A must read over at Ed Cone's site. In his post, "Scholars vs Dollars," Cone publishes the correspondences betwee a UNC-G professor and a Heritage Foundation think tanker. Here is his intro:

What happens when an actual scholar takes on one of those think-tank scholars-for-dollars? The idealogue loses.

Joseph Loconte, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, challenged UNCG professor Bob Wineburg
over an article Wineburg wrote on Bush's "faith-based" social services.

Wineburg wrote in the July 31 issue of Martin Marty's electronic newsletter, Sightings: "(W)hy is there a second Faith-Based Initiative? The answer is in a braided, yet discernable set of motives and activities that underscore the President's efforts: religious, social engineering, and votes, namely, black votes."

Loconte responded to Sightings, then engaged in an email conversation directly with Wineburg.

Go read the back and forth. Try not to come away hopeless for those at Heritage.

Reasonable contempt

While David Brooks has a point in today's opinion, that mere spite for a political leader is dangerous and counterproductive- his point is lost in his irresponsible innuendos and absurdities.
Here, he gets to the real problem:

The quintessential new warrior scans the Web for confirmation of the president's villainy. He avoids facts that might complicate his hatred. He doesn't weigh the sins of his friends against the sins of his enemies. But about the president he will believe anything.

But for the examples of this 'new warrior,' Brooks cites folks who lay out reasoned arguments for not-supporting a particular president. To wit, Brooks quotes John Chait's most recent New Republic piece. Has Brooks read that piece? If so, he's the paradigm of intellectual dishonesty when he writes it is the product of "cultural resentment and personal antipathy," and more importantly...solely the product of such--rather than of reason and commitment to particular civic goals (as were the motivations behind the now lost cultural wars, in Brook's opinion.)
Chait's piece is anything but unreasoned. Read it, and having done so, make an argument that it isn't. You will fail. Thus, what bothers me with Brook's piece is what I see in the larger picture...which, in candidness, falls partly on assumptions on my part.
And that is this: there is a tendency to find content, substantially and reason in one's own disdain for a president--we are more able to assert policy differences. But, where the vitriol comes from the other side- aimed at 'our-side's' president, we attribute the disdain to mere hatred...hatred for hatred's sake--not reasonably related to policy difference, but to personal disregard (thus, childish).
Now, that condition is problematic (and note again Chiat's article--he recognizes this. That's why, after he spits out the child-like rhetoric, he backs it up with 'serious' (adult/reasoned) arguments.) I fear that Brook's piece doesn't point out this problem. It simply points out the more elementary point that unreasoned contempt is bad. Good for you, Brooks...but we all know that.

Insidious Traitors

On 26, April 1999, George H.W. Bush spoke at the dedication ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

Your mission is different now than it was back then. The Soviet Union is no more. Some people think, "what do we need intelligence for?" My answer to that is we have plenty of enemies. Plenty of enemies abound. Unpredictable leaders willing to export instability or to commit crimes against humanity. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narco-trafficking, people killing each other, fundamentalists killing each other in the name of God. These and more. Many more. As our analysts know, as our collectors of intelligence know - these are our enemies. To combat them we need more intelligence, not less. We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. (Applause)

Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

(follow the link above to the speech in full). The former president, also a former CIA director, was right on with these remarks. And they underlie why the charge of leaking Ambassador Wilson's wife is so terrible.
But ore troubling- why is the White House so unwilling to do anything beyond compliance with the Department of Justice? Why won't Bush simply send a memo out: "if there's anything to this, see me at once...resignation papers in hand."
This, from today's press meeting (via TPM):

QUESTION: Scott, the President came into office promising public integrity would be restored to this office and accountability. Isn't that true, he expects that from all members of his staff?

McCLELLAN: Yes, the President expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct.

QUESTION: All right. If that's the case, then why does he even need an independent investigation? Why doesn't he simply call those who are responsible to come forward --

McCLELLAN: Do you have something to bring to our attention? I mean, let me make clear, if anyone has information about this leak of classified information, they need to report it to the Department of Justice -- anyone.

QUESTION: Why doesn't he simply ask those -- if, indeed, this is true -- to come forward and --

McCLELLAN: Ask who?

QUESTION: The President of the United States --

McCLELLAN: Ask who?

QUESTION: The limited number of people --

QUESTION: -- he can direct, he can send a memo out --

McCLELLAN: That's the Department of Justice, I just said, is the appropriate agency.

QUESTION: Why doesn't he ask them to come forward and hand in their resignations?

McCLELLAN: But who? I said that it's a serious matter, and anyone should be pursued to the fullest extent of the law.

QUESTION: -- why doesn't he use everything in his power to smoke them out?

McCLELLAN: The Department of Justice is looking into this. I've made it very clear the President believes the leaking of classified information of this nature is a very serious matter, and it should be pursued to the fullest.

QUESTION: By them. And he has no -- his hands are tied? He can't simply ask his staff --

McCLELLAN: Well, do you have any information to bring to our attention, Paula? Do you have any information to bring to our attention? If you have any information, that should be reported to the Department of Justice, and they need to pursue this to the fullest.

QUESTION: And he can't do anything on his own?

McCLELLAN: I think I've made it very clear what I -- we don't have any information beyond what we've seen in media reports that has come to our attention to suggest White House involvement. If I chased every anonymous source in the media, I'd spend all my time doing that.

Mmmmm.. I'm listening to a Warren Zevon version of Steve Winwoods "back in the highlife again." damn, its good.

Toasting the French

Watch any late night monologue, or talk with any bloke at the water cooler, and a diss on the french is insta-joke. As of late, I've wondered why the french dissent to our progression to war was singled out and treated differently than the german or russian dissent.
The fact is, everyone turns the joke on the french because humor relies on shared assumptions- and americans carry with them a stereotype of the french- whimphood. the rude thing is somewhat a stereotype, but i think most thinking folks realize that's centered on paris, and any big city has its rude-ites. but the whimp thing...
well this week's nytimes 'week in review' offers a fine column on this phenomenom. The whole essay, by Nina Berstein, is quite good- so read beyond my except.

And at this point in strained trans-Atlantic relations, an obvious explanation comes to mind: in the American imagination, France is a woman, and Germany is just another guy.

The French themselves depict La Belle France as a bare-breasted "Marianne" on the barricades. They export high fashion, cosmetics, fine food — delicacies traditionally linked to a woman's pleasure, if not her boudoir. And French has always been Hollywood's language of love.

Germany, meanwhile, is the Fatherland, its spike helmets retooled into the sleek insignia of cars like the Mercedes and BMW. It also exports heavy machinery and strong beer — products linked to manliness. And notwithstanding Goethe, Schiller and Franka Potente, German is Hollywood's language of war, barked to the beat of combat boots in half a century of movies.

Such images simply overpower facts that do not fit the picture — like decades of German pacifism and French militarism since World War II. So what if France was fighting in Vietnam, Algeria and Africa, and deploying a force of 36,000 troops around the world, while Germans held peace vigils and invented Berlin's Love Parade. For Americans, it seems, World War II permanently inoculated Germans against "the wimp factor" and branded the French indelibly as sissies.

Sure, both countries were dubbed members of the "Axis of Weasel" and dissed as Old Europe for opposing the war in Iraq. But no one poured schnapps down the toilet, renamed sauerkraut or made prime-time jokes denigrating German manhood. Only France can evoke that kind of frat-boy frenzy.

Neat article, go give a read.

Heard from inside White House: 'Gulp'

The story's been out for some time, but the investigation has begun...and questions mount quickly. Let's see what happens. Marshall's been focusing in on this. Here's the Post (it's worth jotting in your age and zip):

At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative's identity is a violation of federal law.
...
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers were seeking to undercut Wilson's credibility. They alleged that Wilson, who was not a CIA employee, was selected for the Niger mission partly because his wife had recommended him. Wilson said in an interview yesterday that a reporter had told him that the leaker said, "The real issue is Wilson and his wife."

this could be damning.

Gun Law

happy news. Congress reached a deal today on getting some legislation to fix the problematic background check system now in place. from the Times:

The measure is supported by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who at first blush appear to be "strange bedfellows," acknowledged Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has been an ardent foe of past gun control bills.

But in a rare area of agreement, gun rights backers like Mr. Dingell and gun control advocates believe that the F.B.I.'s system for conducting background checks on some seven million would-be gun buyers each year is badly broken.

Gun groups complain that despite recent improvements in the process of checks, it still takes too long for many purchases to be approved. And gun control groups assert that thousands of felons, spouse abusers, illegal immigrants, people with a history of mental illness and others banned by federal law from buying guns continue to slip through the cracks.

The proposal announced today seeks to repair the system by providing state agencies and courts with $375 million a year for the next three years to upgrade their databases on criminals and other types of banned people. It would also penalize states that fail to meet certain performance markers by cutting their federal grant money.

In my mind, there is no better compromise on the gun issue than in having a strong, efficient background check for every gun purchase. Only the avid libertarians, or the ACLU, I imagine, could be upset--citing an invasion into privacy. But libertarians must lose that argument: criminal records aren't private.
In any event, background checks take seriously the gun-rights mantra that people, not guns, kill people. If this is so, then lets make sure people more likely to use guns improperly don't get the guns.
And for strict gun-control folks like me, this legislation is a nice long stride in the right direction.

UN-Bush America

As I headed off to lunch today, two thoughts remained prominently in my head after hearing the Bush address to the UN. One, 'man, was Annan's speech a thousand times better, or what?' and Two, 'does Bush have any connection to reality, . . .did I just hear him give about the same speech he gave last year this time (still connecting Iraq to Afghanistan and the efforts of post-9-11, and in this, still insisting the strong terror ties with Baghdad and the weapon stash that Hussein's was just itching to give to Osama...'
So that second thought's a long one, and shared by many. You know them when you see them- by now, we've pulled out all our hair in frustration at Bush's refusal even to acknowledge any change in rhetoric regarding the reasons for war. if you repeat the weapons and terror ties enough, you'll convince us. Happily, this machiavellian theory is prooving false, with the help of price tags, and once all Americans are bald, we'll have the sense to make this next one at least a close election.
I'm glad to see another shares my view that this speech was cut and pasted from last year's. (read fred kaplan's piece- more eloquent than the above)

The speech seemed cobbled from the catchphrases of last year’s playbook, as if Bush were trying to replicate the success of his previous appearance before the General Assembly — his September 2002 speech, which roused the Security Council to warn Saddam Hussein of “serious consequences” — without showing the slightest recognition that the old words have grown stale and sour.

Bush dredged out the familiar formula — weapons of mass destruction plus terrorism equals the enemy in Iraq — forgetting, or perhaps not caring, that it didn’t persuade the United Nations back in November, when Saddam was still in power, and couldn’t hope to win backers now.

He described the guerrilla war, still ongoing, as a battle against “terrorists and holdouts of the previous regime” — ignoring a recent finding of the U.S. intelligence community that the main, and most rapidly growing, threat these days comes from ordinary Iraqis, resentful of the occupation.

He laid out the context of the battle as a contest between “those who work for peaceful change and those who adopt the methods of gangsters.” Yet it is hard to see how Bush’s pre-emptive-war doctrine fits the former category, and it’s painful to observe that many Iraqis would say the U.S. occupation — whose soldiers have pounded down so many doors in the middle of the night — fits the latter.

He acknowledged no mistakes, either in the intelligence that preceded the war or in the planning (or lack thereof) that followed it.

Update:
And here's Josh "ole reliable" Marshall on a similar theme. Catch the entire article in the Hill.

Indulge me in a pop culture reference.

Remember that big tin robot in those early-‘60s sci-fi films? Remember how at the end of every movie there’d come a point where the hero would outwit the robot or set him on some problem he couldn’t solve and the robot would slip into a feedback loop and smoke would start coming out of his ears?

The White House is the robot.

How else to explain President Bush’s defiant speech to the U.N. General Assembly and all the recent zigs and zags about bringing in the United Nations?

Humility, Bush is not thy name.

The Drezner definition:

A weblog is defined here as a web page with minimal to no external editing, dedicated to on-line commentary, periodically updated and presented in reverse chronological order, with hyperlinks to other online sources.

From Findlaw:

Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal -- who is also plaintiffs' co-counsel in the California recall litigation -- argues that the three-judge federal appellate panel was right to decide to postpone the recall, and that the new, eleven-judge panel should affirm its decision. Katyal takes on each of the major critiques of the three-judge panel's decision, and contends that none is persuasive in light of core Equal Protection principles.

Go read the piece.

Stupid Press
...
But while we're on the subject of the press, Eric Alterman tags this to be the "best George Bush piece to be published by an allegedly liberal magazine this week." (Its Jonathan Chiat's article in this week's TNR--starting thusly: "I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. .") (Here's the last para)

The persistence of an absurdly heroic view of Bush is what makes his dullness so maddening. To be a liberal today is to feel as though you've been transported into some alternative universe in which a transparently mediocre man is revered as a moral and strategic giant. You ask yourself why Bush is considered a great, or even a likeable, man. You wonder what it is you have been missing. Being a liberal, you probably subject yourself to frequent periods of self-doubt. But then you conclude that you're actually not missing anything at all. You decide Bush is a dullard lacking any moral constraints in his pursuit of partisan gain, loyal to no principle save the comfort of the very rich, unburdened by any thoughtful consideration of the national interest, and a man who, on those occasions when he actually does make a correct decision, does so almost by accident.

September 19 = "Talk Like a Pirate Day"

Here is some help, from the official website:

The basics
Pirate lingo is rich and complicated, sort of like a good stew. There are several other sites that offer glossaries that are pretty good, and you can find some of them on our links page.

But if you just want a quick fix, a surface gloss, a "pirate patina," if you will, here are the five basic words that you cannot live without. Master them, and you can face Talk Like a Pirate Day with a smile on your face and a parrot on your shoulder, if that's your thing.

Ahoy! - "Hello!"

Avast! - Stop and give attention. It can be used in a sense of surprise, "Whoa! Get a load of that!" which today makes it more of a "Check it out" or "No way!" or "Get off!"

Aye! - "Why yes, I agree most heartily with everything you just said or did."

Aye aye! - "I'll get right on that sir, as soon as my break is over."

Arrr! - This one is often confused with arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin. "Arrr!" can mean, variously, "yes," "I agree," "I'm happy," "I'm enjoying this beer," "My team is going to win it all," "I saw that television show, it sucked!" and "That was a clever remark you or I just made." And those are just a few of the myriad possibilities of Arrr!

Advanced pirate lingo; or On beyond 'Aarrr!'
Once you've mastered the basics, you're ready to start expanding your pirate vocabulary. Try these for starters

Beauty: The best possible pirate address for a woman. Always preceded by 'me,' as in, 'C'mere, me beauty,' or even, 'me buxom beauty,' to one particularly well endowed. You’ll be surprised how effective this is.

Bilge rat: The bilge is the lowest level of the ship. It’s loaded with ballast and slimy, reeking water. A bilge rat, then, is a rat that lives in the worst place on the ship. On TLAP Day, A lot of guy humor involves insulting your buddies to prove your friendship. It’s important that everyone understand you are smarter, more powerful and much luckier with the wenches than they are. Since bilge rat is a pretty dirty thing to call someone, by all means use it on your friends.

Bung hole: Victuals on a ship were stored in wooden casks. The stopper in the barrel is called the bung, and the hole is called the bung hole. That’s all. It sounds a lot worse, doesn’t it? On TLAP Day – When dinner is served you’ll make quite an impression when you say, 'Well, me hearties, let's see what crawled out of the bung hole.' That statement will be instantly followed by the sound of people putting down their utensils and pushing themselves away from the table. Great! More for you!

Grog: An alcoholic drink, usually rum diluted with water, but in this context you could use it to refer to any alcoholic beverage other than beer, and we aren't prepared to be picky about that, either. Call your beer grog if you want. We won’t stop you! Water aboard ship was stored for long periods in slimy wooden barrels, so you can see why rum was added to each sailor's water ration; to kill the rancid taste. On TLAP Day: Drink up, me hearties! And call whatever you’re drinking grog if you want to. If some prissy pedant purses his lips and protests the word grog can only be used if drinking rum and water, not the Singapore Sling you’re holding, keelhaul him!

Hornpipe: Both a single-reeded musical instrument sailors often had aboard ship, and a spirited dance that sailors do. On TLAP Day, we are not big fans of the capering, it’s not our favorite art form, if you will, so we don’t have a lot to say on the subject, other than to observe that the common term for being filled with lust is "horny," and hornpipe then has some comical possibilities. "Is that a hornpipe in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? Or both?"

Lubber: (or land lubber) This is the seaman’s version of land lover, mangled by typical pirate disregard for elocution. A lubber is someone who does not go to sea, who stays on the land. On TLAP Day, More likely than not, you are a lubber 364 days of the year. But not if you’re talking like a pirate! Then the word lubber becomes one of the more fierce weapons in your arsenal of piratical lingo. In a room where everyone is talking like pirates, lubber is ALWAYS an insult.

Smartly: Do something quickly. On TLAP Day, "Smartly, me lass," you might say when sending the bar maid off for another round. She will be so impressed she might well spit in your beer.

And, if you go out tonight:

Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day
(We came up with these in an effort to interest The Other Dave (Letterman) in TLAPD. His staff liked 'em, but alas, his show is "dark" the week of Sept. 19.)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Go see the web site for loads of pirate fun...

straight talk of the week:
(from Talking Points Memo interview with Ambassador Joseph Wilson)

TPM: ... So, setting aside why we're in Iraq, how we go[t] there, whether we should have gone in in the first place, where are we now? Where do you see our position right now?

WILSON: Well, I think we're fucked. ...

In point of fact, the entire interview is quite good, check it out.

daily check on the misleads...

Right on, Joe.

Suddenly the president, the vice president and sundry other administration officials are publicly "correcting" certain aspects of the propaganda campaign that drove the United States into war with Iraq. Yet anyone who reads the Washington Post -- which means most of the people in and around the United States government and the national press corps -- should have strongly suspected that false premises underpinned the war. To find the Post's path-breaking stories, however, most of which were reported by Walter Pincus, readers had to thumb their way back to Page A20 or deeper.

The Post editors buried nearly all of the scoops by Pincus (and his colleagues Dana Priest, Dana Milbank, Barton Gellman and Karen DeYoung) until after the president declared victory. Why did a leading newspaper (often wrongly described as "liberal") behave so timorously?

Alabama tax...

I reckon Christian values are up to debate.
RepublicanGov. Riley argued that increasing taxes was a Christian duty. For that, I fell in love with him- because he articulated the moral foundation of the U.S. progressive tax scheme. (and conversely, why we ought to be outraged at the current administration's domestic agenda). While I'd expand that to a larger moral (as opposed to merely 'Christian')duty, I agree in full. As he said, 'It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax.' (Especially when that person is paying more income tax than a corporation making several million more.
But I reckon moral values are relative:

An anti-tax coalition comprised of angry property owners and preachers sprang into action. Remember the furor a few weeks ago over removing the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court?

"I received a phone call over the weekend from the head of the Christian Coalition of Alabama saying that the very same people who took the monument out of the judicial building are now trying to raise your taxes," said political columnist Bob Ingram who has covered politics for 50 years.

(From CNN.)

Edwards is on the Daily Show tonight.
And, Conan's 10th anniversary special: 8:30.

Edwards Blog

Go pay a visit.
Well...we'll see how it goes. Seems the "share" concept is a little cheesy. The folks who feed off of blogs, I'm reckoning, do so more for the immediacy and rawness factors, as opposed to a feel good sense of 'sharing.' But then, my perceptions of public reception to politician maneuvers is predictably poor.

legal comments

gay marriage should enjoy full faith and credit
A nice FindLaw guest commentary from law student Christopher Geidner--on the Defense of Marriage Act, Lawrence, and the stirrings of and amendment to Constitution saying "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."
Apart from some discussion of the above, Geidner's point is that the Defense of Marriage Act is an unconstitutional violation of the full faith and credit clause. Here are some key passages:

U.S. Rep. Barr recently explained in an Op-Ed in The Washington Post why he would never support such an amendment - despite the fact that he still "do[es] not support same-sex marriages." He explained that in his view, "[m]arriage is a quintessential state issue. The Defense of Marriage Act goes as far as is necessary in codifying the federal legal status and parameters of marriage."
...
In all likelihood, the Federal Marriage Amendment - a piece of political grandstanding if there ever was one, will fail. If so, what is likely to occur? Obviously, gay marriage won't be instantly legal. Rather, the legal fights will still ensue.

Any day, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court might - or might not - declare that the state is required to end marriage discrimination against lesbian and gay couples. If so, some Massachusetts gay married couple will doubtless someday want their marriage enforced in another state - and DOMA will be put to the test.

Hopefully, it will fail that test, and the courts will find, as they should, that DOMA violates the Full Faith and Credit clause insofar as it purports to authorize states to ignore other states' marriages.
Meanwhile, those states that have passed their own marriage definitions excluding same-sex couples may find those definitions challenged in court, and the other half of DOMA - the part that defines federal marriage to exclude same-sex couples - may face a similar challenge. The challenge would derive from Lawrence's recognition that every American, regardless of sexual orientation, has the right to "overt expression in intimate conduct with another person."

When this challenge is raised, Barr's pro-states' rights position - so convenient in the fight against the Federal Marriage Amendment - may look a lot less attractive to the ACLU and others who support gay rights. After all, if states have the right - as Barr claims - not to have their choice trampled by the Federal Marriage Amendment, Barr and others may insist that they also have the right to define marriage to their own liking. And if they have that right, they can define it to exclude same-sex couples.

Moore U.S. history confusions
Marci Hamilton throws in her historical cents on this one. She argues against the argument that supports display of the Ten Commandments because of their being the "sole source" of our law.

As a Christian, an American, and a scholar, I found the whole thing embarrassing. First, it was such a transparent attempt by Christians to regain power over a country that has become the most pluralistic religious culture in world history.

Second, I was appalled that Americans - including television personalities who have a responsibility to their audience to do their homework - could be so uninformed about the history of our legal system, and its many and diverse sources.

Third, we proved once more to the world community that as a nation, we have the most abysmal knowledge of history. Worse, this laughable claim about legal history was repeated over and over as plain truth.

Strong words. Her argument:
The first four commandments

1.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2.Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth . . . .

3.Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

4.Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all they work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor they maidservant, nor they cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

could never be made law. Barnett makes this clear with the line: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion . . . ."
Otherwise, Hamilton gives a solid historical argument. Read it and respond with grievances. Here's a slice:

Thomas Jefferson specifically railed against attempts to claim that the common law incorporated the Ten Commandments when he criticized judges for "lay[ing] the yoke of their own opinions on the necks of others by declaring that [the Ten Commandments] make a part of the law of the land." John Adams also questioned the influence of the Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount on the legal system.

At the Constitutional Convention, the Framers looked to the examples of antiquity--the Greeks and the Romans - and not to the Ten Commandments. They were a pragmatic lot, and they were not interested in being bound by their religious heritage (despite today's claims to the contrary). Rather, they were searching for virtually any idea--from virtually any source--that would work to create a better government than the failure produced by the Articles of Confederation.

Here is the link to the recent "Connection" show on General Wesley Clark.

The former Supreme Commander of NATO and Rhodes Scholar is the focus of two "Draft Wesley Clark for President" efforts. Some say the decorated veteran who shone as a soldier in Vietnam and as a general in Kosovo packs the military mettle the Democrats need for victory in 2004. Others say his shadow campaign's measly war chest falls far short of the multi-millions needed to run for the White House.

It's a pretty good glimpse into the soon-to-be candidate.

Hats off to you Mr. Cash...say hey to Warren.

Marshall nails Rummy

Talking Points Memo does far better than I could to counter the notion, peddled by Rumsfeld, that " critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy are encouraging terrorists and complicating the ongoing U.S. war on terrorism."
Here's a quote at length, but do read his post.

So here the whole sordid business comes full circle. The administration games the public into an endeavor by exaggerating the gains and minimizing the price. Then the gains are revealed as not quite so great. And the price is revealed as very much greater. And if all that weren't bad enough, the operation is bungled on several fronts. So the gamers and the scammers say it's the fault of the critics who tried to carve through the mumbo-jumbo in the first place. And when the public has a touch of buyers' remorse over a product that was peddled on false advertising, the answer lies in the public's own degeneracy and division.

It's everyone's fault but theirs. 'The terrorists', domestic enemies, cultural declension, the French, perhaps tomorrow the decline of reading, the end of corporal punishment in the schools, permissive parenting, bad posture, rock 'n roll, space aliens. The administration is choking on its own lies and evasions. And we have to bail them out because the ship of state is our ship.

goodbye Warren

Warren Zevon was the first singer that my mom and dad, my two brothers, and I all loved and listened to.
Here's to one of the true greats in our music...
the link goes to a pretty decent rolling stone collection.

P.S.
Via Designs (a good site in all respects), here's a fine obit from Blogcritics.

Today, "The Envoy" comforts me best of his lot. I've always loved this boyish intellectual macho. Oh, yeah, he was a badass diplomat, with diplomatic immunity to use that lethal weapon that no one can see. If he weren't sick, he could have probably gone in and strong-armed Saddam personally. ...I note in puting together links for this column that Amazon lists The Wind as their #1 seller. That's nice.

The suits begin...and my hope for allowed minimal downloads

From the Times:

The recording industry filed hundreds of lawsuits Monday against individual music lovers whom music companies accuse of illegally downloading and sharing songs over the Internet, an industry source said.

The lawsuits, filed in federal courts around the country, had been expected as the industry becomes increasingly aggressive in cracking down on the trading of pirated music files online.

And Senator Norm Coleman has some concerns:

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has promised hearings on the industry's use of copyright subpoenas to track downloaders.

Coleman has expressed concerns that the campaign could ensnare innocent people, such as parents and grandparents whose children and grandchildren are using their computers to download music. He also said some downloaders themselves might not know they are breaking the law.

I look forward to hearing how these cases come out. In theory, I like the idea of suing the actual downloaders as opposed to suing Kazaa or service providers. But, I hope the cases figure some distinction between the minimal/overlooked copying that takes place when one burns a cd or makes a mix tape for a friend, and the hypothetical large scale copying of downloading a thousand full length cds.
As I've mentioned, I've got no absolute stance on this. Kazaa and file sharing should have a place ini the world. Massive downloading, though, should not be seen as a privilege (as Marci Hamilton argues in the FindLaw column I referenced on Aug. 29). A certain amount of downloading should be compared to speeding 5-over on the Interstate- I think there is a grey area where this is ok.
In some respects, (in a very broad and inaccurate sense) I think of easements created by public use of private land. If the public cuts a trail through a property owner's land, and the owner knows about this and has failed to stop the use, the public creates a right of way. My loose analogy has the public creating a similar right in minimal copying. We've made mix tapes for decades now. The record companies have not sued despite their knowledge of such practice because the copying did no real harm. Some "right of way", then, might exist for minimal copying/downloading (this argument would never hold in court- but I assert it as a conceptual tool). Still, it might be argued that a certain amount of downloading is OK.
Perhaps the courts can carve out some space allowing for small scale downloading. More likely, we'll end up with a bright-line rule against downloading because of the exponentially greater ease with which a person can obtain songs on Kazaa. Oh well.

npr, Huxley, and Brights

well sheez, blogger blipped on me after thirty minutes of post-writting. perhaps it was a sign of over-abundancy. thus i'll hasten to the point of this evening's post.
npr gave an intro to a commentary by Steven Waldman, intro going something like this:

A group of people with a "naturalistic worldview" are trying to improve their image. They want to leave behind their old names -- atheists and agnostics -- and are adopting a new one: The Brights. They are promoting this new term in op-ed pieces in major papers in the United States and Europe and, of course, on the Internet. Commentator Steven Waldman says that some of their goals are laudable, while others are questionable.

what caught my ire was the grouping of atheism with agnosticism. Remembering our Greek, a-theism is the negative of god (theos), while a-gnostic is the negative of knowing (gnomeh is 'thought...or intellegence). Thomas Huxley coined the latter term:

When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last...So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic". It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant...

I've always thought of atheism as a modernist position. An atheist is certain of a particular truth- just as a Baptist is certain of a particular truth. And as modernists, both have a notion that they can know this and can reveal the truth to others. Take, for instance, Daniel Dennett in the NY Times. He speaks of coining 'the Brights' as a new name for naturalists.

The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny — or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic — and life after death.

The commentary on npr today asks why the Brights feel so bright when so many post grad educated folks believe in a god, or ghosts or devils. I don't find that criticism satisfactory, though. That alot of people think something doesn't make it right. Rather, I'll critique the Bright's being stuck in modernism.
Going back to Huxley, above- he seems to tend towards postmodern thought. It is as if he fights that post-enlightenment notion that reason can not only lead us to truth, but can reveal to others that truth. Modernism takes for granted that availability of revelation (not from god to human, but from human to human). Postmodernism, along this line, recognizes that, because of our stuck-ness within our particular world views, we really can't convey truth with any certainty. For that matter, we really can't know whether, wehn we speech of a shared truth, that we speak of the same thing. But getting back to Huxley, I see in his remark a sense of bravery (in the context of his times) in saying 'I don't know...and dang it, why should I?'
The Brights, on the other hand, to purport to know.
So how is it that agnosticism and atheism can be grouped together when they support entirely different world views?

News of Note

FCC

Court of Appeals/3rd Cir. blocked the change made this summer to the FCC rules. The change would have made consolodation for media corporations an easier affair--opposition to the rulke change fears loss of local programming.
From the WaPo:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia made it clear that its decision was not based on the merits of the new rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission. But the emergency stay could add to the momentum against the changes. A House committee has already voted to overturn a key part of the rules, and similar action is expected in the Senate today.

(emphasis mine)

Appointments

Estrada withdraws. From the NY Times:

Miguel Estrada, President Bush's embattled nominee for a federal appeals court judgeship, has withdrawn his name from consideration, ending a bitter battle with Senate Democrats who blocked his nomination, administration officials said Thursday.

Estrada wrote a letter to Bush explaining his reasons, and an announcement could be made as early as Thursday, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Noted without comment.