Category: Uncategorized

BM writes:

I am still rankled over that episode with the GOA owner, who I have forgotten his name. Bill O’Reilly just ramrodded him. Mr. O’Reilly just popped off on some standard stuff. I don’t think he had any knowledge on the subject. Then in an episode the next day he claimed to be acting facetiously when he referred to bazookas. I think what happened is the next day he did a little “after the fact” research and discovered that the AWB has nothing to do with machine guns. As for me, if the AWB expires I’m going to buy an AK-47! I got my eye on that!

P.S. – I enjoy your articles. You make your point but you never resort to nihilism or vulgarity.

Apparently he missed The Ballad of Sir William. In my defense – as I’ve already pointed out to one emailer – the reference to male genitalia is in the original. Not that I ever considered passing up the chance to add what Dark Window cheerfully describes as “a few quick kicks in the groin” for a second.

DS waxes enthusiastic:

I just recently read your article on Mr. O’Reilly’s “Fraud Factor,” and happen to be in total agreement with you…so, I forwarded a copy of your article to him and requested that he invite you. P.S. I also sent a note along with it telling him that I happen to agree with every word you said! Now let’s wait by the phone.

I wouldn’t hold your breath. If O’Reilly is afraid to have Badnarik on his show, he’d have to be completely insane to throw down with me. He doesn’t have the principles, the education, the ideological knowledge or the intelligence to survive, and he’s smart enough to know it.

Look, the guy’s no dummy. He’s sharp enough to position himself as a conservative, which beautifully differentiates him from all his competitors even though he isn’t one. If nothing else, he has a solid handle on the iron Law of Supply and Demand. I don’t despise the man; I rather think his astute salesmanship deserves respect and I have no doubt that he’ll continue to be successful as long as conservatives buy into his act. But I doubt he’ll take the risk of allowing anyone on who is likely to puncture the illusion.

RC writes:

I believe the Factor is doing much more good than harm by being on the air. Sure, you may be able to find some isolated cases when Bill should have zigged instead of zagged. However, we are living in a dangerous world at the moment. And please do not quote the founders regarding choosing between security and freedom. Everyone knows why the 2nd amendment exists. I do not believe it will ever be lost to us.

Precisely how is The Factor doing more good? How will boycotting France prove the answer to the continued loss of American liberties? O’Reilly is at best totally irrelevant, at worst, he is yet another cheerleader for the expansion of strong central government, the advocation of which a true conservative, PJ O’Rourke, once described as “treason to the human race”.

And if Mr. O’Reilly knows why the Second Amendment exists, then why did he suggest that one must be a nut to believe that private citizens should be able to own bazookas and machine guns? Is he aware that the Founders not only owned, but used, private artillery historically equivalent to modern large-bore howitzers and rockets? Is it ever better for the government to hold a monopoly on the use of lethal force? To again quote the immortal O’Rourke, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. As the First Amendment has clearly been lost with McCain-Feingold, I think RC’s stated belief as to the positive prospects of the Second are naive. And of course he would rather I did not quote Ben Franklin, who might otherwise remind him that those who trade freedom for security will have neither.

I believe Bill’s point regarding harm caused by the Patriot Act has more to do with large numbers. In other words, is the Patriot Act a reasonable piece of legislation for our current national security situation? My view is that, on balance, it is reasonable–but you may find singular or isolated cases where the Act falls short at the expense of the citizen. Given the present climate, what else can reasonably be done?

Defenders of the Patriot Act invariably ask to know how it has been abused already. That is to miss the point. As the legal gymnastics of the Supreme Court and the Executive branch have proved with work-arounds such as Echelon – where the British listen to US phone calls and send the transcripts to the NSA so that the US government can honestly claim that it is not eavesdropping – and outright fictions such as the emanations and penumbras in which the right to abortion was discovered, the correct question is: can this Act be used by future US governments to abuse its citizens. And there, the answer is clearly affirmative.

What else can be done? There are many possibilities. The government can stop interfering with private airline security measures. It can stop granting visas to dead terrorists and their live cousins. The US government is part of the problem, not the solution, and giving it more power via stinking excretions like the Patriot Act will only create more problems in the future.

BAGHDAD – It was 10.30 in the morning, almost four months ago, and the children were getting ready for church.

Aziz Raad Azzo, five, was drinking his milk; his 14-year-old sister Raneen was putting on her new clothes. When they heard a car pull up, Raneen, thinking her father was home, ran to the window and flung open the shutters. Four men shot her and her little brother in the head, scattering their blood and bones across the family’s living room.

The children’s crime: Their father, a Christian storekeeper, had sold alcohol.

Before the murders, the family had received a photocopied death threat. ‘We are warning you, the enemies of God and Islam, from selling alcohol again, and unless you stop we will kill you and send you to hell where a worse fate awaits you,’ read the warning signed by Harakat Ansar al-Islam, the Partisans of Islam Movement.

These murders made possible in part by the freedom-fighting, nation-building forces of the Coalition against the Axis of Evil. I can’t wait until free elections are held, I’m sure the Iraqi people, with their centuries of tolerant and democratic culture, couldn’t possibly elect anyone like the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front.

Athenian Democracy

185 years (507-322)

Roman Republic

402 years (509-107)

Royal England (Common Law)

427 years (1215-1642)

Imperial Parliamentary United Kingdom

259 years (1688-1947)

First French Republic

7 years (1792-1799)

Second French Republic

4 years (1848-1852)

Weimar Republic

14 years (1919-1933)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

72 years (1917-1989)

United States of America (voluntary)

73 years (1789-1861)

United States of America (involuntary)

139+ years (1865-2004)

I’m not saying that the world will come to an end when the US system of government changes and/or collapses. My best guess is that it will become an integral part of an North-Central American superstate in the mode of the European Union, which will eventually be a state in the federal world government. And, as in many of these previous cases, most people may not even notice the change; indeed, future historians may well decide that the Constitutional USA ended long before 2004, perhaps as early as 1865 when the Union ceased to be voluntary. (I don’t want another Civil War discussion; causes aside, the result is not debatable.)

Modern England is a decent place to live, after all, but it’s not the center of world power it once was under the Imperial Parliament. And one could even argue that for the average sybarite, Imperial Rome was a more entertaining place to live than its Republican predecessor. But then, there’s always a few crazy Old Republicans who have no desire to live under the rule of Augustus Caesar.

Mass-market publishers are not certain the used-book phenomenon is a problem worth addressing, but others in the industry have already made up their minds. “We think it’s not good for the industry and it has an effect, but we can’t measure it,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, a trade group. “There has always been used-book sales, but it’s always been a background noise sort of thing. Now it’s right there next to the new book on Amazon.”

Lorraine Shanley, a principal at Market Partners International, a publishing consultant, said that the industry was just starting to appreciate the dimensions of the problem. “Used books are to consumer books as Napster was to the music industry,” she said. “The question becomes, ‘How does the book industry address its used-book problem?’ There aren’t any easy answers, especially as no one is breaking any laws here.”

Anyone else doubt that if someone invents a technology that will allow someone to read a book once before it sets itself on fire and burns to ashes, the publishers of the world will beat a path to their door? William Gibson was just ahead of his time with Agrippa.

While I have a very amicable relationship with my publisher, in general I have little sympathy for them. Copyright was originally conceived as a way to protect authors from publishers, now it’s devolved into de facto protection for the publishers.

Bob Novak writes of John Kerry:

After disappointing organized labor by picking Sen. John Edwards as his running mate, Sen. Kerry has pleased union leaders in coming out in opposition to secret ballots by workers in deciding whether to accept union representation. Organized labor wants to do away with secret balloting and instead use the “card check,” in which a union gains accreditation as a company’s bargaining agent by soliciting union cards from members. Critics say that method results in coercion of workers by union organizers.

Both Kerry and Edwards have joined Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in urging the National Labor Relations Board to adopt card check instead of secret ballots.

I wonder if America’s First Gay Couple will also call for a card check instead of secret ballots in the national elections. Let’s face it, John Kerry is every bit as gay as Bill Clinton was black.

In the national survey of more than 75 percent of the Democratic delegates, two out of three of those expressing a position on gay marriages said they favored them. But among the delegates from a dozen Southeastern states, a slight majority was opposed.

No other issue reveals that wide of a regional divide among the party’s delegates. On another major social issue – abortion, 92 percent of the Southern delegates said they supported abortion rights, identical to the national average.

“They’re reflecting the views of Southern Democrats,” said Emory University political scientist Merle Black. “Most Southern Democrats would be in favor of choice on the abortion issue but most would be against gay marriage, especially in the rural and small-town South.” Most Southern Democrats opposed to abortion rights have already left the party, but there’s a “different distribution” when it comes to gay marriage, he said.

Edwards delegate Robert Sanders, an attorney from Covington, Ky., says he “couldn’t care if you marry a fireplug.” Others, such as Mary Brown, an environmental administrator from Vicksburg, Miss., used strong language to express their opposition to the concept of abortion but said they still favor the right. “I am for a woman’s right to murder her child if she wants to,” Brown said.

When Massachusetts’ Supreme Court first dictated homogamy, I thought the election was in Bush’s bag. Unfortunately for the Republicans, Bush proved himself to be as inept at political strategery as he is at military strategy. When your opponent hands you a club, BEAT HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH IT! This is rocket science?

I think the primary difference between Democrats and Republicans now is that Democrats want to actively depopulate the nation, while Republicans would prefer to see it collapse into chaos. Perhaps that’s not what they ideally want, but it sure appears to be the logical extension of their policies.

It’s not that I’m pessimistic, it’s just that it’s amazing to look at the historical lifespan of societies and then watch as the same pattern of decline plays out in your own society. It’s truly astounding, especially listening to others explain why these changes are positive developments. Nothing lasts forever, and we’ve already witnessed the collapse of one global superpower. I don’t understand how it’s possible for anyone to deny at least the possibility of the USA’s following suit.

Eight years after Microsoft launched an online magazine in a groundbreaking attempt at cyber-hipness, Slate may be sold. More than half a dozen media companies have expressed interest in buying the Internet publication, and the leading contenders are the New York Times and The Washington Post, a source familiar with the discussions said today….

Slate drew 4.6 million unique visitors last month, in part because it is part of the Microsoft Network, and the computer company would like to keep it there, even under a new owner, as a draw.

WorldNetDaily reportedly has something like 5 million unique visitors a month, without the benefit of being pushed by Microsoft on MSN and MSNBC, yet doesn’t get anywhere near the media attention that Slate normally does. I suppose this is the Internet equivalent of how Chicago, Dallas and Houston rate merely a modicum of the attention given to New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

As with the equity markets, gold is looking unhealthy. The difference being that gold’s downdraft should be countertrend, while I have little doubt that the long term trend for the equity markets is down. Fundamentals are always deceiving, as the dollarr will ultimately go the way of all paper, but markets never move in straight lines.

Using the same logic as before, if Wave 1 was 433 down to 370 in 86 trading days, Wave 2 looks to have peaked at 411, a 65 percent retracement in 46 days. The next buying opportunity should be somewhere in the vicinity of 348, perhaps somewhat lower, if Wave 3 is bigger than Wave 1, presumably sometime in November if the pattern holds. (These waves are an order of magnitude lower than the equity market waves I previously discussed, hence the shorter time frames.)

This is of no concern at all if you’re holding long-term bullion, but last week probably would have been a good time to move out of your trading positions preparatory to picking it up. You still might want to consider doing so if the price drops below 389 next week, as chances are that you’ll be able to buy at a 12 percent discount in the near future.

I’m still not completely sold on Elliott Waves, especially on the timing calls, but if they’re correct on the dollar hitting the high 90’s, well, that will be truly impressive indeed. I can’t think of one economist or financial analyst who thinks the fundamentals call for anything but a dropping dollar. But markets never move in a straight line, and if you think about it, plunging equity markets would move a lot of people into cash….