It looks like the California Legislature is at it again, and about damn time. As I wrote in my previous journal entry, I tend to believe that the Federal Government is allowed far to much power over intrastate commerce by the expansions of the Interstate Commerce Clause which happened in the early 20th Century. The War on Drugs is a good example of this.

Back in 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215. The idea was that we would allow those medical patients who could benefit from marijuana use to grow, own and consume it. Of course, with the War on Drugs still in full swing, and Federal Laws which criminalized the growing and possession of marijuana, and with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, this Proposition was unlikely to have any real effect. Granted, there has been some leeway given to those with medical prescriptions, but let's be honest, this has been abused. The real goal is to reach a point where marijuana is treated like alcohol; regulated but legal.

Now, one of the things which came out of this was an important case which went before the US Supreme Court. This case Gonzales V. Riach essentially allowed Federal enforcement of the Federal drug laws, despite the California law. It was in this case that Justice Thomas wrote:

If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption...then Congress' Article I powers...have no meaningful limits.
And

If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined", while those of the States are "numerous and indefinite."

Which, when you really sit down and think about it is true. By declaring a Federal plan to control any item, from drugs to guns to wheat, they can then invalidate any sort of State independence. There is no such thing as State's Rights with regard to commerce within its own borders. Really, if taken to its logical extreme, we may as well abolish the States and simply do everything at the Federal level. Yes, I am sure that there are plenty of people in the US who would be all for this idea, I'm not. I like to have as much government power within shooting distance as possible. The closer to the actual people a government is, the more power it should have, as distance increases power should decrease.

There's two reasons for my desire to have governmental power distributed as such. First, it makes it much harder to concentrate power into the hands of a few. Yes, a powerful local government may be able to wreck a lot of havoc on a local population, but that is easy enough to escape, and if bad enough can be resisted. As I said, I like to have the people in power be within shooting distance. Obviously, one hopes that their government never gets bad enough that it becomes necessary, but if it does, it's nice to not have to travel several hundred or thousand miles to put a bullet in them. The other part of this is that, if power is so decentralized, it becomes hard to effectively direct it. Trying to convert such a decentralized setup to a tyrannical system would mean trying to setup something akin to Feudalism. Its possible, but its going to be much harder than a power grab against an already centralized seat of power.

The second reason that I favor a decentralized system of power is that a local government can react better to local issues. For example, consider housing codes. In California, having housing codes which prevent houses falling over in the average 6.0 earthquake is important. It's an interesting (if morbid) exercise to watch such an earthquake move around the Rim of Fire. There will be a 6.0 or so earthquake in the Philippines and thousands will die. Shortly after a similar quake will go off in Mexico and thousands will die. Some time later a similar earthquake will happen in California and we might lose a few dishes. The difference is the housing codes. However, the folks in Florida have no need for such codes, they need houses which will withstand flooding and hurricanes. Were they to build in earthquake protections, it would raise the cost of building for no real gain. Similarly, there is no need for houses to deal with hurricanes in California, and the cost of such changes would be nonsensical.

A central government just doesn't need to have the strong control over daily life of its citizens. It doesn't provide anything which cannot be better handled at a more local level. What the Federal Government needs to be is essentially a meta-government, a government of governments. The Federal Government exists to ensure that the State Governments are not acting in such as way as to imperil the rights of the people, and to provide for national defense. The State Governments exist to ensure that the local governments are not imperiling the rights of the people. And, at the lowest level the local governments are the ones providing for the actual laws which affect the people and their day to day lives.

So, what does all this have to do with the current California Bill? Well, it's another attempt to setup a showdown on State's Rights vs. Federal Powers; and ultimately, the scope of the Interstate Commerce Clause. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Our federal government has been growing, and as the Bush Administration showed us, it is starting to act more like the government of Soviet East Germany than a free county. It's time we realized that having a powerful central government is dangerous to our freedom and stuffed it back into its little box of being just a meta-government. This means that the War on Drugs has to die. Much like Prohibition before it, the War on Drugs needs to be brought to an end and the sale and manufacture of drugs needs to be regulated at a local level.

Do I think this Bill has a hope in hell? Nope. It will probably pass the California State Legislature, the Governator might even sign it. But, it's going to go up the chain of courts, pass through the Ninth Circuit and end up before the Supreme Court where it will die a horrible death. Still, we need to keep making noise like this. Change doesn't happen all at once, it happens slowly. You have to keep beating on the walls for a long time before they finally fall.

In case you didn't know, I'm a supporter of Gun Rights and a proponent of expanded State's Rights. The former seems to be gaining traction in the US, while the latter is still a bit of a joke. At the very least, gun ownership seems to be surging these days. I guess that's one type of Change I Can Believe In.

That said, it looks like the Montana State House is trying to setup a showdown on State's Rights vs. Federal Powers by directly challenging the right of the Federal Government to regulate intrastate commerce with regards to firearms (pay particular attention to the word intrastate). Over the registration requirement for firearms manufactured wholly in, and for sale an use in Montana.

Assuming that the Montana State Senate passes the bill as well, which I'm guessing is likely; and that the governor signs it, again, I think this is likely; we may well see a court battle over the reach of the Interstate Commerce Clause come from it.

Directly from HB246: Upon written notification to the Montana attorney general by a Montana citizen of intent to manufacture a firearm...the attorney general shall seek a declaratory judgment from the federal district court for the district of Montana that [sections 1 through 7] are consistent with the United States constitution.

So, basically, as soon as a Montana resident writes to the Montana State Attorney General saying, "I want to manufacture a firearm wholly in Montana for use and sale exclusively in Montana. And I do not want to register it with the Federal Government." The state's Attorney General is required to start a court case seeking a declaratory judgment that this action is legal, or at least, Constitutional. If there isn't already a letter drafted like this, I have no doubt that plenty will be drafted and sent within seconds of this bill passing.

Now, as to where it goes from there is anybody's guess. I'm going to assume that the folks behind this bill did their homework and that the current Attorney General of Montana (AG from here on) supports this bill, otherwise it's ultimately a counter-productive move. All it would take is for the current AG to give a less than whole-hearted attempt in court and this bill would be quickly gutted.

I think one can assume that this would quickly hit the Ninth Circuit and that is a questionable prospect at best. The Ninth Circuit has not, in the past, been a friend of gun owners. However, they have been a friend of the State's Rights idea. So, which way would they go, you got me. Honestly though, whichever why it goes, I suspect that it will be appealed to the US Supreme Court.

At the SCOUTS level, it gets interesting. We know, from the recent DC v. Heller decision that the majority of the SCOUTS support the individual view of gun rights. However, if we go back a bit to Gonzales v. Raich we also have support for the expanded Interstate Commerce Clause which has been around since FDR tried packing the Supreme Court.

Just to guess, here's what I see (a Yes means they would support HB246 a No means they would not):
Roberts - Was in the Majority on Heller, was not around for Gonzales. I'm guessing he might support HB246 but I'm not sure. From what I read, I think he'd be a Yes.

Stevens - In the Majority on Gonzales; in the Dissent on Heller. I think he's a pretty clear No for HB246.

Scalia - Concurred with the Majority on Gonzales, and in effect agreed with the expanded Interstate Commerce Clause. He was in the Majority on Heller. I suspect he will pretty much re-write his Gonzales decision for HB246, so he's a No.

Kennedy - In the Majority on Gonzales, in the Majority on Heller. Bit of a crap shoot on him. He's a Regan appointee, and seems to support State's Rights. For the time being, I think he'd end up being a Yes on HB246.

Souter - In the Majority on Gonzales, in the Dissent on Heller. Unless he suddenly becomes a conservative again, I think he's a No.

Thomas - Dissented on Gonzales, was in the Majority on Heller. Given his Dissent on Gonzales revolved around the expanded Commerce Clause "have no meaningful limits". I think he's a Yes.

Ginsburg - In the Majority on Gonzales, In the Dissent on Heller. Again, a safe No, I think.

Breyer - In the Majority on Gonzales, Dissented on Heller. Another safe No.

Alito - Not involved in Gonzales, in the Majority on Heller. He wrote an opinion in United States v. Rybar which would seem to put him in the Yes side.

So, to tally it up, I have:
Yes - Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito
No - Stevens, Scalia, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer

Not exactly a hopeful outlook, but I still think this would be a fun showdown. I think the hope on the Yes side would be that either Souter has a sudden bout of conservatism, or that Scalia decides that this case is closer to United States v. Lopez and ignores his decision in Gonzales. Either way, it could be fun to see the national conversation about this one.

Well, here we are, another December and another Winter Solstice/Hanukkah/Satunalia/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Made up party day!

I'm not much for religion, but I like a good excuse to get together and have fun. So, whatever reason you pick, I hope you enjoy it.

In my role as a system manager, I have the enviable job of picking out new systems for people. Obviously, I work with the person who is going to use the system to come up with a good system for them, and balance it against the directives for IT from the greater University.

In the past couple of years, we have seen a shift in our area towards the touch interface. We have one Notebook/Tablet convertible, and everyone loves it. Since our primary application is ESRI's ArcGIS, we actually can make good use of the tablet interface. The users here have used touch based PDA's in the past for ArcPad, with great success. We have also used the one tablet we have for data collection, and it worked out great.

Now, as anyone who has used Arc may have realized by now, trying to shoehorn ArcInfo Desktop onto a notebook is a fun exercise in and of itself. When we look to buy a notebook, we expect that we'll start off around $3k, and go from there. That's fine, that's the cost of doing business for us. But the tablet makers seem dead set on telling us to go fuck ourselves.

For those who don't deal with Arc, as a basic idea of what it is and requires, it's essentially a CAD type application with georeferenced data. All of the lines on a map, all of the polygons, and points will have a latitude and longitude, to as high of level of accuracy as the equipment will allow. From there you can perform all kinds of analysis and manipulation on that data, and the intersection of data and so on. It's pretty damn cool. If you've used some of the advanced features of Google Maps, you've actually seen the smallest tip of the iceberg.

Like AutoCAD, the graphics cards we go for are the workstation level graphics cards (usually NVidia Quadro). Fortunately, we can get those in notebook systems. We also eat memory like a database application. We start at 4GB of memory, and a 64-bit OS, and go from there. Again, this isn't a problem with notebooks. On the CPU side, we usually get a good, multi-core, CPU with the best clock speed possible, without going nuts. Sure, we could get a 3GHz quad core processor, but the performance gains don't quite justify the cost. Also, one of the joys of ArcDesktop is that it is a single threaded application, so the multi-core CPU is mostly about allowing the user to start a process, and then do other stuff.

So, I can get a notebook with all of this, no problem. So, the next question I ask is, can I get a notebook/tablet convertible like this? And for some reason, the answer keeps coming up negative. All of the offerings I seem to find are small screen, integrated shit graphics cards, tiny and slow hard drives, memory starved, low voltage CPU, crap.

WTF, over? Would it really be all that hard to take one of those higher end notebooks and slap the touch interface on it? Yes, it's going to be a brick. Yes, it's going to eat batteries like starving cannibal in a nursery. So what? I'll deal with that, just give me a convertible with enough power to actually boot into Windows Vista.

This is a place holder, it is only a place holder. If this had been a real post, it would have been filled with profanity and controversy.

This post has been created because I was tired of looking at the out of date title of my last post. We now return you to your regularly scheduled slashdot, thank you.

Beep, Beep, Beep

It's just about time to vote again, which means trying to figure out which way to throw away my vote. I have figured out my presidential vote: Cthulu (why vote for a lesser evil?); but, given that I live in California, I know that my electors will be voting for Obama; so, that is a wash.

I haven't sorted out my congressional choices yet, but that will probably also be a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich; though, I imagine that I will just hold my nose and pick one of them. So that is close enough to sorted.

Where I'm still working through things in on the ballot initiatives, which I expect to have the greater impact on my life. Let's face it, the Federal Government will continue to do what it's corporate owners tell it to do, the state level is small enough that I can have an effect as an individual citizen. So, I was reading through the summaries for the various initiatives over breakfast this morning and have managed to sort a few but not all. And figured my /. journal was a good place to elicit some criticism, and maybe even some constructive criticism. ;)

1A: California High Speed Rail Bond. S.B. 1856
I like the idea of more rail in CA, but I just can't see spending $10 million on the state credit card for it, end cost of the credit tab will be about double that over 30 years. Tax revenues are down, our state budget process was a bad joke this year, and we're looking to run up more debt? erm, no. Maybe once state revenues are actually covering state costs, without the need to borrow money every year, but until then we need to cut up the credit card.

2: Treatment of Farm Animals. Statute.
Leaning yes on this one. I know it will raise the price of my meat, but I think that will be acceptable. Having seen the pictures of how some animals are treated, I would rather we try a little harder to make their lives better before we kill and eat them. They're getting the shit end of the stick no matter what, the least we can do is not swirl in shit gravy as well.
Of course, I haven't read the initiative yet, so this could change if there is some screwball riders in there; hopefully, this one is really what it claims to be.

3: Children's Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program. Statute.
Back to the same problem with 1A, it's a good idea, but let's put the credit card down. No more debt until the state shows it can handle a budget responsibly. Yes, I realize that this is For the Children!!1!one! What else ya got?

4: Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy. Constitutional Amendment.
I'll agree with this, as long as we can attach a rider that all the fundamentalist asshats who are fighting for this type of force our morals on others shit are aborted, no matter how late of term they are in. In other words, not only no, fuck no!

5: Nonviolent Offenders. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Statute.
Up in the air on this one. The summary from the voter guide seems to indicate that it's about sending non-violent drug offenders to rehab as opposed to prison, which I really like. Drug use is a public health problem, not a crime problem. But the anti's argument that this would also affect sentencing on other crimes as well has me waiting until I can read this one through. Granted, this will probably cost money, which will create more budget problems, but ultimately I see this as a good investment. Killing the War on Drugs and reducing our prison populations are good, long term, goals.

6: Criminal Penalties and Laws. Public Safety Funding. Statute.
Our prisons are full, build more prisons! How about no? Is no good for you? As stated above, let's kill the War on our Rights...er, Drugs; put the drug users into rehab; legalize, tax and regulate drugs like we do alcohol and tobacco, and see what our prison populations look like then. Yup drug use, all drug use including alcohol and tobacco, is bad for you. So what, it's your body, if you really want to destroy it, have at; just don't come crying to me when you do.

7: Renewable Energy. Statute.
Leaning yes on this, but I need to read it in full first. That Southern California uses coal/oil to produce electricity is just plain dumb. We have a lot of sunshine and wind and a lot of open spaces. We also have the technology from Solar Two sitting here, why aren't we using it? Hell, start at about Cabazon on the I-10 and just cover everything East of it, to the state border, in solar collectors. Might be a bit inefficient, but we have enough land and sun to deal with it. As for storing the extra for off hours, stick a hose in Pacific and dig a big damn hole in the top and bottom of a mountain, we've got plenty of them. Water gets desalinated, and pumped to the big hole at the top. When extra electricity is needed, the water is let to flow over turbines into the big hole at the bottom. And the big hole at the bottom is used to feed the water needs of Southern California. Electricity, storage and fresh water all in one.
On the North end of California, don't you guys have a huge reservoir of geothermal sitting right under your feet? Mammoth lake used to be a big mountain until it literally blew it's top off. Start drilling.

8: Eliminates Right of Same-sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Again, I'll vote for this one, assuming we attach the same rider as in prop. 4.

9: Criminal Justice System. Victims' Rights. Parole. Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
This is a tough one. I like the idea that the victim will be able to be more involved in the parole and sentencing of a criminal. The problem is that, in the summary, it was stated that the criminal may also lose the right to legal representation during parole hearings. I just can't vote for that. Sure, I do think that some criminals should just be taken and shot; but it needs to be done with every consideration for due process along the way. Depending on how the actual text reads, this is probably a no.

10: Bonds. Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Statute.
Ok, so, the state government is going to borrow a bunch of money on it's credit card and then it's going to take that money and give more than half of it out to people who buy the right cars. The remaining money will go to research on making more of those better cars. How about instead we just take the $325 million a year, which we would be spending to pay off this charge on the credit card, and just put that towards research? That way, all of it is going to research instead of half of it going to pay off interest on the credit card? Ok, so people who buy the right cars don't get a discount, which might make such cars less attractive. Let's use a different tool in the government toolbox, taxes. Want to get rid of polluting cars, start changing a carbon tax when the vehicle is sold to cover the costs of cleaning up the pollution it will create in it's lifetime. More tax money, though it should diminish with time, and a good incentive to buy the better alternative.
As with the common theme of thinking: put the credit card down!

11: Redistricting. Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
No clue on this one, need to read it. On the surface, it looks like an attempt to stop gerrymandering, but one thing politicians are good at is making a shit sandwich look like a good meal.

12: Veterans' Bond Act of 2008. S.B. 1572.
Again, having problems with the idea of whipping out the state credit card. Though, the one thing this has on it's side (if it's supporters are being truthful) is that this program has a history of carrying its own costs ultimately. Still, why are we looking to do this on credit? Is the situation really so bad that simply allocating the money, which would be spent to pay the bonds back, for use by the program wouldn't cover it? I just don't like the idea that we will ultimately be paying the same amount in interest as in principal, where a slower approach to the problem could result in twice as much money spent on the problem itself.

Well, that's where I am at the moment. I welcome comments, feedback, arguments and flames.

So, I beat up Microsoft a bit in the comments of my last post about mmc and Office (the latter being started by tqft, but I was right there with him). So, I thought I would turn it around for a bit and give MS some props for something they did very right: Powershell.

I love me some Powershell, in that hot monkey, using the I/O ports for what god never intended, kind of way. I'm a keyboard junkie, always have been. And I still have a habit of using the command line to do tasks which MS put in a GUI long ago(net use beats the piss out of Tools - Map Network Drive). That's not to say that I hate GUI's, I just find the command line to work better in most cases. Though, the funny thing on this is that I hate config files, I like GUI's for program configuration. My typing skills are actually crap, and I hate having to hunt through a few hundred lines of:
hFetchSomethingWhichIGaveAReallyLongNameToButStillMeansNothingToSomeoneWhoIsNotACSMajor = 5

Because I typed a 'r' instead of an 'e'.
Ok, it's not that bad, but configuring Apache feels like a puzzle in the Tomb of Horrors some days. Granted, MS has a bad habit of jamming everything in the registry and having no easy way to look at it. stsadm.exe is useful for all sorts of things; like actually making Sharepoint not take a shit on you. However, unless you read MSDN compulsively, you may not know that, in order to configure the "no shitting on me" setting of sharepoint you need to run:
stsadm -o please -NotShitOnMe -url http://www.diaf.666

Unless, of course, you installed Project Server first, in which case the command changes into three different commands having to do with sand, Vaseline and a barrel.

But, Powershell...Yes, now this is a small slice of sanity on Windows. Honestly, they just ripped off a good idea from the *nix world, but what the hell, I'll take it. Powershell, for those who haven't tried it, is essentially a DOS command interpreter with direct access to the .Net API, with a bunch of pre-made applications on top. It's the command interpreter on steroids. Just what the IT guy with not enough to do and too much time needs. (And if I ever meet that bastard I am going to kill him and take his job.)

One of my habits is scripting. Pretty much, if it takes more than three steps and I am going to have to do it more than three times, you can expect me to turn out a script for it. Powershell makes this far, far easier. Most of what can be done in PS can be done in VBS. Actually, I imagine it all can. But, if I have to futz around with one more callback function, I am going to shoot someone. I'm not a programmer. If I was a programmer I would be spending my days attending meetings, creating design docs and reading use cases; might actually write some code in there too. No, I chose IT. I spend my days attending meetings, creating system reports and posting on Slashdot. Every once in a while I do actually work on systems, but ideally, that should only happen in a planned fashion. Also, I have a tech working with me, so I can foist most of the real work on him anyway.

Amazingly enough, my most recent use of Powershell actually was for writing reports. There is something kind of sad about writing a report with a script, but hey, it's what ya gotta do. We're doing an audit at my work and we needed to profile all of our servers. Name, IP, OS, Service Tag (We use Dell almost exclusively) and all installed software and versions. I did this all by hand last year and it was three levels of suck. So, this year I set out to automate the process. The way I figure it, the computers already have all of that information, and the profile doc is a known format; why not just make the computer do it. That is what they are good at, storing data and performing repetitive tasks. So, having been playing with PS for a while (we run Exchange 2007, which means I've played with PS) I decided that it would be perfect for the task.

Sure, VBS would have gotten there, but it would have been a mess. I know, I've done some VBS in the past, and it wasn't pretty. Well, a few hours later, I had a nice chunk of powershell script churning out beautifully formatted (actually, the format is crap, but it's THE format) server profiles. Just point the script at an OU in the Active Directory tree, and it profiles all of the servers in there.

The other recent use was in setting up students. The program I support gets a new raft of students every six months. Each student needs an account, a mailbox, a user folder, a web folder and an ftp folder, and all the various permissions which go along with those, plus email and security groups, and don't forget to sort the students and their computers into the appropriate OU in AD. It's such loads of fun, and after the 10th student or so, I usually miss something somewhere. So, I figured this time around, why in the hell am I doing this by hand? I know I'm going to screw something up, script it! Fire up trusty Crimson Editor (there is a powershell language file for it), and get typing. The end result is a script which, when pointed at a .csv file with first and last names, and given a group number creates all of the AD objects, folders, groups, etc. Basically, it does an hour or two of work for me, which has lots of potential for mistakes, into 30 seconds of watching the script spit out feedback.

One of these days, I'm probably going to try using Visual Studio to write this stuff too. Having played with VB enough, and C# a bit, I know how useful intelli-crack can be. I just hate having to wait for a few minutes for it to come up to change one line of a script. Much the same reason I bitch about the Management Studio in MSSQL 2005, I've actually had to wait longer for the damn thing to come up than it took me to type and run the command I wanted to do. I miss isqlw.exe.

Well, this has gone on long enough. So, for all the other Windows Admins out there, let me give a positive recommendation for Windows PowerShell. MS actually got this one right. (blind squirrels, broken clocks and all)

I admin systems for a living. The vast majority of them are Windows servers due to a number of various constraints. As such, I work with the Windows GUI a lot. I'm also a compulsive right-clicker, I tend to rely on context menus to get through quite a few things.
So, my pet peeve, which I just hit again, twice in a row, and decided to complain about while I am waiting for a move-mailbox to finish:
When you right-click a program in the taskbar the bottom item of the context menu which comes up should be Close. Yet, some developers get the bright idea to change that. Don't fucking do that.

I have a bad habit of getting involved in discussions over on Fark, and one thing that I have seen there and in our culture is a habit of calling things murder when, really, they aren't. Let me pull from Merriam-Webster:
Murder - the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Yet for all the lack of laws backing the claims up we get: Meat is murder, abortion is murder, the Death Penalty is murder. All wonderful sayings meant to, and usually getting, some type of emotional response. And all completely wrong.

Now, certainly one can believe that any of these is morally equivalent to murder. That's OK, I'm not arguing the morality of any of them, just the actual statement itself. But this is rarely, if ever, made clear. And, I would argue, that the point of the sayings is that they are trying to elevate the action which they disagree with to the level of murder.

So what? Well really, not much to be honest, my mind is just wandering about. But it occurred to me that, we overuse the "is murder" meme quite a bit in the US, and I wonder if in doing so we have cheapened the impact of the title "murder". Murder is perhaps the worst of crimes, as it absolutley destroys all of an individual's rights in one fell swoop. A dead person has no life. Without thought, there is no real liberty. And a dead person has no use for and no real way to exercise ownership over property.

I can't really come up with any other crime which so thoroughly destroys a person's rights. A captive is alive and can be freed; thus, he retains the possibility of having his rights restored. A stolen item can be returned or compensated for. Certainly, emotional damage can last a long time and affect a person well after the crime, but possibility exists. With murder, all possibility is gone. Unless we figure out some sort of resurrection device, the dead will always stay dead.

Now for the fun ramification of this claim: The Nazi death camps were not murder. Pol Pot's actions were not murder. And the list goes on.
No, I've not taken leave of my senses. No, I'm not smoking anything, though I would share if I was. Just stop and look at it logically.
1. Murder is the unlawful killing of a person
2. Laws are created by governments
3. The Nazis were in control of the German government
4. The laws of the Nazi German government created and condoned the death camps
ergo, it wasn't murder.
Substitute most oppressive, horrible regimes for the Nazis and the logic still follows. The only real weakness seems to be in number 2. One could claim that laws which violate basic human rights are not legitimate and therefore void. Or that most of those governments were dictatorial coups and therefore not legitimate. In either case any action they engaged in was, by default, illegal and you could come to murder. But either way, it's going to come down to defending a definition of basic human rights or legitimate government.

Now, anyone who's paid any attention to my ramblings will know that I tend to believe in Natural Rights (Life, Liberty, Property). To be honest, any time I have tracked out that belief I have found that it's based on an appeal to consensus, which is a fallacy and not logically defensible. Still, if people can base their morals on 2000 year old writings about an invisible sky wizard, I'm keeping mine until I find something better.

So, this isn't about trying to justify anything. It's just about the use of a word, and what it would mean to try and stick with a strict definition of it. As if often the case when we try to "stick to our guns", it often sets us up with strange bedfellows. If someone wants to have a go at it, and try to defend the idea that certain rights are basic and any law in contravention to them is invalid and therefore void, I'm all ears. Word of warning on it though, unless your rights are based on a logical foundation I'm going to drag it down to relativism, and no one wants that.

About a year and a half back, I wrote this entry in my journal. Essentially saying that we should find a way to mount a camera on every police officer. Today, I saw this on Popular Mechanics. The long and the short of it is that Taser Inc. has been reading my journal. That, or they just have someone who thinks like I do. Either way, they are trying to make the idea of a cop "head-cam" a reality. This just seems full of Win to me. Evidence collection will be better; an officer taking a statement will have a good record to work with; if an officer goes too far, there will be a record; if some dumbass screams abuse, the officer will have a record of the encounter to exonerate himself.

The only piece of the puzzle which I expect to be lacking at inception, is going to be public access to the stored video. Excepting where it would compromise an on-going investigation, or violate the privacy of a citizen or the officer, I would want the video to be publicly accessible. After all, if there is nothing for them to worry about, then there is nothing to hide, right?

I have been loosely keeping an eye on the developing case over the children of the FLDS sect in Texas. In case you missed it, Child Protective Services in the State of Texas removed approximately 400 children from the YFZ Ranch in Texas, which is a private community for members of the FLDS church. The reason for the seizure is related to the FLDS's practice of polygamy and marriage of underage girls to older men. Tied to the seizure is the implicit claim that the children were in immediate danger of harm.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the State has failed to demonstrate that the children are in immediate danger of harm (Source) and that the children must be returned to their parents. The parents are being required to sign an agreement which requires them to stay in state and notify the state of any trips greater than 100 miles.

While I don't agree with the FLDS teachings, I can't help but agree with this ruling. From the get-go it has bothered me that a community's children were seized by the state. Yes, the FLDS sect's belief system encourages and teaches underage marriage. But to seize every child in a community based on a belief system smacks of a First Amendment violation. Also, looking at the requirements placed on the parents, they seem reasonable enough, based on the assumption that there is an ongoing investigation into possible abuse.

In all, I think I feel much more comfortable with the way this has worked out now. However, I am still bothered by the fact that the state was able to engage in such a seizure and that no one will face any repercussions for the decision. I'd just be happy with some sort of official censure of those involved in the seizure, just so that there is a permanent legal record that this was wrong.

I would like to suggest this article for your reading pleasure. It's a nice commentary on the War on Drugs. The guy being interviewed is a veteran police officer and a writer, and he makes some damn good points about the failure of modern prohibition and the police in general.

If you missed it, the California Supreme Court recently stuck down the ban on same sex marriage in California.

This, of course, has been greeted by howls from the right as a case of "judicial activism". This has brought me back around to a problem I have. What the fuck is "judicial activism"? So far, the best definition I come up with for it is: a ruling I don't agree with.

Now, I would agree with complaints if judges were inventing laws out of whole cloth and tossing people in jail with them; that isn't happening. At most, they have been interpreting the rights of the people in a very open way. Which is what this country was supposed to do. Ideally, the legitimate role of government is to protect the rights of the people. When those rights are threatened, the government is supposed to step in and restore those rights. If the judicial system invalidating laws which violate the rights of the people is Judicial Activism, I'm all for it.

This is a test, it is only a test. If this had been an actual journal post there would have been vitriolic ranting and swearing.

Ok, so I was just tired of seeing the old post title.

Last week I mentioned my discomfort with the decision on the FLDS, and I have been poking into it more since. This series of reports was pretty good, and did lead to me being a bit more comfortable with what is going on. Specifically, that all of the 416 cases will be handled individually, and quickly (assuming that the June 5 date is kept to). Still there is a piece of me which is having trouble with the taking of an entire class of children, which is not entirely assuaged by what I have been able to find. Of particular note, I still can't find the written ruling, and the Texas's Courts Online site is abysmal at best.

I realize that there is a belief system in place in the FLDS Church which leads to the victimization of young girls. And I might have been willing to agree with the taking of all young, post-pubescent girls, as there is some level of immediacy to the danger to them. But that still leaves both pre-pubescent girls, and boys; neither of which has a direct and immediate threat of abuse. The reasoning for taking them seems to be that they will be taught the FLDS belief system. While I agree that the FLDS belief system is farked up, I still can't be comfortable with the idea of law enforcement being used to prevent it being taught.

Hopefully the written opinion will show up soon.