Vox Popoli

Those of us who regularly pollute our souls by reading BaneRants are aware that as just recompense for his multitude of evils, a vast list of crimes against humanity exceeded only by Hilary Clinton and various Elder Gods now sleeping (we hope) beneath the Antarctic ice, Bane has been inflicted by various plagues and poxes of the financial variety, mostly due to his fateful decision to pass on his inferior genetics to future generations.

Since he is the most likely vice-presidential nominee for the Cthulhu 2008 campaign, it is of course desirable that the fiscal viability of this probable candidate and potential savior of the nation be maintained. Therefore, I would encourage the regulars to consider doing one of two things:

Visit the Blogathon for Bane site and make a pledge, which is in no way tax-deductible and will in all probability be used to pay for expanding Difster’s already gargantuan collection of lesbian Chinese midget porn, but, like USA For Africa, will make you feel good while achieving absolutely nothing, or simply hit Bane’s tip jar and give the money directly to Amazon.com and increase the value of Jeff Bezos’ stock options.

I should probably add that one of the prizes mentioned by Difster will be a copy of THE ANTHOLOGY AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE signed by two contributors, the Original Cyberpunk and me.

The Virgin Queen shares a heartwarming educational experience:

I am a 19-year-old female college student in Boston, and last week during one of my constant arguments with my Black Studies professor ( it is a required freshman course), he not only called me a fascist but told me that I was “probably Vox Day in disguise!” as though it were the worst insult he could muster. Never having heard of myself (apparently I write columns for a VERY evil website called WorldNetDaily), I googled the name and have been reading up on you.

I can honestly say that G-d works in mysterious ways because if not for the most dismal educational experience I have ever had, I might never have discovered your stimulating columns.

I MUST send this to my old history prof. He’ll be vastly amused to know that a decade later, I’m still pissing off the leftist parasites of the Academy.

Anyhow, Virgin Queen, you can tell your professor for me that he clearly doesn’t know a damn thing about fascism, as confusing a libertarian for a fascist is roughly equivalent to confusing a La Scala enthusiast for a New York Yankees fan. And that’s speaking as someone who has personally translated the Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle from the original.

Be sure to also tell him that he’s welcome to stop by and get kicked around anytime.

SB, Esquire, isn’t up on the games governments play:

It appears you are at it again. The last time I wrote you, which was a good while ago, you were adopting the fatally flawed arguments of tax protesters regarding the federal income tax. Now, in your latest column, which is generally full of good points, I see this:

“the family “courts” (which are actually fraudulent executive-branch entities that operate in total violation of the constitutional law’s separation of powers)….”

What, exactly, does that mean? For one thing, only state, not federal, courts handle issues of family law like divorce and child custody. My own state of Georgia’s constitution has a provision that the executive, legislative and judicial powers are and shall forever remain separate and distinct. Can you provide an example of a state where this practice is not followed?

Lesson: never trust the so-called experts. Despite the fact that I’ve never even glanced at George law, I’m sure that Georgia, like every other state in the Union and the federal government, completely ignores the separation of powers and uses administrative courts that look, act and feel like judicial courts, but are in fact nothing of the kind.

Give an example? Sure. The Minnesota Tax Court. Or, for that matter, the Minnesota family courts. Both of which are staffed by employees of the relevant state agency, not judges. Need proof? No problem. “271.01 Creation of tax court; jurisdiction. Subdivision 1. Membership, appointment, qualifications. There is hereby created a tax court as an independent agency of the executive branch of the government.“

Furthermore, as the Minnesota Supreme Court stated in its appalling and convoluted decision, (WULFF v.TAX COURT OF APPEALS, 1979), justifying an overt violation of the separation of powers spelled out in its state constitution: “[1] We must note at the outset that nomenclature is not determinative. The names of the various administrative agencies in the state change with regularity, and with respect to its constitutionality, whether the Tax Court is called a court, a board, an agency, or a commission seems to us less important than a critical analysis of its function in conjunction with an examination of the doctrine of separation of powers….As we stated earlier in this opinion, taxation is a peculiar function of the legislature. Solely because of this unique nature and the judicial checks present in this case, we are not disposed to render the Tax Court statute unconstitutional.“

Dante, no doubt, would have those judges burning in one of the lower circles of Hell for that twisted abuse of power, language and reason. The truth is that a law degree doesn’t mean that you know anything about the law. In fact, it’s almost an assurance that you have no idea what is creeping about in its dark corners.

UPDATE – I’m wrong about the Georgia family courts. “No, our Georgia Superior Courts (which handle family law matters, among other things) are not in any sense of the word executive branch entities. While we do have administrative law judges (or hearing officers) for some things, such as initial hearings of workers’ compensation cases, the Superior Courts are delineated in the state constitution as part of the judicial branch, and every county in the state has one.” I am, however, correct about the Minnesota “courts” and the federal immigration “courts”. No word on the Georgia tax courts, or if they even have such beasts.

Papapete swings and misses:

Umm, Vox, you have a little problem with those two points. Both are correct, but women entered the work force in large numbers in the 1960s. Therefore if your theory is correct, real wages shouldn’t have peaked as late as 1973, they should have gone down much earlier in inverse relationship to the proportion of women in the workforce.

Come on. Do you honestly think I’m going to shoot my mouth off on something as controversial as this without being loaded for bear? See the Bureau of Labor Statistics for annual details.

1970 29,688,000 (40.8%) 48,990,000 (76.2%)
1980 42,117,000 (47.7%) 57,186,000 (72.0%)
1990 53,689,000 (54.3%) 65,104,000 (72.0%)
2000 63,586,000 (57.5%) 73,305,000 (71.9%)

Guess which column is which? Now, the percentage of women certainly increased from 1950 to 1970 (from 29.6 percent to 40.8 percent), but even so, their numbers more than doubled again from 1970 to 2000. It’s worth noting that during this time, the number of men not in the labor force also more than doubled, from 13 million to 27 million.

If 70 percent of percent of women had remained outside the labor force, as they did in 1950, there would be 32.7 million women in the labor force and the average real wage would be 29 percent higher than it is today. Would a raise of almost one-third enable most men to allow their wives to stay at home with the children instead of working? In most cases, I suspect the answer would be yes.

From the New York Times:

The information in these files was so abstract, so sterile, so tinged with the depressing reality of paternal grandmothers with diabetes and fathers with heart disease.

What about personality, love, intellect, passion? All I had to go on was the hieroglyphics of handwriting. I couldn’t visualize any of them. From what I understood they were mostly kids, college students in need of tuition money, with mothers who were probably younger than I. I’d probably be better off grading their college English papers and picking a father for my child on that basis. What was I doing here?

UNFORTUNATELY I was looking for love, still trying to make an intuitive selection, not a rational one. I tried to fall for something on each page, some soaring words in their short essays, but there was barely the flair of a crossed T to swoon over.

Um, lady, you’re in a sperm bank. Your chance at romance and Daddy taking the kids to their soccer game has passed. Following your intuition instead of reason is precisely what got you here in the first place. No doubt her intuition told her that those men who were willing to marry her in years past were not exciting and passionate enough for her.

The thing is, excitement and passion are the very last things you want in a marriage. Infidelity is exciting. Divorce is passionate. Safe, friendly and mutually comfortable is what men and women should pursue in an ideal marriage, but of course, such pedestrian wisdom is wasted on young hearts steeped in Hollywood romance.

Shrubbery dreams of flying across a pink sky:

I’ve read up on the theory of political economy that you’ve pinned your hypothesis on and I flat out don’t buy it.

You mean the Law of Supply and Demand? Yes, well, the Marxians flat-out didn’t buy it either, and look where it got them. Circular-filed under Theories, Hopelessly Disproven.

1. Do you deny that the overall size of the labor force increased with the mass entry of women into the work force? Y/N

2. Do you deny that American real wages peaked in 1973? Y/N

3. Do you deny that when Supply increases faster than Demand, the Price falls? Y/N

Or perhaps you deny the notion that women are, on the average, predisposed to support collectivism? If so, I’d be interested in seeing a single electoral result where the candidate favoring smaller government enjoyed greater support from women than he did from men, or conversely, where the candidate favoring expanded government enjoyed less support from women.

Remember, the Gender Gap was not a negative term engineered by the Right, it is a positive term meant to describe the female preference for “progressive” politics. And by “progressive”, it is the progress of government expansion that is meant.

The Fraters Libertas draw attention to the Star Tribune’s embrace of ignorance:

In a major blow to people who know stuff everywhere, the dominant newspaper of the Twin Cities has been legally prohibited from allowing people with knowledge and expertise to write news articles for them.

It sounds absurd, but it’s all true. From the pages of the professional journalists’ guild newsletter, evidence of what happens when unions attack:

An arbitrator has upheld the Guild’s grievance against management’s use of freelance “experts” to write news stories for the A and B sections of the Star Tribune. The Guild filed the grievance a year ago after a story by [WCCO TV] meteorologist Paul Douglas appeared in the Metro Section. Subsequent stories by Douglas appeared on 1A. This is a significant and unambiguous victory for the Guild.

Morons. But what can you expect from the Star and Sickle? By the way, I’ll be on with the Northern Alliance crew at 2 PM today.

Craig Westover kicks vaccine cheerleader Dr. Hull when he’s down… again:

Dr. Hull accuses me of not doing thorough research. That’s a criticism I might accept from some of the parents who have spent years juggling care of autistic children with researching the complexities of biochemistry, but I won’t accept it from a health care professional that uses a truncated newspaper article as “scientific” support for his position.

I would expect a health care professional to be a little more (dare I say) “thorough” before dispensing information to a concerned parent of an autistic child. I would ask — who is it that is doing a “disservice” to the public?

Jamie disappoints me:

So I go to check out free week, and I realised that they’re asking me to sign up with my address and phone number on an unsecured webpage just to browse. I’m not comfortable doing that….

Dear Jamie,

They’re not going to verify your telephone number before they let you read it, much less your physical address. Almost no web site does. Never let an opportunity to insert garbage into Carnivore’s great data collection system pass to pass you by. It’s your moral duty!

Best regards,
Veronica Dawson