndrome children, this potential cannot be said to be equal to that of a normal child’. But, in fact, people with Down's syndrome, as well as people affected by many other severe disabilities, are often reported to be happy.

Nonetheless, to bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care. On these grounds, the fact that a fetus has the potential to become a person who will have an (at least) acceptable life is no reason for prohibiting abortion. Therefore, we argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.

So living with a “severe condition” including Down’s Syndrome is not really in the interest of the person with that disability. But they aren’t willing to endorse killing a full “person” with Down’s but if you can kill a fetus for having Down’s then it is fully justifiable to kill a newborn for the same reason.

See what I mean? Its evil stuff.

And I actually shivered at the phrase “lives can be expected to be not worth living” given how similar it sounded to the phrase “life unworthy of life” used by the Nazis when justifying first the murder of the handicapped and then later the slaughter of the Jews.

Although to their (limited) credit their use of the term “after birth abortion” is acknowledged to be bull____ designed to make the concept more palatable than the correct term which is infanticide:

In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.

Which is where life truly becomes absurd. Because did you know that South Park has a parody of this? Here’s a scene from an unofficial script that lines up with my memory of the episode, when Mrs. Cartman decides to get an abortion:

Liane: I want to have… an abortion.

Receptionist: Uoh well, we can do that. This must be a very difficult time for you, Mrs.…

Liane: Cartman. Yesuh- it's such a hard decision, but I just don't feel I can raise a child in this screwy world.

Receptionist: Yes, Ms. Cartman-if you don't feel fit to raise a child, then abortion probably is the answer. Do you know the actual time of conception?

Liane: About - eight years ago.

Receptionist: [processing] …I sseee, so the fetus is…

Liane: Eight years old.

Receptionist: Ms. Cartman, uh- eight years old is a little late to be considering abortion.

Liane: Really?!

Receptionist: Yes- this is what we would refer to as the - "fortieth trimester"

Liane: But I just don't think I'm a fit mother.

Receptionist: Wuh… But we prefer to abort babies a little- …earlier on; in fact, there's a law against abortions after the second trimester.

Liane: Well, I think you need to keep your laws off of my body.

Receptionist: Hmmmmm. Tsk, I'm afraid I can't help you, Ms. Cartman-if you want to change the law, you'll have to speak with your congressman.

Liane: [rises from the chair] Well, that's exactly what I intend to do! Good day! [exits]

So yeah, they are proposing what South Park already parodied... in 1998. I mean that episode had Mrs. Cartman sleeping with various politicians in order to lobby them to change the law, including... President Bill Clinton. That is how old that parody is.

I think the only thing left to do, is show a South Park facepalm…

Really, words are failing me on this one.

(H/t: Hot Air.)

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Christina H. Vents on Anti-Asian American Racism

2012-02-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

This Cracked article isn’t very funny, but I think for the most part it is pretty insightful: 4 Things the Jeremy Lin Story Reveals About Modern Racism. Actually I think the title is pretty misleading. It is really pretty focused on anti-Asian American racism, and I don’t think most of it is highlighted by the Lin story, but it’s still an interesting perspective from someone who grew up facing this crap.

Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs from it:

[I]f someone called me a "gook," for example, my immediate gut reaction, before even thinking "racism," would be "THAT'S NOT EVEN THE RIGHT RACE." I know that critiquing the accuracy of a racist joke seems sort of like criticizing the construction quality of a cross being burned on someone's lawn, but in a weird way, someone not even being informed enough about you to use the right slur is a sting in its own right.

You want to annoy a Chinese-American? Make some sushi jokes, or kimchi jokes, or maybe even some sweet and sour pork jokes. Apparently not a lot of people know this, but there's a number of dishes that Chinese people really don't eat a lot of, and they're mainly for appeasing the mostly white clientele of many Chinese restaurants. Sweet and sour pork is one of them.

If you want to do a "This is what Chinese people be like" joke, you probably want to talk about how they can't get enough of the tapioca tea or something. That'll hit a little closer to home.

There is some nits to pick. For instance in modern taxonomy, the Vietnamese are not a separate race from other Asians, but only a separate ethnicity—although it is worth noting that about a hundred years ago, what we call ethnicities they called “races.” So they believed there was a “French” race, an “English” race and so on.

And talking about the piece as a whole one of the big things she leaves out is the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype, that somehow Asian-Americans, however long they live in America, are assumed to be FOB (Fresh Off the Boat). And it’s a really big oversight in her article. For instance, she talks about how sentiment against Asian countries often bleeds into sentiment against Asian Americans. Which is obviously true, but you can’t really convince people to stop disliking China or something like that. I mean it is a dictatorship after all, so while this is really pretty clumsy...

…you can’t exactly take criticism of China off the table. What really has to be done is an uncoupling in our minds between an American and their “mother country.” I mean I am almost 50% German, and none of my family spent a day in an internment camp. If memory serves a few Germans and Italians were rounded up, but it was extremely selective, based on things like individualized suspicion and evidence. You know as opposed to our policy with the Japanese, which was to say “frak it” and round up every man, woman and child. With Germans and Italians it was generally assumed that they had broken ties with the “mother country” that indeed now America was their “mother country.” On the other hand, it was assumed that Japanese Americans were still ready to go all kamikaze for their Emperor-God.

And it leads to strange results. To talk about another group that is unfairly maligned as perpetual foreigners once I was in an airport talking to an acquaintance of mine and she mentioned off-handedly that her family came to America relatively recently from “Persia.” Well, I am not a fan of B.S. even when I sympathize with the reasons, so the exchange was something like this:

“You mean Iran, right?” I said.

“Yes,” she said, probably a little nervous what I would say next. (She didn’t know me that well.)

“It’s sad that Iranian Americans feel like it is necessary to do that,” I said, “I mean the fact your family left the country suggests that ya’ll weren’t fans of the way things were being run over there. We thought it was great when a Russian defected during the Soviet era, or when a Cuban escapes that country today, but somehow the people fleeing Iran are still under suspicion. For my money, I tend to think recent immigrants to the United States are the most patriotic because they know what they are missing. That goes double if they are fleeing an oppressive regime.”

So the solution isn’t to stop denouncing China, North Korea, or even Iran, but to combat the thinking in too many people that assumes these kinds of ethnic groups have more loyalty to a foreign country than America--even when they are apparently fleeing that country's oppression.

My other nitpick is that she seemed to condemn the famous “Chink in the Armor” headline, when I think the evidence that it was meant in a racist way is kind of thin and the parties deserve the benefit of the doubt. But even with all those critiques, I think it is an excellent piece.

Now some conservatives really don’t like to talk about racism. That feeling has increased, not decreased in the last few years, and I get the reason why. These days it is all about using it as a weapon. So you get Keith Olbermann claiming the Tea Party is racist because he looks at a crowd of multi-ethnic Tea Partiers and concludes that everyone is white and because of their insufficient pigment, they must be racists (which is actually a pretty racist thing to say, on several levels). We get to the point where even the word “break” is claimed to be a racist term. And then there is the almost certainly fabricated claim that a Tea Partier spat on Congressman Cleaver and called him a racist term (we know he wasn’t spat on, we can only assume that he is lying about the other part as well). These are not sincere attempts to ferret out racism, but to demonize people who have genuine and sincere disagreements about policy as bigots. So I think we can understand why conservatives are sick to death of hearing of it.

But that is only a proper reason to ignore it when the charge of racism is used as a weapon to browbeat everyone into agreeing to policies that we wouldn’t otherwise accept. But it’s not a reason to ignore the problem of racism, when it is really there. We shouldn’t say it is okay to use bigoted terms toward Jeremy Lin just because someone else has been abusing the concept.

Besides Anti-Asian-American racism can be downright useful. Like remember how Olbermann accused the Tea Party of racism? Well, consider this. Of course, it shouldn’t shock us that Olbermann would say something that smacks of racism in relation to Michelle Malkin, but it does put things into relief. As does some of her hate mail from so-called liberals. (And I have pointed out before, there is more than a little bit of sexual wish fulfillment in their hate.) I can't tell you how many times I have seem smug, self-satisfied liberals who suddenly break out into the ugliest stereotyping of Asian Americans. Its illuminating.

But the more important thing is that it is just plain wrong. As I say to friends and coworkers, it pisses me off to see it. And the misuse of claims of racism and racial discrimination shouldn’t blind us to that fact.

But then again I warned liberals for years that crying wolf on racism would have the effect of harming genuine claims of racism and racial discrimination. So to a certain extent this is the chickens coming home to roost.

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So if Sea World is Slavery, Then Isn’t This Genocide?

2012-02-26T15:26:00.000-05:00

On petard hoisted:

Documents published online this month show that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an organization known for its uncompromising animal-rights positions, killed more than 95 percent of the pets in its care in 2011.

The documents, obtained from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, were published online by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit organization that runs online campaigns targeting groups that antagonize food producers.

Fifteen years’ worth of similar records show that since 1998 PETA has killed more than 27,000 animals at its headquarters in Norfolk, VA.

In a February 16 statement, the Center said PETA killed 1,911 cats and dogs last year, finding homes for only 24 pets.

So strap yourself in, because I am going to get a little philosophical again.

Now I confess, normally I wouldn’t care very much about any organization killing lots of animals. While only finding homes for 24 pets is a pretty pathetically low number I can’t say with any certainty that this is an unavoidable result.

But when an organization gets so high and mighty as to claim in court that being a trained animal at Sea World is a form of slavery, then it becomes relevant.

And it is worth going back to that “Sea World is slavery” argument for a second. In that suit they were seeking, in part, a release of the orcas from Sea World. But is that really in the best interest of the orcas?

Let’s take a moment to talk about what is the natural world. We labor under the idea of a divided world, where on one hand there is the world of humanity, and on the other hand there is the “natural world” untouched by humanity. I admit to thinking that way a lot, but it is wrongheaded thinking. First there is exceedingly few places utterly untouched by humans and second, there is plenty of nature all around us.

We do get, intuitively, that humanity’s influence is markedly different from that of every other creature. You see most other creatures primarily rely on two methods of adaptation. The first is acclimation—that is their bodies naturally adjusting to changing conditions. Thus if you place an animal in a colder climate, for instance, very often they will grow thicker fur. The second, obviously, is genetics and evolution. Now I don’t want to get into a debate of evolution as an origin v. creationism, but there can be no reasonable debate that evolution is currently happening, however we got here.

But humans use a third method of adaptation that most other animals do not use—or at least do no use as often as we do—our brains. As I wrote in a completely different context:

In a very real way, humanity is the disabled species. Think about it. Compared to other species, we are slow, weak, blind and deaf; we have little sense of smell, our teeth and “claws” are weak, etc. If left naked in the wild we would be easy supper for the other animals out there. And yet we dominate the planet for one simple reason: our brains. And those brains have allowed us to create tools that in turn makes up for our deficiencies. So we can’t run as fast as a cheetah, but we invented motor cars that allowed us to move even faster and for long periods of time. We can’t see like an eagle, so we invented the telescope and can see things no other creature can. Our brains haven’t just leveled the playing field between animal and man, but in fact gave us a critical advantage over them which is why we rule this planet and no longer have any natural predator (except ourselves).

And of course this ability to use our brains to adapt has a lot of side effects both good and bad. For instance, it allows humans to have survival plans that are utterly alien to the wild. For instance, this guy…

...has a survival strategy of making up stories that entertain and delight us, but in all likelihood does nothing to practically help us. And I don’t say that to put down Orson Scott Card. Indeed, I love his books. I am just noting that in the “animal” world his skill set would be useless and unlikely to contribute to his own survival, let alone giving him the opportunity to pass on his genes. And indeed much of what humans decide to do with our big brains positively harms our survivability and our ability to reproduce.

I mean to give an example of how our brains actually can harm us from an evolutionary point of view, there is this kind of stupidity:

That might need age verification to see, and if you don’t feel like watching, it is a video of various morons intentionally getting hit in the “beanbag.” And while I admit it’s pretty funny, seeing that they are not getting paid millions of dollars to do this to themselves (unlike the guys on Jackass), it’s really hard not to see this as moronic behavior that is likely to remove them from the gene pool. I am sure the Darwin Awards would approve.

But there are other examples of human behavior that tends to remove us from the gene pool that one is hard-pressed to call dumb. Consider for instance this:

And this:

The first is the flag of Scotland, which contains a St. Andrew’s cross—that is essentially a sideways cross. The second is not a symbol of Satanism (though it can be), but rather of St. Peter. Tradition holds that St. Peter requested to be crucified upside down because he was not fit to be executed the same way as Christ, and St. Andrew decided to go sideways. There is considerable doubt about whether the upside down and sideways stories are true, but there is little doubt that these men were martyred. And just as I am not being critical of Card when I said that his skills would be useless in the wild, I am not being critical of these men when I say that their conduct was not well-calculated to ensure the survival of their genes. Evolution has no morality, but humans can.

Or to pick a more contemporary example of less dubious historical accuracy, there is this.

That would be James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists who were murdered by klan types memorialized in the movie Mississippi Burning. This movie sadly inspired this act of violence:

On the evening of October 7, 1989, a group of young black men and boys, including Mitchell, gathered at an apartment complex in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Several members of the group discussed a scene from the motion picture "Mississippi Burning," in which a white man beat a young black boy who was praying. The group moved outside and Mitchell asked them: "`Do you all feel hyped up to move on some white people?'"... Shortly thereafter, a young white boy approached the group on the opposite side of the street where they were standing. As the boy walked by, Mitchell said: "`You all want to fuck somebody up? There goes a white boy; go get him.'"... Mitchell counted to three and pointed in the boy's direction. The group ran toward the boy, beat him severely, and stole his tennis shoes. The boy was rendered unconscious and remained in a coma for four days.

I mean look at that picture again:

It is concrete proof that not all white people are bad and yet these brain surgeons use that movie as an excuse to engage in precisely the same kind of racist violence the movie denounced. Our brains can lead us to be positively stupid.

But more germane to my point, these three civil rights workers who were murdered are in human morality generally seen as honored martyrs to a noble cause and rightly so, but from the cold, immoral view of evolution they are failures: they died young and most likely did not successfully reproduce even once. They are a genetic dead end.

The point is that the part of the world dominated by man—in other words, most of it—is also nature, too, but its rules are very different from what we traditionally think of as nature. For instance, which is the more successful creature on Earth? This?

Or this?

Well, last I checked, Cheetahs were barely holding on. On the other hand it is estimated that there are over a billion cows on Earth. And what makes the difference?

Simple. Cows are delicious to humans. So we feed them, breed them and kill them for meat and handbags. Indeed, some humans are even known to do this to the horns of the male of the species:

And indeed what counts as a smart breeding strategy gets even stranger when humans are involved. Keeping cows alive and healthy as meat makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective. Indeed it can be said that humans and cows have an almost symbiotic relationship--certainly a mutually beneficial one. On the other hand, it makes no evolutionary sense for a human to do this to a poor animal:

(Four out of five male readers are now wondering "what dog? I didn't see any dog.")

But in a way this is part of a very successful evolutionary strategy for the dog. Dogs have managed to ingratiate themselves with humans even though I suspect that the majority of them do nothing that is practically useful to us at present. I am not saying they can’t be very useful just that in my unscientific estimate most dog-owning humans don’t do that sort of thing with dogs anymore. They keep them mainly to give and receive unconditional love. And apparently to be an accessory.

So PETA’s strategy is to get us to render Orcas—and indeed all animals—off limits to human use, be it serious or silly? Nothing could more surely hasten their extinction. No, if you care about animals, you find a way for them to cope successfully in the human world and best of all, to ingratiate themselves with humans--as meat, if not as a friend. Like it or hate it (and I on balance like it) we dominate this place.

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Friday Frivolity: The Cheap Death Star Edition…

2012-02-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

I have disagreed with Kevin Drum a lot over the years, but geekery can bring people together, so we get this from him yesterday:

As background, some students at Lehigh University have estimated that it would be a very expensive project. The steel alone, assuming the Death Star's mass/volume ratio is about the same as an aircraft carrier, comes to $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the world's GDP. Is this affordable?

Of course the only thing geekier than that discussion is to throw a little real science cold water on it. Hidden in there is a massive assumption: that the materials are the same ones familiar to us. That is when you see something metal-looking, it is steel, when you see something like a glass it is glass, etc. What if instead of glass it is “transparent aluminum” that is used on Star Trek? What if instead of steel it is adamantium from Marvel comics? Or just Rearden Metal?

And then at the same time what if the distribution of materials in their galaxy is radically different. What if iron is far more rare, or more plentiful than it is here?

And let’s talk extraction, shall we? Surely an advanced alien civilization would have methods of extracting materials very different from our own and presumably more efficient. At least they would be capable of greater efficiency.

And then there are labor costs. Which is a great unknown, to tell the truth. Is it going to be humans building it, and is it going to be free labor, or slave labor? In the movie Clerks one of the characters argues that the second Death Star was likely to have the families of the workers on the station, but given that these might all be droids or clones perhaps bred for labor, that is far from a safe assumption (leaving aside the argument that all clones are actually identical twin brothers, thus they are all in a way family to each other).

And of course that gets into another variable: freedom. Free labor systems are always inherently healthier and more innovative than unfree ones. Consider one of the most extreme examples: American slavery. In the South American slaves adopted a term “fooling old master” to describe the ways that they intentionally slowed down work on the plantations. Indeed, it is argued that the Emancipation Proclamation might have struck the killing blow to the Confederacy in that it gave the slaves a stake in the contest between the North and the South. There is strong evidence of a severe work slowdown after the proclamation was issued. And one suspects that this was the source of the stereotype that black people were lazy—southern racists misinterpreting such passive resistance. And it is worth noting that this kind of thing happens all over the world. For instance, in the Soviet Union workers became fond of saying “they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.” I am sure that some in the politburo misinterpreted that as sloth as well.

But the introduction of robotic labor would throw that analysis to hell. Would robots be as innovative as humans? Certainly it is hard to argue that droid warriors are as competent as human ones:

Which is all a complicated way of saying that there are just too many variables to make any kind of an intelligent stab at the truth.

And to out-geek the geeks.

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Fisking Erika Christakis; or “How You Are Infringing on my Right to a Pony”

2012-02-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

So there is some howling today because over at Time Magazine, Erika Christakis has advocated that if you really feel strongly about opposing the employer abortion/contraception mandate, well you should go to jail for your beliefs. Myself, I don’t find that to be that outrageous given that many Christian leaders have said they are willing to go to jail for their beliefs, but what I found interesting was the sheer illogic of her argument—really, a rationalization—for her position. Let’s fisk this sucker:

There was lots of excitable talk last week about birth control, with President Obama dialing back his initial plan for mandating contraceptive coverage to exempt employers who object to such coverage on religious grounds. In those cases, the health-insurance provider, rather than the employer, will be on the hook to pay for the services.

And that is B.S. because the provider will then pass the costs onto the customers and employers.

Tellingly, health-insurance companies seem quite happy with this compromise, knowing, as they do, that paying for contraceptives is a lot less costly than paying for pregnancies and neonatal care.

First, wow. You heard of death panels? Well, apparently she favors “never be born in the first place panels.” What a joyfully misanthropic sentence, arguing that all-in-all its just cheaper if we are never born.

And as a point of fact, the insurance companies are not so thrilled about this.

Despite the support of a healthy majority of Americans of all faiths, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich inexplicably described the compromise as “even worse” than the original plan.

Well, those majorities are only obtained when people are asked questions that greatly distort reality, so again your polling is flawed. And in any case, irrelevant.

And she goes on a bit pretending that this is purely about contraception (and not about things like the abortion pill), and talking about how out-of-control unwanted pregnancies are and then writes:

Is this really a time to try to limit contraception? What about the reckoning of the reality of human lives?

Except we are not contemplating a limit to contraception—or the abortion pill, for that matter. No one is talking about prohibiting their use. They are talking about whether to force a group of employers who previously didn’t provide contraception and abortion pill coverage to provide such coverage. So we are not talking about reducing the availability of these treatments, just a failure to increase availability of them.

People who cry moral indignation about government-mandated contraception coverage appear unwilling to concede that the exercise of their deeply held convictions might infringe on the rights of millions of people who are burdened by unplanned pregnancy or want to reduce abortion or would like to see their tax dollars committed to a different purpose.

And there is what was implied in the last passage laid bare. The right to contraception and the abortion pill in her mind is not merely a right to pay for it yourself, but the right to demand that other people pay for it for you.

Okay, then I have a right to a pony. And therefore you must buy me a pony. Now!

And this next part deserves to be quoted at length:

We all enjoy the multifold benefits of a plural society, but the social contract requires that we must occasionally stomach government policies that offend and outrage us. Most Americans choose to live with this trade-off because, on balance, the benefits of being part of a civil society far outweigh the costs. We are assured a level of comfort and safety, for example, that is unheard of in much of the world. We travel on relatively safe roads and airplanes; we rarely get sick from our drinking water. We can call the fire department in an emergency and hire publicly educated employees; we undergo surgery and cancer treatments developed from taxpayer-funded medical research. Our armies are voluntary. We can worship where and with whom we want. Our legal disputes are solved by the state, not an irate neighbor with a pitchfork.

Americans generally understand that their world doesn’t collapse when they are forced to live with decisions and values with which they disagree. It seems people are quite willing to be flexible on most matters, except in an election year and where sex is involved.

The cost of living in a democracy is tolerating moral judgments we don’t always like.

The funny thing about all of that is this: she just made an eloquent argument for banning abortion, gay marriage, gay sex, and even contraception if the majority supports such a thing. After all according to her our world doesn’t collapse when people are forced to live with decisions and values with which they disagree, right? And of course a ban on abortion, contraception, gay marriage or gay sex, would require people to “tolerat[e] moral judgments we don’t always like.”

And indeed, I find her claim that the religious objectors are being inflexible to be particularly galling. So her definition of flexibility and tolerance requires those who believe that abortion is murder must not only tolerate it, but they must pay for it, too, and if they don’t they will go to prison? So by flexibility, she means that those who disapprove of abortion must give up everything to those who support it. It seems if anyone is being inflexible its the rabid pro-abortion advocates.

And yes, she does say that those who refuse to participate in this scheme should just go to prison:

For those who object, there’s a clear alternative. Protesting the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, Henry David Thoreau withheld his taxes with the understanding that he would have to go to jail for his principles. In reality, he only served one night in jail, but he was willing to pay the price for his convictions. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela paid a much higher price for theirs.

And it certainly is the case that sometimes our laws absolutely must be obeyed and thus the only choice we can give objectors is to go to jail. You cannot opt out of the tax code, for instance, so Thoreau could only either pay the taxes or go to jail. On the other hand, Dr. King was sent to jail based on an unconstitutional law and was eventually freed for that reason. I think most of us agree that Dr. King shouldn't have been forced to go to jail.

And this mandate? It is in my opinion unconstitutional as a violation of one’s right to boycott. It’s one thing to say you have to pay taxes to the government. But it is another thing entirely to say that I must purchase a product or service from a private company. I have a right to dissociate with private persons and companies according to my conscience that, yes, the federal government cannot breach.

In the end her column is a symptom of the deep contradiction in the modern left, where on one hand they have become complete libertarians in the bedroom, but on the other hand they are complete totalitarians everywhere else—and this debate is where those two positions collide. When talking about the right to gay sex, for instance, liberals like to say that what two consenting adults do is none of our business as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. But when we move outside of that context suddenly everything I do apparently hurts someone else sufficiently to justify regulation. This is why I have said before that Obamacare is a direct assault on the so-called right to privacy, and this is why I believe that Justice Kennedy will vote to strike the law down. You cannot say on one hand “my body, my choice” and then turn around and advocate the complete control of every aspect of our healthcare. It simply doesn’t make sense.

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Just a Reminder: Obama WANTS High Gas Prices (With Video Proof)

2012-02-23T10:36:00.000-05:00

So today we see, via ABC news a report on gas prices where during the report itself they saw the station behind them raise prices by ten cents. And it is worth noting that the prices are much, much better where I live—at around $3.60 (recognizing that there are daily fluctuations).

You can watch that on video here. I am not embedding it because ABC videos tend to start on their own, which is annoying. Besides a pair of screencaps tell the whole story. First before:

And now after:

And yes, Obama wants high gas prices. Here’s what he said about this during the 2008 campaign:

Sen. OBAMA: Well, I think that we have been slow to move in a better direction when it comes to energy usage. And the president, frankly, hasn’t had an energy policy. And as a consequence, we’ve been consuming energy as if it’s infinite. We now know that our demand is badly outstripping supply with China and India growing as rapidly as they are. So…

HARWOOD: So could these high prices help us?

Sen. OBAMA: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.

So rising gas prices are a good thing and all he objects to is the speed at which they rose.

And this is not a one-shot. When talking about his energy plans, he told us that prices would necessarily skyrocket:

His goal, as with many environmentalists, is to make you look at the gas prices and say “Holy crap, I need a hybrid.” They want high prices to coerce you into greater energy efficiency. It’s that simple.

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Significant parts of his post cannibalized from a post I wrote at Patterico’s where Obama pretended to be sad about the price of gas.

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The Fundamental Arrogance of Ron Paul’s Isolationism

2012-02-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

Normally, I don’t like to pay much attention to Ron Paul. He isn’t going to be the nominee, and his positions on foreign policy are so wildly wrong, it almost doesn’t seem necessary to even take them down. I mean he is the only Republican running who might convince me to vote for Obama. That is how little I like him.

But this morning I get a pair of headlines that really illuminate a point about his thinking. First, via Brietbart by way of Weasel Zippers, we have this clip of Ron Paul explaining that the reason why Iran is pursuing nukes is because we are threatening them.

Yes, really.

Meanwhile, via Hot Air, we get this from Fars, the official Iranian mouthpiece:

The wife of Martyr Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, who was assassinated by Mossad agents in Tehran in January, reiterated on Tuesday that her husband sought the annihilation of the Zionist regime wholeheartedly.

"Mostafa's ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel," Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani told FNA on Tuesday.

Bolouri Kashani also underlined that her spouse loved any resistance figure in his life who was willing to fight the Zionist regime and supported the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation.

Iran's 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, a chemistry professor and a deputy director of commerce at Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was assassinated during the morning rush-hour in the capital early January. His driver was also killed in the terrorist attack.

Now this is official state news in a nation that doesn’t believe in free speech, so you obviously have to be an extremely discerning reader. For instance, it isn’t established that Mossad had anything to do with this, although it seems very likely that they were. There are also rumors that Iranian resistance fighters might have been involved, as well. And you have to wonder if they are playing down just how important Behdast was to the operation.

But the important thing to get out of this is that according to this state news agency, working at this facility was equivalent to working to destroy Israel. Whether or not the late Mr. Behdast believed that, this state organ wants you to believe that he believed it. That is their official message, to consider him a “martyr” in the “holy crusade” to kill every man, woman and child in Israel.

Along with this and statements by Iranian officials talking about the elimination of Israel, it raises the real specter that their nuclear policy is all about wiping Israel off of the map.

Which brings me back to Ron Paul’s comments and the fundamental arrogance behind them. The fundamental arrogance underlying his argument is that he apparently believes that everything that happens in the world is somehow related to us. Now I believe America is and rightfully should be the most powerful nation on Earth. And I believe that our influence is often exaggerated by evil regimes to make us into a boogeyman to distract the people from their own failures. But one would have to be exceedingly silly to think that everything that happens in the world is related to U.S. policy. People and nations can be and are motivated by more than just their feelings for the U.S. and the Iranian nuclear program seems to be one example of it. It’s not about us, it’s about Israel. I believe sincerely that they want to kill every man, woman and child living in that country and that will happen unless the good people of the world stop them.

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Observations on Jeremy Lin and Anti-Asian-American Prejudice (and False Alarms)

2012-02-20T21:57:00.000-05:00

So apparently this is the theme of the day, bigotry towards Asian Americans. Indeed, when I was watching last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, it was the subject of the opening sketch:

And yes, that NY Post headline, “Amasian!” is real:

And it’s pretty repugnant. What does his race have to do with anything?

Well, then again this story suggests a certain relevance, from Cheaper Than Therapy:

A condensed version of where he came from: Jeremy Lin was a high school basketball star in Palo Alto California. Strangely enough, he was not recruited after his senior year, but Lin still loved the game and sent his resume with DVD highlights to all the ivy league schools, Cal, Stanford, UCLA and Pac 10 schools. A few schools offered him a walk on position, but it was Harvard that took the time to evaluate his game and offer him a position (Ivy League schools don't offer athletic scholarships.)

Even though he had a great college basketball career, he went undrafted in the 2010 NBA draft. On July 21st, of that same year, Lin signed a contract with the Golden State Warriors. He had a bit of a cult following, but his success never really took off. He then had a short stint with the Houston Rockets. He was basically cut by both teams. On December 27th, the New York Knicks claimed Lin solely as a backup. He was living on his brother's couch, but never gave up. On February 4th of this year, Lin's life would change forever. He was put in the game against the Nets because the night before, the Knicks blew a 4th quarter lead over the Celtics. He scored 25 points against the Nets. The next game he played against the Jazz and had 28 points. On the 10th he had 38 points, leading the Knicks to a win over the Lakers. Which led us up to last night's amazing 3-point shot and all the great headlines.

Now the author of that, Kirby, says this is a great inspiration to kids to keep at it and they will get better, etc. Uh, maybe, or maybe the story is that this guy was always going to be great but people kept failing to give him a chance because of his race until one day he got a chance to prove himself and then he promptly started kicking ass. Which is kind of inspirational, too. I don’t know enough about the story to say it is definitely one or the other, but it’s a theory that fits the facts.

And then we have the weird reaction to him. I mean really depends on what is driving it. It might be like the story of Tiger Woods (before he had his bimbo eruptions) where everyone loved the fact that a man was kicking all kinds of ass on courses that literally would exclude him normally because of his race. There is a certain catharsis in that, a positive schadenfreude.

But it seems more like that they can’t believe an Asian dude can play ball this good. So you get that “Amasian!” headline. And when Lin didn’t do so well, two guys used the phrase “chink in the armor.” One guy was fired, the other suspended. Max Bretos did it live on the air but pointed out later his wife was Chinese. Um, okay. He was suspended. Anthony Federico, meanwhile, did it in print, but in his defense he said he had done it a hundred times, presumably with non-Asians involved. He was fired.

The reality is that this is a word that has a racist connotation and a non-racist connotation a point that Frank Wu emphasized once, writing:

He goes on to explain why this kind of experience makes him more sensitive to recognizing where inadvertency occurs:

You can find all this in his excellent book Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White p 24-25. Or well the first few chapters are excellent a tour-de-force, but then it starts losing its focus. Still reading it you will gain a new appreciation of the prejudice that Asian Americans face, including a rare example of statistical proof of the existence and impact of racism. For instance, have you ever heard that Asian American households make just as much as white ones? This is often cited as evidence that people can get over racial discrimination. Only there is one problem: Asian American households have more breadwinners, on average, than white ones.

I don’t know or care to pretend I know what was in Bretos or Frederico’s hearts. If they were clueless of the racial connotation of those words, then their “sin” was in disregarding Lin’s race and treating him just like anyone else, which doesn’t seem like much of a sin when you think about it. Personally I think I would have looked them in the eye, asked them what they meant by it and if they convinced me they sincerely didn’t mean anything by it, let them off with a warning.

To respond otherwise is just linsane.

Sorry. I’m going to stop doing that now.

Hat tip: Patterico.

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Since McCain is in an Apologizing Mood… How About He Apologize for Stereotyping my Wife While He is at it?

2012-02-20T09:19:00.002-05:00

So there was this kerfuffle following CPAC where Robert Stacy McCain, a.k.a. The Other McCain, said this about Hot Air’s Tina Krobe:

Our keen-eyed readers will note that at the 0:28 mark of the video, Miss Korbe gives a little tug at the hem of her skirt and, not to get all Melissa Clouthier about it or anything, some folks might say that’s kind of a telltale clue that your skirt’s too doggone short.

...short skirts and exposed cleavage do not necessarily signal that a woman is up for some action with any dude who’ll give her the price of another hit of methamphetamine. It is true that many hookers dress that way, but not every woman who dresses that way is a hooker.

Or even a Maine College Republican.

Which led him to being kicked out of the Green Room at Hot Air and so on. So today I learn he wrote a mea culpa, saying:

I’ll just apologize.

My part in what has been dubbed “ThighGate“ was rude to Tina Korbe, and my analysis of the personnel policies of Salem Communications was, at the very least, uncharitable.

Then he goes on, and on, and on, and at one point he writes:

Once a conservative journalist has been denounced as a “white supremacist” (!) and labeled a sort of one-man hate group, his future prospects of career advancement might seem less than promising....

Whereas I had been labeled an advocate of “hate,” in fact hate was contrary to my deepest beliefs. If I was forbidden by divine commandment to hate my enemies — indeed, I was enjoined to pray for my enemies — how could anyone possibly suspect that I hated entire races of people I’d never even met, and who had never done me any harm? Granting that such a misperception was possible, and that I bore some responsibility for that, it was still a gross mischaracterization of my intentions. No one who knows me well thinks of me that way.

Well, I will grant you, Mr. McCain that “hate” is a really poor term for what they are getting at. I have known extremely deeply prejudiced people who still weren’t hateful in it. Many of the people who were prejudiced toward me thought that they were doing me a favor by discriminating against me. That is indeed what President Bush (Jr.) was talking about when he mentioned the “soft bigotry of lowered expectations”—one of his more evocative turns-of-phrase.

But the thing is, you are kind of a racist. For instance, back a while ago you did say this:

As Steffgen predicted, the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

And more recently during this controversy you said this, while offending Tina Krobe:

Back in the 1980s, when cable television began bringing to our homes a constant stream of stand-up comics, I remember kind of scratching my head in puzzlement when they’d do jokes about the bad driving habits of Asian women. Because I’m from Atlanta, and we didn’t have a large Asian population, these jokes by West Coast comedians didn’t provoke the laughter of recognition. Then, in 1997, I moved to D.C. which has a fairly large Asian population and . . .

Oh, my God! It’s so true!

Look, I hate to foster negative stereotypes. I’m sure there are many Asian women who are excellent drivers. It’s just that none of those excellent Asian women drivers live in the greater metropolitan Washington, D.C., area.

And everybody who lives in D.C. is laughing their butts off at that joke, because it’s so true. (Asian ladies, please: Take the bus.)

No, Robert it is not true. Of all the accidents, near-misses and so on, that I have seen or been involved in since I moved to this area, I cannot discern any racial, ethnic or gender-based pattern. It’s a veritable united colors of Benetton of bad driving. I mean, last I checked this person lived somewhere in the D.C. area:

And I would feel safer in her car than most of the maniacs in the area. And of course my wife falls under your stereotyping and the only problem I have with her driving is that she is not aggressive enough to cut through traffic when we are short on time. But then I am from frickin’ DFW, the graduate school of traffic.

So, since you are in an apologizing mood, how about taking that back, too?

Really, Robert, most of us like you. And I find you to be a dang interesting blogger. But please stop talking about race until you mature considerably on the subject. Maybe hate isn’t the right word, but it is prejudice and it is not cool.

Update: I am being told by a friend that Michelle Malkin no longer lives in the D.C. area and her homepage confirms. So now McCain has an out--he can claim it is only true since she left!

Joking aside, it doesn't disturb my central point.

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Wringing Good Out of the Evil of Whitney Houston’s Death

2012-02-11T23:22:00.003-05:00

Update: Prompted by a comment by JD's over at Patterico's, I have to say this is probably the best way to remember her.

What a fabulous voice, and a horrible waste. And as noted in the Washington Post, you can buy a copy of this as a single and the proceeds will go to 9-11 related charities, it seems.

--------------------------

So this night we learn that Whitney Houston has died. There is no official cause of death but...

We all know what it was. In some way or another, more than likely drugs killed her. I mean feel free to wait for verification, but we all know it. We saw it coming a mile away.

I admit I chuckled a little in watching the outrageous clips on The Soup, but part of me felt profoundly sad watching her downfall. I am not saying I am a superfan or anything I am not, but she had a gorgeous voice and for years she seemed like a nice, normal, very “together” kind of woman. She seemed like the kind of person who could be a positive role model to girls everywhere. And now she is a cautionary tale.

I admit listening years ago to the Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., had a profound effect upon my thinking. On phrase that stuck with me in particular was this one: “God still has a way of wringing good out of evil.” He said that standing by the grave of three little girls who were murdered by Klan terrorists while attending Sunday school, but it is a phrase that has a broader application.

If Whitney Houston died of drugs, that is an evil. I won’t call her evil. I generally try to be a love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin-kind-of-guy. Well, I try. But her death is an evil and a horrible waste. And if there is any good that can be wrung from it, it is as a warning. Drugs took her down. It took this beautiful, talented, classy woman down. And if that convinces one person to quit, or never to start in the first place, then there can be some redemption in this otherwise horrible, pointless end to her life.

And I hope Ms. Houston can find peace in the next life.

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Once Again, the Obamacare Mandate is a Violation of Freedom of Speech

2012-02-10T12:00:00.004-05:00

Update: Obama just announced his "compromise" which is pretty much what was predicted and as usual pretends everyone is playing politics, except him who rises above everything. Right.

So all week there has been this uproar about the recent ruling that religious employers—like churches or church-based hospitals—would be required to provide “contraception,” a popular euphemism for a set of rules that include coverage for the abortion pill. Last Sunday I was at a Catholic church and just about the entire homily (or “Sermon” to us Protestants) was reading off a letter in protest of this policy. And today we get word of a weak “accommodation” where the religious based employers will not have to provide it in their insurance policies, but the insurance companies would still have to provide it to the policy-holders.

So how does that work? Ordinarily insurance works by taking a large number of policy holders’ money and putting it into a pool and then distributing the benefits to policy holders. Instead of that, it won’t be officially offered as part of these employers’ plans, but it will be part of the package of benefits they offer, paid for presumably by the common pool. Which, gosh sounds like exactly the same thing but with the usual governmental layer of red-tape, regulation and bull____.

Of course that is only the rumor of the offer, and possibly even a trial balloon, so maybe that won’t be the final proposal.

But the funny thing is that I addressed this very issue a few months back and pointed out that this is positively a reason why the Obamacare mandate (to employers or individuals) is unconstitutional. You see very often the argument against the mandate focuses on the idea that the Federal Government doesn’t have the power to force you to buy a good or service. And they are certainly right. But you can say more than just that the Constitution doesn’t affirmative grant the power. You can say that the Constitution affirmatively prohibits the Federal Government from enacting such a mandate. There is also a positive right not to buy a good or service from a private company, in the First Amendment.

There is, after all, a right to boycott. As I wrote over a year ago when discussing the Liberty University case (a less-famous Obamacare challenge by Liberty University and scattered individuals):

[I]s there an expressive element to refusing to engage in a transaction, ever?

Of course there is, and it is one of the oldest forms of expression known: the boycott.

Liberty University and the scattered individuals who sued in this case have a constitutional right to refuse to associate with any entity that engages in abortion, to boycott it (and this is true of any issue, not just abortion). Even if none of their money touches an abortion doctor’s hand, they are allowed to say, “as long as you allow this, I will not contribute my money to your company. I will not associate with you.”

In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Supreme Court said that “[t]he right of the States to regulate economic activity could not justify a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott designed to force governmental and economic change and to effectuate rights guaranteed by the Constitution itself.” The same would assuredly apply to the Federal Government. And yet this decision has effectively said that where interstate commerce is involved (and according to the court [in Liberty University] it is always involved in everything, apparently), Congress can effectively outlaw the boycott.

I mean consider a simple example. Rosa Parks one day decides she is not giving up her seat to a white man even though a law purports to require her to, and as a result, she is arrested. In response Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others lead a boycott of the bus system. But, according to the court in Liberty University, Congress could pass a law requiring every person to use a city bus for transportation where it is available, and thus outlaw the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

And this applies to any issue you are concerned about. Maybe you don’t want to deal with any country that invests in Israel. Or you are upset at a company because it has divested from Israel. Or whatever your issue is. The point is that people boycott companies for lots of different reasons if you are forced into an economic relationship with a company against your will, it is a violation of your right to boycott.

And really, in general, the government should not make a person choose between reasonable, deeply held convictions and obeying the law.

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Friday Frivolity: The Really George? Really? Edition...

2012-02-10T09:52:00.002-05:00

So today George Lucas is celebrating the re-release of the beloved Star Wars franchise, in 3D, starting with...

Wait, this can’t be right... Really? The Phantom Menace? He thinks that is the movie to start off with? Not, say, Star Wars, which now we are all required to call Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope?

Um, okay. And if that is not enough to annoy the crap out of the fanboys, well, he now is trying to deny history. I mean this may be a generational thing, but remember when you were watching the original Star Wars and Greedo had the gun pointed at Han Solo and Solo keeps him distracted until he could pull out his gun and shoots the guy right then and there.

Well, sorry, you were wrong. Greedo always shot first. So says Lucas (via Hot Air):

THR: People can get fanatical about the movies — how does that make you feel? The puppet vs. CGI Yoda ruckus, and the who-shot-first, Han Solo or Greedo furor come to mind.

Lucas: Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.

It’s the same thing with Yoda. We tried to do Yoda in CGI in Episode I, but we just couldn’t get it done in time. We couldn’t get the technology to work, so we had to use the puppet, but the puppet really wasn’t as good as the CGI. So when we did the reissue, we had to put the CGI back in, which was what it was meant to be.

If you look at Blade Runner, it’s been cut sixteen ways from Sunday and there are all kinds of different versions of it. Star Wars, there’s basically one version — it just keeps getting improved a little bit as we move forward. … All art is technology and it improves every year. Whether it’s on the stage or in music or in painting, there are technological answers that happen, and because movies are so technological, the advances become more obvious.

Now, look I don’t get all worked up about the changes in the 1997 version. It’s annoying, but I guess I can happily ignore the whole thing, but this is just insulting to our intelligence. Yes, Han did shoot first, and we were not confused on this point, George. Watch for yourself:

You changed it in the re-release, George. Just admit that. You didn’t like how things would look to kids, so you changed it. Don’t insult our intelligence by saying it was this way all along. Because it is the B.S. involved that annoys me this morning, not the change itself.

But I think the deeper problem here is simply this. Lucas just has no idea how important this stuff is to the series fans. I guess it is hard for the creator to understand that sort of thing, but there it is. And for many fans, revising Star Wars is like revising the Bible or something. Adding to it, is like adding to the Bible. It can be done, but it takes a lot more finesse than Lucas has shown lately.

Myself, while I do think the Greedo shot first sequence is inferior to the original, I don’t get bent out of shape about it. And yes, there is simply no way the prequels could have lived up to the expectations built up after 20+ years of loving the hell out of the originals so I am a little more forgiving. They are still vastly inferior movies, but there are some ways in which the prequels do actually improve things with the originals.

Let me give you a concrete example. Many people complain that in Return of the Jedi, Luke had become much less likeable. Well, now when you watch the prequels, you realize that Lucas was trying to make him a little unlikeable. The point was that Luke was getting arrogant. The whole Jabbba’s palace sequence was Luke being arrogant about his power, because he really was falling into the dark side. And another thing that comes out in the Prequels is how subtle the Emperor’s plans were in the prequels v. how clumsy they were in the original, suggesting that the Emperor had become arrogant himself. The prequels made that clear to me.

But at the same time, I think IGN is offering a very feeble defense of the Phantom Menace, here.

I think the biggest problem with the prequels is this. They did too much telling and not enough showing. That is something they drill into fiction writers: show, don’t tell. So you are told that Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin are good friends in Attack of the Clones, but you really can’t tell because they spend most of the movie bickering. It isn’t until Revenge that you get a scene where they actually show some warmth and friendship. And they keep telling you that the Senate is corrupt and the republic is dysfunctional, but you never actually see it. And it certainly doesn’t help that the droid troops are some of the least-inspiring enemies ever. The Storm Troopers could never shoot straight, but at least they looked and sounded reasonably dangerous.

Meanwhile, Allah at Hot Air shows, I think, waaaaaay too much faith in Spielberg:

The difference between Lucas and Spielberg is how Lucas re-edited the Greedo scene and how Spielbergdidn’t re-edit the scene of Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Spielberg fully understands why the latter is so cool. He wouldn’t change it if you chained him to the editing machine, I’d bet.

Well, except there is the gun => walkie talkie thing in the re-release of E.T. I think what Spielberg understood in 1982 and briefly forgot in 2002, was that a good fairy tale needs a little darkness. But in Allah’s defense, Spielberg is penitent:

For myself, I tried [changing a film] once and lived to regret it. Not because of fan outrage, but because I was disappointed in myself. I got overly sensitive to [some of the reaction] to E.T., and I thought if technology evolved, [I might go in and change some things]…it was OK for a while, but I realized what I had done was I had robbed people who loved E.T. of their memories of E.T. [...] If I put just one cut of E.T. on Blu-ray and it was the 1982, would anyone object to that? [The crowd yells "NO!" in unison.] OK, so be it.

See here. He said similar things, here.

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PETA Should be Sanctioned For Its Suit Claiming that Orcas are Covered by the Thirteenth Amendment

2012-02-09T12:22:00.002-05:00

Strap yourselves in because this is a long one, as I get into some philosophical and moral issues, before I get to the bottom line.

So via Hot Air we find out that a Federal Judge has ruled remarkably that an entire class is excluded from the Thirteenth Amendment. Who is this group that has been shockingly excluded from protection from being enslaved and/or subjected to involuntary servitude?

Orcas.

You know, these things:

(Those whistles and clicks translate to “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home.”)

Yes, that is right, PETA filed suit claiming that Orcas were protected by the Thirteenth Amendment and therefore Sea World had unlawfully enslaved them and otherwise treated them horribly. You can read the complaint here. I have been trying to locate the motion to dismiss and any opposition to that motion that PETA filed, because that would contain more meaty discussion of the central legal issue—whether the Thirteenth Amendment applies to non-humans at all. But so far I have had no luck finding that, so consider this a bleg.

Look, I am not unsympathetic to the idea that at some point a being becomes sentient enough that the law should provide some protections to them.

[The next paragraph contains a minor *SPOILER* about my novel Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History (which you can purchase here). Bluntly, it reveals something most people would figure out by the end of the second chapter. But if you would prefer to be surprised, skip the next paragraph.]

For instance, the main character in my novel is an alien, and at one point an FBI agent points out to him that our criminal laws did not protect him from harm, saying “the laws on murder cover only humans. You shoot a dog or a chimp, it isn’t murder. At worst, it is cruelty to animals. Now maybe you would be lucky and the courts would interpret the laws to include a non-human like you, but wouldn’t you rather get a guarantee on that subject?”

[Spoilers end.]

Indeed in Roe v. Wade, the non-personhood of fetuses was key to that decision, too:

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a “person” within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument.

But, the Supreme Court found, the fetus is not a person, and thus not entitled to constitutional protection. Now if you believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, and that a fetus should be considered a person for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, I would ask you on what you base that assessment. For me, the most logical thing is what I call the sentience standard—that when the fetus reaches the stage where the brain comes typically “online” it should be treated as a person. And notice I am talking about the point in time when most humans become “sentient”—I am not open to arguments that a person who is retarded or something like that is not “sentient” and therefore not a person. And I base it on a term that you have heard many times: quick. You have heard this in your church on a regular basis, when you are told that God will judge the “quick and the dead.” And very often people do not know that in this context, “quick” is not a reference to speed, but to life. Roe v. Wade, however, explains the term:

It is undisputed that at common law, abortion performed before “quickening”— the first recognizable movement of the fetus in utero, appearing usually from the 16th to the 18th week of pregnancy—was not an indictable offense. The absence of a common-law crime for pre-quickening abortion appears to have developed from a confluence of earlier philosophical, theological, and civil and canon law concepts of when life begins.

So all of those times when heard people say God will judge the quick and the dead, that refers to anyone alive, including fetuses who have shown signs of movement.

I think it is inherently dubious to read a right to an abortion into the Fourteenth Amendment in the first place, but if one is going to read it in, then this common law notion of when life begins, or at least a modern analogue such as the sentience standard I suggested above, should have controlled.

And in my personal morality and my policy preferences, I think that is about right, too. If E.T. landed tomorrow in my back yard and said, “I come in peace” and in all respects was acting peaceful, but my neighbor shoots it dead in cold blood that should be considered murder. And likewise, if a woman is about to give birth to her child, and a man shoots her in the belly and killing her fetus, that should be murder, too. And here is where I might part ways with a lot of you philosophically, but I equally believe that if Chimpanzees can make tools and form language, if they are as intelligent as a three year old human (as it is often formulated), then isn’t experimenting on them like experimenting on a three year old human? Yes, that means I am morally opposed to some of the most useful data you can obtain in animal testing, but that is what morality sometimes is about—doing what is right, even if doing what is wrong is useful.

Of course I don’t see any need to change the law to include E.T. just yet. We can wait until the day comes when one of them does land here. But on the other hand, I do think that killing a fetus at the stage when sentience occurs should be murder,* and I think animals who achieve a certain quantum of intelligence should be protected as well. But I would never dream of arguing that the Constitution requires us to treat sentient aliens and animals as people, under any of the amendments.

And the Hon. Jeffrey Miller reaches this correct conclusion vis-à-vis the Thirteenth Amendment in his opinion, which you can read here. And there is nothing wrong with it, but I think there is one picture that could sum up the colossal silliness of PETA’s argument:

As the Supreme Court said in Ex Parte Bain:

It is never to be forgotten that, in the construction of the language of the Constitution here relied on, as indeed in all other instances where construction becomes necessary, we are to place ourselves as nearly as possible in the condition of the men who framed that instrument.

What is considered unusual and quaint today, the use of horses as a method of transportation as well as for labor (such as pulling a plow), was commonplace in the day of the founding. And let’s face it, if we said that the Thirteenth Amendment applied to animals, one would be hard pressed to explain why horses were not “enslaved” by humans. I mean one way to think of slavery is as the attempt to transform a free man or woman into a beast of burden. And it was common in the parlance of the day to say that slaves were being treated “like animals”—and indeed, even worse than animals in many respects. And yet no one thought on the day after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified that the use of horses for transportation and labor was banned. Indeed, if the founders wanted to apply that language to non-humans at all, you would think that they would carve out an exception for horses and other similar beasts of burden because the use of such animals was so vital to the functioning of human society. It would be more significant than banning the use of gasoline in our society today.

But of course PETA gave much of their game away when they wrote this in their complaint (which is linked, here):

Moreover, our Constitutional jurisprudence is the story of the courts interpreting, applying, and expanding Constitutional protections to new groups and circumstances.

What they were asking for, therefore, was an extreme act of judicial activism, which would either declare unconstitutional a practice that was extremely commonplace at the time of the founding—the use of horses and other animals as beasts of burden—or they were going to ask the judge to carve out a whole new doctrine that somehow draws a line that says that horses are not protected by the Thirteenth Amendment but orcas are, which would have no basis in the text of the amendment. Indeed, it would be dangerous to read any such distinction into the text. A blanket prohibition, applied solely to humans, makes more sense.

But bluntly, I believe that this filing was in violation of FederalRule of Civil Procedure Rule 11. It requires that all pleadings be signed and in signing them, it is certified that, among other things, that

the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;

Now, because of rampant judicial activism you can make a lot of “nonfrivolous” arguments for changing the law that would have been laughed out of court a hundred years ago. I mean just the other day the Ninth Circuit said that after the California Supreme Court said that people had the right to marry persons of the same sex, that the people of California had no right to change the law back to what it was before that fit of activism. You know, because the evangelical Christians who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment were open-minded about gay relationships. *rolls eyes* Likewise, if you said in 1869 that the new Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed a right to abortion they would have thought you were nuts. So you can make a lot of arguments today that would have seemed frivolous back when judicial activism was less brazen.

But this plainly crosses a line. I don’t believe a single competent lawyer would have predicted any chance of this succeeding. To be blunt, like most of what PETA does, this was most likely their attempt to generate publicity. And Rule 11 provides for sanctions for the violation of this rule, and I think that they should be given in this case. At the very least, PETA should have to pay Sea World’s costs and legal fees in defending this ridiculous thing.

I mean if you want to get into how radically far off the map this is, consider this line passage from Sierra Club v. Morton (1972). The issue was about standing. You have to have standing in order to sue, and you have to be actually injured by the conduct at issue, or else you don’t have standing. And the issue there was when does one have standing to challenge a plan to destroy the natural beauty of a place? In that case, the court held more or less that at the very least you had to actually use the land in question, writing:

The alleged injury will be felt directly only by those who use Mineral King and Sequoia National Park, and for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be lessened by the highway and ski resort. The Sierra Club failed to allege that it or its members would be affected in any of their activities or pastimes by the Disney development. Nowhere in the pleadings or affidavits did the Club state that its members use Mineral King for any purpose, much less that they use it in any way that would be significantly affected by the proposed actions of the respondents.

But that is not the part I want you to pay attention to. I want you to pay attention to this passage from Justice Douglas’s dissent, where he wrote:

The critical question of “standing” would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or federal courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage. Contemporary public concern for protecting nature's ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation... This suit would therefore be more properly labeled as Mineral King v. Morton.

Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole—a creature of ecclesiastical law—is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases. The ordinary corporation is a “person” for purposes of the adjudicatory processes, whether it represents proprietary, spiritual, aesthetic, or charitable causes.

So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes—fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it. Those people who have a meaningful relation to that body of water—whether it be a fisherman, a canoeist, a zoologist, or a logger—must be able to speak for the values which the river represents and which are threatened with destruction.

This is famously one of the silliest passages from one of our silliest Supreme Court justices. I mean what exactly is the interest of a “beach” and who would be able to speak for it anyway?

Oh wait, maybe this guy:

(Btw, that “Native American” Iron Eyes Cody in that ad, is actually an American of Italian descent who was born as Espera de Corti. So there.)

Joking aside, it was an unworkable policy. But notice here that Douglas wasn’t say that the law presently did this or that they should rule that way—only that the law should say this. So even in his mind, only humans had standing to sue in federal court. And his ideas about giving rocks standing by changing the rules of procedure have been thoroughly ignored (except in mockery) ever since.

So PETA’s argument was frankly beyond any reasonable interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment or even for judicial activism, because even judicial activists have limits. And as such should be this conduct sanctioned. Again, at the very least, they should have to pay Sea World's costs and legal fees, rather than the public who will have to pay for this with higher ticket prices (which is assuredly another goal of PETA, to make running a place like Sea World less profitable).

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* And note that saying that killing a fetus at this stage should be considered murder doesn’t mean that all abortions would become illegal. Not all killing—indeed no all uses of force—is illegal.

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Btw, notice that Sierra Club v. Morton could have been decided in a much simpler way in the eyes of those who deride Citizens United. The Supreme Court could have said that since Sierra Club was a corporation it had no rights, and be done with it. After all, it says in the opinion, Sierra Club is a corporation.

And that also means that under the rule struck down in Citizens United, the Sierra Club could be prevented from advocating for against a person’s election. Indeed, that was one of the specific examples of “core political speech” that McCain-Feingold banned mentioned in the opinion:

The law before us is an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations—including nonprofit advocacy corporations—either to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. Thus, the following acts would all be felonies under § 441b: The Sierra Club runs an ad, within the crucial phase of 60 days before the general election, that exhorts the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests; the National Rifle Association publishes a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U.S. Senator supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate's defense of free speech. These prohibitions are classic examples of censorship.

So if you just thought that the Supreme Court ruled wrongly against Sierra Club in Mortion but also ruled wrongly in Citizens United, one might consider reevaluating your position.

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In Which Brett Kimberlin, Convicted Terrorist and Perjurer, Tries to Get Me Killed (In My Opinion)

2012-02-04T20:01:00.000-05:00

(This is my latest entry in the Kimberlin saga. To catch up on the whole thing, use this link.)

First, I am sorry to everyone for the very light blogging. Mind you, I have been writing up a storm, on my off-time, but most of it is not for public consumption. Maybe someday the whole story will come out, but as I said before, sometimes it is malpractice to share what I know with the whole world.

But the subject of today’s entry is not one of those times. Now some people might argue that Brett Kimberlin is reformed. They might say, yes, Brett did horrible things in the past. He is, after all, a convicted terrorist known as the speedway bomber Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527 (6^th Cir. 1993), he was held liable for the death of Carl DeLong, Kimberlin v. DeLong, 637 N.E.2d 121 (Ind., 1994), and Kimberlin is also a convicted perjurer, Kimberlin v. White, 798 F.Supp. 472 (1992), but he has been released from prison and now he has learned his lesson and he would never try to harm another person again. Or so the argument goes.

Well, it looks like the reformation didn’t exactly take. You see on January 5, in my opinion, he literally tried to get me killed.

On that day, he filed a motion to withdraw as moot his various subpoenas designed to determine my identity. The basis of this was that he learned my real name and therefore it was no longer necessary to subpoena Google or Comcast to get that information. And all he had to do, then, was to say that he obtained the information by other means—he didn’t even need to write down my name. But instead, he also included the following information in the motion itself:

My real name.
My home address.
My birth date.
Where and when I attended high school.
When I dropped out.
When I got my GED.
Where and when I attended undergraduate school.
Information from a suit filed under seal.
Where and when I attended law school.
My current position, my current employer and their address.

In other words, a “stalkerish” level of information. In my opinion, his goal in doing that was so that his co-conspirators, including Neal Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert, could then put that information on the web with the “fig leaf” that they were just reporting on the contents of public documents. And the court agreed with me on this point put it all under seal, because the court recognized that there was no valid purpose in putting all that information into the document. So now it is no longer a public record. Sorry guys, you have no fig leaf! You’ll have to face liability under Va. Code §18.2-46.5 on your own!

And if there is any doubt as to Kimberlin’s intent, well, then you need to know about something else Kimberlin did on or about January 5, 2011. He wrote a letter and email to the FBI, and two local police departments. He told them that he was sooooo worried that I would get hurt and therefore they should act to protect me and anyone living and working near me. I am going to give the text of the letter with obvious redactions and with “John Doe” substituted for my real name:

[FBI Address]

January 5, 2012

[Local Police Addresses]

Re: Police Protection of [John Doe], DOB [redacted]

Dear Law Enforcement Agencies:

I am writing to ask your agencies to provide protection to [John Doe], who has expressed concern for his and his wife's physical safety from Muslim extremists. Mr. [Doe] is an attorney licensed by the [redacted] bar, who lives at [my home address]. He is now working as corporate counsel at a health care provider by the name of [redacted], located at [redacted].

The reason Mr. [Doe]'s life may be in danger is that he has been identified in a civil case in Maryland, Kimberlin v. Allen, 339254-V, Montgomery County Circuit Court, as the creator of a blog called www.EveryoneDrawMohammed.blogspot.com.

Notice the use of the passive voice, so that it doesn’t highlight the fact that he is the one who identified me, and therefore created the danger in the first place.

Mr. [Doe] created and has published that blog for more than a year using the pseudonym "Aaron Worthing." He urged people to draw and submit pictures to him of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed in various derogatory ways...

Actually I didn’t ask them to be derogatory. I specifically told them they could be as inoffensive as they prefer, because to some radicals any depiction was sufficient, and I figured I would let everyone else’s conscience be their guide.

...in order show support for Danish cartoonists who had a fatwa issued against them for drawing cartoons ridiculing Mohammed. Muslims who were offended by the depictions then made several violent attacks against the Danish cartoonists and publisher.

Mr. [Doe] has published hundreds of depictions on Mohammed on his EveryoneDrawMohammed [sic] blog, and he has indicated that he fears that he and wife will be subjected to harm now that he has been identified as the creator of the blog. His blog has been banned in Muslim countries,...

Let me break in there for a moment. I have only heard of the blog being banned in Pakistan.

...and the State Department has stated that his blog is harming the interests of the United States because it inflames anti-American sentiments.

Let me break in again. To my knowledge they have never singled out my blog.

Therefore, there exists the very real probability that Mr. [Doe] could be subjected to serious harm or death now that his identity has been exposed. Moreover, because he lives in a townhouse with many adjacent neighbors, and works in a large building with hundreds of other people, any attack against him could result in collateral harm to others. In light of these concerns, I strongly urge your agencies to develop a plan to protect not only Mr. [Doe] and his wife from any such harm both at work and in their home, but also to protect those who live and work near them.

Sincerely,

Brett Kimberlin

[Kimberlin’s phone number omitted, because I am a classier guy than Brett.]

So let’s review, shall we? Brett Kimberlin intentionally outs me in court papers, including putting my home and work addresses. And bear in mind, at that point in time he was the only person revealing my name to the world. The court later holds that he has no legitimate reason to have put all of that information into his motion to withdraw—all he had to do was say he got my information from another source and that was it.

So if the court had not, in its wisdom, placed that motion under seal, then the obvious and foreseeable result of his action is that if any Islamofascist terrorist wanted to kill me, they would only have to use Google maps to find me. There is no rational dispute on that point, because Kimberlin pretty much said this to law enforcement himself. Let me quote the letter again: “Therefore, there exists the very real probability that Mr. [Doe] could be subjected to serious harm or death now that his identity has been exposed.”

Of course Kimberlin has attempted to portray writing this letter as him being an upstanding citizen, who just wanted to alert authorities to the danger I faced. In my opinion, that is bull. If he was truly concerned for my safety, then he wouldn’t have included all that personal information in his Motion to Withdraw in the first place. He wouldn’t have even mentioned my name.

And he wouldn’t have done it twice. Yes, that is right, on or about January 17, he filed a motion to unseal that motion to withdraw, but this time he put my real name in the caption itself. It was originally entitled “Plaintiff’s Motion to Unseal Pleadings Related to [my real name] aka Aaron Worthing” so that it would appear right in the Maryland Court databases. And after I filed an emergency motion the court sealed the document, and changed the name of the motion in the database to “Plaintiff’s Motion to Unseal Pleadings Related to John Doe.”

I mean doesn’t that give his intent away? This is just my opinion based on the facts I just gave you, but let’s pretend he included my identifying information innocently the first time. I don’t think he was innocent, but let’s play pretend, shall we? But since the court ruled that it was improper to have put that information in the pleading and sealed it the first time, in my opinion there can be no question he was doing this intentionally the second time.

And there was certainly no question he was doing this on purpose... when he did it a third time. Yes, on or about January 27, 2012, he filed a response to my emergency motion mentioned in the last paragraph. And this new filing was filled to the brim with lies—objectively verifiable lies. He lied about the what the court ruled, and even lied about my novel. And once again Kimberlin disclosed my name in the public record, by including his copy of the same letter to law enforcement I just quoted to you, but without redacting my name, address and work address, or voluntarily placing it under seal. But another emergency motion made sure it was placed under seal and thus it is no longer a public record.

So as the title indicates, it is only my opinion that he is deliberately trying to get me killed. He assures me that this is not his intent, but in my opinion his actions make his intentions clear. He has admitted that he knows his conduct creates “very real probability that Mr. [Doe] could be subjected to serious harm or death now that his identity has been exposed.” And he is not doing this by accident, so he is intentionally engaged in conduct that will create a serious risk of harm or death, both to myself and any innocents that surround me. And he has done this three times, now. And in my opinion, he has absolutely no justification for this conduct.

In my opinion, this is revenge against me, for the slight representation I offered to Seth Allen, and for exposing Kimberlin’s thuggish behavior to the world, as well as for exposing credible allegations that he committed perjury. So in my opinion, this convicted terrorist attempted to recruit other terrorists to do his dirty work for him.

And as for his letter to authorities, I think his intent is revealed in this portion:

Moreover, because he lives in a townhouse with many adjacent neighbors, and works in a large building with hundreds of other people, any attack against him could result in collateral harm to others. In light of these concerns, I strongly urge your agencies to develop a plan to protect not only Mr. [Doe] and his wife from any such harm both at work and in their home, but also to protect those who live and work near them.

In my opinion, his purpose in writing this letter was to ensure the maximum disruption of my life, by sending the police to both locations.

So if you help this man and his co-conspirators, then that is what you are aiding. If you donate to his various non-profits, maybe they do lots of other good work, but you are also helping support this piece of human filth who probably should never have been set free in the first place.

Oh, and by the way, if you do more than aid, if you cross the line into becoming a co-conspirator—or have already crossed that line—then you are just as liable for any civil or criminal consequences as Kimberlin. Any time you enter into a conspiracy, each participant is equally guilty of all the crimes (or civil wrongs) committed by each member. And while I can’t give you legal advice, I can say you definitely want to talk to a lawyer to find out how you can limit your liability for his behavior, before he gets you into more trouble.

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Proof That Hollywood’s Anti-War Propaganda Has Claimed Lives

2012-01-23T11:21:00.000-05:00

This isn’t a call for censorship, but for responsibility. You see about a year ago, an Islamofascist idiot killed two of our airmen, and two Americans helped to apprehend their killer and there have been developments in the case:

Germany's government presented the nation's highest civilian award Monday to two Americans who helped apprehend an Islamic extremist after he attacked a U.S. Air Force bus last year and killed two airmen.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich awarded the Federal Cross of Merit to U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Trevor Brewer and civilian airport employee Lamar Conner, both of whom chased the suspect until police could apprehend him, saying their deeds "were an example for all of us."

Arid Uka, a 21-year-old Kosovo Albanian, is currently on trial for the March 2 slayings and has admitted to the charges. He faces up to life in prison, and a verdict and sentence are expected Thursday.

And what motivated the attacks? Well, let’s hear from the Islamofascist himself:

Uka gave a teary confession as his Frankfurt state court trial opened in August, saying that the night before the attack he had seen a video on Facebook that purported to show American soldiers raping a teenage Muslim girl. It turned out to be a scene from the 2007 Brian De Palma anti-war film "Redacted," taken out of context.

Uka told the court the video prompted him to do anything possible to prevent American soldiers from going to Afghanistan.

Now who knows? Maybe something else would set him off, but for a Hollywood that has produced endless streams of anti-war propaganda, but hardly anything in praise of even the Afghan war—you know, the one everyone claimed to support—it is a predictable result that all this anti-war propaganda would have a body count. The founders didn’t protect freedom of speech because they wanted us to have no restraints, but because the founders believed that the only restraints should be self-imposed. So we are not excused from our moral responsibilities.

And I will add this, too. I am sure there is hardly a liberal alive who would advocate censoring this movie and I would agree, but here’s the thing. It’s also corporate speech—so according to the liberal view, the Supreme Court should have ruled that corporations have no expressive rights and thus we could have censored that movie freely, right? Just like Hillary: The Movie, right?

Or do you think maybe the Supreme Court was right to say that the First Amendment applies to even corporate speech?

Hat tip: Daily Caller.

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Breaking: Gabby Giffords to Resign

2012-01-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

It’s sad, and infuriating, but it was also the right thing to do, given her situation:

Giffords to step down from Congress

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will step down from Congress this week to focus on her recovery, her staff announced Sunday.

"I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona, I will step down this week," Giffords said in a video message.

Giffords, a third-generation Arizonan who served five years in the state Legislature before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006, will not seek re-election this fall.

Giffords vowed to return public service.

"I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country," she said.

(Source.) Any political assassination—or in this case, an attempt at assassination that rendered its victim significantly disabled for some time to come—is a slap in the face of democracy. As I wrote over at Patterico’s a while back:

I don’t know or particularly care what she stood for on each of the issues. She could have been for everything I am against and against everything I am for. Because to me the issue is higher than normal politics. It’s the fact that she was chosen to represent her district and as such they are entitled to the representative they have chosen. And one man has vetoed that decision, an act that is unacceptable in a Republic.

But on the other hand, despite the fact that the situation fundamentally stank, I did think about nine months ago that it was time for her to step down, or for Congress to declare her seat vacant, writing:

although it is unacceptable for one criminal to deny the people of Arizona their voice in Congress, it is the reality we live with. Now there is a state law on the subject of dubious constitutionality, but it is obviously the case that the House of Representatives can declare her seat vacant, requiring the Governor to call an election. So let me suggest this as a procedure. Declare the seat vacant, hold the special election and then … let Gabby run for the seat if she wants. If the people of Arizona prefer to keep her on until she is able to serve again, then we in the rest of the country can hardly complain. But they should give their opinion on the subject.

It appears now there will be a special election in a bit to determine who gets to serve out the remainder of her term, short though it is. And at least we can be spared of this:

Representative Gabrielle Giffords is still in the hospital, but some of her most ardent backers are so enamored of the idea of her running for the Senate that they describe the inevitable campaign commercials: the deep-voiced narrator recounting what happened to her, the images of her wounded, then recovering and speaking into the camera alongside her astronaut husband to call on Arizonans to unite.

The whole thing made me throw up a little in my mouth. As I wrote at the time:

Seriously, what could be a better example of victim-status politics than that? They aren’t arguing that she should be reelected because she is the best and the brightest, or because she supports the policies you believe in. Nor are they arguing that she should be reelected in spite of being the victim of a crime. They are saying to elect her because she was the victim of a crime. Does that make any sense to you?

So at least we will be spared of that.

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It’s Admirable to Call Women B*tches? A Fisking of Althouse

2012-01-19T12:16:00.000-05:00

I generally like Ann Althouse, but I think she went really wrong with this one.

So yesterday there was a rumor that Jay-Z had decided to stop using the word “b*tch” in his music, prompted by the birth of his daughter. This was based on a poem he allegedly wrote which said:

Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich

I didn’t think hard about using the word bitch

I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it

Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it

Which kind-of sort-of indicates that he was swearing it off, and that led to an editorial in the Guardian which led to commentary by Althouse. And then a while later, Rolling Stone reports that the whole thing as false (leading Althouse to update the story). Of course one might suspect that Jay-Z was floating a trial balloon and when his fans reacted negatively, he decided to pretend he never said it, but really I am not interested in whether this story is true or not. I am interested in Althouse’s reaction to it, before the Rolling Stone article came along dispelling the rumor. So leaving out the update where she mentions the Rolling Stone article, she writes:

Now that he has a baby girl, Jay-Z will eschew the word "bitch."

Is that enough?

Is it even admirable? If you do something only when you've acquired a self-interest, it seems to me it would be more admirable to continue doing what you were doing before.

Now, I am not personally opposed to all uses of the word “b*tch.” If someone really deserves it, I call them either a b*tch or a b*stard, depending on gender. But Guardian commenter Tricia Rose has a pretty valid point when she says:

It is quite true that hip-hop has played a starring role in making sexist ideas sexy, visible and funky. Through the power of black music, style, swagger and lyrical creativity, Jay-Z and many other highly successful rappers (e.g, Snoop Dog, 50 Cent and Lil' Wayne) have expanded the visibility and value of aggressively sexist lyrics. And, frankly, if you want to find openly celebrated sexism against black women, there is no richer contemporary source than commercial, mainstream hip-hop.

This hasn't happened because commercially powerful artists have randomly or dutifully dropped a sexist word here or there to punctuate an infectious beat. Whole identities in countless songs rely on excessively sexist behaviour and name-calling to define the protagonist's power and importance.

So let’s pretend that he really did decide to do this (even though he denied it later). We still have Althouse stepping in and suggesting that he was doing this out of “self-interest.”

Well, now is that exactly right? I mean he doesn’t personally benefit from this conduct—instead his daughter does. So that is a dubious definition of self-interest. I think there are lots of parents who consider themselves selfless when they give up something for their children. But that is a forgivable error—it suggests that in Althouse’s mind she identifies so much with the good of her children that she considers their interests to be her “self-interest.” But she is technically wrong.

The deeper error is that she discounted the possibility of a real change in heart. It is hardly a new story to have a man witness the miracle of childbirth and for him to become a deeper person at that moment. Some lessons in life, you can only learn by experience.

(Which apparently Jay-Z now is claiming he didn’t learn. Again that returns me to the trial balloon theory—maybe he didn’t want to be that image anymore and was looking for a graceful way to leave it behind.)

And all of this is an example of how Ann Althouse is in many respects a leftist, although a moderate one. It is fashionable chiefly on the left these days to pretend that the worst sin that a person could commit is to be a hypocrite. So she thinks it is more admirable to be a consistent pig than to hypocritically stop being one out of the “self-interest” of having a daughter. It’s a product of moral relativism which I dissected in an old post at Patterico’s. As I wrote there:

Imagine if you asked Dr. [Martin Luther] King whose soul was more likely to be condemned by God. Thomas Jefferson, a slave holder who hypocritically gave this nation a universal charter of freedom? Or the slave holder who consistently maintained that slavery was right? Thomas Jefferson couldn’t find the moral strength to stop owning slaves, but at least he made sure everyone understood that what he was doing was evil and it should not be followed. Obviously the best option is for a person to be a consistent advocate of freedom..., but if that isn’t one of your choices, isn’t Jefferson’s hypocrisy preferable?

Likewise, I don’t think that Jay-Z should necessarily stop saying the word b*tch altogether, but if he could just stop being such a pig, and maybe even teach the impressionable young men who listen to him to show more respect for women, that’s a good thing, even if it is hypocritical.

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Site Announcements

2012-01-14T12:07:00.005-05:00

Bad news everyone. A group of people have learned of my true identity and they are getting ready to reveal it to the world. Of course to do so might run afoul of Va. Code § 18.2-46.5(C). That law states in relevant part that:

Any person who solicits, invites, recruits, encourages, or otherwise causes or attempts to cause another to participate in an act or acts of terrorism, as defined in § 18.2-46.4, is guilty of a Class 4 felony.

And a Class 4 felony allows for up to ten years in prison per offense. And of course it is an additional crime to conspire to commit a crime in Virginia, also punishable with up to ten years in prison.

Still, some of you may have noticed that a certain blog has disappeared. I won’t name it here. The reality is that it is not merely a matter of my safety but also that of my coworkers and out of respect for their wishes and rational fears I have removed that blog as well as any reference to participating in that blog at this site. So, without any sense of resentment, I have removed it, for now.

The legal drama is still unfolding and I expect that it will continue to unfold. Expect updates.

Buy My Novel, Today! (Updated!)

2012-01-13T10:01:00.002-05:00

Update: Thanks to Dana at First Street Journal, Patterico and Beldar for their kind links, not to mention lots of people on twitter. Of particular interest was Michelle Malkin’s mention on twitter, since, um... she’s kind of a character in the novel. So that is cool.

And a few people have asked or pondered how much of this goes to me and how much goes to Amazon. The answer is that I get just a hair under 70% of every dollar they get.

Update (II): Also thanks to Paulitifact for the linkage.

We now resume the original post as is.

---------------------------------

So it turns out that in my spare time I have written a novel. Go figure. It is published on Amazon as a self-published Kindle book. Here’s its cover image which I created myself:

Its full title is “Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History.” You can purchase it, here, or you might consider going over to some of your favorite sites and using the Amazon search box on the sidebar of blogs such as Patterico’s, Althouse or Instapundit and the respective sites’ owners will get a little money back for themselves. Right now it is coming up as the second item if you just search for “Aaron Worthing.”

I actually did the principal writing of it in 2006 and 2007, and since then I have been polishing it. And of course I think some “stage fright” kept me from releasing it. But I had begun to pitch the book to different publishers and I felt that the time to finally release it was now. This is in part because as time went on, certain parts of the novel started to get incredibly ironic. You will have a hard time believing that I wrote this before certain events in my life—except for the fact that it would have been physically impossible to have written it after those events.

What’s it about? Well, a few years back I was gripped with an idea. What if, on September 11, 2001, there was a superhero there, who had the ability to intervene and really make things better. Now very quickly I realized that it shouldn’t be a fairy tale where suddenly September 11 is not a disaster at all, but I had a vision of a gritty, realistic depiction of how a superhero would really look in our world, and how our world would respond to him.

So on one hand, you see the hero behave in a way that is much more realistic than you are used to. As I said to Dustin the other day, a real superhero would never get a cat out of a tree. He’d have much bigger fish to fry. For instance, here is a little dialogue from the novel. The speaker is FBI Agent Rini Miller who has been assigned as the hero’s liaison:

“I mean, okay, so you are a real life superhero, but who are the real life supervillians? Osama bin Laden, Yasir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung Il, and all the other murderous dictators and terrorists all over the world. Not some idiot in a silly costume.” She paused for effect, then added dryly, “well, I mean besides Gadhafi.”

Which is funny, because since I first wrote those words, literally every single one of those villains have died. And at the same time, the hero’s tactics are much more realistic. This is a book for adults, frankly, about a childhood fantasy becoming real.

And on the other hand you also see a realistic depiction of how the world would respond to him. We’re talking about the law, politics, international affairs, the media and society as a whole. But at the same time, I don’t let the plot get so bogged down on those details that we can’t have many action scenes.

One of the other things you will notice very quickly is that the fictional cast is mixed heavily with a large number of real and famous persons. For instance given what I told you about the plot so far, it shouldn’t surprise you that my character would interact with the mayor of New York City and rather than make up some kind of fictional mayor, the person he talks to is Giuliani himself. And when people turn on the news, it is Fox News, CNN, ABC News, etc. rather than any made-up stand in, like “Weasel News” or something lame like that. I do that to lend the story verisimilitude. Because if he meets with the President in 2001, and it’s President David Palmer instead of President Bush, it takes you out of the story for that moment. That being said, the depiction of all of those real-world persons, and entities (like CNN) is fictionalized and represents my opinions about them. You should not make the mistake of thinking this novel is anything but fiction.

You might also ask how much my moderately conservative world view affects it. In some sense it is unavoidable. If a liberal writes a story in which a character meets George W. Bush, you can expect things to go one way. Even if the liberal had no intention of “bashing” Bush, they hold certain beliefs about the man that they consider to be realistic that reflects their liberal world view and you would expect those beliefs to bleed into the story. And at the same time a moderately conservative guy like me would depict the same man very differently. I will also add that sometimes I made choices in my depictions in a deliberate attempt to make things more interesting. What I did not set out to do is to write some kind of propaganda.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Filipino Americans and people aware of Filipino culture will enjoy the fact that this hero is part of a large and loving Filipino American family. There are actual plot points that turn on their language and culture.

I suspect I have said more than I needed to. So please buy it and hopefully you will enjoy it

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By the way, let me take a moment to thank my editor, whom you all know as Dustin. He did a great job of finding my typos and just helped on style in general. All remaining errors are my fault.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

To Google Legal Investigations Support

2012-01-09T18:01:00.001-05:00

Update: You can read the text of the pleading I have filed, here.

I know you guys have been subpoenaed about this blog, so this message is for you. (And for everyone else, this is going to be stuck at the top for a bit, so new posts will appear below it.)

I sent you an email to the same effect, but I wanted to tell you that a motion to quash will be filed by the “John Doe” at issue. Please, do not comply with the request for information until there is an opportunity for me to fight it.

The Plaintiff, Mr. Brett C. Kimberlin, is a convicted terrorist (bomber, specifically) (Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527 (1993)) and perjurer (Kimberlin v. White, 798 F.Supp. 472 (1992)) and I believe that if you reveal my information to him, he will place my life in danger.

If you have any questions feel free to email me, and we can arrange to talk.

I thank you for your time and consideration.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Friday Frivolity, the 16-Bit Galactica Edition!

2012-01-06T20:14:00.000-05:00

And for this week’s Friday Frivolity, we have the new Battlesstar Galactica, retold as a 16 Bit RPG:

Enjoy. Via Joystiq.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Tantalizing News in the Kimberlin Saga

2012-01-06T19:54:00.002-05:00

I haven’t seen the documents and I am unlikely to see it before Monday, but apparently filed two documents with the court today, according to the Maryland Judiciary Case Search website.

The first is listed as follows:

PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO WITHDRAW AS MOOT PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO COMPEL AND SUBPOENAS TO COMCAST AND GOOGLE SEEKING IDENTITY OF AARON WORTHING, FILED. (LP)

And the second is listed as this:

PLAINTIFF'S RESPONSE TO AARON WORTHING'S MOTION TO QUASH, FILED. (LP)

No, I am not precisely sure what this will mean until I see it. There is cause for optimism, but also reason to worry that he is up to something more nefarious, but we’ll see. And I am unlikely to see these motions before Monday.

Anyway, due to issues at the house, it will be light blogging otherwise. But I think I will try to give you at least a Friday frivolity.

And if you want to catch up on this saga, use this link to collect all of the posts on the subject.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Brett Kimberlin, Convicted Terrorist and Perjurer, Accuses Me of Unethical Conduct

2012-01-06T01:54:00.005-05:00

Update: Thanks to DonkeyTale for the link, as well as numerous twitterers.

Update (II): And thanks to Blazing Cat Fur for the linky goodness as well.

So this is the latest installment in the Kimberlin saga. As regular readers know, a few weeks back Ron Brynaert and then Brett Kimberlin engaged in a campaign to determine my true identity. In Kimberlin’s case, this convicted terrorist (bomber, specifically) (Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527 (6th Cir. 1993)) and perjurer (Kimberlin v. White, 798 F.Supp. 472 (W.D. Tenn. 1992)) subpoenaed Google and Comcast in order to obtain my identity and address. The latter subpoena was issued without providing notice to me as required by Maryland civil procedure. I filed a response in that case last Thursday, which you can read here (and there are links there to catch up on this whole saga). My filing has been described by DonkeyTale as “one of the most epic pantsings I have ever seen performed anywhere” so it might be worth a read.

And regular readers would also know that because of the rules of court which frankly does not yet take account for this situation, I had to find a Maryland attorney to represent me and Ken at Popehat helped me to obtain one.

So last Friday, Brett Kimberlin sent my lawyer an email. And I am going to quote it to you in full,* and fisk the entire thing. Now, naturally I do not plan to reveal to the world if he has also entered into any settlement negotiations with me, because those are special. We want to encourage that kind of discussion without fear that the other side could use it against them. Indeed the rules of evidence limits my ability to use such discussions in court. And while nothing legally prevents me from publicizing any attempts to settle, it seems like good policy.

But this email isn’t about attempting to settle things, as you will soon see. In my opinion, this email was an attempt to deprive me of my counsel, and as such this latest act of thuggery (in my opinion) by this crew is fair game.

So pull up a bowl of popcorn and let the fisking begin, and please note that all spelling errors were in the original, with the caveat you will see at the end in the footnote:

[Update: I have changed the formatting so his words are in red and italicized, so it is easier to separate what he says from other sources I quote. Let me know if that helps make this more readable.]

From: [Brett Kimberlin]

Date: Friday, December 30, 2011 12:09 PM

To: [My Maryland lawyer]; [her associate]

Attach: Socrates Final Peaace Order.pdf

Subject: FW: Kimberlin v. Allen

Dear [My Maryland Lawyer]:

Nice chatting with you. Please do not send this email to Mr. Worthing because he will post it on the Internet as he did with my legal communications to him.

Um, yeah, Brett, you just asked her to commit an unethical act. In Maryland’s Lawyer’s Rules of Professional Conduct (hereafter “MRPC”), Rule 1.4 states in relevant part that “[a] lawyer shall… keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the matter… [and] promptly comply with reasonable requests for information[.]” The official commentary further states that “[a] lawyer may not withhold information to serve the lawyer’s own interest or convenience or the interests or convenience of another person.” There are a few instances when something can be ethically withheld, such as when there is a court order requiring it, or if the lawyer believes the client is going to physically hurt himself or others in response, but those exceptions don’t apply here.

So she couldn’t comply with your wishes. And of course there was never any question in her mind about passing it on to me and indeed, I don’t know a single minimally ethical lawyer who would ever even consider honoring such a request.

I also want to mention another possible conflict of interest other than your representation of ACORN.

That is right. She or her firm represented Acorn. Yes, that Acorn. And although Andrew Breitbart is peripherally involved in this case (because he was cc’ed on a few of the relevant emails), and I have occasionally blogged at his Big Government and Big Journalism sites, and even though I don’t think my lawyer likes Mr. Breitbart very much, she agreed to represent me. Which says to you, dear reader, that the issues in this case transcend ordinary politics and reach into deeper principles. And it serves as a reminder that most good Americans have a common belief in certain baseline principles, rights and freedoms, freedom of speech being one of the big ones. Most of the people on the other side aren’t evil. At worst, they’re mistaken.

Now at the end of this email Brett copies and pastes a lot of specific rules from the MRPC, but curiously he doesn’t quote from the one on conflicts. Let me do that for him, quoting from MRPC Rule 1.7 in relevant part:

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b), a lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation involves a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest exists if:

(1) the representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client; or

(2) there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer's responsibilities to another client, a former client or a third person or by a personal interest of the lawyer.

Likewise Rule 1.9 discusses duties to former clients, stating in relevant part:

(a) A lawyer who has formerly represented a client in a matter shall not thereafter represent another person in the same or a substantially related matter in which that person's interests are materially adverse to the interests of the former client unless the former client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.

(b) A lawyer shall not knowingly represent a person in the same or a substantially related matter in which a firm with which the lawyer formerly was associated had previously represented a client

(1) whose interests are materially adverse to that person; and

(2) from whom the lawyer had acquired information protected by Rules 1.6 and 1.9(c) that is material to the matter;

unless the former client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.

And there are various escape hatches, but you don’t need to worry about them because this situation doesn’t even fall within the rule. Acorn is no more. It is dissolved as a company and has no corporate existence. Now some people have argued that other corporations and/or organizations are really Acorn in all but name, but as far as the law is concerned, Acorn doesn’t exist. So literally everything Brett says in the next paragraph is irrelevant to the issue.

As noted, my organizations and my business partner Brad Friedman have been very involved with the ACORN issue, putting up rewards when their offices were attacked, urging accountability for James O’Keefe et al for their illegal wiretapping of ACORN employees, having Bertha on Brad Friedman’s radio program, writing dozens of articles about the destruction of ACORN, and working with members of Congress and the California Attorney General’s office to get to the truth about the attacks on ACORN. Mr. Worthing has been part of that attack machine, blogging for right wing ACORN hater Patrick Frey. In fact, it was Brad Friedman’s expose of that cabal with regard to ACORN which caused this attack machine to first target him, and then me.

All of which amounts to that he stuck up for Acorn in various ways as did his business associate, Brad Freidman, which doesn’t create a conflict of interest as that term is understood in the MRPC, requiring her to withdraw. It doesn’t even come close. But one gets the feeling that this isn’t really about that, so much as trying to convince her that I am a horrible person and that I don’t deserve even a chance to defend myself in court before my name and home address is given to a convicted terrorist who has proven that his word cannot be trusted by being convicted of perjury. I can’t prove that is his intent, so this is an opinion based on simply the words I just quoted to you, but that is my opinion.

In addition to this, Velvet Revolution, an organization which I am involved, has a campaign called www.StopTheChamber.com, which exposes excesses of the Chamber of Commerce. We have worked with Chamber Watch, a client of your partner [G.H.], and I have talked with [G.H.] about the Chamber and its IRS issues. We in fact are presently working with the FBI in an investigation of the Chamber and prepared a White Paper for the Bureau which includes as an exhibit the filing that [G.H.] and [C.M.] prepared.

That’s right, he talked to one of their lawyers in some case unrelated to this one, therefore he thinks that this means she can’t represent me. Which is not what the rules say.

One of our Board Members also has a connection to [G.H.], I believe through Friends of the Earth.

Yes, and did you know that Gwyneth Paltrow has a connection to Kevin Bacon? You see, she appeared in Shakespeare in Love with Joseph Fiennes. Mr. Fiennes in turn appeared in Enemy at the Gates starring Ed Harris. Mr. Harris appeared in A History of Violence with Viggo Mortensen. Viggo Mortensen appeared with Ian McKellen in the Lord of the Rings. Ian McKellen appeared with Hugh Jackman in Xmen I and II. And Jackman appeared in Xmen: First Class (a brief, very funny cameo) which stars… Kevin Bacon.

But that doesn’t mean that a lawyer who is friends with Kevin Bacon is forbidden from representing Ms. Paltrow, Mr. Fiennes, Mr. Harris, Mr. Mortensen, Mr. McKellen or Mr. Jackman, even in a suit against Mr. Bacon himself.

I will be happy to provide her name to you as well as the White Paper if you need them to make your conflict of interest determination. The Chamber of Commerce hired military intelligence contractors to attack our group, Chamber Watch, and me personally as part of a six million dollar campaign of destruction. See http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8354

Although Team Themis was exposed, the Chamber continues to fund operations against us and me, and Mr. Worthing is part of the cabal that the Chamber uses for its nefarious purposes...

Which is supported by absolutely no evidence. I mean, even assuming that the Chamber is out to get him (and I have no idea on that point, but given his track record I doubt it), he cannot show that I have even spoken to anyone at the Chamber of Commerce, or received a payment from them, let alone conspired with them in any way, because I have not. So what he just did there was he defamed me. And indeed I would say that it meets the legal definition of malice, given that he is showing a reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of his claims.

...along with others such as those cc’d on the death threat email from Mr. Allen to Mr. Worthing.

We have been over this before, but it was not a threat. A threat has to be communicated to the target. He was communicating with us. You can read the email here (see Exhibit E), and you will see that in fact it was nothing more than a stressed out and angry man ruminating on the idea of murdering his tormenter. Mandy Nagy, one of the recipients did get nervous enough that she reported it to the police, but has since determined that he was just blowing off some steam.

We are presently in consultation with counsel about filing a lawsuit against the Chamber et al for the Team Themis campaign of destruction and there is a very real possibility that Mr. Worthing will be named a defendant in that action, which will most likely be filed in federal court.

It’s always important to notice what he is not saying. You can walk into virtually any law office and “consult” with counsel on any topic. They will listen to you, although they might charge you for even that time. But it is highly doubtful that they will take Kimberlin’s case. Any attorney knows that if they file this case in federal court, they will have to sign the complaint and by signing it they will have pledged to comply with Rule 11. It says in relevant part:

(b) Representations to the Court. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:

(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;

(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;

(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and

(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.

Further, this rule provides for sanctions for its violation visited on either the client or the attorney—that is, a judge can order an attorney to pay her share from her own funds and not to pass it on to the client. So you can bet that this counsel they spoke with is going to demand strong evidence on each element of the offense. Lawyers tell their clients all the time , “I can’t file that. I will be sanctioned.” And if Brett’s motion to compel is any indication, he has absolutely no evidence that I have conspired with anyone. What he has is evidence that I have communicated with Patrick, Mandy and Breitbart, as have thousands and thousands of other people. Communication is not a crime or a tort (civil wrong) and none of my communications with them have ever indicated any such conspiracy or cabal existed. And he can show that I have advised Mr. Allen, a person whom I have entered into a limited attorney-client relationship with. Which is kind of what lawyers do, you know?

Indeed, in my filing last Thursday I have already presented evidence that Mr. Kimberlin committed serial violations of the Maryland version of Rule 11 (called Maryland Rule §1-311) already. I doubt he will find a single lawyer in the country willing to take on this case and sully their reputation.

Finally, I want to memorialize my concern about Mr. Worthing’s violations of the Rules of Professional Responsibility…

Notice he doesn’t say that these are possible violations of the rules, but that they are actual and definite violations of the rules. So he has stated for a fact that I have behaved unethically, and every time I prove him wrong, that means he has committed an additional act of defamation against me.

...and the possibility that this may impact you if a Court or Bar finds that you somehow contributed to this unprofessional conduct.

And that’s a consistent theme with him: punishing or threatening to punishing attorneys for representing others. He’s doing it to me for representing Mr. Allen, and he is doing it to my attorney. I mean, that is my opinion based on the facts I have presented at this blog, but it fits the facts, doesn’t it?

Mr. Worthing entered into an attorney client relationship with Seth Allen using a false name...

First, as usual, he is asserting knowledge of matters he couldn’t possibly know about. For all he knows, the moment I emailed Seth in private I told him my real name.

Second, I ask him to quote me the rule of professional conduct that requires me to provide my client with my real name. My name is not important.

...and is trying this case on the blogs...

Which is a reference to posts like this. And to bolster this claim he later quotes from part of MRPC Rule 3.6. His version’s formatting is too messed up to quote here, but what is important is he only quotes Rule 3.6 (b) and then some official commentary. Which means that he has cut out the actual operative language of the rule in subsection (a). So let’s see what that says:

(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter.

Now first, there is a question of whether or not I am a lawyer in this at all. I don’t mean to cast any doubt that I am a lawyer outside of Maryland, but I am not a Maryland lawyer and I am not appearing in Maryland in this case as a lawyer, but as a third party potential witness. And that is actually an important distinction in the rules. For instance, in the preamble the Rules state that

there are Rules that apply to lawyers who are not active in the practice of law or to practicing lawyers even when they are acting in a nonprofessional capacity.

By expressio unius, this means that are also rules do not apply to lawyers when they are not acting in a professional capacity. Is it the opinion of the Maryland Bar association that unlike the parties to this case, I, as an involuntary participant as a potential witness, am uniquely prohibited from speaking out about this case? And indeed by making it clear that the language of the MRPC doesn’t always apply to lawyers when they are acting in a non-professional capacity without specifying when it does and when it doesn’t, the bar association seems to have rendered this an impermissibly vague and overbroad limitation on freedom of speech. First Amendment lawyers know that this is a serious problem. I would suggest that they consider clarifying what rules apply when as soon as possible.

In any case, the language in section (c) strongly indicates that the rule is not designed to apply to attorneys representing themselves:

(c) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), a lawyer may make a statement that a reasonable lawyer would believe is required to protect a client from the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity...

And it goes on but the point is that the language of the rule is plainly written imagining that we are talking about a situation where an attorney is representing a separate person who is a client, and is not designed to disadvantage lawyers when they serve as their own clients. There is, simply put, no good reason to restrict me and not Kimberlin or Allen, in our exercise of freedom of speech.

In any case, Kimberlin amazingly quotes the following from the rule, without understanding its import:

(b) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), a lawyer may state:

(1) the claim, offense or defense involved and, except when prohibited by law, the identity of the persons involved;

(2) information contained in a public record;

I won’t go on because remarkably he doesn’t even realize he has quoted a provision specifically allowing me to say virtually everything I have said, especially the really bad things I have said about him, because it is information contained in a public record. For instance, when I call him a terrorist (bomber, specifically) and a perjurer, I am doing so based on the language of court cases. These court opinions are emphatically public records. Otherwise I have quoted from my filing, which is also a public record. Or I cite information contained in that filing, which is stating “information contained in a public record.”

And that interacts with another provision in subsection (a). It is not that all trial publicity, by lawyers acting in a professional capacity, is verboten, but only if “the lawyer knows or reasonably should know” that such publicity “will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter.” And the official commentary to these rules makes it clear that not all “adjudicative proceedings” are created alike:

[6] Another relevant factor in determining prejudice is the nature of the proceeding involved. Criminal jury trials will be most sensitive to extrajudicial speech. Civil trials may be less sensitive. Non-jury hearings and arbitration proceedings may be even less affected. The Rule will still place limitations on prejudicial comments in these cases, but the likelihood of prejudice may be different depending on the type of proceeding.

This reflects the common sense notion that a judge is less likely to be swayed by such publicity than a jury. And the determination of the matter at hand—whether I am outed or not—will be determined by a judge. Bluntly, I do not believe that the judge is likely to even visit my site, and he certainly is not likely to consider any information I present here that is not reflected in a court document. And certainly there is no substantial chance of prejudice when sharing information already presented to the judge in court documents.

That’s not to say it is impossible for my communications to prejudice the matter. For instance, if I personally insulted the judge, then that would be a problem. Indeed it might force the judge to recuse himself, which would obviously prejudice the administration of justice. But simply putting out truthful information, mainly based on court documents? No, there is no substantial likelihood of prejudice.

And let’s remember that the commentary also recognizes that “[t]he public... has a legitimate interest in the conduct of judicial proceedings, particularly in matters of general public concern.” The right of a person to speak anonymously is a matter of general public concern as is whether the courts will uphold that right.

Of course Kimberlin quotes from the commentary, too, citing where it says, in relevant part:

There are, on the other hand, certain subjects that are more likely than not to have a material prejudicial effect on a proceeding, particularly when they refer to a civil matter triable to a jury, a criminal matter, or any other proceeding that could result in incarceration. These subjects relate to:

(1) the character, credibility, reputation or criminal record of a party, suspect in a criminal investigation or witness, or the identity of a witness, or the expected testimony of a party or witness[.]

But as the introductory paragraph indicates they are primarily concerned with matters before a jury. And of course the commentary, while useful in interpreting the operative language, does not trump the operative language. The operative language specifically allows me to provide information to you that is provided in public records (I don’t believe most criminal records are considered public records). And indeed there is nothing I say about the credibility, reputation and criminal record of Brett Kimberlin that I didn’t also say to the court in formal documents. So how can repeating those statements have a “substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing” the issue?

Moving on:

…attacking me personally and as a party…

It’s funny how in their writing, criticism is “attacking” likening it to a physical attack. Of course, I have never physically attacked him—I have never even met the man—and as for attacking his character… it is directly relevant. His penchant for violence means that there is a risk that he may get violent with me. And his history of perjury goes to the credibility of any factual assertions or promises he makes, as does the allegations in my filing that he lied to the court in this very case. In any case, there is no rule in the MRPC prohibiting me from providing truthful information that reveals the exact contents of his character.

...and now threatening to present criminal charges to obtain an advantage in a civil matter...

Now, the hilarious part is when he quotes the MRPC he writes the following:

RPC 3.4. Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel

A lawyer shall not:...

(g) present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present criminal charges to obtain an improper advantage in a civil matter.

But there’s only one problem with that. The rule doesn’t exist. And I see references to the very same Cornell Law School website I have been using interspersed with his quotations of the rules, so clearly he knows of this site. And indeed the rules have existed in this form since at least 2007 (and I have verified that this rule is still in that form). So how did he not know that this rule doesn’t exist?

Secondly, I have not done this to gain an advantage over him in the civil matter, but because I believe that sufficient evidence exists justifying an investigation. I suspect a grave injustice was done to Mr. Allen, and I would like to see justice done.

But I find it interesting that on one hand, in his motion to compel he chides me for not reporting when Mr. Allen ruminated about murdering him, even though Mandy Nagy told me that she was going to report him for saying that, and then told me afterward that she did. He somehow thinks I have a duty to report every time I think a person might commit a crime, even if someone already did report it. But now he is saying that I have a duty not to report my suspicion that crime has actually occurred.

Indeed, I believe that if I failed to inform the court of his possibly criminal conduct in the November 14, 2011 hearing, that it would violate the spirit, if not the letter, of MRPC Rule 3.3. requiring candor toward the tribunal. I would be allowing him to potentially perpetrate a fraud upon the court.

Alas, his list of complaints goes on:

…being a lawyer and a witness,…

And he later quotes from MRPC Rule 3.7. I will only quote the relevant part:

(a) A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness unless... [listing various exceptions].

Which doesn’t apply to the situation at all, because I am not acting as an advocate in a trial. And my pleading aptly demonstrates that I am not a necessary witness.

...using his blog to embarrass me, and making false statements about me.

Which is redundant on the first part, and as for the second, Brett, I will extend to you the exact same offer Patrick gave to you when you threatened him with a defamation suit. Point out to me a single false statement I have made and prove it is false. And let me be clear on what counts as a false statement. It means where I have stated a fact that is not true. I am entitled to draw my own opinions based on the facts.

Likewise, let me make clear what counts as proof. Your word doesn’t count. You are a convicted perjurer. A “double secret exoneration” that you can’t show me doesn’t count. Nothing that relies on your personal veracity counts, because you have none.

But if you manage to show that I made a false statement about you and prove it to be false, I will of course voluntarily take it down and even publicly take it back before the court if I made the statement in a court document. I will even apologize for the error.

But I have just shown where you have made multiple defamatory statements about me, and I am about to show even more, and I doubt you will ever take that back, let alone apologize.

See relevant rules below.

Actually, you cited no relevant rules.

I believe that any Court or Bar faced with a complaint detailing the actions of Mr. Worthing trying this case in the press with vile attacks on me, will find that his conduct violates the Rules. I subpoenaed Mr. Worthing in a civil matter and was attacked mercilessly on his blog, and in his tweets.

Here comes a major piece of chutzpah:

He has called me a murder suspect,…

Well, the Indianapolis Star thinks you were one:

When police began looking for a motive in the Scyphers slaying, they found there'd been a recent family clash. Julia Scyphers' daughter, Sandra Barton, had become involved with a man who seemed to Mrs. Scyphers to be inordinately close to one of Barton's young daughters. Mrs. Scyphers told friends she was so concerned that she'd arranged for both of her granddaughters to come live with her. Whether or not Mrs. Scyphers' fears were correct (no charges were ever filed to that effect), this incident led investigators to start looking at Brett C. Kimberlin.

And so did Mark Singer:

Early that afternoon, [Brett] Kimberlin went downtown to meet with Forrest Bowman. Along the way, he said, he passed a newspaper vending machine and saw the Indianapolis News's proclamation BOMBING SUSPECT IS LINKED TO MURDER.

"I saw this headline about the bombing investigation and I bought a newspaper and started reading it," he told me [reporter Mark Singer]. "I think: Oh, this might be interesting. And then I read the first couple of paragraphs--about a Broad Ripple business man--and I realize they're talking about me and I'm just floored.

Mark Singer, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin (1996), page 98.

Did you sue them? Did you win a judgment against them? Or even an admission of wrongdoing? (And double secret agreements that you can't show me don’t count.)

And even if it was untrue, here’s the problem you have. I never called you a murder suspect, except when quoting from my filing. And it is never defamation to accurately report the contents of a public document. Indeed, I didn’t even call you one now, I merely pointed out that others had and that I stated you had been called one in in my filing:

He goes on to complain I called him:

….a terrorist,…

Um, the Sixth Circuit called you a terrorist. Or more precisely a serial bomber, which in my opinion makes you a terrorist:

Kimberlin was convicted as the so-called "Speedway Bomber," who terrorized the city of Speedway, Indiana, by detonating a series of explosives in early September 1978. In the worst incident, Kimberlin placed one of his bombs in a gym bag, and left it in a parking lot outside Speedway High School. Carl Delong was leaving the high school football game with his wife when he attempted to pick up the bag and it exploded. The blast tore off his lower right leg and two fingers, and embedded bomb fragments in his wife's leg. He was hospitalized for six weeks, during which he was forced to undergo nine operations to complete the amputation of his leg, reattach two fingers, repair damage to his inner ear, and remove bomb fragments from his stomach, chest, and arm. In February 1983, he committed suicide.

After being convicted of the bombings and related offenses, Kimberlin was sentenced to a fifty-year term of imprisonment for manufacturing and possessing a destructive device, and malicious damage by explosives with personal injury in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d) and (f), and 18 U.S.C. §§ 844(f) and (i). He received a concurrent twelve-year sentence for impersonating a federal officer, illegal use of a Department of Defense insignia, and illegal use of the Presidential Seal in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 912, 701, and 713, respectively, and a five-year term for receipt of explosives by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 842(i)(1). Finally, he was given a four-year sentence by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on an earlier, unrelated conviction for conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527 (6th Cir. 1993).

He goes on to complain I called him:

…a perjurer,…

Again, court documents say that you are:

[Kimberlin] argues that the Parole Commission erroneously computed his salient factor score in 1988 when it awarded only 1 point to petitioner's salient factor score because of 2 prior convictions. The convictions in question are a juvenile conviction for selling controlled substances and a subsequent conviction shortly after his 18th birthday for perjury before the grand jury relative to the involvement of others in the juvenile drug offense.

Kimberlin v. White, 798 F. Supp. 472, 482 (W.D. Tenn. 1992).

…and urged others to attack me.

Once again, we see the line blurred between verbal and physical attacks. I have never urged physical violence against Kimberlin. And I have never urged anyone to defame you. And to the extent that telling truthful information about your deplorable past is an “attack” even if I urged other people to do that, so what? I have a First Amendment right to do that.

He has called me out personally on his blog, urged readers to get the popcorn because he was going to destroy me and it will be fun to watch. http://allergic2bull.blo=spot.com/2011/12/tune‐in‐tonight‐at‐ten‐oclockeastern.html

Well, as a point of fact, I didn’t mention any plan to destroy you. But I confess in this I am having fun, because well, law is sort of my thing. It’s why I am a lawyer. And there is no rule of law or ethics that prohibits me from enjoying this.

This is not conduct that is allowed by an attorney. A blogger who did this could face a defamation suit,...

Anyone could face a defamation suit for anything. But any suit you might file against me for defamation would not only be thrown out, but you would face sanctions for filing a frivolous suit.

...but Mr. Worthing is representing himself as an attorney...

Well, it’s good to see ya’ll have decided I am a lawyer, now.

...who he says had an attorney-client relationship with a party to this lawsuit. Therefore, he is bound by the Rules of Professional Conduct.

I presume he means the Maryland Lawyer’s Rules of Professional Conduct, and as I pointed out, that is not necessarily correct. Or more precisely, they don’t apply under these circumstances.

I will be seeking sanctions against him for violating the Rules now that he has given the Court jurisdiction over him by filing his motion.

You go ahead and do that. I’m sure the judge needs a good laugh.

My dilemma now is whether you too have violated the Rules...

Aaaaand he’s back to threatening my lawyer again. (Note: that is my opinion based on what he wrote. Draw your own conclusions on this point.)

...by acting in a supervisory capacity to him.

Except she wasn’t. This would be the second time he has mistakenly thought someone else was supervising me, the first time being in his motion to compel when he thought Patrick Frey was my supervisor because I happened to put up a few guest posts at his blog. But having made this laughable error, he goes on, further threatening her (in my opinion):

As you know, Rules 5.1 and 5.2 specifically require both supervisory and subordinate attorneys comply with the Rules. I urge you to discuss these matters with others in your firm and get back to me no later than Tuesday, January 3rd as to the conflict of interests and the Rules violations so I can decide how to proceed with my sanctions motion. Beth, as noted in our call, I am a reasonable person...

Oh, get ready, dear reader, you are about to see some major chutzpah, here:

...and I did not ask for this fight...

That’s right folks, he’s not the aggressor, here! It’s mean old Aaron Worthing! Never mind that I never wrote a single post about him at Patterico’s Pontifications, and I barely wrote a word about him here or at any other blog until he started to try to obtain my identity. No, no, in his mind I started this fight, I guess by helping out Mr. Allen or something.

...and I don’t even blog. I want to be left alone.

Then maybe you should stop trying to brutally suppress anyone who attempts to tell the truth about your life. Because the more you try to suppress the truth, the more people want to know what you are trying to suppress. We call this the Streisand Effect.

So, if you want all of this to go away, then stop trying to suppress the truth. Stop trying to silence people who tell the truth. And stop trying to bully lawyers for nothing more than giving people legal advice. Ask for the judge to dismiss the injunction against Mr. Allen and go away and leave us alone. I barely gave two craps about you before you tried to risk the lives of my wife and I, and if you leave me alone, I will quickly go back to not caring about you again. I can’t tell you what Seth might do, but can’t you see that your conduct has elevated the man?

That’s what Judge Jordan told Seth Allen to do, but he refused to comply with that order...

Really, Brett? That was an order and not just a recommendation? Can you prove that? Because I don’t trust you to even know the difference let alone to be honest about it.

...or the permanent injunction.

Which only forbade him from tortiously interfering with your business relations, and from defaming you. I don’t know that he has done either and I certainly am not going to trust your word on the subject, especially when you say things like this:

Mr. Worthing has egged him on and advised him to violate the order.

Which is a flat out lie. While I can’t share with you what advice I gave to Mr. Allen, I can say this with absolute certainty: he does not have a shred of evidence suggesting that I ever told Mr. Allen to defame Kimberlin or to violate the order. Indeed as I showed in my filing, I once deleted one of Mr. Allen comments on the possibility that it might violate the injunction, and then asked him for a copy of the injunction for future reference. That is the respect I showed for the order.

Now Mr. Worthing is arguing frivolously that the injunction is tainted because I am a felon.

Dear reader, why don’t you read my filing for yourself and decide if I have made that argument of not.

He is urging criminal prosecution of me for what he frivolously argues is perjury.

Actually, I only said in my filing that he lied to the court. Perjury is a legal conclusion that others will have to draw, so I have not argued that he committed perjury, only his conduct should be referred to appropriate authorities to determine whether he committed perjury. And I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide how seriously to take my allegations.

He chose this fight and he will have to answer to the Court and the Bar for his conduct. Maybe he has a First Amendment right to blog anonymously, but he does not have a First Amendment right to violate the Rules.

But the rules are limited and even trumped by the First Amendment when appropriate.

And I don’t believe that any Court or Bar will allow Mr. Worthing to remain anonymous after violating the Rules so blatantly.

Which demonstrates that he doesn’t know how a bar association investigates potential violations of the rules. First, it decides whether there is enough of a case to even bother—a step I doubt Kimberlin will get past. Then they will conduct a confidential investigation. So it is only if they decide I have acted inappropriately that my name might come out, and a fat chance of that happening.

I am a victim of stalking. I have a final Peace Order issued by a judge against Mr. Allen for stalking and death threats. I have a permanent injunction against Mr. Allen prohibiting him from defaming me or interfering with my businesses. Mr. Worthing’s conduct over the past week, even if it did not before, has crossed the Brodie line.

He is referring to Independent Newspapers v. Brodie, 966 A.2d 432, 457 (Md. 2009) which only applies when determining the name of a party to litigation, as I mention in my filing. I am not a party but a witness, which means that a different, more stringent set of rules should apply. But that’s in my filing.

He is publishing attacks on me personally in order to defame me and interfere with my business.

Actually, my intention is to defend myself and call attention to this abusive legal action. But here’s the other thing. Not all interference with business is illegal. Instead the cause of action is actually known as tortious interference with business relations, meaning that the interference has to be wrongful in some way. In the ordinary function of a free market economy, businesses interfere with each others relations all the time. So for instance if I manage a Burger King and I go into a McDonalds and recruit every single employee over to my restaurant by urging them to lawfully terminate their employment relationship with McDonald’s and to come work for me, that is interfering with that restaurant’s business, but it is not illegal. Likewise if telling the truth about you, Brett, is harming your business, tough. The First Amendment allows me to tell the truth. I suppose next he will think that Ford can sue Consumer reports if they give a poor review to their latest car.

Indeed just the other day I talked about a Virginia law that addresses conspiracies to interfere with business relationships and to harm one’s reputation. You see, I know something about these laws, Brett, because I deal with them in my day job. And I know what constitutes a violation and what does not.

But get ready for more chutzpah, folks:

You attempted to frame this as I am angry. No, I am a stalking victim and Mr. Worthing is continuing the stalking.

Yes, that is right, I forced him to drag me into this suit and to try to out me. I am so tricksey that way.

Really Beth, what lawyer in their right mind would attack a stalking victim with the same conduct that two judges in two different courts have found constitutes stalking, harassment etc.

Really Brett, two courts found this? Because I know of one court case, where you won by default. In other words you won because the other side didn’t show up to fight. That is far from any kind of definitive finding. And if you are referring to the “peace order” I have not engaged in the conduct that Mr. Allen did to earn that; I did not ruminate about murdering you. So if that is what you mean, you have succeeded in defaming me again.

I am attaching the final Peace Order for your information.

You have some thorny legal issues to sort out. I will look forward to hearing from you by Tuesday.

Yeah, I am sure you gave her a good laugh.

----------------------------------

* There is one thing to note in my quotation of this email. For some reason my copy substituted something like every 16th letter with an equal sign. So for instance this:

Please do not send this email to Mr. Worthing because he will post it on the Internet as he did with my legal communications to him.

Actually looked like this:

Please do not send this email to Mr. Worthing becau=e he will post it on the Internet as he did with my legal communications t= him.

So technically I am guessing what letter went in the place of “=” in each case, but how can I say this? Having lived my entire life with dyslexia, a disorder that causes my mind to sometimes spontaneously scramble words and letters, I am really good at guessing what a sentence should be saying. But of course if Brett feels I guessed wrong on any of this, I will be happy to correct it.

He has my email address, after all.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Did Our Deadliest Sniper Take Out Jesse Ventura?

2012-01-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

I mean Chris Kyle didn’t kill him, but he allegedly decked him. Of course there is a warning language with this video, but here you go...

No, violence is never the appropriate response to words alone. Indeed, it’s a good thing the statute of limitations has likely run, because what he described would be a crime. But if this story is true, Ventura is a grade-A a—hole and unsuited for any political office again.

But I would like to know if there is independent verification of Chris Kyle’s story. And this is all in connection to a book tour relating to his claim to being our deadliest sniper, so... take it all with an appropriate grain of salt.

And in any case, it is worth remembering who Michael Monsoor was. So how about we let Presient Bush explain?

Hat tip: Soopermexican.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Today’s AWESOME “Momma-Bear” Video (Update: Instalink!)

2012-01-04T20:20:00.002-05:00

Update: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the Instalink.

New visitors might want to check out my BLOCKBUSTER saga where a convicted terrorist and perjurer sought to obtain my true name and address by subpoenaing Google and Comcast. You might want to start with the filing I sent to the court, here. It has been described by another blogger as “one of the most epic pantsings I have ever seen performed anywhere” so you might enjoy it. You can also use this link to keep abreast of the whole saga.

The original post follows.

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A eighteen year old single mother in Oklahoma faced her worst nightmare recently. Her husband had died on Christmas day and a pair of (alleged) burglars apparently thought she was an easy target (allegedly), trying to break into her home on New Years Eve. But instead she went into “Momma-Bear” mode and the intruders paid the price. ABC has the video:

The sad thing is that she was worried enough that she might get in trouble that she felt the need to ask 911 for advice. And frankly they should have known the law enough to have told her that she would be just fine.

A while back I ruminated on the way that guns allowed disabled people to achieve a certain equality in a way that was quintessentially human:

And gun ownership by the handicapped also taps into another big philosophical belief I have about the handicapped. In a very real way, humanity is the disabled species. Think about it. Compared to other species, we are slow, weak, blind and deaf; we have little sense of smell, our teeth and “claws” are weak, etc. If left naked in the wild we would be easy supper for the other animals out there. And yet we dominate the planet for one simple reason: our brains. And those brains have allowed us to create tools that in turn makes up for our deficiencies. So we can’t run as fast as a cheetah, but we invented motor cars that allowed us to move even faster and for long periods of time. We can’t see like an eagle, so we invented the telescope and can see things no other creature can. Our brains haven’t just leveled the playing field between animal and man, but in fact gave us a critical advantage over them which is why we rule this planet and no longer have any natural predator (except ourselves).

And in no area has our brains been more critical in making up for our psychical deficiencies than in combat. Now we might suspect a few tough souls like Chuck Norris or Todd Palin** could take on a grizzly bear with their bare hands, but for most of us, if we don’t have a gun we are SOL (and from my understanding, even with a gun they are hard to kill). Our only option is to run.

So to tell a disabled person that they can’t use artificial help goes directly against the grain of what we have done as humans. For instance, I have difficulty writing by hand. But it only affects my ability to write by hand, so I buy a computer and I am rendered “normal.”

Likewise, Mr. Boyd has cerebral palsy. I have known people with that condition and it almost certainly impairs his ability to win a fistfight. I’m not saying he can’t do it, but it’s almost certainly harder. Now, the anti-gun approach would tell him tough and that he would just have to remain defenseless and hope that if someone attacks him that he cops get there in time. But the second amendment allows him to say, “screw that,” and defend his own life and safety as need be.

Likewise, this woman probably was not a physical match for the men who broke into her home, especially given that they had her outnumbered and had a knife to boot. But rather than hope the cops get there in time—indeed in the face of a dispatcher that couldn’t even tell her whether she could use deadly force or not—she said “screw that” and defended the life or her and her baby.

And good for her for doing so.

Via the Daily Caller.

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Sidebar: And my gosh, what a horrible holiday season this woman has been having. Here’s hoping things turn around for her.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

About Those Crying North Koreans...

2012-01-04T18:55:00.000-05:00

It’s not because they are actually upset, its because they are scared of being seen as insufficiently mournful of his passing. So says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch:

Since Kim Jong Il's death was announced on Monday, many people have marveled at the mourning scenes featured on North Korean state television, made viral on the Internet: North Koreans prostrate, weeping, hitting the ground. Many have asked whether the anguish is genuine. How could citizens mourn the passing of a totalitarian, such a gross abuser of human rights?

The answer may be found in the human rights abuses themselves.

It is a lamentable characteristic of totalitarian regimes that they often demand acts of deceit from those they oppress. Often it is a matter of simple survival. Those who hate the regime are obliged to demonstrate patriotism. To fail is to risk persecution. The only alternative is to flee, a choice made by tens of thousands of North Koreans in the past two decades....

For many, to live in North Korea is to live in fear for one's very existence. In a context like this, there is no way to know what is genuine and what is theatrical. Totalitarianism and fear impair the idea of truth and the concept of objectivity.

Via Volokh.

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A Note on the Law of Cyberstalking in Virginia

2012-01-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

Now what I am about to say here is not legal advice . I am a lawyer but I am not your lawyer. In fact, let me quote from Beldar’s disclaimer:

Any legal opinions or information that I may publish on the BeldarBlog weblog should be considered to be exclusively for purposes of entertainment. No reader of this website should ever rely upon any legal opinions or other information published here — not even just a little bit! If you need legal advice or information that you can rely upon, I strongly recommend that you consult directly — in person preferably, or at a minimum by telephone, and not over the Internet — with a lawyer duly licensed to practice law in the state (or territory or country) where you live.

Now I won’t go that far. I don’t think this is purely for entertainment purposes, but often I talk about law so you can understand how our legal system works better, so that as informed citizens of the republic you can choose whether the law needs to be reformed or not. But you still should never say, “but Aaron Worthing said that the law said X” as a formal legal opinion. That would be a grievous mistake.

But in talking about the wisdom of the laws already on the books, I have to say that Virginia really has an eloquent solution to the problem of cyberstalking. Although the statutes in question originated in the 1950’s, Virginia’s statutes against business conspiracy provide a unique remedy to a certain version of the problem. I have used them a lot in my day job and they would work very well in certain cyberstalking situations. Those statutes are Va Code §18.2-499 and §18.2-500. These statutes make it illegal for two or more people to conspire for the purpose of “willfully and maliciously injuring another in his reputation, trade, business or profession by any means whatever[.]” §18.2-499. So in other words if two or more people agree to harm your business, your reputation, etc. then they run afoul of the statute.

Sort of. Obviously not all combinations to harm a business should be outlawed—indeed could be outlawed—consistent with basic economic freedom. The courts in Virginia have reasonably read into this statute a requirement that there be a conspiracy “to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose, not in itself criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means.” Hechler Chevrolet, Inc. v. General Motors, 337 S.E.2d 744 (Va. 1985). As the Hechler court observed: “There can be no conspiracy to do an act which the law allows.”

So that means that if I and a friend decide to work together to build a car so great that it will drive all of the other car companies out of business, that isn’t a violation of this statute even if it is motivated by malice toward the car companies. That’s just free market competition. But if we conspire to make our car successful by sabotaging Toyotas, or even just by defamation of another company, then we can be held liable for that conspiracy.

So to the person facing cyberstalking, if it is more than one person working in concert, then this statute might apply in a number of ways. For instance, if defamation occurs, or if they intentionally inflict emotional distress on you or a number of other unlawful means on you, then you might be covered.

Now any lawyers out there might think, “ho, hum, we have something like that in my state.” And indeed, most states seem to have at least a common law cause of action for conspiracy that is similar, but not exactly the same, as these statutes. So what makes these Virginia laws so special?

The answer, simply put, is the law’s uniquely punitive approach. For starters, persons familiar with the Virginia Code know that §18.2, a.k.a. Title 18.2 is entitled “Crimes and Offenses Generally.” That is right, in Virginia, business conspiracy is a crime. But even more delicious is §18.2-500 providing victims with an extremely powerful civil remedy. First, the statute makes it clear that non-economic damages are available—so your payout is not limited how much money you lost, but also compensation for less tangible harms such as pain and suffering.

And then you are supposed to take all those economic damages and non-economic damages and triple them. That’s right, the statute provides for automatic treble damages. And then you add in attorneys fees and court costs to that award, as well as any additional punitive damages.

So what makes this law special is the remedy it provides for the violation of one’s rights. And the remedy is key. As I wrote over at Big Government:

About nine years ago, I sat down for my first class in law school: contracts. I don’t remember the name of the first case that our professor had us read, but I remember what it was about: remedies. The case was largely noteworthy for its discussion of the proper measure of “damages”—what us lawyers call the amount of money awarded to the victorious plaintiff. The professor explained how one casebook author used to start his entire first chapter and the first few weeks of class discussing nothing but the proper measure of damages—that is, how much money the plaintiff gets. Because in the end, that is how you demonstrate the value of the right in question: by providing an appropriate remedy when it is violated.

As I said in the beginning, this is not legal advice. If you are facing cyberstalkers, you should sit down with a lawyer to determine whether you can make use of this statute or what other options are available. A creative lawyer delights in finding solutions to a client’s problems. I know I do. But, still, if you are a Virginian besieged by one or more cybersalkers, this statute just might provide the remedy for the violation of your rights. And good for Virginia for providing it.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T23:37:00.000-05:00

Truthfully in my family it had never been a big deal. In my wife’s family, on the other hand, a very big deal. I think it is the Chinese influence.

Oh well, the world is ending this year anyway, right?

(No, it’s not. The Mayans didn’t think so, either. It was just the year that the odometer rolled over.)

Still, here is hoping you take this opportunity for a new beginning.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.