Your Tax Dollars at Work

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 05 Feb 2004 13:00:00 GMT

From "Sunbeams" in the February 2004 issue of The Sun:

"During my second year of nursing school, our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: 'What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?' Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. 'Absolutely,' the professor said. 'In you careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.' I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy." -- Joann C. Jones

Jim Borgman at The Cincinatti Enquirer - Surprise Package - cartoon commentary on Bushnev's disappearing WMDs. Hehe.

# Eric Frank Russell - And Then There Were None - glorious sci-fi short story from way back in 1951. If you haven't read this yet, ignore the rest of my posts today until you have. Or not. And MYOB. [misanthropes]

# Your tax dollars at work. I found in my referer logs yesterday 16 search engine hits from .gov and .mil domains for "janet's breast" or similar:

gate7-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:02:02:20 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet+breast+photo"
exercise-144-106-42-88.22sigbde.army.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:04:23:21 -0500] "http://search.aol.com/aolcom/search?query=janet+breast
rnoc1.cnrfe.navy.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:06:08:28 -0500] "http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=pictures+of+janet+jackson%27s+breast+exposed +at+super+bowl
contracts.nrl.navy.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:09:10:29 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet%27s+breast
belvoir-sun1.iern.disa.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:09:20:16 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet+breast
sc026ws16.chs.spawar.navy.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:12:28:13 -0500] "http://search.netscape.com/ns/search?query=janet+jackson+bares
ws88-114.c3f.navy.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:12:52:03 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+janet%27s+breast+"
wcs1-cbus.nipr.mil - - [04/Feb/2004:12:53:44 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet%27s+breast"
ws17120.bart.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:09:06:53 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet+breast"
ws17120.bart.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:09:10:46 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?as_q=janet+breast
wcdc.ocio.usda.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:09:17:59 -0500] "http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=slv1&ei=UTF-8&p=janet%27s+exposed+breast"
cache-cow.usaid.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:09:29:59 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet+breast"
vtnewportd008.vtnewport.fsc.usda.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:10:20:27 -0500] "http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=janet+breast+photo
bcccache6-1.tco.census.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:10:30:49 -0500] "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=janet+bares+breast"
acs1100006400.gsfc.nasa.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:12:48:57 -0500] "http://search.netscape.com/ns/search?query=nipple+medallion
flstpws192.er.usgs.gov - - [04/Feb/2004:13:16:52 -0500] "http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=Janet%27s+breast

# Bruce Schneier at The San Francisco Chronicle - How We Are Fighting the War on Terrorism: IDs and the illusion of security - Identification checks don't work, no matter how technologically advanced the ID. And checking IDs harms innocent people. So stop it already. [picks]

Profiling has two very dangerous failure modes. The first one is obvious. Profiling's intent is to divide people into two categories: people who may be evildoers and need to be screened more carefully, and people who are less likely to be evildoers and can be screened less carefully.

But any such system will create a third, and very dangerous, category: evildoers who don't fit the profile. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammed and many of the Sept. 11 terrorists had no previous links to terrorism. The Unabomber taught mathematics at UC Berkeley. The Palestinians have demonstrated that they can recruit suicide bombers with no previous record of anti-Israeli activities. Even the Sept. 11 hijackers went out of their way to establish a normal-looking profile; frequent-flier numbers, a history of first-class travel and so on. Evildoers can also engage in identity theft, and steal the identity -- and profile -- of an honest person. Profiling can result in less security by giving certain people an easy way to skirt security.

There's another, even more dangerous, failure mode for these systems: honest people who fit the evildoer profile. Because evildoers are so rare, almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be a false alarm. This not only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent elsewhere, but it causes grave harm to those innocents who fit the profile. Whether it's something as simple as "driving while black" or "flying while Arab," or something more complicated such as taking scuba lessons or protesting the Bush administration, profiling harms society because it causes us all to live in fear...not from the evildoers, but from the police.

# Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Congress Cannot Be Appointed - an elected Congress is bad enough. Allowing a Constitutional amendment that would appoint new idiots in case of an emergency would be even worse, if you can imagine that.

In the months following the September 11th terrorist attacks, questions arose about whether Congress could continue to function if many of its members were killed or injured in a future terrorist attack. These concerns resulted in the creation of a commission that advocated a first in American history, namely the appointment of individuals to the U.S. House. A constitutional amendment has been proposed that would provide the method for such appointments following a catastrophe that killed or disabled a majority of the people in Congress.

I strongly oppose this constitutional amendment, because I believe an appointed Congress would become an unaccountable, tyrannical Congress. Over the past year I met with top scholars, attorneys, and colleagues who reject the idea of an appointed House of Representatives. Fortunately, we had success in turning many members of Congress against the proposal through a series of public lectures, meetings, and published articles. Legislation I cosponsored, recently passed by the House Judiciary committee, will enable congressional districts around the nation to hold emergency elections without resorting to political appointments. The bill has the support of congressional leadership, and should reach the House floor in coming months.

# Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Spending and Lying - the U.S. government is over $7 trillion in debt, and will accumulate over $2.4 trillion more debt by the end of the decade. And the used-to-claim-to-support-limited-government republicans are worse than the tax-and-spend democrats.

Faced with a severe budget crisis, the federal government should do what any family or business would do in similar circumstances: drastically reduce spending and sell off assets. It is preposterous that the federal budget has more than doubled just since 1990, and surely the republic would survive a return to 1995 or 2000 spending levels. Furthermore, the government owns trillions of dollars worth of land and other assets, assets that should be sold to pay off the mounting national debt. Why should additional debt and new taxes be forced upon the American people to pay for government sins, especially when the spendthrift politicians have substantial assets at their disposal?

Government is incapable of austerity measures for a very simple reason: the money it spends belongs to others. Unless and until federal politicians are voted out of office for their sins, we can only expect the spending, borrowing, taxing, and printing of fiat money to continue.

# Gnome - "Dwarf is a set of Java classes which form a modular framework for developing network server applications. The primary goal of Dwarf is to support development of network servers based on the Internet standards. However, its architecture is quite universal and it is not limited to this kind of applications only. The first available Dwarf-based application is the Dwarf HTTP Server - a full-featured web server with servlet and JSP support." Free download for evaluation purposes. €125 runtime license or €960 for unlimited use. Gnome is in Slovakia. [javalobby]

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair