All posts by Mike

Sports

TMQ BS

Last week I praised TMQ for defending Mike Vick. This week, though, he’s gone off the deep end.

First, he makes the moral equivalence argument. Why is it so bad that Mike Vick beat, shot and electrocuted dogs when we do this to livestock? I’m with Easterbrook on the animal cruelty in our food system. But the two things are not even comparable. There is a huge difference between killing an animal looked upon as food and killing an animal looked upon as a pet — a virtual family member. (And don’t come here with the “other nations treat dogs as food” argument unless you are prepared to legalize honor killings of raped women.) I will admit, however, that the comparison he makes to dog-racing is very troubling an should be addressed.

But where he gets stupid is this:

One or two years in federal prison, and perhaps state prison time if state charges are filed as well; plus $25 million in lost endorsement income and, oh, $50 million in lost or returned NFL income. That’s overkill! Often the indirect financial consequences of legal proceedings are worse than the official ones, in the same way that a speeding ticket might cost you $75 but add $1,000 to your annual insurance bill.[MHS – try speeding in Virginia!]

In effect, the federal indictment of Vick is resulting in him being fined around $75 million, which is far too much retribution.

This, from the usually brilliant Easterbrook, is pure unadulterated dog-poop. Depriving someone of future income is not the same thing as fining someone. By that logic, if my employer fires me for insubordination, I have been “fined” a couple of million bucks for the lifetime earnings I would have had. If a bankruptcy court forbids me to play the lottery and my numbers come up, they’ve “fined” me $200 million. If a trader under SEC investigation is forbidden from trading a stock that subsequently tanks, he’s been “fined” millions. If a corrupt CEO is put in prison, he’s “fined” millions from not being able to work.

This is ridiculous. Michael Vick is not being fined. He’s being deprived of potential future income. It’s no different than what happened to Ricky Williams (by Gregg’s logic, “fined” millions for smoking pot) or Kobe Bryant (“fined” millions in endorsements for cheating on his wife). The NFL and endorsement agencies are Mike Vick’s employers. They agreed to pay him money on certain conditions, notably not behaving like a complete idiot and lobbing plenty of passes into the waiting arms of defensive backs. He has violated that agreement. And like all people who violate contracts, he is losing the benefits that contract.

Would it be right for him to get millions of dollars for not playing football and not hawking expensive sports shoes to low-income kids? This is not something being done to Michael Vick. This is something he did on his very own.

Easterbrook’s assertion that Vick is being “fined” is especially offensive in a nation where thousands of Americans routinely have their money or their property taken from them because it might be from illegal activity. The DEA and the IRS confiscate money and property — often from the poorer Americans — without any hint of due process. It is up to the robbed to prove their innocence. And the Supreme Court has decreed that this is fine by them.

For God’s sake, Easterbrook, get some perspective.

News

About Last Night

I was up. And Sue was up because it was her milking time. So we did get to see the lunar eclipse last night. It was perfectly clear as the last slivers of moon vanished into a red-black haze. Then it clouded up at once.

One of the good things about my job being in jeopardy is that I’m appreciating it more.

'Culture', Politics, War on Terror

Tuesday Morning Linkorama

  • Juan Cole calls the nation a damned pussy. He’s right. We’re hysterical about terrorism. Especially the Right. When you countenance torture, embrace wiretapping and support the President no matter what, you’re hysterical. You’ve let the terrorists win.
  • Miss South Carolina explains herself. To be honest, I’m willing to give her the benefit of a doubt. She seems like she’s got a brain. God knows a lot of otherwise coherent people sound like fools on television (*cough* President Bush *cough*). Still, I wasn’t thinking about her brain as I watched her.
  • Robert Rector on poverty pointing out that while some people are truly destitute, other are living like . . . well, like I do. We still need more welfare reform. All we did the last time was shift a lot of the payouts to different agencies.
  • An interesting story on Virginia’s campaign against men. On the one hand, they have a point — women are statistically safer than men. If my daughter ever got lost, I’d want her to seek out a woman with kids. On the other hand, I’ve seen lost kids crying in supermarkets and watched the men carefully avoid them because they don’t want to be looked at. I’d be nervous about coaching little league since a single unfounded accusation can destroy your life (a friend of my mom’s is dead because of such an accusation).
    • Civil Liberties, Politics

    Monday Linkorama

  • Explain to me the difference between this and plain old robbery.
  • The administration now thinks the President’s approval ratings are a national security issue. Who knew? They also don’t think FOIA applies to them. If these guys were Democrats, the Right Wing would be screaming.
  • Want to know why our education system is broken? How about $5.4 million to teachers who aren’t working. I have a big post on education coming up. I can’t wait until these idiots are running our healthcare.
  • Is pre-K education a panacea? Nope. I’ve always thought that kids don’t really start learning until they’re about five years old or so. But this isn’t about education; it’s about getting the government into their lives as early as possible.
  • Our budget only grew 3% this year. I love gridlock!
  • The teachers’ union are spending $3 million to stop vouchers. Why are they so afraid of school choice?
    • Fair Tax, Politics, Science and Edumacation, Taxes and Spending

    Fisking Boortz

    1 Comment

    Because it’s too damn easy.

  • Boortz has his boxers in a bunch this morning after Bruce Bartlett had the nerve to criticize the Fair Tax. While the main thrust of Boortz’ complaint — that Bartlett incorrectly linked the Fair Tax to Scientology (as if that matters) — seems valid, he doesn’t address the main complaint.

    And Boortz is in a glass house here. He is still running around saying that the government will get the same amount of tax revenue, that prices will not go up but you will take home your entire paycheck — which is mathematically impossible. Something’s got to give. And I think Bartlett’s right that it will be prices.

  • Boortz also links to a piece criticizing Craig Hanson for saying the oceans will rise 25 meters in the next century. I really hate being on the side of the enviros, I really do. Hansen is full of shit. He’s no better than the anti-global warmers claiming that the .01-.08 degree adjustment of US temperatures disproves global warming (it doesn’t — the scientist who found the error said it doesn’t). The IPCC has concluded that oceans will rise — at most — eight inches by 2100. So Hansen is exaggerating the situation by a factor of 100. God damn it, you enviros. Do you realize the damage you are doing by exaggerating every claim, jumping on every disaster and dismissing any criticism. Will you just please shut up and let the science do the talking?!
  • Interesting quote: “If al-Maliki doesn’t get his act together … if some sort of spirit of cooperation doesn’t begin to emerge … more and more Americans are going to wonder why we continue to make sacrifices; and they’ll have a point.” I think Bush’s supporters — his few remaining supporters — are setting the stage for withdrawal. It’s all the Iraqis fault. (Well, also the Dems and the liberal media.)
  • It’s depressing that 57% of Boortz’s reader think Alberto Gonzalez resigned because he was being hounded by the Democrats and not because he’s a corrupt, lying, totalitarian Little Legal Creep. More on that later.
  • Boortz does have the best comment on the idiotic Miss South Carolina. Or rather Royal does. He calls it the “white man’s boo-got-shot”.
    • Science and Edumacation

    Dr. May

    I’m reading Timothy Ferris’s Seeing in the Dark since I may myself be an amateur, rather than professional, astronomer soon. He has a phone interview with Brian May — the lead guitarist of Queen — where he talks about being an astronomy graduate student and how he left it for music but still loves the sky.

    I said, “Nah! He’s making that up!” So I looked it up. And in one those of those weird coincidences, just two days before I read Ferris’ account, May got his fricking PhD.

    Great. Someone else to compete with.

    Politics, Science and Edumacation

    Greenland

    Patrick Michaels deflates our Senators on Greenland:

    On page 820 of [the IPCC]’s spanking-new compendium on climate change, it projects that the melting of Greenland will cause a rise in sea levels of between half an inch and 4.5 inches by 2100. If there were any acceleration of ice loss under a Gore-like scenario, the IPCC says there could be an additional sea-level rise of 8 inches.

    I would also add that if these senators really believed in catastrophic global warming, they would not be burning up tons of fossil fuels on a damn junket.

    This is the problem with the global warming supporters — their stampede to embrace disaster scenarios. Christ, isn’t a potential 8 inch rise in sea levels enough? Why do they always have to get so hysterical?

    Politics, Science and Edumacation

    No Genius Allowed Ahead

    Via Boortz, a stunning article about how our “make sure all the dumb kids pass” school system is failing to cultivate genius.

    Odd though it seems for a law written and enacted during a Republican Administration, the social impulse behind No Child Left Behind is radically egalitarian. It has forced schools to deeply subsidize the education of the least gifted, and gifted programs have suffered. The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if I were a liberal, i’d love this President. He’s given them everything they want while thoroughly discrediting conservatism.

    Politics

    Cuber

    Barrack Obama wants to lift sanction on Cuba?. Turns out not so much. He just want to lets Cubans visit their families.

    I hate the Cuba embargo. We’ve had it in place for 40+ years and it has done absolutely nothing to weaken Castro’s evil regime. Actually, if anything, it has empowered him. It has helped starve and deprive his people while doing nothing to keep him from becoming a billionaire.

    Lift the embargo. Give Cubans a taste of freedom and prosperity. And like the people of Eastern Europe, they will throw off communism fast than you can say, “Che”.

    No one will advocate this, of course, because it would mean writing off Florida’s electoral votes. The Cuban-Americans are not reasonable about this. And, to be honest, I can’t say I’d be reasonable either if I lived seventy miles from a murderous psychopath who had oppressed and killed my relatives while being embraced and lauded by Hollywood dimwits.

    Politics

    Gouging

    With hurricane season in force, Boortz dust off his anti-anti-gouging diatribe.

    I agree with him 100%. People forget that gouging is part of the free market as well. And while it sounds good to say, “We’re going to keep people from taking advantage of the situation”, it is, in fact, extremely bad policy that creates artificial shortages of nearly everything.

    Politicians never seem to learn this. Anti-gouging measures created the energy crisis of the 1970’s, price controls are creating massive delays and shortages in socialized medical systems and anti-gouging measures make bottled water, generators and hotel rooms impossible to come by during hurricane season.

    But it’s for people’s own good. And we luuuuuv the peepul.