Posted 12:29 PM by Floyd

John Jay Ray blogged about the recent California case in which a juvenile was convicted of rape because his partner said, while they were having intercourse, "I think I need to go now." Ray noted that a similar case had occurred in Australia and was eventually overturned.

I'd like to state my opinion on the decision: It was unjust and insane. The only difference between the grave felony of rape and ordinary consensual sex is whether or not the act was consensual. The California Supreme Court has blurred the distinction between obvious lack of consent, and a case where consent was given and then maybe, or maybe not, withdrawn; in doing so they have effectively criminalized all sex.

Awhile back Oberlin college instituted a policy by which students would have to obtain explicit consent for each escalation of intimacy. People made fun of the imagined love scene: "May I remove your bra? May I touch your breasts?" But this is nothing compared to what the California Supreme Court would have men do. Consider:

"May I enter you now?"

"Yes."

(A few seconds pass.)

"Are you still consenting to this sex act?"

"Yes."

(A few more seconds.)

"Are you still consenting to --"

"Yes, yes, God yes!"

(Finis.)

"I'm going to have to charge you with rape. I didn't really mean yes, that's just what I say when I'm doing it."

Posted 12:16 PM by Floyd

Today is Saturday, which is the day that the San Jose Mercury News publishes letters to the editor from children -- as young as 9 today. (The precious wisdom from a person born in 1993: "STAY away from drugs. If you see your friends smoking, please tell them that that is not the right thing to do, and that lots of people die from smoking. If that doesn't stop them, ask their parents to see if they can ask a doctor if he or she has a way to help. Smoking and drugs aren't right to do, so don't do them.")

Here is a letter from someone who is 17, which I think is old enough to know better:

CRITICS have portrayed the BART extension to San Jose as a fanciful project that doesn't really serve people.

I am a college-bound, high school senior. For personal and political reasons, I do not drive and am very dependent on the public transit system. Critics says that since a BART extension would not serve the entirety of San Jose, and many people would have to transfer from buses and light rail, it would be ineffective. As a public transit user, I know that it is unreasonable to expect ``point A to point B'' service.

I hope to go to Berkeley in the fall. Were there a BART extension, it would be much easier for me to visit my family or even commute. Even if the BART plans go through, the project won't be completed until after I graduate, but it would be good to know that others like me would not be forced to drive in this world controlled by the automobile and oil industries.

Miriam Lueck, 17
Silver Creek High School
San Jose

I like how Miriam informs us, "I don't drive for political and personal reasons." Well okay then -- we'll be happy to spend a billion dollars catering to your weird little whims! Maybe I should get in on this action -- "I don't work for political and personal reasons, can the State of California pay my mortgage?"

Miriam believes that the world is "controlled by the automobile and oil industries." I'd rate this around the 30th or 40th percentile of nastiness in conspiracy theories. Not as benign as believing in aliens, but certainly not as bad as complaining about how Jews control the media. I've never seen anyone say flat out that auto/oil interests control the world, but many car-haters probably believe it.

Obviously I could spend a lot of time mocking Lueck. (I will note, in passing, that Nigeria's civil war prevented Shell from pumping oil for many years. Some control!) But I'd rather use the occasion to segue into a discussion of libertarian politics -- namely, what role and powers corporations will have when the state is scaled back.

Many people who are not so ... Kuecky ... do think that the auto and oil industries do have a lot of power in today's world. They also worry that if government were curtailed or eliminated, these and other corporations would become too powerful.

People who hold these opinions are missing out on who has the real power -- the consumers. Oil and car companies are rich and pervasive because the automobile is ubiquitous and vital, an essential possession for hundreds of millions of people. General Motors is influential only for as long as it can deliver what people want; if it goes off on some kind of power trip, it will lose its customers and die.

James Donald says that in anarcho-capitalism, "the customer shall rule." This is a powerful slogan, and I'd like to see other libertarians using it.

Posted 11:47 AM by Floyd

Jay Caruso criticized the University of Michigan affirmative action policies, and as so often happens on the Daily Rant, provoked an acrimonious free-for-all in the comments. One commenter claimed:

...you'll find Asian-Ams support AA for the very reason you've noted. They also tend to suffer disproportionally from various institutional practices, although not to the same degree of Af-Ams and Latinos.

Pull the other one. Here in the left-leaning Bay Area, Asians strenuously object to educational affirmative action -- which is practiced at the magnet school level, though not currently by state colleges. And what sort of "institutional practices" are Asians suffering from? They don't seem to have any problem getting good jobs, judging from my experience in the Silicon Valley workplace.

As so many bloggers have said, what did Asian kids ever do to anyone to justify denying them the fruits of their academic labors?

Posted 12:26 PM by Floyd

moveon.org is the perfect expression of the modern Democratic party: It is scummy, dishonest, insults one's intelligence, and is ashamed of itself to boot. MoveOn got started in the Clinton impeachment era; it claimed to be a non-partisan group which wanted the country to move past the Lewinsky scandal. As the impeachment hearings progressed, MoveOn's strategy for closure was to threaten to oppose elected officials who voted for impeachment or conviction.

Four years ago the Senate took its vote, and most Americans were pretty sick of the scandal and ready to move on. Did MoveOn shut itself down and pay a few bucks a year to maintain a website that said only "We told you so"? Is there still a Rural Electrification Act? MoveOn now became a non-partisan group which involved itself in non-partisan activities like electing Democrats.

I Googled MoveOn and found that in the 2000 election they were paying people to vote:

Dear Friend of MoveOn,

In the last few days before the election, MoveOn.org is sponsoring a revolutionary online get-out-the-vote campaign called VotePledge.org. To encourage this important work, we are underwriting a $10,000 AWARD for the most effective campaigner. This could be you. We need your help.

Add your name to our simple, non-partisan, confidential pledge to vote. Then use VotePledge.org to encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same. We'll tell you how many pledges result from your work in spreading the word. If you recruit the most pledges to vote before the polls close on November 7th, you will WIN THE $10,000 VOTEPLEDGE DEMOCRACY AWARD.

...

- Wes Boyd
MoveOn.org

P.S. MoveOn.org has created VotePledge.org and is sponsoring the $10,000 VOTEPLEDGE DEMOCRACY AWARD as a public service. VotePledge.org is scrupulously non-partisan.

Here's another email from four days earlier in which the "non-partisan" folks at MoveOn begged people not to vote for Nader:

> Dear Friend of MoveOn,
>
> It now looks like Nader will cost Gore the presidency. In key swing
> states -- Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, New Mexico -- Nader
> has garnered enough support to throw the electoral votes to Bush.
> And those votes could very likely make the difference. Even in key
> battleground states where Nader support is thin, like Florida,
> Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, he could take enough votes from
> Gore to swing the electoral votes to Bush. Latest polls even show
> Gore at risk of losing California with Nader pulling away 6% of the
> vote. With the election tightening in every state of the union, no
> state is safe.
>
> We've been flooded by emails asking what we can do. The Nader camp
> is deeply divided over whether they should endorse Gore -- at least
> in swing states. Many say they never got into the race to play the
> spoiler. What was positioned as a safe protest vote has now become a
> kind of kamikaze vote. The specter of a Bush presidency looms large.

...

> Sincerely,
>
> - Wes Boyd
> MoveOn.org

Notice that it's the same-person, Wes Boyd, who authored both messages! Special Clinton-era "that depends on the meaning of 'is'" award for MoveOn's interpretation of "non-partisan".

Last night on the radio I heard that MoveOn was going to sponsor a TV ad opposing war with Iraq. This ad is none other than the infamous "Daisy" ad that LBJ ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964 -- a young girl picks daisies as a voice counts down to a nuclear explosion. "Daisy" was probably the single sleaziest ad in the history of politics; you have to admire MoveOn for faithfulness to their core values of dishonesty and deception.

Posted 5:29 PM by Floyd

Jane Finch of the excellent Daily Rant (see blogroll on left) was nice enough to post an article linking to this blog. Jane described me as a "rightie", which I must politely protest. Maybe I make fun of the occasional wacked-out leftist loon, but so does Ken Layne, whom no one would call a right-winger.

I am a libertarian and an anarchist. My politics are pro-abortion, pro-cannabis, pro-crypto, pro-gun, pro-pornography, and pro-fag.

Consider the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen-cum-Taliban fighter who is being held as an enemy combatant. There is debate, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, as to whether Hamdi's detention is just. (See for instance this Hit & Run article and comments.)

Hamdi's case is related to that of Johnny Walker Lindh, the original American Taliban. There was also debate last year over Lindh's fate. Now a right-winger presumably finds treason to be the worst of all crimes. My thinking was the opposite; I do not approve of treason, because I do not think that Americans belong to the U.S. government. If Lindh wanted to go to a foreign land and shoot at people, including U.S. soldiers, that should be his business. America's laws should stop at the American border.

However, while Lindh should not have been prosecuted, he should certainly been left behind in Afghanistan to answer for his crimes. I imagine they would have stood him up against a wall and shot him (or worse). This is exactly what Lindh, a vile Nazi who went to a foreign land to oppress poor and helpless people, deserved.

As for Hamdi, it is reasonable for his fate to be decided by the U.S. military, because he made war on the U.S. and was present in a war zone in a foreign uniform. Once again, I oppose charging him with treason.

Posted 9:14 PM by Floyd

A week ago Saturday Sherry and I played at the club (the Palo Alto club, the only club I play at anymore) and won by 0.14 matchpoints. Today I played with my friend Eric and won by 0.4 matchpoints. So we're pulling away from the field. Or something.

We had a huge start, but then had zeros in each of our last three rounds. Here is a hand from when things were going well:

Board 28, favorable, I held as dealer:

Kxx Q9xx Qxxx Qx

I passed and LHO opened a 12-14 1N. Eric bid 2, showing the majors. RHO then jumped to 5!

I passed, and Eric bid 5. I wasn't sure if this was a slam try or a diamond fragment, but I had an easy 5 call. (I considered slam, but Eric was under pressure and I had too much minor suit junk to believe that we were taking 12 tricks.)

LHO led the K (K from AK) and here was the dummy:

QJ9xxx AKTxx Ax -

(Eric later said he meant 5 as showing better spades than hearts.)

I ruffed in dummy and led the A. RHO followed with the jack. I led a heart to the queen as RHO pitched a club. Now what?

I can make an overtrick by running spades and pitching three diamonds from my hand. But what if spades are 4-0? If I pull the last trump, LHO can take the spade king with his ace. Then I cannot get to hand for a spade hook, unless I use the fourth trump which is needed to ruff dummy's diamond.

So I abandoned trumps -- which can hardly be dangerous given the auction -- and played on spades. My caution was rewarded when RHO showed out on the first round! I was able to claim when LHO won my king with his ace -- win the return, cross to hand with a trump, spade to the nine, run spades and crossruff.

*******************************************

Unfortunately board 2 did not go so well. Third chair, favorable, I held

Jx KQT9x AJx JTx

Eric passed and RHO opened 1. I doubled, LHO passed, and Eric bid 3 -- showing values, not preemptive. RHO and I passed and now LHO bid 3!

This is passed to you. Do you pass, double, or bid 4? If you pass or double, what do you lead?

I doubled and led the J. I figured that LHO had heart shortness, some spades, and a poor hand. This lead turned +200 into -930 when dummy tracked with Qxx xx xxxx Axxx. Declarer sucked up the spade suit -- poor Eric had Kx -- and ran four clubs, pitching one of her two small hearts.

(-170 was the same zero as -930, the error is in the lead, not the double.)

Update: I did not give the full scope of our late collapse. Our scores on the last three rounds were 1.1, 0, 1.7, 3.8, 12, and 1.1 on a 12 top.

Posted 8:38 PM by Floyd

Last Saturday I caught the end of the Steelers-Titans game. This was the third playoff game in two years with a weird penalty controversy; I don't watch much football but I have seen two of those games.

For the uninitiated: Last year the Raiders visited the Patriots and were leading late in the game. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was sacked, and the ball popped loose. The refs ruled that Brady was "tucking" the ball as he was hit, so the play was actually an incompletion. The Patriots went on to win.

Last week the 49ers came back from 24 points down against the Giants. On the last play of the game, a field goal attempt, the Giants snapper (who was 41 years old and a week out of retirement) flubbed the snap for the second time that game. The holder made a desperation pass, but the play was invalid because of an illegal man downfield. However there was also a hold penalty that could have been called on a 49ers player. If the two penalties had been called the down would have been replayed. The NFL felt compelled to apologize for the oversight, probably leading to ...

Last Saturday's Steelers-Titans game was all over the map. At the end of regulation the Titans were attempting a short field goal to win. The kicker missed, and a safety ran into him; the kicker then showed unexpected presence of mind by by taking a dive, basketball-defender style. It was so obvious I half expected to see a ref run up with an arm straight in the air and another in front of him vertically. But he drew the foul -- running into the kicker -- and succeeded on the second, shorter kick.

Sporting contests will always have a chance of being determined by penalties, and because officials are human, these calls may be erroneous. What I find irritating about the three cases listed above is that the officials are trying to do too much. It's almost as if they have a desire to call penalties in order to display their superior knowledge: "You, the uninformed viewer, may think that you saw a defender tackle the quarterback, resulting in what one might be so gauche as to call a 'fumble'. But I am of the cognoscenti, and can assure you that when the passer makes a motion as if to tuck the ball -- after several viewings of different viewing angles, it is 85% certain that this occurred -- and therefore an incomplete pass attempt must be called."

Why not just let the fucking players play the fucking game? Would it really be a crime against football if the obvious were to happen? Let's try applying the obvious to the three situations detailed above.

• Scenario: Quarterback blindsided while holding ball, football loose. Result: Fumble.
  
• Scenario: Kicker misses short field goal to win game. Result: Kicking team gets no points and loses possession.
  
• Scenario: Snapper muffs snap. Result: The kicking team has a chance to execute a play cleanly to gain the necessary yardage. If not, they get no points and lose possession.
  

Wasn't that nice, simple, and equitable?

Posted 8:15 PM by Floyd

A few days ago the San Jose Mercury News published an editorial attacking the Bush administration's environmental policies. I quote the first and last lines:

CONSIDERING what the Bush administration did to fish in the Klamath River, maybe the rumor that it plans to reduce federal oversight of small waterways is good news.

Adjudicating a ferocious drought-driven dispute between farming and fishing along the Klamath last winter, Interior Secretary Gale Norton opened the gates to divert river water to farms.

In the fall, with the river reduced to near-historic lows, 33,000 salmon died along a 36-mile stretch, as they were swimming upstream to spawn.

...

Always, the administration argues that more economic benefits can be obtained without harming the land and the natural life on it.

Every time it makes that argument, remember the Klamath.

This stuff about "remember the Klamath" makes me kind of nervous, because I recall the salmon my wife cooked last week. Are we going to be arrested? Also, I threw out the leftovers last night -- does that count as destroying evidence?

I mean, if killing 33,000 salmon to suit human convenience is some kind of crime, maybe the Merc editorialists should hie on over to the Ranch 99 Chinese supermarket. There you can see atrocities visited on all sorts of fish and mollusks. Take a deep breath and smell the war crime indictments!

Posted 9:58 PM by Floyd

Christopher Johnson blogged this incident reported on CNN article:

Paul Kenneth Donahue, 50, and Teresa Marie Wood, 46, had been scheduled to fly from San Jose, California, to Atlanta, Georgia, on Delta Flight 576 Tuesday. When their bags were put through a bomb detection machine, federal screeners found what turned out to be a snow boot with batteries, wires and an electrical power strip arranged in a suspicious way.

Screeners also found a note that read, "To the uniformed puppet opening this bag -- congratulations. You've just brought this once free nation one step closer to becoming a fascist police state," according to Transportation Security Administration spokesman Robert Johnson. The note was scribbled on one side of the cardboard torn from a box of Cracklin' Oat Bran.

Johnson then added

Thankfully, the happy couple are currently in the San Jose slammer, hopefully for quite a while. Thanks to Michelle at A Small Victory.

I fail to share Johnson's enthusiasm for the vigorous prosecution of the crime of lese-majeste -- even considering that it appears to be the only offense that our glorious federal airport police know or care how to fight.

Posted 9:50 PM by Floyd

Today in downtown Mountain View I saw posters for an anti-war protest organized by Not in Our Name. The slogan was

Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War

It's dangerous to light a match around the anti-war left; anywhere you put it you are likely to ignite a strawman. Would someone please show me anyone has cited grief as his or her reason for supporting the War on Terror?

More evidence of the anti-war movement's complete dissociation from reality can be found in today's San Jose Mercury News letters page:

THE current federal budget calls for $355 billion for national defense; that amounts to $11,000 per second. Of course, any future wars against Iraq or any other country will necessitate even more increases. By comparison, the second largest item on the budget is education at $45 billion, a mere 12 percent of the military budget.

Is this what we truly value? Are we willing to continue to spend that kind of money on our military while the infrastructure of our country deteriorates: the quality of state and local governments, school systems, housing, medical care, mental health services, police and fire protection, support for the arts, etc.

Each of us ultimately has to choose whether to live by faith or by fear, by love or by hate, by violence or by non-violent resistance. Each of us has to choose whether we are to be creators and nurturers or destroyers and oppressors. It is imperative that each one of us become an active voice for our values. The time to act is now.

Stephen R. Foltz
Aptos

Well, Stephen, I'm certainly not going to live by faith; I choose reason. If my hatred of our enemies is wrong, so is your hatred for the innocent victims whose murder you choose not to resist. I choose violence because non-violence can only be effective when directed at people who have consciences.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to "nurture" terrorists.

Posted 9:33 PM by Floyd

Sherry and I played at the Palo Alto club's Friday barometer game. On our first board we got a zero. But then another pair showed up, and our zero was factored to 0.07 on a 30 top. We were off and running.

This was my favorite hand of the night:

On Board 11, none vul, Sherry held as dealer:

A95 J3 Q863 T962

She passed and LHO opened a weak 2. I (her partner) bid 3N. RHO bid 4. What would you do?

Sherry bid 4N, which made me decide that I would marry her all over again. My hand was QJ AT T4 AKQJ543. The spade hook was on and 4N came home for 70% of the matchpoints.

(Important safety tip: If you tell your wife that the 4N bid made you want to marry her all over again, she is likely to ask if you wouldn't marry her again if she did not bid 4N.)