Rochester Rag JUN95
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ROCHESTER RAG June 1995

(formerly the _News from Detroit_)

Editorial:

Steve Langer sglanger@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Ultrix)
Standard disclaimers apply. In addition, the author makes no guarantees concerning the grammatical accuracy of his writing. Submitted text files must be in raw or compressed (.Z, .gz or PK Zip) ASCII. Image files must be in raw or compressed (see above) GIF89 (or older).

On last month's Fix;

the answer to last month's Fix,

  "Given that individual liberty and private militias must be eliminated to
assure peace in Amerika, what are the best means to purge them?"
is

The inverse Bill of Rights, presented at the end of last month's issue, is a good place to start, and indeed, progress is being made. FBI head Louis Freah and US Attorney General Jan Reno have cajoled Congress into crafting bills to ban PGP and all other software encryption methods. They'd prefer adoption of a chip based encryption scheme that the Feds would have the backdoor to. HR 1544, also presented last month, would make it a Federal offense to belong to private militias. Recent applications of environmental laws have shown that the supreme Court supports the Constitutionality of denying use of property to the owner without fair market compensation. And the people can no longer drive past the People's House, because the stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. that goes past the White House has been closed for the first time in the nation's history.

Progress is being made in the land of the free.

Last month a reader commented that he'd be proud of me if I could find it in myself to comment on examples of conservative lunacy. I responded that for that, all he needed to do was pick up any common news magazine. I have. >From the May 8, 1995 issue of Time:

Time continues its journalistic excellence in an article describing the background of suspect Timothy McVeigh's relatives,

Some of McVeigh's views are apparently shared by his younger sister, Jennifer, 21, who wrote a letter to the town paper last month raging about Waco. Authorities are now questioning Jennifer, a student at Niagra County Community College and a former barmaid at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Buffalo, New York, where women, dressed in shorts and a top, wrestle male customers in a vat of gelatin.

Somehow, Time reporter Nancy Harbert, neglected to mention what Jennifer's current job is. Perhaps the causal link between her current job and being a right wing fanatic is not as obvious as the known causal link between jello-wrestling and fanaticism. But then, neither was it obvious to those of us not in the media how a bombing justifies further gun control. But in a sidebar with the completely unbiased and unstigmatizing title of Psst! Calling All Paranoids, reporter Christine Gorman ends with the words of Bryn Mawr Psych Prof. Clark McCauley,

If you think these people are crazy, you have to ask yourself if there is anything the Federal govt. could do that would make you take up arms against it. If you answer no, then you're entitled to think these people are crazy. But if you say yes, you have to admit they are human beings, just like you."

On basic blasting physics;

Ok. I'll admit straight off that I'm not a demolitions expert, but as a physicist, thinking person, and one whose blasted some duck ponds with fertilizer for Duck's Unlimited, I have some questions:

On a New Computer;

You may notice that this issue appears a bit shorter than usual. This is due to a convulsive realignment in my computing environment. For the past 2 years, I was writing this rag on a DOS laptop. On June 6 I sold that machine and put through an order to SWT of Texas. For two weeks (gak) I had no machine of my own. Finally, this past Friday (June 24) my new machine arrived. It is a custom collection;

It is running both MS-DOS/Windows and Linux/X-Windows. In fact, it also has a DOS emulator under Linux, so I am writing this in DOS-EDIT while running another DOS window with a modem session to a UNIX machine in Detroit (and they said you can't multitask DOS!) and viewing the results of my edits under X-Window Netscape. Sure, people ask me why I didn't get a Mac. Well, when the Mac emulator for Linux is done, I'll have that on my X-Window desktop also. Sure, you could wait years for this capability from Apple or Microsoft and pay $1000's, or you could get it now, under Linux, for free. Me. I'll take Linux.

To further complicate my computing life, the university UNIX machine which I use to mail the Rag was upgraded to OSF/1 this month. This would have been fine, except the mailer which I use did not get taken along for the ride, hence none of my distribution lists worked. This has now (hopefully) been fixed and next month you should all have more notice for writing letters to the Ed.

On the pulse of the nation;

OK, the results of the Time (May 8, 1995) poll on right wing wackos.

  
Question                                        Yes             No
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Does the US govt. pose a threat to              52%             44%
your freedoms?

Should US govt. get more power to               33              61
investigate citizens ?

Did radio talk shows create an                  33              53
environment that led to bombing?

Are Militias                                                  
Dangerous?                                      80              11
Threat to your way of life?                     63              26
Crazy ?                                         55              33
Well intentioned?                               30              58
Patriots?                                       21              55

Should US govt. spy on                          68              26
militias?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
What can we conclude from this? Well, as usual, the average American is a bit hypocritical, not wanting increased surveillance if it may affect him,"But dang nabbit Martha, they better watch them weirdos." Sort of like Congress, "They're all asses except our guy. He's real good at bringing home the bacon. We better reelect him for a 32'nd term while we're voting for term limits."

On a Public Service Announcement;

For those of you who would like an inside the beltway newspaper that is not the Washington Post you can get the weekly edition of the Washington Times by calling

Subscription costs are $35 (six months), $60 (a year), and $80 (2 years).


Guest Editorial:

from the Detroit Free Press
Taxes are extortion for the good of the few
by Joeseph Sobran

If I still had a sense of humor, I might laugh at those radio ads that describe retired federal workers as deserving of their fat pensions because they have "served their country." Are we really supposed to believe that, say, garnishing checks for the IRS is a form of altruism akin to dying in the fight to repel an invading army?

Rep. James Traficant (D, OHIO), introduced a bill that would require the IRS to bear the burden of proof when it seizes assets from tax payers. He has this idea that Americans should get due process, as in France and Italy, where the govt. at least has to convict you before it can rob you. That's the sort of notion that gets into people's heads when they read the Bill of Rights.

Instantly a team of IRS agents leapt up to explain that such a law would require that the IRS become even more intrusive. But, if Traficant's bill had any support, it would strike a bigger blow for freedom than the entire Contract with America. Many things today would shock our ancestors, but few would appall thm as much as the spectacle of govt. turning its guns on its own citizens and deploying an army of tax agents to keep the entire population under financial surveillance. Every tax payer is a potential defendant if he is suspected of keeping too much of his own wealth.

What drives the system is that so many other citizens are not defendants, but dependants - relying on the Federal govt. for income that must be extorted from others. The IRS is the chief channel of redistribution. It's unjust to force one citizen to support another, and it's dangerous to give govt. the powers of compulsion that such a system requires. Believe it or not, this wasn't the original idea at all. James Madison assured everyone in Federalist Paper 45 that the federal govt. would be chiefly devoted to foriegn policy, treaties and war. The everyday job of running govt. would be left to the states, as under the Articles of Confederation.

The Federal govt. ceased being federal after the Civil War, when it occupied the South and began treating citizens as subjects. But is was 50 years later, under the income tax and Prohibition that by degrees, the entire country, not just the South, has come to be "occupied." Federal courts have upheld Federal power consistently. They may expand the definition of free speech to cover pornography, or interpret interstate commerce clauses to authorize more Federal intrusion, but you'll notice they don't expand the definition of "involuntary servitude" to cover the taxpayer. Nor do they interpret "due process" to mean a trial before seizing someone's assets.

In sum, the whole system has been converted into a conspiracy against the taxpayer. It operates for the benefit of the dependants, providing representation without taxation. The Federal govt. violates the principle of the "general welfare" in favor of special welfare for some and oppression of the rest.


Letters:

1. Texas Tom is concerned about my lack of fairness;
>From ApogeeTom@aol.com Thu May 25 14:13:15 1995

>Ed: Of course, Clinton neglects to mention that  Michigan Dem. Congressman
>John Dingell, who is also a lifetime member of the NRA, appeared in an NRA
>promo video in 1981. In the video, Dingell called the BATF, "jack booted
>storm troopers ...". Curiously, Dingell has not been labelled an unpatriotic,
>right wing, radical.

Stevie, I don't like how Clinton wishy-washy and often disagree with his
choices, but I don't think it's his job to retro-label everyone who's said
something like this within the last 15 years.  If some prominent person had
said a similar thing within the last year, maybe.  Only someone trying to
attack a statement by a leader they don't like would go back that far.  Like
someone had a database of stupid sayings by politicians and searched for the
string "jack boot".  I don't think that was remotely fair to say that.  In
fact, it was kind of silly. Clinton's a boob, but I don't expect him to
search history for "jack boot" sayings or government bashers.  I'm sure he
doesn't pick on a lot of Democrats (or possibly any), but he's picking on
comments now.  He wasn't President 14 years ago.

--Tom

P.S. Remind me about bitmaps later, when I'm moved in.
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 14:29:19 -0400
From: LANGER STEVEN C 
To: bchapman@ri-exp.beaumont.edu.dgersten@ri-exp.beaumont.edu.bsteiner@ri-exp.beaumont.edu.ltownsen@ri-exp.beaumont.edu,
        birkholz@midnight.com.rlanger@soliton.physics.arizona.edu.r-redman@nwu.edu.chem011@uabdpo.bitnet.usmar7d7@ibmmail.com.mdredman@midway.uchicago.edu.donahue.brian@mayo.edu,
        cescript@phy.mtu.edu.ronningen@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu.pfaff@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu.jjohnson@ppsa.com.karn@cebaf.gov.mcconville@msupa.msu.edu.rutt@runpmx.rutgers.edu.markowitz@cebaf.gov.scripter.,
        thorne@stat.ncsu.edu.apogeetom@aol.com.neef@cig.mot.com,
        wilken@phy.mtu.edu.al007@freenet.scri.fsu.edu.dgay@ricx.royal-institution.ac.uk.geza@earthvision.svsu.edu.jnottoli@mcimail.com.martin@ricx.ri.ac.uk.fpotts@mayo.edu



Ed: First off, I'd like to remind you that Clinton made his first tax increase retroactive to before he was President, so clearly, retroactivity per se does not bother him.

However, my point was not to beat up on Clinton (any 5'th grader could do that), but to once again point out the convenient memory lapses of the press. Look, Clinton gives a speech in the aftermath of an NRA ad which in turn came after the OK City bombing. NRA Veep Wayne Lapierre says there may be more bombings because the public is getting pissed about things like WACO where civilians are killed by "jack booted thugs" of the BATF. Wayne did not pick this phrase lightly. He used it because in a 1981 NRA promo video Dem. Dingell used the exact same phrase when he decried Reagan's use of BATF and DEA agents during the War on Drugs. I agreed with Dingle, then and now, that these Fed agents are out of control. But Bill sees a chance to make political hay at the expense of the gun lobby and says,

  "No one has a right to denigrate the law enforcement officers who put
their live's in harm's way, least of all radical right wing groups."

In the same speech Bill calls on the NRA to give back the money which was donated after the ad. Well gee, neglecting for a moment this trifling thing called the 1'st Amendment, does anyone recall the language used by Bill when he sent Jan Reno to investigate the LA cops who were aquitted in the Rodney King beating? Or does the phrase, "No one has the right ..." have a loophole for Dem Presidents?

The take home point is, when Dem Congressmen call Federal law enforcement working at the behest of Ronald Reagen "thugs", the media oblige with hour long news shows showing the impoundment of yachts for having a single marijauna seed on board. But let a group that is widely regarded as conservative dare use _exactly_ the same language against Fed agents working for a Dem Pres. and the media join Clinton in demanding more gun control to somehow save us from fertilizer.

Tom, in all seriousness, doesn't this hypocrisy scare you a little?

And it was only a year ago, not 15, when the Congress was debating hearings on Waco and Dingall again called the BATF "jack-booted storm troopers." I don't usually find myself agreeing with Dingall, but when the guy is right - he's right. Only conservatives who say the same thing are unpatriotic.

Ah well, perhaps the Press can be allowed one lapse. Ooh, but wait, didn't they also accuse G. Bush of creating those nasty videos of Willie Horton when Bush ran against Dukakis even though it was Al Gore who first created the spots during the Dem primary? And wasn't it Hillary and Donna Schalala who, as heads of the Children's Defense Fund, said that kids have the right to sue abusive parents for divorce and live in safe govt. controlled "homes", long before the Evil Gingrich mentioned orphanages? Ah well, one certainly cannot expect the media to have access to the gargantuan data bases which I have, me being a full time journalist and all.

Interesting though, how Jeff claims I have insufficient historical perspective, and you think I have too much. Darn, but you're a tough bunch to please.

2. Rooster from MSU, in the aftermath of last month's comment on the need for a police state, expresses his concern for my mental health;

>From MCCONVILLE@pa.msu.edu Thu May 25 12:33:49 1995

Steve,

Have you fallen and bumped your head recently?

Rooster

3. As another Public Service I'm posting this note for Los Alamos John in case I may reach some folks that he does not. I'm including the To: list for a convenient archive of msu email addresses.

>From jjohnson@ppsa.com Thu Jun 29 10:04:53 1995
To: jjohnson@godiva.nis6.Lanl.GOV, GBENNIS@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU,
        birkholz@midnight.com, sglanger@vela.acs.oakland.edu, debbie@aps.org,
        fauerbach@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu, gaff@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu,
        dgay@ricx.royal-institution.ac.uk, hill@bushbaby.alfred.edu,
        jeffers@msupa.pa.msu.edu, karn@cebaf.gov, kelley@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu,
        rlanger@soliton.physics.arizona.edu, lisa@csa5.lbl.gov,
        long@mps.ohio-state.edu, markowitz@cebaf.gov, mccann@msupa.pa.msu.edu,
        mcconville@msupa.pa.msu.edu, nelson@msupa.pa.msu.edu,
        pfaff@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu, ramak@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu,
        rutt@runpmx.rutgers.edu, cescript@phy.mtu.edu,
        steiner@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu, rls@uihepa.hep.uiuc.edu,
        70254.723@compuserve.com, yokoyama@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu,
        hendrije@cnsvax.uwec.edu, dorsey1@nrlfs1.nrl.navy.mil
From: jjohnson@ppsa.com (John Johnson (505)665-4054)
Subject: *** PPSA Update!!! ***

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PPPPP       PPPPP       SSSSSS    AAAAAAAAAAA
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=============================================

Hi there fellow PPSA'ers, God Emperors and Minor Deities!

I hope you get this message, because I haven't updated email
address in awhile. If this gets bounced to you at a new
address, please email me with your new one, even if you don't
have anything to say.

Well, it's been awhile since the last newsletter in print now.
This last Winter I decided to go electronic - after all, PPSA
should be a leader in new technologies and not wait around.
We have an official PPSA web site at: http://ppsa.lanl.gov/index.html
however this site may soon be moving. There are two reasons
for that, first off they will be putting up firewalls at LANL
one day soon... Second, I don't think I will have easy access
to a LANL account when I am LIVING IN A CARDBOARD BOX come this
December when my postdoc ends for good.

On that note, I'd like to hear from you guys. Have any luck in
finding jobs, postdocs? Changing careers in order to avoid the
bill collector? I want to find out for myself, and I'm sure
that everyone wants to know what you are up to. If it's not
all that positive, just let me know and I won't pass it on
to the rest of the world.

So if ANYTHING at all is happening, or if you are just curious
and haven't visited the web site yet... WRITE ME! Articles would
be great, and photos are encouraged. My own articles have been
a bit depressing and bitter lately, so if anyone has anything
mildly exciting or upbeat - we'd all like to hear it! I would
especially like addresses and info on LOST PPSA MEMBERS! If
you know anything about college friends that haven't been
heard from in awhile, or who have kept a low profile -- pass
it along to me!

I hope you are doing well, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Best wishes to you and your families for a great 4th of July!
(I'll try not to blow anything up this year!)

Take care,
John
---

---------------------------------------------------------------------
John D. Johnson 
Home: 505 Oppenheimer Drive #516, Los Alamos, NM 87544  800/863-7772
Work: Adv. Nuc. Tech., J562, LANL, Los Alamos, NM 87545 505/665-4054

Quotes(s) of the month:

 These United States needs one grand national Vigilance Commitee, composed
 of the body of the people, to watch over the govt. in Washington."

        - Walt Whitman, 1856 in the aftermath of a Vigilance Commitee
          taking over the corrupt San Francisco city govt.

Fix of the month:

Well, the obvious choice this month would be the Bosnian situation, but since we've already solved that problem last year (get the UN out and lift the unilateral arms embargo, if only Congress would pay attention to our prescience), I thought we'd address something truly important, to whit;

"If you were Clinton's campaign advisor for '96, how would you win? "


News:

Minnesota;

1. May 30: Here in Minnesota, the land of the soon to be banned evil musical ice cream truck, the land where the God fearing (or Atheists for that matter) cannot buy liquor on Sunday, the land where Sqauw Lake and Squaw River will be renamed in the interest of gender harmony, we are once again gearing up for the great fireworks border patrol. This is that clever game where Wisconsin troopers observe the parking lots of fireworks stores and radio the numbers of all Minnesota plates observed back to their buddies on the Minnesota side where even sparklers are verboten. Then, when those sneaky Minnesota smugglers cower back across 'ole Miss, the rightous fury of Minnesota's finest descend upon them them and confiscate the booty - no doubt selling it back to the Wisconsin peddlars and using the funds for worthy police charity work.

2. St Paul, June 20; The state courts have decided that someone who kill's a pregnant women can be sentenced to _consecutive_ life terms. In other words, to kill a fetus in the mother is considered murder. Hmmmm.

Michigan

1. Cold Water, June 26: A 37 year old biker father, upon learning of the molestation of his stepdaughter, took justice into his own hands. Driving to the home of the 27 year old molester, another biker, the father offered the man three choices; The molester opted for the bullets. The father, who is now on trial, has put out an appeal to fellow motorcycle enthusiests to help pay his legal fees and has raised over $100K.

Washington State;

1. Redmond, June 23: Microsoft Chair Bill Gates again has earned the angst of users who have read (in MacWorld) about a new feature that will come with Windows 95. The feature, called Registration Wizard, will make a survey of a user's hard disk, compiling info on all resident applications and download this info to Microsoft marketing when the user tries to use Microsoft's 30 day free trial internet service. Gates has reported that he doesn't understand the brouhaha, since the Wizard can be over-ridden.

Ed: And didn't you want to spend more on your long distance bill to help Gates anyway?

Wash D.C.;

1. June 26: In a move that suprises no true student of the Court, the supreme court yesterday upheld the "right" of high schools to have random drug tests of student athletes, thus denying them the 5'th amendment right of "... protection against unreasonable search and seisure." The Court felt that since athletes already exist in an atmosphere of communal nudity, privacy arguments are specious. Furthermore, Justice Scalia opined that since children by definition have not reached the age of majority, they do not posess full citizen's rights.

Net News;

1. Arizona Matt forwards some info.
>From birkholz@primenet.com Thu Jun  8 05:28:16 1995

From: "Guillermo J. Rozas" 

>From the San Jose Mercury News, Monday June 5th, 1995
>From an opinion column titled "Elderly are big winners in tax
>benefits", by Timothy Taylor, an economics consultant to the Mercury
>News editorial board.


Generational Accounts

The table shows lifetime "net taxes" for people of different ages in
1993.

Positive numbers indicate that more taxes will be paid than benefits
received; negatives indicate that more benefits will be received than
taxes paid.

Age in 1993          Men           Women

0                 $87000          $53000
10               $130000          $77000
20               $189000         $109000
30               $195000         $109000        [ Of course, at the top ]
40               $158000          $76000
50                $68000               0
60               -$57000        -$101000
70              -$108000        -$140000
80               -$86000        -$111000
90               -$68000         -$65000


Selected paragraphs from the article:

"In fact, the findings of generational acconting are so provocative
that the Clinton administration suddenly decided this year not to
publish generationa accounts as part of the budget, even though they
had appeared in the special appendices of the budget during the last
three years."

...

"One response to such striking figures is to quarrel with the
calculations.  After all, questions can always be raised about the
assumptions behind long-term projections.

But the three economists most responsible for generational accounting
-- Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Jagadeesh Gokhale of
the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and Laurence Kotlikoff of
Boston University -- have spent years refining these projections and
responding to criticisms.  Under any plausible assumptions, an
enormous generational imbalance remains."

[Of course, without seeing the assumptions and alternate
computations, this cannot really dispel criticisms and doubts. -- GJR]

...

"As a matter of arithmetic, the current level of taxes simply will not
collect enough money to cover health and retirement benefits that have
been promised.  Our society has overpromised what it can afford to
provide to its elderly in the future.  Something will have to give."

Last Updated 05/29/95.© 1996 PPSA Consulting
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