The blog combining two passions most people could give a rat's ass about.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Art Challenge 1

On the comic fury boards there is an art challenge thread that I've decided to participate in. I'm a little behind so I'll post twice a week until caught up
Challenge One: The Masquerade Ball
- Draw your characters in formal attire fit for their world. Masks optional.

This is Flynn from Crawlers. Wearing the same kind of flowy garment the living king wears. It wasn't a huge stretch for design but I did stretch myself by painting it in Art Weaver instead of Gimp. 

Friday, December 30, 2011

Breaking the law for the right reasons

This is one of those things I was surprised I haven't written about it before. Torture isn't on the front page right now, but this speaks to something bigger.

When is it right to break the law?

I can think of a lot of scenerios where I would root for a law breaker. But my personal feelings should not be the  basis for when to apply the "rule of law". Oh now I need to explain that...
"The Rule of Law" is the idea that we must enforce the law even if it is wrong because once we stop enforcing the law it will be anarchy. I would agree but most of the time the phrase is being used selectively. Law enforcement tends to focus on petty infractions of the masses instead of reigning abuses of power. Republican politicians care an awful lot about the rule of law when it comes to immigration but not on torture or due process.
Let's focus on torture because it is something I have a different opinion on than most.
My grandfather was in WWII and he successfully tortured a man while other soldiers were having Germans surrender to them because we don't torture. I'm not sure what my grandfather did but he felt badly about it late into his life.
As I remember the story the position of my grandfather's camp kept being discovered after they would move (My grandfather was a grunt but because he spoke Polish a lot of his stories have an intelligence aspect). The unit captured a German and learned by torturing him that the British soldiers were giving away the position of the camp because they were breaking the no fire rule to make tea. They made a new rule to shoot at fire even if it was from within the camp.
My take on this story isn't that torture works. I think it worked because the prisoner thought my grandfather was crazy. You've heard of good cop bad cop? American soldiers had a reputation for being good so it must have freaked this guy out to be treated like that. Black was white, water was dry...an American tortured was torturing him.
Does this mean I support torture as long as it isn't "Official Policy"? Absolutely not. When the law is enforced with a nudge and a wink word gets out pretty quickly, especially today. It doesn't matter whether torture CAN work or not. We need to prosecute it.
We think of our soldiers, police, and firemen as heroes because they are willing to sacrifice their lives for the rest of us but it is unthinkable that they should go to jail. As a society we must prosecute law breakers, even when we agree with them.
If you are so sure torturing someone will stop a terrorist plot- be ready to go to jail for it. It's a risk-benefit calculation you'll have to make just like many Occupy protesters have made. And most notably Bradly Manning.
Manning is the soldier thought to have been behind a Wikileak. The leaked information included video of US soldiers firing at journalists in Iraq. This information was clearly leaked because it's wrong. And the person behind it felt strongly enough about it to risk his/her career and worse.
Manning has definitely faced the worse. He hasn't had a trial. He's kept in isolation and basically being treated like a terror suspect in Gitmo. This is where ignoring the rule of law gets you. The government breaking the law but in such small increments that it just becomes normal.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Atlas Shrugged

Shortly after high school two of my oldest friends were all about Ayn Rand in much the same way they were excited about Marx a few years before. Meaning it didn't last long. It was long enough that I read a couple of her books but I never got around to her most well known works The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged. The latter is now a movie which I was able to pick up for free thanks to all these Red Box codes I have.

First as a movie I can sum it up in two words: Kinda Cheesy. The acting is wooden and the main character is a sort of Mary Sue, named Dagny. The plot is more like a water cooler joke than a plot twist. And the source material is obviously old because it doesn't seem to recognize innovations of the past fifty something years. Basically all I liked was the cinematography.

As a darling of conservative literature, in fact, a bible to some. I get it.  There is nothing elusive about the point Atlas Shrugged is pretty clear. If you know a little bit about Rand it is more extreme than you might think. Rand believes in the virtue of selfishness. There is some sense to this, it must be the prerogative of a business to make money. Steve Jobs wanted to have factories in the US but he couldn't figure out how to make money doing it.
Where I branch from conservatives is the counterpoint to the film. The villian of the movie is government regulation that attempts to make everything "fair". But it's just as easy to walk away with the lesson that it is corporate influence of government which is evil, because all the regulations that strangle these companies are passed because of one company trying to snuff out it's competition instead of innovating.
Ayn Rand is a guilty pleasure for many of her fans. The philosophy that rich people are our "heroes" because they are ruthless is a hard one to be sympathetic with because in arguing that everyone at the top is smarter and works harder there is a heavy implication that those who have not succeeded are lazy and stupid. I haven't read the book so I don't know how heavily it's implied,  but there's more.
 Social Conservatives would probably not be big fans of Atlas Shrugged as a philosophy lesson. A married man having an affair is something that happens in both literature and life. But when it happens in Atlas Shrugged it is Rand's ham handed philosophy at work. The virtue of selfishness extends even to interpersonal relationships in Rand's eyes and an affair is perfectly legitimate (Unless it's Rand's lover with a younger prettier woman from what I understand).
And finally history is against Atlas Shrugged. Published in 1957 Atlas Shrugged has had the problem of technology surpassing it. The plot revolves around a metal that is ten times lighter and stronger than steel. We have those metals now and they were developed by the government that Rand's followers constantly put down. As I've said before, most of the innovations our economy are based on came from tax payer money.

It isn't that Rand fails as a philosopher, she's given us an interesting perspective on the world, and that is all we should expect of her. The problem is when philosophers gain acolytes, who take the philosophy too literally. Yes there are pragmatic benefits to being selfish. But there are also consequences. That is why the government is supposed to administer justice. So business people can push the envelope and Feds can reign them in. The problem we face now is that the people haven't reigned in the government. Selfishness of the government is tyranny.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Who are the 1%

Besides the fact that "We are the 99%" is fairly vague, there are people invested in twisting the meaning (many of them are our elected officials). The most heinous example is the meme that 1% of citizens join the armed forces. It became obvious that the Occupy Movement isn't an anti-military movement when shortly after the meme came out a marine was nearly killed by Oakland PD.
Who are the 1% being protested against then? Technically it's the people making  $380,354 or more a year. But in practical terms 95% of that top percent are not the problem. The Occupy movement is a direct response to the Citizens United ruling, so it isn't the fact that people make too much money. The Occupy movement is against using big piles of money to manipulate the political system. Only .05% do this so "We are the 99%" is a misnomer.
If rich people stuck to buying yachts and creating jobs there wouldn't be any beef with them. Think about that image in your mind of an Occupier. Does s/he have a hacky sack and a drum? What would they do with more money? This is clearly not a jealousy thing.
Seriously though the people being protested against are the aggressors. They have taken more than their fair share and fix the game so no one else can play. And they are in defensible. Most of the people we are talking about are not job creators. They are speculators. It is not healthy for the economy to create incentives to be part of this group because their wealth is the most susceptible to bubbles.
The 1% was hardest hit by the recession because their wealth is mostly smoke and mirrors. Their investments are numbers games without substance. When the bottom fell out of the economy many of them were underwater like any other american. Banks have more private jets and yachts to repossess than they know what to do with.
And that is the cost to the 99%. When a rich person fails the bank doesn't even want to deal with their property. Either they have lawyers that keep the assets tied up or the ticket price is so high that the bank doesn't want to bother trying to find a buyer for the liquidation (because they're unwilling to sell it for the amount it's actually worth without hurting the value of neighboring properties). So the banks recoup their loss by going after the middle class or what little the lower class have.
It's class warfare because the 99% are tired of having the bad decisions of the .05% being taken out on them.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Constitutional Challenge: the war on drugs

My wife has been watching Breaking Bad and there is a scene where the main character Walter is talking to his brother about Cuban cigars and how arbitrary the line is between legal and illegal. For some reason this scene threw some fuel to my passion against the war on drugs.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how a legal challenge to the drug war would go (because it's remotely possible that I will not be elected to congress). This may seem like an unlikely way to attack the war on drugs but people forget how much change Ralph Nader made as a citizen with a pack of like minded lawyers.
This is the approach I would take if I had a pack of like minded lawyers who would know if I am actually on to something here or not.
For the sake of the article I am only arguing for the legalization of marijuana because it clearly doesn't pose any public health risk outside of the fact that it is illegal/controlled by criminals. If precedence is set legalizing other substances can also be tested in court.

Amendment 21 - Amendment 18 Repealed. 
1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

A while ago I had the idea that the 21st amendment should be applied to the war on drugs. But when I reread it I realized that it doesn't repeal prohibition as I remembered, it repealed the 18th amendment.

Amendment 18 - Liquor Abolished. 
1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Looking at the 18th amendment it is clearly Abolishing alcohol. I fail to see how I could make a convincing argument that it also should also apply to the prohibition of marijuana. But then I realized the argument shouldn't be made on the 21st amendment but on the existence of the 18th

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I was always told in Social Studies that the 21st amendment is the only amendment to overturn another, but it could be argued that the reason for the 18th amendment was passed to allow an exclusion to the limit of federal powers placed by the the 10th amendment. If prohibition was allowed by the exception of interstate commerce than why was it passed as an amendment?

If this ruling was passed in favor of my argument this would set drug policy back down to state level.  Or that is my non lawyer understanding of it.

Friday, December 16, 2011

National Debt

I wasn't sure how to open a comic about National Debt to people who are not really into politics. I've been stuck on it for a very long time and I finally decided just to write what I was feeling the one day and hope it resonates as on topic http://www.nilvsdcbs.com/nationaldebt.html

Monday, December 12, 2011

Arrrrr de media

As someone who has wanted to be a comic artist for their entire life, I know a thing or two about copyright law and intellectual property. So I was a little infuriated when I received this e-mail


Dear Mr. Ladendorf,
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns regarding S. 968, Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act and H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act.  I sincerely appreciate the benefit of your views.
S. 968, and its House companion bill H.R. 3261, would allow the Attorney General to bring additional judicial remedies against websites dedicated to intellectual property right infringement.  It would enable the Department of Homeland Security to share information which would facilitate the prosecution of copyright infringers existing outside the United States or which cannot be located.  The measure would also grant limited immunity to victims of property right infringement to take preventative actions against infringing entities, such as denying them access to services.  I will closely monitor this bill as it moves through the legislative process and in that context your views are very helpful.
I am a strong believer in protecting property rights, including intellectual property rights.  The internet has unfortunately made it easier for certain types of intellectual property to be stolen by persons in jurisdictions outside the reach of American law enforcement.  I also have concerns about the proliferation of criminal conduct on the internet, including internet viruses which can steal information or damage equipment.  However, I want to stress that I am very sensitive to concerns about personal privacy, especially when the entity invading a person's privacy is the government.  We should uphold the law, but I do not want to impose unforeseen burdens on the internet which could stifle the growth of the internet medium.
Again, thank you for contacting me on this important issue.  Hearing the views of all Missourians gives me the opportunity to better understand how important issues could impact the people of the Seventh district and the future interests of the nation.
For additional information regarding current legislation and my representation of the Seventh District, I invite you to visit my website at http://www.long.house.gov, and to receive my monthly newsletter, you can sign up on mywebsite.


Sincerely, Billy LongMember of Congress


This stance by Mr. Long is predictable because of his consistant genuflecting toward big business. This letter is misguided and misleading. This law does not protect business it gives them a nuclear option. Here are a list of my concerns


- The piracy threat is over stated. The music industry and others site how much they've lost to piracy based on how much material is being downloaded- not considering once that the people downloading media for free would have never paid for the media in the first place. Someone with a hundred thousand songs on their computer is unlikely to have bought 100,000 albums. And frankly the reason iTunes has done so well is because it's reasonably priced. The music industry has been ripping off the public for a long time and a very little portion of the price of an album goes to the artist.


-Intellectual property law insists on aggressive defense of property or it will fall into public domain. Because of how powerful SOPA is, it could very well FORCE BUSINESSES TO ATTACK THEIR CUSTOMERS who want to express their love for Properties by creating fan works.


-This letter's claim that SOPA would "allow the Attorney General to bring additional judicial remedies against websites dedicated to intellectual property right infringement" doesn't seem to be true. It seems like it will be used (or FORCE BUSINESSES to be used) to shut down sites dedicated to user content. The language of the bill is so broad it could shut down youtube because there are too many cover songs on it.

-Intellectual copyright law is used in a one sided manner. Companies that are built around media tend to misinform the public about what rights they have. An example is blurred out t-shirt logos on documentaries. That is fair use there is no reason to do it but film makers are so afraid of being sued it doesn't matter that they are actually PROTECTED by intellectual rights laws. 
SOPA is frightening if you consider the way it is likely to be administered. Through search engines. How many people are going to face prosecution or have their business shut down because someone saw their image posted on a website without taking the time to see the context? If I'm writing a review of a book I am legally allowed to use the cover image because I am using it to create a new work.
There was a case famous in the comic community where a PARODY of the Starbucks logo was featured in a comic book that included the words "Corporate Whore". Starbucks sued and now the creator of the comic book is not allowed to make ANY LOGO THAT CONTAINS BOTH A CIRCLE AND A TRIANGLE.
That is not justice. That is abuse of power and it goes one every day. I can not go into a Kinkos and make copies of an image from a book even though by law I can make up to six copies. 100 if it's for teaching material.


-Lastly, from my understanding, SOPA is another attack on Habeus Corpus. The language I have seen implies that the Attorney General and Homeland Security have all these new powers without the requiring a trial first. The government can shut down someone's source of income without due process.
This will kill smaller media companies who don't have as much influence and will fall prey to the bigger companies who can afford a team of lawyers that specialize in using the government as a weapon as a way to kill their competition in the crib. Before they become real competition.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Why aren't Debates done in brackets?

On the news that Donald Trump's debate is off and Colbert is now planning a debate, thought I should talk about something that seems like common sense to me but seems to evade the main stream media.
Why can't we have primary debates be a series of one on one brackets?


Let's assume it's because they are incompetent not because of a conspiracy, at least for the sake of this blog.
Let's assume that the 24 hour news stations actually care about informing the public.

The best way to do that would be to have, not one debate, but a series of debates. Invite all of the candidates and randomly pair them up.  give each pair a set amount of time. Audience votes for who wins each round. Half are eliminated. The other half keep going. You could even have the losers of the first round have their own division (wild card) and the winner of each division can then debate each other.
abracadabra everyone gets equal time. None of the drama. None of the favoritism. If each round gets the same questions there isn't any softballs.

It seems extremely strange that a sports obsessed culture wouldn't use this method as the default. It seems obvious to me and I don't care for sports, at all.


PS
The graphic above I randomly wrote down ten candidates. Then I used a dice rolling ap with two ten sided dice. Used the rolls for that  to pick which two candidates would be together. Then for the eight remaining I used an eight sided and so on until all the candidates were paired up.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Us against them (rant/draft)

Frustrated with current events but I only have half an idea here. This blog has been more cartoonist than political lately or I wouldn't even post it:

There are two disturbing possibilities about the recent vote on Defense Authorization Act. If you are not familiar, this is the law that takes away "innocent until proven guilty" if you are an American citizen accused of terrorism. Many Democrats like my own Senator Claire McCaskill voted for it though it seems exactly the kind of thing she  would have been critical of if Bush was in office... anyways two disturbing possibilities for why Democrats voted for it:

1. That Senate Democrats will vote for anything to keep from looking weak.
It goes something like this "I know Obama will veto it. So it's okay that I vote for something horrible that will make me look strong on national defense."
The flaw in this thinking is that somehow being a weak coward will make you look strong. The problem is that support for it gives it momentum. If the bill gets enough momentum it could either accidentally become veto proof (super majority) or the bill become misinterpreted as popular and dissolves the will of The President.

2. It isn't one side of the aisle against the other- it's us against them.
If the Democrats in the senate are not really bad at strategy. Then it means that they are not actually worried that a Republican will come in next fall (or later) and abuse the law. They say they are worried about this scenario, but we can not assume this is true by their actions.
It is hard to believe any adult would gamble that one party or another will stay in power for a significant amount of time. Even with the lackluster selection of Republican candidates, Obama is far from unbeatable. Between the weak economy and the ability of unflattering information going viral-
 polls are extremely volatile.
We are being told by both sides that the other side is going ruin this country. If they really believed that why would they pass laws to make it easier to ruin the country, when they know the elections could go either way?  The answer is that they are liars. Either the feud is a fraud and they know that things will not change much based on election results, or the concern is just a way to coerce. The latter means that they know how much damage can be done, but are betting that they are immune to it and screw the rest of us.

Okay it's not that I entirely believe that these are the only two explanations but when the Senate is passing resolutions to congratulate the Cardinals for winning the world series- WTF? I don't even understand why they are bothering with this right now. Are we that worried that a potential terrorist will get a fair trial? Do they have secret information they can't share with us? Or is this an existential threat like the extraterrestrial exposure law (a flawed comparison but I'm going with it anyway).