Clayton Cramer's Blog

Speaker Moonstate

2012-01-27T12:11:00.004-07:00

Remember when Gov. (the first around) Jerry Brown became known as Gov. Moonbeam? I think Speaker Gingrich is about to become Speaker Moonstate:

Gingrich promised that “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

Gingrich, the former House speaker, told an overflowing crowd gathered on Florida’s space coast Wednesday that he wants to develop a robust commercial space industry in line with the airline boom of the 1930s. He also wants to expand exploration of Mars.

...

Gingrich is so confident in his vision in a lunar base that he said if the colony had 13,000 permanent American residents it should be considered for statehood.

Space travel is cool. A permanent Moon base would also be cool. I remember some years ago seeing a U.S. flag with a spiral galaxy replacing the fifty stars, and I liked it! (The U.S. Senate chamber is going to need some serious enlarging to seat two senators from each of one hundred billion stars.) But those are luxury items--things that countries that have a balanced budget can afford. We have an existential budget deficit crisis. I know that Gingrich is trying to stir up votes on the Space Coast of Florida, but a bit of reality, please?

A Very Cool Tool

2012-01-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Want to see how often a word is used in books by year? Books.google.com has something called an Ngram Viewer that lets you see how often a particular word or phrase in used across the centuries. There are some surprises: rifle appears surprisingly often in the seventeenth century, then falls off, coming up in frequency in the nineteenth century. Of course, remember the limitations of those OCRed books--there are a lot of words that do not appear because the print was hard to OCR.

The other limitation is that the starting date of many series is used for publication date, even if the issue in question is centuries later (or even wrong). For example, the Ngram for the word "feminism" had matches in the early seventeenth century but nothing until the twentieth century. What are those early matches? One is an error on the Latin word "feminis" in the Malleus maleficarum de Lamiis (and for all I know, it might even mean the same thing, since I think this is a Latin work on witchcraft) and the other is from Chemical Abstracts, vol. 87. I am sorry, but I do not believe that Chemical Abstracts series really starts in 1620!

Such a Sophisticated Understanding of Economics

2012-01-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

In conjunction with his recent State of the Union address "rated at an 8th grade comprehension level on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test — the third lowest score of any State of the Union address since 1934" this description of what Obama wants our economy to be:

Where we're making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere.

Why do I keep thinking back to John Brunner's The Jagged Orbit, set in what was then the future, where a semiliterate black man is President of the United States, and journalists throw softballs at him so that they don't make him look bad, while he reads written responses that he clearly does not understand?

President Gaylord: Morning, laze an' gemmun.

Reporters: By God, it is too! Right on the ball so far today, Prexy!

President Gaylord: (chuckles)

Dean of reporters: First off, Prexy, your comments on the decision to admit Morton Lenigo to this country in view of his known participation in the dynamiting of Cardiff Castle, Wales, the expulsion of the Lord Mayor of Manchester, England, and the knee seizure of the city of Birmingham, England, and additionally in view of the insurrection mounted in New York City over by X Patriots and other extremist groups which have reacted to the decision as a confession of weakness in face of threats from Ghana, Nigeria, and other knee-blank powers.

President Gaylord: Ah-yeah, that one was comped for me, I think. just a second. (Shuffles documents on desk.) Here we are. "The decision to admit Morton Lenigo was taken in full cognizance of the allegations made against him by racialist spokesmen in his home country of Britain, and in pursuance of the ideals of the Great Society which is designed to maintain a homo-ah-homo-genius?-ah."

Dean of reporters: "Homogeneous," maybe, Prexy?

President Gaylord: I guess so. "-balance between the justifiably independence-desirous colored citizens of the planet and their fellows who by accident of circumstances have found themselves in a position of greater good fortune."

Reporters: (laughter)

Unidentified reporter: Keep pitchin', darl-that one swerved like a (last word indecipherable, laughter)

Obama is not at this level, but there are times that I fear that Brunner (who showed remarkable abilities to see the future) was close.

"Never Mind"

2012-01-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

Remember when Saturday Night Live had the recurring skit with Gilda Radner as Rosanne Rosanadanna, who would mishear something, rant about it, then get corrected, and then finally, "Never mind."

National Review Online points to one of those moments: a hit piece by Reuters on Florida Senator Marco Rubio that was apparently so flawed that they kept correcting it, and correcting it, and correcting it. The list of changes at the bottom keeps growing. At the moment:

(Removes words "and at times has had difficulty paying his mortgage," paragraph 7; removes "he did not make payments on a $100,000-plus student loan" and instead states "he did not pay down the balance of a $100,000-plus student loan," paragraph 10; removes "he was caught up in an Internal Revenue Service Investigation" and instead states "his name surfaced in an Internal Revenue Service investigation," paragraph 12; removes "voted against Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's Supreme Court nominee" and instead states "opposed President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor," paragraph 41; removes "voted against Obama's healthcare overhaul" and instead states "opposed Obama's healthcare overhaul," paragraph 41)

Shouldn't they just say, "Never mind"?

Why Apple Products Are So Cool!

2012-01-27T06:36:00.000-07:00

Because they are made under conditions that would be unlawful for a U.S. maker. Karl Denninger has a very depressing article at Market-Ticker about the conditions and wages of the workers building your cool Apple toys. He quotes a former Apple executive to the effect that:

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said one former Apple executive who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

What amazes me is how many trendy sorts gotta have the latest and greatest Apple products--and yet insist on "fair trade" coffee.

More Signs the Government Should Not Be In The Venture Capital Business

2012-01-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

They aren't very good at it...unless you define "good" as making investments in companies that go bankrupt. I first saw this over at Small Dead Animals:

State Of The Union, Jan 24, 2012;

"In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries."

State Of The Battery, Jan 26, 2012;

Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy

A bit more detail from CNS News:

Ener1--a company that manufactures batteries for electric cars, and that received $118.5 million in federal stimulus money, and that Vice President Joe Biden visited last year the day after President Obama’s State of the Union Address—announced today that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In last year’s State of the Union Address, delivered Jan. 25, 2011, President Obama set a national goal of having a million electric vehicles on the road in the United States by 2015—a goal that would be achieved, Obama said, by taking money out of the oil industry and “investing” it in new technology.

“With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” said Obama.

Here's Business Week's report:

Ener1 Inc., which owns a company that received a $118 million U.S. Energy Department grant to make electric-car batteries, filed for bankruptcy protection after defaulting on bond debt amid Asian competition.

The company listed assets of $73.9 million and debt of $90.5 million as of Dec. 31 in Chapter 11 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Ener1 has been affected by competing battery developers in China and South Korea, “which generally have a lower cost manufacturing base” and lower labor and raw material costs, interim Chief Executive Officer Alex Sorokin said in the petition.

At least if a private investor makes a mistake, the rest of us don't get stuck with the bills.

Issa Is Really Pursuing The Fast & Furious Scandal

2012-01-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

If you are at all interested in a scandal that makes Contragate and Watergate seem pretty small potatoes (hundreds of people were murdered because of Fast & Furious), Dave Hardy at Of Arms and the Law just keeps them coming, with links to the letters Rep. Issa (R-CA) keeps sending, pointedly reminding Attorney-General Holder that one of his officials is pleading the Fifth Amendment. He certainly has that right--but essentially admitting that you may have engaged in criminal conduct when you are in charge of prosecuting criminals? Is there a problem there?

Guns As The Source Of Peace

2012-01-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

An impressive speech by the Netherlands' military chief:

I might disagree about the state having a monopoly on use of force, but it is certainly true that when there is no recognized legitimate state authority, violence often increases. Somalia is a reminder that the absence of a government does not need to a utopia, but the rule by the most brutal.

In essence, the general's speech is a longer version of Orwell's famous statement about us sleeping safely in our beds because rough men protect us.

Redfield's Accu-Range Reticle (2nd Thoughts)

2012-01-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that one slightly irritating aspect of the Redfield Accu-Range reticle was that it was set up with nice round MOA dimensions, unlike the Bushnell that it replaced. I was looking through the scope again, now that it is mounted on the M1A, and I noticed something rather interesting.

The distance from the cross hair to the bottom of the circle is 2.19 MOA at 12x--not very useful--but the width of the crosshair lines in the circle is 0.19 MOA. What that means is that from the bottom of the horizontal crosshair to the inside of the circle at the bottom (or from the edge of the vertical crosshair to the circle at the left or right) is 2.00 MOA. This is actually a very useful number for rangefinding, because it simplifies the math. At 4x, according to their charge, this distance is 5.08 MOA (suggesting that something is lost in rounding).

"We Know Where You Live"

2012-01-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, part of a threat. From the National Secular Society:

A talk on sharia and human rights by NSS Council Member Anne Marie Waters' at Queen Mary University of London was cancelled at the last moment because of an Islamist who made serious threats against everyone there.

Ms Waters was due to give a talk on behalf of the One Law for All campaign on 16 January but before it started, a man entered the lecture theatre, stood at the front with a camera and filmed the audience. He then said that he knew who everyone was, where they lived and if he heard anything negative about the Prophet, he would track them down.

The man also filmed students in the foyer and threatened to murder them and their families. On leaving the building, he joined a large group of men, apparently there to support him. Students were told by security to stay in the lecture theatre for their own safety.

Campus security apparently was reluctant to get involved:

The University’s security guard – a real gem –arrived first only to blame the speaker and organisers rather than those issuing death threats. He said: ‘If you will have these discussions, what do you expect?’ Err, to speak without being threatened with death maybe?

It is unfortunate that the left has become so intent on seeing Islam as a victim that it refuses to take any action in support of free speech. I don't much agree with groups like those linked above--but they certainly have the right to express their opinions without threats. It is pretty apparent that Islam and freedom are incompatible.

Thanks to Small Dead Animals for the links to this.

I Do Not Trust Newt

2012-01-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

Now he is admitting that his claim that "his team offered several witnesses to ABC News to refute statements made by Gingrich's second wife in a controversial interview aired last week" was false. Is ABC News scum? Sure enough. But Gingrich seems to have not only consistency problems, but serious accuracy problems as well. R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., founder and editor of the American Spectator, knows Gingrich well, and indicates that he has as many skeletons in his closet as Clinton.

There are a lot of serious, movement conservatives out there who have very, very serious concerns about Gingrich's morals--and those concerns are very pragmatic. Obama's campaign is going to smear whoever the Republican nominee is. It will not help if there is a lot of genuine smear material available.

I wish we had a serious conservative candidate who could win the election and had as much zipper control as Romney seems to have. Is it is really this difficult?

Very Third World Behavior

2012-01-26T09:20:00.001-07:00

This is one of those news stories that desperately needs more attention. I don't really want to believe that this could happen in America, but the size of the judgment suggests that this was a lot more than just a minor screwup:

A man who spent two years in solitary confinement after getting arrested for DWI was awarded $22 million for suffering inhumane treatment in New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.

Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, according to NBC station KOB.com. He said he never got a trial and spent the entire time languishing in solitary, even pulling his own tooth when he was denied dental care.

"'[Prison officials were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," he said. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help."

By law, you are entitled to a trial on a criminal charge within 90 days of arrest. A defendant may delay that trial (within reason), but the government may not. To be held for two years without trial? I would like to think that the sheriff responsible for this is going to prison.

A bit more here at CNN. It appears that Slevin has a history of mental illness, and the sheriff's department held him in solitary because of that. However: there seems to have been no hearing to justify holding him--and worse, he was actually transferred to a state facility for psychiatric evaluation, before being returned to the county jail. If he was being held for trial, the county broke the law. If he was being held because they were concerned about his mental health, he did not belong in a jail, but a mental hospital, where he at least would have had a chance at receiving proper medical care--unlike what happened in the jail.

Steady Interest Rates Through 2014

2012-01-25T15:17:00.001-07:00

I keep hoping for interest rates to rise, but at least the news that the Fed expects to not raise interest rates until the end of 2014 makes it sensible to buy some long-term bonds and hold them for a year or two, or perhaps buy some reasonably okay dividend paying stocks. At least I can do better on the interest rates than a money market fund.

Threads vs. Processes

2012-01-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

I did a consulting job in Oregon a few years back where the manager was impressed that my solution for a sample piece of code involved multiple threads. He explained that he generally disliked use of threads, because they share too much information. This is very true, and it is both a strength and a weakness of threads: you can share information (so each thread can see what the others are doing) but also, you can share information (so each thread can interfere with what the others are doing).

The antisocial software that I am trying to rehabilitate has one of those threading difficulties--and it took a while to figure it out. The user interface has a Save button; you click it, and it both saves data to the database, and then checks to see if the offender's home address is the same as any other offender in the system. If there are other matches, it throws up a popup window that displays the other offenders at the same home address.

Of course, that popup window is done through a separate thread--but the abusive software parent responsible for this piece of code did not think about the fact that both threads were sharing the same database connection object. If the retrieve matching addresses thread finished its SQL operation before the save thread started, everything worked just fine. But as the number of matching addresses increased much above ten, the odds were excellent that the retrieve thread would still be retrieving data when the save thread closed the connection.

The database connection is now closed: but the retrieve thread is still retrieving data. The results were highly unpredictable, with at least four different error messages that might appear, depending on timing. Only occasionally did the SQL Exception come up "Connection already closed" which was the tipoff that something was not right.

Sad to say, there are more than a thousand popup windows in this system, and trying to figure out which of those are this sort of multithreaded monstrosity will keep me busy for decades. Unlike Sisyphus, at least I get to retire in a few years.

Who Gets Richer From Stopping Keystone XL?

2012-01-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

Why, the railroad owned by Warren Buffett, billionaire Democrat:

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

It costs about $3 per barrel more to ship it by tank car than pipeline, and it produces more greenhouse gases. You can see why environmentalists are happy that Obama stopped Keystone XL--it enriches Mr. 1% of the 1%, and puts more carbon dioxide in the air.

Fast & Furious: Now Congress Has To Subpoena Government Employees

2012-01-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

The Assistant U.S. Attorney who was apparently in charge of Fast & Furious refused to appear voluntarily to testify before the Congressional committee investigating this scandal (and almost certainly criminal acts). Dave Hardy at Of Arms and the Law pointed me to the letter from Rep. Issa (R-CA) informing Patrick J. Cunningham, "Chief, Criminal Division, United States Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona" that he is going to be subpoenaed since he won't appear voluntarily.

What is really sad is the part of the letter where Issa reminds Cunningham that "your counsel's offer of an attorney proffer, [is] akin to what a defense lawyer would offer for an indicted defendant...." And perhaps Cunningham realizes that what he and the Obama Administration did is of a nature that this is what he needs to be doing: acting like a criminal.

And surprise, surprise! The January 20, 2012 Tucson Citizen reports that Cunningham is going to refuse to answer questions, taking the Fifth. He certainly has that right--but Congressional committees can also provide selective immunity for information obtained in hearings, which prevents you from taking the Fifth (but leaving you open to prosecution for perjury if your statements are false).

The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling!

2012-01-24T09:08:00.001-07:00

Dave Hardy at Of Arms and the Law points out that not only are gun sales rising in the U.S. (as evidenced by the FBI background checks), but even in Australia. Chicken Little is fretting up a storm down under, according to this article from the January 23, 2012 Sydney Morning Herald:

THE number of gun permits issued in NSW has almost doubled in the past five years, sparking calls for restrictions on how many guns people can acquire.

Figures from the NSW firearms registry show 111,792 permits to acquire a firearm were issued in 2009 and 2010. That was 29,427 more than for the previous two-year period. In 2005 and 2006, there were 65,997 permits issued.

The National Coalition for Gun Control, which obtained the latest figures under freedom-of-information laws, says that the increase is linked to the scrapping of a 28-day waiting period for a second or subsequent firearm.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/permit-rise-triggers-push-for-a-gun-limit-20120122-1qc2o.html#ixzz1kONDh7PE

Well, duh! If the argument for a waiting period is to do a background check, or to prevent a crime of passion, then once you have a gun license and gun, another waiting period accomplishes nothing at all. Not surprisingly, the gun control groups are upset, and the Green Party is going to introduce a bill to prohibit people from owning more than three guns. This makes absolutely no sense: unless you are remarkably adept with your feet, most human beings can only fire two guns simultaneously. A criminal with ten guns can't really do more damage than a criminal with two guns.

The article also quotes from an MP from the Shooters Party (which in itself is rather sad, that they needed their own political party, presumably because the existing political parties were so tied to gun control) as saying that much of the increase in gun purchases is actually not existing owners buying more guns, but new gun owners. It is almost like the restrictions that Australia put into effect after the massacre some years ago are having the opposite effect from what the gun control nuts wanted: to make guns socially unacceptable.

Watching The Debate This Evening...

2012-01-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

I think this is the first one that I have actually watched, perhaps because I actually have the time.

Romney gave a really effective defense of free market capitalism with respect to the housing bubble and letting Wall Street firms go under in 2008. Later, however, he argued for smart regulation as opposed to more regulation of financial institutions. He is not my favorite, by any means, but he comes across well, if a bit vague, and I think he can kick Obama in debates.

Santorum's defense of free markets and pointing out how the Democrats worked hard at keeping the housing bubble going was very impressive. He is clearly capable of thinking on his feet, and he did a very credible job. Perhaps he is not quite as effective a speaker as Romney, and I still think he would have a much harder time defeating Obama, but I would love to see him debate that buffoon.

Gingrich did a nice job--but watching his try to deflect questions about his Freddie Mac "consulting" work tells me that he is lying. He's good at deflecting attention, but I do not trust him. I think he would do anything to get elected. Like Romney and Santorum, I really sense a person who fully understands the complexity of the world in which we live.

One interesting, almost sad part as when Gingrich responded to a question about sugar subsidies with essentially an admission that agricultural interests are too big for the national government to do the right thing: free markets.

Ron Paul spoke well on economic terms, but when he said that we have "blockaded" Iran, I was disappointed that no one questioned on this. Sanctions are not a blockade. How do you blockade a country on a continent, without all the surrounding countries participating? When Ron Paul spoke about the housing bubble, he did a good job, although perhaps not as good as Santorum. Paul had to turn it back to the Federal Reserve, of course.

I am tempted to support Santorum in the caucuses later this month, not because I think he is going to win the nomination, but because Gingrich is just too sleazy, and it is pretty clear that Romney will be the nominee. I won't be thrilled, but I do think he is going to walk all over Obama in any debates.

And I Thought 92 Students in My Western Civ Class Was a Bit Large

2012-01-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

EDN (a trade publication for electrical engineers) reports:

It seems that Sebastian Thrun, Google Fellow and research professor at Stanford University, has decided to quit Stanford, giving up his tenure, to start a new online university called Udacity. His goal is to enroll 500,000 students for his first course – which will be free — on how to build a search engine.

To be blunt, the old model of university is likely to fade rapidly. The way that we teach traditional classes is left over from the medieval period--from the graduation gowns (originally clerical robes, because universities started out as cathedral schools) right down to lecturing to a bunch of students in a classroom (because books were too expensive for students--or even professors--to buy).

Online classes are part of the change, but sometimes tells me that Thrun is going to be part of the next wave that completely destroys the old model in a generation or two. And at least at the high end, it needs destroying, as Thrun points out:

Thrun apparently thinks that, important and revolutionary though the realization of self-driving cars would be, the concept of freely-available online education, taught by pre-eminent technology leaders, has even more potential to change the world. In the US, over the past generation the concept of a college education has shifted from being an opportunity to learn important ideas that will fit a student to contribute to a dynamic, free society, to getting into an expensive, exclusive club that allow you to rub shoulders with other future power brokers who will protect and enrich the status quo. Is the education itself at Harvard really that much better than at a fine state university? No. But families and students waste an incredible amount of effort trying to get into Ivy League schools to join this club of elites. (And those elites are the same people who brought us the worldwide financial meltdown of the past ten years.)

Amusing Story About Trade

2012-01-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

One of the great flaws in the zero sum model of economics is that it fails to recognize that it is possible to increase the total wealth of a society by trade and improved efficiency of production. Of course, you can go too far the other way, also, as with this amusing story from Richard Grant White, The Adventures of Sir Lyon Bouse, Bart: in America during the Civil War (New York: American News Company, 1867), 62-63:

I am inclined to doubt the stories told by my predecessors, of two Americans being shut up in a room together, and emerging twenty-four hours after, each with a large fortune made by swapping jack-knives. This, I am quite sure, is a mere traveller's story, little worthy of credence. It probably is founded on the fact, that the bowie-knife, being the only article in the country of fixed value, is made the basis of all important financial operations. Thus an American offers to swap or dicker (an American never says sell or trade) his bowie-knife with a consignment of cotton, or a number of shares of bank-stock, to boot for his correspondent's or business friend's knife, and certain money, or so much real estate to boot. The stock or the real estate might fluctuate in value, pending the bargain, as, indeed, I have discovered to my cost, in case of my own stock; but the bowie-knife, being in universal and constant demand, has an absolute, permanent value; and it must be admitted, that it lends American trade a certain kind of respectability, by giving it some sort of metallic basis to rest upon.

An Interesting Description of Gold Rush California

2012-01-23T10:37:00.001-07:00

From J.D. Borthwick, "Three Years in Calafornia [sic]," Hutchings Illustrated California Magazine, 2:171-2:

There were several very good American theatres, a French theatre, and an Italian opera, besides concerts, masquerades, a circus, and other public amusements. The most curious were certainly the masquerades. They were generally given in one of the large gambling saloons, and in the placards announcing that they were to come off, appeared conspicuously also the intimation of "No weapons admitted;" " A strong police will be in attendance." The company was just such as might be seen in any gambling-room; and, beyond the presence of half-a-dozen masks in female attire, there was nothing to carry out the idea of a ball or a masquerade at all; but it was worth while to go, if only to watch the company arrive, and to see the practical enforcement of the weapon clause in the announcements. Several doorkeepers were in attendance, to whom each man as he entered delivered up his knife or his pistol, receiving a check for it, just as one does for his cane or umbrella at the door of a picture-gallery. Most men draw a pistol from behind their back, and very often a knife along with it; some carried their bowie-knife down the back of their neck, or in their breast; demure, pious looking men, in white neckcloths, lifted up the bottom of their waistcoat, and revealed the butt of a revolver; others, after having already disgorged a pistol, pulled up the leg of their trousers, and abstracted a huge bowie-knife from their boot; and there were men, terrible fellows, no doubt, but who were more likely to frighten themselves than any one else, who produced a revolver from each trouser pocket, and a bowie knife from their belt. If any man declared that he had no weapon, the statement was so incredible that he had to submit to be searched ; an operation which was performed by the doorkeepers, who, I observed, were occasionally rewarded for their diligence by the discovery of a pistol secreted in some unusual part of the dress.

What Do I Do For A Living?

2012-01-23T09:24:00.002-07:00

I attempt to rehabilitate antisocial software that was abused when young by negligent or destructive parents.

Watch This One

2012-01-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

This might be what brings down All The President's Men. From the January 20, 2012 Des Moines Register:

A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office.

Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz's office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.

And who is Zachary Edwards? From the January 21, 2012 Washington Examiner:

Edwards worked for Obama in Nevada and five other states during the 2008 Democratic primary and general election campaigns.

Somebody apparently tried to erase Edwards' bio from the web, but the ever-resourceful Glenn Reynolds, who first alerted me to this story earlier today, located it in the Wayback Machine.

Click here for Zachary Edwards scrubbed (but not completely enough) biography. And why would the Democrats have an interest in stealing the identity of a state official? Because state secretaries of state are responsible for the integrity of the election process, and resolving disputes. And guess which convicted felon and thief for the Nazis (although Jewish) is interested in that issue? George Soros. He started this project:

The Secretary of State Project (SoSP) was established in July 2006 as an independent “527” organization devoted to helping Democrats get elected to the office of secretary-of-state in selected swing, or battleground, states; these were states where the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election (between George W. Bush and John Kerry) had been 120,000 votes or less.1 One of the principal duties of the secretary of state is to serve as the chief election officer who certifies candidates as well as election results in his or her state.2 The holder of this office, then, can potentially play a key role in determining the winner of a close election.

SoSP's co-founders were Democracy Alliance member Michael Kieschnick (who also founded Working Assets and serves as a board member of the leftist evangelical group Sojourners); Becky Bond (who also has affiliations with Working Assets and the New Organizing Institute); and James Rucker (who co-founded Color of Change and formerly served as director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action).

The idea for SoSP germinated shortly after the 2004 election,3 when the Project's co-founders blamed then-Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, for presidential candidate John Kerry’s defeat. To their chagrin, Blackwell had ruled that Ohio (where George W. Bush won by a relatively slim 118,599-vote margin)4 would not count provisional ballots 5―even those submitted by properly registered voters―if they had been submitted at the wrong precincts. Though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ultimately upheld Blackwell’s decision, SoSP’s founding members nonetheless received Blackwell's ruling with the same bitterness they had felt regarding former Florida (Republican) secretary of state Katherine Harris’s handling of the infamous ballot recount in 2000, when Bush defeated Al Gore in the presidential election. According to political analyst Matthew Vadum, SoSP’s leaders and foot soldiers alike “religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 ... and in Ohio in 2004.”6

You don't have to be paranoid to suspect that the goal of a Democratic political operative trying to steal the identity of a Republican Secretary of State had something to do with destroying his reputation. Especially an operative who worked for a Chicago machine politician like Obama.

The Industry That Is Going Great Guns

2012-01-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

If you missed this January 18, 2012 Forbes article about the one industry that is growing by leaps and bounds, it's guns:

According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers looking to purchase a firearm were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) last December. That’s a record. In fact, nearly 500,000 of those background checks occurred during the six days before Christmas....

My favorite example of whistling past the graveyard is this:

Indeed, this prolonged surge in gun sales has driven Sarah Brady’s group to some very creative spin; for example, Caroline Brewer, of the Brady Campaign, said, “The research we’ve seen indicates fewer and fewer people are owning more and more guns.”

Oh yeah, that has to be it! I haven't bought a gun since 1994. Someone is buying them--and it is pretty obviously not just paranoid sorts who keep having to rent more storage facilities in which to store their thousands of guns.

One Of Those Signs of Cultural Victory

2012-01-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

An article about buying one's first handgun--in Elle magazine. When Marie Claire starts carrying these articles, progun groups can start shutting down, because there's no enemy left.