The letter that won't die.

An "open letter" writer apparently named "Jim" has lifted this, directly or indirectly, from a letter Kent Ashcroft actually wrote to Dr. Laura (ca 2000), which has been passed around and copied -- and sometimes claimed as columnists' own words -- for many years.

The spiel was countered last year by Des Moines radio talk show host Jan Mickelson.

Iowa's Steve King moves to block California law

I'm trying to figure out how Rep. Steve King (R-Ia) rationalizes his position that Congress ought to stop California from setting higher standards for eggs sold in its state -- flying in the face of the idea that states' sovereign rights are to be preserved. It's the strangest thing.

Well, California, acting well within its rights, enacted Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act of 2008, which requires that certain farm animals, such as chickens, have room enough to stand, lie, turn and extend their limbs, that eggs sold in California are produced in this manner. Not all chickens, just hens, and I'm sure there are exemptions. California's not telling other states how treat hens, just to keep your stinking, tear-stained eggs out of California.

The concept is really no different than how the US tells foreign manufacturers how they may not treat their factory workers if they wish to sell their goods in this country. Retailers largely support and pursue these standards because their customers demand it -- that the clothes they wear are not made by slave labor, for instance.

It's a moral issue to many. But apparently not for all Republicans.

Congressman King was behind this proposed measure in the farm bill that would have prevented California from making rules for itself, claiming that state "exceeded its authority and interfered with Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce."

I don't see it. Sure, the fed can set minimum food safety and anti-cruelty rules, but it can't tell a state it can't have more stringent rules. Congress can facilitate some uniformity in how interstate business is conducted, but it can't force unwanted products upon a state, particularly those produced to a lower quality standard or that proliferate suffering.

I wouldn't blame anyone for being disappointed that California made it harder to do business there. I know there are retailers in that state that opposed Prop 2 because it might make it more costly to treat farm animals better. It's completely fair and reasonable to hold a differing view. But no one is forcing Iowa producers to sell their eggs in California -- or even to come up to those standards. As always, sell your eggs to any willing buyers; it's free enterprise.

No worries though. King is defeated. The farm bill is dead.

Please learn how to shoot video

One of my biggest disappointments is watching a video I was lured into by a very interesting topic, but then annoyed by serious deficiencies in content, composure and quality. Please seek and accept a few pointers.

Stop zooming! You destroy the context and framing of your shot when you zoom in and out, not to mention drive your audience nuts!

Be smooth! You can't walk your camera around a subject with shaky hands and swift motions without making at least a few people nauseous.

Fix your audio! Cheap, crumby camcorders in the hands of competition shooters are acceptable because they get audo. Bad audio ruins video always. It's too faint, competes with background noise, it's overtaken by a music bed or otherwise muddy or shrill. You'll do better when you treat the internal camcorder microphone as a...that's right, microphone! That usually means the camcorder has to be within a foot or two of the subject in order for it to be effective.

Please by a cheap tripod! 90% of the amateur mistakes you could make will be masked if you drop the camcorder on a stable platform, frame the shot, and leave it alone! A bean bag on a dining room table or fireplace mantle is a good alternative to a tripod.

Did I mention background music? Please don't add it! You could have an amazing, killer video, but the second you choose a music bed, you seriously reduce your potential audience. It's fine in your bedroom or on your iPod headphones, but everyone else isn't crazy about it. I've never heard of most of the groups that put out rubbish, but for reasons unknown the producer of the bicycle video I recently saw thought it necessary to toss in some acid-punk-rap at 150% volume that made my ears bleed! I love bikes. I hated the music! If you want to limit channel subscriptions, then go ahead and keep slapping your favorite acid-punk-rap numbers on your videos. But know people will be clicking the 'X.'

Edit! The cheapest editing suite known to man is Windows Movie Maker. It has the ability to cut out boring scenes. Please use it! One of the most meaningless phrases known to man is, "next what we're gonna do is we're gonna..." Leave that out. Also, "...and I'm gonna pause it here and show you (whatever)...okay we're back with the..." Yeah, that's not exactly instrumental to your story. Delete.

Transitions. No! Just no! Just because your editing suite has a number of cool-seeming transitions doesn't mean you have to experiment with them all. A simple cut is perfect for almost all scene transitions and a basic crossfade will almost always be adequate between topic changes. Blocks, page turns, diamonds, curtains and nearly every other style of wipe is for amateurs trying to be cute. It takes away from the subject matter in a very obnoxious way and should not be used unless you truly understand video story telling and mood crafting.

Buy a mic. Understand audio is 80% of the art of shooting video. This could have been the first bit of advice, but it's so often not a an option for modern, of-the-shelf consumer camcorders that it's barely worth mentioning. But if your camcorder has an external mic input, or your video editing suite permits you to replace the camcorder's audio, then please consider using one of those options. The typical camcorder has the most horrible-sounding audio, so in almost every situation, it's better to find an alternate means of recording audio.

Hold still, for crying out loud! If you have to "run & gun," that is to shoot from the hip or in handheld mode, as opposed to shooting from a tripod or other stable platform, then please tuck your elbows in, find the shot quickly, and finally...hold that shot!

Does any of this help? I hope so. There's so much more to tell about shooting video, but heeding the advice you've just read will dramatically improve your chances of escaping notice by those who are happy with the ominous thumbs-down and the beloved composure hecklers.

Happy YouTubing!

Christian group: Think you might be gay? Stay out of the Boy Scouts!

A group sponsored by the out-of-state National Christian Foundation of Tampa, Florida held a rally in Des Moines Friday in an effort to convince Iowa BSA delegates to vote to deny youth who think they might be gay from joining the religious organization. The ban on openly gay scout leaders will not be affected by the organizational referendum.

Demonstrators for N.C.F. held placards in front of news cameras that read, "NO ON THE RESOLUTION - OnMyHonor.net."

First of all, it's an ugly notion that a personal development group for American youth would ostracize and categorically oust one of its 8-year-old members after admitting to a mentor that he thinks he might be gay. How the hell does that work and how can it be rationalized?

Fortunately Channel 13 was on the ground sniffing out the truth. They inform us that the Boy Scouts of America will be voting next week on whether to maintain the ban and produced an unnamed spokesperson for N.C.F. (possibly Scott Russell), who said, "Unfortunately I don't want my troop turning into a battle ground for the gay agenda. I'd just as soon to keep sex and politics out of boy scouts."

It's absurd that a professional religious activist whose actions scream classic politics says he wants to keep sex and politics out of scouting when sadly he thinks people are stupid enough to accept his bigoted reduction of the issue, that if local scout leaders vote yes, they'll somehow be condoning tent sex parties among little boys.

B.S.A. Mid-Iowa Council spokesperson Bob Hopper was less radical: "We have a set of ethics that we try to hold up to all of our members and we're going to keep focused on that. Um. But it's a real sensitive topic, and-uh, from all the perspectives, and we're going to do the best we can."

Let's hope "ethics" isn't Hopper's code word for anti-gay, that he does in fact support youth development without regard for a child's personal sexual orientation.

The story also cited famed Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout who founded Scouts for Equality, saying simply that "discrimination has no place in scouting." A supporting graphic showed that Wahl's group has the support of 6,821 openly gay Eagle scouts and has obtained 1,815,304 signatures on a petition in support of the policy change.

While the domain ONMYHONOR.NET is registered anonymously, the website states; "Donate to The OnMyHonor.Net Fund!...mail your donation to OnMyHonor.net c/o National Christian Foundation, PO Box 22774, Tampa, FL 33622"

It's more than a little unsettling that a religious fundamentalist mob out of Tampa, Florida adorns the ubiquitous scout uniform, buses radical members to Iowa and pretends to speak for our scouting organizations -- and creates an illusion that sexual deviance is sure to result if we don't go along with their sick, twisted hate agenda.

As we now know, the far greater threat is scout leaders who regard raping little boys at the Jamboree an annual sport.

Digitus Impudicus: is flipping the bird illegal?

I recently read a federal appeals court ruling that says cops can't stop people for merely giving them the finger. That would make Roger Roots, author of Are Cops Constitutional, proud.

The case begins in May of 2006, when a man and his wife were visiting their daughter in Johnsonville, NY and came across a police cruiser running radar. Demonstrating his displeasure, John Swartz flipped-off the cop as the couple drove past.

Piqued by this insulting gesture, officer Richard Insogna took off after the offending motorists. Long story short, he arrested Mr. Swartz for disorderly conduct. While that charge was eventually dropped, there were several court appearances, legal expenses and inconveniences associated with the charges.

Swartz filed suit in district court seeking damages for illegal seizure, a disorderly conduct arrest and an alleged malicious prosecution, but his lawsuit was dismissed on grounds that cops are protected from civil actions based on qualified immunity.

But that's not the end of the story. On appeal, a federal judge wrote...

This ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity. Surely no passenger planning some wrongful conduct toward another occupant of an automobile would call attention to himself by giving the finger to a police officer. And if there might be an automobile passenger somewhere who will give the finger to a police officer as an ill-advised signal for help, it is far more consistent with all citizens’ protection against improper police apprehension to leave that highly unlikely signal without a response than to lend judicial approval to the stopping of every vehicle from which a passenger makes that gesture.

The whole decision is here.

The court partly used Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law by Ira Robbins, whose abstract is here.

God and politics

I don't look to religion to measure a candidate’s worthiness. I could get behind someone who proposes, supports and defends public policies that respect the well-being of the people – someone who respects Constitutional principles like freedom and liberty – without regard to their faithful viewpoint.

I trust no government, or candidate for an office thereto, to have a hand in the implementation of policy that would define or regulate my marriage. I believe in giving women and men control over their own reproductive systems, unencumbered by government’s meddling.

As a military man, I defend your right to form private or exclusive organizations that promote various ideologies among its members under the guise of some faith, so long as it doesn't impose restrictions or injury upon those who don’t share their worldview.

I've got my viewpoint. You've got yours. Can we agree that government is not an institution that could appreciate or care about either? I would prefer you help the rest of us keep government out of our way.

It’s very problematic for many thinking people to accept that there’s a prime mover that not only created the world in which we live, but all its inhabitants, and one who also knows us personally, cares about us, and is concerned with the positions in which we have sex, and have our genitals carved.

If the scripture to which you refer is truly divine, then one would hope it would have something more useful and advanced to say than, “Don’t touch dead pigs;” any educated person of the first century could have extolled such wisdom.

Ghost printing

My printer inexplicably generated a paper airline boarding pass bearing my name for a flight I didn't book. I immediately checked my bank account online for any charges that might be related to that purchase, but I found none. I called the police, the airline and my bank to investigate this potential fraud. I had all working feverishly on this most alarming matter.



Long story short: the email address associated with my HP printer's ePrint account is apparently similar to that of another person sharing my name, who evidently inadvertently gave the airline my ePrint email address. United then emailed his boarding pass to the address given, which was then received and processed by my printer, handily, albeit mysteriously, producing a paper boarding pass that landed on the printer receiving tray.

Longer version.

I called United Airlines. After sitting in a queue for nearly 40 minutes and after ascertaining identifying information from me, they confirmed that the person who booked the flight was not me, and that the boarding pass was sent to me by mistake and therefore didn't indicate fraud. They couldn't explain how my printer was involved, which still had me quite concerned.

I called my bank. Not knowing amount or date of a transaction, my bank was not able to immediately find any record of a transaction that might be attributed to the purchase of an airline ticket under my name, fraudulently or otherwise.

I then turned to my printer setup pages. as I discovered there is an "ePrint" feature which sends documents to my printer via email. The email address associated with my ePrint service bears my name. I had forgotten I set this up this account and feature when I installed the printer.

It is now conceivable to me that another person with my name also owns this style printer and the ability to send documents to it. It is plausible that the email address associated with his ePrint service is similar to mine. In fact, on inspection, my ePrint log revealed that an email bearing the subject "Boarding pass for confirmation xxxxxx" was sent from unitedairlines@united.com to my printer around the time the boarding pass began printing.

I have since restricted received ePrint emails to reject all but those addresses I have supplied. There will be no more mysterious boarding passes landing in my receiving tray unless a hacker manages to make that happen.

Drone warfare for dummies

Drone technology is shrinking, which should terrify you. More so even than the small aircraft we've been seeing on the news.

When the technology is so easily available to hobbyists, then organizations and individuals can handily eliminate their threats without personal risk, we have a problem. When thew can overwhelm you, there's literally no defense; no guns or toxins will stop them.

Today's hobby style RC (radio-controlled) planes, tricopters and quadcopters are capable of delivering payloads of insect-sized microdrones in significant numbers. And the term radio-controlled is an enigma, really, because these drones can easily be made autonomous using cheap programmable computer modules and sensors. Arduino is one. See how cheap.

Others are developing rather fast, like the newer Hobbyking KK2.0 Multi-rotor LCD Flight Control Board. Think of it as advanced avionics capabilities for electronics novices.

Armed with one of these inexpensive controllers, you command your aircraft with a list of if/then statements based on specific states of sensors, commanding a swarm of tiny-but-deadly attack robots.

These little buggers are smart, too. Every control surface can be pre-programmed to adjust its course, just like their full-sized counterparts with autopilot. And the computer chips inside keep track of the same kinds of information good pilots do, such as:

• Location
• Air speed
• Bearing
• Altitude & attitude

Also conditions like:

• Wind speed & direction
• Temperature
• Humidity
• Barometric pressure

You can now send your drone on pre-programmed mission. Imagine telling yours to go to coordinates x and y at an altitude of z and energize switch n. Basic instructions like that might send the drone to an elementary school playground during recess and release poisonous gas.

I was enjoying watching Iowa radio talkshow host Simon Conway and Iowa Dept. of Education director Jason Glass go at it this afternoon in a Twitter war.

@simonradio1776 dude, switch to decaf & stop being a goon. I don't think there is a need to question my patriotism or knwldge of country.

— Jason E. Glass (@jasonglassIA) January 31, 2013

Formed by the framers as a republic in which only 6% of the population were allowed to vote, the United States has taken on some democratic attributes over the years. It might be said that we have a democratic republic, or even an indirect democracy, but at its foundation the country is in fact a republic, with at least some protection against the tyranny of the majority.

But this is not the amusing part of the story. How does the state representative on education look when he addresses a member of the media as "dude" and calls him a "goon" on Twitter?

Is Subway shorting customers?

I find recent news reports on the lawsuits being filed against Subway for selling shorter-than-12-inch subs curious.

Why are people concerned with the actual length, which to me seems somewhat arbitrary? What if I promised you a foot of gold but delivered on 11? How much does an inch of gold weigh?

How much less sandwich are people receiving in an eleven-inch sub compared to a 12" sandwich? I imagine it matters whether you judge strictly by length, as opposed to volume or weight. For my money, I'd rather use the weight of the various parts, bun and contents, to determine the answer.

Length can be affected by shape or density of the bun without affecting weight, assuming strict adherence to portion control of the dough is maintained.

If I were asked to decide the damages, I would demand to know what criteria the plaintiff values and at what rate. I might also ascertain whether the plaintiff bothered measuring depth and width, because those dimensions could make up for any loss in length.

Christopher Hitchens disproves religion in less than ten minutes

Atheists state that it may not be said that there is no god, but that it may be said that there is no reason to think there is one. It is an extraordinary claim which would, under reasonable circumstances, require extraordinary evidence, according to author and noted atheist Christopher Hitchens.

He says deists Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Payne and Albert Einstein may wish not to abandon the idea that there must be some cause for the universe. Even if you can get yourself to that position, which unbelievers maintain is always subject to better and more elegant explanations, all your work is still ahead of you.

If you advance from deist to theist, you must believe god cares about you, knows who you are, minds what you do, answers your prayers, cares which bits of your penis or clitoris you saw away or have sawn away for you, minds who you go to bed with and in what way, minds what holy days you observe, minds what you eat, minds what positions you use for pleasure, all your work is still ahead of you – and lots of luck.

There's no one who can move from the first position to the second.

This is a totalitarian belief; a wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority that can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who must subject you to total surveillance, around the clock, every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born, and even worse – and this is where the real fun begins – after your death.

It’s a celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate?  North Korea has a dead man as its president. It's a necrosity. It's the most heartless tyranny the human species has thought of, but at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea.

It attacks us at our deepest intellect and integrity. It means that we could not arrive at a right action without celestial, divine permission. We would not know right from wrong if we did not have heaven’s permission to do so. Our acute awareness of what is fair and unfair comes to us as a gift from the great unassailable dictator.

Religion is our first attempt as a species to explain the universe. It’s what we tried when we didn't know anything. We didn't know we lived on a spherical planet that revolved around the sun. We didn't know there were micro-organisms that would explain disease. We thought diseases came from curses or witches or ill-wishing devils.  It's also our first attempt at philosophy and morality; our first attempt at health care.

But because it is our first, it is our worst. We now have better explanations for all these dreads. And we have cleared up all these mysteries. Yet we still dwell.  And in some countries live in a totalitarian regime that forbids us from thinking about the progress that has been made and denies us the knowledge that these advances have in fact occurred.

Where once it probably was an aid to our survival, it is a great peril to our continued civilized species.

It relies on the supernatural more than the much more miraculous, much more beautiful, much more elegant, much more harmonious universe. You cannot compare Darwin and Einstein to the burning bush or to the idea that there can be no redemption without the mutilation of genitalia.

This is what you have to believe if you're a monotheist, and do so in the face of all we know now that we didn't before.

The human race is estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 years old. Let's say 100,000 for argument’s sake. For much of 100,000 years the life expectancy was maybe 25 years.  Infant mortality was rife; micro-organism disease was terrifying. Earthquakes and volcanoes would have been seen as extraordinary forces. There would have been great fights over land, territory, women, food, water and tribalism.

For 95-96,000 years heaven watches this with folded arms, with indifference, with coldness. And then around 3-4,000 years ago, but only in really barbaric, literate parts of the Middle East – not in China or where people can read or think or do science, no, no, no – in barbaric, illiterate, backwoods parts of the Middle East, it decided we can't let this go on. We better intervene.  And what better way than by human sacrifices and plagues and mass murder. And if that doesn't make them behave morally, we just don't know what does.

If there are any people that can still bring themselves to believe anything remotely like that, they convict themselves first of being very stupid, and second, immoral.

At last the case for divine intervention of the supernatural has fallen, Hitchens concludes, and we should be glad that it has fallen.


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