AT PRAWFSBLAWG, some thoughts on originalism and its failings. I’ve written a lengthier treatment here.
Archive for 2007
September 21, 2007
A LOOK AT creeping antisemitism. Heck, in some quarters it’s not even bothering to creep any more.
HEH: “Here’s a sign of changing times: lawyers are picking up luxury real estate holdings that hedge fund guys can’t afford to keep.”
BRINGING NEW MEANING TO “PAJAMAHADEEN”: “Once her son is off to school, Laura Mansfield settles in at her dining room table with her laptop and begins trolling Arabic-language message boards and chat rooms popular with jihadists. Fluent in Arabic, the self-employed terror analyst often hacks into the sites, translates the material, puts it together and sends her analysis via a subscription service to intelligence agencies, law enforcement and academics.”
And read this, too.
ANOTHER IMMIGRATION VOTE next week?
This is the last thing the Republicans need.
BLOGOMETER: “The netroots are hopping mad over the Senate’s vote to condemn MoveOn’s ‘Gen. Betray Us’ ad.”
BAD MEDICINE: John Stossel on health care:
America’s health-care problem is not that some people lack insurance, it is that 250 million Americans do have it.
You have to understand something right from the start. We Americans got hooked on health insurance because the government did the insurance companies a favor during World War II. Wartime wage controls prohibited cash raises, so employers started giving noncash benefits like health insurance to attract workers. The tax code helped this along by treating employer-based health insurance more favorably than coverage you buy yourself. And state governments have made things worse by mandating coverage many people would never buy for themselves.
Competition also pushed companies to offer ever-more attractive policies, such as first-dollar coverage for routine ailments like ear infections and colds, and coverage for things that are not even illnesses, like pregnancy. We came to expect insurance to cover everything.
Read the whole thing.
WHEN GEORGE BUSH’S METAPHORS ARE TOO COMPLEX FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND, a career in journalism may be beyond your capacities. But not beyond your reach!
PAUL CASSELL IS RESIGNING THE BENCH. Among other reasons, he cites problems with judicial pay.
WHY IS MOVEON MAKING LIFE TOUGHER FOR DEMOCRATS?
Yesterday, an organization so small its 17 employees don’t even have a central office, found itself under attack by not only President Bush, who said the ad was “disgusting,” but also by the Democratic-controlled Senate, which passed a resolution 72 to 25 expressing its own outrage. Many Democrats blamed the group for giving moderate Republicans a ready excuse for staying with Bush and for giving Bush and his supporters a way to divert attention away from the war. . . .
Many Democratic strategists were privately furious at the group for launching an attack on a member of the military rather than Bush, arguing that it gave Republicans a point on which to attack the Democrats and to rally around the administration’s war policy. The displeasure underscores the uneasy alliance between MoveOn and the party.
If one assumes that MoveOn was out to help MoveOn, rather than the Democratic Party, this all makes sense. It has, I gather, been a fundraising boon to them, and it’s raised MoveOn’s profile within the party. Their capacity to mess things up only means that people have to pay more attention to them.
Public choice theory explains things once again!
UPDATE: A similar dynamic in a different organization.
HMM: “I’m not saying it’s a deliberate setup, but the last thing Obama needed in his presidential candidacy was the ‘Jena 6’ flap. No matter how he chooses to treat the case, he will fare the worse for it. . . . The saddest part of Obama’s Hobson’s choice is what it says about that aging black power structure. In forcing his hand this way, they seem to be saying that they don’t really want a black President of the United States.”
ERIC SCHEIE: “So many things are illegal now that it’s almost like a gigantic prosecutorial dartboard.”
REMEMBERING CLASSIC CARS: The 1979 AMC AMX. IowaHawk probably has seven. Or maybe none. . . .
Nice Farrah hairdo on the accompanying model, too.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S WAR AGAINST ITSELF? “Is there a Civil War still going on in Iraq? Perhaps. But there is another Civil War brewing… within the Democratic party.”
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Well, I think that this counts as a win:
The state of Alaska on Friday officially abandoned the “bridge to nowhere” project that became a nationwide symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.
The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on one island in southeastern Alaska, to its airport on another nearby island.
“Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer,” Gov. Sarah Palin said in a statement.
She directed the state transportation department to find the most “fiscally responsible” alternative for access to the airport.
Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young championed the project through Congress two years ago, securing more than $200 million for the bridge between Ketchikan, on Revillagigedo Island, and Gravina Island.
You don’t see this kind of thing very often. But let’s hope that’s changing.
“AMONG THE BELIEVERS:” Jeff Goldstein stirs the pot.
AUTOBLOGGREEN: Autoblog reports from a plug-in hybrid show in D.C., and on other alternative automotive technologies.
HSOCKING HSU HSECRETS? Presumably, we’ll learn what’s going on as the investigation proceeds.
MORE ACADEMIC OPEN-MINDEDNESS on free speech. Are we talking universities? Or 527s?
DAVID BELLAVIA’S FALLUJAH MEMOIR, House to House, gets a very positive review.
CORY DOCTOROW on the information economy.
JOHN MCCAIN TO CODE PINK PROTESTORS: “We beat you yesterday, we beat you today, and we’ll beat you tomorrow. We don’t choose to lose.” Video, including a standing ovation from the audience, at the link.
CAN’T TURN HSU LOOSE: “Hsu Still ‘Hillraiser,’ At Least For Now.”
WELL, THIS SUCKS: Virginia Postrel mentions, in an oh-by-the-way fashion: “I have breast cancer and start chemotherapy next Friday.” Please send her your best wishes.