Saturday, December 29. 2007
"I appreciate your gift more than I can say." NYT
This post about the Application of Yamashita grew out of a recent dinner conversation/debate/discussion. From a summary here, a quote: Since the Supreme Court's decision in 1946, the United States Congress and federal courts throughout the country have relied on the Yamashita standard. Many important human rights cases cite directly from the Supreme Court decision, as does the legislative history of the Torture Victims Protection Act ("TVPA"). In citing to the Yamashita Standard for support in the interpretation of the TVPA, the United States Senate Committee stated, "under international law, responsibility for torture, summary execution, or disappearances extends beyond the person or persons who actually committed those acts -- anyone with higher authority who authorized, tolerated, or knowingly ignored those acts is liable for them." The Second and Ninth Circuits of the United States Court of Appeals affirmed this standard in their decisions Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232 (1995) and Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767 (1996), and it has been repeatedly recognized as the standard in numerous human rights cases litigated under the TVPA and the Alien Tort Claims Act ("ACTA") in federal courts across the country.
The case is here: long-winded, but if you just read the summary of the opinion and the very courageous dissent, you will get the general drift: Yamashita v. Styer, Commanding General, US Forces, Western Pacific (1946)
(Our News Junkie is away hunting this weekend.)  Capital punishment and New Jersey's misplaced priorities. Malanga in City Journal
"Does my bomb look big in this?" Mr. Free Market Bill Kristol to the NYT? Peggy Noonan only asks for a "reasonable person" in the White House. Same here. Brit Islamists celebrate Bhutto assassination. Also, Bhutto death will stabilize Pakistan. Also, Bolton considers US role in the Pakistan mess. Also, was Bhutto a "splendid con" ? Remind me: What's a principal-agent problem? Getting repetitive here: Hillary lies about Bhutto The Annual Nanny Awards. h/t, Alphapatriot How to talk to your child about Jamie Lynn Spears A non-grim milestone reached. Warming crisis means more kittens in Toronto. How can that be? It hasn't happened yet. (h/t Small Dead Kittens) Maybe they can feed the cats to the Polar Bears. Cowboy walks into a bar...Theo Santa photo captured by our Brit cousin Mr. Free Market last week. Let Santa into your house and you never know what might happen because he is a jolly old elf.
Friday, December 28. 2007
Hillary Clinton's new policy, since she got caught so many times answering planted questions. Eric is right: she wants a coronation. Does she really believe that she is better than other people?
via Drudge. Why can't they just have smoking and non-smoking cafes and bars? Let people decide where they want to work, and where they want to go. Is that just too simple and free? These rules are like Prohibition. Somewhat related: Japanese govt seeks to regulate online communications (h/t, Insty)
An anti-nutritionist screed. Asst. Village Idiot It's the Year of the Potato! For me, every year is the year of the potato. Does Mrs. Clinton buck the spirit of the 22nd Amendment? Scrappleface has a take on that. Oldest tavern in Britain. h/t, Samizdata Study: FOX News most balanced Whatever happened to separation of mosque and state? Bhutto: Without the "pious nonsense" The 10 climate myth-busters of 2007. Junk Science Identity studies for everyone! Now it's Age Studies. Are these people for real?
A re-post from 2005 J.M. Coetzee reviews Jay Parini's Life of William Faulker: "Now I realise for the first time," wrote William Faulkner to a woman friend, looking back from the vantage point of his mid-fifties, "what an amazing gift I had: uneducated in every formal sense, without even very literate, let alone literary, companions, yet to have made the things I made. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why God or gods or whoever it was, selected me to be the vessel."
A fascinating piece, even for non-Faulkner fans, which might tell you all you need to know about him. Click here: The New York Review of Books: The Making of William Faulkner
As regular readers know, we all seem to have been thinking recently about the cost of liberty and the human ambivalence about freedom. See, for a few examples: Freedom? No thanks, and a word about Erich Fromm Is Liberty Obsolete? Of mice and men: Dems want the US to be like Denmark Live Free or Die. How come Liberals never talk about Liberty? Individual liberty erodes, one little trans-fat molecule at a time The dignity trap of "positive liberty" Liberty "Freedom to" vs. "freedom from," the duties of citizenship, plus Dostoevsky Shrinks, Thoreau, Pencils and Freedom A few Sundays ago our preacher spoke provocatively about the cost of Grace. We want to think of Grace as being, by definition, a freebie. My pastor says not. Roger Kimball recently discusses the cost of freedom. Perfect. Freedom and liberty are costly in money, lives, bruises, setbacks, and effort. And freedom is messy, too. All valuable things are costly, like relationships with man or God. Over time, the Left has actually managed to find a way to permit people's consciences to allow them to accept things and money from their neighbors which are not willingly given. Old-fashioned American dignity would not permit that. In the end, the issue is whether we, as citizens, want to pay the price, or whether we want somebody else to pay for it like the old bowl of lentils. There is no free lentil lunch. The infant in all of us wants everything good to be free to us, like mother's milk. If adults want to live in freedom, they need to get beyond that, because liberty is not for babies. Good things are costly. Related: Popular Dictators at Econlog, and The Allure of Tyranny by Stephens at Opinion Journal.
This is a recent re-post. Why it popped up today I cannot tell, but perhaps there is a reason. Dr. Sanity did a good job with the pomo logical contradictions a little while ago. She quoted Stephen Hicks: In postmodern discourse, truth is rejected explicitly and consistency can be a rare phenomenon. Consider the following pairs of claims. - On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.
- On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.
- Values are subjective--but sexism and racism are really evil
- Technology is bad and destructive--and it is unfair that some people have more technology than others.
- Tolerance is good and dominance is bad--but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows.
Read her whole piece. Many of us have made these points before, but it doesn't matter. It's about Stalinist politics, not reason. Stalin remains popular in Russia - a folk hero.
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world. Oswald Chambers
In an effort to one-up The Barrister today, how is this for foolishness? He might be the Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus guardian of the Anglican faith. But every time I see Dr Rowan Williams’ smug face or hear his social-worker voice, I feel like breaking at least one of the Ten Commandments (I’ll leave it to readers’ febrile imaginations to guess which one).
Read O'Neill's whole piece at Spiked.
Richardson says US should "force" regime change in Pakistan.Ron Paul says Bush to blame for Bhutto assassination.
While Maggie's Farm officially supports Pogo for President, I am supporting Fred Thompson. If you want to give him a hand, send him a few bucks here to help prime the pump. If he does well, the money will flow. Is he too laid-back? Or just sane? We will see. Here's his new ad:
Thursday, December 27. 2007
 Al Qaeda claims "credit" for Bhutto assassination.
The good housing news: homes more affordable. Is there a single person in America who didn't know that the housing bubble would burst? Related: The banking business model that came and went. Investing in Iraq. Insty When were you saved? LaShawn Moustache of the Day. h/t, Norm Most over-rated and under-rated book of the year. Derbyshire Second link in one day about Al Sharpton. TNR. With all of the serious black commentators and thinkers out there, why does the MSM pick this vaudevillian self-satirical con man to be a black spokesman? Is he supposed to be their tap-dancing entertainer? NYT wants a new socialist welfare state in New Orleans. I guess they miss Huey Long. Peace in our time, revisited. Plus a news flash: Brit Libs do not feel morally superior to Taliban. Hmm, maybe they aren't... Related: 180,000 in Germany willing to be suicide bombers. "...the cause of anti-racism perpetuates racism. It’s one of life’s bitter little ironies." Indeed. The Taxes of the Times: NY Sun Record snows this year. Don't every say I didn't warn you about the coming Ice Age. I thought abortion was going to kill off all the Liberals. Global warming will drown all of the Conservatives. The man is sick. "Nothing better to worry about?" When in the course of human history has mankind been so healthy, secure and prosperous that national political leaders, scientists and the media elite worldwide could be preoccupied with a theoretical crisis predicted to occur 50 years hence? Controversy continues to rage over Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory, most recently with a minority Senate report citing 400 eminent scientists, yet it's worth reflecting on what this debate means about the human condition at the advent of the 21st Century
The corollary to this preoccupation with hypothetical dangers 5 decades hence, of course, is that there is not one imminent threat to western nations that demands our immediate attention. Not one human soul is, or ever has been, in immediate danger from Global Warming.
Whole thing at Am. Thinker The two-fer problem: Dick Morris. It is beginning to look like Bill is running for another term. Israeli Arabs prefer Israel to Palestinian State. Duh. Who wouldn't? Bush understands Brave New World. Good on him. Gov. Spitzer has a solution to the NY malpractice escalation. As usual, he's come up with a humdinger. It reminds me of the California plan to tax hospitals to pay for medical care.
- The revival of fox hunting since the ban. (h/t, Englishman's Castle)
- Chasing foxes on Boxing Day in Olde England: Mr. Free Market (whence the photo below).
- Customs of fox hunting 
"Ramona, come closer,
Shut softly your watery eyes.
The pangs of your sadness
Shall pass as your senses will rise.
The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in tryin'
T' deal with the dyin',
Though I cannot explain that in lines.
Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this.
I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
By worthless foam from the mouth.
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
On back to the South.
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand.
Yet there's no one to beat you,
No one t' defeat you,
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.
I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
From fixtures and forces and friends,
Your sorrow does stem,
That hype you and type you,
Making you feel
That you must be exactly like them.
I'd forever talk to you,
But soon my words,
They would turn into a meaningless ring.
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring.
Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you." "To Ramona," from 1964's Another Side of Bob Dylan. A performance from 1965, in London, is below.
We re-link Andrew Bacevitch's Wilson Quarterly essay from 2005. A quote: "American foreign policy was never the same after King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia met with President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945 and pledged a steady oil supply in return for US protection."
Read the whole fascinating story of American involvement in the Middle East. It's all about geopolitics, and it is deadly serious.
 Our Iowa Editorial Committee has pondered long and deep, and decided that we will endorse, for the Repub nomination, Pogo. We Go Pogo!
Pogo has been running for Pres. since 1952, and it's time to give him a chance. He has the experience, and he won't play possum in the White House. This decision is not to disparage George Papoon ("Not Insane!"), who is also an excellent mammalian candidate but one who promises to permit voting by all kinds of animals, including unicellular animals. We are told on good authority that each one of us has more bacteria in our GI tracts than there are American voters, and we believe this could dilute the opinion of us superior and more thoughtful multicellular animals. 
Re-posted from 2005: Abortion and the Need for Babies: Remember the "population bomb"? Well, Steyn deplores the low birth rates in the West, comparing Europe's rate with that of the celibate Shakers, and predicting a similar outcome: "Almost every issue facing the EU - from immigration rates to crippling state pension liabilities - has at its heart the same glaringly plain root cause: a huge lack of babies." Click here: Telegraph | Opinion | The strange death of the liberal West
Benazir Bhutto assassinated by suicide bomber. See Drudge for details. A sad day, but not surprising. It is just more proof that Jihad isn't specifically anti-Western - it's anti-freedom and anti-democracy, anywhere and everywhere on the planet. Freedom and democracy are admittedly Western ideals, but many in the rest of the world, with aspirations for human dignity and self-determination, are drawn to them. However, if one is a devout Moslem, it is my impression that it is one's duty to convert and control the world either by submission (dhimmitude, as in Europe) or by blood, and then to provide theocratic rule. "A clash of cultures." Mrs. Bhutto was educated at Harvard and at Oxford.
"Women now hold half of all management jobs in America. Business books and magazines tout their superior leadership style. What’s really changing in the country’s corner offices?" Read the whole piece by Judith Haveman in The Wilson Quarterly
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