Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

&Omega. AUCTIONING OFF ISRAEL. In an earlier post, I discussed the idea of auctioning
off Palestinian immigrants– paying any of them something on the order of $10,000 if he
would be willing to emigrate to the West, and then auctioning off who would take them
among the US, France, Canada, and so forth. When Julie Mortimer was visiting from
Harvard last week, I brought this up, and it led to another application of the same
idea: How about auctioning off all of Israel?
[more]

September 14, 2003. &Omega.
BELIEF AND EVIDENCE.

&Omega. UPDATE: BELIEF AND EVIDENCE. Two verses are relevant to my September 13 post.
First,

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deuteronomy
6:4-5)

Love, like belief, is something that might seem to be inescapable rather than
volitional. But it is not. And it takes not just the heart, but soul and might.

Second, from the sermon I heard today, on the father of the child who needed healing
but could not be healed by the Disciples,

And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?”
And he said, “From
childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him;
but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.”
And Jesus said to him, “If
you can! All things are possible to him who believes.”
Immediately the father of the
child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:21-24 [+/-]Mark 9:21-24 [21]And Jesus asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. [22]And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." [23]And Jesus said to him, "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes." [24]Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (ESV)
)

One can believe, but not strongly, and can wish to increase the strength of one’s
belief. This is what is involved in courage, actually. I may know rationally that a rope
bridge will support my weight, and I may say I believe it, but when it comes time to
cross, I wish my belief were emotionally stronger.

September 13, 2003: &Chi.
BELIEF AND EVIDENCE. &Psi. SCIENCE AND OPINION. &Omega. SOME SOURCES OF EVIDENCE.

&Chi. BELIEF AND EVIDENCE. Last night I gave a half-hour lecture to the Intervarsity
Christian Fellowship on belief and evidence, taking off from the William James essay
I’ve recommended here before. I’ve posted my lecture href="_religion/Will.to.believe.lecture.txt"> notes in ascii and href="_religion/Will.to.believe.handout.ppt"> handout in powerpoint. They don’t
include the dig at Harvard that I, a Yale and Indiana man, added at the last minute
(Harvard’s seal says “Veritas”; those of Yale and Indiana University say “Lux et
Veritas”, Light *and* Truth). [more]

&Psi. SCIENCE AND OPINION. I’m slowly working my way through my emails. (Intermittent
outages of my home internet connection are no help.) I’ve gotten several of the
following sort:

1. Person X says he is deeply offended by my saying that homosexuals are more
   likely to be child molesters. [more]

&Omega. SOME SOURCES OF EVIDENCE. I thank E.R. (not myself!), E.N., M.M., and J.O,
for the following links on child molestation and homosexuality, which take various
positions on the issue. (If you don’t mind having your full name mentioned, just let me
know and I’ll update this.) I haven’t really looked at them yet, but I will one of
these days, and will try to summarize them then. For now, though, readers might like to
look at them directly. I also list the old Iain Murray post that responded to my
initial exchange with Professor Volokh. “a1.htm#september13a”> [more]

September 12, 2003: &Psi. SMITH,
MARSHALL, AND SCHUMPETER. &Omega. ONE-LINE COMEBACKS, INSULTS, AND REAL DISCUSSION.

&Psi. SMITH, MARSHALL, AND SCHUMPETER. We had a very good class yesterday, turning from
mathematical methods to intellectual history and mixing the two nicely. If you like
economics, and have Powerpoint, you might like "www.rasmusen.org/g601/04.Classics.Smith.Marshall.Schump eter.ppt"> my
overheads quoting these three economists. There’s lots of research to be done based
on single sentences in these writers. I found one quote in Marshall interesting in light
of the current Enron conviction, the exception that proves the rule:
“a1.htm#september12a” > [more]

&Omega. ONE-LINERS, INSULTS, AND REAL DISCUSSION. Kirk Nathanson, a freshman here,
emailed to say that he thought my September 10 post
in which I quoted an unnamed professor attacking me and then called him a “Captain Ahab”
style of Quaker was not a good reply to the attack. Kirk’s question deserves an answer,
and since it has general implications, and is at the crux of the controversy over my
web-log, I thought I’d write it here. [more] >

September 11, 2003:
&Omega. JEWS FOR JESUS.

&Omega. JEWS FOR JESUS. One point I hope to make with this web-log is that theology
is as interesting and intellectually challenging a subject as politics or economics. I
don’t know the religious affiliations of any but one of the Volokh Conspiracy folks,
[more]

September 10, 2003:
&Omega. MILITANT QUAKERS.

&Omega. MILITANT QUAKERS. Well, on September 9 I said that I hadn’t gotten any
faculty saying I should take down my website, as opposed to staff, but I actually got my
first paper letter today, and it was a doozy. It was from someone in the humanities
whose webpage says: “a1.htm#september10a” > [more]

September 9, 2003:
&Phi. LESSONS OF THE WEB-LOG CONTROVERSY. &Chi. WEB-LOG SOFTWARE. &Psi. BUSY WEEK.
&Omega. HELL AND REMORSE.

&Phi. LESSONS OF THE WEB-LOG CONTROVERSY. Here is what happened. (I’ll have to add links
later, since I’m running short of time.)

For some months, I have kept a web-log, with few readers, as a sort of commonplace
book. The Volokh Conspiracy raised the interesting question of why people object to
homosexuals as schoolteachers, but not Hindus, since idolatry is a greater sin than
sodomy. I replied with some arguments distinguishing Hindus from homosexuals, and The
Volokh Conspiracy linked to my reply and answered it. My guess is that someone at IU
read the Volokh Conspiracy, followed to my web-log, and complained to friends at IU,
who circulated the news of my web-log by email. “a1.htm#september9a”> [more]

&Chi. WEB-LOG SOFTWARE. Someone complained that I didn’t have a comment section on this
web-log. Sorry, but I’m not using specialized software so I don’t know how to do it. My
permalinks are inconveniently set up, too for that reason. I like to use a minimal
number of software programs. What I do is use the simple shareware text editor Textpad
to write HTML code, which I then post on a website. That’s why this doesn’t look like
other web-logs.

&Psi. BUSY WEEK. Readers may have wondered what the “site” referred to in the September
6 udpate was. I had a typo in the HTML, so the link didn’t work, but I’ve fixed it now.
This is the second week of classes, with teaching and administrative matters keeping me
busy (not to mention the research papers I didn’t quite finish over the summer, and the
referee reports still to be done…), so my web-log may be a bit untidy for a while,
especially in terms of cross-linking within the site. I’m trying to keep it going
strong, though, lest intolerant people think they’ve discouraged me, and because my main
purpose with this website has been to use it as a commonplace book to jot down thoughts
and sources before I forget them. My email responses may be slow, too. A tip: if
something obvious seems to be missing: check the SOURCE Html and see if it is hidden
there because of a typo.

&Omega. HELL and REMORSE. It’s not that I’m having a bad time (in fact, my class is
going very well indeed), but I happened to be listening to Don Giovanni in the car and
thought about how many chances Don Giovanni is given to repent before the statue carries
him down to Hell at the end of the opera. What other literary and religious stories do
we have on sinners facing punishment and their willingness or unwillingness to repent?
This will have to be a later day’s web-log in detail, but the list would include:

1. Mozart: Don Giovanni [more]

September 8, 2003: 3.
ANTI-RECORDING LAWS. 2. ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THIS WEB-LOG. 1. UPDATE:
HOMOSEXUALITY AND PUBLIC OPINION.

3. ANTI-RECORDING LAWS. Before I forget it, let me follow up on an earlier post, which
I’ll link to later when I have time, on the laws some states have forbidding a person to
tape record a conversation he is having. This is the law that they were going to
prosecute Linda Tripp on (whatever happened to that?) after she made an enemy of
President Clinton. Reader R. Geoffrey Newbury pointed me to an appalling case he had
heard about from some other blog he’s now forgotten, the Massachusetts "http://www.socialaw.com/sjcslip/8429.html"> COMMONWEALTH vs. MICHAEL J. HYDE (2001).
It seems some traffic police were obnoxious to a motorist they stopped, who made a
tape of the conversation and used it to make a formal complaint at the police station
about their obscenities, etc. The policemen were exonerated by the internal process,
but:

In the meantime, the Abington police sought a criminal complaint in the Brockton
Division of the District Court Department against the defendant for four counts of
wiretapping in violation of G. L. c. 272, § 99. target= "_blank"> [more]

2. ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THIS WEB-LOG. I’d hoped to write up some lessons I’ve learned
from this controversy tonight, but it’s gotten too late. Teaching this afternoon wiped
out my energy, and followed some fancy footwork trying to get diagrams to work right in
Scientific Workplace on my office computer, which has been deranged by Indiana
University’s policy of re-imaging operating systems after the MSBlaster worm hit. And
then my Internet provider at home wouldn’t let me on till 11 pm. So if you want to see
an extended production from me, see the new "www.rasmusen.org/GI/chapters/chap03_mixed.pdf"> Sections 3.5 and 3.6
of my game theory book, which I taught from today.

1. UPDATE: HOMOSEXUALITY AND PUBLIC OPINION. See below, September 6, for a
correction, and some more data.

September 7, 2003:
2. VEGGIE TALES BANKRUPTCY. 1. ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THIS WEB-LOG.

2. VEGGIE TALES BANKRUPTCY. The company that makes the Veggie Tales videos has filed for
Chapter 11,
Christianity Today says. It’s the not uncommon story of a young company with great
products overextending and getting into trouble. The company will keep operating and
producing new videos– bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily shut down the operations of a
firm– but it will be taken over by a different company, and the owners will not be
as rich as they were a couple of years ago. What is nice about the story is that the
CEO accepts responsibility, and without feeling sorry for himself:

Vischer, whose role models included Walt Disney, and who often spoke of building a
company as influential as the Disney Company, also blamed his decisions as Big Idea’s
CEO for the company’s difficulties.

“We got ourselves upside down financially when everything was working wonderfully,”
Vischer told Christian Retailing. “When things were doing so well, I thought that was
God wanting us to expand, so we grew like crazy. Now I think it was more me having all
these great ideas in my head and being so excited that I wanted to do them all at once.”

1. ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THIS WEB-LOG. I’d meant to write up lessons of the
controversy over this website this weekend, but got too busy revising Chapter 3 of Games
and Information for my class tomorrow, and I really ought to answer the polite emails of
the past few days. Tomorrow night I’ll do the write-up. In the meantime, here’s one
thought: Rather than emailing me with counterarguments to my position, various people
seem to have tried to get IU to shut me down. The result? My web-log still exists and
has over ten times the number of readers it used to have. The lesson: intimidation can
backfire.

September 6 2003:
2. ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THIS WEB-LOG. 1. HOMOSEXUALITY AND PUBLIC OPINION.

2. ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THIS WEB-LOG. I briefly moved this web-log to Geocities because
some people at Indiana University disapprove of the views expressed in it. Officially,
at least, that has now been worked out. I’ll comment at length in a day or two, after I
finish some work on the game theory book I’m teaching from. For now, the "http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=17959 "> Indiana Daily Student and "http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2003/09/06/news.0906-HT-A1_J LR11130.sto ">
Bloomington Herald-Times and, not as fully, the "http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/9/072007-5509-102.html"> Indianapolis Star
stories have some straight reporting on the controversy. Commentary is available at the
Volokh
Conspiracy and
Crooked Timber.

I would like to comment on one distortion I heard on talk radio yesterday from the
various people condemning me: that there is no evidence of the ill effects of
homosexuality. What I said in my web-log was that I did not have such evidence at hand,
and rather than hurry out and research it, I’d wait till I happened to see it float by.
Thus, I said, “I have no evidence that homosexuals are child molesters more often than
normal people” in the same way as I would also say, “I have no evidence that men are
child molesters more often than women” (as I did say in the web-log) or “I have no
evidence that smoking causes cancer” or “I have no evidence that the earth is more than
5000 years old.” Just because I don’t have it at hand doesn’t mean the evidence isn’t
there. And even if exhaustive search doesn’t find any evidence that claim X is true, it
might at the same time be true that the exhaustive search did not find any evidence that
claim X was *not* true. See my
August 25 post on philosopher William James’s observations on this. As Aristotle
says in Book I of
the Ethics:

… it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things
just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to
accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician
scientific proofs.

Hard evidence is just hard to come by on some topics, and sexuality is one of them.

1. HOMOSEXUALITY AND PUBLIC OPINION.

Pollingreport.com reports on
three Gallup polls, all in 2003:

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. July 25-27, 2003. N=1,006 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be
legal?"

	Poll date  	 Should   	Should Not 	No Opinion % 			% 		   %

	7/25-27/03 		48 			46 				6 7/18-20/03 		50 			44
6 5/5-7/03 		60 			35 				5

So the most recent poll shows a majority of Americans think homosexuality should be
illegal. Presumably they also think schoolteachers should not engage in sodomy. This is
of course not to say that the American public is correct (and the polls differ so much
over so short a space of time that I wonder if they are reliable), but they are evidence
that my position is the mainstream one, not the “ultraconservative” position some people
have called it. It is ultraconservative only if the starting point is an ultraliberal
group such as a university.

UPDATE-September 8-9. I misread my own graph above– by 48 to 46 percent, Americans
thinks homosexuality should be legal. That doesn’t alter my point, of course, which is
that a substantial number of people think it should be illegal. I could have phrased
things as “Only a minority of Americans think homosexuality should be legal–which is
also true, since it’s only 48%– but the message of the polling data is that opinion is
mixed and fluctuating.

That’s the nice thing about web-logs– and footnotes, for that matter. You shouldn’t
take things on my authority– if anybody does, which is unlikely– you should see what
data and arguments I have.

Here’s what the Gallup news
service has to say (better than the graph I had up yesterday in this spot):

Gallup first asked about the legality of homosexuality in 1977, with a basic question
worded as follows: “Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should
or should not be legal?” At that point, Americans were evenly divided on the issue: 43%
said yes, 43% said no and 14% weren’t sure.

Gallup has asked the question numerous times since then, and at the last asking in the
May 2001 poll, a majority — for the first time — agreed with the “legal” perspective.
Fifty-four percent of those interviewed said that homosexual relations should be legal,
42% not legal, with 4% unsure. The percentage saying that homosexual relations should be
legal dropped to as low as 32% in 1986, perhaps due to either the conservative
environment ushered in by the Reagan administration, or the beginning of widespread
publicity surrounding AIDS and its prevalence in the homosexual community.

So opinion is divided, and has been for many years. It would interesting to see how
opinion breaks down by other variables such as location, though, since I suspect that it
is polarized. Remember the Manhattan woman who said in 1972–”How could Nixon have won
the Presidency? Everybody I know voted for McGovern.” Remember, too, though, that
McGovern, a far-left candidate, and Goldwater, a far-right candidate, both facing
centrists with big advertising budgets, each won about 40% of the popular vote— not a
small minority.

September 5 2003: 1.
THE MARSHALL PLAN AND IRAQ.

1. THE MARSHALL PLAN AND IRAQ. National Review has a nice "http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may090503.asp"> Clifford May article on the
politics of rebuilding Iraq. He first points out that Germany and France wouldn’t want
to contribute troops or other personnel to the task.

So what could the Europeans do to be useful? Well, they could contribute a whole lot of
money to a sort of Marshall Plan for Iraq. "_blank"> [more]

September 4 2003: 1.
STATUS OF CONVICTIONS WHEN AN APPELLANT DIES.

1. STATUS OF CONVICTIONS WHEN AN APPELLANT DIES. "http: //www.boston.com/news/local/BCWorkbench/site/news/local/BCWorkbench/si
te/news/local/ma ss
achusetts/articles/2003/08/27/geoghans_death_voids_conviction_prosecut ors_say/"> The
Boston Globe reports:

Upsetting victims of clergy sexual abuse, prosecutors who won a guilty verdict against
John J. Geoghan for molesting a 10-year-old boy said yesterday his conviction will be
erased because the former priest died while appealing the case.

…

“The Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that if a defendant dies while his appeal is
pending, the indictments are to be remanded to the trial court with an order that they
be dismissed,” she said.

That’s an interesting policy. Is it a good one? The alternative would seem to be to
either (1) let the guilty verdict stand, or (2) let the verdict stand unless the heirs
of the man convicted want to pursue the appeal (at their expense), or (3) continue the
appeal, either without a lawyer for the appellant or with a government-funded lawyer.
I’m not sure which one I think is best.

September 3 2003: 2.
JUDGES AND THE DEATH PENALTY. 1. BUSTAMANTE AND MECHA.

2. JUDGES AND THE DEATH PENALTY. James Taranto’s WSJ "http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003962"> Best of the Web makes a nice
point:

“A federal appeals court overturned more than 100 death sentences in Arizona, Idaho and
Montana Tuesday, ruling that condemned inmates in the three states were wrongly sent to
death row by judges instead of juries, ” the Associated Press reports. But if judges are
incompetent to render death sentences, what makes them think they’re competent to
overturn them?

1. BUSTAMENTE AND MECHA. I guess I should repeat part of target= "_blank"> my post from August 30. I see plenty of people criticizing
Lt.Gov. Bustamante for not renouncing his membership in Mecha. But it’s much worse than
that: he publicly voices *support* for the group, as "http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,95871,00.html"> Fox News tells us: href= "a1.htm#september3a" target= "_blank"> [more]

September 2 2003: 3.
HOMOSEXUAL TEACHERS. 2. BORING BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 1. OFFENSIVE CHRISTIANITY.

3. HOMOSEXUAL TEACHERS. Eugene Volokh has a "http://volokh.com/2003_08_31_volokh_archive.html#106243768327964965"> new post on
the homosexuals-and-Hindus as schoolteachers issue. This is focussed just on the
argument that homosexuals are risky as teachers because they are more likely to molest
their students (as opposed to the moral examplar argument, or the parental preference
argument). Professor Volokh says,

This allegation that male homosexuals are unusually likely to engage in sex crimes
against children is a pretty serious charge, and it seems to me that such serious
charges ought to be supported by some serious evidence…
“a1.htm#september2a” target= “_blank”> [more]

2. BORING BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Which is the most boring book of the Bible? After some
thought, I’ve decided on Jeremiah, largely on account of its length. How about the most
interesting? The Gospels, with Matthew on top in a compromise between length and
interest. Then Jonah– a lot of interest packed into a small space. Then Ecclesiastes,
Genesis, and Acts, perhaps. Note that by “interesting” I don’t mean “important”.

1. OFFENSIVE CHRISTIANITY. Somehow I just remembered something Chris Atwood told me, to
the following effect, about how not to offend. If you have to mention the spiritual,
at least don’t mention God. If you have to mention God, at least don’t mention Jesus. If
you have to mention Jesus, at least don’t mention the Crucifixion. And if you have to
mention the Crucifixion, at least don’t mention blood. Needless to say, the Christian
ought to sometimes offend.

September 1 2003: 1.
LAND OWNERSHIP IN PALESTINE.

1. LAND OWNERSHIP IN PALESTINE. One thing I’ve always wondered about is who owned the
land in Palestine before 1948 and who owns it now. I’d be much more concerned over
expropriation of private property than over transfer of tax rights from the Ottomans to
Britain and then to Israel or Jordan. Palestine has not been a state for many
hundreds of years (since the Crusaders?), but Palestinians have long owned land there.
Also, I can’t see what’s wrong with Jewish settlements if they just consist of Jews
buying land and living there. But the articles I read don’t ever touch on questions of
who owns what.

I’ve found a few sources which help, but I don’t know how dependable they are. Here’s
what I’ve found. It seems that in Israel proper, the government owns almost all the
land, and leases it out. [more]

August 31, 2003: 1.
ALLENDE AND CHILE.

1. ALLENDE AND CHILE. The web-log Valediction had "http://val.dorta.com/archives/000343.html"> a good post on Allende and Chile a
while back that summarizes his downfall nicely, quoting from left-wing historians. Some
excerpts on the question of legitimacy (much of the post is on how Allende wrecked the
economy, which is a bit different issue):

In the presidential elections of 1970, Allende got 36.2% of the vote, Alessandri
(National Party) 34.9% and Tomic (Christian Democratic Party) 27.8%.
[more]

August 30, 2003: 3.
HOMOSEXUALITY AND CHRISTIANITY. 1. CONSERVATIVE FACTIONS AND BUSH. 2. RACISM IN
CALIFORNIA.

3. HOMOSEXUALITY AND CHRISTIANITY. The idea that Christianity teaches the
homosexuality should be illegal simply because God commanded thus in the Bible needs to
be clarified, I see from the postings of "http://volokh.com/2003_08_24_volokh_archive.html#106225983206916439"> Eugene Volokh
and "http://lsolum.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_lsolum_archive.html#106191262134377003"> Lawrence
Solum. They assume that sodomy laws are religiously based, but I don’t think that’s
the case.

First, it is conventional to divide Old Testament law into three parts: 1. Ceremonial
law (e.g. sacrifices, unclean foods), “a1.htm#august30a” target= “_blank”>
[more]

1. CONSERVATIVE FACTIONS AND BUSH. Gideon’s Blog has "http:
//www.gideonsblog.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_gideonsblog_archive.html#106149466491255326">
a good comment on which kinds of conservatives should be happy with President
Bush, and which kinds unhappy. He divides them into Catos (whose focus is on limited
government), paleos, Christian Right, business, and neo-cons.

The Cato-oids are the only part of the Republican coalition decidedly on the outs in
this administration. (Well, the paleos are on the outs, too, but I’m not sure the paleos
are really part of the Republican coalition, not since Buchanan’s revolt.)
“a1.htm#august30a” target= “_blank”> [more]

2. RACISM IN CALIFORNIA. By now it’s well-known that the Lieutenant-Governor of
California belongs to an organization whose official motto makes it rather more racist
than the Ku Klux Klan (which, I think, likes at least to pretend to give *something* to
Blacks). Via Fox News:

MEChA’s motto is “for the race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing.” href= "a1.htm#august30a" target= "_blank"> [more]

August 29, 2003: 1.
PLAME/CIA UPDATE/CORRECTION

1. UPDATE, AUGUST 29. I regret having gotten caught up in this, given the time it
takes, but Mark Kleiman wrote me a good, conscientious email catching me in a mistake
and bringing up points I hadn’t addressed, so I’ll correct and elaborate. Many of the
ideas below (though certainly not the conclusions from them, which are usually opposite)
are his.

Further details on evidence as to whether Mrs. Wilson is a covert operative for the
CIA. Mr. Corn’s
July 16 article reports that she is “a woman known to friends as an energy analyst
for a private firm”. The > July 22 Newsday article says [more]

2. OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING. The State of Indiana has "http://www.in.gov/ai/licensing/"> a website on occupations that need licenses. The
health ones are: “a1.htm#august29a” target=”_blank”> [more]

Wednesday, August 28, 2003:
1. PLAME/CIA UPDATE

1. More news is available on the Valerie Plame affair, in which Novak revealed that the
wife of former ambassador Wilson (who is outraged that the Bush administration didn’t
believe him when he said that his visit to Niger proved that Iraq didn’t try to buy
uranium there) works for the CIA. The affair looks more and more like silly Democratic
partisanship, though (Wilson is a Democrat.) There seems to be no evidence that Wilson’a
wife is a covert operative, as opposed to the far greater number of people who do
occasional work or are regular employees of the CIA. No wonder nobody much has picked up
on the news. [more]

2. I just thought to check http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/events/past/winter03/wilson/ the
career of Charles Wilson, the former State Dept. employee who went to Niger, couldn’t
find anything new, and publicly attacked the Bush Administration for not believing that
he’d proved there were no Iraq-Niger contacts about uranium.
[more]

Wednesday, August 27, 2003:
1. PALESTINIAN RESETTLEMENT

1. Tyler Cowen "http://volokh.com/2003_08_24_volokh_archive.html#106201702756759579"> notes in
the Volokh Conspiracy that

"http://www.americanoutlook.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=
3015&pubtype=DailyArticles">George Liebmann has a provocative idea for making the
Middle East a more peaceful place: Offer Palestinians the chance to emigrate to the
United States and other Western countries.

That’s the way to go. The idea needs fleshing out, though. There are about 2 million
Palestians in the West Bank and 1 million in Gaza (does this include non-refugee
descendants too?). First, we might need inducements to Palestinians to emigrate, even
after we force their terrorist leaders to give them a free choice. I bet $10,000 per
person (including children) would do it easily, for a total cost of $30 billion.
Liebmann says the present value of our cumulative aid to Israel is $100 billion (though
I’m not sure what he means by that). At any rate, compared to our aid to Egypt and
Israel, $30 billion isn’t much, and, for the economists, it’s a transfer, not a real
cost. Second, we would need to induce countries to accept the Palestinians. The U.S.
could shoulder the entire burden, but a better way, especially given the pro-Palestinian
stance of so many European countries, would be to hold a negative-price auction. "a1.htm#august27a" target="_blank"> [more]

Tuesday, August 26, 2003:
HOMOSEXUALS AND HINDUS AS TEACHERS; AQUINAS ON TOLERATION; THE SEVEN NOACHIDE LAWS

Professor Volokh "http://volokh.com/2003_08_24_volokh_archive.html#106182323538204170"> posts the good
question of why Christians object to homosexuals as schoolteachers when they do not
object to Hindus, even though idolatry is the greater sin. This isn’t too hard to
answer, though. Some points: [more]

Why has the United States had laws against homosexuality, but not against idolatry, a
greater sin? —Because the laws against homosexuality are not motivated by religion.
Christians, Jews, atheists, and don’t-cares have all generally thought that sodomy was
wrong.

It was interesting to me to find out what Thomas Aquinas has to say about laws against
non-Christians. He goes into this in the Faith section of "http://www.newadvent.org/summa/"> Summa Theologica. In brief: nobody should be
coerced to become Christian; Jewish ceremonies should be tolerated; children should
not be baptized if their non-Christian parents object; pagan ceremonies may or may not
be tolerated, depending on prudential considerations; heretics should be executed. His
rationales are sensible on toleration, a bit mixed up on heretics. The principles
sound rather like those of Islam, which in most eras (though not present-day Saudi
Arabia) has tolerated Jews and Christians, if not pagans, but which forbids conversion
of Moslems to Christianity on pain of death.

Section 2-2-10-8 of the Summa is on compulsion to religion: "a1.htm#august26a" target="_blank"> [more]

Professor Volokh mentions that some people responded to his post by citing the Noachide
Laws. These are commandments which in Judaism apply to non-Jews as well as to Jews. I
found a list on the web,
which says that these “mitzvot” some from the Talmud–Sanhedrin 58b.

1. Do not murder.
2. Do not steal.
3. Do not worship false gods.

4. Do not be sexually immoral.
5. Do not eat the limb of an animal before
   it is killed.
6. Do not curse God.
7. Set up courts and bring offenders to
   justice. [more]

Sunday, August 25, 2003

WHY DO WE BELIEVE? William James has a good essay, "http://users.compaqnet.be/cn111132/wjames/The_Will_To_Believe.htm"> The Will to
Believe, which I mentioned in my
August 18 post on Al Qaeda.

… Although it may indeed happen that when we believe the truth A, we escape as an
incidental consequence from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens that by
merely disbelieving B we necessarily believe A. We may in escaping B fall into believing
other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad as B; or we may escape B by not believing anything
at all not even A. Believe truth! Shun error — these, we see, are two materially
different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by coloring differently our
whole intellectual life. [more]

Monday, August 25, 2003

THE ESSENCE OF EPISCOPAL CHURCH ORGANIZATION is the power of bishops over people and
property, and there is a close link to episcopal wealth too, which is one reason the
Puritans objected to it. The modern American Episcopalians are a good example, not
dissimilar to the 18th-century Anglicans whose secular comfort and religious sloppiness
lead to the Methodist exodus. Diane Knippers has a good article, "http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/003/008jiufd.asp">
“The Anglican Mainstream: It’s not where Americans might think,” (Weekly Standard,
8/25/2003, 8,47). [more]

Saturday, August 23, 2003

THE "http:
//www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeOfAlabama/Constitution/1901/Constitution1901_toc.htm">
ALABAMA CONSTITUTION is strange. It is too long, like most state constitutions, but
what is unusual is that since 1901 it has accumulated 742 amendments. That’s right–742.
They include “Amendment 739: Promotion of Economic and Industrial Development in
Tallapoosa County” and “Amendment 740: Polling Places in Tuscaloosa County”. The state
has a problem. Folding all the amendments into the main body "http://ali.state.al.us/recompilation_1901.html"> has been considered as a
solution, but there must be something fundamentally wrong.

I came across this because Judge Moore has been suspended (with pay) pending
resolution of ethics charges against him related to his defiance of a federal judge’s
order to take down the 10 Commandments from his courtroom (see the target="_blank"> August 22 posting below). How can a supreme court justice be
removed from deciding cases without impeachment? Well, the Alabama Constitution has a
way, in Article 6, sections 17 to
19, as amended a few hundred amendments ago. There is a nine-member “Judicial Inquiry
Commission” which can bring complaints to a nine-member “Court of the Judiciary”. While
a complaint is pending, the judge cannot sit on cases. So five members of the
Commission take a judge out of action temporarily at their whim, with no appeal. They
could keep bringing new complaints, and keep him out permanently. "a1.htm#august23a" target="_blank"> [more]

Friday, August 22, 2003

THE RULE OF LAW can vanish without anybody noticing. In America, when law professors
say, “rule of law”, they ordinarily mean “rule of judges”. What this means is that they
refuse to acknowledge that what judges say the law is and what the law really is can be
different, and that judicial behavior can violate the rule of law.

A case in point is the Judge Moore controversy over the 10 Commandments in Alabama.
Judge Moore, of the Alabama Supreme Court, put up the 10 Commandments in his courthouse.
Some lawyers objected, and got a federal judge to issue a court order telling Judge
Moore to take down the 10 Commandments. He refused. Is he violating the Rule of Law?

Judge Moore seems to have made rather lame excuses for his behavior, which is odd
because there are simple and good reasons for it. The "http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/religion/glsrthmre70103opn.pdf"> 11th Circuit
opinion ruling against him says, with amazing candor,

The First Amendment does not say that no government official may take any action
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. It
says that “Congress shall make no law” doing that. Chief Justice Moore is not Congress.
[more]

Is strikes me that LIBERTARIANS HAVE THE BEST WEB-LOGS. This is a refinement of what
happens in the journals of opinion, where right-wingers have the best commentators, but
where there are witty and bright conservatives as well as libertarians. (Though,
there, too, conservatism is in retreat– cf. National Review’s increasing acceptance of
modern mores, and the reluctance of commentators to forthrightly defend conservative
social positions without retreating to feeble excuses like “It’s just my religion.”) But
I haven’t seen many conservative web-logs, and while the ones I have seen are not
necessarily less intelligent or interesting than the libertarian ones, they are not
maintained as regularly and are not as cheerfully opinionated. I suppose it is the
nature of the people most attracted to the Web. Probably there are some good
evangelical web-logs I don’t know about, though— evangelicals certainly have taken to
the Web for posting religion texts and tracts.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Ian Ayres has a neat idea about RECORDING PHONE CONVERSATIONS which he published in a
“Why Prosecute
Linda Tripp?” New York Times P. A17, col. 1 (August 10, 1999).

The prosecution of people like Linda Tripp for secretly taping phone calls is said to be
necessary to protect privacy. But what aspect of privacy is being protected? Linda Tripp
could go on Hard Copy tomorrow and tell the world what Monica Lewinsky told her on the
phone, but that would not be a crime.
[more]

Wednesday, August 20,
2003

David Bernstein writes on "http://volokh.com/2003_08_17_volokh_archive.html#106124648414725105"> THE GREAT
DEPRESSION in the Volokh Conspiracy:

“The book I am really looking forward to is the one that explains how FDR presided over
10 [sic] years of economic depression, and is celebrated for ‘saving us’ from same.” href= "a1.htm#august20a" target="_blank"> [more]

The FOOD CHANNEL is the best thing about having cable TV. Mr. Roker (who I realize now
has both the joviality and looks of a black Frank Buckley— and I might say, the wit
and brains, except that I know about scriptwriters– has one of the best shows. Last
night he featured Saxton Freymann, a vegetable artist you can read about in "http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues01/feb01/art.html"> Smithsonian > magazine and co-author of How Are You Peeling? Foods with Moods and Play With Your
Food. That guy has talent! Art is not in decadence; it just isn’t featured in museums of
modern art.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

An example of how a third-world country is ahead of the United States in efficient
allocation of resources, from " http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/08-23-03/opening_5.asp">World
magazine.

Thailand’s Communications Minister Suriya Jungrungraungkit is calling the fee for his
automobile license plate an investment. Last week he bid $95,200 at the country’s first-
ever auction of “lucky” license plates, winning the number 9999. (Plate number 5555 drew
the second-highest winning bid–$47,619.) The Thai official said the plate will either
pay dividends in good luck or in a profitable resale: “This is better than investing in
the stock market.”

How much does a special-request number cost in American states?

Monday, August 18, 2003

WHY DID AL QAEDA BLOW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER? Jack Hirshleifer pointed me to a good
article on that question which also says important things about belief and behavior
generally: Lee Harris’s “Al
Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology” in Hoover’s Policy Review. The central point is that Al
Qaeda was not engaged in purposeful terror, but in dramatic theatre, and they cared not
about the effect on us, but about the effect on themselves. Mr. Harris starts by
pointing out a flawed assumption in our thinking:

The assumption is this: An act of violence on the magnitude of 9-11 can have been
intended only to further some kind of political objective. target="_blank"> [more]

Sunday, August 17, 2003

RACIAL INTEGRATION has not had much in the way of policy-driven financial incentives,
though the free market provides very strong incentives. Here’s an example I like,
though, from > World magazine:

Black, white, and green
Shreveport, La., pastor Fred Caldwell wants to
integrate his predominantly black Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church. So much so
that he's offering white persons $5 an hour to attend Sunday services and $10 an
hour for Thursday night services. "God wants a rainbow in His church," said
the pastor. On Aug. 3, between 30 and 50 whites showed up for Sunday services. Only five
asked for the money.

Not a bad idea for getting people in general to one’s church services.

Saturday, August 16, 2003

THE EPISCOPALIAN HOMOSEXUAL BISHOP has raised quite a fuss. I like that, but I’m a bit
surprised that it is news that the Episcopalians would do such a thing. The denomination
has been a liberal front for years. I think the fuss arises because, as I discuss in my
July 19 post in connection with
divorce, homosexuality violates natural law, not just divine law, and so arouses even
people who don’t know divine law or don’t care about it. (Also, the international
Anglican Church has mobilized only in the past few years.) But Mr. Robinson has a
disqualification even greater than that of his homosexuality which is hardly ever
mentioned: he believes the Bible should be ignored and is willing to say so. Via the href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ctmag/"> Christianity today web-log, href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21844-2003Aug5.html"> the August 5
Washington Post tells us [more]

Friday, August 15, 2003

Some details on CANADIAN LEGAL PROCEDURE are "http://volokh.com/2003_08_10_volokh_archive.html#106088947144609911"> posted by David
Bernstein on the Volokh conspiracy. What struck me is that the “loser pays” rule
applies not just to the outcome of the main case, but to all motions that are made. This
means that litigants do not try to smother the other side with trivial paperwork. Also,
there is a rule that if one side offers a $50,000 settlement and the other side wins,
but only wins $30,000, then the *loser* gets his costs paid, at a special high rate,
for any costs from the date of the settlement offer. Good ideas!

PILGRIMS BEING BLOCKED from holy sites was the cause of the Crusades, and we rightly
think that whoever ends up owning the Holy Land ought to allow pilgrims in. But the
Israelis are not. They are blocking *Jews and Christians* from the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem, because the Moslems object. See "http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%
5C200308%5CFOR20030807d.htm"> CNSNews.com on August 7. Maybe we should launch a
crusade against Israel.

Isn’t it interesting that Israel doesn’t simply raze the Dome of the Rock and restore
the Temple Mount as a Jewish site? There are religious reasons for not doing that–it
would embarass rabbinical Judaism considerably to have to deal with the possibility of a
new Temple, animal sacrifices, and so forth, just as it would embarass many Christian
churches to have to deal with the Return of Christ– but that kind of thing happens in
India every now and then, it seems.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

The SHERMAN AUSTIN anarchist website case is interesting as an example of (a) a plea
bargain, (b) a judge refusing to go along with a plea bargain, (c) a light sentence for
terrorist activity, and (d) the crime of promoting terrorism but not actually acting it
out. Sherman Austin posted instructions on how to make bombs on his website and the
website said to use them at the IMF and World Bank soon. Judge Charles Wilson thought
that the 1 month of prison and 5 months of “community confinement” in the "http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/plea.html"> plea bargain were not
enough. Instapundit on
August 5 quotes: [more]

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

I saw a wonderful quip on GERRYMANDERING at the "http://theamericanprowler.org/"> American Prowler website:

Gerry-Rigged Democracy
Political Hay
We have gone from voters choosing
their representatives to
representatives choosing their voters.
John H. Fund,
8/13/2003 12:02:00 AM

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

JOHN DONOHUE’S NEW PAPER, “The Final Bullet
in the Body of the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis,” is worth reading, but
disappointing. It starts with this purpose:

Hailed as heroes by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its supporters, while
derided as scoundrels by their staunchest critics, Lott and Mustard precipitated a
scholarly and political odyssey that can teach us much about the techniques and
limitations of sophisticated empirical research and the divergent norms of the scholarly
and political realms.

That is a good goal: what are the limitations of scholarly empirical studies, and how
does public policy pick up on the initial studies and the follow-ups? "a1.htm#august12a" target="_blank"> [more]

Monday, August 11, 2003

THE TALMUD is hard to find on
the web, but I finally found it at the very useful site "http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm"> www.sacred-texts.com. Why is it so hard to
find when Judaism is such a bookish religion, and one that esteems commentary so highly,
compared to Christianity, which urges people to study the Bible but puts almost no
emphasis on studying commentary? There is a huge number of Christian texts on the web.
Is it that Christians mind translation less? But the Talmud is not even in the holy
language of Hebrew; it is in Aramaic. Perhaps it is simply that there are so many more
English-speaking serious Christians than English-speaking serious Jews, or that
Christians care more about spreading their religion.

At any rate, my first dip into the Talmud, into the Tract Aboth which is supposed to be
one of the more accessible parts, is disappointing. The "http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/t05/abo05.htm"> opening seems to be typical of
its style and quality: [more] >

Sunday, August 10 2003

BANS ON LIE DETECTOR TESTS are a great example of not just foolish but wasteful and
dangerous government regulation. But to see how useful lie detector tests are, one must
not ask scientists or lawyers; one must think about the data like an economist
or a businessman. (I don’t mean to insult scientists and lawyers–but just because all
the smart scientists and lawyers agree on something is not a reliable guide to whether
it is good policy.) Law professor Instapundit’s "http://www.instapundit.com/archives/010783.php"> August 5 posting and the
recent National Academy of Sciences
report attacking lie detectors are prime examples of this. Using just these two
sources and the anti-lie-detector August 3, 2003 Boston Globe story that Instapundit
cites (now gone from the free site), we see that lie detectors actually are useful and
effective, even without going to pro-lie-detector sources.

Big ideas that are useful here are:

1. If lots of competitive businesses use a practice for a long time, it probably
   works. [more]

Saturday, August 9, 2003

WHAT IS HELL? It may be relative. However happy you may be now, maybe it is Hell if
being with God is good enough. That’s the idea of Dante’s First Circle (for the virtuous
pagans), I think. I saw this expressed well in Marlowe’s "http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext97/drfsta10.txt"> Doctor Faustus, I-iii:

FAUSTUS. And what are you that live with Lucifer?

MEPHISTOPHELES. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer,
target="_blank"> [more]

Friday, August 8, 2003

A MAJOR FIGURE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT HAS PLED GUILTY TO A MAJOR FIGURE IN SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT HAS PLED GUILTY TO AL-QUAEDA.
Instapundit pointed me to "http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Aug/bch20030807021214.htm"> Geek.com:

An ex-Intel employee who was recently arrested now admits to attempting to aid the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Apparently, Maher “Mike” Hawash, who was instrumental in
designing the Multi Media Extension (MMX) technology, admits that he traveled to China
in 2001 in an attempt to cross over into Afghanistan, but failed to get to Pakistan. Mr.
Hawash was charged with “conspiring to levy war against the United States,” “conspiracy
to provide material support and resources to Al-Qaida,” and “conspiracy to contribute
services to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.” Mr. Hawash pleaded guilty to the third charge.
Mr. Hawash may now get up to 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine. "a1.htm#august8a" target="_blank"> [more]

Thursday, August 7, 2003

I’ve been thinking more about RELIGIOUS TESTS for public office. See the "a1.htm#august5b" target="_blank"> Update to my August 5 entry.

Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Is there a RIGHT TO DISCRIMINATE on grounds of race? This came up on the "http://volokh.com/2003_08_03_volokh_archive.html#106009562532763590"> Volokh Conspiracy
recently. I just emailed the following to David Bernstein:

Dear David,

I was reading your posts, and wondering about the following possible right to
discriminate. Suppose the state of Indiana passes a law banning racial discrimination
in marriage, with a criminal fine of $1000.
[more]

It used to be that the US SENATE WAS APPOINTED by state legislatures, while the House
was directly elected by the people. Now, as "http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003837"> James Taranto points out, we
have reversed this. [more]

Do we have a RACE PROBLEM IN BLOOMINGTON, or is it everybody who is unsafe, not just
blacks? Here’s my letter to the local newspaper on "http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2003/08/06/news.0806-HT-A1_JLR10321.sto">
something that looked awfully like the build-up to a lynching in downtown
Bloomington: [more]

Tuesday, August 5, 2003

ARE THE DOCTRINES OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH grounds for disqualification to be a
judge, according to the Democrats in the U.S. Senate? Of course. This is a simple
question of fact. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a sin. The
Democratic Party teaches that no one can be a judge who does not believe that the U.S.
Constitution grants a right to abortion, and has made the reasonable extension, given
the premise, that no one who believes abortion is a sin can be trusted to be a judge.

That is not, however, a religious test, and it is quite constitutional. "a1.htm#august5a" target="_blank"> [more]

DOES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH think the U.S. Constitution is OK now? Historically, it taught
that a good Catholic could not believe that a government was ideal if it tolerated non-
Catholic religions or if it ever disobeyed the desires of the Pope. To believe otherwise
even had a special name: it was the heresy of “Americanism”, so-called because American
Catholics found it awkward to take the same anti-democratic position as the Popes. Some
excerpts from official papal pronouncements:

The Syllabus of Errors > of Pius IX (1864) condemned a large number of propositions, some political, including

55. The Church ought to be separated from the .State, and the State from the Church.–
Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852.
[more]

Monday, August 4, 2003

I’VE BEEN USING MOZILLA instead of Internet
Explorer for a few weeks now, and prefer it for various little reasons. The Mozilla
people ask for suggestions, and here are mine, which also apply to other browsers: href= "a1.htm#august4a" target="_blank"> [more]

Sunday, August 3, 2003

SILVIO BERLUSCONI, the prime minister of Italy, has gotten The Economist magazine very
excited–hysterical, even. In its July 31 issue, "http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1957150"> the editors
condemn the new Italian law which exempts prime ministers from prosecution while
they are in office. Since he can’t be prosecuted now in the courts, they say, they will
bring public opinion to bear against him. But looking at just what The Economist itself
presents us, it looks to me like The Economist has gone bonkers. "a1.htm#august3a" target="_blank"> [more]

POLICE MISCONDUCT would seem to have a fairly simple remedy: punish the policeman who
did it. Instead, we seem to have two standard remedies: 1. Let the victim sue the
government and get money compensation, and 2. Let the victim go free if he committed a
crime. I’ll come back to those in a minute, since even if you like those remedies,
surely you would add remedy 3: fire the policeman, and remedy 4: put the policeman in
jail. (Of course, 3 and 4 would, like 1 and 2, have degrees of severity– sometimes the
policeman would just be suspended for a week and sometimes he would just be fined or put
on probation instead of jailed.)

But it seems (3) and (4) are rarely used. "http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030729_971.html"> ABC News reports something
shocking from Illinois (I tip my hat to
Anton Sherwood’s Ogre web-log on this): > [more]

Friday, August 1, 2003

HOW DID THE EARLY CHURCH MANAGE to come out with a reasonably strong consensus on
orthodox belief? The Gnostics and Judaizers lost out, after all, and notwithstanding the
Arian controversy and suchlike subtle issues, the Christianity of the Apostle’s Creed
seems to have been universal by 300. In "http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/002/941xyxgr.asp">
Professor Gary Anderson’s review of Elaine Pagels’ silly new book on gnosticism
(in the Weekly Standard), he raises this good question, as well as politely knocking
her out of the ring: [more]

THE MENTAL DERANGEMENT OF CONSERVATIVES was the subject of a notorious recent article
by four professors at top universities. Reading "http://faculty-
gsb.stanford.edu/Jost/_private/Political_Conservatism_as_Motivated_Social_Cognition.pdf"
> the article is a good start to seeing how worthless it is. James Lindgren, in a
letter posted on the
Dissecting Leftism web-log points to something that kills the study’s credibility
for me immediately:

The Jost article claims that conservatives are angry and fearful and it builds on a
literature that claims that conservatives are unhappy. I find this strange, given the
decades of superb data showing the opposite. In the NORC General Social Survey (a
standard social science database, second only to the U.S. Census in use by U.S.
sociologists), [more]

Thursday, July 31, 2003

THE DINGELL NON-RESIDENT TROUBLEMAKER LETTER really needs to be read in full. The
Weekly Standard " http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/002/930ciqru.asp">
quotes it (“Boss Dingell, Iraq, Penthouse, and more,” 08/04/2003, Volume 008,
Issue 45, closed site):

Mr. Connerly:

The people of Michigan have a simple message to you: go home and stay there. We do not
need you stirring up trouble where none exists.

Michiganders do not take kindly to your ignorant meddling in our affairs. We have no
need for itinerant publicity seekers, non-resident troublemakers or self-aggrandizing
out-of-state agitators. [more]

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

NORWAY HAS JUDGES just as unjust as American ones, I hear via James Taranto’s WSJ HREF= "http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/"> Best of the Web. As "http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=594014" > a Norwegian
newspaper tells it:

An Oslo man has had his drunken driving case thrown out of court because overeager
police didn’t wait until he sobered up to question him. The court rejected the
inebriated confession and let the 36-year-old go, newspaper VG reports.

…

Police questioned the Oslo man six hours after the test was taken, when he would still
have had a blood alcohol level of about 1.7-1.8 per thousand, which is above the point
where people begin to slur their speech.

I’m glad my ancestors left in time!

MY SECRET SERVICE AND "a1.htm#july26b" target="_blank"> JUDICIAL SALARY postings have updates today.

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

MARK STEYN’s obituary for Idi Amin, "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=
/opinion/2003/07/27/do2710.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/07/27/ixop.html"> He will not be
Missed” is not be to be missed. The best part:

The defining image of him is a 1975 photograph of his arrival at a reception for
ministers from the Organisation for African Unity: as the band plays Colonel Bogey, His
Excellency is borne aloft in a sedan chair balanced with some difficulty on the
shoulders of four spindly Englishmen from Kampala’s business community, while another
humbled honky walks behind holding the parasol. It’s the precise negative of 1, 000
colonial daguerreotypes from Victorian illustrated weeklies. When it came to the white
man’s burden, the British could talk the talk. But that night the 300 lb Amin made them
walk the walk.

That’s the kind of thing that makes being a dictator worth all the hard work and danger.

Monday, July 28, 2003

VALERIE PLAME is the maiden name of the wife of Joseph Wilson, the retired diplomat
who attacked the Bush Administration for mentioning Niger uranium. Some web-logs are in
a lather because
Robert Novak wrote:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his
wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior
administration officials told me his wife suggested sending Wilson to Niger to
investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter- proliferation officials
selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. ”I will not answer any question
about my wife,” Wilson told me. [more]

CHURCH SERVICES can be reviewed, like any activity. The Christianity Today web-log
points to two of them, from the "http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-118-570163,00.html"> London Times
and Ship of Fools. The
reviews are astonishingly superficial, and give a good picture of how most people feel
about church and why atheist pastors thrive. If the music is ok and the seats are
comfortable, you don’t need to believe in God. "_blank"> [more]

Sunday, July 27, 2003

MORE HILARITY FROM MARK STEYN, in "http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn27.html"> “Bush playing his cards
right in Iraq”:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Well, yes, Saddam’s gone the Osama route,
releasing audio cassettes every couple of weeks. Why is that? These days, a compact
camcorder’s as easy to smuggle in as a Walkman, and video would have far more impact.
Could it be that Saddam isn’t in such great shape for the cameras? Not quite ready for
his close-up? Wherever he is, he’s dependent on a dwindling band of aides and, after
the way his sons were sold out, he’s gonna be a bit twitchy if Ahmed’s trip to the 7-
Eleven seems to be taking a little too long.

His humor is especially good because it is like poetry, hitting concisely at the
truth.

PASCAL’S COMBINATION OF MATHEMATICS, PSYCHOLOGY, AND THEOLOGY should be coming into
vogue now that we have things like Indiana University’s “School of Infomatics”. I came
across a very
stimulating passage in the Pensees on habit versus deliberation. The theological
application is incidental; this idea is just as important in economics:

252. For we must not misunderstand ourselves; we are as much automatic as intellectual;
[more]

Saturday, July 26, 2003

JUDICIAL CORRUPTION strikes again, this time in the Illinois Supreme Court. As the HREF= "http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-judg25.html"> Sun-Times tells us
(I tip my hat to David Bernstein guesting at Volokh’s
web-log)

Setting up a potential constitutional crisis in Illinois, the seven members of the state
Supreme Court Thursday ordered state Comptroller Dan Hynes to boost their pay from $158,
103 a year to $162,530 a year and to boost the pay of all judges in Illinois by about
$4,000 a year.

Gov. Blagojevich had vetoed those cost-of-living increases, and Thursday he vetoed a
bill to restore last year’s cost-of-living adjustments for judges. "a1.htm#july26a" target= "_blank"> [more]

Friday, July 25, 2003

THE NEW YORK CITY CITY COUNCILLOR SHOOTING has some interesting features not widely
noted. The basic story is that incumbent city councillor Davis was shot to death in
City Hall by semi-serious primary challenger Askew. The two points of interest are the
implications for gun control of the concealed guns both were carrying and the
homosexuality of Mr. Askew. [more] >

SHOULD A CHRISTIAN OWN A BMW? I bring this up because yesterday I drove to Louisville
and bought a 2003 Mazda Protege Mazdaspeed to replace my 1990 Protege. My old Protege
was a fine car, but it is wearing out. The Mazdaspeed is about $4000 more expensive than
a normal Protege, for which you get a turbocharger, big tires, better brakes, fancy
stereo, sporty tuning, and an unattractive sporty appearance, as you can read in reviews
by "http: //www.edmunds.com/new/2003/mazda/mazdaspeedprotege/100178606/review.html?tid=
edmunds.n.reviewmmindex.content..4.Mazda*">Edmonds, target="_blank"> [more]

WHY FIRMS PAY DIVIDENDS has long been a puzzle in finance theory, since then
shareholders must pay taxes on the dividends, whereas if company retained the earnings
and the shareholders just sold shares, they could get the same amount and pay less in
taxes. [more]

DELETING FILES BY ACCIDENT is frustrating. That’s what happened to my intended post of
yesterday, on the "

102"> Lawrence decision and on administrivia and affirmative action. Maybe
I can reconstruct for another day.

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

"http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol= 163&invol=537"> PLESSY
V. FERGUSON is the celebrated Supreme Court decision that declared that
segregation was lawful so long as it was “separate but equal”. This was interpreted to
mean that, for example, segregated schools were lawful so long as the school qualities
were equal. They weren’t, of course, so Southern school systems were in violation even
of existing law in, say, the 1920′s, but for many years nobody challenged them in
court. [more]

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

THE GRUTTER
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION decision by the Supreme Court is full of interest as an example
of confusion and hypocrisy. One point is the claim that “Diversity” is not just a code
word for “African-American”. [more] >

EDWARD SAID’S VIEW OF ORIENTALISM, like anything he wrote, should be suspect, since
his dishonesty is well known (is “honesty” perhaps a Western concept– but we must
include ancient Israel in that West?).
[more]

Sunday, June 22, 2003

SCRIPTURAL COMMENTARY used to include a lot of allegory, but not in the past few
centuries. I was surprised to see Erasmus, one of the moderns, supporting it in section
2 of The Handbook of the Militant Christian: "a1.htm#june22a" target="_blank"> [more]

Saturday, June 21, 2003

CHECKING FOR BROKEN LINKS is a good process to automate. "http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html"> Xenu’s Link Sleuth , by Tilman
Hausherr, is good freeware for that. His writing style is superb, too, in the
specialized genre of information about software—he actually makes it interesting to
read, with his concise bullet lists, tangential discussion of Scientology, comparisions
with similar software, and so forth.

Have I fixed the broken links in my own webpages lately? No… after I finish those
pesky referee reports and get my presentation ready for the conference next week, maybe,
…

Friday, June 20, 2003

BUDDHISM is really an entire array of religions. World magazine has a
good series of Olsasky articles on " http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/06-14-03/international_5.asp"> early Buddhism, >
bodhisattvas the Japanese "http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/06-14-03/international_7.asp"> Tendai, Zen, and
Nichiren sects, and the "http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/06-14-03/international_8.asp "> Pureland sect. > [more]

Thursday, June 19, 2003

HISTORY FRAUD seems to be rampant in that academic profession. "http://www.erinoconnor.org/"> Erin O’Connor’s June 19 blog is about a new book,
The Fabrication of Aboriginal History by Keith Windschuttle. href= "a1.htm#june19a" target= "_blank"> [more]

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

INNOCENT PEOPLE WILL DIE if we make killing them pay well enough. On June 18 "http://www.instapundit.com/"> Instapundit reports from reader Dick Aubrey:

I once observed, while in Central America with such a bunch, that if dead civilians were
necessary to discredit US policy, dead civilians would be provided. Part–I speak as one
with some formal training in hearts-and-minds–of the lefty war manuals deal with how to
deke the government into killing their own people. The lefties always knew that if they
killed civilians, all would be forgiven, if it were even noticed.

I have made a similar observation to my own church (PCUSA), modifying it to, “If dead
babies are useful to Saddaam, dead babies will be provided.” The point is that the folks
who made such a big deal about the sanctions are directly responsible for making dead
babies so valuable to Saddaam. Blood is on their hands. The blood of innocents.

If there is sufficient demand for dead civilians, supply will appear. The market works
only too well in this case.

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

THE FLYNN EFFECT is the huge increase in average performance on intelligence tests from
1920 to 1995. A score of 100 is by definition average, but only at a point in time.
Scoring 100 in 1995 meant that someone did much much better on the test than someone in
1920. [more]

Monday, June 16, 2003

THE NEW EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION is further evidence of European decadence. href= "a1.htm#june16a" target="_blank"> [more]

“DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ in the newspaper,” goes the old saying, but we pretty
much do anyway. Joel Belz has "http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/05-31-03/opening_1.asp"> a good short essay
on that in the May 31 World. He notes that despite being a sports
reporter and seeing how the newspaper made mistakes almost every time he phoned in names
and numbers, when he read other sections of the paper, he couldn’t help believing that
what he read was accurate.

Sunday, June 15, 2003

THE DEATH PENALTY is extremely popular in the United States, where liberal politicians
have learned that overt opposition to it is fatal to their chances of elected office,
yet it is extremely unpopular with American and European intellectuals. "a1.htm#june15a" target="_blank"> [more]

Saturday, June 14, 2003

EDITING POETRY is a task made difficult by the modern notion that writing poetry is
trivially easy, as easy for a pre-schooler as for Pushkin.
“a1.htm#june14a” target=”_blank”> [more]

Friday, June 13, 2003

MORE NUGGETS FROM DANIEL PIPES’S BOOK, Militant Islam Reaches America:

1. “Some Muslims may preach nonviolence. But politicians and diplomats must account
   for the stubborn fact that Muslim radicals have attacked Americans in such diverse
   locales as Lebanon, Yemen, Kenya, the Philippines, New York City, and Washington, D.C.”
   (p. 95) [more]

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

IS AN IDEOLOGICAL TEST DESIRABLE for candidates for public office? During the 1700′s,
Great Britain did not let Roman Catholics enter Parliament, even if they were willing to
swear allegiance to the Crown. (It should be remembered that it was unclear whether a
Roman Catholic could so swear, in good conscience, since the Crown was not Roman
Catholic.) [more]

Monday, June 9, 2003

DANIEL PIPES’S BOOK, Militant Islam Reaches America, will probably make
it to my Christmas Recommendation List this
year. Although it is a thinly disguised compilation of his journalism, there is a
common theme: Islamism is a new political ideology that is dangerous in all its forms
but downplayed by governments and press.
[more]

Saturday, May 31, 2003

AMERICANS HAVE BEEN GETTING FATTER for a long time. A recent working paper, "http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/9446.html#download"> “Why Have Americans Become
More Obese,” by Cutler, Glaeser, and Shapiro has a nice analysis. During about
1900- 1950, American calories consumed actually fell, but people were working in more
and more sedentary occupations, and so weight rose. Since then, the main problem has
been not reduced physical movement, but– and here is the author’s contribution—
increased snacking. From roughly the 70′s to the 90′s, people didn’t eat many more
calories at mealtime (even though there was a shift from home to restaurant dining), but
they ate a lot more snacks.

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

I’LL BE BLOGGING LESS for a while. But you might find the Indiana affirmative action
materials linked at
this website of mine interesting. One thing I see is that although NRO,
Instapundit, the local paper, the AP, and the Chronicle of Higher Education have picked
up on the story, the campus newspaper has not. My guess is incompetence rather than
coverup.

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

HAS ANYONE NOTICED something strange about the South and Presidential races? Memories
linger of a Republican “Southern Strategy” of appealing to white Southern voters despite
the losses that entail among black Northern voters. But in fact, until 2000, Southern
whites were unimportant to the Republicans, while Northern blacks were highly
significant. [more]

Monday, May 26, 2003

A FALLACY OF REGRESSION TO THE MEAN is nicely illustrated, I think by something in the
Chronicle of Higher Education’s May 16 daily briefing (yes, I’m behind): "a1.htm#may26a" target="_blank"> [more]

Sunday, May 25, 2003

IN FOREIGN RELATIONS, who are the winners and who are the losers from Gulf War II? We
Americans have been focussing on America, Iraq, and France, and I’ve seen a little
attention given to Britain and Poland. Instapundit picked up on "http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/series_text.php4?id=1208&lang= 1&setcookie=1">
a perceptive article by Michael Mertes that explains how Germany is actually the
biggest loser next to Saddam Hussein ‘s Iraq. "_blank"> [more]

Thursday, May 22, 2003

OUR LAW SCHOOL DEAN is upset with us because the state chapter of the National
Association of Scholars issued a press release quoting from her email to law students
commenting on the theft of Scott Dillon ‘s data from their mailboxes. "a1.htm#may22a" target= "_blank"> [more]

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

OUR LOCAL AFFIRMATIVE ACTION STORY has made "http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-wood052103.asp"> National Review: href= "a1.htm#may21a" target="_blank"> [more]

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

BUSH’S DIPLOMACY seems to have achieved what that of previous Presidents could not: it
has persuaded Syria to shut down the offices it allowed terrorist groups to publicly
flaunt. [more]

CUBA UNDER CASTRO has in no sense been a success story. Sometimes you hear people say
that although GDP has not done so well, Cuba has good social services. That is
plausible, because a country can get good social services (and a good army) by taxing
away everything else. But it turns out that although the army is no doubt much bigger
than under Batista, pre-Castro Cuba *already* had strikingly good living conditions, as
I discover from "http://www.j-bradford- delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/001473.html"> Brad DeLong
via Instapundit: [more]

Monday, May 19, 2003

BACK FROM TOWING A U-HAUL with furniture and books from my parents’ farm in Illinois, I
found a great
quote about Clinton, Nixon, Kennedy, and presidential morality in Jay
Nordlinger’s column on National Review:

It’s September 1998, and Clinton is conducting a cabinet meeting. Donna Shalala, the
health and human services secretary, has the temerity to say, Surely, Mr. President, a
president has some obligation to provide moral leadership. Clinton wheels on her,
furious, and says, By that logic, you’d have preferred Richard Nixon in 1960 to John
Kennedy.

I wish he had more of a cite, though.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

THE FILIBUSTER is an example of the kind of lovable tradition that is so much a part of
the English and American political systems, like the New Hampshire primary being first
and the Democratic and Republican parties alternating whose convention comes first. This
kind of tradition depends on fair play and reciprocity, though. "a1.htm#may15a" target="_blank"> [more]

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION obviously got Jayson Blair his job at the New York Times
despite his dishonesty and incompetence. But that is to be expected, even by
supporters of affirmative action. The whole idea is that the employer chooses workers
who are more likely to be dishonest or incompetent, because he is trading off that extra
probability against the benefit of having a person of the race he prefers. "a1.htm#may14a" target="_blank"> [more]

Sunday, May 11, 2003

TONIGHT I LOOKED OVER MY PORTFOLIO and changed a few things. I’m getting out of bonds,
except for inflation-indexed ones, simplifying my holdings where I can, investing in
Japanese stocks, and buying into a 529 college savings plan for my children.

Saturday, May 10,2003

PATRIOTISM IS SOMETHING knowbody seems to want to be admit lacking. I think patriotism
is a virtue, but to be consistent, I think many other people should not. Take those
people who thought Gulf War II was an unjust war. If asked, “Did you want Iraq to win?”,
how should they answer? If they answer, “Yes,” they are being unpatriotic. If they
answer, “No,” then they are ascribing to the maxim, “My country, right or wrong.” That
is fine, but I’d like to see them acknowledge that they agree with the concept.

May 9,2003

WHICH WARS ARE JUST can be a difficult question, but what one hears commonly this spring
is that a just war is a defensive war, where “defensive” means that you wait until
you’re attacked. I didn’t see anyone point it out, but this implies that Hitler was
fighting a just war against Britain.
[more]

May 8,2003

SODOMY LAWS are a good test for distinguishing between conservatives, process
libertarians, result libertarians, and liberals. "_blank"> [more]

May 6,2003

WHY ARE REPUBLICANS INCAPABLE of playing hardball? The Democrats in the Senate
deliberately set out to break tradition by using the filibuster to block not just an
unusually conservative nominee to a federal appeals court—though even that would be
a radical break from tradition— but the typical Republican nominee. The Republican
response? To complain— and mildly.
[more]

May 5,2003

DID IRAQ REALLY have weapons of mass destruction? Why is taking so long to find them
then? Was this really just Bush’s pretext for war?

Well, consider a related question. Did Saddam Hussein really exist?
“a1.htm#may5a” target=”_blank”> [more]

BILL BENNETT”S GAMBLING is an interesting story. He is a rich man who thinks many things
are sinful, but, typical of Catholics, not gambling, and he does gamble large sums
several times a year. [more] >

DIVERSITY sounds like a good thing in education. But so does uniformity. I hear lots of
complaints from professors that it is hard to teach a class because the students differ
so much in ability. [more]