Right Side of the Rainbow

If you know anything at all about guns, you almost always have occasion to grimace when the legacy media reports on firearms. For example, consider this from the Boston Globe, in a report about police officers who've had their own guns used against them:

Uniformed patrol officers use specialized security holsters, but most plainclothes officers use simpler holsters designed to conceal rather than secure the gun, experts said. [emphasis added]

Oh, really? What "experts" said that? We're not told, which isn't surprising. Anybody who knows what they're talking about wouldn't say such a thing.

I'm not a cop, but (when I'm not at work, anyway) I wear street clothes and I carry a concealed gun. Here's a picture of my gun, in its holster:

And here's a picture of me holding that very same holster with the gun turned upside down:

I'm grasping only the holster, not the gun. And yet you'll notice that despite its gravity-taunting position, the gun remains securely in its holster. In fact, even were I to shake the holster (hard!) the gun wouldn't fall out. For although this holster is designed specifically for concealed carry, it's also designed to retain its weapon. The one feature is not incompatible with the other.*

Because my holster is intended to carry a concealed weapon, it lacks the sort of snappable safety strap you see on a police officer's (visible) holster. My holster's weapon retention feature isn't foolproof; but neither is your local cop's snappable strap. Anything that can be snapped can be unsnapped. (I and other civilians who carry firearms do, however, have one tactical advantage over the neighborhood patrolman: the presence of our weapons is unknown to the criminal element until the instant before they're deployed.)

Barring additional developments in technology, any weapon retention system that allows you to unholster your gun will allow others to unholster it, too. That's true whether you're a cop or a civilian. But it's not true, as the article implies, that holsters designed to conceal cannot also secure, if only imperfectly. As the image above shows, they can do both.

Now admittedly, this is a minor point and one that's only peripheral to the article itself, which notes that dozens of cops have been killed with their own guns. But if the reporter got this point wrong, what else did he get wrong? It's just one more small example of why so many of us find big media untrustworthy, especially when it reports on anything relating to guns.

(*Incidentially, Sidearmor, the maker of the holster you see here, markets its products to civilians. But I don't imagine that other companies marketing to law enforcement are any less concerned with weapon retention.)

Posted by Paul at 4:51 PM | Permalink

You may not have to show photo ID to vote, but you might soon have to show it to buy cold medicine. The purchase of pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in over-the-counter cold remedies, may soon be subjected to greater scrutiny than exercise of the franchise:

Our legislation would:

· Move cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter.

· Limit the amount one person can buy to 9 grams a month -- that's the equivalent of 300 30-milligram pills.

· Require purchasers to show identification and to sign for cold medication.

Pseudoephedrine is used in the making of crystal methamphetamine, a popular street drug. This fact, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO), warrants federal intervention. Alas, there's nothing novel -- or helpful -- about the restrictionist nature of their proposed legislation, and even the senators predict its failure:

Will this completely stop meth? The answer is, unfortunately, no. Those who seek to use meth will undoubtedly find ways to continue to acquire the drug.

Undoubtedly.

And yet, we're going to try, anyway and once again, to control the users' behavior.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say the definition of insanity is taking the same action over and over again but expecting different results. If so, I wonder: who's crazier -- drug addicts, or the politicians who try, against the weight of experience, to control them?

Posted by Paul at 1:06 PM | Permalink

Rasmussen Reports:

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Americans say that "Senate rules should be changed so that a vote must be taken on every person the President nominates to become a judge." A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 26% disagree.

Conversely, here's what the Democrat Post Washington Post reported Tuesday:

As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Now I just can't imagine what accounts for the differences in these polling data. Can you?

Posted by Paul at 7:58 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul at 7:49 PM | Permalink

365gay.com:

Amnesty International issued an 'urgent action' appeal on Friday on behalf of at least 35 men at risk of being flogged in Saudi Arabia for having attended a “gay wedding”.

[...]

Security police arrested the men on March 10 at a private party held in a rented hall in Jeddah. The government-affiliated newspaper Al-Wifaq reported that the men at the party were dancing and “behaving like women.”

[...]

Shari’a law, as interpreted and enforced in Saudi Arabia, allows sentences ranging from imprisonment and flogging to death for “deviant sexual behavior.”

[...]

Four of the men (two Saudi Arabians, a Jordanian and a Yemeni) were sentenced by a court in Jeddah to 2,000 lashes and two years' imprisonment, and 31 others to 200 lashes and six months to one year in prison.

Compare and contrast.

I'm reminded now and again to be grateful that I'm a gay American.

Posted by Paul at 6:35 PM | Permalink

A U.S. senator objects to obstructionism:

This amendment after amendment after amendment, this obstructionism, this filibustering, really takes that very idea of representative democracy and severely undercuts it. It takes the very essence of accountability and undercuts it. It is a terrible mistake from the point of view of what is good government.

Who said that?

Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) on April 2, 1993

Posted by Paul at 6:26 PM | Permalink

If, like me, you're not a lawyer but have an avocational interest in occasionally reading court opinions, you might find the many legal citations baffling.

Luckily, the Boston College Law Library offers a handy 4-page guide to help us out.

Posted by Paul at 11:22 PM | Permalink

Fox News:

[Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud] Abbas has been under heavy pressure from Israel and the United States to rein in Palestinian militants, who had a relatively free hand under Abbas' predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat. But so far, Abbas has preferred to negotiate with the armed groups.

(Thanks to Cox & Forkum.)

Posted by Paul at 9:27 PM | Permalink

From "Country Reports on Terrorism 2004," released today by the U.S. Department of State:

The global jihadist movement — including its most prominent component, al-Qa’ida — remains the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States, US interests and US allies. While the core of al-Qa’ida has suffered damage to its leadership, organization, and capabilities, the group remains intent on striking US interests in the homeland and overseas.

During the past year, concerted antiterrorist coalition measures have degraded al-Qa’ida’s central command infrastructure, decreasing its ability to conduct massive attacks. At the same time, however, al-Qa’ida has spread its anti-US, anti-Western ideology to other groups and geographical areas. It is therefore no longer only al-Qa’ida itself but increasingly groups affiliated with al-Qa’ida, or independent ones adhering to al-Qa’ida’s ideology, that present the greatest threat of terrorist attacks against US and allied interests globally.

The full report, which runs 137 pages in length, is available for download in pdf format.

Posted by Paul at 8:58 PM | Permalink

Meanwhile, the around-the-clock shakedown of the country continues.

Posted by Paul at 8:32 PM | Permalink

In a country where the highest court often ignores the Constitution in favor of its own counsel, it shouldn't come as a surprise when the country's lawyers ignore the court. After all, disrespect begets disrespect.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's insistence that the Constitution forbids the practice, American lawyers continue to use race and gender as factors in picking jurors:

The issue of packing juries along racial and gender lines garnered national attention recently when former Alameda County, Calif., prosecutor John Quatman claimed that it was standard practice to exclude Jews and black women from juries in capital cases because they would never vote for death. Yet every litigator interviewed for this article considers race and gender when picking a jury.

So why aren't defense attorneys challenging this practice? Reportedly, "[b]oth sides are doing it;" consequently, neither side wants to draw attention to the other. But maybe the lawyers are right. If the Constitution is truly a "living document," perhaps it has evolved since the Court last spoke on the issue.

(Thanks to Point of Law.)

Posted by Paul at 7:42 PM | Permalink

Houston Chronicle:

AUSTIN - Senate leaders Tuesday predicted support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages in Texas but said senators will oppose a separate effort by the House to prohibit homosexuals from being foster parents.

[...]

"I have spoken with the other (Senate) conferees that were appointed today, and we unanimously agree that that amendment [to ban gay foster parents] should not be on the Child Protective Services bill," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville.

Nelson said she has had "lots of communication" about the controversial provision, which was added by the House during floor debate on the CPS overhaul last week.

"I have legal questions. I have fiscal questions. The one question most important in my mind is if this amendment were to be enacted how many children would be displaced," she said.

According to the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, there are currently between 2,000 and 2,500 children in Texas in the homes of gay foster parents.

Posted by Paul at 5:58 PM | Permalink

(Thanks to Cox & Forkum.)

Posted by Paul at 5:45 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul at 5:36 PM | Permalink

Oh, for crying out loud! In addition to curtailing our political expenditures, now Sen. John McCain (R-Leviathan) wants the federal government to step-up its regulation of Indian gaming. Apparently, advances in technology make it difficult to tell a slot machine from a bingo machine, and the tribes evidently have no qualms about eliding the distinction. But why that requires federal intervention, I have no idea.

Sen. McCain has an eerily expansive view of Washington's regulatory prowess, especially where it relates to other people's money. In a Democrat, that's an unattractive but expected disposition. In a Republican, it's nauseating.

The day, if ever it comes, when the senator ascends to the GOP presidential nomination is the day I stop calling myself a Republican. Fortunately, we'll never see that day.

Posted by Paul at 4:54 PM | Permalink

The liberals are apoplectic.

Posted by Paul at 7:14 PM | Permalink

"[W]e ask not what [any particular] man meant, but what those words would mean in the mouth of a normal speaker of English, using them in the circumstances in which they were used." -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

18 USC § 922(g)(1) makes possession of a firearm unlawful "for any person who has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ... "

Having serving five years in a Japanese prison on a weapons charge, Gary Small returned to the United States and purchased a 9-millimeter handgun from a firearms dealer in Pennsylvania. Subsequently, the Government charged him with violation of the aforementioned statute. A federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected Mr. Small's argument that a conviction in a foreign court was not covered by 922(g)(1).

Mr. Small appealed. And today, by a vote of 5-3, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority:

The question before us is whether the statutory reference "convicted in any court" includes a conviction entered in a foreign court. The word "any" considered alone cannot answer this question. In ordinary life, a speaker who says, "I'll see any film," may or may not mean to include films shown in another city. In law, a legislature that uses the statutory phrase "any person" may or may not mean to include "persons" outside "the jurisdiction of the state."

Justice Breyer also cites language in the statute itself that refers to crimes under "Federal or State law" as evidence that 922(g)(1) applies only to convictions by U.S. courts.

Not so, according to Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote in dissent:

In concluding that "any" means not what it says, but rather "a subset of any," the Court distorts the plain meaning of the statute and departs from established principles of statutory construction.

Interestingly, four of the justices in the majority -- Breyer, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- have been the targets of conservative criticism for their willingness to rely upon foreign law in construing our own law. And the three justices in dissent -- Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy -- are likely to hold, if the Court ever takes up a pure Second Amendment case, that the Constitution guarantees Americans a right to keep and bear arms.

In my view, the majority clearly has the better argument here. In the mouth of a normal speaker of English, the word "any" and its cousins can rarely be taken at face value. If, for example, your spouse or partner asks, "What would you like to have for dinner?," and you respond by saying, "Oh, I'll eat anything," you don't actually mean that. Presumably, you wouldn't eat a bowl of shit, among other things.

Context matters.

Of course, if Congress did in fact mean literally "any court" -- including even the kangaroo courts of, say, Cuba -- then it can, as Justice Breyer noted, amend the statute to make clear its intentions.

Posted by Paul at 3:54 PM | Permalink

The Senate Republican Policy Committee today released a report titled "The Senate's Power to Make Procedural Rules by Majority Vote," in pdf format.

Posted by Paul at 6:30 PM | Permalink

Do you know about Matthew Limon? If not, you should. But before you read further, a warning. If you're gay or lesbian (or straight and possessed of even the slightest sympathy for gays), Matthew's story will outrage you. But first it will break your heart:

On Feb. 16, 2000, Matthew Limon gave his boyfriend a blow job and got himself a 17-year prison sentence.

The boys were residents at the Lakemary Center, a school for developmentally delayed youngsters in Paola, Kan. It's generous, perhaps, to call them boyfriends. What they did was more akin to sexual experimentation, two boys in a dormitory at night, messing around.

Matthew had just turned 18 the week before, and his partner was just shy of his 15th birthday. The younger boy, identified only as M.A.R., consented to the sex, but changed his mind. As soon as he asked Matthew to stop, Matthew did, and M.A.R. has always been steadfast in his statement that what happened was consensual.

How the police were brought in, why they were called, isn't clear. Someone from the center complained and the trial was based on stipulated facts -- one paragraph stating that on that night in February, the boys engaged in consensual oral sex. That single paragraph was the basis for the 17-year sentence.

Kansas' statutory rape law prohibits "criminal sodomy" (including oral sex) with teenagers younger than 16. If the object of Matthew's affection had been female, however, Kansas would have afforded him the benefit of its romantically named "Romeo and Juliet" statute, designed precisely for kids like him, kids who have consensual sex with other kids.

In Kansas, and in many other states, when two teenagers have heterosexual sex, even the dreaded sodomy, the penalties are relatively mild. If Matthew had had consensual sex with a girl, and the state had prosecuted him at all, the longest sentence they could have given him was 15 months.

Instead, because Matthew had sex with another boy, and only because he had sex with another boy, he has spent the past five years in Ellsworth Correctional Facility in central Kansas.

After appealing his conviction unsuccessfully through the Kansas courts, Matthew petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari. On June 26, 2003, the Court rendered judgment in Lawrence v. Texas, invalidating statutes against consensual sodomy; the very next day, the Court granted Matthew's petition, vacated his conviction and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Lawrence.

On January 30, 2004, the Kansas Court of Appeals again affirmed Matthew's conviction, declaring his case "factually and legally distinguishable" from Lawrence.

Matthew then appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, which heard oral argument in the case on August 31, 2004. It has yet to render judgment.

Meanwhile, Matthew isn't scheduled for release until April 2017, when he'll be 36-years-old.

Posted by Paul at 3:47 PM | Permalink

Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, in Opinion Journal:

In addition to more control over your life through personal accounts, all the ancillary benefits of ownership should be enthusiastically played up: the pride one has in having provided for one's own retirement, as opposed to being a supplicant of the state; the security of knowing the government can't take the money away (which it does whenever it raises the payroll tax or pushes back the retirement age); and most of all, the knowledge that your loved ones may benefit from your labor. Inheritability is a hugely underexploited benefit of personal accounts. When you die, the money simply disappears. What's up with that? Which opponents of personal accounts want to debate that issue? If you want to energize the grass roots, challenge opponents of personal accounts on inheritability. Why should the money go to the government and not your loved ones?

For more on Social Security reform, see Cato's Project on Social Security Choice.

Posted by Paul at 10:37 PM | Permalink

Investor's Business Daily:

As most Americans should know by now, Social Security has three workers for every retiree. As recently as the 1950s, the ratio was 17 workers per retiree. By 2030, the number shrinks by a third — to just two workers.

Two-to-one doesn't have to be so scary — not if the two workers are so highly productive that they can easily support one retiree and still have plenty left for their own uses and for saving.

That's where personal accounts come in. As now structured, Social Security is a massive disincentive for Americans to save. It's one of the reasons the U.S. personal savings rate has been hovering around a measly 1% the past couple of years.

Why save if Social Security has been promised to you? But it's much more important than that, isn't it? As any economist will tell you, there's a strong link between savings, investment and, ultimately, productivity. And productivity is what drives gains in standards of living.

We now pay about $700 billion a year to support Social Security. Much of that simply goes to the government, which borrows it, spends it and replaces it with an IOU.

Imagine the broad economic benefits if a third to a half of that amount were going into the economy.

Posted by Paul at 8:06 PM | Permalink

This is heartening:

Frustrated by illegal immigrant criminals who slip their grasp, a growing number of state and county police agencies nationwide are moving to join a federal program that enlists local officers to enforce immigration laws.

In Los Angeles, where an estimated one-third of the county jail's 18,000 inmates are illegal aliens, the sheriff's department will undertake a pilot program to identify those eligible for deportation.

Of course, the mau-mau crowd is squawking:

"We're 100 percent against it," said Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County. "It will have a chilling effect on our community."

It may chill the criminal element of the community, Mr. David, but that is, I believe, quite the point.

Posted by Paul at 6:19 PM | Permalink

Relatedly, you may now stand by for democracy; it appears that the Senate's Republican majority is set to grow balls:

Sen. Mitch McConnell was on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, and McConnell said they now have the votes to change the [filibuster] rule.

Posted by Paul at 5:52 PM | Permalink

New York Times:

Unlike assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, which are used with many guns, have been selling briskly since the ban ended because prices have dropped considerably.

"The only thing Clinton ever did for us was drive up the price of magazines," said a weapons specialist named Stuart at TargetMaster, a shooting range and gun shop in Garland, Tex. (He declined to give his last name.) "A 17-round Glock magazine crept up to $150 during the ban. It's $75 now."

During last week's NRA convention in Houston, I too noticed that the price of so-called high-capacity magazines (i.e., those holding more than 10 rounds) had dropped considerably, as expected.

Under the now-expired "assault weapons" ban, you could legally buy or sell only high-capacity magazines manufactured before 1994. The law prohibited the production of new ones. This created a supply shortage, which drove the price of old magazines skyward. I myself wasn't going to pay $175 for a used magazine, but I also resented the Government telling law-abiding people how much ammunition they could carry.

Accordingly, I bought two 10-round magazines. I then loaded 1 bullet into the chamber of my gun and charged both magazines fully. One magazine went into the well of my Glock. The other went into a magazine holder on my belt. Bottom line: under Mr. Clinton's high-capacity ban, I went from carrying 10 rounds to carrying 21, all consistent with the letter of the law. This was a common practice among gun owners.

Good riddance to the "assault weapons" ban. It was meaningless symbolism that had precisely no practical import.

Posted by Paul at 1:49 PM | Permalink

Brian Brown of the Family Institute of Connecticut on his state's passage of a civil unions bill for gay and lesbian couples:

"Not a single legislator ran on this issue in 2004," he said. "You can't say this is the democratic process at work until you see the results of the next election."

Wrong. Even before the next election is held, we can still say that Connecticut's new law is the product of the process at work. Legislators don't campaign on all sorts of issues that they end up voting on. But it doesn't follow that their decisions are illegitimate or undemocratic.

Happily, Mr. Brown's ignorance of democratic process is matched by his ignorance of Connecticut politics:

He predicted lawmakers of both parties who supported [civil unions] could face tough challenges in the 2006 election.

No, they will not.

Posted by Paul at 5:22 PM | Permalink

Once again, Houston is enjoying spectacular weather. (It's now 71° and mostly sunny with a soft breeze out of the east at 9 mph.) As a buddy and I were remarking this morning, but for the choking traffic and the summer heat -- both of which are, in their own way, oppressive -- Houston would be the perfect big American city. Alas, the roads here remain congested, but the weather today is just heavenly, making my hometown, if only briefly, almost ideal.

The first three images below are of the park surrounding Houston's Menil Collection, located at 1515 Sul Ross in the Montrose. (You'll need this information for when you visit Houston; you are planning to visit, yes?) Although she makes no mention of it in her vision statement, the museum's founder, philanthropist and art patron Dominique de Menil, purchased blocks of homes on either side of her gallery. When you come for your visit, you'll notice that almost all of these homes are gray. This is because Mrs. de Menil bought them for the sole purpose of having them repainted, lest they clash with her museum, which is also gray.

Now tell the truth: don't you wish you had enough money to buy dozens of homes for no other reason than that their color offends your eye? Umm, hmm. Me, too.

The last two images are of Houston's "puppy park," located at the intersection of Montrose Boulevard and Allen Parkway, where the city's leash law is honored in the breach.

(Images taken with the Kodak EasyShare CX7330 and prepared for the Web with Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0.)

Posted by Paul at 2:11 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul at 10:09 AM | Permalink

Boston Globe:

It's immune to most antibiotics and has killed hundreds of patients in hospitals across Britain. Now, a superbug has found its way into the British election campaign, with Tony Blair's government promising to slash infection rates.

For the leader of the opposition Conservatives, Michael Howard, the debate is particularly personal: His mother-in-law died of the infection.

"I mean, how hard is it to keep a hospital clean?" reads a Conservative billboard.

Actually, the answer is: very hard. In fact, ridding a hospital of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms is by now probably impossible. Here's why.

Both here in the United States and in Europe, as the article correctly notes, "Hospitals are [...] treating older and sicker people these days and performing more adventurous surgery and treatments that require more tubes to be inserted into the body. All of that presents opportunities for MRSA."

MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) and other antibiotic-resistant organisms are, as Dr. Henry Chambers, head of infectious diseases at San Francisco General Hospital puts it, "a function of the fact that hospitals are where sick people are and where antibiotics are used."

But the problem actually begins in the community, well before patients ever show up at a hospital. Americans (and Europeans, too, I suppose) are a pill-popping people. We take a pill for everything because we believe there is a pill for everything. In this view, we are assisted in part by the pharmaceutical industry's advertising blitzkrieg and in part by our indomitable belief in the power of science and technology.

Consequently, when we fall ill with a common cold or the flu, we report to our doctor's office where we expect treatment. The doctor, not wishing to disappoint -- he doesn't want to lessen your estimation of his powers, or lose you as a patient -- prescribes an antibiotic.

But that's not a medical judgment; it's an exercise in hand-holding. Antibiotics have no affect whatsoever on viruses, which are the bugs that cause the cold or the flu. Do most Americans (or most Europeans) even know that, I wonder?

"Well, what's wrong with a little hand-holding?," you may query. Nothing, in and of itself. But the misuse of antibiotics has an unfortunate side effect: it speeds the selection of antibiotic-resistant organisms. When done year after year on a national scale, this misuse produces the problem we now face, both here and in Europe: a population infested with hard-to-treat bugs. As you might imagine, the problem manifests acutely in our hospitals.

Among other measures, hospitals now attempt to contain antibiotic-resistant organisms by pushing staff to use an alcohol-based gel. But more than once, having made ample use of the stuff, I've come home from the hospital with cracked and irritated hands. I have little doubt that I -- and tens of thousands of my colleagues -- are consequently colonized with MRSA:

"The alcohol gel is an irritant. It dries out the hands, and dry, irritated hands are more easily colonized with MRSA," said Dr. Mark Enright, an MRSA specialist at Bath University in England. "It's a very complex, interrelated set of things."

Indeed.

Amid our pill-popping, gel-using efforts to kill bugs, the bugs grow stronger. Ironic, isn't it?

Were I British, I imagine I'd be a Tory. And so I'm sympathetic to Britain's conservatives. But that question on the conservatives' billboard reeks of reductionism.

Posted by Paul at 5:49 PM | Permalink

William at Southern Appeal, on the gay community's fair and square victory in Connecticut:

No matter where you stand on the gay marriage or civil union issue, at least Connecticut took this step via elected officials who are accountable to the people. It was not the work of unaccountable, unelected judges as was the case is Massachusetts. Progressives use to be expert political organizers--getting out the vote and persuading the people to side with them (e.g., FDR's New Deal). Today, it seems that the social reformers of the Left rely primarily on the courts. Perhaps Connecticut can remind liberals how social change should be brought about.

Not only have Connecticut's democracy-friendly gays and lesbians won new rights, they may have also won new respect.

Posted by Paul at 9:43 AM | Permalink

House OKs energy bill after fight over additive, Reuters

Liberal Catholics reach for smelling salts, Carol Platt Liebau

Organizers: Minuteman Project successful, Associated Press

Senate OKs $81B for Iraq, Afghanistan, Associated Press

Spain close on same-sex weds, CBS News

Bill to ban gays as foster parents blasted, Houston Chronicle

Rice, Putin have tense meeting, Fox News

Mortgage rates fall; 30-year at 5.80%, down for 3rd week, USA Today

Greenspan renews warning on budget deficits, Washington Post

Mystery of unpopped popcorn is discovered, ABC News

Posted by Paul at 7:04 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul at 7:00 PM | Permalink

Sean Rushton, in National Review Online:

That proposal would amend Senate rules to end all filibusters, not just those against judicial nominees. The proposal’s sponsor said that “the filibuster rules are unconstitutional” and was quoted as saying “the filibuster is nothing short of legislative piracy.” He announced his intent to end all filibusters with an unambiguous statement: “We cannot allow the filibuster to bring Congress to a grinding halt. So today I start a drive to do away with a dinosaur — the filibuster rule.”

Despite its support by several senior senators, you haven’t heard about this proposal in the MoveOn.org ads blasting Senate Republicans. And you probably haven’t heard about it from Senate Democrats who now give their full-throated support to filibusters against President Bush’s nominees. Why? Because the proposal wasn’t offered by Republicans; it was introduced in 1995 by senior Democrats, including Sens. Lieberman and Tom Harkin (D., Iowa). When it came to a vote, 19 Democrats, including leading blue-state senators such as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, supported the measure.

Relatedly, the showdown draws nigh.

Posted by Paul at 6:36 PM | Permalink

For South Park conservatives, today's notable stories and original commentary, whether from legacy or alternative media:

Poll: Casey leads Santorum by 14 points, ABC News

Bush urges Congress approve troubled trade deal, Boston Globe

Bush signs bankruptcy bill, CBS News

B16 & left-wing dreams, National Review Online

Cracks appear in antitax strongholds, Christian Science Monitor

Texas may ban gay foster parents, MSNBC

Man spits in Jane Fonda's face at book signing, Reuters

Dow sinks to 2005 low as inflation fears rise, USA Today

Yahoo, Intel post strong 1st-quarter earnings, Washington Post

Two reporters lose appeals court ruling, Washington Post

Iraq may name government on Thursday, Reuters

Democrats lose an ally as Republican defector says he'll leave US Senate, AFP

Mexico prosecutors seek arrest of popular mayor, Reuters

Connecticut OKs same-sex civil unions, Fox News

Posted by Paul at 5:49 PM | Permalink

And then he tells the man not to talk about the yawn, claiming it was "privileged information."

Umm, hmm.

Of course, I wasn't there; I didn't hear the yawn. Maybe it was, as the judge asserted, "very loud" and "downright disruptive." But my first impression is that His Honor is a bit of an ass. Judge for yourself.

(Thanks to The Legal Reader.)

Posted by Paul at 5:31 PM | Permalink

Jeff at Backcountry Conservative notes that advocates for same-sex marriage have intimated that they may "out" prominent Republicans in South Carolina, where a ban on gay marriage is up for a vote. Private investigators are on the case:

“People better live upright between now and then,” says [state senator Robert] Ford. “Or you’re going to see husbands leaving their wives, clergy losing their churches, people leading double lives.”

In principle, there's no reason a gay man cannot oppose same-sex marriage. If I didn't think that heterosexuals had already made a farce of marriage, I'd oppose it. But any homosexual who's an elected Republican official and thinks he's going to remain closeted while voting no on gay marriage is delusional. Elements of the gay left see that as hypocrisy and they will not tolerate it.

While I've argued before that people have no privacy interest in their sexual orientation per se, I still don't approve of "outing" others. But those who support "outing" as a political tactic will get to the closet cases. You can count on it.

Posted by Paul at 4:33 PM | Permalink

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ:

Please pardon the light blasphemy. It's Sullivan who's on the cross, according to his own lights.

Here's the well-written, funny and informative backstory.

Incidentally, if you don't have Ace's site bookmarked, you're missing out.

Posted by Paul at 4:11 PM | Permalink

Since this is a blog about law, politics and current events, I have never before published poetry; I don't know whether I'll publish any again. But I offer here this exception with the hope that you'll take something from it. I did.

In Memoriam: Ginger
by Benjamin Scott Grossberg

Ginger, whom I did not like to look at, or talk to, to whom
I was polite only by an act of will, is dead, dead and gone.
Vacant now: her apartment, the only one in the basement—
by the laundry and the small storage cubbies that the landlord
throws in for free. I saw the ambulance, noticed it
a few weeks ago when I shut my lights for sleep: blue and red
flashing through the blinds. I looked out to see Ginger’s daughter—
apartment three, other side of the building—walking doggedly
back and forth on the lawn, from her apartment door back out
to the curb. I didn’t know then it was for Ginger. Ask not.
That knowledge came later, when I told Aline—first floor,
decorates the hall for Christmas, Easter, the seasons generally,
plastic snowflakes, that sort of thing—that she looked nice.
Aline said it was for Ginger, the funeral held earlier that morning.

I wondered why I hadn’t been invited, but then I remembered
that Aline is kind to everyone, and I, a snob, had rejected Ginger.

My difficulty with Ginger wasn’t due to her weird body,
though that bothered me, her weird breasts hanging down nearly
to her waist. I’m not saying this was her fault. Or her laugh—
I want to write “cackle”—how loud it was, how I could see
when she laughed that her teeth were cracked, blackened,
that her middle-aged gums had burned-out spaces.
The landlord once tried to evict Ginger for having a cat.
The whole building was up in arms because others had cats, too.
I’m the only tenant with a dog; I didn’t get involved.
Even though the entire basement—laundry area, cubbies—
smelled like her catbox, the landlord eventually relented.
But none of this especially disturbed me about Ginger.
Certainly not enough to hope she’d be forced to leave.

No, the problem was her speech. The way she spoke
sent my shoulders up, made me back away nearly instinctively,
as from an object that cast my own humanity into doubt. Ginger
slurred her words incredibly, tortured and twisted each word
out of her mouth, each syllable like Blake’s tyger, violently
hammered in the furnace of her gullet. At first I thought
it was an Ohio drawl, but the more I heard it—scraping
chalkboards sonorous by comparison—the more I realized
it was all Ginger and no Ohio. I’d never heard anyone
do that to language before: no alcohol, no organic instigation
that I could see, just Ginger opening her mouth hugely,
gaping her mouth like a cavern at dusk delivering a nearly
unending stream of bats—the deep, cavernous mouth
guarded by only a few shards of teeth. It was horrible.
I kept my eyes down on the washer when she spoke,
my hands on the machine as if feeling for psychic contact
with the laundry. I didn’t understand a word she said.

I thought to ask Pat—second floor, across the hall from me,
clutters the area outside her door with boxes of scarves—
how Ginger died. Pat wouldn’t judge me for asking,
even though it’s not my business. Or is it? These people
with whom I live, whose sounds I know nearly as well as my own—
whose business if not mine? The woman whose living
room abuts my bedroom: I know what she sings
to help her baby sleep. She knows the universe
of pet names I have for my dog. What could be more
embarrassing than that? No more awkwardly intimate
or unchosen than those people into whom I was born,
though here with the surprising element of tolerance—

except for Ginger, whom I did not tolerate, unless avoidance
too is a brand of tolerance, maybe tolerance’s last resort.

Ginger’s door has been left open; she died midmonth,
so her clothes, her things have the space for a few more weeks.
After that someone new will come, and with or without effort,
that person will know and become known—will enlarge
this thing that isn’t a family, that is both more and less
than friendship, our daily unacknowledged intimacy. How odd
that it could be anyone. But that’s for later. Now, the apartment
is still Ginger’s, the empty space a collective—if temporary—
testament to her memory. I can see quite clearly inside,
her things half packed in boxes for Goodwill, the undusted,
closed blinds. Almost nothing, finally, of whatever it is
that Ginger was: mother and tenant, I guess; maker,
if nothing else, of a sound that has vanished from the world.

This poem was first published at AGNI Online, where we're told that the poet "lives on a small farm in Ohio and works as an assistant professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Antioch College. His poems have appeared in journals such as Pleiades and Mid-American Review, and in the 2005 edition of the Pushcart Prize anthology. Work is forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Bellingham Review, and Tampa Review. In 2003, he received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council."

Benjamin is also an ex-boyfriend of mine and still my buddy, even though we're separated now by years and miles.

Congratulations, Ben, on your latest success. I am, as always, impressed.

Posted by Paul at 6:03 PM | Permalink

For South Park conservatives, today's notable stories and original commentary, whether from legacy or alternative media:

Benedict XVI assumes papacy, Washington Post

Andrew Sullivan is an ass, Professor Bainbridge.com

Rice: Russia won't see totalitarianism, Associated Press

Oklahoma City remembers, CBS News

Supreme Court will revisit issue of free exercise of religion, Christian Science Monitor

GM posts $1.1B 1Q loss, Associated Press

Panel opens hearings on prison violence, Associated Press

Crystal meth may enhance spread of HIV among gay men, Sun-Sentinel

Posted by Paul at 5:01 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul at 7:43 AM | Permalink

Now here's an interesting question of constitutional law: may the police search a home when one occupant consents but another objects? Reuters reports; the U.S. Supreme Court will decide.

Posted by Paul at 8:35 PM | Permalink

Not all of the examples in the article are anti-federalist. Still, the point is well taken. The exercise of power doesn't seem quite so objectionable when you're the exerciser, does it?

For me, the hardest part of having my fellow Republicans in command of the Government is the disillusionment; I used to believe that we believed the things we were saying.

Posted by Paul at 8:20 PM | Permalink

If so, boost the dose.

Posted by Paul at 4:02 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul at 3:46 PM | Permalink

A few days ago, I announced that this site no longer required TypeKey registration and that you could leave a comment using only your name and e-mail address. Alas, in the course of making that change, I inadvertently turned comments off altogether; until this morning when I discovered and fixed the error, all posts were closed to your remarks, even if you had a TypeKey.

My apologies. Comments are now open on the most recent posts and they'll be open on all future posts.

Posted by Paul at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Margarita Martín-Hidalgo, in today's Dallas Morning News:

Records from Transparency International, a watchdog that keeps tabs on governmental fraud and misconduct, show that Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua share the dubious distinction of being among the shadiest in the world for five straight years.

Poor educational systems aggravate the social problems in many Latin American countries and parts of the Caribbean, most notably Haiti. Many people in these nations don't finish high school, which means they can't get already-limited decent paying jobs. That, in turn, means there is little opportunity for upward mobility.

And the absence of the rule of law is a bad joke throughout Latin America, which the World Health Organization in 2003 named the planet's most violent region.

Faced with all these crises, what do people do? Head for el norte.

We need to beef up the border patrol. We need to reform our immigration policy to meet the needs of the U.S. economy while promoting respect for civic virtue and the rule of law. We need to send employers who hire illegals to jail. But we also need to put the screws to the Latin American governments that deprive their own people of opportunity and treat the United States as the safety valve for their political corruption.

The Arab world, where we're now spending fortune and blood to bring about change, isn't the only place in need of revolution.

(Link requires annoying but free registration.)

Posted by Paul at 4:50 PM | Permalink

That's a quote from Peter Hamm, spokesman for the radical Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He's referring to the FBI, now reportedly engaged in a violation of federal law that, but for the nature of the violation, would have the legacy media and civil liberties groups in full-throated derision of the Government:

The FBI, in reaction to the GAO report, recently began keeping track of terror suspects' weapons purchases instead of destroying the records after 24 hours as required.

Federal statute requires the Government to destroy all record of buyer identification within 24 hours of a weapons purchase. But since terrorism suspects have bought guns legally, the FBI is reportedly ignoring the law:

Terrorism suspects passed background checks to legally purchase guns 35 times during a five-month period last year, a study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported.

"Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from owning a gun under current law," said the report made public last month. "If no other federal or state prohibitors exist, a known or suspected terrorist can legally purchase a firearm."

In the first place, a known terrorist would presumably be in custody and at least under indictment, if not already convicted. (If not, what makes him a known terrorist?) As for a suspected terrorist, of course he can legally purchase a firearm. He can also purchase an airline ticket, enter a public building, meet in secret with others and place long-distance calls to Syria. There's a reason for this; the suspicions of a federal law enforcement agency do not operate to disable a man's liberty. Still and yet, we require due process, including trial and conviction, before depriving anyone of their freedoms. Otherwise, in our defense against terrorism, what is it that we're defending?

Mr. Hamm, who believes that still more law is the answer to lawless conduct, is undisturbed by the FBI's exercise of extra-legal discretion:

"I will not lose any sleep thinking that some poor slob won't be able to buy a gun because he's on the terrorism watch list."

That a 'slob' might be on the terrorism watch list is undeniable. After all, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was once on it, although to him we cannot attach the adjective 'poor.' But Mr. Hamm's blithe indifference to the rights of legally innocent people reminds us that not all of freedom's enemies are foreign.

Posted by Paul at 2:45 PM | Permalink

George F. Will, in today's Washington Post:

Europe itself is withering. On the day of John Paul II's funeral, the European Union's statistics agency reported that the decline of birthrates means that within five years deaths will exceed births in the European Union. By 2013 Italy's population will begin to decline; the next year Germany's will begin to drop. After 2010 Europe's population growth will be entirely from immigration. By 2025 not even immigration will prevent declining fertility from accelerating what one historian calls the largest "sustained reduction in European population since the Black Death of the 14th century."

In his new book "The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God," George Weigel, biographer of John Paul II, argues that Europe's "demographic suicide" will cause its welfare states to buckle and is creating a "vacuum into which Islamic immigrants are flowing." Since 1970 the 20 million legal Islamic immigrants equal the combined populations of Ireland, Denmark and Belgium.

"What," Weigel asks, "is happening when an entire continent, wealthier and healthier than ever before, declines to create the human future in the most elemental sense, by creating a next generation?" His diagnosis is that Europe's deepening anemia is a consequence of living on what he considers the thin gruel of secular humanism that excludes transcendent reference points for cultural and political life.

[...]

Weigel doubts it is possible to "sustain a democratic political community absent the transcendent moral reference points for ordering public life that Christianity offers the political community."

That might be true if by democratic political community we mean a Western-style, liberal democracy. But a democracy need not be liberal; democracy itself is a content-neutral mechanism of governance. It tells us who decides political questions and how they decide them. But it tells us nothing at all about what the decisions will be.

If Weigel is right that Europe's democracies can't survive without deference to the transcendent, he needn't worry. The massive influx of Islamic immigrants will provide moral reference points. The people who ought to worry include, among others, young European gays, who in midlife may find themselves surrounded by people not nearly as tolerant of homosexuality as are today's Christians.

Posted by Paul at 5:24 AM | Permalink

A few photos from the NRA's annual convention, now underway in Houston:

As regular readers of this blog are by now aware, I'm a partisan of Glock. (Of the handguns I own, all but one are from Glock. And the Glock Model 30 (.45 caliber) is the gun I carry.) The company's booth was packed with conventioneers.

Posted by Paul at 3:20 PM | Permalink

If you didn't know it already, the NRA has its own news network. You can see live feed from the convention here.

Posted by Paul at 3:18 PM | Permalink

This gun, known as the "Raging Bull," struck me as the funniest handgun on display at the convention. The thing is just huge.

Posted by Paul at 3:16 PM | Permalink

Upon reading her sign, one conventioneer remarked sardonically, "Well, I certainly hope so."

Posted by Paul at 3:14 PM | Permalink

The convention is taking place at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, where the weather today is just beautiful.

Posted by Paul at 3:12 PM | Permalink

This is one of a few styles in which the official convention t-shirt is available. Of course, you know I had to have one.

Posted by Paul at 3:10 PM | Permalink

The National Rifle Association's annual convention got underway today in Houston, America's 4th largest city and home to tens of thousands of private citizens with a license to carry a firearm:

"Texas is a great state in terms of guns and hunting and the Second Amendment," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president. "It's the heartland of the country. They love us. They are on our side."

Oh, yeah.

With 4 million members who give the organization $200 million a year, it's not surprising that lawmakers identify the NRA as the most powerful lobby in Washington:

"Bottom line is, they're hugely influential and have been for a long time," said Steven Weiss, spokesman for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political spending. The NRA, Weiss said, is "one of the biggest campaign contributors in politics."

Of course, you can't be as big and as consequential as the NRA is and not have critics:

"Unfortunately it's because they have a ton of money and they do a very good job with their propaganda," said Eric Howard, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Howard said proposed legislation shielding gun manufacturers from liability takes away the rights of gun violence victims. He was also critical of the NRA's effort to block revival of the assault-weapons ban.

"I think these measures will backfire on the NRA because they are so extreme," he said.

Extreme? Nah. If you want extreme, talk to these guys. Compared to them, the NRA is a pussycat.

Since I'll be at the convention, I'll try to photoblog it. In the meantime, have a good evening and a great weekend!

Posted by Paul at 5:06 PM | Permalink

Or at least that will be the effect, if not the intent, of this revelation.

Relatedly, I join Ed Morrissey and Hugh Hewitt in the view that the GOP must be made to suffer politically if it will not end the filibustering of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.

The party won't get control of the Nation's borders; it may not make the tax cuts permanent; it now seems unlikely to pass personal retirement accounts; and it's adverse to fiscal discipline. Accordingly, if the GOP can't do even the one thing that unites Republicans of virtually every ideological flavor -- namely, thwart the activism of the federal judiciary by appointing judges committed to the rule of law -- then the leadership shouldn't be surprised when the rank and file asks, "What the point?"

Come the 2006 midterms, if the filibuster has not been nuked, I'll still vote. But I'll cast either a blank ballot or one marked for the Libertarians. What I won't do is vote for a party that, despite having control of the Government, is too timid or too short-sighted to translate its principles into public policy. In this, I will not be alone.

As we say here in Texas, it's time to crap or get off the pot.

Posted by Paul at 4:09 PM | Permalink

By the way, the ban doesn't include matches, which is what would-be terrorist Richard Reid used when he tried, sans success, to light the explosives in his shoes.

Posted by Paul at 6:34 PM | Permalink

Associated Press:

MOSUL, Iraq - It's just spray-painted graffiti, but the writing on the wall gets the attention of U.S. troops: "Warning to all policemen: You will be killed." Soldiers then storm into the compound, demanding the owners erase the death threat against the Americans' Iraqi allies.

"If I come back tomorrow and it's still there, I'll fix it myself and you won't like it," Capt. Blake Lackey says sternly. "I'll tear the wall down."

It's all part of a war of words in Iraq, where U.S. troops patrolling the northern city of Mosul constantly inspect handbills and graffiti on sun-scorched walls, searching for insurgent messages that they counter with their own psychological operations — or "psy-ops."

Posted by Paul at 6:23 PM | Permalink

Associated Press:

The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year ago by Portland's Multnomah County, saying a county cannot go against state matrimonial law.

"Oregon law currently places the regulation of marriage exclusively within the province of the state's legislative power," the high court said in its unanimous ruling.

The legislature has the right to legislate? Who knew?

Meanwhile:

On Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski said he will push for a law allowing gay couples to form civil unions that would give them many of the rights and privileges of marriage.

The court's opinion, in html format, is here.

Posted by Paul at 6:10 PM | Permalink

The vote was 302-126; not one Republican voted no.

Posted by Paul at 6:03 PM | Permalink

If there's one bright spot in this sorry tale, it's that Richard Jewell, the former security guard who was wrongly put under a cloud of suspicion by the FBI, and consequently had his life turned upside down, is now working as a police officer.

To this day, Mr. Jewell's experience reminds me to be slow to judgment. Innocent people are sometimes falsely implicated.

Posted by Paul at 4:25 PM | Permalink

Reuters:

Gay and lesbian couples in Oregon would have marriage-like rights in the form of civil unions under a bipartisan bill introduced in the Legislature on Wednesday.

The move, backed by Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski, came one day before the Oregon Supreme Court was expected to rule on the legality of gay marriage.

The measure would grant same-sex couples legal protections, rights and responsibilities generally afforded to opposite-sex couples through marriage.

"Forming a family is a fundamental right. Oregon should provide a framework that offers legal protections to any loving, committed couple that wants to become a family," Republican Sen. Ben Westlund said.

Meanwhile, Connecticut remains well on its way to becoming the first state to voluntarily extend marriage in all but name to same-sex couples. Of course, those on the left who insist that we identify gay unions as "marriages" won't be happy; neither will those on the right who insist that the law treat gay couples as no more than "roommates." But for those of us not blinded by misery, we're seeing the birth of a national consensus.

Posted by Paul at 8:11 PM | Permalink

Washington Square News:

The Q-and-A opened