Ben's Law

My post-election analysis

2010-11-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, I am the Chairman of the Endorsements Committee of Atlas PAC. Here is my post-election analysis.

The Republican wave swept across the eastern half of the country, only to stop abruptly at the Rocky Mountains. Despite disappointing Senate races in Colorado, Nevada, Washington, Alaska (likely) and here in California, the Republican victories throughout the nation were historic.

Nationwide Results

Before the election, my main hope was for Republicans to pick up more House seats than the 54-seat pickup in 1994. If that happened, there would be no way the Mainstream Media could spin the election as anything other than a historic repudiation of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda.

Republicans picked up at least 60 House seats, making this the biggest Republican pickup election since 1938, when America started to figure out the “New Deal” was a “Raw Deal.” (The Democrat advantage was so huge in 1938 that the Republicans’ 81-seat pick-up that year still left them in the minority by 93 seats.) Republicans will have their largest number of seats in the House (over 239, with 10 races still to be decided) since 1949. If Republicans manage to pick up 8 of those 10 undecided seats, it will be the largest Republican House presence since 1931.

Included among the Republican pick-ups was Allen West of Florida, the only U.S. Congress candidate Atlas PAC endorsed outside of California. He will be a super-star. Look for him on the national stage in the years to come.

Republicans picked up six Senate seats, including Atlas PAC-endorsed John Boozman of Arkansas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Ron Kirk of Illinois (Obama’s old seat!) and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Also victorious were Atlas PAC-endorsed Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Say it with me: Senator Rubio! Senator Paul!

Despite these notable and important victories, other Senate races were a disappointment, especially those west of the Rockies. Republicans lost close races in Colorado, Nevada and Washington. We might be stuck with Queen Murkowski from Alaska, who will no doubt caucus with the Democrats. A Democrat running as a conservative won in West Virginia. Less close, but thought to have a chance to go Republican, were Senate races in Connecticut and Delaware. Here in California, Carly Fiorina did worse than expected against Barbara Boxer.

Many professional pundits have blamed the Tea Party for these losses. If only Republicans had run “moderates,” they tell us, Republicans would have taken control of the Senate. Nothing could be further from the truth! The blame lies exclusively, 100%, with establishment RINO Republicans. The establishment never got behind Tea Party candidates, even after they won Republican primaries. With establishment Republican support, rather than active opposition, Tea Party candidates should have easily won Alaska, Colorado, Nevada and Washington (giving Republicans 50 seats right there) and would have been much more competitive in Delaware and Connecticut.

If the Republican establishment had their way, we would have RINO Senators Specter, Crist and Grayson instead of Senators Toomey, Rubio and Paul. We should vastly prefer a Senate with only 46 principled conservative Republicans to a Senate of 50 or 51 “Republicans” with 10 or so RINOs in charge, tarnishing our message and voting with the Democrats.

The lesson here is that we must work extremely hard the next two years to rid the Republican establishment of RINOs such that the Tea Party and the Republican establishment become one unified conservative force. This election has already done much to purge RINOs from positions of power in the Republican Party. The Senate and House Republicans will be led by principled conservatives. I have no doubt that in 2012, when Obama and many more “red state” Democrat Senators are up for re-election, conservative Republicans will sweep to control of the Presidency, Senate and House.

California Results

If a perfect storm hit the rest of the country, a “reverse polarity” perfect storm hit California. We had a weak RINO gubernatorial candidate on the top of our ticket; someone with no political record, no coherent (let alone conservative) message, and no grass roots support who spent $170 million of her own money. We tried that already (Schwarzenegger). Our down-ticket nominees were nearly as bad. For Lieutenant Governor and Insurance Commissioner, we had Abel Maldonado and Mike Villines, two turn-coat RINOs who (along with Anthony Adams) voted with the Democrats last year for the largest tax increase in California history. These weaknesses were simply too much for our actual conservative state-wide candidates Tony Strickland, Damon Dunn, and Mimi Walters.

On the state propositions, Californians once again demonstrated their utter lack of common sense. While voting to require a 2/3 majority for any “fee” increases (Prop. 26) we also voted to remove the 2/3 majority requirement to pass a budget (Prop. 25). While voting to preserve business tax cuts (Prop. 24) and against a car tax increase (Prop. 21) we also voted to increases costs on businesses by not suspending AB32 (Prop. 23).

In the Assembly, Atlas PAC-endorsed candidates did extremely well. Atlas PAC endorsed the following successful candidates: Dan Logue (3rd), Tim Donnelly (59th), Curt Hagman (60th), Mike Morrell (63rd), Jim Silva (67th), Allan Mansoor (68th), Don Wagner (70th), Jeff Miller (71st), Chris Norby (72nd), and Diane Harkey (73rd). While these Assemblymen will be in the minority, and without the protection of a 2/3 majority requirement to pass a budget, with the election of this freshman class, the Republicans in the Assembly will become more conservative, more principled and the Democrats will own California’s impending fiscal implosion. With the House of Representatives firmly in control of conservative Republicans, don’t expect the Federal government to bail out California. Perhaps then, Californians will finally realize the folly of electing Democrats.

While California voted to return to the Carter-era 1970s (because the economy was so great back then), Republicans did extremely well in Governor and Legislative races in other states. While lamentable that California voters are not as sane, this is incredibly important nationally because state governments draw redistricting lines after the 2010 census results. Look for conservative low-tax states, like Texas and Florida, to gain several House seats while insane high-tax states, like California and New York, will lose seats as their residents have voted with their feet. This should have the effect of boosting the GOP House majority even more in 2012.

Local Results

Atlas PAC-endorsed candidates had many significant victories in City Council races: Matt Harper (Huntington Beach), Jeff Lalloway (Irvine), Mark McCurdy (Fountain Valley), Robert Ming (Laguna Niguel), Jim Righeimer (Costa Mesa), Tom Tait (Anaheim Mayor) and Scott Voigts (Lake Forest).

The school children did not fare so well. While Nancy Padberg and Marcia Milchiker won seats on the South Orange County Community College District, Kevin Muldoon came up 1.6 points short to a union hack who will no doubt give away the store. If you live in the Capistrano Unified School District, put your children in private school. The teachers union successfully recalled fiscal conservatives Mike Winsten and Ken Maddox and defeated Larry Christensen. Look for lavish salaries and benefits for teachers and other education bureaucrats, and that much more contempt for any accountability for actually, you know, teaching.

The biggest disappointment of the night was Van Tran coming up short in his bid to unseat Loretta “the Vietnamese are coming to get us” Sanchez. That such a good and principled man as Van Tran could lose to such an obnoxious race-baiter like Loretta Sanchez shows that we still have a lot of work to do. Fortunately, redistricting comes before the 2012 election. With the passage of Proposition 20, the new lines will be drawn by an independent, non-partisan commission. When that happens, hopefully Sanchez’s currently gerrymandered district will be ripe for a Republican takeover.

Conclusion

House Republicans will have to push a specific, conservative agenda and turn Obama into the “President of no.” I don’t expect Obama to move to the center like Bill Clinton. Obama is a principled socialist. Clinton was in politics for the ladies.

Look for the new Congress to pass an extension of the current income tax and capital gains tax rates, and Obama to veto it. After everyone’s taxes go up in the middle of the recession, look for Obama’s approval rating to hit the 30s. As long as Republicans stay on message, keep passing conservative bills daring Obama to veto, and a Reagan-like leader emerges as our candidate for President, happy days will be here again come 2012.

Islam, the Ground Zero Mosque, and Multiculturalism

2010-08-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'm generally in agreement with everything Andrew McCarthy has to say about Islam. The basic tenets of Islam are an affront to the Judeo-Christian values of Western Civilization. Our values are better, produce better stuff, greater knowledge of the universe, and happier and healthier people. And fewer violently killed people.

It is only because of the dogma of multiculturalism - i.e., the belief that all cultures are equal - has been so force-fed on us that any thinking person does not understand Islam is very bad for non-muslims. This is obviously not true, and anyone who actually lives by significant numbers of people of an inferior foreign culture knows this to be true. People without this experience - those in ethnically and culturally monochrome countries or areas (Scandinavia comes to mind)- are more vulnerable to believing in multiculturalism than those with direct, observational knowledge of its falsity.

Multiculturalism is believed without, or in spite of, evidence because people want to believe it. Wouldn't it be nice if the only true differences between Islam and mainstream U.S. culture was the food we each eat, the clothes we each wear, the wacky ways we each pray, the music and art we like and produce, the languages we speak - you know, culture? Then, when we mingle with muslims, we'll be exposed to new and different "culture" - like going to a French movie or something.

But we differ from Islam in fundamental values in incompatible ways. We believe men and women are socially and politically equal. We believe women who are raped are victims and the rapists should be severely punished, not the other way around. We believe everyone may freely proselytize their religion and we tolerate the decisions of individuals who change or abandon religions. Those who hold different values than these cannot "coexist" in peace with us. It's the "C" part in that stupid "Coexist" bumper sticker that is the problem.

Which brings me to the Ground Zero Mosque. Don't patronize me, lefties. It's a deliberate poke in the eye, a symbol of conquest and victory. A symbol to muslims that the 9/11 terrorists did a GOOD THING and should be praised rather than condemned.

Now, let's analyze that last sentence. Andrew McCarthy's counter-factual is a good place to start. But let's go further. What would Christians around the world be expected to say, and do, if a similar atrocity was committed by a small (allegedly) group of ultra-fundamental, violent "crusaders" against muslims? Now, take whatever it is you believe would be the appropriate reaction of "mainstream" Christians to such an act of terror as 9/11 if committed by Christians in the name of Jesus against muslims (I hope you say something like, "profusely apologize, openly, loudly and often condemn the acts and terrorists, and cooperate fully with muslims looking to track down - within Christian communities - those who assisted the terrorists and those who hold the same sympathies) and ask yourself, are muslims around the world saying and doing the same things you would expect of Christians in the same situation?

If you say "yes" then you must believe it would be perfectly appropriate for mainstream Christians - leaders of large congregations - to openly question whether the atrocity was a Jewish conspiracy, or ask what muslims had done to cause such intense hatred by Christians, to call for the murder of any muslim who ridiculed Jesus in a cartoon, etc. Now imagine if a full 10% of the Christian community did not condemn the terrorist acts, but openly lauded them and called for more.

Back to "mainstream" Islam. No, muslims around the world are not acting the way we would expect Christians to act if a 9/11-type terror attach was committed by Christians lauding Jesus against muslims. Are the "vast majority" of muslims peace-loving people without a jihadi bone in their bodies? Not a relevant question. The relevant question is - in this war we are fighting against the 10% radical jihadi strain of muslims, which side are the other 90% of muslims on, ours or the jihadis? Put another way, when it comes down to real action and real decisions - up to and including taking up arms - which side will the majority of muslims be on?

Why does Ayn Rand get so much abuse from the Right?

2010-02-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

As I am a mere 37 years young, I was not around during the great National Review vs. Ayn Rand battle royale launched by Whittaker Chambers' review of Atlas Shrugged back in 1957. So when I talk about it, I am entirely talking out of my posterior.

But in a larger sense, the continuation of the Ayn Rand/National Review schism mystifies me now that Mr. Buckley has shuffled off this mortal coil and people of my generation are running National Review. Didn't any of THEM read Atlas Shrugged in college?

The latest flap is The New Criterion's article supposedly reviewing a recent biography of Ayn Rand. The comments to that article, and the comments to editor Roger Kimball's article about the comments, are fascinating. I have to say that as an admirer of both Ayn Rand and National Review, and not particularly invested in Ayn Rand (not being a card-carrying Objectivist), I have to say that the Ayn Rand defenders have the better argument. Or, I should really say, I have the better argument.

Which argument I made in the comments to Roger Kimball's piece here.

More media bias against Rush Limbaugh

2009-10-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

I think what happened to Rush Limbaugh's bid to be a minority owner of the Rams is appalling and those who caused it and/or aided and abetted it are evil. Rush can defend himself, and has admirably, but I still want to give him a little help. So when reading Yahoo! sports, I came across this article styled as a lament that false quotations attributed to Rush distracted from the "real" debate on things Rush actually said.

The article, however, is yet another smear, making up "facts" out of whole cloth. I got pissed and wrote the following email to the article's author, Jason Cole:

So let me get this straight.

You assume that Rush Limbaugh - a man with a team of professional media watchers who help him assemble material for a three-hour show 5 days a week for 20 years, who pay particular attention to media bias - did absolutely no research in coming to the conclusion that the sports writing media were biased in favor of a black quarterback, and gave him credit for achievements he didn't deserve (*cough* OBAMA *cough*), because Mr. Limbaugh did not contact any of your 17 arbitrarily selected sports writers, even though their own written material/articles are available for public viewing? And you further support your assumption because Mr. Limbaugh hasn't responded to an email sent a day earlier?

You write: "So apparently, Limbaugh made an assumption based on no research about sports writers and how we think."

This is not even REMOTELY "apparent" from the "facts" you cite. Your article is another smear, and from this obvious smear I conclude that you are part of the left-wing bias problem in all media, including sports media. For "proof" of this clear bias, I cite Jay Nordlinger's October 5, 2009 column "Safe-Zone Violation!" which can be found here:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTc4NzJkMjVkOTg1M2UyMjZlYzM0YmJiYzY4YWQzYjY=

As further proof of YOUR left-wing bias, I cite your inclusion in your article, wholly out of context, of Mr. Limbaugh's quote "The NFL often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it." You describe Mr. Limbaugh as characterizing THE ENTIRE NFL this way, like the NFL is just some outlet for gang bangers to get their rocks off, kinda like Midnight Basketball. This is totally false. Mr. Limbaugh was describing a penalty called against a Chargers player for taunting a Patriots player that cost the Chargers the game. On Wednesday, October 16, 2009, Mr. Limbaugh posted the entire transcript of that segment of his show including the comment, on his website:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/estack_12_13_06/the_classless_nfl_culture_.guest.html

A REAL reporter would have linked to the entire segment and asked his readers to decide what they thought of that comment in the context in which it was made. That would have been a real, you know, DEBATE that your article supposedly calls for. I suspect you do not want to have such a debate, and your crocodile tears lamenting that there was no "debate" is simply an excuse for NOT HAVING A DEBATE. If you really want to have a debate, please write an article explaining why you think anything Mr. Limbaugh has ACTUALLY said is racist. Do not quote a line out of context, mischaracterize it, and shuffle off leaving the clear implication that YOU THINK the debate would leave you and your readers concluding that Mr. Limbaugh is a racist.

You're a coward.

What is "greed"?

2009-09-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Daily Kos is apparently accusing Democrat Senators who voted against a "public option" for health insurance as "greedy." Which got me to thinking:

To the left, "greed" is the desire to keep one's own property and/or the desire to create more wealth. Apparently, "greed" is also the absence of the desire to take property from one American and give it to another American to whom it does not belong. This is not greed. Greed is the desire to obtain another's property without paying for it what the owner/creator will freely accept.

Properly understood, greed only exists on the left. Conservatives should level the "greed" charge at liberals every time they propose a government program to take money from one American and give it to another American to whom it does not belong.

Liberals will respond: "We can't be greedy because we aren't taking the money for ourselves. We're giving it to the poor, oppressed, underprivileged, etc." Yea yea. Who gets paid to do the transferring? Isn't that just like a "commission" like those "greedy" traders on Wall Street charge?

My thoughs, distilled, on religion

2009-08-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a comment I left on a recent blog post at Secular Right. I suppose it sums up my thoughts on religion and the religious in a brief, readable (hopefully) manner. Any comments would be appreciated.

Kelly at #2 above asks:

“‘I must respect religion.’

Come again? Tolerate it, yes, you do have to do that. But respect it? Why?”

I didn’t see anyone try to answer the question, though I’m sure somewhere on this website there has been a lively discussion of this particular topic. Let me try my own hand at it.

For centuries, many, many very smart people have been religious and have engaged in many, many deep thoughts, discussions, writings, etc. about the topic. To discount that entire body of human thought based on the evidence and arguments any single individual can accumulate in a lifetime, even a very smart, diligent individual (which I’m sure everyone writing for this blog and commenting on this blog post presumes himself to be), I think is too hubristic. Smart and diligent individuals might disagree with these past centuries of thinkers, but I think it prudent to give them respect. (This is not to say that all religious people, or all religions, deserve equal respect.)

On the other hand, one thing that annoys me about the overly religious, like the idol-wielding crowd that is the subject of this post, but more so the smart conservatives generally on the side of good and righteousness, is their certainty. Just as centuries of thinkers and writers have argued in favor of religion, so have many centuries of thinkers and writers, especially since the scientific revolution, argued against the existence of religion. Moreover, any reasonably intelligent person should be able to see that the history of generally accepted human knowledge has moved from religious explanations of observable phenomena to scientific explanations based on observations, hypotheses of regular natural processes, predictions, and repeated confirmations of those predictions. There aren’t too many people who honestly think that a necklace of enchanted animal bones will stop bullets. Even scientific breakthroughs of massive utility for centuries, like Newtonian mechanics, have been shown inaccurate.

Yet with all these centuries of demonstrated failure of religion to explain observable phenomena, and the demonstrated success of the scientific method for discovering useful knowledge, many smart people are still darn sure there is a God, He is of the nature and disposition their particular religion dictates He is, and revel in the fact that they need no “proof” of this because it is a matter of “faith.”

I guess that makes me an “agnostic” but any prudent person (in my opinion) is agnostic, to some degree, about everything (and for each thing, a different level of agnosticism depending on the available evidence).

California Court of Appeal rebukes Great Park Corporation and its Chairman, Larry Agran

2009-06-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

This is an actual "Ben's Law" moment - i.e., where Ben made law.

I and my firm, Enterprise Counsel Group, represent Steven Choi and Christina Shea, two members of the Irvine City Council and, therefore, directors of the Orange County Great Park Corporation. Unfortunately, directors Choi and Shea are in the minority. The opposing bloc of Democrats - Larry Agran, Beth Krom and Sukhee Kang - control both the Irvine City Council and the Great Park Corporation Board.

The Great Park Corporation has had a notoriously difficult time finding a qualified CEO - four different CEOs in its first four years, each with prior connections to Irvine City politics. For years, Christina Shea and another former director, Richard Sims, have tried to get the Corporation to hire a professional, qualified and independent CEO. In mid-2007, the Corporation's controlling bloc finally bowed to public pressure and began what it styled as a true nationwide search for a professional CEO. The Corporation hired a professional recruiter, paid her nearly $20,000, and received approximately 150 resumes from all across the country and some foreign countries.

However, the selection process was always controlled by Larry Agran and his political allies. Accordingly, of those 150 candidates, the "search committee" returned only one for the entire Board to interview. That candidate, Kurt Haunfelner, eventually turned down the job. However, shortly after he turned down the job, the L.A. Times ran a story disclosing that Mr. Haunfelner's brother was a former aide to Larry Agran. Agran had not disclosed his relationship with Mr. Haunfelner's family to Choi or Shea.

The search committee's second choice was an existing Irvine City staffer, Rod Cooper. He quickly withdrew his name from contention.

Choi and Shea wondered publicly why the Great Park Corporation spent $20,000 for a nationwide search when the search returned two finalists both with existing ties to Larry Agran. They demanded to see all 150 resumes and all documents concerning the search. The Great Park Corporation refused. Beth Krom made a motion on January 10, 2008:

that the board ratify and affirm our intent that the ad hoc search committee should maintain the confidence of the identity and personal information, including resumes, of candidates for the Great Park CEO position until such time as a recommendation of a candidate is made to the board and then, only as to that specific candidate being recommended.

The resolution passed 7-1, with Shea the only "no" vote (Choi had to leave for a personal appointment before the vote).

Choi and Shea sued to enforce their rights as directors to inspect all the CEO search documents. The day before the hearing, the Great Park Corporation capitulated, agreeing to give Choi and Shea access to every document they requested and a continuing obligation to allow Choi and Shea to inspect any and all future documents generated or received.

Having prevailed in enforcing their basic rights as public servants, Choi and Shea sought to recover their attorneys' fees from the Great Park Corporation. Incredibly, the trial court denied their (i.e., my) motion. The trial court found that Choi and Shea hadn't achieved their goals in the litigation - an absurdity - and had done the public no good, merely viewing the documents in a closed room.

For most people, this needs no rebuttal. The public benefits when elected officials have access to basic information to do their jobs, whether it is behind closed doors or not. Does the public not benefit when Congress oversees the CIA in closed-door, Top Secret meetings?

Anyway, the California Court of Appeal just corrected this injustice.

This is an important victory for democracy here in Orange County, throughout the state, and definitely for the Great Park Corporation. If Choi and Shea had to bear the expense of a lawsuit to enforce their basic rights to see all the relevant documents and information they felt necessary to make an informed vote on who to hire as the Corporation's CEO, they could not long afford to do their jobs. Only the independently wealthy, willing to pay for expensive litigation to enforce basic rights inherent in their elected positions, would or could ever run for political office. Moreover, Agran et al. would surely continue to deny Choi and Shea - and any other political opponent - access to basic information, knowing they could not afford continuous lawsuits to enforce their basic rights. Without this victory, neither Choi or Shea, nor any other Agran opponent, would ever see a Great Park Corporation document ever again.

Hopefully, this stinging rebuke will cause Irvine voters to finally throw Agran out of office.

Obama has plunged the Dow just as far as Bush

2009-03-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

Let me record some numbers here that should enlighten.

At its peak on October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 14,164.53.

On Election Day, November 3, 2008, the Dow closed at 9,625.

This equals a 32% drop.

Today, the Dow closed at 6,547.05.

This equals a 32% drop from the day of Obama's election.

There is no question that Bush and the Congresses during his 8 years did not prevent the easily preventable housing and banking crisis. However, the market has shown absolutely no confidence that Obama can or will fix the problem. This was the Bush/Barney Frank/Christopher Dodd recession. It is now Obama's recession/depression.

Proposition 8 was an amendment, not a revision

2009-03-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today, the California Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case filed by disgruntled busybodies arguing that the people of California's passage of Proposition 8 - an amendment to the California Constitution banning gay marriage - was itself unconstitutional. The legal question, everyone seems to agree, is whether Proposition 8 was an "amendment" or a "revision" to the California Constitution. What's the difference, you ask? Therein lies the debate.

Unfortunately, the California Supreme Court has never addressed the issue. However, most everyone I've read seems to be arguing that the difference is substantive. Some argue that the difference depends on just how much the proposed amendment/revision would change the Constitution (i.e., measuring the quantitative change), while others argue that the distinction is whether the particular change is "fundamental" or some other such important word (i.e., measuring the qualitative change).

All these arguments are wrong. The amendment/revision distinction is not a substantive question, but a procedural question. Here's the relevant text from the California Constitution regarding amendments and revisions:

ARTICLE 18 AMENDING AND REVISING THE CONSTITUTION

SEC. 1. The Legislature by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, may propose an amendment or revision of the Constitution and in the same manner may amend or withdraw its proposal. Each amendment shall be so prepared and submitted that it can be voted on separately.

SEC. 2. The Legislature by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, may submit at a general election the question whether to call a convention to revise the Constitution. If the majority vote yes on that question, within 6 months the Legislature shall provide for the convention. Delegates to a constitutional convention shall be voters elected from districts as nearly equal in population as may be practicable.

SEC. 3. The electors may amend the Constitution by initiative.

SEC. 4. A proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise. If provisions of 2 or more measures approved at the same election conflict, those of the measure receiving the highest affirmative vote shall prevail.

Now, combine the above sections with Article 2, Section 8(d), of the Constitution, regarding the initiative process, which reads: "An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect."

The distinction between an amendment and a revision is clear: An amendment concerns a single subject, a revision concerns more than one subject. While the people, through the initiative process, may change the Constitution, but are limited to one subject at a time, only the Legislature may propose changes to the Constitution, to be voted on by electors in a single vote, that embrace more than one subject.

Proposition 8 was quite obviously limited to a single subject. It was therefore an "amendment" and not a "revision" which is precisely why no one raised this argument before Proposition 8 went on the ballot, when proposed propositions are routinely challenged on the grounds that they concern more than one subject.

That's it. End of analysis. Of course, don't bet on the California Supreme Court following the plain and totally obvious meaning of the above Constitutional text.

I want Obama to fail

2009-03-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

I'm weighing in pretty late in the game on the whole "Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail" "scandal." I agree wholeheartedly with Rush - I want Obama's socialist agenda to fail because it will be bad for America. In addition to hopefully getting on Obama's enemies list, I write this post to break down exactly what I mean when I say I want Obama to fail, which isn't exactly what Rush explained he means, and is nothing close to what the MSM and Democrat Party want us to think Rush means.

Let me start with what the Democrat Party/MSM (same thing) want you to think Rush means: They assume that you think Obama is trying to bring the USA out of recession, and that the Porkulous bill and all the other socialist plans he has announced are merely the means Obama has chosen. Thus, the Democrats/MSM want you to conclude, Rush wants Obama to fail to achieve his goal of ending the recession. There is a slight allusion there to FDR experimentation – meaning that we cannot be sure these programs will succeed, but we have to take bold action, etc. etc. – although the Democrats/MSM never come out and say there is no guarantee any of this will work. Indeed, Obama – as H.L. Menken long ago described – menaces the people with the imaginary hobgoblin that we will never get out of the recession unless Obama’s Porkulous bill gets passed. The man actually said “never.”

Rush, they project, says he wants Obama’s “experiment” to fail because Rush simply wants bad things to happen to America while Obama is President so Republicans will have a better chance of being elected in the future. What a mean, nasty thing for Rush to say (never mind for one second that this is precisely what most Democrats openly said about nearly everything President Bush did – Iraq war anyone?) Rush counters that he wants Obama's agenda to fail, because Rush believes it won't work and will ultimately be bad for America. As I said above, I completely agree. But what Rush is really saying is that we've done this "experiment" many times before, and it never worked, so why try again?

(I suppose it's not completely impossible that Obama's policies will help end the recession, rather than prolong it, but that is extremely unlikely, as the Dow Jones average has brutally honestly demonstrated. Regardless, if human nature suddenly changed so drastically that socialism suddenly produced greater economic growth than freedom, I'd still rather live in freedom. But as I touch on below, there are many, many other people who would prefer the opposite - to live in socialism even though it produces lesser economic growth than freedom. And there are two kinds of people who prefer socialism - those who want the power, and those who are perfectly happy as sheep.)

Because Obama’s methods have been tried so often before, and because they have failed so miserably every time, it is unlikely that a man as book smart as Obama honestly thinks his policies will cause private sector economic growth. Most likely, he has a different agenda. Obama sometimes says his goal is to end the recession. But many other times, Obama says quite specifically that bringing the USA out of recession is not his goal. This is what I mean when I say I want Obama to fail. I want Obama to fail in his oft stated goal of “spreading the wealth” at the expense of economic prosperity.

Obama let his true intentions show on at least two occasions I know off the top of my head. One was with Joe the Plumber. Obama doesn’t care how well Joe the Plumber’s business does, doesn’t care if Joe the Plumber hires more employees or does anything to actually grow the economy. (For those of you who went to public schools, a recession is when the economy shrinks instead of grows. It is a measurement of how productive millions of individual people were compared with the previous quarter. Productivity is measured by one thing and one thing only - how much someone paid for what you did.) Obama wants to change tax policy, not to help the people who will actually grow the economy, but to “spread the wealth.”

The second occasion was in an interview about the capital gains tax. The interviewer asked Obama why he wanted to raise the capital gains tax. Obama responded with platitudes about “fairness.” Then, the at least minimally intelligent interviewer told Obama that increasing the capital gains tax rate always results in a decrease in capital gains tax revenue. Obama didn’t care, sticking to his guns that it was good and right to raise the capital gains tax rate even if it resulted in less tax revenue because it was “fair.”

I believe Obama does not care one whit whether the USA comes out of this recession, except insofar as it might hurt his chances of re-election and/or the chances of keeping Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. I believe Obama’s first and overriding priority is to bring about a communist/socialist “utopia” in the USA, if possible with him in charge for life á la Ooogo Chavez in Venezuela. He has given me absolutely no indication that he cares one whit about economic freedom and personal responsibility for bad economic choices. He and his Democrat ilk would be much happier once we’ve reached the end of the Road to Serfdom, with poor working stiffs like me carrying them on our backs the rest of the way. If, at the end of the Road, the USA is no more economically productive than Brazil, they won't care at all, as long as they are still the masters. After all, the ruling elite in Brazil still live pretty well.

Sorry, Obama, I want you to fail and fail miserably.

An inconvenient truth

2008-09-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

The meme about "climate change" causing more and/or stronger hurricanes is still mindlessly repeated and suggested by the MSM. Case in point, this article in Time. It sounds like it will cast blame on the current wave of hurricanes in the mid-Atlantic on "climate change." The main point of the article is that the cost of hurricanes is getting worse because more people are living and working in hurricane zones. We can talk later about how federal disaster recovery payments improperly incentivize people to live in hurricane zones.

Of particular note in the article is the following from a real climate scientist, Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado:

"There has been no trend in the number or intensity of storms at landfall since 1900,"says Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. "The storms themselves haven't changed."

Regardless of this uncontradicted testimony confirming that "climate change" has absolutely nothing to do with hurricanes, the Time article still claims:

"Increasingly, climate change is on people's minds, and that is all for the better. Even if climate change has not been the primary driver of disaster losses, it is likely to cause far deadlier disasters in the future if left unchecked."

Really? What other "far deadlier disasters" will happen? Put another way, if "climate change" has not changed the number or intensity of hurricanes, what, praytell, will be these future weather-related "disasters? What other types of environmental disasters are there?

An ice age? That surely is "climate change" but not "global warming" and has nothing to do with "greenhouse gasses." There certainly isn't any scientific consensus (or even bogus concensus) that man's activities are making the planet colder. Or are the enviro-wackos going to start blaming earthquakes and volcanos on "climate change"? Tsunamis? Those are caused by earthquakes or volcanos (or possible meteor strikes).

How about rise in sea levels? Oceans rising by .1 millimeter per year aren't going to kill anyone. Desertification of farmland? Maybe. Where's the evidence this has happened so far, after 40 years of supposed runaway global warming? Floods? Great, we'll get more water to prevent desertification of our farmland.

Put one final way, why does Al Gore's movie have a hurricane on the poster?

An eye-opening demonstration that half our nation are freeloaders

2008-08-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

I came across this article via Wizbang! and it was so shocking I had to post it. Last year, ExxonMobile earned $40 billion in after tax profits. So how much did it pay in federal income taxes? $30 billion. That's right. $30 billion. But that isn't the shocking part.

The shocking part of the article is that ExxonMobile's 2007 federal income tax bill was greater than the combined bill of the entire bottom half of all U.S. federal income tax return filers (notice how I didn't say "payers" since many of those in the lower half who file returns don't pay federal income tax at all). In other words, just one corporation paid more in federal income taxes than 50% of the entire tax return-filing population of the United States. Yet ExxonMobile is villianized by the press, Democrats and RINOs alike.

Two undeniable truths at work here. The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul. And a democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government; only as long as it takes 50.1% of the voting population to figure out they can vote themselves a largess out of the public treasury, at the expense of the other 49.9%.

We'll eventually need a Contitutional amendment prohibiting income and/or wealth redistribution to survive.

Thanks Derb

2008-08-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

You should read everything John Derbyshire writes anyway, but I'd like to thank him for putting a puzzle I emailed him in his July Diary "Math Corner" here (it's on page 2, near the end, puzzle #3). Can you solve? (Bragging a bit, I got the puzzle in an easier version and, upon solving it relatively quickly, realized it could be made more difficult but still solvable, and sent that more difficult version in my email to Derb, which is the version he published.)

Yes, liberals are that stupid

2008-07-31T13:37:00.000-07:00

In perusing the Bench Memos blog at National Review Online today, I read Matthew Frank's post about Obama's days as a lecturer at University of Chicago law school. Without weighing in on the "title inflation" that led a non-tenured lecturer with no scholarly responsibilities to be called "Professor Obama," what struck me about the post was the part on Obama's final exam questions, and specifically (quoting from Mr. Franck's blog post):

"In 2003, Obama asked his students to answer whether an equal protection challenge could be brought against an initiative that required a state to be color-blind in public education, hiring, and contracts. I began to wonder whether this was a trick question. There are lively debates about whether the equal protection clause requires a state to be color-blind. But I haven't encountered any serious arguments anywhere that the clause might forbid a state to be color-blind. Or maybe I just don't get out enough and run with the big dogs of constitutional theory."

So I wrote the following email back to Mr. Franck, taking me down memory lane, and which I thought I'd memorialize here for posterity (and my loyal 10 readers) :

This is to Matthew Franck, in response to his “Prof. Tribe’s Pupil” post at 07/31 12:21 p.m., and specifically the assertions: “But I haven't encountered any serious arguments anywhere that the [Equal Protection] clause might forbid a state to be color-blind. Or maybe I just don't get out enough and run with the big dogs of constitutional theory.”

Yes, Matthew, you don’t get out enough. The equal protection argument is based on a line of U.S. Supreme Court cases striking down certain “political structures” that the court thought hindered the ability of minorities to get the government to give them special favors and goodies. The cases started, so far as I can tell, with Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (1969), continued with Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1, 458 U.S. 457 (1982) and culminated in Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).

Recall the political scene in the mid-‘90s. Ward Connerly was busy getting anti-race preference measures on the ballots of several western states. Libs opposed them at all costs and measures, including thinking up truly bizarre arguments that such anti-race preference propositions were unconstitutional violations of the Equal Protection clause by imposing unequal “political structures.” At least in liberal circles, these arguments were thought persuasive. They all got a big collective kick in the balls by Judge O’Scannlain in Coalition for Economic Equality [a dysphemism if there ever was one] v. Wilson, 122 F.3d 692 (1997). Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion upheld California’s Proposition 209, which quite plainly and simply banned all race preferences in public employment, education and contracting. Some money quotes:

“Proposition 209 amends the California Constitution simply to prohibit state discrimination against or preferential treatment to any person on account of race or gender. Plaintiffs charge that this ban on unequal treatment denies members of certain races and one gender equal protection of the laws. If merely stating this alleged equal protection violation does not suffice to refute it, the central tenet of the Equal Protection Clause teeters on the brink of incoherence.” Id. at 702.

“That the Constitution permits the rare race-based or gender-based preference hardly implies that the state cannot ban them altogether.” Id. at 708 (italics in original).

“When the people enact a law that says race somehow matters, they must come forward with a compelling state interest to back it up. Plaintiffs would have us also require the people to come forward with a compelling state interest to justify a state law that says that race cannot matter in public contracting, employment, and education. Plaintiffs' counsel went even one step further at oral argument. He urged that ‘[t]he people of the State of California are not entitled to make a judgment as to whether compelling state interests have been vindicated. That is for the courts.’ Au contraire! That most certainly is for the people of California to decide, not the courts. Our authority in this area is limited to deciding whether the interests proffered by the people are sufficient to justify a law that classifies among individuals. If the federal courts were to decide what the interests of the people are in the first place, judicial power would trump self-government as the general rule of our constitutional democracy.” Id. at 708-709.

You’ll have to read Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion to try to figure out the Equal Protection argument the plaintiffs were making. I suppose if you were a student of Obama’s and you could craft a coherent argument, you’d get an A. If you tried, but failed, you’d get an A -. If you answered “no” and took Judge O’Scannlain’s view, that merely stating the proposition is enough to refute it, you’d probably fail.

A full disclosure note: I was in law school at Notre Dame when Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion came out. One of my classmates was Judge O’Scannlain’s son, Kevin O’Scannlain

God bless the Irish

2008-06-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

The Irish voted down the EU Constitution - again.

The link is to an article in the International Herald Tribune - the New York Times overseas. You can feel the reporter’s anguish in having to report the democratic decision those backward Irish made. The first sentence just drips with condescension. I mean, c’mon people, the EU Constitution was “a painstakingly negotiated blueprint . . . .” Can’t you see how much better off you’d be if you give up your sovereignty?

If Obama is elected, we should all move to Ireland.

Man the baracades!

2008-06-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

Social Security is a boondoggle Ponzi scheme that will ultimately ruin the United States financially. It was set up and "sold" to the American people as a retirement plan, not a wealth redistribution tax. Well, forget what FDR said, because it is simply now openly admitted that it is a soak-the-rich, redistribution of wealth, communist "entitlement" that I will have to pay for and for which I stand to gain nothing, having come in on the bottom floor of the Ponzi scheme.

Which is why this proposal by Obama verges on revolution time. My generation simply must rally to defeat this concept (unfortunately, McCain previously suggested something similar) or we will be turned into slaves for the benefit of baby boomers' retirement.

The following quote, the authorship of which has been attributed to many but is actually unknown, is sadly all too prophetic:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury."

The baby boomers are voting themselves a largess of the public treasury. Will those of us paying for it sit back and take it in the shorts? Or will we do something about it?

Once again, Justice Kennedy thinks he is President of the United States

2008-06-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

All you really need to know about SCOTUS's recent decision granting enemy combatants the same habeas corpus rights as U.S. Citizens is this excerpt from Justice Scalia's dissent:

And today it is not just the military that the Court elbows aside. A mere two Terms ago in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557 (2006), when the Court held (quite amazingly) that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 had not stripped habeas jurisdiction over Guantanamo petitioners' claims, four Members of today's five-Justice majority joined an opinion saying the following:

"Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority [for trial by military commission] he believes necessary.

"Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation's ability to determine--through democratic means--how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means." Id., at 636 (Breyer, J., concurring).

Turns out they were just kidding.

I had to weigh in on Expelled! and the whole ID nonsense

2008-05-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard, Ben Stein has a new movie about Intelligent Design called Expelled! Dafydd ab Hugh on Big Lizards takes down Expelled! here and here. You should also read John Derbyshire's takedown.

In response to the second post on Big Lizards, I had to comment in response to the Intelligent Design nutjob commenters. I also have been unsatisfied with anyone's attempted refutations of the whole ID nonsense. They come close, but don't get to the essense of it. So I did. I can't figure out how to link directly to my comment, so I repeat it in its entirety below (without the formatting):

I didn’t see anyone respond to two points Baggi made in much earlier posts, to which I think responses are illuminating, so let me give it a whack.

From a Baggi comment on April 26:

“This is why only the critics of ID say that ID somehow is looking for God. As a matter of fact, the arguments are somewhat silly as the critic proclaims, "You can't prove God with science!" and the ID Proponent responds, "You're right, therefore we're not trying to do that." and then the critic responds, "Then who is the designer?" and the ID Proponent responds, "We don't know, nor are we looking." and the critic responds, "AHA!!"

Very strange, I know, but this conversation takes place over and over again.

Like I said before and i'll repeat here, ID is not looking to prove the existence of anything supernatural (IE: Not natural) as Dafydd's strawman insists. Instead, ID is out to demonstrate that in nature we can find evidence for Intelligent Design.”

The critical point here is that ID’ers openly claim not to be looking for the “designer” nor even the physical processes by which the “design” was accomplished. Why not?!?! If ID was a serious scientific inquiry, they should be enormously curious about precisely how their theoretical designer designed the different species. After all, all the species on earth are made out of the same sub-atomic particles, which obey the same laws of physics. How did the “designer” manipulate these building blocks into the different species? ID’ers respond: we don’t care. Why not?!?!

The real reason they don’t care is that they believe the “designer” is a supernatural God. Actually discovering a natural process and mechanism by which a “designer” could have created different species would be just as much of an affront to their religion as evolution itself. So they merely present other possibilities – like space aliens – to try to get their theory accepted as “science” and not “religion,” and thus able to be taught in public schools, but do absolutely nothing to pursue that otherwise enormously fascinating – and scientific – area of inquiry. It goes without saying that they have no evidence of the process or mechanics by which the “designer” went about his/her/its work.

And from another comment from Baggi later on:

“Darwin set out an example of how his theories could be scientifically falsified. His failure to falsify his own theories does not in anyway negate future scientists falsifying his theories.
* * *
Instead, I used Darwin's own words to demonstrate that if his theory is indeed falsifiable by the method he proposed, then Behe is using that method and ID is science.”

ID is not science. If ID attempted to assert a theory or hypothesis as to how the “designer” designed the different species then it would be science. However, ID’ers, as noted above, openly distain from investigating that question. To those of us with a brain, the reason why is patently obvious – they are religious Creationists seeking to get Creationism taught in public schools through the ruse of ID. Their goal is merely to sow distrust in evolution so they may more easily convince other people to believe Creationism instead. The argument is a simple one: See, look how evolution doesn’t work. Since it’s the only explanation that “science” has given us as to how we humans were created, the only explanation left is Creationism as described in the Bible. This argument works on people who do not have the inclination or ability to actually dig into and understand the science, or people who want to believe in Creationism anyway.

Merely criticizing evolutionary theory is not science. To be science, ID’ers must come up with an alternative explanation for the physical processes leading to observed phenomena (the existence of different species) that is testable and falsifiable, and describe how their theory would be falsified by later experiments and observations, just like Darwin did.

Nowhere that I know of has any ID’er ever presented a hypothesis for how a designer actually designed the different species (i.e., put forth a hypothesis of the specific physical, testable processes by which the “designing” occurred) and then set forth examples of experiments or observations the results of which might falsify the hypothesis. If any ID’er has, please show me where. Did Marvin the Martian modify his Illudium-36 Explosive Space Modulator so it could reorient the molecules of huge piles of pure organic elements to create all the different species on earth? How long would this take? Interesting that ID’ers are the first to argue that math models disprove evolution but are totally silent on how any “intelligent design” could take place on natural time tables. How long would it take scientists today to create a single strand of DNA out of the raw elements?

ID’ers think what they are doing is science. That is, they clearly have come up with an alternative explanation of how the observed phenomena of different species came into existence (via the efforts of some “intelligent designer”). Fine in so far as that goes. However, their alternate explanation – ID – is not a scientific one because it’s not really an explanation. ID does nothing to explain how there came to be different species because it does nothing to explain how the designer pulled it off. ID as an explanation is no more legitimate than if I said that my cat - a hyper-intelligent being from a parallel dimension – did it. How, you ask? ID’ers don’t care. They say “intelligent design” because it sounds good to their target audience – people who want to believe in Creationism.

Without providing a testable hypothesis, all ID’ers are doing is criticizing evolutionary theory. Whoop dee do. Scientists know that general relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible. So I guess neither theory is correct in any sense at all. We should just throw them both out and acknowledge that God really moves everything in the universe according to his whims.

ID’ers are anti-science. They are anti-knowledge. They are anti-truth.

Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen.

Why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I did!

2008-01-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

This past college football season showed again what a joke the BCS is. Nearly everyone thought that the best team - USC (and how it pains me to write that) - was not in the championship game and had no shot at a split championship because its Rose Bowl opponent was weak Illinios rather than a stronger Georgia (or Oklahoma, or West Virginia).

As a result, we got a 2-loss team as "National Champion" over 1-loss Kansas and a host of other 2-loss teams who could have just as easily beat Ohio State. What to do?

A PLAYOFF!!!!! YOU MORONS!!!!

Well, at least the NCAA is "studying" a playoff. "University of Georgia president Michael Adams presented his proposal for an eight-team playoff to the NCAA Division I board of directors Monday in Nashville and they decided to study the issue with others before making any moves," the AP reports today. What was Mr. Adams' thoughtful and brilliant proposal?

"Adams announced his proposal for an eight-team playoff for the Football Bowl Subdivision using the BCS games following years of opposition to a playoff. He unveiled his proposal on Jan. 8, hours after LSU won the BCS national championship game.

"His playoff proposal used the Sugar, Orange, Rose and Fiesta bowls as the opening round, leading to semifinals and a championship game."

Hmm... That plan sounds familiar. I wonder where I heard it before? That's right! From me!

Three years ago!

Time to recycle an old post

2007-12-19T10:24:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of Christmas, celebrating the birth of a child, please allow me to re-post my position on abortion. I'd love to see comments. Here it is:

If you believe unborn babies have individual rights then abortion is simply a question of competing individual rights (the mother’s and the baby’s) to be decided by one's morality. Which gets us to question two - when does an unborn baby have individual rights?

Conception? That is sticky because many conceptions do not result in pregnancy (i.e., the zygote does not implant in the uterus but simply washes out in the next menstrual cycle). Also, what do we do with all those frozen zygotes out there?

I'll table this decision for now and argue from the premise that a baby is entitled to all individual human rights at least when the baby develops a brain stem. It may be earlier, but babies develop brain stems very early. An unborn baby with a brain stem is indistinguishable morally from a newborn baby. I’ve seen them both. There really is not much difference, other than size. You have to pull a Peter Singer and argue that infanticide should be legal if you believe that killing unborn babies with brain stems should be legal.

(Full disclosure: I just came from my wife's ultra-sound appointment for our second baby. He (I want a boy) is three months old now, just creeping out of his first trimester, nowhere near viability outside the womb. Yet he, like our first, was quite active in the ultra sound. I didn't see him suck his thumb, like I saw with our first at three months, but he's just as much of a baby now as he will be in six months when he's born. The thought that my wife could legally kill him (1) for any reason, (2) whenever she wants up to and including when he's half-way born (3) without even telling me, and (needless to say) (4) without my permission, boggles my mind. She would never do that though, which is one reason why I married her.)

What about the woman’s personal autonomy? Doesn’t she have the right to do what ever she wishes with her body? No, of course not and you are silly for even thinking such a thought. Not even the most radical libertarian (when I say radical, I mean a libertarian who would have no problem with doctors performing voluntary physical mutilation/amputation to satisfy perverse sexual desires) believes you have a right to kill another innocent human being.

But in any event, let’s give the personal autonomy argument some weight. Does the mother’s autonomy outweigh the baby’s right to life? As the father of now two children, one inside and one outside, and as any parent will tell you, believe us that babies are much MUCH less trouble on the inside than outside. If you think being pregnant is an inconvenience, try being a parent to a newborn. Being pregnant is a mild inconvenience. But I’m a man, you say. Yes, but I have a pregnant wife. I know from whence I speak.

If it is justifiable to kill your baby to avoid inconvenience to your personal autonomy, you ought to be able to kill your newborn, who is a LOT more of an inconvenience outside than inside. Since you can’t do that, you can’t kill your unborn baby for mere “personal autonomy” reasons.

Does it matter that once a baby is outside, anyone can sustain its life, but while it is inside, only the mother can? To answer that it does matter, you have to also hold the position that it would not be murder if parents let their newborn starve, because it was a mild inconvenience to care for him/her, in a situation when no one else was willing to take care of the baby. The fact that adoption exists does not relieve parents of their primary responsibility to care for their child. If a couple is, say, sailing on a boat across the Pacific Ocean with their newborn, and their shipmates decide not to help with the baby, can they just give up whenever they feel like they are being too inconvenienced? Think of any other situation where immediate help from others is not available. Can you simply allow your baby to die for convenience reasons? I hope you answer no.

Put another way, the situation with a live baby would have to be so dire, that the parents’ life must be in danger, to justify killing and/or neglecting it to death. There may be extreme circumstances usually only the subject of fiction where such a situation arises. The same rules apply to an unborn baby. Most pro-life advocates support a “life of the mother” exception in the dire situation where we must choose between saving only one of two innocent lives. This is a terribly thorny philosophical question with no clear consensus (I’m a philosophy major, I know).

Is the unborn baby just a parasite? Ok, then is a leach a parasite? A leach sucks on you from the outside. Ticks suck on you from the outside. Whether an organism sucks on you from the inside or outside makes no difference as to whether it is a parasite. Thus, newborn babies are parasites just as much as unborn babies. “Detaching” your newborn baby “parasite” without providing for alternate sustenance (i.e., adoption) is murder. Since killing born babies is murder, so is killing unborn babies. Formula? Give me a break. It is easier to breast feed than stir up formula everywhere you go. From a pure labor requirement point of view, breast feeding is much less of a drain on bodily resources.

I’m sure some of you who are pro-killing babies will complain about the dire circumstances many women find themselves in, where abortion is the only way out. I dispute that on the facts. At least in the U.S., it is hard to conceive of a possible situation so dire that the woman cannot give birth to the child then give it up for adoption.

What about social stigma? A 15 year-old girl from a devout Christian family in a devout Christian community gets pregnant. Assume we can be reasonably sure this will ruin her social status and she will be forever ostracized from her family and community. Is a secret abortion acceptable then? Rephrase the question thusly – does social ostracization justify murder? I would feel quite bad for the young pregnant woman. I would not allow her to kill an innocent life to avoid serious social troubles. Michael Douglas killed Glenn Close (eventually) in Fatal Attraction, but only after she became a knife-wielding maniac trying to kill him. What if, at the first sign that she might blow the whistle to his wife on their affair, he off’ed Glenn? He sure would avoid a lot of social stigma, just as bad as the 15 year-old pregnant devout Christian would suffer. I don’t see the moral distinction between the two cases.

In short, I see no moral distinction between an unborn baby with a brain stem and a newborn baby. Every argument I’ve heard attempting to justify why it is ok to kill your unborn baby in certain circumstances simply falls apart when you apply those identical circumstances to a newborn baby. I hope people will try in this thread. I hope their failure will convince fence-sitters to oppose infanticide.

Nobel Propaganda Prize

2007-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Well, that's what it really is now-a-days.

The day before Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Price for his propagandist efforts to enslave the world in perpetual socialism, disguised as "environmentalism," with him and his ilk in charge, a British judge finds that Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, contains nine, count 'em, nine glaring factual errors. Not just little ones. Big ones.

For example, Al Gore's movie claims that ocean levels will rise up to 20 feet "in the near future." Even in enviro-friendly Britain, this was too much, even for the "consensus of the scientific community." Only if Greenland melts - all of Greenland - will sea levels rise 20 feet, which if it ever happens, wil happen only over millennia (that's thousands of years for those of you with the intellectual capacity allowing you to believe Al Gore's movie).

For the truth, see The Great Global Warming Swindle. (Unfortunately, it is apparently not availble for free viewing on the internet anymore.)

Out-arguing Michael Moore (I know, it's not much of a challenge)

2007-05-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore has made a new movie, Sicko, which I haven't seen and likely will not see, yet know for 100% certainty that it is a fawning tribute to communism using communism's age-old tactics: lies, damn lies and statistics. Michael Moore's main point is that he believes health care should be free, and the USA is evil for not giving free healthcare to everyone, like that wonderful bastion of "free"dom, Cuba.

I won't even debate the nonsense of "free" healthcare. Read Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams. TANSTAAFL. I'll happily define what Michael Moore thinks "free" means: everyone is forced to pay into a big pot for everyone's healthcare; some huge bureaucracy is created to "manage" all that money and decide what healthcare you get and when, which system will be as efficient as the DMV; and if you and any doctor attempt to circumvent this communist system, you will both have committed a crime.

It is this last part that is truly obnoxious, and has always been the lynch pin of any Hillary-care style, communist, "single payer" healthcare scam. The thing is, though, Michael Moore apparently really blew the argument, if we believe Rich Tucker from Townhall.com, who writes:

"[Moore] claims other countries provide citizens better health care. Of course, it’s all free, provided by a benevolent government, “just like we have our government provide police and fire and libraries and schools,” Moore says. But here’s the dirty little secret Moore won’t be put on the big screen: We get what we pay for."

I'll hit this one out of the park below, but point out for now that Mr. Tucker is a poor arguer. Moore's argument has superficial appeal. Most people like the police, the fire department, their local library and schools, even though they are run by the government. Will communist healthcare really be that bad, Moore strongly suggests?

Of course it will, and Moore's argument cries out for the obvious rebuttal: The government does not have a monopoly on the services the police, fire department, library and schools provide. It is my Second Amendment right to own a gun and stop criminals from victimizing me or my family, or hire a bodyguard. I can surely buy smoke detectors, install them myself, buy fire extinguishers, and put out fires myself, with my garden hose if need be. I can buy any book I want from numerous privately owned bookstores. I can send my children to private schools or homeshool them.

Of course, I could never exercise any of my rights and rely 100% on the government. Most people do both. I often check out books from the library. I've called the police occasionally. I've put out fires all by myself. I teach my kids.

The point is, these government programs - police, fire department, library, schools - are there only as a last resort. They do not purport to deny citizens of their right to privately contract with other citizens to obtain these services. If the government attempted to outlaw private citizens from privately contracting with other private citizens for any of the services these government programs provide it would be obvious tyranny warranting open rebellion. If the government purports to take away my Second Amendment right to own a gun, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion. If the government purports to deprive me of my right to stop my own house from burning, anything that stupid would warrant open rebellion. If the government bans me from buying books I want from other private citizens, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion. If the government mandates that my children attend its schools and gives me no say in the curriculum, teacher, or principal, or prevents me from teaching my own children what I want to teach them, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion.

If the government purports to deprive me of my right to contract with a doctor to provide me or my family with healthcare at a price I am freely willing to pay and the doctor is freely willing to accept, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion. I will not let my heath and life, or the health and life of my family, be subject to the control of people who think Michael Moore's idea of "free" healthcare is anything but evil.

What Bizzaro Universe has the Earth fallen into?

2007-05-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

While our representatives in D.C. are busily plotting to legalize lawbreaking for millions of illegal immigrants, France of all countries is displaying common sense on the subject. France's new immigration minister said: "We have to put aside massive legalization. It doesn't work and it penalizes, even immigrants."

France displaying more common sense on immigration than the USA? France electing an openly pro-USA President? Pretty soon it will be disaffected conservatives who announce their intent to flee to France.

Buy more French wine

2007-05-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

Three cheers for France for electing an openly-Pro American President, Nicholas Sarkozy. My boycott of French wine ended a long time ago, though, but this certainly is a good reason to reward the good sense of the French people and buy some of their products. Since the only thing worth a damn that they make is wine, I'll twist my arm and imbibe. I recommend Chateaux Talbot.

Indict Nancy Pelosi

2007-04-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

Andrew McCarthy of NRO, with whom I usually agree, has written a poorly reasoned article urging the Bush Administration not to use a political tool against its political enemies that those enemies have been repeatedly using against the Bush Administration. That is to say, Mr. McCarthy urges Bush not to indict Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for flagrantly violating the Logan Act (prohibiting anyone not authorized by the President from conducting foreign policy relations). Why?

Not because she isn’t clearly guilty. Mr. McCarthy argues she is (though whether a D.C. jury would convict her is another story – one Mr. McCarthy does not address). No, Mr. McCarthy argues that we shouldn’t go running to the courts, even if we could, every time an essentially political dispute arises. The key word there is “we.” It’s a word Mr. McCarthy uses a lot in his article, for example:

“We spent three years not on these crucial matters of policy but obsessed over whether there had been a technical violation of statutes barring disclosures of classified information (viz., the fact of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA) . . .”

What “we” is he talking about? Certainly not me, nor any of my ilk (conservatives) nor indeed the majority of the American people – nor even himself! Rather, the “we” was exclusively partisan Democrats and their accomplices in the MSM. Despite some pretty heroic efforts, and the truth clearly on our side (“our” meaning conservatives) we could not stop the Plame kerfuffle witchhunt, and Scooter Libby will likely lose his freedom over it. (If Mr. McCarthy meant “we” as including all who wasted time on the Plame kerfuffle, then his grammar is poor as “we” were not all “obsessed,” only those partisan Democrats were.)

With all due respect to Mr. McCarthy, as excellent a prosecutor as he is, I don’t think he has a keen sense of Democrat politics. Collectively, they are sociopaths with no regard for history, tradition or fair play. Indeed, their leading intellectuals all eschew those very concepts. Just as with our enemies abroad, there is nothing we can do to make the Democrats like us, nor should we try. When we don’t use a potential weapon against them that they have used against us, our weakness merely emboldens them.

Republicans generally honor history, tradition and fair play (“HTFP”). When individual Republicans fall out of line, we quickly take care of them internally. There are two ways to look at the Republican stance on HTFP – first, that we really mean it and second that it is better politically to honor HTFP because the electorate by and large does. The larger point is that honoring HTFP only works politically until the Democrats pull the trigger and get away with it. Democrats tried to filibuster Bush’s judicial nominees, going against HTFP. They paid for it politically, so they stopped. However, Democrats have been abusing the legal system for decades, have paid very little political price, and keep on doing it.

Mr. McCarthy seems to be appealing to Republican’s sense of HTFP in urging Bush not to indict Pelosi. If we could be sure the Democrats would do the same, I’d be all for it. However, we know they won’t. They’ve already crossed the line. The way to get them to stop abusing the legal system is to use it against them as they have been using it against us. Recall how the Democrats lost much zeal for the independent prosecutor law when it was turned full force on Bill Clinton. It’s time we turned the President’s power to issue indictments full force on the Democrats.

Is this a law enforcement issue?

Mr. McCarthy’s weakest point is arguing that because law enforcement techniques were inadequate in dealing with al Qaeda, law enforcement techniques are not useful for anything not a “law enforcement problem.” This is comparing apples to oranges. In the first instance, law enforcement techniques were inadequate. In dealing with Pelosi, Mr. McCarthy is arguing that indicting her would be using too big a stick. Or is Mr. McCarthy arguing that we should declare war on Pelosi? In more revolutionary times, I might be all for it. Or is he saying that we should use exclusively political methods against our terrorist enemies abroad?

Just because law enforcement techniques were not sufficient for a war, that does not mean they are not useful even in that context. For a political battle, Democrats use the law enforcement weapon all the time. Why shouldn’t we, especially when an actual crime has been committed? Or is Mr. McCarthy saying that political enemies have immunity from criminal enforcement?

When engaging enemies, we should use all available and legal tools. Using both war and law enforcement methods against al Qaeda is appropriate. The availability of one does not preclude the use of the other (we should certainly be using political and diplomatic methods, too). In dealing with the enemy at home – and make no mistake, the current Democrat leadership wants the U.S. to lose the war in Iraq and make America weaker militarily – we should use all available tools fighting them.

Don’t investigate Pelosi – debate her?

Oh, how joyous it would be if we could subject our political opponents to cross-examination, and force the voting populace to watch. Even in Presidential debates, hard questions are easily duckable. Debate Pelosi? Where? On the floor of Congress? Who will be watching? In the media? Aren’t we already doing that (at least, with the media outlets conservatives control)?

Pelosi went to Syria for one reason only – to hurt George Bush politically. It seems not to have worked, which is a good thing, but it doesn’t change her reasons, or her determination to behave illegally again if she thinks it will help achieve that goal.

My final thought on the matter is that it would be wonderful for the country if Pelosi spent the next two years defending herself in a criminal case than concentrating on actually doing something in Congress. Throw the book at her, George.

Tom Tancredo vindicated

2007-03-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

A year and a half ago, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R - Colo.) suggested that if islamic terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb in the USA, we should consider destroying (not necessarily "nuking")Mecca in response. Rep. Tancredo was widely criticized for this comment even by the right.

Well, now someone else has suggested the very same thing, the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Is this whole thought process horrible? Yes. However, responsible leaders need to think these issues through. Islamic terrorists don't seem to be deterred by the fear of death (or, more accurately, death in battle or suicide bombing "martyrdom"). Should we simply abandon any attempt to deter them? Or should we think creatively (and morbidly) about ways we could deter them, even if we do not intend to follow through with every deterrent we think up? (Of course, if we ever communitate a deterrent, we better be damned sure we have the gumption to follow through - that lack of gumption is what got us into this mess.)

Let me go out on a limb here and propose something equally, or even more, disturbing than simply obliterating Mecca (after all, we could warn Saudi Arabia in advance, and just take out the holy site, killing very few actual people). I don't think al Qaeda terrorists have any rights under the Geneva conventions (or, to clarify, I agree with John Yoo's analysis of their rights). I believe we have the legal ability to summarily execute any non-uniformed enemy combatant we capture. If we started doing so - and I'm not necessarily saying that we should - I think we would deter more potential jihidis. Reasonable people should consider all the options.

Ohio State didn't belong in a BCS bowl game

2007-01-08T21:04:00.000-08:00

If you check my profile, you'll notice that I went to Notre Dame Law School. I am also a huge college football fan. I never missed a home game in my 3 years at South Bend and I try to get back once a year for a game and to see friends.

I also know that Notre Dame is slightly overrated in football. But only slightly. There are enough Notre Dame haters out there to balance any otherwise skewed polls. So Notre Dame's ranking of 11 was about right. They qualified for a BCS bowl game (with 10 spots this year) and they were chosen.

Then, everyone goes nuts when Notre Dame gets soundly beaten 41-14 by LSU , a team ranked 4. "Notre Dame never should have been there" cry the haters. Baloney. LSU was a better team in the best conference in the country this year. How do I know the SEC was the best conference?

Florida 41, Ohio State 14.

Oh, how we Notre Dame fans (and any other mid-west football fans) have to put up with Ohio State - a classless program with classless fans. We played Ohio State twice when I was at Notre Dame. They had by far the rudest, most obnoxious, unsportsmanlike fans. (Now Nebraska on the other hand, has the best fans outside of Notre Dame's.)

From this final score, identical to Notre Dame's shellacking at the hands of the SEC's second best team, it is obvious that Ohio State did not belong in the BCS title game. Ohio State beat no one good this year. Texas? Big whoop. They stunk down the stretch in a conference whose winner got beat by Boise State. Michigan? Got whooped by the same USC team that lost to Oregon State and UCLA. The Big Ten was terrible. If it wasn't, then you have to give Notre Dame brownie points for pummelling Penn State (which won its bown game).

If Notre Dame didn't belong, then neither did Ohio State. C'mon Notre Dame haters, admit it!

Andrew McCarthy is right - just as I was in April 2006

2006-12-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

I thoroughly enjoy NRO's Andrew McCarthy's analysis of global political issues. I think it is because we are both lawyers and think alike - with logic and reason dictating the policy result, not reaching our preferred policy result first, then thinking up psuedo-logical arguments to back it up.

I am in total agreement with his latest article. It is basically the same as what I argued back in April 2006.

We are not taking the war on terror seriously. We are not treating it as a war. Moreover, this war is in a time unlike Vietnam and Korea where we risked involving the Soviets or ChiComs if we fought those wars seriously. However, even though there is no other superpower to offend or involve, we are waging war under rules of engagement developed and implemented under the old paradigm.

To paraphase Pluto from Animal House, "Syria?!? Dead! Hezbolla?!? Dead! Iran?!? Dead!" We should take our Iraq troops and use them for what they are good at. If we were serious, we would invade and topple the governments of both Syria and Iran - indeed, we would have done this years ago as we have known all along that these nations are harboring and materially assisting terrorists (that's putting it too mildly - they are deliberately creating terrorists).

We even have an excuse to act now even though we've been sitting on our hands for so long. We recently caught Iran red handed shipping weapons to the Iraqi insurgency.

Invade Iran. Kill the Mullahs. Invade Syria. Kill the Ba'athists. They are at war with us. We should act like we are at war with them.

My thoughts on the Democrats' victory

2006-11-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

In heavily Republican Orange County, California, voter turnout was a whopping 47.9%, which was actually close to the statewide turnout of 49.1%. Heavily Republican Riverside County turned out only 34.5%, San Bernadino 43%. Of course, LA County only turned out 48.8%.

My educated guess based on these numbers and watching the nation-wide trends is that conservatives had nothing to be excited about this year. What would happen if Republicans won all the close House and Senate races? Republicans would have the same majorities they've had for six years. What have they done with those majorities? Increased Federal spending and borrowing far faster than even under the Clinton administration. Why would conservatives be excited about that?

Even in 2004, many pundits stated that a Kerry victory wouldn't be all that bad, from a fiscal standpoint, because when the Congress and President are of different parties, "Pork" has a much harder time getting passed. Would a President Kerry have signed a bill funding a "Bridge to Nowhere"? I think a lot of that thinking went into conservatives staying home, and independents voting Democrat.

America is fiscally conservative. Milton Friedman, who sadly just died at 94, and his contemporary Frederick Hayek long ago won the debate about free markets, low taxes and low government regulation. Even most "independents" generally believe in free market principles. I submit that most Democrats do, too, but lie about it because they believe it is better to keep everyone (except them, of course) poor and stupid so they can be perpetually ruled by Democrats.

"Independents" remember that during the Clinton years, we had a balanced budget and taxes weren't all that high. What they don't generally remember is that the only reason this happened is because of the Republican victories in Congress in 1994. Why did Republicans win? By articulating fiscally conservative policies. Republicans couldn't do that this year because they abandoned fiscal conservatism. Farm subsidies, steel tariffs, prescription drug handouts, etc.

So how bad will it be with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid? This was the main rallying cry of Republicans to motivate the base. It wasn't effective. Why not?

Because it won't be that bad. Bush is still President. Though he is a free spending liberal, and we're sure to get a minimum wage hike, the political pressure on him to veto Democrat spending bills will be much greater. Democrat pork also stands far less of a chance of passing. Democrat social policy stands no chance of surviving a veto.

Was it irrational for conservatives to "punish" Republicans for abandoning conservatism? Thomas Sowell, for whom I have the utmost respect, thinks so. But he poses the question as a single decision in time - from two competing alternatives, which was the better choice, a Republican Congress or Democrat? If all we're talking about is the next two years, I'd easily say Republican. But, the "punishment" theory goes, by thwacking Republicans for not acting conservatively, the next time around when they regain power they will act conservatively.

Will Republicans regain power? Easily, if they simply clean house and articulate - and follow through even in their minority status - conservative fiscal principles. This year was the best atmosphere ever for Democrats. They had a highly unpopular war, a highly unpopular Republican President, a very unmotivated Republican base, and what did they get? A hair's width majority in the Senate (that they can only maintain by constantly sucking up to Joe Lieberman) and at present a whopping 35 seat majority in the House, meaning only 18 seats need to flip next election for the Republicans to regain control. To remind everyone, Republicans had a 28 seat majority going into the election, and that wasn’t that big.

Is there any precedent for the “punishment” theory actually working? Yes, there is – 1994. Conservatives stayed home or voted for Ross Perot in 1992 as punishment to Bush I raising taxes. As a result, we got Clinton. Ok, so he soiled the office of President for 8 years (literally and figuratively) but what kind of fiscal government did we get? Welfare reform, NAFTA, balanced budgets, surpluses even. Why? Because Republicans realized that they needed to act like conservatives to win. In Clinton’s first two years, with a Democrat Senate and House, they tried Hillarycare. Then Democrats got booted and replaced by a truly fiscally conservative Republican Congress.

What will happen in the next two years? Democrats will either get drunk with power and appoint the most noxious leadership to appease their moonbat base, which will piss off the country, or they’ll get stuck infighting and won’t get anything done, which will piss off the country. I see no win for Democrats when they actually have to govern. They are incompetent. Democrats advance up the party ranks not with competence, but with more and more outrageous moonbattery. Democrat incompetence will be put on display for two years, when they can’t really do anything that harmful.

In 2008, America will be ripe for conservatives again, Republicans will have immense pressure from their base to act conservatively, and a Presidential election will bring out voters. I am sad to see the Republicans lose Congress simply because it is contemptible to vote for Democrats today. But they deserved to lose. And I think America, and conservatism, will eventually be better for it.

California's First District Court of Appeal upholds California's definition of marriage as between a man and a woman

2006-10-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

For those of you who do not know, California's First Appellate District is located in San Francisco. Fortunately, California has had mostly Republican governors for the past 20+ years (I know, hard to believe) and even though those governors are not generally appointing Scalia-types to the bench (with the notable exception of Janice Rogers Brown), we generally don't have a totally deranged moonbat appellate judiciary.

So the First District's opinion today upholding California's definition of marriage as between a man and a woman does not come as a complete shock. More important than the outcome in this specific case, though, is the powerful common sense opinion delivered by the majority (though I've only read the introduction, quoted in full below, which is all you really need to read). The following words echo exactly what we conservative jurists and Federalist Society types have been arguing for years. It is a tribute to our success in the market place of ideas that the First District's opinion so thoroughly adopts our take on the proper role of the judiciary.

Without further ado, here is the opinion's compelling introduction:

"The legal issue presented in these appeals is straightforward: Did the trial court err when it concluded Family Code statutes defining civil marriage as the union between a man and a woman are unconstitutional? (Fam. Code, §§ 300, 301, 302, 308.5.) Appellants assert legal error; respondents reiterate their arguments that excluding same-sex couples from marriage violates due process and equal protection and is not supported by a compelling state interest. Our dissenting colleague advances theories and arguments not made by the parties or relied on by the trial court and concludes a constitutionally protected privacy interest compels expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.

"California has long sought to eliminate discrimination against gays and lesbians. Our Legislature has passed landmark legislation providing substantially all the rights, responsibilities, benefits and protections of marriage to same-sex couples who register as domestic partners. (Fam. Code, § 297 et seq.) We must now decide whether the state’s definition of marriage, which historically has precluded same-sex partners from marrying, is constitutional. Obviously, the question is one of great significance, and it requires us to venture into the storm of a fierce national debate. Both sides believe passionately in their positions. One side argues the time has come for lesbian and gay relationships to enjoy full social equality, and it is fundamentally unfair for the state to continue to reserve marriage as an institution for heterosexual couples only. The other side stresses the need for judicial restraint and the importance of preserving the traditional understanding of marriage—which is very important to many Californians, who fear such a fundamental change will destroy or seriously weaken the institution at the heart of family life.

"While we have considered all arguments raised on both sides of the issue, our task as an appellate court is not to decide who has the most compelling vision of what marriage is, or what it should be. “[T]he judiciary is not in the business of preferring, much less anointing, one value as more valid than another. . . .” (Lewis v. Harris (2005) 378 N.J. Super. 168, 200 [875 A.2d 259] (conc. opn. of Parrillo, J.A.D.).) We are called upon to decide only whether the statutory definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman—which has existed, explicitly or implicitly, since the founding of our state—is unconstitutional because it does not permit gays and lesbians to marry persons of their choice.

"All can agree that California has not deprived its gay and lesbian citizens of a right they previously enjoyed; same-sex couples have never before had the right to enter a civil marriage. It is also beyond dispute that our society has historically understood “marriage” to refer to the union of a man and a woman. These facts do not mean the opposite-sex nature of marriage can never change, or should never change, but they do limit our ability as a court to effect such change. The respondents in these appeals are asking this court to recognize a new right. Courts simply do not have the authority to create new rights, especially when doing so involves changing the definition of so fundamental an institution as marriage. “The role of the judiciary is not to rewrite legislation to satisfy the court’s, rather than the Legislature’s, sense of balance and order. Judges are not ‘ “knight[s]-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of [their] own ideal of beauty or of goodness.” ’ [Citation.]” (People v. Carter (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 128, 134.) In other words, judges are not free to rewrite statutes to say what they would like, or what they believe to be better social policy.

"Because we have a fundamentally different view of the appellate judicial function, at least in relation to these cases, we part ways with our dissenting colleague. The dissent delivers what is essentially an impassioned policy lecture on why marriage should be extended to same-sex couples. Lacking controlling precedent, it misconstrues case law and mischaracterizes the parties’ claims and our analysis to reach this result. But the court’s role is not to define social policy; it is only to decide legal issues based on precedent and the appellate record. The six cases before us ultimately distill to the question of who gets to define marriage in our democratic society. We believe this power rests in the people and their elected representatives, and courts may not appropriate to themselves the power to change the definition of such a basic social institution. Our dissenting colleague’s views, while well intentioned, disregard this delicate balance. Moreover, his unfortunate rhetoric suggesting our opinion is an exercise in discrimination rather than a legitimate attempt to follow the law (dis. opn., post, at pp. 50-51) does nothing to advance the serious subject matter of these appeals.

"We conclude California’s historical definition of marriage does not deprive individuals of a vested fundamental right or discriminate against a suspect class, and thus we analyze the marriage statutes to determine whether the opposite-sex requirement is rationally related to a legitimate government interest. According the Legislature the extreme deference that rational basis review requires, we conclude the marriage statutes are constitutional. The time may come when California chooses to expand the definition of marriage to encompass same-sex unions. That change must come from democratic processes, however, not by judicial fiat."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Do reporters know anything about math?

2006-10-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

The AP's latest obvious mathematical error in a story about math occurs in this article about a Japanese man reciting pi to 100,000 decimal places. The basic facts of the story seem ok, except when the AP reporter (I couldn't find any reporter's name attached to the article) starts editorializing - or more particularly, asserting something as a fact that he/she is purely speculating about. So that's how we get this lovely statement:

"[Pi] is usually written out to a maximum of three decimal places, as 3.141, in math textbooks."

Now, I started out in college as a math major and I was quite the math prodigy before then, taking advanced calculus (that's the "BC" version) as a junior in High School. I still try to keep up on pop math stories, like the latest discovery of the largest Merseinne Prime (those of the form 2^x-1) or the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (there are no whole number solutions to the equation A^x+B^x=C^x where x is greater than 2). So with my bonafides in place, let me swing away.

First, it is not my experience that math textbooks only write out pi to a "maximum" of three decimal places. It's ususally either 3.14 or 3.1416 or 3.14159 or, getting a little adventurous, 3.141592654. But that's not the true point. Pi written out to three decimal places is 3.142, correctly rounding, not 3.141 (the next two digits being 59, which is more than half so you round up). I suppose if you are reciting the decimal digits and you stop at three you would say "3.141" which brings up an interesting question: did the Japanese guy round off on his last digit? Did he need to? What digit is pi's 100,001th?

In any event, no math textbook would ever write pi as "3.141" which is what the AP reporter said which is beyond ignorant.

My thoughts on abortion

2006-09-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

Posting has obviously been light as of late (i.e., the month of August is missing). That's because on August 10 my second daughter, Catelin Elizabeth, was born. Everyone is doing well physically, though my and my wife's sanity is taking a beating. In lieu of regular posting, I'll post a comment on abortion I wrote about 6 months ago in a comment on Patterico's site (I believe) slightly modified. Refute me if you can:

If you believe unborn babies have individual rights then abortion is simply a question of competing individual rights (the mother’s and the baby’s) to be decided by one's morality. Which gets us to question two - when does an unborn baby have individual rights?

Conception? That is sticky because many conceptions do not result in pregnancy (i.e., the zygote does not implant in the uterus but simply washes out in the next menstrual cycle). Also, what do we do with all those frozen zygotes out there?

I'll table this decision for now and argue from the premise that a baby is entitled to all individual human rights at least when the baby develops a brain stem. It may be earlier, but babies develop brain stems very early. An unborn baby with a brain stem is indistinguishable morally from a newborn baby. I’ve seen them both. There really is not much difference, other than size. You have to pull a Peter Singer and argue that infanticide should be legal if you believe that killing unborn babies with brain stems should be legal.

(Full disclosure: I just came from my wife's ultra-sound appointment for our second baby. He (I want a boy) is three months old now, just creeping out of his first trimester, nowhere near viability outside the womb. Yet he, like our first, was quite active in the ultra sound. I didn't see him suck his thumb, like I saw with our first at three months, but he's just as much of a baby now as he will be in six months when he's born. The thought that my wife could legally kill him (1) for any reason, (2) whenever she wants up to and including when he's half-way born (3) without even telling me, and (needless to say) (4) without my permission, boggles my mind. She would never do that though, which is one reason why I married her.)

What about the woman’s personal autonomy? Doesn’t she have the right to do what ever she wishes with her body? No, of course not and you are silly for even thinking such a thought. Not even the most radical libertarian (when I say radical, I mean a libertarian who would have no problem with doctors performing voluntary physical mutilation/amputation to satisfy perverse sexual desires) believes you have a right to kill another innocent human being with "your body."

But in any event, let’s give the personal autonomy argument some weight. Does the mother’s autonomy outweigh the baby’s right to life? As the father of now two children, one inside and one outside, and as any parent will tell you, believe us that babies are much MUCH less trouble on the inside than outside. If you think being pregnant is an inconvenience, try being a parent to a newborn. Being pregnant is a mild inconvenience. But I’m a man, you say. Yes, but I have a pregnant wife. I know from whence I speak.

If it is justifiable to kill your baby to avoid inconvenience to your personal autonomy, you ought to be able to kill your newborn, who is a LOT more of an inconvenience outside than inside. Since you can’t do that, you can’t kill your unborn baby for mere “personal autonomy” reasons.

Does it matter that once a baby is outside, anyone can sustain its life, but while it is inside, only the mother can? To answer that it does matter, you have to also hold the position that it would not be murder if parents let their newborn starve, because it was a mild inconvenience to care for him/her, in a situation when no one else was willing or able to take care of the baby. The fact that adoption exists does not relieve parents of their primary moral responsibility to care for their child. If a couple is, say, sailing on a boat across the Pacific Ocean with their newborn, and their shipmates decide not to help with the baby, or they have no shipmates, can they just give up feeding their child whenever they feel like they are being too inconvenienced? Think of any other situation where immediate help from others is not available. Can you simply allow your baby to die for convenience reasons? I hope you answer no.

Put another way, the situation with a live baby would have to be so dire, that the parents’ life must be in danger, to justify killing and/or neglecting it to death. There may be extreme circumstances usually only the subject of fiction where such a situation arises. The same rules apply to an unborn baby. Most pro-life advocates support a “life of the mother” exception in the dire situation where we must choose between saving only one of two innocent lives. This is a terribly thorny philosophical question with no clear consensus. (My BA is in Philosophy, I know.)

Is the unborn baby just a parasite? Ok, then is a leach a parasite? A leach sucks on you from the outside. Ticks suck on you from the outside. Whether an organism sucks on you from the inside or outside makes no difference as to whether it is a parasite. Thus, newborn babies are parasites just as much as unborn babies. “Detaching” your newborn baby “parasite” without providing for alternate sustenance (i.e., adoption) is murder. Since killing born babies is murder, so is killing unborn babies. Formula? Give me a break. It is easier to breast feed than stir up formula everywhere you go. From a pure labor requirement point of view, breast feeding is much less of a drain on bodily resources.

I’m sure some of you who are pro-killing babies will complain about the dire circumstances many women find themselves in, where abortion is the only way out. I dispute that on the facts. At least in the U.S., it is hard to conceive of a possible situation where the situation is so dire that the woman cannot give birth to the child then give it up for adoption.

What about social stigma? Suppose an unmarried 15 year-old girl from a devout Christian family in a devout Christian community gets pregnant. Assume we can be reasonably sure this will ruin her social status and she will be forever ostracized from her family and community. Is a secret abortion acceptable then? Rephrase the question thusly – does social ostracization justify murder? I would feel quite bad for the young pregnant woman. I would not allow her to kill an innocent life to avoid serious social troubles. Michael Douglas killed Glenn Close (eventually) in Fatal Attraction, but only after she became a knife-wielding maniac trying to kill him. What if, at the first sign that she might blow the whistle to his wife on their affair, he off’ed Glenn? He sure would avoid a lot of social stigma, just as bad as the 15 year-old pregnant devout Christian would suffer. I don’t see the moral distinction between the two cases.

In short, I see no moral distinction between an unborn baby with a brain stem and a newborn baby. Every argument I’ve heard attempting to justify why it is ok to kill your unborn baby in certain circumstances simply falls apart when you apply those identical circumstances to a newborn baby. I hope people will try in this thread. I hope their failure will convince fence-sitters to oppose infanticide.

UCLA - USC rivalry goes judicial

2006-07-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

This recent California Court of Appeal case is interesting. This is how Findlaw describes the holding:

Order of Probate Court allocating to UCLA a portion of the liability for income tax, and interest on unpaid income tax, paid by the Estate of the deceased on after-discovered assets is reversed as claimant should not be liable for any portion of the income tax liability because as an educational institution, UCLA is a charitable organization exempt from income taxation on its share of the assets, and that in its tax returns, the estate claimed and received a partial exemption based on UCLA's charitable status.

Now, I suspected something was afoot, given that it is quite obvious that donations to UCLA are tax-deductable and that UCLA is a non-tax paying entity. I reasonably speculated that the trial judge, John H. Reid, was a USC alumnus. Indeed he is, receiving his B.S. degree from USC.

But wait, there's more. The author of the appellate decision, Norman L. Epstein, is a double UCLA alumnus, receiving both his BA and law degree from my alma mater. I am certain, however, that both judges rested their decisions on their unbiased, reasoned interpretation of the facts and law. It's nice to see the side of good and righteousness prevail, however.

Essential reading

2006-06-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

The Federalist Papers online.

When and how will the Earth be destroyed?

2006-06-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

One of the more morose facts I've carried in my brain since an early age is that the Earth is doomed to burn to a crisp in roughly 5 billion years (explained below). This thought creeps up in my mind occasionally when I think of the environmental movement and silly things it has spawned like "Earth First!" or the voluntary human extinction movement. What good is preserving the Earth when we know for an absolute logical certainty that the Earth will be completely destroyed by a date certain? Carpe diem, smoke 'em if you got 'em, use the Earth while we still can, I say. I'll let the reader run through the logical steps to that one, and may post on that particular topic later. For this post, I wanted to simply catalogue the various ways that the Earth can and/or will be destroyed (or all life on it destroyed) and put a time frame on each such potential or certain catastrophe.

I'll add links to this post later for reference but I wanted to get this down while I was in the mood (this is a post I've been planning on doing for a long time, and it will take a bit of googling to complete). What got me in the mood today was this article reporting that Stephen Hawking reports the (long-known) fact that the human race must venture into outer space in order to survive indefinitely. As the below will illustrate, well duh. The Earth will disintegrate, all life on it will be destroyed and we even know the outside dates. Hawking though stresses human-caused events like "sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of." (He may not attribute "global warming" to human causes, but given his list I doubt it. What about a non-genetically engineered virus? Or an extra-terrestrial "Andromeda strain”? Hawking's list is just a Lefty rant.)

This post is similar, but not identical to, this article about the top ten ways to destroy the Earth. Those top ten ways are mostly artificial, i.e., require the intervention of intelligent beings to bring about. Fundamentally, though, that list is made up of ways to destroy the Earth right now (or at least start the process right now) while my list is merely the various ways the Earth can or will be destroyed eventually by forces currently understood and in motion (and mostly outside our control).

So without further ado, here's my (incomplete for the moment) list of ways the Earth, and/or all life on it, will eventually be destroyed, listed in order of event most remote in time and indicating the probability the event will happen.

1. All energy in the universe running out - approximately a googol years (under current scientific understanding, certain to occur)

Within the past few years, scientists received a huge shock via observations of the speed and acceleration of the most distant galaxies. Ever since the change in thinking from the Einsteinian “static universe,” which he thought neither expanding nor contracting, caused by Edwin Hubble’s observations that the universe is expanding, the only question seriously considered was whether the mutual gravitational pull of all the matter in the universe was sufficient to re-collapse the entire universe or whether the expansion would go on forever, albeit at an ever decreasing rate. The most recent observations indicate that not only is the universe’s expansion not slowing down, it is speeding up!

We have no idea why the universe’s expansion is speeding up, but if it is, the fate of the universe is that all stars now formed, and hereafter to form, will eventually use all their useful nuclear fuel (which is anything lower on the periodic table than iron – above iron, no energy is generated from nuclear fusion). The universe will slowly freeze and, given its accelerating expansion, will never unfreeze. Black holes may form and eventually evaporate, mere atoms at a time, via Hawking radiation.

This is kind of a wild card in the list because the Earth will certainly be long gone before then (unless we find a way to move the Earth to a new star) but since it spells the eventual end of humanity and all other life in the universe, I figured it belonged on the list.

2. Swelling of the sun as its fuel runs out - 5 billion years (certain destruction of the Earth).

All stars of equal mass behave the same way, on the same timeframe. Stars shine because they have so much matter that the gravitational force is strong enough to cause nuclear fusion. The fusion reaction reduces the mass slightly and creates energy (E=MC²). The bigger the star, the quicker it burns its "fuel" and thus the quicker it self-destructs. The self-destruct sequence is different depending on the mass - at the high end, a black hole, then neutron star, then white dwarf, etc., result.

Our sun is destined to become a white dwarf. Before that, it will swell up to the size of at least the orbit of Mars, and the Earth, and all other inner planets, will gradually sink into the enlarged sun and burn to a crisp.

3. Collision with Andromeda galaxy – approximately 3 billion years (potential destabilization of Earth’s orbit with possible catastrophic consequences)

Even though the Universe as a whole is expanding, our nearest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, is moving toward us in the Milky Way. A “collision” with the Milky Way is possible, but not known for certain at this time. A collision would mostly mean the two galaxies “wisping” through each other with very few actual collisions of any sizeable objects. Assuming such a galactic collision occurs, it is highly unlikely that the Earth will actually hit anything in Andromeda. If anything in our solar system will get hit, it will likely be the sun.

In any event, many things could happen short of a direct collision of the Earth with another massive body if and when Andromeda and the Milky Way collide. The most likely is that the Earth’s orbit will be perturbed and eventually fall into, or away from, the sun. Either result would be fatal to all life on Earth. I’ll try to do the math later to determine how close a star from Andromeda will have to pass by our solar system to cause any significant perturbation in Earth’s orbit.

4. Collision with comet or asteroid – within 30 million years (near certain, though avoidable)

You’ve all seen the stupid movies and if you’re a geek like me you’ve seen the Discovery Channel shows. Yes, the Earth will likely be hit by another large stellar body like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. When? The only large body we know of now that will come close to hitting the Earth will arrive around 2800 – 800 years from now. Our solar system is presently in a dense region of our galaxy such that the possibility of the Oort cloud being perturbed to send a comet on a collision course is more likely.

We have the technology to divert such a collision via rockets and nuclear explosions, provided we find the object in enough time. We have a better chance of spotting an offending asteroid (orbiting in the nearby Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter) than a comet (plunging in from the Oort cloud beyond the Kuiper Belt). Depending on the size of the object, life on Earth may survive. The odds of humanity’s survival go up with more technological sophistication. But there is a size such that any object larger colliding with the Earth (calculated with respect to angle of impact and speed) will certainly destroy all life on Earth.

5. Gamma Ray burst from creation of a black hole – any time (highly improbable)

When a black hole forms, its poles shoot out super-massive amounts of gamma ray radiation in narrow cones. We see these gamma ray bursts occasionally, every one of which originated outside our galaxy (meaning that the energy has depleted such that it does us no harm). If a black hole forms near to us in our galaxy and its pole is aimed at us, the gamma ray burst will evaporate a significant portion of the ozone lawyer allowing the sun’s ultraviolet radiation to cause mass extinctions. The bigger the burst, the more ozone evaporated. With a large enough burst sustained for a more than about 30 seconds, the gamma rays would wipe out all the ozone, reach the Earth and fry everything on that side.

Humans could live through this at our present technological levels and the more advanced we get, the better our chances. Of course, our best chance is to establish colonies on other planets.

6. Eruption of the Yellowstone super-volcano – any time (near certain)

You, like almost everyone else in America, probably took a family trip to Yellowstone National Park, saw Old Faithful, saw the bubbling mud and steam vents, along with moose, bears, etc. Well, why do you think Yellowstone bubbles? It’s a super-volcano. It erupted in the past. It will erupt again.

There are other super-volcanoes. Any of them may erupt at any time. Modern volcanology allows us to predict eruptions of smaller volcanoes days and/or weeks in advance. Presumably, we would have more lead time with a super-volcano.

Again, humans could live through this, as such super-volcano eruptions have occurred during humanity’s existence, and we’re still here. A big enough eruption, though, would cause an ice age and would likely wipe out a significant portion of life on Earth and humanity.

That's all I have for you at the moment. I'm sure I'll think of more later. The above ought to keep y'all occupied for now.

Why didn't I think of that?

2006-06-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

You sure have to hand it to the UN. The organization is so ridiculous it is simply impossible to parody it anymore. They have to be trying to be this dumb. The latest?

Our good friend Hans Blix, last seen being fed to sharks by Kim Jong-Il in "Team America World Police," has lead a UN study that recently produced a 227-page report - after a two-year "probe" costing untold millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund who knows what corrupt bureaucrats on expense accounts to do the most important kind of nothing - finding, ta da, that nuclear weapons should be illegal. And the AP is taking this seriously.

Of all the great thinkers the world has produced since 1945, you would think someone would have made the simple logical connection: 1) nuclear weapons are bad, 2) bad things should be illegal, 3) nuclear weapons should be illegal. Thank god Hans Blix, his team and his 227 page report (nuclear weapons are bad, m'kay) finally got around to solving that "if p then q, p therefore q" syllogism.

Now that Hans (where's Franz?) has enlightened the world with his thoroughly researched and documented 227 page report, where else can this logic lead? How about terrorism? Terrorism = bad, right? I think that is the UN's official position. Let's outlaw it! Problem solved!

Quoting from the AP article now, "Blix said countries that make a commitment to nonproliferation should be given assurances 'that if they do away with these weapons they will not be attacked by nuclear weapons by anyone — and we think that is important.'" I certainly see how that would be important and why Hans would think that. After all, what good is unilateral disarmament without assurances that you won't be attacked? I would make sure that each hostile country at least did a pinkie swear, but more likely make them swear on the grave of some dead relative, preferably their grandmother.

Sarcasm turned of now. The only reason why I think we keep funding the UN, and keep it in New York, is the very practical maxim "keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer." Is a few billion dollars a year to pay international bureaucrats to drive limos, rack up umpteen jillion parking tickets, clog up fine restaurants, and churn out 227-page "studies" all that much considering what those same people would otherwise be doing? It would warm my heart for a moment if we pulled out of the UN, stopped giving it money and kicked them out. Then I would realize what they would do untethered from the American tax payer's teat.

Occupiers? Quagmire? Not!

2006-06-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

The conventional wisdom of the MSM is that the U.S. is "occupying" Iraq, rather than remaining at the request of Iraq's democratically elected government (like we do for countries such as Germany and Japan). The CW is also that Iraq is at best a "quagmire" like Vietnam and at worst a war we have already lost.

Tell me, then, how it is that the Iraqi government can launch its own investigation into the allegations of U.S. Marines killing unarmed civilians in Haditha. Let me repeat that. The Iraqi government is launching its own investigation into alegations of abuse by the "occupying" U.S. military. That doesn't sound like something "occupiers" allow. Nor does that sound like something the Iraqi government could be capable of doing if the entire country is a "quagmire" or has already lost the war to the terrorists.

The AP article I linked to doesn't fit the script. In the MSM's zeal to blame the U.S. for war crimes, and pile on more support for that blame by noting the Iraqi government's own investigation, they inadvertantly disprove the CW they have been peddling so recklessly. The AP article just breezes over the implication that an Iraqi government capable of launching an investigation into allegations of potential war crimes by the "occupying" force disproves the MSM's entire storyline on the Iraqi war.

This is a good thing, though. I have confidence that whatever happened in Haditha, justice will be served because the U.S. is honorable and the Iraqi government appears to be as well. The fact that this AP article just assumes the Iraqi government is legitimate and functioning is a great step forward.

Will there be a "doctor shopping" investigation for Patrick Kennedy? Don't count on it.

2006-05-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

We've seen plenty of high profile investigations for the sake of investigating a high profile subject. Most recently, Rush Limbaugh reached a deal with Palm Beach prosecutors over "doctor shopping" charges. Andrew McCarthy of NRO, someone whose articles I've read for quite a while and who seems wholly trustworthy to me, opined that the charges against Rush were totally baseless. Nevertheless, Rush's brush with the law is over for now.

Enter Patrick Kennedy. He crashes his car at 3:00 a.m. outside the U.S. Capitol, possibly gets preferential treatment from the cops by not having to take a field sobriety test even though he shows signs of intoxication, and then admits to a prescription pain killer addiction. How did he develop this addiction? From legitimate initial needs, like Rush? None of the above-linked articles says.

Regardless, I'm willing to go out on a limb here and predict that there will be no doctor shopping investigation, no subpoenas for Patrick Kennedy's private medical records, and the media (and his dad, Ted Kennedy) will praise Patrick Kennedy for taking responsibility for his problem - just like they all did when Rush announced his addiction to pain killers, right? BWahahahahah!

I will go even more out on a limb and predict that the loony left blogosphere will dedicate thousands of stupid posts explaining the differences between the two cases and will uniformly conclude that Rush truly is a criminal while Patrick Kennedy is a model citizen.

Take it around behind the barn and kill it with an axe

2006-04-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

To borrow a phrase from P.J. O'Rourke in "Parliament of Whores" on farm subsidies, the title of this post is precisely what we should do with each of these government programs.

I'm not kidding. Completely. Immediately. With no wind down time, as painfull as it might be.

This is super-cool

2006-04-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

For all you 10 regular readers out there, please go check out this website. It is a biography of my grandfather, Rear Admiral Paul E. Pugh, the 6th CO of the USS Kitty Hawk, the world's first "super carrier." The bio calls my grandfather "Captain" Pugh. Though he was a Captain when he was the Kitty Hawk's CO, he earned two stars since then and retired in 1974 as a Rear Admiral.

Though the Kitty Hawk is considerably smaller than the Nimitz class carriers - like the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Abraham Lincoln, to name just two - it is still on active duty. Indeed, it is the longest serving aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. It is presently stationed in Japan - another unique feat - as it is the only U.S. aircraft carrier with its home port in another country - i.e., "permanently forward deployed."

Though my grandfather's bio stops with his stint as the Kitty Hawk's CO, he did lots of cool things after that. Hopefully, they'll update the website (I've offered to help them with the additional biographical information). The coolest thing in the bio now is the acknowledgement that "Captain Pugh was the first United Nations pilot to shoot down two MIG-15's." That would be the beginning of the Korean War, flying an F-86 Sabre Jet. What the website doesn't make clear, which it should, is that he shot down those two MIG-15s on the same day, meaning that he was the first U.N. pilot to shoot down a MIG-15, period.

Gramps is 86, doing relatively well, and living in Oceanside with Grandma, who is doing extremely well at age 84 (still golfs 2-3 times a week).

What to do about Iran?

2006-04-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

After reading Mark Steyn's marvelous column on the Iran situation . . . wait, not "after," actually "during" . . . I gathered my thoughts as to what I would do if I were President of the United States. My solution is the correct answer. Indeed, the answer is so abundantly obvious that it is only because of the age we live in, and its wholesale rejection of logic, reason, facts and evidence, that Bush does not do this. What is my plan?

Let's start with the latest rally presided over by Iran President Ahmadinejad, as Steyn recounts: "Our enemies cannot do a damned thing," he crowed, as an appreciative audience chanted "Death to America!"

Near as I can find, al-Presidente Ahmadinejad himself has not publicly called for "Death to America" but he has called for the destruction of America's ally, Israel, and warned the U.S. to "undo" its creation of Israel or face serious consequences. In my mind, same difference.

So, were I POTUS, I would send a nice letter to al-Presidente reading as follows:

"Dear President Ahmadinejad:

We in the United States have heard your declared intention to violently destroy our friend and ally, Israel. We have also heard your warnings to the United States to either un-create Israel ourselves, or refrain from stopping your country and its allies from attempting to violently destroy Israel, or we will suffer violent consequences. The United States will not have ultimatums threatening war put to us. The United States considers your ultimatum a declaration of war. When war is declared against the United States, we accept only one result from the hostile nation - unconditional surrender. You have 24 hours to inform us of your unconditional surrender."

If Iran doesn't surrender, then we invade. Not just drop bombs from afar, full-on invasion. No doubt, doing this would annoy France, Germany, most of the UN, and all the other America-haters out there. But I pose this simple rhetorical question in rebuttal: If Iran is so wholly unworried about the UN and European Union's toothless rhetoric, why should the United States be worried about what those same feckless nations say about us?

Not another Iraq occupation, you say? Not if I were POTUS. What I would do in Iraq right now is the same thing I'd do in Iran. Once we had deposed the leaders and hopefully sentenced them to death or long prison terms next to Manuela Noriega, I'd put a choice to the Iranian/Iraqi people. Either democratize and instill a friendly regime, or we'll simply claim your oil, land and other resources as spoils. In other words, if you don't want us to be occupiers, we are giving you that option. If you don't take it, then we have no choice but to protect ourselves. After all, it was your country that started it.

Just to be clear where I stand, I think we will succeed in democratizing Iraq and I think we'd have even more success democratizing Iran if we simply deposed the mad mullahs and al-Presidente Ahmadinejad. I think Iraq would stablize much sooner if we whacked the Iranian mullahs and invaded their country. Why? Well, much of the Iraqi insurgency is coming from, and being funded by, Iran. That would stop nearly overnight if we invaded Iran and froze their assets.

More Ninth Circus nonsense

2006-04-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

Today, the Ninth Circuit found a constitutional right to be homeless. This nonsense opinion, purporting to rest on the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, essentially finds that being homeless is generally "involuntary." Hogwash. In the Ninth Circuit's defense, there is some precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court finding other actions to be "involuntary" that clearly are not - the Ninth Circuit's opinion relies mostly on Byron White's concurrence in Powell v. Texas, 391 U.S. 514 (1968).

In Powell, old Wizzer accepts the nonsense that an alcoholic is wholly, completely, utterly powerless to stop drinking, as if immobilized and hooked up to a feeding tube of Jack Daniels. First, alcohol is not addictive physiologically any more than, say, gambling or knitting are "addictive." Obsessive/compulsive people may have a harder time resisting the urge to gamble or knit, but that does not make it impossible, just harder. The same is true of drugs with physiologically addictive effects, such as withdrawal symptoms. It is not impossible to stop, just harder. Hard does not equal impossible.

So, bolstered by this sociologically constructed, non-scientific and illogical nonsense about "involuntary" actions, the Ninth Circuit seamlessly concludes that being homeless is generally involuntary. Bullshit!!!! Stay in school! Get a job! Show up on time! Don't have kids if you're not married!

The Ninth Circuit's nonsense is summed up by this breathlessly stupid sentence, devoid of any supporting argument: "Even if Appellants' past volitional acts contributed to their current need to sit, lie, and sleep on public sidewalks at night, those acts are not sufficiently proximate to the conduct at issue here for the imposition of penal sanctions to be permissible." See slip opinion at pp. 43-44. The only support for this sweeping statement - that past acts of homeless people . . . aw, heck, let's use the correct terminology famously and bluntly stated in Pulp Fiction: "bums" . . . that the past acts of bums leading them to become bums, no matter what, are not sufficiently "proximate" to their present predicament (not “status” or “condition” or other incorrect euphemisms used to equate being a bum with catching the flu) – is an unelaborated citation to footnote 2 of Wizzer’s Powell concurrence.

The Ninth Circuit seems to be using the word “proximate” not in its legal sense of “causally related” (which is fitting since the Ninth Circuit abandoned the law long ago) but in its more general sense, meaning “close in time.” This is the only explanation for the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion because the first part of the sentence expressly admits causation, i.e., “even if Appellant’s past volitional acts contributed to their current need to sit [etc.].”

This is America. I feel extremely justified in saying that nearly all bums are bums voluntarily. Not “voluntarily” in the sense that they actively desired that outcome and worked to accomplish that goal, but “voluntary” in the sense that it was perfectly within their ability to prevent their predicament, yet they made bad choices with the foreseeable result of winding up bums. Yes, it is harder for some people to avoid being bums than others, but that is the case with everything. For some people, no doubt, it is very hard. For those in especially hard predicaments, charity is warranted (which private and individuals and organizations have provided and will continue to provide). Just don’t insult my intelligence by claiming being a bum resulted from the same passive, random chance as multiple sclerosis or leukemia.

Update: Jack Dunphy of NRO must read this blog because he said everything I said. I was first, though.

No backbone at Notre Dame?

2006-04-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

As a Notre Dame alumnus, this article troubles me. Apparently, Notre Dame's new President, Father John Jenkins, who once expressed doubts about allowing "The Vagina Monologues" and a "Queer Film Festival" on campus, has capitulated to faculty pressure and allowed both to proceed apace.

I haven't seen The Vagina Monologues, but I don't see anything wrong with frank discussions about women's sexuality. Speaking from experience, women at Notre Dame have a much lower level of knowledge about their own sexuality and body parts than the women of, say, UCLA (my undergraduate school). They could use the education. A satisfying sex life is absolutely crucial to the success of a marriage, which is something Notre Dame should want to promote.

If The Vagina Monologues promotes pre-marital or extra-marital sex, then that is another story. Both are contrary to Notre Dame's mission as a Catholic university and advocacy of either shouldn't be allowed on campus, any more than Notre Dame should allow its campus to be used as a forum to advocate any other ideas contrary to the Catholic faith. Read WFB's "God and Man at Yale" for the argument why private universities are free to, and indeed should, have a mission. This is, of course, not censorship, because promoters of The Vagina Monologues are perfectly free to rent theater space in South Bend and put on their play off campus.

The Queer Film Festival, I have no trouble saying without knowledge of what films are being shown, should not be shown at Notre Dame. Catholicism considers homosexual acts to be a sin (not the mere inclination to homosexuality). I feel confident that the Queer Film Festival does not show movies depicting Catholicism's view of homosexuals - that the mere inclination is not sinful but acting on it is. I highly doubt there is a movie about a homosexual struggling to remain celebate, and succeeding, along the lines of Catholic teaching.

Now, whatever your view on these substantive issues - pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexual acts - you have to admit that Catholics find them sinful. You therefore should also concede that Notre Dame should not be allowing its campus to be used by those who would preach and promote doing sinful acts. I presume both The Vagina Monologues and the Queer Film Festival promote acts the Catholic Chuch deems sinful. Hence, Notre Dame should not offer its campus facilities to either.

Why is Notre Dame allowing them both to be shown, then? It appears from Professor Solomon's article that faculty pressure is the main culprit. Professor Solomon asserts that barely 50% of Notre Dame's faculty are Catholic. That alone I don't see as too problematic as long as they adhere to the same moral values. An Orthodox jew would not tolerate the advocacy of pre- or extra-marital or homosexual sex any more than a Catholic would or should. The problem is with faculty members who do not hold these same moral values (even if they purport to be Catholic).

What to do? Hire faculty members who hold Notre Dame's moral values. Fire those that don't. Simple.

I'll happily report that this problem is virtually non-existent at the Law School, where the professors overall have a high degree of competence, sanity and moral values. Indeed, I have no problem saying Notre Dame Law School is the premier law school in the country because it is the premier conservative law school in the country. Since conservatism is right, and liberalism wrong, the other more highly "ranked" law schools - all dominated by liberal professors - are teaching the law wrongly. You can't be a premier law school in my book when the majority of your professors believe Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. That's like claiming that your physics department is number one even though your professors all teach that the earth is flat and stacked upon the backs of an infinite regress of turtles. Roe v. Wade is equally silly.

More on the nonsense of "global warming"

2006-03-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

Via Iain Murray at NRO's The Corner, this article debunks the recent "global warming" nonsense being reported in Science. The article is kind of technical, but easy to follow. An example:

"In light of these several real-world observations, it is clear that the recent upswing in glacial activity on Greenland likely has had nothing to do with anthropogenic-induced global warming, as temperatures there have yet to rise either as fast or as high as they did during the great warming of the 1920s, which was clearly a natural phenomenon."

Global warming is a religion, not science.

Useful information (for me as well)

2006-03-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

Add this to your knowledge of the psyche of liberals

2006-03-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

In reading the comments for this post at Right Wing News about the movie "V for Vendetta" (which I actually liked quite a bit - which I'll hopefully get around to explaining why in another post) I came across a comment from "Euclidean" with a brilliant insight into the psyche of liberals. There is no direct link, so I'll just cut-and-paste it below:

"Its the dangerous films that are going to save this country. Its the banned books. Its the obscene art exhibits. Its the gay illectuals with hedonistic tendancies. Its the godless heatens such as myself.

by SecHumanist on 2006-03-20 08:47:13

This is why I never turned liberal in college: they all seem obsessed with delusions of grandeur, believing that somehow, just somehow, dunking a crucifix in a jar of urine will 'save the country.'

And in the United States, there are no banned books. Try Canada the Leftist Utopia, where hate speech is a criminal offense."

My bold prediction: Barry Bonds will not break Hank Aaron's home run record

2006-03-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

After reading this article from Doug Gamble on NRO, I wrote him the following email, which I'll document here so I can say "I told you so":

I hate to say it, but it ain’t cheating if it ain’t against the rules. Until last year, using steroids was not against MLB’s rules. It might have violated some laws, though.

I disagree that Bonds is a shoo-in to break Hank Aaron’s record. Bonds needs to hit 48 more home runs. Other than his 73 year, the most Bonds has ever hit in a season is 49. Last year, injury plagued, he hit only 5. What will happen this year? My prediction:

Bonds will continue to get injured and miss a substantial part of the season. Why? He’s old and necessarily off steroids (or, if he’s still on them, he’ll get caught and sit out 10 games, then get caught again and sit out the season). Steroids not only add muscle mass but they also significantly decrease injury recovery time. Without the ‘roids, Bonds will get injured just like other 40+ year olds and have the same difficulty recovering and miss many, many games.

Even if Bonds plays a relatively full season, I predict he’ll only hit home runs in the 20s, maybe low 30s, without the ‘roids. If that is all he does this year, he’ll have to play another full year, relatively injury free, after this to break Hank’s record – again, without the help of ‘roids. Barry will be 42 in July.

You heard it here.

I am impressed by Chief Justice Roberts

2006-03-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

It is a tribute to his leadership abilities that he got a unanimous decision (8-0, as Alito did not participate in the decision, being too new) on the Solomon Amendment case. That is the case where liberal law professors tried to argue that it was a violation of the First Amendment to require law schools accepting federal funds to admit military recruiters on campus.

That argument never quite made sense to me. I guess they thought merely allowing recruiters from a group they didn't like somehow suggested they were "endorsing" their views, but that was always a nonsense argument, factually ridiculous, that the law professors used as a foothold to get their desired result - kick the military off campuses so their impressionable students would never be reminded that it's a dangerous world out there and not the liberals' fantasy land.

But I digress. The opinion is notable in that the basis for the decision is precisely what John Eastman and the Claremont Institute argued in their amicus brief - under Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution, Congress' power to create a navy and army allows Congress to mandate law schools give access to military recruiters directly without even dangling the carrot of federal funds. This avoided a potentially dangerous decision on whether the federal government could condition the receipt of federal funds on states enacting laws, or other groups doing certain things, that the feds could not legislate directly.

John Eastment rightly crows a bit.

I guess I can buy a BlackBerry now

2006-03-03T17:17:00.000-08:00

Those patent laws sure have bite - $612.5 million in this case. A small Virgina company invented something extremely valuable. Another company took that idea, ran with it, and recreated an entire industry. Can't do that without paying the piper.

I'm sure that $612.5 million is quite satisfying for the patent holders. However, it also appears that the street likes the settlement on Reasearch In Motion's end as well. From the above-linked article: "Shares of RIM shot up $13.78, or 19 percent, to $85.70 during after-hours trading, when the settlement was announced."

Looks like everyone wins - NTP gets compensated for its invention, RIM gets compensated for its marketing, product development and service.

What's next, testing my Friday night softball league for alcohol use?

2006-03-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

This story I simply cannot believe.

I'm leaning towards supporting the Dubai ports deal

2006-02-27T16:57:00.000-08:00

As my post below indicates, I had an open mind about the Dubai ports deal (that is, the deal to sell British company Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to UAE-owned DP World). I haven't given it much thought, though.

However, this AP article caught my attention. In its usual zeal to discredit all things Republican- or Bush-related, the AP headlines its article (written by Liz Sidoti) "Paper: Coast Guard Has Port Co. Intel Gaps." Yahoo!'s news link to the article is titled "Coast Guard warned of port security intel gaps." Well, what does the article say?

Here's the first paragraph: "Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration weeks ago that it could not determine whether a United Arab Emirates-based company seeking a stake in some U.S. port operations might support terrorist operations."

Sounds pretty bad, eh? Because of "broad gaps" in intelligence, the Coast Guard is unable to determine whether DP World supports terrorists. How could the Bush administration approve the deal with these "broad gaps" in our intelligence? Apparently, Bush just likes to rush into things with faulty or absent intelligence.

That is clearly the jist of the AP article's headline and first few paragraphs. However, seven paragraphs into the article, we learn this:

"The Coast Guard said the concerns reflected in the document [me: apparently, these Coast Guard concerns were set forth in a document released by Sen. Susan Collins discussed at some hearing today] ultimately were addressed. In a statement, the Coast Guard said other U.S. intelligence agencies were able to provide answers to the questions it raised."

Get that? All of the Coast Guard's concerns - the "gaps" in the Coast Guard's intelligence (and, really, what kind of intelligence repository is the Coast Guard anyway?) - were adequately addressed by other U.S. intelligence agencies before the deal was approved.

What's worse, read this paragraph, buried way down in the AP article: "The Coast Guard indicated to The Associated Press that it did not have serious reservations about the ports deal on Feb. 10, when the news organization first inquired about potential security concerns."

In other words, the AP knew the Coast Guard has no present security concerns as of February 10. The AP's headline is therefore false and misleading by using the present tense word "has" when describing the Coast Guard's long-since resolved and no-longer-harbored intelligence questions. A more accurate headline for the disclosure of the Coast Guard document by RINO Susan Collins would be "Coast Guard's security concerns over Dubai port deal were adequately addressed prior to the deal's approval." Such a headline would never run in the AP because it does not fit the conventional liberal wisdom that Bush is a liar, ignores or manipulates intelligence, all to enrich his oil business buddies.

Importand first-hand information on the Dubai ports deal from Citizen Smash

2006-02-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

When I first heard about the Dubai ports deal, unlike many of my conservative brethren (and liberal opportunists), I had no immediate gut reaction pro or con. (That's because I'm a Bush appologist, you say? Two words: Harriet Miers.) When I stopped to think about it, I realized that there was no way such a deal would not be vetted for its political impact unless the Bush administration was truly incompetent. Not even the left believes the Bush administration is that incompetent (oh sure, they say so, but then claim Karl Rove routinely pulls off the most complex, evil genius conspiracies since Pinky and the Brain).

In short, there has to be some reason Bush is defending the Dubai ports deal. What could that be? I will say that Bush has done a poor job of explaining his support (or a poor job of getting the message out). Regardless, after reading this post by Citizen Smash, I think I understand Bush's support for the deal. You should read the post, too, before making up your mind.

I love it when showboaters fail

2006-02-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy watching players celebrate victories, touchdowns, home runs, KOs, etc. What I hate is when they celebrate before the play is over. This I cannot stand. I have seen too many instances of a showboater caught from behind to fumble or fall down while drag-stepping, a sure triple end up a single because the batter watched his supposed "shot," slam dunks missed, etc. Were I a sports coach, I would ban all my players from showboating while the play is ongoing. One violation of this rule would mean being cut from the team.

Which is why I am heartened to see this. In the Olympic games, while way out in front, U.S. snowboard-cross racer Lindsey Jacobellis decides to catch a little air and do a rail grab right before the finish line. What happened? She fell. And only won Silver. Ha! Ha!

Showboat on your victory lap - that's what it's for. Never, ever during the game. Not only do you risk losing, but it is disrespectful to your opponents. Miss Jacobellis deserves all the scorn she receives.

I must disagree with National Review over Cheney's press relations

2006-02-17T13:04:00.000-08:00

For some reason, even conservatives are parroting the thought that Cheney should have immediately contacted the media after 5:30 p.m. (when his shooting accident happened) rather than at 11:00 a.m. the next morning, when the ranch owner contacted the local press. I think Cheney was a little busy in the immediate aftermath of the shooting so let's asusme that at around, say, 7:30 p.m. things calmed down (i.e., the medical condition of Mr. Whittington was stable and known to be so). What to do?

Eat dinner, have a cocktail, go to sleep, call the media in the morning. This wasn't life or death nor was the Veep himself injured. The story is interesting, but there was absolutely no urgency to its publication, except to the media-obsessed media who think the world revolves around them.

So why does National Review's Window on the Week say this:

"Nonetheless, the vice president also probably erred in not reporting the information sooner. His actions are defensible and, on the merits, sound. But the vice president is also a politician, and politicians — particularly conservative ones — should understand that an unfair media climate comes with the territory, and that ignoring this reality on principle often creates even bigger problems."

Does the existence of a hostile, irrational, partisan media mean that the Veep should cow-tow to them? I have yet to hear any rational argument that the public needed to know about this accident sooner than they did. That is the only legitimate basis to criticise Cheney for not reporting the accident sooner.

The only way Cheney could have made a "mistake" is in the pure, crass political calculation sense. But it wasn't. If the unfounded speculation (e.g. Cheney was drunk) was bad with the, well I won't say "delay" because there was no delay, imagine how bad the unfounded speculation would have been if the accident was reported earlier. Cheney killed a man! No wait, he seriously wounded a man, probably an illegal alien - oops, undocumented guest worker - trying to cross the border! Man Cheney shot clings to life, death could come at any moment! Etc.

Cheney did not make a mistake, objectively or politically, in notifying the press when and how he did. Cheney's only mistake, politically and objectively, was the shooting itself. National Review should know better. Perhaps because they are also in the media biz, they are blinded by this obvious reality.

The Weekly Standard propagandizes for Big Media

2006-02-15T17:53:00.000-08:00

I like the Weekly Standard, often described as the fountainhead of neoconservatism. So I was taken aback when I read this essay by contributor Andrew Keen. The argument he makes is that Big Media is good, and bloggers collectively are bad, because Big Media provides a better system of producing elite artistic and intellectual achievement. Here's the money paragraph:

"Is this a bad thing? The purpose of our media and culture industries--beyond the obvious need to make money and entertain people--is to discover, nurture, and reward elite talent. Our traditional mainstream media has done this with great success over the last century. Consider Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Vertigo and a couple of other brilliantly talented works of the same name Vertigo: the 1999 book called Vertigo, by Anglo-German writer W.G. Sebald, and the 2004 song "Vertigo," by Irish rock star Bono. Hitchcock could never have made his expensive, complex movies outside the Hollywood studio system. Bono would never have become Bono without the music industry's super-heavyweight marketing muscle. And W.G. Sebald, the most obscure of this trinity of talent, would have remained an unknown university professor had a high-end publishing house not had the good taste to discover and distribute his work. Elite artists and an elite media industry are symbiotic. If you democratize media, then you end up democratizing talent. The unintended consequence of all this democratization, to misquote Web 2.0 apologist Thomas Friedman, is cultural "flattening." No more Hitchcocks, Bonos, or Sebalds. Just the flat noise of opinion--Socrates's nightmare."

Bunk, bunk and more bunk. Nonsense cubed, too. Mr. Keen is using anecdotal evidence - the success of Hitchcock, U2 and an obscure writer - to justify Big Media's virtual monopoly in an industry that used to have much higher barriers to entry. What about all those outsiders who started outside the Big Media of their day? Motown, Chess, Sun Records ring a bell?

Mr. Keen laments that barriers to entry in the media market have been reduced to virtually nothing (witness this blog). What he wholly discounts is the effect of the consumer's choice. All the big blogs of today were started by individuals or small groups with nearly no notariety, but through their skill and hard work gained the trust and support of readers who came back for the quality of the product. Bloggers like me who post infrequently (though my quality is first rate) don't get the traffic. This is what Capitalism does. This is why markets are better than central planning. When consumer choice determines what succeeds, rather than the central planners who thrust product upon the powerless masses, that is what produces more elite achievement. The more centralized and planned a system is, the less it maximizes the talent pool.

Here's the real history of Big Media. For every genius it has nurtured and given voice to, it has turned away another genius. The key point is that a small, insular industry (especially one dominated by people of the same philosophical/political persuasion) could effectively keep out talent for reasons unrelated to talent. When any and all individuals, including talentless individuals, have the same playing field, the talent will rise to the top as it will be rewarded quickly and efficiently by consumers. We do NOT need a filter of Big Media deciding for us in movie exec offices, recording studios or book publishing offices, what is "good." We can do that for ourselves, thank you very much. What is good gets rewarded easier with better technology and access to the market than the old dinosaur ways.

Are diversified investments safer than non-diversified? Or, another AP misrepresentation?

2006-02-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

I have a 401(k) plan. 401(k) is the section of the tax code that lets me contribute money into an account tax free (i.e., the money I put in each month is off the top, and not taxed), is allowed to grow tax free (i.e., no capital gains tax) which will eventually be taxed when I decide to take it out. My 401(k) money is invested in several mutual funds that generally invest in the stock market. I'm relatively young, and historically the stock market has produced higher returns than any other investments, so the bulk of my money is there for now. When I get older I'll start moving my 401(k) money into safer investments, with lower returns. When you are young, you can endure short-term swings in volatile, yet higher producing, investments. When you are older, your timeframes are shorter and you are less able to endure volatility.

This is all common sense. This should be taught in 8th grade. Diversifying your investments is safer than putting all your eggs into one basket. It is not always the best choice in hindsight - I would love to have put all my money in Google at the IPO price, then sold it for gold at the high end just before Google's latest earning report - but it is definitely the safest.

So why is the AP reporting that the growth in 401(k) funds, now with more aggregate money than "traditional" pension funds, is "a dramatic change that will force younger workers to plan more carefully for retirement"? A "traditional" pension fund is one where an employee puts all his eggs in one basket - the basket of your employer, ala Enron. This is, and has always been, foolhardy non-diversification.

United Airlines recently emerged from bankruptcy. As part of its Chapter 11 reorganization, "drastic cuts were made to the pension plans." If every employee had invested their money in a 401(k) instead of United's traditional pension plan, they would still have all their money because, surprise surprise, it would be their money, not some future promise of a pension. Worse, United's employees' union almost surely bargained for this form of compensation. It doesn't matter one whit to your employer how he compensates you - all cash, a mix of cash and health benefits, a mix of cash, health benefits, pension plan, etc. It's all the same to the employer. Anyone who can take all of their compensation in cash, but doesn't, is an idiot. (When I say "cash" I include anything that one has a present property interest in, which is not subject to some future promise.)

This is essentially why we need to privatize Social Security. It is a simple legal principal - title to my retirement money should be mine. Social Security is a mere unenforceable promise by today's politicians that tomorrow's politicians will pay you back something resembling what you are being taxed today - or in other words, a Ponzi scheme. Since the age demographics in this country will not support such a Ponzi scheme in the very near future, you (and me) can all kiss our "promised" Social Security goodby - just as United employees kissed their "pensions" goodby.

Both Social Security and United pensions suffer from the same basic problem - lack of diversification. Both plans are utterly dependent upon one, and only one, enterprise succeeding indefinitely. Social Security's Ponzi scheme cannot survive indefinitely. Though ignorant leftists once thought big corprations like United could never fail, this is obviously not true (TWA, Pan Am, Enron). The only way to keep your money is to keep your money - i.e., get it all under your legal control. This will not guarantee that you'll keep all of your money, as certainly your mutual funds will occasionaly invest in stinkers like Enron. But it is far better than Social Security or a "traditional" pension.

To sum up: The AP article leads with scaremongering that 401(k)s are somehow more difficult to manage or riskier than "traditional" pensions, which is not true. From this I discern that the AP reporter is either reflexively liberal (most likely) or an ignoramus (what's the difference? you say). 401(k)s are obviously better than "traditional" pensions, as any diversified investment plan is better than a concentrated plan. This is simple stuff, and shows why Social Security should be wholly privatized.

UPDATE: Even though no one reads this blog, I thought I should clarify one point made above. As the United bankruptcy demonstrates, employers actually do care about how they structure their compensation of their employees. Pension plans have been favorites because they allow the employer to keep the money (essentially by requiring the employees to "invest" their pension-allocated money in the employer rather than elsewhere) and are dischargeable if the employer ever files for bankruptcy. If an employer can give you a (potentially unenforceable) promise of payment later instead of cash now, well, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that it'll do the former. Social Security works on the same principal, except Social Security is 100% unenforceable.

My boycott of France is officially over

2006-02-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

When France actively sabotaged the U.S.'s war effort in Iraq because it wanted to preserve its lucrative oil contracts with Saddam, I rightfully began boycotting all things French, as did many millions of Americans. Fortunately, since their motivations were so transparent, France's hostility did relatively nothing to prevent the U.S. from deposing Saddam. France and other European countries have been a continual annoyance since then by publicly spouting such nonsense as deposing Saddam was "illegal," as if 18 UN resolutions calling for just that if he failed to comply with his cease-fire agreement after Gulf War I meant nothing.

Apparently, France has had a wake-up call (as perhaps have Germany and Canada in electing conservative governments recently). 40 days of muslim rioting seems to have convinced France that radical islam really is a threat. Hence, after the muslim world erupted in outrage at relatively innocuous pictures and cartoons of Muhammad being printed in Denmark, France and other european countries reprinted the cartoons.

Good for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and all the other publishers who would not be intimidated by radical islamists. When France tried to sabotage our eforts to depose Saddam, that was about money more than anything. Here, the stand is not about money but about standing up to thugs France has now apparently realized need to be stood up to. Don't expect France to send any troops to Iraq any time soon (and, really, would we be better off with French troops?), but for this act of courage and defiance, I'll start drinking French wine again.

AP continues to screw up, this time in science writing

2006-02-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

I like to pick on MSM reporters because of their general sanctimoniousness and superiority complex. I also love to read blogs by non-journalists in professional fields because those are the people who generally know what they are talking about - as one would prefer that one's teacher actually majored in the subject being taught, and not in "Education" or some other such non-subject.

That's why it is all the more fun to point out mistakes from specialized journalists who are supposed to have special knowledge in a particular field. I have no idea who Alicia Chang from the AP is, but I do know she screwed up big time in her story about the 10th "planet" recently discovered.

The basic story is fascinating - an astronomer at Cal Tech, Michael Brown, discovered an object in orbit around the Sun that is both larger and further away than Pluto. For now, it is called UB313, but Mr. Brown named it Xena. Now, the prior debate about whether Pluto is really a planet, and hence, whether Xena is also a planet, is heating up.

But then, Ms. Chang drops this bomb at the end of her article: "If it is determined to be the 10th planet, it would be the farthest-known body in the solar system."

Uh, no, unless she meant "body" to mean "planet" and "solar system" to only include planets.

You see, both Pluto and Xena are Kuiper Belt objects. The Kuiper Belt has many thousands of relatively large "bodies" (larger than 100km in diamater) and many more thousands of smaller bodies. I highly doubt that Xena is the furthest Kuiper Belt object.

But even if it is, there is another class of objects much further out than Kuiper Belt objects - long period comets. These comets spend most of their lives in the Oort Cloud. These Oort Cloud comets are the "farthest-known bodies in the solar system," not Xena.

AP continues to screw up in reporting Plame kerfuffle

2006-01-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

I just clicked on a Yahoo! news story titled "Ex-Pentagon analyst jailed in spy case" wondering to what "spy case" the article was referring. The link takes one (as of the drafting of this post) to an article entitled "Ex-Pentagon Analyst Sentenced to 12 Years." Fine so far. I was curious to read who, for what and why.

But the story is not about an ex-Pentagon analyst, or anyone being newly jailed, let alone for 12 years. Instead, the story is about a request by "Scooter" Libby's lawyers to subpoena reporters' notes to prepare their trial defense. What is going on here?

For now, I'll chalk this up to incompetence and assume that there might actually be a story today where an ex-Pentagon analyst was jailed for 12 years. I'm still curious to read that story. Isn't it interesting, though, that the mistaken headline just happens to shed a negative light on the subject of the story. After all, one who hasn't followed the Plame kerfuffle closely might conclude, just from reading the headline and/or skimming the article, that "Scooter" Libby just got 12 years.

Moreover, the AP continues to get the facts wrong, by now we must conclude intentionally. The story says, "The year before, the CIA had sent Wilson to Africa to determine the accuracy of the uranium reports; he concluded they were untrue." Wrong. Wilson's report to the CIA mostly substantiated the reports that Iraq was seeking to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. As the Wall Street Journal documents:

"[T]he Senate Intelligence and Butler reports [i.e., the Brits] . . . clearly showed that, while Saddam had probably not purchased yellowcake from Niger, the dictator had almost certainly tried--and that Mr. Wilson's own briefing of the CIA after his mission supported that conclusion. Mr. Wilson somehow omitted that fact from his public accounts at the time."

Lying scumbags - Joseph Wilson and the AP.

UPDATE: The link now goes to the correct story of Lawrence A. Franklin getting 12 years for giving classified information to Israel.

The political fallout from the NSA domestic surveillance program . . .

2006-01-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

. . . is best summed up by Ann Coulter's latest article:

"The Democratic Party has decided to express indignation at the idea that an American citizen who happens to be a member of al-Qaida is not allowed to have a private conversation with Osama bin Laden."

I'd switch the middle of that sentence to be "a member of al-Qaida who happens to be an American citizen" but the point is the same.

The only problem with the Democrats making it so easy to defeat them on national security grounds is that it does not discipline Republicans to govern domestically to satisfy their base. This is why we get multi-billion dollar give-aways in prescription drugs, farm subsidies, no private social security accounts, and pork as far as the nose can smell.

More on the legality of the Bush-authorized NSA domestic surveillance program

2005-12-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

After reading this exchange between two people, David Rivkin and Robert Levy, whose legal minds I highly respect, I did some more research to satisfy myself about the legality of Bush's NSA domestic surveillance program. Here are my preliminary conclusions, which depend upon assumptions others have postulated:

The relevant statute, 50 U.S.C. sec. 1801(f) defines "electronic surveillance":

"(f) "Electronic surveillance" means--
(1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;
(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511(2)(i) of Title 18;
(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or
(4) the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device in the United States for monitoring to acquire information, other than from a wire or radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes."

Subsection (f)(1) was analyzed by Powerline as linked to by my post here. It is pretty clear that, under this sub-definition of "electronic surveillance," the NSA program did not violate the law. However, the remaining three subdefinitions are not so easy to dismiss.

Subsection (f)(2) concerns intercepts of wire communications. "Wire communication" is a defined term in subsection (l) and basically means any hard wire (not anything "wireless"). The critical element in this subdefinition is that the interception must take place "in the United States." According to Powerline, "The NSA program, in contrast, involves international communications only, and the intercepts take place at least in part, and perhaps wholly, outside the United States." This question, it seems to me, is the critical one. I also do not know the answer.

Subsection (f)(3) concerns the interception of a radio communication (i.e., anything "wireless"). Here, the critical element is that the communication must occur wholly within the United States - i.e., "if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States." Again, I don't know the answer to this one. Most likely, most of the communications the NSA intercepts fall outside this category - i.e., are wireless communications where at least one intended recipient is outside the U.S. I don't know for sure whether the NSA program exclusively monitors only those international radio communications (or whether it is even possible to so narrow the monitoring).

Finally, Subsection (f)(4) concerns monitoring anything that is not "a wire or radio communication." Who knows what that includes (maybe wireless devices that use microwaves instead of radio? infrared?). However, again the key provision is that the monitoring must be done in the U.S. If Powerline is right, most if not all of the monitoring is done outside the U.S.

Where exactly is the NSA's electronic surveillance equipment located? If it is in the U.S., then it is likely that the NSA program violates FISA. The question then becomes whether Congress has the power to limit the President's wartime monitoring of enemy communications the way FISA purports to do.

I'm not going to weigh in on that question, but the Powerline article and the debate between Robert Levy and David Rivkin cite many relevant cases. I assume that Justice Jackson's three-part analysis in his concurring opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer - the 1952 case that held President Truman's attempt to seize U.S. steel mills unconstitutional - applies. Also, note the date of the various decisions addressing the President's inherent authority (FISA was enacted in 1978; any case pre-dating 1978 might have interpreted the power under a different prong of Justice Jackson's concurrence).

There is one main point of dispute, as I see it - whether there is statutory authority for the President's actions. Mr. Rivkin says yes, citing Congress' resolution giving President Bush the ability to use "all necessary means" to wage and win the war. Mr. Levy doesn't think so, relying on FISA and the fact that Bush could have asked for specific amendments to FISA to make explicit his ability to conduct warantless surveillance as he has ordered. (If there is statutory authority, then under Justice Jackson's three tiered test, the President's inherent authority is at its most broad.)

I'll do my best to keep up on this. One thing to note, however. If - and this is a big "if" given the above - the NSA monitoring program is illegal, then it is no different than President Truman's seizure of the steel mills. Should President Truman have been impeached for taking too broad a position on his inherent powers? You have to say "yes" if you call for Bush's impeachment over the NSA program.

Who broke the law? (or, What is the real story here?)

2005-12-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

See the post below for all the information you need to prove convincingly that the Bush-approved NSA electronic surveillance program is perfectly legal. In addition, it is also quite beyond question that whoever leaked the existence of the program to the New York Times acted illegally. See here.

If I were President, I would subpoena the New York Times and demand to know the source of the leak, under well-established precedent recently demonstrated in the Valerie Plame non-scandal. Then, I would prosecute the offenders to the full extent of the law.

I'm sick of Bush not playing hardball. He has no more elections to face. Use your powers, dammit!

Update: Hey hey hey, Bush has cajones after all. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of the NSA surveillance program. Let's see some more subpoenas to the NewYork Times.

There is no serious question that the Bush-approved NSA electronic surveillance is perfectly legal

2005-12-23T12:14:00.000-08:00

George Will, not a lawyer, claimed the NSA electronic surveillance program was illegal here.

Powerline - John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Paul Miregoff, all lawyers - show that it is perfectly legal here and here.

In sum, George Will claims, "The President's authorization of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency contravened a statute's clear language." Not so. The statute reads:

"(1) the acquisition ... of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes..."

The NSA's broad, unfocused data gathering simply did not target "a particular, known United States person who is in the United States." Once the data is distilled, and specific monitoring of a know US person is considered, then, and only then, is a FISA warrant required. Simply read the Powerline posts (specifically, the second one) linked above.

Chalk up another win for the lawyers (well, it's really no contest when the question is about the law).

Two sentences that best sum up the situation in Iraq

2005-12-23T11:42:00.000-08:00

I'm fully with John Derbyshire in his assessment that what we're trying to do in Iraq is a heretofore wholly untried third way of dealing with an enemy state. The traditional two tried-and-true methods are (1) complete annihilation, and (2) colonization (or some mixture between the two).

Way number three is most commony described as "nation building." Do you approve? Do you not? Regardless of your position on Iraq - whether it was the right idea at the time, what should we do now regardless of the rightness of the initial decision, etc. - Bush is staying the course. So everyone should ask themselves this question:

"If even a scintilla of your consciousness is hoping that the Iraqi experiment fails, then you, my friend, have taken a turn down a dark hall of the soul. You need to step back and think carefully about what you believe and why. "

This excellent comment was pulled from Patterico's site, made by Joe Miller. Down which hall of the soul have you turned?

Mobile biological weapons platforms or not?

2005-12-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

Can anyone out there tell me why the CIA said this all but confirming that a couple of Iraqi camouflaged trucks found after Operation Iraqi Freedom were most likely mobile biological weapons platforms, and not hydrogen generators, but also said this claiming that the trucks were in fact most likely hydrogen generators?

Back from vacation

2005-11-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

Blogging will resume as usual. Did anything interesting happen last week?

I'm surprised it took this long to find . . .

2005-11-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

. . . Judge Alito's Reagan administration job application wherein he forthrightly states:

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." (Italics added by me.)

If you have any doubt that the Alito nomination is a home run, read the job application beginning on page 15.

Hat tip: Patterico.

Alito's response to Senator DiFi was that this was a job application and of course one would "pad" one's conservative beliefs to coincide with the employer's. Who cares if this works to convince DiFi or any other Democrat. We have the votes.

Two must read articles - (1) WSJ summing up how Joseph Wilson is a total liar, (2) yes, we did find stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq

2005-11-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

Here is WSJ's editorial about the lying scumbag Joseph Wilson and how thoroughly he and the Democrats' lie that BUSH LIED!!!! has been debunked.

Here is dafydd ab hugh's blog post about what WMD stockpiles we found in Iraq. What, you say? We found stockpiles of WMD's in Iraq? Surely I jest. Every one knows BUSH LIED!!!! and we found no WMDs. Wrong.

Alito Alito Rejoice Rejoice!!

2005-11-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Having called the Miers Feint I am not surprised in the least that President Bush nominated Samuel Alito to fill Sandra Dee's seat. The nomination will sail through. It will be a virtual replay of the Roberts hearings. Sure, Alito has a longer public record than Roberts, but despite the nickname "Scalito" his writings simply do not have the invective of Scalia and simply do not contain the sound bites the Left wants and needs to portray Alito as out-of-the-mainstream. The Dems will try to distort Alito's record, but they tried with Roberts, too (remember the french fry case?). Alito, unlike Bork, is mild mannered, looks normal and unassuming (like Roberts) and has both their intellectual firepower (well, at least he's comparable - Bork and Roberts are two of the most impressive minds I've come across).

Alito's longer record will also benefit him in another way - we won't have the same silly arguments about releasing privileged documents from his time as a practicing attorney. Thus, the hearings should move faster than for Roberts since Alito is such a known quality - just look up his decade + of opinions in the federal reporters if you want to see what kind of judge he'll make. The "stealth" argument won't fly, of course, and Democrats will be unable to say they're voting against him because "too much is unknown" (which is the "official" reason most Dems who voted against Roberts gave). Alito is obviously qualified. So Dems will have to oppose him because of his judicial philosophy.

Great. The Republicans have the votes in the Senate to both confirm and end the filibuster so Alito will get confirmed. Plus, the Democrats will likely establish the rules for voting on Supreme Court nominees - judicial philosophy is a perfectly appropriate factor. Thus, Republicans will be free to use it, too. (Hopefully, they'll never need to, but the Dems have to regain power someday, right? Maybe someone said that of the Whigs, too.)

Update: Robert Bork copies me.

I'm not in it for the money, though

2005-10-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

My blog is worth $62,099.40.
How much is your blog worth?

AP repeats falsehood, uses poor grammar

2005-10-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

In the MSM's continuing attempt to re-write history, along with the AP's breaking story about the 2000th death of a U.S. Soldier in Iraq, the AP throws out the stock MSM and moonbat left gospel:

"[T]he Iraq conflict [was] launched in March 2003 to destroy Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. None was ever found."

First, the grammar. The second sentence has no subject such that the verb "was" refers to the object of the previous sentence, "weapons of mass destruction" (plural). Therefore, "was" should be "were."

Second, both sentences are untrue, or at least misleading. Sure, destroying Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was one of many reasons Bush articulated to persuade Congress and America to overthrow Saddam, but is was clearly not the only reason. Moreover, weapons of mass destruction (i.e., chemical and biological weapons) were found, just not huge stockpiles. Saddam had all the biological agents, the laboratories needed to mass produce the agents, and the delivery systems all ready to go.

(Updated 12/1/05 to add link to CIA analysis.)

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus are liars

2005-10-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

Patterico noted yesterday the disturbing repetition of wholly false descriptions of Joe Wilson's findings from his trip to Niger in the media, Patterico's latest example coming from the wholly unreliable L.A. Times. Today, the Washington Post does it as well. Here is the falsehood, as WaPo reporters Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus repeat in their article today:

"Wilson's central assertion -- disputing President Bush's 2003 State of the Union claim that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Niger -- has been validated by postwar weapons inspections."

This is totally false. Iraq was seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger; Saddam just never actually got any. Moreover, Bush never said Saddam actually had any nuclear weapons or weapons grade uranium, nor did Bush say Saddam had obtained uranium from Niger. What Bush said, in those famous 16 words, was British intelligence confirms Saddam was seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger. British intelligence has never wavered in this assessment. Moreover, Joe Wilson confirmed that Saddam had in fact sought yellowcake uranium from Niger.

All of this was confirmed in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Mr. Wilson's intentionally false NYT Op Ed piece. The WaPo is simply too big and influential a newspaper not to have this fact in its collective records or memory. (Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus should talk to Susan Schmidt.) The only explanation for Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus's article today is that they are intentionally lying, or at a minimum recklessly incompetent.

I can't see Miers getting confirmed

2005-10-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, I took Patterico's suggestion to heart and went here to review all of Harriet Miers' writings - three ABA articles on multijurisdictional practice and a host of "President's Opinions" from the Texas Bar Journal. (You may see four ABA articles, but one is a reprint.)

The ABA articles are actually well-written. Nothing special, but definately passible, literate and informative. I can only assume that, from reading the Texas Bar Journal articles, she had lots of help with the ABA articles. Or maybe the TBJ articles were intended to be vapid, meaningless drivel. Every Bar president's monthly "message" I've seen is vapid, meaningless drivel. Maybe that's all that's allowed.

These writings, along with her response to the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, convince me more than ever that Miers does not have the qualities of an acceptable Supreme Court nominee.

More on Miers' poor writing from . . .

2005-10-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

Professor Bainbridge and Patterico (and the Angry Clam).

This is my blog. It is occasionally proofread (by only me). When writing a post, I use this stupid and feature-less html box that doesn't have spell or grammar check. Yet my posts are much more error free than Miers' responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire. My written work as a lawyer? Forget about it. Error free to the level of paranoia.

Of course, errors still get through, but not nearly the amount, or the kind, that are on display in Miers' response.

The single most important criteria to being a successful lawyer in my office is the ability to write. I litigate. I argue. I have to convince other people that my client is right, or that I'm right on the law. 90% of that is via written briefs. I suppose Miers could simply vote right every time and never write an opinion (or, more accurately, have very bright clerks write her opinions for her). But, again, what a waste of an opportunity to add another forceful voice for conservatism on the Supreme Court.

Update: More from Patterico (quoting a David Brooks op-ed). Lots of lawyers can be very successful without knowing the first thing about practicing law. From what I can discern from her writing, Miers is at best an average lawyer with great political skills. Lawyers make partner at law firms for a variety of reasons, but believe it or not the primary reason is not skill as a lawyer, but rather the ability to bring in business.

Miers' experience with the Constitution

2005-10-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

Because it is so important, and relatively short, quoted in full below is Miers' response to the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire asking for her experience with Constitutional issues:

"17. Constitutional Issues: Please describe in detail any cases or matters you addressed as an attorney or public official which involved constitutional questions. For each case or matter, please describe in detail the constitutional issue you dealt with, the context in which you dealt with it, and the substance of any positions you took related to that issue. Please identify and provide copies of: any briefs you have drafted or filed, transcripts or other records of any oral arguments you have made, and memoranda, speeches or other materials you have written relating in any way to such issues, as well as any other materials that reflect your familiarity with, views on, or questions regarding such issues.

As Counsel to the President, I am regularly faced with issues involving constitutional questions. I am called upon to advise the President and White House officials on presidential prerogatives, the separation of powers, Executive authority, and the constitutionality of proposed regulations and statutes.

While in private practice, I handled cases involving constitutional questions, some of which are described in more detail in response to questions 15 and 16. I represented Disney Enterprises on several occasions in litigation brought in Texas that involved issues of personal jurisdiction, including Disney Enterprises, Inc. v. Esprit Finance, Inc. In that case, like others in which I represented Disney, I argued that, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, there were not sufficient "minimum contacts" between Disney and Texas to justify forcing the company to respond to a lawsuit in the Texas courts. I have handled many cases involving issues of personal jurisdiction under the United States Constitution. For instance, in Westinghouse Electric Corporation v. Rio Algum Limited, described in detail in response to question 16, a significant issue was whether the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois had personal jurisdiction over my client, Pioneer Nuclear, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We argued that Pioneer had insufficient contacts with Illinois to be subject to personal jurisdiction there, the court ultimately disagreed.

Microsoft Corp. v. Manning, described more fully in question 16, involved the interplay between state and Federal class action laws, and also raised Federal constitutional issues involving the proper application of the Due Process Clause and the Full Faith and Credit Clause. On behalf of Microsoft, I argued that the trial court's class certification violated Microsoft's due process rights under the state and Federal constitutions and the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution. The trial court decertification of the class was in part based upon the briefing filed on behalf of Microsoft. Thereafter, the plaintiffs dismissed the case altogether.

I handled one of the only modern cases to address the Habitation Clause of the Twelfth Amendment, which states: "The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." Jones v. Bush, 122 F. Supp. 2d 713 (N. D. Tex. 2000), relief denied, 244 F.3d 144 (5th Cir. 2000) (unpublished), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1062 (2001). This clause bars a member of the Electoral College from voting for inhabitants of the elector's state for both President and Vice-President. I argued on behalf of then-Governor Bush that the plaintiffs lacked constitutional standing to sue under the relevant clause of the Twelfth Amendment, and in the alternative that Mr. Cheney was an inhabitant of Wyoming rather than Texas within the meaning of the Twelfth Amendment.

In George R. Truitt, Trustee for Hunt International Resources Corporation v. Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, described in detail above, among the issues litigated pre-trial was the scope of the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in suits at common law as discussed in Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33 (1989).

In addition to litigated matters, I represented a media client for many years. My representation encompassed many First Amendment issues that were never litigated, including libel. For instance, I would often consult on prepublication review of articles and issues related to reporters' sources of information.

While I was an at-large member of the Dallas City Council, I dealt with issues that involved constitutional questions. For instance, when addressing a lawsuit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause. Likewise, everyday city council issues potentially implicate constitutional rights, including zoning decisions, voting redistricting, eminent domain, and police activities. As a member of the Texas State Lottery Commission, I was responsible for overseeing the operations of one of the nation's largest lotteries. Among the many issues before the commission were questions arising under the Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which implicates tribal sovereign immunity.

From 1970-1972, I served as law clerk to United States District Court Judge Joe E. Estes. Judge Estes routinely heard cases implicating constitutional issues, and I assisted in researching and drafting opinions and orders."

That's it. This is also what's getting Senator Specter all up in arms. Note the non-specificity of her answers when the question clearly asks her to "describe in detail the constitutional issue you dealt with, the context in which you dealt with it, and the substance of any positions you took related to that issue . . . ." Thus, in perhaps the most important part of her questionnaire, Miers arguably doesn't even answer the question.

Also, as noted by Professor Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago, there is no "proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause." Hopefully, this is all part of Karl Rove's plan to get a real nominee once Miers is voted down in committee.

Karl Rove is a genius! The Miers Feint exposed!

2005-10-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, stay with me on this one. After reading this article from Byron York on NRO showing the current despondency of Miers' White House supporters, I was struck by a string of thoughts on Miers' nomination. Here is my thinking about how the Miers' nomination must have been the result of truly brilliant Karl Rove-esq strategy:

She has so many draw backs that are plainly obvious, and such close ties to the President and the judicial nomination process, that Karl Rove suggested the President nominate her knowing that she wouldn't get confirmed. Miers, ever the team player, accepted the nomination with the idea of taking the fall during the confirmation hearings. Miers' confirmation hearings will reveal that she is intellectually average and not up to the challenge of being on the Supreme Court. (Maybe she is intellectually average, maybe she isn't, but she'll sure play it that way in the hearings.) The ABA will rate her "not qualified" or at best "qualified" with some dissenters. This will give Republican Senators all the ammo they need to vote against her. Democrats will vote against her because of her responses on the Texans Unified for Life questionaire supporting a Constitutional amendment banning abortion except to preserve the life of the mother. She will fail to get out of committee and Miers will graciously withdraw, rather than force the President to withdraw her nomination. The resounding lesson the public will learn is that the real qualities Republicans think are important for a Supreme Court justice are excellent credentials and intellectual firepower - just like they saw with Roberts. Miers - coming so close after Roberts - will obviously pale in comparison.

Then, Bush will have every excuse - indeed, a universal mandate - to nominate a fabulously well qualified nominee - Alito, Luttig, McConnell, Janice Rogers Brown, Kozinski, Jones, Owen, etc. The entire focus of scrutiny on the nominee will then have been re-directed away from the substance of the next nominee's prior paper trail to the fact that the nominee is so well published and therefore of distinguished intellect. The next nominee will then be embraced not as an ideologue, as the Democrats would have tried to paint that nominee had Bush not nominated Miers first, but as a resoundingly well qualified Constitutional thinker. In what will become known throughout history as the "Miers Feint," the Republicans in the Gang of 14 will have no excuse not to vote to end a filibuster, if one is tried by the Democrats, due to the obviously superior qualifications of the next nominee compared to Ms. Miers. The Miers Feint will remove any pretense that a filibuster of the next nominee (who would have otherwise been nominated in Miers' spot) is warranted by "extraordinary circumstances." The Democrats probably won't even try a filibuster because they will look so silly opposing such an obviously qualified nominee. Moreover, they won't be able to argue that the Republicans are trying to ram through an ideologue crony because, of course, the Republicans will have just rejected an ideologe crony.

Then, we'll get another true Scalia-Thomas type on the Supreme Court. Brilliant! Karl Rove does it again! (But, shhhhhh, don't tell anyone - not like anyone reads this).

Actually, if Democrats try to blow the whistle on this strategy, they'll look even more like crazy, conspiracy-theory moonbats.

Miers' responses to the Judiciary Committee's questionaire

2005-10-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Is here. Updates after I read it.

Update #1: In one of Miers' cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (a criminal appeal taken pro bono) the opposing counsel was, ta da, then-Solicitor General Robert H. Bork. Guess who won. See Popeko v. United States, 423 U.S. 917 (1975) and its prior history.

Update #2: Reading Miers' questionnaire answers reminds me of poorly written and awkward resumes and cover letters I review. Language like "In addition to my practice of law, my experience includes running and holding public office" is just plain poor, grammatically incorrect ("running for and holding public office"), and sillily (that's a word, trust me) inflating of barely relevant experience ("proficient in Microsoft Word!").

Update #3: My god, it's worse than I thought. Check out this barely coherent paragraph:

"My experience on the City Council helps me understand the interplay between serving on a policy making board and serving as a judge. An example, of this distinction can be seen in a vote of the council to ban flag burning. The Council was free to state its policy position, we were against flag burning. The Supreme Court's role was to determine whether our Constitution allows such a ban. The City Council was anxious to encourage minority and women-owned businesses, but our processes had to conform to equal protection requirements, as well."

Where to start? First, she does not mean "interplay" she means "distinction" as she says in the next sentence. The two are not synonyms. There may be "interplay" between the City Council and judges, but there is no "interplay" between serving on the City Council and serving as a judge, which in this context seems to suggest the same person (i.e., her) holding both positions at different times (making "interplay" almost logically impossible). In the next sentence, what is that comma doing between "example" and "of"? (Caveat: I am getting Miers' response from the WaPo's website in electronic form (not .pdf) and it is possible that they have not copied Miers' response correctly as I have noticed numerous formatting errors. This paragraph is formatted correctly, though.) In the next sentence, another misuse of the comma - the comma separates two complete sentences. It should be a semi-colon or a dash.

Finaly, what the heck is that last sentence (also with a stray comma) doing in this paragraph? She begins the paragraph by saying "[a]n example" yet apparently tries to fit in another example at the end without saying, "another example." Moreover, this other example adds nothing about the distinction between the roles of an elected legislator and a judge. Ok, so the City Council had to deal with Constitutional issues when it wanted to discriminate in favor of minorities and women (disturbing in and of itself that Miers chooses this as an example). How does this have anything to do with describing the differences in roles between legislators and judges? If anything, it seems to conflate the two roles.

I assume this questionnaire was proof-read by literate adults. If this is the best they could do to Miers' original draft, boy will her law clerks have their work cut out for them.

Update #4: Ok, I read the "judicial activism" part and whoever wrote her response did a fairly good job coping from Roberts' response in his questionnaire. I still highly doubt Miers has the intellectual firepower to out argue Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer, and spot the fallacies, sophistry and just plain errors in their opinions.

I agree with . . .

2005-10-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Judge Bork and Professor Bradley (one of my law school professors at Notre Dame). Miers should step aside or be withdrawn.

From Judge Bork:

"By passing over the many clearly qualified persons, male and female, to pick a stealth candidate, George W. Bush has sent a message to aspiring young originalists that it is better not to say anything remotely controversial, a sort of "Don't ask, don't tell" admonition to would-be judges. It is a blow in particular to the Federalist Society, most of whose members endorse originalism. The society, unlike the ACLU, takes no public positions, engages in no litigation, and includes people of differing views in its programs. It performs the invaluable function of making law students, in the heavily left-leaning schools, aware that there are respectable perspectives on law other than liberal activism. Yet the society has been defamed in McCarthyite fashion by liberals; and it appears to have been important to the White House that neither the new chief justice nor Ms. Miers had much to do with the Federalists."

From Prof. Bradley:

"The reason why I oppose her confirmation — even if she still believes what she said in 1989 [in response to a Texans United for Life survey, Miers answered "yes" to the following question: "If Congress passes a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit abortion except when it was necessary to prevent the death of the mother, would you actively support its ratification by the Texas Legislature?"] — is this: now we are going to have the fight within the Senate and in the media which conservatives such as myself have all along called for. Unless Miers repudiates her 1989 answers — and, in that case, see above — Schumer & Co. are going to treat her as if she will overrule Roe. Very well. But if we are going to have a climactic battle in the Senate over Roe, we need to have it on considerably better ground. Miers is scarcely the person anyone would choose to make the long awaited case against Roe, with the whole pro-choice phalanx put up against her. I mean no insult whatsoever in saying that Harriet Miers she (sic) simply is not up to the job of cogently describing, defending, and justifying before the world what will go into the history books as the most important constitutional law decision since 1954. John Roberts could have done it, as could Edith Jones, to name one available replacement."

These two arguments blow out of the water any deference to Miers' nomination because she'll "vote right." Try to prove me (and Judge Brok and Prof. Bradley) wrong.

Miers should withdraw

2005-10-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

Or the Senate should not confirm her (absent the most unlikeliest of performances at her confirmation hearing), or Bush should withdraw the nomination. Of course, you've heard this before. Dennis Coyle on NRO sums up best why we got Miers, and why the nomination is so bad:

"Perhaps President Bush was conflating liberal dominion over constitutional law and activist courts since the New Deal with intellectualism. That is easy to do, given the pervasiveness of liberal ideology in legal scholarship and academia more broadly. It is tempting to blame the root for the branch. If the liberal jurisprudential establishment emerged from elite schools and journals and spoke in large words and grand theory, the thinking might go, it can only be tamed by reaching outside the Washington-New York intelligentsia to let some Texas common sense cut them down to size.

But law, unlike politics, is inescapably an intellectual exercise, and reason is the bedrock of the rule of law. It is about the careful articulation of principles and nuanced applications, made persuasive by a compelling understanding of the constitutional order and the role of courts. Law is not molded simply by the votes of judges and justices, but in the power and cogency of written opinions and the philosophy they express, which become the fodder of law-review articles, commentaries, and conference panels, and eventually permeate the classroom teaching that forms the next generation of judges, lawyers and scholars. To bypass the opportunity to strengthen a conservative intellectual core — an elite — on the Court is not to make it a populist protector of freedom, but to abandon the field to the liberal elite. If the president does not appreciate this, there is no reassurance another nominee would be any better, and Democrats would surely feel more liberated then to jump on any candidate of substance."

Mr. Coyle is all doom and gloom, but only if Miers is confirmed. I heartily join him in his sentiments - if Bush gave us Miers from the list of rock solid studs he had to choose from, we cannot expect a solid nominee ever. Bush has three years left. Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg and Kennedy aren't going anywhere. Ditto Thomas, Scalia and Roberts. Stevens is 85, but he'll stay on until he dies. He looked in pretty good shape throwing out a first pitch at Wrigley Field a few months ago. This means that a Republican President needs to win in 2008 (c'mon George Allen!) who will actually nominate justices like Scalia and Thomas. That means no Condi, no Pataki, no Giuliani, no Romney. If Miers is confirmed, we are doomed.

UPDATE: Ok, after reading this, take Romney off the list. Mitt in '08!

Fool me 12 times, shame on me

2005-10-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

I'd like to weigh in against the anti-anti-Miers camp - you know, those conservatives who don't necessarily support Miers but think that those of us who do not support her nomination and want it withdrawn are making bad arguments. The anti-anti-Miers position is nonsense, and I'm surprised that an otherwise excellent blogger XRLQ has bought that nonsense.

We start with the reasons why we conservatives are so worked up over who gets on the Supreme Court. Two main reasons: (1) the Supreme Court has unconstitutionally seized the power to read their personal policy preferences in the Constitution, which are dramatically opposed to our values and common sense, using increasingly unsophisticated sophistry (read: increasingly bold in not even bothering to couch their opinions in the Constitution text), and (2) Republican Presidents have a horrible track record in nominating solid justices.

Since and including Eisenhower (but not including Bush II), Republican Presidents have had 15 Supreme Court vacancies to fill. From those 15 spots, we've gotten a grand total of 4 solid justices - Harlan, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. Four. Freakin' FOUR! Do you hear how pissed off we are! FOUR!!!!!!!!!

Of the other eleven, how many times have we been assured that the nominee is a solid conservative? EVERY FREAKIN' TIME!!!!! Please forgive us when it happens for the twelfth time we call bullshit. Let's name them: Earl Warren, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Warren Burger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Dee (erm, Day) O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter. (I've left Charles Whittaker off the list because he was only on the court from 1957 to 1962, which in and of itself indicates a lousy pick, but I have no idea what kind of justice he was. Maybe he was solid, but I'm too lazy to look him up properly.) These were all Republican nominees! How could Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush I all have screwed up so much?

Because of this horrible, abysmal track record, we Republicans have diagnosed the problem as best we could. Why would 10 otherwise sensible Republicans, who made it through the vetting process to be the number one selection to the highest court in the land, all have bamboozled the President and his advisors? We're not always talking less than stellar Republicans. Reagan got bamboozled two out of three times. (In fairness to Reagan, Bork's nomination was superb and Arlen Specter should burn in hell for borking Bork. Arlen's still there, but as I explained, he has not the votes he once did.) Perhaps they get lured in to the D.C. culture, European culture, academia, etc. and want to impress. My own belief is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it really doesn't matter why they strayed. What matters is, how can we be sure a nominee won't stray?

The first thing we Republicans did is fight hard to change the legal culture. On the front lines is the Federalist Society, nearly single-handedly (as an organization - there are thousands of individual members doing the daily fighting) waging the war within. Next, conservatives worked their rear ends off to get the votes in the Senate so that the next Bork couldn't be borked. Finally, we got W elected twice on the explicit promise that he would nominate justices like Scalia and Thomas (not like O'Connor and Kennedy). Now, here we are, W in the White House, 55 Republican Senators, and a liberal seat opens up. (O'Connor was a liberal. Just because her personal policy preferences happened to be conservative sometimes does not change the fact that she voted her personal policy preferences, without fail, every single time).

We have done all the work. We did it all for this very situation. As Merlin said to Maverick, it doesn't get any better than this. What do we get from W? An unknown. Why are we pissed? Why are we right to be pissed? Let's look at the anti-anti-Miers arguments:

1) She might turn out ok, so wait until the confirmation hearings to see what she'll say.

First, you don't shoot from half-court when you can slam dunk. We could have had a slam dunk - Brown, Owens, Alito, Luttig, Kozinski, etc. Stealth nominees have turned out well once and his name was William Rehnquist. It will take a mighty impressive performance in the confirmation hearings to convince me to support Miers' confirmation. How impressive? She will have to publicly state that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, persuasively explain why it was wrongly decided, and in general persuasively argue why strict construction based on original meaning is the only legitimate way to interpret the Constitution and show a deep passion and commitment to maintaining her intellectual integrity on this point once confirmed. Since there is a zero chance of this happening, I feel entirely comfortable opposing her now, loudly and often.

2) You don't need an Ivy League degree to be smart enough to be on the Supreme Court

I'll give this one to the anti-anti-Miers crowd, but only coupled with strength of conviction. The liberals on the court are very smart. The D.C. intelligencia are very smart. The law professors are very smart. Boy do they offer some tempting sophistry. It takes a mighty intellect, or an incredible strength in one's own convictions even when really smart people are arguing against you, to vote reliably. But as I've pointed out, merely voting right is not enough. Do I care that Miers went to SMU (when rankings weren't thought nearly as important), which, for its second tier ranking, is still the highest ranked law school in the Dallas - Forth Worth area? No. Is Miers really smart? Probably. Being smart alone does not make a good justice. Breyer is smart. Could Miers out argue Breyer? Who knows? But I know Brown, Owens, Alito, Luttig, Kozinski, etc. could. Again, 4 for 15.

3) Sure she's qualified

I'll concede that she's "qualified" but that matters not one whit. I'm qualified. Indeed, I'd make a fabulous Supreme Court justice. I'd even say at my confirmation hearings that I think Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and do my best to patiently explain why. This is the last vestage of Republicans' attempt to hold the high moral ground. Republicans figure that they can get Democrats to stop opposing judges if they convinced the public that the only legitimate reason to oppose a nominee is the nominee's "qualifications," historically how nominations have been vetted. Even the ABA's ratings are still based on whether the nominee is "qualified." This worked with Roberts - the most on-paper qualified nominee the world has ever seen. It won't work with Miers and more importantly it will not stop Democrats from voting against nominees based on judicial philosophy.

When you add the past record of Republican Presidents to the total uncertainty about Miers, plus all the warning signs other conservative bloggers have pointed out, it adds up to about a 10% chance she'll be solid. 10% sucks. We could have 100% certainty. W didn't give that to us. That is why we are pissed. We will not support a 90% chance liberal.

Ok, now the couter arguments on Miers

2005-10-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

Since I've proven, via unassailable logic applied to the undisputed evidence, that Miers was a bad nomination, I could rest on my laurels. Instead, I'll rebut the only meaningful counter-argument:

(1) Luttig, Owen, Jones, Brown, McConnell, Alito, etc. are not confirmable.

Hogwash. Here is how it would go if Bush nominated anyone on the above list. All nine Republican senators on the judiciary committee not named Arlen would vote for the nominee. If the nominee had ever stated the opinion in public that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, or said so in the confirmation hearings (which question I think every nominee should answer), Arlen would consider voting against that nominee. Then, the other senate Repulicans would tell Arlen that he could kiss his chairmanship goodbye, and his judiciary committee position goodbye, if he did so. They would patiently explain that if Arlen did not want to vote to confirm the nominee, he at least should give the nominee a chance for an up or down vote on the entire senate floor.

Arlen would either vote for or against the nominee in committee. If he votes against, the vote would be 9-9. Arlen gets booted. A reliable Republican senator replaces him. Bush renominates the same person or the committee re-votes. The reconstituted committee votes 10-8 to send the nominee to the senate floor. If Arlen votes in favor, the nominee goes before the senate floor.

On the senate floor, the Democrats filibuster. Frist need convince only 2 of the seven Republicans on the gang of 14 - Lindsey Graham, John McCain (sorry, there is no way he would support a filibuster if he had any thought of winning the Republican nomination for President in 2008) - to change the Senate rules. Cheney breaks a 50-50 tie. Bye bye filibuster. The full Senate then votes for cloture. The full senate confirms the nominee.

Q.E.D.

My thoughts on Miers' nomination

2005-10-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

After two, count 'em, two very detailed and long posts on Harriet Miers were eaten by cyberspace (I've calmed down, but not by much), I'll give you all the succinct reasons - the objectively correct reasons - why Harriet Miers' nomination was a mistake and a dissapointment.

First and foremost, a nominee cannot be evaluated without knowing the standards to which the nominee should be judged. I am not satisfied that a nominee is merely "qualified." I would be if the left was, but since they are not, and they cheated first, we have to play by their rules. So, in addition to being "qualified," and in addition to having solid conservative bonafides and expressing an intent to be a "strict constructionist," there are two qualities (not qualifications) a nominee must possess to be objectively satisfactory:

(1) The nominee must not "grow" on the bench.

You all know what this means (*cough* Kennedy *cough*). This quality is unknowable, by definition, at the time of the nomination, even to the nominee herself. Hence, we have to look to objective evidence of the types of qualities past nominees have had that didn't "grow." One of those objectively verifiable qualities is a long history of public engagement on constitutional issues where the nominee has put his or her intellectual gonads on the chopping block for liberals to tear apart. This does not necessarily mean past judicial experience, though that does qualify (really, only appellate judicial experience qualifies, unless it is a Federal district judge with a lots of published decisions). Law review articles, public speaking engagements, active participation and leadership in conservative legal organizations, like the Federalist Society or the Cato Institute, etc. also qualify. Only when that nominee has stuck to his or her guns in the marketplace of ideas do I have comfort that the nominee will not "grow."

Harriet Miers does not have this quality. My objection to her nomination is nicely summed up in one sentence by Daniel Henninger on Opinion Journal today: "Harriet Miers may share these reformist views, but her contribution to them is zero." When others were available who would obviously not "grow" on the bench (*cough* Janice Rogers Brown *cough*), there was no reason to take a chance with Miers. Next,

(2) The nominee must be exceedingly successful articulating and promiting conservative constitutional thought in the marketplace of ideas.

It is all well and good to have another vote for Scalia and Thomas on the Court. But Scalia is 70 - he won't be around forever. Far too many times, Scalia and/or Thomas have written brilliant Originalist concurring or dissenting opinions that only each other - or no one - joined. Scalia should have joined Thomas' concurrence in U.S. v. Lopez. Rehnquist should have joined Thomas' dissent in Grutter. When "conservative" justices don't join the excellent and correct reasoning of Scalia and Thomas' opinions, this marginalizes their influence. Lower courts follow and apply the reasoning of majority opinions, not concurrences. Dissents are more powerful and more likely to eventually be adopted when more justices join them. Every time a solid conservative like Rehnquist (and as I suspect will be true of Roberts) does not join Scalia or Thomas, the more the left can argue that Scalia and Thomas are "out of the mainstream."

Hence, it is not enough for a nominee to be a "strict constructionist" or a "conservative" even like Rehnquist. To be an acceptable nominee, that person must have the rhetorical and intellectual firepower of Scalia and Thomas, and must be equally dedicated to righting the ship for all lower courts to follow. Again, Miers might have this quality, but she has not shown it. It is unacceptable to nominate Miers when so many other potential nominees (*cough* Janice Rogers Brown *cough*) have shown the intellectual and rhetorical firepower on par with Thomas and Scalia.

Q.E.D.

I'm a capitalist

2005-09-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

You are a
Social Conservative
(38% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(88% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Capitalist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

The neat thing is that my point is right in the middle of George W. Bush's forehead, slightly to the right (which is really left) of Reagan. At least, that is where the creators of this test think Reagan and W are. Bush is far more economically liberal than me. Prescription drugs, farm subsidies, no child left behind, $250 billion for Katrina, etc. All nonsense that I wouldn't even think twice about vetoing.

My final thoughts on John Roberts

2005-09-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

Now that John Roberts has passed out of committee with a 13-5 vote, I should let all 12 of you know my thoughts. Am I still skeptical? Yes. Why? Because I don't know whether he'll vote to overrule the multitude of idiotic liberal decisions over the past few decades. However, even Scalia doesn't vote to overrule everything - even decisions he disagrees with - and expresses a healthy respect for precident. I'm more in the Thomas camp in that bad decisions left un-overruled are left as precident for more bad decisions and extensions of their flawed reasoning.

With statutes, overruling isn't as necessary because Congress can take care of it, though there are exceptions. For example, every "effects" test not expressly stated in the statute should be rejected. Indeed, an "effects" test is constitutionally suspect in the first place as a violation of due process - the real "process" kind, i.e., it is impossible to know in advance that my racially-neutral policy will disproportionately affect some race or another and to punish me for unforseeable consequences is a violation of due process.

For matters of Constitutional interpretation, if it was wrongly decided in the first place it should be overruled. The Constitution is dead.

Back to Roberts. Do I support his confirmation? Enthusiastically, yes. I have a high degree of confidence that he will not pull a Kennedy, Souter or O'Connor and extend liberal nonsense to Constitutional interpretation. While he may not strip it away as much as I would like, he showed a tremendous intellect and a tremendous ability not to be bullied or swayed from his own beliefs. I have a high degree of confidence that he will not "grow" on the bench. In other words, I see him as a stong vote against recognizing a "right" to gay "marriage" in the Constitution and other such nonsense that will undoubtedly come before him in the next few years.

Moreover, when asked about Roe v. Wade, he gave the right answers. Is it a precident of the Court? Yes, but only insofar as every not-yet-overruled prior decision of the Supreme Court is a "precident." Is it entitled to respect? Yes, but only because other judges thought about it and that all other judges are entitled to some respect. Is Roe v. Wade entitled to as much respect as, say, Brown v. Board of Education? He did not say. Moreover, he expressed a clear and unwavering rejection of the notion of citation to foreign law in interpreting the Constitution. That is the current big legal debate and his confirmation as Chief Justice should put a kiabosh on such nonsense.

I once heard a commentator say that the object of a confirmation hearing is to get confirmed. It is not a forum for pontificating or debating. Roberts said exactly what he needed to to get confirmed. He said exactly what I would have said, and that is the highest compliment I can give him - he's at least as smart as me. (It is, of course, possible that he's smarter than me - he didn't face a very difficult challenge from the legal minds questioning him and he was much better prepared than they.)

The woman just has a way with words

2005-09-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I truly love La Shawn Barber's corner. I only read it occasionally, though, as she seems to have a life (not unlike me) and doesn't post nearly as often as group blogs like Wizbang! or Powerline. But I am never disappointed when I do visit. Here is yet another turn of phrase that absolutely destroys the race hustlers:

"Little did our forbears realize that as they fought to dismantle government-mandated racial discrimination, to be equal before the law, and to gain the right to be judged as individuals, 40 years later their children and grandchildren would fight to maintain government-mandated racial discrimination, acquire skin color privileges before the law, and forfeit the right to be judged as individuals."

The Pledge of Allegiance is still unconstitutional - at least in the Ninth Circus, er Circuit

2005-09-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

A Federal judge in, where else, San Francisco, ruled today - consistent with what he believes to be binding Ninth Circuit precident - that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. For those of you who may be puzzled how the Pledge could possibly be unconstitutional, its because it has that nasty word "God" in it.

Now here's the question for you lawyers that I might decide to answer later: Is a Circuit Court opinion binding precident if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the decision on jurisdiction grounds? I highly doubt it. Of course, the A.P. reporter may simply be legally unsophisticated when he says this:

"[Judge] Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools."

The actual opinion may not have acknowledged the Newdow case in particular - i.e., the one that was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court because Mr. Newdow lacked standing to sue on behalf of his daughter over whom he did not have custody and she and mom refused to join the lawsuit - but rather all the other Ninth Circuit authority (and, I must admit, the muddled, confusing and inconsistent U.S. Supreme Court authority) that the Newdow opinion cited.

Like I said, I'll get to it later.

More MSM nonsense/liberal bias

2005-09-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

As my post below indicates, I spent a large amount of time watching the Roberts confirmation hearings replayed on C-SPAN tonight. What I got from it was vastly different from what is being reported. The Yahoo! news lead headline of an AP story is "Roberts Rebuffs Democrats' Questions."

This is nonsense. I watched three Democrat Senators' question and answer sessions and Roberts declined to answer specific questions only twice - when asked whether he would overrule Roe v. Wade and the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act that are up for renewal this year in Congress. Both times Roberts clearly stated his rationale that these questions were likely to come before the Supreme Court, indeed both issues had currently pending cases. Neither time did any Senator disagree or press Roberts for an answer. Senator Biden attempted to argue that Justice Ginsburg answered specific questions about specific cases that had already been decided, but of course Roberts did this, too, specifically saying that he agreed with the decision and reasoning of Brown v. Board of Education and agreed with prior Supreme Court decisions upholding the constitutionality of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (as it exists today, not how it may exist after it is revised/amended/extended).

Roberts answered nearly all of the Democrats' questions. No rational reporter simply reporting the facts would write a headline summing up a day's worth of mostly answers as "Roberts Rebuffs Democrats' Questions." Such a headline would only come from a partisan Democrat hack. That is what the MSM is and that is what the AP is.

Balls and strikes? You becha!

2005-09-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

I've been watching replays of Judge Roberts' Senate confirmation hearings this evening and I have many thoughts that I hope to blog about later. For now, I want to point out one response I wish Judge Roberts had given to an opening comment by Senator Herb Kohl from Wisconsin (hence, the "You becha!" from the title). It seems that the Democrats are trying to attack the aptness of Judge Roberts' baseball umpire analogy and Sen. Kohl's particular attack was to point out that different umpires have different strike zones and different basketball referees call different games.

Point conceded. Roberts stayed on message, perhaps politically savvy, and did not address the question directly. What Roberts should have said to this observation is that no one thinks it is a good thing to have different umpires with different strike zones and different referees with a different sense of how hard you have to hack Shaq for it to be a foul. Moreover, no one thinks it is a good thing for umpires and referees to stray away from the written rules of the games. Indeed, several years ago, Major League Baseball was so concerned about certain umpires, shall we say, creative strike zones (e.g. Eric Gregg) that they coralled all the umpires, showed them the actual written rule describing the strike zone, and told them that they would be watched and appropriately rewarded/disciplined if their strike zone did not comport with the strike zone described in the rule book.

What Herb Kohl celebrates is the idea that judges should be courageous and strike new ground when they think it is necessary and appropriate, even if this means going outside the written rules - i.e., the Constitution. In this respect, he tried to characterize Brown v. Board of Education as such a decision. Judge Roberts appropriately rebuffed this attept and characterized Brown as more consistent with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment. But I wonder what Senator Kohl would say if, in the Rose Bowl when Winconsin was playing UCLA, the referees struck new ground and stopped enforcing the college rule that a ball carrier is down when a knee touches the ground in favor of the bold and exciting NFL rule that a ball carrier must be down by contact. I wonder what his reaction would be if this extra-statutory rule change occurred after a UCLA player tripped on the one yard line on his way to a sure touchdown but rolled in the endzone afterwards without being touched.

Whither global cooling?

2005-09-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

I was perusing Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus today. The second to last letter therein explains the reader's stock response to his liberal associates' constant blaming of every malady on global warming is ""We would not have global warming today if Al Gore had been elected president." The reader continues, "Never once has a person even asked whether I'm kidding."

I believe that the point of the letter is to point out the reflexive unthinking of those on the left. After all, based on the claims of the global warming zealots, absolutely nothing Al Gore could have done in five short years in office would have completely ended global warming. Why, even Kyoto would only slow it down a bit - global warming is here to stay.

I had a different take on the letter, one I put in an email to Mr. Nordlinger reprinted below. I wonder if he'll post it in his next Impromptus.

Jay,

Love the Impromptus. In your article today about your Bay Area emailer’s response to global warming fanatics, "We would not have global warming today if Al Gore had been elected president!", I was struck by a succession of thoughts I’d like to share. My first was that this sentiment was not a joke, but literally true. Kind of like the fact that we didn’t have homelessness in America when Clinton was President, if Al Gore was elected, surely he would end global warming and/or the left would stop using it as a political bogeyman for all seasons. Then I thought, no, the left would never give up its panacea for capitalism; they’d milk global warming ‘till the end of time. It just wouldn’t be the ever present scare tactic (scare tactics tend to get the public interested in actual action and/or accountability); rather, it would continue to be the justification for all things liberal, “well, we can't let you build power plant here, global warming and all,” or “of course we have to raise taxes on the rich, with less money to spend on SUVs they won’t use as much energy and that will help stem global warming.”

Then I thought, whatever happened to the global cooling nonsense of the ‘70s? The argument was the same – burning fossil fuels expended particulates into the air that blocked sunlight causing the earth to cool plunging us into the next ice age. Then I thought of two explanations why global cooling did not have the same political impact as global warming today – one, the media/academia/Democrat conspiracy was not nearly as well-organized in the ‘70s and thus they simply could not pull it off, then two, global cooling proponents made the mistake of putting forth an actual testable prediction readily observable by the general public, an ice age. Global warming proponents are much more sophisticated. There are no predictions that the general public can readily perceive. When it’s hot, that’s global warming for you. When it’s cold, global warming melted the polar ice caps causing cold water to flow toward the equator and mess up the ecosystem. In short, the mistake the first time around was treating global cooling like an actual science, making testable predictions and all. Global warming is devoid of that hindrance.

Gay marriage in California, part II

2005-09-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

Since my last post weighing in on gay marriage, not much has happened on the California front. Until this. The California Senate has apparently voted to allow same-sex marriage. How, you say, given that Proposition 22 was overwhelmingly passed by the citizens of California in 2000? Let me explain (with many hat tips to Patterico, Dafydd and XRLQ):

California citizens may propose statutes or Consitutional amendments under the initiative process of Article 2, Section 8 of the California Constitution, which reads:

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL SEC. 8.

(a) The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.

(b) An initiative measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the text of the proposed statute or amendment to the Constitution and is certified to have been signed by electors equal in number to 5 percent in the case of a statute, and 8 percent in the case of an amendment to the Constitution, of the votes for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election.

(c) The Secretary of State shall then submit the measure at the next general election held at least 131 days after it qualifies or at any special statewide election held prior to that general election. The Governor may call a special statewide election for the measure.

(d) An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect.

(e) An initiative measure shall not include or exclude any political subdivision of the State from the application or effect ofits provisions based upon approval or disapproval of the initiative measure, or based upon the casting of a specified percentage of votes in favor of the measure, by the electors of that political subdivision.

(f) An initiative measure shall not contain alternative or cumulative provisions wherein one or more of those provisions would become law depending upon the casting of a specified percentage of votes for or against the measure.

A carefull reading of Article 2, section 8(b), will reveal that the only real difference between an initiative to add a statute or one to amend the Constitution is in the number of signatures you need to get your initiative on the ballot: 5% and 8%, respectively. Once you have your signatures, though, an initiative passes via majority vote whether it amends the Constitution or simply adds a statute.

For initiative statutes:

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTIONARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL SEC. 10.

(a) An initiative statute or referendum approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the electionunless the measure provides otherwise. If a referendum petition isfiled against a part of a statute the remainder shall not be delayedfrom going into effect.

(b) If provisions of 2 or more measures approved at the same election conflict, those of the measure receiving the highest affirmative vote shall prevail.

(c) The Legislature may amend or repeal referendum statutes. It may amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute thatbecomes effective only when approved by the electors unless theinitiative statute permits amendment or repeal without theirapproval.

(d) Prior to circulation of an initiative or referendum petitionfor signatures, a copy shall be submitted to the Attorney General whoshall prepare a title and summary of the measure as provided by law.

(e) The Legislature shall provide the manner in which petitionsshall be circulated, presented, and certified, and measures submittedto the electors.

For initiative constitutional amendments:

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 18 AMENDING AND REVISING THE CONSTITUTION SEC. 3.

The electors may amend the Constitution by initiative.

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 18 AMENDING AND REVISING THE CONSTITUTION SEC. 4.

A proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise. If provisions of 2 or more measures approved at the same election conflict, those of the measure receiving the highest affirmative vote shall prevail.

Ok, now that we have the basics down, let's address Proposition 22, which was an initiative statute. Under Article 2, section 10(c), "The Legislature may amend or repeal referendum statutes. It may amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors unless the initiative statute permits amendment or repeal without their approval." (Emphasis added.)

What this means, as Dafydd ably points out, is that the Legislature cannot amend or repeal an initiative statute on its own. Rather, it must first vote to repeal or amend it, and then put that up for a vote by the citizens. What does it mean to "amend or repeal" an initiative?

"[A]ny change of the scope or effect of an existing statute, whether by addition, omission, or substitution of provisions, which does not wholly terminate its existence, whether by an act purporting to amend, repeal, revise, or supplement, or by an act independent and original in form [is an amendment]. [Citation.] A statute which adds to or takes away from an existing statute is considered an amendment. [Citation.]" Mobilepark West Homeowners Assn. v. Escondido Mobilepark West, 35 Cal. App. 4th 32, 40 (1995) .

My first thought upon reading the California Constitution was that the press is just stupid, and that the vote by the California Senate was to repeal the statute and thereafter place the matter to a state-wide vote by the citizens, as required by Article 2, section 10(c). Secure in my belief that the citizens would never vote to repeal what they had approved five years earlier by over 60%, I figured the whole thing was an exercise in futility, but at least procedurally legitimate.

But that is not what happened. The California Senate bill just approved says nothing about repealing Proposition 22 or putting the matter up for a state-wide vote. Rather, the California Senate hopes to win on a technicality with the help of the Courts. From the AP article reporting the vote:

"Proposition 22 was approved by California voters in 2000. The initiative added a section to the state Family Code stating that 'only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.'

It was put on the ballot when it appeared that Hawaii might legalize gay marriages and was intended to prevent California from recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Leno's bill would amend a separate section of state law that bars the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in California."

Get that? The bill amends a different section of state law, so it's not an "amendment" and does not "repeal" Proposition 22. Article 2, section 10(c) therefore does not come into play, so you - the citizens - don't get to vote on it!

This is nonsense. As XRLQ points out, there has already been a California Court of Appeal ruling holding that Proposition 22 unambiguously prohibits California from recognizing same sex marriages performed both out of state and in California. From Knight v. Superior Court, 128 Cal. App. 4th 14, 23-24 (2005) :

"The plain language of Proposition 22 and its initiative statute, section 308.5, reaffirms the definition of marriage in section 300, by stating that only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid and recognized in California. This limitation ensures that California will not legitimize or recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, as it otherwise would be required to do pursuant to section 308, and that California will not permit same-sex partners to validly marry within the state. "

Thus, without help from the Courts, this Senate bill is doomed. To recognize same sex marriage in California via this bill, the California Supreme Court will have to overrule Knight v. Superior Court, find that Proposition 22 is ambiguous, find that it only prohibits recognition of same sex marriages performed out-of-state, says nothing about same-sex marriages perforemd in California, and therefore find that the Senate bill is not an amendment of Proposition 22.

The last wrinkle in the saga is that since Proposition 22 was a mere initiative statute, some activist judge can rule that it violates the California Constitution, which has already happened. Hopefully, the California Supreme Court will directly rule on that in the litigation currently pending spawned by Gavin Newsome's nonsense in San Francisco. If the California Supreme Court decides that banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, then the citizens can still amend the California Constitution via initiative, and still win with a mere majority vote, they'll just have to get more signatures than last time to get it on the ballot.

Homeopathy no better than placebos

2005-08-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

Duh. The Brits have confirmed the obvious. What I should do is invent a mythical health care scam - say, based on ingesting precise amounts of hot dog condiments - and then get a big, fat government grant to conduct a study debunking my scam.

Proposition 77 is back on the ballot

2005-08-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

The California Supreme Court has stayed (scroll down) the Court of Appeal order throwing the redistricting initiative, Proposition 77, off the ballot of the upcoming California special election. Here is the text of the California Supreme Court's order:

Petition for review GRANTED. The judgment of the Superior Court of Sacramento County filed on July 22, 2005, in Lockyer v. McPherson et al. (05CS00998), directing the Secretary of State not to place any version of Proposition 77 on the November 8, 2005, special election ballot or in the voter election materials, is stayed pending this court's determination of this matter or further order of this court. In the absence of a showing that the discrepancies between (1) the version of the initiative measure that was submitted to the Attorney General and (2) the version of the initiative measure that was circulated for signature (and that was signed by the requisite number of qualified voters and has been certified for placement on the ballot) were likely to have misled the persons who signed the initiative petition, we conclude that it would not be appropriate to deny the electorate the opportunity to vote on Proposition 77 at the special election to be held on November 8, 2005, on the basis of such discrepancies. (Cf. Assembly v. Deukmejian (1982) 30 Cal.3d 638, 652-654.) Accordingly, the Secretary of State and other public officials are directed to proceed with all the required steps to place in the election pamphlet and on the ballot of the special election to be held on November 8, 2005, the version of Proposition 77 that was signed by the requisite number of qualified voters. Any public official or other person who has not had an opportunity to revise statements or ballot arguments that have already been submitted to the Secretary of State in order to reflect the version of Proposition 77 that will appear in the election pamphlet and on the ballot shall be permitted to submit a revised statement or ballot argument to the Secretary of State no later than 3 p.m. on Monday, August 15, 2005. After the election, we shall determine whether to retain jurisdiction in this matter and resolve the issues raised in the petition.

Kennard, J., and Moreno, J., voted to deny review. Werdegar, J., unavailable and did not participate.

Votes: George, C.J., Baxter, Chin, and Aldrich*
* Hon. Richard D. Aldrich, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Three, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of
the California Constitution.

Hat tip: SoCalLawBlog

More LaShawn Barber wordsmithery

2005-08-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

In yet another excellent post by LaShawn Barber, this one about the hiring practices of the Denver Fire Department, she once again strings together a paragraph so utterly destroying the rational for racial spoils that one thanks God we will no longer be subject to any further nonsense from Sandra Dee - erm, Day:

"If hiring rap sheet-free intelligent people means they won’t hire a black applicant for another five years, so be it. Perhaps if mothers and fathers start teaching children that dull, crime-prone, and whiny is no way to go through life, they would learn not to use their skin color to get what they didn’t earn and don’t deserve."

Late term abortion

2005-08-10T11:46:00.000-07:00

One wonders how this couple could be prosecuted in light of the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence. I thought even partial birth abortions are a constitutional right.

What's the moral difference between a newborn, partial birth murder - ahem, I mean abortion - and starving your 22 month old son to death?

Lawrence v. Texas almost certainly protects a right to consensual incest

2005-08-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

Professor Matthew Franck, a contributor to NRO and the Bench Memos blog, and Southern Appeal have been going at it over Muth v. Frank, a recent 7th Circuit opinion by Judge Manion finding that Lawrence v. Texas - that abomination of an opinion by Justice Kennedy finding that the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791 guarantees a Constitutional right to engage in homosexual sodomy - does not similarly protect a "fundamental right" to engage in consentual incest.

The row between Prof. Franck and Southern Appeal is whether Muth v. Frank actually reached the merits of the Constitutional consensual incest issue. Prof. Frank says yes. Southern Appeal says no. Who is right? Prof. Frank. As I explained in an email to Prof. Franck, cc'd to Southern Appeal:

Professor Franck,

I read your latest entry in Bench Memos and I perused the link to Southern Appeal you provided. I write to tell you that you are right, and Feddie is quite wrong, about the procedural context of the case. Not to disparage your qualifications, as Feddie does, but I am in fact a lawyer and maybe that will help you get Feddie to fess up that he is wrong.

The question you two are arguing is whether the procedural status of the case – review on a habeas corpus petition – means that Judge Manion’s opinion did or did not reach the underlying constitutional merits of whether Lawrence v. Texas protects incest as well as homosexual sodomy. Feddie says no, that Judge Manion’s opinion did not reach the merits, based on this quote from Muth:

“It may well be that future litigants will insist that Lawrence has broader implications for challenges to other state laws criminalizing consensual sexual conduct. However, because this case is here on habeas review, the only question before this court is whether Lawrence announced a new rule proscribing laws prohibiting the conduct for which Muth was convicted. We have concluded that it does not. Applying this standard to the case at hand, there was no clearly established federal law in 2001 that supports Allen Muth's claim that he has a fundamental right to engage in incest free from government proscription.”

(Emphasis added by Feddie) (and eliminated by html: ed.)

The implication Feddie draws from this quote is that the holding of Muth was limited to “whether Lawrence announced a new rule . . . .” Feddie then argues that since the court found Lawrence did not announce a new rule, Mr. Muth’s habeas petition was procedurally barred, since only new substantive rules get retroactive application. Thus, Feddie concludes, Muth did not address whether Mr. Muth’s habeas petition lacked substantive merit.

His argument conveniently ignores the second part of the question, “a new rule proscribing laws prohibiting the conduct for which Muth was convicted.” For Muth did quite clearly hold that Lawrence did announce a new rule and that the rule was retroactive and would therefore apply to habeas petitioners.

“Lawrence is a new substantive rule and is thus retroactive. Anderson v. Morrow, 371 F.3d 1027, 1033 (9th Cir.2004). Accordingly, an adult imprisoned for violating a state's sodomy law (provided that person's conduct took place with another consenting adult) would be eligible for a writ of habeas corpus. If it would be unconstitutional to punish a person for an act that cannot be subject to criminal penalties it is no less unconstitutional to keep a person in prison for committing the same act. See Mackey, 401 U.S. at 693, 91 S.Ct. 1160 (Harlan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("There is little societal interest in permitting the criminal process to rest at a point where it ought properly never to repose.").” Muth v. Frank, 412 F.3d 808, 817 (7th Cir. 2005) (emphasis added) (see, I know how to cite a case and everything).

The question that Muth therefore reached – sua sponte, I might add – is what exactly was the new rule that Lawrence announced? By the court’s clear reasoning in the above quote, if Lawrence protects incest as well as homosexual sodomy, Mr. Muth would have the benefit of the retroactive application of Lawrence just as much as if he were convicted of homosexual sodomy even in the context of a habeas petition. Thus, the court was called upon – and did – reach the substantive question of whether Lawrence protected consensual incest as well as homosexual sodomy. Because Judge Manion’s opinion found that Lawrence did not protect consensual incest, it obviously did not announce a new rule protecting such a non-existent right. So in the clinching phrase of the logical argument, Judge Manion states that Lawrence did not announce a new rule protecting consensual incest. But Muth clearly did adjudicate the substantive issue of whether Lawrence protects consensual incest, and that is the point you made.

Great article, and spot on, I add.

Update: Upon reading a bit more of Southern Appeal's two posts, there is one point I need to clarify. In the context of a habeas petition, the Muth court could have found that there was a fundamental right to consensual incest out of Lawrence, but then also found that the Wisconsin state courts were not "unreasonable" in their interpretation of federal precedent. As a reader email to Southern Appeal puts it:

"I think the best reading of Muth is that even if Lawrence is clearly established law that is retroactively applicable on habeas, the Wisconsin courts' resolution of Muth's claim was not an 'unreasonable' application of Lawrence. "

Yes, Muth could have so held, but it didn't. It went straight to the jugular and found that there was no such Constitutional right to consensual incest in Lawrence, and thus no need to even address whether Wisconsin state courts' application of relevant federal precedent was "unreasonable" since it was "correct." Professor Franck is still correct.

Roberts answers questions

2005-08-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has submitted his written answers to the Senate Judiciary Commitee questionaire. You can get links to the whole thing in this NY Times article.

I warn you, it is boring reading. The first thing to stike me as interesting is the list of unpublished per curiam cases Judge Roberts has been on the panel of while a D.C. Circuit Judge. Why, you ask? Because of this case:

Pugh v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Nov. 22, 2004)

I wonder if this is a long-lost relative of mine (though "Pugh" is a more common name than you might think). Whatever the case was about, it sure looks like Mr. or Mrs. Pugh was opposing one vile organization. I mean, seriously, can you pack more vileness into the name of your organization than "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"? Glad to see my long-lost relative was on the side of good (though, for all I know, Mr. or Mrs. Pugh might be a disgruntled former member who is upset that the group isn't radical enough).

All you need to know about questioning John Roberts about Roe v. Wade

2005-07-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

1. Can/should John Roberts say if he thinks Roe v. Wade was rightly/wrongly decided? Yes.

2. Can/should John Roberts say if he will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if confirmed? No.

3. Can/should John Roberts tell us his his view of when, and using what rationale, it is appropriate to revisit/overrule a wrongly-decided Supreme Court opinion? Yes.

Keep in mind the distinction between these three very different questions whenever someone asks whether it is appropriate for John Roberts to comment on Roe v. Wade at his confirmation hearing.

Aaron the liberal slayer agrees with me

2005-07-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Mainstream Islam is not a religion of peace. Click on the title of this post to see for yourself.

Xrlq - Go wish his family well

2005-07-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

If for some bizzare reason you read this website and not Xrlq, go over there and read this post about the recent untimely death of Xrlq's father in law, and then, by all means, read the story he links to. An excerpt:

"What're you guys doin' here?" a gruff voice bellowed. Two policemen got out and sauntered up to us. The fat one, with three gold stripes on the sleeve of his blue uniform and a large brass badge at the front of his peaked cap, was plainly accustomed to command. "Who're you guys anyhow?" he demanded.

From the pavement, I gazed up at the cop through the bright beam of his searchlight. "Officer," I said, "you would not believe who we are."

"Well, try me out, sonny," he said sharply, "and you'd better do it damn fast, because I'm about to run you in."

"Okay, sir," I said, savoring the moment, "this is a majority…of the United States Supreme Court."