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I don’t see why they even bother making people show up to pretend they’re a jury anymore. If a juror doesn’t do what the judge wants, they’re thrown out anyhow:

It was supposed to be just another federal drug prosecution. The federal prosecutors introduced evidence that the man on trial was involved in the black market drug trade. The defense attorney said the government agents entrapped his client. And then the twelve citizen-jurors retired to deliberate the outcome of the case.

But then something unusual happened. The jury sent a note to the trial judge with the following query: Since the Constitution needed to be amended in 1919 to authorize federal criminal prosecutions for manufacturing and smuggling alcohol, a juror wanted to know from the judge where “is the constitutional grant of authority to ban mere possession of cocaine today?”

That’s a fair question. It is a point that has been made in Cato’s publications (go here (pdf) and here (pdf)) and a point that has been made by Justice Clarence Thomas, among many others. Federal District Court Judge William Young was startled. He says he has been on the bench for 30 years and has never faced a situation where a juror was challenging the legitimacy of a criminal law. Young tried to assure the jury that the federal drug laws are constitutional because the Supreme Court has interpreted the commerce clause quite expansively. When the jury sent out more notes about a juror that wasn’t going to sign off on an unconstitutional prosecution, Young halted the proceedings to identify the ”problem juror.” Once discovered, that juror was replaced with an alternate–over the objections of defense counsel. Shortly thereafter, the new jury returned with guilty verdicts on several cocaine-related charges.

Notice the pattern here? You will vote until you get it right. You will deliberate until you get it right. At all times, please not to notice that you don’t actually have a choice.

Better late than never:

All British combat troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of next year, leaving a few hundred military trainers to continue instructing an Iraqi army division based in Basra, according to proposals confirmed by defence sources yesterday.

It’s long past time for American troops to do likewise. For better or for worse, the Iraqi people have a Saddam-free future. We must leave them to it.

The Original Cyberpunk’s Friday Challenges keep getting better and better. I tend to think the half-jokingly suggested anthology entitled Cyberpunk: The Next Generation is actually a very good idea for Rampant Loon. Below is an entirely outdated story of mine written on a similar theme, albeit focused on the marketing department rather than tech support and rather more remniscent of Anthony than Bethke. However, I have to disagree with the OC’s adjudication, because in my opinion, despite the generally high level of quality in the submissions, it was Leatherwing’s take on tech support that was the clear winner. Although, I have to admit that Waterboy did crack me up with this line: “it sure-as-hell wasn’t his fault that they mistranslated his design for the new “Psychotropic Homosexual Cannabis” entertainment trip as “Psychotic Homicidal Cannibal!”

If you’re not following the Friday Challenges, you’re really missing out. Some of the best short fiction I’ve read of late have been entries in the FC Octagon. Anyhow, the speed references should serve to correctly date this story for those who can remember when Zeos was a PC player.

Demons in the Disk Drive

“Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Fall Codex show, back again in Las Vegas, the desert city of silicon sorcery and sin!”

The smiling speaker beamed at the masses of people crowding his forty-by-forty trade show booth. Like them, he appeared to be wholly caught up in the furious technoglitz of the giant annual industry gathering. His teeth gleamed white, his dark Italian suit was expensively impeccable, and his coiffed hair fairly screamed out his total ignorance of his subject matter. He had Sales/Marketing Guy written all over him.

“Xaos Computer is proud to participate in the thirteenth annual Computer Demonology Exposition!” the Salesman announced, winking at a pretty young technical analyst who was examining one of the colorful product specification guides. Her eyes lit up eagerly as he gestured broadly and raised his voice.

“At last the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived, a first look at Xaos Computer’s newest product line, the long-awaited, non-equated Legion of Doom!”

The Salesman flung arms wide to scattered applause as the scarlet satin curtains on either side of him drew smoothly back to reveal four jet-black computer systems, each resting suggestively atop Grecian marble columns. The fevered applause grew louder as the four dark crystal screens flashed simultaneously to life, spelling out X-A-O-S in letters of brilliant red-and-gold flames that leaped and twisted as if they were possessed.

“First, the Xaos Doom Thirteen, perfect for the casual home and small-business user. It’s powered by three minor demons bound by a guaranteed Intel Guild enchantment burning at twenty-five megahells! And every Doom Thirteen ships standard with MicroSpell’s Word of Power, the most-popular spell-processing package for the last four years straight!

“And over here you can see the Xaos Doom Sixty-Nine, the ideal solution for Guilds and Merchant Houses requiring the ultimate in connectivity and trans-planar communications. The Doom Sixty-Nine is ensorcelled with the same three-demon hellpower as the model Thirteen, but burns at a faster thirty-three megahells, and is specially optimized for networking. Deadspeakers will be pleased to hear that included with every Doom Sixty-Nine is a pre-installed version of Oracle’s latest necrommunications spellware.”

The Salesman grinned knowingly at three network consultants clad in tasteful navy-blue suits who were nodding their approval of the new Xaos machine. Their eyes were bright with lust at the thought of a Doom Sixty-Nine coupled to their main unit. The salesman smiled inside. He knew a sure sale when he saw it. He could smell it.

“And for spell engineers, alchemists, and other Power users Xaos is proud to announce the Doom One Sixty-Nine! Four minor demons are bound by puissant spells guaranteed unequivocally by the Intel Guild, and burn at sixty-six megahells, providing performance prophesied centuries ago by Nostradamus! The Doom One Sixty-Nine is specifically designed for use with AutoMage, leader in the spell-generation industry for almost a decade, and can even be used for some minor elemental summonings!”

The hoary white eyebrows of one aged sorceror rose as he noted the last comment and the Salesman of Xaos mentally notched another soon-to-be customer with satisfaction. Then the lights dimmed, the fiery letters dancing on the crystal screens disappeared, and hidden speakers emitted an ominous low-frequency hum as a darkling air filled the booth. The Salesman lowered his voice as he invited the audience to share his awe at the unveiling of the ultimate machine.

“And last, but never, ever, least, Xaos Computer presents the DoomBeast Six Sixty-Six!”

The crowd murmured and buzzed with excitement. The hidden loudspeakers growled, and moaned, diving deep into the most sinister ultrafrequencies as the Salesman’s voice was electronically modulated to a dark, mystical pitch.

“You are witnessing the dawn of a new generation of technology! The DoomBeast Six Sixty-Six is powered by a brand-new, secret-until-now Chaos Processing Unit known as Pentagram, developed by the Intel Guild. This new CPU has the power to bind major demons, summoning them directly from the bowels of the Fifth Nether Plane and harnessing their energies within. The hellpower derived from only a single major demon is equivalent to that of five minor demons and burns at an incindiary one hundred megahells! And Xaos Computer is proud to be the first to announce a product designed for this awesome new technology.”

The Salesman raised a cautioning hand.

“Now as we begin the demonstration, please keep in mind that the DoomBeast 666 is a prototype model, so you must not be alarmed if there are some minor design inadequacies which happen to appear in the course of the demonstration….

“You will notice the chalked circles that are conveniently provided on the floor in front of you. Please make sure that you are standing completely within a circle at all times, and no matter what happens, do not leave it! Do not be distressed at any shrieking or howling noises you might hear.

“It is also possible that you may notice the sensation of a hand resting on your shoulder at some point during the demonstration. A very large, very clawed hand. Do not, under any circumstances, turn around, or attempt to remove the hand! Also, if you happen to hear a familiar voice crying for your help, we very strongly encourage you to ignore it. Even if it sounds like your mother. Especially if it sounds like your mother!”

“So what happens if we turn around?”, a disheveled man with long hair sneered skeptically. He was obviously a spell sourcer. “We turn to stone or something like that?”

“Something like that”, the Salesman agreed solemnly. “Depending on the aspect of the particular demon in question, one’s heart might stop, one’s brain might shatter, or in the most unlikely scenario, one’s soul could, possibly, be inadvertently devoured.”

The Salesman grinned, attempting to allay the crowd’s obvious distress.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please, there’s no need to be afraid! The DoomBeast 666 has been tested and retested under the most strenuous of circumstances, and has passed the Federal Communication Cabal’s most stringent tests with flying colors. So if you’ll bear with me a moment, I’ll just call up the incantation and we’ll be off! … see kolonbaks lash beastbaks lash demonsix dotexe!”

He intoned the incantati
on in his deepest, most impressive voice.

The crowd screamed in fear as a thunderclap boomed and a huge six-armed firedemon unexpectedly appeared in their midst, howling like a lost soul and lashing out at them with lightning-tipped claws. Sparks slavered from its lava-like tongue as the New Products editor from Bite Magazine panicked and backed out of her chalk circle. She was devoured in a flash. The terrible sight sent two nearby reporters into hysterics; attempting to flee, they too disappeared into the fiery maw of the hell beast.

“Begone, spirit of evil”, shouted a Xaos technician, leaping out from behind a scarlet curtain to wave a dead chicken over the DoomBeast’s keyboard. “By the F10 and the Three-Finger Salute, I banish and bind thee!”

There was a hiss, and an unearthly roar erupted from below as the demon imploded in a flash of sulfuric purple smoke. Hysterical shrieks and moans came from the shocked audience as they stared at the DoomBeast, terrified, but afraid to abandon the safety of their shielded circles.

“Sorry about that folks”, apologized the Salesman as he crawled out from under a display counter, his glamorous hair now unfashionably unkempt. “Apparently I called up the wrong program! Let’s try this again, shall we?”

The Salesman ignored the frightened wails of the crowd and gestured towards his assistant. The young man cleared his throat, and nervously began to call out the arcane words. “…see kolonbaks lash beastbaks lash demonsev dotexe!”

In a matter of seconds, the Salesman’s visibly relieved audience was watching, enraptured, as a beautiful female face began to take form within the purple smoke that still lingered in front of them.

Ten minutes later, twelve dancing dervishes dissolved to the ringing of tinkerbells and the thunderous applause of the ensorceled crowd. The Salesman wiped his sweaty brow with the tailored cuff of his silk shirt, and sighed with relief. With only a few minor hitches, the grand kickoff had succeeded! He looked up to see a multitude of hands waving, reporters, techies, sourcers, magicians, all clamouring for his attention.

“How soon is the model 666 available?” “When can we get an evalation unit?” “What’s the retail?” “Who’s distributing?” Inquiring minds wanted to know.

“Shipping will begin in less than two months, but we’d encourage you to place your orders immediately. That’s all I can tell you for now.” The Salesman of Xaos smiled cryptically and shrugged his shoulders.

“Wait a minute,” the scruffy sourcer who’d spoken up before called out. “With Compact and Devil locked in a price war, and since Zeus, Gatekeeper, and you guys are all scrambling to undercut them, prices just keep dropping. It seems the longer you wait, the less you pay, and the more you get. What do you say about that?”

“Well, yes, that’s true,” the Salesman admitted. “But you can’t pursue an ever-receding horizon forever; at some point, you have to make your choice and live with it. Otherwise, you’ll never buy anything!”

For just a moment, the slick sales veneer vanished from his face and revealed the world-weary eyes of a philosopher.

“It’s just like anything else in this cursed industry. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t!”

The Democrats keep dragging her back in:

Since June, Senators Obama and Clinton have been working together to ensure a Democratic victory this November. They are both committed to winning back the White House and to to ensuring that the voices of all 35 million people who participated in this historic primary election are respected and heard in Denver. To honor and celebrate these voices and votes, both Senator Obama’s and Senator Clinton’s names will be placed in nomination.

And to think some of you thought me crazy for not accepting the “reality” of an Obama triumphant. That scraping sound you hear would be all the knives being sharpened. Make no mistake, the party elders know they picked the wrong horse; now they’re trying to figure out how to get off the gelding and onto the hardbitten old mare.

A woman asks: “I was drunk, but was it my fault?

As I sat on the doorstep, sobbing, no one mentioned calling the police. Or they did, but only to say there was no point calling them as I was drunk. But by then I was stone-cold sober, and acutely aware that the consensus was that I had brought any misfortune on myself and was at least partly to blame. I must have led him on, flirted, asked for it. Even if I was comatose, as I claimed, by being drunk I had made myself de facto available – come on, I’d been lying on a bed, hadn’t I?

To focus on “fault” when it comes to attempted rape is to miss the point. There is no inherent contradiction in holding the rapist 100 percent guilty of a crime while still blaming the victim for knowingly placing herself in circumstances that rendered her victimization more likely. To do otherwise is to assume that women are children who possess no control over their own actions or circumstances.

Those who think that women cannot possibly be complicit in any way for their own victimization need to consider their opinion on other, less contentious matters. Would they agree, for example, that a homeowner is not to blame in any way for having his home burgled when he was on vacation should he leave the doors unlocked and windows open? If not, then at what point should the line of culpability be drawn?

If, on the other hand, you think it’s reasonable to require that people take some level of responsibility for themselves in recognition of the fact that some individuals refuse to respect the sanctity of life, liberty, and property rights, then it’s correct to distinguish between the victim who freely elected to place herself in harms way and the victim who did not.

In this case, the correct answer is “yes”, as getting drunk to the point of passing out in the house of a complete stranger is obviously an incredibly bad idea. For those who would argue otherwise, I suggest we turn to science for the answer: Enter a randomly selected house tonight, get drunk and pass out, then let us know the results. With luck, you won’t run into the friendly neighborhood cannibal….

I’m just curious how cold it’s going to have to get before the global warming crowd finally begins to admit that not only are their Steamed Planet scenarios far from inevitable, but confess how they were completely wrong on the entire issue from the start. That should take place right about the time that glaciers cover Minnesota and start threatening New York City, I assume:

[S]ummer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century’s opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That’s by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

Perhaps it’s time we take a page from their stupid playbook and begin referring to them as global warming Insisters. Because, as they will be more than happy to tell you, the planet IS getting warmer, except, of course, when it isn’t.

JM asks about guns and immigration in the UK:

Nice blog… And thats coming from a New Atheist. Well maybe not what you refer to as a militant atheist, but an atheist nonetheless. Just wanted you to know that I enjoy reading your blog, you have a funny and thought provoking persona, and although I may disagree with quite a few of your arguments, I respect your intellectual position. I also figured you probably don’t get all that many emails like this from types like me, so yeah.

Having said that, I feel compelled to question your whole stance on guns and gun ownership, especially some of your comments regarding the UK’s policy. The root issues of gun crime here in the UK are the products of a flawed society, caused by the totalitarian descent we are currently steeped in but I feel that the introduction of public gun ownership would only serve to escalate matters. The amount of intolerant idiots in this country is exceptionally high, and I reckon that giving tools to these tools, to coin a phrase, will only result in a proliferation of gun-based deaths, on a fairly epic scale.

Also, your general stance on the cultural shift underway here comes across as fairly intolerant, given your supposed liberal attitude. A country is nothing more than a place, with a history, and ours is one of change and migration, as is yours. The world is constantly in a state of flux, and this is just a manifestation of this. Maybe its due to my lack of faith but I believe that this flux should be accepted and dealt with, not opposed.

I appreciate the sentiments, as it has never been my goal to run an echo chamber. I don’t expect most people to agree with me, it doesn’t bother me when they don’t, and while I’m equally comfortable engaging in civil and friendly discourse or hostile and insulting argument, believe it or not, I usually prefer the former.

JM’s two subsequent points are interesting, given as they tend to be related to his presumed atheist materialism, albeit in contrary ways. Taking the last point first, the idea that a country is nothing more than a place is deeply distinct from the Judeo-Christian concept of spiritual nations based on kinship rather than geography; the historical evidence of human behavior is a powerful, although by no means conclusive, argument in support of the latter. Would England be England if it were inhabited entirely by Asians from Pakistan? I would say no, absolutely not.

From a materialist’s genetic perspective, a homo sapiens is a homo sapiens, although presumably some of them are mutated and more highly evolved beyond the species standard. From a Judeo-Christian point of view, all homo sapiens are not alike and any society based on their fundamental sameness is bound to fail. My position on the Third World migrations into the West not a question of liberalism or intolerance, it’s – ironically enough – merely recognizing the inexorable material realities, as observed over thousands of years of recorded history. The idea that blood, identity, and culture are irrelevant, malleable and capable of being superceded by the state via its dictates is a relatively new one and that is observably inaccurate.

I’ll address the guns momentarily….

JB feels as if his innocence has been violated:

At first I admit to great dismay when your wedgie on Fight Club exposed its frilly lace. The book you’ve made sound so horribly gay that I’d sooner read Whitman. But you have tilted at the wrong windmill in your attempt to impute homosexual undertones to the movie’s phallic symbolism, and quite missed your overstretched mark. And let me head you off from any outing of my prose with the impenetrable defense that even my metaphors are heterogeneous.

Marla. In the movie, she was banged, a lot, very hotly. Even the weak avatar hit on her, “let me get your phone number.” Nobody gets the homosexuality of Fight Club because the theme isn’t there. Fighting = manhood = get hot girl. Doesn’t get more heterosexual than that. The cock scene in the theater. Cut to little girl crying. Now that’s good heterosexual humor… she’ll like it plenty later.

The psychology of fighting vs. reality. The book’s famed 50 fuck-fights, one man at a time, doesn’t happen. The fights aren’t realistic because real fights aren’t psychologically realistic. That’s why wisdom is necessary, to understand the idiocy of natural emotion. The movie, whatever its faggy authorial inspiration, is a story about the immanentization of Valhalla. End the office. End Apollonian order. Revive the territorial, the brotherhood and discipline and respect of the religious tribe, the violence and joy of the single combat gloriously extending and cycling anew each weekend, the resultant damage cartoonish and dismissable. It is the ultimate possible expression of the psychology of the fighter, to live on Earth and yet in Valhalla, to walk among sheep as a god.

Sure the psychological weakness of the beta Edward Norton hints at gayness in his dependent relationship on Tyler, but that ends when Edward becomes a man himself, and every beta is kind of faggy, so in that sense the whole world is flaming. And since Edward WAS Tyler, he was beating the shit out of himself in the parking lot and was the badass all along… and even the Catholics most disapproving of “self-abuse” admit it’s not a Levitically executable offence.

Unlike many books that lose their souls on the silver screen, Fight Club was merely deboned. Q.E.D.

Deboned is a good description. Degayed would be a more acccurate one, were it not for the essential point of the appeal provided by a bare-chested Brad Pitt. It’s quite clear that JB has not read the book Fight Club, but merely seen the movie. I’m not imputing anything to the movie; while I do mention it, I’m primarily writing about the book, which is more shriekingly homosexual than the average pride parade. I’ll readily grant JB that the movie is rather less gay than the book, but then, how does the relative non-gayness of the movie make the book flame any less? I futher note that opposition to Apollonian order is a veritable gay theme in and of itself, as per Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae.

But the primary error that JB makes is that the homosexual theme of Fight Club makes the book not worth reading. To the contrary, it is precisely that theme and the subsequent alienation of the characters that make the book stand out. Unless you read only to have your feelings, opinions, and prejudices confirmed, Fight Club is as deeply interesting for the glimpse it provides into an alien perspective as is The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

Howard Kurtz can’t get his story any straighter than John Edwards could:

The whispered allegations about John Edwards were an open secret that was debated in every newsroom and reported by almost none….Bill O’Reilly, while skeptical of the story, told his Fox News viewers last Monday: “I do know that if it were Mitt Romney instead of John Edwards, this would be on the front page of the New York Times.”

I don’t think the party favoritism charge holds up. Yes, the media went hard after two Republican senators, Larry Craig (who pleaded guilty in that bathroom incident) and David Vitter (who admitted calling an escort service). But they also pounced on New York’s Democratic then-governor, Eliot Spitzer (whose taste in prostitutes was revealed by the New York Times), and, famously, Bill Clinton (whose Monica Lewinsky mess was disclosed by The Post and hotly pursued by Newsweek).

No wonder the newspapers and mainstream media are dying off… and deservedly so. They’re not interested in doing the very thing for which they’re trying to get people to pay them. The Lewinsky story only came out thanks to Drudge, while Craig, Vitter and Spitzer were all matters of public record and didn’t require any reporting or editorial thumbs-up. “Hey, it turns out the governor of New York is being investigated by the IRS and the FBI, and he’s going to have to resign. Do you think maybe we should find some space for that?”

The more relevant comparison is the big story about McCain’s non-affair with Vicki Iseman that was published by the New York Times in February. How can that possibly be news when John Edwards’s actual affair isn’t?

Watching the mainstream media fade away is like watching a cancer patient die without going through the five stages of grief; they’re stuck firmly in denial. Now, it’s true that Fox News is the house organ of the Republican Party, but in like manner, the ABCNNBCBS cabal, the AP, and the major newspapers are the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. In times of increasing technological pressure, purposely cutting off your appeal to half your potential market isn’t stupid, its simply suicidal.

And misses the entire point of the South Ossetian situation:

For those that are still fixated on the idea that Georgia started this and Russia simply responded, answer me how what appears to be multiple combined-arms groups just happened to be able to respond so quickly, including the sortie of parts of the Black Sea fleet? It takes a lot of time, planning, and even movement and stockpiling of logistics to make that happen. The troubling question raised is how was it missed by — apparently — so many? It’s not like it’s easy to hide and that was part of what I will call the Fulda Tripwire: the movement and stockpiling takes time, for a combined arms force on the Soviet model chews through supplies in a way that makes a high school football team at an all-you-can-eat buffet seem like pikers. One example is in the shelling done and still ongoing — think about the rate of supply and resupply and then think about being surprised…

This battle for Georgia – not South Ossetia – is a long time in coming. Bill Clinton laid the groundwork for it by altering the rules of the game in Serbia, in which it was made clear that a major power had the right to intervene on behalf of a breakaway republic if it cried “help, help, I’m being repressed” by the sovereign territory owner. The Russians rightly feel that they’re playing by our rules and they have every reason to believe they’re going to get away with it since there is zero sympathy for the anti-Russian US position in Europe. The European position, quite reasonably, is to shrug and assume that it’s just like Kosovo, except that they also don’t want to upset their Russian fuel supplies.

At this point, the Georgian attack on South Ossetia appears to have been a terrible miscalculation by the Georgians and their US and Israeli advisors, who have been trying to solidify control over the oil pipeline in recent months. As some observers have noted, there’s even some reason to believe that the foreign advisors may have been in the forefront of the attack, based on the appearance of the troops and their gear in pictures of the earliest action. (I don’t have an opinion on this; I didn’t see the pictures myself.) In overreacting to the obvious provocations from the Russian-backed South Ossetians, the Georgians handed Russia the excuse it was quite obviously waiting for. I doubt Russia wants to annex Georgia, they are seeking a regime change, preferably to one that is pro-Russian.

Georgia did start this. That the Russians anticipated such a blunder and are taking full advantage of it doesn’t change the central fact of the situation. The truly worrisome possibility is not Russian expansion in the Soviet model, but rather, the idea that the attack on South Ossetia was not a blunder, but rather an intentional provocation by the USA designed to trigger a wider war in the area that will allow for a strike on Iran before the end of the Bush administration. Time will tell.

Michael Ledeen, weighs in with some neoconnery in the place of his usual thoughtful consideration:

When you’re doing reading it, ask yourself what’s the difference between this and the annexation of the Sudetenland?

Oh, not much. Other than the fact that the Czechs didn’t attack the Sudentenland and that the Russians are demanding recognition for South Ossetian independence, not its annexation. The Georgian situation has far more in common with Serbia and Kosovo, but you’d never know that to listen to the neocons. I wonder how long will it be until the first “Putin is the new Hitler” column is written?

Ledeen’s fellow Cornerite, Andrew Sullivan, notes the correct analogy with a prophetic quote from Lech Walesa:

“Recognizing Kosovo will bring nothing but trouble. No one can be denied the right to self-determination, but only within the bounds of common sense…with its irresponsible behaviour, [Kosovo is] causing new divisions in Europe and globally and undermining international relations.”

To say nothing of handing NATORussia an excuse for nobly defending the right to self-determination of the oppressed KosovarsSouth Ossetians, who are suffering at the genocidal hands of SerbiaGeorgia.