Right Side of the Rainbow

You can hear the oral argument in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood here. (Link requires, and launches, Real Player.) The case, heard today by the U.S. Supreme Court, concerns the “constitutionality” of a New Hampshire statute requiring that a parent be informed when a minor child seeks an abortion.

I put constitutionality in quotation marks because of course the statute is constitutional. (Where in the text or history of the Federal Constitution can you find injunction against a state statute requiring that parents be told when their children seek medical treatment?) The real question is whether the statute can be reconciled with the relevant body of constitutional law, as refined mostly recently by Associate Legislator Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

If the Court invalidates New Hampshire’s statute, as I think likely, I’d re-pass a modified version that requires parents be informed after their child has an had an abortion. Is there a “constitutional right” for a child to not only have an abortion, but to also keep it a secret from her parents? The absurdity of the Court’s abortion jurisprudence should in all instances be highlighted.

ADDED — Good gawd! Notice the psychotic questioning from Justices Souter, Kennedy and Breyer. They’re suggesting to you — or more precisely, to New Hampshire’s attorney general, Kelly Ayotte — that the statute is unconstitutional because (get a load of this):

There may be an instance, albeit not even life-threatening, where 1) the child nevertheless has to have an abortion right now (right now!), 2) doesn’t want her parents informed, 3) not one judge can be located to grant judicial by-pass (no cell phones in New Hampshire, one supposes), and 4) the girl’s blood pressure is presently high, thus somehow, someway, in Justice Breyer’s medical judgment, preventing her from having children in the future unless she kills this one now and without her parent’s knowledge!

Posted by Paul at 8:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

I’m glad to see that others also thought the president’s speech on immigration reform was a whole lot of nothing.

Here’s what should be done:

• Impose stiff fines plus jail time for employers who hire illegals. The sentence need not be long. Six months would do. (It’s the fact, and not the length, of the term that it will get the attention of middle class bosses.) Go after ‘em hook and tong.

• Mexican nationals working in the United States send home billions in remittances. Tax those remittances at a confiscatory rate — say, 60% — when they’re sent by check or wire. But allow the nationals to take cash across the border tax-free. This will courage them to earn money, save it and then take it — and themselves— home.

• Launch a massive guest worker program, sufficent to meet the needs of the U.S. economy, but make it open only to those who are outside the U.S. at time of application.

Posted by Paul at 9:36 AM | Permalink

In Riviera Beach, Florida, the rich plan to run amok:

In what has been called the largest eminent-domain case in the nation, the mayor and other elected leaders want to move about 6,000 residents, tear down their homes and use the emptied 400-acre site to build a waterfront yachting and residential complex for the well-to-do.

Unbelievable. And unAmerican.

I trust the Republicans who control the Florida Legislature will put a stop to this. And if they don’t, I hope Florida Democrats are smart enough to recognize opportunity when it kisses them in the face.

Posted by Paul at 12:24 AM | Permalink

On the one hand we’re told:

WASHINGTON — More cocaine is likely to come into the United States from South America as the U.S. diverts resources from its drug-control strategy to hurricane relief and the war on terror, congressional investigators say.

The report prepared by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, found that U.S. cocaine seizures from 2000 to 2004 increased by 68 percent to a record 196 metric tons in the “transit zone,” the area between the U.S. and South America.

On the other hand we’re told:

The report, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, offers a sobering look at the future of government efforts to stymie America’s $65 billion illegal drug habit. (Link)

So despite a record increase in seizures, illegal drug sales still make for a $65 billion industry. In there any sense in which we can speak of that as a stymied effort?

When are we going to stop our silly pretending?

Posted by Paul at 7:27 PM | Permalink

Umm, hmm:

ST. LOUIS — A gay political organization is asking for an investigation of a drag show at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

The president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Greater St. Louis, Charles Stadtlander, said he attended the Oct. 14 drag show.

He raised concerns that the show mocked heterosexual audience members, that performers wore revealing outfits, used inappropriate language and simulated sex acts.

Umm, hmm.

I stopped giving money to Log Cabin in 2004, after it rendered itself politically irrelevant by refusing to endorse Mr. Bush for re-election. I see the group’s political instincts have not improved.

If you rebuff the Republican presidential nominee, support abortion on demand and call for same-sex marriage by judicial fiat, can you really draw the line at a drag show? With what constituency does that posture win traction?

Posted by Paul at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I joined many others in worrying that Senate Republicans had made a mistake in delaying Sam Alito’s confirmation hearings until January. The liberal pressure groups, we feared, would use the extra time to subject Judge Alito to the death of a thousand cuts. But perhaps we feared for naught:

WASHINGTON — So far this year, the civil rights and women’s groups opposed to President Bush’s conservative court nominees have been rebuffed, rebuked and rejected. And that’s just by Senate Democrats.

Now, in the early stages of the most momentous Supreme Court nomination struggle in nearly 15 years, these organizations seek Democratic cohesiveness and then hope to enlist enough Republicans to keep Judge Samuel Alito from taking the swing seat held by Sandra Day O’Connor. It won’t be easy.

Posted by Paul at 6:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Bloomberg:

Fresh reports depicted a buoyant U.S. economy as consumer confidence, new home sales and durable goods orders surpassed forecasts.

The Conference Board, a New York-based research group, said its consumer confidence index rose to 98.9 this month from 85.2, the biggest rise in more than two years. Purchases of new homes jumped to a record last month and orders for long-lasting equipment, such as aircraft and machinery, rose twice as much as predicted, according to Commerce Department data.

“Coming after the energy shocks and Katrina, it’s a remarkable spring-back,”’ said Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York. “The economy seems to have an underlying resilience.”

Posted by Paul at 6:10 PM | Permalink

“Guns and Alzheimer’s don’t mix” — headline, Daily Press

Posted by Paul at 6:02 PM | Permalink

Jay Cost, political scientist and blogger:

Democratic dreams and Republican nightmares of a turnover in congressional control are therefore not very realistic.

In a long but cogent piece at Real Clear Politics, Mr. Cost explains well why the Republican congressional majority is in no danger, at least not in 2006.

His essay is also a primer on why informed observers ignore national, generic ballot polling data on questions of congressional control.

Posted by Paul at 7:34 PM | Permalink

Pace the conventional wisdom, I think Republicans will perform well in the 2006 midterms. But beyond that, all bets are off. Here’s a big reason why:

The budget outlook — and the problems facing the GOP — promise to get much worse. Medicare’s costly new prescription drug benefit, an $18 trillion unfunded liability sponsored by the White House and Republican leadership, starts in January. Just two years from now, in 2008, the enormous Baby Boom generation will begin retiring, ceasing income tax payments and starting to collect benefits, leading to a budget squeeze unprecedented in U.S. history.

“We’re seeing the future,” said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration and tax-cut advocate. “The decisions that have been made over the last five years have resulted in the chickens coming home to roost.” [Emphasis added.]

If Congress is unable or unwilling to control spending, a sea of red ink will eventually force it to raise taxes. And when it does, the Republican coalition will implode. It has before.

The one election year when I didn’t vote for the GOP presidential candidate was 1992. I cast a protest vote for the Libertarian nominee. But millions of Republicans deserted to other quarters. Ross Perot, running as an independent, took 19% of the popular vote — almost all of it at the expense of George I, who had signed what was then the largest tax increase in American history. Eight years of Democratic control of the White House followed.

Rank and file Republicans put up with a lot of crap of from our party. But we will not put up with a party that takes a still larger share of our income to fund a bloated Government. For that, you don’t need a Republican Congress or president. Democrats will do just fine. (Although in fairness to President Clinton, he was much more fiscally conservative than George II has been.)

Posted by Paul at 12:32 AM | Permalink

Washington Post:

Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney’s suggestion that criticism of the administration’s war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney’s point.

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale — with 44 percent saying morale is hurt “a lot,” according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

The results surely will rankle many Democrats, who argue that it is patriotic and supportive of the troops to call attention to what they believe are deep flaws in President Bush’s Iraq strategy. But the survey itself cannot be dismissed as a partisan attack. The RTs in RT Strategies are Thomas Riehle, a Democrat, and Lance Tarrance, a veteran GOP pollster.

Their poll also indicates many Americans are skeptical of Democratic complaints about the war. Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to “gain a partisan political advantage.” [Emphasis added.]

Well of course it hurts the morale of our troops to say they’re fighting for a lie and should be withdrawn immediately. And of course the Democrats are leveling their “criticisms” for political reasons. They want to wound this president, and they don’t care what their calls for surrender mean to the troops, the Iraqis or U.S. security.

Politically, the Democrat Party is as serious as cancer. But morally, it is no longer a serious party. The American people know this, which is why, disgusted as they are with the Republicans, they will not turn the Congress over to the Democrats.

Posted by Paul at 6:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Sunday Times:

Angered by negative portrayals of the conflict in Iraq, Bruce Willis, the Hollywood star, is to make a pro-war film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.

It will be based on the exploits of the heavily decorated members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, which has spent the past year battling insurgents in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

Willis attended Deuce Four’s homecoming ball this month in Seattle, Washington, where the soldiers are on leave, along with Stephen Eads, the producer of Armageddon and The Sixth Sense.

[…]

He is expected to base the film on the writings of the independent blogger Michael Yon, a former special forces green beret who was embedded with Deuce Four and sent regular dispatches about their heroics.

Yon was at the soldiers’ ball with Willis, who got to know him through his internet war reports on www.michaelyon.blogspot.com. “What he is doing is something the American media and maybe the world media isn’t doing,” the actor said, “and that’s telling the truth about what’s happening in the war in Iraq.”

Willis has also put a $1 million bounty on the head of Osama Bin Laden or any other major al-Qaeda figure.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin.)

Posted by Paul at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[New video next Sunday.]

Posted by Paul at 12:01 AM | Permalink

I miss the days when Republicans had principles:

WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled Congress, in a departure from the traditional GOP support for states’ rights and limited federal rule, has been moving on a number of fronts to curtail state and local powers over matters important to business groups and advocates of tighter national security.

The recent moves by Congress have begun to provoke objections even in states that are socially conservative and have pro-business governments.

“It does appear that Congress is becoming increasingly unplugged from the states,” said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican. “It’s a real growing source of frustration for both Democratic and Republican governors.”

There are days when I’m really quite stunned by how undisciplined my party has been in the exercise of power. Had you told me ten years ago that the hallmarks of a Republican Congress would be prolific spending and a betrayal of federalism, I would have said you were nuts.

Note to file: power corrupts even (especially?) Republicans.

ADDED — Relatedly, I heard the economist Thomas Sowell say again today in an interview on Fox what he has said many times before: “Democrats are the only reason to vote for Republicans.”

Posted by Paul at 3:46 PM | Permalink

When you buy a gun from any reputable dealer — which is to say, any dealer with an FFL (federal firearms license) — your purchase will usually be submitted for clearance to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, operated by the FBI. (If you have a state-issued, federally-approved license to carry a handgun, your purchase is generally exempt from clearance. In most states, the background check for a carry license is more stringent than the federal background check for a purchase. If you’ve passed the former, you cannot fail the latter.*)

Most of the data the FBI relies upon come from the states. If the data are incomplete, the FBI may clear a purchase prohibited by federal law. And so it has, more than once:

WASHINGTON — In Alabama, a man with a history of mental illness killed two police officers with a rifle he bought on Christmas Eve.

In suburban New York, a schizophrenic walked into a church during Mass and shot to death a priest and a parishioner.

In Texas, a woman taking anti-psychotic medication used a shotgun to kill herself.

Not one of their names was in a database that licensed gun dealers must check before making sales — even though federal law prohibits the mentally ill from purchasing guns.

In many states, privacy laws prevent the sharing of mental health records with law enforcement. Federal legislation to require the sharing of the records is meeting resistance, but not from the gun rights lobby. It comes from the mental health lobby:

Michael Faenza, president and chief executive of the National Mental Health Association, said forcing states to share information on the mentally ill would violate patient privacy and contribute to the stigma they face.

“It’s just not fair. On the one hand, we want there to be very limited access to guns,” Faenza said. “But here you’re singling out people because of a medical condition and denying them rights held by everyone else.”

What pap! We also “single out” the blind and deny them a driver’s license. Their condition is the reason for, and reasonably related to, the denial. Where do some people get the idea that the Government should never make any distinctions, no matter how sensible, among its citizens?

(*To learn whether your state license qualifies as a federally-approved exemption to NICS, see this chart from the ATF.)

Posted by Paul at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Charles Moore, in the London Telegraph, on why Israel’s fate is our fate:

All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world’s fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilisation even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is “the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance,” the world of the West. He is busy building his country’s nuclear bomb.

Posted by Paul at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Reuters (via Yahoo News):

LONDON — The British Broadcasting Corporation has upheld a complaint against one of its journalists who said in a radio report she cried when a dying Yasser Arafat was flown from the West Bank in 2004.

Barbara Plett made the remark in a dispatch for the “From Our Own Correspondent” program describing how she felt when a helicopter carrying Arafat, who was gravely ill, took off from his compound, according to a BBC Web site.

“When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry,” she said in the 30 October, 2004 broadcast.

I know I have to choke back tears whenever a terrorist dies. Don’t you?

It doesn’t bother me that major media outlets are usually possessed of a liberal bias.* It bothers me that they resolutely refuse to declare it. This is one of the major differences between bloggers and traditional journalists. The former wear their bias on their sleeves; the latter pretend they have none. But it’s difficult for humans to escape their bias. Even decisions about what to present as news and how to present it will reflect the worldview of the source.

On any given day at Memeorandum, you’ll find right-wing bloggers emphasizing one story while left-wing bloggers are emphasizing another. “News” is in the eye of the beholder. And then, if you pay attention to diction, you’ll notice subtle but important differences in how conservative and liberal bloggers characterize whatever news they’re emphasizing. Right-wing bloggers may report that President Bush said; left-wing bloggers may report that President Bush claimed. Both words impart the same general idea, but they don’t impart the same impression. In neither case, though, is anybody pretending to be objective or “fair and balanced.”

Like the legacy media, the blogosphere is biased. But unlike the legacy media, it’s transparently biased. And there’s a lot to be said for that.

(*I assume here that only a liberal could weep for a dead Arafat.)

Posted by Paul at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Good gawd: watch the video. In the second half, you’ll see what you only heard in the first half.

Story here.

(Thanks to Polipundit.)

Posted by Paul at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our guys and gals in uniform are doing good work in a lot of places, and I’m happy to oblige a request from one of them. Folks, go here please.

Posted by Paul at 8:36 PM | Permalink

What if Michael Moore had made a documentary of the Civil War? Here’s the video.

(Thanks to Homocon.)

Posted by Paul at 7:44 PM | Permalink

What a shock.

Posted by Paul at 3:57 PM | Permalink

In the debate over same-sex marriage and civil unions, you hear a good deal about hospital visitation as a right to which gay couples are supposedly deprived. Although this claim is probably sympathy-producing, it’s also bogus. I’ve been an RN for 12 years; I know for a fact that you don’t have to be anything more than the friend of a friend of a friend to visit a hospitalized patient. Hospital visitation policies are now so lax as to be nonexistent.

Meanwhile, there’s something you almost never hear about in the debate over same-sex marriage, even though it’s something of which gay couples are in fact deprived. It’s called spousal privilege against compelled testimony. Heterosexual couples have it; gay couples don’t. Case in point:

NEW YORK — A gay man charged with helping his lover loot a wealthy school district has asked a judge to rule that state law protecting spouses from having to testify against each other also applies to same-sex partners.

Stephen Signorelli, fighting charges that he stole at least $219,000 from the Roslyn, New York, school district, is seeking to bar testimony by his longtime companion, Frank Tassone, the district’s former superintendent.

[…]

In a motion filed before a judge in Nassau County, Signorelli sought to bar such an appearance, saying he and Tassone deserved the same protection as a heterosexual couple.

On the view that the trust and intimacy of marriage would be undermined by requiring them to take the stand against one another, the law exempts heterosexual spouses from compelled testimony. Gay spouses enjoy no such exemption.

Now admittedly, a cry for spousal privilege in criminal proceedings isn’t as sympathy-evoking as a cry for hospital visitation. But the former is at least a cry to remedy an actual inequality.

Posted by Paul at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Go now and let Jeff break you up. The dude’s a riot.

Posted by Paul at 1:49 PM | Permalink

If you’re a small-government, South Park Republican, you have exactly one true representative in Congress: Ron Paul (R-TX). A consistent advocate of fiscal restraint and personal freedom, he’s the most libertarian member of the House. He’s also my political hero, even though — or maybe because — the party bosses can’t stand him:

In 1996, Paul was again elected to the House as a Republican. Mainstream Republican Party figures backed the incumbent, Greg Laughlin, a Democratic representative who had switched parties in the wake of the Republican takeover of Congress. Laughlin attempted to portray Paul’s views as extreme and eccentric. However, Paul won the primary and went on to win the general election.

Leaders of the Texan Republican Party made similar efforts to defeat him in 1998, but he again won the primary and the election. The Republican congressional leadership then agreed to a compromise: Paul votes with the Republicans on procedural matters and remains nominally Republican in exchange for the committee assignments normally due according to his seniority.

In an interview published today in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Rep. Paul tells the truth about federal spending.

(By the way, God bless the people of Texas’ working-class 14th Congressional District, who keep Ron Paul in the U.S. House even though he doesn’t bring home a dime of bacon.)

Posted by Paul at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Good. And when they find the “war on drugs” itself deeply troubling, they’ll demand a change in the law. For it’s the “war” — and not a judge’s opinion — that occasions this sort of outrage in the first place.

Posted by Paul at 1:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reuters (via Yahoo News):

NEW YORK — U.S. consumers are heading into the holiday season in a much cheerier mood now gasoline prices are easing and the economy appears to be shaking off the impact of Hurricane Katrina, data on Wednesday showed.

[…]

The University of Michigan’s final reading of consumer sentiment for November rose to 81.6 from 74.2 in late October, beating analysts’ forecasts of a rise to 80.5, according to sources who saw the subscription-only report.

“It looks like the economy is stabilizing after the hurricane-related stresses and we’re heading into the holidays with an upturn in confidence that is encouraging and bodes well for the good consumer spending over the next month or so,” said Gary Thayer, chief economist at AG Edwards & Sons in St. Louis.

Posted by Paul at 1:14 AM | Permalink

Well, she certainly looks heartbroken:

Umm, hmm.

Posted by Paul at 12:57 AM | Permalink

A must-see video. Enjoy.

(Thanks to Gay Patriot.)

Posted by Paul at 9:33 PM | Permalink

The future of American politics in a nutshell:

The most depressing prospect is that this will be the status quo for years to come. Liberals will shriek about GOP radicalism and conservatives will whine about the lack of it. And we’ll all have to make do with 2% milk.

Posted by Paul at 4:00 PM | Permalink

When word came yesterday of the Catholic Church’s decision to ban gay seminarians, I asked a secular question: could the American branch of the Church make do without homosexual priests? But I didn’t express a view on the decision itself. I’m not a Catholic; it’s not for me to say. Moreover, as I understand Catholic theology, it’s not even for the Catholic laity to say. Church doctrine comes from the hierarchy, as revealed — or so the hierarchy claims — by God in Scripture. It’s not up for a vote.

The Left now tells us — quite rightly, I believe — that “creationism,” also known as “intelligent design theory,” doesn’t belong in our Nation’s classrooms because a belief in God as creator is a matter of faith, not science. Even if creationism is correct, it’s still not science, which is the study of “how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of … understanding.” [Italics added.]

But if faith can’t answer questions of science, isn’t the corollary proposition also true, namely that science can’t answer questions of faith? And isn’t it wildly presumptuous for a political hack to admonish the Catholic Church on its own theology? Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, on the Vatican’s ban of gay priests:

The Catholic Church is showing an aversion to both the teachings of Christ and science. (Link)

Questions: What “science” is Mr. Solmonese referring to? And in any event, why should an institution of faith yield to science? On questions of Catholic theology, to whom should we expect that most people will defer: a secular gay political organization, or the Vatican? Finally, if secular political outfits are to remark upon religious beliefs adverse to the interests of gays, why aren’t the fatally anti-gay beliefs of Islam more pressing than non-violent Catholic beliefs?

Posted by Paul at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

I hope you have a safe, enjoyable holiday weekend.

Posted by Paul at 6:00 AM | Permalink

This is mind-boggling asininity:

FARIBAULT, Minn. — A trip to the restroom resulted in a trip to the hospital for a Bloomington man who accidentally shot himself in the hand over the weekend at a gun show.

Faribault Police Sgt. Richard Larson said the 59-year-old man shot himself while removing his gun from a hook in a bathroom stall while attending the 31st annual Faribault Rifle and Pistol Club gun show on Sunday morning.

The man was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated and released by Sunday afternoon.

From this we can deduce that the ole boy was carrying his sidearm “free style,” i.e. stuffed down the front of his pants, itself an act of incredible stupidity. And then, when he had to drop trouser to tend to his back end elimination needs, the question presented itself: “What to do with the gun?” At that point, he had no good options.

Sidearms belong in a holster, one that covers the trigger guard. As you can see from the picture, I prefer kydex to leather.

In addition to safety, which is paramount, there’s another good reason to holster your handgun. In the event your concealment technique fails and you get “made,” i.e. seen as carrying a gun, you’re less likely to create panic if the gun is holstered. People will assume you’re “supposed” to have it. (And indeed, if you have a license to carry, you are supposed to have it.) But even the most devoted advocates of the Second Amendment will wonder about a man with a gun stuffed down the front of his pants. Criminals don’t holster their firearms.

(Thanks to Ravenwood’s Universe.)

Posted by Paul at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The irony will be lost on some:

A Guantanamo detainee is suing to be allowed to have a copy of the Bible. The prison only allows inmates to have the Koran. After the prisoner’s lawyer shipped him a Bible, along with two volumes of Shakespeare, prison officials confiscated the package. Although a judge has not sorted out the dispute, the prison has recently “cleared for release” the Shakespeare plays.

Posted by Paul at 6:07 PM | Permalink

If you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s a bad idea to get into a public spat with Justice Scalia.

Posted by Paul at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Direland:

… I always thought it was a serious mistake for some sectors of the U.S. anti-war movement to have embraced [George] Galloway as an anti-war spokesman on his recent American speaking tour. Now, this repulsive and opportunistic pandering to homophobia by Galloway and his party’s leadership as part of their electoral strategy ought to make American opponents of the war shun them. Period.

(Hat tip to Will.)

Posted by Paul at 5:20 PM | Permalink

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch:

The many Democrats who initially supported the war would like to explain away their votes by claiming they were misled by the President. That claim is the real lie.

Posted by Paul at 7:30 AM | Permalink

If this policy is taken seriously, can the American Catholic Church — with its shortage of priests, and a disproportionate number of gays among the ones it has — stay in business?

ADDED — From the Washington Post:

The document does not call for the removal of gay men who are already serving as priests …

Posted by Paul at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Because local school districts lack control over their tax rates, the state’s school finance system is unconstitutional, the Texas Supreme Court held today. But, the Court said, the schools are not inadequately funded.

A state district judge, Democrat John Dietz of Austin, ruled last year that the school system was inadequately funded:

He cited evidence of a widening gap in educational achievement between “the haves and the have nots” and said Texas faces a bleak future if it fails to spend more on public education.

Why is poor educational achievement necessarily a sign of inadequate funding? Why isn’t it a sign that some parents don’t care about the education of their children? Or even a sign that some kids are not teachable?

I live in the Houston Independent School District, and every year the district charges me more in property taxes than it did the year before. For even though the state had, until today, capped the tax rate, the district makes it an annual habit to reappraise the value of my home. The value invariably rises by ten percent, which is, just coincidentally, the statutory maximum. This is the experience of homeowners all over Houston. And yet, year after year after year, HISD performs abysmally. There is no relationship between the amount of money the district takes in and the quality of education it puts out. As Justice Scott Brister noted in dissent:

… there is no end in sight; if the past is any indication, the new funding will not last long, and public education will not change much.

Indeed.

Posted by Paul at 6:34 PM | Permalink

If you want to know why I’m not worried about my party’s chances in next year’s midterms, the answer is easy. We’re running against Democrats:

Democrats might have seen this as a signal not to push too hard on the war lest they risk uniting a fractured Republican Party. But they didn’t heed it. By midweek Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, introduced a resolution aimed at pushing political moderates to oppose the war in Iraq. His plan called for “redeploying” U.S. troops out of Iraq over the next six months, leaving a “rapid reaction force” in the region and then pursuing U.S. goals through “diplomatic” means. It was a crafted political proposal that was meant to be an alternative to “staying the course” while not calling for outright withdrawal. It was a return of “peace without victory.” And it backfired.

Posted by Paul at 6:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Five months after the U.S. Supreme Court said the Government could take their property and give it to the rich, the Kelo holdouts — buoyed by public outrage — have stayed put.

Posted by Paul at 4:10 PM | Permalink

And it’s not the president:

To the charges that Bush “cherry-picked” intelligence, the commission co-chaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb found that the intelligence available to Bush but not to Congress was even more alarming than the intelligence Congress had.

The Silberman-Robb panel also concluded, after a detailed investigation, that in no instance did Bush administration authorities pressure intelligence officials to alter their findings. [Emphasis added.]

Of course, it would have made no difference had the Democrats been given all the intelligence available to the president. As it was, they didn’t even read what they had.

Perhaps the Democrats can parlay their ignorance into a campaign slogan for the 2006 midterms: “Bush should have given us more to not read!”

Posted by Paul at 6:00 AM | Permalink

Oh, sweet Jesus. The work of a .45 caliber Glock, which the owner treated as unloaded:

Bless his heart. There’s no need to rag on this fellow. He’s undergone nine hours of surgery and now faces some permanent loss of function in his hand. That’s penalty enough, don’t you think? No need to pile on. Besides, he’s already ragged on himself. ¹

The rules of firearms safety — culled from eons of experience by millions of gun owners — progress in a logical, stepwise fashion. The objective is to prevent injury or tragedy. Each rule builds on the ones preceeding it.

• Rule No. 1: Every gun is always loaded. Even if you “know” your gun is not loaded — this fellow shot himself with an “unloaded” gun — you still treat it as if it was loaded.

• Rule No. 2: Never allow the muzzle of your gun to sweep anything you are unwilling to damage or destroy.

• Rule No. 3: Keep your finger off the trigger until you have aligned sights on target and made a decision to fire.

• Rule No. 4: Be certain of your target and of what lies beyond it. (Bullets often overpenetrate target. Fortunately, this guy’s Black Talon overpenetrated to a Snap-On tool box.)

¹ Glock owners will recognize this fellow’s description of the disassembly procedure wherein he shot himself. For the non-Glock owner: he was taking his gun apart to clean it. This is perfectly acceptable, even necessary. But to field strip a Glock for cleaning, you must depress the trigger before you can take the slide off the frame. With magazine removed from the well, and after racking the slide, locking it back and then visually inspecting the breach for the absence of a bullet, I recommend use of a pen light with adapter to flood the barrel with light. (See image below.) If light does not exit the muzzle, “something” is blocking it, yes? It really shouldn’t be possible for a bullet to get lodged down in the barrel. But I encourage this extra step anyway. Like the instructors who trained me, I’m a safety nazi.

(Thanks to Xavier, another nurse with a gun.)

Posted by Paul at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The consequences of irresponsible posturing:

Domestic political considerations, including particularly the “Bush Lied!” attacks and the overwhelming opposition of the Democrats to the Bush Doctrine in general, have effectively precluded the Bush Administration from adopting an effective response to the Iranian threat. While the Bush Administration could engage in bellicose rhetoric, of varying degrees of bluntness, it is doubtful that any foreign observer would be impressed at this stage, given the difficulties being experienced by the Bush Administration in even sustaining a national consensus for seeing the Iraqi war to a successful conclusion. This week’s Senate resolution only compounds those problems. Surely, it is obvious by now that foreign enemies of the US have become at least as adept at reading the domestic political situation in Washington as the N. Vietnamese were 30 years ago. It seems we are bound to repeat that history, but this time in a much more dangerous context. [Emphasis added.]

Our enemies aren’t the only ones who know this. Our friend Israel knows it, too. As late as August 2004, when the U.S. declared that it would not abide a nuclear Iran, many analysts believed that America’s willingness to act was all that prevented unilateral Israeli action:

Unlike in the early 1980s when Israel found itself isolated in perceiving a threat from Iraq’s nuclear program, the prospect of US-led multilateral pressure against Iran casts a unilateral strike in a more-problematic light.

With National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warning last week that the US wonR