wolfe’s Musings

Former Senator (R-NC) Jesse Helms died this morning, aged 86.

AFP: “Compromise, hell! … If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

Time: Yet while Helms was portrayed as a racist, a red-baiter and a rube by liberals, he exploited their outrage with tactical brilliance, remaking modern political campaigning in the process … Despite his fearsome national and international reputation, Helms was also known for acts of personal thoughtfulness.

I have to confess, he was a Republican that I did not like. I felt he represented the worst of those who crossed over from the segregationist southern Democrats to join the Republican Party.

Referring to The University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) as the University of Negroes and Communists, he epitomized something rather dark and ugly.

I know there were senior people at CIA who took early retirement in the mid 90’s simply because he became head of Foreign Relations in the Senate.

He delighted in holding up US dues to the UN, called some young blacks “negro hoodlums”, and aired some pretty nasty ads. He was pro-tobacco, protectionist, and was openly hostile to gays.

But he was, for all that, a man.

A man of strong conviction, honest, fearless, and he served the people of North Carolina well. Many years before Democrat John Edwards (presidential candidate in 2004, 2008) ever entered politics, Senator Helms, on hearing of Edwards’ son’s untimely death, entered an essay the son had written into the Congressional Record.

He was a staunch anti-communist, and upheld fervent conservative views, in an era where neither approach was popular.

In many ways, I suppose he was a less articulate Republican Ted Kennedy.

He didn’t kill anyone, or suffer from Kennedy’s weaknesses and appetites, but he was certainly an ideologue, occupying the political edge of his party with ebullience. He saw things that never were, and said “why not?”.

RIP Jesse Helms.

-wolfe

A man is being prosecuted in Britain for referring to three (white) security guards as “honky wannabe cops”. The man is white.

This is just bizarre. The British are insane. Look, I think honky is rude, and a term with a whiff of at the very least racial insensitivity. But to prosecute someone for saying it?

‘I apologised profusely to the security guards and explained that I was having a laugh. I am white and they are white, so I don’t understand how that can make me racist.

‘It does seem a complete waste of time and money. Surely there are better things for the police and Crown Prosecution Service to be spending their time on?’

Wicks … said he had pleaded guilty on the advice of his solicitor. … ‘He was not intending to be malicious. He was being more obnoxious.’

And the capper for me?

In a statement the CPS said: ‘It’s not a waste of time taking this case to court if he has pleaded guilty.

Uh… yeah. Railroad people on bizarre bogus charges of racism, get them to plead guilty on advice of their solicitors, and that makes it not a waste of time? Mmmmkay, you crazy Brits.

Thank goodness we have a First and Second Amendment. And that we broke away from those crazy people in 1776.

The British are committing cultural suicide, and I hope we don’t go along with them.

-wolfe

It’s not a barbershop quartet, but I liked it. Happy Independence Day!

And in uniquely American style (for the anthem itself was an old British drinking song):

And for the history buffs, “Hail, Columbia”, which was our defacto national anthem. (The Star-Spangled banner didn’t become our de jure anthem until 1931):

Happy 4th

-wolfe

The girl holding Arthur’s hand asked him, “Have you heard of Peter Pan?” “No,” he replied, “have you heard of Metro North?”

Kinda fun. Even if you don’t know New York’s subway system or have kids.

As kids, we used to be similarly mad about the London Underground.

-wolfe

A terrible thought, but it has been said by many: we don’t really want to elect a candidate who will die during his first (or second) term of office.

So, thinking about it, I realize that one should be very careful where one of the two candidates is concerned.

To start with, let’s be conservative and operate on the assumption that each candidate will live as long as the average lifespan of his parents.

In the case of John McCain (71), his father died at 70, his mother is alive and kicking at 96. That suggests he could have about 13 years remaining. Looks good for two terms.

In the case of Barack Obama (46), his father died at 46, his mother, at 52. That means he could have as few as three years left.

Does America dare take a chance on a man who seems statistically more likely to die in office?

-wolfe

I really think this has to go down (groan) as one of the worst marketing name choices ever. Outside, maybe, of PowerGEN’s italian subsidiary’s name: PowerGenItalia.

(BTW, if you have an aircraft you need to protect from corrosion or boat parts or a bicycle, or tools or some gun components, this stuff, Boeshield T-9 is really amazing. I know, of nearly zero interest to my female readers. It really is amazing and appears to be relatively environmentally friendly).

So the distributor decided to call themselves… PMS products.

Genius.

Meanwhile, more on WTF news here.

-wolfe

Sporadically responding to comments as internet access is limited. (new comment up on Female’s camera choice and something coming up on one of Z’s posts). I’m traveling in Canada at the moment (I’ll have a post up on that “soon”), but will be back in the US for Independence Day.

To two of the oldest constitutional representative democracies on earth: Australia, Happy New Years Eve (sorry I missed wishing you all Happy Christmas 5 days ago), and to Canada Happy Dominion Day!

This video shows Canada (once again) as a country with “too much geography and too little history”. I think this is a false image, but, it is a pretty one:

(The Iroquois confederacy, interestingly, claims to be the oldest continuous living participatory democracy on earth. This claim is not without merit. One would need to debate whether the US or the UK is the oldest continuous representative constitutional democracy, but Canada joins them as one of the older ones).

So, Happy Dominion Day to any Canadian readers.

I’m visiting your lovely country and the gf and I are enjoying the trip immensely.

Sidenote: The invention of the GPS coupled with map databases and voice synthesis has removed one huge potential form of argument between couples traveling by car.

Dick Masterson should give the inventor a prize for removing the job of navigation from women and giving it to $27.32 worth of plastic and silicon.

Of course that’s just my view. I could be wrong.

-wolfe

I took Female’s advice on something.

Namely cameras.

I’d been leaning towards buying a Nikon D series (-60 or -80) or a Canon Rebel DSLR. In the end, I decided I wanted to stick with something a bit more pocketable (though still with very considerable control). I went with the Canon G9.

She’d suggested going with a high-end point and shoot, and the more I looked, the more I thought that made sense. I still plan on getting a DLSR, but probably after a year or two’s experience with this one.

And to be fair, it wasn’t just her advice, but the advice of nearly everyone I spoke to, except for one hold-out friend who madly pushed me to go DLSR. I think he’s right; I will, but in a year or two.

My previous film camera was an ancient (inherited) 35mm rangefinder, so this is the kind of camera I’m somewhat more familiar with.

So far… the image quality at low ISO levels is astonishingly good. There’s too much noise at higher levels though.

The face detection algorithms are impressive but… ahem… a tad uh… poorly designed. White faces are detected rapidly, crisply, and clearly. Black faces… not so much.

I was rather astonished as I panned the camera around a family gathering.

Close in shots can be really beautiful. I took a picture of a flower with a bug on it, and the details were amazing. I might end up posting that shot, we’ll see.

For a point and shoot, it’s very heavy. It’s a polished and elegant old-school design with superb build quality (built like a tank) but heavy. I don’t think most women would like it. Even as a man, I find it’s preferable to use two hands to operate it.

Unlike most other point-and-shoots, it offers impressive “DSLR-lite” style control, including raw images.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. I might start posting some of my own photos here; we’ll see.

-wolfe

Easy. Just note that this Canadian company is offering nearly 10 million dollars off the pre-tax price of a graphics card.

With 13% sales tax, that comes out to a total savings of roughly 11.3 million. Cool.

Here’s the screen capture in case they fix it:

Of course you might find it even cheaper here, though you don’t save 11.299 million dollars.

I love computerized inventory systems… garbage in, garbage out.

h/t: an anonymous Canadian friend.

-wolfe

In the first major Second Amendment case since the bizarre Miller case in 1939, the Supreme Court has narrowly voted to avoid eviscerating the constitution, has struck down DC’s 1976 gun ban, and:

has ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home.

Source: Scotus Blog.

I should hope so!

The opinion (in the unlikely event any readers are interested) is here. [pdf file]

More commentary to follow, if I’ve time.

Certainly, on the face of it, it’s a shame it was such a close decision. It’s hard to imagine the court splitting 5-4 on a major First Amendment case that was equally clear cut.

Update:

Interesting. The opinion’s by Justice Scalia and it seems surprisingly cautious (so far at least).

The court has struck down the gun ban, struck down the DC in-home disassembly and trigger lock requirements, held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms, irrespective of any service in or membership of a militia, and to use firearms for lawful purposes including self-defense in the home.

The court has recognized the legitimacy in barring felons and the mentally ill from gun ownership, and upheld the ability of the government to ban weapons in “sensitive” places such as government buildings and in schools. It’s legitimate to ban unusual or exceptionally dangerous weapons, and perhaps most surprisingly, the court is silent on the issue of gun licensing, merely ordering the District to grant Mr. Heller a license.

Much of the decision so far is simply a logical analysis of English grammar, and the plain meaning of words, then and now. Scalia sensibly tweaks Justice Stevens for apparently arguing in dissent that this is a collective right.

Update2: Ha! On the bizarre approach of some to construe “bearing arms” as meaning solely “carrying arms in the service of a militia”, Scalia drolly notes:

Worse still, the phrase “keep and bear Arms” would be incoherent. The word “Arms” would have two different meanings at once: “weapons” (as the object of “keep”) and (as the object of “bear”) one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying “He filled and kicked the bucket” to mean “He filled the bucket and died.” Grotesque.

Alice makes an appearance:

A purposive qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics).

More on history, the Stuart attempts to disarm those who opposed them, the foundation of a Protestant right to keep and bear arms in England. The Miller decision of 1939 and what it meant.

Interestingly, the careful originalist interpretation actually limits gun rights in part:

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty.

Hmm. An interesting point. I’m not sure I like it, and I’m not sure I agree, but it is well-reasoned.

And this is why I like the originalist school of thought: even when it leads to conclusions that are ideologically undesirable, it remains intellectually coherent and rigorous. Contrast the liberal tendency to go through the looking glass, and declare that words mean whatever they are wished to mean.

So alas, no howitzers, no nuclear weapons in private hands for household defense. How terribly sad.

The majority opinion continues, noting that the tiny fines imposed by Colonial statute for things like dangerously discharging a firearm on New Years Eve or improperly storing gunpowder were akin to speeding or jaywalking tickets of today. Even if one accepts these Colonial-era statutes as somehow magically binding on the US, it’s a stretch to suggest that DC’s one year sentences conform to this approach.

It ends with:

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54–55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

A well-reasoned, and in my perhaps naive view, a surprisingly narrow judgment. I’d speculate Justice Scalia had to write narrowly to keep Justice Kennedy fully onside.

Of course, I am not a lawyer.

-wolfe