IT’S SPRING IN HOUSTON:
You can see full-size images here, here and here.
In case you’re interested, I took these pictures with a Kodak EasyShare CX7330. For the price, you may equal it, but you won’t beat it.
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April 30, 2007
SCENARIO: YOU’RE A 19 YEAR-OLD ASS CLOWN driving on a suspended license. You’re doing 73 in a 55. The police clock you, drop in behind and hit the blue lights. What do you do?
Why, hit the gas, of course. (You’re an ass clown, remember?) You’ll reach speeds in excess of 85 mph while crossing the double yellow line on a two-lane road.
The police are fearful for the safety of others, and eventually they tire of your shit. One officer in particular, Deputy Timothy Scott, decides to ram you with his push bumper. You’ll lose control of your vehicle, leave the road, run down an embankment, overturn and crash. You’re now a quadriplegic who lives in a nursing home.
Question: May you sue Deputy Scott for violation of your constitutional rights, while claiming that he should have terminated the chase and allowed you to go on your ass clown way?
Answer: Uh … no. Or, to put it more precisely, you can sue, but not successfully — at least not once Nino Scalia gets the case:
… we lay down a more sensible rule: A police officer’s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent by-standers does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.
The car chase that respondent initiated in this case posed a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others; no reasonable jury could conclude otherwise. Scott’s attempt to terminate the chase by forcing respondent off the road was reasonable, and Scott is entitled to summary judgment. The Court of Appeals’ decision to the contrary is reversed.
The Court posted dashboard video of the chase along side its 8-1 opinion. Watch. (Look for Scott v. Harris. Video requires Real Player.)
Tags: Supreme Court, constitutional law, high-speed chases, ass clowns
“DID JUSTICES’ CATHOLICISM PLAY PART IN ABORTION RULING?” That’s the question put to us by WaPo’s Robert Barnes. Fair enough, I suppose. But shouldn’t we also be asked the corollary: Did the dissenting justices’ Protestantism or Judaism play a part in their opinion?
April 29, 2007
CONSERVATIVE BLOGGER RICK MORAN HAS A SOBER, THOUGHTFUL POST on the war in Iraq. We are, he says correctly, running out of time:
I have come to the conclusion over the last few days that, due to domestic conditions here in the US and the inability of the Iraqi government and society to deal in a timely manner with the political problems that must be solved if Iraq is to have a viable, multi-sectarian society the United States is on the verge of suffering a humiliating defeat in Iraq. A perfect storm of almost non-existent public support for our war aims coupled with US pressure on the Iraqis to shoehorn radical changes in their society, their constitution, and their politics into an unrealistic and inevitably, an impossible time frame will ultimately doom our efforts to take any military success achieved via the surge and turn it into progress on the political front.
If we had 3 or 4 years and the political will to maintain troop levels where they are now, then we would have a real chance to make the difference. But our commitment to the military aspects of the surge will be measured in months, not years.
That’s right, isn’t it? Either because Congress will presently compel our withdrawal, or because we will elect a new president who commands it, our remaining time in Iraq can now be measured in months. (Meanwhile, as Mark Steyn observes, mischief-makers everywhere are noting well the limits of American resolve.)
But before the genocide begins — and with it, a regional conflagration that will have catastrophic implications for our national security — I have a question: Have we made any plans to evacuate the thousands of Iraqis who were publicly supportive of our effort to bring freedom and democracy to their country? I’m thinking of those who hitched their hopes to our wagon and lent their names to our enterprise. I’m thinking of people like Omar.
Do we have plans to get them and their families out? Or will we compound our surrender with betrayal and again prove Bernard Lewis right: “America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”
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April 29, 1975: With the North Vietnamese advancing, throngs scale the wall of the American embassy in Saigon. |
Tags: Iraq, War in Iraq
April 28, 2007
FEEDDEMON: THE BEST GETS BETTER. As I wrote Wednesday, a beta release of FeedDemon 2.5 is out. I’m using it, and I can tell you that Nick Bradbury has a made the best product of its kind even better.
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Feed icon |
Among other things, the new version allows you to capture news items or blog entries and expose them in your own customized RSS feed. If you click the feed icon pictured at right, your browser will show you what I’m talking about.
The items in that feed came from four sources: NewsBusters, QandO, CBS News and Fox News. (I subscribe to the feeds of those four sites and to the feeds of roughly one hundred fifty other sites as well.) In other words, I captured content from several feeds and then turned it into a single, amalgamated feed to share with you. I did it using FeedDemon, and it was quick and easy. Nifty, huh?
To subscribe** to feeds, you need a reader. Some readers are Web-based, like NewsGator. And some are desktop applications, like FeedDemon. Some are free, and some you pay for. You can also subscribe to feeds using the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer.
If you’d like to learn more about feeds and feed readers, Six Apart offers an excellent explanation.
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A screenshot of my FeedDemon installation. Click to see a full-size image. |
Everyday I go through my subscriptions in FeedDemon looking for things to read or blog about. Often I find stories that are interesting or entertaining, i.e. worth reading, but I don’t blog on them. Maybe I don’t know enough about the topic to blog on it. Maybe the topic is outside the narrow range of subjects I usually cover. Or maybe I just don’t have anything to say. (That doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.)
But now, using this new feature in FeedDemon, I’m going to collect those stories and “dump” them into a feed that I’ll share with you. If you’d like to subscribe to that feed, which I’ve dubbed “Right Side of the Rainbow/Link Dump,” you’ll find the URL by clicking the feed icon pictured above. And if you’d rather not subscribe, you’ll still be able to read the link dump feed. Whenever I update the feed, I’ll repost the icon pictured above. Click on it and your up-to-date browser will show you what you’re missing.
[**—Feed publishers often encourage you to “subscribe” to their feeds. Don’t let that word mislead you. Almost all feeds are free.]
Tags: FeedDemon, RSS, RSS readers
“WHEN I ASKED FOR YOUR HELP, YOU GAVE US MORE THAN A HELPING HAND. YOU CARED. YOU GAVE A DAMN ABOUT A BUNCH OF EGYPTIANS WHO HAD A DREAM TO BE FREE.” An Egyptian blogger, now fearful of arrest, is signing off:
One of the chief reasons is the fact that there has been too much heat around me lately. I no longer believe that my anonymity is kept, especially with State Security agents lurking around my street and asking questions about me …
LOVE LIBERTY? SUPPORT FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS? ROOT FOR A SOCIALIST VICTORY IN FRANCE:
And next weekend all true market liberals should be rooting for Ségolène Royal. France, before it turns to embrace the free market, must first despair utterly of the alternative. France must have no lingering doubt, no hankering to go back. It must with all its being reject its half-century affair with the all-protecting State. France must know in its heart as well as its head that there is no exception française.
France is on the road to that knowledge, rejection and despair, but it is not there yet. Ms Royal, still passionate for l’exception française, is the leader to take France all the way. Onward, Ségo, I say: onward to the presidency. And after that, onward to the buffers. And hit them good and hard.
Tags: France
April 27, 2007
RUDY STEPS IN THE MACACA (AGAIN!) Only two days ago, His Honor was back on message. Now he’s off anew.
First he offends Republicans of almost every ideological flavor with his support for publicly funded abortions (and then drops eleven points in the WaPa/ABC News poll). Now he offends the GOP’s social libertarians — his most likely supporters — with his flip-flopping and obvious pandering on civil unions.
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His flip is a flop. |
What’s worse, it’s stupid pandering. Rudy now says that while he opposes civil unions, he favors domestic partnerships.** Does he think this change in nomenclature will win points with religious conservatives? The religious conservatives don’t give a damn what you call it: marriage, civil union, domestic partnership, sacred sacrament of the sodomite. If you acknowledge the very existence of gay couples, you’re up the religious cons’ craw.
All Rudy has done today is come across as fainthearted to his supporters and as unpersuasive to his detractors. Where’s the payoff in that?
[**—In fairness, Rudy has often spoken of his support for domestic partnerships. But he’s also spoken of his support for civil unions. And while this might be a distinction without a difference, depending on how you write the law, it looks like he’s attempting a climb down. That’s certainly how it’s being taken.]
Tags: Giuliani, civil unions, Republicans, 2008 election
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, whose book “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” I bought yesterday, speaks here, in a debate at the University of Toronto, in opposition to the criminalization of hate speech. In the process, he has some, uh, provocative things to say:
[RSS and e-mail subscribers: Video appears here. Click to watch.]
HT: Hot Air
YEAH, WELL: All I’ll say to this is, molon labe.
Relatedly, the San Antonio Express-News has a cartoon you’ll enjoy.
HT: Amy
EIGHT DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES gathered Thursday night at South Carolina State University for the first “debate” of their campaign, the Associated Press reports.
Don Surber has the “transcript.” Here’s a taste:
Hillary Clinton: “When I voted for the war in 2002, everyone should have known I was being insincere and just going through the motions so I could present myself as a credible presidential candidate in 2008.”
[…]
Mike Gravel: “I opposed the war in 1969 when I was still alive.”
[…]
Obama: “I would withdraw all of our troops by the end of the night.”
Kucinich: “I would build a Time Machine and then go back in time and never send our troops in.”
DO AS WE SAY, NOT AS WE DO:
A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.
[…]
No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.
None of the Democratic candidates has gone so far as to suggest that we all wipe our butts with a single square of toilet paper. So we need not explore their hygiene habits. But isn’t it fair to ask how these candidates reconcile their use of private jets with their grandiloquent concern for global warming?
Tags: Global warming, Democrats
April 26, 2007
QUOTABLE:
The problem with the Houston Police Department and with the Department of Public Safety is they have to hire employees out of the human race.
— Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, on news that twenty-one guns are missing from HPD’s property room
SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN: “TO ME, THERE IS ONLY ONE CHOICE THAT PROTECTS AMERICA’S SECURITY — AND THAT IS TO STAND, AND FIGHT, AND WIN.”
But the leader of the party with which Lieberman caucuses says the fight is lost and we must surrender. This is why some wonder whether Lieberman will fire Harry Reid.
ADDED —
Relatedly, David Broder of WaPo says Reid is the Democrats’ Gonzales:
Here’s a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.
If you answered “Harry Reid,” give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.
Tags: Joe Lieberman, Harry Reid, Democrats, war in Iraq
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: “Democratic presidential candidates think Rudolph Giuliani has some nerve saying the U.S. will suffer another 9/11 if one of them is elected. In reality, he touched a nerve by merely stating a fact.”
Tags: Democrats, homeland security, Rudy Giuliani
DUDES, LET IT GO ALREADY:
[Law enforcement officials] said they have read reams of e-mail and cellphone records and interviewed hundreds of witnesses but have found no explanation for [Seung Hui] Cho’s actions. In fact, they said, they may never know why Cho started at the dorm, waited more than two hours and then killed 30 more people at Norris Hall.
Get out your pen and write this in the file: “The bastard was nuts.” That’s why. Now let it go.
Tags: Seung Hui Cho, Virginia Tech
April 25, 2007
IF YOU USE FEEDDEMON, a beta release of version 2.5 is out.
Tags: FeedDemon, RSS, RSS readers
GOOD NEWS FOR FREE SPEECH: Every press account I’ve read says the U.S. Supreme Court took a dim view today of the federal ban on issue ads. This report from AP is typical:
Supreme Court justices seem skeptical of a key provision of the landmark campaign finance law, and that could lead to a bigger role for corporations, unions and other interest groups in the 2008 presidential elections.
The provision in question prohibits interest groups from running corporate-funded radio and TV ads that mention a candidate’s name within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.
The case before the court Wednesday involved advertisements that Wisconsin Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, was prevented from broadcasting during the 2004 campaign.
And from Lyle Denniston at the indispensable SCOTUSblog: “‘Blackout’ on campaign ads in doubt.”
ADDED —
Dahlia Lithwick, who was present for oral argument today, writes sadly: “When it comes to curbing corruption versus curbing political speech, it looks like speech is the winner today.”
Of course, it was never about curbing corruption. It was, and is, about protecting incumbents. Congress makes a law that bars voters from corporately advocating the defeat of its members in the days preceding an election, and we’re supposed to think that is about preventing corruption? If it walks like a duck, Dahlia …
Tags: Supreme Court, law, politics, McCain-Feingold, campaign finance reform
“THOSE BIRDS WERE SINGING JUST AS LOUDLY AND JUST AS SWEETLY WHEN THE BULLETS WERE FINDING THEIR TARGETS.” Christopher Hitchens on the “mawkishness, sloppiness, and false sentiment” of our reaction to the shootings at Virginia Tech:
Almost everybody in the country seems to have taken this non-event as permission to talk the starkest nonsense. And why not? Since the slaughter raised no real issues, it was a blank slate on which anyone could doodle.
“THE DEMOCRATS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE FULL NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE TERRORIST WAR AGAINST US:” Rudy is back on message.
Notice that Giuliani doesn’t refer to the “war on terror.” He refers to the “terrorist war against us.” He’s argued repeatedly that “war on terror” misstates the nature of the conflict.
ADDED —
Relatedly, Tony Blankley writes about the clash “between those, such as me, who believe that the rise of radical Islam poses an existential threat to Western Civilization; and those who believe it is a nuisance, if, episodically, a very dangerous nuisance.”
That difference in perception — our lives and way of life are under direct threat v. we are merely suffering hassle and annoyance at the hands of nut jobs — underlies the debate over Iraq, among other things. Count me among those who say we must resist or die.
How you view the nature of our conflict with radical Islam will determine how you vote in 2008. If you believe everything we stand for is at risk, you’ll want a candidate who shares that view. (Hence my support for Giuliani, his other policy positions notwithstanding.) My fear is that Americans are suffering from battle fatigue, and will therefore elect a president who takes a less meanacing, more retiring view of the world.
April 24, 2007
TOM AT STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY sends e-mail to say, “This week the Senate committee that handles education is considering repealing or scaling back the law that strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions.”
You can help:
Since 1998, nearly 200,000 aspiring college students have been stripped of their financial aid just because they have drug convictions, usually for small-time marijuana possession. Meanwhile, convicted murderers and rapists are eligible to continue receiving federal student loans and grants.
Thankfully, Congress is currently considering getting rid of this harmful and unfair aid elimination penalty. But legislators won’t act unless they hear from you!
April 23, 2007
THE MENDACIOUS HARRY REID: It’s useless to rail against it, I know. By nature, politicians prevaricate. But still, doesn’t this doublespeak make you want to hurl?
When the Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act passed by Congress in 2003, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a press conference: “I would only say that this isn’t the only decision that a lot of us wish that [Justice Samuel] Alito weren’t there and [former Justice Sandra Day] O’Connor were there.” Does that mean Reid was repudiating his Senate vote for the bill restricting abortions? No, he told me Thursday, he was talking about other decisions by Alito.
[…]
Recalling his many votes against partial birth abortion, he indicated he supported the court’s abortion decision. “I just don’t like what Alito has done on other cases,” he said. What other cases? “I can’t recall,” Reid replied …
NO TO FRED THOMPSON: John Dickerson reviews Thompson’s record. It’s McCainish.
April 22, 2007
30 SECOND VIDEO BLOG
“TO PROMOTE VULNERABILITY AS A MORAL VIRTUE IS NOT MERELY FOOLISH:”
Had the Second Amendment not been in effect repealed by VT, someone might have been able to do as two students did five years ago at the Appalachian Law School: When a would-be mass murderer showed up, they rushed for their vehicles, grabbed their guns and pinned him down until the cops arrived.
But you can’t do that at Virginia Tech. Instead, the administration has created a “Gun-Free School Zone.” Or, to be more accurate, they’ve created a sign that says “Gun-Free School Zone.” And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so. The “gun-free zone” turned out to be a fraud — not just because there were at least two guns on the campus last Monday, but in the more important sense that the college was promoting to its students a profoundly deluded view of the world.
[…]
The “gun-free zone” fraud isn’t just about banning firearms or even a symptom of academia’s distaste for an entire sensibility of which the Second Amendment is part and parcel but part of a deeper reluctance of critical segments of our culture to engage with reality.
April 21, 2007
“A CHALLENGE BY WISCONSIN’S LARGEST ANTI-ABORTION GROUP TO THE MCCAIN-FEINGOLD CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM LAW could end up overturning the most significant effort in decades to drive big money out of national politics,” the Capital Times reports:
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in the lawsuit filed by Wisconsin Right to Life against the Federal Elections Commission.
The lawsuit challenges a key provision in the McCain-Feingold law, officially known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which makes it illegal for groups like Wisconsin Right to Life to use corporate money or union funds to broadcast so-called “issue ads” that mention a federal candidate within 60 days of an election.
[…]
The case stems from the group’s attempt in 2004 to run ads calling on the state’s two Democratic U.S. Senators — Russ Feingold, who was up for re-election that year, and Herb Kohl, who was not — to end a Senate filibuster of President Bush’s judicial appointees.
Here’s the ad Wisconsin Right to Life didn’t air for fear of violating federal law:
Proponents of McCain-Feingold say the ad is a “sham.” They say Wisconsin Right to Life wasn’t really interested in ending a filibuster against the president’s judicial nominees, but was instead interested in drawing public attention to Sen. Feingold’s support for abortion rights:
Supporters of the law, including both the FEC and the law’s authors, argue that the Right to Life ads are exactly the sort of “sham issue ads” that the law was intended to prevent: political ads masquerading as a discussion of pending issues.
The supporters note that Right to Life opposed Feingold’s re-election in 2004 and endorsed all three of his would-be Republican opponents that year. The group also listed Feingold’s defeat as one of its top political priorities for 2004.
Moreover, the law’s supporters argue, the ads gave viewers no meaningful way to contact Feingold or Kohl directly, such as by providing their Washington addresses or phone numbers.
Instead, the ads referred viewers to a Web site that discussed the senators’ record on the issue and their positions on abortion, which, supporters of the law contend, was a back-door way of reminding voters of Feingold’s stance on a hot-button election issue.
“It’s a very strange kind of lobbying when the ad does not tell you how you can contact Senator Kohl or Senator Feingold,” [Washington lawyer Fred] Wertheimer says.
Perhaps. But it’s also a very strange kind of democracy when you can’t draw public attention, even obliquely, to a politician’s record.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION IN THE PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION CASE IS OVERBLOWN: I argued Wednesday that the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart was so narrow — as is the underlying federal statute — as to be almost meaningless. If you’d like corroboration of my analysis, you’ll find it today in the pages of the New York Times.
SIDEBAR: I can’t say doing it otherwise is wrong. But I submit that commas and periods belong inside quotation marks. This memo to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy™ illustrates what I view as malformed punctuation:
It has come to our attention that most of you are still referring to Democratic presidential contender John Edwards as “Silky Pony”. As excellent and chuckleworthy as that may be, time moves on, new scandals emerge, and new sobriquets must be bestowed. Besides, “Silky Pony” has been criticized as both misogynist and homophobic.
So, for reasons explained by our capable co-conspirator Mr. Barnett, “Silky Pony” shall henceforth be referred to as “Pink Sapphire”.
Your compliance in this matter will be greatly appreciated.
The memo should read, “It has come to our attention that most of you are still referring to Democratic presidential contender John Edwards as “Silky Pony.” And, “So, for reasons explained by our capable co-conspirator Mr. Barnett, “Silky Pony” shall henceforth be referred to as “Pink Sapphire.”
Punctuation aside, the memo comes from High Command. Please take note.
“AMERICA HAD BEST WAKE UP REAL FAST THAT THE BRAIN-DEAD CELEBRATION OF UNARMED HELPLESSNESS WILL GET YOU KILLED EVERY TIME:” Ted Nugent unloads on the gun grabbers.
SIDEBAR: Can we please dispatch as to, a debilitating prolixity? What’s wrong with about?
• I don’t have an opinion as to the president’s policy.
• I don’t have an opinion about the president’s policy.
Do I sound like a schoolmarm? Sorry. But I heard as to one too many times today, and I could stand it no longer.
April 19, 2007
“NEW HAMPSHIRE’S GOVERNOR said on Thursday he will sign a bill that would make the state the fourth in the nation to allow same-sex civil unions,” Reuters reports:
New Hampshire’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted overwhelming this month to give gay couples nearly the same rights as married couples. The bill was expected to reach the state Senate next Thursday.
RUDY SLIPS: According to the Washington Post/ABC News poll, Giuliani’s support among Republicans has dropped eleven points since February. Maybe it’s a blip, or maybe the poll is faulty. But you have to wonder …
April 18, 2007
“THE SUPREME COURT NARROWLY UPHELD A FEDERAL LAW TODAY BANNING A CONTROVERSIAL ABORTION PROCEDURE, giving the anti-abortion movement one of its biggest legal victories in years,” the New York Times reports:
The justices ruled, 5 to 4, that a law passed by Congress in 2003 and signed by President Bush does not violate the Constitution by imposing an undue burden on a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. The majority said its ruling reflects the government’s “legitimate, substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life.”
[…]
The majority upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, whose very name can set off heated debate. The procedure addressed is known medically as “intact dilation and evacuation” or “D and X,” short for dilation and extraction. It involves partly removing an intact fetus, then destroying the skull to complete the abortion.
Swingin’ Tony wrote the Court’s opinion [pdf]. Maybe there was something in his Cheerios. Who knows?
The ruling is narrow. In brief, the Court sustained the Act against a facial challenge; the Act remains vulnerable to as-applied challenges. And the Act itself, at least as construed by Swingin’ Tony, bans almost nothing: “… the Act does not restrict abortions involving delivery of an expired fetus or those not involving vaginal delivery,” pdf p. 3.
In other words, you can take the baby by c-section and then crush its skull. Or, if you prefer, you can first inject the baby with poison, kill it, and then pull it out of the vagina: “… if intact D&E is truly necessary in some circumstances, a prior injection to kill the fetus allows a doctor to perform the procedure, given that the Act’s prohibition only applies to the delivery of ‘a living fetus,’” pdf p. 6. See how that works? Here’s your algorithm:
• Do you want to crush the baby’s skull? If yes, take by c-section.
• Do you want to deliver a dead baby vaginally? If yes, poison first. And then crush, or not, the dead baby’s skull, as you prefer.
Call it the Ginsburg Rule: Take what you like and leave the rest.
What you cannot do is deliver a live baby vaginally and then crush its skull. Or at least you can’t in theory. In practice, if you can show Swingin’ Tony a set of circumstances where there was just nothing else for you to do, or if he gets a new a box Cheerios, well … we’ll see.
And that, in a nutshell, is an accurate, if not highfalutin, explanation of Gonzales v. Carhart. The New York Times say this decision is a victory for pro-life advocates. If so, it’s a strange one.
Now to the fun part.
You just have to read Justice Ruth Ginsburg’s dissent. She is pissed. P-I-S-S-E-D! Why, I don’t know, except that the Court didn’t genuflect before the Sacred Altar of Surgical Instruments in the Vagina. (See pdf p. 1, “In the usual second-trimester procedure, ‘dilation and evacuation’ (D&E), the doctor dilates the cervix and then insert surgical instruments into the uterus and maneuvers them to grab the fetus and pull it back through the cervix and vagina. The fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and the doctor may take 10 to 15 passes to remove it in its entirety.” For Ginsburg, it’s all about making those passes, I guess.)
The dissent begins at pdf p. 49. It’s a riot, mostly because it’s a study in outrageous pretense:
Though today’s opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court, differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation, is hardly faithful to our earlier invocations of ‘the rule of law’ and the ‘principles of stare decisis.’”
Stare decisis?! As in respect for precedent? Oh, I couldn’t stop laughing when I read that. Surely, she can’t expect to be taken seriously. Justice Ginsburg was in the majority in Lawrence (the pro-sodomy case), which expressly overruled the precedent in Bowers (the anti-sodomy case). Call it the Ginsburg Rule: Take what you like and leave the rest.
It always cracks me up when members of the Court pretend there’s some high method to these shenanigans. In hot-button cases, only one (low) thing is going on. Five justices decide what they want, and then they get it. They make a (policy) decision and write an opinion justifying it. If the “rules” support their opinion, fine; if not, the “rules” are dispatched. (Indeed, Justice Ginsburg pleads for a future Court to ignore the precedent of the instant case: “A decision so at odds with our jurisprudence should not have staying power,” pdf at p. 72.)
The general public may believe the work of the Court is serious, complex and scholarly. But when the Internets came online, everybody got a law library. Consequently, some of us have been reading this shit long enough to know the truth. And the truth is, it’s all about five people getting what they want.
You may also wish to read Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion. It’s very short and begins at pdf p. 47. He volunteers this:
I also note that whether the Act constitutes a permissible exercise of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause is not before the Court. The parties did not raise or brief that issue; it is outside the question presented; and the lower courts did not address it.
Justice Thomas takes a narrow view of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. Hint, hint.
ADDED —
For those who oppose even this modest restriction on abortion, there is a ready way to get it lifted, one that doesn’t involve the courts. See Pelosi, Nancy et al. Of course, you’ll also need to see a few Democratic senators, including Harry Reid, the majority leader, who voted “aye” on the Act’s passage. These “out of the mainstream” sons of bitches are everywhere, aren’t they?
WORTHY READS —
• Glenn Reynolds, “People don’t stop killers. People with guns do:”
Police can’t be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, it’s usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if they’re armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.
“Gun-free zones” are premised on a fantasy: That murderers will follow rules …
• David Kopel, “Gun-free zones:”
The founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, understood the harms resulting from the type of [gun-free] policy created at Virginia Tech. In his “Commonplace Book,” Jefferson copied a passage from Cesare Beccaria, the founder of criminology, which was as true on Monday as it always has been:
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes … Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
• Michelle Malkin, “Wanted: a culture of self-defense:”
Enough is enough, indeed. Enough of intellectual disarmament. Enough of physical disarmament. You want a safer campus? It begins with renewing a culture of self-defense — mind, spirit and body. It begins with two words: Fight back.
April 17, 2007
THE MASSACRE AT VIRGINIA TECH: Until more facts come out, I don’t have anything to say about this tragedy that hasn’t already been said elsewhere.
I’ll point up only one thing. Charles Steger, the university’s president, continues to say he’s uncertain whether the gunman at Norris was the one who fatally shot two people in a dorm two hours earlier, CNN reports:
Steger on Tuesday defended the university response to the dorm shooting, saying police believed it to be “a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide” that was contained to one dorm room.
[…]
“I don’t think anyone could have predicted that another event was going to take place two hours later,” Steger said …
Is Steger just covering his butt? Or were there coincidentally two tragedies yesterday at Virginia Tech? And if so, what motivated the second, larger one?
UPDATE —
Same gun, probably same shooter:
University officials said they were still trying to determine if Cho was responsible for an earlier shooting at a dormitory that left two dead.
However, Flinchum said ballistics tests show that one of the two guns recovered at Norris Hall was used at Norris and at the dorm.
Question: Why did police think the dorm shooting was a “murder-suicide,” as Steger says? Based on what we’re being told now, the police would have found two bodies at the scene but no gun. Wouldn’t that be an unusual finding for a murder-suicide by firearm?
UPDATE II —
This, via ABC News, is (somewhat) clarifying:
According to President Charles Steger, the administration locked down West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory after the first shooting. But he said classes weren’t canceled because the shooting was believed to be tied to a domestic dispute and campus police believed the shooter had left the campus. [Emphasis added.]
Okay. The killer and his gun were gone, or so the police thought. But with two dead victims on the scene and the shooter on the lam, you don’t have a murder-suicide. You have two murders.
April 16, 2007
WORTHY READS —
• Michael Barone, “Of victims and virtue:”
This urge to see the victim class as virtuous and the oppressor class as villainous leads people in countries like the United States and Britain to sympathize more with our enemies than our defenders. This is not new.
• Cathy Young, “A rush to injustice in the Duke ‘rape’ case:”
… many people wouldn’t let the facts get in the way of a good crusade.
Meanwhile …
• John Kerry has reportedly “reopened the door to a possible 2008 presidential campaign …”
April 15, 2007
JOHN MCCAIN WANTED TO TAKE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS. He’s got his wish.
HILLARY CLINTON IS LYING (BADLY): I follow Democratic politics only peripherally. So maybe Hillary Clinton has been dissembling for a while and I’ve just missed it:
After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Senator Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq. A woman who had traveled from New York asked Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war.
Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, “Did you read it?!” Notably uncomfortable, the Senator repeated that she had been briefed. This exchange went back and forth about three times.
The woman sat down and Clinton explained, “If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority.” Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq. [Emphasis added.]
Oh, for crying out loud! That is most emphatically not what she believed**, as five seconds of Googling demonstrates:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she is not sorry she voted for a resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action in Iraq despite the recent problems there but she does regret “the way the president used the authority.”
“How could they have been so poorly prepared for the aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein?” the New York Democrat asked Tuesday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” [Emphasis added.]
Did she think the U.N. inspectors were going to topple Saddam?!
What’s more, Clinton says she didn’t read the key report on pre-war intelligence but was instead “briefed” on it. Compare and contrast:
The lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq contradicts years of intelligence indicating Saddam had such weapons, which also was the conclusion of officials in the Clinton administration.
“The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration,” she said. “It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared.”
“But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right, but they didn’t let enough sunlight into their thinking process to really have the kind of debate that needs to take place when a serious decision occurs like that.”
She conceded that making such decisions is “very tough” for the occupant of the Oval Office.
“That’s one of the reasons why I think it’s important to have a president who asks a lot of questions, who is intellectually curious, who seeks out contrary points of view, who doesn’t just surround himself with people who see the world the same way,” she said.
“You have to have a decision-making process that pushes a lot of information up and asks a lot of hard questions. You don’t get that sense from this White House.” [Emphasis added.]
Senator, shouldn’t one’s “decision-making process” and intellectual curiosity about matters of war and peace extend to reading the paperwork?!
No wonder the woman in New Hampshire was screaming.
[**—Indeed, she could not have believed that; both title and text of the resolution for which she voted “authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.” Will she now tell us she didn’t read the resolution either?
P.S. Now I understand why some of my Democratic friends say Hillary isn’t as formidable as many Republicans fear. Her claims here are risible and will allow the GOP to “swift boat” her everyday of the campaign and twice on Sundays.
ADDED —
More from Rob at Say Anything.
April 14, 2007
CRAZY ENOUGH TO KILL, NOT CRAZY ENOUGH TO DIE. Here’s my prediction. A death row inmate in Texas will prove that if you act a fool, you can avoid the executioner:
The [U.S. Supreme Court] already has banned execution of inmates found to be mentally retarded** and those who committed their crimes when they were younger than 18.
Crazy’s next. All you need to know is found in the question for which the Court granted certiorari:
Does the Eighth Amendment permit the execution of a death row inmate who has a factual awareness of the reason for his execution but who, because of severe mental illness, has a delusional belief as to why the state is executing him, and thus does not appreciate that his execution is intended to seek retribution for his capital crime?</