First No Smoking Next No Working

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Seeing that our government has already set a variety of standards from minimum wages to banning smoking in restaurants over the years, it's only a matter of time before we mimic the oppressive European Union. From the Associated Press:

The European Parliament voted Wednesday in favor of an obligatory 48-hour maximum work week, saying that an opt-out widely used by Britain should be scrapped.

The opt-out, which allows employees to work longer hours if agreed with the employer, has also been applied to specific industries like health care in other countries, including Germany and Luxembourg.

Conservative foreign affairs spokesman Liam Fox called on the government to "use all their diplomatic efforts to ensure that Britain is not saddled with yet more regulation that will cost British jobs."
How long before the U.S. Government tells us we can no longer work 48 hours - less than seven a day? Many families are dependent on 10-hour workdays and will surely suffer when they receive smaller paychecks for less hours worked.

But you might be thinking there's probably a good reason for the restrictions, right? Socialist deputy Alejandro Cercas, who drafted the parliament's report, said the vote was aimed at restoring public confidence in European social values.

"EU citizens are asking what the EU can do for them, and this is one of the things," he said. "Citizens want a social Europe."

Apparently many in the U.S. want one to if they support government regulating smoking, even if a restaurant had an adequate non-smoking section that received no complaints.

A Savage Stroke

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

If you can believe it, the Bush administration is prepared to pay hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants. The money, totaling $1 billion (that's $1,000,000,000), will be available for services provided through September 2008.

Talk about insanity. I haven't been hyping the illegal immigration problem as much as I should have lately - this front page news headline has been a wakeup call and as a result I will be paying a lot more attention to this issue.

I'm currently reading Michael Savage's Liberalism is a Mental Disorder for review on my site, and I can only imagine his reaction to Bush's plan. Savage's solution to the border problem is to use the military to seal off the borders completely and deport all illegal immigrants, forcing them to apply for legal status in the country.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Bush's usual supporters turn on him for his ridiculously lax position on the borders and illegal immigration.

Anti-Tobacco Hysteria Spreads

Monday, May 09, 2005

First it was my home state of Florida, now it's our neighbor Georgia that has decided government must get involved between consenting adults and places they frequent by banning the sinful social practice of smoking.

ATLANTA - Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a bill Monday to ban smoking in most public places in Georgia, ending a guessing game that had gone on for weeks.

The law will allow smokers to light up in only a few places, including bars and restaurants that do not admit people under 18; designated hotel and motel rooms; and workplace smoking areas that have an independent air handling system. Violators face fines of $100 to $500.

The Republican governor had said for weeks that he had misgivings about the bill, believing that government should not become "the end-all and be-all nanny for all people."
So then why did you sign it? If a restaurant is making good business by allowing smokers to dine then what's the point of Big Daddy government stepping in to intervene?

Because the sissy anti-smoking crowd believes their "rights" to eat in a smoke-free environment supersedes those who want to enjoy a good smoke with their meal and beer.

Make no mistake, I don't smoke. Never have and never will, but if a restaurant owner wants to allow smoking then the ball is in my court to either accept it or find another place to dine, not cry to Big Daddy so my will gets imposed on everyone else.

I wish I could blame this problem on the we'll-mind-your-business-for-you liberals, but it's been mostly Republican governors caving in to such foolish legislation.

Here in Florida, restaurants have seen profits plunge because smokers stay less and as a result drink and order less. Prices go up to recover shrinking revenues and everyone is lugubrious, all so we don't have to be bothered by smokers while we eat.

War of the Worlds Extends Off Set

The highly anticipated "War of the Worlds," which pairs Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg together for the first time since the most-excellent "Minority Report," apparently extends off the set where Cruise has an "informational" tent set up for people curious about Scientology.

Via Arianna Huffington's new blog:

Cruise: The volunteer Scientology ministers were there to help the sick and injured. People on the set appreciated that. I have absolutely nothing against talking about my beliefs. We live in a world where people are on drugs forever. Where even children get drugged. Where crimes against humanity are so extreme that most people turn away in horror and dismay. Those are the things that I care about. I don't care what someone believes. I don't care what nationality they are. But if someone wants to get off drugs, I can help them. If someone wants to learn how to read, I can help them. If someone doesn't want to be a criminal anymore, I can give them tools that can better their life. You have no idea how many people want to know what Scientology is.
Well, living seven minutes away from Clearwater, where their home base is located, I can say I have a pretty good idea of what Scientology is and what their members look like. I expect to see many on the streets today on my way to the beach.

Me Looking Forward to a Star Wars Movie?

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Today is Mother's Day, so politics takes a back seat.

From what I'm being told about "Episode III" I may actually have a reason to anticipate the final installment of Lucas' sci-fi saga, which according to some early reviews redeems the first two episodes many moviegoers would rather forget.

I never got into the whole "Star Wars" business. I only saw the original three when they were re-released into theaters not long ago in remastered format.

Frankly, I found them less than thrilling. Perhaps when I should have been geeky about the whole thing I was busy being cool and having a life, or something, because having waited so long left me without appreciation for the dated movies. "Episode II" did have a cool fight with Yoda in it, so I know it isn't impossible to find something good in the saga.

And something about "Episode III" looks good to me. I'm actually looking forward to it.

We Respect Free Speech, Just Not Ann Coulter's

Friday, May 06, 2005

The fallout over that idiot who was arrested for "asking a question" to Ann Coulter at her speech last Tuesday has only proven her harsh criticisms of liberals (not all) to be true.

You guys on the Left (not all but many) are making a martyr out of this kid, screaming that his First Amendment rights were violated and that the Big Bad campus police roughed him up.

On Scarborough Country last night, Coulter was on fire - laughing at how liberals detest her to the bone for doing nothing but practicing free speech. Meanwhile, their darling Ward Churchill calls the 9/11 victims a bunch of "Little Eichmans" and they -- led by Bill Maher -- rush to his defense because his hateful rhetoric is free speech.

And Coulter, who calls liberals baby killers for supporting partial-birth abortion (meaning the baby is partially delivered before getting forked) is what - mean? Unfair? Not nice? So defend yourselves! But rather than make a cogent argument you guys are busy throwing pies and making the masturbation gesture in front of audiences. Then when the police rightfully detain you for being a menace you have the nerve to say your free speech rights were violated and that the cop hurt you when he slapped your pie-throwing hands with cuffs.

It's easy to understand why liberals hate Ann Coulter. She calls them out for what they are -- according to her. "Liberals don't care to debate," she wrote in a recent book, and sure enough she's met with pies and repugnant comments meant to be offensive. "Liberals are traitors," she wrote, because liberals support flag-burning and comments made by America-hating professors like Ward Churchill, but they don’t like conservatives who dare say things like affirmative action is discrimination on the basis of race; which, whether you agree with the policy or not - kind of is.

I used to be one of them: a Coulter-hater who couldn't stand her "hate" speech, and started Aggressive-Voice to refute her columns and books…until I saw firsthand how true she often is.

Liberals (not all but many) just can't accept opinions different from their own. This Raj clown was angry that Ann Coulter doesn't approve of gay marriage because she supports the traditional definition of one man, one woman. Like she said last night, "...we should not be overturning a 5,000-year-old institution like marriage on the whim of a few state court judges."

Somehow she and all the Republicans are bigots and anti-gay just because they wish against the state recognizing gay marriage.

Well guess what, it was your favorite president, Mr. Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, the first federal law to define marriage officially as a "union between one man and one woman."

So does this blanket definition of bigotry extend to Slick Willy? Is Mr. Clinton anti-gay for forcing homosexuals to hide their true identity while serving in the military under his "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy – a piece of legislation that is causing gays nothing but headaches?

I'm no conservative. I don't have to defend Ann Coulter and I often disagree with her opinions (drug laws, war in Iraq, internet regulation) but I'll side with her any day over Ward Churchill, any day over the flag burners, any day over the America-haters, any day over the liberal celebrities who rush to Europe to tell them how much of a horrible country we are, and any day over those who despise the woman - all because she is bold enough to speak her mind in a way that's meant to be abrasive and brutal.

How Liberals Debate

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Meet Ajai Raj, another dumbass college liberal who lacks the capacity to challenge conservative ideas. On Tuesday May 3, conservative author Ann Coulter was giving a speech at the University of Texas and was fielding questions during the question-and-answer session at the end of her lecture.

Raj, just one of the millions of liberals who can't understand why conservatives define marriage as an institution between a man and a woman, asked this question: "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f*ck his wife up the as*?"

Raj then began making the masturbatory gesture as a police officer approached to arrest him for disorderly conduct in which he was engaging throughout the speech.

I still don't think this tops the liberal who recently asked Chief Justice Scalia if he ever sodomized his wife, or the handful of pathetic liberals who threw pies and salad dressing at various conservative speakers, but it goes to show you the mentality of pusillanimous college liberals and how uninterested they are in ideas that challenge their own.

UPDATE: One of the authors at Penny Arcade called the kid a "saint" and opined his actions were "totally awesome."

Add another tally to the list of liberals who condone such behavior but get mad when I generalize them.

UPDATE II: A reader informs me via e-mail that Tycho of Penny-Arcade was merely reacting to the fact that Raj was arrested wearing one of their shirts. I guess I would think that's cool too, but wouldn't call Raj's actions "totally awesome."

Image source: The Smoking Gun

I've Been Plagiarized

I'm the victim of plagiarism, and to be honest -- at the risk of making light of the situation -- it's kind of flattering.

To be sure, plagiarism is a serious offense and can ruin a journalist's reputation and/or career. It should not be taken lightly and universities are in the right to pursue strict academic discipline for violations of plagiarism laws. But when I found out that one of my articles was plagiarized in the college newspaper, The Beaver Tale, I couldn't help but feel somewhat appreciated.

So I didn't get a byline. It was wrong for the writer to use my property, but he has been sufficiently punished for the offense as it appears from the article that he has been fired.

I feel a bit of sympathy for the kid, as I would for any fan of my work, and I would like to disclose that I didn't know about the incident until he personally e-mailed me to apologize. Let this be a lesson to all writers: you should never plagiarize. It will catch up to you. Every time.

Book Review: Constitutional Chaos

Tuesday, May 03, 2005



I often use this blog to voice my opinions on the current state of the judiciary and how I approve and (mostly) disapprove of its actions. A great book that reflects almost to the tee my opinions on judicial activism and interpretation is Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When The Government Breaks Its Own Laws by Judge Andrew Napolitano, the senior judicial analyst at Fox News.

Napolitano, a self-described individualist, cites several examples of government wrong-doing and how the courts have been so willing to follow along. Neither a liberal nor conservative, Napolitano criticizes judges and politicians on all ends of the political ideology spectrum when they mess up.

Should law enforcement agents be able to impersonate terrorists and underage children on the Internet to elicit criminal activity?

Should prosecutors be able to offer witnesses reduced sentences for agreeing to testify against other defendants?

Should President Bush be allowed to hold terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without charging them with a crime?

I highly recommend Constitutional Chaos. You can read my full review here.

Throw Away the Key

Monday, May 02, 2005

I've never been a fan of imposing mandatory-minimum guidelines on judges, but here in Florida the explosion of child abduction cases has gotten out of hand. Too often convicted child molesters are released into society after serving lax sentences (sometimes just probation) and wind up preying on more innocent children.

Today, Governor Bush signed the Jessica Lunsford Act into law. It requires anyone convicted of molesting a child under 12 to serve a mandatory 25 years to life in prison. Those who serve less than life will be required to wear a global tracking device for the reminder of their natural lives.

It's unfortunate we waited this long to enact something so sensible, because a handful of girls who were raped and murdered within the last few years would still be alive today.

Serving Their Country

Thursday, April 28, 2005

And we thought Demi Moore had it bad in "G.I. Jane":

An Army officer was acquitted by a military judge Wednesday of raping a soldier in her barracks room, a claim the defense said she concocted to keep from being sent to Iraq.

First Lt. Mike Hall, 35, had testified in his court-martial that a night of dancing, flirting and kissing with 1st Lt. Jennifer Dyer, 26, last August led to consensual sex, not rape as she alleged.

He said Dyer invited him into her room at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and that, during two short episodes of intercourse, he stopped both times when she said "No."
Hall was also acquitted on an adultery charge but convicted of having sex without informing his partner that he had genital herpes.

The sex transmission charge is part of the military justice code that refers to acts "unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman."
It's pretty hard to be a gentleman when after you've spent six straight months in close confinement with male soldiers a female is introduced to the company. Having talked to a few Army buddies about this in the past, it's easy to understand how desirable any woman can be for a soldier in that situation - with or without herpes.

The Majority-Vote-Wins Option

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

It's Wednesday and that means a new Ann Coulter column. Coincidentally her main point is exactly the same as the one I've been expressing all day, which is that Republicans need to drop the whole "nuclear/constitutional" nonsense and say what the option really is. From the column:

In one sentence Republicans should state that the so-called "nuclear option" means: "Majority vote wins." (This is as opposed to the Democrats' mantra, which is "Our side always wins.")

The question Republicans need to ask is: Why do the Democrats want to keep judicial nominees like Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen off the federal bench?

As I understand it, the reason Democrats are in a blind rage about Priscilla Owen is that, as a state court judge in Texas, Owen interpreted a law passed by the Texas Legislature requiring parental consent for 14-year-old girls to have abortions to mean that parental consent was required for 14-year-old girls to have abortions.

There's a whole array of groups opposed to Brown: People for the American Way, the National Women's Law Center, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Feminist Majority, the Aryan Nation and so on.

Democrats want to terrify people by claiming Bush's judicial nominees are nutcase extremists hell-bent on shredding the Constitution – as opposed to liberals' preferred method of simply rewriting it on a daily basis – but they're terrified that someone might ask them what they mean by "extremist."

...if liberals could win in the court of public opinion, they wouldn't need the federal courts to hand them their victories in the first place. The reason liberals refuse to elaborate on "extremist right-wing ideologue" is that they need liberal courts to give them gay marriage, a godless Pledge of Allegiance, abortion on demand, nude dancing, rights for pederasts, and everything else they could never win in America if it were put to a vote.

Republicans are letting them get away with it by allowing the debate on judges to consist of mind-numbing arguments about the history of the filibuster. Note to Republicans: Of your six minutes on television, use 30 seconds to point out the Democrats are abusing the filibuster and the other 5 1/2 minutes to ask liberals to explain why they think Bush's judicial nominees are "extreme."


This isn't the first time this year Coulter has had to coach her beloved GOP, as not too long ago she mulled the possibility that President Bush might really be an "idiot" for not being aggressive on certain issues.

Now she wonders why Republicans even bother debating the history of the filibuster when they know it's not going to get anything done. Just do it already.

The OK Corral That is Florida

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed a new anti-crime law on Tuesday that allows people to kill in self-defense without first trying to flee.

Critics of the new law, called the "Stand Your Ground" bill, have few objections to allowing people to protect themselves in their homes but say the bill will create a "Wild West" mentality in public, where residents may shoot first and ask questions later.

"There are going to be a lot of repercussions," said Rep. Eleanor Sobel, a Democrat. "You could have someone reaching into their pocket and if the person felt threatened he could shoot."

"All this bill will do is sell more guns and possibly turn Florida into the OK Corral," Rep. Irv Slosberg, a Democrat, said during recent debate on the bill.
Sounds an awful lot like the rhetoric that was being spewed years ago when Florida began the shall-issue program for residents applying for carry concealed permits. A professor of mine and renowned criminology researcher Gary Kleck collecting editorials that warned "blood will run in the streets." But we never saw that blood and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports showed that after Florida adopted its concealed weapons law, granting roughly 300,000 permits by 1995, the handgun murder rate dropped by 27 percent.

Meanwhile, states with A- grades from Brady Campaign are showing an increase in homicides while states like Florida continue to decline.

Gore Sing Same Tune on Filibusters

What makes it so dangerous for our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for one-party domination of all three branches of government. They seek nothing less than absolute power.
Note to the former Vice President: It's a freaking rule change! You know, these things sort of happen from time to time. We ended slavery, invented a right to abortion and restructured the Senate to allow for direct election by the People, among other things.

It's all hot air and partisan rhetoric. It may not be ideal that Bush is picking judges "too conservative" for your tastes, but it's certainly legal and does nothing to "damage democracy" because a majority of senators can still defeat any nomination. There's no procedure more fair than majority-rule.

House of Wax Review

I caught a screening of the upcoming horror film, "House of Wax" on Monday and published my review yesterday over at the movie reviews site. I'll be writing up a detailed spoiler review soon with details on the body count and other information people are just dying to know about.

Constitutional Procedures That Aren't Constitutional

While minority rights are a significant Senate tradition, the Constitution itself, through the "advice and consent" clause, clearly mandates confirmation of judges by simple majority once every voice has been heard. The filibuster is not enshrined among the Constitution's system of checks and balances. Judicial filibusters of majority-supported nominees have never been part of the Senate's tradition.
Until recently, anyway, when Democrats filibustered 10 of President Bush's appellate court nominees. C-SPAN 2 aired the battle between Senators Biden (D) and Hatch (R) this afternoon, two politicians for whom I have great respect.

While I can see where Democrats are coming from, changing the Senate rules to end filibusters on judicial nominees is no different or more "radical" than changing the Constitution to end segregation or give minorities the right to vote.

Fixing Roe v. Wade

Thursday, April 21, 2005

David Brooks, the only decent op/ed writer at the NY Times, mirrors my argument in today's column:

Justice Harry Blackmun did more inadvertent damage to our democracy than any other 20th-century American. When he and his Supreme Court colleagues issued the Roe v. Wade decision, they set off a cycle of political viciousness and counter-viciousness that has poisoned public life ever since, and now threatens to destroy the Senate as we know it.

When Blackmun wrote the Roe decision, it took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts. If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate.

Instead, Blackmun and his concurring colleagues invented a right to abortion, and imposed a solution more extreme than the policies of just about any other comparable nation.

Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters; they could just rely on the courts to impose their views. The parties polarized as they each became dominated by absolutist activists.

Unable to lobby for their pro-life or pro-choice views in normal ways, abortion activists focused their attention on judicial nominations.

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.
What, a national debate? The states should decide their own laws? Public opinion and accountable lawmakers should control the direction of our country rather than nine high robed priests? That's just too…um, rational!

Dennis Miller Owned The Daily Show

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Dennis Miller was on The Daily Show tonight and killed. Just killed. Stewart didn't get a single question in before the first commercial break because he was laughing so hard. Miller talked about his "right-wing" label and emphasized he's a Libertarian (like yours truly) who happened to support the war in Iraq. His zingers on the new pope were fresh and original...and I can't believe I'm complimenting Dennis Miller. Maybe he performed so well to improve his ratings over at CNBC, but regardless, I never knew the man was so funny. Look for the rerun tomorrow.

I Thought 1984 was 21 Years Ago

The New Hampshire Legislature has visions of Orwell:


When a [New Hampshire] bill came up in early April to consider allowing robotic traffic cameras at the busiest crossroads, mocking laughter from the gallery preceded the measure's demise. "The idea that we were going to be photographed [by the government] was anathema to most of us," says Neal Kurk, a Republican from Weare.
No thanks, big brother, but I prefer the old fashioned way: if the state wants to collect revenue from speeding tickets then the cops are going to have to work for it.

What bothers me most – aside from the government spying on us – is that tickets will be nearly impossible to contest because cameras have been found constitutional by the wise old courts, and as we all know - cameras don't lie.

Imagine this scenario: You and a buddy are driving somewhere and while your friend is at the wheel of your car, a camera catches the vehicle doing 15+ and records your license plate number. Several weeks later a hefty fine arrives in the mail and you are expected to pay for it.

The driver should be responsible, not the car owner. Perio.d. What if your ride was stolen by a car thief and a camera caught him running over three kids before ditching it somewhere; only capturing the license plate but not the driver inside. Who's responsible now?

There's a reason why due process starts with police officers having the power of discretion. If we're going to replace highway patrol officers with cameras then we might as well replace the entire force with robots.

Guess We'll Just Break into Your Dad's Liquor Cabinet

In response to recent "disorderly and disruptive" incidents, mall security two weeks ago started distributing fliers outlining the mall's "general code of conduct," according to mall Manager Ginny Szymanski. From 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, mall security guards now stand outside two entrances to make sure anyone under 16 has a parent or someone over 21 with them.
I can't recall anything worth anticipating more than the weekend to spend at the mall with a girlfriend and without parents. If we wanted to go to that store...done. If we wanted to eat at that place...done. If we wanted to spend whatever little money we had on that useless light exhibit at the hologram store...done. If she dared me to run up the down-escalator that was completely occupied with shoppers and a security guard...done.

Being at the mall without parents as a kid was an exhilarating rush of responsibility and freedom that today's children are losing, because "disorderly and disruptive" incidents are ruining it for the good kids. The last place you want them alone at is in a friend's house with nothing to do except find things that shouldn't be found.