Help! Please explain to me.

Stephen Morris on Election 2004 on National Review Online
Read this wonderful review of the services which John Kerry, since coming to the Senate in 1985, has rendered to the Vietnamese Communists and their friends in Cambodia; add recall his career promoting the communist line with the VVAW in the early Seventies; then remember his vehement opposition to American intervention in favor of freedom in Indochina dating back to at least 1966; and, please, explain to me what is the difference between John Kerry and a communist?

Caca from al Qaqaa

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story
Here's an eyewitness report, the good stuff was gone before we got there.

Halloween horror - scary doings in Rome

HoustonChronicle.com - 25 nations sign first constitution for EU
The PMs and presidents of the 25 EU nations met at the heart of the last empire over the known world to try to set up the next. As I have said before, the Europeans will wake up some day and feel sorry that after saving them from the Russians they thumbed their collective noses at the US and found no one to left to save them and the Russians for the Red Chinese. The good news is that as many as ten nations may allow the people to decide this question directly through referenda, rather than the votes of professional politicians in their parliaments, and some of those may not pass.

Wednesday, November 3, 2004: Kerry claims victory, counting to continue two weeks or more, dozens of lawsuits filed

No need to buy the paper on Wednesday, I've produced the headline already.

Playing God harder than it looks, even for doctors

Telegraph | News | Gene therapy is just an expensive myth, claim scientists :
"Prof Steve Jones, a leading geneticist at University College, London, said that excessive claims had been made about biotechnology.
"'It's clear that the technical advances have been grossly distorted from the start. I would say give it 10 years before deciding, but I would have said that 10 years ago,' he said.
"Prof Jones said that the scientific insights offered by biotechnology were remarkable, but increasingly suggested that living organisms were far more complex than anyone believed."

As someone remarked at the time Ventner and company announced success in the human genome project, it probably isn't a code and we may never be able to read it.

Arab reaction to UBL tape: blow to conspiracy theories

BakuTODAY.net:
"Expert on Islamic affairs and columnist for the the al-Ahram newspaper [semi-official, Cairo] Fahmy Howeidi says Osama bin Laden's statement has two main goals.
"'He is hoping for two things,' he said. 'Number One, he wanted to tell the people that he is still there. He is still challenging [President] Bush and all his allies in the area. Number Two he is trying to convince people that, if they do not vote for [Mr.] Bush they will be more safe, more secure.'"

Set this reaction from Egypt against comments in my immediately prior post.

The article quotes another Arab authority saying that UBL explicitly taking credit for 9/11 for the first time on the tape is a severe blow to those who insisted that the attacks had been the work of Israeli and/or US intelligence agencies. Of course, Walter Cronkite's remarks on Larry King provide a way around this problem by putting Bush in charge of the whole thing: UBL, 9/11, Israel, the CIA; sort of a "grand unified conspiracy theory" - that could be Michael Moore's 2005 movie.

Machiavellian machination suggests Uncle Walter. If so, it's become a self-inflicted wound

WorldNetDaily: Cronkite: Bush working with bin Laden:
"'So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.'"

If I had written this quote and falsely attributed it to Walter Cronkite, I would be accused of trying to make the old man look stupid, if not delusional. Yet, this is how Cronkite's remarks on Larry King Live have been reported.

It's hard to take drivel like this seriously, but let's try. The first problem is timing. Cronkite's former employer, CBS, was planning to air the al Qaqaa caca tonight (Sunday, October 31) on 60 Minutes. It would have been awfully risky to know that was coming and count on this UBL tape to counteract it. Of course, the al Qaqaa story did break early in the NY Times - according to some reports because it was leaked by a faction of the CIA upset that another faction of CIA had conspired with El Baradei and the IAEA to create the story for CBS' last-minute use. So, maybe we are supposed to believe that the CIA leak to the Times also alerted the White House to produce the UBL tape. Or, maybe the White House made the UBL tape well in advance to be unveiled at the opportune moment. And how did Al Jazeera TV get roped into this Republican plot? Of course, there is the larger problem of insinuating that bin Laden is under the control of Bush, or that they both answer to some higher authority.

This is the stuff of fantasy. Even Oliver Stone couldn't make this movie with a straight face, although Michael Moore might give it a try. Besides, it's way too risky, not Karl Rove's style at all. I have written before criticizing Rove's influence in this campaign, but he is way too smart to try a high-risk gamble like this.

Moreover, a recent report on Kerry's campaign polling on the issue of the UBL tape shows that it hurts Bush by reminding voters of Kerry's theme that Iraq is a distraction from the hunt for bin Laden. A thoroughly predictable reaction in my view, and one that Rove would have anticipated.

Bush ad goes funny with 'Naked Gun' director

WorldNetDaily: Bush ad goes funny with 'Naked Gun' director

Too little and too late, I'm afraid; but a great ad.

Colorado College Teacher Sorry for Kicking Student

Yahoo! News - Colo. Teacher Sorry for Kicking Student : "a thoughtless knee-jerk political reaction that should never have happened,' she wrote. 'Before the incident, I did not know you and that you are a Fort Lewis student.'"

So wrote the visiting instructor in modern languages in her letter of apology to the College Republican whom she kicked in the leg when she passed by him in an off-campus eatery demonstrating her objection to the CR sweatshirt he was wearing.

Of course, it wasn't her "knee-jerk political reaction" to which the CR objected, it was her knee-jerk foot reaction colliding with his leg.

And note the intructor's declaration that she had been unaware that her victim was a student at the institution where she teaches. Does she mean that it would not have been necessary to apologize for kicking a mere "townie"?

Friday and early AM Saturday ...

I was distracted by a long-running exchange of emails with some new libertarian web acquaintances. You know how that works you send something to someone you know, he sends it to someone he knows who puts you on their list of 30 people to tell the first friend what a fool you are. The next think you know your in-box is bulging with mail from folks you never heard of, mostly nice and/or reasonable, a few who are neither.

Here's an example of my contribution to this little storm, the part about whether libertarians should bother with voting:

"___,

"I don't really see ___'s point about giving up on voting even to the extent of the non-candidate questions. The courts do frequently overstep their authority to overturn popular referenda, although there have been occasions where popular enthusiasms have overstepped the bounds of federal or state constitutions and were rightly struck down. Yet, given a chance to vote against, for example, a bond issue for the schools that would raise your real property tax bill, not voting is just plain perverse.

"Voting for good ideas and against bad ones in referenda (whether advisory, statutory, or ratifying state constitutional amendments or local government charters) can serve a useful function, even if the courts later step in to frustrate the popular will. Dropping out of the process does little to encourage others to become non-cooperators in the political system, but it does tend to discourage those who might agree with us on at least some limited government issues from continuing in the struggle.

"You have probably heard the joke about the little old lady who was heard complaining about her congressman and the things the government was doing. She was asked if she would be voting for his opponent and replied, "Goodness, no. I never vote, it only encourages them." Well, I think she was wrong. Even if there are only two candidates for one office, if one is even slightly better, vote for him. And, if they are equally awful and one is an incumbent, vote for the new one - turnover gets the attention of the professionals (I used to be one.). If there is no incumbent and the ones who are on the ballot are equally unacceptable, write in someone you'd like better, maybe even yourself. Even if this strategy seldom produces victories for objectively good candidates, in some districts and for some offices, we can drive down the winner's vote percentage, maybe even below 50%. "That'll put the fear of God and the Kaiser into 'em."

"If those who know what is right absent themselves from the system, if they are not "in play," the playing field tilts toward all those clamoring for bad ideas to be made policy. You might as well vote for the worst candidate to sharpen the contradictions of the system, as the revolutionaries would say.

"I can understand those who want to withdraw to their montaintop and let the world go to hell without them, but "no man is an island, unto himself entire." Society is part of what makes us human. God did not stop with Adam, He also created Eve, and He gave them the ability to procreate and the injunction to multiply and thus human society came into being. (Feel free to take this allegorically, this is not an essay on theology or evolution, but I'm trying to make an emotional point which is best done poetically).

"If you prefer a materialistic argument, consider the division of labor that makes material progress possible ( Click here: Amazon.com: Books: The Economy of Cities ). Whether for love or money, we need each other, this requires finding ways to live side-by-side with a minimum of friction. At the present time, at least, we do not make those decisions by means of airy intellectual debates and the record of societies which resorted to such methods is not particularly encouraging - they seem to degenerate into getting the ear of the tyrant. So long as we have a system that relies in significant degree on voting, let's vote and influence the votes of others by public and private debates. Libertarians have a lot of good ideas (and a few looney ones) to bring to this discussion; they make us all poorer if they don't hold up their end of the conversation."

The Faith of our fathers

The White House Wasn't Always God's House:
"In the 19th century, all presidents routinely invoked God and solicited his blessing. But religion did not have a major presence in their lives. Abraham Lincoln was the great exception. Nor did our early presidents use religion as an agency for mobilizing voters. 'I would rather be defeated,' said James A. Garfield, 'than make capital out of my religion.'
"Nor was there any great popular demand that politicians be men of faith. In 1876, James G. Blaine, an aspirant for the Republican presidential nomination, selected Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, a famed orator but a notorious scoffer at religion, to deliver the nominating speech: The pious knew and feared Ingersoll as 'The Great Agnostic'; a 21st century equivalent of Ingersoll would have been booed off the platform at the Republican convention of 2004."

So writes historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of the architects of Camelot, in Tuesday's LA Times. He omits the rather interesting fact that Blaine lost the GOP nomination to Chester A. Arthur that year although he did receive the nomination in 1884 only to lose the election to Grover Cleveland.

This is the sort of topic which tends to attract those who have strong pro or con opinions and write the story the way they wish it were. For an example of the other extreme, find a book called The Presidents: Men of Faith by Bliss Isely; the second edition, which I have, was issued in 1954 and covers all the presidents from Washington through Eisenhower. Bliss wrote his presidential profiles for use in Methodist Sunday Schools. Isely mentions at a few places that some presidents refrained from public worship while in office to avoid theological controversies. Thus lack of attendance at church might not mean, as Schlesinger would have it, that religion was a trivial or private matter, but rather that it was the subject of very serious public controversy.

How reliable are fingerprint identifications?

KRT Wire | 10/27/2004 | Fingerprint evidence not good science, scholar says:

"Just ask Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer who was arrested in May, jailed for two weeks and branded a terrorist. FBI experts mistakenly linked his fingerprint to the Madrid train bombing that killed 191 people in March - even though Mayfield has never been to Madrid. The fingerprints were later found by Spanish experts to match a foreign terrorist.

"FBI officials have apologized for the error, but they have not yet explained it - which is no surprise to Cole, who has made UCI ground zero for challenging conventional wisdom about fingerprints.

"'They can't explain it, because there is a fallacy at work here: the belief that, because all fingerprints are unique, therefore fingerprint evidence is inherently reliable,' he says. 'It makes sense at first blush, but think about it: No two faces are alike, yet eyewitness identification is difficult and problem-plagued.

"'The real question is not whether all fingerprints are different, but how accurate are fingerprint examiners at matching the small, fragmentary prints you find at crime scenes. And the real answer is, we don't know. No one knows - because there has never been a scientific study to find out. They have never allowed it.'"

If you are interested in justice, read the full article. It's an eye-opener.

No room for Jerusalem in new hymn book, Why was it there before?

The Scotsman - Scotland - No room for Jerusalem in new hymn book:
"THE hymn Jerusalem has been left out of the final version of the new Church of Scotland hymn book because of its associations with English nationalism - despite an outcry against the move.
"But, for the first time, Amazing Grace, What a Friend We Have in Jesus and Lord of the Dance will be included in the first new hymnary for more than 30 years."

It is a measure of how far even the Presbyterians of Scotland have strayed that this should be a matter of controversy for the reason stated.

Consider politician's this defense of including Jerusalem in the COS hymnal:
'Mike Russell, an unsuccessful candidate in this year's SNP leadership contest, said the concerns that Jerusalem was connected to English nationalism were misguided. "It's just a silly misreading of the words because they have been captured by a whole load of jingoistic people," he said. "Blake wrote essentially an anthem to socialism. I think there's little excuse for not including it in the final version, particularly because they have had second thoughts."'

If you are not familiar with the hymn, you can find the words here: William Blake's poem Jerusalem.

Homeschoolers under attack in Germany

Schulunterricht zu Hause e.V.:

"Schulunterricht zu Hause e.V., (Schuzh) is a national organization. Through our attorneys, we offer legal counsel in issues related to homeschooling.

"Home education in Germany is based on time-honored educational traditions and is modeled after the modern educational methods of the home school movement."

As reported by WorldNetDaily.com, a group of fathers of homeschool students recently were sent to jail for refusing to pay fines for keeping their children out of he clutches of the government schools. The mothers may be next. If you want to help, you will find English-language information on the German homeschool movement and how to donate at the link above.

Which is stronger, enthusiasm or anger?

Anger toward Kerry is growing among Republicans and conservatives, but still at half to two-thirds the rate at which liberals and Democrats are angry at Bush according to this new poll: ABC News: Poll: Anger Among Conservatives Rises.

Kerry's cronies at it again, aiding America's enemies

The old Sixties and Seventies anti-war (pro-communist is more like it) crowd that John Kerry associated with on his return from Vietnam (if not before) is at it again - giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Remember when Kerry got out of his active duty commitment to the Navy early to run for Congress in 1970? He changed his mind and became campaign manager for Fr. Robert Drinan's successful campaign.

Here's the story from David Horowitz as it appears on NewsMax,
Softening Us Up for the Kill:

"On Sunday, the New York Times featured a political ad counseling defeatism in Iraq - a counsel that has become commonplace in its pages. The ad was sponsored by an organization called "Church Folks for a Better America," based at Princeton.

"The signatories included the same "church folks" - among them William Sloane Coffin Jr., Robert Drinan and Robert Edgar (National Council of Churches) - who counseled defeat in Indochina, aided the torturers of American POWS in North Vietnam and fronted for the Soviet dictatorship's "nuclear freeze" campaign."

As Horowitz points out, Robert Edgar was one of the architects of the forcible return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba. A Methodist minister, he was also a Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | So what colour was Jesus?

BBC NEWS | Magazine | So what colour was Jesus?

Not that it matters theologically, but much of the effort to prove Jesus was a "person of color" or a Black man is just nonsense in terms of history and ethnography.

Consider this quote from the BBC article:
"And Jesus probably did have some African links - after all the conventional theory is that he lived as a child in Egypt where, presumably, his appearance did not make him stand out."
Assuming for the moment that the Israelites in Palestine 2,000 years ago were not Africans, why was it more likely that he would be a dark child who would not attract attention in Egypt yet be dark enough to excite some comment in Palestine? The idea that his tribe was of Nigerian ancestry flies in the face of the New Testament genealogies and the history of Israel in the Old Testament.

This nonsense also assumes that the population of Egypt were uniformly dark skinned. If you look at the very ancient depictions of Egyptians you see people of several very different hues. This is in part due to the modern political effort to define the entire African continent as African in the sense of having dark skin as if Hannibal must have been a Black man since he came from Africa, even though Carthage was a Greek colony. It also expresses the racism of British and other colonial powers who were often as intolerant of Mediterranean peoples. Even in modern Italy, it is not unknown for Lombards to describe Sicilians as n-----s.

The Arabs, being descended from the same stock as the ancient Israelites were also not Black Africans even if some of them lived on that continent, although over the millenia intermarriage with Black Africans (often slaves) has produced varying degrees of mixed blood in most of North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as Arabized cultures almost wholly of Black African stock as a result of the spread of Islam in northern Africa. Still, I seem to recall that the late King Hussein of Jordan had blue eyes (this is a recessive trait and must be inherited through both the paternal and maternal lines), a feature I understand is not uncommon among the Tauregs and the Kurds.

The ethnography of modern Jewry is a similarly complicated study, embracing as it does ancient communities in such farflung locales as Ethiopia and NE India. A large part of the ethnic stock of modern Jews came from the conversion of the Khazars, a central Asian people, about a thousand years ago. But whether they were fair or more Mediterranean in appearance, it is unlikely that there was any significant portion of Black African ancestry. Even the ancient Hebrew community in Ethiopia explain their own origins as the related to the return of the Queen of Sheba from her pilgrimage to see King Solomon, after which they continued to worship in the manner of the Israelites although separated from any regular contact with Israel for millenia.

The photograph of a reconstructed ancient Israelite which accompanies this article looks suspiciously like illustrations I have seen of Cro-Magnon man.

The consolations of religion

USATODAY.com - A spiritually inclined student is a happier student:

"The research also finds that 77% of college students pray, 78% discuss religion with friends, and 76% are 'searching for meaning and purpose in life.'

"Strongly religious students tend to describe themselves as politically conservative, but they hold more liberal views on issues such as gun control and the death penalty, the research finds."

E. Chicago, Indiana, Democrat machine finally ousted

Talk about lengthy post-election litigation - the May 2003 Democrat primary was ordered to be re-held this week due to fraud the first time around. This time, the 33-year incumbent mayor couldn't steal his way to victory.

9-term mayor concedes in E. Chicago: "The 76-year-old [Mayor Robert] Pastrick was unseated Tuesday by challenger George Pabey in a special primary election forced by Pabey's court challenge to the results of a primary held 17 months earlier."

NewsMax on possibility of electoral college tie vote

See my entry from last Sunday, October 24, 2004 - Election close. What if there's a tie?

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story
Carl Limbacher should know better than to ask whether Edwards could vote for himself. Edwards will be an ex-senator when the congress meets to count the electoral college votes. Kerry, on the other hand, will still be a member and could participate in senate voting for a new VP. Even if Kerry is the winner of the presidential race he cannot resign his senate seat if the Dems need his vote to control organizing the new senate.

If you want a real nightmare scenario, consider that the House selects Bush as president (a no brainer), and the senate meets to select a new VP with the senate 50 Dems, 49 GOP and Jeffords. This is a bit unlikely since the GOP has good chances to pick up seats in GA and the Carolinas and maybe LA, while the Daschle-Thune race remains very close. But the Dems might steal enough votes in PA to take out Arlen Specter, and there may be other surprises (historically the senate is more volatile than the house). The Dems could then make Edwards VP and we would then, for the only time since 1797-1801, have a president and veep representing different parties.

Will this deter further speculation about terrorist involvement in American Airlines Flight 587 crash?

There has been speculation on the internet that the plane which crashed in November 2001 within minutes of takeoff from JFK had been the target of sabotage. Observers have found it suspicious that the entire tail assembly, not just the ruddder (the fin that moves left and right at the rear edge of the tail), had come off and fallen in the bay at the end of the runway a mile or so before the plane came down on an ocean shore neighborhood of Queens.

Co-pilot Blamed for Crash of Flight 587:
"... Airbus told the NTSB that it included a warning that abrupt rudder movement in some circumstances 'can lead to rapid loss of controlled flight,' and, in others, could break off the tail."

The article also points out that, when re-inspected after the 2001 crash, an Airbus jet which had suffered a severe landing with one fatality in 1997 had serious cracks in the tail assembly.

More privacy slipping away, even privates not private anymore

Peeping Tom filter lets phones see through bikinis | CNET News.com:

"As well as taking snaps in the dark, the Yamada Denshi infrared filter apparently sees through people's clothes.

"The problem arises because the filter uses the distribution of heat to create its pictures. When attached to a high-end camera, the filter can see though certain kinds of clothing and is reportedly particularly effective on dark bikinis."

Didn't we go through one of these scares a few years ago with a lens filter for camcorders? Curiously, some studies have suggested that airline travelers prefer to be inspected visually with similar equipment rather than frisked and wanded.

Reclaiming the Brownshirt Party?

WorldNetDaily: Fascism, corruption and my 'Democratic' Party:
"The Party uber alles
Fueled by anger, the New Fascists have completely adopted the radical '60s notion of the 'honest con.' In other words, they think that because they are 'correct in their beliefs' and because in their minds what they fight is so 'evil,' just about any act can be committed for the sake of victory - and certainly, lying is no problem."

Bob Just makes that observation along the way to making an impassioned plea to save the Democrat Party from its descent into Fascism. I wish him well, but don't plan to hold my breath. I regard his crusade to save the Democrats from the consequences of their rush over the cliff that has been gaining steam since the McGovern Commission reforms of the 1970s as even more a fool's errand than my wish to reclaim the GOP to make it possible to nominate another Goldwater.

Just doesn't mention it, but I would remind you of an old saying very appropriate to his discussion of the lies at the heart of the modern Democrat party: "A liar will steal, and a thief will kill."

Send Just's column to your Democrat friends. Maybe it will convince them to leave the party.

What took so long?

WorldNetDaily: Discovered papers: Hanoi directed Kerry

Making good news bad and vice versa

My Way News - FBI Says: Violent Crime Falls 3 Percent

Expect to see other reports on the latest UCR annual summary to stress the slight increase in murders while all other categories of violent crime declined. Moreover, as the last line of this story notes, the household survey of crime victimization fell to its lowest rate since the survey started in 1971.

One matter not addressed was whether the total of aggravated assaults and murders rose or fell. Since the speed with which victims reach definitive medical care is often the only thing that distinguishes an aggravated assault from a murder, the two should not be analyzed in isolation. Murders could rise somewhat, even against a background of declining violent crime, if there were a decline in the efficiency of EMS transport and/or trauma centers.

Economics was dismal enough before the environmentalists started perverting it

spiked-essays | Essay | The dismal quackery of eco-economics:

"One of the most striking but least noticed aspects of the rise of environmentalism is the way that it has helped to redefine economics. Economic production and consumption are viewed in a fundamentally different way than they were before environmentalism became central to the dominant worldview.


"Environmentalist assumptions that, at the very least, should be the subject of debate are unquestioningly accepted. Environmentalism has become central to the mainstream outlook, rather than the particular property of green parties or organisations.


"This development isn't just important at the level of ideas. A gloomy view of economic development plays an important role in holding back human potential. At its starkest, the acceptance of the idea that economic growth has to be curtailed is a tragedy in a world where billions of people still live in dire poverty."

So begins an excellent essay at spiked-online.com by Daniel Ben-Ami which traces many ways in which the anti-growth mentality of the modern ecological movement constitutes a wide-ranging assault on the very idea of progress embodied in the Enlightenment.

I have only a few minor quibbles with Ben-Ami. He mentions the use which the ecological crowd make of the "tragedy of the commons" to illustrate wasteful overuse of resources without noting that free market economists use the same example to show the ill effects which flow from the lack of defined private property rights. He is also a bit too willing to bow to a scientific consensus that does not in fact exist with regard to an impending crisis caused by anthropogenic global warming, although he persuasively makes the case that richer societies are better able to cope with environmental stressors and that requires growth.

Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the environmental debate, especially its aspects of limits to growth and risk aversion.

Property rights under assault

Here - Eminent Domain Abuses Common - we have another example of how even the friends of the constitution can get sidetracked:
"The Fifth Amendment allows government to legally take private property for “public use” to build needed services like bridges and roads; the legal term for the government’s prerogative over private property is “eminent domain.” However, until Gov. Pataki signed last month’s bill, a property owner had no way of knowing when his home or place of business had been condemned. Property owners also had no way of knowing that they have the right to fight the arbitrary confiscation of their property. Abuse of eminent domain is a violation of the Fifth Amendment." (In the context here, property means real estate - land and things attached to the land.)

But the Fifth Amendment is not a grant of power to the federal government, and if it doesn't grant power to the federal government, you can't stretch the incoporation doctrine to say that it is a grant of power to the states. For the constitution to grant a power to the states, it would have to be by way of an amendment to restore a power previously delegated to the federal government since the states, as a matter of law and history, precede the constitution and the federal government acquired its powers from the people acting in their capacity as sovereigns of their respective states.

The Fifth Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights, a series of amendments which were sent to the states by the first congress because a number of states had been reluctant to ratify the constitution without a promise of more specific statement of certain of the rights retained by the people, either in their private capacity or through the states. There were only 11 states when they were proposed, but 14 by the time they were ratified. Read all ten, there is not a single grant of power to the federal government in any of them.

What does the constitution say about real estate? Article II, Section 8 sets forth the powers of congress. Paragraph 7 gives congress power "[t]o establish post-offices and post-roads" and Paragraph 17 gives it power "[t]o exercise exclusive legislation" over DC and "to exercise like authority over all places purchased by consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings." Article III, dealing with the jurisdiction of the federal courts, provides in Section 2, Paragraph 2, federal jurisdiction over, inter alia, suits "between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States;" and Section 3, Paragraph 2 limits the power of congress to punish treason by, inter alia, prohibiting "forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted."

WARNING: Really dull historical digression, skip this paragraph.
As successor to the government under the Articles of Confederation, the new US government inherited the Northwest Ordinance passed in 1787 before the constitutional convention met. This provided for the US to take control of the area ceded by Britain under the Treaty of Paris lying north of the Ohio River and west of the present western boundary of Pennsylvania. Virtually all of this are was claimed (as was a large chunk of Pennsylvania) by Virginia, and various parts of it were subject to additional claims, principlally by New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts. Besides the Indians and various British and French trappers and traders, there were already a few thousand settlers residing as squatters or as claimants to land sold or granted by various seaboard states. Connecticut, for example, used its Western Reserve in what is now NE Ohio to provide grants of land in lieu of cash payments for its veterans of the Revolutionary War. The Northwest Ordinance provided for surveying the land, handing out allotments to settlers, churches, schools, and courthouses, and eventually erecting five states (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). This established a precedent generally followed when other territory was added to the US by the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican War, etc. But none of that answers our question about eminent domain.

The Fifth Amendment, far from establishing a power of eminent domain only says this about property: that no criminal defendant in a federal court case may "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Eminent domain is nowhere mentioned nor contemplated in the constitution. Eminent domain traces back to the royal prerogatives of the sovereign in Britain where all land titles were held at the sufferance of the crown. When the colonies became independent states the people of the states became sovereign acting through their respective state governments. The power of eminent domain thus passed to the states to be regulated under their constitutions and laws. This was not one of the powers which the people delegated to the federal government in ratifying the constitution.

As further evidence, note that part of Article II, Section 8, Paragraph 17 quoted above. In order for congress to exercise legislative authority over land purchased by the US government in a state, the consent of that state's legislature must be obtained. It is obvious that the one who gives permission is the sovereign. Moreover, the reference is to land acquired by purchase, not condemnation. In his debates on the constitution, Alexander H. Stephens makes repeated mention of the retention of the power of eminent domain by the states as evidence that they retained the attributes of the sovereign in all areas not specifically delegated to the US government.

I uinderstand that it is pointless to argue the actual constitution to judges. Judges are just like you and me, they want to be free. They just get to be more free. And one of the ways they get to be more free is to free themselves from the actual constitution in favor of the jury-rigged contraption that judges have cobbled together to suit their notions of what it should have said if they had written it instead of those non-entities who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 - you know who I mean, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Rufus King, Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, etc. But when we are speaking to the public, constitutionalists ought to make reference to the real constitution.

Now, on the merits of the New York case described in the article linked above, it is repugnant to the people of a free republic that such a grave matter as seizing a citizen's property would not require notice specifically directed to the owner. After all, the government knows the location to which they send tax bills, they can send a registered letter. They know the location of the property, they can send a constable or marshal to serve notice on the person found in charge or to post it prominently on the premises if no one is there. The law generally requires one or both of these methods for a landlord to start eviction proceedings, why should the state do less to seize the property.

The "legal notice" section of the newspapers is a racket. The prices are usually higher than other classified ads and the newspapers don't want to give up this easy revenue. Publishing in a newspaper may be an appropriate way to provide notice to third parties (creditors, neighbors, the general public, etc.) or when the defendant's whereabouts are unknown, but it is hardly adequate for a taking of real property. Is every citizen required to read the approved newspapers in his vicinity every day to protect his rights?

US Election - Arabs predict blood in the streets of America

Are they voicing their fears or their hopes? It's hard to tell.
Arab News

"A pox on both your houses"

The Detroit News, which endorsed George W. Bush in 2000, has decided to make no endorsement in 2004.
WorldNetDaily: Paper can't stomach either Bush, Kerry

Upset possible in NY senate race

With incumbent senior senator Charles Shumer polling at 61%, you may think I'm crazy. The upset I am referring to is the outside chance that Conservative Party nominee Marilyn O'Grady, a Garden City, LI, opthamologist, might burn the RINO foisted on the GOP by Gov. Pataki into third place.
No Republican has been elected statewide in NY without Conservative cross-endorsement since 1974. Only one Conservative has been elected statewide without GOP endorsement, US Sen. Jim Buckley in 1970.
Conservative Senate Candidate Eyes Modest Triumphs

No end of mideast woes - "reform" in Egypt

Haaretz - Israel News: "Some 689 people, ranging from Islamists to Communists and including 30 lawmakers, signed a petition Saturday in the name of The Popular Campaign for Reforms, an umbrella group formed last month to try to amend Egypt's constitution to limit a president to holding two terms only."

Hosni Mubarak, 76, has led Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. His current six-year term of office has one year left. In a setup that most Western politicians can only envy, Mubarak stays in office via referenda where the people only get to vote yes or no, no messy multicandidate squabbles. The "reformers" may be premature in that Mubarak has not said whether he will seek another term or hand the government to his son Gamal, 41.

Democracy advocates no doubt will welcome this initiative to make Egypt's government look more "normal." Those more concerned with what governments do that how they look must take a slightly jaundiced view. Mubarak has kept the peace with Israel, for which the US subsidizes Egypt to the tune of several billion dollars per year, but he leaves the religious radicals on a long leash and takes little interest in their attacks on Coptic Christians. The Copts were once the predominant religion in Egypt, before the Muslims invaded. The "reformers" include such broadminided and tolerant folks as the Muslim Brotherhood and the communists. Not much to choose from on grounds of religious toleration or other liberal values. Maybe the West is better off with the status quo for as long as it can last.

Kerry's goose is cooked ... by someone else. Probably shot by someone else, too.

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2004�
This is the pool report on the tightly choreographed Kerry goose hunt in Ohio the past week. The phoniness of the whole scene speaks volumes about what Kerry's handlers must think of him and us.

Is this the Democrats' "briar patch" strategy

If I remember the old Uncle Remus story, the rabbit begged the fox not to throw him the briar patch, so the fox did just that and the rabbit got what he wanted. The briar patch was where the rabbit wanted to be.

Ohio Democrats have announced they will not appeal the appellate court ruling that allows Ohio's secretary of state Ken Blackwell to administer the provisional ballot system mandated by HAVA the way Ohio has always done. This overturned a district court ruling in favor of the Democrats that was at variance with most other state and federal court rulings on this matter in other states.

I suspect the Democrats expected to lose and now they have what they want. They can claim that Secretary Blackwell and his fellow Republicans who run the state government want to suppress the vote, especially the votes of African Americans. If they lose Ohio on November 2, they will go to court again and lay the blame on Blackwell and the Republicans. Even if they don't prevail in challenging the election they get another chance to drag Ken Blackwell through the mud.

Why all this concern about a secretary of state? Well, maybe because Ken Blackwell is an up and coming star of the GOP, maybe a future candidate for governor or senator. And he has to be stopped because, in case you haven't seen him on TV (I have and he comes across very well in that medium) Ken Blackwell is, well, Black - oops! African American. (But I couldn't resist making that play on words.)

With Bush threatening to carry twice the share of the African American vote that he got in 2000, the Democrats are worried. And if the GOP can get some more African Americans elected to state-wide and federal offices, the Democrats' electoral lock on the minority vote might be broken.

The quote below is from an editorial in Saturday's Cincinnati Enquirer, so it has been overtaken by announcement of the appeals court ruling; but it does a good job of describing the problem.

Fix 'provisional ballot' mess:
"The bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the agency formed by HAVA to interpet its provisions, backs up Blackwell's view that the federal law requires provisional ballots only in a voter's jurisdiction, which is to be determined by each state. Blackwell says jurisdiction means 'precinct.' Carr says it means 'county' - which means a voter in Colerain Township has the legal right to cast a ballot in Anderson Township. That's nuts. It invites chaos."
"The provisional-vote flap is part of a disturbing larger trend in which seemingly any attempt to reduce fraud by simply verifying voters' eligibility is met with the accusation that Republican officials are trying to suppress the minority vote."

Election close. What if there's a tie?

I was amazed a day or two ago to see some some news program with "experts" who, when the subject of a tie vote in the electoral college came up, had no clue what to say.

Fortunately, the constitution is better prepared. As the better students in the class will recall, a tie vote in the electoral college (it has only happened once - 1800) is decided in the US House of Representatives. This is a special case of the general provision that a winner must receive a majority of the total number of electors. It couldn't happern if the vote (and three electoral votes) had not been given to DC by the 23rd Amendment in 1961, or if Congress had changed the number of House members to an even number; but the specter of a deadlocked vote for speaker was probably considered a greater danger. Other than 1800, the choice of president has only been decided in the House due to no candidate having a majority one time (1824). In 1876, both candidates had majorities since there were contested races and competing sets of electors meeting in four states. This led to an extra-constitutional proceeding brokered by the Chief Justice in which a joint session of Congress awarded the presidency and vice presidency to the losing candidates in exchange for a promise that the Republicans would stop using the Army to steal elections in the future. Thus, the centennial of our independence was celebrated by having another coup d'etat.

Anyway, if the electoral college vote is tied this year, Bush wins. Each state's House delegation gets to cast one vote and if the make-up is the same as today and all members follow party lines, the vote goes Bush 30, Kerry 16, Not voting (tie votes in caucus) 4. Texas, currently tied, is expected to shift up to five seats from Democrat to Republican due to a new redistricting scheme which is being challenged in court; so Bush should be able to carry 31 states in the House. There will be substantial pressure brought to bear on members whose districts were carried by the other party to cross over if there are enough such districts in a state to shift its vote, but it would be very hard to shake loose enough Republicans to make this work for Kerry.

Consider my state, Pennsylvania. It is likely to go for Kerry due to huge Democrat majorities in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and some smaller cities. But the rural areas are solidly Republican and so are most of the suburban areas and small towns. The congressional delegation is currently Republican by a margin of 12 to 7. To get Pennsylvania's one vote, Democrats would have to get 3 Republicans to break ranks.

Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina, however would shift from R to D if one Republican crosses over. In addition to Texas, the other tied delegations are Minnesota, Mississippi and Wisconsin. Kentucky, New Hampshire and South Carolina would go from Bush to tied if one Republican caves, But there aren't likely to be any GOP congressmen whose districts are carried by Kerry in those states.

The danger is really in suburban districts represented by moderate Republicans. But there would have to be assurances not only that their switches would make the difference in the presidential balloting, but that they could cross the aisle and tip the House to the Democrats and keep their committee and subcommittee chairmanships. If the Republicans were to still have a House majority without the renegades, they would be thrown out of the GOP caucus and the party would make sure they lost any future Republican primary. This would make the ruckus over Sen. Jeffords' betrayal pale by comparison.

Just remember, we only need 269, Kerry is the one who has to get 270 electoral votes.

John Kerry International Fan Club - Update

FrontPage magazine.com :: The Axis of Evil Endorsement by Ben Johnson:
"Months after John Kerry boasted of having received secret endorsements from anonymous foreign leaders around the world, many of the gaps have been filled in."

With the exception of the apparent Iranian switch to the GOP which I have mentioned earlier (Wednesday, October 20, 2004, 6:47 PM), this appears to be a comprehensive, accurate and up to date list. There are few surprises. Basically, Kerry is supported by communists, Islamofascists and Western appeasers (although comparing them to Chamberlain may be too harsh on the man with the umbrella, Quisling or Petain might be nearer the mark). The people who are actually on the front lines (Russia, South Korea, Japan, the Phillipines) are for Bush.

Old ways die slowly in the mountains

An old song says:
I'll eat when I'm hungry. I'll drink when I'm dry.
And, if moonshine don't kill me, I'll live 'til I die.

The story here - Moonshine stills bubble to surface in Eastern Kentucky - from the Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal deals with what is very nearly the end of an era - the era of untaxed alcoholic beverages which goes back to at least the Whiskey Rebellion during the Washington administration. It includes this charming bit of history:
"With the help of his father, who built a still soon after returning from World War I, [Donald] Caudill [now 87] made a few batches of the liquor and then found their 'name was all around town' as producers of good moonshine.
"Caudill said he continued to ply his trade in Leslie and Perry counties until the age of 17, when he left Appalachia to join the military.
"'There was always a market for moonshine,' Caudill said. 'It was only a black mark on your character if you made bad moonshine.'"

Reading this reminded me of a fellow I knew in College Republicans about 35 years ago who was from the coalfield region of SW Virginia. He said they didn't need fake IDs when he was in high school because they made their own beer at home. Oh, for the good old days when kids had wholesome and productive outlets for their free time like making homebrew instead of playing video games.

Another day, another mental illness: animal hoarding

It wasn't long ago that a TV drug ad brought me the news that extreme shyness was a treatable mental disease called social anxiety disorder (aka SAD); not to be confused with seasonal affective disorder (also SAD), which is winter blues from lack of sunlight which can be treated without drugs by getting out in the sunshine more. Come to think of it, getting out in the sunshine where you might meet other people might help with social anxiety as well, but why bother when there is a happy pill?

Anyway, today's news brings a story from Louisiana of a man literally eaten, burrowed and you-can-guess-what-else out of house and home by a pair of bunnies he bought for companionship. When he abandoned his house and called his doctor (I never would have thought of that) for help there were 73 fat furry critters. Shades of The Trouble With Tribbles (Star Trek reference).

Rabbit multiplication runs owner out:
"[SPCA Executive Director Laura] Maloney said the man was not cited and does not have the mental disorder called animal hoarding, Maloney said.
"Hoarders collect strays and shelter animals in a misguided attempt to love and care for them, and rarely ask for help, she said. 'He was a very nice man who recognized he was in a situation where he needed help.'"

He may not be clinically classified as an animal hoarder, but he sure had a horde of animals. Reminds me of a call I made early in my constable career. It was full dark when we pulled into the yard of a run-down farmhouse and though the night was chilly the front door stood wide open. Before we could exit the vehicle, a horde of yapping dogs, some nipping at each other, surrounded my car. My partner lost count at 17. Then a swayback horse in desperate need of currying sauntered out of the house. And then a hog weighing well over 200 pounds. That was the last straw. We were only there to collect an overdue traffic fine, so we decided to try again another day.

UK's green bishop ousted from enviro-wacko group for having just one sensible idea

News: "He's the nearest thing Britain has to an eco-bishop, having campaigned on environmental issues for more than 30 years.
"Yet now the Right Rev Hugh Montefiore, the former Bishop of Birmingham, has been kicked off the board of Friends of the Earth (FoE), the leading environmental group, for saying publicly that the fight against global warming should involve using nuclear power."

EU chefs turn up heat under Turkey

We have this week been batting around the implications, mostly unpleasant for both sides, of Turkey's joining the EU on TCS Europe, and along comes this interesting report - More than third of Turkish women justify beatings by husband: poll :
"The poll was conducted among 8,075 married women by Ankara`s Hacettepe University and was funded by the European Union and the Turkish government.
"The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, has put pressure on the Ankara government to better protect the rights of women."

Among the topics of the survey was domestic violence. They found that 57% of rural women agree that there is at least one thing which, if she did it, her husband would be justified in beating her. The most commonly cited beating appropriate offenses were "burning the meal, disputing the opinion of their husbands, spending money unnecessarily, neglecting the children or refusing to have sex." Among all women, urban and rural, beating approval dropped to a still substantial 39%.

I'll bet they didn't ask the more interesting questions like:
1) are women who believe that a particular behavior is a beating offence less likely than other women to commit that offense?
2) what do they mean by beating - a fist to the face or an open hand to the fanny or something else?
3) how often do husbands deliver beatings, how, for what offenses?
4) are husbands more or less likely to beat a wife who accepts beating in principle?
5) what's the correlation between these factors and marital satisfaction or divorce?
6) do beatings decline with age? if so, is this because wives behave better or do their husbands just give up?

Seriously, though, this survey further illustrates the difficulty of integrating a largely traditional society like Turkey into the militantly progressive EU. Technologically they may be only about a generation apart, but socially, its more like a century.

You don't always get what you want

"SPECIAL OFFER - What platform is best for business? - Read the details, get free preview - Business Reform Magazine"

I clicked on a link with that title at WND expecting to find information on the relative merits of Linux, Mac, and Windows for running my office. How disappointing to find another "expert" trying to figure out who will bankrupt America last - Bush of Kerry?

As far as the economy is concerned, what George Wallace said a generation ago is now more true than ever. "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between the two major parties. The issues that separate the parties now are foreign policy (a little) and social issues (a lot).

Martha Stewart is appealing

Appealing her conviction, that is; Martha doesn't appeal to me at all as you would know if you read my earlier post (Style comes to West Virginia) on the occasion of her incarceration.

Today's story - Entertainment News Article | Reuters.com - echoes a point I made in that earlier post: "'Martha Stewart was never charged with insider trading. But a barrage of pretrial leaks and in-court accusations left the indelible impression that she was guilty of that offense,' her lawyers said. 'Tarring Stewart with an uncharged, highly inflammatory crime was fundamentally unfair; that unfairness was compounded by rulings that barred Stewart from responding to those charges and prevented the jury from understanding what was -- and was not -- properly before it.'"

The fruit of Kerry's betrayal, suffering Christians in Vietnam

The Democrat presidential nominee's associates show how to defend national secutity communist style in this article linked on World Net Daily - Reuters AlertNet - Vietnam: Attack on Mennonites Highlights Religious Persecution: " A new law expected to go into effect in November bans any religious activity deemed to threaten national security, public order or national unity. The recent attacks on the Mennonites, a Protestant denomination not recognized by the government, occurred against a backdrop of a crackdown on independent religious groups, in particular members of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and ethnic minority Protestants in the northern and central highlands. During the last year, several protestant pastors and independent Buddhist monks have been detained and their places of worship shut down, cordoned off, or placed under surveillance. At least two Catholic priests and one Catholic layperson are serving long prison sentences for holding training courses and distributing books or leaflets."

Notice the superior efficiency of the communists' methods. The new national security law is merely "expected" to go into effect next month. but it is already being vigorously enforced. Despite our long slide into socialism, most Western governments stubbornly cling to the outmoded practice of enforcing laws only after they have come into effect.

Yet another nail in the coffin of privacy

The State Department downplays fears while a wag jokes that paranoids will turn their tin foil beanies into passport wrappers to keep out the snoops according to this report: WorldNetDaily: Are new passports identity-theft risk?

According to the story there is really no need to worry. "An engineer and RFID expert with Intel claims there is little danger of unauthorized people reading the new passports. Roy Want told the newssite: 'It is actually quite hard to read RFID at a distance,' saying a person's keys, bag and body interfere with the radio waves." So hard to read at a distance that retailers think the technology can soon move from inventory control to automated checkout, or did I misread those stories about Wal-Marts RFID initiative?

Pentecostal partnership for urban minority ministry training

We see so many appeals for foreign missions and local outreach that we sometimes forget that there is an urgent mission need in our own cities (and prisons). Muslim conversions among urban minority communities are growing; and, if the propagation of the Gospel were not reason enough, the fact that much of this ostensibly religious activity is heavily tilted politically toward radical anti-Christian and anti-American agendas ought to get out attention.

CharismaNOW -- Christian News from the editors of Charisma Magazine :

"Two of the nation's largest Pentecostal denominations have joined forces through an inner-city college campus. In August, the Assemblies of God (AG) and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) entered into a corporate partnership to operate the School of Urban Missions (SUM), an urban Bible college that combines theological education and practical hands-on training in Oakland, Calif., and New Orleans, AG News reported."

"A predominately black fellowship, Memphis-based COGIC is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the country. The Springfield, Mo.-based AG is the largest white Pentecostal denomination in the nation. SUM has more than 130 students for the fall term, around two-thirds of whom are African-American."

Brit paper's attempt to sway US voters cancelled

Having gotten so much bad reaction to their efforts, the Guardian has pulled the plug after passing out names and addresses of only one fourth of Clark County, Ohio's registered independent voters. This story - Telegraph | News | Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco - from a rival paper, offers this interesting postscript to the story:
"The end of the scheme comes as a relief to Linda Rosicka, the director of the Clark County board of elections, who has been fielding dozens of interview requests from the world's media.
"Yet there is one last Guardian letter Mrs Rosicka would still like to see - one containing a cheque for $25 (about �13), which the newspaper still owes her for its purchase of the county's electoral roll.
"'I was nice and made the file available, because their reporter said he was right on deadline,' she said. 'They said the cheque is in the mail. As of this morning, it still hasn't arrived, and it's been more than a week.'"

Old Joke:
What are the three promises that are almost always lies?
Answer:
Of course, I'll still respect you in the morning. (I warned you this was an old joke; but hang in there, it gets better.)
The check is in the mail. (See, this does relate to our story.)
I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you. (My favorite.)

Republican National Committee funds dirty tricks?

When I read an earlier report about an Arizona company hired by the RNC to work in the Las Vegas area had misrepresented itself as a non-partisan registration effort and trashed Democrat registration forms its workers collected, I had hoped it was an isolated incident. Now, virtually identical charges involving the same Arizona company have come to light in western Pennsylvania: Campaign 2004: Voter registration workers cry foul.

It's gonna be "deja vu all over again"

For those whose memories of the 2000 recount fiasco in Florida may have faded, WND helpfully provides a timely reminder:
WorldNetDaily: 'How Democrats steal elections'

Bush, Kerry and the Jewish Vote as seen from Israel

A report on the wooing of the Jewish vote by the Bush campaign and why its having limited success from a leading Israeli newspaper - Haaretz - Israel News - Ogling the Jewish voter - contains this interesting observation:
"A member of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying organization, asked this week to resolve the discrepancy, explains that there is no real contradiction between what Troy [Bush's liaison with the Jewish community] says and what Kerry's brother [Cameron Forbes Kerry who recently visited Israel to speak of John Kerry's pro-Israel voting record] says. Kerry does indeed have a history of support for Israel, but he has never been much of an activist in this regard. Quite a few Israelis have met Kerry in recent years, and some of them - including several who are still in office today - had an uncomfortable feeling about him. 'It wasn't anything he said,' one of them tried to explain. 'It was something he projected.' Somehow, Kerry's outstretched hand never felt very warm."

The author of this story dismisses the idea that a lack of Jewish voting support at the polls would ever result in the GOP fielding a presidential candidate less enthusiastic in support for Israel:
"An interesting argument, but flawed: An educated guess is that 40 percent of the contributions to the Republican party come from Jews. That being the case, it is hard to imagine a candidate ignoring the political clout of the Jews, even if the number of voters is not large." I suspect that figure of 40% is a substantial exaggeration and he gives no consideration to the very strong and vocal support for Israel among Evangelical Christians who are key part of the GOP base vote.

Another story in the same edition of the paper notes a survey showing two-thirds of US Jewish voters oppose the war in Iraq. That's a number I had not seen before, and it goes a long way toward explaining why Bush can't seem to reach his goal of getting 40% of the Jewish vote as Ronald Reagan once did.

The Constitution and Elections - Part 1

Voter Confidence at Risk

There are lots of things being written about election reforms to fix the problems of the 2004 election - and its still 10 days away. In this article, Jill S. Farrell, communications director for the Free Congress Foundation, seems to start on a promising note.

"Here is some historical perspective: Our first disputed election occurred in 1800. It was our fourth election. In that election the Federalists nominated John Adams for president and Charles Pinckney for vice president. Thomas Jefferson was nominated for president and Aaron Burr as vice president by the Democratic-Republicans.

"Each elector was to vote for two candidates without specifying who was to be president or vice president; Jefferson and Burr were assigned the same number of electoral votes. Without a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives decided the election. In seven days the House voted 36 times. On the 36th go-round Jefferson was chosen by a slim margin.

"There was a call to amend the constitutional provision requiring double balloting for president and vice president. It was eliminated by the passage of the 12th Amendment, which was approved by Congress in December 1803 and ratified in time for the election of 1804.

"So you see, it can be done! We can prevail over election process issues."

As the editors at Composure* might say, "historical and complicated, but surprisingly upbeat." What it lacks of course is any acknowledgement that the constitution worked exactly as it was supposed to in the election of 1804. It is also the last time the article makes any mention of the constitution.

The 12th Amendment

Let's dispose of the 1804 crisis first. When the constitution was written and ratified there were no political parties as we now know them and hardly anyone who thought there ought to be any. No provision was made for separate voting for vice president because no one thought any self-respecting man would propose himself, of be proposed, for the inconsequential office of vice president. After two uncontested elections, George Washington retired and the centralizers put forward his VP John Adams as the Federalist candidate and the states' rights defenders lined up behind Washington's secretary of state Thomas Jefferson as the Democratic Republican candidate. The result in 1796 gave Adams the presidency and Jefferson the vice presidency by a margin of only three electoral votes. The system worked eactly as it was hoped, both positions were occupied by men widely believed capable to be president.

By 1804, the modern two-party system was really taking shape and the idea had taken hold that a party ought to propose a candidate for vice president as well as president to expand its influence if successful, and that resulted in every elector for the Jefferson-Burr ticket voting for both and no elector not selected by their adherents backed either of them resulting in a tie between them with President Adams in third place. When the election fell to the House of Representatives, Burr double-crossed Jefferson and tried to claim the presidency for himself which resulted in the marathon House session that eventually produced a majority of states for Jefferson. It was Burr's faithlessness and the lack of party cohesion that gave the impetus for the adoption of the 12th amendment.

The US Constitution and Elections

The defect of Ms. Farrell's article is that the section quoted above is the only mention of the role of the constitution. So, what is written about elections in that document which seems to be fading from sight more and more with each passing year?

In general, the constitution imposes a few duties on the states and assigns some very few responsibilities to the Congress.

Art. I, Sec. 2, Para. 1. Says that members of the US. House must be chosen by the same body of voters in each state who choose the members the most numerous branch of the state legislature. Para. 4. Says the executive authority of each state must call a special election to fill any vacancy in that state's delegation.

Amend. 17, Sec. 1. Sets the same voting qualifications for Senators as for Representatives. Sec. 2. Sets the same method of filling vacancies as for Representatives, except that the state legislature may give its executive the power to make temporary appointments.

Art. I, Sec. 4, Para. 1. Says the "times, places and manner of holding elections" shall be determined by the state legislatures, but that Congress, by law, may decide those issues, except as to the place where senators are chosen. [That last clause no longer makes much sense after adoption of Amend. 17.]

Art. 1, Sec. 5, Para. 1. Says each house shall judge the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.

Art. !!, Sec. 1, Para. 2. Gives to the respective state legislatures the power to determine how electors for president and vice president shall be chosen, and provides that no member of congress or person holding any federal office can be chosen. Para. 3. Provides that congress may set the time for choosing electors and a uniform date for them to meet and vote in their respective states.

Amend. 12. Deals with the mechanics of voting in the electoral college, and the transmitting and counting of those votes.

Amend. 14, Sec. 2. Provides that if voting rights are denied in any state, the basis of that state's representation in the US House shall be reduced proportionally. [That is, if 20% of the eligible population are prevented from voting, the population of that state as determined in the census would be reduced by 20% for purposes of apportioning members of the House.]

Amend. 15. Says the right to vote shall not be abridged by the federal or any state government on the basis of race, color or past servitude. Amend. 19. says the same with respect to sex. Amend. 23. Authorizes congress to specify how electors of president and vice president shall be chosen for DC and specifies how the number of electors for DC is determined. Amend. 24. Forbids states to require payment of a poll tax or any other tax as a condition of voting in any primary or general election for president or vice president, presidential electors, or for senators or representatives in congress. Amend. 26. Parallels numbers 15 and 19 in setting the voting age as 18.

This is getting rather long, so I'll return to this subject in a day or two and discuss how the current situation and various reform proposals fit into this constitutional fremework, or not.
__________
*Composure, the fictional magazine where Kate Hudson's character works in the romantic comedy "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," where even articles about scary diseases had to be "upbeat." One of the finest films of its type in recent years.

Useful idiots

Jewish Groups Object to Presbyterians' Meeting With Hezbollah

No doubt quite a few Christians might also object to this sort of consorting with the enemy.

Terror in Honduras? What do you call 20 beheadings?

In an article long on quotes from police and security officials in other countries downplaying the claims of the Honduran security minister - Honduran Official: Al-Qaida Recruits Central American Gangs - we find this interesting nugget:
"Idiots, the end of the world is approaching."

This was the text of a note left on the body of someone beheaded in Honduras. The beheadings - 20 so far at a rate of about one month - are a new tactic by which street gangs are fighting back against the government. Another note pinned to a body promised that police and journalists would be victims in the future.

Consider that note. The end of the world is not something your typical gangbanger is looking forward to. They may not have much faith in a future of progress, but they have found a way to make the present serve their needs and the end ot the world offers no means of profit. Maybe the Islamofascists haven't gotten to Central America yet; and maybe the tone of that note is borrowed for the garden variety Marxism that pervades the whole world; but it sounds like those gangsters are in a receptive mood.

Florida voting system already strained, it's only going to get worse.

Palm Beach County voting rolls swell due to last-minute registration: South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
"Newly registered voters, who traditionally are less likely to cast a ballot than longtime voters, might turn out in droves this year, [David] Niven [a Democrat who teaches political science at Florida Atlantic University] said. He cited the sharp policy differences between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry and the race's tight margin as factors that will attract even the politically ambivalent."

I don't know how long David Niven has been at this game, but 30 years or so ago when I was up to my eyeballs in politics, new registrants, especially in the presidential year, were more likey to vote that year than the average registered voter. This was before "motor voter" and HAVA and campaign finance reform when there was hardly anybody paying people to get voter registrations submitted. In those days, people who got interested in the election got registered. Now, people who get pestered get registered. Is this progress?

Another report [Broward elections office bombarded with requests for absentee ballots: South Florida Sun-Sentinel], also linked at NewsMax, notes some apparent problems with people getting absentee ballots they had requested and cites this example: "Frieman said one neighbor requested a ballot from the supervisor's office by phone three weeks ago, but has still not received it."

Places I worked in the old days, you requested an absentee ballot by mail or in person. Now in Palm Beach you just call in. Convenient. And, dangerous. First, because there is no way to know if this person even exists - no official ever sees any identification. Second, the potential for mischief by people calling in and asking for ballots to be sent for folks who didn't ask them to (they moved, they're incompetent, they don't care, or all three, i.e., they're dead). Even if these are not used to cast fraudulent votes they will be fodder for charges of fraud and intimidation.

These stories cover Palm Beach and Broward counties, throw in Metro Miami-Dade, and you have the three huge, heavily Democrat counties which Kerry must carry at least 2:1 over Bush to defeat Bush. This was the battleground in 2000, but it will be only one of many this year.

Right decision for a very wrong reason

ABC News: School Says Halloween Disrespectful to Witches: ""Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that,' [Puyallup School District spokeswoman Karen] Hansen said."

I am one of those Christians who objects to Halloween; but no one in positions of authority in government considers that a problem. Offend Christians all you like, but not the Wiccans, not the Islamofascists, not any of the other enemies of the permanent things.

NY Times reviews "Stolen Honor"

The New York Times > Arts > Television > TV Review | 'Stolen Honor': An Outpouring of Pain, Channeled via Politics

Saying that the film can't do much damage to Kerry's reputation after all the other things that have been said about him, the reviewer says it should be shown nationwide; not for what it says about Kerry, but because of "... the real subject of the film: the veterans' unheeded feelings of betrayal and neglect."

Of course, the film is also accused of being riddled with inaccuracy and falsehood. Overmuch is made of a lawsuit against the producers by a man whose face is on screen when the narration speaks of Winter Soldier participants being coached to lie. Mr. Campbell (the plaintiff) may be owed an apology if, as he says, he urged participants not to embellish, but the reviewer fails to mention the Pitkin affidavit where he testifies under oath about the way John Kerry personally fed him lies to repeat for the cameras.

East Germans still setting sports records, 74-yard toss

We'd call the NFL to check these guys out, but our cell phone broke and they threw it for the long bomb.
Yahoo! News - Long-distance call: Germany has new record for cellphone throwing

Sting-ing criticism of Bush

Ananova - Sting would rather see chimp in White House
I've got an idea. If the Police get together for a reunion, let's have a chimp front for them instead of Sting. If it doesn't improve the music, it will still improve the view.

Lose your privacy AND endanger your health ...

... will someone please explain to me what is the up side of this gadget?
WorldNetDaily: Implantable chip's medical dangers

Another win for the Brownshirts (Kerry's own SA aka VVAW)

Very odd when a theater sells 600 tickets for a movie and then decides to give patrons their money back rather than show it. Odd, unless the movie is Stolen Honor: Heated exchanges after film canceled (phillyBurbs.com)

Forgiving the Bush-Haters

Forgiving the Bush-Haters

The current column from Barry Farber on NewsMax is very good, including a first-class bashing of the useless UN. Here's how he ends it:

"When I was a boy, the world was afraid a dictatorship would haul off and enslave democracies.

"Today the world is afraid a democracy will haul off and liberate dictatorships.

"I like today better."

How our enemies justify their lies

Richard Nixon Killed the Draft; Kerry-Edwards Brought it Back

Isra Naushad, a student writing in the campus paper at UNC-Charlotte warned here fellow students of their imminent danger of being drafted to fight in Iraq. She pointed out that a bill to do this had been introduced in Congress by a Republican named Charles Rangel. There are couple of problems with this, not least of which is that Charlie Rangel is a long-serving and very liberal Democrat from New York City.

The Canada Free Press noted: "It was reported that Michael Pomarico, chairman of the North Carolina Federation of College Republicans, had contacted Naushad to inform her of Rangel's Party affiliation. According to Pomarico, Naushad replied that her piece was just 'opinion,' and she could write whatever she wanted."

Charlie Rangel's party affiliation might be described as a matter of opinion from his point of view, but for the rest of us it is a fact. He filed as a Democrat, won the Democrat primary, won the general election on the Democrat ticket and sits in the Democrat caucus. If that doesn't make one a Democrat, what could?

Bush Gets Endorsement From Iran

Bush Gets Endorsement From Iran:
"TEHRAN, Iran - The head of Iran's security council said on Tuesday the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body."

Those sneaky Iranians. Just when folks figured that having some guy who shills for Iran in the US raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Kerry meant that Iran wanted Kerry to win we get this report from Tehran. Disinformation or truth, who knows?

If true, this is bizarre!

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story:
"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Vacuous veep wannabe John Edwards has banned the American flag at campaign appearances, according to a left-wing weekly."

Contrast this with the fact that Kerry has been repeatedly shown in the last few days on stages backed by a veritable forest of American flags on flagpoles carefully arranged to show the maximum amount of their blue unions and stars.

Kerry's Korea peace plan. Is there an echo here?

World Tribune.com--Front Page:
"The North Koreans believe they will have an easier time negotiating with a new administration headed by Sen. John F. Kerry, who has said publicly he would begin direct U.S.-North Korea talks if elected president."

Remember, Kerry has specifically said he agrees with Kim Jong-Il to bilateral talks involving all matters related to the Korean War armistice, not just nuclear non-proliferation issues. This is an entirely mischievous policy and the administration should have jumped all over Kerry for hypocrisy. The armistice was negoiated by the US on behalf of the UN and now Kerry, who claims to be a fan of the UN, wants the US to act unilaterally to alter the terms of the armistice.

ADDENDUM (about six hours later): It occurs to me that this sounds a lot like Kerry in 1970-71. He met with Madame Binh in Paris during his honeymoon (Marry an heiress and honeymoon in Paris with the communists, I couldn't sell that plot as a B-movie.) and came back to the states plugging her Vietcong communist peace plan. Did someone have to tell him to adopt the communist position with North Korea, or does it just come naturally after all these years?

Price of votes lags behind inflation.

local6.com - News - Man Accused Of Trying To Sell Vote :
"'I think the minimum bid was $25. Our right to vote was bought by the blood of our veterans and it's priceless,' prosecutor Page Bellamy said."

Years ago I read that around 1900 Italians in one of the New England states were getting $5 for their votes while WASPs only got $3. This sometimes led to bad blood and fisticuffs at polling places, but there was a good reason for the difference. Those doing the buying considered the Italians more honest than the WASPs and less likely to pocket the money and vote the other way.

Allowing for inflation, a vote ought to be worth more than $25 now. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis' inflation calculator, the CPI shows one dollar's worth of goods in 1913 should now cost $19.12; so a $3 WASP vote ought to be worth about $60 now.

Is Peter Jennings just naive, or what?

TheOmahaChannel.com - Politics - Jennings: Media In Glaring Spotlight:
"Jennings said that everyone -- even journalists -- have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.
'And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair,' the anchorman said."

Does Jennings mean the ideal is that journalists be trained to be as objective as possible, or does he mean that they are so trained in the ideal manner? Either way, his comment either betrays an almost charming naivete about the nature of university education, or a demonstrates a very sly bit of dissimulation.

The idea that the Marxist cranks who control most of academe are doing an ideal job of training their students to be objective is nonsense. If that were so, why would the Columbia School of Journalism, one of the most prestigious training grounds for aspiring reporters, hire a partisan hack like Al Gore to teach? True, Gore had some civilian and military newspaper experience b3efore he entered elective politics about 30 years ago, but I doubt that added up to enough to qualify for a faculty position. They obviously wanted his political POV, not his journalistic CV.

On the other hand, Jennings deserves some credit for at least admitting that there is the potential for bias.

Bush: Put on your bunker gear and turn up the heat!

The latest example of Republicans whining because Democrats call them names. Why do these people think there is some advantage in dainty manners? Call the Democrats names. Even just the right names for Democrats are pretty awful without exaggerating, and this causes the squeamish Republicans to either sanitize their descriptions of our enemies - for example, by not calling them enemies - or even to resort to outright lies to describe Democrats - like calling John Kerry a patriot.

To call the Democrats socialists, demagogues, liars, dangerous villains is merely to describe their better qualities. Cheney comes close to such honesty from time to time, at least what gets to us through the press filter, but Bush and his spokesmen almost never. To call them communists, subversives, greedy, power mad tyrants is entirely justified on the basis of their public record.

If the Republicans won't name Islamofascism as the enemy in the war and we won't name socialism as the enemy in the presidential race, is it any wonder we have trouble winning? Know your enemy. Call him by his right name. The truth shall make you free.

On a deeper level, we fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of the air, against spiritual wickedness in high places. It's time to purge the GOP leadership of people who don't understand this. Faint-hearted allies are worse than useless, they spread despair in our own ranks.

www.delawareonline.com : The News Journal : LOCAL : Biden: Bush 'brain dead' on drug bill

I bet they would have rented an apartment to a politician.

Score one for the good guys, or should I say the bad gals?

Nebraska's equal opportunity commission - FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Out There - Landlord Sued for Rejecting Stripper - has ruled in favor of the complainant in this case: "The complaint said a Richdale representative called Greenwood on April 13 to reject the application she filed the day before. The representative recited to her a company policy that 'they refuse to rent to anyone employed as a dancer at a gentlemen's club.'"

I am not a big fan of open housing bureaucracies in principle since they are an infringement on the rights of property owners; but, if you have to have them, they made the right call here.

What's this got to do with politicians? Well, if a politician - councilman, supervisor, congressman, or senator - wanted to rent one of their apartments, they likely would have just verified his income and credit rating, they wouldn't reject him out of hand.

What's the difference between a topless gentleman's club dancer and a politician? From what the big kids tell me about those places, the dancers take off their clothes and do a lot of foreplay for fully-clothed willing customers who only imagine they are getting any. The politician keeps his clothes on, eschews foreplay, sticks his hand in your pocket and steals the shirt off your back without so much as "by your leave." You tell me, which one - the dancer or the politician - is doing it to someone?

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

So said Pogo, the comic strip alter ego of the great philosopher Walt Kelly, over 30 years ago.

Now, in the midst of war, we find expressions of patriotism by high school students in California censored by tax-funded educrats: Santa Rosa Press Democrat // News for California's North Bay and Redwood Empire.

The UN limbo - How low can you go?

United Nations head Kofi Annan is now trying to fend of criticism of his son Kojo's role in the now-infamous UN-administered Iraqi oil-for-bribes program. According to this account - New York Post Online Edition: news - the fraud amounted to $11 billion out of $64 billion in oil sales, or about 17% - the usual gratuity in mid-rank restaurants.

Remember all those heart-rending stories about how the US was responsible for all those children dying in Iraq because of the sanctions. Well, they were UN sanctions and, now we know, the UN was stealing milk from babies.

The only really surprising thing about this is that anybody is surprised. Consider this from a grown-up who ought to know better:
"'This could be another devastating blow to Kofi Annan's personal credibility, and already, I believe, the oil-for-food scandal is big enough to bring Kofi Annan down,' said U.N. critic Nile Gardiner, a former aide of British ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher."

What credibility could Kofi Annan possibly have? This is the man who, in his former job as head of UN peacekeeping operations, directly ordered Canadian Gen. Dellaire not to interfere in the Rwandan genocide and to inform the government that their secret plans for the mass murders had been leaked to the UN with a plea for help.

What credibility can the UN have when they elevate a man implicated in genocide to its highest office?

Watch your step! The carpets are going to be a bit lumpy by the time they sweep all this mess under the rug. The UN needs a major facelift to its reputation as they seek billions of dollars from the US, a bit from the other developed countries, to build a new headquarters complex in NYC.

More fraudulent registrations in California

San Joaquin County officials blame paid registration solicitors for rise in phony voter signups: Recordnet.com. The article says that these illegitimate registrations, even if they make it onto the rolls, are seldom used to cast votes. What they don't mention is they contribute to inflating reports of the number of registered voters who don't vote. Especially when these are in poorer precincts, as they will tend to be, they will be seized upon as "evidence" of voter apathy, at best, or intimidation, at worse. The way the 2004 race is shaping up, look for the latter.

UPDATE: Vatican lets Kerry off the hook, not a heretic

In a nuanced fashion worthy of the current election campaign, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to disavow a letter sent to the head on De Fide, a Catholic lay organization seeking Kerry's excommunication. Even the author of the letter, a theologian in Washington, DC, questions the value of the letter he sent. If you are interested, here is the story on the Catholic News Service website: CNS STORY: Vatican denies it responded to lawyer seeking Kerry's excommunication.

Film/Video - The 21st century battlespace in the War of Ideas

It appears that story-telling gets more serious attention than dry policy debate these days, and movies reach more people than books, magazines and newspapers. So, it is refreshing that conservatives are getting into the act and telling our story in visual form. Earlier this year there was a conservative film festival in Texas, and just this month another in California - West Hollywood, no less. You can read about it here courtesy of NewsMax: Film Festival Right in Left's Backyard .

I am particularly pleased to see that this story mentions Brainwashing 101 by an exciting young documentary maker, Evan Coyne Maloney of, believe it or not, NYC. I have been a big fan of Maloney's shorter works skewering the insanity of antiwar protesters and his occasional essays on his website Brain-Terminal.com.

No end of political mischief in California

Proposition 62 - which will guarantee that voters in much of California will never again have a chance to vote for a Republican in a general election - has been endorsed by America's favorite RINO: Yahoo! News - Governor Endorses Open Primary Measure .

Warning! Keep John Edwards away from open flames.

See it for yourself folks, John Edwards squints into the mirror in his compact and fusses with his already highly laquered coiffure, then closes his eyes while his makeup girl adds even more hairspray. The Fire Marshall ought to post warning signs around this guy. Thanks to Drudge for this link to Slate: The Silence of the Domes.

"Mawkish sentimentality" and the unmaking of a great nation.

Mark Steyn, as usual, excellent. Today on the ill-advised attempt of the progressive UK publication The Guardian to have Brit twits explain to the folks in Clark County, Ohio that Bush is an idiot. He also comments on the sad spectacle of the British mourning the slaying of Kenneth Bigley by the Islamofascists without vowing revenge as they would once have done. On a lighter note read the rantings of an Oxford professor of public understanding (I don't know what it is either) sent to Clark County, it's a hoot - Telegraph | Opinion | I bet the Guardian editor �50 he's wrong .

There's no place like home ... on Election Day

Jacob Sullum writing in Reason makes the case for staying home on November 2, or voting Libertarian to no discernible effect. Along the way he mentions quotes GMU law prof Ilya Somin: "Acquiring significant amounts of political knowledge for the purpose of becoming a more informed voter is, in most situations, simply irrational." That from a paper for the Cato Institute. I don't know how much it cost for Somin to figure this out, but I have been saying it for over 30 years. You can read Sullum's piece here - Reason: Knowledge Problems: If voters paid attention, maybe they'd never make up their minds - but I urge you to read Pat Buchanan's reluctant endorsement of Bush (link in an earlier entry) before joining Sullum in his new version of the front porch campaign.

When is an Islamofascist terror attack not an Islamofascist terror attack?

The latest installment (#6) of excerpts from Jack Cashill's "Mega Fix" has been posted on WorldNetDaily.com examines the multiple bombs planted at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. If you haven't been following this, Cashill's thesis is that there were a lot of Islamofascist terror attacks on the US in the 90s which were conveniently blamed on other sources so that our Fearless Leader, Bill "the Zipper" Clinton, would not have to deal with the growing menace. You can read "Mega Fix" Part 6 here -
WorldNetDaily: Clinton covered up 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombings - and follow the links to the earlier installments.

Kerry fan club expands

John Kerry's fan club just keeps growing. All the usual suspects are there: Jacques Chirac, Kim Jong-Il, Ayatollah Khameini, and now Yasser Arafat: WorldNetDaily: Yasser Arafat endorses Kerry. If the Bush administration would allow Saddam Hussein in front of the cameras, I'm sure he would join the chorus.

Meanwhile, Bush seems to have in his corner Tony Blair, John Howard, Vladimir Putin, and a lopsided 56-17 percent majority of Israelis.

Still, the only fan club that matters (the US electorate) will speak to the subject on November 2 and Bush should do OK. Then the lawyers take over and it's "Katie, bar the doors."

Kerry self-excommunicated as a heretic?

In a conversation with my late father, I once referred to someone (David Koresh, I think it was) as a heretic. My father was upset that I would use that term. Crazy or criminal were OK, I guess, but heretic sounds so midieval that I must be some religious looney, too. Well, I like precision in language, without it sustained rational discourse is impossible. A canon lawyer in L.A. now has a letter from a high RC official which he believes makes clear that John Kerry and other politicians supporting the legal killing of innocent pre-born children have excommunicated themselves by denying the doctrine of the faith. It's about time the Church told these people they can't have it both ways. The
full story is here: WorldNetDaily: Is Kerry excommunicated?.

Slouching towards Gomorrah

The Anglican communion contiues to try to dance on the head of a pin, but they are not angels. Schism is just a small step away. How it must gall the Western progressives to know that Africans, among the special victims of their solicitude, stand most firmly for orthodoxy. Here's the link from NewsMax: Anglicans Criticize U.S. Episcopal Church on Gays.

Phony numbers exposed in global warming debate

NewsMax linked to a report on the MIT Technology Review site by a global warming supporter who was concerned that some of the numbers in one of their favorite graphs appear to have been fudged. This is a radioactive topic and the journal Nature, where the now disputed 1998 study was published, seems to be unwilling to expose the full depth of the problem. The link on the MIT site was to an update on progress in publishing the critiques of the data. Here is a link to the original 1998 graph published in Nature and the revised version with the math fixed:
M&M03 Page .

Buchanan endorses Bush, reluctantly. Me, too!

Excellent endorsement editorial by Pat Buchanan in The American Conservative. Read it here: Coming Home.

Ron Paul skewers the Neocons

Ron Paul, the best man to serve in Congress in about the last 30 years, does an excellent job of critiquing the Neocon project and showing how it is in no way conservative in any way that the traditional American right could recognize in this piece from July 10, 2003: Steve Quayle News Alerts. It dovetails nicely with my comments on Karl Rove and the Bush betrayal of the traditional Republican base.

From Greenspan, No Fear

From putting the brakes, rhetorically at least, on "irrational exuberance" to this latest item - From Greenspan, No Fear of Oil Heights (washingtonpost.com) - our fearless Fed chief proves again that his name ought to be Grin-spin. I thought I was going to find the great man making the very reasonable point that, adjusted for inflation, today's oil prices are not so stratospheric. Instead we get lots of feel good nonsense. Proving that when you can understand what he says, and it isn't often, you still can't make any sense of it.