Month: September 2000

John McCain As the Voice of Reason?

Not really, but it was odd that the same man who has in the past had no problem championing campaign finance reform laws that would clearly be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was one of the few politicians who spoke up last week to suggest taking a bit more time and discussion before going after the entertainment industry.

On the other hand, McCain’s comments illustrate the absurdity of the whole situation. McCain actually told ABC’s This Week,

Before we embark on censorship we’d better make very sure where this leads. … Frankly I don’t know the answer. I’m reluctant right now to say I’m ready to pass some kind of law that imposes some sort of censorship on the industry.

He’s reluctant(!) to impose censorship? Oh thank goodness — that makes me feel so much better. Apparently the big political choice Americans have these days is between politicians who are reluctant to impose censorship and those who are ready to go ahead and impose censorship right away. What part of the First Amendment don’t these yahoos understand?

It’s a sign of how little respect their is for the principle of free speech today that the main debate between the Republicans and Democrats has devolved to a contest over who is willing to impose the most censorship. Gore’s campaign chairman WIlliam Daley appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation to say Gore wants to encourage the industry to self-regulate with the clear implication that if they don’t, then government will step in. George W. Bush’s response to this government strong-arming is that it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

To be fair, Lynne Cheney did note that nobody has the power to impose the sort of regulation that Gore (or Bush) was proposing, but she completely fails to understand the effect this sort of rhetoric has in undermining support for the First Amendment. It is because of relentless attacks like this that you see close to half of people in some polls saying newspapers should have limitations placed on their ability to criticize public officials.

Cheney also noted the hypocrisy of Gore and Lieberman hanging out with Hollywood’s power brokers and then calling for censorship of Hollywood (whereas the Bush position is apparently that he wants to censor them and he really can’t stand them). The part that I still don’t get is that Hollywood has lined up behind Gore and even Nader — both candidates who are pretty clear that they would regulate speech as a commercial product which could be applied to everything from movies to newspapers to this web site. Even Bush isn’t willing to go that far to my knowledge.

Source:

McCain Leery of proposal to sanction entertainment industry. The Associated Press, September 17, 2000.

NBC Olympic Coverage Reaches New Lows

I have been very sick the past couple weeks and last night took some cold medicine and settled on the couch to watch some Olympics coverage before the medicine kicked in. At first I was geeked watching the thrilling end to the springboard diving competition. Then NBC cuts to commercial and when they come back they actually run this long story about the NBC crew touring Australia by train before the Olympics. I want to watch people running, jumping, and throwing, but instead I’m learning all about the conductor of a train as well as getting a history lesson on the construction of railroads in Australia.

Very, very bad.

Does Violence Against Men Count? (Part II)

Tuesday, September 26, 2000

After I pointed out what I think is feminist hypocrisy over the Nike ads, there was some discussion on the site along the lines of, “get real, you don’t think violence is a real problem for men, do you?” Actually, yes.

Men are the overwhelming victims of violent crime in every society of which I am aware (if somebody knows of a society in which women are more likely to be victims of violent crime, please let me know so I can make a correction). Many radical feminists seem to think that this is besides the point because most of the violence against men is committed by other men — conflating the perpetrator and victim in a classic blame the victim argument.

In fact violent acts, regardless of whether they are perpetrated by men or women, are usually committed by a small minority of individuals who have a history of prior criminal offenses and little regard for their fellow human beings. The person who commits violent acts out of the blue certainly exist, but is definitely in the minority.

The problem I and other critics of contemporary feminism have is that some feminists only object to violence against women and not men. Cathy Young beautifully illustrated this in a recent column, Anti-male bias infects too many campuses, in which she described the bizarre aftermath of a murder/suicide at the University of Michigan,

A more recent incident at U[University of]-M[ichigan] suggests that the university deserves its place on the top 10 anti-male colleges list. Last year, a female student fatally stabbed her boyfriend (who had never been accused of violence and had been trying to break up with her) and then shot herself. The Women’s Studies Department held a memorial service — for the killer.

Is that what feminists fought for so hard for so long? To memorialize and honor murderers, provided they are women? In fact I suspect that almost all people, male or female, find the actions of Michigan’s Women’s Studies Department to be revolting, which only illustrates just how far radical/academic feminism has strayed from the admirable goal of sexual equality.

Vivisectors.Net Posts Addresses, Telephone Numbers of Animal Researchers, Breeders

Vivisectors.Net recently began posting the names, telephone numbers, and addresses of Minnesota-area animal breeders and medical researchers who conduct animal experiments. The web site notes that the information was gleaned from publicly avoidable sources, but civil juries in the past have held web sites liable for posting such information (especially since medical researchers are not generally considered public figures). Whoever is behind the site is exposing themselves to a lot of potential liability.

LDraw

Finally, you’re going to want to build your own sets with those Legos. Sure there are some really cool sets out there, but probably not quite exactly everything you need. I love Legos, but I confess I am very engineering deficient. There’s no way I could sit down with a bunch of Legos and just build a masterpiece.

Which is why there’s LDraw. LDraw is basically just a CAD program that is designed to help build things out of Lego. Toy around with your design in LDraw and then print out complete building instructions and parts requirements on your laser printer. What could be more cool than that? Oh yeah, it’s completely free!