Where are the statesmen?

The ever-irascible Kim du Toit, being under considerable pressure from the concerns of everyday life, has taken a break from his regular prodigious blogging schedule until such time as the situation improves. He still posts occasionally, but he has also introduced his "Best of" feature where his blogging software randomly presents one or more posts from the past. Today's is titled, "Where Is Washington?"

When asked how long the Republic would last, James Russell Lowe famously remarked, “The Republic will endure as long as the ideals and principles of the Founders remain dominant in the hearts of the people.”

Someone else less-famously remarked that the framers of the United States Constitution had it easy when they were drawing up that wonderful document: they had the august and brooding presence of George Washington sitting in the room with them while they wrote it. And if at any time an ignoble urge might come upon them, they had only to think of Washington’s frown of approbation for that urge to be curbed—and they had the certain knowledge that whatever they produced would eventually have to be subjected to the stern scrutiny of Washington’s unbending honor.

Where is Washington now? It is clear that people in government need some kind of moral compass, some kind of final arbiter, in order that their machinations be kept in check, and that the baser side of their natures be cowed at the thought of awful displeasure.

Where is Washington? He's probably spinning in his grave so fast that, were we to connect him to a generator, we could probably light all of Washington DC with its output. The last president we had which even approached Washington in stature was Reagan. George W. Bush tries, and he sometimes succeeds, but he simply isn't of the same caliber.

This country has so lost the vision of the Founders that I sometimes despair of it ever correcting itself. There are many things that need to be done if we are to return to the type of nation that was forged over two centuries ago. Here are just a few:

• Eliminate the current system of punitive taxation of individuals and corporations. Replace the income tax with a consumption tax, whether it's a national sales tax (i.e. the Fair Tax) or a value-added tax. There are good arguments for either. (Ideally the Federal government would not require a tax on the people of any kind, but fund itself solely through tariffs as it did originally. However, in today's world that's merely wishful thinking.)


• Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution and return the responsibility for selecting Senators to the legislatures of the various states. The original intent was for the House of Representatives to represent the people of the states, and for the Senate to represent the states as entities in their own right. No longer beholden to special interest groups, other than the states, they would be far less inclined to pass legislation that panders to such groups.


• Reign in the judiciary so that it once again acts as the arbiter of the law and not its creator. The Supreme Court must only determine whether or not laws are contrary to the Constitution, and not make new law where none was before.

I could go on and on but these three things would make a large difference. What changes would you suggest?

Katrina

It’s been a long couple of weeks since I last posted anything here.  Mainly I’ve been going to work, playing games on the computer every so often, and generally going about my life.  I’ve wanted to put up a long and detailed post about Cindy Sheehan but so many other bloggers out there are doing such a good job that there really isn’t any reason for me to do so.  Of course this past week has been dominated by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, pushing Cindy off the front page.  I don’t have a lot to say that hasn’t already been said but I did want to point out a couple of things related to the Hurricane that caught my attention.

First up we have rap “artist” Kanye West.  Along with many other performers, he appeared on a televised concert last night to benefit those affected by the hurricane.  However, like all too many famous people, he elected to inject his own political views into an event that should have been about helping people and not about partisan politics:

Appearing two-thirds through the program, he claimed "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and said America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible."

Of course he played the race card.  And of course he’s full of it.  There are all kinds of reasons, some justified, some not, that the efforts to help those still in the city were delayed, but the fact that those people are predominately poor and black are not among them.

Next up, Robert Tracinski writing for The Intellectual Activist believes he knows why we’re seeing the behavior that is occurring in New Orleans, namely the looting and general lawlessness:

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

He compares the scenes in New Orleans with scenes from another well-known part of the world:

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

The article he refers to appeared in the Washington Times, a link to which appears in Tracinski’s article.  Further down, he describes a specific condition that is likely exacerbating the problem:

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

As you would expect, a lot of people have spent a lot of time assigning blame. Whose fault is this?

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

Of course we didn’t see this sort of behavior in New York on and after 9/11.  But that was a relatively localized event, affecting only a small part of the city.  If something like Katrina were to come along and force the total evacuation of New York, I expect that similar conditions would obtain there as well.  Let us hope that never happens, but we better start getting ready in case it does.

Man on the ground

Michael Yon is with the Deuce Four in Iraq and is blogging about what is really going on over there. In today's dispatch, he has something to say about what certain words really mean:

Particularly among fanatics, there seems to be an intentional misappropriation of meaning in the liberal misapplication of labelling words. Let's start with the BIG ones: suicide-bombers and martyrs. Suicide is a term that should evoke empathy, if not sympathy, for a lonely and despairing act. A distressed soul, harboring a crushing, agonizing lebensmude, weary of the strain of a terrestrial existence, perhaps seeking mere relief, or just an end to psychic pain, may be contemplating suicide. If this person straps a bomb to his or her chest and walks out into the solitude of the desert and detonates, they would then be properly called a "suicide bomber." But when the media reports every day on "suicide bombers," they are talking about different people.

A fanatic who straps a bomb to his chest and walks into a market crowded with women and children, then detonates a bomb that is sometimes laced with rat poison to hamper blood coagulation, is properly called a "mass murderer." There is nothing good to say about mass murderers, nor is there anything good to say about a person who encourages these murders. Calling these human bomb delivery devices "suicide bombers" is simply incorrect. They are murderers. A person or media source defending or explaining away the actions of the murderers supports them. There is no wiggle room.

Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “she was asking for it.” In other words, like the empty rationalizations of a depraved criminal.

So who are the true martyrs in Iraq? Michael answers that question thusly:

The only martyrs I know about in Iraq are the fathers and brothers who see a better future coming, and so they act on their beliefs and assemble outside police stations whenever recruitment notices are posted. They line up in ever increasing numbers, knowing that insurgents can also read these notices. The men stand in longer and longer lines, making ever bigger targets of themselves. Some volunteer to to earn a living. This, too, is honorable. But others take these risks because they believe that a better future is possible only if Iraqi men of principle stand up for their own values, for their country, for their families. Theses are the true martyrs, the true heroes of Iraq and of Islam. I meet these martyrs frequently. They are brave men, worthy of respect.

He goes on to describe what groups make up the enemy and what groups make up the friendly forces. Read it all. Then start working your way back through the archives.

NARAL's lies about Judge Roberts

Regardless of what side you take in the debate over whether or not abortion should be legal, telling bald-faced lies about a Supreme Court nominee only serves to cast your organization in a bad light and expose you as irrational extremists.

NARAL Pro Choice America (NARAL stands for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, though the words "and Reproductive" were added after the name was initially chosen) is running the first television ad opposing the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court of the United States to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. There's only one problem. Much of the ad is lies and false implications.

Factcheck.org has the scoop:

An abortion-rights group is running an attack ad accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of filing legal papers “supporting . . . a convicted clinic bomber” and of having an ideology that “leads him to excuse violence against other Americans” It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham , Alabama.

The ad is false.

And the ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn't deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law.

The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question. (Emphasis in original. -RR)

Read the rest as it presents a lot of detail you probably won't hear elsewhere.

If you are advocating a certain position, and you believe that a Supreme Court nominee is likely to rule against that position should he ever hear a relevant case, and you can back up your belief with facts, then by all means you have the right to purchase ads on television or any other media which present your objections. But NARAL is flat-out lying in order to prejudice opinion against John Roberts. One would hope that the FCC or other relevant authority would investigate this ad and take appropriate action.

Hat tip: Boortz

Brain buckets

In today's report from the "Duh!" Department, we have the latest statistics on motorcyclist deaths and injuries in Florida since helmet use was made optional five years ago. Sure to surprise nobody, "In a survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in the three years after the optional helmet law took effect, the number of fatal motorcycle accidents increased more than 81 percent -- compared with a 48 percent increase nationally."

Another article states:

A federal study has found motorcycle fatalities in Florida increased more than 81 percent, and the number of deaths for riders younger than 21 nearly tripled, in three years after state lawmakers repealed a law requiring riders to wear a helmet.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study also found injuries have become more expensive to treat. The average hospital cost to treat a head injury was $45,602, more than four times the $10,000 insurance non-helmeted riders are required to carry.

But the study also noted that some of the increase in fatalities can be attributed to alcohol use, speed and increased ridership.

The study has its critics:

James Reichenbach, president of American Bikers Aimed Toward Education in Florida, who lobbied to repeal the helmet law in 2000, said the federal agency is biased against riders who do not wear helmets.

He said the increase in fatalities can be largely attributed to motorcycles' increasing popularity.

I would say that the 48 percent national increase noted in the first article can be so attributed, but I do think that being allowed to ride helmet-less is the major factor in the disproportionate increase in Florida state.

In an ironic turn, the woman who was a big promoter of the change was killed while riding shortly after the law went into effect. I have heard that it was determined that lack of a helmet was a contributing factor and that she may have survived if she'd been wearing one.

I have gone on record as opposing mandatory helmet laws. I consider it an infringement of freedom by government and I believe that people should be able to make their own choices about whether or not to assume the risk. Yet it is clear that the risk is greater if one rides without a helmet. I don't think there's an answer that will satisfy everyone. One potential solution I've discussed with others is as follows:

• You can ride without a helmet if you want.


• Insurance companies have the right to deny your claim if you were not wearing a helmet at the time of an accident.

The big problem with this, of course, is that we are not a cruel society and hospitals won't refuse treatment if you don't have insurance. Nevertheless, somebody's going to have to pay for it in the end whether it's the accident victim, his or her insurance company, other patients through increased costs (or their insurance providers), or the taxpayers. I think Florida's law was a pretty good compromise although it appears that the minimum $10,000 of insurance is insufficient. Perhaps increasing it to a higher amount, such as $50,000, is warranted.

As for myself, I always wear a full-face helment, along with protective jacket, pants, and boots, and will do so even if Washington's mandatory helmet law is repealed or modified.

Israel pulling out of Gaza

As anyone remotely interested in such things knows by now, Israel is going ahead with pulling its settlements out of the Gaza Strip. Benjamin Netanyahu, a former Prime Minister of Israel, resigned his position as Finance Minister in protest.

There have been many arguments, both for and against, on whether this withdrawal is a good idea. Netanyahu opposes it because he believes it will allow Gaza to become a stronghold for terrorists and result in even more bloodshed.

Hamas and the Palestinian authority see it as a victory for their side(s). They have been competing to see who can take the most credit and Hamas has even launched a contest to see who can come up with the best poster to "portray the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for Palestinian groups."

I could very well be wrong about this but the first thought that comes to mind when I contemplate this withdrawal is that Prime Minister Sharon and his supporters in this plan expect that the Palenstinians will use Gaza as a base for terror. I see the sequence of events proceeding as follows:

• Israel removes all settlements and military personnel from Gaza.


• Hamas and probably other terrorist organizations begin to use Gaza as a staging ground for terror attacks into Israel.


• Israel launches a massive military operation into Gaza and essentially cleans it out.


• Israel is possibly able to take out a considerable portion of Hamas and the other organizations since they've probably concentrated a large portion of their personnel in the area.


• Israel justifies their actions (and rightly so) by noting that they basically gave Gaza to the Palestinians and in return got more terror attacks, not less.


• Optionally Israel sweeps all Palestinians out of Gaza and completely occupies it. I would have to say this unlikely, though.

Of course, I could be wrong. I freely admit that I'm not an experienced strategist in such matters and there is a lot about what is going on over there that I simply don't know. This is a pretty simple premise and I imagine that the Palestinian leadership has thought of this possibility as well. In any case, it's certainly going to be interesting to see what happens after the pull out. Unfortunately, the word "interesting" in this case will probably have the "Chinese" connotation.

It takes a community

When reading Chris Muir's daily webcomic Day by Day the other day, I discovered that the author of the blog Electric Venom, who goes by the moniker Venomous Kate, had suffered a rather severe injury. Given her financial situation, she put out a reluctant request for some help paying for the dental work she now has to undergo.

I don't read her blog regularly but other bloggers that I admire do, or else know her personally, so I decided I would kick a few bucks her way. Even with the new house and all, I had some to spare so I shared.

Now that a couple of days have passed since her initial request, the response has been staggering. She has received donations totalling about three-fourths of the total she needs. I have seen this before. The Blogosphere, specifically the more conservative/Libertarian/Republican/right-leaning side, is incredibly generous, as opposed to the stingy, selfish characterizations that we are often smeared with by those who hold opposing political views.

Some critics on the Left might say that we're only helping Kate because she's "one of us." After all, aren't we the ones that want to do away with welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other entitlement programs, thereby causing massive starvation and disease? Not at all. You see, we understand that there's nothing wrong with helping people out when they find themselves in a tight situation. What we have a problem with is the government confiscating our property (the income we earn by working and investing) by force and giving it to other people. Kate and her family are normally self-sufficient and they take responsibility for themselves. When we donate to her "Fang Fund" so she can get her teeth fixed, we know that she only asked because she was really up against the wall. We also understand that, were it someone else who needed help, and Kate was in a position to provide it, she would do so. In fact, I fully expect that this will happen in the not-to-distant future, as Kate "pays it forward" by helping out someone who is in trouble with some cash or other assistance. I don't know her personally, and haven't read enough of her blog to get a feel for what kind of person she is. Nevertheless I can say with confidence that she will feel obligated to help out others as she was once helped. And this is a one-time shot, not an ongoing process. Once she has the money she needs, she will stop taking donations and refund any excess. Should anyone refuse their refund, she will donate it to charity.

By contrast, if the government just gives handouts to people, they become dependent on it and lose the incentive to become self-sufficient. If the government provides enough to live on, even if it's just at the subsistence level, someone who doesn't know any other way to live will likely be content to live off the dole as long as they are able to. They become a drain on society and fail to achieve their full potential.

Of course there are those who are simply unable to provide for themselves, no matter how willing they are to do so. Obviously we should provide for their needs and enable them to have a decent quality of life. Still, I would much rather that this is done by private charities rather than the government. And I'm sure they would much rather receive assistance from actual people who care about them than some nameless, faceless bureacrats in Washington DC and/or their state capitol.

Woman sues over Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

According to this article:

A woman upset that she bought the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" for her 14-year-old grandson without knowing it contained hidden, sexually explicit scenes sued the manufacturer Wednesday on behalf of consumers nationwide.

Florence Cohen, 85, of New York, said in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the game's manufacturer, Rockstar Games, and its parent company, New York-based Take Two Interactive Software Inc., engaged in false, misleading and deceptive practices.

While the suit itself may have merit, this woman is an idiot. Why? Here's why:

Cohen said in the suit that she bought the game in late 2004 for her grandson when it was rated "M" for mature, for players 17 and older. According to the suit, she directed that it be taken away from her grandson, which was done.

The game was rated for ages 17 and older at the time she bought it for her 14 year-old grandson. So the profanity in the game, as well as all the violence -- gunfights, fistfights, running over people with cars, beating up prostitutes -- that's all okay but a litle simulated sex (and poorly simulated, I've seen the video clips) is enough to take the game away from the kid and file a class-action lawsuit over?

The Grand Theft Auto series of games have been alternately praised and reviled. There is no denying that they contain a lot of "adult" material. But there is also no denying that they are, from a technical and gameplay standpoint, outstanding examples of the computer game art. They present large virtual environments which you can explore however you like and the free-form style of play, in the context of an overarching plot, are a significant change from games which basically funnel the player along a relatively narrow path. Even the mighty Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 don't allow you to explore your environment as freely. But, make no mistake, these games are not for kids. Rockstar and Take Two have never said otherwise.

What it boils down to is that the boy shouldn't have been given the game in the first place. This woman's poor judgement leads me to question her fitness to be in any way involved in his care and upbringing.

Oh so typical

Looks like House Democrats have their own "answer" to the issue of Social Security. Introducing "Amerisave."

"AmeriSave will help middle-class families build retirement security by expanding opportunities to save, and ensuring pension fairness, guaranteeing workers receive the benefits that they have been promised after a lifetime of hard work," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.

Okay, that sounds good, if a bit vague. I'm all for making sure that employees with pensions receive what they're owed. Of course, it would be best if the government wasn't the one to bail out the pension plans when companies can't make the payments. But what about some specifics?

Under the plan, workers would receive a dollar-for-dollar match for the first $1,000 contributed to an IRA, 401(k), or similar plan. The recipient would receive the match after they filed a tax return, with the funds directed into their retirement savings account.

This is what truly tells us this is a plan developed by Democrats. Where does this money come from? Boortz says it so I don't have to:

Where do those matching funds come from? Why, increased taxes, of course! Where else! Increased taxes on high-achieving Americans.

What a plan! You take money away from people who don't generally vote for you and give it to people who do generally vote for you, and you call it Social Security reform! And how much money? Original estimates are around $75 billion for ten years. That, of course, will turn about to be hugely underestimated. In every election cycle the Democrats will come forward and promise that if you'll just vote for them they will take more money from the evil rich and add it to the retirement accounts of lower and middle-income Americans.

Amerisave is a vote-buying plan. Nothing less.

Yet another wealth confiscation and redistribution plan. Socialism 101. Hopefully, in the Republican-controlled House, this plan will suffer the ignominious death it so richly deserves.

Multilateral

It's been a while since I last posted, I know. Now that the craziness of simultaneously selling one house and buying another, as well as moving into said new house, is over I can finally devote some time to this blog. To start of with, something which you probably won't see or hear emphasized in the mainstream news is that six-way talks will start tomorrow to address North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Many people opposed to the Iraq campaign in the War on Terror have wondered why we attacked Iraq rather than North Korea which presumably presents a greater threat due to its more advanced nuclear weapons program, and the fact that its leader appears to be every bit the dictator Saddam was. There are a multitude of reasons, which collectively form this quaint little thing called "reality," but one of the big ones was that the situation in North Korea has a much better chance of being resolved through peaceful negotions and diplomacy than the situation in Iraq.

One of the reasons I voted for George W. Bush was the difference in the way the two candidates planned to handle North Korea. Bush said he would continue to push for multilateral talks involving the other countries in the region (namely China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia) and not give in to North Korea's demands for bilateral talks between it and the US alone. Kerry, on the other hand, said he would engage in such bilateral talks. The big problem is that is what Clinton did, and North Korea essentially played the US for fools. In exchange for aid, including nuclear fuel for its reactors, North Korea promised that it would not engage in any nuclear fuel production of its own. The government of North Korea quite clearly lied about that and now we have the situation as it exists today. Kerry would have made the same mistake Clinton did and likely made the problem even worse.

By pushing for multilateral talks, Bush realizes that the best hope for resolving this situation peacefully is to get the other concerned nations in the area involved in applying pressure to North Korea. China is especially important as it is the primary source for food and fuel aid to North Korea which is, in a very real sense, keeping the country from devolving into anarchy. China, therefore, is in a position to exert an enormous amount of influence on its smaller neighbor but it will only become involved if it has to. China would probably like nothing better than to let the US deal with North Korea alone but the likely result of such action has already been demonstrated as noted above.

Its funny (not really) that the Democrats were all about how we didn't involve the international community in Iraq (even though we did) but, when faced with a situation where the Bush administration is adamant that other nations be involved, they would be willing to go it alone.

London

I've been reading the reactions to the terrorist bombings in London with interest. The general consensus is along the lines of:

"We've dealt with much worse than this. We survived the Blitz, we survived the IRA, and this isn't even in the same league."

The British are made of stern stuff, there's no doubt about that. But I am somewhat concerned. I'm going to try to put what I'm thinking into words so please forgive me in advance if this sounds somewhat convoluted.

When the US was attacked on 9/11 it finally broke us out of our complacency and we decided to do something about it once and for all. Of course this wasn't the first terror attack against Americans. Previous attacks such as the USS Cole, the barracks in Beirut, the US embassies in Africa, were all terror attacks but we treated them as isolated incidents and then went back to what we were doing. We mourned the dead, repaired the damage, and then moved on. But 9/11 was an attack on US soil, and was several orders of magnitude greater in terms of loss of life and property. We finally said, "That's it, we're going to clean house," and set about to do so. We took out the Taliban in Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq. We are fighting a war, of which both Afghanistan and Iraq are just campaigns, because we want to end the threat and ability of terrorists to carry out such acts for good.

The attacks in Madrid resulted in the people of Spain, or at least a majority of those who voted in the following election, to choose appeasement over victory. They voted in a socialist government which immediately pulled all Spanish troops out of Iraq. They basically surrendered to the terrorists saying, in effect, "Please don't hurt us anymore. We'll be good."

Now we have the attacks in London. While I don't believe Britain will follow Spain into surrender, I'm somewhat concerned about the reactions I am seeing. Although the attacks were of smaller scale than those on 9/11, they nevertheless represent the deadliest assault by Islamic terrorists on British soil so far. Yet what I'm seeing is an attitude of basically, "It's no big deal. We've had worse. We can cope." It's almost like they're being rather complacent about the whole thing. I read one comment from a survivor of the Blitz which said, "I've been blown up by a better class of bastard than you." My question is whether that means you don't think much needs to be done in response. I'm not saying that Britain should lash out blindly, nor even that they should launch independent campaigns in the war on terror. But I worry that the British won't take this attack as seriously as they should. I can only hope that this worry is unfounded.

And so it begins

Two big political news items today.

First up, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her impending retirement. In her short statement to President Bush she said she would, "retire from my position as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor." It will be interesting to see who President Bush nominates as her successor and whether or not the so-called "nuclear/constitutional option" is exercised when Senate Democrats inevitably threaten to filibuster his or her confirmation. Justice O'Connor is considered a "swing vote" on the court and, if a constitutional constructionist were to be appointed and confirmed, the court's track would probably steer to the conservative side.

In other, somewhat related news, the US Congress is acting to blunt the recent egregious Supreme Court decision regarding eminent domain and property rights (in which Justice O'Connor dissented, by the way). In the aftermath of the Kelo decision, the House passed an amendment to the Treasury/Transportation spending bill.

With growing bipartisan support, the House voted for a piece of legislation that could undo the impact of the Supreme Court decision. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., would cut off federal funding to any governmental entity that uses the expanded eminent domain power to take land for economic development projects. Congress has used this approach before.

Next up: The Senate.

The measure will be offered in the Senate by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

"We will be working together to accomplish our goal ... to reign back in this broad interpretation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution in a way that protects all of us from the awesome power of government to take private property for private uses," Cornyn said.

Democrats are split on the issue:

Though Republicans have pushed the amendment, key Democrats like Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Maxine Waters of California have signed on as co-sponsors. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., lined up against the measure.

"When you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court, you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court," Pelosi said.

That's exactly the point, those in Congress upset by the Supreme Court decision say. They say they believe very few state and local governments would be willing to risk losing federal funding in order to help a developer finance a private project.

You ask me, the Federal government doesn't have any business giving any such funds to state and local governments in the first place. Nevertheless, anything the Federal government can do to protect property rights is probably a good thing. That is, after all, one of it's Constitutionally-specified primary functions, unlike so much else that it does. I would like to see a new amendment to the Constitution that expands and clarifies the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. Perhaps something along the lines of:

No government at any level shall have the power to take private property for public use without providing just compensation. Public use is defined as <insert appropriate definition here, emphasising the words "public use" as opposed to "public benefit," "public interest," "economic development," etc.>. Under no circumstances shall any government take property from a private individual or entity and then give it or sell it to another private individual or entity.

Precisely zero surprise

The ever-impressive John Lott tells us what the results have so far been of the end of the so-called "Assault Weapon Ban":

This wasn't supposed to happen. When the federal assault weapons ban ended on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes and police killings were predicted to surge. Instead, they have declined.

For a decade, the ban was a cornerstone of the gun control movement. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun control advocates, warned that "our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis." Life without the ban would mean rampant murder and bloodshed.

Well, more than nine months have passed and the first crime numbers are in. Last week, the FBI announced that the number of murders nationwide fell by 3.6% last year, the first drop since 1999. The trend was consistent; murders kept on declining after the assault weapons ban ended.

Of course the ban was never about reducing crime. It was about continuing the steady encroachment on our Second Amendment rights until such time as the citizens of the US could be completely disarmed. As has been stated here and elsewhere, "gun control" is not about guns but about control.

Time to send this link to Kim du Toit and The GeekWithA.45....

The real connection

Jon Henke at QandO reacts to Republican Representative Robin Hayes' statement that, "Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11."

Of course, this flies in the face of the 9/11 Commission Report, which concluded that we've seen no "evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States", and President Bush, who said that we have "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]."

For a follow-up, maybe the Congressman from North Carolina will give us a little insight into those WMD stockpiles in Iraq. [sigh]

More importantly, however, he provides the best definition of the war we are actually fighting and how Iraq and 9/11 both factor into it:

we are engaged in a war against a sociopolitical paradigm—the confluence of Fundamentalist Islamist Jihadism and the powerful tyrannies that amplify the danger they present—which obtains predominantly in the Middle East, and can only be minimized to a relatively safe level by altering the fundamental nature of the States in the Middle East in order to disable the incentives that make Islamist terrorism seem worthwhile.

That is, to "win" the so-called War on Terror, we have to change the political landscape in the Middle East and minimize the dangers presented by the nexus of terrorism and Rogue States.

We might disagree on the utility of attacking Iraq for that reason, but that is the connection between the Iraq war and 9/11. It's not particularly hard to understand. (Emphasis in original -RR)

I would say, however, that it's not exactly obvious, at least not unless it is explained to you. In my case, it wasn't until a read a series of essays by the incomparable Steven Den Beste that I understood just why we are fighting this war, who our enemy is, why they really hate us, and what we will need to do to win. (Note to Steven should he, by some incredible miracle, ever read this: I know I speak for many of my fellow bloggers when I say thank you for all you've done. Your voice is sorely missed.)

Flags and Freedom

As some of you may already know, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Constitution of the United States that states, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." In order to become part of the Constitution, the Senate must pass it with a two-thirds majority, and then the legislatures of at least 38 states must ratify it within seven years. I would like to go on record as opposing this amendment as I believe it would be an unacceptable restriction of free speech.

The amendments to the Constitution have each done one or more of the following:

• Enumerated or expanded a right or rights of the people.


• Placed additional limits on Congress.


• Clarified the structure of government, rules of succession, and/or methods of election of government officials.


• Provided additional powers to Congress.


• Prohibited an activity to the people.

The last one was performed by precisely one amendment, the Eighteenth Amendment which initiated Prohibition. It is also the only amendment which has since been repealed. If you look at all the amendments, you see that the Eighteenth is the only one that specifically reduced the freedom of the people, that actually told the people that they could not do something. All other prohibitions at the Federal level have been in the form of laws passed by Congress.

The proposed amendment addressing desecration of the flag ostensibly gives an additional power to Congress. As such it is not *quite* as bad as the Eighteenth. However, as a practical matter, it would effectively ban such activity as any Congress which passes this amendment would immediately act under the power it grants to criminalize that activity once the amendment is ratified by the states. It's possible that the structure of the Congress would change sufficiently in the time it takes the states to ratify the amendment but it is by no means guaranteed.

I really can't say whether or not I think this amendment would be ratified by the states. I don't think it has much of a chance of passing the Senate but stranger things have happened. If it does become part of the Constitution, then it will open a door that is best left closed. The GeekWithA.45 sums it up nicely:

The promotion of flag burning to a crime theoretically punishable by loss of life, property or liberty is to place a higher value on intangible symbols and cloth than the inalienable rights of free men.

While I disagree with the act of burning the flag, I believe that it is a valid exercize of free speech. I believe the proper way of addressing those who do so is to exercize my right of free speech to speak out against them, and to attack their beliefs and opinions with well-reasoned arguments. It's more difficult but, in the end, it will be more effective.

Florida Democrats owe taxes

Well, it appears that the Florida Democratic Party hasn't paid the payroll and Social Security taxes it was supposed to, at least in 2003. In addition, "the state party's budget and finance committee voted Tuesday to ask for a new audit to account for more than $900,000 it believes somehow disappeared from the books during 2003-2004."

You know, I could bask in the shadenfreude and ask, "But aren't Democrats the ones that believe that we should all 'pay our fair share?'" However, the question that I think is more important is whether or not the citizens of Florida want to elect people who not only don't pay their taxes on time, but have also misplaced $900,000 and don't know where it went. Governments generally aren't known for their fiscal responsibility. Put people who have so grossly mismanaged their finances in power and, well you get the idea.

That's interesting...

Most nights before I go to bed I check up on the collection of webcomics that I read regularly. Most of them update at midnight eastern time and, as I am out here in Washington State, that means that tomorrow's comics are usually available at around 9:00 pm.

One of the comics that I read is Day by Day, authored by Chris Muir. Today's comic (Wednesday, June 22; direct links don't appear to be working at this time) was slightly different when I read it last night than it is now. The text in the last panel was changed some time during the night. Currently, the last panel of the comic has the Iraqi gentleman asking the US soldiers, "Ah. They sacrifice their lives to pay for their cause." The one soldier replies, "No, they pretty much leave that to everyone else."

The original said something else. I'm pulling this from memory so it's probably not completely correct but, as I remember, the Iraqi said "Ah. So they have made the ultimate sacrifice." The soldier's reply was, "Nah, they're still hanging with Durbin."

I can only speculate on what led Mr. Muir to make this change but I'm guessing it's the fact that, last night, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois went before the Senate and apologized for his words of several days back comparing the conditions and interrogation activities at Guantanamo Bay to the Nazi death camps, the Soviet gulags, and the Cambodian killing fields.

I'm of somewhat mixed feelings on this. It's Mr. Muir's comic and he has every right to alter his work as he sees fit. On the other hand, it happened apparently without any notification or comment on his part, at least that I can find on his site. I would have liked him to put a short note on his page saying what he did and why. Perhaps he will do so later; I'll keep my eyes open.

Saving me the effort

I was going to write something in response to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's recent comments on the Senate floor about the treatment of terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay but, thanks to Captain Ed, I don't have to.

Durbin, who should know better, has the nerve to compare American soldiers to Nazis and Gitmo to the extermination camps they ran. If Durbin can't recall that the Nazis exterminated millions of people, deliberately, in those camps, I'm certain that Holocaust survivors in Illinois and elsewhere can remind him of that fact. If the Senator doesn't know about the estimated 2 million people who died in the gulag system, a system that was used primarily on internal political dissidents to suppress opposition to Stalin, then he should read his Solzhenitsyn. If he thinks that American soldiers operate on the same basis as Cambodia and the killing fields, he's out of his mind.

Via the ever-irascible Kim du Toit.

The duty of citizens

Via Kim du Toit we have this speech by a fellow in New Zealand named Stephen Franks which he gave as he handed over a petition to Parliament regarding re-establishing New Zealand's citizens' right of self-defense. Mr. Franks is apparently working on ammendments to New Zealand law in this area and had drafted the petition at the request of an organization of fellow citizens. Of them, he said:

They simply could not believe that the New Zealanders could allow themselves to be governed by rulers who not only can’t defend innocent citizens, but instead criminalise those who try to defend themselves and their property. “Where has the instinctive sense of right and wrong gone” they asked. “How can this happen in a democracy”.

I tried to explain the cowardice of the ruling clique, how Labour and the other parties despise the common sense of ordinary people. I said this cowardice was quite recent, but it was strong. I’d had members telling me they supported my amendments but could not risk pushing something like that themselves.

Cowardice indeed. One reason the rulers work to disarm the populace is because the realize that an armed citizenry presents a real threat to their power should they become tyrannical, or are perceived to be. This is one of the real reasons for the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to ensure that we can protect ourselves from our government, as well as others who seek to harm us.

Regarding taking the law into our own hands:

It has always been in those hands. There has never been a time when there could be enough police to protect every New Zealander in this stretched-out land. The mutual trust and security that was part of our heritage did not come from having police to watch every scumbag. It came from decent and self-reliant families who knew they shared responsibility for upholding behaviour standards and the law in their communities.

I know I keep beating on this, but it all comes down to responsibility. Those that would disarm us don't want us to be responsible for ourselves. For whatever reason, whether it's because they believe we're not smart enough, they want to increase their power over us, etc., they want us to be as dependent on government, for absolutely everything, as possible. Carrying a lethal weapon for self defense is the ultimate expression of personal responsibility and they just can't tolerate that.

Sir Robert Peel, who founded modern policing, was insistent that the police had no special privileges. They merely did full time what all citizens could and should do when necessary. Over the past two decades citizens’ arrest has been strongly discouraged. Our police have become instead a class privileged with special rights. Neither we nor they are better off for being expected to enforce the law alone.

Entirely correct. Police deserve our respect for doing a difficult job which can put them in harm's way, but it does not accord them any special privilege over and above the rest of the citizenry. While I agree that current and retired law-enforcement officers should be able to carry a concealed weapon in any state of the union, it should not be limited to them but should be a right enjoyed by every citizen in good standing (i.e. those that are not felons, mentally ill, etc.).

I shall have to do some research to see if I can find out more about Mr. Franks and the legislation he is working on. Would that we had more people like him in this country.

Update: Here's Mr. Franks' page at the website of ACT, which is the New Zealand political party that he is a member of. This page appears to detail the legislation mentioned in his speech.

Quotes of the day

From today's Federalist Patriot email brief.

"The Children's Defense Fund and civil rights organizations frequently whine about the number of black children living in poverty. In 1999, the Bureau of the Census reported that 33.1 percent of black children lived in poverty compared with 13.5 percent of white children. It turns out that race per se has little to do with the difference. Instead, it's welfare and single parenthood. When black children are compared to white children living in identical circumstances, mainly in a two-parent household, both children will have the same probability of being poor. How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I'd say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. ...[B]ecause the civil rights struggle is over and won is not the same as saying that there are not major problems for a large segment of the black community. What it does say is that they're not civil rights problems, and to act as if they are leads to a serious misallocation of resources. Rotten education is a severe handicap to upward mobility, but is it a civil rights problem?" --Walter Williams

"We now have an answer to the question of whether U.S. agents should knock down doors and bat the reefer from the fingers of cancer patients. Yes! By all means, yes. The Supremes have ruled that federal anti-weed laws must trump individual states' laws on medicinal marijuana. So much for the idea that the states are the laboratories of democracy. ... I am not a lawyer, which is why the idea of the interstate commerce clause having jurisdiction over intrastate non-commerce is amusing. Everything is a matter of interstate commerce, it would seem. Pity President Bush didn't claim the right to knock over Saddam Hussein based on the interstate commerce clause; every statist and big-government advocate would have gotten writer's cramp praising this novel approach. It's only a matter of time before fast food is regulated under the clause, since hungry truckers often take sacks of fries across state lines. It's the perfect law. We could use it to annex Mars." --James Lileks

"Rather than just another $400 million line item in the federal budget, funding for PBS should be a litmus test for conservatives. After all, if you can't eliminate federal funding for a media outlet that regularly attacks your party and movement, what programs CAN you muster the political will to cut? The situation is as if taxpayers were being forced to fund advertising campaigns for John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi and conservatives who control the presidency and both houses of Congress were unwilling or unable to stop it. The real problem for taxpayers is that PBS is just one of hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of federal programs that take a small slice out of the budget pie every year but add up to big money. If Republicans tinker around the edges by changing the ideological slant of PBS, it will be just another sign that too many Republicans are OK with big government as long as it is 'our' big government. To say the least, that is poor strategy." --Paul Gessing

"The frivolous demands made on our military -- that they protect museums while fighting for their lives, that they tiptoe around mosques from which people are shooting at them -- betray an irresponsibility made worse by ingratitude toward men who have put their lives on the line to protect us. It is impossible to fight a war without heroism. Yet can you name a single American military hero acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in combat? Such courage is systematically ignored by most of the media. If American troops kill a hundred terrorists in battle and lose ten of their own men doing it, the only headline will be: 'Ten More Americans Killed in Iraq Today.' Those in the media who have carped at the military for years, and have repeatedly opposed military spending, are now claiming to be 'honoring' our military by making a big production out of publishing the names of all those killed in Iraq. Will future generations see through this hypocrisy -- and wonder why we did not?" --Thomas Sowell

"As distrust of the press grows, news articles are relentlessly scrutinized for bias, but almost no one is focusing on stories that are simply ignored. For instance, a May 18 report in the Afghan newspaper Kabul Weekly said the riots that killed 17 people were not about disrespect for the Koran in American detainment camps -- they were a show of force by the Taliban and another fundamentalist group, Hezb-e Eslami. 'These demonstrations were organized by the Taliban and their supporters, and only some naive people joined the protesters,' the newspaper said. The BBC picked up the story on May 22, but so far as I can see, it was completely ignored in American news media. If you edited, let us say, a large newspaper in Washington or New York, or a prominent newsmagazine accused of causing these famous riots, wouldn't you want to check this one out?" --John Leo

Good advice

In an effort to lighten things up around here, allow me to pass along some words of down-home country wisdom that a good friend sent me via email:

• Country fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.


• Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.


• Keep skunks and lawyers at a distance.


• Life is simpler when you plow around the stumps.


• A bumble bee is faster than a John Deere tractor.


• Trouble with a milk cow is she won't stay milked.


• Don't skinny dip with snapping turtles.


• Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.


• Meanness don't happen overnight.


• To know how country folks are doing, look at their barns, not their houses.


• Never lay an angry hand on a kid or an animal, it just ain't helpful.


• Teachers, Moms, and hoot owls sleep with one eye open.


• Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.


• Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.


• Two can live as cheap as one, if one don't eat.


• Don't corner something meaner than you.


• You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, assuming you want to catch flies.


• Man is the only critter who feels the need to label things as flowers or weeds.


• It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.


• Don't go huntin' with a fellow named Chug-A-Lug.


• You can't unsay a cruel thing.


• Every path has some puddles.


• Don't wrestle with pigs: You'll get all muddy and the pigs will love it.


• The best sermons are lived, not preached.


• Most of the stuff people worry about never happens.

Quotes of the day

(Courtesy of the Federalist Patriot)

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." --Thomas Jefferson

"The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State." --Bertrand de Jouvenel

"When the federal assault-weapons ban expired last September, its fans claimed that gun crimes and police killings would surge. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-control advocates, warned, 'Our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis.' Well, over eight months have gone by, and the only casualty has been gun-controllers' credibility. Letting the law expire only showed its uselessness." --John Lott, Jr.

"By now it should be clear to anyone who has followed this nomination that the fight here isn't over [John] Bolton's record, his temperament or his reading of the intelligence. Rather, it is a policy dispute in which a majority of Democrats, as well as a few Republicans, have chosen to hijack the nomination process to score some points against President Bush's foreign policy. In the case of Syria, they owe both Mr. Bolton and Mr. Bush an apology. Americans need to understand the threat Syria poses to our troops in Iraq and to our allies in the region. That understanding isn't helped when Senators put their partisan animus ahead of the national interest." --The Wall Street Journal

"Headline in yesterday's New York Times: 'U.S. Challenged to Increase Aid to Africa' which topped a piece by reporter Celia Dugger. The article states that the European Union has 'agreed unanimously...to almost double assistance to poor countries over the next five years. Japan this week reaffirmed its pledge to double aid to Africa in just three years.' All this in the run-up to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Washington this week at which he 'hopes to shake loose more American aid for Africa.' Way, way, WAY down in the ninth paragraph we read that the 'United States has tripled aid to Africa to $3.2 billion since Mr. Bush took office.' [Emphasis mine]." --Rich Galen

"Let's understand what mishandling means. Under the rules the Pentagon later instituted at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Which means that if any guard held the Koran with one hand or had neglected to put on gloves, this would be considered mishandling. On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,973 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01." --Charles Krauthammer

Hillary Dean

Hillary Clinton is running for President in 2008, or at least that's her current intention. I don't think anyone with a modicum of political sense believes otherwise. Of course, she still has to be re-elected to the Senate by the votors of New York and, in support of both elections, she has put on the appearance of moving toward the center on such issues as illegal immigration.

However, in a performance that you probably won't hear much about from the mainstream media, Ms. Clinton did a pretty good impersonation of the current head of the Democratic National Convention, former presidential candidate Howard Dean. In her speech at her first major pre-election fundraiser, she had this to say:

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Neal Boortz comments:

Well ... you have the power thing there .. but let's not overlook that statement about honesty either.

Let's see now .. .Hillary says that Republicans are people who have never been acquainted with the truth. Now ... work with me here ... Didn't Bill Clinton admit to lying under oath? Didn't he admit that he intentionally said things to mislead investigators and prosecutors? Just wondering. Oh, and hey! Didn't he lose his law license over his dishonesty! By golly, I think he did! And what about the White House travel office staff! It didn't take the jury long to throw out those Clinton lies, did it? And then we have the FBI files scandal .. and who hired that Livingstone chap? Hillary just doesn't seem to remember. How honest of her! And who was it who told a congressional committee for two years that she didn't have certain subpoenaed documents ... and that she didn't know who had them or, in fact, if they existed at all: only to have those very documents show up in her private living quarters in the White House with her handwriting and her fingerprints all over them? Would that be Hillary! Why, yes! I do believe it was!

Remember ... it's the Republicans who have never been acquainted with the truth.

In addition to the above, Ms. Clinton had this to say:

"The press is missing in action, with all due respect," she said. "Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren't they asking the hard questions? It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart.

"I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake," she said. "Let's get some spine."

Well, I'd say that the investigative reporters are a bit gunshy after what happened to Dan Rather and Newsweek. Maybe they're rethinking the whole business of trying to trash the Republicans with unfounded stories and actually taking the time to verify the facts. Of course, to the Democrats this is interpreted as the media being "missing in action."

And as for the Constitution and the country being at stake, well she's right about that although for different reasons than she thinks. The Constitution I want to preserve (or restore, to be more accurate) is the one that means what it says in the plain text. The one where the powers of the federal government are specifically enumerated and limited. The one she wants to preserve is the one that can be interpreted to mean whatever the Democrats want it to mean on any given day. Her Constitution is like a culture of stem cells, which can become any kind of cell in the organism. Her Constitution will support any power the federal government wishes to have, allow any law it wishes to pass, and uphold the desires of the collective over the rights of the individual. For that reason, she must never be allowed to become president, at least not if the Democrats also control Congress.

Firearms ownership is not about death

Professer Mike Adams makes this point concisely in his response to a critic:

And, of course, there is no inconsistency between my opposition to abortion and my opposition to gun control. Put simply, I am committed to the protection of innocent life. I want the fetus to be protected from the abortionist who seeks to take an innocent life. I also want adults to be protected from the murderer who seeks to take an innocent life.

Professor Adams often writes about the trials and tribulations of being a conservative working at an institution populated almost entirely by liberals. To be honest, I'm surprised the administration at his college hasn't canned him yet, though it's possible that his voice is loud enough that they know they wouldn't be able to get away with it. As is often the case with his articles, the real focus is the students:

Of course, critics of my response to Rita will argue that a fetus is not a person in order to rebut my assertion that "the abortionist...seeks to take an innocent life." But the real issue, the one that my critics will not touch, regards the status of the college student.

Whenever neo-libs seek to distribute condoms on campus, to show porn movies, to encourage sodomy, or to encourage "reproductive choice," they assert that college students are adults. But when it comes to gun ownership, they portray college students as children. And these children must be kept away from firearms, just as they must be shielded from any speech that might make them feel uncomfortable or wound their inner child.

The neo-libs claim a right to abortion they cannot identify in the constitution. But NRA members claim a right to bear arms, which is spelled out clearly below the 1st Amendment. It is no accident that the neo-libs seek to suppress knowledge of one amendment through the destruction of another.

Regardless of your stance on abortion, the fact remains that the Constitution specifically enumerates the right to arms whereas the right to an abortion was inferred by the Supreme Court. The latter is arguable, the former is absolute.

Gregoire wins (for now, but probably for good)

Today Judge Bridges handed down his decision in the challenge to the 2004 Washington State gubernatorial election. As many had predicted, he decided in favor of letting the election stand.

I am not a legal expert so take the following with a grain of salt. Listening to a portion of the judge's statements on the way into work (the local talk station was broadcasting it live) and reading the notes linked above, my opinion at this time is that the Republicans limited themselves in their case, and that certain issues were not presented that would have provided a more compelling reason for Judge Bridges to rule in their favor. One in particular that appears not to have been considered is that the manual recount resulted in some counties counting additional ballots that were found during the recount and which had not been counted in the previous two machine counts. Other counties did not do this. The law specifically states that a recount should count only those votes that had already been counted in the previous count. What these counties did is a recanvassing, which is when they not only count those that were previously counted but also look for, and include in the count, any additional ballots that were not previously counted. Also, since some counties did this and some did not, there was a lack of uniform standards across the state which can be considered a violation of the equal protection clause of the US Constitution. This is what formed the basis of the US Supreme Court decision in Bush v Gore after the 2000 election and, should this case rise to that level, that case may very well be used as precedent.

The next step for the Republicans is to decide whether or not to appeal the decision to the Washington State Supreme Court. Judge Bridges, in his opening remarks prior to handing down his ruling, indicated that he considered it an inevitability.

Decision coming in Washington election trial

Today is the last day of the trial where the GOP is arguing that the Washington State gubernatorial election was irredeemably marred by errors and fraud and the Democrats are arguing the opposite so that Christine Gregoire can remain in office. Judge Bridges is scheduled to render his decision on Monday.

Regardless of the decision, I expect the case will ultimately be decided by the State Supreme Court.

Maid service

In today's installment of "Stuff We Like," I would like to present professional in-home maid service. Earlier this week, as part of preparing the house to be shown to potential buyers, the Geekette and I had Merry Maids come in and to a top-to-bottom cleaning of the house. The week before, a representative had come out to evaluate the house and figure out what they would be charging based on the number of rooms, the square footage, etc. We gave her a key which they then left on the counter after they were done cleaning. When I got home from work Tuesday evening, it was like walking into a new house. Now mind, the Geekette and I do a reasonable job of keeping the place clean. But we don't clean everything in a single day so seeing the entire place sparkling was a joy. Some observations:

• They made the bed. (I was going to do this before I left for the day but I spaced it.)


• They have some kind of uber-vacuum that does a better job than even our Dyson, which is certainly no slouch.


• They washed a mug that I had left on the counter.


• They thoroughly cleaned the appliances. They even cleaned the place in the washer where you put bleach and fabric softener.


• They cleaned the rubber strip on the bottom of the shower door.


• They refolded and rehung the towels in the kitchen and bathrooms.


• They cleaned the baseboards on the walls.


• They cleaned out all the dust and cat fur from the tangle of cables under the computer desks.


• Every surface was dusted. Dusting is the chore I dislike the most.

We'll probably have them come out and clean the place again before we move, or after we have all our stuff out. We have decided that we are going to have a professional maid service come and clean the new place at least once a month. We'll make it happen even if we have to eat ramen for dinner every night. The way they price it, you pay a certain amount for a weekly cleaning, and it's more if you go every two weeks or once a month. The tradeoff is that less frequent cleanings mean a lower monthly cost in the long term, but you don't have the house cleaned as often. I'm thinking once a month is probably good. That way we'll still need to do spot cleaning and we won't get lazy.

A study in contradiction

From today's Federalist email:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials." --Howard Dean, refusing to pre-judge Osama bin Laden in December 2003

"I think [DeLay] is guilty...of taking trips paid for by lobbyists, and of campaign-finance violations during his manipulation of the Texas election process. I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence down there." --Howard Dean, rendering a guilty verdict against Tom DeLay this week

Dean's remarks were sufficiently offensive to draw the ire of even far-Left Demos like Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank: "I think Howard Dean was out of line talking about DeLay. The man has not been indicted. I don't like him. I disagree with some of what he does, but I don't think you, in a political speech, talk about a man as a criminal...."

Dean remains unrepentant, insisting, "There's corruption at the highest level of the Republican Party, and they're going to have to face up to that one of these days, because the law is closing in on Tom DeLay."

Actually, contradiction isn't the correct term. The word that most properly describes this behavior is hypocrisy. Keep it up, Howard. You're the engineer on a train that's barrelling out of control down the track toward the washed out trestle and, instead of applying the brakes, you're blowing the steam whistle and hollering out the window.

The latest on the Washington gubernatorial election debacle

According to this article in the Seattle Times:

King County's absentee-ballot supervisor has testified that she collaborated with her boss when she filled out a report that falsely showed all ballots were accounted for in the November election.

Nicole Way said in a deposition Friday that she and assistant elections superintendent Garth Fell agreed to the misleading report because officials didn't know how many absentee ballots were returned by voters.

The title of the article is "Election manager linked to false report." This isn't just a false report, this is plain and simple fraud. Regardless of whether or not it was intended to influence the result of the election, these people knowingly reported false information. They lied. I can only hope that the judge that starts hearing the case next week agrees that this election was so full of mistakes and fraud that he has no choice but to nullify the results and instruct the state to start over.

Light blogging alert

Over the next couple of months I'll be dealing with a rather large change in the lives of myself and the Geekette. No, we're not getting married, but a substantial sum of money is involved, not to mention a considerable amount of work. We're going to be moving into a new house sometime in July and we need to get stuff packed up and in storage, and get the current house ready to show to potential buyers. Therefore, I'll probably not be posting much during that time, and probably for a time after the move as we get settled in and unpacked. I'll try to put something up every so often but no guarantees (as if there ever were any in the first place).

Student who disrupted Ann Coulter's presentation speaks

Ajai Raj who, as noted previously, acted in a disruptive manner and asked Ann Coulter a lewd question after she gave a speech at UT Austin, has released a statement posted over at Daily Kos.

While reading this, I had to keep in mind that the profanity and invective that he uses is really no different from that used by Misha over at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller. Therefore I can't really condemn him for that. However, I have yet to hear of Misha attending a presentation by a prominent Democrat and doing his best to disrupt it.

Should this guy have been arrested? I don't know. Certainly he should have been kicked out of the room; I don't think anyone can reasonably argue against that. But I am not an expert on the law down in Texas. Interestingly, one of the first comments to the post at Daily Kos presents an argument as to why his arrest was justified, even though the commenter is himself a lefty. I don't know if his argument is correct but I must give him credit for having the courage to post it.

Another example of the tolerant left

So it appears that this fellow decided to ask Ann Coulter a rather lewd question and then follow it up with equally lewd gestures when she was speaking at the University of Texas at Austin.

I wish I could say that this behavior is exclusive to the left but I can't. The recent incident where a Vietnam vet spit in the face of Jane Fonda disproves any such hypothesis. There's also the incident during the presidential campaign where a guy was trying to shout down Howard Dean. Although that one did end with Al Franken tackling him and slamming him to the floor.... I will say, though, that this kind of behavior is more often committed by those on the left than those on the right. And that's just the stuff the news actually reports.

Update: Mike provides a link to another article on the incident and asks a question.

The answer, of course, is no.

Idiocy on parade

Via Sound Politics comes a link to a Kool-Aid-fueled diatribe against the war in Iraq, and in support of the terrorists who are currently murdering Iraqis, from someone who is so self-contradictory, well, see for yourself. First off, he states his unequivocal support for the "insurgents:"

For myself, I can say without hesitation that I support the "insurgency", and would do so even if my only 21 year old son was serving in Iraq. There’s simply no other morally acceptable option.

Usually we get moral relativity from the left. It's refreshing to see a lefty engage in moral absolutism, no matter how whacked. Shortly after, he refers to the founding document of the United States:

As Americans, we support the idea that violence is an acceptable means of achieving (national) self-determination. This, in fact, is how our nation was formed, and it is vindicated in our founding document, The Declaration of Independence.

He follows with an extended quote to prove his point and then lays this on us:

The Declaration of Independence is revolutionary in its view that we have a “duty” to overthrow regimes that threaten basic human liberties. We must apply this same standard to the Iraqi people.

Okay, this is some kind of satire, right? If we have the duty he describes, then we had an absolute duty to remove Saddam, and have an equal duty to remove the governments of Iran, Cuba, North Korea, China, the list goes on and on. Does this guy even realize what he's saying? Moving on:

Terrorism or not, there’s no doubt that the vast majority of people in the region and in the world, believe that the war was entirely unjustifiable.

Belief does not equal correctness. I'm sure that, when asked whether or not all the people in the world who believe Jesus Christ is the son of God are correct, he'd probably answer no, or answer that they are misinformed or misguided. I would hazard a guess that most people who think the war was unjustifiable don't know all the facts but are simply parroting the views of their governments and/or major media.

The argument most commonly offered by antiwar Americans (who believe we should stay in Iraq) doesn’t defend the legitimacy of the invasion, but provides the rationale for the ongoing occupation. The belief that “We can’t just leave them without security”, creates the logic for staying in Iraq until order can be established. Unfortunately, the occupation is just another manifestation of the war itself; replete with daily bombings, arrests, torture and the destruction of personal property. Therefore, support of the occupation is a vindication of the war. The two are inseparable.

And just who are perpetrating those bombings, the torture, and the destruction of personal property? Not the US forces. What happened at Abu Ghraib was wrong, and the people responsible are being made to pay the price by their own government, but it JUST DOESN'T COMPARE TO HAVING YOUR HEAD SAWED OFF ON CAMERA. Nor does it compare with what happened in that prison when Saddam was in power. Yet this guy would have you believe that things were better for all Iraqis then.

We should remember that the war (which was entirely based on false or misleading information) was both illegal and immoral. That judgment does not change by maintaining a military presence of 140,000 soldiers on the ground for years to come. Each passing day of occupation simply perpetuates the crime.

At the same time we have to recognize that the disparate elements of Iraqi resistance, belittled in the media as the “insurgency”, are the legitimate expression of Iraqi self-determination.

Since the "insurgency" is driven largely if not mostly by foreign fighters and foreign financial support (Syria, Al Qaeda, Zarqawi), I'd say that this statement is false on its face.

Independence is not bestowed by a foreign nation; the very nature of that relationship suggests reliance on outside forces. True independence and sovereignty can only be realized when foreign armies are evacuated and indigenous elements assume the reigns of power.

So, I guess Germany and Japan aren't independent. I'm sure they're glad to know this now. Actually, our goal is exactly that of having indigenous elements assumign the reigns of power, and also responsibility for the security of their citizens. It's just that we're still in a war situation and our enemy isn't yet completely defeated.

There’s no indication that the conduct of the occupation will change anytime soon. If anything, conditions have only worsened over the past two years. The Bush administration hasn’t shown any willingness to loosen its grip on power either by internationalizing the occupation or by handing over real control to the newly elected Iraqi government. This suggests that the only hope for an acceptable solution to the suffering of the Iraqi people is a US defeat and the subsequent withdrawal of troops. Regrettably, we’re nowhere near that period yet.

If anything, the actions of the "insurgents" shows that they are becoming increasingly desperate as the indigenous government of Iraq takes shape. As for internationalizing the occupation, there are about forty other nations who would be interested to know that their contributions didn't actually happen. As for the last sentence in that excerpt, I'll address that shortly.

It’s not the insurgency that’s killing American soldiers. It’s the self-serving strategy to control 12% of the world’s remaining petroleum and to project American military power throughout the region. This is the plan that has put American servicemen into harm’s way. The insurgency is simply acting as any resistance movement would; trying to rid their country of foreign invaders when all the political channels have been foreclosed.

Americans would behave no differently if put in a similar situation and Iraqi troops were deployed in our towns and cities. Ultimately, the Bush administration bears the responsibility for the death of every American killed in Iraq just as if they had lined them up against a wall and shot them one by one. Their blood is on the administration’s hands, not those of the Iraqi insurgency.

Ah, here's the standard lefty refrain we all know and love. It's all America's fault, not the fault of those who actually detonate the bombs or cut off the heads. Note that here again he conveniently ignores the fact that much if not most of the insurgency is composed essentially of foreign invaders itself and thus doesn't qualify as a native resistance movement. Now here's the really good one:

We shouldn’t expect that, after a long period of internal struggle, the Iraqi leadership will embrace the values of democratic government. More likely, another Iraqi strongman, like Saddam, will take power. In fact, the rise of another dictator (or Ayatollah) is nearly certain given the catastrophic effects of the American-led war.

And a bit later:

Are Americans prepared to offer their support to the same brutal apparatus of state-terror that was employed by Saddam? (Rumsfeld’s unannounced visit to Baghdad last week was to make sure that the newly elected officials didn’t tamper with hiscounterinsurgency operatives, most of whom were formerly employed in Saddam’s secret police)

But, but, didn't he say that everything was better under Saddam? Isn't that view rather incompatible with the presence of a "brutal apparatus of state-terror?" Which one is it, Mike? Was it all flowers and sunshine or was it a terrible dictatorship? You can't have it both ways, even though the attempt to do so is a staple of far-left thought.

We should also ask ourselves what the long-range implications of an American victory in Iraq would be. Those who argue that we cannot leave Iraq in a state of chaos don’t realize that stabilizing the situation on the ground is tantamount to an American victory and a vindication for the policies of aggression. This would be a bigger disaster than the invasion itself.

That's right, an American victory, and thus a success of the Bush administration's policies, would be the biggest disaster imaginable. After all, it doesn't matter how many millions Saddam killed, it doesn't matter how terrible Iraq would become if we just pulled out and left it to the mercy of the fascists, it doesn't matter how many more Iraqis would die, it doesn't matter how many more terrorists would be trained at newly created training camps in terror-controlled Iraq, it doesn't matter how many more Europeans and Americans would die in attacks carried out by those terrorists, above all WE CANNOT ALLOW BUSH TO SUCCEED IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM! EVEN IF IT MEANS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE DEATHS OF EVERYONE IN IT! Better to be dead than admit that, yet again, a Republican president did something to make the world a better place.

This man is beneath contempt. I can't believe I just wasted this much time on him....

Olympia unchained, Part II

So the 2005 session of the Washington State Legislature has come to a close. What did the Democrats who control both houses and (hopefully temporarily) the governor's mansion so magnanimously give us?

Washington lawmakers wrapped up their ambitious 15-week session Sunday night after passing a $26 billion state budget and rescuing a big gas-tax plan to fix crumbling, crowded roads and bridges.

The budget plan requires a half-billion-dollar revenue package, including ``sin taxes'' on cigarettes and liquor. Smokes will go up by $6 a carton and the booze tax will rise by a stiff $1.33 a liter. The estate tax, called the death tax by foes, will be imposed on about 250 large estates each year.

To clarify that a bit, the estate tax had previously been struck down by the state supreme court as unconstitutional. This legislation re-enacts it in a way that, presumably, will pass constitutional muster and also raises the minimum value necessary for an estate to be taxed. Therefore, it will affect fewer estates than the previous tax would if it were still in force.

The gas tax was also a bone of particular contention. However, what this article doesn't say is that at least some Republicans voted for it. Why? Well, Senate Minority Leader Bill Finkbeiner was on the Mike Siegel show this morning and, in response to a caller who expressed her extreme disappointment that the Republicans had rolled over on the gas tax, said that he did it because the revenue from this tax will go solely to roads and that the Alaska Way Viaduct and Highway 520 floating bridge are both in need of repair or replacement. Also, in return for their support, the Republicans got the Democrats to include language providing for independent audits of the state transportation department by the state auditor, who previously didn't have the power to perform such audits. Ideally, these audits would be performed for all departments but this is what they could get.

Here's my take on it. The Republicans knew that the gas tax was going to be passed and signed regardless of anything they did. It was simply a foregone conclusion given the reality of the situation. So they did what they could to get at least something good out of it, which is the audit language. It's realpolitik at the state level and, frankly, I applaud their recognition of the inevitability of the situation and their success in wrangling at least something positive from the Democrats.

Speaking of audits, there is currently an initiative gathering signatures, I-900, which would, if passed, instruct the state auditor to conduct performance audits on state and local government agencies and entities. In the case of the transportation department, this would be somewhat redundant now, but it would also apply to every other department, and also to the local level. It is the latest from Tim Eyman, who has worked to bring several other initiatives, most involving reducing taxes or preventing tax increases, to the ballot. If I encounter someone with one of these petitions, I'm definitely signing it.

Thanking the union for their support

The budget that was just passed by the Washington State Legislature includes an interesting item. All state employees will get a 3.2% raise across the board, but those who are members of the Washington Federation of State Employees, the union for state workers, will get their raises a full two months before those employees who are not union members.

Most rank-and-file state employees were paid based on a standard salary scale for 40 years.

But the budget just passed by the Legislature is the first to include union contracts for pay and benefits, which go into effect July 1.

Workers without a union contract have to wait two months, until Sept. 1, for the same 3.2 percent across-the-board pay increase, the first since 2001.

There are some who don't think this is right.

Paying union employees and nonunion workers differently might not be legal, according to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a privately funded organization that has sued unions in the past.

Foundation analyst Michael Reitz referred to an appeals court decision this week, in which the court ruled against different pay rates for state employees who do similar work at colleges and in general government.

"You've got two very similar situations. It doesn't seem like it would be in the best interest of the state to set up another legislatively distinguished class of employees," Reitz said.

As you would expect, the union supported Democrats for the legislature and for governor. This is almost certainly payback on the part of Democrats for that support. However, the recent court case that the article mentions may throw a monkey wrench into the works.

It also benefits the union in other ways:

The difference sounds like discrimination to Jen Campbell, a worker in the Division of Child Support from Tacoma.

"I am shocked that the state government would allow a union or even maybe assist the union in taking control of every state employee," Campbell said.

The first she heard of the different pay raise dates was through the news media, she said. And although she will be covered by a union contract beginning in July, she wishes she weren't.

The union would love to have every state employee as a member. If that ever happens, its power will increase significantly since there won't be any other option for employees. In closing, Ms. Campbell reiterates one of the big problems with unions today:

"I don't believe the union has my best interest at heart," Campbell said. "I don't believe it uses its dues for the purposes that I think are important and valuable and moral."

Employees who have no choice but to be in a union have no real control over what union leadership does with the money they pay in union dues. Since unions are so active politically, some employees find themselves in the situation where they are unwillingly subsidizing policies and candidates that they disagree with. At least now state employees have the option of not being in the union but expect the union, and the Democrats they support, to work to change that.

Confirming judges: A third way

Dick Morris has what he considers a better option when it comes to the current fight over confirming President Bush's judicial nominees, one that doesn't require use of the so-called "nuclear option:"

The better way to proceed is to make the filibuster radioactive politically by letting the Democrats talk themselves to death. Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves by their vocal cords.

Frist just needs to end the “virtual” filibuster and make the Democrats stage a real one, replete with quorum calls, 24/7 sessions and truly endless debate covered word for word by C-SPAN for all the nation to see — and ridicule.

In short, the idea is that the Democrats should be allowed to learn the hard way that there is a political cost associated with mounting a real filibuster. This had never occurred to me, but then I admit I'm not as knowledgeable about such things as I'd like to be.

The Republican leaders, and the Democratic majority leader before them, have allowed the filibuster to be rehabilitated in the public mind by agreeing not to stage one. The gentlemanly filibusters of the modern era, where each side concedes unless one has 60 votes, have permitted virtual filibusters that incur no public wrath.

Good point, that. For many of us, a filibuster and its consequences are sort of abstract concepts. Now that I think about this, I'm not so sure I'd support changing the rules to allow a simple majority vote to end debate. Instead, let them filibuster but remind them that a true filibuster is an option that should only be used in the extreme because there are repercussions for the party who engages in one as well as their opponents. Are the Democrats willing to pay the price such an action would exact? For how long and how many times? How about we find out.

Quote of the day

Via The Federalist:

"In liberal land, the thinking goes like this: If a majority of Americans seek a change in direction they must be denied by the courts for their own good. But when a tiny sliver of the minority seeks change it must be granted them by a handful of judges for the nation's good. This phenomenon used to be referred to as the 'tyranny of the minority', but is now simply known as the New York Times editorial policy." --Lisa Fabrizio

Olympia unchained

Liberal Larry does a pretty good job of listing all the wonderful new taxes the Democrat-controlled state Senate and House are proposing. With our (hopefully temporary) Democrat governor to rubber-stamp anything they put on her desk, we're looking at some fun times.

Actually, the situation with the gas tax is a bit more complex. What I've been hearing is that Republicans have said they'll vote for that tax, and only that tax, provided the Democrats work with them to pass legislation that will allow the state auditor to perform real independent audits of the transportation department. Since we're probably going to get a gas tax, we damn sure want to know that the money isn't being wasted.

I've been wanting to post about the goings on in our state capitol for some time, but there's been so much that I just can't wrap my head around it all. The post linked above is a good start. Now I need to find a good wrapup of all the problems with the gubernatorial election last November (i.e. fraud and incompetence were rampant). Stay tuned....