IN TODAY’S NEW YORK TIMES, Adam Freedman looks at the role of commas in the Second Amendment. He’s right that people shouldn’t make too much of this — in fact, if I recall correctly the punctuation wasn’t the same in front of all the ratifying states — but this part, while not exactly wrong, stops short of the conclusion:
Likewise, when the justices finish diagramming the Second Amendment, they should end up with something that expresses a causal link, like: “Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.†In other words, the amendment is really about protecting militias, notwithstanding the originalist arguments to the contrary.
It’s short of the conclusion because he misses a key point: the Framers considered an armed populace important, but didn’t trust the government — at either the state or federal levels — to arm the people. Since the armed populace (the “militia” was said to consist of “the body of the people”) was essential as a check on government power, the government couldn’t be allowed to disarm it by neglect. Thus, the Second Amendment may be “about protecting militias,” but it does so by keeping the populace armed. In fact, Brannon Denning and I expanded on this point at more length in this article from the William and Mary Bill of Rights Law Journal a few years ago. Click “read more” for an excerpt.
TAYLOR OWEN thinks Huckabee may be okay. Meanwhile, Bill Quick writes: “I’ve been suspicious of the almost overnight groundswell for Huckabee, and I think there may be some huge surprises coming in Iowa.”
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, unaccountable death squads would terrorize American cities, protected by official silence. And they were right!
GREG MANKIW looks at current vs. historical tax rates: “Notice that all groups are paying lower tax rates than the historical average. But in contrast to some popular perceptions, the change is not concentrated among the upper income groups. In fact, the opposite is true.”
ADVICE ON HOOKING UP HOME THEATERS. “How much do you need to spend on cables? Ah, the age-old question–and one that you should never let a chain store’s salesman answer for you.” And links back to the whole home-theater how-to series.
UPDATE: Reader M. Simon emails: “‘Hooking Up In Home theaters’ Is what I first read. Then I asked, ‘how the heck do you do that’? I want to get in on that. Then I read more carefully. You can not underestimate my disappointment. :-)” Just put on a movie that your wife likes. It seems to have worked for this guy. . . .
A video of a Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-clad politician attacking capitalism then struggling to explain how his luxurious clothes square with his socialist beliefs has become an instant YouTube hit in Venezuela.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton.
He should be sent to a special part of Guantanamo Bay supervised by The Manolo.
BRIAN PICKRELL: “With the Iowa Caucuses just a few weeks away, and with the final debates of both parties in the bag, it’s once again time to look at the situation on the ground here in Iowa.”
INDEED: “What had seemed gospel in some quarters–Iraq’s ‘civil war’ is unstoppable and American armed forces cannot do anything to diminish the fratricidal conflict–looks less certain today. “
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND DENIAL, in Canada. “This dysfunctional venom does not come from Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist and fatuous relativism will only blind the foolish. It is time for free discussion in this free country, whether it offends or not.”
JOHN TIERNEY: Contrarians at Bali: “We always need contrarians to challenge orthrodoxy, so it’s good to see a few scientists raising questions about the established wisdom at the Bali conference on climate. But I’m such a contrarian myself that I have to quibble with them.”
SOME RECOMMENDED GIFTS for under fifty bucks. I love it that you can get DVD players for $36.99.
UPDATE: Reader Josh Eno emails: “I’d rather pay $15 for a National Geographic subscription directly from nationalgeograpic.com than pay $34 through Amazon. Give your readers a tip and save them $19.”
Um okay, but that link looks a bit iffy. This one, on the other hand, offers the good price. Funny, in my (limited) experience the magazine subscriptions through Amazon have been cheaper.
ADVICE TO NEW BLOGGERS from Jorn Barger, who coined the term “weblog.” I like this one: “If you have more original posts than links, you probably need to learn some humility.” But then, I would, wouldn’t I? Plus this: “Being truly yourself is always hipper than suppressing a link just because it’s not trendy enough. Your readers need to get to know you.”
GAIA IS YOUR FUEHRER: “‘When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it,’ he says. ‘This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not.’”
They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected, fearmongering would be the end of democracy. And they were right!
UPDATE: On McCain-Lieberman, Stephen Green writes: “Dude, I called that one almost two weeks ago.” Nice, but InstaPundit reader Richard Whitten called it in July of 2004.
A REPORT ON upgrading from Vista to XP: “Well, here there appears to be no contest. Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive. I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log onto Vista, instead I can run applications as soon as I can click their icons. . . . In addition, numerous tasks that take a long time on Vista have been greatly speeded up.” Congratulations, Microsoft!
FUNDRAISING: Fred Thompson beat his 2400 donors in 24 hours goal. And Ron Paul has raised $2.1 million since midnight. This tells you that there are a lot of people out there who aren’t too happy with the frontrunners.
UPDATE: This may be the secret to Paul’s sudden surge . . . .
Huckabee was a nice, likeable guy when we talked to him. But honestly, I think I’d vote for Edwards over Huckabee, though I’d feel dirty the next morning. And I’d be even more likely to vote for Hillary or Obama.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “Huckabee is the Harriet Miers of the presidential candidates. Two words: under… qualified.”
MORE: One of Rand Simberg’s commenters wants to know why I’d prefer Edwards over Huckabee. Basically, I believe that both would have similar socialist/populist programs, but that Republicans would combine against Edwards’ programs, producing useful gridlock. On the other hand, Dems would be only too happy to go along with Huckabee’s programs, and too many Republicans might do so too, out of party loyalty. The main thing Huckabee has, policy wise, that Edwards doesn’t is that he favors Second Amendment rights, but I wonder if he wouldn’t jettison them in some sort of “for the children” compromise at a crucial point, knowing that he’d get media adulation for doing so. Plus, the more I watch him operation, the more Clintonian his campaign seems. Edwards’, on the other hand, is just inept, which suggests that he wouldn’t be very scary in office. And both would probably be equally Carteresque in foreign policy.
TENNESSEE RECONSIDERS merit-based scholarships. Personally, I think that students should be rewarded for working hard and being smart. Need-based financial aid is fine, too — but assistance based on merit sends an important message.
STALIN REDUX: “A Russian opposition activist has been sent to a psychiatric hospital by authorities a day before a planned demonstration. Artem Basyrov’s detention is the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived under president Vladimir Putin.”
MORE THOUGHTS ON THE REPORTED hate crimes at Princeton. I’ll just note that they told me if George W. Bush were reelected, unpopular groups would be subject to beatings and intimidation. And they were right!
And as a commenter notes, this would get more attention if it had involved a noose on a doorknob even though in this case, according to the reports, we have an actual physical assault and beating.
UPDATE: Princeton resident Fausta Wertz notes that there’s been no coverage in the town paper.
MORE: Some of Fausta’s commenters think this is a hoax. That’s always possible with “hate crime” reports, of course (see the Redstate item linked at the top of this post), but this one did involve a concussion, which probably wasn’t fake. At any rate, media skepticism about possible hoaxes — as another commenter notes — seems absent whenever there’s a noose involved.
STILL MORE: But Fausta’s commenters turn out to be right. Jeez. I think hate-crime hoaxes should be punished severely; they cause as much fear and hate as the real thing, oftentimes.
Scientists from The University of Manchester have pioneered new ways of tweaking the molecular structure of antibiotics — an innovation that could be crucial in the fight against powerful super bugs.
RALPH LUKER: “If you’ve devoted your professional career to teaching World History or Western Civ, you might rather slit your wrist now than watch this clip from ABC’s The View.” He’s right, though some of us might omit the qualifier.
Four officers of the Anscombe Society and a prominent conservative politics professor received threatening emails Wednesday evening from off-campus email addresses.
The five individuals received identical messages telling them they would “suffer,” ordering them to “shut the fuck up” and declaring that “you are not welcome here.” “We will destroy you,” the message said.
Though the message did not explicitly mention the Anscombe Society, the four students who received emails were Anscombe vice president Jonathan Hwang ’09, president Kevin Staley-Joyce ’09, former president Sherif Girgis ’08 and administrative committee chair Francisco Nava ’09. Politics professor Robert George — who has publicly supported conservative causes, including the Anscombe Society’s goal of promoting chastity — also received the message.
I guess it’s part of the growing climate of fear in America.
Francisco Nava ’09 was physically attacked by two men in Princeton Township Friday evening, sustaining a concussion but no other serious injuries. The assault comes on the heels of several threatening messages recently sent to Nava, apparently in connection with his involvement with the socially conservative Anscombe Society.
I wonder if this will get the kind of attention that politically-reversed assaults would get?
STILL MORE: Andrew Sullivan seems to regard this as an “Insta-Embarrassment.” But there’s no embarrassment in correcting an error as soon as you’re aware of it. That’s something that Andrew, and his friends at The New Republic, should have figured out already.
I MENTIONED blogger-turned-Supreme Court clerk Will Baude the other day (not actually the first such, but the latest) and now I see that he’s got an interesting article out. Topic: “When an Article III court decides a case, and the President disagrees with the outcome, what can he do about it?”
GPS UPDATE: So I wound up ordering the Garmin Nuvi 660 instead of the 350 I mentioned earlier. Everyone who emailed about the 350 loved it, but the 660 gives me bluetooth (which I may care about) and traffic alerts/rerouting, which I definitely do care about. I’ve often had the experience of being on a trip and stuck in traffic, and wishing I knew local conditions well enough to find a way around the jam. I’ll let you know how it works out.
A FISCAL CRISIS IN CALIFORNIA? Ed Morrissey notes that the inability to restrain spending has made this inevitable, and suggests that the likely outcome is a tax increase justified by the crisis.
I’ve just been reading Daniel Weintraub’s excellent Party of One: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of the Independent Voter, which comes out in a couple of weeks, and you can certainly see how Schwarzenegger’s compassionate-conservative approach, coupled with the inbred, gerrymandered lack of accountability in the California legislature, made this inevitable. I predict that Schwarzenegger will announce a “compromise” tax increase based on the “emergency,” with some cosmetic budget cuts that won’t really amount to much. But I could be wrong — as Weintraub’s book notes, Schwarzenegger is a canny politician in many ways. However, his budget approach seems to have been based on kicking the can down the road, and that only works for so long. Meanwhile, I’m reminded of Poul Anderson’s statement that “compassionate government” is a code phrase meaning that there will be absolutely no compassion for the taxpayer.
WHAT THE OTHER REPUBLICANS can learn from Ron Paul. “One shame of this race is that for all the enthusiasm the Texan has generated among voters, he hasn’t managed to pressure the front-runners toward his positions. His more kooky views (say, his belief in a conspiracy to create a ‘North American Union’) and his violent antiwar talk have allowed the other aspirants to dismiss him. They shouldn’t dismiss the passion he’s tapped. If Mr. Paul has shown anything, it’s that many conservative voters continue to doubt there’s anything ‘heroic’ or ‘compassionate’ in a ballooning government that sucks up their dollars to aid a dysfunctional state. When Mr. Paul gracefully exits this race, his followers will be looking for an alternative to take up that cause. Any takers?”
I see more on-the-ground energy for Ron Paul in my neck of the woods than for any other Republican candidate except Fred Thompson, who has a local advantage — and who, interestingly, is more of a small-government type than any of the other GOP candidates himself.
DISTRUST OF BIG MEDIA IS WIDESPREAD, outside the United States as well as at home. “In the United States, Britain and Germany, only around 29% of those interviewed thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately.”
A LIST OF THIS YEAR’S most popular toys. I have to say that the bionic eye seems kind of cool. I would have loved it when I was a kid.
UPDATE: Just went online to order some presents for nieces and nephews, and a lot of stuff’s starting to sell out. Plus, surprisingly, some of the Amazon third-party suppliers are showing problems with delivery in time for Christmas even on items that are in stock, though Amazon itself still seems okay. But I wouldn’t recommend putting things off much longer if you’re planning to order online.
WE STILL DON’T KNOW WHO WILL WIN, but the big loser in Iowa is clearly Carolyn Washburn, together with the Des Moines Register. No wonder the Thompson campaign is using her as a foil.
A REVIEW OF CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR, from Extreme Mortman. “Sorkin’s style has transitioned from trademark and distinctive to annoying and farcical. And his heavy touch with music absolves the audience of any requirement to think for themselves.” But read the whole thing.
DESPERATION MODE? “There must be at least something to that purported Sunday New York Times piece on questionable Clinton Library donors. Dismissing the attacks on Clinton, Inc for going negative on Obama, Bill Clinton kept them up while on with Charlie Rose. One has to wonder if, knowing some mud was coming their way from the New York Times, they didn’t opt to drag Obama down into it first. If you doubted the Obama drug smear was a planned attack, you can pretty much get over that thought now.”
UPDATE: More here. And Marc Ambinder has a post, too. And there are some angry Obama fans in the comments.
This underscores a problem for Hillary — if she beats Obama, but in a way that Obama supporters think is dirty, via smears or excessive reliance on “superdelegate” votes — they may not turn out in November. If she doesn’t pull out all the stops, though, she may not win the nomination. And this has to bother Bill, who managed to retire undefeated, by sullying his legacy since her loss will reflect badly on him.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Juan Paxety emails:
An interesting post on potential dissatisfied Obama voters if Hillary wins. But what will the reaction be when the Obama voters realize that Florida and Michigan, two states with substantial minority populations that might be prone to support Obama, will not be allowed to have delegates at the Democratic Convention?
This is not the first time the Democrats have pulled a similar stunt. In 1968, before the street demonstrations, the Democrats packed the convention balconies with “observers” then took a voice vote on whether to seat the legal delegations from several Southern states. The “observers” could clearly be seen shouting votes to remove the delegates. The Georgia delegation was replaced by one led by Julian Bond, of all people. Georgians fled the Democratic Party in droves and didn’t support another Democrat for President until Jimmy Carter ran in 1976.
Will the Obama supporters similarly abandon Hillary in the fall?
Yes, this is an issue. If Hillary beats Obama soundly in the early primaries that’s one thing. If it’s close, and it looks like she’s won by smears, or by clever insider manipulation, then she may lose not only Obama supporters, but black voters who are generally supportive of the Clintons. On the other hand, with Obama looking strong, she may not win the nomination without playing those cards. The best thing for the Democratic Party, of course, would be for her to play it clean, ensuring that whoever wins the nomination is in a better position to win the general election. Evidence to date, however, suggests that she’ll do what most candidates do — whatever it takes to win the nomination, and try to deal with the general election problems when they arise.
THE INNER LIFE OF A CELL: A cool video from Harvard. This link may not be permanent — it works fine now, but it’s a frontpage link — so here’s a YouTube link, too, for people who come to this post later. Thanks to reader Michael Segal for the tip.
Two members of a prison-based Islamic terrorist cell that authorities say was poised to attack military sites, synagogues and other targets across Southern California pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to conspiring to wage war against the United States.
The plot, which police stumbled upon during a routine investigation into a gas station holdup, represented one of the most realistic terrorism threats on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, experts said. The case also raised concerns about whether the country’s prisons could serve as recruiting centers for Islamic extremists.
“Could”? Seems like we know the answer already. More here:
It was not the most spectacular domestic terrorism plot since the Sept. 11 attacks, and certainly not the best-known.
But no other case posed such a real and immediate threat as the audacious scheme to attack more than a dozen military centers, synagogues and other sites in Southern California, experts said Thursday. . . .
The case illustrated how quickly authorities must be prepared to move in the event of an actual terrorist threat, they said. In a matter of weeks, the FBI, Los Angeles and Torrance police departments and two dozen other agencies conducted 19 searches, seized two dozen computer hard drives and examined about 53,000 documents, all without the normal luxury of moving at their own pace with undercover informants, surveillance and wiretaps.
The plotters “were flying dangerously below the radar,” said the FBI’s John Miller, who was the LAPD’s counter-terrorism head at the time the case broke. He added that the defendants had robbed gas stations for the money to buy rifles, had picked their targets and had set a date.
“The clock was ticking. All they needed to do was to start killing,” he said.
The prison-hatched scheme raised another fear in U.S. counter-terrorism circles, particularly within California, which has the nation’s largest inmate population: Were there other members of the conspiracy, spawned in cellblocks and prison libraries, preparing to carry on the plan?
It’s a bad idea to keep so many people in prison, and it’s a worse idea to do so and then have them exposed to radical “clerics.”
FRED THOMPSON’S CAMPAIGN is trying to get 2400 donors in 24 hours. They’re pushing the “show of hands” video and asking “Don’t you want a conservative leader who won’t grovel to the liberal media?”
In the movie “Animal House,” the fraternity brother known as Otter reacts to the Delta House’s closure with the classic line, “I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” To which Bluto, played by John Belushi, replies, “We’re just the guys to do it.” The movie ends by noting that Bluto becomes a Senator, so perhaps this explains the meltdown among Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Memo to Congress: We’re not laughing with you. We’re laughing at you.
Wyoming’s Democratic Party chairman says that Hillary Clinton will “completely reverse” progress the party has made in that state and that “most voters in Wyoming seem to hate Hillary Clinton.”
HEY, YOU DON’T NEED TO WORRY IF THE BATTERY’S CHARGED: “Sony on Thursday unveiled a prototype digital camera shaped like a pizza cutter with a wheel that can be turned to generate enough power to take pictures.” I don’t think it’ll sell, though.
VIDEO: chugging water at record speed. Just stay away from the vodka. “A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.”
REPORTING FROM THE digital video expo. This hurts: “Panasonic’s AG-HMC70 is a low-cost, solid-state, shoulder-mounted HD camera. Sporting an array of pro features — balanced audio inputs (bottom), HDMI outputs, AVCHD codec and an adjustable eyepiece — this new camera will be quite a deal when it’s released at around $1,200.”
And I know the reason for the price plunge . . . . .
Plus, convert old movies to digital video at home.
