When Dumb Laws Collide
I've always been of the opinion that both existing sexual harrassment law, and the Americans with Disabilities Act were well intentioned but exceedingly dumb ideas. In a perfect example of what happens when dumb laws like this come together, a New York city teacher has won a harrassment settlement from his school district because his student's taunted him about his ethnicity, and the school did not prevent it. The school has paid the settlement, but contends that it couldn't have disciplined the students, because they have special ed (disabled) status, and the school cannot discipline them as a result.

This sort of stuff is so draconian. Sexual harrassment and discrimination laws have created a de facto speech and code of conduct, and conflicts between the two, plus the new habit of holding third parties responsible for damages, is making a joke of our legal system.

For instance, say you own a textile company, and you have a male employee who is verbally and sometimes even physically abusive to your other employees and clients. He's a liability to your business, and puts you at risk for damages in a sexual harrassment lawsuit, due to growing anger from your female employees over this guy's behavior. So you fire him, right?

Wrong! This guy has a mental disorder, which causes him to have trouble relating to people at a normal, non-violent, civil level, and so is a disabled man. As a result, you can't fire him, you are required by the ADA to accomodate his dangerous and violent behavior.

This is what we call being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and its what we've done to businesses across the country.

The dumbest man in the world:
is this man, who is suing fast food chains claiming his obesity and health problems are their fault, and that he believed that fast food was good for him.

The sheer lack of mental power embodied in such a statement flabbergasts me.

I sincerely hope that this lawsuit is tossed out of court, as it so deservedly should be. If this fella was dumb enough to subsist entirely on the lowest quality available food outside of vending machine cheese snacks, then he deserves to live as he currently does.

Consumer Freedom.com has been predicting that lawsuits like this would occur aftr the big tobacco settlements for a long time. There's interesting news available on their website.

What's the point of a Directorate of Intelligence, when there's so little of the stuff in our Government?
In today's Washington Times Letters to the Editor, Sen. Lieberman outlines his alternate proposal to Bush's plan for a Department of Homeland Security. Personally, I think both are bad. Sen. Lieberman, however, appears to have very little understanding of how our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are organized. In his letter, he proposed a "new" Directorate of Intelligence to reside within the Department of Homeland Security.

The problem here is this. We already have a Central Intelligence Agency. This agency ostensibly has oversight of all our other intelligence agencies, and acts as a central clearinghouse for information. Within the CIA are three major directorates. They are: the Directorate of Operations, the Directorate of Administration, and the Directorate of Intelligence. Yep, that's right. We've already got a DI. I'm of the opinion that creating a new, second DI within a brand new baby agency will do us no good and just be a waste of funds. What we should be doing, in my opinion, is working to reduce the barriers to information sharing that we currently face within the intel community. There is too much protectionism when it comes to useful intelligence, and there is also a lengthy, and rather obstructive beaurocratic process that analysts must follow in order to disseminate intelligence. We have the communications technology to make this possible, we should be concentrating on that, not on creating a brand new agency.

... but I'll even take help from a democrat.
Yesterday, I read an article in the Post talking about a provision in the new Corporate Accountability and Fraud act of 2002 that would have made attempting any crime, a crime punishable in the same manner as comitting the actual crime.

I was concerned enough about it, I actually wrote my congressmen.

Today's Washington Post heralds much better news. Apparently, senate democrats have removed that provision from the bill.

So it wasn't Dick Armey that stepped up to the plate. If the reports are true, I actually have to give my thanks for the existence of Patrick Leahy, the man behind holding up all of Bush's judicial nominees.

So... (and yes, this hurts to say it) Thank you very much, Sen. Leahy for protecting the people of America from this incredibly bad change to federal law.

Dick Armey, Save Us!!
Wow. Haven't checked any of the blogs I normally read yet today, so dunno if anyone else has seen this, but I pulled the following article off of the Washington Post's AP newsfeed.

Apparently, the GOP is trying to slip one over on us. Inserted in the legislation to address corporate fraud this week was a quiet little attempt by the GOP to make even attempting to commit a federal crime, a federal crime, punishable by the same sentence as the actual commission of the crime.

Yep, that's right. So now there will be:
- attempted sexual harrassment charges... no longer will it be neccessary to prove that the behaviour was unwanted, all you have to do is show that the man addressed you in some form of sexual manner, and he's guilty
- attempted use of unneccessary force charges... so now if a cop even threatens you with force if you don't comply in an arrest, you could get him booked on civil rights violations
- attempted child abuse charges... now they'll be able to throw you in jail for even threatening a spanking to your child
- attempted... you get the picture.

So my question is, where the hell is Dick Armey, and why hasn't he tried to stop this insanity??? It's not like the federal register of crimes isn't already too large for any reasonable person to be familiar with the whole of the law. In one fell swoop, though, the House of Representatives is proposing to double it.

First Russia passed a flat tax. Then Russia announced that they were privatising social security. In every respect, Russia is an emerging democracy struggling to shake off a past of totalitarian rule. My country's ancient enemy is starting to look freer than the U.S.

...In fields of eternal catnip
My four year old maine coon, Mr. Bigglesworth had to be euthanized on Friday. He was dying from a combination of cardiomyapathy and acute kidney failure. He was only four years old. Apparently this is a condition that is common in larger male cats, especially if they tend to be a little overweight, and Biggie, bless all 18 pounds of him, was. When I first took Biggie home, he was so small, he could sit in the palm of my hand. He had trouble adjusting to his new house, and I had to hand feed him for the first week that he lived with me. As a result, we bonded very strongly, and Biggie thought that I was his mamma. He followed me everywhere; slept where I slept, stood sentry over me in the shower, sat on my lap while I read, and did his best to trip me up while I was cooking. But last Tuesday, he was acting a little listless. On Wednesday, he hadn't gotten any better, so I decided to call the vet on Thursday morning. The vet diagnosed the heart problems, and took some blood to do tests. Friday morning, Biggie had crawled down to the deepest, most secret part of the house, and was just lying there, trying to breathe. The vet called me that morning to break the news of his bloodwork to me. Given his heart condition, and the fact that his blood pressure was so low, treatments we would have tried on Biggie just weren't feasible. By the time I got him to the vet's office that Friday, Biggie was choking for breath, and fading in and out. The vet explained Biggie's chances for survival (nil) and I made the decision to have him euthanized. I held my cat in my arms while the vet gave him the shot to put him to sleep, so I know that he didn't feel any pain, just faded out quickly and peacefully. I can only pray that there is a kitty heaven filled with fields of ever-blooming catnip as far as the eye can see. I hope Biggie is there, and that he is happy, and that he knows that any time he wants to, I'll be there to scratch behind his ears and rub his tummy for him.

bye bye biggie baby. be good while i'm gone.

Hysteria Anyone?
You know, I used to snicker at the Washington Post's coverage, since some of it was so blatantly biased. I'd check out the front page each day, and compare it with the front page of the Washington Times, just to see what the liberals thought was important that day compared to the conservatives.

But what with Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom etc. all going bust, the Washington Post is just slavering for an exclusive angle they can exploit. And they found the company I work for. First, it was this smear article on the front page of the Post accusing AOL of engaging in shady advertising business deals. I've just spent the past year and a half of my career here testing out the software for recording these deals. We account for our advertising very carefully. Buried in the article is the fact that these deals represented less than 2 percent of our revenue.

Then came Part II, which was just a further rehashing of the same smears they detailed in Part I.

But that's not enough for WaPo. One of WaPo's front page articles today carries the sensational headline: 'IM' Is Not So Private After All. Which, if they were talking about security holes in AOL's system, I'd understand. But they aren't. The article itself isn't nearly that interesting. All it was is a rehash of the fact that any text you have on a computer can be copied, and it can (and will if its nasty enough) come back to haunt you. Big deal. If you don't understand that concept, raise your hand, and I'll come over and hit you on the head with a tach hammer because you are a retard.

The timing of that last article, added to the fact that it contains no new information, can only be interpreted by me as an attack by the Post on my company. Leave us alone! You've caused us enough stress, now give us a chance to get our business fixed and calm down before you attack us again.

Evil... as in the fruits of the Devil
My father sent me a link to this article he found on ccn.com regarding animal cruelty. He included with the link the following words:

"There are more people in the world than any other creature save insects. Perhaps we should try reciprocal punishment for people like this."

Now I'm no PETA member. I'll kill it, skin it, grill it and wear it, and enjoy every minute of it. I have no problem whatsoever in using animals for food, work, clothing materials, or even entertainment.

However... moral people take steps to ensure that their use of animals is free of unnecessary cruelty. Yes, killing a cow may hurt the cow, but that's what the cow was raised for, and we do that because we need to eat. This guy wasn't planning on eating the kitten. This wasn't even a case of someone taking an unwanted litter and drowning them in a sack. This guy put a baby kitten on a charcoal grill and poked and prodded at it and tortured it while it burned. The sort of person who does this sort of thing for amusement is missing that little spark inside that indicates humanity.

I'd like to agree with my dad, but I don't know that reciprocal punishment is even enough.

A Victory for the Right to Work
A federal appeals court ruled today that Bush was perfectly within his rights to issue an executive order barring PLAs on federally funded projects.

What this means for Virginia now is that Maryland can no longer force their union protectionist over-priced slow-assed work policies on Virginia. The very concept of PLAs is offensive to me as it is. PLAs are, pure and simple, protection money. You pay a union an inflated price over the actual negotiated cost, and in exchange, the union promises to actually finish the job on the agreed upon price, rather than strike in the middle of construction.

How this is better than going through a competitive bid process, and then hiring a contractor who will actually do the work on the agreed upon price is beyond me.

Moral Bankruptcy Watch
The Volokh brothers led me to this piece on OpinionJournal that shows the stark difference in treatment the Department of State gives to U.S. citizens vs. Saudi nationals.

The fact that this woman and her children have not been able to return to the U.S., have been forcibly kept in Saudi Arabia, against their wishes, with the active cooperation of the Department of State against one of our own citizens makes depressingly obvious the fact that the Department of State is not on our side, but on the side of our enemies.

Everything Right is Wrong Again...
Paul Craig Roberts has a piece in the Washington times that I was reading this morning, titled "Losing The Ties That Bind."

You should read it, really. It'll raise your blood pressure. He starts out, making a reasonable enough point:

The fickleness of women, men argue, is no longer constrained by concerns with reputation and by laws that require real grounds for breaking up a marriage and a family.

There is some real truth to this, although Roberts neglects to mention that it goes both ways. It used to be, if you got a girl in a 'family way', you sucked it up and married her and the two of you tried to make the best of it. No longer. You can get by with sending her a couple hundred each month and never seeing your child, who will be raised as a bastard or by another man. Men still leave women just as often as women leave men. I think Roberts is right to say that until society actually looks down on people who won't bear their responsibility to their families, marriages will keep breaking up for the slightest reason.

But I really got steamed when he said this:

Conservatives are right — but for the wrong reason — that the sexual revolution has undermined marriage. Men see women as damaged goods and feel funny about marrying a woman who might have shared a bed with a number of the wedding guests.

Well congratulations, Paul. You finally know what it feels like to be a woman, and wonder if every female 'friend' your man has is, in fact, a former lover. Now its your turn to deal with knowing that - god forbid - you can't own someone. I'll value purity prior to the marriage bed when guys stop trying to put me there without the benefits of marriage.

So marriage no longer means that you've bought yourself a house-slave for life. You can't neglect her, beat her, sleep around on her and be assured she'll just suck it up any more. Now both men and women are free to join or leave a marriage. Know what? Much as I believe that children should be raised in two-parent households, and also believe in traditional monogamous marriages, I think this is a good thing. Now, when people get married, its because they want to make that committment to you, something that I value far more than a committment forced upon me due to societal views.

... to tell the truth about someone
Eugene Volokh writes regarding Megan's Law "So the government really is just telling the truth to the public, and it's perfectly entitled to do so. It may be good or bad policy, but it's entirely constitutionally permissible." While my vindictiveness normally extends to child molesters sufficiently that I really could care less that they're exosed to embarrassment or humiliation because the Govt told the truth about them, I have to take exception to such a comment.

- If the government publishes a list of my checking and credit account numbers, its only telling the truth about me.
- If the government chooses to publish my medical records, including what prescription medication I may be taking, its telling the truth about me.
- If the government publishes my answers to their security interview on a website, its telling the truth about me too.

Does anyone else see the problem here? There are plenty of 'truths' that as a matter of habit, Americans prefer to keep hidden. We jealously guard our privacy, and having our personal history disclosed to anyone, not just potentially affected parties, its distasteful to us.

This also ignores the fact that our current legal system makes sex offenders out of the most unlikely folks. You can be convicted of rape if you're 17 and your girlfriend is 15. But when Megan's law hits you, will it say on the website, "was convicted of having sex with his girlfriend, two years his junior"... nope, it will say "convicted of child rape" which makes you a target for bored teenagers who figure the police are going to less vigorously investigate a bit of ultra-violence against some dirty rapist. Since a lot of this stuff is freely available on the web, including your home address, you become a target, not just for outraged citizens in your community who would rightly be upset if they caught you serving tea and cakes to their 12 year old daughter... its makes you a national target.

Freedom of Religion, but from Christianity
So some parent's group is suing a California school district for making their kids pretend to be muslims.

Of course, the teacher, in the article, states quite clearly that this program was voluntary. She claims to have sent out information explaining what would go on in the class, and that nothing that would qualify as "playing islam" was required for the grade.

That's all fine and dandy. I'm all for voluntary investigation of other religious practices. What strikes me as odd about this, is that its from the same state that ruled that the pledge of allegiance is unconstitutional because even voluntarily uttering the word God counts as coercing non-christian students. Funny, that the school district defends their practice of indoctrinating 12 year olds into a terrorist religion, but considers reciting the pledge coercive.

Getting back to basics....
Well I just spent the past week in rural Oklahoma. I live in a qausi-rural area in Virginia. The house I rent is in farmland, but I'm 20 minutes from a decent sized city and only an hour from DC itself. I was so far out in the sticks in OK that there were people riding their horses up to the local Sonic. Yes... Horses. and Sonic. I loved it.