Les Jones Blog

Rocky Top Brigade > Volunteer Tailgate Party

Barry has the April Fool's edition of the Volunteer Tailgate Party.

Bonus! RTB founder SouthKnoxBubba has an exclusive interview with Kevin "CalPundit" Drum, who now has a gig at the Washington Monthly.

Nifty > Friday's Religion: Zoroastrianism

The Daily Ablution is continuing its look at world religions. This week is Zoroastrianism.

Humor > If You Love or Hate Salon

You'll either love or hate the TeeVee.org parody.

I also liked the alt text for the Yanni Yesterday cartoon: "Nothing good, blind people." Plus the Pee Wee Herman wire story.

Quotes > James Lileks

France is the only nation that behaves as high-handedly as China and somehow has the moral reputation of Tibet.
- James Lileks

Not sure what he means? Go here to read France's history of empire in the second half of the 20th century. And then wonder why it's the U.S. that some people accuse of imperialism.

Here's the rest of the Bleat this quote is from. It's worth reading the whole thing.

News > Knocking off Terrorist Dons

Via Steven den Beste, this is the Belmont Club's analysis of Israel's strategy in assasinating Yassin:

The Israeli strike against the terrorist top tier exploits the weakness inherent in terrorist organizations which are unstable alliances based on a delicate balance of internal intimidation. None of them, the Palestinian Authority included, are either transparent or accountable. They are exceptionally vulnerable to changes in their leadership. They can stand the loss of any number of teenage fighters or youthful suicide bombers without much damage but are rocked -- as Yassin's death illustrates -- by death at the top. Twenty million Soviet casualties in World War 2 were a statistic, but the death of Stalin marked the end of an epoch.

Politics > How Centrist is Kerry?

Every candidate wants to paint himself as a moderate in touch with the majority of Americans. John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam for four months, scored an average of 92% liberal in rankings by Americans for Democratic Action. He has about as much chance of winning this election as Ted Kennedy, who only scored 90%.

Politics > Kerry Two-Faced on Energy Policies

You've probably heard that Kerry wants Bush to stop gassing up the Strategic Petroleum Preserve, in order to use that petroleum to fight moderately-high gas prices. That's what he's saying now, in 2004. Guess what he said in 2000?

In his appearance on MTV, Kerry criticized Bush for walking away from the Kyoto treaty. When the issue was put before Congress, guess how Senator Kerry voted? This must be another case of nuance for John Kerry - supporting something but voting against it, just like the first Gulf War.

Nifty > Answer a Crazy Person

Ask Slashdot is now running letters from crazy people.

News > Stick a Fork in Richard Clarke

Some people want to think that Clarke's testimony is an indictment of Bush's culpability in 9/11. Yet here's what Clarke said last week in direct response to that issue when questioned by Slade Gorton of the 9/11 Commission:

Mr. Gorton: "Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25 of 2001 . . . including aid to the Northern Alliance which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted, say, on January 26, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?"

Mr. Clarke: "No."

And just to be sure there's no confusion:

Mr. Gorton: "It just would have allowed our response after 9/11 to be perhaps a little bit faster?"

Mr. Clarke: "Well, the response would have begun before 9/11."

Mr. Gorton: "But -- yes, but we weren't going to -- there was no recommendation on your part or anyone else's part that we declare war and attempt to invade Afghanistan prior to 9/11?"

Mr. Clarke: "That's right."

Condoleeza Rice is going to flay Clarke when she testifies.

Guns > Thursday Gun Links #11

The Grach is apparently the new Russian service pistol.

Jeff at Alphecca has the weekly check on anti-gun bias. A county in California is trying to ban .50 caliber guns. It's yet another case of Gun-fearing Wussies in California.

James at Hell in a Handbasket recounts his recent experience going through NRA firearms instructor class here, here, and here.

Attention, CNN: SayUncle is waiting for you to contradict yourselves later.

Do you believe in abstinence-only sex education? How about abstinence-only gun education?

A Michigan court of appeals has ruled that people living in a public housing project don't have a right to keep and bear arms. Eugene Volokh dissects the court's decision.

StraightWhiteGuy has 10 Reasons a Gun is Better Than a Woman.

First it was shooting off locks, now it's a discussion of shooting guns underwater.

MadOgre invents a new term: "Yes, Virginia is safer than Maryland and Maryland is safer than DC. Why is it Safer than DC? Because DC doesn’t allow any guns at all. It’s like a “Criminal Wildlife Preserve” where they are free to roam and act like beasts with no fear of hunters."

Quotes from the Founders

You can find these quotes and more here.

The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun...Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own self defense.
- Patrick Henry

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution (1776) Jefferson Papers 344 (J. Boyd, ed.1950)

To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always posses arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee

The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.
- Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution ratification convention, (1788)

I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people... To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
- George Mason, during Virginia's ratification convention (1788)

The John Ross Reader

I just discovered John Ross and his Ross in Range feature. He's a financial advisor by day, an amateur pilot, and the author of Unintended Consequences. He's also a gun enthusiast (and specifically an S&W; revolver fan) who writes like Mickey Spillane.

A history of changing Missouri's concealed carry laws.

Smith & Wesson: The Betrayal and Redemption of an American Icon

How Smith & Wesson Could Double Their Market Share With a $25,000 Tooling Investment

Abortion, Mole Removal, Helmet Laws, and Waiting Periods

Airplane fans should read his account of the Pitts Special.

Picture of the Week

From The High Road.

Food & Drink > More Regrettable Food

James Lileks has a new entry in the Gallery of Regrettable Food: Knudsen Dairy Products. If you don't understand the celery reference it's because you haven't read this.

Travel > The Dakota

Watching Law and Order right now. Melissa said "Hey, that's the Dakota. We saw that on our honeymoon." Sure enough, the camera glided over the Imagine memorial across the street at Strawberry Fields.

As Law and Order fans we loved New York, even though we were a little disappointed we didn't stumble over any bodies.

News > Foiled Terrorist Attacks

A railroad employee found bombs on a rail line between France and Switzerland.

The Philipines foiled a plot to bomb trains and shopping areas. They arrested four members of Abu Sayyaf and seized 80 pounds of TNT.

UK authorities arrested eight men and seized half a ton of bomb-making materials.

Meanwhile, Moustafa Chaouki intended to destroy a McDonald's in Italy, but accidentally blew himself up instead.

The Madrid train bombing was very nearly foiled by traffic police. A stolen car carrying 220 pounds of dynamite used in the bombing was stopped by patrolmen in a town north of Madrid. The car hadn't yet been reported stolen. The police sent the driver away with a fine for a traffic violation. Via Brian Arner.

Incidentally, that's a total of four countries targeted by terrorists (five if you count both France and Switzerland in the first story), plus the successful attacks in Spain and Uzbekistan. Does anyone really think there's no war going on?

Politics > "Ousting Saddam was the only option"

Former Secretary of State George Shultz's new editorial sums up 20 years of efforts to understand and address terrorism. Terrorism, in Schultz's views, is caused by the failure and/or corruption of some marginal states, and is encouraged by the willingness of many other states and the United Nations to treat these corrupt states as members in good standing. Here's an excerpt:

Economics > Gas Prices Not at an All Time High

The headline says "US petrol prices at all-time high," but the article says the opposite:

The AAA, a US motoring organisation, says prices now average almost $1.74 a gallon (or about 25 pence a litre). That, the AAA said, was the result of high crude oil soaring to nearly $40 a barrel and tightening stocks in the US.

From 1974 to 1985, the US price of petrol - in 2002 dollars - never dropped below $1.80, and soared as high as $2.69 in 1981, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

Here's a CATO Institute article on the same topic from last year. This Scott Burgess post likewise explains the difference between nominal and real prices.

Politics > Why I Hate John Kerry

In a visit to San Francisco, John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam for four months, continued to play both sides of the fence, this time on the gay marriage issue. From an AP wire:

Kerry says gay couples should have all the legal rights of married couples, but would stop short of allowing them to marry.

That wasn't a direct quote, so I decided to research Kerry's views. Here's a John Kerry for President press release:

“I have long believed that gay men and lesbians should be assured equal protection and the same benefits – from health to survivor benefits to hospital visitation - that all families deserve. While I continue to oppose gay marriage, I believe that today’s decision calls on the Massachusetts state legislature to take action to ensure equal protection for gay couples. These protections are long over due.”

And from an article in the Boston Globe:

In his most explicit remarks on the subject yet, Kerry told the Globe that he would support a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would prohibit gay marrriage so long as, while outlawing gay marriage, it also ensured that same-sex couples have access to all legal rights that married couples receive.

So that's John Kerry's nuanced position: he's firmly opposed to gay marriage, but supports the rights of gays to have something legally indistinguishable from marriage, except in name.

I disagree with Bush on gay marriage. He's against it. I'm for it. But at least I know where Bush stands. I have no idea what Kerry's true position is, or what he would interpret his mandate to be if elected. Furthermore, implementing gay marriage is going to require many Americans be persuaded it's the right thing to do. Kerry clearly doesn't have the strength of will to do that.

Nifty > Fishing Blog

North Carolina's Siflay Hraka has a secondary blog, Fishing Drinking Stinking, that's one of my new favorites. Man, I wish I could spend my weekends fishing on the coast. I fished on the Carolina coast in high school - flounder, eels, croakers, and all the rest. Then we used the fish heads to go crabbing for softshells. Good stuff.

E-commerce > Tuesday E-commerce Report #5

Monsters of E-commerce

Cronaca blogs a N.Y. Times story about eBay vigilantes: people who intervene in auctions they think are fraudulent. Via Marginal Revolutions.

Wal-Mart has launched their online music store. It's no iTunes, but Wal-Mart is already the biggest company in the Fortune 500, the second-largest CD retailer in the U.S., and the fifth-largest e-tailer overall, so I wouldn't bet against them.

Mike blogs about Amazon's in-store pickup system: specify your zip code, browse the available local products, and pick up the book from a participating local store (currently Borders, Circuit City, and Office Depot). The In-Store Pickup logo marks the items available in the program. This is a huge development in e-commerce: building a network of businesses tied together by a third-party Web storefront. It's a clicks-and-mortar approach using Amazon's clicks and someone else's mortar.

CD Price Fixing Settlement

Music publishers are sending out checks as part of their $63 million settlement with the FTC over CD price fixing. MusicCDSettlement.com is a clearinghouse for settlement information. This FTC page gives the history of CD price fixing. In a nutshell, music publishers maintained artificially high prices by setting minimum advertised prices (MAP) for retailers.

As someone who's been on the receiving end of illegal manufacturer pressure to post minimum advertised pricing, I count this as a small but historic victory for consumers and independent retailers.

Google front page changes

Google has re-designed their front page and search results pages. Frankly, I think the new layout is less attractive, and makes Google's secondary search functions (for news, images, etc.) less noticeable. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen is an advisor to Google. I'll be interested if he has anything to say about the new design.

The other big change is that Froogle is linked from the front page. Froogle (pronounced "frugal") is Google's price-search service.

Unlike price-comparison services (PriceGrabber, MySimon, Nextag, etc.), Froogle doesn't require the e-tailer's co-operation. Froogle indexes prices the same way Google indexes Web page content. At the same time, Froogle will also read a price feed, which is how other price comparison services get their information. A price feed will result in more comprehensive and timely results for your site. One advantage of Froogle for e-tailers is that Google doesn't charge e-tailers for inclusion or click-throughs.

Another small change in Google's interface is in the Sponsored Links section of the search results page. Google no longer displays a bar graph indicating the percentage of users who clicked through to that advertiser.

Les Jones is an e-commerce manager living in Knoxville, Tennessee. He offers consulting in Web design and site promotion, and programming in JavaScript, Web+ Markup Language, and the Web+Shop shopping cart system.

Home Life > My One Morsel of Marriage Advice

I've only been married for seven months, so I can't offer much. But here's my humble bit of advice for everyone who's about to get married (or shacked up, or unionized, etc.).

Get a King-sized bed.

No joke. Sleeping in bed with someone every night takes some getting used to, and it's a whole lot easier with a big bed.

(Why do I mention this? A friend of mine is getting married and we were discussing their plans for merging their furniture and buying new furniture.)

Politics > Neal Boortz on Universal Broadband

Neal "No Permalinks" Boortz has a teeny tiny question about the president's plan for universal broadband.

I read the Constitution again last night. I was looking for that article and section where it said that it was the function of the federal government to make sure that high-speed Internet connections were available to all Americans. Do you know what? I couldn't find it! It's just not there!

But George Bush is there. He's now proposing some sort of a government program to guarantee universal Internet access in the United States. Not just dial-up, mind you ... but high-speed service.

The only way to "guarantee" this universal access is to use government force to take property (money) away from people who have worked for and earned it and use that property to pay for Internet service for people who, for whatever reason, have achieved the status of economic loser.

What's next? Guaranteed cell phone service?

Sometimes I forget why I read Boortz. He tends to get carried away and get pretty abrasive (as with the "economic loser" line above), which I guess is some kind of prerequisite for talk radio. But I hang in there so that I can enjoy reading him slag on bad ideas like this one.

H.L. Mencken Awards > 79,100 Homeless Missing in Chicago

Interested Participant blogs the latest results of a homeless census in Chicago:

Contrary to the 80,000 homeless estimate provided by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, a census conducted between midnight and 3AM yesterday by hundreds of volunteer counters and city employees resulted in a count of 958 people living on Chicago's streets. Therefore, over 79,000 homeless people are missing. Or, they don't exist.

In addressing homeless populations, Interested-Participant previously discussed The Second Law of Homelessness, which is: "Homeless advocacy groups will exaggerate the number of homeless people by a significant factor. There are no qualms about overestimations of 1000 percent."

Don't miss his other laws of homelessness.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and thus clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
- H.L. Mencken

A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.
- H. L. Mencken

True Crime > The BTK Strangler Returns

The BTK Strangler seems to have turned up again in Wichita, Kansas:

A letter sent last week to The Wichita Eagle (search) contained information on a 1986 killing and included photos that appeared to be of the victim's body. Police are examining the letter for DNA and other evidence.

"The photographs appear to be authentic," said Lt. Ken Landwehr (search), who has been working the BTK case for 20 years. "I'm 100 percent sure it's BTK."

CrimeLibrary has a (poorly edited) BTK Strangler profile. The Fox News story linked above says that the new letter includes photos of the crime scene. One investigator suspected that the killer had taken photos:

FBI Profiler John Douglas in the book Obsession has a chapter on the BTK strangler. It is the chapter called "Motivation X". Within the book, Douglas states that there were no defensive wounds found on any of the victims, assuming that the killer used a gun to control them. He further stated that the killer's letters to the police had so much detail that he is convinced that the perpetrator had taken his own crime scene photos in order to have a keepsake of the crime to fantasize about later.

Rocky Top Brigade > Web Censorship in China

RTBer Brian Ruckle, a Tennessee blogger living in China, reports that the great firewall of China has blocked access to Blogs.com and Typepad.com blogs. Blogspot.com blogs were already blocked.

China has partially, hesitatingly embraced some free market reforms, but a free market depends on the free flow of information (otherwise you get inefficient markets). If China wants to succeed economically, they're going to have to accept that economic freedom and political freedom go hand in hand. "Restrictions on the free flow of information" is one of the seven signs of a non-competitive state.