The House of David

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The future: sundown town oligarchy

So: what happens when a government arrogates to itself the rights to land ownership? Even in a democracy, not everyone - rich or poor - wants to be politically connected. They just want to live their lives without being bothered. So there is always a "political class".

Those with enough personal wealth, though, will feel the need to scramble to get politically connected. The others, well, they try to make do. Defense Guy predicts the future -

The likely outcome of this is that we will be moving towards a true class system where some people who live in areas where property rights are protected will have an immense advantage over those who live in areas where your right of ownership is in question. When that happens, those areas that do not protect the rights of the people to own their property will start to die because people and business will just move.

Public schools are also keyed to district in most places, to similar effect.

I expect that elite neighbourhoods and towns will end up as Sundown Towns, but far more wealthy.

posted by Zimri on 17:09 | link |

14th Amendment: your state owns you

One of Protein Wisdom's resident Leftists, actus, made this comment -

Kelo to a great extent turned over to the political branches the determination of what is public use, and refused to have courts make those determinations. Sounds like the easiest way to deal with this is via action by the political branches.

Later on, actus points out that the 14th Amendment includes this: "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". This Constitutionally (albeit unintentionally) codifies that a state has permission to "deprive any person" of his property once its political branches have dreamt up an agreeable "process of law".

actus deserves credit for pointing out something which I hadn't considered. Although, he does use it to troll for attacks against the Fourteenth Amendment among libertarians, a tactic I find despicable - but more on that at a later time.

For Kelo supporters, private property exists at the whim of [legislative and executive] "political branches". Given that this is the United States, this is like the Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution: a dispute between democracy and property.

At a philosophical level, some things are simply not open to discussion by the rulers - even in a democracy. The right to property is one such. I don't care if all the Vandals in Carthage want my house; it's still my house and not theirs.

The practical reason for taking property rights away from the legislatures and executives is that we cannot guarantee that these "political branches" will be so merciful next time 'round. Yes, legislatures are producing anti-Kelo laws; but on principle they should not have to. Thomas Covenant has broken the Staff of Law; and even if he rules wisely, he cannot guarantee that a Lord Foul will never subvert the Land again.

(It's also still my right to desecrate my own national flag; and as a citizen I have the right to a nonreligious Federal government. Again - these would be my rights even if 90% of the citizenry disagree with it.)

posted by Zimri on 17:06 | link |

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Johnathan

Another "you know what grinds my gears" moment, from a more athletic version of the beloved Family Guy: when was it that the first expectant or new mother decided on the spelling "Johnathan" for their child? And who was the father who signed off on it?

Back in 1997 or so is when I first noticed this travesty. I tried explaining that "Jon" and "John" are two entirely different abbreviations; they wouldn't hear it.

The "Jo" is a theophoric, that is a syllable which "bears God" in it - although, strictly speaking, "El" is the Canaanite God, and "Jo" is YHW[H] of Israel.

That leaves "n" and "hn". The "n" could be nearly anything, I suppose, but it's generally "Nathan". "hn" is always "Hanan", "gift".

Therefore, "Jon" is usually short for Jonathan; and John is always short for Johanan. There is no such word as "hnathan". Therefore, the name "Johnathan" is an exercise in illiteracy.

Maybe - maybe - "Johnathan" can be excused among Lewis Carroll fans who were debating whether to name the kid Jon or John. But this isn't what I've heard from those who've used it.

If you're thinking of "Johnathan" with that "h" for a child's name, just make it easier for everyone. Call your kid "My-parents-can't-read" instead.

(In the case of Muslims thinking of "Yahya", a misreading of "Johanan" in Arabic, you can go with the name "My-holy-book-has-typoes". But at least there you can blame the silliness on someone else.)

posted by Zimri on 15:14 | link |

Hero of the state

So I'm driving along and I see a billboard. It gives a number to call when you see someone riding the HOV lane who hasn't met the requirements. The number is "666-HERO". (I made the first number up; I refuse to provide it.)

Houston says, you too can be a hero - by spying on your fellow citizen and getting him a criminal record.

Meanwhile, our police force is out in the street at intersections, holding up boots for donations because this town has screwed them so royally.

I notice that as a city becomes more dysfunctional, it emphasises private surveillance for minor ordinances. "Fear us, fear us" is the message. On some level they want the citizens to hope that criminals fear them too... but mainly they want the obeisance of the citizens.

I can tell you that the serious criminals are not afraid of anything under Bill White's mayoralty.

But hey, if you want to be a "hero" doing something about "crime", then watch out for them HOV lane trespassers...

posted by Zimri on 15:05 | link |

Letting someone else's work evade your eyes

"Augustine" over in Redstate.org has got himself into trouble, again; this time for plagiarism. It looks like he didn't escape this one.

(I'm not surprised to see an ethics scandal on that site. I did used to be a fan once, really; but as witnessed by my archives over the past few months, their posting requirements have gone to the dogs. I admit to being saddened to see that the site's founder was one of the culprits, and the one who got caught. But "surprised" isn't a word I could use.)

But we are being strict about this, I'm probably not the one to give a sermon on the evils of plagiarism. I quote peoples' material on my blog, and I can't say that I'm perfect about giving attribution - especially when multiple news sources are giving the same spiel. When I don't give attribution, assume that this is a general "sense of the web"; if you think that I've lifted someone's words, let me know so I can fix it and apologise. And don't cite my site, or any other quickly-written blog, as the primary source if you think my sources are coming from somewhere else.

I'll tell you one personally upsetting story. The second webpage I ever wrote was "the stele of Mesha". I'd posted a translation of this ancient monument which someone else had made, with attribution - because I don't speak Moabite. As such, in 1996 it was picked up by LookSmart as one of three winning websites from my university. It was my pride and joy, back then; and I tried to keep that thing up to date whenever I could. But in a subsequent update of that site, the attribution to the original translator (KC Hanson) got lost. For months, maybe years, the "Zimri translation" was posted prominently on my website. I found out about it when a professor asked me if he could cite it(!). I had to email back to him explaining the goof, with a hefty amount of grovelling added in; and of course I fixed the problem. This was not an experience that I wish to repeat.

So sometimes, yes, plagiarism is accidental. This is one of the reasons researchers hire a staff of assistants and editors.

Augustine's errors have crippled him for two reasons - above and beyond the fact that some of the stuff he lifted doesn't look accidental. First, his error appeared in print. You can't fix the problem and grovel when copies are stored in libraries around the country, like you can with a website stored on one FTP server. Second, someone else did the printing. When Augustine screws up, he makes RedState, National Review, and the Washington Post all look like chumps. When I screw up, who are the readers going to sue - Southwestern Bell? Prodigy? Yahoo? They don't peer review my work.

Anyway, it's a sad business; but maybe RedState will use this opportunity to pull ahead again.

posted by Zimri on 14:28 | link |

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Student demonstrators

Claire Berlinski takes note of the students in the streets in France and says, "Some more words you will never hear in France: Students who continue to disrupt civil and academic life will be expelled. Strikers will be fired. We are calling in the troops."

I'm also not hearing these words in Alta California:

Hundreds of students walked out of four high schools in Los Angeles this morning to march for immigrant rights (sic)... In a separate demonstration, another 1,500 students converged on Evergreen Park in Boyle Heights after walking out of classes at Garfield High School, Montebello High School and Roosevelt High School...

Expel them. Expel them now. And if their chant is "Mexico, Mexico" then expel them all the way to Tijuana.

While we're at it, censure the authors of that puff piece: for not making clear that the Californian demonstrators' cause was not that of Cesar Chavez, civil rights for legal immigrants. The demonstrators' cause was the right of the invader to move in and demand social services. Burglars' rights.

posted by Zimri on 19:09 | link |

Immigration protest

I note that lots of illegal immigrants and their buddies are demonstrating in our streets.

I have a simple solution.

If Mexicans, Central Americans, Caribbeans et al wish to become American citizens to the tune of millions, then they can go back to their home country and petition their local government to join the United States as a new state. Or states. I'm not picky. If we should bear the burden of an eighth of Mexico's (say) population, it seems hardly unfair to demand an eighth of Mexico's land and/or wealth.

That is, their current land. If they want to say that we already have Alta California and most of Nuevo Santander; then we should take that as their official repudiation of the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo and of the Gadsden Purchase, and act accordingly.

Otherwise, illegal immigrants' demands amount to a camp-of-the-saints invasion, relying on the US not acting in the way in which, say, Mexico acts toward those who immigrate into Mexico.

Those demonstrating who are here illegally are invaders. Those demonstrating who are here legally are disloyal. Either way, those of us who are actual legal citizens - including immigrants such as myself - have no need of their opinion in this matter.

I urge Congress to stay the course on this. Do not bow down to these demonstrators.

posted by Zimri on 18:31 | link |

Abd al-Rahman has the right to apostasy

What to make of Abd al-Rahman, "Slave of the Merciful God"? 16 years ago, he decided that al-Rahman was Jesus. So he chose to serve Jesus, instead of Allah the god of the Muslims. Since Abd al-Rahman's an Afghan, and since Afghanistan has established Islam as its religion, the man is - according to law - either a criminal or insane or both.

If your society has decided that Christianity is false, then believing in it is not a sane state of mind relative to that society. A Platonist or Pythagorean, believing in objective truth and not being Christian, would say that the convert to Christianity has gone objectively mad.

I'm no Christian either. I don't think that Abd al-Rahman chose rightly - or sanely - in rejecting Islam just to accept another religion. It were better for him just to reject Islam and not say what else he would offer in its stead. So I am partial to the "insanity defence" in his case.

The problem in Afghanistan, is that under Islamic law you don't get that first option. Even a sane apostate would be subject to the crucifixion, dismemberment, and death which comprise the fifth sura's proposed hudûd for this "crime".

I am not Ann Coulter. I do not believe in converting the natives to Christianity, nor even in making it easy for them to convert themselves. But I do have a stake in the right for a Muslim to apostatise.

Christianity is a lot more tolerant to its apostates than Islam is to its own. Muslims act as if they see this as a weakness in Christianity. I see it as a psychopathy in Islamic law. It needs to be demonstrated to the local lynch mob that this savagery has no place in the world today.

Otherwise, what's to stop some sect of Christians from slaughtering apostates of their own? or, if you're a fan of Christianity, then what's to stop atheists from bombing your church or mosque? If Islam is the lowest common denominator, and if Islam is to be this savage, than other cultures can descend to "mere" barbarism and still say that, well well well, at least they're not going down to Islam's level.

Yeah, the man is probably a nut. But he's our nut now. We need to save him. Or we'll lose ourselves.

posted by Zimri on 17:54 | link |

21 Days Later

Yeah, I know, "28 Days" would have been better.

No word yet on the projects. "Still not king", as they say.

I'm still going to the gym; I've decided on every other day for a schedule. I missed St. Pat's Day, because I was thinking of going out and drinkin', but I got bored of it after Beer #2. But by then I didn't want to drive out to the gym. I wrote up this alternative DragonLance scenario.

The vacation was great fun; we could've done it for longer. Maybe next year (or New Zealand this summer).

For whatever reason, late winter / early spring is the worst time of year for me. Maybe it's the constant feeling of expectation - which my project submissions didn't help this time 'round. Maybe it's the idea that romance is in the air, which I'm (obviously) not participating in. When I get depressed, I have to write something, or else my brain goes into a self-destruct mode.

Oh, and someone thought I might have termites. I had an inspector over and he said - the garage has termite damage, from 7 years ago, but there haven't been termites here in that long. So, no bugs. Thank you inspector. (I'll dig up the name of the company some other time.)

I also talked to the homeowners' association about my little "street rat" problem. They think they might know the bastard. His dad works nights, and this is not the first time his son has taken that opportunity to party all night and clambered into someone else's yard the next morning. I hope the homeowners resolve this little problem soon, because (1) I haven't been sleeping well since it happened (2) it's dangerous for the kid and (3) assuming I don't care what happens to the kid - which I really don't - that kid's going to make the (fatally flawed) deduction that if no-one confronts him in a yard, they may not confront him in its house.

The associate with whom I spoke advised me to overpower the little creep and let the cops pick him up. My parents don't agree. Heh.

But she also advised that I remodel the garage, trees, and fence to make it harder for burglars to get in. The exterminator said the same about them and added that the deck needs to be replaced too. Points taken. I'll work on this.

posted by Zimri on 17:21 | link |

"...or death"

One of the reasons the thirteen colonies' revolt was considered an American "Revolution" was that the colonies were fighting for freedom. This started with a demand for political freedom from King George and his Parliament, but it did not end there. The revolutionaries also wanted future generations to be free of tyranny at home.

New Hampshire's motto is, "live free or die". Patrick Henry said, "give me liberty or give me death". These men sought to give voice to the common person's desire for liberty.

Yesterday I cracked open a bottle of SoBe's "Liz Blizz", whose front decal features a green lizard on a snowboard. In the bottle top was: "live green or die".

It rather reminds me of the University of Havana's pointed rejoinder to Patrick Henry: "Socialism or death!" Well, in Fidel Castro's Cuba, I suppose those are the choices at hand.

The SoBe guys and Castro's minions imagine that they are adding a progressive update to the tired old slogans. And they imagine they're being cheeky: transgressive, even! Lastly, they imagine that they're telling us this for our own good: "Stop behaving like a cancer cell, and get with the program. Or we'll kill you."

At face value, they're just throwing threats at us. Understanding that takes no imagination; it's just reading what they wrote at us.

I will never drink SoBe, until they promise never to issue antilibertarian propaganda into my drinks.

posted by Zimri on 17:05 | link |

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Personal blogging

I'm bored, and a little queasy, so I figured I'd give you a look behind the façade of the House of David.

At 6 AM yesterday, one of the local teenagers (desc: male, white or hispanic, brunet, wearing athletic gear, medium build, maybe 5'8" and 18 years old) decided to take a shortcut from whatever rave he'd been attending that Thursday night. So he clambered into my yard, I'm thinking from the neighbour's roof, and started tramping across the wooden deck. This woke me up, and I have to admit it scared the shit out of me. I grabbed some weaponry and dialed up "911" ready to send on my phone. By that time he'd clambered away.

Lovely place I've got here. Sigh.

There was no getting back to bed after that, so I just went into work. At the meeting that day, the tech guy told me that I had to stay until 6 PM so I could stop the orders flowing from the New Orleans servers. I popped out for a break at 4 PM anyway. Currently I'm waiting to turn the orders back on.

Today was marginally better. I got up at 9 AM, bought a huge frappéd coffee, and worked on one of my history-based essays. I decided that I was finished and emailed it off to a journal. The connection I have, SBC Global, has been super-squirrelly ever since I got back from California last October. I don't know if my mail made it. I hope it gets read, and either accepted or at least rejected with some pointers for future submission.

I'm actually supposed to have one essay published already, or so I was told at 1 August 2004 and have been reassured about periodically since, but it hasn't yet been printed. What was kind of strange was that it was accepted almost straightaway. I had a chance to provide some errata but this was unprompted by anyone else. In some ways it feels like a stay of execution; mostly because I'm scared that I made other mistakes, but also partly because it's the sort of thing that sparks... unpleasantness among some. Over the last year or two I'd been trying to think of followup essays, and I suppose the aforementioned is one of them; I have 2-4 others which I can send out in quick succession if this works out. If either one works out...

Mostly today I've been trying to work off a coffee and sugar buzz. I weigh 150+ pounds now and I feel like that is about five to ten pounds too many. It's almost at my record weight; and I am nearly 12 years older than I was then, with metabolism and fatigue to match, so it's not going to be as easy as it was then. Besides I have to tone up for a skiing holiday. So today I went back to the exercise club for the first time in possibly a year.

And dear reader, as you can see from the above, I do need that holiday.

posted by Zimri on 19:07 | link |