perfidy

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

[wik] This joke was told to me by a two-time Bush-voting Republican, which makes it all right. I'm no anti-Dentite!

[alsø wik] C'mon. That's funny! Brazillion!

According to Silfay Hraka (originators of the Carnival of Vanities and this), it is Jesse Jackson. I'd be hard pressed to find a better candidate. There are more virulent and less pc racists in quantity, but none possess the oily charm, press credibility and ability to rhyme of Jackson. Money Quote:

Of course, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, head of the military task force overseeing operations in the three states, is black. And competent, Jess, as if that matters to you. But it doesn't, because what Jesse Jackson sees in people begins and ends with the pigment in their skin. He is this nation's most prominent racist.

It's more than that, though. Jesse Jackson is in the racism business. If racism did not exist, Jackson would have to invent it.

Racism most assuredly exists, but not in sufficient quantity to support Jesse's tailored suits and comfortable lifestyle. Thus, he must create racism where none exists. ...

Thanks, Jesse. Thanks for making America just a little bit worse with every word you speak. Racism is your business, and you're making sure business is good.

Jesse Jackson is all about making racism pay - for him. A few threats of publicity, and most large corporations will make large donations to the rainbow coalition fund and set aside some business for Jackson's cronies. I feel for the pain of Jackson's wife, but the period immediately after Jesse's adultery scandal was so relaxing simply because of his embarrassed absence.

... which means 98% of you reading this now, check out the crass and hilarious Katrina: The Gathering card game. Only funny if you ever played Magic: The Gathering. Which I, sadly, have.

When guns are outlawed, only bodyguards for business and the wealthy will have guns. Although the waters in New Orleans have left behind a santorum of deadly chemicals and viruses, it seems to have washed the area clean of its rights as well. From the New York Times, which if anything is probably halfway in favor of this kind of thing, if you got the grey lady drunk enough to let her guard down.

Meanwhile, the city is confiscating firearms from civilians, including legally registered weapons, Mr. Compass said. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards whom hotels and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property. The guards, who work for private security firms like Blackwater, are openly carrying M-16's and other assault rifles.

h/t to the Volokh Conspiracy's Orin Kerr.

Video: Anderson Cooper of CNN loses his shit on Sen. Mary Landrieu. And he's right to do so. Man's been in New Orleans since Tuesday; he's seen some things, and to have a Senator go on his show and pat her colleagues on the back for all the stern attention they are surely paying to the situation seems a little... crass. Thanks to Crooks & Liars for the video hookup.

From Kathleen Parker, who later refers to the boob thusly:

Robertson, of course, is well known for his spontaneous foot tastings. This is the same Pat Robertson who has urged his flock to pray for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy "one way or the other."

Quite so. Oh, anyhow - that analogy?

Televangelist Pat Robertson's flip-flop on his fantasy moment as an international assassin reminds me of a famous, if possibly apocryphal, story about David Niven as told by Christopher Buckley.

Niven is standing with another gentleman at the base of a staircase as two ladies in evening gowns descend.

Niven says: "That's the ugliest woman I've ever seen."

Other man replies: "That's my wife."

Niven: "I meant the other one."

Other man: "That's my daughter."

Niven: "I didn't say it."

If there were licenses required for speaking in public, Robertson's would have at least been suspended by now.

Our plentiful supply of other public morons is probably embarrassed to be seen around Reverend Pat. If not, they ought to be. Not everything you think is worthy of public exposition.

Unless, of course, you have a blog.

[wik] Other views, of course, can be found. Witness this from Alan Abelson of Barron's:

Predictably, Mr. Robertson's suggestion prompted a paroxysm of harrumphing from lily-livered liberals and the like (if you don't like, just leave it at from lily-livered liberals). Jesse Jackson urged the FCC to launch an investigation as it did after Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during the half-time show at the Super Bowl on the grounds that "This is even more threatening to hemispheric stability than the flash of a breast on television during a ballgame."

A close call, we'd say.

The fuss proved sufficiently discomforting for Mr. Robertson to cause him to recant. Which, frankly, we feel is a shame. Not that we believe dispatching Mr. Chavez is a particularly compelling priority. But the concept of effecting regime change on the cheap appeals to us.

Certainly, even the most cursory spectator of the global political scene can rattle off the names of at least a dozen no-good-niks who would be ideal candidates for the coup de grâce. And they don't even have to be mass murderers or ethnic cleansers; blamed nuisances would do fine. And we needn't worry too much about world opinion: We could always outsource the work. If the administration is right and everything is going to be hunky-dory in Iraq, there'll be a lot of idle assassins hanging around street corners in Baghdad who'd be only too happy to pick up a few bucks. Or, we could insource the job to the Mafia, whose business, thanks to the zeal of prosecutors and the eagerness of capos to spill the fava beans, isn't the killer it used to be.

Come to think of it, the approach is fraught with possibilities right here in the good old USA. It might be a quite useful device for our own polity as a kind of permanent term limit for especially deserving office holders. It also might prove an extremely efficacious tool for corporate governance as a means of getting rid of crooked CEOs, a quick and irrevocable way to enhance shareholder value (avoiding those costly golden handshakes, etc). And it holds particular promise for our own beloved Wall Street, where capital crimes are committed every day and the perpetrators live to crow about it.

Thank you, Mr. Robertson.

On second thought, he might not be completely serious. It's possible he has a blog on the side.

Minister Geeklethal cued me in to an interesting article from the English-language Arab News, "The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily." In this opinion piece, the editor holds forth on the proper mindset for beating your wife.

The beating which is only prescribed in the case of disobedient wives is intended to serve as a remedy in an unusual situation. If the husband feels the wife is behaving in a disobedient and rebellious manner, he is required to rectify her attitude — first by kind words, then gentle persuasion and reasoning. Beating as a last resort must never be understood to entail using a stick or any other instrument that would cause pain or injury.

A rebellious woman who is not moved by kind works, persuasion and admonition is a woman of no feeling and must therefore be punished by beating. Psychiatrists tell us of people, including women, for whom a cure lies in beating.

The controversy over the beating of disloyal and rebellious women is part of the campaign against Islam. If beating disobedient wives was advocated by Western scientists, it would have been widely supported by the same people who criticize Islam and special centers would have been set up all over the world to train husbands on how to beat their wives.

Our scholars should focus on explaining to people, especially the young, the real teachings of Islam in order to avoid causing uncertainty and confusion.

It is good that the interpreters of the religion of peace realize that there are two kinds of beatings, and forbid at least one of them to husbands. Instructional beatings at least have the saving grace of providing instruction - whereas run-of-the-mill, smack the bitch for shits and giggles beatings just leave bruises.

Back in Ohio, we would occasionally run across people who clearly "need beating." I now understand that what we were feeling there was a divine inspiration to administer instructional beatings. If only we had read the Koran, we would have been empowered to act on that nudging from the almighty rather than let cretins run around untutored.

It is good for my safety that I am a Christian, seeing as any attempt to deliver admonitory beatings to Mrs. Buckethead would result, not in her adopting a more humble and obedient posture, but in me getting a grade A tae kwon do ass whuppin'.

There is a certain portion of the American population that is, on its best day, suspicious of higher education. Those folks regard their fellow, matriculated, citizens as arrogant; elitist; lacking in common sense, or, indeed, any knowledge of demonstrable utility; or with a variation of “too smart for their own good.”

A doctoral dissertation studying air guitar doesn't help.

Turning what is little more than a limited, if not limiting, sort of self expression into serious academic inquiry is precisely what the non-eggheads in this world complain about and what serious scholars laugh at. When I finished my master’s, I wasn’t so much proud as I was enormously relieved. Relieved that the pain would finally end, and that it would end because of my hard work and not a .38 to the temple.

Crap like air guitar dissertations are, frankly, an insult to anyone who sacrificed to produce graduate work.

The recent wave of intelligent design advocates arguing for the inclusion of creation science into the curricula of high schools throughout our counry has aroused stiff resistance from the advocates of evolution, science and those with more than three neurons to rub together. This was to be expected, since most of us thought that this issue had been resolved round the time of Scopes and his infamous monkey. (Not infamous that way, you pervert.)

However, these are not the only people upset by the biblical intelligent design advocates. Some people are upset because their creation theory is getting short shrift thanks to all the greedy god botherers pushing the Genesis account.

In an open letter to the Kansas School Board, these oppressed individuals are making their case for an intelligent design theory that, on first glance, seems far more probable - and explains a lot more than what we've been used to so far. Witness:

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

Having made their case for a fair hearing, they proceed to give us some details of their rich and inventive belief system:

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is mere hand-waving and ridiculousness. They have evidence:

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

You can also see the beautiful iconography developed by this heretofore unknown sect:

We need to embrace this new faith.

We need to be touched in our hearts by His noodly appendage.

You can also buy tshirts and mugs.

Dick Cheney apparently now has the power of life and death over Helen Thomas.

My son is of an age where he is expanding his vocabulary at exponential rates. In his great rush to add new words to his repertoire, he is sometimes slightly less than scrupulous in assuring that his pronunciation of a new word is correct before jumping to the next bright, shiny new nym. In most cases, mispronunciations or misstatements are merely cute. Of course, most anything a two-year-old does short of a full on temper tantrum is cute.

There are exceptions. For example, there is a set of common words that, translated through the mind and underdeveloped vocal apparatus of a small child that come out not just wrong, but wrong. We first noticed this phenomenon when Sir John-the-unintentionally-profane began to utter his charming version of the phrase, “fire truck.” Imagine that the second through sixth letters are not there, and you’ll have a solid idea of what came out of my son’s mouth.

At first, this was amusing. It was amusing because I have a dirty mind and we were not in the presence of strangers. As soon as he shouted his adorable riff on “fire truck” in public, I was mortified. After a kindly grandmotheresque woman at the grocery store informed me that this is, in fact, a common occurrence, I felt better. I went straight back to amused, though I attempted to act unamused so as not to encourage potty-mouth.

John got a little better at saying fire truck, though when under stress or excitement he would revert to his original model. Things seemed to be getting better. Then, on the way home from Ohio, he sort of learned to word, “Bridge.” There are quite a lot of overpasses on the interstates. For hours, my wife and I were treated to the spectacle of a cute, high pitched voice saying, “Under bitch?” about once every twenty minutes.

Over the next few days, I waited, hoping for that magical moment when I would see a fire truck on a bridge. My wife was not amused when I pointed it out to my son and then nearly drove off the road when he said, “Fuck! Bitch!” A little later, the word frog also transmogrified into ‘fuck,’ increasing the likelihood that we would be embarrassed in public. Whenever John said something that sounded obscene in the presence of others, my wife would be at pains to quickly and loudly say, “I don’t see any frogs, John.”

Shortly thereafter, my wife made the colossal mistake of pointing out that the pickup in front of us was both large and black. This was unfortunate because, a) John loves trucks and won’t stop talking about them and b) he pronounces the word truck more like “cock.” I was laughing, but in a sick and terrified way, as my son kept repeating that phrase. Even more so when he added, philosophically, “I like it.”

A friend, who works at a day care center, told of us of a child there who was normally very quiet and reserved. Unbeknownst to the staff, he harbored a deep and rather possessive love for horses. He did care for other children playing with the horses, nor did he care to pronounce the first ‘s’ in that word. So when some other miscreants started playing with his horses, we waded in, fists flying, crying, “My whores! My Whores!” I didn’t think a two year old could be that advanced on the pimp career track.

Put that kid with mine, and you’ll have a regular def comedy jam, or the vocal track to a decent rap album or porn movie.

So remember, tell all the horses and bridges to shut the frog up, you trucksuckers.

But there is a certain degree of... rightness about this.

Gene Heally, him of the Cato Institute, has an op-ed up here regarding the growing power of obnoxious thugs passing laws to protect us from those notorious fools, criminals and scofflaws, us.

Right here in the District of Columbia, our nation's capital,

Last Tuesday, the D.C. City Council heard testimony on a bill that would make it illegal to smoke in a bar, even if the owner, the employees and the customers all agree that smoking should be permitted.

...The pro-ban forces have packaged their message in the rhetoric of workers' rights. It's an effective strategy, one that draws on the insights of smoking-ban pioneer Stanton Glantz. At a 1986 conference of anti-smoking activists, Glantz advised that "the issue should be framed in the rhetoric of the environment, toxic chemicals, and public health rather than the rhetoric of saving smokers from themselves."

And that was the gist of many of those supporting the ban. After kicking the smokers out of the bars, the next step is to ban smoking on sidewalks, in parks, and in one extreme case, even in the smoker's own home. Thankfully, that last didn't survive scrutiny. But these laws are eating away at our freedom as surely as the erosion of property rights we've been discussing here the last couple days.

Once nanny laws are in place, the next step is enforcement. What police officer wouldn't rather pull over a soccer mom for a seat belt violation than chase down some dangerous criminal? It's safe, and even if only unconsciously, they're going to emphasize that kind of behavior. And some police forces are going to absurd lengths to protect us. Witness:

One wonders if this is really the sort of thing police should be focusing on in the on-again, off-again murder capital of the United States. But the idea that the police should focus solely on protecting us from crime is one that many have come to think of as archaic. The new view is that it's also law enforcement's job to protect us from our own bad habits. In a 2003 sting operation, Fairfax, Va., police officers entered 20 bars, administered breathalyzer tests, and arrested nine patrons for intoxication. Fairfax police Chief J. Thomas Manger declaimed: "Public intoxication is against the law. You can't be drunk in a bar."

And two weeks ago, using night-vision equipment on loan from the National Guard, Maryland state troopers swept out and nabbed 111 offenders for the crime of driving without a seatbelt. Scores of people who were driving along, minding their own business, had their evening ruined by an unpleasant encounter with the business end of the law. Welcome to the era of jackbooted nags.

It's things like this that make my testicles clench whenever I see a cop, never mind the fact that I am a law abiding citizen going about my lawful business.

Mark Steyn, in a typically ambiguously phrased article in Tuesday's Telegraph, informs that "Islam does incubate terrorism".

On reading the article, it's clear that he's had difficulty forcing himself to just get out with his point. I don't know what the problem is - they gave him 1000 words (+/-) of space to speak his mind, and he got all tongue-tied. Like this:

Oh, dear. "Britain can take it" (as they said in the Blitz): that's never been in doubt. The question is whether Britain can still dish it out. When events such as last Thursday's occur, two things happen, usually within hours if not minutes: first, spokespersons for Islamic lobby groups issue warnings about an imminent backlash against Muslims.

In fairness to British organisations, I believe they were beaten to the punch by the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress whose instant response to the London bombings was to issue a statement calling for prayers that "Canadian Muslims will not pay a price for being found guilty by association".

In most circumstances it would be regarded as appallingly bad taste to deflect attention from an actual "hate crime" by scaremongering about a non-existent one. But it seems the real tragedy of every act of "intolerance" by Islamist bigots is that it might hypothetically provoke even more intolerance from us irredeemable white imperialist racists. My colleague Peter Simple must surely marvel at how the identity-group grievance industry has effortlessly diversified into pre-emptively complaining about acts of prejudice that have not yet occurred.

If there's a point in there, I wish he could get himself to make it. Damned polite Canadians! He continues:

Most of us instinctively understand that when a senior Metropolitan Police figure says bullishly that "Islam and terrorism don't go together", he's talking drivel.

Many of us excuse it on the grounds that, well, golly, it must be a bit embarrassing to be a Muslim on days like last Thursday and it doesn't do any harm to cheer 'em up a bit with some harmless feel-good blather. But is this so?

He wraps up the piece (which I won't continue to quote because, after all, fair use is fair use and you really should just go and read the whole thing), with some veiled thoughts that, to some folks, might be read as his encouragement for Islam to pull its head out of its 1200 year old rectal cavity, before the decision is taken irrevocably from its control, because this P.C. bullshit has gone just about far enough, and the West had best stop allowing its best institutions, intentions, and tools to be used to its detriment.

But only to certain readers, I'm sure. (OK - just one more quote)

Shame on us for championing Islamic thought-police over Western liberty.

Heh. Indeed.

Whatever else you might think about the whole Valerie Plame thing that bored me to tears even before I was through hearing about it the first time, and that was what?... six months ago, that story has recently turned hi-larious.

Turns out Rove did it.

For all the screeching some folks do about Rove did this and Rove did that and Rove snacks on the entrails of blind orphan babies it has become difficult to remember that Carl Rove is... a slimy heartless douchebag of a human being.

Obsidian Wings has an absolute howler of a transcript from today's White House press gaggle. Go read their account; all I could do here is repeat what they wrote. The gist is this: the press, who remember like the rest of us how the President vowed that whoever leaked the Plame info would be hung by the neck until dead! dead! dead! (in a career sense, of course). Now that it's Rove, Scott McClellan in best Ari Fleischer mode has a lot to say about how it's not appropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation and evidence has to be weighed and whatnot... we need to make sure that justice is served yadda yadda but we can't comment at this time about this ongoing investigation, the names of the innocent etc., etc., while all the while he's been talking in great and excruciating detail for months about this newly secret ongoing investigation.

Feh.

I'm sure justice will be served, and I'm sure OJ will find the real killers any day now.

While everyone was (justifiably) freaking out over the stupendously bad Supreme Court ruling in Kelo, other property rights are taking a beating as well. Richard Diamond reports on the accelerating trend of state and local governments taking you car with the flimsiest of excuses.

Just days after the Supreme Court ruled that cities could take homes from private owners to build strip malls, the US House of Representatives issued a non-binding condemnation of the court’s decision. While the publicity firestorm could eventually result in stronger laws against public seizure of private property, state governments are happy to continue confiscating automobiles like property rights never existed.

The number of excuses given for government automobile seizures is expanding dramatically. Since 1991, the Commonwealth of Virginia has permanently seized 6,450 automobiles for crimes ranging from drug-running to “frequenting a bawdy place.” Now other jurisdictions are deploying new technologies to seize cars for the most minor offenses imaginable.

A key technology in the desperate fight against citizens with unpaid parking tickets or library fines is something known as APNR, or Automatic Number Plate Recognition. This system was originally developed to recover stolen vehicles. A small camera snaps a picture of a license plate, and a computer instantly performs a background check. In a large scale test in the UK last year, police took 28 million pictures, stopped over a hundred thousand motorists, and recovered eleven hundred vehicles. All to the good. But while they were at it, they also issued "51,000 tickets to drivers for offenses ranging from speeding, to drinking from a water bottle, to talking on a mobile phone." A system designed to recover stolen vehicles discovers its killer app: a honking big revenue stream for government.

Leave it to the Americans to take a good idea and take it to its logical endpoint. Just around the corner from me in Arlington, VA, city treasurer Frank O’Leary said in a TV interview, "I rub my hands together in great glee and anticipation... I think it’s beautiful. It gives us a whole new dimension to collection." Combining the new technology with the existing practice of vehicle seizure in complete disregard of the Constitution is the new way of doing business. Says Richard,

Before ANPR-facilitated seizure was deemed acceptable, a screwed-up parking ticket database was a minor hassle. Now it’s a Constitutional nightmare, mocking fundamental and cherished legal protections: the right to be presumed innocent, the right to a trial by jury, the right not to have excessive fines imposed, the right not to be searched or have your property seized without reason or warrant, and the right to due process.

States conducting automotive seizure rely on a doctrine found in a 1931 Supreme Court ruling stating "It is the property which is preceded against, and, by resort to a legal fiction, held guilty and condemned as though it were conscious instead of inanimate and insentient." In other words, it’s OK to confiscate your car because you forgot to pay an $85 parking ticket; you didn’t commit the crime, your car did. In 1980, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed the concept, convicting a 1976 Mercedes Benz 280S of drug-running. The Bill of Rights, the court argued, applies to people not to cars.

That ruling - the lynchpin of the RICO civil forfeiture process - makes a complete mockery of any rational conception of property rights. There are whole websites devoted to cataloguing the evils of civil forfeiture. While these laws were intended as a way of punishing slippery drug dealers and mafiosi, as is the way with all law enforcement powers they were soon used against other targets. And eventually, against ordinary citizens.

If the police take your car, they do not have to prove that it violated some RICO statute. You have to prove that your vehicle was "innocent." And now that these new laws are allowing the police to take cars for things like unpaid library fees (and who among is is without sin on that count?) basically they can take your car for any reason whatsoever. The only way in which this is different from auto theft is that the police are the thieves.

Many people say that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. But property rights seem to be on a slip 'n' slide right now, headed for the abyss.

[wik] Here's a good summary of the asset forfeiture phenomenon.

Sam, a commenter over at Murdoc's place, dropped this link when he read my recent post about the zombie dogs.

All you really need to know is this:

Three time winner of the World's Ugliest Dog Contest.

Via today's Best of the Web, we find the travails of Bethany Hauf, of Victorville CA, in a story entitled Term paper about 'God' earns student failing grade.

He told me you might as well write about the Easter Bunny. He wanted to censor the word God.

The horror!

Hauf's teacher approved her term paper topic — Religion and its Place within the Government — on one condition: Don't use the word God. Instead of complying with VVCC adjunct instructor Michael Shefchik's condition Hauf wrote a 10-page report for her English 101 class entitled "In God We Trust."

"He said it would offend others in class," Hauf, a 34-year-old mother of four, said. "I didn't realize God was taboo."

So she wrote it anyway. Perhaps she should have dropped English 101 and taken a basic comprehension course instead. Either that or she was spoiling for a fight.

"I don't loose my First Amendment rights when I walk into that college," Hauf said. She is demanding an apology from the teacher and that the paper be re-graded.

Mmmm... o-kaaaay. Which of the words below were foreign to her, I wonder:

Shefchik wrote her back an e-mail approving her topic choice, but at the same time cautioning her to be objective in her reporting. "I have one limiting factor," Shefchik wrote, according to the ACLJ. "No mention of big 'G' gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation."

Being an utterly irreligious fellow, I can't get too jacked up by either Hauf's overt religiosity or her teacher's overt lack thereof - they're each entitled to their kinks. But several things jumped out at me from the story.

First, the author or editor of the story needs to reread the style guide for the Daily Press, assuming they have one. It probably contains a maxim such as "Q: What is hard to lose but can sometimes become loose? A: Your bowels". And if it doesn't have a style guide, it should. Failing an editorial lapse, maybe Hauf actually said "loose", in which case she should be immediately demoted to a remedial spoken English course. And failing that, of course I'm just being too picky, but only because I'm perfect in every way.

Second, even giving credit for the teacher's apparent antipathy toward things religious, Hauf received a valid assignment for an English class, and a challenging one, given her choice of topic. Rather like the lipogram by Ernest Vincent Wright called Gadsby, only a whole lot shorter and easier.

Finally, who is this ACLJ, and why do we need yet another set of harpies to advance the cause of feigned infringement on our basic rights as human beings? Even if we did need such an additional advocacy organization (and I'm not saying we do, by a long shot), at what point in time did the First Amendment become stretched to cover fulfillment of class assignments, as distinct from simple expression of opinion? I don't think one loses one's rights to free speech when entering a classroom, but there's a time and place for expression of opinion, and it's the part of the class where, well, people are discussing opinions. In an expository paper, such as the one she was assigned, opinion has next to nothing to do with, and fulfilling the assignment has everything to do with one's grade. If she'd gotten a bad grade because of her views, I'd understand the umbrage, but she clearly got a bad grade because she explicitly failed to fulfill the assigned task.

And hollering about repression isn't a substitute for just doing the damned assignment.

In an editorial from today's WSJ, Peggy Noonan asks the question:

What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No. 1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

As an admittedly devoted fan of Ms. Noonan's prose, of course I'll tell you to read the entire thing. Among other items, covering the range of the political classes, she has a go at Barack Obama's unfortunate-but-inevitable first public attempt at foot-ingestion, as well as Bill Frist's latest.

Sadly, she's doesn't attempt to answer it, but it's still a pertinent question.

My sense is that the answer has its roots in that whole "power corrupts" leitmotif. It's certainly not that they're somehow, by nature, more special than the rest of us. But perhaps they don't know that?

If such "economic development" takings are for a "public use," any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as Justice O’Connor powerfully argues in dissent. Ante, at 1—2, 8—13. I do not believe that this Court can eliminate liberties expressly enumerated in the Constitution and therefore join her dissenting opinion. Regrettably, however, the Court’s error runs deeper than this. Today’s decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases construing the Public Use Clause to be a virtual nullity, without the slightest nod to its original meaning. In my view, the Public Use Clause, originally understood, is a meaningful limit on the government’s eminent domain power. Our cases have strayed from the Clause’s original meaning, and I would reconsider them.

So says Clarence Thomas, regarding the second elimination of a clearly stated constitutional limitation in as many weeks. This particular travesty has been a long time coming. The courts have been drifting in this direction for decades. Earlier cases, notably in Pittsburgh and Portland, saw home and business owners kicked to the curb to satisfy the "public good" of large corporations and rich developers.

Now, I am not one to rail against capitalism and corporations as a matter of habit. When business entities and rich individuals are made to play by the same rules and on the same field as everyone else, the harm that they can do is limited, and what harm that is done can be remedied in law. This ruling changes that altogether. Now ownership of property is subject to the whim of whoever last arranged for a city councilmen to get a blowjob, or who wrote the most recent check to the mayor’s reelection fund. Property rights are no longer absolute. Whoever has connections can have property rights reassigned, and the whole of government enforcement powers will be enlisted to point a gun at the head of the poor schmuck who wants to keep his home.

The rule of law is a cool thing. Five of our Supreme Court Justices have a pretty hazy conception of what that means. Property rights are in many respects the true basis of liberty. (Not freedom. Freedom means having nothing else to lose.) Autonomy depends on having a sanctuary from which to exercise it. A man’s home must be his castle. Over the last century, but especially over the last couple decades, the Constitution has ceased to be what it originally was – the final arbiter of what is permissible for government. So many provisions and amendments have been twisted beyond recognition as to be entirely negated. Just in the last ten years we have seen serious inroads into the

Slippery slope arguments are always dangerous, but things like this really tickle my paranoia. Like Johno, I immediately thought of Ruby Ridge. But I also thought of this:

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

How do you go about arresting these trends? The list of bad things is long: the drug war, RICO laws, sneak ‘n’ peak searches, the militarization of law enforcement, Waco, Ruby Ridge, restrictive gun laws, increased surveillance, certain provisions of the Patriot Act, campaign finance reform, ad infinitum. And hand in hand with the creepy illogic and clear unconstitutionality of the bad laws is the creepy incompetence of those enforcing the laws. Ruby Ridge and Waco are classic examples, but the fumbling of the BATFE, TSA, Border Patrol and numerous others are just as bad.

I don’t know where this is all going. But on days like yesterday, I have a feeling we might be in a handbasket.

[wik] Some other good links: Justice Thomas’ complete dissent, Professor Bainbridge’s essay at TCS, and The Opinion Journal’s take on the matter.

[alsø wik]Zach Wendling has a sort of funny, kind of scary idea about the only likely defense against developers paying off local officials to take your house.