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AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Even Better than Becker-Posner? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/30/2005 07:35:41 AM ----- BODY: Holy cow! I stopped subscribing via RSS to TalkingPointsMemo when Josh Marshall went all-Social Security all the time (and when I had to start glancing at his archives to understand his...idiosyncratic classification of congressmen as "fainthearted" and so forth). But his new venture (TPMCafe, in a badly mixed metaphor) sounds really exciting, especially given the quality of its foreign affairs bloggers. Among the announced members is the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, Anne-Marie Slaughter. If the other contributors are of this quality, then TPM Cafe will have a strong shot at being the best blog in the business. Update: The link should finally work now. Sorry for the confusion; control+C doesn't appear to have five-nines reliability. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 08:58:57 AM Dropped Marshall too for much the same reason plus dishonesty. Dropped Andrew Sullivan when I tired of scrolling over his obsession. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/30/2005 10:02:44 AM Gotta say, I tuned out somewhat b/c of the social security coverage. But, I think he is doing something important there. I think inducing fatigue is one strategy the Bush administration is counting on to pass its social security changes. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Caleb EMAIL: calebmcd@gmail.com IP: 69.3.85.41 URL: http://modeforcaleb.blogspot.com DATE: 05/01/2005 12:06:44 AM Um ... is that link supposed to point me to a blog of doctored Bert photographs, or is it broken? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: wahoofive EMAIL: wahoofive@earthlink.net IP: 68.164.95.190 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 06:46:55 PM Now it links to some stupid yahoo search. Are you guys getting hacked, or what? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: It's A Good Thing Dirksen Sunk Fortas STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/30/2005 07:02:00 AM ----- BODY: The problem with the rising generation is that they haven't read the minutes of the last meeting. In other words, when someone says "Oh, but the Republicans filibustered Abe Fortas in 1968!" they're apt to also believe that this was somehow a bad thing and that Fortas was deserving of his seat. Far from it: Fortas was a close personal friend of Lyndon Johnson, and shared many of LBJ's beliefs about ethics and politics (which is to say he also thought the former had little to do with the latter). Given that Fortas was forced to resign the year after his nomination to be Chief Justice was sunk, I suspect that the Republicans--led by the Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen--were right to be suspicious. (Indeed, Fortas' appointment would have been a blow to the institution of the independent judiciary.) Three points should be drawn out in addition to clarifying was Fortas was a bad, or at least questionable, nomination: First, in denying Fortas the Chief Justice's role, the Senate Republicans did not block Johnson from substantially altering the Court's composition. Fortas was already an Associate Justice. This is subtly but critically different from the situation that arises when the Democrats block President Bush from putting new judges on a circuit court. In that case, the Democrats are actually stopping the President from altering the ideological balance of power on the courts. In Fortas's case, however, that balance would have remained almost untouched. Second, we should remember that the fact that the parliamentary maneuver existed and was used in the late Sixties doesn't necessarily make hypocrites of Republicans today. The filibuster today is slightly different (in particular, invoking cloture takes fewer votes and most contemporary "filibusters" don't require 24-hour-long Strom Thurmond-style speeches/) and also far, far more likely to be used today than in the past. The collegiality and comity of the upper chamber--always more myth than fact, but today mostly mythical--has vastly diminished, increasing the chance that the maneuver will be used. Third, one may object to the legitimacy of an institution in principle but use it in practice. To take a trivial example, I don't believe that Manhattan businesses sending letters cross-town should be forced to subsidize Rural Free Delivery, but that doesn't mean that I abstain from using the mails in practice. More seriously, many Republicans don't believe in recall elections or popular referenda (or at least profess not to), but does that make Governor Schwarzenegger's election illegitimate? There are risks to amending the filibuster--as Stuart Taylor of National Journal notes, the Republicans could lose their dominance over the issue--but there are risks to everything. And the institution of an independent judiciary is both partly chimerical and not necessarily desirable in itself--as the Democrats should know from their own party's history of proposed judicial reforms. Update: Readers raise two objections: First, that nobody thinks as well of Justice Fortas as I assert, and second that the Fortas filibuster wasn't a filibuster. I will address the latter objection first. The Washington Post's description of the anti-Fortas tactics match the description of a filibuster perfectly. (When you start reading aloud from unrelated books to deny the floor to others, then you've departed from debate as a constructive process.) The objection that Fortas never had majority support (raised, among other places, here) conflicts with the account the nonpartisan Senate website provides--support for Fortas was always weak, but at the beginning LBJ thought he could get the votes for his two nominees (Fortas for Chief Justice and a replacement to take Fortas's seat as an associate justice). However, it is also likely that there was, at best, only a slim majority in favor of Fortas by the time the justice withdrew his name from consideration, and that there may well have been a majority of senators opposed to his elevation. However, the very choice of tactics the anti-Fortas forces adopted demonstrates their own estimate of the situation. As Norman Ornstein writes, "Why filibuster if you have the votes to block a nomination?" The other objection is more puzzling to me. The main point of this post was to draw forward useful differences in analyzing the validity of the Fortas case as a precedent. I put forward four points, but readers have only addressed the first, and least significant. A quick Technorati search on abe fortas reveals that most sites using the case as a "talking point" are doing so in an extremely simplistic manner. Democrats and anti-nuclear option writers are either not aware of or not alerting their readers to the circumstances behind the Fortas nomination. Being charitable, I want to suppose that they are themselves either ignorant of these circumstances, or are instead convinced that Fortas should have been seated. The less charitable explanation is that these writers are leaving out these facts because it might highlight the difference between the obstruction currently ongoing in the Senate (arguably from both sides during different administrations). Such duplicity is hardly unknown to either party, but I choose to believe in the better angels of our nature. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/30/2005 10:07:10 AM I don't think anyone bringing up Abe Fortas particularly cares about whether he was a good or bad nominee. It's usually brought up (from what I've seen) to counter Republicans saying or implying that the filibuster has never been used to thwart the President in the Senate's judicial advise & consent role. And, if the Republicans I've heard using the word "unprecedented" prefaced their statement by explaining the subtle nuance of initial judicial appointment verses appointment as Chief Justice and explaining that, yes Republicans had filibustered a Chief Justice nomination before launching into their tirade about the Democrats' unprecedented use of the filibuster, I'd probably agree. But they don't because they know if they did they're argument would lose its power. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 01:17:34 PM Precisely, Doug. It's never been used in any other context that I've seen other than countering claims from the Republicans about how it's never been used in the judicial area. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 02:40:00 PM What sort of crook was Fortas? He resigned in disgrace shortly after this episode. In fact,he did not have the necessary votes in the Senate to move up and without the legendary arm twisting of his Patron, the notorious crook, LBJ, he might not have had even a majority of dumbocrats. He was a political hack. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 02:46:22 PM Google easily confirms that Mr. Fortas was a liar and had ethical problems. His view of judging was to look for anything that would support the result he wanted. A judicial activist, in other words, and the country is much better off without a sleeze like him on the court. Why would Democrats even bring his name up? Defending crooks? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: CJ EMAIL: hockeyjock2001@comcast.net IP: 24.14.186.11 URL: http://cj.typepad.com/vrwc1member/ DATE: 04/30/2005 02:50:34 PM Anonymous Your right, Fortas was not filibustered, he never had the votes. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 03:57:30 PM "In other words, when someone says "Oh, but the Republicans filibustered Abe Fortas in 1968!" they're apt to also believe that this was somehow a bad thing and that Fortas was deserving of his seat." As Doug says above, Paul, you aren't providing any reason for us to believe that people today think that Fortas deserved to be confirmed. I don't think so, Doug apparently doesn't think so and you obviously do not think so. Why would you go off on this jag? Why do you so frequently maim your own arguments with precisely one key sentence that is indefensible? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 04:02:05 PM CJ proves our point: If people would quit lying in saying Fortas wasn't filibustered, we wouldn't need to keep pointing out the lie. (Whether he had the votes for confirmation is irrelevant to the fact that he was filibustered. The misdirection is dishonest.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: CJ EMAIL: hockeyjock2001@comcast.net IP: 24.14.186.11 URL: http://cj.typepad.com/vrwc1member/ DATE: 04/30/2005 10:55:31 PM With all due respect Paul I choose to believe Senator Cornyn rather than anything the liberal Washington Post says. I also could care less what LBJ "thought." As far as the "non partisan" Senate website, why should I believe it's non partisan? Who wrote it? I dismiss your evaluation out of hand just as quickly as you did. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 11:37:09 AM CJ, you are vying for admission to the Earl "Don't confuse me with the facts. I've got a closed mind." Landgrebe club. (It's an old, inside Indiana joke, CJ.) To CJ's continued nonsense, I am going to list here some contemporary sources (that is, contemporary to the time of the Fortas filibuster) that prove he was filibustered. And in anticipation of CJ's furthur continued nonsense that he can better choose what sources to believe, I give you, on the one hand Sen. Cornyn and CJ today vs. on the other hand, WaPo, Time magazine and CBS News with reporters in place as well as Senators Hart and Griffin then: The Fortas Filibuster--from Time (11 Oct 1968 issue): "Constitutionally Tragic. "Never in our history," cried Michigan's Democratic Senator Philip Hart, "has a matter of the nomination of a Justice to the Supreme Court been resolved by a filibuster." But shortly after Hart spoke, the Senate refused to cut off debate on whether it should even take up the Fortas nomination, thereby killing his chances. The vote was 43 against cloture to 45 in favor—14 short of the two thirds needed to stop the anti-Fortas filibuster. Next day, at Fortas' request, Lyndon Johnson withdrew the nomination. It was a profound humiliation for the President. Said Johnson: "The action of the Senate, a body I revere and to which I devoted a dozen years of my life, is historically and constitutionally tragic." Johnson was referring to the fact that the Senate had never actually voted on the merits of the nomination, only on the procedural question of giving it formal consideration. All but forgotten was another loser in the affair: Homer Thornberry, who was to have replaced Fortas as an Associate Justice on the court. Since Fortas will now keep his own seat, there is now no room for Thornberry; his nomination lies in a legal limbo. The Fortas defeat was a notable victory for Michigan Republican Robert Griffin. As leader of the anti-Fortas fight, Griffin had taken to wearing on his lapel a golden miniature of the mythological beast that is his family's namesake." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From Washington Post (26 Sep 1968): [on page 1, under the headline "Fortas Debate Opens with a Filibuster"]: "A full-dress Republican-led filibuster broke out in the Senate yesterday against a motion to call up the nomination of Justice Abe Fortas for Chief Justice." From Washington Post (2 Oct 1968--The day after the failed cloture vote on the Fortas filibuster): "In a precedent-shattering rebuff to the Administration, the Senate yesterday refused to cut off the filibuster against consideration of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice." From a CBS News broadcast on the evening of the first day of the filibuster (and as heard in the past week on a number of radio stations): Walter Cronkite (September 25, 1968): "Good evening. The Senate today began its expected, but unprecedented, filibuster against confirmation of a President’s nominee for Chief Justice of the United States, Abe Fortas." Roger Mudd, later in the same broadcast: "If the administration falls embarrassingly short of the two thirds vote needed to break the filibuster, the nomination could well be withdrawn. Roger Mudd, CBS News, Washington." It is interesting to note that in his biography, Sen. Griffin, who indeed led the effort against Fortas, fudged events to somehow make himself seem more heroic as well as to try to deflect such critics as President Johnson and Senator Hart, who bitterly decried the use of the filibuster. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But at the time of the event, here is Sen. Griffin {as recorded midweek during the Sep-Oct. 1968 filibuster and quoted in the Congressional Record}: "[T]hus far, there have been only four days of Senate debate on this very important, historic issue...[A] filibuster, by any ordinary definition, is not now in progress." Again, Sen. Griffin's saying it doesn't make it so. It's important to remember he was trying to cover his ass by responding to a scathing floor speech by Sen. Hart. He tried to claim 4 days do not make a filibuster, but every contemporary participant and observer said otherwise. He repeated and improved upon the canard in his biography. In the absence of capitulation by either the "filibusterer" or the "filabusteree", filibusters last until the floor is yielded and a successful debate-ending cloture vote is held. That can be weeks, it can be days, it can be 3 hours. Later, in his biography, Sen. Griffin rewrote history to make it seem that a filibuster didn't occur. As shown above, he was proven a liar by the contemporary record. So, CJ, are you going to continue to hold hands with Earl? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 12:24:22 PM Now, Paul, as to your comments, I'd like to respond to several things, but the overarching feeling I need to express is one of your being less than intellectually honest when you simply won't acknowledge the objective fact that when so many people continue to say and/or believe that prior to the current Bush Administration, the US Senate had never filibustered a judicial nominee, the argument can't be honest if it starts from the relative quality and merits of a filibuster rather than from the mere fact of the filibuster. But, I am willing to take you up on your points and assume that you intended this as an honest discussion. First, most polemicists do not put their least important, least persuasive point as their first one unless they add an "in passing"-type caveat, so forgive me if I reacted so strongly to your claim that if I say "Fortas was filibustered" it follows that I am also saying "Fortas should not have been filibustered." I think we now agree that no such linkage should be made. Fortas was unethical. Fortas was filibustered. Your other three points go to the "precedental quality" of the Fortas filibuster. First, you say that there is a substantial difference between then and now in that Johnson was not blocked "from substantially altering the Court's composition. Fortas was already an Associate Justice." The flaw in your reasoning is, of course, that this Associate Justice position would then need to be filled. In fact, as part of this pitcher-shortstop double switch, Johnson announced his intention to nominate Homer Thornberry to the vacated-by-Fortas seat. So, Johnson was being filibustered from potentially altering the makeup of the court. Nevertheless, I think this is a red herring, as judicial reputation and temperment, as opposed to political leanings, were a far greater influence on nominations at the time than they are now. Then you say, "we should remember that the fact that the parliamentary maneuver existed and was used in the late Sixties doesn't necessarily make hypocrites of Republicans today." I would totally agree. It does not make them hypocrites. But it does make them liars--liars when they continue to say that the there was no filibuster of Fortas. Your next point is that "one may object to the legitimacy of an institution in principle but use it in practice." This is a tautology. It is also the setup for being accused of hypocrisy. With the good may come the bad. I say wear your hypocrisy with pride, do not run from it. In your update (which, btw, I appreciate as a response), you add the argument concerning the existence of "majority support" for a judicial nominee as a criterion for evaluating the legitimacy of a filibuster. I do not grant that this is a useful factor, but if we did agree on this, you would need to acknowledge that during those Clinton years when he faced a Republican Senate majority, he was blocked by means other than filibusters from getting many of his judicial nominees to up-or-down votes on the floor of the Senate. Further, many of these nominees enjoyed clear majority support, even though individuals in the Republican majority blocked the nominees from proceeding to the floor. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 12:29:48 PM I don't care to respond to commenters who mix their analyses with insults. There is no grounds for asserting that I am being "less than intellectually honest" in any statement I've made here--I may have erred (particularly as regards the Fortas nomination's relationship with Johnson's simultaneous nomination of another candidate to the associate justice seat) but I have not, and will not, mislead anyone as to the steps I've taken in preparing this brief essay. I am glad to have your comments, though, as I can safely discount anything you write in the future. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: CJ EMAIL: hockeyjock2001@comcast.net IP: 24.14.186.11 URL: http://cj.typepad.com/vrwc1member/ DATE: 05/01/2005 12:30:15 PM Nash (the cut and paste master) Personally attacking someone with some bizarre "inside joke" that of course you know I wouldn't understand shows your intellectual vacancy. Is cutting and pasting your only talent? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 01:04:19 PM Like much else in our culture we are defining deviency downwards. A Senator Wayne Morse, or even a Strom Thurmond would and did take the floor for extended debate. Better yet, they could actually speak coherently for extended periods of time-a talent lacking in our current whiners. I don't see that Fortas fits the mold of a genuine filibuster. He was just part and parcel of a deeply corrupt Democrat party. Paul does err from time to time and we call him on it-I see no dishonesty anywhere in any of his posts and that particular insult needs to be withdrawn and should be withdrawn along with an apology. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 01:20:49 PM Paul, am I wrong then to have taken this as an insult: "I want to suppose that they are themselves either ignorant of these circumstances, or are instead convinced that Fortas should have been seated. The less charitable explanation is that these writers are leaving out these facts because it might highlight the difference between the obstruction currently ongoing in the Senate (arguably from both sides during different administrations). Such duplicity is hardly unknown to either party," ? Because I am one of those writers and you added that as part of an update after I had responded to your original post. I apologize for the offense, but please be as harsh with yourself as you are with me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 01:23:06 PM But Anonymous is correct--I do have a nasty tendency to escalate an interaction when I feel I've been insulted. I am sorry, Paul. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 01:41:12 PM When I refer to "Democrats and anti-nuclear option writers," I refer to the people whose writings were coming up on the first two or three pages of the technorati search I ran last night. I didn't implicate anyone here--when I want to insult people, I generally call them out by name. I apologize for any misinterpretations I may have caused. As for the issue of whether it was a filibuster, I believe it is, and the Congressional Research Service--which is the very definition of nonpartisan--agrees with the two other nonpartisan sources I've cited (the Senate historian and Norm Ornstein). Reasonable people may dispute this, but I have reached the opposite conclusion, and as the Post story I linked to implies, Frist's office has accepted the definition and has tried to reformulate their line on this issue. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nash EMAIL: patten_s@hotmail.com IP: 65.185.58.59 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 02:10:19 PM I greatly appreciate that, Paul. I have noticed that Sen. Frist, among a few others, is now very cautiously parsing the "Fortas not to be used as a precedent because" argument. I respect them, and anyone else who is cautious in this way, for that, but it does remind me of the following anecdote: My mom is from Vincennes. Although it's been a long while since I've been back there, when we used to visit my grandparents, we'd see a sign at the entrance to the town: Welcome to Vincennes. Home of Vincennes University, Oldest college east of the Mississippi River then in smaller letters: West of the Allegheny Mountains. and then in much smaller letters: And north of the Ohio River. That's a lot less territory than the original claim would have you believe. It makes me wonder if all of the parsing on the Fortas filibuster (might not have been majority supported; didn't last very long; as opposed to now, involved the traditional reading of recipes on the floor; was used to block a justice who didn't deserve to remain on the court and so on) hasn't carved out a very small and meaningless chunk of territory. But again, I appreciate your response. I will remain civil in the future. For what little it is worth, I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am most definitely a contrarian Hoosier. [For CJ, Earl Landgrebe was a Representative to the US House of Representatives and the quote was his statement of undying support for Richard Nixon in the darkest days of Watergate. He was *my* rep. I admired his tenacity, but not his powers of reasoning. In a rhetorical sense, I do not see pointing out the similarities in argumentation styles between you and him as an insult. If you could respond to the actual argument I am making with those "cut-and-pastes" you so abhore and prove to me how Fortas was not filibustered, I'd be happy to delink the two of you in my thoughts and words.] ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: MikeDunphy EMAIL: MikeTheProgrammer@hotmail.com IP: 4.158.129.238 URL: DATE: 05/18/2005 04:24:13 PM

From the pro-Fortas New York Times, 10/2/68, p. 24:

"However, Senator Thomas J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who voted against closure for the first time in his Senate career, explained later that he had done so because he did not consider the debate a filibuster."

And earlier in the same article: "In a speech before the vote, Mr. Griffin warned that a dozen opponents of the nomination still wanted to speak but had been denied the opportunity to do so by the move to impose closure -- that is, to cut off debate."

Unlike the years-long "filibusters" where the Democrats don't say anything at all, Democrats and Republicans were actually discussing Fortas' qualifications, with the prospect of changing minds. President Johnson said, "Just take my word for it. I know [Dirksen]. I know the Senate. If they get this thing drug out very long, we're going to get beat." In Johnson's estimation, if he didn't get a quick vote on Fortas, he would lose. With senators still waiting to speak against his nominee, the president saw the odds shifting from a narrow win to a narrow loss, which is why he gave up after only a few days of debate.

Nash, your proof that this was a filibuster consists of quotes from pro-Fortas Democrats. "Filibuster" was just a rhetorical club with which to bash Fortas opponents. As noted above, Fortas' opponents did not consider their arguments against Fortas to be a filibuster, but rather an attempt to inform their colleagues why Fortas did not deserve to be elevated to the position of Chief Justice. Just because Johnson did not get a vote as quickly as he wanted does not make an extended debate the same thing as a permanent filibuster.

A "three hour" filibuster? Are you kidding? An extra three hours of debate followed by a vote is qualitatively different than four years of [imaginary] debate, with the promise of years more so that there will never be a vote.

--

As a side issue, does anyone know of any judge besides Chief Justice Warren where the president nominated a replacement while the judge was still in office? One of the arguments against Fortas was that he could not be nominated to be Chief Justice because the Supreme Court already had someone in that position.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: One Step Forward, One Step Back STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/30/2005 06:38:31 AM ----- BODY: The General Assembly ended its session yesterday by weakening the Indianapolis Works plan, scaling down Mayor Bart Peterson's ambitious project to complete the goals of UniGov. Instead of sapping the power of township officials--the representatives of a system of parochial government that's proven unable to adapt to the demands of urban civilization--the legislature instead ended up giving township officials a greater say in Peterson's plans to reform Marion County's government structure. (The Star sketched the details of the legislature's amendments in an editorial yesterday.) This means that any reforms that do go through will likely be patchwork and inefficient. It means, too, that Marion County taxpayers, like taxpayers across the state, will continue to support the wasteful, occasionally nepotistic, management styles of these officials. On the other hand, the bill that had come to symbolize Governor Mitch Daniels's drive to make Indiana a business-friendly, efficient state passed, albeit at the last possible moment and at the greatest possible cost. Indiana will henceforth be on a standard time system, at least as soon as the governor signs the measure: All of the state will observe Daylight Savings Time, meaning that Evansville and Indianapolis will always be an hour apart instead of being in sync only half a year, like Persephone. Patrick Miller of Ball State University argues that the symbolic power of DST far outweighs its direct benefits. The vote may cost Republican State Representative Troy Woodruff, of Vincennes, something tangible: His seat in the General Assembly. Woodruff reversed his "no" vote on the DST bill to counter the evident and bitter partisanship of the obstructionist Democratic minority in the lower chamber (as goes Congress, so goes the state legislature), reversing an earlier pledge to his constituents. Woodruff's margin in his district in the last election was only 188 votes, which allowed the onetime aide to Rep. John Hostettler (R, IN-8) to take his seat as a freshman member of the General Assembly. Silly as it sounds to outsiders, some of Woodruff's constituents are afraid they won't be able to manage the new time regime, despite the fact that the new bill will, objectively, eliminate confusion. If Woodruff loses his seat--likely to be one of only a handful contested at the next election--then the Republicans will face a tough time trying to maintain control of the lower chamber. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 12:37:26 PM I would hope not. Rep Adams(D) would have voted for the bill had his health permitted. It is possible that he had asked Mr. Woodruff to vote for him. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Foltz EMAIL: IP: 69.208.143.99 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 07:31:31 PM It is possible that he had asked Mr. Woodruff to vote for him. Possible, but wrong. Mr. Woodruff had voted no in the 11:30 vote, but changed it to yes because some Democrats had changed their former yes votes to no. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 08:07:13 PM I will ask Mr. Adams the next time I see him. I do know that he has through his whole tenure in office sought this change. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 05/01/2005 02:01:01 PM Woodruff had this to say to his constituents a couple of weeks ago: "I realize the desire of my constituents is to defeat this bill and that is why I voted NO to Daylight Saving Time. I have and will continue to always vote against this controversial piece of legislation." Moving off of Standard time to Daylight Saving Time for several months per year does very little to help Hoosiers. (Doesn't do much to hurt them either.) It removes a minor annoyance for large businesses that don't think enough of Indiana to be bothered to remember that Indiana is on Eastern Standard Time. I don't know, it's more of an emotional thing than a logical thing. There is very little objective evidence to suggest that one system is superior to the other. I find Hoosier Standard Time to be a source of pride and find fiddling with one's clocks twice a year to be a little silly. But others find it a source of shame and want to be a little less Hoosier and a little more like everyone else. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: rev-ed EMAIL: rev-ed@verizon.net IP: 70.105.121.212 URL: http://rev-ed.blogspot.com DATE: 05/01/2005 11:09:20 PM I live on the Ohio side of the Indiana/Ohio line. The confusion is in having a one-hour time difference for half the year and being on the same time the other half. I'm not a huge fan of DST, but when everyone else is in on it it' a little ridiculous to be the (nearly) lone holdout. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 72.12.200.80 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 05/02/2005 05:13:01 PM "But Mommmmm! Everyone else is doing it!" Somehow that never worked for me as a kid. Doesn't seem like it should work for proponents of Indiana adopting Daylight Saving time. ----- -------- AUTHOR: ITA Staff TITLE: ITA Weekend Web Digest -- 30 April 2005 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/30/2005 06:21:48 AM ----- BODY:

• "Vaudeville's Brief, Shining Moment" [City Journal]: America's pop culture--and its habit of worrying about its pop culture--predate South Park and even The Jazz Singer. Vaudeville, however, was more than a light entertainment and the occasional target of scolds and nags: It was the training ground for a generation of entertainers. Together with its rural counterpart, the circuit Chatauquas of the early twentieth century (see, e.g., here and here), vaudeville broadened the horizons and raised the expectations of American audiences. (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• "Virginia is for (Homoracial, Heterosexual, Mentally Adequate) Lovers" [Reason]: Cato's David Boaz describes the history of a less-celebrated American institution: Discriminatory marriage laws. Those who think the definition of marriage has always been one man and one woman should read this article. When the state uses institutions like marriage to perpetuate narrow policy goals, the effects can be grotesque. (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.71 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/30/2005 06:47:08 PM The Boaz article is a distraction from real issues. Neither of these now-derided laws is a perfect match with the predicament facing gays in Virginia, but both flowed from an arrogant desire by the state to control private relationships. Boaz fails to distinguish between the private relationship and the public marriage. Marriage is not a contract between two people.** It is a contract between two people, the state, and society. The members of the couple pledge fideliy to each other. The state grants certain legal standings, including authority over any children that come into the marriage (assuming the state doesn't adopt the fascist education system of Plato's Republic). Through the hazy mechanism of culture rather than oath, society pledges to accept the legal standing of the couple (not necessarily accepting the wisdom of the union), and to respect the couple's vow of fidelity. (**Note: polygamy is excluded from the equation for these purposes.) Laws against marrying the "feeble-minded" are a modern approach to the not-so-modern cause of eugenics; its root issue is whether elites should engineer the physiological fitness of the human race. Some object to racial intermarriage from a eugenics perspective, but in most cases it has more in common with the objections to intermarriage between people of different religions (or nationalities): the protectionist desire to preserve the cultural (or political) composition of one's society. Neither hits on the central objection to same-sex marriage: the very definition of sexuality and gender. Government license and recognition of such unions officializes the unproven claim that homosexuality is an innocuous trait. As I once said on my blog, we're expected to believe that homosexuality is psychologically normal without being told why. We're expected to blindly trust a 1973 American Psychiatric Association ruling (which many of its members and 80+ years of research contested) without question, the way that medieval scientists and clerics demanded that Galileo accept Ptolemy without question. One of my sayings about the homosexuality debate is that there is no homosexuality debate. Honest debate involves an open exchange and open fisking of each other's evidence. The creation/evolution debate has that; its participants challenge address each other's basic assumptions all the time. I've Googled my little booty off, and while I can find scientific arguments from the politically incorrect side, I can't find a single (supportive) explanation for the APA ruling, or an itemized refutation of those 80+ years of published studies. Why should I believe the side of a one-sided debate that ain't debating? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 05/01/2005 02:31:43 PM You can find hard scientific evidence that gay people have a psychiatric diesase? Link, please. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 05/02/2005 03:13:30 AM To be nitpicky, psychologists don't use the term "disease." Don't remember the details, but I remember reading about how the way disease works is vastly different from the way psychological disorders develop. Sadly, there's still a lot you can't find on the Internet. I don't think there is any field of scientific study that has all related research collected in a single website. (Evolution/creation sites certainly aren't that thorough.) NARTH has a plethora of related articles for those with a lot of time on their hands to sift through the haystack in search of needles. One could always write NARTH (mailing address appears on green sidebar) and ask where to look for evidence contradicting the 1973 ruling. So where is the evidence supporting the ruling? My chief complaint is that the PC side of the debate acts as if the main bones of contention have already been settled and it has no obligation to offer any proof. "Don't ask questions, just believe" ain't good enough. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 05/02/2005 05:18:28 AM Well, while I understand your desire for something saying "hey! we made this decision because of this evidence over here!" - the burden of proof should rightly fall on those wanting to change the status quo - I still personally fail to see how the claim that gay people are normal is not self-evident. I know that's not an argument, or a study, or anything else, but that's what I have to offer. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 151.196.238.3 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 05/03/2005 10:04:51 PM It's just amazing to me when I see people who insist on discrimination because they worry that without it, the rationale for discrimination might disappear. Perhaps gay people are intrinsically inferior--but how are we to test this fact, if the external discrimination is never removed? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Zach Wendling TITLE: Arbor Day STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Environment CATEGORY: Environment DATE: 04/29/2005 05:02:02 PM ----- BODY: When people learn that I'm an environmental scientist, they frequently throw me a curveball question. One of my favourites is, Aren't there more trees in the U.S. today than there were ______ years ago," where the blank can be filled by anything up to about a hundred. This, of course, is proof that the environment is A-OK, and the huggers who want you to go plant a tree in your backyard should stop interfering with your weekend plans. It's hard to know just how exactly to frame a "Yes, but . . . " answer in casual conversation, since the qualifiers are numerous. Thankfully, I write for a blog, where space is unlimited. ----- EXTENDED BODY: To begin with, this can be a true statement because the U.S. reached peak deforestation sometime in the 1920's. That is, over 90% of old-growth forests had been logged in the eastern U.S. It's hard to imagine forest cover doing anything but increasing, which it has thankfully been doing steadily for the past 80 years. But steadily does not mean rapidly, and current forest cover is still only about a quarter of total land area of the U.S. But this fact leads to a number of questions that don't have easy answers: Is that good enough? What is the ideal land cover for the U.S.? Should we go back to pre-colonial levels? Essentially, there's no technical answer for how much forest we need, since that depends upon the priorities of the land owners, both public and private. Still, I'm sure everyone is happy that the figure stands at 24.7% and that the figure is growing every year. Not all forests are equal in environmental value, though. The forests we've created in the past 80 years are what we can broadly label "young growth" forests. (We'll here take the divide between young and old to be 200 years.) Young growth forests do lots of things we like; they control soil erosion, provide habitat, contribute to biodiversity, provide shade, and soak up Carbon. But they aren't as good as old growth forests in many respects, most notably in habitat. (And if the young growth forests are really just tree plantations, their value is even smaller.) By definition, it takes a long time to get old growth forests -- at least another 120 years for the land that started to revert to forest in the 1920's. The usefulness (or value) of any such stands will also depends on some things perhaps beyond our control: the size and shape of the stands, how connected they are to other stands, the land uses surrounding those stands, and the protection of those stands from future logging. Simply having more trees doesn't necessarily address any of these concerns, but it probably gets us going in the right direction. Things are getting better in terms of how much forest we have in the U.S., but we shouldn't ignore that they were once dramatically worse or that they could be much better still. When someone proposes increasing forests or managing them differently, they have a legitimate point, worthy of discussion. I'd say soil erosion in particular is an important consideration. But to try to sweep these issues under the rug with a bromide about how there are more forests today than X years ago is misleading. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 08:42:24 PM I have nothing to add to that post, but I wanted to say thanks for writing it. It was good reading. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Rush Reagan EMAIL: tyaa@cs.net IP: 156.56.145.186 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 09:21:28 AM Dirty hippy. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Hillary Carter EMAIL: librul@dems.org IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 11:14:45 AM I think it's cute. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eli EMAIL: elhst25@pitt.edu IP: 67.171.64.156 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 06:16:46 PM A bold step, indeed!!! Cutting down every last tree is bad. A triumph of Reason!!! What an intellect! What foresight! Give this man some Oxycontin!!! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Michael Savage EMAIL: peterw8@hotmail.com IP: 71.32.83.191 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 12:31:56 AM When are you going to wake up and smell what's cooking? The agenda of the Republican party is to completely ignore environmental issues and deregulate every last environmental check put in place. Wake up, man. Environmental Republican? Get real. Your party doesn't give a damn about such things. And the Democrats are no help either, simply whining about what's wrong and offering no solutions on how to fix things. And you're too busy talking about how this or that can or might be misleading. Take a stand, why don't you? Or keep it up and put more people to sleep. I don't care. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chuck EMAIL: foo@bar.com IP: 158.147.72.79 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 01:05:15 PM So, I'm confused: which satellite imaging technology did they use to generate those nifty charts of "old growth" forests from 1620? or even 1850? My point: if you've ever actually seen maps from hundreds of years ago, you start to wonder about the accuracy of some of these "reverse predictions". If our ancestors were so bad about recording simple things like distance and the shape of terrain features, how accurate -- or comprehensive -- are the records used to generate these silly geographs of tree cover, biodiversity, or whatever? (Better, how much and how accurately did the Iriquois or Nez Perce record forestation extent; were their oral histories also subject to, err, Golden Era fantasies?) Since the products of this "historical" research invariably seems to demonstrate that everything gets worse the more sophisticated our recording and mensurating technology becomes, one wonders if old-fart-disease (aka Golden Era fantasy) is actually to blame: agenda-driven assertions that "it was better back in the old days". ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Zach Wendling EMAIL: zach.wendling@gmail.com IP: 12.222.134.70 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 01:24:10 PM Chuck: Palinology. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John EMAIL: john@john.jon IP: 69.153.219.241 URL: DATE: 05/03/2005 08:17:50 PM And the corresponding image from the year 2000 looks like ... ? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: Actions speak louder than words STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Politics CATEGORY: Politics DATE: 04/29/2005 08:55:03 AM ----- BODY: Liberals usually dispute that judicial activism is real or at least that their agenda is being advanced by it, but their attitude toward Bush's judicial nominees may betray that they actually know differently. In a recent commentary written in favor of the "nuclear option," Lowman S. Henry of the Lincoln Institute (a conservative organization in Pennsylvania) noted the following:

The acrimony over judicial appointments has reached a fever pitch precisely because Democrats have lost control of Congress, and likely the Presidency, for the foreseeable future. The judiciary is the last bastion of liberal power at the federal level, and Democrats are prepared to fight to the death to prevent the loss of the third branch of government as well.

After years of seeing "their" judges push their agenda through the courts based largely on personal philosophy (covered by Constitutional fig leaves), liberals understandably fear that the opposite will happen if judges with conservative personal philosophies are appointed. Recent battles over judicial nominations have closely resembled political campaigns--nominees' views on abortion, affirmative action, and the like have become the central issue rather than the nominees' fitness to interpret and apply the law. This does not bode well for a branch of government that is supposed to be independent from politics. These lines of questioning would be irrelevant if we could trust judges to interpret the law without personal bias. That the Democrats are so concerned about judges' personal philosophies seems to indicate that they know just how far personal biases have invaded jurisprudence. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chuck EMAIL: cpkuntz@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 165.138.228.30 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 10:18:05 AM 7/9 Supreme Court justices are Republican appointees. The third branch is hardly a liberal bastion. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kent Atwater EMAIL: IP: 199.64.0.252 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 10:40:53 AM "7/9 Supreme Court justices are Republican appointees. The third branch is hardly a liberal bastion." This just illustrates how Republicans have not, in the past, vetted judicial appointees on their ideological hygiene. Sandra and Stephen are hardly conservatives.

To echo the gist of the Eric's posting, justices should be independent from politics. The fidelity of the justices to the Constitution should be the metric of whether a justice is conservative (strict constructionist) or liberal (emanations of the penumbra). Several of the "Republicans appointees" on the SCOTUS use foreign documents, in lieu of the Constitution, to make their (mis)judgements: hardly conservative, and an impeachable abandonment of their responsibilities, IMO.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 10:48:37 AM one fact that may illustrate how the tone of judicial nomination and confirmation has changed: Antonin Scalia was confirmed by a 98-0 Senate vote, and it's not as if his personal beliefs were a secret. But he was known to be a smart, fair, and good lawyer and judge, which apparently used to be enough. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/29/2005 11:48:34 AM Of course, if Scalia was appointed 98-0, that means that every Democrat voted for him, too. Ergo, blaming this whole mess on the Democrats who (purportedly) want to preserve their crazy ilberal activist judges seems just as silly as them blaming the whole thing on Republicans who (purportedly) want to make us all Christian. Maybe - now just maybe - both parties are at fault? Perhaps it's possible that the debate shouldn't be about judicial activism, but rather the poor state of political discourse in the US in general? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 11:51:31 AM "the poor state of political discourse" If you think the state of political discourse and not institutional and other objective factors are at fault.... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 72.12.200.80 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 11:59:35 AM You're telling me that Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas's riff on the Equal Protection Clause in Bush v. Gore are the writings of strict constructionists? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 12:24:05 PM Where is Ed when we need him? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kent Atwater EMAIL: IP: 199.64.0.252 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 12:50:36 PM You're telling me that Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas's riff on the Equal Protection Clause in Bush v. Gore are the writings of strict constructionists?

First of all, I never identified any strict constructionist on the SCOTUS. Show me where I did.

Are you really referring to EPC part of Bush v. Gore, or their dissenting view on Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution? I shall assume so, as you singled these three out. Differentiating between legislatures and courts doesn't even seem to rise to the heady question of strict constructionism; it's a simple matter of word definitions. Activist judges, and many on the left, love to blur the division of duties between courts and legislatures, in favor of the courts. They see courts as law-making bodies, too. Not only that, but law-making bodies that trump the legislatures!

Be that as it may, if I were to single out which current justice most strictly adheres to original intent, it would have to be Thomas, IMO, FWIW.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 01:25:57 PM Mr. Blesch, you emphasize that all Democratic senators voted to confirm Scalia as somehow making them worthy of less blame for today's judicial confirmation gridlock. That misses the point of why I brought the Scalia fact into the discussion. I was underscoring the change in the culture of the confirmation process. Of course Democrats voted to confirm Scalia, because back then there wasn't this political garbage polluting the courts. In '86, even liberal senators were willing to vote for Scalia's confirmation to the SCOTUS, but the tone has changed so much that I doubt it would be the same today. And it isn't necessarily a partisan issue, but Eric highlights the interesting idea that liberals are responsible for the politicizing of this process because they have lost control of the other political branches of government. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.123.42 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 01:42:52 PM To equate Scalia with lunatics like Janice Rogers Brown is a terrible insult to Scalia, frankly. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/29/2005 01:44:42 PM "Eric highlights the interesting idea that liberals are responsible for the politicizing of this process because they have lost control of the other political branches of government." Honestly, this is simply revisionist history. During the 90's, the Republican party completely changed the tactics that were used to vet and vote on judicial nominees. Nearly 60 of President Clinton's nominees were defeated without ever having their names submitted to an up or down vote on the Senate floor. Orrin Hatch's favorite method while he was chairman of that committee was to simply deny the justice a hearing or a vote in the Senate judiciary committee. The Republicans in fact even went so far as to filibuster at least 1 of Clinton's judicial nominees when he reached the floor of the Senate. Bill Frist was in favor of that filibuster. You can try to tell me how the blocking of those 10 judges by the Democrats is unprecedented all you want, but the facts simply don't back it up. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 02:12:53 PM Janice Rogers Brown is a looney? How so? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 02:22:48 PM Ed is here, just when you need him LOL. The problem I have with Eric's argument is that he seems to actually believe that the Democrats' objections to certain judges are due solely to their "personal philosophies", whereas the Republicans' objection to other judges is purely an objective rejection of bad legal judgement. That is, to put it bluntly, utter nonsense. Are we really going to pretend that either party has the slightest interest in a consistent and coherent judicial theory among those it seeks to put on the court? The Republicans nominate those who they believe will rule in a way that will please their constituents; Democrats do the same. And both seek to stop those who they believe will rule in ways that will anger their constituents, and both use every procedural trick they can to do so.

Where was all this outrage from 1996 to 2000 when the Senate Judiciary Committee was denying hearings and votes to 65 judicial nominees? Where is all this handwringing about "judicial activism" when the same conservatives who complain about it are encouraging more of it and getting angry when they don't get it (the Schiavo case is a textbook example of judges not being activist enough for the very people who bitch relentlessly about acivist judges, as is the pro-life complaints about Alberto Gonzales not voting to overturn a law that was not even being challenged on abortion)? Where are the advocates of "strict construction" when conservative judges seek to read entire amendments out of the constitution, as they so often do with the 9th amendment?

The bottom line, as always, is that the accusations of judicial activism mean nothing more than opposition to judges who don't rule they way the person making the accusation wants them to rule. My argument should be exceedingly easy to disprove. All one has to do is come up with a consistent and coherent definition of "judicial activism" and apply it to every possible case and be willing to give up all of the protections and limitations that such application would logically demand. The past exchanges on this subject on this blog show pretty conclusively that such a definition and application are not imminent. But for god's sake, at the very least, let's stop this silly pretense that one party is motivated by "politics" while the other is motivated solely by objective pursuit of principle.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/29/2005 02:27:00 PM She believes that "FDR was a socialist, that minimum-wage regulations should be outlawed, that the New Deal was a "socialist revolution," that Social Security should be equated with "cannibalism", and that she is a combatant in a religous war against non-believers." She has twice received an "Unqualified" rating from the California judicial evaluation committee. She currently has the American Bar association's lowest "passing' rating. The state bar of California opposed her nomination to the California supreme court, saying her "judicial opinions were insensitive to established precedents and improperly reflected [her] philosophical and personal views." After her hearing before the Senate judiciary committee...one of her strongest supporters, Professor Stephen Barnett of the University of California, changed his opinion and stated: "Those speeches, with their government-bashing and their extreme and outdated ideological positions, put Justice Brown outside the mainstream of today's constitutional law...I cannot accept Justice Brown's apparent claim that these are "just speeches" that exist in a different world from her judicial opinions. That defense not only is implausible but trivializes the judicial role." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 02:50:42 PM During the 90's, the Republican party completely changed the tactics that were used to vet and vote on judicial nominees. That is true. Starting in '95, when the GOP gained control of the Senate (and House), some Clinton nominees were rejected in committee. I agree that was something of a strong-arm tactic, and I'm not sure why the GOP chose to do things that way. Since they had the majority, nearly all of those nominees would have been defeated in the floor vote anyway. And that's the key difference between what the GOP did during the Clinton years and what the Dems are doing now. The GOP was the majority party in the Senate and thus arguably had a mandate to deny consent to the President's nominees. What's happening now is that the minority is obstructing nominees who would otherwise be confirmed. The Republicans in fact even went so far as to filibuster at least 1 of Clinton's judicial nominees when he reached the floor of the Senate. Bill Frist was in favor of that filibuster. Except there was no filibuster. The vote was 85-14 against the filibuster. And this was in 2000--the GOP had the majority as they have since 1995. Comparing that to what the Dems are doing now is comparing apples to oranges. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 03:01:05 PM Eric Seymore wrote:

That is true. Starting in '95, when the GOP gained control of the Senate (and House), some Clinton nominees were rejected in committee. I agree that was something of a strong-arm tactic, and I'm not sure why the GOP chose to do things that way. Since they had the majority, nearly all of those nominees would have been defeated in the floor vote anyway.

Not true. Only the most extreme of judicial nominees get a straight party line vote. The vast majority of them are confirmed with support across the board. And in the case of many of the Clinton nominees who were obstructed for years, when the obstruction ended they were confirmed easily. Richard Paez' nomination was held up for years, yet he was easily confirmed when a vote was held. The vast majority of the nominees that were held up would likely have been approved easily.

And that's the key difference between what the GOP did during the Clinton years and what the Dems are doing now. The GOP was the majority party in the Senate and thus arguably had a mandate to deny consent to the President's nominees. What's happening now is that the minority is obstructing nominees who would otherwise be confirmed.

Except that, as you noted, those who tried to filibuster Clinton's nominees were even in the minority in their own party, which is why they couldn't sustain the filibuster. The difference between the two is that the minority today is large enough to actually succeed, while that was not the case in the late 90s. But in over 60 cases, the Republicans blocked nominees from even getting a hearing, much less a floor vote. Yet today we hear all this blather about the sacred principle of an up and down vote on each and every nominee, from the very man (Frist) who attempted to deny that to Paez a mere 5 years ago. And yet, for some bizarre reason, you still think that its just the Democrats who are playing politics with nominations, while the Republicans are merely standing up for objective and principled constitutional jurisprudence. This is blind partisanship, not a rational conclusion. Both parties play such games, for the very same reason. Neither one cares the slightest about upholding the Constitution, they care about pandering to their constituents.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 03:07:39 PM The problem I have with Eric's argument is that he seems to actually believe that the Democrats' objections to certain judges are due solely to their "personal philosophies", whereas the Republicans' objection to other judges is purely an objective rejection of bad legal judgement. Not at all, Ed. Republicans opposed some of Clinton's nominees whom they considered activist judges, and for some other reasons as well. Democrats are opposing Bush's nominees for the exact same reasons, which exposes as a lie the claim that judicial activism isn't a problem. In other words, the battle over judicial nominations has gotten to the place it is now because of judicial activism, and everyone knows it. Liberals deny that judicial activism is a problem on the one hand because they know that, on the whole, it serves their agenda right now. But on the other hand, they fight tooth-and-nail against Bush's nominees for fear that the judiciary might swing in a conservative direction. If all judges were doing their best to apply the Constitution, we could leave the politics to the legislature. But that's not happening, and everyone knows it. Their actions prove it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 03:23:54 PM And in the case of many of the Clinton nominees who were obstructed for years, when the obstruction ended they were confirmed easily. I'm not sure why that would be the case. I was in high school for half the Clinton years and an undergrad for the other half, so my memory of the politics of the time is not exhaustive. How could all 10 (?) of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee oppose a nominee, yet a large number of the rest of the Senate GOP support him/her? Nevertheless, as the majority party the Senate GOP had a much more legitimate standing to oppose certain of Clinton's nominees than the Dems have for their current obstructionism. The last two Presidential elections were supposed to be, in large part, about judicial nominees. Having lost at the ballot box, the Dems are applying this unprecedented application of the filibuster. (It's unprecedented both in using the filibuster for judicial nominees at all *and* for the fact that the Dems are holding up numerous items simultaneously by filibuster.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/29/2005 03:30:27 PM Eric, if I understand things correctly, it wasn't that a large number of members on the committee opposed the nominees - if that were the case, the Republicans would have just voted down the nomination along party lines in the Judiciary committee, which they controlled. What actually happened was Hatch, as chairman of the judiciary committee, had the power in his hands to prevent up or down votes in the committee itself. Traditionally, this power to hold up a nomination without a vote had only really been used for nominations when both Senators from a particular state disagreed with a nominee for a judgeship in that state. Hatch, however, stopped following that unwritten rule, and decided to use the power of the Judiciary chair to prevent up or down votes based on (as far as I can tell) whatever criteria he could come up with. So, all 10 Repubs on the Judiciary committee weren't opposing most of these judges, the Chairman of the committee was just using his power to prevent an up or down vote. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 04:10:03 PM Eric wrote:

Not at all, Ed. Republicans opposed some of Clinton's nominees whom they considered activist judges, and for some other reasons as well. Democrats are opposing Bush's nominees for the exact same reasons, which exposes as a lie the claim that judicial activism isn't a problem.

But you haven't ever defined judicial activism as anything more than "I know it when I see it." And you haven't addressed the numerous examples where the same republicans who complain about judicial activism have pushed for more activism (using the definitions that they offer of that phrase) and voted for equally "activist" judges in other circumstances. That alone proves that the rhetoric of judicial activism is meaningless. For crying out loud, one of the judges being fought for by the Republicans (Patricia Owen) is praised by these same legislators for trying to overturn a law that wasn't being challenged in the case she was ruling on. If anything qualifies as judicial activism, that absolutely must qualify under any definition. But that was done in service to a goal they agree with (getting rid of abortion), so therefore that judicial activism was good. Judicial activism that leads to results they don't like is horrible; judicial activism that leads to results they like is magically redefined as not judicial activism. It's a ridiculous shell game that only proves my point that there is no coherent definition of that phrase, it means only rulings one disagrees with. The only thing that matters is results, not principled application of the law - which is precisely what you are accusing Democrats of going (and accurately, I might add - they don't care any more about principled jurisprudence than Republicans do).

In other words, the battle over judicial nominations has gotten to the place it is now because of judicial activism, and everyone knows it. Liberals deny that judicial activism is a problem on the one hand because they know that, on the whole, it serves their agenda right now.

Except when it serves the Republican agenda, as it did with Patricia Owen in the abortion case, and as it did with the Schiavo case, and as it does when those conservative judges read the 9th amendment out of the Constitution in order to justify upholding laws that their constituents approve of. Those examples of judicial activism serving the conservative agenda magically transform themselves merely by repeating the same rhetoric when it applies in the opposite manner than intended. So we get ridiculous claims, like accusing Judge Greer, who showed precisely the sort of judicial restraint that conservatives call for constantly, of judicial activism. Judge Birch nailed them on it in spades. The phrase just gets repeated even if today it is aimed at the opposite of what it was aimed at yesterday. As long as it serves the agenda, never mind the total irrationality of the whole exercise. And yet, despite the fact that you haven't even attempted to address these arguments, you continue to claim that only the Democrats are interested in results-oriented judging, while the Republicans are only interested in principled jurisprudence - and pay no attention to the contradictory application of the principles they claim to be supporting behind the curtain.

If all judges were doing their best to apply the Constitution, we could leave the politics to the legislature. But that's not happening, and everyone knows it. Their actions prove it.

I agree, the actions of those claiming to be interested solely in principled jurisprudence prove that they're lying. But you only recognize the nature of politics at play when you disagree with the rulings it leads to. If the same unprincipled reasoning leads to results you like, you're all for it. Because only the other guy is playing politics, not your guy. And just repeating "everyone knows it" over and over doesn't change the dissonance at the core of your argument.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 04:21:50 PM Eric wrote:

I'm not sure why that would be the case. I was in high school for half the Clinton years and an undergrad for the other half, so my memory of the politics of the time is not exhaustive. How could all 10 (?) of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee oppose a nominee, yet a large number of the rest of the Senate GOP support him/her?

It didn't require all 10 on the Judiciary committee. In 1996, Hatch changed the committee rules to allow a single senator from the home state of a nominee to block them from even receiving a hearing from the committee, much less a floor vote. It was called "blue slipping". When Bush won in 2000, Hatch suddenly decided that blue slipping was a bad idea and it went away. But only the Democrats play political games and use procedural tricks to obstruct the nomination process, right? And of course, even if they did do this, I'm sure they did it only because they were taking a principled stand against those evil judicial activists, and never mind all the times they have themselves encouraged judicial activism when it leads to results they like.

It's time to take off the partisan rose-colored glasses and see the reality that judicial nominees are always a target for hypocritical political gamesmanship, by both parties regardless of who is in charge. The only thing that changes is that they exchange scripts depending on whether they're the majority or minority party and who is in the White House. When a Democrat was doing the nominating, Bill Frist would attempt to filibuster judges he didn't like even if he was part of a small minority that couldn't avoid a cloture vote. When a Republican is doing the nominating, and a much larger minority with the ability to keep a filibuster going and reject cloture votes is doing the same thing, it's an abomination that must end immediately. When a Democrat is in office, Bob Smith could get on the floor of the congress and say:

"Don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court ... . That is my responsibility. That is my advice and consent role, and I intend to exercise it."

Now that a Republican is in office and sending up nominees, filibusters are evil and contrary to justice, mom and apple pie. When a Republican is in office, using procedural tricks to block 10 judges from getting an up or down vote, even while approving 194 others, is an outrageous abuse of power. When a Democrat was in office, denying 65 judges even a hearing, much less an up or down vote, well that was just following their mythical electoral mandate. It's a hypocritical, dishonest shell game and it's played by both parties.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 04:37:52 PM

Let me add to that last response. Throughout the 1990s, when Republicans were obstructing dozens of Clinton nominees, the Democrats were howling in outrage as well. They were shocked at the unprecedented obstructionism of the Republicans, and were beside themselves that the Republicans would dare to play political games with judicial nominees. They accused them of causing a vacancy crisis on the Federal bench (the vacancy rate was twice what it is currently) that would deny to American citizens their right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. They could work up a self-righteous rant just as compelling as Frist does today about the "unprecedented" obstructionism that was doing so much obvious damage to our sacred principles. It was a crock then and it still is today. All they do is exchange scripts every few years, each taking the opposite position of the one they took when their party was in control, and each feigning shock and outrage at the behavior of the other side. Only the blindly partisan will fall for this rhetoric more than once by either party.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/29/2005 04:48:36 PM I'll happily raise my hand and agree with Ed fully on that last point. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 08:50:56 PM www.confirmthem.com says that BaltaBoy is all wet on his "facts". ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/29/2005 08:55:23 PM Just, fwiw, in 1968, the Republicans successfully filibustered the nomination of Abe Fortas to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Just more evidence that the "unprecedented" language being thrown about is a con. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/29/2005 09:17:28 PM lunatics like Janice Rogers Brown Phil, perhaps there's something I don't know about Brown, but most of what I've seen, I've liked. I know she leans strongly libertarian, dissented in avis, etc - but these are all good things, I believe, and they don't make her a lunatic. What has she done to desrve the moniker from a reasonable guy such as yourself? Because I'm inclined to think that if you have a reason for thinking she's nutty, then I just haven't read the correct material on her. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/29/2005 09:24:24 PM I'd still like to hear philosopher's answer, but I suppose it pays to read onward before responding. She believes that "FDR was a socialist, that minimum-wage regulations should be outlawed, that the New Deal was a "socialist revolution," That all seems rather un-looney to me. But we could argue for days about *that*. that Social Security should be equated with "cannibalism", Well, I don't know about that. Do you have a citation? and that she is a combatant in a religous war against non-believers." Well, for a religious combatant, she's taken strikingly limited gov't positions on things, and not just where it is convenient for the zealot to do so. She has twice received an "Unqualified" rating from the California judicial evaluation committee. She currently has the American Bar association's lowest "passing' rating. This doesn't demonstrate her lunacy to me. Now, maybe she is activist in ignoring tons of precedent and such, and if so, then to heck with her, too. But I have no reason to believe she is based on what I have seen about her and until I see something to change my mind, I won't. (I.e., until I see something that demonstrates to me that the CA judicial evaluation committee and whatnot dislike her for her abilities on the bench, not because she runs against the partisan grain.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 11:21:06 PM The beliefs of Janice Brown: "My grandparents’ generation thought being on the government dole was disgraceful, a blight on the family’s honor. Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much “free� stuff as the political system will permit them to extract...Big government is...[t]he drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms, for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers, and militant senior citizens." [IFJ speech at 2,3] "We are heirs to a mind-numbing bureaucracy; subject to a level of legalization that cannot avoid being arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory. What other outcome is possible in a society in which no adult can wake up, go about their business, and return to their homes without breaking several laws? There are of course many reasons for our present difficulties, but some of our troubles can be laid at the feet of that most innocuous branch – the judiciary…From the 1960’s onward, we have witnessed the rise of the judge militant." [Speech to California Lincoln Club Libertarian Law Council (Dec. 11, 1997)(“Libertarian speech�) at 5-6, 9] "The United States Supreme Court, however, began in the 1940s to incorporate the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment…The historical evidence supporting what the Supreme Court did here is pretty sketchy…The argument on the other side is pretty overwhelming that it’s probably not incorporated." [“Beyond the Abyss: Restoring Religion on the Public Square,� Speech to Pepperdine Bible Lectureship in 1999] "In his famous, all too famous, dissent in Lochner, Justice Holmes wrote that the “constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire.� Yes, one of the greatest (certainly one of the most quotable) jurists this nation has ever produced; but in this case, he was simply wrong." [Federalist speech at 8] ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.122.173 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 01:09:03 AM Nick, I think Jim S has basically beaten me to the punch in responding to your question. There's a whole lot more at http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/dfiles/file_229.pdf and you hardly need to take their word for it -- most of the claims are independently confirmable -- but it's a nice summary. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 07:00:25 AM The more I read from this woman, the more I like her, as long as she rises no higher than an appellate appointment. (Only the third of her passages gives me pause.) There are highly sophisticated arguments one can deploy in favor of generational transfers, for instance, but it's hard for me--as someone who will lose a great deal of money over my lifetime paying for longer-living, pill-popping senior citizens who are getting a great return on their Social Security contributions--to say that her characterization of the AARP is wrong. Similarly, although FDR was not a "socialist," he was one of the nearest thing to a European-style "social democrat" we've ever seen--and the NRA and other New Deal agencies came awful close to moving Roosevelt into the light-pink camp. And, in general, she is right to say Holmes was wrong: The Constitution does presuppose certain forms of economic arrangements that preclude other alternatives. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/30/2005 10:36:15 AM I would agree with 2 of the 4 statements there, and with the premise but not the conclusion of a third. I fully agree with the first one about all the groups reliant upon big government, and I really like the fact that she put corporations in there as well. Contrary to popular misconception, libertarians tend not to be popular with big business precisely because we would seek to end the massive tax payouts, through subsidies and liability immunities and direct payments, upon which they have come to rely. That distorts the free market every bit as much as tariffs and price controls.

I think the second statement is true in premise but not conclusion. No one could dispute that we are a vastly over-regulated society with a massive bureaucracy that no one fully understands, much less controls. But I think it's wrong to attribute that to judges. Lay the blame firmly at the feet of the legislature on that one, and thank judges for at least occasionally stepping in and reigning in the bureaucracy. I wish they'd do much more of that (come on, Raich decision), but the principal blame lies with the legislatures that created that bureaucracy.

I think the third statement is sheer lunacy. I have no idea what historical evidence she is reading that she thinks is "fairly overwhelming" that suggests the 14th amendment was not intended to incorporate the bill of rights against the states, but she is flat wrong on this one. You can see dozens and dozens of quotes from those who framed the amendment that say quite bluntly that the purpose of the 14th amendment was to apply the bill of rights to the states here.

The fourth statement I mostly agree with. So if anything, those statements made me more likely to support her nomination than to oppose it. Like Paul, I'd say that I'd be fine with her on the bench as long as it doesn't go above the appeals court level. I won't put anyone who rejects incorporation completely on the Supreme Court. I can handle Thomas' argument that the Establishment Clause is not incorporated; I disagree with him, but there's at least a minimally plausible argument for it. There is no such argument against incorporation in general.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 12:46:22 PM So, my philosophy must be based on materials provided by People For The American Way? Ed must have missed Raoul Berger's influencial book that makes the argument which Ed says does not exist. His neighbor, Epstein, also makes that argument. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 01:31:31 PM While Brown was smart enough to not show up at "Justice Sunday" the same day she gave a talk to a group of Catholic legal professionals and seemed to be echoing all of their themes. See this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/faithwarragesinusjudgesays THAT one bothers me more than the others (except perhaps the one on the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment). ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 01:32:49 PM Anonymous is foolish enough to assume that the People for the American Way is the only place to find and confirm this information. Of course I won't find it on Powerlines or the RNC web site but that's no surprise. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/30/2005 02:14:18 PM I've noticed that our anonymous troll has a penchant for two things - asking weird and irrelevant questions (no one ever mentioned what his philosophy should be based on) and making vague appeals to authority of the "so and so disagrees with you" variety. As if the mere mention of someone's name who disagreed with an argument defeats the argument. Let me know when you want to actually make a substantive claim that can be debated. The fact that Raoul Berger wrote a book disagreeing with me once is not an argument that can be engaged, it's just an allusion to a possible source of arguments. I will stick with the substantive argument that the history of the 14th amendment clearly indicates that it was intended to apply the bill of rights to the states, and I provided a link to a very long paper full of dozens of quotations from the legislative history of the amendment to support that contention, and I'll be happy to defend that position. Appeals to authority, unaccompanied by any substantive argument, mean nothing. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/30/2005 05:24:33 PM Paul and Ed beat me to the punch - barring the third quote listed, I tend to think Brown is on perfectly safe groud, and I certainly don't think she's a lunatic. I won't accuse anyone here of calling a judicial nominee names because they disagree with her interpretations of the law rather that thinking she's an unethical person, in fact insane, etc, but... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 08:27:14 PM Who is Jon Roland and why would anyone trust his selective and unhistorical selections from the record? Judicial activism is where judge's decisions cannot plausibly be related to the Constitution they are purportedly enforcing. Ed, that is a definition-so cease the claim that none exist. Government By Judiciary-The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, by Raoul Berger is available from Liberty Fund/Liberty Books, perhaps online. It has a foreword by Forrest McDonald who I think is a Libertarian or was. How does one ascertain plausibility? Can the decision pass the laugh test? Can it pass the smell test? Is it intellible to real minds or just legal ones? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 08:34:12 PM I tend to agree that appeal to authority is not the strongest form of argument but if we accept Justinian's prohibition of it then your incorporation argument could easily go down the drain-see Professor Epstein-also Libertarian. It would be interesting to see her statement in full. I would wager that Berger is cited in it as he was the recognized authority. Perhaps your source is also cited but no one that I know of has ever heard of him. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 09:17:16 PM Will anyone accept a wager that Janice Brown's speech (it is only a speech,by the way)to the Pepperdine Bible Club)is mis-characterized by PAW (the group that is the source for all of the comments I have notice on Google)? All we would need is a link to the transcribed speech to set against the half-wits. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/30/2005 11:57:42 PM Anonymous wrote:

Who is Jon Roland and why would anyone trust his selective and unhistorical selections from the record?

You really do seem stuck on appeals to authority rather than on making substantive arguments. Can you demonstrate that he is using "selective and unhistorical selections" in his essay? Then by all means, please do so. If you can't, then you are simply combining an unsupported assertion with an appeal to authority for a double shot of logical fallacies.

Judicial activism is where judge's decisions cannot plausibly be related to the Constitution they are purportedly enforcing. Ed, that is a definition-so cease the claim that none exist.

That's the loosest definition I've ever heard. I doubt it could fit any situation whatsoever. I doubt you can name a decision that can't be "plausibly related to the Constitution". At which point, you will no doubt begin moving the goalposts and arguing over the definition of "plausibly". Your definition is vague and subjective, which is precisely my point. There is no consistent, coherent and objective definition of the phrase.

Government By Judiciary-The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, by Raoul Berger is available from Liberty Fund/Liberty Books, perhaps online. It has a foreword by Forrest McDonald who I think is a Libertarian or was.

Great, so by all means please bring up a substantive argument in the book and we can discuss it. Merely citing an authority is as irrelevant today as it was yesterday. I can just as easily cite Randy Barnett's book Restoring the Lost Constitution. But without actually bringing up substantive arguments contained therein, it's not an argument it's just a reference to someone who has an argument.

I tend to agree that appeal to authority is not the strongest form of argument but if we accept Justinian's prohibition of it then your incorporation argument could easily go down the drain-see Professor Epstein-also Libertarian.

Appeals to authority are what one uses when they can't use substantive arguments. You can cite authorities for your position, and I can cite authorities for mine. The question is, who is correct? That can only be decided by making actual arguments and presenting evidence for those arguments, something you seem entirely unprepared or unwilling to do.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 12:13:13 AM Most comment sections have limitations on words. I see where your authority for the 14th relies heavily on the other old KKK'er, Justice Black, to whom we owe the error filled history that has led a couple of generations to think that the wall of separation was in the Constitution. I've tried to read Randy's book that you cite. It is very difficult reading. If you don't like the definition, take it up with Bork. Substance? When did Jefferson write the letter? What did Jefferson have to do with the Constitution (he was in Paris)? What plausible reason would Black then cite(in Everson, but is typical of his lack of mooring to the Constitution)Jefferson for? We don't know who Jon Roland is but we are willing to cite him? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 09:28:29 AM It took awhile but http://oll.libertyfund.org/indexold.html will get you Berger's online book! I think, beginning at page 155, you will find the argument you seek and do pay attention to the footnotes. Of course, the whole book is worth your time. N.B. Bookmark the site because it is a wonderful and useful resource. Justice Black, as most of us know, really, was a terrible hack and NOT PLAUSIBLE except to the undereducated. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/01/2005 10:45:31 AM Anonymous wrote:

Most comment sections have limitations on words.

Um. Okay. I'm sure there's some reason why you said that, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it might be. Is that your excuse for not offering substantive arguments and only offering appeals to authority? If so, that's quite amusing.

I see where your authority for the 14th relies heavily on the other old KKK'er, Justice Black, to whom we owe the error filled history that has led a couple of generations to think that the wall of separation was in the Constitution.

He does? Well let's take a look. Click here to see the essay that I cited and let's see whether he "relies heavily" on Hugo Black. He mentions Black exactly once, right near the beginning, where he mentions in passing Black's dissent in the Adamson case, at the end of a list of cases dealing with the question of incorporation. He only notes that it is "interesting" because it contains an appendix which cites some of the same historical sources that this essay cites. And this single mention of a single Black opinion in passing is enough to qualify for him "relying heavily" on Black? That's quite absurd. It's even more absurd that you're mentioning this only as pretext for making two entirely irrelevant arguments, both of which merely add to the growing list of logical fallacies you've committed in this exchange: A) an implied ad hominem (Roland mentions Black, Black was once a KKK member, therefore....what? The illogical conclusion goes unspoken, of course) and B) a change of subject to an entirely different issue on which you think Black was wrong. To refresh your memory, the subject at issue here is the doctrine of incorporation, not the separation of church and state.

I've tried to read Randy's book that you cite. It is very difficult reading.

Gosh, I'm sorry. I certainly wouldn't want to burden you so unfairly, but serious scholarship is often difficult reading. Still, you have missed the point of my mentioning the book. The point was that merely citing an authority, without actually making a substantive argument, is pointless. We can each cite an authority by name and book. Who is right? Well, that's the obvious question. You've made no attempt whatsoever to actually support your position here, you've only engaged in a steady stream of pointless arguments that would make a pretty good case study in the use of logical fallacies.

If you don't like the definition, take it up with Bork.

Wow, this is like a perfect double axel of logical fallacies - you gave a vague and subjective definition in response to the demand for a specific and objective one (fallacy number one); I pointed out why it's vague and subjective, thus making a substantive argument for why that definition doesn't add any clarity to the subject; and you respond with yet another appeal to authority (fallacy #2) without bothering to answer the actual argument you're ostensibly responding to or even to reference anything that authority actually says. Truly, you have managed to turn dodging an issue into an art form.

Substance? When did Jefferson write the letter? What did Jefferson have to do with the Constitution (he was in Paris)? What plausible reason would Black then cite(in Everson, but is typical of his lack of mooring to the Constitution)Jefferson for?

And this has something to do with the doctrine of incorporation and the purpose of the 14th amendment? Yet another attempt to change the subject in lieu of making a logical argument on the issue at hand. This is quite a virtuoso display of irrationality, I have to say. Have you considered turning pro?

We don't know who Jon Roland is but we are willing to cite him?

Not sure who "we" is. I know who Jon Roland is. He's the founder of the Constitution Society. More importantly, I know the arguments and evidence he cites, which make a powerful case for his position and mine. It's the quality of the arguments and evidence that matters, isn't it? Does a logical and well supported position suddenly become less so if it's made by someone you disapprove of? Does an illogical and ill supported position become more so if it is made by someone with the proper credentials? All of this, of course, is simply your way of dodging the substantive issue of the proper meaning of the 14th amendment. So to sum up your arguments here for why Roland is wrong:

1. I don't know who he is, therefore he's wrong.

2. He mentions Hugo Black and Black was a member of the KKK as a young man, therefore Roland is wrong. The dozens and dozens of statements that he cites from the men who wrote the 14th amendment don't matter because someone else he cites in passing was once a member of the KKK.

3. Black was wrong on an entirely different issue once, therefore Roland is wrong. And again, the dozens and dozens of statements that he cites from the men who wrote the 14th amendment don't matter because someone else he cites in passing was wrong on something entirely unrelated.

4. Did I mention that I don't know who Roland is?

5. My appeals to authority are obviously true, though I don't bother to cite any substantive argument they make or the evidence they cite for that position; your appeals to authority are irrelevant because I found them "difficult reading."

I'm beginning to understand why you post comments anonymously. I wouldn't want to take credit for such silly arguments either.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/01/2005 10:55:36 AM Anonymous wrote:

It took awhile but http://oll.libertyfund.org/indexold.html will get you Berger's online book! I think, beginning at page 155, you will find the argument you seek and do pay attention to the footnotes. Of course, the whole book is worth your time. N.B. Bookmark the site because it is a wonderful and useful resource.

Certainly it's a wonderful source to read Berger's views, which I will certainly do, and I thank you for it. But you still haven't actually made an argument here other than an appeal to authority. Let me know when you wish to and we can discuss something of substance.

Justice Black, as most of us know, really, was a terrible hack and NOT PLAUSIBLE except to the undereducated.

This is still completely irrelevant, and it's an incredibly stupid argument - "You cited an author who mentioned Black, I think Black is wrong on things, therefore you're wrong." If you wrote something that stupid in a junior high school class, you'd get flunked. Surely you can do better than that as, presumably, an educated adult. Make an argument, for crying out loud, an actual substantive argument that refers to evidence or deduction in favor of your position. If you can't, then you're just pissing in the wind.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/01/2005 01:22:03 PM "Invocation of the Bill of Rights against the States is of fairly recent origin, whether it be regarded within the older framework of "adoption" or the more recent theory of "incorporation". That would be the topic sentence on page 155. It is also of import to recognize that Judicial Review is not the same thing as Judicial Supremacy. When you take the long view of the Frog in the hot water Bork's definition will form the basis of any argument over judicial activism-the key word being plausible. It will cost you a couple of minutes of reading 155 ff to see why Mr. KKK comes under attack. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 10:20:38 AM But you haven't ever defined judicial activism as anything more than "I know it when I see it." That's not true, Ed, and I resent that you are once again misrepresenting my arguments. The crux of judicial activism is judges replacing the law with their personal opinions and covering it with a fig leaf of precedent or a Constitutional "penumbra," etc. Yes, for an outsider it's nearly impossible to "prove" in the way you demand, because there is a degree of subjectivity in jurisprudence. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And you haven't addressed the numerous examples where the same republicans who complain about judicial activism have pushed for more activism I thought it should be obvious. I agree that there are hypocrites in the Congress. But I've personally stated (in other comment threads) that while I thought the outcome in the Schiavo case was unjust, that was not due to any failure by the Florida courts to interpret the law. you continue to claim that only the Democrats are interested in results-oriented judging, while the Republicans are only interested in principled jurisprudence Bullshit, Ed. Show me where I've said that. I did say earlier in this thread:

Republicans opposed some of Clinton's nominees whom they considered activist judges, and for some other reasons as well. Democrats are opposing Bush's nominees for the exact same reasons

And if that's not a clear enough statement that I recognize politics are in play on both sides, let me say it now: most politicians on either side will cheer for court rulings which support their agenda, regardless of what kind of reasoning the court uses. However, that does not change my assertion that... 1) A distressing number of judges are behaving as activists, as defined above (and these activist rulings currently favor liberal causes by at least a 2:1 margin). 2) Liberals know just as well as conservatives that this is happening, as evidenced by the way they are opposing Bush's nominees tooth-and-nail. 3) Any liberal who denies that judicial activism is real, yet opposes any qualified Bush nominee, is a hypocrite. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/02/2005 11:18:26 AM Eric wrote:

That's not true, Ed, and I resent that you are once again misrepresenting my arguments. The crux of judicial activism is judges replacing the law with their personal opinions and covering it with a fig leaf of precedent or a Constitutional "penumbra," etc. Yes, for an outsider it's nearly impossible to "prove" in the way you demand, because there is a degree of subjectivity in jurisprudence. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Which means precisely what I said, that you can't define it but you know it when you see it. I'm not asking for "proof", I'm asking for a consistent and coherent definition. Neither you nor anyone else has provided anything even approaching one. First you said that engaging in penumbral reasoning was "judicial activism". I pointed out that that penumbral reasoning is not only acceptable as a form of constitutional interpretation, it's an absolutely necessary one. So then you changed to arguing that penumbral reasoning was sometimes judicial activism and sometimes not, but you've never provided any criteria for determining when it is and when it isn't. Now you're arguing that it's when a judge's personal opinion intrudes on his decision. But how on earth does one discern when this is the case? Virtually never does a ruling even refer to the personal opinions of the judge writing the decision, so we're left with this subjective notion that it's judicial activism whenever you think they've done so. And that just proves my point all the more that there is no coherent definition to be found here, certainly not one that can be applied consistently.

1) A distressing number of judges are behaving as activists, as defined above (and these activist rulings currently favor liberal causes by at least a 2:1 margin).

According to what criteria for determining judicial activism? If it's your latest one, then please provide some examples of judges using "personal opinion" to replace the law.

2) Liberals know just as well as conservatives that this is happening, as evidenced by the way they are opposing Bush's nominees tooth-and-nail.

This is truly a bizarre argument. The Republicans claim that they are just trying to rid the bench of "judicial activists" (despite the numerous examples I have given, and you have ignored, of those same Republicans wanting MORE judicial activism as long as it leads to the result they want). You agree with them, and think that the fact that Democrats oppose many of the Republicans' choices for the bench means they're admitting that the Republicans are right. But remember, both sides want judicial activism as long as it serves their goals, as I've shown with numerous examples that have gone completely unanswered.

If they're really just interested in preventing judges from replacing the law with their personal opinion, then why on earth would they be nominating Patricia Owen, who has sought to do precisely that in wanting to overturn a law that wasn't even being challenged in the case before her? If they're really just interested in preventing "judicial activism", then why did President Bush go to court in 2004 to try to get a judge to ban 527 organizations from taking out TV ads, which the campaign finance reform bill explicitly did not do (and which he himself had argued only 4 years earlier was unconstitutional)? If they're really only interested in judges following the letter of the law, then why on earth have they spent the last few months savaging George Greer, who did precisely what they claim to support?

Your premise is simply false. The Republicans are not the least bit opposed to judicial activism by any coherent definition, they are opposed to judges ruling in ways they disagree with and they label all such instances as "judicial activism" even if doing so contradicts their rhetoric in that regard. And that has been my point all along, that the way this phrase is used is incoherent and often hypocritical.

3) Any liberal who denies that judicial activism is real, yet opposes any qualified Bush nominee, is a hypocrite.

There's just so much presumption in this. First, any nominee is "qualified". Second, I think I've shown pretty conclusively (and without any counter-argument on any of the examples I've given, which I think speaks volumes) that there is more than enough hypocrisy on both sides.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 02:57:38 PM Tell me again why Robert Bork is not on the Supreme Court. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 04:59:35 PM We have approached the incorporation matter because Ed characterized her purported statement concerning it as being looney. When a scholar like Epstein makes the same point and more he is characterized as not being mainstream. Exactly. He would prefer to be correct and if being correct invalidates a number of illegal legislative acts then so be it. Hanging one's hat on a biased "source" like PAW who could be trusted to indulge in selective and ignorant quotation doesn't seem wise to me. It is alleged that there are many sources for the same information. If so, link to the address given to the Pepperdine Bible folks and let's see who is being misled. Let's not pretend that People for the American Way are in any way honest. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/02/2005 05:25:29 PM According to what criteria for determining judicial activism? If it's your latest one... Way to be a tendentious jerk, Ed. I have never changed my definition of judicial activism. Rather, I have done my best to be as specific as possible, and I find it very annoying that you would attack me for doing so. I do think that penumbral reasoning raises a red flag of a possible activist court action. But as I've been saying for some time now, the crux is when a judge starts with his/her personal opinion and then sets about constructing a rationale to justify it. You keep saying that this is a meritless criticism because it's subjective. But let's apply that same reasoning to something liberals often complain about: predatory lending practices. We had this discussion recently on this blog. Could anyone give exact criteria of what interest rate and/or other practices constitute "usury"? I doubt it. But would you say this invalidates complaints about high interest rates? If so, I suppose we simply have a fundamental difference in philosophy. despite the numerous examples I have given, and you have ignored, of those same Republicans wanting MORE judicial activism I haven't ignored anything, Ed. Did you actually read my last comment? As you say, there is hypocrisy on both sides. The Republicans are not the least bit opposed to judicial activism by any coherent definition Did I ever say they were? But I am opposed to it, even when--as in the Schiavo case--it might bring about an outcome which I'd prefer. But remember, both sides want judicial activism as long as it serves their goals Great Scott! In trying to refute me, you've just stumbled upon the very point I was trying to make with this post. Or something close to it, anyway. The pitched battle over judicial nominations indicates that the courts have become major players in issues that should be decided by the legislature. Both sides are trying to get "their" judges in, and keep the other side's judges out. The supposedly independent judiciary is becoming a legislative battleground by proxy. What's strange to me about your take on this is that you now admit that liberals "want judicial activism" but you say that it's not just hypocritical for conservatives to complain about it, but that it's a meaningless complaint. Anyway, I've had just about enough of this debate, because I'm tired of having to correct misrepresentations of what I've said or argued. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/02/2005 05:28:22 PM Anonymous wrote:

Tell me again why Robert Bork is not on the Supreme Court.

Because his legal opinions were insane.

We have approached the incorporation matter because Ed characterized her purported statement concerning it as being looney. When a scholar like Epstein makes the same point and more he is characterized as not being mainstream. Exactly. He would prefer to be correct and if being correct invalidates a number of illegal legislative acts then so be it.

Yes, I have characterized a rejection of incorporation as "lunacy" and "far out of the mainstream". I've also supported those claims with arguments and evidence in a long post detailing the legislative history of the 14th amendment. You are of course free to offer counter arguments, but I suspect that instead you will only offer more appeals to authority and well poisoning. Because you appear to be constitutional incapable of actually making a logical argument and supporting it.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/02/2005 06:30:58 PM Eric Seymour wrote:

Way to be a tendentious jerk, Ed. I have never changed my definition of judicial activism. Rather, I have done my best to be as specific as possible, and I find it very annoying that you would attack me for doing so.

For crying out loud, Eric. Would you really like me to go back over all of the posts on which we have exchanged on this subject and pick out the multiple different definitions you've used? Here's the first one, from a comment found here:

That is a liberal canard. There are plenty of cases where I disagree with the way a court interpreted or applied a law which I would not consider judicial legislation. It is only when a court strikes down a law based on extraconstitutional opinions and "penumbras"--that is what I call "judicial activism."

I pointed out that penumbral reasoning in constitutional interpretation is not only acceptable, it's required, and I posted a long comment that examined the history of penumbral reasoning. I cited Glenn Reynolds' excellent law review article on the subject and many cases that were based upon penumbral reasoning that you would surely not consider in any way to constitute "judicial activism". You replied and agreed with me that your first definition was not accurate in a comment here:

I will grant that some amount of what you might call "penumbral reasoning" is necessary, but I personally think that has gotten way out of hand to the point where judges are substituting their personal philosophies for sound Constitutional interpretation. It is a question of degree, then, not of type. But that does not mean that any objections are invalid.

I then posted a long essay on constitutional interpretation and legitimate authority and you replied again in the comments there. I agreed to some extent with your rephrased definition, saying:

I think we're on to something here, but it needs to be stated much more objectively in order to have any real meaning. As it is, it sounds very much like Justice Stewart's famous statement about pornography, that he could not define it but "I know it when I see it." I do agree with you that it is a question of degree, and clearly there are instances where a ruling seems entirely divorced from the text. But we have to have some criteria for distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate assertions of authority...

Once we can agree, as it seems we have, that (at least some) unenumerated rights are real, and agree, as it seems we have, that we must therefore have some criteria for distinguishing between legitimate authority and illegitimate authority, then we can move on to the question of what that criteria should be and compare it to the criteria that the court has used to make that determination in the past and today.

I then went on to discuss the standard conservative arguments for when a judicial ruling is legitimate and when it is not (based upon the state of the law at the time of the Constitution in the states) and critiqued that as a standard. I also went on to examine the Loving decision, which was characterized as "judicial activism" using essentially the same language and arguments you are using over the last few weeks. But surely you would not consider Loving to be an instance of judicial activism today? In your first comment on that thread you said:

I did not mean to imply that any time a court rules based on something other than the explicit text in the Constitution, it is being activist. I was, in fact, stating the opposite: the court actions I find to be activist are always cases where they are striking down a law based on extra-Constitutional rationales.

And I replied:

I still think this needs to be stated in more objective terms. Can you give an example of a ruling with an "extra-Constitutional rationale"? Even Roe v. Wade, which you listed as an example, has a clear rationale that is grounded in the text of the Constitution (via penumbral reasoning), even if it is wrongly applied.

You then flipped back, kind of, to your original definition, saying:

Again I am having problems consistently and clearly putting my opinions into words. I should have said "extra-Constitutional or penumbral rationales." In other words, anything that is not drawn directly from the text of the Constitution. So, Roe v. Wade does qualify.

So now you were back to saying that penumbral reasoning is once again the key to determining "judicial activism", despite the fact that I had already shown why that argument is false and you had agreed with me. And you continued with this additional comment:

And that, I would say, is the essence of judicial activism. The activist judge decides what outcome he/she would like to see, then sets about looking for rationales to support it, be they the actual text of the Constitution or "penumbras" of various clauses. The Constitution (as well as case law) becomes not a standard to follow, but a tool to reach a predetermined end.

I replied to your latest definition by saying:

Okay, but you previously admitted that penumbral reasoning is necessary. It just doesn't seem like you have any well thought out conception of what you oppose, only that you don't like the outcome and therefore it must be wrong. Which is not unique to you. I don't think anyone really has such a coherent conception, even among the leading judicial conservatives.

And I pointed out that every judge to some extent judges based upon the outcome they would like, and I gave examples of Scalia doing this (logically deducing that he was substituting personal preference for the law because his reasoning so obviously contradicted his previous statements on the subject of reading legislative history). You ignored the examples I gave of Scalia engaging in exactly the sort of thing you are objecting to despite the fact that he is one of the leading people who complains about judicial activism, and instead you went back to your second definition that sometimes penumbral reasoning indicates activism and sometimes it doesn't:

No, as I've said several times and formulated most strongly in my last comment, what I oppose is judges deciding outcomes based on their personal philosophies and then finding "excuses" to rule that way. Of course, it's practically impossible to prove this is what happened in a case by reading the decision. But I think when someone is relying on penumbras it should send up a red flag. Sometimes penumbras are valid, sometimes they're not.

But this of course still left us without any coherent definition of judicial activism, it only pushes the problem one step back. The obvious question then is, what is the criteria by which to determine when penumbral reasoning is good and when it is "judicial activism":

So again, when are they valid and when are they not? This just gets us back to the position I've stated many times, that this is just a catchphrase that means "judges doing things I don't like". Are they valid when you agree with the outcome and invalid when you don't? Let's take Roe v Wade as an example. You believe this case was classic "judicial activism", and you may be right, but if you are it's not on the basis of poor penumbral reasoning. I think a good argument can be made that the application of the right to privacy was flawed, but the decision was not wrong because it recognized the same right to privacy, reached through penumbral reasoning, in Griswold.

You ignored my argument about Roe v. Wade, which was after all your only specific example of judicial activism, and instead just said that you think judicial activism is somethign more specific even if it can't be proved. You then wrote your own post on the subject in which you still did not offer a coherent definition of judicial activism. You seemed then to want to breezily dismiss my arguments as some sort of debater's trick and fall back on some sort of instinctive knowledge of the nature of judicial activism, but again without defining it:

A clever debater or pundit has many tools in his or her repertoire. In several posts and the corresponding comment sections, Ed Brayton has argued that the term "judicial activism" is used very loosely by rank-and-file conservatives and that even a serious analysis fails to find an objective measure by which to distinguish it. Therefore, Ed seems to imply that there is no judicial activism, or that any cases are isolated and most are overturned on appeal. "These aren't the droids you're looking for..."

But conservatives sense, almost instincively, that something is afoot. When judges more and more often invoke "evolving standards" and supposed "national consensus" in their rulings, there is a distinct odor of personal philosophy emanating from courtrooms around the country.

And you cited similar rhetoric from Thomas Sowell and Stephen Bainbridge, but again without either of them giving anything approaching a coherent definition of the phrase. I, of course, pointed this out::

I haven't actually implied that there is no judicial activism. What I've implied is that no one has yet come up with a consistent definition of it that is applicable in the real world. And this post gets us no closer to such a definition. Sowell's essay, if anything, takes us further from it. But the implication here is that I'm engaging in some sort of debater's strategy or "Jedi mind trick" to cover up the lack of support for my argument. I would suggest that the opposite is true. My position is in fact easily shown to be wrong. All one has to do is provide a coherent and consistent definition of judicial activism. No one has yet done that.

The problem with defining "judicial activism" is that there is no middle ground. It can only be defined either too broadly, as when it is used to mean "courts overruling legislative acts", too broad because everyone has some legislative acts that they believe are correctly overturned by the courts. Or it can be defined very narrowly but unprovably, as when it is defined as "when a judge uses his personal opinions to reach a desired result." When you try and apply this to the real world, you find out just how inadequate it is. Was Griswold v. Connecticut an example of "judicial activism", as Bork claims it was? Nowhere in the opinion does Justice Douglas refer to his personal opinions at all, and the decision is based upon the same type of reasoning from general principles that is present in dozens of other cases that not even Bork thinks are controversial. He cites case after case that not only supports this course of reasoning, but also supports the specific application of it in terms of establishing a general right to privacy. If this is a case of "judicial activism", as so many conservatives claim, there is not a shred of evidence for that argument. And the fact that they "sense, almost instinctively" that it just must be activist only supports my contention that what is really going on here is the ritual attachment of a meaningless phrase to any ruling that they disagree with.

I then went on in a very long comment to provide a specific critique of the arguments you cite from Sowell and Bainbridge and concluded:

Anyway, on the general issue of whether judicial activism is a consistent and coherent notion, all one has to do to prove me wrong is to provide such a definition and apply it consistently to real world cases. Eric has not done so, but given that he has no background in law that is hardly surprising nor is it a mark against him. But neither has Sowell, or Scalia, or Bork, or anyone else who tosses the phrase around as though it really means something. And vague references to one's "instinctive sense" of what it means rather than an objective and applicable definition only make my argument that much stronger.

You had no response to any of that. As can be seen by this cursory examination of the history of our exchanges over "judicial activism", you have indeed offered multiple contradictory definitions of the phrase and then, when unable to provide the coherent definition that reason would require, you simply fell back on the "I know it when I see it" position. So when I refer to your "latest definition" (judges replacing law with personal opinions), it is hardly reasonable to respond by calling me a jerk. It is quite clear that you have offered multiple definitions precisely because you don't have any coherent conception of what you are opposing. And that has been my point all along. You still haven't provided any criteria upon which one could determine when a judge has replaced law with his personal opinion, and I've given multiple examples on both sides of the issue:

A. Rulings that conservatives typically call "judicial activism" in which there is no hint of a judge's personal decision but is much well-argued reliance on legal reasoning and precedent (like Douglas' opinion in Griswold); and,

B. Rulings in which the very same people who criticize other judges for substituting personal opinion for sound interpretation have engaged in that very same thing themselves as evidenced by their inconsistent reasoning (Scalia's dissent in Edwards).

I don't think pointing out what should be incredibly obvious to everyone at this point - that you simply have no idea what "judicial activism" is yet continue to throw the phrase around as though you did - makes me a "tendentious jerk". But responding to a calm and reasoned argument with name calling might well qualify as such. You owe me an apology, I believe.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/03/2005 12:54:19 PM No, Ed. I believe if anyone owes an apology, it is you. Frankly, I consider it a major affront in a debate to misrepresent what someone is saying. And you've done so repeatedly in two areas. First, by claiming that I've been flip-flopping on my definition of judicial activism, and second, by claiming that I think only Democrats favor judicial activism and Republicans only want principled jurisprudence. As to the second point, you've never shown me where I said that. Which is because I never did. So, if you'd like to retract that I'll accept your retraction. As to the first, thank you for collecting the various things I've said about judicial activism. My position, which I've explained from different angles and tried to clarify, is this: The basic problem of judicial activism is when judges start from their personal philosophy and then find excuses to rule that way. Sometimes they may find a solid textual reason to rule that way, but sometimes they rely on extra-Constitutional sources and penumbras. Therefore, when a judge rules based on the latter, it should send up a red flag. And when a judge is frequently using such rationales and coming up with very novel interpretations of the law, I think it's fair to criticize him/her as an activist judge. Now if you'll compare that to any of my former statements, I think you'll find it completely consistent, just as my former statements are consistent with each other. In some cases, I started from how an opinion is written, and in some cases I started from the judge's motive. Two sides of the same coin. Perhaps you still think my argument fails to be consistent in some way. Fine, that's a philosophical critique, we can agree to disagree. But I think it's highly unfair to accuse me of flip-flopping. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/03/2005 02:59:20 PM Eric, I showed you exactly where you offered multiple definitions. I quoted your words exactly and they are not the least bit consistent. The fact is that you haven't the foggiest idea what judicial activism is, you just think you know "instinctively" what it is. Which just proves the point I've been making all along, that you - like everyone else who invokes it - only uses it to mean "rulings I don't like". You tried for 3 weeks to come up with a coherent and consistent definition and you ended up falling back on a vague and subjective definition involving a judge's "motive", which is something you can't possibly know in any circumstance unless you've had a private conversation with the judge in question. So we're still left where we started, with no coherent definition at all. I have argued this point vigorously, but always politely. I've given you every benefit of the doubt along the way and gone out of my way to be collegial, as anyone reading these exchanges would agree. The fact that you then felt the need to engage in name-calling, I think, demonstrates both the illogical nature of your position and the emotional attachment you have to it that clearly clouds your perceptions. When you couldn't dispute my arguments with reason, you resorted to insults. Game, set, match. Goodbye. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/03/2005 04:27:15 PM Well, that Robert Bork was or is insane sure isn't much of an argument. Would you say the same thing of Sidney Hook? He wrote a book called, Philosophy and Public Policy. Included in it is a very good essay entitled Law and Anarchy. I recommend it to you and to others who might care about the intersection between real philosophy and legal philosophy. Judicial activism, if you care for another definition, is merely our old enemy "the end justifies the means" decked out in legalese. Its imposition by the ignorant and the arrogant is judicial activism. Too, it seems strange that Ed mews about a term that has been in common use for decades. Tell us some more about Bork's insanity if you can back that claim up with anything more than an assertation. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/03/2005 06:55:59 PM Pepperdine has no record or transcript of the Janice Brown speech referenced by Jim S, Philo, and Ed. They claim it is available. Produce the body! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/03/2005 07:03:55 PM Perhaps our anonymous troll can be excused for his reading comprehension failures. I haven't referenced any speech; I had said speech referenced for me. And I have replied quite reasonably that if the excerpts reflect her real views, I find them disturbing. I've also written at some length about the possibility that they are out of context and that her view may well be far more nuanced than those quotes make it appear. You really must break out of this childishly simplistic view of the world you seem to have where anyone who takes even an entirely moderate and reasonable position that you don't like must be branded a liar and attacked. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/04/2005 11:23:10 AM Ed, You can claim that my definition isn't coherent or objective, but I have not offered multiple definitions or changed my argument in any way, other than good-faith efforts to be as specific as possible. Any reasonable person can see that by reading my quotes which you collected above, which is why I thanked you for collecting them. I don't think it is collegial at all to repeatedly accuse someone of flip-flopping when that is clearly not (or at the very least, not clearly) the case. Nor is it collegial to build the kind of straw-man argument I've called you on multiple times and you've yet to retract--your claim that I think only Democrats want judicial activism and Republicans only want princiled jurisprudence. I never said that. When you continued to insist on tackling such straw men and inserted various levels of scorn and sarcasm in your comments, I responded by calling you a jerk. Since you haven't retracted any of your statements, I stand by mine. You can declare yourself the winner of this debate until your face turns blue, but the few people still reading this thread will decide for themselves. I do agree with you on one thing--nothing constructive can come out of arguing this any further. Goodbye. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/04/2005 11:43:36 AM Eric Seymore wrote:

Nor is it collegial to build the kind of straw-man argument I've called you on multiple times and you've yet to retract--your claim that I think only Democrats want judicial activism and Republicans only want princiled jurisprudence. I never said that.

You certainly did. You have repeatedly said that the Republicans oppose judges because they're "judicial activists" (whatever that is), while the Democrats only oppose the Republicans over judges because they want "judicial activists" (whatever that is) because "judicial activism" (whatever that is) leads to results they like. Yet you have ignored the numerous counter-examples I've given of how, using the same fleeting definitions of judicial activism offered by conservatives, they have often pushed for MORE "judicial activism" and are at this very moment trying to push through a judge who is a judicial activist even under the most minimal definition of the term. That disproves your first premise; the fact that the Democrats oppose that activist judge disproves your second premise. And that leads us right back to the argument I've been making all along, and you've been futilely trying to dispute while inadvertantly supporting - that the phrase "judicial activism" only means whatever the speaker wants it to mean at any given time when they oppose a judge's ruling. It's even been used over and over again by the very people that you claim are opposed to it on principle to mean the opposite of what they claim it means. So your entire premise has been disproven time and again.

As far as your claim not to have offered multiple definitions of the term is concerned...all I can say is that I'm baffled that someone can see their own words in black and white and then claim not to have said them. This is cognitive dissonance of the highest rank, clearly. Your first definition was that any ruling based upon "penumbral reasoning" was "judicial activism". Then you agreed that penumbral reasoning was acceptable and even necessary so your new definition was that it was when judges put their own opinions into it. Upon realizing that that definition can never be proven because you can't possibly know a judge's motives, you fell back on a combination of that AND penumbral reasoning. Then you said that penumbral reasoning is just a "red flag" but it doesn't necessarily indicate activism. And then you went back to the "judges putting their opinions in" definition again. This is completely incoherent and contradictory and anyone who has been watching you thrash around and tie yourself into logical knots trying to come up with something even minimally coherent and consistent in these exchanges can see that quite clearly. All you have proven in these exchanges is your utter lack of intellectual honesty and your inability to admit that you really have no idea what you're talking about.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/04/2005 01:06:02 PM You have repeatedly said that the Republicans oppose judges because they're "judicial activists" ..., while the Democrats only oppose the Republicans over judges because they want "judicial activists" Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're just wrong, Ed. Here's what I said: Not at all, Ed. Republicans opposed some of Clinton's nominees whom they considered activist judges, and for some other reasons as well. Democrats are opposing Bush's nominees for the exact same reasons, which exposes as a lie the claim that judicial activism isn't a problem. I think it's clear that I'm saying that both parties have sought to obstruct nominees who they believe will behave as activists. You made a complementary argument when you said: But remember, both sides want judicial activism as long as it serves their goals I agree with this, too. Both sides (as a group) want to get their judges in and keep the other side's judges out because they both realize that judges are becoming increasingly activist. Your argument is that there's no legitimate basis for complaining about judicial activism, but I'm saying that this sort of battling over nominations shows that both sides believe it's happening. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/04/2005 01:09:08 PM If you're willing to admit you made an incorrect inference about what I was saying regarding Republicans' and Democrats' behavior over judicial nominations, I'm willing to put an end to this argument. But I will not allow you to perpetuate a mischaracterization of what I've been arguing. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 05/04/2005 01:15:17 PM One more thing... all I can say is that I'm baffled that someone can see their own words in black and white and then claim not to have said them Once again, you are lying about what I've claimed! I didn't claim that I didn't write the words you quoted. I simply disagree that any of those quotes logically contradict each other. In some cases, I was clarifying a previous position that could be read too generally, and in other cases I was describing the same phenomenon from different angles. Ed, either you are being incredibly sloppy in paraphrasing my arguments or you are the one guilty of intellectual dishonesty. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/04/2005 01:24:43 PM Okay, now let's look at some other comments you made that make my interpretation quite a reasonable one.

Liberals deny that judicial activism is a problem on the one hand because they know that, on the whole, it serves their agenda right now. But on the other hand, they fight tooth-and-nail against Bush's nominees for fear that the judiciary might swing in a conservative direction.

This of course ignores the fact that judicial activism does not necessarily serve the "liberal agenda" right now, and I gave several examples of conservative judicial activism. Your argument all along has been that Republicans are against judicial activism (which is false) and that liberals are for it, but deny that it exists because it serves their agenda (also false). What's going on here is that you're now pretending to have taken an entirely different position than you really took all along. Not once in any of your previous statements before these last few did you ever even admit that there was such a thing as judicial activism on the part of ostensibly conservative judges. When I brought up numerous examples of such, you ignored them and just kept repeating this "I know it when I see it" mantra. My point all along has been that "judicial activism" is nothing more than a rhetorical catchphrase that is never applied consistently or coherently in the real world. After denying that for the last 3 weeks, you're now erroneously claiming to have been agreeing with that but that your use of the term, despite your shifting and incoherent definitions of it, somehow isn't just empty rhetoric.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/04/2005 01:34:12 PM

Ed, either you are being incredibly sloppy in paraphrasing my arguments or you are the one guilty of intellectual dishonesty.

Or possibility number three, which I think I have shown pretty conclusively to be true by quoting voluminously from your various and contradictory attempts at staking out a consistent position: that the fault lies with the inconsistent and incoherent nature of your answers. You've even admitted at least twice that you can't seem to put into words what you mean, which is a pretty good sign that you just don't have any clear idea what you're talking about. Eric, the bottom line here is that you just don't understand this issue very well. You threw around some loose rhetoric, got called on it, backtracked a couple of times and finally ended up with just a mishmash of contradictory notions laying there with no semblance of a coherent position. The way to avoid that, of course, is not to go off making bold claims on subjects you aren't well informed about. If you're going to take a series of incoherent positions on a subject, it's hardly reasonable to call someone a jerk for pointing out that incoherency. For crying out loud, you can't even accurately paraphrase your own position, much less criticize someone else for not paraphrasing it accurately. There are many areas in which I'm sure I would sound just as bad if I tried to make bold claims about them; hence, I don't make such claims.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/04/2005 06:40:52 PM Maybe I have been sloppy. But, I did read on one of these threads that the Pepperdine Speech was available from many sources. Would that have been the self-styled Philosopher or Jim S? That speech was supposed to have been evidence that the judge was a loon. So-whoever thinks that on the basis of a PAW FABRICATION (at this point in time) can produce or procure the body (the speech) or they can retract their loon charge and look silly (but more honest). If they cannot produce the speech then let us consider their argument demolished and purchase for them some footware that will fit their webbed feet. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 63.13.138.186 URL: http://www.intheagora.com/ DATE: 05/04/2005 08:52:25 PM Okay, now let's look at some other comments you made that make my interpretation quite a reasonable one. If you'd said "assumption," I might have agreed with you. I think your problem in analyzing my arguments is that you assume too much about what I'm saying based on the fact that I'm a conservative Republican. I simply never said that only Democrats want judicial activism and Republicans only want principled jurisprudence. You assumed it. The situation as I see it is this: Democrats are cheering on judicial activism because, on the whole and despite a few examples of the opposite, it benefits their causes. Most Republicans would gladly cheer on conservative judicial activism, as their actions in the Schiavo case showed. The problem for you is to remember that I'm not "most Republicans." I'm not going continue debating with you over what I've said or haven't said. My statements are there in black and white. Other people can decide for themselves whether the position I've laid out is coherent and whether I've used "loose rhetoric" or backtracked. I don't give a whit what you think. I'm tired of playing this game. First you claimed that no consistent definition of "judicial activism" exists. I have tried to formulate one, and with each refinement you offered criticisms. Fair enough. But when I settled on something fairly consistent, if subjective, you suddenly turned my efforts against me, claiming that my definition has been shifting! I find that very unfair. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 05/04/2005 10:06:26 PM Perhaps Ed does not wish to "get it"? I can imagine a SC decision in which the written opinion has NO reference to the Constitution. When that occurs could we consider those perps to be judicial activists? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 05/05/2005 10:35:57 AM Eric-

Perhaps next time I'll try your "debating tactics" of making claims I can't back up, making increasingly incoherent statements to support those claims, and then call my opponent a jerk when he points out that I'm not making any sense. Up until that point it was a polite, if pointed, disagreement. You decided to cross that line and become rude, not me.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Damen EMAIL: hanma98@masrawy.com IP: 78.32.230.59 URL: http://genericsingulair.info DATE: 06/07/2009 03:56:13 AM Hi all. Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from. I am from Colombia and now study English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: "Japanese researchers report strong anti allergic results from apple polyphenol anti allergic effect of apple polyphenol on patients with atopic dermatitis -Following challenge with various stimuli." Thank you so much for your future answers :D. Larissa. ----- -------- AUTHOR: ITA Staff TITLE: ITA Daily Web Digest -- 29 April 2005 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/29/2005 12:00:01 AM ----- BODY:

• "People Power Rattling Politics of Latin America" [Christian Science Monitor] Despite the continental scope of the title, protests in South America receive comparatively little attention in this article recounting recent events in Mexican politics. But the general theme--that power may have shifted from landed or armed elites in Latin America to the traditionally landless and powerless people of the former colonies--is interesting. (I'm oversimplifying a vastly more complicated class structure.) Americans need to remember there are more countries than Britain, China and the Middle East. (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• "Yao Nets Chinese Worker's Title" [Washington Post] The Post, whose China desk is one of the better sources for information on the changing society, reports on the recent awarding of the title of "model worker" to NBA star Yao Ming. The title used to be awarded only to the proletariats and peasants of Mao's time, and many Chinese find it odd that this symbolic celebration of the "working man" (a class identification with special resonance in Communist countries) has gone to a guy who slam dunks. (For a more political look, don't miss the Monitor's coverage of the visit of the Taiwanese KMT president to Beijing.) (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• "Survey Finds Many Have Poor Grasp of Economics" [New York Times] There's always something comic when the Times tries to explain the two matters it understands the least: economics and ordinary Americans. In this article, the Times notes that few Americans know the tying-your-shoe basics of political economy, but the author confuses "economics" with "knowing a lot of words." The survey remains troubling, even so. (Selected by Josh Claybourn.)
• "Pyroelectric crystal drives nuclear fusion at 'desktop' conditions" [Nature] Claims of "cold fusion" in the late 1980's proved to be infamously erroneous, leading to a great deal of skepticism about the "f-word" in physics. Nevertheless, in a remarkable achievement, a team of physicists appears to have induced nuclear fusion in a lab without the use of a huge, energy-guzzling accelerator. The reaction, however, is not self-sustaining and therefore not useful for energy production. The technical description of their project is here. (Selected by Eric Seymour.)
• "Bill Passed to Require Drivers to Move Over" [WTLV]: Like most people from the Midwest, aka, "normal" drivers, I'm always astounded by the behaviour of motorists in Florida, where there is no fixed speed limit for any one car or lane. This turns their highways into a sometimes exciting and always frustrating game of Pole Position, where the veteran racers are extremely veteran. I doubt this legislation will work, but I wish them luck. (Selected by Zach Wendling).

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: The End of Radio Talk? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/28/2005 06:22:11 PM ----- BODY: Not quite. But following along on the theme of the post below that, in politics, interest is more important on a day-to-day level than discourse or ideology, it's interesting to pass along this post by Ann Althouse which theorizes that the explanation for the steep decline in talk show ratings is that people are sick of talking about politics. Althouse's post is based in part upon this Washington Post article, which recounts among other bits of data that the liberal Air America affiliate in the nation's capital has ratings as low or lower than 0.1 per cent of the listening audience--literally too low to be reliably counted. Besides, as she points out, "the debate about Social Security was mind-numbing." Indeed it is--I confess that I stopped paying attention in about 2002, after I realized that a) my generation is screwed on a generational-accounting benefits, b) my generation doesn't vote, and so c) my generation will always be screwed in any "reform" plan. (Grayhairs vote, you see.) Similarly, on the filibuster--another tiresome issue--the intensity of my position is based more on fatigue and irritation than reason (although I do have several reasons): Why should any tactic that historically has been the tool of wilfully obstructive and harmful minorities be maintained? (In Indiana politics, I would venture, the equivalent is, of course, DST.) I realize there are debates about these issues, but frankly I care more about Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, and I don't care a twentieth as much about them as I care about the position papers of obscure Irish language revival groups ninety years ago. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: In America, God is a Republican, and Other Truisms STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/28/2005 05:50:57 PM ----- BODY: On the Daily Show recently, Stephen Colbert offered this description of the political beliefs of God: In America, God is a Republican; in Britain, He's a Tory; in France, a Gaullist; and in Mexico, He votes PRI. Ironically, Colbert remarked, in Sweden the Almighty is registered as a Social Democrat, which, he mused, might explain why Swedes kill themselves so frequently. Colbert's taxonomy is, actually, remarkably clever: One of the best predictors of how French and British citizens will vote, as I recall, really is how frequently they attend church--not for nothing is it said that the Church of England is the Tory party at prayer. French Catholics, likewise, will not vote for French Communists. (It is this kind of nerdish grad-school humor that gives the Daily Show the edge over all other fake news shows.) This is not a post about religion, but rather the tendency of political activists, professionals, and aficionados to associate themselves with those they perceive to be their kindred spirits in other countries. ----- EXTENDED BODY: I used to feel this way, although I haven't really ever since Helmut Kohl lost in Germany and especially not since Mrs. Thatcher was ousted in England (not, for Mrs. Thatcher, the U.K.). Since then, I have tended to support only incumbent parties, on the selfish basis that it is easier for me to remember the name of the Italian Prime Minister if he stays in office for longer than six weeks at a stretch. (This was a big problem in Italian politics pre-Berlusconi.) I have real reasons for this, of course--in many of the countries I care most about, a change in regime is apt to bring to power countries whose foreign policies I find distasteful, as happened when the KMT lost in Taiwan and the younger generation of Korean politicians triumphed in South Korea. The country whose political parties have the deepest bonds of affection with American politicos and commentators is, of course, the U.K. Who should American conservatives support in the British elections? I have written lukewarmly of the British Labour Party in its new, post-Kinnock form, while other conservative partisans look to less profound reasons to prefer Blair. Ideologically, I find more to approve of in the Labour government as realized (often, of course, against the wishes of its core voters and backbenchers) than in the current Conservative Party under Michael Howard, which is reactionary in the worst Buchananite sense (though without the anti-gay bigotry). But why do I care? Why, indeed, does anyone care? Foreign policy, it seems to me, is the only thing an American should really have a forceful opinion about in regards to other countries' leaders, as long as their domestic politics don't threaten our interests. And foreign policy, as practiced by respectable nations (the ones that have the settled, stable political party systems that give rise to these feelings of transnational political kinship), is the least partisan part of foreign policy. Europeans, of course, live cheek-by-jowl with their fellow continentals, and so I can understand a member of the Partido Popular tending to support the Christian Democrats or a French Socialist cheering the parties allied with Romano Prodi. European integration only formalizes the links that have long existed, especially in working-class politics: It is not for nothing that one of the anthems of socialism is called "L'Internationale." Americans, though, have no such real immediate interest in the domestic affairs of other nations. To confine myself to British examples: I have no experience with the National Health; I do not pay a council tax; I vastly prefer the American tertiary educational system to the Oxford "tute"; and my political thought on the issue of regional devolution is confined to a mushy, Thatcherite and Churchillian belief that "There will always be an England" equates to "There will always be an England ruling a United Kingdom." In other words, I have no basis on an experiential or even, really, a bookish level to prefer one party's specific policies over another, especially in these days when the trade unions and international Communism are dead. These warm and ill-defined friendly feelings toward various political parties spontaneously emerge everywhere in the commentariat. Leftists in Europe always favor labour movements or other practioners of "resistance" politics, no matter how cruel they are in power or out; conservatives in America are willing to tolerate authoritarian governments abroad, so long as they only lock up peasants and leave American tourists unmolested. These are extreme cases, of course, but I think a moment's reflection will suffice to translate them into First World norms. (Or even Third World norms, unless you've forgotten how we all spontaneously rallied around Yushchenko.) Why are these feelings generated? It is because the principal preoccupation of political scriveners is ideology divorced from reality. Writing is an exercise in abstraction, but professional politics is a constant grappling with the concrete. We should not, therefore, be surprised when Western observers return from this or that country to find that the local government is either the herald of a new golden age or the beginning of a gulag era, depending on the ideological beliefs of the observer. In democratic political terms, writers will focus less on the day-to-day and intensely local issues that the electorate considers and more on the party platforms and explicit statements of the candidates. We should know better from reading, say, the Guardian's coverage of the American election. Foreign observers, lacking the long experience with a wide experience of subgroups in a country, will always miss the most important events in a campaign, or fail to recognize their significance. Why should we expect our own predictions to be any different, especially given that our own ideas and experiences are drawn from our lives in the States, an environment so unique as to be sui generis? So it is that we should be wary of choosing sides in other countries' politics, unless to oppose a Chavez or support an Aquino. We will likely not know what we're talking about otherwise. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Brian Logue EMAIL: btlogue@alltel.net IP: 69.40.212.192 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 12:11:12 AM Foreign observers, lacking the long experience with a wide experience of subgroups in a country, will always miss the most important events in a campaign, or fail to recognize their significance." I felt this way about the recent coverage of the election of the new Pope. Most seemed to not even speak the language as it were. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 11:49:50 AM A comment regarding my distaste for the allegedly pro-independence party of Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian was inadvertently deleted (I was deleting a piece of comment spam). I will respond here to the allegation that I'd prefer Taiwan to "remain under Beijing's thumb." My preference regarding the matter is not that Taipei be reunified with Beijing under any sort of coercive measure, but rather that Taipei's leaders not abuse the goodwill of the United States and plunge the region into a four-way war with disastrous consequences for every country involved. In other words, I prefer the status quo or a peaceful resolution to it (like every administration since Truman), and Chen's first term gave little indication he was particularly interested in maintaining the prudence necessary to carry out such a policy. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark Byron EMAIL: drbyron@yahoo.com IP: 68.72.153.124 URL: http://markbyron.typepad.com/ DATE: 04/29/2005 03:55:41 PM I wasn't in the best mood this morning; that Bejing's thumb line left a lot to be desired. You're worried that Chen will do something stupid and prompt a mainland response. I can see that and agree with you. I also agree with you that the status quo beats the heck out of Bejing taking over. I'm still wondering if some sort of two-China policy would be better than the diplomatic status quo. The two Cold War era Germanies got back together after ~45 years, yet we had recognition of the FDR and the DDR as two seperate entities for most of that time. If and when Bejing gets its act together, we might see reunification, but in the meantime, I'd like to find a way to acknowledge Taiwan without giving Bejing a hissy fit. Easier said than done. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Family Guy Preview STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/28/2005 11:57:14 AM ----- BODY: Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, to view a leaked preview copy of Family Guy Season Four Episode 1. The show--which premieres in its new season this Sunday--is a masterpiece of satire and surreal comedy. Like South Park (but without the overt linguistic vulgarity), the show can sometimes come across as offensive to certain groups willing to be offended, but is, in reality, nothing more than pure essence of humor. Originally canceled by Fox (referred to in the first moments of the show), Seth MacFarlane's animated comic series was brought back after selling 3.5 million copies on DVD and developing a massive fan base among, ahem, males aged 18-34. The first episode chronicles Peter and Lois Griffin's second honeymoon, which involves stealing Mel Gibson's print of Passion of the Christ 2 ("starring Chris Tucker and...the guy from the first one"). Stewie and Brian (that is, the baby and the dog) take over as parents for Chris and Meg. Not as successful as the best of the first three seasons (in particular, the absence of Quagmire and Cleveland was a disappointment), nevertheless the show's return is a welcome sign that we are nearly back to normalcy. Holowatch Blog suggests this could be clever marketing on the part of Fox--specifically, a type of "viral marketing" that's all the rage among the avante-garde of the advertising commissars. It may well be. But if the result of this is that I get to see the show early, then neither I nor other fans of MacFarlane's vision will feel tremendously manipulated. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John EMAIL: johnwilliamcoleman@hotmail.com IP: 67.106.186.167 URL: http://johncoleman.typepad.com DATE: 04/28/2005 12:49:22 PM I am excited. For me the Family Guy is hit or miss (sometimes I think the writers are trying too hard), but overall it is great. I had a friend one summer who owned the whole set on DVD and would watch one episode every night before bed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: J. P. EMAIL: jpclaybourn33@hotmail.com IP: 12.220.47.6 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 01:35:25 PM You know what I haven't had in a while? Big League Chew. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Aldridge EMAIL: phil.aldridge@eccu.org IP: 64.164.59.2 URL: http://10-8.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 01:46:16 PM No thanks, pal. I don't take coupons from talking chickens. Not after last time... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 02:04:18 PM Kool Aid Man: "Oh yeah!" ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 66.209.31.11 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 03:08:53 PM I find myself uncontrollably compelled to type the words "Mrs. Garrett's giant talking bosom".... Btw, based on Paul's plot synopsis of the episode, can we convince all the 'framing' gurus to stop talking about Mommy party/Daddy party, and start talking about Stewie party/Brian party? ----- -------- AUTHOR: ITA Staff TITLE: ITA Daily Web Digest -- 28 April 2005 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/28/2005 12:00:01 AM ----- BODY: ITA's writers point out the articles they've found most interesting today.

• "New Gaps In Controlling the Spread of Nuclear Arms" [Christian Science Monitor]: The Monitor reviews the current state of nonproliferation and finds it troubling. Sure, Libya's given up its WMD program and Iraq is no longer a potential proliferator--but what about Iran, Pakistan, and worst of all North Korea? And what's China's role in all of this? (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• "Playing the Faith Card" [Reason]: Columnist Cathy Young flays the superstition of the religious Right that opposition to certain judicial nominees is tantamount to anti-Christian bias.(Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• ""A Short History of the Chinese Restaurant" [Slate]: Exactly what it says it is, this article describes a museum exhibit in New York and reveals why it is that Chinese restaurants are quintessentially American. (Selected by Paul Musgrave.) "The 'Virtue' of Lust?" [Christianity Today]: W. Jay Wood reviews the philosophy of Simon Blackburn, a Wheaton professor and author of the book simply titled Lust. Blackburn makes an unabashed defense of what what many consider sin. (Selected by Joshua Claybourn.)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 12:21:28 PM Bainbridge and volokh suspect that she flails. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 12:24:11 PM Okay, anon, here's the thing: Neither I nor any other reader or writer on this site cares to spend our time chasing down links on other sites. So, from now on, unless you actually link to something--or even just leave a URL--know that we're just ignoring you. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Foltz EMAIL: IP: 68.58.40.83 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 11:39:37 PM For that matter, you owe me a steak since the US has abandoned is WMD search. No arguing they could be elsewhere, because your team isnt searching anymore. Feel free to IM me at Foltzie1 or I could always just IM your AOL name. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: The Weather, The Bible, and Bad Science STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/27/2005 05:37:30 PM ----- BODY: The weather is famously the only safe topic for discussion, especially in the islands where I now live. One Indianapolis television station, however, appears bent on blocking this last harbor from those of us who from time to time seek refuge from tempestuous ideological debates. A friend passes along this link to a promo for "Weather and the Bible," a program that will run on Indianapolis's RTV6 tomorrow at six o'clock. According to the promo, the show "will feature the work of Hoosier astrophysicist and Christian college professor Donald DeYoung, who applies meteorological and physical science from a creationist point of view." Further, "DeYoung will explain new research that he says shows how biblical events like the great flood are factually accurate." It is times like these that I want to weep, or at least reread Mencken's obituary for William Jennings Bryan. Are we never to be free of this intellectual deadweight? Or could we at least jeer it instead of giving it prominence? ----- EXTENDED BODY: DeYoung, according to an online biography, teaches physics at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana, a school whose admissions requirements list a "commitment [to] the spiritual standards and the proper Christian conduct" before giving the SAT and GPA numbers that the college looks for in its applicants. Among the courses listed in the catalog of the department DeYoung chairs are "Theories on Origins" ("A survey of origin theories with emphasis on creation/evolution") and--frighteningly--"Methods of Teaching Sciences in the Secondary School" ("A study of the curriculum and methods of teaching sciences on the secondary level"). DeYoung has carved out a niche for himself doing what he'll do tomorrow on Indianapolis's airwaves: Providing a slanted and utterly unrepresentative view of modern science, one that rejects the contributions of most of the past century of physics and of even longer in biology. He has an audience, apparently: one forum, apparently for Christian homeschoolers, recommends his books (with the creepy disclaimer that the poster does not "vouch for the theology" in these books; theology, of course, being a key part of science). Among these books is Weather and the Bible; I presume this will be the source text for tomorrow's exposition. DeYoung publishes semi-frequnetly in Creation Research Society Quarterly, sponsored by the Creation Research Society, described by TalkOrigins as a society that places more emphasis on the "creation" than the "research" bit. As TalkOrigins points out, the CRS (not to be confused in any way with the Congressional Research Service, which is chock-full of brilliant analysts) requires its members to literally sign up to a four-point creed that pledges them to, essentially, missionary work while at the same time preventing them from undertaking research that might challenge the literally accuracy of every--or, rather, any--word of the Bible. (Which Bible in which language from which era is left unmentioned.) Among the many articles Creation Research Society Quarterly publishes are another seeking to prove that dinosaur eggs were laid during a worldwide flood. Three of DeYoung's articles are online: "Is the Sun an Age Indicator?", Toward a Creationist Astronomy", and "Dark Matter." I know--barely--enough popular science and more than enough about research methods and argumentation to critique the latter two pieces. They are not good. "Toward a Creationist Astronomy" starts from the entirely accurate statement that "It is noted that very little discussion of stellar evolution has been conducted from a creationist perspective" and continues to argue that, since creation scientists already have alternate models for biology and physics that are "Biblically correct," it's time for creation scientists to get cracking. Yet there is no actual argument presented in the 4,500 words of the essay, other than to rebut the amazingly facile claims of previous creation science "researchers." In fact, DeYoung and his co-author end by stating only that they intend to continue working, and that their task is "daunting." It certainly is: One wonders how to force the speed of light, galactic observations, and the Hubble Constant into a model of the Universe that requires everything to be only 6,000 years old--or, alternatively, one in which only the Earth, alone in all the Universe, was created 6,000 years ago. DeYoung's other article, "Dark Matter," tries to use the existence of dark matter to open a door for creation physics. Among the points DeYoung raises in the article is that physics relies too much on random chance--in his explanation--to Why is it that galaxies move? DeYoung replies: "The Creator may simply have placed these clusters throughout space much as we see them, with random galaxy velocities." We are a long way indeed from the Western scientific tradition that includes Newton, of whom Pope famously said:

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

There is a very long distance to travel between "The Creator said so" and F_g = G*[(m₁ * m ₂)/r²] . The paper builds up, via distractions such as the one above, to its soaring conclusion:

What then is dark matter? I have suggested that dark matter exists within galaxies, if not elsewhere. We have considered various physical micro and macro-size possibilities. But there is another option. Perhaps the dark matter we seek is in reality the unseen hand of the Creator. We know from Colossians 1: 17 that God in some way holds all things together. Therefore at some point, physical reality must mesh with the spiritual. And that point may lie in the unexplicable problems of modern science.

It so happens that dark matter is one of the very few astrophysical topics I have ever written on, and my view of the field--as related by its practitioners--is rather more complicated. (Read both DeYoung's articles and mine.) Practicing physicists regard dark matter--and dark energy--as a major challenge to their theory, but they actually design experiments to test theories. DeYoung operates without such troublesome constraints. And his rather thin bibliography (not much longer, as a matter of fact, than the research that went into my article) demonstrates that he is similarly untroubled by the scholar's usual burden of keeping up with developments in the field. He cites a very small handful of professional publications, but the articles are hardly referred to in the text--were they to be taken out, the only effect on his argument would be to reduce his bibliography to the small number of (old) textbooks and publications by other creation science "researchers" that back up the bulk of his argument. So this is a thumbnail sketch of the man granted a platform to address Indianapolis television viewers. It is incidents like this that should serve to remind fans of Matthew Arnold's definition of culture as "the best which has been thought and said in the world" that the marketplace is a terribly inefficient mechanism for guaranteeing the triumph of truth. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 10:34:45 PM Pry your stuffed shirt away from your body, examine the show, then give us your usual intelligent comments concerning it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/27/2005 11:41:50 PM Where were those islands again? In any event, I like this kind of stuff when I'm driving through Kansas at 3 a.m. listening to the Art Bell Show. (I guess Art doesn't do the show anymore, but that's beside the point.) I do, however, admit a preference for time travelers coming back to tell us about the benevolence of the grey aliens and the malevolence of the Reptilians (or vice versa). Overall, one oddball showing up on channel 6 is no big deal, but it seems that there is something of a Counter Enlightenment afoot in the world -- to a greater extent with conservative Islamic fundamentalists using terror in an effort to bring back some never-existent religious Golden Age -- but also to a lesser extent with conservative Christian fundamentalists doing things like trying to jam their Bible stories into science classes. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 09:42:15 AM From the RTV6 web page: "RTV6 Chief Meteorologist Kevin Gregory will examine meteorological explanations for events that are described in the Bible" That hardly sounds controversial. The History channel does Bible-related shows all the time. If anything, you might have fundamentalists objecting to natural explanations for Biblical accounts considered to be miracles. It's possible the RTV6 segment will have a creationist slant, but we'll find that out tonight. (Those of you in the Indy viewing area, let me know.) In the meantime, I'm not really interested in putting DeYoung under a microscope. conservative Christian fundamentalists doing things like trying to jam their Bible stories into science classes I'll start getting worked up about that when the secular humanists, feminists, pro-homosexual activists, "Western culture is evil" believers, etc., stop jamming their beliefs into the rest of the curriculum. But give me a call when Adam and Eve get written into a public school science textbook. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/28/2005 12:06:23 PM give me a call when Adam and Eve get written into a public school science textbook. Tsk, tsk. You can't please one group without offending the other, I know, but that's just ridiculous. Without even touching on the generality of your comment - should they be mentioned in the Newtonian chapters of a Physics textbook? On the 8th day, did He say, "let acceleration due to gravity be 9.8m/s^2"? - the real point here is that not everyone agrees on Christianity while practically everyone but the most hardcore fundamentalists (of any religion) agree on the basic tenets of science. And really, the same goes for even the less-basic stuff. For example, a significant portion of Christians (I don't have a percentage, but it must be high) actually believe evolution occurs/occured and is perfectly consistent with the Bible; as long as you don't interpret whichever shoddy translation of the Bible to use literally, then you shouldn't have a problem seeing this. We shouldn't be teaching the Bible as truth simply because an overwhelming plurality of US society quite reasonably doesn't think it is. My pre-emptive responses: (1) If you think the Bible is so true that it should be taught as truth in school, well, you're free to send your child to one of the many private schools that do so, free to homeschool your child, or even free to leave this country for one that readily affirms your comprehensive doctrine, if the other options aren't good enough. (And heck, I even support school vouchers, meaning that I'd still be footing the bill for your kid to learn the way you want him to!) (2) There's no argument here about the truth of the Bible - although I'm sure you know what my opinion on that is - but there is an argument here about what public schools should properly teach, given a pluralistic society. (Which, of course, is why I think full privatization is a great idea in theory.) (3) Would you seriously want your kid learning that DeYoung's theories, that seem a stretch even for a creation scientist? Would you seriously want to hinder your child (not to mention the children of others!) in that way? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 12:09:54 PM "a significant portion of Christians (I don't have a percentage, but it must be high) actually believe evolution occurs/occured and is perfectly consistent with the Bible" Well, there's Catholics.... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 12:26:14 PM As for how goofy "science" has become you can't beat Crichton's speech circa 2002 to Cal Tech. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 01:00:38 PM Nick, I think you missed my point. I was saying that I haven't actually seen any "Bible stories" in science textbooks as Doug claims that "conservative Christian fundamentalists" (as opposed to liberal Christian fundamentalists, I suppose) are trying to put there. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 01:32:04 PM Oh come on Nick...you have to know as well as I do that God couldn't have said let g=9.8 m/s^2...He'd have to have said let G = 6.673 × 10^-11 m^3/kg s and then set the mass and density structure of the earth. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 01:46:35 PM Balta, there you go with your Deist heresies again. Your science of "laws" and "equations" leaves no room for God to create Stone Mountain in Georgia. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Aldridge EMAIL: phil.aldridge@eccu.org IP: 64.164.59.2 URL: http://10-8.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 01:57:03 PM I used to follow Christian apologetics for Intelligent Design pretty closely, and in fact was a defender of the notion. However, ID folks keep letting me down by publishing bad science, suspicious statistics and "experiments", and sometimes outright misleading. I have totally checked out of the creation/evolution debate. I think, scientifically speaking, abiogenesis is utter fantasy. Also, the evolutionary fossil record is non-existent. However, the ID movement looks like a bunch of buffoons most of the time, so I just stopped caring. I'd rather defend Open Theism. Much more fun. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 02:11:15 PM "the evolutionary fossil record is non-existent." I can head downstairs in this building and pretty much prove you wrong. Although...given how many rocks are down there, it might take me some time. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Aldridge EMAIL: phil.aldridge@eccu.org IP: 64.164.59.2 URL: http://10-8.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 03:28:49 PM Balta - Well, it is my understanding that we have virtually no transitional forms which is why they had to concoct punctuated equilibrium. However, I am so disillusioned with my team's science ability that I'm willing to entertain the idea that I've simply been lied to. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/28/2005 04:25:41 PM Phil Aldridge:

Well, it is my understanding that we have virtually no transitional forms which is why they had to concoct punctuated equilibrium.

However, I am so disillusioned with my team's science ability that I'm willing to entertain the idea that I've simply been lied to.

You have indeed been lied to. This is the standard creationist understanding of PE and it is completely offbase, and if any of them had actually bothered to read Gould, Eldredge, Stanley and the others who developed PE, they would know that. PE was not developed in order to explain the lack of transitional fossils (of which there are many examples throughout the fossil record, particularly between higher taxa), it was developed to apply what we knew from population genetics to make predictions about what we should find in the fossil record. They took the relative frequency of allopatric speciation and asked, if that is the case, what patterns would we expect to find in terms of the successional order of appearance of species in the fossil record? Well, we would expect stasis and punctuation because speciation will tend to take place in small, isolated subgroups of a larger population and most of our fossils, simply by virtue of probability, are going to come from the larger, more genetically stable and more spread out ancestral population. One side effect of this very reasonable theory is that it would predict that transitional forms would be found fairly rarely as a result of simple probability - since speciation will usually take place within a peripheral isolate that is A) only a small part of a much larger population and B) confined to a much smaller geographical area than the larger population, the odds are that we'll find many samples of the larger population rather than even a single sample of the sub-population that is undergoing the transition. All of this is very good science. The population genetics premise is based upon a solid foundation of observational data and experimental work, and the predictive inferences are entirely logical and confirmed by the fossil data over and over again. The fact that creationists must resort to a crude caricature of it in order to defeat it should really tell you all you need to know.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 05:04:11 PM Ed, The explanation of PE you describe is very reasonable, but I don't think there's any escaping the fact that the PE model was developed after the observations it attempts to provide a model for. The lack of transitional forms (Darwin would have expected the entire fossil record to be one continual transition, no?) had been noted well before PE was postulated. So, while PE might not be a mere "concoction" to excuse the fossil record, I think it's equally insincere to claim that it wasn't at least a part of the motivation for developing that model. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 12:29:17 AM Eric Seymour wrote:

The explanation of PE you describe is very reasonable, but I don't think there's any escaping the fact that the PE model was developed after the observations it attempts to provide a model for.

Well yes, as a general rule models and theories are developed to explain observations after the observations are made. This is by necessity, of course, because one could hardly attempt to explain patterns they had not yet observed. But in this case, PE was not developed to explain the observation of a lack of transitional forms at all. PE was developed to explain several pervasive trends in the fossil record and the relative rarity of transitional forms was not really one of them.

The lack of transitional forms (Darwin would have expected the entire fossil record to be one continual transition, no?) had been noted well before PE was postulated.

No, not the lack of transitional forms, but the relative rarity of transitional forms. There is an enormous difference between the two. Transitional forms between higher taxa are found quite frequently, it's the transitions between closely related species that are relatively rare. But again, PE was not developed to explain that fact, it was developed to explain several other trends in the fossil record. Among those patterns are the characteristic stability in the morphology of widespread species, the differences in morphology between ancestral and daughter species, and the patterns of succession found when ancestral species go extinct and are replaced by a closely related daughter species.

So, while PE might not be a mere "concoction" to excuse the fossil record, I think it's equally insincere to claim that it wasn't at least a part of the motivation for developing that model.

If it was a part of the motivation for developing it, then by all means someone needs to show some evidence for that assertion. There is none that I am aware of. The question they sought to answer by developing PE was whether the pervasive trends in the fossil record were an artifact of the imperfection of the fossil record, or whether those patterns of stasis and punctuation instead are predictable consequences of how speciation occurs in the wild. The relative rarity of transitional forms, if was any consideration at all, was well down on the list. Yet we hear constantly from creationists that PE was developed to cover up some embarrassing lack of transitional forms. Gould himself became quite furious at this distortion, writing at one point:

Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am—for I have become a major target of these practices.

I count myself among the evolutionists who argue for a jerky, or episodic, rather than a smoothly gradual, pace of change. In 1972 my colleague Niles Eldredge and I developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We argued that two outstanding facts of the fossil record—geologically "sudden" origin of new species and failure to change thereafter (stasis)—reflect the predictions of evolutionary theory, not the imperfections of the fossil record. In most theories, small isolated populations are the source of new species, and the process of speciation takes thousands or tens of thousands of years. This amount of time, so long when measured against our lives, is a geological microsecond. It represents much less than 1 per cent of the average life-span for a fossil invertebrate species—more than ten million years. Large, widespread, and well established species, on the other hand, are not expected to change very much. We believe that the inertia of large populations explains the stasis of most fossil species over millions of years.

We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled "Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax" states: "The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible."

He also was quite angry by those same creationists who tried to equate PE with Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster" notion, and justifiably so. And it's frustrating to me that I still hear these arguments from people, decades after they've been debunked thoroughly (I've had them on my own blog arguing this nonsense). It is astonishing to me that people who know absolutely nothing about biology believe that they know enough to overthrow one of the most successful theories in all of science with such absurd arguments, without bothering to study it in even a cursory manner.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 11:28:58 AM No, not the lack of transitional forms, but the relative rarity of transitional forms. On a pedantic note, Dictonary.com defines lack as either the *deficiency* or absence of something. I assure you I was using the word in the former sense. We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record.... Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level I'm really not trying to misquote Gould here, but this does sound like he's saying PE was developed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, i.e. the stasis and punctuation in the fossil record. Some creationists may deliberately distort the facts here (claiming "no transitional forms" rather than "relative rarity," or portraying PE as a fig leaf for an "embarrassing" aspect of the fossil record), but there does seem to be an issue here that needed explaining. This is one of the problems I have with people claiming (macro)evolution is a fact in the same way that we know facts in the fields of physics, chemistry, etc. The only experiments done are "thought experiments." When observations come along that are problematic for the prevailing view, evolutionists come up with a new hypothesis to explain it and as long as everyone agrees that it's logical--voila!--evolution marches on. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 02:05:55 PM Eric Seymour wrote:

I'm really not trying to misquote Gould here, but this does sound like he's saying PE was developed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, i.e. the stasis and punctuation in the fossil record. Some creationists may deliberately distort the facts here (claiming "no transitional forms" rather than "relative rarity," or portraying PE as a fig leaf for an "embarrassing" aspect of the fossil record), but there does seem to be an issue here that needed explaining.

But Eric, you did misquote Gould here, whether you meant to or not. Look at what you left out between those elipses. Your quote of him:

We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record....Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level

And here is what was left out:

We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether through design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

And this is in an article where he is explaining why it is false to say that they created PE to explain the rarity of transitional forms. It's false for several reasons. First, because they detailed the specific patterns in the fossil record that they were attempting to explain and the lack or rarity of transitional forms was not among those patterns. And it wasn't among those patterns because in fact transitional forms are rife between higher level taxa and only relatively rare at the species level. Perhaps you think that the rarity of transitional forms at the species level is a fact that requires some explanation, but that still doesn't mean that PE was created in order to explain that, and it certainly wasn't created in order to explain it away.

I would also note that PE is not necessary to explain why we have so many examples of transitional forms above the species level and so few at the species level. Higher level transitions generally involve much more obvious transitions in traits that we use to distinguish between major groups. The traits that we use to distinguish, say, mammals and birds (higher level taxa), are much easier to find and document than the difference between closely related species within the same genus.

This is one of the problems I have with people claiming (macro)evolution is a fact in the same way that we know facts in the fields of physics, chemistry, etc. The only experiments done are "thought experiments." When observations come along that are problematic for the prevailing view, evolutionists come up with a new hypothesis to explain it and as long as everyone agrees that it's logical--voila!--evolution marches on.

This is a very crude caricature of how evolutionary theory works. In reality, the transitions that we're talking about are often found in the real world, not in "thought experiments", based upon predictions made in advance. The evolution of whales is a great example of this. Creationists used to mock the notion that whales evolved from land mammals, using cartoons of cows drowning in the ocean and having a good laugh at how silly the whole idea was. But given the nature of the anatomical and fossil evidence at the time, Phil Gingerich was able to predict what a transitional form must have looked like, what age and type of strata it would be found in, and then went looking in strata of the correct age and deposition. And he hit pay dirt, finding Pakicetus in 1979, followed by the discovery of several other primitive whales showing an incredible anatomical and temporal sequence of adaptations not only of legs in the early marine mammals but also in the breathing apparatus, the ears, the dentition, the tail fluke, the spine and many other features.

What on earth is the alternative to an evolutionary explanation for such evidence? Did God tinker with the design over the course of 15 million years, each new species looking less like a tetropod and more like a whale to mimic this transition? For what purpose, to fool us? And why is this same pattern there in every other lineage as well? Did he create the first birds to look just like feathered theropods and then gradually create new species that looked successively less theropod-like and more like modern birds over the course of some 100 million years just to throw us off the track?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 129.79.129.162 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 03:09:43 PM But given the nature of the anatomical and fossil evidence at the time, Phil Gingerich was able to predict what a transitional form must have looked like, what age and type of strata it would be found in, and then went looking in strata of the correct age and deposition. This is exactly the right sort of stuff to point out, to refute the charges of ad-hoccery that I think are behind Eric's last few comments. Namely, you don't just confirm your proposals with thought-experiments, but by making real predictions, and then going out and testing them. If you either fail to make predictions at all -- or make the predictions, and they all flop -- but you still hold to the proposal, then you could be accused of ad-hoccery. But that's just not the case with the science in question. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 04:05:21 PM Ed, Please keep in mind that I'm not a young-earth creationist. (You're relatively new to this blog, so I'll excuse the fact that you seem to assume this.) I find evolution to be a very compelling theory of the history of life on earth--if one starts from the premises that A) there is a huge diversity of life on Earth and B) we must have an explanation for it that does not involve a transcendent actor. For various reasons, however, I find it highly implausible that the whole process could actually have succeeded without the involvement of such a transcendent force. The fact that evolution is not as rigorously experimental as physics or chemistry is not the fault of the evolutionists. You can't conduct experiments on processes that are considered to take millions of years as readily as on processes that take days, hours, or microseconds to complete. I'm just saying there should be a recognition of this--a humility, if you will, by people on all sides of "origins" debates. Now, to get back to Gould and PE, I honestly don't see where I left out anything in my quote that contradicted what I quoted. Maybe you can help me out, though... What are these "patterns" that Gould is talking about, if they are not some sort of discontinuity in the fossil record? And isn't it true that any sort of discontinuity presents a problem to classic Darwinism, which held that all life everywhere is in a continual process of evolution? As I said before, PE seems to "solve" this "problem" reasonably enough. What I find a tad suspect is your assertion that Gould, in trying to solve some rather more obscure problem, just happened to stumble across a solution that explained a much more prominent puzzle that had dogged evolutionists for decades. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/29/2005 04:31:25 PM Eric wrote:

Now, to get back to Gould and PE, I honestly don't see where I left out anything in my quote that contradicted what I quoted. Maybe you can help me out, though... What are these "patterns" that Gould is talking about, if they are not some sort of discontinuity in the fossil record? And isn't it true that any sort of discontinuity presents a problem to classic Darwinism, which held that all life everywhere is in a continual process of evolution?

I listed several of the patterns that PE was intended to explain in my previous response:

But again, PE was not developed to explain that fact, it was developed to explain several other trends in the fossil record. Among those patterns are the characteristic stability in the morphology of widespread species, the differences in morphology between ancestral and daughter species, and the patterns of succession found when ancestral species go extinct and are replaced by a closely related daughter species.

There are other patterns as well. And the whole point of PE was that those patterns are in fact not "discontinuities" (such as gaps in the fossil record caused by uneven preservation or radical changes brought about by saltation), but are what would be predicted if we apply what we know of population genetics (especially Mayr's groundbreaking work on allopatric speciation) to what we would expect to see in the fossil record. All of this can be found simply by reading the 1972 Gould and Eldredge paper that first announced this model, or the 1977 article that expanded on it, or even any number of popular treatments of the subject, rather than by reading the distortions of it that are found in so many creationist writings.

I know you're not a young earth creationist, but the argument you're making here is based upon, or at least consonant with, the misrepresentations that so many creationists have made for the last 30 years. If you haven't read any of the relevant papers, you should. It's always better to judge an idea by going to the original source rather than to someone else's interpretation.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chuck EMAIL: cpkuntz@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 156.56.145.186 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 09:39:45 AM Ed's comment should be the last word in this thread on the science, and I have attempted several times in comments on these pages to defend not only the evolutionary synthesis built up since Darwin but the very idea of biological evolution itself. One might assume in today's world that this should no longer be necessary in the country that has given birth or asylum to the majority of researchers in this field, but, alas, it is. All I will add is that it is a strange spectacle to see religious people clawing at the structure of evolutionary theory in a sorry attempt to bolster their faith. To any scientist with deistic or theological sympathies, God is revealed in or even synonymous with the lawfulness of nature, and the creationist's resort to explaining complex natural phenomena by saying "God did it" undermines the whole concept of a majestically ordered and perfect cosmos. Would a perfect being need to intervene periodically in his creation? The "theory" of intelligent design says more about the poverty of the human mind than nature or God. It assumes that God violates his own laws. Such thinking is lazy or even sacrilegious. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/30/2005 10:24:54 AM Chuck-

You make several excellent points and they are echoed by many of my friends. I think the main reason why so many people reject evolution is not because they understand the science, as they clearly do not, but because they believe that evolution is synonymous with atheism. It is atheism that they object to, and they see bringing down evolution as a means of defending theism itself. Groups like the Discovery Institute admit as much when they lump biological evolution in with cosmological evolution. But evolution is not atheism. Unlike ID and creationism, evolution can accomodate a wide range of views on the question of God and it does so. Evolution is simply the theory that all modern life forms are derived from a common ancestor through descent with modification. It says nothing about the big bang, the creation of the planet or the universe, or the cause of existence itself. Yet it is routinely lumped in with those other things because the real enemy is atheism, not evolution. The focus is on evolution because, like any complex set of theories, there are areas we do not understand well yet and many questions yet to be answered, despite the incredible success it has in explaining and predicting the data in a dozen fields of inquiry. So it affords a perfect opportunity to play the god of the gaps game - hey, here's something evolution hasn't explained yet, that must be where God jumped in. But your argument sums up perfectly the theistic answer to that, which is shared by many pro-evolution scientists. My colleague Howard Van Till, for instance, argues that God made a "fully gifted creation" - a world capable of bringing forth biological diversity and eventually humans capable of recognizing him and worshipping him - and he did such a good job that he didn't have to keep tinkering with it in the process. Ken Miller argues much the same thing, as does Keith Miller, and as do many others.

----- -------- AUTHOR: ITA Staff TITLE: ITA Daily Web Digest STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/27/2005 06:52:12 AM ----- BODY: ITA's writers point out the articles they've found most interesting today.

• "Life After Darth" [Wired]: A biographical sketch of George Lucas presenting a revisionist view of the "high concept" director's career. Who knew that Darth Lucas really wanted to make bad art films? (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• "All God's Children Got Values" [Dissent]: Philosopher Michael Walzer argues that it's the Left, not the "values Right," that's been reduced to morals posturing. But Walzer, writing in one of the Left's premiere journals, takes the Bush administration and specifically neocons to task as well. (Selected by Paul Musgrave.)
• "Weapons Inspector Ends WMD Search in Iraq" [Associated Press]: Following on the heels of Charles Duelfer's report concluding the same, the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any. (Selected by Joshua Claybourn.)
• "Nuke the Filibuster" [LA Times]: While Republicans and Democrats seemingly flip flop on filibuster positions to suit their interests, the LA Times retains their intellectual honesty and continues their support of ending the filibuster. Interestingly, the Times supports a universal repeal: "But the Senate shouldn't stop with filibusters over judges. It should strive to nuke the filibuster for all legislative purposes." (Selected by Joshua Claybourn.)
• "Bush: Build Oil Refineries at Ex-Military Bases" [Reuters]: After failing to solve the problem overnight by pleading with the House of Fraud, Bush announces that high gas prices are "not going to be fixed overnight." But apparently letting oil companies bypass pesky regulations and build on old military bases will help. Of course, this must be at the behest of Big Oil, who control the WH these days, right? "A top independent oil refiner, Valero Energy Corp. said expanding its current fleet of refineries makes better economic sense than building new refineries at closed military bases." (Selected by Zach Wendling)
• "Brosnan 'will stay on as 007'" [The Mirror]: Dame Dench spills the beans. Brosnan will continue to help EON run the franchise into the ground with the next installment: Casino Royale. This after years of rumours of who would replace him, some of them inexplicably bizarre: Orlando Bloom? Cuba Gooding, Jr.? I'm still hoping for Lazenby look-alike Clive Owens. (Selected by Zach Wendling)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/27/2005 07:36:09 PM I'm still hoping for Lazenby look-alike Clive Owens. What about Jude Law? He's stylish and suave enough, and since Bond was never supposed to be a Willis/Stallone/Ahnold-style action hero*, he'd be excellent. *Of course, Brosnan turned Bond into an uber-action hero with every movie after Goldeneye, using big guns and big explosions and cussing and nudity to accomplish what Connery (or even Dalton, for chrissakes) could have accomplished with a wink, a smile, and a PP7. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Zach Wendling EMAIL: zach.wendling@gmail.com IP: 12.222.134.70 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 08:31:51 PM What about Jude Law? Because I'd still like for Bond to at least look masculine. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John Ballard EMAIL: ssb00@alltel.net IP: 67.140.115.113 URL: http://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com DATE: 04/27/2005 08:38:52 PM A summary post like this is a good idea. I come across so much stuff that I want to keep, but it's not enough to take the time and trouble to merit a separate post. I've been thinking of doing something like this myself. Only problem is, I don't know how I would ever find anything again. A daisy chain of blog posts is disorderly enough. I, for one, like scanning other people's notes. Each of us is a kind of "filter" of information for everyone else with whom we share. Part of the reason we are linked from among all the tens of millions of possibilities is that at some moment in the past a bond was made. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/28/2005 12:31:47 AM Maybe in about 25 years it'll be Daniel Radcliffe. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Google Print: Now in Beta STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/27/2005 06:11:01 AM ----- BODY: Search inside books. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kelly EMAIL: kscanlan@iupui.edu IP: 149.166.97.150 URL: http://www.justplayinblog.blogspot.com DATE: 04/27/2005 07:39:47 PM THAT is amazing. Simple pleasures. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Schools, Language and Competition STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/26/2005 05:33:24 PM ----- BODY: Today's Indianapolis Star brings the news that Lawrence Township schools are striking a blow for parochialism by eliminating a sixth-grade foreign language program. True, the school board would protest that they had no choice but to cut the program, and at least they've preserved the courses beginning in the seventh grade, but on the other hand the township's students have also lost the services of a Latin teacher. Were epic histories written of such matters, this would go down as a Waterloo for those students in Lawrence Township's schools who wanted to learn foreign languages. The very worst time to begin language instruction would come when students are fidgety, bored, distracted by social and physical changes, and just past the time when their brains are flexible enough to pick up the phonemic and grammatical structures of different languages without too much trouble. In other words, about seventh grade. ----- EXTENDED BODY: It escapes me why American--and Irish and British--schools persist in at once proclaiming the benefits of foreign languages and 'globalization' generally whilst simultaneously making it as difficult as possible for their students to learn those languages. I find it similarly incomprehensible that anyone actually listened to the philistines who threw Latin out of the curriculum; most of my skill in diction and grammar stems from my three years learning the Roman tongue. (It has also come in handy as a way to amaze friends and professors by coining neologisms and--badly--translating Roman ruins.) Latin may not help you get a job at the factory, but neither will English literature or calculus, and anyway the factory's moved to Mexico, thence to Korea, and finally to Shanghai. It really is stunning how ignorant of other languages and cultures Americans are. True, ignorance of other cultures is not a uniquely American problem: Most of the rest of the world thinks that "New York City" and "Los Angeles" are typical examples of the civilization of the United States. But at least they can be ignorant in such a manner because they know enough English to read the New York Times or watch American films, whereas Americans are trapped in a monolingual cage. Given the predominant position of the United States in the world, such ignorance is troubling; were we to drive our cars with the same degree of care we manage global affairs, we--the entire U.S. citizenry--would be guilty of negligence and possibly manslaughter. I offer here a revealing anecdote: In Shanghai, I was reliably informed, it is no longer enough to speak Shanghai dialect, Mandarin, and English, but ambitious job-seekers also need to speak French, German, Korean or Japanese. (Not in that order.) Also from my own experience, I can attest to the enthusiasm with which Chinese third-graders speak English (better, in fact, than I speak Mandarin, although that's a low bar). And every language you learn makes it easier to learn another language. Yet in the States languages are treated by school administrators and legislators as something extra to the educational enterprise. And they are supported and reinforced in their belief by the wrongheaded attitude of voters who have no interest in rendering value for tax dollars, voters who would rather pay a low tax to provide their fellow citizens with a crummy education than a marginally higher tax to give the rising generation a lifelong advantage. Justifying this attitude is the false concept of "competitveness." I agree with Milton Friedman's analysis of the public schools, and I generally support--in principle--efforts to voucherize schools and thereby introduce real competition. To understand why sixth graders in Lawrence Township can't learn languages until next year, then, we have to understand the low-tax, low-service ideology that justifies such decisions and precludes the possibility of intelligent management of the school systems by adopting a scorched-earth, "starve the beast" mentality. (Those who adopt this attitude, I should note, are typically either those with the resources to escape the public system, with a religious or ideological prejudice against the very instituiton of government-funded and -managed schools, or without the formal education to understand the benefits of superior schooling.) The true test of competitiveness, in fact, is not always with the local market. If any measure of competitiveness should be applied, it is the success that children have after they graduate from high school and become either nominally independent adults or students in higher education. Success in this market is the product of many variables, of which funding is only one, but it is a market in which the products of Hoosier schools are not known for their outstanding successes. (That being said, the specific proposals of the Daniels administration appear to me to be necessary in order to redress certain longstanding structural problems in school financing.) The problems that confront us now are not the problems of a competitive market. Nor is the public apt to support a fully privatized market in education in the next, oh, never. And while I remain aware of the problems teachers' unions and inefficient administrations cause (indeed, given that I have never attended any schools but public schools, I am remarkably well aware of these problems), I am not willing to support the quest for the will-o'-wisp ideal of a private market with the resulting stunting of the educational development of American children. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:19:21 PM Why would the school board say that? They have simply chosen to spend money on other things.They have plenty of money. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:33:54 PM Have you gone to IDOE and checked out their current performance in grammar? Not knowing English grammar, language mechanics, makes it very hard to learn Latin or any other language. Do they still diagram sentences? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.122.121 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 03:04:32 AM I think you've put your finger on something that's getting in the way of making progress on issues like public education and social security: namely, those of us who are in favor of the continued existence & flourishing of such institutions just plain don't think we can trust the folks who are in charge of the forces of privatization. There are lots of people on the left who would seriously entertain some sort of voucher proposal -- I know the Hoosier Review crowd likes to think we're all just zombie puppets of the AFT, but it just isn't so -- but are unwilling to do so when it looks so much like the people putting forward the proposals aren't really sincere about helping public schools, but rather are looking for any sort of way to dismantle them that they can get away with. To be clear: I am not saying that all supporters of vouchers are like that -- just that the main public & legislative faces of vouchers sure seem to be. Which explains, e.g., why almost all actual voucher proposals tend to be so radically underfunded, like the $3,000 vouchers proposed recently (but no longer) in Senate Bill 281, which won't help any poor parents afford to put their kids into any of the really good private schools. (E.g., Indy's excellent Cathedral High School has tuition at over $8,000/year.) It's possible to have a conversation between two groups who both fundamentally want to improve the schools, but disagree about the empirical facts about best way to do it. But there is no conversation to be had when one side is so purely, inflexibly ideological. Before anyone starts spewing about teachers' unions, let me put it this way: it sure doesn't give any Democratic legislators any incentive to cross one of their most loyal constituencies, when the proposals they are being asked to consider so clearly aren't meant to actually help out the school system. Put a proposal on the table that takes Democratic worries seriously, and then let's see what happens. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 03:55:48 AM First off, the $3,000 would be a great help to kids attending Cathedral. Second, while they are well regarded it is only by comparision to their peer, inferior govenment schools. Cathedral has plenty of room to improve. The Democrat argument is over who funds their political party-it is not about the societal goods of an educated polity. The philosopher position would apply equally well to Soviet Collective Farms? What "society" should want are the goods of an instructed next generation to some minimal standard. The Soviets just wanted food enough to feed their people. We know THAT model did not work. It is very clear that our model of government schools does not work for the EXACT same reasons! See Road to Serfdom by Hayek, Socialism by Mises, or the ISTEP results in Indiana for the past 15 straight years. The Democrat position is that a unionized beaucracy organized upon socialist principles under government work standards populated by low SAT barely educated (but certified) teachers can best provide a needed service. People who have been to real schools with real learning have known better for 50 years. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 09:21:24 AM $96,000,000.00 a year disappears in the Lawrence Township jobs program. I don't have a recent World Almanac but isn't that more than quite a few foreign countries? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.123.9 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 10:12:55 AM Is "beaucracy" the form of government in which you are ruled by pretty French women? If so, sign me up! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 137.43.145.91 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 10:15:49 AM "Is "beaucracy" the form of government in which you are ruled by pretty French women? If so, sign me up!" Unfortunately, no--you're ruled by their boyfriends. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.123.9 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 11:41:19 AM Ah, now that would indeed be a reason for doing away with beaucracy! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 10:37:44 PM Ha ha! Bureaucracy! Whee! Now, settle your tailfeathers and address the substance? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/30/2005 09:10:19 AM If you want to attend a good school in England you must take an exam since admission to such is competitive. Boys, for instance, at age 13 are required to know Latin and French, algebra and geometry. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: temtope EMAIL: tovive64@yahoo.com IP: 82.193.41.210 URL: DATE: 06/15/2005 06:40:39 AM in the word that says education is the best legacy.discuss ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: temitope EMAIL: tovive64@yahoo.com IP: 82.193.41.210 URL: DATE: 06/15/2005 06:46:03 AM discss:education is the best legacy. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Township Governance in Indiana: The Need for Reform STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/26/2005 05:03:05 PM ----- BODY: (See previous entries on township governance here, here, here, here, here and here.) RiShawn Biddle of the Indianapolis Star updates his earlier post on township governance in Marion County to respond to critics of the original draft. Biddle notes this column in the Star by a local Indianapolis politician who argues that IndyWorks, Mayor Bart Peterson's plan to streamline Indianapolis and Marion County's government structure in part by consolidating townships, is flawed because the plan only merges townships into two large units. Whether the author of the op-ed believes that it would be better for the townships to be eliminated altogether or for the status quo to be maintained isn't entirely clear. One suspects it's the latter, as the easiest way for reactionaries to maintain their position is to enlist the perfect as an ally in the fight against the good. And that appears to be the only purpose of the editorial: To note the areas that the Peterson plan won't fix. No, Mayor Peterson's plan won't let the City-County Council use township funds for UniGov purposes. Nor will it eliminate all the township assessors, trustees and advisory boards already present in the county. Nor will it guarantee the absolute incorruptibility of township governments. But those flaws are secondary to the major question, which is--as it has been for at least ninety years, and possibly even longer--"Should townships survive in their present form?" And the answer continues to be "No." ----- EXTENDED BODY: Fixing townships will not, in the words of a very young Herman B Wells, give us bigger sidewalks and better beers. As Biddle notes, though, in Marion County township consolidation will allow for more efficient provision of certain emergency services. Moreover, I would argue that the simple consolidation of the townships into two intuitively-defined areas (roughly the "city" and the "county") will help in a number of ways. First, all other things being equal, the total going expenditure of township government will have to be lower, if for no other reason that there will be fewer officials, offices, and family members to hire. Second, and as a consequence, Marion County townships will almost certainly fare better on measures of efficiency after the township consolidation simply because there will be less overhead. Third, and to answer a common objection, it will be the case that there will be enhanced accountability for township-level governments post-Indy Works. The writer states: "Instead of nine locally elected and accountable trustees, you will have two larger bureaucracies with several branch offices. Does experience suggest that larger, less publicly accountable bureaucracies are better at fiscal management?" Yes. The problems of township fiscal accountability in Marion County's townships, which are simply the best-documented problems in the state, are a result of the difficulty of voters' holding township officials to account. It is easy to fix the blame (fairly or--sometimes--unfairly) for problems in municipal governance on a democratically-elected official: The tribulations of every mayor, and to a lesser extent the municipal council, are reported in the newspaper, and nearly every voter at least knows the mayor's name. But if the municipal buck stops in the mayor's office, where does it stop at the township level? Township politics fall below a newspaper's eye level, and there is no local accountability mechanism to make these affairs truly public. Further, few voters will have the knowledge necessary to judge the competence of township officials from their own experience (especially given the narrow clientele which the township trustee serves). Nine townships are too many for the media and the voters to keep an eye on. Two, however, is a much more manageable number. (Zero, I suspect, might be even better, but unfortunately no pressure group exists to serve the public interest in general as opposed to the interests of specific public servants.) A study commission on townships is needed to give an imprimatur to sorely-needed reforms. However, it is difficult to see what lessons could be drawn from the experiences of other counties in the state that would be applicable to Marion County's unique situation. All the lessons we could draw are immediately obvious, and have been amply publicized in the Star and other sources. The legislature can consider the general question of township governance in Indiana by a study commission. But there's no reason to hold up these specific reforms for two more years. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mack Simmons EMAIL: sevenmack@eudoramail.com IP: 209.186.199.2 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 11:45:33 AM You may have seen the Star's latest update on its post on townships Update 3: Apparently Mr. Dixon still isn't too pleased. He argues "If you truly wanted to eliminate waste in Indianapolis you would, like the previous Mayor, look to the private sector for cost effective solutions." That is true. But as we've seen with the events post-Steve Goldsmith era and as pointed out by Reason Foundation government efficiency expert Geoffrey Segal, privatization alone won't help taxpayers in the long run if the only purpose behind it is cost-cutting. It must also make delivery of government services more effective -- including better quality in the delivery. And ultimately, it won't work if the fundamental structure of government in Marion County isn't fixed. After all, one reason why Goldsmith's moves haven't fully worked is because of a lack of critical mass needed to make it happen. Ask any purchasing manager at a company and he'll tell you that the larger your company, the better a deal it can wrangle for supplies. Since neither IFD nor the township fire departments are large enough to wrangle supply savings, it means taxpayers will pay a higher price for the service than it would if all ten departments were merged into one. Right now, the townships could surely use the savings. As pointed out by former Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute boss Bill Sheldrake -- who has run the numbers on Indy Works for Mayor Peterson -- in a meeting with the Star yesterday, fire service tax levies in the townships have risen by double digits. Taxpayers in Wayne Township, for example, will see a 177 percent hike in fire tax rates for 2005 while Decatur Township taxpayers will have to pay 47 percent more than they did in 2004. So will folks in Pike and Franklin townships, who will respectively, see hikes of 34 percent and 20 percent this year. So how much more are folks in the IFD district going to pay this year? No increase at all. I think it's time for a change. What would happen if Indy Works came to fruition? Tax rates could fall by 70 percent in Wayne Townhip, 54 percent in Decatur, 40 percent in Franklin and 34 percent in Pike. Rates could also fall by double-digits in Warren, Lawrence and Perry townships as well. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 12:33:58 PM Schemes concocted in the dark, hatched suddenly with media conspiring, generally are a bill of goods with problems. Indianapolis has had decades of impartial advice the taking of it would have solved all of their problems. They didn't, and their problems compounded to where now they bond current operating expenses. I am sure that Mr. Sheldrake would not approve. I suspect that were he given a free hand to demonstrate ALL that is wrong with Marion County the need for reform would be perfectly clear. He and others are aware of the political and so we don't get his opinions with the bark off. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: The Rich and Poor STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/26/2005 01:04:14 AM ----- BODY: For you always have the poor with you. . . I've written numerous times before that the problem with the word "poor" is that it's extremely relative. One generation's "poor" is another's "wealthy." Yesterday Jane Galt explained it quite well:

By the standards of, say, 1920, every single one of us, even welfare mothers, is rich. Every single one of us has enough food that we never need to go to bed with our stomachs crying out to be filled. Every single one of us has running water--running hot water--and bathtubs and indoor toilets to put the water into. We have stoves that do not need to be carefully tended to keep the fire going. We have central heat. We have cars or public transportation to take us wherever we want to go for a trivial sum. Almost every poor person in America has a color television, offering free entertainment 24 hours a day, and most of them can afford to buy cable to go along with it. We are so wealthy that even a welfare mother can afford to let her children stay in school until they graduate--indeed, so wealthy that a once-unbiquitous dramatic scene, the child vowing to drop out of school in order to help the family out, has entirely dropped out of the literary canon. The average middle class man of 1920 would have regarded all but the most hopelessly drug addled or mentally ill street people as wealthy beyond dreams of avarice.

She's right, of course, and it has enormous implications for efforts to "help the poor." The "poor" is simply a word for society's lowest ranking members in terms of material wealth, and someone will always rank below average, even as humanity's wealth continues to skyrocket. I'm reminded of the old joke about a politician worrying "Half of our school children are reading below average!" The issue is often simply greed. The Williams might have all the material comforts a human family needs, but they want to keep up with the Jones'. I don't mean to ignore the truly needy, like the homeless, because that isn't my intent. Besides, the vice runs just as heavily, if not more, in the upper class. If you stop to think about it, deeply and truly, you'll find that you often get no pleasure out of having money, only out of having more of it than the next person. As you might expect, the great C.S. Lewis has something to say about all of this:

"We say that people are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest."

Lewis talks about it in terms of pride, and I'm speaking in terms of greed. They're essentially the same thing, though, just different sides of the same coin. Pride is taking pleasure in being ahead, greed is discontent over being behind. Often the problem is not that some are dangerously far behind, but that we're jealous of others doing so well. Others blogging the topic: The Listless Lawyer, dustbury.com, and Peaktalk. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 02:06:51 AM The differences between the better off and the worse off (assuming those worse off have adequate housing, food and health care) wouldn't matter nearly so much if there was a sense of community, but there mostly isn't. Church should serve to bridge the gap between those who have a lot and those that don't. Church should be a place where corporate executives and factory workers could find a common sense of idenity and purpose in Christ. It happens in a very few churches, but not in most. Many of the wealthier are in the main line churches and many of the poor are in Pentecostal churches. And of course, the majority aren't in church at all. Modern day living arrangements make it easier and easier for the haves and the have lesses to avoid interaction with each other if they so choose and often that is exactly what they choose. For most professionals, when they have a social gathering, their plumber, their auto mechanic, or their electrician isn't there. So if community doesn't happen in church it almost certainly won't happen in society at large. Those who live in community are far less likely to suffer either greed or pride. I agree with most of your post, but not the seeming implication that the disparity itself is irrelevant. That is, if the disparity between those who have a lot and those who have less continues to grow, then greed and pride will continue to grow because the church as it is currently constituted doesn't have the strength or moral authority to create true community. Finally, a good bit of the disparity is caused by unethical business practices. For instance, study after study has shown that banks will not lend to minorities who are in similar financial and credit rating situations to whites. One of the reasons I favor estate taxes for vast wealth is to try to stem disparity that comes not from hard work and talents but by the luck of who one was related to. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/26/2005 07:44:37 AM I don't know that we could or should curb the activity, but it seems to me that poverty is very much exacerbated by having a huge industry devoted, essentially, to convincing people that their current possessions are inadequate. Advertising makes people feel poorer, imho. Health care is trickier. It's much easier psychologically, I would think, to get sick and die or to watch a loved one get sick and die when there simply is no medical care available. Having it be available but unobtainable would seem to lead to more misery. Again, I'm not sure how much we can and should do on this score. But, I'm not sure 1920s America is the benchmark we should be using for an acceptable level of poverty. I'd be interested to know how the lot of the median family (in terms of total wealth) compares to that of a similar family in, say, 1960 or to that of a similar family in one of the European families. I might be wrong, but my understanding is that it was not all that uncommon in the 50s and 60s for a family to get by pretty well on a single income (leaving the second parent free to manage the household), maybe afford a cottage on a lake somewhere, and have a pretty good pension waiting in their future to boot. The very richest at that time didn't tend to get quite as wealthy -- though, whether that's cause or coincidence, I couldn't prove. With regard to Europe, I'm sure the reports I've read of those countries being a working-class paradise are overblown. But, it seems reasonably clear that the western European countries have much stronger social safety nets than we do here. But, it's much harder to get really rich there. I don't know if you can get objective data on such things, but I'd be curious to know if the average European is happier or sadder than the average American. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John EMAIL: johnwilliamcoleman@hotmail.com IP: 67.106.186.167 URL: http://johncoleman.typepad.com DATE: 04/26/2005 08:52:39 AM I believe it was either Galbraith or Reich who had an interesting essay about the relative nature of poverty. That is, there can be no real, absolute definition of poverty (though some instances--Somalia, etc.--are undeniably impoverished), rather, poverty is often just as you say, a designation to denote those with the lowest access to material goods in a society. This does have implications, however, for advancement. If keeping up with the Jones'--in terms of appearance, education, etc.--is necessary for effective participation in society, then a nation that allows these relative differences to expand too quickly hinders the dynamic nature of its own populace--economically, culturally, politically. An interesting concept. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 09:12:39 AM "If keeping up with the Jones'--in terms of appearance, education, etc.--is necessary for effective participation in society, then a nation that allows these relative differences to expand too quickly hinders the dynamic nature of its own populace--economically, culturally, politically. An interesting concept." Not necessarily, of course--I treat everything Galbraith says with respect for its style and suspicion of its content. A society that aims at egalitarianism is apt to both fail (per Hayek) and cause major catastrophes, either explicitly or in opportunities forgone. More to the point, this is an account of economics that leaves the economics out--what of, for instance, Sherwin Rosen's contention that the structure of certain industries almost guarantees the existence of "tournament-style" rewards where the winners get a lot and the second-best get very little? This isn't something chosen by anyone, but it is certainly worthy of consideration. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.64.114 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 10:23:32 AM In many ways, poverty means exactly the same thing today it did in 1020. Yeah, we've got lots of amazing gadgets, but what the poor today have in common with the poor 100 years ago is a lack of real property, a lack of security, wages that are insufficient to ever actually buy real property, and lives that are governed by allegiance to someone else's timetable just to scratch out those wages. The majority of the product of the poor's labor, whenever a poor person works, goes to some wealthy real property owner, just like it did in the 1920s. The poor's labor rarely makes them better off because its products don't belong to them. They sell their time, cheaply, and the products of that time become the property of others. Attempts to create their own business are often crushed by larger, more efficient operations owned by the wealthy. The lives of the poor are cyclical, with no apparent way out, not linear pursuits of goals like the lives of the middle class and wealthy. In this, the poor today are still the poor of the 1920s -- gadgets haven't improved the situation. That said, there is significantly more opportunity today to escape the pit of poverty than there were 100 years ago -- and most of those ways are thanks to socially beneficial activities such as public education, grants, small business programs, and of course, unions. Basically, the things people who think that the poor today are "better off" want to get rid of. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/26/2005 10:54:44 AM I might be wrong, but my understanding is that it was not all that uncommon in the 50s and 60s for a family to get by pretty well on a single income (leaving the second parent free to manage the household), maybe afford a cottage on a lake somewhere, and have a pretty good pension waiting in their future to boot. The average suburban family that you refer to in the 1960s had one car, so Dad could get to work - not two, and certainly not the three or even four that are common for many of today's suburban families. They probably had one TV, maybe two - not one in every room of the house. I would imagine this is probably the case for most things as such. The lives of the poor are cyclical, with no apparent way out, not linear pursuits of goals like the lives of the middle class and wealthy. I'll leave it to someone with more time to find the studies, but I know it's been shown repeatedly that an overwhelming percentage of the people who are defined as being in poverty at any given time are not in poverty only a few years later - the standard numbers on poverty don't take into account 18-y-os who move out and are astarting their first job, etc, etc. This isn't to deny that some people are caught in a vicious circle; it is only to deny that any significant portion of "poor" people are. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Cameron Moser EMAIL: IP: 129.79.237.212 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 10:56:18 AM "Every single one of us has enough food that we never need to go to bed with our stomachs crying out to be filled." This isn't the case at all. I'm at work right now, so I can't take too much time to respond, but there has been a good amount of work recently that has shown good amounts of hunger and food insecurity in poor american households. i'm sure someone else can provide a relevant link or i can do so later. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 72.12.200.80 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/26/2005 11:11:58 AM "The average suburban family that you refer to in the 1960s had one car, so Dad could get to work - not two, and certainly not the three or even four that are common for many of today's suburban families." On the other hand, I think during those times, things were not so spread out as they are today. Groceries and school were within walking distance. The corner grocery store has largely been driven out of business by the cheaper huge box store on the edge of town with miles of traffic and no sidewalks between home and the store. You're probably right about the televisions though. Guess there are a lot of apples and oranges involved in comparing the past and the present. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:14:28 AM "In many ways, poverty means exactly the same thing today it did in 1020. " Spare us the dorm-room Marxism. Does poverty--in the First World--mean that you die at 35 or 40 (or earlier, if you were a woman who died in childbirth)? Does poverty--in the First World--mean abject submission to your local town headsman or baron? Does poverty--in the First World--mean illiteracy and total ignorance of the world outside your immediate neighborhood? With the important caveat that in the (very) less developed countries of the bottom half or so of the Third World, the answer to all of these questions is no. Poverty is important, but in the United States it is more a degree of substantive inability to exercise certain freedoms than the complete inability to even conceive of those freedoms that the people of 1020 would have known. I also have to say that the characterization of the 50s and 60s as a 'Golden Age' is rather inaccurate when we go to the facts, as opposed to broad generalizations. Asserting, for instance, that economic arrangements of the time aimed at 'leaving the second parent free to manage the household' is revisionist, anti-feminist historiography of the worst kind. Indeed, the arrangement was very nearly the opposite: Corporatist arrangements, demaned by unions, granted by management and sanctioned by law, made it far more likely for the man to work as breadwinner and the woman to be denied job opportunities. (By the way, Europe's social welfare net is also a retarding factor in regard to job creation, and the net is fraying pretty badly these days. Les trente glorieuse were a long time ago.) For other readers in this thread, I should note Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox takes up many of these considerations from the viewpoint of the United States; Sen's Development as Freedom is a more challenging corrective (and one far less sympathetic to the claims of people like Easterbook in certain respects). ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:18:05 AM "Guess there are a lot of apples and oranges involved in comparing the past and the present." Rather. But that's why good economists try to rely on hedonic price indexing: See, for instance, the critique by Krugman here: http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/viagra.html. And don't be so hasty to condemn all suburbanization. The automobile and highway construction greatly accelerated an existing trend in the U.S., and principally changed the U.S.'s experience from being one of rail-driven suburbanization (i.e., Long Island before the 1920s, much of London today) to the godawful mess that is Los Angeles. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.64.114 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:18:42 AM "Spare us the dorm-room Marxism" How about I just spare you the typo -- I meant 1920. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:20:14 AM Ah. Well, that makes a lot more sense. I still disagree, in large (but not total!) sense, but that is principally because of urbanization, an increase in access to higher education (including secondary degrees, not just university), and the increasing role of human capital. But I will agree that class still matters. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:22:08 AM I should note, by the way, that I wouldn't be tremendously concerned by a politician worrying "Half of our school children are reading below average!" Now, if the politician were astonished to find fifty percent of children performing below the median, I would revoke my endorsement of democracy. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Treban EMAIL: trebanl@earthlink.net IP: 207.69.137.26 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 12:34:19 PM While yes we live a lot better than our four bearers it is rediculous to say simple greed is defined as someone who is jealous of those who have more. I am poor, poor by choices I made I don't blame anyone but myself. I also have a lot of poor friends (as well as many who are not) and most of them live in conditions you wouldn't let your dog live in. Sure, it's better than many had it a century ago but so what. Is it greedy to want to live somwhere with a sound roof? Is it greedy to want to live somwhere that the paint is't peeling of the walls risking the health of the children living there? Is it greedy to want your children to have as reasonable education as their nieghbors is the wealthtier suburbs? Is it greedy to not want to be restricted by their upbringing in the getto where one is chastised by there peers, ignored bhy their parents, punmped through the schools and under suspicion from local law enforcment simply because they are poor? Greed is wanting $50 million a year instead of 45 at the expense of [deleted by site administrator] your employees. Greed is ridding ourselves of minimum wage laws so American workers can live like workers in developing countries and we can even more sharply diveide the classes. Greed is doing away with the public education system and ridding ourselves of child labor laws so we have something to do with the little [deleted again by site administrator] when we take em out of school. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: tb EMAIL: tsbrekke@yahoo.com IP: 66.190.20.218 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 01:26:48 PM Not sure about your statement that Jane Gault is right of course. I see some errors in her statement for one thing. For example she says children are not quitting school to help out parents. Well there is a good reason for that, its illegal. Children do not have that option at all till 16 (at least in my state). After 16 they can drop out with parents consent. In fact there are programs here htta will drag children form their bed to see that they get to school and consistent truancy will wind them up in courts. A fallacy in this argument is (as those above point out better than I do) that comparing now to 1920, while intreresting is like comparing apples to oranges. The poor in 1920 would have been considered rich by the standards of 70 years before that too, 1850. I suppose that you could argue that many of the poor in 1920 would simply have been a slave in 1850 and therefore taken care of. You also ignore the fact that the poor are better off becasue of our policies to help the poor, starting with the Henry Wallace proposale enacted into Law by Roosevelt. The argument should not be regressive. We can take pride in our progress on this issue, even Jesus said 'the poor you will always have', of course poor to him was different than poor to us. Here is how I see the breakdown. The poor are the hand to mouth society, they struggle to get to the place where they can handle or get approval for liabilities, such as home ownership. Asset building is a foreign concept at that level, which is why privatization talks ignore the obvious. The middle class use liabilites to create assets. They understand assets and feel they can play there, and do so at a cost offset by the need to feed the liabilities. The Rich live in an asset world. Assets are largely are not a product of liabilities first. The rich have a faded coherence of risking liabilities to create assets. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Brian Grubbs EMAIL: bgrubbs@navigantconsulting.com IP: 65.161.199.111 URL: http://www.intheagora.com DATE: 04/26/2005 03:27:49 PM To be cynical only gives you two options of "greed" or "pride". Isn't it good to be competative and therefore always evaluating of where you are in life so you can improve yourself financially. (I know money isn't the only thing, etc, etc, etc. please don't go down that path) I have two small boys, 6 and 7, and its obvious to me (and I've read it in legitimate books on parenting), that boys don't care how tall they are, it only matters who is tallest. Men are always competing, and we always will, and I would n't want it any other way. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 72.12.200.80 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/26/2005 05:09:02 PM Just for whatever it's worth, I practice a lot of collections law. As such, I am in contact with a lot of poor people. Some are just deadbeats. Don't work. Don't wanna work. Never will work. A lot are just poor planners who happened to get sick. I've met quite a number of single moms whose ex-husbands disappeared and don't pay child support. Then the mom has some kind of health problem and, all too often, the kids suffer from something or other. They get foodstamps and they apply for disability which may or may not be granted. (Of course, I've met far too many people who receive disability from the state that seem able bodied enough to me -- just anectdotally, who gets accepted and who gets denied seems fairly arbitrary.) I haven't talked to them enough about their hopes and dreams to know whether they're jealous of the rich, but their poverty is real. I don't know if they are wasting money on televisions or cable or whatnot, but even if they are, that amount of money wouldn't even make a dent in the level of debt they're often in. For example, $25k in medical bills; $3k on a defaulted car loan (mostly fees and penalties -- the repoed car makes up most of the principal debt on resale); another $1k or so in back rent. Maybe they even have another $10k or so owed to the juvenile court because they're kids were ordered into a juvenile correctional facility for which the parent is obligated to pay. If you're sick, looking at $40k+ in debts (hell, even $10k-$20k is too much), and only able to get 20 hrs per week at Wal-mart, you're poor. Even if you eat every day and have a television. I don't think it would be jealousy or greed for such people to want a government to figure out a way to pay for enough medical care to keep them healthy and educate them enough to qualify for a full-time job with decent pay. Possibly they don't deserve such things if they didn't take full advantage of their public school, married a loser, had kids too young, and didn't plan for a sick future while they were healthy. But, I don't think it's greedy of them to want it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/26/2005 10:02:02 PM Of course, why people who live from paycheck to paycheck would take out a loan to buy a car is beyond my capability to understand. I have a good friend who works 30-40 hours a week, making $8/hr. His old car was at the point where it would cost more to fix than it was worth, so to solve the problem he spent $12,000 on a practically new car - he makes $16,000 a year, has rent to pay, food to buy, etc etc etc, and god forbid if he got sick - and he spent $12,000 on a car. I just don't see what it is that makes people think that going into debt up to their ears is a good idea. (See also: suburbanites who buy $250k houses and two new cars that they can't begin to afford, even with two incomes.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/26/2005 11:29:21 PM Seems like in many cases, folks take out that kind of car loan expecting that their income will stay steady but, instead, they lose their job or their hours get cut way back or they get sick or something. (To veer waaaay off topic for a second, it's kind of like planning your water policy out west based on years that turn out to have been unusually wet.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 01:25:02 AM Jane's post has at least one fatal flaw. She ignores the fact that there are people in this country lower on the economic ladder than the "welfare mothers". ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Angelle EMAIL: IP: 63.164.228.10 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 01:55:18 PM Perhaps you or Ms. Galt should take a tour of some of the rural poor areas of this country. Take, oh, let's say, eastern Kentucky for a concrete example. Not everyone has central heat. Almost no one has air conditioning. Many people use coal or wood stoves and carry in brackish, iron-red water from a pump outside. This is in 2005, not 1925. Generalizations about things you haven't seen doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/27/2005 02:51:22 PM Not everyone has central heat. Almost no one has air conditioning. Many people use coal or wood stoves and carry in brackish, iron-red water from a pump outside. This is in 2005, not 1925. I find it hard to say that things haven't improved significantly when what was the norm 80 years ago is now a statistical outlier. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 01:21:40 AM But that wasn't the claim, Nick. I quote: "By the standards of, say, 1920, every single one of us, even welfare mothers, is rich.". There is no modifier. The claim is applied to every single one of us. Jane is, so far as I know from her posts, a New Yorker born and bred who so far as I can tell has little real exposure to those outside of her economic sphere, much less those outside her geographical one. This is, of course, based solely on what I've read from her blog over several years. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Blesch EMAIL: nblesch@indiana.edu IP: 12.202.250.38 URL: http://www.hoosierreview.com DATE: 04/28/2005 04:10:23 AM But that wasn't the claim, Nick. Fair enough - but I'd be willing to argue that even the brackish-water-drinkers of rural West Virginia are still better off than their 1920s counterparts simply because there's a lot more hope for change now than there ever was then. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Why We Learn STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/25/2005 06:28:26 PM ----- BODY: One of the signs that someone has turned off their critical faculties--or is hoping you've turned yours off--is when they cease relating concepts to first principles and relate them to slogans instead. This Christian Science Monitor article offers a fine example. In the course of an interesting, if unfocused and overly given to multicultural mush, discussion of how schools should treat kids who are "quiet," the Monitor quotes one expert as saying that these kids shouldn't be punished or corrected for refusing to join in the verbal fray:

In fact, she says, the qualities that many quieter children express - thoughtfulness, studiousness, conscientiousness - are among those most needed for the complex problem-solving required by today's information-oriented economy.

What? Neither can I understand how "studiousness" is a competitive advantage in more than a handful of fields (frankly, friendliness and creativity appear to be leading the pack) nor can I understand why considerations of economic competitiveness have any role to play in this debate at all. Kids are robust, and most of them will grow up fine, assuming that they aren't scarred for life by the age-old imbecilities of traditional sources or the brand-new insanities of pop psychiatry (or, occasionally, highbrow psychoanalysis, as with the generation of mothers told that they were to blame for their child's autism). But for experts and loudmouths generally, it still sounds good to point to the economy as a justification for the policy du jour they're advocating. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Some of the policies advocated in the piece, I should note, will embarrass kids--and, incidentally, trample over their native cultures--or leave them bleeding when the SAT, LSAT and GRE reading comprehension sections cut into them. One English teacher no longer asks her students to identify the main characters in the piece, for instance, but instead asks them to say whether they've ever been in a similar situation as the main character--sidestepping the occasionally interesting character of who the main characters are, while at the same time reducing literature to another piece of the modern therapy-confessional complex. The same teacher also brags about another innovation of hers:

"Kids are receptive if the teacher sets a social code," she says. "I have this little Asian girl who speaks so quietly I can hardly hear her. And every time she speaks up I go, 'Wow - Lindy's talking so we can hear her!' And we all clap, and the kids totally get it."

Had any of my high school teachers ever done anything like this, we would have had a lot more kids walking around in black trenchcoats. (Yes, this teacher is from California.) For more on introversion, Jonathan Rauch has written the definitive article on bitempermental relations. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: davie d EMAIL: david@dmdarlington.com IP: 71.16.50.130 URL: http://www.dmdarlington.com/blog DATE: 04/26/2005 11:59:56 AM UGH. As someone who was softspoken in school himself, if a teacher ever said to me, "Wow - David's talking so we can hear him," and had the students applause, I never would have spoken again. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Harley Quinn EMAIL: d_ferret@spam.yahoo.com IP: 71.33.218.156 URL: DATE: 04/27/2005 01:00:56 AM Teachers like that were the reason why I dressed in black, listened to The Smiths, read philosophy books in class, and generally avoided life in general. And they NEVER got the hint... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Townships in Indiana STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/25/2005 05:52:26 PM ----- BODY: RiShawn Biddle adds another chapter to the continuing saga of Malfeasance in Township Governance. (Note to Expresso, the Indianapolis Star's blog: Sorry not to mention this earlier, but permalinks would be useful.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 08:33:22 AM Is there no balance to be obtained on this subject? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 08:58:53 AM Um, gee, over the past ninety years of debate on this subject...no. ----- -------- AUTHOR: TITLE: More Conservatives Defending the Judiciary STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Law CATEGORY: Law DATE: 04/25/2005 12:25:32 PM ----- BODY: It's nice to see some of the more decent and consistent conservatives going after Tom DeLay, James Dobson and the rest of the folks going after judges with a meat cleaver. The latest to do so are Ted Olson and Charles Krauthammer. Olson represented President Bush before the Supreme Court in the election case in 2000 and then served as his Solicitor General when he took office. He is also thought to be on the short list of candidates for a future Supreme Court nomination. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he said:

It is time to take a deep breath, step back, and inject a little perspective into the recent heated rhetoric about judges and the courts. We might start by getting a firm grip on the reality that our independent judiciary is the most respected branch of our government, and the envy of the world...

Calls to investigate judges who have made unpopular decisions are particularly misguided, and if actually pursued, would undermine the independence that is vital to the integrity of judicial systems. If a judge's decisions are corrupt or tainted, there are lawful recourses (prosecution or impeachment); but congressional interrogations of life-tenured judges, presumably under oath, as to why a particular decision was rendered, would constitute interference with - and intimidation of - the judicial process. And there is no logical stopping point once this power is exercised.

----- EXTENDED BODY:

Krauthammer's column in the Washington Post criticizes DeLay both for his threats and his views in the Schiavo case. He refers to the "flailing, sometimes delirious attacks on the judiciary mounted by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case."

DeLay is threatening judges involved in that case with unspecified retribution. He said that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should be held "accountable" for using international law in deciding a recent (death penalty) case. He wants congressional hearings to reinterpret the "good behavior" clause of lifetime judicial tenure to make good behavior mean not what it has meant for two centuries -- honesty and propriety -- but good constitutional behavior. Do we really want Congress deciding that?

DeLay is wrong about the Schiavo case. I think the law was a bad law, but the trial judge applied it properly. I think the judge assessed the medical evidence incorrectly, but that is a matter of interpretation, not of judicial impropriety or denial of due process. There is nothing here with which to threaten this judge or the judicial system.

But at least DeLay was coherent. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) wandered somewhere off the Pacific Coast Highway when, on the Senate floor, he suggested a connection between "some recent episodes of courthouse violence" and judicial activism -- as if courtroom gunmen are disappointed scholars who kill in the name of Borkian originalism. Even worse was a Washington meeting of over-the-top activists led by Phyllis Schlafly that issued a manifesto for the restoration of God to our constitutional system.

Let us have a bit of sanity here. One of the glories of American democracy is the independence of the judiciary. The deference and reverence it enjoys are priceless assets. The Supreme Court is the only institution that could have ended the Bush-Gore fiasco of 2000 with the immediacy, finality and, yes, legitimacy that it did. (True, liberals, who for half a century employed judicial fiat to enact their political agenda, have been whining for five years about this particular judicial exercise. But the critical point is that, whine or not, the ruling was accepted as law.) Moreover, and more generally, judicial independence and supremacy are necessary checks on the tyranny of popular majorities.

He goes on to list some of the rulings he disagrees with and he makes pointed criticisms of them. But that is all the more important in this situation because it points out that one can criticize judges - I often do so myself - without attempting to break down the separation of powers so crucial to our constitutional system. Judges are not immune to criticism. But to be taken seriously, two things are needed. First, the criticisms must be valid and warranted. In the case of the right's relentless attacks on Judge Greer, they are as unjustifed as Harry Reid's equally "flailing, sometimes delirious" attacks on Clarence Thomas. And it cannot cross the line into attempts to intrude on the court's authority and punish judges for making decisions one doesn't like. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 01:03:44 PM As someone who has argued with Ed over judicial activism and whether or to what extent it is occurring, I think this is an opportune time for me to mention that I agree with Krauthammer and Olson (and Brayton) that Delay and Cornyn's attacks and threats have been over the top. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 07:52:23 PM As a matter of construction did we not learn early on about topic sentances and the importantance of the first paragraph? Selective quotation will mislead readers who don't see the beginning of the column. As for Mr. Olson, he is a trimmer. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: pbswatcher EMAIL: pbswatcher@hotmail.com IP: 24.17.5.122 URL: http://pbswatch.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 08:33:03 PM Krauthammer has it exactly wrong. Impeachment is precisely the right remedy for judicial usurpation. See Others Rob You With A Fountain Pen ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/25/2005 09:46:29 PM I view Dobson and his ilk as part of a Counter Enlightenment movement that is gaining strength in this country. Eroding the judiciary is one of the things that is necessary to enhance the power of those who owe their political strength to the deft use of religion in public life. Obviously the roots of our common law judiciary predate the Enlightenment by several centuries, but in my view, the two go hand-in-hand, particularly given how our government was structured by the Framers. Our judiciary is quite a hinderance to those who claim to know the will of God and who claim to have the authority and obligation to enforce that will. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 11:01:24 PM It is also quite a hinderance to those who thought they knew the law. It is also giving to Con Law course all the cachet of Labor Law courses and, for the same reason. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 69.245.228.76 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/25/2005 11:04:24 PM Eh? Your comment is as cryptic as your identity. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/26/2005 09:10:45 AM pbswatcher wrote:

Krauthammer has it exactly wrong. Impeachment is precisely the right remedy for judicial usurpation.

Perhaps if you could give a coherent definition of "judicial usurpation" (or "judicial excess", which you used as a synonym in your post), this could be debated. As it is, it's just so much inflated rhetoric, like your contention that the judiciary would "destroy the other two branches of government."

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 10:40:45 AM I am never one to put words in anon's mouth, but my take on its comments is that it says that the attractiveness of the Constitution and of Con Law was that it had some stability and solidity as a large, but generally congealed, body of law. You can KNOW the Constitution. That is dissolving. I saw some of a discussion on C-SPAN involving Scalia, O'Connor, and Breyer from the Nat'l Archives last week in which Scalia made some points along these lines. Scalia's thoughts might add something to this discussion, but I must paraphrase in large part - From an originalist's perspective, part of the glory of the Constitution is that it doesn't change. You don't need to look at social studies or international jurisprudence to see what people like before declaring what the Constitution is or what it says. "It says what it says." When we see what has been happening for the past generation or so, originalists get concerned that the judiciary is not only a declaratory body but also a policy-making body that is not accountable to the people like our other policy-making bodies are. This frustration builds over time and reaches a break point, at which time originalists want to make this new policy-making body accountable to the people. Perhaps we are populated with more originalists than initially thought. I agree with Scalia that the court as a policy body is threatening to our traditional manner of decision-making and the resulting desire to "fight the power" (as Chuck D might say) is only natural. DeLay and Condon are harsh dudes, but the idea of taking the Constitution back is inviting. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Doug EMAIL: blog@masson.us IP: 72.12.200.80 URL: http://blog.masson.us DATE: 04/26/2005 05:19:33 PM I wonder what Scalia thinks of John Marshall. I think Marshall would disagree that the Constitution is a dead document, cast in stone, saying what it says - no more, no less. In McCulloch v. Maryland Marshall, after all, admonished that "we must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding." The term constitution implies something living and organic rather than something static. It is the thing that gives life to our body politic. Quoting from Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland:

Among the enumerated powers, we do not find that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation. But there is no phrase in the instrument which, like the articles of confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers; and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described. Even the 10th amendment, which was framed for the purpose of quieting the excessive jealousies which had been excited, omits the word "expressly," and declares only that the powers "not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people"; thus leaving the question, whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one government, or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole instrument. The men who drew and adopted this amendment had experienced the embarrassments resulting from the insertion of this word in the articles of confederation, and probably omitted it to avoid those embarrassments. A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. That this idea was entertained by the framers of the American constitution, is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language. Why else were some of the limitations, found in the ninth section of the 1st article, introduced? It is also, in some degree, warranted by their having omitted to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/29/2005 08:58:48 AM Justice Scalia gives talks and there is a Q & A-the question about Marshall is on point. Someone should ask that question of originalists. One possible response would be to admit that Marshall was the original judicial activist in Marbury vs. Madison for which he took considerable heat at the time-perhaps rightfully so. Scalia's talks are on CNN and PBS and they are masterful. Still, one seeks a bit more grounding for his views. We have all been sucked in by very good speakers, carried along by their grasp and views later to find some omissions or difficulties glossed over. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Caesar's Bath STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/25/2005 12:34:26 AM ----- BODY: ITA friends Ed Brayton, John Coleman, and Radley Balko have all engaged in "Caesar's Bath meme," and it seems like something ITA's readers might enjoy. Here's the text:

Behold, the Caesar's Bath meme! List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can't really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), "Nice. Nice. Not thrilling . . . but nice."

Leave your five in the comments. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 02:10:03 AM 1. Blackberry (the gadget, not the fruit). 2. Gmail. 3. American Idol. 4. Cable radio. 5. Adult beverages. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kelly EMAIL: kscanlan@gmail.com IP: 149.166.134.205 URL: http://www.justplayinblog.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 10:08:25 AM 1. American Idol (I'm with Alan on this one) 2. Graduating as soon as possible 3. Shopping 4. Chocolate 5. Jimmy Buffett (though I enjoy a margarita as much - more - than the next person) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: DeputyHeadmistress EMAIL: kangamaroo@yahoo.com IP: 12.176.241.202 URL: http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 11:49:11 AM I asked my progeny to play as well- 21 year old: The 21st birthday part where the goal is to get drunk tanning beds Star Wars (the younger teens disagree with this one) the pancho and or/flipflopsas fashion statement Napoleon Dynamite Me: Ipods (the 21 y.o. disagrees) television underwear sticking out of jeans (all the kids agreed) cosmetic surgery health club memberships the younger teens 1. being boy-mad 2. dyed hair and/orbody piercings 3. leaving home as soon as possible 4. skin tight clothing 5.wearing pajama pants and/or slippers out in public ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Martin Blank EMAIL: who@thatguy.net IP: 24.193.54.26 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 12:10:13 PM 1. The NBA 2. Camera Phones 3. Baseball Statistics 4. President Bush 5. The Word "Queue" ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 12:15:39 PM 1. Dave Matthews Band 2. sports columnist Bill Simmons 3. the Chrysler 300 4. golf 5. NASCAR's "new generation" ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Rick Herrick EMAIL: rick@violetshiversNOSPAMFORMETHANKS.com IP: 170.108.108.42 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 12:26:17 PM

1. Antiques Roadshow
2. Uni
3. Islands hamburgers
4. World of Warcraft
5. Golf

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 12:56:33 PM It's interesting how revelatory this game is about your prejudices. "Queue," like "biscuit," "lorry," or "tea," is simply something that has a certain meaning on this side of the Atlantic. 1. American Idol and all other "reality" TV shows. 2. Anti-homosexual bigotry. 3. Professional sports. 4. Kate Hudson. 5. Lord of the Rings. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.71 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 01:26:20 PM Never heard of Islands Hamburgers. What state/country/territory is it in? What's Uni? (I live in Texas, if that explains my unfamiliarity with these fads.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 01:41:15 PM I think some folks are taking this opportunity just to list things they don't like, which misses the point a bit. Prez Bush?? really, Martin?? so, your circle of friends is nuts about Bush, think he's the bee's knees, and you would say he's ok but don't quite know what all the fuss is about? unlikely. 5 more: 1. Britney Spears' hotness 2. upscale Mexican fast food restaurants 3. Wilco's last 2 albums 4. portable on-demand entertainment (Ipods, PSP) 5. Red Bull (w/ or w/o vodka) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: J. P. EMAIL: jpclaybourn33@hotmail.com IP: 12.220.47.6 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 02:03:04 PM 1. The EU 2. Catch phrases 3. Moving out of your parents' basement 4. Adam Sandler (for the career) 5. Courtesy flushes Honorable mention: Prestige of practicing law ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Aldridge EMAIL: phil.aldridge@eccu.org IP: 64.164.59.2 URL: http://10-8.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 03:08:50 PM 1. Philly Cheesesteaks 2. John Cusack 3. Terri Schiavo (I just about had to quit being a Christian over this one! j/k) 4. Reality TV 5. Baseball ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 149.166.228.205 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/25/2005 03:09:22 PM Wow, J.P., that list forced me to laugh out loud in class. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Aldridge EMAIL: phil.aldridge@eccu.org IP: 64.164.59.2 URL: http://10-8.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 03:10:14 PM Almost forgot: 6. The Beatles ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 149.166.228.205 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/25/2005 03:18:21 PM I forgot to add this warning to the original post: including the Beatles can get you slapped. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 04:28:59 PM Josh--you slap him for including the Beatles and I'll slap him for including Philly cheesesteaks, deal? ;-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 05:13:36 PM Yes, we might have to add "lese-majeste against the Beatles" as a reason for having comments edited in the site terms of usage. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: J. F. Karr EMAIL: IP: 82.43.144.7 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 05:33:39 PM These might be too obscure for most of you, but here's one from the UK: 1. 'Little Britain' 2. 'Playing it Straight' 3. Podcasting 4. Coloured wrist bands 5. The 'Make Poverty History' campaign ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: susan b. EMAIL: susan@lilacrose.nu IP: 68.1.89.90 URL: http://lilacrose.nu DATE: 04/26/2005 02:03:07 AM 1. Reality TV shows 2. Libertarianism 3. Low-carb diets 4. U2 5. High-heeled, pointy-toed shoes ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sarah Angeline EMAIL: sarah.angeline@gmail.com IP: 4.182.90.228 URL: http://sarahs_stuff.blogspot.com DATE: 04/26/2005 04:06:27 AM 1. Xanga & My Space 2. Red Bull 3. Britney Spears' Pregnancy (Pretty much any celebrity news) 4. Microsoft= Mac user here. ;-) 5. Tattoos. Also the kind of piercings that leave irreversably large holes in your body. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Martin Blank EMAIL: vitriol@angermanagement.com IP: 24.193.54.26 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:23:18 AM A delayed response to Mr. Arbiter. I believe I did get a little off-subject with the listing of President Bush. I therefore replace him with the Upper West Side of Manhattan. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Peter Riley EMAIL: riley@amnh.org IP: 68.161.123.50 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 11:56:51 AM Anything relating to Micheal Jackson Brittany Spears Bull Riding Jet skis the Rapture ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 12:35:36 PM fair enough, Blank. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/27/2005 01:24:19 AM Dittos on Red Bull, piercings, and Britney. Oh, and how can I forget about that instrument of the Dark Side of the Force known as Pepsi? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: The Genographic Project STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/25/2005 12:08:39 AM ----- BODY: The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have teamed up to launch the Genographic Project, "a five-year effort to understand the human journey - where we came from and how we got to where we live today." While you might normally yawn at such cliche projects, this one has a unique funding angle that makes you part of the research. The project invites you to purchase a "Public Participation Kit" with the tools necessary to swab your cheek for a DNA sample. Then you can log on to the project's website to track the results.

This is not a genealogy test and you won't learn about your great grandparents. You will learn, however, of your deep ancestry, the ancient genetic journeys and physical travels of your distant relatives.

Sounds quite interesting, and from what I can gather they do a good job protecting anonymity. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: God Made All Things Except Steve STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/24/2005 01:06:16 PM ----- BODY: A pleasantly snarkish post from Slacktivist on the reason why God neglected to create Steve. Thanks to Brad DeLong and apologies to all the Steves out there. (Yeah, even that one.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 01:32:04 PM So, if Steve wasn't made then, "in the beginning was Steve, and Steve was with God, and Steve was God." There you have it, God is gay. Steve's twin brother, Jesus is straight. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 01:35:25 PM No, wait, that must mean that God is bisexual. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bill Ware EMAIL: billware@bellsouth.net IP: 209.215.39.13 URL: http://www.warefarms.blogspot.com DATE: 04/24/2005 05:25:22 PM Since God is omniscient, God has the image of all of us in God's awareness. Since our being is nothing more than our awareness of ourselves and the same applies to God, then God is male and female, black, white and everything in between, gay and straight, and of course, as you mention, bisexual. We are all created in God's image. Simple, isn't it? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: A Steve EMAIL: sda9@cornell.spam.edu IP: 128.84.19.253 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 10:46:49 AM To head off any questions, I have only a human nature and I do have a younger sibling, but I am not homousias with the Father. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bill Ware EMAIL: billware@bellsouth.net IP: 209.215.39.39 URL: http://www.warefarms.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 12:54:26 PM A Steve, do you mean homoousian, "one substance with" the Father? Why is this relevant? BW ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: A Steve EMAIL: sda9@cornell.spam.edu IP: 209.2.145.40 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 03:56:32 PM No, I meant "homoousias," but I did forget an 'o.' And "one substance with" or "one in being with" is a decent, but somewhat inadequate translation of Constantine's odd suggestion. As for the relevance, like I said, I was just trying to clear up any misconceptions about my Steve-nature. I don't want anybody who believes in me (like you, for instance, since your voluntary interaction with this comment implies a belief in my existence) to end up like the Donatists or Valentinians. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: It's so easy! Happy go lucky! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/24/2005 12:58:34 PM ----- BODY: Similar to the phenomenon in the 1950s and 1960s when television was preoccupied with the pressing questions of domestic affairs in Chez Ricardo and the ethical use of witchcraft to aid your husband's career even as Khruschev and company plotted, in these days when North Korea is preparing a nuclear test, Iran is tinkering with its bombs, Pakistan continues to be a potential ground zero for an Islamist coup or an Indian bomb, and insurgents fight on in Iraq, ITA is happy to remember a simpler time when we all understood the power of green leaves. (English translation here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Trippin' STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/23/2005 11:40:33 PM ----- BODY: Rich celebrities glorify poverty in MTV's latest endeavor. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.71 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/24/2005 07:36:34 AM Duly blogged. In harmony with nature, my foot! Like the Cubans are in harmony with Castro. Can't anyone in the Hollywood Left recognize an oppressor? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: van EMAIL: vanweblog@charter.net IP: 66.191.239.50 URL: http://midnightrantings.blogspot.com DATE: 04/24/2005 01:57:57 PM Modern day twits. Sadly, they seem not to care how stoopid they sound. Taking a poo in the woods may seem wonderful every now and then, but doing it on a regular basis gets to be old. Toilet paper is one of man's greatest inventions. Living to the ripe old age of 45 sounds great. I guess that means we only have about 10 or 15 more years of these twits left. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 02:13:10 AM One should keep in mind that in primitive societies, women's expected lifespans are shorter than men's. It's the opposite in modernized countries. Nature hates women! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.75 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 01:28:22 PM Wait a minute...Third World...shorter female lifespans...you realize what this means... WOMEN AND MINORITIES HIT HARDEST! ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: One Hand Washes the Other STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Politics CATEGORY: Politics DATE: 04/23/2005 02:13:50 PM ----- BODY: The formation of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation was announced on Thursday at the National Press Club, according to this announcement. The JAACD, headed by staunch conservative Don Feder, says it will work to expose and combat "anti-Christian prejudice in Hollywood, the news media, politics, government and the courts." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any news accounts of the press conference, nor does JAACD have a web site that I've been able to find. To some, this may seem to be a bizaare organization. However, American Jews and Evangelicals (the group of Christians most likely to complain of anti-Christian prejudice in America), have been allies for quite awhile now. Not only do both groups strongly support the state of Israel, but they often find themselves on the same side of social issues (Jewish pop culture critic Michael Medved has been mistaken for a fundamentalist Christian). The formation of JAACD seems to signal a public recognition by a some conservative Jews that what is good for conservative Christians is good for them as well. (For an example of an evangelical Christian organization that is pro-Israel, see the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 03:29:28 PM Feder exhibits prejudice bordering on villification against progressive Christians, so it is not prejudice per se that he objects to, just prejudice against his side of the aisle. Hugh Hewitt castigates progressive Christians for lack of faith and then encourages the sending to Senators of an essay telling them they can go to hell if they don't vote his way on the fillibuster issue. Reminds me of just reading something be Dean Esmay where he calls for civil discussion among bloggers and then defends the spitting on Jane Fonda and says he would spit on Michael Moore given the chance. All in the same post! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 63.13.138.236 URL: http://www.intheagora.com/ DATE: 04/23/2005 09:15:59 PM an essay telling them they can go to hell if they don't vote his way on the fillibuster issue Are you speaking literally or figuratively? Has Hewitt really claimed that Senators' salvation would be determined on how they vote on the filibuster issue? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 09:52:32 PM Hewitt didn't write the essay. It was written by another and Hewitt encouraged people to send it to the appropriate senators. Because it was linked and Hewitt has written many posts on the filibuster, I haven't located it yet. Anyway, I should have made clear that Hewitt wasn't the author. However, considering that the title of his book "If It Isn't Close, They Can't Cheat" implies that all Democrats are election stealers, I'm not encouraged by Hewitt's attitudes toward those he disagrees with. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chuck EMAIL: cpkuntz@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 66.244.100.51 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 01:58:54 AM Some evangelicals support Israel for very scary reasons. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 151.196.238.3 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/24/2005 09:45:50 AM Uh-oh. Chuck just mentioned the open secret... Many evangelicals only want Israel in place so that the Jews can play host to Armageddon. With friends like that, who needs enemies? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Treban EMAIL: trebanl@earthlink.net IP: 207.69.137.42 URL: http://trltrauma,blogspot.com DATE: 04/24/2005 10:18:09 AM Great, they won't speak in the defense of those being massacered in the genocide of Darfur, (so much for never again) but they will form a league to defend the wealthy, politicaly dominant and apparently defenseless christian right from the slings and arrows of outrageous moderates and liberals. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Scott EMAIL: sfierro@[spamblock]gmail.com IP: 66.24.33.118 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 07:21:53 PM Isn't it the case that the majority of evangelical Christians hold that all those that do not accept Jesus as their personal savior shall be damned to hell upon their deaths? Isn't it also the case that the majority of Jews will never accept Jesus as their personal savior, citing other authority? Isn't it marvelous how these two groups can find common ground in their social and political aspirations in the corporeal world, "knowing" that their common moral outrage will never allow them to pass one another in heaven? Irony is so ironic sometimes. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/24/2005 07:42:11 PM Feder's website is quite ridiculous. On the front page, there is a cartoon portraying him as "Ghengis Don" that has him declaring Death to Liberal Nancy Boys! Now if you turned that around and had a cartoon on some website declaring "Death to Christian Reactionaries!", Mr. Feder would be screaming bloody murder about the moral degeneration that led some pagan secularist commie pinko fag-lover to declare such an outrageous and disgusting thing. It's quite like the absurd Ann Coulter writing a book full of the most hateful, nasty invective to accuse liberals of engaging in hateful, nasty invective. There really is no sense of irony among the true believers, which Bill Hicks accurately pointed out so long ago. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/25/2005 02:17:35 AM Scott, Just proves that disagreements over eternal issues doesn't necessarily preclude agreement over temporal ones. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Scott EMAIL: sfierro@[spamblock]gmail.com IP: 66.24.33.118 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 08:17:27 AM Alan: Indeed, uncontroversially. I'm sure that will provide a good measure of comfort to Don Feder when he gets to the pearly gates of Johnnie Evangelical's heaven and reads the sign: "no Jews allowed." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 08:56:54 AM Many evangelicals only want Israel in place so that the Jews can play host to Armageddon. Jason, I know a lot of evangelicals, and I would consider myself one as well. I don't know any who support Israel for the reason you propose, but I do know a lot who take Genesis 12:3 seriously, recognize the Jewish roots of their own faith, and/or support Israel because they are currently the only pro-Western democracy in the Mideast. On the front page, there is a cartoon portraying him as "Ghengis Don" that has him declaring Death to Liberal Nancy Boys! Ed, for what it's worth, that cartoon seems to be presented as self-deprecating humor. If, let's say, Kos posted a cartoon of himself as "Chairman Kos" declaring "Death to Conservative Counter-Revolutionaries" [note: the Feder cartoon doesn't invoke religion, so I don't think your hypothetical cartoon is an appropriate parallel], then I'd be inclined to take it in the same humorous manner. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 151.196.238.3 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/25/2005 09:43:30 AM Eric, don't play ignorant with me, especially about the Bible. Read this, then come back and tell me if 1) what I'm saying has no scriptural mandate. 2) that no evangelicals support the restored Israel chiefly because it's meant to witness the Last Battle. The page I've linked comes from the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry themselves, the very organization you've linked above. How can you possibly tell me you don't know of any Evangelicals who hold these views? This is their political program. And they have never been all that secretive about their motives--except when they get called out for what they're doing. Like now. Otherwise, they're more or less blatant about it: Your religion, they say to the Jews, is only a tool in the service of a divine plan that you don't (yet) believe in. So I repeat my question: With friends like these, who needs enemies? I'm favor Israel as a liberal democracy. They favor it as a future battleground for some mystical war they're hoping to spark. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 10:18:35 AM Jason, the article you link provides exactly zero support for the thesis you are promulgating--that conservative Christians only support Israel because they're hoping to spark the battle of Armageddon. Although that theory is popular among liberals who like to use it to bash conservatives, and/or explain that Republicans aren't really pro-Israel (all the while Democratic leaders get cozier with the Palestinians), it's frankly ridiculous. Right off the bat, any serious student of the Bible will tell you it's ludicrous to try and "bring about" prophetic events; God has His timetable, and what is prophesied will occur at the time God has ordained it. So, to answer your point #2, I'm sure there are some evangelicals who support Israel chiefly for the reason you suppose. You can find some people who will adhere to pretty much any theory, no matter how ridiculous. But that doesn't warrant your applying that theory to all Christians who support Israel. Back to the article and your point #1, yes, there is plenty of scriptural support for the battle of Armageddon. But the article isn't saying "Let's support Israel so we can hasten this event," it's saying "This is why Israel holds an important place in the future of the world, just as it holds an imporant place in its past." To sum up, I think that people who claim what you're claiming have a misunderstanding of the nature of Biblical prophecy. I think the worst you can say about Christian conservatives is that they support Israel because they want to be "on God's side," rather than caring about Israelis as people. (I don't think this is generally true, though. I think Christians as a group have at least as much affection for the Jewish and Israeli people as any other group of non-Jewish people.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 128.220.212.155 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/25/2005 11:06:00 AM But that doesn't warrant your applying that theory to all Christians who support Israel. I never did. Obviously, there are other and far more legitimate reasons to support Israel than the ones advanced by the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. As I said, I support the right of Israel to exist because it is a democratic government with a large degree of personal freedom. I think that we should befriend all such governments--and mistrust the rest. But your claim, that you know of no Evangelicals who support Israel so that the conditions will be right for Armageddon, is either false or else based on some very serious ignorance about an organization to which you have linked. This is a direct quote from the page we are discussing:

The end of this age, as we know it, will climax with all the nations of the world coming against Israel at the battle of Armageddon (Joel 1:15; 3:9–17; Zeph. 3:8–9; Zech. 12—14). In that day, God will use the nation of Israel to help Him destroy the nations of the world.

And this is just why the "Friends" of Israel want the Jewish state to continue existing. I suggest to you that supporting a nation so that a war can happen is monstrous, both in terms of foreign policy and prophetic interpretation. If God wants a war to happen, aren't Christians supposed to trust that He can cause it? Obviously all Christians don't want to use Israel as a pawn like this--Really it's only a tiny minority. But still, it's a pretty obnoxious one, and I find it troubling that you speak of the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry so benignly. It's a bit like calling the Klan a Christian fellowship organization. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 12:24:54 PM But that doesn't warrant your applying that theory to all Christians who support Israel. I never did. Well, OK. But you first referred to this tiny minority as "many Evangelicals." A casual reader could interpret that as claiming a majority, or at least a significant fraction. But your claim, that you know of no Evangelicals who support Israel so that the conditions will be right for Armageddon Actually, I said that I "don't know any," not that I "don't know of any." That is, among the Evangelicals I know personally or have read a lot of what they've written, I don't know any who hold that position. This is a direct quote from the page we are discussing: The end of this age, as we know it, will climax with all the nations of the world coming against Israel at the battle of Armageddon (Joel 1:15; 3:9–17; Zeph. 3:8–9; Zech. 12—14). This is merely a statement of a fairly non-controversial interpretation of Biblical prophecy. How does this imply that FOI wants to act in such a way as to hasten this event? If God wants a war to happen, aren't Christians supposed to trust that He can cause it? Yes, which is exactly what I said in my last comment. And I see nothing in that page which implies that FOI supports Israel "so that a war can happen." I am not greatly familiar with FOI, so it's possible you are correct about them but if so I'm not seeing it in anything you've posted. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 02:59:33 PM The hugely popular "Left Behind" series requires that Israel have its original borders before Christ returns. The influence of LaHaye and Pat Robertson (who opposes a Palestinian state on the basis that it is unprophetic) has clearly influenced a lot of conservative evangelicals to be unloving toward Palestinians and to advance foreign policy goals that oppose any peace process. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 128.220.212.174 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/25/2005 03:17:40 PM Eric, The quote I used in support of my claim was not parsed correctly. This section is indeed at their website:

The end of this age, as we know it, will climax with all the nations of the world coming against Israel at the battle of Armageddon (Joel 1:15; 3:9–17; Zeph. 3:8–9; Zech. 12—14).

But then, this one is there too. In my first post these showed up as my words, though they come from the site as well:

In that day, God will use the nation of Israel to help Him destroy the nations of the world.

Now, let's take these words in context, and realize that giving this as a reason for supporting Israel is chilling to say the least. And that's exactly what FOI does. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 04:15:42 PM Jason, that quote is not given as a reason for supporting Israel. It is an event that many Christians believe will happen regardless of whether we support Israel or not. As I pointed out already, the overall point of the page you link to is not about why one should support Israel, but why Israel is significant. Here's an excerpt from the conclusion of the article: According to this verse, the Jewish people exist for at least four reasons. That people may see the Jewish people and their history and realize that they are unique to this world... That people may know the existence of the Jewish people can only be explained supernaturally... That people may consider that the God of the Bible has done this miraculous work and seek a relationship with the sovereign God of the universe... That people may understand that the God of Israel is the true God of this universe. He is the One we need to listen to and obey... Israel’s history is relevant to people the world over, Jew and Gentile alike, and prompts them to respond in faith to the Holy One of Israel. I honestly cannot see how you reach your conclusion that FOI supports Israel in order to bring about the battle of Armageddon based on this article. It seems you had that opinion long before you read the article, and you're reading in between the lines. If you are right about FOI, you're going to have to come up with better evidence than this. Otherwise it's a mere conspiracy theory. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 04:24:53 PM The influence of LaHaye and Pat Robertson ... has clearly influenced a lot of conservative evangelicals to be unloving toward Palestinians I think the actions of Palestinian homicide bombers over the past 4 years might have something to do with that as well. Say what you will about the actions of the IDF and/or supposed pro-Israel media bias, I think the intentional murder of innocents (not to mention dancing in the streets after 9/11) has had a greater influence on the opinions of conservative Evangelicals in America than LaHaye and Robertson. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 151.196.238.3 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/25/2005 08:18:11 PM I haven't read everything at this page, but much of it is clearly relevant, and it entirely proves my original point: Many evangelicals really do want to hasten Armageddon, and they are attempting to do this by supporting Israel. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 151.196.238.3 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/25/2005 08:20:21 PM I haven't read everything at this page, but much of it is clearly relevant, and it entirely proves my original point: Many evangelicals really do want to hasten Armageddon, and they are attempting to do this by supporting Israel. Sorry about the broken link... This one should be right. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/26/2005 09:18:20 AM That page is fairly dripping with bias and conspiratorial tones. Nevertheless, I do not deny that there is a (to use your words) tiny but obnoxious minority of Evangelicals/Fundamentalists who support Israel chiefly to hasten Armageddon. But what I find really offensive is when people try to use guilt by association to smear all Evangelical supporters of Israel that way. For instance, the idea that that sort of thinking is driving Bush's foreign policy is complete bunk. It's like trying to paint all Democrats as closet socialists or even communists. I'm sure I could find a similar page that lists "evidence" to prove that John Kerry was planning to undermine our capitalistic system and turn over our national sovereignity to the United Nations. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 128.220.212.152 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/26/2005 10:37:56 AM I agree with everything you've said in your last comment, Eric. Still, I find it hard to deny that FOI is at least knee-deep in the pro-Armageddon nonsense, and perhaps it's a topic I should research for a future post. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kent Atwater EMAIL: IP: 199.64.0.252 URL: DATE: 04/28/2005 12:53:43 PM I applaud Mr. Feder's formation of the JAACD. He understands what I think many Jews miss. The Christianity of the "fundamentalist" and evangelicals, who are frequent targets of condemnation, is incidental. It is not their Christianity that is under attack. It is their adherence to beliefs which are concomitant with, but no necessarily exclusive to, Christianity. Many of these beliefs are shared with Jews, and even in some cases Moslems. Christians are just the politically easy, perhaps even politically correct, target. I expect Mr. Feder remembers Martin Niemoller's analysis on the fate of politically correct targets. Jews may not head the list now, but people of faith in something above the power of the state will always end up on that list, and it seems to be the fate of Jews to be near the top.

The anti-Christian bigots will one day be the anti-Jewish bigots; again, not because of their Jewishness, but because of a faith in an absolute moral code from a transcendent source. They will turn on Moslems eventually. Moslems are currently media darlings of the radical left because the enemy of their enemy is their friend. This is not to say all Moslems engage in terrorism or harbor hateful beliefs, any more than all evangelicals are desperate to push the big red button. Most don’t. Leftists’ current embrace of Moslems is motivated by a desire to further their own goals under the mantle of tolerance. Leftists really have no tolerance for the anti-abortion, anti-practiced homosexuality, pro-traditional-family beliefs to which Islam tenaciously clings; more tenaciously than modern day Judaism and Christianity, it seems. Their support for Islamist terror, expressed in violent street demonstrations and invitation of Islamist firebrands to particularly left-leaning universities, is motivated by the desire to make America, and other market-based western democracies, look bad. Their ultimate goal is an unachievable earthly utopia. I will throw my lot in with those who strive for paradise in the afterlife, even if their vision excludes me there, than those who strive for paradise on earth, who would certainly exclude me here.

As far as some Christians being motivated by a desire to hasten Armageddon, that desire leading to support of the State of Israel, I say, "So What?" If there support consists of encouraging the support of Christian majority democracies to continue helping Israel exist, to fund raise to that end, etc., I couldn't be happier. Maybe they regard unconverted Jews at the end time as lost souls. That may be they're belief. It's no skin off my nose. Their actions speak louder than their motives and proselytizing.

----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Monsters STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/22/2005 03:13:47 PM ----- BODY: Pardon my PASWO blogging. Terrorists claiming to be members of the Islamic Army in Iraq shot down a civilian helicopter and videotaped the gruesom scene. The helicopter carried six Americans, three Bulgarians and two Fijians. The pilot, Lyubomir Kostov, is seen as the sole survivor. I will not attempt to describe the manner in which he was murdered. It is available here. If your stomach is weak, the written account is here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 68.22.242.179 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 03:44:41 PM I'd like to point out that these "monsters" weren't shooting down civilian helicopters in Iraq until the U.S. occupied their country. We're complicit in the creation of monsters on both sides. Yes, their behaviour is monstrous. But both sides have behaved in ways that appear monstrous to the other side (and appear to be simply justifiable rage to their own side). The differences between this video and the one of the U.S. soldier shooting a wounded, unarmed prisoner at point-blank are a matter of perspective. To us, this is far more horrifying. To the other side, the American is the monster. But really, everyone is behaving in monstrous ways, based on reasons they find perfectly justifiable. The predictable response from either side to this point (as subsequent comments will probably illustrate) is that anyone pointing out "yeah, they're monsters; but so are we" must be supporting the other side. Opposing BOTH sides isn't an option. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John EMAIL: johnwilliamcoleman@hotmail.com IP: 67.106.186.168 URL: http://johncoleman.typepad.com DATE: 04/22/2005 03:58:48 PM You're right, Aaron. Before shooting at helicopters and slaughtering injured old men they were murdering and raping women and children in Iraq and surrounding countries or planning attacks against innocent civilians in countries very far away (think Madrid, NYC). The soldiers in Iraq at the same time were in the states training to fight those who would perpetrate such crimes--and, at times (Abu Ghraib, etc.) they have approached their own level of monstrosity; but it is an affront to any standard of objective morality to equivocate the two sides. The day the insurgents are fighting for freedom rather than the continued oppression of women, cripples, political opponents, free speech, and religious liberty is the day equivocation may become a viable alternative to condemnation. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 68.22.242.179 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 04:16:55 PM I think the equivication occured when we quickly fell into the same mental trap that the terrorists were in before 911 -- we decided that our enemy was an irrational, hate-filled "monster" and the only way to win was to wipe him off the face of the earth. They already believed that about us ... we then happily wallowed down into the muck next to them. And since then, both sides have been eagerly proving each other right at every turn. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 05:24:15 PM The difference between the U.S. military and the terrorists are vast, but perhaps nowhere better illustrated than by comparing this shooting and the shooting in a mosque (which the terrorists routinely turn into bases of operations) which these animals believed they were avenging. What did the American soldier--himself wounded from a recent engagement with terrorists obeying no rules of warfare in Fallujah--say before he shot the wounded man? "He's faking--he's faking he's dead!" Why would he say this? Because the terrorists had been booby-trapping bodies and feigning death or injury in order to inflict more casualties on the Americans. What did these animals say before shooting a clearly unarmed man (after shooting down their civilian helicopter)? "Carry out God's verdict!" I rest my case. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: CJ EMAIL: hockeyjock2001@comcast.net IP: 24.14.186.11 URL: http://cj.typepad.com/vrwc1member/ DATE: 04/22/2005 06:48:11 PM Eric You can't reason with the moral relativists like Aaron. I applaud your effort but it's futile. Clear thinking individuals know the difference and we understand the necessity to defeat the terrorists. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 156.56.70.2 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 08:04:45 PM I'm not saying it's not necessary to defeat the terrorists CJ. I'm saying I think there are ways to do it that are better than acting just like them. Anyway, Eric just called the terrorists "animals." That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. The more we characterize the other side as "animals" or "monsters," the more violently we treat them and their interests, and the more they become "monsters." Our total dismissiveness of loss of non-American life in Iraq (what's a few deaths -- we're fighting monsters) is what's creating more monsters. The more we treat them as "monsters," the more "monsters" we get opposing us, as those who don't see our "monsters" as anything but neighbors pick up arms and join our "monsters" to fight us -- because we're their "monsters." What was that old saying about being careful in fighting monsters, not to become one? I say that the more likely we are to define people as "monsters," the more likely they are to BECOME monsters, and be joined by more monsters. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 213.94.254.253 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 11:19:43 AM I'm sick of this weak-kneed moral equivalence, or possibly just simple weakness with pretensions to philosophy. No, there were no insurgents in Iraq before the war. But so what? There were no anti-fascist partisans in Ukraine before the German invasion either, but that hardly justifies their cause in a moral sense. I'm confident that Eric's referring to the terrorists as "animals" was not meant to dehumanize them any more than they have dehumanized themselves. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: A Steve EMAIL: sda9@cornell.spam.edu IP: 209.2.145.38 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 03:28:03 PM Insurgents in Iraq routinely violate the Geneva Conventions regarding faking wounded status, non-uniformed combatants, etc. These conventions are indeed relics of a wealthy, white, European way of war, but some of them also serve a purpose, as the unfortunate wounded insurgent discovered in that video. If your goal is the protection and eventual repatriation of wounded soldiers, you don't encourage your men to pretend to be wounded and then attack, thus taking advantage of that convention. If you do, the natural reaction of the enemy is to assume, as that soldier did, that all of your wounded are armed, dangerous, and should still be considered combatants. Likewise, the requirement that all combatants be uniformed is instrumental in protecting actual non-combatants. This convention is routinely intentionally ignored by terrorist (as opposed to guerilla) actors, whose goals often include the provocation of general reprisals on civilian populations. Even countries that generally avoid wholesale retaliatory attacks, such as the U.S. and Israel, still tend to kill vastly more fighting-age male noncombatants than any other type of civilian. Of course, that number probably includes some combatant deaths reclassified as non-combatant deaths due to the inherent uncertainty of fighting non-uniformed combatants, but it's the best we can do as far as categorizing. Aaron, monsters are people who kill unarmed civilians _intentionally_. I don't care who the killers are, and I don't care who the civilians are. There is no excuse for intentionally killing someone you know to be an unarmed non-combatant. For that matter, I don't think it's appropriate to kill surrendering soldiers, either, but different cultures have different approaches to that in different places and times (cf. the U.S. "take no prisoners" attitude toward the SS near the end of WWII). In that respect, there's no equivalence between the terrorist who bombs an Iraqi market and the soldier who shoots an Iraqi with a cell phone, thinking him to be the one about to trigger the bomb. The soldier's crime is recklessness, but the terrorists's crime is premeditated mass murder. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 68.22.242.110 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 07:12:34 PM "The soldier's crime is recklessness, but the terrorists's crime is premeditated mass murder." We have the luxury of claiming to be merely "reckless" because we're invading them. But there's nothing "reckless" about deciding to bomb or occupy a country -- you *know* civilians will be killed by the thousands. You just don't know which ones. Recklessness may be a meaningful distinction to us, but not the people we're bombing/occupying. The fact that American soldiers were just "reckless" when they kill civilians is meaningless to the neighbors of those civilians. A suicide bomber doesn't know which civilians he's going to kill; he just knows that some will die. How is that different from a U.S. general who knows that some civilians will die based on his order to drop bombs/take over a town -- he just doesn't know which ones? There's only one difference: the American general is deciding some civilians will die for OUR cause; the suicide bomber is deciding some civilians will die for his cause. Let's say muslims invaded my town, to enforce their Islamic values and stop me from my decadent western ways. In doing so, they recklessly kill my neighbors while trying to maintain order. I don't know that I'd be able to restrain myself from killing anybody working as a contractor for said muslims -- basically acting just as the men in the video did. Doing so would be evil, and unjustified, but I don't know that I'm strong enough to resist being that sort of evil. And clearly many in Iraq are unable to resist that sort of evil. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: A Steve EMAIL: sda9@cornell.spam.edu IP: 209.2.145.39 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 11:18:35 PM I disagree, as does the whole American legal system (and many other legal systems throughout history). Recklessness may leave people just as dead, but it's not the same crime as murder 1. The intent element is wholly lacking. I'm not arguing that the men in the video were legitimate military targets up to a point. However, I think that point stopped when they presented no further threat. It may be viscerally satisfying to shred an unarmed, wounded enemy, but it's _wrong_. That's why we have courts. I don't care if you'd be able to restrain yourself, Aaron, and I don't know if I'd be able to do so, either. That doesn't make it right. Justice is about far more than mere vengeance. For that matter, the practice of taking prisoners rather than brutally murdering them has its uses for both sides. That's why it's outlined in the Geneva Conventions. Oh, and one more thing on this. The brutality of the attack is appalling. I don't care if you're the executioner at a state-sanctioned execution--to kill someone that brutally indicates a truly twisted mind. There's a massive difference between a clean execution and mutilating the body--the difference between someone who kills because he must and someone who kills because he is consumed by his hatred. The former can put down his weapon and return, like Washington, to the plow. The latter is more like a vampire, living on the blood of others until his own bloody death catches up with him.

A suicide bomber doesn't know which civilians he's going to kill; he just knows that some will die. How is that different from a U.S. general who knows that some civilians will die based on his order to drop bombs/take over a town -- he just doesn't know which ones? There's only one difference: the American general is deciding some civilians will die for OUR cause; the suicide bomber is deciding some civilians will die for his cause.

I'm sorry, did you just claim to not know the difference between a bombing in the course of military action and a suicide bombing on a wholly civilian target? I'm trying to argue reasonably here, but reason seems lost here. Let me flip this around: if the general could detonate his bomb with the same military effect without killing civilians, would he? If he be a man, no. If he be a monster, yes. Compare, for instance, the attack on Osirak and the attack on the World Trade Center Towers. The former was conducted against a military/civilian target with such careful planning that only civilian (a janitor, IIRC) died. The latter was conducted against a wholly civilian (but important) target with the goal of killing as many civilians as possible. Are those morally equivalent? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 68.22.242.110 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 01:00:59 AM We're not talking about a nuanced criminal sentencing system here, Steve. Killing recklessly and killing with intent both send you to jail for a really long time -- how's that? I don't see too many families of manslaughter victims saying "whew ... at least our loved one wasn't killed WITH INTENT. Then I'd really feel bad." For purposes of analyzing whether U.S. military action is contributing to the growth of hatred and terrorism in the middle east, I don't think drawing nuanced distinctions between culpability levels is of much use. The fact is we're killing people they care about. They don't give a damn about our culpability. (We do, and of course should, but that's not the point). I notice you're making objective value judgments about other people's behavior. For example, you claim to be able to tell "the difference between someone who kills because he must and someone who kills because he is consumed by his hatred." This power of mind-reading perception is beyond me. I try to understand people's motivations based on my own, rather than categorize them as "good" or "evil," "human or "monster." ****Let me flip this around: if the general could detonate his bomb with the same military effect without killing civilians, would he? If he be a man, no. If he be a monster, yes.***** The distinction is pointless. What's important is that "military effect" trumps human life. Do terrorists suicide bomb randomly, for the fun of it? No, they place such bombs for the maximum "military effect" -- namely, whatever will have the maximum psychologial impact on the enemy. That "military effect" is more important than the lives of the civilians killed -- the same equation as when a U.S. general wants to drive a bunker bomb through a Baghdad neighbour hood to root out a possible underground hiding place for Saddam. ******Compare, for instance, the attack on Osirak and the attack on the World Trade Center Towers. The former was conducted against a military/civilian target with such careful planning that only civilian (a janitor, IIRC) died.***** You've abandoned your own "same military effect" test. In order to properly compare the two operations, you have to be able at least argue that the same military effect as the WTC attack could be accomplished by the terrorists while killing only one civilian. Otherwise, you're bound to lose this little game, because I can compare any suicide attack, including 9/11, with the U.S. dropping of the atom bombs in WWII and say terrorists kill fewer civilians than America. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 06:27:15 AM Aaron, it's evident to everyone else that you have lost any reasonable standard for comparing human behavior. If you want to conflate the operations of a standard military and particularly gruesome terrorists (we're not even talking about some elements of the old RUC and the old IRA, where there were few distinctions), and if you want to eliminate all questions of intent, both immediate and long-range, from your discussions of morality...then you are not only arguing for moral equivalence (which is not prima facie bad, but simply is usually wrong), you are actually an apologist for terrorists. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.64.158 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 10:56:03 AM Paul, I'm sorry I've lost all reasonable standards for comparing killing civilians ... how irrational of me. I now lack the clear, rational mind necessary to kill women and children when needed to advance our country's interests, so the terrorists, um, don't win. At least YOU can tell good from evil ... too bad I've lost the ability. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 11:22:05 AM If you refuse to acknowledge any difference in intent (and, I might also point out, difference in how the organizations involved treat the soldiers or terrorists involved), then you are not thinking clearly, but rather asserting an unfalsifiable and practically useless norm. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.64.158 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 11:29:15 AM Let me meet you halfway, and agree with the "unfalsifiable" part. Many, since many norms are that way. Now we only disagree on whether killing civilians is "useful." But that's a start. Now, just convince me that killing civilians is *useful* for us, and not *useful* for them, and we'll be in complete agreement. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.64.158 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 11:38:44 AM Bah, that last post was too argumentative. The norm is useful, Paul, because it leads to reconcilliation. If the actual people we fight are "monsters" (rather than fighting to the bitter end for an ideology we disagree with) then we might as well just wipe them off the face of the earth. Further, since we've noticed that their neighbors tend to become "monsters" as well, we've got a justification for eliminating their neighbors, too, to prevent the spread of monstrousness. If we just admit that they're killing because it's "useful" (not because they're monsters) just like we're killing because it's "useful" (not because we're monsters) then perhaps we can move closer to STOPPING killing each other. That's the reason I oppose calling them monsters. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: A Steve EMAIL: sda9@cornell.spam.edu IP: 209.2.145.106 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 11:49:27 AM No, they're not killing because it's useful. It's accomplishing nothing for them. If anything, it's only succeeding in alienating the few Sunni allies they have left. Like the Palestinian "freedom" movement, it has degenerated into pointless murder and not-so-pointless racketeering. A "monster" can be of any race or creed. They are mentally ill, and I don't think there's a cure for > 90% of them. By executing or imprisoning them, we not only stop them, but we also take a stand as a society for what is right. This proceeds from the assumptions that war is not a priori wrong and that a suicide bombing on a wholly civilian target is. Disagreements on either of those two assumptions are much too complicated to discuss in a comment section, so I won't go there. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sky-Ho EMAIL: village.idiot@whitehouse.con IP: 68.165.32.34 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 02:56:21 PM "monsters"

Like those who fire bombed Dresden and Tokyo?

Indiscriminate killing of civilians.

A contractor is not, never was and never will be, a "civilian". He is nothing more than the enemy without a uniform. He is without principle, apparently helping the enemy only for money.

and, as far as terrorists "doing there thing" without apparent "purpose", I find it interesting that such armchair philosophers easily make such statements, basking in the monitors glow, without bothering to understand what is happening in a distant land.

Taking the comments of Aaron further, I would like to point out that we are the aggressors in Iraq. The rationalizations for being there were created by thieves and exiles, not the residents.

If Al queda is there, it is at the request of actual residents.

As a vet., I never understood the thinking that the way to "defeat" terrorism was to "kill them all", when human history provides a multiplicity of diverse examples of why that tactic almost never works, and if it does, one usually ends up with a dictatorship.

Put yourself in the insurgent's shoes. What if an Islamic nation invaded the US, leveling cities and killing millions with their "smart weapons" and imposing their form of government (an Islamic theocracy) upon us? Do you think there would be no "insurgents"? Would the "insurgents", always on the run, take the time to tend to the wounded, or allow witnesses?

Yes, killing is always bad. I am sorry that those who started it, Bu$h&Co, will likely never have to face up to their perfidity.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 04:34:41 PM I hesitate to respond to the kind of barking moonbat who would use a term like "Bu$h&Co," but allow me to interject that the huge turnout in the January elections quite overwhelmingly makes a lie of any claim that we are "imposing our form of government" on Iraq. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Death of the Estate Tax STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/22/2005 12:38:48 PM ----- BODY: As I gear up for my eight hour income tax exam with 8-10 hour study days, I don't feel guilty for taking a few moments away from it to address the potential repeal of the Estate Tax. Many people have trotted out the expected hysterics over it all, but I'm struck by the extreme level of ignorance surrounding the mechanics of the tax, even by journalists charged with reporting it. Most notably Matthew Yglesias has this reaction over the repeal: "F*** the small businessman." But as Mindles H. Dreck points out, the Small Business Council of America does just that:

BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 14, 2005--The Small Business Council of America ("SBCA") warned today in testimony before the Subcommittee on Tax, Finance and Exports of the Committee on Small Business of the House of Representatives that more small business owners would be hurt if the estate tax were to be permanently repealed in 2010, than if the law were frozen in 2009. "Proponents of repeal tout the benefits of estate tax repeal to the small business owner when, in fact, repeal will actually harm most small business owners because of the loss in the step-up in basis," said Paula Calimafde, Chair of the SBCA.

The New York Times writes, "Repeal would shield the estates of the very wealthiest Americans from the tax." It does not, and understanding this "step-up basis" that the SBCA referred to is key to understanding why Yglesias and the NYT are wrong. In many cases, capital gains will now be taxed higher for the beneficiary thanks to a new higher basis. Dreck explains this sufficiently well, so be sure to read it. Repealing the estate tax is not an automatic positive for the wealthy, and it's certainly not automatically good for small businesses. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: T.J. Brown EMAIL: tjbrown@csinet.net IP: 206.165.176.138 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 01:25:20 PM The one thing that the death of the estate tax would do for family businesses: it would give the family the option of keeping it. The end result of repeal is that taxes on appreciated assets will be paid, but death will no longer cause forced liquidation of illiquid assets, privately-held businesses in particular. Witness what happened at the Buffalo News when the family matriarch died and warm, fuzzy, compassionate, advocate for the poor, estate-tax advocate Warren Buffett bought them at an undervalued price. Buffett wound up making a bundle at the expense of the workers and the community. But Buffett made a bundle, and he can continue to prey upon families who are cash-poor but need to come up with big bucks to satisfy the IRS upon the death of a family member. Ask the folks who work for the Chicago-area grocery chain Dominick's if they were better off under the family that ran them for years or Safeway, which has since bought them, closed a number of stores, reduced its workforce, made most of its decisions from California, and infuriated the union, which had a far friendlier relationship with the family. Thanks for directing me to the post, Josh. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 67.185.243.39 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 10:49:33 AM Robbing the weathy is an endless parlor game that becomes much easier when that person is dead. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 08:25:16 AM With the Republicans beginning to inflate their way out of their poor spending decisions all of our estates are going to "appreciate". The step up in basis ought to be adjusted (easily done) by using the CPI as a deflator. Most of us have seen, "adjusted for inflation" numbers. Otherwise, the theft remains. This time it will be a clear Republican theft. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: We told you so (part 1 of ??) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Politics CATEGORY: Politics DATE: 04/21/2005 09:32:14 PM ----- BODY: When Democrats selected Howard* Dean as their party's national chairman, many Republicans were giddy with anticipation over the potential for more embarassing moments like the infamous post-Iowa caucus scream. Democrats responded that Republicans were actually afraid of Dean's political skills and grassroots know-how. Who was right? Well right now there are a lot of Republicans who aren't sure whether to laugh or cry foul at Dean's impression (at a fundraiser for the Minnesota ACLU**) of Rush Limbaugh snorting cocaine, as reported by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I heard the audio on The O'Reilly Factor tonight***, and I can tell you it was a completely juvenile little act. Entirely sophomoric. In other words, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from certain talk-radio hosts. Don't get me wrong. I'm not shedding any tears for Limbaugh. He's done his share of mocking figures on the left. But is that the sort of behavior we should expect from a national political leader? Can you imagine if the chair of the RNC back in the late 90's had, at a public appearance, done an impression of Bill Clinton being "serviced" by an intern while seated at his Oval Office desk? It should be possible to tell the difference between political leaders and pundits, the latter being entertainers who make money directly by tickling the partisan sensibilities of their audiences. *I'm greatly tempted to call him "Howie," but I think I'll not stoop to playing that game of belitting one's opponents by referring to them with cutesy nicknames. **Has there been any doubt for the last 12 years that the ACLU is just as wholly integrated into the Democratic party as right-to-life groups are into the GOP? ***I know, I know. I just watch it for the entertainment value if I'm eating dinner late. Really! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/21/2005 10:06:23 PM **Has been any doubt for the last 12 years that the ACLU is just as wholly integrated into the Democratic party as right-to-life groups are into the GOP? -Wow, I didn't know that Bob Barr was wholly integrated into the Democratic Party. Heck, I'm not even sure I want him. And you know all those Democrats who are helping out Rush Limbaugh's legal defense team? Man oh man, I tell you, the Democrats are just lining up to help him out with those charges in Florida. By the thousands. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 11:33:47 PM Eric, Can I imagine? I don't know, but no imagination is required to remember the story of the juvenile mocking laugh that was George Bush's sharing of his response to the plea for mercy by convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/22/2005 12:14:27 AM Dean's impression...of Rush Limbaugh snorting cocaine...Don't get me wrong. I'm not shedding any tears for Limbaugh. He's done his share of mocking figures on the left. Yeah, but Rush mocks stuff the left actually does. Rush has never been tied to cocaine or any other recreational drug use. (Getting hooked on OxyContin in the attempt to fight intense physical pain is not "recreational.") Speaking of which, I heard on the radio the other day that many teens are raiding the parents' medicine cabinets for prescription drugs to get high on, especially OxyContin and Vicodin. Why people would take Vicodin when they don't have to is beyond me. I was prescribed it after some dental bone grafts. Couldn't focus enough to do anything but sleep. I don't know what a "high" feels like, but I think I can safely assume that fatigue and delirium don't qualify. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 01:19:38 AM Alan, Many Americans get hooked on illegal drugs in response to fighting intense emotional pain or in order to stay alert working long hours. Rush mocked those folks. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 02:03:50 AM "**Has been any doubt for the last 12 years that the ACLU is just as wholly integrated into the Democratic party as right-to-life groups are into the GOP?". There has been absolutely no doubt on that issue in the minds of those who let ideology blind them to anything vaguely resembling facts. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 08:57:28 AM Wow, I didn't know that Bob Barr was wholly integrated into the Democratic Party. And former Democratic PA governor Robert Casey was staunchly pro-life. There are exceptions to every rule. I'm just saying that if the ACLU wants to claim to be non-partisan, having the national chairman of the Democratic party speaking at their fundraiser might not be such a good idea. Also, the way the folks in attendance lapped up Dean's joke betrayed their partisanship. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 09:12:39 AM no imagination is required to remember the story of the juvenile mocking laugh that was George Bush's sharing of his response to the plea for mercy by convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker. You bring up an interesting point, Joel. Let's look at how that was reported in talk Magazine by Tucker Carlson (transcript from this page: -------------------------- In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder. 'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.' I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking. 'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights." ------------------------------- (emphasis mine) Now, it seems to me Bush was not using Karla Faye Tucker for a cheap laugh. It seems that he was angry that the Larry King interview wasn't fair to him, and/or gave ammunition to his opponents during a Presidential election. So while Bush shouldn't have said that, and it may in fact indicate that he doesn't have much compassion for convicted murderers, it doesn't seem to be what the left tries to make out of it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 09:16:05 AM And while we're talking about Karla Faye Tucker, that was definitely a no-win situation for Bush. If he had granted clemency, the left would have howled that he did so because of her jailhouse conversion to Christianity. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 128.220.212.150 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/22/2005 10:32:23 AM That's an awfully big hypothetical there, Eric. Do you mean to say that if Bush would have granted clemency, death penalty opponents would have changed their minds about the wrongness of the death penalty? Nonsense. Those who opposed the death penalty were on record as urging Bush to grant clemency here, and he might easily have done so for any excuse whatsoever. Instead, he breezed past the real issues of the case--culture of life, anyone?--and used it to make a cheap political joke. It's revolting every way you look at it. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 10:48:29 AM Eric doesn't say that opponents would've changed their minds on the issue, but he reasonably asserts that many DP opponents are partisan and cynical enough to "howl" at Bush over clemency for Ms. Tucker. It doesn't take much of an imagination to conjure up such a person's statement to the media: "Bush didn't do this because he cares one whit about the injustice of the death penalty, he did it to give lip service to a block of Christian voters for political reasons. Bah humbug." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 10:57:07 AM back on topic... the weirdest part of this for me is that Dean is filling the exact same role as he did leading up to the primaries 18 months ago - that of the attention-getter. When some Bush policy or statement 'needed' to be mocked, who did the dirty work? Dean. He said what other people were thinking but were afraid, for political reasons, to say. The difference now is that Dean is not a maverick candidate; he is the face, voice, and body of the whole damn political party, and he looks, sounds, and gestures a lot more like Al Franken or Whoopi Goldberg than Hillary Clinton or Mark Warner. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 12:37:58 PM Eric, Fine. How about the time Bush referred to a reporter as a major league asshole? The truth is that we live in a society (including me at times, unfortunately),that has become rougher around the edges and both sides have contributed significantly to that event. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Phil Aldridge EMAIL: phil.aldridge@eccu.org IP: 64.164.59.2 URL: http://10-8.blogspot.com DATE: 04/22/2005 12:53:31 PM So, you don't see a difference between Dean mocking Rush Limbaugh for something he's never done (cocaine) in order to get cheap laughs from a bunch of extreme-left lawyers and Bush angrily mimicking a murder's plea for mercy in order to show his disgust for shenanigans from the media? So there really isn't a difference between Dean who lies and Bush who doesn't have much esteem for murderers? Just keep drinking that Kool-Aid. (And to the guy who didn't think the ACLU is part of the Democrat party, you're right. The ACLU is far to the left of the Democrats.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 01:30:32 PM Fine. How about the time Bush referred to a reporter as a major league asshole? That's even less comparable to what Dean did, because that remark was intended only as a side remark to Cheney. At least in the Karla Faye Tucker case, Bush knew he was talking to a reporter, so his remark could be considered public. I'm not arguing that Democrats in general are ruder or nastier than the GOP (although they've certainly been angrier for the past 4.5 years). There's plenty of incivility on both sides. But Dean is already proving to be a huge liability as DNC chairman. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 07:20:26 PM I'm not greatly interested in defending Dean. However, I see the Democrats' dillemma. We don't have the great multitude of talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity who acts drunk every time he mentions Ted Kennedy's name or who refers to Robert "KKK" Byrd. That leaves something of a vacuum for responding in kind. So if there aren't liberal broadcasters who can throw it back at the Republicans, it is rather natural, even if not ideal, that Democratic leaders will step up to the plate. (One conservative broadcaster, whose name slips my mind, proposed that Mary Jo Kopechne be named a saint by the Catholic Church for drowning in order to keep Ted Kennedy from becoming president.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.71 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/22/2005 11:37:03 PM Ted's never gonna be president. Not even a GOP nomination of John McCain could make that possible. Many Americans get hooked on illegal drugs in response to fighting intense emotional pain or in order to stay alert working long hours. Rush mocked those folks. I don't recall Rush ever mocking drug users. Rush mocks policy and policymakers. Hugh Grant ain't in the show prep "stack of stuff." Comparing physical and emotional pain Apple computers and oranges. There are godzillions of ways that you can confront deep emotional pain (constructively or with a band-aid) without resorting to drugs. There's only two ways to kill chronic physical pain - drugs and physician treatment. Rush's experience is atypical of drug abuse. Most drug users begin their habits not to escape pain (of either sort) but simply to have fun. Rush suffered an ailment that could have been corrected through surgery, but the procedure would have threatened his chief source of income: his ability to speak. So he tried to control the pain with OxyContin. Palliative medicine has a proper place, and if I recall correctly, Rush went through the proper channels in the beginning. But physical addiction set in, and the rest is history. BTW, what's the proper way to dispose of old prescription medicine? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.74 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/22/2005 11:38:46 PM That should be "emotional pain is Apple computers..." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 12:39:54 AM With all due respect Alan, unless you are a manic-depressive such as myself, I'm not sure you know what you are talking about. As a young man in the military I had my right foot badly crushed, mangled and broken. However, the intense pain never caused me to consider suicide. However, in later years as manic-depressive illness manifested itself, I did entertain suicidal thoughts and I can tell you the pain far exceeded anything that ever happened to my foot. I'm on lithium and I deeply resent the implication that I could or should be doing without it. (If I were off lithium, I'd have been banned from this site long ago.) ;-) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Treban EMAIL: trebanl@earthlink.net IP: 207.69.137.9 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 02:38:11 AM The best way to compare Bush and Dean for me is that neither seems to know when to keep there mouth shut. Although Dean dosn't seem quite as stupid as Bush every time he says something unscripted I don't think either man is really qualified for there current positions. I won't go into the legion of other reasons Bush in unqualified to be the U.S. president as it's not the appropriate venue. People in important representative positions don't have the luxury putting their emotions ahead of their responsibilities. They need to watch every word that comes out of their mouth, those they represent are judged by their words. Bush, who claims to represent the American people, lacks even a semblance of eloquence. He also seems to be inexcusably uninformed. While Dean's style and demeanor would be more appropriate to an old fashioned tent revival than a major representative of the democratic party. And his sophomoric drug poke at Limbaugh only drop him down to Limbaughs level. Personally I like to rant. It kind of makes me feel good. But of course I'm just a high school drop out who works in construction. I'm neither liberal nor conservative, (I doubt I'll really bring down the staunchly moderates)I'm not a republicrat, in fact I represent nobody but myself so it's ok for me to rant. It's even ok for me to say Rush is a juvenile, simian jackass with no redeeming qualities. It reflects on me and me alone. Anyone who represents others on the other hand has a responsibility to consider those they represent every time they open their mouths especially in public. At that both Bush and Dean fail miserably. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 213.94.254.253 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 11:21:29 AM " When some Bush policy or statement 'needed' to be mocked, who did the dirty work? Dean. " And Karl Roves thanks God for the former governor of Vermont every night. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.74 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/23/2005 10:12:45 PM The tiny minority of emotional distress that is ultimately physiological in origin (manic-depression, paranoia-schizophrenia, etc.) is easy to miss if one doesn't deal with it every day. Read the context of what I wrote. It should be clear that I was differentiating physical pain from the vast majority of emotional distress that has nothing to do with chemical imbalances. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: To Serve and Protect...Sometimes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Government CATEGORY: Government DATE: 04/21/2005 04:05:19 PM ----- BODY: Radley Balko relates a couple tales of horrible "service" he recently received at the hands of state and local officials. I think we've all been there at least once. There are good cops and helpful civil servants out there--they even (I hope) outnumber the ones who abuse their power--but it sure is easy to get cynical. Meanwhile, I found this a bit interesting:

Bizarrely, the city of Alexandria won't mail or fax a copy of [an accident] report to you. You have to go pick it up in person. I know because I called. Twice. And both times they told me I'd need to get in [sic] in person.

Hmm... Perhaps they're trying to protect that most cherished of libertarian rights--the right to privacy. It's your Constitutional right, you know! (I jest, of course. Anyone who had to endure this nightmare has earned my deepest sympathies.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 68.76.218.245 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 06:59:49 PM I noticed that on Radley's site he's arguing that the solution for bad service is privatization. I just got off the phone after my usual hour-long voice menu/hold/wrong department/hold/temp-outsourced-trainee conversation with one particular necessary-but-privately-held service (no point in distinguishing them, they're all the same). The private sector is worse than the public sector will ever be at customer service. Yes, there are occasional jerks in public service. But corporations have a fiduciary obligation to be jerks -- being anythign but jerks will cost more money. The only reason we feel like service in the private sector sometimes seems more responsive is that a large number of private sector "customer service" is actually sales, disguised as customer service so they can catch you with your guard down. Whenever you want *real customer service*, in other words, help with something you've already paid for but are having problems with, it's almost always worse than government service. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 07:59:41 PM Mr. Balko's worship of corporate ideas of customer service shows that he hasn't spent nearly enough time on the phone to Bangalore. Try supporting enough computers and DSL service at multiple locations. This is of course only one example of the falsity of this argument. A while ago I had a mother and mother-in-law who were both terminally ill and died within 10 months of each other. I dealt with private insurance companies , Medicaid and Social Security. The government beat the private sector by a mile in politeness and efforts to help. The private company had made a paperwork error and had no interest in fixing it because drawing it out meant that they could keep the money longer. The private sector CAN get away with it because the idea that we can really shop around for every service we receive on a meaningful basis as a rational person with all of the information needed to make a decision is a delusion of the First Church of Free Market. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: C Moser EMAIL: IP: 68.22.242.181 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 01:01:11 AM Try being a college student returning from an involuntary deployment with the Army Reserve. The federal and state levels, still, have little to no idea how to deal with returning veterans who are not transitioning from active duty. I'm personally wrangling, with the help of my State Representative, with some Indiana grant agencies to help prevent other soldiers/students such as myself from getting bilked of thousands of dollars of funding, and from being insulted and treated downright despicably in the act. I don't really know if privatizing the agency would help much though. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: Lileks on Benedict XVI STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Faith CATEGORY: Faith DATE: 04/21/2005 08:30:16 AM ----- BODY: A friend alerted me to Lileks' comments about the new Bishop of Rome. As usual, his commentary is both insightful and entertaining. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 10:41:09 AM If non-Catholics have no business criticizing the Catholic Chruch, then the Catholic Church has no business criticizing non-Catholic culture. If non-Catholics have no business criticizing the Catholic Church, then non-UCC folks have no business criticzing the UCC advertising campaign. And then Republicans have no business criticizing Democrats and on and on. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 68.20.131.2 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/21/2005 10:59:12 AM If non-Catholics have no business criticizing the Catholic Chruch. . . I didn't take that away from Lileks' piece. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 128.220.212.189 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/21/2005 11:12:24 AM The selection of Ratzinger was initially heartening, simply because he made the right people apoplectic. All the right people? Like the women who want to be treated as something more than second-class citizens in their own Church? Yes, apparently we want them to be apoplectic. Oh, but I'm not a Catholic, and I disagree with a lot of the Church's teachings on sexuality... Mr. Lileks, what are you saying? And can you speak from one side of your mouth at a time? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.122.192 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 11:52:56 AM Lileks thinks he's showing that various lefties just don't understand the history & nature of the Church, but in actuality it's his own ignorance that he's revealing. Here's Andrew Sullivan: http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_04_17_dish_archive.html#111401546335500360"The response of some non-Catholics to those of us who are appalled by the selection of the new Pope goes something like this: What did you expect? The Church never changes. Having a new Pope who adheres to doctrine is not a big deal. Expecting big changes in a church whose main selling point is eternal verities is stupid. All these non-Catholics like their Catholic church authoritarian, unchanging, eternal. All I can say is: what would they have said about, say, John XXIII or even John Paul II? In the last forty years or so, the Church has officially revoked its previous anti-Semitism, it has changed the very structure and vernacular of the mass, it has doubled the number of saints in heaven, it has shifted its position on religious and political liberty, it has apologized for the Inquisition, it has declared that homosexuality is innate and without sin as a condition, it has ordained married priests, it has innovated a new policy against all forms of artificial birth control, and dramatically strengthened its teachings against the death penalty. If you were to believe James Lileks, none of this would have been even faintly possible." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Brian Logue EMAIL: btlogue@alltel.net IP: 69.40.214.94 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 12:49:37 PM I think Lileks' comments were entertaining. The thing I grow tired of is comments like Jason Kuznicki's. I am tired of hearing the same refrain, Women's ordination, Birth Control, Abortion, Authortian. One can disagree with the CHurch's position on these topics but it has to be done in context of the Church and her theology. Never do we hear a theological argument in favor of Women's ordination, abortion, or artifical birth control. The heart of the debate is exactly how Benedict XVI (then cardinal Ratzinger) framed it in his homily before the conclave. Relativism is the center of these issues. It is the churches stong anti-relativist nature that angers these groups, since it is realitivism that is thier foundation. The Church by nature is the deposit of Truth. And truth by definition can't be relative, it must be firm. Sometimes the Truth is a difficult thing to deal with because it is not what we want or what we believe to be so...this is where it takes heroism to retain faith. God has blessed us with a Pope that will continue to defend that deposit of Truth. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 01:24:01 PM Lileks hints at some of the hypocrisy inherent in liberal American Catholics who cry over Benedict 16's election. The issue I have with Brian's post is that it overlooks this hypocrisy - the Andrew Sullivan quote above outlining recent changes serves as a ready example. If the Pope is the defender of the steadfast, infallible Truth, why the doctrinal, liturgical, and (arguably) political changes? Why the apology? How can Truth be both absolute and apologetic for its past actions at the same time? Perhaps Benedict XVI will retract these alterations and apologies, but I doubt it, leaving these questions hanging... I think I am stuck with three choices. 1) The Catholic Church is firm, the Pope is infallible, and the recent changes in doctrine/liturgy/etc. are fraudulent as a result; 2) the Church is not the deposit of Truth and the Pope may adjust the future course of the Catholic Church based on the people's conception of "rights" or "justice;" or 3) the Word is firm, neither Pope nor Church are infallible thanks to their human nature and governance, and the shifting doctrine of the Catholic Church illustrates how far its governance has drifted from the Word. What a trilemma for liberal Catholics. If you choose 1), all your favorite reform of the past is a farce and represents schism with the True Church. If you choose 2) you drink of your own excommunication (or perhaps damnation) each time you take the Host. If you choose 3) you are a Protestant. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Brian Logue EMAIL: btlogue@alltel.net IP: 69.40.214.94 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 01:32:51 PM Without getting into a huge debate here, there is a lot of difference in changing the liturgy and changing around the whole concept of the human person (which is what would be required so cahnge position on say abortion.) There is also a misunderstanding of what is and what can be declared ifallible. I believe there are only two examples of Papal infalliblity being envoked. One is the Imaculate conception of Mary, the other I can't think of off the top of my head. This ties into my original point. Things are much more complicated than a Pope comming in and deciding to change something like the position on artifical birthcontrol. Agree or disagree the position was derived from teaching and theology. It would take much more than one person deciding overnight to change. Anti-Semitism is a great example of something that was not of the deposit of Faith and has been reversed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 01:35:37 PM it has ordained married priests Really? That's news to me. I'm with Lileks in that I disagree with the requirement of celibacy (the apostle Peter, considered the first Pope, was married--what's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?) but if Catholics want to keep that requirement, that's their business. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 66.209.31.11 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 02:14:36 PM Eric, 30 seconds of googling would have brought you to this or plenty like it: www.beliefnet.com/story/45/story_4589_1.html This is exactly emblematic of what I find stupid, and in fact a bit offensive, about Lileks' piece & the several laudatory links to it I've seen around the web. Namely, Lileks apparently knows very little about the Church beyond the stereotypical non-Catholic view of it, and then chides others -- including many who do know what they're talking about -- for not sharing in his caricature. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Brian Logue EMAIL: btlogue@alltel.net IP: 69.40.214.94 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 02:21:01 PM One of the Church's "second class citizens" who is more eloquent than I am. http://thomasfortoday.blogspot.com/2005/04/why-did-cardinals-choose-ratzinger.html ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 03:43:58 PM phil, I see that the article you link is about already-married Protestants who convert to Catholicism being ordained. Therefore your initial claim is rather misleading. Celibacy is still the rule for the priesthood, in spite of a few exceptions being granted. Lileks apparently knows very little about the Church beyond the stereotypical non-Catholic view of it The article you linked also mentions that "to this day, most U.S. Catholics are unaware of" the exceptions to the celibacy requirement. So your criticism of Lileks on that point is unfair. And other than that, I don't see any reason to conclude that Lileks is perpetuating a caricature of the Catholic church. He does, however, make humorous exaggerations about what would-be "reformers" would like to see happen. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Terry J. Record EMAIL: trecord@siu.edu IP: 131.230.41.163 URL: http://www.law.siu.edu DATE: 04/21/2005 04:47:48 PM Given the debate's turn towards celibacy, it is importaint to note that the requirement of celibacy is merely a diciplinary requirement of the clergy, and not doctrinally based. Further, no pope has ever stated ex cathedra that celibacy is doctrinally based or divinely required. Hence, as a diciplinary matter, the requirement can be changed or modified at any time without compromising Catholic doctrine. This means aforementioned changes on this front within the Catholic church does not impact the infallability of other elements of Catholic faith. Interestingly, however, is that if the celibacy requirement were lifted tomorrow, today's priests still would not be allowed to marry since celibacy is taken on by an sacred vow and oath. Hence, newly ordained priests could marry, but don't expect the priest from your home parish to start dating anytime soon. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Kuznicki EMAIL: jason@positiveliberty.com IP: 151.196.238.3 URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com DATE: 04/21/2005 05:13:21 PM Never do we hear a theological argument in favor of Women's ordination... Never? Oh come on now. Plenty of denominations have been making these arguments for centuries. I didn't bother making them here because a) This is just a space for brief comments and b) I trusted you were already familiar with them. If you are not, I would be happy to supply a list of readings. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joel Thomas EMAIL: joelthomas67@netscape.net IP: 70.179.198.65 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 08:47:36 PM Josh, I re-read the piece and I still came away with the impression that he is saying if you're not Catholic why should you care what the church does and if you are Catholic and disagree, maybe you should leave and find a church you agree with. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 149.166.97.206 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 09:07:50 PM Tough to leave the Church and go to another when, if you are Catholic, you recite every Sunday that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. Priests were not allowed to marry to avoid neopotism. Plenty of Popes bestowed certain honors to family members and created legacies. However, these issues are only relevant to Americans and Europeans. The other 800 million Catholics prefer a strong Church, even more centralized than Pope JPII. Allowing women to be ordained will be pionered by priests who are now in their 20s and early 30s. The older priests view these rules as God's laws, not man's. Therefore, who are they to change them? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 149.166.97.206 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 09:13:25 PM Does it really matter? 1 more Pope and the world ends! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Andrew Reeves EMAIL: AndrewSshi@gmail.com IP: 69.195.4.178 URL: http://www.schizmatic.blogspot.com DATE: 04/22/2005 01:00:46 AM I have a similar problem to the current folks wringing hands as I do with people who claim Irshad Manji is the kind of Muslim that they'd like to see. Arguments made by people who do not believe in an omnipotent God (or any god at all) about how that God's followers should run their affairs are not going to be very persuasive to those who do believe in said God. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 149.166.135.32 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 03:37:24 PM I think another reason why priests are not allowed to marry is so they have full devotion to the Church. If they married and had children, the Church is no longer their focal point. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 67.185.243.39 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 11:12:41 AM Phil's devotion to actual truth is suspect. His crack was misleading and he ought to fess up to its so being. Meanwhile, the married clergy of the many denominations has done little to address their problems or arrest the startling decline in their membership. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Shameless family promotion STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/20/2005 04:59:08 PM ----- BODY: Here's the promotional website I designed for my cousin Brian Claybourn, an NFL hopeful. The Billszone Draft Guide profiles him as one the nation's top punters. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim S EMAIL: jsatterfield@kc.rr.com IP: 65.28.59.149 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 08:49:36 PM It looks good, Joshua. I hope my hometown team, the Chiefs, take a good look at him. Heck, I hope that he's available after they've filled their only needs more urgent than a better kicker/punter, some defensive positions. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: jennie EMAIL: jenniejackson@hotmail.com IP: 69.92.227.120 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 11:37:36 PM Hey Josh... looks good, but I couldn't get anything to come up when I clicked on a few of the choices at the bottom of the list on the left. Maybe check and see if they work for you or not. I'm using Firefox and not IE so don't know if that has anything to with it or not either. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ace Pryhill EMAIL: pryhills@gmail.com IP: 12.19.54.84 URL: http://acepryhill.com DATE: 04/21/2005 11:36:39 AM That's a great site. I'd love to see him picked up by the Panthers! With our star punter in trouble with steroid allegations, a DWI, we may do well to get a fresh face in there. Good luck to Brian. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: John EMAIL: johnwilliamcoleman@hotmail.com IP: 67.106.186.168 URL: http://johncoleman.typepad.com DATE: 04/21/2005 11:54:00 AM Good luck, Brian. If you decide to form a posse, give me a call. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: A More Troubling Backyard Experiment STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/20/2005 02:30:28 PM ----- BODY: Following up on Eric's mention of the Eagle Scout who tried (and failed) to build a backyard nuclear reactor (a good thing Chairman Mao never heard about that), here's an article from The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about three physics students who tried--and succeeded--to build a nuclear bomb. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Steven S EMAIL: sasheets@tunl.duke.edu IP: 128.165.76.140 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 04:13:55 PM Robert Serber's "Los Alamos Primer" is an interesting read for those with a little background in physics. He lays out most of the essentials of designing an atomic weapon and it would be clear to anyone with a little technical know-how on how to improve his primitive calculations to getter a better yield, estimate of critical mass, etc. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Video offerings STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/20/2005 02:00:28 PM ----- BODY: Part of being a real Netizen is keeping tabs on the latest multimedia genius the web has to offer. The best recent example must surely be Prangstgrup's video selection, particularly the Lecture Musical and Library Musical. New Life Christian's Baby Got Book came close, but the Columbia students with Prangstgrup still held the crown. Now comes a group of students from Clemson who call themselves Rogue Dawg productions. I first discovered them about a year ago through a spoof they did on William Hung's failed American Idol bid. That video, their first, might still be their finest. They recently entered the American Idol Music Video contest and lost with a subpar video. Their other videos are better, but I'm still going with Prangstgrup as the best internet-based video makers. Leave other suggestions in the comments if you have any. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Scof EMAIL: takeonme@aha.com IP: 69.148.91.41 URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~scofield99/ DATE: 04/20/2005 03:42:30 PM Thanks, some of those links are quite helpful to me. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: The backyard nuclear reactor STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Science CATEGORY: Science DATE: 04/20/2005 12:48:52 PM ----- BODY: Since it's a slow day here at ITA, I thought I'd bring to you the fascinating story of David Hahn, a 17-year-old aspiring Eagle Scout whose Atomic Energy merit badge led him to attempt to build a nuclear reactor in a potting shed behind his mother's house. The story was originally reported by Ken Silverstein in a Harper's Magazine article, and later expanded by Mr. Silverstein into the book The Radioactive Boy Scout. David was an extraordinarily inventive young man. His scientific adventures read like an episode of "MacGyver"--turning ordinary items into powerful (and often dangerous) scientific instruments. His attempt to build a breeder reactor in fact fell woefully short of being effective, yet was effective enough to create some serious hazards to himself and others. In a day when commercially-sold chemistry sets contain nothing of much interest due to legal liability concerns, David's home-made experiments are remarkable. Here's an excerpt from a review of the book last fall in Chemical & Engineering News (sorry, access for subscribers only): ----- EXTENDED BODY:

[David] tested his putative neutron gun by aiming it at a small block of paraffin next to his Geiger counter. The rapid clicking indicated to him that he was successful. However, it was much more likely that he was only observing X-rays emitted by the ²⁴¹Am. He crudely extracted thorium from the thorium dioxide in the lantern mantles by heating the dioxide with lithium he'd removed from lithium batteries. He then began to assemble his reactor in the potting shed behind his house. In the next days and weeks, he made regular measurements of the reactor's radioactivity to see if the thorium was absorbing neutrons. Before long, he found that the readings were increasing regularly. He was now convinced that his model was working. But the increases were very likely due to the fact that he had purified the thorium from its radioactive daughters, which were just growing back in. When the radioactivity kept on growing over the following weeks, however, he finally became worried, thinking his reactor was running away. He set about disassembling his handiwork, for he thought that he had accomplished what he had set out to do, and he did not want to hurt anyone.

The entire Harper's Magazine article is worth your time and is comprehensible, I think, to anyone regardless of scientific background. I'll leave you with a quote that aptly sums up David's scientific investigations, by David's scoutmaster's wife, Barbara Auito: "The typical kid [working on the merit badge] would have gone to a doctor's office and asked about the X-ray machine. Dave had to go out and try to build a reactor." ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Petronius Arbiter EMAIL: washington.lee@gmail.com IP: 206.246.167.94 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 02:16:19 PM A great story that needs to be passed around. My scientific pursuits were always thwarted by laziness and/or riding my bike down to Wesselman's to buy some candy. This dude had some motivation. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: James EMAIL: idontknowbut@gmail.com IP: 128.104.29.32 URL: http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com DATE: 04/21/2005 01:42:32 PM I thought the book was a bit padded, myself. And Silverstein writes "At times, I found David's tale incredible, and there's no way to be certain of how far he got with his experiments, as he was the only witness to many of the events." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Treban EMAIL: trebanl@earthlink.net IP: 207.69.137.42 URL: http://trltrauma,blogspot.com DATE: 04/24/2005 10:46:36 AM Wow, the best I ever managed as a kid was starting a relatively small fire after a relatively small explosion in the laundry room. One would think that my middle school science teacher would have been a little more clear on A. just how little hydrogen it takes to cause a rather largish explosion and B. the fact that if you fill a test tube with hydrogen gas till it begins to condense you really, really shouldn't light it. Thankfully my best friend and I managed to rig a remote detonator and were in fact in the next room. My parents never let the nighbor kid baby sit me again, I was admonished by my dad (and his belt) not to create volatile gasses in the house ever again and the next day my dad bought me an electronics expieramenting board. I can only imagine my old man's reaction if I tried to build a nuclear reactor in the wood shed. I do think however my dad was pretty proud that I was safety concious enough to build a remote detonator and that It worked. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Pop Music Recommendation STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/19/2005 07:32:47 PM ----- BODY: A dismayingly high number of our readers will like this (we've been aiming for the Ashlee Simpson demographic) and so I thought I'd pass along a link to the poppy, 80s-esque song "Binary Girl" by the Mathematicianss. Find it here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 144.160.5.25 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 09:46:31 AM Did we have a post vanish? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 216.12.192.75 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/20/2005 12:51:03 PM The description "poppy, 80s-esque" is a baaad sign. (clicking link) Yep. ----- -------- AUTHOR: TITLE: Judicial Review as Constitutional Mandate STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Law CATEGORY: Law DATE: 04/19/2005 05:55:48 PM ----- BODY: Via Randy Barnett at VC, there is a new paper at SSRN from John Yoo and Sai Prakash, entitled The Origins of Judicial Review. This was the subject of much discussion recently in posts by me and by Josh Claybourn. It began with me criticizing Tom Delay for his absurd statement that, "The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them," a statement which clearly indicates that Delay is opposed to judicial review itself, not merely to decisions he disagrees with. In doing so, he is offering up a blatantly anti-Constitutional argument. As I pointed out in response, he is flat wrong - the reason we have judicial review is because Article III of the Constitution was intended precisely for the purpose of establishing judicial review. Barnett himself agrees, saying,

Given the state of the historical record, it now amazes me that anyone can still argue that judicial review was made up by John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison.

You can find a longer exposition of Barnett's position on this in his SSRN paper, The Original Meaning of the Judicial Power. Yoo and Prakash go deeper than Barnett in examining the historical record regarding judicial review and they make much the same argument that I made in the previous threads, that not one of the founding fathers, including those who opposed judicial review, argued that Article III did not require it:

[N]o scholar has been able to cite any Federalist or Anti-Federalist who declared that the Constitution did not permit judicial review of federal legislation...

[N]o scholar to date has identified even one participant in the ratification fight who argued that the Constitution did not authorize judicial review of federal statutes. This silence in the fact of the numerous comments on the other side is revealing.

It certainly is. Combine that with Hamilton's clear statements in Federalist 78 and there is simply no doubt that Article III included the power of judicial review. The fact that people like Tom Delay use the rhetoric of "originalism" incessantly while attempting to excise judicial review, which Hamilton considered so important that without it all of the declarations of the rights of citizens found in our founding document "would amount to nothing", only shows the utter intellectual bankruptcy of their position and their total lack of understanding of constitutional doctrine. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 06:38:16 PM No scholar....has recently read Construction Construed, and Consitutions Vindicated, Tyranny Umasked, or New Views of the Constitution of the United States. It might be easier to begin with Arator. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 149.166.228.205 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/19/2005 07:35:21 PM To suggest that judicial review does not exist is absolutely ridiculous, almost like saying the judiciary itself doesn't exist. It's possible that DeLay did not mean that, but it's certainly how it has been interpreted (and how I interpreted it). I think all of this takes away from the much more important subject of the propoer role of judicial review, i.e. how far should judicial review be permitted, and how much review is ideal? This is the important debate and it's unfortunate DeLay's foolishness detracts from that. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Will EMAIL: IP: 66.116.64.100 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 10:01:43 PM I'm no scholar... just a 1L, but if you read closely, judicial review does not necessarily equal judicial nullification. In fact, even 78 does not explicitly make the jump that interpreting the constitution and evaluating legislation is the same thing as nullifying legislation. I say this not to argue against "judicial review" - I'm a Hamiltonian - but to question whether the "even one participant" assertion is valid. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 10:16:11 PM Folks like Jefferson and Madison were quite young and had been brought up in the law with Coke and his Whig view of reality. They both lived long enough to observe the sea change that took place with Blackstone's commentaries, a Tory view of the law. There is some connection between construction of law and how matters are construed, honestly or not, and judicial review. Does the latter term, for instance, mean the same thing today as it did then? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/20/2005 09:49:16 AM Will wrote:

I'm no scholar... just a 1L, but if you read closely, judicial review does not necessarily equal judicial nullification. In fact, even 78 does not explicitly make the jump that interpreting the constitution and evaluating legislation is the same thing as nullifying legislation.

Not true. Hamilton says quite clearly in 78 that judicial review meant the power to void legislation:

Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/20/2005 09:53:41 AM Josh wrote:

I think all of this takes away from the much more important subject of the propoer role of judicial review, i.e. how far should judicial review be permitted, and how much review is ideal? This is the important debate and it's unfortunate DeLay's foolishness detracts from that.

Certainly, the question of how the courts should review legislation is the crux of the matter. The astonishing thing is that, despite the completely bankruptcy of the anti-review position, we're having instead to debate whether there should be review at all rather than how such review should be done. The great irony of it all is that those on the right who are seeking to undermine the courts in the name of their ideology now are borrowing arguments from those on the left during the New Deal era, when FDR embarked on a foolhardy campaign to increase the size of the Supreme Court so he could appoint a raft of new justices and get them to vote his way.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 68.20.131.2 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/20/2005 10:00:04 AM The great irony of it all is that those on the right who are seeking to undermine the courts in the name of their ideology now are borrowing arguments from those on the left during the New Deal era, when FDR embarked on a foolhardy campaign to increase the size of the Supreme Court so he could appoint a raft of new justices and get them to vote his way. Actually they're going back even further, to the populist movement of the 1890s. That was when judicial review first made its biggest push when conservatives sought to overturn populist policies at the state level, and sometimes on the federal level when necessary. Although judicial review had been around since the country's inception, during that period it saw its most dramatic growth in use, and was done by conservatives. Liberals were the ones seeking to role back or do away with review. See the overturning of the income tax, for example. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 02:13:15 PM Perhaps even further than that? On Power, a book by De Jouvenel, is a masterpiece of historical reasoning. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution sought to impose limits upon Power. If we carefully examine the thought of John C. Calhoun concerning the judiciary we explode Mr. Barnett's "no scholar" thesis. Recognize too, that the sword is sharp on both sides. It is not just declaring laws to be unconstitutional that is the problem, it is declaring dubious ones to be so. I think it was an old Roman who first asked, "Who guards the guardians?" In that precise sense Mr. Delay is on target and on very solid grounds even if you don't like him. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/20/2005 03:16:06 PM Anonymous wrote:

If we carefully examine the thought of John C. Calhoun concerning the judiciary we explode Mr. Barnett's "no scholar" thesis.

Calhoun had no role whatsoever in writing the Constitution. He was a mere 5 years old the year it was written. The argument here, which your answer does not reply to at all, is that not one of the men who wrote the constitution, nor anyone at any of the state ratification conventions, believed anything but that Article III mandated judicial review. Some were opposed to it, including Jefferson, but they still recognized that the Constitution included it. Calhoun's later views on whether judicial review is a good idea or not are irrelevant to that fact.

It is not just declaring laws to be unconstitutional that is the problem, it is declaring dubious ones to be so. I think it was an old Roman who first asked, "Who guards the guardians?" In that precise sense Mr. Delay is on target and on very solid grounds even if you don't like him.

This is quite absurd. The question of whether the court has the constitutional authority of judicial nullification or review is an entirely separate question from whether they always use that power correctly, as we would all admit they do not. But to argue against specific rulings by arguing against judicial review itself, given the extraordinary historical evidence to the contrary, is simply ridiculous.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alexander Hamilton EMAIL: IP: 165.139.43.32 URL: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/government/national/judicial.html DATE: 04/20/2005 03:38:11 PM The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 05:16:43 PM Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 06:50:53 PM Does judicial review mean today what it meant then? If you go a bit further into Federalist #78 you read that the role of judges is "judgement". "...To avoid arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them....". We did NOT adopt the common law of England. Who is supposed to do then, this binding down, this defining, this setting of strict rules? Now the writer of #78 was quite gifted but his purpose in writing was to obtain the consent of the people for the Constitutional proposition. Were he to have propounded then what we now call judicial review do you think New York would have ratified (might be easier to list the States who would have)? Ans. No. Probably not a single State would have ratified for the reason that the Constitution was designed to rectify the defects of the previous Confederation; the government was NOT to be a consolidated one; the enumerated powers of the Federal Government were to be strictly construed as most of the governing was to be done by the various State governments who had themselves some 100 to 150 years of experience of near self govenment. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 07:08:32 PM I don't know how to link to this. Google Commonwealth vs Caton, scroll down to George Wyeth to see how one of the founders approached judicial review. If you could find a link to the case itself that would be better. I think it is evidence that we are talking about two different things. Another piece, maybe worth your consideration,is that Marshall crayfished with vigor in McCulloch v. Maryland PRECISELY because of numerous contempory critics who charged him with usurpation....I think the critics were correct. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/20/2005 07:19:12 PM Anonymous wrote:

Does judicial review mean today what it meant then? If you go a bit further into Federalist #78 you read that the role of judges is "judgement".

And therefore....what? It specifically says that the court was given the authority to "void" laws that violated the Constitution. That is the same thing that judicial review means today.

"...To avoid arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them....". We did NOT adopt the common law of England. Who is supposed to do then, this binding down, this defining, this setting of strict rules?

If you look at the context in which that statement appears, you'll find that Hamilton is making an argument for the difficulty of the job and therefore the fact it must be reserved as a permanent position for men of great skill and experience. The "rules and precedents" here simply refers to the inevitable growth in the complexity of the law.

Now the writer of #78 was quite gifted but his purpose in writing was to obtain the consent of the people for the Constitutional proposition. Were he to have propounded then what we now call judicial review do you think New York would have ratified (might be easier to list the States who would have)? Ans. No. Probably not a single State would have ratified for the reason that the Constitution was designed to rectify the defects of the previous Confederation; the government was NOT to be a consolidated one; the enumerated powers of the Federal Government were to be strictly construed as most of the governing was to be done by the various State governments who had themselves some 100 to 150 years of experience of near self govenment.

The historical record simply doesn't support this. As Josh noted earlier, there were voices against the power of judicial review, which was defined then as it is defined now as the power of the court to void legislation passed by Congress if it was unconstitutional. Yet the Constitution passed anyway. There is no distinction between the judicial review advocated by Hamilton in Federalist 78 and the judicial review we have today, and that was acknowledged even by those who opposed judicial review, yet the Constitution passed anyway.

Proving this wrong should be trivially easy. All you have to do is find those founding fathers who believed that Article III did not include the power to void unconstitutional legislation. It was explained as having that power by those who wrote it and advocated it, and it was admitted to have that power by those who opposed it as well.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 08:55:34 PM Well, I'd skip the cited case too,unless I wanted to get closer to the heart of the matter. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/20/2005 09:51:51 PM Okay, I looked up Commonwealth v. Caton. It was a 1782 Virginia state case, which means it is completely irrelevant to the meaning of Article III, which was written 5 years later. And even if it was relevant, it cuts the other way. Wythe endorsed the notion of judicial review in that case. So why on earth you think this case somehow works against the notion of judicial review is quite beyond me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 01:24:02 AM "..how far this court....can go in declaring an act of the Legislature void, because it is repugnant to the Constitution, without exercising the Power of Legislation, from which they are restrained by the same Constitution? is a deep, important, and I will add, an awful question" Edmund Pendleton, President of the Highest court in Virginia. Which, he rejoiced, he had no occaision to decide. The case was fairly well known at the time of the Convention. Under the previous Articles of Confederation there was no federal judicial system. I don't know how to locate the case but we seem to disagree on what was therein held. I'm also not sure the historical record is as you (and Josh?) contend. Do I fairly state your proposition that judicial review was defined and understood then exactly as it is today? Could you point me to that history (without bothering Josh who is studying hard at his real task)? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 01:42:58 AM Too, the part of #78 that you quote speaks of the peculiarly essential need for an independent court system where there is a limited Constitution. The author defines what he means by the term, limited Constitution. Some of us suspect that the Constitution we now have is not so limited and, if that be true, there is no need for an independent judicial system. Does not Hamilton concur in #78, "The observation, if it proved anything, would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from that body". ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 02:03:20 AM The minority party in the U.S. Senate seems to concur with that last post. The quality of men on the SC has been in decline since the beginning. We have had so many hacks in the past 60 years beginning with FDR's crudities. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/21/2005 09:38:18 AM Anonymous wrote:

"..how far this court....can go in declaring an act of the Legislature void, because it is repugnant to the Constitution, without exercising the Power of Legislation, from which they are restrained by the same Constitution? is a deep, important, and I will add, an awful question" Edmund Pendleton, President of the Highest court in Virginia. Which, he rejoiced, he had no occaision to decide. The case was fairly well known at the time of the Convention. Under the previous Articles of Confederation there was no federal judicial system.

You've just proven the case irrelevant. It was a state court applying the Virginia state constitution under the Articles of Confederation, which did not have federal courts. If we were discussing judicial review in the Articles of Confederation, this might be relevant. But we're discussing the Constitution, so cases that predate it, are in a state court rather than a federal one, and are based upon an entirely different political system, are completely irrelevant.

I don't know how to locate the case but we seem to disagree on what was therein held. I'm also not sure the historical record is as you (and Josh?) contend. Do I fairly state your proposition that judicial review was defined and understood then exactly as it is today? Could you point me to that history (without bothering Josh who is studying hard at his real task)?

I already have. I've pointed you to Hamilton's clear statements in the very document he wrote to explain Article III to the people. I've pointed you to the voluminous arguments from those who opposed ratification, but opposed it precisely because it was part of the Constitution. I've linked you to several scholarly articles that quote widely from the record at that time.

Stop and think for a moment just how stupid your argument is here. My position is that those who wrote and ratified the Constitution understood that Article III required judicial review. Those who wrote and advocated it agreed on that and those who opposed it agreed on it. And rather than pointing to anyone who wrote or ratified that document that had a different understanding, you point to a case that was decided under an entirely different political system before the Constitution even existed. Why not just go back to a decree from King George III to define the intent of the Constitution? It would be just as relevant, which is to say not in the least.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/21/2005 09:46:05 AM Anonymous wrote:

Too, the part of #78 that you quote speaks of the peculiarly essential need for an independent court system where there is a limited Constitution. The author defines what he means by the term, limited Constitution. Some of us suspect that the Constitution we now have is not so limited and, if that be true, there is no need for an independent judicial system. Does not Hamilton concur in #78, "The observation, if it proved anything, would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from that body".

Do you ever make an argument that even attempts to be logical? Even if it was true that Hamilton's reasoning no longer applies (and in fact, your argument only makes the case stronger for the need of an independent judiciary), it doesn't change the fact that Article III mandates judicial review. We aren't arguing over whether judges should have judicial review but whether, under the Constitution, they do have judicial review. And as noted a hundred times, everyone at the time of the ratification, including all who wrote it, advocated it and opposed it, understood it to mandate judicial review. And yes, that meant voiding unconstitutional legislation just as it means today.

Stop again, and think again, about just how stupid your argument is. The case has been made, and it is absolutely unrefuted, that the Constitution, according to the clearly stated understanding of every single person involved with its ratification, to include judicial review. And here your response is, "Yeah, but some of us suspect that the Constitution isn't very limited anymore....and therefore, all of that history is irrelevant and the courts don't really have judicial review." I'll take non sequiturs for $1000, Alex.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 10:20:48 AM Yeah, they really are stupid arguments. Every time 9 old farts invent or discover something missed by everyone else for 200 years it comports with the current understanding of constitutional doctrine. Is it not the current position of the Democrat minority in the Senate that they wish to abolish the independence of federal judges? And, is it not their intent to see judges whose views are indistinct from their own? Are they not also imposing a religious test in contravention of the express terms...or have words the meaning that they do in the Wonderland of Alice? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/21/2005 10:54:37 AM Anonymous wrote:

Yeah, they really are stupid arguments. Every time 9 old farts invent or discover something missed by everyone else for 200 years it comports with the current understanding of constitutional doctrine.

Good idea, defending an irrelevant argument with a juvenile nad equally irrelevant one. Do you ever just stick to the subject and make a coherent argument?

Is it not the current position of the Democrat minority in the Senate that they wish to abolish the independence of federal judges? And, is it not their intent to see judges whose views are indistinct from their own? Are they not also imposing a religious test in contravention of the express terms...or have words the meaning that they do in the Wonderland of Alice?

No, the threat to the independence of federal judges is currently coming from the Republican majority (in the past, however, it has come from Democrats, as in the New Deal era). Of course the Democrats want judges whose views are like their own, just as the Republicans want judges whose views are like theirs. That is not a threat to the independence of the judiciary in either case. As far as a religious test goes, I haven't the foggiest idea what you're blathering about at this point (which seems to be something of a pattern). I'm not aware of any judicial nominee who has ever been asked their religion.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.122.192 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 11:44:50 AM Ed, you're just encouraging the idiot. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 05:32:45 PM It appears that the establishment of federal judicial review over state legislation was accomplished by the first Judiciary Act on Sept 24, 1789. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 08:04:43 PM However, the term does not appear in Black's Legal Dictionary whereas Construction does as does Judge Made Law. The latter is of interest, "A phrase used to indicate judicial decisions which construe away the meaning of statutes, or find meanings in them the legislators never intended.....". ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 08:27:03 PM She composed herself and offered a very Ann Coulter answer. "They're terrible people, liberals. They believeâ€�this can really summarize it allâ€�these are people who believe," she said, now raising her voice, "you can deliver a baby entirely except for the head, puncture the skull, suck the brains out and pronounce that a constitutional right has just been exercised. That really says it all. You don't want such people to like you!" This would be a lawyer suggesting that the Founder's, all of them, totally object to the mis-construction of Their and Our Constitution. Its ok with Randy Barnett? Its ok with Robert Bork? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/22/2005 07:49:06 AM So, in terms of the Feds invading States via judicial review Mr. Delay is correct and not a fool? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 67.185.243.39 URL: DATE: 04/23/2005 10:55:53 AM The Septennial Acts of 1730 forbade the Courts to overrule legislative enactments. Do you suppose that the lawyers in the colonies were unaware of this? As precedent, it would seem to have, and it did, influence American judges. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/25/2005 07:57:25 PM Let's bring this up again when Josh has some time. It is well to note that the Bills of Rights in the various State prior to the adoption of the Consitution were uniformily diddled with by the various legislatures and found to be very ineffective. That was the reason, in part, why, a Bill of Rights was not thought useful, in the beginning, to be in the Constitution. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: The government made me fat! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Government CATEGORY: Government DATE: 04/19/2005 12:52:20 PM ----- BODY: The US Department of Agriculture today announced the replacement of the "food pyramid" nutritional guide with 12 new triangular guides, each for a different age group and lifestyle. (The guides should be available at MyPyramid.gov, although the web site seems to be having problems right now, possibly due to high traffic.) Frankly, I couldn't care less. Generally, people know they should eat more fruits and vegetables and less red meat and fried foods. Changing the way in which the official health nags convey this message isn't likely to have much of an impact. What I found interesting, however, was a story written yesterday in anticipation of the new guide, which included an accusation that the old pyramid was partly at fault for America's obesity epidemic because it recommended carb-laden breads & cereals as the largest food group. The accusation was made (surprise, surprise) by South Beach diet creator Dr. Arthur Agatston. But it is ridiculous for several reasons. First, how many overweight and/or obese individuals do you think got that way by faithfully obeying the USDA's nutritional guidelines? Second, eating carbs does not make you fat, just as eating fat does not make you fat. Eating more calories than your body uses is what makes you gain weight. Atkins works primarily because it is a heuristic. It's easier to reduce one's calorie intake by putting a whole category of food off-limits than by eating less of all the foods you are accustomed to. (But, hey, if it works for you, far be it from me to dissuade you.) Anyway, you can add this "food pyramid" nonsense to the ever-growing list of examples where the public tends to rely on the government to take care of them, and looks everywhere but to their own behavior when things go wrong. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 156.56.73.95 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 05:02:27 PM For what it's worth, eating a lot of starchy and sugary foods does, in my opinion, make some people (like myself) increasingly prone to overeating than if they ate the same amounts, calorie-wise of other foods, even high-fat or high-protein ones. I agree that a carb calorie isn't more or less fattening than a fat calorie. However, for some people, a carb calorie has a very different impact on your body than a fat calorie. Foods high in starches and sugars make me sleepy, and generally don't leave me feeling particularly satisfied. You eat to get energy; if you feel less energetic after eating, subconsciously you start wanting to eat again. Breads and potato/corn snacks are the worst in this, for me. I can eat them, get sleepy, sit around for an hour and then feel like "man, I need to eat again, I have no energy." So following a food pyramid that recommends eating more bread basically turns people like me into binging zombies. Even though we know instinctively that eating too much of anything makes us fatter, eating a high percentage of starchy, carb-laden foods creates a need for more food that is harder to resist. And since we're also sleepy a lot, and have little energy, we exercise less, creating a rather vicious cycle. That's why having different food pyramids for different people is actually useful. Different combinations of foods really do have different effects on different people, and raising kids with one food pyramid made it harder to convince people of that. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Balta EMAIL: balta@gps.caltech.edu IP: 131.215.67.216 URL: http://balta.blogspot.com DATE: 04/19/2005 07:13:24 PM For my part, I'm extremely skeptical of any suggestion that the food guide pyramid as it was actually contributed to the American obesity problem in any fashion, good or bad, on the simple grounds that no one paid attention to it. I think I agree with Eric on the "I couldn't care less" point, and I think a lot of people would. If they advocated eating even more grains than that, how many people would have changed their diet in the least? For my part, I doubt I'll ever even figure out which "new pyramid" I fit into. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: New Pope Chosen--Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/19/2005 12:14:04 PM ----- BODY: more to come from AP Updates: Gene Weingarten, the humorist at the Washington Post, summed up the non-Catholic, liberal-to-moderate reaction when he declared to the participants in his online chat this afternoon "OMIGOD IT'S RATZINGER!!!" Earlier, the Post's news story had been predicing that Ratzinger was out, because of his decidedly conservative tendencies. It appears that the appointment power of the late pope has preserved his theological preferences. Jason Kuznicki briefs us on two previous popes named Benedict. Additional Updates: Red-State.Com offers a brief explanation of some potential impacts on the American Church. National Catholic Reporter gives a loooong look at Ratzinger, written in 1999, before anyone took the possibility of his succeeding JPII seriously. As always, Lileks has a good sum-up of the reaction of the Rightwing Media (non-kook division): "The selection of Ratzinger was initially heartening, simply because he made the right people apoplectic. I’m still astonished that some can see a conservative elevated to the papacy and think: a man of tradition? As Pope? How could this be?" (Lileks and Weingarten, by the way, are friends--Weingarten outs Lileks as a hypochondriac of massive proportions in his first book.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 03:56:29 PM Was John Paul II conservative? I don't think this Pope is either. The ability of "journalists" to make distinctions is very limited but thank you for Jason's information. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: The French Have a Word For It STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/19/2005 11:29:46 AM ----- BODY: Zach's link below is to a blog named "papabile," Italian for "capable of being pope." The Italian language is surprisingly rich, and difficult to translate: gelato, for instance, is usually rendered as "ice cream" in English, though it has as much relation to ice cream as a Maserati to a Mercury. In other papal vocabulary-building news, I wanted to share the word papolatrie from France. To judge from news coverage recently, it is a disease to which the global media is particularly susceptible. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Zach Wendling TITLE: There's a Blog for Everything STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Faith CATEGORY: Faith DATE: 04/19/2005 11:11:50 AM ----- BODY: I doubt we'll be doing the play-by-play on the Conclave at the Vatican here in The Agora, but for those of you who are truly junkies, you can go to, I kid you not, a blog about the election of the new Bishop of Rome: papabile.blogspot.com. (via Boar's Head Tavern) They've been going since Easter. Not being in the Roman Church, I don't have a horse in this race. But in so far as the Bishop of Rome has indirect effects on all of Christendom, I suppose I'd like to see a conservative pontiff . . . though I don't particularly like Ratzinger, the reported frontrunner. Addendum: Yet another blog: Virtual Conclave. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 04:00:26 PM What's not to like? It is not a job he wanted-he has tried to retire for years and years. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: NKOTB STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2005 02:06:31 PM ----- BODY: The Indianapolis Star has debuted a new blog for its opinion staff. Of course, they haven't quite got the hang of it yet:

• Nobody has yet referred to George Bush as "Chimpy" or "Hitler."
• Nobody has called the Democrats "obstructionist" or Ann Coulter "well-read."
• Number of references to The Fountainhead: Zero.
• Number of pop-culture references used as headlines: Also zero.

We trust they will become more like the rest of the blogosphere soon. Update: They have now acquired their first "git-tuff" commenters (from left and right, it appears). Yes, there's nothing like the death of an innocent to advance your rhetorical purposes...especially for people with pseudonyms. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/19/2005 01:19:14 AM And not one use of "heh" or "indeed." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 07:05:11 AM Isn't it disrespectful to ignore jury findings? And, by the way, who is innocent? On what basis did you conclude that and by ignoring how many mountains of evidence and hundreds of thousands of dollars of "the people's" money? There is more than a whiff of arrogance in this last post that does not become you-you are better than that. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 07:13:07 AM Unless juvenile delinquency starts early in Afghanistan, I'm pretty sure the kid was innocent. Next time follow the link in the post. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Foltz EMAIL: IP: 144.160.5.25 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 10:01:33 AM It certainly started early for me... I thought my name was Nojeramy until I was 4. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 10:18:41 AM Correct. Old Navy Boss saying about why underlings ought not to assume things....because it will make an ass out of you and me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Eric Seymour EMAIL: eric_seymour@yahoo.com IP: 155.91.19.73 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 01:22:35 PM What's a "git-tuff" commenter? From the context, I gather it is something like an anti-sentimentalist? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: "The Roads to Serfdom" STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2005 11:55:48 AM ----- BODY: In addition to the article on New York's subways cited in the post below, I also want to point out Theodore Dalrymple's "The Roads to Serfdom" in this quarter's City Journal. All of Dalrymple is worth your attention, and this piece demonstrates why (even if it is a bit unfair to Orwell, whose 1984 clearly showed that he understood the dangers of central control, even if The Lion and The Unicorn was a bit pink). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: A Steve EMAIL: sda9@cornell.spam.edu IP: 209.2.145.27 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 01:24:23 PM That was a really good article. There are few motivations so powerful as a legitimate fear of failure. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Elf M. Sternberg EMAIL: elf.sternberg@speakeasy.net IP: 65.101.129.58 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 05:54:11 PM Poor Theo. Ever since he retired, the bite has become more abstract. When he was a prison physician, his daily litanies of what he saw and how it made him think (rather than feel) was powerful stuff. Still, this was a great article.

But if you want to encounter pure Darymple, read all the way back to the beginning. His meditation on why people whom the state grants food, water, housing, clothing and even entertainment still attempt suicide probably did more to affect my view of the welfare state than anything else I've read in the past decade.

Read him. All of him. It's more than just pointing and being outraged.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 06:00:44 PM Ah, I have read all (at least most) of Theo--hence the comment in my post about "all of Dalrymple is worth your attention." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Elf M. Sternberg EMAIL: elf.sternberg@speakeasy.net IP: 65.101.129.58 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 07:02:32 PM My apologies, Paul. I was already under the impression (from that very aside of yours) that you had. I just wanted to echo your endorsement and encourage others. Very few people have the grounds-eye view Dalrymple has had. It's worth seeing. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 07:22:41 PM No offense. Just wanted to clarify. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 05:12:40 AM Good selection! ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Dirigisme and Stubborn Individualism STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2005 11:37:57 AM ----- BODY: The best twenty minutes you will spend today is reading "The Use of Knowledge in Society", F.A. Hayek's 1945 article on why central planning at the macroeconomic level will always encounter difficulties and will fail in the long run. (For those of you with JSTOR access, the original is available from American Economic Review Vol. 35 No. 4, 519-530.) The basis of Hayek's argument against central planning as an economic tool is the difficulty of aggregating all the essential knowledge to formulate plans. A long excerpt is worthwhile:

[T]he knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate "given" resources--if "given" is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these "data." It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.

As Hayek explains, 'central planning' means planning done by one person or group, while the market is a means of fostering decentralized planning, in which individuals act upon their own knowledge of their interests and local conditions. It is precisely this sort of knowledge--local knowledge, including concepts from individual preferences to on-the-job learning--that is so difficult for the central planner to discern and utilize. And, as Hayek points out, this knowledge is not subordinate to the knowledge made explicit in statistical reports and textbooks; often, indeed, the relationship is the reverse. Today's Washington Post runs an article inadvertently vindicating Hayek. The government, when deciding where to place highways and so forth, relies upon models of traffic flow that assume that the morning commute is more predictable and stable than the evening commute (when people are apt to tack on errands to their daily routine, and so vary their time for returning home). But it turns out that the American commuter isn't playing according to the rules of the model. Behind the changes in commuting pattern: The power of the latte. ----- EXTENDED BODY: A government researcher with the Department of Transportation has determined that increased variation in commuters' routines is positively correlated--and plausibly caused by--a shift in preferences favoring breakfast fast-food restaurants and coffeehouses such as Starbucks. The company, with a better knowledge of local conditions, has long since adapted to the demand, the Post reports:

Restaurants catering to the breakfast crowd usually make sure they're on the right side of the street for the morning traffic flow. In some cases, Starbucks will have two locations across the street from each other to accommodate traffic patterns in both directions, company spokesman Alan Hilowitz said.

But the government is less sanguine about the changes: "How do we predict future travel when commercial and social interactions like this can surprise us?" one Transportation Department employee asks the Post. The plaint of the central planner, like the cry of the loon, pierces the morning. This is, of course, a serious matter. It is difficult for roadways to be allocated through market mechanisms--libertarian fantasies aside, how exactly are we going to get freeways built without some sort of government? (Eco-libertarians are free to point out that we might not need those highways, anyway, but I'm sceptical.) Government interference in the transportation sector, of course, causes problems: City Journal has an excellent article on the history and future of New York City's subways and suburban rail lines that implicates politics in the underfunding and poor condition of the MTA's most visible assets. The major problem, she diagnoses, has been the politically-fixed mandate for too-low fares to sustain the subway lines. A journey that costs $3 to $4, for instance, is priced at a "mere" $1.30. (I should note, though, that author Nicole Gelinas is practically alone among observers--who aren't paid by the Labour Government--in praising the Blairite policy of partially privatising the Underground.) This is a conundrum. Government won't get out of the way--politically, at least, there's no chance of it--and government can't provide an optimal solution to the mess it's created. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Richard Mathews EMAIL: sowellfan@gmail.com IP: 65.15.127.2 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 12:28:41 PM People might also want to check out Thomas Sowell's excellent book, "Knowledge and Decisions". It's somewhat slow to read, but it's an excellent book. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: allen claxton EMAIL: claxton6+mt@gmail.com IP: 68.255.247.53 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 12:40:23 PM Leaving aside whether this is a vindication of Hayek, it's useful to note that the kind of planning being done by the DOT in placing highways isn't the only way to do it. In fact, a big criticism of how they do their planning is that they have huge, expensive (in time, money, and data) models to do these predictions which, yes, are nowhere near nimble enough. However, that's not the only way to do it. The DOT could also develop models that were quicker and easier to create and run, that focused and short and mid term planning, rather than long-term, and so become more flexible in responding to changing conditions. Now, it may be that bureaucracies tend to default to clumsy long-term planning, but that's not a necessity. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 03:17:49 PM The best two minutes spent will be at the bottom of the article, Liberty Press, Liberty Fund, a good place to bookmark for inexpensive great books. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Terry J. Record EMAIL: trecord@siu.edu IP: 131.230.41.7 URL: http://www.law.siu.edu DATE: 04/18/2005 04:47:57 PM Allen, I take your comment as an endorsement of INDOT's decision to disunite the Tier II study phase of Interstate 69 (ISU3) into 6 study segments? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Cameron Moser EMAIL: IP: 129.79.237.212 URL: http://www.pronovation.com DATE: 04/19/2005 03:10:06 PM Am I the only one who appreciates the nearness of the Hayek post by Musgrave with the post above it whose article has the same title as one of Hayek's most famous, and brilliant, works. I am a fan of Hayek's works, as it deals well with how to develop a means to live with uncertainty. I see it all too often used to justify decisions whose logic is based along the lines of "we can't know everything, so we know nothing," or "we can't fix the whole issue due to incomplete knowledge, so let it fester." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 04:05:56 PM Hayek's book also has the virtue of being short. It is hard for folks today to realize what an intellectual shock wave he created with that little book. Good post. I think Liberty Fund carries Hayek inexpensively. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 07:10:35 PM Mises, also,was the source, I think, for Hayek's proof. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: A Note on Jurisprudence STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2005 09:13:56 AM ----- BODY: Those of ITA's readers who enjoy jurisprudential debates have been sated in recent days. To punctuate the current lull in the discussion--a semicolon more than a period, I think--I offere these thoughts from the Fafblog:

Everything old is new again!...The Supreme Court announces that precedent is stuffy and old. From now on they will write from their hearts! Their decision in McGinnis v. United Cornbread is a collection of relatively well-received free-verse poetry.

More, from Fafnir. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Adam Tierney TITLE: Where else but the brain? Part two STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2005 03:23:49 AM ----- BODY: I'd like to revisit the attempt I made a little while ago to open some dialogue regarding how the discoveries of modern brain science might plausibly be reconciled with a belief in the soul, and the possible consequences such a reconciliation might have for our decisions regarding a number of difficult issues. I made the mistake of using the Schiavo case as my jumping off point, and as a result the discussion almost immediately centered itself around the particulars of that case, which was not my intention; I would much rather get a sense for exactly what our readers believe about the brain, the mind, the soul, and the relations between these three things, whatever they might be. In this post, therefore, I'm going to revisit my argument, and then examine the impact it might have on the moral issue of biomedical cloning. ----- EXTENDED BODY: As I argued in that piece, the most reasonable way to define the boundaries of human life is by using the condition of the brain as a reference point. One is human inasmuch as one has a functioning human brain. This position is not intrinsically opposed to belief in the soul; in fact, for the remainder of this post I'm going to assume that the soul exists, some sort of extra-dimensional ghostly substance that contains your essence, and which will live on after your death. Nevertheless, even given the existence of this mysterious non-matter, we need to account for the fact that damage to the brain can cause the erasure of particular cognitive functions; for example, patients with damage to particular parts of the visual areas of the brain are rendered unable to detect movement, or see colors. The only even remotely philosophically satisfying way to account for this is to suggest, as Descartes did, that the soul communicates with the brain somehow, and that any functions lost as one's brain is destroyed will be restored to you when you move on to your next station in life, or meta-life. That's all well and good, you might respond, but when does the soul actually fuse with the brain? There is no obvious point in the development of the fetus when the brain makes a quantum leap from mere automaton to functioning human; instead, the neural connections are gradually extended and pruned as the brain grows. I have no satisfactory answer to this question, and as a result I'm simply going to say that at some point, between when the fetus has no brain (up to about 21 days) and when the fetus is fully developed, the soul somehow makes contact with the organism and it becomes a person. Up to that point, no matter how much our senses may be fooled into thinking that the fetus resembles a person, it is a soulless clump of matter. When, at the end of life, the cerebral cortex no longer functions, the soul has already left the body; again, though, it's impossible to say when exactly that might happen. (I should mention, to be honest, that I do not actually believe the soul exists, and am merely laying out this argument for the purpose of discussion.) It turns out that, if you agree with the argument that I just laid out, logic dictates that biomedical cloning should be unobjectionable. The subject of cloning is fraught with misunderstandings, and as a result I'm going to lay out a few basic facts before I proceed. There are two main types of cloning, reproductive and biomedical. During reproductive cloning, an egg is first removed from a woman. The nucleus is then taken out of the egg, and a somatic cell is placed into the enucleated egg. The egg grows into a blastocyst; this blastocyst is implanted into a woman, and it eventually grows into a full-fledged human being. During biomedical cloning, the egg is enucleated, a somatic cell is placed inside the egg, and a blastocyst develops, but the blastocyst is discarded before it can mature any further, after it has been harvested for stem cells. Reproductive cloning is clearly objectionable. Not only do the products of reproductive cloning face health risks such as premature aging and other problems, but they are also, well, "products." Some basic instinct tells us that human beings should be born, not made, and as such nearly everyone finds this variety of cloning morally repugnant. During biomedical cloning, however, the only casualties are 14-day-old blastocysts which contain as of yet literally no brain. Is a blastocyst really morally equivalent to a full-grown human being? If an organism without a brain is destroyed, can a soul possibly be destroyed along with it? One comment rebuttal to this argument is the potentiality argument; that a blastocyst could, if implanted inside a mother, become a human being. For my first response, I'm going to borrow from the neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, who gave a talk at the University of California in San Diego that spawned much of this post. Home Depot has the materials for 30 houses. If it burned to the ground, would you lament that 30 houses burned down, or that Home Depot was incinerated? Second, it would be fairly trivial to insert instructions into the blastocyst's genetic code instructing it to automatically self-destruct after 14 days. Such a blastocyst could not ever be a human being; would this be less objectionable? Finally, a very large percentage of normal fertilizations (30-80%) spontaneously abort. Are we really to believe that God destroys more than half of the souls he creates before they literally see the light of day? Given that In the Agora's readers come from a wide variety of ideological backgrounds, I would be very interested to know if this moral stance could be acceptable to most of you or, barring that, how it could be altered to accommodate both the scientific evidence and the moral and spiritual currents running through our society. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/18/2005 09:22:45 AM Adam wrote:

During biomedical cloning, however, the only casualties are 14-day-old blastocysts which contain as of yet literally no brain. Is a blastocyst really morally equivalent to a full-grown human being? If an organism without a brain is destroyed, can a soul possibly be destroyed along with it?

The answer, to me, is clearly no. But I would also point out that if one believes in an extra-material soul that separates from the body at the point of death and continues on for eternity, a soul can't be destroyed anyway, so it seems to me that whether stem cell research is thought to "destroy a soul" is irrelevant to the question of whether it's a good idea or not. Then again, I think almost all of the arguments against stem cell research are irrelevant to that question, for many of the reasons that you point out.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: andy EMAIL: andybud@worldwiderant.com IP: 205.169.191.251 URL: http://www.worldwiderant.com DATE: 04/18/2005 10:42:01 AM Being one of those who doesn't believe in the soul and who finds arguments such as "the soul interacts with the brain" (without any evidence for such) to be specious, I can't add much to what you've said above. I do, however, question this:

Reproductive cloning is clearly objectionable. Not only do the products of reproductive cloning face health risks such as premature aging and other problems, but they are also, well, "products." Some basic instinct tells us that human beings should be born, not made, and as such nearly everyone finds this variety of cloning morally repugnant.

I'm not sure that's much of an argument (even though I am against reproductive cloning, I'm not sure there's a logical reason to be if the technology evolves). Even "normal" tab-A-in-slot-B reproduction brings risks; not every baby is born a picture of health. I suspect that medical technology will address more and more of these issues in the future, for both normal reproduction and cloning (if permitted). Regarding the instinctual feeling that reproductive cloning is wrong (and which I would concur exists in many if not most people), I don't believe that's a "good" reason for being opposed. A similar claim could be put forth against something such as interracial marriage (or gay marriage for that matter). Further, if part of your argument is that the child produced is a "product," are you inferring they have less worth than a child produced the old-fashioned way? Just playing Devil's advocate. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Elf M. Sternberg EMAIL: elf.sternberg@speakeasy.net IP: 65.101.129.58 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 11:37:03 AM I think the Home Depot analogy is terrible: one does not think of a dinner table setting as a "potential human being" either, but that's the level of the Home Depot analogy. A Home Depot is input into the process of constructing a home; it is not the construction of a home. A better analogy is a house half-constructed, and yes, people do mourn the loss of productivity that such destruction represents but, in fairness, it is not a "home" yet; it has not been occupied by the people who give it, for lack of a better word, its soul. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.65.31 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 12:13:29 PM "I would much rather get a sense for exactly what our readers believe about the brain, the mind, the soul, and the relations between these three things, whatever they might be." My belief is that I don't even begin to know what the mind or the soul are, no matter how much I understand about biology or brain chemistry. Rather than profess belief or disbelief, I have to be honest, and profess my complete ignorance as to such matters. Also, I can't see how poking around inside people's heads to measure the size of their cerebral cortex gets us any closer to finding the "soul." In either case, all we're observing is our own perception of the physical characteristics of the body. To me the primary fear of human cloning is that we can't trust ourselves to create life, because we can't be trusted to treat life we create as we would like to be treated. And I don't think you can argue otherwise, especially in a society where the primary moral code is pursuit of profit. The fact is that we exploit the hell out of every life form we can find a way to exploit. There is absolutely no sane argument that we won't do the same with life we create ourselves. Cloning will be even more horrific, because there is no safety valve of extinction. Once you can create as many humans as you want, with whatever characteristics you want, humans will become as individually valuable as the domesticated chicken. Arguing about whether or not a human has a "soul" doesn't get to the real point: Whether we have "souls" or not, the fact is we can't be trusted to create other human beings. Sadly, there's no one to enforce that moral truth, and we're going to do it anyway. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Don Curtis EMAIL: nbchesed@bellsouth.net IP: 65.6.147.99 URL: http://nbchesed.blogspot.com DATE: 04/18/2005 02:21:08 PM Although certainly not close to any formal treatise on such a subject, you might find this brief article of interest Star Trek--Star Gate--Timeline and Evidence for the Soul ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 03:30:54 PM There is a rather complete discussion of this very matter in the Indiana Legislature's hearings on their bill to ban both cloning and embryonic stem cell research while leaving,I think, other stem cell research intact. The bill passed with broad support in the House 80 to 15. Adult stem cell science has over 100 "cures" to date while the other has none. As to the soul, I heard about it in St. Paul's Epistle reading Sunday and the Greeks before him discussed the soul perhaps a 1,000 years before him. How far back does human knowledge on this subject go? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Will EMAIL: IP: 24.74.230.237 URL: http://rowuncw.blogspot.com DATE: 04/18/2005 03:37:08 PM I tend to agree with Adam in that the connections between body, mind, and soul (if the latter does in fact exist) is one of ideology as opposed to science. Even if one subscribes to the notion of an extramaterial soul, such a belief is reconcilable with the stance that a human is no longer such if the brain stops functioning at a meaningful level. There are many intricacies to this argument and Adam does a great job of laying the basics out. I would like to see more discussion on this at ITA in the future! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: c matt EMAIL: cmatt@msn.com IP: 68.90.56.1 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 04:09:26 PM One problem with the way the question is presented is that it assumes there is no connection between the soul and body prior to brain function (or without it) while at the same time conceding it can not be determined. It seems there are two equally possible states - the soul makes contact with the body at conception and stays until natural death, or the soul makes contact at brain function, and remains only so long as brain function remains. To take the Home Depot analogy a little further, it is the equivalent of destroying a "half built" house without knowing whether the family is in there or not, and a real possiblity that it is. As for not being able to destroy a soul, that would also make murder of anyone perfectly moral - after all, you can't destroy their soul, all you are doing is separating the soul from the body - no different in principle from the ESCR. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dr Mike EMAIL: eternalperspectives@gmail.com IP: 24.250.185.204 URL: http://nonprophetchurch.blogspot.com/ DATE: 04/18/2005 07:31:13 PM I would disagree with Will's comment, "the connections between body, mind, and soul (if the latter does in fact exist) is one of ideology as opposed to science." It is a matter of one ideology (supernaturalism) in opposition to another ideology (naturalism). Science maintains that the world is a closed system, which is a metaphysical statement. That is fine, if that is what one believes, but it should be acknowledged as a belief rather than a verifiable truth. Science/naturalism rules out supernaturalism by definition - again, this is fine - but does so as a presupposition, not as a conclusion based on incontrovertible proof. Again, it is simply a matter of one ideology or worldview in opposition to another. Both are a matter of faith. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 07:32:41 PM Although different kinds of faith, if you can call them that: The minister and the physicist are doing different things with their "faiths." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dr Mike EMAIL: eternalperspectives@gmail.com IP: 24.250.185.204 URL: http://nonprophetchurch.blogspot.com/ DATE: 04/18/2005 08:30:58 PM Paul: Maybe. Can you elaborate? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you; I'm just not sure what you're saying. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: erico EMAIL: IP: 70.58.10.236 URL: http://convoid.blogspot.com DATE: 04/19/2005 03:45:44 AM The danger of your supposition about the soul haunting the regions of the brain is that it is thin on understanding what Christianity actually understands, is perhaps a straw man argument that is easy to knock down, that will marginalize the concerns of Christians. I hesitate to give you more ammunition. You may wish to consider the Aristotelian/Thomist understanding of a hypostatic union of form (soul) and matter in man, which is not subject to the "ghost in the machine" conceptualization. Also, David Hart wrote an article covering some of the historical/scriptural understanding of the human person, here. He comments on the 'hard' dualism of enlightenment thought:

This is in fact a peculiarly modern view of the matter, not much older than the 17th-century philosophy of Descartes. While it is now the model to which most of us habitually revert when talking about the soul--whether we believe in such things or not--it has scant basis in either Christian or Jewish tradition. The "living soul" of Scripture is the whole corporeal and spiritual totality of a person whom the breath of God has wakened to life. Thomas Aquinas, interpreting centuries of Christian and pagan metaphysics, defined the immortal soul as the "form of the body," the vital power animating, pervading, shaping an individual from the moment of conception, drawing all the energies of life into a unity. This is not to deny that, for Christian tradition, the soul transcends and survives the earthly life of the body. It is only to say that the soul, rather than being a kind of "guest" within the self, is instead the underlying mystery of a life in its fullness. In it the multiplicity of experience is knit into a single continuous and developing identity. It encompasses all the dimensions of human existence: animal functions and abstract intellect, sensation and reason, emotion and reflection, flesh and spirit, natural aptitude and supernatural longing. As such, it grants us an openness to the world of which no other creature is capable, allowing us to take in reality through feeling and thought, recognition and surprise, will and desire, memory and anticipation, imagination and curiosity, delight and sorrow, invention and art. The fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nyssa calls the soul a "living mirror" in which all things shine, so immense in its capacity that it can, when turned toward the light of God, grow eternally in an ever greater embrace of divine beauty. For the seventh-century theologian Maximus the Confessor, the human soul is the "boundary" between material and spiritual reality--heaven and earth--and so constitutes a microcosm that joins together, in itself, all the spheres of being. I doubt even the dogmatic materialists among us are wholly insensible to the miraculous oddity that in the midst of organic nature there exists a creature so exorbitantly in excess of what material causality could possibly adumbrate, a living mirror where all splendors gather, an animal who is also a creative and interpretive being with a longing for eternity. Whether one is willing to speak of a "rational soul" or not, there is obviously an irreducible mystery here, one that commands our reverence.

Finally, I recommend looking into Bernard Lonergan's thought on the matter. I quoted at length from his work, Insight, on your prior post, 'happiness is not a module' with regard to vitalism. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 07:12:20 AM Lonergan and Hart in the same post! Knowledge of souls prior to 1996? Erico is well read in this area. It does pay, for science as well, to get back to Aquinas. Being does precede essence. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chuck EMAIL: cpkuntz@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 165.138.228.30 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 09:44:04 AM As a man of science with some Christian sensibilities, the only way I can think of to reconcile the concept of an "immortal soul" with modern neuroscience and evolutionary psychology is the hope that the information content of the extraordinary arrangement of physical matter we call the brain that gives rise to consciousness, emotion, language, and the other faculties unique to the mind of man, could in some sense be preserved by a being with infinite information-processing power after that magnificently ordered structure has ceased to be in the cosmos we can measure. I fear that being may be the observable universe itself, however, which we know thanks to modern cosmology does not have infinite information processing power. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chuck EMAIL: cpkuntz@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 165.139.43.38 URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=2&articleID=000E555C-4387-1237-81CB83414B7FFE9F DATE: 04/19/2005 09:34:51 PM On a somewhat unrelated note, I thought I'd pass along this gem from Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=2&articleID=000E555C-4387-1237-81CB83414B7FFE9F ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tierney EMAIL: atierney@cogsci.ucsd.edu IP: 66.75.51.133 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 03:36:31 AM I'm back! Sorry, school interfered with blogging. "In it the multiplicity of experience is knit into a single continuous and developing identity. It encompasses all the dimensions of human existence: animal functions and abstract intellect, sensation and reason, emotion and reflection, flesh and spirit, natural aptitude and supernatural longing." That all sounds nice, but I'm not sure what, if anything, it's saying. So the soul is the sum total of human existence; that's great, but all of those functions mentioned (animal functions, abstract intellect, sensation, reason, etc.) can be found in the brain; this can be seen from the fact that they can each be destroyed, separately, if parts of the brain are destroyed. How can this possibly be reconciled with the belief that the soul somehow resides in "the body"? "You may wish to consider the Aristotelian/Thomist understanding of a hypostatic union of form (soul) and matter in man, which is not subject to the "ghost in the machine" conceptualization." I'm trying to meet you halfway by eliminating jargon when I talk about neuroscience (and believe me, if I wanted, I could turn the jargon up to 11), so it'd be nice if you'd do the same when you talk about religion. Just an honest request. "The fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nyssa calls the soul a "living mirror" in which all things shine," You can say the same thing about the brain, and Emily Dickenson did: "The brain is wider than the sky, For, but them side by side, The one the other will contain With ease, and you beside. The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue, The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tierney EMAIL: atierney@cogsci.ucsd.edu IP: 66.75.51.133 URL: DATE: 04/21/2005 03:40:49 AM "a soul can't be destroyed anyway" ...touche. I should have caught that while editing, because that statement clearly makes no sense. I meant, of course, that the soul's ties to the body are cut, and it flies off to its next station, whatever that might be. Not being religious myself, I'm not clear on the details. "Even "normal" tab-A-in-slot-B reproduction brings risks; not every baby is born a picture of health." Yes, and in addition to these normal risks cloned organisms have to suffer additional risks that drastically lower their life spans. "A better analogy is a house half-constructed" A fourteen-day blastocyst is not a house half-constructed. If anything, it is two boards nailed together, surrounded by enough material to make a house. Oh, and the boards are lying on a blueprint for the house, and there are robots around who can read the blueprint and build the house. Seeing that this image, while perhaps corresponding better to the real world, is starting to lose clarity, I'll stick to my Home Depot analogy, thanks, which wasn't really that far off. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/24/2005 11:00:01 PM Call it whatever you want it is alive and it is human. You were one once. ----- PING: TITLE: Science and the soul URL: http://rowuncw.blogspot.com/2005/04/science-and-soul.html IP: 72.9.234.70 BLOG NAME: The Journal DATE: 04/18/2005 04:15:34 PM Adam Tierney has a really interesting post over at In the Agora about brain science and the existence of the soul. His argument is basically that a belief in the soul is indeed reconcilable with modern brain science, particularly in the sense of what... ----- PING: TITLE: The Brain on His Mind URL: http://eternalperspectives.com/2005/04/18/the-brain-on-his-mind/ IP: 72.9.234.70 BLOG NAME: Eternal Perspectives DATE: 04/18/2005 06:26:24 PM Adam goes on to argue for the appropriateness of biomedical cloning. His conclusion notwithstanding, however, it is important to investigate his premise closely and - more importantly - to examine his anthropology biblically. Such scrutiny, I am c... ----- PING: TITLE: The Body and The Soul URL: http://www.positiveliberty.com/2005/04/body-and-soul.html IP: 72.9.234.70 BLOG NAME: Positive Liberty DATE: 04/18/2005 09:34:23 PM As a nonbeliever, I find that the gradual erasure of cognitive, emotional, and sensory functions is absolutely the strongest argument against the permanence of the soul. If the soul is our cognitive or emotive faculty, then the soul is self-evidentl... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Paul Musgrave TITLE: Township Government in Marion County STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/17/2005 06:26:00 PM ----- BODY: The Indianapolis Star today reminds its readers that one part of Mayor Bart Peterson's "Indianapolis Works!" plan is long overdue: The consolidation of township governments in Marion County. As the Star summarizes the problems: Township governments are inefficient, unsupervised, nepotistic, and wasteful. I have written before about township government in Indiana (here, here, here and here) and my reaction, like that of nearly everyone (save, principally, township officials and employees) to this layer of local government is exactly the same as the Star's. It has long been recognized that large parts of Indiana's constitution need a serious overhaul (see this pamphlet, for instance; many of its concerns have only recently been addressed). Township government is perhaps not the most urgent area where reform is needed, but it is certainly in the top five--or even the top three. In the urban counties and the suburban ones, it is nearly a superfluous level of government; even in the most rural counties, where the other layers of government are weakest, it is almost so unneeded or (alternatively) so grossly inefficient (or even corrupt) that any other scheme of government we could devise could do the job better. Why do townships survive? Like nearly all instances of a minor or medium damage to the public good enduring across generations and legislative sessions, it is because of the enduring interest of one particular class of highly-organized and energetic citizens. In this case, it is those same township assessors, trustees, trustee-assessors and their employees and dependents. (Often, these two categories are combined in township offices.) Few in Indiana know or care about their townships; those who know townships best--the poor and the landowning--have a complicated, and not necessarily disadvantageous, relationship with their townships. Major landowners, in particular, are likely to reach cozy arrangements with their township assessor in certain townships. And because of this widespread ignorance, there is no real call for reform. It has taken a fiscal crisis for Indianapolis, alone among Indiana's local governments, to ask the legislature for major changes to the structure of local government. Peterson's plan is not quite perfect, but it is close to being an ideal model for other localities (Monroe, for instance) where one city dominates the rest of the county. In rural or suburban counties, it is likely that a different method of reform will be useful in order to ensure the delivery of needed services. But Indiana will be able to look to the rest of the Union--almost, in fact, the entire country--to find suitable models for reform. Townships linger on, nearly two hundred years old by now, and fifty years at least past doing anything useful that couldn't be done more efficiently by other units of government, actual or potential. Rarely does a state have a chance to peaceably legislate out of existence one of the special interests that dominate their discussion. This is such an occasion. It is too late for Indiana's citizens to ask for such a sweeping change this year--but there is still one session left before an election to hold legislators to account. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 08:16:12 AM Balance would seem to require informing about Mr. Hinkle's position (also in the Star)that the Peterson numbers are a hoax. While looking at reformation do not neglect all of the findings of the Government Efficiency Commission. And, be sure to pay attention, as UniGov II does not, to the unit cost of government service provided to ensure that the unit cost is lower rather than higher. A careful reading of the Peterson Plan II, (that would be his political pro forma offered to the voters)will confirm the difficulty of holding office holders to account. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 09:12:57 AM As a general rule, it is appropriate for those dissenting to actually make an argument instead of pointing to shadowy studies and ethereal estimates. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dave Norris EMAIL: dnorris24@sbcglobal.net IP: 69.208.137.202 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 02:22:28 PM I find your entry unpersuasive but am willing to be persuaded. As I understand it, dwindling revenues, ambitious civic projects and IPS funding issues continue to hound the Petersen administration. His answer? Eliminate a layer of government that seemingly contributes nothing to the problem of Indianapolis's affairs. Even if I misunderstand the issue somewhat, or oversimplify, allow me to forward an argument against this proposal by making an even more simple suggestion - If eliminating levels of government is good, why do we need an Indianapolis government? Why not consolidate all municipal functions into the state's framework? Better yet, why not consolidate all into the national government? Saves money....supposedly. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 02:55:36 PM I have neither the time nor the space to explain the case fully here. The links I provide at the top of the piece and to the Woodburn pamphlet in the second paragraph give more detail. Your slippery slope argument is, as usual, fallacious. The argument against townships is not that "consolidation is always good" but rather that townships are specifically bad at the job they do, for all the reasons listed elsewhere. Worse, they are not held accountable to voters, because of their position as relatively obscure agencies rarely taken seriously by either the media or the electorate. The simple ignorance of most voters about the responsibilities, abilities, and even the identities of their township officials adds to this. Moreover, while it is easy to adduce reasons for the continued existence of municipal governments (although less so for the current county structure as constituted--92 administrative subdivisions is an awful lot; but this is an objection to a specific arrangement, not to a principle), it is difficult to see what functions of government are best performed locally. Welfare provision? Unlikely--the tax base is too small and the diseconomies of scale too great. Tax assessment? Mostly contracted out. The regulation of dog licenses (one of the powers, if things haven't changed in the past ten years, of the township advisory boards)? No. Townships in Indiana have been steadily whittled away, from the combination of the township and assessor positions in the early 1930s to the elimination of (most) township schools in the consolidation era to the demise (long overdue) of justices of the peace and constables in the 70s. The administrative structure to take over their duties at a level where they will be better supervised, more efficiently discharged, and ultimately more accountable to the voters exists; it is only a question of legislative will. To take your counterfactual on its face, by the way, I might easily ask why we don't continue the principle of local government such that each neighborhood--no, each block--no, each family--has its own government responsible for certain powers. Such arrangements have been tried before (the Chinese relied on such expedients for a very long time) but they are ultimately unworkable and breed only corruption, cruelty or pettiness. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 03:41:55 PM Mr. Hinkle's article appears in the same Indianapolis Star which you provide a link for. It is in the April 18 issue. The findings of the Efficiency Commission are hardly shadowy-you can even order the disc and it will cure any insomnia you may have acquired. Mr. Hinkle suggests, as do a great many others, that he would like the "real impact" of Indy Works to be understood and he would like questions answered which he and other legislators have posed. Can you provide a link to his article for your readers? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Foltz EMAIL: IP: 68.255.118.92 URL: DATE: 04/18/2005 09:17:54 PM Mr Dixon are you uncapable of cutting a pasting a simple link yourself? Can you not master this basic tenet of using the internet? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dave Norris EMAIL: dnorris24@sbcglobal.net IP: 69.208.137.202 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 11:32:51 AM A simple response to a simple inquiry. When I look at the issue it boils down to "townships do a bad job of governance and Indianapolis Municipal government will do better"...or something to that effect. I submit that there is no evidence to back up this assertion. Mismanagement, poor responsiveness and questionable if not non-existent civic planning reveal themselves in the many problems Indianapolis faces today. What I want from a city government is fire and police protection, clean, safe streets, sewer and garbage service, a competent administrative staff to handle these duties and a controlling authority for contract enforcement and development standards. Sounds like a township entity to me. What I don't want from my city government is another layer of corporate welfare and an educational system bent over so far backwards by union interests that it's capacity for improvement and change is rendered meaningless. Taking away what is admittedly a misunderstood and oftentimes ineffective level of government sounds easy but remember that once it's gone truly local government in Indianapolis is gone forever. It's similar to a business decision to break off with a troublesome customer. It's easy to blow them away but pretty damn hard to get new ones. I appreciate your response, very kind of you. But your attempt at turning my point on it's head for demonstrating it's absurdity is as fallacious as my original assertion. This isn't a slippery slope argument. It's just hard for me to determine how it is that some people are so damn sure they're right about where to draw the line. It is no more absurd to look to a consolidation of all govermental functions at a national level than it is to merely cut them off at this or that point. Democracy means little to me personally and a benign monarchy would probably do us just as well in our daily lives. But if you believe in democracy then the erosion or elimination of local authority is counter to your principles. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 11:41:53 AM Apart from the flag-waving reasons and gushy moralisms, there are solid pragmatic grounds on which to support democratic rule and liberal government; as Sen notes, for instance, a ruling class whose interests are forcibly aligned with those of the population, broadly defined, will be unlikely to allow a famine, in contrast to a dictatorial regime. Posner goes through democratic reasoning in some detail in his Breaking the Deadlock, but it's dry and beyond my competence to summarize here. This is not an "Indianapolis" question, except insofar as IndyWorks gets us closer to a rational statewide reorganization of an obsolete system. The list of responsibilities you assign to your local government, furthermore, is far beyond the capability of any township government, and even if capable, we wouldn't want the townships to assume those responsibilities, because there is neither the media oversight nor the electoral institutions to support proper governance at the township level. And, in fact, were the townships capable of doing all of that, there would still be the question of how large a township should be--and the answer simply must be "larger than two or three thousand people" (or less), which is the size of a great many of Indiana's thousand-plus townships. (Anyway, what would we do with the more-competent, better-supervised, and better-constructed institutions of county and municipal governance were townships to assume these functions?) Mismanagement, inefficiency, and all the other ills of Indianapolis's unified government are continuing problems, although they are not unique, even to the public sector. There are many institutional reasons for those ills. However, at the township level, things are worse, and will continue to be worse, because the logic of the system allows an entrenched and obscure class of officeholders to provide bad service at horrendous cost in order to fulfill outdated duties. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 04:13:16 PM Hmm. Miseducation eats a large % of the 56% of the total Indiana budget. In comparison, townships are peanuts. I could see a reform of townships but they look like a smoke screen to divert attention from where tax dollars are willfully burned for no good reason. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mack Simmons EMAIL: sevenmack@eudoramail.com IP: 67.38.47.229 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 09:05:58 PM "I submit that there is no evidence to back up this assertion. Mismanagement, poor responsiveness and questionable if not non-existent civic planning reveal themselves in the many problems Indianapolis faces today." Apparently you haven't been reading what's been written in the last three weeks. Townships seem to have numerous problems: * Township governments are wasteful charity operators: Warren Township, as the Star noted in its March 28 editorial, wastes 65 cents of every poor relief dollar on overhead; the rest actually goes to charity. Lawrence spent 61 cents of every dollar on overhead according to an April 11 editorial (which you can find at http://www2.indystar.com/articles/8/235886-4988-021.html); Center spent 66 cents of every dollar on overhead. Forbes magazine's William Barrett, the leading expert on charitable efficiency, notes that good charities spend less than 15 cents per dollar on overhead. * Spotty book-keeping: The Star's March 27 editorial details results of audits by the State Board of Accounts. And they're not pretty: "• In Wayne Township, the Board of Accounts found that several payments lacked supporting documentation such as receipts or invoices. Pricing for others "did not match" the invoices on hand and several purchases didn't appear either to have been authorized by supervisors or even delivered. "In his formal response to the board, Township Trustee Daniel Gammon said his bookkeepers have been instructed to not pay for any item that cannot be matched with an invoice. "• The board cited Center Township in 2002 for deficiencies in its record-keeping, including improperly recorded transactions and untimely posting of payroll data. Center Township Trustee Carl Drummer -- who initially opposed Indianapolis Works but has since taken a neutral stance -- says those issues were resolved in part by replacing one staff member with a certified public accountant. "• In 2001, Washington Township paid $13,500 to Vinson Enterprises, a firm owned by one of its firefighters, to maintain its cemeteries. Yet according to the Board of Account's 2003 report, the township didn't have a formal contract in place. That went against the board's protocol for such arrangements. "In a formal response to the board, township Trustee Gwen Horth, who is not opposed to consolidation, wrote that there was no statute demanding that all contracts must be in writing and that it would have been too costly to do so." And those are just the items cited in the first editorial, which one can find at http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:KLl2DBOY6oAJ:www.indystar.com/articles/3/232062-7103-104.html+indianapolis+star+editorial+and+warren+township&hl=en&client=firefox-a *Difficulty keeping to a budget: The township fire departments were supposed to spend $89 million on their activities in 2004. At least that was what they told the Department of Local Government Finance. Instead, as the Star points out in an April 3 editorial from the Star, the departments spent $7 million over their budgets. *Nepotism: Don't forget the reports that came out in late March about township assessors hiring their relatives and Jack Sandlin continuing a contract with a firm owned by his wife. Honestly, I can't see how anyone can argue that township government should continue to exist? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 05:19:51 AM What is the position of the Editorial Board on this matter? Do you suppose that what reporters report upon has no relationship to what Editors would like to see occur? How about finding something productive for Firemen to do for the 95% of the time they are sitting on their brains? "Overhead" in township government is similar-you pay for it being there when it is needed. You want to save money? Examine the non working in a typical fire house. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Barbara EMAIL: barbarai@insightbb.com IP: 12.210.73.177 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 10:39:31 AM Paul Musgrave still does not know what he is talking about. If he would sit one day in a Trustee office he would have a more clear understanding on how important these offices are. Maybe hw should go up to Gary and ask that Trustee if she is not needed. Her staff is very large due to her very, very large client base. If Paul Musgrave had ever needed a Trustee for help I am sure he would be barking up another tree. Its a shame he is not a very intelligent man. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 11:03:18 AM Yeah, maybe I should take a degree in political science or Indiana history or get some practical experience in local politics. The experience of this or that trustee does not answer an objection to the systemic critique I'm making. And the IndyWorks plan clearly does provide for townships to play a role--but a much more rational one. By the way, dear readers, nothing in the comment above has been modified in any way. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mack Simmons EMAIL: sevenmack@eudoramail.com IP: 209.186.199.2 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 02:20:22 PM "Paul Musgrave still does not know what he is talking about. If he would sit one day in a Trustee office he would have a more clear understanding on how important these offices are. Maybe hw should go up to Gary and ask that Trustee if she is not needed. Her staff is very large due to her very, very large client base." How can one really tell it's large because she handles a lot of requests or because she's making sure she keeps up her patronage (a typical situation in Lake County). Anyone who read the C.O.M.P.E.T.E report knows that Calumet township spent $1.81 in overhead for every dollar it gave out in assistance; it probably spent 60 or more cents of every poor relief dollar on overhead. So who is the trustee truly helping? As for Paul not knowing what he's talking about? Well, since most township supporters have probably never spent more than a week outside of the state of Indiana, they probably believe that they're truly doing God's work. Any outsider would be able to surmise otherwise. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: ITA in the News STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/17/2005 08:10:30 AM ----- BODY: Today The Indianapolis Star ran a hefty feature spread on blogs and was kind enough to include In the Agora in an article titled "Several young men with Hoosier ties write for online journals." It gives a few sentences of biographical information about each of ITA's contributors, and then briefly features ITA's friend and neighbor Radley Balko. A nice layout with screen shots is available in print and online, too. Other Star articles on blogging today include "Use common sense to filter information found on blogs," and "The new way to get the news." The Star plans to launch Expresso on Monday, a blog of opinion from the Star's editorial board and columnists. Meanwhile the Fox News Watch panel discusses citizen journalism and how newspapers are beginning to turn to bloggers for stories (Real Player required). Update: Ed writes: "[h]opefully this will boost readership." While I do think that'd be great, the mainstream media has long recognized ITA's contributors and the traffic benefits are negligible. For instance in November the Indianapolis Star ran an even larger feature on blogs with my old personal site and included a large color photo. The Washington Post, Newsweek magazine and CNN all mentioned ITA in the last few weeks. And the Evansville Courier & Press has traditionally run regular columns featuring our posts here. In each feature the traffic has remained about the same. I'm just not convinced the mainstream media is able to help blog readership all that much. ITA's readership continues to grow, but I think consistent attention from high traffic blogs plays a much larger factor than occassional mainstream features. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 09:50:48 AM Their editorial board is almost unreadable in print for lack of learning, talent, and lack of an unbiased point of view. They have each and every one of the bias points of view as does MSM. There is no intellect there and they are easily captured by such as whoever last talked to them. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 66.72.65.31 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 10:59:07 AM The article quotes Zach's biography as if it were fact. Is it real? I always thought his bio was a joke, just because it was so, well, unusual. No offense intended if it's real -- I've got a pretty colorful resume myself ... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/17/2005 12:30:04 PM Hey now, I have lots of ties to Indiana. I once spent two weeks in Fort Wayne staying at one of the worst fleabag motels in the known world. While in South Bend once, I tried to look up an old high school friend named Mary Reilly in the student directory at Notre Dame. Do you have any idea how many Mary Reillys attend Notre Dame? I've eaten at Sullivan's in Indianapolis, I've played Crooked Stick (badly, of course) and I own several Bob and Tom CDs. I'm practically an honorary Hoosier! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Lynn EMAIL: butterflytear@aol.com IP: 172.161.237.219 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 12:53:52 PM You have one more tie you didn't mention Mr Brayton. You are engaged to a Hoosier. I was born and raised in Indiana. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/17/2005 01:03:11 PM Oh man, I forgot all about that obvious link. See, I'm a Hoosier to the core. Why, if I knew the Indiana fight song, I'd start singing it right now. :) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Paul EMAIL: rpmusgra@alumni.indiana.edu IP: 193.1.172.166 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 01:08:35 PM Ed--given that the two "editors" (a very, very loose title) of this site are from Southern Indiana, it might be a good time to get some exposure to the part of the state that actually has hills... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 68.255.118.92 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 02:29:13 PM Their editorial board is almost unreadable in print for lack of learning, talent, and lack of an unbiased point of view. Translation, they dont hate everything that Leon hates or mildly dislikes. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 68.20.131.2 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/17/2005 02:31:27 PM For the record, part of Zach's bio is a joke, and part of it is real. Good luck discerning the two. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 02:49:13 PM I suppose we ought to bookmark those sites and see how long we keep them? Gannett is, actually, the Walmart of the newspaper business. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn TITLE: Scalia the Originalist STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/16/2005 08:54:05 PM ----- BODY: Laurence Hammack files a report in The Roanoke Times about a recent speech of Justice Scalia's on originalism. He writes:

Speaking at Washington and Lee University, Justice Antonin Scalia cited as an example his vote upholding the right to burn an American flag as a form of free speech. To end up in the majority of that controversial 5-4 decision, Scalia applied his so-called "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution, which adheres strictly to what the framers of the document had in mind more than 200 years ago.

Hammack clearly misunderstood Scalia's position because it directly contradicts the "originalist" quote from Scalia in the next sentence: "You look to the text and you say: What did that text mean to society when it was adopted?" What the text meant to society - in other words, what the language generally meant at the time of its passage - is decidedly different from trying to determine "what the the framers. . . had in mind." Although originalism is not an exact science, it seems to be easier and more objective than the "original intent" that Mr. Hammack alluded to. Toward the end we see this quote from Scalia: "Conservatives are just as likely to distort the original meaning of the Constitution for their aims as liberals are." Indeed, the appeal of defining the Constitution under one's own meanings can seduce both conservatives and liberals alike. Unfortunately some conservatives have a knack for steeping their reasons in originalism when it suits them, and dropping it when it doesn't. The effect is to undercut their argument with intellectual dishonesty and sully the originalist philosophy. (The Times-Dispatch also offers an article on the speech.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/17/2005 09:56:14 AM Aside from determining just who a conservative might have been then or now, I'm wondering if Judge Scalia gave any examples of "conservatives" judging cases dishonestly. If not, perhaps you or your readers could supply a case or two where they believe that occured. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 68.20.131.2 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/17/2005 10:07:21 AM I think Scalia was referring to conservative pundits and activists that engage in intellectual dishonesty. At least that's how I interpreted it and how I was using it. I'm sure that some conservative judges have as well, but the examples don't come as readily to me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan K. Henderson EMAIL: alankh@ev1.net IP: 12.41.61.5 URL: http://alankhenderson.blogspot.com DATE: 04/18/2005 04:57:34 AM I don't think the Framers ever equated ritual arson with speech. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/19/2005 04:17:55 PM If we are suggesting flag burning as a value held by originalists I don't think that would hold up. I can't imagine what the Framers would have done to someone burning their flags but I doubt it would have been pleasant. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/20/2005 07:21:54 PM However, had the matter come before a federal court back in the day after the 1st Amendment was ratified, and the issue had not been mooted by the fellow's tar and feather coating nor his ride on a rail out of town, the judges would have to defer to the "Congress shall make no law" language. The corruption of England and their judges made the right of free speech (that was generally against some government tax or policy)as needed as that of a free press. There really was a Riot Act if you will recall, in England. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Eric Seymour TITLE: It is real, and it is dangerous STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Law CATEGORY: Law DATE: 04/16/2005 12:50:47 AM ----- BODY: When it comes to matters of the law, I confess to being a rank amateur. Even in matters of general philosophy and debate, I am but a novice. But it does not take a legal whiz or a philosophical genius to recognize trends which are dangerous to a free society. A clever debater or pundit has many tools in his or her repertoire. In several posts and the corresponding comment sections, Ed Brayton has argued that the term "judicial activism" is used very loosely by rank-and-file conservatives and that even a serious analysis fails to find an objective measure by which to distinguish it. Therefore, Ed seems to imply that there is no judicial activism, or that any cases are isolated and most are overturned on appeal. "These aren't the droids you're looking for..." But conservatives sense, almost instincively, that something is afoot. When judges more and more often invoke "evolving standards" and supposed "national consensus" in their rulings, there is a distinct odor of personal philosophy emanating from courtrooms around the country. Thomas Sowell addresses this issue better than I can in a recent series of columns (part 1, part 2, part 3). Here's an excerpt: ----- EXTENDED BODY:

One of the big confusions in the impending Senate fight over the confirmation of judicial nominees is that this is an issue about "liberal" judges versus "conservative" judges. The vastly more important issue is whether people who go into court should expect their cases to be decided on the basis of the law or on the basis of the particular judge's own philosophy. The more we can keep judges' philosophy out of our legal system, the more we approach the ideal of "a government of laws and not of men." But we have been moving in the opposite direction for too long already and recent court decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, show a continuing trend toward judicial activism, relying on notions outside the law and even outside the country.

As Professor Bainbridge has said, it's about the culture wars. It's not at all surprising that liberals either deny that judicial activism exists or that it is a problem. Sowell agrees, and offers a warning:

Liberals have rooted for judicial activism because this activism has favored liberal causes and liberal views on such issues as abortion, the death penalty, gay marriage, and racial quotas. But activism can be used by any judge for any purpose.

Indeed. While the courts are a vital instrument for the goal of protecting minorities against the will and whim of majorities, having them settle cultural issues is dangerous. When it comes to areas other than fundamental rights, would it not be better to lean toward leaving these issues in the hands of the elected branches of government? Postscript: A longer essay by Sowell appears to address the definition of "judicial activism" in greater detail than the above-linked columns. I haven't read the entire essay yet, but I intend to. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron EMAIL: IP: 68.22.242.162 URL: DATE: 04/16/2005 12:36:41 PM If we deny judges the power of "judicial activism," we'll shift the power of a simple congressional majority from "damn, the court says we can't do that unless we amend the constitution" to "haha, we've got a simple majority, we can do whatever we want!" If any "activism" is dangerous, it's the latter, not the former, in my opinion. "Judicial activism" is just a judge telling a simple majority of legislators, "no, you can't do that. It's unconstitutional." That's it. I'm not sure what's so "dangerous" about that. If the judge is blatantly, unbelievably wrong, the simple majority should be able to garner enough support to amend the constitution to say exactly what the simple majority claims it says anyway. Presuming judicial activism can be isolated from ideology, and separated from the act of adjudication, why is judicial activism any more "dangerous" than the other gray, muddled points of power-checking in our system? The only "danger" posed by this act of telling this simple majority "no" is that that simple majority can't pass the law they wanna pass, unless they get enough support for their position that they can amend the constitution. That's a check on legislative power, not judicial power run amuck, in my opinion. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/16/2005 02:39:18 PM Eric Seymour wrote:

When it comes to matters of the law, I confess to being a rank amateur. Even in matters of general philosophy and debate, I am but a novice. But it does not take a legal whiz or a philosophical genius to recognize trends which are dangerous to a free society.

I am an amateur myself, having never been to law school. So, I might add, is Thomas Sowell, who is an economist and not a legal scholar. But I am happy to rely upon the strength of my arguments to make the case for my position.

A clever debater or pundit has many tools in his or her repertoire. In several posts and the corresponding comment sections, Ed Brayton has argued that the term "judicial activism" is used very loosely by rank-and-file conservatives and that even a serious analysis fails to find an objective measure by which to distinguish it. Therefore, Ed seems to imply that there is no judicial activism, or that any cases are isolated and most are overturned on appeal. "These aren't the droids you're looking for..."

I haven't actually implied that there is no judicial activism. What I've implied is that no one has yet come up with a consistent definition of it that is applicable in the real world. And this post gets us no closer to such a definition. Sowell's essay, if anything, takes us further from it. But the implication here is that I'm engaging in some sort of debater's strategy or "Jedi mind trick" to cover up the lack of support for my argument. I would suggest that the opposite is true. My position is in fact easily shown to be wrong. All one has to do is provide a coherent and consistent definition of judicial activism. No one has yet done that.

The problem with defining "judicial activism" is that there is no middle ground. It can only be defined either too broadly, as when it is used to mean "courts overruling legislative acts", too broad because everyone has some legislative acts that they believe are correctly overturned by the courts. Or it can be defined very narrowly but unprovably, as when it is defined as "when a judge uses his personal opinions to reach a desired result." When you try and apply this to the real world, you find out just how inadequate it is. Was Griswold v. Connecticut an example of "judicial activism", as Bork claims it was? Nowhere in the opinion does Justice Douglas refer to his personal opinions at all, and the decision is based upon the same type of reasoning from general principles that is present in dozens of other cases that not even Bork thinks are controversial. He cites case after case that not only supports this course of reasoning, but also supports the specific application of it in terms of establishing a general right to privacy. If this is a case of "judicial activism", as so many conservatives claim, there is not a shred of evidence for that argument. And the fact that they "sense, almost instinctively" that it just must be activist only supports my contention that what is really going on here is the ritual attachment of a meaningless phrase to any ruling that they disagree with.

But conservatives sense, almost instincively, that something is afoot. When judges more and more often invoke "evolving standards" and supposed "national consensus" in their rulings, there is a distinct odor of personal philosophy emanating from courtrooms around the country.

As though conservatives were not engaged in "personal philosophy"? This is the real problem I have with the Borks and Scalias (and Sowells) of the world - they really do pretend that their conception of "originalism" is a procedural technique, like a mathematical formula, that if applied correctly leads inevitably to the right result without any reference to ideology or desired outcomes. But they are wrong in both premise and conclusion: they do engage in "personal philosophy" because their legal theories are ideological, and if one applies the various standards that they put forth one often ends up with quite heinous results, which they then must tie themselves into all sorts of intellectual knots to get around (if you don't believe me, see Bork's attempt to argue that Dred Scott was not an originalist ruling). The only "debater's trick" at use here is simple projection - point to your opponent and accuse him of engaging in ideologically-driven conclusions as though you yourself were a vulcan, logically applying a formula to reach the Truth regardless of where it leads.

Sowell engages in this in a most obvious fashion when he argues that we must keep "judges' philosophy" out of our legal system, as though originalism in its many forms was not a "judge's philosophy" itself (when Larry Solum argues for a strictly non-ideological judiciary, as he does with his conception of neoformalism, I believe he is sincere because Solum is not an ideologue; when Sowell, who absolutely is an ideologue, makes that argument it strikes me as a pot and kettle situation). And when he argues that liberals allegedly support activism because it leads to results they like, he leaves out the fact that the phrase "judicial activism" was coined in the 1930s by liberals who were upset by conservative courts striking down the laws and policies of FDR. And that is precisely the point I have been making all along, that "judicial activism" is little more than a catchphrase that means "judges doing things I disagree with." That is true of conservatives today just as it was true of liberals 70 years ago.

While the courts are a vital instrument for the goal of protecting minorities against the will and whim of majorities, having them settle cultural issues is dangerous. When it comes to areas other than fundamental rights, would it not be better to lean toward leaving these issues in the hands of the elected branches of government?

That gets us into the entire issue of what is a "fundamental" right and what is not, which I think is irrelevant. I think Justice Kennedy was right to go outside of the traditional fundamental rights v. mere liberty interests standard and simply posit that laws which violate liberty must be justified by something more concrete than the whim of a legislative majority. If you are willing to admit that the courts and their ability to strike down oppressive legislation are a "vital instrument" for protecting minorities against the whim of the majority, how do you propose determining when they should and should not do so? You've said that penumbral reasoning is out, then you said it's not totally out it's just sometimes out, but without any criteria to determine when it's okay and when it's not. We've already established and agreed that the commonly heard argument that if it isn't explicitly listed as a right in the constitution it can be violated at the legislature's whim is absolutely false and contrary to the meaning of the 9th amendment. So what are we left with? I would suggest that we are left with Randy Barnett's presumption of liberty. Put the burden of proof on the government to show that there is a clear and compelling interest (not merely a fuzzy "rational basis", which in reality means any excuse they see fit to offer) to justify using the coercive power of the state to prohibit individual actions in every particular case in which this is attempted.

The long Sowell essay that you link to does little to help the case for a coherent and consistent definition of judicial activism. If anything, it makes my case stronger. In discussing the alleged objectivity of "originalism", he contradicts himself over and over, jumping from "original intent" originalism to "original meaning" originalism almost randomly. And the Bainbridge essay that you link to contains an almost startling admission of what is really going on here. First he quotes Randy Barnett as saying this:

And with extremely rare exceptions, courts are not imposing their preferences on individual citizens. They are stopping legislatures from imposing their preferences on individual citizens. When speaking of imposing one's preferences, there is a huge difference between a court mandating gay sex--which no court has--and stopping legislatures from putting adults in prison (where they may well be raped) for engaging in consensual with an adult of the same in the privacy of their own homes, which has now been held unconstitutional.

And then he responds with this astonishing statement:

A couple of observations: (1) It is now clear that Barnett is on the other side of the culture wars from most conservatives. Modern conservatism is not solely about "individual rights," but rather (as Ramesh Ponnuru explained) is premised on "three basic propositions: that American foreign policy should seek to end totalitarian regimes; that the domestic functions of government, and especially of the federal government, should be strictly limited; and that the moral precepts traditionally associated with Christianity (sometimes the formulation includes Judaism as well) should be upheld." Legislative efforts to uphold the third prong evidently constitute legislative tyrrany in Barnett's world.

(2) It's not just about sex. Barnett's expansive theory of the 9th amendment is at least as radical as William O. Douglas' theory of penumbras in terms of its ability for judges to invent reasons to strike down laws. Hence, Barnett's theory apparently validates not just Lawrence but also Roe v. Wade. Any legal theory that would validate the murder of over 40 million innocent unborn children raises serious moral concerns, because it likely constitutes material cooperation with evil.

Notice first the incoherency of the definition of conservativism that Bainbridge offers. How on earth can one argue that the "domestic functions of government" should be "strictly limited" while simultaneously arguing for governmental authority to use the police power to throw people in prison for violating the "moral precepts of Christianity"? And notice second the fact that he is essentially giving up the game here in admitting that any legal theory which reaches the result he disapproves of on moral grounds must be wrong. Any theory that could possibly justify Roe v. Wade simply must be wrong, which is why so many pro-life people, rather than attacking the application of a right to privacy (which I think is tenuous at best in the case of abortion), attack the notion that we have a right to privacy at all and the clearly valid penumbral reasoning that led to it.

Anyway, on the general issue of whether judicial activism is a consistent and coherent notion, all one has to do to prove me wrong is to provide such a definition and apply it consistently to real world cases. Eric has not done so, but given that he has no background in law that is hardly surprising nor is it a mark against him. But neither has Sowell, or Scalia, or Bork, or anyone else who tosses the phrase around as though it really means something. And vague references to one's "instinctive sense" of what it means rather than an objective and applicable definition only make my argument that much stronger.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/16/2005 03:11:12 PM Griswold? A couple of law school professors hoodwink the SC with a put up job. Mapes v Ohio a similar put up job. Everson, a bunch of Masons/KKK types enshrining slogans. How about this for defining what you say has not been defined? "I'll know it when I see it". That quote from an un named jurist might not apply to you, e.g. you might not know it when you view it. Good writing, however, on your part. I will look for such a definition or something close to it. Perhap's Bork's latest piece in National Review? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EMAIL: IP: 24.166.30.151 URL: DATE: 04/16/2005 03:16:04 PM Too, Ed, it might be wise for those of us who are in the amateur ranks to insist of you ahead of time just who you would accept as an authority for what you are asking to be defined. Would you accept John Marshall? Would you accept Taney, Bork, Holmes, Sutherland, Mussmanno, Tribe, or would the sole authority acceptable, perhaps, be yourself? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Brayton EMAIL: stcynic@crystalauto.com IP: 65.114.126.74 URL: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/ DATE: 04/16/2005 03:33:48 PM Anonymous wrote:

Griswold? A couple of law school professors hoodwink the SC with a put up job. Mapes v Ohio a similar put up job. Everson, a bunch of Masons/KKK types enshrining slogans.

You seem to be laboring under the bizarre misconception that these are actually arguments against the validity of those cases.

How about this for defining what you say has not been defined? "I'll know it when I see it". That quote from an un named jurist might not apply to you, e.g. you might not know it when you view it.

The "unnamed jurist" was Potter Stewart. It was silly when he said it and it's even sillier in this context. It only proves my point: you'll "know it when you see it" because it will only apply when you disagree with the outcome.

Too, Ed, it might be wise for those of us who are in the amateur ranks to insist of you ahead of time just who you would accept as an authority for what you are asking to be defined. Would you accept John Marshall? Would you accept Taney, Bork, Holmes, Sutherland, Mussmanno, Tribe, or would the sole authority acceptable, perhaps, be yourself?

I'm not the least bit interested in an argument from authority. I'm interested in a consistent and coherent definition of the phrase "judicial activism". If any of the above, or anyone else for that matter, will offer one I will gladly look at it. But don't bother looking for one from Tribe, as he is on record as saying that the phrase is meaningless as well. That any of those people, of whatever authority, might offer a definition that they think is coherent and consistent is not proof that it actually is.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: philosopher EMAIL: phil@osopher.org IP: 156.56.122.180 URL: DATE: 04/16/2005 03:52:51 PM Ed, don't waste your brain arguing with idiotic arguments from anon/leon. You're doing a really terrific job here, but even with your copious amount of intellectual energy, you should probably follow some sort of cost/benefit approach.... I mean, I do believe that on the extremely rare occasion that a halfway decent argument comes out of anon/leon, that then it's a good idea to throw him a little biscuit by responding to his errors. But these last couple of comments of his fail to cross even the most minimal threshhold of argumentative coherence. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joshua Claybourn EMAIL: IP: 68.20.131.2 URL: http://www.joshclaybourn.com DATE: 04/16/2005 06:22:07 PM I think Justice Kennedy was right to go outside of the traditional fundamental rights v. mere liberty interests standard and simply posit that laws which violate liberty must be justified by something more concrete than the whim of a legislative majority. I think it's vitally important not to diminish or discount the importance of the "whim of a legislative majority." That mere majority is the foundational building blocks of our laws and legal system. It should be given enormous weight, and even when liberty is restricted, deference should be given to this so-called "whim." The legislative majority can sometimes be ignored, but the hurdles to overcome in ignoring it are huge, and justifiably so. Having established that the law correctly (in my mind and according Court precedent) regards the legsilative majority with extreme respect and deference, you seem to be arguing that "laws which violate liberty" should require more. In many cases they do, but I sense a bit too much universalism from you here. To use your own retort, the problem with defining "liberty" is that there is no middle ground. It can only be defined either too broadly, as when it is used to mean any freedom, too broad because everyone has some legislative acts that they believe are infringements upong liberty. Or it can be defined very narrowly but unprovably. What is liberty? Perhaps more important, who gets to define it? If not the "whim" of the legislative majority, then who? The "whim" of three or four justices appointed under the "whim" of the executive branch? Who gets to de