Hi everyone...
Due to some unforseen circumstances, I have a week and a half of "vacation" before I start my new job as Assistant Book Editor of The Washington Times February 19. I'm visiting my girlfriend in New York and then heading to visit my parents in Wisconsin, so blogging will probably be spotty until then.
(After that, I might revamp the content a bit. The Times is a newspaper as opposed to a magazine, so I might not be able to blog about things I opine about in the paper.)
Anyhow, yesterday The American Spectator ran a piece of mine about gay marriage. It's in response to a Washington state initiaitve to annul childless marriages after three years -- a retort to the argument that homosexual marriage shouldn't happen because homosexuals can't have kids.
Main point:
"Banning childless marriage is consistent with the child-centric approach, but it poses practical problems that banning homosexual marriage does not. The activists have to show that (A) childless marriage is pervasive enough to warrant action and (B) this proposal is the best way to accomplish that.
"The initiative fails on both counts. As such, it is intellectually honest to believe both that marriage exists because of children, and that banning childless heterosexual marriage is not a worthwhile endeavor."
The responses today are mixed. One man makes the excellent point, based on his own experience, that straights often try for years to have children, and for them as opposed to homosexuals, that's always a possibility. I did make the point that the law's three year cutoff is arbitrary, and that many parents have their first child more than three years in. There's also a key distinction between intentionally and accidentally childless marriages, one the government can't make when it comes to heterosexuals.
Mike Showalter of Texas writes:
"Perhaps unintentionally, Mr. VerBruggen, but you've actually put forth one of the best arguments for the Fair Tax. What we need is to completely remove the 'social engineering' aspects of the current system of taxation, and let these issues stand, or fall, on their own merits."
He's referring to my point that childless couples do in fact receive tax breaks, yet they save money on living expenses and do not contribute children to America's future (which, as the anti-gay marriage argument goes, is the whole reason for the tax breaks and government endorsement). That was intentional; I support the fair tax. At the very least, we should tie the tax breaks to legitimate children instead of marriage alone.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
On no-knock raids
I've been pretty ambivalent about Radley Balko's thesis from Overkill -- he argues that police are given too much power in drug raids, and that they get away with mistakes when things go wrong.
I agree that the war on drugs is a failure, and that breaking down people's doors on a regular basis (if cops knocked, people would throw the drugs away) is asking for trouble. Balko documents case after case where police broke into the wrong houses and harmed innocent people.
Unlike Balko, though, I can't give the police themselves too much blame. He points out times where officers have confused various household items people held for guns, but if the cops made the same mistake in the opposite direction they'd be dead. It's remarkably unfair to prosecute a police officer for a split-second life-or-death decision.
The important question is, given what the officer knew and reasonably assumed at the time, were his actions logical? If he believes he's in a drug dealer's house, and someone comes out of a bedroom waving a shiny object, that's unfortunate but hardly the cop's fault.
Glenn Reynolds has a great post on the newest incident, and I think his analysis hits the nail on the head:
"I'm okay on giving cops -- and anyone else caught in a life-or-death situation through no fault of their own -- the benefit of the doubt. But this [particular] life-or-death situation was the cops' fault, for lying in order to get the warrant. Plus, I think that no-knock tactics should be reserved for cases where there's a serious threat to life or limb."
In the past, Reynolds has also argued correctly that citizens should get the same leeway cops get. When police raid the wrong home, they don't announce themselves as police, and an innocent homeowner defends himself, there's no one to blame. Yet one homeowner found himself on death row.
I agree that the war on drugs is a failure, and that breaking down people's doors on a regular basis (if cops knocked, people would throw the drugs away) is asking for trouble. Balko documents case after case where police broke into the wrong houses and harmed innocent people.
Unlike Balko, though, I can't give the police themselves too much blame. He points out times where officers have confused various household items people held for guns, but if the cops made the same mistake in the opposite direction they'd be dead. It's remarkably unfair to prosecute a police officer for a split-second life-or-death decision.
The important question is, given what the officer knew and reasonably assumed at the time, were his actions logical? If he believes he's in a drug dealer's house, and someone comes out of a bedroom waving a shiny object, that's unfortunate but hardly the cop's fault.
Glenn Reynolds has a great post on the newest incident, and I think his analysis hits the nail on the head:
"I'm okay on giving cops -- and anyone else caught in a life-or-death situation through no fault of their own -- the benefit of the doubt. But this [particular] life-or-death situation was the cops' fault, for lying in order to get the warrant. Plus, I think that no-knock tactics should be reserved for cases where there's a serious threat to life or limb."
In the past, Reynolds has also argued correctly that citizens should get the same leeway cops get. When police raid the wrong home, they don't announce themselves as police, and an innocent homeowner defends himself, there's no one to blame. Yet one homeowner found himself on death row.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Columnist: Not true that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce
Thomas Sowell makes a startling allegation in his new column:
"The fact that there may be half as many divorces in a given year as there are marriages in that year does not mean that half of all marriages end in divorce.
"It is completely misleading to compare all the divorces in one year -- from marriages begun years and even decades earlier -- with the number of marriages begun in that one year."
My initial response was, fine. But if 100 years in a row have divorce rates half the marriage rates, half of all marriages will indeed end in divorce.
I did some research and came across a Time magazine article from 1987 (boy, is that statistic old). It says:
"As [one demographer] sees it, even if there is one divorce for every two marriages in any given year, that trend would have to continue for 30 years before it could accurately be said that half of all unions end in divorce. [His] survey, which indicated considerable contentment among family members, convinces him that this will not happen."
The problem is, it's been 20 years (while not 30), and that trend is indeed continuing. In 2003, 2004 and 2005, the marriage:divorce ratio has hovered just a little above 2:1, according to the National Vital Statistics Report.
People did indeed jump to the 50 percent figure too soon. But the trends are making it a reality.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com.
UPDATE: Doug Payton has an interesting point over at Blogger News Network. If you look at "marriagers" (if that's a word) instead of marriages, the situation is probably somewhat less dire:
"Another thing that skews the numbers are 'serial divorcers.'"
For example, say one person gets married and divorced three times. This creates a marriage:divorce ratio of 3:3. You'd need three people in stable first-time marriages to offset that to 6:3. In this scenario, half of all marriages ended in divorce (as the age-old statistic holds), but only one-quarter of the individuals ever divorced.
"The fact that there may be half as many divorces in a given year as there are marriages in that year does not mean that half of all marriages end in divorce.
"It is completely misleading to compare all the divorces in one year -- from marriages begun years and even decades earlier -- with the number of marriages begun in that one year."
My initial response was, fine. But if 100 years in a row have divorce rates half the marriage rates, half of all marriages will indeed end in divorce.
I did some research and came across a Time magazine article from 1987 (boy, is that statistic old). It says:
"As [one demographer] sees it, even if there is one divorce for every two marriages in any given year, that trend would have to continue for 30 years before it could accurately be said that half of all unions end in divorce. [His] survey, which indicated considerable contentment among family members, convinces him that this will not happen."
The problem is, it's been 20 years (while not 30), and that trend is indeed continuing. In 2003, 2004 and 2005, the marriage:divorce ratio has hovered just a little above 2:1, according to the National Vital Statistics Report.
People did indeed jump to the 50 percent figure too soon. But the trends are making it a reality.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com.
UPDATE: Doug Payton has an interesting point over at Blogger News Network. If you look at "marriagers" (if that's a word) instead of marriages, the situation is probably somewhat less dire:
"Another thing that skews the numbers are 'serial divorcers.'"
For example, say one person gets married and divorced three times. This creates a marriage:divorce ratio of 3:3. You'd need three people in stable first-time marriages to offset that to 6:3. In this scenario, half of all marriages ended in divorce (as the age-old statistic holds), but only one-quarter of the individuals ever divorced.
Hitler's gun control
Three years ago I wrote (I was 19, so I don't present this as an article necessarily worth reading):
"[T]he American right has often asserted that Hitler's gun control enabled the Holocaust. Some scholars have taken issue with this far-reaching assertion, as Hitler merely expanded pre-existing measures, but it is clear the Nazi leader did like the policy.
"Take, for example, this chilling 1938 quote: 'The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.'"
This is a pretty moderate interpretation -- Hitler liked gun control as much as he liked any form of "control," but that alone didn't enable the Holocaust. Some scholars, though, are starting to go so far as to call Hitler pro-gun.
Stephen Halbrook (whom I interviewed for this Reason piece) demolishes this in a new article.
Best part:
"[The] suggestion that the Nazis supported Second Amendment-type values assumes as insignificant that the Nazis disarmed, intimidated, threw into concentration camps, or exterminated all of 'the people' they identified as inferior by reason of race or religion, or as otherwise untrustworthy by reason of politics or any other reason whatsoever. Other than that, [the argument] surmises, Hitler was a disciple of a liberal arms policy."
The whole notion that Nazis didn't disarm Jews is, of course, absurd.
As Halbrook writes:
"The Nazis were 'pro-gun' for themselves, the Gestapo and other police, the Wehrmacht (armed forces), and citizens they trusted as having been indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology; they were 'anti-gun' for Jews, political opponents, and any and every person who might not march lock step with the National Socialist program."
Hat tip: John Lott.
"[T]he American right has often asserted that Hitler's gun control enabled the Holocaust. Some scholars have taken issue with this far-reaching assertion, as Hitler merely expanded pre-existing measures, but it is clear the Nazi leader did like the policy.
"Take, for example, this chilling 1938 quote: 'The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.'"
This is a pretty moderate interpretation -- Hitler liked gun control as much as he liked any form of "control," but that alone didn't enable the Holocaust. Some scholars, though, are starting to go so far as to call Hitler pro-gun.
Stephen Halbrook (whom I interviewed for this Reason piece) demolishes this in a new article.
Best part:
"[The] suggestion that the Nazis supported Second Amendment-type values assumes as insignificant that the Nazis disarmed, intimidated, threw into concentration camps, or exterminated all of 'the people' they identified as inferior by reason of race or religion, or as otherwise untrustworthy by reason of politics or any other reason whatsoever. Other than that, [the argument] surmises, Hitler was a disciple of a liberal arms policy."
The whole notion that Nazis didn't disarm Jews is, of course, absurd.
As Halbrook writes:
"The Nazis were 'pro-gun' for themselves, the Gestapo and other police, the Wehrmacht (armed forces), and citizens they trusted as having been indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology; they were 'anti-gun' for Jews, political opponents, and any and every person who might not march lock step with the National Socialist program."
Hat tip: John Lott.
Monday, February 05, 2007
On the Second Amendment
Glenn Reynolds has posted some great law review articles about the Second Amendment.
So far my favorite part is a quote from Don Kates in "A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment":
"[To deny that the right protected is one enforceable by individuals] the following set of propositions must be accepted: (1) when the first Congress drafted the Bill of Rights it used "right of the people" in the first amendment to denote a right of individuals (assembly); (2) then, some sixteen words later, it used the same phrase in the second amendment to denote a right belonging exclusively to the states; (3) but then, forty-six words later, the fourth amendment's "right of the people" had reverted to its normal individual right meaning; (4) "right of the people" was again used in the natural sense in the ninth amendment; and (5) finally, in the tenth amendment the first Congress specifically distinguished "the states" from "the people," although it had failed to do so in the second amendment."
So far my favorite part is a quote from Don Kates in "A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment":
"[To deny that the right protected is one enforceable by individuals] the following set of propositions must be accepted: (1) when the first Congress drafted the Bill of Rights it used "right of the people" in the first amendment to denote a right of individuals (assembly); (2) then, some sixteen words later, it used the same phrase in the second amendment to denote a right belonging exclusively to the states; (3) but then, forty-six words later, the fourth amendment's "right of the people" had reverted to its normal individual right meaning; (4) "right of the people" was again used in the natural sense in the ninth amendment; and (5) finally, in the tenth amendment the first Congress specifically distinguished "the states" from "the people," although it had failed to do so in the second amendment."
Let's clean up aisle six and never think about it again
There's been a lot of talk since the Super Bowl about Doritos's rather nasty fan-submitted commercial. Jeremy Lott said he might never eat Doritos again.
I did some quick research and came across a page about Kristin Dehnert, who made the video.
She says:
"Humor-wise, I'd have to say that my inspiration is definitely from all my hilarious friends and family. They have made me into the nutty mad scientist that I am.
"In actually writing the commercial, I was inspired by the many-many Doritos flavors. I think the last time I checked they had over 1 million to choose from.. Ok, maybe not quite that many.
"I also wanted to show the shared passion between two Doritos lovers. Especially between a complete stranger and a wacky Check Out Girl. I laughed out loud just thinking about it."
Gross.
Watch the videos that should have won -- and the one that did -- here.
I did some quick research and came across a page about Kristin Dehnert, who made the video.
She says:
"Humor-wise, I'd have to say that my inspiration is definitely from all my hilarious friends and family. They have made me into the nutty mad scientist that I am.
"In actually writing the commercial, I was inspired by the many-many Doritos flavors. I think the last time I checked they had over 1 million to choose from.. Ok, maybe not quite that many.
"I also wanted to show the shared passion between two Doritos lovers. Especially between a complete stranger and a wacky Check Out Girl. I laughed out loud just thinking about it."
Gross.
Watch the videos that should have won -- and the one that did -- here.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
New song up at MySpace
My last couple weeks' labor, "Blood in the Water," is up on MySpace. I'd love to hear everyone's comments.
As usual, apologies for the really bad singing. Without a band I have to do everything myself, and that's where I fall short. And I don't have the patience to pitch-correct each note.
It's easily my greatest mixing/mastering feat -- I managed to work guitar, bass, vocals, drums, synths and some piano around each other, and the levels average around -11.5 RMS (for non-music people, that means it's acceptably loud when compared to professional recordings, something I've never managed before). I do wish some of the instruments stood out more in the mix (especially the bass, though whenever I turned it up it sounded too loud), but I gave them distinct enough EQ patterns that you can pick them up if you listen.
Some tech geek stuff:
--Recorded in Cubase LE through a Presonus Firebox. Monitored, mixed and mastered on AKG K240s.
--The guitars are my Epiphone Les Paul, recorded via the XLR outs on my Behringer V-AMPIRE (great for recording, not so hot in terms of reliability and on-stage usefulness). Ideally I'd crank the thing up and stick a mic in front of it, but my roommates might disagree. I used the Crunch V-Amp setting, my favorite for both live and studio applications, except on the solos, where I used "Brit Hi Gain." **coughMarshallcough** Bridge pickup except on the second solo, where both guitars use the neck one.
--I use the standard hard rock model for mixing. One guitar hard right, the other hard left, the solos down the middle except when they're harmonized. Then, one moderate left, the other moderate right. I panned the synths and piano hard to keep them away from the vocals.
--Minor point on the second, harmonized guitar solo. The song is in drop-D tuning, one-half step down, but I needed to hit a high D natural. So, I recorded the high part in standard tuning. This is where a 24-fret guitar would come in handy, but I have yet to buy my first ESP.
--The vocals are recorded on my new Rode NT1-A. You'll notice there's a lot more "air" compared to the other three tracks. It basically massacred the SM-57 I was making do with, both in volume and quality. The downside, however, is that even with a pop filter (constructed on the cheap out of ladies' nylons and a wire hanger), the Rode picks up a lot of plosives and hissing sounds. Rather than EQ the whole track, I went through it in Cubase, highlighted the offending split-seconds and killed the gain by about 5 dB. If you turn it loud it's still a minor problem though. Maybe I should've tried 10.
--The drums, save the bass, are the samples from Hammerhead (free), exported as WAVs and re-arranged in Cubase. The bass came from Discrete Drums, though I noise-gated it to eliminate the nasty reverb. I used four tracks -- one for the snare, one for the bass, one for the hi-hat (panned moderately left) and one for the loud one (panned moderately right).
--The synths and piano come from my Yamaha keyboard, which I got for $72 on clearance with my Kmart employee discount a year or so ago.
--For the bass, I recorded MIDI with the Yamaha, and then used the vb-1 virtual instrument that came with Cubase. It's awesome. (The instructions are hard to deal with on how to use it though -- route the MIDI out to the vb-1, and you should be able to hear it. Adjust the tone, both solo and in the mix; I found it helpful to turn up the damper and tone controls almost all the way. Then, put the record indicators on either side of it, solo it and go to export audio under the file menu. Finally, import it back as an audio file. Would be a helluva lot easier if they made it so you could convert it to audio without going in and out of the program!)
--In the mixing stage, I added some compression and EQ to each individual track. I'd like to think I cut out a place for each instrument, but on some stereos I've tried the mid-lows kind of all mush together.
--Here's something I did very different -- I made absolutely sure that there were no above-0 dB peaks in the mix. That meant turning just about every track way down and setting the master gain to -7 dB. I had a very quiet mix going into the mastering stage.
--No worries, though. After some gentle EQ (killing the extreme low end, beefing up the lows and adding a touch of treble) I used two free compressors, the C3 Multi Band Compressor and the Classic Master Limiter. The C3 takes some major tinkering, as you can adjust the definitions for each of the three bands, and even solo the bands and listen individually. I've found the default setting a great starting point, but it's hard to nail the minor improvements. I added some more bass, and some more highs. It was tempting to jack the levels up right there, but I waited...
...Which brings me to the Classic Master Limiter, far and away my secret weapon for making this track better than the others I've done. It's a very simple, one-knob plugin. You turn the knob down, and it simultaneously lowers the threshold and increases the makeup gain. It basically lets you decide how loud your mix will be. The trick is to get it so the meter goes off regularly, but so there are pauses where none of the lights are on. If you over-limit you'll turn the mix into a brick, and sometimes the WAVs will clip in iTunes or whatnot. The mix was so quiet I added almost 10 dB.
--The levels were only at -14 RMS (use the free Voxengo Span to tell, btw) or so, so I ran it through another round of mastering. I used the Classic Master Limiter again to add about 2 more dB. For some reason, limiting seemed to work better in two stages -- in theory at least, I should have been able to just turn the limiter up a little in the previous stage, but iTunes disagreed.
As usual, apologies for the really bad singing. Without a band I have to do everything myself, and that's where I fall short. And I don't have the patience to pitch-correct each note.
It's easily my greatest mixing/mastering feat -- I managed to work guitar, bass, vocals, drums, synths and some piano around each other, and the levels average around -11.5 RMS (for non-music people, that means it's acceptably loud when compared to professional recordings, something I've never managed before). I do wish some of the instruments stood out more in the mix (especially the bass, though whenever I turned it up it sounded too loud), but I gave them distinct enough EQ patterns that you can pick them up if you listen.
Some tech geek stuff:
--Recorded in Cubase LE through a Presonus Firebox. Monitored, mixed and mastered on AKG K240s.
--The guitars are my Epiphone Les Paul, recorded via the XLR outs on my Behringer V-AMPIRE (great for recording, not so hot in terms of reliability and on-stage usefulness). Ideally I'd crank the thing up and stick a mic in front of it, but my roommates might disagree. I used the Crunch V-Amp setting, my favorite for both live and studio applications, except on the solos, where I used "Brit Hi Gain." **coughMarshallcough** Bridge pickup except on the second solo, where both guitars use the neck one.
--I use the standard hard rock model for mixing. One guitar hard right, the other hard left, the solos down the middle except when they're harmonized. Then, one moderate left, the other moderate right. I panned the synths and piano hard to keep them away from the vocals.
--Minor point on the second, harmonized guitar solo. The song is in drop-D tuning, one-half step down, but I needed to hit a high D natural. So, I recorded the high part in standard tuning. This is where a 24-fret guitar would come in handy, but I have yet to buy my first ESP.
--The vocals are recorded on my new Rode NT1-A. You'll notice there's a lot more "air" compared to the other three tracks. It basically massacred the SM-57 I was making do with, both in volume and quality. The downside, however, is that even with a pop filter (constructed on the cheap out of ladies' nylons and a wire hanger), the Rode picks up a lot of plosives and hissing sounds. Rather than EQ the whole track, I went through it in Cubase, highlighted the offending split-seconds and killed the gain by about 5 dB. If you turn it loud it's still a minor problem though. Maybe I should've tried 10.
--The drums, save the bass, are the samples from Hammerhead (free), exported as WAVs and re-arranged in Cubase. The bass came from Discrete Drums, though I noise-gated it to eliminate the nasty reverb. I used four tracks -- one for the snare, one for the bass, one for the hi-hat (panned moderately left) and one for the loud one (panned moderately right).
--The synths and piano come from my Yamaha keyboard, which I got for $72 on clearance with my Kmart employee discount a year or so ago.
--For the bass, I recorded MIDI with the Yamaha, and then used the vb-1 virtual instrument that came with Cubase. It's awesome. (The instructions are hard to deal with on how to use it though -- route the MIDI out to the vb-1, and you should be able to hear it. Adjust the tone, both solo and in the mix; I found it helpful to turn up the damper and tone controls almost all the way. Then, put the record indicators on either side of it, solo it and go to export audio under the file menu. Finally, import it back as an audio file. Would be a helluva lot easier if they made it so you could convert it to audio without going in and out of the program!)
--In the mixing stage, I added some compression and EQ to each individual track. I'd like to think I cut out a place for each instrument, but on some stereos I've tried the mid-lows kind of all mush together.
--Here's something I did very different -- I made absolutely sure that there were no above-0 dB peaks in the mix. That meant turning just about every track way down and setting the master gain to -7 dB. I had a very quiet mix going into the mastering stage.
--No worries, though. After some gentle EQ (killing the extreme low end, beefing up the lows and adding a touch of treble) I used two free compressors, the C3 Multi Band Compressor and the Classic Master Limiter. The C3 takes some major tinkering, as you can adjust the definitions for each of the three bands, and even solo the bands and listen individually. I've found the default setting a great starting point, but it's hard to nail the minor improvements. I added some more bass, and some more highs. It was tempting to jack the levels up right there, but I waited...
...Which brings me to the Classic Master Limiter, far and away my secret weapon for making this track better than the others I've done. It's a very simple, one-knob plugin. You turn the knob down, and it simultaneously lowers the threshold and increases the makeup gain. It basically lets you decide how loud your mix will be. The trick is to get it so the meter goes off regularly, but so there are pauses where none of the lights are on. If you over-limit you'll turn the mix into a brick, and sometimes the WAVs will clip in iTunes or whatnot. The mix was so quiet I added almost 10 dB.
--The levels were only at -14 RMS (use the free Voxengo Span to tell, btw) or so, so I ran it through another round of mastering. I used the Classic Master Limiter again to add about 2 more dB. For some reason, limiting seemed to work better in two stages -- in theory at least, I should have been able to just turn the limiter up a little in the previous stage, but iTunes disagreed.
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