Vox Popoli

And then there’s Angry Shaq. He needed this to happen. Honestly, he hasn’t given a crap about basketball for four years, since they won that second title and crushed the Sixers. After that happened, Satiated Shaq stuck around and kept playing, knowing that he could accomplish more on cruise control than just about every other player in the league. I don’t think it was a malicious act on his part. It was his version of MJ scurrying off to hit baseballs for two years.

Maybe we were insulted as basketball fans, but this was also the one quality that made him stand out over everyone else: This is a good guy. He takes care of his family, looks out for his friends, never stops having fun. He dabbles in movies, music, TV, even comedy roasts. He figured out how to handle the media early in his career — mumble through your answers, use intimidation when necessary; and eventually, everyone will leave you alone. I think he’s one of the smartest athletes in any sport. Seriously. Who leads a better life than him? What team athlete makes more money than him? Who balanced the characters of Public Superstar and Private Superstar more brilliantly than him? We don’t know ANYTHING about him, yet we feel like we do. And he likes it that way.

Which made it especially ironic that, for years and years, Shaq wore the “black hat” and Kobe wore the “white hat” on the Lakers. To the general public, Shaq was just a big mumbling monster, a physical freak with no discernible basketball skills, someone who couldn’t even make a damn free throw. Casual fans (and Lakers fans, which is basically the same thing) gravitated towards Kobe, partly because he reminded them of a young MJ, partly because he seemed like such a decent guy. Nobody realized that Kobe was an impossible prima donna behind the scenes, a brooding loner consumed with basketball and nothing else, someone lacking the requisite social skills to get along with teammates on even a rudimentary level.

I’m no NBA fan, but I always enjoy the Sports Guy’s analyses, as he throws himself into them with complete abandon. Unlike almost every other sportswriter in the business, he has no fear of stating his opinion, even when it leads an entire city to regard him with utter loathing. But I didn’t like Houston either.

And besides, how can you not love a column called “More Cowbell”. Because I got a fever, and the only thing that’s going to cure it is, more cow-bell. It seems ESPN is more flexible than WND – I wanted to call my column “Defending the Mike” but that got ixnayed. I suppose “More Cowbell” is marginally less obscure, but still….

The preacher placed before a World Muslim Brotherhood conference a working document drawn up at “a secret meeting of the movement” somewhere in the Middle East, calling on all brethren in the Muslim world to rise up and foil Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and, most of all, to combat any potential Egyptian or Jordanian role in its implementation. The Brotherhood was exhorted to resort “to all means available.”

Sen. John McCain of Arizona broke forcefully with President Bush and the Senate GOP leadership Tuesday evening over the issue, taking to the Senate floor to call such a constitutional amendment unnecessary — and un-Republican.

“The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” McCain said. “It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.”

38: States with explicit Defense of Marriage acts

05: States with similar statutory language

43: Total States with Defense of Marriage laws

50: Number of States in the Union

Apparently Sen. John McCain is operating under the assumption that 14 percent is somehow equivalent to “most”. Edwards may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but McCain’s mathematical genius may be why Kerry elected to pass on him as a running mate.

And we let this joker vote on the budget?

Jayuf asks:

What do you believe is the one significant flaw with the LP platform? Is it their stance on abortion or their stance on immigration?

The LP position on immigration will keep me from voting for Badnarik. It does not seem rational in this day and age to grant amnesty to illegals who have originated from states supporting militant Islam.

Good question. I’d actually been giving this matter a little thought of late, and I believe that it is the abortion plank that is the significant flaw. (I should mention that amnesty is a position of the Bush administration, not the Libertarian Party, wherein there is no such thing as an “illegal” immigrant.) Immigration is problematic, but very few people will refuse to vote Libertarian on the issue, as neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are the least bit interested in closing the border either.

The Libertarian Party’s position on abortion is a priori reasonable. An individual has a property right to their own body, ergo, the government has no ability to violate that property right. This was a logically sound conclusion in 1971, when it was first articulated. The problem is that it is now scientifically outdated. The unborn child is now proven to have different DNA, therefore, it is a distinct individual with its own property right to its own body as well as a concomitant right to life. The fact that it cannot survive on its own is irrelevant; neither can a newborn and as birthing technology improves, even the mother is becoming increasingly unnecessary as a host.

For example, when a woman has her eggs fertilized in-vitro and implanted in another woman, does the surrogate mother have a right to abort the unborn child? It’s her body, after all. The fundamental wrongness of the property right claim to the unborn child becomes all the more obvious when one considers the question of an artificial machine womb. If the child is no longer even in the woman’s body, how can she possibly claim the right to kill it without consequence?

More on this and immigration later.

Okay, this made me laugh. I came across it courtesy of le petit Dark Window. I’m not sure which I appreciated most, the innovative group protest – wouldn’t want to participate in that one myself – the president’s response, or the guy’s reaction to the response. It’s all good, except for the reminder that free speech and protest are no longer legal in the USA. And that goes doubly for the last sixty days before an election.

At the front of this second bus was The W himself, waving cheerily at his supporters on the other side of the highway. Adam, Brendan, and I rose our banner (the More Trees, Less Bush one) and he turned to wave to our side of the road. His smile faded, and he raised his left arm in our direction. And then, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, extended his middle finger.

Read that last sentence again. I got flipped off by George W. Bush.

A ponytailed man standing next to us confirmed the event, saying, “I do believe the President of the U.S. just gave you boys the finger.” We laughed probably for the next half hour, and promptly told everyone we knew.

I love the American spirit, especially when it resides in those with acorn-sized intellects.

Could Microsoft be behind a smear campaign aimed at Linux? If not Microsoft, then who? Let’s look at the continued attacks against Linux. The media is peppered with them. When one starts to die down, another one crops up. While every single one of these assertions is laughable, the never-ending barrage of anti-Linux propaganda has got to take its toll on potential users. Here are a few of the accusations you might find in articles planted here and there in the media:

Linux is not at all secure and poses a major security risk.

Linux is not cheap. Despite being free, it actually costs more to implement and maintain.

Linux is prone to hackers and viruses, because the code is easily available.

Linus Torvalds didn’t write Linux; it is in fact a compendium of old code that was cobbled together.

Linux is next to impossible to support, because no one company is responsible for it.

As there are no profits to be made from distributing or supporting Linux, it must die from eventual neglect.

Much of Linux is stolen proprietary code, and you could be liable if you use it. Furthermore, SCO will sue you if you use it.

Clearly, Mr. Dvorak is a paranoid wearer of tinfoil hats. I find it interesting that people are so willing to believe in the evil intent of Microsoft – not that I disagree, being a quasi-religious Fedora/Opera/OpenOffice non-user of Microsoft products – but are, on the other hand, always eager to absolve the Federal government of any like prediliction for the Dark Side of the Force.

This strikes me as being more than a bit backward.

A libertarian posts at Michael Badnarik’s blog:

Something Vox doesn’t necessarily point out is that while Mr. Badnarik is *personally* pro-life, he recognizes that there is significant controversy surrounding when “life” begins (at conception? at birth? at some point in between?), so the state can not legislate against abortion, since a fetus is not unarguably a “human life”.

Who doesn’t recognize that “there is significant controversy when ‘life’ begins”. I mean, if it could be proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that life began at 3 days, 18 minutes after conception, I wouldn’t have any problem with abortions performed before then. But that’s not the case, and is unlikely to ever be the case.

This libertarian’s sloppy thinking has it exactly backward. The states not only CAN legislate against abortion, they MUST legislate against abortion since a “fetus”, or unborn child, is ARGUABLY a human life. The Libertarian Party’s platform is simply outdated on this issue, reflecting the reasonable but inappropriate application of its anti-government intervention philosophy made around the time of the party’s founding in 1971.

One reason I appreciate Michael Badnarik is that he has reached his pro-life position through the genuine application of libertarian logic. This promises well for his leadership, not of the country, most likely, but of helping the Libertarian Party find its way to the proper libertarian position on abortion as well as leading the party to a position of greater intellectual influence in the nation.

In any case, even with its outdated pro-choice platform, the Libertarian Party is committed to returning the issue to the States, where it belongs, and will end federal funding for the abominable practice, which is more than the supposedly pro-life Republicans have done.

You know George Bush is in serious trouble when lifetime Republican stalwarts are beginning to turn their back on him. Joseph Farah is a genuine independent. Ilana Mercer and I are outspoken libertarians. We didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 or his father before him. But Tom Ambrose, the Commentary Editor at WorldNetDaily, has always been a strong Republican. That makes these words all the more incredible:

Let’s be real: There is no longer any substantial difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The GOP now even actively supports pro-homosexual and pro-abortion politicians. Enough is enough!

Religious conservatives comprise some 30 to 40 percent of the Republican Party. Rather than supporting spineless, highly compromised GOP phonies, why not work for something worthwhile such as the Constitution Party’s political platform?

For me, the bottom line is this: I do not want to stand before God one day and tell Him I enabled evil to continue unchecked because I was afraid to do the right thing and, consequently, caved in to what was expedient. No matter what happens, God is still sovereign, but at least I can say I stood against the evil now engulfing the United States. Will you be able to say that?

Much respect, Tom, much respect. I have a feeling that the Libertarian and Constitution Party’s vote totals are going to surprise everyone this fall. This assumes, of course, that there IS going to be an election.

People often ask me why I am a libertarian, not a conservative, and why I prefer the Libertarian Party, despite the one significant flaw in its platform, over the Constitution Party. The answer is simple. Government is a two-edged sword, and attempting to use it for good purpose always backfires in the end. Only the Libertarian Party has the proper distrust and distaste for the dangerous and often deadly institution.

Conservatives are rightly alarmed about homogamy, or “gay marriage”. But as they are stupidly wont to do, they have again turned to a government solution, which is ironic as it is only government involvement in marriage – often regarding things that conservatives laud as supporting marriage – that has allowed this situation to come about. I don’t actually mind the concept of a Defense of Marriage Amendment, I simply consider it useless; since the courts freely ignore most of the other amendments there is no reason to believe they wouldn’t simply contort the language to ignore this proposed amendment too.

Now, James Dobson is without question a wise man when it comes to children and relationships, but he is a short-sighted and clueless observer of government. For, as he states in support of the rapidly dissolving Amendment:

Dobson says another “phony excuse” is that marriage is a state issue. “Every legislator must surely know, however, that it would create chaos to have 50 different definitions of marriage in the United States,” Dobson wrote in his letter.

Experienced observers of American politics will recognize this as the same argument that is used to justify every expansion of central state power. It has been used to justify every intrusion on State sovereignty. Indeed, it has been used to force most of the cultural policies that Dobson rightly deplores down American throats.

I like and respect James Dobson. But as a wiser man than Dobson once said: “those who live by the sword will die by the sword. If conservatives wish to preserve marriage, they will have to take a libertarian approach and remove government entirely from the sanctioning, licensing and recognizing of the institution.

A Denver police officer likely mistook a soda can for a weapon before shooting and killing a 63-year-old man in his bed, Police Chief Gerry Whitman said Monday…. The shooting comes weeks after the city and police announced reforms to the department’s use-of-force policy in the wake of controversy surrounding police shootings.

I’m sure they’ll announce some more reforms soon. Here’s a suggestion: how about not shooting anyone in freaking bed!

I trust the general public with guns a lot more than I trust the police with guns. An armed citizenry is more effective against crime and furthermore, there has never, in the history of firearms, been a police state without an armed police.