The Only Winning Move

Well, they say there’s no accounting for taste, but I think that’s just because the world in general has none. Case in point: Drew Barrymore is People Magazine’s top choice on its annual “100 Most Beautiful People” list. Last year it was Angelina Jolie.

No. And No.

I’m not saying Drew Barrymore isn’t cute - she is. Very. But beautiful? I’m not so sure. Certainly she isn’t the number one most beautiful anything of any year, let alone 2007. The trouble is that there’s nothing whatever inspiring about her. She’s the kind of girl you’d like to be pals with (”with benefits,” granted), but she’s hardly what you’d call an ideal.

But “pals” is probably what did it for her. I don’t understand it, and I probably never will, but a lot of people (in America, anyway) seem to dream of this kind of thing. They want to fall in love with their best friend. Hardly surprising that this culture’s beauty ideal would be exactly that: the playful neighbor-girl.

Angelina Jolie, for her part, is a complete non-starter. I don’t get what people see in her. They seem to think she’s some sort of sultry vixen, but she’s really just a cheap imitation of that. It’s a totally safe fantasy. Go through all the motions of beauty and the public buys it, but there’s nothing truly special here either.

As should have been well-established by now, the most beautiful person currently alive is Jennifer Connelly. Maybe someday before I die we’ll see her name on top of one of these lists, but I’m not counting on it - not in a country that thinks Drew Barrymore deserves the honor, anyway. Disappointing.

I suppose it’s only fair to say something about this. The Conservatives are now apparently polling in a dead heat with the Liberals in Canada. This is a pretty dramatic fall from only two weeks ago, when they were inching close to 40% support - a number generally considered the magic threshhold for a majority government.

What happened? Well, there’ve been all kinds of bad things going on - possible torture scandal in Afghanistan, heavy criticism from the Opposition on Afghanistan, the leaked environmental plan (though I must admit, I never quite understood what was so objectionable about that?), and, probably most importantly, the revelation that Harper has a personal groomer on the public payroll who just might also be a psychic.

But this can’t be the whole story, and here’s why: bleeding Tory support isn’t going to the Liberals, it’s going to the NDP. (!!!) Yes, the NDP is up to 18%! Wow! And - YIKES! Kinda scary, really.

Anderson wouldn’t venture a theory on how falling Tory support appears to be translating into a rising NDP tide.

“The votes that seem to be shaking lose from the Conservatives right now are not largely going to the Liberal party,” was all the pollster would venture.

That’s because I suspect the explanation is pretty mundane. It isn’t really that the Conservatives have been doing well, lately, as that the Liberals are doing poorly. Dion’s tenure as leader has been pretty lackluster, and the party has yet to recover from all the corruption scandals dating back to the Chretien years. If people are headed to the NDP, it’s because the NDP is the only serious party left. They’re not ready to go home to the Liberals yet.

This is, of course, hugely embarrassing for my earlier theory that Canada in general was starting to shift right. What it seems is actually going on is that Canada is punishing the Liberals, who richly deserve to be punished, but that underlyingly it’s still a one-party state, and voters will go back to that once they’ve gotten it out of their systems. DAMN!

Well, I like to say “I told you so,” so let me go ahead and say I told you so. Harper should have called an election a couple of weeks ago.

But who knows, these days? Maybe Tory support will rebound after the hairstylist issue blows over…

This doesn’t affect my election watch, though. I guess Harper could deal with a divided Liberal/Bloc opposition, but he isn’t going to want to hand the NDP a sweet caucus (so the government will not be engineering its own downfall anytime soon, I think). However, the NDP itself might be in the mood to topple the government with these numbers - and since Dion seems to want to do just that (though who on God’s Green Earth knows WHY?), maybe there will be a confidence vote soon. Stay tuned.

Searching on CafePress today for a suitable gun nut shirt, I ran across this odd item. I mean - it says the right stuff, but if I’m not mistaken, that’s Jack Layton’s picture on the front. Actually, I’m not mistaken - that’s definitely Jack Layton.

I mean, I guess it’s not surprising that Canada’s Socialist Number One would be anti-gun. (And just in case anyone needed confirmation, here is a case in point.) What’s surprising is that there’s enough of a pro-gun market in Canada to get shirts like this off the shelf. It’s an encouraging sign!

By the way - update on yesterday’s post. It turns out the latest evidence suggests the gunman at VaTech shot himself - i.e. was not gunned down by police as I earlier thought. So that makes the police 100% ineffective in this case after all - which just strengthens my point. A better-armed population would’ve brought him down in shorter order.

As it turns out - this was actually an issue as recently as a year ago. The link goes to an article about the defeat of HR1572, which would’ve allowed guns on college campuses. The real outrage, of course, is that none of the nanny-staters who supported this bill are going to stop to think that they had a hand in what happened yesterday. Rather, they’re going to turn around and demand more of the same - wilfully ignorant of the fact that their misguided and nonsensical (but no doubt well-intentioned) gun control policy has failed in spectacular fashion.

It reminds me of that old saying - “A lock will keep out an honest man.” Well, sure. But locks aren’t for honest men. A DOOR will keep out an honest man. We need locks for people doors won’t stop. By the same token, a gun control law will stop a law-abiding man - but it will not stop a criminal. Citizens need guns BECAUSE people break the law.

Please - join the NRA today and help fight the forces that want to leave you defenseless.

This is no doubt one of the stories of the year in the making: Gunman kills 30 at Virginia Tech shooting. It is, the article reports, now the shooting spree with the largest death toll in US history.

In addition to the high body count, one thing that stands out about this one is the fact that it occurred in two “bursts” on opposite ends of the campus. The first one was at a dorm at 7:30. Police were investigating that incident two hours later when the second one started, about half a mile away at the other end of campus. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of information just yet - but they’re saying 30 or so people were killed and another 26 injured.

The immediate political implications of this, of course, are going to be the usual calls for more gun control. President Bush knows this; his official statement on the incident affirms the Constitutional right of citizens to bear arms.

Thank God for that! I’m not a big fan of President Bush, but I will give credit where it is due. This administration is really the only one in living memory that understands the Second Amendment and has consistently fought to protect it. Here it is in plain English:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

A lot of ink has been spilled trying to read into this a collective right - but any honest interpretation will conclude that no such thing is written. The right to bear arms is clearly given to “the People,” which, for those Democrats and Socialists who have forgotten (or don’t want to remember), is all of us. “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State” is a modifier - it isn’t the main clause. This gives the rationale behind securing this right to the People, perhaps, but it clearly does not restrict that right. People - individual people - have the right to bear arms - for self defense, for hunting and, most importantly, to resist the government should the need ever again arise.

I firmly believe that no free country can be without this basic right. I have independent reasons for disliking all of the Republican candidates for president in 2008 announced so far; this is the reason I will not end up voting for Giuliani. The man has a dismal record on Second Amendment issues.

I am concerned, as President Bush apparently is, and as the owner of the gunshop I visited on Friday clearly was, that a Democrat sweep in 2008 will be the beginning of the end of our Second Amendment freedoms. Incidents like this only give the fascists soundbyte fodder.

Naturally, I don’t want to downplay the tragedy. 30 people dead is an awful lot, and the natural human instinct after such situations is to lose your cool and embrace any policy that promises to prevent future such issues.

Please - let’s not lose our cool this time like we did after 9/11.

The best way to prevent future incidents like this is NOT to let the government take our guns away. There will always be guns floating around and always people with the opportunity to use them for things like this. Taking guns away from honest citizens does NOT prevent crime, it enables criminals. It is simple common sense that someone who will break the law to kill people will also break the law to obtain a gun. Now, granted, proponents of gun control argue - somewhat plausibly - that a general gun control regime will make guns harder to obtain and more expensive on the black market, thus also reducing the number of criminals who have them. That is certainly true - but the point is that such a regime absolutely - to 100% success - takes guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens - and it is those hands that need them the most.

Why, indeed, do you think these incidents tend to happen at schools more often than at other public places? For the simple reason, I suspect, that guns are banned on school property. A gunman wanting to pick off a boatload of people knows he’s more likely to get away with it in such a place because there won’t be anyone in the crowd packin’ heat who can take him out. Before you lose your cool and trust the government to “protect” you from this kind of thing - consider whether it is even possible for a gunman to bring down 30 people in a heavily armed society. Pretty obviously, it is not.

If students in general on campus had guns, this sort of thing would be unthinkable. After the first shots went off, someone would have fired back. And it would have been their right to do so - because there are few, if any, rights more basic than the right to bodily self-defense when attacked. If you believe in this right (and you are hardly human if you do not), how can you honestly deny citizens the basic tools they need to exercise it? There is no other defense against a gunman than a gun. I can think of little that is more Orwellian than taking away, in the name of “protecting” them, the only possible thing that can help honest citizens defend themselves.

Notice that the police were not effective here. Notice that they arrived on the scene late, and that two hours later, while they were still investigating, the shooting started again. Nothing about anything they did stopped 30 people from being killed. Indeed - if reports are to be believed, the only thing that finally stopped the shooting was a policeman’s bullet. That should not be the least bit surprising to anyone - a bullet is really the only thing that is effective against such a person. The tragedy is that one wasn’t fired at him sooner.

I encourage anyone reading this - if you want to do something appropriate to prevent things like this happening in the future, do the following:

1. Buy a handgun - it is your Constitutional right to own one. The government may not take this from you, and you do not have to apologize to anyone - not your friends, not your neighbors, not your coworkers, and sure as HELL not the police, for wanting to own the basic tools of self-defense. Indeed, you should be proud of owning one. The more of us “good guys” that own them, the safer the country is for everyone.
2. Learn how to use it safely - ownership comes with responsibility. Fortunately for you, there is no shortage of courses available to help you learn how to shoot and store your weapon effectively and safely. Take advantage of them.
3. Join the NRA - No other single lobby group has been more effective at securing this right for you than the NRA. Give them your support - they have helped you already more than you know.

I have let my own NRA membership lapse, and I’m really sorry I did. The membership signup form is here. I have just filled it out for a two-year membership. I suspect a showdown on this issue is coming soon, so please don’t wait!!!

Love is friendship set on fire.

This is apparently from Jeremy Taylor - an Anglican clergyman and author of the 17th century. I first heard it on Northern Exposure, where it was incorrectly attributed to Bruce Lee, of all people; I guess it makes for better TV if it’s a name the audience knows.

In any case, it seems to be a popular idea. It’s all over the internet, and I can’t count how many times I’ve had friends tell me that what they really want in life is for their best friend to become their lover. Well this, in the words of a great man, makes me want to heave.

Maybe it sounds nice, but it’s tripe, plain and simple. (Romantic) Love is not friendship, nor even anything like friendship. And why would you want it to be?

Honestly, why would you want it to be? That there is friendship in the world is clear. That it is meaningful and important is equally clear. That (most) everyone has it is also clear. So what possible meaning can there be in having, as an ideal, something that is a not-too-different version of what you’re guaranteed to experience eventually by just hanging around and talking to people?

It’s one thing to think that what love is beneath the surface, when you get past the poetry and other mumbo-jumbo, is just friendship plus sex, and hormones trick us into thinking otherwise. That’s a psychological theory - and it may even turn out to be true. But what we believe out of scientific curiosity doesn’t matter much to what we want, or should want, for ourselves in our lives.

If the issue is what your ideal is, then I’m sure this isn’t mine. Love is just the fire. The friendship either comes later or never at all - but it isn’t the same thing.

Now, a lot of people will say that they have experienced exactly this - a friendship that smoothly transitions into a romance. I wonder if they really have. I can safely say that it has never happened to me. What might have seemed like a “friendship” was really just one or the other of us faking it to get close to the prey.

Today is my birthday - which technically makes me an Aries. Not that astrology has much to do with anything in reality - but I just so happen to be one of those people who fits the random template personality description of his starsign pretty well. According to Wikipedia:

“I am”. Assertive, individualistic, selfish, impulsive, energetic, headstrong, pioneering, leader, competitive, action-oriented, aggressive, intemperate, violent, fiery, extreme, arrogant, quick, passionate, powerful, loner, freedom-loving.

Emphasis here on “assertive” and “impulsive.” I express opinions about everything, regardless of how the audience will take it, and suffer from an almost total lack of self-discipline.

I suppose I can see how people who are more collected and rational, less emotional and impulsive, might dream of a slow-burning fire that starts unannounced and grows with time. Call it the difference between those who are comfort-oriented and those who are gratification-oriented.

Well, (romantic) love itself is gratification-oriented. People who think they can love their friends romantically aren’t really in love. They are, when all is said and done, “just friends” and always will be.

Another show does a better job:

You’re not friends. You’ll never be friends. You’ll be in love till it kills you both. You’ll fight, and you’ll shag, and you’ll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you’ll never be friends. Love isn’t brains, children, it’s blood.

Right.

Alright, it’s looking like I’m going to have to admit that my earlier analysis of the likelihood of a Canadian election this spring may have been wrong. Technically, I have until May 5 - but check out this story to see what I’m talking about.

Earlier, I predicted that whether or not Harper would engineer an election would have mostly to do with how the Tories stood in Quebec. In fact, I said he would want to call an election while the Bloc was strong (to further split the opposition in Commons by bleeding away the Liberal caucus) and he could be sure of holding on to the 6 seats he currently has in Quebec. Well, ladies and gentleman, that seems to be exactly the current situation. I guess the Bloc is still in moral first place in Quebec (it’s Bloc 30 - 31 Tories - but I imagine the advantage would shift to the Bloc in a real election), and now we’ve added the missing ingredient as well: the Conservatives lead the Liberals by about 10 points in the province (!!! - I mean, is that even POSSIBLE???).

This is very nearly ideal for Harper. Of course, a poll showing a solid Conservative majority in the works would be better - but this has been my point all along: Harper doesn’t have forever. Canada is shifting right, but we’re still in the early stages, and any number of things could go wrong. For all we know right now, the surge in Conservative support has more to do with Stephane Dion’s ineptitude (case in point here) than any general change in attitudes among Canadians. However much people don’t like Stephen Harper, everyone thinks of him as “the most prime ministerial” (such an odd question, but it’s on nearly every general opinion poll I’ve seen) of all the potential candidates, and certainly everyone recognizes he’s highly competent. The same can’t necessarily be said for Stephane Dion. I guess the Liberals are stuck with him for awhile; he’s a symptom of nasty infighting rather than the cause of the party’s current woes, you might say. Booting him now would just mean yet another highly divisive leadership convention with all the associated new opportunities for the Conservatives to manipulate their selection (as happened last time). But he can’t stay leader forever, and when they get around to replacing him, it’ll be with a bang I’m sure. All bets are off what the polls will look like then.

So Harper can’t wait forever, and I, for one, think he should go for it now. Provided he can keep the rank and file in line and saying only the right things at press conferences (and is there anyone more qualified to do that than Harper?), and provided he takes the environment issue head on and puts the Liberals on the defensive from the outset, I think there’s a majority win lurking in those numbers somewhere. Dion is no match for Harper, so it really would be Harper’s election to lose.

But for whatever reason, a lot of higher-ups in the Conservative Party don’t seem to see it that way. Without the new data from Quebec, I would very much agree with them: waiting just a little bit longer for a majority to start to materialize would be the best way to go. But now I’m not so sure. If ANY bastion of Conservative support is on shaky ground, it’s definitely Quebec. This is the window that will close the fastest. If Harper doesn’t act soon, it’s more or less inevitable that his support in Quebec will start to erode - and quickly.

Well, we’ll see what happens. Obviously, today being Sunday and all, he can’t call an election until tomorrow at the earliest anyway. Maybe it will come in the next week. Or maybe, I’m totally wrong about what they’re thinking, and the Tories have decided to wait for an absolute majority standing before dissolving Commons. Or maybe, even, he just doesn’t like the idea of doing anything that would help the Bloc. Wait and see…

I suppose I should probably weigh in on the Imus controversy while it’s still news. I’ve been meaning to say something about this for a couple of days actually - because of an interesting conversation about it I had on Thursday with one of the other graduate students in the department. She’s the TA for the Language and Gender topics course and, I have always assumed, a feminist of some kind. And yet she led into the conversation by saying that they were discussing the controversy in class, and that her students would be shocked that she just didn’t think it was that big of a deal (rightly noting that TAs for courses called “Language and Gender” are expected to be outraged).

That’s the one part of this incident I’m not quite sure I understand. It isn’t just this girl. Lots of highly prominent “usual suspects” have mysteriously switched sides on this one, and I can’t totally figure why. Rosie O’Donnell, for example, thinks that somehow a private corporation sacking someone for saying things that are against their professional standards and hurting ratings besides is “going down the road to Nazi Germany.”

Listen, here’s the thing. There’s free speech in America. You can say anything that you want in this country, and to think that you could be penalized for it, by a corporation is kind of a strange-

Actually, no it isn’t. It happens all the time, and why not? The right to free speech enshrined in the Constitution doesn’t give you a right to a venue provided by someone else! It just says that the government can’t interfere with your right to express your opinion publicly. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about corporations being required to employ people they disagree with, or whom they feel to be unsuitable for the company, etc.!

That so many people don’t seem to grasp this distinction is one of the more frustrating things in politics for me. I’m reminded of the Eddie Vedder incident, where after burning George W. in effigy on stage he was shocked (shocked!) to find that some members of the audience were offended enough to boo him. So thereupon followed all kinds of quotes in the media about the audience violating his free speech rights. (!!!) As if. Listen, asshole, if free speech permits you to burn images of the president in front of a crowd on stage (which it absolutely does), then it sure as hell also affords the crowd the right to jeer back!

There are many things at issue in the Don Imus controversy, but free speech is absolutely NOT one of them. No one but NO ONE denied Imus his right to free speech. It’s not as if he’s going to jail over this. No - what happened is that Imus used his rights in a dumb way, and now he’s paying a price for it that he surely could have guessed, had he stopped to think before speaking, would have been attached.

Now, that said, I understand where a lot of frustration over the firing is coming from, and I’m not totally immune to it myself. Namely - it exposes a huge double standard about what’s “appropriate” where race matters are concerned. All manner of minorities are allowed to say exactly what Imus said without so much as a raised eyebrow from anyone. Even more disturbing, they’re allowed to say downright racist things about white people without attached consequences. Just to give an example from my own life, Cornell West spoke at my undergraduate institution and said several things that I found quite racist. For example, that he finds it “amusing” when white liberals come up to him and tell him they’re not racists. His response, apparently, is to say “If the white male racist oppressor isn’t dead in me, then I KNOW he’s not dead in you!” Which is about as racist a thing as you can possibly say, really. It’s (not-so-)cleverly disguised behind some attempt to abstract “white, maleness” out as a social category, but, even leaving the issue of why the racist archetype has to be a white male (which it doesn’t, and in fact shouldn’t be, since there are no shortage of examples of nonwhite races oppressing each other, etc.), notice that West assumes people bearing the “white” and “male” characteristics must automatically be more racist than everyone else. And yet, all our professors were falling over themselves fawning at how many “challenging” things he said. Right. If that’s “challenging,” then crossing the street must be a positive nightmare for these people. I didn’t have to struggle with that one for even a microsecond to know that it was bigotry and not scholarship, and that the man should have been booed off the stage and never invited back rather than applauded.

So I get it. It’s frustrating to see Imus roasted insofar as we know that the public doesn’t apply the same high expectations to women and minorities. And yes, something needs to be done to restore balance here. But allowing Imus to go on being a bigot on live radio isn’t the way. You’re either opposed to racism across the board, or you’re not really opposed to it at all. No - the way to fight the double standard is to throw energy in getting the same standards on which Imus’ firing is based applied to everyone. And I suspect (as do many in the blogosphere) that the real reason Rosie is taking Imus’ side is because she sees the writing on the wall. If Imus loses his job over racist remarks, what will come next will be precisely a woman or minority losing their job for the same reason, just to show that standards are being applied equally. Given lots of things she’s said in the past, she’s an obvious candidate for scapegoat here.

But of course, the TA I mentioned doesn’t have a talkshow to lose, so her reasons are quite different. What she said was simply that she didn’t think it was that big of a deal. And to tell the truth, I don’t either. Another dimension to this is that people are way too sensitive about race and gender issues to begin with. We could all do with some lightening up in this department. What Imus said is undeniably racist - but is it really so bad as to be worth his job? Technically yes, if sponsors started pulling contracts. The affiliate’s first responsibility is to make money, and if Imus is worth a lot less today than he was yesterday, then a contract renegotiation is certainly warranted. But part of you also wishes that the public would learn to take these things a bit more in stride. You do get the impression, after living most of your life in America, than this country takes all this stuff a little bit too seriously.

Nevertheless, I think in the end it’s a good thing there were consequences. However much we may say we wish people were less sensitive about racial slurs, the fact remains that it was a racial slur, and there’s nothing even remotely irrational about the girls on the Rutgers team being offended by it. It was, after all, an offensive thing to say. What I mean by “take it a bit more in stride” isn’t “pretend you didn’t hear what you heard.” To their credit, the team stopped short of calling for his head - but they did stand up for themselves, as well they should have.

Whether or not it was enough to justify a firing, though, the point for me is that if we want to fight the double standard that says whites can’t say racist things on the air but everyone else can, then the way to do it is surely NOT to encourage more on-air white bigotry. The first step, in fact, to fighting the double standard is demonstrating your sincerity by joining the denounciations when a white man says something racist. Only then are you in a moral position to demand that everyone else hold themselves to the same standards.

So, good riddance Don Imus. It was your own stupid fault. Whatever we do, let’s please NOT make this man a folk hero! And PRETTY please let’s hear no more about Imus’ right to free speech. Unlike love, free speech doesn’t mean never having to say you’re sorry.

Good news. Apparently there will be an announcement shortly that all charges in the fraudulent Duke Rape Case have been dropped. It’s about bloody time! I would just like to take the opportunity to second this statement from Duke law professor Paul Haagen (reported via Durham in Wonderland) to the effect that merely dropping the charges is not enough. The state needs to also publicly acknowledge that the case was fraudulent and continued far too long, if for no other reason than to reassure citizens of the fine state of North Carolina that the higher-ups will be keeping a closer eye on this kind of election-whoring abuse of power by local DAs in the future. Now here’s hoping the NC Bar roasts Nifong in the ethics hearings! The sooner that man loses his license (and/or goes to prison where - let’s not forget - he was hoping to send three innocent citizens as an offering to a mob in exchange for a cheap election win), the better for everyone.

This seems a story worth following. Mike Adams - a criminology professor at UNC-Wilimington and regular columnist for conservative news&views site Townhall.com - is suing UNCW for discrimination.

Of course, I only get these stories filtered through his highly entertaining satire. Exposing the leftist bias in academia accounts for roughly 90% of his output (the other 10% being completely annoying Christian drivel - generally of the “Evolution is just a theory” anti-science stripe) - and he has no more favorite target than his home institution. In short - he’s been a professional gadfly (one of the best, I might add) these past 5 years - and finally one of his columns took things a step too far. That would be this one - entitled “How to Bomb a Gay Bathhouse.”

Of course, it’s satire like all the rest. But the title alone is just a fraction of a toe over the line enough that the university administration will have seen their chance. He started by claiming they were libeling him, then he disappeared from Townhall for a couple of weeks - and today he comes back with this lawsuit. At the time of writing, the link in his column to the actual complaint filed is broken, so I can’t be too sure about the contents - but the column indicates that it is a discrimination suit.

I’m gonna hafta come down against him on this one - much as, on the whole, I agree with his points about academia. The specific charge is apparently that he was passed over for promotion because he is a conservative christian rather than a liberal atheist, or some such. In short, that they are discriminating against him for his political beliefs. And let me just say that there is no doubt in my mind that something like that is going on, yeah. All the same - I would guess it probably has more to do with the bad light in which he’s been painting UNCW in his columns all this time. I mean, in the business world it would just be common sense that if you go around maligning your own company in pubic, you’ll be “overlooked” for promotion no matter how productive your actual on-the-clock work has been! Now, admittedly, UNCW is a government institution, and one of the points of tenure (which Dr. Adams already has) is supposed to be to free academics from concerns that their job will depend on which answers they get, which opinions they express, etc. And indeed, there is no shortage of leftists who abuse their tenure in exactly the same way - to denounce the very institutions that employ them. So I’m not going to try to argue that there’s no double standard at work here - because there definitely is.

What concerns me is that conservatives are sinking to the leftists’ level on this issue. It’s the leftists, is it not, who have a penchant for running to the courts whining whenever things don’t go their way? And aren’t conservatives supposed to be the ones who complain, among other things, that there are too many frivolous lawsuits, that courts ought not to be legislating nor interfereing with private transactions, etc.? It’s something of a dilemma, of course, because if we MUST have bad laws like the anti-discrimination laws, then they really should apply equally to everyone - i.e. not just “protected” groups. So I understand the motivation for filing the suit - you know, to even the playing field a bit. Still, I can’t see that this turns out any other way than giving the courts exactly the kind of authority conservatives tend to say they shouldn’t have. By filing this lawsuit, Dr. Adams is inviting the courts to meddle in private employment matters - extending, as it were, the invitation that the ACLU extended to them as long ago as the 1950s, only this time from the other side. And the more both sides of the debate resort to this tactic, the more ubiquitous it becomes.

I’m sorry, but you can’t fight courts-as-fiat-legislators by encouraging them to do so, only on your behalf rather than the other guy’s. So as much as I have enjoyed and agreed with many of Dr. Adams’ columns in the past, I don’t think I can take his side on this one. I suppose I should wish him well on his court date. After all, now that the die is cast, the erstwhile “good guys” might as well win, right?

Well, yes, but my heart’s not in it. However the case comes out, it’s a net negative. Even if Dr. Adams wins, all he will have succeeded in doing is inviting courts to oversee university promotion decisions - extending protections to a certain class of people based on their “political orientation” in the process. I wish he hadn’t filed this suit. But I admit that watching some NC university system administrators take a beating in court is satisfying on its own merits! (One of the nice things about going to IU, in fact, is that this school is MUCH less political than almost any university in the North Carolina system. It’s been a very nice break from all that!)

It turns out - and this is a real shocker - that working around chlorine causes respiratory problems. It’s amazing the kinds of totally unexpected things we learn from government-funded research!

But alright - to be fair, this is a comment on the media, not the research. Establishing that extended chlorine exposure causes respiratory problems isn’t very useful, but I guess that this study quantifies the effects of that exposure, which definitely does have some medical worth. Nevertheless, the media reports it simply as “exposure to chlorine causes respiratory problems,” which doesn’t tell anyone anything they didn’t already know, and has, as an added cherry on top, the potential to make people who are not actually at risk worry unduly about the potential dangers of their swimming routine. I mean what next? Smoking causes lung cancer?

But the main thing is this cool line:

One possible way to reduce levels of trichloramines might be to improve hygiene among pool users, they add, although enforcing compliance could be difficult.

Which just goes to show - government regulations are no substitute for basic civilized behavior on the part of the general population. Gotta fix the culture before you can fix the politics (paraphrased from Ayn Rand).

[This is post 300!]