Confession time.

I made a deal. I have sold my soul. Actually, I mortgaged it.

I promised my daughter that if she got into a good college I would ...

NO, THEY CAN'T MAKE ME DO IT! I CAN'T, I TELL YOU, I JUST CAN'T.

Deep breath.

I promised my daughter that if she got into a good college I would (give me strength, give me money) buy her a horse.

Yes, archtypical northeastern skinflint wusses out. Bows to daughter's decade long desire. Call the Times.

I have been a good boy. I have paid and paid and paid for lessons. I have bought equipment to be used with horses I devoutly hoped I would never own. I have paid for several bouts of summer long horse camp (a very nice place in New Hampster, girls only, and if anyone wants a recommendation, I can give it). I have gone to show after show after show. I even went the City Slickers route and took the family to a dude ranch on vacation one year (a great time was had by all, to my vast surprise). I was the Billy Crystal character. OK, I can wait for you to stop laughing. And when my daughter announced (shortly after Man of Steel Christopher Reeve had his disastrous riding accident) that she was taking up three day eventing, I bit my tongue.

For those of you who presently labor in the ignorance I used to enjoy (and wished I still did), three day eventing involves dressage (technical and, to my unexpert eye, just about as undangerous as you can get when balancing precariously atop an eight hundred pound animal that you "control" with two thin pieces of leather held lightly in your hands) stadium jumping (just what it sounds like) and cross country. Stadium jumping is bad, but cross country was invented to scare the living bejeesus out of fathers. A course is set up consisting of obstacles over which the horse and rider must jump (fences, water jumps, cliffs ...) which obstacles are separated by varying distances. Horse and rider are judged based on completing the course (without going around or balking at any obstacles) within set time limits. It is not a speed competition, but you certainly cannot do it at a walk (MY kind of speed). In between the obstacles is no real problem for me. A canter is a canter is a canter, whether the trail on which you are cantering is in Central Park or Grand Canyon National Park. Well, alright, there is a difference, but at least plain old cantering does not involve anyone intentionally placing huge obstacles in your path for the express purpose of causing horse and rider to voluntarily lose contact with terra firma while proceeding forward at an entirely unreasonable speed. I attribute what grey hair I have entirely to cross country.

Tongue biting paid big dividends. Shortly after beginning to train for three day eventing, the daughter discovered a talent for dressage and fell in love with that aspect of horsemanship. Fortunately, whatever gods look after me and mine have arranged for there to be competitions solely in dressage. TTFN, cross country!

Where was I? Oh yes, THE DEAL. The daughter was spending more and more time at the farm and less and less time on her more pedestrian pursuits. Like homework. Before the grades slipped too much, I offered THE DEAL, which was accepted with alacrity. Naturally, THE DEAL was interpreted by my beloved offspring as requiring the immediate launch of a thorough (as in nationwide) search for the ideal equine purchase, more than 9 months before acceptance at any college. ("Dad, who cares if we have to ship the horse three thousand miles, he's perfect and he costs three cents less than the one down the road from our house!") And just as naturally, when skinflint (that would be me) pointed out that the deal required actual admission to an actually good actual college prior to the equine purchase, there was much wailing and rending of clothes. Well, some wailing, anyway, and no rending. Denim is so hard to rend. Missed opportunities! Lost training time! Goddamn lawyers and their goddamn deals.

And then, following lengthy debate about where to apply, came college applications. I leave other fathers to discover that particular joy themselves. It seemed so much easier when I did it in the early 70s. I have to wait more than 15 years to see what James Lileks has to say about it. The daughter was immediately accepted into her "safety school". Suffice it to say, it wasn't Harvard. I considered the safety school someplace to go if nowhere else would have you (in fact, I always thought that was why they called it a safety school). I didn't think that it qualified as the "good" school required by THE DEAL. Note to fathers who attempt the perilous act of bribing their offspring: Do not, ever under any circumstances, consider telling said offspring who have, at least facially, met the conditions of the bribe, that their surface compliance is insufficient to trigger payment of the bribe. I managed to temporize until more acceptances came in.

Although the daughter was certainly smart enough to recognize the stalling tactics, she was also smart enough to avoid going to war about it until it became necessary. And lo and behold, several of the acceptances were from "good" schools. Major sigh of relief (from both parties). Arguments concerning the goodness of the safety school avoided.

So now its time for me to pay up. I sent the wife and daughter to the school for orientation and while there, they located a reportedly gorgeous three year old (that's very young) mare with a delightful disposition. Vet inspection made and passed with flying colors. Even writing the check for the purchase price was not that hard. Of course, now that I (or more properly, the daughter) owns this beast, the expenses have only just begun. Feed, vet, stable, shoeing, equipment.

Stay tuned.

 
Mark Steyn may be on to something.

You can fly a jet at full speed into the bureaucratic mindset but it just bounces off, barely felt.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to turn the bureaucratic mindset into a building (or better yet, a tank).

 
Fritz Schrank has noted the (extremely effective) retaliation by the California Coastal Commission against Hollywood biggie David Geffen.

 
This is so cool. I have a perma link on Damian Penny's site. My first. Thanks, Damian!

 
Damian Penny writes about report of a mob of Israeli settlers who, on their way home from a terrorist attack related funeral, attacked and killed several Palestinian civilians, including a little girl. Damian comments:

If this is true, not only is it an inexcusable atrocity, but it could also be a disturbing sign that Israelis are becoming less concerned about making any distinction between Palestinian militants and civilians. On the heels of last Monday's Gaza air strike, in which it appears the Israelis were at least wilfully blind about the presence of civilians in the area, this is the last thing the Israelis need right now. If this crazed mob deliberately targeted a little girl, they're no better than gunmen who invade Israeli "settler" homes and shoot children as they lie in bed.

First, I think Damian is wrong to lump together the actions of the Israeli military ( the Gaza airstrike) and the actions of a mob of Israeli civilians described in the report for the purpose of analyzing which way events are trending. Second, and probably more important, I think the actions of the Israeli settlers as described in the article, are understandable, if not justifiable.

I don't remember which blog I read this on, but the thought is not original with me:

A group that intentionally sends the message, "Anyone of us can and will kill anyone of you at any time" is a one with respect to which the only effective defense is genocide.

Does this justify a mob attack on a little girl? No. But...

Surely Israelis as a group have a right to defend themselves. And just as surely, they have the right to do so effectively. Defending themselves effectively means removing or neutralizing the threats posed by their enemies. I assume that less than all Palestinians desire the complete destruction of Israel. How much less than all is irrelevant. Israel's opponents refuse to remove themselves from that portion of their own population which is noncombatant. They refuse to physically differentiate themselves in any way from that same noncombatant population. By routinely murdering "collaborators" (sometimes literally in courtrooms in the midst of a trial), they cow members of that noncombatant population into keeping silent about the precise location of combatants within the noncombatant population. By publicly indoctrinating kindergarten age children in the propriety of violent opposition to Israel and the culture of antisemitism, and by sending teenagers and women on suicide bombing runs, they are quite literally threatening Israel with violence from every demographic segment of their population.

The portion of the Palestinian population which uses violence to oppose Israel's existence is deliberately issuing their threats in the name of all Palestinians, without significant or even noticeable opposition. They therefore appear to be saying to Israel, in essence, that to defend itself, it must kill, control or remove all Palestinians. Period. So it is understandable (to me at least) if Israelis are "becoming less concerned about making any distinction between Palestinian militants and civilians." Until Palestinians become more concerned with making that very distinction, it may not be possible (or reasonable, or safe) for Israelis to do so.

When every unremarkable Palestinian on the street can pose a mortal danger to any Israeli (rabbi, ambulance driver, soldier, settler, pizza-eating teenager, sleeping 5 year old, take your pick), how surprised or sympathetic can you be when unremarkable Palestinians are treated as threats?

That does not stop me from sympathizing with the family that may have lost a little girl. Nor does it stop me from being alarmed at the savagery of the conflict. It just stops me from sympathizing with the Palestinians, politically. This is a problem of their own making and one which they can very easily solve by "regularizing" their military forces and tactics. It would be a disaster, militarily, so they won't do it.

I think that the Palestinians have lost the military aspect of the conflict with Israel. They lost when they acknowledged that the only effective weapon they had was a human bomb. But until they recognize the military reality and switch to nonviolent means to oppose what they call the occupation, Palestinians will continue to suffer, militarily.

My (completely unwanted) advice to the Palestinians? Surrender now. After that, you have a chance to win. Until then, you don't. The Israelis are not like you. I do not believe that they will treat a military surrender as a sign of political weakness and go for the jugular.

 
As you can see, the links list is growing. It's not that these are new sites that I've found. I have been working on a different computer lately (without my favorites bookmarked) and I am adding people and sites as I remember them.

 
My readers (all one of you, whose last name is not Gage) should visit Meryl Yourish today. She is engaged in a twenty four hour blogathon to benefit Magen David Adom, the Israeli ambulance service. Despite the fact that she recently decided to move far away from me (harrumph, and without ever having met me!), you should go visit. And while you're there, make a pledge.

 
CAUTION: If you are male, and if you have ever considered having a vasectomy, DO NOT READ THIS POST. If you are female and want your significant other to consider a having a vasectomy, DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO READ THIS POST.

No one to whom this story has been related has ever had a vasectomy.

This story is completely true. Well, OK, I might have embellished some minor details. Judge for yourself. The events described in this story occurred some fifteen years ago, beginning immediately after the birth of my son, our second child.

My wife looked at me from the delivery table and said, “Birth control is now YOUR problem.” (You would think she had been planning that, wouldn't you?)

Being the wuss that I am, I thought of all the years during which she had shouldered the responsibility and taken risks (albeit slight ones) to avoid becoming pregnant until we wanted children, and I agreed that I could shoulder the responsibility for a while.

And I did. I tried various methods. All of them worked. None of them were acceptable.

As a result of the birth control problem, we began to make love less often. That, too, was unacceptable. So I finally broke down and went to the urologist to see about a vasectomy. I asked some friends in the medical profession about the problem (none of whom, to my knowledge, had had a vasectomy) and they recommended a guy in a nearby town, whose office was across a busy street from the regional hospital. I called and got an appointment with him the following week.

I should have known that this was not a good idea from the start. The doctor looked like the Good Humor Man. For those of you not residing within the marketing area of Good Humor, the company markets ice cream. From trucks. My doctor looked like the driver of an ice cream truck. The kind that blasts out "Turkey in the Straw" or some other inane tune at high volume to let all the children in the neighborhood know that he's coming. Hearing "Turkey in the Straw" played thousands of times a day at eardrum breaking volume has to have an effect on the brain. Note to neurologists: There's a research project in there somewhere. Note to trial lawyers: Wait for the research to be completed before filing your class action suit.

Dr. GoodHumor and I discussed the issues involved and he says, “Oh, yeah, we can do this next week, right here in my office.” I reluctantly agree to an appointment the following Wednesday.

The Monday before that Wednesday, however, Dr. GoodHumor calls up and says he has a problem. He never had chicken pox as a child and now he has been exposed to it. He is perfectly fine, but now he is a carrier of the chicken pox virus (bacteria?). There is no problem for me, because I had chicken pox as a child, but his schedule is shot to shit. Can he postpone the Wednesday office visit in favor of a Saturday procedure at the hospital? I have no problem with putting off the day of reckoning.

The appointed day arrives and my mother in law comes up to watch the kids while my wife and I drive to the hospital (they won’t let me drive home because of the anesthetic). It is a cold, gray, rainy March day. The car is reluctant to start. Another warning received. Another warning ignored.

We get to the hospital and go to outpatient minor surgery. “Oh, yes, Mr. Gage, you go right in there and get undressed, and the doctor will be with you shortly.” My wife sits down to read her book.

I sit on the (icy) table wearing that stupid "johnny" waiting for the doctor, who bustles in with a nurse in tow. After a few forced pleasantries, I lie down, he injects the local anesthetic (very definitely NOT a fun thing) and starts to work. A few minutes into the procedure, I look at him and say, “I need a drink of water.” He glances up from my (shaved!) testicles and says, “Sure thing. Just let me finish up what I’m doing right now and I will get you some water.” I don’t press the issue, but about 30 seconds later, I look up at him and say “NOW!”

And I faint.

Dr. GoodHumor feels for a pulse. No pulse at the wrist. No pulse at the carotid. “Oh shit, I’ve killed him,” he thinks (as he told me later). He runs over to the phone and dials the special number that you dial when you call in a heart attack. The operator is supposed to answer that number with two words: “What room?” Dr. GoodHumor gets a new operator. “Can I help you?” The doctor gives her a thumbnail sketch of the situation, hangs up and runs back to me, where he commences to beat me about the face (slap, really), screaming “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”

My wife, a former hospital worker, hears “Code Blue, minor outpatient surgery” and, without more, knows exactly what is going on. Did I mention that my wife is a very smart woman? It turns out that Olga Operator, the new switchboard lady, neglected to give the crash cart team the suite number I was in. She just said that someone in minor surgery was having a heart attack. So the crash cart team comes running in to the waiting room and starts looking around for a body lying on the floor.

My wife, bless her heart, stands up, points to the door of my suite and says, “Over there” in the calmest, most blasé manner imaginable.

In the meantime, Dr. GoodHumor’s gentle ministrations have finally had an effect and I have come to. I wake up on the table, naked from the waist down, clamps hanging off me and blood all over the place.

And seventeen THOUSAND people come running into the room. The crash cart lady is ready. She is determined. She’s been training for this for years. She has the paddles out and she wants to use them. On me. AND NO ONE IS GOING TO STOP HER!

Dr. GoodHumor performs what I consider to be one of the finest slide tackles I have ever seen (especially considering it takes place on a tile floor) and deflects Crash Cart Cathy from her course. He then takes her aside and persuades her that, despite the Code Blue, her services were not immediately required. To paraphrase Michael Douglas in “The American President”, I do not know what transpired, but I am sure that bribery was involved.

GoodHumor then comes back to me and says that he had completed one “side.” (This is a bilateral procedure. Men have two of them. Redundancy, you know.) He wants to send me home and have me come back in another day for the other side. I am not in very good shape, and I really don’t remember my response.

But then GoodHumor makes a very serious strategic error. He goes to discuss the matter with my wife.

He tells her he wants to send me home and have me come back later to complete the “procedure.” (Billy Crystal is right. There are no “operations” for men over a certain age, only “procedures”.) My wife, who is 5’2” tall and weighs all of 100 pounds, says, “No fucking way. He comes home sterile or I sue.”

The doctor is quite naturally taken aback by this, but my wife verbally beats him into submission and he meekly returns to me to get my consent to continue. Not having any desire to repeat this disaster, I agree to completing the vasectomy. Dr. GoodHumor reluctantly commences work again and is done in relatively short order. I do my part by managing not to die. He then makes me wait around the hospital for about two hours to make sure I am not going to keel over on him (again), during which time he relates the story of Olga Operator. He also confides in me that he had considered doing the vasectomy in his office, but thought, “Nah, I’ll be alone, and I really don’t want to do this alone.”

The image that immediately flooded into my brain upon learning this remains with me to this day. All I could see, as Dr. GoodHumor told me that he had considered doing the vasectomy alone in his office, was a picture of GoodHumor with me (naked from the waste down, clamps hanging off me and blood all over the place) slung over his shoulder and dodging speeding cars as he rushed across the four lane street from his office to the hospital.

The best part of the day was yet to come, however. My wife and I return home and my wife relishes telling her mother the entire story in excruciating detail. My mother in law (who has always been madly in love with me for some odd reason) is very sympathetic and criticizes her daughter for callously making me complete the vasectomy.

And then (being a nurse) my mother in law wants to inspect my incisions.

Not today, mom. I have a headache. Maybe some other time.

 
This is unacceptable. Fire his ass and prosecute him for making terroristic threats.

A Secret Service agent has admitted he scrawled anti-Muslim statements on a prayer calendar during the home search of a man charged with smuggling bogus checks into the United States, authorities said Thursday.

The incident took place when agents searched the Dearborn home of Omar Shishani, who has pleaded innocent to bringing $12 million in forged cashiers checks on a flight from Indonesia.

Via Instantman

 
Tim Blair, premier Oz Blogger, suggests a naming contest for the spectacularly poorly named NT7. That is the asteroid of dinosaur killer proportions which may or may not be on a collision course with Earth. OK, I'm in, but my imagination pales in comparison to most bloggers (I am but a dull pedestrian on the information superhighway) so don't expect much from me.

Tim's initial entry is "Tipper" and he provides a link to this photograph as evidence for his inspiration.

You'll have to do better than that, mate. How about "the Lawyer". He's coming and he'll eventually get us all.

 
Posse Comitatus.

I learned what little Latin I know in law school. That was a mistake. As I discovered in high school, you can learn alot about English by studying another language. So when I come across a phrase in Latin, I have to look it up.

According to the copy of Black's Law Dictionary that I kept from 1975, posse comitatus literally means "the power or force of the county. The entire population of a county above the age of fifteen, which a sheriff may summon to his assistance in certain cases; as to aid him in keeping the peace, in pursuing and arresting felons, etc."

In the wake of the Civil War, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act. For those of you who are interested, the citation is 18 U.S.C.A. 1385. In its current incarnation, it reads as follows:

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

In other words, use of the armed services to enforce the laws is itself a crime. That provision has been remain essentially unchanged since it was passed in the 1870s. Thanks to friend Osama, that may now change to some degree.

"The government should consider reversing more than a century of tradition and law to give the U.S. military a bigger law enforcement role in the event of a terrorist attack, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and some lawmakers said.

Fears that terrorists might attempt a nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. territory are prompting some lawmakers to support revisions to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts using the
military as a civilian police force.

"I think it is time to revisit it,'' [said] Senator Joe Biden ...

Exactly how it might be changed is not described, although using the military's expertise in connection with a terrorist WMD attack (whether through a nuclear detonation, a "dirty bomb" or otherwise) might well make sense. However, it would also make sense to attempt to duplicate some or all of that expertise in civilian law enforcement agencies like the FBI.

It does not matter to me whether the guy who saves New York from a dirty bomb is wearing fatigues or a suit and tie. It matters that he (or she) saves New York. At the same time, however, I think that the Posse Comitatus Act has been working just fine, thank you very much. Since it does not matter to me whether New York is saved by military or civilian authority, I think I would prefer to attempt to provide civilian law enforcement agencies with military nuclear expertise before we try to fix the Posse Comitatus Act.

Is there time to do so? How difficult will it be? How likely is it to be successful? Would those civilians do better than they have with respect to the anthrax attacks? All good questions. All unanswered as of now.

 
Once upon a time in the blogging stone age (something like a year ago), there lived a blog named The Buck Stops Here. The proprietor, Stuart Buck, was a clerk for a judge on the US Court of Appeals, although I did not know that at the time, since he was careful not to mention who his employer was. Court employees (professional employees?) are not permitted to engage in partisan activities, and Buck's blogging was viewed as partisan by at least one court administrator. His blogging activity was shut down by his employer (an official of the Court, not the judge Buck worked for) in what I thought at the time was a fit of excessive zeal. Clerkships usually last about a year, and Buck promised a return of his blog thereafter.

He's back, and his site has been added to my links to your left. Sensible, well written discussion of interesting issues. What more could you ask for?

 
Damn, I'm on a roll.


On July 17, I made the unsurprising observation that the US would invade Iraq regardless of world opinion. That view was echoed by the Spectator. Tim Blair noted the Spectator item on his blog on July 19, but the item itself is dated July 20. On July 19 I congratulated the Spectator for agreeing with me. In doing so, I said I thought that Bush would start the war against Iraq in time to have an effect on the November elections. Now Ha'aretz has picked up the story, in a piece dated July 20.


"The U.S. operation to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will take place in the coming months, even before November's Congressional elections, according to high-level sources in the French government following talks with American decision-makers and professionals in Washington."


Via BOTW (Third item)


Bet you didn't know that I was so well connected with high level sources in the French government or with American decision-makers and professionals in Washington. It's a safe bet. Even I didn't know I was that connected.


In more important developments, Radley Balko's TCS column seems to be coming true.

 
Me, July 17, 2002:



"We're coming, Saddam. With or without anyone else, we are coming. We are coming for you, this time. There will be no deals. There will be no games with weapons inspectors. We won't stop because Kofi Annan has a conniption at the UN. We won't stop because massive casualties in the Republican Guard will look bad on TV. We won't stop when (not if) you start dropping Scuds on Israel. We will stop only when we get to Baghdad or in the extremely unlikely event that you can stop us before that.



"... We won't stop even if there are riots in the streets in every capital of Europe and the Middle East.".



The Spectator, July 20, 2002:



"This is one of the least guileful Presidents in American history; what he says, he means. When he announced that the US would deal with al-Qa’eda in Afghanistan and then move on to Iraq, that was what he intended to do... Mr Bush’s phase two is now beginning.



"The Americans will not be deflected by the absence of support from continental Europe. A few months ago, William Hague asked George Bush how he would deal with European objections to ballistic missile defence. ‘I’ve got a secret plan,’ Mr Bush replied. ‘What is it?’ ‘I’ll go ahead anyway.’ So he will on Iraq."



Via Tim Blayah, intrepid Ozblogger.



So, do I have a wider audience than I thought?



Nah. Common sense is still common sense, even if it isn't very common. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Iraq is toast. The more interesting speculation concerns not whether we will go into Saddam's oil soaked fantasy land, but when and how.



The how part I leave to the people we pay to knock heads and break things. They have been doing a real good job so far, as indicated by the fact that the only political criticism now being voiced about the Afghan war is that the Secretary of the Army used to work for Enron.



As to when, I've heard everything from "soon" to "at a time calculated to effect the 2004 Presidential election." My money is on "soon" for two reasons, one blatantly political and the other practical. Waiting for the 2004 election risks losing domestic support for the wider war on terror because of interim events, so the invasion is unlikely to be postponed that long. Since Bush clearly intends to invade Iraq anyway, I assume that he will try to use the timing of the invasion to his advantage. Certainly there is no reason he should not do so. Therefore, I think the timing of an invasion will be used to effect an election, but not the 2004 Presidential contest. This year's midterm elections are also important to Bush, with the Senate evenly split and the Democrats attempting to use the accounting scandals to take back the House.



Frankly, if the only political affect of an October invasion is to get rid of Cynthia McKinney, it will be worth it.

 
Mickey Lives!



“Temmuz (July Revolution) returns to say to all evil tyrants and oppressors of the world: You will never defeat me this time. Never!"


So says Saddam. Guess its time to pack up and go home, since we can never defeat him (this time). We'll have to wait for the next time.



You've got to wonder why the man continues to come up with this blustery nonsense. We don't believe him. The EUniks don't believe him. His putative Russian allies don't believe him. The Arabs don't believe him. Not that it matters to him, but his own "constituents" don't believe him.



Who does he think he's playing to? The Guardian? To paraphrase someone or other, "How many divisions can the Guardian put in the field?" Yes, that statement was famously wrong in that it failed to take into account the effect on public opinon of whoever it was aimed at. And yes, the Guardian can have an effect on public opinion. Outside the US. But since it looks like we are going to give Saddam the boot (because it is in our interest to do so) regardless of public opinion outside the US, the effect of the Guardian on public opinion is irrelevant.



Witihin the US, it appears that we are remarkably united on the necessity of ridding the world of Saddam. 70% in favor is the most recent result, as I recall. Excuse me while I fact check my own ass.



OK, I'm back. I was wrong. It's 73%. There aren't many occasions where 73% of Americans agree on anything, much less a major foreign policy initiative.



We're coming, Saddam. With or without anyone else, we are coming. We are coming for you, this time. There will be no deals. There will be no games with weapons inspectors. We won't stop because Kofi Annan has a conniption at the UN. We won't stop because massive casualties in the Republican Guard will look bad on TV. We won't stop when (not if) you start dropping Scuds on Israel. We will stop only when we get to Baghdad or in the extremely unlikely event that you can stop us before that.



You want bluster? OK. We won't stop even if there are riots in the streets in every capital of Europe and the Middle East.



M-I-C See you real soon. K-E-Y Why? Because you threaten us. M-O-U-S-E

 
VodkaPundit tells of taking his check dive in 61 degree water. HAH! What a wuss. Us northeastern he-man types take our check dives in a quarry in Pennsylvania. In April. In a snowstorm (well, alright, snow flurry). The water temp was 42 degrees. Not knowing what she was in for, my wife had not paid particularly close attention to how well her rented wet suit fit (she is quite small and often had problems with equipment such as BC vests, etc., that were too large). The wet suit hood that she grabbed apparently allowed water to circulate on the back of her neck. To say the least, she was unable to complete the dive.

And of course, we were doing this for the purpose of being certified, so that we could go diving (which we did in the Caribbean, after a stop in the Keys to complete Rose's check dive). One dive in the Carribbean and I was way too spoiled to go diving in the Atlantic off New Jersey. A comparison:

Good day for diving in the Atlantic:

Visibility 10 feet
Water temp 65

Bad day in the Caribbean

Visibility 75 feet
Water temp 75

Since I can't commute to the Caribbean, I don't get much diving in.

 
According to AP, the who sued on behalf of his daughter in California to have the Pledge of Allegiance declared unconsititutional does not have custody of his daughter.

"Banning never married Michael Newdow, the third-grader's father and the atheist behind the pledge lawsuit. She has full custody of the girl, which Newdow is challenging in court." (Via Best of the Web)

If that's the case, then where does he get the authority to file suit on her behalf? Doesn't he lack standing or something like that? Seems to me that this would be a perfect excuse for the Ninth Circuit to use to backtrack, should they desire to do so.

 
I’ve got mail!

Phillipe Richards wins the prize (of little or no monetary value to be determined) for being the VERY FIRST person to mail a comment to me. I would treasure his letter for that reason, alone, but it gets better. In response to my humble mea culpa in connection with the Supremacy Clause, he says I was too quick to concede, and for taking that position, his prize will be increased many fold.

He points out a very interesting Supreme Court opinion authored by one of our most famous jurists, Oliver Wendell Holmes. The case involved a statute passed in 1918 by the Congress. It seems that in 1916, the US and Britain (then the sovereign of Canada) signed the Migratory Bird Treaty concerning, surprise, migratory birds which traversed parts of Canada and the US. The two countries agreed pursuant to the treaty that there would be specified closed seasons on hunting certain species of birds and to promulgate laws to carry out the treaty. When the US did so by enacting the aptly titled Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, Missouri sued to have the statute declared unconstitutional.

It turns out that it had previously been established that “ownership” of wild animals resided with the states, and that Congress could not regulate hunting migratory birds because (a) that was not one of the enumerated powers granted to the federal government and (b) the power was reserved to the several States by the Tenth Amendment. Thus, Missouri argued, what the US could not accomplish directly, it cannot get done via the back door of a treaty. Holmes first implied that he did not agree with the prior decisions, but said that, regardless of whether those decisions were correct, they were not wholly dispositive of the issue before the Court. He wrote:

“Acts of Congress are the supreme law of the land only when made in pursuance of the Constitution, while treaties are declared to be so when made under the authority of the United States. It is open to question whether the authority of the United States means more than the formal acts prescribed to make the convention."

In other words, "under the authority of the United States" may mean something closer to "under the aegis of the US" than "pursuant to authority granted by the people to the US in the Constitution". Holmes continues:

"We do not mean to imply that there are no qualifications to the treaty-making power; but they must be ascertained in a different way. It is obvious that there may be matters of the sharpest exigency for the national well being that an act of Congress could not deal with but that a treaty followed by such an act could, and it is not lightly to be assumed that, in matters requiring national action, ‘a power which must belong to and somewhere reside in every civilized government’ is not to be found.”

Holmes then goes on to make an argument that sounds suspiciously like those advanced in cases about laws and regulations made under the authority of the Commerce Clause: the birds in question are only in any one state on a transitory basis, and relying on the states to protect them is futile, since the benefits of protection are widely disbursed and the burdens (such as the absence of a new landfill) are very local. This last is a variation on what I recall from my Stone Age course on game theory as Arrow’s Theorem (and others on the web have called the tragedy of the commons): a series of rational decisions can lead to an irrational outcome.

The final outcome in Holland was that the law made pursuant to the treaty was valid, when a similar law made prior to the treaty, had previously been declared invalid. I suspect that the treaty (and therefore the statute) would pass constitutional muster today under the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, which authority is much more broadly construed today than it was in the 1920s, when Holland was decided.

Both Justice Holmes and Mr. Richards take care to note that they do not believe that the federal government could repeal the Bill of Rights simply by entering into a treaty with another country, but assert that the language used in the Supremacy Clause differentiates between laws enacted by the US “pursuant to the Constitution” and treaties entered into “under the authority of the United States”, and that the difference must have some significance.

Well, OK. Obviously, the Supremacy Clause does have different language describing laws and treaties, and I agree that the difference should not be construed as meaningless. But Steven DenBeste’s point was that the treaties he was discussing directly violated one or more of those basic and most cherished rights held by Americans, which both Holmes and Richards assumed could not be bartered away via treaty.

So both Richards and DenBeste are still right. Does that mean I’m still wrong?

 
Ouch.

My stupidity has now been broadcast to a much wider audience. Thanks Steve.

Such is life in the Blogiverse, I guess.

Well, he spelled my name right.

 
Oz Oddity

Did someone downunder lose an asshole? He's been found. I wonder if they want him back.

MURDOCH SCRIBE FIGHTS BACK Bush-bashing leads inevitably to Dubya trouble

Bruce Wilson
July 6, 2002, Saturday
Courier Mail

ONE week ago I wrote a piece that said that much of the world was getting to terms with the fact that President George W. Bush is a fraudulently elected nitwit.

This from a guy whose country has political parties whose members decide which party to join based on who they are presently going to bed with.

You always expect some kind of reaction from statements like that.

(Snip)

By the end of the week there were more than 1000.

A handful were from Australia and the world. All the rest were from the US and for days they handed it to me as if I were the greatest threat to democracy since Joe Stalin. The hatred and invective was quite staggering.

Then I found out what had happened. I had been picked up by the Drudge Report, the website started by a right-wing zealot called Matt Drudge.

Right wing zealot. Hmmmmmmm. Someone who links to YOUR words without comment. Them right wingers are everywhere on the innernut.

(Snip)

Well, whee-hoo, as they say down on the ranch.

You have a ranch where they say that?

Drudge obviously aims at a lowest common denominator, since most of my electronic correspondents failed to catch on that I was an Australian.

Yeah, those dimwit Americans can't even tell that "Bruce Wilson" is obviously an Australian name. We even imported one to sing with the Beach Boys. Oh, sorry, that was Brian. Read your insulting little article again and show me where you said you were an Australian. Then you can complain that people thought you were British.

They saw the London dateline, and said: "OK, let's trash this limey."

Mainly I got it for being a limp-wristed nancy-boy (Bruce is thought to be a poofie name in the rednecked areas of America) whose nation (Britain) was twice saved by ever-brave American military might and GI know-how.

It couldn't possibly be a result of:

The complete absence of any knowledge on your part of the US political system, or for that matter, the US economic system.

The fact that the basic premise of your article is that half of the American electorate voted for a nitwit, which, of course, means that they were taken in by a nitwit. Now why would those stupid people take offense at that? Jeez!

The fact that you cite Tom Cruise, for God's sake, on political issues. Do people downunder take their political advice from actors? They should know that we tried that in the 1960s and 70s with Jane Fonda. Didn't work out too well.

The fact that you try to tie the present corporate scandals on Bush based on absolutely zero evidence, when the fact of the matter is that they have been going on since well before the 2000 election.

The fact that you think that democracy and free elections in the Middle East is "batty".

Could it?

You simply don't have time to read 1000 e-mails and they clog up the memory.

No worries mate, reading 1000, even 5000, emails will have absolutely no effect your memory. It's already clogged.

I took them randomly while wiping them out, reading about one in 20, and then replying if the sender was making some kind of a point or other, saying I was Australian, not British, and used to work in the US and some of my best friends were Republicans.

Wilson sounds like a 60's era racist who repeatedly says, "Some of my best friends are nig ... um ... Negroes."

Then I detected the pattern. It was clear that a network existed to organise the outraged responses.

They ran on two levels: "Come to Texas . . . and we'll show ya." And, "We saved your asses and if you keep this stuff up we won't do it again."

Some were so offensive I replied in kind. Some I tried to tell that the US came very late into World War II and Britain already had fought its two major battles without them.

Did Britain fight those battles without Lend/Lease or the "Arsenal of Democracy"? But Wilson is correct that we got into the war late. After the French surrendered in a week and Britain got its butt kicked around the entire Pacific Ocean and off the European continent.

Then, as the week went on, there came a slow and then increasing inbox of what might be described as the still, small voice of reason.

"Thanks. Nobody's saying this stuff often enough here," was the general theme.

You reason with them. The other 98% of us can't.

September 11 had created a president wearing false clothes, said one. But nobody would say so. Or if they did, not loud enough.

About 150 Americans e-mailed me -- from Seattle and Denver and Tacoma and New York and Smallsville, Ohio -- asking me not to pay attention to Matt Drudge, or the organised Right, and to keep at it.

150 Americans emailed their support. Out of, what, 100 million with access to computers? Congratulations. Do you really think its wise to let your editor know that you got 1000 "con" emails immediately and 150 "pro" emails eventually? Does he know that, in the world's largest market, you have only a handful of readers who concur with your Homeric (as in Homer Simpson) opinions scattered across the continent?

Actually, what September 11 seems to have created is two things:

A class of idiots, largely concentrated in the press, the radical left and the French government.

An idiot proof society in the US.

I will.

Looking forward to it.

bruce.wilson@newsint.co.uk

 
Hate Crimes Revisited

It seems we have a new candidate for a hate crime perpetrator: the LAX shooter.

Quite frankly, I think designating something a "hate crime" is a waste of otherwise useful cognitive activity.

I really wonder whether hate crimes laws actually afford any protection to the group or groups they are intended to protect. I have no data to back that up, but I would like to see some research into whether this type of law is anything other than a “feel good” response to a perceived problem. How often did the types of acts described in hate crime legislation happen before and after the passage of that legislation?

While the problem may be real (Group A disagrees with Group B’s lifestyle or religion), I doubt that our government can do much about it. Other than punishing someone when they commit a crime, doing something about the problem would involve changing either the beliefs of Group A or the lifestyle or religion of Group B. I don’t think I want our government to go into either of those areas.

As to punishing criminals, we already do that, at least in theory. Is a crime really worse (and merit more or different punishment) because the criminal holds his victim in contempt because of his beliefs, lifestyle or skin color? If I had to guess, I would say that most or all criminals hold their victims in contempt, even if the basis for that contempt is something other than religion, race or lifestyle. If the criminal’s contempt is based on the fact that his victim is weak or law abiding or young or nerdy, or some other factor not deemed improper under hate crimes legislation, I question whether his crime is any less deserving of punishment than the criminal who selects his victim based on the victim’s religious beliefs, race or lifestyle. For example, I don’t believe that the murderer of 8 year old Meghan Kanka (the “Meghan’s Law” Meghan) is one bit less deserving of punishment than the murderers of Matthew Shepard (gay bashing murder in Wisconsin) or James Byrd (racial murder in Texas).

Probably the strongest argument that opponents of hate crimes legislation have is that what is being punished by hate crime laws is the beliefs of the perpetrator. Hate crime legislation does not purport to create new crimes. What it does is punish crimes motivated by certain factors more than the same crimes without that motivation. This has been rather poorly expressed by the opponents hate crime legislation by saying that what is being punished is “thought”. In point of fact, “thought” (or at least "intent") is punished all the time. Intentionally murdering a person has always been punished more severely than recklessly causing someone’s death. What I always thought that the law was supposed to punish was intent, not motivation. Under these circumstances, motivation and belief are synonymous, and hate crime laws change the focus from intent to belief. That change is not necessarily a good thing at all. I don’t think that the government should have the ability to tell anyone, even criminals, that any beliefs are good or bad.

It is (or at least was) a liberal thing to not make judgments about the beliefs or lifestyles of others. That is actually something I agree with (as long as I am accorded the same courtesy and the belief/lifestyle does not adversely affect me or my family). Now it seems to be the liberal position that individuals should not be permitted to make judgments about such things, but the government can.

Hate crime legislative proponents argue that it is the actor’s motive, not his belief that is being considered in exacting punishment, and that motive is already considered in sentencing. If they are is correct on both points, why do we need new laws to do the very thing that we are now doing? If they are not correct on one or the other of those points, query: how is ascertaining murderer X’s gay bashing motive any different from ascertaining his belief that a gay man is an affront to God? Surely the murderer of a gay man who is found to believe that gay men are an affront to God will be held to have been motivated by that belief unless he can clearly establish some other motivation. That puts the burden in the wrong place. The state, within limits, should have to justify its sentence.

 
Be gentle with me. I am new, and I am trying to figure the technical stuff out as I go along (usually not a very good idea for me).

One of my favorite bloggers is Steven DenBeste, over at The Good Ship Clueless. Today, he points out that the International Criminal Court is unacceptable to the US because it is not subject to the appropriate checks and balances, as our own court system is. I agree. He goes on to state, however, that a number of treaties which we did not enter into would have violated the Constitution, citing a treaty on biological weapons, a treaty on the Internet, and so on.

A quibble: It is not possible for a ratified treaty to violate the Constitution, regardless of the terms of the treaty.

Article VI of the Constitution provides:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The supreme law of the land has three sources:

The US Constitution;

The laws of the United States made pursuant to the Constitution; and

Treaties made under the authority of the United States.

A treaty, any treaty, once signed by the President and ratified by the Senate, becomes the "supreme law of the land," conflicts with the Constitution notwithstanding. That is not to say that the treaties that Steven was discussing (which clearly violated either the Constitution itself or the Bill of Rights) should have been ratified. Had they been ratified, however, by definition they would not have violated the Constitution. They would have amended it.

UPDATE: Doh! The Sage points out that the language quoted above "anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding" refers to the constitutions of the states. Not only is that correct, I should have known it to begin with. Treaties between the US and another nation would not amend the US Constitution. They would, however, amend existing statutes, to the extent that the effect of such an "amendment" would not violate the US Constitution. That's what I remembered from my long ago course on international taxation.