User:Woozle/JLF

Right Angles blog
The John Locke Foundation blog apparently provides no way of finding out when your comments are responded to (short of opening a new RSS feed for each entry) and no way to keep track of all the comments you've made, so here are all the JLF blog entries I've commented on:
 * 2008-11-02 The travesty of early voting: it's been awhile, but I finally glanced at Right Angles again and came across a post I disagreed with that didn't also turn my stomach...
 * 2008-07-06 2008-07-04 Not questioning their patriotism, but... ...nonetheless he feels compelled to point out the inverse correlation between flag display and Obama support. I observe that there is no contradiction between these two, because of course flag display is not the same as patriotism, and is in fact often a counter-indication.
 * 2008-07-05 I-95 goes both ways: A reviewer criticizes The Duke Homestead Tobacco Museum for not including the unhealthy effects of tobacco in their historical presentation; Jon Ham invites her to go back north, where they also grew tobacco and where the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museumalso doesn't mention anything about the health effects (at least, not on their web site). Not really disagreeing with this, at least on the face of it, I reminisce briefly about missing the smell of curing tobacco in downtown Durham; am I trying too hard to be nice?
 * 2008-06-16 Hiding the Democrat label: Getting kind of tired of Ham's constant hammering on the idea that occasional (he claims persistent) omissions of the "(D)" whenever a Democrat is caught doing something bad prove the existence of liberal media bias; I ask if he has ever done a random survey., and then post a number of follow-ups; Ham replies, but kind of passes the buck to NewsBusters.org.
 * 2008-04-02 I will never go into a Pizza Hut again: gun control goes (arguably) too far. This reveals an area where left and right may have some common ground, although they may not realize it.
 * 2008-03-30 Why I don't trust the Obama candidacy: the right-wing phantom attack on Obama, part 2 (much discussion)
 * 2008-03-29 The chickens have indeed come home to roost: the right-wing phantom attack on Obama, part 1
 * 2008-03-28 Religion of Peace strikes again: about Fitna being removed from LiveLeak
 * 2008-03-21 No conservatives in network TV: Jon Ham tries to claim there are no conservatives on network TV; I point out that this is total BS. Ham changes the definition of "network" to nullify my answer, and I again point out that this is total BS, and get in a dig about media consolidation.
 * 2008-03-20 It gets better and better: head-to-head against global warming denial, albeit rather diplomatically
 * 2008-03-19
 * Pigs fly: Jon Ham comments on the upholding of a Michigan law "prohibiting race and gender preferences in government hiring and public university admissions"; I reply approvingly. I hope I'm not overstating the case against "Affirmative Action", but really I've never come across a good argument for it. Sure, even now you have poor black people -- so discriminate on the basis of past income or something, not on race or gender; otherwise people assume "minorities" in a given job may be less competent than non-minorities, perpetuating the ghettoization (aka glass ceiling) which we're trying to get rid of. (I remember hearing/reading that Nixon actually came up with Affirmative Action as a kind of early version of Culture War, but I haven't found any confirming sources for this.)
 * It just keeps getting better: Jon Ham crows over the finding that compact fluorescent bulbs may be bad for the ecology due to the mercury they contain. I wonder aloud what ever happened to the Office of Technology Assessment.
 * 2008-03-10 Chicken coops in Trinity Park?: author writes against the idea of keeping chickens in suburbia, and in favor of making it illegal; I ask how this is consistent with "my propery, my rules". (posted 2008-03-16; no response as of 2009-03-19)
 * 2008-03-06 So much for "Big Brother": author complains about "lefties" complaining about surveillance; I bring up The Transparent Society and mention life documenting; another commenter comes back with Clarke/Baxter's The Light of Other Days. Another poster comments that currently nobody can be dragged off to Gitmo but predicts this will change if Hillary Clinton takes office; this gives me an opening to say something about Bush's elevation of presidential power in a positive way. (I ask incidentally if anyone can explain why conservatives hate Hillary.)
 * 2008-02-26 Clever civil disobedience: tentatively agreeing that selective bans on smoking aren't a good way to solve the problem but pointing out that conservatives endorse the war on drugs using much the same reasoning; much dialogue ensued
 * 2008-02-21
 * More of Messiah's borrowed rhetoric: Ham is really starting to get to me with this whole "empty Barack" thing; I hope I didn't get too snarky in my response. But I mean, really -- get a life, Jon. Oh, wait, you have a life, don't you -- writing blog entries to reinforce the JLF's party line. Sorry, forgot! That must be the "be happy" part; what do you do for the "work hard" bit?
 * McCain's press conference: The New York Times publishes a piece mentioning the possibility that a rumored affair might have a negative impact on the voters in McCain's support base (i.e. conservatives who love to jump all over that sort of thing); this is BIG NEWS, because it means the liberal media is being hypocritical. Again, the phrase "get a life" comes to mind -- leading again to the same thought about what these people do for a living.
 * 2008-02-19 Line of the day: author picks up on the whole Obama "line stealing" thing; I point out that he "stole" the line at the suggestion of its author, and ask just what this proves anyway; author says it proves that Obama is an empty shell. I ask what evidence of substantiality the author might accept.
 * 2008-02-18 Trial lawyers and terrorism: author identifies "trial lawyers" as a special interest group to which the Democrats are kowtowing, which explains why they don't want to give the telcoms immunity for cooperating with Bush's illegal wiretaps
 * 2008-02-12 Alamance school board wants '04 school calendar law repealed: author Donna Martinez seems to feel that the 2004 calendar law was a win for "the coastal tourism lobby" at the expense of education. I belatedly disagree. (posted 2008-03-19)
 * 2008-01-17 Liberals hate more, says survey: author changes meaning of the word "hate" and uses it to condemn liberal hypocrisy. (I belatedly commented on 2008-03-12, after finally figuring out the distortion.)
 * 2008-01-04 It can't happen here... or could it?: author comments on the growing tide of Islamofascism in Europe, and suggests that someone needs to write an update of Churchill's While England Slept; I suggest Bawer's While Europe Slept, belatedly followed by some Pat Condell videos and then pointing out that the author is standing up for civil rights, which I thought was lately a discredited concept in conservative circles. Darn it, I should have also pointed out that both Lionheart and Condell are - gasp - dissenting (against the government, no less)! ...makes one wonder how "liberals" and "conservatives" can be so opposed to each other's views when we keep standing up for the same principles.
 * other, more sarcastic retorts: (1) Aren't you going to ask Lionheart and Condell why they hate their country so much? (2) Haul 'em both off to gitmo! They want England to lose!
 * Seriously, though, I think this may reveal how "liberals" and "conservatives" perceive these issues differently. Further conversation on this topic could be useful. Why is it ok for an Englishman to criticize his government, but not ok for an American to criticize the American government? Is it a case of America just being always right while England is one of those lesser, "other" countries? (Can the conservative even see how this won't work as a global philosophy?) Or is it because the Englishman is objecting to an external threat (Islamofascism), while the American's complaint is more subtle ("the Islamofascists are a problem, but the real problem is our own government which is handling the situation badly and making the external problem worse!")? How does the conservative see the dichotomy here?
 * 2008-01-03 Sometimes the press really IS the enemy: the old "dissent is making us lose" meme... I couldn't let that pass uncommented. In case it gets deleted, a copy is here.
 * 2008-01-01 Is Al Gore visiting N.H.?: I decided not to post this (I think I'll try to turn it into a Buzz Clearcut piece):
 * Right. Some places in the world are having record cold winters, so that *proves* global warming is a load of hooey. And don't let those wacky liberal coneheads try to sell you any baloney about "regional deviations from the mean", either. They're just a bunch of sore losers who can't be bothered to look outside the hermetically-sealed windows in their ivory towers and notice that winter has, in fact, arrived on schedule, despite the heat-retaining effect of Al's jet trips and the hot air from his ceaseless campaigning against the few remaining pieces of domestic industrial productivity that once made our country great. (Hey, it's practically an endangered species -- can we get a ruling from the EPA on this?)
 * 2007-12-31 Giving even lefty lawyers a bad name: author shoots fish in a barrel and calls them lefties; also criticizes liberal blogs for their intolerance of the "diversity" of the New York Times hiring neocon mouthpiece Bill Kristol.
 * 2007-12-28 Obama thinks I'm qualified to be president: author takes weak, overstated potshot at Barack Obama; I don't really care, but take the opportunity to make some points about corruption of the political process (and a much-too-diplomatic pot-shot back at GWB)
 * 2007-12-21 Four N.C. Democrats vote against war funding: it's completely not clear whether the author is for or against the war; I tried to make my position clear while agreeing with the underlying accusation of corruption.
 * 2007-12-06 Talk about scary times, these ain't it
 * 2007-12-05 Walter Cronkite
 * related: 2007-12-06 Time to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq
 * 2007-12-02 To the Left, "power grab" means "reform"
 * 2007-12-01 Inmates have taken over the asylum, part whatever
 * related: 2007-11-21 O'Reilly says War on Christmas part of secular progressive agenda
 * 2007-11-21 Barbarians (posted reply as Buzz Clearcut)
 * /2007-11-21 Barbarians: copy of my posting, with notes
 * related: 2007-11-29 Teddy bear teacher gets 15-day prison term in Sudan