From the "Well duh" file

Here's the front page headline in this morning's Chicago Tribune:

Iranian influence soaring in Iraq

Shiites, Sunnis say Tehran is winner of U.S. invasion

Gosh, who could have seen that coming? I mean, besides your average college sophomore in an intro-level middle eastern history class? I found the quote below particularly disturbing:

America handed Iraq to Iran on a golden plate," says Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq. "Everything Iran fought for in the Iran-Iraq war, America gave to it when it invaded."

In God we trust?

Apparently some of the new dollar coins are circulating without the "In God We Trust" legend (link) This excites the coin collectors as did the famous "inverted Jenny" stamp:



But this is more than just a screwup at the mint. This is an opportunity to examine something that is just flat-out wrong. The "In God We Trust" line dates from the Civil War. It has withstood constitutional challenge on the incredibly shaky ground that it is "ceremonial" or "patriotic" rather than religious.

In effect, the federal courts are allowing it to stay because it is meaningless. So if it is meaningless, then why not just get rid of it?

I don't want to see poor municipalities like Zion in Illinois forced to spend tax dollars that could be used to teach kids and fix potholes to sandblast religious symbols off public building or re-order all the village stationery, etc. This one is simple. The next time we need to update the die for minting coins or the template for printing bills--just remove it. Almost no cost would be involved and we would honor the Constitution and the nation we are today.

Moment of Silence

Winemaker Ernest Gallo dies at 97

Thank you Ernest for helping America understand that wine is a food and proof that God loves us.

I've been one poor correspondent..

Work's been hell and adjusting to having Peggy back from another European boondoggle, but--so little time, so much stuff.

First of all, Merry Fitzmas! Kudos to Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor's prosecutor. He is truly our generation's Untouchable, a ruthless yet fair and honest prosecutor. He has no agenda other than justice. He is a media superstar with a J.D. from Harvard and could have any partnership he desired, but no--he's a prosecutor. A Washington Post reporter interviewed him over breakfast and was going to pay for Pat's doughnut and coffee and he said no, even $10 (at DC prices) for breakfast would have compromised his integrity.

Guilty on four out of five, and the "not guilty" had a jury vote of 11-1 for conviction. These are serious charges ABOUT A SERIOUS MATTER. I use the caps for the Clinton comparison. Bill Clinton was deceptive under oath. One could make a fine legal argument that he did not "lie" because the other side's definition of "sexual relations" actually did not include happy humming.
It included touching this and touching that, but VERY TECHNICALLY it did not include the flute sonata.

That notwithstanding, Clinton did not commit perjury under applicable federal law. The federal statute criminalizes lying about MATERIAL matters. Material means something important that could impact a decision. For example, if I swear under oath that I was married on May 28, 1982, when in fact I was married on May 29, 1982 (note that this will be the 25th, presents accepted) I have lied under oath but not committed perjury under federal law unless my wedding date was an issue in the case (some states vary, a lie is a lie) Given that the Monica stuff wasn't even admitted into evidence, it is immaterial as a matter of law.

Scooter Libby lies and lies about outing a CIA operative TO DISCREDIT HER HUSBAND'S ANTI-WAR MESSAGE. A tad bit different from a blowjob.

A quick quote from the Washington Post:

Prosecutors contended that Libby tracked down and told reporters about Plame's CIA job as part of an administration strategy to discredit her husband by insinuating that the agency had dispatched Wilson to Niger because of nepotism.

Nepotism? NIGER? OK, if you give me a business trip to San Diego, Vegas, Orlando, Paris, London etc. but NIGER????No.

And isn't revenge a dish best served cold? Remember when the Dems said "BLOWJOB" and the Repubs answered with "rule of law?" PERJURY, JUSTICE! Enjoy that one!

Walter Reed? Need I mention, except to quote from the first Republican president:

to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle

Let's get right on that!

The North Korea screwup surfaces, U.S. Attorneys are fired and Scooter goes stripey and the White House says all is good.

Go with that.

Merry Fitzmas, one and all

Lewis "Scooter" Libby:

Count 1 (Obstruction): GUILTY
Count 2 (Perjury): GUILTY
Count 3 (False Statement): NOT GUILTY
Count 4 (Perjury): GUILTY
Count 5 (Perjury): GUILTY

Guilty on 4 of 5.

The world is a little brighter today.

March, march on down the field for old DePauw..

News from my alma mater:

Sorority Evictions Raise Issue of Looks and Bias

By SAM DILLON, New York Times

GREENCASTLE, Ind. — When a psychology professor at DePauw University here surveyed students, they described one sorority as a group of “daddy’s little princesses” and another as “offbeat hippies.” The sisters of Delta Zeta were seen as “socially awkward.”

Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.

“Virtually everyone who didn’t fit a certain sorority member archetype was told to leave,” said Kate Holloway, a senior who withdrew from the chapter during its reorganization.

This is particularly troublesome story for DePauw, even though the university was not involved. Why? Because some 85% of the students are involved in the Greek system (hey, it's an Indiana town of 6500 people!)

The system has always been screwy. I never could have been a Beta or a Phi Psi (rich face men), I didn't want to be a Sigma Nu (the offensive line) or a Delta Upsilon (stoner losers). I found my perfect niche at Alpha Tau Omega, the book jocks, the guys that girls wanted to study with but not go out with. This "bias" was built into the often insidious process known as rush.

But this story is devastating to the university at just the wrong time. First of all, high school seniors are making their final college decisions now, and beyond that, the obvious--even though it is an outside entity, the national sorority, the stories create the image of shallowness and elitism.

Sight Seen

Yup, a bumper sticker on a pickup truck this morning:

George Allen for President 2008

There's a collector's item for you!

The enemy of my enemy

is a bad shot.

I'm sure you've all heard about the bomb that went boom near Shooter in Afghanistan. Frankly, I don't know why the Taliban would try to kill him - after all, they both hate freedom and are slaves to fundamentalist idealogies. Not to mention, this will only piss off people (ie, Shooter and McFlightsuit) who are known to have invaded Iraq partly because Saddam tried to kill McFlightsuit's dad, who have access to the world's largest supply of nuclear weapons, and who believe that they are subject to no laws. I'm sure that somewhere, there's a wingnut arguing that this means that we should nuke Tehran, just to prove a point. (The point being, of course, that America is run by psychopaths.)

Now, one could say (and I'm going way out on a limb here) that if we had finished the job in Afghanistan, the Taliban would have been weakened, Al Qaeda would have lost a huge revenue source (the larger-than-ever opium fields), and we'd have a military capable of responding to threats. Don't expect to hear that from anyone associated with the administration or the media, though - it requires actual thought.

It also provides us a lesson as to why growing the national debt at a rate so fast that mathematicians have had to invent new ways of counting to deal with it is a bad idea. Lead story on CNN.com - "Dow tumbles after China selloff: U.S. stocks plunged today after stocks in China and Europe slumped and investors digested the news that Vice President Dick Cheney was the target of a Taliban suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan. Cheney wasn't hurt. The Dow was down more than 133 at one point. China's stocks fell 9 percent, the worst one-day selloff in a decade."

There's an assassination attempt against the US VP, China goes nuts, and our stocks tumble.

And hey - if Americans want a personal reason (other than the dead people, of course, since they're depressing) to oppose the war in Iraq - the failure to finish the job in Afghanistan just made retirement portfolios all over the country tumble.

Smart Man

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." - John Stuart Mill

They write headlines

From AP: White House opposes war authority limits

If I was the editor, I'd leave a comment like "Omit needless words."

White House opposes war authority limits

Tip your servers, Part II

"Well, I look at it and see it is actually an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well"

Darth Cheney on the British withdrawing from areas of Iraq that are "stable" because they are firmly in the control of the Shi'a militias who have engaged in horrific ethnic cleansing.

I'm here all week, tip your bartender and drive home safely!

From standup comic Condoleezza Rice: "The coalition remains intact."

What? What "coalition?" Albania? Estonia? My grandfather's birthplace, Denmark, which has announced it's leaving (cutting off the supply of beer and porn.)

Can these people PLEASE go on MapQuest and find directions to reality?

My Life is Over...

I open up the mailbox and find the world's most dreaded missive...

The AARP mailing.

Goodbye cruel world.

The Supremes

No, you can't hurry love, you just have to wait...

Wait, wrong Supremes.

I'm referring to the Supreme Court, which came down with a remarkable decision vacating a punitive damage award against a tobacco company. I find it remarkable for many reasons.

1) First of all, I can't believe they took this case. The Supreme Court is the only federal court that can control its docket. In most instances, the Supremes can pick and choose what cases to hear. Yes, this one did involve a staggering amount of money, but it is really a routine matter of state tort law that just doesn't present constitutional issues. It is a HUGE stretch by the majority to bring this case within a due process ambit and scare court resources could have been better spent sorting out real issues.

2) I also think they are wrong on the basic legal point, about what harms the jury can consider in assessing punitive damages, and

3) Talk about strange bedfellows, Scalia and Thomas joined in a dissent by GINSBURG, where she wrote quite logically that "I would accord more respectful treatment to the proceedings and dispositions of state courts" than did the majority.

From Worst to First, Redux

First of all, let me apologize the "Presidents' Day" mistake!

Then we have the Idiot-in-Chief saying about that first president

George Washington's long struggle for freedom has also inspired generations of Americans to stand for freedom in their own time. Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone.

Ahem, we are NOT fighting to "defend our liberty and our people and our way of life." WE are not fighting. Volunteers are stuck in a hellhole because of you. WE are not fighting, they are, because of you.

You stumbled on that "we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone."

Umm..no. George Washington said that

Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other....So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

He hardly would have supported external war to change the form of government of foreign states.

As I wrote on Schmidlap,

I stole James Thomas Flexner's ever-so-accurate description of Washington as "the indispensable man."

Was he a great general? No, not in a classical sense. He had little experience and no training in military tactics, and he won no major victories during the revolution. The legendary "crossing the Delaware" was a Christmas Eve raid on drunken Germans who didn't want to be there, and let's face it, the French won Yorktown.

However, he was the "indispensable man" because he was THE leader that held the revolution together. You will also note that Washington didn't win big battles, but he didn't lose them either. He almost by force of will kept the Continental Army together as a fighting force.

Let's compare Washington with his fellow Virginian (and step-in-law many times removed) Robert E. Lee. Lee was a much more accomplished tactician and fought and won set-piece battles. However, Lee's "wins" involved a casualty count and loss of equipment that ultimately doomed the South. Washington kept his revolution alive in the field long enough to negotiate a settlement, and Lee bled his to death.

And as president, again, he was not a master politician, but his very presence solidified the republic. We saw a tremendous amount of opposition to the new "constitution" but even the anti-federalists agreed to much because of "the indispensable man."

From worst to first

He

went here

to observe President's Day.

The "Indispensable Man" meets the "Incredible Buffoon."

Doc will love this one

Doc, please visit here and share your thoughts with the class!

Goodbye, old friend

Team members disagree with me on this one, but I would like to bid a fond adieu to an old friend:




Oskee-wow-wow, Chief.

In vino veritas

The president looked particularly blotchy, drinky and stumbly in his press conference this week. As the Latin phrase above says, though, "in wine, there is truth."

THE PRESIDENT: It's an interesting question. One of the problems -- not specifically on this issue, just in general -- let's put it this way, money trumps peace, sometimes.

Now add this in with this, and yes, 2 and 2 still equal 4.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government is at risk of squandering significantly more money in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has already wasted, overcharged or poorly tracked $10 billion in taxpayer money, federal investigators said Thursday....David M. Walker, comptroller general of the GAO, Congress' auditing arm, said his agency has been pointing out problems for years, only to be largely ignored or given lip service with little result..."There is no accountability," Walker said. "Organizations charged with overseeing contracts are not held accountable. Contractors are not held accountable. The individuals responsible are not held accountable....People should be rewarded when they do a good job. But when things don't go right, there have to be consequences," he said.

Pardon me!

Well, Scooter-palooza is just about over.

I have never been a trial lawyer, and trial strategy is not my strong suit, but this seems fairly obvious. Libby's team meekly put forth two "defenses," the "I'm too busy and I forgot" claim and the "They threw me under the bus to save Turd Blossom" angle.

The problem is, Defense #1 effectively required Scootie to take the stand and #2 needed Darth Vader under oath to make it fly. Why do you think the words "Libby," "Cheney" and "under oath" don't fit together here?

So here's the drill. The jury HAS to convict based on the evidence presented and then, lo and behold, for being the good soldier, here comes a freshly-minted pardon.