Fargo mayor Dennis Walaker declared a state of emergency yesterday as the city gears up for another possible flood fight. It's considered a formality, a way to speed up the process of getting federal help if the worst happens.
Walaker is on record as saying he thinks all the dire spring predictions are premature and I agree with him. Bits and pieces of the area flood every spring. You put a city on a flat, open plain, situate it next to a river, and bombard it with snow and sub-freezing temperatures every winter and you're going to get a lot of water come springtime. That water has to go somewhere. Last year it went everywhere.
Last year, though, the National Weather Service downplayed the risk and gave overly rosy forecasts that they ramped up each week until we were underwater. I think this year they are desperate to avoid taking criticism for being too optimistic and so are compensating too far in the other direction. To read some of the reports this year, we're going to need an ark.
I think in the end it will be okay. We'll get some minor flooding (like we always do) and everything will return to normal. If not, well, I suppose I'll be out sandbagging again. The great thing about this prediction is everyone is hoping I'm right.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Board Games Used To Pass Intelligence, Oscar Buzz To Allied POWs
Snopes has an entry on a British game supplier smuggling maps and other items to allied POWs during WWII. I immediately imagined Colonel Hogan and Kinch and the guys pulling one over on Klink at Stalag 13. Maybe receiving the coordinates of a supply convoy stuffed in the shoe while Schultz was busy passing GO and shrieking that he landed on the damned Income Tax square again. It also got me wondering what other games could have been rigged up to fight the good fight against the Nazis.- Scrabble This one is easy. A few strategically-placed markers on the letter tiles and you could send all sorts of useful messages. Safe house, 1634 Rue Couilliard, St. Martin. There's a stash of grenades in the big tree by the guardhouse. "Going My Way" beats "Double Indemnity" for Best Picture -- WTF?!? The possibilites are endless.
- Clue Professor Hitler did it in the theater with the rope. That he's cutting at the opening ceremony on June 18th at 8:00 pm in Berlin. Bring poison.
- Mystery Date Very handy for passing in the identity of agents provocateur. Could backfire if a passing guard notices that the high school quarterback date looks a lot like Hans, the new liason officer. But he's so dreamy!
- Chutes and Ladders Not such a great tool for espionage, but if you can get the guards to play you might be able to escape after they fall asleep from boredom.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Pennsylvania School Thinks Lack Of Student Privacy Extends To The Home
A Pennsylvania school thought it would be a boon to learning if they gave every student a free laptop. Naturally, there were some strings attached; the machines had to be used for school-related work, for example. But then the administration went all 1984 on the students and started using the installed spy software to see what was happening when the machines were off-campus. Oh, and looking at email and other personal items were also apparently part of the deal.I understand the thinking behind throwing laptops at students. Hey, maybe having another six pounds to carry around in a backpack will stop the damn running in the halls. Your school looks all hip and computer savvy, and maybe Steve Jobs will tweet about you in between releasing pre-existing gadgets in fancy new casings with bloated price tags. Maybe all those kids who don't study were suffering from some rare form of dyslexia that only affects their abilty to read from books, while .pdf files remain remarkably clear.
And it certainly makes sense that if a school is going to hurl free laptops at people, they're going to want to ensure they're used for school-related functions. But even a teenager, the lowest form of life in America (at least as far as rights go -- have you ever tried to read an unborn child's email? The state would hammer you for that, my friend) has some expectation of privacy when it comes to personal correspondance.
This particular school district is denying any wrongdoing. Thinking it could give a laptop to a person and then pretending it retained all rights to it was where it went wrong.
Say Anything Roundup (2/15 - 2/21)
If you aren't reading Say Anything, you're missing a good number of my political rants. If that's what you intended, for the love of Jeebus don't click any of these links!
- Where Taxpayers Moved To (And Away From) In 2007-2008
- Rhode Island Superintendent Goes All Reagan On Teacher’s Union
- Hurricane Data Becomes Latest IPCC Bogeyman To Be Challenged
- Is Anybody Serious About Fiscal Responsibility?
- States Looking To North Dakota “Socialist Bank” As A Possible Model
- Threat Of Fines Means More Flights Getting Canceled
- LA Op-Ed Calls For Federal Takeover Of States’ “Important Functions”
- Iran Raising The Stakes In The Nuclear Game
- White House Strategy To Deal With Republicans: More Of The Same
- Governors Say States Can Take Care Of Health Insurance On Their Own
- The Light Bulb As States’ Rights Symbol
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Is There Room For Gays In The Conservative Movement?
When I take a position on a political issue, I try to approach it with one priniciple in mind: as long as an action doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s rights, they should be free to do it. In 99% of cases, I absolutely believe that. It would be nice if such a simple priniciple could be applied universally, but it can’t. Because other factors are always trying to creep in. The social effects of an action. The ambiguity inherent in defining “impinge”. The devil is in the details, and there are always details.
But generally, that principle serves me well. I like it because it’s easily defended. There aren’t a lot of ways to challenge it without looking like someone who likes to take away other people’s freedom. That’s not to say the priniciple wins arguments. Defense mechanisms spring into place when a person’s deeply held beliefs are challenged. But these usually take the form of non sequitirs, hypocrisy, name calling, and strawmen. That allows the challenged to tell their like-minded internet brethern that they won the “fight”, but I get the satisfaction from knowing they’re wrong. No, wait. It would be more accurate to say that they didn’t show themselves to be right, which is a subtle distinction but an important one.
One of the more contentious issues for conservatives is the role gays should play (if any) in the movement. Those of a more religious bent would say none. The less socially conservative might disagree. The divide strikes at the heart of a very important question: what does it mean to be “conservative”?
I can only provide my own definition, and it is a hazy one. This is because there is no single definition. For me, conservatism embodies the idea of maximizing freedom. Freedom to live the way one wants to live, guided by the principle above: as long as an action doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s rights, they should be free to do it. For me this means supporting gay marriage. The idea that two people should be able to create a life together and be happy comes naturally to me. I don’t see how it harms anyone else if those people share a gender.
Of course, for some, those devilish details come creeping in at this point. They might argue that there is harm; harm to society, to social mores, the moral fabric. Those arguments are white noise to me, because these arguments are always framed within the speakers ideas of what is moral, what makes for a strong social fabric, and those ideas may not be mine. For this reason, I try to factor out arbitrary constructs like these.
Does that mean I think anything goes? Of course not. That’s a strawman. Real harm can be demonstrated as proceeding from certain actions, and those actions should be restricted. Drunk driving, for example. Child pornography. These actions represent a real danger of impinging on the rights of others. Being gay and married doesn’t, unless one decides they are an affront to one’s morals. However, to support that argument one must project one’s morals onto others.
Ultimately, where one falls on the argument of gay marriage is itself a strawman in the larger argument of the role of gays in the conservative movement. It seems difficult on the surface to be against gay marriage but embrace gays in the context of the larger movement. There’s definitely a bit of a disconnect there. But there’s a disconnect among conservatives who are pro-life and those who support abortion rights. There’s a disconnect between those who vote for anyone with a (R-) after their name and those who withold votes from RINOs. Conservatives don’t consist of a monolithic mass of people all thinking in lockstep. Those who think it should be so are sowing the seeds of their own political destruction.
Gays have always voted largely Democratic despite being betrayed time and again by politicians on the Left who promise them the moon and the stars and deliver nothing once the vote is cast. Slowly, gay conservatives are gaining traction with the realization that the Obama administration is no different. The gay conservative movement represents a great opportunity for the general movement if it is willing to take it. For some it will require reconciling the idea of maximizing freedom with the impulse to inject a personal moral code into the discussion.
(Crossposted from Say Anything)
But generally, that principle serves me well. I like it because it’s easily defended. There aren’t a lot of ways to challenge it without looking like someone who likes to take away other people’s freedom. That’s not to say the priniciple wins arguments. Defense mechanisms spring into place when a person’s deeply held beliefs are challenged. But these usually take the form of non sequitirs, hypocrisy, name calling, and strawmen. That allows the challenged to tell their like-minded internet brethern that they won the “fight”, but I get the satisfaction from knowing they’re wrong. No, wait. It would be more accurate to say that they didn’t show themselves to be right, which is a subtle distinction but an important one.
One of the more contentious issues for conservatives is the role gays should play (if any) in the movement. Those of a more religious bent would say none. The less socially conservative might disagree. The divide strikes at the heart of a very important question: what does it mean to be “conservative”?
I can only provide my own definition, and it is a hazy one. This is because there is no single definition. For me, conservatism embodies the idea of maximizing freedom. Freedom to live the way one wants to live, guided by the principle above: as long as an action doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s rights, they should be free to do it. For me this means supporting gay marriage. The idea that two people should be able to create a life together and be happy comes naturally to me. I don’t see how it harms anyone else if those people share a gender.
Of course, for some, those devilish details come creeping in at this point. They might argue that there is harm; harm to society, to social mores, the moral fabric. Those arguments are white noise to me, because these arguments are always framed within the speakers ideas of what is moral, what makes for a strong social fabric, and those ideas may not be mine. For this reason, I try to factor out arbitrary constructs like these.
Does that mean I think anything goes? Of course not. That’s a strawman. Real harm can be demonstrated as proceeding from certain actions, and those actions should be restricted. Drunk driving, for example. Child pornography. These actions represent a real danger of impinging on the rights of others. Being gay and married doesn’t, unless one decides they are an affront to one’s morals. However, to support that argument one must project one’s morals onto others.
Ultimately, where one falls on the argument of gay marriage is itself a strawman in the larger argument of the role of gays in the conservative movement. It seems difficult on the surface to be against gay marriage but embrace gays in the context of the larger movement. There’s definitely a bit of a disconnect there. But there’s a disconnect among conservatives who are pro-life and those who support abortion rights. There’s a disconnect between those who vote for anyone with a (R-) after their name and those who withold votes from RINOs. Conservatives don’t consist of a monolithic mass of people all thinking in lockstep. Those who think it should be so are sowing the seeds of their own political destruction.
Gays have always voted largely Democratic despite being betrayed time and again by politicians on the Left who promise them the moon and the stars and deliver nothing once the vote is cast. Slowly, gay conservatives are gaining traction with the realization that the Obama administration is no different. The gay conservative movement represents a great opportunity for the general movement if it is willing to take it. For some it will require reconciling the idea of maximizing freedom with the impulse to inject a personal moral code into the discussion.
(Crossposted from Say Anything)
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