Patti Davis..

At her best here at powerline. Both funny, irreverent, embarrassing, and slightly sad -- if not for Patti, then at least for Regan's legacy.

Broken Boarders

Many have postulated that --seeing as how illegal immigrants can so easily hop across the Mexican-American boarder-- a determined terrorist could just as easily do the same thing. They thus conclude that boarder security is of the utmost importance for national security. If you go here, it looks as though something very close to this theoretical situation has just happened. True, we don't know for sure that these Syrians are terrorists, but there's a good enough chance that we should be alarmed. And even if they're not terrorist, how long will it be till terrorist catch on to one of America's biggest vulnerabilities?

Revenge of the Cat Lovers

If you read Jonah Goldbergs article advocating cat hunting to save song birds (and you defintely should have read it, if only for the humor) then you know that the article was bound to ruffle a few feathers. Jonah has posted a few of the letters he received here. The 14th was the most compelling argument of them all:

#14
re column: kill the cats..
cats are predators that kill off the weakest and sickest of the birds, contributing to the survival of the fittest and evolution of the species. Without cats birds would soon devolve back into dinosaurs that would pick off old women standing in line at the piggly wiggly. We owe it to our elderly citizens that this not be allowed to happen. Only cats can save the lives of millions of medicare recipients.

You May Have Missed...

The following if you only watch the MSM (main stream media that is). These are all from a blog post by Rich Lowry at NRO's The Corner. It originally was written by a leader of the first calvary division, just back from Iraq:

3. He showed a graph of attacks in Sadr City by month. Last Aug-Sep they were getting up to 160 attacks per week. During the last three months, the graph had flatlined at below 5 to zero per week.

6. Said that not tending to a dead body in the Muslim culture never
happens. On election day, after suicide bombers blew themselves up trying to take out polling places, voters would step up to the body lying there, spit on it, and move up in the line to vote.

8. Said bin Laden and Zarqawi made a HUGE mistake when bin laden went public with naming Zarqawi the "prince" of al Qaeda in Iraq. Said that what the Iraqis saw and heard was a Saudi telling a Jordanian that his job was to kill Iraqis. HUGE mistake. It was one of the biggest factors in getting Iraqis who were on the "fence" to jump off on the side of the coalition and the new gov't.

9. Said the MSM was making a big, and wrong, deal out of the religious sects. Said Iraqis are incredibly nationalistic. They are Iraqis first and then say they are Muslim but the Shi'a - Sunni thing is just not that big a deal to them.

Faster Please

Michael Ledeen has a great article at NRO right now. He points out that Bush has inspired these protests in the middle east, and that now we need to keep the ball of freedom/democracy rolling:

In fact, according to Iranians with whom I have spoken, there were monster demonstrations in eleven provinces and 37 cities, and many thousands one source said more than 30,000 people were arrested, some only briefly, others shipped off to the infamous prisons and torture chambers of the regime. The most dramatic events took place in Shiraz, where the demonstrators directed a chant toward Washington: "Bush, you told us to rise up, and so we have. Why don't you act?"

I personally would have been satisfied if only Iraq and Afghanistan turned out to be fairly successful democracies. What were seeing now appears to be a complete sea-change in the middle east. As Ledeen points out this in no time to balk.

The fires of freedom are burning all over Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. Don't stand back and admire the flames. Push the dictators in, and then cheer as free societies emerge.

Faster, confound it.

Less Moore is More

Michael-moore
Originally uploaded by RHarris.

Note: I started writing this post a few weeks ago, and have just now finished it.

The problem with Moore is he addresses serious issues and problems in a very unserious way. That's not to say he thinks it's all a joke. To the contrary, it seems he takes what he does seriously, and he certainly is addressing serious issues. But the commentary and the arguments aren't serious ones-- that is, the evidence is anecdotal, the assumptions unquestioned, and the implied thesis self-contradicting.

I'm not saying Moore has no talent. The production quality of his movies is always good, and the movies themselves are generally entertaining. Moore tells his story well, and cues the music at all the right times -- the result of which can be a very powerful movie. But there powerful in a way that any well done fictitious is -- and therein lies the problem. Instead of thinking rationally Moore tempts us to react emotionally.

Consider Bowling for Columbine, (which I not long ago saw). The basic thesis of the movie is that Americans are violent, live in fear, and are so in love with guns, that things like the tragedy at columbine are bound to happen. The implied solution is to get rid of guns. Then the would-be victims of gun violence will live and we'll all be much happier.

But the evidence is so underwhelming as to be risible. For instance one segment of the film show as series of countries and how many deaths are caused yearly by guns. America of course leads the pack with 11,000. The others are in the hundreds or in a few occasions under one hundred. However Moore never points out that guns in many of these counties are illegal, such as the UK. And what difference does it matter how people are dying because of gun violence? Do we feel better if people are murdered by knives or bombs? Shouldn't the real question be how many people are being murder and what to do about that? Yes it should, but Moore doesn't bother asking that question. And by the way, doesn't the US have a much larger population than Canada the UK and Australia? Shouldn't the real question be, do we have more murders relative to our population size? Moore doesn't bother with this question either. Actually with our .04 murders per 1000 people. Were about in the middle of the pack. Were still slightly higher than France and Canada with .01 murders per 1000 people, but well under the leaders like Columbia, Russia and South Africa with .63, .19 and .51 respectively. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap

But there is still a good question. Why is it that America has (albeit slightly) higher homicide rate than these other countries? But Moore can't seem to answer that question without contradicting himself. One moment he says its the guns, that's why. But then there are 7 million guns in Canada and they don't have as many homicides. In that case its the media. But Canadians watch all our same violent movies (here he goes of on this weird tangent implicating the overdone news coverage of violent crimes. as if most fellons even watch the news. As if someone reporting on the tragedy of gun violence encourages the behavior more than a violent movie glorifying and reviling in violence). Then it must be fear. Canadians aren't afraid but Americans are paranoid. He ends on that note but then continues to K-Mart to pressure them into dropping there handgun and assault riffle bullets (so it is the guns after all?).

It doesn't make sense, but then it's not supposed to. Its supposed to tug at your heart strings, so you think "Gosh this just doesn't seem right." And in some cases it may not be. But the tactic is to make you think because in a few cases a crazy guy shouldn't have a gun, then guns have no use and should be ban all together, and that's nonsense.

And if we don't need guns to protect us (Moore pokes fun at the people who claim they need guns to protect themselves, and claims Americans live in an atmosphere of fear) then why was a gun without proper licensing found on one of Moore's body guard in New York City?

P.S. I write about Bowling For Columbine because that is the Moore movie I've seen most recently. For a deconstruction of Fahrenheit 9/11, read Christopher Hitchen's Unfairenheit 9/11 -- there is none better (at least that I've found).

Cats Are Evil

Goldberg
Originally uploaded by RHarris.

Its a wonderful thing to read an article that makes you laugh out loud. This is one of those rare articles, I highly recommend reading. Here's a taste:

Wisconsin is considering allowing the hunting of cats. Not cougars or mountain lions or tigers on the loose but putty-tats: Sylvester the cat. Morris the cat. Garfield. The aim is to prevent the mass killing of birds by cats, mostly of the feral — i.e., wild — variety. In other words, some people want to give granny a shotgun so she can kill Sylvester before he gets Tweety Bird.

Strict Constuctionist

The words above are used to describe Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, though he doesn't like it much. Nevertheless his speech on C-Span which I watch Monday was very interesting. Let me try and do a decent recap.

First Justice Scalia notes that an evolution has taken place in the way we view the constitution. It used to be that everyone was an originalist -- that is they looked at what the constitution meant when it was written for guidance on how to apply it in specific cases. For example "free speech" as protected under the first amendment didn't include all or any speech, what it did mean was primarily political speech. Liable and public decency laws were still on the books way back then, when the amendment was written. But that doesn't stop Justices today from making the first amendment mean anything and everything that it never was intended to mean, allowing flag burning and simulated internet child pornography but regulating campaign finances.

This is made possible because today most people view the constitution as a "living document." But that wasn't always the case. In fact it used to be that when the justices wanted to "legislate" they would try and convolute the original meaning of the constitution, or as Scalia put it "they did it the old fashioned way, they lied." Today, those justices who legislate from the bench don't even bother. They simply justify their decision based on whatever they think the constitutions meaning has evolved to. Coincidentally that meaning is usually in agreement with the justices own personal politics. Scalia makes the point thusly: "I put this question to the faculty all the time, or incite the students to ask their living constitutional professors. 'OK professor, you are not an originality, what is your criterion?' There is none other."

The "living Constitution" theory, Scalia argues, is really the death of the constitution. Justices no longer judge cases based on the law but based upon their own senses of justice. But if a lawyer isn't going to look at the legal history, and original meaning of the law what good is he? Certainly, Scalia contends, his values (and implicitly anyone else's values on the Supreme Court) are no great bellwether for the values of the population at large. For an interpretation of the values of the people we should turn to the legislators, that is what they are elected to do.

When I began writing this, I though no one had noticed the speech, but it turns out Powerline did, and you can read the full text of Scalia's speech here.

Wait One Second...

hitchens
Originally uploaded by RHarris.

There's an interesting New York Times piece here about another al Qaaqaa-like raid on a weapons instillation: "looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms [my italics]."

Wait one second. I though Bush was a liar for saying that Iraq was a potential nuclear threat? But now Bush is in trouble for both lying about Iraq being a nuclear threat, and yes, for not securing the nonexistant nuclear program after the fall of Sadam. Christopher Hitchens, a liberal, (and lately one of the few making any sense) notices this discrepancy as well:

My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction? And there can hardly be a comedy-club third-rater or MoveOn.org activist in the entire country who hasn't stated with sarcastic certainty that the whole WMD fuss was a way of lying the American people into war. So now what? Maybe we should have taken Saddam's propaganda seriously, when his newspaper proudly described Iraq's physicists as "our nuclear mujahideen."

...

Before the war began, several of the administration's critics argued that an intervention would be too dangerous, either because Saddam Hussein would actually unleash his arsenal of WMD, or because he would divert it to third parties. That case at least had the merit of being serious (though I would want to argue that a regime capable of doing either thing was a regime that urgently needed to be removed). Since then, however, the scene has dissolved into one long taunt and jeer: "There were no WMD in Iraq. Liar, liar, pants on fire."

...

Even in the worst interpretation, it seems unlikely that the material is more dangerous now than it was two years ago. Some of the elements—centrifuges, for example, and chemical mixtures—require stable and controlled conditions for effectiveness. They can't simply be transferred to some kitchen or tent. They are less risky than they were in early 2003, in other words. If they went to a neighboring state, though … Some chemical vats have apparently turned up on a scrap heap in Jordan, even if this does argue more for a panicky concealment than a plan of transfer. But anyway, this only returns us to the main point: If Saddam's people could have made such a transfer after his fall, then they could have made it much more easily during his reign. (We know, for example, that the Baathists were discussing the acquisition of long-range missiles from North Korea as late as March 2003, and at that time, the nuclear Wal-Mart of the A.Q. Khan network was still in business. Iraq would have had plenty to trade in this WMD underworld.)

These are my favorite parts, but really the rest of the article is mandatory reading as well, so go to it here.

More Silver Lining...

From Byron York in his piece on the progress of Social Security reform. It seems that news organizations like the Washington Post and The New York Times are cherry picking their statistics, as well as using leading questions in their poles in order to make the case that Social Security reform is on the ropes.

Estrich

Estrich
Originally uploaded by RHarris.

Been following the Estrich-Kinsley debate? Since you've probably never heard of either of them, let me fill you in. Former campaign manager of the disastrous Dukakis campaign, and current law professor, Susan Estrich, has accused Michael Kinsley-- editor of the op-ed pages of the L.A. Times -- of sexism. Apparently the L.A. Times runs far more men then women writers on its op-ed pages.

But I'm not so interested in the substance of the debate (Though I hear there's very little) as I am in the tone. Estrich, apparently not satisfied with simple arguing the facts, has turned to the most sordid of personal attacks involving Kinsley's health condition. Read Kathy Seipp's commentary on the situation:

The apex, of course, came when Estrich accused her old law school classmate of refusing to recognize that his Parkinson's Disease may have affected his judgment. At that point, even much of the left wrote her off as a deranged cow. I decided that Estrich is a bad woman as well as a stupid one, and I use both those terms advisedly. Her flinging Kinsley's illness in his face crossed any lines of decency, and the notion that the Hollywood wives on her mass email list have the power to affect policy at the L.A. Times is strategically idiotic. Obviously, the ex-Mrs. Bud Yorkin, et al., have no constituency. If each one cancels her subscription, big deal -- that's what, 50 subscriptions? They can't organize pickets or boycotts. None of them are Maxine Waters.

Templeton-1

Templeton-1
Originally uploaded by RHarris.

Here's a pictoral illustration of what my last post is all about. The upper picture illustrates what Social Security will turn into if left as it is. The lower picture illustrates Social Security with, I believe, 4 %private accounts, and benefits indexed to inflation. Looking at the graph, the choice isn't to hard is it. Read more here.