Internet Scofflaw

This is an outrage:

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

(Via Instapundit.)

I’m starting to think that 9/11 and 7/7 were actually a masterstroke for the Islamists.  Sure, the war itself has been disaster for them; they lost Afghanistan and Al Qaeda has been eviscerated.  But now we’re bending over backward to be “sensitive” to Muslims, and they’re getting accommodations (like sharia courts in western countries) they could never get before.

The Guardian reports:

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

I don’t see why this would be an embarrassment to President Bush. The 2008 farm bill was passed over his veto:

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve a five-year, $307 billion farm bill, sending it to President Bush for what is expected to be his futile veto.

The 81-to-15 Senate vote, like the 318-to-106 House vote on Wednesday, attracted broad bipartisan support and received far more than the two-thirds that would be needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto, should he keep his pledge to wield his pen.

Mr. Bush has said he wants to sharply limit government subsidies to farmers at a time of near-record commodity prices and soaring global demand for grain. Most legislators were not swayed by Mr. Bush’s description of the bill as bloated, expensive and packed with “a variety of gimmicks.”

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, defended the measure as “one of compromise.” . . .

[The bill] extends many existing federal subsidies that the president and other critics say are difficult to justify in such flush times for agricultural producers. . .

In the House chamber on Wednesday, longtime critics of farm subsidies in both parties echoed Mr. Bush’s complaints about the current bill.

“Where’s the beef?” asked Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, standing in the House floor next to a poster showing sharp increases in commodity prices — 126 percent for wheat, 57 percent for soybeans, 45 percent for corn. “Where’s the real reform?” he said.

For the record, neither presidential candidate voted on the bill.

(Via Instapundit.)

A film smuggled out of the country shows Zimbabwean vote-rigging in process.  In the film, a Mugabe crony watches carefully as people prepare their postal ballot.

There’s a lesson for us here as well.  The secret ballot is the fundamental instrument of democracy, and the moves to vote-by-mail in several states endanger it.  Absentee ballots are already the tool of choice for election fraud in the United States.

Good story, here.  (Via the Corner.)

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Sharia is on its way to Britain, courtesy of Britain’s highest judge:

The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance. He declared: ‘Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.’

In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips signalled approval of sharia principles as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - complied with the law of the land.

We are supposed to be reassured that the law will hold the line on stoning:

Lord Phillips said that any sanctions must be ‘drawn from the laws of England and Wales’. Severe physical punishment - he mentioned stoning, flogging or amputating hands - is ‘out of the question’ in Britain, he added.

(ASIDE: This is crap, of course, since the government has done little to stop the “honor killings” that are already going on in Britain.) Of course, the problem isn’t just the barbaric punishments, but the idea that women will “voluntarily” sign away their rights:

Lord Phillips’ speech brought protests from lawyers who fear women could be disadvantaged in supposedly voluntary sharia deals.

Barrister and human rights specialist John Cooper said: ‘There should be one law by which everyone is held to account. ‘Well-crafted laws in this country, drawn up to protect both parties including the weak and vulnerable party in matrimonial break-ups, could be compromised.’ . . .

Robert Whelan, of the Civitas think tank, said: ‘Everybody is governed by English law and it is not possible to sign away your legal rights. That is why guarantees on consumer products always have to tell customers their statutory rights are not affected.

‘There is not much doubt that in traditional Islamic communities women do not enjoy the freedoms that they have had for 100 years or more in Britain.
‘It is very easy to put pressure on young women in a male-dominated household. The English law stands to protect people from intimidation in such circumstances.’

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: ‘Mediation verdicts which are incompatible with our own legal principles should never be enforceable. One of the key aspects of our free society is equality. This should be understood and respected by all.’

Or if not by all, at least by Britain’s top judge.

(Via the Corner.)

Forget the war, jurisprudence, and taxes.  Here’s an issue that really matters: Sen. John Warner (R-VA) wants to reinstate the 55-mph speed limit.

This needs to get quashed right away.

Despite backing off the central promise of his campaign, to remove all troops from Iraq in 16 months, Barack Obama denies that his position has changed:

Democrat Barack Obama denied Thursday any suggestion he’s shying away from his proposed 16-month phased withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq, calling it “pure speculation” and adding that his “position has not changed” — shortly before telling reporters questioning his stance that he will “continue to refine” his policies as warranted.

The one thing we’ve learned to expect from Obama is he will never admit that he’s changing his position. His one consistent position is that his position is consistent. But, in a break with precedent, the press is not buying it.  Of course, it may be good politics to bury this shift (along with others) on the July 4 weekend.

Anyway, the problem with a flip-flop is that we don’t know what his real position is.  Even if he were genuine about his new position, which seems unlikely, does anyone think he would stand up to Pelosi and company’s demands for immediate withdrawal?

BONUS: This is funny:

But on April 10 he told an Indiana crowd it may take “16 months to two years” to remove combat troops. In recent speeches, he’s left out the phrase “16 months” entirely.

Pressed as to why that’s been the case, the White House hopeful first laughed, then told reporters it’s because he’s been “focused on the economy.”

Good one.

Between Obama and his staff, that is.  (Via Instapundit.)

(Previous post.)

Their lobbyists inserted a loophole that would make them exempt from a new Florida law:

Walt Disney World believes it is exempt from a new state law that allows Florida residents to keep firearms in their vehicles while at work, according to an internal memo obtained by a newspaper.

Under the bill, which took effect Tuesday, businesses cannot prohibit employees or customers from keeping a legally owned gun locked inside their cars, as long as the owner has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

However, the bill states that property owned or leased by an employer who has a permit required by federal law to manufacture, use, store or move explosives would still be off limits. Disney has a permit for its fireworks shows.

The loophole was lobbied for by a group of lawyers that represented groups and businesses that included Disney, The Orlando Sentinel reports.

Someone should fight this. I can’t imagine Disney wanting the bad press they would get.

(Via Instapundit.)

San Francisco would rather set drug dealers free than deport illegal immigrants.

David Bernstein looks at which justices are more likely to protect individual rights:

The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, upholding the Second Amendment right of individuals to own firearms, should finally lay to rest the widespread myth that the defining difference between liberal and conservative justices is that the former support “individual rights” and “civil liberties,” while the latter routinely defer to government assertions of authority. The Heller dissent presents the remarkable spectacle of four liberal Supreme Court justices tying themselves into an intellectual knot to narrow the protections the Bill of Rights provides.

Or perhaps it’s not as remarkable as we’ve been led to think. Consider the Court’s First Amendment decisions. Contrary to popular belief, conservative justices are about as likely to vote in favor of individuals bringing First Amendment challenges to government regulations as are the liberals. Indeed, the justice most likely to vote to uphold a First Amendment claim is the “conservative” Justice Anthony Kennedy. The least likely is the “liberal” Justice Stephen Breyer. Consistent with general conservative/liberal patterns in commercial speech cases, Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have voted to invalidate restrictions on advertising more than 75 percent of the time. Justices Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, meanwhile, have voted to uphold such restrictions in most cases.

(Via Instapundit.)

Scottish Muslims are “outraged” by a puppy postcard.

This Politico story will be no surprise to most Internet Scofflaw readers.  (Via the Corner.)

POSTSCRIPT: Let’s not forget that Evan Thomas has a bit of history of his own.  In 2004 he famously asserted that the media wanted John Kerry to win, and their favorable reporting would be worth 15 points in the polls.  That was before claiming in last May’s Newsweek story that the media had no ideological bias.

Remember the “benchmarks”? To the Democrats last September, they were the see-all, end-all measure of progress in Iraq. Now they are all but forgotten, but the White House is still tracking them, and report that nearly all have satisfactory progress:

The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq’s efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are “satisfactory”—almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. The May 2008 report card, obtained by the Associated Press, determines that only two of the benchmarks—enacting and implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenues—are unsatisfactory.

In the past 12 months, since the White House released its first formal assessment of Iraq’s military and political progress, Baghdad politicians have reached several new agreements seen as critical to easing sectarian tensions.

They have passed, for example, legislation that grants amnesty for some prisoners and allows former members of Saddam Hussein’s political party to recover lost jobs or pensions. They also determined that provincial elections would be held by Oct. 1. . .

In the May progress report, one benchmark was deemed to have brought mixed results. The Iraqi army has made satisfactory progress on the goal of fairly enforcing the law, while the nation’s police force remains plagued by sectarianism, according to the administration assessment.

Amusingly, the Associated Press actually puts a negative spin on this:

No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with one of the most frustrating realities in Iraq: the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates.

Iraq’s political and military success is considered vital to U.S. interests, whether troops stay or go. And while the Iraqi government has made measurable progress in recent months, the pace at which it’s done so has been achingly slow.

ASIDE: The idea of grading a democratic country’s legislature pass/fail on satisfying various political objective was always a little bit nutty. How many benchmarks do you think our own Congress has met in the last year.

(Via Instapundit.)

According to the latest research, a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state is nearly as likely to be wrong as right. (Via the Corner.)

The Boston Globe has a devastating article on the abject failure of Obama’s housing policy:

The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.

But it’s not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

But if the program failed to produce inhabitable housing, it did not fail to enrich Obama’s friends:

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. . . Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

The campaign did not respond to questions about whether Obama was aware of the problems with buildings in his district during his time as a state senator, nor did it comment on the roles played by people connected to the senator.

Among those tied to Obama politically, personally, or professionally are:

• Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.
• Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama’s US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama’s former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.
• Antoin “Tony” Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama’s early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko’s company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama’s district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.
• Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama’s campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama’s own accounting.
• One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.

Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries.  Jarrett, a powerful figure in the Chicago development community, agreed to be interviewed but declined to answer questions about Grove Parc, citing what she called a continuing duty to Habitat’s former business partners.

Mickey Kaus calls the story Obama’s Katrina. I’m not sure that’s fair. Katrina, after all, was a mismanaged natural disaster. Grove Parc, on the other hand, is a case of human corruption that enriched Obama’s friends, who in turn enriched him personally. Also, FEMA seems to have learned from Katrina (as its performance in the recent midwestern floods indicates), but Obama has campaigned on expanding the program that created Grove Parc to a nationwide scale.

Kaus also notes that while Obama has distanced himself from Rezko since his conviction, Jarrett remains a top Obama advisor. For now.

(Via Althouse, via Instapundit.)

Politicians often measure the impact of tax-rate changes on the number of dollars they “generate” or “cost”. This is useful for generating large, impressive numbers, but it’s not actually a useful measure, for two reasons. First, tax changes never generate or cost the predicted amount. (In fact, Hauser’s Law indicates that tax-rate changes have essentially no impact on revenues.) Second, it’s the tax rates themselves — not the overall amount collected — that is relevant to taxpayers’ lives and (particularly the marginal rates) to the health of the economy.

Hank Adler, a professor at Chapman University, has looked at Barack Obama’s proposed tax increases, and notes that they are almost unprecedented in US history. (Via TaxProf, via Instapundit.)  One frightening figure is an tax increase of as high as 39% on self-employment income.

In fact, since the First World War, there has only been one tax increase greater than the one Obama proposes: Herbert Hoover’s tax increase of 1932.  Hoover’s economic policy (which Obama promises to follow in other ways as well) is now generally seen as regrettable.

The Economist reports that school choice has been successful in the most unlikely of places, Sweden:

BIG-STATE, social-democratic Sweden seems an odd place to look for a free-market revolution. Yet that is what is under way in the country’s schools. Reforms that came into force in 1994 allow pretty much anyone who satisfies basic standards to open a new school and take in children at the state’s expense. The local municipality must pay the school what it would have spent educating each child itself—a sum of SKr48,000-70,000 ($8,000-12,000) a year, depending on the child’s age and the school’s location. Children must be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis—there must be no religious requirements or entrance exams. Nothing extra can be charged for, but making a profit is fine.

The reforms were controversial, especially within the Social Democratic Party, then in one of its rare spells in opposition. They would have been even more controversial had it been realised just how popular they would prove. In just 14 years the share of Swedish children educated privately has risen from a fraction of a percent to more than 10%.

At the time, it was assumed that most “free” schools would be foreign-language (English, Finnish or Estonian) or religious, or perhaps run by groups of parents in rural areas clubbing together to keep a local school alive.  What no one predicted was the emergence of chains of schools. Yet that is where much of the growth in independent education has come from. Sweden’s Independent Schools Association has ten members that run more than six schools, and five that run ten or more.

The biggest, Kunskapsskolan (“Knowledge Schools”) opened its first six schools in 2000. Four more opened last autumn, bringing the total to 30. It now has 700 employees and teaches nearly 10,000 pupils, with an operating profit of SKr62m last year on a turnover of SKr655m.

This is the sort of success that US teachers’ unions have been working hard to prevent.

Jonathan Weisman writes for the Washington Post:

Dogged by persistent questions about his faith in God and country, Sen. Barack Obama today journeyed to Harry Truman’s birthplace to lay out his vision of patriotism, conceding that he has learned in this campaign “the question of who is — or is not — a patriot all too often poisons our political debate.”

“Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given, ” Obama said. “It was how I was raised. It was what propelled me into public service. It it why I am running for president. And yet at times over the last 16 months, my patriotism [has been] challenged - at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for.”

Curiously, Obama did not name a single person that actually has attacked his patriotism. Is there any national figure who has actually done so? Sure, there are anonymous emails propounding fevered conspiracy theories, and there might even be more of them targeting Obama than others (although I sincerely doubt he can beat Cheney), but I’m not aware of any major media outlet or public figure who has done so.

No, I think that Obama has learned the value of attacking a straw man, as he has done on race and campaign finance. And, I think the reason he chose today is to distract from yesterday’s attacks by Wesley Clark — his campaign surrogate — on John McCain’s military experience:

“In the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk,” [Clark] said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. . .

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world, but he hasn’t held executive responsibility,” Clark said. “That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded _ that wasn’t a wartime squadron.”

Clark is right I suppose; McCain didn’t command a squadron until after the war. During the war, his promotions got stalled for some reason. (I’m reminded of this again.)

POSTSCRIPT: Part of the reason Obama has had troubles in the area of patriotism is the ridiculous flag pin controversy. As the record shows, Obama manufactured that controversy himself, with his unwise decision to attack the patriotism of those who did wear flag pins.  Too clever by half, it turned out.

Google suspends several anti-Obama blogs, due to unsupported allegations of spam. (Via Instapundit.)

This is a good example of why I’m so troubled by Google’s near-monopoly over access to information on the Internet. If Google decides to distort its results, for some political or business purpose, how will people know? This is no abstract worry, either, as Google has already done so, and not only in China. (For example, Google News includes highly dubious “news” sources of the leftist persuasion, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an example from the right.)

In this case, Google is following bad procedures — in the very least — if obviously non-spam blogs are being suspended (and worse, not being reinstated in a timely fashion). But it’s more troublesome than that, because Google is deliberately opaque about what its procedures are. Consequently, if they bias their procedures — or just violate them — for some political or business purpose, we have no way of knowing.

Probably Google is simply utilizing a bad algorithm here that has been exploited by pro-Obama vandals, but given Google’s opaqueness, we can judge the incident only by its outcome. And the outcomes of Google incidents, when they have political implications, usually seem to be in line with the company’s public-record political preferences. (I only say “usually” as a hedge; I know of no counterexamples.)

Obviously, a big part of Google’s procedures is their page rank algorithm, which is an important trade secret. But if they can’t be transparent in that area, they need to make a special effort in other areas. It also wouldn’t hurt for them to try to build bridges with people outside the political left.

UPDATE: The NYT picks up the story.

A eugenic first?

Doctors in the U.K. reportedly say they have helped conceive a child genetically incapable of developing hereditary breast cancer.

According to the Times of London, doctors screened out embryos that contained a gene that may have given the baby up to an 85 percent chance of getting disease.

The British couple agreed to go through IVF (in-vitro fertilization), although they had no problem conceiving, to allow for the embryos to be screened. They produced 11 embryos, which doctors tested, and found five to be free from the gene, the Times reported.

Two of these were implanted in the woman’s uterus, and she is now 14 weeks pregnant.

Nine discarded embryos to get two that are less likely to develop breast cancer in middle age.  It won’t just be breast cancer for long, either.  Soon people will be selecting eye color and cheekbones.

John Hinderaker thinks Barack Obama should debate his staff.

Wilmette and Morton Grove will suspend enforcement of their gun bans. (Via Snowflakes in Hell, via Instapundit.) Both towns are somewhat infamous for their gun bans. Morton Grove had the nation’s first. Wilmette made the news four years ago by prosecuting a man who shot an intruder in his home.

BONUS: This is nice:

“The [Heller] ruling puts [Justice Antonin] Scalia and the four other conservative justices squarely on the side of the gang-bangers who terrorize far too many of urban American neighborhoods today,” [Oak Park Village President David Pope] said.

Ooo-kay. I’m not sure that’s the kind of argument for the left to be making right now.

At Instapundit.

Obama has tried hard to distance himself from his campaign’s earlier statement in favor of the DC gun ban, but I think he’s nailed here. This time it isn’t an aide’s statement to be disavowed. Obama nods and says “right”, twice, as his interviewer asserts “you support the DC handgun ban and you’ve said that it’s constitutional.” He then spends over a minute focusing on more moderate gun-control measures that he supports, but never disputes the earlier assertion.

Hot Air has the YouTube video (search to 1:15 if you’re impatient).

The difference between then and now is, back then Obama was competing with Hillary Clinton for the votes of DC liberals. Back then, extreme gun-control positions paid. Now he wants to appear more centrist.

BONUS: Howard Kurtz tracks Obama’s changing positions on guns, and how they’ve been portrayed in the media. (Via Instapundit.)

Well, this is awkward:

Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama’s victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support.

Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president’s future campaign role is a “sticking point” in peace talks with Mrs Clinton’s aides.

The Telegraph has learned that the former president’s rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could “kiss my ass” in return for his support.

If the Obama campaign induces the left to learn a few things about their favorite President’s character, it won’t have been a complete waste.

(Via Cadillac Tight.)

When you eliminate oil, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric, you’ve already eliminated every plausible technology to address our energy needs. But why stop with the plausible ones? Wind power is bad (either for environmental concerns, or because it spoils the beachfront views of our ruling class).  Geothermal disrupts the earth.

Now, solar is bad for the environment too.  (Via Instapundit.)  So what’s left?  Is there any form of energy, even impractical, that can satisfy the demands of the greens?  (Perhaps this is where they imagine society should be going.)

When Obama recently backed away from his earlier statement in favor of the gun ban (”Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.”), his campaign refused to admit he was changing his position. Rather, they said that it was an “inartful” attempt to explain Obama’s position. Evidently, “artful” means “too clear”.

By that standard, Obama’s latest statement in the wake of the Heller decision is more much artful:

I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe. Today’s ruling, the first clear statement on this issue in 127 years, will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.

As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today’s decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.

(Emphasis mine.) There’s a lot of obfuscatory (”artful”) blather here, but the statement may not quite be artful enough. Not the emphasized sentence, implying that Chicago’s gun ban works. Presumably, if it works, it must be constitutional, right?

The problem is, the Chicago gun ban is virtually identical to the unconstitutional DC gun ban, and will likely be overturned in short order. As Michael Goldfarb points out, Chicago Mayor Daley’s angry response to the ruling indicates he expects that to happen.

So is Obama saying that the Chicago ban is constitutional? His campaign turns on the art:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is hedging on whether Chicago’s ban on handguns is constitutionally permissible in the wake of Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling striking down a similar law in Washington, D.C. . .

But Obama’s spokesman says that the reference to “what works in Chicago” does not indicate his view on the constitutionality of Chicago law.

“He didn’t point out anything specific except for the fact that they are two different places where different solutions are often appropriate,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.

So the mention of Chicago, the city obvious to all as the next battleground in gun rights, was just a meaningless turn of phrase?  Please.

I’ve been thinking. The war in Iraq is 5 years old, but the war on poverty is 44 years old. Isn’t it high time that we cut off support for the poor? Wouldn’t that surely induce them to resolve their own problems?

Todd Zywicki thinks the current disfunctional state of judicial confirmations is permanent.

First, read this “curious” exchange from today’s House Judiciary Committee meeting between Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) and David Addington (chief of staff to Vice President Cheney):

Addington had acknowledged earlier in the hearing that he took part in discussions with CIA lawyers over the agency’s interrogation policies. Delahunt tried to find out what Addington knew about the use of waterboarding on suspected Al Qaeda terrorists, or more specifically, whether Addington knew it was approved as an interrogation technique.

Addington told Delahunt he couldn’t discuss specific techniques being used, or even discussed for use, by CIA agents because terrorists may be watching his appearance and would gain insight into what U.S. intelligence agents are up to.

“You kind of communicate with Al Qaeda if you do. I can’t talk to you because Al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN,” Addington said.

Delahunt responded: “I’m sure they are watching. I’m glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington, given your penchant for being unobtrusive.“

(Emphasis mine.)  What did Delahunt mean?  Surely he couldn’t have meant that he’s glad Al Qaeda can target Addington now, could he?  (Allahpundit thinks so.)  Could he really have sunk so low that he cannot resist expressing revenge fantasies in public?  These guys are running the country, for pete’s sake.

Last November, the Obama campaign said the DC gun ban was constitutional and should be upheld:

The campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he ‘…believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.’

Since then, he has backed off that position, and refused to express an opinion:

Asked by ABC News’ Charlie Gibson if he considers the D.C. law to be consistent with an individual’s right to bear arms at ABC’s April 16, 2008, debate in Philadelphia, Obama said, “Well, Charlie, I confess I obviously haven’t listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence.”

Now the campaign has explicitly disavowed its earlier statement, but as usual, he cannot admit he has changed his position:

The Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an “inartful” statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.

“That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator’s consistent position,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.

“Inartful” means “too clear”, I guess. In contrast, his position now is quite “artful”, because he won’t say what it is. (Whatever it is, it’s definitely consistent, though.)

By the way, as Ed Morrissey points out, Obama was a constitutional law professor! Isn’t this the sort of subject on which he actually ought to be able to give an informed opinion? John McCain, on the other hand, despite not being a law professor of any kind, is on record with a clear and consistent position. He even went so far as to sign an amicus brief.

Heh.

Or so he says, Broadcasting and Cable reports.  (Via LGF.)

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns. (Opinion here.) According to Tom Goldstein, “The opinion leaves open the question whether the Second Amendment is incorporated against the States, but strongly suggests it is. So today’s ruling likely applies equally to State regulation.” (UPDATE: More on incorporation from Eugene Volokh.)

The vote was 5-4, which leaves the matter intact as a political issue. This probably helps McCain.

Finally, there’s this gem:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

For Justice Stevens to suddenly discover the idea of original intent is the height of chutzpah. Moreover, his application is complete nonsense; the Framers weren’t contemplating the regulation of civilian weapons one way or the other.

UPDATE: The bit about a “well regulated Militia” is directly addressed on page one of the syllabus:

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle wonders what would have happened if Michael Bellesiles had never been shown to be a fraud.  (Via Instapundit.)

The beginning of the end for species-ism in Spain? I am not making this up:

Spanish apes are one step closer to receiving the same [rights] to life and freedom humans have.

The environmental committee of Spain’s parliament approved resolutions that urge the European country to comply with the Great Apes Project — a plan developed by philosophers and scientists who say the animals deserve the same rights as their closest genetic relatives, the Reuters news agency reported.

UPDATE: Stephen Green thinks that European-style human rights isn’t much of an aspiration for the apes:

Try looking at it this way. Your average EU country doesn’t really recognize individual rights; there are just some facets of human existence Brussels hasn’t gotten around yet to regulating fully. So why not give “rights” to chimps? It’s not like they’ll gain much, when half or more of Europe is already one very posh, very nice zoological garden where people are kept on display in a semi-natural state.

Heck, Madrid, or even Brussels, could extend the franchise to dogs who think they’re people, at it wouldn’t make one bit of difference to how the place is governed.

Apropos of my earlier post, in which I asserted that nuclear power is extremely safe, I uncovered a short report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the Three Mile Island accident. The TMI accident is important because it and Chernobyl are the most frequent arguments against the safety of nuclear power. Chernobyl was a Soviet design far below any standards ever employed in the West, so it isn’t actually relevant. On the other hand, TMI was an American design.

One counter to the TMI example is that designs and procedures have changed completely since the TMI accident. Moreover, modern pebble bed reactors are based on an entirely different technology that is self-limiting, and therefore incapable of melting down.

The preceding is by far the more important argument, but there is another to be made: If by “serious” one means “affecting the health of at least one person,” then there has never been a serious nuclear accident in the United States, TMI notwithstanding. In the words of the NRC report:

Detailed studies of the radiological consequences of the accident have been conducted by the NRC, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the State of Pennsylvania. Several independent studies have also been conducted. Estimates are that the average dose to about 2 million people in the area was only about 1 millirem. To put this into context, exposure from a full set of chest x-rays is about 6 millirem. Compared to the natural radioactive background dose of about 100-125 millirem per year for the area, the collective dose to the community from the accident was very small. The maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem.

In the months following the accident, although questions were raised about possible adverse effects from radiation on human, animal, and plant life in the TMI area, none could be directly correlated to the accident. Thousands of environmental samples of air, water, milk, vegetation, soil, and foodstuffs were collected by various groups monitoring the area. Very low levels of radionuclides could be attributed to releases from the accident. However, comprehensive investigations and assessments by several well-respected organizations have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, most of the radiation was contained and that the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.

Of the two million affected, the average person got one-sixth of a chest x-ray. The maximum effect to anyone was equivalent to one year of natural background radiation.

Obama is optimistic about alternative energy:

“The possibilities of renewable energy are limitless,” Mr. Obama said in an energy policy speech Tuesday in Las Vegas.

He’s quite a bit more pessimistic about real technologies, though. In his energy speech yesterday, not only did he blast nuclear power, the one technology that can resolve our electric problems, but he also opposed oil sands, which could help reduce our dependence on OPEC.

While politicians prattle on about “renewable” (but uneconomical) energy sources such as solar and wind, or yet-to-be-invented silver bullets, there already exists one practical and economical way to generate all the electricity we need. Nuclear power is cost-effective, generates no greenhouse gases, and is extremely safe with modern technology (especially pebble bed designs).

Despite being the only existing technology that can solve our electricity problems, nuclear power has been crippled in America by demagoguery and NIMBYism. Recently, however, the rising price of oil, increasing concern over greenhouse gasses, and dwindling reserves in electrical generating capacity have let to a resurgence of interest in nuclear power, even among some on the left (eg, Nancy Pelosi).

ASIDE: If you’re not concerned about generating capacity, consider this: Washington DC is projecting rolling blackouts within three years if it cannot drag in power from elsewhere in the country.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama made clear yesterday that he opposes nuclear power (despite earlier indications that he might support it), and prefers to rely on uneconomical and/or nonexistent technologies instead.  Speaking in Nevada, which has managed to block the opening of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, he blasted McCain’s proposal to begin building nuclear reactors again.  He did say that he might support nuclear power sometime in the future, provided we can find a way to deal with the waste that doesn’t involve putting it somewhere. (Alas, I am not making this up.)

If our nation’s capital starts suffering rolling blackouts in a few years, or if we’re forced to rely on coal for electricity, I hope people will remember why.

Sheesh.

Bizarrely, the decision seems to hinge on “a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.” This is that sort of national consensus that exists without the participation of the people, I guess.

A new AP poll reveals that people think success would be better than failure and experience is a plus.

The AP reports:

Barack Obama said Tuesday evangelical leader James Dobson was “making stuff up” when he accused the presumed Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible.  Dobson used his Focus on the Family radio program to highlight excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.

Speaking to reporters on his campaign plane before landing in Los Angeles, Obama said the speech made the argument that people of faith, like himself, “try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us.”

Obama added, “I think you’ll see that he was just making stuff up, maybe for his own purposes.”

I guess Obama’s idea of “open and vigorous debate” doesn’t allow for any actual criticism.  (And what a strange ad hominem it is to accuse Dobson of acting “for his own purposes”!  Of course he’s acting for his own purposes, as is Obama and everyone else.)

Anyway, the AP article doesn’t give any of the substance of the debate.  It just presents it as a he-said, she-said sort of disagreement.  (I suppose from the AP’s perspective, how could anyone be right?  It’s just the Bible, after all.)  But, since it’s already established that Obama doesn’t understand the Bible (or doesn’t believe it, at least), I suspect that Dobson has the right of it.

When doing a news search for the previous post on “gaza truce fails“, two of the top five “news” articles were: The Nation, Pakistani edition (because the American version isn’t extreme enough, I guess), and Socialist Worker Online.

These are “news” sources?!  I would like to hear someone from Google try to explain this.

Israel’s repeated efforts to make peace with Palestinian terrorists have to be the very definition of the word “quixotic”. The latest cease-fire is in tatters after five days, and no one is surprised. (Actually, I’m a little surprised it lasted so long.) Few things in the world are certain, but two things you can predict with confidence are the outcomes of Cuban elections and Palestinian cease-fires.

(Via LGF.)

So says Jennifer Rubin:

Barack Obama is endangering his status as the media darling of the 2008 presidential campaign. In fact, he has been the villain in the campaign story over the last few days. Two decisions — one small and one large — showed the dangers he faces. And a third showed that the post-racial candidate is no longer in evidence.

It is no secret that the media has been openly rooting for Obama for months. His gaffes would have felled other candidates, his relationship with hate-mongering preachers would have disqualified mere mortal candidates and, of course, his lack of any national record of accomplishment might have prevented all much the most ego-inflated from even mounting a White House run. But it was hanging together fairly well until last week.

(Via Instapundit.)

Pretending he was already elected didn’t go over that well.  (Via Instapundit.)

I laughed out loud at this:

When the stormtroopers wear clown shoes instead of jackboots, it’s easy to forget that they’re still stormtroopers.