Open Threads

Emily Jones beats up Norah Vincent. Both are Balloon Juice favorites, but for radically different reasons. Yeehaw.

** Update **

Miss Emily has inaccurately inferred that I insulted her in my previous comments. I meant that I like them both because Vincent is an unending source of banalities for me to poke fun at (although she did have a nice little rant about intolerance of the loony left a few weeks ago) , while I agree with a good deal of what Emily has to say- except her taste in movies. I apologize for being unclear.

Emily Jones beats up NorahPost + Comments

From Megan at Live from the WTC, some blog activism. Seems pervs are looking for clips of the R Kelly sex tape and the Daniel Pearl murder. Here to muck up there web searches are the links they are not looking for:

Daniel Pearl Videotape

R Kelly Videotape

Disgusting pukes.

From Megan at Live fromPost + Comments

New links added for Ipse Dixit and Joanne Jacobs, and one that I thought I had entered long ago for Megan McArdle (Live from the WTC).

** Update **

For some reason Kathy Kinsley is not listed. That has been corrected.

New links added for IpsePost + Comments

This was an interesting self-examination test:

Which Firearm are you? brought to you byStan Ryker

This was an interesting self-examinationPost + Comments

Seems this philosophy test is all the rage. Here are my results:

1. Rand (100%)
2. Stoics (92%)
3. Hume (81%)
4. Nietzsche (80%)
5. Kant (78%)
6. Sartre (75%)
7. Aristotle (73%)
8. Hobbes (71%)
9. Cynics (61%)
10. Mill (57%)
11. Bentham (52%)
12. Spinoza (52%)
13. Prescriptivism (47%)
14. Plato (46%)
15. Aquinas (44%)
16. Epicureans (38%)
17. Ockham (34%)
18. Noddings (29%)
19. Augustine (28%)

I know a few of them, the rest I have to look up in my Oxford Companion to Philosophy. If anyone wants to save me the energy, I will wait several days before I look it up….

Seems this philosophy test isPost + Comments

The party that brought you the outrage over the inability of their members to vote properly in the 2000 election are now doing their best to scuttle election reform and then to blame it on the Republicans.

It seems our friends the Democrats are objecting to a provision (one they previously agreed to in December) offered by Sen. Kit Bond that would “require first- time voters who register by mail to present proof of identity, like a driver’s license, utility bill or pay stub, before being allowed to vote.”

This is just an awful idea to the lead race-baiters in the party of the Jackass, who never miss a chance to demagogue the poor, the downtrodden, and the non-white. “Senator Schumer said that the requirement for a photo identification would mean that millions of New Yorkers, particularly Hispanics, blacks, immigrants and older people, would not be allowed to vote.”

This is what passes as discrimination to modern Democrats. Not permitting the type of voter fraud that ran rampant in past years is now discrimination.

The party that brought youPost + Comments

In a moment of thoughtful and careful analysis that is typical of yours truly, I commented:

In a further attempt to prove that they are a bunch of lawless twits who run the Olympics like a bunch of backdealing used car salesmen, the IOC has stripped several cross country skiiers of their gold medals for allegedly using a drug that IS NOT ON THE BANNED LIST OF SUBSTANCES. Yes, it may have similar properties, but it is not banned.

Blogger Lawrence (Matt) Haws responds, shedding some light on the issue:

The three skiers recently stripped of their medals tested positive for NESP, which, though not specifically named on the list of banned substances, is covered by the phrase “and related substances.”

NESP is a variation of the banned substance EPO, which is used for kidney patients and boosts red blood cell counts (thereby transporting more oxygen throughout the blood stream and increasing one’s endurance). Before the games, NESP was thought to be undetectable by doping tests. But tests are getting better and testers are getting more tricky. These cheaters were caught by surprise tests conducted during non-competition days when its fleeting presence can still be detected. They were allowed to keep medals they won earlier in the SLC games because the IOC can’t prove they took NESP before the day they were tested, though they probably did. Tests conducted after competition won’t disclose NESP’s presence, but its chemical effects still unfairly advantage cheaters over clean athletes.

There’s a legal maxim that says you shouldn’t be allowed to do something indirectly if you can’t do it directly; hence the “and related substance” phraseology. Assuming the skiers aren’t kidney patients, they had no business taking the drug and deserve to lose their medals. But that doesn’t negate the truthfullness of your description of the IOC as a bunch of lawless twits (they are).

This led me to a question. One of the things I always thought applied to the United States was that everything was legal unless explicitly legislated otherwise. IE, that would be why the Bill of Rights reads the way it does- Congress shall make no law…

Am I way off base here?

Mr. Haws responds:

As far as “Congress shall make no law…,” you’re referring to the establishment clause of the 1st Am. As you know, in the U.S. (and practically every other country in the world) legal ‘right and wrong’ is defined by both statutes and case law. To be guilty of violating a criminal law, you must have violated a statute passed by a legislative authority. The legal maxim I mentioned applies more to contracts and tort law, which are also decided by a trier of fact (judge or jury), but based on earlier decisions regarding similar issues and circumstances. You might wonder why NESP isn’t simply placed on the list if the IOC wants the substance to be banned. Well, variations of drugs are developed almost daily. A slight change in chemical composition may constitute a “new drug” yet still produce a similar effect as others. It would be a difficult task to add every new variation of a drug to the list. Therefore, they use the phrase “and related substances.”

Makes sense to me. Interesting how the United States legal system is very much related to the way we communicate (Explicit/implicit, low-context/high context). Sapir-Whorf, anyone?

In a moment of thoughtfulPost + Comments