June 28, 2008

JERRY POURNELLE ON SHORT-TERM THINKING:

Five years ago we were told that increased refinery and oil pumping capability in the US would do no good because it would take five years for those to affect gas pump prices. Query: if we had greatly increased supply over the past five years, would not oil be at about $75/bbl, still high, but not headed to $200? And if we do nothing to increase supply now, where will oil go? . . . We are in a time of national emergency, but it does not affect the politicians, who continue business as usual.

My response to those who say that increased drilling is pointless because it won't yield immediate results -- like Arnold Schwarzenegger --is why worry about the greenhouse effect, then? Nothing we do will cool the planet immediately. Yet we're told immediate action there is vital. In fact, we're told that by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the very same speech.

UPDATE: TigerHawk: "One would have thought that this point was so obvious it would not have to be made at all."

You can never be too obvious, it seems.

I'D SETTLE FOR SOME OF THE OLD KIND: Healthy eating is "the new patriotism."

DAVID WARREN ON CANADA'S "HUMAN RIGHTS" KANGAROO COURTS:

The people are still sleeping, but some “blowback” has finally begun to occur. Given its very eccentric inquisitorial practices, which have been documented and publicized on the Internet, the CHRC is now under an RCMP investigation, a Privacy Commission investigation, and there is a Parliamentary investigation pending. (As a public relations exercise, the CHRC has also hand-picked its own “independent” investigator to do what we can only assume will be a defensive whitewash, as usual at taxpayer expense.)

It is against this background the CHRC decided that the better part of valour is discretion, and that it truly did not need to be prosecuting such high-profile targets as the bestselling author, Mark Steyn, and the mainstream newsweekly, Maclean’s, at the present time. The CHRC can retrench, and return to its bread-and-butter business of destroying little people who command no publicity -- biding their time until circumstances are propitious to “extend their mandate” again.

Vigilance is the price of liberty, and it is crucially important that we not take the heat off Canada’s HRCs when they retreat. Canadians need to know the whole truth about what these vile “human rights” investigators have been doing.

Yes, now is not the time to slack off. I also think it would be a good time for Canadians to flood the HRCs with complaints about racist and sexist speech from Muslim clerics, Womyn's activists, and the like. God knows there's plenty of material to work with.

RALPH PETERS: " If current trend-lines continue, it may not be long before Baghdad is safer for Iraqi citizens than the Washington-Baltimore metroplex is for US citizens. Iraq's government is working, its economy is booming - and its military has driven the concentrations of terrorists and militia from every one of Iraq's major cities. And our troops are coming home. Where's the failure?"

DARTMOUTH: A hostile environment -- for learning how to write well.

A RECIPE for hummus. I used to make that all the time. May have to do it again, soon.

VIETNAM attempts to shore up drooping Dong.

A BIG HONKIN' SUNFLOWER, from Les Jones.

BECAUSE IT'S NOT AS IF WE NEED MORE ENERGY: U.S. Halts Solar Projects Over Environment Fears.

Okay: Nukes are out, coal is filthy, wind power destroys Ted Kennedy's view, and solar leads to "environment fears." Do they just want us all to freeze in the dark? Pretty much, I'd say . . . .

(Via Sonic Frog). Seems like this would be a good campaign issue for somebody . . . .

UPDATE: Reader Robert Schwartz emails:

Whatever happened to the Democrats? It used to be that their sole criterion for evaluating proposals was how many blue collar jobs they would create. Oil drilling and nuclear power would have been no brainers as both activities require millions of man hours of labor, real blue collar, sweaty, dirty labor. These days Democrats seem to care more about beachfront property values than worker’s jobs.

Yes, the Democrats have become the party of the upper-crust now.

KNIFEBLOGGING FOLLOWUP: A big cutlery sale.

Earlier knifeblogging here here, here, and here.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: The Iraqification of Lebanon.

"SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED."

UPDATE: Corroded corruption?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes we can!

MORE: Rage!

HEATH SHULER:

In surprisingly blunt language, U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler complained this week of "a lack of maturity" in the U.S. House.

The North Carolina Democrat accused some of his fellow lawmakers of thinking they're "Hollywood stars" and said many of them spend more time playing politics than doing what's best for the country.

"It's quite embarrassing," he said. "I mean, I wish all constituents could sit sometimes in the gallery and just see what goes on on the House floor."

Indeed.

ZIGZAGGING ON IRAQ: "Recent reports and rumors have indicated that Senator Obama plans to aggressively move to the middle on Iraq in the coming months. This is a good political move for Obama, if only because he’s finally starting to recognize reality."

Plus, Keith Olbermann will praise his "manly posture on Iraq."

PHIL GRAMM: "They didn't live up to what they promised to do. Power corrupted them. They spent lots of money and tried to buy votes. Republicans concluded that they could make voters love them by governing the way Democrats did."

Plus this: "Why is America the richest country in the world? . . . It's not because our people are more brilliant; it's because we have a better free-market system. Why has Texas created 1.6 million jobs in the last 10 years whereas Michigan has lost 300,000 jobs and Ohio has lost 100,000 jobs? Because governance matters, taxes matter, regulation matters. Our opponents in this campaign are so dogmatic in their goal of having more government because they love the power it brings to them that they're willing to let it impose costs on the working people that they say they want to help. I am not."

AT VODKAPUNDIT, a Bill Clinton photo caption contest.

MORE GUN TALK over at Inside Higher Ed. Plus, Arming Obama.

Plus, Morton Grove ends its gun ban. "The Heller dominoes are falling."

WELL, THIS IS CHEERY: "Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall 'below zero'. Alarmist? Maybe, but I"m worried about inflation too.

SOME LINKS on the anti-aging conference at UCLA this weekend.

DON SURBER: Does tourism do more harm than offshore drilling?

TOM MAGUIRE: "The same folks who can read the Constitution and Bill of Rights and find an unassailable right to abortion and gay marriage can't find a right to possession of a firearm."

A BLOG REVIEW OF WALL-E.

IF YOU CRITICIZE MUGABE, you're a racist.

THE AMERICAN NON-EMPIRE. If we were an empire, we'd be acting more like Putin's Russia. And, as a consequence, getting better press. . . .

UPDATE: Related posts here and here, from Eric S. Raymond.

HOWARD KURTZ:

Barack Obama is under hostile fire for changing his position on the D.C. gun ban.

Oh, I'm sorry. He didn't change his position, apparently. He reworded a clumsy statement.

That, at least, is what his campaign is saying. The same campaign that tried to spin his flip-flop in rejecting public financing as embracing the spirit of reform, if not the actual position he had once promised to embrace.

Is this becoming a pattern? Wouldn't it be better for Obama to say he had thought more about such-and-such an issue and simply changed his mind? Is that verboten in American politics? Is it better to engage in linguistic pretzel-twisting in an effort to prove that you didn't change your mind?

Regardless of what you think of the merits of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturning the capital's handgun law, it seems to me we're entitled to a clear position by the presumed Democratic nominee.

Good luck with that. Kurtz even notes that Big Media is covering for Obama:

But even though the earlier Obama quote and the "inartful" comment have been bouncing around the Net for 24 hours, I'm not seeing any reference to them in the morning papers. Most do what the New York Times did: "Mr. Obama, who like Mr. McCain has been on record as supporting the individual-rights view, said the ruling would 'provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.' "

Supporting the individual-rights view? Not in November. . . .

Even the Tribune--the very paper that the Obama camp told he supported the gun ban--makes no reference to the November interview. Instead: "Democrat Barack Obama offered a guarded response Thursday to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's prohibition on handguns and sidestepped providing a view on the 32-year-old local gun ban. Republican rival John McCain's campaign accused him of an 'incredible flip-flop' on gun control."

So McCain accuses Obama of a flip-flop, and the Trib can't check the clips to tell readers whether there's some basis in fact for the charge?

USA Today takes the same tack

The November view is down the memory hole. Apparently you have to go to the blogs to find people who can use Google.

Related: "Obama still doesn't get YouTube, does he?"

HEH:

Over at EU Referendum under the heading "Caught red-handed" there is an instructive YouTube video. It shows a bunch of MEPs showing up at their place of work at quarter to seven in the morning. Exemplary devotion to duty? Well, no. What they are actually doing, suitcases in hand, is signing the attendance register on a Friday morning before heading home for the weekend. Then they will be paid, most lavishly, for working that day.

The cat really lands among the pigeons around 2 minutes 30 seconds in. Watch the MEPs dodge back behind doors as they register the camera's unwelcome presence. Listen to the cries and squeals. "It is not your business!" "Such impertinence!" I did not catch the name of the genial chap who claimed to be about to start work in his constituency before running for the door, but Irish MEP Kathy Sinnott (of, I am sorry to say, the EU-sceptic Independence and Democracy Group) said she had already been at work for seven hours, and Hiltrud Breyer of the German Green Party really ought to look at people when she talks to them.

We bloggers often criticise the mainstream media but I take my hat off to Thomas Meier, the intrepid journalist here. He represents a tradition of - literally - foot-in-the-door reporting that the "colleagues" would like to put an end to if they could. In this case, as soon as they could, they did. The fun ends with Herr Meier being escorted out by seven heavies.

Here's the video.

UPDATE: Okay, actually, despite the praise above this is amateur hour, even if it's being done by professionals. What you do is, you start staking out this space every week. And you have a second (concealed) camera covering what's done to the guy with the open camera. Then -- since the security guards threw out an accredited journalist with a right to be there -- you sue everybody in sight; doesn't matter if you win (though you should) because it's more publicity. And you start tailing the MEPs on Friday to see where they actually are on Fridays after having signed in.

If you're really serious, that is. Note that Big Media folks don't do this much, because they fear the blowback. And bloggers, well . . . we're just getting started at this kind of thing. Give us time.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, in Louisiana . . . .

GALLUP: "When given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today's consumer, Americans overwhelmingly -- by 84% to 13% -- prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans. . . . A separate question finds Americans more likely to believe government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses (50%) as opposed to saying government should do more to solve the country's problems (43%)."

I note that some people think the country has drifted far to the left. This suggests that it hasn't.

THE HELLER DECISION: A victory for gay rights.

CADILLAC TIGHT: How many voters will the Supreme Court's decisions swing? I have to say that more pro-gun folks seem to have been energized by Heller and the follow-on litigation than I expected.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY: "Obama claims he believes the Second Amendment says you can own a gun but that local communities can still opt out of the Constitution. What will he say as his political hometown is sued by the NRA?" Plus, waffles.

M'UTAH FOR NOTHING and chicks for free?

IN THE MAIL: Jerry White's I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis. It's impressively blurbed.

Knoxville, Tennessee. The University's Engineering and Science research building. I post this in response to reader Herschel Smith, who suggested that the beautiful Law School rotunda indicated that the University undervalued engineers relative to lawyers. His specific beef was with the (different) building housing the Nuclear Engineering department -- which I'll admit isn't much of a building -- but I'll note that they have access to some pretty fancy facilities out at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where the University is the prime contractor.

MORE THOUGHTS ON HELLER FROM DAVE KOPEL, with an amusing beer-related title.

ANN ALTHOUSE on Obama's flipflops: "Every single one of those flipflops has been an improvement, in my opinion, so am I supposed to reject Obama for flipflopping? I voted for Obama in the Wisconsin primary in part because I predicted he'd turn out to be flexible and pragmatic. I do agree with Krauthammer that it's funny the way the people who fell for the Obama of the primaries — who, unlike me, actually liked those positions he was taking — are letting him get away with the flipflop. I suppose, just as I convinced myself that the real Obama was not the one I was seeing back then, they are convincing themselves that the real Obama is not the one they are seeing now."

As always with Obama, it's a question of who the rubes really are. It's the power of glamour.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse responds. I wasn't calling her a rube, particularly -- the "who are the rubes?" line has been a running thing with Obama, going back to this post: "When it comes to things like NAFTA, there seem to be only two possibilities. Either Obama's anti-NAFTA talk is a ruse to fool the rubes, or his coterie of distinguished economic experts is a ruse to fool a different batch of rubes."

To expand a bit: Either the people who believed the early-primary left-talk are the rubes, or the people who believe Obama now are the rubes . . . or anyone who thinks Obama has fixed principles at all is a rube. Your call.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From one of Ann's commenters:

I think the meaning of "rube" is similar to a hustler's mark -- someone who believes things they shouldn't because of some externally generated desire to believe. There's an element of conscious deception, too -- a rube is lied to, not misled.

I think the rube factor with Obama comes into play on two issues in particular: NAFTA and the war. On both issues, you get the impression that he's making promises that he not only won't keep, but that he can't keep and shouldn't keep.

Indeed.

Also, I originally read Althouse as calling my statement "gnomic," and was going to protest that I am not, and never have been, an Aorist. But she actually said "gnomish." That works, and demonstrates her deep learning, as Gnomish is a fairly loose language. Hence the need for me to post a clarification.

I LIKE ME! I REALLY LIKE ME!

A COLLECTION OF summer grilling recipes. But grilled Angel Food cake?

NUMBERS:

Question: Did the murder rate really triple under the Washington, DC, gun ban?

Answer: Yes. The murder rate was 26.8 homicides per 100,000 people in 1976, when the ban became law. That would be its lowest rate for the next 30 years. It peaked at 80.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 1991.

Question: What’s the highest the murder rate has been in gun happy West Virginia in that time?

Answer: 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people.

Question: So why did Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post write: “The practical benefits of effective gun control are obvious: If there are fewer guns, there are fewer shootings and fewer funerals. As everyone knows, in the District of Columbia — and in just about every city in the nation, big or small — there are far too many funerals. The handgun is the weapon of choice in keeping the U.S. homicide rate at a level that the rest of the civilized world finds incomprehensible and appalling.”

Answer: Ignorance.

Ouch. The rest of Robinson's piece isn't really so bad, though.

UPDATE: Scott Ott comments on the gun photo accompanying Eugene Robinson's piece: "Whoever's holding that gun needs to get his finger away from the trigger. Perhaps we need to offer handgun safety courses for reporters and photographers. I don't want anyone to get hurt while covering this story. It's funny that the price tag is still on it. I think they wanted their readers to know that the pic was snapped in the store...they didn't actually purchase the weapon. It's a nice looking 1911. WaPo has inspired me to head back to The Golden Trigger (my local shop) to have a look at one of those."

GETTING TOUGH ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, in Europe.

BLUES, BREWS AND BARBECUE: A photo shoot from Rick Lee, plus some D300 advice.

BOSTON GLOBE: Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy. "The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair." And Rezko appears:

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.

Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries.

Chicago politics = hope and change?

June 27, 2008

DICKIE SCRUGGS SENTENCED: Scruggs Gets 5 Years in Prison; Judge Calls Conduct “Reprehensible”.

NEW YORK TIMES: "About that Mortgage, Senator . . ."

It turns out that the chieftain of Countrywide — which is smack in the middle of the mortgage mess — extended privileged borrowing status to two Senators, Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota. Both Senators deny any ethical violations.

The disclosure of the V.I.P. arrangments by the political website Politico.com left constituents angry and suspicious — particularly because the revelations came just as Congress was rousing itself to do something about the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

It would be nice to think that members of Congress did not go into the process with any undue friendships with the mortgage companies.

The Senate ethics committee, normally known for profound silence in the face of members’ scandals, has proposed having more stringent disclosure rules as a part of the chamber’s standing regulations. Currently, home mortgages are exempt from loan disclosure rules. (Why? we’d like to know. Is there something about graft given in the form of a home mortgage that is less corrupting than other forms of graft?)

Indeed. Plus this: Mortgages: Sleaze-o-rama:

More sleaze oozed out of the subprime mortgage mess this month with news that two U.S. senators got sweetheart loans from a giant mortgage company.

One of them, Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., heads the Senate Banking Committee, which gives him heavy clout over mortgage lenders. The other is Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Angelo Mozilo, the controversial chairman of Countrywide Financial, gave both of them loans at low fees and reduced interest rates. . . .

It's difficult to say what is more remarkable about the senators' behavior: the petty venality or the stupidity.

Mr. Conrad was the more crass of the two. While shopping for a loan, he called James Johnson, the former chairman of mortgage giant Fannie Mae and a former top adviser to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Mr. Johnson happened to be with Mr. Mozilo when Mr. Conrad's call came through. Mr. Mozilo got on the line and got the senator's loan application rolling.

Mr. Dodd says he didn't ask for favors from Mr. Mozillo. Maybe so, but the senator knew that Countrywide had placed him in a special program for VIPs. It got him special treatment and an interest rate available only to special customers. Mr. Conrad borrowed more than $1 million, Mr. Dodd more than $775,000.

It also turned out that Mr. Johnson himself got a sweetheart loan from Countrywide. When that fact surfaced, he resigned his position heading Mr. Obama's vice presidential search committee.

Sleaze-o-rama, indeed. And as I've noted before, the real problem isn't so much the mortgages, as the culture of entitlement that made the mortgages seem no big deal.

Heck, even The Socialist Worker sees the problem:

BUT WHILE millions grapple with rising mortgage payments or see their wealth evaporate with falling house prices, members of Congress continue to benefit from favorable treatment by mortgage lenders--the very same lenders who will get a bailout if proposed legislation passes.

The housing bill's key backers in the Senate--Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), head of the Senate Banking Committee, and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who chairs the Senate Budget Committee--both got special deals from the nation's biggest mortgage lender, Countrywide, thanks to their connections with the company's CEO, Angelo Mozilo.

"Dodd, the lead sponsor of the bill, secured no-closing-cost mortgages at interest rates of 4 percent and 4.25 percent, and continues to insist he got no special favors," the Rocky Mountain News reported. Conrad admitted calling Mozilo for help with a discount on a $1 million mortgage for a beach house, but also claims that it was legitimate.

Now Dodd and Conrad are in position to return the favor to the mortgage industry. If the current bill passes the House, Countrywide and other lenders will see U.S. taxpayers assume responsibility for mortgage defaults.

Do tell. Plus, from the Hartford Courant: "Come Clean, Senators."

SHOWING CONTEMPT FOR CONGRESS? I was tryin' to conceal it.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, PEOPLE WOULD BE ARRESTED FOR "OFFENSIVE" YOUTUBE VIDEOS: And they were right! "After seeing a YouTube video made by Andre Moore, Philadelphia police broke down Moore's front door at 6 a.m. yesterday and arrested him for assault. Unlike the case of eight Florida girls who assaulted another girl, however, Moore's video didn't contain evidence of any criminal wrongdoing—unless verbally advocating violence against police constitutes a crime."

HEY, HERE'S A LICENSED GUN DEALER IN D.C.

JAMES TARANTO: "We hope they both lose. But actually, Greenwald has a good point at Olbermann's expense. . . . In our view, Greenwald is wrong. But he is consistent. Olbermann, on the other hand, rails against 'fascism,' then yields to it in the name of political expediency. Obama does the same thing in a more soothing manner."

Plus this: "The Keith Olbermanns of the media world outnumber the Glenn Greenwalds, so when an Obama administration curtails civil liberties (justifiably or not), the outcry will be far more muted than it is now. If civil liberties are your top concern, then, you better vote for John McCain."

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple Computer and iPhone news.

JUSTICE SCALIA'S pro-women's rights position.

A HATFILL WIN: "The DOJ has agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement with former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, whom the government called a 'person of interest' in the 2001 anthrax attacks."

HEH: "OBAMA CLARIFIES POSITION. Is that becoming a familiar headline, or what? I hope someone is compiling them all."

MCCLATCHY: Is Obama Turning Out to be Just Another Politician?

HEH: "What is wrong with the British? Islamists regularly demonstrate in the street promising to behead Jews, Christians and other infidels. No foul, no crime. A man whistles at a girl, it's jail time." It's just a question of who they're afraid of, and who they're not.

WILMETTE, ILLINOIS suspends its handgun ban in response to Heller.

CANADIAN KANGAROO COURT UPDATE: "Human Rights" complaint against Mark Steyn dropped.

But beware: "They know that in going after high profile targets they've bitten off more than they can chew — any action against them would likely stir political action to do away with the commisions altogether. If they drop the complaint against Steyn, the political pressure will simply go away and they're free to continue zealously violating the rights of lesser known individuals and organizations."

DAVID BERNSTEIN:

The Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, upholding the Second Amendment right of individuals to own firearms, should finally lay to rest the widespread myth that the defining difference between liberal and conservative justices is that the former support "individual rights" and "civil liberties," while the latter routinely defer to government assertions of authority. The Heller dissent presents the remarkable spectacle of four liberal Supreme Court justices tying themselves into an intellectual knot to narrow the protections the Bill of Rights provides. Or perhaps it's not as remarkable as we've been led to think.

And making gross errors of fact in the process of the knot-tying.

MORE ON THE JIM COOPER STORY, here and here.

I'VE MENTIONED THE BIG ANTI-AGING CONFERENCE AT UCLA THIS WEEK BEFORE, but now it's underway. Here's a piece in Wired, focusing on researcher Aubrey de Grey.

COOL: Just days after discovering ice on Mars, scientists stumble upon morning dew.

CAR LUST: The Vauxhall VX220 Turbo. "The VX220 is a lightweight giant-killer for both the road and the track, meant to embarrass much more expensive Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Porsches."

RICK MORAN: House GOP Retiring Themselves Into a Permanent Minority.

FOR WHEN CARBON FOOTPRINTS DON'T MATTER: Test-Driving the 2009 Bentley Flying Spur.

MEGAN MCARDLE:

Now the gun controllers pour out of the woodwork to claim that you're more likely to kill yourself or a family member with a gun than a criminal.

Some of the people deploying this statistic really ought to know better.

Some of them do know better, and deploy it anyway. Some related thoughts from Jim Lindgren. "That the New England Journal of Medicine would publish a time-series article that did not account for population changes over roughly a two-decade period is embarrassing, but then peer review seems to suffer when gun control articles are involved." Plus, a Bellesiles story.

BOB ZUBRIN: The Saving Grace in McCain's Energy Policy. "Amidst a pile of campaign nonsense, John McCain just set forth one policy that could save the nation."

RANDY BARNETT: So what gun regulations are reasonable?

DON SURBER: Saving our coasts by ravaging Nigeria. Plus this proposal: "Slap a dollar-a-gallon tax on residents of any coastal state that bans drilling in the Pacific or Atlantic, and give that money to people who live within a mile of a coal-fired power plant."

IN THE MAIL: Neal Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion: A Novel of the Polity.

Knoxville, Tennessee. A detail from the East side of Neyland Stadium.

ORIN KERR on Justice Breyer and the culture wars.

"YEAH, I DON'T DO COWERING."

"So let's see - Obama's FISA flip-flop was not cowering it was, uhh, tacking to the bipartisan center!"

A MCCAIN-CORKER TICKET?

ZIMBABWE UPDATE: Robert Mugabe Runs For President Unopposed.

POLICE HARASSING a Belfast blogger?

YOU WON! NOW WHAT? I've got a column on the Heller decision in today's Post.

SANDY LEVINSON: Some Preliminary Reflections on Heller. " What is especially ironic is that the strongest support for Scalia’s position comes from acknowledging that the Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, has been 'dynamically' interpreted and has taken on some quite different meanings from those it originally had. Whatever might have been the case in 1787 with regard the linkage of guns to service in militias—and the historical record is far more mixed on this point than either Scalia or Stevens is willing to acknowledge—there can be almost no doubt that by the mid-19th century, an individual right to bear arms was widely accepted as a basic attribute of American citizenship. One of the reasons that the Court in Dred Scott denied that blacks could be citizens was precisely that Chief Justice Taney recognized that citizens could carry guns, and it was basically unthinkable that blacks could do so."

LONDON TIMES: Cheer up. We're winning this War on Terror.

And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: “Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!”

Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years.

Read the whole thing.

IS THE AXIS OF EVIL DOWN TO ONE? "In a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program, North Korea blew up the most visible symbol of its plutonium production Friday, South Korean media reported from the site. The 60-foot cooling tower at the North’s main nuclear power plant was demolished on Friday, as promised by the North Korean government. The collapse of the concrete structure, the most conspicuous part of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, bore witness to the incremental progress that has been made in American-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs."

I'VE SAID BEFORE THAT BOBBY JINDAL ISN'T READY to run on a national ticket. Here's some supporting evidence.

MORE ON HELLER: "WASHINGTON will become a safer place to live and work, thanks to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling against DC's absolute ban on handguns. The court ruled that the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms is an individual right, striking down one of the nation's toughest anti-gun laws. As someone who lived in DC when it imposed its ban 32 years ago, I say it's about time."

UPDATE: More thoughts from Randy Barnett in the Wall Street Journal. Title: "News Flash: The Constitution Means What It Says."

AT REASON, a panel discussion on Heller, including yours truly along with many more eminent folks.

UPDATE: More reactions here.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Guns Are A Feminist Issue: "I'm hardly the first person to make this observation, but I don't know why it isn't noted more often: guns are the only weapon that equalizes strength between attacker and attacked. It's the only time when men's greater speed, strength, and longer reach make no difference; if you pull the trigger first, you win. This is an enormous social advance."

MICHAEL TOTTEN: How Kosovo Created Its Own Liberal Islam.

ILYA SOMIN: Lessons for gun rights supporters from the property-rights experience.

June 26, 2008

WHAT'S COMING POST-HELLER: "On the heels of the Supreme Court ruling, the NRA and other groups prepare to challenge gun laws in California and other states."

TENNESSEE CONGRESSMAN UNDER INVESTIGATION: "Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper is under FBI investigation on charges of unauthorized entrance to a cooperative electric trade group's website. That is a rather interesting way of gathering information for congressional hearings."

UPDATE: Note the defenses of Cooper in the comments.

JIM LINDGREN ON THE DEATH PENALTY AND CHILD RAPE:

Yet the Court shouldn’t talk about following a “national consensus” on an issue on which in 1997 only 31% of the American public agreed with the Court and 65% of the public opposed the Court’s view. The justices should admit that they follow ELITE opinion, not the views and morality of the ordinary public. If they can't go that far, they should at least stop preaching to us about a “national consensus” that is little more than a fig leaf for their own (often quite reasonable) policy preferences.

Indeed. Or we should go whole-hog and just start electing Supreme Court Justices. Then they'd actually have the democratic legitimacy they're claiming with talk of consensus.

TOM MAGUIRE: Score one for David Brooks.

SAYUNCLE ON HELLER: "5-4 was bit too close for comfort in my opinion. I was figuring on 6-3 or 7-2, honestly. Sure, this quiz was pass/fail but we were only one heart attack away, my friends. I hate to say it but that one reason is why I’ll hold my nose, get good and hammered, and pull the lever for John McCain."

GLENN GREENWALD DISCOVERS SOMETHING ABOUT KEITH OLBERMANN that the rest of us already knew. "Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed. . . . What's much more notable is Olbermann's full-scale reversal on how he talks about these measures now that Obama -- rather than George Bush -- supports them." Do tell. It's as if Olbermann were some sort of dishonest hack or something.

UPDATE: Don Surber:

It’s the Trotskyites vs. the Stalinists.

Like Olbermann, my money is on Stalinists.

I do believe he's right about Olbermann.

MORE THOUGHTS ON HELLER, from Prof. Mike O'Shea. "The imposition by the U.S. government of a U.K.-style system of sweeping gun bans and prohibitions on armed self-defense is now off the table. Such laws are a violation of the U.S. Constitution." Actually, they always were.

HELPFULLY POINTING DAVID ADDINGTON OUT TO Al Qaeda Terrorists. Reader C.J. Burch emails: "If this isn't in a Republican television spot pronto the Republicans deserve to be run out of poltics and replaced with a living party." Don't hold your breath, C.J.

THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG: A lawsuit against Chicago's gun control ordinance is filed. PDF of complaint here. (Via NewsAlert).

MCCLATCHY: Will Obama's shifting stances undermine his true-blue image?

IS YAHOO! manipulating bloggers?

JIM LINDGREN: "I have been reading Justice Breyer’s dissent in Heller. I suspect that it may go down in history as one of the strongest arguments AGAINST balancing tests."

GROTESQUE FACTUAL ERRORS IN STEVENS' HELLER DISSENT: I noted this in an update below, but it deserves its own post. Really, amazingly shoddy work. Did the dissenters -- or their clerks -- even read the things they cited?

KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN: Now out in download and DVD. But is this exclusive arrangement a harbinger of things to come?

ERIC S. RAYMOND is blogging again.

SAYING GOODBYE to the White Lily Flour Company.

WHAT WHITE PEOPLE LIKE: Comparing people to Hitler. "Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation- especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler."

AN OLYMPIC CRACKDOWN in Beijing.

THIS IS CHARMING: "While the subprime mortgage crisis roils the market, a profusion of anti-Semitic rhetoric has exploded against companies like Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers Holdings on online message boards maintained by Yahoo."

SPEAKING OF A SUPREME COURT THAT LOOKS LIKE AMERICA, Dahlia Lithwick offers this:

Anybody who believes the current Supreme Court looks like America needs to take a few more trips on a Greyhound bus. All the judges are white and/or old; most are both.

Clarence Thomas is white? Who knew?

UPDATE: Reader Tim Hartley emails:

I'm guessing her original sentence said "All the judges are white or old; most are both." That's not only better writing (I thought only engineers used the "and/or" circumlocution) but also correct, depending on whether you require people to be eligible for AARP or Social Security before declaring them old (Justice Thomas turned 60 earlier this week).

If you agree that "and/or" really does mean "one or both", the second clause is redundant, but that doesn't make the first any less correct.

Clarence Thomas isn't "old" by any reasonable definition. He could probably kick my ass, and Barack Obama's, simultaneously. And I'm just one year older than Barack Obama, who is very, very young and dynamic, according to the press . . . .

Meanwhile, Steve Hartley emails: "Anyone who believes that those riding a Greyhound Bus constitute an accurate representation of America’s demographics is simply an idiot."

And Ken Wheaton emails, "I don't know... last time I took a greyhound there were lots of old people on it."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kyle Kveton writes:

Two questions:
1. In Dalia Lithwick's world, is there only a 13 year difference between young (Sen. Obama is almost 47) and old (60 year old Justice Thomas)?

2. Is the Greyhound bus of which she speaks the same one under which all of Sen. O's friends, pastors and advisors are thrown?

PS-- Please remind Ms. Lithwick we refer to the members of the Supreme Court as Justices, not judges (damn layers of fact checkers must have been out at an Obama rally when her piece went to press).

That would explain it.

WAFFLES: Obama backpedals on statement that D.C. gun ban was constitutional. I blame the staff!

PURE EXCITEMENT: Marcus Samuelsson Cookware Throwdown.

IF WE HAD "A SUPREME COURT THAT LOOKS LIKE AMERICA," Heller would have been 7-2:

The Supreme Court's ruling on Thursday that a District of Columbia ban on handgun ownership is unconstitutional appears to be solidly in step with public opinion. A clear majority of the U.S. public — 73% — believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns. And almost 7 out of 10 Americans are opposed to a law that would make the possession of a handgun illegal, except by the police.

Or at least 6-3. Obviously, we need more diversity on the bench.

DAVE KOPEL: The spirit of liberty that animates the Second Amendment has survived today's narrow decision in D.C. v. Heller.

KNOXVILLE: "A great place to do nothing!"

ITUNES STANDS UP AGAINST weapons of mass destruction. Maybe this is why the North Koreans caved!

SETTING LAND SPEED RECORDS with the British Steam Car.

ALAN MORRISON:

Based on a quick reading, the most shocking aspect of Justice Scalia’s opinion is his dismissal of those who read the Court’s 1939 decision in Miller as supporting a militia-related reading of the Second Amendment: "Miller did not hold that and cannot possibly be read to have held that” (p.49) even though many judges and scholars read it precisely that way.

Actually, I think Scalia is on pretty solid ground here, and I'm not sure that most of the people expressing the contrary view have actually read Miller.

UPDATE: Reader Jesse Michael emails:

As someone pointed out on David Hardy's blog (http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2008/06/stevens_dissent.php), that could extend to the four dissenting Justices themselves.

On page 2 of Stevens' dissent, when referring to US v Miller and the National Firearms Act, he leads off with:

"Upholding a conviction under that Act, this Court held that..."

Of course, Miller was never convicted and US v. Miller certainly didn't uphold any convictions. That's just factually invalid.

How did Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer all miss that when US v Miller is the core precedent that the dissent was based on?

That's right. Plus an embarrassing mistake about the origins of the National Guard. Amazingly shoddy work.

WELL, I WAS WRONG: I was one of many skeptics regarding Bob Levy's efforts to bring the D.C. gun ban case. I didn't think an individual-rights Second Amendment majority could be found on the Court yet. I was wrong, and he was right. And I'm glad!

I'M SKEPTICAL: "Householders will be warned today to expect five years of higher home energy bills to pay for a green power revolution." Not that it can't be done. I just doubt that it can be done by the British government. I hope I'm wrong.

POLITICAL INSIDER: Supreme Court Makes Guns a Non-Issue. That's mostly right. Certainly Obama's record of strong support for sweeping gun control would hurt him a lot more in a climate where gun owners felt more threatened.

The full opinion, by the way, is here. And some breakout quotes from the opinion here.

UPDATE: What's going on in D.C.

And Megan McArdle comments:

It's a little sobering to reflect what this decision might have looked like if Michael Bellesiles' work hadn't been so humiliatingly and thoroughly unmasked as a fraud. As it is, the dissenters apparently argue that this is overweening judicial activism, even though everything I know and have read about the crafting of the amendment makes a collective right interpretation pretty untenable.

Plus, much more over at The Volokh Conspiracy, where server problems seem to be under control now.

ALAN BOYLE: Black holes for beginners.

TOM GOLDSTEIN ON HELLER:

Individuals have a constitutional right to possess a basic firearm (the line drawn is unclear, but does not extend to automatic weapons) and to use it in self-defense. The government can prohibit possession of firearms by, for example, felons and the mentally ill. And it can also regulate the sale of firearms, presumably through background checks.

The opinion leaves open the question whether the Second Amendment is incorporated against the States, but strongly suggests it is. So today’s ruling likely applies equally to State regulation.

I'm just on a quick break. I'll read the opinion -- all 157 pages -- and comment later.

UPDATE: Bob Owens notes some less thoughtful commentary.

IN THE MAIL: Greg Egan's long-awaited Incandescence.

And, by the way, a lot of folks wanted to know how I liked S.M. Stirling's The Scourge of God. I liked it quite a lot -- it's consistent with the earlier Change books, which have all been good -- though it's an intermediate work in the storyline, kind of a Two Towers if you will.

Knoxville, Tennessee.

I'M TEACHING A BAR REVIEW CLASS THIS MORNING, but ScotusBlog will be covering the Supreme Court's opinions, including the eagerly awaited Heller ruling. Meanwhile, by way of background: Here's a brief piece on the case I wrote a while ago. And here's a lengthier Second Amendment primer.

I expect that there will be a lot of discussion over at The Volokh Conspiracy as soon as the opinion is out, too. I'll add my bit later, when I'm done lecturing on the Tennessee Constitution. Which, by the way, provides many useful insights into how the Second Amendment analysis ought to be done. Did the Supreme Court get things right? We'll know soon enough! Er, well, you'll probably know a bit before I do, today. . . .

HAVING TROUBLE attracting engineers to military programs? Apparently, the pay's too low, the timelines are too long, and the bureaucracy is too high.

WAY BEYOND ETHANOL: A look at the future of biofuels. "The key to the next generation of biofuels isn't growing in a field; it's mutating in a lab. By swapping natural genes in yeast and bacteria for synthetic ones, scientists have tricked the microbes into producing hydrocarbons—creating, in essence, billions of tiny refineries to turn simple sugars into environmentally friendly diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and biocrude." Bring it on.

WHY MARS IS LOPSIDED: "The lopsided shape of Mars may well be a result of a cataclysmic impact of a Pluto-size meteor billions of years ago, three teams of scientists are reporting. That would suggest that the lowlands of Mars’s northern hemisphere are a single gigantic impact crater, the largest crater in the solar system."

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS with an online telethon. Check it out.

SHERMAN MCCOY, eat your heart out.

ILYA SOMIN on women and science fiction.

JON STEWART: Enemy of the State.

Tom Maguire has more.

AIRBRUSHED!

AXIS OF EVIL -- TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO? Pyongyang Submits Nuclear Declaration; U.S. to Lift Some Trade Sanctions, Remove North Korea from Terror List. Stay tuned.

SUBPRIME SIX UPDATE: IN THE HARTFORD COURANT: Dodd Deserves Financial Scrutiny.

And in the Grand Forks Herald: Conrad still has questions to answer. Local media continue their preeminent role in this scandal, though the national media are starting to catch up.

NINA TOTENBERG'S INEXCUSABLE IGNORANCE: Just heard her doing a bit on Heller in which she said that the Supreme Court has always construed the Second Amendment as a collective right. That's just plain false, and at this stage she should really know better.

WIRELESS INTERNET in new Chrysler cars? Works for me. Various idiots are against the idea, but, well, they're idiots. I already have Internet in my cars thanks to EVDO.

JERRY POURNELLE: "Obama says McCain was silly to offer his prize. Kennedy didn't offer a prize. He built NASA and had the government spend $30 billion dollars. I don't know what would have happened had Kennedy instead offered $15 billion tax free to the first American to land on the Moon and return, but had he done that it might have worked out better than NASA: we might not have built an enormous standing army of development scientists who conceived Shuttle as full employment insurance. . . . Government can try to influence the future, and should, but government often mucks things up. Prizes and X Projects are ways that have been effective in the past. Of the two, prizes have the least effect on everything else: they don't build bureaucracies, and nothing is paid unless the technology is developed and demonstrated."

Prizes, of course, played a very important role in the development of aviation, something of which Obama's speechwriters are probably ignorant. They might find some useful information here, and here.

UPDATE: More on prizes here.

GETTIN' SWEATY WITH Jennifer Love Hewitt.

NO PEACE IN LEBANON: More from Michael Totten.

DOG BITES MAN: "A European charity organization, Save The Children UK, accused humanitarian aid workers and UN peacekeepers of sexually abusing and sexual trafficking children in several war-torn and food-poor nations."

MORALITY AS A LUXURY GOOD: That's a subject that Megan McArdle has been writing about, and it also comes up in this review (from Nature) of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's novel Lucifer's Hammer. "The authors' main theme is that, comet or no, a civilization has the morality its machinery allows it to afford."

That, of course, is why prosperity and progress have strong moral components, though hairshirt types often treat both as mere self-indulgence.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE to our beautiful narrative?

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY: "If Obama wants energy independence through alternative fuels, why doesn't he back imported sugar-based ethanol?"

They say it's because he's in the pocket of Archer Daniels Midland, et al. "ADM is based in Illinois, the second-largest corn-producing state. Not long after arriving in the U.S. Senate, Obama flew twice on corporate jets owned by the nation's largest ethanol producer. Imagine if McCain flew on the corporate jets of Exxon Mobil."

June 25, 2008

SUBPRIME SIX UPDATE: Winners, Losers, and "Friends."

Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Kent Conrad of North Dakota still rank high in the loser category. They had to admit that they received special treatment on mortgage loans from Countrywide. They insist they had no idea they got a break—everybody else in the country is saying, "gimme a break." Conrad is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. They are two very powerful senators whose committees have jurisdiction over Countrywide’s business. It turns out they were also "Friends of Angelo," as revealed by Conde Nast Portfolio Magazine. That’s Angelo as in Angelo Mozilo, chairman and CEO of Countrywide.

It’s a pretty seedy story: When Conrad was looking to buy his Delaware beach house in 2002, he called his good friend, former Fannie Mae CEO James Johnson, Conde Nast reported. Mozilo happened to be in Johnson’s office and Johnson handed the phone to him. Countrywide financed the beach house and, later, an investment property of Conrad’s. Mozilo instructed a subordinate via email to "(T)ake off 1 point" and in another email wrote, "Make an exception due to the fact that the borrower is a senator." Dodd never spoke directly to Mozilo, but Dodd was aware that his two Countrywide mortgages were in a "VIP section." Dodd says he assumed that was just some kind of "courtesy." The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating.

Incidentally, Johnson is the same guy who was briefly tasked by Obama to vet potential running mates. Johnson stepped aside when it was revealed that he had received preferential loans from Countrywide.

As of this writing, 17 senators still haven’t responded to Politico.com’s request for information on their mortgages.

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, here's a followup from Portfolio Magazine.

Plus, Angelo's Ashes: "Countrywide Financial is becoming more of an embarrassment for Bank of America just days before it completes a takeover of the mortgage lender. At the same time, the Senate is pushing ahead with sweeping legislation on housing while facing questions about why some of its members received below-market-rate mortgages from Countrywide."

UPDATE: Bill Allison notes that Bank of America wrote the bailout bill, but observes: "Given that Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., doesn’t know what the interest rates are, it’s probably better that he’s not writing the bills anyway." Contra Allison, however, I did note this the other day.

JEEZ, I'M WATCHING BILL O'REILLY TALK ABOUT OIL "SPECULATORS" and he's making a fool of himself. He absolutely doesn't understand futures markets.

CANADIAN PUSHBACK on the anti-oil-sands talk:

Pander to voters at peril, U.S. told
Canada's energy sector may look for new markets

Big-city U. S. mayors and presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who joined the parade this week of ill-informed, U. S. anti-oil sands policies, should be careful what they wish for.

While the aim is undoubtedly to pander to the electorate in an election year charged with oil and climate-change debate, what they are stoking is an increasingly angry Canadian energy industry that is seriously looking at non-U. S. markets for its oil.

I thought Obama was going to repair our relations with our allies, not ruin them.

ANOTHER NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE scandal.

A HELLER POLL over at Volokh. Meanwhile, by way of background: Here's a brief piece on the case I wrote a while ago. And here's a lengthier Second Amendment primer.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: What if nobody recognized Robert Mugabe?

Well, he's been stripped of his knighthood, which means that Queen Elizabeth has done more than the U.N. and the "human rights" community.

ZIMBABWE UPDATE: "As Zimbabwe’s neighbors urged it to postpone this week’s presidential runoff, hundreds of beaten, newly homeless Zimbabweans gathered Wednesday outside the South African Embassy here in a desperate bid for help during the electoral crisis."

DISPROPORTIONATE? What Patrick Kennedy actually did.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: How to put the heat on Mugabe.