armchairgenius

Proof of Liberal Media Bias?

2005-05-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

Well not on that general of a scale, but it clearly shows how bias can affect media reporting. Of particular note is not so much the original version, which was clearly biased and factually inaccurate. But more important is the revision, which was clearly done in such a way as to attempt to paint republicans in a bad light, and democrats in a positive light where the facts in a way that is inconsistent with the facts.

And they wonder why Americans consider used car salespersons more trustworthy than the media....

Boarder Patrol Agents Told To Make Fewer Arrests?

2005-05-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.
More than a dozen agents, all of whom asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, said orders relayed by Border Patrol supervisors at the Naco, Ariz., station made it clear that arrests were "not to go up" along the 23-mile section of border that the volunteers monitored to protest illegal immigration.

Not good. If they are going to do this, I say we just fire them all and reform our immigration laws rather than spend millions for nothing.

Federal Judge Rules Nebraska's Same Sex Marriage Constitutional Amendment Unconstitutional.

2005-05-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

The opinion is here. Eugene Volokh has a good summary and response, and I generally agree with his analysis, and especially his conclusion that this will be overturned. I think it might be overturned on a more fundamental issue though: standing. It is not clear to me that the associations at issue should be allowed standing to challenge this constitutional amendment.

But more importantly, if the opinion were the law (it is not - it is a horribly flawed opinion frankly), the slippery-slope consequences would be astounding. The case would have to be limited to its facts to prevent those consequences, which is the hallmark of a bad decision.

It will be interesting to see just how harsh the appellate court is on this opinion.

Computer Generated Columns?

2005-05-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

I am starting to wonder if Bob Herbert even writes his columns anymore, or if he just has a collection of 50 anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war (outdated) talking points from which 8 or so are randomly selected and thrown into a column... It really makes you wonder if he is just so biased, he refuses to analyze any information from the last 6 months or so, or if he is just so out of touch with the news from Iraq that his columns appear to have been written a year ago.

And the NYTimes is trying to figure out why they are losing credibility? Here is a hint, trying cutting back to just either biased reporting and columns or factually inaccurate ones. When you combine both it makes it really hard to be taken seriously.

There are legitimate criticisms of the Iraq war, but you should probably have at least some of the facts before you try to make such a criticism. Clearly Herbert does not have those facts...

Irony.

2005-05-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- To a dessert shop customer, the severed fingertip found in a pint of frozen custard could be worth big dollars in a potential lawsuit. To the shop worker who lost it, the value is far more than monetary.

But Clarence Stowers still has the digit, refusing to return the evidence so it could be reattached. And now it's too late for doctors to do anything for 23-year-old Brandon Fizer.

"I'm not saying who has it, but somebody has it," Stowers said this week in a telephone interview, refusing to let on where the fingertip is now.

Soon after Stowers found the finger in a mouthful of chocolate soft-serve he bought Sunday at Kohl's Frozen Custard in Wilmington, he put it in his freezer at home, taking it out only occasionally to show to television cameras.

He refused to give it to the shop's owner, and refused to give it to a doctor who was treating Fizer, who accidentally stuck his hand in a mixing machine and had his right index finger lopped off at the first knuckle.

Medical experts say an attempt to reattach a severed finger can generally be made within six hours.

But according to the shop's management, Stowers wouldn't give it back when he was in the store 30 minutes after the accident.

"The general manager attempted to retrieve it and rush it to the hospital," reads a statement posted Thursday on Kohl's Web site. "Unfortunately, the customer refused to give it to her and declared that he would be calling the TV stations and an attorney as he exited the store."

Officials at Cape Fear Hospital said their efforts to retrieve the finger also failed.

Dr. James Larson, director of emergency medicine for UNC Hospitals, who was not involved in the case, said once Stowers took the finger home and froze it, it was too late to even try for reattachment.

So ultimately, this idiot that finds the finger in his ice cream (bad, but not the end of the world - its not like he actually put it in his mouth), tortiously causes the innocent kid to permanently lose his finger. And why? To possibly make a windfall of money from the store. Too bad the kid will probably win 2-3 times more (at a minimum) than this moron when he sues him for not giving him his finger back.

Plus, with the public behind them, the store will never settle with this guy, and even if he wins at trial, I guarantee you the kid's claim will (at least they will try) be tried with his suit (potentially the kid could assign his claim to the store or something to insure that happens - there is probably a workers' comp issue here that I am unfamilar with. I am pretty sure workers' comp preempts a tort claim against the employer, but not sure if (or why) it would preclude a claim against someone other than the employer - such as this customer).

So even if the customer wins at trial, he will almost assuredly also lose, and most likely more than he just won.

He is screwed, and frankly, he deserves to be screwed. What an idiot.

Greatest Footnote In The History Of Legal Opinions?

2005-05-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

I say so. Footnote 1 of this opinion, penned by the surprisingly pop culture savvy Judge Evans states:

The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch "hoe." A "hoe," of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden's response. We have taken the liberty of changing "hoe" to "ho," a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps "You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies."

Tremendous.

Buffett and Munger Warn of Real Estate Bubble.

2005-05-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

The comments cover a lot of ground and are a very good read. Here is what they had to say on the housing bubble:

Buffett: "A lot of the psychological well-being of the American public comes from how well they've done with their housew over the years. If indeed there's been a bubble, and it's pricked at some point, the net effect on Berkshire might well be positive [because the company's financial strength would allow it to buy real-estate-related businesses at bargain prices]....

"Certainly at the high end of the real estate market in some areas, you've seen extraordinary movement.... People go crazy in economics periodically, in all kinds of ways. Residential housing has different behavioral characteristics, simply because people live there. But when you get prices increasing faster than than the underlying costs, sometimes there can be pretty serious consequences."

Munger: "You have a real asset-price bubble in places like parts of California and the suburbs of Washington, DC. "

Buffett: "I recently sold a house in Laguna for $3.5 million. It was on about 2000 sq. ft of land, maybe a twentieth of an acre, and the house might cost about $500,000 if you wanted to replace it. So the land sold for something like $60 million an acre."

Munger: "I know someone who lives next door to what you would actually call a fairly modest house that just sold for $17 million. There are some very extreme housing price bubbles going on."

On the market and the dollar their comments are much more ominous and similar to my thoughts, it is not a question of if, it is a question of when:

Buffett: "That really is the $64,000 question. It seems to me that a $618 billion trade deficit, rich as we are, strong as this country is, well, something will have to happen that will change that. Most economists will still say some kind of soft landing is possible. I don't know what a soft landing is exactly, in how the numbers come down softly from levels like these....

"There are more people [like hedge-fund managers] that go to bed at night with a hair trigger than ever before, it's an electronic herd, they can give vent to decisions that move billions and billions of dollars with the click of a key. We will have some exogenous event, we will have that. There will be some kind of stampede by that herd....

"When you have far greater sums than ever before, in one asset class after another, that are held by people who operate on a hair-trigger mechanism, then they lend themselves to more explosive outcomes. People with very short time horizons with huge sums of money, they can all try to head for the exits at the same time. The only way you can leave your seat in burning financial markets is to find someone else to take your seat, and that is not always easy...."

Munger: "The present era has no comparable referent in the past history of capitalism. We have a higher percentage of the intelligentsia engaged in buying and selling pieces of paper and promoting trading activity than in any past era. A lot of what I see now reminds me of Sodom and Gomorrah. You get activity feeding on itself, envy and imitation. It has happened in the past that there came bad consequences."

Buffett: "I have no idea on timing. It's far easier to tell what will happen than when it will happen. I would say that what is going on in terms of trade policy is going to have very important consequences. "

Munger: "A great civilization will bear a lot of abuse, but there are dangers in the current situation that threaten anyone who swings for the fences."

Buffett to Munger: "What do you think the end will be?"

Munger: "Bad."

Buffett: "We're like an incredibly rich family that owns so much land they can't travel to the ends of their domain. And they sit on the front porch and consume a little bit of everything that comes in, all the riches of the land, and they consume roughly 6 percent more than they produce. And they pay for it by selling off land at the edge of the landholdings that can't see. They trade away a little piece every day or take out a mortgage on a piece.

"That scenario couldn't end well. And we, also, keep consuming more than we produce. It can go on a long time. The world has demonstrated a diminishing enthusiasm for dollars in the last few years as they get flooded with them – every day there's $2 billion more going out than in. I have a hard time thinking of any outcome from this that involves an appreciating dollar.

[But, Buffett later added, he is not predicting an end to US economic power:] "If you have a good business in this country that's earning dollars, you'll still do OK. Twenty years from now, a couple percentage points of GDP may go to servicing the deficit, but you'll do fine.... I don't think trade deficits will pull down the whole place; the country will survive those dislocations. I'm not pessimistic about the US at all.... We have over 80 percent of our money tied to the dollar. It's not like we've left the country."

U.S. Economy Slows Down

2005-05-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

The slow down is largely blamed on increasing crude oil prices. But I suspect that is just a small piece of the puzzle. Everyone knew crude oil prices would affect the U.S. economy, yet most economists didn't expect this severe of a slow down:

During the quarter, the gross domestic product -- the value of goods and services produced in the United States -- grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent, down from a 3.8 percent rate for 2004's fourth quarter, the US Commerce Department reported yesterday. Many economists had been looking for a first-quarter growth rate of 3.5 percent.

''Clearly, the economy lost momentum in the first quarter," said Nigel Gault, US economist at Global Insight, a Waltham forecasting firm. ''The farther we got into the quarter, the softer it got."

Sounds like it will probably get worse before it gets better....

Senate To Subpoena 2 Former-Volcker Committee Investigators

2005-04-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

The committee’s chairman, former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker, has been calling senators and congressmen, urging them not to subpoena the investigator, Robert Parton. Volcker has emphasized the confidentiality agreement in Parton’s contract and the U.N.-appointed committee’s diplomatic immunity, said Mike Holtzman, a spokesman for the Volcker committee.
But Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and has repeatedly called for Annan to resign, released a statement saying that he has ordered his staff to issue subpoenas as soon as possible to Parton and Miranda Duncan, a second investigator who also quit.

“I spoke with Mr. Volcker yesterday and expressed my grave and growing concerns about the credibility and independence of the investigation into the criminal misconduct that occurred in the U.N. oil-for-food program,” Coleman said.

At least two other congressional committees are considering subpoenas for the investigators, said Tom Costa, a spokesman for Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., one of the congressmen Volcker called.

I wonder why Volcker is so concerned about having the former investigators testify? Cover-up anyone?

350 Episodes Of The Simpsons.

2005-04-27T18:10:00.000-07:00

Wow. If you figure that each episode is about 24 minutes of content (after taking out advertising), that is 140 hours of content, or 11 2/3 days of watching 12 hours a day....

Proof That Private Pension Plans Are Superior To Social Security

2005-04-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

Pretty surprising to find this in the NYTimes, but look at this:

After comparing our relative payments to our pension systems (since salaries are higher in America, I had contributed more), we extrapolated what would have happened if I'd put my money into Pablo's mutual fund instead of the Social Security trust fund. We came up with three projections for my old age, each one offering a pension that, like Social Security's, would be indexed to compensate for inflation:

(1) Retire in 10 years, at age 62, with an annual pension of $55,000. That would be more than triple the $18,000 I can expect from Social Security at that age.

(2) Retire at age 65 with an annual pension of $70,000. That would be almost triple the $25,000 pension promised by Social Security starting a year later, at age 66.

(3)Retire at age 65 with an annual pension of $53,000 and a one-time cash payment of $223,000.

You may suspect that Pablo has prospered only because he's a sophisticated investor, but he simply put his money into one of the most popular mutual funds. He has more money in it than most Chileans because his salary is above average, but lower-paid workers who contributed to that fund for the same period of time would be in relatively good shape, too, because their projected pension would amount to more than 90 percent of their salaries.

What is surprising is how unsurprising this result is, yet there is still so much opposition to the privitization of social security. Would anyone be satisfied with the same return they receive from Social Security if they had put that money in a mutual fund? The answer is no. Everyone knows (and expects) to obtain a higher return on investment from their mutual fund than from Social Security (of course that is a pretty low expectation).

So this really begs the question, why would anyone be opposed to privitization of the Social Security program?

Filibuster Showdown Draws Closer.

2005-04-27T16:52:00.000-07:00

Of course one of the reasons there is a showdown at all is that one party (hint it starts with a "D") doesn't understand what democracy means....

"What makes it so dangerous for our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for one-party domination of all three branches of government," Gore said of the GOP in a speech. "They seek nothing less than absolute power."

Hmm. What about the fact that it was American democracy that put one-party in power of all three branches of government (two directly, and one via the Constitutional judicial appointment process)?

More Evidence Supporting A Volcker Committee Cover Up.

2005-04-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before here, there is significant evidence that the Volcker Committee is engaged in a cover up. Now there is more evidence from Roger Simon, who reports that one of the two senior investigators of that committee has gone public with the fact that he resigned from the committee on principle.

Specifically:

The investigator, Robert Parton, confirmed a report by The Associated Press earlier this week that he had resigned along with another investigator to protest recent findings by the committee that cleared U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of meddling in the $64 billion program.

Parton's statement comes after a member of the committee discounted reports that the two investigators had left the Independent Inquiry Committee because they believed the report was too soft on the secretary-general.

"Contrary to recent published reports, I resigned my position as Senior Investigative Counsel for the IIC not because my work was complete but on principle," Parton said.

It is ironic that those who claim to support the U.N. continue to support Kofi Annan and attack John Bolton when it is clear to me that both those actions, if successful, will just continue to allow the U.N. to fade into the history books as a slightly longer lived version of the League of Nations....

If you truly support the U.N., and you have any intelligence whatsoever, you would realize that it needs massive reform, including a massive house cleaning. And also people like John Bolton to be the guard dogs against future corruption (which is rampant at the U.N.).

Storms On The Horizon For The U.S. Economy?

2005-04-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

Inflation is surging, wages are flat, all sorts of deficits are exploding how do we sleep at night? Just imagine how we'd feel if the economy weren't doing reasonably well.

Is that underlying reality of a healthy economy about to change? It's an unsettling question, and one that is getting harder to answer. Hence the return in recent weeks of gut-wrenching volatility on Wall Street. The stock market cares little about the past. It strives to predict where the economy is headed, and watching the latest back and forth between bulls and bears is like watching a ballgame in which the lead keeps changing.

The U.S. economy is indeed in for a troubled future, and I really don't think there is any policy that will change that fact. You cannot legislate demographics (at least not in a democratic nation - so I exclude China from that statement).

The driver of the U.S. economy (and probably all economies) is productivity and consumer spending. Our workforce is disproportionately comprise of older workers - the baby boomers - who are starting to retire. As they retire they likely will spend less since they will have lower income streams. They will also start selling off their investments to fund their retirements, they will start selling their large homes to move into smaller ones, and of course they will no longer be working. At the same time, more and more people will be collecting social security income - starting in about 2017 this will require expenditures from the general tax revenue fund in addition to social security tax income - an additional drain on our government. And perhaps more importantly, these same people will need more and more help from medicare and medicade. And in addition to purely medical related costs there is the incredibly expensive, and largely prefunded expense of long term medical care once these retirees can no longer care for themselves.

So what you have is a major reduction in productivity corresponding to massive increases in the needs for government programs to care for our elderly. The economy will tank when this happens. The only real question is how bad it will get.

I for one plan my future with that 2017 date in mind. I will "only" be 42 on that date, but I want to be financial set at that point. Because it could get really, really ugly. I suspect my generation will not be as bad off as those 20 years behind us who will be entering the workforce at that point. Probably with massive school debt too. For them it is a dark future....

Are Newspapers Dying? Yes.

2005-04-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

The circulation of daily U.S. newspapers is 55.2 million, down from 62.3 million in 1990. The percentages of adults who say they read a paper "yesterday" are ominous:

65 and older -- 60 percent.

50-64 -- 52 percent.

30-49 -- 39 percent.

18-29 -- 23 percent.

Americans ages 8 to 18 spend an average of 6 hours and 21 minutes a day with media of all sorts but just 43 minutes with print media.

I bet there is a good percentage of high school students who hardly know what a newspaper is - that is scary. But really, why should they? They have lived in the internet age since the day they were born essentially. And why would anyone wait to read tomorrow what you can read online today? Really the only advantage that newspapers currently have is portability. You can bring a newspaper with you anywhere and read through it. But whereas content online is free, newspapers carry a price. And as technology improves newspapers will lose their portability advantage. And when that happens, the newspaper industry (as far as being print media) will be dead. It will exist almost essentially online or not at all.

I call it the toilet test. Once I can read online content on the toilet as conveniently as I can read the newspaper now, I will no longer need the newspaper. And I suspect that goes for the vast majority of current newspaper subscribers. It might take awhile, but in 10, 20, or maybe 30 years, newspapers will be essentially non-existent.

Title IX Graft.

2005-04-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

Title IX, the 1972 federal law mandating equal opportunity for females in high school and college sports, has helped spur huge changes. But its supporters have trouble believing their eyes. Despite the enormous gains for female athletes, they act as though the gains could be erased overnight.

They are currently outraged by a new Bush administration guideline that offers colleges a new way to show they are not discriminating--by asking all women students if they are interested in participating in athletics. If the number who say yes isn't enough to justify adding teams, a school would not have to do so.

The reaction was swift and harsh. Donna Lopiano, head of the Women's Sports Foundation, called it "incredibly bad policy that will disenfranchise generations of female athletes." The National Women's Law Center said the change "threatens to reverse the enormous progress women and girls have made in sports since the enactment of Title IX."

What about all the men who actually want to participate in sports who have had their programs cut in order to meet the Title IX equality requirements when the schools were unable to pay women to participate? That is right, schools have tried to bribe women into participating in sports and they still can't find any willing participants. Most often schools use rowing programs for women as it is a relatively inexpensive sport. See here, here, here, here, and here.

Essentially many of the Title IX proponents want to force women to play sports or force schools to cut men's programs if they can't find women willing to participate. It is simply a bad policy. The premise seems to be that all women want to play sports, they just don't feel they have the opportunities. Well Bush's new proposal will test that premise, and it is clear that those who make their livings off of Title IX graft are worried that this proposal will demonstrate what most know to be true. Despite the fact that 56% of college students are female, more male college students want to participate in sports than female college students.

Hopefully this proposal becomes the law. Gender discrimination is a two way street, and while it used to be females being discriminated against, the pendulum has swung and it is now male student-athletes who are being discriminated against.

In high school, girls outnumber boys in nearly every extracurricular activity except sports. One type of interest may preclude another. There has been a vast increase in athletic participation by females since 1972, but it has yet to match that of males, even in arenas where discrimination can't explain the gap.

College intramural sports, which are open to all, attract far more males than females. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example, the ratio is 3-1. At the University of California at Los Angeles, 69 percent of the intramural players are men. Women attending all-female schools are less likely to participate in intercollegiate athletics than men at comparable coeducational schools.

To get women and men to take part in anything close to equal numbers in varsity sports, schools have to do things like create scholarships and do extensive recruiting to fill female crew teams, even though it's hardly a sport in great demand. At the same time, many limit rosters in men's baseball and other sports, even for non-scholarship "walk-on" players.

Feminist groups complain that though women are a majority of college students, they account for only 41 percent of varsity athletes, as though disparity proves discrimination. In fact, it may show only that colleges know better than outside critics what female students want.

After all, these institutions can ill afford to alienate a group that makes up their chief clientele: Nationally, 56 percent of all undergraduates are female. Title IX aside, colleges are under intense competitive pressure to cater to their interests--athletic, artistic and academic. A school that shortchanges women in any way is a school that is inviting its own demise.

Feminists act as though we live in a world in which institutions of higher education are itching to relegate women to second-class status. But thanks in part to Title IX, that world is gone, and it's not coming back.

Well said.

When An Interracial Relationship, Is Not Interracial Enough For Liberals?

2005-04-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Kristof writes about interracial relationships in today's NY Times, but has some pretty absurd arguments when trying to criticize Hollywood for not representing the gains that have been made in society. For example Kristof writes:

The latest "Guess Who" is about a white man in love with a black woman, and that's a comfortable old archetype from days when slave owners inflicted themselves on slave women. Hollywood has portrayed romances between white men and (usually light-complexioned) black women, probably calculating that any good ol' boy seeing Billy Bob Thornton embracing Halle Berry in "Monster's Ball" is filled not with disgust but with envy.

Huh? So it is not good enough that they have an interracial relationship, it has to be the right mix of gender and race.... And the "usually light-complexioned" line just kills me. So according to Kristof some people are not "black enough," for Kristof. What a joke. Should this same logic be applied to affirmative action programs? We could set up two boxes, one for dark skinned African-Americans, and one for light-skinned persons. And only the dark skinned persons would qualify for the programs, because according to Kristof light-skinned minorities don't really count.

Pathetic. And racist really. I wonder why so many people think liberals are idiots, when this kind of logic is floated around.

"Guess who," and movies like that could be criticized for the fact that when a interracial couple is cast in Hollywood it is too often done to perform a plot function (i.e., it is intentional that the relationship is interracial). What we should be seeing more of is movies where race is irrelevant to the plotline, yet there is an interracial relationship.

Kristof tries to think of movies with interracial relationships and doesn't do a very good job. Just off the top of my head you have "Fools Rush In" with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek; Austin Powers (I forget which one, but the one with Mike Meyers and Beyonce - of course, maybe Beyonce doesn't count per Krisof's "logic"); Monster Ball was named by Kristof earlier; pretty much every Jennifer Lopez movie, but I was thinking primarily of "Out of Sight," where race was totally irrelevant to the plotline; and "The Bodyguard," with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. I am sure there are plenty more.

So to me Kristof's criticism rings hollow (and certainly seems uneducated). But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be more movies where there happens to be interracial relationships where race isn't a plot line. I can think of a half a dozen movies where I can think of a black actor that would have been much better in the lead role than the white actor. I wonder how many of those movies were cast without ever considering black actors. If any of them were, than that is a problem worth writing about. Kristof should engage is some actual journalism and find that out before he writes on this topic again.

I Don't Remeber This Class From Law School....

2005-04-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

Criminal defense attorney Ronald S. Miller does more than file briefs -- he also takes them off.
Miller has spent days in front of a judge and nights in front of a camera as Don Hollywood, a porn star. His wife, a former accountant, is also a porn star.
''My whole life, I've been one of those people who sees the wet paint sign and has to go up and touch it to see if it's wet,'' said the 56-year-old Miller. ''I want to experience everything, try everything.''

He has appeared in more than 90 films in the past seven years.

My Post 2005 NFL Draft (First Day) Predictions

2005-04-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

One of the beautiful things about having a blog is that you can make predictions on them, and then have proof when it turns out you are right. So in that spirit here are a few of mine:

(1) Troy Williamson will do almost nothing in the NFL, he will be a mediocre wideout at best. Mike Williams, on the other hand, will dominate the league (although I suspect that Detroit will have such a potent pass offense that it will be fairly random which WR gets the TDs etc., sort of like with Indy last year).

(2) Mike Williams will have a much better career than Braylon Edwards, and I sort of suspect Edwards will not have a good career. You hear rumors about him driving around campus in a Bentley, and you have to buy stock in the "flameout" category. There is a good chance he will just not put in the work necessary to be a great player, but we will see.

(3) Alex Smith will not be a successful NFL quarterback. I have 2 premises to support this prediction: (a) he will be rushed into starting at SF, and given how messed up that team is he will have no support (any QB at SF would fail right now); (b) he just doesn't have a sufficiently strong arm to be a success. When I see his highlight reel, all I can think is that if those throws were made in the NFL they would have all been picked off.

(4) Jason Campbell will be the starter by the end of the season in D.C., and he will also have a significantly better career than Alex Smith.

(5) Aaron Rodgers will be a success. He fell to a perfect situation, he won't have to start since Favre never gets hurt, and he can learn from the best. Plus despite the idiots on TV (only Mel Kiper got this right), Rodgers mechanics are perfect with one exception, he holds the ball to high. Well guess what, he was coached to do that in college. Which means (a) he didn't naturally do that, so it won't be as hard to change back or improve his ball position; and (b) he is very coachable. It probably will take him all of a month to fix where he holds the ball. And once he does that his mechanics are as good as they get. And compared to Smith, Rodgers has a cannon for an arm.

(6) "Pacman" Jones will not be a success. I don't care how fast he supposedly is, it seems to me he had to use that speed too often to recover against college wideouts, and in the NFL he won't be able to do that. Also, against a WR like Mike Williams he is screwed - he is only 5' 9, good luck covering a guy almost a foot taller.

(7) Matt Jones will be awesome. I don't care what position he plays at, he is going to be a huge impact player from day 1.

Troy Williamson?

2005-04-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Someone needs to explain to me why the Vikings took this guy, over Mike Williams. According to most analysts it is because he is the fastest WR in the draft. But if he is so fast, why did he only have 7 TDs and 43 receptions in his Junior year. And why was Mike Williams able to double that production in his freshman year, and do better than double that production in his sophomore year.

And is Williamson really that fast when he ran the 40 slower than Matt Jones, who is going to play tight end after being converted from a QB?

The Vikings are idiots.

Did Justice Blackmun Become A Clerk To His Clerks?

2005-04-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Via the Volokh Conspiracy, David Garrow concludes that Justice Blackmun became merely a clerk to his clerks in his final years on the Court. In support he relies primarily on a few notes from one clerk:

[Clerk Michelle] Alexander gave Blackmun a note that read, "This morning at breakfast you mentioned that you would like to release the death penalty dissent by the end of the calendar year. I think that is wise," because several pending cases offered appropriate opportunities. In particular, "there is little chance that a better vehicle for your dissent will come along before the end of the year" than Schlup v. Delo, an "extraordinary" capital case. In closing, she stated, "I would love to hear your thoughts."
Schlup was postponed, however, and Alexander reported that she had reviewed all petitioners with scheduled execution dates. "I recommend that you plan to release your dissent when Malcolm Rent Johnson is executed on January 31," she wrote. Alexander once again concluded her note by saying, "I'd love to hear your thoughts." One week later, with Johnson's execution indefinitely delayed, Alexander advised that "[i]nstead of searching for the ideal vehicle for the dissent, the dissent should be tailored for any death case," so that it simply could be issued whenever the next execution occurred. Two days later, she told Blackmun that she had revised the existing draft to remove the Gary Graham references, but explained, "I have not altered any of the cites. It is therefore unnecessary for you to recheck the cites for accuracy."[WOW!!] . . .

Readers of Alexander's and [clerk Andrew] Schapiro's memos may rightly wonder who was functioning as a justice, and who as a clerk. Alexander twice told Blackmun, "I would love to hear your thoughts" about the opinion, yet her memos suggest that Blackmun was most concerned with whether he should "recheck the cites."

I know nothing about the author of this article, David Garrow, but I strongly suspect he is not a lawyer, or certainly was never an associate at a large law firm (where you work for many masters so to speak). I think the notes are ambiguous at best. I work with many partners that are, how should I say, anal about citations or other similar details. Certain partners (or people more generally) have pet peeves and things they focus on in their work product. So I would be inclined to let them know that the citations didn't change so that they wouldn't have to double check them (or more likely, so that they wouldn't ask me if they had changed - you learn to anticipate questions which may be exactly what this note is doing).

The rest of the note - for example the "I think that is wise," comment is properly respectful and a bit brown nosing at the same time. It is something a good associate would write to a partner. And the "I would love to hear your thoughts," is similar to the way almost all associate to partner communications end - asking for any comments/input or whatever from the partner.

In short, the conclusions reached based on these notes are specious at best.

Whose Worse? The Celebrities, Or The People That Idolize Them?

2005-04-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

Via Drudge, here is some strong evidence that the celebrities are pathetic. Of course what that says for people that idolize them is probably just as bad.

I have never understood the celebrity-craze in this country. Most celebrities are some of the biggest losers you will ever meet in life. I certainly respect some of their talents (although more and more celebrities have less and less talent). But I can't imagine caring about their lives the way it seems most Americans do....

On a positive note though, I think there is a backlash against that trend - and it is somewhat intertwined with the backlash against democrats too.

Ignorant Ad Hominem Attacks....

2005-04-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, was interviewed for the show Q&A last week on CSPAN. During that interview he displayed his laptop which was adorned with several anti-GOP stickers. LittleGreenFootballs.com sums up the interview by apparently only focusing on those stickers and stating:

Arch political consultant and rising Democratic Party star Markos Moulitsas [] Zuniga of Daily Kos was interviewed on C-SPANs Q&A last Sunday, and proudly displayed his laptop computera revealing demonstration of the mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, debased state of the modern left.

But as someone who actually watched the entire interview, Kos came across as very reasonable and intelligent. In fact, LittleGreenFootballs, based on this article alone, comes across as the mean-spirited, and unreasonable party.

If you don't agree with Kos, you should probably try to take on his arguments on the merits. And before you criticize him for something, you probably should at least watch the interview. For example, I wonder if LGF knows what Kos said about Fox News? He actually noted that his sticker was inaccurate in representing his views. He thought highly of Fox News vis a vis its power in pushing its ideology. He was just critical of it for claiming it was fair and balanced when it was biased. I would agree with that. But I would also say the same point can be made with equal force about the NYTimes, CNN, etc., and their clear liberal bias.

Kos didn't want to take Fox News off the air, to the contrary, he hoped the left would create their own version of that network. You would think Soros would be all over something like that by now.

Its too bad LGF didn't actually watch the interview before posting about it.

Zero Sum Game.

2005-04-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Maureen Dowd has a good column today, until she tries to use political corruption as a partisan attack:

It's a far cry from today's lobbying. Sleazoid lawmakers like Tom DeLay gulp down the graft from sleazoid lobbyists like Jack Abramoff, who took Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader, to play golf in Scotland in 2000 as part of a $70,000 trip with Mr. DeLay's wife and staff, and for a six-day "fact finding" trip to Moscow in 1997.

If there are any ethics questions, Republicans helpfully gut the House Ethics Committee, while DeLay & Co. try to gut the New Deal.

Before he became a $750-an-hour superlobbyist accused of defrauding Indian tribes of tens of millions of their gambling dollars and pitting them against one another to pay for lavish trips for congressmen, "Casino Jack" had never been a White House wise man or spent years in public service. He produced B movies like "Red Scorpion" and "Red Scorpion 2."

Unlike the cultivated Tommy, who was a bit of a Robin Hood, taking care of lots of people who were down and out, Mr. Abramoff leeched off a group that's always gotten gypped and then wrote ugly e-mail deriding his Indian clients as "monkeys" and "idiots."

Another lobbyist, Tongsun Park, a South Korean at the center of a Congressional bribery scandal in the 1970's known as Koreagate, blasted back from the past this week. Mr. Park has been charged with secretly collecting at least $2 million from Saddam Hussein for clandestine help setting up the corrupt U.N. oil-for-food program and carting away bags of cash from Iraq's diplomats in New York, partly to bribe a U.N. official.

Not exactly broad daylight with a brass band. More like midnight in the sewer.

I am all for indicting dirty politicians, and trying to clean up politics. But it is naive, to say the least, to think that either party is "less dirty," than the other. So if you are trying to push a partisan agenda, you might not want to choose this route for your attack strategy....

Volcker Committee Cover-up?

2005-04-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

Great info, as always, from Roger Simon, including linking to this NY Sun article, that states in part:

The lawyer for a key witness who cooperated with the U.N. committee investigating the oil-for-food scandal says the panel allowed itself to be manipulated into discrediting his client by Secretary-General Annan's attorney, Greg Craig, a former aide to President Clinton.
The lawyer, Adrian Gonzalez, who represents Kojo Annan's former business partner Pierre Mouselli, said the Volcker committee was persuaded to discount the testimony of his client by Mr. Craig. Kojo Annan is the secretary-general's son.

Mr. Craig, a Washington attorney who was chief White House strategist in the Clinton impeachment proceedings, "was able to contact the committee to pressure them, and the committee allowed itself to be manipulated by him," Mr. Gonzalez told The New York Sun in an interview.

Democrats' Social Security Calculator Rigged To Provide False Information.

2005-04-12T17:23:00.000-07:00

Democrats have been using a web-based "calculator" to generate individualized answers to the question, "How much will you lose under Bush privatization plan?" For young, low-wage workers it projects cuts of up to 50% in benefits. And a $1-million TV advertising campaign is amplifying the claim, saying, "Look below the surface (of Bush's plan) and you'll find benefit checks cut almost in half."

In fact, the calculator is rigged. We find it is based on a number of false assumptions and deceptive comparisons. For one thing, it assumes that stocks will yield average returns of only 3 percent per year above inflation. The historical average is close to 7 percent.

The calculator's authors claim that they use the same assumption used by the Congressional Budget Office. Actually, CBO projects a 6.8 percent gain.
. . . .

Independent economists consulted by the bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board in 2001 said stocks might not do quite so well in the future, but their range of estimates was still between 5.5 percent and 6.5 percent -- or roughly double the figure used by the Democrats' rigged calculator. Peter A. Diamond, Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told FactCheck.org, "values around 6.0% or 6.5% seem to me appropriate for projection purposes." John B. Shoven, Professor of Economics at Stanford University, wrote, "My own estimate for the long-run real return to equities looking forward is 6 to 6.5 percent." And the lowest estimate came from John Y. Campbell, Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He wrote that "A rough guess for the long term . . . might be a geometric average equity return of 5 percent to 5.5 percent." Compounded yearly over a working lifetime, even a 5 percent return would produce vastly higher benefits than a 3 percent return.

What CBO Says

To justify their lowball 3 percent figure, the calculator's authors state that it is "the same assumption used by the CBO for its Social Security analysis." That's not entirely true.

It's a fact that the Congressional Budget Office did publish a study of a proposed system of individual accounts in which it used a "risk-adjusted" figure of 3 percent for one part of its analysis. But in another part of the same study the CBO assumed that stocks would return an average of 6.8 percent. A series of 500 different computer simulations of possible future outcomes showed a very low likelihood that actual future returns would be as low as 3 percent, and a decent probability that returns would be even better than 7 percent.

The "risk-adjusted" figure is an arcane concept that we won't attempt to dissect here, except to say that it is essentially equal to the expected return on risk-free, interest-bearing Treasury securities. And by using that figure in one set of calculations, CBO was not predicting stock gains of a measly 3 percent over inflation. That would be a massive turn for the worst in the economy.

Just to be sure about that, we checked with the CBO's director, Douglas Holtz-Eakin:

FactCheck.org: Does CBO's use of a 3 percent "risk-adjusted" figure constitute a prediction by CBO that equities (stocks) will return only 3 percent in the future?

Holtz-Eakin: That's the way its been portrayed. That's wrong. We assume that equities will return 6.8 percent in the future.

. . . .
Both the calculator and the ad also employ other misleading assumptions. Both assume that Bush's plan involves pegging the rise in future benefits to prices, rather than to wages as under current law. Because prices rise more slowly than wages, that would indeed produce future benefit levels that are lower than currently promised, essentially freezing benefits at the buying power they have today. The current system of "wage indexing" is expected to push the purchasing power of future benefit levels to nearly double what they are today over the next 75 years.

However, whether freezing benefit levels at their current buying power would thus constitute a "cut" is debatable, to say the least. In fact, Bush hasn't actually proposed "price indexing" or any other specific plan to restore solvency to the system. He has ruled out tax increases, implying he'd lean most heavily if not entirely on holding down benefit growth.

Compared to What?

Both the ad and the calculator use benefits promised under current law as their basis for comparison, but they fail to mention that current tax rates can't support those benefit levels beyond 2041. According to the latest projection of the Social Security trustees, benefits would then have to be cut 26 percent at that time, and that reduction would grow every year thereafter. Compared to the actual level of benefits that can be supported by the current system, Bush's supposed "cuts" would be much smaller.

Put another way, maintaining benefit growth at the level assumed by the calculator and the ad would require a tax increase, something not mentioned.

Much more at factcheck.org. Essentially the Democrats are engaged in outright fraud. This is what is wrong with politics in America, no one can just make their point on the merits they have to rely on outrageous claims and, as in this case, pure deception and fraud to try to support their positions. If your position really has merit, why do you need to bolster it via such deception?

Taxpayer groups need to start suing.

Another Example Of Blatant Hypocrisy.

2005-04-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Via Powerline:

Senator Pat Leahy, on the Senate floor, March 7, 2000 (p. S 1210):

The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said:
The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee, but after the necessary time for inquiry, it should vote him up or vote him down.
Which is exactly what I would like.

Senator Charles Schumer, same day (p. S 1211):

The basic issue of holding up judgeships is the issue before us, not the qualifications of judges, which we can always debate. The problem is it takes so long for us to debate those qualifications. It is an example of Government not fulfilling its constitutional mandate because the President nominates, and we are charged with voting on the nominees. The Constitution does not say if the Congress is controlled by a different party than the President there shall be no judges chosen. But that is sometimes how the majority has functioned.
I also plead with my colleagues to move judges with alacrityvote them up or down. But this delay makes a mockery of the Constitution, makes a mockery of the fact that we are here working, and makes a mockery of the lives of very sincere people who have put themselves forward to be judges and then they hang out there in limbo.

I am sure there are many (many) more examples of this type of thing. The filibuster and Constitution aside, how can a Senator claim to be truly representing the people if he or she refuses to allow votes to happen? If the judicial nominee is really so unworthy, don't you think you should be able to convince a half dozen moderate Republican senators of that fact? And vice-versa when it is a Democratic president.

Acceptance Is The First Step - Sounds Like The Press Is Still In Denial To Me.

2005-04-12T05:55:00.000-07:00

In today's NYTimes, Nicholas Kristof notes the almost total lack of trust and confidence in the press:

A recent report from the Pew Research Center, "Trends 2005," is painful to read. The report says that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing in their daily newspapers, up from 16 percent two decades ago.

In this kind of environment, it's not surprising that journalists are headed for jail. The safety net for American journalism throughout history has been not so much the First Amendment - rather, it's been public approval of the role of the free press. Public approval is our life-support system, and it is now at risk.

Since 1973, the National Opinion Research Center has measured public confidence in 13 institutions, including the press. All of the other institutions have generally retained a good measure of public respect, but confidence in the press has fallen sharply since 1990.

Those of us in the press tend to get defensive about our dwindling credibility. We protest that we've been made scapegoats by partisan demagogues, particularly on the right, and I think that's true. But distrust for the news media, even if it's unfair, is the new reality - and we will have to work much, much harder to win back our credibility with the public.

In any case, it's not just right-wingers who distrust the media these days. The Pew Research Center found that while only 14 percent of Republicans believe all or most of what they read in The New York Times, even among Democrats the figure is only 31 percent. Other major news organizations face the same challenge. The Fox News Channel is considered credible by fewer than one-third of the Republicans - and an even smaller number of Democrats. Indeed, it's a rare news organization that is trusted by more than one-third of the people in either party: the one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on is that the news media are not trustworthy.

But Kristof, while suggesting reforms and improvements fails to accept these criticisms at face value. The fact is, as a collective group, the main stream media does tend to be arrogant. And more importantly, ignorant. Until that changes these numbers will never increase. Hiring the same type of people with different ideological viewpoints won't change that. And being more transparent about the process, and more willing to issue corrections won't change that.

The press needs to start researching stories thoroughly and writing them objectively and accurately in the first instance. And reporters cannot continue to search for stories that simply confirm their personal ideology (no matter what ideology that happens to be).

Frankly, until the press becomes dominated by non-partisans, people with no true party affiliation, trust will never really be restored in the press.

The 65% Solution.

2005-04-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

Patrick Byrne, a 42-year-old bear of a man who bristles with ideas that have made him rich and restless, has an idea that can provide a new desktop computer for every student in America without costing taxpayers a new nickel. Or it could provide 300,000 new $40,000-a-year teachers without any increase in taxes. His idea -- call it the 65 Percent Solution -- is politically delicious because it unites parents, taxpayers and teachers while, he hopes, sowing dissension in the ranks of the teachers unions, which he considers the principal institutional impediment to improving primary and secondary education.
The idea, which will face its first referendum in Arizona, is to require that 65 percent of every school district's education operational budget be spent on classroom instruction. On, that is, teachers and pupils, not bureaucracy.
Nationally, 61.5 percent of education operational budgets reach the classrooms. Why make a fuss about 3.5 percent? Because it amounts to $13 billion. Only four states (Utah, Tennessee, New York, Maine) spend at least 65 percent of their budgets in classrooms. Fifteen states spend less than 60 percent. The worst jurisdiction -- Washington, D.C., of course -- spends less than 50 percent.

Very interesting. And after just a quick review, a very solid idea. I hope the referendum in Arizona passes so that it can act as a trial state.

And They Say Bloggers Aren't Real Journalists?

2005-04-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

Robert Novak writes in today's Chicago Sun Times:

On March 24, former Congressman Bob Livingston was sent an e-mail by a New York Times editorial page staffer suggesting he write an op-ed essay. Would Livingston, who in 1998 gave up certain elevation to be House speaker because of a sexual affair, write about how Majority Leader Tom DeLay should now act under fire? In a subsequent conversation, it was made clear the Times wanted the prominent Republican to say DeLay should step aside for the good of the party.

When did the New York Times officially become a PAC? And don't they realize this will just backfire? When Fox News and its ilk dominate mass media, and 70% of voters are Republicans, don't say I didn't warn you.

Why Surfing Might Be Bad For Your Health....

2005-04-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

Computer keyboards are havens for some nasty superbugs that can live nestled in among the keys for at least 24 hours, a new study finds.

The study led by epidemologist Dr. Gary Noskin finds that keyboards get easily contaminated by germs.

And that's especially bad news for hospitals. There, these germs can take the form of antibiotic-resistant germs that can contaminate the hands of nurses or doctors and then are passed on to patients.
. . . .

Best defence

Given the challenge in cleaning keyboards, Noskin advises that frequent handwashing is the best defence.

For health care workers, he noted that hand washing before using a computer is "superfluous," as "contamination can be transmitted from the keyboard to the hands of health-care workers.''

"So the best intervention would be to wash your hands (after using a computer) before you have direct contact with a patient,'' he tells The Canadian Press from Los Angeles, where he's presenting his findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

For the study, Noskin's team contaminated some keyboards with three types of bacteria commonly found in hospitals: VRE; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA); and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Both VRE and MRSA survived on a keyboard 24 hours after contamination, according to the study.

VRE can cause urinary tract infections and infections at the entry sites of intravenous or dialysis lines.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, meanwhile, can cause pneumonia, urinary tract and bloodstream infections. The study found that this bacteria can last up to an hour on keyboard surfaces.

Noskin says that cleaning the keyboards with soap and water proved ineffective. A hospital-grade germicide did do the job, but regular use of these solutions could take a toll on the devices.

Sounds like it is time for someone to invent some sort of disposable keyboard, or keyboard cover....

CNN'S Klein Sums Up Fox's Success.

2005-04-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Via Volokh Conspiracy:

Charlie Rose: If [somebody came in] and said, we believe there is the absence of progressive opinion as people now believe on cable news, would that have been successful as FOX has been? My question said another way: Is it the fact that they have some, a formula, and it doesn`t matter what the politics are, or the politics make a difference?

JONATHAN KLEIN: They've tapped into an outrage that's lurking among a certain small segment of the population, mostly angry white men, and those men tend to be rabid. They tend to be habitual. They tend to like to have their points of view reinforced. And a, quote/unquote, "progressive" or liberal network probably couldn't reach the same sort of an audience, because liberals tend to like to sample a lot of opinions. They pride themselves on that. And you know, they don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic. And so, you know, they allow for a lot of that stuff. You know, the -- FOX is very appealing to people who like to get worked up over things.

By "small segment," I guess he means a population about 10 times larger than the viewing audience of CNN? I should note, I don't watch FOX News, and frankly for the most part can't stand to watch it. But CNN can be just as bad too. And MSNBC is just awful the two times I watched it for 5 minutes in the last year or so....

And in my experience Democrats are as judgmental if not more so than Republicans (I think using party descriptors is more accurate than ideological tags for this point). Granted most of the issues Democrats tend to focus on are shallow and materialistic - is that what moral relativism means? :) As someone who truly is in the center, and who really does keep an open mind for the most part, I find both Democrats and Republicans tend to be pretty closed minded. The main difference I see, is that Republicans tend to think their positions are morally superior, and Democrats tend to think their positions are intellectually superior.

I generally find on issues where some superiority is asserted to support the position, the position usually has problems that the proponent fails to address.

Health Care Crisis?

2005-04-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

According to Paul Krugman, the U.S. has a health care crisis. As evidence, Krugman cites the rising costs of health care in the U.S. He also states:

Finally, the U.S. health care system is wildly inefficient. Americans tend to believe that we have the best health care system in the world. (I've encountered members of the journalistic elite who flatly refuse to believe that France ranks much better on most measures of health care quality than the United States.) But it isn't true. We spend far more per person on health care than any other country - 75 percent more than Canada or France - yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.

I don't know if the U.S. or France has a better healthcare system. But I do know that the things Krugman states above don't shed any light on the answer to that question. Cost has no bearing on quality (except you would think the higher the cost the better, but perhaps Americans overpay). Neither does life expectancy or infant mortality. Infant mortality is probably due to factors other than the health care system, I highly doubt many of those infants die because of poor treatment. And life expectancy probably has a lot more to do with lifestyle choices than health care.

Krugman concludes:

The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results.

Over the next few weeks I'll back up these assertions, and talk about what a workable health care reform might look like, if we can get ideology out of the way.

Given the lacking analysis in this piece, I don't have very high hopes for his vision for heath care reform....

Not To Be Mean, But If Someone Falls For This, Maybe It Is Better If They Don't Vote...

2005-04-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

Kerry also cited examples Sunday of how people were duped into not voting.

"Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you've ever had a parking ticket, you're not allowed to vote," he said.

At least no one did anything illegal like slash the tires of all the transport vans used to offer rides to the polls... oh, wait, the Democrats did that in Wisconsin...

Update: Powerline weighs in on this too. As usual, much more eloquently than me.

Another Failed Attempt To Regulate "Vice."

2005-04-09T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've talked about this before on this site, but it turns out those red light cameras (which are supposedly justified by trying to reduce accidents - but really are just about revenue production), actually increase accidents. While this would seem counter-intuitive, I actually think it is very intuitive. Running a red light rarely ends in an accident because there is a delay in time between the change in light for cross traffic and also, in theory, those drivers look for speeding cars. On the other hand, when someone slams on their breaks at the instant the light turns yellow, bad things happen.

So I say good riddance to these things. The tickets they issue are probably not enforceable anyway.

Things Like This Are Why I Am Not A Democrat.

2005-04-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Via Powerline:

Yesterday Yale Law School grad ('00) Leah Mesfin wrote to alert us to this weekend's doings at the law school. Leah noted that she'd started reading us in connection with our coverage of the Republican convention this past September. She wrote:

Recently I got an invitation from the YLS to register for an upcoming conference at YLS called "The Constitution in 2020." Their plan is simple - they plan to congregate to produce a vision of what the Constitution should be for 2020 and then to collaborate on how to use their influence and judicial power to accomplish it. Their posts with their plans for the conference are here.
I wrote this because I thought you and the rest of your readers might be interested in knowing how these elitist moronic are conveniently drafting us a new Constitution since we're too dumb to govern ourselves. The posts and the whole project are so deeply offensive on a variety of different levels. Who do these people think that they are that they can effectively draft a new Constitution for the rest of America? They're a handful of elitist, unelected, out of touch, narcissistic, overpaid, underwriter, downright foolish liberal intellectuals that think they are more righteous than God, and therefore, by divine right, are the only ones worthy of the task.

Even if I agree with many of the values and principles of this movement, the anti-democratic way they are trying to push their agenda bothers me. Of course, given the idiocy of the way the Democratic party is run, and the fact that things like this just push more people to vote Republician, I am pretty sure this will backfire. And we will end up with a more and more extreme right-wing judiciary, and a correspondingly more conservative/traditionalist interpretation of the Constitution as the binding law.

There is much more to this post over at Powerline.

Why Republicans Should Be Cautious But In Good Spirits.

2005-04-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

David Brooks, as usual, has an excellent op-ed piece in today's New York Times. A very good read.

Pssst, Let It Go...

2005-04-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

Now that it has been confirmed that the Schiavo talking points memo was indeed written by a Republican staffer, Powerline still can't let go. Yes, there still are unanswered questions. But are they really important ones? Not really. It is fairly clear that the memo states what many of the Republicans were thinking anyway -- we can score political points with the religious right by passing this bill. (Obviously, they weren't thinking about the law when they drafted the bill - they didn't even attempt to draft a bill that would pass constitutional scrutiny).

I would rather see a correction/apology from Congress and the Senate than the Washington Post at this point. But I don't think one will be forthcoming from any of the above.

Speaking Of Lying Democrats....

2005-04-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Pelosi states:

This is the first time that a President of the United States has declared that we, the United States Government, will not put the full faith and credit of the federal government behind the Social Security trust fund. What this President is saying is, we have two kinds of debt. Let's see how we get the debt first. It is in deficit spending, so we have to go borrow in order to keep the government going.
So where does he borrow? He borrows from the Chinese. He borrows from the Japanese. He borrows from the trust fund. And what he is saying now to the American worker: "We will honor our debt to the Chinese and the Japanese, but we are treating you differently. We are not honoring our debt to you." These are funds that workers and their employers put in the account to have a trust fund to cover any shortfall that would be there to cover their retirement benefits. And this President is openly declaring that he has no intention of paying the trust fund back what he has taken from it.

First, I am pretty sure Bush never said that. Second, even if he did - he couldn't do anything about it. He will have been out of office for a decade by the time the decision needs to be made as to whether we pay back funds to the trust fund or not. Also, there is a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul here that Pelosi doesn't understand or simply decides not to discuss. Who is the "we" paying back funds to "the American worker," it is the American worker.

What a pretty circle.

The Key To The Republicans' Success?

2005-04-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

David Brooks thinks it is, at least in part, that it is a party of diverse viewpoints and corresponding debate:

Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly. As these factions have multiplied, more people have come to call themselves conservatives because they've found one faction to agree with.

In the early days of National Review, many of the senior editors didn't even speak to one another. Whittaker Chambers declared that the writings of Ayn Rand, a hero of the more libertarian right, reeked of fascism and the gas chambers. Rand called National Review "the worst and most dangerous magazine in America."

It's been like that ever since - neocons arguing with theocons, the old right with the new right, internationalists versus isolationists, supply siders versus fiscal conservatives. The major conservative magazines - The Weekly Standard, National Review, Reason, The American Conservative, The National Interest, Commentary - agree on almost nothing.

This feuding has meant that the meaning of conservatism is always shifting. Once, Republicans were isolationists. Now most Republicans, according to a New York Times poll, believe the U.S. should try to change dictatorships into democracies when it can. Meanwhile, 78 percent of Democrats believe the U.S. should not try to democratize authoritarian regimes.

I think he is right. As someone who could just as easily vote for a Democrat as a Republican (ideologically speaking), one thing that tends to turn me off from Democrats is that they push a message even when it is made apparent that message is wrong, or doesn't account for certain facts. They come across as liars (or, alternatively, as too stupid to understand they are wrong). This may work on less educated voters, but it doesn't work on people who think for themselves. Perhaps this is part of the recent trouble for Democrats, more and more people are becoming college educated, and thinking critically.

This is one of the reasons I despised Kerry. He attacked Bush for saying there was a problem with Social Security. Well guess what, anyone with a clue about Social Security knew there was a problem. A mere few weeks after Kerry lost that is a universally accepted fact - no one doubts that Social Security has a problem. The only debate is how to solve that problem.

Nothing changed factually between the campaign months and now - so it is obvious that Kerry was in fact lying when he said Social Security was fine. Not a good strategy. Bush won despite the fact most people disagreed with his foreign policy (especially the Iraq war) because people believed him. He actually says what he believes.

If Democrats ever want to win again, they need to figure out what they stand for, why that is a good thing, and then honestly explain it to America. This "I have a plan," but I am not going to tell you what it is crap won't fly. Nor will simply saying that things are fine when you know they aren't. The Democrats should have been leading the charge to fix social security, not claiming it was fine. What idiots. And liars. Do they still wonder why they lost?

Maybe Not A Mandate For Bush, But Is It An Epitaph For Democrats?

2005-04-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

DailyKos writes:

Can we quit with the "popular president" schtick?
Here are the ratings for presidents as recorded by Gallup in the March following their re-election:
Truman, 1949: 57%.
Eisenhower, 1957: 65%.
Johnson, 1965: 69%.
Nixon, 1973: 57%.
Reagan, 1985: 56%.
Clinton, 1997: 59% .
Bush, 2005: 45%
There's a "mandate" for you. 11 points less popular than the next least popular president at this point in their term.

What does it say for Democrats that they couldn't even beat such an unpopular president? This coupled with John Fund's analysis of election results should be scaring the hell out of the Democrats.

Insert Obligatory Stone Throwing Proverb Here

2005-04-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

Apparently Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has done the exact same things as Tom DeLay vis-a-vis PAC funding of trips.

"Given the actions of the minority leader vis-a-vis the majority leader and other Republicans, I'm having a little trouble finding where the outrage is coming from these groups that continue to pound on Republican members," a senior Republican lawmaker said on the condition of anonymity.
The lawmaker said nothing distinguished Mrs. Pelosi's actions from those of Mr. DeLay and other Republicans that she has criticized. He also said the questions about Mrs. Pelosi rise to the point of an ethics complaint.
"I think the minority leader ought to be subject to the same type of scrutiny as other members," he said.
Campaign-watchdog groups said it doesn't appear that Mrs. Pelosi or her staff member broke any rules, but said the timing looks bad.
"Anytime a member of their staff gets trips to Europe, it raises questions," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "Add to it the idea that the organization is thanking Pelosi, it just adds to it."
Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center, which has challenged Mrs. Pelosi's campaign fundraising in the past, said the trip looks shady.
"I think it looks like she's doing legislative favors for donors, because she is," he said.
Mr. Boehm said Mrs. Pelosi's actions are starting to look like a pattern. He has questioned Mrs. Pelosi's earmark in early 2003 of $1 million to a University of San Francisco research center named after Leo T. McCarthy, who has been treasurer of her political action committees.

I say a pox on both their houses.

But Would They Start Calling The Popemobile The Falcon?

2005-04-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

From the Volokh Conspiracy:

My favorite candidate name for the new pontiff: Pope Lando II.

I agree. Now they just need a really hairy cardinal to be his running-mate....

Self-Selection Responsible For Liberal Bias On College Campuses?

2005-04-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

According to Krugman that is the reason why. Pretty humorous (even if unintentionally so) op-ed piece.

Part of the explaination is also probably that losing politicians and their staff/advisors need to find something to do, and since more often than not the loser is a Democrat, that explains some of the population imbalance too....

Senator Coleman Renews His Call For Annan To Resign

2005-04-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

In a Star Tribune op-ed, Senator Coleman writes:

After reading Wednesday's error-ridden and specious editorial, I feel compelled to review the facts behind my call for the resignation of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

For six months, I have insisted that Annan be held accountable for the U.N.'s gross mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program. Last week, the U.N.'s own investigators issued a report criticizing Annan's own conduct -- including his failure to resolve a serious conflict of interest concerning his son -- and the conduct of his chief of staff.

The Volcker report did not "exonerate" Annan, as many have claimed; to the contrary, it pointed the finger directly at him. Indeed, one member of Volcker's committee, Mark Pieth, made that point loud and clear: "We did not exonerate Kofi Annan."

With that in mind, I reiterate my call for Annan's resignation.

Let's review the facts: Nearly one year ago, as chairman of the Senate permanent subcommittee on Investigations, I initiated a bipartisan, comprehensive investigation into the Oil-for-Food scandal. Our investigation showed that the U.N. terribly mismanaged the program.

Annan, as the U.N.'s CEO, is ultimately responsible for the organization's performance. My call for Annan's resignation was not, and is not, based on the misconduct of his son; instead, Annan must be held accountable for his failures and his organization's widespread ineptitude. In short, the buck stops with Annan.

Since I called for his resignation, an avalanche of evidence concerning the U.N.'s mismanagement of the program emerged:

• Volcker's investigators exposed the corrupt activities of Benon Sevan, Annan's hand-picked chief of the program. Our subcommittee released evidence showing that Sevan received lucrative oil allocations from Saddam Hussein, including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry estimating Sevan's profits at $1.2 million.

• The U.N. investigators also released 58 internal audits that revealed numerous instances of rampant mismanagement by the U.N., exposing a program rife with sloppy stewardship and riddled with "overcharges,"double charge[s]" and other "unjustified" waste of more than $100 million.

• Our subcommittee disclosed overwhelming evidence that a U.N. agent took a bribe of $105,000 to help Saddam cheat the Program.

• The Volcker committee determined that the U.N.'s process for awarding three multi-million-dollar contracts in the program was "tainted."

Last week, the avalanche continued. Specifically, the Volcker report found that the secretary-general failed to adequately investigate or remedy a serious conflict of interest -- namely, that the U.N. had awarded a massive contract to the company that employed Annan's son.

Most disturbing was the Volcker panel's finding concerning Annan's chief of staff, who -- on the day after the Volcker committee was created -- authorized the destruction of three years' worth of documents. This report did not "exonerate" Annan -- rather, it chastises him for yet another serious lapse of management, and identifies more serious misconduct by Annan's hand-picked advisers.

This newspaper, like Volcker's committee, was mistaken when it wrote that "the secretary general is not involved in procurement decisions."

The program's rules clearly obligate the secretary-general to appoint the U.N.'s inspection agents. The agreement between the Secretariat and Iraq states: "The arrival of goods in Iraq purchased under the plan will be confirmed by independent inspection agents to be appointed by the Secretary-General." The rules of the Security Council committee similarly obligate Annan to appoint the inspection agents.

The secretary-general's failings, however, are not limited to past mismanagement. For instance, he has failed to strip Sevan's diplomatic immunity, despite the wealth of evidence establishing Sevan's misconduct. Worse, the U.N. also agreed to reimburse Sevan out of oil revenues from the program for his hefty legal fees resulting from its investigation. That the U.N. would pay for Sevan's defense, when it has found him responsible for unethical misconduct, is beyond comprehension.

Only after an international uproar did the U.N. reverse its decision.

Despite this evidence, this newspaper alleged that my call for Annan's resignation was motivated by some connection with the White House. That claim is patently false. The administration disagrees with my call for Annan's resignation, and offered its support: "We continue to support Secretary-General Annan in his work at the United Nations." While we agree that the U.N. desperately needs reform, we simply disagree on whether Annan is the right person to effect those reforms.

The U.N. is a vital institution for the United States and the world, with the unique ability to lead an international response to global problems like nuclear proliferation, the horrifying spread of HIV-AIDS, economic and political rebuilding in war-torn regions, and worldwide poverty.

Because of its rarefied position, the U.N. must regain its credibility and fulfill its obligations with impeccable integrity.

These are the facts. And those facts point to an inescapable conclusion: For the good of the U.N., Kofi Annan must step aside and a true reformer be appointed. The time for half-measures passed long ago.

Exactly. Anyone who cares about the U.N. as a viable institution should demand Annan's resignation. Those who want the U.N. to go away loved it when Annan said "hell no" when asked if he would resign.

Instapundit links to another report along similar lines.

The U.S. Economy's Albatross

2005-04-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Confronted with soaring home prices, Californians are adopting a "buy now, pay later" strategy on a massive scale. The boom in interest-only loans -- nearly half the state's home buyers used them last year, up from virtually none in 2001-- is the engine behind California's surging home prices.
But all that borrowed money might be living on borrowed time. When higher bills start coming due, Herron and hundreds of thousands of other homeowners in the state will have to find ways to cope -- or will have to sell.

In the most dire scenario, if they owe more on the home than it's worth, they'll simply walk away. Abundant foreclosures could spark a downturn in the entire housing market, leading to the long-feared bursting of what some call a housing bubble.

Interest-only loans, and other forms of so-called creative financing that are far riskier than the traditional 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, have allowed more people to afford homes in California even as prices have skyrocketed.

Interest-Only Mortgages - simply brilliant.... This can't end well.

This Just In: Stupid Poll Questions Lead To Odd Results

2005-04-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Via Powerline, Zogby asked the following question, and somehow people are taking this to have some relation to the Terry Schiavo situation:

If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.
A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.

So what this means to me is that 21 percent of the people understood what the question was trying to ask, and the others didn't want us to start starving people in wheelchairs. This question defines the class of people way too broadly. Someone with carpal tunnel syndrome falls into this question. The question almost seems to be about torture or some sort of Logan's Run solution for disabled people. It is just a really bad question, and is so flawed it has no real value whatsoever.

I wonder why the results are "quite different" than other polls...

Kofi Is In Trouble...

2005-04-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

More from Roger Simon. If Kofi cared at all about the U.N. he would have resigned months if not years ago. But clearly he does not care about the institution at all.

On a related point, that just shows how worthless the U.N. has become under Kofi: 6 of the 18 nations on the list of the world's most oppressive regimes also serve on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house...

The U.N. is such a joke its opponents don't have to do anything, they just are letting it destroy itself. Way to go Kofi.

Are Democrats More Fiscally Responsible Than Republicans?

2005-04-03T07:35:00.000-07:00

Interesting op-ed piece by Michael Kinsley. In short, he writes:

Statistics back to 1959 make this clear. A consistent pattern over 45 years cannot be explained by shorter-term factors, such as war or who controls Congress. Maybe presidents can't affect the economy much, but the assumption that they can and do is so prominent in Republican rhetoric that they are stuck with it. So consider:

Federal spending (aka "big government"): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president's policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.

First, why didn't Kinsley look at who controlled congress versus which party held the presidency? I think using the presidency is a flaw in and of itself. But the bigger problem is that Kinsley doesn't seem to consider at all what I think is the most important variable: whether the Republicans are forced to pass spending increases by the Democrats in order to pass other legislation that the Republicans want. Obviously this would take a great deal of time and effort to study most likely, but that doesn't mean it isn't the factor that explains this data.

So, while interesting, Kinsley's op-ed piece is pretty meaningless really since he doesn't even attempt to address the most obvious (and probable) explanation for the data.

U.N. Reform Suggestion From The Chicago Sun-Times.

2005-04-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

According to the Sun-Times:

Never in its 60 years of existence has the United Nations been so awash in scandal. The institution set up to engender world peace has been besieged by reports that its officials were on the take, that its soldiers raped women and girls in Congo, that the son of its secretary-general was engaged in a serious conflict of interest. In terms of managing its business, the United Nations has become sorely dysfunctional.

Much of this, unfortunately, has happened under the watch of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. There is no question that if any of these incidents had occurred at a major U.S. corporation, Annan would have been quickly ousted from his job as CEO. But this is the United Nations, where back-room politicking and power struggles seem to trump sound business practices.

Of course corporations are answerable to their shareholders, whereas the U.N. continues to get billions from the U.S. taxpayers and other nations regardless of whether it is all being pocketed by U.N. leadership.

The U.N. is the best get-rich-quick scheme in history.

Pope Dies

2005-04-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

I find this part of the story interesting:

The pope was known for his energy, intellectualism and activism on the global stage. His health had been deteriorating severely for several weeks and he had battled Parkinson's disease and crippling arthritis for years.
John Paul II had been slipping in and out of consciousness on Saturday after his heart and kidneys started to fail after a urinary tract infection.

Navarro-Valls said that despite his precarious health, the pope had decided to remain in his residence at the Vatican, rather than returning to Gemelli hospital in Rome, where he had been hospitalized twice since February.

So it is okay for the Pope to allow himself to die despite the availability of medical care that could have kept him alive longer? Interesting.

You Would Think They Would Run Background Checks By Now...

2005-04-01T06:20:00.000-08:00

Per the Smoking Gun, another Idol contestant has a checkered past, with an arrest for a domestic dispute in which he allegedly shoved his fiance, and threw a phone that struck her chest causing the phone to break....

If the producers didn't know about this, they either are fools for not running background checks, or they need a better investigation service.

DeLay Admits Error Of His Ways.

2005-04-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

Check it out at Volokh Conspiracy.

You Have To Know When To Fold'Em....

2005-04-01T05:59:00.000-08:00

Vodkapundit points out that Friedman makes, what I consider, an unforgivable error in attempting to use a poker analogy.

Friedman wrote:

And this poker hand is seven-card stud, no-limit Texas Hold 'Em.

Which, as Vodkapundit points out, makes no sense (although I suppose technically Texas Hold'em is a form of seven-card stud - so perhaps Friedman got this from some poker website that was explaining variations of poker - but it still makes no sense).

In context, I think Friedman was trying to make the point that secretary of states have to deal with issues that are determined by randomness and luck. So I think the best analogy would really have been five card stud - you get five cards and you are stuck with them. No matter how crummy they are you have to play them (or fold them).

FactCheck On The Filibuster

2005-03-31T15:52:00.000-08:00

Real-life filibusters are another matter, however. They can be used for good or evil. In fact, segregationist Southern senators used filibusters to preserve the poll tax and block civil rights and anti-lynching legislation for generations. Among the real-life practitioners were the late Senators Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi.
. . . .
In reality, the filibuster is simply and by definition the use of obstructionist tactics to delay legislative action. The legislation being blocked can be good, bad, or indifferent, depending on one's point of view. The historical reality is that the filibuster was the means by which the segregationist South blocked federal civil rights legislation for many decades after a majority favored it.

One practitioner was Sen. Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, an avowed white supremacist. The real-life Sen. Bilbo was quite a contrast with the fictional Sen. Smith. In 1947, a few years after the movie, Sen. Bilbo found himself facing real charges of pocketing money intended for his campaign and intimidating black voters during his re-election campaign of the previous year. Bilbo wasn't sworn in, even though Southern colleagues launched a filibuster that threatened to paralyze the Senate until he was allowed to take his seat. Bilbo went back to Mississippi and died of cancer before the matter could be resolved.

Jefferson Smith's fictional 23-hour filibuster was actually eclipsed many years later in real life, when Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina held the floor for 24 hours and 18 minutes – still the Senate record for a one-man filibuster. He finished the morning of Aug. 29, 1957. Thurmond, who was then a Democrat, was staging an attempt to block a weak civil-rights bill that even some other Southerners favored.

Filibusters continued to block serious civil rights legislation right up until 1964, when the Senate was finally able to muster the two-thirds majority that was then required to end debate. The last to filibuster against the landmark 1964 legislation was Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who spoke for 14 hours and 13 minutes, finishing the morning of June 10 – the 57th day of debate on the measure.

It is one of the ironies of US politics that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which lobbied so long for the 1964 civil rights bill, is currently lobbying to save the filibuster. In a recent "action alert," the NAACP said that eliminating the filibuster would allow "right-wing extremists to be confirmed to lifetime appointments on the federal bench."

Misstating the Issue

The PFAW ad also misstates the issue. It features firefighter Ted Nonini saying that the movie Senator Smith was using the filibuster "so that the other point of view could be heard" and adding, "I also know that our democracy works best when both parties are speaking out and being heard." In fact, eliminating the filibuster would still allow all senators ample opportunity to speak and be heard. What's actually at stake is whether a minority of 40 senators will continue to have the power to block legislation favored by a majority -- particularly the confirmation of Bush's judicial nominees.

Exactly.

Supreme Court Broadens The Age Discrimination Act?

2005-03-30T15:57:00.000-08:00

I haven't read the opinions yet, so I can't really comment on the merits. Although I would note the breakdown of the judges on the opinions in this 5-3 decision was a bit odd with Scalia joining Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter in the majority opinion, and O'Conner dissenting along with Thomas and Kennedy.

Bill Bradley On The Democratic Party's Problem

2005-03-30T15:50:00.000-08:00

I don't think a better structure would solve all their problems, but it certainly would be helpful. As someone who knows very little about the organization and interworkings of the parties, I find it a bit shocking that the Democratic party seems so disorganized (according to Bradley).

As an aside, if Bradley would have been the Democrats' presidential nominee this year, I bet he would have won.

Reasonable Inferences.

2005-03-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Via Instapundit, Roger Simon has a good commentary on the second interim Volcker report. Here is my take based on his commentary - including reasonable inferences from facts disclosed in the report: it is clear there was very significant corruption at the U.N.; it is clear that Kojo Annan is clearly guilty of wrongdoing; and it is clear that Kofi Annan is at best covering up for his son - more likely he was also involved in the wrongdoing at least to some extent.

The U.N. needs very significant reform, it needs a house cleaning of leadership, and even with that the U.N. still might not be saved. The first step is pretty clear though - Kofi Annan has to go. The U.N. will continue to be a joke so long as he is in charge.

Update: Via Powerline, Kofi Annan responded "hell no," today when asked if he would resign. That seems a bit defensive to me. As Powerline notes, this is good news for those who are neither Kofi nor U.N. fans -- they will just keep sinking to the bottom together.

"Tragedy Amid Confusion," Indeed.

2005-03-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

Thomas Sowell writes an editorial by that name in today's Washington Times. Too bad (for him) it is Sowell who is confused.

Sowell's first point is to dispute those who say Terri Schiavo's death is gentle, by looking at how non-vegetative people have been described when dying of starvation. But this misses the point - Terri Schiavo is in a PVS - she has no cognitive ability and doesn't have the ability to know she is starving (nor does she feel any effects from it).

Sowell asks if this is such a painless process why not videotape it. Perhaps because at least some people actually care about Terri Schiavo and do not want to destroy any more of her dignity? Perhaps because some people have minimal respect for other people? (One could just as easily make the absurd request that if starving to death is so painful, why doesn't Mr. Sowell starve himself to death and videotape it. I will refrain from saying any more - but this suggestion of videotaping her death is disgusting to say the least - and shows Mr. Sowell doesn't care about Terri Schiavo at all).

Mr. Sowell doesn't probably know this, but people who have actually taken the time to read about this case in detail (like myself) know that it is undisputed that Terri Schiavo was a very self-conscious person, who, according to her husband and his brother (Terri's brother-in-law) "would have been mortified" by being videotaped in her condition and having it shown publicly (and seen by so many).

And Mr. Sowell also didn't do his research on who testified as to Terri's wishes (something one can learn in about 2 minutes via google, or via lexis and a quick review of the reported appellate decisions). Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, and both her brother-in-law and sister-in-law all testified that Terri Schiavo had made comments about not being kept alive in this type of a situation. Sure someone could argue that the other two are lying or misremembering to support their brother (although I can't think of any motivation for that), but you have to know that they testified first before you can argue that. (what a shocking suggestion - know the facts before taking a position on a case....)

Sowell writes:

This case is one where many people speak with certainty about very uncertain things -- and the certainties of one side contradict the certainties of the other.

True, but fortunately some of us (unlike Sowell) at least try to learn the facts that are available before spouting off.

Sowell then closes with this preposterous argument (that again shows he has no knowledge of the facts of the case):

Terri Schiavo is being killed because she is inconvenient to her husband and is inconvenient to those who do not want the idea of the sanctity of life strengthened and become an impediment to abortion. Nor do they want the supremacy of judges challenged, when judges are the liberals' last refuge.

Why would the husband go through all of this if he is only doing it to stop being "inconvenienced?" He could have walked away from this years ago and let the parents become Terri's guardian. So why didn't he? There are 3 possible responses (two that are clearly wrong). The Sowell's of the world assert one (or both) of these two possibilities: (1) the money from the malpractice suit; or (2) because Michael Schiavo is the one who caused the incident in 1990. Besides being absurd, both are factually wrong.

As to the first, the money is essentially all gone, so that can't be the continuing motivation. As to the second, people who argue this simply do not understand forensic medicine. 15 years after-the-fact there would be no evidence of anything. And frankly, there is no credible evidence that the husband had anything to do with this in the first place. (During the litigation there were similar unsubstantiated allegations of abuse, and those allegations were rejected by police investigators) This accusation is just a slanderous act of desperation by the pro-life ideologies most likely.

The third possibility - the only one with logical support that is not contradicted by the facts - is that Michael Schiavo is doing this because it is what he believes Terri wanted. Imagine that, someone who actually cares about Terri.

In short, besides being disgusting, Sowell's editorial is meritless and shows a shocking lack of knowledge of the facts. Apparently human dignity is not part of the pro-life agenda - at least not as exemplified by Sowell.

What Are The Facts?

2005-03-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

Great op-ed piece in today's Washington Times by Jay Ambrose, critiquing over-reliance on science as the only measure of truth. Ambrose uses an excellent reference to a Dickens' story that really pulls together the editorial (follow the link for that), and he uses that story to emphasize the following point:

I am not against science. I love it. Part of the grandeur of humans, it seems to me, is our conceptual consciousness. We have an understanding of things no other creatures on this planet can rival. We are the universe aware of itself, as others before me have also said. Becoming increasingly aware is one of our chief purposes in life, in my view. Science helps us get there. It is a major tool by which we enlarge our awareness.
But science is not competent in all things. It is extraordinarily powerful in describing physical reality -- how things work, how the universe gets from A to B -- and because of this capacity, science enables imitation, namely technology that transforms how we live, for good and bad. At the same time, it is obvious there are more ways of knowing than what is gleaned from science and that science itself has severe limitations. It is not just a little obvious, but as obvious as the pull of poetry, the uplift of drama, the sway of music in our lives, the call of beauty in a painting or a sunrise -- and the sense of the sacred so many of us experience in worshiping that which finally is a mystery but one that lends us meaning.
I bring all this up now for two reasons: The first is that in ways both subtle and blatant, science permeates our society and our psyches. Though there are far more questions it cannot answer than it can, and though is based on presuppositions not themselves scientific, it tends to chase the nonscientific from the landscape of the validly believable, reducing the marvels of this life and universe to quantifiable calculation.
If we give in to scientism -- the intellectually disreputable notion science is the only legitimate arbiter on any topic you can name -- we will have mistakenly cut ourselves off from the possibilities of wisdom, of spiritual wonder and life's fullness .
The other reason is this is Easter, preceded by Holy Week. For Christians, it can be a stretch of days in which they immerse themselves in a reality beyond the here and now, but a reality that informs the here and now. They lose themselves in the story of a man of miraculous goodness who suffered an agonizing death and rose from the dead. From Scripture readings, hymns, prayers, sermons and ritual, they take a revivified understanding of forgiveness, redemption and selfless love. There is sadness and then joy in their encounter, and often the sure knowledge of moral obligation as they rise themselves from the dead parts of their existence.
None of this is scientific, of course, which is different from saying none of this is true. I have friends who don't get the difference, and have read countless articles by those who dismiss such religious notions as harmful nonsense.

I would add to that excellent point, that not only is science not the end all and be all, but by definition science can only be interpreted by humans, and as such it is subject to human errors and misuse. The odds are that a hundred years from now scientists will look back at many of the things we believe to be scientific "truths" today and laugh at our foolishness in believing such absurd things.

That has always happened historically, and there is no logical reason to believe that we are the generation that finally figured it all out. Only hubris supports that belief.

We Can Only Hope...

2005-03-27T07:08:00.000-08:00

KOFI ANNAN, the United Nations secretary-general, is said to be struggling with depression and considering his future. Colleagues have reported concerns about Annan ahead of an official report this week that will examine his son Kojos connection to the controversial Iraqi oil for food scheme.
Depending on the findings of the report, by a team led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, Annan may have to choose between the secretary-generalship and loyalty to his son.
American congressional critics of the UN are already pressing him to resign over the mismanagement of the oil for food programme, and even his supporters have been dismayed by the scandals on his watch, including the sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in Congo.
One close observer at the UN said Annans moods were like a sine curve and that he appeared near the bottom of the trough.
. . . .

Kofi Annan is going to find his position increasingly untenable, said Nile Gardiner, an expert on the UN at the conservative Heritage Foundation. There is a strong possibility he will resign voluntarily because of his declining credibility.

We can only hope. Besides the scandals, how ineffective of a leader for the U.N. has Annan been? Since taking over as secretary-general in 1997, has the U.N. had any successes? It seems to me its role and importance in the world has just continued to fade. And with all the scandal it cannot even stand as a symbol in the international community. Seriously, why is there a U.N. anymore - what purpose does it serve? The next secretary-general needs to come up with an answer for that question - a question that Annan helped create.

Is The U.S.'s Energy Policy Wrong?

2005-03-27T06:30:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman thinks so. His support is two-fold:

By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world. That is, we are financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars and we are financing the jihadists - and the Saudi, Sudanese and Iranian mosques and charities that support them - through our gasoline purchases.
. . . .
Finally, by doing nothing to reduce U.S. oil consumption we are only hastening the climate change crisis, and the Bush officials who scoff at the science around this should hang their heads in shame. And it is only going to get worse the longer we do nothing. Wired magazine did an excellent piece in its April issue about hybrid cars, which get 40 to 50 miles to the gallon with very low emissions. One paragraph jumped out at me: "Right now, there are about 800 million cars in active use. By 2050, as cars become ubiquitous in China and India, it'll be 3.25 billion. That increase represents ... an almost unimaginable threat to our environment. Quadruple the cars means quadruple the carbon dioxide emissions - unless cleaner, less gas-hungry vehicles become the norm."

Are we supporting the jihadists and the mosques that support them through our oil purchases? Perhaps, they probably get some money from our oil purchases. But it also buys us something else (absent U.N. scandal ridden programs being in charge) - control and power. The U.S. only has power and control (and allies) in the Middle East arab states becuase we are the primary oil market. Through this power and control we are slowly changing the Middle East and pushing it toward democracy. So our high oil purchases are probably both good and bad - a push at best.

As far as the environment, I do not doubt that pollution from automobiles has effects, I don't think we really have any clue what those effects will be long-term (it could be worse than scientist/environmentalist claim, it could be much less of an effect than they claim - the "science" behind these studies is flimsy at best if for no other reason than we don't have data for more than a hundred years or so (a blink of the eye in terms of the planet's history) - this doesn't mean the environmentalist are wrong - it just means they really don't know if they are right or wrong). But that said, oil prices have gone up considerably due to market forces, yet Americans are still buying their SUVs. But other Americans are buying hybrids - by choice. I feel the market will slowly but surely push automakers to build more hybrids and more efficient vehicles generally. As far as China and India there is (realistically speaking) nothing the U.S. can do about that. But on a larger point, the vast majority of the world's pollution is caused (0r soon will be caused) by third-world countries I believe. So while it might be vogue to attack Americans for their inefficient cars - the real problem lies elsewhere in the world.

As far as a gas-tax, I am not personally against such a policy - but I do wonder if it would really be effective. Higher gas prices might make consumers buy more efficient cars. Or it might not change the buying habits of the above average income families, and it might force the lower income families to buy older, less efficient, cars, or keep their less-efficient cars longer in order to afford gas. It could actually increase pollution.

So in short, while I think there is much to doubt in Friedman's analysis - I don't see any downside to Bush being a bit more "geo-green." But as with many of their arguments, the environmentalists really need to think deeper about what other effects the policies they push will have. And whether they will be effective at all.

Volcker Report Finds No Evidence Of Direct Wrongdoing By Kofi Annan - But Faults Him For Not Preventing Son From Using His Name For Financial Gain

2005-03-26T17:42:00.000-08:00

Via Drudge, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that on Tuesday the Volcker Commission will issue an interim report that states:

[Kofi] Annan would be faulted for not paying attention to conflicts of interest involving his son, Kojo, who used his father's name and position for personal gains while with Cotecna.
At the same time, the panel is expected to conclude there is no evidence Annan rigged the U.N.'s procurement system or exerted undue influence over contractors or ever sought financial benefits, said the Journal, quoting people familiar with report's conclusions.

Kofi's supporters were quick to misuse this information to proclaim:

Annan's new chief-of-staff, Mark Malloch Brown, had earlier told reporters, "We believe on Tuesday the secretary-general will be exonerated of any wrongdoing, but like you we have to wait for the report." But he said Annan's son had admitted that "he misled his father."

When a less than independent investigation simply states they can't find evidence you comitted a crime, that is a far cry from being "exonerated." Especially when it is clear a close family member financially benefited from the scandal - it doesn't take an unreasonable leap in logic to infer possible knowledge on the part of both family members.

Will see what happens with the non-U.N. led investigations.

Does This Mean I Need Therapy Of Some Sort?

2005-03-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

You are Neal Page (from Planes, Trains &
Automobiles)! Short-tempered and cut to the
chase, you like things done your way. But
you're also a devoted family man who lives up
to his responsibilities.

Which John Hughes Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Brooks Makes A Flawed Argument In Proclaiming Another Argument Flawed?

2005-03-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

In today's NYT, David Brooks argues that both the social conservative and the social liberal argument as to the Schiavo case are flawed and that is why it is such an agonizing debate. Specifically with respect to the social liberal argument, Brooks concludes:

The core belief that social liberals bring to cases like Ms. Schiavo's is that the quality of life is a fundamental human value. They don't emphasize the bright line between life and death; they describe a continuum between a fully lived life and a life that, by the sort of incapacity Terri Schiavo has suffered, is mere existence.
. . . .
The central weakness of the liberal case is that it is morally thin. Once you say that it is up to individuals or families to draw their own lines separating life from existence, and reasonable people will differ, then you are taking a fundamental issue out of the realm of morality and into the realm of relativism and mere taste.

You are saying, as liberals do say, that society should be neutral and allow people to make their own choices. You are saying, as liberals do say, that we should be tolerant and nonjudgmental toward people who make different choices.

What begins as an appealing notion - that life and death are joined by a continuum - becomes vapid mush, because we are all invited to punt when it comes time to do the hard job of standing up for common principles, arguing right and wrong, and judging those who make bad decisions.

You end up exactly where many liberals ended up this week, trying to shift arguments away from morality and on to process.
. . . .
Once moral argument is abandoned, there are no ethical checks, no universal standards, and everything is left to the convenience and sentiments of the individual survivors.
What I'm describing here is the clash of two serious but flawed arguments. The socially conservative argument has tremendous moral force, but doesn't accord with the reality we see when we walk through a hospice. The socially liberal argument is pragmatic, but lacks moral force.

I think that is just wrong. Brooks assumes what "morality" is, he makes a value judgment and from that value judgment concludes that the "socially liberal argument is pragmatic, but lacks moral force." But if you make another value choice, such as that free will is one of the highest moral values, then obviously Brooks's statement is wrong. So really what Brooks is saying is that the social liberal argument lacks his moral force.

Brooks's argument that the social liberal argument "becomes vapid mush, because we are all invited to punt when it comes time to do the hard job of standing up for common principles, arguing right and wrong, and judging those who make bad decisions," is also wrong. You can still judge under the social liberal system. You just have to realize that your judgment is based on your personal value system rather than some outside "truth." But that distinction doesn't preclude judgment. It just promotes wise and intelligent judgment really. It is when people are unwilling to test and challenge their own value system and at least consider that other's values are the better ones that the world runs into problems. I won't list here the obvious examples, but everyone knows what they are.

And the reason that the social liberals have shifted to process in this case has nothing to do with lack of moral force. It has to do with only one thing - there was a question as to what the individual's wishes were in this case. Thus, the determination had to be made by the process. If Terri Schiavo had a written living will that specifically set out this particular situation and stated unequivocally that she wanted to be starved to death in such a situation - would there be this debate? Not likely. Sure there would be the social conservatives who would refuse, even in that bright line situation, to allow Ms. Schiavo to exercise her free will by trying to impose their personal value system upon her. If the situation were reversed, however, and Terri Schiavo clearly stated she wanted to be kept alive in this situation the social liberals would yield - even if they personally would never choose that option and thought (note the judgment here) that it was a bad or wrong choice.

In short, the Schiavo situation simply highlights why social liberalism is superior to social conservatism.

Taiwanese March To Protest Chinese Anti-Succession Law

2005-03-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of thousands (and perhaps over a million - wow) turned out to protest the recently passed Chinese law that authorized the use of non-peaceful means (i.e., force) against Taiwan should Taiwan move to secede from China.

Vivian Wang, a 38-year-old restaurant worker, told the Associated Press news agency: "Taiwan is only a small island, so we must speak out really loud to make the world hear that we are a democracy facing an evil giant."

China is indeed an evil giant.

The True Schiavo Story?

2005-03-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

Great article from USA Today. Read the whole thing, here are a few choice quotes:

Those records show that Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers jointly supervised care for Terri after she collapsed. For the first 16 days and nights that she was hospitalized, Schiavo never left the hospital. Over the next few years, as she was moved from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility, to a nursing home, to Schiavo's home and finally back to a nursing home, Schiavo visited Terri daily.
. . . .

Once Terri was unable to help herself, Michael became a demanding advocate.

John Pecarek, a court-appointed guardian for Terri, described her husband as "a nursing home administrator's nightmare," adding, "I believe that the ward (Terri) gets care and attention from the staff of Sabal Palms (nursing home) as a result of Mr. Schiavo's advocacy and defending on her behalf."

Mary Schindler testified that, while her daughter was at one nursing home, her relationship with her son-in-law was "very good. We did everything together. Wherever he went, I went."

Schiavo and the Schindlers even sold pretzels and hot dogs on St. Pete Beach to raise money for Terri's care. But everything seemed to change on Valentine's Day 1993 in a nursing home near here.

In 1992, Schiavo had filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against two doctors who had been treating his wife before she was stricken. Late that year came a settlement: Schiavo received $300,000 for loss of consortium — his wife's companionship. Another $700,000 was ordered for Terri's care.

Mary Schindler later testified that Schiavo had promised money to his in-laws. They had helped him and Terri move from New Jersey to Pinellas County, let them live rent-free in their condominium and had given him other financial help.

"We all had financial problems" after Terri's crisis, she testified. "Michael, Bob. We all did. It was a very stressful time. It was a very financially difficult time. He used to say, 'Don't worry, Mom. If I ever get any money from the lawsuit, I'll help you and Dad.' "

By February 1993, Schiavo had the money from the lawsuit.

On Valentine's Day that year, he testified, he was in his wife's nursing home room studying. He wanted to become a nurse so he could care for his wife himself. He had taken Terri to California for experimental treatment. A doctor there had placed a stimulator inside Terri's brain and those of other people in vegetative states to try to stimulate still-living but dormant cells.

According to Schiavo's testimony, the Schindlers came into Terri's room in the nursing home, spoke to their daughter, then turned to him.

"The first words out of my father-in-law's mouth was how much money he was going to get," Schiavo said. "I was, 'What do you mean?' 'Well, you owe me money.' "

Schiavo said he told his in-laws that all the money had gone to his wife — a lie he said he told Bob Schindler "to shut him up because he was screaming."

Schiavo said his father-in-law called him "a few choice words," then stormed out of the room. Schiavo said he started to follow him, but his mother-in-law stepped in front of him, saying, "This is my daughter, our daughter, and we deserve some of this money."

Mary Schindler's account of that evening is far different. She testified that she and her husband found Schiavo studying. "We were talking about the money and about his money," she said. "That with his money and the money Terri got, now we could take her (for specialized care) or get some testing done. Do all this stuff. He said he was not going to do it."

She said he threw his book and a table against the wall and told them they would never see their daughter again.
. . . .
[A]ccording to additional court documents cited by The Miami Herald. In the documents, Pamela Campbell, then the Schindlers' lawyer, told the court that "we do not doubt that she's in a persistent vegetative state." Campbell could not be reached to confirm the statement.

At this point, however, the gulf between Schiavo and the Schindlers could not be bridged.

"On Feb. 14, 1993, this amicable relationship between the parties was severed," Greer wrote. "While the testimony differs on what may or may not have been promised to whom and by whom, it is clear to this court that such severance was predicated upon money and the fact that Mr. Schiavo was unwilling to equally divide his loss of consortium award with Mr. and Mrs. Schindler."

Daniel Grieco, the attorney who handled Michael Schiavo's malpractice case, says his client never promised money to Bob Schindler. He also said Schindler never understood that he wasn't entitled to money under Florida law.

Grieco says the money is at the root of the estrangement. "It was the precipitating factor," Grieco says. "That was the fracture. That was the basis of it."

Without the acrimony, Terri's life-or-death saga probably would not have become big news, says Steve Mintz, a history professor at the University of Houston who studies families.
. . . .

Today, the money from the lawsuit settlement is almost gone, Grieco, the attorney, says. Just $40,000 to $50,000 remained as of mid-March. The $700,000 in Terri's trust has paid for her care, lawyers, expert medical witnesses. Michael Schiavo's $300,000 share evaporated years ago, he says.

Views about life, death

Terri Schiavo left no instructions about her care. In such an instance, Florida law requires a judge to follow a person's last wishes, if they can be established.

In his order, Greer said he relied upon the testimony of five witnesses regarding Terri's views about right-to-die issues. Schiavo, his older brother Scott and Joan Schiavo, wife of another of Schiavo's brothers, all said Terri had said or indicated that she would not want to be kept alive if her brain stopped working. Mary Schindler and Diane Meyer, a childhood friend of Terri's, testified that she she would.

Scott Schiavo testified that after the 1988 funeral for his grandmother, who was briefly kept alive on artificial life support, a clutch of relatives sat around a luncheon table in Langhorne, Pa., talking about the way she had died. "And Terri made mention ... that, 'If I ever go like that, just let me go. Don't leave me there. I don't want to be kept alive on a machine.' "

Joan Schiavo testified that she and Terri, whom she described as "my best friend and like a sister that I never had," had discussed artificial life support as many as 12 times. Joan Schiavo testified that she had a girlfriend who had decided to take her baby off life support, and that Terri indicated she would have done the same thing.

Mary Schindler's recollection of what her daughter wanted was different. She testified that Terri had commented on news coverage of the case of Karen Ann Quinlan, whose ventilator was turned off in 1976 after her parents went to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Schindler said her daughter told her this about Quinlan: "Just leave her alone. Leave her. If they take her off, she might die. Just leave her alone and she will die whenever."

Wow, how come I never read that before? Everyone assumes the husband is the bad guy here - what if it is really the parents who are the greedy money-grubbers? By the way, in 1976 Terri was 13 years old - hardly an adult at that time.

Update: The New York Times has a very similar story - but it does have additional information. It is also a very good read.

Seriously, I Need To Get A Job At The U.N. So I Can Retire Rich Next Year...

2005-03-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

From the BBC.:

United Nations peacekeeping staff in Eritrea have rung up more than $500,000 of unpaid international calls.
The fraud was discovered last year when auditors noticed huge billing discrepancies in 2003, the UN said.

Schemes such as stealing pin codes and abusing a one-minute grace period before being charged for a connection accounted for the "irregularities".

The countries of those caught swindling their phone bills have been charged, but so far only $14,000 has been paid.

The UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee) said the process of unravelling the fraud was "painstaking and complex, involving the manual verification of 1.4m lines of computer billing data".

UN staff are affiliated to peacekeeping missions from their country's team at the UN headquarters in New York.

To avoid absorbing the cost itself, Unmee has forwarded $364,000 of confirmed bills to New York.

Since 2000, a 3,000-strong Unmee peacekeeping force has patrolled Eritrea's tense border with Ethiopia.

The two Horn of Africa countries fought a war between 1998 and 2000 that is thought to have killed more than 70,000 people.

My question, how the heck do 3000 people ring up half a million dollars in phone bills? I am betting 976 numbers were somehow involved....

Another Schiavo Motion?

2005-03-25T17:50:00.000-08:00

According to CNN:

PINELLAS PARK, Florida (CNN) -- A Florida state judge will rule by noon Saturday on a motion filed by Terri Schiavo's parents, who contend that their brain-damaged daughter has expressed the wish to live.
"She managed to articulate the first two vowel sounds, first articulating AHHHHHHH and then virtually screaming WAAAAAAAA," the motion said.

The incident happened in the presence of Schiavo's sister, Suzanne Vitadamo, and an aunt, the motion said.

It is too bad no unbiased observers were around for this.... Of course, "Ahhhh Waaaa" could be an expression of the wish to die too - who knows what that means? (assuming it happened, which I feel pretty comfortable in believing is an incorrect assumption).

Update: I was probably wrong, well sort of. According to ABC:

Doctors who have examined her for the court case have said her previous utterances weren't speech, but were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state. Greer, who had ordered the tube removed, ended a hearing later Friday; he was expected to announce a decision by noon Saturday.

So she probably did make the sounds, they just don't mean anything.

Pop!?!?

2005-03-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

Via Matthew Yglesias, the New York Times has an article comparing the current housing boom to the dot.com boom of the late 90's. I think they are right. It is the greater fools theory all over again. People are buying housing on the assumption that prices will keep rising even though the fundamentals don't support that (like the P/E ratios didn't support for the Dot.coms).

The population is aging, and developers continue to build more and more homes. Increasingly more of these homes are being purchased by investors who do not rent them out at all, but just hold them for a profit. Last year 25% of home purchases were by investors (that is just shocking - so shocking I have trouble believing it). But regardless of the percentage, this has the effect of artificially increasing apparent demand as people who actually are buying homes to live in still have to buy. Supply may very well have already vastly out paced demand, and we just do not know it because of all the investors.

At some point something will happen - increasing mortgage rates perhaps or a drop in real demand that reveals a glut in housing (more likely both in combination) - and prices will stop increasing or slow considerably as developers cannot sell their new homes. Then all hell breaks loose. Investors panic and try to dump their houses for any profit they can. Developers who have to sell given their huge financial commitment to the project, will have to match or beat those prices to get sales just to maintain the cash flow their operations require. Likely at the same time higher rates put additional downward pressure on demand, and prevent some who want to buy from buying. As investors see that they cannot sell their real estate holdings in a short time period (which are obviously much less liquid than stocks) they will lower prices more and more just to move them so they don't get completely wiped out.

It could get really ugly - in some markets (Florida and California) it could cause an out and out local recession/depression. I don't know if anyone really knows what kind of effects such a scenario could have on the general economy. But it won't be good.

Is Compassion In The Eye Of The Beholder?

2005-03-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

Great post by Professor Althouse. She discusses an interview by Ralph Nader where he points out in the Schiavo case Republicans are in the compassionate position, while Democrats have taken the harsh view. When it comes to occupational and workplace deaths, air pollution, medical malpractice etc., Republicans are (according to Nader) in the cruel position, and Democrats are the compassionate ones. Professor Althouse notes:

Nader asked Timbs and Norton a great question: Why aren't Republicans and Democrats consistently compassionate? Timbs and Norton filled the airspace with words but made no serious attempt to answer the question.

My question is, what is compassionate in these two scenarios? In the case of Schiavo is it compassionate to allow a person who (arguably) wanted to die in this circumstance to die? Or is it more compassionate to ignore that person's wishes to die in this circumstance in order to allow her parents to artificially keep her alive so that they feel better?

In the case of a work place deaths and occupational injuries is it more compassionate to do everything you can to prevent even one death or injury if it means hundreds more lose their jobs and go into poverty or worse? Or is it more compassionate to allow a few deaths or occupational injuries in order to allow businesses to thrive thus allowing more workers (and their families) to earn a living? Is it more compassionate to allow injured individuals in malpractice cases to recover millions in wind-fall judgments, the result of which is an increase in the cost of insurance that causes millions to be uninsured?

I think the answers to those questions are up to each person's individual value systems (and obviously based on how you frame the question).

But I think that regardless of the answer, you can be consistently committed to a system and process, and so long as that system is fair, in some sense at least, you are being compassionate. A worker may die, but if there is a system in place to financially compensate that workers family, while still obviously a tragedy, at least the financial loss can be restored to the family. (Can any system stop all workplace injuries and deaths? I doubt it.) In the Schiavo case someone is going to be unhappy with the outcome either way - but if the system that decides is fair, I think that is compassionate.

I think this feeds back in to Professor Althouse's question, I think one can only be consistently compassionate if they focus on the process rather than the outcome. If you start picking outcomes, you are going to run into a situation where regardless of your choice you can be considered to be on the non-compassionate side. The Schiavo case, I think, is one of those situations. Regardless of which end result you side with, the other side can say you are not being compassionate. You are either choosing against the parent's wishes, or you are choosing against Terri's right to die and her wishes (people can argue I am wrong about Terri's wishes - but there is no Schiavo case if there had not been an adjudication that she wanted to die, so I think I can assume that is correct for the purposes of this argument - which is not directly about the Schiavo case).

It is a no-win situation if you are trying to be outcome-compassionate. But if you are process "compassionate," then I think you can be consistently compassionate. Regardless, it is indeed a very good question (even if my answer was not).

When Social Security Cannot Meet Its Obligations - It Is "Bankrupt"

2005-03-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

Josh Marshall writes:

Today, in newspapers and on websites across the country, headlines used words like 'broke', 'bankrupt' and 'bust' to describe what happens to Social Security when it starts running a deficit at some time in the middle of this century. Only weeks ago, President Bush was being forced to back off such misleading and deceptive language. And many Republicans were openly criticizing him for it. Now these are the words of choice in supposedly straight news reportage.

Supporters of Social Security really don't have the luxury of letting one lie or distortion go unchallenged or unanswered.

Huh, how is that a lie? Current projections state that in 2042 social security, having exhausted its "trust fund," (and likely having tanked our economy with it) will not be able to meet its obligations. Perhaps it will be able to afford 70%.

"Bankrupt" n : someone who has insufficient assets to cover their debts.

So by definition social security will be bankrupt - it won't have sufficient assets to meet all of its obligations (or debts).

Also, even democrats constantly refer to the "solvency" problem of social security. Well if social security is not in danger of going insolvent (i.e. bankrupt) how is there a solvency problem?

Who is lying?

The Congress Intended It Because I Say So (At Least According To Some).

2005-03-24T16:09:00.000-08:00

According to Hugh Hewitt the judiciary has thwarted the will of the Congress by refusing to grant a stay in the Schiavo case.

And of course Hewitt starts this analysis by looking at the text of the bill itself, since that is the only document that can really demonstrate what the will of Congress was... Or wait. He writes an entire article based around the conclusion that the judiciary is failing to follow Congress' will, and never once mentions the text of the bill - not once?

What a joke. And a shame coming from a law professor (especially a conservative one).

So how does Mr. Hewitt come up with Congress' intent - legislative history perhaps? No. He just tells us what Congress intended based on what he wanted it to intend and some after the fact statements from one Congressman:

So Congress passed a statute that was intended to force a new trial on the merits of Terri's parents' concern that their daughter's wishes were not being honored. The president signed it. DeLay summarized the intent of Congress in his Sunday press conference: "We are confident this compromise will restore nutrition and hydration to Mrs. Schiavo as long as that appeal endures. . . . Obviously, the judge will have to put the feeding tube back in or she could die before the case is heard."

Well that is all well and good - DeLay makes an assumption about what the judges will have to do to implement the bill. But as we all know - one Congressman cannot speak for Congress, so let's look at the bill's language itself (I know, shocking that we would do that....):

Section 1: The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida shall have jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on a suit or claim by or on behalf of Theresa Marie Schiavo for the alleged violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo under the Constitution or laws of the United States relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life.
Section 2: Any parent of Theresa Marie Schiavo shall have standing to bring a suit under this Act. The suit may be brought against any other person who was a party to State court proceedings relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain the life of Theresa Marie Schiavo, or who may act pursuant to a State court order authorizing or directing the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life. In such a suit, the District Court shall determine de novo any claim of a violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo within the scope of this Act, notwithstanding any prior State court determination and regardless of whether such a claim has previously been raised, considered, or decided in State court proceedings. The District Court shall entertain and determine the suit without any delay or abstention in favor of State court proceedings, and regardless of whether remedies available in the State courts have been exhausted.
Section 3: After a determination of the merits of a suit brought under this Act, the District Court shall issue such declaratory and injunctive relief as may be necessary to protect the rights of Theresa Marie Schiavo under the Constitution and laws of the United States relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life.

There are some other provisions that are not relevant. Section 3 discusses injunctive relief, but it is focused only on final injunctive relief. The plain language does not provide for preliminary injunctive relief or a TRO - in only provides for injunctive relief after a hearing on the merits. Such a hearing will be mooted now most likely when Terri passes away. And this provision does not mandate preliminary relief in order to have that full merits hearing (nothing in the bill does).

Section 1 simply provides jurisdiction for a suit, it does not suggest anything about the merits or actions the court should take. So we are left with Section 2.

The pertinent language in Section 2 simply states:

In such a suit, the District Court shall determine de novo any claim of a violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo within the scope of this Act, notwithstanding any prior State court determination and regardless of whether such a claim has previously been raised, considered, or decided in State court proceedings. The District Court shall entertain and determine the suit without any delay or abstention in favor of State court proceedings, and regardless of whether remedies available in the State courts have been exhausted.

There is nothing in that language that mandates or requires a preliminary stay or a TRO. All it does is instruct the court as to what type of review to conduct during the merits hearing (de novo) and not to preclude review based on certain doctrines - abstention or failure to exhaust state court remedies. So the bill states nothing about mandating a preliminary stay or a TRO. So the court is left to resort to the standard legal analysis of those issues - as Congress fully knew it would have to do absent specific instructions to the contrary. If Congress had wanted to mandate a stay or a TRO, it knew how to do it - and it chose not to (or more likely, the drafters of this bill just didn't take the time to understand the law (others might question their intelligence), but it is not up to judges to guess at what Congress really wanted to say in the bill - it has to follow the plain language so long as it is unambiguous).

And it is quite clear that Congress did not intend an automatic stay in the bill as it was passed. As the Eleventh Circuit stated:

There is no provision in Pub. L. No. 109-3 addressing whether or under what conditions the district court should grant temporary or preliminary relief in this case. There is no more reason in the text of the Act to read in any special rule about temporary or preliminary relief than there would be to read in a special rule about deciding the case before trial on Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) [*7] or summary judgment grounds. Not only that, but Congress considered and specifically rejected provisions that would have mandated, or permitted with favorable implications, the grant of the pretrial stay. There is this enlightening exchange in the legislative history concerning the Senate bill that was enacted:
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I rise to seek clarification from the majority leader about one aspect of this bill, the issue of whether Congress has mandated that a Federal court issue a stay pending determination of the case.

Mr. FRIST. I would be pleased to help clarify this issue.

Mr. LEVIN. Section 5 of the original version of the Martinez bill conferred jurisdiction on a Federal court to hear a case like this, and then stated that the Federal court "shall" issue a stay of State court proceedings pending determination of the Federal case. I was opposed to that provision because I believe Congress should not mandate that a Federal judge issue a stay. Under longstanding law and practice, the decision to issue a stay is a matter of discretion for the Federal judge based on the facts of the case. The majority leader and the other bill sponsors accepted my suggestion that the word "shall" in section 5 be changed to "may."

The version of the bill we are now considering strikes section 5 altogether. Although nothing in the text of the new bill mandates a stay, the omission of this section, which in the earlier Senate-passed bill made a stay permissive, might be read to mean that Congress intends to mandate a stay. I believe that reading is incorrect. The absence of any state [sic] provision in the new bill simply means that Congress relies on current law. Under current law, a judge may decide whether or not a stay is appropriate.

Does the majority leader share my understanding of the bill?

Mr. FRIST. I share the understanding of the Senator from Michigan, as does the junior Senator from Florida who is the chief sponsor of this bill. Nothing in the current bill or its legislative history mandates a stay. I would assume, however, the Federal court would grant a stay based on the facts of this case because Mrs. Schiavo would need to be alive in order for the court to make its determination. Nevertheless, this bill does not change current law under which a stay is discretionary.

Mr. LEVIN. In light of that assurance, I do not object to the unanimous consent agreement under which the bill will be considered by the Senate. I do not make the same assumption as the majority leader makes about what a Federal court will do. Because the discretion of the Federal court is left unrestricted in this bill, I will not exercise my right to block its consideration.
151 Cong. Rec. S3099-100 (daily ed. Mar. 20, 2005) (colloquy between Sens. Levin & Frist).

This enlightening exchange does not contradict the plain meaning of Pub. L. No. 109-3, but instead reinforces it. Plainly, Congress knew how to change the law to favor these plaintiffs to the extent that it collectively wished to do so. That is what the changes it did make, including those to standing law, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, and abstention, demonstrate. When Congress explicitly modifies some pre-existing rules of law applicable to a subject but says nothing about other rules of law, the only reasonable reading is that Congress meant no change in the rules it did not mention. The dissent characterizes the language of the Act as clear. It is on this point: the language of the Act clearly does not purport to change the law concerning issuance of temporary or preliminary relief. n5

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Footnotes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

n5 Contrary to the dissent's assertion, we do not believe that the text of the Act limits or eliminates a court's power to grant temporary or preliminary relief. Exactly the contrary. Our position is that the Act, which does not mention that subject, and which was amended to remove a provision that would have changed the law, does not affect it at all. The district court applied settled law and so do we.

Ironically, if the courts would have read the bill to require a stay it would have been an act of judicial activism. What the courts did was to apply the law properly and objectively. There was no judicial activism here. And conservatives who suggest otherwise are just plain wrong and hypocritical and should be ashamed of themselves.

In an attempt to rationalize why the courts should have engaged in judicial activism, Hewitt attempts to compare the Schiavo bill to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) 16 USC sec. 1531, et seq. But even the case Hewitt cites requires a showing of merit: the petitioner must show "a reasonable likelihood that the defendant will commit a future violation of the Act." Loggerhead Turtle v. County Council, 92 F. Supp. 2d 1296, 1301-02 (M.D. Fla. 2000). And Loggerhead actually denied the preliminary injunction - so obviously its standard wasn't that broad. Id. at 1309.

It is also noteworthy that Loggerhead was distinguished by another case (on a standing issue) that pointed out that Loggerhead went outside the plain language of the statute (i.e., engaged in activism). See Cetacean Cmty v. President of the United States, 249 F. Supp. 2d 1206, 1210 (Dist. Hawaii 2003) (stating that Loggerhead was not convincing authority on the standing issue, after noting that "the plain language of [the ESA] does not authorize a whale, dolphin, or porpoise to sue under the ESA." Loggerhead had granted standing to a couple varieties of turtles...)

If Congress' true intent was as Hugh Hewitt claims, they should hire better lawyers to draft the next bill. Because the judges here got it correct, and it wasn't even a close call frankly. To see conservatives upset that the judiciary didn't engage in judicial activism is sad indeed. Or actually, as many of us have now learned - Republicans are no longer "conservatives," they are simply religious activists who have sold out their conservative values.

Hewitt also states this:

Tricked-up public opinion polls on the Schiavo case have allowed some commentators to pretend that Congress stumbled politically when it passed the law benefiting Terri's parents. Absurd. It was the right thing to do, and the focus on the facts of the case daily adds to the number of people who know that to be true.

Sure, tricked-up polls... And if Republicans' share Hewitt's view that the right thing to do is for Congress to create a specific law to allow a specific person's parents to trump that adult person's own wishes - then Republicans are in much more trouble than even I think they are. And anyone with any intelligence knows the "facts" are much more favorable to Michael Schiavo's argument now than they are for Terri's parents -- see here and here for example. Once you start reading reliable sources (court opinions based on the actual record, for example) you start to see just how much misinformation and, frankly, out-and-out lies are being spread by Terri's parents and the groups advocating for them. They are the ones who don't care about the true facts - they just want a result.

Hewitt closes with this:

Whenever the collective attention of the country turns to one drama, all sorts of unexpected revelations occur.

I agree with that point, but I obviously disagree about what those revelations are in this case. My revelation - Republicans aren't really conservative anymore - they are just religious ideologues.

The Definitive Voice On Terri Schiavo's Condition

2005-03-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

This from the American Council on Science and Health - and its Republican president - Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan:

While we at ACSH have been determined to remain on the sidelines of the raging national debate about the fate of Terri Schiavo (this is largely a legal and ethical issue, not a scientific one), we cannot remain silent about the outrageous misrepresentation of scientific facts about this case that has been occurring in the past ten days.

The medical reality of Ms. Schiavo's case is this: She has been in what is medically referred to as a "permanent vegetative state" for the past 15 years, ever since her heart temporarily stopped (probably due to the severe effects of an eating disorder), depriving her brain of oxygen. Brain scans indicate that her cerebral cortex ceased functioning--probably just after she experienced cardiac arrest in 1990. Ms. Schiavo's CAT scan shows massive shrinking of the brain, and her EEG is flat. Physicians confirm that there is no electrical activity coming from her brain. While the family video repeatedly shown on television suggests otherwise, her non-functioning cortex precludes cognition, including any ability to interact or communicate with people or show any signs of awareness. Dozens of experts over the years who have examined Ms. Schiavo agree that there is no hope of her recovering--even though her body, face and eyes (if she is given food and hydration) might continue to move for decades to come.

Those are the harsh facts.

Thus it was shocking and outrageous that Sen. Bill Frist--a heart surgeon before becoming Senate majority leader--went to the Senate floor twice last week to argue that Florida doctors had erred in saying that Terri is in a "persistent vegetative state." How did Frist arrive at this diagnosis? From watching the family videotapes.

Frist's comments were picked up by journalists, including FoxNews's Fred Barnes, who cited Sen. Frist as an authority in a debate with Morton Kondracke on The Beltway Boys last week.

Yesterday, there was another public challenge to Ms. Schiavo's well-established diagnosis: Florida governor Jeb Bush announced that a "very renowned neurologist," Dr. William Cheshire, had concluded that Terri had been misdiagnosed and that she was really only in a state of "minimal consciousness" rather than a persistent vegetative state. He used this "new diagnosis" to argue that "this new information raises serious concerns and warrants immediate action."

As it turns out, Dr. Cheshire is not "renowned" as a neurologist--his limited publications focus on areas including headache pain and his opposition to stem cell research. Dr. Cheshire never conducted a physical examination of Ms. Schiavo, nor did he do neurological tests. Dr. Cheshire is director of biotech ethics at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, a nonprofit group founded by "more than a dozen leading Christian bioethicists." Everyone is free to be guided by a personal agenda--and it is clear that Dr. Cheshire has his.

Let's call tripe when tripe is served. Dr. Cheshire, his advocate Gov. Bush, and Sen. Frist actively attempted to mislead people (and in many cases, surely succeeded) about the scientific facts. They distorted science to promote their own ideological and/or religious beliefs. All of us are entitled to our own personal views on the Schiavo case, what her fate should be, and who should make decisions for her. But all of us should be united in rejecting politically-generated junk science. Republicans should be embarrassed and ashamed that that their leadership has sunk to such a new low.

Exactly.

Is Schiavo In A PVS?

2005-03-23T19:57:00.000-08:00

This New York Times article discusses the affidavit that was issued today by Dr. Cheshire, who works for what is clearly a right-wing institution. Based on this affidavit Governor Bush is trying to take custody of Terri Schiavo. The article is a good read, but here is the key part I think:

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School who has examined Ms. Schiavo on behalf of the Florida courts and declared her to be irredeemably brain-damaged, said, "I have no idea who this Cheshire is," and added: "He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative."

I think that says it all. A doctor from the University of Minnesota is pretty credible - the University of Minnesota Medical School is one of the top schools in the world. As a lawyer I know you can find an expert to say almost anything. So when you get these no-name doctors who haven't even really examined the patient making bold claims, it is just presumptively bogus in my mind.

And on the other side of the coin, when I see a well credentialed doctor say something like this, I feel pretty comfortable in believing him.

Will The Schiavo Bill Cause More People In Terri's Condition To Die?

2005-03-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

Daniel Drezner thinks that could be the case - and I think he is right:

This is my nagging thought -- could it be possible that making a federal case out of Terry Schiavo actually shrinks the culture of life? I wonder after reading this Chicago Tribune story by Bonnie Miller Rubin:
The wrenching debate over Terri Schiavo has made many people wonder if they can be sure their loved ones would carry out their wishes in a similar situation.

In Schiavo's case, both sides say they are acting as she would want. But without written documents, no one can know for sure, which is precisely why some legal experts are finding themselves busier than usual.

"We've had quite an increase in calls," said John Wank, acting director and general counsel of the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commission, an agency that provides adult guardianship for people who did not appoint their own guardians. "A lot of folks are wondering if what happened in Florida could happen here. And if so, what can they do to prevent such a tragedy?"

I don't know if there has been polling on this, but I just have to imagine that most people that see the video of Terri immediately think to themselves that they would never want to live like that (if you can even call it living) - I know I wouldn't.

Will The Schiavo Bill Sway Right-Leaning People Away From Voting For The GOP

2005-03-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

The answer is a definitive yes. Here is what Jim Geraghty has to say:

You'll recall that I predicted that the Schiavo controversy would only be a big issue to those who were already paying attention to or felt strongly about end-of-life/assisted suicide/living-will issues. I also doubted that any conservative would vote against the GOP over this. [The post then notes a couple of emails from people who disagree, and then concludes:] Okay, there are some folks out there for whom this is a make-or-break issue. But I still have my doubts as to whether there are enough of them to swing any races.

I obviously disagree with Mr. Geraghty. I am an independent, and I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past. I lean generally toward Republican candidates because my libertarianism and conservatism (as in "small government") values tend to outweigh other values in my final decision-making process. The religious right branch of the GOP, and their values, is what keeps me on the fence for the most part. While I feel they have the right to their views and values (and frankly I respect them for holding true to those values) for the most part I don't share them.

So I tend to vote for Republican candidates only because I feel that their positions on libertarianism and small government issues (which I agree with) outweigh their positions on social issues (which for the most part I disagree with). But given what just happened, I cannot rely on that calculus anymore. So I will be left to some extent to vote based on social issues. Certainly I will still favor moderate candidates - but now it is more likely those moderate candidates will be Democrats. And I would be shocked if there aren't many people out there like me who are thinking this exact same thing.

Sure this one specific issue may not swing any races, but in politics it is never one issue that makes a long-term shift in voting patterns. This is just one domino. But it is a domino that will have a long-term effect.

This Is Just Scary...

2005-03-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

Lots of readers are writing about a graphic used on Google's search page yesterday. It showed the word "Google" half full of water, dripping into a bowl. Readers have interpreted the graphic to be an anti-Terri Schiavo commentary.

IT'S NOT.

I checked into it yesterday. If you clicked on the graphic, Google took you to a page about World Water Day, which was designated by the United Nations.

There is really nothing to add to that..... (at least nothing that won't probably get me stalked by those same "lots of readers.")

Despite Congress' Best Efforts, The Rule Of Law Prevailed?

2005-03-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

Great post by Ann Althouse that notes Congress' actions as to Schiavo may mess up their plans to push through conservative judges. But the really great part of this post is this:

Viguerie is, of course, exactly wrong. What Judge Whittemore did is very dramatic proof of the judiciary's deep commitment to the rule of law and its firm resistance to political pressure and emotional entreaties.

And what do "conservatives" really think of judges? Do they want them -- as the third paragraph in that block quote says -- not "to ignore the will of the public and elected officials"? I thought good conservatives wanted judges to set aside political preferences and faithfully follow the dictates of the law. The criticism of "activist" judges is that they abuse the law by making it into what they prefer politically, but the solution isn't that they should do more of what other people prefer politically. It's that they ought to do what the law requires.

Do Balch and Viguerie seriously think that Justice Scalia would agree with their assessment of Judge Whittemore? Obviously, they are promoting activist judges of the social conservative stripe, and there is nothing properly conservative about that at all.

Exactly.

Why The Republicans Killed Federalism

2005-03-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

Great op-ed by Charles Fried in today's NYT. Here is the best part:

For years now, Congress has more and more stringently demanded that federal court intervention be limited to cases where the state courts have acted not just technically incorrectly, but with egregious lack of reason. Whatever might be said of the Florida state court proceedings in this case, they certainly have not crossed that line, and indeed probably accord with what state courts all over the country have ordered or permitted for years in these difficult and agonizing cases.

Finally, the law passed by Congress on Monday was an obvious attempt - under the pretense of allowing the determination of federal constitutional rights - to delay the outcome decreed by Florida state law with the hope of making that outcome impossible. That is precisely the worrisome tactic employed with increasingly imaginative stays and orders of re-litigation in a number of federal courts, most noticeably the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers nine Western states. And it is also precisely the sort of tactic that Congress sought to discipline in the Effective Death Penalty Act.

As I think I have demonstrated in all the previous posts on this site that actually quote from the actual Florida cases, not only were the Florida courts' actions here probably in accord with other states, they bent over backwards to ensure that Schiavo received a full hearing (actually several full hearings).

Powerline Uncovers Another Fake Memo?

2005-03-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

Powerline notes some pretty suspicious inconsistency vis a vis the "talking points memo" republicans supposedly produced for the Schiavo bill. They also note a possible investigation about the memo:

That won't stop the Democrats from trying to make political hay out of it, however. The same left-wing site that published the memo now says:

Hoping to determine who distributed talking points to GOP senators on how they could capitalize on the Schiavo tragedy, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) will send a letter to the Rules Committee today calling for an investigation. Reports suggest the points could have been circulated on the Senate floor, violating Senate Rules....
Are the Democrats moving to capitalize on their own hoax?

I say more power to Lautenberg - lets have a full investigation about this memo. Of course the only logical starting point is: who wrote it? I hope it wasn't one of Lautenberg's staffers.

More Evidence The U.N. Scandals Likely Go To The Top.

2005-03-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

From Instapundit:

Kojo Annan, son of Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, received at least $300,000 from Cotecna, a Swiss inspection company awarded a contract ultimately worth about $60m under the Iraqi oil-for-food contract.

The amount was almost double the sum previously disclosed, but payments were arranged in ways that obscured where the money came from or whom it went to.

It's as if they knew they were doing something wrong. . . .

And is there any reason to try to cover-up the source of the funds going to Kofi's son, unless they were actually pay-offs for actions that Kofi himself was going to take? It's not looking good for either Annan.

More U.N. Scandal (And Lies)

2005-03-23T06:38:00.000-08:00

Via Instapundit, after denying for months that the U.N. (which essentially means U.S. taxpayers) was paying the legal fees for Benon Sevan - who was denounced by the U.N.'s own less than impartial investigative committee for his central role in the oil-for-food fraud - the U.N. yesterday admitted that in fact they have been paying his attorneys' fees. It appears the costs exceed $300,000 dollars....

The U.N.'s new motto should be: why play the lottery when you can work at the U.N.? What is really scary is that we are left to hope that Clinton will be named the next Secretary-General so he can clean up the organization - how bad does it have to be when Clinton can restore integrity to an institution?

When Emotion (Or Ideology) Clouds Reason

2005-03-22T17:23:00.000-08:00

Via Powerline, this purports to be a rebuttal to Judge Whittemore's decision to deny the TRO in the Schiavo case. I find it a totally unconvincing argument.

The post first quotes the text of the bill:

The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida shall have jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on a suit or claim by or on behalf of Theresa Marie Schiavo for the alleged violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo under the Constitution or laws of the United States relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life.
[T]he District Court shall determine de novo any claim of a violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo within the scope of this Act, notwithstanding any prior State court determination and regardless of whether such a claim has previously been raised, considered, or decided in State court proceedings. The District Court shall entertain and determine the suit without any delay or abstention in favor of State court proceedings, and regardless of whether remedies available in the State courts have been exhausted. [Italics mine.]

That is all well and good, it is good to start with the text of the bill that gives the court jurisdiction and authority. But then the article delves into a discussion of how this language means that Judge Whittemore must not accept any factual finding of the Florida courts. And if that were relevant in this particular situation, it might be a good point.

But guess what this article never mentions - not once - the Complaint. No where in that bill was the court authorized to sua sponte pursue any possible deprivation of a right, it can only examine claims that are raised in the Complaint, a copy of which can be found here.

As this article notes, Judge Whittemore himself mentioned that the Complaint failed to discuss how the supposed medical affidavits that might show Schiavo is not in PVS related to the claims. The reason he said this: it is clear that their claims do not attack the PVS findings. The Complaint, to put it bluntly, is horrific. I suspect it was drafted well before they knew what the bill language would be. Clearly they didn't know they would be entitled to such broad de novo review - or if they did - they really screwed up. Notably, the Complaint never states - not once - that Terri is not in a PVS. Rather it merely states that Judge Greer found her to be in PVS despite never examining her. (Compl. para. 30.) They never allege facts or any conclusions even to contradict Judge Greer's finding.

So McCarthy's analysis just completely misses the point. The judge had no choice but to deny their TRO frankly. And as we will soon find out I bet, any judge that reviews the record of proceedings in Florida is going to have to work very hard to try to come up with any plausible argument to support a finding that Schiavo was deprived of any due process rights. Because she wasn't. But instead of realizing that the Complaint simply failed to make a meritorious argument at all, McCarthy states this:

But most disturbing about Judge Whittemores opinion is its refusal to delve into the questions that impelled Congress to act in the first place: Whether Terri is really a PVS case and whether she really evinced an informed desire not to be sustained let alone to submit to two weeks of starvation and dehydration, which is unquestionably torture for a person who is responsive to stimuli and aware of pain.
Not only does Whittemore decline to get into the heart of the matter. In the one fleeting footnote in which he alludes to it, he blames Terris parents and their attorneys for this dereliction: Plaintiffs have submitted affidavits of health care professionals regarding Theresas medical status, treatment techniques and therapies which are available and their opinions regarding how and whether these treatments might improve Theresas condition. Plaintiffs have not, however, discussed these affidavits in their papers and how they relate to the claimed constitutional deprivations. (Italics mine.)

Did Judge Whittemore really think the Schindlers submitted these affidavits simply to pad their submission with physical heft? Those submissions were obviously included because Terris parents contend the factual findings made in Florida are wrong, and could be proved wrong at a de novo hearing.

When Congress provided for de novo review, uninhibited by what had already been determined in Florida, it seems clear that this is what they thought they were getting at. They were saying: Before we allow state action to deprive the constitutional right to life, lets be certain we really are dealing with a PVS case and a woman who actually made an informed choice to refuse sustenance. Judge Whittemore, to the contrary, has decided to interpret Congresss command as limited to an inquiry about whether Floridas procedures are likely to produce good results. As for the results actually produced a finding of PVS and informed choice to die he doesnt see the need to kick those tires because, he lamely notes, the Schindlers havent explained how they could possibly relevant.

The judge, I believe, is wrong and needlessly stingy in construing what the just-passed law directs him to do. Terri Schiavo has had neither the standard medical tests (including an MRI and PET scan) nor the extensive clinical observation that should be mandatory for any finding of PVS on which an effective death sentence is to be predicated. If the proof supporting the PVS finding or the informed-choice finding which Florida law require to be proved by clear and convincing evidence is blatantly inadequate, then she has then not received the due process of law necessary to justify a taking of life under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. If she is not a PVS case and she is being tortured by starvation and dehydration, the Florida ruling removing the feeding tube is subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

Thats what we need a de novo review of: Why werent standard tests done, why shouldnt they be done before a final PVS conclusion is made, and, in their absence, why should we be confident in the accuracy of the PVS diagnosis? There may be good answers to all these questions, but that is what evidentiary hearings are for.

Thats why the medical-expert submissions made by the Schindlers are relevant, even if Judge Whittemore is correct that, in the dizzying pace of the last few days, the Schindlers lawyers failed to connect the dots in their papers a failing many, many courts would have understandably forgiven in these dire, hurried circumstances, where life is at stake.

Or in other words, who cares about the law, or the pleadings, just rule the way I think you should and then you would be doing the right thing. Really, Congress should have just passed that bill - the "Terri Schiavo wanted to live bill." Since that is all they really want. Even if she didn't.

Presumption of Life

2005-03-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

Via Instapundit, BillHobbs.com has a good editorial on the Schiavo case and suggest the following:

Here is what I would like to see happen in the aftermath of this sad, tragic, horrible case: I would like to see Congress pass, and the President sign, a law that says if any person who has no living will comes to be in a position where a living will would be helpful, any decision in a squabble or dispute over her care must err on the side of maintaining life, and hearsay evidence such as that offered by Michael Schiavo would not be admissible.

At least in Florida, there is no need for Congress to pass anything as this is already the law:

In Browning, we stated:

In making this difficult decision, a surrogate decisionmaker should err on the side of life. . . . In cases of doubt, we must assume that a patient would choose to defend life in exercising his or her right of privacy.

In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So.2d at 273. We reconfirm today that a court's default position must favor life.

In re Schiavo, 780 So.2d 176, 179 (Fl. Ct. App. 2001).

This goes to a larger issue, people seem to think that the standard of proof the husband had to meet was the ordinary preponderance of the evidence standard in ordinary civil cases. This is not so:

Finally, the Schindlers argue that the testimony, which was conflicting, was insufficient to support the trial court's decision by clear and convincing evidence. We have reviewed that testimony and conclude that the trial court had sufficient evidence to make this decision. The clear and convincing standard of proof, while very high, permits a decision in the face of inconsistent or conflicting evidence.
. . . .
After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did.

Id. at 179-80.

So this wasn't simply a case where the evidence the husband presented was just slightly more convincing than was the parents' evidence. To the contrary it was "clear and convincing," and had to overcome the presumption of life. And as noted in my prior post on this below - the appellate court even looked at the evidence de novo and concluded they would have ruled the same way as Judge Greer. So all the arguments about Judge Greer being biased, or having connections to the Hospice are sheer nonsense.

Why The Schiavo Law Is Pointless

2005-03-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

I just read the Schiavo complaint, and frankly it is pretty bad. One of the claims reminds me of something you would read coming pro se from an incarcerated individual trying to sue the president or something like that - a claim based on the free exercise of religion clause. You have to be kidding me. The complaint is available here.

I would be absolutely shocked if this complaint was successful, there is simply no merit to these claims that I can really imagine. The equal protection argument is probably the best bet - but I think it is easily dealt with. The due process arguments are completely without merit as will be demonstrated below. If Schiavo did not get due process, then due process is an impossible standard that will never be achieved. No legal system could exist if it was requird to provide every litigant with the due process Schiavo received, much less more due process rights than she received. And someone needs to explain to me why a judge should examine Schiavo - is he a Doctor/ Judge? No. I suspect Judge Greer heard testimony from at least a dozen, and probably many more doctors in this case. How could he add to that by his lay examination?

Beyond the complaint, I just completed reading most of the almost 2 dozen appellate decisions available from Lexis for the In re Schiavo litigation (to be fair, most are simple refusals to hear appeals on various issues due to procedural or other deficiencies). But I am pretty sure there has not been a more thorougly reviewed case - the sheer volume of expert testimony alone. And the Appellate Court even went beyond the standard of review at one point to view issues de novo, and holds even under a de novo review they would affirm (for non-lawyers, de novo simply means they review the case without any deference to the lower court's findings of fact - literally, a new look at all the evidence). Here are some quotes from various decisions that I think make this point pretty strongly.

This is the initial appeal:

Over the span of this last decade, Theresa's brain has deteriorated because of the lack of oxygen it suffered at the time of the heart attack. By mid-1996, the CAT scans of her brain showed a severely abnormal structure. At this point, much of her cerebral cortex is simply gone and has been replaced by cerebral spinal fluid. Medicine cannot cure this condition. Unless an act of God, a true miracle, were to recreate her brain, Theresa will always remain in an unconscious, reflexive state, totally dependent upon others to feed her and care for her most private needs. She could remain in this state for many years.

Theresa has been blessed with loving parents and a loving husband. Many patients in this condition would have been abandoned by friends and family within the first year. Michael has continued to care for her and to visit her all these years. He has never divorced her. He has become a professional respiratory therapist and works in a nearby hospital. As a guardian, he has always attempted to provide optimum treatment for his wife. [*178] He has been a diligent watch guard of Theresa's care, never hesitating to annoy the nursing staff in order to assure that she receives the proper [**4] treatment.

780 So.2d 176, 177-78 (Fl. Ct. App. 2001).

The testimony in this case establishes that Theresa was very young and [*180] very healthy when this tragedy struck. Like many young people without children, she had not prepared a will, much less a living will. She had been raised in the Catholic faith, but did not regularly attend mass or have a religious advisor who could assist the court in weighing her religious attitudes about life-support methods. Her statements to her friends and family about the dying process were few and they were oral. Nevertheless, those statements, along with other evidence about Theresa, gave the trial court a sufficient basis to make this decision for her.

In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years [**11] in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did.

Id. at 179-80.

This is the original appeal from the denial of the Schiavo parents' motion for relief from judgment. The denial was affirmed:

However, at this time, the Schindlers have not seriously contested the fact that Mrs. Schiavo's brain has suffered major, permanent damage. In the initial adversary proceeding, a board-certified neurologist who had reviewed a CAT scan of Mrs. [**21] Schiavo's brain and an EEG testified that most, if not all, of Mrs. Schiavo's cerebral cortex-the portion of her brain that allows for human cognition and memory-is either totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Her condition is legally a "terminal condition." § 765.101(17), Fla. Stat. (2000). Although it is conceivable that extraordinary treatment might improve some of the motor functions of her brain stem or cerebellum, the Schindlers have presented no medical evidence suggesting that any new treatment could restore to Mrs. Schiavo a level of function within the cerebral cortex that would allow her to understand her perceptions of sight and sound or to communicate or respond cognitively to those perceptions.

The new information the Schindlers provided to the guardianship court in the hearsay affidavits supporting their motion for relief from judgment is not as forceful as the evidence described in our hypothetical scenarios. n9 The affidavits concern alleged statements by Mr. Schiavo several years ago. We note that the guardianship court's original order expressly relied upon and found credible the testimony of witnesses other than Mr. Schiavo or [**22] the Schindlers. We recognize that Mrs. Schiavo's earlier oral statements were important evidence when deciding whether she would choose in February 2000 to withdraw life-prolonging procedures. See § 765.401(3), Fla. Stat. (2000); In re Browning, 568 So. 2d 4, 16. Nevertheless, the trial judge, acting as her proxy, also properly considered evidence of Mrs. Schiavo's values, personality, and her own decision-making process.

792 So.2d 551, 560 (Fl. Ct. App. 2001).

This is apparently from similar motions that were refiled by Schiavo's parents, and in addition, they also sought to disqualify the judge, remove Michael Schiavo as the guardian, and to order an independent medical examination. The trial judge denied all the motions, the appellate court reversed as to the independent medical examination but otherwise affirmed. Here is what the appellate court stated in reversing on the one issue (to me this just shows how far the court's went to protect Schiavo and how deferential they were to the Schiavo parents' arguments):

In support of these arguments, the Schindlers filed numerous affidavits from licensed physicians who have reviewed Mrs. Schiavo's medical records, who have considered affidavits providing anecdotal evidence from lay people about her condition, and who have watched a brief videotape of her interaction with her mother at a time close to the original trial. Mr. Schiavo, [**9] as the ward's guardian, has not permitted these doctors to physically examine Mrs. Schiavo or conduct any diagnostic tests.

The affidavits of the several doctors vary in content and rhetoric. Among the affidavits filed by the Schindlers, however, the most significant evidence comes from Dr. Fred Webber. Dr. Webber is an osteopathic physician practicing in Clearwater, Florida, who claims that Mrs. Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state and that she exhibits "purposeful reaction to her environment." He swore under oath as follows:

Within the past year, I have treated patients with brain defects similar to Mrs. Schiavo's. In most cases, using cardiovascular medication style of therapy, my patients have shown some improvement, although the degree of that improvement is variable. By "improvement" I mean cognitive and physical items such as speech recovery, enhanced speech clarity and complexity, release of contractures, and better awareness of the patient's surroundings. In my opinion and judgment, based on my 26 years of practice, Mrs. Schiavo has a good opportunity to show some degree of improvement if treated with this type of therapy, although I cannot anticipate how much [**10] improvement.

Purely from a lay perspective, this court must express skepticism concerning Dr. Webber's affidavit. Nevertheless, when a doctor claims under oath that he may be able to restore Mrs. Schiavo's ability to speak and otherwise restore her cognitive function, and when numerous doctors dispute the diagnosis of persistent vegetative state based on the records available to them, it is difficult for judges untrained in any medical specialty to summarily reject their opinions without additional evidence.

800 So.2d 640, 644 (Fl. Ct. App. 2001).

On remand from that decision the trial judge allowed the Schiavo parents to provide additional medical evidence, and on appeal after the judge found against the parents again, the Appellate court had this to say:

On remand, this court anticipated but did not require that Dr. Webber, who had claimed in his affidavit that he might be able to restore Mrs. Schiavo's speech and some of her cognitive functioning, would testify for the parents and provide scientific support for his claim. [**7] However, Dr. Webber, who was so critical in this court's decision to remand the case, made no further appearance in these proceedings.

Instead, the parents provided testimony from Dr. William Maxfield, a board-certified physician in radiology and nuclear medicine, and Dr. William Hammesfahr, a board-certified neurologist. Michael Schiavo, Mrs. Schiavo's husband and guardian, selected Dr. Ronald Cranford and Dr. Melvin Greer, both board-certified neurologists, to testify. The fifth physician, selected by the guardianship court when the parties could not agree, was Dr. Peter Bambakidis, a board-certified neurologist practicing in the Department of Neurology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a clinical professor of neurology at Case Western Reserve University. His credentials fulfilled the requirements of our prior opinion.

Through the assistance of Mrs. Schiavo's treating physician, Dr. Victor Gambone, the physicians obtained current [*185] medical information about Theresa Schiavo including high-quality brain scans. Each physician reviewed her medical records and personally conducted a neurological examination of Mrs. Schiavo. Lengthy videotapes of some of the [**8] medical examinations were created and introduced into evidence. Thus, the quality of the evidence presented to the guardianship court was very high, and each side had ample opportunity to present detailed medical evidence, all of which was sub jected to thorough cross-examination. It is likely that no guardianship court has ever received as much high-quality medical evidence in such a proceeding.

On the issue that caused this court to reverse in our last decision, whether new treatment exists which offers such promise of increased cognitive function in Mrs. Schiavo's cerebral cortex that she herself would elect to undergo this treatment and would reverse the prior decision to withdraw life-prolonging procedures, the parents presented little testimony. Dr. William Hammesfahr claimed that vasodilation therapy and hyberbaric therapy "could help her improve." He could not testify that any "specific function" would improve. He did not claim that he could restore her cognitive functions. He admitted that vasodilation therapy and hyberbaric therapy were intended to increase blood and oxygen supply to damaged brain tissue to facilitate repair of such tissue. These therapies cannot replace [**9] dead tissue. Although the physicians are not in complete agreement concerning the extent of Mrs. Schiavo's brain damage, they all agree that the brain scans show extensive permanent damage to her brain. The only debate between the doctors is whether she has a small amount of isolated living tissue in her cerebral cortex or whether she has no living tissue in her cerebral cortex.

The evidentiary hearing held on remand actually focused on an issue that was not the issue we anticipated would be the primary issue on remand. The parents contended that Mrs. Schiavo was not in a persistent or permanent vegetative state. Both Dr. Maxfield and Dr. Hammesfahr opined that she was not in such a state. They based their opinions primarily upon their assessment of Mrs. Schiavo's actions or responses to a few brief stimuli, primarily involving physical and verbal contact with her mother. The three other physicians all testified that Mrs. Schiavo was in a permanent or persistent vegetative state. The guardianship court was most impressed with the testimony of Dr. Bambakidis, who concluded that Mrs. Schiavo remained in a permanent vegetative state.

The guardianship court determined that Mrs. Schiavo [**10] remained in a permanent vegetative state. The guardianship court concluded that there was no evidence of a treatment in existence that offered such promise of increased cognitive function in Mrs. Schiavo's cerebral cortex that she herself would elect to undergo it at this time. Having concluded that the parents had failed to meet their burden to establish, by a preponderance of evidence, that the judgment was no longer equitable, the guardianship court denied the motion for relief from judgment and rescheduled the removal of the hydration and nutrition tube. In re Guardianship of Schiavo (Schiavo v. Schindler), Case No. 90-2908-GB-003, 2002 WL 31817960 (Fla. 6th Jud. Cir. Ct. Nov. 22, 2002). When the parents appealed that order, the guardianship court stayed the removal of the nutrition and hydration tube pending review by this court.

851 So.2d 182, 184-85 (Fl. Ct. App. 2002) (emphasis added). The Appellate court properly found that its review was an abuse of discretion review. But yet they went farther and actually conducted a de novo review of the evidence (how was Schiavo deprived of due process rights again? Her parents received less deferential reviews (i.e., more favorable to them) than she was legally entitled to). Here is what the Appellate Court stated:

The Schindlers have urged this court to conduct a de novo review of the evidence in this case, primarily because of the finality of this decision for their daughter. The guardianship court heard live testimony from many physicians. When it reviewed the videotapes of Mrs. Schiavo and the diagnostic tests and brain scans, it did so with the assistance and expertise of those physicians. This court can review the evidence in the record with only its training in the law and its lay experience. It is simply not proper for this court to review such a fact-intensive determination using a de novo standard.

Despite our decision that the appropriate standard of review is abuse of discretion, this court has closely examined all of the evidence in this record. We have repeatedly examined the videotapes, not merely watching short segments but carefully observing the tapes in their entirety. We have examined the brain scans with the eyes of educated laypersons and considered the explanations provided by the doctors in the transcripts. We have concluded that, if we were called upon to review the guardianship [**13] court's decision de novo, we would still affirm it.

The judges on this panel are called upon to make a collective, objective decision concerning a question of law. Each of us, however, has our own family, our own loved ones, our own children. From our review of the videotapes of Mrs. Schiavo, despite the irrefutable evidence that her cerebral cortex has sustained the most severe of irreparable injuries, we understand why a parent who had raised and nurtured a child from conception would hold out hope that some level of cognitive function remained. If Mrs. Schiavo were our own daughter, we could not but hold to such a faith.

But in the end, this case is not about the aspirations that loving parents have for their children. It is about Theresa Schiavo's right to make her own decision, independent of her parents and independent of her husband. In circumstances such as these, when families cannot agree, the law has opened the doors of the circuit courts to permit trial judges to serve as surrogates or proxies to make decisions about life- prolonging procedures. See In re [*187] Guardianship of Browning, 568 So. 2d 4 (Fla. 1990) (affirming In re Guardianship of Browning, 543 So. 2d 258, 273-74 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989)); [**14] see also § 765.401(3), Fla. Stat. (2000). It is the trial judge's duty not to make the decision that the judge would make for himself or herself or for a loved one. Instead, the trial judge must make a decision that the clear and convincing evidence shows the ward would have made for herself. § 765.401(3). It is a thankless task, and one to be undertaken with care, objectivity, and a cautious legal standard designed to promote the value of life. But it is also a necessary function if all people are to be entitled to a personalized decision about life-prolonging procedures independent of the subjective and conflicting assessments of their friends and relatives. It may be unfortunate that when families cannot agree, the best forum we can offer for this private, personal decision is a public courtroom and the best decision-maker we can provide is a judge with no prior knowledge of the ward, but the law currently provides no better solution that adequately protects the interests of promoting the value of life. We have previously affirmed the guardianship court's decision in this regard, and we now affirm the denial of a motion for relief from that judgment. [**15]

At the conclusion of our first opinion, we stated: In the final analysis, the difficult question that faced the trial court was whether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. After due consideration, we conclude that the trial judge had clear and convincing evidence to answer this question as he did. . Nothing in these proceedings has changed this conclu sion. The extensive additional medical testimony in this record only confirms once again the guardianship court's initial decision. On remand, following the issuance of our mandate, the guardianship court should schedule another hearing solely for the purpose of entering a new order scheduling the removal of the nutrition and hydration tube. Affirmed.

Id. at 186-87.

There is a great deal of additional subsequent appellate history, but these are the most merits focused opinions (at least based on my quick review).

After reading these opinions I just do not understand how you can make any due process argument. And I cannot imagine that a federal court will reverse the decisions of the Florida state courts. So in the end, more time will lapse, but the same result will occur. I think the real losers in all of this are the parents and other family of Terri Schiavo who clearly are in denial and have not dealt with their grief. It is pretty sad really. Hopefully they will be able to move on. But I have to wonder, why didn't Congress spend 10 minutes reading these opinions before spending days passing a law that will end up doing nothing to change the outcome? It seems to me those who claim it is for pure political gain have some pretty strong support for their argument. I am sure it is a very ideological decision as well, but I find it hard to believe that ideology can completely explain what is really a shocking move by congress.

George Will On The Filibuster Debate

2005-03-20T17:23:00.000-08:00

He makes a lot of good points in this op-ed. I am personally against the filibuster in general. I think it is an anti-democratic device that only serves to obstruct and hinder the passage of legislation - even if I dislike the legislation that it is blocking.

So I would love to see the filibuster go away, regardless of how that happens.

How To Succeed In Law School? My Personal View.

2005-03-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

I recently received the following email:

I know that there isn't a "secret" to doing well in law school but I ran into a 2L at a bar and he said that you have to figure out the "game" and once you do that, you will do well. He didn't elaborate, do you know what he means?

I only have about two months before I leave to Europe and want to do some reading to get me prepped for law school. If I could only read two books before law school which ones would you recommend?

Also, do you have any insider tips for succeeding at the U of M[innesota] Law School?

Here is my (long-winded) response:

CLASS:

Well it is not really a game, it is just that in class professors often like to talk about policy issues surrounding the law, such as whether the particular law or rule is a good one or not, etc. This is not surprising, the whole purpose of class is really to think about the law in a scholarly and academic fashion since everyone in law school can learn the black letter law for themselves in a very short period of time. So really I personally think you need to consider class as an enjoyable intellectual pursuit - and one that is very valuable to both your law school and legal career - but at the same time as wholly separate from grading and the test taking process (unless of course class performance affects your grade - which was rare in my personal experience).

Some professors choose to "hide the ball" in class too, i.e., only give you a bit of information or throw out a rule that has been rejected by the courts and see if you can figure out why it was rejected. This is almost always the case in tort classes (personally one of my more enjoyable classes - I was taught by Professor Weissbrodt who also teaches an excellent international human rights course). Some are critical of this style, but I don't really think of it as a poor style at all.

Rather I think it can be misused by some professors to try to assert superiority over the students, but this is fortunately very rare - and something I never personally experienced. When used effectively, it is a great learning tool. For example, I think Professor Weissbrodt used it in a very effective manner, and again, it was one of my personally more enjoyable classes.

One of the things you need to keep in mind is that it is okay to be wrong or disagree with the professor. Obviously you should be respectful, but I think professors actually enjoy it when students challenge them about the law or the discussion. Most of the time, again in my personal experience, the students would be very nervous and submissive about responding to any questions. This goes to a larger point, you and your peers are all very intelligent or you wouldn't be there at all, so you should take comfort in that even when you have a day (or week) where you feel lost about the subject matter. That will happen to everyone at one point or another, even those that will end up at the top of the class.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) your professor assignments your first year are random based on the section you are assigned too. My section was very lucky with one notable exception, and I think we had excellent professors overall. Once you find out who you have been assigned, feel free to email me (or email me about anything else too), and I will give you any insights I have. I think there has been some fairly large turnover in recent years, so I may be unfamiliar with some, or perhaps many, of your first year professors. But I will give you any information I can.

TESTS:

As far as tests, my answer below is only discussing essay tests, which most likely will be the format for the vast majority of the tests you encounter. Especially in the first year, which is really the key to success anyway.

The vast majority of the time the key to success is just to logically and intelligently spot the issues and analyze them using the black letter law. Most of the time the professors do not want you to regurgitate those issues discussed in class, other than to the extent it directly impacts on the analysis of the issues at hand. Of course adding these type of discussions on top of very strong logical analysis probably is a decisive factor between an "A" or an "A -" result and an "A +." This is anonymous so I suppose I am not bragging, but I personally was pretty successful - especially in my first year - and received several "A"s but only one "A +" during my entire law school career. I suspect (besides the curve, which in the first year almost eliminates any "A+" scores in most classes) the reason for this was that I generally just did a strong job of analyzing the black letter law and spotting the issues, and rarely (if ever) went beyond that. In my conversations with the 2 or 3 students that graduated at the top of my class, not only was it apparent that they were much more intelligent than me, but it was also apparent that their analysis would usually go beyond mine in test responses.

The way I like to think about it, is that your test answers should be written as if you were a lawyer analyzing the issue: point out the strengths and weaknesses to both sides of the issues as logically, intelligent, and concisely as possible.

Generally the ultimate conclusion you reach is completely irrelevant. The whole point of the question is that there are strong points on both sides or otherwise there would not be much to talk about. So the question will be a very "gray" one and not "black and white."

So in short, that is really the key, just be as precise and logical as possible in your answers. By precise I do not mean short, I often wrote a dozen pages or more in total in answers to 3 hour essay tests. And I believe I neared 30 pages in my torts answer (typewritten pages), and I could have written many more if there was time (I suspect my analysis was a bit flabby and my answer probably should have been shorter in this class - although I still received a fairly high score). The questions in that class were designed that way, there were literally dozens of issues. And even outside of torts, there will usually be plenty of issues for you to analyze in such a short time. You should obviously start with the most important issues and work your way into the minutiae if you have time.

The only real secret I have, and this may be outdated now, is that in my day (way back when in the early 2000s...) you could handwrite your answers in blue books (90% or more of the students chose this option), or use a typewriter. They began phasing in the use of laptops at the end of my law school career - perhaps laptops are now used universally for answering tests. If you have a choice, ALWAYS use a laptop or typewriter. No matter how good your penmanship may be (mine is terrible), I can guarantee that a professor will be in a better mood grading your typed answers than your handwritten ones - and that will almost always benefit you if you are between grades. I personally felt I got a 1 point boost just from this, but obviously that is pure supposition on my part.

BOOKS:

As you noted, there are literally hundreds of books you could read. I have 3 recommendations, 2 that I think you will find enjoyable and that I feel will be helpful more generally for your law school experience, and one for test taking. The two for general purposes are: The Bramble Bush by Karl Llewellyn, and 1L by Scott Turow. I am torn on recommending 1L for you prior to law school though. I cannot recall when I first read it. If you choose to read 1L prior to law school you should take it with a large grain of salt. Since it is about Harvard Law School it is by definition an extreme example of the law school experience. My experience was very different from the experience of Turow in 1L. But that said, I did find things I could relate too, and so I think it is helpful from that standpoint. One example is the anxiety that everyone experiences about the testing process.

Bramble Bush I just really enjoyed. I read it prior to law school and then again after my first year and the second reading (to me) really showed just how much my perspective was changed by that first year. And I really enjoyed this book (having read it before law school) on the second read after my first year of law school. (Or now that I think of it, I may have reread it after the first semester).

In the general category, I would also throw out a movie - The Paperchase (it is probably not available on DVD, I could only find it on VHS back when I purchased it). Again this movie is about Harvard Law School and is a fairly extreme story, but I think the ultimate point of the movie is that no matter what you will be fine. People stress out about testing way too much. I personally think one of the reasons I was successful is that I am personally fairly laid back about test results. I try my best and let the cards fall where they may. I think your performance will be better if you can try to have this type of attitude - enjoy the intellectual challenge of the test - don't stress about the results.

Finally, the test guide that I would recommend would be "Getting to Maybe." This is a book that was recommended by law professors that I respect, and even by a law professor who stated she had refused to ever recommend a test taking guide prior to this one. I have only skimmed it, but it seemed like a good resource to me too.

Sorry for the delayed response, and also for the length. I hope you find it somewhat helpful. And again, feel free to send me emails whenever and about whatever. Law School is obviously stressful and important, but I think you will find you are more successful if you try to enjoy the experience and worry less about test results. I know that was the way I approached it, and I enjoyed my experience. And I didn't do too badly either.

Update 1: If you read this far you deserve a medal! I received some feedback from a law professor that I really admire who notes that in her class my advice would be a mistake as her tests are largely based on her class discussions. She also makes a very good point that engaging in discussion in class helps you learn the material. This raises a larger issue, I tend to be a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to learning. So while I really enjoyed law classes, I suppose I never thought of them as being something that I actually needed to be successful. This is obviously not true for other people with differing learning styles. So my advice should also be read with that caveat.

Kofi Annan To Propose U.N. Reforms

2005-03-20T07:33:00.000-08:00

The BBC has the story. One of the proposals will be an expansion to the security council, although apparently no new vetoes will be included with those new seats. I have a better idea, how about we first expand who pays for the U.N. seeing as how the U.S. foots over a quarter of the U.N.'s costs (when you factor in all operations).

Kofi Annan's proposals also include not allowing member-nations who are violating human rights to serve on the human rights committee. Wow, what a stroke of genius. Finally, a human rights committee that is not a complete farce perhaps. That this is considered a major reform simply serves to highlight why the U.N. is largely a joke, and also how meaningless it really is in the international picture.

Although that said, I tend to agree with Richard Holbrooke who has said: "Without us the UN will fail. And if it fails, we will be among the many losers." I think the U.N. does serve a useful purpose for the U.S., but at the same time it could serve that same purpose at about a fifth of the size and a fifth of the cost. Also, even if the U.N. failed, the U.S. may lose something, but not very much really. NATO could serve most of the purposes that the U.N. serves as far as the U.S. interests are concerned. But the U.N. is still somewhat useful. And if properly run and reformed it could be very useful. Hopefully the next Secretary-General exerts more control over the organization, and is more concerned with making the U.N. a good organization rather than being concerned with being personally well-liked.

The Boy Crisis In Education? Not According To MSM.

2005-03-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

Interesting op-ed in the LA Times today. A Duke University study attempted to determine whether boys or girls were faring better in education in light of conflict reports during the 90s. It turns out that boys are faring far worse in 17 of the 22 categories, and the study essentially concludes there is a boy crisis (in contrast to the "girl crisis" that Harvard scholar and feminist Carol Gilligan proclaimed in the 90s).

But despite the study's very conclusive findings, the Duke press release and the MSM reports simply stated that it appeared boys and girls were faring equally -- a statement completely inconsistent with the findings of the study. The question I have, if girls were fairing worse than boys in 17 of 22 categories, would they have made the same claim? Somehow I doubt it.

Y Oh Why?

2005-03-20T07:03:00.000-08:00

Pretty funny column by Maureen Dowd today. I suddenly feel somehow inferior.... Of course, once science progresses to the point that it figures out genetics have little or nothing to do with personality traits and most other attributes then I won't feel so bad.

A Diversity Of Individuals

2005-03-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

Good post on Buzzmachines.com on the current vogue issue of the underrepresentation of women in certain mediums. I posted a bit on this in response to a Maureen Dowd column here. I think time will fix this issue all by itself. My law school class, for example, had more women than men. And this is a top tier school. As my generation gets into the prime of their careers I suspect that there will be more women than men on op-ed pages everywhere.

Reporting Reaction To An Event That Never Happened....

2005-03-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

And they say bloggers aren't real journalists?

Judge Orders Schaivo's Feeding Tube Removed

2005-03-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

This is just a sad story all around. And while I realize people have religious objections to this, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, I think it may be best for the family (the parents) to have this happen so they can move on with their lives. Fifteen years in a vegetative state is a long time.

Reid Introduces Bill To Except Internet From FECA

2005-03-17T16:46:00.000-08:00

Via Kos, Harry Reid introduced a bill to the Senate today that reads:

Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end of the following new sentence: "Such term shall not include communications over the Internet."

I hope there is broad bipartisan support for this, although I am leary it is a bit too broad and we will all be inundated with political ads come the next election cycle.

Fix Social Security Now, Or Else Says Greenspan

2005-03-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

Greenspan says we have three years to fix social security. More troubling in my opinion is this:

"At present, the Social Security trustees estimate that the unfunded liability over the indefinite future to be $10.4 trillion," Greenspan noted in his prepared remarks. "The shortfall in Medicare is calculated at several multiples of the one in Social Security."
"These numbers suggest that either very large tax increases will be required to meet the shortfalls or benefits will have to be pared back," he said.

Not good.

Ebbers Guilty On All Counts

2005-03-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

As has been reported all over the place, Ebbers - the former CEO of Worldcom (now MCI) - was convicted of all nine counts in his criminal trial today. The reason I link to the Conglomerate.org story is because it asks this question:

Because of this verdict, Mr. Ebbers could spend the rest of his life in prison. Is that proportionate to the crime?

I say yes, and no. And the no is a bit in jest. If you think of the harm the fraud that Ebbers has now been convicted of committing caused, I think a good argument can be made that he deserves much more than life in prison. There should be (and probably will be) some monetary component to his sentence. I certainly think all of his assets should be liquidated towards funding some reparations (primarily to employees who may have lost their jobs, as opposed to big company creditors)

If you think of Ebbers crime compared to that of a serial killer, there is a strong argument that Ebbers (and other massive white collar criminals) do fairly substantially less harm but to a exponentially larger number of people than does a serial killer. Sure Ebbers may not have ended anyone's life, but think of all of the families and lives that were financially ruined because of his crimes? Read here for example. People who suggest that his crime is somehow not worthy of a life-sentence seem, to me, elitist.

They seem to think it is okay for some kid who kills someone at 18 years old to get a life sentence, but for a very well-educated and successful business person who is making a very good living to knowingly steal more knowing full well it will ruin thousands of peoples financial lives a life sentence is not okay? That is just an absurd and unsupportable position to me.

I would strongly argue that 18 year old kid can be reformed and become a productive member of society. The Ebbers-type had their chance (and probably more than their fair share of chances), and clearly shows a total lack of worthy character and is likely beyond reformation. I see no reason to ever let people like that rejoin society.

American Pro-Palestinian Activist Killed By Bulldozer In Israel Sues - Caterpillar?

2005-03-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Suits like this is why F.R.C.P. 11 was invented (or whatever the Israeli counterpart to F.R.C.P. 11 is). I can see the suit against the IDF, but suing the manufacturer of the bulldozer is just silly - and frivolous.

Harvard - The Bastion Of Regulated Expression

2005-03-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

I just find this so humorous. The Harvard faculty voted 218 - 185 to express "no confidence" in Lawrence Summers due to his comments (that - if anyone actual read them - do not even appear to be his opinion) that women somehow lack some innate ability to excel in hard/physical sciences.

Reports say next week the faculty will express "no confidence" in the University of Colorado for investigating Ward Churchill only after he exercised his academic "freedoms."

armchairgenius

Proof of Liberal Media Bias?

Boarder Patrol Agents Told To Make Fewer Arrests?

Federal Judge Rules Nebraska's Same Sex Marriage Constitutional Amendment Unconstitutional.

Computer Generated Columns?

Irony.

Greatest Footnote In The History Of Legal Opinions?

Buffett and Munger Warn of Real Estate Bubble.

U.S. Economy Slows Down

Senate To Subpoena 2 Former-Volcker Committee Investigators

350 Episodes Of The Simpsons.

Proof That Private Pension Plans Are Superior To Social Security

Filibuster Showdown Draws Closer.

More Evidence Supporting A Volcker Committee Cover Up.

Storms On The Horizon For The U.S. Economy?

Are Newspapers Dying? Yes.

Title IX Graft.

When An Interracial Relationship, Is Not Interracial Enough For Liberals?

I Don't Remeber This Class From Law School....

My Post 2005 NFL Draft (First Day) Predictions

Troy Williamson?

Did Justice Blackmun Become A Clerk To His Clerks?

Whose Worse? The Celebrities, Or The People That Idolize Them?

Ignorant Ad Hominem Attacks....

Zero Sum Game.

Volcker Committee Cover-up?

Democrats' Social Security Calculator Rigged To Provide False Information.

Another Example Of Blatant Hypocrisy.

Acceptance Is The First Step - Sounds Like The Press Is Still In Denial To Me.

The 65% Solution.

And They Say Bloggers Aren't Real Journalists?

Why Surfing Might Be Bad For Your Health....

CNN'S Klein Sums Up Fox's Success.

Health Care Crisis?

Not To Be Mean, But If Someone Falls For This, Maybe It Is Better If They Don't Vote...

Another Failed Attempt To Regulate "Vice."

Things Like This Are Why I Am Not A Democrat.

Why Republicans Should Be Cautious But In Good Spirits.

Pssst, Let It Go...

Speaking Of Lying Democrats....

More Problems For Delay

The Key To The Republicans' Success?

Maybe Not A Mandate For Bush, But Is It An Epitaph For Democrats?

Insert Obligatory Stone Throwing Proverb Here

But Would They Start Calling The Popemobile The Falcon?

Self-Selection Responsible For Liberal Bias On College Campuses?

Senator Coleman Renews His Call For Annan To Resign

The U.S. Economy's Albatross

This Just In: Stupid Poll Questions Lead To Odd Results

Kofi Is In Trouble...

Are Democrats More Fiscally Responsible Than Republicans?

U.N. Reform Suggestion From The Chicago Sun-Times.

Pope Dies

You Would Think They Would Run Background Checks By Now...

DeLay Admits Error Of His Ways.

You Have To Know When To Fold'Em....

FactCheck On The Filibuster

Supreme Court Broadens The Age Discrimination Act?

Bill Bradley On The Democratic Party's Problem

Reasonable Inferences.

"Tragedy Amid Confusion," Indeed.

What Are The Facts?

We Can Only Hope...

Is The U.S.'s Energy Policy Wrong?

Volcker Report Finds No Evidence Of Direct Wrongdoing By Kofi Annan - But Faults Him For Not Preventing Son From Using His Name For Financial Gain

Does This Mean I Need Therapy Of Some Sort?

Brooks Makes A Flawed Argument In Proclaiming Another Argument Flawed?

Taiwanese March To Protest Chinese Anti-Succession Law

The True Schiavo Story?

Seriously, I Need To Get A Job At The U.N. So I Can Retire Rich Next Year...

Another Schiavo Motion?

Pop!?!?

Is Compassion In The Eye Of The Beholder?

When Social Security Cannot Meet Its Obligations - It Is "Bankrupt"

The Congress Intended It Because I Say So (At Least According To Some).

The Definitive Voice On Terri Schiavo's Condition

Is Schiavo In A PVS?

Will The Schiavo Bill Cause More People In Terri's Condition To Die?

Will The Schiavo Bill Sway Right-Leaning People Away From Voting For The GOP

This Is Just Scary...