mervlurker

I want to go to there...

2009-08-06T15:20:31Z

I'm buying a bazooka.

2009-07-29T15:15:55Z

Steampunk Non-Zombies

2009-07-21T18:26:33Z

"We pinky swear that our rampaging horde of steam-powered killbots will not dine on the flesh of the dead. Peace remains our profession."

-The Pentagon

EDIT: There are so many movies that cover this.

Priceless.

2009-07-14T18:55:23Z

This sort of thing shouldn't be this funny.

2009-06-12T20:48:38Z

Maybe it's folly...

2009-06-05T19:10:42Z

...to stand athwart "progress." But here's a good [IMO] book review that covers some ideas that I think we should keep in mind as we observe and participate in how our government handles our daily lives.

The State Despoitic

by Mark Steyn

Driving north out of New York the other day, I heard a caller to Mark Levin’s show discuss his excellent book Liberty and Tyranny. The word she kept using was “inevitable”: The republic felt exhausted, and there was an “inevitability” to what was happening. A quarter-millennium of liberty seemed to be about the best you could expect, and its waning was—again—“inevitable.” As she spoke, the rich farmland of Columbia County rolled past my window. To many of its residents, the caller would have sounded slightly kooky. Were any of the county’s first families suddenly to rematerialize from their centuries of slumber, they would recognize the general landscape, the settlements, the principal roads, and indeed many of the weathered farmhouses. And they would be struck by the comfort and prosperity of their successors in this land. So what’s all this talk about decay and decline?

Ah, but I wonder if those early settlers would recognize the people, and their assumptions about the role of government. Mr. Levin’s listener was trying to articulate something profound but elusive. It’s not something you can sell the film rights for —there are no aliens vaporizing the White House, as in Independence Day; no God- zilla rampaging down Fifth Avenue and hurling the Empire State Building into the East River. No bangs, just the whimper of the same old same old civilizational ennui, as it gradually dawns that Admiral Yamamoto’s sleeping giant may be merely a supersized version of Monty Python’s dead parrot.

Paul A. Rahe’s new book on the subject is called Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, which nicely captures how soothing and beguiling the process is.[1] Today, the animating principles of the American idea are entirely absent from public discourse. To the new Administration, American exceptionalism means an exceptional effort to harness an exceptionally big government in the cause of exceptionally massive spending. The can-do spirit means Ty’Sheoma Bethea can do with some government money: A high-school student in Dillon, South Carolina, Miss Bethea wrote to the President to ask him to do something about the peeling paint in her classroom. He read the letter out approvingly in a televised address to Congress. Imagine if Miss Bethea gets her way, and the national bureaucracy in Washington becomes responsible for grade- school paint jobs from Maine to Hawaii. What size of government would be required for such a project? And is it compatible with a constitutional republic?

Professor Rahe knows the answer to that. The first three-quarters of his book are about Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, which is to say they’re really about us. Montesquieu’s prediction that “in Europe the last sigh of liberty will be heaved by an Englishman” seemed self-evident after the totalitarian enthusiasms of the Continent in the twentieth century. Today? The last sigh will be heaved by England’s progeny, in the United States, or perhaps, given the galloping ambition of twenty-first-century American statism, in Australia. Is “the last sigh of liberty” inevitable? A progressivist would scoff at the utter codswallop of such a fancy. Why, modern man would not tolerate for a moment the encroachments his forebears took for granted! And so in the face of the careless assumption that social progress is like the internal combustion engine—once invented, it can never be uninvented—it is left to a trio of dead French blokes to anticipate the long-term temptations of a republic none had ever lived in, and which at that point was technologically all but impossible.

The professor opens his study with a famous passage from M. de Tocqueville. Or, rather, it would be famous were he still widely read. For he knows us far better than we know him: “I would like to imagine with what new traits despotism could be produced in the world,” he wrote the best part of two centuries ago. He and his family had been on the sharp end of France’s violent convulsions, but he considered that, to a democratic republic, there were slyer seductions:

I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls.

He didn’t foresee “Dancing with the Stars” or “American Idol” but, details aside, that’s pretty much on the money. He continues:

Over these is elevated an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle. It would resemble the paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood … it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs…
The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform—through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way… it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own … it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Welcome to the twenty-first century.

“It does not tyrannize, it gets in the way.” The all-pervasive micro-regulatory state “enervates,” but nicely, gradually, so after a while you don’t even notice. And in exchange for liberty it offers security: the “right” to health care; the “right” to housing; the “right” to a job—although who needs that once you’ve got all the others? The proposed European Constitution extends the laundry list: the constitutional right to clean water and environmental protection. Every right you could ever want, except the right to be free from undue intrusions by the state. M. Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president and chairman of the European constitutional convention, told me at the time that he had bought a copy of the U.S. Constitution at a bookstore in Washington and carried it around with him in his pocket. Try doing that with his Euro-constitution, and you’ll be walking with a limp after ten minutes and calling for a sedan chair after twenty: As Professor Rahe notes, it’s 450 pages long. And, when your “constitution” is that big, imagine how swollen the attendant bureaucracy and regulation is. The author points out that, in France, “80 per cent of the legislation passed by the National Assembly in Paris originates in Brussels”—that is, at the European Union’s civil service. Who drafts it? Who approves it? Who do you call to complain? Who do you run against and in what election? And where do you go to escape it? Not to the next town, not to the next county, not to the next country.

In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), “the celebrated Montesquieu” (as both Madison and Hamilton called him) concluded that England had developed, in Professor Rahe’s summation, “a new form of government more conducive to liberty and graced with greater staying power than any polity theretofore even imagined.” The key words here, and the theme of Professor Rahe’s book, are “staying power.” Anyone can start a republic. The challenge that remains was posed by Ben Franklin: Can you “keep it”?

Examining England’s “crowned republic” in the wake of Montesquieu and Rousseau, Tocqueville wrote that, from the seventeenth century on, you could find “the classes mixed up with one another … wealth become power, equality before the law, equality in taxation, freedom of the press, public debate—all new principles that the society of the Middle Ages did not know. But these are precisely the new things which, introduced little by little and with art into the old body, reanimated it without risking its dissolution.” Monarchies do not always evolve, and republics seek to put their theoretical perfection into practice too instantly. If you abolish, wrote Montesquieu, “the prerogatives of the lords, the clergy, the nobility & the towns,” you’re on a fast track to “a state popular—or, indeed, a state despotic.”

Thus, Tocqueville’s great insight—that what prevents the “state popular” from declining into a “state despotic” is the strength of the intermediary institutions between the sovereign and the individual. The French revolution abolished everything and subordinated all institutions to the rule of central authority. The New World was more fortunate: “The principle and lifeblood of American liberty” was, according to Tocqueville, municipal independence. “With the state government, they had limited contact; with the national government, they had almost none,” writes Professor Rahe:

In New England, their world was the township; in the South, it was the county; and elsewhere it was one or the other or both… . Self-government was the liberty that they had fought the War of Independence to retain, and this was a liberty that in considerable measure Americans in the age of Andrew Jackson still enjoyed.

For Tocqueville, this is a critical distinction between America and the faux republics of his own continent. “It is in the township that the strengths of free peoples resides,” he wrote. “Municipal institutions are for liberty what primary schools are for science; they place it within reach of the people.” In America, democracy is supposed to be a participatory sport not a spectator one: In Europe, every five years you put an X on a piece of paper and subsequently discover which of the party candidates on the list at central office has been delegated to represent you in fast-tracking all those E.U. micro-regulations through the rubber-stamp legislature. By contrast, American democracy is a game to be played, not watched: You go to Town Meeting, you denounce the School Board budget, you vote to close a road, you run for cemetery commissioner.

Does that distinction still hold? As Professor Rahe argues, in the twentieth century the intermediary institutions were belatedly hacked away—not just self-government at town, county, and state level, but other independent outposts: church, family, civic associations. Today, very little stands between the individual and the sovereign, which is why schoolgirls in Dillon, South Carolina think it entirely normal to beseech Good King Barack the Hopeychanger to do something about classroom maintenance.

I say “Good King Barack,” but truly that does an injustice to ye medieval tyrants of yore. As Tocqueville wrote: “There was a time in Europe in which the law, as well as the consent of the people, clothed kings with a power almost without limits. But almost never did it happen that they made use of it.” His Majesty was an absolute tyrant—in theory. But in practice he was in his palace hundreds of miles away. A pantalooned emissary might come prancing into your dooryard once every half-decade and give you a hard time, but for the most part you got on with your life relatively undisturbed. “The details of social life and of individual existence ordinarily escaped his control,” wrote Tocqueville. But what would happen if administrative capability were to evolve to make it possible “to subject all of his subjects to the details of a uniform set of regulations”?

That moment has now arrived. And administrative despotism turns out to be very popular: Why, we need more standardized rules, from coast to coast—and on to the next coast. After all, if Europe can harmonize every trivial imposition on the citizen, why can’t the world?

Would it even be possible to hold the American revolution today? The Boston Tea Party? Imagine if George III had been able to sit in his palace across the ocean, look at the security-camera footage, press a button, and freeze the bank accounts of everyone there. Oh, well, we won’t be needing another revolt, will we? But the consequence of funding the metastasization of government through the confiscation of the fruits of the citizen’s labor is the remorseless shriveling of liberty.

Is it, as Mark Levin’s caller said, “inevitable”? No, not quite. But it seems like the way to bet. When President Bush used to promote the notion of democracy in the Muslim world, there was a line he liked to fall back on: “Freedom is the desire of every human heart.” Are you quite sure? It’s doubtful whether that’s actually the case in Gaza and Waziristan, but we know for absolute certain that it’s not in Paris and Stockholm, London and Toronto, Buffalo and New Orleans. The story of the Western world since 1945 is that, invited to choose between freedom and government “security,” large numbers of people vote to dump freedom every time—the freedom to make their own decisions about health care, education, property rights, and eventually (as we already see in Europe, Canada, American campuses, and the disgusting U.N. Human Rights Council) what you’re permitted to say and think.

I’m often struck by how much of our language has become metaphorical: A few years ago, a Fleet Street colleague accidentally booked himself into a conference on “building bridges” assuming it would be some multiculti community outreach yakfest. It turned out to be a panel of engineers discussing bridge construction. Yet in an important sense the ability to build real bridges is indeed an attribute of community. A friend of mine is a New Hampshire “selectman,” one of those municipal offices Tocqueville found so admirable. In 2003, a state highway inspector rode through and condemned one of the town’s bridges, on a dirt road that serves maybe a dozen houses.

That’s the bad news. The good news was the 80/20 state/town funding plan, under which, if you applied to Concord for a new bridge, the state would pay 80 percent of the cost, the town 20. So they did. The state estimated the cost at $320,000, so the town’s share would be $64,000. Great. So the town threw up a temporary bridge just down river from the condemned one, and waited for the state to get going. Six years later, the temporary bridge has worn out, and the latest revised estimate is $655,000, such that the town’s share would be $131,000.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that, under the “stimulus” bill, they can put in for the 60/40 federal/state bridge funding plan, under which the feds pay 60 percent, and the state pays 40, and thus the town would be on the hook for 20 percent of the 40 percent, if you follow. If they applied for the program now, the bridge might be built by, oh, 2015, 2020, and it’ll only be $1.2 million, or $4 million, or $12 million, or whatever the estimate’ll be by then.

But who knows? By 2015, there might be some 70/30 UN/federal bridge plan, under which the UN pays 70 percent, and the feds pay 30, and thus the town would only be liable for 20 percent of the state’s 40 percent of the feds’ 30 percent. And the estimate for the bridge will be a mere $2.7 billion.

While the Select Board was pondering this, another bridge was condemned. The state’s estimate was $415,000, and, given that the previous bridge had been on the to-do list for six years, they weren’t ready to pencil this second one in on the schedule just yet. So instead the town put in a new bridge from a local contractor. Cost: $30,000. Don’t worry; it’s all up to code—and a lot safer than the worn-out temporary bridge still waiting for the 80/20/60/40/70/30 deal to kick in. As my friend said at the meet- ing: “Screw the state. Let’s do it ourselves.”

“Screw the state” is not a Tocquevillian formulation, but he would have certainly agreed with the latter sentiment. When something goes wrong, a European demands to know what the government’s going to do about it. An American does it himself. Or he used to—in the Jacksonian America a farsighted Frenchman understood so well. “Human dignity,” writes Professor Rahe, “is bound up with taking responsibility for conducting one’s own affairs.” When the state annexes that responsibility, the citizenry are indeed mere sheep to the government shepherd. Paul Rahe concludes his brisk and trenchant examination of republican “staying power” with specific proposals to reclaim state and local power from Washington, and with a choice: “We can be what once we were, or we can settle for a gradual, gentle descent into servitude.” I wish I were more sanguine about how that vote would go.

A Noun in the Noun

2009-05-22T17:40:21Z

Friday is poetry day. Did Gertrude Stein invent Mad Libs?

A Light in the Moon

by: Gertrude Stein

A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even withstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.

Owner of a Lonely Heat of the Moment

2009-05-22T12:37:01Z

Yes and Asia: joining forces July 23rd at National Harbor.

But, you might well wonder, isn't Steve Howe the guitarist for both of those bands? Yes, he bloody well is.

Ahab the PERAB

2009-05-20T13:17:41Z

If anyone's interested and able to watch, the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board meeting is going to be webcast this morning starting at 9:30 at www.whitehouse.gov (actual meeting starts at 10:00).

Crisisitis

2009-05-01T13:13:49Z

A quick blog entry from The New Republic...

The Age of Perpetual Crisis

I like the free-flowing, rough-and-tumble, demotic character of Internet-driven media as much as the next blogger. Information can be addictive, just as sharp-edged opinions can induce an adrenaline-driven thrill. But what about historical perspective? And philosophical reflection? And level-headed analysis? The 24-hour news cycle and instant Internet updates don't foster those habits and may even be incompatible with them. And I'm afraid our culture is beginning to pay the emotional and intellectual price.

Has a week passed in the last nine months when we haven't been confronting a "crisis"? Last summer, there was the "peak-oil crisis." Then there was the banking and stock-market crises of the fall. In his February 24 address to Congress, President Obama spoke of numerous crises facing the country. "The economy is in crisis," he declared, and the crisis had several dimensions. There was the "credit crisis" and the "housing crisis" and the "financial crisis" -- all of them leading ours to be a generalized "time of crisis." And now, of course, there's the swine-flu crisis. On top of the ongoing climate-change crisis. And so on and so forth.

Never mind that the peak-oil crisis seems to have vanished overnight. Or that the economy may have already turned a corner before reaching the severity of the 1981-82 recession, let alone the Great Depression's catastrophic levels of unemployment and human suffering. Or that roughly 36,000 Americans die of influenza every year without it being dubbed a public-health crisis. None of this matters, finally, because when it comes to hysteria, reality is beside the point. Whether or not the source of this season's anxieties fade, cable news and Internet prognosticators are sure to hype some new issue or event or problem into the next national Crisis.

Why will the pattern almost certainly continue? Because the rewards that come from magnifying the significance of and threat posed by every event and trend are too enticing to resist. Alarmist headlines generate an agitated buzz, which spreads through the culture like a contagion, driving people to seek out information to allay their fears, which in turn generates ratings and boosts page views (and rates of presidential approval) into the stratosphere, with the most hyperbolic headlines and rhetoric often grabbing the most attention of all.

Which is not to say that newscasters, writers, commentators, and politicians don't believe their own hype. Sadly, many of them do -- even those who should know better. The paranoid style in American politics has metastasized. No longer confined to the radical right as it largely was when historian Richard Hofstadter first diagnosed it in his classic book, generalized paranoia has now spread beyond politics and into the culture at large, infecting nearly everything it touches, transforming otherwise thoughtful Americans into modern-day doomsayers anxiously awaiting imminent civilizational apocalypse.

This isn't to say that the problems we so readily refer to as crises aren't worthy of attention or concern. But it is to say that we will be better off as individuals and as a society when we (re)gain some perspective on our troubles and (re)learn how to respond to them with poise and composure instead of technologically driven populist panic.

Voting, Right?

2009-04-30T20:35:38Z

Has anyone else been follwing the arguments on Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, between bouts of swine flu? From everything I've read about it, it seems to me that Section 5 of the Voting Rights act is probably long-since outdated. But it's kinda fascinating to read about some of the SCOTUS Justices twisting themselves into knots to call it unconstitutional...

Anyway, this:

How Can Rights Feel So Wrong?

The Supreme Court takes aim at the Voting Rights Act.

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 8:06 PM ET

One way to think about the quest for racial equality in voting in America is to liken it to a long and arduous car trip. A trip delayed for almost 100 years, because although the 15^thAmendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of Servitude" in 1870, Southern states disenfranchised black voters for decades through poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. It was only when Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the road trip could finally begin.

As is often the case with long car trips, almost immediately after the Voting Rights Act was passed, a chorus of wee voices from the back seat began to chorus, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Those states singled out for extra government regulation wanted to know whether racism had yet been thwarted and they could have their autonomy back. Thus the Supreme Court has, since the enactment of Section 5 (which specifically targets election practices in mostly Southern states), heard four challenges to it. And each time the court has agreed that we haven't yet reached a place where Section 5 is unnecessary. But it's always been hopeful that day will come.

Now, different justices have different approaches to determining whether we have yet achieved the end of racial inequality in America. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, for instance, hypothesized back in 2003 that we would only need affirmative-action programs for 25 more years—the constitutional equivalent of tossing a bag of gummy bears into the back seat. Chief Justice John Roberts, on the other hand, was already waving goodbye to the Voting Rights Act in the rearview mirror back in 1982, when, as a young lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, he worked heroically if unsuccessfully to limit its reach. Today, when Roberts says of the Voting Rights Act, "it begins to look like this is going to go on forever," you have the sense that he's already at the rest stop, tossing back a Big Gulp.

The question of whether Section 5 is still necessary is very much on the justices' minds today as they reflect on whether to strike the thing down in its entirety. What most of them forget is that they are not meant to be driving the car; they are supposed to be judging.

Section 5 was originally set to expire in 1970 but has been reauthorized by Congress several times, most recently in 2006. The provision requires state officials to get permission or "preclearance" from the Justice Department or a federal court before making new local voting rules, but only for so-called "covered" jurisdictions—meaning all or parts of 16 states, mostly Southern states that were misbehaving back in the 1960s and '70s. Today's challenge, in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, comes from a Texas municipal utility district that didn't even exist in the 1960s and '70s, and has no history of discriminatory conduct to boot. The district lost in federal district court both on its claim that it should be allowed to "bail out" of the Section 5 preclearance scheme and on its claim that Section 5 is unconstitutional.

It's too bad you cannot watch oral argument from this morning live on C-SPAN (you can listen here), because when the court opts to act like a Super-Congress—albeit a smarter, better looking Super-Congress with less hair—we really should be allowed to watch.

The issue that consumes the court's conservative justices today is how only three years ago, Congress could have gathered 16,000 pages of testimony, at 21 different hearings over 10 months, and then reauthorized Section 5? No, they are not commending Congress for its diligent record-building and strict adherence to prior Supreme Court instructions. They are asking, Why defer to a Congress that is so damn wrong? These justices—and there appear to be five of them—are ready for a do-over with themselves acting as legislators.

Gregory Coleman represents the municipal district, and he argues that the preclearance system was an "extraordinary remedy" for "extraordinary emergency circumstances" that no longer exist. "We are in a different day," he says.

Justice David Souter disputes that the day is all that different, laying out the recent empirical evidence of voting disparities and government misconduct. Today looks a lot more like 1965 than you might believe. Justice Stephen Breyer adds yet more not-sunshine-and-roses data to the pile. Coleman responds that the racial disparity situation is actually far worse in places like Massachusetts, which was not singled out for special treatment under Section 5. This disparity gets Justice Anthony Kennedy worked up about unequal treatment of similarly situated states, and as Rick Hasen pointed out in Slate earlier in the week, the name of the game today will be getting Kennedy worked up.

Souter repeats his claim that Congress had heaps of evidence of an ongoing disparity in "racial attitudes," to which Coleman replies that even if that's so, it "does not justify a presumption that State and local officials in these areas are so racist that they cannot be relied on to pass and enforce fair voting laws."

Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal stands up to defend Section 5, and he describes Congress' reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 as "the paradigmatic attempt of what to do in Congress." But Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Samuel Alito rapidly come flying at Katyal's head about how they personally could have done it better: "Why didn't Congress extend Section 5 to the entire country?" asks Alito. He points out that "the difference between Latino registration and white registration in Texas was 18.6 percent," which is "substantially lower than the rate in California, which is not covered (37 percent); Colorado (28 percent); New Mexico (24 percent); or the nationwide average (30 percent)." So why single out Texas?

When Katyal replies that Texas is treated differently because of its history, Alito wonders, "At what point does that history stop justifying action with respect to some jurisdictions but not with respect to others?" Roberts adds more bluntly, "Congress can impose this disparate treatment forever because of the history in the South?"

Kennedy starts to fret about the burden all this enforcement puts on taxpayers. And don't even get him started on the burden it puts on the covered states: "So Congress has made a finding that the sovereignty of Georgia is less than the sovereign dignity of Ohio. The sovereignty of Alabama is less than the sovereign dignity of Michigan. And the governments in one are to be trusted less than the governments [in] the other?"

For anyone who wondered whether Kennedy really was really willing to be The Guy Who Struck Down This Landmark Piece of Civil Rights Legislation, it abruptly becomes clear that as long as he can say he's merely defending the "sovereign dignity" of Alabama, he might just be OK with it. He pretty much eulogizes Section 5 when he muses that "no one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act. The question is whether or not it should be continued with this differentiation between the States."

Some classic Scalia moments follow quickly. In the first, he insists that the judgment of Congress is not to be trusted because when it came to reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, "they get elected under this system. Why should they take it away?" Oh. My. God. You mean legislators are self-interested!?! That must mean the court is free to substitute its judgment for that of Congress.

Debo Adegbile is in the case representing the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. When he reminds the court that "Congress is permitted to use so much of its power as is necessary" to remedy racial discrimination, the Chief Justice clobbers him with: "Is it your position that today Southerners are more likely to discriminate than Northerners?" When Adegbile replies that the covered states tend to be repeat offenders in this area, Roberts comes back with, "So your answer is yes?"

Scalia asks Adegbile what the vote was when Congress reauthorized Section 5 in 2006.

Answer: 390-33 in the House, 98-0 in the Senate. Scalia retorts that "the Israeli Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, used to have a rule that if the death penalty was pronounced unanimously, it was invalid, because there must be something wrong there." (And before you liberals start crowing that Scalia is citing foreign law, let it be noted that he is citing religious law, which is totally cool and different than foreign law.) Today Scalia seems to have fashioned a new constitutional principle: The courts should always defer to Congress unless Congress is unanimous, in which case Congress is a sack of self-interested liars. Fascinating.

Scalia asks how Virginia can be such a racist place if it was the "first State in the Union to elect a black governor" and "has a black chief justice of the Supreme Court." This is a proxy for the question everyone was hoping someone else would ask—i.e., how can there be racism in America if Obama is president? Adegbile replies that the "occasion of a single person sitting in a seat doesn't change the experience on the ground for everyday citizens."

In his rebuttal, Coleman makes the argument for killing Section 5 that Kennedy evidently most wants to hear: In reauthorizing Section 5, "Congress didn't know, because it didn't ask, whether discrimination is worse in Tennessee or Arkansas than in Virginia and other States." Congress has used old data to stigmatize and undermine the sovereign dignity of some states and not others. And Kennedy is all about the sovereign dignity. The real question for the court today is whether there are indeed five votes for saying that for purposes of Section 5, America is so right that Congress must be wrong. It looks like there may be. And that's a long, long journey for the humble, minimalist Roberts Court.

Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2217227/

No, I just have a little something in my eye...

2009-04-17T14:05:48Z

I'm sure most of you have already seen this (given that it's been viewed almost 20 million times), but here it is. This just makes me happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

What do you mean? This is exactly what we had in mind...

2009-04-13T17:43:16Z

"Life finds a way."
-Ian Malcolm

No Changes for Berlin Zoo, Even After Bear Attack

By RACHEL NOLAN

BERLIN (AP) — The Berlin zoo doesn't plan to change security measures even after a polar bear attacked a woman who managed to jump into the bears' enclosure last week, an incident caught on video.

"It is already safe," zoo spokesman Heiner Kloes said Monday.

The woman, who has not been identified, climbed down a fence, over a wide hedge full of thorns and got past a concrete wall before swan diving into the murky moat where the polar bears swim.

One of four bears in the enclosure bit the woman's arms, legs and back before keepers rescued her out with a life preserver.

The woman was taken to Berlin's Charite hospital for treatment and is still recovering, the Bild newspaper reported Monday. The hospital did not return phone calls seeking comment.

It was not clear what made the woman circumvent all those security measures and jump in with four large, fully grown polar bears. Police did not provide any motive for the incident.

Last year, a man who said celebrity polar bear Knut looked "lonely" hurdled over a water-filled ditch into his enclosure at the same zoo. The 37-year-old emerged unscathed after keepers lured Knut away with a leg of beef.

An older bear attacked Friday's leaper.

Despite visitors' repeated attempts to hug the huge, powerful bears, keepers have no plans to change the zoo's setup. The concrete wall protecting the polar bears' enclosure will not be built up higher than its current three feet (90 centimeters), nor will more guards be posted, Kloes said.

"People who want to jump in will always find a way," he added.

For all my grammarians out there

2009-04-03T12:53:50Z

I'm looking at you, Angelalala...

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZmJlNGI0Y2JkOGE3NjhhMzM4Mzc3NGJlYzY0Y2ViMjk=

Wordy
English just keeps expanding.

By Mona Charen

My children have started to become exacting grammarians. David, 15, is driven nearly crazy every time someone misuses the expression “beg the question.” It’s a good thing he is away on a band trip this week and didn’t catch a CNN report on the morning news. A story on the financial situation was phrased like this: “This begs the question: What happened to the TARP money?”

If David had been watching, he would have scowled at the screen and, voice raised, corrected the reporter. “It doesn’t ‘beg’ the question. It presents or suggests or poses the question. To beg the question is to avoid or circumvent it!” David is mostly right. “Beg the question” is widely misused. Michael Quinion of World Wide Words responded to a reader who asked whether it was ever correct to use the meaning David disdains. His answer is comprehensive. “You can easily find examples of the sense you quote, which is used just as though one might say ‘prompt the question’ or ‘forces one to ask’ . . . This meaning of the phrase seems to have grown up because people have turned for a model to other phrases in beg, especially the well-known I beg to differ, where beg is a fossil verb that actually used to mean ‘humbly submit.’ But the way we use beg to differ these days makes beg the question look the same as ‘wish to ask.’ It doesn’t — or at least, it didn’t. . . . The meaning you give is . . . gaining ground, and one or two recent dictionaries claim that it is now acceptable — the New Oxford Dictionary of English, for example, says it is ‘widely accepted in modern standard English.’ I wouldn’t go so far myself.”

I’m delighted and a little surprised that my publicly educated boys are learning grammar at all. When I attended public school, grammar was completely out of style. I suppose the geniuses at Teachers College (whose views infect all of American education) thought it would stunt our creativity to learn how to diagram a sentence. In any case, most of my school cohort didn’t come across words like gerund or past participle until we studied a foreign language in eighth grade! My eleventh-grade English teacher, Mrs. Payne, was kind enough to spend several after-school hours teaching me the basics of grammar because I asked. But that was an extracurricular exception for an eccentric.

Ben, 13, was actually given an extra-credit project in English: Find an example of incorrect grammar or usage in your daily life. He wanted to snap a photo of the checkout line at the supermarket that reads “15 items or less.” It should be “fewer,” of course. I suggested one that grates like fingernails on a blackboard every time I hear it. When you renew your prescriptions at our pharmacy, a recorded voice asks for the prescription number. After you enter it you hear: “The prescription you entered is associated with the name C-H-A-R. If this is the first four letters of your last name, press 1.” AGGGGHH! I respond with only marginally less anguish when I hear “enormity” misused. Enormity is a fine word meaning (according to the American Heritage Dictionary) “The quality of passing all moral bounds; excessive wickedness . . . 2) a monstrous offense or evil . . .” It just happens to sound like “enormous.” And so you will hear members of Congress, TV pundits, and others use phrases such as “the enormity of the crisis we face.” No.

I don’t want to discourage my kids’ fastidiousness about language. But the truth is that language is always changing, and that sometimes the sheer weight and momentum of error crash through the ramparts of proper usage and the unacceptable is accepted. This openness has another side as well — receptiveness to all enhancements. English has taken liberally from dozens of other tongues. It has always been this way. The French, Italians, and Germans established learned societies to maintain the purity of their languages. The French to this day are subject to seizures when English words such as “weekend” insinuate themselves into la belle langue. But English just keeps expanding. According to The Economist, the number of words in the English language will pass 1 million at the end of this month, far more than any other language.

By all means, let’s celebrate the flexibility and versatility of English. But please, enormity doesn’t refer to size.

— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.

We're from the government, and we're here to help.

2009-04-01T18:34:14Z

The senior officer in charge is confident we handled this incident as professionally as possible.

Obama Official Calls For Book Banning

2009-04-01T13:08:20Z

Ok, so that headline isn't exactly accurate. But I have a feeling something very similar would have been plastered across the New York Times if a Bush appointee had said something like this...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqtChVqKsbm7fxITv4L6uoyMvs1wD974HCF80

To be fair, the movie in question does look like a piece of low-grade partisan hackery. I'm sure it's idiotic. But that's not supposed to matter, right? Why aren't free speech advocates taking to the parapets? Where's the outrage? Get the lawyer who defended Larry Flynt on the line, stat!!

First, they came for Hillary: The Movie, and I didn't speak up...

Writer's Block: What Next?

2009-03-19T20:48:51Z

What do you think happens to us when we die?

View 500 Answers

I've always liked Whitman's answer: "To die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier."

Woe.

2009-03-02T18:47:12Z

EDIT: The pic is a link... :)

Writer's Block: AKA

2009-02-27T21:05:09Z

What's the story behind your username?

View 504 Answers

"Once I got famous, I couldn't even lurk anymore. I'd hear people saying 'Who's that lurking over there... Isn't that Merv Griffin?'"

-Merv Griffin, as Himself/The Elevator Killer, in <i>The Man with Two Brains</i>

Take a lesson from Chris Morris, Oscar Winners...

2009-02-18T20:59:25Z

...this is how you accept an award.

Hope

2009-01-23T16:16:14Z

"I can say without exception or equivocation that the United States will not torture."

-Barack Obama, upon issuing the EO to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

I hope this is the right move... I really do. But does this sentence strike anyone else as maybe just a tad irresponsible? For a President who promised a return to pragmatism, this seems a bit sudden and sweeping. I am open to the possibility that he is 100% right to do this. I just wonder if there isn't a temptation to make a dramatic move right out of the gate that he'll have to back off of later.

Encouraging

2009-01-09T16:36:41Z

I'm very happy to see Obama standing up to (or at least disagreeing with) Congressional dems on the stimulus package. I hope he doesn't fold, and that this augurs good things down the road...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2009/01/08/pelosi_urges_obama_to_raise_ta.html?hpid=topnews

This is Parody Proof

2009-01-08T21:20:48Z

No, it's not from The Onion. It's from the Treasury media roundup. It's just... well... I'll let you read.

Porn Industry Seeks a Stimulus Package

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Kevin Modesti

Jan. 8--And now, Debbie Does D.C.

In an announcement that launched a thousand unprintable puns, adult-entertainment moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis said Wednesday that they are asking Washington for a $5 billion federal bailout, claiming that the porn business is suffering from the soft economy.

Francis insisted in a phone interview that this is no joke or publicity stunt, though his tone suggested otherwise.

"The government's handing out money to the auto industry," Francis, producer of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series, said on the phone from his Santa Monica office. "Why shouldn't it hand some to an industry the nation could not live without?"

The request, Francis said, was being made in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The $5 billion figure, he said, reflects the decline in U.S. adult-entertainment-industry revenue from $18 billion three years ago.

If porn producers are feeling the effects of what one wire service called "the sagging economy," the pain might be felt most acutely in the San Fernando Valley. In 2007, revenue from more than 200 Valley-based adult-content companies was estimated at $1 billion.

One adult-film star from the Los Angeles area said she is feeling the pinch.

The actress who performs as Jenna Presley said her Web site has seen a 20 percent decline in customers, about 1,000 of whom pay $19.99 a month to watch the 22-year-old perform online.

Presley said the downturn has forced her to cut overhead.

"I said, 'I've got to stop paying guys and girls to perform with, and I've got to find (other Web site proprietors) to do a content exchange with,'" Presley said matter-of-factly.

Instead of paying co-stars, she is posting their videos on her site and they're posting her content on theirs.

"I haven't had any complaints," Presley said.

Other performers, Presley said, have faced pay cuts as video companies take the uncharacteristic step of tightening their belts.

"I know companies are reducing their rates," Presley said. "Instead of paying a girl $2,000 for a boy-girl (scene), now they're trying to pay $1,200."

Presley said she has refused to work for less and so far has not lost business.

"I stand up for myself," she said. "A lot of girls, the business is so slow, they're happy just to find work (at any price)."

Despite all that, Presley said she considers the bailout bid by Francis and Hustler chief Flynt "a little crazy" and thinks companies need to cut unnecessary expenses. She said the porn industry, like the auto industry, is to blame for failing to change with the times.

"I'm not taking this bailout request seriously," Presley said. "I love Larry. He's a great guy. But he doesn't need $5 billion."

Her reaction echoed those of a San Fernando Valley congressman and the head of a Valley business group.

"I regret that two porn-industry executives have used the current economic crisis to launch an obvious publicity stunt," said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks. "As Americans face tough economic times, we need a serious discussion of the issues."

Bruce Ackerman, president and CEO of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, said: "I don't think it's a reasonable request -- and I would say that of any of the industry groups (seeking bailouts).

"I don't think you can laugh any of these requests off. I sympathize with any industry that needs help," Ackerman said, noting that the adult-entertainment industry employs thousands of people in the Valley. "But is it something the taxpayer should be burdened with?"

Flynt's and Francis' announcement coincides with the start today of the four-day Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. They hope to find support for the bailout bid from other industry leaders.

"People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in a news release. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such, but they cannot do without sex."

Adult DVD sales and rentals have decreased by 22 percent in the past year, the news release claimed, as viewers seek free porn online.

Flynt and Francis will have some convincing to do even in Las Vegas, judging by the reaction of Steven Hirsch, founder and co-chairman of L.A.-based Vivid Entertainment Group, the 25-year-old company that bills itself as the world's leading adult-film producer.

"To think we're going to go to Washington and get a bailout is a little unrealistic," said Hirsch, who said he heard about the Flynt-Francis ploy in the media. "This is not the time to make sweeping statements. This is the time to buckle down and take the steps we need to save our industry.

"This industry is not immune from (the bad economy). People are spending less money, period."

Hirsch said he thinks Flynt and Francis are "just poking fun at all the industries getting bailouts."

Hirsch said Vivid isn't suffering as badly as smaller rivals because its prominent brand name gives the company "a leg up."

He declined to get specific about Vivid's revenue.

Ghetto Rock With Us.

2008-12-30T15:32:26Z

Beth and I just got tix for Mos Def at the 9:30 Club for Monday, February 23rd. Anyone wanna join us? :)

The Night Tackleloco Saved Christmas

2008-12-22T15:50:43Z

Sometimes I dearly miss those days at 3121... :(

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Click to download the Greatest Chirstmas Album You've Ever Heard.*

For the story of the creation of this album, click here.

*Limited to include only those Christmas albums recorded in a week or less in Arlington VA during the autumn of 2000.