Back in the snow

Alert readers of this blog (all two of you) may perhaps have noted a distinct lack of content for the last, oh, two weeks. That would be because the last, oh, two weeks, we've been away. We're back now, and once we shake the sand out of our socks, we'll catch up on the crucial news of Southeastern Michigan, things like the Kwame Kilpatrick trial, the apparently appalling weather you've been having while we were gone, and the ever present question, "is Rick Snyder a Republican or what?"

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a new friend we met.

Local news

As is their wont, various media continue to compile their best and worst lists of things. (I wonder, actually, if anyone's thought of compiling a list of the best and worst lists of the best and worst things?)

Anyway, Detroit has recently been named the fourth worst managed city in the country, behind Stockton, California; Miami; and San Bernardino, California. The article, which I did not bother to read in detail because it's too damned depressing, was a touch vague about the criteria they used, and I think they did Detroit a great injustice, knocking them back down to fourth place. All the hard work that's been done in the last 15 years to turn it into the worst managed city, bar none, deserves greater recognition than this.

Needless to say, Ann Arbor doesn't even make the list. But it's not to say we don't try. Paula Gardner, of Ann Arbor.com, even dared to use the "CC" words in this article. No, ye of short memory, I don't mean cubic centimeters, I mean convention center! Here we go again.

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Update: Snyder is about to name an Emergency Manager for Detroit.

Wrist pins

No, not like this:

More like this:

I've been skeptical of alternative medicine for a long time, but this tears it. I'm not falling for those door-to-door acupuncture guys again.

Probably a hoax

Amazing. Lends a whole new meaning the term "gated community."

I found this just weird enough that I sent it to Snopes.com for their attention.

Leave the wolves alone

Please consider supporting, donating to or otherwise cheerleading for the following group keep Michigan wolves protected. I've been a hunter in the past, and if I Weren't so consistently unhealthy, crippled up, and generally confined to quarters, I would probably still go out and shoot a bird or even a deer, given the chance. But especially in a state like Michigan, where almost none of our employment, agriculture, or state revenue is threatened in any way by large mammalian carnivores (Except us), instituting a wolf hunt is bloodthirsty and just plain dumb. Plus it would be nice to have a proposition on the ballot that you could actually vote for with a clear conscience.

Stay classy

I'm not completely sure I have this right, but here's what I think the newspaper story was trying to tell me:

One of the strictures under which Kwame Kilpatrick is attempting to exist at the moment is that he has to report all income to the court, since he has a restitution order to pay off. He stated on that report for December that he had no income.

Somebody somehow managed to get him a bunch of money, something on the order of $2000, and they wired it to it him. And he went to pick it up at Walmart or something like that. And a Fox news reporter spotted him doing so on the Walmart's security camera. So now he's in a bunch more trouble.

I'm just not going to say a word about the emergency manager laws. Not a word.

McLuggage survives second assassination attempt

For the second time in two years, Josev McLuggage, the beloved leader of the small breakaway republic in southeastern Ann Arbor, has escaped death at the hands of unknown enemies. While McLuggage has always been quick to blame such incidents on external forces, aides were not speculating on the sources of Thursday's attack. McLuggage, however, was in no doubt. "That goddam porch, she's a tryin' to kill me!"

Anxious to show other nations, potential foes, and of course, the wretched peasantry that he was recovering and in charge, McLuggage met with US Deputy Secretary of State, William J. Burns to discuss "the usual," as Burns described it. "You know: arms, money, drugs, money, and arms."

Happy Holidays!

Hasn't been the greatest year, globally, nationally, or locally.

• Things we frown at: In the world, the Egyptians and Syrians are still shooting each other in an attempt to determine which flavor of zealotry is most conducive to accuracy with small arms. The Israelis and whoever is still alive in Palestine are shooting each other for much the same reasons, plus a few others. In India, the government is cracking down on rape -- no, sorry, I got that wrong. They're cracking down on protests against rape. Easy to get those two mixed up. And Africa is still screwed, much as it has been since the first Europeans set foot on the continent.
  
• Here in the US, although the GOP took a spanking in the election, they actually deserved an ass-kicking or a good old-fashioned whuppin', which they manifestly did not get. We're going to spend another twelve months or so snapping at each other about gun control, with most of the snapping being done by people on both sides who know nothing about the issues but know what they like or don't like. And our economic policy is proving to be on a par with our foreign policy, namely speak softly and carry, um, a large skim latte'.
  
• And locally, well, we did manage to force our Governor to drop the clown nose and false whiskers he's been wearing and reveal himself as (gasp!) a Republican. Who would have guessed? We failed to pass a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited right-to-work legislation, and amazingly, the state houses then instantly passed -- right-to-work legislation. And a coalition of confused and misinformed residents of our larger cities were able to repeal the emergency manager act.
  
• On the good side? Well, Japan returned its conservative party (confusingly named the Liberal Democratic Party) to power, and they're committing themselves to rearming, not to confront us but China. This of course provides us with another place to sell planes, tanks, missiles, and warships.
  
• Nationally, Ron Paul is (apparently) out of politics now, demonstrating that even a country crazy enough to elect two different George Bushs isn't crazy enough to hand over the reins to him. And the GOP further endeared itself to its own lunatic fringe by ousting a bunch of their elected representatives from important committee positions.
  
• And here in our beloved southeastern Michigan, well, Matty Maroun lost his attempt to hijack the constitution; the legislature immediately passed a new, referendum-proof emergency manager law; and ... they finally got that damn bridge done.
  

So anyway ... here's hoping 2013 is better for everybody concerned.

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Update 2012 12 26: In an incredibly Ron Paul moment, the man himself stepped up to the Gun Control plate and rejected both the NRA guards-in-schools concept and stricter controls on guns. Amazing!

Is it OK to believe rubbish?

Obviously, since you're reading this, the world didn't end a couple of days ago. No one with any claim to common sense or even the ability to read English or any of the world's other commonly-used languages thought it would. And yet, people did believe it. Schools closed, on the grounds that "something might happen." Somewhere out there, I'm sure somebody cashed in all thirty-seven dollars of their IRA money and headed for the woods.

This sort of thing isn't new. Apocalyptic visions are a dime a dozen in human culture, viz. that pathetic specimen of unorthodoxy, Harold Camping. You remember him? The guy who at least twice convinced quite startlingly large numbers of people that the end was coming, on one of several specific dates? Lots of them, at least reportedly, did themselves economic damage by buying into the notion.

There were also the Heaven's Gate people, who formed the ultimate "away team" by committing suicide. (Whether they were all wearing red shirts is not known.) And some people who really should have known better thought that Y2K would spell the end of western civilization.

You can find lots of lists and compilations of this sort of thing, none of which -- read that carefully -- none of which turned out to be correct. Unless you descend into truly fringe-mentality arguments, the observable universe remains in place, as does (like it or not) human culture. That's not a good track record for the doom-sayers.

What you don't find, though, is much talk about consequences for asserting this sort of thing. There is little or no legal basis, that I know of, for having to hold your acolytes harmless for inaccurate predictions on your part. And maybe we ought to look into that. It would go a long way toward putting teeth into the separation of church and state. And since, as Jefferson put it, religion is a matter between a man and his God, it wouldn't open the gates to a flood of post-mortem lawsuits against ministers and mullahs, since there would be no admissible evidence regarding heaven, hell, some integer less than fifty virgins, and so on. Only clearly demonstrable inaccuracies would be acceptable as evidence of breach of contract.

Ah, you say, but what contract? I would argue that if a man can be held to the terms of a lengthy and incomprehensible software license agreement, simply by reason of having checked a box on a computer screen, then a preacher can be held to an implied guarantee that his or her utterances are correct, accurate, and entire. That is, if said preacher wants tax-free status.

Bork Bites the Dust

And I'm not talking about a Swedish chef.

Robert Bork, the demonic loose cannon of 1980's jurisprudence, one of the few people too conservative even to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, has passed on.

Just in case anyone is tempted not to speak ill of the dead, here's a selective sample of Bork's attitudes and achievements (they could not really be dignified with the term "opinions.")

• Believed that a blanket law prohibiting contraception, by anyone, married or not, was not unconstitutional.
• Bowed to Nixon's demand that Archibald Cox be fired, after two Nixon appointees had refused to do so.
• Espoused positions so radical that the ACLU was forced off the fence and into a position of advocacy.
• Similarly, took a view of civil rights so archaic and inhuman that even southern democrats with a history of racist voting couldn't support his nomination.

In our era of loud revisionism, it's fashionable to claim that Bork was turned down for the court appointment "for political reasons" and that his treatment during confirmation was somehow biased and unfair. This point of view starts, ironically, as a liberal one: it takes as its basis that you have a right to be any kind of a fundamentalist jackass you want to be. Then it veers into a far right position, saying that not only do you have that right, but you have the right to inflict those views on everybody else. That is what every judge, in every court, essentially has: the right to subject law to a review colored by whatever kind of glasses he or she prefers to wear. And if you reveal to the world, in published material, over and over again, that your view of the law is somewhere to the right of Sharia, then the polity has the right to send you home and pick up the next resume on the pile.

Bork did not fail in his confirmation because of mindless political partisanship. He failed because he was, in fact, as bad as he was painted, and his own words convict him.