February 2009

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The power to tax is the power to destroy.

-John Marshall

March 30, 2007

Running Around

Wow, have I been busy. I haven’t had much time to gather my thoughts about politics or current events since I’ve been doing so much running around these past few weeks. And I mean literally, running around. We just started the spring track season for Virginia high schools, and I’m coaching a hurdler crew that should represent very well at districts and regionals. Barring injury, I think it is likely we will have more than one hurdler at States this year – for both the boys and the girls teams. We really are looking that good. And the rest of the track team doesn’t look bad either. We currently have three athletes who are nationally ranked.

But in addition to running around as a coach, I have also been training myself. I and several of my coworkers are training for the 2007 SunTrust Richmond Marathon in November. That’s a long way off, so we chose the Ukrop’s 10k as an early step.

That’s tomorrow morning, and it will be the first timed run I have done since I got out of the navy 8 years ago. It will also be the longest distance I have ever been timed for. But I’m not concerned with the time, as I will be pacing my slower coworkers. A few of them have never really run before, and I am really excited that they are coming out for this race – and hopefully for the marathon this fall. I care a lot more about encouraging them than about determining whether I can finish this race in under 45 minutes. Probably couldn’t quite pull that off, anyway. I haven’t done any speed training.

So I ate a lot of tortellini tonight (called “carbing up”), and I am rounding out the evening with some 7&7s (called “getting a buzz”). I will take a camera with me tomorrow and share a couple of photos of beautiful downtown Richmond, VA. And maybe even find some time to catch up on some things I’ve meant to blog.

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March 20, 2007

Celebrity Look-alikes

I’ve run across a few photos this week of people in the news who bear what I think is a striking resemblance to certain celebrities. Tell me if I am wrong.

First up is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
Khalid%20Sheikh%20Mohammed.jpg

Reminiscent of U.S. Senator Blutarsky:

Next, Phil Spector:

Clearly Sideshow Bob:
sideshow_bob.jpg.jpg

The most frightening one is Senator Hillary Clinton:

A dead freaking ringer, I tells ya!

And last but certainly not least, New York District Attorney Arthur Branch:

Looks a lot like that actor from Hunt for Red October:

This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

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March 19, 2007

Truancy Equals Freedom

SCOTUS begins hearing Morse v. Frederick (a/k/a the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case), about which our friend and fellow libertarian Kip asks, “Why is this even a case?” Being both a libertarian and a public school teacher, I’ve paid some attention to this case. I am very concerned about the outcome – which I suspect will go poorly for young Mr. Frederick.

Okay, if you have no idea what case I am talking about, let me bring you up to speed – with some heavy quoting from SCOTUSblog, to which Kip also links.

The core facts that the two sides can agree upon are these: when the Olympic torch was being carried along Glacier Avenue in Juneau, Alaska, on January 24, 2002, 18-year-old Joseph Frederick held up a 14-foot banner with the message, “BONG HITS 4 JESUS.” (“Bong hits” is slang for smoking marijuana.) Glacier Avenue runs in front of Juneau-Douglas High School, where Frederick was enrolled as a senior. School Principal Morse crossed the Avenue, and demanded that the sign be taken down; Frederick refused, and the principal grabbed the sign and crumpled it. Later, Morse suspended Frederick for ten days, citing a variety of infractions of school rules. The Ninth Circuit found a violation of Frederick’s First Amendment rights, and found that the law was so clear on this issue in January 2002 that the principal was not entitled to legal immunity to money damages.

But the agreement on the facts largely ends there. The principal and the Juneau School Board insist that Frederick was taking part in a school-sponsored event – the students were let out of school to attend the torch-passing rally, and school cheerleaders and pep band took part; the students were closely supervised; school system money was spent to bus students in from other schools; the event occurred during school hours, and four students were torch-bearers. Frederick with equal fervor insists that this was a public event in a public forum (a sidewalk next to a public street), he was not on school property at the time, he was an 18-year-old adult, and he had not even gone to class that morning so was not among students released to go to the rally.

Now, I’d have to say it’s pretty clear that citizens have the right to unfurl banners with ambiguous religion/drug messages. It’s also pretty clear that the student would not have been allowed to do this in his school cafetorium – his suspension would have stood, and he never would have made it anywhere near the Supreme Court. But he wasn’t on school property, so he’s golden.

Except that the defense will argue convincingly that the torch rally was a school-sponsored event, much like a field trip. I am (annually) a field trip sponsor, and it has been made very clear to me (every damn year) that (to turn a phrase) school officials do not shed their in loco parentis responsibilities at the schoolhouse gate. I am not even allowed to change the rules of dress code or conduct just because I’ve taken the students to an amusement park to study the physics of the rides (not at taxpayer expense, settle down). And incidentally, this does not magically change when the student hits 18, so Joseph Frederick’s being that age at the time of this incident is probably completely irrelevant. The fact that Juneau-Douglas High School brought students to participate in this Olympic rally is enough to sink his case.

Except that Joseph Frederick had not gone to school that day. (dum-dum-dum!)

That was the one fact of the case that I picked up from SCOTUSblog that I had not known this morning, when I emailed the Atlantico list about this case. This morning, I said:

The case is interesting to me because I have seen groups from the right and the left supporting this kid. The ACLU and gay rights groups in particular seem concerned about potential abridging of free speech, no surprise, but several religious groups recognize how a ruling in support of the school could be used against religious expressions at school. But he's so going to lose.

Ah, not so after all. In light of the fact that Joseph Frederick was absent from school, he can’t reasonably be considered to have been participating in the torch rally as a student subject to the school rules. Suddenly, it’s much more like the time that I ran into students at the amusement park who were not on the physics field trip, and in fact weren’t enrolled in a physics class. They were not my problem, from a legal point of view.

Well played, Mr. Frederick. Well played. Bong hits 4 Jesus, indeed.

ps - I personally think the defense is further hurt by the arguments that are being made about schools needing to enforce anti-drug policies. I just can’t see the justices nodding along with that argument. At least, I hope not.

Posted by Wulf | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 18, 2007

The Plame Game

Sweetness & Light speculates that it "was almost certainly Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV who first 'outed' his wife as a CIA officer." And they go on to mention that Joe Wilson probably did so "in early May 2003 after meeting with top level Democrats and around the time he began to work for the John Kerry for President campaign."

It intrigues me that I haven't seen anyone take this to the next, logical progression and state that it was Valerie Plame, herself, who inappropriately revealed her Agency status (if any). Last Friday's Washington Post has a fairly good indicator on who first screwed up, which is about 10 people removed from Scooter Libby:

When [Plame] met Wilson at a Washington reception in 1997, "she described herself as an energy executive living in Brussels," he later wrote in his book. Eventually, Plame revealed to Wilson -- who held a security clearance as political adviser to the European Command -- that she was a spy, Wilson wrote. He said his only question was: "Is your real name Valerie?"

(Emphasis mine) Ha ha ha. Amusing anecdote, to be sure. But exactly when did it become appropriate for an operative of Plame's alleged status to reveal the nature of her work to her boyfriend? The red herring of Wilson's nebulous "security clearance" most likely didn't give him the right to know about Plame's alleged status, unless our nation is making it routine policy to inform trench-dwelling political advisers the whereabouts and nature of our most secret non-official cover operatives.

If Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald wants to bring charges against someone, why not start with the leaky, publicity-seeking source: Valerie Plame?

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March 17, 2007

Firewall of China

AtlasBlogged is available in China.

Now, they don't allow just anybody into China. Many, many blogs have noted that they are not able to get around the Great Firewall of China. So many that I don't feel the need to provide examples.

But AtlasBlogged gets through, baby. click here to see screenshot proof.

You might think it's because we aren't very controversial. You might think it's because we aren't libertarian enough to matter. You might think that they haven't noticed this tiny blog.

I think it's because 1.3 billion Chinese citizens demand AtlasBlogged. Let's see your site get in.

Posted by Wulf | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 16, 2007

Russ Feingold Waxes Poetic About Somalia

Now, for those who won’t believe that [cutting off funding] has ever been done or that it can't -- or they'd say – it can't be done, let me cite an example from not that long ago. On October 1993, Congress enacted an amendment sponsored by the senior senator from West Virginia cutting off funding – cutting of funding – for military operations in Somalia effective March 31, 1994.

That’s US Senator Russ Feingold declaring yesterday that the Democrats are more interested in getting credit for the eventual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq than they are in having it done in the manner that would be best for our national security. This isn’t news, but it’s still a little shocking to see the bald language. Let it sink in: Russ Feingold just said that the manner in which our troops left Somalia is worth repeating in Iraq. Given the damage done to our reputation in Somalia, I don’t know language strong enough to denounce Feingold.

Consider what Osama bin Laden had to say about the situation to which Feingold refers:

America left [Somalia] faster than anyone expected. It forgot all that tremendous media fanfare about the new world order, that it is the master of that order, and that it does whatever it wants. It forgot all of these propositions, gathered up its army, and withdrew in defeat, thanks be to God… We pray to God to give us his support and to make America ever more reluctant. God is capable of that.

We can all say that we knew it was coming. Gateway Pundit noted it back in August. David Drake wrote about it in September. And today, Red State compares Feingold’s plan to bin Laden’s inspiration.

I say it again: I don’t know language strong enough to denounce Feingold. This is not the moral high ground, Senator.

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Wonders Never Cease

Via email, Rammage alerted me to this post by Dale Franks over at QandO. Rammage rhetorically asks, “What's wrong with this paragraph?”

"The sun sets over Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a church that was first built in 537 B.C. as a Mosque when the city fell to the Ottomans. When Turkish President Kemal Ataturk turned it into a museum in 1935, Christian mosaics covered up by the Muslims were revealed."

My concern upon reading this photo caption isn’t even the blundering lack of adherence to historical fact. Humbug to Rammage and Dale, and their "facts". I take issue with something even more fundamental in the WaPo article that is related to the error-strewn photo captions: There is no reason to "update" the list of the Seven Wonders of the World. And if there were, this list they are reporting on is pretty poorly put together. I agree with Egypt's Culture Minister, who called it "absurd". He asked that the Pyramids be taken off the list, but was denied.

See if you can find the contradiction in these two paragraphs from the Post:

Viering said the pyramids could not be removed because the competition is a purely democratic process, driven by Internet voting (and to a lesser extent phone balloting). "It's the people of the world who are making this list. It's not our decision," she said.

and

Voting began in 2001. Nominated monuments swelled to 177, were culled to 77, then winnowed in late 2005 by a group of experts to the current 21 finalists, each from a different country.

Expletive! This newspaper article was so poor that we are all stupider for having read it.

Of course, the Washington Post notes that many organizations have put together their own lists of 7 wonders over the years. It reminds me of another annoying trend - the many so-called "Bills of Rights" that are out there. Perhaps there should be a Seven Wonders of the Taxpayers World, and an American Society of Civil Engineers Bill of Rights. We can have experts cull the lists, then winnow them – it’ll be a purely democratic process all around.

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March 13, 2007

Ron Paul

Ron Paul is formally seeking the Republican presidential nomination – something that we’ve known, but that was just made formal this week. I didn’t think the official announcement would cause me any confusion, but then I read this in the NYT:

A statement released by campaign chairman Kent Snyder described Paul as “a real conservative in the race for president” who Republican primary voters can support.

A real… conservative? Wait… Ron Paul is known for being libertarian – in fact, he played the part of the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 1988. So which is it? Libertarian, or conservative?

Or are libertarians and conservatives really very similar after all?

Oh, sorry. Ron Paul is running for the Republican presidential nomination, which means he needs to get GOP voters to identify him as a reasonable option. Thus the word “conservative” being so attractive. I get it. Just for a second, I thought we were going to have to identify the issue that separates libertarians from conservatives. (hint)

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March 10, 2007

There is No Dana; Only Fool

It's the opening weekend for 300, and the comparisons to Nazi propaganda have already started to trickle out. Ace of Spades tackles a Slate piece by movie critic Liz Penn/Dana Stevens that starts:

If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.

Lovely. What sort of deep-thinking intellectual wordsmith can make this allegorical leap?

Here's the author's background:

Liz Penn has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in New York City and writes on television for Slate.com under the name Dana Stevens.

Ph.D. Comparative Literature. Berkeley. Manhattan. Of course. [Yawn] Can't there be any surprises anymore? When Ms. Penn/Stevens was asked in an interview what she would do with 24 hours in NYC if the world were coming to an end, she responded:

Realistically, I'd probably hole up and freak out, or call people and say goodbye. But I assume this question is supposed to be about a nice New York day, not the stark horror of mass impending death. So let's say: a cup of perfect coffee at home, a walk uptown to look at the Rembrandt self-portrait at the Frick, a drink at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, and dinner and a movie downtown, at Anthology or someplace. All with the right people, of course -- you know who you are. And it has to be mid-October.

They're all getting far too predictable. I could have written this response for her...verbatim.

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March 7, 2007

Steyn on Freeing Tibet

Whenever I read a new book, I'm quick to dog-ear the bottom of the pages that I'd like to go back and read someday. The selected pages are usually filled with memorable insights, phrases, cleverly constructed points and so forth. The problem with Mark Steyn's America Alone is that I found myself dog-earing practically every page, which really defeats the whole purpose of calling attention to particular sections in the first place.

Nonetheless, if you'll forgive yet another Steyn quote, I will reprint one of my many favorites below the break, at least until I get that cease-and-desist letter from Steyn's lawyer:

Every so often, I find myself, for the umpteenth time, driving behind a Vermont granolamobile whose bumper not only proclaims the driver's enduring post-2004 support for Kerry/Edwards but also bears the slogan "FREE TIBET."

It must be great to be the guy with the printing contract for the "FREE TIBET" stickers. Not so good to be the guy back in Tibet wondering when the freeing thereof will actually get under way. Are you in favor of a Free Tibet? It's hard to find anyone who isn't. Every college in America is. There's the Indiana University Students for a Free Tibet, and the University of Wisconsin—Madison Students for a Free Tibet, and the Students for a Free Tibet University of Michigan chapter, and the University of Montana Students for a Free Tibet in Missoula, which is where they might as well relocate the last three Tibetans by the time it is freed.

Everyone's for a free Tibet, but no one's freeing Tibet. So Tibet will stay unfree--as unfree now as it was when the first Free Tibet campaigner slapped the very first "FREE TIBET" sticker onto the back of his Edsel. Idealism as inertia is the hallmark of the movement. Well, not entirely inert: it must be a pain in the neck when you trade in the Volvo for a Subaru and have to bend down and paste on a new "FREE TIBET" sticker. For a while, my otherwise not terribly political wife got extremely irritated by the Free Tibet shtick, demanding to know at a pancake breakfast at the local church what precisely some harmless hippy-dippy old neighbor of ours meant by the sticker he'd been proudly displaying decade in, decade out: "But what exactly are you doing to free Tibet?" she insisted. "You're not doing anything, are you?"

"Give the guy a break," I said when we got back home. "He's advertising his moral superiority, not calling for action. If Rumsfeld were to say, 'Free Tibet? Jiminy, what a swell idea! The Third Infantry Division goes in on Thursday,' the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast. They'd have to bend down and peel off the 'FREE TIBET' stickers and replace them with 'WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.'"

But there'll never be a Free Tibet--because, through all the decades Americans were driving around with the bumper stickers, the Chinese were moving populations, torturing Tibetans, imposing inter-marriage until Tibet was altered beyond recognition. By the time the guys with the Free Tibet stickers get around to freeing Tibet there'll be no Tibet left to free.

Freeing Tibet is so Eighties. Why hasn't the granola-Left moved on to Freeing Taiwan?

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March 4, 2007

Arctic Surge?

The Weather Channel has decided to poke a little fun at the Surge/Reinforcements framing issue. Will a fresh batch of artic air be surging into the Midwest and Northeast? Is that word too hot for this cold air? I see the humor.

Political cracks aside, it’s going to be 60 degrees here in Richmond tomorrow, and no sign of the first snow of the season. Sigh.

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