To Boldly Go...

I've already outed myself as a Redskin fan, so now fair readers I inform you that I am sci-fi fan.
On that note I proudly direct you to National Review Online's long awaited (by some) Star Trek Weekend. There are many fine, self-deprecating, and funny pieces. The best of which, is the parody National Review Editorial from the 24th Century The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Pelosians:

For the record: I have never been to a Trek convention nor do I own a pair of pointy ears!


Editor’s Note: The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone in this particular spot on the space-time continuum, or even in this universe. There are an infinite number of alternate realities. In some the Federation is evil, female crew members dress like Britney Spears and Lt. Sulu has sex appeal, so it should not be overly implausible that in at least one of these alternate realities the editors of National Review and National Review Online would know what a Romulan is.

The situation with the Romulan Empire is rapidly becoming the defining crisis of our age.Over the course of this magazine’s four centuries (not counting the Great Interegnum during the Eugenics Wars, when conservatism was deemed a mental defect) National Review has always endeavored to chart a course balancing idealism with realism. Even in its infancy, facing the first great existential crisis of Old Earth, we argued for challenging aggression, whether in the form of the Soviet threat or the violence done to humanity through hubristic tinkering with the genetic code. We are proud to say that our opposition to the Soviets played its part in the prevention of one nuclear holocaust and saddened that our warnings fell on deaf ears before as so many of us were marched off to reeducation camps on the Mars colonies. After the Interregnum we counseled a different course when making first contact with the Klingons and the Romulans than that chosen by Starfleet Command. History has vindicated us on both scores, which is small comfort given the terrible price we all paid for Starfleet’s stubbornness.

We do not dredge up old memories merely to gloat. Rather to point out that history and consistency is on our side. Nancy IX, the current chair of the United Federation of Planets is a decent sort, but clearly out of her depth. Like all Pelosians, she lets her passions crowd out sound judgment. One needn’t be a Vulcan to grasp that logic does not hold much sway on Pelosi Prime. Indeed, it seems we should have learned our lesson when the planet Sigma Iotia II became an enormous cargo cult to 1920s Chicago mobs. But no, the Pelosians have developed an entire civilization based on a once obscure bit of political doggerel, “It Takes a Village,” and suddenly billions of Earthlings — yes, we’re still proud to use the word “Earthling” rather than the politically correct, galactically cosmopolitan, and toothy “Humanoid of Terran Extraction” — are willing to surrender their fate to race bound to the dictum that children are the greatest philosophers. Does no one remember Charlie X? Miri? The horrors of planet Triacus?

We have long been on record in our belief that much of the current crisis can be traced back to the baleful influence of rampant Picardism in the diplomatic corps. Ambassador Picard’s conviction that the “European Hegemony” was a lasting model for intergalactic peace has led us into one calamity after another (for this analysis always leaves out of the equation the Pax Americana which made the European Hegemony possible). Picard’s disagreements with the late Governor Worf stretch back to their service on the Enterprise-D and while the younger Worf was often too much of a hawk (or bird of prey, one might say) there can be no doubt that he had the better of the arguments when it came to the Romulans. No doubt he had learned important lessons from his father’s slaughter at the Katyn forest of the 23rd century, Khitomer. Picard, meanwhile, after a distinguished — but by no means perfect — military career became entranced with the 20th-century writings of Warren Christopher. Prior to Picard’s popularization, few remembered who Crhistopher was. Indeed, it’s been said that people forgot who Christopher was while they were still having conversations with him. A diplomat of no significant achievement in his own time, Christopher’s writings in a fusty privately published tome — Diplomacy: The Forgotten Imperative — nonetheless ensorcelled the former starship captain. Picard’s proposal, directly inspired by Christopher’s writings, to mandate that all phasers be limited to “light stun” deprived federation security officers from using deadly force and as a result untold millions died and billions more were sentenced to permanent slavery to the Borg collective. But all this, too, goes down the memory wormhole, only to pop-up at some later time and place when such memories provide no practical guidance to current affairs, serving instead for conversational fodder at academic junkets to Risa.

Now the Picardians and Pelosians have become natural allies and would-be quislings in the burgeoning showdown with the Romulans. The old adage that the “Prime Directive is not a suicide pact,” means nothing to them. Would that the spirit of James Kirk (contributing editor from 2261 to 2271, we’re proud to say) could be conjured at this moment. Who among us can forget those immortal words, “Praetor Pardek tear down this neutral zone!” What would Kirk think as he watched the Federation appease the Romulans, feeding the targ one limb at a time, as the Klingons say.

The Romulans are arming Cardasia to the gills while we stand idly by watching the Bajorans get slaughtered. The Pelosians, always eager to protect tribbles wherever they happen to sprout up, turn a blind eye to the fate of actual sentient humanoids and allies. Based on the most dubious science, they are willing to place a speed limit on warp drive, but images of actual Bajorans stacked like cordwood move them not a nanometer. We have had our disagreements with Klingons and Ferengi, but we can look on with nothing but admiration as they fulfill their promises and contracts with the Bajorans while we spend our days here on Earth debating whether the entirely defunct Organian Peace Treaty applies to non-signatories of that irrelevant piece of parchment. It’s enough to make one declare “Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no sign of intelligent life here.”

Morgan State GOP Debate

I had the pleasure of attending the All American Presidential Forum for the GOP presidential candidates last night at Morgan State University. Herewith is my long, but not exhaustive review of the debate.

First, let me deal with the big issue surrounding the debate, which were the no-shows Romney, Giuliani, Thompson and McCain. I can sum their absence in three words, stupid, stupid, and stupid. I understand some of their reasons for skipping the debate, especially the fundraising imperative with the filing deadline approaching. The Campaign Spot details other reasons here.
However, campaigns both primary and general are battles of ideas. When Republicans and conservatives skip out on a chance to express those ideas to an audience that has been historically hostile to them, then they just missed out on an opportunity that all the campaign donations in the world can’t buy. The general wisdom is that Blacks and Latinos do not matter in Republican primaries because they are heavily Democratic. Fair enough, but that is not the point. The point is that we pride ourselves on being the “Big Tent” party, which on an ideological level is true, but ignoring groups that generally hold opposing views makes for less people in that “Big Tent.” The four candidates should have jumped at the opportunity to address minority concerns with conservative ideas. In fact, as Tim Russert noted this morning, “there were Republican answers to those questions.”

Also by skipping this debate, Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, and McCain gave the national and local species of crapweasal an avenue to propagandize and make base accusations about Republicans in general.


Now my rambling account of the debate.

Driving along Hillen Rd. and Argonne Dr. it was plain to see that the Paul Bearers had arrived early. Ron Paul signs were planted all along both sides of the street, the median grass and the parking lot.

Thanks to John Flynn and Georgia Woerner with the MDGOP for getting me a VIP ticket, which allowed me to bypass the regular entrance line (and the Paul Bearers) and go right in.

The Gilliam Concert Hall at Morgan State is a superb facility, a real jewel for Baltimore.

Cornell West was in attendance, does he wear a scarf everywhere he goes?

Tom Joyner opened the evening with some thoughtful comments and playful but well deserved jabs at the missing candidates. His best line was that he felt “as out of place as Dan Rather at CBS Premiere Week.”

He also gave a shout out to Michael Bell of the Jena 6. Joyner announced that Bell had been released from jail and would tried as a juvenile for his part in a “high-school brawl” over nooses being hung in a tree that Black kids had asked permission to sit under. Sorry Tom, it was a little more than a “high-school” brawl. As Jason Whitlock noted in his powerful column:

There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree. Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.
A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker’s assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the “Jena Six” in reaction to Walters’ extreme charges of attempted murder.

But I digress.

Tavis Smiley, the moderator came up next. Smiley said that since this was PBS he couldn’t say what he really felt about those who didn’t show because of they perceived that they wouldn’t get an appropriate reception. He did say, however that he expected the audience to show respect to the candidates that did show up. The audience met that expectation.

Smiley also gave us a surprise, when he introduced two of the Little Rock Nine that integrated Central High back in 1957. They received a standing ovation, and rightly so. Smiley also thanked Michael Steele, Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, and Ken Melhman for their assistance.

Next was Michael Steele, who reminded the audience that it was Republican president Dwight Eisenhower, who added the full force of the federal government to the integration of Central High. Ike sent the national guard to Little Rock to ensure the integration of Central High. He also spoke of the divide between Blacks and the GOP. Steele spoke of the terrible consequences of the missed opportunities for both.

Ron Paul received the loudest ovation in the candidate introductions. The Paul Bearers owned the upper balcony sections.

The candidates all had a chance to comment on the absence of the front-runners. Huckabee was embarrassed, (so was I). Duncan Hunter said that his family reunions when someone doesn’t show up we usually talk about them. Alan Keyes defended the no-shows citing that they declined an invitation to a value-voters debate.

On to the panel questions.
Cynthia Tucker asked the candidates to address the racial disparity in employment between Blacks and Whites. Huckabee and Brownback pandered. Paul gave his usual freedom and liberty response, and that prosperity serves everybody, which has the virtue of being true. Tancredo rightly criticized the welfare state for one of the reasons.

Huckabee did give a great answer to a question about what Republican presidents did for African-Americans, he brought up Ike again, and that it was Democrat George Wallace who stood at the doors to the University of Alabama to stop integration. Hunter also brought up the pesky fact that more Republicans voted fort the 1964 Civil Rights act than Democrats.

The candidates were also asked about voting rights in DC. All of them were in favor of voting rights for DC residents if done through constitutionally appropriate means. Hunter’s response was the best when he said, that he would favor DC statehood is the Dc government would respect the second amendment and allow its citizens to bear arms.

Before he asked his question, Juan Williams gave us another surprise. He introduced Capt. Vernice Armour, the first African-American female combat pilot in U.S. history. Armour has already served two tours of duty in Iraq. She received a well-deserved standing ovation.

My state senator Catherine Pugh chose that exact moment to exit. She did not even bother to clap for Capt. Armour. Bad form senator, bad form.

Huckabee, Paul, and Tancredo made great points about the futility of the drug war and asinine federal drug laws. There is a movement in conservative circles that the drug war is a bad idea, and that it needs to end. There is room for allying with like-minded minority groups, you know like inviting more people to the big tent!

All candidates spoke of market solutions to health care issues. Hunter talked about bringing back the family doctor. Keyes retorted, that we need to bring the family back first.

Grades:
Huckabee: A likable guy but I don’t think he has the gravitas to be president.

Paul: I love his domestic stuff, but he loses it with his moonbattery on foreign policy.
Hey Ron, try reading Sayid Qtub or Lawrence Wright, then you might understand why people say Al Qaeda attacked us because of our freedoms.

Brownback: A good senator, but as a presidential candidate he is too wooden and canned. He must have run against some real slack-jawed yokels back in Kansas.

Tancredo: He made another great case for enforcing our existing immigration laws, and I like him a great deal, but like Huckabee, it just isn’t gonna happen.

Hunter: People talk about John McCain as a possible Secretary of Defense if the GOP wins the White House in 2008, Hunter could fill the role just as well.
Keyes: He made great points about the centrality of the family to our nation and culture. Keyes is a great orator and is more suited for the pulpit than the podium.

Whether you agree or disagree with Tavis Smiley, there is no doubt that he is tailor made for moderating a debate and working in the media. He kept the pace moving and the candidates on their time limit. The one time he interrupted was to ensure that Duncan Hunter actually addressed the question he was asked. I disagree with Smiley on many things, but he kept things fair.

Overall, it was good debate, and as Tim Russert pointed out, there were Republican and conservative answers to minority concerns. The real shame was that the likely GOP nominee was not there to present them.

The eminent wisdom of Blair Lee

"In the last election the people were not consciously voting for a tax increase, they were voting against the war in Iraq, and got a tax increase as a result."

Want to Drive Traffic to Your Blog...

All you need to do is slightly criticize Ron Paul. His acolytes or "Paulbearers" are trolling the web waiting to pounce on you.

Some More Ron Paul

Rick Brookhiser at The Corner sums up Paul and his acolytes in a nutshell.

The behavior of the Paulnuts on the Mackinac ferry, noted by David, is a common consequence of pacifism and extreme libertarianism. Both think the state at war is the worst thing in the world. (Extreme libertarians think the state doing most everything else is also bad.) Most—maybe all—libertarians acknowledge a right to self defense. But in the modern world this cannot be done by militias. It requires a military industrial complex, with all the attendant consequences. Some libertarians accept this fact (while proposing modifications). Extreme libertarians do not; therefore they support self defense only in theory.

In any actual situation, the prospect of the state at war is so monstrous that the pacifist/extreme libertarian must prettify or deny the threat, and abuse Cassandras. Thus 9/11 was an inside job, the war on terror is a project of warmongering Jews, Giuliani stole WTC gold, etc.,etc.

The honest pacifist/extreme libertarian would say, I will not fight, for any reason, at any time. If evil triumphs, so be it. It will be less evil than my fighting would have been. I at least have preserved my rightness. But that is a hard saying, hence these maneuvers.
Ron Paul is a pencil head, leading a jacquerie of wicked idiots.

What Brookiser is refering to is the harrasment of Rudy Giuliani on the Mackinac ferry in Michigan by Ron Paul supporters. From the Detroit Free Press

According to one eyewitness, Giuliani was beset by dozens of Paul enthusiasts as he was leaving the island, some of whom shouted taunts about 9/11, including: “9/11 was an inside job” and “Rudy, Rudy, what did you do with the gold?” -- an apparent reference to rumors about $200 million in gold alleged to have disappeared in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

Do As I Say Not As I Do

George Will deliciously illustrates the rank hypocrisy of The New York Times concerning their essentially soft-money contribution to MoveOn.org's Betray Us ad and its editorial stance on the June Supreme Court ruling in FEC vs. Wisconsin Right to Life. The court ruled 5-4 striking down parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act saying that it infringed on first amendment rights.

Will writes:

In June, the Times was in high dudgeon -- it knows no other degree of dudgeon -- about the Supreme Court's refusal to affirm a far-reaching government power to suppress political speech. The court ruled that a small group of
Wisconsin residents had been improperly refused the right to run an issue advocacy ad urging the state's two senators not to filibuster the president's judicial nominees.

Because one of those senators was seeking reelection, the group's ad was deemed an "electioneering communication" -- one that "refers to" a candidate for federal office. McCain-Feingold bans such communications by corporations, including incorporated nonprofit citizens' groups, in the weeks before an election -- when the Times' editorial page is in full-throated enjoyment of speech rights it would deny to others...

The Times, a media corporation that is a fountain of detailed editorial instructions about how the rest of the world should conduct its business, seems confused about how it conducts its own. The Times now says the appropriate rate for MoveOn.org's full-page ad should have been $142,000, a far cry from $65,000, which is what the group paid. So the discount of $77,000 constitutes a large soft-money contribution to a federally regulated political committee. The Times' horror of such contributions was expressed in its enthusiasm for McCain-Feingold...

Bob Bauer, a Democratic lawyer specializing in laws regulating political speech, notes -- not approvingly -- that the Times supposedly has a policy of rejecting ads involving "personal attack" speech. But the Times accepted MoveOn.org's ad accusing a soldier of betraying his country. According to the Times' public editor, a Times official said the ad was "a comment on a public official's management of his office."

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., defending the decision to run the ad, said: "If we're going to err, it's better to err on the side of more political dialogue. . . . Perhaps we did err in this case. If we did, we erred with the intent of giving greater voice to people." Bauer notes that Sulzberger might have used words from a Supreme Court decision: "In a debatable case, the tie is resolved in favor of protecting speech." And: "Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor." So spoke Chief Justice John Roberts in the Wisconsin decision that Sulzberger's paper denounced because it would magnify the voices of, among other things, "wealthy corporations." The Times Co.'s 2006 revenue was $3.3 billion.

And people wonder why the Times circulation is down.

Unholy Alliance

"Capitalists will sell us the rope we will use to hang them." is a quote attributed to Lenin.

Progressives have now offered a corollary to that:

Progressives have never met a fellow Bush-hating radical islamist, who would just as soon put them to the sword, that they didn't like.

From the Daily Kos
"I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon... I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.

Ahmadinejad, who has flagrantly trounced due process and the rule of
law in his own nation is still way ahead of Bush on this point, too.

he hints at a conspiracy theory that US intelligence forces may have
been involved or complicit --- but it’s not a huge departure from the 9/11
commission and our collective recognition that, for all their failings leading
up to the attack, the FBI and CIA got away clean.

It striking when a leader with an abysmal human rights record is the one championing the rights of the poor and oppressed to the president of the United States who proclaims to be the world’s savior. Dangerous, indeed--certainly to the status quo he critiques.

Monday, when Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University in New York, I’ll be listening. Maybe with a bottle of wine and some soft music playing in the background. If I can get past the fact that, as a Jewish lesbian, he’d probably have me killed, I’ll try to listen for some truth.

This is not a new phenomenon. David Horowitz, no stranger to the radical left detailed the progressive love affair with other totalitarian enemies of the United States in his 2004 book Unholy Alliance.

Ahmadinejad Reax

Although I disagreed with Lee Bollinger's invitation to A'jad, and believe me it was still a bad idea, I give credit where credit is due. Bollinger's opening remarks were indeed hard hitting. However, they stem not from any desire to expose A'jad for what he is (like Hitler and Stalin, the evidence is there for anyone to see) but that fact that Bollinger NEEDED to say those things to cover his ass from the harsh criticism his invitation to A'Jad received from the beginning, and make up for his poor track record concerning free speech.

Over at The Corner Stanley Kurtz astutely notes that A'jad's speech finally forced the left to confront what it consistently evades or outright denies when it comes to the Iranian threat, to the extent that they acknowledge a threat at all. And that opening up of an honest left-right dialogue among ourselves is the positive that came out of this whole affair. Emphasis mine

The reality of Iran–the threat it poses and the despicable nature of its policies–is something that the American left would prefer not to emphasize. But having proffered an ill-conceived invitation, and then having been widely challenged on his bad judgement, Bollinger was forced to speak out loud many of the truths that the left in this country would rather avoid. That is indeed a most fortunate outcome. The reality of the Iranian regime and its threat have been thrust into the foreground, and a prominent spokesman for the American left has acknowledged this reality on record, in a way that no respectable player can now deny.

It shouldn’t have been necessary to invite Ahmadinejad to Columbia to get the left half of America’s political spectrum speaking more honestly about the challenge we face in Iran. The evidence to justify Bollinger’s remarks was available well before Ahmadinejad spoke, and Bollinger himself pointedly predicted that there would be little in the way of a serious or substantive reply forthcoming. Yet the unfortunate fact is that it took a naive invitation from the academic left, followed by biting criticism from the right, to finally elicit an honest acknowledgment of the truth. Dialogue and debate really do work, but the dialogue that counted most was our own–not the shadow-play with Ahmadinejad.

It’s true that Ahmadinejad’s own blundering and ridiculous talk added to the outrage at his policies. Yet Ahmadinejad’s capacity to spout nonsense was well known before hand. After all, Bollinger’s opening remarks were based on Ahmadinejad’s offensive track-record. Again, the novelty yesterday was not anything Ahmadinejad said, but the fact that umbrage on the right finally prompted eyes to open on the left. In effect, public outrage over Bollinger’s invitation allowed the media to force a left-right dialogue onto a university that usually avoids precisely that sort of exchange. If thoughtful representatives of a broad spectrum of opinion had been available at Columbia all along, however, it wouldn’t have required the Ahmadinejad circus to make such a breakthrough.

More Common Sense for The Examiner

From today's Baltimore Examiner editorial

Unless the city wants to waste time patching more “loopholes,” it should stop the cycle that got it into this position in the first place. The only way to do that is to cut property taxes in half or more to levels of surrounding counties. As nonprofits have shown, take out the tax issue, and the city is an attractive place to locate. That would drive up demand for property — and prices — and bring more young professionals into the city to work and live, and eventually own homes. That could only benefit the city treasury and city life. It would also decrease demand for state aid. With a looming $1.7 billion “structural” deficit, that would be welcome news for all Maryland taxpayers.

If only the machine politicians that run this city understood the fact that lowering property taxes creates greater tax receipts from the increase in businesses and home owners. Alas that would be like convincing the medieval Church that the sun did not revolve around the earth.

Tearing Down the Façade

Today's Baltimore Sun features an LA Times op/ed by Richard Schickel biographer of Elia Kazan. Kazan directed On the Waterfront, the film that launched Marlon Brando's career. Kazan was also the same director modern Hollywood's useful idiots booed at the Oscars in 1999 while receiving a life-time achievement award. Kazan was booed for having the temerity to tell Congress what he knew about communist subversion in the film colony. Kazan was lucky he only lost friends, others who told what they knew about Stalin's paradise got far worse just ask Juliet Stuart Poyntz

Schickel strikes another blow to the anti-anti-communist façade that those blacklisted in Hollywood were not innocent liberal martyrs , rather they were full-throated supporters of Josef Stalin and his murderous Soviet regime. This was the lie that Kazan exposed in his HUAC testimony in 1947, and for which he was booed by clueless and callow celebrities in 1999.

As a lifelong liberal, I am quite naturally and obviously a lifelong anti-Stalinist; a liberal cannot support totalitarian ideologies no matter how persuasively they are presented. That's especially so when the true face of Soviet communism was so early and often visible. As early as 1931, there were public rallies protesting the Russian prison camps. The mass exterminations(through managed starvation) of Russian peasants were widely reported in the same era. Then there were, in 1937, Stalin's parodistic show trials of old Bolsheviks, followed by the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact and the invasion of Finland in 1939. Yes, the Soviet Union was our vital ally during World War II, but its essential nature did not change, and those who continued to support it cannot be excused...

Eventually, everyone - the remnants of the communist left included - took to ritualistically denouncing Soviet communism before joining whatever argument was going on later. But at the same time, those victimized by McCarthyism, in particular the Hollywood Ten and the rest of the show-business blacklistees, were elevated to heroic status. In the years that followed the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee hearings that led to their dismissal from the movie industry (for a First Amendment absolutist like me, a very bad idea), they have been celebrated in an endless series of books and tributes. As if by magic, the unapologetic defenders of a deadly doctrine have been transformed into martyrs to liberal belief - which none of them embraced in their day.

This is a massive, apparently unresolvable disconnect, and communism's one lasting American triumph. Frankly, it makes the anti-communist left crazy. Mountains of new documents - notably the Venona transcripts, records of the cable traffic between Soviet spies and Moscow - prove beyond doubt the conspiratorial nature of American communism. But still its apologists stand beaming on the heroic heights, mere "dissidents" who paid an awful and unfair price for expressing their opinions.

One of these expressions of opinion was an obituary tribute to Stalin when he died in 1953, signed by 300 American communist intellectuals. It said, in part: "Glory to Stalin. Forever will his name be honored and beloved in all lands." I don't really want to defend to the death anyone's right to that kind of insanity. Maybe we can afford to leave poor old Pete Seeger in peace - but not, I think, his co-religionists.

Today's progressives MoveOn, Kos, FSP et al. are the heirs to the anti-anticommunists, in fact they called themselves progressives back then as well.

For some on the radical left, this is a literal inheritance. The next time you see Sean Penn foaming at the mouth about George Bush and the war, just remember it runs in the family. His father Leo Penn was one of those "innocent liberal" directors blacklisted by evil anti-communists. In reality, this "innocent liberal" was a card-carrying member of the CPUSA, unequivocally supported Stalin, and opposed American entry into World War II during the period of the Nazi-Soviet pact.

Taking Issue

Some responses to folks who just got it plain wrong.

Isaac Smith
Last week Smith threw a tantrum because the Senate rightly voted to condemn MoveOn.org's Betray Us ad but did not pass the The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007. He says:
So let me get this straight: The Senate doesn't think the right of habeas corpus applies to everybody, nor does it think our soldiers deserve adequate time to rest between deployments, nor that the taxpayers of the District of Columbia are entitled to a vote in the U.S. Congress. It does, however, think that criticizing a general in a newspaper ad is beyond the pale.

Sorry Isaac, I hate to break it to you, but habeas corpus does not apply to "everybody". That is, our government is not bound to respect habeas corpus for those who do not have rights under our constitution, as in alien enemy combatants, which the proposed act tried to return the cases of these people to district court. Isaac, before you get upset, try checking that pesky little document called the constitution.

The Baltimore Sun Editorial Page
Like Isaac Smith, The Sun did not bother to consult the constitution before setting off on a spittle-flecked tirade against Republicans. In an editorial misleadingly titled politics vs. principle the Sun laments the failure of the DC voting rights bill in the Senate. The Sun says "much of the opposition to the current bill is rooted in politics and not principle. Riiight, no Republican opposition could have been rooted in constitutional principle to a bill that was so blatantly unconstitutional. Nope, and the prospect of an additional safe Democratic seat in the House could not possibly be a political motive for Democrats.

So for the Sun's edification. Congress lacks any constitutional authority to grant DC voting rights via legislation. The constitution does grant Congress the power to apportion seats, however it states specifically that representatives shall be apportioned among the several states; According to the constitution, DC is not a state. There are only four options, constitutional amendment, statehood, retrocession to Maryland, or exempting DC residents from federal taxation.

The fourth option seems to be the best and easiest to achieve. Plus it would be a bonus for DC residents. Think about it, pay no federal taxes with an ineffective delegate, or pay federal taxes with three ineffective representatives.

The Sun also accuses Republicans of tactics that are a throwback to the "tactics used against major civil rights legislation more than 50 years ago" oh you mean the racist Democrats who used those tactics. Democrats like senator and former Klansman Robert Byrd who opposed this current bill.

My New Favorite Artist

A sample of artwork from C Dowd's Blog


Not bad for a guy who does Ravens Gameday work
for the Sun.

Hint: This is the guy who should have gotten the ball on
4th and goal yesterday!

Is He Competent?

The Indispensable One, Martin Watcher has done it again. Check out O'Malley Watch today for the story behind O'Malley's new Commissioner of Labor and Industry and campaign donor, who is currently under investigation by the US Dept. of Labor for his activities as business manager for Local 37 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.

I have only one complaint for Martin Watcher: Where's my T-shirt?

Update: My T-shirt has arrvied, and I it has annoyed my Baltimore city neighbors to no end!

Koba the Dread

While I am on the subject of murderous thugs and the academics who do their PR work, i.e., Columbia's flack job for Ahmadinejad, this isn't the first time American "academics" carried water for a totalitarian tyrant. Also, Check out this previous post concerning Valdimir Putin's efforts at rehabilitating of Josef Stalin.

For more, I highly recommend this symposium, really a 6-way interview between historians hosted by Jamie Glazov at FrontPageMagazine.com dealing with historian Geoffrey Roberts new book Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 and the historical and moral issues surrounding the attempts to rehabilitate "Uncle Joe's" reputation.

"A Species of Political Capitulation"

Ahmadinejad update:

A rule in life I try to live by is that there is always someone smarter and better than you. This is particularly true in blogging. There is always a stonger thinker and writer out there who can say it better than you can. A case in point is Roger Kimball at the New Criterion. Kimball has an excellent post regarding Ahmadinejad at Columbia at the New Criterion's blog Armavirumque titled The Poverty of Liberalism.

Kimball throroughly destroys Lee Bollinger and the lefts facile free speech argument in favor of Columbia inviting Ahmadinejad to speak.

A portion of Kimball's post:

Universities are institutions dedicated to the pursuit and transmission of learning and the furtherance of civilization.
They are not circuses for the exhibition of politically repugnant grandstanding. Free inquiry is not a license for moral irresponsibility. At a university, as at every other human institution, freedom can thrive only when it is limited by allegiance to certain positive values--the value of historical truth, for example, or the moral truth that human dignity is worth preserving.
President Bollinger's sophomoric conception of free speech is precisely the sort of supine intellectualism that,if consistently embraced, would make free speech impossible. President Bollinger primly lectures us that "It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas," etc. But he is quite wrong about that. By providing a madman like Ahmadinejad with a platform at Columbia University, President Bollinger has in effect welcomed him into the community of candid reasoners. He has granted him a patent of legitimacy that no amount of "dialogue and reason" can dissipate. In this case, "listening" is indeed tantamount to an endorsement. It reduces free speech to a species of political capitulation and renders dialogue indistinguishable from a suicide pact.

Kimball finishes with a relatively unknown but prescient quote from17th century English essayist Walter Bagehot:

The spectacle of these left-wing academics repudiating men like Larry Summers and Donald Rumsfeld even as they abase themselves scrambling to find excuses for welcoming a fanatic like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the halls of a great American University is disgusting. I think again of Bagehot's observation that "History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it." Are we really willing to let ourselves--our ideals, our way of life--be carelessly traduced by a rancid leftism so enfeebled that it can no longer distinguish between free speech and suicide? We are even now in the process of answering that question. How we answer it will determine a lot more than the issue of who gets to speak on American college campuses.

A Monkey Wrench in the Machine?

Mayor Sheila Dixon's former campaign manager and contractor for City Hall, Dale G. Clark plead guilty this morning to tax evasion related to computer work his firm Ultimate Network Integration performed for City Hall since 1998.

From the Baltimore Sun:

Dale G. Clark, 45, had provided computer services to City Hall over a six-year period, during which he worked mostly under a contract. As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Clark was sentenced to five years of probation and a $5,000 fine for failing to file tax returns from 2002 to 2004.According to Deputy State Prosecutor Thomas M. McDonough, Clark failed to file tax returns
from his computer company, Ultimate Network Integration, since 1998. After being questioned last year by state authorities, Clark submitted unsigned and undated copies of Maryland tax returns for tax years 2000 through 2005. In 2002, for example, Clark said his taxable income was $7,044. He later amended the filing to indicate his taxable income was $86,883.

McDonough declined to comment about an investigation into the City Hall bidding process, but the plea agreement in Clark's case states: "Defendant agrees that he will cooperate fully with [the] state by providing truthful and complete information concerning his duties and activities and those of other employees and contractors of which he has knowledge when as required, including, but not limited to providing truthful and complete testimony concerning his dealings with officials and employees of the City of Baltimore."

Clark's attorney James Wiggins suggested that his clients preferential treatment from prosecutors was due to the fact of his relationship with Dixon and City Hall.

"He provided services to the Baltimore City Council; no one has
disputed this," Wiggins said. "There were some things said about the Baltimore City Council and the council president, who is now the mayor, that they may have in some way done something to give Mr. Clark [preferential treatment].

The Sun had previously reported that in 2001, the chief of staff to Dixon then City Council President, Beatrice Tripps had an email exchange with Clark to keep payments below $5,000 so the work would not have to be approved by the Board of Estimates, which surprise, surprise Dixon chaired.

Mayor Dixon's office had no comment other than, "Dale Clark is a private citizen. This is between him and the state prosecutor."

It is, for now.

For a complete archive of the Sun's reporting (34 articles) on the federal and state investigations into City Hall see here.

Week 3 Giants 24, Redskins 17

So much for 3-0. I knew this was going to be a trap game. I just knew it, and sure enough the Skins found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They blew a 14 point halftime lead and let the Giants score 21 unanswered points in the second half. In spite of this the Redskins had a chance to force overtime with three shots at the end zone from the Giants one-yard line with under a minute left in the game. They couldn't do it. They had all 280 pounds+ of Mike Sellers who could fall one yard and score but didn't utilize him.

The running game disappeared in the second half and they couldn't sustain a drive until the final minute of the game. Rock Cartwirght and Randle El set up the offense with good field position several times either at mid-field or in Giants territory, but the offense sputtered. The defense on the field for more than 20 minutes could not stop the Giants from scoring, even when forcing three turnovers.

I hope Gibbs and the team watch the game film endlessly through the bye-week so they realize that in the NFL, unless you are one of the few legitimate contenders, for the rest of the league there is a thin line between 5-11 and making the playoffs.

Grades:

Offense-D

Defense-D

Special Teams B+

I Stand With Israel

I found that neat “I Stand with Israel” page banner in the upper right-hand corner of TMA through browsing the sites of my new colleagues in the Maryland Bloggers Alliance. I figured it is time to do show that I actually do.

By now, everyone knows that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak at Columbia University today. Despite much public outcry, Columbia’s president Lee Bollinger has not rescinded the invitation as he did last year. It should not shock anyone that Columbia invited this thug to speak. Columbia has a long history of inviting anti-Semitic totalitarians. In the 1930s, Columbia invited a Nazi shill to praise the qualities of Adolph Hitler in the midst of Kristallnacht. When a student protested this, they expelled him. Like I said that Columbia invited Ahmadinejad to speak and the faculty willingly acquiesced, adds further proof to the axiom that some ideas are so bad only academics could think of them.

Let us be crystal-clear about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he denies the Holocaust calling it a “myth,” and aspires to be the man who brings about the destruction of Israel. About this, there is no dispute. Under Ahmadinejad Iran has fought proxy wars with Israel through Hezbollah, against the United States in Iraq, and taken British sailors hostage after abducting them in international waters. Read this Human Rights Watch report on Iran to see how rosy things are in Iran under Ahmadinejad’s domestic policies.

What place does a cretin like Ahmadinejad have to speak on an Ivy League campus just miles from Ground Zero? Ah yes freedom of speech and academic freedom comes the retort from the anti-American/anti-Israel (and usually anti-Semitic) crowd. I am all for free speech and academic freedom. However, in the case of Ahmadinejad at Columbia, free speech is a red herring. Ahmadinejad has had plenty of forums and opportunities to share his views with the American public. Dan Rather, Anderson Cooper and Scott Pelly have all interviewed Ahmadinejad and none sharply challenged him. Matt Lauer of the Today Show filed this softball interview of an Iranian professor schilling for Ahmadinejad during his trip to Iran.

Bollinger stated that he will issue a series of “sharp challenges” to Ahmadinejad. However, given that so-called “tough” professional journalists have consistently let Ahmadinejad off the hook, there is no reason to believe that Bollinger will be any more critical of him. We should take Bollinger’s paeans to free speech at face value. As National Review noted, Bollinger’s commitment to free speech is dubious at best. When the University of Michigan adopted a constitutionally odious speech code, Bollinger as dean of the law school stayed on the sidelines and only denounced the code AFTER a court struck it down.

No, the real issue here is that by inviting Ahmadinejad to speak, Columbia has granted him its imprimatur and the prestige that comes with an invitation to address the faculty at an Ivy League institution. That is not something a prestigious Ivy League university should be doing. Sadly, it is in line with the prevailing anti-Israel/anti-American, pro-terrorist views of its leading Middle East scholars like Joseph Massad, Gil Anidjar, and Hamid Dabashi. With faculty like this, Columbia has enough “scholars” bashing Israel, calling for its destruction, and spouting ant-Semitic hatred. Bollinger and the Columbia board of trustees should be ashamed for providing Ahmadinejad, the man seeking the power to make the dreams of these “academics” come true, a forum and respectability to spew this hatred.

I Stand With Israel.

"And Gosh Darn It People Like Me"

One of the joys of blogging is receiving thoughtful comments and emails, even if readers disagree with me. Fortunately, I get kind words from most people who comment.

Here are two such examples. I note them becuase they are fellow bloggers, not here in Maryland, but in other parts of the country.

Usually when I blog about Ron Paul, I get spittle-flecked comments from his supporters. so I was suprised to see that John Gorentz who runs a blog The Reticulator out of Battle Creek Michigan linked to, and gave a positive review of my critique of Paul's foreign policy. He describes his life story in reverse chronological order, “His days ended in one of Hillary’s internment camps.” Thanks John, lets hope we can stand athwart history.

Donald Douglas sent me a nice comment about my post-mortem on the Duke nonRape Case.
Douglas is a "pro-victory Associate Professor of Political Science teaching in Long Beach, California." I love the United States of America, and I fully support current U.S. military operations around the world. I despise the hard-left radical agenda and discourse. " He operates the blog Burkean Reflections.

Bravo Donald, you are indeed a rare species in academia.

I highly recommend his post about the true nature of the leaders of the anti-war movement.

DC Representation

Hat tip to John Miller at The Corner.

Nathaniel Ward at the Heritage Foundation wrote a thorough overview of the consitutional issues concering congressional representation for DC.

Ward writes:

The case for granting full congressional representation to District residents rests on the unassailable premise of government by consent. However, Congress lacks the constitutional authority to simply grant the District a representative by fiat, as S. 1257 would do. The Constitution also limits representation to states alone. In seeking to resolve this genuine dilemma, Congress must examine solutions that do not violate the Constitution.

S. 1257 failed yesterday.

One of his proposed solutions is:

End Federal Taxation. Given its exclusive power over the District, Congress could abolish federal income taxes on District residents, providing a powerful solution to the city's "taxation without representation" complaint. This is a reasonable compromise and fully within Congress's powers. Other non-voting territories, like Puerto Rico, do not pay federal income taxes for similar reasons.

I like the idea. It is much easier than amending the constitution, and not abhorrent to it as some of the other proposals for representation.

The "Aberrant Strain"

Governor O’Malley went public with part of his new tax plan to close the now $1.7 billion structural deficit. He unveiled it today at one of his “kitchen table talks” at the home of Sarah Achenbach in Anneslie. Achenbach said that she and her husbands combined salaries would not face the proposed higher income tax. I wouldn’t be so sure. The last time O’Malley went into someone’s kitchen they and we ended up with a higher BGE bill than we should have.

O’Malley made a lame attempt at a “bipartisan” appeal to Republicans saying, “To those of the more aberrant strain of that (the Republican) party, who believe that a government that works is bad, or that taxes and the payment of them is something dishonorable, I'm not really capable of reasoning with them, in a way that persuades them.”

WBAL reported that O’Malley said “abhorrent” not “aberrant.” On the audio file it is pretty clear O’Malley said “aberrant.” However, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that he considers us “aberrant” types “abhorrent” as well.

It is pretty choice of O’Malley to talk about government that works since he has never been a part of or led a government that did work. Oh wait I forgot that’s Baltimore bashing. We don’t consider taxes or paying them as dishonorable, in fact we do pay our taxes because it is the law and breaking the law is dishonorable. We favor LOW taxes because that spurs economic growth and increases tax receipts. What we take issue with is drastically raising taxes to cover a structural deficit while simultaneously expanding spending. This will not reduce the deficit because the state has so much legally mandated spending, far beyond what in takes in, hence the term “structural deficit.”

Of course O’Malley is not capable of reasoning with us; that would require some amount of reason on his part.

O’Malley reminds me of what Winston Churchill said about Clement Atlee ,“An empty cab pulled up to Parliament House and Clement Atlee stepped out.”

Test Your Knowledge

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) commissioned a survey of 14,000 college freshman and seniors at 50 schools to test their knowledge of American history, civics, market economy, and international relations. The findings are to say the least disturbing.

The survey was a 60 question multiple choice quiz. You can take the quiz here.

The five major findings are:

1. College Seniors Failed a Basic Test on America’s History and Institutions
2. Colleges Stall Student Learning about America
3. America’s Most Prestigious Universities Performed the Worst
4. Inadequate College Curriculum Contributes to Failure
5. Greater Learning about America Goes Hand-in-Hand with More Active Citizenship

See the school rankings here.

By the way I scored 55 out of 60, 92%. The mean score for Harvard seniors was 70%.

Scoundrel Time

Andrew Kujan is moving beyond Maureen Dowd territory and steadily approaching Lillian Hellman status. Writer Mary McCarthy once said of Stalinist playwright Lillian Hellman, who defended the Moscow Trials, "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."

Earlier I took Kujan to task for twisting out of context, the words of Maryland Stadium Authority Board Member Dennis Mather as quoted by the Baltimore Sun. This is just the latest example of this nasty habit . Kujan’s response to me reveals the habit is just getting worse.

Kujan’s response:
“Seeing as the MSA operates Camden Yards, and Mr. Mather sits on the MSA, he would be directly involved in creating the new contract for the living wage workers. Therefore, when he says these workers might be fired, his words certainly carry some weight, as he can influence whether or not this happens. The $4.30 hr raise, effectively referred to here as "a break" for the workers in question, is what Mr. Mather voted NO on. Forgive me for wildly peicing [sic] together that he doesn't want to give stadium workers a break.”

First, Kujan is dead wrong about Mather being directly involved in which workers are fired. He isn’t. The contractor, Knight Facilities Management Inc., as the Sun article specifically states, “hires the crews” not the MSA. The Sept. 6 vote stipulated that whatever else is in the new contract with Knight, they will have to pay the living wage to the workers they higher. The mandated living wage increase will negatively affect the number of people Knight can hire. This also reveals the typical progressive prejudice behind Kujan’s flawed logic. Mather based his position on the economic reality that higher costs will force Knight to higher fewer workers, but Kujan refuses to acknowledge that. No there must be some other sinister motive. Ah yes that’s it! Mather works for a conservative think tank therefore he must be against giving stadium workers “a break”.

Kujan willfully dismisses our larger economic argument in favor of the cheap shot at a conservative, which proves another point I made here. The reason Mather says these people may lose their jobs is that the mandated increase in wages for part-time workers leads to more people seeking a smaller number of positions putting some of the people the living wage purportedly helps, out of job. This is pure economic fact, as my colleague Brian Gill pointed out “If the stadium owners are forced to pay the cleaners more, they will not have as much money and cannot hire the same number of cleaners. Mandated wage increases causes unemployment, it's as simple as that.”

Mather voted against mandating the living wage because he understood that salient fact. Here are his exact words “My concern is that the people we are trying to protect may not have a job…Often, when we pass laws, we intend to do one thing and something else happens.” As in some of the stadium-cleaners won’t have jobs due to the living wage increase.

Kujan at some basic level understands this, and the fact that Mather’s position is based on sound economic principle and (gasp) genuine concern for stadium workers who will lose their jobs. However, Kujan is not interested in engaging that argument. He would rather vilify Mather as not caring about low-wage workers instead. Why let the hard work of actually making an argument get in the way of smearing someone you disagree with.

Oh Yes You Will Pay...Through the Nose

More opaqueness from the man who promised transparency from our government.

Meeting behind closed doors with Democrats only, Governor O'Malley unveiled his massive, yet sketchy plan for tax increases. From the Examiner:

According to lawmakers at a breakfast meeting, O’Malley is suggesting a 20 percent hike in the sales tax, higher income taxes on the top 17 percent of households - making more than $100,000 a year - and doubling the tobacco tax to $2 a pack. The governor would cut taxes for lower income levels, provide additional credits for low wage earners and also cut the small state property tax.
He also backs slot machine gambling as a way to raise revenues.
O’Malley envisions no gas tax hike, but prefers to raise the titling tax on vehicle purchases to 6 percent. He also was not backing the so-called Green Fund, creating a new tax on development to help fund Chesapeake Bay restoration.
The plans were part of a swift PowerPoint presentation that did not include many specifics, legislators said, but was more a broad outline of his approach.

O'Malley is not backing the Green Fund because he knows it is a loser. It failed to pass the General Assembly last year. Oh to be a fly on the wall to see Maggie Macintosh's, the bill's sponsor and chief O'Malley supporter in Baltimore City, reaction. Also, O'Malley does not want to burden his crony and faux environmentalist David Sutherland with any extra costs for developing his new tax payer funded real-estate acquisition on the Eastern Shore.

State Senator Faints at Meeting with O'Gov.

State Senator Ulysses Currie (D PG County) fainted at a meeting between O'Malley and legislative leaders. He is now at a hospital for monitoring.

Currie must have seen O'Malley's latest tax package!

MD Court of Appeals Upholds State Ban on Gay Marriage

In a 4-3 ruling today, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s ban on same-sex marriage. The court rightly determined that this is a political matter for the legislature to decide. No matter where you come down on this issue, this is a victory for the democratic process. Personally, I do not care one bit about gay marriage there are far more pressing and serious issues that confront us in Maryland, and the nation at large. However, I do care that issues like this are not decided by judicial fiat rather they are decided through the political process in legislature where it belongs. Even though I may not care one way or the other about gay marriage, there are plenty of people who either support gay marriage or adamantly oppose to it, now it is up to them to muster the political will to fight for their cause.

Week 2: Redskins 20, Eagles 12

A great win, a great win. Winning in Philly is tough, especially with a young QB and a blitz-happy Jim Johnson defense. It is doubly tough when you lose your second offensive lineman of the season to injury. However, the Redskins played to their character (defense and power-running) and won a division road game. Its a winning formula.

Jason Campbell improved and showed the poise that made him a 1st round draft choice. He was not as inconsistent as he was against Miami. However, he still made some mistakes, the 2nd quarter pick and the overthrown deep ball to a wide-open Santana Moss that would have sealed the game and spared me the nervous pacing during the final minute goal-line stand. Despite this you could see Campbell's improvement and glimpses of how special he will be in the near future.

The defense was superb, they gave up some yardage yet they kept the Eagles out of the endzone in 5 redzone possessions. Rookie safety LaRon Landry made the game winning hit by laying the wood to Eagles receiver Kevin Curtis on 4th and 6 to seal the win.

Grades

Offense: B

Defense: A

Special Teams: B

The Examiner Gets It

From Thursday's Baltimore Examiner editorial:

According to the Maryland Department of Planning, Baltimore City lost 45,882jobs from 2000 to 2005. The number of retail establishments fell by 257 and retail sales dropped 11 percent during that time frame.
The data makes it no coincidence that 64,168 people moved out of the city to surrounding jurisdictions from 2000-2006. Fewer people means fewer property tax dollars to hire police, teachers, offer vital city services and pay the massive pension and health care bills for city employees.
Dixon has promised to throw “every ounce” of herself into the job, but energy is no substitute for realistic priorities, fundamental integrity and ability to rise above machine politics to serve all citizens.
Her transition team as interim mayor recommended 245 items needing immediate attention. There was no way she could have addressed them in less than a year as interim mayor and no way she will fix them in four years.
But by focusing on opening the city for business she may accomplish many of the items on the list. First on her agenda must be halving property taxes to the same levels as surrounding jurisdictions. It is the key to luring young, well-educated professionals and the employers that want to hire them.

We do not need any more evidence of how high taxes “help” the city.

Knowing that Dixon is a major cog in the machine, I won't hold my breath.

Hate Crime at Maryland

Word has undoubtedly spread about the apparent hate crime at the University of Maryland. Someone hung of a noose–an obvious reference to the past era of lynching–on a tree outside the Nyumburu Cultural Center adjacent to the Stamp Student Union. This was truly a disgusting act and whoever did it should be punished the full extent of the law. There is no place for that in our society. Unfortunately, maintenance workers removed the noose before police had a chance to inspect it for forensic evidence making it even more difficult to determine who is responsible, if it was a hoax, or something else.

The crime sparked a “speak out” rally at Cole Field House and engendered debate on the subjects of race, culture, and diversity. The editors of the Diamondback hope that the incident and the “speak out” will prompt actual interaction among the diverse segments of the student body. The editors correctly state, “The university's apparent hyper-focus on keeping students statistically diverse seems as though it may have distracted it from what keeps the community from embracing its diversity.”

They hit on the central problem of diversity, summed up by Jonah Goldberg as “liberalism's reigning understanding of "diversity" is that every institution should "look like America" but think exactly alike.” If real dialogue and conversations about serious issues is going to occur then we need to understand that diversity, real diversity, is more than achieving a “critical mass” of skin color or ethnic background on campus. Real diversity, to quote Goldberg again, “allows for a diversity of ideas, not one set of ideas imposed across the entire country under the label ‘diversity.’”

Unfortunately, the diversicrats and totalitarian campus thought police have created an atmosphere on campus where thinking differently or dissenting from their multicultural orthodoxy gets you in hot water with the administration, your publications stolen, or worse. Look no further than the Duke non-Rape Case to see the length to which multicultural ideologues will go to perpetuate their orthodoxy.

Baltimore: Proving Einstein's Theory of Insanity

Baltimore, when things get worse than they are now, just look to the photo, on the right, of people you elected. They will be the one's blaming everyone but themselves and ducking for cover. Baltimore, you voted for this gang of incompetent kleptocrats, and you will get what you vote for.

For perhaps the best explication of the farce that is Baltimore City politics see this piece from the Winter 2001 issue of City Journal.

Einstein said that repeating the same action over again expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Yesterday proved that nothing has changed and nothing will unless the people of this city decide to end the cycle of patronage and corruption. So far I see no evidence that they are willing to do so.

"The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings"

Submerging History: An Update

I have received quite a bit of email regarding my post on Carroll County’s plan to appropriate a parcel of the Whitaker Chambers farm to accommodate a planned reservoir. I received a nice note from John Miller at National Review who wrote the article that sparked my post, and from Mauricio Tamargo, who is working with Whitaker’s son John to establish non profit foundation to preserve the parcel of land at issue and build a small library featuring Chambers’ work.

Kevin Dayhoff has offered a very thoughtful commentary as well. I appreciate Kevin’s response. However, I take issue with his statement that “The National Review article painstakingly attempted to be as factual as possible it nevertheless unfortunately did a disservice to not only the reader but also to the National Review. It seemingly purposefully mislead, or at least at a minimum easily allowed the reader to be left with the impression that the site of the “Pumpkin Papers” was in danger – when this impression could not be farther from the truth.”

This is simply not true. I specifically noted so in my post, and John Miller did so as well in the article. Miller writes, “The proposed Union Mills Reservoir would not submerge any of the three houses on the Chambers property, which is nearly 400 acres in size, nor would it come near the spot where Whittaker Chambers stashed microfilm in a hollowed-out pumpkin at a climactic moment during the Hiss ordeal.”

The important thing here, is as Miller states, “To the son, however, the damage would go far beyond the loss of 15 acres, or an additional parcel of the farm that the reservoir would cut off from the rest of his land. ‘This place is about more than the pumpkin patch,’ he says. ‘You can’t tell me that one part of it matters less than another part of it. This is our home.’”

Mauricio Tamargo emailed me saying, “the main farm house and the pumpkin patch area are not threatened by the planned flood but the rear house, where Whittaker lived for the last ten years of his life and where he died is threatened by the water. I believe the water will, during a high pool level period of heavy rain or storm, come close enough to the rear house to flood it's basement with its antique stone foundation. Those basement walls will not hold and the whole house will collapse into the basement and be destroyed.”

There is nothing in the article, purposefully or otherwise, that can be construed as misleading the reader to think that the Pumpkin Papers site is in danger.

More Ron Paul

It looks like I touched a nerve among the Ron Paul supporters for linking to Pillage Idiot’s joke. He has many excellent things to say about domestic issues. I for one would welcome President Paul eliminating the IRS as his first act in the oval office. However, when it comes to foreign policy he is off his rocker.

First, Ron Paul is a serious candidate and his views should be considered. However, his views on foreign policy are seriously flawed, which is why he should be taken seriously and refuted in a substantive manner. Conservatives, who refuse to take Paul seriously, are akin to those like the editors of the Wall Street Journal who refused to substantively debate the editors of National Review on the merits of the immigration reform bill. We on the right take great pride in our ability to hold great intellectual debates amongst ourselves. In fact, it was similar intramural debates within the right that gave rise to the modern conservative movement. When conservatives marginalize Ron Paul they detract from that august intellectual tradition. At least Mike Huckabee engaged Paul, if rather clumsily, in the last GOP debate. In the market place of ideas the better ideas win out. I believe that in a substantive debate between Paul’s ideas about foreign policy against so-called “interventionist” or neoconservative ideas, Paul loses.

So herewith is my substantive yet non-exhaustive response and rebuttal to Ron Paul’s foreign policy.

Ron Paul’s strict constitutionalist ideology in regards to foreign policy is an anachronism. Paul believes in a 1796 foreign policy where we stay behind our borders and ignore the changing world around us. If we keep our nose down no one will bother us. For Ron Paul, George Washington just finished telling us to avoid “entangling alliances” and is now in line at Starbucks ordering venti skim mocha. The world has changed, and like it or not there are those who mean to do us harm, because they hate our foreign policy AND our freedoms.

When Ron Paul says “I’m suggesting we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it,” fine, let’s do that but it is dishonest for Paul to limit their reasons only to their dislike of our foreign policy, when in fact bin Laden and the islamo-fascists do indeed hate the very freedoms we hold dear. One only needs to read the intellectual godfather of al Qaeda, Sayyid Qtub. Qtub’s work influenced Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s mentor. Qtub traveled through the United States in the 1950s and studied education in Colorado. Here is his overall assessment of America: “This great America: What is its worth in the scale of human values? And what does it add to the moral account of humanity? Nothing.” A 1950s sock-hop literally offended him. Qtub saw the contrast between America and the Middle East as the old world versus the new world. America was the antithesis of what he saw as the true zenith of civilization: Muhammad in the seventh century and the triumphant Muslim armies of the Middle Ages i.e. the caliphate and the dominance of Islam. Qtub railed against what he called Jahiliyyah or pre-Islamic ignorance and lack of Sharia law, all of which America represented. The means to fight Jahiliyyah was through offensive jihad. There is a direct line from Qtub to Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaeda would have attacked us even if the state of Israel withered away, all the Middle Eastern oil dried up and we removed our troops from the region. The islamo-fascist impulse to kill Americans is driven by far deeper motives than opposition to our foreign policy. This is the truth that Ron Paul cannot understand or refuses engage.

Ron Paul thinks all our problems stem from blowback of “50 years of bad policy.” Really, so that means we were wrong to stand up to the Soviets during the Cold War and wrong to support Israel the only functioning democracy in a region of despots! According to Paul, we really should not commit to an interventionist foreign policy because it might upset someone. Better to let West Berlin starve because airlifting supplies would make Stalin mad. By Paul’s reasoning cutting off oil supplies to the Japanese in 1941 was wrong because it caused them to attack Pearl Harbor.

Paul believes that we should not have an interventionist foreign policy because it invites blowback. That is his position, ok fine, but he never offers an alternative to the historical examples or the present day issues that complicate his simplistic view. It is like the peaceniks during the Vietnam War who sang, “all we are saying is give peace a chance.” That’s right, that’s all they were saying. They did not offer any arguments as to why giving peace a chance would have benefited the United States in Southeast Asia, furthermore look at the human tragedy that happened when peace was given a chance. Ron Paul is doing the same thing. Instead of peace, it is isolationism. Paul never offers a solution other than empty platitudes about the intent of the founding fathers. That is all fine and good, but it is not an argument. Paul never, makes an argument past stating his position of preaching non-interventionism in foreign policy and urging the GOP to return to its isolationist past (look how that turned out). Paul and his supporters spout their nonsense then sit back as if saying they have ended the argument, when at best, all they’ve done is start one.

Once More Unto the Breach Dear Friends

Yesterday’s Washington Times editorialized about Maryland’s need to tighten its child sex offender laws. My colleague Brian Griffiths touched on it here. The passage of Jessica’s Law last year was a significant milestone, but clearly, it was not enough. The case of Richard Marks is illustrative of why we need to treat sex offenders differently than other types of criminals. Senator Nancy Jacobs is already prepping a bill to take away “good behavior” or dimuniton credits for sex offenders. Apparently, Marks was a model prisoner and prison officials released him nine years early from a 25 year no parole sentence. Dimunition is parole by another name.

As a veteran of last year’s Jessica’s Law campaign, I can tell you that it will take the same intense citizen effort to roll Joe Vallario, Brian Frosh, the trial lawyers who control the General Assembly. The trial lawyers and the criminal friendly progressives in the General Assembly will only do the right thing if they are constantly bombarded by sustained public pressure for fear of loosing their elected position.

I vividly remember the March 2007 testimony on behalf of Jessica’s law. I recounted the details of the campaign, especially Democrat obstructionism here. I was especially proud of my wife for her display of courage in testifying and telling her story to a room of complete strangers. The other thing I distinctly remember was the outright indifference to sheer hostility toward the bill and the snide attitude many of the Democratic committee members showed to those who testified. Two committee members Curt Anderson (D-Baltimore City) and Todd Schuler (D Baltimore County) were so upset at having to listen to testimony that they essentially asked, “what will it take you people to go away.”

One would expect Governor O’Malley to get behind the end of dimunition credits for child sex offenders. Don’t hold your breath, because O’Malley’s Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown is a on the record opponent of Jessica’s Law and worked alongside Vallario to kill it 2006.

Ladies and Gentleman, if you want truth in sentencing for child sex offenders, if you want 25 years to mean 25 years then it is time to battle the same foes we defeated last year. We know the winning strategy; we must again muster the will to fight.

Week 1: Redskins 16, Dolphins 13

Now that I know some of my readers in here in Ravensville are fellow fans of the Burgundy and Gold, herewith is the first of my weekly game analysis of the 2007 Redskins.

Jason Campbell's 2007 debut was inconsistent. He showed flashes of his potential, and showed us that he still has a ways to go yet. However, I am amazed by his composure, especially after throwing a pick on his first pass attempt. Campbell has the work ethic and composure, all the intangibles you look for in a quarterback. Given time, he is going to be very very good. Although, his performance was inconsistent (12-22, 222 yards, 2 int) he made plays when he had to, the two deep balls to Randle-El and a key scramble for a first down to keep a scoring drive alive. Campbell and Randle El seem to be developing into a good combo. I only hope Moss gets into the act as well.

The running game finally made an appearance and was the difference in the game. 98 yards and a score for Portis, not bad for missing the entire pre-season. Ladell Betts added 59 yards.
400 total yards of offense, not bad.

The defense was solid giving up only 66 yards on the ground . The Dolphins picked on Fred Smoot in the flat and short passes to their backs exposed what could be the unit's weakness. We will see against the Eagles and Brian Westbrook, who use the short pass in lieu of the run.

It was an ugly grind it out victory. Stout defense and a bull dozing running game. Despite Dan Snyder's purchase of explosive offensive talent over the last three years, this is the essential character of the Redskins right now. It is also a good formula for making the playoffs.

Week 1 Grades:
Offense: C
Defense B+
Special Team B+

Also, I keep hearing rumors about the Redskins moving back to DC. If anyone has anything solid on this I would appreciate it if you could send it to me.

Go Skins!

Healthy Debate... and a good lesson

My colleague Brian Gill over at Annapolis Politics offers an excellent explication of municipal bonds in his debate with Capital Punishment.

To add a minor complication to Capital Punishment's assertion that "As for this supposed R belief in lack of governmental control wherever possible, that always seems to end when someone wants to, say for example, smoke a joint...,"

Not all conservatives believe so. In fact none other than the godfather of the modern conservative movement William F. Buckley Jr. has argued on both libertarian and utilitarian grounds against the drug war and the prohibition of drugs see here.

42-0

Living near Roland Park, I am bombarded incessantly about how great Gilman football is. Oh really! I'm looking forward to the sound of silence after their shellacking by my alma mater today.

Post-Mortem on the Duke non-Rape Case

CUNY/Brooklyn College professor KC Johnson, who so thoroughly documented the travesty that was the Duke non-Rape Case at his indispensable blog Durham in Wonderland, has had his new book on the case, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, released.

Johnson and his co-author Stuart Taylor have a great op/ed piece in today's Washington Post.
The malfeasance of Mike Nifong is well known and documented. However, Johnson's chronicle of the perverse actions of Duke's radical faculty is just as important.
Johnson and Taylor write:

But the case was also a major cultural event exposing habits of mind among academics and journalists that contradict what should be their lodestar: the pursuit of truth. Nifong's lies, his inflaming of racial hatred (to win the black vote in his election campaign) and his targeting of innocent people were hardly representative of criminal prosecutors. But the smearing of the lacrosse players as racist, sexist, thuggish louts by many was all too representative. Dozens of the activist professors who dominate campus discourse gleefully stereotyped and vilified their own students -- and not one member of Duke's undergraduate faculty publicly dissented for months. Duke President Richard Brodhead repeatedly and misleadingly denigrated the players' characters. He also acted as though he had no problem with Nifong's violations of their rights to due process.

Johnson is no stranger to these tenured radicals. Johnson ran afoul of their brethren at Brooklyn College for the transgression of demanding academic freedom for and academic rigor for Brooklyn College students, and dissenting from their radical totalitarian groupthink.

The Duke case is the most visible reminder of the intellectual rot that poses as scholarship on our college campuses. There are many other less publicized cases of tenured radicals stomping on the rights of students who dare to think for themselves or dissent from their ideological worldview.

Why Ron Paul is Nuts

From Pillage Idiot

Ron Paul Goes to the Post Office

Clerk: Good afternoon, sir. What can I help you with today?

"Dr. Paul": I'd like to mail out these letters of marque and reprisal.

Clerk: What's the zip code they're being sent to?

"Dr. Paul": There is no zip code. I'm sending them to Pakistan.

Clerk: Pakistan?

"Dr. Paul": Yes, Congress has the authority under the Constitution to issue letters of marque and reprisal to authorize private citizens to take action against person or property that would otherwise be considered piracy. I'm sending these to some individuals in Waziristan so they have our authority to capture Osama bin Laden.

Clerk:

"Dr. Paul": Because the President's authority in wartime is far more limited than this president believes.

Clerk:

"Dr. Paul": And we could have avoided much of the war since 9/11 if we'd just authorized a bunch of privateers to apprehend Mr. bin Laden.

Clerk: You're a member of Congress?

"Dr. Paul": Yes.

Clerk: You're entitled to send mail for free.

"Dr. Paul": It doesn't say that in the Constitution. All it says is that Congress has the power to establish post offices and post roads.

Clerk:

"Dr. Paul":

Clerk: You really are a one-trick pony.

(Video of Hugh Hewitt's interview, via Ace.) (Also here.)

Mass Transit Mania

“Melissa” over at FSP takes Urbanite Magazine to task about their September cover story about mass transit in Baltimore.

Melissa makes four points. Points 2 and 4 I don’t have a problem with because they point out ostensibly factual errors in the article and were in fact quite informative. However, points 1 and 3 are, no pun intended, odd.

Point 1. “You quote Donald Fry pretty extensively. But you don't mention that, as president of the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC), he has an axe to grind. Namely, that raising corporate taxes to help increase funding for the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) -- the very one he laments is suffering from underfunding -- is terrible, awful, no-good, and very bad (see GBC's press release). I'm thinking journalist ethics generally require full disclosure.”

Quoting a member of the business community who opposes tax increases constitutes a violation of journalistic ethics? Sorry Melissa, but the article has extensive quotes from mass transit citizen advocates as well.

Point 3. “Obtaining "choice" riders. Yes, this is priority. But please don't act as though it is an impossibility. Getting riders out of their cars could involve increasing gas or excise taxes to more heavily subsidize transit over highway.”

“Choice riders” is a deceptive term for us troglodytes who have not seen the light and forsaken our cars for the government funded glory that is mass transit. The prescription of increased gas and excise taxes is nothing more than government coercion to limit our choice to poorly run government run mass transit, much like government schools.

I’m not against public transportation in fact I have used it in the past, where it has worked for me and declined to use it where it has not. I used to commute from Baltimore to jobs in DC and Old Town Alexandria. I drove my car from my home in Baltimore near Hopkins to Penn Station and took the MARC train to Union Station and then METRO to my DC or Old Town destinations. At one point, I tried taking the MTA bus from the stop near my home to Penn Station. The bus was hardly on time, for the scheduled stops, and during some periods of the year that line did not run a full slate of buses. Going back home from Penn Station after work there wasn’t even a reliable bus that would arrive within 30 minutes of the time my MARC train arrived back in Baltimore, if that train even arrived on time at all. It was more time and cost efficient for me to drive to Penn Station, getting there early enough to find the free parking spots surrounding the station. Now that I work in Baltimore, it still doesn’t make sense to use mass transit because I can get to and from work faster driving my car than taking the bus. The Baltimore transit system is not reliable for all of us, and the progressive prescription, milking the taxpayers to throw more money at the system, like their discredited solution for schools, won’t make it more reliable.

Why should those of us who drive—the best choice for us—have to incur higher fuel costs and taxes to increase funding to an unreliable system we do not use?