Centerfield

4th of July Weekend Open Thread

The floor is open.

Unity 08 Button

I've added a button on the right linking to the Unity 08 Declaration of Independence. Unity08 is trying to get 10,000 signatures to their simple statement by the end of next week. Please check it out. You don't have to be a registered Independent to sign. You just need to be someone disgusted with partisan politics.

A Whine Too Far

In Nashua, New Hampshire, a man installs a security video camera system purchased at Wal-Mart on his own property as a crime safeguard. He's not a model citizen, nor are his children, but his home has been broken into and he has been assaulted in the past by home invaders. He posts notices on the property that it's under video sureillance.

Then one day..a police detective comes by to question his son, a suspect in a robbery. The homeowner does not want to cooperate, the police "secure" the home for eight hours while waiting for a warrant, the sons are arrested, the man tells the police to smile, they're on camera, much hilarity ensues. After the dust settles and the police go away, the man fetches the tape out of the system and takes it to the police, and tries to file a harrasment complaint. And....

Man charged after videotaping police

Michael Gannon, 49, of 26 Morgan St., was arrested Tuesday night, after he brought a video to the police station to try to file a complaint against Detective Andrew Karlis, according to Gannon’s wife, Janet Gannon, and police reports filed in Nashua District Court.

Police instead arrested Gannon, charging him with two felony counts of violating state eavesdropping and wiretap law by using an electronic device to record Karlis without the detective’s consent.

The state motto of New Hampshire? "Live Free or Die."

Janet Gannon said the family plans to hire a lawyer, and expects to sue the police department.

I'll bet.

Democracy...

...continues to progress in the Middle East.

Women Vote in Kuwait for the First Time

With women making up 57 percent of Kuwait's electorate of 340,000, even fundamentalist Muslims who opposed giving them the right to vote have campaigned for their support.

57 percent. Who's in charge? Let's hope their neighbors take note.

Lieberman

Dick Morris.

Keeping Joseph Lieberman in the United States Senate is clearly in the national interest. One of the most ethical, sincere, thoughtful and balanced of senators, he stands as a monument to nonpartisan common sense in an increasingly shrill and polarized partisan environment.

But he is in the process of committing suicide. By insisting on running in Connecticut’s Democratic primary against anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, he is in a fight he won’t win and, in the process, destroying his chances in the general election, which he can win. . . .

The right dominates the GOP nominating process just as surely as the left controls that of the Democrats. This is no place for a centrist to thrive. . . .

This column is a plea to the senator: Don’t let hubris, overconfidence, unfounded optimism or even muddled confusion lead you to your death in the Democratic primary. We need you too much in Washington.

Discuss. (I will add my two cents in the comments.)

NY Times Did The Right Thing

I think the Times was right to publish. I finally got around to reading the article, and allow me quote the significant bit for me:

The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

Rafique, you were wrong. Allow me to repeat, NO WARRANTS.

IMHO, publishing Constitution-pushing activities is a vital press activity and protection against tyranny. I was also very glad the Times published the NSA look-at-ALL-the-phone-records program. People have attacked the Times for feeling themselves to be special, but I will similarly support bloggers doing the same thing.

This certainly does reveal some new information on methods to Al-Qaeda. But how much? It has to already by utterly crystal clear to Al-Qaeda's leadership that they can't trust international banks. First, Bush was going on in his first term about getting international bank transactions about terrorist organizations. Second, Al-Qaeda has been deglobalized, you can tell from the reduced scope of their acts. That would only be possible if the banks were effectively unavailable to them. Their understanding of this must be written clearly in their frustration at their reduced scope and power.

Between that, the length of time it's been going on, and the fact that hot war is over, I'm pretty close to unbothered about the negative consequences of the revelations. Judging from the non-rage at the WSJ, plenty of ragers aren't bothered by that, either.

To give them credit, the Administration does seem to have eventually established appropriate controls (though only at SWIFT's insistence). I supported questionable activities while a hot war was active. But, in the cessation of that hot war, is it still appropriate for this to go on wihout judicial oversight? I think not. Currently, the WoT seems more like the Cold War to me than an active hot war.

It seems to me the program would work just as well revamped with judicial oversight. In fact, it'd work better because that'd go far to keep SWIFT from leaving the program. I'd support it in that form, but think it's wrong now.

Clear justice

This is from the redistricting case decided by the Supreme Court today:

KENNEDY, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts II–A and III, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, GINSBURG, AND BREYER, JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts I and IV, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts II–B and II–C, and an opinion with respect to Part II–D, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BREYER, J., joined as to Parts I and II. SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. ROBERTS, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part, in which ALITO, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which THOMAS, J., joined, and in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined as to Part III.

I'm so glad they cleared everything up.

34 People Who Get It

Here are the 34 sensible senators who understand that the right to free speech means you have to leave ALL the idea balls in the tank. It's thw worst alternative except for all the others. I'm very proud to note that, whatever their other flaws, both MA senators voted no on the flag-burning amendment. RI, CT, and VT also went 2 for 2. You can thank New England for your undiminished free speech rights today. Special hat tip to O' Connell and Bennett, who must have drawn the short straws. If your mileage varies, feel free to waive your idiot flag and use the list to make a map of the unpatriotic states. Same time next year? Mark your calendars now, so you can get a good seat. ROTFL.

Herewith:

Akaka, D-Hawaii
Bennett, R-Utah
Biden, D-Delaware
Bingaman, D-New Mexico
Boxer, D-California
Byrd, D-West Virginia
Cantwell, D-Washington
Carper, D-Delaware
Chafee, R-Rhode Island
Clinton, D-New York
Conrad, D-North Dakota
Dodd, D-Connecticut
Dorgan, D-North Dakota
Durbin, D-Illinois
Feingold, D-Wisconsin
Harkin, D-Iowa
Inouye, D-Hawaii
Jeffords, I-Vermont
Kennedy, D-Massachusetts
Kerry, D-Massachusetts
Kohl, D-Wisconsin
Lautenberg, D-New Jersey
Leahy, D-Vermont
Levin, D-Michigan
Lieberman, D-Connecticut
McConnell, R-Kentucky
Mikulski, D-Maryland
Murray, D-Washington
Obama, D-Illinois
Pryor, D-Arkansas
Reed, D-Rhode Island
Sarbanes, D-Maryland
Schumer, D-New York
Wyden, D-Oregon

Update: Supposing a law eventually gets passed, what would the ramifications be for southern fashion and patriotism? If you make a dress from a flag, is that desecration? Only if you use an actual flag? Hmm... .

On The Hubris of Bill Keller

Glenn Reynolds has a great piece on the naked hubris of NYT editor, Bill Keller. In his rather imperious defense of the paper's publishing of theterrorist bank records story, his essentially argues that the press has been granted a special privilege by the Founders to be the singular caretaker of the duty of informing the public. Reynolds schools Keller:

A deeper error is Keller's characterization of freedom of the press as an institutional privilege, an error that is a manifestation of the hubris that has marked the NYT of late. Keller writes: "It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. . . . The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly."

The founders gave freedom of the press to the people, they didn't give freedom to the press. Keller positions himself as some sort of Constitutional High Priest, when in fact the "freedom of the press" the Framers described was also called "freedom in the use of the press." It's the freedom to publish, a freedom that belongs to everyone in equal portions, not a special privilege for the media industry. (A bit more on this topic can be found here.)

The fact is, it seems that Keller sees himself, and the press in general, as a separate entity, above the people, with special rights that supercede their civic duty. They've forgotten that they are ordinary citizens like the rest of us, and that they have the same responsibilities that we all do. Many point out that the Bush Administration often has an imperial mindset about how it conducts things. There's a whole lot of truth to that. The thing is, the Times, and many in the press are no different, and in this case, it was the Times that allowed their arrogance to hurt the public interest they profess to uphold.

Criticism or Bigotry

Cathy Young asks When does criticism of Islam devolve into bigotry?

Words like Islamophobia and phrases like anti-Muslim bigotry are bandied about too liberally, often applied to those who merely criticize fanatical Islamic radicalism or point out the deep-seated problems in much of Muslim culture today. But the real thing does exist, and it frequently takes the cover of anti-jihadism.

...

Is Islam inherently more intolerant and violent than other faiths? That’s a complex question that many scholars, and many Muslim reformers, have grappled with for years. Because of the historical circumstances in which Islam emerged, its scriptures include many passages mandating armed struggle against “unbelievers,” ostensibly in response to oppression or persecution of Muslims. Other parts of the Koran, however, explicitly discourage aggression and counsel moderation in the struggle.

The truth is that the canonical texts of every major religion are full of contradictory statements that can be cherry-picked for a variety of messages. The Bible contains expressions of intolerance, from divine commands for conquest and genocide to the mandate of death for anyone who tries to lead a Jew astray from the worship of the one true God. The Gospel of John literally demonizes Jews who do not accept Jesus as children of Satan, and while the gospels promote peaceful evangelizing, Christian doctrine for centuries mandated Christian rule by force.

...

This is not to say that there is no trouble with Islam today. By and large, it has not adjusted to modernity as well as the other major faiths. All religions have their fundamentalists and extremists, but as the Muslim reformer and feminist Irshad Manji has pointed out, it is only in Islam today that the fundamentalist, extremist strain is a large part of the mainstream. At its fanatical worst, this extremism can turn to deadly violence. Even in milder forms, its misogyny and rejection of pluralism make it incompatible with a liberal society.

But Islamic culture is not monolithic.
...

Like all the smart people say, read the whole thing. You'll be glad you did. Cathy Young continues to be one of the finest and best-reasoned editorial thinkers of our generation.

Why should the Government Care About Marriage?

We've periodically discussed the topic of Marriage, or better put Gay Marriage. I've tried to lay low because its seems like such a divesive topic. My only recurrent point has been to ask "What's the Government's interest in sanctioning any form of marriage?". Well thanks to the blog The Gruntled Center (an interesting "centrist blog" that's more interested in family and community issues and comes at them from a centrist political AND religious viewpoint) I came across this.

I found this academic statement of principles regarding the Public Good of marriage very interesting reading. Now, when I got to the gay marriage part I thought "Will anyone digest/discuss this thoughtful piece once they see the fairly clear statement against gay marriage?" Furthermore, I wondered whether once folks Googled The Witherspoon Institute would they assume "its just another conservative Christian-sponsored organization". Please read the whole thing. I'd be very interested in what political centrists think about this document and the principles it puts forth.

User-Friendly Linux: Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu is interesting because, IMHO, it's the best of and simultaneously a good representative of an important new generation of Linux distributions. So what's so great about it? Well, it's the first good desktop Linux distribution. Until now, Linux has been really mostly good for back-room servers and programmers.

I use Linux because I'm an old Unix user, and Unix comand line shells both are what I started out with and what best fill my needs and align with my way of thinking. My idea of the perfect GUI is one that gives lots of onscreen shells, a nice big text editor (text editor, not a word processor - I write programs, email, and this blog entry all in unformatted text). But I understand that I'm a minority. Even the programming world is split between shell and GUI users. The non-programming world largely wants more graphical support from their OS interfaces.

Ubuntu has the things an inexperienced user needs. The installer is friendly, it automatically installs to user-friendly and secure defaults, presenting a GUI called Gnome by default. Maybe best of all, it includes for free an item you have to shell out hundreds for to get from MS: an office suite called OpenOffice. It seems about at a level with Office to me; each has different features and bugs.

This is a serious competitive challenge for Microsoft. MS has had little competition on the desktop front. As recently as five years ago, I would'n't have entertained the idea of handing an unsophisticated computer-using friend a copy of Linux. That's all over now. Already, plenty of big organizations are using Linux for desktops. Others are at least using the real existence of competition to get good deals from MS. Now, MS will continue to enjoy the structural advantage of Windows being shipped with most PCs, so I don't expect them to vanish and blow away. I do expect desktop users to benefit alot more from competition than in the past.

You can try it yourself. You can see if it works for you and your machine by downloading an image of Ubuntu Linux, burning it to CD or DVD, and rebooting with it. Unlike Windows and earlier Linuces, there's a good way to try it out without your disk being reformatted - the LiveCD. These are deeply cool. LiveCDs boot entirely off CD or DVD, and let you immediately do stuff without installing the OS on hard disk at all. They're handy for recovering things when the OS goes bad, or for trying out an OS without the commitment of installing. Then, if you like what you see, you can also use it to install for real.

An Excess of Zeal?

I'm sure you all know about the bruhaha over the NYT publishing a story on a classified Treasury Department plan to thwart terror funding, that was leaked to them by government officials. I've always believed that the press has the right, even the moral duty, the act as a check on government power, and keep the public informed, when they need to be informed, even in wartime. With this, on the other hand, I'm left wondering why they would release this. This isn't the NSA wiretapping story. This isn't Abu Ghraib. This is a terror-fighting tool that is unquestionably legal (they have warrants), and looks to have really worked. Now, it appears that the program may have been blown. The obvious question is, why publish it? What's the public interest?

Now I'm not one to in any way advocate prosecuting journalists for these sorts of things. Legally, the New York Times has done nothing wrong. The same cannot be said of those government employees who leaked classified info. I reject the idea that the press should be somehow suppressed, because as I've said, that undermines the rights of the free press. We don't want to go down that path. I'm left wondering what the Times' motivations are, besides the "public's right to know," and disdain for Bush.

For some, the answer is crudely simple. The NYT has sides with the enemy. I reject that in its entirety. The press generally believes in their role as a check on government abuse. If illegal or possibly illegal things are being done, let justice be done though the Heavens fall, they say. In most cases this is a good thing, but in wartime especially, we need a free and responsible press. Let me be clear:I don't think the NYT, or the press in general has somehow allied themselves with the terrorists. The problem is, they often see themselves as journalists above all else. The public's right to know, as they see it, trumps civic responsibility. If a plan to fight terrorists that works is undermined, so be it. Let's also not forget that Bush isn't really counted as an ally in that realm, and in many cases he's an outright foe. We all know how Bush Derangment Syndrome does a number on rational thought, like all ideological pathologies.

It seems to me that many journalists are so committed to the profession and the institution, that it becomes almost a religious commitment. The fact that a successful anti-terror tool has been compromised is not considered. The fact that this program is 100 percent legal is irrelevant to them. Their excess of zeal, often mixed with established biases, lead to these things happening. Honestly, I could defend a lot of the other stories on principle, particularly the wiretapping story, but this makes no sense. The public interest is undermined, because things that should be secret are now known, and thus compromised. All this being said, I still defend the press' right to inform. While I wish that many in the press would look beyond their zeal for being journalists, and anti-Bush zeal, and consider the effects their reporting might have on the country that buys their papers, any such cure for this problem would be worse than the disease.

While I don't think that it was necessarily the Times' intent to aid the terrorists, that doesn't change the fact that they may very well have.

Kos Learns About Coalitions?

Kos says something I actually agree with. Wanna maximize your personal freedom? Vote Democrat.

In fact, we offer more real freedom and choice than at least one prominent former libertarian would: Ron Paul came out for the gay marriage amendment, and is anti-choice on abortion.

Perry de Havilland disagrees on Samizdata, but I think he misses an important point. He says:

And there you have one of the classical error of the left: the idea that corporations have great power to coerce in and of themselves. . . . Large corporations can coerce people because they can manipulate excessively mighty state power.

That theory fails to explain Microsoft, because before the 90s antitrust trial, MS stayed far from DC, but yet, somehow, they succeeded in effectively limiting consumer choice. Even now, they still accomplish this by keeping a grip on all big PC suppliers. When MS has had to worry about competition, they treated customers much better than at present.

This is an interesting evolution for Kos, as it seems to me like an attempt to reach out to us centrists than another blast against the GOP. Is he finally starting to care about winning a bit?

Al-Queystone Cops?

Knucklehead Terrorist Wannabees Nabbed in Florida

A federal indictment against seven men revealed Friday details of what the government said was a terrorists' plan to "kill all the devils we can," including blowing up Chicago's Sears Tower.

But the federal grand jury indictment also painted a picture of a group that had no weapons or other supplies for their alleged "jihad," that was intended to be "as good or greater than 9/11."

...

However, senior federal sources told CNN, "These people were not related to al Qaeda." When asked whether they were al Qaeda wannabes, he replied, "possibly."

...

No weapons or bomb-making materials were found in the raids, conducted Thursday in the Miami area. One targeted a warehouse in a Liberty City housing project, law enforcement officials said.

This story makes me fear the possibility of domestic islamic terrorism LESS. Yes, we must remain vigilant. But there's nothing wrong with being a little heartened by what the years since 9/11 have told us about just how substantive a threat domestic islamic terrorism is.

IMO, there's some reason to think that there really just aren't many determined, clever islamic fundamentalists who are living on American soil and have the means and the ability to wage jihad. Or if we do have many such folk, then they are very, very stealthy and very, very patient. I realize mileage varies on this. Just my $.02.

Friday Open Thread

Brought to you by TimeWarp^[tm] technology!

Why John Kerry is Wrong on Setting an Iraq Deadline

I have never been a fan of Senator John Kerry. I regarded his nomination in 2004 as the great Massachusetts Mistake, and was not surprised when he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against a president who was woefully unpopular at the time. All throughout 2004, Kerry allowed his self-aggrandizement to control the campaign, touting his service in Vietnam in a crass and shameless way, making it the centerpiece of a campaign that carried a different message every month. It should come as no surprise, then, that Kerry is proposing an Iraq deadline solely for his own ambition.

Senator Kerry is risking the Democrats’ possible gains in 2006 to stroke his presidential ambitions and personal desire for acclaim. The Senate will soon hear Senator Kerry’s bill to withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of the year, against the will of the majority of Democrats in caucus, and against the will of the majority of Americans. What Kerry is doing is utterly inexcusable and an unjustifiable act of arrogant ego.

Setting a date to pull out of Iraq is a dangerous idea. Not because it might signal to some phantom enemy that we are “cutting and running” – that is just an election year buzzword – but because we must stay until we are confident Iraq can function without our immediate, day-to-day care. If troops were to leave en-masse at the end of the year, regardless of whether infrastructure or internal support systems were functioning, the nation of Iraq would stand a very good chance of either imploding, devolving into sectarian civil war, or both. This implosion not only creates a situation even more hostile than it currently is, but results in a massive waste of funds.

Kerry seeks to shoot the Democratic Party in the foot just in time for elections solely for the power to hear his own voice and bask in media headlines. That those headlines will not be positive does not bother Senator Kerry – few political realities ever seem to. If an immediate pull-out of American forces creates a sectarian civil war that results in a hard-line Islamic state, will John Kerry be willing to accept responsibility for it? Will Kerry be so anxious to have his name remembered when it is synonymous with the complete economic and social destruction of a nation?

Iraq is a quagmire: the cost of war has been driven home both in dollars and lives. That many mistakes have been made is not debatable – but pulling out troops by the end of the year is not the answer. That will only deepen the problems Iraq and the United States face. What Congress needs to do is join together on a comprehensive plan to streamline costs, provide a comprehensive long-term plan, and commit to either increasing the amount of troops in Iraq or truly seeking international aid from nations once unwilling to join. Condemning Iraq to civil war and sectarian strife is a solution as bad as the problem.

Before all that, though, Congress must remain firm in not allowing ambitious politicians from either party to step up and make the safety of our troops and the success of our mission in Iraq a springboard for their political ambitions. To allow politicians to use the hard work of the soldiers as a stepping stone to their own political future denigrates the sacrifices of our troops and the importance of our mission in the eyes of every American.

Stubborn Facts r us

We interupt your regularly scheduled program for the following brief announcement.

Tully, Simon, Bobby, and I have started a group blog of our own, StubbornFacts.us. We’re not leaving Centerfield; we enjoy the community which has sprung up here thanks to the hard work of Bill Swann, Rick Heller, and many others behind the Centrist Coalition. But we also wanted a little corner of the blogosphere to call our own, where we can lay out our own opinions on our favorite subjects without worrying about whether those opinions are “centrist” or “leftist” or “rightist”. We hope to continue providing rational, fact-based debate about the pressing issues of the day. We welcome strong (but polite and well-supported) criticism of our opinions, which we will defend as best we can.

We invite all of our friends (and most of our antagonists) to visit us often!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

Postmodern racism looks a lot like any other kind of racism, it seems

What would you say about a retiring Congressman who is trying his best to ensure that his successor is not Jewish, and who is conspiring with the three non-Jewish candidates among the four primary contenders to succeed him, to ensure that the fourth candidate, who is Jewish, doesn't win? A Congressman who has referred to said Jewish candidate as a "colonizer"? What if a supporter of that Congressman sent out an email that said "we are in peril of losing a non-Jewish district . . . as a result of the well financed candidacy of [name deleted], a Jewish individual"?

I bet you'd say that Congressman was an anti-semite, a troglodyte racist, and an all-round bounder.

And you'd be 100% right .

Charity and Reason

One of my favorite themes is that many of people's actions and opinions are not driven by reason, but rather by emotion/visceral response. So it's my pleasure to offer up Tyler Cowen's NY Times article on charitable giving:

Investing in Good Deeds Without Checking the Prospectus

Professor List's work more generally suggests that people become rational in their spending only through the repeated experience of trading in markets. This trial-and-error process, with the accompanying feedback, is absent when people give money to a distant charity.

...

...donors often give to charities for reasons of pride. Monitoring a charity means worrying about the wisdom of contributing to that charity. Many donors would instead prefer simply to feel good about their generosity and thus they deceive themselves into thinking that all is going well. Furthermore, many donors seek a sense of affiliation and wish to be a part of large and successful organizations — the "winning team," so to speak. Again, these donors do not focus on how, or if, they actually end up improving the world.

If donors are not looking at results, they may end up choosing charities on the basis of extraneous qualities.

Nothing wrong with giving generously, but isn't it even better to give both generously and effectively? The Better Business Bureau has a wise giving alliance which helps people make wise giving choices. Check it out.

Democracy Beats Both Right and Left in Nepal?

This looks almost too good to be true. Both the Nepalese Maoists and the Nepalese King who ascended the throne who probably killed to get there and then worked to deconstitutionalize the monarchy seem to have thrown in the towel in favor of democracy. Joe Gandelman has an excellent, linkful post on the subject.

Of course, the actors involved have to actually carry through on this agreement for peace to return to Nepal. But it's interesting that two authoritarian movements would even at least apparently bow to a democratic one. Wonder what happened...

UPDATE: Swaraaj Chauhan wrote those posts, not Joe Gandelman. Whoops! Sorry, Swaraaj!

The Big Tent Party

In Wisconsin, the Republican Party approved a resolution that says:

The party should "withhold all promotional and financial support of those candidates that do not consistently subscribe to this overall conservative agenda, be they incumbent or new candidates," and "actively and vigorously" seek out candidates for office who "will go in this conservative direction, and respect the wishes of party members... the people of the party recognize that while they cannot compel representatives to vote" conservative, "they can and do expect them to."

Big tent party my ass. The State Party's Executive Director says:

"I think they were talking about being fiscally conservative. I don't think this boxes out moderates."

That's more spin than a 22-year old politico driving around in the beamer that daddy bought him with a "Veteran's for Bush" bumper sticker on it.

Governor Christie Whitman says:

Talk about not following Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment!

This action prevents the open dialogue that has made our party strong in the past. If we are going to succeed, we must ensure that the Republican Party is a big tent - big enough to handle diversity of opinion within our ranks.

Some days I wonder why she tries.

Tank Gawd Izz Fryday - the Darth Side

The weekly free for all. I actually have a few minutes free....

Bush + Green Policy = ?

Bush to create world’s biggest ocean preserve

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday is expected to announce the creation of the world's largest marine protected area — a group of remote Hawaiian islands that cover 84 million acres and are home to 7,000 species of birds, fish and marine mammals, at least a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii.

At a White House ceremony, the president was planning to designate the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — which have been described as "America's Galapagos" and as the most intact tropical marine region under U.S. jurisdiction — the United States' 75th national monument.

The decision immediately sets aside 139,000 square miles of largely uninhabited islands, atolls, coral reef colonies and underwater peaks known as seamounts to be managed by federal and state agencies.

Protecting the enviroment is good, right? But if you happen to already know that someone who does good is evil, then you MUST assume an ulterior motive. I am perversely looking forward to seeing the spin on this one. I am sure that "leaving all other issues aside, this act is a just a plain old good thing" would be far too gracious, straightforward, and simple a way to respond.

MUST....SPIN...STORY...AGAINST...BUSH....

My prediction is that the 2 most likely suspects are #1, responding by complaining about and making a connection to ANWR drilling plans, and #2 saying that it's a drop in the bucket, that it doesn't go far enough...that "any perceived good" in this just highlights the shocking deficiencies elsewhere. I further predict it won't take long.

Why not to attack Iran.

I've been on the fence about attacking Iran over its nuclear weapons capability. On the one hand, I think a war with Iran would be very different from a war with Iraq. The main reason the occupation has been so difficult is because of the tripartite makeup of Iraq. Iran is almost exclusively made up of a single nationality and religion. On the other hand, our troops are stretched pretty far already, and it would complicate even further our delicate international operations, at a time when they are starting to knit back together.

I think this document, discovered in the late Abu al-Zarqawi's hideout, has just about pushed me over the edge into the "do not attack" camp. In short, the operational analysis memo says: "we're losing the resistance; the Americans and the new Iraqi government have outsmarted us; we can't compete anymore under the current situation". In order to compete effectively, it recommends trying to highlight the divisions between the Americans and the Iraqi Shi'ites. To do so, it suggests manufacturing evidence of Iran's involvement in Iraqi resistance attacks, manufacturing evidence of Iran's possession of WMDs, kidnapping hostages and making it look like the work of Iranian Shi'ites, exploding bombs in the west and planting Iranian fingerprints and evidence.

If the terrorists want us to attack Iran, I'm for not. This memo provides an excellent opportunity to ask the Iranians to disavow the memo, disavow terrorism activities, and turn on Al Qaeda and all those who would attempt to use Iran as a pawn in their own affairs.

We Could Use More Unaffiliated Pols Like This

Multi-Tasker Maj. McNamara is setting the bar a lot higher for the rest of us, IMO.

-- While Maj. Mike McNamara was in Iraq, his family handled much of his city council campaign for him: They handed out fliers, held a campaign rally and put up signs around town.

Meanwhile, he answered voters' questions from Falluja by e-mail.

The strategy paid off this week when the Marine reservist won a seat on the Grand Forks City Council. McNamara, 48, beat four other candidates with 49 percent of the vote in the city's second ward, despite serving thousands of miles away.

If this guy were a Republican or a Democrat he'd be getting trumpeted from shore to shore by his own party, and the other party would be hunting for dirt.

Open Thread Thursday

I don't necessarily recommend that you look here.

On the pro-look-here side:

• It's funny.
• It has the complete text of a peace treaty in the 1600s between the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France
• It has more animated gifs than the rest of the internet put together
• It is the most random internet thread I have ever seen

On the con-look-here side:

• It has more animated gifs than the rest of the internet put together
• It may cause an epileptic seizure
• It may offend even the not-so-easy-to-offend
• It is NSFW
• It contains Scientology mockery
• It's just plain weird

Hat tip / curse to Althouse for making me look.

And yes, this is an open thread. Talk amongst yourselves about whatever you like.

Some interesting statistics

"Only about a third of the public holds consistently liberal (18%) or consistently conservative (15%) opinions on political issues. Nearly one-in-four Americans are ideologically consistent in their outlook, but don't fit the liberal or conservative labels (9% are libertarians who consistently oppose an active government in both the economic and the conservative spheres, and 16% are populists who consistently favor an active role for government). And the large plurality of Americans (42%) are in the ambivalent middle, and do not hold ideologically consistent views at all."

This article worries me (42% of Americans having no considered worldview, of one kind or another, suggests to me that 42% of Americans simply aren't succeeding in grappling with the issues and developing a coherent understanding of events) but it will no doubt give succor to some.

Hat tip: Blue Dog Blog.

It's flag day - and the flag burning amendment may be closer than you think

One vote away, to be precise, says USA Today:

The Senate is one vote away from passing a constitutional amendment that would ban desecration of the U.S. flag, the closest that amendment supporters have been to passage. The American Legion, which supports the amendment, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes it, both say there are 66 votes to pass it. Whether advocates can find the 67th vote to send the flag amendment to the states for ratification remains unclear. A Senate vote is set for the week of June 26.

I didn't know that "[a]ll 50 states have approved non-binding resolutions endorsing an amendment," as USAToday claims. In any event, I'm in a distinct minority on this issue here at Centerfield, see The burning issue, 7/27/2005, but it seems to me that the flag burning amendment - like term limits - is one of those few issues where ratification seems extremely likely, regardless of its merits; it's getting it through Congress which has always been tough. Now that looks like it might happen, although I would be happier if we had the names rather than an aggregate vote count.

Hat tip: Brothers Judd.

Be still my beating heart!

According to the Dallas Morning News:

Featured speakers during the biennial gathering included . . . U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., who opposes abortion rights and won statewide election in a state President Bush has twice carried overwhelmingly.

Dare we dream - as I did yesterday - that this is anything other than a misprint?

Sadly, I doubt it, but I would like to take the opportunity - in the spirit of geeks bearing gifts - to invite moderates and centrists who are more left-of-center than right to take a look at a Democrat prospering in a red state, and a Representative who really ought to be a rising star in the Democratic party. She's not a Republican, but in my view, she's certainly a better quality of opponent; the kind of Democrat America could do well by having more of.

Hat tip: South Dakota War College.

Update: One notes this survey reported in the blogometer. "MyDD.com . . . surveyed 1936 members of MoveOn.org's membership roster" and reported the favorable / unfavorable ratings of 24 Dems. Herseth came in dead last in this group, with a 6% favorable / 1% unfavorable rating. But look at it this way: first, the fact that a relatively conservative (or at least, Blue Dog) first-term Congresswoman from a relatively minor state (a red state at that) is even on the list is quite impressive. And this is a list of the self-styled "netroots", which is to say, the ones who are REALLY crazy, which means that if Herseth's profile were similar in the wider world, her favorable ratings are likely to be much higher. Speculation: Schweitzer / Herseth '12 - the ticket I'd love to vote against. ;)

Senate races in '06

Leon Wolfe at RedState rounds up the present state of play for the Senate this fall, from his perspective, concluding that of the ten elections he considers competetive, the GOP will probably lose PA and may lose OH and MT. Interesting stuff, but I wonder about Connecticut: if the Kossacks somehow manage to defeat Lieberman in the primary, they will do so at the cost of putting a Democrat on the ticket who may be unelectable in Connecticut. Does Connecticut become competetive if Lamont wins the primary and Lieberman doesn't run as an independent?

Happy Birthday

...to the United States Army!

231 years ago today, the Second Continental Congress authorized the formation of six companies of riflemen that eventually became the United States Army. Tomorrow it will have been 231 years since that same Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

Regardless of One's Views on Immigration,

one has to think that this is ridiculous. My support of a comprehensive immmigration plan (what Lou Dobbs and many others think is amnesty) is well established, but it's overreaches like these that only make things worse.

Good for Rep. Kennedy

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) today pled guilty to DUI for his actions last month, when he was in a car crash, but was not given a breath or blood test by Capitol Police, who perhaps were told by their superior to take no action other than driving Rep. Kennedy home. This police special treatment would have made prosecution difficult, and it is to his credit that Rep. Kennedy accepted criminal responsibility for his actions after seeking rehabilitation for prescription drug addiction. As part of a plea arrangement, reckless driving and other charges from similar incidents shortly before this one were dismissed. As a former prosecutor, I can attest that it is quite common practice to dismiss lesser charges in return for a plea to DUI.

I'm still not sure what, other than his family, led Rhode Islanders to choose Rep. Kennedy as their Member of Congress, but his acceptance of responsibility today is to his credit.

Political Bedfellows: Mark and Markos

Over at Red State they can’t control their excitement over Governor Mark Warner’s attempt to hold hands with the liberal blogosphere in Las Vegas. One must warn eager conservatives to proceed with caution. Kos and Warner may be a match made in heaven.

Beneficial for Kos:

If you haven’t noticed lately Markos “srew ‘em” Moulitsas, who has been known to throw a few bricks without considering the consequences, has made attempts to move the liberal blogosphere into the mainstream. The convention in Las Vegas and appearing in campaign commercials as well as on Meet the Press, Kos has a new message: It isn’t about liberal versus moderate, it’s about electing Democrats. Kos’s new stance on endorsing Joe Lieberman, according to him, isn’t because of Lieberman’s position on the war, but rather his continued attempts to undermine the Democratic Party by shamelessly supporting the President on issue after issue. Kos points out that he disagrees with many Democrats at times, such as Hillary Clinton and Ben Nelson, but the difference with Lieberman is not about any one issue or ideology, but party loyalty. In other words, you don’t see Hillary or Ben making nice with the devil.

Mark Warner makes Kos legit. The Governor is a venue for liberal bloggers to move from fringe activists to respected Democratic Party strategists. Warner gives them somebody to point to and say, look, we support this red state centrist Democrat... We really don’t stay up until 2 AM typing on our computers and then go to sleep at night in a tin foil hats, dreaming of tie died colors and peace symbols. Furthermore, if Warner were to win, Kos could take part of the credit and get himself the legitimacy that he has been unable to obtain claiming moral victories against better funded Republican incumbents.

Beneficial for Warner:

Warner doesn’t have to change who he is or his approach to politics to gain the support of many Kos’ites because of their desire to be heard within establishment Democratic circles and their recent strategy to be accepted. He can throw them parties at their convention on top of the stratosphere, promise a Republican defeat, and pull off a one liner or two about failed Bush management without destroying his reputation as a bi-partisan, moderate, pro-business, Nascar Democrat. Because there is no Senate voting record or past disagreement between Warner and liberal bloggers, there is no bad blood or elephant in the room. Warner can glad hand with liberal activists where such an action from Hillary Clinton would only stoke the suspicion that she truly is a leftie, posing as a moderate. Furthermore, unlike John McCain, Warner has never lashed out against grassroot party activists... There are no uncomfortable Jerry Fallwell moments in the Governor’s future.

I would even go as far to say that Warner’s recent courting of the liberal blogosphere is a rather brilliant political move. This is a natural constituency for the young, energetic, tech-savvy, policy wonkish former Governor and Nextel founder, and it may be what separates him from other Democratic contenders trying to balance liberal activist desires with the need to stay close to the center. It just may be what gets him the Democratic nomination.

President goes to Baghdad

You know, when you're the #1 Al Qaeda target, it takes some stones to fly, by helicopter, into a country with a lot of angry insurgents and terrorists who want you dead, no matter how many soldiers you've got to protect you. Who was the last president to visit anything resembling a forward theater of operations?

Call me a toady, call me a partisan, call me whatever you want, but it's times like this that I'm proud to have voted for President Bush, twice. How better to demonstrate his commitment to what he started in Iraq then by going there as soon as the new, democratically elected prime minister had completed the installation of his cabinet, to again voice America's resolve to stay the course. In the President's own words:

I have come to not only look you in the eye; I've also come to tell you that when America gives its word, it will keep its word.

And it's in our interests that Iraq succeed. . . . And when Iraq succeeds in having a government of and for and by the people of Iraq, you will have dealt a serious blow to those who have a vision of darkness, who don't believe in liberty, who are willing to kill the innocent in order to achieve a political objective.

Karl Rove cleared

Fitzgerald, grand jury decline to indict Rove.

UPDATE: Well, that should settle it. It won't, but it should. I thought the left wingnuts would turn on Fitzgerald, but it looks like his indictment of Libby gave him sufficient street cred with them to keep the wingers focused on the evil Rove. So, we are reminded that lack of sufficient evidence to prosecute does not equal innocence: "Indictments for the crime that risked all our lives were never likely." Or, because wingnut hope is hard to dash, Rove "ratted out" an accomplice who was the "real" leaker.

Here's my personal favorite so far:

6. My Heart Is Broken, My Spirit Crushed, My Faith in America Destroyed

On the other hand, I am sure that there are numerous other criminal enterprises that Kkkarl has participated in, so we just have to keep digging. Perhaps Fitz is doing just that--he has the license to do so.

Or am I approaching the definition of insanity, here?

From everything I've seen, Fitzgerald is a very thorough, meticulous prosecutor. He's made a couple of minor mistakes, but on the whole he's done a professional job all the way around.

Bloomberg and Unity08?

Robert Novak throws some grist in the rumor mill.

Power to the people

As I suggested here, in my view, "[i]f you vigorously enforce the laws against employers, you cut off the source of income for illegals. They therefore have little motivation to stay. Now suppose that, in addition, you fix the problems with the immigration process, and make it possible for them to come back, as legal immigrants, permanent or otherwise: now they not only have little motivation to stay, they have active motivation to go home."

As a general matter, "it is unlawful for a person or other entity to hire . . . for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien . . . without complying with the [verification] requirements [of this section]." 8 U.S.C. §1324a(a)(1). A person or company can be fined a civil penalty of "not less than $250 and not more than $2,000 for each unauthorized alien" (the fine bracketts ratchet up for repeat offenders, the maximum being $3000-$10,000 per alien for "a person or entity previously subject to more than one [previous infraction]"). §1324a(e)(4)(A).

Under present law, private citizens can "rat out" companies violating this provision to the Justice Department, the Attorney General being required to establish a procedure "for individuals and entities to file written, signed complaints respecting potential violations." §1324a(e)(1)(A), but ultimately, though, it is the decision of the government to prosecute or not prosecute. Now, one of the major complaints that I see almost everywhere in this debate is some variation on the following rubric: "we don't need new laws, we just need to enforce the ones that we have." I don't have any hard evidence to say one way or another if it's true, although given the sheer numbers of illegals estimated to be present, it strains credibility to suggest that all that can be done is being done. But in any event, there is undoubtedly a perception that - for whatever reasons - the government is lax in enforcing these rules, a perception that contributes to the general tenor of the debate (and the lack of trust that Peggy Noonan talks about in her excellent WSJ article yesterday). I think I have a solution.

Down in Texas, Gov. Perry has an interesting idea (hat tip: Jason Mazzone at Concurring Opinions). Perry wants to stick "hundreds of night-vision cameras on private land along the Mexican border and put the live video on the Internet, so that anyone with a computer who spots illegal immigrants trying to slip across can report it on a toll-free hot line." Quoth Perry, ""[b]y leveraging advanced video technology and the power of the World Wide Web, and with an increased financial commitment from the state of Texas, we can make our border stronger and our nation safer." It all sounds more like CBS' Big Brother than Orwell's (although I'd suggest that a closer analog is SETI at Home); in an admirable display of the virtues of federalism, Perry is quoted as saying that "[e]nforcing the border is the federal government’s responsibility . . . But the fact of the matter is Texas will not sit around and wait." It's not perfect ("[w]hat we [really] need is more boots on the ground"), and it carries risks, but in the main, I think it's innovative and clever, not least because it gives an enforcement tool to the groups most interested in enforcement.

Which brings us back to my idea about employment violations,which is in a similar vein of putting the power into the hands of the people who are most enthusiastic about enfoorcing the law. My idea is this: create a private cause of action to allow ordinary citizens to punish violations of §1324a(a).

In other words, append to §1324a a new subsection that reads something like this:

(a) Cause of Action.-- any person aggrieved by the employment by a company of an alien, in violation of this section, may, in a civil action, recover from the person or entity which engaged in that violation, including the United States, such relief as may be appropriate.

(b) Relief.--In a civil action under this section, appropriate
relief includes--
(1) such preliminary and other equitable or declaratory relief as may be appropriate;
(2) damages under subsection (c); and
(3) a reasonable attorney's fee and other litigation costs reasonably incurred.

(c) Damages.--
(1) The court may assess as damages in a civil action under this section the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff, and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation.
(2) The court may assess punitive damages commensurate to the scale and duration of the violation, as deemed appropriate.
(3) In the case of a successful action to enforce liability under this section, the court may assess the costs of the action, together with reasonable attorney fees determined by the court.
(4) In no event will a company convicted in a civil action under this section be charged less than as provided in civil penalties under §1324a(e)(4)(A).

If the threat of being sued by thousands of aggreived persons doesn't scare companies out of employing illegals, I don't know what the heck would.

How Immigration Oughtta Be

I think we should grant permanent residency status to any non-felon who applies who has a job or is married to or the kid of another resident and revoke it only if all of the above stay untrue for a year. A 120-day job search visa should be handed out to anybody at most every four years. The naturalization wait for residents should be reduced to a uniform three years for everybody, not just residents married to citizens. People already in the system should have their total wait reduced to three years, and be granted citizenship if they've been waiting longer.

That'd mirror reality in terms of immigration without being unfair to people already in line or rewarding illegal behavior. There'd be no need for anything amnesty-like or a guest worker / bracero program with this kind of reform.

The current immigration situation reminds me of 55-mph speed limits. It's only reasonable in some areas, and encouraged scofflaws outside the crowded states. It was reasonable in Maryland, (which I think has just one faster-than-55 expressway segment out in the sticks), but not Texas. Well, something seems wrong to me when over ten million people are outside the law, and immigration rules have gotten so complicated and hard as to be very hard on those who want to go legit.

If we're less liberal than that, or continue to use different bases for deciding who gets in, we'll continue to have lots of illegal immigrants. Remember, clearly, saying we want certain numbers and kinds of immigrants isn't having much of an effect. All it's doing is limiting highly educated immigrants - the kinds of immigrants who most favorably affect our society.

Bias alert: I work for a company created by a very clever and entrepreneurial legal immigrant.

How To Deal With Ann Coulter (If You Must)

As I'm sure you all know by now, Ann Coulter's gotten herself into trouble again, over some comments she made in her latest book. I was hesitating to even write this piece (God knows I don't want to increase her book sales), but I had a couple of thoughts. The latest controversy is over some despicable comments about 9/11 widows in New Jersey. In fact, here's what the fuss is all about:

Coulter's comment that has perhaps drawn the most attention is an attack on the widows of 9-11 victims, appearing on Page 103 of Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum), and read by Lauer: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

source: Media Matters

I don't know about you, but I'd say that's pretty darn despicable. She's drawn ire from liberals (including Hillary Clinton), and even conservattives. She goes on to call them "harpies," and the "Witches of New Brunswick." Apparently, this is all because they decided to actively support positions that she disagreed with. All in all, pretty vicious stuff. The thing is, this is hardly new. This is the latest in a career of over-the-top slanders, smears, and absurd invective. It's hard to be shocked by this, because it's become her raison d'etre.

The principal defense that her supporters (and they are many) offer up for this latest incident is that she was making larger point about how liberals supposedly use victims of tragedies to prevent conservatives from attacking their arguments. She uses the term "human shields." She "argues" that these 9/11 widows were using their widow status to advance their argument, and manipulate people. Many who support her in other things but criticized this latest move argued that the point was valid, but it's lost by the poisonous rhetoric. David Horowitz calls her a national treasure. Some syas she's a satirist, like a modern-day Mencken or Twain. (You think I'm making this up?) The Colbert Report is satire. Her catalog of attacks are not. After all, she admits that she believes everything she says. Her committed supporters say that she's edgy, tough, and she "tells it like it is." The only problem is, things aren't as she tells it.

The fact is, beneath all the poison and personal attacks, is an argument that really doesn't hold. The last thing her arguments need are to undermined by her rhetoric. Let's deal with the argument at hand. Certainly, it's true that being a victim of tragedy gives your arguments no more weight in and of itself, but it certainly adds as measure of credibility. It certainly gives the person making the argument more weight as far as their motives are concerned. In the case of the 9/11 widows, one would think the fact that they lost their husbands on 9/11 might explain their commitment. If a woman is raped, couldn't the fact that she was raped explain her commitment to getting rapists off the street? Surely, it doesn't make her an expert, but it would explain her motives. As I've said, the fact that one has been victimized by tragedy, or fought in a brutal war doesn't support the argument by itself, but it ought to protect a person from being called a traitor, or a coward, from attacks like this.

Besides, it's not as if only liberals do it. Conservatives have done it too, and still do, even now. Conservatives have used 9/11 victims to justify their positions. They've used tragedy victims for their agendas. They've used veterans to prop up their arguments. The fact is, both sides do it. Both sides have gone too far. As far as Coulter's style in general, her supporters have defended that too. They say that the Left is worse, and someone has to stand up them. Of course, the truth is that both extremes can be equally vicious. A quick stop on the right side of the blogosphere, or talk radio, or Fox News proves that. For every Michael Moore or Al Franken, there's an Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity.

But at the end of the day, her arguments don't add up to much, except the usual right-wing fluff. Beneath all the venom, there's not much there. Liberals get incensed at her rhetoric, but that's what fuels her. The far-right loves her, and they love the fact that liberals can't stand her. She enjoys this. You see, that's the one thing liberals forget: She feeds off all of this. In fact, all of this controversy really has helped her book sales. It doesn't validate her points, but millions keep buying her books. People have a tendency sometimes to spend money on things they know, or should know aren't good for them. It's like fast food or porn.

There was an incident a while back in which Coulter got herself in trouble before. When her book Slander came out, she got herself in trouble. Many defended her, but as she went further and further, more people were turned off. The thing not to do, is to play her game. Don't shout her down at speeches, and for God's sake, don't throw things. Uncivility cannot be overcome with equally uncivil behavior. Also, it makes her a martyr.

The biggest threat to Ann Coulter's credibility, is Ann Coulter. Her own words seal her fate. The best thing to do is ignore her. It might be hard for some, but oftentimes the best thing to do is to let her dig her own grave, and not give her any more attention. In fact, I've given her far too much in this blog post already.

Friday Open Thread

Because everyone needs an open forum.

A (Conservative) Victory for the Homeless

President Bush has suffered a second term plagued with setbacks: sagging poll numbers, increasing voter discontent with the War in Iraq, and a stalled Social Security plan. But hidden as a bottom corner story on the front page of the June 7 New York Times is a well-deserved chronicle of the success of real compassionate conservatism.

Nestled away in Washington is the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and as the Times notes, the office was dormant for several years before Philip Mangano took over the post with truly compassionate conservative ideas. Democrats who have grown accustomed to slamming every Bush program might need to take a step back and analyze what has become a very effective melding of government oversight and private industry.

Mangano’s unique idea involves finding permanent housing for the “chronically homeless” – the roughly 200,000 out of 750,000 homeless who shift from shelter to shelter and clinic to clinic, ultimately ending up back on the streets. These homeless have long been seen as a problem with no solution, but Mangano’s ICH has joined with private industry and state governments – 219 as of June – to create bare-bones apartment complexes for the chronic homeless.

So what keeps the homeless from simply leeching off the government detoxification and health care programs available when they move in? Simple: private industry provides the housing and services in exchange for tax credits while the government insures that these once hopeless cases are applying for jobs or job training. Before the apartment program, the average cost of treating a chronic homeless person, on average, was $770,000. Joining with private corporations, the cost is reduced to $15,000 per year.

Similarly, with many chronic homeless consolidated in one complex of efficiency apartments instead of spread throughout a city in various shelters, the medical care and job training specialists can achieve much more in much less time. Keeping costs down through agreements with private organizations, the potential bureaucratic mess of a big government program is limited by the efficiency of the private sector. But what about the most important part of the program: the results?

After five years of Mangano’s housing program, the population of chronic homeless in Philadelphia has dropped 60 percent. San Francisco has seen a nearly 30 percent drop in two years, and Dallas is boasting similar results. The unlikely embrace of compassionate conservatism to attack what has always been viewed as a “liberal” issue has met with surprisingly positive results.

With the chronic homeless centered in one location and given easy access to medical, psychological and vocational attention, the entire problem of locating a specific case in a sea of shelters is eliminated. By limiting the stretch of government in dealing with the problem – and lowering costs as a result – is a win-win situation for the community. The program also provides something greater than economic efficiency: hope to the hopeless. What is more American than that?

How much of the credit for this program goes to President Bush is a matter for debate. The majority of any accolades must accordingly go to Philip Mangano, who turned a vacant government office into an effective tool to combat homelessness. City and state government officials, so long burdened by the economic and logistical problems

Alabama bans homosexual marriage - bipartisanly

Rafique posted earlier about the Federal Marriage Amendment (something which I continue to oppose on federalism grounds).

Meanwhile, down south, over 80% of Alabama voters voted to approve an amendment to the State Constitution forbidding gay marriage. What I find intriguing is the numbers.

735,057 voted for the amendment, 169,777 voted against, a total of 904,834 votes.

Concurrent to the amendment vote, a primary election was in full swing. In the GOP gubernatorial primary, Bob Riley defeated Roy Moore, 306,383 votes to 153,376. That gives us 459,759 GOP primary voters. Meanwhile, on the other side, seven candidates wanted the Democratic gubernatorial nomination; in total, 465,023 voters split between the candidates.

It seems to me that it is a reasonable assumption that given the close correspondence of the totals -- 904,834 voted in the amendment referendum, and 924,782 voted in either the GOP or Democratic primary -- that the overwhelming majority of those who voted one way or another on the amendment were also voting in the primary at the same time. But this would mean that, even if every single GOP voter voted for the amendment - not necessarily a safe bet, I'd venture - at least half of those voting in the Democratic primary must have voted for the amendment (735,057 - 459,759 = 275,298 votes to account for). The more Republican voters voted against the amendment, the more Democratic voters must have voted for it to make up the shortfall.

The only other alternative explanation is that the shortfall was made up by anti-homosexual marriage voters flocking to the polls and then not voting in either party's primary election, and it's simply a staggering coincidence that the numbers are so close. I tend to think that this is reaching a little bit. The more likely scenario, it seems to me, is simply that opposition to homosexual marriage isn't simply confined to GOP voters; it is broad and bipartisan.

One more down...

U.S. troops killed Abu al-Zarqawi with a precision airstrike Wednesday evening. Americans and Iraqis alike should be glad.

Update: Al-Qaida in Iraq's deputy, "Abu Abdel-Rahman al-Iraqi", confirmed the "joyous news" of al-Zarqawi's "martyrdom":

The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme.

Just a reminder that Al-Qaida is not comprised of politically-motivated people with legitimate grievances, but religious zealots who want to impose, by force, their beliefs on the rest of the world.

Update: The press release from CentCom reveals an important bit of information: "Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces to al-Zarqawi and some of his associates." In other words, al-Zaqarwi was betrayed by Iraqis who originally joined up with him to oppose America, but who then saw his true nature as he turned to killing ordinary Iraqis and children when he could no longer reach American soldiers.

On The Gay Marriage Ban

As you all know, the Senate rejected the Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage. I'm not for gay marriage, but I support civil unions, and I oppose the Amendment, because I feel that these issues should be left to the states. Besides federalism, there's also the fact that this amendment is unnecessary. The argument from conservatives is that activist judges have made this amendment necessary. That's their best argument, but it doesn't hold. Under current law, no state has to recognize another state's marriage. These issues, even the issues with the courts, can be worked out locally. Traditional marriage is all-important issue, but the threat has been greatly overblown, at least with regards to gay marriage.

The issue of politics is also important. Don't get me wrong, there are many Americans who really believe this a big deal, on both sides, and in many ways it is. As I've said, the role of marriage and the family are not small issues. Many believe in moral and religioud grounds that homosexuality is wrong, and marriage ought to be between a man and a woman. THese people aren't bigots, and it demeans them and the debate to say that they are. I do feel that many people are being musled for political and ideological purposes, and are being led to believe that the threat to marriage is greater than it is. Also, there are many other issues that are of a graver and more immediate threat.

It's also telling that this issue is being brought up now, right before an election, and the last time this issue was brought up was 2004, right before an election. Both times, supporters knew it wouldn't pass. Are there sincere players in this game? I'm sure there are. It's possible that for some this is a principled fool's errand, but this makes me wonder:

It takes two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress to send a proposed amendment to the states for ratification. The House will take up the issue next month.

Despite the defeat, amendment backers insisted progress had been made because the debate over three days raised the issue's profile and will force candidates to answer for their votes on the campaign trail.

As I've said, these issues are all-important, which makes the politicking and pandering all the more sinister. 45 out of 50 states have statutes or amendments banning gay marriage. The majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage. However, the Constitution protects all Americans, and we ought not trample those protections, federalize marriage, and thus undermine the very principles were trying to protect, certainly not for politics.

But let's be civil-- condescension never wins arguments, on either side.

The Great Wall of Mexico

I never cease to be stunned at the sudden patriotic passions stirred up on both sides of the aisle when politicians, so long ensconced in the apathetic security of Washington, realize it is time to suit up in the overalls and baseball caps to campaign for re-election. Never is a politician so stirred to public service as those few months when his or her paycheck is on the line. It is this rush to seem in touch with voters that has brought us the Great Wall of Mexico.

The Great Wall of Mexico is an idea advanced by Minutemen in the Southwest and increasingly bolstered by Americans postmarking bricks to their congresspersons. Politicians have so successfully whipped the voters into frenzy on the subject of illegal immigration that the voters are willing to turn to ancient China for the answer to their problems. That both immigrants and illegal drugs are smuggled into the United States by air as well as land does not penetrate the bunker of idealism they are huddled in.

Exactly what day this year politicians decided to concern themselves with immigration I do not know, but what I can see is that no one has lifted a finger on the subject over the past six years. It isn’t as if Republicans can blame it on Democrats this time – if the Republican Party can not make government run with its majorities in every area of government perhaps that is a sign that their efficiency is finally wearing down. Regardless of realities, the Great Wall of Mexico marches on.

The Great Wall of Mexico is a fantastic idea: American taxpayers are already funneling billions of dollars a year into tax cuts, two foreign wars and oil company subsidies; it makes sense that we would divide the taxpayer dollar ever further. As education is slashed nationwide, a new crop of unskilled menial laborers is being created in high schools, prime employees for the bricklaying and cement pouring a wall would entail. Of course, if that drives costs up too much, we could always use cost-effective illegal labor. Oh, don’t forget upkeep!

Building a massive wall across the border does not in any way address the actual problem at hand: 11 to 13 million illegal immigrants are already inside the borders of the United States. Many of them are working for sub-standard wages and in conditions nearing slavery both in the California garment district and agricultural fields in the southeast. A wall will mean little to workers already trapped in the four walls of an American sweatshop.

While the Great Wall of Mexico might bolster politicians’ poll ratings and bring out that ever-cracking conservative base, it will achieve little in terms of real results and simply put a further economic drain on an already burdened economy. At least in this case, what might appease American desire for justice could end up creating unforeseen negative effects that would all but negate the symbolic victory of building a wall.

We all seem to forget that Britain wanted to establish a barrier to prevent illegal American immigration west into the Ohio Valley. Is that really a comparison we want to embrace?

Not 1994

Former Congressman Brian Bilbray defeated school board member Francine Busby by roughly a 49 to 45% vote. The D's are spinning the results and saying that it shows a Democrat did better than expected in a Republican District, which obviously means that the results in November will be for the Democrats what they were for the Republicans in 1994.

Here are the facts.

-The President is quite possibly competing to be the most unpopular Commander in Chief in the history of this country, next to possibly Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon.
-The Republican Congress has the same favorability ratings as the sex offender who just moved down the street.
-The Congressional district in question recently had their elected representative, a Republican, thrown in jail for accepting bribes from government contractors.
-Bilbray ran a right-wing, polarizing, anti-immigration campaign that convinced John McCain to cancel a swing through the district in support of the Republican candidate.
-Francine Busby ran as a "Republican-lite" New Democrat and was an excellent candidate on paper.

They should have won and they didn't. It's just that plain and simple. The truth is that "culture of corruption” as a political message stinks. Democrats will only set the agenda if they are able propose an alternative, not oppose the current administration.

Here is a history lesson. This isn't 1994. In special elections held in Democratic districts in 1994, Republicans won. Hamilton Jordan is right when he says that Americans are unhappy with the Republican party, but he is also right when he says that we don't believe the Democrats offer a viable alternative. The results in California-50 are evidence of that, IMO.

Yearly Kos

Check out the schedule for the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas. As much as I don't like DailyKos, Markos' entrepreneurship has created a community with enough clout that many of the big names in Democratic politics are coming by to make their pitch, and not just politicians but analysts as well.

Sixty-Two Years Ago Today...

...the Allies stormed over the English Channel, and the Battle of Normandy began.

The Normandy American Cemetery, located on the cliff directly above Omaha Beach.

Hamilton Jordan on Centrist Coalition

As we reported last month, Hamilton Jordan addressed the Centrist Coalition at our National Centrist Meeting last month. In view of the excitement around Unity08, we are releasing an MP3 recording of his remarks. See below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Remarks of Hamilton Jordan, co-founder of Unity08, to National Centrist Meeting

COLUMBUS, Ohio. June 6 -- Following the launching of Unity08, a grassroots organization which aims to offer an alternative ticket in the 2008 presidential election, the Centrist Coalition has released a recording of remarks by Unity08 co-founder Hamilton Jordan to the National Centrist Meeting on May 6 at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in New York. The recording, in MP3 format, may be downloaded from the Centrist Coalition's Web site.

Jordan, former White House Chief of Staff in the Carter Administration and advisor to Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign, said "If our country stays on the course that we're on now for another ten or 15 years, we are headed toward being a second-rate power. I think that a lot of this is due to the fact that the political parties have become more polarized, increasingly focused on narrow arguments to special interest groups, and that we're spending all of our time on emotional issues that tend to divide us instead of on the core issues that face our country that will determine not only the future of the country but to some extent the future of the world."

Jordan addressed the first-ever gathering of the Columbus-based Centrist Coalition, which drew participants from as far away as Texas and California. Jordan, who addressed the meeting by speakerphone, said, "I don't think there has been a time in the recent history of our country when the American people are more polarized and more disenchanted with both political parties and I think justifiably so. So there is a huge opportunity for people in the middle and the question is always how do you challenge the system that is so well established, so well funded, and change the perceptions of the media elite and political elite that it can be challenged."

Despite Jordan's roots in the Democratic Party, he was not optimistic about their ability to provide real solutions. Jordan said, "As bad as President Bush and his administration looks now, in my opinion the Democrats don't look much better, and I think the American people feel that way."

The recording of Jordan's remarks may be accessed from the Centrist Coalition's home page, (http://www.centristcoalition.com) by clicking on the link to the National Centrist Meeting, or by visiting this direct page:

http://www.centristcoalition.com/html/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=39&mid=-1

The Centrist Coalition (http://centristcoalition.com), a 501(c)4 organization, is a national network of grassroots political moderates that aims to unite the middle and give power to its voice.

Contact:
Bill Swann,
Political Director, Centrist Coalition
cf at centrist coalition dot com

On "Islamophobia"

I was planning to write an extensive piece on the current state of the fight against radical jihadism, but for now I wanted to share a few thoughts about a great piece by Johann Hari, on Islamophobia. He argues, successfully, in my view, that many people speaking out against Islamophobia, are themselves enabling the same bigotry they claim to oppose. He talks about how the folks at Islamophobia Watch engage in open homophobia and the like, and dismiss any criticism of Muslim extremism as racist, and "objectively pro-Nazi." In his view, many so-called liberals are willfully empowering the very Fascism the profess to oppose.

People who believe in opposing hatred of gay people everywhere – in Teheran as much as Tunbridge Wells, in Kingston, Jamaica as much as Kingston-Upon-Thames – are being subjected to a bizarre counter-campaign. As so often, Peter Tatchell is facing the most abusive backlash on our behalf. Tatchell believes all people are equal, regardless of their pigmentation. He does not see a difference between the white far-right preacher Jerry Falwell calling gay people diseased, and the Muslim leader Sir Iqbal Sacranie doing the same. He does not see the difference between gay teenagers being lynched to death in Jamaica and murderous gay-bashings on Clapham Common. He reacts to them in exactly the same way – by fighting to stop them.

For this, he is being accused of racism. Look, for example, at the popular website ‘Islamophobia Watch’, set up by a man called Bob Pitt. Unlike Tatchell, he lacks courage and, fearing reprisals, uses a fake name for his writings – Martin Sullivan. His website obsessively snipes at Tatchell, responding to every criticism he makes of the Islamic fundamentalists who incite and perform the murder of gay people by calling him a bigot and even “pro-Nazi”. How does he back up this slander against a man who has fought fascism all his life? The website complains Tatchell uses “the term ‘Islamism’… without distinguishing between its reformist and violent wings.” Yes, it’s true - Tatchell fails to draw a distinction between the people who will lash and stone gays after winning at the ballot box, and the people who will lash and stone gays after seizing power in a coup. This is bigotry?

You'd think that if radical Islam doesn't represent mainstream moderate Islam (a view that has legitimate support, and one I basically agree with), and that those supposedly warring against Islamophobia aren't for radical jihad, then wouldn't defense of radical Islam, and the attack on moderate Muslims who condemn jihad itself be Islamophobia? In other words, how can you profess to believe in religious toleration, by supporting ideas that reject religious toleration? Could it be that these folks aren't really liberal at all, and are no different than the Fascists they claim to oppose?

Read the whole essay. Caveat lector: Hari himself is basically an agnostic. I'm a Christian, but I'm willing to overlook that, as the rest of the piece is spot on. He has a valid point about the use of religion to justify evil. You don't have to be a person of faith to know that religion can be twisted to justify things contrary to the laws of God and man.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

Radical Middle On Unity08

Radical Middle's Mark Satin has some informed comment about Unity08, including background details on some of the principals.

That makes Unity08 dramatically different from most political organizations, which tend to be long on activists and / or policy analysts but nearly devoid of people who actually know how to raise large amounts of money or communicate successfully with the general public or dicker with the FEC.

But they are not your ordinary political operatives. They’re all special in some way -- unusually creative or adventurous or quirky in some way that makes them perfectly suited for this creative-centrist megaproject.

Read the whole thing.

Scalito? Nope.

Justice Alito is no Scalia clone. That's the message in an (almost) unanimous Supreme Court opinion handed down today concerning the Speedy Trial Act. In Zedner v. U.S., Justice Alito wrote the opinion of the court finding that defendants could not execute a prospective waiver of their rights under the Speedy Trial Act. All 9 justices agreed with the result. However, Justice Alito bolstered his opinion, which was based primarily on the text of the statute in question itself, with an analysis of the legislative history, which supported the same result. Justice Scalia objected to that portion of the Court's opinion based on his long-standing opposition to the use of legislative history in interpreting statutory provisions, especially when the language of the statute is quite clear. Said Justice Scalia:

It may seem that there is no harm in using committee reports and other such sources when they are merely in accord with the plain meaning of the Act. But this sort of intellectual piling-on has addictive consequences. To begin with, it accustoms us to believing that what is said by a single person in a floor debate or by a committee report represents the view of Congress as a whole — so that we sometimes even will say (when referring to a floor statement and committee report) that “Congress has expressed” thus-and-so. See, e.g., Conroy, supra, at 516– 517. There is no basis either in law or in reality for this naive belief. Moreover, if legislative history is relevant when it confirms the plain meaning of the statutory text, it should also be relevant when it contradicts the plain meaning, thus rendering what is plain ambiguous. Because the use of legislative history is illegitimate and ill advised in the interpretation of any statute — and especially a statute that is clear on its face — I do not join this portion of the Court’s opinion.

This is a very concise explanation of why legislative history is not the law and should not be resorted to as if it were. Hat tip: Orin Kerr

Network neutrality and the Wyden bill: when the cure is worse than the sickness

I feel compelled to comment on S.2360, Senator Wyden's proposed "remedy" to the network neutrality situation. Jon posted last month about the wider issues surrounding network neutrality; I don't necessarily endorse Jon's conclusions, but in this post, I want to suggest that regardless of whether or not one believes legislation is necessary to deal with this issue, the Wyden bill is not the way to do so. It should be defeated, no matter what one's view on network neutrality.

My company (which is certainly within the meaning of "network operator" as defined in the act; §7(a)) ("any person who owns, operates, controls, or resells and controls any facility that provides communications directly to a subscriber") provides, inter alia, internet access to a number of blocks of student apartments (what I'd call Halls of Residence, but y'all may call them what you will) and a handful of general-population apartments. We also furnish them with email addresses, FTP space, all the sort of stuff your average ISP provides.

We do not permit access to filesharing services; this is for several reasons, all of which are compelling, but primarily because (a) pre-empting filesharing reduces the number of federal subpoenas we recieve, and (b) (and more importantly) because of something far more boilerplate: bandwidth usage. Specifically, there is an access list which does not permit traffic on ports known to be used by common filesharing programs. Such programs are, without doubt, within the meaning of "application or service," either in its plain meaning or as defined within the bill (see §3(1)(a)) ("by which an end-user through software or a device engages in an exchange of data or information"). If the Wyden bill passes, we will be in violation of §4(a), which says we may not "interfere with, block, degrade, alter, modify, impair, or change any bits, content, application or service."

Moreover, for operational reasons, we discriminate between services. Providing internet access is inherently an exercise in managing the fair allocation of finite resources, in particular, bandwidth. The most equitable means to do so is that the average user, who needs very little, should not be disadvantaged because a few exceptional users want a great deal. Thus, the vetinary student trying to do research online should not have her task complicated or slowed down because the guys in the next apartment are downloading porn and two Chinese exchange students are playing "xbox 360" with their buddies back home. Thus, although our WAN links do not often - if ever - become saturated, we take the view that traffic should be prioritized in such manner that common services should take priority over uncommon services, and critical traffic should take priority over both. Consequentially, DNS traffic (53 TCP and UDP) is prioritized over all other traffic, and thereafter: 110, 80, 25, everything else. But under the Wyden bill, we may "not discriminate in favor of [ourselves] or any other person . . . [in] allocating bandwidth . . . [and] transmitting content or applications or services," §4(a)(2), and we must "provide non-discriminatory access and service to each subscriber," §4(a)(8). Are we really going to have to hope that the Federal courts will carve out an atextual "operational necessity" exception to enforcement of the bill?

Speaking of operational concerns, looking towards the future, as with most service providers, we had been planning to prioritize VOIP traffic, which naturally has more stringent QoS requirements than most applications. That, too, falls within the prohibition of this act -- a service provider must "treat all data traveling over or on communications in a non-discriminatory way," §4(a)(6) -- because it clearly discriminates in the allocation of bandwidth between various applications and services. If Senator Wyden is so opposed to the major telcos, why is he sponsoring legislation that may well strangle at birth the very technology to pose the greatest threat to said major telcos?

It's not all bad news, of course. We service providers are still allowed to "take reasonable and non-discriminatory measures to protect subscribers from adware, spyware, malware, viruses, spam, pornography, content deemed inappropriate for minors, or any other similarly nefarious application or service that harms the Internet experience of subscribers," just as long as our users "are informed of the application or service . . . [and] are given the opportunity to refuse or disable any such preventative application." §4(b). This is muddled terminology (that's a polite way to say that the legislation is badly drafted), but the most natural reading seems to be that service providers can block this parade of net nasties, as long as (a) subscribers know what's being blocked, (b) subscribers can "opt out" of the protections, and (c) the protections are content-neutral. Once you're done crying with laughter at the idea of concept of content-neutral spam filtration, pause to consider the serious ramifications of this language. We filter incoming email for spam and viruses; while our subscribers are aware (although one has to ask, what's the theshold question for whether a subscriber is aware? Does it suffice that when they first opened the account, they received an email telling them?), there is no way - feasible or otherwise - to exempt a user who wishes to opt out. Which puts us in a bad spot. Every company which provides spam filtering -- and I do mean every company, because the mere act of filtering spam qualifies a company as a network operator for the purposes of the act -- should now take stock: can you switch off your spam and virus filtering on a per user basis?

(I should add at this point that our spam filter whitelists emails from ourselves and from various internet outlets which we deem to be in common use - Amazon, Alibris, Ebay, etc.; there is no "good intentions" exception in the bill, and so we are technically "discriminating" in violation of the act).

Lastly, a few words about burden of proof are in order. Pursuant to §5, subscribers can blow the whistle on what they presume to be a violation of the bill to the FCC. Worse yet, per §5(e), "[i]f the Commission accepts the prima facie case of an aggrieved party under . . . a network operator shall bear the burden of proving that [either] no violation of section 4(a) occurred . . . [or that] such violation was a preserved authority described in section 4(b)."

Not only, then, are service providers asked to prove a negative, but the incalculable cost in lost productivity of meeting the burden of proof essentially falls onto service providers in any case that sounds halfway reasonable to the FCC. Of course, what sounds halfway reasonable to someone who understands that the internet is a complicated mesh of interlocking systems, all of which must work just right for any given user to access any given page, may be very different to someone whose idea of how the internet works is that "I click on the blue 'e' on my desktop and 'my' 'internet' 'page' comes up."

Yes, folks, every time one of your more tinfoil-hatted subscribers cannot get to the Democratic Underground site, you, the service provider - hereinafter the Ministry of Propaganda - may be reported to the FCC, and you will bear the incalculable costs of demonstrating that you were not, in fact, discriminating against particular content. Every DNS blip, routing issue - and frankly, just plain 'ol network slowness - will now become a potential threat to remaining in business, because any complaint that you fail to meet the burden of proof may be fined pursuant to 47 U.S.C. §501 ("a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or both"). I'm not even sure how we'd prove the question of why their email from MorOn.org was caught in the spam filter, but I do know that it would involve far more time and effort than I have any particular inclination to spend.

* * *

The bill's principle failure, it seems to me, is that it fails to comprehend the difference between the long distance carriers that this law is really addressed to (backbone providers) and internet service providers (access providers). If AOL discriminates in terms of content, I am free to find another service provider who does not; but if AOL carries its traffic via Level Three, and L3 discriminates between traffic, I have no functional choice in that matter, because the company discriminating is beyond the reach of any meaningful choice that I can make.

Worse yet, the definitions of the Wyden bill are so absurdly overbroad that practically any entity becomes a service provider, any user becomes a subscriber, and any use of the computer becomes a service:

• An application or service is defined as anything "by which an end-user through software or a device engages in an exchange of data or information . . . [which is] conveyed over communications" §3(1). Translation: anything carried out using the internet, period.
• A subscriber is defined as "an end user of an application or service provided through communications; and [who] consumes or provides goods provided through such application or service." §3(8). Translation: anyone doing anything on the internet, period.
• And, as we have already seen, a service provider is "any [entity] who owns, operates, controls, or resells and controls any facility that provides communications directly to a subscriber," §3(8)(a), where "subscriber" is defined as we have seen above.

In sum, if Ron Wyden's aim is to do incalculable harm to the practical operation of ISPs which have not attained the brobdingnagian stature of the AOLs of this world, this bill could not have been better designed, for it will surely achieve that.

Thomas Brackett Reed w