perfidy

Apparently, this is not the first time Hitchens has had a run in with the police.

Hitchens' run-ins with the law have not been restricted to Sparta city limits. In May 2002, he was arrested for drunkenly singing 1930s union songs while driving a stolen riding lawnmower through the streets of Boston, where he was attending an international women's-rights conference. Hitchens accused police of "atavistic, morally reprehensible Stalinist scare tactics" before being bailed out by conference organizers the following morning.

Sounds like something A few people I know could do.

While Johno was right to point out that the paleo conservative segment of the right is unlikely to raise a ruckus about the Senator's comments, Lileks points out that the flipside is even more unlikely:

if anyone insists Santorum should suffer consequences for his speech, they are denying his First Amendment right to dissent! A chilling wind is blowing across America! If anyone disinvites him to an event, the black cloak of Ashcroftian Throat-Chokery has been draped across another dissenter! If you don't buy his book, Joe McCarthy cackles from his personal pit in hell!

Don't worry, Rick; Tim Robbins will be the first in line to support your right to speak your mind.

You just ad hominemed him. I just thought the quote was funny. Didn't think that the article was quite that bad - and it is a normal thing to try and analyse what the opposing camp is thinking, from your own perspective. And do you deny that there are a lot of people in the world who are just batshit crazy? I think suicide bombers would fall into that subset of humanity.

And speaking of batshit crazy, Gov. Dean was asked if the Iraqi people are better off now than they were under Saddam. He said, "We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance." Aside from the tortured english, how anyone can imagine that a nation might not be better off without someone like Saddam murdering, torturing, raping and oppressing them is beyond me. It is natural that immediately after occupation, and after the removal of an odious regime, there would be disorder. However, the power is coming back on, and order is being restored. I think Dean is a little to eager to jump on the "Oh sure, we won the war, I always knew we would. But now we're screwing up the peace" bandwagon. It is simply to early to tell.

Ah, another ad hominem shouter. Racist, too. Fine. If everybody just wants to shout at each other, describe what the opposing camp thinks without consulting them, and then call them stupid, go ahead. I tried. Now I'm giving up.

Not today, because I am working on a secret project.

"Joey is aware that there are a lot of people, especially in the Arab world, who are just batshit crazy. "

- From an article by David Brooks in the Weekly Standard

is interesting. In the latter part of the article, Goldblatt talks about his comment on America being the most benevolent world power in history. Apparently, this got a lot of people exercised. I had a similar (though smaller scale) experience. On another website, the Cocula Muffin Research Kitchen, I posted a poll asking, "what is the most ruthless empire in history?" I included "American Global Hegemony as an option. As of today, it has 21% of the vote. For quite some time, that number was closer to 50. I find this rather amazing, just as Goldblatt did, and for the same reasons.

John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla committed acts, they didn't just say stuff, and their actions certainly open the door to a possible treason charge. It's up to the prosecutors and Grand Jury whether or not they want to charge them with treason.

It can be very difficult, though, to determine when treason is an appropriate charge. The first step is an act. Then there's intent. Was the act intended to overthrow the state or give aid and comfort to enemies in time of war? It's something that has to be taken on a case by case basis. In my view, the actions of Timothy McVeigh fall under treason because they were designed to overthrow the United States government.

A treason charge is not to be administered lightly. At most, I can say that Padilla and Lindh could maybe be charged with treason on the basis of actions, and Lindh could fall under the aid and comfort category, but I don't know enough about either to say for certain.

Fair enough. Heh.

I am not going to San Francisco. Therefore I will not wear flowers in my hair.