Author: Fuzzy Curmudgeon

Go read Lileks. As usual, a brilliant tour-de-force.

Pardon me whilst I rant.
Daylight Savings Time is one of the more idiotic, boneheaded, and frankly bullshit ideas we humans have saddled ourselves with since God placed us here on His green earth.
Would someone explain to me exactly why I would want it to be nearly 8:00 in the morning right now rather than nearly 7:00 in the morning?
We live in Indiana, which means that by legislative fiat we live in the Eastern time zone. That’s great if you watch a lot of TV and can’t convert Eastern time to, say, Central time. But it sucks if you live practically within spitting distance of the boundary between Eastern and Central time.
My main objection to DST is that it is too dark in the mornings and too light too late at night. I have trouble sleeping when there is the tiniest amount of light (by way of example, the green LED on the Dish Network receiver is often enough to keep me awake all night). So the sun being up until nearly 10PM of a summer’s day just doesn’t work for me (and I know this having lived in the East and having put up with DST).
The idea of DST actually started with Benjamin Franklin on what must have been a bad brain day for our revered Founder and Savant. Then idiots came up with DST as a wartime exigency that apparently was supposed to make people think there was a war on. The problem is that it started clear back in WWI and nobody ever thought to turn the clocks back. And there was no Federal law mandating DST until Nixon (another reason he couldn’t possibly have been a Republican), which law made it mandatory unless a state said “Fuck you, Jack, we ain’t having any of that,” which after a year’s experiment that I remember vividly, particularly from all the people cursing about having to change their clocks (and this in a day before every household appliance including your electric toothbrush had a clock in it), was exactly what Indiana said.
My attitude has always been, why change the clocks? If you want more time in the evening to spend outdoors, why not change your behavior? Why can’t corporations agree that in the summer, 9 to 5 ought to be 8 to 4? Personally I work for a company that is located in Maryland, so in the summer I work from 7:30 to 4 and in the winter I work from…well…7:30 to 4 because I prefer it, but there was a time when I did switch an hour in the winter just so as to be on the same time with my colleagues in the east.
The argument is that Indiana should switch like everyone else because it confuses people who want to do business with people in our state. To people who promulgate this argument in the digital age, I say: Fuck you. You don’t understand the concept; in an age of e-mail, faxes, voice mail, and electronic fund transfers, THERE IS NO COMPELLING REASON FOR US TO CHANGE TIME. Our legislators and other idiot savants who adopt this reasoning say that Indiana loses commerce because nobody in New York City knows what time it is in Indianapolis. I say, it’s an hour’s difference, big stinking whoop, so call me back when I’m available; and anyone who tries to call me from the East at 8 AM their time in the summer gets what they deserve anyway, because NOBODY should be making business calls before 10AM anyway (it takes time for the caffeine to work). Plus, given the fact that these days you usually get voice mail anyway when you call, regardless of the time of day, what exact difference does it really make?
The same morons say that our recalcitrance on DST makes it difficult to schedule meetings with people in Indiana because the people in NYC never know what time it is here, so they set a 10AM summer conference call and the Indiana people never call in because they think it’s an hour later than it really is. I’m living proof that if you have any common sense and live in Indiana (meaning that you probably ought to have more common sense than anyone who lives in NYC), it is not difficult to remember that in the summer you have to call in to that 10AM conference call at 9AM, regardless of whether or not the caffeine has kicked in. It is an adjustment that is done on the Indiana end, not the NYC end, and it is not difficult to do as long as you are aware just when NYC is on EDT and when it is on EST. Which does require a minimum amount of brain power, but we’re Hoosiers, so most of us have at least that.
The upshot of all of this being that Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN) is a fucking idiot who needs to be retired before she manages to get Congress to mandate DST whether we like it or not. (She’s a fucking idiot anyway but that isn’t my main point. Unless it is.) Thank God for the family farmers in this state; they don’t like DST and it probably won’t ever get a serious hearing in our legislature as long as they don’t. But Carson running around in Washington saying we ought to switch is an embarrassment. I for one would rather fight than switch.
If the world ever comes to its senses and drops DST, though, I think we should be on CST year round instead of EST. We’re 180 miles from Chicago and over 700 from NYC, so why in the world are we on EST? Oh, yeah, because the world financial markets are in NYC. Which is meaningless because our world is wired now. Who really makes phone calls anymore? I haven’t made a business phone call outside of Indianapolis since 1995, personally, except for the monthly departmental yak-yak conference call I grudgingly participate in.
So screw DST and the horse it rode in on. I’m going back to bed. Oh, wait. It’s time to go to work.

…there’s this guy who ought to get the death penalty.

AKRON, Ohio — A man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday for impregnating his teenage stepdaughter with a syringe of his own sperm.
John Goff, 41, quoted Bible verses and said he forgave the judge, police, prosecutors and his stepdaughter.

They don’t much like people like you in the big house, thankfully.

This story recounts an abomination.
The only good part about it is that it happened in a state that has the death penalty. Now if only the jury has the balls to impose it.

Via Best of the Web (link at the right, I’m lazy), Larry Miller reports in the Weekly Standard that punk rocker bands who dis the Prez onstage had probably better watch their ass.
Perhaps I should rethink my fear (well, not exactly fear…more like sad resignation) that someday I’ll be old and today’s kids will be running the country. We might do worse than some of the kids in Mr. Miller’s article:

Black boots and nose rings and tattoos, but they knew, to a person, what was right. They might not be able to point out the no-fly zones on a map, but they knew what was right. If we Americans fight terror all the way it’ll take many years, and neither Trent Lott’s kids nor Tom Daschle’s kids are going to fight it. It’ll be fought by a lot of the kids at the “Blockbuster” Pavilion, though. Jack’s oldest just signed up a few months ago out of college. A five-year hitch for an Army specialty. An important one. In harm’s way. Jack’s a little scared. Wouldn’t you be?

Yep. But I’d go myself if they’d take me.

Here’s a great new ad for Bill Simon.
I realize it’s Internet-focused, but this needs to be running on TV all over California.

President Bush just put it into clearer perspective for the slower minds among us (primarily Democrats).
Time to kick some Iraqi butt. Faster, please.

…as a Jew, I’m not culturally-disposed to carry weapons anyway. Must be my Lutheran side.

Over on Rachel’s blog a gentleman from Australia commented:

I love your [Rachel’s] site and agree with most of your sentiments. I am however not sure you are right about this issue as we in Australian urban areas have effectively been without guns for about 5 years now, as the Right Wing government legislated against them after a young man called Martin Bryant went on a similar rampage and killed about 30 people.

Seems to me like it would have made more sense to make sure the population was armed. If two or three of those thirty people had been armed, I’ll bet Mr. Bryant would have died of lead poisoning long before he managed to shoot all thirty of them. The Right Wing in Australia must be like our Democrats here.

It may be too early to tell but we haven’t had a repeat of such an incident since and the crime rate is heading south.

Oh, really? The overall crime rate in Australia may indeed be going down, but non-gun crimes appear to be on the increase, from what I’ve read — knife crimes in particular, apparently; see this link. The article in question also notes that “assaults increased 13 per cent per 100,000 people.” This is just in Victoria state of course. And if you read the article you see at least one politician who says they are living in a more violent community than the year previous. And yes, he’s an opposition politician whose job it is to make the Government look bad, but still, hyperbole and all, he has a point.
You can also take a look at this link (careful, Rachel; this is a gun control advocate site) where it is reported that in Australia, since the new gun control laws were implemented, “robberies involving weapons such as a knife or a stick have increased by nearly 20%, which indicates that other weapons are replacing firearms.” And all this Gun Control Alliance group can point to is the fact that there are fewer deaths because the weapons being used are less lethal. And they have the gall to view this as a victory. Feh. A real victory would be when all crime goes down, not just one type of crime associated with a type of weapon one doesn’t like. But let’s not worry the GCA with details; all they seem to care about is that fewer people are dying from gun crime, without appearing to care one way or the other about the crimes being committed overall with other weapons. I’m sure the average mugged Aussie appreciates the fact that his mugger hit him on the head with a stick instead of threatened him with a gun.
So basically it sounds like all the Gun Grab Down Under did was shift the M.O. to simpler weapons. It didn’t do much to lower the incidence of crime at all, and I’d bet that the crime rate ends up rising pretty much back to where it was before guns were outlawed, eventually. (One in five crimes in Australia are still committed with guns, sez the GCA.)

On the other hand it seems that the USA has always had a far more potent gun culture than we mild mannered Aussies.

You know what? Define “gun culture”. I would define it as “guns being visible everywhere, and a vital part of everyday life”. I mean, I am culturally an American and fly the flag, I am culturally a Jew and observe most of the major holidays and have various implements of Hebrosity in my home…but culturally a gun owner? I don’t think so. The guns are safely put away and all I really do is talk about them in terms of my right to have them. And I think most Americans who have guns are the same way about them. Americans don’t have a gun culture by just about any means of measurement.
However, if you really want to see a gun culture, try Arab countries (and in particular, the Palestinian territories in Israel, but according to friends who have travelled in that part of the world, you see them EVERYWHERE; traffic cops in Cairo carrying AK-17s while directing traffic, for crying out loud). Those puppies have guns everywhere. They even take pictures of their kids holding them. Yasser Arafat takes pains to wear one on his belt. I suspect they’d take them to the mosque if the imams would let them (and for all I know, they do). Owning a gun is strictly equivalent to being a man in that society. Don’t start with me about how owning a gun is anyway equivalent to the same thing in the U.S. And furthermore don’t start with me about how the Israelis carry guns everywhere as well. They do it to protect themselves from the kill-crazy Arabs.
Funny though that I don’t see people like Sarah Brady or the Gun Control Alliance noted above trying to disarm the Palestinians. They’d be a lot more likely to be trying to get the Israelis to give up their weapons.

I saw this yesterday but George Neumayr over at the Prowler does it better than Fox. This isn’t a Fisking; I agree completely with Neumayr, I’m just commenting interlinearly.

Twenty-eight billion dollars is quite a penalty for selling someone a product that they demanded. Bullock enjoyed the pleasures of smoking for decades, played dumb to its obvious dangers and risks, didn’t listen to her daughter and doctors who told her to quit, and then, upon getting sick, decided to sue the source of her pleasure.

Exactly. I don’t see how you could have been a smoker for the past 40 years and NOT KNOWN that THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. I knew this when I was six and reading my Dad’s Camel cigarette packs (non-filtered). Dad knew it, too, and he smoked a lot more years than this stupid woman, so you just can’t tell me that she didn’t know.

Consistency and minimal personal honor are clearly not requirements for plaintiffs, still less for Los Angeles juries. Before heading off to lunch with Bullock’s attorney, jurors explained their Solomonic reasoning to the press. “It’s just a year’s revenue for Philip Morris,” juror Jose Farinas said casually.

Fine that man a year’s pay for being an asshole on the job.

According to the Los Angeles Times, jurors “had a spirited debate over the amount of the award, with individual jurors suggesting awards ranging from $5 million to $100 billion.”
How did they end up with $28 billion? The Times said they settled on that number because “jurors had been told that only 1 in 28,000 lung cancer victims gets his or her day in court, and the panel in effect decided to impose $1 million of punishment on Philip Morris for each of the 28,000.”

So in other words, they made it up as they went along.

The jury had been instructed that the amount of damages should “bear a reasonable relationship to the injury suffered.” But egged on by [Bullock’s lawyer Michael] Piuze, they ignored that instruction.

And they should all be fined for disregarding the judge’s instructions, barred from ever serving on a jury again (or running for elective office, either, for that matter) and the verdict should be thrown out as a result.
[Update: When I originally typed this, I was so mad I typed “ATTORNEY GENERAL” instead of “SURGEON GENERAL” without realizing it. Mea culpa. I fixed it.]