Moon Rising Over Francis Peak

Caught the moon peeking over Francis Peak this afternoon.

Phony Listeners

Concluding a rant about gutter level political discourse, Dan K. Thomasson states:

Unfortunately, all the intemperate language and false pronouncements offered as intelligent discourse have dropped the political debate to its lowest level in modern history. One yearns for the days when arguments could be passionate without the slanderous vilification of those who might disagree.

One would think, then, he would have avoided "false pronouncements" and "slanderous vilification" in the same piece, however, check what he wrote only six paragraphs earlier:

Then there is Rush Limbaugh, whose rich baritone pervades the midday airwaves from coast to coast. Limbaugh's latest attempt to satisfy his addiction to irrational knee-jerking and to the cadre of those who hang on his every word and smother him with fatuous compliments has libeled a great chunk of America's Iraq veterans by contending they are really not soldiers if they now question the war in Iraq. This has produced an angry letter from Senate Democrats who believe the bellicose Limbaugh has finally crossed the line.

Having listened to the segment Thomasson alludes to, one quickly discerns Rush is actually talking about phony soldiers: people who claim to have served but either haven't or lied about their service. In this case Rush specifically refers to a man who didn't even make it out of basic training but was paraded by the left as one who claimed to have served in Iraq and committed atrocities. What's not phony? But Thomasson perpetuates the slander to underscore his point when he just as well could have pointed to his own ravings as exhibit "A" on lowball political discourse.

Unfortunately for Thomasson, the only advice from his column he demonstrably heeds is: "The only cure for their poison is not to listen".

Sound advice - unless you want to write rational commentary about said poison.

Devil's Slide

Forty foot twin walls of hard limestone bracket a softer shaly limestone base forming a chute called Devil's Slide. They are upended remnants of an ancient seabed that existed 170-180 million years ago. The surrounding shaly limestone erode at a faster rate leaving the walls. Similar formations can be found nearby but Devil's Slide is the most pronounced.
I took this picture about two weeks ago while traveling to one of my fishing holes. The Weber River runs below this slide. Travellers on I-84 can view the slide as they travel between Henefer and Morgan Utah.

The Politics of "Personnel" Destruction

The Wall Street Journal provides a fact-based summary of the events at Haditha. You'll have to check with Representative John Murtha to get the version pulled from thin air. The WSJ concludes:

At Haditha, did the Marines act reasonably and appropriately based on their training? They were in a hostile combat situation where deadly force was authorized against suspected triggermen for the IED, and were ordered to assault a suspected insurgent hideout. In retrospect, the men in the car had no weapons or explosives; in retrospect, the people in the house were not insurgents. No one knew at the time.

Innocents were killed at Haditha, as they inevitably are in all wars--though that does not excuse or justify wrongdoing. Yet neither was Haditha the atrocity or "massacre" that many assumed--though errors in judgment may well have been committed. And while some violent crimes have been visited on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, overall the highly disciplined U.S. military has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion. When there have been aberrations, the services have typically held themselves accountable.

The same cannot be said of the political and media classes. Many, including Members of Congress, were looking for another moral bonfire to discredit the cause in Iraq, and they found a pretext in Haditha. The critics rushed to judgment; facts and evidence were discarded to fit the antiwar template.

Too bad the Democrats couldn't attack terrorists with the same vehemence as they attack their own military. Heaven help us if they did that, though; their complete disregard for facts would wind up exposing more innocents to danger than our military does.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Oct 19 2007

Seeking Defense Against Sociopaths...

...must mean you are one.

A student at Hamline University in Minnesota has been suspended and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation for advocating the carrying of legal concealed weapons on campus.

TownHall.com reports Troy Scheffler made the case in an e-mail to a school official that licensed gun owners could stop or prevent the kind of violence that struck Virginia Tech earlier this year. He pointed out that research has indicated the possibility of armed resistance discourages potential criminals. And he noted that many Virginia Tech students have said the massacre there would not have happened if the school had not banned concealed weapons.

But even though the school has a policy that guarantees students will be free to discuss all questions of interest and express their opinions openly, the dean of students says Scheffler's e-mail was deemed to be threatening. Scheffler was placed on interim suspension, which will only be lifted after he agrees to a psychological evaluation.

Next they will be prescribing lobotomies.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Oct 18 2007

The Knack

When Larry Sommers pointed to the elephant in the room, biological differences, as something to investigate in the search of explanations in the disparity between men and women in engineering and related fields - he instantly touched that third rail and became a martyr to political correctness.

The American Enterprise Institue soldiers on however:

Last week, the American Enterprise Institute brought together top researchers on sex differences, ranging from the strongly feminist Brandeis women's studies scholar Rosalind Barnett to AEI scholar and co-author of "The Bell Curve," Charles Murray. The discussions were heated, but civil. No one got mad, fled the room weeping, or nearly fainted.

Christina Hoff Sommers notes AEI hasn't settled the science on this but mentioned an interesting study:

Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor at Cambridge University and one of the world's leading experts on autism, had an intriguing hypothesis. Autism is far more common in males than females. Those afflicted with the disorder, including those with normal or high IQ, tend to be socially disconnected and clueless about the emotional states of others. They often exhibit an obsessive fixation on objects and machines.

Ms Sommers writes "Sound like anyone you know?"

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Oct 16 2007

Senator Durban, Call Your Office

Apparently this federal judge did not get Senator Durban's memo:

A federal judge in Washington blocked the Pentagon from transferring a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia, where he allegedly faces torture, according to a ruling unsealed Tuesday that marked a milestone in the treatment of detainees.

...Kessler said that Rahman, who has a heart condition, was convicted in absentia in Tunisia, sentenced to 20 years in prison and allegedly would face torture there, demonstrating "the devastating and irreparable harm he is likely to face if transferred."

You'll recall Durbin's description of Guantanamo:

Durbin quoted from an FBI agent's report describing prisoners being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures. He said "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings."

By Durban's standard, Tunisia should be a walk in the park for this prisoner; and yet the ingrate is suing to stay at Gitmo. Imagine that.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Oct 10 2007

Shielding the Shield Law

The media blackout on opposing opinions to the shield law is more pervasive than my local paper's intransigence.

Newspaper editorial pages uniformly support the new federal shield law, protecting journalists’ from divulging their sources. (A Google check fails to find any opposed.) The Center for Responsive Politics describes newspapers’ coordinated lobbying. Their combined circulation is in the tens of millions. The Washington Post spent $91,000 lobbying in 2007, including for the shield law. Contrary views in the far smaller and less influential alternate media, or occasional op-ed’s, have relatively puny weight.

More from the National Association of Manufacturers:

But the funny thing is, you wouldn't know any of this business aspect to the bill from reading today's Washington Post, its lead editorial and two op-eds, would you? The issue is ONLY about the media; a major, private-sector issue loses out to media self-interest.

Which causes us to muse: How many times does that happen, that the media tell a story about a piece of legislation with heat and passion, but only part of the story? Leaving the reader essentially uninformed?

Like I said, half a discussion.

h/t Instapundit

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Oct 8 2007

Half a Discussion

My local paper prints this lament from a reader:

Though I've had more than 100 letters to the editor published, I've never been able to get one printed about the shield law. It seems there are just some subjects on which the Deseret Morning News will brook no opposition.

I’ve wondered the same thing. Monday morning I also sent the DesNews a letter in response to their endorsement of the shield law in last Sunday’s Edition.

I checked the paper each day this week and the only response on the subject was Clark’s letter this morning. I’m not as prolific as he is – I’ve only sent the paper five letters in five years – but of the three they did not print, two were responses to the paper’s opinions on the shield law. I also note the comments to their editorial in their electronic edition overwhelmingly oppose the shield law.

The paper can print or not print what it wants, but their lack of an adequate discussion on the shield law underscores my point they can not be trusted with the responsibility they are asking for.

At least I have another forum for the letter:

Editor (Deseret News),

A shield law, exempting reporters from laws others must follow, will engender more abuse than public good. Without the shield, opines the Deseret News “people with information about official corruption become less likely to tell what they know” (“Time is right for shield law” – 30 Sept). But the only reporter they mention is Judith Miller who was jailed for protecting a target of a government corruption investigation – not a whistle-blower. The mention of Miller inadvertently highlights what the paper fails to inform us: a shield law would embolden corrupt officials to misuse access to information for political purposes.

Former Presidential Candidate John Kerry has exercised his right to refuse release of his military service record. The shield law would enable a corrupt official, however, to leak such information with impunity. Are we to expect the good will of unelected reporters, such as Dan Rather who concocted a story based on fake documents, to protect citizens from malcontents in the IRS, FBI, CIA or several dozen other government agencies?

Major media outlets have shown an inclination to run stories supplied by government employees with partisan agendas. A shield law will only increase such abuse thus doing more harm than good.

Dave Calder

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Oct 5 2007

Give Peace(keepers) a Chance

Interesting assesment in The Economist about how peacekeeping provided the military means to engender Fijian coups:

Without peacekeeping missions overseas, it is unlikely that Fiji's army would ever have become strong enough to seize power. When the British left in 1970, there were only around 200 serving military personnel. UN peacekeeping operations in Lebanon and Sinai generated a tenfold increase by 1986. The next year, Fiji witnessed its first military coup. Some 20,000-25,000 Fijians have been deployed on UN missions since independence—a lot for a country of fewer than 1m.

…Fiji risks losing around $254m in promised EU aid, badly needed at a time when tourist numbers are declining, the gold industry has collapsed and the country's main export industry, sugar, has stagnated.

All of which gives even greater importance to peacekeeping. Remittances from peacekeepers now make up a big chunk of Fiji's foreign-exchange earnings. And with the demand for their services growing, there is understandable reluctance to limit recruitment. Yet in Fiji, as in Nepal and Bangladesh, two other big contributors to UN peacekeeping, keeping the peace abroad has big repercussions at home.

Another chapter in the big Book of Unintended Consequences.

If this is a trend maybe we can convince Iran and Syria to pony up some peacekeepers...

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 29 2007

Haunting Hornets

Great shot of a pair of F-18Cs emerging from a self generated vapor cloud. Photo by MC3 Jimmy C. Pan, USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63).

Gravity it Ain't

The Washington Times delights in reprinting this headline from the July 9, 1971 issue of the Washington Post:

U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming

30 years ago NASA scientists relying on a program written by none other than current Global Warming advocate, James Hansen, warned:

The world could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age...

Today James Hansen's programming skills show the hottest year in the past century to be 1998 1934...whatever. Anybody in the "next to Gravity" camp starting to question Hansen's programming skills? Seems to me we have a "scientist" for hire, but science isn't what you'll be getting.

h/t SDA

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 26 2007

Shouldn't this be Good News?

The Wall Street Journal has a front page piece noting the legal sector lags the economy:

A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data.

Some practice areas have declined in recent years: Personal-injury and medical-malpractice cases have been undercut by state laws limiting class-action suits, out-of-state plaintiffs and payouts on damages. Securities class action litigation has declined in part because of a buoyant stock market.

While most of the article dwells on the plight of law school graduates who are ranked below their top-tier classmates; I have to consider this good news overall. I can't help but wonder if the economy in general has received a boost because of those laws limiting class action suits. I'm sure, however, we'll see news about the plight of America because of the dearth of law suits.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 24 2007

Bent Spear

The Washington Post provides an excellent report about the nuclear armed weapons mistakenly loaded on a B-52 aircraft three and a half weeks ago. What initially was reported as a loss of nuclear weapon accountability for the duration of the three-hour flight turned out to be a period of 36 hours.

In a previous post, I criticized the AP for failing to understand this story was one of accountability, not one of nukes flying on bombers. WaPo nails it here - the loss of accountablility is the core of their story. Additionally they hint that nuclear armed flights do occur abeit under special authority:

It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years. (Emphasis added)

WaPo did not learn how the munitions custodians failed to notice the wrong warheads despite multiple checks required of a munitions officer, a two man verification team, and a bomber pilot. Seems the check sheets were "pencil whipped" at several levels. This indicates a disturbing laxity in the care of our nuclear weaponry.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 22 2007

Calling for Fire on His Own Position

Exhibit “A” for the defense: If Dan Rather was serious about his reputation, why is he making a fool of himself with his $70M lawsuit against CBS?

As BummerDietz says "The good news is that all of the dirty laundry that was swept under the rug, will now become public record via discovery. This should be fun."

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 19 2007

Juan Cole: Pulling out of Iraq Would be Bad

Juan Cole admits the Iraq surrender plan touted by Democrats would be a disaster and amorally prefers it were enacted during Bush’s watch:

“The central question is whether the Democrats can force a significant reduction of troops from Iraq on Bush's watch, so as to avoid Iraq becoming exclusively their headache when they (as is likely) take over the White House in January of 2009…

.. If the Democrats cannot prevail in withdrawing before Bush goes out of office (and they cannot), and if they then rapidly draw down the troops on taking office in 2009, they face the real prospect of a "Gerald Ford meltdown" of the sort that occurred in 1975 when the North Vietnamese and their VC allies took over South Vietnam.

Juan’s pointing out another difference between Iraq and Vietnam – the Democrat Congress shafted the Vietnamese with a Republican sitting in the White House. If they take the Presidency in 09’ they get the chance to shaft the Iraqi’s while they are at the helm. That option isn’t looking too pretty:

But in all likelihood, when the Democratic president pulls US troops out in summer of 2009, all hell is going to break loose. The consequences may include even higher petroleum prices than we have seen recently, which at some point could bring back stagflation or very high rates of inflation.

In other words, the Democratic president risks being Fordized when s/he withdraws from Iraq, by the aftermath. A one-term president associated with humiliation abroad and high inflation at home? Maybe I should say, Carterized. The Republican Party could come back strong in 2012 and then dominate politics for decades, if that happened.

Didn’t President Bush mention something simliar the other day? Of course for Juan the real disaster isn’t such consequences as boat people, killing fields, and re-education camps. It’s the self-inflicted damage the Democrat’s can expect in return for enacting their policy. Juan laments:

It is all so unfair, of course, since Bush started and prosecuted this disaster in Iraq, and Bush is refusing to accept responsibility for the failure, pushing it off onto his successor.

Really? Seems to me the ones advocating the unilateral pull-out ought to be the ones to get the credit for the consequences.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 13 2007

Moveon.org Marginalizes Itself

I was not the only one who thought of Senator Joe McCarthy's demise when I heard of Moveon.org's full page ad declaring Gen Petraeus a traitor. Here Bob Krumm recalls Army counsel Joseph Welch's famous shaming of the out of control Senator:

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Moveon.org has long overreached, but this time they've made it obvious to all but the most strident moonbat.

Good for them.

Now if there was only a Democrat with a backbone they might be able to expoit this opening to break free from Moveon's and the netroots grip. Of course that won't happen and the Demo party will find itself travelling on the same path to marginalization.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 10 2007

News to AP: Nukes Fly on Bombers

I'm still dumbfounded by AP's cluelessness about the military and national security. Note the headline "Nuclear Bombs Mistakenly Flown Over US" I saw another one announce "Nuclear Bombs Flown Across Five States". Read the article and see if you get the same impression I did - the AP thinks the "mistake" was nukes were flown over the U.S. by a B-52. Gee if we had a policy of not flying nukes over the United States, wouldn't it have made it hard to fly them to the Soviet Union? Maybe the AP thinks we taxi the aircraft to the Canadian border and then take off.

AP here's a lead for you: NOBODY KNEW THE NUKES WERE ON THE B-52s!

And that is the mistake. We are supposed to have positive control of our nuclear weapons. We are supposed to know where they all at all times. The story here is six of them went unaccounted for over three hours. The reason the Air Force is scrambling is to find out how they "lost" the weapons, not that they were flown on a B-52.

The Deseret News did preserve the essence of the problem when they relayed the Military Times story:

The Defense Department uses a computerized tracking program to keep tabs on each one of its nuclear warheads, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. For the six warheads to make it onto the B-52, each one would have had to be signed out of its storage bunker and transported to the bomber. Diligent safety protocols would have to have been ignored to load the warheads onto the plane, he said.

"I just can't imagine how all of this happened," said Philip Coyle, a senior adviser on nuclear weapons at the Center for Defense Information. "The procedures are so rigid; this is the last thing that's supposed to happen."

Either our nuclear safeguarding procedures didn't work or someone didn't follow them. This is the story. If AP thinks its because nukes happen to fly on bombers, they are about fifty years late.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 6, 2007

How About Working for the Rights of Mexicans in Mexico?

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying "Mexico does
not end at its borders...

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: "Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

Calderon addressed the nation Sunday from the National Palace, avoiding a showdown with leftist opposition lawmakers who had vowed to prevent him from making the speech in Congress, as Mexican tradition dictates.

Someone tell Mr. Calderon the Mexicans in the U.S. are not being held against their will. If he really wants to help them, maybe he ought to find out why they leave Mexico. Hint: check the rule of law. For a case study, Calderon can begin by looking at why he is delivering speeches from the National Palace instead of Congress.

h/t DRJ at Patterico

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Sept 3 2007

Air Force Kids Spared Tag Trauma

Unfortunately it’s not unusual to hear about another school banning tag. This story intrigued me, however, because of the Colorado Springs location and the “Falcon" School District name:

COLORADO SPRINGS — An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

“It causes a lot of conflict on the playground,” said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.

Running games are still allowed as long as students don’t chase each other, she said.

Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn’t object.

In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.

My spirits fell when I looked-up Discovery Canyon Campus School on Google Maps and found it sits on North Gate Road. Sure enough, I followed the road three miles to the west and found the North Gate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Most likely a lot of parents of the Discovery Canyon Campus School are probably military.

Sissified schools may fit leftist spots in California and Massachusetts but they seem out of place in the district encompassing the world’s premier Air Force Academy.

h/t Small Dead Animals

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED August 31, 2007.

A Little TJX Dishonesty

What's the latest on the TJX security breach?

Information Week had a couple of notes. First on August 13:

The south Florida arrests resulted in the recovery of about 200,000 stolen credit card account numbers responsible for fraud losses roughly calculated to be more than $75 million. Agents also seized two pickup trucks, $10,000 cash, and a handgun in connection with the case.

This was the second high-profile bust related to the TJX breach. In March, the Gainesville Police Department and Florida Department of Law Enforcement caught six people with fake credit cards, created using stolen TJX data, who had bought $8 million worth of gift cards at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in 50 of Florida's 67 counties.

And then there is this on August 22:

A Ukrainian man, who was arrested in a Turkish nightclub, allegedly was selling credit card information stolen during the massive security breach at TJX, the parent company of retailer T.J. Maxx.

But say you don't read IT trade magazines, instead you are a highly valued TJX customer. What does TJX tell you? Their latest update is still 21 Feb 2007. Here is what CEO Carol Meyrowitz writes:

Since we learned of the probability of a breach in mid-December 2006, we have cooperated with law enforcement as well as with the banks and credit card companies that process our customer transactions. Further, we have established customer helplines in three countries and are making available a great deal of helpful information on our company websites. (emphasis added)

Their FAQ page states:

We do not know whether any fraudulent use has occurred or if so, to what extent. Law enforcement has advised us that they are investigating what may be fraudulent use of information stolen from our systems. We have provided extensive transaction information to the banks and payment card companies, but they have not shared details of possible fraudulent use with us.

Maybe the above statements passed muster with TJX lawyers in February, but six months and $83M later what should they be saying?

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED August 30, 2007

Is Your Moral Compass Skewed?

What would the students at your local high school or college tell me is most offensive in this poster?

- The use of the word Jap?

- The epitaph of “Murdering”

- The fiendish drawing of the Japanese soldier?

- The call to wipe out every murdering Jap?

Think the high school kid in 1942 would agree? Or would he rightly point out the most offensive item is the newspaper headline “5200 Yank Prisoners Killed”?

Its kind of hard to fight the war on terrorism when many can't discriminate between the irritant and the evil.

h/t Captain Capitalism

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED August 29, 2007.

Hillary: Potential Terror Victim

Via Don Surber:

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.

In other words, if the Republicans screw up the GWOT enough to allow another attack, the electorate will be reminded she would do a worse job.

Other snide comments:

Captain Ed “It's an asinine statement. It shows what happens when Hillary gets away from her handlers and starts talking on her own. The only relation she has to her husband's political sense is her last name." (h/t I Think Therefore...)

Scrappleface “Al Qaeda: help me beat GOP”

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED 25 August 2007

Antigua's Gamble

I stumbled across this over two years ago:

The good people of Utah decided 110 years ago that gambling was one vice the state didn't need. So they outlawed it and later added electronic gaming to the ban. Now, Utah's right to make games of chance illegal has been shot down by the World Trade Organization.

WTO judges ruled last fall in a case brought by the government of Antigua and Barbuda that gambling regulations in Utah and most other states conflict with America's obligation not to discriminate against foreigners providing "recreational services." In ruling for the tiny Caribbean nation, which had charged that Utah's wager-phobia infringed on Internet gambling operations based in the islands, the WTO opened the door to millions of dollars in potential penalties. "It's not just gambling," warns Utah state representative Sheryl L. Allen, a Republican who chairs a multistate committee studying free trade deals. "The states are losing their authority in a lot of areas."

Since the power to regulate gambling is a state function, I wondered back in 2005 if the Federal Government overstepped its authority:

If the US loses its appeal at the WTO can Utah make a case in Federal court that the Federal government does not have the right to violate the States right in its treaty negotiations?

So far my states rights question is moot. Despite losing the WTO appeal, the Federal Government hasn’t infringed on a states' ability to regulate gambling. The question now is “Does the WTO have the right to violate US intellectual property laws?” Richard Fernandez, of the Belmont Club, brings us up to speed with the latest.

The New York Times has details of this interesting story. The World Trade organization (WTO) ruled the US violated Antigua's rights by prohibiting Americans from gambling over Internet sites based in Antigua. Now the lawyer for Antigua is asking the WTO to compensate the island nation by allowing it to set aside US intellectual property laws and to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among others with impunity.

Fernandez provides an excellent comparison of this international trade dispute with the disparities of enforcement in other treaties.

But lawyers are clever and the loophole cited by the New York Times makes it possible for Antigua to demand the right to pirate US intellectually property -- under the rules -- and "morally" too because a mechanism which allowed the US to use is preponderant economic power would be "unfair". Where have we seen this before? Pretty much everywhere. While not exactly the same, the Antigua decision has structural similarities to the way some international lawyers think about the Geneva Convention and human rights legislation. The US is "bound" by the letter of the law, and if a terrorist mass murderer can find a legal loophole to escape then he is "entitled" to use it. But the Convention is not obeyed by weaker parties because it is impractical to enforce it. Just as pirated DVDs can be found being openly sold in many street corners in Asia without being similarly available in places like Australia, countries with well-functioning legal systems find themselves at a disadvantage compared to countries with no enforcement. In the area of human rights, for example, America has courts before which lawyers can appear. Al-Qaeda has a cave in Pakistan where accommodations are notoriously poor. The US will obey a legal judgment. Legal judgments against al-Qaeda are an exercise in futility. Who will lawyers sue? Under these conditions the full weight of international law will always come down hardest on the most law-abiding.

You’ll want to read his whole analysis. Read the New York Times article also if you want to know why lawyers are held in such high esteem.

Ultimately the NYT article points out that the WTO is damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't enact a penalty to back up their decision, they'll lose their credibility. If they do, the backlash from Americans may well destroy the WTO anyway.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED 23 August 2007

Democratic Party Perfidy

Recognition of a near century old genocide is all that is holding up action on Darfur:

The United States has a compelling historical and moral reason to recognize the Armenian Genocide, which cost a million and a half people their lives, but we also have a powerful contemporary reason as well: How can we take effective action against the genocide in Darfur if we lack the will to condemn genocide whenever and wherever it occurs? — Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), during the 2007 debate on the Armenian genocide resolution.

There is no mention if efforts to combat Sudanese slavery are hampered because Congress has failed to pass a resolution condemning the Democratic Party’s support of slavery. Meanwhile the Democrats put another brick into their house of shame as they attempt to drive a reluctant Turkey from supporting the war on terror and helping the U.S prevent genocide in Iraq. It will be interesting to see how Senator Obama votes if this resolution makes it to the Senate.

Addendum:

Speaking of the Democratic Party's support for slavery Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) can make amends here:Panhandling for Reparations. (H/T Kathy Shaidle)