IS BUSH A TEXAN? Is Virginia Postrel a Californian?

I FEEL the same way.

DICK GEPHARDT gets a good review.

He didn’t seem stiff at all to me, and came across with more passion than I remember seeing from him.

And this isn’t from a Dem. I’ve never heard back from his office about those hydrogen cars, though.

BANANA OIL is a movie blog. In black and white. He writes about other stuff, too, though.

UPDATE: Here’s another movie blog. It even has sprocket holes!

THE TELEGRAPH writes:

Any fair-minded person watching Tony Blair’s performance in the House of Commons yesterday would have concluded that we have a prime minister fit to lead us into war.

Mr Blair displayed courtesy, conviction, clarity, courage and even wit. His line was that the UN has willed the end of the disarmament of Saddam Hussein again and again: now the members of the Security Council must show that they will the means. Whether or not it was a mistake to “go the UN route” is, for the time being, irrelevant.

Mr Blair has taken that route, and he is following its logic with determination and belief. President Chirac said on Monday: “No matter what the circumstances, we will vote No.” Those were not the words of someone who wants to make the international system work; Mr Blair’s words were.

Indeed.

A READER EMAILS:

Why are the major media limiting their discussion of the constitutionality of the Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003 to whether or not it is in accord with the Stenberg decision? Why is there no discussion of whether Congress has Article I power to enact it? I know that you have written about this in the past (before Morrison?), and was wondering what your thoughts were.

I know the Act seems to have an interstate nexus as an element: “in or affecting interstate commerce.” Huh? When is/is not an abortion “in or affecting interstate commerce?”

When the patient is straddling a state line? Seriously, I don’t know why the press isn’t covering this, except that abortion-ban opponents — who generally favor expansive government power in other areas, I think — aren’t big on commerce-power limits, while anti-abortion types, who include many self-described federalists, don’t want to discuss the issue in this context.

I raised this question some years ago in letters that appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and I got a phone call from one of the sponsors’ legislative assistants, but she kept insisting that there wasn’t a Lopez problem because the bill only affected abortions “in or affecting commerce.” But when I asked what abortions, if any, counted, I didn’t ever really get an answer. But the problem is that either (1) the bill doesn’t affect many, or any abortions; or (2) the bill affects a lot of abortions, but only because it adopts a definition of “commerce” that lets Congress do pretty much anything it wants.

Dave Kopel and I wrote a law review article about this in 1997, and it seems to me that our argument is stronger since the Supreme Court’s more recent federalism decisions. The argument that Congress has this power under the Fourteenth Amendment also seems to have been foreclosed.

This is something that I have called — in a different, but related context — fair-weather federalism. You’d think that the press, which we’re always told is about challenging people, would raise this issue, but it hasn’t done much. Linda Greenhouse mentioned it once in the New York Times, but otherwise the issue has been largely ignored.

BACK DURING THE BROUHAHA over the Harvard snow penis and its, er, takedown, someone wondered if any campus would permit a statue of a vagina. Obviously, the answer is yes.

This is in front of the University of Tennessee student center. I snapped it when I was out for a walk earlier today.

It’s kind of a Mayan-style representation (much cooler than the very uncool realism of the Harvard statue — though some people are trying to bring that sort of thing back) but people have called it the vagina statue for years.

Eve Ensler’s got nothing on us, baby.

JAMES MORROW WONDERS why people aren’t making more of a fuss over China’s mobile execution vans.

THE BLOVIATOR has been posting all week on health care for the uninsured, and you should go there and scroll freely.

I don’t know what I think about this. Tennessee’s TennCare program — a sort of HillaryCare Lite — has been a disaster. Large amounts of money have disappeared (more or less literally, as there’s a good deal of fraud) but providers aren’t being paid. It’s unsustainable, and on the verge of collapse, even though it was advertised as a way to save money while expanding coverage.

I’d like to see everyone covered against major medical stuff, but when a program covers all or most of your routine medical expenses it’s not “insurance” — it’s just “free health care.” And such things tend to be overused, like all free or underpriced goods. I don’t have any solutions, but it’s obvious that “spend more money” isn’t a solution, either, because even colossal amounts of money aren’t enough, over time.

Long term, I think that many medical technologies will turn a cost corner and get cheaper (nanotechnology, and advanced biotechnology, should bring this about) but not now, and certainly not in the next five years. Probably not in the next ten.

MATT WELCH DOESN’T SEEM TO LIKE my sort-of defense of the french-fry-renaming silliness.

Yes, it’s stupid. But it’s harmless, as opposed to things like trade sanctions that are harmful. And, as I said, I don’t think the French appreciate the damage that their government is doing. Something silly, and harmless, that might get their attention isn’t all bad. And if people in Congress have figured that out, it isn’t even stupid.

Anyhow, that’s my take.

AFRICANS BACK GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD:

A delegation of African scientists who attended a European Union (EU) conference on agriculture in the developing world has come out in support of the US complaint that EU policies put pressure on African governments to reject food aid containing genetically modified organisms.

Last year Zambia turned down the offer of genetically modified maize from the US, saying the safety of the food had not been proven. It also declined the offer of a milled version free from seeds that farmers could plant.

The scientists complained that humanitarian groups such as Oxfam, Christian Aid and Save The Children, backed by EU funds, had frightened African governments into rejecting food aid. They said the groups had also alarmed starving populations. “Some groups have told people that genetically modified products are dangerous and could cause cancer,” said the executive director of industry body Africabio, Prof Jocelyn Webster. Webster and Prof James Ochanda, head of biochemistry at the University of Kenya, led the African delegation.

The scientific delegation said that genetically modified crops boosted yields and could make Africa less dependent on foreign food aid.

Today’s Europe: Starving African children in the name of ideology — and conveniently forestalling agricultural competition at the same time!

TIM BLAIR OBSERVES: “Strange how the left’s contempt for WASP-y George so often mutates into suspicion of the wicked Jews, who really run the planet.”

DANIEL DREZNER writes in The New Republic that democratizing Iraq may not be as hard as people say. I hope he’s right!

TINFOIL HAT (APPARENTLY) ASKEW, an Antiwar.com writer asserts that the episode in La Habra, California in which a September 11 memorial was desecrated and antiwar slogans were posted was the work of sinister agents provocateurs.

In the real world, however, an antiwar activist seems to have admitted the vandalism.

Here’s another report, which suggests that the woman’s vandalism may have been followed by other, more serious, vandalism conducted by a separate group.

SPRING IS HERE, it’s sunny and in the 70s, and I played hooky from the deskwork I should be doing long enough to take a stroll around campus.

Here’s a shot of the law school, from the Student Center. It’s a beautiful day, and I should be out enjoying it. Instead I’m getting ready to judge a practice argument for the Trademark Law moot court team.

Meanwhile, the Frederick Douglass Moot Court team is heading off to the national finals. They’re doing better this year than they did the year I coached them. . . .

UPDATE: My colleague Gary Pulsinelli — law professor, Ph.D in virology, god of patent and trademark law and, most importantly, Trademark Team coach — reminds me that his team is on the way to the national finals, too. Yeah, I should have been clearer than that. Moot court rocks!

NICK DENTON HAS A BRILLIANT SUGGESTION:

So how to punish the French? Changing the name of French fries won’t do it, nor pouring French wine into the gutter. But here’s an idea: dismantle the French empire in Africa. France has long supported African dictators who rob their own people to go on shopping sprees in the Rue de la Paix. The US should support the democratic opposition to every French client across the continent. It’s a win-win solution: promote democracy in a badly-governed region, and castrate the French at the same time.

Count me in — at least if we can find or create the appropriate democratic opposition, which may not be quite as easy as this makes it sound. I wonder what AfricaPundit thinks?

Meanwhile Paul Philp emails this suggestion:

Isn’t the time coming for the American people to show their gratitude and appreciation to Tony Blair. He is in political trouble for supporting the US and a little public support from the streets of America might help.

Stop the ‘Freedom Fries’ nonsense, call ’em chips like the English do.

Raise the Union Jack up next the Stars and Stripes in solidarity. Burn the ‘Down with France’ signs and up with the “Thank you Tony” signs. Tony Blair has been a tireless courageous advocate and ally of America since 8:48 am September 11, 2001. It is time to show him that he is appreciated. It is time to show the British people that the American people are the most generous on the planet and their sacrifice will not be taken for granted.

France will get hers soon enough. For now, a friend needs our help.

Good point. Maybe a pro-Blair demonstration at the British Embassy?

WI-FI, “FREEDOM” FRIES, AND MORE: All over at GlennReynolds.com.

ARMED LIBERALS: Talkleft notes the field trip that I mentioned here yesterday, and points out that the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is planning to do the same kind of thing.

I think they’ll find it educational, and worthwhile.

NOAH SHACHTMAN is still on the case where Los Alamos security problems are concerned. He’s got an article in Wired News, and more on his blog, Defense Tech.

I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t gotten more attention.

FREDRIK NORMAN and some fellow Norwegians have set up a website and organization in response to anti-Americanism there. Here’s the English version.

Thanks very much, guys.

INTERESTING STUFF is going on at the Oxford Democracy Forum, where there’s a panel discussion going on right about now. Here’s Josh Chafetz’s bit, and here’s David Adesnik’s.

There’s also a link-rich FAQ page that many people, including journalists, are likely to find useful.

CHRIS PATTEN is threatening E.U. sabotage of efforts to reconstruct Iraq after a war.

I think we should cooperate. No contracts relating to reconstruction should go to companies from countries that oppose the war. I wouldn’t want to subject them to a moral dilemma.

UPDATE: Luke Pingel emails:

Let the EU members for whom Mr. Patten speaks abstain from contributing to rebuilding Iraq. Just as long as they also promise to abstain from rebuilding Iraq’s civil and political society as well.

The Iraqis have endured enough without being saddled with France’s committment to the sacred troika of bureaucracy, intransigence, and arrogance.

Indeed.

TINA BROWN dissed Jeff Jarvis, and it made Page Six.

I keep telling people, he seems like a nice guy, and he is. But you cross him at your peril. . . .

MORE GOOD NEWS ABOUT COMPUTERS: My TechCentralStation column is up.

I’VE BEEN MEANING to link to Chris Muir’s Day by Day strip. I’ve enjoyed it for a while. I predict that some smart newspapers will be picking it up any, er, day now.

In the meantime, Dean Esmay has a very nice interview with Chris Muir. Don’t miss it.

I programmed in Fortran, once.